"The evolution of a philosopher through suffering"

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

November 13, 2006

Dear All,

All worldly things, including knowledge, only provide worldly “security”, which is subject to change, therefore not real security. To make an example of my life, or what I might presume to call “the evolution of a philosopher through suffering”, I am being forced to recognize that relationships, including the so-called “deepest”, “soulmate”, “great loves” etc. have no value in themselves. They only serve to teach us that there is no real “security” whilst we are alive on this earth. They allow us to glimpse the eternal when we can love another with no thought for our own temporary benefit or false “security”, which includes all the most “inspiring”, warm and fuzzy feelings. To be a philosopher is to face one’s death while still alive. To face our general worthlessness, yet knowing there is still a seed of universality that if nurtured can make this general wasteland called life worth living. Writing this in solitude I may touch those courageous enough to face their solitude and create something out of it.

The love I have for a lady who might just have craved feeling my hand on her ass as we danced, names unknown to each other still, may actually have a greater quality to it than the love I have for my two former wives, both receding into the background of my life because the first stood in my way and the second could not keep up. And my current lady friend was tested by my dancing alone. She could have joined me but did not. I knew the “rules of etiquette” would not have helped me in asking her to dance. I attracted a fabulous gypsy type soul akin to mine who was compelled to stand in front of me, figuratively saying, if only for a moment, “I will join you!”. The only real security either of us may ever know is that spark of love – of passion for life that transcends all the pretenses and “formalities” of marriage and relationships.

Because we don’t know ourselves, as Pythagoras advised us to do (a virtual impossibility in this pathetic but beautiful world), marriage means next to nothing.

In order to grow, one must detach oneself from life and all its dependency-creating drugs, one of which is the emotionality/sexuality of relationships. Nature is forcing me to examine myself thoroughly by removing women from my life at what seems an alarming rate. Few men love women as much as I do, but Nature is calling out loudly to me – “You must learn to do without them if you are to truly live”. It is time for me to withdraw temporarily from emotional relationships to find my inner strength. I pity any woman who is attracted to me at this point. Only those who truly love can survive the experience of knowing me.

‘Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men.’ (Matthew 22.16)

In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 48, tr Gia-Fu Feng)

Anticipate Nature – drop things before you are forced to, if indeed you have the wisdom to recognize what may be safely dropped, and when perhaps to pick them up again if need be.

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how about parents…whom you love but have trated you like S"$·$ all your life? :frowning: :cry:

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Hello heavenly_demonic,

It is what we are and know we are, despite our parents’ frequent underestimation of ourselves, that individualizes us within the family. Our level of dispassion or unconcern regarding poor treatment, which we all receive in every sphere of life, allows us to become a force to be reckoned with, not merely a puppet of unconscious forces and our own narrow vision regarding what we are. We are, in our essence, all that there is, and removed or unaffected by petty matters of our earthly environment. Wisdom could be the degree to which we do not respond to what others believe we should respond to – not through a matter of will, like counting to ten when we feel anger, but because we recognize that we are simply above responding to the petty, shallow and irrational in life.

Your words bring to mind the concept of “injustice” or “unfairness”, which are related to the fallacy that individuals or groups, from relatives to corporations, are consciously trying to hurt or suppress people. The unperceptive hurt others without any real intention to; there are no “evil conspiracies”. We are born into ignorance, which does unconscious harm; from then on most of us simply get in the way of the majority whose plans are simply to satisfy their desires, profit at our expense (again often unconsciously), etc.

My mother has called me evil, with some apparent justification. My first wife thought that my evil was the real me. My second wife seems to understand that my “evil” (occasional porn addiction and its undesirable consequences, etc.) is not the real me. What we really are goes far deeper than apparencies. It is pure, eternal goodness – Love and Reason – suppressed in many to be sure, one of the greatest mysteries in life.
If my “evil” shortens my life so be it; it is of no concern because it is not what I seek. If my words when I am “good” speak of the eternal, that is all that matters. Every one of us is a servant of Sophia (wisdom) whether we know it or not. It’s all good. All things serve the good.

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yes but I’m abussed…it’s not the same…

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Dear Luxin

what u said could be better exemplified as Detachment, Like u said everything we do is just for psychological security, My God, My wife, My house, My religion, My ethnicity and just because everything is “My” we are afraid of losing it and that is followed by pain and suffering and this is one big reason why we are afraid of death and the futility of the ‘fact’ is that we are attached to all the materialistic and worldly things that we have believed of them to provide us with pleasure which is just an illusion.

