Congratulations on the belated anniversary. It seems we started writing on exactly the same day - I had not realized this.
Etymologically consciousness breaks down to 'with-knowing'. A mutuality or betweenness is built into the word ... there is no accident I think that conscience has a similar origin. The involution that comes with excessive navel-gazing is often pathological, yielding illusions in a similar fashion to the patterns the visual cortex produces when the eyes are deprived of light ... it's a sort of sensory deprivation. Depression for example, the inner voice turned violently against itself, is much harder to sustain when the mind is engaged with the minds of others. Likewise paranoia, much of which emerges from the veil of ignorance in which a mind deprived of information about the intentions of others begins spinning inventions that it then takes for reality.
Yes congrats on your one year anniversary on Substack Luc! Sometimes we miss important anniversaries even wedding anniversaries lol but that doesn’t mean we don’t value them, life just gets busy sometimes! I got a lot out of this article to take away with me, thanks for sharing your thoughts as I agree it is not how you see yourself that is most important but rather it is how you are seen by others that is both meaningful and illuminating.
One of the things that pulled me most strongly to write here was the desire for feedback, and it hasn't disappointed in that regard. It is such a critical component to growth, and it is provided so sparingly by the types of people you trust and respect in the highly bureaucratized post-West. Just another insidious consequence of mass censorship. The unseen psychological costs imposed by the GAE agenda are probably even more staggering than anyone truly appreciates. Thank you for deciding to start writing here, I have benefited from it quite significantly and I know I am not alone in this.
congratulations on the year. I liked the introspective reflection. I would have to add that it is indeed through interaction with others that we discover our true selves, but only if we can filter through the noise in our head and find the honesty. It's the critical voice we all have, the one we listen to mostly, that grates on our well being with its tyrannical unyielding criticism of our feelings and thoughts arising from them. Honesty often lacks compassion and the most important element of truth - context. In childhood we ought to learn our boundaries and creativity and love of self with its respect and discernment of who is our friend and who is not. However, what seems to be prevalent in our world is that in our youth we are taught our 'should have's' and 'should be's' and how someone else decides our value and worth. Boundaries are blurred or don't exist when sense of self is lost as the power of our truth is lost to someone else's needs or desires. How many people pleasers have been made that create a world of victim ideology and depressed confusion? How much anger and fear and resentment has been created where innocence is buried underneath a programmed mind?
Congrats on the year. You are one of the ones making Substack great Luc. Your post reminded me of some of the words that set me on my journey of discovery so long ago. Bonus points to anybody who knows what work these words begin:
'OUR wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other. For, in the first place, no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the God in whom he lives and moves; because it is perfectly obvious, that the endowments which we possess cannot possibly be from ourselves; nay, that our very being is nothing else than subsistence in God alone. In the second place, those blessings which unceasingly distil to us from heaven, are like streams conducting us to the fountain. Here, again, the infinitude of good which resides in God becomes more apparent from our poverty. In particular, the miserable ruin into which the revolt of the first man has plunged us, compels us to turn our eyes upwards; not only that while hungry and famishing we may thence ask what we want, but being aroused by fear may learn humility. For as there exists in man something like a world of misery, and ever since we were stript of the divine attire our naked shame discloses an immense series of disgraceful properties every man, being stung by the consciousness of his own unhappiness, in this way necessarily obtains at least some knowledge of God. Thus, our feeling of ignorance, vanity, want, weakness, in short, depravity and corruption, reminds us, that in the Lord, and none but He, dwell the true light of wisdom, solid virtue, exuberant goodness. We are accordingly urged by our own evil things to consider the good things of God; and, indeed, we cannot aspire to Him in earnest until we have begun to be displeased with ourselves. For what man is not disposed to rest in himself? Who, in fact, does not thus rest, so long as he is unknown to himself; that is, so long as he is contented with his own endowments, and unconscious or unmindful of his misery? Every person, therefore, on coming to the knowledge of himself, is not only urged to seek God, but is also led as by the hand to find him.
