Our experience is made possible within a perceptual framework
Sequences of revelations in each of our unfolding journeys through experience carve a perspective – a refractive prism, that is, in its nature, unique.
It is worth considering that daily life (via attention and focus) includes, within ordinary human capability, the scope to navigate toward preferable states of being.
- In early life, a chorus of domineering assertions with tendencies towards recrimination and being on the bitter side demanded attention. In the event, their relentless predictions of doom made themselves heard within the array of data with which any human is saturated. These predictions took on a higher power when, on the side of ‘reality, their unhappy story of life in disappointment seemed to be confirmed by the unfolding of life circumstances, particularly for others more beloved.
- Being drilled with such messages, and then witnessing events that seem to corroborate them, gives form to fears that they may, against all that one could wish for, be right. or actually laid claim being true; truth was never mentioned. Their claim was, intrinsically, to being right, a form of ‘rightness’ that reaches for the baton of command and control.
- Bitterness becomes enshrined as a doctrine; an unholy scientism feeding on the trappings of what is asserted as the inevitability of failure.
When one is young, one often have to defend one’s desire (to oneself) against the impression that it is untested. It (desire, preference) can stand – seemingly alone – almost drowned in the vast sea of greater experience and authority claimed by elders.
What is surprising now, in retrospect, is that all the various approaches to liberation from this imposing doctrine of bitterness that I have been interested in so far ‘actually work’, in the sense that with very little in the way of effort, external conditions improve as well as there being an improved sense of personal ease and wellbeing. Eg, with easing of our perspective and thinking on a subject, be this through a meditative practice, a relaxed prayer in grace (not in begging need), an invocation of higher mind towards a liberating aim, external conditions change along with the reduced internal strain. Problematic situations begin turning around, persecutors ease up and new opportunities for creative endeavour burgeon.
These assertions can be tested – one by one for evidence of their validity, such as incremental, relative movement towards wherever, however, whatever one wants to be, feel, have, or do.
What remains is the re-conditioning of one’s habits of reasoning based on the coherence of fresh ideas of how life, material and mental, actually unfolds beyond what current norms (scientisms) may say. Scientisms to the extent that they are untested. What we call science takes on the burden of proof.
Each person’s norms are constituted by the impressions that they have been exposed to and are, thereby, conditioned to continue bathing in. It seems to take a certain ‘critical mass’ of consistent impressions, some incremental (context) and some sudden (foreground), as in shock or mystic revelation to launch a particular way of seeing things into a particular supreme dominance, for good or for ill.
Even trauma, which includes shock, there is still the ‘all that has gone before it’ – been heard, experienced, feared, anticipated – that will have created the preconditions for the particular constitutive shock to be subjectively experienced and then to take root as unbearably and unforgivingly ‘Right’.
So, becoming ill takes consistent experiences oriented by focus on unwelcome perceptions. Equally, becoming well calls for its own critical mass of reaching for and finding what is desired.
Meditative practices, breathing, invocations, mantras, ROMBI puzzles or other forms of structured handplay, play per se, all allow respite from the dominance of an imposing unwanted object In psychoanalysis, we call this imposing, unwanted object Super Ego – it berates and scorns us and all that we cherish. This incessant experience of imposing, unwanted ideas (thoughts) has mortifying effects, mentally and, where critical mass is sufficient, symptoms present in material form too. Respite from this is necessary so that the creative force of life can take shape in forms that we can celebrate. It is the contours of the superego that fixate the forms that captivate us in chronic mourning.
Extending respite (pausing of attention to the disappointments of the super ego) through a moment by moment focus on something else, in appreciation, in wonder, in curiosity, in rest; in any case, (increasingly) towards things that excite subject’s desire, however banal – even window shopping, allows for the flow of life oriented by desire to resume.
The key is to cultivate our consistency of attention to those interests in whose value we have come to believe, based on our own preferences.
Belief holds a decisive role.
To the extent that belief supports desire, then that is the ideal basis for seemingly miraculous unfoldings.
To the extent that the force of belief contradicts desire, this will be the extent of compromise, tension and inhibition of desired outcomes and the lethal effects that flow from this. The source of desire is life itself and thereby its force is unceasing. Desire as we commonly experience it, taking on a myriad of forms is also unceasing.
Desire is the means by which we engage in the play of life, the means by which we can know what the next logical step is from our own unique vantage point, given the conditions and opportunities that we perceive in any given moment.
As perceive an obstacle in our way and cannot see another way through, desire’s unceasing assertion may take the form of aggressive display. When this is barred too, aggressive impulses may escalate to violent ones. This seems to be an unfolding of the natural order of life.
Betting on Desire.
Personal discovery of the materially creative force of desire in and of itself is vitalising. It is within what we currently think of as ordinary human capability. It is not technically difficult to access, and positive effects begin to flow very quickly, some on the same day. The only condition is our willingness to dip our toe in the waters of possibility; to simply give it a try; again and again and again. Our work, then, is in the ‘healing of the will’, ie, steadily easing out our unwillingness to take a risk with – to bet on – our desire.
Various authors and speakers have told us that, we get what we think about, whether we want it or not. It appears that the focus of our thought gives form and actualises the potential of our experience. From this perspective, confirmation bias is not an unfortunate accident in the human condition but an underpinning principle in the perceptual and material of our experience of the world.
We can harness this confirmation bias to work in our favour; taking our bearings from desire and bringing into being more of what we would creatively want for ourselves, for others, for our environment, whatever!
The decision is ours to make in each moment to moment, given where we are, in which direction we want to turn our attention.
(Requires use of eyes and hands)
AxisoftheStorm 