You view your specific method towards your goal as "The" method, and therefore you get caught in the means, rather than the ends. This causes you to not want to give up power, for surely if you have came up with the "right" way, the "right" ends will not be able to be achieved except through your way. When a system is accepted, it becomes powerful, through its being accepted. Therefore, power does not exist in itself, but people accept power structures, and therefore it becomes powerful. Those who blatantly rebel against the system are seen as dangerous; they are risking all of the great things the system has to offer. Yet those who blindly follow the system scare the free thinkers. If you free yourself of absolutely following any system, including some system of rebellion, then you can get the benefits of the system, in some way work within the system, to achieve the great ends which are free of any specific system. If people believe in the system you can't just ignore the system and make the goals happen. In some ways, you use the system to defeat the system. It's self-defeating by it's very nature, because the ends are seen as separate from the means, and therefore if the ends are to be achieved the means must self-destruct. Or else the ends are really no different from the means.
Exactly brother. I once read, I think in an Alan Watts book, that there are two doorways out of being trapped in the backwards mainstream social/power structure. The backdoor is taken by the rebels, who completely refuse to have any part in the system and make it known how much they hate it.... going out of their way to be excessive in their rebellion, to resist anything and everything that society deems "proper", to be as anti-normal as possible. Oftentimes their lives are full of hardship, because they have shunned all of the positive aspects of society that could help them. Their whole Then there is the frontdoor, taken by (at least in Alan Watts' example) the Taoist. The Taoist sees that by trying to rebel the rebellious left-hand pathers are trapping themselves in a new category, one just as ingenuine as the "normal" societal structure. The Taoist chooses to simply be naturally... he takes what is useful from society and shuns that which he feels is unnecessary. He doesn't have to try to be anything, he is just himself, unhindered by any sort of social role. The Taoist is successful and happy, but is not trapped, not controlled. Instead of resisting the wave he flows with it and uses it to his advantage. No one even knows that he is a free man... he simply laughs in his head at the dramatic absurdity going on around him. Oftentimes the sage is excessively normal.
The bolded is what I am "working on" for a lack of a better term. I have a really cool experience or something or a nice realization or whatever and then my ego comes in and is like you gotta share that man! You gotta tell people how good you are! Go tell everyone how awesome you are! But you gotta realize that is just nonsense. That is not you. Your ego feeds on the attention....if you give it that attention and it will thrive. The hardest thing for me is keeping my realizations to myself and showing people the things I have found out indirectly. Like the Tao Te Ching says... By simply acting at the right time and showing the way through no words, you show people the path without them knowing you did anything at all. They act as if they accomplished it by themselves. That is the true way to teach. I catch my ego saying all the time "great job Jason! Go tell everyone! They will think you're awesome!" It's a game lol and it can be pretty fun if you let it be. I usually just end up laughing at myself. Like right now, that statement above wasn't even truly from my heart. It's a fucking circle and words are the things tha bring this ego to life. Speak through actions...
If initial post would have said: God obviously exists you atheists are blind! Or, stop deluding yourself stupid god believers, I KNOW god is fake! This would have had 100 posts by now And people say they want intellectual conversation...u make me lol
So true man. I developed a pretty bad superiority complex for a while. At the time I had a pretty active social life based mostly on doing some harder drugs (especially stimulants) and I would talk some of my closer friend's heads off about my new "wisdom", in part because I was so excited about what I was learning, but also in part because I wanted them to see me as "enlightened". In fact my one close friend, who recently I discovered wasn't really close to me at all, would play this ego game with me, and neither of us recognized it. We spent all our time telling each other about ourselves. He would tell me things that were just blatantly trying to make his life sound interesting, and I would tell him things that were obviously just my attempt at making myself seem "enlightened". We both spent all our time re-affirming each other's roles. Lately I don't go out much just because I am sober and I have realized that many of my "friendships" were entirely based on drugs... so I've had a lot of time to examine myself and I am a lot more humble now. The friends that I have left I only give advice to when they ask for it... otherwise I don't really talk about my spiritual life with them anymore, I've learned it does more harm to me than good, and most people simply don't give a shit about enlightenment... nor can they really understand what they haven't experienced. It was pretty bad for a while though, and I didn't even realize it at the time. The ego is so sneaky and good at tricking you lol.
