How Many Stars will My Friends Give My Life?
Chris Colin has an article in the new edition of Wired magazine titled – Rate this Article.
A funny thing has quietly accompanied our era’s eye-gouging proliferation of information, and by funny I mean not very funny. For every ocean of new data we generate each hour – videos, blog posts, VRBO listings, MP3s, ebooks, tweets – an attendant ocean’s worth of reviewage follows. The Internet-begotten abundance of absolutely everything has given rise to a parrell universe of stars, rankings, most-recommended lists and other valuations designed to help us sort the wheat from the chaff we’re drowning in.
Perhaps gravestones should reflect a 5-star rating for lives lived. Why bother with our opinion when we can just ask others. Better yet, why not just check in with the inner critic and get its judgment?
I was having an extended talk with a friend the other night that covered a lot of territory – life being such a vast experience it is. At times the dynamic between us became quite charged as we expressed very different views on our spiritual perspectives and processes. What became apparent to me was that our personal experiences held a lot of meaing for each of us and that there seems to be a tendency in the mind for – either or.
This either or bent in the mind tends to create a lot of friction. As I noticed my mind’s tendency to do this, I brought more awareness and mindfulness to listening to what my friend was saying and focused on listening from a perspective of the personal significance being revealed.
It became apparent to me that we were often saying the same things in different words and that the personal experiences that held and revealed meaning for each of us were wrapped in different looking packages – belief systems, world view, etc.
This got me reflecting on several things:
- Defending personal positions
- Comparing & validating experience
- The need for mirroring or merged support
The list is actually quiet long as as each thread of interest leads to many intertwined threads – all of which seem to connect to the human need for connection and acceptance. Somewhere in the process of living it seems that the opinions of others often outweigh our own. Or, that we often rely too much on the opinions of others, so we don’t have to do the hard work of critical thinking, arriving at our understanding and being comfortable enough to “own” that understanding while being open enough to having it challenged and changed.
All of which leads me back to Socrates –
the greatest good of a man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living.
I imagine when I dance the light fantastic, I will give my life 5 Stars – not that it could not have been different or that I could have been a better person at many moments – but the gift of a life seems to merit 5 Stars.
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