The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> The False Problem

The False Problem

Posted by Bob Aprim (Guest) - Monday, February 5 2007, 18:49:35 (CET) from 189.162.21.199 - dsl-189-162-21-199.prod-infinitum.com.mx Mexico - Windows XP - Internet Explorer Website: Website title:

It seems we Assyrians become insulted far too easily and in all the wrong places. If a child of ours comes home from school saying he’s been “insulted” by a teacher’s comment that the answer he provided to the problem 2+2=?, is 5, was “wrong”, I hardly think we, as parents and guardians would agree. In this case it is the answer provided that was wrong, but what if the problem posed was wrong? What can be a right answer to the question, “five oranges plus three bananas equals how many apples”? The only right answer is that the question is wrong in the first place. Our answers to our national problem may be the wrong ones because the problem we pose to ourselves is wrong to begin with and thus can have no “correct” solution. To have our errors pointed out to us, gently, whether in the answers we provide or the problems we pose, should be something to be grateful for, especially where the risk of errors through ignorance is great, such as in learning to fly an airplane etc. Likewise in politics, serious politics, where life and death situations are the “problems” we seek solutions for should we value a thorough approach, without feeling insulted when errors are pointed out for it is truly for our own good. This is a hard time for us in terms of the outcome in Iraq, but it was brought about partly by our unreasonable belief that Christian nations, such as the United States and Great Britain would solve our “problem” and do the “right thing” by a minority, especially a Christian one. Yet, looking back from the advantage of a painful lesson learned painfully, when has either country ever hesitated to run right over any minority standing in its way or having something desirable to offer…and when has either country refused to make war on Christians? If we had reason to believe in or expect help from either nation it should have been looked for someplace else than either their fondness for minorities or reverence for fellow Christians. In his book “Psychotherapy East and West”, Dr. Alan Watts has this to say about defining legitimate problems… “The Buddhist Nirvana is defined as release from samsara, literally the Round of Birth and Death, that is, from life lived in a vicious circle, as an endlessly repetitious attempt to solve a false problem.” This is the reason that now, more than at any other time in or past, we have to ask ourselves if the problem we’re all seeking a solution for really exists, as a real problem, or just one of our making and insistence for which there can never be a solution. For instance, if we phrase our problem as “how do we get our Assyria?” and provide the answer, “by stealing it through force”, then I say we’ve defined our problem legitimately and offered the right solution, as far as things go in this world and assuming we can do it. But if our answer is, “by waiting for Issaiah to get it for us” or, what amounts to the same thing, “waiting for a Christian nation to give it to us”, well, you decide. He goes on… “A puzzle which has no solution forces one to go over the same ground again and again until it appears that the question which it poses is nonsense. This is why the neurotic person keeps repeating his behavior patterns, always unsuccessful because he is trying to solve a false problem, to make sense of a self-contradiction. If he cannot see that the problem itself is nonsense, he may simply retreat into psychosis, into the paralysis of being unable to act at all…not realizing that the problem is impossible not because of overwhelming difficulty, but because it is meaningless.” This last sentence…”not realizing that the problem is impossible not because of overwhelming difficulty, but because it is meaningless”, should be our hard-learned lesson from the shambles of this war and the ruin of our dreams. Getting our homeland back is proving to be well-nigh impossible, even when it seemed like a sure-thing (if anyone was going to get it), not because it’s so difficult to do…the Kurds had some trouble getting ours it’s true, but not all that much as these things usually go. But rather it’s proving to be impossible for us because of the way we think to do it, and even perhaps that we think of doing it at all, for the reasons we give. In other words our claims to being persecuted by Iraq and therefore “needing” our own nation, may be a mistake and not a legitimate problem, to begin with. Likewise saying we must have an Assyria because the bible says so and we want to prove the bible correct in all its claims, may also be a false problem we’ve decided to solve. The Kurds, who want our homeland just because they want it, may at least be posing their problem in legitimate terms which allows, even compels them, to come up with the one and only way these things get done: by theft and through force The non-existence of an Assyria today may not be a legitimate problem to begin with. By this I mean that the reasons we give for needing it are false reasons, or ones which have no bearing in worldly politics. That may explain why, no matter how near or certain a solution seems, it never materializes. --------------------- - BACK TO INDEX - REPLY - QUOTE - EDIT - DELETE -

The full topic: The False Problem Bob Aprim - Monday, February 5 2007, 18:49:35 (CET) Re: The False Problem Maggie - 02/05 20:55

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