{∅, {∅}, {∅, {∅}}} : Rage Against the Meat Grinder

Let us never forget the first responsibility we have, which is to recognize the gort inside ourselves, and to insure that it will never take control of the human consciousness control panel in the brain’s command center.

What does it mean to recognize the gort inside ourselves?

A gort believes that perception is reality.  How do we catch ourselves believing "what is so is so", and what are some strategies for busting out of that mental state?

Schopenhauer opens The World as Will and Representation stating that "the world is my representation" - perceptions, appearances ... and he ends that book stating that all the suns and galaxies are nothing.  When the creature dies, the entire creation evaporates?

So, when the outside world puffs itself up into significance, we may have become so immersed in our perceptions that we forget that life will pass like a dream [nightmare] in the night ...

I like the comment in the video extract:

"Why are you always smiling?"  (or is he always smirking? - subtle difference)

"Because it's all so f'ing hysterical!"

As life passes, people go their separate ways.  I have found on more than one occasion, when I see someone for a short moment, someone I would walk through woods with and have many conversations with many years ago, when there is only a 2 minute opportunity to say anything, he says, "You know, you were right about some things ... Life really is so absurd.  It's all so absurd, and most people I meet talk about the stupidest things, like the latest sporting event or some TV show!"

At least we are discussing some rather deep things on our little message board ... and - BEHOLD - no advertizements!

We can live among the gorts and not be of the Gort Hive Mind.

I remember being stunned while reading Schopenhauer early in the 1990's, knowing him to be a rather bold atheist (in the Buddhistic sense of "Creator God not required"), when, while describing one of his trips to the library, he nonchalantly uses the term, "the Holy Ghost".  Something like how the Holy Ghost was guiding him to choose a book.

In the Pessimist's Handbook (or Counsels and Maxims) he advises, "You should read only when your own thoughts dry up, which will of course happen frequently enough even to the best heads; but to banish your own thoughts so as to take up a book is a sin against the holy ghost; it is like deserting untrammeled nature to look at a herbarium or engravings of landscapes."

Somewhere there is a poor devil locked in a cell who would be ecstatic to have access to a math textbook just at his or her level of comprehension, along with some pencils and a fresh composition notebook.  It would be a sin against the holy ghost were I to not follow my bliss while blessed with this opportunity to do so!

OK, so, I mention this to point out that we each have our own personal way of using terminology, and the use of such terminology by different heads may not be representing the same concepts or ideas.

I don't want to totally confuse myself by saying things like, "my gort loves to study math ... it is so happy to just totally detach and review partial derivatives ..."

"My gort loves a toasted bagel with cream cheese."

Does it matter whether I call it "my gort" or "the holy ghost" or "my tummy" ?

What if my truest, most natural "self" would actually prefer to be stoned on reefer or zonked out of his mind on whiskey howling at the moon?  Or is it the gort that prefers inebriation and something altogether more authentic in me that wants to review partial derivatives?  Ugh ... language can be so annoying.  I equate the gort with inauthenticity, but talking about authenticity opens up a can of existential worms.

It - the Thingly Presence, which is either attracted or repelled, the Will - even were one's desire to deny the Will, is this not what one wills?

It's like the conundrum of devout Buddhists who so very strongly desire to transcend desire.

Shall we just go insane, and call it a day? 

This morning I am eating bananas and diverting my scribblings into yet another scratchpad ... detaching from the hysteria, neurotically sharpening pencil after pencil, and taking a certain delight in manipulating symbols and refamiliarizing myself with various notation.

sidenote:  One could get lost for an entire morning thinking about notation: Notation Guide.

Meanwhile, there are standing armies, militarized police, weapons manufacturers, soldier training camps, engineers designing a futuristic Volkswagen, and content or semi-disgruntled employees stocking eggs and coffee in the countless grocery stores. 

And, somewhere there must be a Salinger or Vonnegut working on a novel in a foxhole.

Is it possible to just resign oneself to one's fate?  If I experience some strange kind of satisfaction tinkering with some basic calculus, trigonometry and algebra with the temporary "biological security" afforded my body via a bundle of bananas, can I do so in a blissfully detached manner?   Is there any moral imperative for me to be emotionally overwhelmed with "the state of the world"?

I want to nurture a Zenlike mental calm.  I am sorry, but I have never been one for marching or saluting flags.  Maybe I deserve to perish.  So be it.

I distinctly remember experiencing a nervous breakdown during the last half of my senior year in high school (age 17).  I was too upset about Indian Reservations and the nightmare existence of inner city populations.  I could not concentrate on calculus.  It did not seem to matter at all.

Do I associate the kind of emotional detachment necessary for studying mathematics with "the civilizing process" (i.e., "the gort")?  Do I romanticize passion as being more natural?

Granted, I am a complex man with contradictory qualities, downright disharmonious and complicated.  I do like using the term "gort" to describe those who take celebrity culture seriously, those who make a career as TV personalities, those who cheer for teams and wave flags and fight wars and execute criminals, etc ... BUT ... when I turn this term on myself, I become more than a little confused.

