(ok i wanted to quote erich fromm here but ... don't remebeber and couldn't find, so will do so maybe later)
the tragedies of life are those where a person has to do/experiences beyond his own control and totally against his likings :
the subjugation of a weak country by a small country
the people living in poverty
a slave in a society 'demanding' equal rights
women in patriarchial system
concentration camps
etc. etc.
people today 'know' about the tragedies of life but 'choose' (consciously or unconsciously) to ignore them (otherwise it wud be too painful)
to have the strength to accept the tragedies of life gives a new perspective of life (which we keeping hearing in the words 'here and now' but words can't capture a feeling) -- a sweetness in life -- the sweetness of sorrow -- and the value of now -- it's beauty -- life becomes a trifling moment (don't know trilfing-meaning but ...) but a moment becomes your whole life in front of which nothing else matters ...
yesterday the frame of my specs broke and i realized the value of the 'spare' one i had ... and realized this is all it takes to END ... my life, my parents ... all it takes is a hit by a vehicle while crossing the road to be paralyzed for life ... and obviously many people just die of heartattack at very unexpected moments -- to realize my own death and my parent's gave me a superb appreciation for the now (well, the weather last night was awesome and i was experiencing the wind at the roof at those moments -- so i guess valuing the 'now' i can't totally credit on those thoughts) ...
it's not like one doesn't know about death ... everyone knows ... they ignore ... to realize about the tragedies inherent in the existence of human kind ... take strength (a lot?) ... and give a clearer picture of life ... (again this requires courage - afterall what better an enemy to stand against than your own defeat -- it's already there - you don't even have to be defeated :) ) ... love for your own live and for other's lives as well greatly increases by such realization ...
yes, death is a tragedy of life ... but would like to make a point here about the 'fear of death' as pointed out in erich fromm's book 'to have or to be':
as people today live predominantly in a 'having' mode of existence, they take a life as a 'possession' and it's this loss of life (as a thing they possess) that causes the for; for as noted by fromm in that book:
"since while we are, death is not yet here; but when death is here we are no more" - Epicurus
the 'fear of life' is lost once one doesn't see it as a possession but the tragic quality of 'ending of one's life' (and of others around him) remains not so much as a fear but giving the moments in his life much more meaning and joy than perhaps an immortal (or for that matter one whose chooses to ignore death) have ... the 'temporarity' of life makes it beatiful ... the imperfection of the world makes it a beatiful place ...
but death is not the only tragedy ... infact once you come to terms with it you ... it kinda loses it's tragic character ... but what about poverty ... what about being forced to do something against your will ... how do you comes to terms with it .... :
1. get used to it ... accept it as a way of life ... (or else risk death; being an outcast from the society etc.) - (and eventually try to ignore, consciously or unconsciously, those facts of life)
2. face it and try to change it ... or face the fact that one 'cannot' change it ....
usually if the 'force' under which one is is overwhelmingly strong one tends to surrender ... like a having weight on an walnut (akhroat?) breaks it down ... the individual's will has to be completely broken down if he's to be 'dominated' upon ...
second option ... facing it and trying to change it ... or accepting not being able to change it is far too difficult ...
first facing the difficulties .... oh wait i have to write the 4 buddhist principles now :) (modified, by erich fromm):
1. we are suffering and are aware that we are
2. we recognize the origin of our ill-being
3. we recognize that there is a way for overcoming our ill-being
4. we accepth that in order to overcome our ill-being we must follow certain norms for living and change our present practise of life
this gives the 'see, realize, take action' for changing what can can in your life ... but what about something you cannot change .. or even those that are just too difficult to change ...
the problem is first with estimating the difficulties of a problem ... we as children are taught to 'obey', 'follow the rules' and 'have fun' -- and also avoid some kinds of risks while taking others ... mostly the ones that others have taken and succceded while avoiding others ...
if we get stuck in the same thinking ... we will underestimate as well as overestimate ourselves ... (in different things though not unrelated; infact completely interwoven with each other)
we tend to get frustrated by things we 'cannot' do - like say but a big house on the salary one has; to have a nice wife; to go on a long and expensive vacation and all ... here i think we get frustrated coz we kinda say to ourselves - you cud have done better in job and had a better rank - could have studie from a better mba univ. etc .. - we try to change somehow (by the mind kinda trying to tinker with the past?) what cannot be changed -- this is a kinda over-estimation .... once we 'see', really 'see' that we can't do anything about it (and these frustration might be more about 'what we cud have done' than 'what isn't there') ... these go away as the craving to do something about it goes away ...
there is another overestimation (and an under-estimation for that matter) where you yourself aren't able to judge yourself and have to rely on external sources for that (for me that would most prominently be the people around me and to some extent 'the society') :
The fox(ok now have to go to office to have lunch :), (11:50 am now); will write when i get back :) , tuesday or wednesday i guess)
A fox looked at his shadow at sunrise and said, “I will have a camel for lunch today.”
And all morning he went about looking for camels. But at noon he saw his shadow again—and he said, “A mouse will do.”
