unwitting mystic

2008-05-05T05:13:00.000Z

Ich Liebe!
Ich Liebe!
Ich Liebe!

Good and Evil

2008-02-02T20:56:00.000Z

As dark music rings out pretentiously it waits, pretending to know pain, yearning to make itself authentic with such inauthentic desperation. Ravakos takes us to a place that is ourselves. We make ourselves the devil, out of boredom perhaps? Or fear? Or desire? We long to feel such intensity that we are possessed and out of our minds.

Masava makes us the king of our inner hierarchies, and so gives us more power than the greatest earthly king. When we become masters of ourselves we reign supreme, even in the midst of submission to Him Most Holy. Ravakos cries for a loss of control, for ecstasies and sublimnities which dissolve into us and make us other, which push and pull upon us and carry us on their tides. Ravakos is the enemy of solitudes and of the differentiated man.

All things in awareness are justified. This is the meaning of sovereignty. When we take full responsibility for all the consequences of our being and in our being we are pure, then we cannot be condemned. Even Masava cannot take from us our deeds or the truth that rings out from us like the purest light when we know and are. When we truly know what it is we have done and when we do what we do under the burning, piercing, cold light of that awareness, then there can be no wrong, there can be no shame – because if there is wrong, all is wrong. If there is shame, then all is shame. In totality there is only what is, to proclaim how totality should be is an affront to Masava, a claim that you can better his creation.

Yet we should not allow this to make us callous to suffering. Our anguish in the face of the pains of others is as much a part of truth as the beauty of the sun on dew. Our terrors and hatreds are as much a force for good as our loves and joys. Masava would have us struggle and strive in this world, not lay down content and complacent. Masava would have us seek to forge ourselves in his example and gather our power to make dominions on this earth beautiful and strong.

Strength is no shame, but the righteous love of strength should also be no excuse for contempt for weakness. Weakness is not to be imitated, but it is a fact and it is possessed of us all, though in unequal quantities. None of us have the power, knowledge and self possession of Masava: though all should strive for as much. Weakness is not to be despised, but recognised and accounted for. Not to be exploited for evil but exploited for good. No-one frets at the idea of exploiting their strength, but who would exploit their weaknesses? Yet to do so is a profound step on the path to sovereignty.

On this earth we are possessed with a magnificent creative power and a terrible destructive one and unlike what we have been taught by the false god Ravakos both are good in their place. What is evil, and the only evil, is ignorance and ecstasy: not knowing and not being.

2008-01-17T19:35:00.000Z

Today I am struck by... the sense of nothingness in life.
I mean, that all this, is not important. But pretending its important, getting worked up about some grand plan, some idea, something that you pretend really really matters, makes life more fun.
Also, the idea that, the people who will win the game of life, are the people who are most adamant its not a game, because they will never be tempted to just flop down on the bed and giggle at the absurdity of it all, they will be driven with a fury because to them it is vital.
So it is more prudent to, most of the time, allow yourself to "take life seriously". A lot of people don't get me on this topic, I seem very serious somehow, and very passionate and even fanatical about some things. Its all just a game to me though really, I find the whole life thing utterly amusing. We all play our roles, none of which is better than the other. The killer and the killed are both getting to play a part. I know I say this from a privileged position, that I risk insensitivity to others pain, when they are in the thick of it taking it seriously.
I know and understand the risk there. I want to make sure to remain compassionate. Even so, I think ultimately, its alright, all of it.

Eternally Temporal

2008-01-04T08:18:00.000Z

Kiss your death mask:
Drying your lips on absorbent clay,
Draws your lifewater out.
Crumbly your visage of eternity,
With your moistening it's
Temporally fixed.

Fire and Ice

2007-12-27T01:42:00.000Z

I am forever torn between the ideals of on the one hand stillness and beauty watching all the frenzied motion of decay with a sympathetic dispassionate wisdom and the ideal of the vicious cauterizing implement that cuts out decay without fear of the stench of burning flesh or fear of the wrath of a body that could not accept it had to lose a limb. Brave violence which cares not for itself or for reputation but only to do what is honourable, thoughtless bright action.

peace is tyranny and neither war nor tyrrany are wholy bad.

