Post by Admin on Mar 2, 2022 5:06:59 GMT
Chapter 23 - Refiner's Fire
Job is not afraid to defend himself against God in court.
He trusts that he will become refined into gold by these trials (Job 23:10).
He fears God has many more plans to try him.
*True Love*
I view the measure of true love as the degree to which you are willing to sacrifice for the object of your love. Small measurements of love could be the sacrifice of time and money. Larger sacrifices would be your health or opportunities. The greatest sacrifices are when you are willing to die or even suffer on behalf of the thing that you love.
*Refined into Gold*
Suffering can test the limits of our moral capacities - the limits of what we are willing to endure for that which we love. This seems to be a mentally purifying process - a process that helps us zero in on what exactly is most important, that which is of transcendent importance to us. Ideas like justice, unity, peace, and love can be ideas of transcendent importance that we are willing to orient our lives towards promoting. The ideas that we are willing to suffer for, therefore are ideas that contain transcendent value to us. They are transcendent because they occupy the space of value that transcends our selfish interests - that which we are willing to sacrifice our selfish interests for. They are the ideas that we love.
*Love Provides Meaning*
If you can orient your life to be in service of that which you love, you will derive deep meaning and satisfaction in that pursuit. Jordan Peterson often echos a common philosophic trope that affirms the importance of our human need to find a meaning in our lives that can justify our suffering.
*Need Meaning to Overcome Suffering*
This philosophic principle is subtly implying that the greater your suffering, the greater the meaning you need to find in your life. Perhaps meaning in a relationship with one person is not enough meaning to stave off certain types of suffering. Perhaps having a family provides a greater amount of meaning. But as suffering approaches infinity, the meaning must grow larger, even to exceed the meaning associated with just one family. Eventually you need to have a goal of serving all of mankind. Only a goal that large can justify suffering that approaches the human limit. Coincidentally or not, that is the story of Jesus - the one who suffered the most was able to endure it by dedicating that suffering to all of mankind. Friedrich Nietzsche was the one who succinctly stated it as - 'He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.'
*Evolutionary Meaning*
Our brains are wired to have at least two meaning cortexes revolving around selfless meaning (eudemonic self-transcending meaning) and selfish meaning (hedonistic self-enhancing meaning). The reward centers of the brain are constantly trying to evaluate which is more important, taking care of yourself or taking care of others. Because evolution designed us to be pro-social, we can derive deep feelings of satisfaction when we try to make the world a better place for others. By orienting ourselves properly, we can maximize the rewards produced by our brains, and therefore have a type of satisfaction that offsets the suffering in our lives. By developing pro-social reward systems, human societies can be more cooperative and therefore more evolutionarily powerful.
*Evolutionary Lessons*
A common theme in religious mythology seems to be the idea that trials in life are a mere test or lesson from the heavens. This meme seems especially useful in evolutionary terms. Not only does it reframe our suffering to make it more psychologically endurable, it also motivates us to look for the lesson that we can learn in order to avoid future suffering. If suffering motivates us to be nihilistic, we might lose attentiveness towards what can be learned from the experience. A theistic mindset might orient our brains towards finding the lessons hidden in our circumstance and arrive at solutions to our problems. The downside of the theistic mindset is that they might falsely attribute the cause of their circumstance to unrelated things - like subtle behaviors that offended God prior to the trial, but in reality had no causal connection to the misfortune.
NEXT: Chapter 24 - Justice eventually comes
Job is not afraid to defend himself against God in court.
He trusts that he will become refined into gold by these trials (Job 23:10).
He fears God has many more plans to try him.
*True Love*
I view the measure of true love as the degree to which you are willing to sacrifice for the object of your love. Small measurements of love could be the sacrifice of time and money. Larger sacrifices would be your health or opportunities. The greatest sacrifices are when you are willing to die or even suffer on behalf of the thing that you love.
*Refined into Gold*
Suffering can test the limits of our moral capacities - the limits of what we are willing to endure for that which we love. This seems to be a mentally purifying process - a process that helps us zero in on what exactly is most important, that which is of transcendent importance to us. Ideas like justice, unity, peace, and love can be ideas of transcendent importance that we are willing to orient our lives towards promoting. The ideas that we are willing to suffer for, therefore are ideas that contain transcendent value to us. They are transcendent because they occupy the space of value that transcends our selfish interests - that which we are willing to sacrifice our selfish interests for. They are the ideas that we love.
*Love Provides Meaning*
If you can orient your life to be in service of that which you love, you will derive deep meaning and satisfaction in that pursuit. Jordan Peterson often echos a common philosophic trope that affirms the importance of our human need to find a meaning in our lives that can justify our suffering.
*Need Meaning to Overcome Suffering*
This philosophic principle is subtly implying that the greater your suffering, the greater the meaning you need to find in your life. Perhaps meaning in a relationship with one person is not enough meaning to stave off certain types of suffering. Perhaps having a family provides a greater amount of meaning. But as suffering approaches infinity, the meaning must grow larger, even to exceed the meaning associated with just one family. Eventually you need to have a goal of serving all of mankind. Only a goal that large can justify suffering that approaches the human limit. Coincidentally or not, that is the story of Jesus - the one who suffered the most was able to endure it by dedicating that suffering to all of mankind. Friedrich Nietzsche was the one who succinctly stated it as - 'He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.'
*Evolutionary Meaning*
Our brains are wired to have at least two meaning cortexes revolving around selfless meaning (eudemonic self-transcending meaning) and selfish meaning (hedonistic self-enhancing meaning). The reward centers of the brain are constantly trying to evaluate which is more important, taking care of yourself or taking care of others. Because evolution designed us to be pro-social, we can derive deep feelings of satisfaction when we try to make the world a better place for others. By orienting ourselves properly, we can maximize the rewards produced by our brains, and therefore have a type of satisfaction that offsets the suffering in our lives. By developing pro-social reward systems, human societies can be more cooperative and therefore more evolutionarily powerful.
*Evolutionary Lessons*
A common theme in religious mythology seems to be the idea that trials in life are a mere test or lesson from the heavens. This meme seems especially useful in evolutionary terms. Not only does it reframe our suffering to make it more psychologically endurable, it also motivates us to look for the lesson that we can learn in order to avoid future suffering. If suffering motivates us to be nihilistic, we might lose attentiveness towards what can be learned from the experience. A theistic mindset might orient our brains towards finding the lessons hidden in our circumstance and arrive at solutions to our problems. The downside of the theistic mindset is that they might falsely attribute the cause of their circumstance to unrelated things - like subtle behaviors that offended God prior to the trial, but in reality had no causal connection to the misfortune.
NEXT: Chapter 24 - Justice eventually comes
