How To Reflect Upon Your Irreducible Rascality
Hintergedanken — Alan Watts liked this German word, which means a thought in the very far far back of your mind.
… and once we are there — the very far, far back of our minds — we see a mirror — we also see an image of our thoughts and things, the image, that we hate in others.
By recognizing and accepting your own dark side, you open up many doors for improvement. Recognition itself is enough, as it carries the seed of transformation. Boldly, face your irreducible rascality.
How To Admit Your Irreducible Rascality
We are far from perfect. Let’s admit it.
We all have the elements of irreducible rascality.
Don’t judge good and bad as black and white.
Don’t try to solve this two-sidedness of oneness
Clear thoughts — yes you should have it.
Perfect thoughts — not sure what that is.
It is good to reflect upon our deepest mortal thoughts.
…and understand both sides of yourself.
Don’t feel guilty if you witness something in the reflection of your thoughts that you don’t like. And also, don’t be too proud that you have found something great as there might be more hellish thoughts hiding in the pitch dark hellish psyche of yours, keep digging.
Don’t reject it, don’t accept it, just play with it.
Having irreducible rascality won’t make you a sinner, and not having it won’t make you a saint
We must not listen to those who urge us to think human thoughts since we are human, and mortal thoughts since we are mortal; rather, we should as far as possible immortalize ourselves and do all we can to live according to the finest element within us — for if it is small in bulk, it is far greater than anything else in power and worth. — Nicomachean Ethics
Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream
There are a lot of law-abiding good people dreaming about bad things and wake up in a good mood enjoying recalling their dreams. At “thought” level, a good person is not much different from a bad person. Sometimes we purposefully like our mortal thoughts because deep down we have inclination for those.
Man is always in conflict. He is always fighting this war. There are two of hims, and he is always living two lives. One that he is actually living and other that he left unlived and still avoiding.
We should relate it to primitive survival instinct that comes with a little rascality (call it something else) and it was necessary for our sanity.
Simon, R. I. — A forensic psychiatrist, wrote a book titled “Bad men do what good men dream: A forensic psychiatrist illuminates the darker side of human behavior” . He talked about that — unmistakably “bad” persons may seem very much like the rest of us.
Simon also suggested — by encouraging recognition and acceptance of our own dark sides, we not only for empathy but for an end to the polarization “we are good and they are bad.”
Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology, once said —
Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you
You can’t just put your thought on the table and look at it without any filter or bias, but watching your thoughts while they arise in your mind could be the first step to find your irreducible rascality.
