Label: personal development

When mission is thicker than blood

When mission is thicker than blood

“I have taken a great interest in the children of famous men. It doesn't always go well for them. I thought about it a lot when I was young. How do I? How am I going to cope?”

(DN 2023-10-20)

Not old enough to have my own memories of this family tragedy, or the people. But reading an interesting article in today's DN. Janken Myrdal finally publishes a book about the relationship with his famous father.

The son seems to have gone well, outwardly. He became a professor of history. But not on all levels. Now what does this have to do with spirituality. But somehow still. When "mission is thicker than blood"?

https://www.dn.se/kultur/janken-myrdal-jag-var-radd-for-min-pappa/

New spiritual confusion

New spiritual confusion

How is it that so many "newly" interested end up wrong & at odds with the consensus on fanimig all burning issues? 😳 First it was the climate. Trump... Then came Covid. Now Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Personally, I mostly have ideas, hypotheses. The intelligence itself is true, that much I know. But how to explain? I think there are several pieces to it... A kind of rebellious, binary "you-don't-get-anything! (so the truth must be the other way around)”-attitude I think explains something anyway.

And how do you manage to preserve this authority-defying, youthful way of looking at the world then? One thing I think has to do with adopting a way of looking at the world where you work with - being dazzled! - "absolute greatness"... Ordinary people don't do that... Ie Absolute infallible knowledge, Absolute, pure love, an Absolute paradisiacal way of organizing a society, perfect leaders (A future loving "World Kingdom"), etc. Shades fade away compromises are seen as something bad.

The USA/NATO countries/the West have been & are themselves involved in a lot of (imperfectly) shady business. Yes. Didn't the US itself invade? Wasn't Sweden themselves and ravaged Ukraine 500 years ago, etc...

This philosophy of perfection makes it harder (and "easier" with, of course, although the result is grossly simplified & wrong) to navigate, both in time and space.

Be yourself?

Be yourself?

Reminded of how much I wrestled with that call to "be yourself", like in my late teens-early adulthood (for quite a while, I think). Just couldn't understand what was meant! That it was something worth striving for, that was talked about, encouraged, that much I understood, but I was clueless.

Is it normal right there in adolescence at least, the search for identity, trying out who you should be? But, my dilemma probably went a little deeper. Had to do with the fact that I ended up so early among older people in idealized environments, I think

Too nice for parenthood?

Too nice for parenthood?

Not posting this to take honor and glory from an old faithful servant. Weise d ä has a particularly comfortable & well-stuffed place in my heart from my upbringing.

https://www.aftonbladet.se/nojesbladet/a/v58p7m/andreas-weise-insett-att-min-pappa-inte-var-en-foralder

But every now and then you hear such testimonies, also from children of people who may have meant a lot to others. (The only other one I can think of in a hurry is the author of Winnie the Pooh.) But when the children get older they feel they want to be told something or other.

And this reminds me of an "esoteric", spiritual model of explanation I have had around me all my adult and semi-adult life. Namely the fact that some are not actually suitable as parents (or spouses for that matter), due to their high level of spiritual development.

Can reveal right away that I don't believe in that much anymore... Maybe that kind of thing happens, or can influence to some extent. I don't know exactly how life works. But if you fall short in these respects - which you obviously do, more or less, nobody is perfect - then I don't think it is mainly in metaphysics that you should look for answers.

What is being "wise"?

What is being "wise"?

It's a fine line between thought disorder, madness. Where everything can seem to mix and work together? But then the function is usually impaired in and of itself...

Reminds me of something I read once (in a book about graphology, i.e. how someone's personality is revealed in handwriting, it was certain)... The author mentioned certain signs, can't remember which ones exactly, but that they were unusual... Pointed to a rare talent for being able to see things from different angles, a kind of mobility in the mind... But could also indicate a personality that had a tendency to "run the compass around", i.e. something not so functional.

Being able to handle, endure, even draw nourishment from it, the paradoxical, belongs here too, right? And personal development, self-awareness, what now drives such things… Will think of James Fowler who researched levels/types of “faith”… Here is a nice description I saved, from a Conn, of one of the higher stages:

"Unusual before mid-life, Stage 5 knows the sacrament of defeat and the reality of irrevocable commitments and acts. What the previous stage struggled to clarify, in terms of boundaries of self and outlook, this stage now makes porous and permeable. Alive to paradox and the truth in apparent contradictions, this stage strives to unify opposites in mind and experience.”

Paradoxical or contradictory really? I think that the contradiction in the paradox is apparent... But that a special psycho-emotional one is somehow needed? "enzyme" to break it down, be able to extract nutrients from it...

Maturity failure

Maturity failure

The Taliban have taken over. It went quickly! I'm raising the topic so it gets its own section. Not for the spiritual, but the psychology. What to believe? They have held a press conference, promised a lot, seem more conciliatory this time. Have they matured yet?

