Thanks.
I hope to think more clearly and make myself my own hero one day.
I kinda like social/gender based goals. It gives me something to live up to.
Disgruntled Human
Everyone needs an ambition, even if it’s someone else telling him what that ambition should be.
Yes I have to hand it to you Satyr, you articulate your points very well. I too am very concerned with this levelling of mankind. I outlined this before in this thread. I have been reading a bit of Freud lately and I can see a lot clearer what is going on with the male species in our zeitgeist. This obsession with production and consumption and ultra-sensitivity is destroying the primordial essence of what it is to be male. Freud seems to be just an extra in-depth psychological investigator from where Schopenhauer and Nietzsche were heading with their theories, but he does an excellent job I must admit. The psychological repression that the male must endure just to “fit in” and become a “citizen”, or should I say “consumer”, in today’s world is landing him in a world of internal pain that I doubt that could be matched physically. There must be a reckoning, a renewal, a creation of a new morality and perception of the male species. But with the airwaves being monopolized by mediocre minds man has suffered his end. He is condemned to be a battery in the manufacturing industry then become a passive consumer in the femanized world of shopping, his only acceptable outlet is to get drunk on weekends, engage in a sport, or hobby in his spare-time. This is his only catharsis now-days. Any deviating from these acceptable norms is ridiculed, scorned, hated, marginalzed by the media, politicians and ultra-sensitive minority groups who hold onto “identity politics” just give themselves some worth on this rock.
I concur completley.
Just a thought my little neotenic boys and girls:
Genetic evolution, and now social evolution, was and has always been about the survival/prosperity of the fittest. The fittest individual, the fittest group, the fittest behavioural template.
Would seem the Fem-manâ„¢ is doing better than Primal-manâ„¢. Whatever does best, over time, in a given (social) enviroment/context, inevitably gets pulled into the centre of the bell-curve. Becomes the norm, through both lateral and linear ideological inheritance/transmission.
Adopting, either consciously or unconsciously, a ‘normal’ level of the current behavioral model that seems to do best ensures an equally ‘normal’ level of success. Adopting an extreme variant of (new) behaviour has a (very) small chance of producing equally extreme success - but a much greater chance of leaving you penniless on the sidewalk with a sandwich-board bearing the inscription “The end is nigh” around your neck and a bottle of meths in your pocket. Still, its a rational gambit, if ‘rational’ is the right word to use here.
Adopting a nostalgic stance and clinging on for dear life to an ‘outmoded’ format of being, in this case the old primal male, ie: one that has already been superceded in the new social-enviroment, would seem to be a great folly, at least with regard to social/material success (unless society at that point is in serious turmoil/retrogression - war for example) - and since the basic tenent of life is still “create more life/ensure its well-being” - and as social/material success greatly effects the likelihood of its accomplishment on an individual basis… A fundamental betrayal of what we are, at the genetic-led lifeform level at least.
Okay - people like antiques, gives them a comforting sense of permanency perhaps, but a calculator still outclasses an abacus in practicality, perhaps best then to adopt the latest sociobehavioural tech, and then buy back into the antique version at leisure, surrounded by your carefully-groomed children…?:lol: You could argue that this would be equally a betrayal of your basic inclination, your basic nature - but then I could happily counter that allowing yourself to be led around by the nose by your innate (?geneticaly-instigated?) proclivities, a quality equally lacking in any free-will. 
Or, should you argue more laudably that it is a purely chosen aesthetic stance, a direct act of free-will, I might perhaps raise the question of it simply being a reaction against the norm, indeed contextless without the milestick of the norm, and equally devoid of free-will, or psychologically a refusal to accept that subjectively detested traits observed in others are equally present within yourself - producing a rationalization of repression/excision/attachement to the negative.
The ability to change, to demonstrate behavioural flexibility/creativety is something that sets us aside from the plankton, to refuse to use it, even in the face of practicality, is also simply ego-led snobbery, a cutting off of your nose, to spite that plucked-doll face, is it not…?
It seems to me that the wilful adoption, and the revelling in that adoption, of a primal-manâ„¢ behavioural/thought pattern… Is just as pretentious, just as ‘foppish’ as the adoption of an extreme form of its opposite. The Ãœber-femme and the Ãœber-Homme male phenotypes are equal manifestations of impracticality.
