It goes like this. At first we say. “No one’s gonna make me change!” Then the world rolls over us and we find ourselves changed. We think, “OK, not bad, but that’s me now, and that all.” Then we wake up and discover change is actually fun. We become different again and again. Then we get serious about it and seek change. Last we are hooked, and no long see it as a chore, but push ourselves way beyond our limits and grab every opportunity, for the sheer delight in becoming a completely different person in as many ways as possible.
The first and most formidable assumption is that we ‘know who we are’.
We assume that our inner self-image, our identity, is the real us. Forgetting conveniently that that identity has been ruthlessly forged by the attitudes of our parents, guardians and culture from the day we were conceived... without ever asking our opinion! We pop up into the early twenties, almost complete replicas of our parents, and its all down hill from there.
Why the resistance to change?
The next assumption is that we see change as a threat, instead of a fabulous opportunity. Why? Buggered if I know. We are made that way because we have no adventurous spirit, and are basically frightened of the world and what it might do to us.
Lastly we assume that we will be cut off from all our security and happiness if we begin to change inside - we intuitively know that identity is the link to our world, our friends, family, work. That our relationships and activities are the real owners of our identity, and they won’t like it if we try to change. And we assume that social world is more important than wandering around in no-mans-land looking for ‘who we really are’! Heaven forbid, haven’t we scoffed at those sort of idiots?
Well, forget all that. Once you start this path, all that goes out the window.
The first injunction of the path, is to become cloud-like. Leave all defining pressures, and lose our self-image. To leave our friends, and join the strangers... to even become a stranger to ourselves.
The rule is simple. Our deepest core is mystery.
The change we really seek, is known as Transformation.
The change we really seek, is known as Transformation. That means a deep and comprehensive change in nature form and appearance. Naturally we don’t seek downward spiralling change - change for the worse. My image for that, is that we stand on a downward moving escalator - if we stand still, we descend. To even hold the same position we have to climb, and climbing means effort. To ascend, we really need a superhuman effort.
you are not carving your new mask - You are not dreaming your other self.
the issue is not whether we will be changed into the image of another, but how we can break our image moorings.heh, but not all change is change of persona.
In fact, simply by talking about the character we make him real.who shall we make real today?
Can anyone talk about change in a direct way, or can it only be talked around like the Shaping Ourselves post was?when i walk in the woods, i feel myself deminishing. it wasn't that i was fading, it was what i thought of myself that fades to the background. i lose myself in the trees and the sunlight and wind playing through them. i lose myself to the sounds.
Can our mask dessolve in the mirror as we gaze at ourselves to become nothing?
Quote from: Michael on June 09, 2007, 01:31:42 PM
the issue is not whether we will be changed into the image of another, but how we can break our image moorings.
heh, but not all change is change of persona.
maybe for some it might be to break their need to have images of others. that is if you wanted to take it from the other way around.
Sometimes, it seems to me that Michael seems to want to make his "own" tonal issues "ours" :-\ - same for Daniel to me.sometimes that may be due to what he sees when he looks out upon this world. seeing what he is working on in others instead of separating it out. thats ok. we didnt really expect him to be faultless now did we? michael's fine. you are fine. ok?
sometimes that may be due to what he sees when he looks out upon this world. seeing what he is working on in others instead of separating it out. thats ok. we didnt really expect him to be faultless now did we? michael's fine. you are fine. ok?
I don't go around pretending to be a whole bunch of things or beings, that I am not.
All things are of impermanance and change by their very nature of beingness. Change is the spice and the variety and the beauty and the ever-oscillating and ever-wondressness, and newness of life at any and each and every moment. Otherwise, we would bore ourselves to death.
And yet! Each sentient creature has a "core-central" so to speak.
Eha!! "Corecentral!" ;D (I LOVE it when new ideas come to me!) I revolve around you and you revolve around me, but neither of us loses our core-central, so we each retain our freedom of will, and in this way we each give meaning to ourselves and to one-another! ;D
stand
wondering why they should enter, not how to change but why.
Thus we find ourselves in discussions of change techniques only to find someone arguing the position that no one needs to change - that we are already where we need to be etc. This throws the whole discussion because everyone feel a need to keep walking all the way back to the front door to talk with someone standing outside debating the very reason to even enter the process at all.
So I thought it best to for now put to one side the much more interesting ideas about how to change, and what kind of changes, and so on, and address more directly the whole issue of that initial choice, of whether to subject ourselves to change -
ps What do y'all think of my definitions of AP over there?
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Let's dance! ;D
Sure, I know I am fine. One of the ways I know that is that I don't go around pretending to be a whole bunch of things or beings, that I am not.sometimes you pretend not to care when you do. i think that qualifies as pretending to be something you are not.
You are doing alright too?
Thus we find ourselves in discussions of change techniques only to find someone arguing the position that no one needs to change - that we are already where we need to be etc. This throws the whole discussion because everyone feel a need to keep walking all the way back to the front door to talk with someone standing outside debating the very reason to even enter the process at all.change is good. but michael it can also be that change is learning to accept ourselves as we are.
change is good. but michael it can also be that change is learning to accept ourselves as we are.
That's not the issue here. Accepting oneself as one is is an important part of process of change, is its beginning. Then one knows where one stands. Change is not about reaching the 'being-OK-stage', but about becoming something we even don't know we are.it is a beginning, we both agree. may becomes many things he wasn't before in the safety of anonimity. so is he just beginning or somewhere near the end?