Wouldn’t it be great to navigate this world like it was an experiment. To see everyone else’s opinion for what they are and doing whatever you want to. Ofcourse, if it was illegal then you get locked up. How can i reach that level of not caring? Any philosophers who push that idea? If you did can you please tell me how?
On the other hand, a lot of us have this nagging feeling floating somewhere around the back of our mind that this isn’t actually an experiment, as fun as it would be if it were one and we could just test out stuff a first time around. There ARE philosophers who claim not to care, and claim not to bother with what others think… but I’m not sure how truthful they’re being. I’m not even sure that I’d like to not care. After all, if my give-a-damn’s permanently busted, then the worry’s gone from life, but so’s most of the joy. So hey.
Data
Data
Not caring at the level you desire is not possible.
Data
Transforming the way you care can be achieved.
Portent
Those that effectively transmute their passions into a state of calm may not be able to reignite them when the calm become overwhelming.
The only one that can help you take the jump from theory to practice, is you. If you want to not care, if you recognize that social entanglements don’t really matter, that obligations are bullshit, and that nothing really matters, then all you need to do is let go of them. I would imagine that your close to coming to similar conclusions by the very fact that you made this post. It’s, however, not something that happens over-night, it’s a gradual process that requires a certain mind-frame, one that isn’t that easy to achieve.
My suggestion as far as philosophers go, read some Nietzsche without knowing the motivations behind his claims, without understanding the polemical nature of his “will to power”, read him as a laymen would, and you’ll be well on your way.
=D>
Yeah, it’s not what you have, it’s how you use it.
Just change HOW you care. Can’t abort genetic instinct.
hey! =)
what’s the difference between reading nietzsche as a layman and reading him ‘knowing the motivations behind his claims’ 
Much of his philosophy is dependent on over-coming what he sees as decadent. He advocates the destruction of Christian morality for the adoption of a morality of sublimation. Given the polemical nature of his writing, and the effectiveness of his attacks, if one is unaware of what Nietzsche is trying to do, then one could be led to beleive that morality itself is what Nietzsche is destroying. Similarly his attack on philosophy, science, ect… are so scathingly spot on, that if one is unaware that he veiws modern day interpretation and methodology as decadent rather than science and philosophy themselves one could be led to reject science and philosophy. What drives Neitzsche to his polemics is not always clear in the polemic itself, the context is also not always clear.
His philosophy is not a system, but what he calls his “experiments” are easily misunderstood if one does not have a comprehensive understanding of much of his philosophy.
Q.E.D.
Nihilistic - I so seldom read anything about Nietzsche that is actually accurate that I am moved here to say - “Well done.”
I know it seems simple to you, but you must know how simple it’s not for many.
I’d also like to add that this is spot on. Those who do a cursory reading of Nietzsche always seem to come out with the same slogans, ‘he’s a nihilist’, ‘a pessimist’, ‘a barbarian’, ‘a power monger’ etc., while totally missing the most important messsage of his, a sublimated will to power through self-overcoming and self-enhancement.
and just for faust, maybe, maybe, just maybe …
His dementia was gradient, and he was a total asinocappela, who was prone to senseless rantings mistaken for “philosphical erudition”?
I’ll go with Adlerian, aka Harbinger, aka The Magnificent Bastard:
There is no way to reach an absolute of uncaring, as that of being, reaching that absolute, is actually oblivion.
Agree. Most of our life enjoyments come from other people feedback.
I have a smarter husband, I have a better job, I am a better professional, I am smarter, I am funnier, many people respect me, my children love me.
People need love, care, and respect. That’s the source of enjoyment. You cannot not care, you’d be miserable.
It sounds like what you are speaking of is attachment…attachment to ideas.
On Attachment When we invest excessive time and energies in acquiring or building attachments these attachments become veritable extensions of our being and come to define us for ourselves as well as define who we are for others. When these attachments take on this role we become susceptible to pain via these extensions. If the person, place or thing we are attached to gets rebuked it is a personal rebuke on us, if they get damaged or defaced so goes the defacement and damage to our very being.
It is hard to become full detached to ideas, for if we did we would be like a feather floating wherever the wind blew us and would pick up any old idea with no firm grounding of what we perceive as right or wrong. But, we can practice being open minded and look at ideas without prejudice that we immediately hit ideas with. Learn to judge other less. We especially do this with everyone we meet…they are better or lesser than me type of thinking. Mindfulness from my Buddhist practice is also a help.
