• qope
    1
    Hello. Wrote this in the past hours. New to sharing my written thoughts socially, so looking for some feedback/criticism/support/whatever - anything social. 3 A4's. Self-help/philosophy-stuff.

    -------

    Writing with free association (just letting the thought flow)

    So basically we have taken one aspect of human nature, sexuality (and competitiveness with it) and conflated it to conquer everything, suffocating underneath the very qualities that make us human. We are meant to be a pack, not individual heroes!

    It is about time someone spoke the truth! We live in a rotten, morally stagnated culture. It is as if culture has grown beyond human control, as if cultural evolution is moving at a pace increasingly faster than human biological evolution. We can’t keep up. We become slaves. Slaves to an entity created by man, encompassing all information ever created: an incomprehensible amount of writings and art by the greatest geniuses who ever lived, all packed into a bio-electronic network growing every day. How can one small human stand underneath such a shadow? Will there come a day when it reaches consciousness? What then?

    In a way, is it not conscious already, for it comes of the produce of a hundred billion consciousnesses? What is consciousness anyway?

    A thing hard to define, that’s for sure. Knowing that you know. Knowing that you know that you know. And it would go on.Who is the knower at the bottom? Chasing it within thoughts will lead nowhere, it will always move up one layer when you think you caught up to it.

    Here one must understand to let go of his thoughts, for the core of your being is not there. On what basis would thoughts be the ‘’truth’’? One remembers many times in one’s life, when one has discovered one’s thoughts were horribly wrong, perhaps with dire consequences. Yet we construct images in our thoughts again and again and hold on to them for dear life, as if without we would cease to exist.

    The world happens whether you think about it or not. You happen whether you think about it or not. Perhaps you remember times in your life when you forgot to think and just acted, perhaps when immersed in a game or another highly engaging activity, and what happened? Things went along in a superb fashion, did they not?

    You will find in your thoughts an image of yourself, a story of you, where you came from, where you are, where you are going, what you look like, what kind of a person you are and so on. That’s your ego. But: your ego is not you! Your ego is an image in your mind, like a complicated picture-book, a story, a finger pointing at you, but it is not you!

    Do you ‘’know’’ how to open and close your hand? Yet you can do it perfectly! Do you ‘’know’’ how you digest food, turning it into construction blocks to renew your physical vehicle, your body? Yet you do it all the same! You cannot ‘’know’’ you, because you are much, much more complicated than thoughts could ever comprehend!

    A book could be written about your hand, with a thousand pages, illustrated, perhaps even coming along with a DVD with a set of comprehensive lectures on it, yet it would not be your hand. In the same way, the Bible speaks of God with endless parables and alleged wisdom, yet it is not God. The Bible is merely a finger pointing at God, and in the same way your idea of you points at the real you, but is not, nor cannot be, you.

    Okay, now how did we get God into this? It must be said, God is an old-fashioned word, and a modern mind will meet it with resistance, yet the word speaks of something still, and always, present. Here I will take a leap: there is no difference between the real you, and God.

    Sounds absurd, right? It might make it easier for you (or maybe not), if I said, that God, the Universe, the ‘’Eternal Now of Everything’’ are all the same thing. Think about this for a moment: a blade of grass grows from the earth. Or does the earth grow a blade of grass? Do you grow out of the world? Or does the world grow a blade of human?

    Yet we, as humans, like to think of ourselves as somehow separable from the rest of the world, as if we could exist without our surroundings. Here you must realize, everything is understood in terms of difference. If there was nothing to compare to, nothing would be noticeable. Black is black in comparison to white; white is white in comparison to black. If there was only white, there would be nothing at all, no difference.

    If there was nothing going on, it would be awfully boring, would it not? Therefore there has to be a game going on, a dance of black and white, yin and yang, good and evil. The universe grows all these things out of itself, small and big rocks, worlds, creatures, including us humans. And here’s the trick: God (the universe) gets so absorbed in these roles he plays, he forgets he’s God! Otherwise the game wouldn’t work!

    However, sometimes this role-play gets awfully stressful, and at that moment looking to God can allow for a blissful forgettance of human troubles. Certainly, the human body needs lots of earthly sustenance: food, rest, companionship, play. Deprived of these, it will become stressed, and a soul in a stressed body is like to forget God for need of focusing on survival. Fear of death is natural and unavoidable, and the great human endeavour is to wage a war of survival against it until the very end.

    Death of the body is inevitable, yet the soul is eternal. The soul cannot die, because it is God, because it is the universe. With the body’s death the individual consciousness will also silence, yet how would that be a bad fate? It doesn’t mean being buried alive for 10 billion years or getting trapped in an eternal dark void. It’s just, nothing, no thing. It’s peace. And, you know, maybe after a hundred years (I wish you long and happy lives), lots of battles, triumphs and defeats, maybe a rest would be nice?

    So, let’s go back to the looming threat of cultural evolution and the (so it seems) inevitable rise of the artificial intelligence. Now, even though we are all Gods, we are driving very small vehicles, so our potential to change the world is rather limited. We cannot shape the stars, we cannot move mountains, we cannot change the lives of every person on the planet. But there is something we can change. Ourselves.

    What you do with your vehicle is entirely up to you. God will help you when you put your love, trust and faith in him, instead of being against him, but you still have to take the steering wheel. Where would you like to go? Where would the view be nice? Where would there be good food, a place and time to rest, an engaging, meaningful activity to occupy your human time, and friends to share it all with? Pick a direction and go, and don’t look back!

    People on the side of the road will tell you: he’s going too fast, I don’t like him. None of your concern! A person will get in your way; pause, offer him your hand, negotiate. Maybe you have the words that can help him find his way, but, if he tries to stop you, forget him and keep going. It’s your life, and no one else’s.

