Jan 30, 2023·edited Jan 31, 2023Liked by O.G. Rose
Worry is a form of meditation which will eventually manifest that which is dwelt upon. The only solution is to prepare for our fears and then bravely confront them, and the sooner the better since we will eventually have to face them anyway. Thus, it is better to do so prepared. Culturally, this is done by fostering community, self-reliance, and a set of values embodied in a greater whole that are worth sacrificing for. Of course some of these values are likely to be contradictory, and so we have the problem of how to create new forms capable of containing and utilizing these internal contradictions in a generative way. And so we're SOL (Shit out of Luck or Science of Logic)
Very interesting read -- Reflects a lot of what I have been thinking about recently -- that Joy and worry are both reflexive or recursive physiological processes that extend infinitely. In my experience, the most that we can do to combat worry is the "act as if" that you mention here, to prime one's nervous system for the attitude opposed to worry -- fortitude.
I have been thinking along these lines it in terms of how these emotions are habituated in our nervous system and in patterns of neural cascades, that become engrained through repeated behaviors and responses over time. Though I think he sometimes ventures too far into eastern mysticism and new ageism, the author Joseph Dispenza has discovered something of incredible value, if one can sift the gold from the dust; he really is different from other authors, because of his scientific rigor and demonstrated results. He writes very effectively & practically in parts of his book about biology, physiology, neurology in relation to moods, emotions, and thoughts, and has a lot of scientific tests and measures to back up his claims. I have been enjoying his audiobook "Supernatural" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_-K4GUX53k&t=26180s .. I have a goal to re-write this Supernatural book but translating it into terms of Catholic interior life & mystical theology. Books like this give me hope for the future of medicine.
This Joseph Dispenza work, and your writing here brings to mind Lucretius "On Nature" which I have delving into more recently. The Lucretian / Epicurean / Democritean / Protagorean line of thought, I think is not well understood, because it has remained largely in historical obscurity and been transmitted mostly in small schools of thought. But essentially I think that the intrinsic experience of pleasure and Joy, independent of any countervailing external circumstances, offers the best curative to worry. I think you are right that the majority will likely tend cave to worry, however the Joy of the philosopher is so great, so vast, so incredible that is capable of compensating for all the worries of the majority -- the Guardians can set the city right -- and ultimately, in Christ, the worry can be redeemed, because Christ has paid the debt in advance.
It is worthwhile to understand the position of those atomists especially because of how the position is re-stated in modern physics. Karl Jaspers writes very eloquently about Epicureanism. It is really interesting to think about how the classical position of Plato, Aristotle, for example is opposed to atomism, and vice versa.. Pascal & Leibniz defend the Platonic - Aristotlean position against the atomists, that there could not be indivisible atoms, because they say that atomism implies a contradiction. I will quote from Pascal:
"However great a space may be, we can conceive of a greater; and thus ad infinitum, without ever arriving at one which can no longer be increased. And, on the contrary, however small a space may be, we can still imagine a smaller; and so on ad infinitum, without ever arriving at one indivisible, which has no longer any extent.
It is the same with time. We can always conceive of a greater without an ultimate, and of a less without arriving at a point and a pure nothingness of duration.
That is, in a word, whatever movement, whatever number, whatever space, whatever time there may be, there is always a greater and a less than these: so that they all stand betwixt nothingness and the infinite, being always infinitely distant from these extremes.
All these truths cannot be demonstrated; and yet they are the foundations and principles of geometry. But as the cause that renders them incapable of demonstration is not their obscurity, but on the contrary their extreme obviousness, this lack of proof is not a defect, but rather a perfection.
From which we see that geometry can neither define objects nor prove principles; but for this single and advantageous reason that both are in an extreme natural clearness, which convinces reason more powerfully than discourse.
For what is more evident than this truth, that a number whatever it may be, can be increased—can be doubled? Again, may not the speed of a movement be doubled, and may not a space be doubled in the same manner?
....
Lastly, may not a space, however small it may be, be divided into two, and these halves again? And how could these two halves become indivisible without extent, which joined together made the former extent?
There is no natural knowledge in mankind that precedes this, and surpasses it in clearness. Nevertheless, in order that there may be examples for every thing, we find minds, excellent in all things else, that are shocked by these infinities and can in no wise assent to them."
And so this kind of infinite vastness and infinite smallness of space & time, may render in us a kind of anxiety or worry or dread of existence, I think that this is often what the post-modernists and exsitentialists tremble about. And this kind of infinite regress, though present in geometry and physical matters, is in deed solved by metaphysics in the cosmological proof of Aquinas, by which the Science of the Saints is revealed.
Leibniz offered a neat synthesis by partially adopting the doctrine of the atomists in the form of Monads, which are more neo-Platonic than the straight atomist doctrine, and partially adopting the Thomist cosmological proof in the form of the principle of sufficient reason. Monads are akin to Christian Souls. They are not physical atoms, but supra physical, divine, unique simplicities, that are in some mysterious way connected to the First Cause. In any case, it seems to me that a kind of intrinsic Joy, exuberance, magnanimity in gratitude for the gift of life, which you yourself are the among the foremost living example of to me, is the most effective spiritual combat to the disease of worry, at least in my own personal experience.
And we ought to keep in mind the societal structure that allows for people to ultimately be freed from worry, and attain True Freedom, through this intrinsic Joy. Because if this intrinsic Joy can be strong enough, then it may over time reflexively diminish worry, and the habits of worry in our nervous system and neural cascade patterns, and thus diminish the cause of worry in our own personal life, and help us to have "the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, and the courage to change the things we can." And at least then we can attain Freedom of our own personal experience, by which we will better aid others in reaching Freedom.
