Logic vs feeling by example
Exploring the root of disharmony
I’ve found that our external experiences are quite viscerally apparent within us, if only we took the time to feel them. The more I explore this I see that there is not much of an inside vs an outside but that the one is in the other in its entirety. But what I am saying must be felt. And it is my belief that it can be felt within you as much as it can in me.
Let’s take the topic of a king as an example. When I explore the idea that a single person (king, president, etc) can be more powerful than any other, I get a very distinct feeling throughout my body. It starts in the back of my throat as a hollow ball of sorts, with a light but compacted and spongy surface. It’s as if there’s a hollow handful of wet leaves or a wad of loosely grouped rubber bands sitting there. I can surely breathe, but there’s clearly something else lining the air canal in there. And in the focus here (as much as I would like to make up this next detail it is true) I quite literally sneezed. At this point I can’t help but compare this feeling to that of a seasonal allergy. My throat then seems to develop a post-nasal drip, a moisture resulting from the foreign objects in the passage. I start to feel it in my chest too. It feels very much like I’m having a light allergic reaction.
What this pile of leaves wants would, with logic, seem to be beyond me as I can’t have a conversation with it, except that in allowing it to take over my idea of my self since it is in me after all, I can reply directly to any question I might ask. It becomes very clear that it (now I) want to cover or take over all that I am—the throat, chest, etc—on the inside. Which at first seems annoying and counterproductive. Then I realize that it wants to completely cover me to protect me from harm, as the body normally does with mucus in response to ragweed and pollen. Ironically, like allergies the harm that we’re talking about is not in me but outside of me as we’re focused on other kings (though this is clearly harming me). So if this leaf being could have its way, it would wrap a blanket around me, throughout my body, as it protects me from danger. Or better, completely remove me from external circumstances and keep me in the house, as a case of bad allergies seems to do.
Now if safety is what this protective allergic reaction is after, it would behoove the bigger me to give it all the safety that I have so that it can realize that it doesn’t have to try and inflame every part of my body to keep me safe and away from the outside world. When I do that I find relief and freedom. The blanket turns into a simple blindfold, which I understand to mean that I should interact with the world but without the eyes, seeing from the inside out rather than the outside in.
Without the senses, my external circumstances become somewhat irrelevant—except for what I suggest at the beginning, where the one exists in the other. I can now feel that there is a void or need to step into my own kingdom. Since what’s outside becomes irrelevant with the blindfold, I’m forced to build it myself—someone has to! Then in doing so, what was once inside me gradually comes to exist outside of me until at some point I have become the king or hero or leader that I was waiting on someone else to be for me when I looked out. In reality, someone else was just filling the void that I left, creating from the inside out like I should have done all along. This is the issue with complacency. Fortunately, the circumstances—outside and inside—are there to push us to wake up and rise to the occasion.
If when we have a great leader, we fall into the trap of believing it’s all taken care of, an unpredictable, unrestricted leader should be a wake up call that we have given away our own power. But many of us are living with this allergy and have no idea, writing it off as something else. Ignoring the sign that we must actively move forward as individuals regardless of circumstances. A great leader should be nothing more than an example for us all to follow—not someone who does everything for us, but someone who shows us what we can be. If we become dependent upon them what happens when they leave? And the unhinged leader should make clear that we individually have more power than we think—if only we would be more commanding. In both cases, we must reject complacence and advance personal sovereignty. Any idea that it’s all taken care of that is not your own doing should be a red flag regardless of party affiliation. It’s time to wake up.
For what it’s worth, I get a similar feeling when exploring the division in our country. So the feelings of division and external sovereignty go hand in hand. Meaning, a divided country is one in which individuals are struggling with their own personal sovereignty, looking to a hero to rescue them when they’re the only ones that can save themselves. Or said more directly: Instead of fighting about politics we should see our political leaders as variations of our own individual potential and recognize that our fight with others is indicative of an internal fight with ourselves. Here’s the division experience explored as a comic:
