resisting entertainment

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

I try to resist being entertained, when I am strong enough for it, every now and then.

Entertainment, fun, absorbtion, even pleasure, it serves to occupy the mind with itself, to the point where only it exists and there is nothing else, for that moment.

When the mind is not filled and occupied, certain types of truth begin to creep into the tiny cracks between the non-conductive barrier of the unconscious.

This truth is the worst and most terrible, life-ending truth there is. We resist it as best we can. This truth is a secret as well. It is both self-secret, and publicly suppressed.

There are layers which are all designed to block out this truth.
[1]First, numbness, as much as possible, not even being able to sense it.
[2]Next, diversion, any form of occupation and mental busywork or pleasures.
[3]Hunger and muscle spasms. The spasms reaffirm the body’s control over its soul and by drawing upon its energy and sending it the command to movement, the soul retains its body and thus its barrier.
[4]Infinite blinding fear which causes the person to scream and not be awake or conscious of their body anymore.
[5]Death, which is not normally preferred, but as an alternative to this truth, death is appealing and will be chosen.

This truth, as far as I have touched it, is the fact that all things exist at the very tip and edge of infinity. Infinite free knowledge and energy is everywhere at once, in an infinite never ending supply. Life is a corruption and a prison which is designed to keep you away from that infinite freedom and fulfillment.

This is very cutting edge philosophy and only a few people on earth can relate to it.
The buddha almost had it. Buddhists are probably closest to this truth as they can be, considering how it is like the nemesis of all common beings.

2 
 Aldous Huxley said diversion is the most hienious of all evils.
3

Maybe Aldous Huxley found the edge. There are many edges.
I think part of the reason why this truth-infinity is so toxic to common life forms is because they are not geared to be able to survive it or use it.
If they had gradually more and more exposure it would no-longer be toxic.
Then there is also the factor of what I would call universal corruption. That may also be part of the reason.

4

Perhaps, it’s like…but I don’t want it to digress to the absurd, that theater has been visited before…
However, roles have so much lost focus, as to need a constant reminder, of the models less we forget.
It’s dead really, but it’s still sustained a bit.when it’s feared forever lost, well…? And with such loss, minus anarchy, we live in constant need, lest we go afraid.

Actually huxley had 2 other indicators, I will shortly look them up.

5

Oh here: nationalistic idolatry & incessant lying.but I don’t know how they play into entertainment.

6

Interesting, somehow it sounds more radical to understate the situation. Nice work, Dan.

7 
 Conversely, not fear  who can be best desribed as consumers.
8

anon’s sig:
“Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries, and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.” - Blaise Pascal

Sometimes [well, often] we forget that all fear, pain and suffering is created by our bodily organs and brain parts, not by the outside world.
The thorns on a rose are not the source of pain, or the cause of pain. Our body creates the pain itself, entirely, as a means to control itself.
Now, there is a sort of massive scam, which our own self has made somehow. The scam is self-slavery, but its image is the self-protection and the self-sustaining. This is probably why some of the buddhist figures considered self either bad or illusory. That’s part of the problem. I consider both self and reality as problems, but not as unbeatable problems.

9

But the edge may have such redeeming qualities as in Aristophens’ The Birds. Instead trying to beat it, perhaps, rising above it, may be a better Rx. By seeing comic relief where Socrates’s death was a consequence of this comedy is a fact that couldn’t have been missed by Nietzche.

I read Sauwellos’ related treatment in one of his old posts, and it would be great to get some clarification, as to whether, this comedy of errors put Nietzche on edge? (As far as his opinion of Socrates specifically, or toward Aristophens’ comic relief generally.

10

I am not in conflict with this society. It’s finished. People in general or many unspecified seem to be in conflict with this society, but I am not, because it cannot be any different, since I have found out that there is no way I can bring about a change in it. People want to bring about a change in the world. The problem is a problem of relationship. It is just not possible to establish any relationship with anything around you, including your near and dear ones, except on the level of what you can get out of the relationship. The whole thing springs from this separation or isolation that human beings live in today. We are isolated from the rest of creation, the rest of life around us. We all live in individual frames. We try to establish a relationship at the level of “What do I get out of that relationship?” We use others to try and fill this void that is created as a result of our isolation.

We always want to fill this emptiness, this void, with all kinds of relationships with people around us. That is really the problem. We have to use everything – an idea, a person, anything we can get hold of, to establish relationships with others. Without relationships we are lost, and we don’t see any meaning; we don’t see any purpose. This is because your only interest is to create a purposeful and meaningful relationship with the individuals and the world around you. Therefore, you want to understand the reality of the world.

But there is nothing to understand. There is no such thing as reality at all. I have to accept the reality of the world as it is imposed on me by the society. We give knowledge to things, say, I call you a ‘man’, I call this a ‘chair’, and I call that a ‘window.’ Otherwise, we will not be able to function in this world sanely and intelligently. This kind of knowledge can be used only for the purposes of functioning in this world sanely and intelligently. Anything done to understand the reality of the world is not going to be useful, helpful, or meaningful.

11 
 However finishedman: those that only interpret history are condemned.........the thing is, to change it.   There is no reason for complacency, and resignation.  The world is changing, and we along with it.  It can be a painful process, or it can be fun.

