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What is Something Deeperism?

What is Something Deeperism?

What is Something Deeperism?
A self-circling, four-part obsession

Something Deeperism is the general position that we humans have insight into the Absolute (the Absolute is what is actually going on / what actually matters / what one should actually do–as opposed to mere opinions-about/perspectives-on what is going on / etc); but not literal / definitive / exclusive insight into the Something Deeperism. Picture the Truth as a Knowledge that is also Reality and therefore beyond doubt. The Truth is ultimately prior to human ideas and feelings about the Truth, so our ideas and feelings cannot relate perfectly to the Truth, but they can still relate meaningfully to the Truth (similar to how feelings are deeper/wider/vaguer than ideas, so an individual’s ideas cannot capture her feelings perfectly/literally/1:1, but her ideas can still relate meaningfully to her feelings). We humans can neither stand nor understand our lives without clear, honest thinking and feeling grounded in a certainty that knows that clear, open-eyed, joyous loving kindness is the way and that also knows how we can live in that Knowledge;therefore, we have no choice: we must assume such a Truth, and that our ideas and feelings can relate meaningfully to It, and–since the Truth will never be perfectly translated by our ideas and feelings and since our external circumstances are always changing whereas the Truth is always the same–we must never stop searching to better and better desire, understand, and follow that Truth within. So the path of Something Deeperism is centering your whole being (ideas, feelings, and etc) around the core of your and all being (the Truth) better and better: a task of constant pushing out from within, constant self-awareness and reassessment, constantly holding your feelings, ideas, and actions up to our inborn guardrails (insights we are born with and which we see more clearly as we learn to think, feel and act more clearly, honestly, gratefully, kindly): “am I being honest?”, “am I thinking clearly?”, “am I being kind?”, “or am I egotripping, showboating, grabgrabgrabbing?”

Naturally the foregoing is not literally true, but poetically true: poetically we point towards what is really going on and how we should deal with that circumstance. Like how a poem about a walk on the beach with a heavy heart can bring the attentive reader to a reasonably adequate sense of what the poet experienced: because we are all fundamentally the same and so–just as an individual’s ideas and feelings can, with clear, open heart and mind, can adequately understand and follow

Something Deeperism believes that human ideas do not literally capture their object, but rather point towards them imperfectly but still meaningfully. Mathematical ideas may become literal / definitive when written down, but when contemplated within human thought, they cannot help but take on deeper and wider meanings and so fuzz-out at the edges. Still, in practice math can be bracketed off from the question of what (if anything) it actually means and whether or not it actually matters. At least as measured by formal soundness, one can play the math-game perfectly well without worrying about those questions. However, topics like whether or not it matters what one does lose all meaning when bracketed off from questions about what they really mean and whether or not they really matter. And those are the questions most important to humans. But that’s OK, because human beings are not formal systems. We are ideas, feelings, vague notions, and etc all working meaningfully together; and there’s no reason to suppose that within human thought there’s not a Truth shining through that is both Knowledge and Reality and thus has the undeniable stamp of Truth within Itself; that is, for all we know human thought has enough wisdom within it to provide it with certain knowledge–not certain ideas and feelings, nor even a whole-being certainty, but rather a certain Truth that can adequately though of course not perfectly/definitively/no-chance-for-errorly guide one’s whole-being (ideas and feelings relating meaningfully to each other and to the Truth within).

Something Deeperism seeks to clarify the confusion caused by the false debate between faith in Goodness/the Truth (used interchangeably since they both point poetically towards the same place) and reason. Sure: Goodness cannot be perfectly translated into human ideas and feelings; but that doesn’t mean we cannot relate human ideas, feelings, words and actions meaningfully to Goodness. And since we cannot make sense of, believe in, or care about our own ideas without intellectual and emotional rigor, as well as spiritual (ie: non-mutable, non-relative/perspectival/debatable) Love/Goodness/the Truth, we have no choice but to work to better and better translate between ideas, feelings, words, deeds and Goodness.

Note also that believing in the doubtability of the existence of Truth is just as intellectually undefineable and unprovable as believing in the existence of Truth. And whereas to the degree you believe there’s no Truth, you doubt the meaningfulness of your own thought and so doubt all your thoughts and so slip into the chaotic mush of self-defeating thought, to the degree you are able to discover that Truth exists and what Truth is, your thought has a firm foundation: it can understand, believe-in, and understand itself.

Something Deeperism posits that just as via clear thought and feeling one’s ideas and words can imperfectly but still adequately relate to feelings even though feelings are wider/deeper/vaguer than ideas and words, clear thinking and feeling can also allow one to relate one’s ideas and feelings imperfectly but still adequately to the Truth shining through each conscious moment. And so one can speak meaningfully of the Truth, but only in a poetic (not literally/mathematically, but not therefore either inadequately meaningfully or unTrue) sense: we humans are essentially the same in our inner and outer experiences, so just as I can recreate within my own conscious moment an adequate facsimile of a poet’s experience by reading her poem with an open heart and mind, I can get the drift of spiritual writings by reading them with an open heart and mind (I’m here assuming the writings are good ones).

Something Deeperism is not a philosophy that can be built up from undoubtable assumptions. Rather, it must be taken as a whole and explored from the inside out. However, you can summarize it quickly and the intellect and emotion can see therein their only only real chance for progress. Please also note that no philosophy can be built up from undoubtable assumptions: ones that pretend they can be just hide their assumptions about what is really going on, what really matters, and how one should really think and act (senses-of-things that the intellect cannot define with precision or prove one way or another, but that humans cannot dispense with; take, for example yon radical skeptic: doth he not feelingly grab the sense “I am actually right!” and so commit a secret dogmatism?)

