We should therefore put, instead, finished thoughts in media. As Nietzsche wrote, (paraphrased) too many people write down their thoughts as well as the process of thinking of it.

Would you rather risk intimate, exquisitely soul-destroying pain in a quest to know the truth (truth being how things are in reality), or would you rather live a lie (or in ignorance) your whole life, but in a much happier place?

Before you read this, answer the question above.

To me, pain functions as a reminder of a few things. That you are not invincible. That you are alive. That you remember how to feel. If you feel pain, you should be grateful, because you know there is something more you can learn about yourself. Pain is one of the greatest teachers. The only problem is whether you can bear to attend class.

Pain is based on information: what you do not know cannot hurt you. We feel the great emotions (love, hate, joy, pain, etc.) when we have invested something of ourselves in an idea, a person, or an outcome. It may sound very ethereal but it feels as though part of our souls is given in the exchange. When things turn badly the emotions run wild, because we cannot bear to see it fail. Because it reminds you of the mistake you did in believing that thing. Of the lies you would’ve continued to believe in if only it shielded you from the reality that was now indiscriminately crashing through your dream.

Pain is the crucible of the soul – it purifies away any extra flakes you had on your character until only the most solid, the most true parts of you are left.

Fanaticism – A fool the other day once told me that religion was a place we could find common ground. I laughed cynically in my heart, for he had yet to realize that religion was what divided us most from each other. It makes us kill in the name of God, and excuses atrocities that even the most cold-hearted daemon would look away from. It is in our zealotry that we commit our foulest acts. The ones who question will always be offered a measure of protection for their minds against this.

Freedom  – To say that we are all free to choose God is a hilarity of the highest order. Free will is not the choice between fluffy white clouds and everlasting torment. That is blackmail. That is fear-mongering. That is bullshit. No God worth his salt would even make such an offer except to cow weak-willed sheep into his fold. And what good are followers like those?

Folly – To ask a question is to expect an answer. But the power of asking is not in the answer, it is in the question. For doubt is the father of such utterances, and self-realization is the fruit of his loins. If one were to never have doubt, one was already lost. To have doubt is to know that there is a chance that you might be wrong. And you almost always are.

Frail – The knowledge we are easily malleable and broken when we allow ourselves to be. The fear that we have no control over this process. The foolishness that stems from giving control of who we are to another person who has no idea how to shape you as well as yourself.

In the end, I wrote something that felt far removed from my original intention. Conversations can do that to you.

Inwardly speaking, I suspect it is a self-defence mechanism against recognizing we have failed. We lie to ourselves, spin it as truth, and present it to the world so that they, too, might celebrate our average deeds as extraordinary, our disasters as deeds of daring. The entire American self-esteem movement is based on the idea that if you believe it hard enough you can make it. This is a lie. Not everyone will make it, and not everyone even has the potential to. There are people who succeed and people who fail. It is not a question of self-esteem, it is a blindingly, precisely, binary condition.

Socially, it covers our tracks. It makes us more desirable to be seen as having a better handle on the Truth of the way the world is. People do not like the person who admits he lies, yet everyone does it. The polite hypocrisy of condemning people who are blasphemously honest sounds counter-intuitive, so why is it so widespread? Why, in a society that values truth, are we more concerned with the presentation of truth, and not its actual substance?

Nietzsche once said if you seek peace of the soul and happiness, then believe; but if you were to be a disciple of the truth, to inquire. This aphorism, simple as it may sound, has caused me a lot of vexation; it exhorts you to hold all you value under the microscope. Why do you believe what you believe? Many people never question the values they were indoctrinated with and simply become offended when pressed to examine these beliefs, true or not. Or perhaps they *have* thought about it, but somehow arrive at the end result of having rationalized why they have that belief in the first place. Hence, they convince themselves to remain chained to any number of untrue views by recursion.

This is the stuff of hypocrisy. People do not want to be proven right. They have no use for being objectively more in line with reality than other people. They merely want to be shown to have arrived at their conclusions without looking like an idiot. Whether what they say is true or not has no bearing whatsoever on this. We use the ‘truth’ only in as far as it will serve our selfish needs.

We come to the altar of truth screaming for vindication and yet we offer only excuses when its harsh, unbiased light shines on us. We are truly deluded.

This is where I’ll be for the next few days. Looking forward to a place to collect my thoughts, relax, enjoy, and explore.

Furthermore, I realized that we often times hold ourselves to a ‘perfect’ standard. I say this in terms of perfection being a guide to behaviour. The thing is, not only can no one ‘be’ perfect, but that being perfect in and of itself is boring as hell. It strips away the human characteristic of flaws and sterilises us as unexciting plaster dolls that can be neatly pigeon-holed. Where there are flaws, there is character. Where there is character, there is uniqueness. Where there is uniqueness, there is meaning.

So fuck perfection, let’s focus on being human and having the ride of our lives. After all, the meaning of life is happening right here. Right now.

And I was on my computer

And it was sunny out

I ate with friends

And it was windy out

I slept and dreamt of friends

And it was pleasant

So I woke up thinking

If everyday was this day over and over

Life would be easier

^______________________^