We are mostly invisible and no one knows it

[shalanna]

A bit of 3 AM philosophy.

Most of me is invisible. Most of you is invisible.

I'm not talking about your internal organs or what's covered by clothing. I mean that the essence of a person is someting that can be sensed but never seen. Our thoughts, feelings, knowledge base, intentions, and dreams form an invisible self in which we live, and that's what defines us--far more than our physical presences in the experiential world. You can talk about someone's aura, the personality, the soul, the energy presence, and so forth, and you're talking about the invisible person. This is reality--not that consensus reality that we move through every day as if it were a virtual projection. Can we trust the input of our senses? Are we ignoring a couple of important senses?

People who have forgotten how to have any imagination and who deny themselves a creative outlet ("I've never been creative") still have invisible selves, but they're smaller. They can't see or sense the invisible world. They've never believed in magic, or perhaps over time they've come to accept the Rational Knowledge of the parents that there is no magic, there is nothing but what can be seen and measured . . . or at least nothing IMPORTANT. They may project all their hopes onto someone else who has come to represent perfection or whom they think will fulfill their dreams, and pin everything on what this person does or promises to do (this explains the mass hysteria over a rock star, famous writer, or political candidate--but it's also a form of the child's worship of the all-powerful parent.) They lose sight of the essential reliance we must have on ourselves and on whatever guides us spiritually (internally) (a moral compass, if you like).

In this society, everything's measured by material things and popular success (indicated by how many toys you have, how much "designer" stuff you have, how high you are on the rockstar ladder or the business bodypile, and so forth.) Little notice is taken of spiritual depth or artistic fullness . . . well, perhaps an isolated flash here and there, but mostly what you see talked about on the news and around the water cooler is the concrete stuff. Who won "American Graven Image," who's ahead in the polls, who's gonna get a Slammy award, who's the most popular girl in the class, who's the richest person in the world, which oil company has the most derricks. That kind of rot. Certainly the creature comforts have their appeal, but they have nothing at all to do with what's really important.

What is your passion? What are your true talents? Are you hiding them under a bushel? Are you letting them shine and getting mocked and kicked to the curb because of it? (If you draw cartoons and everyone else thinks they're terrible, that doesn't mean they ARE terrible.) Does it matter? Do you matter? Everyone is necessary. Everyone is important.

Everyone has a mission in life. You will not leave this world without accomplishing your mission in life (this is an important message that is found in a book by the same person who wrote _What Color Is Your Parachute?_, and can be a reassuring one or a confusing one.)

Magic and art deal directly with the invisible world. Art can work a type of magic. Magic is afoot for any artist--a writer, a musician, a cartoonist.

Take off the blindfold. See. Hear. Feel the essence of the invisible. Learn to understand the secret, hidden language of the insects, the birds, your own subconscious mind. Access the collective subconscious and understand the world through its archetypes. Pull back the curtain on the theater of the inner world. Don't throw yourself away chasing the things of this world only. Be small. Be large. Store up your treasures where it really counts. Make your way through the unmapped territories. Don't be so immersed in the here-and-now that you miss the small moments that actually constitute living.

What's it like being you and experiencing this very moment through your own filters? Write about it. (It's why people read, for vicarious experience as well as for information, guidance, and inspiration.) Put us into your mind through your prose. You have many hidden facets. You are more than a cog in a larger wheel. You are a pilgrim.

John Wayne: "What is it now, pilgrim... your conscience?"
"Well, don't fret about that, pilgrim."
"Whoa, take'er easy there, pilgrim."
(all quotations from "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance")

Pilgrimage: your sojourn through earthly life as distinguished from the life hereafter.
Pilgrim: one who travels; especially one who heads towards a holy place or shrine as a devotee. One who has a quest, an objective, a holy and significant thing to accomplish (such as self-expression or illumination of some aspect of the eternal human condition through art or crafts)
Pilgrim sign: a symbol or badge a pilgrim carries, such as the palm leaf, Catherine wheel, Canterbury bell; generally indicates the shrine sought. Thought to preserve a pilgrim against interference. A badge of honor. Wear it proudly.

