misunderstanding

Separation as Sacrifice of Self

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Separation hurts. I don’t like it. I think it would be SO cool to be whole and to live in wholeness, oneness. You might say I aspire to that great and lofty goal. Besides, it sounds pretty amazing to say, “I AM WHOLE.” Especially coming from a background in which one is expected to earn their way in the world – honoring the struggle. It’s what I’ve come to believe in. And yet, now I question, “Is it true?” Hmmm… I wonder…

What I believe in, I defend. When my belief in being separate is challenged, I defend it by imagining “me” separate from “not me.”

I don’t see my behavior as defensive. Rather, I view what I do as being proactive towards self-preservation and my only means of saving myself from disappearing completely. To me, the sacrifice of “me” was in the becoming “not me.” I felt compelled to separate self from oblivion.

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Fear and Malice

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Einstein was attributed with modifying Hanlon’s Razor – “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don’t rule out malice.” (Wired for War, Singer, 2009)

Malice is the intention to do harm or ill. Stupidity is behavior that shows a lack of good sense or judgment (usually due to ignorance).

Because it’s so easy to judge the idiocy of others, it may be sorely tempting to think this doesn’t apply to you. But the problem of unrecognized ignorance is one that visits us all. (Dunning, 2014)

As we discussed earlier, fear causes me to lose touch with reality as it is and instead act on what I imagine MIGHT be or MIGHT happen. According to Dunning and Kruger, we humans are poor estimators of our own levels of understanding – most likely because we have so many fears – the biggest and scariest of which is probably the fear of the unknown. Since I actually understand so little, there is lots of opportunity to exercise that fear!

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