Zen Philosophy
Via some random blog - I’m in agreement that this Zen philosophy captures how I feel about life:
The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labour and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both.
There was some point in my life, whether it was High School or College I’m not sure, that I determined that no matter what I do with my life and my career, I am going to enjoy what I am doing. If I don’t enjoy what I’m doing for a living, then it simply becomes a task that I have to get up in the morning to do. This is why I don’t mind sitting at home at night and configuring the PIX at work, or why I enjoy installing operating systems in my spare time. These are the things that give me pleasure, and thus, these are the things I will pursue in life as they make me happy.
As a former co-worker once reflected on what I had taught him: “life is what you make of it”. In short, you have the ability (to some degree) to determine what you will do with your life. I tend to believe that we (humans) are here to enjoy life on this planet, and that’s what I plan to do with it.
Odd that the Zen quote matches my current quote of the day by Charles Swindoll:
I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.
Totally true…there are other quotations around this theory, but I’ll stop rambling and get back to hacking.
Here’s another good read: http://hobbes.ncsa.uiuc.edu/desiderata.html
May 25th, 2004 at 12:10 amI think you take after your mother!
May 25th, 2004 at 9:39 pmEven if I do, a lot of that influence came from the Father, believe it or not. That Charles Swindoll quote, if I recall correctly, was his doing. There was also a bright yellow piece of paper about Energy Vampires that I distinctly remember and I know is lurking somewhere around my apartment…but that was influential as well…
May 26th, 2004 at 1:50 amEasy to say that if you’re a middle-to-upper class white male.
May 27th, 2004 at 5:12 pmI was wondering when somebody was going to raise that point. Obviously, the environment one is raised in has a large influence on what one can accomplish later in life, but it is not the sole determining factor.
I could easily be a middle-to-upper class white male that is a failure in life and hates waking up each day. However, I have decided to take the opportunities I have been granted in life and capitalize on them to their fullest extent. I have been fortunate enough to have been afforded with said opportunity.
May 27th, 2004 at 8:04 pmHey! I used your Charles Swindoll quote for my "quote of the week" at school. It is so true. I am so tired of people playing the "poor me" whiny blame game. The only person you can blame for much of what happens to you is yourself. ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING!!
May 27th, 2004 at 9:06 pmor "Attitude is a small thing that makes a big difference."
May 28th, 2004 at 12:09 pmPerhaps a better way to put it is that most things in life just happen: you have no control over them, there is no one to blame. What you do have control over is how you view the things that happen to you… you can either say woe is me and try to blame someone for it (even if it is yourself, which is just counter-productive) or you can get up off the mat and learn something about yourself and others and how to make the world a better place. The greatest tragedy is not the existance of the former, but the loss of the latter.
May 28th, 2004 at 3:07 pmYes, attitude makes a difference, but if someone encounters obstacle after obstacle, then they are less likely to believe that they can succeed. If all they’ve ever seen/known is poverty and hopelessness and perhaps racism, they may be socialized to think very lowly of themselves and even think that they do not deserve to raise above their current condition. The saddest/scariest thing about that philosophy is when people assume that just because someone is poor/uneducated/unemployed/on welfare/whatever that they are lesser people.
Yes, attitude matters, but being born with privileges makes it easier to react positively to life and makes it easier to have the time to reflect and come up with quotations like the ones above.
May 29th, 2004 at 2:21 pmSounds like alot of psychobabble to me.
May 29th, 2004 at 5:06 pmIs someone saying that YOU were "born with privileges", Damon?? YOU??? Oh my, that is some funny! What privileges?? Maybe it was those family cruise vacations or those trips to Disney World. Or those brand new cars we always drove around. Or that hot new car you were given on your 16th birthday. Could it be all the fancy furniture we had in our home when you were small or maybe that HUGE allowance we gave to you each week? Maybe it was because you never had an article of hand-me-down or Salvation Army clothing touch your privileged skin. Could be the cleaning lady I hired to clean my house every week. It’s a good thing that you were so privileged that your mother didn’t have to work 2 jobs…7am to 9:30 pm and on weekends just to help get you through Taaaaaahft. Oh wait…I know. You must be privileged because your mother and father had so much old family money. That’s it. We must have been choking on those silver spoons that were in our mouths when we were born. We were LOADED!
