Authenticity IV
EndGame
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 4,677
Outstanding! As usual.
Carrying unresolved or excess guilt is the best way possible to avoid taking responsibility for what we do, just as blaming everything and everyone else leaves us petrified in a world that demands action, demands struggle, in order for life to mean something. "It's all my fault!" means I'm not at all prepared to take action to emotionally undo harm, whether I'm the "giver" or the "receiver."
The continuous expression of guilt is neither an apology nor an accusation. Nor does it grant redemption or a readiness to take on new challenges. What it does is keep us perfectly still as life's inevitable challenges continue to mount. It is an act of procrastination of the lowest order. It begs the question as to why it is that we so often wait until the dam fully collapses before we act.
Though much of our suffering is self-imposed, and therefore within our responsibility and our means to change, we look outward for reasons (rationalizations) as to why we have not, will not and cannot fulfill our promise as individuals. Unresolved guilt is often the mortar that keeps the bricks together, the ultimate design of which is a monument to fear. A castle without a moat and other defenses since no one really wants to go there and there is nothing of value on the other side of its walls anyway.
To me, there is no question, no analysis, no satisfying discussion as to why we drink as we do, and why we relapse. We already know the answer; we always know much more than we let on. This is mankind's dirty little secret. And this is how acts of bad faith are possible. The question is, rather, why don't we act?
The Universe doesn't care about our struggles. It just is. God is, at best, indifferent, having given us both the greatest gift and the most awful burden of free will. The day breaks, and rather than asking ourselves "What will I be today?" we ask, "How will I avoid suffering?" or "What can I do to make myself feel better?" The answer to the first question is easy: You avoid suffering by avoiding participation in life, which reduces suffering to a seemingly manageable lifetime of regrets. The answer to the second question...If my goal is to "feel good" in life, then I will always be searching for that which satisfies my needs at any given moment.
I'm an extreme existentialist by training, experience and practice (both clinical and personal) with respect to Life and Death; living life or surrendering to despair. There is no such thing as meaning or purpose without struggle. Existential psychotherapy provides a conceptual framework for helping patients to challenge the meaning in their lives. Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus is about living a meaningful life under the most dire of all conditions: Existence. Existence implies freedom, consciousness, passion and struggle. Sisyphus owes the meaning of his existence, his being, to both his passion for life and his suffering ('passion' and 'suffering' are apparently paradoxical synonyms).
The search for meaning in the late Twentieth Century and early Twenty-First Century has been cast as a fanciful clichè, an afterthought that went down with the ship manned by those from an extinct species. It takes too much time, demands faith -- among the less frequently used of human attributes -- comes with no guarantees, and requires a creative and active imagination that makes us shrink rather than risk the stark "aloneness" that we cannot every now and then resist touching in order to test whether or not it still burns within us.
Though we've invented several "cures" for living -- medications, therapies, isolation, addictions, psychopathology of all kinds -- there is always the risk of self-degradation with respect to our own being. What's actually happening, I believe, is the Invention of Happiness, something that we've somehow come to believe is a Divine Right rather than a transient state of being that we cannot always fully define to our satisfaction. Am I doing things in my life because I think that doing them will make me happy? Or am I doing things because I'm happy to do them?
When an individual is living authentically, anxiety and fear of death are then "manageable" within the context of having lived a satisfying life. According to Irwin Yalom, recognition of death plays a significant role in psychotherapy; it can be the factor that helps us to transform a stale way of living into a more authentic one. And confronting this realization produces anxiety which, much to our own detriment, has become something to avoid, or even extinguish. An Enemy of the People.
The only shortcuts to authenticity or to a satisfying life swallow whole those who would take them. Yet ascending from the bowels of least resistance, we redouble our efforts to do the same exact thing. Something needs to be done, and it rarely waits for us to get ourselves together in order to feel "ready" to do it. Camus has been quoted as saying that the only legitimate philosophical question is suicide:
The metaphor, "to live and to create, in the very midst of the desert," refers to choosing life in the midst of all its challenges, deprivations, and suffering. We're born with nothing, at least in terms of meaning or purpose, and we are called upon to make something of our Existence. Not everyone answers the call.
It doesn't matter when we make the choice to live authentically; it only matters that we do.
I'm going out now, with no destination. But I believe that the walk will do me good.
Carrying unresolved or excess guilt is the best way possible to avoid taking responsibility for what we do, just as blaming everything and everyone else leaves us petrified in a world that demands action, demands struggle, in order for life to mean something. "It's all my fault!" means I'm not at all prepared to take action to emotionally undo harm, whether I'm the "giver" or the "receiver."