On Mindfulness…On page 108 of “50 Ways to Simplify Your Life” the author talks about living mindfully saying , “Mindfulness is a great simplifying tool, because it is an antidote to doing too much.” The book also gives the following example from the “The Miracle of Mindfulness.” “If while washing dishes we think only of the tea that awaits us…then we are not ‘washing the dishes.’ If we can’t wash the dishes, chances are we won’t be able to drink our tea either.” How many times have we read a page and not know what we have just read. Forget where we are driving to and have to retrace our route. Find ourselves confused talking to someone on the phone after we realize we have no idea whose number we have just dialed.
How can we start to be mindful instead of mindless? Awareness of our thoughts is the first step, taking action to live mindfully is the second step. We also need to stop putting ourselves on auto pilot. Mindfulness will come easier with daily practice. A good way to practice mindfulness is to concentrate on your breathing and to pay attentions to distracting thoughts as they fall away and disappear.
In the old classic "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance author Robert Pirsig discusses this when he compares an ego based climber to a selfless climber that is not driven by pride and ego.
"To the untrained eye ego-climbing and selfless climbing may appear identical. Both kinds of climbers place one front in front of the other both breathe in and out at the same rate. Both stop when they need a rest. Both go forward when rested. But what a difference! The ego-climber is like an instrument that’s out of adjustment. He puts his foot down an instant too soon or too late. He’s likely to miss a beautiful passage of sunlight through the trees. He goes on when the sloppiness of his step shows he’s tired. He rests at odd times. He looks up the trail trying to see what’s ahead even when he knows what’s ahead because he just looked a second before.
He goes too fast or too slow for the conditions and when he talks his talk is forever about somewhere else, something else. He’s here but he’s not here. He rejects the here, is unhappy with it, wants to be farther up the trail but when he gets there will be just as unhappy because then it will be “here.” What he’s looking for, what he wants, is all around him, but he doesn’t want that because it is all around him. Every step’s an effort, both physically and spiritually, because he imagines his goal to be external and distant."
Certain Buddhists and Taoists I run into, especially the debaters, great philosophers and sensationalists, like to promote the idea of there is “no right and wrong” to judge in life. Taoist’s believe that if we do not favor right or wrong, good or bad, beauty or ugliness we will not become attached to such outcomes. They also believe that the cosmic forces do not favor any of these things but treat all with equanimity, so they wish to mimic the cosmos to be in unity with it.
While this extreme view of “no right or wrong” holds some truth, it also needs to be balanced with the idea of the conventual view of right and wrong to find a balanced “middle path” view of right and wrong if we wish to live within society. In general, we cannot say what is good bad, right or wrong for others since we do not know where they are on the path of their existence and what they need to learn or overcome to get where they are going. On the other hand, decisions have to be made to survive in our world and when decision have to be made so do judgments have to be decided on-so yes we must have a basis for deciding to go left or right in life.
The part of this idea that helps me with anger and prejudice with others is to remember we cannot tell others what is right for them. We can make suggestions, but since we are not the “end all” in the universe we just do not know. So, I try to remember this when I get too judgmental. This middle path view can also be applied to the idea of existence and non existence as well for those having trouble with this concept.
V (Male)
For free access to my earlier posts on voluntary simplicity, compulsive spending, debting, compulsive overeating and clutter write: vfr44@aol.com. Any opinion expressed here is that of my own and is not the opinion, recommendation or belief of any group or organization.
2 questions…1 what is a morality of sublimation? and 2, did Nietzsche believe in any absolute truth? ( existence, non-existence(nihil) or whateverrrrr?) I mean… I thought he didn’t, but I may be understanding him as a layman lol! and so maybe he’s just criticizing the ‘absoluteness’ of some stuff… I’m confussed.
Then I’m an overman (overwoman or whatever 
)…sad, cause I’m gonna die probbly. 
your asking for calousness??? Don’t you know the greatest idea of our nation is freedom untill you go against other peoples rights therefore losing your own rights. It’s the most parrellel idea to God and utopia.
Indifference is the essence of power and freedom.
INDIFFERENCE
….Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for me
So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye
So you think you can love me and leave me to die
Oh, baby, can’t do this to me, baby
Just gotta get out, just gotta get right outta here
Nothing really matters; anyone can see
nothing really matters
Nothing really matters to me
Any way the wind blows
[size=75]BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY (QUEEN)[/size]
“Live lightly†my mind urges, pointing me back to my original path.
More than just a declaration of preference it is my subconscious announcing its hard earned realizations to me, lost as I am, in the hustle and bustle of everyday life - “Live lightlyâ€, it repeats, not only in material wealth and fabricated ownership but in acquired responsibility and care.
Life is too short and far too absurd to be taken seriously. The cords of all tyranny are indubitably tied through multiple relationships and weaving interactions, each anchored on a physical need that governs our reason and dictates our responses accordingly – a faked solemnity follows; a mummified heart.
