The rest of the odds and ends I didn’t get around to posting the other day:
Why is the world the way it is?
A frustrating circular argument I’ve been having with myself. Why is the world so unsatisfactory? If I am indeed omniscient and omnipotent, how could it get to this point? The “drunk on dreaming” explanation has never sat very easily with me. Whatever chain of events led to my current experience, I find it hard to believe that a wiser, all-knowing me wouldn’t have some sort of a “break in case of existential emergency” box. It seems like a pretty big oversight.
This leads to a line of thinking that definitely interferes with manifestation for me. If I didn’t leave myself an easy, obvious, quick way out of this current situation… was that intentional? Is there some benefit, not visible from this perspective, that makes my current limitations, and the generally lacklustre state of the world, something I shouldn’t interfere with?
Or is my current state genuinely just a giant, regrettable cosmic oopsie?
The hinderance of expectation
I jotted this down late one night and can’t remember exactly what I meant now, but I think what I was getting at was some kind of bird in the hand versus two in the bush kind of thing. So - if you’re on a quest for magic, which is a great, incredibly desirable thing, it’s hard not to be distracted by the aspects of human experience which are only appealing in a minuscule - often really, really minuscule - way. And I think this largely comes down to the reliability and predictability of these human experiences. It’s difficult to set your sights on phenomenal cosmic powers when there’s the anticipated pleasure of, say, the prospect of buying your favourite brand of soap tomorrow, which you just ran out of. These things shouldn’t be in competition - they shouldn’t even be in the same sentence. But there is an insidious, addictive quality to wanting something and knowing you can have it, even if it’s boring and crappy.Maybe that’s one of the reasons why we human.
The wish game
There’s a fantasy book I read recently. In it, there’s a character who makes and trades teeth for wishes. The wishes come in the form of coins which disappear when they’re “spent” and which, like coins, come in various denominations. The higher the denomination, the more significant the thing you can wish for. So smallest denomination - you can wish a light to turn out, or a small inkblot to disappear, etc. Highest denomination - maybe world peace, invulnerability? Also worth mentioning: the wishmonger in the book is portrayed as wise, and pretty judgey about shitty wishes.
Anyway, it was interesting to mentally give myself a handful of these wishes one night to spend - or try to. When you are faced, in imagination, with the key to getting what you desire, it’s amazing how readily you talk yourself out of it, even if you don’t want to.
I think a couple of other factors were at play here; the limitations imposed by the denominations of the wishes + the presence of an archetypal magus-type who I felt the need to justify myself to. At any rate, I found it a useful exercise for nutting out/verbalising to myself why I might struggle to impose my will in certain situations.
The presence of subjective idealists throughout history
Not much to say on this one except that I studied William Wordsworth years back and remembered this prose introduction to his poem “Intimations of Immortality” in which he talks about his resistance, particularly in childhood, to viewing the world as solid and separate to him. You can read the full thing here if it’s of interest: http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/lewiss/PoeandWordsworth.htm
Short extract here:
“I was often unable to think of external things as having external existence, and I communed with all that I saw as something not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature. Many times while going to school have I grasped at a wall or tree to recall myself from this abyss of idealism to the reality. At that time I was afraid of such processes.”
Originally commented by u/BraverNewerWorld on 2017-08-14 23:49:44 (dllri67)
A frustrating circular argument I’ve been having with myself. Why is the world so unsatisfactory? If I am indeed omniscient and omnipotent, how could it get to this point? The “drunk on dreaming” explanation has never sat very easily with me. Whatever chain of events led to my current experience, I find it hard to believe that a wiser, all-knowing me wouldn’t have some sort of a “break in case of existential emergency” box. It seems like a pretty big oversight.
And this sub is not that box? :) I think it is, but that’s just me.
Also, why aren’t I lucid in every one of my dreams? Why only specifically those where I intend to be lucid? Why is lucidity not a default for me? But I’ve read from other people for whom lucidity is a default. Of course what I have to deal with is the peculiar way my own mind works, and so, the-world-as-I-know-it has to also be peculiar to me, and so as I see it there is all the more reason to address questions about the unfairness/rigidity, or whatever other perceived negative traits of the world, back to myself.