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If the Truth shines through my conscious moment; and if I can through aware clear honest thinking and feeling coordinate my ideas, feelings, words and deeds better and better with the Truth; and if the Truth supports my sense that we are all in this together and must be kind to one another and that shared joy is the way; and if that kind of meaningful communication is possible not only within me (ie: between the various aspects of my conscious moment) but also between me and my fellows: if all that is the case and my thought-as-a-whole (ideas, feelings, and everything else within my conscious moment working together) can discover that and how it is the case (not through literal knowledge of the Truth—which strikes me as neither possible nor, even if it were possible, usable by human thought—, but through an overall insight into the Truth that I can relate poetically [not literally, but still meaningfully and essentially accurately] to ideas, feelings, words and deeds)–if all that is possible, then I have a method for choosing one thought over another that is meaningful/interesting/stand-able to my thought as I cannot help but experience it. Otherwise, I don’t and I will make no progress in thought and action, which will continue to flap meaninglessly around as I try to pretend it means this and that to me and/or I don’t need my own thought to make any sense to me, and so on with the nonsense.

All individual humans and human organizations would do well to accept the essential dogmas I outlined above. Any individual dogma that doesn’t accept them is meaningless/useless to human beings; therefore they provide a dogmatic foundation for shared undertakings: none of our individual philosophies can be worth anything to any of us unless they help us to understand and live the Truth of those dogmas (not, of course, the words and concepts used to express the dogmas so much as the general internal sense-of-things those words and concepts point imperfectly but not therefore inadequately towards, but without words and concepts a human cannot communicate fully either with himorherself or with others, and refusing to use words and concepts that point adequately well towards senses-of-things prior to words and concepts is a type of lie: you’re throwing out a way forward on the grounds that it is imperfect, but you know perfectly well that that is not a legitimate reason to throw out a way forward). Therefore, we should not allow our shared dogmas to doubt those undoubtable dogmas (ex: if clear honest reasoning and relentless joy-spreading we-are-all-in-this-together kindness don’t matter, all humanly understandable and standable philosophies are out the window; therefore, we really ought to all agree to agree that we will together prioritize clear honest reasoning and relentless joy-spreading we-are-all-in-this-together kindness).

However, it is important to keep in mind that what human thought needs for a firm foundation is not ideas about the Truth grasped with the sense of “This is the Truth!”, but whole-being insight into the Truth; therefore, neither groups nor individuals should seek blind faith in the the dogmas outlined above. Forcing yourself to believe an idea you don’t understand just confuses you, muddying your thought and making it less meaningful/interesting/believable to you. That is why Something Deeperism advocates not literal belief in the bare minimum dogmas (“bare minimum” as in to the degree they either are not True or you cannot find a way to show yourself that and how they are True, your thought cannot believe/understand/follow itself), but a whole-being insight that is aware of its limitations: since you are relating what is prior to ideas and feelings to ideas and feelings, there will of necessity be some fudging/estimating/error; therefore: wisdom is never perfected and no one is in a position to assume they can get by without humility, without revising, seeking over and over again for a better nuance. So both individual and group dogmas should also include that nuance: the Truth is Absolute, but our insights into the Truth are not; so we should all keep seeking for more and more clarity, honesty, accuracy, goodness, kindness, and shared joy.

*****

We humans need ideas to help us navigate this human realm, and without some stable dogmas, all is mush and chaos, so we need some principles, even though the Truth is wider and deeper than human principles. But no worldview is worth anything unless it is helping its adherents relate their whole-being to the Joy within that alone knows that and how human life is sacred and how we should move and be; so our dogmas, though limited, must help relate us to the limitless Truth. A worldview is a type of moving platform that must be constantly revised and that must constantly guard against the temptation to confuse itself for the Truth that it is there to help one relate to.

The first goal is to reach a tipping point of whole-being (ideas, feelings, and deeper senses all working together) insight where it is more true for one to say “I believe kindness truly Matters” than to say “I don’t know anything for sure”. At that point, our inborn starting-point has brought us to a whole being starting-point. Again: it doesn’t count if you lie to yourself or trick yourself into this conclusion; the whole point is that you cannot believe in, care about, or follow your own ideas unless they are both clear and accurate, and relate to a Light within that knows that and how kindness truly Matters.

Either affirming that those essential dogmas are worth believing or doubting that they are worth believing amounts to making a poetic statement (declaring what should actually be believed oversteps what can be intellectually/emotionally known and understood); but when we doubt those dogmas without which human thought cannot believe in, care about, or understand itself, we contradict ourselves and spin our wheels hopelessly; whereas if we can find a way to get whole-being insight into the Truth of those procedurally undoubtable dogmas, we will have a workable way to connect our ideas and feelings to a Light within that alone knows what is worthwhile and that alone can provide our ideas and feelings with a firm foundation. That’s why religion is good, so long as it is not too literal: it gives people a shared vocabulary and framework to discuss spiritual growth and challenges, and it also helps to ground us in the kinds of practices necessary for improving our whole-being insight into the Goodness (ideas, feelings and etc all relating meaningfully to the Goodness shining through each conscious moment) that we all need to make any progress, and which no human will fully grasp, and which ego-trips constantly seek to co-opt. Blind faith in ideas amounts to forcing feelings of “this is so!” onto ideas you can’t really understand or even care about. In recognition that intellectual, emotional, and spiritual progress all require each other and that the Truth, not ideas and/or feelings about the Truth, must ultimately orchestrate any progress, Something Deeperism advocates pushing more for whole-being insight poetically (not intellectually literal or emotionally definitive, but still essentially accurate and meaningfully) expressed and lived than for dogmas believed and followed. Of course, there’s no perfection in human life, and some dogmatism is inevitable, so Something Deeperism doesn’t say “no dogmatism at all!”, but merely works to bend us towards dogmas like “let’s keep pushing to keep ourselves focused on the Light prior to all ideas and feelings by gently but consistently pushing against our human tendency to put more focus on ideas and feelings that make us feel meaningful than on the whole-being coordination of ideas and feelings around the Light within that alone knows that and how we are meaningful”. Something Deeperism is not pushy! It is gently pushing for better and better and …