All this chest-beating and wailing for the “good-old-days” is just a fashion-cliqué-ery of the mind.
Now - where’s the “I’m a teapot” smilie…?
Jon.
All commentary; verbal, written or digitally transmitted; by this poster is expressly a matter of personal opinion, individual belief, personal experience, and is not intended to purport necessity of change(s), implied/perceived, to other posters; physical, mental or emotional. Any attempt to treat this post in a manner contradictory to what has been thusly stated, is erroneous, and is the fault, entirely, of the reader of said post.
LOL. Prat.
Not likely to find anyone who would take this as other than a given, outside the aberrancy of the social context.
Certainly, this is an affirmable assertion within the context of the comparative norm of society. Argumentative proposition, (noble Satyr will speak for himself, better than I), of what is “better” with regards to the abject nature of societies, general and particular, may be in the form of the negative effects created by over-population, especially of less than quality genetic specimens; depletion of limited resources; competition not based on actual fitness of individuals but rather upon institutionalized norms of accepting a lower standard specimen, which correlates directly with greater and greater genetic dysfunctions; increases in abberant sexual behaviors; sociality as a permeating syndrome of weakness.
Firstly, “normal” is an egregiously misguiding premise. “Normal”, with respect to socially institutionalized beliefs, are a predicate for weakness, based upon fear of less fit specimens not maintaining longevity to spawn their abject code to another generation.
Conformity to a socially accepted norm, as regards behavior models, is subjugation to the masses, and acceptance that the masses are more knowledgeable, and better fit to judge the nature of individuals, than the individual, themself. Success, and you know this, is a personal wavelength word of variable definitions in accordance with Borel’s Law, summarily ludicrous in the social sense.
“Adopting” a nostalgic stance would be useless, as that would be understood as a violation of the individual nature, thus meretricious. You seem to seek the obviation of the inherent nature of certain individuals to support the suppositions of a greater social good, which has never manifest. As there are more years of life not dedicated to procreation, than there are those years for such, there are conditions of living not addressed in your argument. Survival is not limited to procreation and rearing, and in the realm of hominins pradatorius, it is increasingly the lesser of reasons, especially as would regard propositions in defense of societies.
“Social success” increases the likelihood of a materialistic mentality, denegration of individuals to suit the need of more emassed materials, which have nothing to do with resources or reciprocity of such. You are utterly negating the hording mentality of non-resources, i.e. “commodities”, which are, at best, unnatural. This then is the final observed outcome of societies.
The real folly is that those weaker specimens make a presumption that hording these commodities will in some fashion afford them protection from the predatory specimens. Observably, this is proven wrong on a daily basis, uniformly, in all societies. Most refer to it as “crime”, which in a more correct contextual definition, is primal predation.
An individual with an actual predatory nature is not overly concerned with the materialisms of societies, antique or otherwise. What suits the purpose of the moment, functionality, is more in line with the predator.
Behavioral flexibility comes in the form of intellect. Adaptability is found in tactics and strategies for better predation practices, sublimation of the weaker specimens.
Most predators do not waste time with wailing or chest-beating, prior to the kill - both tend to alert your prey that their environment is soon to reek of the odeous stench of fear.
I have neither the teapot, nor the smilie, but can certainly offer you a sanguinary predators, canined overbite.
You know - I’ve been internally debating, or rather internally running around in circles, alternatively raving and cursing Gods both big and small, about this recently. You see, I’m beginning to believe that almost absolutely everything we do is unconsciously geared to procreation. As children we rush to become adult. As young and insecure adults we are driven to look around at the concurrent ‘templates’ designated within society as ‘sexually-attractive’ and attempt to emulate them with varying degrees of success. Remember - to life-plural ‘good’ always equals 'sexually-attractive." We attempt to match our innate gifts, which have led to success in a variety of learned skills, to a template which compliments them.
Society’s majority, the middle ground by default, designates what is attractive. Homeless crack-heads are not attractive. Genius is somehow kinda scary, weird and generally to be abandoned in a secret mountain-top laboratory. Madness is to be locked up in rooms without sharp corners.
We’re married Mastriani, and have children, and are reasonably happy I guess. I’ve been married so long now I’ve forgotten the pain of loneliness. It is a physical thing. A hardwired thing. A thing not rational. Lonliness makes you lose sleep, makes you desperate, makes you insane. The mind at odds with the body. And the body always wins.
