System of Nothing
Our goal is always set one step ahead of us. We are donkeys racing towards a carrot on a stick tied to our heads. This imaginary “goal” can never truly be reached; Even if we think we have reached our goal, another goal takes its place shortly thereafter. How then, did this organized system of goal-seeking behaviors come to be? How did the value of “want” obtain any value at all? That question was not necessarily the cause of my torment, but its answer was; the answer is: Existence obtained its value to exist, because the alternative was non-existence. Existence propels itself forward in no particular direction, with non-existence shortly behind it, as well as shortly ahead of it. Existence is nothing but a point of “something” plotted on a graph of “nothing”.
It is only fair for me to warn you that thinking too deeply on this subject will only result in disappointment, pessimism, and nihilism. If one attaches any significance of this subject to his/her ego, then mania and psychosis would ultimately be provoked. A complete understanding of the exact mechanism of these theories can not be completely grasped with a human comprehension. This is a very fragile pathway to be walking on, and let me assure you many others have fallen off this path and wandered into insanity. I can not even tolerate asking myself whether I have confused cause and effect with this matter. My mental processes have been rooted too deeply in this logic to turn back.
Moral Inequities of Selflessness
What does society teach us when we are children? It teaches us to lie to others if we truly want to be happy. Society teaches us to believe that there is always an evil force somewhere at work trying to defeat us, so that it may conquer us and exploit us.
With this frame of mind, when someone comes to us who actually has the best intentions of helping us, we always hold suspicion that the person has secret and hidden motives.
Due to all the false advertisements in our society (such as an Ad claiming that you have won something) we eventually convince ourselves that anybody who openly offers us help is in secret trying to deceive us. Selfless individuals are unable to live content as selfless individuals, because nobody believes he/she is truly selfless. Most selfless individuals only become aware of their selflessness at random moments of mere coincidence (such as the event of running into a burning building to save a child; jumping into a river to save someone drowning; etc).-
Even when an act of selflessness is witnessed, people still do not give credit, honor, or due respect to the selfless individual. People might claim “He only did it for attention!” Since the critics themselves crave attention, they feel that it will lower the likelihood of getting attention if anyone else is receiving attention. Unless the selfless individual is attractive (which gives critics an incentive to be nice to the individual), then it is very difficult for the individual to be recognized for his/her selflessness.
It would seem that the only guaranteed truth that can be drawn from anything “beautiful” is that it was designed for the purpose of deceiving us. Our attraction to physical beauty is rooted in us so deeply and instinctively that it overrides our intelligence and rationality. However, our intelligence and rationality may still be under the belief that they are “in control” of a decision; the reality is that we are inherently predisposed to one solution in a particular decision. If “free-will” does exist, it is battling to find pleasure in an environment where only displeasure is guaranteed.
In this modern society, this has become a problem for intelligent men (if given that typically intelligent men have a clearer judgment when determining a choice). The intelligent man sees that only displeasure is guaranteed to not only himself, but everyone around him. Any act of giving pleasure to another person is only guaranteed a chance of provoking suspicion and mistrust in the receiving individual. The best act of giving pleasure is one that is not seen.
But is it not true that for any feeling of “pleasure”, pain must also be felt previously in order for “pleasure” to mean anything?
When attempting to change how physically attractive we are compared to others who are considered more physically attractive, we find that it is ultimately a non-changeable variable. We are preset as being “attractive” or “unattractive”, which causes us to be more prone to living either a pleasurable or non-pleasurable life. As the world constantly improves the ways in which a person can communicate with other people, we raise our standards as we become aware of “more attractive individuals”. It can be seen that “physical attractiveness” is nothing but a material value – a failed judgment of character. The physical shape of a material container does not in any way determine the inner contents of that container. If anything it is a vague relevance. This “vague relevance” is then taken as “absolute relevance” through instinct (an instinct which is incorrect, as many ugly people have done things to benefit mankind).
I propose that when a “failed instinct” occurs, it signifies the ending of an entire system – as it causes inner destruction within that system. Can man learn not to judge based on appearance? Can we learn to judge not by what a person is, but by what they do? The modern evidence leans in the direction of “no”, and we dive further into a realm of fear. We are all born crying.
Confusion
What is true? What is false? We can not know precisely. There is an uncertainty in all values. The best we can do is reach a conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt – and it is here where the common man falls short.
Let’s see just how omniscient we can become in a world created upon the unknown.
Is life a meaningless tragedy, or an optimistic eternity? Furthermore, did we have a choice in determining this outcome?
Say that perhaps our one goal as living beings is to become aware of what we really are, but due to the very nature of our actions we are incapable of doing so. Even if we were capable of this enlightenment, wouldn’t accomplishing it undo our own existence?
Unfortunately, I think the evidence points towards the fact that we may never find true transcendence during life, because we would need to solve an infinite amount of variables. How can we solve an infinite amount of variables if we have difficulties knowing if we have even solved one or any at all?
Nature of Our Actions
During our entire life, with every action we make, we attempt to construct order to the unstable chaos that is life. At any given moment, we could die for a reason outside the realm of our control. We could have a stroke, a heart attack; we could be hit by a car; we could be struck by a bolt of lightning; we could fall down a flight of stairs - Surely we can learn to habituate ourselves into practicing actions that avoid these events, but we can never completely diminish the possibility of them happening. In example, we can learn that it is dangerous to be holding a metal rod on top of a hill in a thunderstorm, and then tell ourselves not to do this, but this only decreases the probability of being struck by lightning. During a thunderstorm, virtually no location can hide you from the probability (although minuscule, it may be) of being struck by lightning.
In these situations, we are constantly “rolling our dice” in the game of life, and there is always the probability of landing upon a ‘bad roll’. The world is completely unstable by its very nature, and any attempt of establishing order to this chaos is bound to result in disappointment. We can exercise ‘safe’ habits, such as putting on a safety belt each time we ride in a car, but there always exists the probability of a drunken driver colliding into us.
In the matter of life and death, pain and pleasure, we can slightly sway the direction we are heading towards (if you are a believer in free-will), but ultimately these situations are outside of our control.
Since death and pain are without a doubt inescapable, it seems foolish for us to try and construct habits that avoid both death and pain. Eventually our systematic repetitive habits will fail to serve their purpose - disappointment will result.
All of our activities (which are inherently an act to avoid death and prolong life) are constructed in such a fashion to defy Nature’s eternal truth (the fact that death is inescapable). Because of this, the repetitive actions we make will ultimately end in suffering and disappointment.
Think about your personal hobbies, and assume just for simplicity’s sake that a hobby of yours is football. The ultimate goal of that hobby is to perfect your skill of playing football, and to triumph over all others as being more agile, strong, and quick. Even if an individual were to succeed at that unlikely goal, that individual would eventually be met with old age and weakness - they are unavoidable and their skill-level will eventually decline. Once the skill does decline, the veteran will be faced with self-regret, dreaming for the past fame to come again. I do not doubt that there are some individuals, who had hardly faced regret in their lives, and even upon retirement and death they managed to remain content with their accomplishments - but situations such as that are rarities, for it is rare that an individual can ever truthfully tell himself “I have lived without regret”.
After this, I hope you can agree that it is a truthful fact that: Our actions in life are almost entirely a means of avoiding death, yet death is inescapable and life eventually fails its purpose for the individual.
Why do we work for money? -To pay for our food, to prolong our life. Why do we fasten our seat-belts? -To increase our chance of survival in the event of a collision. Why do we eat, drink, and breathe? Why does our heart beat, even against our command? Why does our hair grow? Why do we kill things we fear? Why do we embrace things that help us? Every action in life seems to scream to me that we are all trying to avoid death.
If an individual can overcome our desire to avoid death, then he goes further up the ladder of our muscle memory and attempts to avoid physical discomfort. Once physical discomfort can be overcome by an individual, he goes further up the ladder of our muscle memory and attempts to avoid territorial discomfort. Once the territorial discomfort is overcome, the individual will move on to intellectual discomfort. In combating intellectual discomfort is where most of us reading this are stuck. We have such a difficult time learning to overcome our intellectual discomfort; it would seem that none other than Buddha or Christ have been able to successfully overcome the intellectual discomfort of humanity. In that intellectual discomfort, we are imprisoned.
Paradox of Will
It is humanity’s fate to suffer the solutionless paradox of whether selfishness or selflessness is to be the top priority in individual morality. The selfless live among the selfish, destined to be martyred for a purpose that is ultimately selfish, and the selfless have hardly any (if there even was any) representation in determining the outcome of this event.
A consciousness dominated completely by selflessness is not a consciousness at all, but rather a hive-mentality void of personal freedom – observe the actions in a bee-hive.
A consciousness dominated by complete selfishness is nothing more than a vampiristic predatory consciousness. If that consciousness deceives its victims by luring them into believing a false sense of security, then that consciousness is perhaps more of a seducing predator instead of a predator that is confident in its own strength. If this consciousness uses its victims with the victim remaining unaware of the predator’s malicious intentions, then that predatory consciousness is perhaps more of a parasite than a predator.
Since it can be concluded that measures of both are necessary for continued human existence (without selfishness, pleasure would not exist, as pleasure is really the concept of being privileged beyond an alternative; without selflessness the human race would not exist as maternal-selflessness is necessary for the survival of a newborn). The question then becomes “To what magnitude should selfishness and selflessness be expressed?”
By natural evolutionary standards, we are predators by default; therefore, we are selfish from a hereditary standpoint. It was not in our ancestor’s proper judgment to determine whether or not his/her life was more valuable than the life of his/her prey; I am not implying any moral attachments to the act of eating, I am simply acknowledging the fact that our ancestors did not have the mental capacity necessary to even ask themselves “Is my life worth more than the prey I feed upon?”. This is evident in the fact that we possess canines in our mouth, hinting to the fact that our immediate ancestry necessitated hunting meat-bearing animals to survive. In a mathematical sense, we are the pinnacle of the “food chain” – we experience the instinctive desire to feed upon others, but we make the non-empathetic choice to preserve our prey by farming them as a product. We are capable of denying ourselves the urge to consume.
This selfless/selfish dilemma which humanity finds itself in can not be permanently resolved. Even if an individual were to set up favorable conditions for their offspring to reside in; the offspring would simply have their standards set higher, and would face even greater difficulties when trying to accomplish the goals that their parents didn’t have time to meet.
Even if our instinctive desires are satisfied, mankind only enters a higher level of intellectual and societal suffering. This is because mankind inherently can not find permanent satisfaction, and even if every possible anomaly were accounted for that impeded the human pursuit of happiness, mankind would still not be content. We are, by nature, problem solvers. If there were no problems left to solve, then mankind would be doomed to a world of boredom. Why then, is society structured in such a fashion to solve all of man’s problems? If the society humanity has established truly has “the happiness of all” as its top priority, then would it not be more beneficial to deconstruct technological advancement once we’ve reached a certain point in technological development? It can be concluded that society does not have happiness in mind when developing its self-proclaimed “moral equities”; instead, it had fairness in mind when developing its countless restrictions. Since fairness is not a measurable quantity, this leaves an enormous gap for societal standards to be bent and exploited. This results in equally terrible (if not more terrible) human conditions – where natural desires are forcefully denied by law under punishment; This does not so much promote lying, deceivery, and corruption, as much as it does make it essential for humans to maintain sanity in this perverse living condition.
