Obscurity or Prominence? The question for me is not 'does anyone hear the tree fall?', but rather 'if no one's there, should we care?'

Recently I have written about inner peace and exoteric goodness and how these other-worldly (outside of the materialistic, narcissistic world of 'me') considerations can lead to more frequent moments of Happiness by encouraging us to recognize what's important. I then further differentiated between 'being important' and 'doing important' and tied the two together by identifying the opportunity provided by being important. And then last week I (hopefully) made the point that we will increase our 'moments of Happiness' if we do not shut our eyes to the reality that surrounds us, because --- either a) the knowledge that it is there - lurking - will eat away at us until we are forced to recognize and deal with it, or b) we will learn to ignore it, play pretend, and become one of the monster-zombie mass-market driven consumer/conformists so prevalent everywhere I look. (Wow! - I didn't see that coming ... but it felt great!)

So with that said, let's rephrase the question, (Obscurity or Prominence?) in terms of recent discussions and which of the two will bring us the more frequent, longer-lasting moments of Happiness? Perhaps we can look at the example of this web site and these 22 weeks of blog posts to help us understand. I have not only been working on this site and these posts in 'relative' obscurity, but if Obscurity were a tiny village in the middle of a remote wilderness, I would be in it's suburbs. Yet this work has led me to more frequent moments of Happiness, mainly (I think) because I am 'doing important' for my inner peace. So this leads us to the second part of the first paragraph question - should I care? Should I care that there are no (that's zero) published comments on my web site. If I am working on my inner peace and successfully attaining a higher level of satisfaction and understanding, then does it really matter that no one hears my tree fall?

I think the answer is (first) no, and then yes. No, in that I should not seek prominence for the sake of prominence; (i.e. to be important). If I am making a difference for me, then that should (and does) lead me closer to Happiness. But ... on the other hand ... I should care at least somewhat, if it is true that exoteric goodness can lead me even closer to Happiness. I have maintained, and still at this moment believe, that inner peace and exoteric goodness are more important than things of this world. The dilemma I run into though, is that exoteric goodness is interpreted by other people and in theory, impacts other people ... yet other people are of this world. I suppose an argument could be made that this 'exoteric goodness' can take on a life of its own as some form of positive energy that can have an impact beyond things and/or people of this world. Right now I have to believe this is true, otherwise why do I (We) feel so strongly about Goodness?

So if we accept the premise that Goodness is necessary of and for itself, we can then make the argument that the combined energy of more people reading, learning, and sharing goodness will lead us even closer to Happiness. The Reality is that the world is full of people and if I believe that my learning can be utilized as a springboard by other people to assist in our quest for Happiness, then perhaps I should more actively seek some level of prominence. Problem solved, right? ... Not quite.

Even if the level of prominence I attain is minimal, it will still impact my time for thinking and writing, and I believe it will impact what I think and write. If people agree, I might ask myself fewer questions and not dig as deeply because I suddenly have confirmation that I know what I'm talking about; and if people disagree, I believe some defensiveness/justification will creep in to my thinking and writing. Additionally, (though obviously unlikely), if the level of prominence did rapidly escalate beyond my control, the impact would be even greater. At this point I am having a thoughtful and enjoyable discussion with myself; I'd hate to mess that up.

So perhaps I should be satisfied with the gains I am making in this area of my life, and not lose sight of the fact that these gains can still impact other areas of my life. Ultimately the answer may be that we should care about a balance across the sum of all areas, knowing it's okay to compartmentalize some aspects by staying closer to one end or the other of the Obscurity - Prominence spectrum, based on circumstances; i.e. what's important. As long as Fate dictates it as such, and as long as there continues to be some opportunity for human interaction and exoteric goodness in other ways, I think for now my web site and I will stay here in the hinterlands of Obscurity.