Author Topic: Weirdo-Rejectionist  (Read 12187 times)

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Holden

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For Herr Hauser: Schopenhauer's Majestic Photograph
« Reply #15 on: November 13, 2020, 02:38:28 pm »
Schopenhauer looks majestic in this photograph,only thing more majestic, is his philosophy:

https://iai.tv/articles/schopenhauers-sense-of-self-auid-1329
« Last Edit: November 13, 2020, 02:42:15 pm by Holden »
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Re: Weirdo-Rejectionist
« Reply #16 on: November 18, 2020, 09:52:53 am »
I finished reading the paper, UTOPIC PESSIMISM: THE MESSIANIC UNDERPINNINGS OF THE ANTINATALIST POLEMIC (direct download link left in on page 1 of this thread) by Joshua Robinson Miller.

I was surprised at my reaction.  That is, I was initially a hostile reader, thinking he would be attacking authors I embraced; but he did not so much attack the pessimistic conclusions of these authors as he exposed the futility and lunacy of the Antinatalist Movement.   Holden has also already come to similar conclusions, if I'm not mistaken.

Well, much like Holden, this Joshua Robinson Miller concludes that we have no choice but to just accept this raw deal for what it is.  It is not within our power to change the nature of this world, the nature of the very kernel of Nature itself.

[  NOTE: In an admonition of humility, admonition  |----> gentle reproof  ]

His concluding statement:

Quote
For those who find themselves among the pessimistic few, stoicism may provide a way of living in the pessimistic void created by the vacation of meaning. Epictetus was born a slave but died a free beggar in the early Roman Empire. His Enchiridion or manual, provides advice to those who want to discover the secret to happiness in this world. His great work begins with an admonition of humility. “Of things some are in our power, others are not...If then you desire anything not in our power, you must be unfortunate (unhappy).”

If one acknowledges the conclusions of pessimistic philosophy, it is far better to accept the world as it is than militate against it in an imaginary hope. It matters not whether the hope is for the willing extinction of the human race or the transformation of human society into a universal brotherhood. Recognizing what is in our power and only desiring that which we are capable of controlling is far more conducive to happiness than attempting to remake the world according [to] our infinite desire for more justice and equality. If we accept the thinking of Schopenhauer and the pessimists who came after him, we are left with very minimal available reactions. We can be kind to our neighbors and coworkers. We can engage in friendly ways with our children. We can help to encourage the optimistic illusions of those around us rather than attempting to deconstruct worldviews which we are unable to replace. Essentially, pessimism reveals a world with a future that is not significantly different from its past. It is beyond our ability to change this world. We just have to decide whether and how we want to live in it.

I would not go so far as encouraging the optimistic illusions of those around us, but we might ease up on deconstructing worldviews which we are unable to replace.  I can't help but notice this suggestion is pretty much right from the horse's mouth, for Schopenhauer touches upon this in his "Religious Dialogue," a kind of back and forth in the tradition of Plato recounting Socrates.  The one admonishes to allow the masses their necessary illusions, for not all are able to handle raw animal existence without meaning, even if the meaning is derived from fiction.

Of course, one could use this conclusion to say we ought to also allow Antinatalists the option of believing that they might contribute to the desired extinction of the race by not reproducing.   Chances are, our species is just another big fat cancer which has convinced itself of some kind of "higher purpose."

In other words ... as per usual, this big mother iceberg we call existence, has really got us by the balls.   :-\



The more things change, the more they stay the same.   New Boss, Old Boss, No Boss.

I have this feeling I am going to require some heavy drugs and hard liquor at intervals along the way through this thing we're calling human existence, to be honest, blunt, frank, if not even a bit rude and inappropriate.





We all know that crap is king.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2020, 12:25:36 pm by Sticks and Stones »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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man is nature herself
« Reply #17 on: November 18, 2020, 03:04:19 pm »
Holden,
Thank you for the link to Schopenhauer's Sense of Self :

At the hands of presumed experts, Schopenhauer’s profound insights have been grievously misrepresented for decades.

