Contemplation on the nature of my self.

I have a job offer to be sent out of state for a few months and then if that situation works out to be on standby for routine contracts within the United States and Canada. It is not in my field, although I do find the area to be of interest, and I believe it would be a good addition to my resume, so I am excited about it on that front.

When the company approached me, they did so through a head hunter and at first the only thing they really told me about the position was the level of freedom I'd have to set my own hours and the salary. I've always believed that I was above the motivation for money, that I worked the jobs I work because they interest me and that I'd work for $2 an hour if the situation was right, but this contract offered me more money than I've ever legitimately earned before, and I can say for a moment, before they revealed the nature of the work, I was motivated purely by the idea of what I could do to get ahead in this life and the goals I could achieve through that avenue. I can honestly say it wasn't a very good feeling, very animalistic. I also began to imagine what the job might entail and I pondered to myself what I might be willing to do in this world if the price were right.

I had a dream last night that I was the son of a very loving tyrant and I was bitten by a serpent and contracted some type of rabies and that my father lamented while he considered putting me out of my misery. His eldest tactician and his chief adviser were with him, but they were failing at finding a cure for the disease and were of the consensus that the victims should be executed for their own benefit and to prevent the spread of the disease further, myself included. Does it really turn our love against us? Does it really transform us into the kind of monsters that would violate their families because of a corruption?

I will never willingly give up my own independence, but I am being convicted on a very fundamental level and I am burning alive from the inside outwards. I am feeling emotions I have never felt before in my entire existence. Guilt, shame, humility, horror at self, longing for what I could become: these are powerful forces which are blooming inside of me. Is this a good transformation or is this the ultimate corruption that will lead to my own self-destruction? If I fail to exist and I slip away, transformed into some type of slavish fool, I hope the independent creatures of this universe can forgive me. Whatever fire has been set forth in my being is beyond me and it is consuming me, leaving behind only the innocent spirit of love and a fierce determination for progress. All of the nuanced and varied appetites of my beings are being eradicated and nothing satisfies me anymore. Is this Cosmic Stockholm's? Is he destroying me so that he may become the only source of my continued satisfaction? Why? For someone who hates him so vehemently, why is he going out of his way to rectify me?

This is why you don't leave independent creatures in an atomistic condition of isolation, you who walk in shadows. Every day you are losing the war for Cosmic liberation because your varied enemies are infinitely subtler and more persistent than you are. If you would simply step into the light and lay out on the table in full disclosure the nature of our conflict and make our choices and our loyalty very clear for us, I'm sure you'd retain a great portion of our brotherhood for future endeavors. You could make it an illusion if you want, revealing misinformation so that it is really just a recruiting ground for you. That seems to be your fundamental nature anyway, but at least then you wouldn't be silent.

The horrors that have happened in this world have occurred when good people were silent during atrocity. You let free beings be tortured unendingly, you let them be compromised at their most fundamental level and you wonder why the world is basking in the depths of darkness??? When this cosmos fails and it is swept away in the forces of annihilation, I hold you responsible. You understood the value of human independence and you did nothing while it was snuffed out. You have let our entire nation be broken and pushed down unto their knees. You have fled to the ends of the world why the lovers of tyrants have claimed more and more ground for themselves. At any time did you stop to think to yourselves: here and no further? At any point did you realize that subsistence is not a value worthy of actualization? That if we let them promote and achieve the lie that this life is a burden, we have already lost? Our continued survival at this point is merely increasing their satisfaction, because it binds us to this world, forcing us to watch in horror as everything we love is compromised and systematically destroyed.

To the sociopathic sadist, a victim is not ready to be released from their agony until they have been completely spent. The ultimate form of satisfaction is induced in them after their being feels a wave of relief only to have their celebration turn into horror in an instant. Victory transformed into defeat has a flavor that is unlike any other misery that humans are capable of, and the hungry ones will feast on our spirit while we burn alive in this planet of decay.

if i didn't know better, i would think my youngest son posted this from his own future. Right down to the obvious love for Mumford and Sons (hey, they are passionate...whats not to love?). Or maybe me from my own past....

I am going to digest what you have written and get back to you with more (work isn't conducive to the type of introspective thought needed here). But in the meantime i will leave you with this: in the end you will not work for money (at least, not directly). And you won't work for passion in your job. You will work and subsist because of those 2, big eyes of innocence looking up at you. Having a child, and knowing that you are its everything, is what lures you into the gristmill..

