body
December 2007 
A Map For The Lost Among Us?
Posted on Nov 27th, 2006
by 
David Jon
David Jon
(continued from here....)
Are our lives torn apart? Are they in need of some remedial form of relatedness; such as where we connect body to mind and mind to soul and soul to spirit? Has life---er, Life--become a socially-sanctioned and accepted form of dissociative distress? Are we just so many unrelated pieces: pieces lost; pieces scattered; pieces uprooted; pieces in exile, alienated from any familiar turf or ground, recognizable to us as that which might just be indicative of something we could call 'home?'
It is beyond arguing that the ongoing experience of many millions of people is just such a sense of lostness. Reflect on that for just a moment: isn't lostness a sense of not re-cognizing where one Is?
Lost: who am I?
Lost: what am I?
Lost: where am I?
Lost: how did I get here?
Lost: (and) how might I find my way when all familiar landmarks and signposts are nowhere in sight?
Lost: (and finally) how might I come to relate and orient myself in such a strange world?
Living In The Existential Lost & Found
Do you wonder what the popular TV series Lost says about the world we have come to inhabit: a world of unfamilar ground; a world where our 'former selves' are little more than ghosts from the past who have no relation to our present circumstances and conditions; a world where we are both open and uncertain, free and fearful?
I wonder if such circumstances can leave us a bit vulnerable. That th combination of our being 'open' and 'uncertain' is liable to make us prey to the Great Pretenders. Might conmen be said to thrive in the Open and Uncertain Ages, in the Free and Fearful Times? Could it be that due to our being uncertain we are more disposed to gravitating to someone who appears to have 'all the answers.'
In short, those with maps can be highl;y attractive for the Lost.
A New Map of the Middle East. This is what we are going to do. This is what we need to do. Here is the answer. Here is where we are going.
The seeming certainty and unshakable conviction of one who appears to have 'a map of the unfamiliar and unprecedented' can be like a psychological balm to a weary psyche torn from all familiar referents. Consciousness is vulnerable in that sense: apart from familiar referents there is a compelling urgency to find some 'thing' to hang onto--even if that 'thing' is a map of this New Land we have fallen from the sky onto.
Emptying Out Traditions
The promises of greater human Freedom have been proclaimed from the rooftops. Yes, we need to break free of what has held us back. Yes, we need to step boldly into a future where we are not conditioned by the past--a future sans History, perhaps (uhm, which is a future that is profoundly antidevelopmental to the core, I might add).
After all, if we deny the Traditions and the Norms which have brought us to the present moment in time where we seem to be standing on the precipice of a whole new Historical Epoch, then do we really have any ground to stand upon? Perhaps that is what the more Conservative-minded among us are pointing to (minus the often shallow intellectualism, and the spiteful accusations against the new and novel): that we cannot go forward unless we honour and respect our origins.
In the TV series Lost we see just how true this can be. The past---though not present in physical terms--is present psychologically and exerts a weight upon the present moment for each of the characters. The characters in Lost are not a-historical or anti-developmental. Rather, they are precise glimpses into the fact that we carry History with us and to a great degree that History is un-avaoidable. We are History.
Running From HIstory
The funny thing is that as much as we are History we also run from it. That's the ironical, slapstick nature of what Ken Wilber has called one of the twenty fundamental tenets that all holons (er, uhm... can we say people, more particularly?) exhibit. That we include History and yet we seek to transcend History.
Word of warning is that to the extent that we deny History... in a transcendent only arc... we are falling into inevitable dissociative distress. The same can be said to the degree that we deny transcendence. An example of the latter can be seen in the arche-Conservatives who seek to uphold Tradition at any and all costs, i.e., for whom there is no transcendence... but only conformity.
Are our lives torn apart? Are they in need of some remedial form of relatedness; such as where we connect body to mind and mind to soul and soul to spirit? Has life---er, Life--become a socially-sanctioned and accepted form of dissociative distress? Are we just so many unrelated pieces: pieces lost; pieces scattered; pieces uprooted; pieces in exile, alienated from any familiar turf or ground, recognizable to us as that which might just be indicative of something we could call 'home?'
It is beyond arguing that the ongoing experience of many millions of people is just such a sense of lostness. Reflect on that for just a moment: isn't lostness a sense of not re-cognizing where one Is?
Lost: who am I?
Lost: what am I?
Lost: where am I?
Lost: how did I get here?
Lost: (and) how might I find my way when all familiar landmarks and signposts are nowhere in sight?
Lost: (and finally) how might I come to relate and orient myself in such a strange world?
