Master 206: What is most real to you? Part 2 of 3

Exhibiting some answers.

In the first part of this series, I posed a question: What is most real to you? I also tried to motivate this question. How you view reality has the most profound effect on how you conduct your life--what you do, how you behave, how you feel. And when I talk about what is most real to you, I'm not so much focusing on what you think is or believe to be most real. The things that you don't have to think about--or not think about--those are often the most real to you. If you have to think about telling your wife that you love her--if you have to remind yourself to tell your wife that you love her--that would seem to serve as evidence that your love for her is not real to you in a certain way. (I'm not saying that you don't love her or are lying to yourself or her, but it would appear that your love for her does not automatically shape your life in the ways I am considering.) If you have to consciously avoid talking about money-issues with your spouse: if you have to think to yourself as you walk into the room, "Don't talk about money," then money-not-being-an-issue is probably not very real to you. In contrast to these cases, consider the structure of your morning routine. You get out of bed, put on a robe, let the dog out, take a shower. Many of these things are automatic. You don't have to think about them. When you get up in the morning, you don't think about having lunch. You also don't think about not having lunch. Reality is, for you, structured in such a way that lunch is completely a non-issue in the morning.

These notions are a bit vague and I'm not taking all the time that I could to develop really clear examples. Here are a set of notes that I jotted down that might help:

Your job is probably one of the things that is most real to you. Every morning you've got to go. Your schedule is consistently set up around that particular chunk of time. It affects when you wake up, what time (or whether) you eat breakfast, how much traffic you're going to hit, how you're going to feel when you get home, and how many errands you can run in the afternoon. If someone wants to take an impromptu trip to the beach with you, you don't need to think about whether your schedule is busy from 9 to 5. Your job dictates those things and has a well-established, permanent place in your mind and thought-life. By contrast, that dinner you're planning on having with the neighbors six weeks from now might not be very real to you at all. Even if it's on your calendar, you may struggle with forgetfulness. And, in the end, you might end up inadvertantly double-booking that night anyway.

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As I continue to write and think on this, I'm realizing that one of the main challenges, in laying out these issues clearly, is that there's a temptation to draw the distinction between what is real and unreal in terms of what demands our thoughtful attention and what doesn't. But of course, real things, depending on their character, may require thought or may not require thought. So it might be better to think about the real just in terms of what actually shapes our life, attitudes, actions, and feelings.

Now one might expect me, being a(n aspiring) philosopher, to launch into a presentation of different philosophical and psychological theories on this topic. But that's exactly what I am not going to do. Instead, I want to look at just a few examples that, I take it, hit a little closer to home. Again, part of the point of this inquiry is to highlight the fact that, for many of us, our lives are guided less by what we claim is important and more by a set of values that just pervades the general culture.

What is most real to you? Some of these answers have autobiographical elements. Others come from my observations of and interactions with other people. Let's take a look.

What is most real to you?

What my professors think of me. Or what I think my professors think of me. (And there's a difference between these two things.) This determines how I feel about myself. It determines whether or not I'm willing to make a comment or ask a question. It determines whether I seek help or just continue to limp along without understanding. It determines whom I avoid, especially when I catch sight of them across the courtyard. It determines how I feel about myself and my mood and my attitude.

What is most real to you?

Maybe it's a relationship that I am in. Or a relationship that I am not in. (Again, it might seem odd to say that the lack of something can exert any kind of positive force, but consider how these things actually do shape and affect the way people live and feel.) Maybe the girlfriend that I wish I had, or the wife I wish I had, or the son I wish I had, or the daughter. Maybe it's the phone call that I'm hoping will come, or the phone call that I'm dreading making. Maybe it's the question: Will he ask me out? or the question: Should I ask her out? (Or, in our egalitarian society: Will she ask me out? Should I ask him out?) Maybe it's the question: Should I take her hand? Should I kiss her cheek. Maybe it's something else. Maybe it's the desire to be held or the longing to be caressed. Do these things shape the way people (and not just junior high boys and girls) behave? Absolutely. The possibility of relationship. Or the impossibility of relationship--especially of a close physical relationship--may be the most real thing to a person. Sometimes what is most real for a person is a desire un-fulfilled. That can shape the way we feel, take our time, attention and thought. It can keep us up at night, govern what we will talk about or won't talk about. Sometimes those things are most real to us just because they are the very things that we most want to avoid looking at, dealing with, thinking about. Expectations of marriage. Expectations of children. Expectations of family life. Sometimes these are what is most real for us--and their satisfaction or non-satisfaction shape all the rest of life.

What is normal in friendship? What is normal in conversation? These are often the things that are most real to us. And keep in mind what I mean by 'real'. I don't mean that these things are 'actual'. What I mean is that we are most aware of them, we are most attuned to them. It is very possible for one's relationship with one's spouse to be more real to a person than his or her actual spouse. It is also very possible that one's lack of relationship or the breaks in one's relationship with one's spouse, are more real to one than one's spouse. And by that I mean that lives are shaped most strongly by the gaps or issues--many of which may remain unspoken--than by the actual person. What is going on when a man dreads coming home at night? When a wife has to walk on egg-shells? What's going on when there are issues that, it's understood, must not be brought up in conversation or are off-limits. Just because they are unspoken does not mean that they are not there. In fact, people have to constantly be on the alert to not cross the line and say something inadvertantly. What is most real to you? Is it the lack of affection that you're receiving? Is it the feeling that he or she is always judging you? Is it the fear that he or she no longer finds you attractive or the worry that he or she never did? Is it the lack of conversation? The lack of time spent together? Is it the way he or she spends money? Is it the tendency to criticism? Is it the nagging?