2. On the other hand, it is evident that man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he have previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself. For (such is our innate pride) we always seem to ourselves just, and upright, and wise, and holy, until we are convinced, by clear evidence, of our injustice, vileness, folly, and impurity. Convinced, however, we are not, if we look to ourselves only, and not to the Lord also--He being the only standard by the application of which this conviction can be produced. For, since we are all naturally prone to hypocrisy, any empty semblance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us instead of righteousness itself. And since nothing appears within us or around us that is not tainted with very great impurity, so long as we keep our mind within the confines of human pollution, anything which is in some small degree less defiled delights us as if it were most pure just as an eye, to which nothing but black had been previously presented, deems an object of a whitish, or even of a brownish hue, to be perfectly white. Nay, the bodily sense may furnish a still stronger illustration of the extent to which we are deluded in estimating the powers of the mind. If, at mid-day, we either look down to the ground, or on the surrounding objects which lie open to our view, we think ourselves endued with a very strong and piercing eyesight; but when we look up to the sun, and gaze at it unveiled, the sight which did excellently well for the earth is instantly so dazzled and confounded by the refulgence, as to oblige us to confess that our acuteness in discerning terrestrial objects is mere dimness when applied to the sun. Thus too, it happens in estimating our spiritual qualities. So long as we do not look beyond the earth, we are quite pleased with our own righteousness, wisdom, and virtue; we address ourselves in the most flattering terms, and seem only less than demigods. But should we once begin to raise our thoughts to God, and reflect what kind of Being he is, and how absolute the perfection of that righteousness, and wisdom, and virtue, to which, as a standard, we are bound to be conformed, what formerly delighted us by its false show of righteousness will become polluted with the greatest iniquity; what strangely imposed upon us under the name of wisdom will disgust by its extreme folly; and what presented the appearance of virtuous energy will be condemned as the most miserable impotence. So far are those qualities in us, which seem most perfect, from corresponding to the divine purity.'
Congratulations on the belated anniversary. It seems we started writing on exactly the same day - I had not realized this.
Etymologically consciousness breaks down to 'with-knowing'. A mutuality or betweenness is built into the word ... there is no accident I think that conscience has a similar origin. The involution that comes with excessive navel-gazing is often pathological, yielding illusions in a similar fashion to the patterns the visual cortex produces when the eyes are deprived of light ... it's a sort of sensory deprivation. Depression for example, the inner voice turned violently against itself, is much harder to sustain when the mind is engaged with the minds of others. Likewise paranoia, much of which emerges from the veil of ignorance in which a mind deprived of information about the intentions of others begins spinning inventions that it then takes for reality.
Congrats on a solid year! Substack is a gem of honest, solid dialogue.
Other people are indeed necessary to put thyself in context. But without solitude it is hard to imagine building a strong cognitive foundation.
Good stuff. Socrates, I suspect, would agree. Thinking in public is one of the best ways to learn.
Thoughtful and highly readable post, thank you.
Yes congrats on your one year anniversary on Substack Luc! Sometimes we miss important anniversaries even wedding anniversaries lol but that doesn’t mean we don’t value them, life just gets busy sometimes! I got a lot out of this article to take away with me, thanks for sharing your thoughts as I agree it is not how you see yourself that is most important but rather it is how you are seen by others that is both meaningful and illuminating.
One of the things that pulled me most strongly to write here was the desire for feedback, and it hasn't disappointed in that regard. It is such a critical component to growth, and it is provided so sparingly by the types of people you trust and respect in the highly bureaucratized post-West. Just another insidious consequence of mass censorship. The unseen psychological costs imposed by the GAE agenda are probably even more staggering than anyone truly appreciates. Thank you for deciding to start writing here, I have benefited from it quite significantly and I know I am not alone in this.
congratulations on the year. I liked the introspective reflection. I would have to add that it is indeed through interaction with others that we discover our true selves, but only if we can filter through the noise in our head and find the honesty. It's the critical voice we all have, the one we listen to mostly, that grates on our well being with its tyrannical unyielding criticism of our feelings and thoughts arising from them. Honesty often lacks compassion and the most important element of truth - context. In childhood we ought to learn our boundaries and creativity and love of self with its respect and discernment of who is our friend and who is not. However, what seems to be prevalent in our world is that in our youth we are taught our 'should have's' and 'should be's' and how someone else decides our value and worth. Boundaries are blurred or don't exist when sense of self is lost as the power of our truth is lost to someone else's needs or desires. How many people pleasers have been made that create a world of victim ideology and depressed confusion? How much anger and fear and resentment has been created where innocence is buried underneath a programmed mind?
