The Dark Ocean of Liberation (the series continues)

Part One

I fretted about it all: advaita, neo-advaita; cognitive enlightenment, the newly-awakened ones; liberation leashed and unleashed. 'Why bother?' you may well ask. It got to me a bit. What was it that prevented me from embracing all this with open arms? I'm all for liberation, awakening, enlightenment. Was I passing up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for quick and easy enlightenment as a result, maybe, of my own prejudices, hang ups? My own refusal to accept that it might all be as simple as that after all. Was I becoming like those grouchy theologians and scholastics who railed against Tim Leary when he said you could have contact with God without decades of blood, sweat and miserable self-sacrifice?

It was about 'depth', whatever that is. And about the basic ways the universe works. It's kind-of not a universe at all: more like a multiverse, or polyverse. It's not all linear, rational, cause-and-effect in a domino-type way. That's where synchronicity, correspondence, magic, mysticism, Jung, the Kabbalists, good ol' Hermes Trismegistus, come in. Falteringly and imperfectly, they all try to point this out. There's a whole load more going on, and it all needs to come on board for proper enlightenment. There are, of course, advaita and neo-avaita-type dudes out there who dismiss all this, don't accept Jung and his unconscious and archetypal levels of being and the rest. Consciousness, as consciously experienced now, is all there is, they will claim, so that's all we need to deal with. They are free to get on with life and enlightenment just as they choose, of course. But I'd say they are missing out ....

I eventually came across some articles which conceptualised my doubts more lucidly and coherently that I am able to do myself. They turned up on better-than-most alternative website magazine 'energygrid.com'.

First up is Tobias Lars, 'The False Enlightenment' from November 2006. He focuses on the emotional aspect to 'awakening'. Many who pass themselves off as enlightened are, he writes, really empty shells, who have simply let go of their emotional body in favour of a false and incomplete peace. They have traded in their 'pesky feelings', which have been the bane of many-a spiritual follower over the ages. Reading Tobias's article helped manifest the (to me) self-evident reality that all aspects of Being have their part to play. The must have. Emotion, Volition, and the Physical (chalices, wands, and pentacles in Tarot) are just as much aspects of life and of enlightenment as is 'Mentality' (swords). "The advaita concept (oneness, non-duality) is so close, the final 'concept' before merging with Source, it is also especially subject to false 'understandings' of its idea. The Mind gets hold of it, thereby circumventing the 'pesky' feelings." Thanks for that, Tobias.

John Smith, whoever he may be, is particularly fascinating. A number of his articles can be found in the 'Spirit' section on EnergyGrid, stretching back several years. We can follow his progression from a wholehearted enthusiast about Advaita and No Self into a more critical writer about some of its major assumptions.

The most significant of John Smith's articles for our current purpose is that of April 2015, 'Moving beyond Emptiness to Higher-Dimensional Perspectives'. His main point is summed up thus: "No-Self is actually an artifact from trying to map polydimensional identity in a normal space-time framework. As long as we are dimensionally ignorant, we will only be distorting reality when we try to resolve ontological paradoxes using inappropriate modelling."

I have written down two pages of quotations from this most illuminating article (yes folks, I still write on pieces of paper!). But his main point is that No-Self only works if we assume a four-dimensional time-space perspective. Question the dimensional structure of reality, and lots of the rational arguments used in bare-bones Buddhism and Advaita fall apart. To see through 'self' in linear time-and-space does not necessarily mean negating it (or 'me') altogether. "Self is there but not there as it resides in higher dimensions." Maybe we should learn to live in ease and comfort with contradiction and paradox, a more 'feminine' mode of apprehending the world, rather than opting for a consistent yet distorted reality. "Getting past suffering is not so much cooling the fires of desire, but learning not to use restrictive reality maps."

Part Two

This issue, of applying No-Self practice to a limited view of Mind may turn out to be, I suggest, a largely modern western one. The West has undergone a centuries-old crusade against multidimensional knowledge, enacted by the Christian Church against 'pagans', witches, non-believers, exemplified by the Inquisition. The job was continued by the Enlightenment and its aftermath, determined to root out the 'superstitious and irrational'. The result is the BBC/Richard Dawkins distortion-cum-reduction which is de rigueur nowadays, adopted by many apparently intelligent people without their even realising they've been had by a 'mind job'. Incidentally, while the Church and the Enlightenment are often portrayed as opposing forces, they are both more deeply bedfellows as agents of empire. But let's not go there just now.....