-- Khalil Gibran
continuation: (actually a continuation but as i am writing this on sunday night - dec 20 ... will call it part 2)
ok althouugh i am not in the same 'strike'/'mood' i was writing this ... i have 'fear' and 'running away' (by seeing lotsa eps of 70's show ?) with me right now ... so will draw from them ... (and depression ?)
ok, so far we have seen that recongnizing the things that can or can't be changed in life is limited by over and under estimation; this estimation, being human, is not totally rationally, infact can be completely irrational ...
shyness ... for example is a weird thing ... one can be too 'shy' to talk to someone ... though one knows no harm can come out of it .... it might actually be healthy and all but ... still one chooses not to talk ... that's irrational (though some kinda fear might be there)
the problem of overestimation and underestimation is so superbly increased if we consider how we actually use heuristics and emotions in the process of estimating ourselves ('the fox' already describes beautifully what happends when we delegate this job to 'external sources')
heuristics in estimation
"That guy has been the same 'study' path as i have been and assuming i do as well as he did, which wasn't too hard, i must have this much money by then" - simple heuristic ... not too hard too think ... what's easier than following someone's path ...
"No i am too young for opening my own business, i don't even know the abc's ... it's too much pressure and risk" (and in the mind there could be the un'said/un'thought thought that 'why can't i just be -normal- like all others')
"what should i choose to do in life ... hmmm.... what do others do ... hunh... will do a job after doing ms/mba/phd and do well and progress in it and earn 'name' for myself in the field ... what should be the purpose of life ... hmmm ... what do others have ... hunh .. be successful, have a happy family and have fun ... what more could a man ask for .... ok now that the important and impractical questions of the life are dealt with i should start preparing for mba and spend next two year of life in 'practical' concerns like how to increase the productivity of a company that sells 'anti-obesity' pills for the welfare of the planet ... "
emotions
fear/cowardice
- 'are you (am i) mad - going to do this - seriously'
- 'like you will succeed'
- 'why can't you just be normal'
- 'i better take the more reliable and trusted path'
- 'that is just too much considertation and most likely will not even succeed'
- 'you are going to risk the 'security' you have right now for THAT???'
- 'what will people think ?'
- 'if i fail, i will be a joke'
- 'what will i have to fall back upon if i fail'
- 'i don't even have any idea of what i wanna do' (and am waiting like 'neo' for a 'morpheous' to come and give me the kungfu powers :) )
- 'what bad is life like this ?'
- 'you know what happens to people who try to be -extra- smart'
refuge (the cowardice creates a sense of 'impotency' one needs to hides from and needs some kind(s) of physchological 'refuge')
- tv serials and movies (my prominent one - makes you 'live' and 'experience the adventures' that are absent from your own life)
- drugs, alcohol, smoking (haven't done that but from my experience with previous point this should be 'fun' and 'working' in hiding your lack of life)
- success in work (you try to be a splendid and make up for what you lack as life in the 'appreciation', 'recongition' and 'popularity'/'pride' (and money) of being successful
- making a lot of money (the mind subconsciously tell itself 'hey i have the power (money), who says i don't')
- excessive spending/consumption (let me buy a super suit that i will just wear once/ let me get a new car every year ... let's eat at a super-expensive restaurant every weekend)
- sexual addiction
- eating a lot of food (hmm... yummy...)
- sadistic and masochistic feeling (as in 'dominating' and 'surrender'/'being dominated')
- popularity (it's wonderful how many people just get excited by the idea of 'coming on tv' even if it's just new or the foto coming in a newspaper - 'you know my friend was just sitting there and got her photo in the newspaper - she had no idea even :)'
)
These heuristics and emotions do the 'work' for us 'fast' coz we don't want to spend so much time trying to figure out what kinda life we want and try to change it so it becomes that way -- we would rather be doing more 'practical' and 'interesting' things - like working our ass off for 'being successful' and 'paying the emi for the home loan' - yeah it wud take years - everyone knows that - you can't just get a house in months you know (but ofcoure the answer to 'what i want in life' and 'how to get it' have to be answered in a few minutes .... and people assume you know - they ask 'you don't even know what you wanna do with your life, come on you are 24 - you should have decided by now!' and yes there's the 'what everyone does' normal healthy card which gives your life a purpose and direction that is ready to choose ... you just have to decide the flavour ... or maybe the flavour chooses
you :) )
"There exists no more difficult art than living. For other arts and sciences, numerous teachers are to be found everywhere. Even young people believe that they have acquired these in such a way, that they can teach them to others: throughout the whole of life, one must continue to learn to live and, what will amaze you even more, throughout life one must learn to die."