Take for example the fact that we deny how we really feel when someone asks us “How are you today?” by giving such an automated response as “I’m good”. Since lying is almost equally as “immoral” as admitting your truthfully offensive opinion, this teaches us to be good at lying rather than teaching us to not lie at all. Children are usually keen to observe what a perverse world they have been born into, as their non-biased judgment perceives countless contradictions and paradoxes in what their parents teach them. For “completely honest” people, their honesty destines them to exile – which is not hard to understand. Imagine if you never told a single lie, wouldn’t the results be horrendous?
Society’s Ultimate Pessimism
Don’t you know what society is? It’s a filtration system. It filters out the piss and the weak to come out with its gold. As soon as one brand of “pure” comes out, the next brand is surely on the production line. It is a film-reel that is trying to show perfection with each passing slide. It is a machine that is eating itself to grow larger, and become closer to perfection with each bite.
You are a part of it whether you want to be or not. Attempting to find a way out will result in psychosis or suicide. The only true goal is to overcome what you hate. You will know what you hate by the time you reach adulthood, and it is your life’s goal to overcome whatever it is. It is a wave function: Each slow attempt of construction is followed by a rapid destruction. Only remnants of each piece of constructed material remain, and they wait to be dug up by future generations.
The planet Earth has already chosen its champion, which is man. Now we are given the choice, the only true choice we ever had. We can choose to continually refine ourselves into another species, which will most likely be a degeneration of our intellect if we so choose to do so. Or we can overcome our own planet, transcending into oblivion or whatever awaits us.
There is always a larger wave in the parabola. You are your own perfection. You have been refined to fit your own needs the best, which is whatever your ancestry demanded.
In a sense, our dead ancestors speak to us through our muscle memory. They give us direction into the future. From there, we slowly take “baby-steps” away from what we feel comfortable in doing, ignoring our fear. Where does this new change come from? It is as if it comes from some sort of essential courage placed within us, to refine our own purpose, and decide what our next purpose should be. It is the will. The will is freedom of choice, and it is the primordial gift of whatever is beyond us.
With this being known, I not only acknowledge that there is indeed a God, but mankind is God’s most refined form of being.
If our shadows were truly taller than our soul, then our freewill would not exist. However, the very fact that we can become aware of our own existence is evident that our willpower dominates and rules over our fear. Let me make it clear when I say, our willpower is greater than our fear.
Why is it that our willpower is greater than our fear? It is because mankind holds a belief in a life after death. Since we do not fear death, we can, in a sense, disobey our fears to move ourselves into the future. We stand under a banner, we stand for a religion, and we stand for something we would die for - In the act of our willingness to be obedient for a leader, we defeat our shadow.
Since we can never completely understand the intentions of our leaders, we are under the impression that they are right (even if their words may be the exact opposite of their intentions). The most you can do is have faith in the good-will of leadership, unless the leaders are blatantly corrupt.
Faded Christian Pessimism
An outstandingly undermined aspect of Christianity is its inherent pessimism. Modern Christianity fails to acknowledge this pessimism, and instead focuses almost entirely on foolish optimism.
It is a simple fact of life that optimism is only a useful tool for the beautiful and powerful. Pessimism has become taboo among Western Culture, due to Christianity’s tendencies drifting towards an optimistic faith (which appears to be for the sole purpose of drawing in more members, since people only want to hear “good news”). This repels the non-beautiful/non-powerful individuals into not only a state of despair, but also exile due to society’s inability to give recognition for their unjust condition.
Another large contributing factor is entertainment (namely television) which mitigates the significance of common suffering by instead exclusively showing stories of the rare incidences of horrific suffering. This causes individuals to raise their threshold for giving empathy to other people - hence, those trapped with unjust conditions are not given the empathy they need to justify their own existence, and hate brews in their psychology due to the arrogance of the masses.
In this I can conclude that much of the opposition against Christianity is not really an opposition against true Christianity, but instead it is only an opposition against the modern misinterpretation of Christianity.
Take for example chapter 7 in the book “Ecclesiastes” in the New Testament, and you will see that this particular chapter is overflowing with nihilism, pessimism, and a disgust for worldly shortcomings. However, modern Christianity fails to preach such pessimism, simply because the congregation does not want to hear it!
A good portion of the New Testament could be considered pessimistic in nature, but this is severely perverted by the modern Christian’s interpretation which views it as an overwhelmingly phony optimism.
We can see that Schopenhauer and Nietzsche have claimed themselves that their dispute was not with the original form of Christianity or the Bible itself, but rather they despised the hypocritical misinterpretation of it by modern Christians.
Inescapable Suffering
Whether you would consider your life “good or bad” is really a personal opinion and generally a matter of chance. The fact of the matter is that happiness is temporary as we always inevitably fail to meet our expectations at some point in our lives. We see a dim spark of hope, then that hope is drowned in the reality of the matter. We are quite weak and useless as “seekers of happiness”. “Seekers of pleasure” would be a much more reliable title to set for ourselves, as what we consider “pleasure” is open for interpretation. Practically any repetitive movement can become pleasurable if we repeat it enough times (tossing/catching a ball, bouncing our leg up and down, etc), and some compulsive disorders are examples of just that: Trichotillomania (the pulling out of hair); dermatillomania (picking of the skin and scabs); biting/picking our fingernails; picking of dead skin; etc.
