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Seven Methods of Self-actualized People

Updated on January 29, 2014
“The greater danger with most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that our aim is too low and we reach it.” –Michelangelo
“The greater danger with most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that our aim is too low and we reach it.” –Michelangelo | Source

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves.” –Nietzsche

God emptying Himself to the limit is man, and man emptied to the limit is God.” -Alan Watts


The Way of Foolish Descent:

This is the method of descent, of chaotic refreshment. This is the return to the untermensch, and the abandonment of past triumphal causes for the triumph of the new. This is where we cast away the dead weight of tradition, even in our own lives, in order to overcome the human condition itself.

Here, the animal-ego is seen for what it is: an illusory combination of continuously dissolving points of consciousness in an infinite reality, a simulacrum of “self” and selfishness. Indeed, a puppet of the self. New-gods use this ego/self dynamic as a means toward playing with the “boundaries” of reality. They do this in order to humble and humiliate any preconceived notions they might have about what is real and what is not, thereby tricking the scientific-mythical construction of human limitation and rising above it through their own courage and creativity.

This results in a fluid, ever-changing legacy of power. A New-god knows that you have to travel through Hell before you can appreciate Heaven. Here, a New-god is all at once god and worm; sky and earth; micro and macro; life and death.


The Art of Decadence:

This is the method of impermanence. Here, it is completely understood that everything dies, that all things end, and that there is no permanence. New-gods realize that in order to live a life of the most high they must be more than just creative and courageous, they must also personify the cultural-expression of higher goals. In order to do this we must face death, internalize it, accept it, and then actualize it through our own actions.

Rather than cowardly living in fear of death, and avoidance of death, New-gods “eat” death so as to discover something higher than themselves. As such, New-gods discover a transcendence of form into the immanence of their creativity. If they should die along the way, so be it, for we are dying anyway. The expenditure of the life force is the creation of art. In the art of decadence, death is art and art is death. It is only within the creative act that one truly lives.


The Mask of Enlightenment:

This is the method of self-overcoming; of masking the fact that everything is an illusion with the Mask of Enlightenment itself. This mask is the ultimate mask, the accumulation of all masks. It is chameleon-like. Its faces are infinite. It represents the pretense of man’s need for control and is worn in absolute mockery and heavy laughter at such pretension. It is broken and broken often, but it is always in the process of reforming.

While wearing the Mask of Enlightenment a New-god realizes that self-assertion is but one side of the same coin shared by self-negation, and a New-god carries this coin proudly, flipping it flippantly, ironically, and always laughing at the probabilistic result. New-gods understand that there is an inherent contradiction (hypocrisy) at the core of the human condition that cannot be ignored, and so they do not ignore it. They cannot ignore it. Instead they honor it for what it is by laughing at it with a humor of the most high.

The mask represents the “face” of one's knowledge and experience, but is always recognized for what it is: a mask for an animal that has “gone through the motions” of seeking for -not answers- but higher questions. It is seen as a symbol, a justification for a life lived. The Mask of Enlightenment's power is based in its aesthetic nature; its roots of creative rebellion; its having been carved from the philosopher’s stone (brain), and its having been born from the poet’s womb (heart). The Mask of Enlightenment carries the visage of eternal laughter.


Zeitgeist Dynamics:

This is the method of cultural renaissance; of caring for the soul of nature through the embodiment of cultural depths. Zeitgeist Dynamics is the bestowal of a New-gods unique unrivaled soul-work unto their tribe, community and world. New-gods realize that in order to be healthy their ecosystem as a whole must be diverse, fruitful, adaptable and ever changing. When New-gods fulfill their Zeitgeist Dynamics they are not looking for rewards, accolades, or fame. Rather, they are seeking personal fulfillment that can only come from invigorating the vitality of the “community.”

Within this dynamic New-gods are both defender and caregiver (warrior/attendant) of the world. They acts with compassion and open-minded understanding rather than violence and blind faith. When a New-god is creating from the depths of his/her soul, for the ultimate benefit of the world, he/she is doing what the universe (fate, destiny, nature) has born him/her to do. New-gods are the preeminent catalyst; the impossible bridge; the primordial womb, creating tonality in order to balance an otherwise atonal world. They are devoted to living the riddle of human destiny heightened to a state of interrogated enlightenment. A New-god is all at once self and other; tribe and culture; human and animal; earth and cosmos.