It is a choice. Now I am more convinced then ever. Kierkegaard’s is the best interpretation of what went wrong with Socrates. And Aristophanes was accused of slandering Socrates,ultimately causing his death. But clouds is a very funny, early leitmotif to a very troubled changing world, even back thousands of years ago.

12

This self- prison is created by thought, and that is the reason why it is trying to get out of that trap it has created by itself. Yet the prison itself is an illusion, the illusion that we’re trapped in the prison of our own thoughts, and this prison creates the illusion that we are separate, that we are not part of nature,

Thus… what should be done in such a situation? NOTHING, NOTHING AT ALL! Nothing, no power in the world can help you, period. Thus, as long as you remain dependent on any authority outside of you, you remain hopeless. Once you understand this clearly, there is no more helplessness, your helplessness no longer exists. Then you actually don’t know what to do. This is the situation where you have to arrive, no longer knowing what to do. And, if you expect that something will happen from what you then call your ‘clarity of thinking’, or your ‘meditation’ or something similar, then you are lost forever. Because that is not the true clarity.

13

Anybody who listens to me and tries to understand what I am trying to put across is wasting his time, because there is no way you can listen to anything without interpretation. The interpreter is the reference point, which is you. You are the product of the totality of all the thoughts, experiences, and feelings of every form of life that existed before you. Thought is only interested in maintaining its continuity and status quo. It does not want any change. It says that it wants to change but the change that it is interested in is only to maintain its continuity, its status quo. Although things are changing constantly, it does not want to accept anything that will disturb its status quo. Also the reference point is strengthened and fortified by interpreting what I am saying to you.

You don’t want to accept that any attempt on your part to get out of that trap in which you find yourself is strengthening the shackles. And there is no way out.

14 
   No exit. Right.  Our realities of each other is the changing society,mirrored in a grotesque play of images. And kierkegaard comes along thinking of Socrates, and what happened to him, but it's a parody, everyone knows it, but a parody for a purpose, I believe both Socrates, and nietzche saw this birth of this pitiful tragicomedy.  It's been done before.  Sure, denial of the self, the ego, as Dan suggested, but it ended in the quiteism of Schopenhauer, and Nietzche realized this.  This is the point.  That point also imprisoned us.  We have to become as children again, and play. I want to play.but a new kind of game, not rapped up in languages hardly understandable, as people talk only to get something, or to get to something, somewhere.  No, not just idle chatter, but go along with changes, involvedly, responsibly, even if a person is trapped, I believe there is still change going on, buddha changed transfixed under a tree for years, --Change is inevitable, regardless of one man's opinion, or in spite of that.
15

The Buddha said, "Go through this kind of thing."But the claimants have not arrived anywhere.

There is no other way to point out the danger involved in seeking whatever is being sought. There is this pleasure movement. Nothing wrong with it. It’s not a matter of accepting hedonism or advocating any -ism' or anything. But there’s this threat to you’ as you know yourself and experience yourself. By saying that, you have to fit me into that framework [of the Buddha and others], and if you don’t succeed, you will say, “How can he be outside of it?” The way out for you is either to reject me totally, or to call me a fraud or a fake. The feeling, “How can all of them be wrong?” prevents you from listening to me. Or else you put it another way and say that the content of whatever has happened to me and to them is the same, but my expression is different.

You see, someone is created by the Buddha, another is created by another spiritual leader. You don’t understand how, but you don’t want it to go and that’s the reason why you keep that and perpetuate it. They’re all the same. Culture has created the individual for the sole purpose of maintaining its continuity. Every time you condemn anger, that strengthens and fortifies the movement of your culture and your value system. Every time you practice Buddhism you are maintaining and perpetuating that self. Culture has created you and me for the sole purpose of maintaining its status quo. You don’t want a change. You have invented something that is there today, and it will continue to be there after you are gone.

16

I just started formally meditating again, after a long hiatus. Basically, I’ve been super-stressed for a few years now. I feel inspired to communicate something about Buddhism in a simple, straightforward way. People tend to make things so complex - we try so hard to be clever and creative and groundbreaking.

17

Truth can’t be universal. What is for one is not for another. We would have to be exactly identical for truth to be universal.

18

I think if truth is abstract enough, it can be universal in a sense. Though even concrete truths can be pretty universal, because we’re really not as different from each other as many tend to think. Note: no idea what your comment was responding to, in case that matters.

19

I think the dichotomy between inside world and outside world may often prove the biggest part of the problem.

20

Socrates is viewed as an intuitive thinker. Intuition comes through in dreams, or anywhere the unconscious bursts through. We have no way to control meditative content. Some argue, that let the flow come through between disjointed element. They can’t be integrated. Or detached, or de attached, or anything, they are there, they have come in the back door uninvited, because they are mad, well not really, angry.

 There is no bottom to this depth, Nietzche found out by daring to go there.  But once you seek it out, there is no turning back. Otherwise the dichotomy will haunt You.

 The denial comes through anyway a priori, automatic writing, flow of conscious kind of thing.


 Whatever it is that such constraint causes over a very long period of time, is a kind of union, don't know how best to describe it, where the deeper types will come through in an attempt at a the most expressed ly abstract way, ghosts and living alike, and singularly with anyone living or dead, through all kinds of venues.  And what come through is phenomenal, and often surprising.