odd noises in my head

lundi, juin 27, 2005

brilliance as bullshit ...

i swear, i have been working on another entry. one of (little) substance and whatnot. of course, i am not very good at writing anything of substance. it's like a little curse of mine. i prefer to sit around and write cuss words until people stop thinking and start getting real ... or something.

it is an interesting curse though. i don't really know where i got it from. it's like, one day i woke up and realized that i was the center of the universe, and all that the universe could ever mean, i could only understand what it is in my perspective/reality.

dispite how enlightened that may sound, it is really quite the opposite. when you realize that the world that you understand and know only exists in your head -- and that it is scarcely similar to the true world that exists without knowlege or regard to life and consciousness (do they walk hand in hand?) -- you are left feeling horribly alone.

it's like, nothing you do matters anymore. after all, it stands to follow that if existence is only in my head, then nothing will exist after i die. and one of the cold hard truths about life is that life itself has little if any value within the context. it is only when we take life out of context (i.e. deny fundamental truths about reproduction and evolution) that we are able to convince ourselves that an individual's life matters.

this is, of course, evidenced in the common experience of one giving his/her life for the greater good. think about how this works for a second.

let's take a mother in the naturally dangerous process of giving birth to a child. of course, i make this distinction because in the modern era, where life has been augmented by medical science, it is expected that all mothers will survive child birth, and that does not serve my purpose. but sans medicine, it would not be uncommon for a woman not to survive the process.

now her existence began on the day of her cognito and ended with her death. that means that her world was created and ended all in that span of time. she left no legacy in her existence, and no legacy on that other greater existence that has no relation to life. but we can look at the life of the child, and convince ourselves that her life did matter. after all, she, at that time, gave the world a new existence.

but the problem is that the new existence will only matter in the same way that her's did, at best. it, like her's, will never impact the truer, greater existence. and therefore, it is out of the context. but at least while it is out of context, it does matter.

and at the same time, there is a larger picture. in this picture, both the woman and the child fill the roles of personifications of perpetual life and the greatness it encompasses.

what the fuck happened? i really just started rambling this time. i think my head is falling apart. and, as you can see, this is the problem that faces me. whenever i think about my own life, i am confronted by these notions that i consider to be the fundamental truths about the universe.

i feel like i am on this constant quest to figure them all out, and figure out (more importantly) exactly how they affect me and the way that i want to live my life (as living life is always an active process). but the more i get into it, the more i wonder why i even care. it's the trail head of the wonderful path known as apathy. anyway, it's nearing 4:20 ... time for me to relax and try and convince myself to sleep.

12 Comments:

  • "i could only understand what it is in my perspective/reality."

    yes! that is what I have never heard Buddha or someone else claiming to be enlightened admit. ultimate reality cannot exist because by definition *we create it* - there is no way to escape our way and realm of thought into the realm of "no thing" and "no thought" because it is paradoxial. in my experience and opinion, paradoxes do not and cannot exist. if they appear to, your premises are wrong and need to be checked, to roughly quote ayn rand.

    perhaps you feel so apathetic because I believe you are looking at this from the wrong perspective. I would've thought that anyone who realized this truth would instantly realize their life is their own and no one else's, and only you can give it meaning. whether you like it or not, a fact of life is that certain things make us happy and certain things make us sad - but the things that makes us happy are much stronger than apathy, sadness or anger.

    why does realizing we are everything mean we don't matter? it should be the exact opposite. we are all we have. I do not see a mother's life as meaningful just because she gave birth. So what? I can go fuck some girl and give birth too, but if neither of us enjoyed it, then it has no meaning.

    jesus, this is so hard to pin down with few words.

    why must we define our meaning in life based on other's thoughts or memories? you say the mother would leave no legacy - and? did *she*, being the center of her own existence, find herself to be worthy of legacy, despite what others think?

    By Anonymous Anonyme, at 10:45 AM  

  • maybe that since i am apathetic, than i am looking at things from the correct perspective.