The Art of Omnipotence:

This is the method of bringing meaning to meaninglessness. Here, a New-god balances the counter-intuitive aspects of reality through artistic expression. A New-god understands that there are infinite worlds (Hugh Everett’s Many Worlds Theory),and that everything is an illusion (finite tendentiousness and Zeno’s paradox), but that ultimately it does not matter. The only thing that does matter is creative expression, art itself. And so a New-god is ever in the “throes” of art, reveling in the “abyss” and “nothingness” of infinity, but always coming out of it with art: that which is held up high as a trophy of pain and love in the face of an infinite cosmos.

New-gods realize that only in the throes of creativity is man ever a god. They understand that creativity is the very act of breaking paradigms, comfort zones, cognitive dissonance, and the illusions that bind us. Here, creativity is evolution. If we are to evolve, if we are to shed our infinite loneliness, our art must have meaning. It must have purpose. It must have passion despite, and even in spite of, preconceived illusions, limitations, and paradigms. A New-god is a creator of life-transcending works of art, an actor of activity, not obsequious and fawning, but courageous and loving, and always giving when the time comes to expiate power.


Yin-yang Dynamics:

This is the method of cross-fertilization; of celebrating and rejoicing over both the feminine and masculine aspects of who we are. Here, a New-god is all about creating a space for new delivery: discovering the path within the path; filling and being filled; acting as both the chalice and the honey that fills it. A New-god in the throes of Yin-yang Dynamics is both doing (masculine) and being (feminine): he/she “does” by creating tangibility; he/she “is” by creating advisability.

A New-god is both the sword and the scabbard of creative fulfillment, focusing more on creating mediums than on means or ends. New-gods realize that mediums are elusive and can only be actualized through the cross-fertilization of the masculine/feminine circle of being. In this sense a New-god is a miniature soul/world imprinting, impregnating, loving, and gestating his/her unique soul-print upon the greater Soul/World that he/she is a part of. Here, the universe is nothing more than an infinite canvas of creative masculine/feminine potentiality. It is up to New-gods, indeed it is their duty, to actualize this potentiality. Facilitating this “becoming” is a New-gods purpose and is the core of the creative spirit that drives all things.

It is a New-god’s responsibility to span the chasm of the abyss; to close the wound dividing the masculine feminine energies through new mediums, and then to allow it the flexibility it needs to open up again. A New-god is the mouthpiece of the universe; the sword/scabbard of life; the seed/womb of God/Infinity.


The Plowshare Method:

This is the method of sustainable cultivation; of digging up the fertilized soil of “the old” in order to plant the seeds of “the new.” Here, a New-god is busy preparing and refining his/her soil (canvas/medium), in order to foster and further perpetual cultural growth. New-gods do this first by “digging” within the self, second by encouraging cultivation in others, and third by planting themselves as a catalyst within a given ecosystem.

The plowshare is symbolic of change and vicissitude, but it represents a type of cultivation that overcomes itself; that trumps itself through the creative principle of reality itself. A New-god knows that the only thing an infinite being need fear is existential boredom. A way of relieving this boredom is to seek results intensively rather than extensively (Kierkegaard’s Rotation Method). By living intensely in the moment rather than just expecting the next moment to arise, a New-god relieves existential boredom through a simple fascination with the world “in the moment,” rather than suffering in the hell of expectation.

Another concept that arises from the Plowshare Method is the Last Man v.s. the New-god concept, wherein a New-god must constantly be cognizant of the dilapidation of the nature of the Last Man (or Simone Weil’s Gross Beast), and must always attempt to remedy and counterbalance (Disaster Shamanism) any unsustainable “poisons” the Last Man has left in his destructive, unhealthy, violent midst. The Last Man is anybody caught up (aware or not) in any kind of unsustainable, unhealthy, violent, stupid, immoral, mass-destructive social system. The Last Man needs cultivated most. New-gods have a greater responsibility because of their heightened-state of awareness, and they honor it by guiding the Last Men out of the jungle of ignorance and onto the progressively-sustainable path of the Self-inflicted Philosopher.

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