Tag Archives: belief

Passive Activity

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It is interesting to observe people and see how much they try to control their lives. This is interesting because it is a great contrast to what I am talking about with ‘self-control.’ There is a difference between being able to ‘control yourself,’ and trying to control reality, trying to control other people and the world around you.

People try to insulate themselves from the bad things about life, and many people often can (people with a lot of money, for example). The analogy can be made of a rich person living in NYC, high above the street in their luxury home, always taking limos to the beautiful places, only seeing beautiful people, and never touching the ground, never having to deal with the dirt, the sweat, scum and intensity, the beauty and ugliness and reality of what is going on in the streets.

This is not to say, of course, that the amount of money one has indicates their level of awakening and maturity, that poor people ‘get it’ more than rich people; but, rather, that rich people are able—through the means afforded them in a capitalist, materialistic society—to avoid reality more (or, at least, differently) than poor people. (Or, it might be better to say, “attempt to” avoid reality.)

As I have said many times, anyone—rich or poor—can choose ‘awakening’. The rich/poor thing is, rather, a metaphor for trying to mold life in such a way as to avoid and escape from having to deal with reality.

To be sure, a homeless person can do the exact same thing as the penthouse snob, just in a different way. He can construct a version of the way he sees the world, a version of ‘reality,’ and he can avoid having to deal with reality, with having to deal with himself in a brave and honest way.

We all have our egos, our ‘identities,’ our simple-minded and unquestioned understanding of the self and how it fits into the rest of reality; and we also try to manipulate, control, and mold reality in a way that suites us, suites our desires, values, and beliefs (in other words, our illusions). Instead of learning how to adapt and work with and in reality, we try to make reality adapt to us; and if we can’t, we ignore it and just move on with our agenda.

And, to be sure, most people don’t even actively control and mold their lives, but, rather, as conditioned beings, it is pre-molded, ‘pre-installed,’ and so they just go along with this conceptual framework that was conditioned for them, they ‘mold’ and ‘control’ their lives according to the way they see the world—passively, under the illusion of real action. The way to understand this is to think of passive activity; for example, a remote-controlled robot may be active in that it is moving, but it is not in control of its movement, and so its activity is passive.

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From my personal notes, 8/12/00

When Things Fall Apart

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Our lives, the ‘houses of cards’ we’ve buillt around ourselves, can be so fragile.

Sometimes something happens, something comes along, or something just grows that we might not have seen before, or never dealt with, and was just lying dormant under the surface, and it is something that we can’t deal with, something that feels impossible to solve in the way that we would want to—meaning in a way that keeps us going in the direction we are currently going. It is one of those ‘change of venue’ things, that bumps you off course, and you realize that you might have taken for granted that the course you were on would just always go in that direction, and that you could deal with anything that came along.

But life doesn’t always work that way.

And, sometimes, what comes along tells us that the course we were on wasn’t exactly the right course. A lot about it might have been right, but it was a little off, and that ‘little off’ might—because it is only a little off, and because it is so hard to deal with that when so much else was going so right—cause trouble, and it is so hard to deal with, harder than if it was way off course, or if it was more cut-and-dried.

This is when life gets messy, and it becomes so hard to tidy it up. Unlike all the things that came along before, this one gets out of your hands and you can’t seem to get a grip on it all, you can’t seem to hold all the pieces in your hands—you keep trying to gather it all together, but when you pick up one piece, another piece falls, and then another, and then you lose where the first one fell, and so on, and it’s just a mess.

This also speaks to how fragile our lives, our constructed existences, can be; that one little thing can be the little stray piece of string that begins to unravel the whole thing.

What, in life, is harder than something like this? It is a total up-ending of a person’s understanding of life, of how they fit into the world. It’s an upheaval of the very foundation on which the rest of our life and identity rest. It literally feels like things are just falling apart.

These kinds of situations…going through them without denial is so hard. We are not conditioned to be able to go with life without at least some level of denial. We are too clingy. We are too forward-looking, and yet also too myopic. And so maybe if it happens once, even though there is the opportunity for growth—to be able to deal better with the flow of life—a person might instead react the opposite way, and instead of dealing better with life, instead of growing from and with the situation, they regress farther back, and get worse; because they have been so hurt and confused by this situation, they become more self-protective, and end up in more denial than before. This makes sense, if only because it is so hard, and most people don’t have the strength to go through that kind of thing and come out the other end better and more mature. I know it is hard for me. I think I’m doing it, but it’s very hard, and I sometimes feel like I’m walking on a tightrope.

