Tag Archives: absolutist

August 28, 2017

600. Understanding Arrogance

By Marlen

Or how to let go of the idea I had about myself as ‘untouchable’ based on knowledge and information in order to truly live and express ME.

So this is a word that was opened up in group discussions and in a couple of situations I’ve faced in my life in the last couple of days, so, I’m now here to share about my relationship to this word.

First things first, how do I relate to this word? I have ‘been it, done it’ in my life where arrogance comes as this ‘know it all’ stance where I’ve seen how it was in fact fear that stood behind this ‘untouchable’ type of experience I created mostly through ‘what I believe, what I stand for’ and in creating an energetic stance to it as ‘unbreakable, untouchable, this is the one and only truth of existence!’ type of personality, I became very antagonistic – without even noticing it! – to anything that did not ‘conform’ to my views, or anything that wasn’t aligned to them, which means yeah I could have possibly picked up intellectual back and forths with just about anyone really, considering how such arrogance came through perceiving that ‘I got a superior understanding of reality, of who we are in our minds and in existence’ and the rest of points that come from getting to know a lot of knowledge and information about, yes, the reality that we live in and how we exist as human beings.

I’ve shared about this ‘arrogance’ construct with other terms in these blogs before like being in a ‘haughty position’ or being ‘in a high horse’ type of experience, which is the same thing: being arrogant and kind of looking everyone as ‘inferior to me’ because of not being aware of what I was aware of. In doing so, I really limited myself because I made it virtually impossible for me to discuss anything with anyone, because I was not willing to hear/read any other perspectives, I wasn’t being flexible at all – I just wanted to preach my creed so to speak and ‘convert’ anyone that I could – or rather that would allow themselves to be converted – which of course it never happened.

It was only through realizing that this way of approaching my process was not going to work in the long run that I had to try new things and that meant having to let go of my desire to ‘preach and convert’ others through knowledge and information and disseminating ‘my truth’ through blogs and vlogs with the sole intent to ‘wake others up!’ and ‘have them join me and everyone in this process.’ Of course that doesn’t work, but hey, I was there doing it fully and completely in such a militant stance that I was too blind to see my own absolutism and fascism in it – very common words for me to describe such personality as well in these blogs.

So, where I am and how I am in this context is definitely a long distance from what I just described. Currently I no longer feel the need to ‘wake others up’ or ‘change others’ because! I’ve learned through ‘the tough way’ how that obviously doesn’t work and going through consequences that I’m still having to literally pay for till today, lol. So instead, I focus on sharing my own experience, my own ‘walking’ with these tools, the learning curves, the falls, the standing ups, the mistakes and how to correct them and all that is related to taking all points ‘back to self’ essentially, because that’s basically where I realized I have my authority on at this stage, and so share my example as ‘what I’ve lived, applied’ in detail, and yep sharing it because maybe others will find this useful for their lives and that’s cool.

In terms of facing consequence, I’d say it’s at times unfortunately needed and it’s cool, because I can become so obsessed and be such a stubborn with things that sometimes it is only through reality knocking my door that I can open up my eyes and realize ‘oh fuck! I’ve done it again!’ and realize what I had been obsessed by – that’s the process of what I define now as having to eat humble pie and yep! Been eating it nicely.

Then comes the dimension where I’ve spotted arrogance in others. I saw this during a meeting with someone and I defined the person’s stance as being arrogant – being the kind of person that believes that everything they do is right, they are never wrong, that they are always transparent about things, that there’s nothing that is incongruent with who they are, and in that being able to rather blame others for being the problem in their relationship to him. And in that what he’s created and caused is that there’s a lot of people that simply cannot get along with him because there’s rarely an opening to question himself, his ways, his stance, but in essence being kind of absolutist because of not allowing anyone to question his ways, what he does, his preferences, at all. The outcome in such kind of personality is that if one would want to be his friend, one has to entirely accept him ‘as he is’ and that’s probably a doable thing for many that are ok with such ways, but I personally cannot relate to someone that is not willing to ‘open up’ and ‘question further’ about ourselves as human beings and have no opening to even considering any form of ‘change’ or self-betterment, so in that I simply realize ‘I don’t have to go there’ with this person and keep things as simple as possible in our interactions whenever they are necessary – if ever. This is just a self-honesty point for me to also make a decision to not try an ‘get along’ with someone ‘just because’ but I definitely like to get along with people with whom I can actually have discussions that lead us to learn more about ourselves and question/challenge ourselves, which becomes a bit too impossible with such hardened personalities.  I decided to rather focus on sharing myself and spending time with those that do have more of an opening and similar stance to life.

