Human beings operate under the assumption that they have an accurate outlook of life, of what they think constitutes reality. There are no exceptions to this, because even those who like to proclaim that they are not knowledgeable, and that they don’t know what happens tomorrow, this state of not knowing is still their outlook which they consider to be truthful. The mind needs assurance of some sort in its ability to predict future events and most importantly threats, no matter how weak or even non-existent said ability actually is.

There is a solace in saying that life is utterly unpredictable, because if you truly believe this and are at peace with it, nothing would be able to truly surprise you anymore. Chaos has successfully been subdued and integrated into your perception of Order. An act so great only a god could possibly do it, to achieve the perfect harmonic integration of the two polarities. This should serve as an indicator that this integration usually is just a coping mechanism in those who claim they irrevokably achieved it.

Most people undergo a cycle which contains the following elements:

1. You know nothing, yet you are also ignorant of your ignorance
2. Life makes you aware of your ignorance. You know that you know nothing
3. Through a process of learning, what was previously ignorant has become known. Having overcome the previous burden of ignorance, you feel good about yourself. This is the objective “high” of this cycle in terms of feelings of self-esteem usually. At this point it can be considered earned
4. The feeling of confidence in one’s ability to know the workings of the world or the specific set of topics you feel knowledgeable about has resided even though you’re not really breaching new grounds and overcoming ignorance. You become comfortable, routine sets in, a gradual process which ultimately culminates in a more profound state of ignorance. Thus, the cycle repeats itself from the beginning: You know nothing, yet you are also ignorant of your ignorance

Usually this is a general psychological cycle, although it can be restricted to specific areas only. Humility and knowledge are usually not evenly distributed in all areas of one’s life, even the most cutting-edge thinkers tend to have many “average” blind spots in topics and areas they don’t exceed in.

A humbling, disappointing feeling it is to see that person who completely changed your perspective and is an extraordinary visionary in a certain field come across like your everyday ignorant moron when it comes to another topic, particularly if they are very confident about said topic too. The outlined cycle applies to them as well after all, they are only human, even if the process of idolization makes you forget this all too often.

You begin to question if your original read on them was wrong. If they are this stupid about this topic, it almost seems impossible that anything they have to offer about the original topic could be of value. But that is just the nature of life, most people are not gifted polymaths who you should take seriously in a multitude of disciplines. If someone manages to be very on point about just one topic, it should already be considered a notable achievement.

It’s a great tragedy to become aware of the mortality of our idols, but even more of an awakening occurs when we become aware of the mortality of our own Self. It’s easy to shake our head and look down upon the blind fools whose ignorance has been exposed for all the world to see, but seldom do people consider themselves to have the same capacity, or perhaps an even greater capacity to be absolutely wrong about integral beliefs they hold.

The worst-case scenario for a person is to stay stuck in the fourth stage for a disproportionately long time. Resting on the fruits of long-gone labor of theirs, there is no process of confronting the unknown anymore, but you strongly believe you are doing so, because it has become an issue of identity.

The identity of the ascendant

The ascendant believes to have outgrown the regular troubles of walking the path of life. He is no longer subject to the same experiences of embarrassment, of ignorance, of idiocy as others are. This inability to realize the cyclical nature of life, the ouroboros, is dangerous because it inflates one’s perception of the self so enormously it may prevent the ability for life’s sorrows to knock him awake from the slumber of his ignorance.

Superficially it may seem similar to Phase 1, but a person stuck in Phase 4 can go through all the same experiences as the person in Phase 1, yet instead of being humbled and woken up, they stay in the self-induced state of continuous pseudo-awareness. Their identity as an ascendant has become too important for their sense of self-worth, the prospect of being false and humbled invokes so much fear that it can’t even be consciously acknowledged anymore. Suffering from a warped self-image like an anorexic does is a state of being we think too foreign to truly emphasize with, but the same mechanism is something all humans experience, on a psychological level – the deciding question is whether this state is one of many necessary cycles to go through over and over, or if it becomes so comfortable we forget it’s a part of an eternal process that is impossible to transcend in this life.

Similarly to the anorexic, people with a warped sense of self become obviously more unhealthy to the people around them as time goes on and the effects of the starvation kick in more and more. From their perspective they absolutely know they have eaten, everyone else is just too blind to see it, but they are still going through the cycle, just without ever truly losing the ground below their feet because the defenses their mind has put up to protect their identity runs so deep with enormous power. But the consequences of a life centered around the denial of truth can never truly be escaped. A state of humility paired with respect for the sheer extent of one’s ignorance enables true nourishment of the soul, which is why those who truly appreciate life never stay stuck in one phase of its cycle for too long, or too often.

A prolonged period of darkness is to be expected, but past a certain point the longer you stay submerged, the harder it is to rise back to the surface as you sink deeper and deeper into the ocean or rather, the unconscious. Diving deep is a prerequisite for growth but allow me to stretch out this metaphor even further and say that the length of submersion can only be so long before trouble is certain to arrive, and you may wonder whether the immense duration of your submersion may even imply that current experience of reality isn’t real at all.

People who want to learn how to dream lucidly get into the habit of checking their day-to-day life for uncanny signs of unreality so they are able to notice when they are dreaming. Like having too many fingers on one’s hand … or being able to stay submerged for far too long, never feeling the urgent necessity of oxygen. What is a sign of success for the aspiring lucid dreamer may turn out to be an indicator of fatal delusion for the ever ascendant. Both are pivotal pathways for the people who embark on them, although they should walk in opposite directions along this path they share.