weirdway

I have a bad habit of logging into this account every twelve months or so, usually when I'm at a low ebb and need to get re-energised, writing a long post which tries and fails to encapsulate everything I've thought, discovered or struggled with since my last post, and then neglecting to respond to any replies.

(I'm sorry. I do read and highly value the replies, I promise.)

I'm sorry to have seen valuable members drift away, and to have watched this sub, and r/oneirosophy, become so quiet - but I fully recognise I am part of the problem. I notice that u/AesirAnatman posted a little while back about returning to r/oneirosophy, or starting a new sub/blog. I think that would be great and Aesir, if you get that up and running, please let me know, I'd be keen to contribute. I think we inadvertently made this sub a little too rigid and it stifled conversation - something more casual might be better? (Casual but not low-effort, if you get me. Gods save us from a sub where every second post is a newcomer asking "Just found this sub, is this real/what is this all about?" But equally, maybe every post doesn't need to be an essay of publishable quality. I'd be keen just to read a paragraph about the walk in the park you took where you experienced a cool moment of synchronicity, etc, if you don't have anything "big" to say.)

I gather we're a fairly rule-averse group of people, so I don't think there's much use in trying to lay down the law about how often people need to post, but I think it might be valuable if those of us who are still flogging this horse made a loose commitment, whether here, at r/oneirosophy, or somewhere new entirely, to try to post and interact once or twice a week. There are posts in both of these subs which have been life changing for me, and while I know we've said a lot, repetition has its value, and I still don't think we've said all there is to say anyway.

If we had, we wouldn't still fucking be in this capitalist hellhole world, would we?

So, in summary, I'm in if you lot are in.

And to throw in some commentary on the work while I'm at it, I've been thinking a lot about humility, arrogance and the trap of needing to feel worthy.

Back when I was in my early twenties I entered a pretty severe depressive slump because it suddenly occurred to me that I was surrounded by people who were, from my perspective, more deserving of my dreams and aspirations than I was. What right had I to be fit when there were people who rose earlier, trained harder, ate healthier? What right had I to happiness when there were people who were more generous and proactive?

In my head, before I had the right to have whatever I wanted, it was necessary that I should work as hard as the hardest working person who also wanted what I wanted, or suffer as badly as the suffering-est person who also wanted what I wanted.

And the resultant depression was no doubt from the impossibility of achieving this, even if I threw everything I had at it.

For one thing, the world is, as we know, extremely uneven when it comes to giving people "what they deserve."

Let's say you want to be thin and fit. All other things being equal then yes, the person who works out and watches what they eat is likely to be thinner and fitter than the person who does not.

But the person who is "earning" the desirable physique could find themselves the victim of some catastrophe outside of their control - an earthquake, say - which could instantaneously, permanently and negatively alter their bodies, irrespective of how much work they've put in or how much they have "earned" a body that fits their desires.

Then, too, there are all the other factors outside your control which eliminate the possibility of a level playing field; genetics, socio-economic position, geographical location, etc, etc, etc.

So, while there is a degree to which you can kind of, maybe, almost, sort of earn what you want in this world, worthiness carries far less weight than a multitude of other factors in determining what you get/what you experience.

It's why child rapists can be elected president or spend their lives drifting around the world in private jets, while genuinely wonderful, decent people live in poverty and agony.

Maybe there is even a degree to which we enjoy this paradigm, though I am personally well-tired of a system which so consistently rewards awfulness. But I also struggle to picture a world in which everyone gets only and exactly what they deserve - that might be tiresome in a different way.

So. We've determined the world is unfair. We've determined that even if you do all the conventional things that are theoretically necessary to "earn" what you desire, you're still not guaranteed to get it.

Of course, magic is the province of those who wish to change the world. Maybe our insistence (I say our, because I suspect others struggle with this too) that we meet some intangible, poorly-defined standard before we are "allowed" to have what we desire - in our cases, power beyond that of conventional humans - is a response to the injustice of the world.

Are we possibly inflicting a standard upon ourselves that doesn't exist in the world because we resent the lack of such a standard in the world?

And can anyone hope for success under such a mental construct?

If you have mental commitments to the paradigm of an unfair world, and you also have a commitment to the notion that you will be able to transcend the unfair world once you've finally met your internal criteria, which of those two clashing mental constructs is going to win? What’s to stop the unfair world/reality from saying “bruh – I’m unfair, remember? No.” when you approach it with your hard-won worthiness/magical powers voucher in hand.

You're trying to beat an unfair system by first pandering to it and then expecting it to behave completely at odds with its internal logic just this one time. It's a paradox that won't work - or will only work if you’re very, very lucky.

Clearly another approach is demanded.

Worthiness is inherent. It is inherent, or it is non-existent, depending on how you want to frame it. And that, for me, mentally addled as I am by this ridiculous existence, is a dill of a pickle to get my head around.

The "you must work x hard to be y worthy to earn the right to z results" is a toxic, conventional human mindset which yields limited results in the conventional world and even fewer results in the magical world. You need to start re-conceptualising things in your head and train yourself to realise you are outside and above this construct.

How?

• 1: don't confuse morality and worthiness.

I'm not saying be a dick. I'd actively encourage you not to be a dick, in fact, but that's because I believe that kindness and compassion have inherent value. But it is possible to be an absolute raging fuckcunt and to achieve the kind of magical control we're pursuing. If you're going to be committed to kindness and justice, be committed to these things for their own sake, or for the sake of the good things that come along with them (i.e. a more pleasant existence) rather than because you think that being kind will allow you to manifest a winning lottery ticket. Trying to perform magic by acting like the human idea of a saint is like trying to fill your car up with apple juice instead of fuel. Apple juice is great, but it won't make your car go. Compassion is great, but it isn't a magic wand.

• 2: Cultivate arrogance.

I'm stealing/paraphrasing from an old nefandi post here, but basically you need to set yourself up as ultimate and everything else up as penultimate.

This isn't easy. It isn't easy to be arrogant when you stumble getting onto an escalator and everyone laughs. It isn’t easy to be arrogant when you need to go to a job you hate five days a week just to survive.

It's hard work to remind yourself that you are not what you experience and to distance yourself, and your idea of yourself, from the things that happen to you and even from your own actions. It’s hard but it’s what you must do.

A little mental trick I'm employing at the moment - if your idea of worthiness is still snagged on how hard you work and how much you suffer, you can feed the amount of work and suffering you're experiencing in your quest for arrogance back into your worthiness, making you even more arrogant.

This isn't entirely skilful in that you're still feeding that notion that worthiness is a pre-requisite of magic, but sometimes it's easier to chip away at bad habits slowly than to try to toss them out in one go.

So that’s where I’m at. If you have any better tricks to get around that whole “prove yourself to yourself” circle that gets you nowhere, I’d be glad to hear them.