However, after I noticed that I was describing him in my head as ‘arrogant’ I had to of course look back at myself and see how I have existed as such arrogance as well and how I in fact created the same outcome for me where there was a time where I became very obnoxious, to be honest, I could only relate to people ‘walking process’ and I’d judge everyone else as a neophyte in life – a fancy way to say ‘ignorant’ – and in that I definitely walked through the consequence of isolating myself, because of not being willing to let go of my ‘immovable stance’ as arrogance which stood as constantly judging, constantly comparing everything and everyone to ‘how I believe things should be and how they must be done’ which I’d do constantly, consistently towards anything and anyone, all the time.

I mean, in a way it assisted me to constantly be referencing or questioning ‘what would be common sense in this case or with this person or in that person’s life/situation?’ however the problem is that I would externalize this as in telling people what to do or how they were wrong about this/that in their lives and sometimes being so direct that of course I would not take their feelings/minds into account and yep, I’d end up blowing things out of proportion and causing conflicts, which led me to quite a few ‘breakups’ with people – all because of this arrogant stance within me.

Currently I’m deliberately opening up ways of communication with people where I now practice leaving my ‘preaching’ in the past and instead learn to relate to people, learn to get to know them in who they are, in their context, in their particular life – which is absolutely cool and a very enjoyable process, which has led me to kind of ponder ‘Hmm why wasn’t I doing this before?’ but the reality is that I wasn’t able to do it, because I was too fixed on this absolutist and arrogant stance ‘towards the world/people in it’ where I definitely would have remained in this bitter stance of ‘non-conformity’ which I eventually realized I had entirely caused by my own set of impositions by not allowing myself to actually live and learn from others, but rather wanting to have this ‘teaching and preaching’ stance towards them, which didn’t work at all and only backfired nicely.

In that I instead have used these key words to live whenever I see myself having this arrogant stance coming up again: humbleness, understanding and flexibility. These words in a way stand as the antithesis of my previous ways which were of control, of imposition, of antagonism, of fascism and totalitarianism as the dictator I had become for anyone that would know me.

And yes, I can also explain how this is not a ‘magical solution’ either – the words are there as a continuous reference for me, as the available solutions – but this point may come up at any given moment where I feel this ‘need to correct someone’ or ‘let them know about the ultimate truth in life’ or ‘explain how that’s such an irrelevant subject to discuss about’ or whatever else in whichever way it might come up where I wasn’t really willing to interact and ‘mingle’ with people in whichever context or ‘level’ they’re at in their awareness, but I wanted to come in as this very stiff and self-controlled robot that wanted to only point out what’s right, wrong and immediately disregard participating in anything that I deemed was ‘of the mind’ lolol… yep I was on my way to then become a bitter hermit to be honest, but I’m so glad I have realized what I was doing and have come to stir my direction towards the person that I in fact have seen I have the ability to live and express, which is an open, expressive, communicative and social person in fact! Who would have known!? When I was deeming myself as a hard-core anti-social and misanthrope – as I’ve explained many times before*

So, a practical ‘hack’ that anyone can apply here is to see whenever one is needing to ‘defend’ something or make oneself feel ‘superior’ about anything, or when one is constantly judging others as less than/inferior – we gotta ask ourselves: what are we in fact ‘In-Fear-of?’ because arrogance is an expression of fear, of an actual inferiority that needs to exist as a perceived superiority in order to be ‘ok’ within a ‘better idea of self’. So asking oneself ‘what do I fear behind my need to feel so ‘secure’ of myself in this stance of arrogance?’ van be a practical way to get to the core of it.

