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Apr 16

Who Are Y-O-U?

by Chris Billows in Spirit Speculations 0 comments
I have come across a series of books influenced by Carl Jung and it has me looking differently at personality and who we are. Carl Jung adopted the notion that there are layers to our personality. Perhaps if you asked him the question ‘Who Are You?’ he would have responded that we are complicated and have layers, like an onion. The first layer is the public persona that represents all of the material things associated with us such as our titles, our possessions, our associations, and our accomplishments. This stuff is always being accumulated or lost or moved around. Its the crassest level of who ‘you’ are. The layer below that is the private persona that is the collection of physical, sociological, psychological, and metaphysical elements that create your time/space perspective. This layer guides your way of interacting with the world, but is also dynamically changing. Its the personality level of who ‘you’ are. But there is also the level below known as the psyche level which is even more fluid and subtle. At this layer of who ‘you’ are we would find feelings, emotions, intuitions, reactions that you experience but generally cannot articulate. It is all very gut-level feeling. […]

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Apr 06

Five Ways We Get Sick And Disabled

by Chris Billows in Spirit Speculations 0 comments
I have worked in health care for the past fifteen years. I have seen at least over a thousand clients and as a professional case manager, my job is to help facilitate a portion of their care. It recently occurred to me that despite the vast array and variety of diseases, accidents, and disabilities these individuals may have what appears to be five general / macro methods that sickness and disability is visited upon us. 1) We are born with it through our genetics such as Muscular Dystrophy, Cystic Fibrosis, etc. 2) We suffer an unfortunate physical event such an Accident, Assault, or Attack. It could be a car accident, an injury suffered at birth like Cerebral Palsy, or we could be attacked and injured by a mugger. 3) We suffer a random or complex microbe event that attacks us such as Bacteria, Virus, or Spore. 4) We suffer from a confused immunity system such as Rheumatoid Arthritis, Cancer, or Lupus. 5) We self inflict our own unhappiness and injury such as through a failed suicide attempt, alcoholism, smoking, etc. So what is the point of sharing something so depressing? I am not sure, but it just seemed interesting to […]

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Mar 15

A Lesson In Betrayal and Humility

by Chris Billows in Spirit Speculations 1 comments
What can one say about the earthquake and tsunami that has hit Japan? Very little. It is all very humbling and scary to witness the raw death-dealing power of the planetary body that is supposed to house and sustain us. What will happen next? We will see more earthquakes because that is the way of the Earth. We can also be assured that various marketers and religious leaders will find a cynical way to exploit our fear and questions to their own benefit. There are already a slew of books talking about 2012 being some kind of a apocalyptic date. (I had to chuckle as I was browsing these kinds of books at a local store and along side the various 2012 books was one that talked about the end of the world being in 2009). :-p For the record, here is a list of all recorded fatal earthquakes. It proves that while the Earth gives us life, it is also a ruthless betrayer. We are just guests in its home and the host is erratic and prone to fits. Earthlings beware.

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Jun 30

Curing the Diseases of Optimism and Pessimism

by Chris Billows in Spirit Speculations 3 comments
In relation to my previous post talking about understanding Human Nature as the centre of all general and political philosophy, I thought I would touch on two mindsets that plague us as much as ideology. The twin-opposites of Optimism and Pessimism. Optimism is about emotional states of being including hope, wishful thinking, and at its worse fairy-tale views of the world that its always getting better. Pessimism is its opposite, which includes hopelessness, despondency, and at its worse fatalism that the world is going to get worse. Both lead to paralysis since at their most extreme, the world is just fine as it if you are optimist so why worry about it, or its going to hell if you are pessimist and there is nothing that can be done about it. As soon as one accepts optimism or pessimism as their worldview, they shut themselves off from asking questions. I used to consider myself pessimistic and a cynic but after finally reading those definitions, I realized that this was not me. My blog is about asking questions, hopefully relevant and rational questions. My goal is to find solutions, not preach optimism or pessimism. I realized that I am a skeptic. […]

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Jun 26

Its Our Human Nature, Stupid

by Chris Billows in Spirit Speculations 0 comments
If you have read my blog for a while, you will know that I am a thinker. I like to mull ideas around, post about them, and the re-post again when a new insight arrives. Today’s blog post appears to be a cumulative of many years of thinking. I think that I have solved an inner puzzle that has tricked me for as long as I can remember. The irony is that the answer is not really that profound, yet the implications are. Based on my experience with Socialism, Green Politics, and Anti-ideology thinking, I have arrived at a conclusion that the problem with politics, political philosophy, and philosophy in general is that humans fail to understand human nature. Absurd isn’t it? To be human and yet not understand what human nature is… Yet, that is exactly what I think is the problem. Let me illustrate: I have argued for quite some time that ideology is a human disease that creates wars and immense human suffering. Yet, ideology is just the dogma of political philosophy, which in turn is just a world view that claims to understand what human nature and life is. All political and general philosophies are about […]

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May 03

Are Most People Good?

by Chris Billows in Spirit Speculations 0 comments
I attended an ethical workshop recently and the presenter stated she thought that most people are good. This worldview allowed her to approach people she met in a warm and open fashion which made for a rewarding and pleasant work experience. Benefits aside of such a worldview, is she right? Are most people good? I never asked her, but I am sure the presenter thought that all of the evil acts of the world are committed by a small number of bad or misunderstood people. She saw people themselves being valued as good or bad. For her, the world is made up mostly of good people whose lives get ruined by a small number of bad people. The value is placed on the person, not on the behavior. My experience tells me otherwise. Instead of seeing human nature being inherently good or bad, I would instead that it being imbued with potential for both. Across time and place people have struggled to avoid suffering and find happiness in life. It is the limitless ways of finding happiness that makes human nature appear so complex. Yet this complexity does not mean that we have to leave our ability to judge at […]
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