I Heart Huckabees, Loving the world whole?

I tend to appreciate finding a framework that roughly fits my experience; generally speaking, I think in concepts, and like to have at least a nebulous way to consider a specific experience. I Heart Huckabees was quite entertaining and presented not one but two frameworks that each fit my experience.

"Everything is connected and everything matters." "Nothing is connected and nothing matters." and "Back and forth from pure being to human suffering" Yes, hello, that would be my experience, right there. "I think that I am gonna stay with her and the cracks and the pain and the nothingness because that's more real to me. That's what I feel." Sound familiar? "When you get the blanket thing you can relax because everything you could ever want or be you already have and are." Been there. Once you realize the universe sucks, you got nothin' to lose; that's what gives you the force. Been there. "You stop thinking; I'm here, but I'm not here; it's like I'm a rock or a dish of mold; I'm whatever else is around so I'm just free to exist." Oh so very been there.

Granted, reality will go on whether it is observed or experienced or whatever or not. (Okay, maybe not, and there's no way of knowing.) Having presented all these seemingly contradictory experiences, the logical thing is to unravel it, somehow; to declare some true and some false, but no, it's all true enough when it seems that way, and irrelevant the rest of the time.

Jon linked to a an unusual article over in his blog's latest entry.

Well, it's better than nihilism...

(Joke, people. It was a joke.)

For some time I've wanted (and tried, less than successfully) to write a little more beyond the "why be good" question. Because it does very much seem to me, and has come up in several exchanges with friends, that there are two extremes, two directions in which one can move; one choice, again and again and again. But then trying to describe the choice is a task indeed. Toward That or from it.

(On another front, today I was considering the concept of humility. It seems to me to be the absolute worst sort of pride is to deliberately fail to be what one really is. Perhaps the most humble to be oneself, without apology, and to think nothing of it.)

Now it seems contrary to the supposition that things are cyclical by nature, to say that the world can dramatically change; then, where's the downside? It also seems contrary to "everything is fine as it is" to work to change anything; the very effort seems to imply that one reality is, if not better, than preferable, to another reality. Even intention is an action of sorts, though latent. How are we supposed to know? That brings me pretty neatly back to my own response to "why be good" - how can we know? So, then, why anything? Back to nihilism. (Creation, destruction, creation, destruction...)

To throw a wrench in the logical cycle, it might be worthwhile to ask where, truly, the intention comes from. From whence comes anything? Or everything. If it comes from there then is action and intention just the same as going with the flow?

All I'll conclude is that, at the end of the day, this one is better pleased by harmony. (Is the whole of the universe in the same stride?) It would seem that various experiences reflect various perspectives of the same reality; see, this one is from the crest of the wave, seeing only other waves; see, this one is from below, knowing the waves to be part of the whole.

What about wars and terrorism and unhappy-making stuff like that? Waves that insist upon crashing around being all wave-ish and not getting that they are still part of the big picture? Well, it's a nice explanation, if nothing else.

As I continued browsing blogs, it turns out that Kevin recently wrote along the same lines with his recent entries entitled Live Consequentially and Purposeless. It would seem that observation might answer the question of an overarching purpose (as to how this individual, at that level, plays into the greater picture) and I enjoyed the questions he's asking. Don wrote a poem about making space for love which is a theme of the above-mentioned article. Andrew also wrote about intentionality on his blog (and I think I railed against it somewhat... on the other hand, if one is going to create one's own reality, might as well make it good, right?)