(no subject)
Here's an interesting quandry: How do we decide whether to be the ultimate judge of ourselves, or to believe that there is a higher judge of what we do than ourself? If you judge yourself, and always find yourself lacking, might that tempt you to find someone else to judge you? You might turn to a higher power to judge you. But this seems a little silly... since, unless the standards you are using to judge yourself are incorrect, someone higher than you will also judge you as wanting. If you start on the opposite end, and believe that someone higher is judging you, and that you cannot live up to their standard, are you stuck in despair? Or are you absolved of your despair by the knowledge that the one who is higher than you can bring you up to their standard?
Since I think it is possible to find despair or hope in either case, I will move to another question, which I think plays into the previous question. There is a difference between wanting to judge yourself and wanting to create yourself. These seem to play off each other, since if you want to judge yourself, you want to set your own standard, and your own capability. Is mixing the two the surest path to despair? It seems that you can only create yourself in a superficial way, and in reality you must accept to some degree that you are not responsible for your being (your parents are) and your limits as an animal can only be transcended in certain ways. This means that the desire to create oneself is in someway a rejection of the reality of nature... and I'm not convinced you get any place worthwhile by ignoring reality. Especially when you combine this with the desire to judge yourself, you will always find that reality constrains you.
So what's the solution? There are a few options, it seems. Either accept the reality of nature and judge yourself based on those standards (instead of creating your own), or accept a higher judge and hope that the higher judge is willing to forgive you for the bits you can't live up to.
Since I think it is possible to find despair or hope in either case, I will move to another question, which I think plays into the previous question. There is a difference between wanting to judge yourself and wanting to create yourself. These seem to play off each other, since if you want to judge yourself, you want to set your own standard, and your own capability. Is mixing the two the surest path to despair? It seems that you can only create yourself in a superficial way, and in reality you must accept to some degree that you are not responsible for your being (your parents are) and your limits as an animal can only be transcended in certain ways. This means that the desire to create oneself is in someway a rejection of the reality of nature... and I'm not convinced you get any place worthwhile by ignoring reality. Especially when you combine this with the desire to judge yourself, you will always find that reality constrains you.
So what's the solution? There are a few options, it seems. Either accept the reality of nature and judge yourself based on those standards (instead of creating your own), or accept a higher judge and hope that the higher judge is willing to forgive you for the bits you can't live up to.