It leaks out all over the place: Envy - the mind looks at the shiny new mecedes, or whatever commonality of desire, owned by another - and thinks “Boy - I wish I had one of those.” The body however ‘thinks’ - “That son-of-a-bitch is more attractive than me.”
Materiality is to a human what colourful plumage and a nice mating dance is to an avian. You cannot separate man from gadget.
Your philosophical beliefs, your integrity of purpose and thought, your martial arts, your distastes, loves and preferrences - these are only a ‘materialism’ of another sort, Bill across the road collects hot-rods, because they attract a certain sort of girl. Mastriani collects head-locks, and Taoist couplets, because they attract another type of mate. You cannot escape Mast. One is not ‘better’ than the other, if both varients achieve the same ends. Life counts new heads, that’s all.
I felt much relieved when our first little one popped out of the wife, I feel more relieved now that the scond, a girl, is successfully on the way. When she comes, and is healthy, I will get my tubes tied. Why…? Because two kids is really all we can afford, if we consider raising them well and with opportunity. My act of preventing more children benefits my children, and my genetic progression, rather than the reverse. And yet still - my concious niggles…“What if there’s an accident…? - what if they die…?”
But where does this ‘relief’ come from…? Rationally - children are already making my life as an individual difficult, limited, painful, especially when they are in pain. Life-plural doesn’t care about me. It cares about them, and the future. Bastard.
Your philosophy, your values - are you teaching them to your children Mastriani…? Why…? What’s the difference between buying your son a car and teaching him how to drive it well, beyond the simple mechanics of gear and pedal…? I often think driving is a very philosophical process. The answer…? None at all - Both the buying and the teaching will make him more attractive to the opposite sex as a procreative mate and father.
Everything we do is geared toward procreation. If not our own personally, then that of our children, and our childrens’ children, even all the world’s children, at a push, when we ‘altruistically’ try to make it a ‘better’ place.
And you know what the definition of ‘better’ is here… Don’t you.
Always the same question - “If they are so lacking in quality - Why are there just so damn many of them…?” Life-plural is blind. It runs its fingers over the populace and counts heads - and the multitude always wins. Life-plural doesn’t know about the fallacy of numbers - in its book, whatever phenotype is most numerous, gets the gold-star. At least until the social/physical enviromental conditions change, at which point, fickle, life-plural abandons its former paramours without a backward glance, and smiles at the new model, the last man alive on the battlefield.
A circle: Superiority creates plentitutude. Plentitude favours mediocrity. Mediocrity consumes plentitude. Lack favours superiority… ad infinitum.
ie: Mediocrity is a sign of Superiority’s success. And in thanks, the mediocre kill the titans that enabled their existance, then errect shrines to them, and moan about the lack of heroes and talk about the good old days. They have to. It’s the only way they can sleep at night. In times of peace and abundance a stoic is suspect and a hero is a psychopath.
But I’m slipping into your terminology: In times of hardship, juveniles mature out of necessity. Maturity fosters conditions which favour the juvenile. Safety. Abundance. Lack of hardship prolongs a state of juvenility. Maturity abhors this. Juveniles, adult and powerful, abhor that which would force painful change. The juveniles, being the majority, either force those mature into hiding, ostracize or eliminate them as a threat to their designated ‘good/epicurean’ way of life.
It’s not my friend, it’s is simply the masses conserving energy. Inevitiable, therefore, they will succeed, and remain… The masses. The best of us are always better than they need to be to achieve something achievable with less effort, and that is their/our ‘weakness’ and the species’ damnation. Face it Mastriani, it is me, it is you, it is Satyr that are the aberrant ones. By the only definition of good that makes sense in being a form of life, we are bad. Even if we are right, it still doesn’t matter.
Jon.
An individual inevitably self-defines himself through what he aspires to be and the limits he places on himself and on how he attains his goals.
I am what I want to be and how I act, towards that end (how I overcome the obstacles towards this aspiration – my becoming).
I guess if we place survival as the highest of all goals then one can be justified in using any means to attain it.