2007-12-25T23:35:00.001Z

You know when you feel a sort of sad numbness. Like sadness is water in an estuary, and you are the beach as it washes over you, reseeds, washes over you again, like the tides. And as it washes you it soaks pebbles which glisten in a melancholy way and there is a sense of eternity and a sense of being a part of something so much greater than you that you are nothing at all and something so much greater than you that if it cared about anything at all you could never understand. Even so you play your part, unable to do otherwise, but also, not concerned to. The waves lap over you, colouring your sands and leaving salt behind evaporating in cold winter sun.
And there, despite the wholeness of it, the sense of utter wholeness in eternity there is at the same time the sense of utter solitude, both in eternity and temporally. Feeling like a rock in space surrounded by emptiness but fixed in your orbit.
With a cold warmth.

Death to the Demoness Allegra Geller

2007-12-25T21:51:00.001Z

I like the film eXistenZ. Ok. It's a bit cheesy. Ok, the ending... well its not that surprising. Despite this I think its a great film. Basically its about a biotechnological virtual reality game and the difficulties effective VR involve. Not a new concept, but done well.
It reminds me of a series I watched lately - Serial Experiments Lain, an anime series about the effects of the internet on ones sense of reality. I find it chilling because by taking the commonplace to the extreme (a tried and true method of storytelling) it demonstrates very well the dilemmas of modern information technology.

In eXistenZ there are people fighting against this technology, because of the damage they think it will do to peoples idea of reality, what reality is, the harm they think that will do. It struck me though, I don't think that would ever really happen. We are gradually creating such a huge bubble of constant - inescapable - propaganda for ourselves as well as for others - and no-one is shooting anyone over it. No-one is taking anyone to account. No-one is even outraged, though a small few may be saddened. The internet may be the latest thing in this process, but it started long ago. Ironically the "rural idiocy of peasant life" was actually a good defense against the process. Urbanisation and mass education were not liberators but homogenisers, making people conform to singular standards and people conformed to singular standards were easier to control. Now don't get me wrong, I am no luddite, but I can't help but feel uneasy about the route we go down with this. We replace real satisfaction more and more with simulated - or if not - with removed and alienated satisfaction. We replace real experience with experience from behind glass. Instead of picking up signals from our eyes and processing them in our minds we are picking up signals with our phones/computers/televisions and then picking them up with our eyes - its more removed and so there is more room for error and distortion and on a two dimensional screen - it looks the same from every angle - but even in 3D-VR, its still the same experience for everyone who plays the game.
The better it gets the worse it gets too because the more realistic it seems, the less we feel a sense of dissatisfaction that its not real, the more it simulates the fulfillment of our complex needs, the less we seek real fulfillment of those needs.
My dad would say "so? if we can simulate perfect fulfillment why get fulfillment from the physical rather than the digital world" - well, its because we don't just crave fulfillment to be fulfilled. We crave it because we over generations adapted to survive - our feelings of need all come from something that helped us survive and we adapted to a world where gadgets that could make us feel good weren't distorting things. Its like that "Second Life" thing. I went in there once, walked around, and saw that there were people who had put genuine work into creating homes and spaces for themselves there. Games within games, games that simulate life but with a bit more buzz because people don't have that in their real lives anymore because even ordinary life is a bit of a game, alienated from the real process of life. But online, in all kinds of MMORPG's and Multiplayer Sims and the like - there are people living out these lives, building homes, farming, earning imaginary money and buying imaginary weapons who's attributes are not decided by their innate nature but because a programmer has chosen them to have attributes - houses made of pixles - am I the only one who finds it horrifying, people invest time and energy and get satisfaction building a technically valueless house (that people pay real hard earned money for!) that exists only in the form of data? That data could be anything. Its no achievement to make it into something. It's not like building real things.

I am not sure even what it is that disturbs me about it.

2007-12-12T03:47:00.000Z

In awareness all things are united. In will all things are differentiated.

I am not a Christian.

