I recall back in my stupid days the low point of "trips" on mind-altering drugs. One could have bummers, for sure, but they were very uncommon. Almost guaranteed, however, was a point where you and your fellow travelers came to where thoughts could not be hidden. It was not so much telepathy - although there was some of that - but rather body language and the tone of voice. At that point, anything but authenticity was seen for what it was, an artifice to support a public vision of self that did not coincide with the inner self. While we all were subject to it, I will pick on a friend no longer alive as a sample case. A cool guy, tall and athletic and sought after by girls, he normally had a high place in the overall social hierarchy of young adults. On a large group trip, however, he pulled out a ridiculous and vulgar cartoon from his pocket to share for a laugh. We could not hide our reactions: the joke was infantile and we could not help but laugh at the guy rather than with him. He then attempted to save face by giving it to another of us, saying, "here - I don't want it!", causing us to laugh at him again for his clumsy attempt at a cover-up. It sounds cruel, but it couldn't be helped; there was no way to cover up thoughts and emotions.
In the Gospels of the New Testament there is the famous encounter between Jesus and a crowd who has condemned a woman to death for adultery. "He who has no sin throw the first stone," was his final dare - and none threw the stone. Behind the facade of self-righteousness they were all very much aware of the secrets they kept to themselves. Nearly 2000 years later, the hippies of the 60's, made aware of the openness that hallucinogens forced on one, sought to be open and honest about everything. Free Love was a cornerstone, where the "mating game" of the young was ditched for the reality of general lust. And yet the communes that they formed for such things failed famously. They found that the superficiality of the cultural self was not as much about protecting "face" as it was about masking the true inner selfishness of the individual. "Face," it was discovered, was a necessary evil that mediated between inner desire and social harmony. Of course, Jesus was right in questioning the condemning crowd, for he came to teach about hypocrisy and truth and the nature of Sin: the Son of Man was indeed necessary because we were all sinners. There was no commune or social system that could erase it, but only the Son of God as a man who would atone for that sin through a very bad death. One does not have to believe in the divinity of Jesus, however, to see that he had touched on a universal truth: regardless of the social ideals, there was, at least some times, a monster who lurked behind the Face.
This brings out the growing New Age belief that a quantum moment is becoming imminent (personally, I am not convinced of this one way or the other - but I do think it would be interesting). In this moment, we will (would) become aware of our union with everything at the roots of our existence (quantum physics calls for such a unitive connection in the universe). We will, then, have no "face" to hide behind - all secrets will be known. Mentioning this to others, many are more worried about bizarre sexual fantasies surfacing than anything else, but I think that those will be small potatoes, well shared. Rather, and much worse, we will see the ill and hostile will of the ego - its envy, its ranking of others - in all, its overall selfishness. In the hippie communes, this was enough to do them in; and in Marxist societies, where such thoughts were supposed to disappear with the "peoples will," they found themselves mistaken, much to their demise. But what would this openness mean for the world at large? Would we fall apart into mean solo unites, huddled in our selfish caves, or would we learn to cast that self aside for something greater? And if so, what would be this 'something greater' that has yet to survive in an overall social system in the historical world?
Some questions for thought - and it oddly dovetails with the subject of Genius currently being discussed. More on that tomorrow, FK
In the Gospels of the New Testament there is the famous encounter between Jesus and a crowd who has condemned a woman to death for adultery. "He who has no sin throw the first stone," was his final dare - and none threw the stone. Behind the facade of self-righteousness they were all very much aware of the secrets they kept to themselves. Nearly 2000 years later, the hippies of the 60's, made aware of the openness that hallucinogens forced on one, sought to be open and honest about everything. Free Love was a cornerstone, where the "mating game" of the young was ditched for the reality of general lust. And yet the communes that they formed for such things failed famously. They found that the superficiality of the cultural self was not as much about protecting "face" as it was about masking the true inner selfishness of the individual. "Face," it was discovered, was a necessary evil that mediated between inner desire and social harmony. Of course, Jesus was right in questioning the condemning crowd, for he came to teach about hypocrisy and truth and the nature of Sin: the Son of Man was indeed necessary because we were all sinners. There was no commune or social system that could erase it, but only the Son of God as a man who would atone for that sin through a very bad death. One does not have to believe in the divinity of Jesus, however, to see that he had touched on a universal truth: regardless of the social ideals, there was, at least some times, a monster who lurked behind the Face.
This brings out the growing New Age belief that a quantum moment is becoming imminent (personally, I am not convinced of this one way or the other - but I do think it would be interesting). In this moment, we will (would) become aware of our union with everything at the roots of our existence (quantum physics calls for such a unitive connection in the universe). We will, then, have no "face" to hide behind - all secrets will be known. Mentioning this to others, many are more worried about bizarre sexual fantasies surfacing than anything else, but I think that those will be small potatoes, well shared. Rather, and much worse, we will see the ill and hostile will of the ego - its envy, its ranking of others - in all, its overall selfishness. In the hippie communes, this was enough to do them in; and in Marxist societies, where such thoughts were supposed to disappear with the "peoples will," they found themselves mistaken, much to their demise. But what would this openness mean for the world at large? Would we fall apart into mean solo unites, huddled in our selfish caves, or would we learn to cast that self aside for something greater? And if so, what would be this 'something greater' that has yet to survive in an overall social system in the historical world?
Some questions for thought - and it oddly dovetails with the subject of Genius currently being discussed. More on that tomorrow, FK
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