Friday 31 January 2014
“What Drives Success?”, Part II | Clarissa's Blog
“What Drives Success?”, Part II | Clarissa's Blog
Not having impulse control is something that I deeply, deeply cannot understand. Because my impulse control is so good, I am not at all forgiving of those who don't have it. I think they are probably a different species from me, especially the women.
Not having impulse control is something that I deeply, deeply cannot understand. Because my impulse control is so good, I am not at all forgiving of those who don't have it. I think they are probably a different species from me, especially the women.
atheistic "religion"
Bataille's atheistic religion and despair from Jennifer Frances Armstrong on Vimeo.
This video also concerns Bataille's negative dialectic or the exposure to "nothing". It's not at all scientific to assume that the salience of points have a fundamental existence outside of your mind.
Atheistic "mysticism" differs from religiosity a few steps further up the mountainside at the point where hope turns into despair and one's despair becomes redemptive. I'm not really arguing that one should embrace this perspective, only that it is the natural consequence to a long climb in relation to Western metaphysics. At the higher reaches of the summit, unlearning/nonknowledge becomes key to advancing, instead of requiring a further acquisition of knowledge.
Cf. http://unsanesafe.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/time-has-come-walrus.html
“What Drives Success?”, Part I | Clarissa's Blog
“What Drives Success?”, Part I | Clarissa's Blog
Australians tend to have a very high level of animal nature and are very masochistic. They tend toward what Steven Pinker talks about in terms of the parable of the scorpion and the frog. They hire a frog to get them across the river, but then they sting it because that is in their nature. There's no getting beyond this, no higher mind, nothing to reason with. It's a cultural instinct. The love stinging frogs so much, they don't care what happens to themselves.
Australians tend to have a very high level of animal nature and are very masochistic. They tend toward what Steven Pinker talks about in terms of the parable of the scorpion and the frog. They hire a frog to get them across the river, but then they sting it because that is in their nature. There's no getting beyond this, no higher mind, nothing to reason with. It's a cultural instinct. The love stinging frogs so much, they don't care what happens to themselves.
Answer to a query on different paths and ego-strengthening
Oh!
Don't get caught up on a useless dichotomy regarding strengthening or dissolving your ego. Your ego itself will tell you whether it needs to be strengthened or dissolved. Or rather, perhaps it is better to say that the self that resides behind the ego and safeguards the vitality of life will tell you what the ego requires at any point in your life. If the ego has taken a battering, you need to strengthen it. No point dissolving it at that point. You will only do damage to the self. But as Nietzsche said, sometimes when the winds are up on the high seas, you need to pull down your sails -- that is fold up and protect your ego so that it isn't damaged. Different strategies for different times. But if you haven't developed a very strong sense of self yet, it is imperative to do so by challenging oneself and by overcoming those challenges. That is really ego-strengthening.
The paradox is that you cannot really risk losing some sense of your ego unless it is first built up and really strong. That is, I think, what is meant by the "left hand path". It's not ego-strengthening, as such, but relies on having a pretty robust ego to begin with, because, actually, it is so ego-depleting.
The right hand path might be better geared toward shoring up a really weak ego, by encouraging people to lean on each other and form a group ego. It's not that individualistic.
The left hand path relies on being able to replenish your own ego by yourself, so that you can lose it and replenish it. Most people don't even think in these terms about their ego because they have been taught to think in very fixed terms about identity, as if it were something constant and impossible to change. But the amount of energy that runs through us, and how it runs is very important. As Nietzsche said, the difference between a generally mediocre person and a mountain climber who has neared the peak is narrowed by the latter's fatigue.
In any case, very immature people do not understand that constant states of "ego on" and "ego off" are not conducive to emotional health. You don't go around full powered all the time unless you want to repel everyone around you. I know that some people have interpreted Nietzsche as saying this would be a good idea, but I think they misunderstand him pretty much, as their own lives will show when they burn out suddenly.
That's all I can think of for the time being.
Don't get caught up on a useless dichotomy regarding strengthening or dissolving your ego. Your ego itself will tell you whether it needs to be strengthened or dissolved. Or rather, perhaps it is better to say that the self that resides behind the ego and safeguards the vitality of life will tell you what the ego requires at any point in your life. If the ego has taken a battering, you need to strengthen it. No point dissolving it at that point. You will only do damage to the self. But as Nietzsche said, sometimes when the winds are up on the high seas, you need to pull down your sails -- that is fold up and protect your ego so that it isn't damaged. Different strategies for different times. But if you haven't developed a very strong sense of self yet, it is imperative to do so by challenging oneself and by overcoming those challenges. That is really ego-strengthening.
The paradox is that you cannot really risk losing some sense of your ego unless it is first built up and really strong. That is, I think, what is meant by the "left hand path". It's not ego-strengthening, as such, but relies on having a pretty robust ego to begin with, because, actually, it is so ego-depleting.
The right hand path might be better geared toward shoring up a really weak ego, by encouraging people to lean on each other and form a group ego. It's not that individualistic.
The left hand path relies on being able to replenish your own ego by yourself, so that you can lose it and replenish it. Most people don't even think in these terms about their ego because they have been taught to think in very fixed terms about identity, as if it were something constant and impossible to change. But the amount of energy that runs through us, and how it runs is very important. As Nietzsche said, the difference between a generally mediocre person and a mountain climber who has neared the peak is narrowed by the latter's fatigue.
In any case, very immature people do not understand that constant states of "ego on" and "ego off" are not conducive to emotional health. You don't go around full powered all the time unless you want to repel everyone around you. I know that some people have interpreted Nietzsche as saying this would be a good idea, but I think they misunderstand him pretty much, as their own lives will show when they burn out suddenly.
That's all I can think of for the time being.
Thursday 30 January 2014
steven pinker
Books We Haven’t Read (But Always Wanted To) | Clarissa's Blog
I'm reading more and more from this herald of cultural decline book of the early 200s, THE BLANK SLATE. He states that the humanities were mistaken in trying to get people to see that the world was "a weird and dangerous place". The reason he gives is that the humanities types didn't know enough science to understand the need to avoid masochism. Instead they held, via Freud, that the perceiver is irrational and also (through what Pinker claims to be a misappropriation of physcis) that their perceptive faculties influence what is being perceived (i.e they embraced cognitive relativism).
Perhaps weirdness and danger are taulogical constructs of the mind's perceptive apparatus, if they exist at all, but if they do not exist (and perhaps Pinker's is an implicit argument for skepticism OR the incapacity to know) then there is no value in pointing out the existence of anything weird or dangerous.
I really think this book has to be closely read and scrutinised to better understand the horrors that some of us lived through during the past couple of decades. No doubt Pinker's writing encapsulates a lot of the logic of antihumanities and justification for instinctive animalism that took hold of many -- but he also pushed that project forward.
I also think that Bataille's philosophical matrix, far more than Nietzsche's, furnishes the perfect answer to this form of radical right wing antagonism. Bataille, in effect, says, if you fully KNOW the limits of your own being, you will not buy into this sort of stuff -- it will have no enticement for you. Furthermore, Bataille's capacity to see from both high and low perspectives, rather than jsut in animal terms, enables one to see how small a picture one embraces when one attaches oneself to this form of evolutionary psychology.
But it is still, in a way, our cultural hegemony. Most people have been pulled into it to some degree.
2.
