Musings on the topic of 'Growth' - Part 1
permanence of freedom
[Part 1 of a series including the following tentative headings:
permanence of freedom [Part 1]
growth paradigms [Part 2]
growth strategies [Part 3]
purpose and meaning [Part 4]
but there is growth, and there is growth… [Part 5]
expanding the paradigm [Part 6]
[This is Part 1 of a six-part article on the topic of ‘Growth’. Parts 1, 3, 4, 5 & 6 are available here: [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6]]
permanence of freedom
In its widest conceptual scale, growth may be equated to seeking after liberty, a reaching out towards the original, latent understanding and experience of freedom, something first acknowledged because it finds a direct correspondence with the in-built energy of the productive pulse all sentient beings experience to a greater or lesser degree. The permanence of such freedom is itself inherent to the human (practical and conceptual) mind and inhabits its expressions through what may be achieved in the transcendental process of going beyond the present state of being into the next, more advanced one. Or so goes the tale.
Concurrently, growth relies for its tangible fulfilment on the potential and probable renunciation of any part of the self it confronts when faced by the impositions presented to the individual by its inability, its surroundings and/or by other individuals, since an individual’s freedom, in its permanence and ubiquity, inherently holds as much value as that of any other. In other words, practically, our own freedom stops where someone else’s starts. [1]
Good, healthy, life-enhancing habits are usually understood to preserve life and to provide a satisfactory, even a gratifying environment for growth, for the continuance of civilization and for the fulfilment of the freedom sense in people, in society. Because of this, such habits give rise to the illusion of happiness [2] in the sought for permanence of freedom, something which, we also surmise, can never be truly or fully humanly achieved for sustainable periods of time (therefore, the use here of the word 'illusion').
Negative or bad habits on the other hand, encourage and support the natural cycle of decay and obsolescence bringing humans ever closer to the end of any advantage they may have gained throughout their lives and to a reluctant decline (because opposed to the obvious 'good' of preferable habits) towards death and the annihilation of the ability and concurrent desire to grow. The negative influence arising from this set of habits also reinforces the illusion of permanence, that is, the durability of a process that allows for whatever may be achieved or forfeited.
The conflict between these two types of behavioural patterns or habits, the good and the bad (positive/negative, yang/yin, etc.) is played out in the vicissitudes of daily life through the concentrated medium of individuality, self-interest and concern for one’s self, one's clan, one’s business, one's country, all under the auspices of the various activity levels of an individual’s consciousness of being.
Such conflict (the point where positive and negative growth encounter or intersect with each other) [3] necessarily works against the grain of the self-transcending aspirations of the growing human being and their freedom in the very familiar and enduring scenarios primarily captured by the realities of competition, struggle, and outright war.
[This is Part 1 of a six-part article on the topic of ‘Growth’. Parts 1, 3, 4, 5 & 6 are available here: [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6]]
[1] This is not a novel concept; it may be an assertion of reality that has found its way into philosophical discussions. The saying appears to be more prevalent in French cultural circles.
[2] The birth of the American Dream and the cultural appropriative push into Western societies and many an Eastern one too, may be brought back to the Kantian origins of the 1776 Declaration of Independence where the United States of America made known to all the pre-eminence of this conviction and dictum: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
[3] or ‘contraction’ in financial terms