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My writing muse is on a paid vacation, it seems. Or maybe she committed suicide?
Oh well, will have to do without her then, and without much inspiration (you've been warned).
It's just that lately the pointlessness of it all which was obvious to me before sort of gotten extra-obvious, or 3D-obvious ))) It's harder to be overcoming any difficulties in life when you realize it's leading you nowhere in any case. That 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger' crap isn't working when you remember that whether somebody dies weak or strong makes no difference. I always remember that Russian joke where the doctor upon arriving and finding his patient dead asks his family: "was he sweating heavily before dying?" And the family members say "yes, he was all wet". And the doctor says "Good! That's very good."
It's somewhat strange and sometimes dreadful to be looking at the world and your own existence without the 'protective eyewear' for an extended period of time. You move and do something, people around you move and do stuff...all that fuss...absolutely pointless, overplayed scenario rolling over and over and over again. Even these thoughts on meaninglessness are far from new.
'Life is suffering and the cause of suffering is desire' - Buddhists say. But you know what, without desires there's still suffering, because there is simply nothing to do here except fulfilling desires. It's a fuel for our engine. What are you gonna do here without desires? Stare at the sky? I'm telling you, it's scary to be left without desires. You gotta convince yourself you're still wanting something, advertise some new thing to yourself and buy your own pack of lies. Otherwise you won't find the strength to move a muscle.
It's conterproductive to become free from desires, to lose interest in things you used to crave. The more free you become from earthly pleasures the less fun your existence will be. You have to want stuff: more of some fun, more fancy stuff, more ego gratification... Yes, of course, more love and happiness and whatnot, right? You have to be dreaming of that and be willing to take some hardships on your way. It's better not to lose that silly yearning for more while you're alive. You better want some new gadget or a new car or a new passion, or a new thrill, or fame and recognition. If one day you find yourself feeling 'been there done that, now what' - you're not gonna like that. Because there is nothing else. That's the menu. If you've tried pretty much everything and can imagine the same dishes with different sauces - you're still gonna have to eat from the same menu. Or - get out. You can't negotiate the prices either.
So I've been reading Tolstoy's "Confession" and feeling relieved to a certain degree because what I've thought and felt is not a novelty. I'm not inventing anything and not making shit up. Despite the deafening life-praising chorus of the majority, people have been seeing through the pretty make up at all times. The minority of people, I suppose.
Anyway, lets have some quotes here. Tolstoy writes he used to believe in 'progress' as the meaning of life but with time started to doubt his conviction:
...during my stay in Paris, the sight of an execution revealed to me the instability of my superstitious belief in progress. When I saw the head part from the body and how they thumped separately into the box, I understood, not with my mind but with my whole being, that no theory of the reasonableness of our present progress could justify this deed; and that though everybody from the creation of the world had held it to be necessary, on whatever theory, I knew it to be unnecessary and bad; and therefore the arbiter of what is good and evil is not what people say and do, nor is it progress, but it is my heart and I. Another instance of a realization that the superstitious belief in progress is insufficient as a guide to life, was my brother's death. Wise, good, serious, he fell ill while still a young man, suffered for more than a year, and died painfully, not understanding why he had lived and still less why he had to die. No theories could give me, or him, any reply to these questions during his slow and painful dying. But these were only rare instances of doubt, and I actually continued to live professing a faith only in progress. "Everything evolves and I evolve with it: and why it is that I evolve with all things will be known some day."
I mentioned on this blog how I used to believe there was a hidden meaning to everything. I trhink it's not that one doesn't have the thinking power yet to realize that's just a nice-sounding lie, it's that one doesn't want to realize that. You have all these dreams, passions, aspirations, desires and energy and to immediately throw all that in the fire of crushing uncanny reality? Not a chance! I refuse to believe all this drive I have is pointless! I just don't see a point yet, but it surely exists and it explains everything!
But years go by and you try this and that and the other... Especially if you're like me and aren't afraid to try things. You live open to new experiences and after a while you realize this is just more of the same, under a different sauce.
Sure, love still feels different every time and you can keep finding new experiences there but if you're not an imbicile you also realize the price for this menu item is so high you have to ask yourself whether it's truly worth it. It ends in pain either way, and the pain will be proportional to how deep the connection was. If not one of the two, death will end it, and the survivor will be a living dead, a shell. If only it'd be like in those Russian fairy tales where most of them end with "and they lived happily ever after and died on the same day". Same day...
