An answer to a couple of questions I've been reflecting on as part of a program that I'm in.
Where am I still responding to others as if they are who they were?
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Everywhere, in small ways. When people show me who they are I believe them, and hold what they've shown me in my mind as part of their image until they show me otherwise. The challenge is being present and open enough to recognize when they're showing me something else. And when they do, the additional challenge of meeting them where they're at inevitably arises.
What does it mean to allow myself to be new today?
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The first thing that comes up is discernment. Discerning between the lessons contained within personal history and the patterns within the history that are no longer appropriate to reproduce. Experiences rarely organize themselves in a way that makes this easy.
Today in particular, it means considering that the strategies which served me well in prior circumstances aren't necessarily well suited to the current situation. It also means recalling things that might have fallen by the wayside but could now come in handy. This societal moment itself is very dynamic. Every area of my life feels unsettled or in flux.
How I show up feels extra important when things are changing so quickly. I've never had a problem being authentic. I'm accustomed to living my truth even when surrounded by people who aren't able to understand. In the past, allowing myself to be new often produced serious social friction. There is no reason to expect that the person I'm becoming will fare any better. So social fears probably aren't getting in the way of allowing myself to be new.
Wondering if anything else in me was resisting my newness, a poem I'd read in childhood came to mind. Desiderata, written by Max Ehrmann in 1927:
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
Rereading the poem, I recalled coming across it 30 years ago and feeling like it was sensible in an environment where most things were not sensible. Time hasn't diminished this sense. Considering my own life, I've cultivated many of the habits this poem recommends. But my soul probably isn't at peace. And I'm definitely not at peace with all of the gods.
As far as I'm concerned, whatever divine power cursed me with cluster headaches is unimaginably monstrous and I would unmake the whole universe to destroy it if I could. Most of my adult life has been a living nightmare of physical torture and socioeconomic hardship so if this was god's plan then god is the worst. But I don't quite believe it works like that. Instead, I think god is in pieces, scattered across creation, and some of those pieces are the souls that bring our world into being.
The new age concept of a soul contract suggests that our souls come to Earth with the specifics of their life planned out. I'm not at all convinced that such contracts exist. Nor do I think it's so individualistic. But much of life does seem to be coordinated in some dimension outside of time. Our incarnations do appear to be connected and grouped. And every group of souls seems to have its own divine agenda.
If I personally had known exactly what was in store for me here in this body, I'm not sure I would've signed up. And there are countless others with reasonable cause to say something similar. Our world is after all filled with unimaginable suffering. Suffering that I believe is largely produced cooperatively by all of our souls together.
To a soul, I imagine that all experience, however good or bad, is simply information. My soul is unexceptional, and I don't see how it could be other than at peace in a cosmic sense. But here on Earth, I'm spiritually embittered. My soul may be at peace but I'm not at peace with it to the extent that it had a hand in cursing me with cluster headaches and trapping me in a dystopia.
Returning to the original question of what it might mean to allow myself to be new today, considering the spiritual dimension of this question, I'm thinking it might mean relating with my spiritual bitterness in a different way. I'm open to letting go of it, but that's realistically unlikely to happen unless I have many enormously positive experiences and acquire life conditions suited to my needs. In the absence of such lofty eventualities, the best I can hope for is to reduce the influence of this bitterness on my psyche.
Beyond this, allowing myself to be new probably means relating to other aspects of myself in different ways too. Some elements of personal history come to mind. And it almost certainly means trusting the process of becoming itself, which should be the easiest thing in the world but it doesn't always turn out to be.
Read Free Mind Gazette on Substack
You can find all of my books on rstory.io
Read my novels:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is available as a web book on IPFS and as a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt.
- The Paradise Anomaly is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Psychic Avalanche is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- One Man Embassy is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Flying Saucer Shenanigans is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Rainbow Lullaby is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- The Ostermann Method is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Blue Dragon Mississippi is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
See my NFTs:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt that goes with my book by the same name.
- History and the Machine is a 20 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on my series of oil paintings of interesting people from history.
- Artifacts of Mind Control is a 15 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on declassified CIA documents from the MKULTRA program.