I watched a presentation on PBS on depression and one interviewed therapist said that people who suffer from depression actually have a very accurate picture of themselves and the world around them. It's the one's who are happy who are deluding themselves. I thought this in terms of hammers and nails, since it's the happy people who tell you that you aren't normal and to cheer up and all that crap.
Ever since then, when I get down or frustrated or whatever I just think, “HEY, I'M THE ONE BEING REALISTIC. YOU, GET THAT SILLY GRIN OFF YOUR FACE. YOU'RE MISERABLE. FACE FACTS. I DID.”
It is also notable that the depressed drips among us who really know what's going on are given medication to stop them from being realistic! I'm not sure where to even GO with this line of thinking but all of it really disturbs me. Although, it makes me think that the people who use recreational drugs to "escape" reality probably have a real handle on things and those who choose not to escape are really messed up.
I also think that other people don't mind that certain folks are miserable. They just don't want to have to deal with it so if you hold it in and suffer your pain all by yourself, that's okay. However, if your bucket of pain gets full and you shoot up a post office, it's a problem. I say, vent it. Better to just punch a wall now and then or kick all the people out of your house than to shop the ammo section of an Arlington KMart and saunter off to happy hunting grounds.
On the other hand, how realistic is it for one to EVER think oneself responsible for the dingbats and wingnuts of the whole stinking world, moonlighting on some pedestal, self-annointed or otherwise, as some holy roller savior of billions, pocketing millions, or maybe not a dime, but nevertheless fainting and feigning lockjawed over that brother's keeper line of reasoning? Steve Taylor often has said he could care less for ANYBODY save his small circle of friends and his family. Worth noting. Hence, a generally happy outlook because he has relieved himself of a responsibility no one can shoulder realistically anyhow.
In this case, the sad eyed prophet is the delusional one who frets over the world's problems UNREAListicall, injuring himself in the process. But undiluted self-interest is as bogus as the converse. So the paradox remains. Is the algebra of happiness a reality marked by self-interest, or is the algebra of reality simply the starting gate for all unhappiness. In others words, might thinkers always think themselves into unhappiness, despite any slant given to the freedom of individuality? After all, paradoxes like nature, abhor a vacuum...
Showing posts with label reality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reality. Show all posts
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
HINTS ON INTELLECTUAL HONESTY
(Originally published on the SWORG SWILL LISTSERV on June 21, 1999)
Crash writes: I'm glad that you are so clear on your political position.
Kube writes: This was a joke right? Here are a few clearer generalisations.
1. that everyone is and should be out for themselves (individualism)
2. that everyone is mutually interdependent and only equity (of opportunity to develop what you are) can ultimately deliver what anyone needs (communism, self-interest). That is, the nurturing of the parts is the nurturing of the whole.
3. that such an interdependent and complex system can only work on the basis of control by the people (anarchism, efficiency.)
4. that the task is immense and cannot be perfected overnight (revolution, pragmatism) (also see my position on violence)
5. that human relations are inseparable from material conditions (sociology, biology)
6. that all that is springs from material conditions (materialism, religion)
7. there are loads more, but the above will do to fill in most of the traditional boxes.
Crash writes...
Because I'm still working on my position and feel that I'm constantly evolving, I'm not willing to throw my hat into the standard groups (situs, anarchists, marxists, whatever).
Kube writes...
Well I've been *trying* to throw in my lot with some kind of standard group or other for longer than I can remember, for the simple reason that I felt it necessary to organize and coordinate in order to have a benign effect upon a hostile social order. But the trouble with all these groups is simply that they're all fucking wrong.
And writes...
This is not to say that I disagree with Situationism (I want to live in situations!), Anarchism (I want to be free!) or Marxism (we must work together!), but as doctrines they fail to ensure the enlightenment of their own members let alone society at large, and “therefore” one must induct that as worldviews they are not necessarily wrong, but they are certainly lacking. My opinion is that they all lack much the same thing—a sufficient comprehension of relationship and its role in the creative process (that is, in its creation of the future).
And writes...
