I have learned that Western civilization was formed upon an incorrect philosophical premise which it continues to embrace and reinforce. There is no pure disembodied “good” or pure disembodied “evil.” The human character is the fusion of opposites, the positive and the negative. Any harm or help originates from within the human individual. Individuals can act collectively for positive outcomes or individuals can act collectively for negative outcomes. The nature of the universe is more like the yin-yang, the union of the positive and the negative. The nature of the universe is about the resolution of the tension between opposites. This is not to say that I believe every descriptive assertion ascribed to the yin-yang as being accurate. That worldview in its completeness is from a culture that is not my culture and in which I have not matured. My culture however has plenty of evidence to support the nature of the universe as the union of opposites, the union of the positives and the negatives.
I, like every other human individual, have been born into a dynamic universe already churning with the resolutions of prior tensions between opposites. Just like every other adult human individual, I am the consequences of the past. I am the consequences of my mother’s upbringing and the experiences of her life before my birth as I am also the consequences of my father’s upbringing and the experiences of his life before I was born. I am the consequences of the tension between my mother’s resolutions of her life and my father’s resolutions of his life. I am also the consequences of the tensions between the positive and negative forces within the predator-priest who deceived, manipulated and betrayed me when I was 15. In this light, I am not unlike a great many other individuals in my generation or the generations who came before me.
My early upbringing as well as my birth and is also the consequences of that cumulative past. I am the consequence of all of these interacting forces until I begin to take possession of my own life. At the point of possessing my self, I become the foundation of the future. To be a healthy, nurturing, beneficial foundation, I must not seek to pass on the negative consequences of the past. This is done by minimizing the activity of my negative side and enhancing the activity of my positive side. Additionally, I must recognize that I do have a negative side and that it is my responsibility to contend with that side of my self that is negative. Each of us, even those of us whose actions are perceived mostly as extremely positive, has a negative side as well as a positive side that forms the whole of the human character.
It is critical to understand that the resolution of the tension between opposites is not always positive. It can be negative as well or even neutral (do nothing, deny, suppress and bury it deep). Resolution of tension means only that a decision concerning what to believe, what to say, or how to act, etcetera, has been made to traverse that acceptable path. That path could be positive or negative; nurturing or exploiting; animalistic or humanistic. That said, I return to my tabled observation made on page 5: “So much for my sacred oaths” which was a reference to my divorce (the breaking of marital vows) and my pledge to never marry again. We are born naïve and as we grow up we diminish our naiveté. However, as we grow we experience new environments and situations which can place us in a state of new naiveté. Vows and pledges made in a state of naiveté should not be adhered to if health and welfare become compromised to the point of becoming self destructive and continues to grow in its destructiveness. The nature of being naïve is to be highly susceptible to making errors. Sometimes these errors can be quite harmful. Once the error is recognized as significant, then to stay welded to that error is the demonstration of ignorance. Such errors should be rectified. If the rectification means accepting that the vow or pledge was honestly made but made from a naïve understanding, then that vow or pledge should be considered null and void.
While I learned this lesson through the experience of having to end one marriage and then marrying a second time, there are other situations which demonstrate this understanding. The case of an individual signing a confidentiality agreement is also noteworthy. Companies which have employees sign confidentiality agreements so that the companies’ unethical and illegal activities cannot be made public is a vow, pledge or “agreement” that under such circumstances should be rectified. Confidentiality agreements should be terminated if it can be shown that such agreements hide harmful, exploitive, unethical or illegal action or behavior or intent to carry out such action. There should be a mechanization (like legal divorces) that allows an individual to treat such confidentially agreements as null and void. Additionally, regarding confidentiality agreements, there should be laws prohibiting such abusive confidentiality agreements being required in the first place. I have learned that in more cases than not, one party or both have hidden agendas that are malicious and sinister. Iago of Shakespeare’s Othello is a perfect example. Individuals caught in such confidentiality agreements should be able to blow the whistle with impunity and public support.
It was unavoidable for me to come face to face with my negative side when attempting to heal from the trauma I experienced from my encounter with my predator-priest confessor. The vast dark ocean of rage and anger stimulated by the terror and hate activated within the negative side of my self had to be seen and felt and reckoned. Having no real, accessible target upon which to spew my poisonous venom, I turned my desire to destroy upon myself. My light, the positive of me, came face to face with the negative, the dark of me, on a late afternoon when I was 15 alone in the middle of an empty school playground. Somehow I found that there was enough value in me, a bright spark, worth defending, such that I would not cooperate in snuffing it out. I would not allow others to snuff it out even if they were more powerful than myself and might be able to take the life from my body. I would kick and scratch, punch and do whatever I could to fight to keep my light lit for as long as possible. However, I have learned that healing from such trauma involves much more than surviving, but I would not heal if I did not survive. I walked off of that playground alone, angry, defiant, willful and damaged.