.... which all leads to a very enticing impasse. To be alone with the weirdness and danger must be a privilege reserved for the few....the ones who have a capacity to do that and enjoy it without being all weirded out and left unable to cope. I call those highly profound few "intelllectual shamans".
I'm reading more and more from this herald of cultural decline book of the early 200s, THE BLANK SLATE. He states that the humanities were mistaken in trying to get people to see that the world was "a weird and dangerous place". The reason he gives is that the humanities types didn't know enough science to understand the need to avoid masochism. Instead they held, via Freud, that the perceiver is irrational and also (through what Pinker claims to be a misappropriation of physcis) that their perceptive faculties influence what is being perceived (i.e they embraced cognitive relativism).
Perhaps weirdness and danger are taulogical constructs of the mind's perceptive apparatus, if they exist at all, but if they do not exist (and perhaps Pinker's is an implicit argument for skepticism OR the incapacity to know) then there is no value in pointing out the existence of anything weird or dangerous.
I really think this book has to be closely read and scrutinised to better understand the horrors that some of us lived through during the past couple of decades. No doubt Pinker's writing encapsulates a lot of the logic of antihumanities and justification for instinctive animalism that took hold of many -- but he also pushed that project forward.
I also think that Bataille's philosophical matrix, far more than Nietzsche's, furnishes the perfect answer to this form of radical right wing antagonism. Bataille, in effect, says, if you fully KNOW the limits of your own being, you will not buy into this sort of stuff -- it will have no enticement for you. Furthermore, Bataille's capacity to see from both high and low perspectives, rather than jsut in animal terms, enables one to see how small a picture one embraces when one attaches oneself to this form of evolutionary psychology.
But it is still, in a way, our cultural hegemony. Most people have been pulled into it to some degree.
2.
you may enlarge
.... which all leads to a very enticing impasse. To be alone with the weirdness and danger must be a privilege reserved for the few....the ones who have a capacity to do that and enjoy it without being all weirded out and left unable to cope. I call those highly profound few "intelllectual shamans".
And This Is Not About Gender Either | Clarissa's Blog
And This Is Not About Gender Either | Clarissa's Blog
No Western culture that is more gender essentialist than USA culture. I believe this has directly to do with how much religiosity is in that culture. I have maintained for a long time that just because someone is not overtly religious this does not mean that they have not absorbed a lot of religiosity through the cultural stream. Consequently it is almost common sense for people to proclaim that males are innately one way and women are innately something else. Luckily, what is so deeply entrenched as "common sense" in USA culture is not so deep in others. We haven't had those decades, or indeed centuries of preaching about women's and men's roles.
At the same time, Western cultures generally lean towards metaphysical notions of gender originating in Biblical interpretations. That his how Richard Dawkins can be blind to the need to perceive Internet sexual harassment as a real problem. Men are basically noble and it is the women who are emotional whiners. Where does that come from? Christian theology.
I've also been reading Steven Pinker's many ravings of late. He comes up with some stuff, like that women are better at depth perception than men and we just have to accept that. His whole tone is: "Well you can see that this is ugly from certain points of view, but we just have to accept that!". Then he gives what is in effect a guttural chortle.
It is good, in any case, to have an explanation as to why women would outclass men as fighter pilots and why male skydivers don't know when to flair and so keep slamming their parachutes into the ground. Depth perception. I know it's ugly, but you just have to accept that!
In general I think American culture has very much degenerated by taking these sorts of notions to heart.
No Western culture that is more gender essentialist than USA culture. I believe this has directly to do with how much religiosity is in that culture. I have maintained for a long time that just because someone is not overtly religious this does not mean that they have not absorbed a lot of religiosity through the cultural stream. Consequently it is almost common sense for people to proclaim that males are innately one way and women are innately something else. Luckily, what is so deeply entrenched as "common sense" in USA culture is not so deep in others. We haven't had those decades, or indeed centuries of preaching about women's and men's roles.
At the same time, Western cultures generally lean towards metaphysical notions of gender originating in Biblical interpretations. That his how Richard Dawkins can be blind to the need to perceive Internet sexual harassment as a real problem. Men are basically noble and it is the women who are emotional whiners. Where does that come from? Christian theology.
I've also been reading Steven Pinker's many ravings of late. He comes up with some stuff, like that women are better at depth perception than men and we just have to accept that. His whole tone is: "Well you can see that this is ugly from certain points of view, but we just have to accept that!". Then he gives what is in effect a guttural chortle.
It is good, in any case, to have an explanation as to why women would outclass men as fighter pilots and why male skydivers don't know when to flair and so keep slamming their parachutes into the ground. Depth perception. I know it's ugly, but you just have to accept that!
In general I think American culture has very much degenerated by taking these sorts of notions to heart.
Wednesday 29 January 2014
CALL OUT CULTURE IS STUPID
Letting the wild text be wild - YouTube
Call out culture is inimicable to disciplined listening and being able to take in something as a whole. For instance, people may imagine that they understand already the principles presented in the video, but actually there is nothing a very modern person understands LESS than these, because their mind is too full of chatter. They think they know everything, so they are just waiting to pounce and "call [something] out".
Call out culture is inimicable to disciplined listening and being able to take in something as a whole. For instance, people may imagine that they understand already the principles presented in the video, but actually there is nothing a very modern person understands LESS than these, because their mind is too full of chatter. They think they know everything, so they are just waiting to pounce and "call [something] out".
Are you a social Darwinist OR intellectual/shaman?
Are you a social Darwinist OR intellectual/shaman? from Jennifer Frances Armstrong on Vimeo.
Are you taking the ideologically biologist path or the intellectual/shamanic path? You do have a choice, if you understand the nature of the problem early enough. Don't be a stooge and reduce yourself to your lowest possibility of being. I explain how one path leads to animalism and the other, via initiation, to full humanity.
Tuesday 28 January 2014
Immanence and formlessness
What cured me of a lot of things was to stop reaching for transcendence. For example, I recently made a very ironic comment to an American about logical consistency and politics, and she arched and complained that she couldn't understand what I said and furthermore didn't like my tone. In fact, as I had explained I was commenting on the implicit tone of another person by drawing out the logical implications of their comments if they were to be made wholly consistent.
But then I remembered that Americans don't understand irony.
I could take this as hurtful in terms of how I would have liked the world to be, or I could draw painful conclusions about the limits of communication, but none of that is necessary. I already understand the psychology of defending oneself by complaining that the other person's communication skills are not up to par. It's very common. So I don't experience heartache at my inability to change the world. That's not up to me. The world is what it is. I fold into its general formlessness and continue along. This is how Bataille's concepts of immanence and formlessness have been very good for my mental health. Very good indeed!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GinL1CPz8vw
But then I remembered that Americans don't understand irony.
I could take this as hurtful in terms of how I would have liked the world to be, or I could draw painful conclusions about the limits of communication, but none of that is necessary. I already understand the psychology of defending oneself by complaining that the other person's communication skills are not up to par. It's very common. So I don't experience heartache at my inability to change the world. That's not up to me. The world is what it is. I fold into its general formlessness and continue along. This is how Bataille's concepts of immanence and formlessness have been very good for my mental health. Very good indeed!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GinL1CPz8vw
Postmodernism, Nietzsche, the new atheism
Nietzsche versus Postmodernism and the new atheism from Jennifer Frances Armstrong on Vimeo.
