We live in a world of causes and effects.
Is there any question about this? There are many ways to describe it and every area of science may have its own words and language for the study of causality. But fundamentally, it is clear to physicists and everyday people that there is a cause to every effect we humans experience.
For example, each person preparing breakfast is experiencing and applying this universal law of cause and effect.
So if I want a coffee or tea, my first step is to heat up some water. I know that using a source of heat can boil water. So then I choose my heat source (gas stove, electric kettle, etc) to boil my water, and begin the process of creating the effects I want.
Why is this simple law of cause and effect so important to me?
Because my daily life and the world I live in….is revealing in each moment…the results of the choices I made yesterday and the days before that.
For example, my body’s inner condition and health today is revealing to me all the choices I made yesterday and the days before that. Now people may argue: “but I can’t control my body and its feelings, so it is not under my control how I feel or what is happening inside my body.”
Now is that really true? or is more truthful and accurate to say: “there are ways in which I do create effects and influences on my body’s health AND there are also parts of my body’s functioning I cannot control.”
Humans did not design their own physical bodies, so of course they don’t have 100% control over how it functions and how it reveals health and sickness.
But yet still there are many things for me to learn about it and affect my physical experiences, sensory experiences, emotional experiences. For example, I have senses through which I experience life. I clearly have choices to intentionally move my body…which causes effects to myself and others…that I can see and feel.
For children, learning about their bodies is an awesome fascinating daily experiment…”wow! look at me I can walk, talk, swim…I can get things I want, I can avoid things I don’t want. This is amazing! being alive is so exciting I don’t want to go to sleep!”
But somewhere along the line, we start to disconnect from our bodies’ natural senses, feelings, emotions.
For many people, the body and its senses becomes a burden to them…something to be ignored, numbed, controlled, or manipulated (to hide its natural condition, to cover over what the body is revealing or feeling).
Why?
Pain.
painful feelings, painful experiences, or painful emotions (shame, fear, sadness).
How does a very young child deal with pain? Immediately experiencing, expressing, crying, and then moves on to the next adventure and experiment with its own body.
How is this law of cause and effect related to my own humility?
Learning about the human causes of human effects (current experience) has been a shocking and painful process. Why? Seems to me that my society taught me (and encourages all of us) to avoid feeling pain…to create a false image of reality…and to place blame for pain on either:
- (1) causes outside my control/influence,
- (2) randomness, or
- (3) externalities (externals that I am not responsible for).
I have many examples to share from my personal experiences, and many resources/references/research to offer on the issues I’ve outlined here. It will probably take me another 10 years to express all I would like;-)
For now, humility has given me the chance to learn to feel and own the actual root causes and real effects experienced in life.