“The truth shall set you free.” – Jesus Christ
The truth, as Jesus demonstrated, is not conceptual but perceptual. That is, it is embodied, not abstract knowledge. The truth can only be discovered through living life, not through mastering a mental precept about life. All life is lived in imitation of another. We imitate enemies, friends, coworkers, parents, spouses, children, fantasy characters.
Why do so many people you know get positively consumed with what the president says or does? It is because many of them are magnetically attracted to the presidential officeholder as an avatar in which they themselves subsume their identity. If the avatar resonates with them, a sense of tribal loyalty glues them in a collective union with his every utterance and choice. If there is dissonance between one’s self-image and the avatar of the president, it creates great psychological stress as if a mirror is shining sunlight directly into your face every time the discordant figure speaks or appears.
If people do not imitate the president, either agreeing with whatever he does or being outraged by whatever he does, they will glue themselves to other figures in culture: tv stars, pop idols, football heroes, public intellectuals, we cannot escape the gravitational pull of powerful models beckoning us by their every action and word to become them.
“You are the body of Christ,” the Apostle Paul told his followers. Modern persons scoff at such quaint ideas meanwhile moving their legs and mouths and ears as the body of Trump, the body of Lady Gaga, the body of Dad, the body of Rivalrous Coworker, unaware of the real model of the desires that burn in their hearts but never seem to be quenched.
Today, a person of…