-- Seneca (found the quote in 'The Sane society')
so it comes down to this - we should know when we are judging ourselves (as in when thinking about what we cud change in the past); how we are doing it (external sources/ heuristics and emotions) and the time we are giving to it (a few minutes !!)
one thing i left here is the context in which we judge ourselves for there's the question " why are you even judging yourself " -- i will get rid of it here by only 'juding oneself in the questions concering one's damn life and what to do with it and all' and leaving all others (even ones about job/marriage for one 'needs' the 'assumption' that these are essential parts of life to 'tap' the only judgement space i am concerned with)
now how does one 'judge' oneself objectively and realistically ... well ... i don't know .... you are either able to or not ... as simple as that .... or maybe you can judge how much you can judge had you had that piece of information ... etc ....
but if you are not able to 'judge' yourself properly how do you decide if you should 'fight back' the fear/tragedy in your life -- or even if you can or cannot change it ?
may be you can't ....
you can't always see throught the distances ...
maybe you'll judge better if you go a little further ... you will have 'better judgement' of vehile controls once you start driving .... you'll have better vision of the road once you complete the turning ... and maybe when you go further you will realize you are at a desert that disconneted off the entire remaining planet with no chance of rescue ...
we, in this modern world, are so used to 'knowing' our lives years from now (not exactly but like 'i will be working or maybe studying') that we can't bear the 'uncertainity' of 'doing thing for ourselves' -- people have 'retirement plans' -- "hmmm.... i shud be saving this much for my son's/daughter's wedding ... i earn this much ... and assuming monthly expenditures of so and so .... i can afford saving for the wedding but have to cut down my movies and vacations a bit" --- now that's certainity ....
you should try to see through the distances but know that you can't do so always and even when you do it can be a little foggy
so you just push the gears and take refuge in 'hope' ??
no ... you do what you 'know' and let the rest be taken care of itself ... you do this everyday ...
you put a bottle on the table ... and it doesn't fall 'through' the table ... if it did 'fall through' ... well you would be more 'careful' (how?) the next time ... when you drive with how much certainity do you know you'll reach your destination alive ... when you put your money in the bank ... how sure are you it's safe (here obviously you use 'common' wisdom) ...
again the point comes back ... you can control somethings but not others ... and what can you control ... that knowledge itself is thus divided ... you live (/ have lived) your life through constant feedback (although now you are just used to and prefer the 'easy' path of just continuing the way you are used and know 'works')
walking a path paved by others requires no special effort ... just follow ... do what others do ... want what others want ... you'll fit in ... OR ... try to live the way you want to by trying a completely untested path ... tough choice ... but mostly coz of lack of courage for the latter ...
" paths are made by walking "
being alone
as humans, we come pre-installed with the fear of being alone ... that's why perhaps people are so programmed to fit in ... but the fear of being alone isn't so unreasonable ... being together with others is perhaps what defines life (or one of the main components)
"happiness is not real unless shared" -- Into the wild
one component of the fear of making a path by walking is that you alone walk that path ... you have no humsafar ... and even if you do so physically (spouse etc.) ... the path is more of a life-path which you still walk alone
but more than that i wanna talk about another important thing - being connected to others ... can you go take on a life-path that in it's destination doesn't include genuine relatedness to others -- don't think so
some of my goals, ex-goals, were fuzzy and there seemed like ... what if i even reach there but am alone ....
" dil tarse jisme pyar ko kya samjhoon us sansaar ko
ik jeeti baazi haar k main dhoondun bichde yaar ko"
similar to wanting the relatedness of others is the human desire to 'do' ... do be involved with the world around him in a productice (not like in producing a result but in erich fromm's sense) and self-exploring and fullfilling manner ...
but the wish to 'do' is suppressed today ... what we see now is 'keeping your busy/occupied' -- give the kids some thing to 'do' -- to keep them occupied so that they 'develop' skills -- am too bored ... let's do something to kill time
similary the need for relatedness is replaced by 'company' -- you are in the 'company' of your friends, relatives and all ... if you are really 'with' them ... then why does today's man feel so alone ?
but the fear of aloneness can't be suppressed as the desire for activity ... infact people would prefer a totally nutcase but 'connecting to people' attitude/mindset than none at all ....
to have to choose between 'a life you want' and people is not really a choice coz a life you want neccessarily includes people ... but what if all the other components of it require you to do things that you aren't certain will not leave you alone ...
again coming to the movie 'into the wild' - the main guy wanted to live 'naturally'
"careers are a 20th century invention and I don’t want one" -- into the wild
but ended up being alone ... what good was that ??
again i don't know how to tackle this problem ... but constant feedback ... you get to know alongside doing ... but main problem is 'can you face imminent death (defeat)'
" ab waqt failse ka nazdeek aa gaya hai
kya failsa karoon main dil ne to ye kaha hai
dil dil dil ne to ye kaha hai
jeene ka hai shounk to marne ko hoja taiyaar"
today's man is like a new-born who is too afraid to try to walk ... has no one to teach him how to ... and worst of all - has the option of living his entire life breast-feeding without learning how to walk ...
if what we want is the fullfillment of a goal ... then we will be afraid and might weigh the the option of 'not trying it' better than 'trying our best and failing', coz, for example, we might just live our life, if even little, if we go the commong way ...
this problem is a feature of the mode of 'having' where you have to achieve a certain state of life to be happy ... and that state is generally always in the future (except for few lucky ones who do achieve what they want) ...
god didn't give you legs to 'reach somewhere', he gave you legs to walk :
"Keep walking,
though there’s no place to get to.
Don’t try to see through the distances.
That’s not for human beings.
Move within
but don’t move
the way fear makes you move."
