DDU - "On Mastery"

I have brought to light previously on my blog the so-called 'dialectic' between master and slave.  I thought then, as I do now, that slavery is immoral - yet one of the historical and present-politico necessities of nature.  Over 100 years after the abolition of slavery in the U.S., there still remains a black market for indentured servitude and sex slavery.
It is a grim realization to think that somewhere, in my country, in my county, in my city - that there are people in the bondage of slavery.  Yet it happens every day under the belly of the beast!
But, anyhow, I came to the conclusion that one is far better off being in a position of Mastery than Slavery...

So I then asked the question; How does one become a 'master'?

The answer is, accordingly, Hegelian.

Hegel, enlightenment German philosophe extraordinaire, posited that there are three 'levels' of cognition:

1) Lower Immediacy
2) Mediation
3) Higher Immediacy

In lower immediacy, we find the ethics of the child.  Ill equipped to true mastery-as-such, the child finds himself in a non-reflective, direct world of coping with, learning about, and engaging upon objects.  They do not, so to speak, circumspect.  It's almost as if a child lives in a realm of pure instinct, blind to Godly reason.

Then, upon entering the educational system, a person undergoes mediation.
From pre-k to college, mediation is almost a form of conditioning under which a person transforms from lower immediacy to higher immediacy.  Hegel thought that this undergoing of mediation was absolutely necessary to obtain the skill of true Mastery.

But mediation need not come from education alone...
No, in fact, independent study of philosophy coupled with the phenomenological method have seemed, for me, to be a fine substitute for Scholarly pedigree.
However, there is a sense in which if one truly wishes to become the Master of a discipline or skill, one must undergo a process of conscious circumspection requiring the qualities of reflection, circumspection, and reasoning.

It is the 'reason-hood' of a particular subject or discipline that one must circumspect about, sometimes for many many years, in order to achieve Mastery.  It can be difficult.  There may be trials and tribulations.  Struggling.  Strife.

But upon embodying a particular philosophy of action in one's preconscious drives, one can be said to have attained a kind of Mastery.

The simplest example is from the book "Zen and the Art of Archery", in which a master archer describes how he hits a bulls-eye.

He pulls the string back to it's fullest degree, and then allows the arrow to be propelled from his bow unto the target.
His reflective consciousness is hardly part of the process!
He simply DOES it.
Without, for most true masters, even 'thinking'.

The reason for this is because long ago the master archer underwent the process of mediation, in which he internalized the reason-structure of his craft.

So the mark of a true disciple of Christ is in the character of one who studies the bible in constant mediation-unto-death.
For the truest mastery of all is that of attaining redemption, universally, absolutely, proximally and for the most part, and eternally!

RT DOMESTIC DEMOCRACY UNITED 2016