Peterson : I’m an odd sort of Christian, I suppose, for a variety of reasons.... There is an idea of the Eternal Soul, and it tends in Christianity to remain somewhat gendered, although there is an idea that it’s the Logos that is redemptive for males and females...and Logos is symbolically represented as masculine. I think that’s because the masculine spirit, so to speak, is freer in some sense than the female spirit, because it’s more tightly tied to the necessity of procreation and so forth. It’s something like that.... Societies have posited for a very long period of time that there’s something about human consciousness that transcends the limitations of the finite self. And you also mentioned the use of psychedelics, and obviously that was part of your experience of discovery. There’s a reasonable amount of evidence, and most of it was compiled by a man whose name, if I remember, was Wasson, who was an amateur mycologist, a student of mushrooms... R. Gordon Wasson . And he claim
FB: thanks. This has been a very enlightening theme.
ReplyDeleteI've become horribly aware that addictiveness probably runs in my family. I have a number of siblings who ... ermmm ... like their drink too much, and that has been an issue for me too. Though not as much as my tendency to get sucked into compulsive interests that have no benefits in the real world: playing Go on the Internet, editing Wikipedia, or answering questions on Yahoo! Answers.
But lately I took up accordion (and I mean weird accordion - Russian B-system button-key accordion). The compulsiveness has manifested in assiduous daily practice: I feel uneasy if we're away somewhere and I can't do it. And it has benefits: I'm up to a level where I can play in public, and enjoy doing it. People find it surprising and cool.
These traits can be harnessed.
Ray: You are most welcome! Thank you for sharing your experiences with me. It's powerful stuff, addiction. We have drinkers in my family, too, but I'm starting to see that it's a bigger issue, not just about drinking. It's anything that we use to suppress feelings that we would rather not have. But if we allow ourselves to feel them and understand why we have them, then we can actually address what is upsetting us. Which is hard. But ultimately healing. It's such a fine line between passion and compulsion, it's, well, sobering.
ReplyDeleteAnd musically stimulating! Congrats on your playing!