…authenticity too comes to be understood, as its own goal. It is born, out of a shift in the center of gravity of the moral demand on us: self-truth and self-wholeness are seen more and more not as means to be moral, as independently defined, but as something valuable for their own sake. …the…
…this culture puts a great emphasis on relationships in the intimate sphere, especially love relationships. These are seen as the prime loci of self-exploration and self-discovery and among the most important forms of self-fulfillment. This view reflects the continuation in modern culture of a trend that is now centuries old and that places the…
Continuing to consider what I just finished reading in The Ethics of Authenticity by Charles Taylor. My identity, this awareness of agency that I entertain, – can be described as self-creation, an arduous project of construction. The American Psychological Association writes: self-formation as authenticity is the active, intentional process of shaping your identity based…
Sunday arrives… Perhaps a ritual ought to be instituted for greeting a sunrise, a simple and brief gesture, maybe a poem to recognize waking as a beginning, another creation of ourselves, of the world. Sunlight fuels everything. Change is what we mean by the dance of energy, the thermodynamic flow. Would I enjoy earning…
Saturday is yet another gift. Sunshine, mild and comfortable outside. A day of rain would be helpful for vegetation, including vegetables. No matter that everyone is aware of such matters, still I have a background of concern for growing things, in particular those in my backyard. I just finished reading The Ethics of Authenticity…
At last Friday is here. Retired, five or so years are in the rear view mirror, I only have a memory of deadlines, of moral and financial and administrative accountability with co-workers and customers. That was my life. All is change, and everything, no exceptions has its season. All is now, – a flow…
Another chapter from Charles Taylor’s The Ethics of Authenticity. The chapter is entitled The Slide To Subjectivism. He writes at length about the quest for a true self, when there is no horizon of meaning, (no divinely sanctioned king, or gods/God on high authorizing history as having a point, etc..) Perhaps you can get the…
Monday is another gift of pleasant weather and sunlight. I cannot be certain of what the day holds for me, though I have the usual short list of matters to be addressed. With good fortune each dimension, the work will be received as an opportunity to “do some good.” It’s as if the universe…
Saturday begins on a mellow note. The coffee here at Starbucks is hot, astringent, a bracing effect – just as I like it. I know, I know that it’s an acquired taste. Only three of us now occupy the customer area. Each reads quietly. A coffee shop is a public space dedicated in part…
Wednesday, late afternoon, I am thinking about multiple realities. I mean the singular fact, – “the real” is co-dependent upon the mind! What reality do you prefer? There is no single univocal, granite-like “real” no matter how comforting this ancient intuition has been for us. What’s real – is a feature of the synthetic…
