The Self in the World

Another one of my assumptions
is that people aren’t driven
toward what they find desirable
but rather away from what they don’t,
a basic comfort mechanism
that’s inextricable from our nature.

It’s why people are more
passionate about what
they don’t like than what
they do, and why
they can never turn away
from either.

But it’s more complicate
than that, still.

For most of us,
the loss of the self
is a concern that
comes far sooner
and more instinctually
than thoughts about death.

We fear losing ourselves
here, long before and
without even thinking about
but possibly subconsciously
motivated by) the end
of our lives, a loss of all control.

The result ends up defining
our mentalities more than
any other considerable
we like to think about,
because it is like
the naked thought
that expelled us from Paradise.

It is a Metaphysics of Psychology.

But first, let us consider
the nature of redemption.

Most of us would rather
not even consider that word,
because redemption suggests
that we have allowed our
lives, our decisions,
to spiral out of control,
and we would rather
deny and wound ourselves
further than admit our
mistakes, or even
the suggestion that
life isn’t defined
by a win or lose strategy,
that survival isn’t a game
but rather a series of
events that simply occur.

Redemption is a sort of curse,
acknowledgement that we
lost control, and had to
find it again.

But it is a companion,
a means to discover
things we already knew,
but never had the words
or the reason to express
before.

For most people,
the expression we
present to the world
is bound up not
in what they hope
the world to be,
but rather what they
fear it reflects back
on them, from their faults.

They fear the world
because they see in it
what they do not want to see
in themselves. They seek
only diversions,
rather than the introspection
we constantly preach
but never believe,
to judge the content
rather than the cover.

The self in the world
prefers that the world
overwhelm it, that time
allows it to forget itself
(hence the philosophy
of nirvana, in the complete
loss of the self, as some
basic ideal of perfection)
but slipping by “too fast”
rather than as it does
and as it is perceived,
as a constant experience.

Left to its worse impulses,
the self in the world
sees only the experiences
and not what they mean,
a school exam that
only seeks to recover
knowledge long enough
to be graded and leave
behind a diploma
and some chance for
a fancy career,
a sure thing that leaves
no further room for growth.

The self in the world
usually prefers only
certainties, and makes
those it cannot find
out of thin air,
and rejects those
it cannot accept,
or rather, rejects
those it cannot accept
to discover those it can.

It is the uncommon mind
that makes connections
and sees time where
others only see a chance
to reject and sand
in an hourglass slipping
ever faster, ever more
steadily, away.

The uncommon mind,
the ideal mind, sees not
randomness in the world,
but itself in the world,
a series of order,
of basic Integrity,
that may be followed
only by letting the world
in all its native chaos,
make its own sense.

The self in the world
sees itself in the world,
and does not look away.

Ideally, of course.

Those who understand this,
however much they do,
inevitably find themselves
alienated by the very world
they understand better
than those who find an
easier time within it,
blissful in their ignorance,
secure in their anger
and resentment at
what they don’t
understand and prefer
that way, a tidy
series of dances
to pass the time,
waltzes with rejection
and comfort along the way.

I speak of Metaphysics
because it is a science
in which we may choose
our own Value,
see its Integrity
for whatever it means to us,
and not follow a path of fallacy.

I envision a self in the world
who is not driven only what
they don’t want to see,
but rather sees all
and sees their worth,
for what they mean to all.

I don’t expect the world
of the world, and am wrathful
when I see those who stray
from what is in front of them,
but I subject myself
to my own rules,
and struggle to find my way.

The self in the world
need not reject the world
or itself to find peace,
but it must understand
that peace is not lasting
in a world where
the search is all the self
will ever find in the world.

Redemption is the only
reward in such a world,
the lasting chance to
reconcile oneself to the world,

Where all things truly are
possible.