If it matters, does it matter that it matters?

[kiya]

Vaguely religious maundering, on the mystical side of things.


When I was a baby pagan, everything was a big deal.

Feeling the gods was a worldshattering thing. Being able to horse my Lady was a sign of some great purpose for me. Every stray spiritual encounter was potentially earthshattering. That sort of thing -- I know a lot of people have been through that.

Over time, I got a bit less self-important, but only a bit: this person whose life I touched or changed, they were the ones destined for greatness, and I only the facilitator. It's an interesting false humility.

The process of getting over myself continues.

These days, I recognise tasks the gods and spirits and whoever else bring me, but I don't feel a need to piece them into a grand goal. It's enough to say, "You, I can help you," "I can love you", "I can give you what you need to continue". Grand illumination is not my problem; I don't need to be mother of heroes, defeater of demons, or what have you -- it is enough that someone is healed, or helped, or set soundly on their path, not because they are Important, merely because they are people.

I've become skeptical of people with grand causes, as I've gotten older, whether in the Seen or the Unseen. Saving The World is all well and good, but too many people are playing for points, not for lives; for prestige or an inner sense of specialness, uniqueness, being set apart from the ordinary. Destiny or The Cause or whatever it is can be overwhelming, a giddy narcotic that is far too easy to slide down into solipsism.

These days my arrogance runs something like: thinking it's all a big deal, focusng on Saving The World, is a handy escape from dealing with the actual people in it. Maybe I'll get a perspective shift on that one too someday. For now, I know that there are people I can help, not because there's a need to select them and train them up for the great battle for the Unseen or because I can bring them around to my ideology and bring about perfect harmony and justice, but because they're people.

Perspective is the biggest head trip in the universe.

Comments

[x-bluerose-x.livejournal.com]

People can't save worlds until they save themselves. But I'm also coming from the Hermetic perspective where the microcosm is equalized with the macrocosm. Change yourself, change your life.

How often do I wish that people would change their lives first. Heck I wish that I would, too. It's why I've tried to pull back from an awful lot that I was involved with in the past.

[ardaniel]

The loopier pagan eschatologies drive me right up the wall. There's certainly enough to worry about in the here and now without pondering the fate of the next reality over, and if the world's about to end horribly in fire and chaos and persecution, I'd rather entrust my fate to Israeli commandos, urban search and rescue guys, NREMT-Ps, or other folks who are *trained to deal with that sort of thing,* in lieu of folks with bad scholarship, bad theology, and millenialist mindsets more suited to wacky right-wing monotheisms. :P

[otter3.livejournal.com]

You've thrown out several posts lately where I'm like, "Yep, this is good material, should read it, sounds interesting, maybe I can take some time to muse about it." Then I hit work like a brick wall and everything just kind of goes fuzzy.

We do what we can to improve our corner of the universe, then go on. It's unfortunate that we can't go farther; I always wanted to be One Of Those Global Warming People, but then I ran into the If We Can't See the Problem It Doesn't Exist people, and realized that the power of perception will be whatever undoes us, whenever it does.

Since then I've been basically trying to push creative people I know to be more creative. 's all I can do, really; what I pushed my life for may be useful in 50, 100 years, just not now. And in the meanwhile I help one company get its electronic devices to work the way they were intended to work, even if no one else really bothers to use them properly.

Still does feel a little nihilistic, but it's nihilism at a smaller scale. Easier to chew.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

I've had to go through some of the same stuff. Unfortunately, the person who first tried to teach me this lesson broke me somewhat in the process *sigh*

[arianadawnhawk.livejournal.com]

*frantic twinkling in your general direction* Especially on the "handy escape from dealing with the actual people in it". I struggle with proper perspective from both ends, but it seems to be getting better. I think I got over the worst of it around the time I went on hiatus from magic, but crap comes up. Most often, I have a hard time with any sort of broad view. (And yes, I've been known to slip from Pride to Arrogance around these sorts of things.)