A Month of Wonders: Reflections on Life's Focus

By Robert W. Bailor

ABOUT THE BOOK

No one is bornwith a human operators manual attached. We are challenged to come upon guidelines for successful living while already living. It would be very helpful to know what to consider and to consider this well before we stumble badly. A good philosophic self-help book would be much appreciated.

A Month of Wonders is just such a book. Its purposeisto bring readersto special moments of discovery and delight. With theformatof a personal journal,A Month of Wonders offersthirty thought provoking yet accessible reflections, just enough to consider for a month. It focuses on Wonder, Philosophy, Conceit, Self-Transcendence, Birth, Destiny, Death, Afterlife, Being Human (2), Incarnation, The Natural World (2), Love, Friendship (2), Sex, Forgiveness, Evil, Adversity, Suffering, Grace, The Sacred, Faith, God, Happiness, Hope, Joy, and Truth (2). Each sectionbegins with aneasily remembered proverb expressing the overall point of the reflection. Each reflection concludes with a sense that the reflection really ends with the readers further consideration. The overall theme is this: Happiness requires proper focus of my life, not proper focus on my life.

A Month of Wonders is meant as a companion to those who seek insights about the meaning of life for themselves. The hope is that the process will be wonder-full.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 9, 2006
• ISBN: 9781467089272

Robert W. Bailor

Bob Bailor currently works as a Chemical Dependency Counselor at Talbot Hall, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, OH. He is a State of Ohio Licensed Independent Chemical Dependency Counselor and a Licensed Professional Counselor. He received a Masters degree in Community Counseling from the University of Dayton and degrees in Philosophy from Holy Cross College and Loyola University of Chicago. He has taught Philosophy at Loyola University of Chicago, Purdue University Calumet Campus, Ohio Dominican College and Columbus State Community College. In addition, Bob has given numerous talks on Counseling and Philosophy and has published articles in professional journals in both fields as well as two books. He lives in Westerville, OH with his wife, Mary Rose, and has three children.

Book preview

Starting Off

Wonder

My life is engaging and exciting.

I am alive and I am here. I find this an amazing thing. Why should I be alive, and for that matter why should I be alive here and now writing this reflection on wonder? I think that Descartes had it wrong. The first thing for me to consider is not I think, therefore I am. It is, I wonder why I exist. And it is not the fact of my existence but the act of my existing that I need to consider. It comes down to a matter of focus. To speculate on the fact that I exist makes me a spectator of my life, able to comment on it something like a Monday-morning quarterback. The real question is why my existence interests me to begin with. It is because I am moved deeply by its pulsation beneath my hands. I am primarily interested in my own life because it is an ongoing drama with which I am intimately involved. My life is not a fact. It is a project I am working at as we speak. My life is a hot prospect, not a cold objective fact that I can pull back from and comment on from above. My life as I experience it is full of wonders, and wonders are best understood as surprises and as mysteries and as unfolding, unwieldy moments of opportunity which arise and fade away never to be heard from again.

I dare not approach my life as a catchable, held-in-my-hands kind of thing, something that I can hold onto and stop from wriggling about long enough for me to measure and label it. The primary experience of my life is as a flow and a thrust from where I happen to be now. It is more like a sporting event than a performance piece, like a play. A play is a done deal. No matter how often you become involved in a play it always turns out the same way. This is because it is scripted, and the ending is a foregone conclusion. Not so with my life. I am swept away as a participant in its outcome, and I am always anxious to discover this outcome though I am never quite able to get a good grip on it, because my ending hasn’t happened yet. Like a sporting event, at one moment my life’s outcome seems to favor one resolution, then at the next moment as the momentum shifts a different ending shows itself as the most likely outcome. My life unfolds as if I am living it, not as if I have already lived it. In my living I am walking through the forest, not surveying it from a safe distance away. Sometimes I am lost, sometimes I am clearly on the way, sometimes I fear that the way I have chosen is the wrong way, yet how can I be sure since no better way has shown itself?

