To Adjust

 

On Page 40 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer has written three entries, which I will quote and comment on.

 

Hoffer (H after this): “             55

 

The moment we are seized with a passion to be different from what we are, we are in a religious mood. Remorse, a vivid awareness of our weakness and worthlessness, the craving for pride and fame—they all involve a reaching out for a new identity, and they all have a religious nexus.”

 

My response: Note that H characterizes this need to be reborn or to adopt a new identity is a passion that the seeker is seized by, and this is the passionate state of mind of a discontented or frustrated nonindividuating group-liver, aware intensely of her weakness and worthlessness, pushing her to acquire pride in a group or holy cause, to be buffeted by fame and accolades. This is a religious craving.

 

There are two ways for the person to react to this need to acquire a new identity, to be reborn. The self can begin the long healthy journey towards self-realization which will offer the self a new identity, a self, based on personal achievement and success and these positive encounters with reality should lead to the self being reconciled with the self.

 

The second, more common and unfortunate reaction is for the selfless, unhappy wretch to seeking relief and to be born again, by fleeing from an unbearable self-consciousness into a mass movement, service to and unity with other zealots promoting their holy cause.

 

H; “        56

 

Make-believe partakes of the nature of a magic ritual. We not only pretend to be what we are not, but by staging our pretense we strive to conjure and bring into existence a new genuineness. The strange thing is that often this conjuring act succeeds, and we become what we pretend to be.”

 

My response: Humans are fantastic creatures, and, how we improve ourselves may not always unfold in a predictable, linear depiction. If we envision the self as a maverized genius, inventing new computer algorithms, we might just get smart enough to write those impressive algorithms.

 

What we would not want to pretend to be is envisioning ourselves as a demon, killer, or true believer because making those fantasies roles for the self-come true will bring about a living nightmare for ourselves and the world. We may just become the living monster that we seek to make real.

 

H: “        57

 

Our most poignant frustrations can be traced back to something in us that puts an insurmountable limit to our capacity for make-believe. If our skin be black, our back hunched, our creative capacity manifestly meager we feel as if we are chained and imprisoned.”

 

My response: When people are frustrated and absolutely convinced that their dreams are irreparably shattered, and that there is no future, no hope, no growth, then the person’s self-contempt ratchets up, and this angry, bitter, resentful person will take his inner grievance and sense of victimhood upon others in the world.

 

My philosophy of Mavellonialism is a message of hope for those that feel all is hopeless. Everyone has enough talent to self-realize, but each person must believe that her internal gifts are substantial, real and commensurate to achieving victory at the life journey she is to undertake. God works in innumerable, mysterious ways and the Divine Couple will not allow a woman or man of meager talent to self-realize without their realizing their talents in some special, spectacular way—that is the divine promise for trying and just keeping at t forever till death comes.