In purely biological terms, man is an animal. He is not much different, in this sense, from the dog he takes for a walk and is proud to say that belongs to him, that is his property.
This animality seems to be, at times, completely sublimated, so much so that we almost forget about it completely. But it emerges, it reveals itself, at every moment and in the most undesirable moments. This is when the entire sandcastle that the individual builds to shelter his concepts, and his high opinion of himself, collapses and only man is left, man delivered to the most primitive, the most mediocre things that exist within him.
This return, this rediscovery of animality, threatens to collapse the very foundations on which man proudly erected his civilization. So all this is nothing more than a farce? Are we nothing more than dogs that have learned to talk, walk upright and build sandcastles? And what about all our vocabulary, our science, our claim to dominate the world, the entire universe? Do we simply want to spread throughout the universe, to reproduce everywhere, this animal that can barely control itself, can barely disguise what it really is?
Calm down, letâs breathe.
Thatâs exactly what I believe I should avoid. Emotion. Exaggeration. Projection. Being controlled by the surpluses of my endocrine system. And thatâs exactly what the âworldâ has to offer me, a total use of my hormones, their complete exhaustion. The human animal has built an incredibly complex world just to let it be governed by his bile.
A dog, a monkey, a snake, experiences emotions, but is not dominated by them. An animal never loses its sense of self, even when it rages in the fight for survival or to maintain its territory, it always remains itself. A little after any fight, any influx of emotion, it returns to being itself. The human animal is the only one who transforms the emotional state into something permanent. Being on the edge, being about to explode, always angry, always on the verge of putting an end to everything that has been built, this seems to be the fate of man, and more specifically of man from a certain point in history onwards.
The leaders of men, the politicians, could be those who set an example of self-control, of temperance, but it is the exact opposite most of the time. Ideally, if we followed Platoâs ideal in his Republic, the ideal government, the power, should be in the hands of the best among men. But very often, it is in the hands of the worst. And these men, who are most often mediocre, insignificant, work, become what they are, take pride in speaking, addressing, the purely animalistic side of man. It is as if they only had the capacity to become something by exploring human emotion to the limit, it is as if only the emotional side of the human being could be adequately known and explored. And the result is that the âcrown of creation,â the ârational animal,â homo sapiens, ends up on his knees before someone who, rationally speaking, would not even deserve attention, let alone be a supposed leader of other men.
Because when I place my voice, my spirit, my ideas, in the hands of one of these nonentities, I am saying that my voice does not need to be heard, that my spirit is a simulacrum, a mere disguise, and that my ideas mean nothing.
In theory, I should not accept being ruled by someone who is beneath me. Someone who is just a reflection of myself in a very uninspired day, in a day when I am just a shadow of myself. My emotions are not me. They are inside my head, just like my ideas. I am, and must be, the owner of my emotions, the owner of my ideas. Pure and simple animality destroys any illusion of humanity; I return, in a single moment, to millions of years in the past, when I was a savage hiding in a cave, afraid of my own shadow. And this savage, who sees everything around him as an enemy, is in no condition to be his own master, since the slightest force disarms him, places him under its power. Thus the leader of humanity subdues everyone, or almost everyone, even representing the most mediocre part of this very humanity. He manages to convince me that being inside a cave, afraid of everything, perpetually paranoid, is my ideal state, is how I should be, and whoever wants to open my eyes and show me that there is life, that there is something, that there is light, outside my cave, my little box, this is my enemy, because I am comfortable in that limited space, my effort there is minimal, and my leader brings me everything I need, everything I can demand.
Politicians feed on my mediocrity and are, in fact, a minor problem, or rather, they are just part of a bigger problem. While they supposedly arm me against âthe leper in my headâ (thanks, Bono Vox), that is, against my neighbor, against my brother, against this guy who is sitting next to me on the bus at this very moment, what they are actually doing is making me yearn, seek and idolize darkness. Political leaders in general are disciples, spokesmen of darkness. But they are not the only ones.
As part of a larger problem, they are simply reproducing, and taking advantage of, a tactic to keep the individual permanently on edge, agitated, enthusiastic. The imaginary enemies that the political leader supposedly fights, and who are, as I said, these people who are next to me at this very moment, are also fought by others, who want my attention and enthusiasm. Living in a perpetual state of agitation, or living as a slave to dopamine, seems to be the general tone of a society that lives off and in the perpetual search for the use and manipulation of emotions. To always being enthusiastic, this is what seems to be the secret to a happy life, this is what seems to be the surest way to fully utilize the dopamine in our brain. And in fact, everyone seems to find something to spend all their energy on, everyone finds a way to always be on edge. Idols, artists, influencers, without realizing it, take advantage of the same tactic as politicians. They live off my emotions, my enthusiasm. I canât count on any of them to find a balance, a path to sanity. Because they all force me to use only part of my consciousness, my brain, the right side of my brain, to the detriment of the rest.
I canât want or pretend to be immune to emotions. The day a starving child at my feet no longer causes any sensation in me is the day my heart can calmly stop beating. However, I also canât allow that being emotional should be my usual state. Because if that were the case, I might as well give up everything and go back to the cave.