Also:  In his mode of existence as the pure subject of knowing, ‘man is nature herself’ and therefore undying, universal, and eternal.

Decoding Schopenhauer’s Metaphysics: The Key to Understanding How It Solves the Hard Problem of Consciousness and the Paradoxes of Quantum Mechanics is already on Library Genesis!

Someone is going to have to fund such scholarship one of these good old days.

I would have never known about this book if I had not followed the link to the article on Schopenhauer's sense of self.  Thanks again, Holden.  It took me a couple of days just to get around to discovering it in the link.    ;)

In fact, there is an entire slew of interesting titles by this Bernardo Kastrup at the genesis library: 

http://gen.lib.rus.ec/search.php?req=Bernardo+Kastrup&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=simple&res=25&phrase=1&column=def

I can't imagine the youth being able to stay focused on damn near anything if they are going to be sitting at their terminals "unsupervised" - ha!    How ridiculous.   Well, maybe the more solitary and imaginative ones will find ways to educate themselves in spite of themselves, and despite the odds against it.  Hell, we managed somehow to salvage a love of learning.   There will be others as well, rest assured.

« Last Edit: November 19, 2020, 02:51:29 pm by Sticks and Stones »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

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Re: Weirdo-Rejectionist
« Reply #18 on: November 30, 2020, 10:02:25 am »
After a second successful configure/build/compile of SageMath 9.2 from source files, I experienced enough temporary satisfaction to "allow" my "self" to continue reading Decoding Schopenhauer’s Metaphysics: The Key to Understanding How It Solves the Hard Problem of Consciousness and the Paradoxes of Quantum Mechanics.   It is delightful to read someone who feels as though they have made a great discovery in finding Schopenhauer's works.  I remember that feeling well.  I appreciate his use of terms like "spacetime" (credit given to the Physicist Eggheads) since Schopenhauer had always been pointing out that energy and matter are two sides of the same coin, and that time does not exist without space.

I am happy for Arthur Schopenhauer, that he has been well-received by those who recognize his genius.   The breakthrough Schopenhauer made, as far as smashing through the glass ceiling of Kant's "limits of reason," was quite simple, really.  It is an insight which I have heard expressed in the streets by everyday people.   There are the Arthurs in various different families of diverse ethnicities who have made this leap, stating simply something such as, "One Love."

They get it that "what it is like to be the world-in-itself" can not be different from what it is like to be any one of us.

We all know what it is like to be alive, to experience existence, hence we do know the Thing-in-itself, if only in the raw experience of our animal existence.  The more we know about ourselves, the more we will know about the nature of all that is.

Around chapter 3 or 4 is where I left off at 3AM.

The rain is coming down hard here, and although a neighbor needs help moving out today (or tomorrow!), I do not see it happening (today).   I will peck away at some technical "tinkering" until the rain lets up, and I am summoned.

Thanks again, Holden, for pointing out this author.  He claims to not have read Schopenhauer before coming to the same conclusions, and I will give him the benefit of the doubt.   Schopenhauer's work is nothing less than the Upanishads interpreted to the Western psyche.   Just as Schpoenhauer might have streamlined those ancient texts in the context of Socrates and Kant (Greek philosophy spreading via slavery and Roman military conquest of "Germanic Barbarians" [NOT!]), so too this Bernardo Kastrup may be streamlining "The World as Will and Representation" in the context of Quantum Mechanics and Modern, even Classical, Physics.

It is mind-blowing to consider that the world-in-itself is a mental phenomenon, and that one might embrace at once both Subjective Idealism and Objective Idealism when it comes to the nature of this thing we call "our" Lifeworld (Lebenswelt).
« Last Edit: November 30, 2020, 10:16:26 am by Sticks and Stones »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Holden

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Re: Weirdo-Rejectionist
« Reply #19 on: November 30, 2020, 01:05:14 pm »
https://www.ozy.com/true-and-stories/the-philosopher-of-love-who-lived-and-died-alone-except-for-his-poodles/95895/

You might like this video(if you have not come across it already):