I am an incurable development romantic, that you normally become a better, more sane person over the years... Of course it can be a compromising, a bit of a game, to try to get the outside world's acceptance. But it can be partly honestly known and meant. You are a fundamentalist, but not as blind and hot as when you were a young Koran school student, like ("Taliban" means student, I've learned), you "can't" care that way anymore, think anymore, not in the same way the present... Less an idealist, more a pragmatist... But it may turn out...

[...]

And, if you're going to engage in a bit of newage-new-spirituality-bashing... "Development" is central to such a philosophy, the great gradual evolution of the soul, and this single life is just a station on the way... Not much happens, you incarnate as an "adult ”, puts on a baby's body and the consciousness is blinded in some way... (You might even think things like mother was my partner before or father my little brother.)...

How it is with this, what is true or possible, or not, I will not say anything about that... But it seems to have the effect of making it difficult to see what actually happens during this single human life... I usually think about it as "maturity failure"... You may feel that you have developed in a more universal, evolutionary sense, spiritually, found peace. When, in fact, you have mostly become old.

Spiritual narcissism

Spiritual narcissism

"One of the things I'm wrestling with at the moment is hierarchy in spirituality, and the idea of ​​'higher' and 'lower'."

This is how the philosopher Jules Evans begins a long text from this day... He writes about the idea of ​​development in general, and within new spirituality & new age in particular. Most of all, it's about Ken Wilber. A nuanced review of this giant.

https://julesevans.medium.com/ken-wilber-and-spiritual-hierarchy-5e163226d270

My retention of the text is above all two things. Partly because I now feel more respect for Wilber. He has nevertheless done a horse job in developing his model, with a large portion of psychology.

Partly, I am reminded of how ignorant I am of the very concept of spiritual evolution. That the human mind is probably not equipped to keep up with such models. Whether they are correct or not.

Against this, one might want to argue that even if people are on different levels, are differently developed spiritually (via reincarnation, etc.), there need not be anything idealizing/derogatory about it. No, in the best of worlds it wouldn't have to be that way. That it would, for example, feed one's own narcissism, as Evans talks about. (Or even a feeling of inferiority. But this is probably more rare in that case)

Theoretically, they could be separate things. But in practice? This is not a matter of will, I think. That's why I write "armed"', i.e. that it has to do with one's own constitution. Analogous to not having the conditions to lift a stone weighing 1 ton, or resist strong radioactive radiation, e.g. Even if you wished you could, or think you should be able to. Or at worst imagines that you can. If you can't do it now.

I never got to Mount Athos

I never got to Mount Athos

“Snowy Monastery of Saint Gregory: The monks play snowball fight like little children and enjoy the snow.

The Holy Monastery of Saint Gregory is located on the SW side of the Athos peninsula, built on a rock at a height of 30 m from the sea. It is one of the 20 monasteries of Mount Athos state and one of the 6 rock monasteries that were rebuilt and renovated on the rocks to have natural protection from pirates."

https://www.greecehighdefinition.com/blog/snowy-monastery-of-saint-gregory

D and I talk about how it was in high school, how you can feel then, bad, etc. I really wasn't in the best shape. But I wasn't depressed. I kind of went a different way.

In the summer of '85, I had dropped out, definitely. Set off on some sort of pilgrimage through Europe. The goal of the trip was precisely the monk sanctuary Mount Athos. I don't know what my plans were with it, I probably just wanted to experience the place. But the ferry that went there wouldn't let me on board because I was too young. So spent the evening with a tricky unfortunate Dutchman at his tent, I remember.

Saw a lot on that trip anyway. Le Corbusier's magnificent chapel in Ronchamp! Lourdes is a place of pilgrimage on the border between France and Spain. Paris, of course. Talked to a guy on a train who was going to enlist in the Foreign Legion, to get away from his life of crime. From the police too, maybe.

Findhorn Gardens in England. Stonehenge. Holy Island and Iona. Loch Ness, a damp, enchanted evening. Met an American who went there every holiday, stayed in a hotel, and after breakfast he took the car to a parking lot with a good view to scout for the beast. London, probably, but I don't remember that.

A memorable trip. But sometimes I wonder what I could have done for myself as a teenager, if I had met him today.

Life goes on

Life goes on

This picture was taken by my father thirty years ago. He was about the same age as I am today. Visiting from Dalarna, came by my work. I don't think he ever really understood what I was doing. And I was too young and confused to care, or to realize that I cared.

Now dad is gone. The year before E came. Dad's birthday was this weekend, the little guy's tomorrow. I have become a father myself. At least today I understand how nice he was, my father.

Thinking about this is like standing in a hellish existential crosshairs. Mysterious, sad, and feeling strangely happy all at the same time.

No wonder people became religious.