Mère

Chapter 18

The next day was the start of a one-month holiday that the school was getting. Usually, I would have plans set out for the holiday, with Daniel, Abel, and Vanessa, but this time I knew I wasn’t going anywhere. I knew that I needed to sort out my life…and I had to start somewhere. The way I overcame my depressed feelings the last time was through philosophy and psychology, so I decided that this time I would do the same thing, but to a greater degree, as I had nothing else that I wanted to do. I tried to get my hands on as much philosophy and psychology books as possible. I searched for the best books on how to understand my situation, and on how to understand myself. I went back to Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Carl Jung, and others, in hopes of finding some wisdom about suffering and I did this for days on end with different kinds of philosophers and psychologists, often reading for the entire day. After some progress with the reading, I started to learn. I wanted to dive deeper into nihilism, because I, sometimes, felt like my suffering was for nothing, and that everything was, at the end of the day, meaningless. To prevent nihilism, most people needed to feel like what they were doing in life had an objective purpose. Some people, like Abel, used outer-worldly sources, like metaphysics and theology, to overcome nihilism, but perhaps that method was inherently flawed…since you couldn’t prove that it’s claims of an afterlife and a benevolent God were true. I remember…that the world was becoming more secular and used secularism to overcome nihilism. We were naturally inclined to nihilism, or I sure was. In order to use secularism to overcome nihilism, some people latched onto “causes” or “movements”, like political parties. In the early twentieth century, there was a large secularist movement that resulted in totalitarianism and the most infamous cases were Nazism and Communism. As the world looked deeper into Communism, it saw that their followers may have looked like a colony of ants, but to each ant, they felt like they were part of a “cause”, or collective that transcended their narrow personal interest. In, The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn highlighted the horrors of the Soviet Union and their communist ideology. By studying that book, I further learned the psychology of envy.
Envy is a directed emotion that harms both the envious and the envied, however, people often confuse envy with indignation. Indignation is the hatred of someone who has gotten good fortune through ill-mannered means, like corruption, bribery, and stealing. Indignation is rooted in justice, but envy is a vice, for it is the hatred of someone for their well-being. The envious believed that their unhappiness was a result of another’s success, and that their happiness could be achieved if they pulled others down. I remember…that collective envy…would be called social justice. In the Soviet Union, the force of the state was used to enforce “equality” and any who opposed was sent to the Gulag, however, that didn’t stop people from being envious. As psychologists have studied envy, it became apparent that envy doesn’t just go away…it has its roots plunged into the individual’s soul, therefore, it must be uprooted at the source. Even if everyone were made equal, in terms of their economic prosperity, the envious would still find something to envy. When it came to Communism and Socialism in general, many people had no interest in handing over their property to the “collective” and therefore, as occurred in Russia, force had to be used against any who resisted the great societal transformation. I truly detested authority for that reason and how it could be run by incompetent individuals, with their own prejudices and vices.
Other people used religion to alleviate their existential terror. Nietzsche didn’t believe that religion was the answer, for he believed that a meaning of life could be found within. He didn’t think that we needed religion, because “becoming who you are”, which is your highest potential, was a hard-enough journey to give you meaning. He said that the only thing stopping you from “becoming who you are” was fear and laziness. People tend to fear trying to reach their true potential because they fear their neighbours, who demand conformity, because materializing your true potential means becoming an individual. To become an individual, one has to “leave the herd”. Nietzsche and Kierkegaard both criticized the herd mentality. Kierkegaard said that some behaved as “mass men”, as they lived with the chains of society by behaving only as society did. Kierkegaard also spoke about aestheticism, which was a way of living where you lived for the moment for gratifying pleasurable experiences, like promiscuous sex and enjoying fine wine and foods. He noticed that aestheticism led to nihilism as there was no meaning to it. He also spoke about the ethicist, which was someone who abided to social morality and who’s self-interest aligned with social duty. Since the ethicist focused on, and had attained worldly joy and social relations, the ideal ethicist was good in the eyes of others, however, that doesn’t mean he had achieved what Kierkegaard called selfhood, which was individuality. The ethicist’s sense of self was wholly based on finite things. This was dangerous, as one’s self can be swept away, simply by the passing of time. Kierkegaard also used religion to alleviate nihilism…but as I read his work, I couldn’t understand how.
