All Their Sisters

A slightly altered view of Humility: It is always a question of definition.

Ego in Humility?

‘(Regular) Definition of Humility: A modest or low view of one’s own importance; humbleness.’

It’s true; there is a sort of ego in the assertion of humility. ‘I am the MOST humble!’ or at least… ‘I am more humble than you!’ or even ‘I am humble’.

When you stop looking at Humility as a possession of personality and rather an action or instance, this is when you start to see how Humility is possible.

The nature of the definition of Humility is interactive.

Humility is one side of a dualistic concept of ‘ego’, the other side being Egotistical. Like most dualistic concepts, they are mostly used to a comparative extent by human beings. Comparison is interactive. If humility exists only as an interactive force than it is possible to see how it arises through one person’s interaction with another without a question of ether persons self-worth.

Instance 1 

A king who normally has a great deal self-worth, can still be humble (putting himself aside) when he goes amongst the people and sits with a beggar for their regular Tuesday morning pipe asking about the beggar’s day with actual interest. (The beggar too, may have ideas about the elitist upper-class and be actually choosing to be a beggar in protest! But he humbly puts these ideas aside because he enjoys the interaction with the man that the king is.)
(Two oppositely identical persons may bow to each other in offerings of service or want. This is Humble.)

Instance 2 

One person may bow to the other in offerings of service or want.

NOT AN INSTANCE 3:

There is a certain amount of duality in people’s thinking (arguments between levels of subconsciousness or whatever). Humility seems to exist to the self when you opt for the more humble seeming of two (or more) options etc. Unfortunately then, only the egotistical side of you knows what’s humble (the humble side can’t) and the humility within self again ceases to be possible by definition. However, possibly this kind of humility should not be dismissed as it could be good practise for interludes of humility with other people.

HUMILITY!!!

So you see, Humility exists in exchange between us. Luckily this is where it really matters.

The only way to be humble is to go to another person with humility. Possession of humility only lasts for a second at the time when someone says ‘you are very humble’ before it goes to your head.

-All Their Sisters

‘Love and thalt shall receive sandwich.’

One thing I don’t like about (many) religions is that they offer real reward for things like ‘humility’ and ‘love’, which kind of takes the selflessness out of it. It’s contradictory, even when used metaphorically for instance, ‘love is its own reward’. I’m going to be a bit tongue in cheek and blame the initial and dominant male influence in (much) religion for this large spiritual short coming. Also it seems like a bit of a scramble to incentivise religion for practising followers. ‘Love and thalt shall receive sandwich.’ Not that this goes for all men, but in my experience women certainly seem more in touch with altruism. I’m not prepared to say it’s an intrinsic quality, but possibly just very ingrained due to historical and cultural sexual socialisation.

-All Their Sisters

Perhaps life is simply the potentiality of peace, love and freedom. (What a muck of it we have made.)

At the moment I believe there are three things that people fundamentally seek in this life. Peace, Love, Freedom. (And perhaps these can be boiled into one.) The rest are webs that people tie themselves up in, ignorant or foolishly arrogant to what happiness boils down to. Expressions of the soul, chemical expressions, however you like to put it. Try to see things for how they are, see the centre path, and acknowledge that you can live there or at least visit regularly.

-All Their Sisters

Nina Simone on Freedom

Interviewer: What does freedom mean to you?

Nina Simone: Same thing it means to you, you tell me. Oh, it’s just a feeling, just a feeling. It’s like, how do you tell someone how it is to be in love? How are you going to tell anyone who has not been in love how it feels to be in love? You cannot do it to save your life. You can ‘describe’ things, but you can’t TELL ‘em. But you know it when it happens. That’s what I mean by free.

I’ve had a couple of times when I’ve really felt free and that’s something else. That’s really something else, like… I’ll tell you what freedom is to me. No fear. I mean REALLY no fear. …That’s the only way I can describe it. Oh, but that’s not all of it, it’s like a new way of seeing.

Values: Creation of relative importance and significants within a larger void of insignificants.

Life perhaps is a game played justifying and expanding on values. But, if you feel there is no harm in yours, and indeed that some elements of the greatest goodness in this life may come of them, then proceed without too much questioning of rightness and wrongness. Have the courage to discard the things that wrest in front of your values that cause you pain. And never forget to keep tweaking the stew as you learn, the best values are developed.

- All Their Sisters