{∅, {∅}, {∅, {∅}}} : Rage Against the Meat Grinder
General Category => What Now? => Topic started by: Nation of One on February 26, 2019, 06:54:33 pm
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Zappfe wrote that sublimation is the conversion of anguish into uplifting pursuits, such as art and literature. For me, it is the study of mathematics. While this may not be very "uplifting," it certainly does qualify as an attempt to convert anguish into something more easily endured.
And yet, what about the anguish that is very often experienced when the mind is not so sharp, when the struggle to make sense of something intensifies the anguish rather than converting it into an "uplifting pursuit?"
With this thread I draw a line of demarcation between the all-too-medical term, depression, and something I wish to distinguish as different from what has been defined in clinical terms by medical professionals.
I am talking about the basic anguish inherent in being a sentient life-form.
What will differentiate this thread from the Depression Tabulator thread?
Well, therein lies the rub. It is an experimental attempt to see if I can tell the difference, subjectively, between clinical depression and the general anguish inherent in all life, especially apparent to those deep thinkers who are not afraid to acknowledge when they are experiencing this.
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I have felt a not-so-intense but constant anguish and misery throughout the day. There does not seem to be any reason in particular. I have only smoked a few cigarettes all day, and during each "smoking" I was fully aware of this mood, this funk, I have been in all day.
Getting through days such as this must be considered a kind of life skill.
Maybe if I were living totally alone, I might find myself in tears for no apparent reason. Maybe I might succumb to inebriation.
The thing is, we each do have to endure our own existence alone. Maybe many might be ashamed to admit they feel miserable for no apparent reason. It is creepy how difficult it is to express this miserable feeling. It is as though there is a point one reaches where it just doesn't seem worth the effort it takes to articulate. Moreover, who reallly cares?
Well, that is the power of becoming a diarist. You do not have to write for others. You do not have to keep the interest of an audience. Writing then becomes simply an alternative to suicide. It is a coming around to certain conclusions.
There will be times when one is so miserable, that it may be impossible to focus on what you would like to focus on.
Days such as this, when in a funk, I might watch a couple videos on zootube, but I find that this can actually make the misery more intense. And so I pace. I try to focus. I do not deny the misery, and I wait for the misery to transform into a kind of resignation.
I did not force myself to eat today. The culture I was born into does not have any traditional practices like "fasting." If we go without eating food, this is considered a sign of clinical depression. Tonight, by 10PM, I think I will force down a couple fried eggs on some rice.
I know that these things I write are not of great interest to anyone, but I am continuing to use this message board as a kind of "diary" for when I just need to "write to myself." If anyone else has something to add, feel free to do so, but do not feel obligated.
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My mother is very similar to that of Schopenhauer's. She would like me to marry just so she could keep up with the Joneses.While outwardly she acts like a pious hindu woman she keeps pestering me with comments like"as you are an only child you MUST marry.If you had siblings things might have been different. My father is a bit better though.
Yes is a hindu woman,sure.But not the Upanishadic kind, but of the right wing variety.
She has no idea how easy it is for me to let go of this life.That I have been preparing for such a moment for more than a decade now.
I won't mind. I have just started getting hang of maths a little bit. If I live,I will comprehend it some more,if not,well,never mind.
I may not have a lot of principles and I am not a very kind man. But I do have one -no matter the amount of hardships I am forced to endure,never would I force another creature to get tortured so.Yes, I think this principle of mine is not up for negotiations. I am in my early thirties. Almost half of my life( if I live to be 60) is over. With Schopenhauer I say,what happens to me personally is secondary.What I think,what I write is what really matters.
You,Herr Kaspar, are ,to be it bluntly,my hero. You are the teacher I was searching for since I was about 13. What I say here on this message board,Herr Kaspar,what I write here, that is my real life.Not the time I spend as a wage slave.
Holden is my real name,the other name is just that of the wage slave.
https://youtu.be/GZbHKTBpXA0
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I sure don't feel very heroic, Holden, but I am honored that you see me as such.
I have been observing my appetite lately. I have been hungry but with no motivation to eat food. I was able to get down some fresh baby spinach fried in olive oil with chunks of garlic. I was able to get down some prunes.
Mind you, I am not ill. Maybe the body wants to "fast" but since I remain unschooled about such practices, I do not know how to listen to my own body. Well, I do listen to it, but when I don't eat, I feel very strange. Isn't it something the situation we are in - having to eat food. Our bodies are really a constant buden to us.
Your reasons for not wanting to reproduce (or marry) show wisdom and thoughtfulfulness. You do not wish to take part in the process of creating another sentient feeling creature very similar to yourself who would have this constant want and need imposed upon him or her.
I think that if you repeatedly confide in your mother about these reasons, she will have no choice but to accept that you are under no obligation to provide your parents with grandchildren.
I am fortunate that neither of my parents harass me over such things. They know that I have just never been very much of a money-maker, and therefore can see that I would not have had the means to start some kind of family. Besides that, I think my mother thinks it has to do with "the times we live in," that I am not motivated to bring life into such a world as ours, as it is now; and yet, I have to agree with Thomas Ligotti in his assesment that it has nver been a good time to be born, and there never will be.
Once such an opinion has crystalized, certain conclusions will follow. The reason why so many passages by Schopenhauer resonate with you is because you feel it in your bones. It's simply not worth the struggle.
If you reach a point where you just can't take it anymore, I would hope you would first quit your job rather than take your own life.
In the meantime, I cannot advise you to quit your job. Although you refer to me as a kind of teacher, I am certainly no guru, guide, nor some kind of Oracle.
You say I have helped you. Maybe it is simply the fact that you see in me an honest and fairly intelligent man who is just getting by in this life, who is just barely able to endure himself. You see that I am not some kind of drama-king. I've just developed this habit of not masking the way I really feel about life.
Should you live into your fifties, by then, your parents and other relatives will no longer urge you to marry and reproduce. You will have made your point by then.
Please take care of yourself and know that, as alone as you feel, you are surely not alone. You know, even in the animal kingdom, there are plenty of antinatalists. Sure, think about it. Not all specimens reproduce.
The problem I see, especially with the nature of the demands your mother keeps making, is that, as you suggest, this strong desire for grandchildren (and daughter-in-law) may sadly represent some kind of commodity. In other words, pictures to show? Life is not a peep show. Witness the masses posting photos on the Internet all over the developed world. Many people believe their own lies. They believe their own narratives, the stories they tell themselves.
In the meantime, you and I both know (FOR A FACT) that moment-by-moment existence in the here-and-now present is an endless state of discomfort anxiety. Point blank.
At least we know that we have our hands full just enduring the burden of our own individual existence. We do not believe the Great Big Lies, the really big lies about "what is the nature of our existence."
We are told that we are here to reproduce ourselves. Does this make any sense?
We find ourselves on a runaway train with no one at the helm, and the great big lie is that "we must survive."
We do not need to survive. We are trapped in some kind of cycle. I do not claim to have some kind of secret insight into the nature of our predicament, but I promise I would try to be as honest as possible concerning my own observations.
Thanks Holden. I am glad you have found this message board to be a place you might exist as a mental entity.
I'm still in kind of a funk.
Signing off,
Whatever My Name Is, it just doesn't matter.
