Author Topic: Faith in Science  (Read 43442 times)

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Holden

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Then Walk Alone...
« Reply #30 on: June 03, 2018, 01:36:00 pm »
A poem for Senor Raul:

If no-one heeds your call - then walk alone If no-one speaks (to you), O unlucky one, if non-one speaks (to you), If everyone turns away, if everyone fears (to speak), then with an open heart without hesitation speak your mind alone If everyone walks away, O unlucky one, everyone walks away If no-one looks back towards the (your) unpredictable path, then with thorn pricked (of the path) bloodied feet, walk alone If no-one heeds your call - then walk alone If no-one shines a light (on the path), O unlucky one, If the dark night brings a storm at the door - then let the lightening ignite the light in you alone to shine on the path If no-one heeds your call - then walk alone.(By Tagore)
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

raul

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Re: Faith in Science
« Reply #31 on: June 04, 2018, 03:26:32 pm »
Holden,

Thank you for the poem. Very appropriate poem for the unlucky one(s).  Walk alone is what  a sensible person should do. Or better ,like you said once, get into the burrow and stay there. 

There is a Spanish poet whose name is Antonio Machado and he said once “Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar”, and the translation more or less would be “Walker/wanderer, there is no path, the path is made by walking.” The poem is longer but these are the words I remember.

The advise to walk alone for most would be viewed as anti life since the majority want to run. I would like to run but away from Earth.

Stay safe and sound.


Holden

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A Question for Herr Hentrich & Senor Raul
« Reply #32 on: June 06, 2018, 03:39:47 am »
Herr Hentrich & Senor Raul,

Schopenhauer writes:
A much more striking, but also a much rarer, characteristic
of human nature, which expresses that desire to draw eternal
justice into the province of experience, i.e., of individuality, and
at the same time indicates a felt consciousness that, as I have
expressed it above, the will to live conducts at its own cost the
great tragedy and comedy, and that the same one will lives in
all manifestations,—such a characteristic, I say, is the following.
We sometimes see a man so deeply moved by a great injury
which he has experienced, or, it may be, only witnessed, that he
deliberately and irretrievably stakes his own life in order to take
vengeance on the perpetrator of that wrong. We see him seek
for some mighty oppressor through long years, murder him at
last, and then himself die on the scaffold, as he had foreseen,
and often, it may be, did not seek to avoid, for his life had value
for him only as a means of vengeance. We find examples of
this especially among the Spaniards. If, now, we consider the
spirit of that desire for retribution carefully, we find that it is
very different from common revenge, which seeks to mitigate
the suffering, endured by the sight of the suffering inflicted;
indeed, we find that what it aims at deserves to be called, not
so much revenge as punishment. For in it there really lies the
intention of an effect upon the future through the example, and
that without any selfish aim, either for the avenging person, for
it costs him his life, or for a society which secures its own safety
by laws. For that punishment is carried out by individuals, not
by the state, nor is it in fulfilment of a law, but, on the contrary,
(That Spanish bishop who, in the last war, poisoned both himself and the
French generals at his own table, is an instance of this; and also various
incidents in that war. Examples are also to be found in Montaigne, Bk. ii. ch.
12.)
always concerns a deed which the state either would not or
could not punish, and the punishment of which it condemns. It
seems to me that the indignation which carries such a man so
far beyond the limits of all self-love springs from the deepest
consciousness that he himself is the whole will to live, which
appears in all beings through all time, and that therefore the most
distant future belongs to him just as the present, and cannot be
indifferent to him. Asserting this will, he yet desires that in the
drama which represents its nature no such fearful wrong shall
ever appear again, and wishes to frighten ever future wrong-doer
by the example of a vengeance against which there is no means
of defence, since the avenger is not deterred by the fear of
death. The will to live, though still asserting itself, does not
here depend any longer upon the particular phenomenon, the
individual, but comprehends the Idea of man, and wishes to keep
its manifestation pure from such a fearful and shocking wrong.
 It is a rare, very significant, and even sublime trait of character
through which the individual sacrifices himself by striving to
make himself the arm of eternal justice, of the true nature of
which he is yet ignorant.


What do you think of a man such as the one described by Schopenhauer in the aforementioned passage.