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But for real: what if one gets the Truth wrong? Indeed, so much trouble is caused by people thinking they know the Truth when all they know are intellectual ideas about the Truth! As we’ve noted: The Truth is not the same as ideas and feelings about the Truth, and declaring xyz statement “True” without whole-being insight into the way in which the statement is “True” causes one to clench misunderstood intellectual ideas tighter and tighter, which drives a larger and larger wedge from one and the Truth (which is of course prior to ideas and feelings, since the Truth is what is, not ideas and feelings about what is). Therefore, to accept the literal Truth of the undoubtable assumptions is to commit the same basic mistake as disavowing them: the error of pretending literal knowledge where only poetic insight is humanly possible.

That’s why Something Deeperism points out that while we can have insight into the Absolute, we cannot have Absolute insight: we need intellectual and emotional ideas to navigate this human reality, and without spiritual insight nothing means anything to us, so we need to meaningfully relate our intellectual and emotional ideas to the Truth, and both blind skepticism and blind faith work against that coordination of what is prior (the Truth) to what is post (ideas, feelings, words, and deeds). Therefore, let us keep trying and trying again for the correct nuance: Meaning is Real and ideas and feelings can relate meaningfully to Meaning, but part of that process involves a necessary error: we’ll inevitably confuse ideas and feelings about Meaning to some degree, so we have to work to keep reducing that error, so we drop down again and again to a little lower level: we must constantly reevaluate and refine our dogmas, which are structures that need to understand their own limitations to remain useful.

This essay is not literal. It points. It uses some reason and some emotions, but it points also past them. This essay is not unique in that. All human words and deeds do that. Even math, though able to live bracketed off from the question of Meaning when inside symbols and in computers, upon entering a human mind automatically becomes part of the human quest to figure out what is really going on, what really matters, and how one should really think and act. Let’s not pretend we are what we aren’t!

Author: Monsieur Pud En Taine
Editor: BW w/AMW
copyright: AMW

Prefatory Quote

Prefatory Quote

Have you ever been involved–no matter on what side or in what capacity–in a raped and pillaged village? More particularly, have you ever been struck down in the midst of such a fiery, hope-shattering melee: either by the downward-splitting blade of a horseback attacker or the whistling arrow of the resistance? Did you ever, while your lungs drew in cold shocked night air filling with stinging smoke and insanely bereaved/terrified bone-deep wails, suddenly understand the final stab and sink down from horrified pain to broken-hearted ache to sweet forgetful sleep?

If so, perhaps you’ll recall awakening to the soul plane just as you left the body level. And, still in and watching the scene but no longer liable to other bodily sensations, you looked around at the others. Some still animated and enveloped in the pell-mell; others, like yourself, no longer embodied, blazed like candle flames as the white-hot flickering outline of a tidier (the wounds healed, the dirt and blood gone) and still-alive version of your broken bodies. You and the other dead, look at the living and at each other, and you feel so sorry, so sad–no matter were you an innocent child now unjustly robbed nor a marauding villain (perhaps out of your teens, perhaps not) justly served. You feel guilty and terrible and you look at the other spirits who also feel the heavenly wind yanking them upwards, out of the fray and the two colliding communities. What is in their look? The same thing in your mind:

No matter who I am,
no matter my experiences,
my reasons,
unless “how can I make things truly better for myself and everyone else: how can I let the joyful sharing Love at the core of all experience win this world for responsible kind respectful joyous cooperation?”:
Unless that is my question,
I am asking the wrong questions and will keep getting the wrong answer.

But how, fading ghost soon to be reconfigured to await judgement, options, and another try: How will you remember this lesson with all intellectual and emotional ideas deleted? True: at it’s core, this insight is deeper than those things and partakes of the one spiritual idea, the Knowledge that is also Reality. But still: you’ll need a way to build a bridge between the mind/body you’ll wear next and that grand glimpse.

The Truth is But A Dream

The Truth is But A Dream

What do you know?
How do you know it?
No matter how you slice it, you believe in clarity, honesty, and accuracy of thought.
No matter how you gin it, you believe in freedom of will and of the need to choose well.
No matter how you pose it, you believe in a kind joy we can share and that must win for any of us to win.

What to do with what you cannot disbelieve?
Believe it blindly and you don’t really understand it, believe it, or even care about it: you retreat into an emotionally clutched story about what you believe, and so slide away from presence in what you actually believe, which is of course prior to all ideas and feelings about what you believe.

What to do with that which disbelieving amounts to disbelieving in your own thought as you cannot but help to understand it?
Doubt it and you doubt yourself. Believe it literally/definitively and you lose it for a boring story that you have to grasp tighter and tighter to keep from seeing that you’re clutching dandelion fluff blowing in the summer breeze, clawing at nothing at all while that which you truly believe slips away from your focus. Doubt it literally or believe it literally and you end up in the same spot: living in stories, incoherent because the bulk of your conscious experience has left the only thought that means anything to you. What is that thought? It is the seed of wisdom and it screams Yes! I can think clear and true and follow the Light better and better! If that is not true, what does anything mean or matter to you? But blindly believe in some collaborating account and you are living in ideas and feelings about the spark within, and those are not at all the same as the spark within.

