So I vacillate

What preceded psychology, in much of what I will summarize as “Western Civilization”?  Sin, which is to say a choice between conformity with a system quite capable of violence, and expulsion, castigation, and perhaps even death.

Sin, in turn, might perhaps most usefully be defined as any species of outer non-conformity.  If one reads the history of the Church, it is filled to overflowing with greed, anger, violence, jealous rage, power-mongering, hypocrisy, hedonism, and so on.  This applies both to actual pontiffs, and to the kings and all their vassals and allies who professed the Christian faith.

One wonders if the “saints” often were merely people incapable of tolerating the “double-bind” of living within a system filled with such lies.  I wonder if many of them were dealing with severe traumas and had no way of avoiding insanity other than voluntarily leaving society and living in a cave, which in turn led to people assuming they were better because different.

I spoke poorly of what might be termed “psychodynamic” literature.  Perhaps it has been needed.  It is impossible, I feel, to properly individuate in a world with strong digital distinctions, coupled with violence.  The opposite of either/or is nuance, a spectrum of emotional and behavioral colors, which alternately flare and recede in most of us in the course of a day.

It does seem to me that some Eastern systems developed sound systems for mental health, but without knowing fully why they worked.  I think it is particularly important that we are finally beginning to grasp the importance of developmental traumas and PTSD, the importance of empathy, both felt and as a principle, and the very rich, interesting tapestry of human psychodynamic activity.

The transhumanists want infinite “knowledge”, but I wonder how much attention they pay to the nuances of feelings.  How important is consciousness, per se, to them?  And how important, really, can it be to understand the next seven stages of math describing the universe, when accessing it experientially can only be done through a soul, which we have all been born with, which naturally return home, and which do not lack thoughts, but the inner knowing best reached through inner feeling, healing, hope and the following generation of the peace and joy we all truly want, need, and seek?

Transhumanism is born both of the despair of mortality–itself founded on a demonstrable empirical error–but more importantly–since this error could be discovered–upon an unwillingness to feel.

I have been through many hells.  They have all been worth it.