TW: Insensitive, harsh
You don't get to be above it all (1/2)
This essay is my attempt to diagnose the rage and despair that afflicts most humans—and let's be honest, everyone on this website.
Is life a doomed game? Yes.
Is it cruel? Yes.
Is it hopeless? Yes.
But here's the contradiction: if life has always been this way, then you shouldn't know or expect any better - how can you feel sad for what has never been. On the contrary if life hasn't always been this way a great injustice has happened and this pain is justified. Which is it?
An honest examination of history tells me the former is likely to be true, the tale of humanity is one that has been told in cruelty, violence and abuse of power. When has it been otherwise? Was it during the age of god kings who whipped armies of slaves to build stone pyramids of no practical use to the 99.9% or maybe it was when the man born in Bethlehem asked people to be kind to each other and in return found both his arms and legs nailed to a cross. Could it have been during the feudal period when peasant was a defined class, or perhaps a little ahead when slaves were a commodity sold on ~~wall~~ slave street, should I look at the first or second wars or maybe the dozen proxy wars where one country's wealth remains defined on the permanent stagnation of another.
If all the evidence is for the former (Terry Deary didn't make a fortune for nothing), if the world has always been ugly where does the hope of a better life - my belief the true source of our anguish come from.
The most obvious answer might be that we've all been lied to. A veil had been thrown over our sights all this time hiding the true nature of what life is. A massive propoganda campaign with indoctrinated parents and teachers playing the useful idiots, deceving us to 'stay happy' for better days are yet to come. But can this line of reasoning hold up when challenged. For every day we are surrounded by a world that won't hesitate to show you that it remains as ruthless as it has always been. And judging by the fact that every minute a spiritual guru promising the proverbial 'red pill' ends up charting the New York times best seller list or is pushed to the top by the YouTube algorithm, you cannot say that the idea is supressed. How can a lie prevail when the truth sells so well?
I'm forced to look at this problem from another angle. If the history of humanity has always been bleak, and the truth that it has been bleak is widespread where does this hope that things should be better come from.
My solution - one word - naivete. The essential source of all misery.
It is not that the truth of the world was surpressed, quite opposite, from an early age the ugly truth was shown to you time and time again. Life told you what it's boundaries were. Life demanded you to fall in line. Fit your mold to my image else I will discard you its voice shook. And you either couldn't or wouldn't face up to it.
It seems as if for every odd tragedy that has fallen on to us life's answer remains constant "whatever. Be the fittest or lie among the discarded." There are many unanswered questions left for the worker who reads.
Judging life by this binary lens, the qualities I see a lot among users on this site such as self awareness, emotional intelligence and openness start to look more like liabilities than anything else. As they keep you trapped, unable to shake it off and move on from trauma. But then again that was always part of the plan. Our inability to get past our issues is what brought us here, we are the undesirables taking out our own trash.
But are we victims? (1/2)
You don't get to be above it all (2/2)
There is an expectation built into modern society that if one cannot deliver what they are expected off and a better alternative is available then you should make the change. This is not a capitalist idea, it is the fundamental basis of human nature. We all want the best for ourselves.
When having to find peers for a group assignment, you want to be part of a solid team because bad groups won't deliver. When making a purchase you would not hesitate to abandon a store if you found the same good for a much cheaper price elsewhere. If any inconveniences came up in your daily life when you were paying for it would you not raise hell about it. Broken wifi? Call the Telco. No power? Call the utility company. Wire transfer won't pass through? Call the bank. And if you don't get a resolution? Switch providers or uninstall the app.
We all want the best.
So where does this trepidation come from upon the realization that if you the reader are unable to deliver what another person wants, then they will want nothing to do with you. How can we be disappointed when they're just following through what life has taught them to do. What makes you the exception? When you yourself are likely to do the same thing.
On some level if you are on this website you are broken, I am broken. But who will come to rescue us?
When I see a vent posted with the author gushing their heart out to their tragedy and see not a single response in support, and my own trackpad scrolls away as well I ask, maybe this doesn't need a direct answer when the silence speaks volumes.
Maybe what people need is support, validation, kind words of encouragement, and a listening ear. But I ask myself: who here has the capacity to truly provide that? And even worse, if you did give your time and energy to help someone get better, what are the odds it would address the core problems they're facing? Beyond a fleeting feel-good moment, would anything actually stick once the tab is closed?
How much empathy can you give before realizing that some people are hopelessly trapped in their own tragedy? Forget my help, if you were left alone with your own tragedy, would you be able to tolerate yourself? Or would you scroll away like everyone does. How can you expect what you yourself are unable to give to yourself. Should empathy for our brokenness be given unconditionally or only with a timeline for recovery?
