Reacting to compliments

[The Observer]

Funny that you only quoted the second paragraph, because the first one is my explanation that I can't abridge in a few words:

"I see this as an approach that can only approximate, or has levels of detail. Some truths are simpler or more easy to assume as sufficiently accurate."

Maybe you can rephrase your question so that I understand it better.

 

 

Let me point you to the 'fact' of multi-layered logic: Our brain works based on logic (except maybe when it's damaged), but even brain damage follows a higher logic than the one seen as confined to a brain. Logic can be seen as the process that executes truth in the universe. In a way it's simply cause and effect.

So when you write a love letter to your girlfriend, there's so much logic involved that you seem to be unaware of: You have to find the right words that you expect will cause a desired effect. And even if you choose to disregard that (consciously) and just pour out your feelings into words no matter how it would make her feel, then you did this because you weighed your desire for free expression of your feelings higher than the well-feeling of your girlfriend. Again, maybe the only thing that can work against this logic is illusion, because it will make you act against what you yourself want. (But even in self-sabotage, you just have to alter the focus to that dynamic and you will see the logic in that. Illusion is based on fear, so it has an underlying strategy, thus it has a logic behind it.)

And when you hammer a nail into the wall using a wrench, this is perfectly logical when there's no hammer available. And if there is, but you still use the wrench, there's a perfectly logical reason for doing that. For example, you could feel a strong desire to do unconventional things in order to spiritually gain from the experience, so using the wrench for the nail would be a logical choice in this regards; using the hammer wouldn't. (It probably would be caused by habit and you would rightfully notice afterwards that you didn't do what you intended to do.)

 

And arguably everything your saying could be a projection of your theories and ideas onto a completely different process. We could go on forever lol. Which came first? The chicken or the egg?

Anyways I just like to think that there is a certain mystery to life that transcends theory/concepts partly because it makes my experience more enjoyable/exciting for me and partly because it resonates with my personal experience. Could I be living in a personal hell of delusion? Maybe, maybe...only I can truly know and find out. The whole logic explains everything argument doesn't really work for me.

 

Then again your definition of logic (left and right brain) is more inclusive than mine (left brain only), so I think we're saying the same thing with different words.

 

I think, ultimately, on the highest level, the Taoist view that everything that happens serves a purpose and is alright is a belief in ultimate truth.

I wholeheartedly agree with this last sentence. However you could also say it is a non-truth in that it is all inclusive.

Edited February 6, 2011 by The Observer

[devoid]

Appears to me like mere theater play, reinforcing empty rituals. Empty, because in rituals, the original purpose is very easily forgotton, since the whole emphasis lies on the acting.

 

Perhaps - as discussed the interpretation is ultimately in the eye of the beholder.

 

From a social interaction point of view it is anything but charades - it is tools of communication.

 

From an enlightenment point of view I agree that it really doesn't matter so much, but to everybody who does not happen to be in the state of wuwei a complement will provide a reaction in their emotions. Thus, I disagree entirely that a complement is an empty gesture.

 

Now, before you complement yourself for being detached about it, please consider that you are probably not as detached about complements as you may like to think - why? because if you were, it probably wouldn't have gotten so much attention as to start a thread about it?

[Owledge]

Now, before you complement yourself for being detached about it, please consider that you are probably not as detached about complements as you may like to think - why? because if you were, it probably wouldn't have gotten so much attention as to start a thread about it?

I am a curious person, wanting to understand things. Is non-attachment in spirituality usually associated with disinterest?

Also, maybe there should be a distinction between an attachment to compliments and an attachment to the phenomenon of attachments.