At 68 I am not the same as that boy of 15. I have healed a great deal even though I am not completely healed. I may never be fully healed but I am greatly relieved and the great ocean of rage, anger and hate has been transformed into an immense pool of sadness. Notice that sadness is still the opposite of joy; but, the dark side of me is less pitch black and horrifying. The positive side of me is much stronger and more than adequately supports the ability to feel the sadness without harm. If I have succeeded in my journey through the challenges of my life’s travels thus far, it is because of the development of my consciousness.
Along the way I have been fortunate enough to have met individuals who, unlike the predator-priest, had well developed positive sides and nurtured me forward toward a brighter affect. What I developed, probably as an outcome of my predator-priest encounter was an over-active awareness of my environment and all that was in it. This hyper vigilance is a possible outcome due to experiencing severe trauma.
My mother may have also contributed to my hyper vigilance because I never knew when the positive, nurturing side of her would disappear and I had to face the negative, dark side of her. As an example, when I was doing my assigned duty to wipe the dinner dishes, she struck me along the side of the face with the wet rag. It stung. I flinched. To this day I have no idea why I was hit. It was important to know which way the wind was blowing concerning my mother because if I did not see the warning signs, I would have to pay the price for my lack of awareness. The irony of this situation, however, is that I discovered in treatment that my mother’s behavior (her aggressive, authoritarian side) taught me to not defend myself. Hence I was even more easily preyed upon by the predator-priest.
Hyper vigilance is about self protection. While hyper vigilance is very helpful in providing protection, there are aspects of it that are very annoying. Being on a constant alert for danger requires some adjustments, one of which is hiding your constant vigilance. The silver lining to this newly incorporated life strategy is the development of a very active sense of awareness which facilitates the perception of the wondrous as well as the dangerous. This duality of discerning the wondrous and the dangerous over the years is the beating heart that so fully embraces the mantra embossed on Joe’s Honor Coin. For me to survive the trauma of the consequences of my cumulative past, I had to see a thing for what it is (was); nothing more, nothing less. With the needed awareness to achieve this prescript, I also discovered the wondrous nature of existence. Thus is my joyful embracing of the advice to remember that wonder and mystery are forever and always present. When reflecting upon both sides of Joe’s Honor Coin, the intricacies of The Decision-Making Coin become easily understandable, commendable and worth abiding as is the case for Two Sides of the Same Coin. These three coins form for me a gestalt complete in itself and robust enough to serve as an excellent value system to assist my learning and Decision-Making. The fact that the value system encompassed by the three coins is free from allegiance to any particular tradition worshiping any deity or collection of deities is a significant benefit. Christians of the various forms of Christianity, Buddhists, Hindus, Protestants, Agnostics and Atheists, etcetera, could easily ascribe to this value system without betraying their practice of what they consider as sacred.
The value system and worldview encompassed by these three coins is definitely secular. Reward or punishment for behavior is the natural outcome of that behavior. The given behavior which exploits or nurtures, destroys or creates, competes or cooperates and so on and so forth has natural consequences that over time may inform the individual regarding what may be gained and what is lost.
However, what should the response be when one encounters an individual or individuals who seek only to exploit others? What is to be done? The resolution of the tension between the positive and the negative within the individual and within the collective is pretty much the same answer. Naïveté and ignorance are the major forces with which to contend. Educating each and every individual to their highest level is a requirement, not a luxury. Educating over training is the primary goal with training being merely a basic first step toward facilitating a more robust development of the higher levels of educating the individual to facilitate a more expansive consciousness leading to an expanding humanity within each individual within the community.
Educating, increasing awareness, continual reflection leading to an increasing and penetrating consciousness will hopefully lead to an expanding humanity practiced throughout the collective of individuals. In my experience, this point of view has been refuted as naive, simple minded, pie in the sky Utopianism, impossible to achieve, childish (like believing in Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny), and so forth and so on. I am to this day still amazed and astonished at these refutations.
It is only a matter of will. It is only a matter of the will to choose (to counter acting randomly). It is only a matter of the will to choose to nurture over the will to exploit. If the vast majority of individuals choose exploiting others over nurturing others, then that community will experience the results of that choice. (This might be our current condition.) If it is otherwise and nurturing is chosen over exploiting, then the experienced outcome will be different. It really is that simple.
The great difficulty is the developing, maintaining and expanding one’s self discipline to exert the will to develop, maintain and expand the light, nurturing side of the self when the dark, negative side is stimulated and seeks to override the nurturing side of the self. However, self defense is a requirement of Nature. This is where the evolution of community and social institutions becomes important. Quite possibly, self defense against exploitive behavior and harm might have been the impetus for moving toward and developing community and the various social institutions. It must be remembered as it has been demonstrated, as it may always be demonstrated, that no matter what the advancement is, it will have a negative side as well as a positive side. As such social institutions degrade toward the negative and as those individuals, themselves, who occupy positions of influence and power degrade from their positive, nurturing side to their negative, exploiting side, so will all advancements morph to reflect the consequences of that movement. As the various social institutions become corrupted toward the exploitive side while abandoning their nurturing mandate, that given society, that community, becomes unhealthy. If the trend is left unabated the society will die.