Life pushes us forth into the world, naked and seeking purpose. It forces us into self-realization.
Then the world, in turn, pushes us forth into entanglement and participation; it dresses us up in finery and gives us a directional horizon until we feel we have found our way.
We become enthralled in the everyday, and the aesthetic takes hold of our concerns until what we are, what we seem like and what we want, become indistinguishable.
We become convinced by our own pretence, afraid that we might be little more but that, until we become… little more than that.
The world, as a manifestation of a shared interpretation, tells us what to be and how to be it - our ambitions focused and contained, our sense of self-worth imposed upon us from the outside, once all personality has been shamed into seclusion or stunted before it could grow and flourish on its own.
We eventually grow tired of resisting; we begin questioning our own sanity in the face of overwhelming odds and relentless insistence. Then we start taking account of our dimensions using their rulers and trying to live up to their expectations – they remind us of our failings, in relation to them, daily, until our every thought and action is infected with their concerns.
“Live Lightly†I answer back.
In the beginning a deep sense of integrity was instilled in me. My youthful mind was stained with integration where my honour and self-worth resided in someone else’s assessment of me.
I was empathic, to an extreme, and saw far too much for my own good – I felt too much.
What they said mattered.
What they thought concerned me.
What they suffered pained me.
“Do your duty and you shall be rewarded†I was told.
“Be good and good things will come to you.†I was reassured.
I wanted to be pure in a world of filth. I wanted to be honest in a world of deceit.
I was to heal the human condition of its disease, with kindness and knowledge.
How was I to know that it was I that was the price of their need?
But the world contradicted itself.
I was befuddled with how the most obviously disingenuous, disinterested and irresponsible characters, the most superficial personifications were, almost always, rewarded with admiration and affection, even while they were secretly gossiped about and criticized, as only that which we fear as incomprehensible and uncontrollable can be.
The rule-breaker is worshiped from afar, even while a hidden vengeance cheers for his demise. His solitude is his uniqueness, his aloofness is his power.
These characters were “examples to be avoided†yet an undeniable appreciation and envy resided behind all social disapproval of them; a feeling of undeserved liberty, mocking conformity with its presence.
The common sentiment is almost always comforted by the idea of a future comeuppance - what they call Karma - and they rejoiced in vindictive approval that excuses their own surrender: The naysayer shall have his just rewards; his insolence, in disregarding common values, shall be punished by a community that cannot tolerate such free-spiritedness. The individual shall be put in his place, so as to cease reminding us about how our own amputated “individuality†is but a communal product, framed by Ten Commandments.
These irresponsible, care-free cynics, these “ignoble†spirits, taught me indifference.
Remnants of my original idealism still linger within me, manifesting themselves in the most trivial ways, such as: an anxiety about showing up late for work or making promises I am not sure I can keep and reneging on my word or a reluctance in taking on responsibilities I cannot guarantee remaining loyal to.
But now I resist falling back into old patterns. It seems absurd how my sense of dignity was so tied-up with what another expected of me or on how living-up to their expectations constituted my self-esteem.
I don’t give a shit anymore!
What are these ideas of integrity?
Towards whom am I to prove myself as genuine when all intimacy is but a dance of deceit?
Am I to measure my value by the way I treat the average or how I relate to retarded minds that know no better than to aspire to be acceptable or by how they fulfill their instinctual needs; am I to find my truth in how I am judged by someone else?
My ‘seriousness’ extends no further than my Being, and my interests in others, and their personal problems and their expectations, are minimally engaged these days - and then only as far as there remains the possibility of them contributing to my own entertainment, enlightenment and comfort.
For what else can common rabble offer me but common pleasures, as they dish out their already digested slop and lick their lips with pre-assumed satisfaction?
They bore me to tears.
I am now much more selective about who I choose to associate my self with.
They must exhibit some of my ilk; I must smell something of me in their breath or else the hell with them!
And how surprised I’ve been by the human condition?
Existential contradictions confused me with a potential, hidden, pattern that I sought to find and use to my advantage:
-Man seeks a life fulfilment that would make life irrelevant – a hopeful death wish veiled in optimism.
-Man seeks an end to suffering and evil – the very things that are responsible for the emergence of his consciousness, showing a vulgar lack of appreciation for his benefactor and a deep-seated resentment for existence - a meandering escape from self, veiled as a virtue.
-Man becomes worthy of what he is the most indifferent to – an existential irony. The full glory of life, rewarding only those that show the least reverence for it, the ones that become the least attached to it. Here reason exposes an approval for the absence of need.
