The Buried Notebooks Pt. 2
Artful Prudence | August 9, 2022 | by Artful Prudence
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1.8 Knowing what it means to be pure and virtuous is not at all the
same as being a personification of these qualities. I could be totally
conscious of virtue yet completely lack it. Similarly, one could
detest immorality, but that doesn’t make him any better than he is.
You know, there was a time when secreting my wickedness seemed like a
reasonable course, but now I firmly oppose it in indifference. It is
not an easy task for one to recognise his wickedness, and subsequently
grapple with it. If one ceases to address it, and fails to bring
himself together, it transforms into a terribly destructive plague.

1.9 My very existence, as it appears to me, is occupied by an
immoderate amount of summits and ravines. It often feels like I
can’t find some repose away from the confusion and madness that
contaminates my being. There must be some source of unease coming from
anywhere and everywhere. If there isn’t, I’m not living, just
hanging above troubled waters. There must be a problem, is that not
true of all life? There must be some source of anxiety, so that my
most fervent desires and fears are frustrated and burrowed under.
Wasn’t the Buddha correct when he said that desire is our chief
cause of suffering? If I were so selflessly valiant, restrained to the
point where my desires are perfectly subdued by a lofty composure,
none of this pandemonium would be taken earnestly, and there would be
no disquiet pertaining to my pressing need to watch over my perverted
desires.

2.0 But then such a state of affairs raises another question, would
such supreme calm and order grow monotonous? Would I, perhaps, start
to loathe the fact my life is devoid of unease and difficulty? If I
were so invincible, whereby nothing would phase me, and my towering
strength was superior to any stumbling block life could hurl at me,
would life be perceived as an interesting game worth playing? I get
the sense that that kind of omnipotence could be fatal, and would
shortly engender within myself a repetitious, dull, and flat
existence. Because chaos has that magical effect, in spite of its
great stamina and pressure; it naturally conveys stupefaction, wonder,
mystery, vacancy, etc. These senses imbue life with an ambience that
elevates our experience.

2.1 It often requires great sadness to have something to write. I may
despise the misery that overcomes me, but I could be grateful for what
it grants me: the pressing, violent, raging urge to write, to relieve
myself of suffering and find my way back to serenity. A great deal of
striking poetry has sprung from the deepest gullies of immense regret,
depression, and sorrow, and it would be a terrible catastrophe to
mankind if man was insensitive to melancholy, because of the sheer
beauty it has erected. And if we didn’t have among us the despicable
ugliness that contaminates eternal beauty, we wouldn’t bear the
capacity to acknowledge true beauty. We puzzle out things by contrast,
and if you exterminate that disparity, you also take the life of
profundity, flattening the depth that imparts basic significance. This
is ever immanent in numerous facets of life. While women may signify
the void; emptiness, darkness, disorder, tenderness and so forth, men
signify a certain richness and light; hostility, boldness, heroism,
dominance, strength etc. The beauty and harmony of course lies in the
union between the two opposites, but corrupt one and the other will
suffer. While two corrupt ends may cancel each other and lead an
apparently attuned dance, they are nonetheless bastardised within and
thus in strife with themselves. Such a union can’t possibly preserve
itself, and very often doesn’t because corruption has that cruel
repercussion; it doesn’t permit inward stability and freedom from
contamination – it ought to infect and tarnish the beautiful, it
abominates cleanliness and makes a dreary effort to beat it hollow.

2.2 Perhaps, the vulgar – that is, the vast proportion of men and
women – value the empty and meaningless more than they value the
profound and meaningful, thus orienting their life in such a way that
revolts against honour, righteousness, and purity. I can’t imagine,
however, how such dissolution and infatuation for the shallow and
vacant could grant man the kind of fulfilment that is basic to his
nature. If man treasures the meaningless and makes a fervent effort to
sustain it, how could he ever sense the fulfilment that is a natural
corollary to a meaningful existence? The fullness in meaning is
inherently masculine, but the emptiness is inherently feminine. What
does that indicate about the current state of culture? Anyone with
some degree of clarity would discern that the fullness that was once
requisite and customary among all strong men alike has been
relinquished. Its substitute – emptiness – is its inferior and
feeble opposite. Ever wondered why we are so unhinged in this muddied
puddle of chaos? When the fullness inherent in man – that engenders
order, substance, strength, and stability into the world – has gone
astray, and the emptiness inherent in woman – that engenders
disorder, hubris and pride – has risen to revolt, we suffer the
toils of our own capitulation and weakness.