Whenever a repetitive habit/hobby is no longer acceptable to continue doing (if it poses a danger, if we can no longer complete it) then we may either: A) Continue the habit/hobby anyways, and suffer the consequences. Or B) Re-evaluate our actions and find a replacement hobby/fix the habit/hobby, which will (depending on the habit/hobby) take a varying level of willpower to do and we will suffer in the process.
Inevitably, we will all at some point not be able to complete a habit/hobby, even if that habit/hobby is important to us. This is due to the fact that our environment around us constantly changes. Old age and death are inescapable, and we are likely to fail to meet our expectations long before those events occur. We can simply ignore the fact that these events will occur (to be an idiot), try to stop these events from happening (to be a fool), or we can contemplate the reason that these events happen (since this is a philosophy forum, I’m simply guessing that you are someone who contemplates).
In the act of contemplating, questions are raised that almost exacerbate the whole situation. Most people will keep coming up with theories or ideas while contemplating until eventually they are able to “connect the dots” with a system of beliefs, and then they settle with it; furthermore, they not only settle with it but they preach it to other people. Is this not what many religions are?
These “systems of beliefs” can be seen as untrue if we look into them deeper. The deeper we look, the more we find that there is no possible way to justify our suffering. I propose (like many others have) to not simply “accept” suffering at this point, but enjoy it. Use suffering as a tool to maintain moderation in your mind/body/emotions, so that you may learn to expect when suffering is going to occur. When you see suffering in the post, and know that it is unavoidable, do not scurry away from it like us cowards have done before, but it embrace it. Laugh at the suffering, realize that you are much more powerful of a being than the suffering is capable of destroying, and indulge in the sense of power that comes from knowing you can endure through suffering. Reverse that pain upon yourself, and realize that your willpower is limitless. What? You do not agree that willpower is limitless? I suppose you think I am attaching imaginary “magical” properties to what willpower is like walking on water and other associated non-sense. No, since I can already tell it would be problematic for me to not have defined it, so then I will, if I must, tell you the context I am using the word willpower in. Willpower is the ability to endure suffering. I do not know how much simpler I can break down the definition. We all have an unlimited amount of willpower, and we can persist through any pain that afflicts us. Those of you who do not agree that willpower is limitless are probably just lazy, as brains are accustomed to following the past, and only the weak minded fall victim to repetition.
Hopefully, we are really not this stupid of a species if we actually need to do this experiment just for me to get a point across, but imagine this hypothetical experiment:
You push a needle into your finger to prick your finger, telling yourself “I am doing this because I can, and pain can not stop me.” Your immediate reaction when the needle pushes into your skin is to pull your finger away, but you were expecting this to be your reaction, and had already previously told yourself to ignore this reaction. You are able to push the needle slowly through. You can feel the pain, and the more you concentrate on it, the more it hurts. Yet, you are able to tell yourself “I am beyond this pain, and I am doing this because I can. My body can not disobey me.” You choose to accept the pain and know that you are beyond it. Eventually, the needle exits through the other side of your finger.
Forgive the fact that this thought-experiment might be possibly disturbing, I just could not think of a simpler thought experiment without being unable to get the point across. I am by no means telling you to go shove a needle through your finger or something like that; I simply want to understand that you could be capable of doing it if you chose to. The same can be said not only for physical pain, but emotional pain. If you can expect emotional pain in the post, then you can most likely overcome that emotional pain with self-discipline.
I am not telling you to completely deny your emotions, but can we agree that suffering is inescapable? So for those moments when suffering is not far from present, know that you will be able to overcome it. Once that happens, the act of overcoming will actually be pleasurable as it gives you a sense of power.
Ego-Masochism
Ego-masochism is the wise man’s wine.
I hope for this bit of text to briefly summarize my latest contemplations and personal discoveries.
The human mind seems to be trapped in a condition in which it oscillates between states of fear and sadness. The wise man is wise because he is able to contemplate his own suffering, his own fear and sadness. Without external stimulation, the wise man will end up projecting himself into either an extreme state of fear or an extreme state of sadness.
With deep contemplation, most wise men will come to the fear-provoking question “Do I not exist?” This tormenting fear that results from that question has on numerous accounts lead to psychosis and schizophrenia. However, I believe that this fear can be successfully inhibited by using tragedy as a remedy. Tragedy gives us a feeling of sad unjust hopelessness, and through this we assert our own existence, thereby greatly diminishing the fear of an existential crisis.
If we can accept sadness as necessary for good mental health, then not only will sadness cease to be such a terrible affliction, but it will actually cause us pleasure.
The reason we are frustrated when a person lies to us, is not because they have hurt us, but because they would not admit and thereby assert that they have hurt us. We want to be hurt. We as humans need to be hurt by others. It is here that I would determine where “Brutal Honesty” becomes the best quality of a good friend. Then that friend can serve as sort of a personal “mirror” of sorts in which you can observe and assert your own existence.
Have you not all felt that intuitive voice in your minds that tells you when a person is lying? Have you not all felt that intuitive “suspicion provoking” voice? Unfortunately this “voice” can in some cases manifest into an actual verbal voice for schizophrenics. This voice is engrained psychologically into all of our minds. When we are unable to be hurt by others, this voice becomes louder and louder. If we are completely isolated from the pain others might cause us, then this voice throws us into states of panic and unbearable fear.
