On the Putting to Rest of Previous Pursuits

To make the decision to dedicate one's life and one's time to one thing and one thing only is to systematically kill all prior attachments to every other thing that person has ever loved. It might be argued that: no, every thing that the individual has ever been passionate about is of importance, and these former passions must be honored, for such passions for such energy can be redirected and channeled into the one specific, chosen thing. This is false. Some prior attachments, if not cut off, will haunt the individual in the form of guilt, or in the form of incessant what-if's, sometimes to an increasing degree as the individual strays further and further from that original or former thing. The energy expended in such regrets is equal to or greater than the energy expended in the pursuit of the selected thing itself, and because of this, the individual's ability to pursue his selected end is inhibited; his focus clouded. Such a scattering of energies can lead to an absolute check-mate and standoff: A three-way hold-up in which each has a gun pointed at his head and each holds a gun up to another's head. In order to move forward, two of the three attachments (or however many there are, be they former objects of fixation, or passions, or goals, or ideas) must be gunned down, so that one and only one may remain standing. If none are gunned down, and all remain, each of these will exist in a constant state of fear, and each will vie for dominance over the others, sometimes in a sneaky manner, so that energy may be taken out of the pursuit of one as with a sieve, so that the individual does not even notice that his entire heart fails to devote itself to that thing. The slaughter of former pursuits must be merciless and must leave none standing. The more thorough this spring cleaning process, the more devotion the individual will be able to apply his chosen end.

We see these symbolic deaths in other arenas of our lives that are thought of as being separate from the arena of goal-making. We see this happen in relationships. When a relationship is started with a new individual, and when the self chooses to devote himself to this new person, he makes a conscious decision to one-by-one toss away residual feelings for people from his past so as to make room for love for this new person. This process may happen in several ways: It may be done in a method of reverse chronological order, killing off attachments to the most recent "exes" first, and then in time the exes of a more distant past, and so on. It may be done, alternatively, by order of necessity: That person from the past who is most in the forefront of one's thoughts, more than the others, must be disassociated from first, and then those who are less on one's mind may fall victim to this process of detachment, and so on, in decreasing order of presence-in-the-mind. This is because, in some cases, the most recent past-loves are the most thought of (particularly with individuals who tend to have predominantly long-term relationships); whereas for others there are specific people who are harder to disassociate the self from than others.

A goal, or an endeavor, is not so different from a romantic relationship. Many undertakings of the vocational variety are pursued as the result of a conscious choice to do so. The same may be said of romantic pursuits. On the other hand, many vocational goals are forged almost accidentally and subconsciously, mainly in those situations in which the individual finds himself extremely passionate about something, without seeing this passion slowly creep up on him, and finds himself in such a state of passion that he cannot stop himself from pursuing this vocational endeavor because his heart is already too much in it, by no choice of his own. The same happens in romantic relationships, when the individual finds himself already completely swept away by another individual without having premeditated on the notion or without having even predicted the notion.

The process of detaching one's self from former goals and pursuits, vocational or otherwise, is also similar to the process of "getting over" lovers of days long past. Pertaining to the method of this systematic detachment, the order of operations is much the same, and can occur in reverse chronological order or in order of descending importance, or impact on the self.

It would seem that there are healthy and unhealthy means of detachment from these former pursuits. Each detachment must be taken on as a task that must be done thoroughly, yet carefully, so that nothing remains of the desire for the former, and so that the process is clean and smooth. However, it must also be done in a way that pays enough honor to the former pursuit so that the self feels justified in this killing and feels at peace with the notion of moving on. I liken these detachments to death for good reason. Each detachment must be honored with a wake of sorts, so that the self's past interests are respected and laid to rest. If this is not done correctly - for example, if the self is too hasty in his detachments and too thorough in the process - the individual's sense of self will be scattered, and his acquaintance with his former selves will be either nonexistent, or chaotic, or of a hateful nature. The individual must take care not to detach himself from a former endeavor in any way that encourages a harboring of resentment of that prior pursuit or that prior self. This will defeat the purpose of the detachment altogether, for the energy that will be put into this resentment will be as powerful as the energy expended thinking about that past purpose before the process of detachment was undertaken, if not more powerful, and thus the balance of energies will be just as off-kilter (or even more off-kilter) as it was to begin with, when the need for detachment was recognized.