    By Blogger jeames morgan, at 3:06 AM  

  • Maybe. I'm more inclined to say any perspective is correct, so long as it's your own. I was attempting to debate the fact that certain perspectives result in things that innately "feel better" and that nearly everyone wants that feeling in whatever form.

    I'm not sure. I suppose I don't understand how apathy can equate happiness, or be as consuming as it is.

    By Anonymous Anonyme, at 4:07 PM  

  • i think that by definition, apathy cannot equal happiness. and really, i have two answers for that.

    one, by apathy, i mean that i have no concern for what i read or learn about in current events, nor do i really have an investment in the betterment of the earth. and i really have individual reasons for my apathies, but when i speak about them as a single unit, it is that i recognize the general approach i have to these aspects of life.

    certainly i am happy in the majority of my relationships in the life that i practice ... as compared to the one that i theorize about.

    when you accept the existential truths (i.e. choice of life, life is the value, and so on), you recognize that happiness is ubiquitous (sp?) in nature, and that it is often not related to moods or emotions, such as joy. and that leads to my second point ...

    happiness, i believe, is an unreal expectation in life. and i am convinced that the reason that people are so obsessed with being happy is that they are chasing something that cannot be expressed in an existential life (because of the ubiquity), but rather an objective one with retrospect ... where happiness is more definable.

    if any of that makes sense, i don't know.

    By Blogger jeames morgan, at 3:43 PM  

  • made good sense to me with a little thinking. I had to look up the word ubiquitous, which you spelled correctly, but nothing other than that.

    I hope I'm correct in thinking you say happiness is something we experience in retrospect... which, in retrospect, seems completely true to me. I'd never thought about that before.

    however, my happiness is not definable by retrospect. indeed I am happy by living completely in the moment (yes, something related to Zen) and not completely in the future or the past. I can certainly look back on memories and think "those were good times" - but for me happiness is in no way an ideal i can't express. i'm not "obsessed" with it, not in the way some people are where i would "force" myself to have fun, etc. my happiness is natural because it comes from living, is based of course on what i enjoy, and is governed by my own logic.

    however, i find it odd that you say something such as happiness is most often not related to a mood or emotion.

    what else do we have in life other than moods or emotions or senses (touch taste etc)? certainly if we remove our ability to speak all we have left are moods and emotions; they constitute the mind. words just pin these emotions. i can't tell you what an orange tastes like: i have to use words like tangy, tart, but you need to experience even those to understand them. my point lies in selecting, through contemplation, the better emotions. in my contemplations i have realized that the "negative" emotions are silly and problems can be solved without them, instead using patience and things much healthier for me - though by no means do i just say "oh, feeling angry, better ignore it" - a common misconception I get.

    so how can happiness, if it's ubiquitous in nature, not be related to a mood or emotion? or anything not pertaining to life, which is all we have?

    By Anonymous Anonyme, at 7:05 PM  

  • to live existentially, there are certain truths that you must accept. for example, you must first accept that life is a choice you make and always an active process.

    when an existential being does something, it is because they want to do it. and the things that you want to do are the things that will make you "happy" -- for lack of a better word. and this is why i said that in an existential life, happiness is ubiquitous.

    the point being that even when you are experiencing unpleasant experiences, you are choosing to do so. and therefore, you are happy even when you are sad or in pain. this is how i can say that happiness isn't attached to emotions. happiness can, and existentially does, occur without attachment to the expected emotions.

    i did not say that happiness was definable BY retrospect, but rather WITH retrospect. it is with retrospect and, more importantly, stepping away from your existential life that you are able to see the highs and lows of your experiences. this gives you perspective. it makes it where you can define the parts of your life that you enjoyed and attach adjectives to them.

    the obsession is a common one, and not one that i assumed you had. the messages in plato and most thought after him, are aimed to help the individual discover the "good life." you always hear about how money can't make you happy. and everything in between.

    i don't mean to sound pretentious (for a change), but i don't believe that this "good life" can be the goal in life if it cannot be defined. i am skeptical about any goals that originate outside of your self (two words on purpose, no typo) as it is, and good tends to carry with it a connotation that deminishes others.

    to the contrary, i would assume that all lives are by definition "good" and "happy" in that they are the existence that the liver has chose to live.

