Assess Life

Assess? The Sufis believe you must evaluate ones ability for knowledge. The Masons follow an initiatory process towards truth. Oxford teaches a process to evaluate ones learning style for linguistics to develop a style of interpreting a language to people so they may learn. But the Sufi's go far enough back to actual teach you how to learn, with always the knowledge that there is still is much more for them to teach.

How is one to live by the golden rule if they did not learn how to develop self esteem for themselves?

How do you love another if you do not know how to love yourself? How are you to answer someone when they ask you what you want if no one ever taught you how to express your opinions openly? What some people take for granted as common sense, brings them up short trying to communicate with others. Before you teach you must gage ones readiness to learn. Most collegiate school systems will not offer graduate classes to undergrads for a reason. Another mistake is to believe that something you learned as a child is so rudimentary that every one else must of learned these things as they learned to walk and talk. For you will be mistaken.

For not all parents know what to teach their children. Because silly, it has not been taught to them. So how would they be able to pass on what they do not know. Or for that fact even know that one day they must learn it themselves.

So if I ask you to follow the Golden Rule, and you have been ignored all your life, you will in turn ignore me and expect no different. If no one ever gave you a hand up, you will never give a hand out to any one else.

Most of the solid foundation to access future knowledge is laid in your childhood years. What is everyday experiences becomes the norm. In these years is what is called the developmental matrixes. First you have comfort that is started in the womb. At birth existence and separation is experienced. Soon afterwards instinctual thinking is developed. In the first three years your sensual and emotional thinking is sown. Followed by your logical thinking from five to twelve. Your basic core personality is hammered out by four and it is soon socialized right after in school. In this socialization process the identity you gained at four is tempered by society. What works stays, what does not is left behind for good for better. But it is precarious time, for what is beneficial may be given up due to pressure from your peers. It is the Nietzsche years, what does not kill you makes you stronger. Like why do we need an excuse to have children to have stuffed animals in the house. In olden days they would be made out of wood and called idols and avatars. Granted you should not carry one around as a safety blanket. But ever wonder why we give a small bear effigy to our young children and rabbits at Easter? But pacifiers are right out, they screw up your teeth; what harm does the teddy bear do? These are the years of intra-dependce. Your ego is in part controlled by your elders.

"You must walk before you run, for if not you will be running all your life."

Then comes puberty. In ancient societies we had initiation rights. Muslims had circumcision. Aborigines of Australia have scarification. The Catholics still slap their youth lightly on the cheek during confirmation. We still have these rituals in the form of the police raiding and abusing teenagers hang outs. Another method that still exist is the no skateboarding signs in our public thoroughfares. But the worst is the sending of our youth to fight each other in wars. These are acts by those who are getting to old and infirm. These men did not follow their myths to open up society for the new to enter. Granted some kids need a little shock to be socialized into a society where they respect others rights as well as their own. But there was more important rites than these.

