When we take a trip to the underworld

Everyone has been there at least once in their life, if not multiple times. It is the place you visit when your world crumbles around you and leaves you broken and consumed by the unknown, it is engulfed in flames and the ground crumbles beneath you. I have mentioned before the two perennial domains of existence, Chaos and Order. Order is the place where what you expect to happen actualises itself in relation to your perceptions. Chaos is the place where either the things you do not want to happen manifest themselves, or when scenarios occur that you were unaware could ever take place.

In this context you can not touch Order or Chaos, so they are not literally real. However to describe them as metaphorically real would also be too reductionsitic. They are best described as hyper-real, extending across all dimensions of our lives and pre-eminent to us. This is highlighted in how our nervous systems are adapted to respond to these two states of being; for example, too much Chaos and we experience anxiety and too much Order and we experience boredom. Subsequently when we find ourselves balanced between these two polarities we feel engaged and satisfied. Most likely this is described nowadays with the trendy term 'flow state', when we feel satiated yet engrossed by something.

Why is this blog titled as so? The underworld is a mythological concept, like all of mythology it is rooted in a piece of the human experience. Over millenia the concept is refined and altered, leaving its core components behind; fairy tales are excellent examples of this phenomenon. As humans we are evolutionary designed to avoid things that cause us fear, whilst at the same time driven towards them. This is because although the domain of Chaos is saturated with snakes and darkness, within that darkness lies knowledge that could be vital to our survival, or the survival of our species. It is essential for us to take calculated trips out into the unknown, well aware of the possibility of our metaphorical death, with the hope of accrewing enlightening information.

So let's discuss a 'metaphorical death' or in other words 'a trip to the underworld'. Imagine a time in your life when you have received some awful news, whether it be the death of a loved one, the collapse of a relationship or anything that elicited a primal feeling of dread. Now try to imagine the room, the body, the mindset you inhabited before you were given the news. Ask yourself if any of what you were living before was the same after you heard the news? Of course nothing has physically changed form, at least not to the naked eye. Neverthelss the place you previously occupied is not the place you now find yourself in and your body will tell you that. Always trust your body, it can not hide its feelings.

In the next blog I will discuss how we can ideally emerge as triumphant as possible from this place of despair. Needless to say this is something we should all take an interest in.

I hope you have enjoyed the blog, thank you for reading.

OxJ

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