Thesis 1: What is the most important thing?
I have been thinking about my attitudes in relationships, and the decisions that I make, and remembering that when people are older, they say that looking back, they think they should have concetrated on their relationships more, and that this is the biggest piece of advice that they would give anyone..
In my small class is a Nigerian whose undergraduate major was philosophy, and I asked him to tell me what it was that philosophers said was the most important thing - his response (not very helpful) was that in philosophy, questions are more important than the answers... I pressed him further and he said that in short, the answer to this question depends on the person's world view - for altruists, the important thing is to serve mankind, for theists it is to live a godly and reflective life, for humanists it is to realise their potential or experience everything that they can, and so on and so forth.. This still didn't get me very far as I felt there HAD to be a more objective position on the question - so I asked trusty google - and here are some of the answers I got:
1. The most important thing is to gain wisdom
2. The most important thing is to love (and be loved)
3. The most important thing is to be healthy
4. The most important thing is money (I surely don't believe that - the author of this site said this was true because being poor was no fun - the things you find on the net!!)
5. The most important thing is happiness (but how to become happy?)
6. The most important thing is to stretch (a site on exercise)
7. The most important thing is to keep the fights clean and the sex dirty (a site on how to have a successful marriage)
And so on and so forth..
I think the best explanation that I found was from this guy who kind of agreed with my Nigerian classmate that the answer to this question was quite subjective - I mean for instance the most immediate important thing is to keep breathing - obviously if you cannot breathe then the rest of it doesn't matter.. One rung up is survival - to find food and a means of finding food, to be secure so that your life is preserved, and so on.. One rung further up then you start thinking about if you are happy or not, and further up you can be concerned about whether or not you made a contribution to the world, and so on and so forth.. His conclusion was that all in all we should be prepared to grow and learn and adapt, and that perhaps the most important thing is knowing how incomplete our knowledge of the world and of life really is..
Thesis 2: All or Nothing?
I tend to take the stance that in a relationship, either you give your all or you give nothing.. this weekend I decided to end a four-year friendship with someone that is very dear to me, and with whom I have a very special bond - simply because while I feel ready to give my all to a relationship, he is either not ready, not able or not willing to accomodate a relationship as he has to concentrate on getting his medical degree out of the way (understandable really, as this is how he hopes to get fulfilling work and and also take care of himself - and me!)... His own view though was that surely we didn't have to go completely separate ways and never know anything else about each other, we could still be friends (yes, the dreaded phrase).. Ofcourse from experience I know that this NEVER works out!!
Fast forward to me missing him and having second thoughts:
I begun to think - I have very few friends in life, why give up one of them? And after I get back to Ug really, we shall be miles apart and the usual problems that arise from being just friends will not arise... Moreover, I have a distinct feeling that by cutting off all contact I am fleeing the scene because things didn't go perfectly my way, and I fear that this is an inability to really LIVE - with pain and joy and disappointment and love and disagreement and intimacy and all those things.. No wonder I resort to hollywood stunts of just cutting him off without further notice..
The entire time I was telling him it was over he was asking me to reconsider, and even after we separated he contacted me and asked me to think again - he is not offering anything mind you, he just feels that the whole break up is too drastic, and he also realises that he has few friends, and maybe he thinks we can work something, anything out.. I have to say that I agreed with him, in any case I was already feeling so bad for cutting him off so drastically, as though he wasn't first and foremost my friend..
As I write this, I feel that I have been here before and maybe I will end up in hot water again, but it looks like either I don't learn, or I have decided to have some faith still.. they say no matter how much bad experience you get, don't lose faith.. In any case, I am haunted by a suspicion that you cannot apply logic to these things - alot of people say you should trust your instincts and your feelings etc., but surely one should use one's head as well.. I have sometimes followed my heart and ended up nowhere - maybe I don't commit myself fully to it, who knows.. On the other hand, it concerns me that my life experience is very limited, and that I draw on rather dubious sources for advice - movies, books, the internet, but WHAT else can I do? I have a problem, I have to solve it, I don't feel that I have the personal resources to do it, WHAT do I do???
Luckily, in African tradition they say that the strong man allows for the possibility to change his mind, so I guess the jury is still out on this one!!!