So how to catch it right? Where’s the nuance we’re looking for?
Not mindless doubting, not mindlessly believing. Not pretending you can ignore the intellect and maintain a workable relationship to this life; but also not pretending the intellect is all there is or that it cannot relate meaningfully to the rest of your experience.

How to catch it right?
One’s thought as a whole coordinating the various aspects of thought around the Light within that alone knows what is real, what matters, how we should live, what we should do. Flowing more and more cleanly off that Light. Not pretending our ideas and feelings are the Light! But working every moment to better and better translate the Light into workable ideas and feelings, that of course know themselves limited and provisional, but also necessary. That’s how you gotta work it when you span what is prior to ideas and feelings, through ideas and feelings, out into the world where you meet the others and affect and are affected by them.

Ah friends, the rapids froth! The raft flows and twists with the madcap rambling roller coaster cold mountain water.

Don’t leave me here all by myself.

AMW

Footnote on Pure Love & Something Deeperism

Footnote on Pure Love & Something Deeperism

1. Pure Love 2. Something Deeperism Quickest Sketch 3. Continuing The Overview of Something Deeperism 4. Flushing The General Position Out A Little More 5. Ideas to Motivate Adherence to Something Deeperism

You don’t need to read every entry now. Maybe just the first two. That would probably be best for now. In fact, I implore you: just quickly read over the first two sections and go back to the Introduction. If they bore you, just skim them! This is supposed to be a nice fun work of fiction: don’t let the obsessiveness of certain elements within the authorship take that away from us!!

1. Pure Love is the infinite and eternal love that all earthly loves partake of to the degree that they are actually love (to the degree they don’t partake of just Pure Love, earthly loves are tainted by non-infinite, non-eternal aspects of experience). Pure Love gives, supports, lifts-up helps, understands, loves 100%—for free. Human loves to some degree pull-towards and push-away. To the degree they are Pure Love, they do not pull-towards or push-away, but only beam brightly buoyantly effectively through.

2. Something Deeperism is the general position that we humans have insight into the Absolute (the Absolute is what is actually going on / what actually matters / what one should actually do–as opposed to mere opinions-about/perspectives-on what is going on / etc), but not literal / definitive / exclusive insight.

Something Deeperism seeks to clarify the confusion caused by the false debate between faith and reason. Sure: we cannot perfectly translate the Truth into human ideas and feelings; but that doesn’t mean we cannot relate human ideas, feelings, words and actions meaningfully to the Truth; and since the we cannot make sense of, believe in, or care about our own ideas without intellectual and emotional rigor, as well as spiritual (ie: non-mutable, non-relative/perspectival/debatable) Love, we have no choice but to work to better and better translate between ideas, feelings, words, deeds and the Truth.

Something Deeperism posits via clear thought and feeling one’s ideas and words can imperfectly but still adequately relate to feelings even though feelings are wider/deeper/vaguer than ideas and words, clear thinking and feeling can allow one to

If the Truth shines through the human conscious moment and we can through clear thinking and feeling coordinate our ideas, feelings, words and deeds better and better with the Truth, and if the Truth supports our sense that we are all in this together and must be kind to one another and that shared joy is the way: if all that is the case and a person can discover that and how it is the case, humans have a method for choosing one thought over another that is meaningful/interesting/stand-able to human beings. Otherwise, we don’t and we will make no progress in thought and action. So groups should accept those essential dogmas and we should all seek the Truth: the Truth would be both Knowledge and Reality and thus have the stamp of “True!” within it; thus endarounding the problem of the divide between ways of knowing and Reality; of course, the Truth cannot fit into our ideas, feelings, words and deeds, so what we need is not intellectual and emotional assent to the essential dogmas so much as insight into that and how they are the case–indeed confusing ideas and feelings about the Truth actually pushes one into dogmatically clutching ideas and feelings one doesn’t understand, which is antithetical to growth in wisdom: the continual improvement of one’s whole-being coordination of ideas, feelings, words and deeds around the Joy within that alone knows what is going on, what matters, and what should be done.

[A Note on Interchanging Different Descriptions of the Absolute:
We’re here positing that the Truth shines through all things, including each human conscious moment, and that It is prior to ideas and feelings, so we can only point imperfectly [but not therefore necessarily meaninglessly] towards It; so “Love”, “Truth”, “God”, “Light”, “Buddha Nature”, “Joy” can all be used interchangeably–not necessarily as indicating exactly the same thing, but as generally pointing adequately enough towards that which can only be pointed towards, since it is prior to ideas and feelings.]

{A SOMETHING DEEPERISM WITHOUT METAPHYSICS?

Or does that go too far? Sure, that’s the Something Deeperism of this author, but it is not the Something Deeperism of every Something Deeperist. All that is needed to qualify as a Something Deeperist is to agree that that inner sense that I like to call the “seed of wisdom” is actually onto something, and so one shouldn’t fart around in either radical skepticism or blind faith: one should seek to understand that and how this “seed of wisdom” is onto something. Right? Can’t this be done without metaphysics? I dunno: what does “actually onto something” mean? Doesn’t it point towards “actually the case”, towards True? I think humans cannot help but use ideas and feelings in their thoughts and actions; but they also cannot understand, believe in, or even care about their own ideas and feelings without grounding those ideas and feelings on whole-being insight into what is actually going on (the fact that people often delude themselves about what is actually going on is no argument against this position: the whole point is that our insight needs to be adequately based on Truth for it to guide us meaningfully forward–that we often lurch incoherently in one direction while it becomes less and less meaningful to us only points out how we struggle with this task); therefore, I think we humans must accept (necessarily imperfectly) translating inner insights into ideas and feelings, from which it follows that it is wiser to say “I should think clearly” than to say “I have no idea about what is going on”: both are imperfect translations of inner senses of things ultimately prior to ideas about them, but the former includes a path forward and the latter is completely self-defeating. Of course, if you cannot find any Truth in the former, you shouldn’t announce it, but the latter makes no sense, so saying it amounts to forcing confusion into the center; that’s why Something Deeperists suggest working to find a way to gain whole-being insight (ideas and feelings working with and under the adequate guidance of the Absolute–that which alone Knows because It is both Knowledge and Reality) so that you know both that the former is True and in what way it is True.}

