I have gathered that according to the most prevalent myths about character structure, humans are built on a two-tiered system. First there is a layer of sediment called "emotionalism". Directly above that is a layer of accretion called "reason". And, according to current myths, it appears that this is all we got.
I had a dream last night, however, which reminded me of something I'd not had such a clear image of until now. My own upbringing was not of the emotional sort (although, certainly it was of the sensuous-feeling sort -- something entirely different and fundamentally asocial).
I went back to revisit primary school buildings in my dream last night. Each one was absolutely self-enclosed, more like a barracks than a children's nursery. Yes, each building would incubate and produce the next level of education. But there was nothing of parental guiding hands in all of this. It was all very impersonal.
When I "emotionally" regress, I find I regress to this childhood level of consciousness, the one that I triumphantly identified in my dream with the statement: "But those buildings are so ... Rhodesian!" An earlier developmental stage for me is strictly stoical; impersonal. My spiritual identity has always been Spartan.
There is of course a lot of sentiment involved in returning to this earlier level of consciousness. But there is no sense of rabid emotionalism in the way that Westerners understand that or expect it: certainly, there is no sense of being "out of control", but instead a contraction of my involvement with the world. I become more inward with the experience and narrowly rational.
I resort to the condition of being a Stoic.
I had a dream last night, however, which reminded me of something I'd not had such a clear image of until now. My own upbringing was not of the emotional sort (although, certainly it was of the sensuous-feeling sort -- something entirely different and fundamentally asocial).
I went back to revisit primary school buildings in my dream last night. Each one was absolutely self-enclosed, more like a barracks than a children's nursery. Yes, each building would incubate and produce the next level of education. But there was nothing of parental guiding hands in all of this. It was all very impersonal.
When I "emotionally" regress, I find I regress to this childhood level of consciousness, the one that I triumphantly identified in my dream with the statement: "But those buildings are so ... Rhodesian!" An earlier developmental stage for me is strictly stoical; impersonal. My spiritual identity has always been Spartan.
There is of course a lot of sentiment involved in returning to this earlier level of consciousness. But there is no sense of rabid emotionalism in the way that Westerners understand that or expect it: certainly, there is no sense of being "out of control", but instead a contraction of my involvement with the world. I become more inward with the experience and narrowly rational.
I resort to the condition of being a Stoic.
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