(no subject)
The condition of alienation, of being asleep, of being unconscious, of being out of one's mind, is the condition of the normal man. Society highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus to be normal. Normal men have killed perhaps 100,000,000 of their fellow normal men in the last fifty years. -- R.D. Laing
When I consider what it means to be "normal" in the world today, how can I ever trust any psychological theory which seeks to help people attain normalcy? We desperately need a psychology, the motive of which is not to create normal people, but which seeks to illuminate our potential as human beings, cross-culturally, and not merely from the point of view of Western Christian empiricists. Bless you, Maslow. Bless you, R.D. Laing. Artists, dreamers, poets, bards, those people we're most likely to call crazy ("Dali must have been a little nutcase,") are those most likely to revolutionise the world. Psychology should be the study of bringing happiness to the soul, whereas now, it seems to be the study of bringing conformity to the brain.
The glory of Athens, as Pericles so lucidly stated, and the horror of so many features of the modern megalopolis is that the former enhanced and the latter constricts man's consciousness! -- R.D. Laing
Well said. How beautiful the human world could be if we put our minds to it. I feel similarly about Celtic music. People say that listening to Bach and Mozart are mind-expanding, but that experience is so much more intense when I listen to Celtic music, which reaches for a part of me that Bach and Mozart could never touch. My soul is delighted by the thought of a world full of fantasy, myth, mystery, romance, the gothic, the heroic quest, the mystical. All of these things I love, they have something in common, but I cannot quite put my finger on it. A young boy rides his horse into the countryside, and the adventure begins. What is it?
I was thinking about starting a newsletter dedicated to all these things, but how can I start a newsletter, when I don't know how it's all connected? I know I am attracted to a more ancient way of being. I am attracted to the gothic, late night mysteries in an old castle, and I have actually been lucky enough to be scared out of my wits trying to find my way out of a castle at midnight with nothing more than a small torch to light the way. I must say, it is a thrilling experience. What does the gothic have to do with ancient ways of being? Perhaps the connection between all these things is the spirit world, the idea that there are others among us, that the world is more than what it seems, that the world is full of grand quests and adventures, and heroes. Myth. Is myth the connection I'm seeking? The Mythic Renaissance...
Our world is full of myths but rarely do we know how to use them. We do not have cultural festivals, we don't tell each other stories of quests and monsters and faeries, and if we do, we usually make clear that what we're talking about is "fantasy." We're afraid of being abnormal, schizophrenic -- we think that if we accept, even for a moment, that the world is full of greater mysteries, we'll lose ourselves altogether and won't be able to come back. I say we're already lost. We're alienated and despairing, but we're normal, and on second thought, who wants to be that? A Mythic Renaissance would be a reification of myth. It would seek to create a "mythic world," and by that I don't mean a world that exists in mythology, but a concrete world immersed in myth, beauty, and all that which expands consciousness. Take from the new dreamers as well as the old -- our cities would be as Minas Tirith and Athens!
*sigh* I'll never be normal.
When I consider what it means to be "normal" in the world today, how can I ever trust any psychological theory which seeks to help people attain normalcy? We desperately need a psychology, the motive of which is not to create normal people, but which seeks to illuminate our potential as human beings, cross-culturally, and not merely from the point of view of Western Christian empiricists. Bless you, Maslow. Bless you, R.D. Laing. Artists, dreamers, poets, bards, those people we're most likely to call crazy ("Dali must have been a little nutcase,") are those most likely to revolutionise the world. Psychology should be the study of bringing happiness to the soul, whereas now, it seems to be the study of bringing conformity to the brain.
The glory of Athens, as Pericles so lucidly stated, and the horror of so many features of the modern megalopolis is that the former enhanced and the latter constricts man's consciousness! -- R.D. Laing
Well said. How beautiful the human world could be if we put our minds to it. I feel similarly about Celtic music. People say that listening to Bach and Mozart are mind-expanding, but that experience is so much more intense when I listen to Celtic music, which reaches for a part of me that Bach and Mozart could never touch. My soul is delighted by the thought of a world full of fantasy, myth, mystery, romance, the gothic, the heroic quest, the mystical. All of these things I love, they have something in common, but I cannot quite put my finger on it. A young boy rides his horse into the countryside, and the adventure begins. What is it?
I was thinking about starting a newsletter dedicated to all these things, but how can I start a newsletter, when I don't know how it's all connected? I know I am attracted to a more ancient way of being. I am attracted to the gothic, late night mysteries in an old castle, and I have actually been lucky enough to be scared out of my wits trying to find my way out of a castle at midnight with nothing more than a small torch to light the way. I must say, it is a thrilling experience. What does the gothic have to do with ancient ways of being? Perhaps the connection between all these things is the spirit world, the idea that there are others among us, that the world is more than what it seems, that the world is full of grand quests and adventures, and heroes. Myth. Is myth the connection I'm seeking? The Mythic Renaissance...
Our world is full of myths but rarely do we know how to use them. We do not have cultural festivals, we don't tell each other stories of quests and monsters and faeries, and if we do, we usually make clear that what we're talking about is "fantasy." We're afraid of being abnormal, schizophrenic -- we think that if we accept, even for a moment, that the world is full of greater mysteries, we'll lose ourselves altogether and won't be able to come back. I say we're already lost. We're alienated and despairing, but we're normal, and on second thought, who wants to be that? A Mythic Renaissance would be a reification of myth. It would seek to create a "mythic world," and by that I don't mean a world that exists in mythology, but a concrete world immersed in myth, beauty, and all that which expands consciousness. Take from the new dreamers as well as the old -- our cities would be as Minas Tirith and Athens!
*sigh* I'll never be normal.