2007-12-08T16:28:00.000Z

I am growing a little too attracted to eastern orthodoxy, for one I am not a Christian, for two I have to be careful that I might be attracted to it because it is exotic rather than because it seems to present an articulation of truth.
Let us be honest, I only know about it from what's written in English, I am sure Protestantism looks very noble and interesting to people for whom there are not the motive of large bodies of criticism against it in their native languages. So I must do more research.
And also really get my head round the idea of what a Christian is.

I know some people who NEED to read

2007-12-03T10:59:00.000Z

I know more than a few people who desperately need to read the section Dissolution of Consciousness and Relativism in Ride the Tiger.
Especially the chapter's "the procedures of science" and "covering up nature".

Elitists and Compassion

2007-12-03T06:36:00.000Z

I know many people who refer to themselves as "elitists", who do not merely believe in the intrinsic difference between human types but in intrinsic differences in value between them and the necessity of making such distinctions. In fact if that is what elitism is, I myself could be considered an elitist. Although in many cases I agree with this I think some essential points are often forgotten, even where they are not missed.

If the elitist, as most I associate with, considers "sovereignty" to be a quality of the elite, if not the defining quality, he often seems to, in his quest for ruthlessness - a trait he associates with strength which he associates with sovereignty - to neglect compassion. I, like all humans (and possibly all living things) admire strength. I also do see ruthlessness, when it is called for, as an indication of not just material strength but strong character and even sovereignty. However rejecting or ignoring compassion is not a means to this kind of strength. It is a means to unconscious and irresponsible brutality, nothing more or less. The man who is sovereign should not choose unconsciousness over consciousness. An irresponsible man cannot be sovereign.

There are those who consider themselves to be elite, who do not think that people in general should have the right to freedom. They feel this way because they have a deep contempt for the mass of people. What they do not understand is that, even were they the undisputed ruler of the world both on the spiritual and material plane, they could not take away another's right to freedom. Rights, unlike privileges, are backed up with ones own power. One is free because one has the power to be free. Human beings in their great numbers, do not, for the most part exercise their right to be free, do not to what it takes to muster the power to defend their freedom when they have it - and often do not ever particularly want or care to be free, it some cases it may even be true that they are genuinely incapable of freedom. However, freedom is not something that can be taken by any external thing. It is a state of being and it is a state of being that can equally be manifest in an apparent servant as in a lord.

So it will be suggested by our elitists that peoples lack of exercise of their ability to claim freedom, or their actual lack of ability, or willingness (which in truth amounts to much the same thing) - their weakness for other things above it, makes them worthy of the contempt that our elitist directs to them (certain of course he can distinguish between the free and unfree). This contempt though is not the attitude of a real elite. A regal sensibility is capable of accepting and of recognising the validity of difference and a place in the order of things for more than one type of man. Not in a predatory sense, but with magnanimity. A king who is disgusted with his people for not being kings is a bad king. Elitists who hate humanity because it fails to live up to their ideal for themselves are doing it wrong.

Hate is a response to pain. What pain do you get from the fact that another man is not free? It is an absurdity to hate a slave for not being free, it comes from the feeling of vulnerability that the slave induces in them that they too are not free or could become unfree. It is both grasping and aversion and they cling to their grasping and their aversion because deep down they have no sense of solidity of will or direction. They recognise in the moment their submissiveness and double up their efforts not to submit. A free man could submit knowing his inner core is unwavering.

The real elite knows he will not be a slave, not because he recognises fault in the state of slavery and clings to his aversion, but because it is not his will. He could enjoy and appreciate (and in fact that he can even recognise them places him above most) the virtues of slavery without feeling the need to take them into his self and make them permanent fixtures. His sense of being is unshakable so he need not fear difference.

The "elitists" though are more like communists, though they claim to be the opposite and decry egalitarianism, to them only one way of being is good. When others fail to be this, then they believe, use them, but never accept they have a valid place. Like the communist they see the masses as something ugly to be used then carefully destroyed or avoided. They cannot imagine a world where the masses could be good. Their ideal is a world without slaves or servants, but living in a world where such things exist they mistreat them and despise them for reminding them of their own weakness.

