{"id":546,"date":"2015-08-14T06:22:07","date_gmt":"2015-08-14T06:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/?p=546"},"modified":"2015-08-14T06:22:07","modified_gmt":"2015-08-14T06:22:07","slug":"the-problem-the-self-is-trying-to-fix-is-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/2015\/08\/14\/the-problem-the-self-is-trying-to-fix-is-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"The Problem the Self is Trying to Fix is Itself"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"don<\/a><\/p>\n

The problem the self is forever trying to fix is itself. Not that there is a problem in it, but rather that it itself is the problem.<\/strong><\/em> Naturally this is the last thing the self is ever going to allow itself to be aware of! Instead, the so-called \u2018problem\u2019 is displaced outwards into the world at large and we ride out like don Quixote on his steed to fix it, with our trusty sword in one hand and our lance in the other…<\/p>\n

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The fact that we have displaced the so-called \u2018problem\u2019 onto the outside world means that there is endless mileage in the quest. This is something that we will never get to the end of, something that we will never complete \u2013 for all that we have our hopes pinned on doing just this. We\u2019ll never complete this quest because the problem we\u2019re trying so determinedly to fix isn\u2019t the problem at all.<\/em> The real \u2018problem\u2019 (if we can call it that) is something we are never<\/strong> <\/em>going to face. We make sure we never confront the true issue by the way we always let ourselves get caught up in all the false ones. As soon as we solve one<\/em> surrogate problem, there is another ten waiting around the corner to be fixed!<\/p>\n

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Every time we get excited about some great goal it\u2019s never the actual stated goal itself<\/em> that we\u2019re getting excited about: we\u2019re actually fighting a different battle entirely to the one we think we\u2019re fighting. The goal we\u2019re getting so excited about is actually standing in for something else \u2013 it\u2019s a surrogate for something that we can\u2019t let ourselves know about. It\u2019s a theatre. It\u2019s a displacement of the real problem and so if we succeed at it then we get to feel (in some unacknowledged way) that we\u2019ve licked the original problem, the original problem being the \u2018big one\u2019, the one that we can\u2019t ever let ourselves know about, the one we\u2019re running away from, the one we know deep down that we can\u2019t ever<\/strong><\/em> solve…<\/p>\n

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We\u2019re always banging on in the most tiresome way about \u2018goals\u2019 and \u2018targets\u2019 and \u2018agendas\u2019 and \u2018planning\u2019 and \u2018solutions\u2019 and all that sort of stuff. We\u2019re forever getting worked up, all \u2018gung-ho\u2019, about this type of heroic purposeful activity \u2013 it\u2019s a cultural phenomenon. It\u2019s practically irresistible. We\u2019re intoxicated<\/strong><\/em> with the notion of success, intoxicated<\/strong> with the idea that we\u2019re going to achieve something great, intoxicated<\/strong> <\/em>with the notion of being a winner in life rather than a loser, a nobody, or whatever, and the reason for this is that we\u2019re playing the game of denial for all we\u2019re worth. What we\u2019re doing with all of our ostentatious gung-ho \u2018in your face\u2019-type purposefulness is denying that the problem is really ourselves.<\/em><\/p>\n

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All of this super-confident talk of goals and targets and solutions to this, that and the other ought<\/em> to give the game away. It\u2019s all pretty suspicious, really. What exactly are we fighting against all the time? Why is our language so very aggressive? Why can\u2019t we just chill out and enjoy life? Why do we have to be forever \u2018improving\u2019 stuff or \u2018fixing\u2019 stuff or looking for \u2018solutions\u2019? What the hell are we at? What\u2019s our issue?<\/p>\n

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Aggression always stems from concealed or denied weakness. If there is inner strength (or \u2018honesty\u2019) then there is no need for aggression. If there wasn\u2019t some kind of inner deficit then there wouldn\u2019t be the burning need to be forever improving things. There would be no need to charge around being intoxicated by goals and ideas the whole time, no need to be getting forever worked up by them. If I am getting all fired up by some goal, by some idea, by some theory or system then what this plainly means is that I am suffering from some inner deficit that I am not willing to look at. The helpful<\/em> thing to do would therefore be to attend to that \u2018problem\u2019 where it is rather than projecting it out onto the outside world where it then becomes invertied <\/em><\/strong>so that it turns into some kind of an attractive or seductive promise that I can then get excited about, euphoric about, aggressive about.<\/p>\n

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The point is here of course that attending to the inner deficit requires courage, whereas it is so very much easier to run away from the challenge, so very much easier to chase off madly in the opposite direction and distract ourselves with some kind of superficial theatre. Trying to fix external problems (or chasing after glittering goals) looks positive, looks brave, looks \u2018heroic\u2019, but it isn\u2019t. Really it\u2019s just fear in disguise! I\u2019m afraid of facing the real issue and so I ride off in the opposite direction fighting a thousand and one surrogate battles, acting like I\u2019m \u2018tackling the problem,\u2019 acting like the hero, when the truth is that I\u2019m just running away\u2026<\/p>\n