One might recall terms from the 1960's and even 1950's --- like "square".  I suppose there was also a romanticizing of indigenous cultures as well as tribal hunter/gatherer culture.

Now, as usual, I am circling around an issue without coming to any conclusions.

When I say, "I want to continue to think about mathematics today.  I want so very much just to go over some problems with pencil and inexpensive notebook."

Forthebirds and Holden.  I have been wrestling with these inner conflicts throughout my life.  What is so, really?   One man calls phenomena demonic possession, another calls it a complex.  One calls mathematics "square" while another finds it one of the most beautiful activities to get involved in, even if only on a mechanical computational level.

Yes, as usual, I raise more questions and offer no solutions.

Hence, all the question marks in each forum category.

You know, not to keep harping on and on about the Queen of Science, but, many mathematics problems don't have a solution, and THAT is the final answer.  Maybe we will never have any firm grasp of our situation, predicament, quandary ... but there may still be some psychological relief we attain by communicating this in a round a about way.   

I know what you must be thinking.  I am comical without trying to be funny.  It is our situation that is comical.  Perhaps there are some "invisibles" getting a great laugh observing us trying to figure out what the fuuck is going on here.   

What you said in a couple sentences gives me a lot to think about.

I think your truest, most natural "self" only cares about one thing: experiencing itself physically as what it knows conceptually. How long that takes and the path or paths it takes to get to that point might be somewhat directed by the body and mind.

I would like to think that this self does not exist, but there are certain patterns of behavior, a temperament, a certain "something" that could be imagined as a "personality".   Experiencing my "self" physically as what "it" knows conceptually.  This is very fascinating.

I rarely take advantage of the many helpful videos on ZooTube that offer guidance, but, I was confused about translating from Cartesian coordinates to polar coordinates, so I did a search (not on youtube/zootube), and there was a link from the search engine (I use ask DOT com) to a video lecture given by my new "friend" Herb Gross.  He is quirky and goofy and very intelligent - amiable and likeable.  He would unfortunately most likely be mocked and abused in a jail or institution or even a standard high school scenario ... and this is just an inkling of how complicated knowing one's true self can become ...

There is a part of me that would far more want to emulate Herb Gross than another "friend" from my past, say, Marshal Fuuckin Mathers.

I'm not kidding.  I think this is why I like to isolate so much.  Society and the image we make in the consciousness of others seems to define what one's "identity" is ... and I just want to BE ... and I want to BE more like Herb Gross than like a crazy drunk psychopath out in the woods throwing down a pint of vodka and howling at the moon.  On second thought, though, I would not want to be like Herb Gross or like Eminem.  I just want to be me, although, there may not even be a "me".

I am nothing like either Herb Gross or Eminem.  I am just using them as extreme personalities.  Who I am must have a great deal to do with the environment I am in. 

I'm going to let myself receive some guidance from a video by someone who seems to have a great deal of insight, and yet, I can't keep my subconscious mind from recognizing how terribly received this individual would be in most vulgar society.  Schopenhauer's words come to mind ... about how a genius will be abused by a half a dozen blockheads.  I am not claiming to be a genius at all.  It's just that, at this time in my life, I want to nurture a part of my personality that may have been afraid to express itself - out of some inner fear of being some kind of goofy creep who likes calculators and logarithmic tables.

I want to recap your words, because Hermann Hesse wrote an entire novel about the complications of selfhood, suggesting we have over 1000 selves within our being.  He simplified it into the wolf and the man.  He went on to reveal, in the novel Steppenwolf, which is practically autobiographical, that his "friends" or "associates" seemed to like his "wolf personality" that got drunk and howled at the moon, and they did not at all care for the "man part" that was drawn to learning, mediation, etc ....

How does one live an authentic life?

FOOTNOTES:

1.

I think your truest, most natural "self" only cares about one thing: experiencing itself physically as what it knows conceptually. How long that takes and the path or paths it takes to get to that point might be somewhat directed by the body and mind.

2. Herb Gross defining and demonstrating the use of polar coordinates

3.

I could only find the full film version of Hesse's Steppenwolf in German and Spanish.  I know an English version exists because I saw it a long time ago, long after I had become obsessed with that novel and author.  As an aside, I can point out that when Steppenwolf (the book) was translated into English, the English speaking world did not much appreciate Hermann Hesse, but when his work was translated into Spanish, many in South America embraced Hesse as a prophet.  The difficulty of tracking down an English version of the film (which was originally in English, no?) on ZooTube, and yet in German and Spanish, confirms suspicions that much of the English world still considers Hesse dry and not worthy of their attention, even when transformed into their favorite medium, film.  Crap, I'm getting sidetracked again.

I could only find the Tractate on the Steppenwolf in English ... strange.  Maybe you might be inspired to track down the film in English or, better yet, check out the book.

4. Just click on Get button to download book.

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