Saturday, October 19, 2013

The Meaning of Liff

I'm thoroughly enjoying the book that I'll be reviewing for Squid-man's Cephalopod Coffeehouse next week.  While reading, my eyes stopped on a short snippet that probably won't make it into my review, but I wanted to explore it a bit anyway.  While still keeping the identity of the book secret, I can share that isolated sentence:
"Only a space-faring culture could truly transcend its environment, and join others in giving a purpose to creation."
I'm sure I've talked about that first part before -- i.e., my hope that humanity will indeed follow this path and at least make the attempt to seed ourselves elsewhere.  It's the second part that struck me, though.  "Giving a purpose to creation."  It implies that there is no imposed, absolute purpose to creation, and we have to do that job ourselves.  Certainly not a new idea...


But it's still controversial.  On the surface, it seems to disagree with most established religions, which come packaged with tons of absolute purpose.  I really don't think there needs to be a contradiction, though.  With just a bit of leeway, the process of figuring out your purpose maps pretty cleanly onto the idea of "discovering God's plan for your life."  Much like the idea of natural rights in law, the details about who or where or whence it comes from don't seem so important in the end.  The key part is that your purpose isn't handed to you by other people.  It's your birthright to discover and follow, all by your lonesome.

On a whim, I wandered a bit through Wikipedia's article on The Meaning of Life and found several close parallels to the above ideas.  Like I said, not new.  :-)  That article didn't mention Crowley's Thelema, though, which apotheosizes the phrase "Do What Thou Wilt."  The twist is that you've got to think reeeally hard about what your true will is, and you'll eventually find that it's best when tempered with love.  It ends up being deeper and more subtle than something you can articulate into a few sentences, though trying to do that is helpful.  Sometimes, experience and hindsight helps you see it more clearly than anything else.

As I read over the above, it kind of sounds like I have it all figured out in my own case, doesn't it?  Nope!  :-)  But I do try to keep my compass needle pointed in the right direction with some prayer-like words.  A Thelemic colleague of mine came up with the following four aspirational phrases that occasionally pass through my brain...

Lead me to the Light of my true will.
Strengthen me to embrace every experience of Life.
Fulfill me in the rapture of thy Love.
Awaken me to the knowledge of Liberty.

I've got to say, though, that since I'm not sure to whom I'd be addressing these words, I don't use them all that frequently.  Something that feels more natural to me is the following, which I pieced together from several different ideas, starting with the Buddhist concept of dedication of merit:

May all be loved.
May all find liberty.
May all become co-creators of the cosmos.

That covers all the bases, doesn't it?  :-)

- - - - -

Postscript:  I wanted to squeeze in a reference to Viktor Frankl's Logotherapy somewhere, but didn't manage it.  Also, for completeness, the title refers to this and the image to this.

Post-postscript, 10/20:  As I reread my final prayer after thinking about Squid's recent post on the plight of the Palestinians, I'm thinking... #FirstWorldProblems.  Maybe there should be a line at the beginning that asks first that "May all be safe and sound."

17 comments:

  1. Dear Cygnus,
    I love your post very much. "Strengthen me to embrace every experience of Life." is just what I tried to say with my last post "For hard-boiled Taoists only" - the important thing for me is to accept - and SEE - the much, much more that surrounds us (from which we only see the narrow clipping looking through our focusing lense of our wishes). As to a meaning of life - hup haff, as the jostler said. 'Do what thou wilt' is very difficult indeed - needs a lot of courage, forgetting one's foolish pride, be really alive. I'll drink to that, as my English friend said.

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    1. Thank you, Britta. I just stopped over and read your lovely paean to the Dinner Lady of the Waves.

      I think that, through blogging, I'm finding the people who are helping me with the acceptance, vision, and courage you speak of.

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  2. ...I was hoping for a Douglas Adams reference. I've never read the book with the title of this post, but I'll get around to it eventually.