Carl Jung was also against collectivist ideologies because he believed that they devalued the individual. People often thought of personality as certain character traits that an individual possesses, but Jung saw personality differently. He saw personality as something that must be achieved because it represented the best possible development of everything in a person. Jung said that only a few could ever achieve such a task, or even come close, because the development of this personality happens when one faces an absolute adversity or lowest point in one’s life, however, not everyone goes through such a thing, therefore, most people go on without carrying out the difficult and lonely task of developing personality. To develop personality, one must differentiate from the masses, by going one’s own way, via isolation. That won’t be easy because mediocre people ridicule those wanting to go their own way. It wasn’t social convention that was the problem, it was the people who followed it unconsciously, because when disaster hit and social conventions were disrupted or destroyed, there weren’t enough people who were free-thinking autonomous beings to rebuild. When people were a part of a herd, they were easily disturbed along with the herd. The voice that called one to achieve personality was louder in some than in others, however, anyone could start a path to achieving personality. I remember that in those times, individuality was needed the most, because the world was abandoning myths. Myths, and specifically religious myths, used to unite people, but the rise of scientific inquiry caused people to become more material.
Without myths, people latched onto ideologies, or false idols, and I already saw that happening then. As the world forgot religion it became more collective, as people banded together for a “cause”. Feminists were against Non-feminists, Socialists were against Capitalists, Democrats were against Republicans, Vegans were against Meat eaters, Gay and Trans-Activists were against Non-Gay and Trans people, Body Positive Activists were against Obesity prevention activists. People formed groups, because that was one’s nature when one has nowhere to go, and nothing to guide the people. One ran with the herd, because that felt safe, as there was nothing more dangerous than being an individual with a free mind and a free spirit. That didn’t breed unity, it bred division; further dividing us into social classes, where we were no longer individuals, but mouthpieces for a collectivist narrative. People were reluctant to face their existential nightmare, as facing it meant realizing one’s loneliness as an individual. People often tried to distract themselves from their loneliness by joining group ideologies, but, although the person who gives up their individuality and becomes a cog in the machine, which is identical to millions of other cogs around them, doesn’t need to feel alone and anxious anymore, the price to pay for that is high, as it is the loss of one’s self. I remember that…people used to censor conversations, from fear of being offended. That was so ridiculous. People used to talk about “safe spaces”, as if the world was a safe place. Grown men and women would advocate for a suppression of dialogue, simply because they felt it offended them or some other group of people. I still can’t believe how ideologically possessed they were to think that stopping dialogue, for the sake of preventing offence, was a good idea… because to have a constructive dialogue, one must risk being offensive or being offended because the truth hurts. The truth-challenged those who were ideologically possessed, which was why they retaliated so hard. The masses created their persona from a group perspective instead of an individual one, causing them to believe what they were told with all their heart, so that when their lies were challenged with the truth, they had nothing to say but “You’re offending me!”. Those who explored life as a child, with curiosity, had the best chance of individuation. To be free, one must distance themselves from ideological possession. The masses were drawn to ideological groups, due to fear…fear of meaninglessness, and fear of chaos, for people, were, sometimes, willing to trade their freedom for security…I realized that giving up freedom was not something I wanted…despite the fact that freedom meant anxiety and uncertainty, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Totalitarian governments said that in times of crisis, desperate times called for desperate measures, but even if people were in a time of crisis, when would the government step down from power, and when would the crisis be deemed over? Why would they step down? They were run by people with agendas and agendas change, because anything run by people can have the ability to get corrupted, for absolute power corrupted absolutely. There was no good to come from ideological grouping, other than comfort from fear. However, even that wasn’t beneficial, for it was fear that reminded one that one was alive. Only then, was one free, for to be free was, and still is, to be afraid of the unknown, for the world is forever unknown to one who wants to explore and has the ability to do so. Cultivating oneself involves diminishing one’s need for social validation and distinguishing oneself from one’s peers. Not everyone who sees one doing this will approve, for seeing one distinguish themselves from the incompetent only makes the incompetent seem more incompetent.
