Working from experience, that is from inside of the muddle that is life and looking out, one says things and one does things that in retrospect were misleading. I've known this because I've seen people leap around taking one side of the matter to heart but not the other and then vice versa, and I've seen their lives are not enriched by that. They stay on the surface and don't go deep enough, not for my liking.
They don't see that in certain circumstances ideas have quite clearly become their opposite. For instance, I am very weak in relation to my circumstances, which are to some degree unfavorable. In relation to myself, however, I am mentally acute and knowledgeable. To be two things at once seems like an impossibility on the surface, but even science concurs that having two sides to a coin is really more the norm than the exception.
We get so bogged down in metaphysical assumptions, we don't really think. For instance, to aim for something and miss one's target is oftentimes considered to be the sign of abject stupidity next to which no argument or explanation will suffice. But that's not fair at all and doesn't really add up. Primarily, the universe is not gagged and bound and forced into the role of your willing servant. It does its own thing much of the time. And not being master of the universe does not make you an idiot, although it certainly suggests you are not God.
To not be God might be okay. The upside is that the universe remains largely a mystery to you. Well, that's not bad at all. Imagine going on a holiday and everything that happened was what you already knew was going to happen. It would be better to stay at home. Twiddle your toenails.
I'm not too fond of people who try to play God. I wonder what makes them so insecure that they need to put on a show as if they know everything. Can't you just sit still for three seconds and allow that something you've encountered might be totally new? It might be more fun that way, really, and to be honest it's the best way I have found to get to know something. There's also another way, but that's more complex. You have to immerse yourself in it emotionally and then let go. You see it close and then you see it from afar, and finally you understand.
The thing about shamanism that's hard to grasp is that you have to get used to keeping a lot of opposites in your head at the same time. It's not that someone is trying to deceive you, but life really is made up of organic unities that, on the surface, seem like opposites. Let them stray too far apart in your mind and you have metaphysics. Bring them back together and you have life.
To combine very, very distant opposites is the trick of the most powerful shamans. The greater the distance you can span and somehow hold together, the more energy and insight you might have. For instance, those who live on one side of a binary know that side. I know what it is to be delicate in response to a shift in temperature. But let's go up ten thousand feet let the breeze in through Cessna's door whilst summer is heading into winter, and then my insight expands rapidly as to what it means to be existentially threatened.
Wind chill gets into the bones and it is interesting there. It makes strange inroads into the mentality. You've got to be quite powerful to take the strong assault in relation to your weaknesses. This is no either-or scenario of choosing to be strong or choosing to be weak. You're straddling both sides. And that's the way we learn what life is.
It's easier to say yes or no to certain aspects of experience or to try to cram others into predefined categories, but they will not thank you for that. You're making them live down to your limitations and pushing all the air out of their lungs when they could learn to breathe in more deeply.
You've got to strand the opposites between a deliberate high sensitivity and fortitude to make the grade. Or else, you won't generate insights. You can't be one thing at once, but two at the very limit. That's why Bataille is so keen to draw a distinction between humanity's animal nature and its civilized side. He needed that division for the sake of doubling his energies. Likewise, if you can move between the states of being man and woman, live and dead, you will gain more than you would have if you stayed where you are.
The risk is that you may also explode and die, but at least you would have solved many of life's mysteries. And you would still be mystified, but in a good way, as an awestruck animal, and not like some refined dolt who claims to know all that there ever is to know, but you've just seen a giant spider make its way into his butt.
The point is not to get offended but to start to figure it out. Taking offence is lack of fortitude, without which you cannot straddle the gap. (This is a different gap from where that spider sleeps -- believe me.)
Another point is you can't claim to know the things you know without drawing from opposing energies. You're stuck in one position and fixated on the matter.
Shamanic wisdom says there is no point in playing God. Rather, sleep under a hibiscus bush and find out what that is like. If you are rich enough to draw your powers from two poles, your sense of mystery and your sense of knowledge will be simultaneously expanded.