More from Tolstoy:
"Family". . .said I to myself. But my family--wife and children--are also human. They are placed just as I am: they must either live in a lie or see the terrible truth. Why should they live? Why should I love them, guard them, bring them up, or watch them? That they may come to the despair that I feel, or else be stupid? Loving them, I cannot hide the truth from them: each step in knowledge leads them to the truth. And the truth is death.
And this is an accurate description of how one feels without desires:
My life came to a standstill. I could breathe, eat, drink, and sleep, and I could not help doing these things; but there was no life, for there were no wishes the fulfillment of which I could consider reasonable. If I desired anything, I knew in advance that whether I satisfied my desire or not, nothing would come of it. Had a fairy come and offered to fulfil my desires I should not have know what to ask. If in moments of intoxication I felt something which, though not a wish, was a habit left by former wishes, in sober moments I knew this to be a delusion and that there was really nothing to wish for. I could not even wish to know the truth, for I guessed of what it consisted. The truth was that life is meaningless. I had as it were lived, lived, and walked, walked, till I had come to a precipice and saw clearly that there was nothing ahead of me but destruction. It was impossible to stop, impossible to go back, and impossible to close my eyes or avoid seeing that there was nothing ahead but suffering and real death--complete annihilation.
Eastern fable about the dragon, mice and honey...
There is an Eastern fable, told long ago, of a traveller overtaken on a plain by an enraged beast. Escaping from the beast he gets into a dry well, but sees at the bottom of the well a dragon that has opened its jaws to swallow him. And the unfortunate man, not daring to climb out lest he should be destroyed by the enraged beast, and not daring to leap to the bottom of the well lest he should be eaten by the dragon, seizes a twig growing in a crack in the well and clings to it. His hands are growing weaker and he feels he will soon have to resign himself to the destruction that awaits him above or below, but still he clings on. Then he sees that two mice, a black one and a white one, go regularly round and round the stem of the twig to which he is clinging and gnaw at it. And soon the twig itself will snap and he will fall into the dragon's jaws. The traveller sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish; but while still hanging he looks around, sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the twig, reaches them with his tongue and licks them. So I too clung to the twig of life, knowing that the dragon of death was inevitably awaiting me, ready to tear me to pieces; and I could not understand why I had fallen into such torment. I tried to lick the honey which formerly consoled me, but the honey no longer gave me pleasure, and the white and black mice of day and night gnawed at the branch by which I hung. I saw the dragon clearly and the honey no longer tasted sweet. I only saw the unescapable dragon and the mice, and I could not tear my gaze from them. and this is not a fable but the real unanswerable truth intelligible to all.
The deception of the joys of life which formerly allayed my terror of the dragon now no longer deceived me. No matter how often I may be told, "You cannot understand the meaning of life so do not think about it, but live," I can no longer do it: I have already done it too long. I cannot now help seeing day and night going round and bringing me to death. That is all I see, for that alone is true. All else is false.
And finally, the brilliant quote on the types of people who manage to adapt and function in this insane world. I should mention that later in this work Tolstoy distinguishes the 5th type - religious. Believing in justice in some other life provides meaning to a lot of people. But as this post is long enough already, I'll just paste this last quote about the 4 ways of dealing with life.
I found that for people of my circle there were four ways out of the terrible position in which we are all placed.
The first was that of ignorance. It consists in not knowing, not understanding, that life is an evil and an absurdity. People of this sort - chiefly women, or very young or very dull people - have not yet understood that question of life which presented itself to Schopenhauer, Solomon, and Buddha. They see neither the dragon that awaits them nor the mice gnawing the shrub by which they are hanging, and they lick the drops of honey. but they lick those drops of honey only for a while: something will turn their attention to the dragon and the mice, and there will be an end to their licking. From them I had nothing to learn - one cannot cease to know what one does know.
The second way out is epicureanism. It consists, while knowing the hopelessness of life, in making use meanwhile of the advantages one has, disregarding the dragon and the mice, and licking the honey in the best way, especially if there is much of it within reach. Solomon expresses this way out thus: "Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: and that this should accompany him in his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun.
"Therefore eat thy bread with joy and drink thy wine with a merry heart.... Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity...for this is thy portion in life and in thy labours which thou takest under the sun.... Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there is not work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest."