What is your pilgrim sign? What is your pilgrimage about?

It doesn't matter what it is, as long as you know what it is--and you do have one. Find your purpose and fulfill your higher destiny.

And leave behind a written record to illuminate the path for those who follow.

[TANGENTIALLY RELATED TOPIC EDIT: "Consumerism" is a more accurate term than "materialism" for what I meant. An interesting thread for those interested in materialism as a philosophy as opposed to idealism.]

Comments

[carriejones.livejournal.com]

Thank you. This was the perfect post for me this morning.

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

*relief* I was afraid it sounded a little crazy.

But I felt led to write it out, and then compelled to post it. Glad to hear my instincts were right and that the Universe used me as Its conduit to reach you and possibly others who needed to hear this. You are necessary! Your mission in life is essential. Whatever it takes, you are supposed to fulfill that instead of hewing to others' expectations . . . but remember to have fun on the way. *(grin)*

Thanks for writing!

[neo-prodigy.livejournal.com]

Beautiful post.

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

*whew* I half expected a flurry of calls to the Mental Health Hotline from my readers, resulting in a parade to my door of guys in white coats carrying butterfly nets. . . . I'm glad you "got" what I was talking about. And obviously you are pursuing your calling of creativity with writing--you just published a story! Yay! Go, you!

[dennismhavens.livejournal.com]

You ought to get up and write things at 3 a.m. more often.

I spend what's probably far too much time complaining about our country's education system. But there is one question that your blog brought to mind: You're a graduate of a prestigious university and more that that you actually KNOW stuff!

Not sayin' that you should venture into the inner city and teach Cowper to teenage drug dealers, but . . . didja ever think about there must be a crying need for literate young women with the proper credentials in a place as big as the Dallas metroplex.

And, having delivered myself of what possibly strikes you as indisputable proof that the years have taken their toll and then some, I shall now move over to my e-mail program and answer your equally interested message.

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

Well . . . actually, I didn't learn none o' that in college. Or not much of it. I get a lot out of just reading everything (and I started that at age three!) I developed a lot of my philosophy from listening to my dad and his friends (mostly college professors and/or fellow mathematicians and engineers of various stripes) throughout childhood and adolescence. I did get the vocabulary for philosophy ("the experiential world," "ontological"--not elitist, just the vocab of the discipline) from my intro to philosophy course at SMU, though. I also worked out a lot of stuff during bull sessions with high school friends and somewhat with college friends. And I was very active in church during college--there were lots of seminary students who came to our college-age Sunday school class, and that led to discussions of "what does this word in Greek really mean" and so forth. That was always fun.

I believe that there is a need for people to pass along the cultural and historical knowledge to the next generation, but the prob is that the generation for the most part doesn't want it. The students of today can look things up lightning-fast. They don't see a need for "knowing stuff" except for winning trivia contests. However, what they're missing is that the knowledge base is more than the sum of its parts. I wish there were somewhere to upload my knowledge base, as I believe it is valuable . . . the Web comes close to being that useful, but it is without the "wisdom/sorting/connections" bit that your mental knowledgebase has. With a good knowledge base, you can make connections and make educated guesses--and know more than you know--and detect BS when you hear it--and that sorta thing.

I decided as a little bitty kid that I wanted to Know Everything the way my dad and Angus Pearson did (to name two brilliant examples.) Why? Did I wanna be a nerd? No. But you could ask either of them ANYthing, on ANY topic, and even if they did not know the topic too well and hadn't studied the era or whatnot, they could make an educated guess (and sometimes discussed between themselves what the thread leading to the guess should be). ALMOST ALWAYS, they were right! ALWAYS, they were in the ballpark! This impressed me as a budding control freak. I resolved to be Just Like Them. And pretty much, I did turn out that way intellectually. I just didn't take the proper lifepath towards becoming a college prof (because I majored in something that would let me get a job, make money, and support Mama and my grandmother--and I'm still supporting Mama--instead of majoring in what I do best and what I have a passion for doing.)