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When I was an early teen, maybe 10, maybe 12, my Great Grandmother, while sitting close by me, declared to the adults in the room, "I would not blame a young man for not wanting to marry and start a family in a world such as this."
That statement resonated with me. She was the Arthur Schopenhauer of my earliest moments of consciousness as a "literate" [MENTAL=soul] entity. As soon as I could learn to write cursive, I began a long exchange of letters to (and from) my paternal/paternal great grandmother. I treasured her cursive written letters. She was delighted the cursive written letters I sent to her, even when my teenage-world fell into a whirlwind of chaos, parents divorced and sleeping with other partners, sister pregnant giving birth to nephew shortly after parents' divorce, the letters I sent began to have to be restrained, if not altogether censored; and yet, the passion for honest written word must have compelled me to convey the pain and anguish and despair my world had become. The big secret may have been concealing the state of my sister, but I had to convey to her somehow that my sister was in some kind of danger, being on the outs with both [divorced] parents and having to stay with the mother of the father of the child [my nephew].
She was old ever since I knew her, and she was older still at 100 when she passed (she outlived her son, my paternal grandfather).
She was quite grouchy, but always tender with me. When I was a very young child, great grandmother would put my head on her lap and put me to sleep by rubbing her old wrinkled thumb ever so gently and slowly on the top of my forehead. As I aged I learned of the great grandfather I had never met, the man named Hentrich (or Heinrich) who had ended his life in the manner similar to the author of A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole, attaching a hose from the exhaust of his personal automobile and putting the hose through a window closed as much as can be expected. For my recent ancestor, it took place in a closed garage. My father was only ten years old at the time, and he worshiped his grandfather (who came from a mysterious place called "Germany," spoke with peculiar accent, and tried to teach him words which were far too long and confusing for my father to learn).
For the author JK Toole, by the way, his vehicle was left running outdoors on the side of an old dirt road where he consciously took his final nap.
So,
My father never picked up on the German from his grandparents frequent arguments, and always complained that the words were too long. Neither of his parents spoke much German either. Generally, way back when, it was discouraged for "German-speaking" 'citizens of the United States of America' to teach their descendants the German language. There was great effort and propaganda to Englisize those with Germanic heritage. I learned this, not through formal education, but through reading Kurt Vonnegut Jr, novels as an angry and troubled young man. It was verified later in life during a homeless spell and many trips to a library through John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of [American] Education (http://whybother.freeboards.org/gortbusters/the-underground-history-of-education/msg2636/#msg2636).) And so it goes. ;)
So, I'm not too sure how much a part my great grandmother played in my mysterious great grandfather's apparent suicide (to put it so bluntly - if there are ghosts and spooky presences not visible to the living senses of organic life, forgive my abysmal ignorance if my assessment is offensive.) I know that financial agony was at the root, supposedly, from what I was able to pick up throughout my life through infrequent mention of this man, the grandfather my father cherished as a child, but who would vanish from the stage of life rapidly before his eyes.
Well, at least, were I to vanish into the void { }, there would be no mourning grand children or abandoned wife. I never spoke to my paternal grandfather EVER about this subject (of his father). It would have been considered HUGELY impolite to inquire. I liked my paternal grandfather better than my maternal grandfather. Both were scientific types, but my paternal grandfather, having been an only child, seem a bit more shy and reserved, where as I perceived my maternal grandfather as a bit more mischeivious and somewhat arrogant, but always trying to be funny (except on Christmas Day when he was bed-ridden over memories of his own father's death on a Christmas Day when he was just 12.)
Oh well, let he who is not a selfish animal cast the first handful of their own poop skillfully into the eye (?) of he or she who offends thee.
What I mean to say is that when I ramble on like this in free-style diaristic fashion [like diarrhea?], I am not seriously judging any of my elders' personality traits, just making what I think are honest observations and reflections ... blah, blah, blah
The main point was this: When I was an early teen, maybe 10, maybe 12, my Great Grandmother, while sitting close by me, declared to the adults in the room, "I would not blame a young man for not wanting to marry and start a family in a world such as this."
I feel I had her blessing to resign from our species. It's the only rationally and emotively correct thing to do.
Amen.
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Thanks for your response Herr Kaspar. I really liked reading both your posts. I think its very important not to get tricked by the appearances but to always keep "thing-in-itself" in mind. Most people lie not only to the others but also to themselves.
Existence is really very suffocating. There are so many ways in which so many things can go wrong.
https://youtu.be/-ERFBg2Uh1c
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The point is not that one needs to accept Schopenhauer's conclusions. One only needs to accept his premises.The conclusions follow on their own.If the world indeed is the Will( and I do think that is so),then the chaos and the misery I see all around me starts to make sense all of a sudden.
It all becomes very clear indeed.
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I agree, Holden. Maybe asceticism works for some. I can't say I'd ever be an all-out asectic, but I do try to base my life and conduct more upon what I REJECT than what I AFFIRM.
But yes, the Will as an agreeable concept stands true for me personally.
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Mr.Silenus,
I would like to share the following with you-
But on top of all that, the feelings about Princess, I'd also gone through an entire year of celibacy based on my feeling that lust was the direct cause of birth which was the direct cause of suffering and death and I had really no lie come to a point where I regarded lust as offensive and even cruel. "Pretty girls make graves," was my saying, whenever I'd had to turn my head around involuntarily to stare at the pretties of Indian Mexico.
- Jack Kerouac
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Herr Kaspar,
Your once wrote that at one point of time you wanted to joined the priesthood of the Catholic church.Why did you want to do that and then, whey did you later change your mind?
Thanks!
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Thanks for sharing Holden. I used to sympathize with Jack Kerouac's writing a few years ago: the general confusion of life and living, the interest in Buddhism and the conflicts between rigid solitude and hedonism. I have The Dharma Bums and Some of the Dharma in my book collection.
Safe to say I have moved on, although sometimes I wonder why he had a child; if it was by choice or by natural motivation. Oh well...
As an aside, I have more respect for the "Beatniks" than I ever would for the "Hippies." While groups, movements and tribes do leave a bitter taste in my mouth, it seems as if the "Beatniks" at least were not afraid to notice and record the sufferings, misery, and sadness of the world, unlike the "flower children" with their own hopes and faith in their "fellow man" (exception being some protests and tax resistance).
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxVkAhto0Ag
It feels like hatred. The Will to live, or, I should say, the desire for peace or a minimal degree of satisfaction, which is repeatedly mocked by the unfolding reality, is torment-in-itself.
All children who scream, "I hate this life!"
They express the essence of our shared human condition. Those who deny their inherent dissatisfaction, the rage and hatred that may erupt in an instant, out of nowhere, are no less vulnerable to the "House of Cards" effect our Holden speaks of.
Yes, it's all a house of cards that can come tumbling down the instant we lose our composure, when the will bumps up against some kind of obstacle, any kind of obstacle. In other words, CONSTANTLY, repeatedly ...
How is it everyone is not locked away in a psychiatric ward? They don't have enough rooms!! That's why.
I just had a thought that may be "common sense" to most, but it was quite a revelation to me. Maybe this hatred and anger and frustration that comes out of nowhere, this male PMS or this Post Traumatic Slave Disorder, is built into our animal body. This powerful emotion of hatred might be a component that was necessary in order for our ancestors to kill another living animal for sustenance. I don't know.