Thank you.
« Last Edit: June 06, 2018, 03:44:22 am by Holden »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

raul

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Re: Faith in Science
« Reply #33 on: June 06, 2018, 09:41:00 am »
Holden,

Thank you for your words. What can I answer? I am not a deep thinker like you and Hentrich. I am just a reader of this blog. I write also but my comments are not very profound.

I know nothing, Holden, as I said I will die without knowing the meaning of all this nonsense. I have mentioned reincarnation of which I understand little. But if there is reincarnation, is there a way out of  it? No idea, not a clue.

“An individual sacrificing himself by striving to make himself the arm of eternal justice of the true nature of which he is yet ignorant.”

I understand that we,human, beings are just puppets, pawns or tools of the Will to Life, or God, the gods, or demonic forces. Whatever names they have we are just actors on this stage and playing the role whose script has been written eons ago. This is nothing new.

As long as human beings exist on Earth there will be injustice. But the greatest injustice is against human beings. This universe is an abomination. We are here to endure pain and misery.

Eternal justice. Forgive my ignorant words, but in my view, what I see is eternal injustice. Injustice where I was not consulted in being brought into this slaughterhouse called Earth. We are just here to be exploited in this human farm and nothing else. We are being milked here on this planet. The way human scientists experiment with mice and rats in their laboratories, we, humans, are subjected to different experiments but on a different scale. The engineers are building better robots every day but they refuse to see themselves as robots.

What a joke we are! We place value on gold, silver, jewels,etc, but we do not place value on our fellow human beings. That happens because our builders do not value their human pets very much. 

Stay safe and sound.

Nation of One

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Re: Faith in Science
« Reply #34 on: June 06, 2018, 10:18:40 am »
Greetings.

I read the passage I could not help but think of the abolitionist, John Brown, who was sentenced to death by hanging by the State.   I will not go into detail but will just say that he advocated armed insurrection as the only way to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United States. 

I also could not help but recall the strong feelings of indignation, disgust, and outrage Schopenhauer felt in connection with what he called "the Slave States."  He referred to the slave-owners who went to church every Sunday as "devils in human form."

Now, having recalled all this, I will point out, with no disrespect to Schopenhauer intended, that Arthur did not have this trait which he describes, and John did have this trait.

I, myself, do not have the trait.  When I was a young man, I was conscious of social injustice and the reality of severe oppression, but as I became more aware of the immensity of the systemic power structure, I realized that the best one can do in this life in order to preserve their own mental health and keep their own ass out of the hot seat, is to lay low and, as cowardly as this sounds, mind one's own business.

I do not wish to tangle with the forces of evil.

I, much like Schopenhauer, prefer to vent my frustrations with words, and, unlike John Brown, I am no soldier nor a warrior who takes up arms against "the State" or any other abstract notion.

I know your question was not about me or whether or not I have this trait, but you wanted to know how Raul or I felt about such a man that had this trait, where he felt compelled to enforce some kind of eternal justice when exacting such a punishment would be considered criminal since the offender is the very entity which defines legality.    Case in point, chattel slavery was "legal" in the United States and John Brown's advocating a call to arms to abolish the practice was "illegal".

I do not wish to go deeply into this matter since it leads to all kinds of debates about "God's Laws" versus "Man's Laws".

All I know is that by definition (in Physics), a Law is that which cannot be broken.  If it can be broken, it was not a Law in the first place.

I wish I had more to say on this, but I am afraid, while I do acknowledge John Brown as a heroic and noble character, there are many others who murder thinking they are dishing out "eternal justice," who are simply programmed robots brainwashed in some military camp unleashing energy from sexual repression.

It's all too fuucked up to make any definitive statements about the traits of those who are obsessed with vengeance against oppressors. 

I'm afraid I am just a "little man" who studies math in the corner of a room.   I am no such hero; but, come to think of it, neither was Arthur Schopenhauer, for that matter.  Again, I certainly do not intend to disrespect Schopenhauer, nor do I suggest he could have done anything other than lament (from Germany) over the terrible injustices against humanity which were taking place across the oceans in "the New World".
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

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Holden

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On the Will in Nature
« Reply #35 on: June 08, 2018, 04:56:02 am »
Dear Herr Hentrich & Dear Senor Raul,

Thank you for your invaluable comments.Very much appreciated. I wish I could become a man like the two of you someday.
By the way, here is something Schopenhauer might have included in his book "On the Will in Nature":

 
For Jennifer and Jeremy Sutcliffe, it was supposed to be a relaxing day at home. A daughter and granddaughter were coming to visit. A family cookout was planned for later in the afternoon.

