All constructs, no matter how elegant or hallowed, are in fact only constructs. As such, they demand energy input in order to continue. Where we get confused is the notion that there is an inherent, universal way a construct should express, along with a subset of behaviors that should follow.
Consider the constructs of family, love, purpose, spirituality, or marriage. We take an off-the-rack notion of what those things are and do not follow them down to their root to define them for ourselves. Not only this but we take the off-the-rack ideas and use them as unexamined filters through which to judge others' expressions of these constructs—as if there were a universal mode of expression for all things. As if another person could be right or wrong, good or bad, according to our particular unexamined relationship to a topic.
For example, if someone is a woman, then, based on our constructs, we assume she will exhibit a particular subset of behaviors we associate with those who are women. We do not recognize this way of seeing the world as the arrogance it is, an arrogance bred by a type of sloth.
If instead, we follow each construct down to what is true for us, we invariably become humble and fortified at the same time. We are humbled in that we have not built ourselves up in being right about how everyone should relate to the construct while seeing others as wrong. And we become fortified by doing the work to build psychic muscle, discovering who we actually are.
Most importantly though, if we do this work, we no longer suffer in the bindings of right and wrong. We develop an openness and sensitivity to how others live their lives and a genuine capacity to connect with reverence for the choices others make. Free people tend to want others to be free; even when those others do not want us to be free. Tasting freedom has one want to serve freedom first and foremost.
Constructs prize efficiency, but what is funny is that even efficiency is a construct. The efficiency construct is based on the notion that there is somewhere to get to—moreover, that somewhere is better than here, so we had best make it through life quickly. Eros prizes resonance, the resonance of precise truth. It will not be satisfied with anything less and it does not matter how much time or energy it requires to know it; there is no other pursuit.
It needs to experientially try on every idea, every concept, in order to know in its bones what is true. It needs to dig deep and risk getting dirty. It does not avoid or reject constructs; but they must be molded to the truth of this particular form of consciousness—not the other way around. Eros engages with reality so it can be personalized to fit our life. We are relating to each construct and aspect of it with the greatest consequence, neither taking on nor totally rejecting any idea.
Essential to this understanding is that life is perishable and that is what makes it beautiful. Our constructs are very rarely built to reveal this perishability, and that results in us ultimately passing dead ideas back and forth.
We are going through the motions, which means we are following the instructions, the subsets of various categories of life, without the consciousness, examination, or engagement they require to propagate life. While we often avoid pain, the result is that we also avoid joy. Without access to both of them we are numb, merely carrying out the orders of our conditioning.
We become psychic bureaucrats living out a concept of what it means to be a "good" example of a particular construct, and giving ourselves the rewards of whatever subset goes with it. Or we decide we are a "bad" example of it and are punishing ourselves accordingly. But very rarely are we an "honest" example, or even more dangerous, a "non" example—meaning we made the choice to not engage in certain universal constructs because they are not true for us.
We must recognize that any construct, left unexamined, necessarily sucks the life force out of the person inside of it. We must recognize there is a choice we make: a diminished life of carrying out the orders of the construct with the payoff of feeling safe within its confines, or a vibrant life fraught with the difficulties and challenges of having to discover, explore, and reverse-engineer the wheel.
There are two kinds of comfort: the comfort of the familiar that we must continually return to and manage, and the comfort of a true, perfectly fitted life.