The only way to diminish this voice (although it will always return eventually) is by using “the pain others do unto us” as a remedy.
We are generally made up of three different sources for “feeling”. These are: What Our Physical Body Feels; What Our Emotions Feel; and What Our Consciousness Feels. Each of those things are intertwined with each other, and need each other to function. I will briefly explain what these three things contribute.
What Our Physical Body Feels - Our physical body simply feels stimulation. By itself, our physical body does not feel emotional attachment or physical pain, but it simply “feels things”. Once stimulation in a certain area of our body goes past a certain threshold of intensity, then our mind determines the stimulation to be pain. “Physical Pain” is often directed to the motor reflex portion of our brain, and really avoids our conscious decisions altogether.
What Our Emotions Feel - Our emotions will attach an emotional value (love, hate, sadness, happiness) to a stimulation received by the Physical Body.
What Our Consciousness Feels - Our consciousness will attach a “pleasure or displeasure” value to stimulation received from our Emotions, then our consciousness will contemplate a cause/effect/response for what the physical body has told us and what our emotions have told us. Then our consciousness will provide a response to the stimulus. Our consciousness is “what we are”, it is the executive functioning in our brain. We have the most control over our consciousness, we have moderate control over our emotions, and we have the least control over what our physical body feels.
Your consciousness is in fact what assigns a “good/bad” value to stimulation, even if your emotions have already determined the stimulation to be sadness, hence why we are able to “cry tears of joy”.
Our Consciousness is dominated by fear.
Our Emotions are dominated by sadness.
Our Body is dominated by pain.
If you are over-experiencing fear, sadness, or pain, then it is the result of a disharmonic disturbance in the balance of the three. However, pleasure/displeasure is NOT completely reliant on either of three, and you are able to consciously choose what is pleasureable/displeasurable simply by moderation of the balance between fear, sadness, and pain. If you are dominated by fear, try to put more sadness (but usually not pain) into your life. If you are dominated by pain, and if there is no narcotic solution to the disorder causing pain, then try and distract yourself with sadness (if happiness is not an option). And, if you are dominated by sadness, then learn to accept the sadness as part of the human condition, and realize that your mind NEEDS sadness in order to maintain sanity.
Simply begin practicing yourself to consciously determine whether something was pleasureable/displeasurable, and you will realize soon enough that sadness can be just as pleasurable as happiness.
WE are all trying to assert our own existence by default as living creatures, and accepting tragedy is the key to doing so. If everyone was an ego-masochist, most of the mental anguish we experience would fade.
Clarifying My Views On Society
Concerning my anti-societal views, I certainly do not hate society. I do not love, or like society either. I am at times frustrated with simpleness and primitiveness of society (aren’t we all?), perhaps this is what you refer to as my “hate” for society.
Nearly anyone who has some form of political views has experienced some discontent when their concerns are not addressed. Society as a single entity is an illusion. In reality, society is merely the grand net of connections between individuals and the people they interact with. Most of those who are held at a high status in society have excelled in atleast one ability (charisma, intelligence, deceivery, etc) to acheive a high status, and only occasionally is there a lucky stroke of someone untalented to be appointed to a high status in society (ex. Lottery/gameshow winners, people born into rich families, George W. Bush). Any struggle we experience in society is the result of a human flaw being exposed and exacerbated. Keeping this in mind, conflicts in society can be blamed on nothing other than flaws in Human Nature. Examples of these flaws include greed, gluttony, vanity, etc (the seven sins much?).
Usually, the natural course of evolution can filter these flaws out over time creating a continually strengthened species.
Unfortunately, there is a sort of “cap”, a “rooftop”, or perhaps a “barrier” that a species will reach, where it can no longer become improved. Once this rooftop is reached, the species will be moving too fast or perhaps have gotten too large to sustain itself. The species might then “plateau” in its sophistication. But, sooner or later a crash or fall is inevitably expected in the species. It is after this crash the species may experience either A) A “starting over” for the species in which the weak have been cleansed and evolution may try again on the remaining survivors. Or B) Extinction of the species.
Nature will continue this course of the “rise and fall of species”, until finally, a species is created that is able to sustain itself. This species will have in effect broken the “barrier” where other species had failed. These species will have overcome it flaws, and will last indefinitely until a change in climate/geography forces the species to improve itself once more.
Nietzsche referred to this grand-champion of the species as the “Ubermensch”.
It is here humanity will face a trial that can not be avoided. We have indeed reached our “barrier” in evolution. This is evident simply by viewing the world’s ever-increasing problems. We can either attempt to somehow stop our species from declining (this declining has already begun), or we can simply ignore it and leave humanity doomed to a decline. “Decline” is far too nice of a word to describe our impending situation, “Apocalypse” or “Armageddon” is a term more fitting. I’m not trying to sound like a doomsday prophet or something silly like that. I am simply stating common knowledge: “What goes up, must come down”, “Everything that has a begining has an end”. I just want to have you all become aware of the inconvenient fact that Human Life Is Not Indefinite.
Everyone Is Full Of Shit
People who never had a religion are unintelligent and haven’t thought enough about their own mortality.
People who believe in a life after death or a God only do so because they are scared of death or because they were not strong enough to overcome the injustice in this world, so they satisfy themselves by thinking that those who do injustice to them are evil, while they only believe themselves or people who support them to be right. Also, the only reason they have a religion is because they need a sense of belonging that they were unable to obtain from society because of their own stubbornness.
