As I am increasingly arguing, we are characterized by both an Unconscious related to our animal instincts, AND an unconscious related to our spiritual side. We exist in the middle, stupid.
And we are ghosts in machines. It is our task to learn to operate the machines, but it much more our task to learn that we are ghosts.
This is the essence, in my view, of the Buddhist Anatta/Anatman doctrine, the “No Self” creed. Your self is so much more vast than you can possibly imagine, so much more in flux and change and evolution than you can imagine, that you may as well say that on this level it doesn’t even exist, and needs to be discarded; this is particularly true since anything we can think or reason at this level can only contain and hinder us. If I say “that”, but you can’t see it, then I must leave you behind.
On a related note, I have made a major change, as these things go in my world. I don’t change avatars or names. I have had the same Facebook avatar since changing it once when I first signed up however many years ago. I have had the same handle here. But I changed it, to one of my psychological/spiritual animals. I discussed all this several years ago, and have no desire to rehash it here.
I grew up in a physically and emotionally violent home. It was not the quantity of violence, but the quality. I am very sensitive, and I have always seen more than was likely good for me. I have many, many pictures from all ages where I am the only one looking at the camera, because I was the only one who sensed it. My very first prized book as a child, which I perused over and over and over and over, was a book of World War 2 weapons. I had a G.I. Joe and a Lone Ranger, and I always idolized the military.
Even as an adult, I would seek out military metaphors. I would beat myself up to get things done. I was an early and militant adopter of CrossFit, because of the militaristic ethos. I may in fact bear some blame for some of the less attractive cultural elements there.
And I have often thought about doing things like the Bataan Death March (in New Mexico every March), not so much because I want to honor the soldiers–although they certainly deserve it–but because it would be painful and difficult for me. All my life I have faced pain and difficulty, and sort of internalized a need to think about it.
But I really don’t want to do the Death March. That is why I haven’t done it. We all do the things we actually want to do, and don’t do the things we don’t. This is a little spoken truth of life. And it’s OK to not want things as much as you think you ought to. Desire works the way it works, not the way we might prefer it to work.
All of this to say I don’t think I have anything to prove. I know what it is like to spend years fighting on in despair with no hope. I know what it is like to have to use a powerful will each and every day just to get through it. I don’t know what it is like to get shot at, but I do know what it is like to face things which scare the shit out of you, and what it is like to do it daily for long periods of time. Terror is terror, even if it is rational in one case, and completely (outwardly) irrational in another.
Long story short, I am tired of aspiring to butt heads. I am tired of anger and violence, and using conflict to sharpen my spirits and take me back home for a while. I will continue to say my say, and I’m sure reply to the innumerable idiots and shitheads on the internet. But no longer as Mountain Goat.