The Inspiration Economy.

Meditation Literature on American Existentialism.

On Process Mysticism.

Written by

tylerschortgen

  1. The Ontology of Communion: 
    1. Treydon Lunot’s “Communal Ontology is a metaphysical framework rooted in Eastern Orthodox theology that posits communion as the fundamental ground of all existence. Drawing heavily on St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Gregory Palamas, and John Zizioulas, Lunot argues that being is not a property of isolated substances but a reality realized only through relationship.
    2. Key Concepts:
      1. Creation as Incarnation: Lunot argues that God’s act of creation is identical to the “kenotic” (self-emptying) descent of the Word. Creation does not occur into a pre-existing “nothingness” but within the space opened by God’s humble self-limitation to allow for a contingent “Other”. This connect to Simone Weil’s conception of “Absence”, further compared to the concept of “Tzimtzum” in Kabbalic Judaism.
      2. Evil as Self-Relation: If being is communion, then evil is the attempt at pure “self-relation” (the assertion of “I=I”). Lunot describes life’s overwhelming myriad of sins as “parasitic” realities that separates the person from their ontological constitution, leading towards non-being and “ontological death” to varying degrees of severity.
      3. Eucharistic Logic: The Eucharist is seen as the supreme “rationality” of creation, where divinity and humanity are fully united. It discloses (Aletheia) the world’s true form: a gift drawn into the uncreated life of God.
      4. Logoi and Teleology: Every created thing has a “logos” (divine purpose or reason) that is fulfilled only when it enters into communion with Christ. This “communal teleology” suggests that our nature is not yet fully “created” until it is deified through union with God in a process called Theosis. Deification by grace is the “Teleios” (completion; maturation; perfection) of this lifelong process.
    3. Core Axioms:
      1. Identity is Unity with the “Other”: Identity is not self-contained but intrinsic to its union with others (perichoresis). Self-Identity is impossible in isolation because being is always “being-in-relation”.
      2. Communion is Hierarchical: Relation is not merely horizontal; it is grounded in the infinite God, which I define as “The One Eternal, All-Inclusive Whole of Reality existing in a Trinity of Divine Persons.” True communion involves the “condescension” of the higher (God) and the “reciprocation” of the lower (creation), modeled on the eternal Trinitarian life in a process-relational pan-ENtheistic relation.
      3. The Trinitarian Archetype: God is a Triune communion where the Father, Son, and Spirit share one essence through distinct hypostatic modes of love as a way of a being. All created attributes and “energies” are realized through this eternal mutual indwelling of redamancy and dialogical reciprocity.
  2. Process Theology:
    1. One source that I borrow ideas from, without accepting wholesale, is Process Theology. It has many useful intellectual tools for portraying the world in terms of personal growth. Process Theology is a philosophical and theological school of thought that view reality and God as being in a constant state of flux, change, and “becoming” rather than as static or unchanging substances. In my case, I believe God remains static in his being, while creation changes and grows in likeness towards God in a state of “becoming” through Theosis.
  1. Core Tenets:
    1. Jesus Christ is fully man and fully God.
      1. Primordial perspective: God the Son is the unchanging, eternal being that contains all possibilities and good values (like love or faithfulness).
      2. Consequent perspective: The humanly aspect of Jesus Christ, who became man and was affected by and “received” the actual events of the World into God’s experience.
    2. Persuasive Power vs Coercive Power: God endows human beings with free-will and faithfully respects it, and so chooses not to exercise unilateral or coercive power to force outcomes. Instead, God acts through persuasion, “luring” creatures toward the best possible outcomes of their choices while respecting their free-will.
    3. Pan-ENtheism: Unlike pantheism (all is God), process theology is typically panentheistic, meaning “all is in God”. God contains the Universe and is ultimately connected to it, yet remains more than just the mere sum of its parts. As it relates to my own Orthodox faith, I emphasize this indwelling nature of God being in, through, and around all things while remaining non-competitively transcendent to it. Much like an author stands in relation to the story they write. Always crafting and shaping it without disturbing the free choices of the characters in the story.
    4. Reality as Events: Process Theology rejects the idea of “substances” that endure through time. Instead, it views the universe as a series of “actual occasions” or “experiential events”. I refer to these as “phenomena patterns”; ways in which the world in itself can appear to sentient beings.They arise, persist for a while, and then fall away back into ultimate reality. Human beings can be characterized as “a living phenomena pattern consisting of integrated subsystems of mind, body, and spirit”. Angels can be treated as living symbols, a synthesis of the static and the dynamic, that hold the ability to appear as phenomena patterns of mind or body to sentient beings.
    5. Mutual Interdependence of Authentic Worship: God and the world ideally stand in a reciprocal relationship; God influences the World and bestows appropriate graces, but the world also chooses whether or not to return that glory (adoring attention) to God and further enrich the act of freely-given fulfillment of divine unconditional love.
    6. The Problem of Evil and Suffering:
      1. Process Theology offers a unique solution stating that because God’s power is exercised persuasively rather than coercively, God resolves to remain faithful to human free-will and withholds unilaterally stopping evil or suffering in the World.
      2. God, having become man in Jesus Christ, is viewed as a “fellow-sufferer and God who understands”, having experienced the pain of the world alongside his creatures in the incarnation.