People who believed in a religion for a while (while having their doubts of the truth in it) but then later denounced their religion only did so to soothe their narcissism, and masturbate their ego, when in reality they are just as clueless as the people they criticize - they have simply built up on presenting an intelligent image because they were incapable of expressing superiority otherwise.
Soon, it will be commonly expected in society that you can only be “cool” if you hate religion… and then in the next phase of the cycle, if technology and education remains steady, all of humanity will fade into nihilism, despair, and suicide when they come to the realization that anybody who claims to have a “belief” does not know shit. Technology will preserve the knowledge that religion does not make scientific sense, and also that humanity’s psychology doesn’t make sense either - we all want power, but power over what? What is power?
The Weak ones in society are tormented by the Strong and Stupid to give a value to the Strong and Stupid’s own self-righteousness.
If the weak ones who were crucified at the cost of the Strong and Stupid are intelligent and hold a grudge, they will come back and overthrow the Strong and Stupid with what their intelligence has taught them.
Then when the weak ones come around full circle in charge of society to torment somebody else (it is basic human psychology that SOMEONE has to suffer in order for somebody else to experience pleasure) that ‘somebody else’ begins practicing philosophy, they are the fourth generation of rejects. The first level is childhood innocence which elevates to the sociological stage of physical superiority, which elevates to the sociological stage of intellectual superiority, which elevates to the sociological stage of metaphysical superiority, which elevates to the final sociological stage of nihilistic superiority in which fatalism, pessimism, and worldly hate run rampant. Since the individual has gone through three sociological shifts prior to reaching the fourth, the brain establishes the fact that a pattern of repetition is occuring (via triangulation, i.e. if it happens once it might happen again, if it happens twice it is likely to happen again, if it happens three times then it is a pattern and will continue repeating) ‘Triangulation’ logic when applied to sociology indicates that when a social mistake has been made three times, the individual learns not to do it again.
Since this is without a doubt a sociological issue at the core of things, we can conclude that our ego will undergo no more major sociological shifts once it has reached the stage of “nihilistic superiority”, as we realize there is no higher ground to climb to.
As the intelligence of the human population is increasing, and since technology is preserving more and more knowledge, we will find that more and more individuals will approach nihilism at an exponential rate, eventually leading to a societal collapse.
The universe isn’t fair. Bummer.
Also, those who prophesize the downfall of society or other doomsday scenarios only do so to exercise their superiority complex.
There Are Two Types Of Evil
I. Evil by Preemptive Association – this occurs when an individual determines something to be ‘Evil’ because psychologically, in their minds they have been ‘force fed’ morals that they didn’t necessarily believe in. They may have been taught at a young age something such as “Eating meat on a Friday is an evil act” – the concept lacks any real logic, and the ‘reason’ usually extends from the individual’s parent or role-model who taught it to the individual. The individual then thinks: “This moral is true since my role-model taught it to me and I like my role model” – however, in the act of being “force fed” morals, the morals fail to hold any real value since the individual was unable to make logical connections in their mind to that moral, and subconsciously they know that the moral is flawed at that level.
‘Preemptive association with evil’ fails to be an accurate judgment, since in order to have a true belief in something, ‘What Is Evil?’ must be determined from personal experience, or at very least making logical connections as to why something is evil. (i.e., a person found out that Subject X is evil from personally experiencing a negative consequence as the result of Subject X’s actions). This leads us to the second type of evil:
II. Concluded to be Evil From Personal Experience – Nietzsche illustrates this as ‘master morality’ in his book ‘Beyond Good and Evil’. He noted that once an individual bases his/her morals off of personal experience, their morals are based in terms of ‘good or bad’ and not ‘good or evil’.
An individual demonstrating this form of morality is usually capable of doing so since the individual observes things in a spectrum/continuum of thought and not hierarchically
Why does the first type of ‘evil’ occur?
It occurs as the result of bad logic – an individual will associate something (be it a book or a person) as being either completely true or completely false. It is black and white thinking. Once the individual finds out that a certain thing (be it a book or a person) is flawed in some way, they automatically discredit every other aspect of the thing.
The person demonstrating this bad logic does so usually as the result of them attaching to much social/egotistical significance to an event, and they feel their reputation is at stake if it becomes commonly known that they believe in something that is flawed. They automatically disassociate themselves from something if it has any chance of causing damage to their ego or social ranking.
Example of the first type:
Person A: Did you ever read that one book written by John Anderson? I really liked it, it made a lot of points I thought were true.
Person B: No! Don’t you know that John Anderson is a racist in real life? He didn’t vote for Barrack Obama! I can’t associate myself with a racist like him. In fact, if you honestly like his book, then I’m afraid I can’t associate with you either.
Person A: Really? I didn’t know that he was a racist. I’m never reading another book by him again! Come to think of it, that book was evil. It didn’t make any good points, since all the points made in it were actually supporting racism. Like the chapter in his book where he says he didn’t like living in Canada because it is too cold – there is clearly some hidden racist intentions behind him saying that! Yeah, I bet that anyone else who doesn’t like living in Canada because of the weather is also a racist like him – even though the weather in Canada is completely irrelevant to racism, I will just assume that it is relevant because my social-status is at stake. I take back what I said about me liking that book. Plus I don’t want to be rejected by everyone over some book.
Person B: Good. You know our old friend Alex? He went on vacation in Canada and didn’t like it because of the cold weather, he must be a racist too!
