What is Something Deeperism?
A Quick Intro To Something Deeperism
1) Basic Definition: There is a Truth (aka: Light; God; True Good; etc — we’re pointing with words imperfectly but not therefore necessarily inadequately towards a shared vista). The Truth shines through each conscious moment. The path of wisdom is relating the rest of our conscious moments (ideas, feelings, etc, all working together) better and better around the Truth so that there is less and less gap between the Truth and our words and deeds. In this way the Truth guides our thought-as-a-whole (feelings, ideas, awareness, and the Truth shining through all things, all working imperfectly but still meaningfully together) better and better, allowing us to translate the Truth better and better into words and deeds.
The path towards wisdom is the seed of wisdom: By following our inner push towards aware, clear, accurate, competent, honest, compassionate, kind, joyfully-together thinking and acting, centered around the Light within ourselves and everyone else; our ideas and feeling get better and better at following and understanding the Light; allowing the Light to guide our thought-as-a-whole to more and more aware .. joyfully-together thinking and acting.
We don’t start out with only what feels like inkling of the Truth. And the Truth would have to be deeper and wider than our (oh so human!) ideas and feelings, so we can never have literal / definitive / 1:1 / exclusive insight into the Truth. However, we cannot have literal certainty about anything; and we wouldn’t be able to understand, care about, or follow literal certainty anyway. And, as far as we know, we can do as the mystics suggest: via meditation, prayer, contemplation, and loving kindness practice; we can think and act more and more aware, clear, honest, competent, kind, and joyfully together; gaining more and more insight into that and in what way it is True to say “we are all in this together”.
We can’t have literal insight into the Truth. But that does not mean we cannot have an adequate whole-being insight into the Truth. Such an insight would allow our emotional and intellectual ideas to point adequately well towards the Truth. And it is such an adequate whole-being pointing-towards what is really going on and what really matters that our intellectual thought requires if it is to know how it should be used, and what it should be used in service of.
Ideas and feelings know they are limited. They know they should not run the show alone. Pursuing wisdom is pursuing adequate insight into foundational values that allow ideas and feelings to function adequately well and with adequately clear consciences.
We should seek a better and better organization of ideas and feelings around the Light within that alone Knows what’s Best. But ideas and feelings are notoriously limited; so we’ll never get it perfect: we need to keep reassessing, admitting errors, trying again, pushing out from within, pushing for less and less gap between the Light outside our thinking/feeling/perceiving and the Light within our thinking/feeling/perceiving.
2) Basic Argument for Adopting and Relentlessly Pursuing Truth, and Bounding that Pursuit with the Assumption that the Truth Ratifies Goods Like Awareness, Honesty, Kindness … : No human’s thoughts and actions can mean anything much to him or her unless the following requirements are met:
(a) the Truth is real (ie: some ways are truly more preferable than others)
(b) one’s thought-as-a-whole relate meaningfully to the Truth (ie: something along the lines of the following: one’s ideas, feelings and the Truth shining through all things can work together and understand each other adequately);
(c) Truth is infinitely aware, clear, honest, competent, kind and good and helpful; and is here equally for everyone. And we can grow in our understanding of the Truth by following our own inborn sense towards aware … helpful thinking and acting; reaching always for more insight and compassion by seeking always to be more and more centered around and aware of the Truth within and shining through all things.
The state of affairs (a-c) is the bare minimum required for a human being to be able to truly understand, care about, and believe in his or her own ideas and feelings. Of course we cannot have literal knowledge about such things, but we could work to gain more and more whole-being insight into that and in what sense (a-c) are essentially True.
Note that you don’t necessarily have to accept the metaphysics of (a-c) to follow, understand, or care about your own thoughts and actions. You have to gain the whole-being insight towards which (a-c) imperfectly, but not therefore necessarily inadequately points. You can play skeptic and doubt the existence of a Truth without particularly undermining your own thinking/acting; just as you can play believer while still drastically undermining your own thinking/acting. Wisdom is a whole-being insight into the Light within. To be coherent (for your own thoughts and actions to be meaningful to you), what you need is to find whole-being insight into that and in what sense (a-c) are essentially True. That is not going to be a literal insight.
