Refresher Course on Enlightenment

[Cainad (dec.)]

Author's note: I wrote this just now, in the span of maybe an hour. It's probably rambling and disjointed, but I hope I'm getting my idea across. The thoughts presented here may not apply to everyone, but it seemed significant to me. I demand criticism (please). Have me rewrite the whole damn thing, if you think it's necessary.



Refresher Course on Enlightenment

So here you are. Right now you're probably feeling like you're on the right track, philosophically speaking. You read something new every once in a while, maybe an expansion on something you read before, or perhaps something new entirely.

If you've gotten anywhere at all, think about that feeling. You've figured out some important truths, are now open and receptive to new thoughts and ideas, and other good stuff. What do you think is next?

Yep, you guessed it: go back and re-enlighten yourself. You've forgotten half the stuff that set you on this path in the first place, and yet it still affects you in one way or another. Fact is, you might be close to making the same mistake that lots of people make: you don't know where your thoughts are coming from. You've probably changed up your Black Iron Prison a lot during your life, but eventually you have to let it settle and allow your mind to reorganize itself. Enlightenment can be exhausting.

When was the last time you tried–really seriously tried–to grasp the concept of infinity? It's a thrill the first couple times, but eventually you need to calm down and start thinking about more down-to-earth things. However, the experience won't stay fresh in your mind, and when an experience like that gets buried too deep you can forget that it's influencing your decisions. When the Shrapnel penetrates really far, you can forget that it's there. There are some pieces you've probably chosen to keep, but if they're really big it might be important to keep them close to the surface.

Incidentally, this is probably why most of the "real" religions (ha ha!) have prayers and rituals and all manner of things to inspire religious experiences. Every time they pray or chant or meditate, they're taking a refresher course in the Shrapnel of their particular faith. We (and I use the term so lightly it's ridiculous) don't have it quite so easy, because for us it usually isn't about keeping old Shrapnel or strengthening the bars of the BIP, but changing them. That's rather more difficult, because it can't be ritualized or made routine without losing its essential purpose. So we have to take a different approach.

Remember that you are a distinct, separate entity, and no matter how deep the Shrapnel gets, it's still Shrapnel and not part of you. You are not made up of parts, because you are singular being that experiences life, with its Shrapnel and Black Iron Prisons, not a jumble of those things all mixed together. Those things shape your personality, but they are not you.

You will, and probably should, choose to keep certain pieces of Shrapnel. If you spend all your time rearranging it you won't get anywhere, you'll just become neurotic about having the right Shrapnel. But try to remind yourself from time to time  that even the bits you chose to keep were chosen for a reason. Try to remember that reason every once in a while, and if you can't, well, ditch it. You may find that you don't agree with your reasoning from years ago.

This isn't about living in the past. This is about cleaning your metaphorical closet every once in a while. It's about looking at the old photo album of your life, remembering what you've experienced and keeping yourself consciously aware of what you're doing, rather than letting the stuff build up and leaving you back where you started before you came down this path: loaded down with Shrapnel, trapped in the BIP.

[Eve]

Very nice, Cainad. I'm not sure I agree that people aren't made up of parts; I want to give it some more thought before I get too much into that, though. "This isn't about living in the past. This is about cleaning your metaphorical closet every once in a while. It's about looking at the old photo album of your life, remembering what you've experienced and keeping yourself consciously aware of what you're doing, rather than letting the stuff build up and leaving you back where you started before you came down this path" is probably my favorite part.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Thank you. It is a very jumbled piece, and probably not as coherent as it should be.

I'm traveling into the territory of what one does after breaking out of the BIP (or rearranging it, depending on which school of thought you subscribe to). I'm bound to get totally fucking lost out here.

[Valerie - Gone]

I like this piece. It's another one that I want to print and put on my wall, to serve as a reminder of what I'm trying to do and accomplish, and how to do it.

In particular I liked:

You may find that you don't agree with your reasoning from years ago.

and

It's about looking at the old photo album of your life, remembering what you've experienced and keeping yourself consciously aware of what you're doing, rather than letting the stuff build up and leaving you back where you started before you came down this path: loaded down with Shrapnel, trapped in the BIP.

The first I liked because it's very true, at least in my life. I liked the metaphor of the second, how it was worded. 

Eve, I'm not trying to argue with you directly, but this

I'm not sure I agree that people aren't made up of parts;

got me writing this:

We're not a sum of our individual parts. Many people have the same basic parts, but still manage to be different from each other. How you choose to react to something, I think that's part of what makes you, you. If we're made up of parts, doesn't that kind of indicate that we're predictable, on an individual level (as opposed to a species level)? If we can map out the parts and how they interact with each other, then we can begin to predict the outcomes of those interactions, right? At least, with machines, I think that's true. But people have proven time and again that we aren't quite so simple. If we are made up of parts, it's not solely parts. There's this unpredictable other that makes us people.

