Thumotic living is living with others who also have life-affirming desires to fulfill. It's living respectfully of others living their lives.
When we live respectfully with others we allow space for others to live from their spirits and hearts and fulfill their life-affirming desires.
Not only do we allow space for others to live their lives, we help them fulfill the life-affirming desires of their hearts.
Thumitic living is pro-life in the true rather than political sense of the word.
Your blogs always make me stop and consider my approach, attitude, and even sometimes my automatic reactions. I see more and more that so much of this is linked to my grasp of the idea of "life-affirming", and if there's a distinction between "life-affirming" and "life-denying". I suppose my knee-jerk reaction kicks in when my perceived life-denying is someone else's life-affirming.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm asking here is if this distinction even exists in thumotic living? Or is a desire of the heart by definition life-affirming?
A part of me feels as if we've touched on this before. Or perhaps you've written something about this that I am remembering. Any extra clarity is appreciated as always.
In my view, yes, we can have life-denying desires, disordered desires of our heart. Life-denying desires expressed in our actions supress, deny, and destroy life for no good reason; for example, all forms of abuse, slavery, rape, and murder. They are expressions of power-over rather than power-for and power-with.
ReplyDeleteYou've certainly named what I would consider to be life-denying or disordered desires of the heart. I like your concept of power-over as well. I believe you addressed some of the ailments of spirit that could require attention in some of your earlier blog posts. Is that what you're pointing to here?
ReplyDeleteOh, that's an excellent question! Hmm, I think life-denying desires differ from the various condition of the spirit. For example, one van be hypothumic, low-spirited, without having life-denying desires. Does that make sense?
ReplyDeleteYes, I see what you're getting at, and it does make sense to me. Being low-spirited is a dis-ease, indicating that something with one's spirit needs attention, in the same way that one attends to the body with a cold or the mind with depression. Is that right? Life denying desires are something more than dis-ease. Is that a fair statement?
ReplyDeleteYes, that's how I see it.
ReplyDelete