In terms of ‘where’ naïveté is located - whether in the centre or not. It seems naïveté is more a state which the ‘being’ finds itself in rather than one of the layers of the onion. It’s not that just underneath the passions ‘I’ find naïveté but rather the ‘being’ which is the passions themselves can become naive. In doing so it is ‘opening up’ to the purity of the actual, becoming somewhat ‘washed out’, allowing the wonder of it all to become apparent, and here is that blessing which offers a way out of perversity.
This is purely an experiential description of it, it is how I experience it in myself. Would be cool to hear how others see this.
The other thing I was thinking about as I was driving home is how I have personally resisted this so much! I still do.
I cannot accept that I am forever rotten, I don’t want to accept that the way out is to allow a purity which has nothing to do with ‘me’.
I can’t admit that the universe already has it all sussed out and yet all the change which has ever happened was when I finally admitted that ‘I’ couldn’t do it alone, that ‘I’ was the spanner in the works.
It’s like that last bit of pride that says ‘I’ve got it, I don’t need the universe or it’s purity’.
Because if I admit that then I have to admit that it was all over nothing, that only ‘I’ was holding ‘myself’ in place because ‘I’ was resisting this actual universe, resisting that it could be already perfect. To admit this ‘I’ would become truly meaningless, no longer needed for anything… wonder what would happen then
Right. Well this year is my 10th anniversary of not allowing anything outside of me to call the shots.
However, I am closer.
I was just pondering that nothing in my life has changed without crisis.
It is crisis which is the catalyst of change.
“Necessity is the mother of invention”
For evolution to work there is always crisis.
If actualism is to have a broader appeal, it’s cosmology must answer the question of the “origin of evil”.
Killer whales toy maliciously with their prey. Cats too. Obviously, humans are the infamous masters of inflicting unnecessary harm.
But why?
Perhaps nothing changes without crisis. Nothing evolves without a catalyst.
If Julian Jayne’s is correct, we have only been conscious of our suffering for 5000ish years.
Not even a drop in the bucket. Still, it’s indifferent to reduce it to insignificance when we consider the scale of the suffering, even what is happening as we type is more than rotten. It’s evil.
I think this is where it’s worth remembering that happy/harmless/naive is a third category of feeling along with the negative and the positive… a category of feeling where the negative & positive aren’t operating as strongly.
One attribute of children is that they aren’t as crystalized in their state of being moment-to-moment, similar to your parrots they’ll change their state of being rapidly. This means at any moment they’re that much more likely to trip upon the naive feelings, adjacent to the actual world itself. Where an adult is too busy doing important adult things (and feeling important adult feelings) to allow their ‘being’ to ‘wander’ (that would be the height of irresponsibility, after all! Dare I say - naive?)
and yet all the change which has ever happened was when I finally admitted that ‘I’ couldn’t do it alone, that ‘I’ was the spanner in the works.