I have zero credentials on paper for doing anything other than teaching secondary school math or working as a software engineer/software test engineer/technical writer. If I could publish even ONE NOVEL, I could teach creative writing, journaling, journaling for self-discovery, freeing your mind, or whatnot. But I can't, so I can't.

That's one reason I maintain this bully pulpit (yes, we must admit that this is what it is, at least in part, for everybody who has an LJ). I think I have some wisdom or encouragement to impart, and I want to do it.

It's up to the reader to filter out the B.S. . . .

[dennismhavens.livejournal.com]

Would you consider changing "I can't" to "I haven't yet?" Please?

One other brief thought: If more time has gone by that should have with H. Root, and you assume she was just going through the motions at the con, do you have anything to lose by calling or e-mailing her and asking why she hasn't got back to you?

I really don't think the problem is as much that your writing contains some secret flaw that only agents can see; I think that the whole agents-at-cons thing is a con in itself. If they can make a sizable sum of money traveling around collecting their percentage of all those entrants' fees and then fluff off people with "I liked it but I didn't love it," they have a sweet racket going.

And to think, northern New York is filled with little old ladies of questionable skills, paying POD publishers the going rate and then showing a profit, selling their latest "The Ghosts of St. Lawrence County" 150-pagers at top dollar, with all their appearances hugely publicized by the out-of-the-way indie bookstores that dominate that part of the country. I remember being in one such store in the boonies and seeing one such gem sell OUT in a matter of hours! And everybody got an autograph and free coffee to go with it. There's more than one way to sell a book, and those ladies (and the occasional gentleman) have got that part of it down cold. Those folks up there LOVE those kind of books; the bookstores LOVE selling them out (they no doubt get a piece of the action) and the writers LOVE being local celebrities in places like Lyon Mountain, Massena and Ogdensburg.

That's not an answer for you, of course. I just thought it might get your mind stirring in an effort to find some other way beside those con cons to get your books into the marketplace where they belong.

[pameladean]

I can't help feeling that you're conflating two kinds of materialism. I'm a materialist in the philosophical sense, and an atheist too, but I don't really think that I lack imagination or that I'm all tied up in material objects as the only worthy subjects of conversation or obsession. A lot of the people you're talking about identify as religious -- usually, in this country, as Christian -- but that doesn't stop their being taken up with Mammon, if I'm using that correctly.

Your exhortations are lovely, though.

P.

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

Ah! I think you're saying that you're a materialist in the ontological/philosophical sense (saying that the only thing that can be truly proven to exist is matter, and starting to build from there), but that's not really the kind of materialism I was railing against. (In science, you HAVE to be a materialist, as you have to hold with principles that are provable or observable through the scientific method, and can't add in stuff that isn't.) (Of course, if we can't trust the input of our senses, we can't "prove" *anything* exists, including this table, etc., and so forth . . . but I digress.) That's not the same thing as what I was railing against.

I meant (in the post) materialism in the pop culture sense, as in, "We must have the latest fashions" and "I cannot possibly wear these shoes because they are So Yesterday and I must have the Newest Designer Stuff" and "The one who dies with the most toys wins." People who think that goods and collections of stuff will make them happy, and therefore that's what they pursue, but it still doesn't make them happy, and so they go out and get more widgets. . . . Also, they often can't understand why others aren't doing the chase-the-cookie life and look down on those who measure success in some other way.

Y'know, the Jessica Simpson way of thinking. *grin*

I would venture to say that even if you are an athiest or agnostic and you tend towards the philosophy of Materialism, you still believe in SOME of the invisible things--intangibles such as the power of love, the need for acceptance, the existence of good/evil or at least a way to say about something, "That is morally wrong and I will not do it." You might even believe in fairies and magic and still not have to believe in EVERYTHING that could be out there. . . .

(I would have sworn up and down that you were a Neopagan or Pagan . . . I don't know where I got this impression, but I've had it for simply years. *blush* Now I can feel free to talk about the Pagan gods and so forth on here and not fear to offend you! *wink*)

*continued on next rock*

[pameladean]

I don't even know who Jessica Simpson is, but I vaguely get what you're talking about.

