Except from "0015 WEDNESDAY October 13th, 2021"
And here I come to realize, my life of comfortable status-quo is one of my own creation--a bland mantlepiece I must own up to. For I have known this for long, but equally so denied it.
The concept of stagnancy
Everything in life involves some degree of risk and sacrifice. Complacency and acceptance of a current situation as the immutable final destination is, ironically, a risky endeavor. One that instills a sense of comfort smothering all forms of dread possible from the sudden realization of overflowing, stagnant and deathly waters. The water is warm, why ever adjust the faucet? The issue is one of murky water, cloudy with solutes and providing no real nutritional advantage. The choice is actually quite clear and not clearly refuted, but understandably practiced and on a level we are all familiar with yet mostly chose to ignore.
In a biological sense, humans are hardwired toward comfort, safety, and energy-conservation. This isn't an innately shameful thing and should not be overextended to be understood as being immobile, inactive, or even more generally as aging. If understood in terms of time, we are in no way stagnant--we are forever aging. This could be better understood as an accumulation of memories and experiences contributing to the development of self, inner morality, and subjective beliefs. Understood in the latter way, stagnation describes a lack of development or refinement, whether in favourable or unfavourable directions. It would be impossible, say, for a moral or immoral being exerting some force on the world to be stagnant. The 'rotting' of sorts takes hold when any actor denies herself the right to development in any moral or physical direction. In this way, learning (including but not limited to life experiences and education) and by extension, interactivity, is the antithesis of stagnation, and in it we should place great importance for the purpose of furthering our sense of mental and physical being. In this way, any action taken that we consciously engage in and subsequently allow to mold our perceptions about the world, smothers stagnation. For example, when we engage in a political debate with a colleague, we purvey the possibility for collective learning and refinement of ideas for both parties (after all, it is probably a truism to say that holding a certain belief requires proper and fair understanding of the opposition--confidence in one's opinion is derived from mutual understanding and the patience and respect for careful dialogue surrounding it). We do a service against stagnation of the other by way of introducing ideas or points novel to the individual we engage. The action is well initiated if taken with good intention. However, in listening to our colleague, we largely disservice ourselves by opening our ears but shutting our auditory nerves. Stagnation is a refusal to change, engage in alternative thinking, or generally reject without consideration any points made. In learning, we may indeed strengthen our confidence in our own subjective beliefs, but regardless provide our colleague with the respect, patience, and consideration to be heard out even on points with which we may vehemently disagree. This is obviously the nature of good mannered discourse--and in it, I find stagnation to be avoided. Perhaps this is all common sense, but look to most of today's popular political debates and you may find it all but common.
Why does the concept of stagnation matter?
For the most critical, the question persists of why avoiding stagnation matters, and what impetus compels us to avoid it. I think stagnation has a strong connection to morality that justifies interactivity. Let us consider the following line of thought:
Morality can broadly be considered as doing something good, usually with implications connecting other individuals or their interests. Moral actions can be understood as bringing good intentions into existence through their execution. Acting morally serves to do good to the world around us. Meaningfully moral actions necessarily interact in some way with living things around us, specifically, other humans.
Moral actions contribute to a greater body of human experience--the greater good. We, as humans, have a moral obligation (Peter Singer gives perhaps the strictest of definitions) to do good for others.
Learning contributes to the refinement of a moral axis--without it, we struggle to establish a mental picture of morality from birth to death--although some studies do suggest we are born with a tendency toward moral goodness.
Stagnancy refers to the conscious choice to reject learning, development, or refinement of one's character and actions, which inevitably affects how we interact with the world and the people in it.
As humans existing in a space closely interlaced with other humans, based around human interaction, we ought to be moral and avoid stagnation.
In this way, stagnation applied to morality undermines it.
It is important to consider the idea of stagnancy in our own lives insofar as it is reasonable to expect interactivity. Perhaps, in this way, absolute stagnancy can be more specifically defined as the complete resistance, or rejecting engagement and consideration of the forces around us--trying to exist in an orbital with no charge or inertia, where all other actors exhibit some form of these two qualities, in constant flux of differential velocities and accelerations.
Let us consider the case of those who cannot, for a sickness of body and/or mind, interact with the world around them. Specifically, I will consider the medically brain dead as being severely impaired with interacting with the world around them. A brain dead individual has a minimal if not zero chance of ever presenting again as their previous self. These individuals, in being tended for by family and healthcare professionals, are acting as a moral agent, even in complete inaction and lack of a forthcoming mind. They are contributing to the development of opinions, professional practice, and refinement of knowledge. I don't want to discount the complexity of feelings family or caregivers tending for an unresponsive patient have--rather, to emphasize that even the evoking of an emotional or cognitive response in those surrounding us contributes to a moral axis, beliefs, and subjective human experience--magnetizing them--exerting some force regardless of intentionality. We should never avoid feeling--rather, we should strive to be at peace and understanding with them. To return to the idea of an atom: these patients still have some degree of charge even if not consciously guided. In this way we can come to understand that we can all be agents of learning, or anti-stagnation. It is specifically in our interactivity that we take the form of a moral agent.
Here the notion starts to become more clear: undermining all human relations is interactivity--cause and effect. Those with positive effects (which may vary greatly on situation and personal preference) comprise moral actions. Stagnation rejects interactivity, and by doing so, presents itself as a immoral choice. It is important to distinguish that this differs from amorality--that being a lack of conscious, moral choice--for example, an actor who to the best of our knowledge does not have some conscious system of morals to base their decisions on. Such may be the case of a predator to its prey; there is no moral wrongness nor righteousness in one animal killing another for survival. It is clear that our integration into a society of well-meaning individuals is crucial to this idea.
I have maintained and wish to keep the notion that stagnancy is the dissolution of self. It, like the majority of reality, exists on an continuum--it is at all times hard to be anything absolutely, moral, immoral, active or stagnant--but some actions are certainly more moral than others, and likewise act more than they stagnate. I am no master of renewal and development, but it is an amicable goal to work towards. And perhaps maintaining that sense of hope is sufficient to stave off those murky waters--such is the chase for refinement of one's body and mind.
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