But by the end of that day in late May, Jeremy Sutcliffe would be in a coma, his body ravaged by rattlesnake venom and doctors unsure whether the 40-year-old would survive.

It all started with some yard work.

To prepare for the day’s festivities, Jennifer told The Washington Post that she and her husband decided to tidy up the yard of their home near Lake Corpus Christi in southern Texas.

Jennifer was working in a flower bed when she discovered an invader that was much more sinister than pesky weeds. Hiding among her flowers was a four-foot-long Western diamondback rattlesnake.

“I reached down to pull out a little area of grass that was growing around one of my flowers, and I almost grabbed the snake,” she said. “The snake was not happy about that at all. It came up with its head, so I screamed.”

Alerted by his wife’s panic, Jeremy came over with a shovel and decapitated the snake, a move that for many other animals would have meant swift death.

But what the Sutcliffes didn’t know is that snakes can still bite and inject venom for at least an hour, if not more, after being decapitated. So when Jeremy went to pick up the snake’s head about 10 minutes later, he never expected it to bite him in the hand, Jennifer said.

“I heard him screaming that it had bit him,” said Jennifer, who was in the house at the time. “I ran out there, and he was able to get the snake ripped off his hand.”

Then, chaos ensued.

Jennifer, who is a nurse, immediately got Jeremy into the car and dialed 911 to figure out which of the local hospitals had antivenin. She learned that the nearest hospital that could save her husband was a little over an hour away. They had made it about two miles when Jeremy started losing consciousness, suffering from loss of vision and having mini-seizures, Jennifer said.

“When he was going in and out he said, ‘If I die, I love you,’ ” she said, adding that Jeremy told the same thing to his daughter while they waited for an ambulance. “I think he was pretty scared.”

Jennifer was scared, too, but tried to stay positive.

“I was telling him that he was going to be okay,” she said. “I kept reassuring him that the ambulance was on its way, just trying to keep him awake.”

He was eventually airlifted to Christus Spohn Shoreline Hospital, Jennifer said.

At the hospital, Jennifer was told her husband was going into septic shock, had internal bleeding and that his blood pressure was consistently “bottoming out.” Eventually, Jeremy was put into an induced coma and placed on a ventilator. His organs had started shutting down, his wife said.

“There was actually three different times in the first 24 hours that the doctors told me that they didn’t think he was going to make it,” Jennifer said. “As a nurse, knowing what they were talking about was scary. I kept talking to him while he was in a coma, and I kept telling him to fight it, and he made it through.”

Jeremy came out of his coma May 31 and is now in stable condition, Jennifer said. He had been treated with 26 doses of antivenin. Doctors told her a normal bite is usually treated with two to four doses.

But Jeremy has a lengthy recovery ahead of him, his wife said, as he is still showing signs of weakened kidneys.

She said her husband has thought about that Sunday morning and talks about wishing he could go back and do just one thing differently.

“The smart thing would have been for him to scoop it up with a shovel of course instead of trying to reach down and pick it up with his hand,” she said, adding that Jeremy had no idea the snake wasn’t completely dead. A better option, experts say, is to call animal control to have the snake safely removed.

Although being attacked by a severed snake head seems unusual, Sean Bush, a snake expert at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University told NBC News in 2014 that it’s “very common” for snake heads to still bite because it’s “a last-ditch effort to survive.” In 2014, a Chinese chef was reportedly killed by the head of a spitting cobra as he prepared to serve its body for soup, according to the China Daily.

Reptiles are coldblooded and have slower metabolisms than warm-blooded creatures such as humans, which means their internal organs can work for much longer even after decapitation, according to Gizmodo.


“They get real snappy in the throes of death,” Bush said.

Jennifer said she hopes what happened to her husband can serve as a cautionary tale and people will know not to assume a snake is dead just because it appears to be.

“It’s a common thing for people to grab a shovel and cut off their heads or whatever,” she said. “That’s what people do a lot just out of fear.”