Like in my case, the fear behind my ‘stance’ as what I described above related to knowledge and information, was to actually have people question me, debate my views or deny them completely, which would then stir conflict that I actually didn’t want to face, or because I feared losing this idea of myself as the ‘know it all’ in my own eyes. But, I’m quite glad that I was able to debunk it little by little and yes, with people’s feedback in the internet and of my own mother who has been the one that over the years really emphasized that I should ‘lower the volume’ of my speeches in videos because I would come through as ‘preachy’ and ‘attacking,’ as being too superb and pedantic, which would mostly scare people away – and yep, it did, and for some others it might have worked… but it definitely is not an expression I want to continue cultivating related to who I currently am in my life.

I’ve found new ways to share myself where I have no intent implied ‘towards others’ other than plainly sharing myself, and that’s what I’ve been doing lately and it’s like allowing a breeze of fresh air flow through me, rather than being the very stiffened, armored, robo-like person that had to always ‘present’ herself in a certain way and be ‘untouchable’ in an arrogant stance, man, was that limiting.

So for now, I continually have to bake myself some humble pie which I like doing, because every time I am made aware of this kind of situations or where I catch myself doing it, I can ground myself even more. In a way this means I can ‘let go’ of an idea of myself in relation to ‘who I have to be’ or ‘who I am’ in relation to others, and that’s truly liberating, it enables me to truly expand, share, learn and enjoy others in a way I had not done ever before in my life and for that I’m grateful for Desteni and the tools that have enabled me to be living who I currently am – so! The least I can do is share myself back here J

Thanks for reading.

*some other blogs that explain in detail the points walked in relation to arrogance are:

514. Debunking My Intellectual Arrogance

581. Living Reconciliation

561. From Provocation to Self-Challenge

547. How to Live Humbleness

27. It’s always only been me

 

 

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February 21, 2017

514. Debunking My Intellectual Arrogance

By Marlen

Or learning to apply the principle of ‘Investigate all things and keep what’s best’ and create a constructive outcome of a personal investigation

Today I woke up and listened to some more information that I’ve been following through for some months that essentially debunk and expose a lot of the ‘alternative culture’ I believed myself to choose to live by while growing up and more so as a teenager and young adult, which was at the time finding a way ‘out’ of the ‘common-culture’ or what I perceived as ‘the normal’ preferences in my environment and mostly in order to form a particular personality ‘out of the normalcy’, but also in an attempt to find something more meaningful in life than what I was immediately ‘offered’ to.  

Now, based on all these investigations I’ve watched, everything that I once learned to appreciate and identify with has been debunked as covert operations to precisely create the types of people and therefore societies in which we are actually living today, with certain notions of ‘radical’ values, ‘out of the norm’ ways of being, preferences that divert our attention from that which I now see and consider of importance and substance in my life.

What I have noticed though is that upon finding out the truth about all those ‘idols’ and people I got to admire at some point in my life and slowly but surely realizing that yes, they were mostly part of some CIA operation that aimed at creating ‘rascals’ or ‘punks’ or ‘hippies’ or ‘socially unfit’ people etc. .and in a way to continue ‘dividing and conquering’ or ‘confusing’ the masses and the youth specially so as to keep everyone well entertained with what I for me and my life consider not relevant things in life.

And here I also noticed that even if I have a clarity on how there is really no ‘mind control’ unless one accepts and allows it through participating it – meaning there’s a two way responsibility here – I still noticed that my overall ‘silent’ reaction was that of disappointment, disenchantment which leads into the usual experiential outflow ‘from love to hate,’ that in my case it turns into this absolutist stance where I am very quick to dismiss it all as ‘a lie’ or ‘bollocks’ or ‘mind control/ brainwashing’ and in one go wanting to completely ‘cut out’ all of myself that I once invested into all of that alternative or ‘counter culture’ that I once was a firm proponent of and supporter.