How do different people deal with such things when they come along? Obviously people will deal with them differently according to their conditioning and their inner character, their level of open-mindedness or close-mindedness, their assumptions and beliefs.

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From my personal notes, 8/12/12

The Sandbox

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Part of the problem is people’s assumptions and general misunderstanding of what it means to be an adult, and so they think they are adults because their bodies grow out of childhood. People—in their narrow-minded way—limit growth, limit what it is to be a child or adult to biology, or physiology. Growth, life, development, enlightenment, our ‘paths’, are much more than our biological bodies. So, people think that puberty is the door to adulthood, but it’s just a part of it. And their lack of awareness about everything else that’s involved with true growth cuts them off from it, because they think they are grown when they are not. They are children in adult bodies.

. . . Certainly, I am not saying that all children are born pure and perfect. Children are born with certain inclinations, are dealt a hand, so to speak, which may hinder or help them as they go through life, but I do not think, contrary to the opinion of some, that some people are born doomed. Or, even if that were true for a very small percentage of humanity, it does not doom all of humanity, and does not mean that we should not, and cannot, do what we can to divert humanity back to the right path, for I do think that, as bad as things are, I do not think it is hopeless. In fact, the fact that I don’t think it hopeless is pretty much the only reason I go on.

But as much as children might have cards against them, in varying degree, I still think that most, if not all, children are born with the natural life force to grow and learn and be happy. And so children are what they should be when they are biologically children: children. But adults are not what they should be when they are biologically adults: they may have adult bodies, but they are children in the ways that really matter, in the way that people call ‘spiritually’.

Human beings certainly have the potential to be ‘more’ than many other forms of life, but by confusing this potential for growth with superiority and entitlement, they veer off the path they could be taking.

I am, personally, tired of being in the sandbox. It can be fun for a lark, but for most people it is their lives, and I see that it is a sandbox when they do not. This makes me seem like I am arrogant, or acting superior, but I am old enough now to realize that that is just a manifestation of their ignorance, fear, and weakness.

This is what I mean when I say that I am ‘not meant for this world’. I am not meant for this world in that I am not meant to be of the playground, of the cave, of this one particular—and in many ways, arbitrary—society. I have finally begun to take hold of my strength, to be able to admit that to myself, and to try to deal with the consequences, to try and live who I am without fear.

It is not easy. Man, it is not easy. But what choice do I have? I am who I am. If nothing else, I think that I am one miniscule speck in a long, long, long process, and I must always remember that it is a process; it is not ‘my’ process, it is not ‘my’ world or process to ‘save’, but, rather, I am a part of what I feel is the solution as opposed to the problem.

I can only do what I can, but I must do that, and try not to think of it as ‘just’ what I can do, but to see it as doing what is right, of truly and fully being who I really am. That is what I can do, and by god, I’m going to fucking do it. Or at least I will try.

I know that I am moving forward, though; and, for now, that is enough to get me to the next day.

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From my pesonal notes, 8/2/00

Practicing What You Preach

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I have thought about the fact that I may come across as not practicing what I preach, of not living ‘my beliefs.’ I certainly have many ideas that are contrary to the way things are in this world, or at least in this society, ideas that would seem controversial, or whatever—for example, the fact that I’m not sure whether or not I believe in personal property; that my idea of freedom is more far-reaching than the Lockian definition; that my idea of love is different than what people think love is; that I, on a very basic level, disagree with most, if not all, of the underlying assumptions and beliefs of the ideologies of this society. And so, I am aware that it could be thought that I am very inconsistent, even hypocritical. But, to that, I would say that to live purely by ‘my beliefs’ would be as wise as walking through a battlefield with no armor or weapons because you ‘don’t believe in war.’ It wouldn’t really accomplish anything, except to get yourself killed, and then who gives a shit what you believe and the kind of difference you could have made?, because you’re dead.

I have thought about going off to find a Buddhist monastery somewhere, to go to a place where people (might) think more like I do (i.e., less ego/self-full), a place where I could really get away from the disease that surrounds me, where I could learn how to really meditate, where I could talk with and learn from people who might be further along than I am. But I’m not sure if that is the answer for me. At least not right now. Maybe at a later time. I think that that is certainly a way to go—many people have done it—but it is certainly an escape. It may be escaping something that deserves to be disrespected and ditched, but it is still an escape, and I am not certain that that is what is right for me. I want to do what is right for me, true to who I really am, what will be the path that will allow me to be myself as much as possible.