This is why I first come upon my life with wonder rather than an intellectual attempt to comprehend it. I am taken aback by my life and all it involves. It is like mercury in my hands. It is there but constantly slipping through my fingers. And so I don’t stand back and watch it. I let myself admire it and take it in and glory at the one fact I am sure of: My life is always more than I can think about it. So I have learned to appreciate my life and be grateful for what I can understand about it, even though there will always be more. That is why I approach my life with wonder, not with speculation as if it were a puzzle to be figured out. My life is wonder-full, and therefore I exist wide-eyed and amazed at all I find out about it.

The experience of wonder gives my life an ever-present aura of interest. Facts are dull. It is wonder that calls me to consider my life and all it involves with great care to appreciate all of it and figure out some of it. Eyes of wonder see differently than eyes intent upon facts and figures. My life and all it involves doesn’t just sit there like a cold, dead lump. It reaches out to me, shakes me from my contentment and asks me, dares me, to question it and try to make sense of it. I do not experience my life as just lived, as if survival were all there is to me. I experience my life as an adventure which confronts me and calls me to constantly participate, as if I were fated to have something to say about my fate. It is as if my life were at the center of a series of concentric circles all of which seem to bleed over into and through each other making every question about one of the circles a question about all the other circles as well. Sometimes this is overwhelming, but most of the time it is engaging and breathtaking. What a web of intricate relationships I come upon! I am fascinated at what I find, and I am amazed how I keep finding something more to be fascinated with. The proverbial rock discovered under a rock is not discouraging to me because the rock just unearthed is interesting as well.

My sense of wonder at my life and its many and varied contexts seems to feed on itself. Not that it devours itself but like a firestorm it becomes stronger as it is stoked by its own intensity. I find it vitally interesting to ask questions like How can this be? What is this like? Why is this the case rather than not? How is it that I can ask these questions? What does my questioning mean about what I am, who I am, and what I am about?

Wonder about my life allows me to wander through the maze of contexts of my life but then boomerangs back to ask me, Given where I am in the grand scheme of things, what does my life amount to? And as I wonder about this, I am faced with some anxiety because I sense that, if I am questioned about my meaning, then I have something to say about it, and that places the responsibility of my life’s destiny on my own shoulders. Yet this in itself fires my motivation because I have a choice: Run from the question of my meaning or face it and do something about it. I have chosen the latter option because I refuse to live as if my life were in vain especially in the face of so many things that make it interesting and can make it meaningful.

What do I wonder about? I wonder about how to find meaning in my life and how I can recognize it when I am faced with it. I wonder whether there is truth and whether I can handle it. I wonder what it means to be human, for that is what I am, and it would be a good thing to know how best to be human before I make a mess of what I am supposed to be. And I wonder if what I am goes beyond what I am now, and if so, what am I for?

I hope that I am not stuck with myself as I am now because then I would be caught in a vortex of confusion, since all my questions are meant for answers I do not have yet. Where am I supposed to go with my life? Is it back where I came from? Where did I come from? Are there a call and a mission to my life? And, most importantly, is there something or someone calling me?

My deep, constant sense of wonder dispels from me the thought that my life can be nothing more than like I am right now. I sense clearly that I am pointed toward something else. Life is interesting precisely because my life is thrust toward being different than it is right now. I experience myself as constantly moving beyond my own grasp, as if I am reaching out beyond myself to take hold of something else before I’m even aware of my reaching. Of this I am certain; what I am not certain of is that I will attain this something else. So my wonder is tinged with a sense of anxiety. Wonder challenges me to get on with my life, to live my life well, and to muster the strength and courage for the ongoing challenge that is my living.

What’s so funny about my sense of wonder is that the more I genuinely give myself over to it, the more I am encouraged that all will be well. I sense in my wonder that the basic obligation of my life is not to comprehend what my life is all about as if I were made for coming to an end of my wondering. It is, rather, to be faithful to my life as a process of experiencing new ways of being regardless of what I comprehend. I am constantly starting, but never from the same place. I am constantly getting closer, but never quite there yet. I am therefore full of wonder, and I live always with a deep sense of gratitude that I am blessed with this wonder. For with it I experience life embracing me with the liveliness that comes from never ending self-renewal.

