Re: Serious conversations about important issues, Part II: Truth is the root of all evil.
Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2019 4:58 am
do you want to talk or do you want to put on your big pants all the time. Because the latter is too tiring for me, also given that there's three of you doing it, showing off yer big L shaped penises (that's L for Logic). I'll tell you now, an L shaped penis doesn't look as cool as you think it does.jupiviv wrote: ↑Fri Nov 01, 2019 3:06 amI'm talking about rejecting ordinary human values, interests and activities on principle, and being rejected by others to the extent you follow this through. It's a different context than one's ability or willingness to handle particular instances of it like a relationship that isn't working out.Avolith wrote: ↑Thu Oct 31, 2019 8:29 amRejection is a superficial thing - it happens on the surface level, a practical thing that can be managed with worldly skills. Therefore, whether or not you act in such a way that people reject you or not is a superficial detail that doesn't necessarily reflect an inner state of enlightenment or non-enlightenment.jupiviv wrote: ↑Thu Oct 31, 2019 6:32 am Unhappiness is bound to be the norm in the kind of project that QRS ideally should be (and instead merely simulates, as I claim). If you reject the values of other people, i.e. the way they interact with the world and each other, then they will reject you. To the extent possible, you have to think and act independently of your affections for or allegiance to the people in your life, so your relationships with them can never be very intimate or fulfilling. At the same time you must love everyone in a deeper sense, i.e. in the sense of recognising yourself in them and wanting them to be more like you.
He may genuinely think confronting specific things he personally has no stake in amounts to an unswerving dedication to reason or whatever, while only valuing reason to the extent it benefits him. He may be right about those things but his deeper relationship to those things is a deluded one and will have bad consequences. Kierkegaard makes the same point in "Concluding Unscientific Postscript" with the example of an escaped lunatic trying to make everyone believe he is sane by repeatedly shouting "the earth is round!".Take the other extreme, a confrontational attitude, the angry preacher of truth complaining about the ways of the world from the sidelines. How 'true' is that, as far as its effects go?
I can understand that, but you have to figure out how to live without these mental processes. If lack of enough interaction/intimacy with other people causes actual mental trauma in you then I suggest dialing it down or taking a break. Other people may not despise your goals or behaviour but you still have to live with them and treat them with compassion. Besides, many group activities do not explicitly require lying to yourself and others. Also, exercising regularly will make you feel better. There are plenty of ways besides idea-companions that can help you bear the suffering of trying to live honestly.Regardless of being rejected or not rejected, in the case of enlightenment there could not be any satisfying feelings of companionship or 'group-belonging'. I think in my own case, I'm subconsciously dealing with it by being in companionship with myself to some degree. There's ideas, images that were thought up to function as some replacement. It may sound like a mental disorder, but I'd say it's something that keeps me sane.
You'll get better at dealing with the suffering but it won't go away. This should be contemplated very seriously before going down such paths. You will also have to make exceptions about how strictly you want to abide by the implications of total honesty, but you should at least try to be honest about how dishonest you are. But figure it out for yourself. I'm only telling you what seems to work for me.Wouldn't you say that there is such a thing as skillfully managing the divide between the inner and outer worlds, to alleviate and deal with this tension. It may even be part of skillfully applying your understanding in such a way that it lands in the world effectively. This would mean that enlightenment involves skill.jupiviv wrote: ↑Thu Oct 31, 2019 6:32 am This tension between what you expect of others and what they expect of you will cause a lot of loneliness and fear, and it will stay with you no matter how many absolute truths you understand. Wisdom cannot make you stop wanting intimacy, companionship etc. or suffering from their lack. All it can do is confront suffering and its causes honestly, both in yourself and in others. That confrontation itself makes you resilient to suffering and able to selflessly work for the good of others.
I don't think the ego is an independent mental process. It's kind of like videos - pictures seem to move but it's an illusion created by viewing similar pictures in rapid succession. Our thoughts, desires, actions etc. are related to the same types of things, or our memories of them. Our memories of the occurrences of such mental processes combine with other thoughts, desires etc. and we experience that phenomenon as a continuity. And this continuity isn't necessarily even an illusion, just like movie scenes aren't necessarily illusions even though they're collections of still images.I'd say the most 'real' thing about the ego is that it's a very strong, constantly present, biologically evolved, internal sense perception - like the senses of hunger, exhaustion, sleepiness and so forth.
This is closer to what I said above, except there is no "it" mingling with perceptions. The similarity of perceived things, and of our interactions with them through time, creates the self. Then we make up assorted bullshit about this self to suit our needs.It mingles itself with a particular set of other perceptions to create the divide between two categories of perceptions - self and other. It's like a piece of code that classifies perceptions as 'self' or 'other'.