--Rumi
I want to add one things to the last 'fear' point by a sentence from steve pavlina's site :
"He’ll surrender to fate when necessary, but he won’t surrender to fear."
and to the 'don't try to see throught the distances' - i wudn't say to -- i wud say 'try to' but don't expect to see the whole distance (or even a bit for that matter)
the problem with trying to 'achieve a goal' is that the results, not the actions, matter - and then you think - is that what i want really ... is it worth the efforts ... is it worth giving up the 'moments of life' i might live just continuing like this -- what if trying to do that just make me frustrated and i don't really achieve anything ... again the culprit is the 'mode of having' -- you don't have to reach anywhere you are already there ... it's the restlessness of the organs that god has given you ... your legs are asking you to walk ... they don't wanna go anywhere ... but neither do they wanna remain here ... all you want is to live ... nothing less nothing more ... there is no goal ... just restlessness ... like the new born bird first trying to spread it's wings ... the problem with us though might be that we might be in a cage with this restlessness being with us till death ...
"umr bhar ye mere dil ko tadpaiga
darde dil ab mere saath hi jaiga"
so the problem is trying to 'achieve a goal' coz the actions then don't flow out of love but out of, say, desperation to achieve something, a state of living where things make sense, but the path till there is a stranger and full of misery ...
"When you do things from your soul, you feel a riveryou have to love life to live life
moving in you, a joy.
When actions come from another section, the feeling
disappears.
...
If you could leave your selfishness, you
would see how you've
been torturing your soul. We are born and live inside black water in a well.
How could we know what an open field of sunlight is? Don't
insist on going where
you think you want to go. Ask the way to the spring."
-- Rumi
"Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absentminded.(continued on Some (>=24) Dec)
Someone sober will worry about things going badly.
Let the lover be." -- Rumi
Ok if i ended above that would be the perfect ending, but i wanna continue for i have left a very important part of tragedy : the defeated soul ... if i ended above it would make me wanna move ... but i don't wanna get all unrealistic and start 'asking for the spring' :) -- let us look into the eyes of the beast called 'defeat' first -- and learn it's power
but obviously from a distance - for i don't really have the power to accept that i won't be able to do anything in my life - i can't look into it's eyes directly ... so from a distance
poverty first ... well the person is too much in misery and too involved in taking care of the problems; so not much to talk here; and also i can't really 'imagine' the misery
torture ... hmm... there's something nice ... death as a 'threat' won't work remotely as well as torture can ... death means end ... torture is ongoing continuing pain ... which after some time you would just wanna end ... torture is the heat with which the rod of human will can be bended according to wish ...
if the beast of 'defeat' kills you or something similar; you can look it in the eyes; but if it takes you to constantly torture you -- that's miserable ...
it's easy to be a martyr when you can think 'you have nothing to lose' (or maybe you place 'doing nothing in case of nation needing you' worse than the 'loss of you by your family, etc.'); but constant torture can make turn the tables - 'you keep on losing and losing' until your soul melts and ... you accept your defeat in a manner totally opposite to a martyr ... you lose any respect for yourself ... this is the real beast of defeat ... it doesn't ask that you get ready to die (marne ko hoja taiyaar) ... but that you are stripped of the things you have as a part and parcel of 'you' - your life, love, respect for yourself, everything ... you start to envy becoming a non-living thing (that reminds me of some lines of 'mere dushman' song)
something not in line with the flow but in my mind so will get it out ... something i defined as 'bad luck' in my ps1 was a situtation where you can't do anything to make yourself happy .... that's 'defeat' :
" doobne waale ko tinke ka sahara hi bahut
dil bahal jaaye fakat itna ishara hi bahut
itne par bhi aasmaan wala giraade bijliyaan
koi batlaade zara ye doobta fir kya kare"
That's defeat ... you have all your options closed and left to drown while the beast laughs it's heart out ... add torture to that and you could be 'offered' tikas and sticks to help you outa water ... seemingly in your reach but never so ... giving you hope so that you can be disappointed again in a grander manner ...
