What’s this?

I’ve come back from family violence severe enough to cause me to be dissociated for fifty years, during all of which I observed. And observed. And observed.

As a result of it all, I feel qualified to comment on some of our ways of handling matters.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler said to capture leadership of a country, you needed two enemies – one internal and one external. For him it was the Jews internally and the Jews and Bolsheviks externally.

But look inside.

Don’t we all have enemies?

Don’t we all engage in likes and dislikes, rewards and revenge? Aren’t we all international diplomats in our own minds, along with so many other roles, intriguing in our own personal lives?

It can be hard to own our shadow side. But it gets easier the more we do it.

I don’t go through the revenge scenario as much these days (I hear a chorus of booo! booo! OK, OK. I can’t even lie to myself), but my progress has been snail-like.

And so many opportunities to call myself go untaken because of … whatever. It’s all lethargy, sloth, thamas (the cosmic force or guna), whatever the logic is that I surround it in.

I command the lethargy to arise and it blankets my intention, has me forget it, and move on. I’ve watched it. It’s all seamless.

***

This “me” that I’m talking about, who is lethargic when it wants to be, is one of the many me’s the “I” invents and then imprints on my hardwired memory.

I present it to you. If you buy it, I imprint it harder … stamp it deeper into memory and attach other memories to it. And so I go on building my character … or, more specifically, my constructed self. (1)

I’m not as interested in who it is I currently dislike and hate, who is on my reward list and who on my revenge list. I’m more interested in the process because, if I know about that, I have a point of intervention.

Again, I’m getting ready. I’m going to be wearing so many hats Dr. Seuss would be jealous. I need to be squeaky clean (genuinely so, not play-acting) by the time the curtain rises.

At the same time, I’m also supposed to be human…. eat, drink, and be merry. Hmmm…. Hmmmmm…..

Footnotes

(1) See: