How can what doesn’t exist stand for anything of value?
From this incapacity to see broadly comes a failure to conceptualize anything long-term. Even though egos don’t really exist, they do believe they will ‘die’ and this makes the belief in 'existence' a very desperate affair, demanding much-term short suffering and sacrifice.
Because all egos believe they will eventually cease to exist (which is how an ego actually identifies itself) they are very adept at pursuing short-term results. This is because the long-term (big-picture) doesn’t really consist of results or solutions, but processes and horizons.
Egos need results that demand sacrifice and sacrifice is always associated with suffering. An ego that does NOT suffer through sacrifice would have NO reason to believe it exists, since how else does a self actualize, if not through sacrifice? Sacrifice and suffering is endemic to the egocentric belief system (“you”).
Therefore, we can easily understand how not being able to envision a broad perspective has resulted in the current deteriorating world crisis. Suffering is “arising’ at an accelerated rate as more egos experience greater sacrifice in playing finite games. In the coming years (and even months), all ego-centered collective enclaves (nation, states, regions, communities, families, individuals) will experience significant suffering through the slow dissolution of the monetary value-systems that have been devised to avoid the big picture by demanding self-actualization through short-term egocentric results.
In the past century, many egos have become so deeply accustomed to the monetary-value system of egocentric self-actualizing, that engagement with others outside of this system has become practically non-existent. We even teach our children how best to succeed in these games and such teachings we believe are a product of "love" and necessary to existence.
This is also apparent in spiritual circles in which spiritual “masters” compete for short-term titles and prizes by teaching short-term, spiritualized, techno-skills promising rapid self-actualizing results that have little or no focus on long-term, big-picture processes or horizons. This spirituality-in-a-box, or just-add-water-salvation, provides short-term egocentric value, but reinforces the current disengaged separatism that has allowed ‘individuals’ to abstract themselves from any process that envisions horizons. This is because a ‘horizon’ is infinite and to envision horizons requires infinite play.
Finite players cannot envision horizons because a horizon has no outcome or reward that can be prepared for and thus, expected.
Horizons can be imagined but not seen. Any attempt to ‘perceive’ a horizon locks it into place, thereby, causing its disappearance. The closer you get to a horizon, the farther away it becomes. Horizons emphasize process, but naturally negate outcomes. Egos demand outcomes for which to measure actual ‘existence,’ which relates to the games of “self-actualizing.” All self-actualizing games demand sacrifice through which an ego can realize ‘actual’ results and, although self-actualizing is seen by many egos as involving a process, it is a finite process in which rewards are expected and prepared for through much suffering and sacrifice.
Egos rarely engage in games that do not demand sacrifice, since all results must be associated with sacrifice in order to be considered in anyway rewarding (“no pain, no gain”). This reinforces short-term processes that fail to envision the big-picture and, therefore, fail to envision horizons. A world experiencing increasing degrees of suffering and sacrifice is a world no longer capable of envisioning horizons.
The absence of a horizon allows death to end the game, when actually the game never ends.
The absence of a horizon allows death to end the game, when actually the game never ends.
Horizons emphasize process with no end, since a horizon never ends. You can never reach a horizon, but a horizon can be envisioned. Infinite players envision horizons because they thrive in process and measure self-actualizing by the ability to envision horizons through activating imagination.
Infinite players play with horizons by recognizing that such envisioning has no outcome, but goes on indefinitely. Infinite players realize that when the game never ends, no control need be applied to win the game and when control is no longer necessary, horizons miraculously appear as ‘surprising’ (but never expected).
Obviously, such envisioning is difficult for an ego solely accustomed to sacrificing for short-term results (rewards). However, in denying a need for results, engagement with horizons becomes quite surprising and such surprise is always unprepared for and unexpected. To engage with horizons the ego must let go of what it expects, thereby, expecting what it could never prepare for or predict. This allows the freedom to envision horizons and play infinitely, which has very surprising consequences for an infinite player, in the realization that sacrifice is unnecessary.
When sacrifice is no longer necessary, no control need be applied and freedom is experienced as an infinite horizon which, of course, is what freedom is.
As more egos become disillusioned with the monetary-value system of self-actualization, they may become more willing to envision horizons and play games infinitely, thereby, no longer experiencing the suffering and sacrifice necessary to finite games.
This might result in some unexpected and surprising changes on the horizon.
But only for those who can envision horizons....
Artwork by Nerrida Parfitt - "Quiet Retreat
But only for those who can envision horizons....
Hasn't the individual ego always been entrapped by the cultural ego, though? From medieval fundamentalism to the modern pursuit of the easy life, the individual ego follows the river. To stand outside of this may offer freedom for any given individual, but not necessarily the collective, and if the collective goes down, the individual will either survive by its own wit or go down with the rest.
ReplyDeleteBecause the collective does not see through the individual perspective, where then does the twain then meet? Even proposing a meeting of the minds, still, there is perspective and entrapment or freedom rests ultimately within that perspective, doesn't it? Even given that the individual mind is of itself a result of the entrapments (sufferings), it is also the vehicle of some escape from those very pitfalls, isn't it? We are born alone, we die alone even surrounded by others who are born alone and die alone. During the life in between, there appears to be many avenues.
Sole focus on either collective or individual is problematic, as I see it, when so many contrasts exist. Is there not a time to reflect and a time for action? I see both as needing to exist, because both, if too separate from each other, leads to some entrapment...either by isolation or by mob mentality. Then, the middle way has its merits in infinite possibility while walking the endless road to the endless horizon. But what is the middle way? And does it necessarily have to be defined?
Interesting post, Mike. Brings many thoughts to mind.
Blessings~
Nahnni
ReplyDeleteSorry for the delay but got caught up in that Gaia stuff. Besides, I like to give your comments some 'thought-time.'
"Hasn't the individual ego always been entrapped by the cultural ego, though?"
Hmmm...I think the individual ego is collective or "cultural." The individual part is delusional.
"Because the collective does not see through the individual perspective, where then does the twain then meet?"
Maybe it does see collectively, just attaches individual parameters to that which we all see the same.
"Even given that the individual mind is of itself a result of the entrapments (sufferings), it is also the vehicle of some escape from those very pitfalls, isn't it?"
It seems to me the individual mind is contingent on collective mind and can never escape that contingency. I've commented on this 'absolute contingency' in Gaia and will be posting an extended version of that here for discussion.
"Sole focus on either collective or individual is problematic, as I see it, when so many contrasts exist."
Could be that the contrasts are delusional? Maybe "action" is delusional too?
Lots of questions leading to more questions leading to more questions.
Maybe there aren't supposed to be any answers.
Maybe that's the rules of the infinite game...
mikeS