We Fear the full Intensity of Life

[coberst]

We Fear the full Intensity of Life

Humans seek to be more than animals. We seek to be gods or at least propagate that level above animal and below God.

That which promotes life is good that which promotes death is evil. “Evil lies not in the hearts of men but in the social arrangements that men take for granted.”

Wo/man lives a debased life under tyranny and self delusion because s/he does not comprehend the conditions of natural freedom. Sapiens need hope and belief in themselves; thus illusion is necessary if it is creative for life, but is evil if it promotes death.

A psychodynamic analysis of history displays saga of death, destruction, and coercion from the outside while inside we see self-delusion and self enslavement. We seek mystification. We seek transference; we seek hypnotists as our chosen leaders.

We seek the power to ward off big evil by reflexively embracing small terrors and small fascinations in the place of overwhelming ones.

Courage is the fundamental qualifying quality for being a hero. So, why are we all so naturally cowardly? Our goal is to be a hero and we lack the courage to be so.

We constantly struggle for a life that has meaning. All meaning for us is associated with that which comes to us from the outside. Our sense of self is derived by looking at others for determining who and what we are. “Our whole world of right and wrong, good and bad, our name, precisely who we are, is grafted into us; and we never feel we have authority to offer things on our own…we feel ourselves in many ways guilty and beholden to others…indebted to them for our very birth.”

Abraham Maslow spoke of our being fearful of standing alone. We fear actualizing our potential. We have the urge to ‘be all we can be’ but we fear to attempt the fulfillment of this urge. “We fear our highest possibility…we even thrill to the godlike possibilities we see in our self…yet we simultaneously shiver with weakness.” Maslow coined the phrase ‘Jonah Syndrome’ to mean the evasion of the full intensity of life.

The Jonah Syndrome is a justified fear of losing control and being torn apart—to even being killed by the experience of being all we can be. Otto Rank spoke of our natural feeling of inferiority in the face of the transcendence of life and creation.

Quotes from “The Denial of Death” by Ernest Becker

[Scarecrow JacK]

Be careful champ, depending on the individuals spiritual/cultural perspective, death can be embraced. However accepting that, dominantly in the Western culture, death is greatly feared IMO.. (which is the cause of many global problems such as globalization, mass consumption of resources in supporting such a population, things like animal testing etc are considered 'for the greater good' of humanity, which does touch upon raising us above animals).

I agree with what is said for the general mass, however it is not a generally accepted by many. (If you understand what I mean).

I myself find that I can be a technophobe, I do not fear what technology or popular belief holds, but frustrated by its results lol.

Edited November 6, 2008 by Scarecrow JacK

[jay123]

Its so true.

Its weird, we know what we want and we know how to get it, but that fear holds us back.

[carrot sprite]

Death is neccesary for life.. You can't live without killing something for food. Death gives fertile ground for new life.

Yeah, we are held back, sheperds of the sheep you could say.

Fear is a great way to keep people in line, and it seems to me the past few generations have been fed a large amount of fear through many mediums. Some have gone far enough to call these the generations of fear.

Around WW2, the most destructive weapon yet was found; the nuclear bomb. Naturally people are going to seek some kind of protection from fear of these things. Make them more fearful and they may seemingly blindly give into anything that offers protection.

These things have, and probably always will bind us to the beast.

[Mr Walker]

Im not clear what the basic message of your opening post was but i think i disagree with it. Through evolution, people have a spiritual or mystic sense which has evolved as an essential part of our sentience just like logic has. To deny this is to deny a real part of us, just like denying logic.

So to experience the full intensity of life, one must open oneself to all the dimensions of human existence and follow bravely wherever this leads you. We should not need drugs to experience the full reality of life ,which encompasses a spiritual dimension as much as a purely physical/material one

While we are animals, humans cannot avoid being more than mere animals because we are driven by a combination of sentience and self awareness, which as part of our evolutionary development, not only allows us skills like spirituality, conceptual development and creativity, but ensures we are forced to utilise these to survive, adapt and evolve.

It is true that we must learn to embrace transcendence, and that some people seem to be spiritually blind by nature or inclination, but there are skills and practises which can be taught to help overcome these weaknesses, and to make us more comfortable/less fearful of embracing the full potential of ourselves and of life.

[coberst]

Im not clear what the basic message of your opening post was but i think i disagree with it. Through evolution, people have a spiritual or mystic sense which has evolved as an essential part of our sentience just like logic has. To deny this is to deny a real part of us, just like denying logic.

So to experience the full intensity of life, one must open oneself to all the dimensions of human existence and follow bravely wherever this leads you. We should not need drugs to experience the full reality of life ,which encompasses a spiritual dimension as much as a purely physical/material one

While we are animals, humans cannot avoid being more than mere animals because we are driven by a combination of sentience and self awareness, which as part of our evolutionary development, not only allows us skills like spirituality, conceptual development and creativity, but ensures we are forced to utilise these to survive, adapt and evolve.

It is true that we must learn to embrace transcendence, and that some people seem to be spiritually blind by nature or inclination, but there are skills and practises which can be taught to help overcome these weaknesses, and to make us more comfortable/less fearful of embracing the full potential of ourselves and of life.

