Friday, February 16, 2007

The Fearful Mind

The fear is multi-faceted and takes on many forms, but is at the same time incredibly simple and centers mostly around the self--the mind. The first step is always in the mind. Ideas from the world come in through the senses, and take shape in the mind. Yet, the mind is a complicated thing. It has many parts and many feelings and sometimes it includes things that are confusing. You can't help imagining that if the six people ahead of you in line would just drop dead, you could get where you are going faster. You feel guilty that you imagined that. You remind yourself that you wouldn't actually want that to happen, even if the thought occurred to you.

Where do all these different thoughts come from? You. Yet, many of these thoughts are of an essentially different character from one another. Your mind has the potential to choose between any of them. Even as the thoughts are spawned, you decide which one to act out. You are the “decider.” But if “you” are the one who decides, then where are the ideas coming from? Also from you, because your mind is not a singular entity, but a multi-faceted one. There is more than one “voice” inside.

Your mind can think of things outside of your control.
Try not to think about a computer monitor--a black, flatscreen LCD monitor made by Dell. Stop thinking about that computer monitor. Etc. Your thoughts can never be completely controlled. There is uncertainty inside your own head. This uncertainty, this variance, can cause fear.

It is natural for us to feel fear about this uncertainty. When things are out of our control, they might change such that they harm or kill us, or limit our mating potential. That is why the dark can be frightening. It represents the uncertainty of chance, just like the insides of our heads--a place where we can’t always control the thoughts and desires that pop up.

The first step toward ragnarism is to fear your mind so much that you attempt to gain absolute control over its thoughts.
Afraid of all the uncertainty, you can tell yourself that your mind is singular, not multi-faceted, and that all its strangeness, complexity and beauty can be condensed into a single thing--a single “you.” Believing that your mind is singular can help stave off the fear of uncertainty if you trick yourself into thinking that no more errant thoughts will enter your mind without “your” permission.

However, the reality of the mind will upset this illusion. “Sinful thoughts” will enter without your permission. You will see an attractive member of the opposite sex and register their attractiveness despite the fact that you are married. You will see a slice of chocolate cake and want it despite being on a diet. You will worry about problems at your job all evening even when you are supposed to be concentrating on relaxing with your spouse. The reality of the mind will always continue to upset the illusion of singular control.

Nonetheless, trapped within that illusion of singularity built up to protect yourself from the fear of uncertainty, terrible things can happen.
For example, when that inevitable negative thought floats through your mind--“I wish that old woman in line ahead of me at the supermarket, who is writing a check by hand to pay for ONE item, would just die, so I could buy this and get home faster!”--the mind can come to believe that because it is a singular mind, it is fully responsible for that negative thought. Because of this, a person who believes that they are absolutely in control of their mind and their thoughts will become terribly guilty over time, because every negative thought that randomly floats through their mind, they will take as an indication of their true nature: the definition of them. If the mind is singular, then any foul thought that pops up must be what defines that person. “I am scum, who would wish an old woman dead just so I can get my supper home faster!”

This cannot be admitted in interpersonal society, of course. It is a fear for the private mind that believes itself singular, and defines itself by all of its thoughts. But its behavioral results can be witnessed in society, as discussed later.

The person trapped within this cycle will then perpetuate it, because deviant thoughts will only become an even stronger motivation to clamp down on the uncertainty of the mind.
Striking out in fear, they will retaliate against random thoughts, wallow in guilt, and then become even more alarmed and have an even stronger response when the next rogue thought pops up. The randomness of thought within the human mind will continue to subvert even the strongest “defenses,” making the conflict interminable and interminably escalating.

For example, a married man who resolves not to be attracted to any woman except his wife can become upset when he catches himself staring at a cheerleader. He shakes his head and looks away, and curses himself for lack of discipline, then raises his head, proud that he has taken care of the “problem.” The problem, however, will recur, and will upset him more, driving his anger inward, and motivating him even more powerfully to gain control of his “wicked thoughts.” That control will be imperfect, however, and he will be foiled again, as the cycle continues endlessly.

Most of this goes on subconsciously, and it can take a lifetime to play out.
Most people do not sit around thinking “I will gain control of my mind today,” even though some self-help books advertise this. However, having some conception of self is necessary for human beings, and there exists a difference between those who conceptualize their minds as singular--and therefore set up a spiral of fear of uncertainty, fear of self, and guilt--and those who conceptualize their mind as “of many,” and are therefore better able to handle the diversity of the world.