Thank you for your contribution to truth.
💬 Know thyself!
...notably followed by...
🗨 Nothing in excess!
...inscribed upon Delphi stone 😉
Congrats on the year. You are one of the ones making Substack great Luc. Your post reminded me of some of the words that set me on my journey of discovery so long ago. Bonus points to anybody who knows what work these words begin:
'OUR wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other. For, in the first place, no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the God in whom he lives and moves; because it is perfectly obvious, that the endowments which we possess cannot possibly be from ourselves; nay, that our very being is nothing else than subsistence in God alone. In the second place, those blessings which unceasingly distil to us from heaven, are like streams conducting us to the fountain. Here, again, the infinitude of good which resides in God becomes more apparent from our poverty. In particular, the miserable ruin into which the revolt of the first man has plunged us, compels us to turn our eyes upwards; not only that while hungry and famishing we may thence ask what we want, but being aroused by fear may learn humility. For as there exists in man something like a world of misery, and ever since we were stript of the divine attire our naked shame discloses an immense series of disgraceful properties every man, being stung by the consciousness of his own unhappiness, in this way necessarily obtains at least some knowledge of God. Thus, our feeling of ignorance, vanity, want, weakness, in short, depravity and corruption, reminds us, that in the Lord, and none but He, dwell the true light of wisdom, solid virtue, exuberant goodness. We are accordingly urged by our own evil things to consider the good things of God; and, indeed, we cannot aspire to Him in earnest until we have begun to be displeased with ourselves. For what man is not disposed to rest in himself? Who, in fact, does not thus rest, so long as he is unknown to himself; that is, so long as he is contented with his own endowments, and unconscious or unmindful of his misery? Every person, therefore, on coming to the knowledge of himself, is not only urged to seek God, but is also led as by the hand to find him.
2. On the other hand, it is evident that man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he have previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself. For (such is our innate pride) we always seem to ourselves just, and upright, and wise, and holy, until we are convinced, by clear evidence, of our injustice, vileness, folly, and impurity. Convinced, however, we are not, if we look to ourselves only, and not to the Lord also--He being the only standard by the application of which this conviction can be produced. For, since we are all naturally prone to hypocrisy, any empty semblance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us instead of righteousness itself. And since nothing appears within us or around us that is not tainted with very great impurity, so long as we keep our mind within the confines of human pollution, anything which is in some small degree less defiled delights us as if it were most pure just as an eye, to which nothing but black had been previously presented, deems an object of a whitish, or even of a brownish hue, to be perfectly white. Nay, the bodily sense may furnish a still stronger illustration of the extent to which we are deluded in estimating the powers of the mind. If, at mid-day, we either look down to the ground, or on the surrounding objects which lie open to our view, we think ourselves endued with a very strong and piercing eyesight; but when we look up to the sun, and gaze at it unveiled, the sight which did excellently well for the earth is instantly so dazzled and confounded by the refulgence, as to oblige us to confess that our acuteness in discerning terrestrial objects is mere dimness when applied to the sun. Thus too, it happens in estimating our spiritual qualities. So long as we do not look beyond the earth, we are quite pleased with our own righteousness, wisdom, and virtue; we address ourselves in the most flattering terms, and seem only less than demigods. But should we once begin to raise our thoughts to God, and reflect what kind of Being he is, and how absolute the perfection of that righteousness, and wisdom, and virtue, to which, as a standard, we are bound to be conformed, what formerly delighted us by its false show of righteousness will become polluted with the greatest iniquity; what strangely imposed upon us under the name of wisdom will disgust by its extreme folly; and what presented the appearance of virtuous energy will be condemned as the most miserable impotence. So far are those qualities in us, which seem most perfect, from corresponding to the divine purity.'