Person A: I like Alex he is a cool kid.
Person B: How can you like him?! Alex must a racist because he shares similar views as John Anderson!
Person A: Oh wow I didn’t even know that, err I mean, I knew it all along that Alex was up to no good! Always got a bad feeling around him… But wait, we were just over at his house last weekend, he is our friend.
Person B: Well not anymore! And if you are still going to be his friend, then I’m afraid I can’t associate myself with racists like you.
Person A: Oh I was just joking, Alex was never my friend to be honest.
Person B: Let’s go harass him and slash his car tires because he is a racist.
Person A: Well, uhh, okay lets go do that.
(That was fictional and just a crude example of slave morality, I am not trying to say anything about Barrack Obama or Canada, they were just the first random things that popped into my head).
Why do individuals with slave morality exist? Nietzsche theorized that slave morality existed because of religion (like Christianity) or cultural tradition (I think both of which do play a role as a cause of slave morality to an extent, but I don’t think they are the main culprits). However, I think that it is inherent in human society that a portion of the population demonstrates slave morality by nature – they are born to follow, and they are either not smart enough to form their own beliefs or they had those beliefs forced upon them by parents who punished them if they questioned the beliefs.
There is nothing we can do to remedy or treat the fact that most of the population demonstrates slave morality, and the only way we can hope to have them think for themselves is by personally getting to know them and try to open up their mind from the inside.
Trying to force open-mindedness upon those who practice slave morality will result in nothing other than “open-mindedness” itself becoming a cliché fad. On multiple occasions I have personally tried explaining to an individual the importance of being open-minded, and then 5 minutes later I smacked my forehead as I watched them go up to people whom they didn’t like and start insulting them by saying “You definitely are not open-minded, I can’t believe how simple you are!” acting like he was some great intellectual.
This lead me to the conclusion that when open-minded people try to enlighten close-minded people, the close-minded people will just utilize your preaches to support their own ego. In order for someone to truly achieve open-mindedness, they have to learn it through their own personal experiences. Otherwise you are just giving them another tool which they will use to socially exercise their superiority complex.
There is a drawback to master morality as well. Depending on whether the individual possessing master morality has selfish or selfless intentions, the ultimate outcome of their decisions can either have a positive or negative consequence on others.
This is where the true and respectable version of “Good and Evil” reveals itself. Good is the act of choosing to perform selfless actions, not by learned practice, but because it is what you feel is right. Evil is the act of intentionally performing selfish actions, ones that you know will unjustifiably harm others in the end and only benefit you. This awareness of the appropriate “Good and Evil” can only be carried out intuitively and not mechanically – you have to choose to do Good because it is what you intuitively feel is right. If your ‘Good Actions’ do not carry any emotional or empathetic significance, then they will not bear any real sense of having “done the right thing” in your mind, and subconsciously your mind will know that. Any attempts to formulate an automated systematic process of practicing “Good will” will turn out to be fallible and damaging to one’s own ego in the end – it will subconsciously stir up anger and discontent since you did not actually bear any emotional significance to your actions. Subconsciously you will find yourself unsatisfied with having performed the “Good actions” since they were formulated and you didn’t actually choose to do them.
This is where a paradox occurs: There are times when we preemptively plan out a certain act of Good Will which at the time had emotional significance, but when it came to actually performing the act of Good Will, you no longer felt any emotional significance (due to being tired, hung-over, stressed out, anxious, or other circumstantial conditions). You might perform the action anyways because you knew at the core of who you are, you felt the event to be emotionally significant in the past, but it did not satisfy your emotional need to be recognized as Good Willed.
This paradox lacks any real solution, and it is a tragic imperfection in the human condition. This can occur for multiple reasons (including tiredness, drug use, stress, anxiety, etc). This condition often results when an individual studies psychology and philosophy to the point of realizing that their own ego is illusionary and we simply perform selfless actions because they ‘feel good’. The individual usually enters an existential crisis. This is the result of your unconscious mind knowing that you have converted selflessness into nothing more than a feel-good product.
If you suffer from it, it may help to realize that it only happens because you are good willed and good intentioned at the center of who you are, and your unconscious mind wishes to maintain ‘who you really are’ by avoiding the act of converting ‘feeling good’ into a systematic production line. Realize that because you truly are selfless at the core of your existence, you will still perform selfless actions even if you don’t experience pleasure from performing them, even if they cause pain – it is a sign that only exists in the consciousness of true martyrs.
The Nihilist
Could you ever understand what’s going on his mind?
His forced submission leaves him in a drunken desolate state.
He gets up each morning and goes through the motions only out of habit,
Despite his disgust for society, he puts up with it since there is no alternative
He forms complexities in his mind that you could not even hope to comprehend.
A simple glance at his train of thought would leave most of us baffled and mentally incapacitated.
He is a nihilist.
He knows your virtues. He has lived by your code. He knows that you are just as clueless as everyone else, but he will play along in your grand charade.
The whole concept of the capitalist society is flawed at its foundations. It is human beings trying to deceive other human beings for their own well being. This mentality has been around since the dawn of mankind, but now we can actually witness it at a higher potential. This mentality not only plagues our society, but also engulfs everything that is human.
Humanity will always base the solution of a choice off of whichever benefits them the most.
Mankind is corrupt, right down to the core of what makes us human. Our primal instincts are selfish, yet strangely they also include pity. Pity is a strange instinct - its purpose is to benefit the greater well-being of society.
Pity is the only virtue that does not give us direct benefit. Yet, the act of committing pity still induces pleasure in our brain. Why is this? Because life itself is a disease. Humanity itself is a plague.