I cried a few angry tears of frustration today and, upon reflection, think that maybe I experienced a nervous breakdown this morning without even knowing what was happening.
I was replacing an inner lever-handle of a storm door, and I became quite agitated when I ran into trouble detaching the old three inch 5/16 spindle. I ended up tracking down a hack saw, but before that, I went ape-shiit on the thing, at one point hammering my left hand knuckle.
Furious within myself, with no outside provocation. A self-contained madness-in-itself, the furious tormented demonic clown, I. Too overwhelmed with my own condition, I must forget about any delusions about any Bodhisattvic inclinations. No, I will be tormented with all my brothers and sisters of suffering in this cruel joke called life. We will be united in our common hatred for our own miserable predicament; but we will not be able to help anyone else, since even the Bodhisattvas are at their wits end with their inner misery!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48Tdik6p8XI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCiAYmhJJ70
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I'm waiting for the bus right now; working some overnight shifts this week. As I was smoking a cigarette a baby bird came close to me. It has yet to develop the ability to fly.
The nests that these birds make are high in the overhang above this parking loop of the hospital. I wonder how it got down here. It is calling out, maybe in hunger, maybe for it's mother, who knows.
And I realize that no matter how young or old we are, we are just like this baby bird. Cast out into nature, thrown into the menace. No matter how long we have been alive, the point is it is always too early, and yet it is always too late. We are never ready for what is coming.
As Raul says, the damage has been done.
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Silenus,
Thank you for sharing Bruno de Filippis´work. I quote some words: “our dear civilization of which we are so proud. We have abandoned the free and happy life of the forests for this horrendous moral and material slavery. And we are maniacs, neurasthenics, suicides. Why should I care that civilization has given humanity wings to fly so that it can bomb cities, why should I care if I know every star in the sky or every river on earth?”
I hope you keep all your words in a sort of notebook. I am sure many others will read them as much as I read them here.
Stay safe.
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Having very strong anxiousness roll right over me. It surrounds this void of which I call my "self." I feel a change within my mental state, however permanent or not. It's the feeling of being consumed by listlessness while being a spectator of myself. I'm not sure of a "who" right now.
Last night, after taking a couple of drags from a bowl, I sat in the dark for some time, having conversations with myself. Ruminations over my feelings of being crushed.
I have had inner dialogues with myself for as long as I can remember. As a child I would lay in bed and pretend I had an audience as I went off on some auratory. Why have I always been like this, and should I bother to try and find out?
I haven't been able to come up with "definitions" for myself in some months. I can't tell you who or what I am. It's been as freeing as it has been terrifying; such worries over letting oneself go.
Does the anxious animal find a corner to hide in?
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The anxious animal seeks out a corner somewhere in space-time, to sit and be still with the hunger that is our "natural state," and to contemplate, to reflect upon this [one's own?] life in all its horrific proportions. I understand that, in a New York Minute, everything can change, and that we would be wise to be kind to those we secretly or openly are emotionally attached to.
I have deep regrets of beating a dog with a leash at about the age of 17 because he ran away from "the yard," to gulp water from the creek. He turned and growled, chomping the air with his jaws. I feel great shame for hitting my beloved animal-friend with that leash. He had been tied to a tree by my father's second wife. He was dying of thirst. I had just gotten an automobile and was neglecting the care of this animal when he really needed me, his old age. For this maybe I am heading into Hell? I'm not THAT superstitious. I just feel bad about this event. The dog would die only months later. That was his last summer: Baron von Hentrich I had named him - an Old English Sheepdog. I once killed a groundhog with a club-stick in the early morning darkness when it had attacked Baron (or just bumped into him in the dark). I remember dragging the animal corpse like a natural born cave-man … that contact with death, mammalian altercations in the dark gone wild.
If I had been the kid in the film, E.T., when that poor creature popped its fat head out' the closet, it might have had a baseball bat lodged in its soft skull. I must be some kind of primordial spaz, just a frightened, squirrely, spooked bundle of nerves. I thought the groundhog was gonna bite my poor dog's big old nut sack off!
The reason I mention the memory of this unethical behavior with my childhood "Animal Friend" is because I want to catch myself when I am behaving insensitively around "my mom." I don't want to remember myself as not being there emotionally for "Mommy / Mama" when she begins to be frightened by deep things such as her own mortality and the creeping death, how certain traumas, such as strokes, have permanent ramifications, such as nerve damage.
Well, to be honest, a great deal of crying gets under my skin. I experienced it as an early teen during my parents divorce. It was difficult to concentrate on my "school work" with all this crying and gut-wrenching hatred and pain. Well, today I do not want to care so much that I am crippled by it. I can only offer philosophical contemplation. I will not entertain notions of some kind of Family Clam Bake in the Sky where we are reunited with our ancestors. I have no idea what to expect from death.
The fact is it has been purely accidental that I have this close bond with this creature, My Mom, and I have had to exert great patience throughout my life for all the Wrong Ideas she has attempted to pass down to me. It's all rather complicated, and I'm not here to entertain any Freudian psychoanalysts.
I have many conflicting emotions, and at this time of my life, I want to be alright with the absence of any particular emotion whatsoever. I feel hungry stomach and slightly aching heart, but the heart is not too heavy, you know, like I feel I can make it … as long as I have this, that, and the other thing over and over until the end, until the creeping death comes to gather me up as well.
Does the anxious animal find a corner to hide in? On the psych ward I would rise as early as was permitted and try to make some instant coffee in the cafeteria before the residents awoke and the staff switched. I would try to gather my thoughts, to get my head together without being tormented tossing and turning waiting to be told what to do, where to sit, etc.
I hit the hay extra early last night so as to wake up in the middle of the night and not be bombarded with demands. It's as though I do not have my own life, but am an accessory of my mother's life. I know I am walking on delicate ground here. Maybe I am afraid I might secretly delight in not being hounded over and bossed around. Holy shiit, I have reached a point where I no longer have any patience for any goddamn boss, and here I am the obedient yet disgruntled slave of my mother. Often I hear the thoughts of the silent protagonist, the real self, and he seems to be longing for liberation. Presently, this anxious animal has consciously sought out this "space-in-time" to HIDE. Really, I need to think before another round. I do not like to be psychologically overtaken by another person, especially when that person is less reflective than I am. I have disdain for "parental authority." Yes, I have many dark hidden secret thoughts, many subversive and defiant thoughts!
Like Cioran, I do not wish to be tormented by this world while I am still living. When I can no longer take it, if I find myself homeless and starving and getting institutionalized for public drunkenness, I will find some way to kill myself and end it all. I understand that this woman I call "Mom" has animal love for me that few others will have for me in this world. Many landlords were actually evil, using all their authority to harass me, to haunt me, to get me thrown into the streets.
This world hates me, and I know it. My personal "diary" may unfold on scraps of paper in a psychiatric hospital or jailcell, for this world does not really have a place for the like of me.
My mom needs me. This world has no need for men such as me. We are expendable. This world has no idea what to do with someone like me. I am a useless burden, a quandary, just another nervous wreck who will not be paying any doctor bills.
