!Disclaimer: This article contains content and language that some readers may find disturbing and/or judgmental.
“Why do people suffer from anxiety? That’s not a mystery. How is it that people can ever be calm? There’s the mystery. We’re breakable and mortal. A million things can go wrong, in a million ways. We should be terrified out of our skulls at every second. But we’re not. The same can be said for depression, laziness and criminality”
– Jordan Peterson
1
Who among us has not experienced a phase of depression and uncertainty, shaken out of our comfortable, peaceful mental state, like a toddler crushing a toy’s skull on a wall? Moments of loss, despair, and failed attempts in the pursuit of a new venture where you fancied punishing yourself for your attempts. “Wake up!”, the voice in your head screams out in pain, guilt, the regrets of the past, the unbearable fact of the present, and the hopelessness of the future.
The religious return to the carpet for prayers when others bend the knee, asking forgiveness from the one behind the veil and hoping to escape a dismal mental state of one’s own creation. While the Atheist non-believer in any ‘Meaning’ seeks some spiritual significance in their emotionally organized bookshelves. As they seek some comfort, trying to find hope, even just a glimpse of it to help spark a light at the end of the tunnel in the empty void, to hopefully make some noise in all the humility of silence and, cowardly, avoid the dark.
How many poems were written to symbolize this state of wandering from the comfortable, stable norm, and how many books were compiled to identify a reason for the pain and suffering and the hope of faithfully enduring it all with some fortitude.
This article is not a debate piece, nor am I seeking a reward to hang on my wall of miserable choices, misplaced trust, and backstabs. “To each their own, they say.” Indeed. Well, this is my own sarcasm to entertain those with untethered minds as they try to heave some broken pieces together like a Hierarchy of Lego resembling the beauty of childhood: conflicting thoughts, a reason to exist, or not to exist.
We are not meant to heal the wounds, nor should we even try because we will inevitably fail miserably in every attempt. We are meant to elevate the scars and reopen closed ones as negative as that might sound to the ‘law of attraction’ and ‘positive energy’ school of thought readers. I find it to be definitive and indubitable that it’s not by a cast and bandages we heal, but by a total dip in the salty dead sea with eyes and cuts wide open that makes us see glimpses of the true power of the touch of God in our lives or of a touch of the insignificance of life, ironically, if you’re a non-believer.
Try, as you stumble upon this foolishly-written piece, to find a little meaning in your ‘once upon a time’ or current pain and accept the inevitable cruel reality of existence and the definitive tragedies yet to come your way. Hoping, as you pursue your path to grip on some belief for which to die stupidly or proudly. That will be totally up to you, the reader.
Let’s see how far this short journey goes and where it might lead.
2
A common mistake lies in our attempts to escape the reality of our pain by seeking the total opposite. Of course, that’s not very smart to say. “You want peace, you seek it, period.” This is how we were created and structured to behave and act to persevere. This is precisely why our crippled souls take on a pursuit of serenity, by calming the Self and hoping to put out the fire. Sailing calm seas rather than challenging the Psyche and uniting the flame of our Being towards our purpose for the Total Good, for us, and for those around us whom we chose to love and cherish.
A purpose and a ‘Why’ to live and die for, of which many are thoroughly lacking. A subject that most people wonder about, looking up to the ceiling with shocked eyes when asked to define it, as well as a responsibility of which most neglect to mold into their lost selves, blaming the busy life, indulging in its offered pleasures. In ignoring the basic concept of expending the effort to invest truthfully in oneself by acquiring knowledge, reading, learning, and growing by utilizing, to exhaustion, our un-earned gift of consciousness to not just build a greater life, but a Total Good made by an Übermensch-like (a) human as Nietzsche claimed through his symbolic statement of the ‘Death of God,’ which debatably meant the total opposite.
Apologies to the veteran seekers and the so-called life adventurers, but if you don’t have your ‘Why’ molded to perfection at this age and now, then you have no one but your pleasure-seeking pathetic self and human nature to blame.
“Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.”
― By Sigmund Freud. ~Book: Civilization and Its Discontents. Published in 1928.
What cripples our thought is the Meaning we fail to reach to justify all the pain and tragedy we have faced or the damages we will unavoidably have to endure in our lives. It’s disappointing when one fails to see that the aggressive journey to defend ‘Insignificance’ in the face of Meaning that nearly demolishes one’s self is enough to make the non-believer believe in Meaning beyond the heavens and the abyss.
Just the pursuit itself should be enough to not only give Meaning but also make one an advocate of it by just realizing the imminent unavoidable tragedies coming their way or have already passed, such as the loss of a family member, a brother, a very close friend who backstabbed you after twenty or more years of trust or the million other things that can go wrong in life. And will. That’s a fact. Accept it as it is.
