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

Is it possible to turn despair, disillusionment, and general depression into inner wealth?

A note from the biography, Kafka: The Years of Insight, p.296:

Sartre called this strategy, ‘Making something out of what you’ve been made into.’ To identify deliberately with characteristics that the community regards as strange, insane, or antisocial requires a high degree of reflectiveness, which Kafka sought to achieve by linguistic and literary means, as a reader and a writer. This explains his extensive reading while in Zurau and his meditative style in the Zurau Notes.

“It amuses me,” said K, “only because it gives me some insight into the ridiculous tangle that may under certain circumstances determine a person’s life.”

To identify deliberately with intense geeks who examine code with debuggers ... or  even to identify deliberately with rebellious old drunks who curse their hometowns ... or to identify with the Hikikomori who does not want to participate in the work-force ... to identify with those who hide away in basements and attics ... to identify with those who, as Virginia Woolf writes, are the deserters, the refuseniks. They won’t accept the “co-operative” conventions. They blurt things out. They turn sympathizers away. They won’t go to work. They lie down. They waste time. They fantasize. They don’t go to Church or believe in Heaven. They refuse to read responsibly or make sense of what they read. They are attracted to nonsense, sensation, and rashness. On the other side of the glass is “the army of the upright,” harnessing energy, driving motor cars, going to work and to church, communicating and civilizing.  Reading in bed – like writing in bed – is, it’s suggested, a form of deviancy.

This is why it is nearly impossible for me to hate those who I witness destroying themselves out of total frustration.  I am fortunate to have insight into the nature of what must ail us all.  Others may not be as fortunate and they become overwhelmed ... the momentum takes over and they do not stop to reflect, they may not be able to get away from their own lives. 

Making something out of what I've been made into:  maybe I have experienced a wide variety of environments and I can identify with a variety of characters.  In my heart, I am not too judgmental ... I venture out and make some eye contact with strangers who are not really strangers at all ... and while I can't say I feel "love" for those I encounter, I do feel something ... some kind of tenderness, sympathy for all ...

November 2009

What if depression is not a disease at all, but a reflection of an emotional and aesthetic sensitivity, a greater capacity to reason and see truth, a greater disdain for authoritarianism, and a more pained experience over lack of real community?

Those who become seriously depressed may be considered diseased, but they are considered diseased by those who are genetically predisposed to insensitivity, injustice, compliance, coldness, and an incapacity to see through their own self-deception. 

You're right about the insensitive diagnosing or judging the sensitive. That would be like color blind people being the authority on paintings drawn by people who are not color blind! Makes no sense, right? It's backwards. Maybe we have a heightened (some might even say "superior") nervous system?

When it comes to the issue of hyper-sensitivity, I like to remember "thermometers" and what their function is. Sensitivity is necessary in thermometers. Why would human animals be denigrated, degraded, and stigmatized for HYPER-sensitivity?

Why would it even surprise us that an army of civil servants and private "psychiatric care" forces exist solely to mine for and manage "social deviants" - which could come down to simply being in the position to require monetary assistance in acquiring food and shelter. I mean, all the nation's poor are subjected to psychiatric evaluations. This is the "industrial institutionalization" of the masses. There is not much separating the zoo-keepers from those they manage.


Sign of the times ---> Largest growing profession in the United States: prison guard.


I imagine security forces of all kinds will join the ranks of the domestic soldiers here in the belly of the beast as the poor continue to be criminalized. The most victimized and vulnerable among us are fed into the system for profit. It's bidniz as per usual in the USA; and I do believe the insensitive, compliant, cold-hearted cunts and pricks do mean business.

Many people are shuffled into "day care centers" just to keep them from "undisturbed leisure." That's one part of "New Jersey and You: Perfect Together" I will no longer submit to upon my return. I will continue to duck and resist or run away again if it comes to that.

It is no conspiracy theory that this is how our culture deals with its sensitives.

We've all been damaged in being born, but while hyper-sensitive individuals may be systematically devalued, even the most insensitive zombies are vulnerable to complete mental meltdown if the circumstances are ripe for it.

The system seems to blame victims in order to defuse protest. Modern biopsychiatrists, no less than Nazi psychiatrists, also have a vision of an ideal society and techniques of biomedical control. Who knows what is in store for us. Are we like lambs lined up to be slaughtered? One wrong move and we'll be hospitalized?

There is no psycho-therapuetical cure for my attitude.

My animal body resists captivity. In other words, I am VERY SENSITIVE to the effects of captivity. My animal body rebels against "schedules," "programs," and institutionalization.

