The Never-ending Conflict of "Should" statements

 

Quite often we find ourselves in places that give us great discomfort and "dis-ease". We act as if we are fleshy computers chomping at the bit to solve problems and give solutions while missing the mark on what what might actually be "wrong". How do we interact the present? How do we interact with the world as it is without all its beauty and misery? We project the ideal and what we feel on to the world.

Perception is all about distortion. We see through our eyes and we cannot not read minds. At best, we can try to guess someone's motivations, but we have yet to invent a machine that allows us to jump within the wheels of cognition for people we see and interact with. People love to develop theories and rationale for behavior that might be destructive or odd in nature. This is where should statements start to arise. How often do we use should statements for all aspects of our lives? We tend to look over what is and focus more on what ought to be or what might be the best idea in our own distorted and conditioned minds. 

Anytime that you start to view sensible data and transform it into what you think it should be, you are creating conflict. You may think that it is rational, logical or whatever, but it is centered around your sense of self which is a product of the past. We cannot actively construct should statements without the experience of the past which is tied to the cyclical nature of thought. If you were to see things as they are and not what they should be, you would be more in tune with present moment. Since most of us struggle with being present, what makes us THINK that we know or can know what we think the future SHOULD be? 

One person may have an idea on the way something should be or operate while another could have a completely different perspective. How can we determine who is right or if anyone can really be right? So much is tied to emotion when making decisions or thoughts on what we think should be. Those emotions are little stories conditioned by our own filtered and distorted experiences. Logically we think of ourselves as the center of our own life story and project in onto the physical and symbolic world around us. 

If we are going to make should statements, it helps if they are in the form of a question. If we arrive at a conclusion, we stagnate. What is so bad about having a continuing and possibly never ending discussion? If we let things organically play out, we can discover things that we would have never expected in the first place. It is curiosity and internal inquisition that can lead us towards see how things work without inserting ourselves and solutions so much. Solutions are such a tricky concept. We think that they are a means to end, but it just creates a new cycle. Problems create solutions while solutions create problems. In actuality, there are costs and benefits to every decision. If we think that we KNOW that must be done then maybe we SHOULD question why THINK we know. Should we or shouldn't we use the world should? 

There is no cause and effect. For each cause there is always an effect and visa versa. It is cycle of its only making. Constantly changing. Consistently surprising. 

How much are you making things about you?

- When you make should statements, you are starting from from the point of view that is your "self". From that center springs distortion and bias.

Who are you to say "I Should"? 

- Who are you to say what things should be? How convinced are you of your own knowledge?

What are you projecting? What are you potentially compensating for? 

- Should statements are constructed under the need or desire to control. To make sense of the world around us and how we want to see it in an ideal or symbolically pleasing sense. To not appreciate or be with "what is", one escapes the present in favor of a fantasy in their head. It is a flight of fancy and imagination tied in with the restless struggle between nature and humanity. 

When do things truly come out as they should? Does it ever really happen? 

Are Should Statements a part of coping and/or compensatory mechanism that we use to make sense of the world around us in order to understand it? It's all complex. Simply complex in all the right ways. 

Should statements are led with the concept of an ideal. It is what it is built around. It thrives on the imagination of the person thinking the thoughts. The thoughts are bound to memory and all types of internal and external forces. It is intimately tied to the concept of the past which essentially is done and only exists through memory. When we can see the limitations of idealistically propelled should statements then we can start to see how they can distract, trick and mislead our own sense of self awareness. 

Since we are constrained to our own sense of self, we are limited and also vulnerable for being indoctrinated. Some people develop limited statements through some adopted ideology fed to them. It's easy to come up with how we think should be when we have a framework that can boil things down to how the world may or may not work (in reality or theory). 

Most of the people that are ideologically driven are not critically thinking. They think that they are being rational, but they are really just trying to rationalize something in the convenient narrative that has been fed to them. People like to rationalize their mentalities or actions after the fact. It is much easier to make sense of something and explain why we did it when it is already done. If we think what we are doing it meaningful, then it allows us to double down on our methods and beliefs. 

It's easier to adopt a train of thought from someone else than to look deeply yourself. There is great convenience in not challenging beliefs you have held for so long especially when you have already unconsciously convinced yourself that they are real and/or true. 

If you are so bold to make should statements, then you "should" at least have explanations why we are doing it. What makes you think that something should be a certain way in the first place? Is it driven by emotion or rationality? Is it catered around your conditioning, values and principles? There is never ending inquiry that allows us to have a discussion with what is? What part of us is resisting the madness and beauty right in front of us? 

Should statements will always require resistance and conflict. For it is the idea that things need to be more or less than what they are now that takes us away from the enormous opportunities and and advancements right before our eyes. To turn away from what is, is a rejection of potential for what we may not even become.

Do we tend to take our ideas too seriously? 

DG