Opinions

Superlative statements tend to attract attention and outrage. Since their scope is narrow and sharp, they often meet the opinions of others either with acute alignment or with sharp collision. Both cases rile up the unconscious instincts of emotionally-driven man: those of the zeal for one's own opinions. This can cause strong emotional reactions in the other, and carry them to reply in turn, often also superlatively.

With concordant timing and circumstance, such iterative reactions can easily grow into waves of outrage and conflict, often gathering into two opposing sides, each holding tight to their dear opinions, each congealed into their side by the growing feeling of tribal belonging.

To avoid being unwittingly swept into the peaks and troughs of social storms and commentary, it is necessary to consider one's own opinions and ideas as fallible, malleable, and as separate from oneself.

True Essence

The fundamental mistrust is that of Life. That of our own experience. That it is not good enough. That it will not satisfy the desires we hoard and suffer. That it gives us the locks, and not the keys. That it baits us with treasures that, upon acquiring, become ash and sand. That it pits us against dangers that threaten our existence, and that it doesn't guarantee our protection. That it cares not for our well-being. That it threatens us, at each step and choice, with mistake, blunder, pain, and regret. That Life can taint us with the seemingly indelible label of Wrong.

Ah, but this mistrust is an incomplete interpretation. We harvest not from Life our worth, but live through it in order to REALIZE the worth we already are. The treasure lives not in this ocean of flesh, clay, and space, and the goal is not the exaltation nor the preservation of these our bodies. We come into this ocean to Live and to Shape and to Color it, as an expression of our true Being. And the truer we express, the sooner our obsolete layers slide off and are carved away from us, and our true potential is revealed.

Yes, this incurs pain, as our bodies feel the old slip away. As the familiar is seen to play in discord with the truth within us, the old survival instincts wish to hold on, as the child holds on the swimming pool's edge, unaware of the vastness of what is beyond. Yet our inner voice is always true guide, and can carry us faithfully from one lesson to the next to the next and to the next, sculpting an ever-truer form for our true essence. Trust keeps our eyes on the Way.