Feeliings and Principles 1

As i always say(2 myself), feelings can never be rationalized. What are feelings? Feelings are obviously of a construct that we we ourselves are only subject to. Though we can judge why or how a certain feeling arose or how much of it we experience, can we ever truly determine what exactly we felt. What I am talking about is not the biological stimulus that flows through your nerve path ways causing your brain to release warning indicators such as pain, cold, hunger, etc.Its the kinds that impact upon our judgment and normally known as jealousy, fear, emptiness, pride, etc and the supposed king of all feelings;-love.

Before we dwell on love, i used to think that there were others things, or more correctly; principles that could be above love. Love itself is a feeling when experienced, and a principle when applied. I had a list of these principles stuck to my wall before, and i had memorized it, and love was not in them.

• faith
• honour
• honesty
• resolve
• discipline
• patience

There would be some who would say the best of all this is found in love, but then again we are challenging the paradox, that feelings can never be explained. Why else do you wonder that people say things like:- I love LC very much, i and very fond of my uncle, i like twix ice cream.All that these sentences indicate are that one feels an abundance of a particular emotion towards another person or thing. We cant give a number to it, and we cant say that i wont be eating twix ice cream long after my uncle was proved evil and i had fallen out of love with LC. So a feeling is dynamic,has quantity, has time period, and have influences, has beginnings, has ends. So put that in the context of a human mind and you will see why i conclude feelings cannot be rationalized. Does that slight feelings in anyway? No i doesn't, its only an appreciation of how complex they are. So there is a choice. I remember commenting on a blog the other day that nobody ever read freud to better understand their partners.( Well i did read Freud and i don't recall any of it today (except his father figure neurosis theory)-very academic and boring)

Being centered on principles is the key in life. For those who have really read 7 Habits of Highly Effective people, by Stephen Covey, you may share the same opinion. Even Covey admits that these principles were not of his own construct, they are the collective wisdom of centuries of social knowledge. It had a high impact on me, because things became very clear when I read it.Also, its not a belief system, or an imposing ideology in its basis (its application differs)

The interesting thing here is that principles do not collide with most religious beliefs systems and all natural belief systems. But that is debatable with regard to which belief system in queston as the range does a full gamut form deeply complex to just plain crazy. Natural cultural belief systems like in this country where there used to be a really high trust environment until recent days. For example people rarely steal then, like if you saw a fallen coconut, u can draw a circle around it with your finger and nobody else would touch it. That’s honour and honesty. Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism all promote harmony and value honesty, patience and discipline.

In low trust environments where we live today, it can be seen as hardly practical to have “unnecessary” virtues. Some of you may say, that’s not true, but in reality you find it hard as well, im sure. To make matters even more complicated, most people respect virtues, and use it as a yardstick to differentiate people. So what do people do, when its so hard to be virtuous and so appealing to others at the same time? You fake it.

More on this and Love later.(getting too long)