https://www.patreon.com/posts/one-scrambling-97788801
Okay Fuckers. Welcome to a short episode today. Rather than giving you ALL the information like last time(s), we’re keeping this short and simple. For good reason. Because it’s dense enough in the conversations it can catalyze for each of us, individually, to inspire several weeks of inner work.
We’re coming in today and leaving you with one single thought on FIlial Obligation. From an Eastern perspective. From the Confucian belief system.
To say that my previously demonstrated attitude towards Filial Obligation in the context of this population of people is generally “pissy” and “exhausted” is an understatement. My basic instinct is “we come from dangerous people who were too self-absorbed in their untreated illness to be very positive influences or wells of care in our lives…… but we’re supposed to handle them with kid gloves for their entire lives, crescendoing in elder age, which they’ve had entire lifetimes to prepare themselves for? Bitch, you nuts.”
But, I also acknowledge, it’s never this cut and dry.
The “ambivalent” description of our feelings towards our parents suggests that there’s more than outright distaste and disregard inside of us. There’s something else at play. We are, in some ways, tethered to them mentally, emotionally, genetically, locationally, morally, or maybe even through some higher means….
And therefore, we DO have heavy, conflicting, mind-hurricaning thoughts about this issue of providing expected and often unspoken care indefinitely vs. sparing ourselves and letting them “figure it out” the way we’ve had to.
And sometimes… it really doesn’t matter. Physical reality is physical reality. Our emotions and memories and trauma educations and psychological self-knowledge doesn’t make a difference in the circumstances we face.
So we’re going through the motions, doing what must be done… but we aren’t fully present in it. We’re still encapsulated in ruminatory arguments about it. We’re numbing, we’re dumbing ourselves down to deal with the bullshit, and we’re praying for it to all be over.
And with that uncomfortable return to maladaptive trauma coping in mind, I wondered:
If we ARE encased in a bout of filial obligation that seemingly has no end… or we know that we’re headed towards one, because in one way or another, “there is no other ‘right-feeling’ choice”….
Is there another view available that could better ‘sanitize’ the insanity? Is there a “helper thought” that could reverse the direction of our usual ponderings, and help us to be more present, more intentional, more aware of our locus of control and free will throughout the situation we face?
A mental stronghold to return to, so that the anxiety, depression, sense of entrapment, and fear don’t overtake the core of your consciousness?
Because… NO, there’s nothing we can really do a lot of the time. We don’t often have a great variety of choice in these matters, and we are, fortunately but unfortunately, plagued with moral compasses…
BUT…
Perhaps, with another perspective in hand, one that isn’t based on servitude, following convention, or repaying tallied “debts”…. we can still feel empowered in our decision or our circumstances.
Rather than feeling trapped, controlless, or trapped in a lose-lose situation… is there another way to frame things, which would at least help us to feel AUTONOMOUS in our decision, rather than feeling solely avoidant or compliant with abuse?
Is there another view that – I know, you might hate this – could even build us up, soften us, and devote us more strongly to what we’re filially tasked with?
Well, I’m going to give you one today. Present it without commentary. And let it fester until next week.
This is a very, “here’s fuel for reflection, enjoy the flames that it sparks,” sortof episode. I’m giving you outrage for homework and hoping that it kickstarts some gears turning, for better or for worse.
At face value, this is the shortest and least materially-dense episode I’ve ever released. Under the surface, I think you’ll find that’s not the case at all. Get ready for some internally heavy lifting.
SO take this idea. Turn it around in your own head. Have your self-arguments about it. Spend a day on one side of the fight and another examining the opposite. And have a good time with it. If you’re a fan of fucking with thoughts and turning your brain inside out for that feeling of epiphanic splender… this thought can give you a lifetime of material to mess with.
And I’m hoping… whether you agree with it or not… it’ll introduce some new internal points of discussion for all of us.
With no further ado, let’s ask the most contradictory question imaginable when it comes to Filial Obligation. And see if it unlocks any conflicting – but healing – new cognitions for you, like it has for me over the past three weeks.
Here’s your Q.
IS FILIAL OBLIGATION FOR OUR GREATER GOOD?
The article: Shifting Perspectives: Filial Morality Revisited
Author(s): Chenyang Li
Source: Philosophy East and West, Published by the University of Hawaii, Apr., 1997
Li tells us.
