Bullies and Saints

When an individual behaves in a way that is either too good or too bad it suggests that he has repressed, edited out, or rejected parts of his human nature.  Both the bully and the saint have lost a sense of proportion.  In some sense, like Yeats's fanatic, such a person is "maimed" and not fully human. --W,Z,P

This concept speaks about human nature, which is what really?  It is found both lacking and in exaggeration in the bully and the saint.  The qualities of aggressiveness are present in both, one is aggressive externally, the other internally via sacrifice.  There is a sense that the emphasis of certain qualities at the expense of others leads to imbalance.  This imbalance puts the person out of touch with their full humanity.  The passage appealed to me because it does not follow the conventional idea that saints are all good and bullies are all bad.  There is something disturbing about both, although the harm from the bully can be a lot more widespread and painful.

Bullies are blatant in their controlling tendencies.  They need to feel powerful, probably because they want to subdue their sense of insecurity.  The bully must sacrifice his empathy, his connection to others.  If he is open to their pain, then he will also suffer.  To block that pain means he must sever his emotional connection to others, which is isolating, and that further instills the sense of insecurity that he was trying to subdue in the first place.

Saints are generally regarded as distilled manifestations of the best qualities of humans.  They are beyond "us" so much so that to question them is tantamount to irreverence, or more mildly, ingratitude.  Questioning their behavior is unquestionable.  The motives of a saint should be considered, as should the saint herself watch her motives.  To emphasize one goal or one virtue over others is a form of repression, of internal fragmentation.  This generally builds up the repressed feeling until it finds release.  Much of this release may find its way through non-verbal means.  It's like trying to smile all day when you are grumpy.  It may help make you feel a bit better, but if you are constantly resisting any of the day's frustrations with a smile, you will probably come across as inauthentic.  It's difficult to know what this resistance does to oneself physiologically.  To subsume oneself to an idea of virtue is a kind of ruthlessness.  If you expect yourself to fit a specific mold, how can you be fine with allowing others to be authentic or mold-less?  You want to control yourself because you know what's right, and naturally, that idea of rightness finds its way in trying to control others.  The problem comes when we stop paying attention.  We get so fused with a particular virtue that then we lose sensitivity to the changing conditions around us and within us.  These changes may require us to change, but if we are stuck to a virtuous pattern, we may not see what the appropriate change may be.  We cannot wrap up this thing called life until we are dead.  We must always pay attention.

The complaining splinter

Pick up a piece of shell. Can you look at it, wonder at its delicate beauty, without saying how pretty it is, or what animal made it? Can you look without the movement of the mind? Can you live with the feeling behind the word, without the feeling that the word builds up? If you can, then you will discover an extraordinary thing, a movement beyond the measure of time, a spring that knows no summer.--JK


It happens, but usually for just a brief second.  The verbal machine's engine gets going just a couple moments after the perception of the object.  There are some occasions when the mind is arrested entirely, usually by some immense beauty that the mind doesn't even try to wrap up in words.....at least for some time. It is timeless, psychologically, but chronologically, the I pops up and starts noticing that the experience is happening and then the timelessness ceases.  My reaction to this is usually one of sorrow because I feel I am "missing out" on a beautiful experience.  That of course is the greatest irony.  The feeling of "missing out" can only be created by the "I" that popped up into the experience.  It's like a splinter pierces the delicate skin and then says, "geez, why has this delicate beauty been splintered by this splinter?"  


I feel I am now coming to more experiences where this immediate reaction of sorrow is becoming a bit more translucent.  Instead of getting on the expressway to Destination Discombobulated, I find myself seeing that I'm heading on to that expressway and then letting that perception allow for the space to not get on that expressway.   There is a grace about this process that is difficult to write about.  Not an emotional difficulty, a verbal difficulty to describe it.  So, I'm just letting it be, very very simply and subtly.