That is the way in which the majority of people of our circle make life possible for themselves. Their circumstances furnish them with more of welfare than of hardship, and their moral dullness makes it possible for them to forget that the advantage of their position is accidental, and that not everyone can have a thousand wives and palaces like Solomon, that for everyone who has a thousand wives there are a thousand without a wife, and that for each palace there are a thousand people who have to build it in the sweat of their brows; and that the accident that has today made me a Solomon may tomorrow make me a Solomon's slave. The dullness of these people's imagination enables them to forget the things that gave Buddha no peace - the inevitability of sickness, old age, and death, which today or tomorrow will destroy all these pleasures.
So think and feel the majority of people of our day and our manner of life. The fact that some of these people declare the dullness of their thoughts and imaginations to be a philosophy, which they call Positive, does not remove them, in my opinion, from the ranks of those who, to avoid seeing the question, lick the honey. I could not imitate these people; not having their dullness of imagination I could not artificially produce it in myself. I could not tear my eyes from the mice and the dragon, as no vital man can after he has once seen them.
The third escape is that of strength and energy. It consists in destroying life, when one has understood that it is an evil and an absurdity. A few exceptionally strong and consistent people act so. Having understood the stupidity of the joke that has been played on them, and having understood that it is better to be dead than to be alive, and that it is best of all not to exist, they act accordingly and promptly end this stupid joke, since there are means: a rope round one's neck, water, a knife to stick into one's heart, or the trains on the railways; and the number of those of our circle who act in this way becomes greater and greater, and for the most part they act so at the best time of their life, when the strength of their mind is in full bloom and few habits degrading to the mind have as yet been acquired.
I saw that this was the worthiest way of escape and I wished to adopt it.
The fourth way out is that of weakness. It consists in seeing the truth of the situation and yet clinging to life, knowing in advance that nothing can come of it. People of this kind know that death is better than life, but not having the strength to act rationally - to end the deception quickly and kill themselves - they seem to wait for something. This is the escape of weakness, for if I know what is best and it is within my power, why not yield to what is best? ... I found myself in that category.
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Bernardo
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08-03-2013
Irina, let me just reiterate what I said the other day, I love your blog. I mean, what are the chances of finding a blog about the things I'm interested in, pessimism, philosophy, psychology and so forth all written with the underlining notion that life isn't worth living, that things are awful ? It's a breath of fresh air. People who have seen trough the curtain so to speak, who don't have optimistic views in place (coping mechanisms like you have said) are an infinitely small minority so it's really nice when you meet someone alike. This has quickly become my favorite blog.
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Irina |
08-03-2013
Yeah, and I'm surprised I have readers who appreciate pessimistic philosophy (realistic, but that's what it's commonly known by - 'pessimism') :) Chances of stumbling on like-minded people on the street - close to 0. Sure, you can find depressed whining people quite easily, those who are simply in conflict with themselves, unsatisfied with their own circumstance and their personal failures and shortcomings - plenty of that. But that's not philosophical pessimism, that's just a regular frustrated person who would be just fine had they have enough honey to lick. They don't have a fundamental problem with life as such, they just have a problem with their own. Thanks for stopping by)) |
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08-03-2013
We are just killing time before time kills us. How hard can it be? Just don't be too hard on yourself.
"The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." George Will As Schopenhauer, I find comfort in looking at the world as a penitentiary, a sort of a penal colony [Greek: ergastaerion]. If you accustom yourself to this view of life you will regulate your expectations accordingly, you will find that everything is as it should be, in a world where each of us pays the penalty of existence in his own peculiar way. And amongst the evils of a penal colony is the society of those who form it, as any pessimist can attest. [Schopenhauer: Studies in Pessimism] Tolstoy’s salvation came about when he hit upon a way to disown coherence and sidle up to religion. A titan of conceptual prestidigitation, he had rationalized his way into irrationality. Later, though, his mind went to work again, and he was once more in crisis. He remained preoccupied with life and death and meaning for the rest of his days and as an author preached a brand of positive thought —as in the bathetic “Death of Ivan Ilyich” (1886)— in an ongoing crusade against the bleakness that dogged him. [Thomas Ligotti: The Conspiracy Against The Human Race] |
Irina |
08-03-2013
We are just killing time before time kills us. How hard can it be? Just don't be too hard on yourself. Sounds funny.)) But we aren't just killing time, we're struggling to survive here, that is - to postpone the inevitable - overcoming all sorts of hurdles. Life can be very, very hard. I don't have any issue with me, I'm fine. Good quotes. I've read Ligotti. And yes, Tolstoy couldn't handle the bleak truth he once saw and even though he claimed in the beginning of his "Confession": "...that irrational knowledge is faith, that very thing which I could not but reject. It is God, One in Three; the creation in six days; the devils and angels, and all the rest that I cannot accept as long as I retain my reason." Well, if I ever turn back to faith - means I have lost my fucking mind. |
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08-03-2013
I know that life can be hard (who doesn't?), but what I mean is: it's not enough for existential angst to make it so. Well, at least in my case, and others. I know some people can be very sensitive to these existential questions, as it seemed to be the case with Tolstoy.