I am inspired by Hersilie Rouy and how she used writing while incarcerated in the asylums in France in 1883. It was entitled "Memoires dune alienee" (Memoirs of a Madwoman). It was 540 pages. She was in asylums for over 15 years! It was written in French, and never translated into any other language.

It is a sign of merit to be at odds with a society, especially when society rewards conformity and starves the extraordinary.

This feeling of the "absurd" and suicide are directly related. Despair is the only honest attitude the heart can feel.

This little quote by Ambrose Bierce sums up madness pretty well imo :

MAD, adj.

Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that themselves are sane. For illustration, this present (and illustrious) lexicographer is no firmer in the faith of his own sanity than is any inmate of any madhouse in the land; yet for aught he knows to the contrary, instead of the lofty occupation that seems to him to be engaging his powers he may really be beating his hands against the window bars of an asylum and declaring himself Noah Webster, to the innocent delight of many thoughtless spectators.

In George Orwell's 1984 Winston stays sane, initially, by writing secretly; and "sanity" involves finding forms of self-expression, despite the fear-inducing Thought Police. And yet, there is another face to "sanity."

If sanity depends on the inability or unwillingness to understand, it is madness to have a realistic sense of what is actually going on. Acknowledging certain things that are going on around you might drive you mad, might destroy your hard-won "equillibrium."

Who wants to be "sane" and "well-adjusted" when sanity means finding ways of not knowing about all the things that might drive you insane were you to know them

Those who criticize establishment dogmas are not given a serious hearing; and, therefore we ought to take some comfort in the recognition that the pain we experience over the personal attacks against us is most likely due to our political naivete. Terms used by the army of "mental health technicians," in the behavioral healthcare industry, such as repression, projection, "acting out," resistance, non-compliance, neurosis, psychosis, biploar, schizophrenia, alcoholic, et cetera, have been and continue to be used to insult, humiliate, and otherwise degrade "patients," "clients," [INMATES].

Blaming the victims of mass industrial society is the hallmark of psychotherapy. The values essential to psychotherapy deflect a person from deep reflection on the sources of human misery. When someone who is diagnosed/stigmatized as "mentally ill" maintains his or her own Vision in the face of social disapproval, this courage is viewed by therapists as further proof of mental illness!

In Hersile Rouy's "Memoirs of a Madwoman," the very attributes that make Rouy such a valuable witness, the clarity of her style, the eloquence of her writing, the sharpness of her intellect, were regarded as "pathognomonic" ---- as signs of her illness.

Is it possible that there is nothing profoundly unusual in what happened to Hersilie Rouy in the middle of the 19th Century then or now???

Is it possible that therapy is meant to break our will, break our spirit, to label us as "sick" (and in need of treatment) so as to discredit us and rob us of our dignity? This is most likely the heart heart of "therapy" and "behavioral healthcare."

One day soon enough, once I save for security and secure another residence, I might be able to get an old clunker of a machine and a flashdrive. Then I can type up some notes at my leisure, store on flashdrive, and upload at a library or wherever.

Life is probably going to go on for me longer than I imagined. Once this fact dawns on me, I will be more apt to work on Volume 2; but I most likely will work in reverse, from 2012 back to 1999. I do have some kind of goals, but things keep happening where I never get settled enough, always dealing with crises and seriously urgent situations.

I am very psychologically attached to my journals, even more so to them than to this site.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating. That massive stack of journals may be the most important philosophical work done in the last 50 years. Please hold on to it, recover what is lost (if possible), and make arrangements for the journals in the event of misfortune. Selfishly, I will gladly volunteer to take custody of them should something happen. But then again, there's some reason to believe something might happen to me before that can happen, so if I'm gone, then make sure someone who will appreciate them gets them. For them to end in up in some dumpster would be a substantial loss to the human race, I believe.

That's enough for today.  This will keep me grounded in reality.

Small business ideas?  I'll put it on the back burner and let it stew.

To be frank, I liked the security that the state job offered, but I have always been an independent thinker, and even though I was a "hard worker," it just wasn't working out.  I'm not a yes man.  Like you, I am not sufficiently intimidated by authority and not fond of the chain of command.

As far as how I felt when I left, well, I returned to the university ... something I had wanted to do for years.  Upon graduating I became disillusioned. 

I don't want to make light of walking away from the quarry.  For me, personally, I feel like I am a mutation who is simply not going to adapt to wage-slavery and I have accepted my death sentence.  To be blunt, I am living out my days as one who is already dead.  I've accepted my death sentence ... really, I'm just doing time.