So why bother with Something Deeperism? If success in Something Deeperism is not the same as agreeing to the ideas of Something Deeperism, why pursue a philosophy of Something Deeperism? Better ideas help to orientate one’s thought-as-a-whole better towards what’s really going on and what really matters, which in turn helps one gain more whole-being insight into that and in what way it is True to say we are all in this together. To the degree we lack whole-being insight into that sense of things, we cannot believe in, understand, or care about anything we think or do.
Intellectual thoughts are a really big part of how we relate to ourselves, other people and this life. So we want to choose ideas that point us more towards our real situation. That way, we are in a better position to gain whole-being-insight into the Truth, and that insight can flow more easily/naturally out into our ideas.
So, Yes: It is true that of course ideas without insight are not worth much, and it is very possible to be more or less wise than one’s ideas. Nonetheless, part of growing in wisdom is working always to replace worse sketches of what is really going on and what really matters with better sketches of what is really going on and what really matters. Hence the usefulness of philosophy, religion, and wisdom practices; and hence the usefulness of Something Deeperism, which is basically just a gentle (but persistent) reminder that there’s no point in either skepticism and faith unless they are helping us to gain more insight into the Light within that alone knows what’s really going on and what really matters (and that therefore alone knows that and in what sense false beliefs should be avoided [the raison d’etre of skepticisms] and true beliefs should be adopted [the raison d’etre of faiths]).
Furthermore, a philosophy of Something Deeperism can help groups recognize and make use of all the common ground their members have. Something Deeperism helps us to realize that none of our philosophies make sense to any of us in the absence of insight into and use of aware … helpful thinking and acting. And so Something Deeperism keeps us all on the same page: Whatever our differences, we can all agree on aware … helpful thinking and acting, and on the need for us all to seek wisdom; and to agree that wisdom is honest and kind, not dishonest and cruel; and to agree that it is counterproductive to pretend wisdom can fit into a literal set of metaphysical, political, and/or philosophical ideas. All this implies a shared starting point: a place of clarity we can refuse to abandon: we will disagree on much, but should we not agree on (no matter what! for if we sacrifice this, we sacrifice the only coherency any of us could have) awareness, honesty, clarity, competency, accuracy, kindness, and shared joy; all bound up in a respect for wisdom and for our different vantages on what surpasses all human feelings and thoughts????
3) Basic Argument for Seeking a Relationship with the Truth that is Founded Primarily on Direct Whole-Being Experience of the Truth, and for Always Push-ing Against the Human Tendency to Shift One’s Focus onto Ideas and Feelings about the Truth: Putting more focus on ideas and feelings about the Truth than on the Truth Itself is a grave and a common error. The Truth is not ideas and/or feelings about what is really going on, but what is really going on itself; the way forward is to relate ideas and feelings to the Truth more and more meaningfully — a process that self-defeats to the degree we confuse ideas/feelings with the Truth. When you put too much stock in ideas and/or feelings about the Truth, your focus turns away from a whole-being coordination around the Truth and you confuse and frustrate yourself by more and more pathetically/desperately clutching ideas and feelings that (since they claim a clarity and certainty you deepdown know they don’t have) are ultimately meaningless to you.
[Note that notions of “there is no Truth” combined with feelings of “I’ve got the Truth” are just as guilty of the above-sketched error as are notions of “I know the Truth” combined with feelings of “I’ve got the Truth”.]
[Note that we need some principles to help us navigate human life, since ideas are necessary for interacting with this world and our own thoughts, and without any firm principles, you spend every second trying to build up to a coherent philosophy from scratch. The principles of Something Deeperism should be adopted, just not grasped too tightly. They know they are mere ideas and are therefore like evolving, never-quite-adequate ladders towards whole-being insight (ideas, feels, etc centered around the Light/Truth) into the Truth. The idea is to create a ladder that we can see fits adequately well with our inner moment; and then work to travel deeper and deeper into the Truth via that ladder, which will allow the Truth to explicate Itself to our thought-as-a-whole better and better, allowing us to understand better and better in what sense any given ladder is adequate and inadequate.]
[Note that we are all already Something Deeperists. We all already know we need insight into why it is TRUE that we are all in this together in order to believe in, care about, or understand our own thinking or acting; but we also know that we will never have literal insight into such a TRUTH, and that confusing ideas about the TRUTH with the TRUTH creates a great deal of trouble. Something Deeperism is not here to reject or contradict your philosophy or religion. It is here to work with all of us to help us all remember what our philosophies and religions are for: they are there to help us to understand that and in what way it is TRUE to say we are all in this together and should be kind and respectful towards one another, and happy together, enjoying each other’s company.]
