An incomplete and flawed thinking out loud.
Be kind and…be careful.
1st Draft
Life is a symptom of instability. It is a self-cohesion, perceiving itself as a singularity, in search for its own constancy either through a return to a larger whole {God, Perfection, Love, Source, Self} or through its absorption of the whole into its own unity thusly making the whole and the self a tautology {Dominance, Control, Power, Assimilation, Absorption Knowledge}. These represent the two opposing strategies of self-realization in man, exemplified in memetic ideals, morals and ideologies.
Universal flux is the consequence of an absence; the absence of order/perfection/stability/harmony. Life is created in this flux and so mirrors this universal disorder/imperfection/instability/disharmony in search for its conclusion. It feels this growing entropic imperfection/instability/disorder/disharmony as Need.
Life is defined by its resistance to death. It is the act of not dying; differentiated from it by its effort in seeking out its own being, as opposed to the effortlessness of non-being.
Consciousness, as a product of life, may not be aware of the totality it participates within or it may be forever condemned to be ignorant about the whole, but it is a reflection of the universe and of reality and so can sense the wholeness and know it intuitively, by becoming aware of the individual self which is a particle in a greater unity. Space/Time, therefore may not be a precise interpretation of what IS and reason might be limited and prejudiced by biological necessities, personal perspective and environmental/cultural conditions, but they represents symbolizations of actual phenomena interpreted by the mind in a comprehensible manner. Comprehension isn’t literal, it is symbolic.
Life is a reaction against entropic decay. An experimental/accidental unity – depending on your metaphysical perspective - struggling against temporal attrition; animated matter seeking its own completeness; order fighting disorder by becoming more efficient in the utilization of its energies and by creating a barrier between itself and the infinite chaotic unknown so that a self-contained pocket of order/stability can be attempted, protected and allowed to grow into an all encompassing healer of disease or as a connector back to its source.
Life’s individual expressions of incompleteness are characterized by their dependence on external resources.{External in relation to their self-contained, self-limiting, self-defining, self-aware, I} They absorb the elements, that are similar to them, which can then be used to repair the effects of entropic decay on their temporary unity and they assimilate the elements that can conclude their becoming into a final being by growing {absorbing similar elements into a larger unity} or by adapting {changing} in relation to altering environments. This “survival of the fittest†exterminates failed attempts at stability, under specific, constantly altering conditions/environments by absorbing them into stronger unities, better able to resist entropic effects and in search for a final solution.
Evolution is life experimenting with multiple forms in search for the most stable one under the constantly altering reality of the flux. It is the testing of individual creations. Since the flux is, presumably, unending, evolution can never attain its final end.
Need is life, life is need. These concepts are tautologies. Life is the state of constant needing.
Need is an expression of entropic decay. It is matter {Time/Space interaction} expressing its instability and imperfection through animation. It is action caused by a void
Need is the expression of instability in matter. Its fundamental motive is survival/satiation/immortality. Existence is space struggling against time to reach timelessness.
There are primary needs {those with immediate connections to survival/continuance} and secondary {those with indirect connections to survival/continuance}. Primary needs are ceaseless and crucial. Secondary needs are primary needs redirected into intermediating, sublimated ones.
Need is constant- just like light and heat require constant fuel, life requires constant vigilance against external invasions and temporal decay and constant feeding, constant energy flow. This requirement exposes life’s rareness against the norm. Life is effort personified.
Satiation is a myth. Need is constant in that it expresses life’s continual struggle to resist disassociation and disorder. The myth is caused by misinterpreting the availability of a desired resource and Need’s ephemeral placation, into imperceptible levels, with its complete absence. An organism is maintained by a constant flow of energy. Either by breathing, or feeding, or maintaining self-cohesion, or – in higher life forms – in the continuance of thought creating consciousness. An organism is effort forced by constant Need.
Desire/Want is the focus of Need upon a resource/object. When the Need is a primary one the focus upon the object desired is direct and uncompromising. When it is a secondary Need it is compromising and indirect.
In higher life forms biological sophistication has made it possible to store fuel and hydration to meet primary Needs. Through this strategy need is constantly fed resources, the focus of its unceasing desire. The primary Need’s constancy is kept at bay by providing a store of resources to draw from. The stomach and the camel’s hump are both examples of evolutionary sophistication resulting in the storage of resources within the body, as to make them readily available to Need’s constant requirements.
When the resource is easily and immediately available, such as in the case of air/oxygen, there is no necessity for storage – unless like in whales its survival is dependant on a prolonged, willful disconnection from the attainable resource of oxygen. The Need is placated constantly and immediately preventing it from becoming conscious unless one focuses the mind upon it, through meditation, or the immediacy of the resource is somehow blocked.
Lower life forms, lacking a brain, are reactionary in that they are Need reacting to resources in its environment. Higher life forms, those with a brain, can direct, plan and strategize their reactions. They can become more efficient.
Suffering is Need interpreted by the mind. It is the brain interpreting its own essence as that of animated Need/incompleteness.