The life story of the Buddha is a bit of a pick'n mix affair. Nothing is really known for sure; different versions are rife, so people - including scholars and 'authorities' - often simply choose what best fits in with their own preferences and prejudices. One thing is more certain than most, however: the Buddha was a bit weird. A former Buddhist acquaintance of mine, Andrew Skilton, writes in 'A Concise History of Buddhism': "It is important to stress that, despite modern Theravada teachings to the contrary (often a sop to sceptical western pupils), he (Buddha) was never seen as being merely human. For instance, he is often described as having the 32 major and 80 minor marks or signs of a 'superman'...." Traditional biographies of Buddha are filled with strange non-human entities with whom Buddha interacts; omens, miracles, other supernatural happenings abound. It was not a Richard Dawkins world that Buddha inhabited.

Later forms of Buddhism similarly overflow with multidimensional existence. In a reaction against bare bones Buddhism, the Mahayana turned up, enriched by the loam of pantheons of archetypal Bodhisattvas, cosmic myths and stories, Bodhicitta, the transpersonal Will to Enlightenment. Later still, Tibetan Buddhism and the Tantra came dripping with mantras and yantras, mudras and mandalas, all efforts to penetrate beyond linear space and time into synchronicity, correspondence, magical manifestation, and other non-linear aspects to Being. They took on board some of the shamanic worldview of the former Bon-Po traditions in Tibet, incorporating astrology among other things.

I am left with the unmistakeable feeling that, however much we may try to beat and blast out 'Self', there remains... well, something. What it gets called probably doesn't matter too much. It's not 'me', yet it's simultaneously 'me' more than is possible to imagine. Universal Mind? Dharmakaya? Tathagatagarbha? No end of words in the various forms of Buddhism. 'Source' is a good word, suggesting the everpresent divine streaming down to here from 'somewhere'. And there is G...G...God. Taken out of its mainstrean demiurgic context, it's not such a terrible word. But I remain uneasy about using it.

Maybe this is the nail of doubt when it comes to LU and its ilk: the absence of any mention of 'something'. Take out 'Self', go even further than LU and deal with craving and aversion online, and what have you got? The higher dimensional realities that John Smith alludes to fail to get a look in; there appears to be no notion of them. To use Jungian terminology, it seems to me that 'direct pointing' can lead to an experience of 'No Self' on the levels of personality and ego; but this leaves shadow, collective unconscious, and the rest more-or-less untouched, to wend their merry way wherever. It is all incomplete because the reality map is incomplete.

As I've stated about 67 times already, this is not intended as a criticism of 'direct pointing' in itself; again, for the 68th time, I have found considerable personal benefit. It's more of a reality check on some of the supposedly awakened or enlightened ones lighting up the spiritual scene, especially through the interent, nowadays. Maybe some of this stuff isn't all it makes itself out to be, or that some people make it out to be. Or maybe I'm just not all that interested in this awakening and liberation modern-style.

These articles come highly recommended. Give them a whirl.....

www.energygrid.com/spirit/2015/04ap-dimensionalperspectives.html

www.energygrid.com/spirit/2006/11tl-falseenlightenment.html



                    
            

Liberation Off the Hook (second in a series)

Freedom. Liberation. Casting off the mind-made manacles. It's the name of the game, isn't it? Whatever conduces to freedom is my teaching, said Buddha. I like to think that Pale Green Vortex grooves along to a similar vibe.

If awakening and enlightenment equate to personal liberation, there seems to be a lot of it around nowadays. Look in the appropriate magazines, on the relevant websites, and they are teeming with people who have 'woken up', or are well on the way to doing so. Many of them will help the reader to become awake, too, normally for a fee (which is reasonable enough: even awakened ones need to earn a crust for their potatoes and eggs). Some are, or have been, disciples in bare-bones Buddhism, as I call it, or Advaita in some shape or form. Other still have become 'mushroom teachers', as John Smith (more of him later) calls them, popping up like woodland fungi from nowhere. Typically, such people were washing down the car on a Sunday morning, or perusing the tins of soup in the local supermarket when, unbidden and unanticipated - boom! Something happened. Separate selfhood disappeared, maybe, or a complete ineffable oneness with all the universe opened up where just a moment ago were lines of lentil and bacon soup cans. Henceforth, everything is different; once blasted by awakening, the subject (not that subject and object any longer exist) lives a transformed life.

