Principle 4 Proportion – Week 3 – 2024

 April 12, 2024 

Principle 4. Proportion. Third Week. 

Things Are Well When They Move Together Not In Isolation.

My Present Situation, and the game of Name It!

This Week:

Over the last weeks we looked at the general structure of this month’s principle and tried to understand it in general terms. We also looked at how it applied in the past. This week some practical considerations and personal thoughts — about trying to apply the Principle of Proportion in the here and now.

Homework for this week:

- Consider this principle in terms of your present situation.

-Play the game of Name It!

Here’s some ideas to consider this week. 

Can I recognize one situation unfolding in the present where I applied or could have applied this principle, or on the other hand, where I violated it? Can I see why I went down this road? What particular consequences resulted? How would I characterize these results? 

Our next meeting will be a chance to compare and discuss our thoughts, insights, examples, and questions about this month’s principle and related matters. 

Game of the Week:

Perhaps after meditating on these general aspects of the principle you can provide us with a new version of the principle or some aspect of the principle and name the captures its essence.

We can observe that the name of this principle is given as ‘the principle of proportion’. That is no doubt an important clue as to as to its application. We see that reflected in Silo’s comments about the principle being about acting proportionally in accord with our priorities. I’ve already proposed a reflection on a particular aspect of the principle emphasizing the balance between parts which I named the principle of harmony. Let me propose a different perspective on the principle.

I might call this the Principle of Teamwork, bringing to mind sport teams and how the various players have different positions, different functions but they all work together for a common end.  Or perhaps I’ll call it the principle of cohesion, thinking of the internal unity I feel when thinking, feeling, and acting are synchronized, moving together in the same direction.

What’s your version of the principle? What do you call it?

General Considerations and Personal Reflections:

Here are some personal reflections. I offer them in the spirit of dialogue and exchange, and look forward to hearing your musings about, and experiences with, this principle.

Considering the Principle of Proportion I realized that in the various ambits of my life (work, family, friends, etc) I have a range of hopes and fears, as well as all kinds of projects and aspirations; some clear, some very vague. No wonder then that getting all of this to work together harmoniously involves some attention. 

Do my goals conflict among themselves? Or do these goals, despite their diverse nature and unequal importance, share a  common direction? Sometimes I feel I manage to ignore internal conflict through a highly developed “ability” to avoid seeing clearly, a kind of semi-intentional blindness! 

If, just below the threshold of my daily awareness  these desires and dreams exist in conflict with each other, it’s no wonder that I might feel weak, out of sorts, irritated… or in any case somewhat lacking in that profound (or even tepid) internal Peace, vital Force, and a Joy that’s not shaken by life’s daily difficulties. So perhaps those negative registers have little, or even nothing, to do with not winning the lottery, or the other external events with which I normally associate them. Perhaps they are, at least sometimes, unclear registers of my own internal conflicts.

Would I be going too far by claiming that discovering, and deepening those registers (i.e. the direct, unmediated experience of Peace, Force and Joy) is useful, and an attainable goal? What if I said that it is really possible to make those registers, those feelings, the permanent background of your experience? Would you dismiss that as impossible? Would it be surprising? Intriguing?

Why does it seem more reasonable if we reverse the polarity? Why isn’t it so difficult to believe the same thing but about fear, despair, and paranoia instead of positive, inspiring states? I don’t believe that’s a trivial question. To the contrary, I think it is a significant clue. Be that as it may, and as unlikely as it may seem, the creation of a permanent climate of Peace, Force and Joy is possible even today, even in the midst of the sad chaos around us. A climate that does not involve ignoring all that horror, and instead brings us to reject hopelessness and inaction.

Of course permanence is relative. I’m not talking about an unwavering state of bliss. Things will happen, events will make you angry, sad, scared, etc. But the underlying nucleus of Peace, Force ,and Joy will be a sort of home-base to which you will automatically return (increasingly quickly) and from which you can eventually ascend more easily than you can descend. 

How’s that for unlikely! But of course terms like ascend (to even more inspired states) and descend (towards negative emotions) imply a scale of values, or at least a  kind of mental map, to which not everyone will ascribe.

Mulling these thoughts over I realize that if I really want to deepen these registers a first step might be to study my, perhaps conflicting and certainly varied, hopes. With that in mind I turn to this specific principle and taking only a few minutes I make note of two or three situations in my life where perhaps I can, and should, guide my actions in light of this principle. This is something to do not once but but at various moments, and in various situations.

Coming up:

Next week we’ll look at what we imagine the future holds and explore how applying, or ignoring this Principle of Proportion might impact our lives and those around us.

Remember:

Though you may be wise and powerful, if happiness and liberty do not grow in you and in those around you, I will reject your example.

Internal Landscape 1:2  _Silo

Worth Repeating:

To love the reality that you are building” does not mean to place the solution to your own problems as the key to the world. 

Let me end by saying: If you want to overcome your profound contradiction, you must produce valid actions. If these actions are valid, it is because they help those around you. 

The Internal Landscape XV:9,10  _Silo

Note:

These notes have been posted on Facebook and sent to our email list, and, on my website  www.dzuckerbrot.com 

More coming up next time