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evolution and 'painful' emotions

topic posted Wed, August 26, 2009 - 7:49 PM by  ilithmar 		Share/Save/Bookmark
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I suppose that pain/aversion in the emotional body and discordant confusion in the philosophical body are the primary gateway drugs for chapel perilous. In their various forms.

I notice some confusion in regard to the 'survival value' of negative emotions. Especially when they lead to desires for suicide, self-torture, etc. A sense of defeat, failure, hopelessness cumulating in great desires for death, even when 90% of the a persons life is beautiful, exciting, intelligent and dandy. Why would the genetic code install such a process? that rather sounds like a hippy wondering what meaning God created in this mental-sensation/envornmental inflection. oops.

It does seem peculiar though. A person experiences 'bad' emotion. Other people (with intuitive neurological wisdom) ignore/avert the person experiencing the 'bad' emotion. the person experiencing the 'bad' emotion feels more bad. Snowball....
the 'bad' emotion gets so bad the 'bad' person wants to extinguish themselves - freeing the race from 'bad' (socially ineffective/inefficient) energy. So why would/should this desire (for blow-out) be illegal? Or is such a 'law' created to protect the conscience of the nearest and dearest?

PS. a disclaimer for any possible distorted meaning transmitted in this post, perhaps due to the author's possible deep feeling/absortion (very SLIGHTLY leaning towards possession rather than equanimity/detachment) in such a trance..
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ilithmar
offline ilithmar
New Zealand
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  • sherpa
    sherpa
    offline 321

    Re: evolution and 'painful' emotions

    Wed, August 26, 2009 - 8:46 PM
    I appreciate the honesty of your trance-induced post. Many who are trapped in the Chapel remain unaware of it. I call these the Lifers or the Flock. Then there are those who are fully aware of their haunted existential dilemma, the Clergy, who choose to remain in the Chapel to serve the flock. Then there are the Heretics who manage to escape, either as agnostic or paranoid (read Robert Anton Wilson's escape notes in the description section of this tribe). Then there are the Tourists who escape, neither as agnostic nor paranoid, yet return for reasons of their own. I count myself as a Tourist.

    Do you see yourself in any of these categories?
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    • libr...
      libramoon
      offline 59

      Re: evolution and 'painful' emotions

      Fri, August 28, 2009 - 3:09 PM
      I don't seem to feel resonance with any of these categories: Lifer, Clergy, Heretic, Tourist. I think I'm more a working artist making a study of my subject.
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      • ~FaF~
        ~FaF~
        offline 112

        Re: evolution and 'painful' emotions

        Fri, August 28, 2009 - 4:10 PM
        "My Life is my Art, and no one "gets it" but me."

        FIDO
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        • ~FaF~
          ~FaF~
          offline 112

          Re: evolution and 'painful' emotions

          Fri, August 28, 2009 - 4:34 PM
          What I have learned about suicide in a practical sense...

          A couple of years ago, I witnessed an individual jump from the Golden Gate Bridge. My vantage point was that of a sailboat under the bridge. I called the Mayday, and watched the Coasties fish the body from the water.

          In an effort to process this event for myself I learned a bit about that act. The most significant message I found was from the (1%) survivors. That as soon as they jumped, they wished they had not. Another significant point was that a high percentage of those who were talked down off the Bridge went on to lead relatively healthy, productive lives.

          I see it as a moment in time...one has to work through...
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          • orpheus
            orpheus
            online 140

            Re: evolution and 'painful' emotions

            Fri, August 28, 2009 - 5:22 PM
            ew...

            a 9/11 clip someone posted today reminded me that I'd glimpsed a jumper when having a coffee on a terrace in paris...

            I had a hangover and was feeling weak and the sight of the body in the air was enough to invoke the discomfort of the inevitable bonecrushing of a body impacting with the hard ground etc...

            I'd seen quite a few deaths and gore around the ghetto at that time from car accidents and madness but the glimpse of that person in the air was the worst...

            I remember an art teacher slicing his finger print off with a stanley knife and I was very squeamish about that too...

            I think my take on suicide is that it is like life...

            if you can do it under good conditions where you are cared for and comforted then it's probably ok...

            the problem is that when it's all crap neither life nor death are ok so that's just an extra bummer to carry around... hahaha
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      • Leda
        Leda
        offline 55

        Re: evolution and 'painful' emotions

        Sun, August 30, 2009 - 11:55 AM
        I like the term "faithful parishoner"
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        • Leda
          Leda
          offline 55

          Re: evolution and 'painful' emotions

          Sun, August 30, 2009 - 11:56 AM
          “So everything is necessary. Every least thing. This is the hard lesson. Nothing can be dispensed with. Nothing despised. Because the seams are hid from us, you see. The joinery. The way in which the world is made. We have no way to know what could be taken away. What omitted. We have no way to tell what might stand and what might fall.”

