The Proving Grounds

Summary: What are the elements of our lives? Philosophers of the past have uncovered the Master-slave Dialectic, the Will to Power and others. But another aspect which I seek to reveal here is what I call The Proving Grounds. This is a metaphor to describe just one component of our everyday lives. This precise` seeks to uncover the objective truth of our desire to prove ourselves, how it has come to be (in society and in our very nature), and how it can be reconciled as a useful and empowering tool in each of our own lives.

·1·
(Objective Definition)

There are a multitude of things in life that we should come to understand, even if they upset us or make us feel less than content with our existence. It serves no one to banish the truth, or to hide the enlightenment that philosophy holds in store for us. Here again, I seek to uncover a truth which some may feel resistent of. I call this truth The Proving Grounds.

Each and everyday of our lives, we awake and we go out into the world, disturbing what is otherwise a steady river that would easily flow with or without our existence in it. It is no doubt that in the grand scheme of things, the Universe does not notice us for who we are or what we are. To the Universe, we are sparks and dust. But to care what the Universe thinks, or to even imagine that the Universe can "care," is a fault in its own right. That is because we're not here to prove ourselves to the Universe, we are here to prove it to ourselves and to each other. It is not a new concept to try and prove oneself to oneself, it's what we tell each other, it's what we tell our friends, our children and we reinforce it by telling it back onto ourselves. We have often accompanied the notion of self proving by showing disdain for other's opinion, but I would like to suppose that the radical disposal of other's opinion is a mistake, and is against our subconscious at any rate. One of our most powerful abilities as sentient creatures is that we can consciously control our emotions, our feelings and our actions. We can choose to not care about other's opinions, but only while we're conscious of it. Once that focus has been lost, everyone defaults back to their instincts, and since we are inheriently a society oriented creature, one of our instincts is to care about what the other members of our society think. What they think about us, what they think about themselves and what they think about our society.

·2·
(Identify the Proving Grounds through historic examples)

·3·
(How each of us should treat the Proving Grounds)

-- Future excerpts (in no particular order)
A place is just a place. It is the people who make that place something special, something real and meaningful to each of us.

We must prove ourselves, not only inward, but outward too. If it were not for the external, we would truly be alone in each of our worlds, and all of us would eventually fall into the abyss.

-- THIS POST IS INCOMPLETE --