Yea dude I'm kinda in a weird situation right now cause I still talk to my friends and everything, but I honestly hate going out. They talk about honestly the most mind numbing things possible lol they still act like children. And it's like I'll try to bring something cool up and they'll say it's stupid or something and we should go get drunk and fuck girls. I just need new friends, one that I can relate to. I developed all my friends from my childhood and high school and I used to be just like them but now that ive changed, I don't fit in with then at all. I'm going to be forced to get some new friends soon because yes I still talk to them and what not but I'd say 80% of the time when they go out and party or hangout, I stay in. It's too much to be around that much negative energy for an extended period of time.
I can completely relate. I have realized that none of my old friends even care about me or each other. They are all just playing a social game, re-affirming each other's images, boosting each other's self esteem, using each other to get drugs, and to help with their loneliness. We used to hang out with girls who were slutty and not smart at all, just because they would get wasted and have sex with us. I realized recently that one of my best friends, who was like a brother to me, who I always thought was fine, is actually quite depressed, and is getting into some bad drug habits... I still try to call him from time to time because I want to help him but he won't answer my calls... so I haven't seen him in a long time. My thing is I used to need these people because I couldn't find happiness within myself, so I looked to them and to drugs to make me happy. The more I began to find happiness within myself, the more I saw that I never connected with those people all that much to begin with. I've alienated myself from a lot of people I used to hang out with because I decided that I didn't even enjoy being around them and they were a negative influence on me. I swear when I am around those people I can tangibly feel negative energy for an hour or so after I am with them. Not to mention I literally begin to feel lethargic and exhausted when I am around them, like they are leeching my energy or something. I found out that the people that really care about me were people I sort of dismissed because they weren't into the drug lifestyle but now I've been trying to bring them back into my life. Even then I now have only 2 or 3 good friends, which is how I like it for now. I expect that I will find more as time goes on.
I agree, I think this also applies not only to systems but also conventional wisdoms, or popular thought. When a certain belief or thought is accepted then it becomes powerful and predominant. Personally, invdividualism is much more important than collectivisms. It is in my experience that many people place "the rights of society" (or the rebellious society) over the rights of the individual: "Society is sometimes treated as a superior or quasi-divine figure with overriding “rights†of its own; at other times as an existing evil which can be blamed for all the ills of the world. The individualist holds that only individuals exist, think, feel, choose, and act; and that “society†is not a living entity but simply a label for a set of interacting individuals. Treating society as a thing that chooses and acts, then, serves to obscure the real forces at work." Real forces at work is the self. I agree that only you can decide things for yourself and if you don't really completely agree with something that a majority presents it's okay. Nothing is wrong with that. If you choose your own path then take it, you don't have to be caught up with anything but yourself and those that are close.
so what happens when nither door feels right at all.... i have gone thru them both...and come back in...... hell i tried going out the fucking window.....still wasnt what i was looking for! still did not feel right.... so i stopped trying.... everything is much better now the trick is actually doing it.... all to often i hear individuals say that is what they are doing.... when in fact they are still following what someone is telling/has told them....and calling it their "own" path....when it is quite well trodden already..... to walk ones own path..... you have to allow it to come as it may... and how do you react to it all......very simple ....just make it up as you go along.....
Robert Stalnaker wrote in response to David Lewis about this sort of thing. Within the framework of possible world semantics, Stalnaker thinks that deontic statements serve a certain purpose, and that once they are in place, there comes about a limit assumption about the number of possible world needed to analyze the statements involved. If a deontic statement is uttered by one who has the authority to enforce it, then at that instant all possible worlds in which that proposition doesn't hold become impossible. This is pretty interesting when you compare it to the notion that possible worlds are generally infinite in number. MMMMmmmmmm......philosophy.....