In Paleolithic ages men worshiped in caves. Here the youths were passed through narrow dark cramped tunnel like passages that had to be navigated on your belly. These tunnels opened up onto large expansive caves that held the tribes secrets on what is expected of every male in the tribe. Here the men germinated the seeds they were going to give birth to. For when the youth exited the caves, they were men now. Women upon their menstruation just become women though. The Jews had a red tent in which the women would kibitz with each other. Here they would pass their secrets on to one another during the weeks of their menstrual flow. Native Americans would drop a youth into a pit in the woods for a month or two feeding them some bread and water every couple days or so. Here the kids seen visions telling them what their new name was and what they were going to do in the tribe for the rest of their life. Were they to be a hunter, medicine man, mule skinner, or leader?Along with these physical rites there was the subtle stories told around the campfires that had new meaning every time at a different point in life they are heard. Most of them just did not tell some simple moral tale as in Aesop fables, but had layers upon layers of meaning. Like an onion. As a child they entertain. As a teen they bore. As a parent they teach you that you should of listened to them as a teen. As an old man they help you impart knowledge so others do not make your mistakes or feel left alone in the pitfalls of life. Some took the test, some failed, some played Hooky, and others was denied the chance. What is the test? One for all and all for one. It is the acquisition of your own ego. It is what every hero adventure was about in the old world. The stories of Joseph Campbell. It is the time that is most affected by the fifth chakra and the stage of Solutio in alchemy. But what are the obstacles faced in this matrix that make up this test? First there is giving up naked for nude; which entails comfort and enjoyment in your body. Next comes your potential for creating life and its responsibility. Once more you Toss the pacifier but keep the Teddy bear. Always giving up good for better. One of the most important steps is learning Self reliance and independence. With this you get to choose what rules and morals are you parents or societies and which are greater truths endeavored by the Holy Spirit or the collective unconsciousness. Jefferson's dilemma, he wrote all men are created equal but kept black slaves because of societies standards. But then bore many Africans as his own children. Abolitionists went against their parents and struggled for the realization of his words. Self rule, self retribution, and self redemption are very important to bring change in our lives. Also we must leave the world of the mother for that of the father. For only then may we confront our fathers and take responsibility of our self's needs by gaining a trade or fixing society where it needs mending. To do so we learn to be Self motivated. As well we temper our sensual appetites but never deny them. Embrace our animal nature but civilize it a bit. Then before we find a healthy mate we must incorporate a healthy sex opposite in your psyche and bring balance to our nature. Then it is for us to Create and teach our children and community. This is the individualization process, the philosopher's stone, the holy Grail. Stories from Star Wars with Luke confronting Darth Vader and the empire to the Dorothy melting the witch to save Oz, these stories are about this important time and the lessons we must learn to become adults. Some of us are forty and still have not grown up. Any stage of your development that is missed must be made up at some point. There was once this Drag racer back in the fifties. He was the quickest thing in the quarter mile straight away. Some corporate sponsors thought he would do great in the big league on the circle tracks. So in his first Nascar race, as the checker flag fell, he was into his third curve. Miles ahead of the pack. He lapped them all ,three, four, no five times before his car came to a dead stop. He just sat there dumbstruck as the others passed him three, four, no five times. His problem was that no one told him he had to take pit stops from time to time to fuel up; never less change the tires or plugs. We get far in life and career and feel like this racer when it all starts to crumble around us because we were not told something as stupid as to fuel up our cars. Some learn that much and believe that is all and never learn to change their plugs or tires.

Either like my Russian friend we remove ourselves from our parents during our teen years and loose what they have to offer to teach us; or they do not know what it is they need to pass on to us. He thought his parents were to Russian so he avoided them when he was a teen in America during the cold war. Other parents abuse us in various ways in which their parents abused them. Some just never cut the strings and dictate our lives to us.

In the Rudolph Story, Herbie wanted to be a dentist and all the other elves laughed at him. He was not given any reassurance from others and validation to his voice and aspirations. When a parent does this to their children, they limit their potential for success and happiness. A Doctor friend of mine had said that his colleagues who were forced into the profession by their parents collapse upon their deaths. The parents die and it is now thirty years to late for these people to think for themselves. That is why they picked the mates that could order them around. If they married the only person they could control, they are in real trouble. You can not lie to yourself forever. In some stories as Cinderella and the Wizard of Oz, the mother character gets split into two different people. What is called the borderline mother is loving one minute and without reason cruel the next. These mothers get split in the fairy tales to illustrate the challenge children have to come to terms with this dichotomy in their mother. There is the Fairy Godmother who nurtures them and often needs saving and then the evil witch or Step-Mom that needs to be killed. Unfortunately the myths up to today do not integrate the negative half into the good and bring peace to the whole. It is brought force and it is threatens so it fights to stay on creating greater harm that only resurfaces time and time again. The Same is what happens for men when they kill the dragon or when Luke confronts Darth Vader. Actually Darth saves Luke from destruction by returning the Anakin half of his personality back in control of his ego. The Father saves himself to save his son. This is a story stemming from how it went wrong in the Garden of Eden, through the Nibelungenlied to Tolkien, from Perceval to Star Wars. It is the story called the Hero's adventure and is told by what the Naskapi Indians call the Great Man or Jung calls the Two Million Year Old Man of the collective unconsciousness. These are stories written by people who have been there and done it before. They noticed they were not the only ones who had certain pitfalls before them, so they wrote the map for us to avoid them.