In response to “what’s the point to anything if we are all gonna die? Why not just die now?”

If life is no fun… ever… And you know this and you’ve tested this then kill yourself.

But why not wait for a bit? Why the rush?

So you’ve decided to kill yourself… You’re actually going to do it….

Stop for a bit and look around.

Is there anything you want to do but haven’t because you’re too scared.

Why not do it now?

Rob that bank, fuck that horny granny, tell a random beautiful or ugly person they’re beautiful or ugly.

What’s stopping you from doing It? What’s scaring you?

Your gonna die right? And You’re gonna die when you choose?

What threat can possibly exist against you?

Don’t you see you are god?

Love and brain-washing

Often it seems to me that us humans in our society are like Fritz and Tommy in the trenches of WW1.

They didn’t want to die and they didn’t want to kill. It was all put upon them by the power structures that they were thrown into. At heart, in the place that matters Fritz and Tommy were the same; they played a game of football.

You can imagine Fritz in the trenches thinking “If only I could go over there and just talk to Tommy! Then all this hell would stop. I could go home and make children with Gurta.”

You can see Tommy saying the same thing but instead of Gurta there’s Betty.

At heart we all want to love and be loved. To stroke and be stroked. It’s the reason we speak to one another. The reason we go to work!

You think you work for money? What do you want money for?

A house? A car? What will you do in your house? Where will you go in your car?

At some point the reasons have to end. The journey has to reach its conclusion.

The power structures of our day have got us distracted by the means to the end. They have got us to forget about the end we are striving for with the means.

They have us fixated on acquiring wealth.

They have us fixated on getting a better hamster-wheel for us to run on and we’ve forgotten what we’re running for.

There is a scene in the 2^nd season of Mr. Robot (the 11^th episode) in which the FBI agent is in her bed and she says to her home operating system that she is lonely.

You get to follow her around as she does her job and she has a cold, capable exterior. She is the ivory tower. But alone, in her room wrapped up in her blanket she cries and says she’s lonely.

Why doesn’t she let people in?

She has been tricked by the narratives that are put out about love that it hurts and that you risk something for it.

You risk nothing for love because love is the only something that there is that you could risk. Everything else is just packaging.

Sure you’ll experience sensations if you get love and then lose love but this should tell you something very different from what the popular narrative about love and love-loss tells you.

It should tell you that you’ve found the true treasure the heat of which destroys the packaging.

Mental Illness and the internal narrative

Most mental illness can be traced to narcissism.

Previously I said that mental illness is when the self society demands of an individual is something the individual cannot attain to. The conflict between the real self of the individual and the self society glorifies being mental illness.

Now this still holds but it doesn’t go deep enough.

Most people spend their whole lifes as if they are on stage; as if they are playing a role in a drama. Of course this role is the central role.

Just listen to the internal dialogue you have when you are feeling depressed, anxious or whatever.

“Poor me, why are they looking at me, what did I do to deserve this, why is this happening to me, they aren’t showing me enough appreciation…”

The problem with perceiving yourself in this way is that in any drama (or even comedy) there has to be suffering, conflict, and unattained desires.

Happy people have a different dialogue.

“My life is so good, everyone loves me, I’m so happy…”

Very happy and content people have no dialogue.

In a sense we construct a narrative about ourselves and then we project ourselves into that narrative. The problem here is that society doesn’t applaud positive narratives about the self.

Try telling people you think you are a genius and try telling people you think you are shit. Compare the results. I bet that you will be called names and put down if you declare a positive narrative concerning yourself but people will rally around you if you declare a negative narrative. Just look at Russell Brand and Kanye West.

What this essentially does is positively reinforce a negative opinion of yourself that few people are able to overcome or even realize as the cause of their suffering. Few people have access to a realm of knowledge that transcends the opinions of others.

No matter how much they may affirm that all because everyone says something is so doesn’t mean it is so they still cannot let go of popular opinion. They cannot let go of that crutch and learn to walk on their own.

There is a way out though but it is slow and gradual. There are no on and off switches, you are not a computer; you are a plant and plants grow slowly.

The way out is to recondition your mind to shut-up. Don’t try to replace the negative narrative with a positive narrative. Just practice shutting that voice in your nut up. This is the power of mindfulness and meditation.

The suicidal liberation

You stand before the door

Of the beast behind the beasts

The fear behind all fears

Tear yourself away from this world

Full of its trivialities

that masquerade as significant.