what to do when looking in the eyes of this beast ... that doesn't want you to lose and be able to accept it ... the beast that's not just fate ... but one that actually wants you to make so weak that you lose even to fear ... or maybe are left incapable of experiencing fear or any other human emotion except self-loathe
then there's one more beast - the beast of indifference .... the beast that doesn't really care of giving you something to fight :)
the thing i have in mind is 'a fish in a fish bowl' - a bowl that just has plain water and the fish. What life does the fish have ?? - it has the same body as other fishes in the wild waters but as someone said ... you experience a new organ in yourself when you interact with the world around you ... how many organs/possibilities/experience-varities were possible for that fish -- the fish will never know ... it doesn't have any beast of defeat to look into the eyes of ... it doesn't even have any hopes or fears ... what if i am a fish in a 'decorated aquarium' - enough to keep the mind occupied till death but not offering any real posibility - except for the possibility of losing ... or if i am lucky of 'fighting till the end of my life'
when you ask a problem, you expect a solution, how about this problem : 'give a problem that has no solution' -- either you can't solve this or the one you give ... (althought this problem has the 'conceptual hazards' of self-reference)
the above tragedies (torture, bad-luck and an indifferent-fate) seem like such a problem ... am asking the problem ... am saying something like this -- " see here you can't do anything ... that's real tragedy .... now what do we in a situation like this"
well if you could answer that .. it wouldn't be 'real' tragedy ... :) ... but i will still answer that with what comes to my mind
one answer is you don't have to do anything ... fate will tear you apart, rebuild you with a fabric unknown to you ... you won't be human anymore ... someone that the people suffering in hell will take pity on ... you will be powerless ... just enough power to keep reminding you of your powerlessness ... you won't be able to die ... if suffering would be amalgamated as a god it would fear you with all it's guts ... (obviously this doesn't apply to the 'indiffernt fate' strategy although for that to be a tragedy you will need to know what you don't have and/or can't do -- that's kinda a torturing god ... but cud be less severe in the 'torture' methods)
another answer is - be a traitor -- look into the eyes of the demon and when you get scared look away or close your eyes ... be afraid and ask for forgiveness ... give your soul away so that you might live ... not as the individual with integrity which you were or were aiming for ... but as modified individual who has lost his soul and has been replenished by the devil with an artificial one ... you might not be a human anymore ... but are now a powerful homunuculus ... someone who looks human but whose core is inhuman ... a devil-powered stone ... you (the traitor) takes refuge in sex, might, domination, torturing others with the same or similar kinda satisfaction the devil had while torturing you, giving false hopes to others just to see their faces when it all blows up in their face ... you become a 'man of the devil'
(again the indifferent-fate's god/devil doesn't care ... you are just miserable without being a man of god or devil)
i will hopefully continue tommorow as i have to sleep now ...
one interesting thing to note is that i can figure out the 'defeated soul'/'traitor' features without going there for i have seen them in me, in life (and on tv :) ) -- but people have (or atleast seem to have) these features -without- being a defeated soul.
let's look at the miserable tendency ... no self-respect ... living as if dragging one's life ... having no enthusiasm for the good in life ... neither any hate against the troubles or the bad ... does one really need to be a defeated soul for that ? ... may not someone whose rod of 'will' is bended instantly by the defeat beast but by -time- which bended it slowly and steadily without need of heat ... (i can imagine myself as a robot (emotionally) in the future (20 years from now ?) without much feelings except may of 'thrill'/'fun' that are so manufactured and required in the present society)
one question that comes to my mind is if this miserable tendency is something of a sort of psychological refuge that keeps oneself in safe in - from the inhuman/boring world outside ... animals develop a thick skin in the harsh winters ... humans develop an indifferent and 'being miserable' attitude in a similar fashion ... well maybe that is so ... and seems so ... so is this generated by fear ... fear makes you think about what bad could come outa something ... this attitude doesn't care ... you are like the god of the 'indifferent-fate' - a fate you prefer to give yourself than engaging in the otherwise seemingly harsh atmosphere outside ... you are either a defeated soul or prefer living that way ...
one more thing ... you don't need to look into the eyes of defeat to be afraid of it ... you can be a traitor in advance ... why would one give up his own humanity for something like survival (and other pathological pursuits the devil might have to offer) ? - one answer from biology comes to mind -- survival insticts
in the starting people who had to kill animal for their meat lived in a 'kill or be killed' atmosphere ... the need for survial was utmost ... and nature installed fear into man for that need ... as it had in other species ... fear is not a curse but a gift from nature ... but fear comes as the 'default' attitude when dealing with things ... so that you don't require thinking ... but then you think and might 'act against fear' - that's courage ... the primitive man when killing beast with his spears was courageous ... so is perhaps an animal mother trying to prevent her kids from predators ...
listing fear as something pre-installed ... another related things comes to mind ... 'hope' ... does it come pre-installed ... do other animals feel hope ??? - ok i don't know if they do ... maybe living in the jungle you have to do instead of being hopeful ... maybe 'hope' is pre-installed but becomes active in a more civilized/complicated environment (the wild keeps the 'organ' of 'hope' inactive) ... mankind has lived with hope atleast from the time agriculture began i guess ... for from then he would have to 'hope' for the rains ... hope that no natural disaster occurs ... in kings' times ... hope that one's home/region doesn't get raided ... that one is able to live atleast a very simple and humble life without someone coming and distorting it ... maybe that's when 'i want my kid to become so and so (an intellect who's away from fighting/ a simple person who has only simple desires in life)' came into being with that same attitude people trying to install within themselves .... hope in all the things i listed here comes as a fighting mechanism against fear for the enemy being fought against is too enormous to even consider fighting ... the army and the natural calamities ... hope is the refuge when you have nothing else
prayer is something that relies heavily on hope (and beleif in power of the supernatural) -- you don't know what to do or know you can't do anything ... but then you pray ... your belief in higher powers might not be strong enough but hope makes up for it ... you really wish something would go your way ...
