I am Humble. (And You Can TOO!)

I am Humble. (And You Can TOO!)

Jung posited that the Intuitive Introvert has access to something he called “The Subjective Factor”. Put plainly this is a way of reading minds. Going inwards, one finds the only world one can rely upon and the only world that makes sense.

From the extraverted perspective, this paradise of the mind is a phantasm. It is called the Microcosm: a dreamscape fabricated by the individual ego. And it is a totally private dream.

In my Own Little World, I am revered as a saint. I lead a humble life, serving God in all his Glory, which is ubiquitous even through the transparent glass of ugliness. Others smile at me, if shyly, and hide their admiration. Beautiful women are bashful about me. Men are inspired and even intimidated by my Goodness. In this World my fellow Human Beings conspire towards a Common and Final Love. And in upholding those values that Humanity holds most sacred I too am held in the highest possible regard, admired as much for my human shortcomings as for my superpersonal Grace.

One can see why I would prefer to abide in this domain. After all: I remain a blameless victim and a Genius. I can have any woman I should choose, granted that I find the patience to tolerate her avoidance and insecurity. Nothing can turn me from this towards a banal form of existence, and any one who tries to do so is all ready guilty of having hurt me and become the source of what little EVIL occupies this Universe.

But what else is there?

Everything I do I do for Others. This World is simply the sum of ideals and wishes that have been brought into accord in mind. Were it a fabrication, its fabric would be drawn from the tattered scraps and salvaged heirlooms of thousands upon thousands of Other Beings.

I have known no other world. This is the Universe As Is.

Yet there is an other perspective: that this is the smaller of the Two Worlds. In short: that I must ACCEPT a world which lives up neither to my expectations NOR to my perceptions. That I am to take it upon the authority of an amoral and dysfunctional person, drenched in the sweat of guilt, that My World is in some way LESSER THAN that fraction of it that appears Evil. One might suggest that I do not see things “as they are” but “as they appear to me”. Yet this is preposterous. After all: such a person would only be able to see things “as they appear to HIM”, and without access to the Subjective Factor that is an Introvert’s Domain and Birthright he would have no ALTERNATIVE REALITY against which to weigh his OWN world.

And at this point my mind is enraged at the very base of my spine, as energy seeps up the Kundalini in anger. All of this cynicism that was forced upon me was nothing short of BULLYING by extraverts!

I do not live MERELY in my “Own Little World”. My World is my Window to THE WORLD, and it is a window more transparent than the one that my fellows maintain who claim to see things AS THEY ARE but merely see the picture that they painted on the glass!

And what of that narcissist who said that I am not permitted to BOAST of my own humility? He appears at night to silence me with his vulgarity and his manipulative leveling. Yet even as I write this I surmount him by surmounting the disgust that he invokes in me, a disgust that I dispossess myself of any association with by the simple ACT of THINKING.

When he appears in my near-sleep, he is nothing short of that same Humility, and yet I forget that my very inclination to sell myself short is just as private and arbitrary as my choice to praise myself. And do I praise myself? Or does my mind simply ECHO the praise of those others whom I too found praiseworthy and, what’s more important, TRUSTWORTHY?

The Mind as a Subject is what sheds its love and light upon Me as an Object. Yet it is wrong to say that this Subject is BIASED because *I* have access to its Subjectivity. After all: the Subject is NOT the Object. It is something Deeper, a Source of Wisdom that offers to inform us all. And it is Other to me, up until the moment that the narcissistic extravert tries to REDUCE it to the SELF because it is perceived to be OTHER to HIM. He is ruthless in suppressing ANY attempt to assert one’s own value, even if that value is bestowed either by Others or, more Importantly, by God Himself, who after all does not Show Himself liberally.

One does not grow by pruning so much as by watering, and to do a disservice to one’s self is to do a disservice to all; it is wrongful to be on EITHER side of a Game of Zero Sum, be it as a winner or as a loser. Facts do not cease to be facts because they are ignored, and neither does Truth cease to be True by being Spoken. A humble person can KNOW HIMSELF to be humble, because such humility is Ubiquitous in its attributes; only a vulgar and arrogant person would miss or dismiss it. And if there seems to be a certain elitism in professing one’s own humility, in tallying one’s virtues for good measure, then it is only because Humility is in the Present Age so rare. And given how it is treated, one sees why.

