A Working Knowledge of Life

Life is so complex. It is full of so many details that constitute the whole. Each and every detail effects what the whole is or does. Yet, in spite of of our knowledge of this, we tend to simplify our perception of life.

When a friend mistreats us, there is usually more to it than just being mean, yet the usual reaction is that of anger or revenge. When our child misbehaves, it's usually more than spitefulness that is in the works, yet some parents scold the child or beat him to get him to behave. When we see the news, we understand that it is not all black or white, good guys or bad guys, yet, in many cases, we draw conclusions or issue blanket statements that don't reflect the many uncertainties of the world.

I think we tend to simplify things because we are result driven by nature.

Sometimes, we don't want to solve our friends' problems, we just want to go back to having fun with them. Sometimes, we don't really care about why our child misbehaved; we just want the child to treat us with respect and not embarrass us. Most of the time, we watch the news out of curiosity not out of care about what is really happening and who is really right.

In many cases, what we want are specific results, and we don't need or want to know what life is really like; what we want to know is what it takes to get things to happen. For example, I really don't care how my computer works, all I want to know is how to get words to appear on my screen. This what I call a working knowledge of life.

This isn't really bad or even avoidable. By nature, we are all ultimately in seek of pleasure, or avoiding pain. In fact, being result driven is necessary in order to live productively. Just imagine if we didn't want to achieve anything at all; what if all we wanted was to know reality as it is? From the moment our facet of thought was mature enough, we would spend the better part of our life time just trying to understand the first thing we see. The smallest thing in our environment is astoundingly complex by nature. Take the a pebble of sand as an example; it would take a life times to really understand what it is made of; I'm not talking just about atoms, but what are atoms made of, and in turn what is that made of. That is a mere pebble; what about the rest of the world including the people living in it? What about the abstract, the skies and beyond?

The issue then becomes that of intention.

In other words, it is not a matter of being or not being result driven; it a matter of what results do I want to achieve. Do I want to just have fun with a friend or build an enduring relationship? Do I want is to make my child act in a certain way or be a certain person? Do I want to fulfill my mind's need for information regardless (just listen to the TV without any reflection), or understand what is really happening around me?

With reference to relationships, the ultimate question to my mind is do I care enough about a person, or do I care about myself? Am I willing to forsake the tasty fruit (fun) and follow the dirty roots (of the problem) where ever they may lead, or will I just be satisfied with the fruit?

I wonder if there such a thing as a working knowledge of self?

Is it possible that we know only what we need to know about ourselves in order to fulfill our desires? Is it possible that there is more to ourselves than we know about, but we don't know it because we don't care?

Additionally, although being result driven is essential for a productive life, it can constitute a powerful filter to what we see and what we don't.

But I'll leave that topic for some other time.

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