Apollonian Dionysian Dichotomy
Jun. 23rd, 2025 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamingwithfairiesLast night I had a dream I went back in time to 1997 but instead of being a toddler, as I was then, I was a slightly younger version of my current self. I retained all the memories beyond into 2025 and was very vocal about it, telling everyone about what I knew would come to pass, how different the future was. I joined an online forum and posted everything everything I knew. People were of course skeptical but my conviction, the consistency of my facts, won them over. However, it wasn't long before I learned there were others like me, whose memories were even better. We became famous, something like prophets. I remember telling people I knew who the popes after Pope Paul II would be, I explained YouTube, and even Eurovision Song Contest winners. But the point is, I was excited. Happy, even. I was back in a time period that I enjoy, and I was able to make a name for myself, however dubious. I was bound to the future, but permitted to have a second shot at reliving the past, knowing what I know. Make the most of it. There is joy there, but there is also bittersweetness that remains after the dream is over.
I feel like there is something within me that pulls me apart into directions, and I've been struggling to bring it together. There is something wild thrashing against the walls of my psyche, and there is something sleek and confident. Today I came across the apparent contrast between the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysius and I suppose I resonated with it. In my mind I believe that rules imposed upon the self are not rules, they are the liberation of the will. "Self-control is not control, self-control is freedom." It's a concept I came across in a book about the enemies of human liberty, a collection of talks/essays by political philosopher Isiah Berlin. There was an interesting co-operation between idealism and self-disclipline. That to be utterly devoted to one's own ideals, one's own authenticity, one's own values, is the purest form of freedom, worth sacrificing everything for since that is what gives meaning to life.
I deeply resonated with it. It sang to me. I could quote the whole book, really.
And even as I sit here, I can think of everything else I connected to over the years, from Satanic literature, to books about ADHD analysis.
I am at my wit's end. The things that worked in the past no longer work. My life is meaningless, my talents are wasted, nothing feels real, and self-doubt cripples me into paralysis. I corner myself with inaction. I've given up imagining the future or planning for it because nothing motivates me to get what I want, because desire is weak and fickle and actual satisfaction is so rare it's genuinely miraculous when it happens. I don't handle disappointments well. Life has highs and lows but the lows are always too low and the highs never high enough.
I need to completely rethink everything I've been trying to do in the past few years and I feel like beseeching the archetypes of Apollo and Dionysus is somehow relevant.
I literally can no longer tolerate self-division for the sake of efficiency. Not even the idea of costumes, masks, roles, moods. While the world seeks union with God or nature, I seek inner union. Union with myself. That's what I've wanted since the night I was attacked by a demonic entity that injected cosmic terror into my very soul. How can I do anything with the multitude of selves, posing as planets and stars?
I don't have BPD or multiple personality disorder or anything, yet I feel it is imperative that something within me must fuse/combine. That it's not about tuning in, it's not about compartmentalisation, it's not about sifting out the "true self", or telling a story, or picking a psychological outfit for the day so to speak. The walls that separate the different aspects of me/my life need to disintegrate.
And the only way to do that is to stop thrashing, stop trying to bring order to chaos, stop trying to understand the inner mechanisms of my mind. And the first them, my inner voice tells me, is 1. to give in to paralysis (it will pass). 2. Give in to overwhelm - of all the things I need to do and want to do (because it's A LOT my hunger for life honestly disturbs me). 3. Give in to chaos, finally.
Maybe I'm doing self-discipline wrong. I might surprise myself.
My dreams tell me that time is something that can defy logic, and through which knowledge travels between unknown channels.
11:11
I feel like there is something within me that pulls me apart into directions, and I've been struggling to bring it together. There is something wild thrashing against the walls of my psyche, and there is something sleek and confident. Today I came across the apparent contrast between the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysius and I suppose I resonated with it. In my mind I believe that rules imposed upon the self are not rules, they are the liberation of the will. "Self-control is not control, self-control is freedom." It's a concept I came across in a book about the enemies of human liberty, a collection of talks/essays by political philosopher Isiah Berlin. There was an interesting co-operation between idealism and self-disclipline. That to be utterly devoted to one's own ideals, one's own authenticity, one's own values, is the purest form of freedom, worth sacrificing everything for since that is what gives meaning to life.
I deeply resonated with it. It sang to me. I could quote the whole book, really.
And even as I sit here, I can think of everything else I connected to over the years, from Satanic literature, to books about ADHD analysis.
I am at my wit's end. The things that worked in the past no longer work. My life is meaningless, my talents are wasted, nothing feels real, and self-doubt cripples me into paralysis. I corner myself with inaction. I've given up imagining the future or planning for it because nothing motivates me to get what I want, because desire is weak and fickle and actual satisfaction is so rare it's genuinely miraculous when it happens. I don't handle disappointments well. Life has highs and lows but the lows are always too low and the highs never high enough.
I need to completely rethink everything I've been trying to do in the past few years and I feel like beseeching the archetypes of Apollo and Dionysus is somehow relevant.
I literally can no longer tolerate self-division for the sake of efficiency. Not even the idea of costumes, masks, roles, moods. While the world seeks union with God or nature, I seek inner union. Union with myself. That's what I've wanted since the night I was attacked by a demonic entity that injected cosmic terror into my very soul. How can I do anything with the multitude of selves, posing as planets and stars?
I don't have BPD or multiple personality disorder or anything, yet I feel it is imperative that something within me must fuse/combine. That it's not about tuning in, it's not about compartmentalisation, it's not about sifting out the "true self", or telling a story, or picking a psychological outfit for the day so to speak. The walls that separate the different aspects of me/my life need to disintegrate.
And the only way to do that is to stop thrashing, stop trying to bring order to chaos, stop trying to understand the inner mechanisms of my mind. And the first them, my inner voice tells me, is 1. to give in to paralysis (it will pass). 2. Give in to overwhelm - of all the things I need to do and want to do (because it's A LOT my hunger for life honestly disturbs me). 3. Give in to chaos, finally.
Maybe I'm doing self-discipline wrong. I might surprise myself.
My dreams tell me that time is something that can defy logic, and through which knowledge travels between unknown channels.
11:11
