Active Listening Series No. 6
In the Collins English Dictionary, ‘cause’ is defined as ‘something that produces a particular effect’ and ‘effect’ is described as ‘a change or a state of affairs caused by something or someone’. These definitions are interesting because the meaning of each word is found in the description of the other. This shows how tightly intertwined ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ is. They are like the front and the back of the same piece of block.
All effects and their resultant impact begin from a cause. In this sequence of events, the ‘cause creates an effect, which becomes the cause that generates its subsequent effects’. We can see this movement because we can see the back of one block and the front of the adjacent block.
However, with time and space, the line that separates cause and effect blurs, and they become embodied as a single entity. So, the sequence described in the last paragraph is no longer true. Now, it becomes the ‘cause leading to another cause, which creates even more causes’. It is as if we have become myopic and can see only the fronts of all adjacent blocks. Their backs are hidden from us. There are no more effects in this cycle.
Why is this so?
You see, in life, we do not see things as clearly as ‘causes’ and ‘effects’. Instead, we tend to see them as ‘becauses’ and ‘impacts’. We tend to do ‘becauses’ more than doing ‘effects’. The formal is other-focussed and requires less of our energies. In the world of ‘becauses’, we create justifications to explain away our current situations and find scapegoats to blame for our conditions without having to physically change anything.
Things become singular in the path of least resistance. We have no sense of the cost of the effect on us when it is invisible. So, we cannot calculate the payoff for getting out of it. Over time, this pattern becomes fully entrenched in our lives and we lose our abilities to take responsibility of ourselves.
The key is to refocus our attention to the back of each block and avoid agreeing with our becauses. Only then do we have access to everything that we have already had to create our breakthroughs.
In the Collins English Dictionary, ‘cause’ is defined as ‘something that produces a particular effect’ and ‘effect’ is described as ‘a change or a state of affairs caused by something or someone’. These definitions are interesting because the meaning of each word is found in the description of the other. This shows how tightly intertwined ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ is. They are like the front and the back of the same piece of block.
All effects and their resultant impact begin from a cause. In this sequence of events, the ‘cause creates an effect, which becomes the cause that generates its subsequent effects’. We can see this movement because we can see the back of one block and the front of the adjacent block.However, with time and space, the line that separates cause and effect blurs, and they become embodied as a single entity. So, the sequence described in the last paragraph is no longer true. Now, it becomes the ‘cause leading to another cause, which creates even more causes’. It is as if we have become myopic and can see only the fronts of all adjacent blocks. Their backs are hidden from us. There are no more effects in this cycle.
Why is this so?
You see, in life, we do not see things as clearly as ‘causes’ and ‘effects’. Instead, we tend to see them as ‘becauses’ and ‘impacts’. We tend to do ‘becauses’ more than doing ‘effects’. The formal is other-focussed and requires less of our energies. In the world of ‘becauses’, we create justifications to explain away our current situations and find scapegoats to blame for our conditions without having to physically change anything.
Things become singular in the path of least resistance. We have no sense of the cost of the effect on us when it is invisible. So, we cannot calculate the payoff for getting out of it. Over time, this pattern becomes fully entrenched in our lives and we lose our abilities to take responsibility of ourselves.
The key is to refocus our attention to the back of each block and avoid agreeing with our becauses. Only then do we have access to everything that we have already had to create our breakthroughs.
This article was 1st written on 27 Jul 2010.
Copyright 2010. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.