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Hello heavenly_demonic,

I have not been sexually abused or physically assaulted in my life. These are among the awful consequences of living in an unbalanced world, and we all must pay the price for imbalance in some way. Believe it or not, there are far more insidious and soul-destroying forms of abuse which are not consciously perpetrated but cause inestimable suffering. (Not that anything evil is conscious – it is not – evil is a manifestation of unconsciousness.) One of these forms – which is a subject “near and dear to my heart” – is the unconscious giving of mathematically unbalanced names by the majority of parents to the majority of children.

The following is easy for me to say, I know. However, all I care about is your happiness based on your spirit’s life, which is the expression of love and reason. If we cannot forgive certain things and put them behind us mentally, we are their prisoner, and the seed of love in us will not flower. To see the evil in others is to become evil ourselves, for the essence of all is good. To justify bitter feelings is to do ourselves – and others who we convince ourselves do not deserve our love – a true injustice. Yet such is what the majority no doubt do.

I sense there is a full complement of love in you. Do not let the foolish acts of others hold you back. Only the weak choose to blame others for their troubles. You and you alone are the cause of any success or failure in your life. Why some people choose to blame even trifling incidents for their misery is a study in human weakness worthy of investigation. One antagonistic thought nurtured forever can destroy us utterly. There is fear attached to such thinking, for there is always one more person who may abuse us in some way. Where there is fear, love cannot exist. The fearful and bitter can never be happy or fulfilled.

My favorite movie is Clint Eastwood’s “The Unforgiven”, a great piece of moviemaking. The main character “cleans up the town” with bullets and vengeance one dark and rainy night. He seems so noble as he rides off in the rain after dispatching so much human rubbish. However, in his act of vengeful self-satisfaction he has lost any chance of developing a soul that he might have had. That man is my alter ego, perhaps in another life in which no soul growth happened. American culture glorifies such characters. The fact is, however, that happiness and peace only come to the peacemakers who forgive all things, exemplified by the character in the Buddhist story who loved the attackers who chopped off all his limbs one by one, to his last breath. Such know that love is their essence, and that is it unthinkable to have a hateful or angry thought, for with such ALL is lost.

Hello Kernell,

Truly. The pleasures of worldly things are real though, but bring their counterpart in pain if we seek and indulge in them. When they come to us instead of us going to them, they are less likely to destroy us. My greatest pleasure is so subtle and I feel it now. It is the pleasure of knowing that physical pleasure is nothing compared to the state of mind which seeks nothing, but just is. How countless people have gone astray seeking “spiritual pleasure” is frightening. Whether physical, spiritual or whatever, it seems best that we not seek any kind. Which confirms my concept of the absolute futility of human will, which is only good for such things as establishing a routine or getting a forkful of food into our mouths.

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Should you not be actively pursuing women in order to increase your suffering and hence your philosophical developement!

Plus you might get lucky

(I think this is krossie’s version of Pascal’s God wager)

(‘:lol:’)

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Nutrality, silence, and peaceful reflection – cause much more “evolution of philosophy” than suffering and termoil ever will. IMO.

“Activelyy pusuing women”?
Isn’t that a rediculious idea?
After all, what will you be doing? Buying things for them? Giving them attension and affection? You actually have to struggle just to give yourself and your resources to someone who will maybe accept you for a while?

IMO, that’s rediculious.

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Hello krossie and Dan,

Hee-hee-hee! Good humor. Pursuit does in my view lead to suffering to the degree that one is sensitive to others because:

  1. will as applied to relationship building is irrational because:

a. we rarely know what or who we need in our life;
b. ladies who are really worth knowing will resist the ‘pursuing male’ per Newton’s 3rd law of motion which can be perceived as operating in the mental realm:

“… for every force there is an equal and opposite force”.

What is meant to be will just happen naturally; and as such, will be “real” and not a product of our active male imaginations to properly escape as fast as she is pursued.

A lady did just “come to me” about the same time my second marriage was dissolving. My wife “walked out one door” and a fine lady “walked in the other”. I didn’t have to do anything for these things to develop except be myself. I don’t handle change too well, and I’ve been through a hell of a depression. Without my music, writing and looking after my daughter I would become a vegetable, something my spirit will not allow for too long.

Without suffering and the prospect of death we would have no reason to sit in silent peaceful reflection in awe of this great mystery called Life. Great philosophical thoughts come in the silence; the latter only has significance with respect to the storms of emotion and suffering. All I have seen tells me that true insight cannot come without suffering. The great mystery to be solved is why millions derive nothing from and their ends are hastened by their suffering. I seem to ride my suffering like the wave form it seems to be. Of course I am creating my own “waves”. I have not yet allowed them to destroy this “suffering surfer”. (“Suffering succotash!” - Sylvester?) I’m just so glad that we are made to suffer, and not succotash. Succotash has no great reward that I know of. So much in my view now points to the absolute necessity that there be an ongoing multi-life evolutionary process. Of a person’s soul I mean.

