Worldview 101: 101 Entry Level Looks at Life on Earth

© 2004 Michael Jean Nystrom-Schut.

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 05/21/04

ISBN: 1-4184-6570-4 (e)

ISBN: 1-4184-6571-2 (sc)

ISBN: 1-4184-6572-0 (dj)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2004093965

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

IPI

Intermixt Press International

San Jose - Indianapolis

Some of the writings of:

Michael Jean Nystrom-Schut

Life Notes

Summer Letters

Earth Dwelling

Survival Thoughts for the Continually Depressed

A Quiet Stream

I Was Thinking

How Long Have You Been Standing Here, God?

Living the Waking Dream

Loving Sensual Exchange

My World: The First 50 Years

San Juan: Glimpses in Time

The Inquisition

Forty Songs

Bricks in the Wall

Keeping it Real in an Unreal World

Mountain Peaks: Elevated Glimpses into the High Life

How Did We Get To Here?

Worldview 101

Remaking Michael

Other Works in Progress:

My Twelve Steps to Freedom

Suckers: Surviving Life on an Insane Planet

To Cuba, With Love

Web site: www.HowISeeTheWorld.com

To Auntie T (1910-2003), my little black love affair from Tennessee, U.S.A. – how will I ever forget you?

WARNING-DISCLAIMER

This book is designed to provide basic information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher and author are not engaged in rendering legal, consultative or other professional services. If such expert assistance is required, the services of competent professionals should be sought.

It is not the purpose of this book to reprint information that is otherwise available to the author/publisher or reader, but rather to compliment, amplify and supplement other texts. The reader is urged to read all the available material, and learn as much as is possible about life, tailoring the information to the individual path.

Every effort has been made to make this book as accurate as possible. However, there may be mistakes both typographical and in content. Therefore, the text should be used only as a general guide, and not as the ultimate source of information related to these topics. Furthermore, this book contains information that may no longer be either relevant or accurate, as much as we all would like to think our words and thoughts are timeless.

The primary purpose of this book is to educate and entertain. The author and publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused, or alleged to be caused, directly or indirectly by the information contained here.

INTRODUCTION:

In truth, just about anyone of us can scribble out a book about personal answers to the many questions of life. Worldview 101, or, "What is most basic and true to my own reality as a human upon the earth?" is my own response to a number of different concerns and issues in life.

You might think of this writing as a personal Plato’s handbook, a general set of responses to the many questions of life. As it’s writer, it is only a part of the representation of my most current worldview (I say current because how we see the world is always in a state of movement).

Concerning the book, as you read it, do so with the approach that you are first taking into account my way of seeing things, thinking about it, and then re-shaping more of how you personally view things.

See if you relate to we think this, or we came to know that. If you do, adopt the idea as your own. If not, move on.

In picking and choosing your position on the issues presented here, you will probably come to know more of what you are all about – more of what you know you know.

And what will that do? It will give you a perspective in higher thought – which is a good sort of perspective to possess. This, you can hopefully use to govern your own life more personally.

…It can be very difficult to acclimate to this world of ours. Perhaps the thoughts in this book will help change or reshape your overall acclimation to life for the better. Knowing more never really stops. If life is meant for anything, for some reason that we don’t really know about, it seems meant for us to learn more about being.

In the end, it is this being part of us that relays a story. It also tells to others in our world who and what we are or were.

Our lives are personal narratives, and play out as such for each of us. Life speaks to our innermost parts; what is it saying to you? We can hear the messages if we listen carefully.

The 101 thoughts (worldviews) to follow represent much of my own personal story and conclusion; they are some of the assumptions I have arrived upon along the way so far. I share them with you in the hopes that they may help you piece together more of the mystery that is your life.

For certain (and to reiterate) you won’t see it like I do – not completely anyway, and perhaps not at all. It is my desire that you won’t, either. This would be disappointing, since you need to come to your own conclusions, which will develop who you are even more into that person!

I aim to provide you both pleasure and enjoyment during the short journey through this collection of expressive thought. May you take something valuable from many of them, and if this happens, you will have lifted my own spirit, boosted my (already substantial) ego, and provided me another part of the answer as to why I personally have arrived to live and dwell here upon the earth.

PREFACE:

With the passing of time, we each personally build and modify an ongoing realm of working information by which we conduct our lives. We weave endless internal narratives of how we see life; no two perspectives of life are quite the same.

These are good things.

As for the overall philosophy of religions – and you know there are thousands of them – they busy themselves trying to make sense of life, too, by drawing conclusions about it, and homogenizing humans in our thinking.

