Introducing the Craftmatic Egocentric “Slice and Dice Machine"

I have no idea what might happen next.

Do you?

So why care?

The “journey” you think you’re on is NOT the one you’re on and the path you’re following is not the one that will take you “there.” But don’t sweat the small stuff. Just keep doing whatever it is you’re doing.

Most of your “life” has happened to you, with little involvement from “you.” Life unfolds and you adjust accordingly, based on thought patterns that were provided to you by a “world.” Yet, it does seem these thoughts are conjured up entirely by your “self” and that “you” have something to do with it. Can a “self” that has no unique attributes, be considered a separate “self”? If you were molded and shaped exclusively by an outside world (which includes your body), can you still proclaim some sense of “individuality” separate from that which made you?

The egocentric “I-Me” adores all attempts by itself at dismantling itself to reach some “true” center of itself. It relishes the constant pursuit of elevating the “self” above itself by cutting away parts of itself in the belief that this will eventually result in freedom from itself. It eagerly lives in anticipation of each new egocentric experience of “selflessness.” Ego longs for the day it will no longer be egocentric through its serial conceptual lobotomizing.

Something must be “done” in order to get “there.”

But what???

Ego-self cannot comprehend doing nothing. There aren’t any neuro-circuits that allow for NOTHING and all circuits lead to SOMETHING. The defining factor of egocentricity is “doing” something about itself, as a means of knowing itself. To laughingly inform an egocentric self that everything it does has one purpose and that is to maintain self-awareness, is absurd to a brain packed full of neuro-circuits that require meaning to maintain the currents and current to maintain the meanings.

So egocentrics must keep ‘doing.’ You can’t NOT do. It is impossible NOT to have a goal. Try NOT having any goal at all. 

There must be some place to get to and some journey to get you “there.” There are many “theres” to get to, whether you choose to engage or disengage your “world,” there is a “path” toward attaining that goal. You just have to pick the one that fits well with your circuitry (and you always will. You have no choice). There must be some meditation, some mantra, some religion or spirituality, some ideological premise, some skill or some practice worth doing. There must be some guru, some master, some guy somewhere, who knows what to “do.” Go to any so-called “spiritual” forum and watch how it’s all regurgitated ad infinitum (...ad nauseam). A thousand years from now the same platitudes will be mouthed until death terminates the brain waves that produce linguistic drivel. Each year some new spiritual celebrity gives you the same sugar coated diarrhea, to soothe your tired soul.

Your life has been a series of choices, each an antecedent of the next and each time you think you’re just a tad bit closer, there's always…the next choice to be made. You’ve had no choice in your choices, just as you will have no choice in the moment of your death. Hence,choices will be made regardless, and each choice is an embryo of the next.

The paradox is that the more you do, the more you must do. The more you cut away from egocentricity, the more there is to cut away. The more you believe you have deflated your ego (as if “you” and ego were separate) the more inflated it becomes (take out one drug dealer and ten more pop up to take his place).

But go ahead keep slicing away at the “self, because with each cut comes an experience and each experience adds to “you.” Not like the old “you,” mind ya, but a better, more improved version (less is always more) each and every time. One that you can take pride in because it proves you are not like ‘them,” and isn’t that what “awakening” is all about? They repulse you and that repulsion is the premise from which you seek alternatives. But, alas, “you” are like them and everything you do demonstrates that to “you,” up to, and including your end.

What you give “attention” to in any moment is based on developmentally imprinted neuro-circuitry. You were taught how, and what, to “think” and everything you aspire to is based on a socio-culturally conditioned brain circuits.

Ego-transcendence, in all its “spiritual” forms, is nothing more than your attempt to escape your brain. You don’t like what it shows you? You find the thoughts, generated through socially conditioned neuro-circuits, that you had no choice in the making, often negative and disparaging and you want out?

Hence, you look to the world you seek to escape for aid in generating additional circuits that you hope will eventually lead to an exit door. You seek out those whose words ignite positive limbic system emotional experiences in the pleasure centers of the brain. You want the guru that gives the whiz-bang, yo!

But eventually all circuits lead back to you. In other words, the circuits generated through the words of your beloved spiritual teacher must eventually be overwhelmed by the reality that you must negotiate, regardless of what the master tells you.

In other words, if you’re getting all jiggy with the new practice or technique the “master” taught you, it won’t make a spit of difference when that virus or bacteria knocks you on your butt. If you lose you job and can’t pay the mortgage, you can do your spiritual “autolysis” till the cows come home, but you’re still gonna lose your house and that sucks cause you haven’t finished your spiritual “autolysis” yet! Damn, if you’d only be finished, life wouldn’t suck so bad, right?

Reality is in your brain and manifests through a billion neurons branching out through miles and miles of neuro-networks. Other than brain damage or suicide, there is no shutting this stuff off and it will take you wherever it will (even to brain damage or suicide!).

But there is pretending that you have overcome your circuitry and are no longer affected by the “thoughts” it generates.

And there is a circuit for that too…