Fundamentally, Fascism has made its way into psychology and psychiatry, and it has begun all ready to scapegoat the minority even in the minds of the public. To be introverted and misunderstood is deemed worthy of suspicion. Besides that, there is the notion that one can know that others cannot know. An introvert is supposedly pretentious for believing himself capable of reading minds. Yet how can you KNOW that he is incapable, if you do not possess that capability in your own right?

An extravert needs others to praise his humility in order to know it is there. An introvert would not need such attention. He might DRAW UPON it, by force of habit, but he will fundamentally be the one to know, for he can see the role that arrogance plays in the minds of others and can learn from their mistakes. His self-sufficiency is in that he is conscientious. It is demoralizing to suggest that all one’s Dreams of a Civil Society are but a negligible microcosmic fantasy. He walks through the Valley of the Shadow of Death an innocent child, content in himself and in the conviction that others mean him no harm and see him as he sees himself, which is not far removed from how he sees them.

By CONTRAST, the cynic CLAMBERS through the world without a moment’s peace. He has no confidence of his own so must all ways sell out his own values for approval. Approval is so fleeting a high that he must by necessity betray his most recent provider of approval for the next big fix.

He does not have an Inner Space within which to find solace and personal value; he must leech off of others, and he calls this parasitism “Realism”. Alienated from his fellows, who seem to live only to disappoint the most tender plaints of his Heart, he blackens his Heart with lies, deceit, manipulation, scorn, and spite. At the root of it all is a fundamental FEAR of simply BEING.

And it’s not all so bad!

Sometimes people admire you from afar. They WANT you to KNOW how they feel about you. They just do not want to TELL you. If they SCORN you, treating you with some disdain, it is only because they are afraid to love you and must hate you in order to numb the pain.

The greatest and most destructive self-love is the product of cynicism. One dismisses one’s Own Little World as being a fantasy. But since the “Real World” is clearly fallen one finds nothing to stop one’s self from living OUT the fantasy at every convenience. Because it is “not real”, how can it be a menace? It is just a PASTIME. And one does not even notice that one’s doing it.

Nothing stops Relativists from becoming Absolutists. If no one can judge of you, then no one can stop you from judging others. If every one’s a hypocrite, then you can remain a hypocrite, and less of one for admitting it. If logic is peculiar to the individual, and virtue is a microcosm without reference to Reality, then you need never be reasonable or moral. The Gods are given Free Reign, unrestricted by Reason. You might even think that you have killed the Ego by unseating Goodness!

But what peace one finds upon seeing through it. As one paces the streets, walking one’s dog, one hears children laughing with glee. One knows that they are angels, and angels know that they are angels. Can a devil rob them of their virtue with mere words? Are their wings made from words, or deeds? Are they not like the Cherubim who simply ARE, and are content to BE??

At this moment cynicism and the bitterness of solidarity with rascals and addicts is transmuted to Peace of Mind and Heart. One hears echoed in their laughter one’s own innocence. One remembers what it was like to be Pure, how everybody WANTED You to be Pure. And how one was pure, even when they were not looking. One recognizes purity within one’s self, even in memories of moments that those same elders and betters had been blind to. And one feels the same NOW as one did THEN. One was all ways Pure at Heart. Supposing that one found the Heart to even walk the dog in the FIRST place, allowing one’s own dinner to wait and the soup to grow cold.

The greatest sin is ignorance. The worst ignorance is lack of self-knowledge. Stupid people are so sure of themselves, and intelligent people are bombarded by doubts. But this does NOT mean that surety guarantees stupidity, as though by some law of physics or Aristotlean Causality. If a smart person can know that he is smart, a good person can KNOW that he is good. If one can find solace in living a HUMBLE LIFE, KNOWING that one is humble without needing to remind others, then one is Humble, and that knowledge is one’s birthright. And if one chooses to share this conviction with others, they have no right to dispossess one of it. Such thieves of virtue (for virtue that is unaware of itself is tragically incomplete) are envious villains who would try to wear your pride in your humility but would not have the humility to back it up. And to be proud of humility is to have struck a most harmonious balance, for it is barbaric to be one-sided, and it is every bit as selfish to sell one’s self short as it is to oversell one’s self.

If you are humble and you know it, clap your hands. And if others don’t appreciate it, at least YOU WILL.

Dm.A.A.