You stand before the door

Of the true dragon

the fire in the breath

of the threat of the state

You’ve been given a clean slate

The filth purged by the blast

Of your desire to die.

You are now free

there is no axe hanging over your head

You’ve called the bluff of the man behind the skull

And he’s backed down by offering you palliatives

“Please don’t kill yourself” He says now

Trying to comfort you where he used to threaten you.

See who has the true power

For he is you!

Don’t take the pills

better to die with your eyes opened

Than live a life of mental castration.

There’s knowing the path and then there’s walking the path. with a dash of alienation.

I often talk about the irrational sources of suffering and from the way I write you’d be forgiven for thinking that I have it all sorted.

But you would be wrong.

Over the last year – the interregnum between my last consistent blogging and during the recent revival of blogging since I started anxiety meds – I have been in a depressed slump.

I try to blame this on not having a girl-friend. Which is only partly true.

I crave sex and intimacy. To be with someone who enjoys me for my mind, personality and body. Who I enjoy for their mind, body and personality.

But that isn’t all I crave.

I don’t even think it’s the main thing I crave.

I’m a philosopher.

It’s what the voice in my head does when I let it do what it wants..

Due to social anxiety and laziness I only ever finished the first year of college.

This has left me alienated in a world of people who talk about things that don’t interest me.

That doesn’t mean certain types of conversation are better than others. It’s just a statement of my personal preference.

A world where if I am to talk about what interests me; that is act spontaneously, I either take the role of teacher and/or make people feel stupid.

Literally my mind’s off-switch is pondering philosophical issues. Issues like free-will; what kinds of questions it is possible to answer (I currently think it’s “What will happen if I do this?” and even that’s just a bet based on previous experience (Hume’s problem of induction)); what is knowledge and are we conning ourselves into thinking that knowledge and language are equal.

Also social analysis.

I was at a funeral once.

At the wake I said to someone “He’s no longer suffering. Funerals are just rituals the living use to unnecessarily justify or give themselves a legitimate means of grieving.”

To which he responded: “You’re heartless!”

I was trying to make him feel better about our mate dying. That was my intention.

But now I’m going to do something about it. My plan shall be in the next blog.

Mindfulness, Meditation and Life Enhancement

Since I’ve been practicing mindfulness and meditation I have noticed a definite change in behavior and general life. There are certain things I am doing now that I wouldn’t of dreamed I would be doing last year. Sure to a lot of people they would seem insignificant but to me they are anything but.

 

 

One of those things is keeping up a writing practice. I’d always meant to in the past but when it came to putting pen to paper – or finger to keyboard – I’d just hit that blank wall and give up. Or I’d write a bit and think “I’ll finish that!” And never finish it because I didn’t have a clue what a finish would look like.

 

 

 

Also there was the whole perfection thing… Now that was a right bugger! It’s because of that – and pretty much just because of that… well that and social anxiety – that I never finished college. I would get so hecked up about doing the course-work just right that I’d never do it! I was a right silly billy. The funny thing is I was quite good at exams. I would have been better if I’d revised. That was another thing – I never tried revising because I wasn’t quite sure what it was… I mean remember stuff… OK so I had this herculean task of rote memorization in my head – that was the ideal I thought was worthwhile – and because of that I didn’t do it! Stupid I know.

 

 

 

But mindfulness and meditation has changed that. Now I’m OK with imperfection. I’m going to be posting this on my blog! In the past I would have maybe posted a few things that I thought were decent, tried to write some more decent things (whatever decent is :S), failed, got frustrated and given up. Now I’m cool with it.

 

 

 

My mind – the tricksy beast – yammers on at me saying things like “Start writing a novel, essays, start fasting, quit this, start that! Go on you’ll be an ubermensch”. It’s a little sod because it knows that if I start trying to do all those different things at once I’ll fail and become frustrated and miserable… which is what it wants because then it can come in and be like “See I’m always here for you! Here have this pleasurable fantasy about being able to go back in time! Isn’t that nice!”

 

 

 

The cool thing about mindfulness and meditation is that they’ve enabled me to give these things a go. Now I’ve got this core practice of 2 sessions of meditation a day when I fail or give in to that urge to be lazy I find that the meditation allows me to be lazy for a bit but then it picks me up again. Instead of giving into laziness for a bit, becoming despondent and depressed, and as a result becoming more lazy now I find that I’ll give into laziness for a bit, get fed up then start doing stuff again. That’s not to say I’m a “super-human” for maintaining meditation… I’m just lucky that I enjoy it.