Are you aware of the differences between the paradigms and positions? Most people aren't. Nietzsche may have been the father of postmodernism, but there are some substantial differences between his project and that of those who go under that name. Also, Nietzsche, although an atheist, had a much more rational and subtle postion than Richard Dawkins and his acolytes.
Monday 27 January 2014
identity politics....
Identity politics is everyday witchcraft #2 from Jennifer Frances Armstrong on Vimeo.
Where does your emotional energy go and is it worth it? Make it your own. Don't let others harness it for their ends or to negate you.
Georges Bataille's "formlessness" as shamanic initiation
Published on 27 Jan 2014
Bataille's Formlessness is a concept relating to human psychological structures and Hegelian dialectics. It is not emptiness, or meaninglessness, or "innate nature". Rather it is, in a sense, a reward for attaining a very high level of form and meaningfulness, much in the same way that shamanic initiation and the breakthrough to the self comes about through diligently following strictly prescribed rituals and protocols.
Sunday 26 January 2014
L'informe
Who Are These Clowns? | Clarissa's Blog
I don't think it has anything to do with hiding in the realm of the subjective and insubstantial. If you think so, you haven't had full-on psychological warfare directed at you, but I assure you this is not the case. In fact, you can be very, very direct, but this will not be read as directness but as anger. Anger is also disallowed, because you are crossing the set boundaries from female to male. You must have an identity disorder.
I will say that my experiences have been extreme because I come from an extreme right-wing background, which I have needed to extricate myself from. Also, take note that my background and that of my family was totally immersed in an ongoing psy. war and propaganda war, similar to the cold war, but much more intense and personal. So even my parents have willingly used the psy. war tactics developed, I presume, during the war, against me. To the degree that I have gone to the left they have done this reflexively and thoughtlessly.
In any case, you can put me through more and more training. I am now thoroughly trained to fight this kind of psy, war, even from a position of extreme weakness, and still come out on top. I think Bataille and his notion of 'informe" or formlessness ulimately saved the day, but that was only after a couple of decades of trying different things and being worn down.
http://www.univie.ac.at/wissenschaftstheorie/srb/srb/formalinsistence.pdf
My family successfully painted me as a hysteric to the degree I got angry. There was much to get angry about, above all not being allowed to grow up and become a person. I believe that my situation strongly paralleled that of the colonial blacks who were kept under "civilised" control despite their war of rebellion and were constantly undermined by being represented as children or savages. My parents represented me to myself and others as both. It's hard to break out of that psychological and cultural dynamic when it is all that one has known. To assert that one is other than what one is taken to be invites rage on the part of those who want to maintain political control.
As for me, I could not be further from the American socialization pattern, and I am sick and tired of being mistaken for an American. I have nothing to learn from Americans or their self-improvent programs. I just don't have anything in common with that culture or its assumptions about social conditioning. I know that what I had to escape from was the internalisation of the logic perpetuated by psychological warfare. I used Bataille's notion of formlessness to claim my sovereignty, by renouncing the need for others to recognise my rights and simply taking them for myself in the most natural way. But before that, I tried all sorts of other methods to try to escape, including being very direct and aggressive and appealing to others -- all to no avail.
I don't think it has anything to do with hiding in the realm of the subjective and insubstantial. If you think so, you haven't had full-on psychological warfare directed at you, but I assure you this is not the case. In fact, you can be very, very direct, but this will not be read as directness but as anger. Anger is also disallowed, because you are crossing the set boundaries from female to male. You must have an identity disorder.
I will say that my experiences have been extreme because I come from an extreme right-wing background, which I have needed to extricate myself from. Also, take note that my background and that of my family was totally immersed in an ongoing psy. war and propaganda war, similar to the cold war, but much more intense and personal. So even my parents have willingly used the psy. war tactics developed, I presume, during the war, against me. To the degree that I have gone to the left they have done this reflexively and thoughtlessly.
In any case, you can put me through more and more training. I am now thoroughly trained to fight this kind of psy, war, even from a position of extreme weakness, and still come out on top. I think Bataille and his notion of 'informe" or formlessness ulimately saved the day, but that was only after a couple of decades of trying different things and being worn down.
http://www.univie.ac.at/wissenschaftstheorie/srb/srb/formalinsistence.pdf
My family successfully painted me as a hysteric to the degree I got angry. There was much to get angry about, above all not being allowed to grow up and become a person. I believe that my situation strongly paralleled that of the colonial blacks who were kept under "civilised" control despite their war of rebellion and were constantly undermined by being represented as children or savages. My parents represented me to myself and others as both. It's hard to break out of that psychological and cultural dynamic when it is all that one has known. To assert that one is other than what one is taken to be invites rage on the part of those who want to maintain political control.
As for me, I could not be further from the American socialization pattern, and I am sick and tired of being mistaken for an American. I have nothing to learn from Americans or their self-improvent programs. I just don't have anything in common with that culture or its assumptions about social conditioning. I know that what I had to escape from was the internalisation of the logic perpetuated by psychological warfare. I used Bataille's notion of formlessness to claim my sovereignty, by renouncing the need for others to recognise my rights and simply taking them for myself in the most natural way. But before that, I tried all sorts of other methods to try to escape, including being very direct and aggressive and appealing to others -- all to no avail.
Baby, you can drive my car
Who Are These Clowns? | Clarissa's Blog
I used to wonder how people could be so stupid, but the truth is their ideology, which is Christian metaphysics, holds that women are ethereal and insubstantial. That is what they mean, in their code, when they pronounce that something a woman has said is "just emotional". It also explains how criticisms of the system from women can be routinely ignored. I can make all sorts of points -- and pretty clearly, too -- but it will be as if I had not said anything. I'm just waiting for a male to come on the scene to tell me what is real and what isn't. But the male doesn't engage with anything I've said -- he merely takes it as a springboard to make his own points. Women, (predominantly from America) too, will reflexively reduce abstract theorizing and observation to the level of personal opinion, which enables them to advise me not to take things too seriously.
Naturally, money or healthcare or attention to psychological health are not important for ethereal beings, as in some sense they do not exist at all. They seem to, but actually they don't. A true Christian with real insight will be able to see through their vain protests about existing. He (or she) can dismiss almost any form of communication with a wave of the hand: "Why can't you just adapt and get along?"
In fact you are not a woman if you do not sacrifice your sense of self for the greater good. You are pretending to be a man -- that is, aiming to be substantive. This is bound to fail.
If God wanted you to have a Mirena device would would appear in the realm of insubstantive reality, and you would have it. But it's not appearing because reality is real, and we have cars and garages and other real things. Learn to live with it!
And as I said before, a Mirena device at the moment costs $28 in Australia, and insertion is free. That is because Australian women, for the time being, are a bit more real than American women.
I used to wonder how people could be so stupid, but the truth is their ideology, which is Christian metaphysics, holds that women are ethereal and insubstantial. That is what they mean, in their code, when they pronounce that something a woman has said is "just emotional". It also explains how criticisms of the system from women can be routinely ignored. I can make all sorts of points -- and pretty clearly, too -- but it will be as if I had not said anything. I'm just waiting for a male to come on the scene to tell me what is real and what isn't. But the male doesn't engage with anything I've said -- he merely takes it as a springboard to make his own points. Women, (predominantly from America) too, will reflexively reduce abstract theorizing and observation to the level of personal opinion, which enables them to advise me not to take things too seriously.