As well as mushroom teachers there are, I suppose, mushroom groups, or hybrid mushroom communities. One such is Liberation Unleashed - or LU, as I call it for the sake of brevity. I was first made aware of LU near the end of last year by a friend of mine, who contacted me in a state of great energy and enthusiasm for the process which LU oversees. I know a number of people who have undergone the LU process, and they speak in glowing terms. Liberation Unleashed can lead you to an experience of 'No Self', a direct experience of how that separate self you have based your life on and who you have always believed in is nothing but a fiction, a fantasy; in spiritual terms, the big hindrance. The method is 'direct pointing': engage online regularly and in total honesty with a guide, and you will be led seamlessly to the experience of your own 'no self' nature'.

On checking them out, I found LU to be friendly and up-front about what they are doing. There is a freshness and pragmatism about some of the content of the website. 'This is the process, and this can be the result' is the simple message; in a sense, they are making no great claims, aside from that single focus on the reality that you don't have a self. An additional plus is that there is no need for a guru, with all the emotional complications that can follow this particular style of awakening: in LU, you just find yourself a guide, report regularly, and off you go.

The LU process follows the time-honoured tradition of looking closely - very closely - at experience: your real experience, not what you think or imagine or assume your experience is. Some of the results of this remarkably simple yet remarkably difficult technique reported by followers of this direct pointing echoed closely some of my own experiences over recent years. Following Don Juan's recommendations to Carlos Castaneda in 'A Separate Reality' I had started to listen to sounds - in my case having adopted traditional meditation posture. The awareness began to arise that there was not really a sound 'out there' being listened to by a receiver 'in here' at all. This was simply a construct habitually created around the pure sensation of sound, which arose then faded away within a far greater space of consciousness. To begin to perceive in such a pure and direct fashion was quietly miraculous, since I had wondered whether it was a level of reality that I would ever experience outwith the aid of psychedelic teacher substances.

From there I began to apply the same method to the other senses and elements of experience. Most obstinate in 'de-identifying' were, I discovered, thoughts. I found that I identify massively with the thoughts which pass through the space habitually referred to as 'my mind'. The LU aproach to thoughts, deduced from carefully reading several of the many 'case studies' available on their website, I found most useful in helping to de-identify from thoughts. Accompanying this process was an undoubted fading away of some of the claptrap coursing through my consciousness, mainly nonsense related to the (lessening) anxiety that has been my bugbear over the years, and which I have  written about before.

So far, so good. Very good, in fact. Rationally, it might be time to really plunge in, get my insights verified by a guide, and then move on to further techniques aimed at removing evermore subtle signs of that fictional sense of self.

It was at this moment that the Queen of the Dark Hours, Lady of the Silver Planet, decided to cast her wan light once more over my life. "There's something a bit off here" she began her familiar intoning. "I don't know what it is, but there's something not quite right." I watched as she manifested then disappeared behind the night clouds scudding rapidly above me. Her ever-changing mystery is magnetic, and, and I have discovered the painful way, ignored at your peril. By now I know her well enough; I surrendered to her higher wisdom without resistance.

Under her guiding influence I found myself unaccountably reading through my shamanic diaries from many years back (see blog post 'Shamanic Journey', 23rd July 2016). I took down from the shelves my dusty volumes of Jung and Jungiana, and drew up my onion of consciousness as a description of the layers of consciousness as I had experienced them. I delved then dived into the Tarot, eventually finding a couple of decks which seemed to resonate with me. As a result of some of my Tarot studies, I had a proper look at the Kabbalistic tree of life with its emanations, the Sephiroth, which, for the first time in my life, spoke to me rather than being a source of brain-ache and irritation.

