(no subject)

[polydad]

Two elements; I managed to hang on to one of them. 'Spirituality'. How do I tell if I'm using the lack of definition of the word in English as an excuse for refusing to examine my own ideas?

The other one had come up in a conversation about acknowledging feeling good, and that it is a positive value. I lost the label I'd been using to think about it; what I'm coming up with right now is "anti-puritanism", which is not exactly inaccurate, but isn't quite on the mark, either.

Comments

[qlick]

1) If you think you need to examine your ideas on spirituality, and you're not doing it when you have an opportunity, you're using something as an excuse. Does it really matter what? For me, what's important is that I recognize I've been avoiding something, and correct it. I have never found it constructive to examine causes for avoidance if I can correct the avoidance itself.

2) Acknowledging feeling good, and that it is a positive value, fits the purely denotative meaning of "hedonism." Most people associate that word with Cyrenaic hedonism and write it off as shallow pleasure-seeking, but Epicurean hedonism followed to logical conclusion looks much like monastic asceticism. You probably mean something like the core value of hedonism, that "feeling good" is what defines Good, where "feeling good" is a concept left to the individual to develop and refine.

[polydad]

Sorry for the delay in response, but I've been looking at this for several days, and I think I need to do more homework. Do you have any particular books you'd recommend on hedonism?

best,

Joel