Conscious Performance Analysis or CPA - Essay Example

?600089 Self Possession Paper Conscious Performance Analysis or CPA enables some people to live a more purposeful life by being able to intellectually, spiritually and artistically examine the approach and reactions they have to the events of their lives. I say “some people” because it is impossible to know if all people actually invest much time into their inner life—their intellect or to greater understanding. In fact, being a skeptic, I would say that there is plenty of evidence to support the notion that most people do not invest any time into going beyond the Wondering Operation that involves attending to what interests them and ignoring what is of no interest. Critical Operations follow for those who find CPA a useful exercise, but unfortunately, most people find interest only in superficiality of the bag of chips they are devouring while sitting on their couch in front of their big screen watching Dancing with the Stars. The popularity of such superficial and meaningless programming as well as the rising obesity rates proves this assertion, or at least makes a very strong argument in favor of the assertion. The real value in CPA comes from the fact that it can lead people out of that inattentive, lazy place into a more enlightened, more examined life that truly is worth living. Americans especially, but I am sure that it occurs in other countries too, are lazy. The effort required to perform CPA and to do so on a regular basis is much more than most people have in them. So, those who do actively seek meaning, objectivity, knowledge, truth, reality, and value, even if they do not realize that they are performing CPA, are few and far between. To me to assume that most people do want to find greater meaning in their lives seems optimistic. One would have to credit the general population with a lot more gumption than I am willing to credit them with, but only because I see the results of the general ennui of society. Nobody cares for each other and only in a genuine concern for each other can life actually have meaning. People only care about themselves and it is proven day in and day out. Take Black Friday for example. Shoppers stepped around and over a dying man and sprayed each other with pepper spray just to be first to get a cheap video game console so they can go home and resume being lazy in front of the television. These sorts of examples do not bode well for the future of humanity These pepper-spraying, bargain hunting people are only one kind of people, of course, and CPA does “distinguish types of subjects by the kinds of meaning they’re most interested in, the kinds of knowledge they most desire, the domains of reality they inhabit and in which they’re most comfortable, the kinds of values that concern them most” (87). Another kind of subject would be those at the other end of the spectrum, those who genuinely seek meaningful purpose in their lives through self-knowledge and self-possession. These people exhibit a basic commitment toward meaning, objectivity, knowledge, truth, reality, and value by wondering about the way they approach the events of their lives, and by critically analyzing not only the content and sequence of the events, but also their method of experiencing the events. Using CPA allows a person to experience life’s events more fully. After learning about CPA, I thought of some of the past moments of my life and realized that some of them passed by and now I have few memories of them. For instance, I only vaguely remember my high school graduation. That is a pretty important day, but I just remember being nervous and not really wanting to walk across the stage in my clunky shoes to get my diploma. I thought for sure I was going to trip and fall. I do not remember being proud, just glad that I was finished with that portion of my life and ready to move on with the next. I do not remember any great feeling of achievement either. However, now looking back I see my high school graduation as a sign post in my life. When the principal of my school handed me that piece of paper and shook my hand, it was almost as if he were saying, “Now you are an adult.” That is what occurred in my life too. My parents stopped treating me like a child and started respecting me as an adult, but only now with several years between then and now do I realize what a moment that was in my life. Oh sure, people mark high school graduation as a momentous occasion, but I think most people are like I was: they just want to get it over with. The ceremony itself has little meaning while it is occurring. But when I apply CPA in retrospect to the momentous life event of high school graduation, I can see how the event that only had singular interest to me then can have greater meaning to me now and can inform my future as well as make my past more noteworthy to me. For one thing, the night of graduation my interest was not really very blended. I wanted to just get it over with. I remember waiting in the locker room to march out into the gymnasium. Some of the others had stolen pints of vodka from their parents’ liquor cabinet. They were passing them around. I declined because I did not care for the taste, and the last thing I needed was alcohol to make it even more difficult to walk in my silly fashionable shoes. The result