Naturally, money or healthcare or attention to psychological health are not important for ethereal beings, as in some sense they do not exist at all. They seem to, but actually they don't. A true Christian with real insight will be able to see through their vain protests about existing. He (or she) can dismiss almost any form of communication with a wave of the hand: "Why can't you just adapt and get along?"
In fact you are not a woman if you do not sacrifice your sense of self for the greater good. You are pretending to be a man -- that is, aiming to be substantive. This is bound to fail.
If God wanted you to have a Mirena device would would appear in the realm of insubstantive reality, and you would have it. But it's not appearing because reality is real, and we have cars and garages and other real things. Learn to live with it!
And as I said before, a Mirena device at the moment costs $28 in Australia, and insertion is free. That is because Australian women, for the time being, are a bit more real than American women.
Who Are These Clowns? | Clarissa's Blog
Who Are These Clowns? | Clarissa's Blog
Women think about things emotionally, but men can bring solidity — maybe even some stolidity — to the equation. It’s all for the best! If you think of yourself as a car, you start to gain more reality and everything gains a sense of being in good working order.
Women think about things emotionally, but men can bring solidity — maybe even some stolidity — to the equation. It’s all for the best! If you think of yourself as a car, you start to gain more reality and everything gains a sense of being in good working order.
Can DMT Connect The Human Brain To A Parallel Universe? | Spirit Science and Metaphysics
Can DMT Connect The Human Brain To A Parallel Universe? | Spirit Science and Metaphysics
More than a trip?
This possibility confirms many of the stories reported by those who have used DMT. They report that it is more than a mere hallucination or a “trip”, and often report going to other worlds and interacting with beings that inhabit these worlds. With a theoretical hypothesis in place, we can now begin to give credence to the idea that users of DMT are in fact tapping into other parallel worlds. - See more at: http://www.spiritscienceandmetaphysics.com/can-dmt-connect-the-human-brain-to-a-parallel-universe/#sthash.H8dDRdV0.dpuf
More than a trip?
This possibility confirms many of the stories reported by those who have used DMT. They report that it is more than a mere hallucination or a “trip”, and often report going to other worlds and interacting with beings that inhabit these worlds. With a theoretical hypothesis in place, we can now begin to give credence to the idea that users of DMT are in fact tapping into other parallel worlds. - See more at: http://www.spiritscienceandmetaphysics.com/can-dmt-connect-the-human-brain-to-a-parallel-universe/#sthash.H8dDRdV0.dpuf
Saturday 25 January 2014
On the despisers of the body -- Nietzsche
A primeval sense of innocence in relation to good and evil (a pre-existent transcendence of narrow, human fixations) guides our being -- compelling us to keep in touch with it (as the core of our vitality) or else forcing us to face death, so as to either learn anew about what matters or be negated as a living organism. Only two options. But this is the force of our evolution speaking, nothing mystical about it. Those on the side of death try to get us to deny our innocence or lose touch with it, but that is because they have denied their own natures and become cynical and manipulative.
"Behind thy thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an unknown sage—it is called Self; it dwelleth in thy body, it is thy body.
There is more sagacity in thy body than in thy best wisdom. And who then knoweth why thy body requireth just thy best wisdom?
Thy Self laugheth at thine ego, and its proud prancings. "What are these prancings and flights of thought unto me?" it saith to itself. "A by-way to my purpose. I am the leading-string of the ego, and the prompter of its notions."
The Self saith unto the ego: "Feel pain!" And thereupon it suffereth, and thinketh how it may put an end thereto—and for that very purpose it is meant to think.
The Self saith unto the ego: "Feel pleasure!" Thereupon it rejoiceth, and thinketh how it may ofttimes rejoice—and for that very purpose it is meant to think.
To the despisers of the body will I speak a word. That they despise is caused by their esteem. What is it that created esteeming and despising and worth and will?
The creating Self created for itself esteeming and despising, it created for itself joy and woe. The creating body created for itself spirit, as a hand to its will.
Even in your folly and despising ye each serve your Self, ye despisers of the body. I tell you, your very Self wanteth to die, and turneth away from life.
No longer can your Self do that which it desireth most:—create beyond itself. That is what it desireth most; that is all its fervour.
But it is now too late to do so:—so your Self wisheth to succumb, ye despisers of the body."
Answering Questions: How to Replenish Psychic Energy? | Clarissa's Blog
Answering Questions: How to Replenish Psychic Energy? | Clarissa's Blog
What has generated the most energy for me is to have got rid of something my family tried with all sorts of desperation to instil in me: codependency. Actually, this has a whole ideological structure, Christianity. You have to really engage with Christianity as a mathematical framework to see how it is designed to assure mediocrity and a loss of energy. There is no "if-then" condition that would assure a win. Everything in terms of its logic leads downward.
More recently I discovered how much of this virus was still in my system. The notion that one should always express oneself in a needy vein so as to not to seem to outclass others, the idea that one is here on Earth to bestow wisdom on needy others, or have one's very existence denied, the idea that one is obliged to educate others toward a higher level of social development or have all of reality collapse into a heap -- all of these notions that I had been carrying around were depleting my energy.
In fact, the world just doesn't work that way. It doesn't need me to perform in that way. It largely takes care of itself.
What has generated the most energy for me is to have got rid of something my family tried with all sorts of desperation to instil in me: codependency. Actually, this has a whole ideological structure, Christianity. You have to really engage with Christianity as a mathematical framework to see how it is designed to assure mediocrity and a loss of energy. There is no "if-then" condition that would assure a win. Everything in terms of its logic leads downward.
More recently I discovered how much of this virus was still in my system. The notion that one should always express oneself in a needy vein so as to not to seem to outclass others, the idea that one is here on Earth to bestow wisdom on needy others, or have one's very existence denied, the idea that one is obliged to educate others toward a higher level of social development or have all of reality collapse into a heap -- all of these notions that I had been carrying around were depleting my energy.
In fact, the world just doesn't work that way. It doesn't need me to perform in that way. It largely takes care of itself.
Progressive Kristallnacht | Clarissa's Blog
Progressive Kristallnacht | Clarissa's Blog
It seems to be an American trait not to be able to keep a sense of proportion about anything. It's weird how one can talk about various things unrelated to the American and his circumstances and he always finds a way to bring it back to himself. Always he is the one who is suffering. Always, he is the one with the more complex dilemma to be solved. It's an inward-looking trait that assures he will never understand much about the broader universe.
It seems to be an American trait not to be able to keep a sense of proportion about anything. It's weird how one can talk about various things unrelated to the American and his circumstances and he always finds a way to bring it back to himself. Always he is the one who is suffering. Always, he is the one with the more complex dilemma to be solved. It's an inward-looking trait that assures he will never understand much about the broader universe.
Friday 24 January 2014
Retired racehorses enlisted in fight against South African rhino poachers - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Retired racehorses enlisted in fight against South African rhino poachers - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
This combines all my desires and expectations as to what should be done about the future of the world.
Ridiculous, by the way, to even talk about legalizing a trade in something that has no medicinal value. That means allowing the idiots to hold sway in the name of "market forces".
In which case, down with such market forces and up and along with reason!
This combines all my desires and expectations as to what should be done about the future of the world.
Ridiculous, by the way, to even talk about legalizing a trade in something that has no medicinal value. That means allowing the idiots to hold sway in the name of "market forces".
In which case, down with such market forces and up and along with reason!
The chattering page!
What patriarchy means to me from Jennifer Frances Armstrong on Vimeo.