AMW and BW, copyright AMW, although everybody knows this so why does he try to own it???
A Quick Intro To Something Deeperism
1) Basic Definition: There is a Truth (aka: Light; God; True Good; etc — we’re pointing with words imperfectly but not therefore necessarily inadequately towards a shared vista). The Truth shines through each conscious moment. The path of wisdom is relating the rest of our conscious moments (ideas, feelings, etc, all working together) better and better around the Truth so that there is less and less gap between the Truth and our words and deeds. In this way the Truth guides our thought-as-a-whole (feelings, ideas, awareness, and the Truth shining through all things, all working imperfectly but still meaningfully together) better and better, allowing us to translate the Truth better and better into words and deeds.
The path towards wisdom is the seed of wisdom: By following our inner push towards aware, clear, accurate, competent, honest, compassionate, kind, joyfully-together thinking and acting, centered around the Light within ourselves and everyone else; our ideas and feeling get better and better at following and understanding the Light; allowing the Light to guide our thought-as-a-whole to more and more aware .. joyfully-together thinking and acting.
We start out with only what seems to be an inkling of the Truth. And the Truth would have to be deeper and wider than our (oh so human!) ideas and feelings. So we can never have literal / definitive / 1:1 / exclusive insight into the Truth. However, we cannot have literal certainty about anything; and we wouldn’t be able to understand, care about, or follow literal certainty anyway. And, as far as we know, we can do as the mystics suggest: via meditation, prayer, contemplation, and loving kindness practice; we can think and act more and more aware, clear, honest, competent, kind, and joyfully together; gaining more and more insight into that and in what way it is True to say “we are all in this together”.
We can’t have literal insight into the Truth. But that does not mean we cannot have an adequate whole-being insight into the Truth. Such an insight would allow our emotional and intellectual ideas to point adequately well towards the Truth. And it is such an adequate whole-being pointing-towards what is really going on and what really matters that our intellectual thought requires if it is to know how it should be used, and what it should be used in service of.
Ideas and feelings know they are limited. They know they should not run the show alone. Pursuing wisdom is pursuing adequate insight into foundational values that allow ideas and feelings to function adequately well and with adequately clear consciences.
We should seek a better and better whole-being organization around the Truth within. But we’ll never get it perfect (for it to be an adequate standard of thought and action, the Truth would have to be perfect; and we are not perfect): We need to keep reassessing, admitting and adjusting missteps, trying again, pushing out from within, pushing for less and less gap between the Light outside our thinking/feeling/perceiving and the Light within.
2) Basic Argument for Adopting and Relentlessly Pursuing Truth, and Bounding that Pursuit with the Assumption that the Truth Ratifies Goods Like Awareness, Honesty, Kindness … : No human’s thoughts and actions can mean anything much to him or her unless the following requirements are met:
(a) the Truth is real (ie: some ways are truly more preferable than others)
(b) one’s thought-as-a-whole can relate meaningfully to the Truth (ie: something along the lines of the following: one’s ideas, feelings and the Truth shining through all things can work together and understand each other adequately);
(c) Truth is infinitely aware, clear, honest, competent, kind, good, joyfully caring/sharing and helpful; and is here equally for everyone. And we can grow in our understanding of the Truth in the way we sense we can: by following our own inborn sense towards aware … helpful thinking and acting, reaching always for more insight and compassion by seeking always to be more and more centered around and aware of the Truth within and shining through all things.
The state of affairs (a-c) is the bare minimum required for a human being to be able to truly understand, care about, and believe in his or her own ideas and feelings. Of course we cannot have literal knowledge about such things, but we can work to gain more and more whole-being insight into that and in what sense (a-c) are essentially True.
[The topic of undoubtables is covered in more detail in “Why Something Deeperism? Simple!” (the next essay in the book).
But let’s discuss (c) real quick:
If our inner senses towards clarity, honesty, accuracy, and competency cannot lead us to genuine insight; we have no intellectual path towards genuine insight that we can intellectually or emotionally understand or make use of. If our inner senses towards kindness and joyful compassionate generous and grateful togetherness cannot lead us to genuine insight; we have no emotional path towards genuine insight that we can understand, or even stand. We can only gain meaningful-to-us insights into what’s really going on and what really matters if to the degree we can gain insight into that and in what way (c) is essentially correct about the nature of Reality and our relationship to It.]