I have been thinking about my attitudes in relationships, and the decisions that I make, and remembering that when people are older, they say that looking back, they think they should have concetrated on their relationships more, and that this is the biggest piece of advice that they would give anyone..
In my small class is a Nigerian whose undergraduate major was philosophy, and I asked him to tell me what it was that philosophers said was the most important thing - his response (not very helpful) was that in philosophy, questions are more important than the answers... I pressed him further and he said that in short, the answer to this question depends on the person's world view - for altruists, the important thing is to serve mankind, for theists it is to live a godly and reflective life, for humanists it is to realise their potential or experience everything that they can, and so on and so forth.. This still didn't get me very far as I felt there HAD to be a more objective position on the question - so I asked trusty google - and here are some of the answers I got:
1. The most important thing is to gain wisdom
2. The most important thing is to love (and be loved)
3. The most important thing is to be healthy
4. The most important thing is money (I surely don't believe that - the author of this site said this was true because being poor was no fun - the things you find on the net!!)
5. The most important thing is happiness (but how to become happy?)
6. The most important thing is to stretch (a site on exercise)
7. The most important thing is to keep the fights clean and the sex dirty (a site on how to have a successful marriage)
And so on and so forth..
I think the best explanation that I found was from this guy who kind of agreed with my Nigerian classmate that the answer to this question was quite subjective - I mean for instance the most immediate important thing is to keep breathing - obviously if you cannot breathe then the rest of it doesn't matter.. One rung up is survival - to find food and a means of finding food, to be secure so that your life is preserved, and so on.. One rung further up then you start thinking about if you are happy or not, and further up you can be concerned about whether or not you made a contribution to the world, and so on and so forth.. His conclusion was that all in all we should be prepared to grow and learn and adapt, and that perhaps the most important thing is knowing how incomplete our knowledge of the world and of life really is..
Thesis 2: All or Nothing?
I tend to take the stance that in a relationship, either you give your all or you give nothing.. this weekend I decided to end a four-year friendship with someone that is very dear to me, and with whom I have a very special bond - simply because while I feel ready to give my all to a relationship, he is either not ready, not able or not willing to accomodate a relationship as he has to concentrate on getting his medical degree out of the way (understandable really, as this is how he hopes to get fulfilling work and and also take care of himself - and me!)... His own view though was that surely we didn't have to go completely separate ways and never know anything else about each other, we could still be friends (yes, the dreaded phrase).. Ofcourse from experience I know that this NEVER works out!!
Fast forward to me missing him and having second thoughts:
I begun to think - I have very few friends in life, why give up one of them? And after I get back to Ug really, we shall be miles apart and the usual problems that arise from being just friends will not arise... Moreover, I have a distinct feeling that by cutting off all contact I am fleeing the scene because things didn't go perfectly my way, and I fear that this is an inability to really LIVE - with pain and joy and disappointment and love and disagreement and intimacy and all those things.. No wonder I resort to hollywood stunts of just cutting him off without further notice..
The entire time I was telling him it was over he was asking me to reconsider, and even after we separated he contacted me and asked me to think again - he is not offering anything mind you, he just feels that the whole break up is too drastic, and he also realises that he has few friends, and maybe he thinks we can work something, anything out.. I have to say that I agreed with him, in any case I was already feeling so bad for cutting him off so drastically, as though he wasn't first and foremost my friend..
As I write this, I feel that I have been here before and maybe I will end up in hot water again, but it looks like either I don't learn, or I have decided to have some faith still.. they say no matter how much bad experience you get, don't lose faith.. In any case, I am haunted by a suspicion that you cannot apply logic to these things - alot of people say you should trust your instincts and your feelings etc., but surely one should use one's head as well.. I have sometimes followed my heart and ended up nowhere - maybe I don't commit myself fully to it, who knows.. On the other hand, it concerns me that my life experience is very limited, and that I draw on rather dubious sources for advice - movies, books, the internet, but WHAT else can I do? I have a problem, I have to solve it, I don't feel that I have the personal resources to do it, WHAT do I do???
Luckily, in African tradition they say that the strong man allows for the possibility to change his mind, so I guess the jury is still out on this one!!!
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