I'm thinking about the change that happens when you finally become desperate or miserable enough and how that fits with the idea that I might be "negative" or someone generally worth silencing. Ultimately, you force open a door that has been rusted shut. That's what writing first was to me. I had immature and insecure ideas about writing a "diary." I was under an immense amount of stress and confusion which finally overrode my ignorant judgements and assumptions about what I needed to do.
I'm finding the simple nature of this idea incredible. So much so I feel it could be in a cheesy infomercial about how easy it is to use. It's a map or tool that might require practice in how to use it, but the fundamentals are accessible to nearly anyone.
We divorce our understanding of things the less we work to embody them. That's how easy things become hard. If I want to play an instrument like a "god" I need to get around to memorizing the fret board, a few more scales, and keep the metronome ticking in my ear. In a month the frustration I felt last night "sucking" will look like I've actually put in a few thousand hours over the years.
How we're told simple things matters. This was something I vehemently disagreed with for too long. I thought the "fact" of the matter was the only relevant thing. Whether I said it cussing or ambivalent to feelings, it was there, so deal with it. You couldn't, I wasn't really telling you anything you could understand, and I functionally made it harder to be understood by burying what I hoped to get across underneath my ego.
This is the intellectual and patient or conversational way that I believe the majority of people could relate to each other. I think the most dramatic discrepancies in views are as boring logistically and practically as anything else. Unfortunately, the "average" person doesn't have the patience to read a book, let alone write several unpacking their way of defining words and what motivates their feelings. And, who has the time? What then?
I think it's a game of containment at that point. Keep "the masses" at bay and busy. It's practical, but equally as cruel as me stomping through your belief system arguing science over religion.
I like that Jordan Peterson talks about how we're all tyrannical. I've described it as this unyielding deference to your feelings and insistence on the narrowest definitions of what's just or true. We're no more cruel a jailer than to ourselves. We'll let the knot in our shoulder grow. We'll believe the part of our conscience that's been drinking too much. We habituate and then treat the behavior as gospel.
I take for granted how I've managed to get to where I am in the world. It is described in no less than 900+ blogs. It's after self-imposed stressors both physically and mentally, although not nearly enough and not often of the right kind. In place of generalized doubt about the utility of something I might do, I start with acceptance of how impossible it is and how I'm going to do it anyway. It's a conviction born of practice and experience. I rely constantly on the living examples to testify for me when all my words are wrong.
It's an order of magnitude more terrifying to realize what you're capable of more than what you've done. What you've done is boxed in. What you're capable of is infinite. When you live that kind of experience or are able to show yourself why it is true, it feels fragile and volitle. It's a simple truth with humble ways to practice it, and it grants you the power to build or destroy the world.
How do you trust yourself? How do you manage *loving* as deeply as you could? What happens when you misplace infinite rage? How naive and lonely are you prepared to look and feel when it seems like you're the only one who still believes in something? The "choice" at some level is foisted upon you to live or die, and whatever else you obtain or observe once it's made is something to utilize or be plagued by in an ongoing way. Trauma begets trauma, or intentional practice conditions you to cope and work with anything.
We act like it is easier not to do things. It's the cultural norm. Don't expect the morally superior thing unless you're looking to get punished as a needy and greedy interloper. Don't account for things honestly because, cross your fingers, there's someone who is more equipped and more responsible than you who will take care of it.
I think we need a revolution that espouses radical responsibility. I think that revolution needs to come in easily accessible pre-packaged amounts of practice and pain. I just learned you can improve your health, demonstrably, with cold showers. I've previously discovered that the stress I've chosen has lead to me becoming a better example of the kind of person I want to be and others to imitate. A choice foisted upon you is not one whose lesson is easily discerned nor purpose dictated. We haven't shown people how to choose to get better. We don't speak their language. We don't speak our own well enough to believe that we have to.
No comments:
Post a Comment