Sharpening Your Saw: Mind, Body, Soul, Spirit, Heart
As promised, a few musings from “Off the Hooks.” A few means a summer series of six to eight inspirational and motivational blog posts about sharpening your saw. And those blog posts will appear twice a month. See, at this moment I’m sharpening my saw, the metaphorical self, allowing myself to be realistic about what I can actually produce based on time and energy. Exactly two years ago, I published a blog post, “A Week of Unknowing Rest,” in which I compared myself to the energizer bunny. An energizer bunny is a person who keeps on going with lists and more lists, and not only a Plan A but also a Plan B.
And I’m not in the same place, two years later. Instead, I’ve settled in to rest, slowing down, and simply just being. Even if that means sitting and doing nothing. Now, that’s a hard task, at least for me. Yet it is mandatory. That’s why I’ve been thinking about the saw, the metaphorical self. How does one begin to sharpen the self? When does one begin to sharpen the self? Immediately what came to mind was the age-old riddle: “What comes first, the chicken or the egg?” There are several answers to this riddle, I’m sure you have one of your own. (Please share if you’d like.) Scientifically speaking, based on the information I perused, one must ask themselves does the egg belong to the chicken? According to Luis Villazon, a trained zoologist, “If you are prepared to call that egg a chicken’s egg, then the egg came first. Otherwise, the chicken came first, and the first chicken’s egg had to wait until the first chicken laid it.” Personally, I had not once thought the egg did not belong to the chicken in this riddle.
For centuries people have been thinking about the chicken and the egg
However, intrigued I did a bit more reading about this riddle. It seems as though this question originated in Ancient Greece, initially intrigued was Aristotle, then Plutarch. Aristotle thought: “it impossible, that there could have been a first egg to give the beginning to birds, or that there should have been a first bird which gave the beginnings to eggs, for a bird comes from an egg.” Plutarch agreed. His reasoning was “the egg should be before the bird, as the thing containing before the thing contained.”
Not only did Greek philosophers think about this question, but also Christian theologians such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. The theologians narrowed the answer to a religious worldview and pointed to Genesis: the chicken came first.
For centuries historians, thinkers, theologians, scientists, and ordinary people have thought about this question: what comes first, the chicken or the egg. The egg, no, the chicken, no, the egg, no, the chicken, and round and round we go. So, you ask what does that have to do with How does one begin to sharpen the self? When does one begin to sharpen the self?
Does one begin to sharpen the self with the mind?
Just like one does not have a concrete answer about what comes first the chicken or the egg, it seems as though there is no concrete answer about how one begins to sharpen the self. Of course, one sharpens an ax when it becomes dull. And if the saw is the metaphorically self, do we begin the sharpening because our lives are dull. If so, what then begins the sharpening the mind, the body, the spirit, the heart, or the soul? Initially, my answer was the mind, after all for centuries, people have been thinking, pondering, questioning, reasoning what comes first: the chicken or the egg.
You see why I believe, thus far that sharpening the self begins with the mind. It’s what you think and how you think of the self.
I invite you to explore this with me, during the next few blog posts.
Until next time,
Angela
Source:
https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/which-came-first-the-chicken-or-the-egg/
Plutarch’s essays and miscellanies, comprising all the works collected under, By Plutarch
Does sharpening the self begin with the mind?