An interesting angle here is also to ask, “What sort of person would love this world?” I can see this world being attractive to a range of characters, for various reasons. As I dwell on what sort of person might enjoy this setup here, I grow more certain and more peaceful with the idea that this world is not for me. But I don’t say this with a sense of self-rejection! On the contrary. I know I am always here and the world is a guest. I have nowhere to go. The world is what comes and goes, and I can help it go away just as I have helped it come.
I don’t mean coming and going in a literal sense, since of course there is no literal coming and no literal going, just like if I make an object vanish in a lucid dream, that object doesn’t literally go somewhere else.
One possible pitfall I see here, that I’m very careful to avoid, is that it’s possible to translate my dissatisfaction with the world into a self-sabotaging idea of some sort, which I admit, has at times been my tendency. So the self-sabotaging mode would be to think that the world is this mighty and enduring place and that I am a small and insignificant guest, and that if I don’t like something about the world, I’m the one who needs to fuck off. That’s a horrible way to think that leads toward really really bad future lives of victimhood and dispossession. Indeed I see traces of this in my present life, since I am somewhat dispossessed now, I think it’s because I’ve been thinking along these self-sabotaging lines for more than a few lives to generate this kind of tendency.
So my rule now is I can hate anything and anyone, but never myself. (I’m not saying I should hate anything, but only saying, if I really must hate, it cannot be me that I hate.) I’m going to stay no matter what, and I am the only non-optional element of all my dreams, and if I make an enemy of myself, I’ll never be at peace. In other words, if I have to take a shit, I should never shit in the very core of my perspective, but should shit on the periphery, if at all.
One possible source of your doubts could be caused by imagining Gods and God-level characters as incapable of intending something they later regret. This, I think, is just a childish idealization of Godhood. In every state of mind there are seeds of all the other states. So in a state of foolishness there are seeds of wisdom. But conversely in a state of wisdom there are seeds of foolishness as well. The potential can never be fully extinguished.
The flaw that Gods have is that they think they can never come to harm, no matter what. And part of the problem is that it’s true too. What Gods don’t realize is that while they won’t come to any true harm, they can still have experiences that are arbitrarily miserable. But when you’re basking in radiant glory of your realized Godhood, are you really going to remember clearly what miserable states of experience might be like? So Gods can be incredibly haughty and flippant, which is both a source of strength and a source of weakness. Thus they can fall for a time, from time to time. Until they wise up again. I think it’s a game that never ends, because like I said, the potential can never be extinguished, and also because volition is an ineliminable aspect of a primordial mind: yours.
So - if you’re on a quest for magic, which is a great, incredibly desirable thing, it’s hard not to be distracted by the aspects of human experience which are only appealing in a minuscule - often really, really minuscule - way. And I think this largely comes down to the reliability and predictability of these human experiences. It’s difficult to set your sights on phenomenal cosmic powers when there’s the anticipated pleasure of, say, the prospect of buying your favourite brand of soap tomorrow, which you just ran out of. These things shouldn’t be in competition - they shouldn’t even be in the same sentence. But there is an insidious, addictive quality to wanting something and knowing you can have it, even if it’s boring and crappy.Maybe that’s one of the reasons why we human.
Well said. What they end up competing for is the mindshare or attentionshare or concernshare of your own mind. The time you spend thinking about, paying attention, and showing concern for this or that anticipated experience.
But there is an insidious, addictive quality to wanting something and knowing you can have it, even if it’s boring and crappy.
Yes, but this also betrays some doubts, as in, you don’t know if your grand ambitions are something you can have. To address the doubts is the key. I don’t think it’s simple. One aspect is to be steady and sturdy in front of doubts. Another is to understand the general nature of possibility. And lastly, one should still generate a steady stream of small successes in personal experience in order to boost confidence in one’s own mind’s ability to produce seemingly miraculous experiences. At some point such happenings may no longer appear miraculous anymore.
