09.12.09 Posted in Articles by Okan
I want to write about Truth and Absurdity.
I say… that for every “Truth,” there is an equal and opposite “Truth.” Of course I am not talking about the physical world but the world of a human, the one that is lived in his/her head. The human’s world that describes right and wrong, the way it is and the way it is not. The should and the shouldn’t.We are so not related to “The Truth” we don’t even get what it is. You know when you were born you were born into a language. You think today you use language, it is like a command of some sort. You describe and command with it. Well, language was here way before you. In early life it was very simple, you said “car”, “mommy” then it got a little more complicated. They said “Right,” “Wrong” and a bunch of other things. Those lived in the language you claim using before you got here. They made you. Language uses you, never the other way around. Philosophers talk about “Thrownness,” this captures the things you cannot change about yourself; where you were born, the date, the parents, your gender etc. Well one such way is the language you were thrown into. Do you realize overtime we think that those are our rights and wrongs, and shoulds and shouldn’ts. Consider we really never decided, it decided, we did not. The truths live in the language and we think we know them and that they are our truths. Read More…
09.12.09 Posted in Articles by Okan
You need a reason to get healthy, I got THE ONE for you.
Is there anyone out there that has any doubt that we do not take care of our selves? For years the industry has been coming up with “hows” and “whats” and gadgets and labels and infomercials and books and…. well you know. Still the population is unhealthy and over weight. Basically we have not found the answer. Well… I have…
The answer lies in the nature of “Reason”. Human beings need reasons to do anything. And we believe that there is a cause and effect relationship in reasons why we do things. In the physical realm for instance, we know that a car’s wheels turn because the transmission is turning and the transmission is turning because the engine is engaged and the engine is engaged because the gas pedal is being pushed. So the causality in the physical realm is clear. But what pushes the gas pedal is a human being, then the question is what makes the human being push the gas pedal? That is Reason. So reasons do not exist out there in the physical world, they exist in the human being. Reasons exist in the mind and in conversation. Human beings make up reasons, and need reasons to accomplish their intentions. Read More…
09.12.09 Posted in Articles by Okan
This article is about creating and committing to what is possible with he-she-it-they in your life. I will take your thinking through a journey that will have you come to a place where the landscape is one that you have never seen before, and you will be left with knowing that if you stuck with “the way things are” and “the truth” as you see it, you will mark your self as a stupid human.
So here we go….we are going to start at an ordinary place….
When I say “a cup” what do you hear? It holds liquid, it maybe glass, maybe plastic… etc. But there is something else about the cup that never comes up. Imagine I have a cup on the table with coffee in it. I reach and pick it up and the bottom just pops off and all the coffee just rushes out. In that moment I go through something. If I was talking with someone, I stop, If I was working, I stop. I have to deal with the situation. Philosophers call this a form of breakdown. The cup just stopped behaving like a cup. So one of our fundamental ways of listening to what a cup is that it works as a cup but… this is not in our consciousness as we engage with the cup. In a sense you are listening to the cup without listening. This is true about everything; you don’t worry about the ground being there when you take a step and you don’t think about your car not starting when you get in it (may be you do), you don’t worry about air not being there when you inhale, you get the point. We walk around with a form of knowing that is unconscious. This is necessary by design or we could not function in the world. Read More…
09.12.09 Posted in Articles by Okan
Lately when I catch movies on television, I notice that I am paying attention to who is dead or who is still alive. I like old movies and when I happen to see one, I first look at when it was made and try to guess the ages of the actors. Noticing that some or many, maybe even all are dead, I hang around and watch the movie a bit and let my thoughts take me to the set of the movie and I try to imagine between takes what these people did and what concerns they had. They had a car parked in the parking lot of the studio, maybe they were waiting for a call from a child or a parent.. you know… they had a life. And now no more. All those concerns, dreams, things they had to do that day or that week, their vacation plans, all of it are gone…. no more. No concerns, no dreams, no tomorrow, no today, nothing to itch or put a band aid on. No cola can that is half full in the refrigerator, no tire to fill, no shopping to do, not dentist appointment, no laundry…. nothing, nothing, nothing. Dead is dead.
Read More…
05.16.09 Posted in Humanity, Short Posts by Okan
Nelson Mandela
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. Read More…
05.16.09 Posted in Articles by Okan
In America we have been preaching this life-balance crap for a while now; everyone who has a family and a career should devote time to their families and make them a priority in life, spend time with their children, attend soccer games, eat together,,,, blah, blah, blah… Who makes this crap up?
So if I am doing all these things in the measures acceptable by society ( I don’t even know what that would look like by the way, 20/80, 50/50?), then I am OK….Wow.. If I am not, then I am not OK and my family is dysfunctional or bad or something like that.
So, I am this extraordinary human with perfect balance in my life as described and prescribed by many experts and god knows who else, and all is good now… all is right with the world. I say this is one hell of a great way we are keeping ourselves tranquillized. Tranquillized with good feelings. Read More…
09.29.07 Posted in Meaningless, Philosopy, Truth by Okan
From the book, Sartre for Beginners by Donald Palmer
A group of friends on vacation go for a day hike in the Alps. Half way to the mountain top, which is their goal, they turn a bend in the path and find their way blocked by a huge boulder that has fallen in such a a manner that it cannot be dislodged and cannot be circumvented. The first hiker’s stomach sinks in disappointment. “That’s it,” he says, ” The hike’s over!” …. From Sartre’s point of view, this person has chosen the facticity of the boulder as an insurmountable obstacle and chosen himself as defeated. Read More…
09.01.07 Posted in Meaningless, Philosopy, Truth by Okan
When I consider the brief span of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and behind it, the small space that I fill, or even see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces which I know not, and which know not of me, I am afraid, and wonder to see myself here rather than there; for there is no reason why I should be here rather than there, now rather than then. Read More…
06.18.07 Posted in Mastery, Philosopy by Okan
….. We are asked to imagine a group of people chained from birth inside a cave. All they can see is the wall in front of them and the flickering shadows cast upon it. To these people the shadows are reality, even they are merely illusions, or, to be more precise, imperfect copies of the real objects that exist outside the cave. Read More…
photo credit: adotjdotsmith