Educating (over training) every individual to the highest level possible is preventative care. Even with the best preventative care, some individuals may, through ignorance, choose exclusively (or with high frequency) to exploit, thereby becoming more and more narcissistic. These individuals will inflict fear and sadness in the lives of those they encounter. I know through experience that such a situation will result in the extreme with rage, anger, vengeance and a very strong desire for retribution, etcetera. Mini wars or great wars will ensue. Wars, skirmishes, fights and altercations are social illness. If unhealed, death and perhaps annihilation ensue. Narcissistic behavior in breeding anger and fear triggers self defense at some point and confrontation (war) abounds.
Tragically, I perceive that it is not common knowledge that peace (harmony) can never be achieved through confrontation, nor competition. War is physical competition in the extreme. Harmony and peace is the only solution. Anything less is more about suppression that will most likely fester at some level until it bursts forth like an infection poised to bring the body politic to its knees, perhaps even to its deathbed. Just as the individual must on a daily bases struggle and hopefully be successful in keeping his or her dark side in check, so, too, must the society at large keep its dark side in check. The function of our institutions is to promote the positives and retard the negatives. Natural consequences will alert us to our progress in this matter like pain alerts us to some body malfunction. The greater the malfunction, the greater the pain.
When I was in therapy I was encouraged to be focused on four emotions — glad, sad, mad or scared. These same four can be expressed as happiness, sadness, anger or fear. While my facility with the English language affords me a larger vocabulary to describe my emotional state, avoidance behavior and over intellectualization can impede healing. I had to be watchful that the brilliance in my ignorance did not erode or block my healing. Focusing on these four basic emotional states gives clarity to an individual’s underlying, basic emotional condition. Focusing on these four helped immensely, especially when reflecting upon the affects of the trauma in my life. Reflecting to discern the emotional state influencing actions taken is very helpful for bringing awareness of hidden motivations.
What I have learned about me and the affects of trauma upon me is that anger covers sadness. The intensity of the anger is fueled by the intensity of the deep sadness. Mad feels incredibly powerful. When you are terrorized (scared out of your wits) you become paralyzed (literally) like a deer frozen in the headlights of an on coming speeding truck. Being frightened into immobilization may reduce the individual to uncontrollable weeping. I do not believe this weeping originates from sadness. This uncontrollable weeping is from fear.
During a few treatment sessions, I experienced uncontrollable weeping bouts. In that state during those times I consciously felt absolute vulnerability. Anyone could have done anything they wanted to do to me. In that state, I was absolutely defenseless and I was 60 years old and physically well. Sexual abuse is not about physical harm, although physical abuse can coincide with the sexual abuse. The long lasting and deeply devastating harm from sexual abuse is psychological and emotional trauma to the human spirit. Intense vulnerability without the presence of trust engulfs the individual with intense fear expanding into terror. I was not cognizant of any of these insights at the time of my actual experience with the predator-priest. Understanding came as a gradual process through many treatment sessions. In actuality, I experienced the immobilizing fear (terror) during my encounter with that predator-priest.
Once again in a place of relative safety and free from the presence of the predator-priest, I felt MAD. I was angry about being betrayed, angry about my role in being betrayed, angry that I was deeply frightened, angry that there was no one to protect me, angry that I needed to be protected, angry that the police would not be called, angry that I would not be believed, angry that I had no power. . . I . . . was . . . angry. I would later learn that, even though the past was in the distant past, I was angry even when I smiled. [If you substitute the word “hurt” for “angry” and reread this paragraph you will see what I later learned in treatment and what the issue was that provoked the second year and a half of treatment.] So mad, sad and scared are emotions of which I am well acquainted. Feeling glad, feeling really happy was a challenge.
Somewhere along the way of my travels, I encountered an anecdote attributed to Albert Einstein. It was reported that Einstein believed that an individual would be extremely fortunate if he or she engaged in pursuing the solution to an acceptable quest which would take a lifetime to complete. I was struck by the good sense of that aspiration — to find an enriching goal that would require one’s life to achieve. The quest I deemed as consistent with Einstein’s notion was for me to discover what it means to be a human male and to achieve the best representation of such.