People are a hierarchical species though, there will always be lords, freemen and slaves - even if such categories are not codified in law. Its the nature of what we are and what all primates are. We can change humanity to do away with hierarchy with a great deal of work, but to what end? What is the point of such an endevour? Is the absence of hierarchy a prima facie good? I am all for grand projects to create new kinds of men, it is the kind of hubristic adventurism that absolutely delights me - but lets not, if we do that, do it out of hatred of man as he is, there is a place for hate, but it is not there, if we are to change ourselves let it be because we want to explore new heights, not because we want to run from what we are.

The real elite does not see compassion as a weakness. Compassion is awareness, it is knowledge. It is the profound understanding of the real consequences of ones actions. Rather than a weakness that can turn one from ones destiny it is a shining light upon ones actions that can prevent one from unknowingly acting against ones will. Compassion is only to be feared by he who is afraid of knowing himself or afraid that he might lose himself through knowing the truth. The man who needs to keep himself blind cannot be true.

It has become very fashionable to exalt selfishness, because people think that to be true to themselves they must be selfish. They see no strength in compassion or consideration of other subjectivities besides ones own. Their hold on themselves is so fragile and tenuous that to consider another subjectivity threatens to overwhelm them and send them into an ocean they cannot navigate. Constantly affirming their difference out of fear of giving in to a possession by the frightening, nebulous crowd.

The irony is there is more than one thing lurking under the surface seeking to possess, many of these people are deep, beautiful people with strong characters who, were they able to let go of the fear of losing themselves instead of trying so hard to force themselves to be strong and separate - would be strong and separate, but instead they become slaves to an ideal that is not theirs which comes from outside and often does possess them in a manner reminiscent of the demonic.

Reading

2007-12-01T16:54:00.000Z

I am reading this book by Julius Evola. I am very glad to be doing so because it cleared up not a few misconceptions about things. Despite the disagreements I have with Evola I have to say I am enjoying this book greatly. In some ways it angers me how much I agree with the man because he seems to deny the possibility of heroism in women except perhaps through Sati.

More insomniac ramblings

2007-11-15T12:23:00.001Z

When we developed agriculture we tamed once wild spirits and created gods which though possessing a will of their own still served us. When we developed science we displaced gods of their throne and took it for ourselves. And now? I am supposed to believe we who have conquered God are to succumb to mere men or mere "social forces". To petty bureaucrats and naive globalist pawns of the finance industry?

What tosh!
We are not powerless creatures. This adversary is stupider and more reactionary than many long since vanquished. The trouble is the costs of change, a lack of will. A far more tragic problem than mere powerlessness.

So to advertise change, to play up the anticipated rewards in order to raise the price willingly paid? This is harder than it once was, every advertisement is an enchantment, and enchantments are two a penny nowadays so we have become to a degree desensitised to their effects. The costs of better advertisements to enchant with are themselves are costly, both morally and in money, time and importantly - opportunity cost.

What irritates me more than anything is people who believe they are powerless. The idea that ability is the problem when in fact the problem is will. So many people I meet though happy to act in certain ways for their goals will not do what it takes to achieve them, and then they blame circumstances outside themselves for their failure, not their willingness. They wait for an opportunity where the cost is lower to act - and there is no shame in that if there is such an opportunity on the horizon, but you cannot then be surprised if your predictions were wrong and the price rises. You can't blame circumstances for things because it is an abdication of responsibility - you should have better navigated circumstances. Only the uncreative need lawlessness.

There is nothing wrong with honestly being unwilling to pay a cost for a cherished goal - some costs are too high for most people to be expected to pay. It may be noble to give up everything for a worthy goal but that doesn't make it shameful to have things you would rather preserve (for now). That is before you ask who and what can be trusted with such a sacrifice when sacrifice has been so repeatedly abused.

We have to look hard at ourselves and ask "what am I - here and now - willing to lose" and if we are not willing to lose everything to gain even the most prized jewels of the universe we have to understand this about ourselves so that it does not cripple us in our unawareness. We may be able to gain more if we can risk everything, but it is a risk - we shouldn't deceive ourselves. Only through self honesty can we create productive strategy.

nothing much

2007-10-22T17:14:00.000Z

I felt bad. Death and decay loomed heavy on my mind. "It is useless to work" I thought "there is no future to reap the rewards of my work". I laughed a painful laugh "no, that is not true" I thought "something will survive me, there is a future to reap the rewards. Only I do not know what that future will be. This is what troubles me. The uncertainty." I breathed a sigh of relief. "I cannot know what will live when that which I know is dead, I cannot know what the future will bring. I can however, know what I will give to the future."