I got inspiration for writing this after thinking deeply on David Foster Wallace's commencement speech, "This is water."
"There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"
Its an amazing read arguably undercut by the fact that DFW was a questionable human being who eventually ctb. Is advice given worth less if the giver fails to live up to it themselves? But my point is this, pain is not its own justification. Being aware of water doesn't change that you're still fish in an a bowl expected to breathe. Breathe! Damn it! That's your job. Don't over think it.
That's what life expects of you, and I don't think you can find it elsewhere.
If it truly is hopeless then find comfort in Nietzsche at least let the hopelessness drag itself to the very fucking end.
"We aeronauts of the spirit! All those brave birds which fly out into the distance, into the farthest distance it is certain! somewhere or other they will be unable to go on and will perch on a mast or a bare cliffface and they will even be thankful for this miserable accommodation! But who could venture to infer from that, that there was not an immense open space before them, that they had flown as far as one could fly! All our great teachers and predecessors have at last come to a stop and it is not with the noblest or most graceful of gestures that weariness comes to a stop: it will be the same with you and me! But what does that matter to you and me! Other birds will fly farther! This insight and faith of ours vies with them in flying up and away; it rises above our heads and above our impotence into the heights and from there surveys the distance and sees before it the flocks of birds which, far stronger than we, still strive whither we have striven, and where everything is sea, sea, sea! And whither then would we go? Would we cross the sea? Whither does this mighty longing draw us, this longing that is worth more to us than any pleasure? Why just in this direction, thither where all the suns of humanity have hitherto gone down? Will it perhaps be said of us one day that we too, steering westward, hoped to reach an India but that it was our fate to be wrecked against infinity? Or, my brothers. Or?"
And if disillusionment a problem of naivete, accept life for what it is.
Amor fati: let that henceforth be my love!
"For the New Year . . . everyone takes the liberty of expressing his wish and his favorite thought: well, I also mean to tell what I have wished for myself today, and what thought first crossed my mind this year, —a thought which ought to be the basis, the pledge and the sweetening of all my future life! I want more and more to perceive the necessary characters in things as the beautiful:—I shall thus be one of those who beautify things. Amor fati: let that henceforth be my love! I do not want to wage war with the ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not want even to accuse the accusers. Looking aside, let that be my sole negation! And all in all, to sum up: I wish to be at any time hereafter only a yea-sayer!"
You don't get to be above it all (1/2)
This essay is my attempt to diagnose the rage and despair that afflicts most humans—and let's be honest, everyone on this website.
Is life a doomed game? Yes.
Is it cruel? Yes.
Is it hopeless? Yes.
But here's the contradiction: if life has always been this way, then you shouldn't know or expect any better - how can you feel sad for what has never been. On the contrary if life hasn't always been this way a great injustice has happened and this pain is justified. Which is it?
An honest examination of history tells me the former is likely to be true, the tale of humanity is one that has been told in cruelty, violence and abuse of power. When has it been otherwise? Was it during the age of god kings who whipped armies of slaves to build stone pyramids of no practical use to the 99.9% or maybe it was when the man born in Bethlehem asked people to be kind to each other and in return found both his arms and legs nailed to a cross. Could it have been during the feudal period when peasant was a defined class, or perhaps a little ahead when slaves were a commodity sold on ~~wall~~ slave street, should I look at the first or second wars or maybe the dozen proxy wars where one country's wealth remains defined on the permanent stagnation of another.
If all the evidence is for the former (Terry Deary didn't make a fortune for nothing), if the world has always been ugly where does the hope of a better life - my belief the true source of our anguish come from.
The most obvious answer might be that we've all been lied to. A veil had been thrown over our sights all this time hiding the true nature of what life is. A massive propoganda campaign with indoctrinated parents and teachers playing the useful idiots, deceving us to 'stay happy' for better days are yet to come. But can this line of reasoning hold up when challenged. For every day we are surrounded by a world that won't hesitate to show you that it remains as ruthless as it has always been. And judging by the fact that every minute a spiritual guru promising the proverbial 'red pill' ends up charting the New York times best seller list or is pushed to the top by the YouTube algorithm, you cannot say that the idea is supressed. How can a lie prevail when the truth sells so well?
I'm forced to look at this problem from another angle. If the history of humanity has always been bleak, and the truth that it has been bleak is widespread where does this hope that things should be better come from.
My solution - one word - naivete. The essential source of all misery.
It is not that the truth of the world was surpressed, quite opposite, from an early age the ugly truth was shown to you time and time again. Life told you what it's boundaries were. Life demanded you to fall in line. Fit your mold to my image else I will discard you its voice shook. And you either couldn't or wouldn't face up to it.
