MBV vs. the MoS

For human existence to have meaning, we must submit to a higher authority, power, or thing for us to bounce our selfish egos, wishes, and desires off of. This is our purpose for living; our reference point. For many people, this reference point is the belief in God, and belief in a judgment that will decide all of their fates after they die. The judgment factor is based on "moral conduct". It seems obvious to me that this mental heuristic that has been ingrained in so many psyche's is nothing more than an evolutionary idea or concept (and an ingenious one at that) that has arguably helped humans survive without much questioning of God-based morals (which are nothing more than heuristics set about to help humans survive for the longest time possible on earth, by taking the path of least resistance and least danger). Now, as all of us know, as humans, we cannot follow these morals 100% of the time perfectly, and this is due to our selfish nature. Putting ourselves in front of other is the exact opposite of God based morals. Now, how do you suppose these morals were created in the first place? By the observance of human nature without the heuristics of putting the heuristics of long term survival (which for some reason don't come standard in our brain, this is due to the fact that we are essentially apes-- read Carl Jung's The Undiscovered Self for much more insight into how we differentiate ourselves from our animal insincts) and in fact, these morals were created BY selfish people. Why do I say this? Because the first human who created morals thought of his own well being FIRST and his own survival FIRST before considering the survival of all human kind. This does not make morals absolete per se,(note Charles Bukowski: They found their morals restrictive, but mostly they lacked the ability to feel or love) but it certainly puts a dent into people's noraml conception of them. THis goes along with the same concept put forth by Camus in his seminal novel The Fall when Jean Baptise realizes that he cannot love without self love, and that at the time in his life when he was "sailing" making "virtue his own reward", he realized it was basically to fill his own needs and values rather than to help others (as comically noted by him tipping his hat to a blind woman he helped cross the street). I will refrain from drawing extraneous conclusions from these conjectures-- make up your own mind.

Now, in a world without God, Camus and other existentialists point out that man is faced with the absurd, and left with nothing else to really live for. Other writers such as Kierkegaard and Kafka try to tackle this problem, but Camus calls their attempt half heated because in Kierkegaard's case he turns to God for solace, and Kafka's stories always are left with a glimmer of hope. We are not left with many shiny bits of hope with Camus however,m as he presents himself as the true absurdist writer. For Camus, the purpose in life comes from what you choose to give meaning and submit to. You may find it easy to counter this by saying that that in the end, if there is no afterlife, it was all still absurd. TO combat this Camus brings up the Myth of Sisyphus; a myth that explains Sisyphus's rejection of death by instead choosing to push up a large rock up a hill, having it roll back, only to repeat this process for eternity. Camus says that Sisyphus gains meaning in life from the struggles being put forth in raising the rock up the hill, even if he knows it is a futile task. Sisyphus is aware of the futility but submits to the fact that he is alive, and has this task to accomplish, and gets meaning from the toil involved. Sisyphus chose life.

Thankfully, for most of us, life isn't as absurd as pushing a rock up a hill. We have many different variables set upon us by birth in which we were thrust into. One of them is our DNA, which decides for us many factors beyond our control. One other variable that is decided for us is our environment into which we are born, and subsequently the values that were are imprinted with. AT a certain point in our life, we must come to face the possibility of the absurd, whether the fact that what we were presented with in this life (the aforementioned variables) is acceptable for us to create our own meaning, andin realizing our ultimate freedom, choosing to accept it or not. Sartre called the people who recognized their freedom and choose to restrict it flat out "cowards". Once you are faced with the absurd you cannot go back, the "nausea" as Sartre called it, will taint you as soon as you let your guard down.

Believers in God may combat this by saying that you will never even experience true happiness on Earth (let alone the tenuous afterlife) if you do not submit to God. Let us explore this. I have personally experienced both the simultaneous belief in God and the "feeling" of presence believers sometimes attribute to him. This feeling is nothing more than the feeling of ultimate security and the fact that you are correct in your judgments about life, and a subsequent sense of peace. This is the believers reward. He KNOWS he is right. I say that this feeling can be achieved by non believers also, but it must conform to a number of variables. I am really uninclined to believe that this feeling can be achieved if the individual's self created goals he is submitting to involve the destruction of innocent life, property, or other such generalities of moral thought.

This is all just background if you will to what I had been pondering for some time now for a few weeks prior to the show I was headed to. I actually needed to stop thinking so much about morality and the such for its uncanny power to shift perceptions to an unnerving degree if thought about vividly.


