Borders of the mind

Borders of all descriptions define and enclose what is held within them. They are argued about and fought over. They also provide protection, security and various forms of personal safety. Borders separate one from another on multiple levels of existence. Physical borders provide economic security for some while denying it to others. Mental borders provide safety and security for those that accept that border: those that do not live within another border.

Sometime and somewhere a border encounters a competing or contradictory border, resulting in border wars, which are actually construct wars. A border defines, and that definition is held as sacred to some and misguided to others. A construct is defined by its construction, creating a border by what is held within. When what is held as sacred meets what is seen as misguided, conflict easily erupts. These are construct wars initiated by borders.

Constructs are valid forms of learning. Standing alone they potentially support the ongoing evolution of civilization, extending knowledge and understanding. In isolation to all other constructs they normally inflict no harm upon anyone. Problems only begin when the information within the construct is held as absolute. There will always be an opposing construct, maintaining contradictory information, that is also held as absolute. The absolute of each is the border that comes into conflict with the other. The information leading to each absolute border may be similar, but the border is a wall separating them. The wall provides protection and security, but it also isolates those within from those without. The isolation breeds suspicion, holding the doors wide open for conflict and persecution.

Constructs of all forms are intellect accepted or created. The intellect is a builder and destroyer, revealing in building sandcastles only to knock them down and begin again. The intellect lives by borders, defining its acceptable boundaries. The intellect requires something to hold or hang onto to give itself relevance and direction. The holding on to something provides a sense of safety and acceptance: a security blanket. Wrapped in one’s security blanket the intellect arrogantly views opposing constructs as still in their thumb-sucking era. The opposing constructs may be tolerated. They are witnessed as misguided or simply evolving upon a pathway of discovery, ultimately leading directly to the superiority of your held construct. The intellect creates its own superiority by belief in the information held within the construct. The belief holds the borders of that construct as irrefutable, leading directly into border wars.

Watch a construct versus construct discussion or argument and you will witness the intellect adjust, realign, reconfigure and manipulate all the information within the construct in every conceivable way, but never will it abandon its borders. The borders can swell or deflate, but never are they deserted. The intellect requires borders; it is an innate requirement of its existence. Without borders, the intellect flounders with no direction. Give it a border and it gains purpose and direction. The intellect thrives within restriction, manipulating that restriction to feel unreservedly unrestricted. It easily lives within that illusion, feeling all others are deluded. Such is the power of a border.

It is the border and not necessarily all the information that went into creating it that causes all the problems within a civilization. Border wars are simply caused by belief in a border. Remove the belief and everything everywhere opens into progressive evolution. Maintain the border and endless rounds of border wars result. In both cases, the intellect must relinquish control of its accepted or created borders. But, and here is the kicker, the intellect cannot survive without borders. It simply flops about in misery and dejection, as it has nothing to hold onto. The intellect easily gets bored, requiring new and better toys to play with. It requires borders to feel in control, and borders provide that control.

Border control requires border guards, and the intellect becomes a self-promoted defender of its borders. Defending by one is seen as attacking by another, and the same devastating game continually repeats in new disguises. Borders of all descriptions are the breeding grounds for ceaseless forms of destruction. Then we wonder why bad things happen to good people.

The intellect lives within its accepted or created borders, which is always a valid and progressive method of learning. Problems only ensue when the borders that learning creates sets into concrete. The intellect requires borders to live, so how can that concrete maintain elasticity without being broken into pieces? Many suggest being tolerant. However, by being tolerant you already have a hidden border of intolerance. Others suggest simply remaining flexible. But, flexibility only works if the borders of others are also flexible. It is a standoff, as the intellect will only allow its borders to flex if everyone else does the same, which is a covert border guard slyly protecting the original border.

It comes down to intellect versus intellect, construct versus, construct and border versus. border. They are all held together or apart by one common element, fear. Fear has multiple edges to grasp, and the intellect is in its element, as no matter where it moves there is something to hold onto. Those edges can be used, abused and manipulated in endless ways, and the border never alters. The intellect is in its version of heaven.

The duality to fear is trust. Pure trust has no edges or restriction, and the intellect will discover nothing to hang onto. Fear it can use, but trust is borderless. The intellect cannot abide within anything that it cannot manipulate, and trust having no borders has no manipulability. Trust is by its nature endlessly malleable, requiring nothing beyond itself. That malleability provides no borders to grasp, and the intellect easily discards it as ineffective.

The intellect will maintain the concrete walls of constructs through fear, and an advancing civilization will be required to battle it out in the playground of border wars. Those concrete walls will only become malleable, not through flexibility or tolerance, but by trust. Moreover, that trust, to be an honest trust, must be open and unguarded, which is trusting your own trust, and not just believing in that trust. A belief will act as a thief in the night, robbing you without you even being aware of the theft, for a belief will create an unseen border. To be a true trust, the trust must be unreservedly unguarded. And that takes trust, which is trusting your own trust, and not believing in it.

Pure trust cannot be fought over. It either is or is not. There is no in-between. Everything within your existence distills down to trust or fear. The doves of this world stand upon trust, and the hawks upon fear. Where do you stand and what do you do with that stance? What is your participation in society based upon, trust or fear? Are you part of the problem or part of the solution? The answers to those questions will point directly at how future civilizations will grow, either in harmony or in self-destruction. You are an active participating member of this civilization, and its future depends upon your activity being based upon, directed from, and existing within trust, and not belief or fear. And that takes courage, perseverance, determination and above all more trust.

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