Good is Better than High

As a general rule, along the spectrum of development, good is better than high. This works out in more particular ways at each step. It's worth making this point since idealization seems to push for achieving an actualization of heights sometimes at the expense of overall health, happiness, and connection. In other words, you can have your cake and eat it too, but you have to learn to bake. This guideline particularly helps define practical wisdom: good is better than high.

Developmentally, there are three major problems. The first is reductionism or the Peter Pan complex--a refusal or inability to continue to grow. The second is stretching--trying too hard to be too high, too mature, too good, too something that without the "too" part is good on its own. The third problem is fragmentation or a lack of integration. This comes from being able to experience multiple levels of consciousness (being able to intentionally influence which states and levels one responds or acts from) but not feeling that and also how they are connected. The second and third problems often go hand in hand; if you're stretching too far, it may be hard to see how your roots are important for supporting where you're headed.

Overblown Purpose feels like the driven or compulsive need to "do something" or fanatically address some task. The problem here is an inability to feel playful or "loose" in one's efforts. Mentally, not being able to loosen up reduces our creativity while increasing the likelihood of fear, anxiety, irritation, and aggression. Creativity is the base, playfulness is one expression of it, and we cannot incorporate new information as well when we feel all uptight in our focus. This uptightness also lends itself to physical tension which creates mental strain in a self-catalyzing cycle. I'm a big fan of discipline, but we can take it too far. All things being equal, it's healthier to be playful and creative rather than compulsively driven even though playfulness and a diffuse creativity are actually more rudimentary than having an obvious purpose and sticking to it.

Overblown Understanding is summed up in the phrase, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." Teaching is great, study is great, philosophy is great, but we can overdo it. There are some of us who are better at memorizing the manual than fixing the toilet, but if you've got a broken toilet and only a textbook understanding of what to do with it, you'll eventually agree that "good is better than high" in certain regards. Piaget pointed out that the abstract learning is more developmentally advanced (we have to reach a certain age and apply a rich associational matrix) than concrete learning, but most people will recognize the value of a good plumber, mechanic, contractor, etc. Just think of the last time you had trouble with someone who thought they knew how to fix your car or put in windows that wouldn't leak during heavy rain.

Overblown mindfulness lacks accountability and consistency--roots. And, since you can't have ethics that are recognizable as ethics without some sort of consistency, mindfulness without principles may also lack ethics. (On that note, think of the gurus who consider themselves too enlightened and wonderful to be burdened by ethics.) Certain systems like laws and self-identities may be less subtle than mindfulness-per-se, but systems allow for the communication of meaning as well as a certain degree of predictability in relationship that allows for intentional collaboration. Many of the "I'm spiritual, not religious" folks like the escapism that mindfulness can allow. The screwy logic is that, if I'm always living in the moment, do I really have to be held responsible for past actions? (Sooo cumbersome.) Mindfulness without a foundation leads to all sorts of weirdnesses including an inability to connect--or at least communicate--with others. A few cosmic clowns, drifters, and saints may be fine, but without some social cohesion, we end up with very mindful parents not bringing home the bacon. If we are going to parse time into increasingly precise and finite moments, and if we want some of those moments and the relationships they hold to contain meaning, there needs to be some solid context. I'd rather have my children grow up around good neighbors who haven't necessarily achieved the majestic highs of human consciousness than "enlightened" a**holes who are not accountable for their real-life actions with their real-life consequences. For anyone selling, "But can we truly know what is really real?" I'm just not buying.

Overblown Clarity is all about me reaching my sense of inspiration, flow, etc. Without mindfulness of my own reactivity here, I may be a genuinely inspiring and beautiful yet also a fully-blown narcissistic prima dona. My mantra will be that the world just doesn't get my genius or something along the lines of demanding that someone bring me a bowl full of only green M&Ms because I deserve whatever I may want. Genuine expertise, artistry, and beauty end up being "tooled" and demeaned when mindfulness isn't present. This faulty perspective is willing to unquestioningly or hypocritically hold privilege over meritocracy as long as I am in the haves rather than the have-nots. Here we may have pride without an understanding or experience of dignity. This is the cult of personality. Better to be mindfully appreciative of life than made famous one minute just to be hated the next. Consistency in clarity and inspiration comes from practiced mindfulness.

Overblown Nonconceptuality is about subtlety without connection to the rest of the world. It is like someone who has known the worthlessness of the prima dona's fame and moved away from society instead of decreasing the false distance from others. Subtlety or any sort of religiosity has less joy when it has less communion. Here we can look at what Trungpa talked about as spiritual materialism taking precedence over ethically and joyfully connecting. Some meditators miss the foundational aspect of mindfulness practice and appreciation or try to rush through or bypass the stage of Clarity in order to experience spiritual highs, subtlety, or oneness. The highs themselves are fine unless they cause disruption in one's connections--which tends to happen without an adequate foundation. When spirituality doesn't connect to one's actions, you can also have the sort of problem that St. Theresa of Calcutta had in feeling that she was doing what she was called to do...but...she seriously questioned her faith in and connection to God. The personal inspiration of the previous stage is an important part of spiritual life. If one opts for subtle spirituality over that inspiration, it leads us away from our own humanity.

Overblown Abiding involves too much of a focus on oneness while diminishing or dismissing joy and the rubbing of elbows with Creation that comes into full bloom at the stage of Nonconceptuality. We can't support a truly nondual standpoint if we value peace over joy (that's duality). Feel free to disagree, but that's how it is. Siddartha Gautama talked about false views, and a preference towards peace or joy is a false view. Dogen spoke of "buddhas together with buddhas". Shams and Rumi had their thing going. Christians mention "communion of the saints". While we need time away from the bustle of the everyday in order to cultivate peace, we also feel most full--abundant as well as serene--when we can embrace the peace and the bustle with clarity, finding inspiration in our own joy and also in shared vitality.

Oneness states are great, but so is throwing the old pigskin around at the end of the summer. When we're willing to drop our weight as far down the scale as necessary, the Weeble people may wobble but they don't fall down.