The cynics.

I have a love-hate relationship with the cynics. You know, those people who know, and have a lot of disdain for those who seem to believe that something different might be true. I feel like when I arrived in Paris at 9 years old, I was plunged into a sea of people like that.

To this day, it is quite typical to find that scientists and radically rational thinking people, in the face of people bringing forth new discoveries that deconstruct every foundation they have been taught to build upon, tend to react with behaviors of cynicism, systematically ridiculing those controversial people.

It's very unnerving to the part of me who often feels like a target to these people and who feels like she's unjustly put in a freak box. And it's also gives a wonderful feeling of being at home to the part of me who prides herself in being a True Thinker. Lol.

Anyone who is slightly interested in psychology would understand that whenever someone ridicules another person, it is because that someone actually thinks extremely poorly of oneself, without necessarily knowing it, and is desperately trying to defend oneself against a potential threat by crushing it. A threat to what? To the official intelligence that has been protecting and hiding their unconscious sense of worthlessness in the shadows all this time.

It's okay to read that again.

When you think about it, someone who isn’t afraid and who is truly and wholeheartedly confident in oneself 1) would actually be open to discussion, because a contradictory theory to theirs doesn’t threaten their sense of worth. In fact, these people acknowledge that a curious yet critical mind is very fruitful in the field of science where things must be put into question again and again in order to find explanations to the mysteries of life, so they encourage that; and 2) would have absolutely no interest in spending energy ridiculing another person. They rather have respect for others, the same way they have respect for themselves.

It’s all a game of mirrors really. Once again.

The scientific bullies are literally treating the people who offer controversial opinions like they treat their own shadow-selves (the part of them they unconsciously find worthless) in their own minds, without being aware of the mere existence of that shadow-self within. It’s their unconscious inner-dialogue, so they might not realize it’s happening unless they do a little bit of mind-digging, but they have an unconscious background dialogue going on inside their minds, constantly, saying they’re not good enough, probably what they have been hearing all throughout their childhood by professors, and/or parents, or simply what they’ve been believing about themselves in spite of external validation and scholar celebration (for various reasons that are too complex to get into right now). It’s quite typical conditioning for many humans to degrade one’s own worth.

And I know that first hand because that used to be me.

I received an engineering degree from one of the most renowned engineering schools of Europe. And a degree in architecture from one of the most renowned architecture schools of Europe. That means I have been studying mathematics and physics and mechanics at a very high level for 8 and a half years, about 20 to 40 hours per week. And especially in France, where the competition is one of the most horrific, and you need two to three years of intense prep school to get into the best universities, I know what feeling like you’re not good enough feels like, and I know what thinking you’re the best feels like. Both go together, you see. You’re constantly trying to hide one behind the other. It’s a terrifying race against worthlessness, and everyone finds this normal, because it’s the way the elite engineers of the country have been chosen for centuries. They sell pills for the anxiety. Thankfully my mother and I never were very fond of pills.

The thing is, this self-deprecating system is an endless vicious cycle that repeats itself generation after generation. Chronologically in one lifetime, it takes root in primary school or even kindergarten, or simply at home, since birth. It’s in the collective makeup of many European countries, this obsession to stay among the “worthy ones” and avoid ridicule by all means in order to hide this resented shadow-self.

I am so grateful that I have, years ago, shed light on the the intensity of the atrocious inner-dialogue going on in my mind, however painful this has been, it was more painful not to be aware of its hold on me. And it continues to uncover itself to me day by day.

Through many different practices, I have learned how to be with it, and remain on the awareness side of it, instead of letting it rule me like it used to, making me the bully ridiculing others many times in the past. It’s a tough road to go through this kind of transformation, but I am a far more loving and blissful human being now and I would not change an ounce of the difficulties I faced while meeting those shadows.

I guess I just want to say to all cynics out there that I see you. I feel you. I am you. I believe we all have a cynical part rising to the rescue when our safe foundations are on the verge of crumbling. But I’m pretty sure you never feel more worthy or more powerful after ridiculing someone else. I never did. Except maybe for a split second in that initial rush, and then it’s worse.

Imagine just for a moment that even with that, your actual worth is and has always been intact and immeasurable, but the only way you will truly feel that in your bones and heart is when you find the courage to look within to meet yourself, shadows included. All you’re looking for is already there. Many people are here to help.

All the love,

Rafaëlle