Here are my experiences as a result of inheriting the historical legacy of a rather extreme patriarchal logic, being that of colonial African society.
Environmental Investigation Agency
Environmental Investigation Agency
"Exactly a year and some days ago now, my colleague and good friend was shot by poachers. He stood right in between a rhino they were targeting. He took the bullet for the rhino. He didn’t ask its age, he didn’t ask if it was a breeding bull, he didn’t ask if it was male or female, white or black. He just saw poachers, and a rhino, and did what he knew he had to do. THAT, kind sir, is true conservation, management and protection that will ensure the survival of our precious rhino species."
"Exactly a year and some days ago now, my colleague and good friend was shot by poachers. He stood right in between a rhino they were targeting. He took the bullet for the rhino. He didn’t ask its age, he didn’t ask if it was a breeding bull, he didn’t ask if it was male or female, white or black. He just saw poachers, and a rhino, and did what he knew he had to do. THAT, kind sir, is true conservation, management and protection that will ensure the survival of our precious rhino species."
Thursday 23 January 2014
Putting the 'I' in idiot, Australians don't know what they want
Putting the 'I' in idiot, Australians don't know what they want
Our self-flagellation over a national identity has finally ceased as we've oh-so-ironically embraced our "inner bogan", yet - like that somewhat raw, visceral creature - we seem overwhelmed by any questions larger than "Chips or mash?"
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/putting-the-i-in-idiot-australians-dont-know-what-they-want-20140123-31ae7.html#ixzz2rIYoU6sD
Our self-flagellation over a national identity has finally ceased as we've oh-so-ironically embraced our "inner bogan", yet - like that somewhat raw, visceral creature - we seem overwhelmed by any questions larger than "Chips or mash?"
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/putting-the-i-in-idiot-australians-dont-know-what-they-want-20140123-31ae7.html#ixzz2rIYoU6sD
I don't put a lot of stock in "identities"
I DON'T BUY INTO THE NOTION OF FIXED IDENTITIES from Jennifer Frances Armstrong on Vimeo.
THAT'S JUST INSANE, YOU KNOW?
Wednesday 22 January 2014
On the idea of karma
It isn't really true that you "get the lessons you need" of course. Sometimes you get more than the lessons you need. Such is chance. Nothing spiritually determined about the universe. But there is biology -- and if you stretch it wrongly, for instance by denying emotion or sexuality, you will get certain "lessons" that you need.
I'M STRAYAN AND I LOVE STAYIN' DUMB | The HooplaThe Hoopla
I'M STRAYAN AND I LOVE STAYIN' DUMB | The HooplaThe Hoopla
Perhaps it’s time for all the human rights advocates and lawyers to stop appealing to Australia’s good sense. Perhaps it’s time we dispensed with the idea that Australians can be reasoned with and if they’re just given the facts, they’ll make the effort to figure things out for themselves. It’s not going to happen. We want short slogans, simple solutions and lots and lots of drama.
Perhaps it’s time for all the human rights advocates and lawyers to stop appealing to Australia’s good sense. Perhaps it’s time we dispensed with the idea that Australians can be reasoned with and if they’re just given the facts, they’ll make the effort to figure things out for themselves. It’s not going to happen. We want short slogans, simple solutions and lots and lots of drama.
The unknown universe: black holes and narcissistic spite
The unknown universe: black holes and narcissistic spite from Jennifer Frances Armstrong on Vimeo.
Not all that exists appears visible to the naked eye, not just in the physical universe but in the realm psychological as well.
Tuesday 21 January 2014
PETA Bigotry | Clarissa's Blog
PETA Bigotry | Clarissa's Blog
Identity politics hitching a ride on another identity politics whilst sabotaging it. I saw something similar with a Texan who wants to shoot an endangered rhino proclaiming that it is not as bad as it seems because large male rhinos do sometimes attack mother and baby rhinos. So if you want mummies and babies to be free so you can cuddle up to them, you should allow the big, bad hunter to go after the big bad, (but endangered) aggressor.
Identity politics hitching a ride on another identity politics whilst sabotaging it. I saw something similar with a Texan who wants to shoot an endangered rhino proclaiming that it is not as bad as it seems because large male rhinos do sometimes attack mother and baby rhinos. So if you want mummies and babies to be free so you can cuddle up to them, you should allow the big, bad hunter to go after the big bad, (but endangered) aggressor.
Monday 20 January 2014
Sunday 19 January 2014
Fox's Elisabeth Hasselbeck: Are Male-Wussifying Feminists A National Sec...
I love this! I couldn't agree more that men should be able to wrestle crocodiles. I can't understand the feminists who are preventing this. What is wrong with them?
I think what Yankees really need is an Australian dressed as a Yankee to tell them to be more Yankee. And wrestle the crocs. Come over here and get 'em!
Enough With the Recession! | Clarissa's Blog
Enough With the Recession! | Clarissa's Blog
I think sometimes people buy the austerity line because they want to suffer. In Australia, we have had an economic boom -- the only country not to succumb to the global recession, but we had to get rid of a female prime minister, who made us feel badly about ourselves, so we voted in a guy who will impose austerity measures so that we can all feel real again.
The need to suffer so as to feel real is probably as hold as humanity itself. It's why rituals were invented. Their sadomasochism is not incidental. There's a certain benefit in feeling the limits of one's being, which can serve to reorient slightly more healthy people toward the world at large. But then there are the really sick, who just want to suffer, and don't care about it so long as they get the chance to drag others down. Australia is filled with these sorts of people -- Irish Catholics -- as well.
So I think austerity often happens because we wilfully choose it, rather than as an externally imposed necessity. It also speaks to a failure of the imagination -- one could choose to suffer, for instance, by trying to pass one's next martial arts grading, or by writing a very difficult academic paper or by flying to the moon. Instead, one demands that one's suffering be simple and imposed from the outside. This is the scourge required by people who are truly mediocre -- and they require it for the rest of us as well.
I think sometimes people buy the austerity line because they want to suffer. In Australia, we have had an economic boom -- the only country not to succumb to the global recession, but we had to get rid of a female prime minister, who made us feel badly about ourselves, so we voted in a guy who will impose austerity measures so that we can all feel real again.
The need to suffer so as to feel real is probably as hold as humanity itself. It's why rituals were invented. Their sadomasochism is not incidental. There's a certain benefit in feeling the limits of one's being, which can serve to reorient slightly more healthy people toward the world at large. But then there are the really sick, who just want to suffer, and don't care about it so long as they get the chance to drag others down. Australia is filled with these sorts of people -- Irish Catholics -- as well.
So I think austerity often happens because we wilfully choose it, rather than as an externally imposed necessity. It also speaks to a failure of the imagination -- one could choose to suffer, for instance, by trying to pass one's next martial arts grading, or by writing a very difficult academic paper or by flying to the moon. Instead, one demands that one's suffering be simple and imposed from the outside. This is the scourge required by people who are truly mediocre -- and they require it for the rest of us as well.
Saturday 18 January 2014
Why Nothing Gets Done | Clarissa's Blog
Why Nothing Gets Done | Clarissa's Blog
It seems to me that groups of people advance their collective interests by making, as it were, chemical changes in the environment around them. Just as different forms of animal and vegetable life alter their environments to maximise their chances of survival, groups congregate together and emit this primeval ooze, which looks a lot like religiosity. That there is no consistency between their professed aims and values and the ooze they emit is no real criticism of this phenomenon. A defensive weapon doesn't have to look like and spell out exactly who you are in order to be effective. In fact, it is far more effective if it looks nothing like you and just appears automagically when you need it.