I am a mutation.  It is as though I have resigned from the species and am just putting in my two cents before I go extinct.  Point blank.

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.

Holden says that in the book.

You are such a writer Mr H.I am lucky in that I can write to you & that you are kind enough to respond.

I was thinking about this dismal worldview we are promoting here.  Are you alright with the idea of living without hope?  You say you get something out of the things I write, so you certainly have the capacity to accept such a worldview without resorting to the usual tactics of trying to "save" me or suggest positive thinking. 

Please don't think I am encouraging you to be miserable.  I am only encouraging you to remain mentally strong and courageous enough to allow yourself to experience a sense of life's futility without being overwhelmed by it.  Part of being sane, is being a little crazy.


If sanity depends on unwillingness to understand, it is madness to have a realistic sense of what is actually going on. Acknowledging certain things that are going on around you might drive you mad.  Maybe going mad is actual sanity, where we are able to experience and express exactly how we genuinely think and feel, whereas society's definition of sanity is simply "equilibrium" and a sense of well-being.

I have to say, Holden Caulfield, the fact that you are interested in listening to what I have to say is one of the brighter aspects of my daily life at the moment.  Even in my teenage years I was philosophical.  I would be accused of being "too deep," and asked to "lighten up".  It's always surprised me how few people want to think too deeply. 

In his book, Steppenwolf, which is considered autobiographical fiction, on the copy I read before I reached the age of 20, Hermann Hesse gives a stern warning in the introduction that he did not want the book to get into the hands of the youth, that they might misinterpret it and think he was advocating for the destruction of civilization, when, he says, he is telling the story from the perspective of a man nearing the age of 50.  I don't see myself as a man nearing the age of 50, which is why being addressed as "Mr. H" was kind of awkward ... but, now, thanks to you, I have experienced some kind of breakthrough.  I guess I have "come of age" in the sense that I have become the Steppenwolf I read about as a teenager. 

Bildung - Difficult to translate, in essence it refers to the inner development of the individual, a process of fulfillment through education and knowledge, an amalgam of wisdom and self-realization.


I was heading deeper and deeper in this direction throughout my life. 

I will say this, while my characteristics are not economically valuable in normal society, having a deeply philosophical mind is appreciated in some of this world's "punishment centers".  I mean, I have engaged in some heavy conversations in the county jail and even psychiatric "treatment centers".  So, while the corporate world does not encourage deep thinking, but obedience to the group mind, in the midst of the disaster that is this life, you may find like-minded individuals in the most unexpected places.  There are those who are actually interested in these kinds of conversations. 

No writer writes out of having found the answer to the problem; he writes rather out of his having the problem and wanting a solution.  The solution consists not of a resolution.  It consists of the deeper and wider dimension of consciousness to which the writer is carried by virtue of his wrestling with the problem.

It's funny, I seem to write out of having a problem and wanting to be alright with the fact that there is no solution.  Isn't part of the arrogance of humanism that our species seems to think that all problems are soluble?  Maybe what I am looking for is a certain degree of "mental and emotional power" to help me get through this life, knowing that countless others have endured it.

That's what I mean when I say I don't mind being miserable.  I don't want to think I have to snap out of it ... but to be able to deal with it without projecting it onto imaginary enemies.

Amazingly, becoming comfortable in misery relieves the misery slightly.

An analogy might be a dark cave, not Plato's cave ... a different one.  Suppose one were to panic in the dark. This could be horrifying.  The imagination could have one running into the walls, breaking one's bones or poking an eyeball out, which would make the situation considerably worse.   It would be better to crawl like an infant and adjust to being blind as calmly as possible.

That's what I am trying to do.  I want to face the possibility that life is a horrific disaster and take a deep breath, and forge ahead ... cautiously.

I have been meaning to ask you this for sometime-this avatar yours,the one you are using on this message board,what does it stand for? What does it symbolise?

How important can it be that I suffer and think? My presence in this world will disturb a few tranquil lives and will unsettle the unconscious and pleasant naiveté of others. Although I feel that my tragedy is the greatest in history—greater than the fall of empires—I am nevertheless aware of my total insignificance. I am absolutely persuaded that I am nothing in this universe; yet I feel that mine is the only real existence.”


― Emil Cioran, On the Heights of Despair

Maybe "coming of age" might be something as simple as coming to the realization that one's "failures" (to succeed by society's standards) have actually been one's greatest successes ...

Like having had the sense to hide in a fox-hole scribbling in a notebook or getting oneself fired from a job one secretly hates ...