Philosophy

Finding life’s meaning requires devoting myself to wisdom.

I wonder what my life is all about. I wonder whether my life has meaning or is a waste of time. I wonder how things really are and why they are this way rather than that. It’s not that I am obsessed with these questions. It’s that I have a deep and abiding concern for them. Besides, I sense that I should really have this concern because the matters I am concerned with matter greatly to my life. Yet, sometimes I sense a frustration about these questions, as if I were burdened by them and as if they just won’t release me from their grasp. But then I make progress, come upon new insights and experience a sense that I am better off having considered them. I find myself involved in the search for wisdom and at times coming upon an understanding of what I ought to spend my time on so that my life lives up to its promise.

What is this call that is so close and so natural to me that it urges me on to consider not only how I should do things but also what things I should do? It is philosophy at its original and most personal level. Philosophy is the study of wonder, a faithfulness to my wondering and a focus on what deserves this passionate concern. The considerations that are deeply rooted in my attempt to live my life well are the focus of philosophy. Not philosophy understood as a geeky, ivory tower academic study that seems to be off on a tangent debating topics hardly pertinent to real life. I mean philosophy as it was originally understood, as the love of wisdom, better yet, engagement with the wonders of my life. These questions of my life and its meaning are what philosophy is all about. It is from these questions and concerns that my philosophy of life emerges. It is my philosophy that appreciates and mines all these questions so that I might have some answers, some guidance, something to hold on to while I try to get some hold on myself and the world I live in.

It’s too bad that in some circles philosophy has been given a bad name, as if it were inaccessible or irrelevant, a mere diversion for those who have the leisure to waste time talking about issues over and over again. It’s too bad that doing philosophy has to be justified at all, because philosophy is how I am as a being that is confronted by my life and made to feel responsible for how I pick it up and run with it.

Some think that philosophy is all about word games and learning how to win an argument. Some think that philosophy is only for intellectuals and spin-meisters and scholars. None is the case. Philosophy is first and foremost the passionate search for wisdom. Philosophy is mistakenly understood as an endeavor of the head when really it is a matter of the heart. It is a lived devotion to wisdom.

At its root philosophy is all about the attempt to satisfy the deep and intimate longing that bubbles up and confronts a human being with questions about life and its meaning. Philosophy is trying to understand what reality is all about and what place each person has in it. This understanding is called wisdom. Wisdom is not just a matter of collecting information. It is about being enlightened, experiencing a piercing of the veil of reality so that the true meaning of life and all it involves shows itself. By this a human being can better navigate the waters of life.

When I wonder about my life and cast my fate in one direction or another, I am already doing philosophy. Better yet, I am taken up in a flow that seems to affect and propel not just me but everyone who is bothered as I am by the questions of life. Philosophy is the fundamental attempt available to all human beings to grasp what really is important in life and to filter out the chaos and noise that haunts and confuses everyday events. Philosophy is all about seeking focus on what really is important and on what we all should be spending our time on.

I sense that my philosophy is like my computer operating system. It is the basic framework by which I know how to perform any function at all. My philosophy is the basic platform upon which I base every vision and every value I hold in my life. It not only gives me a basic frame of reference by which I understand whatever I understand, but it also hints to me about what there is to understand and what limits there may be to my understanding. My philosophy not only tells me what is important but also what could possibly be important and whether anything at all is important in the first place. My philosophy is about the way reality is and about how reality can be. It is my dance of wonderment and discernment that orbits around the four questions that bother me the most: Where am I from? Where am I going? Why am I here? Why should I keep going?

I sense that philosophy is all about what I come upon when I consider these four questions. But what a task it is to come to the answers! What an accomplishment it would be, because answering these questions makes all the difference in the world. They are answers that are not just facts to be collected. They are measures for my life. Knowing the answers to these questions can make the difference between living a successful life and being a failure. And what a tragedy it would be to be a failure! That is why it is so important for me to give myself over to philosophy no matter how inconvenient or time consuming. By philosophizing I have a profound sense that I am not just living my life; I am relevant to it. I am not just stuck with my life; I am accountable for it. I am constantly challenged to take my life to some place where I might rejoice over my life rather than regret having ever drawn breath. How tragic it would be to realize on my deathbed that my life has been a waste! There are no second chances for my life, so I had better get it right the first time around. Developing a sound philosophy is not merely an option. It is a prime requirement of my being human.

