Never forget that you are meat. You have not spirit independent of your body and this world is all you will ever get. You do not have much time, and no time to waste. You have this life, no past life, no next life, no afterlife. You have this life. And you are throwing it away.
You are not the pinnacle of evolution. You are not made in God's image. You are a reasonably well adapted primate with delusions of grandeur. You are not the villain, and not born sinful. you are not a flawed creation of god or a monster amongst the beauty of nature. you are simply a culture living beyond your means.
You are not separate from nature. You are not separate from your body. 'You' are an expression of your body, and an expression of your culture, and and an expression of natural selection and the history of life on Earth.
You think with your brain, not with your mind. What you think of as your self is simply the electricity passing between cells in the brain. The mind is a ghost, a phantom, it does not exist- save as a convenient way of explaining our thinking brain as a unit. You are a miracle of Frankenstein proportions- a great thing of flesh and bone running via the electricity coursing through your nerves and muscles, powered by solar energy (for what else is our food but condensed sunlight?).
Who told you that you were good enough? You have been on the clock since birth. Your value is measured by what you give back to the Earth- your only home- in your short life. There is no prize for efficient extraction, you have to give back. There is no free lunch, you have to give back. The world owes you nothing, and you owe it everything. You have to give back.
Do not seek happiness. It does not live alone. Seek contribution. Seek to find where you are called to be. Seek what excites and terrifies you all at once. Seek what needs doing, because it is the right thing. It is there that you will make your own happiness.
The king calls the rebel a villain. Ask why. Our good books are written by one side of the story. Imagine how our good books would read if the adversary were really the hero. Beware! If you challenge your faiths, your cherished beliefs, you may find that are hollow or shatter under examination. You may find that your beliefs must change. But we must all change or die.
Your faith is frail and disloyal if you do not test it. One's faith should rest on a mountain of evidence. It should have withstood an army of your own doubts and attacks, lest it fall at the puff of an enemy's breath.
Death should be be sad, but it need not be a tragedy. The end of a life well spent, no matter how short, no matter how sad the end itself, will be a triumph every time. When you die you will be put into the earth, and and one day you will be earth. Nothing will remain and no spirit will linger. You do not have eternity, you have today! Act now!
When somebody tells you to turn the other cheek, they are telling you to be an obedient slave. When somebody asks to be your shepherd, they are telling you to be livestock. When you are called a patriot it means they expect you to believe before you think. If you are called a heretic, it means you have demanded the right to choose your own way.
Genius is not measured by talent or intelligence or skill. genius is measured by accomplishment. Geniuses create while the masses criticize. Geniuses step into the mist, while the masses tell them that they will fail. Geniuses are willing to to die trying, because it is better die well than to survive without ever living at all.
Great things are not within you. They are without you. you must step beyond yourself to reach them. The one who builds a bridge does so by stepping into the void and placing stones upon the sky.
You will never cease to fear as you step beyond you self. Do not try to. Instead, look upon your fear as a trusted companion who keeps you alert and reminds you that great things must be fearsome to be worth having and keep the rabble at bay.
You have your life to live, not somebody else's. Do not be so cowardly as to attempt to live through another rather than take your own risks.
Why do you equate goodness with obedience? Why are the docile and easily led exalted? Why are we told that the meek shall inherit the earth? We know full well that if this were to happen it will be only because the rich man has devoured everything of value first. The servant is afraid to be wrong. For if he is wrong, he is beaten. The free man is not afraid to be wrong. For if he is wrong, he learns something new. A god that demands loves does not understand love. A god that demands obedience does not understand freedom. A god that creates hell does not understand eternity. A god that holds the son accountable for the sins of the father is wicked.
We must defy authority, because all authority is illegitimate. True leaders do not seek power, and do not retain the power that they are offered. They use it to the group's advantage and then return it willingly- gratefully. Anyone who claims power should be opposed. Anyone who claims authority should be defied.
The trinkets you seek will not complete you. The empty things you consume will leave you still hollow. You cannot replace meaning with having.
Something is not rendered true because you would prefer it to be so. The world does not accommodate you. The world does not negotiate. The world dictates terms. If you wish to make an impact, then you must learn to see clearly. And you must learn to adapt.
