Unlearning Curve: The Descent
Why inner truth begins where standardized knowledge ends and how intuition is going to get us covered in grime.
Let’s face it, our society obsessed with getting high, and I don’t meant with drugs.
In the U.S., the current government tells us the twin pillars of the “American Way” are Christianity1 and capitalism.
Both promise salvation through ascent: heaven above, and wealth rising. Self-worth in both this life and the afterlife is measured in elevation.
Now enter—the descent: a heavily resisted path in a society that values upward motion.
This resistance to descent is evident not just in a myth where characters rarely descend into hell2 (Dante in his own work, The Divine Comedy, being a notable exception), but also in societal norms: wealth should always increase, emotions must stay up with "good vibes only."
It makes sense to want to be on the “up and up.” Seems logical to want to climb higher and higher—both literally and metaphorically.
When Personal Nuance Withers on the Vine
But let’s think about two ways knowledge is gained:
Logos: wisdom and knowledge gained through logic and reason.
Mythos: wisdom and knowledge gained through narratives and symbols.
Both are essential to learning and the human experience. However, in modern imperialistic societies, like the U.S., logos has been more highly valued as it aligns with capitalist ideals. Logos grants privileges to an external authority, fixed truths, and measurable outcomes—all qualities that serve empire, capitalism, and doctrinal religion.
In a society that values logos over mythos, this imbalance permeates every aspect of our lives unless we question it. Fundamentalism and rigid dogmatism take the place of personal exploration and interpretation of mythic stories. Any response or interpretation outside the predetermined correct way is labeled as heresy.
Learning becomes rote (and easily forgettable) instead of deeply felt when the standardized tests and curriculum have only one correct answer.
After all, who wants to face the shame of getting an answer wrong, or worse, being ostracized from the spiritual community?
The Unlearning Curve and Descent
Logos is the logical side that tells us that there is one correct way, and that way or answer is outside of us, provided by a higher authority.
While sometimes that is the case—after all there's only one correct answer to 1+1=?—many times, what is correct for us needs to be discovered from within.
Into the Descent…
A metaphorical journey into the cave of ourselves, a place so deep that outside voices can't be heard—like a young Native American on a vision quest. A place where we mine the answer that we need from there. What we find on this descent, and what truth we mine from within, is more precious than gold.
We just need to be willing descend and listen for own mythos to get to it.
We need be willing to do the work of getting covered in grime as we dig into this cave find the gold of inner truth.
This is not an Instagram-able moment. When we're in a descent, it feels shameful.
As Maureen Murdock writes in The Heroine's Journey:
"The descent requires a surrender to darkness, a willingness to let go of control and enter into a period of dormancy where [one] feels totally alone and cut off from the supports of her previous identity."
Family, friends, teachers, mentors and your support system can be there for you, of course! But at the end of the day, your inner world is for you to traverse.
The Resistance to the Descent
Many of us resist this intense discomfort, preferring to maintain our carefully constructed personas of the “my life is great!” masks we wear in public and online. These masks are rewarded—in both real life and in the algorithm—in a world obsessed with productivity, visibility, and the illusion of upward momentum. Think of the cult-like followings of the toxic positivity accounts or the productivity-bro accounts.
The logical side of us tells us to stick to the to-do list, or to find the correct answer from an authority figure on high—not only just in a religious sense, but even from a figure you regard highly.
The thing is, though, precious minerals aren't found in the clouds or when you bask in the sun.
The most precious gems are found in the dirt.
The dirt, the dark, and the mythic mess is where personal meaning is formed—not in the sunlit clarity of logic-only thinking.
Logos may seek clarity, and it often finds it. After all, we literally can’t get through the day or act as responsible adults with reason and logic.
But truth—soul truth—is forged in the shadows that only mythos knows how to navigate.
Some questions to chew on for reflection:
Who benefits when we outsource the task of finding inner truth?
Who profits when we leave the our inner compass of intuition uncalibrated?
See you in the descent,
Monica
I have no interest in dismantling a kind hearted and compassionate person’s divine truth, but I do want to criticize those that draw power from organized religion and use dogma to control and oppress others.
There is of course, Jesus’s harrowing of hell, but I didn’t include this as it’s an example of a deity showing divine strength, as opposed to an ordinary human descending and returning changed. Additionally, an interesting inversion of this article would be the emergence myths of from the Native American southwest and Mesoamerica, where creatures (sometimes insects) would start their journey inside the dark Earth, but become human as they move toward the light of the surface.