The Subjective Input

 

On Page 106 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind Eric Hoffer has two entries which I quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          188

 

The wisdom of others remains dull till it is writ over with our own blood. We are essentially apart from the world; it bursts into our consciousness only when it sinks its teeth and nails into us.”

 

My response: I interpret this entry as where Hoffer indicates there are two kinds of people. Nondividuators are people of low self-awareness; they do not think much or feel much: they live in their subjective bubble, slumbering in their solipsistic complacency, until reality comes crashing in; only what they experience, often painfully, even calamitously, then they see the light and realize what they should have been doing all along.

 

It cannot be denied that all of us are born and live lives of discontent and ignorance in the collectivities we swarm to; we are unaware, so we cannot relate to and learn from the experience of others, especially our ancestors’ sharing lessons learn with their disinterested, unreceptive progeny.

 

Individuators are genuine people, so their self-knowledge runs deep, allowing them to live subjectively and yet objectively, to appreciate and be willing to absorb the lesson from history and consume and live by the wisdom of the ancients. One must be awake, maverized and aware, so that one can learn from one’s ancestors to help one know what to do and not do today and tomorrow, to help one survive and flourish.

 

 

 

Hoffer: “          189

 

As the world pokes its finger into our souls, it now and then touches bedrock: something compact, real, unequivocal. And whether it be genuine disgust, joy, grief, pity, shame or desire—it is accompanied by a vague sense of gratification. We are gratified by the discovery that we are not all sham and show, that there are elements in our inner make-up as organically our own as the color of our eyes and the shape of our nose. For we are never really sure of the genuineness of our convictions, feelings, tastes and desires. We are rarely free of the suspicion that we are ‘making a show.’ Hence the discovery of something autochthonous within us gives us a sense of uniqueness.”

 

My response: We naturally are born dull, pathetic, phony, malice-loving and, and, for the most part, are imbued with a consciousness that is fraudulent and mendacious. On some level we know that we are frauds, and this horrifying revelation, that we are selfless self-loathers, rightly hints to us that we are suspect, worthy of self-contempt for being the liars and posers that we are.

 

Still, there is hope: there is a part of us that is solid, real, promising, original, truthful, potentially loving, and creative. As we individuate, this autochthonous natural foundation of solidity, goodness and genuineness can be made our reality, our conscious, lived state, and we can then be genuine and substantial most of the time. We can be appropriately proud of what we have become, and have overcome.