Keepin it surreal
Excerpt from a letter to a good friend, on Living a Trophy Life:
"Rereading my journal of the 'trophy insight' period and thinking on the same, more elaboration & clarification comes to me. What it is, is like refusing to fully immerse in the current of laminar flow (for manifold reasons), and instead confining oneself to stowing & reflecting on memories of trophy quality; one enchants oneself by obsessing on past token-events which please the ego. This ranges from unusual & exotic romatic encounters, brushes with famous & important people, again any actual past experience which strokes the ego to reflect on. The net effect of this reflection -- which as an isolated incident wouldn't be as distractive as it is in chronic habit -- amounts to a withdrawl away from direct engagement of the moment's probabilities. This is much like the monkey who, when given cocaine freely, begins to prefer the artificial brain-change (ref., memories stroking the ego) to food, sex, social intercourse. This is simply Limbic reinforcement driven by the R-Complex protocols.
Upon assimilating this Pratyahara I felt the release brought by surrender after a long period of resiliant posturing. So by habit I've been increasing the drive to engage all moments, relative to their given contexts. Instead of reacting to effects of karma (Sanskrit of course, literally 'action') one may respond by virtue of knowing the right relation of any given context. (This is noted as success in the minor practices of Gnani Yoga.) As you know I've also found the practices of REBT to be quite helpful in disputing outworn & confused cognition. This is of course somewhat pro-active, and I'd do well to step up the re-passive practices of deconstruction -- the nullification of the ahamkara through cultivation of silence. "
(many thanks to Soror D~23)
"Rereading my journal of the 'trophy insight' period and thinking on the same, more elaboration & clarification comes to me. What it is, is like refusing to fully immerse in the current of laminar flow (for manifold reasons), and instead confining oneself to stowing & reflecting on memories of trophy quality; one enchants oneself by obsessing on past token-events which please the ego. This ranges from unusual & exotic romatic encounters, brushes with famous & important people, again any actual past experience which strokes the ego to reflect on. The net effect of this reflection -- which as an isolated incident wouldn't be as distractive as it is in chronic habit -- amounts to a withdrawl away from direct engagement of the moment's probabilities. This is much like the monkey who, when given cocaine freely, begins to prefer the artificial brain-change (ref., memories stroking the ego) to food, sex, social intercourse. This is simply Limbic reinforcement driven by the R-Complex protocols.
Upon assimilating this Pratyahara I felt the release brought by surrender after a long period of resiliant posturing. So by habit I've been increasing the drive to engage all moments, relative to their given contexts. Instead of reacting to effects of karma (Sanskrit of course, literally 'action') one may respond by virtue of knowing the right relation of any given context. (This is noted as success in the minor practices of Gnani Yoga.) As you know I've also found the practices of REBT to be quite helpful in disputing outworn & confused cognition. This is of course somewhat pro-active, and I'd do well to step up the re-passive practices of deconstruction -- the nullification of the ahamkara through cultivation of silence. "
(many thanks to Soror D~23)