All the same, an environment protected in this way becomes slimier and less interesting to those of us who do not need, or cannot use, that sort of protection.
2
Identity politics and political correctness performs this function, I have observed. I have looked into this over more than a decade and what is surprising is that those who proclaim a politically correct stance seem to go out of their way to avoid actually actualising their proclaimed goals. So it seems that they were merely seeking a protective device, so that they could go on with their own chosen activities.
It seems to me that groups of people advance their collective interests by making, as it were, chemical changes in the environment around them. Just as different forms of animal and vegetable life alter their environments to maximise their chances of survival, groups congregate together and emit this primeval ooze, which looks a lot like religiosity. That there is no consistency between their professed aims and values and the ooze they emit is no real criticism of this phenomenon. A defensive weapon doesn't have to look like and spell out exactly who you are in order to be effective. In fact, it is far more effective if it looks nothing like you and just appears automagically when you need it.
All the same, an environment protected in this way becomes slimier and less interesting to those of us who do not need, or cannot use, that sort of protection.
2
Identity politics and political correctness performs this function, I have observed. I have looked into this over more than a decade and what is surprising is that those who proclaim a politically correct stance seem to go out of their way to avoid actually actualising their proclaimed goals. So it seems that they were merely seeking a protective device, so that they could go on with their own chosen activities.
Friday 17 January 2014
The Loss of Innocence | Clarissa's Blog
The Loss of Innocence | Clarissa's Blog
I also have this thing where as a matter of course I don’t realize what somebody meant to imply by their language until way after the event has occurred. For instance, I am reflecting on the pervasiveness of infantilism in contemporary society. I hadn’t realized this was such a problem before, because of course there are different kinds of projection, not just Freudian projection — one also projects onto the world one’s expectations, based often enough on the model of one’s own mind, and how one would expect oneself to react. But that is a mistake, which does nobody any favors. It’s far better to realize that there is a gap and that one is not responsible for bridging it. Just as one example of how things MAY slot into place to make more sense much later down the track, yesterday I recalled how one of the skydiving jumpmasters was cautioning people that if they had an emergency in freefall, there would be nobody to call upon and they have to handle it themselves. Okay, I thought, well that is common sense. But now I think about it, maybe it was a particularly culturally attuned warning: “You know you have been babied all your life? Well there are some places where that does not apply.”
I’m really not good at locking into people’s cultural expectations and heading them off, But I realize that this is a large part of what is expected from an educator (more babying?)
2.
There is infantilism even at a high level. One tells somebody something about a particularly negative event that one has experienced and gets a response, "You hurt my feelings!" That's really surprising. I think the worst aspect of it is that when somebody responds in that vein there is nowhere to go from there. For instance if the events related to my own life and had nothing to do with their feelings, but they cannot hear the narrative because their feelings will continue to be hurt...?
It's like there are rungs missing from the ladder, that prevent a higher climb. I can't put them back in place. They're just missing. I can't add them back in with any philosophical conceptualising or gentle assistance, or performing seal antics.
This whole sense of something fundamentally missing, that leads to a failure of communication, or more likely being blamed for hurting feelings when I take about a difficult topic ......
People don't know there is something missing. Perhaps they sense it on some level, but to that degree that they sense it, the situation only becomes worse. It's even more hurtful to indicate that there should be more there than there is than to hurt feelings by talking about one's life too directly.
I also have this thing where as a matter of course I don’t realize what somebody meant to imply by their language until way after the event has occurred. For instance, I am reflecting on the pervasiveness of infantilism in contemporary society. I hadn’t realized this was such a problem before, because of course there are different kinds of projection, not just Freudian projection — one also projects onto the world one’s expectations, based often enough on the model of one’s own mind, and how one would expect oneself to react. But that is a mistake, which does nobody any favors. It’s far better to realize that there is a gap and that one is not responsible for bridging it. Just as one example of how things MAY slot into place to make more sense much later down the track, yesterday I recalled how one of the skydiving jumpmasters was cautioning people that if they had an emergency in freefall, there would be nobody to call upon and they have to handle it themselves. Okay, I thought, well that is common sense. But now I think about it, maybe it was a particularly culturally attuned warning: “You know you have been babied all your life? Well there are some places where that does not apply.”
I’m really not good at locking into people’s cultural expectations and heading them off, But I realize that this is a large part of what is expected from an educator (more babying?)
2.
There is infantilism even at a high level. One tells somebody something about a particularly negative event that one has experienced and gets a response, "You hurt my feelings!" That's really surprising. I think the worst aspect of it is that when somebody responds in that vein there is nowhere to go from there. For instance if the events related to my own life and had nothing to do with their feelings, but they cannot hear the narrative because their feelings will continue to be hurt...?
It's like there are rungs missing from the ladder, that prevent a higher climb. I can't put them back in place. They're just missing. I can't add them back in with any philosophical conceptualising or gentle assistance, or performing seal antics.
This whole sense of something fundamentally missing, that leads to a failure of communication, or more likely being blamed for hurting feelings when I take about a difficult topic ......
People don't know there is something missing. Perhaps they sense it on some level, but to that degree that they sense it, the situation only becomes worse. It's even more hurtful to indicate that there should be more there than there is than to hurt feelings by talking about one's life too directly.
Thursday 16 January 2014
Wednesday 15 January 2014
Tuesday 14 January 2014
Monday 13 January 2014
QUESTIONS OF COGNITION AND EPISTEMOLOGY:
QUESTIONS OF COGNITION AND EPISTEMOLOGY: How is it even theoretically possible to perceive and express originality? It is harder to do than anyone is inclined to think, as the mind is programmed to see what is expected, whilst casting everything other than the norm as a mistake or aberration. One must first find the courage to be able to see what one has not ascertained before. The means to this would be either via a mystery or a paradox: I like to call it intellectual shamanism.
Sunday 12 January 2014
Will to power
Protests in Melilla: The Revolution of the Unemployed | Clarissa's Blog
Expansionism IS will to power in a fundamental sense. Nietzsche was in principle opposed to Marxist materialism because he focussed on "excess" rather than "deficiency". So whereas the Marxist would say it is necessary to expand our empire to cope with our deficiencies in terms of material wealth, a place to store our population, and so on, Nietzsche would say expansion happens when a certain power is busting at its seams and just has to expand to express that power.
Expansionism IS will to power in a fundamental sense. Nietzsche was in principle opposed to Marxist materialism because he focussed on "excess" rather than "deficiency". So whereas the Marxist would say it is necessary to expand our empire to cope with our deficiencies in terms of material wealth, a place to store our population, and so on, Nietzsche would say expansion happens when a certain power is busting at its seams and just has to expand to express that power.
Books on Rhodesia/Zimbabwe
2013 in Review and Blogging Suggestions | Clarissa's Blog
So far as I am concerned there are two camps of writers in the world. I am oversimplifying a little but I think this helps to clarify what seems to happen. There are those who write from the perspective of the assumption that identities are good, that they are consistent and morally defined in almost an apriori way. One has ideals, which may be disappointed, but one battles through. Then there are those who write as if they don't know what their identities are; they feel themselves to be just an open eye looking out onto the world. This affords them a very wide perspective on ethical and political issues.