“Live Lightlyâ€
I’ve always had an antipathy for excess. I despise it, in its many forms.
My gypsy soul has been brought up on essentials and carryon luggage. I’ve always had to pick up and go, until it became normal.
Nothing ‘heavy’ could be taken along. I’ve had to train myself to distinguish fundamentals.
What cannot be used is unwanted dead weight - it can only burden me with its mass and slow me down in my wanderings.
I am Spartan by nature and not only through heritage.
Every spring I do major house-cleaning and everything I haven’t found a purpose for or lost a use for goes directly into the trash bin or is given away as gifts to friends and relatives.
I cannot tolerate their presence; they remind me of wasted time – energy lost. Their mass pushes down on my soul, with all the collateral considerations they entail.
My friends are horrified by this.
In a world of ownership, things are collected and stored as mementos or for possible future use or for posterity. The masses collect objects in an effort to store time, to freeze it in a moment; their ephemeral natures wanting substance, wanting symbolic eternity to compensate for time’s attrition.
The only things I’ve ever needed to collect were books, images, music and experiences…collective memories attached to my personal ones.
I have an innate nostalgia.
A few years back I noticed my accumulated CD collection: more than one hundred compact-discs, each containing but a few songs I actually enjoyed listening to.
So, one fine spring day, I decided and acted:
I copied the tunes I wanted onto ten blank disks and the rest I gave away.
My friends were confused, even if thankful.
“Why, the hell, would someone throw away or give away what he owns and had paid for? Why would anyone give up his …his….stuff?â€
“Live Lightly†I respond.
Excess insults my senses.
My ideal state would be where everything I need could be carried upon my physical person.
A magical all purpose Swiss Army Knife, is what I want, to go along with my all-purpose body and mind; an accessory to my being, to ease my journey without limiting my flexibility.
All peripatetic souls need light luggage and multi-purpose instruments.
The rest is superfluous.
I’ve approached everything in this way.
Every new possibility must be evaluated, by me, as to its feasibility and its utility. I conduct a mental cost/benefit evaluation with every opportunity.
I never enter into beginnings without analyzing, beforehand, if I will be able to take full advantage of its potentials or if its potentials are worthy of my efforts.
I’ve never quit anything as a result – I’ve failed…but I’ve never quit.
Many take this character trait as a sign of fearing disappointment or take it as proof of laziness, when it is nothing more than a loathing for excess - of wasted effort and time - of expending energy towards what will not offer me its promised pleasure or towards what I lack the talent and stamina to complete, according to my own judgment, or what may entomb me within unnecessary responsibilities.
I am obsessed with remaining flexible.
Conservatism is a consequence of social and economical entombment.
The mind becomes rigid when it ceases having options, when it has bought its way into mythological eternity and strives to maintain the benefits of its investments through weak associations and shady alliances – calcinations solidifies the results.
Thought, then, becomes institutionalized in its own desires when it stops challenging them; it thinks itself special and invisible – it escapes through pretence and repetition.
Withering minds will always bury themselves within castles or under relationships.
I could never understand people who needed large houses – large empty spaces to pretend liberty - chasms of echoing emptiness where they store their souvenirs.
Small homes were more my style - all my essentials within arms reach; nothing but the necessary.
The world was not large enough to hold my spirit, but it is large enough to keep me satisfied in my short time here.
There’s no need for compounds and concrete citadels.
Largeness is for the small.
“Live Lightlyâ€
Being obsessed with control, in all its many forms and illusions, I’ve discovered, only recently, the power of letting go - of flowing upon the winds of happenstance and rolling with the punches - of not caring as much.
The simple power of indifference has become apparent, as some existential conundrum that confronts my logic and which I can never hope to understand.
I intuit its ‘power’.
The more I squeeze things, the more they slip through my fingers.
Yet, the more I allow them to rest there, cupping my hands delicately, the slower they abandon me, leaving behind remnants of their essence in my mind.
They become a part of me by changing me. Ownership is about assimilation.
I’ve become indifferent, not about the event, the situation, the circumstance, the object, the person itself or about life, in general, but about the outcome, the final destination.
I’ve become an audience of my own being – a detached observer of life: watching, enjoying, trying, but never fretting too much over the results.
Win or lose, fail or succeed - the confidence that the experience only matters, confounds my ego and humbles me. I am a vehicle.
The ultimate result is one and final. The rest is filling.
“Batty: I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe… Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion… I watched sea beams glitter in the dark near the Terhausen gate… All those moments will be lost in time like tears in the rain… Time to die. “– Blade Runner
Second Reading
I now see how much I cared, how much I wanted to find someone to depend upon, to rely upon, how much I needed….
