{"id":7749,"date":"2016-06-22T10:33:23","date_gmt":"2016-06-22T17:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/?p=7749"},"modified":"2020-08-03T11:33:07","modified_gmt":"2020-08-03T18:33:07","slug":"positions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/?p=7749","title":{"rendered":"Positions…"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo courtesy of: \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcNesting Robin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 by Steve Ransome
http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/gs3y4a5
<\/p><\/div>\n

Arguments are tiresome, particularly political ones. Election campaigns make me feel like I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m being water boarded. News outlets are relentless with opinion coverage, and it bleeds into the population. Friends, relatives, even acquaintances want to know where I stand, and are eager to express where they stand, as almost everyone parrots what opinion coverage has fed them from every biased news outlet from TV, to internet, to print media. <\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rare to find an opinion lightly held, one that is provisional, which means one that is essentially \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcopen<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 to multiple possibilities. Opinions are becoming ‘brick-like’, or like some sort of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcmind cement<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, sacks of coagulating stuff we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve managed to put together from bits and pieces of our daily experience over years. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m watching a robin build a nest right now outside the window. She is most industrious, bringing in bits and twigs from near and far to build her nesting formulation. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s urgent, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s survival for what she intuits is coming.<\/p>\n

I see an urgency in the opinions around me too, amassing issues and counter issues, investing them with emotion, which is a ‘self-glue’ that helps them solidify. I see sophistry all around me, perhaps most evident among political commentators, engaged in rhetoric to persuade and convince to their position, squeezed into tiny network timeslots\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6Often not a discussion, a taking up sides and beating the opponent with arguments with half-truths, no truths, misinformation, summarized and distilled down to sound bites, political points between commercials. <\/p>\n

Do you know why we feel this national compulsion to argue positions? Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a thought\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6It starts with self-identity. We identify who we are, to ourselves, by stories we tell. As Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche says:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153In knowing, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 observe, categorize, and characterize; \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 apply names and labels. This activity itself seems to be what \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 label as \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. The unique energy that \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 bring to knowing, mirrored back to \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcme\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, confirms the truth of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcmy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 existence at the center of experience. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 find \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcmyself\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 reflected everywhere, for each known object, insofar as it is known, is \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcmy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 creation.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d LOK 195<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re always thinking to maintain self-existence\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6telling stories to ourselves and others\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6about everything we see, every idea we bring forth, every object we conjure, we see ourselves reflected in them, like seeing our own image in a pool. All objects refer back to me because they came from me, and it is this circle of subject relating to object that I construct meaning out of stories that I summon, reprise, and recite\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6I reel off, let slip, call upon and fill in with stories\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 continuously. <\/p>\n

Every time I take a position and argue it, I am reasserting my own existence. Why do I need to assert my Self? Is it because my self is a story I put together over time that I try to make solid, and telling it over and over makes me feel more substantial\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6I feel like \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcsomebody<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6like my body \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfeels<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122? So this is how it is\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6so this is who I am\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6this is how I feel\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6the bubble of my story inflates, I float flabbily toward an inevitable bursting\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6my gathering of surface tension stretched to its limit\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6POP\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6fizz\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I and we\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6slip away,
\nInto the unimaginable dark floods of time,
\nAnd we tremble before dawn,
\nUntil our hearts stop beating,
\nAnd then they do again.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

……………From \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcMachhranga<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, by Ken McKeon<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arguments are tiresome, particularly political ones. Election campaigns make me feel like I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m being water boarded. News outlets are relentless with opinion coverage, and it bleeds into the population. Friends, relatives, even acquaintances want to know where I stand, and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[136,115,74,91],"tags":[115,74,144],"class_list":["post-7749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01-general-tsk-discussions","category-opening","category-self","category-stories","tag-opening","tag-self","tag-stories-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}