The Examined Life

As I resume this new activity called blogging, I am amazed at the sheer volume of blogs on the internet and the originality and quality of many of them. They humble me at times. Being in part a restauranteur, this morning I googled 'restaurant blog' and encountered some interesting sites, the best being this humourous and creative blog by a New York waiter, Waiter Rant
I want there to be a greater purpose to this blog than a mere journal. My own website, Life in Progress generates several thousand hits per month, particularly the pages about Buddhism and the pages about Thailand. But it isn't particuarly focussed. Is this going to merely be a variation on the same theme, but more engaged and perhaps more interactive? I would like there to be a focus in order to generate more interest from the internet community.

An important part of any blog is the title, for this is in large part what google uses. The only way people will come to this blog is from googling it or from links from other blogs. The title and the focus are connected, of course. What shall I call it. The present title isn't appropriate as at present I don't want to focus on Vancouver Island, but rather on life.

And so, on to life.

The Average person is living his or her life in search of something -- from waking to sleeping -- engaged in a process of maintenance and advancement (though sometimes suffering regression) -- buffered this way and that by forces internal and external. By internal I mean the body and the mind. By external, I mind the world outside. The body says rest, but the mind says work. The boss says do this overtime, but the mind says the family is waiting. A Tsunami hits and the search for enlightenment becomes a focus on survival.

It seems trite to say all this. And yet, how many of us live a life we can be proud of and are a content with. I often fear that Thoreau's pronouncement that "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." continues to ring true.
We are ruled by fear or desire. Wordsworth: "Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers."

Organized religion in America has grown in popularity and influence in recent years, quite unlike in other developed nations. I suspect that this is in part because Americans are seeking a meaning and direction to their lives after finding that 'getting and spending' is not enough. Doubtless for most, some sort of guidance is helpful. I have found this in philosophy and in Buddhism. Both identify the central problems of life, individually and in the world, and suggest ways to deal with the problems.

My next blog will look at what Aristotle had to say.