There’s a fantasy book I read recently. In it, there’s a character who makes and trades teeth for wishes. The wishes come in the form of coins which disappear when they’re “spent” and which, like coins, come in various denominations. The higher the denomination, the more significant the thing you can wish for. So smallest denomination - you can wish a light to turn out, or a small inkblot to disappear, etc. Highest denomination - maybe world peace, invulnerability? Also worth mentioning: the wishmonger in the book is portrayed as wise, and pretty judgey about shitty wishes.
So wishes must be budgeted? This runs off the idea that we just can’t have good things. The universe is a stingy profit-maximizing bastard that demands your arm and your leg for the slightest wish and you can only have one, because otherwise how would the universe profit if wish-fulfillment were not scarce? It’s also like the entire universe is created around the idea of profit to begin with. There cannot be profit in an economic sense without scarcity in an economic sense.
I think with the exception of wishes that mutually contradict each other, one can fulfill limitless numbers of wishes. Even with the wishes that do contradict each other, they can all be fulfilled in a one-at-a-time fashion.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-08-15 11:45:46 (dlmuhbz)
The rest of the odds and ends I didn’t get around to posting the other day:
A frustrating circular argument I’ve been having with myself. Why is the world so unsatisfactory? If I am indeed omniscient and omnipotent, how could it get to this point? The “drunk on dreaming” explanation has never sat very easily with me. Whatever chain of events led to my current experience, I find it hard to believe that a wiser, all-knowing me wouldn’t have some sort of a “break in case of existential emergency” box. It seems like a pretty big oversight.
This leads to a line of thinking that definitely interferes with manifestation for me. If I didn’t leave myself an easy, obvious, quick way out of this current situation… was that intentional? Is there some benefit, not visible from this perspective, that makes my current limitations, and the generally lacklustre state of the world, something I shouldn’t interfere with?
Or is my current state genuinely just a giant, regrettable cosmic oopsie?
I jotted this down late one night and can’t remember exactly what I meant now, but I think what I was getting at was some kind of bird in the hand versus two in the bush kind of thing. So - if you’re on a quest for magic, which is a great, incredibly desirable thing, it’s hard not to be distracted by the aspects of human experience which are only appealing in a minuscule - often really, really minuscule - way. And I think this largely comes down to the reliability and predictability of these human experiences. It’s difficult to set your sights on phenomenal cosmic powers when there’s the anticipated pleasure of, say, the prospect of buying your favourite brand of soap tomorrow, which you just ran out of. These things shouldn’t be in competition - they shouldn’t even be in the same sentence. But there is an insidious, addictive quality to wanting something and knowing you can have it, even if it’s boring and crappy.Maybe that’s one of the reasons why we human.
There’s a fantasy book I read recently. In it, there’s a character who makes and trades teeth for wishes. The wishes come in the form of coins which disappear when they’re “spent” and which, like coins, come in various denominations. The higher the denomination, the more significant the thing you can wish for. So smallest denomination - you can wish a light to turn out, or a small inkblot to disappear, etc. Highest denomination - maybe world peace, invulnerability? Also worth mentioning: the wishmonger in the book is portrayed as wise, and pretty judgey about shitty wishes.
Anyway, it was interesting to mentally give myself a handful of these wishes one night to spend - or try to. When you are faced, in imagination, with the key to getting what you desire, it’s amazing how readily you talk yourself out of it, even if you don’t want to.
I think a couple of other factors were at play here; the limitations imposed by the denominations of the wishes + the presence of an archetypal magus-type who I felt the need to justify myself to. At any rate, I found it a useful exercise for nutting out/verbalising to myself why I might struggle to impose my will in certain situations.
Not much to say on this one except that I studied William Wordsworth years back and remembered this prose introduction to his poem “Intimations of Immortality” in which he talks about his resistance, particularly in childhood, to viewing the world as solid and separate to him. You can read the full thing here if it’s of interest: http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/lewiss/PoeandWordsworth.htm
Short extract here: “I was often unable to think of external things as having external existence, and I communed with all that I saw as something not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature. Many times while going to school have I grasped at a wall or tree to recall myself from this abyss of idealism to the reality. At that time I was afraid of such processes.”
Originally commented by u/BraverNewerWorld on 2017-08-14 23:49:44 (dllri67)
And this sub is not that box? :) I think it is, but that’s just me.