If, in a given environment (prison let us say), allowing one’s self to be raped by someone of high status so as to procure the benefits of being his “bitch†leads to social ascension then the individual judging himself by what social height he attains – that is what height in relation to others who have paid the same price and within the context of a pre-existing set of relationships – will justify his actions as being necessary for his ascension within a certain context. He will explain his ‘sacrifice’ as being necessary for his survival and posit his ‘success’ – which is defined by the very ones he is forced into compromises by - as being the reward for his partial surrender.
He lacks an alternative value that is strong enough to supersede this primordial, instinctive one. He is, we could say, without character.
Similarly an individual who has little self-awareness or sense of identity to begin with or who is willing to do anything to live up to a certain value system will have no problem doing whatever is necessary to ascend, to adapt, to any environment and to succeed within it. He, also, will lack an alternative and so will adopt and call his own the first one he finds or is given.
Animals have few intellectual scruples when acting on behalf of their own survival because they know of no higher value than life.
Humans often place other values as being higher than mere survival and so attempt to transcend their own existence.
We often admire such individuals who in the face of death remain loyal to their value systems as opposed to their instinctual desire to survive.
We admire the monk who burns himself for his beliefs or the warrior who dies fighting for what he values or the one who remains loyal to his chosen or given principles even in the face of threat.
Pride, integrity, honor, freedom have all been imprecise ideals which many have chosen as superior to survival. Many have decided that they are unwilling to live without them.
When identity is thoroughly tied to a certain meme then the gene fails to inspire the mind into action.
The difficulties arise when an individual has found self-identification in a value system that contradicts an existing one and which forces him to compromise his previous values so as to be integrated within a new one.
The question is:
What are we willing to do so as to be “successful†– as a definition determined by others – and what compromises are we prepared to make so as to be considered “worthy�
Is not character tied to this question?
All commentary; verbal, written or digitally transmitted; by this poster is expressly a matter of personal opinion, individual belief, personal experience, and is not intended to purport necessity of change(s), implied/perceived, to other posters; physical, mental or emotional. Any attempt to treat this post in a manner contradictory to what has been thusly stated, is erroneous, and is the fault, entirely, of the reader of said post.
Sorry fine Tabula, but you make a horridly ugly, egregiously improper assertion here.
Speaking for no one other than myself, loneliness has never been an issue for me. Marriage, more correctly in my instance, union, was taken under tea ceremony, as a matter of equitable companionship - the necessity of procreation was not a direct factor - both individuals were/are capable and willing of such, with no regard to social stigmas concerning “wedlock”.
This proposition of yours here, loneliness, is a sign of social indoctrination. I have never felt it, how could I? When I walk outside, I am greeted by birds of the sky, small creatures on and under the earth, arboreal creatures, and quite honestly, the great dome of the heavens is more comfort than human “company”. Loneliness is an ethereal aberration of an abject social psychology.
Utterly incorrect. I collect nothing, and my “mate” does not find comfort in my activities, which are culminations of personal progress, not “materiality” … they show nothing outside of my entity. If I do not communicate them directly, they are not knowable to anyone outside myself. My ends are in direct conflict with social ends, and that is my preference, naturally. Counting is the fundamental root error in the social proficiency fallacy.
Strange, there was never any need to procreate, in the logical sense. My only relief with borne children, was that there were now those about me, to teach me to unlearn my unnatural self, and correct the wrongs absorbed from social living. Altruism, is a most intense and pervasive delusion.
“Attempting to rectify the ills of society, is like trying to bite one’s own teeth.”
Affirmed, socially.
You are a resourceful entity, never accept this fallacy. If you allow, (and it is a permission given to do so), the masses to define you, you are already dead, my friend. You are a husk, who does nothing but await the Boatman’s crooked finger, to beckon you away from this plane.
All commentary; verbal, written or digitally transmitted; by this poster is expressly a matter of personal opinion, individual belief, personal experience, and is not intended to purport necessity of change(s), implied/perceived, to other posters; physical, mental or emotional. Any attempt to treat this post in a manner contradictory to what has been thusly stated, is erroneous, and is the fault, entirely, of the reader of said post.
Within the current context of sociality, yes noble Satyr.
But, this has not always been the definition, now has it? No, this is evidence of the pendulum of the laughable social conscious.
I have a problem with there being an option. We are raised and tought by society up to the point where we start thinking for ourselves. So I believe before you can define yourself you have to erase that which society has tought you.
