GAP THE MIND. SERMON ON THE MOUNTAIN 2.0
by MARCO MARANGONE
This article does not talk about mountains.
It speaks of the space that surrounds it, without which it would not be such for us. “Mind the gap” is the warning written near the subway platforms in English-speaking cities. Here we try to overturn some interpretative schemes by suggesting to open spaces in the mind, therefore… Gap the mind! Let’s get started.
The mountain allows us to have an intense and prolonged physical experience of the force of gravity, much more than the ordinary artificial occasionality constituted by the flight of stairs or the difference in street height in our urban life offers us. This brings to our attention the fatigue, perseverance and patience required in the processes of elevation: counteracting the force of gravity is not in fact the basic approach of the human being, usually inclined to comply with it to save energy, avoid risks, conform to what others also do, adopt easy choices and behaviors by proceeding on the plane or, even better, downhill. Abandoning himself without resistance to the inertia that drags him downwards, the human being is at the mercy of impulses (we also refer to the seven deadly sins) and reacts to the solicitations of circumstances (the gray area of which Primo Levi speaks in The Drowned and the Saved) in a mechanical way according to the pressure they exert on his psycho-emotional survival system.
He easily resonates with what tickles his emotionality related to fear (and from it anger and hatred) and is in this condition particularly exposed to manipulation. The harsh lesson that we can derive from the collective psychosis that is overwhelming the vast majority of the citizens of the state of Israel seems instructive to me: it breaks down without appeal the positivist illusion that intelligence, culture, and experience (of the pain and horror of persecution suffered in the past) can constitute sufficient barriers to slide into the deepest darkness on the inclined plane of the gray zone. It’s something we’ve seen before and will see again.
From this swampy terrain one cannot save oneself with reason or with virtuous baggage of values. The mountain teaches us that claiming to be able to stop an avalanche is senseless and impracticable and yet … This is what we constantly try to do with the predictable (and obviously frustrating) results, at best ephemeral if not completely non-existent. Wars, the exploitation of people and Nature, inequalities, hunger, etc. are actually the natural consequence of the conflict that dwells in every individual and of which the permanent compulsive and dysfunctional mental activity, as Eckhart Tolle defines the Ego (blah-blah-blah, comments, judgments, imaginary inner dialogues) is a mirror.
The avalanche begins with a snowball that rolls and gradually swells. In their daily lives, people (excluding you, dear evolved reader) do not miss an opportunity to get angry, indignant, offended, irritated, impatient, overexcited, and consequently blame, accuse, sentence, devalue, betray, deceive or mock someone else, always managing to give a fair justification.
They consider this normal and define themselves as “aware”. There are no flags, slogans, subscriptions, marches, appeals that hold because the inner division in the human mind is chronic and the resulting conflict is exactly what we export to the outside world (to the family, to the neighborhood, to the workplace, …). The roots of this dysfunction are not accessible to the rational mind and, in order to consider ourselves sane, we behave like the mouse on the head of the elephant that believes it determines its direction (“I am the one who told it to turn right!”). But Mr. Hide can manifest at any time. Every now and then someone stabs someone else. “He was such a good person, he also volunteered” the neighbors declare and the case is filed as a raptus. If you want to learn more, you can choose between the complete works of Carl Gustav Jung or read Dostoevsky’s short book “Chronicles from the Underground” (I can imagine what you chose). If you still have doubts about the inner division and the legion of personalities that each person hosts (always excluding those present) I invite you to pay attention to the schizophrenic behavior that humans adopt during mountain excursions. We express friendship and benevolence by greeting every stranger we meet on the path but just a few minutes later, at the shelter or at the parking lot, the neighbor is no longer so close and has returned to being part of that anonymous and alien crowd to which at best we address indifference but from which we more often distrust and which we perceive as a threat. Ideologies and religions inspired by the best intentions and noble principles have also studded history with burnings, concentration camps and persecutions.
The most widely read Italian intellectual in the world is Antonio Gramsci, a formidable thinker. Let’s pay attention to the title of his famous book “I hate the indifferent”. And the snowballs keep rolling… If we do not understand on which floor the problem originates, we will continue to whitewash the ceiling to cover the damp stain that periodically recurs, without ever going to repair the roof. The philosopher Pascal wrote that all of humanity’s problems stem from people’s inability to sit quietly in a room. The stillness, the frame of Nature that reminds us that we are part of it and the physical fatigue of the journey calm the obsessive activity of our mind for a short period by creating spaces of silence in it and from this derives the sense of well-being we feel when we go to the mountains. But if we want to sow peace we must be peace as an existential condition and not only on Sundays when the world (others) gives us respite.
The spiritual traditions (stripped of religious trappings) and the teachings of the Masters have always shown us the direction to do so and this constitutes an individual responsibility. Now you can quickly move on to the next article, go back to your thoughts, or make space between them and let what you just read decant about.
Gap the mind