The Halloween season, that I am sadly too busy to truly participate in this year, got me thinking about what I am afraid of. Not accounting for any failings in self awareness, I would generally say that I'm not afraid of very many things. But I finally found the word to describe something I do find scary, and that I am legitimately afraid of: Indoctrination.
Not any specific kind. Just in general.
Probably stemming from my insecurity that I may not understand myself or know who I am; that who I consider to be "me" may only be composed of things others have forced upon me and that nothing I would consider uniquely "me" is really mine at all. Spooky.
So, what are YOU afraid of?
Take care,
-Etrius
Monday, October 31, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Gravity
Not intending to be too specific, I just wanted to lightly reflect on recent events.
Reason is a powerful tool. Like any tool, if mishandled, it can be very dangerous.
I falsely used reason as a measure of comfort to justify how I was living certain aspects of my life. It comforted me to think that how I felt, was reasonably the best I could feel. To acknowledge that I felt more or less would be to invite the doubt of the unreasonable. Unreasonable was, in accordance with seeking out reason for comfort, a decidedly dangerous thing to deal with. But what I couldn't see, was that my perception of "unreasonable," was in itself unreasonable. I couldn't give what I couldn't understand a chance. I couldn't accept that it was okay to not be able to reason with something.
This weekend let me see parts of myself, that I had suppressed as "unreasonable," to be no less a part of me, than my otherwise "reasonable" parts, despite what I called them.
I had regarded feeling my way through something new to be too dangerous to be worth it. A miscalculated notion based on previous circumstances that I couldn't see I had stacked against myself.
I felt this weekend.
For the first time in longer than I care to admit, I felt. I had forgotten the "delights of uncertainty." So many feelings in such a short period of time; of them, the most potent was the sensation of accepting that I am human. The next was accepting that, as a human, I can love without the need to reason and that it is not the same thing as being unreasonable. It is reasonable for a human to be human.
As of now, the experience is still fresh and my whole being hasn't fully stepped back and accepted that this weekend really happened. I do accept, however, that it will come in time.
My mind tells me I will never understand. My heart tells me I am not meant to.
Take care,
-RTB
Reason is a powerful tool. Like any tool, if mishandled, it can be very dangerous.
I falsely used reason as a measure of comfort to justify how I was living certain aspects of my life. It comforted me to think that how I felt, was reasonably the best I could feel. To acknowledge that I felt more or less would be to invite the doubt of the unreasonable. Unreasonable was, in accordance with seeking out reason for comfort, a decidedly dangerous thing to deal with. But what I couldn't see, was that my perception of "unreasonable," was in itself unreasonable. I couldn't give what I couldn't understand a chance. I couldn't accept that it was okay to not be able to reason with something.
This weekend let me see parts of myself, that I had suppressed as "unreasonable," to be no less a part of me, than my otherwise "reasonable" parts, despite what I called them.
I had regarded feeling my way through something new to be too dangerous to be worth it. A miscalculated notion based on previous circumstances that I couldn't see I had stacked against myself.
I felt this weekend.
For the first time in longer than I care to admit, I felt. I had forgotten the "delights of uncertainty." So many feelings in such a short period of time; of them, the most potent was the sensation of accepting that I am human. The next was accepting that, as a human, I can love without the need to reason and that it is not the same thing as being unreasonable. It is reasonable for a human to be human.
As of now, the experience is still fresh and my whole being hasn't fully stepped back and accepted that this weekend really happened. I do accept, however, that it will come in time.
My mind tells me I will never understand. My heart tells me I am not meant to.
Take care,
-RTB
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