On Exits

The time has come where I move on from this analytical series that I had been mentally working on for about seven years and that I finally brought to life through The Daily Dose newsletter, made possible by you all the audience, my subscribers. I want to thank all of you for subscribing and reading and providing me with accountability as I work through this slightly grueling process of concept reconciliation between the ideas of Circles of Hell and Stages of Development. My efforts in establishing this relationship and delineating identifiers from each Circle and Stage are for the purpose of increased awareness in our interpersonal and professional relationships as well as for therapeutic benefit if you are in a provider-client relationship. Observation of behavior is a free tool we can all use to deepen our empathy for and connections with ourselves and one another. It is my belief that if we are able to reach this deeper understanding, we move further from suffering and closer towards peace as a society.

Additional to this belief is my belief in divine timing and significance more so than serendipity and coincidences, so this last day of January 2023 marking the end of this current series pleases me and is inherently symbolic. It has been a bit of an exhaustive exploration, "through Hell and back" if you will, and I bet you all are as relieved as I am to be moving on to less abstract topics and into more down-to-earth applicable wellness conversations. But, this has felt like a necessary process for me to arrive where I now am, and again I thank you graciously for this space.

This week is a discussion of the final Eriksonian Stage, one actually proposed by his wife Joan as the 9th stage in which the end of our lives marks an exit point. In this final energetic vacuum Joan proposes we may actually find it possible to experience the dystonic outcomes from each of the previous stages. I imagine this being similar to the idiom 'watching your life flash in front of your eyes' but on a more emotional and metaphysical level. As we approach Death we may feel all of the Mistrust, Shame, Guilt, Inferiority, Role Confusion, Isolation, Stagnation, and Despair that we had previously encountered and conquered. While I could not find in the literature where Joan had proposed a specific Virtue gained from this re-experiencing of life's Crises, the hypothesis came to me that perhaps something of an epiphany may occur where if you can feel all of the prior discord rapidly and simultaneously, conversely one may be able to in a flash understand and appreciate all of the struggle and all of the Virtues. When the lightbulb flips on, when all the puzzle pieces fall into place, it would seem to be that a deep sense of peace is gained. This is my thought for the moments before and possibly while our soul's and body's transmute and move on to the next phase, a sense of deep and satisfying peace.

In Dante's 9th Circle of Hell, the deepest and iciest of the them all, he places the Treacherous. Think Brutus and Judas and these are the types of sinners you will find here. Betrayal is so deep an offense against a fellow human because the wounds cannot be healed. There is no scar that fades over time. There is no taking back what you said. There is only moving forward with the knowledge that the damage you have caused on a loved one is irreconcilable and in serious cases cost them their life. However to mirror this seemingly irreversible damage Dante has designed Paradise with 9 layers as well, which he calls Spheres. This imagery mimics Joan's assertion that at the final point in our lives when we have the possibility to plunge into Treachery, betraying ourselves of all that we have learned in the form of Virtues, it is actually at this exact moment that the revelation hits that we have won the lottery, if we allow this revelation in.

Paradise welcomes you with open arms if you can make it through the challenges of Life, almost like a bad psychedelic trip turned into euphoric appreciation or something. Thus, there would be no Paradise without Hell, no Good unless juxtaposed Evil, no real triumph without struggle. So while in my last newsletter I had come to the conclusion that one of life's greatest challenges was to stare back at all we have accomplished with grace and Wisdom instead of Despair, this week I will further the conclusion to assert that we must actually stare at the afterlife with wonderment as all of the pain we might have endured to get to this point will ultimately bring a greater peace than is humanly fathomable.

All this to say that again I do not practice or align with any formal religious institution, but my study of Erikson and Dante has led to this paralleled paradigm of insight. Additionally Dante asserts that it is not our individual salvation to look forward to, rather that in choosing Virtue over Sin while alive, we are rewarded with the community of soul's who did the same before us, contributing to the overall goodness of the Universe at large. The Circle of Life may be less about Life and Death forming a continuum, and more about a Circle of soul's emanating positive vibrations, with each new soul gained into to this choir the frequency lifts higher and higher towards Universal healing. What a mind boggling thought that might be, terror and Treachery flipped on it's head into it's alter-ego, everlasting positivity and joy. Beautifully described from an article on the topic is this relationship which harkens back to the 8th Circle and 8th stage, the likes of the Wise soul's we may find ourselves joining:

"...this depiction of the universe, of the cosmos, there’s a reflection in the way in which the two wheels of the souls are presented to us. They, too, are a kind of cosmos, or a microcosm if you will, in which wisdom is seen as this wonderful interrelationship of parts and wholes."

(https://www.wondriumdaily.com/dantes-paradise-sphere-wisdom/)

I once read a quote that stuck with me, that the imagination is defined by what it outside of it. This is sort of how I feel about trying to grasp all of this and express the applicable magnitude to you all. What will you do with this information as you move through the Stages of Life and allegorical Circles of Hell?

The Choice is ours.

I leave you all in this moment with a delicate reverence; imagine yourselves at a candlelit conference where we all exit the room quietly, pensive curiosity and gentle respect marking our movements. Thank you so much for being in the room with me. Until we meet again next time, I will leave you with a quote:

"In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us." - Carl Sagan, The Pale Blue Dot