The "Me Generation" and the Quest for Self Improvement and Spirituality

[trees_please]

I think there is a very large and ever-widening disparity between the eastern (inda, nepal, china) and western (US, et al) idea of spirituality. like has been said, you can not help others if you yourself needs help. there is nothing wrong with meditating, because it raises awareness and allows you to see yourself and others more clearly and openly. this is not selfish. this is what we have evolved into. the other option is self-absorption and endless consumerism. meditation is good for the mind, body and society as a whole.

 

[MyFinalRest]

But yet we also have now seperated the idea of helping oneself from helping others. People will now spend the rest of their lives trying to perfect thier inner being without realizing a great way to improve one's self is through helping others and making real connections.

Part of perfecting oneself is learning not to dwell on oneself.

 

[rangrz]

Yes people need to stop being so self.absorbed that they think contortions of your body combined with thinking about stuff withoutexamining it will lead to insight.

Grab a calculator, a microscope or a beaker, go outside, and figure out how the world ACTUALLY works, instead of your self absorbed delusions that meditation will answer it.

 

[trees_please]

Yes people need to stop being so self.absorbed that they think contortions of your body combined with thinking about stuff withoutexamining it will lead to insight.

Grab a calculator, a microscope or a beaker, go outside, and figure out how the world ACTUALLY works, instead of your self absorbed delusions that meditation will answer it.

maybe if you actually tried it you would understand that it has literally nothing to do with contortions of any kind and very little to do with thinking. its based on mindfulness, and seeing what is directly in front of and around you. not delusional at all. as tangible as physics or addition.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

I'll not speak for any other societies, but in the US, at least, the trend nowadays is more individual pre-packaged goods and services, and fewer institutions and collectives. Americans are just not joiners these days, in contrast to days gone by. That said, the internet has somewhat stepped in to take the place of traditional social institutions, but in a very different way. The groups are smaller and more splintered, and with so many available at one's fingertips, would-be joiners are less likely to bend to the whims of the group, and more likely instead to just seek out another group that's closer to what they want.

Self-improvement and spirituality have gone along with these trends in America. People who would have just joined (and stuck with) a fraternal order, civic organization, or religious community in days gone by, instead go window shopping for the needs these institutions used to fill.

I'd say this is very much a double-edged sword. Yes, in the short term, more people probably get matched with the specific type of information or message they need to hear, more immediately. But long term, I think something big, something that was offered at traditional institutions of moral support, is not so much for sale in today's "wisdom supermarkets" -- the slow-growing, hard-earned, but irreplaceable benefits of surrendering yourself to a larger community. Times were that personal and spiritual growth involved true give-and-take. One had to pitch in, somewhat conform, and demonstrate loyalty and dedication to one of the few local sources of such things, in order to drink deeply of what they had to offer, or dare to make more personalized requests of the group. Today's situation, on the other hand, breeds "enlightenment entitlement" -- no personal commitment or sacrifice needed, only a major credit card for mandatory donations; if you're not satisfied with the advice you get, you can buy your next batch elsewhere.

Remember, information is not the same thing as knowledge, and knowledge is not the same thing as wisdom, and there is no substitute for tight, supportive community.

 

[MyFinalRest]

^nice.

 

[TheAppleCore]

Self-improvement is certainly not necessarily self-absorbed. How can you help others if you are weak and crippled?

 

[Jabberwocky]

But, the dilemma is this, is it narcisstic and somehow wrong to be on this quest for self improvement?

Narcissistic? perhaps. Wrong to be on a quest for self-improvement? How on earth can anyone say that self improvement could ever be wrong?? Your ideals confuse and sadden me :/

If you see most yoga books and videos, it is advertised as a means not for spirituality, but for things like "flexibility, physical fitness, and relaxation." The interest in things like this could be good if it leads to an authentic understanding of the borrowed cultural and spiritual practices, but has just turned into a "me generation" distortion of a great and ancient thing? Are we missing some serious points when we practice things like yoga and meditation for personal well-being while skipping over the importance of philosophical and spiritual transcendence?

You're seeing it the wrong way - we're adopting the good and discarding the bad/useless. I do 'yoga'. I've never been to a class, I don't know how to "transition" in/out of positions nor between them. I do not hold positions for more than a minute or so (the point at which muscle elasticity ceases to make any further substantial increases). I learn my poses by typing in "yoga", "intermediate yoga" etc into google images and going from there. I do this alone, in quiet or with relaxing music, often after a bath or shower. I find it incredibly rejuvenating both mentally and physically, and do it solely for those reasons.
Please explain, as specifically as possible, how my "western" approach to yoga is worse? What are these serious points that I'm missing? That wasn't a hypothetical, I truly do 'yoga' in that manner and have for a very long time. I'm interested to hear why my approach is inferior, but am guessing i'll just hear a lot of vague mumbo jumbo about "enlightenment" and other stuff you're unable to actually clarify beyond broad, generic terms as those.

It's interesting to consider the amount of energy wasted at gyms just so we can look better (or feel better) when we could use that work to do something productive that can be shared with others...something that really helps others...
If you are going to burn calories and alot time to things, why not do it for something else other than selfish gain?

what is this i don't even
8)


Oh and Lasch is a tool, though it does make sense that you'd find him worthwhile, since - naturally - the same premises that shape your political/economic views are clearly shaping your views on the self.