May 29th, 2004 at 6:45 pmCome to think of it, maybe you were some privileged. After all, we used to let you get a gum-ball out of the gum-ball machine every once in a while!
(this posting certainly has gotten a lot of milage, hasn’t it?)
I didn’t intend to stir up so much controversy with that post, but I’m glad I have!
In any case…it’s zen philosophy. What it says is true - work is play to the man that enjoys what he is doing. I won’t delve into this deeper, however, as it is too easy to do. But there are two main points I would like to make.
A. It has always been important to me to ensure that I enjoy my career, because otherwise life (which at this point in time is composed of jobs) would prove quite unsatisfactory. And…
2. I like ice cream
May 29th, 2004 at 11:08 pmThat "like ice cream" stuff is DEFINITELY genetic! Do you eat it with a silver spoon???!
May 30th, 2004 at 7:37 amWow. People are getting upset, but then again I think that’s because they don’t realize or want to realize the privileges they have. Damon was born with the privilege of being a while middle-class male. That in and of itself privileges him (or any of us, really) over, say, a black lower-class woman. He had hard-working responsible parents who ensured that he had the best education they could provide, and he didn’t have to drop out of school at 14 to take a job to support his 9 younger brothers and sisters. Those things alone are privileges over people who do not have educated, middle-class parents or who do not have the ability (time, money, intelligence even) to pursue an education or a well-paying job.
The fact that we have the time and the computer access to sit here and discuss this is a privilege. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing; in fact, it works out quite nicely for those who have these kinds of privileges. But, that said, neither privileges nor inequities are necessarily deserved or earned. It’s nice that we are privileged, and I understand that it doesn’t mean that people don’t work. It’s just a completely different world from those born into poverty, and I think it’s worth examining and recognizing/realizing the privileges AND the inequalities that we take for granted every single day.
Psychobabble? Spoken like a true republican.
(Could I borrow one of your silver spoons? My stainless steel ones are starting to tase funny.)
May 30th, 2004 at 7:57 amHo Hum………! Which brings us right back to the Charles Swindoll quote. So, if life hands you lemons, deal with it and start squeezing!
May 30th, 2004 at 10:18 amTime for another topic, Damon!
That’s exactly my point! If you get stuck with a crappy life, there aren’t always the opportunities available to you to make things "better" in a traditionally & socially accepted way.
I kind of liked the discussion, actually. But, it seems that every time people discuss things like this, they take offense and try to avoid discussion at all costs. Is thinking about these things really that damaging or dangerous (or worthless)?
May 30th, 2004 at 10:32 amOh, and I too like ice-cream. Quite a bit actually. Especially mint chocolate chip.
That said, I was raised for years with the mindset that "work is God’s curse on man" and that it is (almost) sinful to enjoy what you’re doing for a living–that was the motivating factor for wanting to go to heaven–not having the "curse" of work. I don’t suscribe to this philosophy per se, never have really, but still find it difficult to feel okay with myself for enjoying my chosen profession/subject area (after years of doing stuff that I hated). So, I’m trying to argue that philosophies/ideologies that you’re brought up with influence you & how you feel about life or yourself whether you want them to or not.
May 30th, 2004 at 10:35 amI think that you had best stick with the "mint chocolate chip" ice cream!!
May 30th, 2004 at 11:47 amAnd I am NOT a republican who are almost as bad as the Socialist/Communist Democrats out there in my book. I wonder where YOU fit in in this whole scheme of things!!!
^ independent. I think the Republican & Democratic candidates look far too much alike for the good of this country.
May 30th, 2004 at 5:21 pm