It seems as if for every odd tragedy that has fallen on to us life's answer remains constant "whatever. Be the fittest or lie among the discarded." There are many unanswered questions left for the worker who reads.
Judging life by this binary lens, the qualities I see a lot among users on this site such as self awareness, emotional intelligence and openness start to look more like liabilities than anything else. As they keep you trapped, unable to shake it off and move on from trauma. But then again that was always part of the plan. Our inability to get past our issues is what brought us here, we are the undesirables taking out our own trash.
But are we victims? (1/2)
You don't get to be above it all (2/2)
There is an expectation built into modern society that if one cannot deliver what they are expected off and a better alternative is available then you should make the change. This is not a capitalist idea, it is the fundamental basis of human nature. We all want the best for ourselves.
When having to find peers for a group assignment, you want to be part of a solid team because bad groups won't deliver. When making a purchase you would not hesitate to abandon a store if you found the same good for a much cheaper price elsewhere. If any inconveniences came up in your daily life when you were paying for it would you not raise hell about it. Broken wifi? Call the Telco. No power? Call the utility company. Wire transfer won't pass through? Call the bank. And if you don't get a resolution? Switch providers or uninstall the app.
We all want the best.
So where does this trepidation come from upon the realization that if you the reader are unable to deliver what another person wants, then they will want nothing to do with you. How can we be disappointed when they're just following through what life has taught them to do. What makes you the exception? When you yourself are likely to do the same thing.
On some level if you are on this website you are broken, I am broken. But who will come to rescue us?
When I see a vent posted with the author gushing their heart out to their tragedy and see not a single response in support, and my own trackpad scrolls away as well I ask, maybe this doesn't need a direct answer when the silence speaks volumes.
Maybe what people need is support, validation, kind words of encouragement, and a listening ear. But I ask myself: who here has the capacity to truly provide that? And even worse, if you did give your time and energy to help someone get better, what are the odds it would address the core problems they're facing? Beyond a fleeting feel-good moment, would anything actually stick once the tab is closed?
How much empathy can you give before realizing that some people are hopelessly trapped in their own tragedy? Forget my help, if you were left alone with your own tragedy, would you be able to tolerate yourself? Or would you scroll away like everyone does. How can you expect what you yourself are unable to give to yourself. Should empathy for our brokenness be given unconditionally or only with a timeline for recovery?
I got inspiration for writing this after thinking deeply on David Foster Wallace's commencement speech, "This is water."
"There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"
Its an amazing read arguably undercut by the fact that DFW was a questionable human being who eventually ctb. Is advice given worth less if the giver fails to live up to it themselves? But my point is this, pain is not its own justification. Being aware of water doesn't change that you're still fish in an a bowl expected to breathe. Breathe! Damn it! That's your job. Don't over think it.
That's what life expects of you, and I don't think you can find it elsewhere.
If it truly is hopeless then find comfort in Nietzsche at least let the hopelessness drag itself to the very fucking end.
"We aeronauts of the spirit! All those brave birds which fly out into the distance, into the farthest distance it is certain! somewhere or other they will be unable to go on and will perch on a mast or a bare cliffface and they will even be thankful for this miserable accommodation! But who could venture to infer from that, that there was not an immense open space before them, that they had flown as far as one could fly! All our great teachers and predecessors have at last come to a stop and it is not with the noblest or most graceful of gestures that weariness comes to a stop: it will be the same with you and me! But what does that matter to you and me! Other birds will fly farther! This insight and faith of ours vies with them in flying up and away; it rises above our heads and above our impotence into the heights and from there surveys the distance and sees before it the flocks of birds which, far stronger than we, still strive whither we have striven, and where everything is sea, sea, sea! And whither then would we go? Would we cross the sea? Whither does this mighty longing draw us, this longing that is worth more to us than any pleasure? Why just in this direction, thither where all the suns of humanity have hitherto gone down? Will it perhaps be said of us one day that we too, steering westward, hoped to reach an India but that it was our fate to be wrecked against infinity? Or, my brothers. Or?"
And if disillusionment a problem of naivete, accept life for what it is.
Amor fati: let that henceforth be my love!
"For the New Year . . . everyone takes the liberty of expressing his wish and his favorite thought: well, I also mean to tell what I have wished for myself today, and what thought first crossed my mind this year, —a thought which ought to be the basis, the pledge and the sweetening of all my future life! I want more and more to perceive the necessary characters in things as the beautiful:—I shall thus be one of those who beautify things. Amor fati: let that henceforth be my love! I do not want to wage war with the ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not want even to accuse the accusers. Looking aside, let that be my sole negation! And all in all, to sum up: I wish to be at any time hereafter only a yea-sayer!"
