Introduction
of the Site Philosophy . . .
Welcome to the "Site Introduction." As we shall always remain particularly concerned with the subjective realm of experience we will not abide the notion that the imagination and personality of the individual are the mere shadows of idealism or a mythological fancy. Nor do we accept the notion that the evolution of character is a strictly rational discipline, wholly dependent upon culturally sanctioned modes of existence and popular ‘identity’ norms. We seek here the autonomy and integrity of our personalities, which alone can justly maintain our social/personal organizations, hoping always for the expression of our greatest ideals of character while practicing a thorough self-inspection. Being Quest, however, is not designed as a self-help society but as a community of certain cultural interests.
We do not seek so much to ‘understand’ these ideals of character, as the botanist might pick at the stem and petal of their post-mortem specimen. Rather, we seek to live our ideals and to forever more perfectly embody them in our own dispositions. After all, no approximation to our ideals ever arrives at their complete satisfaction. Like the attempted numerical value for the circumference of a circle, our ideal relations and noble character ever trail continually on the further we advance, never quite confirmed in a final end. Our destination at Being Quest is always the journey.
As such, Being Quest is properly a Quest for Being, implying of course that we live "constantly between what was, perhaps that which shall be" (The Odyssey of Heart); that is, in becoming. We simply cannot grow into the best idealization of our selves and our social organizations if we have already concluded for certainty that our assumptions as to our nature and potentials are settled, once and for all.
The endearing hope of Being Quest is to promote the principle that we must all admit if we are to justly relate to and cooperate with each other for the perfection of character and sacred hopes of civilization. This principle is binding in every sincere and honest relationship and informs the successful pursuit of all our just aspirations. Such principle equates to the integrity of our intentions in personal, social, business, and international relations we may have in the world and the forthright means of communicating them. In our two geometric diagrams it is the dynamic ordering principle of our existence, alone the uncompromising adjudicator of our just commerce, society, and personality. Call it the Formal Principle of the Universe as failure in the maintenance of it devolves to personal, social, and material chaos.
This principle makes for the integrity of our Person, exercised in the communication of our intentions and demonstrated in every just determination we may have. Upon the maintenance and exercise of personal integrity rests the whole edifice of our institutions as well as their continued evolution and viability. Such maintenance may even be considered the existential discipline that retains the dynamism of the world. When veering from its own law, the Moral Law, to flounder in cynicism or fanaticism, the whole edifice of civilization begins to totter over the abyss, though we build a scaffolding to the heavens with our objective science and other dogmatic, domineering claims of certainty.
Whereas the red, objective paradigm of our "Paradigm Shift" and "Perception" diagrams is evident in the means we adopt to meet the necessary demands of a material existence, the yellow, subjective paradigm operates as one’s very orientation to experience, the nexus of one’s ambitions, idealizations, and aspired-to character. This subjective paradigm involves our interaction with the interests of ‘relating,’ being social creatures that we are, and always reflects upon the moral and material authority of influences that shape our civilizations, whether emotive or intellective. The dynamic of one’s interests and orientations here is what makes for "Person-hood," which is the existential object of the subjective paradigm and is the essential nature of truly advanced humanity. When the objective paradigm intrudes upon this dynamic, which paradigm is a form and conceit of intellectual certainty, it results in cynicism on the one hand, fanaticism on the other. These are the twin faults of imbalance for our Person, born of prejudice for either paradigm.
As such, the subjective paradigm is the very ground of self-awareness and the principle of the self-determined, autonomous individual. It is the ground of personal freedom, of intellectual and moral responsibility, and everything we call our ambitions, idealism, or aspiration. While the means of action in the world are merely practical to their material ends, the goals of personality are matters of interest subjectively determined and obtained by the autonomy of the person concerned. The goals of the maturing person are here freely, subjectively determined as one’s interests shift upon reflection and the person adopts new moral/social importance for its self; that is, who/what am I, will be?
At Being Quest we are particularly concerned about this relationship between our self-awareness, its provocation, and those adopted interests and desires we pursue and by which our determinations are invoked, whether by what is conceived as the needs or ideals or mere wants of our Condition. Reflection is the dynamic involved here, employing principles of integrity to reorient our values and harness the desires and motivation of our Person that impels the world.
Far from being determined merely by material necessity, Being Quest asserts that the values of existence are always tested and affirmed or denied as a matter of experience and are, in fact, freely adopted, freely abandoned. It is the intentional reflection of self-awareness that estimates the ‘value’ of existence and experience in its many proposed forms, testing them like the ice-cream parlor patron tries the flavors offered. Having tasted of the several identity norms and orientations our culture proposes, their evidence in others and the characterological traits of their patrons, everyone should come to recognize what is essential to our integrity and its universal importance for our personal relations and for the organization of society. Without such discernment there can be no autonomy or self-determination and consequently no freedom, no evolution, no just civilization.
Let the reader be conscious that they have entered upon a concern for the universal heart of humanity. We will go to great lengths at Being Quest to demonstrate our thorough interest for all that concerns the highest aspirations of Culture. We shall embrace every tradition that pursues the integrity and beauty of the heart which Being Quest espouses and seeks to nurture, no matter what may be its political or religious obscurity. Let it be just, intelligent, creative, and aspiring to the unity, peace, and freedom of humanity and it will find a cordial welcome here. May the best of our hoped-for future prevail.