I wish to understand mathematics. I really do. If I live long enough ,I'd like to under the fundamentals at least.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Holden

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Re: Weirdo-Rejectionist
« Reply #20 on: November 30, 2020, 01:20:17 pm »


Interview starts after 15 minutes and 20 seconds.
« Last Edit: November 30, 2020, 01:29:10 pm by Holden »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
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Nation of One

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Re: Weirdo-Rejectionist
« Reply #21 on: December 14, 2020, 10:46:32 am »
I only know what it feels like to exist as me, and Schopenhauer only knew what it felt like to exist as him, but we can infer from our own experience what the nature of reality is, we can feel what it must be like for any sentient organism to exist.  There is no dodging the problem of existence.  We each can feel the gravity of the Will to Live in the way that we are wired.   People like us have passed through our respective societies.   Our species has undergone sweeping transformations and globalization.  Maybe our tinkerings with mathematics or programming, and our explorations of literature, philosophy, and music/film are more reflective of what human animals will be doing after the collapse of industrial civilization.  Remember that we have conflicting expectations of what a post-collapse or partial collapse would be like.  Our natural state may not leave much time for the preservation of cultural artifacts, but, on the other hand, it may leave nothing but such time.

Cultivating the ability to pass long periods of time in solitude might be beneficial for mental health in the very long run.   Ataraxia is the ability to keep one's head together while the world outside is falling to pieces.  I discovered this word while rereading Cioran's The Trouble with Being Born for the Nth time in "the hospital" ... the concept itself helped me.  it was what I needed to get through each moment.

It appears that this ANTARAXIA may be at the heart of Husserlian Phenomenology in the suspension of judgement about the reality of the objective world, epoche.  Husserl coined the term epoche to represent the phenomenological reduction, but it has deeper roots:

Epoché (ἐποχή epokhē, "cessation"[1]) is an ancient Greek term. In Hellenistic philosophy it is a technical term typically translated as "suspension of judgment" but also as "withholding of assent".[2] In the modern philosophy of Phenomenology it refers to a process of setting aside assumptions and beliefs.

I do believe that this happens naturally when practicing mathematics over a lifetime.  It is OK to forget, then have to relearn in order to remember.  Maybe the understanding deepens each time we have to relearn something.   So we suspend our assumptions and approach a problem attentive to details.  We are also aware that we must ignore the pressing demands of the Will, all the panic and anxiety and fear that is hard-wired into our animal being.  That is a tricky part that I doubt anyone can claim to have mastered, since we never know what life is going to throw at us, and we each have breaking points.   Nature/existence-itself will bend us and break us.  It is our Fate.  We will be crushed and devoured.

In the meantime, we are individuated creatures placed in the predicament of NEEDING to eat in order to remain alive, to avoid death.  Is it worthwhile to solve triangles?  Is it just a monkey's trick to distract the mind from deeper questions?

What if there exists no "intellectual leader" who might provide an honest answer to our most disturbing questions?  The masses rely on traditional world religions, but within these masses are individuated human animals, each with a subjective Lifeworld (Lebenswelt).   The rulers and industrialists will not dictate the unfolding of our shared reality, but Nature itself, the one that exists in each of us, as each of us - this is the only reality any of us will ever know, the reality of having to eat and urinate and defecate.  I wake up emotional (angry? anxious, insecure, nervous?) --- requiring coffee like an infant requires a pacifier.   Without tobacco, I become quite a nervous wreck.

As anyone can see, I never claimed to be some kind of healthy guru with the answer to the question, How to live? or How to get through a life not worth living?

I'm just a frustrated chimpanzee with some disturbing questions.  And I wish to, once and for all, smash through the collective projected lies of what reality is, the Disney-ification Silenus mentions --- What is in the heads of the masses is not reality.  Reality happens within the animal body.  The emotions they experience, their frustrations and fears, are played upon by governments and corporations paid by governments to control and manipulate the masses.  Schopenhauer and Freud explored the unspeakable world, and Freud's nephew used the fruits of those explorations to strengthen the influence advertisers and propaganda machines have on YOU and ME, little units of humanity among this mass of activity on the surface of the planet.
____________________________________________
NOTE:  I have started to listen to (and watch) the Bernardo Kastrup audio/video clips, but my attention is limited with such mediums.  I am pecking away at his book as well, meaning, some times during the nights when I pull myself away from calculating or computing or deriving.  I get it that there are those, like Schopenhauer himself who wish to sum up and explain the main problem of existence itself, and this perplexes me nearly constantly, but there is something relaxing in reckoning in a calm and reflective manner. 