All of those issues stemmed from nihilism, which was simply a lack of meaning. Nietzsche didn’t believe that everyone could overcome nihilism, because he felt that there were those with the strength to overcome it, who were Active Nihilists, and those without the strength to overcome it, who were Passive nihilists. Nietzsche said that the passive nihilist sees nihilism as an endpoint, and that many who see that point in their lives will attach themselves to a mass movement. The active nihilist is an individual who charges forward and consciously destroys all the beliefs which previously gave “meaning” to their lives, because after abandoning all previous beliefs, the individual stands alone, as a true free spirit. The active nihilist is also someone who sees suffering and nihilism as a transitional stage, of overcoming the feeling of helplessness. Helplessness has always been a common state of being, and at a certain stage in life, everyone was helpless for rational reasons, such as when people were at an infantile age, however, when people grew up that was supposed to change, but some people could still feel a sense of subjective helplessness. What made it difficult for people to overcome that attitude was that they interpreted their failures and struggles as reflecting a personal ineptitude which limited their ability to create positive change. All people experienced these things, and the greatest individuals experienced this the most. Nietzsche believed that the greatest of all people must suffer the most. He didn’t see suffering as evil, he saw suffering as something advantageous and that although happiness was what humans seemed to strive for, most people went about it the wrong way, by taking part in self-indulgent activities. At that stage, I slowly began to learn that happiness and suffering were so intricately connected, that one who wants the greatest amount of happiness must also have the greatest amount of suffering.
I realized that one of the worst symptoms of nihilism, that I needed addressed, was depression. According to the psychologists that I had been reading, depression was often a result of a few factors, such as the loss of a valued object, like a loved one, in conjunction with psychological rigidity, which was the inability to produce variability in one’s patterns of thought and behaviour, and to creatively adapt to change in one’s environment. That caused one’s mind to be stuck in a certain way of thinking and one’s risk for those factors increased when one relied too heavily on one or a few objects for one’s feelings of self-worth. If one relies on a person or more than one person, for a sense of self-worth and happiness, when one loses that person, it’s like losing the only audience that would listen to you sing. Since nihilism was a lack of meaning; to alleviate depression, which was a consequence of nihilism, some people tried to find meaning, sometimes by having extremely ambitious goals, so that they could be praised for it. The problem with that plan is that one only felt distracted from depression during the journey, but once one reached the destination, the distraction went away, and if one didn’t reach the destination, it could result in an even worse depression than before the journey had begun. To overcome depression, one must find other sources of meaning. In my speech, during the competition, I said that you could look at life’s meaning as a struggle to bear one’s suffering. The reason why I said that was because suffering was common in everyone’s life, therefore, it seemed to me that the meaning of life should have something to do with something that we can all experience…but perhaps that wasn’t enough. “Perhaps I need something more.”, I thought.
What made life seem so unbearable was not that I was in suffering and not because I was in existential dread but because I was aware of it. Consciousness really is a bastard. Based on what I observed, it seemed that humanity was a species that was endowed with a weapon it couldn’t handle…perhaps the Grand Inquisitor was right. “Is consciousness too much for a human to bear?”, I, sometimes, thought. No…like I said before, freedom comes with consequences, although some people certainly thought so. So much so, that some people tried to artificially limit their consciousness. I read some of the work done by the metaphysician, Peter Wessel Zapffe. He identified three psychological repression systems that people used to artificially limit their consciousness and to protect themselves from the despair that comes from realizing the dreariness of their lives. Isolation, Anchoring, and Distraction. He said that Isolation was “a fully arbitrary dismissal from a consciousness of all disturbing and destructive thought and feeling”, since people tended to not think about the tragedies of human existence and people used various strategies to do that. He said that Anchoring was “a fixation of points within, or construction of walls around, the liquid fray of consciousness. The happiest protection against the cosmos that we ever get to know in life.”, since people used Anchors like a childhood home or a political party or religious creed to provide a sense of safety and meaning, which protected one from moods of existential dread. He said that Distraction was “a very popular mode of protection… where one limits the attention to the critical bounds by constantly enthralling it with impression.”, especially in those days of a culture characterized by immediate gratification, where people would distract themselves from existential dread, using stimuli and entertainment to minimise their awareness, with things such as alcohol, drugs, and social media.