The continuous expression of guilt is neither an apology nor an accusation. Nor does it grant redemption or a readiness to take on new challenges. What it does is keep us perfectly still as life's inevitable challenges continue to mount. It is an act of procrastination of the lowest order. It begs the question as to why it is that we so often wait until the dam fully collapses before we act.
Though much of our suffering is self-imposed, and therefore within our responsibility and our means to change, we look outward for reasons (rationalizations) as to why we have not, will not and cannot fulfill our promise as individuals. Unresolved guilt is often the mortar that keeps the bricks together, the ultimate design of which is a monument to fear. A castle without a moat and other defenses since no one really wants to go there and there is nothing of value on the other side of its walls anyway.
To me, there is no question, no analysis, no satisfying discussion as to why we drink as we do, and why we relapse. We already know the answer; we always know much more than we let on. This is mankind's dirty little secret. And this is how acts of bad faith are possible. The question is, rather, why don't we act?
The Universe doesn't care about our struggles. It just is. God is, at best, indifferent, having given us both the greatest gift and the most awful burden of free will. The day breaks, and rather than asking ourselves "What will I be today?" we ask, "How will I avoid suffering?" or "What can I do to make myself feel better?" The answer to the first question is easy: You avoid suffering by avoiding participation in life, which reduces suffering to a seemingly manageable lifetime of regrets. The answer to the second question...If my goal is to "feel good" in life, then I will always be searching for that which satisfies my needs at any given moment.
I'm an extreme existentialist by training, experience and practice (both clinical and personal) with respect to Life and Death; living life or surrendering to despair. There is no such thing as meaning or purpose without struggle. Existential psychotherapy provides a conceptual framework for helping patients to challenge the meaning in their lives. Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus is about living a meaningful life under the most dire of all conditions: Existence. Existence implies freedom, consciousness, passion and struggle. Sisyphus owes the meaning of his existence, his being, to both his passion for life and his suffering ('passion' and 'suffering' are apparently paradoxical synonyms).
The search for meaning in the late Twentieth Century and early Twenty-First Century has been cast as a fanciful clichè, an afterthought that went down with the ship manned by those from an extinct species. It takes too much time, demands faith -- among the less frequently used of human attributes -- comes with no guarantees, and requires a creative and active imagination that makes us shrink rather than risk the stark "aloneness" that we cannot every now and then resist touching in order to test whether or not it still burns within us.
Though we've invented several "cures" for living -- medications, therapies, isolation, addictions, psychopathology of all kinds -- there is always the risk of self-degradation with respect to our own being. What's actually happening, I believe, is the Invention of Happiness, something that we've somehow come to believe is a Divine Right rather than a transient state of being that we cannot always fully define to our satisfaction. Am I doing things in my life because I think that doing them will make me happy? Or am I doing things because I'm happy to do them?
When an individual is living authentically, anxiety and fear of death are then "manageable" within the context of having lived a satisfying life. According to Irwin Yalom, recognition of death plays a significant role in psychotherapy; it can be the factor that helps us to transform a stale way of living into a more authentic one. And confronting this realization produces anxiety which, much to our own detriment, has become something to avoid, or even extinguish. An Enemy of the People.
The only shortcuts to authenticity or to a satisfying life swallow whole those who would take them. Yet ascending from the bowels of least resistance, we redouble our efforts to do the same exact thing. Something needs to be done, and it rarely waits for us to get ourselves together in order to feel "ready" to do it. Camus has been quoted as saying that the only legitimate philosophical question is suicide:
"The fundamental subject of "The Myth of Sisyphus" is this: it is legitimate and necessary to wonder whether life has a meaning; therefore it is legitimate to meet the problem of suicide face to face. The answer, underlying and appearing through the paradoxes which cover it, is this: even if one does not believe in God, suicide is not legitimate. Written fifteen years ago, in 1940, amid the French and European disaster, this book declares that even within the limits of nihilism it is possible to find the means to proceed beyond nihilism. In all the books I have written since, I have attempted to pursue this direction. Although "The Myth of Sisyphus" poses mortal problems, it sums itself up for me as a lucid invitation to live and to create, in the very midst of the desert."
The metaphor, "to live and to create, in the very midst of the desert," refers to choosing life in the midst of all its challenges, deprivations, and suffering. We're born with nothing, at least in terms of meaning or purpose, and we are called upon to make something of our Existence. Not everyone answers the call.
It doesn't matter when we make the choice to live authentically; it only matters that we do.
I'm going out now, with no destination. But I believe that the walk will do me good.
Originally Posted by RobbyRobot 
How awesome you KNOW this silentrun!! 