It's not very fluent, but that's what I got after reading what you said. I'd like to hear what you think about it, once you've given more thought as to why you don't agree that people aren't made up of parts.

Sorry, Cainad, for getting off topic. It's easier to write about something when you disagree with it than when you agree with it, for me anyway. Also, I didn't really have anything to add. You're leaving territory I've barely even gotten into (trying to break out or rearrange my BIP) and going into territory I have no experience with (what you do after you've done so), so I can't really give you any good advice on this piece.

[Xooxe]

When was the last time you tried–really seriously tried–to grasp the concept of infinity? It's a thrill the first couple times, but eventually you need to calm down and start thinking about more down-to-earth things. However, the experience won't stay fresh in your mind, and when an experience like that gets buried too deep you can forget that it's influencing your decisions. When the Shrapnel penetrates really far, you can forget that it's there. There are some pieces you've probably chosen to keep, but if they're really big it might be important to keep them close to the surface.

You need to explain this more. If a shard is especially tasty then what's the problem with letting it influence you behind the scenes? If you keep it close to the surface then it's bound to lose its freshness. Becoming effortlessly familiar with something usually kills the "wow" and integrates it as a mundane part of everyday life. Listen to your favourite song every day and eventually you'll get bored. Recite The Lord's Prayer every day for a lifetime and perhaps it'll be 'real' but merely routine. I'd prefer a Post-Amazing Wow Disorder triggered without command and packaged for long-lasting freshness.

Remember that you are a distinct, separate entity, and no matter how deep the Shrapnel gets, it's still Shrapnel and not part of you. You are not made up of parts, because you are singular being that experiences life, with its Shrapnel and Black Iron Prisons, not a jumble of those things all mixed together. Those things shape your personality, but they are not you.

You could argue either that we are one thing or made up of many, but still, if you're going to absorb Shrapnel then it probably says something about both it and yourself. Two people could walk into a museum, one goes "wow", and the other "oh". If an experience shapes your perspective and affects you deeply then you're probably receptive to it at some level. C-G, A-T kind of springs to mind. C isn't G but it's got a lot to do with what it's willing to interact with. [That was a crap metaphor but I'll leave it in anyway.]

This isn't about living in the past. This is about cleaning your metaphorical closet every once in a while. It's about looking at the old photo album of your life, remembering what you've experienced and keeping yourself consciously aware of what you're doing, rather than letting the stuff build up and leaving you back where you started before you came down this path: loaded down with Shrapnel, trapped in the BIP.

I'm not sure I get exactly what you're saying. I think that a big problem with your post is that you've written about something positive but with prisons in mind and plenty to lose from it. I guess that BIP came about from the realisation that we can improve, but when something goes right, then what's the point in planning further escape? It just sounds like the metaphor of rearranging your prison cell again.

Some things are just good, and if you've realised something important then there's no real reason why you can't do it again in some way without too much fear of going backwards. If this is perpetual prison then the jailors must be incompetent.

We're not a sum of our individual parts. Many people have the same basic parts, but still manage to be different from each other. How you choose to react to something, I think that's part of what makes you, you. If we're made up of parts, doesn't that kind of indicate that we're predictable, on an individual level (as opposed to a species level)? If we can map out the parts and how they interact with each other, then we can begin to predict the outcomes of those interactions, right? At least, with machines, I think that's true. But people have proven time and again that we aren't quite so simple. If we are made up of parts, it's not solely parts. There's this unpredictable other that makes us people.

We live on one planet and the weather is tough enough to try and predict. To make it easier when creating a forecast we separate the Earth into different interacting parts and functions. In the same way, we can make it easier to predict how someone is going to behave by breaking them down into parts and functions, even casually I guess. Neither are completely predictable or uncertain, but the difference is that we're a bit more complex with a greater amount of flexible 'pivots' and 'currents' or whatever you want to specifically call them.

Separating the air and oceans into sliced layers based upon temperature and flow direction helps a lot to try and tell what is happening, but it doesn't mean that the boundry deffinately exists. The layers can't be completely separate since cool water does heat up and switch to a different layer in some places more than others and vice versa with the cooling. Also, it's not useful to say that the entire ocean is one indivisible entity since we've discovered a pattern within it that we can lock down to a reasonably accurate boundry, making our understanding of the world slightly less hazy.

I'm almost agreeing with you but I'm not sure whether I could say that something is a whole thing or many parts in every situation. If we weren't able to separate experience into both the hollistic and reductionistic then everything would seem like either one huge nothing or an incomprehensible mush of infinite parts. Our brains would be useless and probably wouldn't have developed in the first place.

We also seem to have a massive stake in using both determinism and free will simultaneously to describe human nature. Most of society demands that we are all solely accountable for our actions most of the time so that we feel good about our sense of security, usually in the form of law, while psychology demands that we can be broken into smaller pieces to help understand how to order each other more efficiently. If someone hit me in the face I'd probably like to think it was only them that did that and not a series of events leading back to the beginning of time, but at the same time I'd still try and find a reason for why.