Confucians do not regard the self as a ready-made soul or entity. The self is a process of realizing one’s Heaven-endowed potential.
All of us were born with the potential to be fully human, but realizing it takes lifelong effort.
We cultivate ourselves through reinforcing and expanding our human-related-ness
and our human-relatedness starts with our relationship with our parents.
Therefore, becoming a filial son or daughter is a necessary part of the process of achieving humanity.
Confucians believe, then, filial piety is a requirement for our self-realization.
Since filial piety is a step in our self-realization, being filial is not only for the sake of our parents; it is also for our own sake.
(Should we take a pause, just to let that curveball sink in? I’ll read it again.
After all this time, discussing our parents’ expectations, investments, unspoken needs, and rights… it turns out that this whole tradition of Filial Obligation is for OUR GOOD?
We arrive here, incomplete. On a mission to gather the experiences and subsequent wisdoms needed in this lifetime in order to ascend to our highest beingness. Our aims are pointed towards human-human interactions; human relatedness. And one of those relational quests is to successfully be a son or daughter; the counterpart to our parents.
Which sounds a lot like concepts that we’ve been covering in semi-recent history.
On this front, Li goes on:)
… in Confucianism we can never realize ourselves as isolated individuals.
We must recognize our personal locus as a starting point of self-realization, with reference to our fathers among other relationships.
Therefore, we must honor and respect our fathers (and mothers, it should perhaps be added), not because they dominate us or because we dare not disobey them;
in a strong sense, we honor and respect them for our own sake, namely for our self-cultivation and self-realization.
(I mean, shitty note about the mothers. Obviously this is a patriarchal argument.
BUT, here we’re being told that – like we discussed all last year in 2023 – we can’t fully know or realize ourselves separate from relationship.
And I think we can agree?
Living in isolated withdrawal (like VulNarcs) doesn’t allow us to access huge pieces of ourselves. It doesn’t challenge us. It doesn’t bring internal tensions to the surface. It doesn’t give us material to be confronted by. It doesn’t allow the opportunity for projection, realization of our own faults, and rectification. Growth. Or, the potential for relational reparation, which is an experience we all need within ourselves as much as we need to have it with others. Self-acceptance and forgiveness.
Without these obstacles and opportunities contained within relationship with others, Confucianism says we can’t fully self-realize. And our psychological lens… I mean… pretty well agrees, doesn’t it?
I do have to note that Li also tells us that our parents aren’t meant to dominate us. We’re supposedly locked in a mutually constructive relationship that’s meant to be based on voluntary care. That voluntary care is a stage in our life as we receive it, and another stage of life as we give it back, as part of the natural flow of generation and degeneration.
Li wraps his argument up, saying:)
For the Confucians, therefore, filial morality is an essential element for our self-realization and self-transformation in becoming fully human.
From this perspective, one’s filial duty is by no means super-e-rogatory. And it is not merely a duty for the benefit of other people (i.e., one’s parents).
It is, in a deeper sense, a duty one owes to oneself for the sake of oneself.
Becoming fully human is one’s ultimate destiny, and therefore the development of one’s own morality is in one’s highest self-interest.
And I’m going to leave it there.
Oh, Fuckers, I have VOLUMES to say. But I’d rather let you turn your own thoughts and churn your own words, first.
So I leave you with this FIlial philosophy today.
For the Confucians, therefore, filial morality is an essential element for our self-realization and self-transformation in becoming fully human.
From this perspective, one’s filial duty is by no means super-e-rogatory. And it is not merely a duty for the benefit of other people (i.e., one’s parents).
It is, in a deeper sense, a duty one owes to oneself for the sake of oneself.
Hmmm. Outraged or otherwise? My insides are tingling. I hope your senses are buzzing too.
Now we have to, as they say, “let it linger.” Let your parts get their thoughts out. Probably don’t expect them to come to one solid agreement.
And let’s reconnect here next week to go through our final arguments for and against FIlial Obligation.
Considering that, maybe, it’s for our own good, all along.
Or fucking not.
Cheers, y’all. I’ll talk to you soon.
[…] I believe there’s some merit to caring for your parents as a human experience, this lifetime has already been devoted to that point. My life was created in testament to my […]