    By Blogger jeames morgan, at 3:18 AM  

  • "i did not say that happiness was definable BY retrospect, but rather WITH retrospect. [...]"

    yes, that's what I understood you to have said. I didn't make the distinction between by and with though.

    there isn't much more that I can say - other than, after thinking about this for a while, that I agree. to me those are extremely subtle explanations. I've long felt something of the same but haven't been able to put it quite like that. that's actually slightly correct. i've long believed in that, but i never would've imagined thinking of happiness outside the spectrum of emotions such as joy to include pain. very good points... i'll ponder this for a while to come. it seems like there is a little more. i still prefer joy to pain, and think that we all do, even if pain isn't entirely avoidable. or if the joy comes from feeling pain in the case of masochists

    for me, the only "good life" is the one you live honestly

    though I'm not certain i understand what you mean by an existential life. that means based on existence, correct? could you explain more?

    By Anonymous Anonyme, at 4:33 AM  

  • sorry, slightly "incorrect", not correct. and since you said you like to correct your spelling in your profile or wherever I read that, deminishes is diminishes

    By Anonymous Anonyme, at 4:35 AM  

  • the point about the retrospect is that it can be used to give perspective as to define retrospect. but happiness is in no way dependent upon retrospect. no matter.

    as for the existential life, this is the life that you live when you are simply existing. it can be called "living in the moment" or "riding the wave" or whatever you want to call it. it should probably be defined as the life that you live when your only real concern is living.

    it does not mean based on existence, but rather based on existential philosophies. though, clearly, existential philosophies are based on existence.

    oh, and listed in my interests is "learning how to spell." i can't take those interest things seriously. this is a joke to me, because i believe that i am a really poor speller. but thank you, nonetheless.

    By Blogger jeames morgan, at 4:21 AM  

  • you're actually a very good speller, the only consistent thing I've noticed is you tend to confuse "then" and "than". "than" is used in comparisons, "then" is used to denote sequence of events.

    we went to the store, then we went home.

    he is bigger than his mother. he likes apples more than bananas.

    the existential life sounds a lot like Zen. have you heard much about it or been influenced by it?

    in fact, from your one post with the preacher, you seem to have a lot of Buddhist concepts. I personally don't believe in any Ultimate reality, at least not in the way the Buddhists do. your atman is a lot like what they say is ultimate reality. "ultimate reality" from my experience with it is really the ability to do whatever we please and are capable of doing meaning physical/mental limitations, not laws that we can easily break.

    I can't describe this, and I always get irritated when I try to. so screw it. I don't even see why I feel the need to debate these things with other people because I hardly give a shit what they think because it's what they think and there's no need for me to force them to see what I see. there you go - I think I just described it better than I would've in a long rant.

    By Anonymous Anonyme, at 8:41 AM  

  • when did i use then/than incorrectly? i assure you, that was a typo (or several of them). when you type in the dark with little or no gas in the tank, that shit can happen. but i just skimmed over this entire entry, and i did not see the error. of course, i do know how to use them.

    i am familiar with many religions. i do not choose to follow them, and do not know the inner workings of any. my parents did not force religion or spirituality on us.

    the atman should be familiar to buddhist ideas in that it is a hindu idea. and buddhism is an off-shoot of hinduism. but i am just taking the word out of context and using it do describe a possible existence of a god.

    By Blogger jeames morgan, at 10:47 AM  

  • I think I saw the errors on other posts a few times, as helpful as that is. Typos are no big deal. I was just trying to assist, but no offense is taken.

    By Anonymous Anonyme, at 6:46 AM  

Enregistrer un commentaire

<< Home