I Finally Feel Very Understood | Clarissa's Blog
People are basically confused about everything. I have someone asking me on YouTube whether Westerners can be shamans. I say that there is indeed a Western type of shamanism, contractible through Nietzsche and Bataille and through the African writer Marechera, if you are already African enough to understand him.
This person writes back that these authors would make a "good start" for writing her forthcoming essay.
I responded, truthfully, that it took me over a decade to understand Nietzsche and that Bataille is difficult, too.
They responded, somewhat sarcastically I think, that one has to "start somewhere".
But this is so much not the point. To achieve something as publicly recognizable as a building of oneself, or to propose comparative measures in terms of the amount of knowledge one has accumulated, is not an essential part of shamanism. One has to go through the process of learning, which can take decades, but this doesn't mean anything unless the outcome is what one had wanted. One could just as easily spend years on a useless project or on the wrong path.
Making comparisons whilst you are asking for knowledge as to how to make your own way is singularly pointless.
People are basically confused about everything. I have someone asking me on YouTube whether Westerners can be shamans. I say that there is indeed a Western type of shamanism, contractible through Nietzsche and Bataille and through the African writer Marechera, if you are already African enough to understand him.
This person writes back that these authors would make a "good start" for writing her forthcoming essay.
I responded, truthfully, that it took me over a decade to understand Nietzsche and that Bataille is difficult, too.
They responded, somewhat sarcastically I think, that one has to "start somewhere".
But this is so much not the point. To achieve something as publicly recognizable as a building of oneself, or to propose comparative measures in terms of the amount of knowledge one has accumulated, is not an essential part of shamanism. One has to go through the process of learning, which can take decades, but this doesn't mean anything unless the outcome is what one had wanted. One could just as easily spend years on a useless project or on the wrong path.
Making comparisons whilst you are asking for knowledge as to how to make your own way is singularly pointless.
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