was that I was sober and very nervous and most of my classmates were much looser. My guess is that they enjoyed the celebration much more than I did, and I do not really remember the details much better than they do either. Now I think about the stroll across the stage to get my diploma as the only part of the ceremony. For one thing, it is the only part of the event that I can still remember. What I have done with that memory, that was CPA. “The set of operations we perform when we reflect upon our operations – attending, identifying, naming, inquiring, relating them, distinguishing them, and ordering them – are all different from the operation we call ‘remembering’. Reflection may also involve remembering prior performance. If I had no memory of myself in my prior performance, I wouldn’t have anything to reflect upon other than my present performance of reflecting. But, there’s more involved in reflection on our performance than just remembering ourselves performing“(124). It is that actual walk across stage as the center of focus for those few brief seconds that carries the weight of meaning in the event. Otherwise, high school graduation is just a collective group of people moving in some semblance of orchestration to a place where they can each in turn perform their individual ceremony. The stroll across the stage is symbolic because it is one person crossing a space to collect a document that says s/he is no longer a high school senior but a full-fledged member of adulthood. I had to cross an expanse, and I would have been mortified to turn around and go back, analogous to life. My clunky shoes made the walk even more representative because they made the walk difficult, and now when I look back, I realize that high school was not easy for me for many reasons. Not least of which was the fact that my mother had some mini strokes while I was in high school and I remember the last couple years of high school as a perpetual diet so that she would lose weight. I always ate what she ate so she would not be tempted to eat food not on her diet. She lost 100 pounds. I lost 20 and I was not overweight to begin with. So, those clunky shoes symbolized the rough four years I had just completed, but also the years to come that have not all been easy. Life is not easy and using CPA to re-visit and re-evaluate momentous occasions in my past helps me to find greater meaning in the ceremony, by viewing it with greater objectivity, trying to find truth and reality, and to get knowledge and value from something I once just endured even though it has great societal meaning to most people. One issue that always seems to confound me is language, and the discussion on the language of CPA was quite helpful. “In CPA there is a permanent danger of mistaking the words we use for the things to which we’re trying to direct our attention by using those words. When I say that consciousness is self-presence, I’m ‘talking around’ the object in order to bring the object to light, in order to bring it to the center of our attention. Once we’ve identified for ourselves what it is we wish to understand, the specific words we use become a little less important. We can use other words, within limits, as long as we know what it is we’re talking about” (91). For example, I can say the words “high school graduation” to just about any citizen of the United States and the term itself carries with it a whole load of connotations. However, it only has true meaning to each person in terms of their own experience with it. My grandmother, for instance, did not graduate from high school, so when she attended mine, she experienced her own pride vicariously through my experience. Many of my classmates probably did not have the same sort of issues to deal with during high school that I did. Some of them had worse problems. Their reminiscence of graduation may not have the meaning that I attach to it now, but only because I have stopped to wonder: why didn’t I care more about this momentous occasion? What have I learned since that makes me see its weight of importance as a lifetime event? How has this new examination of the event and my experience of it helped me to reach knowledge and truth? Language has a lot to do with the answers to those questions. Take the word “reflection” for instance. When I re-visit my high school graduation I am reflecting on the events, but I am also bringing the knowledge and wisdom I have gained since then to bear on that reflection. “‘Reflection’ is the name for the set of operations we perform when we explore our conscious performance. Reflection involves attending to our performance, describing it, raising questions about it, discovering order in it, and so on. . . .We can reflect upon our reflection on our operations. We can attend to our reflective performance, describe it, ask questions about it, and so on” (113). It is this last operation I have performed several times that has allowed me to see the event of my high school graduation in another light, as a crossing from childhood to adulthood, as the moment I became totally responsible for my own life, and the momentousness of that. These sorts of CPA operations serve to teach me to notice how I changed my regard of a momentous occasion from the actual event to the greater symbolism the event held for the change in my life. I can use