Ups & downs - that last post was depressing!
Much of depression & failure is attitude - but even more of it is neurology, I think. The soul is its own prisoner: it has a bent that must be tested against the world. The individual's half-assed leaps forth are smacked down, & too often, he or she goes off to sulk. Given this, the question is one's reaction to being smacked down. Natural winners & crooks still desire to win, while losers "would rather not". And then, beyond that, there are the distracted and defective - what are they to do? The answer from all sides seems to be:
Gear up, Buckle down, 'Get It', Get over it, Fuck the world, 'Just do it', Go for all the gusto, etc., etc. Not sure what the current such phrases are, but they're going to be similar.
Barbarism is the watchword, culturally. Only the 'winners' matter or deserve anything. The Boehners and Bin Ladens and Limbaughs all HAVE TO WIN and they reject understanding or intelligence out of hand, since such things involve a pause and mediation of one's own thoughts. Liberals like myself give lip-service to understanding and intelligence, but how many of us really understand life's evil, and how many of us really have the resolution to suffer through such evil for the sake of this understanding & intelligence that the violent automatically dispense with?
Jet planes, 24-hour television, college educations & the Internet have all - like atomic power - been put to use for violence and domination. Without such, how could the many Islamic terror cells and their supporters have prospered as they do? Or how could the resolute American nationalists, launching colonial wars willy-nilly, have so successfully made the USA into that very "Great Satan" that old Ayatollah Khomeini oh-so-dearly wished for?
But what is all this to me? Neurology - brain chemistry - whole body chemistries? Is there something else that creates the winner versus the loser? Not even all the 'winners' win, I must remember.
And there is something else, a notion of some importance: the daimon; the Bent of a person. His or her interior rudder; whether 'tis good or ill, it's insistent and organic; it can't be truly denied, but will out - here & there; one way or another.
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A Ghostly World in Collision with Yours
- Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaos
- City: Let's call it "Fingiswold"...., California Franciscensis, United States
I only wish I could, like Beowulf, say:
"Hwæt! þu worn fela, | wine min Unferð,
beore druncen | ymb Brecan spræce,
sægdest from his siðe. | Soð ic talige,
þæt ic merestrengo | maran ahte,
earfeþo on yþum, | ðonne ænig oþer man."
"Ah, you've said quite a bit, my dear Unferth,
drunken with your beer, about Breca,
and laid out his triumph! But I say sooth,
that I owned much more sea-strength,
suffering the waves, than any other man!"
Yet I cannot!
Perhaps, like Epictetus, I may say, of the world and its evils,
"What is that to me? Is it within my control or a matter outside of it? If it is not within my control - and the only thing that is within my control IS my Will - then I shall not fret over it at all, but accept it and apply myself to it as best I may."
For the truth is - these evils are normal, they are natural, they are not (in the end) evil at all, just - consequent; and matters of indifference.
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