Why We’re Fated To Be Lonely & The Remedy

A 6min animated audio from philosopher Alain de Botton:

Picking Up the Pieces

Having been diagnosed with Sjogren’s Syndrome, and having researched into all of the horrible things it can do to a person, I sunk into a depression which probably lasted for two to three months. I remember the song going around and around in my head at the time, with its catchy line “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone?”. Yep, this is the one:

When you’re down, everything about the world looks stupid, empty, horrible, unfair, and oppressive.

I was fortunate at the time to be reading Carlos Castaneda’s Journey to Ixtlan, which gave me a fresh perspective on things. The Toltec concept of the Warrior is that a warrior thrives on challenges, and is an “artist of spirit” who is concerned primarily with the pursuit and preservation of energy.  They believe that I warrior firstly must accept his/her fate (which is ultimately death), And once that fate has been accepted, then the warrior can commit the ultimate audacity of attempting to change it.

I now had a different song lyric going around and around in my head. It was “I know the pieces fit, ’cause I watched them fall away.”:

I forgot to mention that I had just been through a break up only months prior to getting the diagnosis, and Schism seems to be division both between male and female, but also a kind of divorce from the spirit.

In Toltec terms, spirit, and god mean the same thing as “intent”, and shamanic healing requires the mastery of intent to gather and direct “energy”.

There were no shamans around little old Christchurch, but a friend had told me about his learning Chigong, the ancient Chinese healing art, and told me of the Master who taught him, Yuan Tze, and that this man was coming to town and doing individual healings. I went along and spent about 30 minutes explaining my health problem to him, as he sat across from me, gazing attentively but dispassionately.

He told me that if I learn and practise Zhineng Chigong, then my symptoms would gradually ease over time, until ceasing altogether. He then got me to stand and close my eyes as he did some healing chigong on me. I remember the feeling of my body warming up as he was doing it. I then signed up for a six session tutorial on how to do the first method of Zhineng Chigong, known as “Lift Chi Up, Pour Chi Down”, as well as “wall squats” and “stretching chi”. Within a month I had noticed improvement, so I kept on attending weekly lessons and practises, and was amazed at how many challenging little techniques there were to learn.

Aside from that I was slowly learning how to deal with my symptoms, by breaking them down and dealing with them one at a time. I hadn’t heard this song back then, but it sums up the process very well: