After what I wrote in my last post, reflecting further on these ideas, I realized that perhaps this is all about ethics going off the rails. Ethics, as I understand it, is the codifying and practice of establishing what one ought do, as opposed to what one desires to do. Ethics is providing guidance in how one ought to live their life.
When I say “going off the rails” what I am suggesting is a case where ethics starts to go beyond what is reasonable. To expect people to act in certain ways, especially in light of the fact that humans exist in commmunities, seems reasonable to me. To help facilitate interactions and promote cooperation amongst members. But when ethics starts to suggest how individuals think and feel, I think it is overstepping.
By and large, individuals have control of their actions. They have control over their bodies. They can raise their arm or they can lower it. If they are told not to raise their arm, they can chose to obey. It is rare that they will be forced to raise their arm, or that it will be raised by another. The raising of arms is within the control of most individuals.
Thus, making rules around the raising of arms seems reasonable to me. Because such rules can then be followed by those who decide to do so. It is not like one will simply find their arm raising suddenly without their own knowledge. Perhaps occasionally with some people. But not most people, I think.
This is not so simple with one’s thoughts or one’s feelings. If I tell you to never think about bananas, not only are you likely to be challenged in following such a rule, but I suspect you will have immediately started thinking about bananas as I tell you the rule. You may end up breaking the rule upon simply hearing the rule. This is not helpful at all.
The things that go on within the mind are hard to understand. I cannot know your mind, only my own, and so this discussion will necessarily be a reflection of my own experiences.
My mind wanders. At times, I can be challenged to place within my mind the things I want to think about. More often, I find that the sorts of things that appear come from the most random of places. My mind is frequently affected by my circumstances. What I smell or hear may spark a though or an idea. I do not intentionally place that idea there, it simply seems to appear.
So my mind seems to be less within my control than my arm. There are some things I can chose to think about on command, like bananas. But there are lots of things I seem unable to recall on demand. Telling me I ought not think anything in particular seems quite unreasonable to me.
Discussion of feelings makes the situation even worse. Controlling my feelings seems even more challenging. Again, as I cannot feel what others feel, only my own feelings, I will again concede that this discussion is presented from my vantage point.
When I get angry, I do not chose to become angry. Like with thinking, it is generally based in circumstances. Someone cutting me off while driving, for example, might invoke in me anger. The anger manifests, but I do not place it there. The best I seem able to do is feed into that anger and make it grow. Or to chose not to feed the anger and allow it to slowly subside. In both cases, the anger is still there; I might suggest I have the power to manage it a little bit.
To tell me I ought not feel the things that I feel, or to control my feelings will be even more challenging than telling me what I ought to think. I will break the rules about my feelings frequently, even without realizing I have done so.
Therefore, for ethics to make suggestions regarding the things I think or feel seems quite unreasonable. It is a recipe for failure and worse. Because if ethics starts dictating these sorts of things, people will simply find themselves breaking rules constantly. And for those who are sincerely trying to follow the rules, guilt and shame will ensue.
Perhaps this is the whole point. Main stream religions seem obsessed with such things. The devout Catholic is no stranger to guilt; it has become a significant part of their everyday lives. Being asked to not commit sins that somehow end up as part of the tasks at their jobs or at home. They are being set up to fail.
The reason I bring this all up is that this may be the source of my own conflicts. It is not enough that society wants to tell me who and what I am. It seems to me society wants to tell me what I ought to think and feel as well. As my frequent example goes, I am supposed to like beer. When I express that I do not like beer, I am shamed. I am to be corrected.
I use these very tangable examples because I think it helps in understanding. However, the sorts of things I think and feel that I am regularly shamed for are generally not so tangable, and usually far more insidious. Even me saying this here and now may elicit negative responses from the readers who know me personally.
I have sometimes had thoughts of killing. I feel in my hands the desire to grip and rend flesh. These are dark thoughts. I have been told in the past that it is normal to have such feelings. But whenever I have revealed these sorts of feelings, people will often look at me differently. Once they know that I have these thoughts, they shy from me. Some friends I have had are no longer friends after a short time.
I have found, personally, that exposing my thoughts and feeling can often times have very negative consequences. This is a large reason I created this blog, and why I keep myself mostly anonymous. I know that others can find me if they try, but it would take work and effort. They would have to justify for themselves such effort before worrying about identifying me in real life.
But here is the kicker. While I may have such dark thoughts and feelings, I am well enough to not allow those thoughts and feelings to manifest in reality. While I may have thoughts of killing, I do not act upon them. When I think a bad thought, I do not immediately open my mouth to speak of it. Perhaps I did in my youth, but I was quickly corrected of that behavior.
My thoughts are my thoughts. I feel as I feel. If I allow society to dictate who and what I ought to be, then I find I am guilty of many, many offences. No matter how hard I try to be the good, law abiding citizen, I find that I am inferior to the task. I just cannot stop thinking and feeling these dark thoughts and feelings.
And so I have felt tremendous guilt and shame for most of my life. When my ex girlfriend called me a monster, I believed her. I believed myself the monster. I orchestrated the end of our relationship, because clearly she would be better off with someone else. Someone who is not a monster.
This is why the ideas of the Conditioned and the Unconditioned are so important to me. Because I can see that my guilt is unfounded. It has taken a very, very long time to realize that. I can forgive myself. I can accept myself. What’s more, there are others who are in a similar situation as I find myself, and I can help them too.
I think we are all slaves in this world. Perhaps not literally; after all, if I am a slave, I ought to be able to point to my master. But we are still slaves of a sort. We are forced to conform and obey, and we are not given much choice about it. We are made to think and feel things we may not think and feel.
I envy the person whose thoughts and feelings happen to conform to the desires of society. They must certainly be happy.