Also, why aren’t I lucid in every one of my dreams? Why only specifically those where I intend to be lucid? Why is lucidity not a default for me? But I’ve read from other people for whom lucidity is a default. Of course what I have to deal with is the peculiar way my own mind works, and so, the-world-as-I-know-it has to also be peculiar to me, and so as I see it there is all the more reason to address questions about the unfairness/rigidity, or whatever other perceived negative traits of the world, back to myself.
An interesting angle here is also to ask, “What sort of person would love this world?” I can see this world being attractive to a range of characters, for various reasons. As I dwell on what sort of person might enjoy this setup here, I grow more certain and more peaceful with the idea that this world is not for me. But I don’t say this with a sense of self-rejection! On the contrary. I know I am always here and the world is a guest. I have nowhere to go. The world is what comes and goes, and I can help it go away just as I have helped it come.
I don’t mean coming and going in a literal sense, since of course there is no literal coming and no literal going, just like if I make an object vanish in a lucid dream, that object doesn’t literally go somewhere else.
One possible pitfall I see here, that I’m very careful to avoid, is that it’s possible to translate my dissatisfaction with the world into a self-sabotaging idea of some sort, which I admit, has at times been my tendency. So the self-sabotaging mode would be to think that the world is this mighty and enduring place and that I am a small and insignificant guest, and that if I don’t like something about the world, I’m the one who needs to fuck off. That’s a horrible way to think that leads toward really really bad future lives of victimhood and dispossession. Indeed I see traces of this in my present life, since I am somewhat dispossessed now, I think it’s because I’ve been thinking along these self-sabotaging lines for more than a few lives to generate this kind of tendency.
So my rule now is I can hate anything and anyone, but never myself. (I’m not saying I should hate anything, but only saying, if I really must hate, it cannot be me that I hate.) I’m going to stay no matter what, and I am the only non-optional element of all my dreams, and if I make an enemy of myself, I’ll never be at peace. In other words, if I have to take a shit, I should never shit in the very core of my perspective, but should shit on the periphery, if at all.
One possible source of your doubts could be caused by imagining Gods and God-level characters as incapable of intending something they later regret. This, I think, is just a childish idealization of Godhood. In every state of mind there are seeds of all the other states. So in a state of foolishness there are seeds of wisdom. But conversely in a state of wisdom there are seeds of foolishness as well. The potential can never be fully extinguished.
The flaw that Gods have is that they think they can never come to harm, no matter what. And part of the problem is that it’s true too. What Gods don’t realize is that while they won’t come to any true harm, they can still have experiences that are arbitrarily miserable. But when you’re basking in radiant glory of your realized Godhood, are you really going to remember clearly what miserable states of experience might be like? So Gods can be incredibly haughty and flippant, which is both a source of strength and a source of weakness. Thus they can fall for a time, from time to time. Until they wise up again. I think it’s a game that never ends, because like I said, the potential can never be extinguished, and also because volition is an ineliminable aspect of a primordial mind: yours.
Well said. What they end up competing for is the mindshare or attentionshare or concernshare of your own mind. The time you spend thinking about, paying attention, and showing concern for this or that anticipated experience.
Yes, but this also betrays some doubts, as in, you don’t know if your grand ambitions are something you can have. To address the doubts is the key. I don’t think it’s simple. One aspect is to be steady and sturdy in front of doubts. Another is to understand the general nature of possibility. And lastly, one should still generate a steady stream of small successes in personal experience in order to boost confidence in one’s own mind’s ability to produce seemingly miraculous experiences. At some point such happenings may no longer appear miraculous anymore.
So wishes must be budgeted? This runs off the idea that we just can’t have good things. The universe is a stingy profit-maximizing bastard that demands your arm and your leg for the slightest wish and you can only have one, because otherwise how would the universe profit if wish-fulfillment were not scarce? It’s also like the entire universe is created around the idea of profit to begin with. There cannot be profit in an economic sense without scarcity in an economic sense.
I think with the exception of wishes that mutually contradict each other, one can fulfill limitless numbers of wishes. Even with the wishes that do contradict each other, they can all be fulfilled in a one-at-a-time fashion.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-08-15 11:45:46 (dlmuhbz)