All Contempt is Self Contempt
I was close to ending this blog yesterday. I thought, "oh gee, I think I'm ready to go public with all my thoughts so I don't think I need this anymore." But I'm not. Some newer, yet unformed and tested thoughts feel too big still for my circle of friends and family. Any time I think something is definitive, there's a good chance I'll be proven wrong eventually. That is because things change. And that is good. The constant change of everything ensures that we never become solid stone ourselves, should we be graced with seeing that fundamental truth.
Speaking of changes, I've decided that not every single blog post needs a picture. I realized that what was at first life-giving now feels like a burden. So, I get to just drop it!
I write a lot in my personal journal. I love it. It's fun to know there's this mountain of writing, this hoard of gold, that people will never see until this heart finally stops beating. I am a dragon sitting on his pile.
And this dragon also, now, enjoys giving some gold away.
I find myself lately waking up almost every single night with epiphanies. Never in my life have I experienced so many mind-blowing thoughts that just land in my lap. It really does feel as though they are just emerging from thin air. I could no more stop them than I could catch the wind and tame it.
And now on to the main event of the evening. The big kahuna. The epiphany that struck me this morning at 3am in bed.
All contempt is self contempt.
- Mojo Potato (that's me)
Psilocybin gave me a vision of what life could be like when the "self" dies (a collection of neuronal connections that is convinced that "I" am something that must be defended at all costs and is entirely separate from everything else). This revelation has been steadily working its way into all my other thoughts. The impact is beyond profound. It's the kind of insight that has the potential to change the world.
Back to contempt. It's a concept I've been aware of for a long time. And it's one I thought needed eradicating. Another word for contempt is judgement. It's that feeling I get when I look at someone or something and think, "they're bad, they should not be like that." But do you see the contradiction hiding in that statement?
"they should not be like that"
But they are like that! How I observe them is exactly (hyperbole) how they are at this very moment. In the moment of thinking like that, in that moment where I draw upon the well of shame, I unknowingly embrace a schism between reality and my thoughts. I drift away from truth.
And once I have begun the drift it's easier to continue in that direction. I start ruminating about how that person should change. How they should be more like me, or more like this, or more like that. I stop seeing what is and replace it with a hallucination.
Shame and judgement are indicators of a hallucination.
Aside: I kid you not, I did not plan most of what I'm writing. I sat down with nothing more than a vague idea. But I'm watching myself write and I'm like, "damn, that's good shit." It's like watching an article I myself want to read suddenly emerge in front me. As though I'm watching an LLM generating something spectacular word by word.
Another thought: from the reference point of one human being, other people are nothing more than models in their mind. My wife exists, for me, as an idea in my head. The longer I know her, the more accurate my model becomes, but it will never be fully accurate. She's a moving target. And even if she wasn't. The complexity of her is far beyond anything my mind could ever hope to fully contain.
The moment I start feeling anger toward her is a potential moment of revelation about myself. Something about the model in my head isn't matching reality. My feelings are the sign post of that.
It can be hard to see because anger is mostly tied into other mental loops for me. The usual thought that comes after anger is, "you shouldn't be angry at your wife." But that thought ends up looping endlessly in shame. If I can see myself clearly, I can see that I'm angry because something she did actually reveals some part of me I have yet to know. For example, perhaps I really value the truth, so when she says something untrue about me, I get angry.
In that, anger affords an opportunity for further self understanding. Anger isn't a bad thing to be eliminated. It's a chance for more for me! But the key thing, in this case, is that it's for me. If I let anger become about controlling anything (even myself), I've lost my ability to see clearly. And seeing is all we've really got.
Just because anger reveals something about me, doesn't make her behavior necessarily something that should continue. She's often critical and controlling of me. Those behaviors, in the long run, are counterproductive to her values. At least, that's my current understanding of her values, and I can bring it up with her in a calm way to see if that's actually what's happening (usually she's scared when she tries to control me). I can be clear-eyed and aware of this without needing to judge her. It's at that point I can think strategically about what move I'd like to make next. But it's critical that I not see myself as something "other" or "better" than her. Otherwise I'll just be hallucinating and drifting off into space.
This concept I'm talking about here isn't some magical spiritual insight. I think it's simply a complicated way of saying: just relax. Now, the "just" in that phrase is load bearing, but the phrase remains accurate in my experience.
It's 3:51am now and I really need to sleep. And actually it's 4:10am because I did some editing. :yawn: And now it's 7:15am and I did more editing cause it's fun!