An aside: I am curious as to how others might interpret the first line in Camus' The Stranger: Lost in Translation: What the First Line of “The Stranger” Should Be (https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/lost-in-translation-what-the-first-line-of-the-stranger-should-be).
note about The Stranger (by Camus): I understand the "racist" background of the novel, or the "anti-Arabic" undertones … I don't know what other words to use. The point is most likely lost on modern readers (the youth) that the likelihood of a Frenchman in colonial Algeria getting the death penalty for killing an armed Arab was slim to nonexistent. That plays a role in the novel as well. The reader is to understand that the protagonist is being executed for not crying at his mother's funeral, for smoking a cigarette during the "formal event," for his personality or lack of personality. The sun blinded him on the beach, he thought the guy had a knife. He shoots him dead, like in the Wild West, Clint Eastwood style, I suppose.
Eh, yet, in colonial Algeria, getting the death penalty for killing an armed Arab was very slim. You see? There is no way to convey that aspect of the novel to the youth of today, or to my generation even, for that matter. The arguments about the word he uses for "Mum" or "Ma-ma" are important, I agree, but I wonder how to translate the context of what he is actually being executed for: his attitude … no? He has a bad attitude. He does not cry on command, at the appropriate times. He appears disconnected from the present animal-life moment.
Anyway, my animal body is hungry, and by now the mother of this animal body - The Mother - as I coldly refer to her [here, in typing] with a sublime affection, twisted with existential resentment with deep philosophical roots - is up and about preparing her eggs. Soon it will be safe to grind the coffee beans … and reflect upon this predicament of depending upon stores for vegetables. She will also require ample space-time for meditation, reflection, reading … some kind of inner life (beyond the reach of harassing phone calls from Bank "associates/employees/soon-to-be-replaced-by-robots" wondering why payments have stopped on the credit cards). I try to be a good "cell-mate" to my mom. We get along fairly well, as long as we're both not drinking. Drinking, we're both most likely "psychiatric ward" material. I pity either of my parents or my sister in the hands of institutions (hospitals/jails). Of all 4 of us, I am the most well-adapted to such places as I tend to bond with the pitiable creatures trapped in such places with me … like the more recent Planet of the Apes flicks. I would be very kind to them (my kin) in such environments. I would look after them. Why not display some of the jailhouse hospitality with our living kin, even if it's just one or two? We break bread, we split hamburgers. We're cell mates. I want us to get along, to be part of a healing process, not part of the nightmare, like poor old Schopenhauer and his mother. They were both careless with their relationship, or their natures/personalities were such that cohabitation was impossible. We are wild phenomena, after all, and some people just can't stand to be in the same room or house together, can't stand to hear opinions from, etc. People may not be able to tolerate each other. So be it. I cast no judgements on anyone. I take it back what I wrote about them being careless. Maybe they were both insufferable - the whole tribe tainted with a peculiar intelligence which made them repulsive or just annoying to be around, to be "in their gaze."
________________________ Chapter 3 of this single post ? ________________________
The garden is done, so it is back to frozen spinach. There is none in the freezer. I have to get some. This is our existential predicament. An automobile required to do what our ape cousins in the wild do reaching for a branch to munch spinach-like leaves off of. The complexity of what it takes to get the leaves to my stomach do not seem worth all the trouble. I am going to end up nothing but a decaying corpse in the end like everyone before me.
At what point do we see too much to function?
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a clue to my distress (or, the significance of the particular texts I am working through at this time):
This would be the material I was "not getting" during my existential meltdown at age 17/18.
I almost suspect the unconscious mind, the "gods" - whatever - of forcing my mind to become intimate with the material of this text as a method for Slaying some kind of Phenomenological Dragon. I fear the mortality of my own parents, even though their union has caused me a great deal of anguish, despair, and heartache. I am just a consequence of their disharmonious attempt at cohabitation. And yet, here I am, and I suppose I may have already paid my dues here on earth, so I reckon I can pass shortly after them.
I don't "get high" anymore. Even if I toke on expensive green stuff, I merely become a tad bit more philosophical, but since I am always somewhat philosophical, there's really not much effect, and I most likely am wasting money watching it go up in smoke ---- which causes distress to the belly and the part of me that wishes to gather more empty notebooks and a fresh set of pencils. Then again, it does help me breathe easier. It's just, quite plainly unaffordable, and therefore a potential gateway to slavery (laboring for money).
Wine would be cheaper, but that method ruins the calm state required to take delight in algebraic manipulations and geometric representations.
I am not looking for advice, just arguing with myself …
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Generally, I simply wish to grant myself a license to slander the universe. There are so many cliched forms of advice, such as "think positive," or even "you have to be strong." (like Nietzsche's suggestion to "become harder.")
It's lame advice. If one hates this world, this life, other people, other animals, etc, why not allow ourselves to feel exactly how we feel? How do we REALLY feel?
On that note, I'm going to soak in a tub of water, reflecting upon the skeleton, veins, sinews, nerve endings, feeling toe heal ... I once read somewhere that a good prelude to a restful night's sleep is feeling a little sad - not deeply depressed, but, well, just sad in a way that isn't crippling, a good "tired of life."
Someone told me today that I "can't be weak in this life," that I must "be strong."
I find such advice ridiculous. We feel what we feel. I don't think it has to do with this so-called "mental strength" some people supposedly possess. Maybe the people who project a strong persona do not know enough to be scared and depressed.
The toe was merely bruised by the way and is healing rapidly. Still, though, the only foot gear that does not cause too much pain are the sandals.
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Everything feels difficult today.
My brain is shutting down, refusing to serve others, refusing to serve even me for very much longer.
I try to continue what it is I am doing, but my heart doesn't really seem to be in it today.
Existential dread? It's that WHY BOTHER? feeling. Anything I do, anything I learn or create, it is as though I could just as easily do nothing whatsoever, and there would not be much difference.
Usually when I am between "subjects" or "textbooks" or even between chapters of a text, I tackle a programming project. I thought that the enthusiasm for such things, while not there when I began, would develop throughtout the process; but all day there were heavy feelings or irritation, guilt/shame (I refused to drive Maman to church this morning), frustration (neighbor involving me in some drama), and a powerful melancholy festering in my guts, throughout my veins and sinews.
Heavy hearted.
It is as though my brain is on strike.
As I said, normally I can muster enthusiasm.
It's my brain and my heart. Did Schopenhauer call these intellect and Will?
Then my Will must be severely disappointed or frustrated - my heart is heavy, meaning I feel the tragic ironies encountered in day to day mundane existence. The awful truth of it all, the dependence on coffee, witnessing this pitable creature wake up NEEDING/WANTING some kind of relief from ___?____ (what). (dissatisfaction?)
Relief from the Pressure which is the Burden of my own existence.
I am under no obligation to feel well, but I do prefer to feel well. That is, I do like to "lose myself" in some coding and the mathematics behind it; but there are times when the heart (and brain) is just not cooperative with my "desire for well-being."
There are times when I try to fight it, to force myself to carry on, to drum up some enthusiasm for my "inner life," and yet there are these childish feelings such as wondering what it would be like to for my parents were I to reach the grave before them, just as an exclamation point to my overall disgust with what it means to be a living creature, with the unpleasant feelings of being this particular living creature with all its frustrations. Surely it is like this for all. Do I not suffer myself well?
I felt obligated to document such inner struggles here, just to be honest. Clearly, my way of life (that is, considering myself unemployable due to strong resistance to being dominated and made servile) is not a bed of roses, or, if it is, there are plenty of thorns along with the flowers.