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Suffering can degrade as well as enhance. Kierkegaard couldn’t understand this common sense observation because he was trying to bridge an imagined, therefore nonexistent, gap between knowing and being with a leap of faith. Often a leap of faith includes one’s plunge into an abyss.

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sorry…but I think both are stupid…
good and evil both suck…
but sometimes evil can be more fun…when you’ve been hurt…

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Luxin,

It sounds to me like you are stuck in Schopenhauer’s mind. Life appears as an endless chain of need or suffering that can never be stopped. As such you seem to be withdrawing from life as some sort of deception like a Buddhist or monk. The problem is that such a withdrawal is the negation and denial of life itself and no matter how illusionary and brief ‘wordly pleasures’ may be they are nonetheless the only pleasures you have. Take advantage of them!

You have looked into the abyss, the nothingness of being, now it is up to you to be authentic and create your world as you wish it be without illusion, without regard for the naysayings of others. I live by this creed and can only deplore asceticism and life-denial. Nihilism is in the room, who will ask it to leave?

13

He he back at you
– but you can switch to a Taoist system of pursuing through retreat, avoiding your quarry at all costs (and I mean beyond just playing hard to get!)
– I know this sounds like rubbish but it has (very occasionally) reaped big rewards for me.

Sorry to hear it Luxin – keep your spirits up – you do realize that a lot of my attempts at philosophizing are mostly humorous.

I do understand your frustration with the arbitrary nature of these things in the sense that you can often no more account for why some one “walks into” your life than them walking back out again – it’s not always under your active control.

Lacan (apparently) has a definition of love which runs along the lines of:

“The other loves something in you that you didn’t know you had and they didn’t know they wanted”

Yeah unfortunately there is some truth to this and its one of the few lines of Heideigger’s I’d agree with – he more or less believed the prospect of death puts meaning in life. The avoidance of suffering is the avoidance of life at the end of the day

Actually looks to me like the opposite – ie he’s reached the conclusion to embrace life with all the suffering it entails…

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“In anticipating the indefinite certainty of death, being-there opens itself to a constant threat arising from it’s own there.”
One of his best quotes.

Point taken.

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November 28, 2006

Hello Ierrelus,

You wrote:

You said “Suffering can degrade as well as enhance.” Agreed. Your quote applies only to those who are conscious that all things are subject to universal laws or orderliness. The enhancement must follow an evolutionary pattern, the mystery of which can only be greater understood as one evolves toward the ultimate of wisdom through growth or refinement. The concepts of degradation and enhancement as applied to humanity imply that there must be a foolishness-wisdom continuum, with movement along such being subject to certain laws including the Law of Love.

With the concept that without consciousness we fools (using the Tarot concept) cannot become “enhanced” – or proceed in the direction of wisdom – is the parallel concept that degradation cannot have any value or real purpose without a consciousness of the degradation being the opposite of what a philosopher or seeker of wisdom and happiness desires, which might be called the union of the “knowing and being” you reference with regard to Kierkegaard. My interpretation of “knowing and being” – which are said to be in harmony – is: “knowing” means practical knowledge or “facts” and “being” means the essential or metaphysical reality that by its implicit complementarity lies “beyond” (more aptly, “within”) mere knowledge and system but is still one with and conceptually reachable via its complement, knowledge. We are here to become conscious of all things with an awareness of all being, all universal laws, and the absolute necessity of love and happiness. One will naturally be responsible and wise in this state, never seeking to hurt or retaliate regardless of the so-called “offence” or “injustice”, our delusion being that such things are consciously perpetrated. In this delusion we descend to the lowest state possible and lose any opportunity to develop a soul, with comparing ourselves to beasts or animals being an “insult” to such.

All soul-destroying evil is unconscious, and a metaphysically conscious person or philosopher can only experience suffering and its degrading effect in a state of unconsciousness. I have experienced this suffering and degradation many times through my porn addiction which I have no choice but to succeed in rising above through consciousness and creativity and the fact that porn (which I now call “porn death” to remind myself) must be regarded as an inconceivable alternative to the evolution of my conscious being.

