On the Relationship betwixt Conviction and Consideration.

It may be that Consideration is the Objective of the two functions whilst Conviction is emotive. Yet it is also conceivable that they rest on a Continuum.

The facts of the matter would usually be Unconscious, and Inquiry offers us the only measuring rope by which to fathom them.*

The Fanatical rejection of Inquiry as the 'work of Satan' thus presdisposes us to absurdly neurotic Conscious Cramp.

dm.A.A.

*The measurement itself, in its distinction betwixt a continuum and a confluence of Opposing and Cooperating Forces, may be arbitrary.

On the Fallacy of the Open Mind.

Whilst it is indispensable that one should entertain many possibilities and walk down many avenues of thought, one should be guarded against redundancy, and most of these explorations should be done in Solitude. To entertain 'another's point of view' is dangerous where it involves this a priori concession: That there 'may be a possible Truth' to what the Other is saying. The affirmation of this 'Truth' is in fact indispensable to the Inquiry. A Truth of this nature may amount to little more than a construct. By 'considering' it, one affirms this Construct. This predisposes one to plant evidence for one's self; one paints the tree red to prove that it is red. If the Truth being sold is nothing more than a figment of the Imagination. Imagining it becomes indistinct from Believing it. An Open Mind is indistinct here from a gullible one; Consideration is indistinct from Belief.

dm.A.A.

On the Fanatical Mindset.

1. One presumes, at the Outset, that one has 'The Truth'.
2. All of one's beliefs are adopted in a Spirit of Compulsion.
3. They are valued above Reason. They are believed because of Conviction.
4. One's beliefs are challenged by Dissent.
5. One fails to maintain muscular tension of making a futile effort to Believe ensues.
6. This tension is familiar because it is learned in the self-defense of stage 4. One identifies the tension with the sense of self-righteousness (and Rightness) that occurs simultaneously during Stage 7. It is a token of the Self-convinced Ego that only shines in preaching.
8. From the confusion at Stage 7, one re-gains Conviction. One is self-assured again because the tension is (falsely) justified and the Other 'defeated'. The Cycle repeats.

dm.A.

On Science and the Unconscious.

 

Empiricism cannot account for nearly all phenomena. I may begin to imagine: What is it like to be possessed if a Conviction? Could it be possible that one might confuse the sense of tension that comes about from the futility of trying to prove one’s own self right with the frustration of failing to prove another wrong? If the tension is experienced simultaneously with the argument, one may easily make that error.

Yet how am I to test such a hypothesis? I should have to be possessed of such a Fanaticism, in which case I would lack the Reasoning faculties necessary to observe myself objectively in the process of delusion. I cannot stage an experiment because I have no more control of the Unconscious Complexes that would produce such a neurosis than I do over my own hart or liver; each functions Involuntarily; my only hope at changing their behavior would be by a series of fruitless decisions that would ultimately so impair my judgement that I would be unsuccessful, again, in making an objective observation.

Thankfully, I am NOT a fanatic, so I cannot know what the mind of one is except secondarily. Alan Watts was right: The Ego cannot be held onto. It dies when the Unconscious necessitates it, though perhaps not by the ‘command’of the Unconscious so much as its withdrawal of support for the Ego. The sense of tension identified with clinging to an obsolete self-conception is futile and unnecessary; it has nothing to do with the magical and mysterious interplay of psychic forces. Yet one attempts to salvage this naïve self-conception when one feels it slipping away.

At times, such an enterprise is necessary to prevent psychosis. Yet in the functioning of a healthy mind during a Transitional Period, such clinging is ridiculous.

Is it not possible that my recent interest in it stems from a self-defensiveness? What if all egoic tension is in self-defense, with the intent to prove oneself ‘Right’ and another ‘Wrong’?

It is conceivable, however Universalised.

This all seems to serve as a reminder that the mind, like the body, is largely outside of our control. What would we be otherwise? Power Gods.

Dm.A.A.

On Conviction.

 

Conviction is Loss Prevention. It is the tendency to cling to existing Prejudices despite overwhelming evidence of equally sensible Ways. It belongs pitifully to those who see all the doors to all the rooms of Possibility they have never been in*. It is the amplifier to a misguided voice which has no ear for Reason. It is the clinging to a truism like the pinching of a penny-pincher.

It is the focus upon a solid, sordid path with no mindfulness of peripheral Vision.

 

Any intrusion from the Unconscious is believed to belong to the Devil, because one is insecure in that land and wants only to protect one’s home for within. It is the echo of countless repetitions – an erected Idol in the mind that one does not dare to pass even though it cannot truly See.

 

It is madness that leads others to madness. It most fears that rarest of Beasts: The Question.

 

*, but do not enter.

 

Dm.A.A.

 

 

On Certainty.

 

Certainty: The tendency to over-look one’s own fallibility.

Certainty is a mood. Just as I can feel emphatically the paranoia of a meth addict, I can feel the overwhelming Certainty of this young, portly lady who is my sister. It is usually the result of not having thought things through.

The mood is entirely arbitrary. It is available irrespective of any kind of validity. The tests of Reason, if employed, would totally dispel it as hubris. Yet one will always find evidence for any conviction. The later in life the Doubt, the harder it is for the Conscious to struggle with Disbelief.

 

dm.A.A.

Conclusions Regarding the Mind.

1. I will never know with certainty what I had just thought and that it was what I THINK it was.
2. I will never know that I have exhausted all conceivable possibilities, because the more enduring and fruitful the Inquiry the more possibilities appear available for consideration.
3. I will never know that I have exhausted all Plausible possibilities, because at a certain point plausibility is seen to be entirely arbitrary.
4. All memories of the Past are Constructs.
5. All projections of 'familiar' situations onto the future course of events are constructs.
6. 'Familiarity' is arbitrary and independent from objective facts.
7. Facts may be solely mental.
8. The line between what is probable and what is possible is illusory.
9. If I can conceive of it, it is possible.
10. There is no less merit in projecting one possible out-come onto the future than another.
11. Nothing that we remember really happened that way.
12. History does not repeat itself; it only lies.
13. 'Something that we've seen before' is therefore no more likely than something we imagine.
14. Common Sense is an illusory entity.
15. I may feel as though I have overlooked something even if I had taken it into consideration.
16. I will never know that I took it into consideration.
17. I may feel as though I've overlooked things even if there was nothing to overlook.
18. 17 and 15 are inter-changeable.
19. To avoid overlooking something, I have to investigate something I have all ready thought.
This is called Repetition.
20. No repetition can ever be successful, because if it were successful the memory of it would be indistinguishable from the original event, and something cannot be a success if we cannot judge it to be a success.

dm.A.A.