“One split second can change everything for sure,” she added.
 P.S.: They just could not let the snake be alone ,could they?What can I do Herr Hentrich,they force me to be like the chopped off head of the rattle snake.
« Last Edit: June 08, 2018, 05:50:41 am by Holden »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

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I too am the decapitated head of the rattle snake.
« Reply #36 on: June 08, 2018, 08:41:44 am »
Let us not forget the Will which our own animal bodies are a manifestation of.  Let us not forget the reptilian brain residing at the base of our necks. 

The subject of Schopenhauer's study was the world itself - as phenomena perceived, processed and filtered through animal sensory receptors, and as noumena which is the world-itself and the substance of our very own bodies as well as the fangs and venom of the snake.

When I wake up in the morning, I experience what can be described as "anger".  I become aware that I am more than just a disagreeable person.  Even if I think of myself as amiable, I am not pleasant.

The reason that I am not pleasant has nothing to do with any specific character traits.  It has nothing to do with "sin" or any "defects" or nueroses.  It has nothing to do with karma or any baggage being carried around from previous carnations. There is only one reason that I experience "my so-called self" as unpleasant upon awakening, and it is this.   Life is unpleasant.   It is the very nature and condition of being alive which is unpleasant, so I refuse to take it personally, not do I wish to remedy it via psychiatric medication, "positive feel-good thinking", or Zen meditation.

I'm sure that upon analysis, if pressed by a professional conversationalist, we might dredge up a great reserve of repressed pent-up resentment and bad feelings toward countless individuals.    I will not analyze myself too intensely, but let's just say that the line we draw between the Creature we are and the Man we think ourselves to be is wholly subjective.

I was thinking of the manifestations of the Will in the world, how it is everywhere, and how the media and the professional establishment pathologizes the Will similarly as religious and common folks demonize the Will.   

Don't pull weeds in Texas.

Holden, I have a very mean-streak in me, but I know that it is nothing personal or peculiar specifically to me.  I am the Will. I too am the decapitated head of the rattle snake.

Artists paint flowers and views of mountains and perhaps even imagined galaxies and milky ways.

The world as representation is purely a functional aspect of the world as will.

The real world is what we experience within ourselves.  It's not pretty.  I keep saying it again and again, that life is not pleasant.  Why should I be surprised when I feel like a miserable cantankerous bastard?   I can't view the television without hating those I see. 

If I have been judged harshly by society, so be it.  I have judged society equally as harsh, so the feelings of disdain are mutual.

Where do abstract ideas like "love" and "freedom" exist?

There are no chains heavier than those of biological necessity, the need to eat, the need to rest and sleep.   Where do ideas such as "duty" and "honor" exist?

For that matter, where might I find quadratic irrational numbers?

Lo and behold, when one is bitten by a rattlesnake, the entire cosmos is reduced to the pain experienced by the body in distress.

Thought experiment:  While studying math imagine being bitten by such a creature.

What is real in this life, Holden?   How can we get anywhere with words and mathematics?  Where does anything lead?   Into dust, into nothing we vanish ... and yet, here we are, still, for now, at least.


« Last Edit: June 08, 2018, 06:20:26 pm by Kaspar Hauser »
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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raul

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Re: Faith in Science
« Reply #37 on: June 09, 2018, 11:06:01 am »
Holden,

It is I who say thank you for your important comments and this story about the Sutcliffes. I don’t think you would like to become like me. Not at all. I am sure in your building you see those signs that says “DANGER” Do not touch anything” or something like that. Those who want to get you, should bear that sign in mind. “DANGER” “Do not touch Holden”. An arrow must indicate skulls next to your name like those pirate ships.

I am not good at all. I am shallow, and coward. The little flame I had in me is extinguished. Most want you to do things 24/7/365 and not being. One has to do things, one has to contribute to society, one is forbidden to become paranoid after seeing that there is something wrong in life. I know there are many important things to do up to a certain point. They are important to distract oneself.

We know our human brains are wired to be active. These men and women too who go hiking the Everest or other mountains or practice other extreme sports have more feeling-good chemicals than me. They own the future so to speak.
I am not sure if this is true or not but  Graham Greene, the British author, used to take a gun and try to kill himself every time he felt stuck. I suppose it was a way to boost himself. He was a man of adventure, a spy and an important writer. I saw a classic movie years ago, Our Man In Havanna with Alec Guinness.

Stay safe and sound.

