One of the things about learning, in any subject, discipline or aspect of being, is that the information changes. This year’s splendid insight becomes next year’s embarrassing mistake. To learn in an ongoing way, it becomes necessary to be willing to challenge, poke, reinvent and sometimes entirely throw away beliefs and ideas to move on. Deciding whether the new information is rubbish, or the old idea is outdated is never easy. I’m no more in favour of the philosophy that old is wrong than I am of clinging at all costs to what we think we already know.
The act of quitting the mainstream for any alternative view of the world, requires a person to ditch a lot of assumptions. Druidry calls for this. You have to reconsider your relationship with the land, your ancestry, the future, and everything you interact with. This takes a while, and there’s a lot of pressure to go back to the familiar old ways, to the life of TV, commute, work pointlessly, and consume.
Shifting towards a life of contemplation, meaning, minimal consumption and looking for work that has innate worth, is demanding and challenging in so many ways. It also rewards us in ways we could not have imagined before we started.
Of course I did all of that years ago. It would be very easy to get smug and comfortable with what I have now, to assume that I know it all, have it all figured out, am living in the best way possible. That would be a druidfail of significant proportions. The thing about learning is that you don’t get to do it once and have that be it. Learning is a process and a way of life, not an event. There are always new things to learn, deeper truths to find, insights to explore and changes to make. I can always aspire to do better than I have done, to go further. I can always challenge myself. The day I decide I’m good enough and can stop trying is the day I cease to be a Druid.
I’m currently wrestling with perceptions about my own body and identity. I have long carried the belief that I’m a bit of a hypochondriac. I’ve been told I have a low pain threshold, make a fuss about nothing. I also fear that I’m lazy and that if I don’t feel like doing something that has more to do with idleness than illness. And so last week when I started feeling ill, I just kept pushing to carry on as normal. Unless a fever actually puts me in bed, that’s what I always do, to make sure I’m not acting out of hypochondria or laziness. What’s happened is that I’ve progressively got more ill, to the point whereby I have to consider that I’m not making a mountain out of a molehill and that I really do need to stop.
This has been hard for me. It takes me deep into some long held beliefs about myself. Those are safe, familiar beliefs and I know how they work. They go with a bunch of other beliefs about worth and ability to judge. Even though these beliefs are having the effect of making me more ill than I evidently was, I still want to cling to them. I don’t think that’s unusual. This is my reality, my sense of self. If I relinquish that, who am I? What have I got? What do I know? Scary stuff. I would have to start from scratch and figure a lot of things out again. I’d have to admit how many years I’ve been going round holding a wrong belief, and I’d have to feel a bit stupid for having done that, which is also threatening. It would be easier to carry on being who I had been, holding my beliefs, doing what I’ve always done. Except there’s a real possibility that if I keep disbelieving my own body, one of these days it’s going to kill me.
Letting go of belief and assumption is not easy. Just recognising that these are ideas and opinions, not unassailable facts is a pretty hard process. Changing beliefs that I’ve held for years is alarming, and difficult. But here I am, in the duvet, and I’m trying to think differently.
Everything I thought I knew could be wrong. Every day is a new opportunity to reinvent both myself and my entire understanding of everything. It’s both liberating and intimidating.
December 26th, 2012 at 11:25 am
I don’t know how much sense this will make, since Iloveto explose what may be perchance holding me back that has been a long accepted truth for myself – but here goes: The most vital (as in ~life~) moment is *Now*. And the inherent truth in the moment is simply what you decide for that moment, which may cover a small set of ongoing future contingencies. I would like to say, don’t doubt yourself in the physical workings department especially if you have some reality of sailing forth maniacly, and finally landing on your arse! I know I get into this – maybe this or maybe that – but if I look (for me) – hard enough, it is MY truth of what I have observed, vs “What others have told me”. And Honestly, “I” win hands down, because I have too often taken falls basing things on crazy notions of “what others have told me about what “they” think I should think.”. Fie upon them! If it is something that causes one to see an element of, honest,Gee – maybe I should take a look at that, because something is tweaking a bell, then I will make a note, ad look, when I have the full time to do so, in depth and honestly. But I have found the looking works better when one is rested and feeling well to begin with – not necessarily in the middle of a ~maybe~ as one slides downhill, without possibly their full attention to dig into it. I have found areas though, where the tried and true were me acting a bit of the martyr. (Per someone else’s I think you should/shouldn’t…) (and perhaps they were a bit interested in throwing me off the scent, as it were…hmmm?) YUCK! lol! (for the result was a ‘perhaps I should grovel a bit’, and it lead down the false downward path anyway, as it was set up to do. Be true to yourself. It also keeps others healthier! lol I hope this makes sense!
December 26th, 2012 at 2:38 pm
I knew someone who said the only question worth asking is “Who am I?”. I didn’t know them that well, obviously…
December 27th, 2012 at 8:54 pm
The joy of being a historian and a philosopher is that upon the mountain I see far and wide, knowing that nothing we consider “new” is new. Ideas are recycled from older ones, which is in my list of philosophers there are few modern names, but many ancient names.
I like your idea that learning is a process for that is what it is.
I learnt today about a concept from Japan called Kaizen, which is a philosophy of continued improvement, be it in business, body or skill.
There are two basic cultures in human history: hunter gatherer and civilisation. Both have their philosophies and outlooks. There is nothing to me surprising or new about modern druidism, mere recycled ideas with many errors based on hunter gatherer philosophy.
As Heraclitus says, “follow the common”, forget opinion, adopt only ideas that are observed and demonstrated.
Study of ancient philosophy provides the foundation for finding the wisdom to answer any problem in life. There is nothing much new, just a new form of telling.
December 28th, 2012 at 12:17 pm
[...] with the recent illness example, there’s a process. Slowly, I get some sense of why I feel as I do, where beliefs have come from [...]
April 9th, 2013 at 8:01 pm
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