What would happen if those mechanisms failed? Zapffe gave a remedy. He called it Sublimation, which is “a matter of transformation rather than repression.”, where the individual harnessed the overwhelming energy associated with living and used it to fashion creative works of beauty. He believed that through stylistic or artistic gifts, the pain of living can, at times, be converted into valuable experiences. Nietzsche also believed that art could give one a feeling of meaning. He saw art as an antidote to tragic insight because it induced what he called “Rausch” which meant rush or intoxication. He believed that, for anyone to create a work of beauty or to appreciate art one must first enter into a state of Rausch, which is a higher mode of being. Nietzsche believed that people should live out their lives in such a way, that it represented a beautiful work of art, because when an artist makes a perfect art piece, they must be consciously aware of each brushstroke and must correct any imperfections along the way. He, like many other Atheists and secularists, believed that with a significant amount of art and culture, people could successfully replace religion and myths…but one can only hope for such things because history hasn’t given any evidence of that working…perhaps it can.
People also tended to self-sabotage and deceived themselves, to remain dormant, and not heed to the call of their higher self, as that would challenge their state of nihilism. Some people stayed in unfavourable states of mentality because it was all they had ever known, and the alternative would be to venture into uncharted territory. People who went into severe states of depression and nihilism removed their previously disordered state, of chaos, ensued from a mental breakdown, by replacing it with an ordered state of despair, where the individual was convinced that things won’t get better. Sometimes one felt the call of the higher self but the call from the opposing side was often stronger. Steven Pressfield, the author, called the opposing side, The Resistance. He said that excuses, rationalizations, fear, laziness, depression, anxiety, procrastination, and self-medication were all resistance. To overcome the resistance, one must understand it. Whenever one used an excuse one was engaging with resistance. It wasn’t possible to eradicate it forever, for it took many forms, and one of the most subtle, yet dangerous forms was when people projected their internal resistances onto other people, known as the “victim role”, or “victim mentality”. The most dangerous resistance, however, was fear because it prevented one from achieving one’s true potential. A lot of the problems people faced as adults were results of their response to a childhood fear. Very often, one’s current problems were solutions one had to other problems. For example, shyness or unassertiveness, could have been a trait that one adopted when one was young to avoid confrontations with an abusive parent or some sort of bully, however, when one grew up, shyness didn’t help in life. On the other hand, unnecessary aggression could have been a response to an abusive parent as well. I couldn’t understand why I was so timid as a child…I wasn’t abused…perhaps it was the bullying? Perhaps.
“What is the way forward? How do I make my mind my ally?”, I thought. Maybe one should laugh at their darkness. Maybe one should appreciate their darkness. Suffering…is a sweet joy, from the perspective of a madman. Perhaps all are mad. Perhaps all should be mad. People need meaning in their lives…is there an ultimate meaning? The meaning of life is the largest question, for meaning makes things endurable. Some people believed that self-actualization was the meaning of life. An acorn was meant to become the tree; so too were humans meant to become the-self. But why? Was it because that would be the most pleasurable experience…the one where we felt we have actually done something? After all, all one’s efforts will be extinguished from reality when one dies…all one’s efforts only gave one something to do, while one was on earth…was it just a distraction? Did all one do in the process of self-actualization was just distract oneself with work? What was the point? Maybe if one lived eternally on earth, then one’s efforts would not be for nothing, but one doesn’t live eternally on earth…so, again, I ask why? Why toil under the sun? For what? In the grand scheme of existence, one’s life was a momentary speck, including all of one’s efforts…how much did one’s attempt at self-actualization do? How many lives did it change? Did it change one’s life, and if so for how long? Only for as long as one was alive. It seemed that people could only distract themselves with work, even with the most noble of that work, that was self-actualization. Maybe when I die…I’ll find out whether there was a true meaning. I…I don’t know…I am full of hypocrisies and contradictions. Well…that’s what makes me human, I guess. I don’t think anyone will ever know the true meaning of life. Perhaps humans aren’t meant to. Perhaps…we couldn’t handle it. Maybe this dark place isn’t so bad after all…it’s given me time to meditate…something I rarely had growing up. The meaning of life will evade humanity…perhaps, forever… and all that people can do is learn to live without knowing it. Humanity can’t get rid of its demons, but humanity can learn to live on the mountain, where the demons can’t reach them. Perhaps we shouldn’t be so vilifying of suffering too…if I have learnt anything…it’s that suffering is important. Without suffering one doesn’t fully experience life. Without suffering one doesn’t deeply appreciate happiness. Only those who have starved know the true taste of bread.