that knowledge and CPA to project forward in my life to my college graduation, another occasion usually regarded by most as a significant one. Now it seems as if it will never arrive, but it will. I know that if I am only superficially attentive to the event and not the meaning of the event, I may not remember it well and it will not immediately seem important. Perhaps should I re-consider it as was the case with my high school graduation, I will see it in another light, but having already had that experience of wanting to find meaning, knowledge, value, and reality in what others claim is an important event, I know that the value and knowledge are there. Hopefully, it will not take me years to find them like it did with my high school graduation. For me, that is the greatest benefit of CPA and where it has the most value, in teaching. While the classes may come to an end when a person walks across a stage and accepts a diploma or degree, the learning continues. An ambitious person will continue to read lots of interesting information just as they are required to do while they are in the process of obtaining their degree. They will analyze the information they get from the reading, compare it to what they already know, and either accept it as true and/or having value or decide they need more information before committing to a belief and continue to explore. CPA informs that exploration in another realm, that of the inner self. The ambitious inner self will seek to improve him/herself throughout a life span. The lazy one will allow what is fed passively to him/her through the cable box attached to the television to provide the knowledge. They will let others analyze events and feed them opinions. Those who practice CPA have the tools to recognize the modes of operation they have undergone previously and can apply them again. They do not need to rely on the opinions of others to guide them to some false popularity, in the sense that popularity seems to be judged nowadays on how many people repeat what a person tweets, puts on his/her Facebook page, emails, texts, etc. Knowing CPA teaches one how to live the examined life. Once a person recognizes past instance of practicing CPA, s/he can hasten to employ them again and come to a conclusion about the knowledge, truth, value, reality, objectivity and meaning. “While we’ve been pursuing the meaning of things and events, we’ve been present to ourselves in that pursuit. Our own performance has always been available to us for investigation, and intermittently we have reflected upon ourselves as conscious performers. We may have been driven to reflect upon ourselves by challenges posed by our situations, by seemingly insurmountable practical obstacles, by problems we couldn’t solve, by disrupted relationships, by conflicts with others about what’s meaningful or worthwhile and what isn’t” (122). Pursuing meaning and being aware of the pursuit are two different actions. The earlier of the two actions even the lump in front of the television does when s/he sees something particularly moving on his/her favorite program. The latter, a person who understands and employs CPA does with confidence. Knowing the cycle of CPA, whether performed declinatorily or progressively, helps me organize my analysis the next time I realize that I am actually performing it. When I applied CPA to my high school graduation for instance, I went sequentially through the four basic moods of self-presence: at first I did not question the greater meaning of having completed the graduation ceremony. Then, when I found myself thinking about it in the years to come, I began to wonder what meaning it did have to me. Then I felt remorse that I did not critically analyze it sooner. Finally, I came to the conclusion that the ritual of crossing a stage to get a diploma was in a way primordial because it marked a transition in my life just as human ancestors saw the importance of coming of age ceremonies. While it may not have meant much to me at the time, it still lingered in my subconscious until I could give it the attentiveness it deserved. Then the experience became meaningful and valuable to me because I progressed through the moods of CPA. Now, because of my reading and understanding how the process works, I recognize the progression of my thought and I can see not only that I performed the entire process, but also that I recognize the change I progressed through with each sequential mood. The part of CPA I found most useful to me is the acknowledgement that CPA carries responsibility. Those lazy potato-chip-eating, television-watching lumps must bear some responsibility for the fact that their lives will be shortened due to physical inactivity. They have no one to blame but themselves that they do not have friends or really even anything meaningful to discuss with the friends they do have. Unless, of course, one considers who was voted off DWTS last night meaningful. That sort of responsibility is easy to recognize. It is the responsibility that comes with the recognition of value to one’s activity that comes through CPA that becomes harder for a person to fathom. The responsibility of knowing the right course of action to take, the moral path for want of a better phrase, can be elusive. Even someone who truthfully progresses through the moods of CPA may have trouble