Even so. I still feel sad about the decay.

<3

2007-10-18T06:57:00.001Z

Out of the frying pan and into the fire

2007-10-13T15:36:00.000Z

I can't escape it. I think to myself "I am too inside my own worldview, I need to get out of all this subjectivity, of my own subjectivity and of other subjectivities, I need to observe mankind and the world with unfettered eyes so I can see it as it is and not through these false interpretations".
But everything is an interpretation. I cannot look without interpreting and I cannot make use of uninterpreted sights anyway.

Every paradigm is like a diamond edge reflecting and glinting in the light. All colours of the rainbow I can see with ease, all angles of reflection. For once I would just like the undistorted image.

wanted to see how my voice sounds recorded

2007-09-26T12:22:00.001Z

http://files-upload.com/files/523336/tat.mp3

Game On

2007-09-23T03:27:00.000Z

Tonight I am in a joyous mood. I am prone to take life a little too seriously. Not tonight, I am laughing at everything. I saw a film called the Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman the other day which has contributed to my light mood, it was a most delightful film (if historically inaccurate) and so beautifully demonstrated the existentialist take on death whilst managing to be both emotionally deeply moving and deliciously good humored. It was a perfect juxtaposition between the tragic and comedic. Ingmar Bergman's good reputation is warranted.

The second contributer to my good mood is a discussion I had with an old... I am not sure if I would say friend, but someone I used to talk to more often than I do now. We both made predictions of the other and both came close to the mark. We had both changed. We talked about life and philosophy and further refined our respective ideas whilst growing ever further from one another.

We talked about boundaries, about a conception of a world without the "constraints of material reality". I learned what I mean when I talk of "freedom". To him freedom is having the ability to do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want. To me that is enslavement to boredom. It reminds me of a slogan I created years ago "only the uncreative need lawlessness". Even if there was a way to be utterly free of material reality - what would that mean? It would be to be utterly free of existence, it wouldn't be real power, it would be as good as a daydream. I can daydream all day - its most unfulfilling and certainly doesn't constitute freedom.
Freedom is impossible without identity and freedom is a function of identity and intimately tied into it. Identity is impossible in a void. It is impossible without boundaries and constraints. Which is not to deny the value in pushing boundaries, in thinking around constraints, in working the law to your own will, these things are all wonderful byproducts of the existence of boundary, constraint and law. Freedom is also impossible without consequences. Without liability.

When you play chess or some similar game, you don't feel unfree because you can't take your first pawn and move it to take all the other guys pieces in your first move. If you did feel unfree for that reason it would show a great deal of insecurity on your part and a belief in your inability to work with the rules.
A really clever chap can write his own rules for a chess board and pieces - and people have and that is great too but its an entirely different matter to just want to be able to do whatever whenever however and cry when you lose because you didn't want to figure out how to really play the game.

Why... that's just plain unsporting :p

A Daydream

2007-09-12T20:39:00.001Z

On an infinite plane uncountable invisible vortices are sucking in an invisible gas. Each vortex represents a will or geist. Smaller vortices are contained within larger ones, both struggling against and working with. Where many intersect and conflict fantastic invisible patterns, complex fractals, chaotic systems form themselves, overcome one another, create and recreate themselves and disintegrate or equilibrate. A vortex alone is just a circle sucking into itself the intersections are far more interesting.
Then you add a little colour. Introduce a purple gas and the invisible motions of geist become visible. These fantastic patterns show themselves in all their majesty. This is the perceivable world, the motion of the 'gas' directed by all these vortices. The struggle of all these conflicting wills.
You can look and see the will of a boulder, and within it, without which it would not be what it is, the wills of every atom, every electron. Then at the side there is a will of a man, who is interacting with the rock. Contained within him the wills of his organs and cells and atoms and electrons and many other things, even symbiotic creatures he doesn't even recognise the existence of. Even he himself is within, in conflict and collaboration with, greater wills, to disintegrate or equilibrate.