      3. Evil is seen as the byproduct of the same free will and creative process that allows beauty and goodness, but mediated by self-relation instead of communion. Put another way, it is cognitive dissonance held between duty (what one ought to do from a synoptic consideration) and desire (what one wants to do from an finite, limited and individualistic perspective).
  2. The Ontology of Dialogue:
    1. Key Concepts:
      1. While composing phenomenologies of my ascetic experiences, I treat the “actual occasions” of process theology as “occasions of dialogue” in particular. Dialogue is the framework within which two entities achieve communion as its end goal. This communion reveals more of God in the world and brings those involved closer to growing in his likeness. As I have said about my ascetic practice, I frame my earthly life as one master dialogue between God and my own person mediated by the mental and physical phenomena patterns of life’s daily encounters.
      2. To focus my philosophical efforts, I have created a diagram called the “Metaphysics of Dialogue mode” that maps human existence as a dialogue between the exterior life in the surrounding world and the interior life of human consciousness mediated by the embodied awareness of physical existence.
      3. Ritual Epistemology:
        1. Sarah Perry states that ritual epistemology is “working out truth and meaning not through arguments, papers, and academic conferences, as in analytic philosophy, but through shared ritual, practice, and experience.” Central of which is the Divine Liturgy in Orthodox Christianity. These are the sorts of experiences that I attempt to portray in writing about inspiration through shared skillful know-how.
      4. Care Ethics:
        1. Care Ethics is a moral framework focusing on relationships, interdependence, and responding to the needs of vulnerable others, emphasizing empathy, compassion, and context over abstract rules, viewing morality as maintaining connections and fostering well-being within a web of dependencies, contrasting with theories focused solely on individual rights or impartiality.. 
  1. Core Concepts:
  1. Relationships: Moral life is rooted in our connections and the responsibilities that arise from them, not just abstract duties.
  2. Interdependence: Humans are fundamentally dependent on one another, not sovereign individuals; care acknowledges this shared vulnerability.
  3. Empathy & Emotion: Values emotions (like empathy) and relational understanding as crucial for discerning what is morally right in specific situations.
  4. Context-Sensitivity: Moral decisions must consider the unique context and specific people involved, rather than applying universal rules rigidly.
  5. Meeting Needs: Focuses on actively attending to and meeting the needs of those for whom we are responsible, whether family or community. 
  6. Key principles:
    1. Prioritizing relational needs.
    2. Valuing emotions in moral reasoning.
    3. Recognizing inherent human dependency.
    4. Extending care from intimate relationships to societal responsibilities.
    5. Key Principles in Practice=
      1. From Particular to Universal: Duty isn’t just to abstract principles, but also to those with whom we share concrete bonds, even suggesting a greater duty to the powerless.
      2. Beyond Public/Private: Re-evaluates the public/private divide, applying care ethics to broader societal issues like healthcare, policy, and justice.
      3. Feminist Roots: Often seen as a “feminine morality” because it centers traditionally undervalued aspects of caregiving and relational work, challenging patriarchal ethics. 
    6. Goal=
      1. To build a more compassionate and cooperative world by recognizing our shared humanity and taking responsibility for each other’s well-being, treating society like a family facing challenges together. 
  7. Meditation Literature Composition as Therapeutic Philosophy:
    1. Meditation Literature are writings composed not for their empirical veracity, but for their ability to portray a process of a philosopher’s personal growth over time. Its value lies in its ability to inspire through repetitive reading and reflection.
    2. I define a spiritual bios in 3 parts that include=
      1. Learning to ask evermore polished questions about the answer that is the infinite God.
      2. Doing more and more with less and less, honoring the God that does anything with nothing at all.
      3. Cultivating an endless storehouse of humility, faith, and courage in the face of life’s tragedies and triumphs.
    3. Aristotle as Life Purpose Coach=
      1. Telos= All human beings are created with an end or purpose.
      2. Virtue= Human beings are made to live well in holy leisure and cultivate virtue.
      3. Eudaimonia= Flourishing is making one’s life a garden and not a houseplant. It is the state of living in virtue.
    4. Process Logic=
      1. All analysis of “actual occasions” consist of a ground, path, and fruition. For example, seeds sown in the ground and watered bear fruit tress.
    5. Virtue-Practice=
      1. An ascetic practice consists of “falling down and getting up” achieved through a process of identifying healthy and deficient virtues, expressing and cultivating those virtues in appropriate domains of involvement, and distilling the lessons into a dynamic practice that reinforces and improves the former two. Philosophical writings here are framed as a documentation process of changing one’s way of life into an aspirational vision of the self in relation to the world.
  8. Core Axioms: 
    1. Capabilities Approach to Human Welfare= This school argues it is impermissible to ask a person to do more than they are individually capable in the evaluation of ethical dilemmas and states of affairs.
    2. Pragmatic Maxim= Massotherapy being my chosen domain of skillful expertise, I favor the north star of unequivocal demonstrations of safe and practical efficacy for philosophical claims.
    3. Life Compositionality Principle= As in linguistics, where the meaning of a sentence is a function of its constituent parts, I frame the pursuit of life purpose as a function of the care and concern given to all the subsets of a person’s multifaceted life.

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