Ibra

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Re: Faith in Science
« Reply #38 on: June 09, 2018, 12:36:42 pm »
raul,
sorry to hijack this thread. yes the future doesn't belong to the defeatist. but people wouldn't leave me alone to my defeat, they need to include me in their future as a spectator maybe. this week my boss at work complained that i am a negative (this is like the 10th time he complained that to my face, long before another boss sent me to HR because I no team player). my family complains that i should be positive. the girl i was messaging before had left because she needs a man with aspirations , an ambitious one.

I think, the "Will" knows pessimists will not succumb to it, so its power is used instead as a way to torture the body and mind it belongs to.

Suffering is the only fruit of human race

raul

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Re: Faith in Science
« Reply #39 on: June 11, 2018, 04:43:56 pm »
Ibra,

Thank you for your words. Even if the future does not belong to the defeatists, I think we are on the right path. I think Hentrich, Holden and others are on the right path. I suffer also because of my lack of ambition here. I have been told that I am a loser, a failure, etc.,etc. Ever heard of attychiphobia? It means fear of failure. I was made to believe this ccrrapp. Those who unfortunately think that the road to success will  lead to some kind of heaven, are deeply mistaken.

Their heaven is a heaven of hell. They just shut their eyes, their ears and their mouths in order not to see, hear and speak. I did the same. I admit that. The system/establishment treats us like animals, no offence, but we are humans with a brain that gives us the power to reason and question. It took me a long time to realize that schools,jobs, marriage, careers are just tools to keep us enslaved and they have been successful. Up to now marriage has been traditional, a woman and man, a method used to keep the economic system. The churches and the temples are tools to keep the system going.

Couples buy and sell, buy apartments, cars, travel packages, smartphones, medical services, mortgages, bank loans,  etc,etc. In the future maybe the marriage will be for three, one woman and two men, two men and one woman. This is nothing new. I am sure Hollywood will produce films that encourage this type of marriages. Brainwashing at all levels. We are subjected to social engineering. You know that already. I mean no offence but that is same-sex marriages are being approved in many parts of the world. That is why we are brought here, to be exploited to the fullest.

Stay well.

Holden

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Becoming Animal
« Reply #40 on: June 13, 2018, 04:20:53 am »
To become animal is to participate in movement, to stake out the path of escape in all its positivity, to cross a threshold, to reach a continuum of intensities that are valuable only in themselves, to find a world of pure intensities where all forms come undone, as do all the sig-
nifications, signifiers, and signifieds, to the benefit of an unformed matter of de-
territorialized flux, of nonsignifying signs. Kafka's animals never refer to a
mythology or to archetypes but correspond solely to new levels, zones of liber-
ated intensities where contents free themselves from their forms as well as from
their expressions, from the signifier that formalized them. There is no longer
anything but movements, vibrations, thresholds in a deserted matter: animals,
mice, dogs, apes, cockroaches are distinguished only by this or that threshold,
this or that vibration, by the particular underground tunnel in the rhizome or the
burrow. Because these tunnels are underground intensities. In the becoming-
mouse, it is a whistling that pulls the music and the meaning from the words.
In the becoming-ape, it is a coughing that sound dangerous but mean noth-
ing" (to become a tuberculoid ape). In the becoming-insect, it is a mournful
whining that carries along the voice and blurs the resonance of words. Gregor
becomes a cockroach not to flee his father but rather to find an escape where
his father didn't know to find one, in order to flee the director, the business, and
the bureaucrats, to reach that region where the voice no longer does anything
but hum: " 'Did you hear him? It was an animal's voice,' said the chief clerk

Deleuze and Guattari


« Last Edit: June 13, 2018, 04:23:31 am by Holden »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Holden

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To Here Hentrich and Senor Raul
« Reply #41 on: June 15, 2018, 10:09:08 am »
Deleuze jumped out of a window.His body shattered-turned into a vertiable rhizome.
To be in so much pain that one would rather jump out of a window...
You know Herr Hentrich and Senor Raul that I was born in a Hindu family.In the government records they ask us to write a religion (no you don't have an option to write atheism)-you must write Hinduism or Islam or Christianity or Sikhism or Buddhism or Jainism.
So,nominally I am a still a Hindu(though a Schopenhauerian atheist in reality).As a kid,till the age of 9 I stayed with my maternal granny-she used to tell me a lot of bedside stories.She was a practising Hindu.She used to tell me about reincarnation.Supposing she was right I must have done something in my last life which caused me to be reborn.I am quite likely to do such a thing again-what could it be?It might be that my heart was full of hatred for someone.I am a hateful man.Or did I treat an innocent cruelly?Very much possible.Whatever it might be-I am sure that the hatred within me is still very strong.There is no salvation for a hateful man like myself.I am not like Buddha or Schopenhauer or like you Herr Hentrich.I am destined to live on for a very long time.
To be born again will be the most painful experience but there is very little I can do about it-destined to suffer and to die and yet to be born again.
It's maddening ,yes?There is no escape-not even in death.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