I think the trick is to be able to be in this kind of society without being of it; to go back in the cave and not be sucked in by the darkness and the deleterious efforts of others, whether or not they mean it. I do think that it is harder to stay and fight. Yet, I am not sure if it would be best for me to go off and be away from the shit in order to get myself really on the right path so that I might be able to come back and be more effective than if I just stayed. I don’t know the answer to this yet.

But the point of this is that it is absurd and ignorant to think that one could or should apply one set of ideas to a situation where they will not be understood or effective, to a place that will eat you up by the very nature of the different ideologies. It is like an adult who knows why a child should or should not do something trying to reason with the child, when the child is simply not on that level of understanding. It is simply unproductive. The way to handle such a situation is to first be aware, and to understand the way things really are in the situation, and to deal with the child in a way that moves him toward the right direction, but also is done in such a way as to help him to eventually walk his own path and to learn how to grow and eventually become an adult who does what is right because it is right, and not for all the wrong reasons why people do the things they do.

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From my personal notes, 8/2/00

Sacrifice is a Fraud

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I, again, find myself pondering the ideas of sacrifice and forgiveness. I am still confused about this idea many Christians have that “Jesus died for our sins.” This, of course, well-encompasses the issues involved in sacrifice, as well as forgiveness and redemption.

I do not think I believe in sacrifice, at least in the way it is commonly understood, for anything that could be called a sacrifice can be seen another way—not as a sacrifice, but as the way things are. It becomes an issue of attitude, how it is seen and judged.

I also do not believe in the idea of sacrifice as a demonstration of obeisance or subordination (to a “god,” for just one example), as that is all about manipulation and power over others—a dis-respectable trait in anyone, including leaders and parental figures.

And, so, I suppose I do not believe in the idea of sacrifice, for any instance of sacrifice is, I think, really just a case of wrong attitude, weakness, hubris, or ignorance, and, as such, should not be revered or respected, but criticized for the fraud that it is.

Along these lines, I suppose that one of the reasons I have a problem with this idea of Jesus dying for everyone’s sins is that I do not believe in the idea of “sin.” And so the problem is not any shortcoming on my part, but rather the sophism and misguided nature of the story itself. It is as fallacious as pontificating about how soldiers in Vietnam “died for our freedom.” It is simply a crock, a lie, and the reality is that they died for the brutish, selfish, and misguided ideologies of weak and blind men in power; just like Jesus, in fact.

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From my personal notes, 7/16/00

Resist

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One of the things I need to resist, and I think I have been doing it very well lately, is the pressure to jump into the system. People want to push you into the system, even if they realize that you may not fit in it well.

It is hard for me to trust most people, because it is like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, or The Matrix, where it is hard to know who is your friend or enemy, or at least who is being ignorantly manipulated by the enemy (‘the system’). Like you often hear in sci-fi: trust no one. This is for good reason, for those who do not follow this are almost assured to be sucked in and held captive in some way.

It is hard, of course, because it is a life of loneliness and isolation. But I do not think that it needs to be. This is one of my biggest challenges. It is a life of being misunderstood, on different levels, and by most people, and so it is a very hard life; or, at least fairly lonely, for whether or not it is ‘hard’ has a lot to do with my own degree of enlightenment. Either way, it is a life that takes a lot of courage to live right.

In a way, I am like those people in The Matrix, part of a resistance, but, at least right now, I am on my own, not even really sure that there are other real resisters out there. I feel that there are, but part of the problem is that the line between resistance and collaborator is often not an easy one to find with many people. And those who want to resist, or know certain things about it, may think they are a resister, but are really not free enough to be.

And so the problem is that it is not black-and-white; it is not easy to find those who are really resisters. Many of those who would resist cannot handle it well, and end up defeated. I think this is widespread.

It is important to always remember that the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend. This is one of the biggest problems with gathering a strong unified resistance, for many of those who feel that your enemy is their enemy are not doing it all for the right reasons, are not doing it with open minds and hearts, with love, but rather with hate, or fear, or envy, or pride, or whatever.

This is why it is very rare. It is very rare to find someone who truly understands the trappings and illusory nature of the ego; for many ‘resisters’ are still resisting with their egos, and that’s still, ultimately, part of the problem.

I need to be strong, because I know that pretty much everyone out there is functioning, consciously or not, to suck me in, though they are not necessarily even trying. It is just part of the programming, part of the conditioning that people believe in. And so they may be sincere, but that does not mean that they are on the right track.

Everything seems to be set up to be against who it is that I am. The intricacies of the ways that people resist the truth, resist people like me, are many. For most, it is some combination of hate, envy, fear, arrogance, weakness, weariness, etc. It is such a complex web.

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From my personal notes, 7/10/00

Virtues of the ’50s = B.S.

