It seems to me to be emotionally healthy we need to balance activity with stillness. You have to take chances, do work, get bumped around, and generally mix it up in the world. Then you also have to have time “off” to learn from your mistakes, process things emotionally, and recalibrate/recreate yourself, such that the newer you is better equipped.
On a very deep level, I am not sure that process is as simple in our world as it used to be. One must always be careful, though, about romanticizing the world of yesteryear–we did after all have separate drinking fountains in the South for black people just 50 or so years ago. Go back another twenty, and Europeans were killing one another in great numbers, and samurai swords were getting used in decapitation contests.
Let me put it this way: we exist in a surge of energy, change, emotion and constant activity. We “recreate” with TV and movies and media, among other things. It is a nearly ubiquitous pattern among most Americans to work all day, get dinner, then sit down in front of the TV.
It seems to me you optimally will have a contrast between the change that is a part of life, and other parts of your life that stay the same, that are constant. Things like the Bible, and Shakespeare, that go back at least far beyond the memory of anyone living. The content of this constancy will vary from society to society, and of course the interpretation of those constant themes will vary, but such changes are quite slow, usually, taking centuries.
Stable social narratives are calming. They are a place of rest, so to speak, in that they do not need to be reinvented. Individuals, in all times and places, will need to reinvent themselves vis a vis the social narratives which define their culture: change is inevitable, and will either be somewhat conscious, and somewhat positive, or somewhat unconscious, and either positive or negative.
Yet, what is the backdrop against which we reinvent ourselves? What stable social narratives do we have? The Socialists among us–who are Nihilists in fact if not self understanding–do everything they can to undermine all stable stories, like those of the Bible, patriotism, traditional social forms, and individual autonomy. For these things they want to substitute an as-yet uncreated social order, one which I frankly cannot imagine. Science is not morality. Consciousness will always precede the supposedly empirical conclusions of the post-moralists.
The question I am asking, in effect, is: where do we rest? Upon what can we rely? This is the malady of our modern age. It cannot just be my problem. This is the problem of the goths, and emo’s, and punk rockers, and even the hippies. We see one youth culture after another, each more dysfunctional than the last, all of whom fail to advance our understandings, since they start from the standpoint that silence and stillness are impossible, and all cultural claims are negotiable.
OF COURSE they are negotiable–manifestly the Earth is home to vast amounts of diversity–but can we not let them be until we come up with something better? Can we not slow the destructive energy until we can engage our creative energy?
Destruction is the life of death. It is the energy of a failed effort at individuation. This is what we confront.
I once dreamed of Lucifer. He was very bright, very shiny, so much so that you could barely see him. Yet upon close observation, he was composed of dead bodies, all tangled together. He was Death, disguised as light.
These are a few thoughts on a Tuesday morning. By the way, were you aware that Tuesday, in its end root, means “Day of Mars”? Did you know that Wednesday comes from Woden’s Day, Woden being the god of war also (cognate with Odin), and that some branches of the Vikings practiced human sacrifice in his honor, hanging victims from trees?
As I thought about it, that Joseph of Arimethea tree that was cut down in Britain was almost certainly a sacred tree in the Scandinavian faith that was Christianized. Christmas was a conscious co-opting of Saturnalia, and the tree in the home in winter was Druidic.
I look at these early missionaries, salespeople for a faith, making concessions to close the deal. Sure, you can keep your tree: we’ll just rename it.
I am religious, but it seems to me true religion is a precious flower that blooms briefly in all too few places. The odor remains for some time, then eventually becomes corrupt. I am not at all certain that what Christ taught is what has been passed down to us. I do not think he had symbolic cannibalism in mind when he conducted the Last Supper, complete with cups of blood.
My thinking on this is evolving. I’ll have a post on that topic before long.