again it comes to whether hope is as natural as fear ?? - perhaps it is ... perhaps animals feel it too when they move around with each other ... they might 'hope' that no one attacks seeing they are all in a big group ... or when they sleep in not a very friendly neighbourhood ... they might have 'hope' that they will wake up alive ... i don't know ... but hope - as i was writing about it .. seemed more negative than fear ... for fear can be fought with courage ... but hope can't be fought against ... it's a feeling of powerlessness against a very powerful enemy ... it's the ostrich putting it's head in the ground and hoping the predator disappers ... hoping doesn't change anything ... hoping doesn't come as a default behaviour in certain situations but as if a last resort .. when you wish for a power higher than yourself to fight that enemy with power higher than yourself ... hope seems positive in only one aspect ... it gives you something to hold on to and not go insane/'freaked out' for that time ... and perhaps recover later on -- but what about 'hope in the future' ... when you feel life is not right currently but will improve with time ... here time is the higher power ... hope's positive function is giving you something to hold on to ... it's negative aspect is to make you believe in the powers of future so much that you stop any attemps from your side ... it's good only as long as it provides you a -temporary- thing to hold on to ... if you can later recognize that 'hoping in the future' is way of justifying your inaction and cowardice ... but more often than not, it seems, it will lead to inaction
ok i will stop with hope here coz as i keep on writing it seems more and more of a negative thing to me ... and i don't wanna change my common-sense thinking ... :)
so where was i ... yes traitor instincts as survival instincts ... ok so what's wrong with being a traitor when you get to survive as compared to going there and getting defeated ??
first but ... to be a traitor in advance you need to have the devil's core instead of a soul .. or maybe in place so that it could be replaced ... you already have a 'second personality' as a homunculus ready with you ... and when the devil comes ... you just say 'wait a second' ... and poof ... you are his man :)
so here the traitor personality is more than just survival insticts ... i will have to perhaps go into the 'evil' nature of man ... though here the 'evil' is not something in my mind as a beast wanting to rip you off ... but like a denatured egg that can't go back to it's previous state ... it might take relish in making others feel powerless but will do it as a result of his own powerlessness ... an evil that doesn't need that kinda things might be more 'civilized' (the fuhrer in fma2 comes to mind) - someone 'proud' of his powers, achievements and 'different than human' existence, 'more rational', 'more adapted to survival' attitude
leaving your humanity towards 'better' things could transform you ... the transformation might be painful but you 'come out a new being' ... there could be other reasons for the transformation - you could be able to do things you weren't able to do beforehand ... and you might fare them better than your present situation ... what good is a peace-loving, loving human if he's just a small nice plant standing just to be wiped out by the giant wave ... what if he's offered to be a dam ... that could prevent the wiping out of other such plants thought might kill his being as he knows it ... that's a 'human' reason to be non-human (am avoiding use of the word inhuman as a non-human need not be inhuman ... thought he's not humane either) ... you might take the strong-making pill for yourself even ... maybe if you 'survive' as a dam ... you might become a plant again ... even thought the boiled egg's proteins are denatured you can never know if it can be turned back again ...
jan 3 now (last writing was some <= dec 30 ?) although i would like to know about the human ablility to be non-human, i wanna talk more about the human side ... while a person still has his soul ... his time is his and can be lived ... perhaps with some fight given to fate for obtaining more time ... a departure from the main line of thought but ... how does it matter if you live or die ... if you succeed or not ... if you are happy or sad ... if the society can become better or not ... maybe you'll die and the society will half become better only to be distroyed by man-made or natural calamites later ... maybe millenia later new perfect societies will live and die only by will ... like a ripened fruit ... (but in the end, it doesn't even matter) ... maybe you'll succed and be happy ... maybe you'll try and be defeated ... maybe you won't even try and lead a fun-filled frustrated life ... how does it even matter ... mankind assumes his race to be the best ... the 'final product' of evolution ... so vain (idea from book 'ishmael' by daniel quinn) ... time goes on ... wiping planets and solar systems and other things ... it rains and the earth gets wet ... the frustrations of life make people go to the refuges ... the good is man's hope ... the bad his problems ... but the world around knows nothing of man's hopes and problems ... things fall ... move around ... go here and there ... and there's this wonderful thing called life ... plants, butterflies, moths, grasshoppers, insects, birds, peacocks, penguins, cats, other animals and the stupid human at the top of this food chain i wanted to write about time and how futile life seems around it (and death) ... about how seeing death like this makes a new view (although not 'logically' new as it was always around) which just progressing towards death by just going thrugh life wont' do but i went astray and talked about world and life ... will give it another try (the thoughts are not fresh as i had them some 2 days ago ?) life comes and goes, countries comes and go, societies come and go, why do people still try to achieve aims ... death is like shouting at them from the distance ... it doesn't even matter ... but they don't listen ... keeping themselves busy in the stupid dance of daily life ... they aim themselves in the direction of their goals ... to declare themselves winners if they hit the target and losers otherwise ... but they go ... with time ... the world changes ... the pursuits change and their wish might even go away ... civilisations live in dread ... in fear ... in material abundance but spiritual poverty ... and different ways ... what's better what's not but just another thing in time's play ... like it will wither the big rock that will go to stones finding it's way to the river to be taken to someother place and find itself as a smooth pebble in some well later .... the civilisations are also shaped by time ... but this man, atleast today's, in all his vanity has his concepts of success and failure ... not seeing his futility in time and even more the futility of his own actions in his life ... he goes on ... again i kinda got off track coz the time and death giving futility thougth lead to the following : but all that matters is now ... now is the only thing you can experience ... infact now can be defined as the moment you experience ... no other definition does ... the world is what you experience ... you are how you experience the world and what you do with it ... the 'now' has all the importance in life, life which by itself stands with