In addition , I started to feel a bit uneasy with some of the effects of neo-advaita-style mind work. The Liberation Unleashed type of practice had seemed to remove plenty of dirty dishwater; simultaneously, I began to feel that continuing with this style of consciousness work would begin to take out stuff that I wasn't happy with taking out. Not because I was afraid of 'no self', but because it was 'content of consciousness' which expressed meaning. In fact, I increasingly felt that the specific sense experiences were not to be negated, or dismissed as irrelevant, but were our portals into deeper levels of mind. The sacred began to burst forth from, or through, every sight, sound, tactile sensation, that was registered within my field of consciousness. These were unique to myself and to this unique moment in time, and came resonating with, well, something that was necessary and magnificent. The 'no self' approach, if adopted exclusively, seemed to lead to a vivid experience of the field of  consciousness within which phenomena come and go, but seemed to ignore the sacred aspect to the phenomena themselves popping up and popping out within that field. It was a one-eyed practice. I felt in danger of short-circuiting myself, especially those emotions which can be gateways into the divine.

Put another way, the fabric of the universe is not a coincidence or irritating impediment. It comes redolent with significance, with meaning. In one way, sure, it is illusory or unreal; in another way, it is anything but. It is the warp and weft from which all is woven. This was the underlying feeling giving rise to the notion of sacred polarities that I wrote about in 'The Divinity of Polarity', 10th June 2016.

In the cosmic jigsaw of synchronicity that such perception unleashes, I came upon a quote from Jung that I had first read years ago, but since forgotten. He was deeply influenced by practices and philosophies originating in the the East, especially Buddhism and Taoism, but his final comment (on Hinduism, but relevant here as well, I think) came like this: "The universe does not seem to exist for the sole purpose of man denying or escaping it." I originally dismissed Jung's comment with a 'He doesn't understand Buddhism and Hinduism', and there might be something in that. Nevertheless, I now wonder whether he was onto something.

Next episode on the subject to follow shortly.......

Image: Sirian Starseed Tarot            

Intuition

(first in a series of loosely-related pieces)

In his article 'The False Enlightenment', Tobias Lars (more of him in a further post) tells a story. I paraphrase but it goes something like this:

Father God was busy creating the Universe, but Mother God felt uneasy. "There's something off with what you are creating" she remarked. "What's the problem?" came Father's retort. "I don't know; can't put my finger on it. But it just doesn't feel right." "For Christ's sake, woman. Spit it out! I haven't got all day, you know." "I dunno, but there's something not right." Not given to patience, Father God went ahead at full speed anyway. Thus he created the universe we now live in, given over to psychopathic rulers, self-serving unnecessary warfare, dishonour, dishonesty, and wanton destruction of people, animals, plants, and the rest of the living environment.

It is only recently that I have succeeded in fully facing up to the degree that my life has been

guided by intuition. Important (for me) decisions, changes in life direction, have taken place on the basis of vague yet simultaneously precise feelings of what is right and proper, and what is mistaken. To translate these actions into the language of reason has happened further down the line; it has sometimes taken years.

In modern times, Lady Intuition does not make a problem-free guide. I am reminded especially of the period in my life some thirty years ago, when I was chairman of a Buddhist centre in London. I would sometimes be hailed to attend 'summit meetings' with chairmen of other Buddhist centres. Some of them were quick-minded, quick-witted types, the sort that would have been at home on 'Newsnight' with Jeremy Paxman in his prime. Not me. All manner of very important subjects would be up for discussion, dissection, and decision-making. While these thinking types were having a whale of a quickfire time, I would be sitting there like Mother God: "There's something not right here, but I don't know what. Can I have some time, please? A day? A week? A year or two?"

It's about one hundred years since Carl Jung came up with his theory of personality types, based upon what he called the four functions of the psyche. Each human has a 'dominant function'; these four could be arranged as a quaternity, as in a mandala. The four functions are sensation, intuition, thinking, and feeling.

One of the great things about this typology is that Jung presented all four functions as 'equal': there was no hierarchy implied or intended, they were simply different ways that the mind could experience and apprehend reality. Starting way back when, however, western mainstream culture has come to value some functions as 'superior' to others. Specifically, thinking, rational thinking, has come to be the hallmark of culture and civilisation, while the other functions have been relegated to the 'primitive'. It is 'thought' that distinguishes us from the lowly beasts; thought which elevates humankind to something different. This is our heritage from the Enlightenment and before, nowadays taking on the dark cloak of reductionist scientific materialism. It is the story of 'civilisation' that has been woven into official truth, the great Ascent of Man.

This is actually bullshit, a tale told to remove us from a good deal of our birthright, much of our magnificent energy. It is a one-sided apollonian lie, one that heralds the rational as bringer of light, while condemning those unruly 'pagan', natural energies to the dustbin of falsehood, error, demonology. As a device of oppression it has worked remarkably well.