          ~Cormac McCarthy - The Crossing
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    • Leda
      Leda
      offline 55

      Re: evolution and 'painful' emotions

      Tue, September 1, 2009 - 5:45 PM
      Then there are the Heretics who manage to escape, either as agnostic or paranoid>>>>

      are you saying that agnostcism is a *negative* side-effect?

      even though blind faith is it's own drug against the difficulties

      the Christians call it "joy"
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      • sherpa
        sherpa
        offline 321

        Re: evolution and 'painful' emotions

        Wed, September 2, 2009 - 9:18 AM
        <<are you saying that agnostcism is a *negative* side-effect? >>

        not at all. for some, it's a kind of redemption to not beieve in anything. for others, loss of faith can sometimes result in loss of joy; all depends. i see myself as more Tourist than Heretic -- and decidedly gnostic (neither agnostic nor paranoid)
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        • sherpa
          sherpa
          offline 321

          Re: evolution and 'painful' emotions

          Wed, September 2, 2009 - 9:21 AM
          "The transition to a higher neural functioning—is often accompanied by considerable anxiety or a turbulence in personal life which seems as if the organism were falling apart or breaking up. This phenomenon of instability is really the way that every living organism —societies, human primates, chemical solutions, etc.—shakes itself, as it were, by myoclonisms or similar convulsions into new combinations and permutations for higher and new levels of development." -- Dr. Israel Regardie (from the introduction to PROMETHEUS RISING by Robert Anton Wilson)
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  • Mary...
    MaryEllen
    offline 420

    Re: evolution and 'painful' emotions

    Wed, August 26, 2009 - 10:00 PM
    why would the genetic code install such a process?
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~
    I see the internal voices/urgings to "kill yourself" as part of healthy development.

    In the natural course of 'growing up' one gets to points where it is beneficial to get rid of outdated 'parts' of oneself ~ 'parts' that may have had a good use at some point, but that are now (or just about to be) worn out/finished and/or would inhibit any further growth. The internal self knows that it is now time to 'kill' that part of yourself & that message reverberates around, inside the body.

    The tragedy is that, in our culture, most of us have very little experience in dealing with our inner self ~ so most people are more than a little clumsy when dealing with their own internal dialogue. Also, many people don't know that they have 'parts' ~ they only identify with their physical body ~ that is all they are familiar with & it never even occurs to them that there is more to them than flesh & blood. The completely appropriate & helpful message to 'leave behind the part of oneself that won't allow the next phase in normal growth' gets misinterpreted as 'kill your physical body'.

    The message isn't 'wrong', but the 'lowest common denominator' interpretation of it is often very misleading.

    That's what I have noticed.

    love all-ways,
    mem
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    • Marpa
      Marpa
      online 47

      Re: evolution and 'painful' emotions

      Thu, August 27, 2009 - 12:46 PM
      If existence, including CP, is seen as a school, then there must be lessons to be learned about the desire to extinguish oneself. I have heard from the Clergy that one reason not to is that once the body is extinguished, your are then left with a mind still trapped in whatever torment prompted the decision to extinguish yourself. Doesn't sound like an option that would get anyone where they'd want to be.

      I notice that most of the "bad" I experience is simply my own reactivity to fully engaging in life. I can (and, like most of us, often do) become trapped in a pattern of my own continued reactivity, or I can continually let it go. Strangely enough, when I do let it go, everything is OK, or even more than OK, rather blissful.

      It's like the Eddie Izzard joke where the Church of England is being the Inquisition, giving people the alternative, "Do you want cake or DEATH?!!"

      Who's going to chose death in such a case? However, that's what many of us seem to do habitually in this school: choose death when we could just as well choose cake.

      But what do I know? I'm not sure if I'm Clergy or a Tourist...
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      • libr...
        libramoon
        offline 59

        Re: evolution and 'painful' emotions

        Fri, August 28, 2009 - 3:06 PM
        She told me:
        "Suicide is futile.
        Been there, done that, doesn't help."
        In the back of the dark cinema
        watching life pass on,
        (truly, wishing you well)
        through Eternity's storm

        July 14, 2009

        seemed appropriate.

        It can seem like getting caught in a raging rainstorm. You try to find shelter, miserably chilled and wet. When it occurs to you to enjoy the storm, open to the wind and rain, engage with the elements as playmates, yeah, bliss.

        In my experience, suicide is just a portal to a slightly more challenging parallel universe. It seems the lessons want to be learned so keep getting harder until they get through. I guess those of us who steadfastly refuse to pay any attention are destroying our selves, physical death or otherwise. Or, they could give in, accept the call of starvation, and eat the damn cake, drink the champagne, dance to the piper's tune, and sacrifce their finely sewn misery.
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  • Triona
    Triona
    offline 10

    Re: evolution and 'painful' emotions

    Mon, August 31, 2009 - 4:24 PM
    The last time
    The black curtain beckoned
    I was newly settled in Oakland

    Having bet the house and
    Sacrificed my husband
    To save my soul

    Lost conspicuously
    In doubt and cynicism

    I bet the tangible
    For the intangible

    The home the man
    For hope and love

    For love greater
    Than me and mine

    I was newly settled in Oakland
    When the dark curtain fell

    It’s velvety folds
    Heavy upon my shoulders

    The flayed Velcro hem
    Tearing through my tender heart

    Doubt flogged me and
    Forced me to my knees
    Seething

    Where is that burning passion now

    I prepared to surrender
    Making a checklist of possibilities
    When the telephone rang

    It was my big brother
    He had bad news
    He had been fired from his job
    His wife ran over the dog
    And our little brother was in the hospital
    Attempted suicide

    Again the phone rang
    It was my newly estranged husband
    The man who put on a suit coat
    To tell me my Mother had passed
    Was on the line, his voice brave,
    “We’ve got some bad news here.”

    His mother died
    A sudden heart attack
    Home alone with our son

    It was then I knew for sure
    This heaviness is not all mine
    In the future
    When the black curtain falls

    I’ll pull it back and look again to the world
    And say a prayer
    Of compassion
    For all of us
    And our suffering

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