The Systematic Valley – by existentialpervert69

2023-01-11 20:45:27

“There is a highway that results in glory
Via a valley far-off,
No person else can stroll it for you,
They will solely level the way in which.”

In this Twitter thread I described a developmental sample: you should study to carry out social roles after which unlearn these roles to turn into totally your self. In case you try and brief circuit this course of by not performing these roles within the first place, you find yourself stunted and maladapted.

This sample is all over the place. To offer an apocryphal instance: Bruce Lee discovered that he needed to train his college students to unlearn their earlier martial arts coaching. However this didn’t imply that untrained college students had been higher than martial artists at receiving his educating.

That is the systematic valley. It’s the developmental interval anybody should cross by way of on the way in which to mastery. That is the interval of attempting, and failing, to scale back any given experience to a clearly articulable, formal and technical system. It’s essential to totally and deeply study any system so as to transcend it.

C.S. Lewis wrote concerning the significance of prayer and good works within the context of salvation by grace alone: you should attempt as arduous as you may so as to admire the futility of your efforts. There are numerous Buddhist faculties of thought that train “you might be already enlightened.” What then, is the purpose of all of this meditation? In an effort to admire how pointless it was – since you had been already enlightened.

Language is a liar

Passing by way of this valley is what makes the distinction between the thought-terminating clichés of the lazy and unambitious and deep knowledge coming from a grasp – even when, superficially, they specific the identical sentiments. They don’t seem to be the identical – one has handed by way of the valley, making use of their full mind, energy and all of the legacy of approach and custom to an issue, and the opposite is making excuses to not even attempt.

Maybe you have got heard some neo-Advaitic platitudes or informal affirmations of life’s goodness and the transiency of evil: “It’s all one, man.” “It’s all good, man.” Think about an extraordinary individual saying this to you whenever you had been struggling excessive grief and hardship, and now think about a saint saying the identical factor within the face of torture and demise. The reality is just not solely within the phrases, however in your complete stance and expertise of the individual uttering them.[1]

The exhaustion of motive is the start of knowledge

Attempt to give a complete, constant and common account of ethics, epistemology or aesthetics. You’ll fail, and after failing you would possibly do certainly one of 3 issues: have interaction in a fundamentalist, dogmatic protection of a partial reply; succumb to nihilist despair; or understand that your motive and language had been completely insufficient for the issue and transfer on. As a result of what you actually encountered was not the absence of reality, magnificence, or ethical requirements on the planet however your individual failure to present a coherent description of them.

Cause is a tyrannical demi-urge that excels at developing with causes (!) why its claims ought to take precedence over all others. It tells us that past its boundaries there may be solely superstition, impulse, and savagery. However motive arises from one thing extra elementary. We are able to start to see what this elementary factor is once we try to present extra proof to issues which appear self-evident – proving or explaining why 2 and a couple of is 4. Cause seeks and fails to supply its personal justification.

If we get previous this, we will settle for that judgment does, in truth have an goal foundation however one which defies systematic articulation. A very powerful areas of human discernment can’t be diminished to a definitive, common listing of guidelines and their principled exceptions. We can not escape the burden of judgment by offloading all of our cognitive efforts onto formal guidelines, irrespective of how stable they could appear.

However motive should be exhausted – you can’t shrink from it by retreating right into a infantile world of delusional want success fantasy. In searching for an encounter with the more-than-rational which re-enchants and offers that means to the world once more, many make the error of idolizing the sub-rational, of pondering that no matter they consider in or need from the world should be true. That is frequent in common occultism and the New Age.

The Wayless Approach

Whenever you cross by way of this valley and understand that every one makes an attempt at describing the idea of discernment fail, and but discernment stays, you start to enter into the wordless, formless means of mastery. You can also make deeply right selections about your space of experience with out having the ability to cut back these selections to guidelines of thumb – and even give causes for them. You can’t bypass this course of by merely abandoning your efforts to systematize the world round you. It’s essential to push by way of to the opposite facet. It’s essential to totally admire the futility of your individual efforts.

Like all guidelines (and meta-rules) there are exceptions – and one exception is the genius, who is ready to soar straight from the pre-systematic mode to the post-systematic mode. Such individuals are freaks of nature, and never good fashions to emulate, however you additionally might have moments of genius that come to you – moments of discernment that defy or pre-empt motive.