A Point in Time

I recognize that I’m nearing a point with this blog where I can commemorate a passage through a time threshold: The first month of life.  As a parent I can easily recall the first month of having my son in the house.  No matter the mental or physical preparations that were made for his arrival, when the date arrived; it was just different. 

   Saying that, I acknowledge every-single-event I have ever had in my life falls into the very same assessment.  “It’s just different than what I thought”. Being a fan of David Foster Wallace, I will gladly give him credit for highlighting for my awareness the notion of a default self-centered orientation. Most of us use this very same perspective to define and refine our passage in this shared physical existence.  Even if the concept has been echoed many times and in many ways throughout my visitation into psychology, philosophy and poetry, his was the most personal rendition I embraced.

  “No experience you’ve ever had did not center on you”

   If you are not familiar with his name, then I encourage you to Google it and become familiar with his elegant and compelling understanding of ‘where we come from’ in order for a shared delight into this continued journey of discovery into where it is we are going (individually and collectively).  

   The point of bringing this up was to acknowledge that I made reference in past post to ‘come back to visit’ some concepts that I kept short due to a desire to maintain brevity. I promised to come back and explore more deeply.  So I’ll dedicate the next few days of this waning month towards addressing those very topics I mentioned to the depth I initially desired when I brought them up. In Not Working I mentioned the practice of responding to facts in the defiant ‘not always’ context as well as the topic of subject of orientation.  I also mentioned defensive empty protest as well as what is truth, and what is false. Why? Why bother to cross those T’s and dot those I’s? Perhaps this kindled desire for personal integrity.

  I am vividly aware that when we use words…vocabulary, they travel on a continuum of clarity.  Some words are rather unambiguous while others, because they have several meanings, can lead to obscuration.  So I am prone to slow down and study the use of words, and in particular words that may lean towards being taken for granted as knowing ‘with certainty’ that everyone is in agreement.  Imagine the surprise and alarm when we discover nothing is further from the fact?  In its most simplistic form Integrity is most often defined as adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.  Lesser used, but for me more definitive for self, are the others; the state of being whole (oh baby); entire (yes, the complete individual); or undiminished (oh the compromises we make to grab at acceptance).  The sound, unimpaired (clearly the unified harmonious being) or perfect condition (not in the absolute notion of what perfection may or may not be, but the state of calm that exist in the best of conditions).  THESE are the quality of integrity that an individual should be intimately familiar with.  Abiding to moral or ethical standards has its benefits when framed within society; and in being cooperative and conformed with those values makes for a smoother integration of the self into the bigger crowd of ‘us’.  I will add Integrity to the topics I’ll come back to.