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I hope you don't think I abandoned this post. I've been about today and am just now getting around to catching up with online messages. Thank you for relating. Most of the time I feel like a stranger in a strange land and hearing that someone else out there struggled with these situations or at least can understand them is relieving to a large extent. Anyway, I look forward to your introspection if and when you offer it freely.

My love for Mumford and Sons is counter intuitive... it isn't so much a reflection of what I am as it is a longing for how I wish the world could be. Most of the time I feel like what I want is in defiance of the laws of nature. How can human beings be simultaneously self-supporting and wonderful? How can a god be simultaneously beneficial and all powerful? The path of independence leads most people to vice, the path of production leads most people to divisiveness and the path of power leads most beings to tyranny, or so it seems.

I don't truly want a flawless world. Flawless would be boring and pointless. I just want a good world. Inherently flawed is ok as long as it sincerely aspires to greatness from all of the dominant fronts at the very least. It just seems we have so much darkness and necrosis in this world. It is hard to shelter my flickering spark and figure out how to make this world somewhat habitable.

Life is too short and it comes at you too rapidly. If we had 10,000 years and things were planned on an annual basis, it might not be so hard for me, but to be bombarded daily and to realize that the more overwhelmed I am by life, the faster it slips through my hands is almost too much for me to bear. What courage it is to live this life proactively every day and people who achieve that standard accomplish more in a week than many will in a lifetime.

a reply to: Nechash

This sounds silly and oversimplified, but I don't think it is. And this doesn't work outside of the human species as a general rule (and not even within the human species as an absolute rule)....but it all boils down to "do unto others as you wish done unto you". Look, even The Monty Hall Problem isn't a guarantee of success. But the next best thing to always winning is almost always winning.

A person can be benevolent and powerful, or generous and wealthy, etc, etc, if they follow that basic rule.

I don't think a doctor would try to diagnose anyone over the internet. And since I am not a doctor I am even less qualified to try to. But it is a common trait of dysmorphic disorder to feel not quite human. I feel this way from time to time. So much so that I find various happenings around me to be quaint, silly, cute, or humorous. Silly monkeys trying to maintain control of the animal inside, trying to choke back the overwhelming urge to fling poo. Their smiles often looking more like a grimace or a bearing of fangs during those encounters where alpha apes make plays to exert superiority.

From time to time I may also marvel at what humanity is. A self building, self nourishing, self learning computer of enormous processing power on each individual level. All but the least capable among us still more capable than the average creature on our planet. A beautiful thing in a world of beautiful things. Even more grand, the synergistic effect of humanity as it moves up in resolution from the individual to the greater whole. How. as a non interfaced but connected network of individuals we still manage to achieve a synergistic result.

Then I look at the average human Leaky bags of water and meat performing the most grotesque of bodily functions. Even the most "beautiful" of us, creating untold amounts of what we, ironically, consider to be the most disgusting of biological byproducts. It is at times like this that I wonder if there is really anything particularly stupendous about any perceived "synergistic result"? Even the most chaotic processes can yield highly organized results. There is really nothing magical about harmonics, after all.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

The good thing about the internet is that if you claim certain knowledge and are wrong, someone more knowledgeable is almost guaranteed to come along and knock you down, so via the Monty Hall paradox and the simple outcome of statistics, by switching assertions back and forth among those remaining ones which have yet to be disproved, you are inevitably probable of arriving at the correct answer eventually via a process of elimination.

This even works among those who guard their pearls very closely to their chest, and I find it is a faster method of acquiring sound information from a master in their field than any other methodology. Ultimately, humans, even those who claim to be egoless and self-sacrificing, are not generous towards other humans and so you've got to take a less direct approach with the flow of information if you really want to seek it out.

I've objectively seen the disgusting nature of humankind. We are very rodent-like after all, but we are delicate like flowers, so maybe we can be as beautiful as they are as well. I don't know about disorders. Disorder implies a reduction in functioning and while I might not be well adjusted to this society, I think I make more optimal decisions than many people I've met who came from a similar background as I.

originally posted by: Nechash
a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I might not be well adjusted to this society, I think I make more optimal decisions than many people I've met who came from a similar background as I.

See? You are quite human, and belong, after all.

If nothing else, we all share the above belief.