Inner Conflicts
I'm trying to identify conflicts in my psyche. I see two in particular that really create a problem.
1. Politics: Sorry but...I know I'm right. It isn't about knowledge or education, but how you examine the problem. I examine politics the same way I examine everything else: existentially. I pay attention to the terms we are using and how we use them. If I catch a snag, I go back over the argument and make sure I have a clear understanding of the terms and how they are being used and what relevance they have. Since I'm just a dude who works for a living and I'm discussing these things with other people who either work for a living or maybe own a business...not uber rich tycoons or government officials...I tend to focus on what we ordinary people actually CAN do that will be effective. I ask the question, "What do any of us truly have control over and what DON'T we have control over?" Most political conversations I read or hear are so far in abstraction as to give me a headache. I get cranky as soon as I hear the phrase "We need to..." in reference to something that someone thinks government needs to do. That goddamned illusion that we have some sort of control over government again! Every time I hammer out the hard questions and get people to think in concrete terms, I get told that "maybe I'm right" or...in some cases, like a totally insane socialist, outright refusal to discuss the matter any further. I certainly don't get much in the way of serious discussion.
Let's face it. We LOVE the conveniences that the corporate system has given to us, including the luxury of broadcasting our lives and opinions on an Internet blog site and going to see really cool movies, being able to listen to awesome music by simply sticking a 4" silver disk into a machine, or watching a movie by doing the same. Most of us are so involved with this kind of crap that we have to be reminded that someone ELSE installed the sewage disposal system we use, so we don't have to go to an outhouse to take a shit, and we don't have to heat up water on the stove and pour it into a tub. And we don't have to light candles or oil lamps for light. But amidst all this, we are aware that the corporate system is crumbling...slowly?...or is it quickening?...hard to tell sometimes. And it makes us uncomfortable. Yet some of us, like me, want to usher it in anyway.
But that's not really my point. My point is that, while most people I know have had their minds made up about politics, I actually went through a good 15 years constantly questioning seeking out different views and even changing my own views radically. I can say now that none of you knew me when I was a socialist. Most of you met me when my libertarian ideas were dawning. Now I'm some bizarre flavor of anarchist for which I cannot rightly find a catchy word. I have arrived here because I continually look for the concrete and refuse to wallow around in the abstractions. And because I focus on the individual control and influence. And because my method is systematic, rather than speculative. But because the vast majority of people do not even think this way, I end up in endless annoying conversations that go nowhere because, in order to fully realize the truth of it, the person would have to spend intensive time with me, allowing me to show them how to think this way.
In other words, discussing politics has become a total waste of my time.
And yet, when I see people discussing a political subject and both of them are talking in terms of pure abstract and that the conversation is entirely too ridiculous, some part of me feels that if I stand there and say nothing, I am, in fact, contributing to ignorance and stupidity. Not many people have learned to examined things the way I have. Not many people ever notice that when they start talking and saying "We need to..." and "The problem is we just don't..." their actual definition of the word "we" shifts from one sentence to another. One minute, "we" means the government, the next, "we" means people governed, next again "we" means an entire country as a whole, and then after that "we" means certain segments of the population and finally, "we" means the whole damned human race. Over and over, I see this shifting around and people are totally oblivious to what they're doing. And when your words are shifting around like that, you are simply NOT having a meaningful and productive conversation. It is not grounded or focused. It is not organized. You are just engaging in cerebral masturbation. You are talking noise.
And the "shoulds". Nobody seems to grasp that every time you use the word "should" you are talking in ideology, not concrete reality. What's more, you are posing as an authority that nobody granted you. Again...it's just more noise.
So...if I get involved, I have to control my temper and even when I do, I often walk away feeling pissy. But if I don't get involved, I feel like a piece of valuable information COULD have been passed on...and I didn't do it. How can I complain about ignorance if I, myself, am not contributing to education?
So there's the first conflict: my feeling of social obligation to offer people what I honestly do think is a clearer and more organized and objective perspective so they may learn from it versus my need to protect my own, rather sensitive psyche in order to keep me in a positive mode. Getting angry is fine. Wallowing around in perpetual anger is not. And when I say "positive", I don't just mean all smiley and happy. I mean focusing on solutions and clarity FIRST and then acting in accordance with that. Consistency in thought and action. More often than not, political discussions make me feel like I was Charlie Brown and Lucy got me to try and kick that fucking football AGAIN and I ended up falling down on my ass AGAIN. SUCKER!!