Plenty of RAW 101, but I'm going to stop here before the coffee and sleep dep. make me go batshit. RAAAAAA.

[Cainad (dec.)]

When was the last time you tried–really seriously tried–to grasp the concept of infinity? It's a thrill the first couple times, but eventually you need to calm down and start thinking about more down-to-earth things. However, the experience won't stay fresh in your mind, and when an experience like that gets buried too deep you can forget that it's influencing your decisions. When the Shrapnel penetrates really far, you can forget that it's there. There are some pieces you've probably chosen to keep, but if they're really big it might be important to keep them close to the surface.

You need to explain this more. If a shard is especially tasty then what's the problem with letting it influence you behind the scenes? If you keep it close to the surface then it's bound to lose its freshness. Becoming effortlessly familiar with something usually kills the "wow" and integrates it as a mundane part of everyday life. Listen to your favourite song every day and eventually you'll get bored. Recite The Lord's Prayer every day for a lifetime and perhaps it'll be 'real' but merely routine. I'd prefer a Post-Amazing Wow Disorder triggered without command and packaged for long-lasting freshness.

You're thinking of the metaphor in reverse terms from the way I am. What you call "keeping close to the surface so that it loses its freshness" I call "allowing it to penetrate deep." I know that we can't keep interesting or desirable Shrapnel always present in our conscious mind ("at the surface"), but I'm saying that we should remind ourselves from time to time that it's there. Even if it's "good" Shrapnel we may, at a later time in our lives, change our minds and choose to reject or modify it, but we can't if we forget it's there. Even our supposedly Enlightened thoughts are directed by the experiences and impressions we've had, and from my perspective it's important to keep up the process of analyzing the motives lurking directly beneath our immediately conscious mind. Not all the time perhaps, but every once in a while.

(I realize it sounds like hippie pseudoscience when I use terms like "immediately conscious mind." I'm doing my best here.)

Remember that you are a distinct, separate entity, and no matter how deep the Shrapnel gets, it's still Shrapnel and not part of you. You are not made up of parts, because you are singular being that experiences life, with its Shrapnel and Black Iron Prisons, not a jumble of those things all mixed together. Those things shape your personality, but they are not you.

You could argue either that we are one thing or made up of many, but still, if you're going to absorb Shrapnel then it probably says something about both it and yourself. Two people could walk into a museum, one goes "wow", and the other "oh". If an experience shapes your perspective and affects you deeply then you're probably receptive to it at some level. C-G, A-T kind of springs to mind. C isn't G but it's got a lot to do with what it's willing to interact with. [That was a crap metaphor but I'll leave it in anyway.]

I agree that how we react to Shrapnel is influenced by the Shrapnel that we've previously encountered. I think I was trying to separate the things that influence our decisions from the part of us (whoops, shot my statement in the foot right there) that actually makes the final decisions. This may in fact be entirely unnecessary to the rest of my piece; I'm going to have to think on it more.

This isn't about living in the past. This is about cleaning your metaphorical closet every once in a while. It's about looking at the old photo album of your life, remembering what you've experienced and keeping yourself consciously aware of what you're doing, rather than letting the stuff build up and leaving you back where you started before you came down this path: loaded down with Shrapnel, trapped in the BIP.

I'm not sure I get exactly what you're saying. I think that a big problem with your post is that you've written about something positive but with prisons in mind and plenty to lose from it. I guess that BIP came about from the realisation that we can improve, but when something goes right, then what's the point in planning further escape? It just sounds like the metaphor of rearranging your prison cell again.

Some things are just good, and if you've realised something important then there's no real reason why you can't do it again in some way without too much fear of going backwards. If this is perpetual prison then the jailors must be incompetent.

The first bit is almost exactly what my post is arguing against (and I truly mean that in the nicest possible way), and the second bit is almost exactly what it's arguing in favor of. It's all too easy to escape from the BIP once and then assume you're free of it forever. It doesn't work like that, from my point of view. You go through the introspective, self-rearranging process once, twice, a million times, for two reasons that I thought of just now: [1] There's probably a lot more Shrapnel than you first realize, and [2] You may, at a later time, disagree with the new Shrapnel you chose to keep the first time you enlightened yourself (or expanded your mind, or rearranged your BIP, or whatever). The process is not continuous, per se, but it is ongoing, if you're willing to pretend that makes sense.

As for whether or not the BIP is perpetual prison, well, I'm sure LMNO and Ratatosk will be happy to explain that for you.


Just so I'm not a hypocrite, I am thinking about the Shrapnel that led me to write this piece the way I did. I know the final inspiration came from a whole bunch of experiences I've had in the last 72 hours, but I'm starting to see some older stuff back in there too.