The mass movement
absorbs the individual,
by stripping the individual
of his opinions, tastes, and values.
He is thereby reduced
to an infantile state.
This is what the new birth really means:
to become like a child,
and children are primitive beings,
credulous, followers,
members of a pack.

— Eric Hoffer

What curious, weird creatures, we humans are !  I feel quite old, Yoda-like as I write such words.  A statement of self-confession, an admission of how unstable, fragile the possession of my self identity has amounted to over the years.  I survive, sufficiently intact to write about this topic.  The words of Eric Hoffer, the longshoreman-philosopher say what I want to say with precision. 

Our sense of self is a composite of the stories that we have reiterated, over and over within our psyche creating a world with ourselves as the leading character.  That’s the normal manner of self construction, layer by layer as language is learned by imitation from family members, from teachers and school mates. 

Inevitably there comes a point, or maybe a series of points where one’s self-constructed world cracks, proves insufficient to support the stress load of “reality”.  Unease arises, subtle at first, then increasing to a fury, a torrent of stressors undermining the confidence, eroding the existential ground upon which one has always stood.  The ground shakes under one’s feet, threatens to crack open, and one with it. 

Who am I, why am I here? What’s the point? Is there a point?

I know that feeling.  I know that ravening insecurity, the ragged edge of my sanity, beyond which is the abyss, the void — where my day to day function slowly breaks down…..

Yes, I understand the overwhelming desire to fill that hole with something, with Jesus, with a savior, with a cause, with an ideal, with success– a screen upon which the imagination can project all that is felt to be absent in my one, lonely, empty existence.

In my case it was a routine of Bible study, personal devotional practice, and attendance on occasion at giant rallies, — not unlike a Trump campaign rally.  I followed the recipe, kept the faith, and I was saved more than once. 

I have been there, walked that road, know the feeling of immersion in the aura of the “great leaders” words, the warm enveloping production values of the giant mass gathering. 

There is no “new birth” in anyone, or in any idea, or in any cause.  To believe there is, — is a grand illusion.

What is to be done? 

Nothing.                     Nothing is to be done.

The way forward:   confess that life is not what you or I thought it was.  That life is tinged with mystery, wild, unknowing, dangerous, beautiful and to know that is to possess salvation already.

My inner voice tells me what I have just written is correct.  However I do not entirely understand what I just said.