Yearning for Good, Old-Fashioned Paganism
Give me the dawn of the Greek golden age in philosophy and not the setting of reason’s sun in the gloom, doom and nihilism of postmodernism.
At first thought, while reading the heading, one would think...why paganism...they were mystical barbarians with no conscience. But as you read this short piece you begin to get a sense of what the author is yearning for...and in some cases...so do we.
What's attractive and stunning about the Greek civilization is not their wars, their buildings, not their humanitarian failures nor their form of governance...no that's not it at all...it was a glorious time because for the first time, the delusional voices of the gods ceased and out of all that confusion came some men, for the first time in history, that could begin to think for themselves, by themselves.
As Julian Jaynes reveals, mankind in this region upon earth could finally see the light at the opening of that long mysterious tunnel...the subconscious, a place foreboding until then...as mankind crawled up the steps of consciousness and into his mind, for the first time, he could "begin" to make sense of existence, his behavior, his morals and his actions... guided from that time on... by his own mind.
That must have been an amazing time...to see one's existence for the first time and to investigate all it's nuances.
What was particularly amusing to me was that the author calls the "post modernist", (liberals and progressives)... Neo Pagans...haven't I and others been saying the same thing?...(preconscious pagans with no means of self control... The Alaistar Crowley "be what ever you will" generation.)
At first thought, while reading the heading, one would think...why paganism...they were mystical barbarians with no conscience. But as you read this short piece you begin to get a sense of what the author is yearning for...and in some cases...so do we.
What's attractive and stunning about the Greek civilization is not their wars, their buildings, not their humanitarian failures nor their form of governance...no that's not it at all...it was a glorious time because for the first time, the delusional voices of the gods ceased and out of all that confusion came some men, for the first time in history, that could begin to think for themselves, by themselves.
As Julian Jaynes reveals, mankind in this region upon earth could finally see the light at the opening of that long mysterious tunnel...the subconscious, a place foreboding until then...as mankind crawled up the steps of consciousness and into his mind, for the first time, he could "begin" to make sense of existence, his behavior, his morals and his actions... guided from that time on... by his own mind.
That must have been an amazing time...to see one's existence for the first time and to investigate all it's nuances.
What was particularly amusing to me was that the author calls the "post modernist", (liberals and progressives)... Neo Pagans...haven't I and others been saying the same thing?...(preconscious pagans with no means of self control... The Alaistar Crowley "be what ever you will" generation.)
However...I don't care from where it comes from so long as politicians act in a moral, ethical, honest way...( yes, there is one basic standard in regards to those things)...of course it would be better if there was no such thing as politics in the first place.
mystical or religious; I am in accord with the First
Amendment (and yes, I believe it does not allow
the government to establish generic deism, either.) Plus, I don't believe in Plato's cave. I side more with Aristotle.
According to the observations of Jaynes...forgive him for not being specific...no one else has either.
The receptionist of the second lawyer I approached and hired was much nicer.
The rest of my divorce experience caused embittered me to write Cycnus, Son Of War, for therapeutic reasons.
It did help. I do laugh at funny stuff I think up.
The opening chapter made a sister-in-law feel sad. Hephaestus uses a net to catch his wife Aphrodite in bed with Ares.
Kicked out of Olympus, Ares crashes through the roof of a whore, the future mother of Cycnus.
Divine seed is always fertile, mind you. Always!
As a little boy I found out that you don't sit on a dead limb after climbing high into a tree.
I hit the ground so hard that it collapsed my lungs. Fortunately, I could breathe just enough to crawl home on all fours.
When drafted and placed in the Marines late 1969, I immediately had a vision of charging a machine gun as being my last act alive. Then I Iearned Marines were being pulled out of Vietnam. Had I been placed in the Army, I may have charged the envisioned machine gun.
During 1973 I fell into the rapids beneath the photogenic falls of Yosemite Park. I was swept along with such force my upper shirt did not get wet. I wrapped my arm around a shoreline rock 20 feet later.
As a reporter during the 70s, I watched a guy I wrote about going to jail and a friend of his come to either beat me up or worse where they had me cornered alone in a laundromat. I watched the friend chicken out and so did the felon out on bail.
In one day I survived stepping into quicksand and falling off a cliff. I was supposed to photograph the famous Cahaba River water lilies. Bad weather ruined that. A lack of trees ahead made me think I was approaching a farmer's field as I hacked my way out with a machete. I saw the deep gorge just as I fell into it, seeing boulders waiting below. I grabbed a bush and climbed out like Indiana Jones.
During the 80s I thought I was going to be killed during a short lived prison riot. Attempting to rescue an officer with a rep for bullying, I tried to snatch the officer's purloined baton out of an inmate's hand. Instead, we grabbed each other's baton. Right when I thought to knee my combatant in the jewels, two inmates pulled me down from behind. There I was with that baton grabbing inmate on top of me with many an inmate's feet milling around. I expected to have my head kicked in but all the inmates wanted to see the bullying officer get beat up. Those onlooking inmates backed off when many blue uniforms came running to the rescue within a minute.
There were a couple of times I could have been killed in a car wreck but that would be kind of a stretch.
Aubrey Plaza
And at 42 I sliced my finger on an ice fishing auger while sharpening the blade, oh and Tom Griffin pushed me from behind into the swing at recess chipped front tooth.Also 5th grade.
Knocking on the wood boss ,still knocking still knockingon the wood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7QwT...
I actually am beginning to think of this as a time inwhich we will learn many truths...the old ways are falling apart and a very small percentage of us have evolved to the next phase of conscious thought, behavior and world view...according to some, and I think the guy that wrote Spiral Dynamics; that percentage is .01 of the American population.
One should notice that it is the English speaking nations that are the highest percentage awake...aside from the romance languages...the rest of the world is still in bicameral times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZyUW...
https://www.google.com/search?q=bicam...
One agent said he was not about to sit and read through such cynical stuff.
Oh, well. The reason I wrote it was not so much as to make a sale but to help me get through a divorce.
My antihero character is inspired by an actual minor mythological villain~
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycnus
~the above inspired by a favorite movie of mine~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2KWT...
The other part of the equation is the lack of profound metaphors written or spoken because they haven't been exposed to the classics and diverse thought at all.
We see many immigrants that have a command of the language but lack the ability to relate metaphorically...in fact, much of the worlds languages themselves, have a metaphoric problem and that's why they have yet to achieve any real sense of self introspection and behavioral control beyond the fear of consequences...hell, some don't even have that to fear...ie, isis.
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