Higher Vistas and Lower

 

Joseph Campbell in Myths to Live By :

"I have noticed . . . when flying -- particularly over oceans -- that the world of sheerly physical nature, of air and cloud and the marvels of light there experienced, is altogether congenial. Here on earth it is to the lovely vegetable nature-world that we respond; there aloft, to the sublimely spatial . . .

". . . with each expansion of the horizon, from the troglodytal cave to the Buddhist temple on the hilltop -- and on now to the moon -- there has been, as there must inevitably be, not only an expansion of consciousness, in keeping with ever-widening as well as deepening insights into the nature of Nature (which is of one nature with ourselves), but also an enrichment, refinement, and general melioration of the conditions of human physical life."

A little commentary on Campbell:

What this means is that our minds are expanding whether we want them to or not, and so our more conventional thoughts are just as doomed to obsolescence as the worldview of medieval people. There is, therefore, no immortality in going along with the crowd and lazily believing what everyone else believes.

If you would avoid becoming a ridiculous little footnote to a worldview that is disappearing even as you continue to dedicate your life to it, if you would avoid being erased and nullified by the continuing evolution of human consciousness, then you have no choice but to rise up above the gravitational pull of the mass culture of your time -- you have to choice but to embrace Antigravity.