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    1. Whenever I get to 42 comments on a post, I always get a little tingle to look for some kind of extra meaning on the 42nd. :)

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    2. True confession time: I've never read Douglas Adams. But being around science types all day, I've absorbed many of the tropes and jokes.

      The "Liff" for me comes from the original TV commercial (and movie preview) for the Monty Python film, which shouted out to Adams' then-recent book with a similar title. They showed "The Meaning of Liff" carved out of rock, then a bolt of lightning struck the final letter and turned it into an E.

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    3. Similar joke as Mel Brooks' fifteen (crash), ten, TEN commandments? :-)

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    4. Just in case: According to the Hitchhiker's Guide, the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything, as deciphered by a supercomputer, is 42.

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  3. Dear Cygnus, I am with Britta. I, too, love your post very much. There were a number of places where I wanted to lift things that spoke to me with a bit of glow around the words in the text so here are just a couple:

    'It's your birthright to discover'

    These five words are magnificent, almost an entire battle cry all their own. Only the battle is largely private, tedious and, until blogging :), not one for which we had a venue that lent itself to doing together. (Blegh. That was horrible sentence construction but I'm just gonna leave that mess up there and hope something was communicated!)

    Which leads me to the next bit:

    'It ends up being deeper and more subtle than something you can articulate into a few sentences, though trying to do that is helpful.'

    Lisa Southard wrote on a post the other day these 'perfect words': 'I think this year's story is ready. Not perfected, and full of risk.'


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    1. Thank you. These things should be bog-standard Crowleyan Thelema, but they often get obscured for the more flashy occult aspects.

      I'll go see what's on tap with the wishbone soup...

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  4. PS: By reading your interesting post again, I started to look up Thelema (thanks, Wiki!) - and found the two fascinating concepts of will in classic Greek philosophy: 'boule' and 'thelema''. And then was led on to Aristoteles 'de plantis' with the charming verdict that plants don't have 'epithymia' - which I, as a passionate gardener, dare to doubt very much :-) Yes, come to think of it, 'epithyymia' might even be a real obstacle for 'free will', Anyhow, life without 'e' would be - vegetable?

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    1. Wait, wait, wait, what does this mean? Plants don't have epithymia. All in a ruffle, now, to know.

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    2. Gosh, I've never read this particular work, but you've got me curious, too. I'm guessing this word, meaning desires or wishes, is what Aristotle was talking about. A true Taoist is supposed to flow with the way without "the lust of result," it's true... I'll dig around more later tonight, but for now I've got to run.

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  5. Co-creators of the cosmos! :-) This is exactly what my words hope to provoke, lovely, pro-active, creative, flowing engagement with life. Or liff. Finding other people that understand, that also wish to promote this, it's quite a relief. Like shipwrecking waves dumping one on a nice beach.

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    1. Indeed! The blogosphere has turned out to be something different -- better! -- than I thought it would be when I started.

      The challenge for me, with all the heady stuff I posted, is maintaining this big-picture outlook throughout the ups and especially downs of daily life. "Making my own meaning" often gets reduced to making the decision not to whine or complain when crap hits the fan. I hope I'm batting at least .500 on that front... :-)

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  6. I admire your efforts to build your own statement of belief. Lacking a religious upbringing myself, I find it's the ritualistic elements I miss most. I have tried repeatedly to invent my own, with limited success. Your prayer-like words are wonderful - certainly covering the bases that matter.

    Thanks for both plugs in this post. Funny thing about First World Problems: they have a way of stirring trouble for everyone else, too. Over time, I've managed to boil my own world view down to the following:

    There is no us and them. It's all us.

    The sooner we realize we're all in it together, the sooner we can get to the really important work.

    May all be loved...

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    1. Thanks, Squid. It seems I'm always trying to rebuild the Roman Catholicism of my youth, but without some of those pesky literalisms that they seem to insist on. :-)

      "Listen, kid, we're all in this together." Are you a fan of Terry Gilliam's Brazil?

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    2. I know the movie but I haven't watched it in a long time. We own a DVD copy - the three-disc collector's edition, in fact. Perhaps it's time to watch again.

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