I listened to the part about "the intellect pulling us out of depression" with positive thinking.  I was curious to hear Kastrup's response.  I share his skepticism about the superficial changes brought about by cognitive-behavioral therapy.  Our foundations are driven by the blind will.

https://youtu.be/W_e17mfbX2s?t=1289

"Schopenhauer's recipe [for dealing with suffering, was not positive thinking at all] was to overwhelm thinking, get rid of thinking, get rid of abstract representation by flooding your consciousness with pure un-re-represented perception, that you could access the primary template behind the forms of the world underlying everything."

Freedom from suffering induced by meta-congnitive reasoning:

Freedom from reason, freedom from deliberate thinking, freedom from personal identity ...

https://youtu.be/W_e17mfbX2s?t=1190

On some level I am realizing how very limited our time on this earth really is.  With so much information available at our fingertips, it is especially challenging to focus.  Blank, unruled paper and pencil (or pen, if you insist) ... pecking away as Holden suggests, trying your own intuitive approach first, before researching a more refined approach (solution key).  Maybe your own approach is novel and worth preserving in a more permanent notebook.  Maybe graphomaniacs are drawn to mathematics because it requires a great deal of scribbling with meaningful notation, diagrams, sketches, side notes.  It is great that Schopenhauer is recognized as something more than a freak philosopher.   I suspect that the future, if there is a future as such, Schopenhauer might be listed more along the lines of the founders of religions.  That is, he may have created a "holy book" - he was using all his mental powers in a most sincere manner in an attempt to become an instrument of the Kernel of Nature Itself speaking to mankind.

We might want to consider ourselves as the inner kernel of Nature trying to get a grip on itself, trying to understand itself.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2020, 07:53:03 pm by Sticks and Stones »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Holden

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Say not the Struggle Nought Availeth
« Reply #22 on: December 15, 2020, 12:06:50 pm »

     Most people will never understand this message board.That is just a fact. I have met a few CEOs of multi-billion dollar corporations and a few Members of the Parliament. I can tell you for a fact that you have a sharper brain than all of them put together. But there is more.You represent an exceedingly rare grade of the Will.

      I am looked upon as a cretin by the people here.By this country. I understand that. I fully expected that.Its grotesquely overpopulated and poor. There maybe thousands of Holdens dying every day here- it does not matter. (Sometimes I like to think of Schopenhauer when he was trying to find  some translation work and earn some  money for his daily needs -he did not find any work).

      But I really wish you were treated better in your country. You really are one of a kind and sponsoring you would not be expensive at all.
     Is there not some kind of mechanism to lodge a complaint with regard to the unjustified medical bills which you have received?

     In the book Lila, the protagonist has a system of arranging his notes and he does not know how classify a few of his slips-I think you are one such slip.
« Last Edit: December 15, 2020, 12:19:50 pm by Holden »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
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Re: Weirdo-Rejectionist
« Reply #23 on: December 15, 2020, 04:00:12 pm »
Thank you for your moral support, Holden.  Unassimilated.   That is the label Pirsig gave the slips of paper with ideas not connected to an already existing topic category.