It is a miracle, by all means, that you are still standing on your feet and can put on a smile, hoping for a greater Total Good for you and those around you. The need inside you, when unleashed without fear. The uncontrollable Will to leave a legacy behind that can conceive a Meaning carved on the stone of your life, to inspire through it not just the upcoming generation, but shape the face of sociology and cultures for generations to come. A responsibility that, sadly, most of us neglect and aren’t able to see.
“What for?”, they say, the non-believers, speakers of the ‘insignificance’ and the law of survival of the fittest, that we are here only by the chance of natural selection and for no purpose.
Debating, so emotionally, that the infinite possibilities in the mysteries of the universe justify the chance of existence, and thus, we are Meaningless.
Why debate the point? Why write books about it? If we are merely nothing but vanishing stardust in the universe. ‘writing’ and ‘debating’ shall then dissolve into the universe like a Meaningless thought.
A rational person could argue that if, at any given moment, in a glimpse of a second, non-believers do not take their own lives on the spot as they speak or drink themselves to death, indulging in their lustful Selves in however many days are yet to be filled, then all they stand for as insignificant falls and collapses by the very simple principle of the topic. By merely deciding to live by the values of being Insignificant, they automatically value their Being as significant, and therefore, it is a waste of time for me to even debate this thin point.
A similar doubt haunted the French philosopher René Descartes for decades until he wrapped it up with his infamous “Cogito, ergo sum,” which translates to “I Think. Therefore, I Am.”, summing up the fact of existence by the very basic idea of “We are here, we think, and by thinking, we affirm our existence.” Thus, we are valued, and something must be true, which places an endpoint on skepticism. Building on Descartes’s idea, we can say, “And, so we must thrive.”, in the same way, everything thrives toward an indubitable goal, from our very atoms to the cosmos and in a continuous death and rebirth cycle for the Total Good.
This is a pursuit that only a few will understand, but an educated mind can somehow articulate and, maybe, make peace with it.
3
I personally crossed paths with the ideas of belief and non-belief, had to question many things impressed on us by our society, and decided to honestly read and debate with myself through it instead of allowing any lustful need or emotion to take control of who I am and destroy me, to simply strengthen myself by reorganizing my Psyche and shielding my Self from the vanity of the unknown.
“I Think.”, as a simple conclusion with some certainty, at least to myself after my shallow experience and wandering around in the subjects of Goethe’s Daemon and Carl Jung’s human Darkside. “I Think.”, that against all the odds and questions of life’s origin and evolution and all that lies in between, at the core of one’s doubts in everything or nothing, in Meaning or Insignificance, the fact remains untouched and utterly tethered to the rational mind, that a crushed, meaningless human souls will bring carnage to themselves and everyone around them. Period.
No white lines or empty bottles will solve this meaningless, crushed human soul no matter the trials. No justification of any addiction without action will bring out any greatness from the catastrophe one has brought upon him- or herself, numbing the power of the mind with ignorance and escaping the very reality of the pathetic, meaningless path to the Insignificance.
What would one expect to find when seeking Nothing, literally, but become a beggar for pride and hope for another drunken good night? Let’s put that idea to bed and to peace.
4
It could be the inability to be strong and embrace weakness in the face of challenges that brings people down, and conversely, the question of why tragedy and pain appears. It’s false; there’s no debate here because it’s simply built on shaky emotional grounds.
The shallowness of the fans of ‘Monk who sold his Ferrari’ and ‘The subtle art of not giving a fuck’ books and the teachings of Acceptance, Letting go, and breathing your miserable Self away, which brings nothing but annihilation and a target at a very low life aim, failing in the process of accepting one’s self misery. This is as far as I choose to allow myself to judge that school, of which I have seen many swim in blindly and never come back any stronger, but weaker in the face of the harsh and direct reality of life.
Since we have a natural intrinsic inclination to avoid pain and harsh scars, I do not blame them much. Sometimes, some people need a veil on their scars and sorrows and to go all Machiavellian on it, making the ends justifies the means. So, may the glass justify the crimes, and let the white lines justify the destruction.
The wondering question is, why would one avoid such realities of oneself or of life’s harsh, tragic nature? Why would we ignore it completely, avoiding the truth only the unblind can see? The reality that, to accept greatness, you must accept, expect, and look forward to the lowest damn ground of your ego painfully squashed by simply, life. How else would you even be seen as Great? Great for and as what? As the one who avoided the necessary steps or as the one who ignored the misery and is too afraid to take on the challenge? How, in any blue hell or green earth, would any expect the tiniest form of serenity and self-mastery without the possibility of self-destruction and soul damage in their pursuit? It is, indeed, a risky road to take, but as cliché as it might sound, it is risk that makes us who we are and the harsher the risk, the greater the outcome. Meditate on that for a moment as you meditate on your endeavors.
How dare you pray to God, or to life, and ask for grace without acknowledging the Devil’s dues you are still yet to pay? How dare you kneel before the affirmation and the total belief that you have sacrificed at least some of yourself for those you love and for the Total Good and made a decision not to be the monster you are prone to be?. Maybe, you have to earn the right to appreciate the beauty of the shore by daring to dive in the deepest, darkest, and most devilish of oceans.
