To the Editor,
In her latest column (A Zen’s-Eye View: “Don't Plan the Results”, Oct. 27 Advance), Kuya Minogue extols the virtues of living in the present without planning the results. To a degree, she is right about us not living in daily panic over the results, but, as usual (God bless her), she ends up making no sense at all.
Where would “not planning the results” lead us in our daily work? Where would it lead the educational system, the political system, or the social system?
Don't worry about planning to arrive anywhere on time? Well, my friends, try giving that advice to every responsible proprietor on Canyon Street. And, by the way, don't plan on making a living with your business?
Of course, fretting night and day about the future is no good. Yet, anyone who has truly struggled with depression knows that having no hope-filled goal will kill; so please, for the sake of common sense, take her advice with a massive grain of salt. Further, please, for the sake of your own well-being and others, don't follow her advice on this one.
As per usual, she just cannot resist taking the offhanded swipe at those who honor the Holy Scriptures in our valley. After she casually dismisses any planned outcomes, which even entertain the notions of reward or punishment, as mere psychological conditioning, she makes her "brilliant" claim: “The idea of heaven and hell, for example, is based on this basic delusion that is inherent in the human mind.”
I leave it to the serious reader to reread her column and to reflect on whether this comment actually advances her previous claims, or whether it is a preachment that is merely waiting for the opportunity to be rudely injected into her column at the opportune moment.
Oh, well. I suppose, according to dear Kuya, I shouldn't even be concerned about the outcome of her advice, let alone even be writing in reply, since concerned writing is, by its very nature, goal oriented and expects results.
Ron Benty
Creston