On perfection

Are we, as fallible humans, doomed only to see glimpses of what perfection ought to be and very little else? Is it really impossible to achieve perfection? Perfection could be defined as the highest state of logical reasoning from which all thoughts and actions are derived. Achieving such a heightened state would mean that anything outside the logical realm becomes superfluous, which seems to entail that any random pleasure or activity and even arts would no longer have a place. As humans, we evolve and grow via many forms of interactions, especially the social form. If one was to imagine a perfected society deriving its strive from logic only it appears difficult to find any appeal in the long run because of that very human fear of losing not just that false sense of individuality that makes you believe that you’re somehow ‘unique’ - which helps you in turn to find your existence somewhat meaningful- but also those more random or meaningless activities that greatly feed on social memes. But then that would be overlooking the crutial flaw in such a thread of thought: the activities themselves or interactions are not those to be focused on, it is the use we make of them that matters. Thus, in a perfected world art and other activities cherished by mankind would still have their place, albeit their rightful place at long last in the sense that they would cease to be random or derived from personal interest and instead working toward achieving a greater purpose. In a perfected society, these activities would no longer be random or chaotic in essence and would be in sync with the ideal of perfection as defined earlier to either strengthen it or simply maintain it. And then I wonder: if such activities could be channelled back to become true means to a greater end, wouldn’t art and many other ‘pastimes’ or ‘callings’ become even greater or achieve greater results than anything ever achieved?

It just seems to me that every single person likes to think of themselves as special or different and that in itself is missing the point completely. There is nothing grand or even remotely exceptional about a person. It seems that only the gathering of such persons into what we call ‘humanity’ could ever qualify as unique or grand. The rest belongs to illusion and self-deception and that is why religion was always the most powerful man-made invention of all times. Because it directly feeds our fear to accept that alone a person means nothing and is as random and pointless as that keybord I’m using to type these words- to which I gave a sense of purpose now for I use it to convey my thoughts onto a screen, and the same goes for a person vs “humanity”.

Nowadays the quality of ‘humanity’ is so greatly diminished by that futile individuality need that it almost breaks my heart to see it and still be able to envision how much greater it could be- yet so few people would have the guts to try and make it so much more perfected. All people are full of is words and promises they can’t even keep and as they all play along all I can hear is noise, constant random noise from every direction. Why listen to what people have to say anymore if they are never to go further than the ranting stage?

To the core of idealism

I ignored the inevitable for so long that while I remained safely in the nest, sheltered from too direct or deep interaction with reality, my mind wasn’t. It kept growing faster than my emotional side. And now my mind seems to expect far greater things than my person can live up to because my emotions are unruly, almost alien to me. The only way I could ever express them is through writing, venting wave after wave of unfathomable pain, regret, bitterness, love and anger. I have simply no perspective as far as that deeper side is concerned. All I do know is that it is very strong, very determined, narrow-minded to favour efficiency and result, and quite ruthless because it no longer cares for individuals but humanity as a whole. I’m beginning to see every person as interchangeable, more or less akin to any other animal having dozens of offsprings and the only way to prove to me that you are beyond such randomness you would have to step up with your own life to achieve a greater purpose: that of striving for the god-like experience and hopefully succeed. Anything else would be trivial in the sense that whatever you ‘choose’ to do with your life can be done by anyone else in your place. Therefore you are not unique, you are not a true individual, you are expandable and interchangeable.

Why the God-like experience? Because it makes sense. Once you reject religion in all form and shape, you let go of crutches and morals instilled in you without giving you a chance to ever be able to reflect on them objectively. Then, as you reject all, there is a void, an emptiness. You get to a very dark place where there is simply nothing left. To reach for truth or what ought to be, even in the hope of finding a higher plane or being, the only way would be to strive to reach up for that ideal or sense you have in you. How else can you reach a ‘god’ if you, yourself, don’t attempt to step up to its realm? So far, religion has always alluded to the idea that gods were perfection and that we were forever imperfect, therefore bound to remain pawns or guilt-ridden creatures of doom. Either you remain safely nestled in the illusion of religion or you follow logic to the end and as you turn away from such notions as religion you must be able to see the argument through to the end. Otherwise you’re an idiot. You’re worse than the friend who blindly believes in whatever god he was conditioned to worship and fear.