So why squawk on and on about how cool you are because nobody knows shit or because you know the Truth. Seems better to relax, say nothing, and try meditation, prayer, loving kindness, maybe even pick a religion that fits where you are and so join a community of like-minded people who can help keep you on track. But, hey: whatever? Right? I’m taking off, I’m heading out the door, I’m going for a walk. These questions slice so deep and what’s down there anyway? I’m afraid I’ve found a bunch of squeaking mice madly dashing into walls and into and over each other while the cleaver breaks them apart and sends their writhing bloody pieces here and there in the general sprawling mayhem.

Another failed introduction to Something Deeperism!

[Back to Intro of “Love at a Reasonable Price”]

3. Continuing the Overview of Something Deeperism Has been moved, for everyone’s sake, to Outtakes!

[Back to Intro of LaaRP]

4. A Few Principles Of Something Deeperism:

Wisdom is possible—at least as a direction. Growing in wisdom is the never-ending process of better and better—through the clear thinking and feeling outlined above—organizing one’s feelings, ideas, words, and deeds around the Truth within (so the rest of one’s experience better and better syncs up with and so understands and follows the Truth at the core of one’s experience).

True dogmas (here “dogma” means a statement about Absolutes—like what is actually going on, what actually matters, or how one should truly live) are not literal, definitive, or exclusive. They point poetically (not perfectly clear, precise, or intellectually verifiable; but not therefore inadequately) toward the Truth, which after all is prior to ideas and feelings about It (ie: “true dogmas” point one’s conscious experience toward adequate insight into the Truth the way a good poem recreate’s the writer’s experience adequately though not literally/definitively within the reader: it is not a mathematical formulation, but the essential has still been communicated).

When one’s thought-as-a-whole is properly organized around the Truth at the core of each human conscious moment, one’s thought-as-a-whole can use the intellect to sketch adequate intellectual pictures of the Truth and how the Truth relates to everything else, and such sketches can help others to get a better sense of the Truth. But they are still just sketches, and unwise conscious moments are still very much able to woefully misunderstand them. So no matter what the source, one must be careful to expect any goodness to come of mindlessly “yessing” the dogma. What is most fundamentally needed is insight; dogmas are only supposed to help people gain, share, and build a shared language for insight into what is really going on, what really matters, and how we should really live—a language for together contemplating questions whose answers are deeper and wider than any ideas, and thus than any dogmas.

Humans with the same stated dogma (examples of stated dogmas: “secular humanist” or “born again Christian”) are never 100% on the same page; and those with different dogmas are still somewhat on the same page; and both people with identical and those with different dogmas can—with good intentions and real effort—get more and more on the same page.

We humans all share the same most fundamental value: seeking and choosing truly better ways of thinking and acting via clear and honest investigation of our inner and outer experiences, with the whole process orchestrated by a deepening insight into that sense within that knows our thoughts and actions truly matter and in what way they truly matter, and the entire process guide-guardrailed by the knowledge that joyful sharing kindness is the way and everything else baloney.

Something Deeperism cannot be intellectually proven, but it can be intellectually motivated. For an attempt at a quick sketch of that see below (#5)

[Back to Intro of LaaRP]

5. Ideas to Motivate Seeking in Individuals and Assuming Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Justice, and most of all Love in groups:

Note that no matter what our outlook, we cannot help but accept/assume some intellectual ideas about what is going on, what matters, and what should be done that we cannot prove intellectually. {In fact, insofar as one doesn’t adequately answer those questions, we can’t really understand, care about, or believe in one’s own thought process (which cannot help but assume insight into those fundamental questions is what it is ultimately working on).} Therefore, we are going to have to accept some dogmas (unproven beliefs accepted as “true enough”) about what is going on, what matters, and what should be done. The only choice available to humans is between dogmas that lead to more coherency and dogmas that lead to less, so we may as well pick dogmas that lead us to more coherent thoughts and actions (ie: thoughts and actions that are more meaningful to the thinker/actor).

Then note that for any idea about what is going on & etc to be coherent, the basic premise of Something Deeperism must be true.

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The basic premises of Something Deeperism:

“Truth” and “Goodness” (not those concepts but what they imperfectly but not therefore necessarily inadequately point towards) actually exist and, though they are ultimately prior to ideas and feelings about them and thus not liable to literal/definitive insights, our inborn sense that we can improve our insight into them via clear, honest, pure-hearted thought, contemplation, conversation, and action bounded by valuing kindness, respect, and shared-joy for all is correct. If that premise isn’t True or I cannot find a way to demonstrate to myself that and how it is True, how can I understand, care about, believe in, or otherwise participate in my own thoughts and actions? I can’t. My thought needs insight into that and how that sense of things is True to be meaningful to itself: that is simply the way we humans are constructed {some say you can’t go from your own fundamental experience to the experience of all others, but I can’t make any sense of my thoughts if other people are not essentially like me and [otherwise how can I make sense of all I’ve learned by interacting with them?], so the belief that others are basically like me is also undoubtable: I don’t know that it is True, but I do know that to the degree I do not gain insight into how and that it is True, my own thoughts and actions are meaningless to me.}

But don’t forget that ideas and feelings about what is really true, worthwhile, and preferable are only meaningful to you if you actually understand them; so what is needed is not so much literal answers as whole-being (ideas, feelings, words and deeds under the guidance of the Truth shining within and through each conscious moment). Even supposing literal understanding of the Truth were possible (and how could it be? The Truth is not the same as an idea about the Truth!), merely forcing feelings of certainty atop intellectual assents to literally true dogmas would just lead to misunderstanding those dogmas. What is needed is a whole-being organization around the Light within that alone knows that and how we all matter—an organization that must be self-aware enough to not pretend it can ever consider itself definitive/finished.

