Tracks of a Journey

“Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.” Aldous Huxley

Koyaanisqatsi

A Hopi word that could mean

Life without context.

Koyaanisqatsi is a Hopi word traditionally defined and interpreted as “life out of balance.” I’ve also seen “life in turmoil” and “crazy life”

Context deciphers reality, as the Rosetta Stone deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Context is like a Rosetta Stone for interpreting and understanding reality. Context influences perception and perspective.

Context decodes, charts, and assesses reality. (The present and the past)

The term ‘set and setting’ was first used by Ludwig Von Bertalanfy (founder of general systems theory) in 1958, and later popularized by Timothy Leary (for a safe and healthy psychedelic experience.

Set - personality, life’s experiences

Setting - environment

‘Set’ and ‘setting’ are woven into the fabric of context. Context is the ‘set’ and ‘setting’ of an experience.

Perception = ‘Set.’ Life’s experiences = {age, duration, type}

{a projection into an imaginary realm}

Dwelling on the past is a dynamic of playing an imaginary game of inter-dimensional chess, on a chessboard that distorts time and the sequence of movements of the chess pieces. It’s an attempt to create order from disordered thinking/reflecting. The game imposes a false narrative, a distortion of context, about what you know now upon the memory of what you knew in the past. The evolution of time and experiences make the inter-dimensional chess game incompatible with the context of the present, what you know now, with the context of what you knew in the past.

Inter-dimensional chess is a game, an attempt, to reinvent yourself in an imaginary domain of a false narrative, a story. A projection into an imaginary realm that distorts and corrupts context. A fruitless attempt to resolve imagined transgressions/mistakes, (wrong moves), and achieve emancipation/resolution from the past. It is a game played and an aspect of Goethe’s concept of hell.

Dwelling on the past is a futile attempt to unravel the weave, the context, that was woven into the fabric of events. You can look back at what has been woven, but you can’t unweave it.

Dwelling on the past is a futile attempt to reverse engineer reality. A perverse engineering of the truth. An arbitrary interjection into a non reality .

Dwelling on the past is retrograde projection. It is an attempt to reverse engineer the time line (of events) to accommodate pure conceptual thinking. A fantasy.

A few quotes I found helpful and insightful:

“On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way to get clean.” Aldous Huxley

“It isn’t a matter of forgetting, it is a matter of remembering and yet being free of the past.” Aldous Huxley

“If one does not constantly walk forward, the past sucks one back. The past is like an enormous sucking wind that sucks one back all the time. If you do not go forward, you regress. You have constantly to carry the torch of the new light forward, so to speak, historically and also in your own life. As soon as you begin to look backward sadly, or even scornfully, it has you again. The past has tremendous power.” Carl Jung (in a conversation with Marie-Louise von Franz.)

Context creates the ability to understand and put into perspective Life’s events (past, present, and future.) It provides the means for insight, knowledge, and comfort. Context enables an holistic perception to reconcile the past or bring into harmony present events.

It is helpful to understand the etymology of the word, ‘context.’ According to the Oxford English Dictionary: Context - woven or knit together. 1541 - 1713. A contemporary definition, - The interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs. [Merriam-Webster]

Context provides a necessary framework for objectively understanding how something is perceived and interpreted. It influences and encompasses social, cultural and situational circumstances. Context also influences how PTSD/CPTSD can be understood, processed and reconciled.

My reflections about ‘context.’ Aug. ’24 - Aug.’25

Context enables the ability to objectively interpret and reconcile the past, present, and future.

Context enables resolution and emancipation from illusion.

Context is a gateway for recognition, insight, understanding and resolution.

Our thoughts frame reality within the context of our experiences and knowledge.

Context can help resolve the karmic (epigenetic) cycle of emotional pain and conflict.

Intellectual capacity is directly proportional to processing context.

The nuances of context are the details of reality.

Context enables reality based perception.

Reality is context - Reality without context is conjecture -Conjecture is the absence of context.

Dwelling on the past is conjecture in the absence of context.

Our concept of reality exists within a state of contextual perspective.

Context enables truth.

Context is the template upon which experiences are conceptualized.

Life’s experiences compound context. Context compounds perception and perspective.

Context allows our experiences to be objectively understood and consequently reconciled.

Context is gateway { or to interpret Aldous)Huxley, a ‘door of perception’ } to comprehending, understanding, and resolution.

Perspective is to reality as context is to perception.

The ability to recognize and understand the nuances of context is a dynamic of neuroplasticity.

Dwelling on the past

walking on karmic eggshells.

Unresolved issues.

Our experiences in life create a force field. Our interpersonal interactions are subject to the laws of attraction. Shared experiences create a language, a dialogue, a harmony of congruency. Social interactions build upon shared experiences. Living with PTSD can sometimes create a disharmony, or discord, or disconnect in social relationships and sense of place in the fabric of social interactions. It isn’t just one traumatic experience - sometimes there may be several, and the nuances of each one compounds and impacts the fabric of living with PTSD.

What is it called when you thought it was your destiny to outthink destiny? PTSD.

outthink: to outdo or surpass in thinking : to go beyond or transcend by thinking { Merriam-Webster}

PTSD is not just about one event (or events) that occurred in the past. It is also about collectively acquired coping mechanisms. A constellation of reactions.

The traumatic event (s) brings you to the door of perfection* to survive in the moment. Only a perfect reaction, response, can save you. And now, you survived because you made decisions or reacted in a way that enabled you to survive.

But with PTSD there are several prices to be paid (and due). Not only the heightened senses of hyper awareness and hyper sensitivity, but the impossible expectation that I must continue to make perfect decisions and live perfectly in an imperfect world.

It is a struggle for me to embrace the broad spectrum of what it means to be human. With PTSD, I don’t take transgressions lightly…and there’s always some battle… something to fix, something to correct, something to change, something to adapt to, or to think that I failed.

“door of perfection,” is a reference to Huxley’s book, The Doors of Perception.

PTSD induces the creation of arbitrary starting points in personal history, the past, in an attempt to recreate options of resolution. ‘If only I had done X, or Y, or Z’.