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08-03-2013
I am definitely in the "weakness" category. I cling to life like a barnacle to a ship's hull. Pathetic. But at least I'm not as insane as most people. I'm only slightly insane.
However I do have to point something out. You say that without desires we wouldn't do anything. I don't think that's true unless you define "desire" in a general way (i.e. anything that motivates us), but then it's a trivial point. |
Irina |
09-03-2013
Haha! One has to be slightly insane to be functional in this insane world. )) I knew I'd get objections to that! I meant all sorts of desires in a wider sense, as something you want which will also bring over a pleasurable feeling. If I feel like creating something and I'm frustrated if I can't find the time for it - what else is it if not a desire? A desire to learn, to discover, to create, to improve... all sorts of stuff. It's harder to call activism a desire, right? But then...the desire to feel useful, to be a part of something greater than yourself, to have a purpose in life, to feel significant... Not that it invalidates the actual steps people make in order to help improve things in some area, I'm just kind of digging to the core and still finding desires beyond virtually everything. We're programmed to seek pleasure, even if some people are mosachists they still are after pleasure, pain merely being a method of obtaining it. |
Neil
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08-03-2013
Irina,
You most definitely do have readers who appreciate your philosophical pessimism. I don't write a response often, but I read with pleasure all the philosophy you write here. Please keep it up; I can't find any pessimists walking the streets either. |
Irina |
09-03-2013
Glad to hear it. I'll try to keep it up...)) |
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09-03-2013
Well then by definition there are "desires" behind every action, sure...
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Zenner
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09-03-2013
Leo Tolstoy had 14 children, 4 of them while writing or after writing A Confession.
I've given up trying to understand people, life, the universe and everything... I'm focusing on improving my biochemistry so that I can feel as good as possible most of the time. That implies a lot of 'only thinking nice thoughts' or 'not thinking at all, just breathing, feeling, experimenting, ...'. Our brain does have tremendous power over the body, we could as well take advantage of it. It doesn't imply not having 'desires', as long as they are 'calm desires', the kind that doesn't make you suffer. I think that this Buddhist idea has been misinterpreted... All this could sound selfish to some... but they should know that you are better able to help others when you're not feeling miserable, but strong and pointlessly content. In fact, there is a sensible point in being content in the middle of cruel chaos, and that is: rebellion. (We clearly weren't meant to be happy, therefore I'll try to be... no matter how many times I fail, I know I'm fighting on the right side of the battle ) |
Irina |
09-03-2013
4 of them while writing or after writing A Confession. Well, A Confession sort of ends on a religious note anyway so that wouldn't have stopped him. I don't want to attempt to psychoanalize Tolstoy in particular, I'm not an expert on either his writings or biography, but ... our psyche gives us the capacity to believe what we want to believe even in the face of the evidence to the contrary. A cognitive dissonance is usually resolved in favor of the preservation of a positive self-image. If you have 10 kinds and then realize you've created 10 people who will suffer and die for no good reason, you can either live with that terrible realization for the rest of your life or give up your conclusiuon that life is an evil and an absurdity. Zenner, I'm with you on trying to feel as good as possible notwithstanding the truth of the matter. The reason I don't allow myself to fall into a deep depression is simply that - I don't allow myself, and so far it has been working. I've told myself this a long time ago: as long as I (for whatever reason) decide to stick around and go on living, I will do whatever it takes to not be completely miserable, as long as I can resist it I will because it does no good to anybdy and hurts me even more. |
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09-03-2013
Great post Irina, linked to it on my blog chat. I will only add to it that it helps when one is personally frustrated for whatever reason and then that solidifies their ultimate conclusions. Its much easier to get to it that way rather than through a happy pappy live where one never had to suffer too much and suddenly the eureka realization that life is ultimate evil.
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Irina |
09-03-2013
Thanks. Yeah, sometimes it does. But oftentimes it doesn't and you see people who have seen/been through horrible things defending the beauty of life and whatnot. So, one has to suffer before they realize life is crap but it's not necessarily enough. |
Zenner
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09-03-2013
I feel understood, that's a good feeling... Much obliged. |