Archive for the ‘San Crisanto’ tag
Hubris – Magical Thinking and Self-Deception
It is a beautiful morning with a temperature of 17C and only a hint of a breeze in the morning sunshine. Breakfast on the back deck watching the birds. I have a few tasks that I want to accomplish this morning such as re-hanging the door for the basement bathroom and doing a bit of silicone sealing in the bathroom. All is pretty well ready for our little family reunion in two weeks time.
I take pride in my workmanship but I do have to admit that my workmanship is not that good. I want it all to be so perfect but I lack the skills for this to happen. And, as I look at the finished projects I see the small cracks, the faults and often miss the overall effect.
This photo was taken in a small town called San Crisanto along the northern coast of the Yucatan. In Mexico there is a war on drugs. The drug cartels are waging battles amongst each other to see who will dominate. And at the same time, government and law forces find themselves waging the same war. When a person thinks about it, war is about hubris.
Hubris is found in our capacity to convince ourselves that we really know what is going on. It is found in our capacity for self-deception, in the notion that we can choose with impunity, that we are in control, that we have covered all the angles. Such delusion is a form of magical thinking, whereby we seek to manage existential anxiety through the fantasy of control and domination. (James Hollis, Creating a Life, p. 13.)
Guilty! I have to admit to such magical thinking at times. The latest tangle with this has been with regards to publishing my SoFoBoMo books. The problem with such magical thinking, of attempts to convince ourselves that the world is chomping at the bit waiting for us to gift them with photos and words which will save the world, will change the destiny of all humankind. Needless to say, such delusional thinking is often followed by a crash. You’d think a person would learn from repeated cycles of this kind of thinking and retreat to safety into a real humble existence. Sigh … I must be a slow learner.