How did I come to realize this and write about it? Today after I shared the one post on Facebook to prompt people to ‘get informed!’ I went to the Desteni Forum and read a response that Sunette placed for someone else in a similar context to my situation here and that allowed me to be aware of this ‘lashing out’ that I was doing with certain intellectual righteousness and how I have in fact done this ‘from love to hate’ type of relationship with not only musicians, writers or artists in general, but also with philosophies, religious documents and other practices that I did test out for some time in my past and that I completely ‘threw out of the window’ the moment I started this process and in a way creating my own ‘radicalization’ that doesn’t apply the principle of ‘investigate all things and keep what’s best’, but go into the – once again – absolutist stance where I render all of it obsolete in my life, of no use, a waste of time and whenever asked about it, I can quickly dismiss it all as if there was zero value in it at all, which is not so, regardless of its underlying purpose.

So here I want to redeem myself in relation to this and what I so easily jump into a ‘black or white’ type of approach when in reality, it reminds me of having to remember my process. Here specifically considering the life that I’ve lived and how while I was growing up, I took what I found interesting at the time and what I thought would assist me to know ‘alternative perspectives’ and other types of ‘thinking’ than the one around me. At the time I had no reference of living principles or self-honesty or ways to question the kind of values I was getting into – maybe I did know what I was getting myself unto but didn’t question it further because ‘if others were doing it then why shouldn’t I too?’ type of thinking.

At the time I didn’t have any further information that could show me exactly what the ‘agenda’ behind any of the entertainment or arts I got into were really about and if I am honest with myself, a lot of that at the time and in its context allow me to get to know different people and get to nurture different perspectives, maybe not the most ‘supportive ones’ but were a sort of bridge or way for me to then get to be where I am now which was, breaking through certain parameters, norms, learning to question more and explore some other ‘lifestyles’ even if it was mostly through adopting certain preferences in literature, music or arts.

So here’s the quote that prompted me to look into this:

I suggest rather look at your past teachings, information, material, processes – whether good or bad, in a way of “what did I actually LEARN from it? What did I realise as I reflected on the consequences, the good, bad and ugly? How did it all actually assist and support me to realise and understand more about myself? What impact did it have on my life / awareness?” Then, in asking yourself these questions – you can SHARE, in a constructive way what you realized about yourself through it all. This SUPPORTS YOU and MANY others SO MUCH MORE than ‘lashing out / blaming / reacting’ towards anything / anyone in your past, as well as speaks volumes for who you are as a person.

In addition to this all – do realise your responsibility within making the choice / decision to invest in and participate in the past interactions / materials / processes; they did not enforce / demand / control you to. According to what you made of it, was by your will, initiative, self, decisions, reactions, responses, behaviours etc. 


So, again, and this goes for all who has the tendency to do this – POLARISE and REACT TOWARDS others, groups, teachings, materials – rather live “investigate all things, keep what’s good”, where you strive to be HUMBLE and rather UNDERSTAND it / them, take from it that APPLIES TO YOU, that you can use to be the BEST of you in thought, word, deed, self and life creation. 

Now also in your journey with Desteni / within Desteni = ensure you take the responsibility of deciding who you are, how to utilize it, support and assist yourself as you are in your own hands within the confines of your own mind, being and body and so solely responsibility for the decisions you make and the experiences you create; so as to not to one day for some reason shift in your decisions and go into blame and reactions towards something / someone for who you are and what you experience, rather LEARN and GROW and EXPAND. 


We tend to only BLAME and REACT when we in fact did not honestly reflect, learn, see and change at all… – Sunette Spies and the whole context of the topic please, you can read it here: http://forum.desteni.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7978

 

This is very supportive for me to consider at the moment and my approach to ‘getting informed’ and how I’ve been using it as a way to covertly lash out towards all of that which I once invested my time and life on.

Here thus taking my own responsibility, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use the awareness of what some people have found are the real motives and purposes behind counter culture or alternative culture that I once firmly believed myself to be a part of and that I supported, recommended and promoted through my ways of thinking, speaking, my habits and relationships wherein now that I got to know a different perspective on it – or let’s say one of its main purposes – I reacted to it by deciding to expose it, attempting to generate controversy toward it in an attempt to ‘prevent’ others from being following the same or follow into ‘the same trap’ that I believe myself to have fallen into in the past, instead of realizing that I am definitely not going to be able to save anyone by merely ‘exposing’ stuff and vilifying it with the mightiest words I might have at hand, because I realize that only generates or regenerates the polarization as friction and conflict that lacks actual substantial personal input that could in turn be more humble and considerate to share from myself.