Like the mind, life itself is uncertain.
It is random. Physicists have observed that, within vacuums, the smallest components of matter will pop in and out of existence, unpredictably: matter being randomly created, like thoughts popping up in the mind. Likewise, human reproduction is random. When two humans reproduce, their offspring may resemble them or their ancestors, but will not be exact copies of either of the parents--in looks or temperament. The rest of the living world is like this as well. Flowers will not resemble their parent flowers identically; beetles their parent beetles; monkeys their parent monkeys; snowflakes the one that came before. Even down to the smallest level, this tendency toward randomness and change exists. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle notes that you can never know for certain both the exact position and the exact rate of travel of subatomic particles. Without stopping time, nothing in this world can ever be exactly observed. It always seems, to some degree or another, subjective and ever-changing.

This world is one of endless possibility and constant flux, and so it is suitable that the human mind is that way with its thoughts.
Yet, within the world, that same uncertainty and randomness of chance can cause as much fear as deviant thoughts within the mind. In this case, however, because those fears are not played out inside the head but in the physical world, the conflict is observable.

People who fear the uncertainty of the world can frequently come to dislike it.
And why not? When you fear something for a long time, you grow to hate it because of how it makes you feel. The random world continually assaults the fearful mind with things that cannot be predicted, categorized, or stopped. The fearful mind responds with deep hatred, for as long as the fearful mind is alive, that mind exists within a world that does not conform to the singular unity it strives for. The conflict within the fearful mind--the conflict between a singular view of the mind and a multi-faceted view--is linked to this conflict with the outside world.


Trapped in fear and guilt, the fearful mind becomes the hateful mind, utterly loathing its own terrible changing mind, and also the outside world that keeps tormenting it--a “torment” perceived through a fear of the uncertain.
Because the fearful mind refuses to embrace the constant change of reality, it craves unreality, or unexistence. The only peace from the conflict in the mind is the death of the mind. The only way to stop being tortured by the change of the world is to leave the world by dying. And the only way to end eternally, once and for all, this fearful, ever-spiraling conflict, is by destroying this hateful, random world.

Ragnarism is this fearful mind, which is always in conflict with its own existence.


Life is one of the most fun things in our changing world, because it offers a fantastic example of the randomness necessary to create existence in place of void.
As opposed to empty nothingness, a rock is a very exciting thing. However, whereas a rock changes its position very, very slightly and slowly, and does so without a conscious intent of its own, life is dynamic. It directs its own change at a rapid pace, and it provides a forum for even more randomness inside the incredibly complex minds it can produce in some organisms. In our world, life is the fullest expression of the ever-changing nature of existence. And so, life becomes the thing most hated by the ragnaristic mind.

Life changes with every second. Life is chaotic and random. Life cannot be predicted or controlled one hundred percent. To the ragnarist, life is the enemy that must be fought at all costs. It must be resisted in whatever it does, and it must ultimately be destroyed.

I didn’t want to believe this conclusion.
On the surface, it sounds ludicrous--people who hate life? How can that be possible? It’s self contradictory. Or at least, it should be.

hey guys...with all that is going on, the excitement is palpable!!! I was (and have been) reflecting lately on what the actual rapture moment will be like (whenever it happens....lol).....i Know it's instantaneous but do ya think we'll have like a second of "realization" like (**horn blast**) and then thinking, "OH IT'S HAPPENING!!! THIS IS IT!!" Or we'll actually feel ourselves being lifted up and sailing through the air??? OR, do ya think we'll just like blink and be in the presence of the Lord that quick??? (yea i know i think about crazy stuff sometimes....lol)

But sometimes when i consider the times, i almost can feel my spirit ready to leap outta my body (if that makes ANY sense....) oh well......back to the news.....just wondering what u guys thought......lol


The above quote came from the “Rapture Ready” bulletin board, at http://www.rr-bb.com/ The “excitement” the author was referring to was violence in the Middle East, and the prevailing Rapture interpretations among American evangelical Christians, who number in the millions, involve worldwide wars and the butchery of billions being presented in a positive light.

I used to believe there were just a few religious wackos out there that had silly ideas about the Bible and wanting to die so they could zoom to heaven. It’s hard to imagine people wanting to die, even though you occasionally read about the cult that poisons its members so they can be “saved” on the alien spaceship.

The ragnarist fears and hates the uncertainty of him or herself, of the surrounding world, and of life. This, then, provides explanation for the correlations between the endless numbers of social, public and political behaviors which, at their essence, seek to repress, control, or destroy life and the living world.

1 comment:

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