“But it is the same with man as with the tree. The more he seeks to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthward, downward, into the dark, the deep – into evil.”
― By Friedrich Nietzsche. ~Book: Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Published in 1883.
5
When not accepting Meaning and straying away from it, we will differently and definitely fail in our pursuit to interpret our own idea of our life and the whole debate of origin and existence. There will always be an intense debate between the believers in the power of the Christian’s cross, the covered black holy rock, and the temples of Buddhism against the non-believers and advocates of Insignificance and that we are Nothing but merely stardust swimming in the meaningless dark cosmos.
Let us enjoy the debate, and let us build the insecure and heal the broken with our puny confirmations that “We Are Insignificance and nothing but soon to be vanished stardust in the universe.” Let it be this way if that’s the way to their comfort and their justification to purify their failed purpose and darkest abyss.
I see that the act of failing to see Meaning in the simplest and narrow meanings in their daily lives, such as the unjustifiable love for their children and the instinct to survive, which, in the process, wears their ego down to the ground, spiking their fingers on their own pride to expose their fragile and vulnerable selves. It affects not only them but also those around them as if their personal, created hell in life has the right to a selfish claim to a destructive life for others.
Let them say, and be, I suppose and say.
But let’s point the claw to a fact here; let’s dig a little deeper into how such a path affects some of the broken ones, for the sake of intellectuality and at least, for the sake of the unexplained instinctual and unquestionable Will to the sacrifices we are willing to take on for the ones we love. Our helpless children and those who cross our paths with the potential to be fully transformed by our wisdom, if we have acquired any.
The pettiness in the look of the broken one’s eyes. For their sake, let’s look in a little deeper and we may find some ashes.
Let’s speak it in a way so that the narrowest of minds can comprehend and understand.
Maybe, the potential for an unbearable hell and damage that could fall upon a human and those around them is, by itself, proof of the Significance of the Being beyond any religion or a spiritual path.
Maybe, the imminent power of a simple look on a child’s face who is ashamed of her fathers’ flaws, his mother’s breakdowns, or their spouse’s addiction, praying and hoping for them to finally, for the ‘sake of Life’ to drop the last glass, be stronger, and decide, for once, to be responsible in the face of the self-claimed Meaningless life. “By seeing me”, your child, she says, “and everything you ought to pass on to me and teach me and that I am supposed to learn from you.”
All that potential carnage on those around you and society due to such pursuits should compel you and force you to your knees to stop the lust and the drugs, grow out of the hang-overs and selfishness, and pick up the damn responsibility and choose a Meaning to live by instead of devaluing life and that child’s look to a single, meaningless stardust.
“I want to make a complaint against my parents. For giving me life. I’d want adults to listen to me. I want adults who can’t raise kids not to have any. What will I remember? Violence, insults or beatings, hit with chains, pipes, or a belt? The kindest words I heard were fuck off! Bug off, piece of garbage! Life is a pile of shit. Not worth more than my shoe. I live in hell here. I burn like rotting meat. Life is a bitch. I thought we’d become good people, loved by all. But God doesn’t want that for us. He’d rather we be washrags for others. The child you’re carrying will be like I am.”
― By Zain AlRabeea. ~ Movie: Capernaum. By Nadine Labaki. 2018.
Maybe, just the capability of ‘guilt’ and ‘depression’ one might feel when one becomes so catastrophic to those around them and their society, stepping on other peoples’ right to grow and reach their potential utilizing the full capacity of their gifts and abilities. Maybe, when people fail to try to tilt the world just a little toward the Total Good by starting with their children as we are instinctually called to do, all that pain and depression is nothing but the least and the ultimate minimum that your depraved moral state could stand of seeing the face of a Meaningless life or, as Jordan Peterson puts it, to stand of seeing the face of God. And I would say to the meaningless seeker, “to stand seeing the face of being insignificant stardust.”
If that doesn’t give a reason to the non-believer to believe in at least the power of the choices one can make and totally destroy or courageously rise from the ashes, then we ought to look down, give up with our heads held high, and hope for a stronger generation to rise from the ashes of The Broken Ones.
Amen.
“Here stands a man, with a bullet in his clenched right hand, but don’t push him son, for he’s got the power to crash these lands, oh here, hear him cry boy”
— A verse from the song ‘The War’ by SYML.
Notes:
(a) Look into: The Übermensch (German for “Beyond-Man”, “Superman”, “Overman”, “Superhuman”, “Hyperman”, “Hyperhuman”; German pronunciation: [ˈyːbɐmɛnʃ]) is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.
Nietzsche believed by announcing his infamous ‘Death of God’ statement that an Übermensch will rise. — And Science proved in recent studies how the brain changes, adapts, and grows when engaging in new challenging tasks to grow oneself. — So? What’s the limit to that? how Great are we truly able to be?.
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