Blue-Pill Relationships, Red-Pill Relationships, Mature Relationships, and No Relationships

(Continued)

No Relationships

In The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle describes enlightenment, the end of all codependency, in straightforward terms. When the mind games come to an end, the couple will either separate in peace, or become even more deeply connected.

In most cases, achieving lasting equanimity through meditation and body exercises is a long and arduous process, struggling against one's upbringing and the conditioning of society. The path is different for everybody, but a particularly stark and honest account can be found in Daniel Ingram's book Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, where he describes his own process in vivid detail, including the toll on personal relationships. The "dark night of the soul", as some term the period of restlessness and existential angst that may accompany the disintegration of the personal self, can take a long time to get out of.

Some eager individuals resolve to accelerate the breakdown by willfully deconstructing their most cherished beliefs. They immerse themselves in the difficult works of philosophy and psychology, gazing into the abyss and confronting their denial of death. They are looking for the dark truths about the human condition because they think they can handle them.

This work sets in motion a process of creative destruction inside their minds, punctuated by a series of existential crises. The inner voices that have comforted and guided them all their lives become void of meaning and go silent. They experience a profound, unresolvable loneliness. Their feelings alternate between terror, angst, guilt, nausea, disgust, apathy, depression, indifference, and equanimity.

If they keep going and push through successive layers of disillusionment, things gradually become easier to accept, and they eventually realize their end goal: a calm mind and an unshakably phlegmatic temperament. They feel a deep sense of peace with their own place in a random and uncaring universe. They also harbor a profound alienation from the rest of the human race.

This eccentricity is why will-to-knowledge intellectual types often feel a weak identification with will-to-power sociopath types. There are some parallels: nihilism, flat affect, inner emptiness, a weak sense of self, putting on an act for others, pragmatic alignment with the laws of power, and blending in by hiding heretical views. Social interactions are largely theatrical and are experienced as lying to a child about Santa Claus.

However, while the will-to-power types take aggressive action in the competitive sphere in pursuit of worldly success, the will-to-knowledge types often accept a passive role. They quit the paint factory and settle for a low-income, easygoing lifestyle. Many are content to watch from the sidelines, amusing themselves with clever observations on the games people play.

In the case of the public intellectual, he becomes a detached mediator of conflicting worldviews, surveying the landscape of popular opinion and feeding the dominant narrative back to the public in justifiable terms. The slant he puts on things is a deliberate part of his public persona, or the terms for sponsorship by his affiliate think-tank. In general, he aligns himself with the desire for public order by advocating tolerance and compromise. He keeps the peace by spellbinding his congregation with logical riddles and closed narratives that are discussed in predictable ways around the dinner table. The conclusion is contained in the premises.

In other words, intellectuals eventually give up on the search for a higher, unifying truth and learn to live with the inherent limitations of idea-synthesis. There can be no single worldview harmonizing everybody's interests. Civilization will have its discontents.

Spiritually, intellectuals gravitate towards pragmatic life philosophies like stoicism. But it is not the stiff-upper-lip stoicism of the world-weary, battle-hardened man. It is philosophical stoicism, where time is set aside for the silent contemplation of life at regular intervals, and where tranquility and peace of mind are valued above all else, including intimacy. In A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy, William Irvine advocates sexual restraint and even suggests celibacy, since passionate feelings upset the logical mind.

The more right-brained types may go into zen buddhism and yoga, meditating daily and dwelling on kindness koans. By working through unresolved traumas and releasing remnants of somatic tension, they shed passive-aggressive tendencies and get better along with people. They are generally perceived as gentle and friendly, if quirky, individuals.

If they go deeper into their meditation practices, they may start to experience the world in a new way. They gain inner depth, and are slowly released of their own shallowness that they are projecting onto the world. There is an intense vividness, a wordless intuition, that outshines the written insights they have accumulated all their life. Opposing views are unified in self-evident, inexpressible ways. They break free of analysis paralysis and regain a child-like enthusiasm, re-engaging with the world in a playful and generous manner. Some gain a newfound appreciation of the creative arts and seek to cultivate these sides in themselves. Others feel a wordless calling to voluntary work, and are driven to help the people around them. They become mystic sages, gently nudging others along and urging them to listen to their inner voice.

In Sandman #72, Destruction says to Dream: "It's astonishing how much trouble one can get oneself into, if one works at it. And astonishing how much trouble one can get oneself out of, if one simply assumes that everything will, somehow or other, work out for the best."

Those who want to explore this sentiment along philosophical lines may enjoy Robert Pirsig's classic novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. An erudite treatment of the subject matter is given by Iain McGilchrist's seminal work The Master and His Emissary, which delves deeply into the troubled relationship between the two brain hemispheres and their respective impacts on Western civilization. For a practical guide to insight meditation, I recommend Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana.

/r/TheRedPill Thread Parent