If I look outward, I'm worried about eyes searing into my skull as I make feeble attempts to emote the me that is within. I could write so many things knowing that everybody believes themselves to be a critic by some standard. But, I am so sick of standards. I can only imagine how stagnate the world would be if, all our lives, we simply acquiesced to some antiquated "standard". What new war could have been won? What blue print for a new invention could put the hands of factory workers into motion?
It's easy to let the world move while I, myself, check out. I could do that. But, what is true checking out, but nihilism - finding it all meaningless? In between finding value in life and nihilism is escapism - being here but not really being here. Or, is escapism the decadent aspect of nihilism? If I escape into some fantasy world, I am creating my own paradise. But, is this paradise some grander scheme beyond the universe, a projection of my own design, or submitting myself to somebody else's design?
The submission to somebody's work for my own escape is the basest thing I can do. Is this not akin to an idol? Where the image might have had deep meaning to its creator, it now serves as an object of one of the many emanations of Gratification. This is decadence unless we ourselves make attempts to see what the creator truly intended. If the intention to create it is for the sole purpose of profit, can there be any real value? The only value is the revelation of the economic aspect of demand.
The projection of a paradise by my own design can be intentional or unintentional. I can intend to create this artificial world that I can escape to for the sole purpose of participating but not participating in life. This has the potential to really activate the creative side of my brain. But wherein is the intellectual side? It is busy reasoning out my fictitious life. I can unintentionally try to create a world in which I want to live in. I can speak my mind over here or build something over there without realizing that I am merely projecting myself and at the end of the day so many variables are in play because what is in the mind is not always represented in actuality in the world.
Now, there's the "being in the world." Being present. The animal "fight or flight" instinct is developed in response time and if we are in the present, how much easier is it to react to pressure coming our way? But, the difference between the reactive animal and the rational animal - that is mankind - is that we have an opportunity to distinguish when the pressure upon us has a probability of being a projection of our own conditioning. When we can reason all this out, we can better discern the more appropriate response. And, when we put this kind of reasoning into practice, how much more can we put it into our subconscious and react more efficiently?
When we let go of our feeble inclinations of paradise, does that, therefore, negate the existence of paradise? It doesn't have to. My creativity is a reality for a reason. What invention was not the brainchild of ingenuity? What is ingenuity without creativity? I can rationalize paradise to death - and I mean the ambiguity of that statement, through and through - but that doesn't stop the potential of paradise from being actualized. Astronomers have discovered that the Universe is expanding. Neuroscientists have discovered the reality of neuroplasticity. How, then, could we ever think that if there is a paradise, it is not expanding as well?
Or, if paradise is a permanent state that does not grow, who is to say that it cannot slowly seep into the world through our hearts? Then, again, is that not growth? What were those words? "Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven"? How else is a movement born but by the mass contribution of all of our - sometimes contending - projections? And, if God is active and working through the hearts of those who humbly say, "Thy will be done", how much more worth is it to let go of some of that baggage of, "I'm not doing enough"? And, how much more meaningful is this paradise that is coming into actualization than the one we create in our minds?
For me to even to say that it is this or not this would be self-defeating. But, we were designed to live today; not some far future time. How else could Jesus tell the thief at the cross, "Verily I say unto you, you shall be with me today..."? The mystery stirs and stirs but how often has it been reiterated that God is above the Universe and Jesus is the Alpha and Omega? This is a statement of not simply the Universe but Time. As soon as anything spins into motion, it's own time begins. Where the Olympiads took control of time from Kronos, Jesus set His own time which coincides with God's.
From generation to generation, there have been movements going back and forth like the Great Pendulum and as time moves forwards, we see this continuous development of mankind. Could this development have ever come this far without certain individuals resisting the "standard" set upon society? And just like the horizontal line on the cross, we go back and forth between "right and wrong" or our "knowledge of good and evil" and somehow end up missing the point. But, all this time, something is happening at the center point where the vertical line converges; some great Work is being accomplished.
This symbol is originated with the Ark of the Covenant. Between the two Cherubim is the mercy seat of God. The rational side of my brain will talk God to death. The creative side of my brain will imagine God to death. But, while I continue on this Pilgrim's Progress, I find I need both aspects to realize there is something in between them both that is bringing growth within myself. And, seeing that the individual body is much akin to the body of the commonwealth which is again akin to the order of the Universe, how different can the World's Progress really be?
