Life can be viewed as a series of pendulums
swinging from one extreme to the other, in so many areas that viewing them
looks like a kaleidoscope made of pendulum clocks manufactured by Mr Escher – dizzying and confusing to look at,
rendering one liable to consider taking up chaos magick for a – misplaced -
sense of control.
We tend, so often, to swing from being, say:
- overly focused on controlling diet to overly focused on exercise that we miss the point about enabling quality and enjoyment of life;
- focused on social interaction and the people we love to – well, most people forget there is even a balancing point to this one;
- showing we understand and can be better at complying with and using society’s rules and expectations to being oneself that we forget there is a role for both;
and so on.
I actually consider the (modern)
Taijitu, the so-called “yin-yang” symbol, a good symbol for the way we
"should" be viewing all these pendulum arcs: not extremes connected by a path to
be jumped across quickly or ignored, but dynamic balances, where each “opposite”
contains the seed of the other within itself, the dynamic processes
are what is renewing and life-giving and enriching rather than which polar opposite one is closest to at any one moment, and all the stages along the way are equally valid as either end.
Shades of “Balanced
Positive”, anyone? :)
Now, in terms of what led me to this post,
which is - nominally - contemplation on the nature of real estate agents, I noted:
- such people tend to be inherently people who have bought in to the materialist aspects of society – i.e., that having a flashier house is better than having a modest house that meets one’s needs, and renters – who don’t have a house at all – are scum who are beneath contempt;
- such people tend to generally be younger, and more vehement in how they demonstrate their adherence to the Officially Accepted Social Code of How Things Should be (OASCoHTS) to show well they understand and accept the OASCoHTS;
- some of these people experience a “sea change” as they mature (and some just grow old and set in their ways), and then seek a better, more rewarding, less materialistic life – often dismissed by those still in the throes of OASCoHTS as “mid-life crisis”, or “tree change”, or, occasionally, even an actual “sea change” (like me, I hope, in the not too distant future);
- these people are found in other situations as well – I’ve seen many in engineering, and have made the same mistakes myself, in that engineering context - and also in sailing, where my initial emphasis was on competitive sailing (although success at that kept me alive through a troubled time in my life).
Now, if one is self-aware, or seeking to be
self-aware, it is quite possible to become aware of one’s flaws – and the
behaviours I am describing here, not just OASCoHTS, are problems; as
an example, I became aware that I have a bad temper when I was a kid, which is
something I was led to because of my involvement in personal growth areas such
as Buddhism.
Just as important, I was also aware,
because of that personal growth work, that I am a “work in progress”, and thus
was able to make the decision to use my anger, rather than being a tool for
that anger (or, more accurately, whatever
was behind it) to express itself. If I’d been caught up in some sections of
the New Age movement, I would have been focused on the “accept and love oneself
as one is” end of the pendulum swing, and thus failed to acknowledge the other
end of the pendulum swing, which is about transforming and integrating that
aspect of oneself so one becomes a better, more effective person as a result.
I’ve written about this elsewhere.
The topic can be very important when one
is, for instance, considering the violent emotions shown – on both sides – last
weekend in relation to refugees. If one understands why people are like this,
one is better placed to be able to help them. This is why people such as – genuinely
- reformed terrorists can be so useful.
Now, the anger and violence didn’t help
either case, but was expressed nevertheless: why?
Well, I’m going to start this consideration
off by raising the issue of why people are homophobic. Why could they have that
major – and it is very, very, VERY major - flaw?
Notice I am asking “could”, not “why”: “shy
is specific, relating to specific people, but, before examining “why”, one
should always first examine the broad range of possible why’s:
- they could be suppressing their own same sex attraction (it is possible, and is a mistake I made on one occasion when I was young);
- they could be reacting to having been abused, perhaps in a previous life, by someone in a same sex situation (not necessarily child abuse – some same sex relationships are abusive, just as some heterosexual or bisexual relationships are, and that does not mean that same sex relationships are bad any more than such incidences mean heterosexual or bisexual relationships are bad);
- they could have been the one who did the abusing, and thus are now overreacting out of guilt;
- their views could have been warped by parents, peers, organisations or governments;
- they could have some other cause, possibly a personal matter needing help (maybe counselling, maybe healing, maybe a combination of modalities that changes as they progress through that experience), or something the existence of which I have no clue.
The same sort of range of causes also
applies to xenophobia. A few decades ago I knew someone who hated Greeks for no
known reason. At the time, I had a lot less life experience than I do now (this was before I had started my intensive
training in the 80s), so I could only think to point out to her that she
was "condemning" herself to being born as a Greek (we risk becoming what we hate, if we focus on it in an unbalanced and uncritical way). Now, following the sort of
exercise I just went through in the context of homophobia:
- the person concerned could have died in a war against Greeks;
- the person concerned could have been fighting for Greece, but either lost, or found the experience so wracking that they would up hating their involvement and went from love to hate;
- the person could have been responsible for something which either harmed or failed to help Greece / Greeks (e.g., perhaps one of the military leaders who failed to stop the invasion of Greece during World War Part Two), and is now acting out a desire to avoid facing up to their sense of guilt;
- their views could have been warped by parents, peers, organisations or governments (or they could be subject to psychic control, and thus be in need of clearing and lessons on the fundamentals of protection, flaming and grounding, and good psychic health);
- they could have some other cause, possibly a personal matter needing help (maybe counselling, maybe healing, maybe a combination of modalities that changes as they progress through that experience), or something the existence of which I have no clue.