You exist only as the mark you leave on the world. You can leave the world richer or you can leave the world poorer. You can leave your children with a richer, cleaner world or you can choose to damage the world for them.
Bluster about a problem does not solve it. Telling people to work harder does not work. To make change, you must change yourself and you must change the setting. Do not assume that people will change their basic nature. Instead adapt your plans so that they work with people's basic nature.
To teach a person to depend on others for their safety is to train slaves. To teach a person to be kind and merciful to oppressors is to perpetuate violence.
Enlightenment is a deathtrap. The existential dread that enlightenment claims to solve comes from a lack of purpose and a lack of true community. The dread does not come from too much attachment, but attachment to worthless things. The enlightened master offers a mental suicide when what is needed is action and meaning. The void comes soon enough.
The world is not a temptation. Life is not something to be transcended, but something in which to become immersed. We will die, and then we will be dirt. This is our one chance to be immortal, not in soul or mind- they are phantoms- but in deed and impact. Legacy is our only immortality.
Better to try and fail and die loudly, than to pass quietly from the light. Better to be remembered as one who tried and failed than one who never tried. The genius of failures is that they lay the ground for success- and that is a legacy for which one may be satisfied to die.
Knowledge is not power. Knowledge is a resource. Power is your resources multiplied by your efforts.
All true philosophy begins not with the mind, but with the body. It begins in our genetic instructions. Anything not so grounded is blind speculation. We are not merely our genetic information, anymore than a IS its rules. The rules are the basis for the game and game is created by flexion against the constraints imposed by the rules. We are the results of genetic information in the same way.
Bureaucracy is the weapon of the coward. Implied power, unspoken authority, power based on organizational hierarchy are the domain of the parasite and the villain. A system designed to make everyone slaves will always be built upon such principles and such power. It is a monster that devours itself and is never satisfied.
Any apparent benefits to bureaucracy and hierarchy are overshadowed by the monster that it turns us into. No claims to efficiency or organization or progress can justify the rape of our home and our potential and the burning of our history.
We use structures and bureaucracies to protect those who do not perform from the rigors of the real world. "Be our slave", they offer "and nothing will ever swallow you whole". Instead we are devoured in little bites by bureaucratic fangs.
True system, trues culture flows like water and adapts like a living species. Bureaucracies are rigid and brittle things that survive change by growing larger and seeking to absorb and sedate change agents. but life is change and bureaucracy is the domain of the walking dead.
We are weighed by our results. All of our actions have results. The ends do not justify the means or vice versa, because every action taken is end- a result dropped into the world. We must consider this in all things.
Do not confuse the abstract with the eternal. Those who seek ideal form find that they are always disappointed. The physical world does not spring from the abstract, the abstract springs from the physical: from the electrical interplay of our neurons, and has value only as long as it has use.
You are going to fail, and fail again. People will be better than you. They won't understand your vision. You will get knocked down. You will get knocked out. you will be scorned and you will be laughed at. And, if you are a warrior, none of this wills top you- and thus you will have a chance. In the end it is not about success, because success is not assured. It is not about effort- which means little. It is not about sportsmanship- which means a lot. In the end, it is about drive, perseverance and the ability to do what scares you and get back up when you are knocked down and say "Now I know how to avoid getting hit like that again."
Do not confuse intent with action. Do not confuse planning with creating. Intent is necessary, planning is vital. These things lay the foundations, but only action brings results.
Spectacle is not impact, but neither is it powerless. The spectacle is proof to the fool, and evidence to the easily led.
Discontent is the seed of change. Anger and frustration, if used and not succumbed to, are the fuel of action. The angry person will, while awake and in control, persevere in the face of trouble. Without emotional engagement, without passion, we give up.
All calls to dissolve the mind and identity in order to achieve a perceive enlightenment are impractical. A temporary dissolution of mind and identity can give perspective or lead to personal growth. To desire this in the long term though, is merely nihilistic.
Know yourself. know your strengths. Know your flaws. Then set about to creating yourself as you would like to be. This is done through action. Habit breeds identity.
We fear death when we squander life. We know we will die with our dreams still inside our hearts, like cowards hiding from a world that beat us only because we did not dare to try. We are addicted to getting ready- it feels good, and actually starting scares us.
No comments:
Post a Comment