In modern culture - and in a place like the Buddhist organisation I worked, where the presented paradigm was adopted without question - being guided by intuition as well as 'ideas' can be hard work, especially if you have turned up this time round as a male. It goes against the grain to release yourself into the embrace of Intuition without having everything sewn up nicely in a framework of rationality first. It feels dangerous, irresponsible even, and needs to be learnt, in my case at least. This is another effect of cultural conditioning, however, the notion that thought somehow makes things safer, more 'right'. Sure, intuition is sometimes spot on and sometimes wide of the mark; but relying overmuch on the thinking faculty (or relying overmuch on any one faculty, at the expense of all others) can have even more devastating effects. Most atrocities committed by humans upon other humans have come with a well-fashioned package of apparently rational thoughts and ideas to justify and back them up. Ideas that might not be watertight, but good enough to pull the wool over the eyes of the great majority.

Intuition has another quality which makes it a bit scary to many. It comes in sideways, or seemingly from nowhere - or from somewhere else. It appears unbidden, unexpected, sometimes unwelcome. In its mystery lies its value. It can be a channel into the 'other', the non-rational, into other dimensionality. In the Tarot, intuition comes in the form of the Moon. Creature of the night, bringing gifts of magic and mystery, shining a wan light, shifting and elusive as clouds dance across her face in the night sky, obscuring the silver planet. And it comes as the High Priestess, manifestation of dark beauty, enigmatic holder of secrets, lady of the mystical, deep connection to what is true but which cannot be properly formulated in words. This is the trick, to make the foundations of a tyrannical culture shiver: learn to live comfortably with what is known to be deeply true, but which cannot be readily expressed in words. Sacred channelers of intuition, we salute you.

"That which lives on reason lives against the spirit" wrote Paracelsus (1493 - 1541) provocatively.

Image: High Priestess, Thoth Tarot

    

Head west, head west....

Just returned from a couple of weeks on the west coast (Scotland, not California - not a Beachboy in sight). The weather was sufficiently good to be able to get out a lot, rather than sit indoors all the time watching the rain streaming down the window pane. Hence the silence from Pale G.V. Here are a few pics from that blessed corner of the planet (OK, clever clogs, planets don't have corners....).

 

Anima

My approach to the shamanic journeying I was doing as the twentieth century breathed its last was predominantly psycho-spiritual. It was part of my own exploration of mind/psyche/consciousness. A basic intuition that has accompanied me during most of my life is that there is more going on than immediately meets the eye. Conversely, anything which helps to push back the boundaries, expand the field, is prime fare for the menu. The journeying, with its paradigm-shattering revelations of..... well, something.... fitted the bill perfectly.


What I was doing was not, strictly speaking, very 'shamanic' at all. Traditional shamanism is concerned primarily with healing, both physical and psychological. The shaman would undertake a journey to the lower or upper world in order to divine the cause of disease, either by direct perception or through the aid and guidance of a helpful spirit. The shaman might suck out or otherwise banish a disease from the ailing person, or go on a journey to bring back a soul or soul-part that had gone missing from a person. I was no healer in this sense - at least as far as I knew - but lined up proudly in the tradition of psychonaut, explorer of world and consciousness. This was not a career path I had consciously chosen; some things just seem thrust upon us.

One morning a large brown envelope thumped onto the floor beneath the letterbox. Large brown envelopes normally bring unwanted news from the tax people. In this case, however, the contents were welcome. The package came from my friend and fellow shamanic voyager, and contained a pile of photocopies (still de rigueur in 1999), from a book called 'Man and his Symbols'. This is a tome comprising a compilation of essays on aspects of Carl Jung's psychology written in easier-to-read-than-normal language. The book is kind-of by Jung himself: of the five sections, one was written directly by him; the others are transcribed from his words by several of his followers.