It's easy to let the world move while I, myself, check out. I could do that. But, what is true checking out, but nihilism - finding it all meaningless? In between finding value in life and nihilism is escapism - being here but not really being here. Or, is escapism the decadent aspect of nihilism? If I escape into some fantasy world, I am creating my own paradise. But, is this paradise some grander scheme beyond the universe, a projection of my own design, or submitting myself to somebody else's design?
The submission to somebody's work for my own escape is the basest thing I can do. Is this not akin to an idol? Where the image might have had deep meaning to its creator, it now serves as an object of one of the many emanations of Gratification. This is decadence unless we ourselves make attempts to see what the creator truly intended. If the intention to create it is for the sole purpose of profit, can there be any real value? The only value is the revelation of the economic aspect of demand.
The projection of a paradise by my own design can be intentional or unintentional. I can intend to create this artificial world that I can escape to for the sole purpose of participating but not participating in life. This has the potential to really activate the creative side of my brain. But wherein is the intellectual side? It is busy reasoning out my fictitious life. I can unintentionally try to create a world in which I want to live in. I can speak my mind over here or build something over there without realizing that I am merely projecting myself and at the end of the day so many variables are in play because what is in the mind is not always represented in actuality in the world.
Now, there's the "being in the world." Being present. The animal "fight or flight" instinct is developed in response time and if we are in the present, how much easier is it to react to pressure coming our way? But, the difference between the reactive animal and the rational animal - that is mankind - is that we have an opportunity to distinguish when the pressure upon us has a probability of being a projection of our own conditioning. When we can reason all this out, we can better discern the more appropriate response. And, when we put this kind of reasoning into practice, how much more can we put it into our subconscious and react more efficiently?
When we let go of our feeble inclinations of paradise, does that, therefore, negate the existence of paradise? It doesn't have to. My creativity is a reality for a reason. What invention was not the brainchild of ingenuity? What is ingenuity without creativity? I can rationalize paradise to death - and I mean the ambiguity of that statement, through and through - but that doesn't stop the potential of paradise from being actualized. Astronomers have discovered that the Universe is expanding. Neuroscientists have discovered the reality of neuroplasticity. How, then, could we ever think that if there is a paradise, it is not expanding as well?
Or, if paradise is a permanent state that does not grow, who is to say that it cannot slowly seep into the world through our hearts? Then, again, is that not growth? What were those words? "Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven"? How else is a movement born but by the mass contribution of all of our - sometimes contending - projections? And, if God is active and working through the hearts of those who humbly say, "Thy will be done", how much more worth is it to let go of some of that baggage of, "I'm not doing enough"? And, how much more meaningful is this paradise that is coming into actualization than the one we create in our minds?
For me to even to say that it is this or not this would be self-defeating. But, we were designed to live today; not some far future time. How else could Jesus tell the thief at the cross, "Verily I say unto you, you shall be with me today..."? The mystery stirs and stirs but how often has it been reiterated that God is above the Universe and Jesus is the Alpha and Omega? This is a statement of not simply the Universe but Time. As soon as anything spins into motion, it's own time begins. Where the Olympiads took control of time from Kronos, Jesus set His own time which coincides with God's.
From generation to generation, there have been movements going back and forth like the Great Pendulum and as time moves forwards, we see this continuous development of mankind. Could this development have ever come this far without certain individuals resisting the "standard" set upon society? And just like the horizontal line on the cross, we go back and forth between "right and wrong" or our "knowledge of good and evil" and somehow end up missing the point. But, all this time, something is happening at the center point where the vertical line converges; some great Work is being accomplished.
This symbol is originated with the Ark of the Covenant. Between the two Cherubim is the mercy seat of God. The rational side of my brain will talk God to death. The creative side of my brain will imagine God to death. But, while I continue on this Pilgrim's Progress, I find I need both aspects to realize there is something in between them both that is bringing growth within myself. And, seeing that the individual body is much akin to the body of the commonwealth which is again akin to the order of the Universe, how different can the World's Progress really be?
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