We have the virtue of pity, so that our society can keep moving.
We are like a hive of ants. We all obediently do work to sustain society, and to help the species’ population grow.
I ask you this, why do living things possess the will to continue living?
Why does a society possess the intent to continuously grow larger and more powerful?
It is because we can never be content. We will always desire more.
At the core of us, we are no different than bacteria.
Will humanity ever reach a final contentment with what we have accomplished?
The answer is no.
Once a person is able to truly have complete contentment with their life, then they have achieved the near-impossible. They have defeated the core purpose of their existence.
If a person is ever able to truly accept the pointlessness of life, that person would either become one of a few things:
I) The nihilist would become insane, and their mind would become demented. Suicide may be an unfortunate result. This first destination will occur if the nihilist did not have the mental capacity for complete contentment.
II) The nihilist would grandiosely develop an absolute dread for society and its bacteria-like nature, and wish it to be destroyed. They may even possibly follow through with attempting to destroy society. In some cases, they may attempt to overthrow society instead of destroy it. This type of nihilism is unnecessary. There is no need to destroy society, because society tends to have a way of destroying itself. All civilizations have eventually collapsed, and our society will be no exception to this. It is only a matter of time.
III) The nihilist would achieve a state of enlightenment. They would be free from the grips of our primal instincts. They would ascend to a level which can not be considered living. Since the will to continue living defines being a living creature, you would no longer be living after reaching this contentment. You would simply be. You would exist, and nothing more.
Following the outlook of a nihilist, you will eventually come to one of those three types. The third type is the only one that does not end in misery.
If you reach the third destination, you would be able to successfully distinguish between your mind and your physical form. There would be dissociation between the mind and the body. Things would become known to you, which not many other people have ever known about.
When we die, we experience a “complete dissociation.” We experience complete separation from our physical body. Where does our mind go when it leaves the body? I do not know. I am not going to provide you with some false sense of security in a life after death, and it is likely that the metaphysics involved are beyond human comprehension. Anyone who claims they know of a “life after death” is a liar and a deceiver, and they may possibly be deceived themselves by religion.
Religion is a horrible plague. Mankind has always questioned the purpose of life, and as a result religion was made. Limiting one’s beliefs to a religion effectively clouds the person’s judgment and cognition. Certainly, religion has plenty of valid points that it makes, but there are far too many false points. Governments exploit religion as a way of keeping the population to abide by laws. How can we blame humanity for trying to find a solution to the unknown, and then refusing to let go when that solution turns out to be false.
Of course our malicious human nature has in turn corrupted religion, as can be seen with the Catholic Church’s “indulgences” – where monetary value can somehow miraculously grant you eternal life. This is much less occurring now (compared to previous centuries), but the corruption of religion still exists today.
On Socialization
People might say “the purpose of life is to socialize and love other people, to have empathy”. However, love and the act of socializing is only meant to support the structure of society, and to keep the species living and repopulating. The feeling of “empathy” is the result of chemical reactions in our brain, to form a social bond.
Love is an illusion. It is a social bond created in your brain by a chemical reaction, for the purpose of procreation.
Just because love is an illusion, does not mean that you still can’t enjoy it. With a hedonism in mind, you should by all means gather as much of it as possible
When “love” is experienced between two individuals, reproduction results. Therefore, we can conclude that love is an illusion to disguise reproduction and to disguise the construction of a social hierarchy.
In any social interaction between individuals, a hierarchy is established between the individuals involved. This hierarchy generally determines who is dominant, and who is submissive.
In any given relationship (be it friendship, an intimate relationship, or family relationship) between two individuals, one will play a dominant role, and the other will play a submissive role.
When two individuals both try to play a dominant role in a relationship, a conflict occurs.
This same primitive concept is seen in animals, such wolves, where one wolf in the pack is the alpha dog
This hierarchy of dominance and submission exists to keep the species alive, when a situation occurs where the strongest survive. The strongest are dominant, and they lead the submissive.
On the Meaning of Life
What I see, hear, taste, smell, and feel around me is not reality. It is only observation. Our mind is simply an observer. We observe “reality”. We are not all set in the same reality for what we observe is not the same for all of us. You choose what your reality is. What you observe is your reality. If you want your reality to be a paradise, then observe everything around you as a paradise.
Do not let your self fade into despair and anguish from knowing the fact of the meaninglessness of life! Pleasure, although it is an illusion, is still a relief from suffering.
If you want to make the most of your life, simply find what is pleasurable for you, and harvest as much pleasure from it is possible. Enjoy the ride while it lasts.
Do not focus on what happens post-death. Death is inevitable, and to fear it is foolish. By all means, avoid death, because dying is suffering.
We must make sure that we do not fall victim to the deception of others (such as brain-washing). Of course, considering alternative theories is needed in order to maintain open-mindedness, but under no circumstances should you be forced to have a belief.
Be a free mind. Do not let a book or a minister decide for you what your morals should be; you should decide for yourself what your morals are. We must learn to think for ourselves instead of blindly accepting what others have preached to us.
Focus on the present. Let nothing make you suffer, for the cause of the suffering is meaningless anyways! Simply harvest pleasure, have a lust for life. Live each day in a mania.
Seek pleasure and avoid suffering - that is the point of life whether we want it to be or not.
The major downfall of this outlook, is that pleasure always comes with consequences. For every action, there is a reaction. Your pleasure comes at the cost of consequences - No matter how you might look at it.