2. Science and spirituality: In my mind, there is no need for one to go against the other, but I keep finding that it seems like science has become a kind of fad. It's "cool" to be all into science. Especially physics. And likewise, if you are spiritual, then that means you're ignorant and fucked up and a throwback to Medieval times. You know, there was a time when I had started having a moment of silent appreciation for every meal I ate before I ate it. Sort of like prayer, except I didn't put my hands together and say "Thank you, God for this meal." I just sat and looked at it, acknowledged that today is a day that I get to eat and the food will taste good. But...many times, I've been gotten glared at or criticized or made fun of because I want to take a moment to feel gratitude for having food, instead of just chowing down like a fucking pig. And so I have gradually stopped doing this. I stopped doing it in public and then the practice just stopped in private as well. And I feel...unsettled by this. I can honestly say that the more I try to focus on gratitude, the more empowered and enraptured I feel and it honestly does change what's going on in my world. Nearly all of August and the first week of September, I was in an almost perpetual state of rapture. And everywhere I went, people smiled at me in public. Seriously! I got warm, genuine smiles every time I went out. And it was like, WOW! There really are a lot of people with at least a fair amount of love to show and give!! And I'm smiling back. And I feel great!
But many times, when science is being discussed, and I say many times...not ALL of the time and certainly not MOST of the time, it seems like there's something really self-absorbed going on there. Like two or more people gloating over how big their brains are. "We're so cool. We talk about brainy stuff." Sometimes it's very subtle, other times, not so much so. It certainly becomes obvious when science is suddenly compared to religion. Then the ego REALLY comes out.
I keep thinking about how many disorders we have in our society these days: bipolar, hypertension, ADHD, chronic fatigue, OCD, and all those different styles of autism...and all those people who are taking medications to offset it. I keep thinking about how those conditions are nearly nonexistent in places like Christian and Buddhist monasteries and the Amish communities, where the spiritual life is the prime devotion and that it involves community.
I only learned a vague outline of Einstein's theory of relativity and I want to learn it in detail. But I am repeatedly confounded by how venerated his is by the scientific community, and yet, he was such a deeply spiritual man, moved by mystical experiences and setting his mind to work on interpreting them.
By contrast, those who have no such experiences of rapture, or of the mystical, seem to be entrenched in judgments and cynicism. So much of their egos rest on how smart they think they are or how cool they think they are. The self-parodying hipster seems to be the culmination of this. Look how cool and hip I am. HA! HA! What a joke! No, I'm really a dork! But because I confess to being a dork, I rise to a higher, more sophisticated level of cool and hip. And I only stay there as long as I keep being ironic about it.
Something about that is really revolting to me. Just...fucking gross. It's not so much that I don't want to be around those kinds of people. It's that I don't want to BE that kind of person. There's something...dishonest about it. I fear falling into that mindset.
Yet, I also fear that if I keep on this spiritual path, I may lose my critical thinking skills and I don't want that either.
I love praying. And yet, I do it in private because I feel like I'm going to be ridiculed by other people if I do it in public. And I ask myself, is this a matter of courage? Or is it a matter of "not casting pearls before swine"?
Some of my friends are spiritually devoted and some are not. I feel more relaxed around those who are. Around those who are not, I feel like I have to cover up, be a different person.
I miss my moment of silence before my meals and I feel violated by officious and cynical people who can't respect it. It brings out ugly emotions...makes me want to see humanity just get wiped out. I am appalled at the lack of appreciation and respect in society, the showcasing of intellectual egos, the sneering humor. It makes me feel dirty and contaminated.
And I even see this spilling over into politics as well. Occasionally, I see people from other countries criticize the US, saying we will never get a Universal Health Care system because we Americans are just too damned selfish and don't have any sense of "collective consciousness". My view is that I believe in a personal duty to help and give to others...hence my desire to do volunteer work...I feel called to this. My Guiding Spirit is saying, It's time you realize it's not all about you. Start doing more for others. That's been like a nagging at my psyche. BUT...I don't believe in sticking a gun to someone else's head to make HIM help and give to others. That is the critical difference. A lot of Europeans don't seem to understand this. This idea of mandating social responsibility...does it REALLY make you a better person?...being forced to do this? And does it REALLY benefit society that much more?