But the point is that, especially today, with the omnipresence of the internet and its endless clickbaits, always being on edge, agitated, nervous, seems almost like an obligation. The internet, the social network, sells me an illusion of belonging, and in exchange for this, it only demands that I give up part of my sanity. Always demanding attention, always shouting like a madman in a public square for attention: this seems to be the essence of social networks. It is the price we pay for the illusion of belonging. But I do not belong to anything, to any group, to any place, to any political spectrum, to any country; I belong only to myself.
This seems to be the first thing to accept when I intend to be a sane man in the midst of a crowd that only shouts, only despairs over everything, and, in this process, gives up their time, their freedom, their choices, to others who do not care in the least about them, only using their feelings to feed and exploit their own selfishness to the limit.
A second thing to do is to adopt Horaceâs Nil admirari, not to be surprised by anything, and expand it into Nemo admirari, not to be surprised by anyone. Losing my fear of things and stopping worshiping or following anyone. Fear of things paralyzes me, prevents me from conquering them, from dissecting them. Everything that exists in this world, all things, are necessarily beneath me, because I can make use of them; they are nothing without me, they have no use whatsoever. This includes concepts and ideas. Democracy, the State, God, love, freedom, dignity, wealth, tolerance, are things, objects in my mind. I either do something with them or I leave them abandoned, and thus they become nothing. So, when someone wants to manipulate my attachment to one of these ideas, always with a selfish purpose, I have to know what is happening; I have to be able to know, first and foremost, that what the person wants is to dominate me, to take control of the right side of my brain and, from there, take control of the rest, the left side and my heart. In other words, to turn me into an automaton.
No one needs to tell me what freedom is, what love is, what dignity is, what God is. Either I create my own particular notion of what these words mean or they mean nothing to me. I am the person who needs to interpret and use these concepts. Without me, they have no reason to exist and cannot be applied. So, when a politician wants to talk to me about democracy, his speech is just a piece of rhetoric until he accepts and understands what I understand by democracy, whether I have a use for this concept or whether it is just another of the many useless words floating around in my brain.
Applying this on a universal scale, I necessarily believe that no politician can represent me, no influencer can speak for me. Only I, solely and exclusively I, can speak on my behalf. Only I represent myself.
If I accept being represented, then I regress to my animal state. Only cattle are herded here and there. I am not cattle. As long as someone does not come to me and ask me what I want and respect my wishes, no one can claim to represent me. That is how, in any society I live in, no matter what appearances may be, no one dominates me, no one represents me, no one is above me. I do not lick anyoneâs boots and I do not bow down to anyone. I am as free, spiritually, as I can be.
The search for sanity involves this perception of the totality of the individualâs potential. As long as you do not convince yourself that you are an individual, totally and absolutely separated from others until death, and that you are not below anyone, on the contrary, those who see you and treat you as an animal are the ones beneath you, because they do not really see all that you are, they only see your most primitive side. As long as you do not have this perfect notion of your dignity, that you are, and can be, much more than an animal, sanity is just a distant dream, and you are just another person screaming in a public square for attention. Being guided, being led, being manipulated all the time.
Sanity implies a mind that sees things clearly. It implies abandoning the darkness and not allowing it to infiltrate any further. Mental clarity requires the ability to weigh emotions, to understand them and to understand that they only hinder the understanding of things. The modern herd mentality thrives and grows on enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is not something entirely harmful in itself, only when it is an end in itself. The idolatry of artists in general is an example of this enthusiasm that overflows, that goes beyond all limits. Idolatry is nothing more than a simulacrum of religion. The individual may think that traditional religion is something banal, ridiculous, irrational, but religion does something for its followers, it gives them a sense of purpose and a lasting feeling of satisfaction. Idolatry, no matter in what form, does the same thing. No matter who the idol is, the follower believes that idolizing him or her is his or her purpose in life. And the greatest satisfaction is assured when he finds other fanatics like himself, then the pleasure is to compare, to see who is the most fanatic, the most childish of all.
The healthy mind looks at the world and sees nothing that it cannot at least try to understand. That which escapes its understanding at the moment can be understood somehow, someday, given the appropriate conditions, while the essentially religious mind wants to see an insoluble mystery in the world. The god, and consequently, the idol, is the one who unveils the mystery of the world, is the one who makes the mystery of the world less disconcerting.
I do not want anything or anyone who comes to sell me mysteries, that is, who invites me to share with them the cult of darkness. I want everything around me to be perfectly and perpetually clear, illuminated. I do not want gratuitous hatred, I do not want to live as a slave to my bile. I want to understand, I want to comprehend, myself mainly, and I want others to continue living separately from me, I donât want an illusion of belonging, I donât want to destroy this perception that what makes life worthwhile is each person being unique, being their own world, their own microcosm.
In short, as a man, I donât want to live and die like an animal. I like being a man, I like to think, and I even like to give in to my instincts when and how I want, not in the service of others, of some idea that didnât come into my head, but only wants to imprison me again, after Iâve fought so hard to free myself.
A healthy mind requires a healthy body. In addition to policing myself against my control by others via hormones, I have to take care of my body, after all I need it to continue living. So Iâll end by saying that for me sanity is perfectly possible even if all the evidence says otherwise. To achieve it, I just need to realize that I am the owner of my intelligence, my emotions and my feelings, that is, both sides of my brain and my heart, and that no one can dominate me without first completely destroying these three things, that is, without completely destroying me, or rather, no one can dominate but my corpse, that is, what is left of me after everything that really matters is gone.