21 levels of Self-Deception: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview
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T W E N T Y - O N E L E V E L S
12. Desire is Always Ambiguous
‘I desire to press in my arms the loveliness which has not yet come into the world.’
James Joyce — Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man
In Chapter 10, some of the ambiguities that arise from our culture’s lack of soulfulness were briefly considered. There are substitute gratifications such as material wealth, power and status. There is an obsession with the image of death, but a denial of death itself. There is an obsession with the image of the body, but a denial of the body itself. There is an obsessional belief in individual freedom, but that freedom is protected with the threat of extreme violence. There is a strange ‘shadow life’ of extremist views whilst outwardly society claims to be equal and tolerant. All of this, I suggest, is a clinging to things — both materially, emotionally and subjectively. The main thing that we hold onto is fear.
As touched on already, genuine pleasure is suppressed in us even as we become fully conscious of ourselves as separate subjects. Unfortunately, the very notion of being a subject
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