Anyway, these are the main two conflicts I am dealing with and I'm trying to figure out how to resolve them.
1. Politics: Sorry but...I know I'm right. It isn't about knowledge or education, but how you examine the problem. I examine politics the same way I examine everything else: existentially. I pay attention to the terms we are using and how we use them. If I catch a snag, I go back over the argument and make sure I have a clear understanding of the terms and how they are being used and what relevance they have. Since I'm just a dude who works for a living and I'm discussing these things with other people who either work for a living or maybe own a business...not uber rich tycoons or government officials...I tend to focus on what we ordinary people actually CAN do that will be effective. I ask the question, "What do any of us truly have control over and what DON'T we have control over?" Most political conversations I read or hear are so far in abstraction as to give me a headache. I get cranky as soon as I hear the phrase "We need to..." in reference to something that someone thinks government needs to do. That goddamned illusion that we have some sort of control over government again! Every time I hammer out the hard questions and get people to think in concrete terms, I get told that "maybe I'm right" or...in some cases, like a totally insane socialist, outright refusal to discuss the matter any further. I certainly don't get much in the way of serious discussion.
Let's face it. We LOVE the conveniences that the corporate system has given to us, including the luxury of broadcasting our lives and opinions on an Internet blog site and going to see really cool movies, being able to listen to awesome music by simply sticking a 4" silver disk into a machine, or watching a movie by doing the same. Most of us are so involved with this kind of crap that we have to be reminded that someone ELSE installed the sewage disposal system we use, so we don't have to go to an outhouse to take a shit, and we don't have to heat up water on the stove and pour it into a tub. And we don't have to light candles or oil lamps for light. But amidst all this, we are aware that the corporate system is crumbling...slowly?...or is it quickening?...hard to tell sometimes. And it makes us uncomfortable. Yet some of us, like me, want to usher it in anyway.
But that's not really my point. My point is that, while most people I know have had their minds made up about politics, I actually went through a good 15 years constantly questioning seeking out different views and even changing my own views radically. I can say now that none of you knew me when I was a socialist. Most of you met me when my libertarian ideas were dawning. Now I'm some bizarre flavor of anarchist for which I cannot rightly find a catchy word. I have arrived here because I continually look for the concrete and refuse to wallow around in the abstractions. And because I focus on the individual control and influence. And because my method is systematic, rather than speculative. But because the vast majority of people do not even think this way, I end up in endless annoying conversations that go nowhere because, in order to fully realize the truth of it, the person would have to spend intensive time with me, allowing me to show them how to think this way.
In other words, discussing politics has become a total waste of my time.
And yet, when I see people discussing a political subject and both of them are talking in terms of pure abstract and that the conversation is entirely too ridiculous, some part of me feels that if I stand there and say nothing, I am, in fact, contributing to ignorance and stupidity. Not many people have learned to examined things the way I have. Not many people ever notice that when they start talking and saying "We need to..." and "The problem is we just don't..." their actual definition of the word "we" shifts from one sentence to another. One minute, "we" means the government, the next, "we" means people governed, next again "we" means an entire country as a whole, and then after that "we" means certain segments of the population and finally, "we" means the whole damned human race. Over and over, I see this shifting around and people are totally oblivious to what they're doing. And when your words are shifting around like that, you are simply NOT having a meaningful and productive conversation. It is not grounded or focused. It is not organized. You are just engaging in cerebral masturbation. You are talking noise.
And the "shoulds". Nobody seems to grasp that every time you use the word "should" you are talking in ideology, not concrete reality. What's more, you are posing as an authority that nobody granted you. Again...it's just more noise.
So...if I get involved, I have to control my temper and even when I do, I often walk away feeling pissy. But if I don't get involved, I feel like a piece of valuable information COULD have been passed on...and I didn't do it. How can I complain about ignorance if I, myself, am not contributing to education?
So there's the first conflict: my feeling of social obligation to offer people what I honestly do think is a clearer and more organized and objective perspective so they may learn from it versus my need to protect my own, rather sensitive psyche in order to keep me in a positive mode. Getting angry is fine. Wallowing around in perpetual anger is not. And when I say "positive", I don't just mean all smiley and happy. I mean focusing on solutions and clarity FIRST and then acting in accordance with that. Consistency in thought and action. More often than not, political discussions make me feel like I was Charlie Brown and Lucy got me to try and kick that fucking football AGAIN and I ended up falling down on my ass AGAIN. SUCKER!!