more importance than all of time ... so what matters is the now and YOU but how futile to spend your life wasted in things that don't matter ... another thought i had quite in line with the above was how futile were pride and shame : how does it matter if you die a traitor or have lived as a proud warrior ... civiizations have lived as slaves and as masters ... time goes on ... so beautiful is this time ... you might have surrendered beforehand or have progressed afar ... you might have even become a slave of a new species ... you might just die the next day or maybe never getup ... things come and go ... it matter to me if i die as a traitor to life or not coz it comes with shame and being successful in living comes with pride ... what is this shame ... it's the 'mooh dikhane k kabil nahi raha', the inability to face fellow-people and your own self for their (and/or your own) expectations you couldn't fullfill ... isn't it enough that the devil defeated you that you have to take in this shame too ... what were you more afraid of when you were looking in the devil's eyes ... the defeat or the shame that would accompany it ... i, in my thinking was more focused on shame as is clear in saying 'defeated soul' ... it doesn't focus on the fact that the soul was defeated although literally it says that only and nothing else ... it focuses on the shame accompanying it ... the defeated soul bring into mind the picture of a person who's given up hope on life and is living in such a way that he might be better dead ... a person who fought fate and lost and is going to live with his shame for the rest of his life - the shame of not having met his own expectations ... the devil just defeated but the shame is totally man's own fault (or maybe the devil installs it in humans :) ) what is this shame ... what purpose does it serve ... maybe in primitive socities someone unable to kill a beast for food and hence having the people spend the night with less/no food would feel shame - for not having met the people's expectation ... and would feel pride when he caught an exceptionally fierce animal ... pride and shame might have, like fear, worked in the survival of mankind as a whole and what is this pride ... the feeling of having accompalished something ... would the accomplished thing hold no value if this pride wasn't there ... maybe it would, but pride makes it more than a thousand-fold ... pride is the 'real' accomplished thing ... again what is pride if not a hole-filler ... a hole created when one devotes one's life energies into something futile to meet someone's expectations (could be one's own) ... that hole is filled by this artificial feeling called pride ... without which the person might stare at the hole and say 'what have i been doing that for?' - what do i have now ... what the heck ... and the same things when unsuccessful give the feeling of shame ... you fear shame ... envy those with pride ... and feel proud of having done something ... maybe they were (or even are) good for the progress (what's that?) of the civilisation but what are they at an individual level ... something installed in one by the society for the progress of the society ... they are as futile as they come when standing the test of time and death ... in the primitive societies a person feeling shame would be sympathised by the society ... taken pity on ... and might be able to live on for the remaining time ... living like that or perhaps proving himself later by an act of courage ... those with pride had accomplished things which where the role model of society which people would envy ... (seriosly these feeling seem boring) whatever role these feeling might have had in society and whatever might even be the positive aspects for an individual that i can't think of right now ... right now i feel like i want both pride and shame out of my life ... isn't it enough that a soul is defeated that it should feel shame too ... and if having something isn't good enought that it needs to be supplemented with pride, maybe you should reconsider devoting your life energies to it ... the 'staying away' from the advance traitor position also comes from the fear of shame ... although being a traitor to life would mean having a non-human component in you ... what's the fear of defeat ... what the 'looking forward' for a good time ... you live ... you might be unhealthy or totally fit ... sad/unhappy/depressed or whatever ... life goes on ... time goes on ... la la la la la ok so summing up now ... even if do higher studies and be known or be successfull and rich or just a lazy, poor failure sitting on his ass ... it doesn't matter ... i want pride and shame outa my life ... and maybe what i need more than anything it to get rid of this 'hope' that's the cause of my inaction (inaction, which further presents it's requirements for hope, both reinforcing each other) right now that's only a rational thougt ... if i really feel i need to get hope out, maybe i will ok now getting back to the main river of thought ... where were we ya, a homunculus. having seen pride and shame more clearly (or so it seems) the picture of defeated soul and success is more clearer ... now let's look at the homunculus components ... the weapons of the devil that make one surrender perhaps without even trying ... i don't know why but i feel like i should list the seven deadly sins here (the homunculus in fma) : pride ( and shame, though shame is not enlisted as a deadly sin) envy (those who don't have look to those who have) gluttony (understanding it as act of consumption - consuming everything - food, movies, lectures, new technologies, jokes - in the way erich fromm tells about consuming in today's society) lust sloth greed wrath ok so what makes for an advance traitor : fear -> survival -> profit (greed) of giving up (ok so i needn't have listed all seven :) )
seeing in an advance traitor i see someone trying to do something but not courages enough and who has some lust for the non-human profits of givings up
a full homunculus will not see the eyes of defeat as a failure to live ... coz first it doesn't wanna live ... in human sense of the word 'live' ... and second .. it takes 'rational' decisions ... if giving up to defeat gives it more oppurtunites it will take that ... (the beast of defeat, then dissappointed will have to look for someone more human, perhaps with shame still properly installed in him)
the full homunculus doesn't seem to deserve being talked about though maybe i should how much of that i am already but don't know ... and the advance traitor personality doesn't seem to have been explored enough ... but i don't feel like talking about them right here ... i feel like talking about life
life ... the only thing worth living for :)
so now you wanna live but have some problems associated ... a kinda life that requires some thing out of you that are not so compatible with life ... coz perhaps you can't replace them coz they are needed for survival or coz you don't know what to replace them with ... how to replace the dead component with the live ones ... coz you have experienced life much except in some 'moments' which some email-forwards give so much importance to
ok now i feel like merging to the main topic ... tragedies -> the beast of defeat -> looking into his eyes
getting rid of pride and shame, seeing losing to the beast in winning in their true faces we come back to what we can control and what we can't ...
