I don’t actually know the difference.
Tears running down my face.
I wish I knew the middle ground.
This is a fun game I always try to play with myself - find the third alternative. So if I find myself stuck with a certain real world value I will firstly aim to demarcate the value as well as its opposite, so in this case worship vs rebellion.
Then comes the question of - what is the third alternative, the answer cannot come just intellectually though, that’s not sufficient. I must actually find the third alternative, experientially come across it and then intellectual understanding can be activated on top of that as well.
In this case I don’t actually have a proper answer haha, but I can see that it is to do with autonomy, with standing on my own 2 feet, having confidence rooted in fact - then there is no need for the worship of another’s vision or the rebellion against it.
Well, humour is definitely the gateway.
I remember clearly being somehow perplexed by the “carry on” DVD set taking pride of place on Vineeto’s houseboat.
One can, once the tears are over, begin to find it funny.
Indeed.
In my world. Which is one of extremes. Utter extremes.
It’s fascinating in a morbid way, to watch myself deconstruct.
Seeing the images of who I imagined myself to be crumble with the advancement of age.
Hope loses it’s hold, quite naturally, if one allows it.
I think that I have been insane my whole life. Not at the start though, there is a very sunny and glowing memory there.
The problem with me is I am trying to bring something along with me which absolutely refuses to come along; The entire world.
That’s the “positive” spin. The negative “spin” is I absolutely don’t want to bring anything along. Not the world or me. I want to watch it burn.
To the point, both Worship & Rebellion are indeed existential nihilism.
To worship, one is already nothing at all.
To rebel, one is soon to be nothing at all.
The later gives rise to a flicker of hope.
I really wish now I hadn’t said anything at all. Far too melodramatic.
Indeed, to be useful, as apposed to melodramatic;
It was precisely because am I that extreme between worship and rebellion that Richard took the chance of “telling me off”…
Worship is my defence mechanism. Rebellion is my defence mechanism.
It is indeed highly appropriate to worship both ‘richard’ and Richard. There is not a god that has entered human imagination which can be counted worthy of licking the year old footsteps of this man.
Rebellion however is far more interesting. Full of blood and gore, utopian promises, and blank checks.
It is there which the journey begins.
Put one’s life where one’s words are.
I remember reading Richard write that the only thing that would impress him is someone becoming actually free from the human condition itself. Maybe leverage that.
Yeah. @actualron I think about that exact thing all the time.
How I imagined him to be a friend. When he lives in a world I cannot see.
No matter how grey my beard gets, I will not claim anything in common with him until such a time when it no longer a thing that one could care about claiming.
I think I have tried to somehow be him, because I fear a world without him. I didn’t mean too, it just came naturally that I should try to be him.
So much, that I ignored what he was saying, because trying to be him seemed plausible.
Such a madness.
‘Tis a remarkable freedom in itself – with no need to rebel at all – as all rebellion stems, primarily, from that deeply-held primordial *feeling * of disfranchisement (and its associated feelings of resentment, envy, cynicism, and so on and so forth).
-Richard on peasant mentality
(more):
…for a hunter-gatherer, the free-range life-style was epitomised by, basically, just helping oneself to whatever was available. With the advent of the property-rights way of life, however, any such ‘helping oneself’ transmogrified into being theft, larceny, stealing, despoliation, direption, and etcetera. Millennia later, all of this results in feeling-beings atavistically harbouring a deep, primordial feeling of being somehow disfranchised – the instinctual passions, being primeval, are still ‘wired’ for hunter-gathering – from some ancient ‘golden age’, wherein life was in some ill-defined way ‘free’ (e.g., ‘The Garden of Eden’), such as to affectively underpin all the class-wars (between the ‘haves and have-nots’) down through the ages.
Unless this rudimentary feeling of disfranchisement – of feeling somehow deprived of a fundamental franchise (franchise = the territory or limits within which immunity, privileges, rights, powers, etcetera may be exercised) – is primarily understood (to the point of being viscerally felt, even) any explanation of ‘peasant-mentality’ will be of superficial use only.
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Hi Andrew. Could you elaborate on this? I have no idea what you are talking about but it sounds interesting.
Hi @Alexander33
Nice to hear from you!
Both feelings, to worship and to rebel are serving the same purpose in me.
Personally, being formed as an ‘entity’ in a religious environment, “Awe” “Worship” “Devotion” et al. were built into ‘my’ makeup.
Similarly, “Rebellion” though not specifically taught to me, is the flip side of worship.
As Richard writes about on page 123 of his journal regarding Pride and Humility;
So, an example. To revere Richard, to worship, to put him on a pedestal, one is also rebelling because one doesn’t happen without the other.
To rebel is also to worship. It sounds weird, but it’s also setting up a person (real or imagined) with which to measure oneself against.
The whole time, one’s ability to think clearly is switched off.