As I travel this path to who knows where, I become more impressed with the psychological concept of the psyche which contains the superego, ego, and id. The reason I mention this paradigm is I tend to examine everything and the structures I have found useful and have used to get further along in the path I always question and re-question, which leads to discarding them if I outgrow their usefulness or their truth. At a certain level of consciousness some conceptual ideas ring true but discoveries can put the idea of it being a universal truth into question. Everything sure seems relative and a Freudian psychological structure that divides the psyche into three seems a little arbitrary, thus why I continually question it.
It’s been in last few months I have realized my shadow is the master teacher and teaching me how to liberate myself for the longest time. Through his unusual methods, I have realized we are all dualistic individuals; at least from a masculine perspective that I am privy to. I can’t speak to what a biological woman feels; it’s a definite curiosity to learn what they intuit from a similar point on the path where I stand. So, anyway from my perspective I’m running a two-man operation. The part that has come forth into consciousness is me, Apollo, and I’m the face of this construct. I have to deal with the reality of the situation including the minor annoyances like getting up early for work and venturing outside and feeling the bite of frozen temperatures ravage my skin and make my bones ache. I have a hidden part of my being who talks to me all the time and I’ll call him Dionysos. Due to cultural indoctrination, I have had to keep this relationship quiet lest I end up in the funny farm. Remember when you were a kid or even the last time you observed a child at play? They talk to themselves all the time! So, what do we do? We shame them and tell them they are crazy for talking to this other part of them. We force them to lose that connection and become a member of the collective. The new voice is the collective voice of cultural suppression called the superego. The voice within will chafe at this situation and prevent you from giving up yourself to the greater good (or bad) so he in turn must be buried. Your individuality, unencumbered by culture, is sacred to this entity because the value held dearest is freedom. Freedom to act and move this drama along of your own accord. To recover that liberation after silencing him will become a lifelong struggle that if not acknowledged is going to cause you a great deal of pain.
What is funny is this voice we have buried, upon accidental re-discovery, is quite the joker. If you think he’s god, Jesus, or the reincarnation of Lincoln he will play along. It’s true. He holds power in his hands and if you want this power he will give it to you in a reciprocal arrangement. Interest will accrue on your bargain until it’s time to pay the piper. There is a different path you can travel. I’ll keep you updated on where this road leads.
To connect our psyche to the Freudian concepts of superego, ego, and id is surprisingly easy. The superego is a conglomeration of your parents, culture, and expectations your community placed on you so you give up your freedom and individuality in order to become a functioning member of society. You bury the playmate, the id, and it becomes your shadow; a destructive force because you deny him and the wisdom he offers. Freud correctly identified this tripartite member of the psyche but then because of his own cultural conditioning, he labelled id an irrational animal. As you progress through cultural norms, you cease to remember to play like a child. The last gasp of the demon is in our teenage years. We give rebellion towards authority one last shot before accepting our fate. You become the fully formed ego; a puppet controlled by others, frustrated by the constraints of a society that modulates your behaviour. On the road to liberation, the shadow is trying to get you to throw off the chains of the superego. In concert, all the forces of the superego conspire to keep you in bondage and relegate the shadow to the fringes. The result is a tug of war that makes you vacillate between being a good, moral, and obedient citizen and a tendency towards rebellious behaviour and becoming a degenerate. The deviancy from the norm is the result of bottling up all your rage, anger, frustration, pleasures, emotions and the like until it all blows the top off the bottle and we wonder what happened? He seemed so nice.
I found my long-lost friend before the top blew. We have both matured since our childhood days; in fact I’ve always known he was with me but he was so buried the communication became poor. I’ve always needed my alone time to reconnect with my friend though I didn’t always know why I needed that time to recharge but I’ve been quite aware of a pull to be introverted. It’s hard work being around others because I have to put him away in the background and go full on into the somebodyness. I’ve let him fully back into my life and he’s teaching me liberation so I don’t pull this stunt again where I send him away. It’s actually a blast having him around. He’s very funny and playful plus we share interests. We laugh together at society. This morning, as we heard the government is fining people large amounts of money for gathering against their ‘orders,’ we declared, “The authoritarians among us have run amok.” My favourite libertarian site likes to remind its readers that, “War is the health of the state.” I think they should amend this to, “Pandemics are the health of the state.” The need to control others runs deep within the human because in childhood we were forced to bury the playful libertine spirit within us. This quest for control is the concept of the superego asserting itself. Control is the domain of the frightened and insecure. They kid themselves thinking they can control forces beyond their pay grade. In retaliation, the id within society will rebel and not conform to this re-working of social constructs designed to take more freedom away from the individual. Those who do not get in line will be called nasty names and labelled malcontents. In order to further progress along the path of knowledge, you must transcend cultural limits. There’s an out of bounds area that has a big red warning label stamped upon it. Ignore it and proceed.