Those involved in the violence on last
weekend may:
- be focused on a stereotypically alpha male / macho view that ideas and concepts need to be strong “physically”, in ways that I actually consider range from superficial to stupid, or simply thought they would “win” if they drowned the others out (thereby ignoring the rest of society, media, government and the complexity of life);
- have ulterior motives;
- have “simply” wanted a fight, or some excitement;
- have no clue how threatening such behaviour is to others, let alone how damaging it is;
- have acted out of a sense of wanting to protect someone they know and care about and perceived as being threatened, and the issues actually didn’t mean anything to them;
- their views could have been warped by parents, peers, organisations or governments (or they could be subject to psychic control, and thus be in need of clearing and lessons on the fundamentals of protection, flaming and grounding, and good psychic health, This is also where the work on pointing out that (a) refugees do not constitute the threat they are made out to be, (b) we non-indigenous people are not the “original” or “rightful” inhabitants of this land, (c) there are other, important principles, such as compassion, legal justice and the reciprocity that our actions create for our citizens later, (d) so on, are important);
- they could have some other cause, possibly a personal matter needing help (maybe counselling, maybe healing, maybe a combination of modalities that changes as they progress through that experience), or something the existence of which I have no clue.
In terms of the work I want people to do, being
aware of a wider range of possible causes means you are more likely to be aware
of and properly clear nonBPM units, or to send the form of BPM healing that is actually needed.
This sort of exercise can be difficult.
Many, many years ago one of my students said she couldn’t understand how anyone
could abuse a child. Well, my BPF Guides gave me a nudge, and we found that she
actually had been a child abuser several hundred years earlier: her vehemence
now was, in part, due to unresolved guilt – but it also normal and healthy
outrage at the utter wrongness of such actions.
On a personal note, I am aware of how I
could have made decisions in this life that led me to be an alcoholic, or a
very angry person, or a superficial pleasure-seeking person, and so on – we all face such potential choices: knowing
who we are makes those situations an actual, manifest exercise in making a
choice, rather than being thrown haphazardly through the trouble and turmoil of
unresolved and unacknowledged issues to wherever they dictate we, their controlled PUPPET,
shall be taken.
Being aware ourselves, then also makes us
better able to help others.
When I was contemplating this post, I
recalled reading, a few weeks or months ago, of someone who avoided the “need”
for relationships by being aware of what he was seeking for in that person. I
don’t think I posted the link, as I wasn’t comfortable with what the person was
doing (it came across as too glib and anti-people for me). However, if applied
to things like shopping and buying material things, like bigger houses etc, the
concept could actually be quite beneficial –for u personally, for those who
would ultimately be able to access the resources we didn’t consume, and for the
environment and thus the planet.
Oh, and I deny “vehemently” that I could
have been a real estate agent … unless I was born into a silver spoon situation
… or saw the benefits of owning a place earlier in my life … or I had missed
the personal growth experiences that I have had :) . And if the latter had been the
case, who knows where I would be, or what I could be.
[1] BPM =
Balanced Positive (spiritually) Mature. See here and here for more on this.
[2] Please see here, here, here and my post "The Death of Wikipedia" for the reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia. I'm also exploring use of h2g2, although that doesn't appear to be as extensive (h2g2 is intended - rather engagingly - to be the Earth edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy").
[2] Please see here, here, here and my post "The Death of Wikipedia" for the reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia. I'm also exploring use of h2g2, although that doesn't appear to be as extensive (h2g2 is intended - rather engagingly - to be the Earth edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy").
[3] I apologise for the formatting: it seems Blogger is
no longer as WYSIWYG as it used to be, and there are a lot of unwanted
changes to layout made upon publishing, so I often have to edit it immediately
after publishing to get the format as close to what I want as possible.
Love, light, hugs and blessings
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear"; ... aka Bellatrix
Lux … aka Morinehtar … would-be drýicgan or maga
... )
My "blogiography" (list of all posts and guide as to how to best use this
site) is here, and my glossary/index is here.
I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue
(see here and here), and it grew ... See here for my group mind project, here and here for my "Pagans for Peace" project (and join me
for a few minutes at some time between 8 and 11 PM on Sunday, wherever you are,
to meditate-clear for peace), and here
for my bindrune kit-bag. I also strongly recommend
learning how to flame, ground
and shield, do alternate
nostril breathing, work
with colour, and see also here and be
flexible.
The real dividing line is not between
Christianity and Islam, Sunni and Shia, East and West. It is between people who
believe in coexistence, and those who don’t.
- All of the above - and this blog - could be wrong, or subject to context, perspective, or state of spiritual evolution ...
Tags:choice, growth, life lessons, lifestyles, paths, personal characteristics, personal responsibility, self knowledge, stages of life,
First published: Sunnudagr, 30th May, 2016
Last edited (excluding fixing typo's
and other minor matters): Sunday, 30th May, 2016