It is important to note the dialectical conflict between higher and lower. Between the atom in the rock and the rock. Even though the rock as a whole is made of the atoms and even though the rocks identity is dependent on them, it conflicts with them too. To illustrate better, pretend the rock is magnetic. Every bit of a magnetic rock is repelled by every other bit. Break it anywhere and the pieces will not go back together because of that repulsion. The chemical bond between the bits of rock (which itself is electromagnetic) is stronger though, than the repulsive magnetism. But its not maths, -1 and +2 does not = +1, in reality -1 and +2 only equals -1 and +2 and the constant fight between them. If anything disturbs the equilibrium this fact becomes apparent.

Rocks are predictable things if you know about them. People are too for the most part. What makes people and possibly some primates and even elephants different is that unlike a rock, people don't just react to what you do, but what you think.
They can think "I know that you know that I know..." and so on. That ability creates (or is the result of) some very pretty and complex patterns of intersecting vortices.

Shadow of the Dalai Lama

2007-08-19T22:24:00.000Z

So I am reading this book I found online and my first thoughts on it um, are not happy ones.
The book itself is a bit skewed to the feminist side for my tastes and is quite biased in that regard but never the less I think it makes a good case for its criticisms of Tibetan Buddhism. The human sacrifice and generalised violence whilst grotesque are not uncommon in the world and therefore not particularly shocking. What horrifies me is the disdain for life. Contempt for it. Disgust toward it.
First of all the thing that really, I will be honest here, made me feel violently angry inside. If they ever try and do this in my town I will make sure they are not allowed to come here.

For this purpose one of the lamas takes on the appearance of Vajravega... He is considered to be the terrifying emanation of the time god Kalachakra. He can evoke sixty wrathful protective deities from out of his inscrutable heart, who then storm out through his ears, nostrils, eyes, mouth, urethra, anus, and from an opening in the top of his skull. Among these are found zombies, vampires and dakinis with the heads of animals.

In the imaginations of the lamas who conduct the ritual, this monster now drags in the impeding local spirits with iron hooks and, once they have been bound in chains, nails them down in the ten directions with ritual daggers. A further ten wrathful deities are projected into each of these daggers (phurbas). There are indications which must be regarded seriously that in the performance of the Kalachakra rituals it is not just the local spirits, but likewise the earth mother (Srinmo) who embody the nailed down victims. This myth of the nailing of Srinmo played a central “national” role in the construction of Tibetan temples, which actually represent nothing more than three-dimensional mandalas. We shall come to speak of this in detail in the second part of our study.

So ok, I understand why they do this, and why they think its a good thing to do but this is basically nothing less that viscous spiritual warfare enacted wherever these monks go. We let these people in and praise them for their peacefulness and this is what they project onto our land!

It makes me angry - funnily enough it makes me angry also at Christianity, because it left us defenseless against all manner of spiritual attacks from all quarters. It makes me angry at rationalism and empiricism for denying the power of the symbolic so we cannot even appreciate that we ARE under attack or that it is meaningful to defend ourselves.
I don't think these Buddhists are a particularly big threat, even if they would like to think they are but they illustrate so profoundly this glaring weakness which horrifies me.

The book itself goes into some detail as to the magical techniques and methods of Tibetans and so I have been left wracking my brain trying to think of a suitable defense for us, one which could evade all their magical tricks! They work primarily it seems with the law of inversion - so that anything you create against them will be turned on you. For them life is samsara and therefore evil. Yet through the law of inversion they use vitality in the service of death, life is enraged and set against itself by a cold calculating omnipresent mind. This is their plan according to the book - and in their view it is good, because life is chaos, is hell, is suffering where mind will bring order, stability, bliss. I am actually often reminded of Ludwig Klages and his dichotomy between Geist and Seel. These Buddhists have utterly demonised Seel and deified Geist but they have then sought to make Seel its own enemy, turned it against itself and life.

