When we realize the madness we are in; we become problem slaves.
What is one to do after becoming a problem slave? Have you ever witnessed how the slave mentality is enforced within families? There are some families I do not think I would have survived my teenage years in. It's amazing that suicide is not an even more common practice.
Could this conflict between those who question the madness and those who defend or enforce the madness be the reason why we can have deeper conversations on a message board on the Internet than we can while sharing meals with family members? With family and most of society, we have to keep things superficial.
Our deepest thoughts we keep to ourselves. The "conspiracy against the human race" is this tendency for the conventional, well-adjusted, the most acclimated to the way things are to be in positions of authority over those who question existence itself to the dregs. There is this tendency of social creatures to absorb passively the culture, mores and behaviors of society without analyzing them. They go on to have children and to impose their views on their children. If the children revolt, perhaps they are punished by being "rejected" by their parents. While the adult child may come to view this rejection as a terrible thing, there is no other way it could turn out for the problem slave. To be accepted by the parents, who demand obedience at the expense of critical analysis, is not in the adult child's best interest.
Maybe that's why I prefer math books over society. There's only so much we can discuss before an argument ensues. Like so many others, I'm just trying to get through it. When I find someone's views to be oppressive, rather than allowing my energies to be drained by hating them, I short-circuit the process simply by thanking my lucky stars I was not born as their child at their mercy.
Have you ever noticed the sick pleasure some people in positions of authority take when they have the unconventional at their mercy?
We say life is absurd and that there is no purpose. Life is difficult. When we come to have a grim view of life, we learn to just keep our thoughts to ourselves. I do not say out loud, "Nobody chooses to be born" because I don't want to hear someone tell me life is a "gift from God."
Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division ... these operations follow a definite logic; but we cannot demand that life be logical or rational.
Maybe when we figure some things out in our heads we become unfit for polite society, and so we must wear a mask so that we avoid confrontations.
Every individual has psychological issues, most likely from the trauma of having been born in the first place.
It is a relief that we are not obligated to believe in anyone's god. We do not have to worship a god just because our mother and sister worship that god. We do not have to apologize for not paying homage.
When we choose to think independently, then we cannot allow ourselves to bemoan the fact that we are left alone or rejected by society. When you think about it, it is we ourselves who have rejected polite society and their values.
Still, I try to get along ... When with my sister and her husband, I try not to discuss how abandoned my nephew feels. I no longer want to be involved. It's enough that I don't have any children, that I have spilled the demon seeds down the drain throughout my life, and that whatever seeds are left are drying up. Good riddens. I am getting through this life without imposing it on another.
Maybe it is best that we remain superficial and shallow when with family and others in society. It causes less grief for us to keep our real feelings about life to ourselves.
If I can be content working through a handful of math books for ten years, then that will be another stretch of time I will have made it through without feeling compelled to look for some kind of "meaningful relationship" or "fulfilling employment". I am not looking for a god to save me. I am not entertaining any fantasies about living in some kind of commune out in the woods with primitive-anarchists. No, I suspect I don't really like people, that I am not at all enthusiastic about being alive.
So, my drug of choice is mathematics. Emotional independence is what I am after.
Living rational in an irrational world is not rational, but I am for acknowledging the absurd situation we have been born into and just getting though it without expecting much from the whole "thing".
You know, as each day passes in this life, I am less and less inclined to give anyone any advice in how to get through this life. I would not even suggest someone to abstain from alcohol, for I fully acknowledge that I "needed" every drink I consumed, and I appreciated every puff of herb I inhaled. I just know that studying math is the safest drug for me at this time for me.
I call it a drug because that is the kind of approach I want to take - an antisocial, anti-productive (nonproductive? indifferent to the whole concept of "productivity"), somewhat deviant approach. I want to think about math because I feel I have thought enough about life, and that I may have figured life out well enough to be quite prepared to do my part in becoming extinct as a species. I don't want to get caught up in family drama. I don't want to get caught up in national drama, racial drama, religious drama, romantic drama, etc.
I want to just be cool with not giving a shiit. Indifference? Apathy? Maybe. I see people get worked up about their gods and their religions, and they speak as though they know the nature of this universe. I don't want to be like that at all. I want to realize that we are unable to know something that we are inside of. The head is in the universe and the universe is in our heads, and it's all so unspeakably absurd.
Why should I care about how to go about proving a simple theorem? Well, it takes my mind off the drama and tragedy of existence. In the end, it's a distraction which relieves the mind of anxiety, worry, grief, sorrow, boredom.
Many people clamor for political and economic independence. Wouldn't mental and emotional independence be the real treasure? And yet, I surely am dependent upon money for shelter and groceries, among other things, so I can't boast of being truly independent.
Maybe the best thing we can hope for is to care less and less about what goes on in other people's heads. It's hard to judge anyone for doing what they do to get through life, so I generally try to just leave people alone since I want to be left alone. That's the golden rule, right? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? You are them. I am you and you are me. We are the cow in the slaughterhouse?
In a very real sense we are each very alone in this life. We might as well find out ways to enjoy our own company. For me it is studying math. At other times it was drinking alcohol and talking to myself. I was still enjoying my own company and did not pine away to be with others. I knew I wasn't missing out on anything.
Sometimes I feel like I write nonsense. In Crime and Punishment, one of Dostoevsky's characters says,
“What do you think?” shouted Razumikhin, louder than ever, “you think I am attacking them for talking nonsense? Not a bit! I like them to talk nonsense. That’s man’s one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth! I am a man, therefore I talk nonsense! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen. And a fine thing, too, in its way; but we can’t even make mistakes on our own account! Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I’ll kiss you for it. To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s. In the first case you are a man, in the second you’re no better than a parrot. Truth won’t escape you, but life can be fenced in and cramped.”I talk a whole lot of nonsense but see myself as an honest man because I face the possibility that I might be full of shiit.
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