I find it very hard to read books from the perspective of those who have a closed identity, because they alienate me politically. I see what they are saying, and yes, lives are tough and the world is harsh, and people are manipulative and awful and do the wrong thing. But I also feel that my own life has been in many ways unnecessarly tough and manipulated. So I can't produce the reaction that may be expected -- that colonials are/were evil and non-settlers automatically authentic or good.
I think the better writers avoid making us think in overly simplistic terms. Their writing is harder to read, certainly more painful, but it's more real. If I want to know how it felt to be on the other side of the war, growing up, I read Marechera's HOUSE OF HUNGER. Self-righteous people disparage the writer for his madness and his wildness, but the truth is they want a docile, Christian nigger whom they can poke and prod at: "show us your wounds!"
Marechera, rather, makes you feel his wounds, as does the writer of WHITE MAN, BLACK WAR. This gets beyond the narrow moralizing tendency that satisfies superficial people as it bolsters their sense of identity and so gives them something cheap at the writer's expense.
If you want to know what the war meant for the people in it, you would do well to try to understand these more complicated writers. But this is exactly what Ango-Saxon readers do not want to do, as it spoils their nice view of there being good and evil in the world, along lines of well-delineated identities.
So far as I am concerned there are two camps of writers in the world. I am oversimplifying a little but I think this helps to clarify what seems to happen. There are those who write from the perspective of the assumption that identities are good, that they are consistent and morally defined in almost an apriori way. One has ideals, which may be disappointed, but one battles through. Then there are those who write as if they don't know what their identities are; they feel themselves to be just an open eye looking out onto the world. This affords them a very wide perspective on ethical and political issues.
I find it very hard to read books from the perspective of those who have a closed identity, because they alienate me politically. I see what they are saying, and yes, lives are tough and the world is harsh, and people are manipulative and awful and do the wrong thing. But I also feel that my own life has been in many ways unnecessarly tough and manipulated. So I can't produce the reaction that may be expected -- that colonials are/were evil and non-settlers automatically authentic or good.
I think the better writers avoid making us think in overly simplistic terms. Their writing is harder to read, certainly more painful, but it's more real. If I want to know how it felt to be on the other side of the war, growing up, I read Marechera's HOUSE OF HUNGER. Self-righteous people disparage the writer for his madness and his wildness, but the truth is they want a docile, Christian nigger whom they can poke and prod at: "show us your wounds!"
Marechera, rather, makes you feel his wounds, as does the writer of WHITE MAN, BLACK WAR. This gets beyond the narrow moralizing tendency that satisfies superficial people as it bolsters their sense of identity and so gives them something cheap at the writer's expense.
If you want to know what the war meant for the people in it, you would do well to try to understand these more complicated writers. But this is exactly what Ango-Saxon readers do not want to do, as it spoils their nice view of there being good and evil in the world, along lines of well-delineated identities.
Saturday 11 January 2014
Friday 10 January 2014
Thursday 9 January 2014
Wednesday 8 January 2014
Sparring
I've come to the conclusion, with sparring, that you feel a lot more secure if your hands are padded and your headgear is not likely to wobble out of place when punched. I've been making headway, perhaps for the first time, in my life, with these items in place.
Also, one more thing: total commitment. You can permit yourself to retreat and defend so long as you do so with total commitment. Likewise, attacks should be conducted on the basis of having decided a split-second earlier to totally commit. If you commit totally to going in and doing a combination, you might get hit, but that is less likely. In any case, it matters less if you know what you are doing. I'm here to hit or I'm taking a breather and defending.
You have to allow yourself that rhythm. Sometimes defence is totally honorable.
Also, one more thing: total commitment. You can permit yourself to retreat and defend so long as you do so with total commitment. Likewise, attacks should be conducted on the basis of having decided a split-second earlier to totally commit. If you commit totally to going in and doing a combination, you might get hit, but that is less likely. In any case, it matters less if you know what you are doing. I'm here to hit or I'm taking a breather and defending.
You have to allow yourself that rhythm. Sometimes defence is totally honorable.
Tuesday 7 January 2014
Ecstatically wild creatures know a 2-sided existence
This is the video that goes most against the sensibilities of the modern and modernizing world today, because it talks of true adulthood as the ability to recognize the intrinsically negative aspects of existence, such as death, finality, a limit to resources, parameters and the need to work within boundaries.
Nourishment is one side of human existence, but it has been over-emphasized to the exclusion of its counterpart: destruction or death. One is the source, the other the boundary-setter -- but to know the latter is extremely important, since knowledge of destruction gives us our memorable character and finally allows us to become something. By contrast, without this knowledge, we try (and fail) to go on and on, whilst demanding more and more from others and greedily consuming the universe.
Sunday 5 January 2014
Saturday 4 January 2014
Political outcry! -- but WHO is listening to YOU?
I'm just not the one listening -- because I'm hungry. Your teacher is listening, but only because she simply has to (and not because deeply cares). But, beware as there are those who do have actual power, who are paying very, very close attention to your lack of insight and your inability to manage yourself. Would you send your plaintive outcry directly to their ears?
Then you shall end with an oppressive government, especially if your psychological weakpoint involves your mummy and susceptibility to misogynist discourses.
Going Back | Clarissa's Blog
Going Back | Clarissa's Blog
I was addressing two issues in the post. In one situation, which I think is not so bad now, I did speak of a very high state of anxiety, and certainly there were a sequence of traumatic events or let-downs that led to my developing that reaction.
But the paragraph you have quoted above is unrelated to this state of intolerable anything. It is actually something desirable to be on one’s toes and experiencing things as they actually happen. If one can do this and wants to do it, one should certainly opt to do so.
*
Honestly: the thing that has built up trauma over the years has been other people's assumptions that I really just want to live like them, but somehow can't manage to do so. When I start to see myself from this perspective, I lose touch with myself, as well as with what I really want, and that can be extremely confusing and traumatic. I have to do a spring clean and chuck out those ideas once in a while and out they go.
But the bad thing that can happen -- the very worst thing -- is that I will start to misunderstand myself. Anything else is not so bad and I can handle it. People who read me back to front though?Phwah.
I'm all for live and let live, but the reason I get cast out of docile communities is that I don't belong there. It's important to realize that. There are different types of people in the world. The people who want to realize a docile life for themselves always, always attack me. If I start to think, "there is something wrong with me because of this," that is when I engage with them in actively traumatising myself, which is pointless.
I suppose it really is possible just to accept that we all want different things, but the ideological framework of universalism makes this hard to grasp.
I was addressing two issues in the post. In one situation, which I think is not so bad now, I did speak of a very high state of anxiety, and certainly there were a sequence of traumatic events or let-downs that led to my developing that reaction.
But the paragraph you have quoted above is unrelated to this state of intolerable anything. It is actually something desirable to be on one’s toes and experiencing things as they actually happen. If one can do this and wants to do it, one should certainly opt to do so.
*
Honestly: the thing that has built up trauma over the years has been other people's assumptions that I really just want to live like them, but somehow can't manage to do so. When I start to see myself from this perspective, I lose touch with myself, as well as with what I really want, and that can be extremely confusing and traumatic. I have to do a spring clean and chuck out those ideas once in a while and out they go.
But the bad thing that can happen -- the very worst thing -- is that I will start to misunderstand myself. Anything else is not so bad and I can handle it. People who read me back to front though?Phwah.
