Tuesday 7 August 2012

#163 Paradigms - useful until we outgrow them

     While life is going well for us, we're generally grateful - certainly not inclined to change anything. However, when life is rough, we tend to have second thoughts about who we are (self-concept), and even what life's all about (worldview). Indeed, one's self-concept and worldview are interdependent means of making sense of life - keys to our happiness. 
     Periodically, devastating things happen to all of us - death of loved ones, loss of relationships, loss of jobs or homes. During such "shipwrecks" our old paradigms of reality no longer hold, so we have to come up with a brand new self-concept / worldview combo to make sense of life and seek happiness. So life as it is now again makes sense according to this new self-concept / worldview, but this too is temporary, this too is but a provisional simple static model of an infinitely-complex, constantly-changing universe.

Reading and reflecting at the Harvard Coop, Cambridge MA

2 comments:

  1. Yes, new paradigms have a way of seeming "more true" than the old ones, but really they are just "more useful to relieve distress" than the old ones. And that's okay. For now.

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  2. Yes Geri, life is a wild ride!

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