knowing exactly what the best, most valuable use of the knowledge, understanding, objectivity, truth, etc. that s/he has obtained. “Asking questions about what’s worthwhile, deliberating about possible courses of action, evaluating possible courses of action, deciding and choosing, and engaging in conduct that flows from and is orientated and controlled by our performance of these operations” is not an easy task (165). Morality has so many negative strings attached, and I, for one, do not want to be responsible for judging the morality of others even if by using CPA I am able to. With CPA, the judging of others may be a part of the evaluation but really what is more important is just to know the truth about morality for oneself, not the recognition of the lack of morality in others. “I am interested in knowledge, but the knowledge I seek is psychological and moral knowledge of myself and others as dramatic performers and knowledge of others’ estimation of me as a person. I’m concerned about truth, but I’m more concerned about telling the truth than about knowing truths. I’m concerned with value, but my interest in value is contracted by my preoccupation with my own worth and its enhancement. Only those courses of action seem obviously worthwhile to me that promise to enhance my worth in the eyes of others and in my own estimation” (256). While not wanting to judge, we all do even if we do not intend to or even realize that we are. That is difficult for me, but what is the most difficult part of CPA are the selfish aspects of it. Part of CPA is the idea that by actively seeking meaning, objectivity, truth, knowledge, reality and value one becomes more attractive to others. That seems like a selfish and superficial reason to pursue these greater notions. If the pursuit is not the object of itself, then the appearance of the pursuit must be and that opens up a whole new avenue of consideration. If I know that I am going to become a better person by using CPA, then I already think I am better than the lazy television-watching lumps and anyone else who is not actively seeking to become a better person. Surely that must make a person condescending and arrogant and, as far as I am concerned, those two characteristics preclude morality. I cannot help but to think of the words of Jesus even though I am not a religious person. He said, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” True, the meek are also often taken advantage of, but the point in CPA is to be self-possessed of the ability to become a better person. “Turning the other cheek” to a person who would take advantage, may make the meek person vulnerable but it also makes them the better person. Maybe that is how CPA functions best. Self-possession gives me the sense that through my ability and desire to become a better person, to seek meaning, objectivity, reality, truth, knowledge, and value, I no longer care what others think of me as long as they recognize that I am not inattentive, uncaring, unconcerned and irresponsible. After all, no one wants to be falsely accused of acting in such self-centered ways. However, I am focused on my pursuit of this “higher calling” and one of the reasons for the focus is that I know by actively practicing CPA I am a better person both in my own eyes and in the eyes of others. “These new demands of the self-present given are no longer an inadvertently felt uneasiness and perplexity that invited my undivided attention but didn’t receive it. They are now known to be the intellectual, rational, and moral compulsion of my basic commitment. My basic Moods are no longer unknowingly felt; they’re known to be felt, and they’re felt as known. My experience of myself has been sharpened and heightened by CPA. Now that I know about these things, it takes more effort to ignore them, and it takes a strong tolerance for prolonged puzzlement, persistent doubts, and a nagging conscience to resist them” (330). My compulsion is to seek out that feeling, that confidence, but also not to become too overbearing and obnoxious. CPA for the intelligent and ambitious person works as a self-improver through self-possession. Hopefully, everyone who practices it comes to some sort of mutual understanding that the arrogance and condescension that often goes along with the ability to transcend the normal consciousness only serves to taint the value of the practice. Not only does it turn people off from ever wanting to partake in the process, but it turns people away from those who do partake in the self-possession of CPA. Perhaps it is better to not fully realize one’s ability to progress through the moods of CPA or to practice it too frequently than it is to become an arrogant ass. That would defeat the purpose of practicing. That would destroy the enthusiasm one has for living the examined life that CPA enables. It would also destroy any desire others might have to emulate a person who practices CPA and that would be the greatest tragedy. The world is full of the lazy unchallenged bored potato-chip-eating, channel-surfing, couch-riding lumps that never bother to question or wonder or evaluate. What it needs is more people willing to reach higher to become a more involved, more caring person who can say on their deathbed that they managed to live the examined life and that it was truly worth living. Read More