I think this is what Nietzsche meant when he said
“…one has to die several times while one is still alive.”
Hey Satyr,
A very emotive example but a good one. I’d quibble though about the oxymoron of ‘allowing’ oneself to be raped. However, there is an element of this in almost all transactions in wider society, in any situation in which you say or act in a manner foreign to your character to aquire the good favours of one ‘above’ you in social ranking. The ‘rape’ may become only symbolic - but it is there all the while - Worse still, it becomes an autorape of self, voluntarily undertaken.
Something distastful, discomforting, suffered in the short term, for long term gain.
Allow me another example though, equally emotive. Say I am captured, and asked to reveal the whereabouts of something valuable to me, under threat of torture. I refuse, ‘allowing’ myself to be tortured. To suffer discomfort for long-term gain.
How is that different…? Apart from we are programmed to observe one is ‘weak’ and one is ‘strong’. The ends are the same, are they not…? Suffering to procure or protect something of subjective value. The labels we give such things are only ever hand-made.
The tortured man may be hiding nobly the whereabouts of his co-conspiritors, or, less nobly - his stash of herion. The man in prison may be sacrificing everything to stay alive so he can help his family when he gets out, or simply ‘selfishly’ not wanting to die. It just dissolves into the subjective value of the end, rather than the means the subject uses to get there.
What is more noble…? A stubborn adherence to personal integrity, whatever the cost (perhaps to another), or an abandonment of it, for a ‘greater good’. One must look both at the ends, as well as the means, before judging the actions of another.
One could even look at a model of a lower-social-ranker approaching a higher-social-ranker in any context, and observe that the higher is really passive, and being manipulated out of his favours by the behaviour of the lower toward him or her… At this point the terms ‘used’ and ‘user’ become blurred.
I would like to be able to say that “Allowing your definition of ‘successful’ to ever be set by others, is a fundamental failure of yourself as a free-willed individual.” But really, you can only ever be successful in comparison, which necessitates you be part of a group, which in turn inevitably means success is defined by something other than yourself.
However, I think really the real question is different, it becomes simply:
“Is it possible to be ‘worthy’ in isolation…? Is it possible to be ‘individual…?’”
I think we should stop with the damn sentimentality toward animals. Animals have no intellectual scruples, because they have no intellect. They know of no higher value than life because they know nothing at all.
Put it this way: Every itteration of life on this planet originally sprang from ‘one’ strand of DNA, which over the eons has propagated and mutated into the myriad of species we observe today. Every species except man, is a failed mutation, a simple circularity. Terry the Termite will die. Charlie the Chimp will expire. Dora the Dolphin will drown. We will either die with them, or wave them a tearful goodbye when we ransack the planet for supplies, and leave. I have more respect for our symbiotic gut bacteria than our hoop-jumping finny-friends, for where we go, Billy the Bacter will go too.
You really desire that pyre Satyr/Martyr . To that I would simply say, “Where there is life, there is hope.” The idea of Transcendence relies soley on there actually being a place to transcend to. If not, then it is simply a hollow victory of mind over matter, meme over gene, symptomatic of a lack of imagination, of creativity - an attempt to inspire in death what they failed to inspire in life. A final attempt to curry sympathy from the crowd, ironically, that lit the fire beneath them. A triumph of ashes and dust. Intent without competence.
Later Mastriani - I must betray my noble philosophic soul, and sacrifce my integrity once more to my boss, like the despicable prostitute I am, for cold hard cash.
Jon.
I too think you cannot define yorself in isolation, without context - only in comparison with others. The statement “I am -” necessitates another who is not. There is no way to escape it. Though erasing would be as difficult as cutting off your own arm should it be trapped, it must be done. But perhaps simply a questioning of what society teaches as law is enough. Afterall - It can’t all be bullshit, can it…?
Hey Mastriani,
I can’t but help see you as an Uncle Remus figure, strolling through a cartoon forest, twittering birds alighting upon your fingers to join you in a serenade of “I see skies of blue… trees of green…” But on your next wander in between the trees, look carefully, are any of those forms you see around you… Without a fellow of their own kind…?
But a factor none-the-less. It is easy to idly imagine a childless life, tough to do I think, if you are honest. But close your eyes for an instant and find yourself a father. Life demands life as its price.
