OK, I had decided on my new year resolution, and we are already into mid-Jan, however I am still in a reflective mood.
I wonder if this is because of the Sun is currently transiting through my 12th house hence teaching me to withdraw and recuperate in order to regain momentum. Please ignore if you think this is astrology nonsense, and maybe you are right. Astrology should be utilised in finding justifications and meanings into things that are not apparent or evident on the surface, and it can be great assistance for realising a healthy perspective. But it should not be abused or misused, and I remind myself of this. Delving too deep into it or intellectualising too much of it instead can only distract ourselves from the actual experience, and the meanings to the experience. This then defeats its original purpose and intentions. So like most things, it is about balance, isn't it?
One of the lessons I had to contend with last year was discerning the right balance between the inner reality and the outer reality.
The action of internalising ideas, thoughts and emotion is an important process to the inner evolvement which precipitates growth, strengthening the conviction and confidence in oneself against any adversity that appears to come from the external. However, overly emphasising inner experience with disregard to the outer world only encourages one to perpetuate in the realm of imagination. This denies one from facing the physical reality, eventually the delusion will catch up to result in disappointment and discontentment.
On the other side, our physical senses provide a basis for human connections and understanding with minimal individual disposition, and this experience of the outer phenomenon in return triggers various forms and shapes of ideas, thoughts and emotions in the individual.
Neither is one more important than the other, and nor is one separate from the other.
Speaking of this reminds me of the one thing that had evoked me with a profound resonance after reading Sophie's World very long ago. At the time, without in-depth comprehension, I was already puzzled by this seemingly contradictory view on reality imparted by the two great thinkers, Plato and Aristotle. Plato believed the ultimate reality resides in the mind, ideal and reasoning power, sensory observation of the ever-changing world of phenomena only alludes to an implication of the reality, rather than the reality itself. Hence he said
"When the mind's eye rests on objects illuminated by truth and reality, it understands and comprehends them, and functions intelligently; but when it turns to the twilight world of change and decay, it can only form opinions, its vision is confused and its beliefs shifting, and it seems to lack intelligence." -- Plato
Whereas Aristotle rejected this view and concentrated instead on identification with nature, substance and concrete objects of the world. To him, these primary substances hold fundamental truth to meanings, hence they give meanings to the reality. His relative scientific orientation prompted him towards understanding truth based on metaphysics, the operating and functioning of external existence of substance. Hence he said
"The first philosophy (Metaphysics) is universal and is exclusively concerned with primary substance. ... And here we will have the science to study that which is just as that which is, both in its essence and in the properties which, just as a thing that is, it has." -- Aristotle
Perhaps, we will put more weight on experiencing one or the other during different stages of our life. But with this split, we can only hope to learn to reconcile and merge the two, by not losing sight of both, gradually creating a close-to-perfect marriage between the inner and the outer.
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