Admirably, perhaps, they take on the enormous task of trying to organize our inner and outer thoughts, and bring them under control, in line and in keeping with God’s way (however they see God’s way to be).

Religions, of course, are philosophies in themselves, always working to sway us towards seeing this kind of a world, or that kind of a world. But it hardly stops with organized religion. They are not the only ones vying for our affection, time and resources.

Countless geopolitical forces are forever at work, building up their case for this, or breaking down an argument in opposition of that.

The religion of Nationalism, for example, would have you be true to your country.

Consider society in general, and at large. Current social laws and mores dictate to us everything from fashion to finance to fun.

Zillions of special interest groups rally (the blind?) masses towards their varied causes.

What club or cause do you support? Who is trying to currently sign you up to their team? What labels are pinned on your shirt?

We are forever and endlessly being recruited by others to join their steady march towards truth (at least as truth is known and practiced by them).

Since civilization really got off the ground some ten thousand short years ago, for the human species upon the face of earth it has pretty much gone the way of social groups. We are gregarious and sociable animals. As a feature of that, we prey upon one another, and lead each other about on invisible leashes. Typically, the strong and influential among us feed off the weak and uninformed of us. It’s pathetic, really.

Many humans – most, in fact – are caught in the crossfire of conflicting ways of seeing the world. This might be because we have not taken time to iron out what we really think about things. It could be due to the fact that we found a particular line of easy reasoning to be adequate for us.

Or it might be – among perhaps still many more reasons – because we were not courageous enough to see things for ourselves, and simply say to hell with those who want us, for the sake of their personally held world views, to join their movement, or way of seeing things.

Worldview 101 – 101 Random Entry Level Looks at Life on the Planet is a simple, complex book about coming to terms with the way we ourselves truly see our own little world. It assumes a set of views, while not implying we simply accept other people’s beliefs as our own. It has no interest in capitulating to causes we only half understand.

It is more about cultivating independent thought, and coming to know what we ourselves think, not wondering, or guessing, or living through life in some passive manner.

If we’ve moved towards some of this, we might have done so because we’re tired of being pushed around by others, and came to prefer to be motivated by inner forces, and not always by…well, we’ll call it, them.

In fact, who needs "them" anyway? Inner, rather than outer forces, should govern our motions and movements.

When this starts to really happen for us, we see that we are not playing their games anymore. We don’t pretend. We don’t hope we have it right, or delude ourselves into thinking something, when we know something else is more in keeping with our reality.

We think on our own.

In a more advanced human condition – when we have graduated from a class on, say, Worldview 101 – reality and fantasy are realms that we have come to at least partially understand. We see the similarities in them, and the differences also. We more or less start choosing reality over fantasy – at least as best we can.

Now, we elect enlightenment over darkness. We make good choices – better ones than we were making before. With time, our view of the world is more of what we know we know – not just what they know, or what we just believed before. We no longer settle for a loose-knit string of ideas that have come together almost by accident.

Some of us are taking the time to make an inventory of things, and when we do that, we come to eclectic conclusions that ring the bell of personal truth within us.

We see that our way isn’t superior to anyone else’s. Yet, it is not inferior to the way anyone else thinks either. Because we’ve started to think about what we are thinking about, it could just be that we’re now a little different than some of those around us.

For certain, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s no big deal to be different.

With time, a higher way of living and thinking has lessened our wondering, our wandering. We’ve found ways to set ourselves free from so many things. Now we’re in a place to fill in the cracks between the spaces…to finish it out, become more complete as time passes.

For better or for worse (and we know there is plenty of both of this in life) we move forward in a state of awareness that removes the darkness from our lives and relocates us into more of an enlightened place of being.

In a very real way, we have started to reconcile with life. We have come to accept it for what it is, and what it isn’t; we have begun to find our true place within it.

No outer force can ever dictate to us anything we don’t want to hear. Interior stirrings of our own generated initiative have liberated us. We set ourselves set apart from the shackles that once impeded our progress and kept us confined.

We remember how it was…but that was then…and this is a new time, now. Who can say who we are? They can only say who we were! We are changing all the time.

In the beginning, there is always the question of how to start embarking on roads of deliberate change. We ask questions, and the basic theme of them is pretty much always the same: What makes our life worth living? What’s it all really about? And why are we here? How can we find peace, prosperity and purpose in the midst of all of this? Just what is our life intended to be or become anyway? How can we not only survive, but also thrive?

There are just some of our questions…

The individual responses to the inquiries are what widely vary, and are a matter of great intrigue to investigate. It’s invigorating to come to respond to the world around us, and make conclusions on our own.

While you read further, start making conclusions on your own, as to what you really know and believe, and what you simply don’t. And then start living those conclusions in each of your days and nights.

