Art of Life (the start of main enquiry)

So the two questions posed in this blog are :

1) What is life? - which seeks to determine the special qualities of life and what makes life. Like for example: What is music? These questions I will deal with when the threat of question 2 goes quite for a bit.

2) The Art of Life - which would be the skill to craft a good life. How to be a good musician.

The Art of Life is what they talk about in religions. It is variously: The Logos (pre-Socratic Greeks), Virtue/The Good (Socratic Greeks), The Word - Logos (Christianity), Dharma/Dhamma (Hinduism/Buddhism), Dao (Chinese religions esp. Taoism) etc.

The idea is that a life lived with knowledge of the Art of Life is more living than one which lacks such skill. In its worst case people might be viewed as dead or unawake without such knowledge. Life comes in grades it seems, there is an objective judgement.

Key points of the a well lived Life are that it did not cause suffering to others, and generally treated others with respect and consideration. This is universal. It can be generalised that a well lived life was beneficial and harmonious with the whole world around.

The various teachers of the Art of Life agree that it is very subtle and hard to attain a good skill at Life, and humility in the face of that great difficulty is essential. It would be like learning the violin - to be the best we have to constantly aim higher and not expect it to be easy. What makes a master violin player different from his pupils is impossible to express in any other way than to show them and correct the subtle nuances of play in practice.

Practice is the key point of the Art of Life. It must be learned the hard way through trial and error, rejection and perseverance and hard work. Lectures on the Way are essential to get us started and to correct our practice, but they cannot actually impart the "know how" (connaitre in french) that comes from practice.

Inner contemplation of ones weaknesses combined with a genuine desire to improve ones skill at life is essential also to ensure that grow is fixed and maintained.

Being Alive then is quite like a "test" as many religious people do believe, there is an objective judgement. The test is to find the objective Goodness that separates the fully living and enriched Life from the dead Life and to inspire others to find it too.

There is no ontology (belief in what exists) in this account of the Art of Life beyond the notion that there is an objective Good. Many people would drop the 'o' and call it God, others have other ideas - I'm not going to speculate. The point is that we find the Goodness by any means.

Life by this account is about emmersion in our experiences and our lives with the aim of enriching them by doing what is Good, improving our skill at doing this and aiming for a day when we can play our Life like a violin virtuoso to bring about the best in the world around us.