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Forever trying to win, forever trying to \u2018succeed\u2019, looks positive but the truth is that it is the easy option \u2013 it\u2019s the option of \u2018avoiding the essential existential challenge\u2019 rather than facing it head on. It\u2019s the big cop-out, the one we\u2019re all involved in. What then \u2013 we might ask \u2013 is<\/em><\/strong> this \u2018essential existential challenge\u2019 that we\u2019re talking about? What is this \u2018inner deficit\u2019 that we all find so terrifying? What is it that we\u2019re so afraid of looking at? What could be so scary? There are a number of ways in which we could try to get at this. One very straightforward way would be to say that we\u2019re afraid of seeing that who we think<\/em> we are isn\u2019t who we are at all<\/strong><\/em>, afraid of seeing the person we take ourselves to be only an empty fiction. Another way is to say that we\u2019re afraid of finding out that everything we\u2019ve ever believed to be true actually isn\u2019t true at all.<\/strong><\/em> We\u2018re afraid of discovering that our existence is based on lies, on falsehoods, on made-up stories; we\u2019re afraid – in other words – of finding out that the foundation we\u2019ve built our lives on doesn\u2019t actually exist.<\/strong><\/em> It could also be said (as the existential philosophers did) that what we\u2019re afraid of is freedom.<\/strong><\/em> We\u2019d much rather be slaves to the mediocre lies and crappy self-limiting deceptions that we tell ourselves than face up to the reality of our own freedom\u2026<\/p>\n

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Carlos Castaneda puts this point across by saying that we\u2019re afraid of seeing the Immensity that is reality, and so we hide away from it with the help of our petty concrete preoccupations. We keep ourselves busy with nonsense, with trivialities, with banalities. We bury our heads in the sand rather than face up to the vastness of the universe. We invest big time in \u2018small concerns\u2019. According to the Tibetan Book of the Dead<\/em>, what we\u2019re running away from is our own true nature, which is the same thing as \u2018the pure white light of unmitigated reality\u2019. Rather than facing this dazzling white light, and recognizing it as our own true nature (the Buddha-nature), we develop an attraction towards the various dull or opaque lights of the lower worlds. We opt for the particular \u2018style of distraction\u2019 (to use Chogyam Trungpa\u2019s phrase) that corresponds<\/em> to whichever of these lower worlds we are attracted to, and stick to this particular distraction modality like glue. We stick to it through thick and through thin, in the hope that it will see us through, in the unspoken hope that we can avoid reality forever…<\/p>\n

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Another way of explaining why we\u2019re distracting ourselves with dramas the whole time is to say that we\u2019re fundamentally terrified of Radical Uncertainty<\/strong><\/em> \u2013 the electric all-consuming uncertainty that falsifies all our constructs, all of our conceptions, including the construct or concept of ourselves.<\/em> We could therefore say that the idea which we have of ourselves is our defence<\/em><\/strong> against Radical Uncertainty \u2013 that it is our way of blocking it out, our way of shielding or barricading ourselves from it. As long as we continue to believe in this little self (and the concrete world that it lives in, and the very familiar activities that it continually engages in) then we are successfully keeping Radical Uncertainty at bay. We are denying it. With our unremitting purposeful activities we are saying that there is no such thing<\/strong><\/em> as Radical Uncertainty (since purposes or goals are by their very nature always certain<\/em>).<\/p>\n

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The error right at the core of our scheme is however that we aren\u2019t<\/strong><\/em> this little self. We aren\u2019t<\/strong><\/em> who we say we are, no matter how many times we might say it. This is the error that we cannot fix \u2013 we can\u2019t fix it because fixing it means \u2018making what is no<\/em>t true be<\/em> true\u2019, and that is beyond our power. Nobody can do that. Since we can\u2019t fix the central problem we deflect it outwards to make sure that we encounter it only in camouflaged form, in disguised form. We externalize the problem in other words \u2013 we \u2018analogize\u2019 it in a thousand and one different ways and then we lose ourselves in the futile task of trying our hardest to fix what can never be fixed\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

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There is always going to be an error in the system, a fly in the ointment, a spanner in the works. And from the point of view of the game this is a good thing! It\u2019s not just a good thing, it\u2019s an essential<\/em> thing. What would we do if everything was already perfect, and we didn\u2019t need to do anything anymore? Of course, we\u2019re all going to all say<\/em> that this would be great, that this would be wonderful. We\u2019re going to pay lip service to the idea that it’s going to be great. This is very much like the idea of heaven \u2013 of course<\/em> we all say that getting to heaven will be great, that it will be wonderful, etc, but we never think beyond<\/em> this. We never consider what exactly we\u2019d do in heaven, when there is no need to be continually having plans to make things better anymore, no need to carry on with our characteristic (or defining) patterns of thinking and behaviour any more.<\/p>\n

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Nominally<\/strong> <\/em>speaking being in heaven is great but it doesn\u2019t go beyond this, it doesn\u2019t go beyond the label. Why is it great? What would we do with ourselves? How would we live without all our goals and plans and agendas and solutions? That goal-driven stuff is our bread and butter. It\u2019s what we do. Even more to the point, what would we do without thinking<\/em> since all of that problem-solving stuff is essentially thinking? \u2018No problem\u2019 means no need for thinking and the scary thing about this is (even if we can\u2019t see things quite as clearly as this) is that thinking is who we are.<\/em> Or rather, \u2018thinking is who we think<\/strong><\/em> we are\u2019, which \u2013 on the pragmatic level \u2013 comes down to exactly the same thing. Without problems, without goals, without some kind of agenda, without some kind of system to be buying into, there is no self, and this<\/strong><\/em> is the real problem for us. This<\/strong><\/em> is the problem we are making very sure never to address, the problem we are always running away from…<\/p>\n

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This is of course only a problem from the point of view of our thinking (which is to say, from the point of view of the thought-created self). Outside<\/em> of this context, there is no problem at all. Or as the Zen saying has it, \u201cNo self, no problem\u201d…<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The problem the self is forever trying to fix is itself. Not that there is a problem in it, but rather that it itself is the problem. Naturally this is the last thing the self is ever going to allow itself to be aware of! Instead, the so-called \u2018problem\u2019 is displaced outwards into the world […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[31,32,61,222],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intrinsicspace.me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}