I'm all for live and let live, but the reason I get cast out of docile communities is that I don't belong there. It's important to realize that. There are different types of people in the world. The people who want to realize a docile life for themselves always, always attack me. If I start to think, "there is something wrong with me because of this," that is when I engage with them in actively traumatising myself, which is pointless.
I suppose it really is possible just to accept that we all want different things, but the ideological framework of universalism makes this hard to grasp.
Historical backgrounds matter
Going Back | Clarissa's Blog
One thing that seems like adaptation facilitated by the ancestors in me is that I scan the environment, whichever environment I am in, for danger. I'm always highly vigilant, no matter what the environment or how peaceful it seems. I'm actually quite interested in finding where the danger spots are, too, and thoroughly investigating them and bringing back reports. I get bored if I can't do this.
Also -- and this is less pleasant -- I always expect to hear that something horrific has happened close to me and that someone has died in an unexpected way. I have that feeling too, which sometimes is damp or almost disappears but other times rises to the surface quite dramatically. I don't like it when the phone suddenly rings, for instance.
I think a lot of this has to do with my family's background on my father's side -- and oddly enough, world war 2. But also with African circumstances and a living enmeshed in cultural and historical instability.
I cannot see how backgrounds do not matter. I agree also with one of the comments in this thread about Jews being pushed to academic excellence. But with me it is the excellence of the survivor -- knowing how to read the environment very, very well indeed. That is why I am often surprised when there is a natural disaster or something else and people are taken by suprise en masse. I can't imagine anything more degrading or offputting than allowing oneself to be taken by suprise by anything. Even if you die, you have to kind of expect it -- or, what is wrong with you?
I don't adapt at all to a state of mind that says it is our right to sit here and chew cud comfortably. I'm not comfortable with comfort. it irks me. Life is passing you by.
So people find me very difficult to read because I do not want what they do, and then they take out their vengeance on me, which I always see coming.
But I can't change or adapt to what is conventionally normal. Even watching very normal people have their very minor adventures without seeming vigilant annoys the hell out of me. For instance, the modern versions of Doctor Who, which are nothing more than Cinderella stories, cause me to go out of my mind at the ineptitude of the characters in not taking more care. They just want to be whisked away and put down again. But they don't look around them or guard themselves. There's a thunderous stupidity about this, which detracts from the mind's abilty to process its own material.
One thing that seems like adaptation facilitated by the ancestors in me is that I scan the environment, whichever environment I am in, for danger. I'm always highly vigilant, no matter what the environment or how peaceful it seems. I'm actually quite interested in finding where the danger spots are, too, and thoroughly investigating them and bringing back reports. I get bored if I can't do this.
Also -- and this is less pleasant -- I always expect to hear that something horrific has happened close to me and that someone has died in an unexpected way. I have that feeling too, which sometimes is damp or almost disappears but other times rises to the surface quite dramatically. I don't like it when the phone suddenly rings, for instance.
I think a lot of this has to do with my family's background on my father's side -- and oddly enough, world war 2. But also with African circumstances and a living enmeshed in cultural and historical instability.
I cannot see how backgrounds do not matter. I agree also with one of the comments in this thread about Jews being pushed to academic excellence. But with me it is the excellence of the survivor -- knowing how to read the environment very, very well indeed. That is why I am often surprised when there is a natural disaster or something else and people are taken by suprise en masse. I can't imagine anything more degrading or offputting than allowing oneself to be taken by suprise by anything. Even if you die, you have to kind of expect it -- or, what is wrong with you?
I don't adapt at all to a state of mind that says it is our right to sit here and chew cud comfortably. I'm not comfortable with comfort. it irks me. Life is passing you by.
So people find me very difficult to read because I do not want what they do, and then they take out their vengeance on me, which I always see coming.
But I can't change or adapt to what is conventionally normal. Even watching very normal people have their very minor adventures without seeming vigilant annoys the hell out of me. For instance, the modern versions of Doctor Who, which are nothing more than Cinderella stories, cause me to go out of my mind at the ineptitude of the characters in not taking more care. They just want to be whisked away and put down again. But they don't look around them or guard themselves. There's a thunderous stupidity about this, which detracts from the mind's abilty to process its own material.
Scientists have found that memories may be passed down through generations in our DNA - ScienceGymnasium
Scientists have found that memories may be passed down through generations in our DNA - ScienceGymnasium
This has relevance to my understanding of the structure of my own memories, along with my fears and desires. I keep coming back to the fact that I am simply African. I resonate with that environment, but less with this one.
I mean Nietzsche seems to have also been right about a kind of Lamarckianism. It's not just that our ancestors give us their problems, but they also give us their sometimes very workable solutions to adapt.
This has relevance to my understanding of the structure of my own memories, along with my fears and desires. I keep coming back to the fact that I am simply African. I resonate with that environment, but less with this one.
I mean Nietzsche seems to have also been right about a kind of Lamarckianism. It's not just that our ancestors give us their problems, but they also give us their sometimes very workable solutions to adapt.
Friday 3 January 2014
My mind
I'm not so much inspired to write very much these days, or to engage deeply in intellectual activity, until I have opened up a new project and have found a way to become fully involved in it. Christmas and New Year were kind of deadening for me. All my family seem way more financially successful than I, although I do not envy their lives. I'm kind of very, very stuck, it now seems to me, although this realization has been quite new and comes as a result of having finally and definitively resolved some issues. I have all the answers I want now, which means no more of the intellectual hunger, at least for the time being. One of the discoveries I have made is that I simply don't like modernity too much -- which is to say I recoil from anything too polished and smooth. I don't like being able to anticipate what is coming before it arrives. But that is, in a way, the modern ideal, to be able to plan and prepare for anything to the point that there are simply no surprises, or no earth-shattering ones. But other people's instincts -- including those of my family -- have been developed on the basis of a need for stability. Consequently, there will always be misunderstandings and talking at cross-purposes until I can get myself into a stream that is really wild indeed.
In the mean time, I seem to have learned to defend myself quite a bit by means of Socratic dialogue. I can keep people at arms' length this way, which does and doesn't suit me. I like that method as I don't need anything from anybody modern, but it also feels a little cold at times. Then again, it is what most people are used to, I think, in the sense of being cold-handled and treated like machines. As an aside, one of my many failures has been in trying to find what is IN people in the sense of an adventurous spirit, and not finding anything there. I should have learned the first time about this absence, but I kept repeating the experiment, because I couldn't really believe that such differences existed between them and me. And, don't get me wrong, I have found a few shamanic types through my online communication, and hopefully enough to seed a new project as a historical trend. I can always hope for that.
In the mean time, I seem to have learned to defend myself quite a bit by means of Socratic dialogue. I can keep people at arms' length this way, which does and doesn't suit me. I like that method as I don't need anything from anybody modern, but it also feels a little cold at times. Then again, it is what most people are used to, I think, in the sense of being cold-handled and treated like machines. As an aside, one of my many failures has been in trying to find what is IN people in the sense of an adventurous spirit, and not finding anything there. I should have learned the first time about this absence, but I kept repeating the experiment, because I couldn't really believe that such differences existed between them and me. And, don't get me wrong, I have found a few shamanic types through my online communication, and hopefully enough to seed a new project as a historical trend. I can always hope for that.
Rogue Traders - I Never Liked You
Used to play often in the martial arts gym. It's what Tony Abbott is saying to the small business owners of Australia.
Thursday 2 January 2014
Wednesday 1 January 2014
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