The only valid place from which to proceed, is a conscious apprehension of the real self: a direct-knowing without words, pictures, symbols, feelings, or logic.
Negative learning can never point in a positive direction.
Disillusion is only valuable when it leads to reality - not to another illusion.
Cynicism causes demotivation, which leads to external control by short-term environmental stimuli.
However things may have been in other times and places; there is now an absolute need, and no substitute, for living with conscious purpose in a meaningful reality.
The starting point for discovery of meaning is the purpose of everything; which entails recognizing reality as A Creation.
They are all good, but I especially like the first one and the last one because they encapsulate the "challenge" of what is needed most.
ReplyDelete@Frank - Thanks. They form a sequence with meaning for me; in that I was thinking on a theme, this is how they occurred, and were written in my notebook.
ReplyDeleteThe aphorisms are meaningful and cohesive when read sequentially. No doubt about that.
ReplyDeleteI am also drawn to the disillusionment aphorism. The appeal of illusion cannot be stressed enough. If we can't find another illusion to cling to after disillusionment, we will often do everything we can to re-illusion ourselves back into the illusion we became disillusioned with in the first place. Sadly, we seem to find more comfort in disenchanted enchantments than we do in reality.
@Frank - Yes, there is a strong tendency among many people I read to assume that "people" getting disillusioned about - say - the honesty of the media or government, or scientists or doctors, or pandemics or wars - is a step forward towards a better ideology or religion.
ReplyDeleteBut it very seldom is. Such disillusion is just a negative, not a positive.
This fits with my general belief that the current collapse of globalist totalitarianism is not a positive, because it is negatively-motivated; therefore it is a shift from dictatorship to destruction, order to chaos - from Ahrimanic to Sorathic.
This is another reason why motivation is primary. When an evil is destroyed for a not-good reason, then the destruction does not lead to good. Only when the real motivations are really good does net good eventuate.
A really helpful exchange about replacing disillusion with another disillusion. It helps me recognise, for example, that dynamic in the usual response to the recent medical fiasco which commonly uses the term 'crime against humanity' - even by a doctor friend. But I notice that part of me is not outraged because I know that crimes against humanity are commonplace and ongoing and remain so precisely because we as human beings tend to sustain ourselves with one false hope after another and remain in endless cycles of self delusion. If you stop that and take up your Cross then you can feel in your bones that the burden is real and that salvation is also possible. As preposterous to the modern mind as this reorientation to reality may seem, nothing less will do. Godspeed.
ReplyDelete@Igude. Yes, it should be clear by now, that no accumulation of "outrages" adds up to anything worthwhile - yet people frequently assume it does, and regard being outraged as progress.
ReplyDeleteEven worse is when outrage is retrospective - as is usually the case. This merely fuels moral arrogance.
I am very pleased to see Dr. Charlton publish aphorisms. I do consider him sui generis (which is why I follow his blog) so I generally hesitate to compare Dr. Charlton with this or that author, however I do discern some spiritual affinity with the great Colombian aphorist, Nicolás Gómez Dávila (aka Don Colacho).
ReplyDelete@Stephen - A very flattering comparison!
ReplyDelete