Enjoy the book!

-Michael Jean Nystrom-Schut

Contents

WARNING-DISCLAIMER

INTRODUCTION:

PREFACE:

CHAPTER ONE:

ACCEPTANCE, APPRECIATION AND GRACE

CHAPTER TWO:

BALANCE, HARMONY AND PEACE

CHAPTER THREE:

SIMPLICITY, DOMESTICITY AND CERTAINTY

CHAPTER FOUR:

LIBERTY, FREEDOM AND RENEWAL

CHAPTER FIVE:

NATURE, ART AND MUSIC

CHAPTER SIX:

LEISURE, PLEASURE AND PLAY

CHAPTER SEVEN:

MONEY, WEALTH AND ECONOMICS

CHAPTER EIGHT:

PHYSIOLOGY, VITALITY AND HEALTH

CHAPTER NINE:

SEX, SENSUALITY AND THERAPY

CHAPTER TEN:

SUFFERING, MISERY AND PAIN

CHAPTER ELEVEN:

SOCIETY, CULTURE AND INDIVIDUALITY

CHAPTER TWELVE:

DIVERSITY, RACE AND EQUALITY

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:

LOVE, FRIENDSHIP AND FAMILY

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:

EDUCATION, LEARNING AND GROWTH

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:

WISDOM, PARADOX AND IMAGINATION

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:

PSYCHOLOGY, CONSCIOUSNESS AND THOUGHT

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:

MOTIVATION, WORK AND WILL

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:

PERSONALITY, INDIVIDUALITY AND EGO

CHAPTER NINETEEN:

EMOTION, MOOD AND FEELING

CHAPTER TWENTY:

PHILOSOPHY, PERSPECTIVE AND TRUTH

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:

REALITY, METAPHYSICS AND ILLUSION

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:

TIME, SPACE AND DISTANCE

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:

DREAMS, INSIGHTS AND HOPE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:

MORALITY, LAW AND ETHICS

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:

SPIRITUALITY, RELIGION AND DOGMA

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:

SCIENCE, EVOLUTION AND THE FUTURE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:

KOSMOS, DIVINITY AND THE UNIVERSE

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:

AGING, MORTALITY AND ETERNITY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER ONE:

ACCEPTANCE, APPRECIATION AND GRACE

01

Life is a mixed bag – you can’t beat it, so we join it

02

To be alive is to be aware of a mysterious gift

03

Both fascination and awe characterize life

04

All of life is some kind of miracle

01

Life is a mixed bag – we can’t beat it, so we join it

If we took the time to compile an unadulterated list of all the good things and bad things about our own lives, neither column would turn out to be very short. Though both lists might be somewhat equal.

If this is the case, what would that tell us about life? Perhaps it speaks to the fact that life simply is what it is.

But this simplicity includes many, many features and aspects. So, it’s a simple, mixed bag of good and bad things – and it always will be just that.

Thus, and as they say, since we can’t beat it, we might as well join it. In other words, this is life – let’s make the best of things.

As a human being we have the privilege of seeing the whole of life through our own individual eyes. When we do that, it becomes clear that some of us choose to see the essence of the cup of life as a half full thing, while others opt to select a half empty view of it.

This is freedom of choice in action – to choose to say what life is and isn’t.

Regardless, we can agree that it’s a variety of things, this encounter with reality we each are experiencing. It is – potentially at least – a long, deep bag, which we start to open when we are young, and never stop reaching into, while constantly pulling things out of it, until we are at or near the point of our demise.

The size of the bag varies too. Some of them are very, very large; others are quite small. It is amazing how much difference and variance can occur between individuals as they reach into their own private bags and pull out the bits and pieces that constitute the elements of life.

Switching from a well-worn metaphor (the bag), but sticking to the theme, the road of life will always twist and turn (yes, another worn one – aren’t they the best ones?) We can be sure that we will know many highs and lows while traveling upon this road. Stretches of it will seem endlessly smooth, and perfectly straight. During these, we will glide along them as if we are on the air itself.

Other parts of this highway will be treacherous, and broken down, full of potholes and chuckholes. Traveling these sections is sure to be slow, tedious. The trail will bend and wind, and wear away at our patience.

Though just as it does, another straight-a-way will appear, and we see we’re okay again – for at least a time.

As life moves along, we continue to assess it to be this, or that, depending on the circumstances that currently prevail in our minds. We will in fact produce many inward and outward tears; some will come from joy and bliss, others from misery and disappointment. This we come to accept as part of the package of life.