If you don’t like lonliness, then have another - thwarted desire perhaps. A feeling of incompleteness, a lack of companionship. Whatever. Lonliness is an acknowledgement of the worth of others as well as self. Ask yourself why you type in this place, if a part of you didn’t feel lonliness.
Oh… Rubbish Mastriani, they escape from every pore. They are aparrent in your stride, the set of your shoulders and the scars on your knuckles. Don’t kid a kidder. Are you a vegetable lying slack upon a hospital bed - typing words eyeblink by eyeblink…? What is in will out.
Fine - we are not a logical lifeform - logic is affectation, a pair of Spock’s ears.
Please do not take this as anything beyond Tabula staring in blank incomprehension at the screen… Either you are self-decieving to an extent I have never before seen, or I am completely wrong, and have been for as long as I have been awake.
I agree - altruism in its pure form is none-existant except in idea - intent is never pure. But - though one cannot bite one’s own teeth, one can bite the teeth of another, and blunt both sets. Heaing one’s own ills by proxy is sometimes the only option we have. Nothing exists alone, nothing grows in isolation.
If you are as you say you are, then you are a static thing, a rock, detesting the moss flowing across its flanks. You may wish to unlearn from your children, but King Canute, your unnantural self… Is natural.
[edit] after a think in the car on the way home: Dismiss most of the above as reactive.
Mastriani - Your post has left me feeling like a Hick-farmer faced with an alien on his back lawn at midnight. I don’t know wether to fall down on my knees in awe, or try to kill you.
Mast, in some hope of finding common ground, wtf are you…?
Tabula Rasa
Perhaps imprecise but it implies a concession forced upon the individual through necessity. A necessity derived by what the individual values and aspires to be and which the other places a barricade to, a decision to be made, and forces a choice, a compromise.
I would suggest that all of us are “raped†daily, on one level or another, as we aspire towards one end and then are forced to concede to things we do not care for so as to overcome the obstacles of others towards our original intent.
It is another aspect of why a male finds it more difficult to integrate himself within a community of others.
The natural male inclination is to destroy, assimilate and surpass all obstacles.
The female inclination is to humour, trick and appease all obstacles.
Just to return the thread to its original subject.
The difference is that being tortured is an affront to your well-being, while your sense of identity remains unsoiled - if it is not intimately connected to your physical being.
In fact, in many ways, your sense of identity, in resisting and surviving, is reinforced by the experience.
In this case giving in to torture would shatter the aspiration of being you, if you aspire to be an individual who resists and who does not betray his friends and loved ones or does not betray himself and his own values.
In the case of rape it assails a deeper part - if you will excuse the pun - of your being if it insults your sense of identity as a male.
If your maleness is an integral part of your self-definition and this is tied to a certain ideal with limits, as to what this maleness entails and what it values, then the invasion of your physical body by the phallus of another, just like you being, can be an affront to your pride and self-esteem.
It may not harm your physical being but it does your identity.
I do not believe in the idea of a “greater good†if it is understood as something not connected to you.
For me the concept of a greater good – sometimes referred to as a selfless act - is but the transcendence of the individual’s immediate self-interests towards his greater Self-interests, as mortality forces this choice upon him.
It is the gene transcending itself towards the meme.
Not really. They are a matter of perspective.
Each side is both user and used, choosing to self-identify with the user, most often, to inflate his ego or with the used, less often, so as to excuse himself and comfort himself when things go wrong.
The user feels like he is getting the better end of the deal when he receives from the other something he places more value upon than what he is offering in return.
The used feels like he is getting screwed when what he offers is more valuable to him than what he receives or when the other cuts off what he wants to receive.
It goes back to the “rape†example.
The violator gets what we wants and the raped only feels raped when he has lost more than what he has received by the invasion of his physical being.
To one who places his manhood above safety and survival the cost might be too high.
To one that doesn’t the cost is payable.
Perhaps it can be traced back to how much the meme, which has taken over a mind, has overcome the gene or how much reason has dominated instinct.
Trouble ensues when both sides want the same things and value these things to the same degree.
There are degrees of individuality.
For me individuality is a conservative force.
It is the conservation of a core of values or self-definitions which the unity is unwilling to compromise on and still retain its sense of identity.