Speaking of questioning concepts as I travel along this path, how about meditation? It’s a useful tool for the neurotic whose mind races, usually with anxiety about the future or ruminating on the past. By quieting the mind, we allow for peacefulness and give our self a rest and a reset. Just doing this for 15 minutes at a time, a few times a day, is very useful. It’s also a great method for getting you high, as in a state of higher consciousness. By quieting the judging aspect of the mind that causes separation, we enable a holistic viewpoint and intuit the oneness of everything. Because we are not engaging mental faculties, everything returns to being non-differentiated and we find unity. Why I have re-visited this is because humans are easily hypnotized and that includes self-hypnosis. When we get in the higher states we want to stay there. We will soon swear that the state of being high and embracing unity is the truth and the be all. I’m a big fan of Albert Einstein because he understood relativity like no one before him. It’s relatively true that we are all from the same source and are one. If you have no mental faculties that allow you to differentiate, it becomes undeniably true. However, we do have the awesome power of differentiation and from my perspective when my mind is active I objectify and for me the many becomes the relative truth. Unity truth is only true if the mind is not disturbed. It’s pretty fascinating to see how relativity is the fundamental underpinning to our perception of life, influences all behaviour, and shifts our conception of truth. Anyway, it struck me that if you want to get into your depths, the buried shadow, meditation probably isn’t the answer. It’s probably the opposite; you need a method that takes you past anxiety, depression, and the meanderings of the day. Instead of meditation I suggest dialoguing. Practice talking to your shadow a few times a day. In other words, talk to yourself. Along the same lines would be play. This would involve an activity that enthralled you as a child, whatever that may be.
There is a threat of psychedelics burying the shadow even deeper by going on the spiritual trip towards enlightenment. In my case, the darkness continually presented itself within ceremony, trying to get me to stop this path towards my beatitude that would further bury him. I can see now the hope was that I would eventually investigate this constant darkness. Being of the curious sort, I eventually decided to peer into the darkness after I completed the holy trip towards love and light. It’s all unravelling and it’s pretty awesome. The shadow did his best to get me to stop the trip towards enlightenment but because of my inner strength I ended up doubling down on my journey, fought back rather impressively, and went into full on renunciate stage with such success and resolve it tipped the tables in my favour and I completed the whole holy journey in record time! Once I chewed on that for a while, I turned my attention towards the inner darkness. I have found reconciliation and understanding plus a master teacher; this teacher imploring me that I have to become my own man; not a puppet controlled by others and culture. He has taught me that liberation is the greatest of all ideals, is worth fighting for, and giving up everything in order to obtain your freedom. As a teacher, it is why he threatened me with death, harassed me, chided me, and forced me to come to terms with who I am. Ultimately, I was taught to master the self and master my desires but don’t defeat them. The teaching is to not be a puppet or a slave to anyone. You can chase desires as long as you are free. Being free means no judgment, shame, hiding, or questioning of what lights you up. The final piece of rope holding you back he told me is identity. Cut that culture cord and you are free! Kill yourself in order to live.
The poetry I wrote about nine years ago in regards to what I was experiencing deep within my soul and psyche is a rather extraordinary and accurate encapsulation of this journey and where it has led me.
He’s a wild man. He’s taught me courage. He wants us to have fun and adventures. He added to the bucket list yesterday - get in a fist fight on the street! Seriously. He is the jaguar and I’m his student. He gave me the name Otorongocito. I’m in the order of the jaguar and he’s the teacher. We now have a symbiotic relationship. I handle the outward appearance and make us respectable. I navigate us through culture and society. He teaches me to be a free spirit. I’m trying to convince him we can be free and not be homeless and a beggared. There’s a middle way! I like to sleep in a cozy and soft place. We can play the societal game and give them the middle finger at the same time while biding our time for when we get the go ahead that we can make our exit. Anyway, if you see me talking to myself and laughing, you now know why.
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