As with the night-sea journey, Jung once again came up trumps for me. He became a unique clarifier of some of the strange things which took place on our journeying. This time round, it was the female figure or figures that my friend and I invariably encountered at a particular juncture of the voyage. Having descended into the lowerworld, we would often meet a female of some description or another. She would seem to be a catalyst for the trip to come: following the encounter, we would typically drop into a cavern or down an enormous precipice, or maybe fly across vast thick jungle or through an infinite night sky. On my journeys the lady occasionally appeared in the guise of a warrior, or as a huntress dressed in animal skins. Most frequently she manifested more like a medieval princess or other member of royalty, exuding a distinguished serious air, decked out in full-length flowing robes with equally long and flowing hair to match. 'In the middle of the piazza was sitting a woman who clearly was the queen. She was mature, probably late thirties, with quite a long face and a rather long nose. She was clothed in a long green dress, elegant and made of silky material.' (extract from my shamanic journeying diary). Sometimes she would accompany us on our journeys, sometimes not. And in one sequence of lowerworld visits she turned up again and again as the same being, black hair and cape, and I took her as a teacher.

What all this was about I had no idea. What was I supposed to do with these women in the lowerworld? I wondered whether I was supposed to have sex with them, although that normally seemed inappropriate. Then the photocopies arrived, and I could hardly believe what I was reading. Jung's notion of 'anima' described precisely what - or who - I had been meeting on my journeys.

While some of what 'Man and his Symbols' has to say about anima raised question marks in my mind - largely as a result of cultural and social changes since it was written - the focal revelation left me thunderstruck. Anima, said Jung, mediates between Ego and the Collective Unconscious, or between Ego and the Self, as he calls it. She stands at the gateway between our everyday mode of existence and the deeper layers, everpresent yet normally unconscious. She is mediatrix of the unknown. This is precisely the function she was undertaking during our shamanic voyaging. And as such, she may turn out to be a constant companion of the dedicated explorer of mind.

To unpack more completely anima, nothing beats the not-so-easy-to- read yet nevertheless considerable genius 'Anima' by James Hillman. In this book, our archetypal psychologist casts a sharp, critical eye over many of Jung's assertions and assumptions about anima. He points up how some of Jung's attributes of anima are not intrinsic to the archetype itself, but instead culturally-dependent accretions. In particular, as gender roles have changed, and as how we typically view gender has changed, so have the precise characteristics we attribute to anima changed. Yet her function as mediatrix remains the same.        

Significantly, Hillman also unhinges anima from some of the couplings and qualities often taken by Jung and his followers as inherent to her. Eros is one; when I wondered whether I should try and have sex with the figures from the shamanic journeys, I was falling prey to this lack of distinction between anima and eros. Not all sexual attraction towards women is anima-inspired, argues Hillman: this is laying far too much on every passing urge and fancy a typically horny male may have. And there are plenty of archetype-type female figures who are not anima. A quick, semi-spontaneous multicultural trawl throws up Hera, Hecate, Mothers Earths and Earth Mothers, Gaia, crones, Diana and other huntresses, Xena and other warrior queens, Virgin Mary and Magdalene the prostitute, not to mention bunches of frenzied maenads. Mistake one of those for anima and you'll soon find yourself in trouble.

Conversely, not every anima sighting provokes erotic feelings. Hillman also does a great job of taking to pieces Jung's simple oppositional notion that the unconscious is mediated by anima in males, and by animus in females. Not necessarily so, claims Hillman. Archetypes are universal, transcending natural gender, and the functions of animus and anima are distinct and different. Anima is unique in her role as mediatrix, and female humans need to explore the unconscious, 'make soul' in Hillmanesque jargon, in the same way as do males.

That's about it on anima for now, I think. Happy imaginings.

Images: Ninfa Marina by Bernardo Buontalenti
             Temperance: Dark Fairytale Tarot

Castle

The weather has been relentlessly cloudy in this little part of the universe thus far this summer. In years past, I have proven myself capable of navigating with map and compass across cloud-topped mountain peaks for hours on end. At present, though, the delight of such a pursuit eludes me. We did manage to get to Dunottar Castle, on the coast south of Aberdeen, however. I am not normally a castles-person, but this is something different. The ruins are perched precariously on the edge of a cliff-rimmed promontory, and the atmosphere is striking. Even the normally-prosaic French Michelin guide to Ecosse manages to break out into 'On pense aux pirates, Vikings, fantomes' before reverting to the safer territory of dates of kings, queens and miscellaneous other statistics. Come to think of it, I don't know why we might think of Vikings: they'd been and gone centuries before the castle was built.

  

Personal Assessment

'All efforts to make me into a suitably civilised human being have proven only partially successful.'

                                                                                                       This morning, me.