…..

Radical skepticism is self-defeating because there’s no point avoiding error unless accuracy is real and actually matters. Blind dogmatism is self-defeating because “what is actually the case” is not the same as ideas and feelings about “what is actually the case” and so belief in a dogma without insight into the way in which it is True actually points you away from meaningful whole-being engagement with “what is actually the case” [regardless of how true the dogma is a dogma can never be “True”; dogmas can only be more or less “true”, though insight can show you the way and degree the dogma points towards what is True]. To avoid the extremes of blind doubt and blind faith, Something Deeperism seeks insight into “what is actually the case” with one’s thought-as-a-whole: the intellect and feelings need to contemplate “what is actually the case” (to notice that they need to relate to “w i a t c” and to consider how to best do that and how to best guard against misunderstanding “w i a t c”) and they can and should also keep working to sketch better and better descriptions of “what is actually the case”, but they must always remember that these sketches are not themselves “what is actually the case” and the process of growing in wisdom must continue, refreshed each moment, until the moment of death.

Everyone is already something of a Something Deeperist. We all realize that to the degree we lack insight into how life is actually meaningful, we cannot understand, believe in, or care about anything we think or do. (Even the most dogmatic skeptic must admit that there’s no way to know how to be a skeptic and no motivation for being one unless there’s something to one’s inner push for accuracy—unless in some sense avoiding error is actually attainable and worth pursuing.) And we all also realize that it is possible, tempting, and self-defeating to get so focused on ideas about why our lives matter that we miss out in engagement with that within that alone understands that and how our lives matter. (Even the most fundamental religious believer will agree that of course they are trying to follow not human ideas about God, but God; and that whenever human ideas and feelings get involved, there is some danger of spiritual misinterpretation and mistake, since, after all, human ideas and feelings are not perfect, but spiritual Truth is.) And we all know that to the degree a society sacrifices accuracy, honesty, kindness and shared joy for anything—including xyz religious or secular dogma—that society works against any meaningful philosophy, religion, or attitude.

Arguing for Something Deeperism is not so much arguing as gently reminding everyone that we all are already to some degree Something Deeperists, and we should remember that, remember that we are all basically the same and in this together, remember that pretending we are not alike enough for respectful communication and collaboration is a cruel lie that undermines us to the degree we countenance it.

We all have to keep pedaling, keep pushing for more real whole-being insight into the kind joy within that alone understands what this life is all about. We cannot never stop seeking for more clarity in thought and action, for more wisdom. We have to keep pedaling.

How great Something Deeperism is! Without it, you wander hopeless lost in meaninglessness. If you imagine you can have no meaningful relationship to the Truth, then you say things like “for all I know, I don’t know anything”, which makes no sense: insofar as you actually believe it, you don’t actually believe it. If, in the other extreme, you imagine that you know the Truth, that It is xyz dogmas that you memorize and live by, you mislabel the Truth—which is actually prior to ideas and feelings and therefore insofar as you equate It 1:1 with xyz idea—, and so you shift your focus away from an active engagement with the Truth and onto ideas that you clench with forced feelings of certainty which you can neither actually understand nor care about (and, anyway, what use is a dogma—even if it were somehow TRUE—if you don’t understand it?). And so how nicely Something Deeperism steps in! How nicely it tidies things up: there is a Truth and you have some insight into It and with clear and honest effort can get more insight into It, but as the Truth is obviously prior to ideas and feelings about It, you don’t need to worry about literally, definitively or exclusively understanding the Truth—indeed, if that’s what you think you are doing, then you are drifting into La La Land, and need to stop! and head back home, back to a whole-being insight into the Truth.]

This fun, informative article was written by Johnny Go Lightly, a terrible influence on his friends and family.

[Back to Intro of LaaRP]

Author & shame: BW
Editor & shame: AMW
Copyright & shame: AMW

Why Something Deeperism? Simple! It is not a self-defeating philosophy but its rivals are.

Why Something Deeperism? Simple! It is not a self-defeating philosophy but its rivals are.

[Something Deeperism Institute]

Some assumptions are undoubtable to human thought. To the degree a human doubts them, they doubt their own thought as they cannot help but understand it, and thus they doubt all their conclusions, and thus they doubt the attempted initial doubt. Those logoi are truly self-defeating!

Note: In the various Examples of Undoubtables below, words are sometimes set off in quotes to stress that we are here using language to point imperfectly (but not therefore necessarily inadequately) ultimately prior to ideas and feelings.

Examples of Undoubtables:
1. You are capable of “truly meaningful” thoughts and actions.
2. Your various aspects of conscious experience (ex: ideas, feelings, vaguer/wider/deeper senses-of-things) can relate meaningfully to one another.
3. Being true to your inner sense towards “aware”, “clear”, “honest”, “accurate”, “truer” and “better” is a viable way to meaningfully choose one thought/action over another.
4. “Truer” and “better” are not completely relative, but are ultimately grounded within endpoints: “Truth” and “Goodness”. (Otherwise “truer” and “better” meander with your whims, and you cannot decisively declare anyone ever wrong or right).
5. You can relate meaningfully to “Truth” and “Goodness”.

[Doubt any of these and you doubt your thought’s inborn procedures for discovering viable thought-/action-paths, and thus you doubt your own thinking as you cannot help but understand it; and so you doubt all your thoughts, and so you doubt the doubt that started all this …
That’s not to say the above examples point perfectly to what they’re referring to. Of course they don’t.
The point is that if you doubt away the inner senses-of-things those examples are pointing towards, you doubt away any workable thought/action process.
Don’t doubt them away: They are your only possible starting point for thoughts and actions that mean anything to you.
Granted: that is not sufficient reason to blindly believe in them. But more on that nuance below.]

[Note that 1-4 build the general system of mystical knowledge:
Rather than waiting for perfect intellectual knowledge of how one should really think and act, the mystic accepts the inner sense towards clarity, honesty, truer and better; and seeks a whole-being insight into an inner Light that alone knows that and in what sense it is True to say, “we are all in this together”.
(“whole-being insight: ideas, feelings, and the Light shining through all things [including each conscious moment] all relating meaningfully with one another, though—since we are finite and the Light, if It is to be the firm foundation for Truth and Goodness that we seek, must be infinite—not relating literally/1:1/definitively with one another.)
The mystic does not renounce intellectual and emotional clarity—without these our thoughts make no sense to themselves.
However, the mystic does put whole-being clarity of attitude and purpose ahead of intellectual knowledge:
We don’t strictly speaking have to know whether or not there is a Reality corresponding to xyz human notion of “Reality”. What we must know is how to think and act in a way that is truly better—that doesn’t just “seem better” to this or that person’s way of thinking and feeling. The danger of self-deceit, of confusing ideas and feelings for the “True Good” remains for self-conscious and purposeful spiritual seekers, as it does for everyone. But, as we just mentioned: more on this later.]

Another Undoubtable:
You and other people are fundamentally the same and can communicate meaningfully.

[If not, what becomes of your understanding of all you’ve learned by interacting with others and their works?
Also, if not, can you stand life? No: to the degree you disbelieve we are all fundamentally the same and able to relate to one another, life becomes absurdly stupid: and to that degree you cannot understand, believe in, or care about your own thinking/acting (See the chapter “How We Learn / Against All Talk of “Philosophical Zombies” in First Essays for more on this.)]

Some Final Examples:
“We are all in this together.”
“Loving Kindness is the Way. “
“Joyful sharing and collaborating is actually preferable.”
“We all can and should treat one another with respect and kindness.”
“What we say and do really does matter.”

[Doubt these fundamental rules of thumb, and you doubt away the only meaning of your life you can understand, care about, or believe in.
This is true of the previous undoubtables too, but the first and second category also lead to obvious logical and ethical (in the widest sense of what one should do, shorn of any a priori assumptions about what “truly preferable” is supposed to look like) paradoxes; while trying to doubt this final category of undoubtables leads only to obvious emotional/a-Reality-I-can-stand conundrums—at least that I easily perceive. I dunno: search yourself.]

To the degree an individual doubts the undoubtables, she doubts the meaningfulnes and viability of her own inborn thought-process/system-for-choosing-one-possibility-over-another; to this degree, she doubts all her thoughts, including her attempted doubts; to this degree she wanders in the meaningless chaos of thoughts she cannot understand, believe in, or care about; to this degree, she loses the ability to travel with her own thoughts to her own conclusions: she ghosts-away in boring, self-imposed confusions and hands the steering wheel of her thought over to animal caprices, which are often mean, stupid, and boring.

Naturally, an assumption’s procedural undoubtability doesn’t prove it either true or True.
And forcing yourself to believe something without adequately demonstrating its accuracy to yourself also breaks a fundamental rule of human thought and so leads to the abyss of self-confusion.
Furthermore, we are speaking here of fundamental notions experienced at a level deeper than ideas and feelings, which conceptual language therefore can never literally/definitively describe.
And we are seeking to ground our feeling/thinking/grounding an Absolute Truth, which our finite minds/hearts/bodies could never fully grasp.
Forcing yourself to believe the literal Truth of xyz undoubtable dogma will only result in tightly clutching an idea you don’t understand.

Forcing a feeling of certainty onto an idea you don’t even really fathom, let alone care about, is not at all the same as meaningfully relating your ideas and feelings to an undoubtable sense of things well enough that your ideas and feelings win real insight into the way in which that undoubtable sense is True (assuming it is True).
But that internal spiritual discovery is the prerequisite for you (you = your thought-as-a-whole = your combined conscious and unconscious experience) to understand, believe, care about, and meaningfully steer and journey-with your own thinking/acting.

Accordingly, Something Deeperism forbids doubting the undoubtables, but it also forbids forcing literal beliefs upon yourself. Instead, Something Deeperism suggests you work to better and better coordinate your ideas and feelings around that sense within that knows what and how life “actually matters”. It suggests you recognize that we of course need ideas to help us make decisions in human life, but ideas are only useful as provisional structures for gaining and living-out more and more whole-being insight into that and in what sense it is True to say, for example, “Love is Real”.

Blindly believing or disbelieving the undoubtables will just confuse us. Instead, Something Deeperism suggests accepting them provisionally as part of a whole-being (ideas, feelings and the Light within) effort to center ourselves around the Light within (whose Reality we again accept provisionally) that alone Knows that and in what sense we are all in this together.

The goal is to organize one’s feeling/thinking/acting around the Light well enough that one’s thought as a whole can grasp the “Truth” to the point that one’s feeling, thinking, speaking, and acting are essentially in accord with the “Truth”. Such a goal could never be fully realized (we are finite and the Truth infinite), but one could move more and more in the right direction, allowing for feeling/thinking/acting that was more and more meaningful to oneself / more and more “Beautiful/True/Good/Just/LovingKind”.