Yes, I do feel quite unassimilated.  And yet, I sure am not the only one who is unassimilated.   One of the great lines in Toole's Confederacy of Dunces was when he wishes he could live in ambitionless peace.  If I were to complain too much, I might risk sounding like Ignatius.   It is very easy for others to "put me in my place" simply by pointing out that I have not held down a steady job in nearly 2 decades.  So, anyone, especially children who have since become adults, who might have respected my "sharpness" or "math skills" at one point, as they became adults themselves, witnessing my life unfold, upon witnessing where all those skills and so-called sharpness got me, they are now free to mock me from afar.   I have no doubt in my mind that there are those, especially in the extended family, who like nothing better than to witness my low social status.  They want to put money in their pockets.   What an absolute fool I must appear to them, and how wonderful that they live in such a world where "a positive attitude" will get you much farther in the work-force than a sharp mind.   No one earns more at the State University than the Football coach.  Go team, go.   :-\

No, no, and again no.    I am afraid I have grown tired of trying to find a niche in American society.  They want me to play the role of "mental health consumer."  Maybe there are those within that system who might offer me genuine emotional support, but I have had enough of this ... They have so much banking on their Health Care System.  It's like the only game in town.   Now, with so many suffering severe anxiety and existential despair, they are sure to mine for more and more "emotionally disturbed persons."   Have a few drinks, go to the hospital ... now you are a client suffering from mental illness.  Shuffle 'em through ... ching, ching ...

If the youth know what's good for them, they will be sure to try and land a job with a telecommunications giant and campaign for the next big breakthrough technology.  Or, be sure to get in on the Slave Patrol or else risk being a slave patrolled.  I really have a terrible attitude.  I won't deny it.  If everyone thought like me, well ... maybe we would consider figuring a way out of this raw deal we call life/existence; but I'm afraid that each of us, along with all the other freaky creatures on this planet, are on our own.  We each suffer as lone individual organisms.   We each would endure our illnesses and heartache alone within our own hearts, within our own animal body.  I suppose this is why Schopenhauer suggests compassion as the only sensible attitude to take towards our fellow-creatures.   One must even try to have compassion for those who have wronged us.

Schopenhauer suggests that, when you find yourself hating someone with intense feeling, to consider the pain this person has experienced in their life.  Some say to forgive as long as you don't forget.   It is difficult, but if even the slightest degree of forgiveness is to be felt in the heart, it must be linked to an intrinsic awareness of their suffering and general dissatisfaction.   Even when people put up a front, like a couple that wants people to envision them as lovebirds, one knows from experience the drudgery that is animal existence.  Want, need, and utter futility.

The reason I am not too comfortable complaining about anything whatsoever is because I am aware that there are others suffering far worse fates.   There are also the countless automatons who feel they have no choice.  They have too much "dignity" and "character" to live on the dole.  Not only that, but there is no social status when one is living off the taxpayers.  I understand that many quirky and eccentric people get some kind of grant or sponsorship to do research, but those tax dollars bring some dignity.  I don't know Holden.  It's just not in the cards for me.  I mean, I have lost the desire to please or impress others.

The bills are all from August.   Over the summer, during a "trip through" the psychiatric hospital, I had passed out from the medication they gave me, and when they shipped me to the hospital (I had no choice in the matter), they sent me up to the cardiac unit!     The thing is, I was sent to the PSYCHIATRIC hospital involuntarily.  I did not want to be there.  I did not request to be there.   During the stay there, I was shipped to the regular hospital, stayed there a couple of days, and then was sent back to the psychiatric (behavioral health) hospital/jail/zoo.   They then took me in as a NEW patient, even though I was supposed to be discharged soon.  I had to be re-evaluated all over again [ching, ching].  I was literally held hostage/prisoner.  I'm disgusted with the entire system.   I do not have any faith in psychiatry or the kinds of services offered by "outpatient behavioral health care."  I'm just at this point in my life where I realize the health care industry is as corrupt as any other Big Player.  They are processing the poor through their system, sending people bills they can't or won't pay, and then claiming to have "treatment" to offer.  There are also all those who aim to make careers out of working as nurses or "mental health technicians" or "substance abuse counselors."    I don't want to be fuel for their goddamn fire.  I am not saying that there is no such thing as mental illness or emotional distress.  I simply don't believe that there is any real science to what is referred to as "being in treatment."  Holy Fuck, I hate those kinds of phrases, being in treatment.   ::)

Hell, I have lost patience with paying deference to those who think they know a little something about "treating emotional disturbance".   It is all too absurd to get too upset about.   I am ignoring the bills and hoping they (or I) will eventually just go away.

