Self
 

Is there something larger than self?

If so what is it?

If not why?

family is larger than self

"Me" is larger than "self".
And "you" is larger than "me".
And "we" is larger than both.

Why would there not be something larger than self? So many things qualify.

For me:

Family, as long as one of is still alive, the whole exists; the Labour movement, generations of people fighting and working for social justice and working-class rights; the Labour Party, which I know is deeply flawed but which still has my loyalty; a band of comrades to whom I am fiercely loyal, because we stand united against those who would attack any one of us.

Depends on what you are talking about.

Morals - The universal (society’s norms and laws) is higher. For example, if we put the individual (self) above the universal we sin and will continue to sin unless we remove the individual from above the universal. An example would be if our society decides that stealing is bad and we steal for individual reasons then we would have put the individual above the universal and we would have sinned against that society. So in a sense, yes, the universal is higher than the individual but once you get into post-Conventional morals it gets more complicated.

If you want to go farther and you believe in religion you can say the spiritual is above both the individual and universal. Usually what happens (in stories) is that the spiritual will take form as the individual and then it will pass above the universal. For example, the story with Abraham in the Bible. God told him to kill his only son even though killing his son was against that societies standards, he was going to still going to go through with it since the spiritual is considered higher than the universal.

DanaC summed up community living and making yourself part of bigger picture. I will expand on it by saying an ideal can be higher than self. People will sacrifice themselves for ideals, freedom for example, so that would be considered higher than self.

chug chug pooof
ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh my brain just farted and died trying to read your post there piercy

Nature is pretty grand.


anything made made,religiosity,new age 4th way,scientology,( except for travolta),astrologers can all go to he...

Most the time people living by man made contructs are messed up I've decided.

On a simpler note. I think LJ is right. The family is bigger than self. If you've ever met anyone who late in life run from the idea of family is a big time wanker.

Yes, believe it or not there are things larger than your subjective ego.
Or maybe you need to explain your version of self.

If you want your brain to explode try reading true philosophy...

Family is tops. One of my sons had me co-sighed for $29k and his wife just checked out. Also a friend called today. His daughter is having problems with husband. He's in that for around $35k. Oh the joys of kids. Drown the little shits. :bolt:

Astrologers can all go to Hereford and Hampshire? :p

Where Horoscopes Hardly Happen?

I think so, but it only exists in my head.

Society, empathy, the need to "do" for others, love. There are many "words" for it and many "meanings" for the "collective". It is larger than I. At times it is only one, sometimes many, others... all.
I do care, but that exists only within myself.

I can only experience what I do as myself, for now. I await the bio-chip and the ability to download my consciousness to others or multiple consciousnesses. If I live that long.
I will do so without hesitation.

There's no self. You're all part of everything.

Powder explains it quite well.

Is there anything smaller than self? Compared to the universe, you're just a tiny dot on some blue orb in a system with 9, er, make that EIGHT planets. God cares about a single person, but why?

Job 7:17 What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?
Job 7:18 And that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment?

We're constantly tested by God.

As for what is bigger than self, - the body of Christ/the group of believers, of which Christ is the head.

I just now saw this. That's pretty damn funny! :lol:

hmmm, i think that there really isn't a wrong answer to this sort of question, but i believe that many of you folks are looking at this from a purely objective point of view. As that goes, there obviously is nothing smaller than the life of one human among billions. We lead short, insignificant (for the most part) lives int he immense scope of the past and the future.

Something I was thinking, though, is that from a subjective point of view there is nothing in existence bigger than one's self. When a person is born and when they get their belly buttons by way of literal disconnect from their mother (innies vs outties? topic for later discussion), all that they have is themselves. They grow up with themselves, and a person will know their every thought and feeling, deal with every one of their problems, and experience everything their person experiences for the rest of their lives (mental degradation aside). I like to think that this inherently makes them the biggest thing .

Just now thinking about it, ive decided to group people int two groups (as unthoughtful that may be).

- one group is the sort of people that make people question if there is anything bigger than themselves. These folks actively consider their own lives to be the biggest thing ever. Constantly thinking and imposing upon others their trials, tribulations, and victorys, they think first of all (if not always) of themselves. Im sure everyone has an aunt who acts like this

- Normal people, or people who are actively self concious but like to think that they put themselves last (and some even do) and try instead to help other people. After all, Ive always thought it's easier to deal with someone elses problems. These folks most often (in my admittedly limited experience) will take the objective point of view and consider themselves insignificant or small when compared to world events or whichever cause they happen to support.

I dont think either of these types are errored (a real word?) in their ways, no matter how much everyone wants to smack those self absorbed nuts. I suppose that what i was trying to say with my winded garbled thought processes is that it makes sense to me that the biggest thing in the world in anyone's life will be that person's life.

-jason

hey - jason, my name's freddy:rolleyes:

howdy

j/k

hey, welcome, mini. good post. sleep well. we'll most likely kill you in the morning.

He's from Wisconsin so I'm sure he's cool.

In a evolutionary and philosophical sense, you can make very good points for this since I can't really think of a truly selfless decision. If I decide to help someone, the bottom line is that it makes me happy to help them and if I didn't get happiness from that, I probably wouldn't be helping people out. No matter how altruistic we appear to be, it is because it will raise the chances of passing our genes on, even if it by playing a game of chance in sacrifice.

So in a sense, you can say the only reason we see the community above self is because it helps our individual chances of passing our genes on.

Though, I think it is pointless to fight evolution in this case though, I would much rather be see the universal above self because that is what makes me happy and that is what I care about. hehe

Welcome to the Cellar Minn...pull up a stool, make yourself at home


....and before you ask, yeah, the shotgun over the bar is loaded.

haha thanks for the welcome folks. maybe i should put a formal introduction somewhere, but i'd rather lurk around and post wherever i see fit.

pierce way to say and build on what i was trying to say. We all know how sometimes things sound so eloquent in your head sound like unconnected, inconsistent trash when they spew forth from your mouth (or keyboard?)