Living In The Existential Lost & Found
Do you wonder what the popular TV series Lost says about the world we have come to inhabit: a world of unfamilar ground; a world where our 'former selves' are little more than ghosts from the past who have no relation to our present circumstances and conditions; a world where we are both open and uncertain, free and fearful?
I wonder if such circumstances can leave us a bit vulnerable. That th combination of our being 'open' and 'uncertain' is liable to make us prey to the Great Pretenders. Might conmen be said to thrive in the Open and Uncertain Ages, in the Free and Fearful Times? Could it be that due to our being uncertain we are more disposed to gravitating to someone who appears to have 'all the answers.'
In short, those with maps can be highl;y attractive for the Lost.
A New Map of the Middle East. This is what we are going to do. This is what we need to do. Here is the answer. Here is where we are going.
The seeming certainty and unshakable conviction of one who appears to have 'a map of the unfamiliar and unprecedented' can be like a psychological balm to a weary psyche torn from all familiar referents. Consciousness is vulnerable in that sense: apart from familiar referents there is a compelling urgency to find some 'thing' to hang onto--even if that 'thing' is a map of this New Land we have fallen from the sky onto.
Emptying Out Traditions
The promises of greater human Freedom have been proclaimed from the rooftops. Yes, we need to break free of what has held us back. Yes, we need to step boldly into a future where we are not conditioned by the past--a future sans History, perhaps (uhm, which is a future that is profoundly antidevelopmental to the core, I might add).
After all, if we deny the Traditions and the Norms which have brought us to the present moment in time where we seem to be standing on the precipice of a whole new Historical Epoch, then do we really have any ground to stand upon? Perhaps that is what the more Conservative-minded among us are pointing to (minus the often shallow intellectualism, and the spiteful accusations against the new and novel): that we cannot go forward unless we honour and respect our origins.
In the TV series Lost we see just how true this can be. The past---though not present in physical terms--is present psychologically and exerts a weight upon the present moment for each of the characters. The characters in Lost are not a-historical or anti-developmental. Rather, they are precise glimpses into the fact that we carry History with us and to a great degree that History is un-avaoidable. We are History.
Running From HIstory
The funny thing is that as much as we are History we also run from it. That's the ironical, slapstick nature of what Ken Wilber has called one of the twenty fundamental tenets that all holons (er, uhm... can we say people, more particularly?) exhibit. That we include History and yet we seek to transcend History.
Word of warning is that to the extent that we deny History... in a transcendent only arc... we are falling into inevitable dissociative distress. The same can be said to the degree that we deny transcendence. An example of the latter can be seen in the arche-Conservatives who seek to uphold Tradition at any and all costs, i.e., for whom there is no transcendence... but only conformity.
Access: Public
Great blogs almighty you're frigin prolific! ;)
Personal Perspective:
Maps of consciousness are like rubber floaties for small children who are learning to swim in the deep end of existence–often necessary and truly quite useful. However, once the child adapts and grows adept, these maps become cumbersome distractions to the purpose of fluid watery movement.
(also, sometimes it's fun just to put the floatie-maps around your ankles so your feet float to the surface and you have to play/struggle to raise your not so buoyant head above water!)
LOL ;)
Also, does your premise suppose a history inclusive of a physical/material referent to qualify it's existence? IOW, without matter, there is no record of the time “it” has existed? Are you requiring a physical/material existence to usher forth a precipitant history? I feel a very good question to ask, while pondering such things, is: just what exactly is “it” that is existing? What existence is it–that we are recording and attributing the importance of possessing a “history?” (see here for my take on that.)
In a way, it doesn't matter what I think in this commentary. Or how brilliant and enticing–or confusing and inane–or ordinary and commonplace–the thoughts. I have a thought: there is a chair. I have a secondary resultant thought: It is sturdy. In kind, we have the thought: there is humanity. We also have the secondary thought: it has a history. Interesting thoughts. Yet, they only entertain my imagination/intellect and provide some new distracting/fun floaties.
Essentially, you and I can only live.
In the Great Cosmic Thunderstorm, we can only live–we can only duck under that compassionate and spreading umbrella verb in these momentary human bodies. That's what they are made for–living. No, we cannot suppress the lightening or stop the rain or redirect the winds. Conformity already is. And enlightenment already is. Yet in this moment, we can live. That's it. Very humbling.
For example, part of my living currently is having some supper and doing my nursing school homework: so off I go! :)
And thanks, David Jon, for all the way cool digital pages of floaties to play with in the deep end!