The ego-self, protector of normality and seeker of the new, in our culture and time has been fascinated by the fascinosum of technology. It has plunged him (and her) into narcissus’ mirror; and he is near to drowning in bubbles of bliss.
Creative disruption as we are so fond of (thanks, mr. Christianson) in what we call ‘the world of technology’, which is simply ‘The World,’ as man knows it, holds a great lesson for our ego-escape, our opening of the gates to the great mandala of the Self, it’s lesson: one may not restrict progress simply out of the desire to avoid disaster or misdirection, rather, one must out-compete it with a superiorly sterling and attractive idea—a positive instead of its negation. A too-shiny object (a black mirror) can only be transcended —rescuing the hypnotized, [little ‘s’] self from drowning in the much deeper pool of his likeness, his potentiality— by means of the yet superior, yet fascinating, deeper pool of [capital ‘S’] Self-realization. And this is why he’s so attracted to that reflection. It reflects his potential so really that it fools him. Meta. Virtual. Artificial.
So what is the creatively disruptive alternative that will plunge him into reality rather than its virtual image, similarity?
Pain. Mortification. Embarrassment in the worst possible company. And then its acceptance. From crying alone in the midst of despair in the midst still of that watching crowd’s sadist gaze. Until you laugh at your self, at its death.
“That’s not the answer I was looking for” is the likely response, no? To that I say: conside the alternative.
The steadfast ignorance of the meager self. No attention paid, no public pain, and no conversion experience—no experience at all. No other elder egos crying alongside, weeping ‘with’ after ‘at’, telling him “we too are nothing, boy, and in this we’ve found heart, somehow, on the underside of her and down death’s river to a city of life.”
The egos what have died have risen. And those who never did die finally.
For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
Christ, Matthew 16:25
What is a society engineered —whether by fate or purpose or accident— that sells preservation at the cost of life, that glorifies the reflection of the child unconsecrated to destiny, but one that aims to prevent the development of individuals—to dominate them by dissolving them into the mass; it is, even if by happenstance, in its ignorance of this sacred need of its people, evil. And to let them blame themselves in a game of infinite mimetic finger-pointing, evil yet more.
The idea that outcompetes life without sacrifice and compromise is, conversely, suffering. No hyper-orange carrot, no sweeter deal, just a plain brown stick: make no sacrifice of yourself and you’ll have no self to speak of, and with it, no meaning. You’ll never become a real boy. You’ll fall prey to some enticement and you’ll be made into a braying jackass, a laughing stock without guidance upward toward transcendence.
Seek to save your life and you’ll lose it. Willingly choose to plunge the ego into the unknown, to die, and you’ll find meaning in life that transcends the death of an anyway meager body.