[MD] Insanity

[Carl Thames]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "118" <ununoctiums at gmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2012 1:10 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] Insanity


> Hi Carl,
> My take is pretty similar to yours about Phaedrus and Lila.  What I
> present below is my opinion, and does not reflect the opinion of MoQ
> discuss as a whole.  Nor is it intended to insult anyone.  Please
> excuse the rhetoric.

Not a problem.  I am wondering why Tunka (I've forgotten how to spell his 
name) hasn't joined this conversation.  He said that he managed to convince 
TPTB that he is "insane" and is living on a disability check, as I am.  I do 
not have a delusional disorder, just major depression.  I wonder if he did? 
(Keeping in mind such things as delusional disorders are labels used to 
define things that aren't understood.)

> It appears that often many of the important writings on a "lasting new
> interpretation" of reality comes from the protagonist having gone
> through a serious "break" in what he "knows".  The results from such a
> break can either lead to total dissolution of such person, or
> sometimes in a person "coming back" and trying to make sense of what
> happened.  The latter can then sometimes result in a "new" way (or
> rejuvenation of and old way) of presenting reality such that it can be
> helpful to many.  This "breakdown" of reality can be akin to the "Dark
> night of the Soul".

Again, the problem I have is determining who gets to define "reality."  I've 
read too many books on the subject, and other books that are peripheral to 
the subject.  For example, it's documented that you can hypnotize someone 
and tell them you're putting the lit end of a cigarette on their arm, and 
then touch them with a finger or a pencil.  They will develop a blister. 
There are numerous examples of this sort of thing.  It actually validates 
what Marsha was talking about our belief system.  What we believe is true, 
at least for us.  I think Phaedrus realized that too, although I don't think 
he ever came out and said it.

> Your mention of a friend really strikes home with me.   I had a friend
> taken away in the '70s, and even to this day he is so drugged up that
> he is a shadow of the high intellect he once was.  I could have gotten
> to the point of needing such a trip but for the grace of God, and
> friends.  Two extremes can happen when suddenly all meaning, in the
> conventional rational manner in which we place ourselves, is put to
> the test.  One can suddenly bask in the "extreme meaning of all", or,
> one can exist in fear.  Ask yourself why, as is written in Lila, was
> he taken by a police man for treatment.  Phaedrus was not extremely
> unusual in what happened.  Why, as is written in Lila, was Pirsig
> taken for treatment by a police man?

That's an easy one.  The police represent the enforcers of the social order. 
He had ceased to operate within the social order, (consensual reality,) 
ergo, the police.  I think it was as much a literary device as it was an 
explanation, although a lot of people get taken away by police.  The break 
he described is the technical definition of schitzophrenia.  Some think it's 
a "split personality" and in a way it is.  For most, though, it's a split 
from reality.  I don't know why some dissolve in fear, unless they weren't a 
very well established personality in the first place.

> Phaedrus was not extremely unusual in what happened. In the end what
> matters is what one does with the experience, and that is what
> differentiates staying in insanity, and transforming the experience
> into a spiritual awakening.  For this I greatly admire Pirsig.

Yes, but what he found was the problem many find who go through a similar 
experience.  That is that once you become real, you cannot become unreal 
again.

> I have no problem with Pirsig being treated as a Buddha of sorts, and
> his words continually being parsed for meaning.  But this form of
> objective analysis is lacking in a fundamental understanding of what
> vision he is trying to convey.  Can you imagine sitting on the floor
> somewhat catatonic since all meaning is being reformulated?  It is so
> very real that it denies any pre-existing understanding that one was
> so comfortable with. This is not some trivial metaphysical exercise
> that is all fun and games, by any means!  It is much more than trying
> to find some continuity in philosophers that existed recently and
> drawing connections.  This is a very personal story for me.

And for me.  I think this is why some have a disasterous experience with 
mind-altering substances such as LSD.  They are forced to deal with a 
different version of reality, and they're not prepared for it.  For whatever 
reason, they lack the essential personality constructs to assimilate the new 
reality, so they dissolve.  The continual parsing makes complete sense to 
me.  People WANT to understand, but it's like explaining the taste of a 
banana to someone who's never had a banana.  You can get close, but you 
can't be exact, because without the shared experience, there is no way to 
fully understand.  Having a guide can be extremely useful in this process. 
In my case, my mentor was there to answer questions.  When I started doing 
shamanic journeying and getting information that was unexplanable, I could 
have easily slipped over to the other side, but I didn't because I had him 
here as an anchor. He had been there, and knew what I was really asking.

> We can sit around a camp fire and come up with the "best" way to
> construct MoQ, but in the end all this semantics is trivial.  What
> needs to happen is for us to "feel" Quality, in both its rapture and
> its horror.  Believe me, they are both there lurking in the
> subconscious.

