"Living, dying, smiling, crying -- one Self experienced as many selves."  --Adyashanti


Validation.

Why yes, please. And thank you.

We want it, love it, need it. It makes us warm and fuzzy, connected, understood, less alone.

Validation means we are in this together.

And of course, being individuals, we want that.

So getting someone else to say, “Oh I get you! You're great! I share your experience!” feels necessary.

Although scoring some validation does require Others who step up and do their part.

After all, it’s not enough to carefully curate, package and polish this presentation of self just for ourselves. We need someone else to take us in, hear us out, share the experience. We need an audience to see it, like it, and buy into the tale we’re serving up.

Otherwise, without another person absorbing and taking in this self’s experience, there’s not much validating happening.

Of course that authentication of our experience gets us absolutely nothing real.

And of course that verification of self is pretty much the opposite of what all those years of enlightenment-seeking were supposed to attain.

Still, if, “I feel your pain” actually succeeded in achieving contentment, then the Mind-Tickler would whole-heartedly say, yay!

But the self, whatever it is, has never been satisfied with the validation it has gotten. The longing for endorsement is usually pretty much bottomless. We get a little, it feels nice for a while, and then soon enough, we want more again.

Which makes sense. Because really, how can corroboration of our selves ever come from any external Others?

Especially since those others are also seeking corroboration of their selves.

Here we are imagining that others, separate from us, hold something we need, and that we’ll be more complete if only they'll give us that something.

Meanwhile they don’t have it either, and are also trying to get it for themselves.

So fine. Maybe this is mixed up because validation is supposed to come from inside us, as opposed to from outside.  

As in, let's ask mind or self to validate itself.

Hmm, can you say, “Fox in the henhouse?”

Because it’s unlikely that the self has any desire to see outside itself.

I mean, how would that even work, exactly? Just like eyes can’t see outside of eyes, because they’re limited by themselves…

Mind/self can’t see outside of itself; it’s limited by itself.

And yet we do still want to be validated, approved-of, connected. After all, it feels good.

Yes, apparently validation is like having a glass of wine and some sex. It feels pretty good.  And then it’s over.

And the self, with great satisfaction, smokes a cigarette.

Because validation and approval-seeking hold the story of self in place.

Validation equals confirmation. Confirmed selves feels real. Confirmed others feel real.

Mission accomplished.

So yes the self loves others thinking it’s great and validating it.

Which is why all our constant monitoring for how others react to us, is entirely to find out if we’re pulling off the show.

“How am I doing? Are they buying it?”

That’s all the search for validation, approval and appreciation is about.

A story of a person, a story of other persons, the maintenance and presentation of an image.

Luckily, blessedly, images have no need of validation.

And neither does any thing else.

Including whatever watches the show, sees the pictures, loves this play,

And never gets tired of watching it,

Over and over again.


"Consciousness finds only itself." --Rupert Spira


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