'Oppose' is merely a dramatic term, essentially for fun. Still, I 'oppose' the sort of mental forumulations you are attracted to, which seem to 'absorb' you. And there is no 'poison' here: no ill will, no anger. I write because on some level it 'delights' me. What I am opposing is certain idea constructs that we establish in our perceptual mechanism, sort of like a software program (though that is a reductive analogy). It is very attractive and very possessive.
Note the 'biblical' phrasing, the tone. Should I answer with a similar phrasing, as if we are on the road to Nazareth? That aside, I only draw into question the mood and the image that drives this perception. Who determines that 'the soul' is a 'whore'? The ideas that permit such a characterization can be looked at, examined. I do understand the use of analogy and metaphor, but I am not so sure these are the ones I wish to be using, myself. And I am not necessarily opposed to it, nor to the idea (as it must follow from your story) of a 'father' who receives back his whoring child. But since you are bringing up this whole chain of reference (biblical stories) I must point out that there are many different levels of interpretation possible. We are not speaking a completely unrelated tongue insofar as I am inclined to believe-perceive that there exist 'ethical commands' provided (as you might say) by Spirit. These commands, expressed in the Prophetic literature (since you have brought this up I will speak this language), speak of 'whoring' in a very different way than you do. To 'whore' in the Biblical sense is to lose sight of the essential, which is a definite 'concrete' and 'tangible' and to be captured by the false, the merely personal, or the selfish (etc.) Do you suppose that you have some special right to dominate the meaning here? That your personal interpretation somehow trumps all others? Because you often 'speak' from within this particular 'language', that is, the Bible.movingalways wrote:The soul wanders like a whore, finding many moving lovers called Tangible and Concrete. Where, I ask you, as I asked myself, is her husband that moves not away from her when she asks for his Truth?
So, what I 'oppose' is your spurious interpretation, your taking these things to some outerspace level, your abstractions. I suggest that you, or rather 'someone who thinks like this', would do well to examine the predicates operating in him. And this is pretty much the role that I assume in these conversations. A sort of 'reality-check'.
So, just for the sake of clarity, though I do most certainly understand, as has always been the case here on GF, that ideas can be tremendously threatening, especially if one is opposing absolutist thinking and the addiction of reductionist thinking. Try to see it like this: it is as if I am 'arguing' with an Evangelical Christian. Those ideas are so well-establsihed, so fundamental to the personality, that any 'opposition' to them represents 'poison', or an attack, etc. You(-plural) know well what I am talking about. But what you(-plural) cannot see, will not see, is the manner in which you engage in similar thinking patterns.
I know that what I am suggesting must be vehemently opposed because what stands to be 'lost' is vast indeed (appears so anyway). The enormous construct-contraption that one has spent so much time piecing together! Now, when one moves into the later years of one's life, just imagine what the cost of disassembly is? I do not recommend that you undersake that task. It can lead to damage to the personality. I suggest, in your case, light modification. I suggest a little humor too.
But I am writing for a younger audience. For those who still have some choices (within the 'web of causality' that drives them and all of us) to organize perception in accord with another or with other potential models.
Out of curiosity, would you subscribe, generally, to Dennis's view, the one expressed just above? Are you 'birds of a feather' in that sense?
(I see Dennis's view, as I have said, as Grandly Reductive. So attactive though that he will never---from the look of it---be able to wiggle out of its grip. The ultimate question to ask is How will this serve him? What will it look like when he gets a little older? While I can't say with precise terms, I have observed the other younger men who write here and seen how this style of thinking ossifies. Not 'liberation', not 'healing' bust something more akin to hardening and shrinking. I am opposed to that 'ossification'. I am interested in far greater fluidity within our thinking even at the cost of the sacrifice of apparent gains from Absolutism).