Why? Because you are the one boasting to have rejected religion but unless you come to the conclusion that men can then transcend the ideal of god to become their own gods -their own strive to perfection- you’re nothing but a fraud. A coward too afraid to face their own true self. I’m afraid, too. I’m scared every day, every second of my life, but then I am really human: while I feel emotions, I do not let them govern me. I ensure that whatever it is I feel will only serve to make me stronger, higher.

illusions

11/08/08

All that is real cannot complete me, all that is but a dream is also out of reach. I am an illusion or fantasy trapped in a reality-bound body. It does not define my worth or talents, it can only explain the constant sorrow, the deep sense of loneliness amplified even further among others. So in my mind I reach out for love and all that is ideal and perfect, in reality I am confronted with cold materiality and fallible people just like me. I am stubborn and refuse to give in to the world only because part of me is so arrogant...or foolish? I search for purity and enlightenement, but am I worthy enough to find them? Of course not. What would be the odds? Every time I am reminded in real life of the existence of love, which is solely a poor substitute for what we truly need, the pain intensifies so much more than I can bear. Yet I bear it, I do. I wait until the sweet bitterness fades, as it always does in the end- until the next time.

Whatever we do in this life it will never be complete. A family is perhaps the most rewarding path. It leads you back closer to nature and nature is a healer. Did I ever make the conscious choice to run away from nature, from what ought to be, from what is simplest? In such a case it would explain how I happen to truly enjoy the simplest things I see- the trees, the skies, the lights and fading days... I enjoy them so much, as though I felt so far away from them, as though I had somehow lost them... And perhaps I have, hence my fascination to watch them with child-like eyes.

 I ran away from nature one day and lost my way in a haze or mist of thoughts. I found nothing but pain. Nothing but regrets. I was the fool who wanted to be god. I wanted to be the strongest, the most perfect. Above all and the Earth. I wanted to do more and be more. Well, my foolish arrogance is making me pay the price. I feel like a stone taken out of its cave and placed right in the midst of a Babel tower. Its pure whiteness shimmers like gold in the sun but at night and at a closer look it is nothing but dust and rubbles.

On writing and other things, again

17/07/08

Cloudy and rainy again. On the verge of breaking the 160,000 word mark. I’ve added the sledge travelling part and went along with those characters of mine through blizzards and endless sheets of whitness where horizon and land merge into one infinity. I saw those huskey dogs run wild, dragging the sledge behind and I felt every bump on the way. Whether I actually managed to convey the experience in words is another matter, as always. My last big journey will be trekking through the dense tropical forest that leads to the Shores. It will only be a short trip but I’m looking forward to letting my mind travel in the far-flung regions of perfection. I cheated time and gravity all at once. Whilst my body is bound to this reality, being stuck- a prisoner- between grey walls, relentless noise and ugly landscapes that make up a city I can no longer stand, I have at the same time travelled so far away that it blows my own mind. It is as though I have really been to those unreachable realms of beauty and sheer wilderness. I went, saw, felt and remembered like a true explorer. What I do not know is whether I was able to translate everything I saw, felt, heard and experienced into something I could share. Yet I know now that what I have written is my most precious possession. It is my own escape, a world I created along the way that is entirely mine even though it now stands on its feet and has its own ‘spirit’. I may have thrown in the foundations but the rest that ensued was of its own accord. The world shaped itself into what it ought to be, not according to what I wished it to morphe into, in a way. Or perhaps the grey walls and relentless noise around me, the gloom and crying skies, were the very element that helped me build a world so far removed from my reality. I longued for sunny horizons and green landscapes, glimpses of purity boyond the ruthless materiality that is everywhere my eyes look.