Philosophy should be recognized as the most practical endeavor of all. What could be more to the point for getting along in my life than developing a sense of what my life is all about? Once I have this sense everything else follows, what I think, what I do, how I spend my time, what I choose to pursue. How difficult life is when I am just floating through it with no sense of direction and purpose! I wonder how such a life is tolerable. When I don’t know where I am going I am lost. And when I am lost it is like I am free falling through life just hoping that the final bump will not be too painful.

I sense that embracing philosophy is a personal imperative for me, for I am faced with the task of making something of myself rather than just letting things mold me as they see fit. And, I sense that I really could use a basic manual for getting through life successfully. This is why I look to philosophy. It is the process of creating just such an operator’s manual with guidelines close at hand so that I don’t make a mess of things.

Because I can give myself over to ideas and actions that in the end cause more harm than good I must constantly be vigilant to hold only those ideas and do only those actions which in the end make my life better for the holding and for the doing of them. This is why I need to do philosophy and do it well. It is philosophy that opens me up to a critique of what I already think is the case to be sure that I have not been led astray. The passionate devotion to truth which is the hallmark of philosophy is born of a sense of discontent which invites me to look critically and well at where I am and what real possibilities I have before me. Do I think I already know it all? Or am I humble enough to open myself to accommodating, not my pride, not my need for security, not my sense of power, but the truth regardless of where it leads me?

I sense that only those too full of themselves or too afraid for themselves avoid the serious inventory-taking that philosophy is all about. The result of a properly examined life is to come upon an orientation of life that leads to as much happiness as life can offer. I sense that philosophy is all about coming up with an answer to the most important and momentous question we can consider: What’s life really all about? It is a pearl beyond price to know where you really are, not just in terms of any particular circumstance you might find yourself in, but in terms of your life itself.

Quo vadis? Where are you going? This is not about some geographical end point but about the purpose of life. I sense that if anyone were to find this purpose, then their life would be full of meaning even in the face of what appear to be insurmountable odds and overwhelming difficulties. To be or not to be is still the question. The answer depends on how well I give myself over to finding the answer no matter how scarred and tired I am from the effort.

Conceit

I am not at the center of the universe.

I wonder if I am so important that everything revolves around me. I mean, do I assign meaning to everything? Am I supposed to be in charge of the way things are and how they are meant to turn out? I sense that there is something frightfully amiss that I would even ask this kind of question. Why would I consider myself to have such power in the first place?

It seems to revolve around my seeing everything that exists in terms of being rivals one to the other and the universe as a battleground. I am in the habit of considering all there is in terms of a universal chess game which is all about winning or losing.

I begin this way of considering things by thinking that if there is something in the universe other than me I have to be either in charge of it or at the mercy of it. Everything else in the universe is an opponent to me. Either I capture and corral any force that stands over and against me or that force strikes at me without concern for my welfare. It is as if I and everything else were always and ever fated to be at odds. It makes no difference whether something else is animate or inanimate, human or non-human. It’s all the same. I work off the presumption that I am against what is not me from the outset and ever. Because neither side of the equation of power can really cross over the fence to the other side, my life amounts to a struggle between me and anything that isn’t me.

When I think in this way, I see humans as conspirators and threats and the things of nature as cruel and uncaring forces. I see everything as being out for itself, and I understand the basic theme of the universe as played out in terms of masters and slaves. I either dominate, set the rules, overcome the opposition or I am dominated, set for subservience, overwhelmed by my opponent.

Now, I find it naturally abhorrent to be controlled by something else. So, to remain undominated I must at my core be immune to harm by another. And I come upon a solution. I presume that everything gets its meaning from me and me alone. Now nothing can harm me because everything has all its power in my terms. I am the one who allots anything its meaning and purpose. Nothing can hurt me because I am in charge of all things. This is a matter of my