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Let’s get existential: our soul is love

xsplat
December 4, 2017

That’s a Buddhist contemplation, that I have, several times in my life, explored to the depths my being was able. I’ve had several periods throughout my life of weeks and months being deeply altered by the contemplation of the nature of mind as love.

It’s an amazing drug that you could call Enlightenment to realize that every motion of your mind is by it’s essence kind. “All the sentient beings wants to be happy”.

You could also say that everything is evolution and self perpetuating power structures, however that misses the subjectivity of it.

I have to back up even farther and get more meta, unfortunately. I’ve had to see, many times, that many people are not able to cognize the “hard problem” of the mind/body duality. Most people can’t hold in their mind that subjective experience is different, in nature and category, than objective stuff. People think they can upload their minds into a computer, and as long as a behaviorist could not distinguish big differences between inputs and outputs to the body-self and the computer-self, that therefore there are no meaningful differences.

We can’t ever prove subjectivity in anyone other than ourselves. There is no way to do it. The turing test does not prove subjectivity. We infer that other meat-people like us have subjectivity, and it’s a sound inference. An inference that can not be proven. But we have no call to infer that information is equal to subjectivity. In the distant future when humans have built a globe the size of the galaxy, they could co-ordinate one day to perform a play. Each would hold a giant lego block, representing electrons and chemical messages that pulse within and between neurons in a human brain. They would pass along all these giant blocks to each other, perfectly representing and capturing every conceivable bit of information that is passed on in a brain.

Does that dance have subjectivity of the information that was processed?

No. We can’t infer that it does, and would not infer that. It’s too different from our system that we know causes subjectivity.

Ok, so that’s the hard problem. We really have no idea where subjectivity comes from. I know most readers won’t be able to believe me, and will think that I don’t have the authority to make such a statement. But I do, and we don’t, and nobody does. The closest theory we have that aims to be explanatory is that subjectivity must somehow be a nature of reality in the same way that gravity is. That theory is championed by some physicists, perhaps as they are accustomed to thinking in terms of physics. But that theory doesn’t really work that well, because it can’t account for why subjectivity is only emergent. And people have reported subjectivity when various parts of the brain deemed essential were not active, so we really still don’t have any clue where to point a finger. A brain is needed, but the information itself doesn’t cause it.

But I know that many readers won’t be able to cognize what subjectivity is, and will brush the concept aside as meaningless, and mistake any blow up doll that gives good head with another being who also wants to be happy.

Ok.

So we aren’t just self perpetuating power structures – evolution isn’t everything. We are beings. We have subjectivity. All the sentient beings want to be happy.

We do war, but it’s because we want to be happier.

So every movement of your mind is searching out more happiness. Brains get confused and warped and twisted, and don’t always take the direct approach, but the orienting principle is guided by happiness – it’s evolved that way – of course.

Some drugs and experiences get us to a really existential place. We see things through such fresh eyes, we are amazed all over again that anything at all is here. That we are here. That other people are here. We might fear for how to continue being. We might wonder what it means that piano notes can sound wrong, or give moods. We might consider our place among others – will others care for us if we need help? Are we hurting others?

Looking at the world from the subject – as one existing being among others – then we see plain as day that we are love. We only want other people to be happy. We only want ourselves to be happy.

I’ve been doing ketamine (for legitimate health reasons, and also as an exploration into what it means to be alive) and it always seems to come back to this.

I made up a fun song on the piano yesterday. The title and only verse was “It’s good to be confused because…”

It took until the end of the ketamine trip to find words for after the because. And now I forget what they were – hehe. But there is a reason – it wasn’t one of those false meaningful meanings. It’s good to be confused, because…

Because it gets you existential. It makes you take a fresh look. You have to stand back.

Not knowing is an invaluable place to be. Why do these piano notes do that?!! I have no idea! It’s good to be confused!

Why is anything at all here? I have no idea! It’s good to be confused!

But I know one thing.

All the sentient beings want to be happy.

Evolution couldn’t figure out any other way to do it.

To survive we need rewards and pains, and our biggest rewards come from when we are working towards successful procreation and maintenance of our kin. Sex and being nice to each other. Taking care of our children, receiving care from our parents, getting the huge rewards from coupling in co-operation to make babies, fostering our society, keeping each others spirits up. Love.

Our soul is love.

Sadism still exists though.

But sharing love freely is not sadism. Being insecure and jealous may actually be more cruel than sharing love outside of a monogamous bond, if you think about it. If everyone is nothing but kind to each other, always, what right does anyone have to label another as cruel for being kind to someone else, behind her back? And to seek revenge for her own pain – the pain of the other person being kind to someone else!