So much so that in the end the perfect world was born- out of a mind that felt smothered alive and reaching out for air and freedom it can never truly obtain. I suspect I shall never win such freedom, for I know very little of what it ought to be. I only yearn for the ideal it instills in my mind. I’ll always be a prisoner of this reality and a pawn of materiality. It is inevitable. All I have is a yearning mind and itchy fingers eager to better themselves. These tools are my only defense, my only way out. Beyond that nothing much truly makes sense. Everything is veiled or concealed from its truth. Every object, every palpable thing is known without knowledge and taken for granted. Even the food we eat everyday isn’t known. It is so far removed from its original state and has gone through so many different processes that it is but a lie to think we know the finished product. 

If I picked a tomato and turned it myself into a puree I would know what ketshup is.

I look at that glass bottle and the only way I ‘know’ it is ketshup is thanks to a label telling me that it is. Social conditioning also instilled in me many templates of what certain things ought to look, feel or taste like but unless I haven’t discovered the thing myself, from its initial state to its finality then all that I know is really little more than an illusion. No wonder I feel trapped and confused in a world where everything that surrounds you is based on a tacit agreement that we ought to know things simply because a majority says what they ought to be.

 It seems especially true of food. How do I know what that beef steak really is, beyond the safe label stuck on it telling me that it is? It’s pretty much a game of trust and I should be trusting enough to take whoever’s word for it but in an age where only profit and money prevail, I find myself lost and frightened. Even if I decide not to trust what is deemed to be, even if I refuse to believe readily that the beef in front of me really is beef, everything has been so far removed from me for so long that I have no alternative but wonder forever. I have no option to go back to the source and learn- truly- what beef is, what that piece on my plate is. It seems that while we appear to live in a world of great material technology, we’ve never been so far removed from reality itself, living off understandings on what everything ought to be- living off one illusion to the next.

Anyway, I need to go to the bank pretty soon and that really pisses me off. The bank itself is a perfect allegory of illusion-based reality where the bank is a term that refers to an unknown agglomeration of people and powers. There is no real relation or exchange between the individual and the bank, only the illusion of one through numbers of people and machines. Hence the difficulties and headaches such encounters always seem to give us. In the spectrum of Reality such encounters are in fact at the lower end and could be deemed more likely to be an illusion than not. Fact.

The End

When I was very little I used to lie down on the bed and as I closed my eyes I could imagine myself anywhere I wished. I saw everything as though I was there. I was there. And then, eyes still shut, I would feel my bed spin in place faster and faster and I was so afraid- not because it turned so fast that I was dizzy, but for fear that it would stop if I looked. I didn’t want the spinning to stop, I wanted it to take me away, somewhere higher and I didn’t care that I could never find the way back. And I didn’t care that I would lose myself. But then, every time I would fall asleep and when I woke I was back in the bed and nothing had changed.

Too much

       I know nothing because the society I live in, more than at any other given time, is based on illusions- tv, cinema, the internet... How can I not be from a generation of eternal doubters? How can I not question what is imposed as truth when deep down I do not know how we got here? Every single thing we know is reliable as far as the source on which your knowledge is based is. 

How can you not question it? How can you just accept it? Do you believe everything your neighbour tells you? Do you take everything your friend- made of flesh and blood- says as the ultimate truth? Of course you don’t. Part of you wonders if what they tell you is the honest truth. Now put yourself in my shoes. All I know is from someone else’s mouth or words. I learn from a screen or from so many un-human mediums that I am bound to reject it until I can safely enough find out for myself. These days it is impossible. We’ve removed ourselves too much from basics. To seek truth one doesn’t need to complicate the settings. One could find as much sitting under a tree. 

We are being brainwashed the easiest way there ever was: by drowning us in constant waves of information and noise. We’re still humans at the end of the day, not computers. We can only truly process one piece of info at a time. They know that. You didn’t, but now you do. Start doubting for pit’s sake.

I have always known, somehow, by instinct, and that is why it is so hard for me to find the right words. I feel the truth but cannot explain it. It’s much akin to trying to express that moment of fleeting joy- how would you go about it? There is only so many words or adjectives one can use. All our languages are flawed- of course they are. they limit us. They reflect our self-imposed limitations.

