We let ourselves too quickly get involved in the relational routine. We find ourselves discussing with people with whom we no longer share anything, for we seem to have skimmed all the subjects. There is nothing interesting to tell each other, from the very start. We then chatter in the useless, in the factual, in stupidity, to fill the void. Habit and routine go hand in hand, when we are no longer attentive to the inner movements. We let ourself be carried into a semi-awake existence, without questioning.. We conform to a model. We do what we were told, we work, we raise kids, we pay the credit of the house. This half-hearted existence only exists in the becoming, the escape route.
The void disturbs, so we project ourselves in what we can.. abstractions, pleasures, abuses of all kinds. We are not fooled ultimately, but it seems easier to escape than to observe the fact of what has become... It is less painful in the moment.
The pain is in the accumulation, which is the product of thought. We give importance to pain to give importance to who we are. And it's the self-image that is hurt. Without any image, there are no injuries. We give importance to the ego because we are empty and superficial. The person who says "I" is a form of illusion, an accumulation in time, a psychological construction without depth. It is a series of images forming a fragmentation : being a man, worker or entrepreneur, husband, father, Catholic, right-wing, French, Parisian, owner or tenant, marathon runner or Sunday jogger, etc. The I is only made up of images that try to coexist to form a unified whole. But the fragmented being is full of contradictions, naturally, and the contradiction generates conflict and confusion.
We avoid this state of affairs in distractions : church, mosque or synagogue, however the sacred exists only outside dogmas and the conditioning in words and rituals. So there is nothing sacred in us, only simulacrum and childish beliefs, born out of fear and cupidity. Our beliefs give us a certain authority to pretend to what we are not. But it is another image making process, in addition to the others, leading to arrogance and inner emptiness.
All that one defends and that one has accumulated is of no great value, only memories, wounds, images and pleasures, certainties and beliefs; without any understanding of what forms a unified whole.
To see this honestly without flinching is the start of intelligence. And intelligence is not the fruit of thought. The accumulation of knowledge is not intelligence, sorry. However, most of our life is spent accumulating knowledge and experience. Knowledge and memory, habits and traditions are a thing of the past. They act as authorities that conditions the present. The present is the altered past projecting itself into the future.
Is it possible to live in the present without the weight of the past, without being encumbered by conditioning, free from projection and escape ?
How can we find this out ? With conditioned thinking ? Realy ? No. Thought must be completely silent in order for the individual to exist as a whole, without fragmentation nor traumas.
Comments