Worry is a form of meditation which will eventually manifest that which is dwelt upon. The only solution is to prepare for our fears and then bravely confront them, and the sooner the better since we will eventually have to face them anyway. Thus, it is better to do so prepared. Culturally, this is done by fostering community, self-reliance, and a set of values embodied in a greater whole that are worth sacrificing for. Of course some of these values are likely to be contradictory, and so we have the problem of how to create new forms capable of containing and utilizing these internal contradictions in a generative way. And so we're SOL (Shit out of Luck or Science of Logic)
Very interesting read -- Reflects a lot of what I have been thinking about recently -- that Joy and worry are both reflexive or recursive physiological processes that extend infinitely. In my experience, the most that we can do to combat worry is the "act as if" that you mention here, to prime one's nervous system for the attitude opposed to worry -- fortitude.
I have been thinking along these lines it in terms of how these emotions are habituated in our nervous system and in patterns of neural cascades, that become engrained through repeated behaviors and responses over time. Though I think he sometimes ventures too far into eastern mysticism and new ageism, the author Joseph Dispenza has discovered something of incredible value, if one can sift the gold from the dust; he really is different from other authors, because of his scientific rigor and demonstrated results. He writes very effectively & practically in parts of his book about biology, physiology, neurology in relation to moods, emotions, and thoughts, and has a lot of scientific tests and measures to back up his claims. I have been enjoying his audiobook "Supernatural" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_-K4GUX53k&t=26180s .. I have a goal to re-write this Supernatural book but translating it into terms of Catholic interior life & mystical theology. Books like this give me hope for the future of medicine.
This Joseph Dispenza work, and your writing here brings to mind Lucretius "On Nature" which I have delving into more recently. The Lucretian / Epicurean / Democritean / Protagorean line of thought, I think is not well understood, because it has remained largely in historical obscurity and been transmitted mostly in small schools of thought. But essentially I think that the intrinsic experience of pleasure and Joy, independent of any countervailing external circumstances, offers the best curative to worry. I think you are right that the majority will likely tend cave to worry, however the Joy of the philosopher is so great, so vast, so incredible that is capable of compensating for all the worries of the majority -- the Guardians can set the city right -- and ultimately, in Christ, the worry can be redeemed, because Christ has paid the debt in advance.
It is worthwhile to understand the position of those atomists especially because of how the position is re-stated in modern physics. Karl Jaspers writes very eloquently about Epicureanism. It is really interesting to think about how the classical position of Plato, Aristotle, for example is opposed to atomism, and vice versa.. Pascal & Leibniz defend the Platonic - Aristotlean position against the atomists, that there could not be indivisible atoms, because they say that atomism implies a contradiction. I will quote from Pascal:
"However great a space may be, we can conceive of a greater; and thus ad infinitum, without ever arriving at one which can no longer be increased. And, on the contrary, however small a space may be, we can still imagine a smaller; and so on ad infinitum, without ever arriving at one indivisible, which has no longer any extent.
It is the same with time. We can always conceive of a greater without an ultimate, and of a less without arriving at a point and a pure nothingness of duration.
That is, in a word, whatever movement, whatever number, whatever space, whatever time there may be, there is always a greater and a less than these: so that they all stand betwixt nothingness and the infinite, being always infinitely distant from these extremes.
All these truths cannot be demonstrated; and yet they are the foundations and principles of geometry. But as the cause that renders them incapable of demonstration is not their obscurity, but on the contrary their extreme obviousness, this lack of proof is not a defect, but rather a perfection.
From which we see that geometry can neither define objects nor prove principles; but for this single and advantageous reason that both are in an extreme natural clearness, which convinces reason more powerfully than discourse.
For what is more evident than this truth, that a number whatever it may be, can be increased—can be doubled? Again, may not the speed of a movement be doubled, and may not a space be doubled in the same manner?
....
Lastly, may not a space, however small it may be, be divided into two, and these halves again? And how could these two halves become indivisible without extent, which joined together made the former extent?
There is no natural knowledge in mankind that precedes this, and surpasses it in clearness. Nevertheless, in order that there may be examples for every thing, we find minds, excellent in all things else, that are shocked by these infinities and can in no wise assent to them."
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal/Of_the_Geometrical_Spirit
And so this kind of infinite vastness and infinite smallness of space & time, may render in us a kind of anxiety or worry or dread of existence, I think that this is often what the post-modernists and exsitentialists tremble about. And this kind of infinite regress, though present in geometry and physical matters, is in deed solved by metaphysics in the cosmological proof of Aquinas, by which the Science of the Saints is revealed.
Leibniz offered a neat synthesis by partially adopting the doctrine of the atomists in the form of Monads, which are more neo-Platonic than the straight atomist doctrine, and partially adopting the Thomist cosmological proof in the form of the principle of sufficient reason. Monads are akin to Christian Souls. They are not physical atoms, but supra physical, divine, unique simplicities, that are in some mysterious way connected to the First Cause. In any case, it seems to me that a kind of intrinsic Joy, exuberance, magnanimity in gratitude for the gift of life, which you yourself are the among the foremost living example of to me, is the most effective spiritual combat to the disease of worry, at least in my own personal experience.
And we ought to keep in mind the societal structure that allows for people to ultimately be freed from worry, and attain True Freedom, through this intrinsic Joy. Because if this intrinsic Joy can be strong enough, then it may over time reflexively diminish worry, and the habits of worry in our nervous system and neural cascade patterns, and thus diminish the cause of worry in our own personal life, and help us to have "the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, and the courage to change the things we can." And at least then we can attain Freedom of our own personal experience, by which we will better aid others in reaching Freedom.