I may need to divide this into parts because of the sheer surface area and ruggedness of this nation’s landscape. I refer to the tyrannous Kingdom of Flaw, where we all abide religiously to the belief that we are fools in the wrong unless proven otherwise. Proven by whom? The fools themselves. Genius. And who rules this marvel of gloom and doom? Those very same fools. Now before we get to how to escape and who needs to be called in for rescue because rescue is an absolute must, let me clarify. Perhaps a little manifesto is the simplest way to present the laws of the land:
- Your desires are misinformed. They are either futile, impossible (at the very least improbable), and infantile. They are sustained by delusions. Wake up.
- Whatever you are doing, you can do better. Always. Never forget, you live to repair and improve. You are not the ideal.
- If you feel good about any situation, the ugly truth is soon to be revealed. You only feel good because you lack information.
- Always assume your comprehensive abilities are limited and insufficient. You always understand less than is optimally required, and you never know what is best.
- Finally, you can only negate the above by proving the opposite through the visible, tangible circumstances of your life. Success is evident and quantifiable, please do not bother with that which is not.
To some degree, these are relatable premises for all. The paradigm of mistake and redemption is not contemporary, but neither is it ancient. The modern religions’ (Abrahamic) choice of interpretation of scripture, the loss of pagan oriented lifestyle, the corruption of the Goddess and her domain, and the consequent patriarchization of the psyche is something that has happened only over a few thousand years, in comparison to the timeline of humans spanning hundreds of thousand of years. This process cut us off from nature, and that which is natural. In the natural world, no blossom is incomplete, no frog is unshapely, no jackfruit is unsure of its sweetness, no stream is questioning its direction. There is no communication within the natural world which insists on improvement of what is or expresses skepticism towards what is becoming. There is only movement towards abundance, which includes timely destruction. A world view which perpetuates domination through the means of monopoly of resources and gains through mass consumption which means mass productivity has rendered us with sore feet in a rat race, and even sorer souls. Many who choose not to engage in such performance because they are not energetically built to, feel idle and without purpose because they lack that kind of libido. Not everyone is concerned with material wealth, there are other drives, callings. Yet even the poet and the dancer and the craftswoman/man can know a merciless ache because they have not yet proven their skill or made their mark, often unable to create or share their creations, having collapsed beneath the burden of acknowledgment and validation.
We long for romance and from the moment it arrives we are more often than not on the lookout for the flaw. And we find it, anywhere we anticipate that which is subpar, we find it. In ourselves, in others, in every experience. Simply because of the state of our consciousness. We have it wrong, the world has it wrong, it is wrong. We are here to make it all right. What a stupefyingly tall order. So the uphill battle rages on, and we move further and further away from our divinely ordained perfection, our natural state both in solitude and in connection.
When we are not taught to trust our own thoughts and feelings we operate from a self-undermining inner world but with the intention of overcoming obstacles and problems in the outer world. We clean, fix, acquire, shape, reshape, solve, fight, and resolve, and gain little ground. Circumstances may change or not, but the felt lived experience remains the same. Better, bigger, more awaits, if only I get it right. This is a trap even for many dedicating themselves to spiritual pursuits, due to the core belief of being flawed, tainted, and the correct state ever being out of reach. When we reach towards something for the sake of improvement we are strengthening the subconscious belief of flaw, and growing awareness of the thoughts and actions which support this is crucial. It is only when we begin to catch the mind in its detrimental flow that we can shift the state of consciousness, and yes, sweet fool, come to our own rescue. This obviously needs a Part 2.