As usual, I have conflicting emotions about the people I met in the hospital.  I feel for people.  People are suffering terrible anxiety.  If I could get them all cigarettes, I would.   

Thanks again, Holden, for those shots in the arm you administer with your words.  You are Good Medicine.
« Last Edit: November 24, 2021, 10:15:29 pm by mike »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Holden

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Re: Weirdo-Rejectionist
« Reply #24 on: December 16, 2020, 11:02:33 am »
Quote
So, anyone, especially children who have since become adults, who might have respected my "sharpness" or "math skills" at one point, as they became adults themselves, witnessing my life unfold, upon witnessing where all those skills and so-called sharpness got me, they are now free to mock me from afar.

It is the same with me.My mother tells me that she regrets not having at least two more kids apart from me because I am a disappointment as I refuse to get married. I told her that she could do what she pleases.As far as I am concerned,I would go away to some forest.

I do not care much for this world of shadows. I would not mind an early departure(could it ever be early).

Those kids who have now become adults ( and,not to mention, Judas) would never manage to put in as much hours that you have put in ,in studying mathematics.For them, learning how to get thirty silver (bit) coins is good enough. They would never have the depth you have attained as regards philosophical comprehension-you know that too.

They might have some of the same blood that flows in your veins but none of your spirit,not one iota.

They are like Chinese cheap and fake replicas that gets damaged the day one buys it.You are the real deal. Genuine German Gold -good for thousands of years.I know, and you know, that there is no justice in this world of shadows so please do not expect any. However, there might be something beyond this paltry one.


Steer clear of Judas.
« Last Edit: December 16, 2020, 11:11:02 am by Holden »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
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Re: Weirdo-Rejectionist
« Reply #25 on: December 16, 2020, 01:14:47 pm »
Thank you for being such a perceptive and attentive reader.
I had written a long response, but too many tabs were open in web browser, so it was accidentally lost and has slipped into the void.

I like to imagine your maternal grandfather pleased that you are finding some solace in allowing yourself to continue your explorations in mathematics.  I have to say that when I am sick and tired of spinning my wheels, tracking down issues with installing software (or writing some code), I force myself to stop.  This is another great thing about working through math textbooks.   While it seems like a waste of time, it is often better to stop tinkering with computers when you find yourself going around and around in circles, or digging a deep hole ...

I wish I could remember what exactly it was that Virginia Woolf wrote about them not being able to lock one out of "one's own mind."

I will look in xhentric.wordpress :

Contemplation and reading numerous books simultaneously, randomly, chaotically, and nonsequentially goes against the grain of “being a productive and industrious citizen.” I can’t help but recall something Virginia Woolf had written in “A Room of Our Own” to the effect that sitting around reading in a relaxed manner may be considered one of the most deviant activities as it displays a total disdain for the work ethic and those who judge us by our “position” or lack of position in the work force.

Meanwhile, across the pond in the UK, the government is warning people who consider living on the dole as a “lifestyle choice” that soon they will be forced into the work-force, and that there will be “nowhere to hide.”
________________________________________________

From the introduction to Virginia Woolf’s On Being Ill by Herminone Lee:

… a satire on conformity begins to make itself felt. The ill are the deserters, the refuseniks. They won’t accept the “co-operative” conventions. They blurt things out. They turn sympathizers away. They won’t go to work. They lie down. They waste time. They fantasize. They don’t go to Church or believe in Heaven. They refuse to read responsibly or make sense of what they read. They are attracted to nonsense, sensation, and rashness. On the other side of the glass is “the army of the upright,” harnessing energy, driving motor cars, going to work and to church, communicating and civilizing.

Reading in bed – like writing in bed – is, it’s suggested, a form of deviancy.

Virginia Woolf asks, “If truth is not to be found on the shelves of the British Museum, where, I asked myself, picking up a notebook and pencil, is truth?”