you walk everyday yet how much of that is in your control ... you want to lift a leg ... you think in your brain which sends signals to you legs (isn't it great that those links don't break up once in a while) ... the muscles then do their job (are 'you' the one doing it ??) then you take a step ... on solid ground ... what if it were a gasy planet like jupiter ... well you wouldn't be there to begin with ... that's not a planet on which humans could have evolved ... you can't imagine what you have seen as 'ordinary' in your life ... what you experience perhaps on a daily basis ... to be having most of it's components beyond your control ... coz they have worked always the same way ... they have become automatic for you ... why does every one have two eyes on the same level above the nose and below forehead ... why does a something not go through another without breaking through ? ... why haven't you died till now (coz if you had you wouldn't be asking that question) ... people who put money in stock market have so much play of emotions even though all they control is getting in and coming out ... you don't have control over anything, this might be your last moment ... earth might be distroyed by some planetary calamity ... maybe you'll lose everything and everyone you have but remain alive ... in this rapidly changing world 'jahan ik khilona hai insaan ki hasti' we don't control anything (yet it's wonderful how 'secure' people feel and how much importance 'security' has taken place in today's lives)
you were born human - beyond your control ... you have working legs,eyes and all - beyond your control ... you are at standing at middle of an empty road -- are circumstances in your control ? -- it's raining - beyond your control ... you look up - all those face-musclue-etc movements beyond your control -- the rain falls on you - you enjoy -- everything beyond your control yet that enjoyment truly yours ... the only thing truly yours ... even more than your own body parts ...
the enjoyment, the joy and the pain and the suffering - the only things truly yours - the love, even the hate ... life in it's more naked version ... free of artificial feeling like pride ... rid of all illusion of time but now ... is the only thing truly yours
ok now that again should be good enough ending but am going to make things bad .. again ...
one component of cowardice i see in me (except the hope-inaction thing) is the readiness to compromise
before having even lit the candle to see just a bit of what's around me and taking a first, most likely random, step in some direction - i am ready to compromise ...
"reform can be radical, that is, going to the roots, or it can be superficial, trying to patch up symptoms without touching the causes. Reform which is not radical, in this sense, never accomplishes its ends and eventually ends up in the opposite direction.
...
The true criterion of reform is not its tempo but its realism, its true "radicalism"; it is the question whether it goes to the roots and attempts to change causes—or whether it remains on the surface and attempts to deal only with symptoms."
-- Erich Fromm
i feel like if i even not think about compromising, my direction will not be true reform but will do enough to calm my restlessness ... it will make my miserable life bearable perhaps removing a little misery too ... but i won't be courageous enough to look into the beast called defeat
compromise might be something like this -- accomodating lively components in life while retaining the dead ones that are required (or supposedly required) for going on through life
facing reality would be (seems) totally out of the deal ... don't think am strong enough ... i might face death but my own true self along with my limitations and the general opposing trends of society ... that's not going to happen ...
let's try to face reality :
maybe the first thing i need to get rid of is the comfort of inaction, i need to get rid of all hopes and for once in my life, Panic !
I should panic, for all my life will be lost like sands through my hand if i don't take action, the actions that don't allow any compromise (though compromise might tear through my action, it won't be there by my consent) ... even after writing this ... i don't feel any panic ... like i said, logically knowing something to make sense and really feeling it are two different things ... maybe if i really feel here i will make a move ... and see success and failure, even defeating of soul ... but is just removing hope all ... although i am not able to do that right now and maybe should not think about 'what then' ... i will try to see other things ...
one is keeping in touch with reality ... maybe the world WILL NOT allow me to live without doing something essentially against my inner being ... maybe i will never be able to live even a whole week with just my own flavour of life ...
but one thing that is for sure is i will never know if could live or not, partially or fully if i DON'T TRY
i need to get afraid - so afraid that i panic - and have to call upon all my resources to help me ... without losing touch of reality ... without calling/needing fake psychological feelings to heal the wound and make the pain go away
it's true that i can't see any way out ... neither do i have any clue ... neither some picture of a kind of life i could have (want) ... i am like someone in the dark that needs to light a candle to atleast see the immediate neighbourhood but doesn't even have a matchstick or doesn't know if he has one ... and is instead waiting for the sun to come up and for the darkness to go away with the night ... fearing that it might not be the night but being in a room blocking the light and that waiting does not help ... with the fear being covered up by the hope that someday i will find the way, or some (even if little) help will come
so i need to search myself for matchsticks - losing hope, gaining fear and this ... panic for the loss of my life without losing my head
so the first step : LOSE HOPE - let's see if i accomplish that ...
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