[MD] Ever redefining self

[Heather Perella]

Hello,

     After reading J.C. "The Hero with a Thousand
Faces" this morning on the back porch, here's what I
contemplated.  This quote is taken from the last
chapter, the second to last paragraph as follows:

     "The descent of the Occidental sciences from the
heavens to the earth (from seventeenth-century
astronomy to nineteenth-century biology), and their
concentration today, at last,l on man himself (in
twentieth-century anthropology and psychology), mark
the path of a prodigious transfer of the focal point
of human wonder.  Not the animal world, not the plant
world, not the miracle of the spheres, but man himself
is now the crucial mystery.  Man is that alien
presence with whom the forces of egoism must come to
terms, through whom the ego is to be crucified and
resurrected, and in whose image society is to be
reformed."

     This summation is a focal point of what I
contemplated after the book.

     The Ego was the animal world overcome by
half-human, half-animal mythos.
     The Ego was the plant world overcome by
life-rituals of planting and reaping being human
procreation, maturity, and eventually death.

     Another quote from the third to last paragraph,
same book as follows:

     "Both the plant and the animal worlds, however,
were in the end brought under social control. 
Whereupon the great field of instructive wonder
shifted - the the skies - and mankind enacted the
great pantomime of the sacred moon-king, the sacred
sun-king, the hieratic, planetary state, and the
symbolic festivals of the world-regulating spheres."

     Thus, the Ego was the Heavens overcome by the
kings and queens, thus, named moon-king and sun-king,
etc...

     This last place where the Ego abounded, to be
slain by the hero ended up being, "...symbols [that]
no longer interest our psyche."  And whoever came up
with the word Ego (was it originally Freud) has moved
into humankind, and as Pirsig points out, the SOM is
in our heads, relating the world in terms that split
and dehumanize society and the our worldview.  Ego has
set up shop in our psyche and philosophy is a
story-telling of the world.  Yet, it is Ego that
guards the fortress into our psyche having millions
stick with a current static latching of what the world
is, even though, anthropology and psychology, or any
inward traveler(s), are bringing back from their
quests into the human psyche forms of outward workings
of culture and inner workings of culture that would
have to rid this dichotomy of self and world, S/O, and
notice something local, geographically and of our
minds (which are local), is influencing how we view
the world.  With so much information coming in and
bombarding our minds, it is Ego that denies the entry
of anything new to our local worlds.  Thus, it is
desire and fear holding our self latched onto what we,
as individuals, think and pander off as, "it must just
be that way, the world just is that way".  What has
brought us this far in this culture has a generating
force that has brought us so much, which cannot be
denied, and yet, if we are to go any further and
notice that WE have a psyche, a mind, a heart, and
this mysterious pondering we call spirit (Is your
spirit high or low today?), this whole inner workings,
society will stay mechanical.  The merger of
mechanical and humanity, the latter being that Value
we talk about insistently, the implosion will and is
occurring, yet, how hard will the landing inward be
felt, how much will somebody crash, how much of a
schism inside will occur until our value within will
be accepted.
     I think many of us know this.  I believe it is
the instilling of this Way, call it Quality if you
will, into our lives that our efforts are driven.  We
have the possibilities in this culture to have nice
houses, nice cars, to be able to travel and meet new
peoples and cultures, like no other time in history. 
It is this separation, this traveling away from our
local, noticing all these jewels this culture has been
able to bring into our conscious realm (grocery
stores, cars, etc...).  Now, it would seem the
bringing back, that which we found on our quest, into
our house, our family, our minds, etc... all of this
and overcome the giant with our intellect as Pirsig
says, this process I say is having intellect available
in the giant.  What we notice as heart, mind, and
spirit to bring it alive in society and have the
opportunity to share these with all of their Ways,
that is why in the psychological chambers made
manifest we hear or live the guides bringing to light
this now psyche Ego to conquer and find within our
psyche what does not just lie beyond our psyche, but
we fit OUR Ego on the way back into society to instill
in society something of our self that is valued namely
heart, mind, and spirit and all that contributes to
the well-being of these so society isn't overlooking
these and we end up fighting in the world, in society,
upon our planet recognitions, demandings of this
heart, mind, and spirit we have.  
     For example, I go to work and we workers talk to
the troubled residents about family, having empathy,
sharing of personal thoughts and feelings etc..., and
yet, we workers have not reconciled these 'things'
(family, empathy, etc..) in our own lives.  The
demands that society impoverishes upon the staff is
both parents need to work, and especially where I work
where there is shift work and weekends, I don't see my
wife a whole day but once or twice a month.  The bond
my wife and I must have in the heart must remain
strong.  Yet, with a baby on the way, I will go
part-time to watch our young one, for my wife's
teaching job has the better opportunity than I.  So
finally we had to make a choice, which society does
offer, but not where I work which paradoxically this
place where I work preaches more highly of family,
empathy, and sharing of personal thoughts and
feelings, than many places in this society do just
because of the kind of program and role this place has
in society.

     I know this is long, but I hope I explained my
present feelings well.

SA  

     

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