With more time still, one of two notions will frequent our thoughts. It will either be that life is worth traveling (that the bag is worth opening), and that the journey is generally a pleasing one (that there are many nice surprises in the bag), or it will simply be for us, something a little or a lot less than that.

There is another thing that is certain: Our involvement and concentration along each part of our path will go great lengths to determine the outcome of the journey. We know that when we reach in to pull something out of the bag, it will not always be a surprise to us what we might find in it. This is because we have come to trust outcomes, knowing that this life, generally at least, is well worth living.

So, is living on earth a different sort of experience? For certain, it is that. This reality cannot be denied, so we join in it, and follow the obvious logic of it – that life is what it is.

And for us, it is something more positive than negative, more good than bad; it has to at least be that for us to this point, though thankfully, we generally have no real struggle in assessing this to be the case.

02

To be alive is to be aware of a mysterious gift

This life, to be sure, is a mixture of blessings and struggles. But it’s interesting to work on the premise that, among so many other things, life is a gift, and a fantastic one at that.

Pragmatically speaking, why not always choose to see life in a positive light, since seeing it in negative ways seems to have few self-serving properties? What is pragmatism? It is (for many of us) simply common sense thinking; it’s only common sense to put the positive spin on things in our lives, and why not?

We may not know the Giver of the Gift. We may not understand the reason the gift of life was given to us. But it is a safe assumption to make, that when we study this green and blue planet of ours, and do so in the context of the whole of life, it becomes obvious how uniquely and specially blessed we are.

This applies to the whole body of us, of which each are an inseparable part.

While we all may differ greatly as to exactly what we in life are – some see us as a Kosmic accident, others see us as a specific part of a plan from a Loving Creator, most have innumerable twists and spins of the theme – the controversy always rages as to what life is all about, and, just as importantly, what it’s not all about.

Can we not see that the whole of life is special, different from other forms and manifestations of interplanetary existence? It’s a wonder than anyone could legitimately deny this.

Or, perhaps, it is in reality nothing really special? Is it somewhat unglamorous, trite and even boring? This is the flip side of the debate.

…As the matter (in each personal mind) goes up for discussion, we would have to struggle to defend a point of view that life is nothing that great, that unique. Clearly it is very precious, and the more we look into that reality, the more it becomes evident to us. It blows up in our face how special it is! And does so the more we look deeply into it.

It’s plain shocking to be alive, or more appropriately, perhaps, it’s invigorating and awe-inspiring to be aware of our aliveness.

Most people are not in touch with the fact that this life, so common, and in such great abundance, has deep and special meaning attached to it. Most of us who walk the earth are significantly unaware of what it means to know their unique status of existence. It goes unobserved and infrequently noted on a daily basis, and while once in a while it may illuminate in our minds as to just how special and precious and sacred things are, mostly we just live the moments as they turn into hours, days, years and lifetimes.

But many of us are clear about it. We find the very condition of aliveness to be something remarkable. And more than just once in a while the point is driven home thoroughly. When it happens, the heights and dimensions of our enhanced levels of awareness, which always seem to be growing, stimulating our thinking patterns.

While still mostly a mystery, occasional clues are provided with it that makes life, for us, always something that is filled with intrigue and suspense.

What will happen next? We don’t know. We really haven’t a clue. But we are amazed at the prospects; they are quite innumerable.

To simply be alive allows for virtually anything to come about, and as mysteries unfold upon still more mysteries, the awareness of the gift has no choice but to grow and grow within.

03

Both fascination and awe characterize the universe

As our physical eyes become increasingly opened to our reality – though it is the mind that is opening as well – we are always sure to be impressed with the fireworks that accompany the everyday events and occurrences of life.

The fact is that this life is completely filled with the wonder of little and large points of interest; they abound on every side of us. When we are looking to see them, we find these things, because they seem to always be out there, waiting in the wings for their discovery to take place.

From an awakened state, we feel that we are always just starting to see what life is all about. The fascination and awe that describe it almost cries out for its unveiling. This thing is a natural match to the ever-opening mind of any modern scientific or spirituality-seeking being.

When it is suggested that we are fascinated with life, we sometimes also remember to file a self-reminder that this is not going to be something to always jump out at us. Like anything else worthwhile and good, we will have to do some probing to bring it out into the open.

But when we do? Oh, boy!

The Hubbell telescope pictures show the magnificence of life out there. As these words are being scribbled, better viewing mechanisms still are being built at this point in history. We are most certain to soon see still more. It’s incredible. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every one of us could see and sense how incredible it all is?

Amazingly, while some train an outward eye towards the stars of space, hi-tech microscopes probe inner space to continue to tell of a world that exists on the vastly micro level never before understood in this amount of detail.

It turns out that this inner trip