All of them disappointed me, in one way or another.
And how many have I disappointed in turn?
How could it have been any other way?
Frailty can only expose itself in time, it can only fail.
This was my weakness, my error.
I see my fault now. I see it, and I know better.
I expected, when I should have expected nothing.
A man must only rely on himself….and nobody else….nobody.
A man must need only him self and no one else…no one.
A man must expect nothing from others, but only from himself…only from him self.
Then, see them flock to you, seeing your indifference as strength and your aloofness as confidence.
See them gather to see what this power is…and why it is so, wanting to taste it.
Has not that always attracted women to men?
The bad-boy, the callous indifference of a man that could care less about them as an individual; a man that used them as a means to an end, as a tool for his energies and pleasures, that has always been what women found irresistible.
They called it by many different names, to protect themselves from the obvious, but it has always been male indifference they found attractive.
Hasn’t that always been what attracted, both women…and men, to power?
Wasn’t that what every great leader, through history, has done - used men with cruelty and indifference?
Hitler, Napoleon, Caesar, Alexander, Genghis Khan, name one, all pushed their men forward into battle, with little remorse or second thought. They sent men to their death and thought little about their individual suffering, about their families and wives, their pains.
They could care less about the blood of their inferiors. They were but objects to be used and cast away.
And, oh how they were feared and admired for it, how they were hated and worshiped because of it.
Do we not still speak of their accomplishments with awe?
Do we not still worship them with our every mentioning of their names, even when we tell ourselves we hate them, even when we cringe at their coldness and brutality?
Minions flocked to offer themselves up as sacrifices for their greatness; wanting to gain a piece of it by becoming a part of it – collateral damage in their glory.
I see it now.
And was not the uncharacteristic show of compassion, from a cruel man, valued more than any other man’s?
What value does the compassion of a kindly man have?
What is the sympathy of a Holy man worth, what is the love of a loving man worth?
What value does it have when it is offered indiscriminately and without a second thought?
What value does a prostitute’s acquiescence have, when every man can have her?
Her spread legs and inviting bosom mean nothing, her embrace has no importance. We feel no sense of accomplishment when we get what she gives, for a small price, to all.
But let a cruel man show love, or let a vicious man show compassion, and it becomes an instance of grace, to be spoken of for ages, and the recipient of his love or compassion feels unique.
We covet the attentions of an indifferent man, because only his gaze matters.
Is that not why women feel an attraction for the serial killer, for the vicious murderer?
How special they feel when they are loved by a man that has shown such cold-blooded inhumanity towards others.
The killers care becomes a prize they covet, and if they receive it, they are raised to the heavens.
And afterwards, when they have been used and abused, in turn, because such men can only love themselves for any period of time, they run to the good compassionate man for comforting, they cry upon his shoulder and tell him about how they have been treated by that vicious creature that tricked them into thinking it was capable of love, yet a secret desire still burns for that feeling of uniqueness only such men can offer.
A desire no ‘good’ man can attract.
Is it not such men that remind us of nature’s ways? They become personifications of universal indifference and their passing moments of empathy make us feel like we’ve been touched by God.
This is man.
Satyr
=D>
If you wrote a book, I would be very interested in reading it.
I once wrote an e-book and it was available on Amazon.
I called it: Wandering Thoughts of a Restless Mind.
It was a collection of essays and prose.
My cousin – with whom I share a birth year and a name – promoted it by writing flattering reviews.
Some of the children at this Forum I used to visit at the time discovered it and started posting negative reviews.
They thought I was promoting my own e-book by writing my own reviews.
Oh, well.
It was all very funny.
I subsequently found out my publisher went broke – not surprising considering that he published authors like me.
I’m not marketable.
My messages are not exactly ‘happy’.
It cost $6 but I couldn’t get it to download after the publisher shut down.
I gave up on it.
Never saw a dime but at least I can say that I’m a published writer now and not feel totally insincere about it.
I mostly did it at the urging of that cousin of mine who’s more obsessed with getting rich than I am.
I did it for the experience and for the hell of it.
Long story short, and skipping the conceit, if you want to read my stuff then visit my Blog where you can read them for free.
Just click on that little house with the letters www at the bottom of my posts.
Then grab a bottle of Vodka, or Southern Comfort if you prefer and you are old enough, a box of Kleenex, a vomit bucket and enjoy.
I have posted some stuff here.
Mostly in the Creative Writing sub-forum.
Here’s a link to one of them:
ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … t=#1643069
Thanks for the interest.
Hawaii must be beautiful.
Satyr: That was the most fulfilling read I’ve had in weeks.