Dull Day

Yesterday was a dull day at work, so I answered a few emails, read on and off in one of my Buddha books as Lora calls them (specifically a compilation of essays on the Lotus Sutra) and made some pencil notes my supreme fiction.  Lora, as it turns out, received the results from her MRI at around two in the afternoon, and the news was mixed.  There was nothing wrong with her brain, and that is good to know, but the stenosis on her upper spine has progressed and so the debility will likely grow worse.  She will likely need some form of surgical intervention.  Altogether, pretty much the news we expected to hear, but still discouraging.

I left off with the notion of "intermediacy," which is tied closely with a corresponding notion of intention.  There is an answer to the "why?" question.  I go to work, and why?  so I can earn the money to provide basic necessities and gain health insurance, and why? because health insurance helps pay for the preservation and quality of life that modern medicine provides, and why?  Anyone who has engaged a two year old in conversation knows there is no end to the "why?" question.  The distinction between intentionality and instrumentality, then, is basically an analytic distinction.

To the broader question, again, "are we free?"  Here I want to suggest a distinction between negative and positive freedom.  I want to define negative freedom as a freedom from.  Intentionality as a broader concept is closely allied with the notions of need, of suffering, of desire, all of which we want to free ourselves from.  I want to define positive freedom as this freedom to.  I am free to act instrumentally on the world to free myself from need, suffering, desire, which I take to be synonymous with free to act instrumentally on the world to satisfy a given intentionality.  The notion of negative freedom is complicated, however, by a corresponding notion of "fetters" or those things that prevent or impede us, circumstantially, from satisfying a given intentionality.  It would be easier, for example, to produce more oil (and hence greater profit) domestically were it not for the inconvenience of environmental regulations.  The conservatives, of course, would free themselves from those government "fetters" so they can be more free to satisfy the need for more oil (and hence more profit) domestically.

The question of morality and ethics sneaks in here.