I used to think that were I to find relative contentment living on government relief (social security), if I were able to continue to study with passion and enthusiasm, that this would be the greatest revenge, and that somehow this would "defeat" that public label of "failure," "bum," "loser," etc.
Today I have been down in the dumps all day. If I were living alone, Hell, my heart can sink pretty low, I might succumb to crying in a bottle of booze; but, damn, I see how easily I can slip into a funk. I have joked in the past about having needed every drink I drank, but this isn't true.
I'm in a bad place in my heart even though my brain is trying to continue along its "path" ... something is resisting my efforts. If I were an Exorcist, I might say that the Demons of the Will are rising in an effort to disturb my tranquility.
I would rather not use such a graphically charged analogy.
In more basic terms, it feels like my heart is preventing my intellect from functioning smoothly. Is this heart in a state of mutiny against this intellect? or is Captain Howdy lurking about, settling in for the evening?
-
Tonight I could not help but come to the conclusion that I do not like very many people at all, maybe not even myself.
It was triggered by an ever so slight argument with a woman. Later that evening, my mother had shown me a photo with my grandfather (her father) in it; he was laughing. There was ice in his laughter (a saying of Nietzsche's). Others were also laughing. I remember the day ... my grandfather, always the wise-guy, had his foot poking my rear-end on the floor. Others in the photo can be seen "seeing this" and laughing. My face? Embarrassed. My grandfather's foot ...
I told my mom, "I never liked him."
She said, "So, you didn't like either my mother or father? That's mean."
I guess I had confided in her that I thought her mom was a bit "mean-spirited." She'd insulted me once by serving me last on "Father's Day," commenting that I get served last since I am not a father.
So, I guess even grandparents that have pi-ssed me off, even after they are resting in peace, I still have this "disconnection," this feeling that "they lost me a long time ago." Really, everything that most of the clans value: the weddings, the vacations, the child-births, the "carreers" of the children of cousins ... THIS IS THE CONSPIRACY!!! It's everywhere. Optimism is wicked and dishonest. I will maybe be calling people on their lies with a glare in my eyes.
I understand that my feelings will die in the silence of history, and all I can ever do is scream at the sky, "What kind of a sick joke is this? Won't one person be honest with me? Must we forever wear a mask in public? Must we forever hold our tongue?" There are those who would prefer I kill myself than to hear me speak or read anything I might have scribbled. Thankfully I don't need anyone's permission to come to the conclusion that this world is a crock of shiit on so many levels.
There is freedom in writing since there is nobody there squashing what you are writing, as opposed to speech and conversation, when someone can just start cursing you out if you don't agree with them, or if you say something too "negative" or "depressing."
I do not have to like anyone. It is such a relief to understand this. I am not obligated to like people, not even my own parents. I have compassion, yes. But I know my heart, and I know my thoughts, and maybe it is best to face these feelings which must make dying much easier.
Why is it when someone such as myself, one who honestly probes his authentic feelings, can be criticized as "mean" when all I am doing is declaring mutual disdain? Am I afraid this truth could "hurt mom's heart" ? Why should I not be honest? Maybe I will start a silent inner diary to try expressing "how I really feel." I think I might be afraid to face how I really feel since I do not wish to hurt anyone's feelings.
There is anger and frustration in me, but I do not wish to give anyone around me any satisfaction in seeing me more distressed than I need to be.
It hurts me to dislike so many people, but I am just an honest man trying not to hurt the feelings of all those who I don't really like, and don't blame them for not liking me. I am so tired of lies ... all the lovey-dovey hippie-dippy lies ... I understand Hesse's Steppenwolf. I have passed the age of 50, and I really should have been on my way by now.
This life is gut-wrenching to those of us facing the empty space, the heads staring at televisions screens ... creepy world. No God, and --- with mother and sister both firmly committed to promote the belief in God, it is just a given that I am "deserving of the despair and anxiety I feel" since I do not "reach out to God" as they do. It's all lies. I am the honest one. I am the virtuous one by attempting to understand the true nature of our lives, even if the truth is horrific.
I understand that a baby girl loves her Daddy, and it may cause my mom some pain to look back and realize that, all those years, I was not as impressed with my grandfather as everyone else seemed to be.
Maybe my ancestors despise me. There are twisted feelings inside that are what they are. I sense that I am afraid to expose myself to my true feelings out of some kind of fear of punishment, something deeply ingrained.
AHA! We have been taught to love our oppressors!
-
Does depression take on an entirely different dimension when temperatures fall below freezing?
Imagine were one's quarters to catch fire and one had to escape the flames into the arctic cold !
Am I to be considered a weakling just for pointing out the potential for horror we are each exposed to in having been born?
-
In the cold wet rain, when feeling tired and weak, I see where Schopenhauer was so very honest, and where Nietzsche is like a boy whistling in the dark to keep anxiety at bay. That is, those who insist one "man up" or "become hard" may simply be acclimating themselves to the perpetual misery machine-disease that is life.
I suppose that what Silenus wrote in this thread can be understood only by those who have experienced similar moods, repeatedly:
Having very strong anxiousness roll right over me. It surrounds this void of which I call my "self." I feel a change within my mental state, however permanent or not. It's the feeling of being consumed by listlessness while being a spectator of myself. I'm not sure of a "who" right now.
Last night, after taking a couple of drags from a bowl, I sat in the dark for some time, having conversations with myself. Ruminations over my feelings of being crushed.
I have had inner dialogues with myself for as long as I can remember. As a child I would lay in bed and pretend I had an audience as I went off on some auratory. Why have I always been like this, and should I bother to try and find out?
I haven't been able to come up with "definitions" for myself in some months. I can't tell you who or what I am. It's been as freeing as it has been terrifying; such worries over letting oneself go.
Does the anxious animal find a corner to hide in?
and so I hide from the Elemental Forces ... but I can't hide from this realization that there are no doctors or other professionals qualified to "cure me" of my distress. In fact, most medical (and psychiatric) professionals have authoritarian mindsets, and are probably the least qualified to offer me any kind of insight into the true nature of our lives.
What if those who fancy themselves as "strong minded" are simply less reflective, less contemplative? In short, what if the most well-adjusted are basically the most shallow with the least capacity for deep thinking? Those who allow themselves to explore the contents of their own minds/hearts may not fit into the machinery of society in any other capacity than as an outsider, or, more euphemistically, as a mental health consumer.
We are, after all, free to starve to death, and this small but brute fact, as Holden points out repeatedly, may be the purist manifestation of coming to the conclusion that this redundant ritual of survival is not worth the effort of picking up any more eggs at the grocery store.
I should note that, while I had planned to continue working through the Stroustrup C++ textbook, Chapter 21 (Algorithms and Maps) (https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d1f7/3d7c073c8c5547082001cf5c6db156ac479c.pdf#page=515&zoom=160,-11,787) for the month of December, I had dropped everything when I literally got sucked into a task I have been wanting to do * before I die *, that is, upload the scribblings I had digitized (1987-2015).
I still have yet to get to the Jail Writings of 2015, but I had to stop. I was burning out and I have done enough for now. Only a handful of people will ever have the patience or even the slightest desire to explore those notes. It doesn't matter. I wanted my documentation available to future inhabitants in case it helps them to see what a chaotic process getting through a life not worth living is.
Having said that, no, I have not been able to just "get back into the coding."