--------------------------------------------------
FOUND IT: Virginia Woolf

Watch in the Spring sunshine the stock brokers and the great barrister going indoors to make money and more money and more money when it is a fact that 500 pounds a year will keep one alive in the sunshine.

When food, clothing, and shelter are mine, not merely do labor and effort cease, but also hatred and bitterness.

I need not hate any man: he cannot hurt me. I need not flatter any man: he has nothing to give me. It was absurd to blame any class as a whole. Great bodies of people are never responsible for what they do. They are driven by instincts which are not in their control. They too, the patriarchs, the professors, had endless difficulties to contend with. True, they had money and power, but only at the cost of harboring in their breast a vulture, forever tearing the liver out and plucking at the lungs – the instinct for possession, the rage for acquisition which drives them to desire other people’s fields and goods perpetually; to make frontiers and flags; battleships and poison gas; to offer up their own lives and their children’s lives.

But how impossible it must have been for them not to budge either to the right or to the left. What genius, what integrity it must have required in the face of all that criticism, in the midst of that purely patriarchal society, to hold fast to the thing as they saw it without shrinking.

Literature is open to everybody. I refuse to allow you to turn me off the grass. Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.

_______________________________________________

So, to paraphrase Virginia Woolf, Mathematics and Philosophy (and Computer Programming) are open to everybody.  Do not allow those who wish to control you to TURN YOU OFF THE GRASS.  Let them lock up their libraries, but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that they can set upon the freedom of your mind, Holden.
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Holden

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Re: Weirdo-Rejectionist
« Reply #26 on: December 17, 2020, 02:15:26 am »
Thanks,Herr Hauser.Suffice it to say that your plight and I might add,mine too, is that of far worse than Winston Smith's in 1984.
Unknown people knocking at my door,ringing my door bell,call up my phone.I try, as much as possible, to hide and respond to come face to face with the malicious force.

Is there some kind of ombudsman to whom you could write about getting the  invoices scrutinized?

La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Holden

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Re: Weirdo-Rejectionist
« Reply #27 on: December 17, 2020, 03:08:35 pm »
I think the fact that you have not had formal employment for close to twenty years  is something to be proud of.
This cult of cubical worship is rather new. Gentleman ,by definition, were not supposed to work like a domesticated horse but to think.
You are not asking for anything drastic-just the right to live like a free man.
Some of the ancients believed in the superiority of contemplation over action. The problem is, most of the people are so full of crude Will that they just fail to recognize your higher calling- a vocation.
 
I see that the heath care system over there is synonymous with  high way robbery. In this particular area, the UK's almost free National Health Service seems far more humane.

You live a fairly simple life. Food , shelter, some stimulants -that is all.

As far as existence is concerned,unfortunately there seems to be no way out.All I can do is to observe. All I can do is to wait for unconsciousness to arrive.

I find it interesting that Pirsig was into programming too.

I hope they forget about the bills. ( Is it possible or would they create more trouble for you?)


La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

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Re: Weirdo-Rejectionist
« Reply #28 on: December 17, 2020, 08:15:30 pm »
I don't think they will forget, but they have been adjusted downward already.  I have been dodging their phone calls on two fronts.  For one, I do not want to participate in an economic relationship with psychiatry and the health care system.   I do not want the "treatment" offered.  Those calls have since ceased, but today a call was dodged which might have been of a more financial nature.  They may wish to discuss bills or even inquire about whether I am taking prescribed medications.  They can be thick-headed.  They may have conveniently forgotten that I said I did not want to take medications like that.  I don't feel like constantly explaining my position to them.

I did consider calling them today about the bills, but it is not just one place sending me bills.  Any damn professional that laid their eyes on me at the regular hospital send some kind of bill, including the lab that was probing my heart area.  Nothing but tests ... there are two different ambulance companies sending me bills.  I can't keep track of them, and, to be honest, I would not have the 40 bucks each month to send ten dollars to each of those blood sucking entities.  Hell, I am nearly broke before the month begins since the fixed income is rather spent on the necessities.  In other words, they can't get blood from a stone.

