Pondering my Contribution to the World

A few months ago, I took a philosophy class entitled Science and Religion. We read the book Has Science Displaced the Soul: Debating Love and Happiness (Sharpe & Bryant, 2005). This book represented a final lecture of sorts for the author Sharpe, because shortly after its publication, he died of terminal cancer. As a final reflection in the class, we were asked to envision what our final lecture would look like and ponder the contribution we would like to leave with the world once we were gone. A few months ago, I wrote a post entitled Insight into Growth where I discussed my insight about my future with psychology and how I had to let go of my personal drama and find a new source for sustainability. With this reflection, I was able to take this concept a step further. Also related to this insight was my increased understanding of how forest gardening and psudosciences connect the two diametrically opposed concepts that I explained in my post A Philosophical Discussion on Weed Aversion, Psychology, Religion, and Science. Also related was my increased understanding and accetance of my forest garden, it purposes in my life, and where I want to go with it; I discussed this in the post partially titled Winter Musings. This post also discussed the gift my brother in law left me when he ridiculed my garden. Basically, I have been building a greater understanding of myself and I felt this class paper contributed to that self-knowledge, so I decided to add it to this blog.

This class [Science and Spirituality] helped me to resolve some cognitive dissonances I possessed that were blocking me from my goal of truly helping people. This was more of a process of repairing some schemas rather than absorbing factual knowledge; therefore what I learned was perhaps not what this class intended to convey. In this class I learned how to distinguish the arguments of science and spirituality, how to affirm that all life is connected by having greater insight into a previous insight about my practice of psychology, and to find some final pieces to an identity I have worked to create for quite some time. These three things will contribute greatly to my further development and ultimately be a part of my final lecture that culminates my life work.

Before taking this class, I suspected that there was a connection between science and spirituality and I thought the debates were pointless; however, I never paid much attention to the debates. In my mind, there was no distinction; now I better comprehend the distinctions, the players in the camps, the ideological stances of each, and the desire to remain disconnected and unique. Teasing apart the multivariate constituents of an issue is always necessary to find any solution.

This led me to clarify my feeling that that all life is connected and yet distinct; as such, it is the responsibility for the human to repair and build more connections. A few months prior to this class, I had a foundation-shaking realization about my future with psychology; I realized that I would never assist people by continuing the path I was on. I realized I had to change my source of motivation from understanding my personal drama and attempting to apply this to my understanding of humanity to embracing the awesome expanse of human individuality and how that uniqueness can contribute to the whole. In addition, I realized I needed to stop shouldering the burden of people’s pain and I should provide them the tools to confront their pain, heal, and create a new life direction. Realizing the distinctness the people adamantly embrace by understanding the staunch ideological stances of the religionist and the scientists, I see that people are unconsciously cutting the threads of connection and feel they should be islands of self-promotion. People may want this, but this desire portends great pain for both humanity and our home, planet earth. I feel it is my duty to help heal these wounds of separation but I cannot do so without understanding the uniqueness of each individual and helping them to see their place in the whole.

Finally, I found some pieces that I was missing from my identity. For me, this was a final piece in the puzzle of my spiritual identity; it allowed me to completely free myself from the guilt that somehow I was incorrect for not being a Christian. This realization will also help me to be more effective in helping other people disentangle their identities from the menagerie of socially acceptable ideologies. The more I can realize the distinctions between ideas and tease apart their contributions rather than looking at a jumbled mess, then I am better equipped to assist other people find their unique contribution to the interdependent whole.

I suspect that people engage in faux displays of love and happiness because of these ideological, unconscious prisons, which obscure the meaning of true love and happiness; in essence, people do not know there is anything better. However, if people actively remove those barriers it is like lifting a veil and, for the first time, they will be able to experience the ultimate manifestation of the experience of what God and the brain create. It is realizing that the two are distinct, but ultimately creating connection between the two realms, such that the individual receives guidance from both and unites them in the heart.

These three, when taken together, represent what I wish for my life work to contribute to humanity. I wish to discern the sides in an argument and recognize the uniqueness of each, I wish to recognize the connection between each, and I wish to help people forge a new identity Basically, I see the world as stuck in a quicksand of ideology and custom; people are literally holding themselves prisoner through unconscious cognitions. My life work is to first learn about them: how these prisons are built, how to deconstruct them, and how to reconstruct a new existence from the pieces. Then it will be helping people through that process.

In my final lecture, I would like to say I succeeded at creating a system for people to escape their unconscious prisons and experience true love and happiness. I would discuss the three-part system. I would admonish the attendees to always discern and clarity their own unconscious processing before attempting to help other people. In essence, I would remind them to take care of their baggage rather than being a hypocrite; thus, they practice what they facilitate. Finally, I would pass the baton to future generations to pick up where I left off; helping them to understand the importance of continuing.

 

Reference

Sharpe, K. J. & Bryant, R. I. (2005). Has science displaced the soul? Debating love and happiness. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.