I am a male with a spirit composed of opposites, composed of a vast and diverse array of positives and negatives, such as the capacity to nurture or the capacity to exploit. I have the capacity for rage and the capacity for calm resolve. I was born and have lived among individuals who are the consequences of the resolution of the tension of their past light and dark forces and I became the foundation of the future at the point of possessing my self. I have discovered and embraced a value system robust enough to guide my decisions and actions. This value system is encompassed by three coins which serve to remind and to focus my attention as well as to be an outward expression to others who wish to understand the bases of my life’s aspirations. I struggle with the tension between the positive and negative forces within me as I struggle to cope with the negative outcomes of the actions of others who also struggle with the same internal tension. I struggle with the negative outcomes of those individuals who are unaware of these issues, who ignore these issues or who consciously choose to exploit as often as possible.
Sometime between 1968 and 1970, I recorded the following in the little black book which was my journal. It is lost now, so I am unsure of exactly when I wrote the following:
The purpose of one’s life
Is to find the reason for one’s death.
Somehow this insight felt to be intimately interwoven in the understanding of what it would mean for me to be the fully developed representation of a human male. Learning seems to be at the heart of this stated purpose. The answer is in the understanding of the four emotions: glad mad, scared and sad as well as the understanding of the tension of opposites.
Fear, being scared, invokes self defense. As fear increases to the level of terror, rage is the solution for overcoming fear. Rage is powerful or at least feels powerful to the extent that feeling enraged overcomes feeling scared. This is true in the moment of conflict in which one must defend oneself. After the heat of battle, away from harm, feelings subside, anger sets in, revenge or retribution (an eye for an eye) simmers and schemes. At this stage, the individual’s reflections are not upon any sadness with the exception of feeling the sadness for what was most precious and lost in the conflict. This sadness lasts until it translates into more anger. It is my belief that this added anger attains at least the same level of the experienced sadness if not higher. The combatant stays in that state until retribution is imposed. Fear invokes self defense which stimulates destructive tendencies. Fear stimulates the negatives.
If the individual’s life is not threatened, then fear is not experienced. Anger in the world is reduced to a minimum when fear is removed from the environment. Fear is removed in the world when a state of harmony exists. Harmony is not slavery. Slaves do not live or feel harmony. Slaves live in bondage under fear of reprisal at the whim of the will of the owner. Harmony is the state of cooperation between free individuals for mutual benefit.
Sadness is about loss. Sad does not feel like glad. Glad is about gain. Sad is the opposite of glad. Fear is the opposite of security. Fear is associated with danger. Security is associated with safety. So sad and fear are on the negative side while glad and safety are on the positive side. Sadness can evoke anger in the same way that fear can. Fear is at least an uncomfortable feeling and anger helps alleviate that uncomfortable feeling. Sadness can also become an uncomfortable feeling and individuals, myself included, have covered over their sadness with anger. Unlike fear, sadness is not removed by harmonious living between mutually cooperative free individuals. Death of loved ones will occur. Losses will happen even if harmonious living is the state of the collective of individuals. Losses will occur as individuals learn at their individual learning rates. Mistakes will happen. Goals will be postponed. “Feelings” will be accidentally hurt especially when learning how to live through your naïve understandings.
Harmony, however, is the solution for sadness. It is the harmony within the individual, as opposed to the harmony within the community, that alleviates the individual’s sadness. The harmony within the community is extremely affective and effective in assisting the individual’s internal search for his or her needed harmonious process of becoming educated. Harmony is the result of educating the individual. The educating process as it progresses develops the increasing potential for the individual to discover how to internally harmonize through his or her reflections. When experienced, sadness can be felt, absorbed and internalized without fear or harm. Sadness will be understood as an acceptable outcome of the great joy (gladness) received through the encounter that has now ended. The educating process as it progresses should reveal that there is much joy possible in a world of harmonious living.
So, of the four emotions: mad, sad, scared and glad, three are attributed to the negative side with glad being the only one attributed to the positive side. Gladness (joy) not needing to be alleviated, is experience unassisted. Mad, sad and scared are alleviated through harmony. The reason for my death was revealed to me as my educating developed my consciousness to the level at which I begin to feel the harmony of the universe. The elements that have joined together to make the uniqueness that is me are to be recycled and not wasted. I am here for my visit and as exciting and challenging, as wonderful and as heart wrenching it has been at times, it must come to an end. It is my hope that I feel the sadness of leaving Earth, grateful that I had the experience, and that I feel the least amount of fear of the unknown as I possibly can. The purpose of my death is to die well. The purpose of my life is to have learned how to do so.
I am one of many adult survivors of child sexual abuse. Deathbed Reflections and Dark Matter have arisen from one creative voice of a male who has experienced severe trauma in his childhood which fractured his self into pieces (ego states). Some ego states were not fully integrated with the others. One of these ego states was abandoned to lie suffering and buried alive in a very dark place to be ignored.
Two manuscripts authored by one voice among many survivors demonstrates the fracturing, disjointedness and need for reintegration necessary to regain wholeness.