Here I therefore consider that I can instead share what I learned from it, what I discovered about myself with it and so at the same time showing the process I have walked to now understand the effects of my participation and integration of certain ways of thinking and living and how I have come to realize for myself, in my life and context are not best for myself, my life, my principles.

This means that I have to develop humbleness in reminding myself that the actual fact is that I had ‘positive expectations’ and thought of myself to be ‘better off’ or ‘superior’ in relation to my participation in this alternative/counter-culture I once sought to be a part of. Therefore when getting to find out that I ‘got myself duped in it’, all the ‘good’ turns to ‘bad’ and that’s how the lashing out and talking ‘against’ all of it becomes a knee-jerk reaction, instead of realizing that this is who I am as the mind that jumps from one pole to the other, instead of taking a moment to breathe, see how I there’s this ‘impulse’ that is moving me which I must take as an indication that I need to take a breath to look at the situation outside of my initial reaction and expand my perspective beyond the ones that I am now seeing being presented as ‘the reality’ or ‘the only truth’ behind it.

I can realize that I have to jump out of the lashing-out bandwagon and slow myself down to instead take a moment to reflect on that which is being ‘exposed’ about something and learn to process this for myself and so share what I’ve also learned from about myself within it or from it, sharing where I noticed that I compromised myself and my common sense to be ‘part of it’ and  so in turn creating a more constructive review of it all in a way that people can learn to also discern for themselves and reflect back on my own sharing.

Ultimately, I can only ever share my own example, my own discernment and self-investigation, but I definitely have to step out of the notion that through me reproving and exposing something will lead others to immediately change their ways and embrace my views and perspectives, this is more like wanting to ‘convert’ others which is not who I want to be in my life, that would not be me assisting others in their own self-realization either, but me trying to convert others to ‘my views’ now and that won’t ever work.

I can only ever share my views, perspectives in a constructive manner while ensuring that I am not holding any emotions to it or personal investment of ‘ego’ in it all, because the very process of sharing anything in my case is to precisely debunk my own personalities, my own ego, my own bias ultimately and I appreciate the fact that I can read stuff like the quote I posted above and be able to own my creation, to take it as a useful point of feedback that even if it wasn’t intended ‘for me’ per se, assisted me a lot to see my relationship with all of those people related to the counter-culture, philosophies or ‘alternative’ movements that I once embraced as ‘who I am’.

Here also a reminder for myself how even if those movements could have been psy-ops and covert operations to dissociate culture, we have made them effective through our own participation and not questioning to the T what kind of principles and values we are imprinting in ourselves within it all, what kind of direction in life are we aiming at with it?

And this is not about ‘those’ people that directed these movements ‘to blame’ – it’s entirely about our own responsibility, our own participation – myself that decided to get into it all and embrace it without a question– even if for only a phase in my life.

Bottom line is, I could not have done ‘all the perfect choices’ in my life and specially while being a teenager and finding my way through the world – not a justification either – but there’s a lot more that we could instead create as ways for the young ones to not fall prey of certain ‘cultural movements’ that lead oneself ‘nowhere’ in life, but to learn to discern and make choices in self-responsibility.

Therefore, this is not a ‘problem solved’ for me, this intellectual arrogance is something that I definitely have to keep working on because even if I can have a deep understanding of reality, ourselves as human beings, our mind, etc. – it’s all still an understanding, a base or foundation of information that can assist in living our lives in a more supportive manner, yet I still have to live It and continue to test it, apply it, be it and ensure that there is no egotism or superiority formed around ‘what I am aware of’ currently either, because that’s not the point at all about this process from consciousness to self-awareness as life either.

So, I keep working on myself and will continue sharing whenever this point emerges back on, as well as some time sharing more of myself in this counter culture too.

Thanks for reading  

 Master of the Worlds

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