Forwarded from ortho autism ☧
Is being retarded the key?
Christ tells us to become like children, and the temptation is to hear this as a command to be simple, to empty the mind, to stop thinking so much. The simple person seems to have it easier - he trusts without constructing elaborate defenses against trust, obeys without a second voice arguing in his head, receives grace without building fortresses to keep it out. So, if intelligence is the obstacle, wouldn't it be easier to reach God if you just didn't have much going on in your head?
Saint Basil the Fool for Christ walked naked through Moscow's winter and threw stones at people's houses because their prayers were performed for show rather than offered in truth. The fool renounces the performance of intelligence, he refuses to play the social game of appearing smart and maintaining a reputation for cleverness. So, is the way to God is to stop being clever? If we look closer to what the fool is doing, it becomes clear that he is not actually being dumb. He is sacrificing the libido dominandi, the lust to dominate, applied to the intellect itself.
The libido dominandi of the intellect is the desire to dominate through knowing, to be the smartest person in the room, to construct arguments that defeat opponents, to build a reputation for cleverness and defend it at all costs. It is the lust to be right, not because truth matters, but because being right is a form of power. This is a chain on our necks that disguises itself as a virtue, because the man who lusts for power through intellect thinks he is pursuing truth. Saint John Climacus in "Ladder of Divine Ascent " placed the renunciation of one's own will near the top, after all the virtues had been acquired. Why so high? Because the clever man's will is the last thing to surrender, as he has convinced himself that his will and God's will are the same thing.
And you cannot simply become dumb, unless you plan on lobotomizing yourself (which, if you are familiar with the history of lobotomy, might not even work). The libido dominandi does not die by pretending you do not have it, so just trying to be simple won't really get you anywhere, it's all just a performance. But the Fool for Christ is not performing, he actually renounced it. He has nothing to lose because he has already lost the thing the clever man clings to most tightly: his reputation for intelligence. You cannot un-know what you know or un-build the fortress of self-reliance that partial intelligence constructs around the soul.
So is being retarded the key? No, but the death of the lust to dominate through knowing is. A child never had that lust - he trusts in the Lord because the walls of intelligence were never built. You live in the walls, intelligent enough to doubt, not yet wise enough to see through your doubt. The question is whether you will strive to break these walls or retreat into the midwit's fortress and call it enlightenment.
#extremeyapping
Christ tells us to become like children, and the temptation is to hear this as a command to be simple, to empty the mind, to stop thinking so much. The simple person seems to have it easier - he trusts without constructing elaborate defenses against trust, obeys without a second voice arguing in his head, receives grace without building fortresses to keep it out. So, if intelligence is the obstacle, wouldn't it be easier to reach God if you just didn't have much going on in your head?
Saint Basil the Fool for Christ walked naked through Moscow's winter and threw stones at people's houses because their prayers were performed for show rather than offered in truth. The fool renounces the performance of intelligence, he refuses to play the social game of appearing smart and maintaining a reputation for cleverness. So, is the way to God is to stop being clever? If we look closer to what the fool is doing, it becomes clear that he is not actually being dumb. He is sacrificing the libido dominandi, the lust to dominate, applied to the intellect itself.
The libido dominandi of the intellect is the desire to dominate through knowing, to be the smartest person in the room, to construct arguments that defeat opponents, to build a reputation for cleverness and defend it at all costs. It is the lust to be right, not because truth matters, but because being right is a form of power. This is a chain on our necks that disguises itself as a virtue, because the man who lusts for power through intellect thinks he is pursuing truth. Saint John Climacus in "Ladder of Divine Ascent " placed the renunciation of one's own will near the top, after all the virtues had been acquired. Why so high? Because the clever man's will is the last thing to surrender, as he has convinced himself that his will and God's will are the same thing.
And you cannot simply become dumb, unless you plan on lobotomizing yourself (which, if you are familiar with the history of lobotomy, might not even work). The libido dominandi does not die by pretending you do not have it, so just trying to be simple won't really get you anywhere, it's all just a performance. But the Fool for Christ is not performing, he actually renounced it. He has nothing to lose because he has already lost the thing the clever man clings to most tightly: his reputation for intelligence. You cannot un-know what you know or un-build the fortress of self-reliance that partial intelligence constructs around the soul.
So is being retarded the key? No, but the death of the lust to dominate through knowing is. A child never had that lust - he trusts in the Lord because the walls of intelligence were never built. You live in the walls, intelligent enough to doubt, not yet wise enough to see through your doubt. The question is whether you will strive to break these walls or retreat into the midwit's fortress and call it enlightenment.
#extremeyapping