Escapist Voodoo

To recap once again, after 2009s travels ended with Port Townsend, I settled into last winter by starting down a path that, quite frankly, I was unprepared for. When I jabbed my pen into Don Quixote, the notion that each of us silently deal in secret, disguised and silent self-delusion, I struck a mammoth vein of fool’s gold. I certainly hit something incredibly significant, but I was also stunningly naive about what it meant, and more foolish still in believing Freud’s Dragon wouldn’t turn on me!

CAVES 

Unfortunately, roads such as these come with neither maps nor disclaimers attached. The paths this brand of honest introspection inadvertently illuminate can lead to dark, frightening caves concealed deep within own own psyche. These are the places we are usually afraid to visit and rationalize away, even at the lowest of our most solitary, self-loathing moments. The ones spent silently trembling in dark corners, (hopefully metaphorically) weeping while we wonder why we are who we are, or what happened to who we were supposed to be. When we ask, "Why does the reflection in the mirror never measures up to what we see in our mind’s eye?" Why do our words never echo those whispered in a frail voice into our mind’s ear? We beg in Pink Floyd's quiet desperation for answers that are only be found locked inside these deep, dark, psychological caves.

I don’t know the specific clinical definition, but it seems clear that these caves harbor what seems to amount to a flawed, terrified, neglected, naked child: “Us.” The “us” we’re too terrified to acknowledge, or even a glance toward out of the fear that someone will see it’s there, and recognize us as the frauds we (all) really are.  

Think I'm just cynical? Not so fast.

While we endlessly work building thick walls of vanity built with the materials of wit, charm, and achievement to assure "we" are kept sequestered far away from a world that just won't "understand" I believe the jokes on us. Would we, by freeing this metaphorical imprisoned self, ultimately be able to accept and embrace that we’re just as pathetic, flawed and insecure, just as fucked up, as everyone else? More importantly, I believe, would we then recognize that everyone else is secretly just as fucked up as we are? I’ve occasionally mentioned Santa Clausification, and this is it on an everyman scale. As Rael succinctly put it, “We’re all just flawed human beings” 

Along with psychiatry and Madison Avenue, I’ve concluded, much to many-an-ego's chagrin, that we’re all much more alike than we’re comfortable admitting. I’m constantly astounded by the cavalier attitude, even an acute allergy, we take toward understanding ourselves. It's as though we're either completely engulfed and mesmerized by our own bullshit, or simply incapable of internalizing the truth. It's becoming apparent that, like the drunk sorostitute at her first frat party, we willingly buy the jock's loaded-line that we’re "special, unique, hand-sculpted snowflakes" righteously fluttering down from on-high. We buy the bullshit because, in the mundane experience of today's world we crave desperately a sense of meaning, and purpose. We need to feel like something more than another car in traffic or face in the crowd. Advertisers and societal/religious leaders have long understood and exploited this. That's why the most intoxicating and dangerous delusions sold throughout the "culture" are intentionally tied to our self-images.

With that in mind, perhaps these psychological doors are locked for a reason. Maybe they’re designed to be pried open as a painful rebuke in response to brazen, ignorant naiveté and presumptuous arrogance (as I believe was my case), as a reward for the incredible amount of courage usually only mustered by those hitting what we glibly refer to as “the bottom”, or most honorably (and rarely) after an incredible amount of self-observation and honest introspection. Maybe that child isn’t a prisoner after all; perhaps he’s in protective custody! 

"WTF?"

THE ESCAPIST VOODOO OF RELATIVISM 

Of course, a sense of all this will lead to a glimpse of the chasm existing between who we THINK we are, who we WANT to be, and who we actually ARE. People generally just write their own convenient, subconscious  narratives, then reposition and peddle it as “their” reality. To me, it remains ridiculous to even try to justify that new-age Escapist Voodoo of multiple "realities."

J.H. Kunstler put it best, and there’s a reason I have this displayed at the top of my page: “The trouble with self-delusion, either in a person or a society, is that reality doesn’t care what anybody believes, or what story they put out. Reality doesn’t “spin.” Reality does not have a self-image problem. Reality does not yield its workings to self-esteem management.” 

In varying degrees, we're still the 5-year old who thinks that if he closes his eyes, his pissed off mother will disappear. The problem is that it's a silent, internal process of self-bullshitting; mom's not there to smack us out of it.

The standard definition of Reality from Wikipedia: "...the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may APPEAR or may be THOUGHT TO BE." Reality is not something that's open to redefinition on the basis of convenient, skewed perception or a whimsical, egocentric interpretation-of-choice.

Relativity exists in matters of perceptions, interpretation, and opinions. But, PERCEPTION IS NOT REALITY. Like it or not, we’re not entitled to hijack the lone reality we all share with our own special snowflake of interpretation and perception. The only thing our interpretation and perception affects is how we alone experience our little sliver of reality. 

There is something that should be said about the limitations and variety of our perception. I equate it to standing on the beach looking at the ocean. Individually, we each only perceive a tiny piece of an unimaginably vast sea. Yet, thousands of others--each standing hundreds or thousands of miles apart--experience other seemingly unrelated pieces of the same tapestry.

To claim a personal reality, in my opinion, is equivalent in arrogance to claiming ownership of the Pacific because you're standing on a beach in Malibu! To take is a step further, I also believe that personal enlightenment alters perspective the same as rising altitudes alters your scope of vision. The higher you go,the more you can see and interpret.

This was neither the first nor will it be the last time I've been forced to reevaluate and deconstruct an antiquated, suddenly obsolete self-image. The more I learn and observe, the more MY OWN defenses wither. I figured the Don Quixote path would empower me, not make me more susceptible! I should be thankful for that, and I am, but at the end of the day I wasn't prepared for it. I've said numerous times that there are days I'd put Don and his insights back in his bottle and return to my state of mystically ignorant bliss if I could! What I've learned and used as a tool against others has come back to feed on me. There are fewer & fewer rationalizations to crouch behind. As a result and as I said before, that experience has helped me to finally grasp the eastern philosophy of inter-connectedness. We all feed on and/or affect each other in some way. The people I've helped have helped me. The people I've observed and judged are now judging me via my own insights! Profound. Humbling.

All of this is quite difficult and leads to my question: how many people would survive a direct reconciliation of their self-image with an unfiltered truth? 

I suppose the only practical application of asking that question is hopefully mustering the courage to initiate that priceless internal dialogue about who we think we are, who we want to be, who really are, and then finally working as best we can toward bridging our personal gulfs toward becoming a singular entity.

Nosce Te Ipsum

γνῶθι σεαυτόν

Know Thyself