The Personal Quotient

Its personal ... very personal

The hardest thing a person encounters … is the understanding of an individual's personal nature. That's probably because … we have found so many ways to describe the nature of the personal. We think we might have done that by defining the rights of individuals … or the matter of personal choices … or in the way we refer to the privacy of individuals. And quite often we relate to   political governance … as the personal expression of the state of man.

 

Our propensity to the private and personal natures … orbits around our notions of that which is patently defined as our self possession. Its the human body … and its responses …  to the social schemes that we come into contact with. We define and are as much defined by our social environment … and a public office we occupy … brings our personal natures into contact … with the public.

 

Our social guides … rules … and ethics … create a great reliance for the way … we steer the conduct of the individual in public office. Then there are the law makers and the public press … that act as watchdog … on the way the individual manages his personal in office. In such a situation … the individual's volition to issues … meets with his social environment … to create a common ground of understanding between each other. Such a relationship … at the time and place … that it is cultivated … defines the opportunities and resistances … for the individual will to express itself in its endeavors.

 

There are seldom two such persons that are exactly alike. Its a unique representation of an occasion … for the individual to communicate his will and to apply himself to their implementation.  His concerns are reflected in his understanding of his society … their place in history … and the part they play as a group … in the affairs of the world society. This has moved on to create a situation where  … the world has come to accept a racial profiling of groups … to acknowledge their viability as a separate entity … and to receive into the world's experience … that group's contributions for the greater commonwealth.

 

We wonder about the administration … that first broke the society of man into groups. We wonder about the nature of man … and form views about its source and origin … and thereafter create an accounting of why we are in our present state of social organization. But there's none among us that may answer those questions … with a sense of witness to the activities of world governance. Its certainly not the expressed political will of man.

 

We realize then that political administrations attend to the social organization of man … and are not mandated to engage the issues of the life of the being. Its a clear separation of religion and state. For the individual … his concerns are greater. He is the progenitor of the children he calls his own … and is brought to attend to the preservation of the child in his care. In much the same way … he preserves himself in the social organization that he lives in.

 

Hence … the personal nature of a man … takes to considerable attention … in our awareness. In such a content of the experience … it includes ambition … success … family … and achievement. Its also the most garrulous part of our activities … and we do bring a constant guide … to the way we exercise it. In its wake we even meet up with the president in the White House … the archbishop of Canterbury and perhaps even the King of Siam.

 

They meet in an orbit … around us … as if we are like the earth planet … with the other planets … revolving around us. We identify with the cause of the world … and we speak with the rights of the average man in creation … about what is best. In doing so … we extend our concerns to speak about what is good … for all. And we can learn to do that … whether or not we started doing that … with simply what's good for us.

 

If there was a time when what was good for us was good for everybody … then its also possible to understand that what's good for someone else … is also good for the world. It sometimes moves like the seasons … and the other side gets to play offense while we do defense. That's been a character of human society over the ages … and virtually all communities … from the Nubian to the British Empire … have taken a turn at it.

 

Its the popular appeal … that's responded to by society … whether or not that is founded on faith … materialism … social organization … or individual achievement. Its about the nerve that is reaching out to be touched … by the conventions of that which is new. And like simple organisms growing into the more complex … the appeal of humanity in these times … seeks the answer to existence … and the real opportunities for growth.

 

We have been circling our thoughts on these for almost six decades … since the 60s. It reveals itself as a search for meaning … in the personal … and the organization of the individual will … to deal and manage the issues of the times. We need to do that in the context of the social ethos … the laws … and family roles … in order to fulfill what we are seeing as our duty and ambition. We realize the need to do that ourselves … away from governments … religion … and the promises of science. In that we are getting even closer to the personal.