Pleasure is a negative state, in that it is an expression of the temporary unawareness of suffering. The sensation of pleasure, whether it is sudden reaching an orgasmic release, or gradual, felt as a slow mellow contentment, is the mind being freed from the awareness of its Need before a new one takes its place. To put it plainly, pleasure is the absence of the absence - A double negative resulting in a positive.
But all positive states - as they are labelled by the human mind- require effort: Heat, Order, Light, Life, and so demand energy derived from assimilating and absorbing and consuming other elements into their becoming. For this reason they are tentative, exceptions in a universe declining into dissolution, either destined to cease in a slow deterioration or to reach a limit which will reverse its direction.
The mind is a tool meant to facilitate the placation of Need. As such it is an arbitrator deciding which Need takes precedence and planning, foreseeing, and anticipating Need before it reaches conscious awareness as discomfort > suffering > pain.
The mind either functions as an interpreter of sensual stimulations, reacting to them, in relation to them as arbitrator of Need, or it can become a more sophisticated tool, creating models of reality, becoming self-aware, and being able to project this self through the mental abstractions of reality into a possible future, by using experiential data {experience} or inherited experiential data {knowledge} to make the placation of Need more efficient.
The mind need not experience Need as suffering to react to it but can now foresee and plan its placation {pleasure} beforehand.
Anticipation of pleasure is only possible for creatures with higher brain functions {imagination, abstraction}. Suffering is a motivating factor in any action, but in creatures with higher brain functions pleasure is also a motivating factor in that it urges action by promising a release from Need, even if it has not reached the level of consciousness yet. More sophisticated biological forms do not exist only in relation to their past and present, but can project themselves into a historical past – before their existence - and into their possible future – by using the imagination.
The mind’s purpose in life is best exemplified by how it abstracts reality using incomplete awareness so as to foresee suffering and plan for it or avoid it by feeding the Need causing it before it reaches uncomfortable levels. The mind can learn, by storing experiences into memory or by sharing experiences with other minds through communication. Therefore the creature need not burn itself by fire and simply react to suffering caused by the Need for self-cohesion, but it can foresee its own suffering and avoid it or minimize it.
Anticipation often heightens pleasure by imagining it before hand or by preparing the body, by heightening its energies, in preparation for it. Thusly the Need for nutrition can result in an excited preparatory stage before the hunt. Sex goes through a similar preparatory stage, where the body is prepared for the energy expenditure of the deed through anticipation, by heightening the sensual awareness of stimuli and energizing the body through excitement.
Sex is a secondary Need in that a creature can survive as a celibate being. Secondary Needs are often an amalgamation of multiple needs finding a single focus {desire}. Here we find not only the need for ejaculation {orgasm} but the need for belonging within a unity. Multiple secondary Needs are fulfilled through sexual interaction which is more than just the act of fornication. For men there is also the element of dominance and power, whereas with women the element of submission and the completion of a greater self participate in the act. Sexual need is also a secondary one due to its compromise. The entire self does not survive through this survival strategy but, due to the necessity of adaptation and also due to some limitation to cellular division, only a partial replication of the self – combining with that of another – is possible. Often an individual might participate in unities where only a dominant pair procreates, and they only act as supportive elements, sharing a percentage of the pair’s genetic self which is being replicated. This compromise makes the strategy of procreation through intercourse a more muted Need.
Suffering is creative, in that it forces the mind, through its attempt to avoid it and prevent it and minimize it, into ingenuity. Progress is the result of Need trying to find its final satiation. Where there is no absence, no completeness is sought. Where there is no weakness, no strength is sought. Where there is no instability no stability is sought.
Hedonism is only possible in environments with a surplus of resources. In other words, in environments where Need is prevented from reaching any uncomfortable level of suffering. It, inevitably results in decadence, since it is a state of inertia. Pleasure being a negative state, is also a state of inaction. The contented mind - as much as this is possible in our universe - is characterized by the placation of its interpretation of Need {Suffering}. It is lacking ambition and motive to act.
In essence hedonism focuses on the temporary state of liberation from the conscious awareness of Need {suffering}. It becomes addicted to the momentary release. The mind senses it as its emancipation from its resistance by surrendering to its purpose and as a momentary release of its energies from its demands.
In the moment of extreme pleasure the mind is rewarded for its efforts and sufferings by being, momentarily, freed from them, before a new Need refocuses its desires through suffering. This temporary state is felt as an emancipation, as a relase from its boundaries of purpose. It is, in fact, the death wish {death being the state of no need} finding a focus through desire while still preserving survival. . Godliness experienced by mortal beings. To be and not be simultaneously.
Asceticism is reason dominating over Need, even if temporarily in relation to primary Needs, or through total denial, in relation to secondary Needs. It is the mind escaping Need, not through submitting to it, as in the case of hedonism, but by controlling and dominating it.
Extreme asceticism is also an inert state, in that by dominating and denying Need {partially} it becomes unmotivated by suffering and its temporary placation through pleasure.
Controlled asceticism is a more efficient usage of physical and mental energies, in that it chooses desires and controls Need by directing or focusing it into creative paths resulting in deeper and longer pleasure.