Personal Questions for Man in 2016
Inactivity has a way of revealing to us that which would otherwise be hidden by activity. Perhaps that's why many of us feel as though we have to fill our days with tasks, moving from one activity to another – an attempt perhaps at subduing some yearning or filling some void that our lives leave. Perhaps this is the fundamental suffering of all humans. Perhaps contentment is the illusion.
I constantly find myself moving from my current job or house or feeling or activity to another, more satisfying one – a pattern that leaves many unfinished tasks and half-done jobs. Is that even true? Perhaps you've had this experience: there is some ambiguous social situation in which someone says something, laughs, tells you some innate piece of information or moves in a particular way. This sends one's thoughts on a downward spiral, confirming your worst fears about reality – that person is leaving, that situation is unsolvable, that idea is worthless. Maybe you carry it a step further, assuming that you are worthless, all your situations are unsolvable, everyone is leaving. Where does this come from?
Have we been so thoroughly destroyed and confused by our culture that we can't discover the source or usefulness of our feelings any longer? Are we so far removed from our motivations that we really can't figure out why we think certain thoughts, what brings on certain emotions, or even what our desires are?
One side claims that bowing to an infinitely wise and compassionate love source is the solution, that turning away from many of our desires is the path to salvation. The other side claims that fulfilling one's desires is the path. I have two hands, why would I tie one of them behind my back at the behest of the other?
Am I really supposed to spend all of my energy ensuring that I don't hurt anyone? Never call anyone by the wrong pronoun, never say anything to upset the beliefs of the other? What is the other except another me? What do I do when people are mean to me? I feel like I'm getting pretty used to it, but what I think is mean changes from one day to another. Does my suffering give me pass to hurt others? One day I love a good natured ribbing, but the next day it cuts me. Some days I walk a fine line between insanity and ecstasy but can't figure out which is which – and whether one is naturally better than the other.
Everyone else seems to have such an easy time. Surely that's not true.
Why do we hide ourselves?
Before going on, I'd like to clarify – I'm not offering any answers here.
But would you trust them if I offered any?
I wouldn't.
Who am I even writing this to? - I suppose I'll probably publish this emotional pornography on my blog. Emotional masturbation, maybe – but there's lots of masturbation porn, or so I'm told. What the fuck are we supposed to do?
The way I see it, every time we think we have something nailed down (pun? Jesus pun?) as right, just, wrong, illegal, what have you – any time we judge something as moral or immoral, society goes along and proves us wrong in the end. Should I adopt someone else's morality? I can't do that. In the end, most of my actions will go (unfortunately for all of you) unnoticed, and so by adopting another's morality I'm hoping that someone catches all those acts. Capital G God, Al'lah, Whatever glottal sounds we make to be that being capital B being. Dasein. Being within. Unable to feel the being that is the being that I am part. The Buddhists have a few ideas – meditation, masturbation (or at least a lack of rules on right conduct in that regard). Practise I suppose. Practise.
Is compassionate action always possible?
What is the role of hatred in human consciousness? Hatred opposite of Love Consciousness? Love brings people together, Hatred separates, divides, repulses. Is this so bad? We are beings created through the co-operation of non-living particles of “matter” which is energy slowed – in order that we may experience ourselves as separate from our environment? What in the actual fuck.
The more we move towards some thing, some ideal, some perfect state of union between our inner and outer, the more we move toward that thing's opposite. Apathy? Moving towards Goodness solidifies it as the opposite of Badness or blackness. Both gain a greater strength, as we vilify hatred and promote love consciousness, what are we doing?
If we live in a nation that spends more money on war than food and education for ourselves, what does that tell you about us? How is it possible to change these things? How do we move from being in shallow relationships with one another to a more peaceful co-existence?
Why was I built with the capacity to destroy and provided no outlet with which to deal with this? Is the constant repression of the death instinct leading us to unconsciously exercise it on a mass scale? No, friend, I am not suggesting anything. Anger is real, money is real, rage, frustration, hatred, sadism. I am the great destroyer and the great healer – simultaneously – we all are. There is no avoiding this. All things we demonize in the other is possible within each of us. Daemon – of the self – is the perfect word for this. We create something we can point to and say: “Look at that awful shit, that isn't me, I would never do that, it was the DEMON!” We created it. It is us. We are it.