3) Basic Argument for Seeking a Relationship with the Truth that is Founded Primarily on Direct Whole-Being Experience of the Truth, and for Always Pushing Against the Human Tendency to Shift One’s Focus onto Ideas and Feelings about the Truth: Putting more focus on ideas and feelings about the Truth than on the Truth Itself is a grave and a common error. The Truth is not ideas and/or feelings about what is really going on, but what is really going on itself. The way forward is to relate ideas and feelings to the Truth more and more meaningfully — a process that self-defeats to the degree we confuse ideas/feelings with the Truth. When you put too much stock in ideas and/or feelings about the Truth, your focus turns away from a whole-being coordination around the Truth and you confuse and frustrate yourself by more and more pathetically/desperately clutching ideas and feelings that (since they claim a clarity and certainty you deepdown know they don’t have) are ultimately meaningless to you.
[Note that notions of “there is no Truth” combined with feelings of “I’ve got the Truth” are just as guilty of the above-sketched error as are notions of “I know the Truth” combined with feelings of “I’ve got the Truth”.]
We could not understand, believe in, or care about literal ideas about Reality (our ideas and feelings know they can have no literal purchase on Reality). The goal is, rather, a whole-being organization around the Truth within, allowing our ideas and feelings to flow out into the world adequately in tune with the Truth. The goal is to live in and through and for the Light that Knows that and in what way it is True to say “we are all children of the Light and must be kind to grateful for ourselves and each other.”
[Note that we need some principles to help us navigate human life, since ideas are necessary for interacting with this world and our own thoughts, and without any firm principles you spend every second trying to build up to a coherent philosophy from scratch. The principles of Something Deeperism should be adopted — just not clenched too tightly. Our principles are mere ideas and are therefore at best evolving, never-quite-adequate ladders towards whole-being insight into the Truth (ie: ideas, feels, etc centered around and adequately understanding and following the Light/Truth). The goal is to create an idea-ladder that fits adequately well with our inner moment; and to travel deeper and deeper into the Truth with the help of that ladder — which adventure (to the degree it is successful) will allow the Truth to explicate Itself to our thought-as-a-whole better and better, allowing us to understand better and better in what sense any given ladder is adequate and inadequate.]
[Note that we are all already Something Deeperists. We all already know we need insight into why it is TRUE that we are all in this together in order to believe in, care about, or understand our own thinking or acting; but we also know that we will never have literal insight into such a TRUTH, and that confusing ideas about the TRUTH with the TRUTH creates a great deal of trouble. Something Deeperism is not here to reject or contradict our philosophies or religions, except to the degree they cause us to self-defeat. By explicitly stating and discussing Something Deeperism we seek only to remind us what our philosophies and religions are for: to help us to understand that and in what way it is TRUE to say we are all in this together and should be kind and respectful towards one another, and happy together, enjoying each other’s company while we work together to grow in wisdom and make things better for everyone.]
4) Something Deeperism is helpful in group settings: A philosophy of Something Deeperism can help groups recognize and make use of all the common ground their members have. Something Deeperism points out that none of our philosophies make sense to any of us in the absence of insight into and use of aware, clear, honest, competent, kind, joyfully-sharing, truly-helpful thinking and acting. And so Something Deeperism keeps us all on the same page: Whatever our differences, we can all agree on aware … helpful thinking and acting, and on the need for us all to seek wisdom. And we can all agree that wisdom is honest and kind, not dishonest and cruel; and that it is counterproductive to pretend wisdom can fit into a literal set of metaphysical, political, and/or philosophical ideas. All this agreeing implies a shared space: a place of clarity we can together inhabit and defend. We will disagree on much, but we can and should agree on (no matter what! for if we sacrifice this, we sacrifice the only coherency any of us could have) awareness, honesty, clarity, competency, accuracy, kindness, and shared joy; all bound up in a respect for wisdom and the Light that makes wisdom possible. Without these standards, all humans self-defeat; it is therefore sensible for groups to adopt them and work together to better understand them and abide by them.
AMW and BW, copyright AMW, although everybody knows this so why does he try to own it???