5 ms·

It's kind of funny how people go through most of their life trying to rationalize going one way or the another, thinking they finally find the right way but the

It's kind of funny how people go through most of their life trying to rationalize going one way or the another, thinking they finally find the right way but then realizing this way has it's own problems too. I call it the yin-yang problem for myself. I am absolutely certain people had this concept a lot earlier than the Chinese and all over the world too. But yin-yang is simple for me to remember, especially when I fall into the trap myself. From my early teens to now in my mid forties I have been trying to find the right balance between: 1) having strong values/principles, not accepting people or at least people's behaviors that I consider below my standards and 2) not being a fucking holier-than-though for whom nobody and nothing is good enough. And this is not a purely intellectual pursuit either, I have been burned by going either direction in ways that impacted my quality of life. Religion and philosophy has handled this a long time ago. But my upbringing and education have been completely secular. Religion and philosophy where laughed at and turned into the straw man variants of "yeah, right, there's an old guy with a beard on a cloud". And now, no matter how hard I try to forcefully inject yin-yang into my rational mind it doesn't take roots. I think reason is not a good soil for it. And think it's way to late to incorporate it into other parts of my personality. I said it's funny because, like in the medium post, you find out you need yin-yang to learn yin-yang. And because going with a complete rational and secular education I am of course far from the balance line. Fucking yin-yang, the original catch-22 which keeps fucking me up.

bigyikes 3y ago
Your bit about fertile soil resonated with me. Have you taken psychedelics? Not to be that guy, but it’s good fertilizer for the mind. I feel my brain has been permanently much more accepting of non-rational (note: not irrational) modes of thinking since having a psychedelic experience.
- trabant00 3y ago
  Very little once. But I've been around people who do regularly. And I agree they make you accept non rational thoughts, problem is, what exactly you accept. I've seen examples where people accepted quite bad things because of various drugs.
  - yadingus 3y ago
    People accept quite bad things due to pure reason, too. The filter of reason should not be the one overseeing everything else, but that of wisdom. Both mystic experiences (an umbrella under which psychedlic experiences fall under) and reason should be submitted to a larger view of the world.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
aftoprokrustes 3y ago
Actually, I do not think that a strong secular education makes it more difficult to achieve your two goals than a strict religious education. Just pointing at the fact that one of the extremes you want to avoid is framed with religious vocabulary (holier) kind of shows that religion is no antidote to the extremes (as one saw quite a lot in history). One of the main things I practiced in the last years is to increase my "ontological flexibility", both by rational consideration of the limitations of my mental models, and by actual meditative practice of developing different "ways of looking", including theistic and animist ones. What this kind of practice does is (i) to reduce unhelpful attachment to fixed views (because I now experience a few of them, incompatible with each other but internally consistent, in a regular basis), and (ii) to open to a range of beauty that I did not suspected, and which is hard to put into words (and even harder to not make sound super cheesy). I am mostly following this kind of teachings, though I read texts from religious thinkers of every religion and time in history: https://hermesamara.org/teachings https://hermesamara.org/teachings What I wonder, though, is how much influence this had on my behavior. Even if my experie ce changed quite a lot, it could be little, as related in this article: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/21/the-pnse-paper/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/21/the-pnse-paper/
zoogeny 3y ago
> no matter how hard I try to forcefully inject yin-yang into my rational mind it doesn't take roots One thing to keep in mind is that it does not have to take root in the rational mind. One of the core principles of certain spiritual traditions is that we aren't our rational mind. The rational mind was added at some point during the evolution of the human brain, maybe residing in the pre-frontal cortex. The classical idea is that the ego-mind assumes (or insists) that it is the core of your self. But in reality your ego was added to the self as a subordinate. Meditation practice is in part a humbling of the ego mind, a reminder that you can and will continue to exist when the rational mind is silenced.

bigyikes 3y ago

Your bit about fertile soil resonated with me. Have you taken psychedelics? Not to be that guy, but it’s good fertilizer for the mind. I feel my brain has been permanently much more accepting of non-rational (note: not irrational) modes of thinking since having a psychedelic experience.

trabant00 3y ago
Very little once. But I've been around people who do regularly. And I agree they make you accept non rational thoughts, problem is, what exactly you accept. I've seen examples where people accepted quite bad things because of various drugs.
- yadingus 3y ago
  People accept quite bad things due to pure reason, too. The filter of reason should not be the one overseeing everything else, but that of wisdom. Both mystic experiences (an umbrella under which psychedlic experiences fall under) and reason should be submitted to a larger view of the world.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

aftoprokrustes 3y ago

Actually, I do not think that a strong secular education makes it more difficult to achieve your two goals than a strict religious education. Just pointing at the fact that one of the extremes you want to avoid is framed with religious vocabulary (holier) kind of shows that religion is no antidote to the extremes (as one saw quite a lot in history). One of the main things I practiced in the last years is to increase my "ontological flexibility", both by rational consideration of the limitations of my mental models, and by actual meditative practice of developing different "ways of looking", including theistic and animist ones. What this kind of practice does is (i) to reduce unhelpful attachment to fixed views (because I now experience a few of them, incompatible with each other but internally consistent, in a regular basis), and (ii) to open to a range of beauty that I did not suspected, and which is hard to put into words (and even harder to not make sound super cheesy). I am mostly following this kind of teachings, though I read texts from religious thinkers of every religion and time in history: https://hermesamara.org/teachings https://hermesamara.org/teachings What I wonder, though, is how much influence this had on my behavior. Even if my experie ce changed quite a lot, it could be little, as related in this article: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/21/the-pnse-paper/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/21/the-pnse-paper/

zoogeny 3y ago

> no matter how hard I try to forcefully inject yin-yang into my rational mind it doesn't take roots One thing to keep in mind is that it does not have to take root in the rational mind. One of the core principles of certain spiritual traditions is that we aren't our rational mind. The rational mind was added at some point during the evolution of the human brain, maybe residing in the pre-frontal cortex. The classical idea is that the ego-mind assumes (or insists) that it is the core of your self. But in reality your ego was added to the self as a subordinate. Meditation practice is in part a humbling of the ego mind, a reminder that you can and will continue to exist when the rational mind is silenced.