Our world moves at the speed of life, and most everyone is judged by how quickly they are able to fit into the new fast paced dynamic and busy-ness associated with the modern "productive" ethic of the world. As a result, it seems people are given the message that it's not ok to live a quiet or passive life. You must be doing something, somewhere outside, almost at all times to be "seen" as living or developing or growing. Our world seems less receptive or supportive of anyone's right to be passive. People who live a passive life are considered lazy and unproductive. The belief is you should be doing something and you must be seen doing it is also a related phenomenon.
So, what do you think of this trend in shunning passive living in today's world? Good or bad?
We're orbiting around these corporate black holes, faster and faster. We need employment, and we are pretty much subjected to slavery under those who suck in all the planet's resources/money/power.
Well, if we're talking passivity in the sense of living in the world versus thinking about the world, then I think there's a great danger to living passively.
I think that actions speak louder than words in many cases. Actions are expressed decisions, whereas contemplation is the process of decision-making that remains open-ended. You can sit on an idea, turning it over for years and years, and never see the process come to any completion. I suppose you can enjoy the process for its own sake, but often it may be an expression of one's fear of commitment or some kind of avoidance tactic.
It really comes down to context.
Where self-development is concerned, it's not 'development' until you put your contemplation into any kind of action, in the form of a behaviour change or thought-habit. Otherwise, you can keep that proverbial self-file open indefinitely in the brainstorming stage and living more in a world of potential rather than actually living. There's always something to contemplate, there's always some aspect of yourself you haven't explored. But you are kidding yourself if you think you can ever come close to knowing yourself truly if all you do is lay on your back and contemplate your innerworld. The great irony is that as much as you are an infinite collection of thought potentials, you are also a being in this physical world and the more you opt out of participating in it, the smaller your inner world becomes and the smaller you become. To know yourself is to experience yourself in as many contexts as possible and that requires seeking out those contexts.
Does this mean you need to step on the super-go-getter treadmill of life? Not at all. But it does mean you need to get your ass off the couch or computer chair and experience something besides the things that your current comfort zone dictates. Again, your inner world expands only as your outer world does. How can you know what you really want or what you're capable of when you've been living in the same gear all the time?
Passivity is slow death.
Its much better to be productive, face questions like being and having, think and act rather than wasting your time and your life attempting to be an inanimate object.
lol. and sooner or later you'll be knocked back to animation by actual inanimate objects anyway, if not other animate objects. nothing living can stay totally stationary for long. even trees adapt to the soil and grow their branches out according to the level of light, etc. surrounding them. every living thing works in cohesion with its environment, firstly out of biological necessity. whether that still applies to humans in a modern social context, however, i don't know, maybe not. i'm guessing that's the context @pics was referring to, and to the social impetus to be "proactively" animate, as opposed to simply reacting and adapting to the needs of the environment.
I think that all the "pop zen" or "power of now" style ideas are responses to alienation from social character or stressing about the past and future.
The reality though is that thinking about those pop philosophies for any length of time would reveal them to be pretty terrible, possessing no past to learn from, no memory, isnt attractive, having no future to hope for or plan for or work towards isnt attractive either.
I can understand alienation with the social character, conforming to it may bring success and success brings happiness but it can be a fleeting deal when its conformity to social requisites rather than human nature. Although suggesting that its an easy things to do, uncover what traits in your personality are social character traits and which are your own, or attempting to live productively and eschew social character, that's a mistake. Nothing easy about those things.
I would argue that if someone perceives that others are judging, then maybe they are actually the judger. Wait, auto doesn't like that word. I don't like it when I can not make up my own words without the red judgmental squiggly line. That bastard. Always judging me.
@Lark
Thumb me down all you want, but if you think somebody advocates total inertia, or that there's no value to these things, then you're clearly either misreading sources or reading the wrong ones and maybe you should stop thinking you know all kinds of stuff for a change.