[January 2001 journal entry]
Proposition: That the ‘come of age’ break from being ‘religious’ to being ‘non-religious’ re ethics and spirituality entails/requires being disillusioned. The Latin root for ‘disillusioned’ is in + ludere and means to mock at, to play, to trick. The prefix ‘dis’ means to break in two, to tear apart, to do the opposite of, to deprive of, to exclude, to expel. ‘Disillusioned’ is thus linked to ‘ludicrous’, ‘deluded’, . . . . Being under an illusion is to be intellectually deceived or misled, to see a misleading image, to perceive something so as to cause misinterpretation of its actual nature. Therefore, to become ‘non-religious’ is to be ‘dis-illusioned’.
Most think being ‘disillusioned’ is an experience to be avoided, overcome, defeated, . . . . Instead of disillusionment being an experience to defeat or from which to be rescued, being disillusioned is essential/critical to the search for a ‘non-religious’/‘come of age’ experience of and approach to ethics and spirituality. If the ‘scrapheap’ Job attempts to return to who/where he was prior to wasting away on the ‘scrapheap’ (as suggested in the story/play’s epilogue), he must achieve what surely is impossible if he is to find peace and maintain his integrity – i.e., he must re-illusion himself.