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Softcore Qualiadelia
January 14, 2009
Of cynics we can say, with Shakespeare, "methinks thou dost protest too much." They are usually guilty of just what they deny -- being less than brilliant. They often can't see the forest for the trees.
A typical, cynical author used the expression "softcore patriotism" to describe the television documentaries of Ken Burns and David McCullough. Of course, this author was making the analogy to pornography, where softcore is but a censored version of the "real thing."
This cynic was so focused on censorship that he overlooked the value of softcore altogether. Let us look at it from the qualiadelic perspective.
First, imagine how quickly a startled deer goes back to a state of complete calm. There is almost no in-between. Human beings, on the other hand, have extended that moment of in-between, for it is where consciousness arises. We thrive in the in-between.
Well, the softcore is like the in-between. Our consciousness, and our awareness of the qualiadelic power of the moment is heightened. We are open to the meaning of the moment, receptive to actions, and sensitive to the chain of symbols.
By contrast, when things are hardcore we are far less conscious and far more physically instinctual. But when we unfold into the softcore we are exploring the unknown, and trusting our symbolic instincts.
We discover our selves and live life in the softcore. The softcore is courtship in romance, political arguments among friends, inspired afternoons among young and hopeful artists, and so on -- it is the period of controlled spontaneity, when consciousness arises; the soft-core is the in-between, where rituals allows us to explore the unknown.
The hardcore, on the other hand, is mere animal motion. Any one can hack another person to pieces on a battlefield, and any one can pay for whatever kind of sex they desire. Indeed, such hardcore practices may be uniquely human -- but they are examples of where our humane ideals have gone astray.
Softcore moments are ritual moments, specially set aside moments when we begin to take the leaps of faith that culminate in beliefs. We take a chance on the ideals of religion, the slogans of politics, the romance of love, the hypotheses of science, the visions of art, or the escapism of entertainment, and our subsequent actions become reflections of these beliefs. Hopefully, they will temper and moderate our more hardcore impulses.
Thankfully, there are ritual frameworks in place for most any softcore activity we might attempt. There are schools, cultural centers, clubs, families, festivals -- all of which provide us with space to act out and express ourselves. And we can always create new opportunities for ritualing. That is what leaders do, and innovators.
It is when we consciously use ritual to test our symbolic instincts that our choices become imaginative. It is then that we risk shattering the comforting patterns of our superficiality.
Our free will is not an illusion, but nor is it a slave to natural instinct. Free will, rather, is slave to symbolic instinct. But our symbolic instincts, having been around for only a "twinkle" of time (in the evolutionary scheme of things), are not so sure as our natural instincts. We need to test them in the ritual framework, in an atmosphere of controlled spontaneity. This the essence of the qualiadelic experience.
Be Qualiadelic. Be Conscious. Change the routine.
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