Well, I strongly disagree. Infact it sounds like a bit of a cop out for someone who hasnt been into spirirtuality... Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental illness, there are people who claim disability on narcissism as they cannot 'deal' with people ei. cannot work due to a serious illness. On the other hand, spirituality is a means to connect with yourself/the universe and develop an ego less state. It's essentially about controlling your mind/emotions and not being controlled by them. While with narcissism you have a condition that limits your perception/understanding some what.

oh jesus christ everything's a mental illness nowadays lol. it's to the point where "psychological illnesses" are not so much illnesses in any real sense, but rather the terms are just descriptors of various psychological states that are not inherently 'ill' in any way/shape/form.
Anyways - how on earth could you advocate any practice wherein "an ego-less state" is a result, or even a possibility? Do you have massive issues with self worth/esteem and thus enjoy the prospect of negating self/ego? Or are you trying to assert some "for a higher purpose" bs, wherein people are better able to live, interact, and experience what life offers by aiming to destroy their own individuality?

People talking negatively about ego in general are usually bad people in my experiences and are to be avoided, but i'll leave irl observations and analyses outta this for right now.
(I should clarify that there's two general types of such people - people who feel that way due to ignorance, and people who feel that way knowing full well what their theories' true nature is. The former crowd can learn they're wrong, the latter crowd are truly bad/evil)

Some schools of Yoga like Advaita Vedanta are trying to actually seperate the consciousness from the body. It seems like the me generation was at first attracted to the spiritual benefits, but all that stuck was an enhanced consciousness of the body, and not a healthy one at that.

Am I reading that right - are you implying that aiming to separate the consciousness from the body is a positive aim?
And please explain how the "me generation"'s attraction to yoga creates an unhealthy consciousness of the body. I ask because i find it to be an incredibly healthy thing.

Rather than improvement, it mostly translates into "more worries" about the self.

bullshit. in fact, hypochondria tends to be worse in ppl w/o a clue about how bodies work and how their own stacks up.

I hear a lot of talk about the self, a little about others. Self-help gurus always say this, "improve yourself and relationships with others will improve," but maybe you can't improve yourself without first improving your relationships with others. Lots of "cart before the horse" type thinking out there.

There is - but it's YOUR line of thinking that's cart before horse, bra. You want people to focus on others before fixing themselves. You want production without capitalists. Your theories are, impracticality aside, immoral and unethical.

It was also disheartening at the time to see people dropping out and breaking off from civic culture and and mainstream society instead of improving it. It's like it was the ultimate in giving up in Western ideals and instead choosing to hide within oneself and do one's "own thing."

Are you suggesting that doing one's own thing is not a western ideal? Not only IS it a western ideal, but it is a positive thing in general.

Done. And then some...

:D%)

lol

 

[P A]

There is - but it's YOUR line of thinking that's cart before horse, bra. You want people to focus on others before fixing themselves. You want production without capitalists. Your theories are, impracticality aside, immoral and unethical.

I'm inclined to agree with the content of the first couple sentences, but the latter two lead me to suspect that you've been reading too much Ayn Rand.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I do find Rand to have INCREDIBLE insight into such areas, but unless you're implying my views are not my own it's irrelevant, no?
I majored in econ, and have always had a very strong position on freedom - rand's views are the same as mine in most areas, so not only are her writings heavily enjoyable to me, but they're quite useful for elaborating and advancing certain ideas further than i would've been able to by myself.

 

[P A]

I do find Rand to have INCREDIBLE insight into such areas

Based upon my multiple attempts to continue reading anything she ever wrote beyond the first few paragraphs and the critical reviews of almost everyone whose opinion counts (in my estimation), Ayn Rand was a sloppy plagiarist of the ideas of others, a bootlicking apologist for the brutality of 'liberty' and the 'free market,' and a Grade-A literary hack who constructed a pseudo-philosophy built out of trite catchphrases and bromidic slogans.

you're implying my views are not my own it's irrelevant, no?

That was not my implication.

 

[Jabberwocky]

okay.

 

[MyFinalRest]

Ayn Rand wants production without workers!

So Sartre foreshadowed the idea of the social brain. He recognised that everything that’s important to us – happiness, self-esteem, self-efficacy – are socially constructed (everything that self-help culture places ‘inside us’, is actually both there and ‘outside us’ in others as well). But he didn’t like the idea of such dependency. But what’s not to like? For the individualistic self-reliance he was enamoured with has been perhaps the largest impediment to social progress (something he was also enamoured with) in the last thirty yeas or so.

http://thesocialbrain.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/self-help-individualism-and-the-social-brain/

I think the root of America's social illness is just this. We don't want to ever believe that sometimes we might end up dependent on others. We now think we can magically shape our lives and social lives by doing silly little self-help activities. No, we are most likely to make a real change in ourselves by going outside ourselves in addition to maybe a mild level of self-examiniation.

Although the great religions and philosophies of the world do concern themselves with some self-reflection and improvement, they ultimately focus on how we behave towards each other, and that is a crucial key to real development and evolution.

 

[Jabberwocky]

ayn rand does not want production w/o workers, but whatever this thread isn't about ayn rand, and such threads SUCK and are inherent failures (or circle jerks, depending on the crowd). am honestly kinda butthurt at P A right now, but i'll deal instead of veering this off-topic much further; perhaps cruise the sandy vag thread for a bit ;P

Anywho's, I read your linked article, and I should mention that the whole "self-help" bullshit as described there, IS typically bullshit and is not anything i was advocated/endorsing. When I speak of self-improvement, I'm speaking of bona-fide self improvement - learning new things, eating healthier / exercising properly, abstaining from self destructive behaviors, etc etc. The self-help cults are typically counterproductive from what i know of them, although admittedly it's not too much as i shy from anything w/ that aura (whether self-help cults or churches).

Also I'd like to add that 'me' attitudes, and things done to improve oneself, are not mutually exclusive from helping society and others. A major difference between the views on this is the primary reason one does an undertaking - whether they're concerned with advancing themselves primarily, or with advancing others. But regardless of your choice, it doesn't mean, imply, or cause zero concern for the other.
/if that makes any sense. not enough coffees yet lol