Visualize the dynamic and static sides of the self as being two ends of a hallway.
We search for “transitional objects” to get us through the hallway? In a sense, yes. If you are walking down a hall with only two entrance points, what happens if you refuse to accept the definition of your direction created by the hall? Take a direction that runs counter to either of the two choices? You will run face first into a wall, because you weren’t watching where you were going in the first place, and naturally this causes great pain. Is it really necessary to experience this pain? The pain of crisis?
Many schools of mystical thought teach that you can know bliss and freedom through abandoning the static side of yourself entirely, just ignore your memories, perceptions and all that and you will be in perfect harmony with the universal truth. Have these teachings given us the freedom they promise? The modern rationalist view teaches us that by abandoning the dynamic entirely, we can know peace and all the well being and prosperity we could ever hope for. Just as soon as we get everything figured out, no one will need to suffer at all.
“A man needs a little madness, or else he never dares to break the ropes and be free.” — Zorba the Greek.
Which side of the window is the light coming from? The light is in the hall. The window only shows the long dark night of the soul, but has the idea that education would solve all our problems proven even remotely true?
Now watch my self delusional hand waving closely for a moment if you will.
What is revealed when memory and impulse are allowed to unify? What happens if love and ideals are allowed to merge in the mind?
Reactiveness, patriotism, zealotry? Actually, no such thing. That is one of the extremes, the dynamic only. If rather than accepting ideals as they are handed to you, you instead allowed your feelings to motivate what ideals you would endorse? Instead of allowing every insult to make you feel threatened, you considered what it means about your own intended path in life? Let’s say you want to help the homeless, does being ugly have anything to do with that?
I would need to look inward to find those ideals, not outward. Ah well, looking inward is looking outward. It’s all the same hall. The experiences of life are naturally motivating, but how would you arrive at a direction when you are so moved? To look inward is to look at the world with blinders off, accepting that pain hurts, that hunger moved you to experience want, and that social constraints only have meaning to the degree that they compromise communal well being.
Hunger might also have moved you to feel compassion for others who are hungry, or at least empathy for them. Compassion is evolved empathy, but do either the mystical or the rationalist views reveal this stuff to us? What is inspiration without action? What guidance do we have to support the inspired in shaping their motivation in a meaningful way?
Inspiration without action is fantasy? Indeed, excellently put. Is there any guidance for helping the inspired translate their intuitions into meaningful world change? If so, I would like to know of it.
Aren’t humanitarian grants (money!) meant to do just that, though? They are supposed to do that perhaps, though money by itself guides nothing, and accomplishes little but greasing the wheels of the machine.
Self help books? As corny and patronizing as they can be. The self help books tend to be feel good philosophies, almost always degenerating into, “You can do anything you want, I promise!”
Perhaps let’s look at this from the flip side of the hall, the rationalists. Is there any guidance for rationalist in helping them fulfill real personal adaptive needs? To turn their knowledge to helping manage emotional crisis, say?
Being reasonable doesn’t help. How pragmatic do we usually consider “brainiacs” to be?
Pounding on pillows, primal screaming, and breaking up orange crates? I know some rationalists who have gone to such groups. Our advice to them is to cease behaving in any way rational?
Seems like that, actually.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~