I think that religion is one of the things that we accept in the hope of abating our fear of death. We give up the freedom available to us and submit to the theologians, preachers, and priests because we fear uncertainty.

Edited November 7, 2008 by coberst

[Mr Walker]

I think that religion is one of the things that we accept in the hope of abating our fear of death. We give up the freedom available to us and submit to the theologians, preachers, and priests because we fear uncertainty.

THats a fair and reasonable concept. It is a common one and one i held for over 20 years. Then i encountered the physical presence of god and found a world of; real angel,s physical miracles, and divine intervention. Suddenly i realised that all that spiritual stuff i had assumed was mumbo jumbo, constructed from the psychological needs and fears of human beings was more likely simply the result of real human beings trying very hard to; appreciate, understand, and apply, what they had physically experienced, in the same way i did.

I hold out no hope of changing anyone's mind, who does not have such physical encounters themselves, but i do point out that when you encounter any real new physical reality, you should try and understand it, and examine how it must effect your current world view.

Religion is the formal way man likes to organise his spiritual "dimension." It is fallible and sometimes harmful. However, spirituality is a part of the human condition which, from all the available evidence, is innate to all fully functioning human beings, even if some chose to ignore or suppress it, just as some people ignore or suppress their rational nature.

In the sense that the truth sets you free, acknowledging the spiritual dimension of both self, and of life, does not involve giving up freedoms, rather embracing them fully. One cannot be truly free, if one is bound by the ties of ignorance, or denial.

Edited November 9, 2008 by Mr Walker

[coberst]

I was born in 1934 during the Great Depression. Dad drove a city bus in Amarillo Texas. My family moved to a very small town in Oklahoma before my first birthday; I had four siblings at the time we moved from Texas to Oklahoma to manage a small café and hotel that was then being managed by my uncle who wished to return to farming.

During the next 15 years my family managed that café and hotel. The building and the business was owned by an absentee landlord, Mr. Ruttzel. The operation was a 24/7 job that took the total energies of all members of the family as each of us became old enough to work.

This operation allowed my parents to raise a large family in reasonably comfortable conditions throughout the depression and war years of World War II.

What is the meaning of ‘hero’? I have taken one definition from the dictionary and have modified it to represent my comprehension of this concept of ‘heroic’. Heroic is a concept meaning a “determined effort [directed to achieve good or deter evil] in the face of difficulty”. In this definition I define ‘good’ as being that which promotes human life and ‘evil’ as that which promotes human death.

I think that there are degrees of heroic action. Some heroes are greater than others depending upon the circumstances of their action. To be a hero often requires courage and often causes personal hardship.

On a scale of one to ten I would classify the following people as heroes in most people’s judgment:

Mother Theresa (10)

Police and firemen entering the burning buildings in 9/11 attack (8 to 10)

My mom and dad (7)

Men and women fighting in Iraq: our side (5 to 10) their side (?)

Youngster really trying to make good grades in school (7)

The psychologist Alfred Adler said: “The supreme law [of life] is this: the sense of worth of the self shall not be allowed to be diminished.”

Heroic actions are our means for maintaining our self esteem. Without heroic action we cannot maintain our own self-esteem. Self-esteem is self-respect. We judge our self as to the degree of worthiness for respect. We rely partially upon the judgment of others but that respect from others is filtered by our own judgments to how heroic our actions are.

It appears that we must feel self-esteem or we suffer mental illness of one degree or another. I gain self-esteem by reading lots of stuff, writing about that stuff, and posting that stuff on this forum, i.e. I am a self-actualizing self-learner (6).

[Mr Walker]

Nice post. No wonder you show inherent wisdom, and i hope i am as mentally competent and active as you appear to be, when i am your age.

To me a hero is anyone who summons the courage to conquer their fears, or marshalls all their skills to conquer adversity and difficulties. If one does not fear, but acts bravely, then perhaps one is not truly a hero (but still a good person trying to do the right thing.) It is the person who feels the fear and yet makes the mental and emotional choice to face it down, and act despite that fear, who is a hero.

Likewise, a carer who lives what others see as a very hard and demanding life may not be a hero, if they do not find it hard and demanding, but a joyful and rewarding choice. It is the person continually striving to go on, perhaps in physical and emotional pain, and yet determined to care for a loved one, who is a hero.

I may be too hard in those judgements, but often in life we are empowered to act in ways others see/think of as heroic, and yet which we know in our own minds took, no special courage or endurance and which were simply, to us, the only logical action at the time.

[Tiggs]

Heroic actions are our means for maintaining our self esteem. Without heroic action we cannot maintain our own self-esteem. Self-esteem is self-respect. We judge our self as to the degree of worthiness for respect. We rely partially upon the judgment of others but that respect from others is filtered by our own judgments to how heroic our actions are.

It appears that we must feel self-esteem or we suffer mental illness of one degree or another. I gain self-esteem by reading lots of stuff, writing about that stuff, and posting that stuff on this forum, i.e. I am a self-actualizing self-learner (6).

I believe that people make the best decisions they can with the information that they have available to them. Self-esteem is an internal scoring system used within decision making.

Our own judgement of how heroic an act is, our perceived score, is the prior reflection of the judgement of others to that act.

I believe that we are all part of a bio-feedback system, mirrors of each other, reflecting into infinity.