2. Science and spirituality: In my mind, there is no need for one to go against the other, but I keep finding that it seems like science has become a kind of fad. It's "cool" to be all into science. Especially physics. And likewise, if you are spiritual, then that means you're ignorant and fucked up and a throwback to Medieval times. You know, there was a time when I had started having a moment of silent appreciation for every meal I ate before I ate it. Sort of like prayer, except I didn't put my hands together and say "Thank you, God for this meal." I just sat and looked at it, acknowledged that today is a day that I get to eat and the food will taste good. But...many times, I've been gotten glared at or criticized or made fun of because I want to take a moment to feel gratitude for having food, instead of just chowing down like a fucking pig. And so I have gradually stopped doing this. I stopped doing it in public and then the practice just stopped in private as well. And I feel...unsettled by this. I can honestly say that the more I try to focus on gratitude, the more empowered and enraptured I feel and it honestly does change what's going on in my world. Nearly all of August and the first week of September, I was in an almost perpetual state of rapture. And everywhere I went, people smiled at me in public. Seriously! I got warm, genuine smiles every time I went out. And it was like, WOW! There really are a lot of people with at least a fair amount of love to show and give!! And I'm smiling back. And I feel great!
But many times, when science is being discussed, and I say many times...not ALL of the time and certainly not MOST of the time, it seems like there's something really self-absorbed going on there. Like two or more people gloating over how big their brains are. "We're so cool. We talk about brainy stuff." Sometimes it's very subtle, other times, not so much so. It certainly becomes obvious when science is suddenly compared to religion. Then the ego REALLY comes out.
I keep thinking about how many disorders we have in our society these days: bipolar, hypertension, ADHD, chronic fatigue, OCD, and all those different styles of autism...and all those people who are taking medications to offset it. I keep thinking about how those conditions are nearly nonexistent in places like Christian and Buddhist monasteries and the Amish communities, where the spiritual life is the prime devotion and that it involves community.
I only learned a vague outline of Einstein's theory of relativity and I want to learn it in detail. But I am repeatedly confounded by how venerated his is by the scientific community, and yet, he was such a deeply spiritual man, moved by mystical experiences and setting his mind to work on interpreting them.
By contrast, those who have no such experiences of rapture, or of the mystical, seem to be entrenched in judgments and cynicism. So much of their egos rest on how smart they think they are or how cool they think they are. The self-parodying hipster seems to be the culmination of this. Look how cool and hip I am. HA! HA! What a joke! No, I'm really a dork! But because I confess to being a dork, I rise to a higher, more sophisticated level of cool and hip. And I only stay there as long as I keep being ironic about it.
Something about that is really revolting to me. Just...fucking gross. It's not so much that I don't want to be around those kinds of people. It's that I don't want to BE that kind of person. There's something...dishonest about it. I fear falling into that mindset.
Yet, I also fear that if I keep on this spiritual path, I may lose my critical thinking skills and I don't want that either.
I love praying. And yet, I do it in private because I feel like I'm going to be ridiculed by other people if I do it in public. And I ask myself, is this a matter of courage? Or is it a matter of "not casting pearls before swine"?
Some of my friends are spiritually devoted and some are not. I feel more relaxed around those who are. Around those who are not, I feel like I have to cover up, be a different person.
I miss my moment of silence before my meals and I feel violated by officious and cynical people who can't respect it. It brings out ugly emotions...makes me want to see humanity just get wiped out. I am appalled at the lack of appreciation and respect in society, the showcasing of intellectual egos, the sneering humor. It makes me feel dirty and contaminated.
And I even see this spilling over into politics as well. Occasionally, I see people from other countries criticize the US, saying we will never get a Universal Health Care system because we Americans are just too damned selfish and don't have any sense of "collective consciousness". My view is that I believe in a personal duty to help and give to others...hence my desire to do volunteer work...I feel called to this. My Guiding Spirit is saying, It's time you realize it's not all about you. Start doing more for others. That's been like a nagging at my psyche. BUT...I don't believe in sticking a gun to someone else's head to make HIM help and give to others. That is the critical difference. A lot of Europeans don't seem to understand this. This idea of mandating social responsibility...does it REALLY make you a better person?...being forced to do this? And does it REALLY benefit society that much more?
Anyway, these are the main two conflicts I am dealing with and I'm trying to figure out how to resolve them.