That is, until you're drawn apart and explode. Stars will start raining from the universe.
They don't see that in certain circumstances ideas have quite clearly become their opposite. For instance, I am very weak in relation to my circumstances, which are to some degree unfavorable. In relation to myself, however, I am mentally acute and knowledgeable. To be two things at once seems like an impossibility on the surface, but even science concurs that having two sides to a coin is really more the norm than the exception.
We get so bogged down in metaphysical assumptions, we don't really think. For instance, to aim for something and miss one's target is oftentimes considered to be the sign of abject stupidity next to which no argument or explanation will suffice. But that's not fair at all and doesn't really add up. Primarily, the universe is not gagged and bound and forced into the role of your willing servant. It does its own thing much of the time. And not being master of the universe does not make you an idiot, although it certainly suggests you are not God.
To not be God might be okay. The upside is that the universe remains largely a mystery to you. Well, that's not bad at all. Imagine going on a holiday and everything that happened was what you already knew was going to happen. It would be better to stay at home. Twiddle your toenails.
I'm not too fond of people who try to play God. I wonder what makes them so insecure that they need to put on a show as if they know everything. Can't you just sit still for three seconds and allow that something you've encountered might be totally new? It might be more fun that way, really, and to be honest it's the best way I have found to get to know something. There's also another way, but that's more complex. You have to immerse yourself in it emotionally and then let go. You see it close and then you see it from afar, and finally you understand.
The thing about shamanism that's hard to grasp is that you have to get used to keeping a lot of opposites in your head at the same time. It's not that someone is trying to deceive you, but life really is made up of organic unities that, on the surface, seem like opposites. Let them stray too far apart in your mind and you have metaphysics. Bring them back together and you have life.
To combine very, very distant opposites is the trick of the most powerful shamans. The greater the distance you can span and somehow hold together, the more energy and insight you might have. For instance, those who live on one side of a binary know that side. I know what it is to be delicate in response to a shift in temperature. But let's go up ten thousand feet let the breeze in through Cessna's door whilst summer is heading into winter, and then my insight expands rapidly as to what it means to be existentially threatened.
Wind chill gets into the bones and it is interesting there. It makes strange inroads into the mentality. You've got to be quite powerful to take the strong assault in relation to your weaknesses. This is no either-or scenario of choosing to be strong or choosing to be weak. You're straddling both sides. And that's the way we learn what life is.
It's easier to say yes or no to certain aspects of experience or to try to cram others into predefined categories, but they will not thank you for that. You're making them live down to your limitations and pushing all the air out of their lungs when they could learn to breathe in more deeply.
You've got to strand the opposites between a deliberate high sensitivity and fortitude to make the grade. Or else, you won't generate insights. You can't be one thing at once, but two at the very limit. That's why Bataille is so keen to draw a distinction between humanity's animal nature and its civilized side. He needed that division for the sake of doubling his energies. Likewise, if you can move between the states of being man and woman, live and dead, you will gain more than you would have if you stayed where you are.
The risk is that you may also explode and die, but at least you would have solved many of life's mysteries. And you would still be mystified, but in a good way, as an awestruck animal, and not like some refined dolt who claims to know all that there ever is to know, but you've just seen a giant spider make its way into his butt.
The point is not to get offended but to start to figure it out. Taking offence is lack of fortitude, without which you cannot straddle the gap. (This is a different gap from where that spider sleeps -- believe me.)
Another point is you can't claim to know the things you know without drawing from opposing energies. You're stuck in one position and fixated on the matter.
Shamanic wisdom says there is no point in playing God. Rather, sleep under a hibiscus bush and find out what that is like. If you are rich enough to draw your powers from two poles, your sense of mystery and your sense of knowledge will be simultaneously expanded.
That is, until you're drawn apart and explode. Stars will start raining from the universe.
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