The most important example is that of war. Imagine how simple this life would be if we weren't constantly beating people up, and then having them beat us up also. At the end of it nothing ever changes and after people give up hitting each other over the head then life continues as before. The biological reason for this is "competition for resources" and there is an unfortunate bi-product of reproduction that population growth leads to increased competition which affects individuals differently and so selects (to some extent) their transferable characters which leads to drift in population character. It is however a drift in "character" and not in "identity". Tomorrows population may have 100 people in it of which none are "my" children, or of which some are my children. There is actually no difference because "my" children don't inherit any of the "myness" they only inherit my characteristics but they are no more "me" than your children...
That is unless I wish to define my "identity" in terms of my characteristics in which case an identical copy of me is the same identity as me. Now in Dawkins terms this is true. If we were to make a genetically identical copy of Richard Dawkins and him and his copy in a crashing plane with only one parachute then they would have to toss a coin to find out who lived because it makes no difference to them. For normal people however we have a problem because it is not the facts of our character we are trying to preserve but "ourselves". If I die and my copy lives that is a very different event, to if my copy dies and I live. Most importantly I get to parachute to safety, mourn the loss of my copy, get home and tell everyone what happened; if I die with the plane that is it - game over.
SO this is the crux of life, death, reproduction, personality, self and existence. We have the teaching that actually but Richard Dawkins and I are wrong (and me more so) because the truth is that it makes no difference who takes the parachute: even if we were completely different people. Given that it makes no difference the standard solution is to offer the parachute to the other person this way the person who lives knows without doubt that the person who died wanted that. It also proves that the person who died understood that it didn't matter. This could be taken to undermine the value of life (as some pointless suicide) so it is important to understand that this choice only makes sense in the situation where only one can live. If we take the parachute for ourselves then we never know whether the person who died accepted their fate, but it also means that we didn't accept the situation. We have simply avoided the situation by taking the parachute and continuing as if everything was all right. For such a person the only situation where they can approach death is where there are no parachutes (either their opponent took it or there never was one). Such a person thus rejects choice and therefore freedom!
Returning to the main thread at the top: much of the struggles of life are created by an unfortunate by product of reproduction. Without competition for resources we would have a very much easier life. Another example apart from war was my last job where I made a coating for medical equipment used in heart operations. Most of these operations arise because of unhealthy life styles created by the very food and motor industries that people spend their time working for. It is depressing to realise that the work you get paid for is simply pasting over the cracks of the work someone else has been paid for. It really is no better than the hamster running in its wheel.
But to take this argument to its final conclusion, what about a planet of bare rock. There is no work to do here at all. Work only ever arises because of people. All the work we do is because of people. It is therefore slightly erroneous to seek work that has an absolute meaning. We may work in the Red-Cross and heal people who have only been injured by the actions of other people that we are fighting. We may work in hospitals healing people who are only unwell because of the food or drink they have been sold by someone else. Yet we are always only ever addressing the issues made by other people.
My life has been organised about the principle that I am as least work for myself as possible. This is where Buddhism is so important. To be happy with little makes life very much easier. If a single apple makes me satisfied then I don't need to deal with the complex problem of getting hold of truffles or caviar. But it is a double blessing because I don't need to involve other people in the problem of getting hold of truffles or caviar. So well mastered individuals not only make their own lives easy but they make the lives of those around them easy.
But this doesn't work in reality because most people cannot be easy. In particular I have noticed (and blogger recently) women can't be easy. Women are always scheming, changing and working towards things. I suggest it is part of the "nesting instinct" where they feel the impulse to create homes that the maternal instinct will then want to fill with children. It means that they are never easy having these very strong, and poorly understood, impulses. These impulses are also extremely complicated and difficult to satisfy. In men I suggest it is a bit simpler - we have impulses for sex, and dominance. Desiring women and dominance (which is implied by having women) is enough to enslave us to their impulses. As a result people are never easy and this means they can certainly never be happy.
But I must (and this is the point of this blog) never take this argument too far because without people at all then everything goes. If people didn't reproduce then in one generation there would be no problems for anyone, but then there would be no people to be easy either. Like the equation 0/0 we have eliminated both the numerator and the denominator at the same time and so have no answer still!
The equation for peace is much more sophisticated and Dialectical than simply eliminating difficulty. I need to eat, sleep and various other "troubles" that I make myself... and in so doing I make them for other people because I can't eat that apple unless someone drives it to me, someone picks it, and someone plants it and keeps it free from predators and thieves until I eat it. So inevitably I make troubles for other people, and I am engaged in working for their troubles also.
The middle ground must be in "harmony". The war industry is probably the second largest in the world after the health industry. War is not a complete waste of time. There are times when certain groups simply refuse to be harmonious or dialectical and inevitably an escalation of power will occur. My personal view is to walk way and let the ignorant fight, but I must understand that where a lot has been invested (say in a hospital or government) it is not so easy to walk away and conflict will occur. This will make work for both the war industry and the health industry. The point for me to contemplate this year is not so much how to stop causing trouble for other people (mastering desires and minimising life's requirements), but instead to find a way to assist as many people in their goals as I can thus choosing to become a node in the place where my own actions and existence is "harmonised" with the environment I find myself.
This seems to be a step above the simple view of minimising ones needs and in so doing reducing the load on other people. Rather it is the seeking modes of behaviour which link my activities with those around me to maximise their effectiveness. So it is not a matter of stopping the war machine and the health machine, but rather find a mode of action for myself where I improve the goals of both.
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