The very process of rereading through many of those notes changed me a little. I mean, I actually feel MORE TIRED of LIVING than before. It's a little bit funny ....
I wish to muster the enthusiasm to get into studying the algorithms in the C++ STL, but I am not going to fake it until I make it. No. I have lost interest for the moment, so I am going to explore some books, reread other books, and wait until the interest reawakens spontaneously.
I can't force enthusiasm.
At least I still get a kick out of reading people write truthfully and honestly. There are fellow-thinkers out there! It's not all robots and zombies and armored men.
-
Lately I have been getting a taste of what Holden may have experienced on a regular basis. Certain personalities seem to wish to provoke fear, drain energies, distract from focusing on Inner Life, and entangle you in some kind of trouble, even if simply mental anguish. I had been able to avoid such toxicity for several years, but one does not live in a vacuum. Sometimes you can't avoid conflicts with those who target you for harassment, thinking you are a soft easy mark. The world is a jail-house insane asylum zoo where we are hunted and preyed upon by our fellow inmates.
The thing is ... I wish to stand up for myself. Why would a female bully (with a male side-kick) target a man (push buttons, jail-yard friend/enemy back-and-firth, and yet there is supposedly an ancient art, something of a Psychic Karate, where one is trained to resist "thoughtless emotive reactions" to an opponent's psychic attacks, be they lies, slander, false accusations, and basically rattling your cage. I would think such a tactic would be ideal when targeted for harassment by a psychological abusive woman.
How does one harness one's energies and not give into the toxic manipulations of the sociopaths in our day to day monkey-spheres? There are those who have had so many altercations with others that alarms must go off in the head at the first sign one is being lured into a stress-inducing entanglement with a pathological liar out to extort some kind of gain from you - at the expense of your sanity, of course.
If someone is very gruff and rough around the edges, and their intuitive grasp of fractions, weights, and measurements is faulty, sometimes they forget their own ignorance and attempt to physically bully someone into accept THEIR BLOCKHEADED perceptions over measurable, quantifiable reality.
Blockhead is the word. Thank you Schopenhauer for that one. It is the sociopathic blockheads who cause me the most grief and stress. It's been this way throughout my life, as though in some kind of Eternal Zoo, where there is always at least one, but too often many more than one, sociopaths. For whatever reason, when ignorance is mixed with a mean spirit, the result is that a victim may be bullied into bargaining with a dangerous blockhead who will openly lie and then threaten consequences if YOU refuse to validate THEIR lie.
basic everyday life in the confederacy of dunces ...
- Signing off,
Renegade disguised as Village Idiot, abused by female ruffians wherever I go --- Helga the Horrible and her band of Gotham City underground government sociopaths groomed in their jails and psychiatric "Treatment Centers" (for Behavioral Health issues) --- they have their pick for career-minded ex-convict gorts with pleasant looks who might make great professional counselors for the ever-growing pandemic of disgruntled and disaffected youth flooding our societies of highways and malls.
Is there a real secret army of demonic personalities whose sole purpose is to torment us, as order from On High? No, that would be paranoia. I want to crawl into an underground bunker and study math and computing.
These scenarios of comic horror were hinted at in the film, Henry Fool, where Simon could not help attracting violent reactions to his aura from the delinquents of his monkey-sphere. It may be the exact theme Dostoevski (y?) touches upon in The Idiot (Prince Myshkin gets bullied in a manner many of us are painfully familiar with, by murderous thugs and drunken thick-boned frustrated vag-inas).
Especially out West in the Seattle area, I felt in need of a Force Field to protect me from what I could only make out to be Extreme Hatred Toward whatever it is that is "me." Stranger rhymes with Danger.
- an honest man is always in trouble
I wish one prayer would work its spell: I shall not want.
And yet, when I want, I become vulnerable. And - really, how does one command oneself not to want?
I see how other people can attempt to wreak havoc in your rational-emotive wiring simply to see you placed in a situation, such as psychiatric evaluation. They can tell outright lies, or simply assassinate your character, your "public persona." I wish it were all delusional, but their pathological delusions influence the world around them.
-
I shall not want, I shall not need ... these prayers seem futile against the Frustrated Will.
I think I may have experienced a slight nervous breakdown today when we lost Internet and phone service. I thought it was due to my refusal to pay a certain $20 fee for insufficient funds which I was promised would be waived. I had paid the bill minus this fee, and I thought that the Bastards discontinued service over it. Turns out there was an outage in the area as the telecommunications company was doing some work.
When we lost the connection, I was in the middle of working on something very important for my mom. I was not able to contain my frustrations ... the anger I experienced! RAGE! How dependent I have become on this technology! I'm afraid I really must have a mood disorder of some kind, for, at one point, all I could do is lay down on the floor and groan. In my mind, I thought the Big Company was bullying us. In reality, it was just a bizarre coincidence.
Worse of all, my mother had to witness me in action. She may have seen for herself exactly why I had been diagnosed as bipolar. I snapped. With my hands shaking, using another's cell phone, I was able to contact the telecommunications company, at which time, after navigating through the stupid-as-fuuck automated menu system (which gets my blood boiling as well), I was informed that the outage was not a personal thing, but was area-wide due to "work in progress."
Now, in the evening, I feel emotionally drained. How can I tranform into such a maniac under certain circumstances? Am I unable to handle the stress and frustration that the day throws at me? Am I unstable?
There are professional psychiatrist who would jump on such a confession of anguish as an opportunity to "try medication," when the reality is that this is a cognitive/behavioral problem. I reacted to what I wrongly imagined what was occuring. It was mostly all in my mind. In fact, if I had done something besides the tasks I was working on for my mother, I may not have even noticed the interruption in service.
The whole experience makes me ashamed of myself, that I have such a low frustration tolerance for discomfort anxiety and unexpected snags in the road.
... the humility of being human ... I think I may be just another nervous wreck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiTf6iJjwxg
"Just Another Nervous Wreck"
I'm feeling so alone now
They cut the telephone uh huh
Yeah my life is just a mess
I threw it all away now
I could have made a fortune
I lost the craving for success
And as the acrobats they tumble
So the corn begins to crumble
While in the mirror
She admires a brand new dress
Live on the second floor now
They're trying to bust the door down
Soon I'll have a new address
So much for liberation
They'll have a celebration
Yeah I've been under too much stress
And as the cloud begin to rumble
So the juggler makes his fumble
And the sun upon my wall is getting less
Don't, give a damn
Fight, while you can
Kill, shoot 'em up
They'll run amuck
Shout, Judas
Loud, they'll hear us
Soldier, sailor
Who's your tailor?
They'll run for cover when they discover
Everyone's a nervous wreck now
I used to think she was so nimble
Would have bought her as symbol
But now I can't afford the pen to sign her checks
Don't give a damn......
They'll run for cover when they discover
Everyone's a nervous wreck now
Life's just a bummer they got your number
We'll give as good as we get now
Rise from the gutter, stick with each other
We'll drive 'em over the edge now
They're gonna bleed, that's what they need
We'll get together and blow their cover
We're ready
Yeah we're ready
Yeah we're ready
-
I toss and turn and wrythe on my cot, wanting to die in my sleep. How to stop breathing?
I wake up furious, frustrated, and feeling quite impotent.