    Maybe you run across rock on the road, blocking the way ahead, and you consider giving up. FUCKING BANG YOURSELF AGAINST THAT ROCK UNTIL IT BREAKS, BECAUSE YOU WILL NOT BREAK. You may fracture, but then you heal, and will be stronger than before. It’s not easy, it is painful, but you WILL make it!

    It must be said, nowadays it is so easy to give up, because the virtual world offers easy rewards for everybody. Going for those real life achievements is hard? No matter, pick up an online game and achieve social acceptance with the clicks of a few buttons! Real women are scary? No matter, with a few clicks you’ll have thousands of hot naked babes spreading their goods right in front of you! However, deep down in your heart, you are not satisfied. You feel empty. You feel you’re in the wrong place. Damn right you are.

    Now, you can’t wake up tomorrow and be a superman, regardless of the amount of self-discipline you develop overnight. BUT: you can wake up tomorrow and be a bit more SUPER than you were today! Pick a time when you wake up! Pick a chore you know you should do but wouldn’t want to, and do it! Pick an exercise you know you can do, and do it! Maybe you want a bar of milk chocolate, get dark chocolate instead! Maybe you need to walk to the store, run instead! Maybe call your mom for God’s sake, and be friendly to her, you know she loves you! GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER!

    It’s small things that you get started with, obviously. Just keep at it, and you’ll be surprised where you can get in a year, two, maybe five. Think about it: five years is only a twentieth (remember, you’ll live to be at least a hundred years old) of your life, yet so much can change in five years, and CHANGE FOR THE BETTER! Where do you want to see yourself in five years? Still sitting in front of the computer 12 hours a day, playing video games and jerking off to porn, ten kilos fatter? Or MAYBE, you want to see yourself being in good shape, healthy, smiling, confident, studying and growing as a person, possibly having a woman or two in your life, and all in all living A LIFE THAT’S WORTH LIVING! A life that’s challenging, rewarding and fulfilling, so when you go to sleep at night next to your girlfriend and dog (of course dogs should sleep in your bed), deep down in your heart, you feel AT PEACE!

    Start today. Not tomorrow, not ‘’when you feel like it’’. Now. You absolutely have to set boundaries on yourself, otherwise you’re just a wild dog running around chasing food and sex. Set limits, set rules. They will not destroy you, they will TAME you, they will make YOU WORK FOR YOU. Maybe you know something you do is bad for you. Limit it, limit it some more, and eliminate it from your life. You don’t need stuff that’s holding you back. The stuff needs you and tries to control you, because it wants your attention, it needs your attention to survive. Fuck that stuff, throw it out of your life. This includes people who swallow your energy and give nothing in return, people who make you feel miserable and down. Out, out with them. You have to learn to let go of things. Otherwise you’re just a little baby clutching his pacifier for safety.

    THE WORLD IS NOT SAFE, okay? But you can be. Light a fire in yourself and kindle it until it blazes warmth all around you, and people will come and gather round. There is nothing more beautiful than that. There is nothing we need more in the world right now, when the fires have been extinguished, and we run like wild dogs in the dark.

    Light your fire.
  • BC
    13.6k
    Hello. Wrote this in the past hours. New to sharing my written thoughts socially, so looking for some feedback/criticism/support/whatever - anything social. 3 A4's. Self-help/philosophy-stuff.

    Writing with free association (just letting the thought flow)
    qope

    Welcome to The Philosophy Forum.

    I want to encourage you to participate in the forum, so please don't take what I say here as a "get lost" response.

    a) Your post is too long and too diffuse.
    b) Focus on a specific point in your opening post.
    c) Take a position, offer an argument in favor of your position, then wait for a response.

    If your main point is "without self-discipline you’re just a wild dog running around chasing food and sex" then start with that. Tell us why you think being self-disciplined is better than being a wild dog. Why does it matter?

    Don't unload your whole armory of ideas all at once. Free association is useful in places (like on a psychoanalyst's couch) but not so much in a philosophical discussion.
  • ArguingWAristotleTiff
    5k
    @Bitter Crank
    Thank you for saying what I didn't have the time to say 'gently' :ok:
  • Arne
    817
    I want to encourage you to participate in the forum, so please don't take what I say here as a "get lost" response.

    a) Your post is too long and too diffuse.
    b) Focus on a specific point in your opening post.
    c) Take a position, offer an argument in favor of your position, then wait for a response.

    If your main point is "without self-discipline you’re just a wild dog running around chasing food and sex" then start with that. Tell us why you think being self-disciplined is better than being a wild dog. Why does it matter?
    Bitter Crank

    Indeed:

    The length was the first thing I thought of. And generally for contemporary reasons. This is the facebook age. Until and, more likely when, you fall into a particular niche and know who the regulars are, make your claim and argue for it in five sentences or less.
  • BC
    13.6k
    He/she is new to this kind of activity; Qope will get much more social involvement with short posts than long posts. Too long and too little. Like, "Hey, what do you all think about male prostitutes?" End of post. Too short.

    Not enough information. It depends--a talented male prostitute or a klutz? Good looking or should have a bag over his head? What -- you want more or fewer? Should it be legal or not? What's your angle?
  • Arne
    817
    Not enough information. It depends--a talented male prostitute or a dull fellow? Good looking or should have a bag over his head? What -- you want more or fewer? Should it be legal or not? What's your angle?Bitter Crank

    That is funny.

    Especially new people new to the process should keep it short and sweet. For some people, the more you, the more they have for beating you over the head. There is some meanness out there.
  • BC
    13.6k
    Thank you. Do you think we should have a thread on male prostitution? I'd be happy to start one. (Maybe I already have?)
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