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Destruction easier than creation

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I've recently been thinking about how it's so easy to destroy, but so hard to create. E.g. if I spent 5 years working towards landing a job I love, I could nullify all that work in an instant by punching someone at work, or shouting obscenities for no reason. Yet, I cannot just take one action and land that job. 

 

I know there is no why. This is the given. Achievement takes effort. That is metaphysically given. It is only from the metaphysically given that we can derive a why. 

 

But I'm curious if anyone has thought about this and has some insight to provide.

 

 

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    Happy New Year!  

 

   Values require particular actions in order to gain and keep. Anything outside those parameters can damage those values.

Its easy to get a math problem wrong because there are finite solutions and infinite failures. Nothing is destroyed or created if there was no pursuit of value. In the eyes of a simple beast the world just is, and that is all it can be if we choose to be indifferent to our own fates. However because we choose to use reason and live we see the possibility to create, destruction is just the negation of or deviation from the requirements of our values. 

 

  An ancient tribe exists on a beach. Every year they must move into the caves in order to hide from storms and strange tides. They use their minds to improve their cave shelters. Perhaps they create signs to guide people on paths up to the shelters in the stormy weather. Maybe they reinforce the caves and clear animals out of it. Perhaps they find ways to use the caves for the rest of the year.  The ancients think. They understand their potential to control their environment, to go beyond what is into what could be and should be.

 

  The storms are destructive, but ultimately outside their control. However the caves are under their control. The real evil would come from the man who would command people to fuel magical rituals with important resources out of the delusional belief that they may work or more cynically, to the purpose of alleviating people's fears.  Perhaps the man who would waste resources picking fights with others or trying to dominate others would also be an enemy of himself and his people. His choices deviate, negate, and distract from his need to create and develop his world according to his needs. These sorts of things are what I consider destructive.

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I've recently been thinking about how it's so easy to destroy, but so hard to create. E.g. if I spent 5 years working towards landing a job I love, I could nullify all that work in an instant by punching someone at work, or shouting obscenities for no reason. Yet, I cannot just take one action and land that job. 

 

I know there is no why. This is the given. Achievement takes effort. That is metaphysically given. It is only from the metaphysically given that we can derive a why. 

 

But I'm curious if anyone has thought about this and has some insight to provide.

The achievement of values requires specific actions be taken over a period of time.  This is one of the reasons why the virtues of integrity and honesty are major virtues in Objectivism.  The lack of value, or its destruction or loss, results when when any one of those specific actions needed to achieve values is omitted or not taken.  By "specific actions" I do not imply that there are no optional actions possible, only that those optional actions are classified within the group of "specific actions."  There are many ways to go from New York to Boston, but almost limitless ways not go get there, any one of which would guarantee not getting there.

 

Not to mention the fact that there is no guarantee of achieving values even when one is rational.  Factors outside of one's control will affect the achievement also.  

 

Also, punching someone or shouting obscenities is not simply "one" action.  There is a host of choices made by you if you do those things: the awareness that such actions would cost your your job and your evasion of this fact if you want the job; dropping the context of the significance of the job to your life: you need it to pay rent, support a family, and acquire other values; in other words, evasion of the consequences of your actions.

Edited by A is A
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