As I was driving to the concert, I was musing upon the differences between Thinking and Feeling preferences in the psyche. Me almost exclusivity having a thinking preference, decided that it would be interesting to see what would happen if I subverted overt logic in favor of feeling. Immediately as I did this, the world literally became brighter (such changes in consciousness always have perceptual ramifications) and the car in front of me with a "Jesus saves" bumper sticker no longer was a cause of scorn, what took the place of this more natural reaction of mine was "that's nice that that person believes that, it doesn't really matter if that person believes that or not; I'm sure they're happy with their decision, and thats all that matters". I suddenly wondered why I was nervous about following the directions to the auditorium astutely, after all, as long as I got there, it didn't matter how long it took, as long as I didn't think about it too much I was happy. All that mattered was that I get there at some point. In a life that's truly absurd, why did facts matter? I recalled Bukowski's quote "Fuck truth! All that matters is style!" And Faulkner's "I am not fond of facts-- prop them up on their side and you will find that they hardly cast a shadow". It all made perfect sense: adjust your values system to something that made you happy, and you will be happy. This thinking almost overtook me before my better judgment got a hold of me, if that is what you want to call it. If I was capable of maintaining such a viewpoint (many would be jealous of such an ability) then why would I stop? This is what I ultimately decided. My natural preference has always been with logic and thinking, with the unconscious and just "understood" belief that logic should outweigh emotion in decision making. This is often attributed as as masculine quality. If I used logic to get to a viewpoint where logic was now seen as unacceptable, would this new viewpoint really be valid? No, of course this was not valid, because I had willingly came to such a a conclusion through logical principles, and these are obviously the ones either my neurology/DNA/ un determinable early social experiences determined. I wrestled with the fact that there are some things about ourselves that we cannot change. Do we really have ultimate freedom if we can never know ourselves and that existential self analysis as Sartre puts " is just conjecturing on our own motivations?" This resonated through my mind as I eyed a freeway exit that I thought may have been mine, but it wasn't., I was lost in thought, my surroundings a haze. I began to wonder what my motivation was for my self analysis, and in doing so, encountered a number of logical loops that have no end and ultimately proved that we cannot know ourselves, and that other people (perhaps psychologists) can only speculate and give human created labels and metaphors that may or may not cover some of the characteristics and behaviors exhibited by the individual, then labeling with the certain metaphor, then the subject's ultimate choice is to either identify with the metaphor (which in most cases involves taking on all of the traits that the entire metaphor implies, rather than picking and choosing what fits) and then deciding for oneself what the benefit of such a label applied to the yourself is. I am convinced this process is mostly an unconscious one, with the subject's existing complexes coloring the process. If one is to take on the perspective of entirely neutral observer however, then one can look at his complexes from an external perspective, decide if they are ultimately valid or not, and discard which what he'she chooses. This is what Sartre said to be impossible in his book Existentialism and Human Emotions, though I assure you it is not; for I am have done it and I'm sure other have also. It involves a psychological phenomenon known as depersonalization, which Sartre even dedicates a book called Nausea too. The "nausea" as Sartre refers to it as is induced in the protagonist by external factors-- realizing that existence is created the author's decision to declare life meaningless. My depersonalization was induced by other means, which is essentially that I havea strong urge to know things, and that this urge has turned itself inward. Unexpected results occurred.

Anyway, while still in my "feeling" state, I decided that believing in God wasn't such a bad idea at all, because after all, it felt so nice to be enveloped in the presence of God, and to know that I would have a place in heaven after death. I came to thinking though, if this was to be accepted, numerous logical principles that went along with dealing with other real life problems would also have to be discarded. I pondered the genius of many exceptional thinkers who have proved to be very insightful and revolutionary and still have had faith-- Carl Jung, Da Vinci, Kierkegaard.. I envied them all. If only I knew their secret.

Pondering the myth of Sisyphus again, I mused upon what gave my lfie meaning. Obviously, I though, I am driving to a concert that I paid money for, and have been at various points, very excited about. I am very passionate about music, after all (life without music would be a mistake- Nietzsche), and the accumulation of knowledge around this area. I am actually so interested in this subject that that at various points in my life I have made it my focal point; often times pouring over my computer for hours on end, downloading, listening to, and discussing music. I cannot think of a more rewarding experience to me than this. It is my passion. It is so intense, and I have wondered that if that other traits I posses may align me with a neurological discrepancy called Asperger's Syndrome, though this as Sartre would call it is, "pure speculation". But, was this submission to my passion going to guarantee me the most out of life? After all I knew that people who had faith were more intensely "happy" than me most of the time. I had known the feeling of God before in my life, and it was great. AT that moment in line amongst the MBV fans a horrible realization creeped upon me. "Maybe I just want to KNOW". This is often the case for me, I always get engrossed in a certain subject, only to discard it unconsciously and never return to it because I have fully analyzed it. If I just want to KNOW about existence, how would I ever get anything out of it? I have proved time and time and again that any experience, if analyzed at the time of action becomes "stops becoming an experience" as Nietzsche said. AS I realized this my peripheral vision expanded and I began to see my surroundings as all equally human, driven by some complexes, various background experiences, of varying degrees of giddiness and excitement at this occasion that they deemed worthy, wearing clothes that they thought represented their image of themselves, and they didn't even know if this is what true happiness was, or what true happiness could be. Everything became neutral, base logic and I felt as if I could do anything. Any short coming in me was immediately addressed and judged as either appropriate or inappropriate given my knowledge of perception and the world. I had no preference but to have no preferences. I KNEW. I no longer desired anything, thus no more suffering could come from the loss of objects and experiences of desire. I also began to question why I was standing in line at this place when I was afforded ultimate freedom but no one but by my own realizations that made sense to the logical principles I made use of. This feeling was more intense and more powerful than I had ever experienced in my life. I no longer trusted myself, seeing my true self-- an animal with the ability to introspect onto his own being and place in teh universe. Nothing really mattered much anymore. I was no longer concerned about the persons beside me, or in front. This brought back thoughts on morals that I hold. I know that hurting another person or failing to reciprocate help to another would bring about the ultiamte destruction of everything, then no one would be able to experience anything. MY GOD I said, I am GOD.

And at this moment I realized that I must come down from such lofty thinking lest I separate myself from humanity to such a degree that it would ruin the chance of stability and happiness from anyone that was already attached to me or I had attached myself to. I saw my true self and nothing has frightened me more. Perhaps Sartre would call me a coward, but at least I knew what made me exist...I had a Higher Power to submit to in just a few minutes... check through the security guard, plow into the auditorium, eerie lighting and focal points permeating the room, strange, normal, justifiably excited people filled the place, noise, beautiful pink, noise..... I exist.... I am free... I am a coward!

You made me realise...