About this blog... and the "raft"

So this is something beyond the young man's transcendental fantasy to 'eat, sleep, and have sex all at the same time.’ Even coming up to that improbable, yet valuable, vision (And no, I haven't managed it yet.) I knew that much of this would hurt. Everything that has been incidental or contingent in my life – as well as that which occurred by design –  the loss of family or friends, and all of the joys and simple moments of contentedness would add up to suffering as long as I held onto the pride of my intelligence and my willingness to be insincere or dishonest. This embodied much of my struggle through the religious lives that I’d chosen for myself… hurt, and the realization that I could have been more honest, more sincere and more mindful and that I’d kept myself nailed down – or perhaps more appropriately, hauling Siddhartha Gautama’s parabolic raft, unwilling to take it apart, much less just let it go. This combination of pride, insincerity, dogmatism and the resulting pain often had me described by friends and family – as well as those who held themselves at a safe arm’s distance, as “intense.”

One of my goals here, to improperly borrow from Jean Piaget, is to employ a kind of cognitive conservation. Analogously, it could be seen not merely as the recognition of praoportion, but the willingness to discover the unnecessary and take the time that most of us, as modern Westerners, now have for deliberate and measured consideration. Sometimes this will mean a suspension of judgment and holding there indefinitely if there is not a need to make a judgment. Often this will mean critically picking apart a religious, philosophical, political or psychological concept or concepts in order to make that determination. It will mean perspective taking and thought experiment when what is under discussion cannot be experienced or examined directly. It will always hold open the option to simply assert that “I don’t know.”

This is not about employing the extremes of either moral or cultural relativism and this blog should not be taken as a “whatever works” justification. While anyone who cares to comment on these blog entries and essays is free to make whatever point they like within the bounds of civility, such assertions will be taken as, at the very least, naïve, and at worst, cynical rhetorical devices used to set up the most common of all straw men.

So, enjoy your time here and share what you like. I just ask that you do it sincerely. I’ll look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Wade Austin Padgett – February, 2013
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The Buddhist Parable of the Raft

“The map is not the territory” by Ven Sochu