Euan Semple's Blog, page 25

Materialism

Belief in a “real world” with an existence independent of, and outside of, our minds is as much a leap of faith as believing in a beardy guy in the sky.

Hoodwinked

How much of our life do we miss out on because of the delusory idols of external truth? How much of our inner realm do we neglect because of its alleged frivolousness? Those hypnagogic and hypnopompic images, feelings and insights that come to us on the edge of sleep: they are forgotten within seconds because, well, they are just nonsense anyway; they can’t correspond to anything ‘out there,’ where all truths supposedly lie. The unusual, surprising associations that arise in our awareness in moments of quiet contemplation: we don’t waste time with them because, well, what significance could they have anyway? The alien landscapes of thoughts and impressions we traverse just after orgasm: no more than the inconsequential gimmicks of an indulged organism. The mind-boggling alternative realities of psychedelic trances: just chemicals. The richness and emotional charge of our daydreams and fantasies: just nothing. And so down the drain go the most transcendent moments of our lives and aspects of ourselves; precisely those that could offer us a passage—elusive and brief as it may be—to visit something beyond the ordinary human condition and sooth our existential despair. We have been educated to dismiss the natural paths to transcendence.

Bernardo Kastrup – More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief

Letting go

If you completely abandon your compulsive preoccupation with your mental/emotional versions of yourself, with their endless ambitions and the constant flow of problems that arise because of them, it’s an absolute shock! You will find that they were completely fictitious–they never existed in the first place. They were just part of some bad movie you saw at some point, continued to replay, and came to believe in. That may be an especially rude shock if they have been the center of your attention, as they have for practically everybody, all of your life, for ten, twenty, maybe fifty years or more. But, better late than never. (It’s not wasted, at any rate, for you will be potentially of great help to anyone else who is trying to find their way out of all this culturally created confusion.)

Scott Morrison from There Is Only Now

Reactions

My reaction to the little girl covering herself in her friend’s blood and to the armed policemen doing nothing while waiting for backup are reactions to parts of me.

My mind creates the narrative, triggers it’s own emotional reactions, and then reacts to them.

I do well to be aware of this process and learn from it as doing so could save the world.

Enthusiasm

enthusiasm (n.)
c. 1600, from French enthousiasme (16c.) and directly from Late Latin enthusiasmus, from Greek enthousiasmos “divine inspiration, enthusiasm (produced by certain kinds of music, etc.),” from enthousiazein “be inspired or possessed by a god, be rapt, be in ecstasy,” from entheos “divinely inspired, possessed by a god,” from en “in” (see en- (2)) + theos “god” (from PIE root *dhes-, forming words for religious concepts).

I have been lucky enough to be enthusiastic about a lot of things in my life. Writing, reading, bringing up our kids, playing my sax, riding fast bikes, climbing hills, speaking on stages, driving my trucks.

I am now becoming increasingly enthusiastic about just being. Not doing things, just being.

Responsibility

Every time someone commits an atrocity we look for explanations. We want someone to blame.

But it is our fault.

We all know someone, who knows someone, who has interacted however briefly with someone who knows someone who is considering committing an atrocity.

Our own behaviour, or failure to comment on theirs, gets passed down the chain with the message “It’s ok to think that”, “It’s ok to be like that”, “It’s ok to do that”.

Remember this the next time you interact with anyone.

Anyone.

That’ll be the drink then…

Even after all these years, must be about fifteen or so by now, since I last drank alcohol, I still forget.

I will be sitting chatting to someone in a pub and will begin to notice changes. Subtle changes. Changes in eye contact, changes in their tone, shifts in how we are relating to one another.

I will wonder why.

Then I remember.

“That’ll be the drink then…”

On the way back from the pub…

Where have I been?

In keeping with my increased wariness of labelling and judging the world around me – when people ask “Where have you been?” I often have little idea.

I have got into the habit of telling Apple Maps to avoid motorways or tolls and see where it takes me. As a result on my most recent trip I had some wonderful meanders through France, often on very small roads and through very cute villages, but I have also not really known where I have been.

I like this kind of not knowing. It avoids ticking off things on lists and I am more likely to truly be wherever I am if I’m not concerned about where it is!

I’m back

Great trip to France. First big adventure for Connie The Camper Car but not the last. A few images to sum up the trip.