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Flip the script
« Reply #42 on: June 15, 2018, 10:45:02 am »
Holden, I too am hateful and filled with resentments.   I have learned that the best revenge against those who I despise is to cultivate an attitude of indifference and disdain, and even to have the audacity to enjoy my own company isolated from those whose company I would prefer not to suffer.

As for reincarnation, since the earth is one massive graveyard, if it is true that matter cannot be created nor destroyed, then I suppose it is highly plausible that our extended bodies are composed of recycled or regenerated elements.  As for our psyche or an individualized identity which carries the psychological imprints of the recycled material, I suppose that anything is possible, but how helpful is it as a way of understanding our predicament?

One thing is clear:  each of us is nothing, but at the same time, our inner experience of reality is all there is for us.  For a long time mankind has passed down traditional wisdom as a kind of guide for those who are incarnated.  Korzybski referred to us as time-binding animals. 

Think of how different each of our experiences of existence might have been had there been no such thing as culture.  We would be naked apes pulling roots from the soil or trying to catch bird and fish to kill and eat.

While we still require sustenance, culture has mad a huge impact on creating who and what it is we think we are.

When I smoke the first cigarette of the day outside, and there is a gentle cool breeze with the sun shining, birds tweeting, I think for a second, perhaps I ought to do as the natives of Turtle Island did and hold the tobacco high in the air and offer thanks for this experience --- for the eggs and bread and coffee and tobacco and math books and computers and pencils ...

And, for a few seconds, I silently hold up the tobacco and accept my situation of being a ridiculous creature, and for a brief moment, I am able to laugh with the entire creation knowing how this "I" shall vanish into thin air, like the wind ...

We know we shall become nothing, and that's the GOOD news!

If the thought of being recycled into a new form of life after this promised release disturbs you, maybe it is best for you come to terms with this supposedly endless cycle and find a way out directly by trying to find joy in your misery.

How does this work?  I'm not so sure, but it is sure to involve a great deal of self-honesty, facing the reality of the riddle we are trapped in, and cease striving for any kind of satisfaction or contentment.

Ironically and paradoxically, in ceasing to aspire to any kind of contentment, you might find contentment in this misery.

Many of the cultures of the world seem to pass on some kind of guidelines that say all this is OK, but in your neck of the woods, many more are more likely to approach the discomforting truth that what we have here is a bit of a nightmare.  They speak of eons and eons of time periods and cycles, I guess as a way to prepare you for the long haul.

Whether we like to admit it or not, we are a part of this species, a part of the cultures which we have been exposed to.

We begin to understand Cioran's lament about how he would prefer to be an amoeba.

Maybe in trying to figure out our cultures we are making our lives more difficult than they need to be.

Maybe there is a way to resign.

I see what you are saying about the apparent inescapable nature of this predicament.   If we are recycled, then there really is no end to this, and we best develop some strategies for minimizing our distress and anxiety.


As far as I am concerned, I resign from humanity. I no longer want to be, nor can still be, a man.  What should I do?  Work for a social and political system, make a girl miserable?   Hunt for weaknesses in philosophical systems, fight for moral and esthetic ideals?   It’s all too little.   I renounce my humanity even though I may find myself alone.   But am I not already alone in this world from which I no longer expect anything?    (Emil Cioran)

I sympathize with those who seek escape in drugs; but, as one who has tried that route, it is not a true escape.   

Your concerns are certainly troubling, considering, as you do, that death itself may not offer this release.    Schopenhauer was also concerned with how salvation might be attained.

Maybe we will have to accept that salvation is simply not even a remote possibility.

Consider the question, "What now?"

If only we could sleep it off!
« Last Edit: June 15, 2018, 11:39:00 am by Kaspar Hauser »
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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