So I've been thinking, how do you solve this issue - anything you create as a defense will be turned against life. If you inverse it again you are setting death in service of life but the practicalities of that are a very complex matter. One thing that gives me comfort in all this though is that life naturally evolves, changes, modifies itself and adapts. Yet it is exactly that power which parts of this tantric idea seem to want to usurp in the service of oriental despotism.

At the same time, so much of this reminds me of my own worldview. I mean its eerie. I never felt an affinity for exoteric Buddhism. This animistic spiritualist Buddhism with its epic spiritual battles between primordial forces though, it reminds me a lot of myself, even the eschatology is similar to my own. It would be too easy to fall prey to becoming one of their sacrificial women. Once I have read to the end I will avoid the subject I think. Not only am I far too prone to magical and symbolic thinking but Tibetan Buddhism is a cult of death which seeks to harness the power of the feminine set on fire - a state I can too easily see myself falling into.

They remind me of a dream I had a long time ago. When I hated life with a passion and believed if only I could strip away all the organic matter something pure and divine would remain.

I drempt that a woman, who was god, sitting next to me told me I must kill a baby because the baby was evil. I trusted her, she was god after all, I had no doubts or qualms and I killed the baby. Suddenly I felt the god's awesome personality, the most hateful thing I have ever experienced, she was utterly insane with hate. She hated life because it spoiled the perfection of order, because it got itself into every nook and cranny and grew and manifested itself in endless and everchanging forms. She had created a perfect "watch" universe where inert matter acted on itself until friction burned the whole machine to dust from whence it would be created anew, and then life had the audacity to grow, to make of itself forms unknown, to multiply and realise unthought of dreams. Suddenly there was a will to power other than her own and it drove her mad because she could not control it.
And I woke up horrified and utterly touched by this evil in which I had been complicit, nothing less than the degradation of life itself. Shaken I walked to the lightswitch and then my field of vision turned into triangles which shattered and fell to the ground and I collapsed terrified I had succeeded in destroying everything.
And that is how I came to love life.

And these Buddhists remind me a lot of that god...
---------------------Edit: 20/08/2007---------------------------------
Ooooh THIS page is interesting! Especially the stuff about Gesar. Amazing. I can see where the parallels to my own thought come from here, the warrior ethic and the appeal to high politics.

It's kind of funny, looking over this now the next day, how I can see a lot I can learn from this, whilst still feeling somewhat threatened by the specific, finding the general to be somewhat useful.

This page too is also interesting, fire. This imbalance. Interesting.

The Degredation of the Hero

2007-08-12T21:28:00.000Z

Day 1: virtue

The Hero is greater than any man. He is virtuous. He has impeccable taste. He is strong, beautiful and powerful.

Day 2: continence

A man is despondent he says "I cannot be this man, I cannot be a hero! What am I then? I am nothing!" and his brother comes to him and instead of wisely rebuking him for his pride he says to him "now brother! Do not be foolish. None of us can be this man, we are all flawed. It is good that you struggle with these things though. It shows that you care to be more, to be better. Is the struggle not beautiful in itself? Then to overcome oneself?"

Day 3: incontinence

Sobbing a man exclaims "I have done it again" lurching forward with guilt born nausea he says "why can I not control myself?" He gets to work, only to be distracted. He cannot refrain from giving in to the advances of women he knows he ought to reject. He stays up late and forgets to bathe regularly. He raises his voice against others in anger when it is not warranted. He is ashamed, and so resents art for reminding himself of his wrongdoing. "Art should reflect reality!" he exclaims "who of us is perfect? who of us can resist temptation?" he watches a very modern film about a man who struggles with his conscience at every turn as he sets about in every choice destroying himself "but it is beautiful, his struggle, even as it comes to failure" the man thinks.

Day 4: viciousness

He is impulsive. He is rude. He is cruel to his mother. He does not try but he whines when he fails and blames it on someone else. He is sadistic. He revels in socially acceptable brutality. He defecates on his teachers lawn. He pesters the girls constantly for their affections. He runs away when he is challenged or apologises insincerely only to repeat his behavior. If you bring this up he laughs and says "yeah, what you going to do about it?" He wants to be a gangster or a criminal or a hacker or a porn star.

