My next two or three posts will be about thumotic living. Here's part one:
Thumotic living is living from our thumos, our spirit, that which makes us alive.
Since we experience our thumos in our chest, it is associated with our heart. Thumotic living is also living from our heart.
We can feel when we're living from our thumos. Sometimes we feel warmth in our chest, our heart. Sometimes the warmth blazes into a heated flame of passion. Whether it's warmth or flame it compels us to speak and act before we think.
Thumotic living is living not according to the dictates of a divine or human authority figure. It's not living according to a religion, philosophy, or moral code. It's not living according to reason, rationality, or logic. It's not concerned with conforming with current social mores.
Thumotic living is irrational. It's free-spirited living that manifests in our actions the life-affirming desires of our heart.
I've been catching up with your blog posts, and I'm not sure where to start with a comment. Your series on Thumotic Living seems as good a place as any.
ReplyDeleteI like some of your ideas a great deal. When I'm following the dictates of a divine or other authority figure, I'm not necessarily even following something I believe in. So much of our behaviour is laid down by the rules and standards we were raised with. My family had definite ideas about what it meant to behave, to operate in the world, and get along. I bet everyone's upbringing contained similar concepts, even if the rules were different.
When I read what you've written here, it strikes me that Thumotic Living is perhaps about living from my own dictates, rather than those of others.
Do you suppose there is common ground that informs a community though? Is there room in Thumotic living for these?
Great question! Yes, I think that just as other animals instinctually share communal behaviors that affirm both their individual and communal lives, so do we humans. We are social animals. We naturally care for each other.
DeleteYes, this is very much like my own view on communities. We are social animals, and do best when we live in harmony and community with our tribe. We do naturally care for others and I see that as part of our animal make-up. It saddens me that many set aside this caring for what I consider to be unnatural competition.
DeleteYes, there is what I would call a life-denying type of competition. However, I also observe healthy, life-affirming types of competition too. Life-affirming physical or mental competition can be a way to strengthen one's spirit. Have you observed natural, healthy types of competition?
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