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It simply makes me want to puke when people extol the supposed “virtues” of the 1950s—”Family values”, fighting the evil communists, the glory and honor of war, an utterly hypocritical closed-door immigration policy, etc. For what I see when I look at that time is repression, delusion, denial, and ignorance.

How long will puritanical arrogance and utter lack of self-awareness blind people in this country to reality? The supposed cultural revolution of the ’60s and ’70s failed because what this society values—money, status, materialism, “individuality,” lack of responsibility not only for oneself but for each other—were never really in jeopardy. In fact, most of those young people who wore their meager activism as a badge of honor are today living the repressed, materialistic, and shallow lives of their parents.

Until what is fundamentally rotten with this society is dragged into the light and whipped to death, this society will decay and eat itself alive.

America is another Rome, and its fate will be the same. Who can possibly be so blind as to not see the connection: the increasing gap between rich and poor, the rampant violence, which is not a product of free thought, but rather of ignorance, greed, weakness, and utter lack of real self-awareness. Does no one see pro wrestling for the gladiator games that they are?

Time will tell that American society’s arrogance, hypocrisy, decadence, and utter denial of reality will be its downfall. No society built and based on the shallow, confused, and repressive values upon which this society was built can last that long.

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From my personal notes, 6/12/00

The Unloaded Gun

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(See “Hypocrisy in Morality” for the first part of this discussion.)

Most people have it backwards—morality does not determine motivations and values, values and motivations determine morality. This is why organized religion has it wrong, because it functions on the former—false—principle. And it is why societies which attempt to function based on this backward logic do not really benefit the people within it. Giving people what they selfishly desire, and what they are comfortable with, does not help them in the same way that “giving a man a fish” does not really help him beyond the immediate need or desire.

Religions try to determine and prescribe values and motivation by moral dogma and law; but as a good many supposed Christians have proven again and again throughout history, the opposite is, in fact, true—that laws and moralities are broken and forsaken with ease in the face of motivation and value. It only works as long as the person believes it. Once the person no longer believes it, then reality, which has been tenuously and artificially held at bay, steps in and takes over.

Reality precedes/trumps belief. Time and time again throughout history it has been shown that trying to control and determine motivation and value is like pointing an unloaded gun at a kung fu master: once the master realizes that the gun is not loaded, once the illusion is broken, the jig is up and it’s time to run. While it is possible to manipulate and (thereby) seemingly control people’s motivations and values (what propaganda and marketing are all about, of course), and while it often works (because of reasons that are too broad and numerous to go into here), the bottom line is that if one chooses to not be controlled by these efforts, then he or she will, quite simply, not be controlled by them; and so we see that, ultimately, we are in control, whether or not we are presently being controlled (manipulated).

It simply amazes me the way people allow themselves to be controlled by illusion and sophistry. The amount of dormant power, held at bay by an unloaded gun, is truly astounding. People have been brainwashed to be ignorant of the incredible amount of personal power within themselves that lies dormant, like a flame deprived of oxygen. And they have been brainwashed into thinking that this is “human nature;” they have been conditioned to want it this way.

One of the reasons the world is so screwed up is not simply this ubiquitous repression, but that it is not an airtight seal, and that power tends to express itself unhealthily, like a starving man at a banquet.

It is truly a form of oppression. Fortunately, though, it is ultimately repression and not oppression because the ultimate decision (and power) lies with the person to believe or not believe the hype, to be spoon-fed gruel, or to fix themselves a hearty meal, and to be able to see the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

There is simply no controlling a person who does not wish to be controlled—this is universally understood by hypnotists, as well as totalitarian regimes, as well as by slave owners who denied their slaves education—for ignorance is a prison, and knowledge is the key.

We live in a society of hypnotized people who arrogantly and ignorantly do not realize they are hypnotized, who are told they are free, so they think they are free; who are controlled by being told they are not controlled. It’s the old Jedi mind trick. But, as with the hypnotist, it is an illusion that is perpetuated by the hypnotized. Once the subject is unwilling to be hypnotized, there is no way to hypnotize him, there is nothing the hypnotist can do; where in the illusion the hypnotist is all powerful, even with minimal effort, once the subject has willingly given up control (which of course he does not believe once he is hypnotized), once the illusion is broken, once the subject is awakened to reality, once he can get past his own ego and presumptuous arrogance and narcissism, once he is no longer willing to be controlled, the hypnotist, like the man holding the unloaded gun, is utterly, and even pathetically, helpless—like the wizard of Oz. Yet again: illusion vs. reality.

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From my personal notes, 5/31/00