Agreed.  The problem for most is that it's the manifestation of the unknown, 
and one of our biggest fears is the unknown.  People will debate for days 
about what it is, but very few willingly go there to see for themselves.  As 
you said, it's not a completely pleasant place.  Of interest, I had a long 
conversation yesterday with a friend, and I brought up the idea of "Drinking 
the Dragon" which is a concept introduced to me by a woman author (I can't 
remember her name) in a book with that title.  It seems that in the west, we 
are taught to slay our dragons.  Her thesis is that instead we should take 
the dragon in, process it, understand it's effects on us, and then use it 
for our own development.  It was a very similar approach to Jungian shadow 
work. The friend then said that it might be better to just acknowledge the 
dragon, (life challenge) and move on.  Rather than dwelling on it, you just 
accept it for what it is and move along.  That made a lot of sense to me. 
It's like the instructions you get while meditating.  When you get a stray 
thought, you don't dwell on it, you acknowledge it and let it go.  In our 
context here, you would acknowledge both the DQ and the SQ and let them go. 
I think that's how you arrive at "Living in Quality" that you've been 
talking about.  In my belief system, developed over too many years, 
meditation isn't the destination, it's the vehicle.  They journey is 
significant, and can affect how long it takes us to get where we're going, 
but it's just the journey.

> In his books, Pirsig is trying to come to terms with what happened to
> him, and it appears that he has to do this "as a different person".  I
> am not sure how much one's personality is changed through ECT, but
> Pirsig went from a fiery antagonist in Chicago, to a writer of
> technical manuals.  Then he wrote ZAMM and in a way came to terms with
> what happened.  He felt that his experience was important enough to
> tell in several books, and he even tries to create a rational
> construct based on allegories and metaphors which provide some kind of
> "sane" foundation to the whole deal.

I think there's a natural tendency to try to "make sense" of the things that 
happen to us.  The problem is that so many of them are so far outside our 
rational paradigm that we're not able to do that.  It doesn't keep us from 
trying, it just usually keeps us from succeeding.  What we call "making 
sense" is fitting our experiences into our preconceived idea of how things 
really are.  Since our preconceptions are usually flawed, that's not 
possible.  He began writing for the same reason I did.  When you write, you 
don't have to interact with people.  Part of the transition that occurs is 
that you get easily frustrated with people who just "don't get it."  You can 
see the patterns of the culturally accepted "life" and because you've been 
to the other side, you realize what they are.  Too much of that can be hard 
to take on a regular basis, so you shut yourself away with your computer and 
write.

> Again, Pirsig is not alone in this, and his MoQ is very similar to
> other constructs based on the same principles.  We exist in a
> comfortable little bubble where everything makes sense and we simply
> flesh out some of the details, but sometimes comes this "Crack in the
> Cosmic Egg" which leaves us standing on an empty plain wondering what
> happened.  By performing a form of comparative study between Lila and
> other books which have the same intent, one can find some fundamental
> similarities.  It is these similarities that are of importance to me,
> whether they come from 5,000 years ago, or from "One Flew Over the
> Cuckoo's Nest", or in a brief soliloque by Kurtz in "Apocalypse Now".
> I will leave the filling in of the gaps to the academic side of this
> forum, and go for some things I find to be bigger.

I shall go with you. <G>  A friend once commented that our current political 
situation is enough to drive anyone crazy.  I explained to him that I don't 
need to be driven, I live close enough to walk.  I think what you're talking 
about in doing a comparative analysis is worthy of study.  I doubt anyone 
would fund it, because the powers that be aren't really interested in 
exploring that dimension, other than figuring out what kind of drug they can 
sell us that prevents us from going there.

> In this day and age, there are so many books that explore this
> "insane" side of reality, that it gives the appearance that something
> is happening to the human race.  Perhaps the time of sitting snuggly
> (and smugly) in reality is over.  Catch the train, hop on, it is quite
> a ride!

Been there, done that, and still sitting in a window seat. <G>  I think the 
'cosmic shift' that many are predicting for this December may be a raising 
of consciousness.  Then again, I've heard that prediction before, and it 
didn't happen then.  My personal approach is to work with what I've got and 
let the rest do as they will.  It's a lot easier that way.  I don't get 
caught up in results, mainly because there is no valid way of predicting 
what they're going to be.  We can take steps to deal with possibilities, but 
we can't accurately predict what's going to happen.  A lot of people are 
stresssed right now because of that uncertainty.  I choose not to be.  I 
believe that whatever will be, will be.  I can affect that on the micro 
scale, but not the macro.  i.e. I'm going to keep going to school.  One more 
year, and I'm done!

Carl