{"id":290,"date":"2011-06-14T09:55:10","date_gmt":"2011-06-14T17:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/?p=290"},"modified":"2011-06-14T09:55:10","modified_gmt":"2011-06-14T17:55:10","slug":"sentimental-osis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/?p=290","title":{"rendered":"Sentimental-osis"},"content":{"rendered":"

I woke up from a dream, and on and forgetting the rich eventful-ness of what was going on in the dream, I experienced a pang of grief-loss. I sensed that dream  was still engaging my interest, though I couldn\u2019t say why. Dreams have that power. Then another frame of reference kicked in: I\u2019ve learned to notice discrepancies as messages from my higher wisdom, my guides, whatever—the point being that this could be a learning moment.<\/p>\n

I fantasize that my platoon of angels are always dealing me hints as to how to evolve. Every night they feed me dreams, but are seemingly infinitely patient. When I get it, that\u2019s when I get it. This feeling of \u201ctoo bad I forgot\u201d was one I\u2019ve felt many times before, but finally I got curious: What is that feeling about? I mean, I forget 99.99% of my dreams, even if I remember a few percent for a while.<\/p>\n

I have a role in my psyche that I call \u201cUncle Bud\u201d—he used to be my superego, my harsh conscience, but I\u2019ve figuratively sent him to management training school and now he is most gentle—yet firm. Sometimes he acts as a translator for the aforementioned guardian angels, a focus for my inner psychodrama. I asked, for example, if this insight was meaningful, that I should notice the illusory nature of the pang of regret at forgetting a dream. He replied, simply, \u201cYup.\u201d (He can be so effective and non-directive this way.)<\/p>\n

Through inner dialog with Uncle Bud, I realized that this feeling is just sentimentality, clinging, holding on, masked by the sense of pity. It\u2019s a part of the realm of illusion, the Goddess-spirit Maya, the pervasive tendency of mind to generate and become immersed in illusion. (I recently gave a talk on illusion, posted as a webpage on my website<\/a>.) <\/p>\n

A term occurred to me: sentimental-osis<\/em><\/strong>, as if sentimentality could be a mild dis-ease. It was very common, of course, and as I contemplated this idea I saw how it could become a significant driving force in nostalgia, collecting, hoarding, and many other human behaviors. Unrecognized and unchecked, it could become problematical, perhaps deserving the term sentimental-itis<\/em><\/strong>. <\/p>\n

Feelings such as \u201cit\u2019s too bad,\u201d or \u201cwhat a pity,\u201d are close to \u201cif only.\u201d I glimpsed at this overlapping with the realms of illusion, myth, and other aspects of nonrational mind. I became aware, also, that this in turn was part of the category of illusions and stories we tell each other that can add to our greedy-grasping at life—exactly what Siddartha Guatama (aka \u201cthe Buddha\u201d or \u201cEnlightened One\u201d) warned against.<\/p>\n

As my mind was distracted by these ponderings, the angels granted me a bit of a reprieve. Memories of parts of the dream I had forgotten a few minutes earlier flashed into my mind. Another part of me noted the irony: I had forgotten it, and I couldn\u2019t remember it as an act of will; then, poof, there it was, or at least several scenes that I could associate to forward and back in time, just a little. Now isn\u2019t that interesting?! <\/p>\n

Then I realized that \u201cthey\u201d were granting me yet another lesson: What is this feeling of relevance, of something being \u201cinteresting\u201d?  It occurred to me that here is yet another type of sentimentalosis—one that I am peculiarly prone to.  (These insights come as a sort of inner dialog, with part of me acting the role of kid, saying, \u201cNuh-uh!\u201d and another part the wiser self: \u201cOh, yes, it is!\u201d I flashed on the idea that as much as 83% of my possessions, my books and papers and notebooks and cassettes, might all be part of this sentimentalosis. Uncle Bud verified this: \u201cYup.\u201d <\/p>\n

I realized that I\u2019ve been \u201cliving\u201d 1.83 lives and there\u2019s only really room on this material plane of existence for 1.0 life. The other 0.83 life is all what if, and maybe I\u2019ll get around to it, and you can\u2019t throw that out I might need it. If my life were empty, there\u2019d be more room for all that stuff I\u2019m going to get around to using, but my life continues to be full. Nudge from Uncle Bud: \u201cOwn it, you keep filling your life with things to do.\u201d  Yeah, but what if I can\u2019t do that, what if it all gets empty? I am realizing that\u2019s crazy talk. <\/p>\n

I thought, \u201cI\u2019m too old and wise to be wrestling with these disorders.\u201d Uncle Bud replied, \u201cNo, you needed this much time, experience and accumulated wisdom to be ready to integrate this next step. Go ahead, notice your own subtle\u2014well, not so subtle\u2014sentimental-osis, and how it\u2019s a big part of your life challenge, your \u201cdharma,\u201d as they say in India.\u201d  I heard my little kid part whine, \u201cAww, I don\u2019t want more challenges,\u201d and Uncle Bud replied in a gentle but firm way, \u201cTough, you got \u2018em, so join the human race.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then said, \u201cYou can write about this condition on your blog\u2014that\u2019s a good sublimation.\u201d Being respectful of my guardian angels and their representative, I replied, \u201cYes, that\u2019s what I\u2019ll do.\u201d Bud: \u201cGood, you do that: It also helps anchor this whole contemplation so you don\u2019t forget it like that dream fragment. Har har har.\u201d So here it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I woke up from a dream, and on and forgetting the rich eventful-ness of what was going on in the dream, I experienced a pang of grief-loss. I sensed that dream  was still engaging my interest, though I couldn\u2019t say why. Dreams have that power. Then another frame of reference kicked in: I\u2019ve learned to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,20,13,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autobiographical","category-follies","category-spirituality-and-philosophy","category-wisdom-ing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}