Okay, that’s it…
I’m am so sick of this whole “Do what feels right” thing. Applied to metaphysics, it’s suicidal. Applied to many areas of life, it’s insane to say the least.
Let me tell you about the “Do what feels right” mindset, it’s lazy. Yes, lazy. It is for those who don’t want to challenge their beliefs in any way shape or form.
I have watched this trend build over time, and the more I see it the more sickening it becomes.
Let’s look at some things: Eating sugar feels good. It tastes sweet, it is good for us, right? Wrong. Refined white sugar is one of the most prolific things out there and is a very subtle poison to the human body. It kills slowly and insidiously, and causes all kinds of problems before it does. Things like diabetes and hypoglocemia, obesity and heart problems. Have you looked at how many things you eat have sugar in them?
There are multiple examples of this principle. Sex, eating, doing drugs, LSD, drinking alcohol and others all feel good. But each and every one of them can kill you. Some you don’t even have to do to excess.
In metaphysics, Wicca, paganism in general, this trend is just as deadly.
“Doing what feels good” is DIFFERENT from “doing what works”. The way it is supposed to work is that you are trying to meditate, for example. You can’t get into the proper mood to meditate with the chanting and the sitting in the lotus position. “Do what feels good” is going to say “give up”, but “doing what works” is going to have you changing position or finding a different technique to accomplish the same goal.
And this is where I see red.
Doing what feels good leads to lazyness, achieving a comfort zone in your spirituality where nothing has to be examined again, nothing is ever questioned, nothing is evaluated. Which ultimately means that no growth is achieved or made, and as we all know, no growth = stasis = stagnation = death.
People by nature don’t want to have to work for what they want. They want to be lazy and not have to constantly look at what they are and who they are. They want to have the answers handed to them and to have no thought in the process. It’s much easier to have someone say “POOF, you will not suffer in your life or after you are dead. You have a blank karmatic balance sheet and you are one of the CHOSEN.” That’s easy.
But most religions that are worth a damn actually make you look at your beliefs. WHY do you believe thus and so is a sin? Why do you think that this set of subjective facts is more true than this set over here? By continually pushing those boundraries, growth occurs. In some cases it ossifies and scabs over so that no more growth can occur in that direction, but in others it will allow for a difference of oppinion and an acceptance of that which is strange.
In many cases, the “do what feels good” can be applied to the philosophical side of yourself. If you are uncomfortable with a personal philosophy which says that you have to accept homosexuals as equals, then that is fine, no one can or should force you to change. All change should be up to you and in this case, you need to find a faith path that puts you at ease. You should examine WHY you feel that way, but if there is no chance to change because it is too deep rooted, then others will have to accept that you feel that way.
But when applying it to learning, it’s worse. The “do what feels good” is crap. It feels good to sleep in instead of going to Forensics 101, and thus it will mean that if I do what feels good, I will fail in my goal. It feels good to not do the exercises I have been assigned, and it feels good to watch TV instead of reading the books I need to. It feels good to stay at home instead of driving to the HPS’s house for Circle.
But what feels good is not always right.
When you start on a course of study, you have made a contract with the person teaching you. You have agreed to do the assignments given and to work to the best of your ability at the exercises needed, and the teacher has agreed to teach you the material selected. How would you feel if the class instructor did what “feels good” and every time you showed up for class, they didn’t. If they said “Oh, I was sleeping and it felt better to stay asleep so I didn’t show up. Sorry.” How would you feel if you worked for hours or days on a paper, and the teacher never read it or graded it? Would you feel like you achieved something if you got a B on a paper the teacher never looked at or graded? Or if the teacher showed up for class since they had to be there and spent the whole rest of the class talking on their cell phone to their spouse and didn’t ever start teaching? Would you have a lot of respect for that person?
Why, as a student, would you do the same thing in reverse?
If you have problems with the material, by all means, seak alternative means of gaining the information needed. Look at other ways to do the same thing. But DO NOT do what feels good and give up. DO NOT do what feels good and look at sources that don’t challenge your mind. Do NOT go haring off on your own and completely ignore the class criteria because it’s easier and feels better to get some crappy source.
If you have a problem with Wallace Budge’s interpertation of Egyptology, look for “the simplified Wallace Budge” or something similar. Don’t go out and grab “The beginners guide to Egypt” which makes no reference to Budge at all because the point of this section of the class was the writings of Wallace Budge. You have just defeated the purpose of the class entirey.
Don’t read “Wicca for Dummies” by Mark Ventmiglia (for example) when the class course you are taking says that you should read and practice what is contained in “The Complete Guide to the Runes” by Sigfried. Light fluffy crap is no substitute for solid information.
And for GOD’S SAKES, if you must read light fluffy crap instead of the texts that will actually teach, don’t do it with skills that are difficult in the first place. “Grey’s Anatomy” will teach you SO MUCH MORE about anatomy if you are becomming a doctor than Llewellyn’s “The Body” will. There is a reason that it is the standard text in the area of Anatomy.
There are reasons others tell you to read books (blank), (blank) and (blank), and it’s usually because they have read those books and know what they are talking about. Especially if you are learning from them.
As you may surmise, this was brought on by a real life situation.
Suffice to say that I had my personal skills called upon to give a critique to a young gentleman who was asking questions about something I know a lot about. I gave my professional opinion, and told him to avoid the books on the subject he was reading like the plague since they contained very little information of use. Someone else (who has absolutely NO knowledge of the subject at hand that I was able to determine) posted RIGHT AFTER me and told the original poster to “do what feels good.” Add to that the author of said book having absolutely no knowledge of the esoteric subject at all.
Well, I flipped. I wanted to jump this idiot, but instead I simply walked away and now I wash my hands of it.
You see, when I give the information I have to others, after having demonstrated my knowledge of the subject, I expect that I will actually be listened to. That I will be the expert on that subject. But someone with no knowledge who comes along and countermands my information pisses me off. It is analogous to a passenger on the Titanic who countermads the captain’s orders to abandon ship. The Captain knows what he’s talking about, the passenger doesn’t. I am the Captain.
Doing what feels good is holdover hippie bullshit which doesn’t work any more. It can work, but it still takes discipline to make it work since you have to WORK at being happy. Want to eat sugar? Want to avoid diabetes? YOu have to work to find alternatives to sugar, like the artifical sweeteners out there. They still are sweet, but they don’t have the problems that refined white sugar has.
The point here, other than to be a rant, is that if you don’t have direct experience and knowledge, STAY SILENT. You know the old witches creed: To know, To dare, To will, To stay silent.
Doing what feels good in 99% of the time the wrong thing to do. The worthwhile things normally bring sweat and effort with them, so doing what is only comfortable will not get them accomplished.
And in the end, we all work, we all have to struggle. If we didn’t have mussles forcing us to do things, our lungs wouldn’t expand and our heart wouldn’t beat. That takes work. So is it any surpirse that our spiritual life would take work too?