Anarchists simply refuse to acknowledge the dynamic expansive essence of human nature—they fall back onto small fragmented self-contained worlds (two hippies in a tent on an allotment); the Situationists fell into the pomo Sargasso of 'going with the flow', everything is permissible and utopia will build itself out of nothing at all; the Marxists developed dialectics—but only to the size of a blastocyst, then stopped. All those libraries of paper, all those pyramids of ponderings on what should be done in Somalia, Timbuktu, Peking when the truth is that their members couldn’t collectively make a chicken casserole out of a casserole and a chicken.
And writes...
Inevitably therefore, the basis of action, or of any cultural or political system which is its objective, must be individualism. In order for other people to be what you want them to be (whether you imagine this to be "sharing", "obedient", "enlightened", "beautiful" or whatever) you must create the conditions for them to make this of themselves. A world held in the shape you want it to be only by your own expenditure of energy is a world in which you suffer eternal hunger, toil, conflict, frustration and boredom. In other words, it's a paradox.
And writes...
This is the world we live in (reality on the ground, as Gabriel puts it).
And writes...
Even the desire to control others "for their own good" leads to a contempt for others which does not desire "their own good" any longer—THEY must instead be punished for being the projected object of YOUR own dissatisfaction.
Crash writes: I'm glad that you are so clear on your political position.
Kube writes: This was a joke right? Here are a few clearer generalisations.
1. that everyone is and should be out for themselves (individualism)
2. that everyone is mutually interdependent and only equity (of opportunity to develop what you are) can ultimately deliver what anyone needs (communism, self-interest). That is, the nurturing of the parts is the nurturing of the whole.
3. that such an interdependent and complex system can only work on the basis of control by the people (anarchism, efficiency.)
4. that the task is immense and cannot be perfected overnight (revolution, pragmatism) (also see my position on violence)
5. that human relations are inseparable from material conditions (sociology, biology)
6. that all that is springs from material conditions (materialism, religion)
7. there are loads more, but the above will do to fill in most of the traditional boxes.
Crash writes...
Because I'm still working on my position and feel that I'm constantly evolving, I'm not willing to throw my hat into the standard groups (situs, anarchists, marxists, whatever).
Kube writes...
Well I've been *trying* to throw in my lot with some kind of standard group or other for longer than I can remember, for the simple reason that I felt it necessary to organize and coordinate in order to have a benign effect upon a hostile social order. But the trouble with all these groups is simply that they're all fucking wrong.
And writes...
This is not to say that I disagree with Situationism (I want to live in situations!), Anarchism (I want to be free!) or Marxism (we must work together!), but as doctrines they fail to ensure the enlightenment of their own members let alone society at large, and “therefore” one must induct that as worldviews they are not necessarily wrong, but they are certainly lacking. My opinion is that they all lack much the same thing—a sufficient comprehension of relationship and its role in the creative process (that is, in its creation of the future).
And writes...
Anarchists simply refuse to acknowledge the dynamic expansive essence of human nature—they fall back onto small fragmented self-contained worlds (two hippies in a tent on an allotment); the Situationists fell into the pomo Sargasso of 'going with the flow', everything is permissible and utopia will build itself out of nothing at all; the Marxists developed dialectics—but only to the size of a blastocyst, then stopped. All those libraries of paper, all those pyramids of ponderings on what should be done in Somalia, Timbuktu, Peking when the truth is that their members couldn’t collectively make a chicken casserole out of a casserole and a chicken.
And writes...
Inevitably therefore, the basis of action, or of any cultural or political system which is its objective, must be individualism. In order for other people to be what you want them to be (whether you imagine this to be "sharing", "obedient", "enlightened", "beautiful" or whatever) you must create the conditions for them to make this of themselves. A world held in the shape you want it to be only by your own expenditure of energy is a world in which you suffer eternal hunger, toil, conflict, frustration and boredom. In other words, it's a paradox.
And writes...
This is the world we live in (reality on the ground, as Gabriel puts it).
And writes...
Even the desire to control others "for their own good" leads to a contempt for others which does not desire "their own good" any longer—THEY must instead be punished for being the projected object of YOUR own dissatisfaction.
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