I say “provisionally”, but only half mean it:
Part of the motion of Something Deeperism is what we’ve spelled out above:
A results-demanding wager on the only path of thinking and acting that can mean something to human beings: An aware, honest, accurate, competent, kind, joyful, generous whole-being coordination of ideas and feelings around the perfect Light within that alone Knows what’s what, and that our imperfect ideas and feelings can relate to (imperfectly—but not therefore necessarily inadequately);
However, Something Deeperism is also about prioritizing what we know deeper and wider — if perhaps less intellectually capturably/provably — than our certainties and uncertainties:
That still, silent, uplifting YesILoveYou! from God to all of us, from all of us to God, and from all of us to one another.

Let’s choose our dogmas well. Let’s not choose dogmas that confuse our thought, such as “Nothing is True”, or “Nothing matters”, or “It is literally True that life matters and if you believe that you are right and otherwise wrong”. Let’s instead choose ideas that we can understand and work with, such as “I am going to keep working to gain more and more whole-being insight into in what way it is True that life matters”.

Let’s reject radical skepticism and dogmatic literalism for a constant whole being quest to better and better understand that and in what way it is basically True to say “We are all in this together and must treat everyone equally: with complete respect, love and unflinching kindness.” Let’s choose thought-/action-paths that allow for meaningful progress in thoughts and actions.

Author Lost to Time and Chance
Copyright: AMW

[This essay can be found in “A Readable Reader”, “First Loves: Vol 1 of Love at a Reasonable Rate” and “First Essays”. See Buy Our Books! for more.]

[Something Deeperism Institute]

Something Deeperism: A Quick Intro [FAILED]

Something Deeperism: A Quick Intro [FAILED]

Something Deeperism is a general intellectual position along the lines of:

“I can and should follow my own inner-pushes towards accuracy, honesty, Truth, Goodness, and Pure Love–guard-railing that seeking with my inner-sense that other people are essentially the same as I am, and that respect, kindness, self- and other-compassion, and open-minded/-hearted communal joy are Correct. In this way, I can make progress in life’s meaning: I can gain more and more active insight into what is really going on, what really matters, and how I should really live.

“What would make life worth living and justify choosing any action over another is one thing alone: the Joyful Sharing Love at the heart of the conscious moment. Therefore, I cannot perfectly translate what-is-most-important into ideas and feelings, as what-is-most-important is prior to ideas and feelings. However, imperfect is not the same as inadequate and I can neither relate to this human life without using ideas and feelings, nor can I understand, care about or believe in my thoughts and actions without adequate spiritual insight; therefore, I must find a way to show my whole self (ideas, feelings, inner senses, and the Light within that alone knows what is actually truly preferable: all those elements working together) not only that these principles (ie: every assumption I’m here making) are True, but also how they are True.

“And so the only way forward is to organize my ideas and feelings better and better around the Light within, keeping in mind that I must constantly fight against the human tendency to confuse ideas and feelings about the Light for the Light: I must never stop pushing for more awareness, honesty, joy, Love, kindness, shared joy: for more and more open-hearted/-minded seeking and sharing.”

Much of that mantra is poetic: it points past ideas and feelings towards what is prior to them. However, all worldviews have a poetic base. What actually matters to people are notions–spoken or unspoken, admitted or denied–about what is really going on, what actually matters, and how one should actually live. Whether we form the thought, and even if we form contradictory thoughts, we cannot help but base our lives on attempts to answer those questions. The only choice we have is whether we pull those questions out in the open, thus giving ourselves a chance to think and act coherently, or we hide from the questions by pretending we’ve already got them all figured out. We evade those fundamental questions by focussing on ideas and feelings about what we should believe and do (even the self-aware or -unaware choice of pursuing a blithe thoughtfulness is actually also an assumption about what one should believe and do) so much that we lose sight of the whole-being insight into the Truth/Light/PureLove/TrueGood/God/BuddhaNature (all these concepts point imperfectly but not therefore necessarily inadequately towards what we’re trying to get at here).

Human wisdom is a thing of degrees. We must keep working to see more clearly and act better.

That is the general attitude of Something Deeperism: To the degree I lack whole-being insight into that and how Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Justice, Respectful Helping Kindly Shared Joy are True, I cannot care about understand, believe in, or even care about my own thoughts and actions. So the only choice is to seek wisdom, and if that sense within towards clarity, honesty, accuracy and kindness of thought is not the way towards wisdom, I have no path towards wisdom that I can understand, believe in, or even care about. So the only choice is to accept the spiritual calling, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and strength and mind, and your neighbor–who is just like you and thus also belongs to God–as yourself. The only possible way forward is to get serious about awareness, honesty, kindness.

What about for groups? Well, we all have different ideas about what is True and what Matters, and what doctrines one requires to adequately align oneself with what’s knowable and preferable, but can we not all agree that we are all in this together and that all of our philosophies and religions are only valuable to the degree they ratify and provide a structure for living those values without which none of us can stand life? Can we not all agree on accuracy, honesty, compassion, respect, kindness, rule of law as nourished by a free people freely seeking the Law? Can we not all agree that forcing beliefs onto people is corrupting because it tempts people to lie to themselves and others about their experiences of what is most sacred to them? But can we also not all agree that we still all must and in fact do share some fundamental spiritual values: “It matters what I say and do”, “Aware, clear, honest, accurate thought is the way forward”, “kindness is right”, “we are all in this together and so should be respectful of and kind towards one another and we should appreciate each other and share community and enjoy each other’s company”. Things like that. Things without which we have nothing: let’s accept them and admit we don’t perfectly understand them and that it is a stupid and cruel distortion to pretend like our fellows do not have the same basic rights and duties imprinted within their hearts-of-hearts.

Author: Spelunker Stewart
Copyright: AMW