Searching for your true self, the real you behind all pretence and social conditioning is like peeling away sore skin, and then layers of flesh until you hit the bone. And then it hurts, and everything goes dark in your mind- you become little more than a lost child in the midst of a storm and there is no one there to hold your hand anymore. 

Every time you laugh, every time you utter a word, is it really you? Have you even asked yourself, do you even know what I’m talking about? Go on, take a step in front of that mirror and only stare at the eyes. What do you see? What do you see, really? Can you be certain it is you? And if it is, are you sure it is the one that should be? Or are you simply staring at a broken version of who should have been?

Perfection does exist, it’s everything this world isn’t. It’s everything away from the easy way. I think I saw a glimpse inside of me but the truth is that perfection is too damn hard to sustain. 

Random thoughts

There is something missing in me and I don’t know what it is. It is something crutial to cope with reality in all its forms. If there was such a thing as a soul I would say that it feels as though half of it missed the boat- my body- and therefore whilst one half remains prisoner of the flesh the other is already gone. How can one exist, let alone function, with a broken spirit or mind?

Money- or lack of, rather- has the uncanny power to make you feel like shit. Here we go again, having to live with a few pennies until Friday. That’s 5 whole days to go. I kept telling mum not to spend on food but did she listen? Of course she didn’t. Who the heck needs pork costing almost 4 quid? When you’re poor you don’t eat meat, you bloody eat beans. Or eggs. They're expensive but they last you a week at the very least.

The knowledge that I can’t even buy anything even if I wanted to makes me cringe. Well, I’m as much money’s slave as the next-door neighbour in the end. They made it all this way. They made the world blind. One common purpose, one common destiny: money.

It will always remind me of those poor sods in the desert Moses tried to guide or save from slavery or whatever. they found those golden statuettes and worshiped them. That’s our legacy, you see.

Reality is as much a sham as the written words on this page. The words set me free from the certainties and laws of physics; the reason why I am a prisoner in real life is merely down on my ignorance of any other ways. Reality is akin to a lazy story where biology and the laws of gravity and whatnot are the main plots, thus making us, the protagonists, boring and helpless. There is only so much that can happen to our kind in the Reality story. We’re all different in small ways, yet so alike in every single thing that seems to differenciate us. Fact. There are variants, physical and mental, but we’re all created according to some loose template and there’ s very little chance to ever drift far away from it. Why else would we long to be somewhat different from the bulk?

I just don’t get it... People, a lot of people, can talk about anything and they will find others to listen to them, be interested even if the topic is light and devoid of much sense. When I talk people talk over me. They constantly cut me or change subjects. When I write people never read my things or they edit it with more mistakes than there was to begin with. How many times have I gone down the pub, been made to listen to someone’s rant or thoughtless reasoning that would flash the words “illogical or flawed” in my my mind and yet everytime I attempt to give my opinion or share some insight the same old thing happens: they all look at me blankly, nod their heads at best and instantly get into another conversation. Am I that transparent or unintelligible? Do I never have anything interesting to say- ever? Am I that boring when I open my mouth or do I sound so silly that people can’t even pretend to listen?

 If there was some form of consistency in people’s behaviour or reactions to silliness or even dumbness then I wouldn’t feel so confused. If they blanked those who utter stupidity as much as they do with me then I would find it easier to accept. The trouble is that often the person next to me will say something that isn’t right and yet people will still take the time to listen. When I try to say anything it’s as though I suddenly disappear. I open my mouth and people run away. I take a pen and eyes wander off. It only serves to make me feel even more alienated from everything around me. It does make me want to reach for the wine and numb the emptiness inside. The lack of love. The lack of closeness. The only way to describe the void is to describe how I long to open my arms as they suddenly become wide enough to embrass the whole world and feel as one with the whole of humanity.

 There is beauty within humanity brighter than the sun itself, warmer than the fire burning at the core of the Earth, and yet it remains hidden under layers of ice thicker than the universe. Who could ever understand the pain? Even if some do, at times, it never leaves my side and every little thing hurts more than it ought to. It makes every simple pleasure or fleeting moments of joy shine brighter but it makes everything else worse at the same time.