The only purpose of the suffering of those unconscious of an essential reality or being which is one with our actual purpose here on earth – we are not bumps on a log as all philosophers know but most people’s lives figuratively reflect that delusion – is to remind such that the only way to escape indescribable suffering is through a conscious life – a turning away from common habits of living and thinking which include the way of faith in the unprovable. A “leap of faith” is truly a sad thing bereft of Reason, with inevitably sad consequences – those who leap are pawns used by the forces that demand conformity and mediocrity – keeping in mind that both the “victimizers” and “victims” are unconscious. Only the lives of those who are ready and stimulated to start thinking – such as when faced with a child dying of cancer because of hot dog consumption – affirm the value of suffering. The suffering of those who do not have the capacity to think about life – and its obvious purpose when one considers the diversity of human character – has no noble purpose to it, therefore I do not regard it as true suffering and degradation (being conscious of such self-imposed humiliation or figurative “demotion” through a hopefully only temporary state of unconsciousness), but just a state of suppression of one’s essential being in which one’s life is worthless or one could say soulless, with essentially no possibility of progress toward a state of wisdom. All those in the “porn death” industry – despite their outward and inward beauty – may be physically alive but their actual being is as dead as a doornail. The walking dead exist in every sphere of life. Movie zombies have not a fraction of the “scariness” of such. Not that a conscious person need worry. But all of us do pay some sort of price for living in a virtually unconscious world.

From the standpoint of universal love and wisdom – with the refinement and growth necessary to reach that state of conscious being – as you say, Socrates, “An unexamined life is not worth living”.

Hello heavenly_demonic,

I quote you: “but sometimes evil can be more fun…when you’ve been hurt…”

You flatter yourself by calling yourself a “Thinker” – you will likely never be either a thinker or philosopher. If there is to be any hope for your humanity, you will first have to really suffer, hitting bottom. I have no tolerance for weaklings who blame others for what are their own problems, trying to justify their own weakness. No matter how hard one tries to make mountains out of relative molehills, they are still molehills, and one can sacrifice their soul in the deluded attempt.

Love without criticism is not love. (Jose B. Hanina, Genesis Rabbah (Midrash))

Hello krossie,

I just love those random clicky noises. Without them, and the uncontrollable, indomitable love force, life would certainly be dull.

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Luxin

sorry to deviate from the topic, but I’m a deviant, so be it.

I WANT (suffer) to buy books about the concept of time. I am unemployed and have all the time in the world to myself. But these books cost moola bucks and I am cash poor. I want to spend my days reading about time, but in order to do so, I need work for the money to pay for the books. But if I worked I would not have the time to read as much of the books on time, then if i just went to the library and dealt with their limited stacks. What on earth should I do?

Thank Luxin

As always,
Kev

“Cash rulez everthing around me. Cream. Get the money. Dollar dollar bills ya’ll” Wu- Tang Clan.

17

Kev get a job where you can do sneaky reads - i recomend technical support - don’t worry if I can do it - any one can bullshit their way into it

:laughing:

krossie

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Hello kevconman,

It’s not free, but check out anyway:

miracleofnames.com/cyclic%20 … ourse.html

and

miracleofnames.com/cyclic%20law%20book.html

I’m the webmaster there.

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luxin,
All of the knowledge, love, wisdom in the world will not stop one person from dying of AIDS. But compassion and empathy can make their last days bearable. As humans, we must deal with what is, even if what is contradicts the ideals we use for self-support. There is no lesson learned from suffering other than the fact that we all do it. And a decent person will be compassionate and empathetic without such dire precedents. I like fairy tales too, but I prefer a ham sandwich.

20

Whenever we put our happiness in people, places or things we will sooner or later be let down. Happiness starts from within us and cannot come from anyplace else. We can achieve a “diminishing of pain” from people, places or things, but cannot find true happiness in these material things as the pleasure found in such things is impermanent and can easily be turned into pain.

True happiness has no limits, whereas the aforementioned do have limits and also contain qualities of pain in them. I’ll give you a couple of quick examples. Eating a half gallon of ice cream quickly soon turns our mouth from feelings of pleasure into feelings of great pain. Through the suffering of change or impermanence our beautiful bride soon loses her physical beauty or our shiny new car gets keyed by a vandal and we can suffer greatly from both of these examples of change.

While both the new bride and new car do possess some qualities of pleasure in them, they also both contain qualities of pain as well, so nothing of this sort can lead us to perfect and true happiness. We must search for true happiness someplace else, but still balance the material world with our real spiritual needs. Happiness lies within us and not in things. True happiness and contentment can only be found in the spiritual realm which is limitless. (but defining spiritual can be a problem)

from Brother David Steindl-Rast a Christian - Buddhist practitioner from his book “Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer”

“Ordinary happiness depends on happenstance. Joy is that extraordinary happiness that is independent of what happens to us. Good luck can make us happy, but it cannot give us lasting joy. The root of joy is gratefulness. We tend to misunderstand the link between joy and gratefulness. We notice that joyful people are grateful and suppose that they are grateful for their joy. But the reverse is true: their joy springs from gratefulness. If one has all the good luck in the world, but takes it for granted, it will not give one joy. Yet even bad luck will give joy to those who manage to be grateful for it. We hold the key to lasting happiness in our own hands. For it is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”

Take Care,

v