What is most real to you?

Is it your body. We are positively obsessed about this in our culture. How much time do you spend alone looking at yourself in the mirror? How much thought do you give to the clothes you wear? Or the clothes you own? Or the clothes you wish you owned? How much do you care about what other people are wearing? How attentive are you to that? How much do you care about what other people think of what you wear? How much do you care about what you think other people think about what you wear? How much do you think about the shape, condition, and proportions of your body? How attentive are you to the fit of your clothes? The color? The style? The coordination? How upset are you when something goes wrong with your outfit? How important is it that you not be seen by him until you've been made up? Are you obsessed with your hair? With your teeth? With your complexion? With your finger nails? With your toe nails? With your weight? With the amount of grayness or baldness? How much attention do you give to your diet, to health food, supplements, organic foods, trans fats, cholesterol, saturated fat, sugar, sugar substitutes. For how many people does the number on the scale or the number on the tape measure make the biggest difference in how they feel about themselves?

What is most real to you?

Owning a house? Owning a car? Owning a certain size house? Owning a certain kind of car? How real are the 'Joneses' to you? How real is having a large TV, the latest video game equipment, the latest cell phone, ipod?

Financial independence? A growing savings account and stock portfolio? A low interest rate? How real is debt to you? Student loans? Credit cards? Mortgage payments? Car payments? Insurance payments? How real is that pay check to you? How real is that vacation? Or the hope of a vacation? Or the lack of a vacation? Or the impossibility of a vacation?

Are any of these things either bad or good? In many cases, no, but how much of your time is fixed on them? How much of your attention? How much do these things determine whether you're in a good or bad mood? whether you are contented or anxious? What is more important: the things you have or the fact that you can talk about what you have? How much money you have or how little money you have? Sometimes what you can say about your financial situation is more real than your actual financial situation.

What is most real to you? What matters and makes the difference in how you live your life? What affects how you feel about yourself? What determines what you talk about and what you don't talk about?

When you're driving on the 91 freeway at rush hour, what is most real to you? Often it's the destination--where you want to be right now. That's why we get stressed out when we're late--because we're fixated on the destination and on where we want to be or ought to be. That's also why traffic is so frustrating--because the most real thing to us at those moments is our destination and where we want to be.

That's why it's hard to stop and talk to someone when I'm on my way from point A to point B. That's why it's hard to stop on the side of the road for a broken-down vehicle. Because the most real thing to us at that moment--the things that is most shaping our way of seeing the world is that destination. That's why its usually so ineffective when people try to be patient in traffic--because what is most real to them does not actually change.

What is most real to you?

The status quo? Not making waves or ripples? Not seeming strange or out of place? The possibility of rejection? The possibility of abandonment? The possibility of being esteemed lightly or of being looked on with contempt or pity? The possibility of being left alone? The possibility of being unloved? The possibility of meeting blank stares? The possibility of finding that, in truth, no one does or can understand me? The possibility of not mattering, of being insignificant? The possibility of being a failure?

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Hopefully this has got you thinking. When we talk about what is most real, the temptation is to enter into 'philosophical thinking mode', where we abstract from the substance of our real lives and enter into a domain of thought and reflection that is completely or almost completely disconnected from what is real. Isn't that interesting--when we speak philosophically about what is 'real' often our approach involves stepping back from what is most 'real' to us.

Approaching this question in this different way may help us to see how philosophical reflection might actually engage with what real people are really dealing with. So if the things that I listed above really are the things that are most real to most of us, what does that reveal about our worldviews and the ideas that are shaping and influencing our lives. Certainly these reflections reveal that dinosaurs are not playing a big part in people's lives and priorities. Unfortunately, if the above analysis seems to be moving in the right direction, it's also the case that God is not playing a big part in people's lives and priorities. Let me repeat some of what I said in my last blog entry:

"One of Heidegger's significant insights... was that in our ordinary, daily life, our actions and conduct are more guided by our sense of what is normal for people in general than by what we would claim to believe or hold to be true. This comes across especially clearly (unfortunately) when we think about the case of religious belief. In many cases, religious confessions actually end up having very little to do with how people actually conduct themselves. Pick out two random people who work in your office building and have wildly different religious beliefs; you will probably find that they conduct most of their life in much the same way."

Seeing that this is the case may help us to understand why simply talking about coherent worldviews and what makes a coherent worldview, by itself, is a pretty in-effective way of helping people to change their worldviews.

Now what I've said so far does not even begin to directly address the problem of destabilization that I described, in the last entry, in connection with shifts in worldview and our multi-cultural western context. When we are confronted with so many conflicting messages about what is real and what is important, what we should give our attention to, what is valuable, etc., etc., etc., how can we expect anyone to lead a stable, productive, well-balanced life?

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Alright, as usual there's a lot more that could be said, by way of expansion and just by way of clarification. But I'm going to leave these initial thoughts as they stand. In the third part of this series, I shall take a look at St. Paul's account of what is most real--as articulated in his letter to the Philippian church.

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God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.