Just read Nicomachean Ethics

2007-08-10T15:18:00.000Z

It almost completely accords with my intuitive idea of the good. I would say that it devalues the ecstatic too much though. Even extremes are good in moderation!

2007-08-08T06:50:00.000Z

I got into an argument with someone yesterday. About what it means to be "British". Specifically, I might have proposed the view that the "British" were a people with a specific ethnic character.

I do believe this. I can't help it. It seems intuitive to me. Maybe that's not been a fashionable way to think of it for a while - and yes I know that the nation state is a 18-19th century construct and that I shouldn't put too much weight on the idea. I don't. But I am not talking about a nation-state, but a people. They make up several ethnic groups, split into various political factions and regional and national allegiances. But there is a people called the British and I can't imagine how someone who's not got at least 4 or 5 generations deep of ancestry on this island can really consider themselves to be a member of that people... because, how are they connected to it? I'm related to my mother and father in a specific way, and I am related to their mothers and fathers and so on it goes back - and all that history is tied up in that.

Is it racist to acknowledge that? Or just to associate that connection with the "British" people? If its just the latter, what's the word that I can use instead?

I am a bit angry really. I feel like this person, who I really have nothing against despite her liberal naivety, who in fact I have as much fondness as you can have for someone you've only met on the internet, has decided to steal my identity and redefine it as some crass urban youth culture I don't relate to.

I know that is not fair. I understand her fear in this situation. I know why she wants "british" to mean something that includes her and its not just some petty thing, its a genuine sense of threat, a genuine need to belong. It's just I don't think she really understands what she is doing to 'us'.
All those violent degenerate "chav scum" types in many ways act so destructively because of the well meaning attempts of people at inclusion, without realising that in order to make the identity inclusive it has to be robbed of a huge amount of its meaning. So we have all these young boys full of aggression with no connection to the past, no knowledge of history, no idea who they are - so they look for identity in degenerate subcultures instead.
Which isn't so different to what the middle class do when they become "emo" or anything else. All these fashions are basically just poor substitutes for history and a connection to ones roots.

But I am so upset that I have upset this girl. I wish I could make her understand it from my point of view.

optimism, pessimism, other

2007-08-04T05:12:00.001Z

Sometimes I feel so sad, so ceirtain that all the things I love are about to be destroyed. That when I am dead, no-one will value what I value ever again. I don't believe that now, its just a mood that passes. A pessimism, a fear of despair. I was feeling that feeling, such a deep sense of "its too late, its too late, nothing but annihilation is worth anything now" and then, I saw on the wall this spider.

And it became ok, so everything I love dies, so my values won't be upheld by the people who come after me?
This spider on the wall, it says to me "life will prevail".
So I am at peace.

And I look out across the sea at the clouds - it is a sublime sight, sublime as opposed to (but also) beautiful. I look out at it, I see the waves, the formations of the clouds, the coming rain - and again, I feel so confident "it is ok, if I die, this sight will recreate my values in those who see it". So the panic, the desperation, the frenzy is thus calmed, tempered. Which is not to say I give in to defeatism (never!) but just - I can accept whatever happens. I know deep inside LIFE will go on.

So much of the time I have a frenzied optimistic pessimism which is born of a fear of despair and its crippling stillness. A fear of being paralyzed by it. So I cherish very much those moments where I can step back and accept things in that way - when I can feel with love the sadness for what is lost, but not allow myself to be afraid of that which is to come either.

There are birds chirping outside, trees stretching across the hillside, there is a cat playing with a rodent, the waves are rising up with ever increasing ferocity. These things remind me where truth is to be found and in so doing remind me even if everything man has created crumbles to dust - it will still be beautiful... and sublime.

Diese Tat ist ihnen immer noch ferner, als die fernsten Gestirne, und doch haben sie dieselbe getan!

2007-08-01T23:53:00.001Z

Imagine a church or cathedral. In all its glory and magnificence. Filled with people, eyes cast upward. Singing like a hymn, This Deed by Electrelane.
Electrelane – This Deed
Hände hoch!