The denser the core is, the more rigid and concrete the individual is.
The less dense the core is, the more flexible and insubstantial the individual is.
But I do not believe in absolute isolation.
We are always in the midst of things. We call it the world.
Our self is determined in relation to the other, but not necessarily to a conscious other.
We are deemed “worthy†or not in relation to a multiplicity of otherness, constituting a system in relation to the unity we call ‘I’ - reality.
I may be a hermit yet I still exist within the world, within a natural environment, which decides if I am worthy of my existence in relation to it.
Society is but an evolution of this original environment. It is a system of otherness forcing us to prove ourselves to it.
The pyre can be consuming or it can be cleansing.
A phoenix rises from the ashes and is still recognized as a phoenix.
For there to be a place it would have to be pre-existing and an absolute, as you describe it.
For some this is a truism since they believe in the absolute otherness, they call God and towards which they aspire to transcend towards.
When this happens then the other becomes a definer of your aspirations and you become a pawn. You long to live up to the expectations of another and reach a final resting place – a reward for your suffering.
To transcend simply means to aspire to be other than what you are.
What this other means is acquired from the environment and is contained within what you hope for or value or aspire to be.
What you aspire to be isn’t an end, since when and if you attain it you will want to transcend it also towards a new possibility.
It goes back to the point Duder makes.
To be “free†is to resist and refuse all definitions – social or otherwise.
It is to forever cast away what you are towards what you aspire to be.
It is to take what others offer as a reflection of who and what you are and then shatter it before your individuality with your Will.
For me character is that core of values and self-definitions which point to, not a being since we all fail to live up to our expectations, but to a future self we want and hope to be.
An ideal ingrained in us by our parents or our peers or our culture and which we refuse to make concessions on because it would destroy what we are - an an entity hoping to be.
Our motives, our actions, our thoughts are dictated by that ambition.
Anyways I must go off now and be raped for a few bucks. =D>
My comments were written in haste and so may contain errors.
Ah well, my brain’s empty of new ideas. I believe we think the same, and differ only in articulation. By your definitions, if it is not ironic to frame it that way, I am free.
All commentary; verbal, written or digitally transmitted; by this poster is expressly a matter of personal opinion, individual belief, personal experience, and is not intended to purport necessity of change(s), implied/perceived, to other posters; physical, mental or emotional. Any attempt to treat this post in a manner contradictory to what has been thusly stated, is erroneous, and is the fault, entirely, of the reader of said post.
You make this difficult, and really it isn’t. As always, noble Satyr is far more articulate in his enumerations, but we have little to disagree about here.
What am I? I am you my brother, and Satyr. My only minute difference, is after a reactionary clip, my focus recenters, and I let go of the social pendulum, and enjoy the freefall.
Look for difference, you will find a chasm. Seek sameness, and we all mirror one another.
You misunderstand if you think me a “reactionaryâ€.
My days of wanting to change the world through revolution or enlightenment are long gone.
I am not so naïve nor so optimistic these days.
Life has taught me that not all deserve freedom or can appreciate it and use it to its full extent. Fewer still can tolerate the burden, responsibility and isolation it demands.
Describing a situation is but a necessary step towards avoiding becoming a victim of it. When I paint a perspective I do it for myself, as a way of placing my thoughts in order.
Then I seek to test my perspective against that of another’s, and so I post it publicly to get reactions and as a way of inspiring me to defend my positions by delving into them deeper and analyzing all the ramifications and parameters.
This is why I seek conflict through debate.
If anything I enjoy watching others struggle because of their own stupidity. To be honest, when I perceive the other to be ‘thick’ I actually reinforce his beliefs by playing into them.
Why would I want to give sight to the blind?
But….one often wishes to have someone to laugh with. Man is a social animal and he seeks out members of his own kind to share reality with.
I, like you, have grown accustomed to my solitude. I often seek it out and find most people tiresome and intrusive.
I can go for days without company. Most social situations are mundane and absurd to me. I mostly use them out of necessity or to observe my kind interact and behave.
Yet, generations of evolution has ingrained the social need within us all and we all need another to be with, from time to time.
The only place to find others like me is on-line, where birds of a feather flock together.
.
Do you believe in heaven , an afterlife or divine retribution ?
.