kalibex
Dagobah Resident
wopthedo said:
Wopthedo, for what it's worth, here's how I see it currently.
Goodness knows I've stopped by the forum in the past while in a foul mood, seen those words "Learning is Fun!" and wondered, sullenly, "Are we being mocked?" But I think now that the answer is no. Here's why:
If we go on the hypothesis that the Cs do indeed exist and are who they say they are - that the universe is a 'school' (which would make them 'upperclassmen') - and that, as they have implied, they used to also be us at one point in their development - then either 'we're' mocking ourselves...or from their (our?) more knowledgeable perspective, the learning was fun. (That's assuming they're using 'fun' in the same way that we do.) I think STO 'upperclassmen' may tease....but I don't think they mock.
Additionally, going on the premise that we do indeed have 'multiple life experiences' (whether you frame that as serial reincarnation or something else), it's possible that 'in between' a lot of the frustration and disappointment we feel while 'here' does indeed drop away, and we have a more light-hearted perspective. (Man, here's hoping... :/)
One more thing: I had a thought come to me during the immediate aftermath of my mother's death two years ago - a time when, for reasons I won't go into here, my father was much more gutted over it than I was (but which fortunately meant I could be a more effective support for him).
The thought was: "A personality in misery may mask a perfectly contented soul". It was absolutely the kind of thing you shouldn't say to someone right in the midst of pain. So needless to say, I didn't share this with any other family members.
But what I interpreted that to mean was that a soul might arrange for an experience that we, in our current understanding, would never request - as we would assume that we were being masochists! (For me, this underscores that there may indeed be a difference between our current personality and our 'real' self - a thought that sometimes creeps me out! - but which meshes with the 4th Way concept that you can have multiple false personalities which are not the real/potential 'you'.
Did that thought help me in that immediate aftermath? Well...yes. Does that make it objectively 'true'? Who knows? But I sure prefer a hypothesis that that says that we're not, ultimately, wasting our time here, even when our reality is really, really unpleasant, and we're sure in the moment that the price is too high, that the experience is too traumatic or frustrating.
(And for me, that last thought above also meshes well with the 4th Way, and the 4th Way version being carried out here in this group/forum, making it seem such a legitimate 'answer' - it's not a fluffy, feel-good, 'it's an easy way' answer to the Meaning Of Life. It's pretty much the opposite of what we (or our personalities) usually want to hear. So, I'm here....because for growth to require such real effort, despite the potential 'suffering'... somehow, 'feels' right.)
