Do I have the ability to act on the world to add, change, or stop certain phenomena?

[Zhachev]

Do I have the ability to act on the world to add, change, or stop certain phenomena? Or am I completely a victim of circumstances and forces larger than myself?

[dawei]

BY posting, you just acted, added, changed, and stopped phenomena... you are a ripple, for sure...  the key is to see all of that.

 

Also see, your actions were expected, required, and anticipated.  Destiny is a strange bedfellow.  

[wandelaar]

5 hours ago, Zhachev said:

Do I have the ability to act on the world to add, change, or stop certain phenomena? Or am I completely a victim of circumstances and forces larger than myself?

 

Why couldn't it be both? This is probably all a matter of perspective...

[mrpasserby]

In my experience: We are subject to the ebbs and flows of the worlds collective, mind, but individually we can choose to drop a pebble in the pond 'milky ocean, collective mind', and move by riding on the waves that it creates. Destiny tweaking takes lots of practice/patience.

Spoiler

Quote

https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/44876-visualizations-stories-the-mage/

 

Edited February 7, 2019 by mrpasserby
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[Nungali]

17 hours ago, Zhachev said:

Do I have the ability to act on the world to add, change, or stop certain phenomena? Or am I completely a victim of circumstances and forces larger than myself?

 

That depends .  Do you put up an umbrella  when it rains ... or do you just resign yourself to getting drenched .

[Stosh]

You're destined to make all the decisions you make.

 

To envision a 'change' in the path of history ,you have to envision a history that didn't come about, and every decision and action of every person ever ,aborted another complete history from that point on.

Worse even than that, decisions may have multiple solutions, animals might choose things , and there may be random factors that play into each situation. You'd have to postulate gazillions of alternate timelines that didn't happen, for every conscious decision. It only looks simple if you pretend all the other factors don't count in bringing about the situation for the decision. 

 

The main problem is due to the illusion that there are discrete distinctions between things. 

 

But go ahead and use the umbrella,...you Will, or will not ..regardless of the amount of freedom you think you have.

 

[kondensation]

Everything we do changes something else, but my question is can we stop trying to change the world?

[wandelaar]

52 minutes ago, kondensation said:

Everything we do changes something else, but my question is can we stop trying to change the world?

 

Changing the world can exist without (consciously) trying to change the world. Technical control systems like a refrigerator don't try to change the world, but they do so nevertheless. And in the state of flow or wu wei the scheming mind takes a step back, so in a sense acts that are accomplished in such a condition are not (consciously) directed to changing the world. So I think that it is rather a matter of degree how much (conscious) trying is involved in particular acts.

[kondensation]

1 hour ago, wandelaar said:

 

Changing the world can exist without (consciously) trying to change the world. Technical control systems like a refrigerator don't try to change the world, but they do so nevertheless. And in the state of flow or wu wei the scheming mind takes a step back, so in a sense acts that are accomplished in such a condition are not (consciously) directed to changing the world. So I think that it is rather a matter of degree how much (conscious) trying is involved in particular acts.

There's no escape from that. A fridge is a good analogue, it tries to only change it's internal environment to some preset no matter what happens outside. An energy efficient refrigerator, I didn't know I was looking to be like one, but here we are.

Edited February 9, 2019 by kondensation

[wandelaar]

8 minutes ago, kondensation said:

There's no escape from that. A fridge is a good analogue, it tries to only change it's internal environment to some preset no matter what happens outside. An energy efficient refrigerator, I didn't know I was looking to be like one, but here we are.

 

That  is  a nice and funny interpretation, but what I meant was that the refrigerator doesn't consciously try to do anything, it's just a mechanism without the build in ability to reflect on what it is doing. Lots of things in our daily life are done in the same unthinking manner.