Suddenly, I understand how some might be compelled to seek psychiatric intervention, and yet I feel "safer" trying to keep a handle on my mental health without the supervision of a psychiatric profession I have no faith in.
I almost envy yet another aunt diagnosed with cancer, well - not really. Poor woman is a basket-case, emotionally estranged from her daughters, totals car in vehicular misadventure while upset about the "diagnosis," and most likely leaning heavily on an image in her brain of her "Lord Jesus Christ." There is no talking to these women about philosophical issues when they could use a sardonic philosophical mindset the most. It is not worth the fight to help others become more deeply philosophical, reflective and radically honest. They will only accuse you of trying to take away their "Faith in God."
They will accuse you of being in league with Satan Himself.
Oh well, maybe a more subtle approach. Suggest writing letters the old way. Suggest this as an opportunity to develop a darker satirical approach to facing death, with disdain and amusement.
-
I am in the little room, but I feel as though I am being murdered. How can this family justify their cruelty? I am afraid that the sudden "being thrown" into the streets, the woods, a tent will be devastating to my state of mind.
I would not be surprised if I call it quits very soon.
-
In trying to show compassion toward (and an almost romantic infatuation/interest in) a [rough, tough, physically strong, street fighting] woman (not a High Society LADY), I had left myself wide open for abuse - the run of the mill cursing-me-out. In a split second I had come to my senses, as though there were a GPS thingy in my head that was recalibrating all my raw emotions. The attraction and care disolved and I felt nothing but pure and genuine revulsion. At last I was repulsed.
Rather than allow my feelings to be too hurt, I reflected upon the word, "blockhead," a term used by Schopenhauer that I found to be humorous. Just because a man or a woman might not be very articulate or philosophical, this does not make them a "stupid person." And yet, there is a certain element of cruelty or lack of compassion, a vulgar defference to physical strength, sexual prowess, street-fighting skills which leaves a sensitive person feeling empty. Any recourse to discussion, especially of a philosophical nature, is considered "weakness."
If life were to unfold like some kind of novel, I wish my protagonist/character would transform from "compassionate, kind, and prone to sudden explosions of violent outbursts" to one who does not give a fuck what others think of him or say about him. I no longer wish to be liked. It may be that there are several people in my monkey sphere who I have imagined "liking me," who actually despise nearly everything about me.
The secret is out, and I am processing it through writing and reflection. May I be duly transformed!
Therefore it will (be) very much conducive to our happiness if we duly compare the value of what a man is in and for himself with what he is in the eyes of others. Under the former conies everything that fills up the span of our existence and makes it what it is, in short, all the advantages already considered and summed up under the heads of personality and property; and the sphere in which all this takes place is the man's own consciousness. On the other hand, the sphere of what we are for other people is their consciousness, not ours; it is the kind of figure we make in their eyes, together with the thoughts which this arouses.{1} But this is something which has no direct and immediate existence for us, but can affect us only mediately and indirectly, so far, that is, as other people's behavior towards us is directed by it; and even then it ought to affect us only in so far as it can move us to modify what we are in and for ourselves. Apart from this, what goes on in other people's consciousness is, as such, a matter of indifference to us; and in time we get really indifferent to it, when we come to see how superficial and futile are most people's thoughts, how narrow their ideas, how mean their sentiments, how perverse their opinions, and how much of error there is in most of them; when we learn by experience with what depreciation a man will speak of his fellow, when he is not obliged to fear him, or thinks that what he says will not come to his ears. And if ever we have had an opportunity of seeing how the greatest of men will meet with nothing but slight from half-a-dozen blockheads, we shall understand that to lay great value upon what other people say is to pay them too much honor.
{Footnote 1: Let me remark that people in the highest positions in life, with all their brilliance, pomp, display, magnificence and general show, may well say:—Our happiness lies entirely outside us; for it exists only in the heads of others.}
I think the key attitude is INDIFFERENCE - that is, not giving a shiit about blockheads talking that same ol' shit, making that same ol' fool out of me ...
--------------------------------------------------------------------
from The Glorious Dead album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OAkUelXoVY
Same Ol'
I believe
If a man could fly
I'd be just like a bird
Trying to escape from your lies
And the truth
Would never die
It would be just like I remembered
When you
Swallowed my pride
When you were talking that
Same ol'
And kept making that
Same ol
And kept working that
Same ol', ol'
Fool out of me
All that same ol'
Everyday it's that same ol'
You keep making the same ol'
Ol'
Fool out of me, yeah
But you know that I can sleep
I don't know just how you do it
Must be counting more than sheep
And it's time
For you and me
To leave this fairy tale we fucked
'Cause we, both need to breathe, yeah
And I know it's not enough
But your love is like a drug
I know it's not enough
But your love is like a drug
I know it's not enough
Your love is like a drug
Your love is like a, like a
But you just keep talking that
Same ol'
And keep working that
Same ol'
And keep making that
Same ol', ol'
Fool out of me
All that same ol'
You keep making the same ol'
You keep making the same ol'
Fool out of me
But you just keep talkin' about
Same ol'
And keep making that
Same ol'
And keep making that
Same ol', ol'
Fool out of me
All that same ol'
Everyday it's that same ol'
You keep making the same ol'
Ol'
Fool out of me
PS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRPwxiBRG7c
-
In trying to show compassion toward (and an almost romantic infatuation/interest in) a [rough, tough, physically strong, street fighting] woman (not a High Society LADY), I had left myself wide open for abuse - the run of the mill cursing-me-out. In a split second I had come to my senses, as though there were a GPS thingy in my head that was recalibrating all my raw emotions. The attraction and care dissolve and I felt nothing but pure and genuine revulsion. At last I was repulsed.-Herr Hauser
Back in 2014, when I first meet you, I told you about this woman who was a colleague of mine and I came to believe that ,at that point of time, I was sort of, in love with her, even though she was already engaged to be married.
I was quite lonely then ,with the benefit of the hindsight,now after seven years,I could tell you that I had none of the philosophical understanding and tools that I was to learn in the years to come. She was not that pretty, now that I think about it, it was just that I was the loneliest boy in town and she, for some unfathomable reason(then) to me, chose to pay me some attention.
I think that was really the pivotal moment and ,looking back, I could say that ,for once, Goddess Fortuna smiled upon me and that lady in question chose to honour her engagement.That is the closest I have ever been to ever having an affair( it was Platonic, if that matters).
She was just a conventional Indian woman, she wanted kids, she wanted her would-be husband to climb up the corporate ladder(and really fast), she wanted teddy bears and chocolates.
The problem was,at that point of time, I had read many great authors yes, but not one serious and honest philosopher,no one. Not One. Then, lo and behold, I ran straight into the someone is the probably the greatest living thinker ( I mean you).
My affair lasted a grand total of 6 months. It was not good for my soul. Schopenhauer’s writings were tonic for my soul.I had read about great men like you, but I had never come across one, in real life ever, until I met you. If was like some finally gave Archimedes the place to stand,which he had been looking for forever.
I have read almost every major biography of Vincent van Gogh ever published and I see a lot of parallels between your life and that of his.
Schopenhauer analyzed this question to death. The question of whether he should go for a relationship or not. And he finally decided he would be better off without one.
Cioran decided to have a lifelong relationship. Beckett even got married.