Perhaps there are some attachments that are beneficial and can serve as catalysts for future undertakings, despite the conflict of interests that may manifest. For example, there could be a situation in which the prior pursuit of a career goal was so traumatic that it actually gave the individual a kind of uncontested determination; a determination that the individual chose to apply to a new endeavor. In such instances, perhaps the memory of this previous undertaking should be retained, if it provides fodder for the present or future pursuits. The individual should take care to weigh the balance of the situation, however, and should hold onto a prior attachment such as this one only if it is deemed truly beneficial. In most cases, past attachments to pursuits or endeavors require a lot of energy and may take away from the present regardless of how much the regret of the past may stimulate future progress.

These detachments, or "deaths", should be treated as real deaths, in that that which is lost should be mourned, and should be celebrated. Furthermore, the past undertakings should not be thought of as concepts that must be replaced, but rather as separate entities that served their purpose, and inspired the individual, but are now gone. Just as an individual should not forget a beloved who has passed away, so should he not forget a former aspect of himself that he has buried and put to rest; but conversely, the individual should not dwell on the loss, but should accept it as a natural, albeit sorrowful, occurrence.

If the individual does not put to rest completely the notions of those things which he no longer actively pursues, he will be quite literally haunted by them. They will seek to take up his time and his attention. They will attempt to be prioritized as they once were. They will make him hate them when he acknowledges their existence, especially when he sees how little they resemble what he once did. The individual owes it to the honor of his own self, and to his past, to let them move on and to let them rest. It is common knowledge that the archetypal ghost can take massive amounts of energy from the individual that it haunts, as is well illustrated in the novel "Wuthering Heights", in which Heathcliff is haunted by the ghost of his former love, Cathy. He is haunted by her ghost because he asks to be. He cannot bear to part with her, yet seeing her in her ghostly form torments him because it makes him aware of the dissonance that exists between her form as a ghost and her previous form as a living being. The same thing happens to individuals who try to hold on to their prior career goals, or life goals, or plans. They will be pained to see how pale such undertakings have become due to their neglect, but they will still possess such love for them that they refuse to let them be at peace. Pursuits of the past must be laid to rest, for in doing so they are not forgotten. This process allows for the individual's energies to be applied to new, tangible pursuits: Things that are not tainted with regret or failure, but things very much alive and possessing much potential to flourish for many years to come.

On the Crystalization of Personality and Resulting Patterns of Behavior (unfinished)

The passing of time unveils how the individual comes to know the self. This coming-to-know of the self is visible in the observation of the refinements that come about in certain behaviors of the individual. This means two things: A) In some situations, the individual may be rendered, over time, more likely to act in a specific way in a specific situation repeatedly, with less variation and with more consistency; or B) In some situations, the individual may feel more at liberty to act in a way different from the way he has acted in the past in a similar situation. Neither of these can be the case in and of itself, in the exclusion of the other, but the types of situations in which Phenomenon A will occur, as opposed to those in which Phenomenon B will occur are necessarily different sorts of situations.
The former occurs as a result of individual having become, over time, more familiar with his “personality”; one aspect of which is demonstrated in his predisposition toward forming certain kinds opinions or coming to certain types of conclusions on a whole variety of topics; or his tendency to act in a certain way in a certain type of situation. However, a familiarization with the self eventually can lead to an increase in confidence, which can subsequently render the individual more willing to relinquish the control that he has previously held over himself, free himself of self-imposed or society-imposed constraints, and in this way free himself from his binds.
Phenomenon A usually (although not in all cases) pertains to situations of opinion, whereas Phenomenon B more often pertains to actual situations in which opinions may be put into action. Phenomenon B can be more fluid (that is, the individual’s behaviors may be less predictable) because it has less to do with opinions, which become rather cemented and solid, for the most part, and more to do with situations. Just because an individual has strong, solid opinions does not mean that he or she will necessarily act in a given way in a given context 100 percent of the time. In fact, the stronger one’s opinions, and the greater the individual’s abilities are to connect his opinions in fluid network system, the more he will be able to see the infinitude of outcomes of his actions, leading him to understand that there may be, in some cases, enough variables to render his decision less important, and to render the force of chance more important. With an awareness of such, he may feel more at liberty to act randomly. Because of this phenomenon, the individual with a greater awareness of his self (including an awareness of his opinions and inclinations), and of his self’s interplay with the world surrounding him, may be less likely to act in a specified way in a specified situation, and more likely to act sporadically. My thesis, then, is as follows: A greater understanding of the self is not inextricably linked to a greater tendency toward certain behavior, unless this inextricable linkage is negative relation in which a greater understanding of the self leads to a tendency to act in a less predictable manner in specific kinds of situations.

February 2008