Eventually I may be in the mood to discuss the situation with whoever is calling for me, but I have the feeling that the great epidemics of madness will burden their system to the point that they will be continually filled to capacity, an endless supply of clients, patients, people that have lost the will to live.   They will not have any rooms to spare for people to be placed there for too long.  I mean, the place really fed us well, even though I could not really move my bowels for several days at a time.

I hear that one day the zookeepers intend to charge the prisoners room and board.  It does not take much to get into trouble here in the States.  Thankfully, for the most part, I have been able to avoid altercations.   I was only placed there, in the first place, because my mother came home from a visit to my uncle's a day early, and, upon her return, I was enjoying a rare session of drunkenness, at liberty to slice up a watermelon with a large knife outside with no shirt on (August). [The mother (and association) have this weird thing in the summer about having to have a shirt on outside].

From there, my mom must have simply called the police because I was drunk, but the police came to find the watermelon and knife outside.    It must have been the large ugly medieval knife beside the watermelon that got written in some police report which gave whichever "professional-in-charge" the legal authority to hold me against my will.

fk-em'   :-\

I suppose the music didn't help either. ( https://youtu.be/3OXLRuu8YQY?t=324 }
-----------------------------------------------------------

This morning was raw with uncomfortable emotions, but my late night reading has helped a bit.  That Ernest Becker did not pull any punches when it came to discussing the real terror of being born a biological creature.  The ways family members hurt one another is just one of these dark aspects of reality Becker was shedding light on.

I don't think much trouble can be made over it, and I might even send each ten dollars if the government generates some economic traction with a stimulus - but, for the months that follow it, I am not going to go without food, shelter, or stimulants just to pay some bills to support their corrupt health care system.

In fact, I may even be dishing out more towards other bills which are escalating in this difficult year of this difficult era.   

Do you think we may be in worse shape than poor Winston in Orwell's 1984?   Hmmm ... Yes, I have gotten a close look at some of the degenerates in charge.  I imagine they can be quite the Sadists.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2020, 01:40:43 am by Sticks and Stones »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Holden

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Re: Weirdo-Rejectionist
« Reply #29 on: December 19, 2020, 02:43:19 pm »
I am sorry for the delay in response-my melancholy gets the better of me.I think the police should not be called so casually. One needs to fly under the radar. Even if you were quite drunk ,I do not believe that you would hurt anyone unnecessarily.

When I think there is potential for conflict ,beyond a certain threshold, in a place or a situation, I try to get out of there-maybe I go to a park or to a nearby forest till things quiet down a bit.

Also, a trick I use very often,in order to make sure that nobody comes in when I am not expecting them, is that I bolt the door from the outside, and only I have the key for the lock. These precautions may appear to be the symptoms of a burgeoning paranoia but experience has taught me that they have indeed helped a great deal. Pulling a Haudini has saved me from many an unpleasant experience.

As regards 1984,yes, I read it when I was 19 or 20, and immediately identified myself with Winston. My workplace has always tried to brainwash me.There are always people sending me weird letters, calling my phone, ringing my door bell. Its really bad.
I know " Brave New World" quite well too, but somehow, it just did not have the kind of impact that 1984 had on me-maybe its because of the kind of country I am in, in line with your theory.

I think that it might a good idea for me to keep an "Escape Kit" ready. It would have a few books, some stationery articles, some Ready to Eat food, maybe a small bed-sheet, and a mosquito repellent and maybe a small tent and a soap ( a few potable water bottles).
That way ,whenever the situation appears to be getting to be too hot to handle, I take the kit and run off to a nearby park or a forest  and then come back after 10-12 hours , hoping that situation would have become easier to tackle by that point of time.

I just find it very difficult to get along with people and I also do not wish to confront anyone-so the only course of action left is to hide-and stay hidden.I realise that your natural instincts are that of an outdoors-man and so for you it is even more difficult.

Your situation reminds me of this book.

https://martinjfrankson.com/2011/03/30/the-tenant-roland-topor/



Please take care!
« Last Edit: December 19, 2020, 02:46:08 pm by Holden »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.