Maybe someday you would come across a lady who is really into the kind of philosophy and mathematics you are into and then maybe the two of you could be like Cioran and his significant other.I am your genuine well-wisher and if that is what you want, then , I very much hope that you manage to meet a lady who is like that.
It not easy.But it might be possible. If Cioran and Beckett could do it ,then, maybe you could do it too.
It’s a very sad world. I feel down quite often. Next time you are extremely agitated and feel like imbibing , then, my request is that first you try out L-Theanine, Melatonin and something Indian called Ashwagandha(Winter Cherry). All of them have zero side-effects and addiction potential,cheap and easily available and might be able to help you a little bit.They are all available over-the-counter(cheaper than alcoholic beverages).
Take care.
-
Thank you Holden for your kindness. It is invaluable. I am not sure I would find a Gretel to my Hansel. More likely I would have to be content with a Mary Magdalen to my Jesus Christ (http://whybother.freeboards.org/general-discussion/a-question-for-herr-hauser-and-senor-raul/msg10731/#msg10731). :P
Schopenhauer claimed from his life experience that not every Hansel will find his Gretel, that She may not exist. It is best to accept this rather than projecting images of our Ideal Woman onto some poor beast of a woman who just wants to dominate (or be dominated violently?) ...
I am not looking for Gretel. In fact, I was really confounded by my initial attraction. Maybe her cruelty is really a kindness to me. There is no way around the ridiculousness of such a scenario. I want to get over this delusion as rapidly as possible.
I don't want to over-analyze, but this had been the case in fictional (Dostoevsky) "The Idiot" ----
- There were what I imagined to be quite attractive and strong women characters in, say The Idiot, where she had repressed hidden feelings for Prince Myshkin, but she hated him outwardly for this. Dostoevsky wrote before the institutionalization of psychology, which is what makes these contradictory characters so fascinating, I suppose.
- These scenarios of comic horror were hinted at in the film, Henry Fool, where Simon could not help attracting violent reactions to his aura from the delinquents of his monkey-sphere. It may be the exact theme Dostoevsky touches upon in The Idiot (Prince Myshkin gets bullied in a manner many of us are painfully familiar with, by murderous thugs and drunken thick-boned frustrated vaginas).
Especially out West in the Seattle area, I felt in need of a Force Field to protect me from what I could only make out to be Extreme Hatred Toward whatever it is that is "me." Stranger rhymes with Danger.
- an honest man is always in trouble
I wish one prayer would work its spell: I shall not want.
From my own notes (back in April) [the handwriting reveals a drunken state]:
Yesterday I recalled a few central characters from Dostoevsky's novel, The Idiot :
The female character, Nastassya Filippovna, loves Prince Myshkin (the idiot) but subconsciously feels unworthy of his love. Myshkin is innocent, naive, impractical, compassionate, and immensley kind. His inability to sustain grudges cause others to see him as an idiot. The real reason he does not hold grudges is because he has an intuitive sense of what is at the root of human misery and wretchedness.
Rogozhin is madly in love with Nastassya Filippovna, but ends up stabbing her to death after she reveals her love for "The Idiot".
All these dynamics give me insight into the tensions ... <snip>
I have come to the conclusion that when one enters another's domicile, one is at the mercy of the resident, where one is always in the wrong, no matter what the circumstances. There are those who think they are in the right when it comes to their children, just because they are the "parents". Likewise, there are those who think they are in the right just because you are in their home or on "their property". :P
Take care Brother Holden. May we keep our eyes wide open and continue to recalibrate our erroneous perceptions.
PEACE
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I hope that you are feeling better now. I am often mournful like the progatonist in a Chekov play.As a high school student, I came across a lot of Russian books (in English) which were given to my father by one of his colleagues,and while he never read them, I read every single page.
MEDVIEDENKO. Why do you always wear mourning?
MASHA. I dress in black to match my life. I am unhappy.
-Act One-The Sea-Gull by Checkov
You might have read it already, but if you have not, you might like to check this out:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1754/1754-h/1754-h.htm
Those Russian masters did really come very close to capturing the way I was feeling then.They wanted me to study physics to score really well in the examinations, memorise a few problems, a few diagrams,when all I wanted was to understand how a ray diagram that I am studying might be related to the way my mind conceives it.
Is the space I am studying about an infinite subsisting actual entity?Or is it about relations among representations in my mind,which,in themselves are non-spatial?
I was once sitting in a moor ,with an overcast sky above me,with my books and thinking about these things.Quite incohorently really.Wondering how I could ever comprehend a seemingly mind-independent world which chiefly appears as an extension.I did not know then that I had close to two decades full of pain and incomprehsion before me, before I could even begin to understand these things.
Asking questions if there is a difference between space and the article that is contained in it would have been a one-way ticket to the funny farm.
I wanted to know if I could think of extension without really thinking about a body.Is my mathematical knowledge of space was diffrent from that of things that occupy it or is it the same? There were no anwers to be had. Only mean words from the parents and the so-called teachers. My fellow students who could just be like the race horse with cheek pieces called blinders or blinkers which kept their vision focused did much better academically then.
I had no blinders. And so the whole of the vast Lovecraftian universe poured down into the mind of the 16-year old country boy who,as a result, almost lost his marbles.
If would have asked my physics teacher what that the general nature of extention is or how the parts of Space related to it as a whole, he would have reacted as if I were speaking ancient Greek.
I had about a million questions. Once I was with a cousin of mine, who is a classical beauty, and a medical doctor, so I thought she might be able to help me a bit and asked her something of the kind I just now mentioned, and she laughed at my face.I kept quiet. Not because I did not wish to respond to her but because, I did not know how to.These questions which I can articulate now a little bit, were buried deep within my subconscious mind and night after night I would stay awake ,not to answer them,there was no chance I could have done it, but just to be able to articulate them properly and I couldn’t and it drove me insane.
I was looking for a Herr Hauser but all I found was an arrogant bimbo.
I wanted to know how,if at all, our mind can recognise the necessary truths of the axioms of mathematics and all she could tell me was the shade of lipstick that was in vogue then.
Get well soon.
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I woke with the "morning terrors" but was able to work through it by listening to old John Trudell speeches, eating some watermelon, and reading this Anguish Tabulator thread. It amazes me that we must work through such anguish afresh each time we go through it.
This was from 2019, the 6th of October:
Everything feels difficult today.
My brain is shutting down, refusing to serve others, refusing to serve even me for very much longer.
I try to continue what it is I am doing, but my heart doesn't really seem to be in it today.
Existential dread? It's that WHY BOTHER? feeling. Anything I do, anything I learn or create, it is as though I could just as easily do nothing whatsoever, and there would not be much difference.
When I was studying Wildberger's theory, I was in good spirits, but then I became restless, giving into the Savage God, allowing myself to behold the raw emotions of this animal body, this Embodied Mind. I may be figuring out too much about the local politics of hatred and ill-will.
We have very few honest thinkers to interact with, and this makes us that much more valuable as "Philosophical Friends."
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I find myself sympathetic to the animal body that is my "self" --- but it is not so much self-pity as it is the agonizing realization that every living creature must suffer the torment of its own organism-as-a-whole-in-environments - subjective/interior environments of dread and discomfort anxiety.
A lifetime of studying the problem of existence has not made moment-by-moment existence any easier. Can we be so rare? I mean, how is it that more people are not open and honest about the misery the burden their own animal/creaturely existence is to them?