The Tibetan head abbot was visiting our monastery, and during question period replied that it was ok to cheat on taxes, because no one is born into tax slavery and taxation is not a right that any entity has over a person. His opinion was that it was ok to lie, even as a monk having taken vows not to lie, if one is being persecuted wrongfully. Is it therefore also ok to lie about infidelity? If infidelity is in no way wrong, and truth would only lead to being persecuted and have revenge brought upon onseself, and to losing his love, should a man not lie about infidelity? Would that not be the most moral thing to do? For self protection, and so that the goodness of the relationship can be maximized?

Our primitive instincts to feel jealousy do not trump our other primitive instincts to mate non-monogamously, in the realms of morals and ethics. Both are nothing but base instincts – however one of them causes pleasure, the other denies it. Causing pleasure is moral and ethical. Denying it is not. Causing pain is immoral and unethical, however causing the pain of jealousy can be done in two ways:
1) the person is indiscreet in his affairs
2) the person is being spied on or is being overly scrutinized.

If it’s the 2nd then the person causing the harm is the person who is feeling the jealousy.

***

FOG is the acronym of Fear, Obligation, Guilt. The acronym is given as a thinking aid, and is called a red flag.

Hatred is also a red flag.

Our soul is love, but this is a confusing place, with confusing boundaries. The FOG acronym was created to help the community of people who deal with people with Borderline Personality Disorder traits, because FOG is used as a manipulation tool.

We can develop and feel a sweet playful nurturing vibe that has a real presence, and can be a real center. We feel and perform best when it feels as if this center is the actor. When we act out of fear, we are not acting from that center. Obligation by definition is an imposition and expectation that can’t be questioned. Our center acts on it’s own, AFTER questioning, because it WANTS to. Guilt trips can be laid on others to control them, but what happens to the center then? The guilt tripper lays it on like this: “Bad center! You don’t even exist! You are not nurturing or playful unless you obey my rules, so ignore your center and feel shame until you learn to behave, then maybe I’ll be nice to you and also suggest to the group to believe that you have a center of sweet playful nurturing.”

Red flags are signs in the road saying “get off of the road for a moment”. Take a step back, and another.

Of course we all can be unkind or thoughtless, so red flags don’t only mean that others are demonizing us as a manipulation tactic.

The road is our social programming, and it’s not easy to get off that road. But luckily there are some basic common sense guidelines. Such as everyone wants to avoid suffering, and everyone wants to feel good. The tricky navigation comes with the boundaries of FOG. Just because someone else is feeling bad, doesn’t mean you did something wrong, and just because you feel bad, doesn’t mean someone else did something wrong.

People say trust your gut feelings, but that’s terrible advice. Our emotions can be completely out of line with objective reality and the agendas of other people. And our emotions are hugely influenced by our upbringing – our social programming. All social programming has assumptions in it. Assumptions. Things we are told can’t be questioned. You can’t step off the road if you don’t also step off your gut feelings.

We have to use our mind and heart at the same time, because either one alone can fuck up big time. Jealousy, for instance, can be the go to gut/heart feeling, but can lead to dehumanizing someone who loves you. And without heart we can calculate which humans deserve to live and act on that. We are all philosophers choicelessly. Our only option is how good at philosophy we care to be. To step back when seeing a red flag requires stepping waaayyy back – outside of everything.

***

I’m aware that a big chunk of humanity thinks that morals are god given, and mere humans are not in any position to question them. Monogamy, to many, is right and non monogamy when in mutual love can only be performed by people who are wrong to their core.

I realize that no words or argument will change such emotional realities for some people.

But the world is not an emotional reality.

***

I realize that a popular jargon word in what has grown out of the sphere is the term “cucks”, from the root cuckold. I find that a fear and loathing based word. Not a word that comes from a playful place of respecting and nurturing oneself or others. It’s the word of a guy who fears his girl will run off with a more handsome and charming man unless he can convince the entire tribe to enforce some monogamy rules.

That is an evolved strategy, built right into the instincts of many people, and it is also cultural memes. However that strategy is largely ineffective in this changing modern world, and coincidentally is also spiritually bankrupt.

Your woman needs to want to be with you.

If you are going to FOG her, best not to do it rightously.  Some women do want to be mate guarded, but it’s a mutual dance – you still need her permission to guard – no one has the right to.

And unfortunately things do change, and people have mixed feelings and say and believe one thing in one circumstance only for new circumstances to change motivations.  So the bottom reason to stay together is always because people want to – never FOG.

And it’s not always a sign of major error when things go to splattered bloody shit.  Unfortunately many people seem to be built to prefer to crash land their relationships, because demonizing others and hating them is the fastest way to make an emotional break.

TheRedArchive is an archive of Red Pill content, including various subreddits and blogs. This post has been archived from the blog Random Xpat Rantings.

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