Just really consider please how being responsible has nothing to do with being guilty, okay? Guilt is created from an action of wrongness in the eyes of the wrongdoer. Guilt is a one time thing for each wrongness. When we become responsible for our guilt, this does not mean we are any more or any less guilty. Being responsible for our own guilt means we can now correctly discharge that same guilt and get on with making amends to *ourselves* and learn how to live a better lifestyle which surpasses what we had before.
It really seems so wrong when we take responsibility for ourselves for past abuse at the hand of others. We think we do ourselves right by blaming whomever, and we end up eventually blaming ourselves, and this personal blaming creates the guilt which haunts us. Been there thousands of times. No joy.
We must not blame ourselves or anyone else either. We take on being responsible for ourselves no matter our backstory, no matter how justified we think we are, we stop the blame game. We learn how to hold others to the same standard of responsibility as we now hold ourselves. And in this, we amazingly begin to understand we are not guilty for the abuse, we are not guilty for any of it. We are rightly responsible for who and what we are today no matter are past yesterdays. We finally learn guilt is a worthless lousy thing to drag around. We do ourselves a world of good to just let it go, toss it away, rid ourselves of it. Forever. Living a guilt free life is doable.
Nice share silentrun. Thanks.
Just really consider please how being responsible has nothing to do with being guilty, okay? Guilt is created from an action of wrongness in the eyes of the wrongdoer. Guilt is a one time thing for each wrongness. When we become responsible for our guilt, this does not mean we are any more or any less guilty. Being responsible for our own guilt means we can now correctly discharge that same guilt and get on with making amends to *ourselves* and learn how to live a better lifestyle which surpasses what we had before.
It really seems so wrong when we take responsibility for ourselves for past abuse at the hand of others. We think we do ourselves right by blaming whomever, and we end up eventually blaming ourselves, and this personal blaming creates the guilt which haunts us. Been there thousands of times. No joy.
We must not blame ourselves or anyone else either. We take on being responsible for ourselves no matter our backstory, no matter how justified we think we are, we stop the blame game. We learn how to hold others to the same standard of responsibility as we now hold ourselves. And in this, we amazingly begin to understand we are not guilty for the abuse, we are not guilty for any of it. We are rightly responsible for who and what we are today no matter are past yesterdays. We finally learn guilt is a worthless lousy thing to drag around. We do ourselves a world of good to just let it go, toss it away, rid ourselves of it. Forever. Living a guilt free life is doable.
Nice share silentrun. Thanks.
EndGame
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 4,677
Oh by the way...
That's the gist of the lecture I gave to my class on Grief, Death & Dying after reading them your post, the one that I saved. They were awe struck when I read your comments, while also filling in the background to your story. They all asked for copies, and I was happy to oblige.
Adventures In SpaceTime
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Posts: 5,827
Originally Posted by EndGameNYC
That's the gist of the lecture I gave to my class on Grief, Death & Dying after reading them your post, the one that I saved. They were awe struck when I read your comments, while also filling in the background to your story. They all asked for copies, and I was happy to oblige.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Melbourne, Victoria Australia
Posts: 1,202
Oh, and, just prior to this breaking news, whilst reading through the previous posts (waiting for me first thing every morning, yay!)....I felt myself mentally compiling / editing the book: 'Rambles with Robby: a Select Anthology of Meditations on Living and Dying'. The companion volume to your own book. This entire series of threads is such a goldmine, there's too much there to see eventually buried under the ever-growing midden of the Internet :-) For me, our conversations here have come to entirely surpass all my other books on recovery and how best to live.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Melbourne, Victoria Australia
Posts: 1,202
Aw, thanks Dee - there's a lovely resonance goin' on here too: Rob's birthday (laden with meaning more than usually), the two Solstices, and my new sober birthday as it were. All three together can only but reinforce my memory of what each means, separately and taken together.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Melbourne, Victoria Australia
Posts: 1,202
Oh, blow it - what the hell, throw caution to the winds....Robby, I can't be there to give you a real present. So consider this my virtual one to you. So much fab stuff, from a time when you and I were just barely teenagers. What I love about it is not only seeing the boys up there, doing their very last gig....but all the street life below [note the old E type passing by!], the bemused civil servants, girls in mini skirts and long boots, bobbies floundering about. No one quite knowing what to do or what's happening. Hence Lennon's sort of 'up yours' enjoyment showing on his face. Maverick stuff, eh? Just like our Rob. 'Ya can't keep a good man down'. Maybe enjoy this through your home theatre gear with Mrs R, some chips n chicken to hand :-)
https://vimeo.com/95681569
https://vimeo.com/95681569
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