I wonder why you thought I was a neopagan. Maybe I wished everybody a happy solstice -- but I just think that astronomical phenomena are neat.

And sure, I do believe in those intangibles -- they flow naturally from tangibles, after all. Also, I distinguish between the truth of the outside world and the truth in people's heads, if that makes any sense.

P.

. . . and also. . . .

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

*part 2--this is that other rock*

In your last point, you hit on exactly what I'm talking about here--the people who are this way very often tell everyone they're Christians, and that gives Christianity a bad name and lots of bad press when those idiots act up . . . they say they're Christians because they still feel that's the default vanilla "thing" to be and it seems easy enough to say. Of course they're good Christians and good patriotic Americans, yadda yadda . . . but they don't have any idea what's in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, nor do they have any concept of the tenets of the faith. They don't go around living by the principles given by Christ--just look at the way they act towards others. *sigh* Going to church no more makes you a Christian than going to the garage makes you a car . . . going to one Ritual without committing to and understanding the worship of Athena (for example) doesn't make you a follower, but just a curious onlooker, or maybe even a poser. But people don't REALIZE that. They think that if they give lip service to "Thou shalt not kill," they're way into the faith. Not! It's not an easy path--NO path is an easy path if followed properly. But you know all that! The materialists I mean are the people who are often totally taken up by the pursuit of status symbols and such, and they don't even know what you're talking about when you tell them that isn't important or ask them whether that is the right and proper thing to do--they sometimes don't have a moral compass except "if you don't get caught, anything is OK" and "whatever you can get away with is all right." Aaarghh.

But anyhow . . . these people want to be happy, and they are trying to get there the wrong way. They could build their invisible selves through creativity, prayer/meditation, commitment to a worthy cause or crusade such as helping others, or something like that, and they'd probably discover THAT is the way to happiness. But they don't wanna hear that until they're a lot older, usually. As long as they hear it before it's too late, I suppose that's better than nothin'. Yet it seems as if people are searching for something meaningful that they are having a tough time finding. They're looking in the wrong place, as it lies within--or at least the door leading to any path to fulfillment/contentment lies within.

That was my general drift--that everyone should open up that creative door and/or find what their purpose in life is so they won't miss out on so much. Everyone is necessary because consensus reality is a team effort. . . .

Re: . . . and also. . . .

[pameladean]

I'm totally with your general drift. I just didn't quite see how philosophical materialism or the scientific method got in there.

P.

Word choice--lightning or lightning bug

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

Aha--perhaps what I really mean to say is "consumerism" rather than "materialism." The following of trends and fashions and the buying of goods and so forth as a religion. *grin*

Re: Word choice--lightning or lightning bug

[pameladean]

That would have been clearer, certainly.

I think what misled me, though, was this:

"They've never believed in magic, or perhaps over time they've come to accept the Rational Knowledge of the parents that there
is no magic, there is nothing but what can be seen and measured . . . or at least nothing IMPORTANT." That sounds like a rather jaundiced description of philosophical materialism, and I wouldn't expect it in an even nominally Christian household. Then again, I didn't grow up in one of those.

P.

[rachel-w-wings.livejournal.com]

This is amazing. May I put it on my LJ, to inspire my friends as well?

P.S. I've friended you, hope that is okay.

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

Always OK to friend! I like having readers.

Sure, link away. (I'm assuming you mean put a link to this entry on your LJ, not the entry itself, 'cause that would keep people from coming to my site . . . of course we want them to come here! *grin*)

Here's the link to copy:
http://shalanna.livejournal.com/264467.html

You can quote a snippet or two so they know what they're getting into, of course . . . but don't SCARE them.

*whew* I figured people would be calling the Mental Health Help Line after reading this one. Glad someone "got" it.

Welcome to the fold!

[rachel-w-wings.livejournal.com]

Thank you :)

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

Glad something clicked with you . . . and that I didn't come across as suddenly having gone New Wave Crazy or whatnot. *grin*