2.3 All men have buried within them the criminal, the transgressor,
the sinner. And only those are valorous enough to clasp it in their
arms and master it are true men, the rest become, as Nietzsche put it
so beautifully, domesticated dogs. You may pity the dog for being
compliant with the leash that confines him and call him obedient. But
do you realise how much he’s sacrificing to be sold into slavery?
Men didn’t come here to be trained and disciplined by women.
Docility of this magnitude nauseates, it is the mark of great distaste
to fall to your knees in such acts of blind submission. In a world of
dogs who are kept ignorant of their own servitude, no wolfish man –
strong, honourable and upright – will be revered for his
superiority. Conversely, he will be perceived as the chief threat –
dangerous and _toxic_ –because he may, by his virile will and
heroism, awaken once more in slumbering men the spine and mettle that
was once shared and of the essence among them; it had, as a matter of
fact, brought them together – an irresistible force that sparked
off immense light into the world. A fire for eternity.

You must sin against the degeneracy of the time if you desire to
preserve some element of cleanliness. I see no other alternative to
this, once you abide by the absurdities of modernity, you are then
condemned tenfold for the opposition you may put up later. And isn’t
it a callous deception, even an irresponsible one on the side of women
– in spite of men’s cowardly submission – to enforce and endorse
the kind of feebleness and timidity that they find no security in,
that they are repelled by, that in due course leaves them vulnerable?
I’ve always asked myself how such women could concurrently
demonstrate the qualities of cruelty and foolishness, as if they
sadistically love to exploit through instruments of deception, while
irresponsibly exposing themselves to danger, to the possibility of no
return, to the likelihood of getting cheapened, rather ruthlessly, by
the inevitability of oldness.

2.4 Perhaps, the man of modernity should learn to arm himself with the
kind of savage callousness that is typical of hubristic women, and
then sharply treat them with their own medicine, because that is the
only way they surrender.

2.5 If the only way to sustain a meaningful life is to suffer, we
certainly didn’t come here to enjoy ourselves, but when you do
discover that a great deal of living involves suffering, you naturally
question where the meaning lies. When I’m enduring pain, I can’t
immediately tell how meaningful or meaningless it is, but we do tend
to ascribe happiness or some form of contentment to where meaning lays
itself, and when we find out that meaning is more synonymous with
sacrifice rather than satisfaction, we are rather disappointed, even
often resentful. We hold the belief that because we are suffering, our
existence lacks meaning since everyone’s chief aim is to be happy
rather than fulfilled. But can’t one suffer in the light of
fulfilment, can’t one suffer purposefully without despising himself
and life? Wouldn’t this be the apex of meaning? The rich life orders
suffering, but suffering is painful and unpleasant. Couldn’t
suffering be more pleasant by making it more useful and significant?

Don’t we impose a great deal of suffering on ourselves? That’s
extremely unpleasant in and of itself, but what about the suffering
that is imposed from outside, that often collides with the wretched
suffering of our own – the eternal course of nature – what are we
to do about that? If it is a matter of fate and beyond our reach, why
do we try and grapple with it as if we could influence it? It seems
rather foolish to be so ignorant as to believe your desires – that
you prioritise over God and shelter passionately – are more right
than your providence, that is laid down by divinity. To reduce our
desires and subsequently accept our fate, that is a difficult task.
But one should not suppose that because his fate is in opposition to
his desires and will prevail over them, life is fundamentally
meaningless and to no avail and he should take it against God. If fate
is not in our hands, who are we to know whether it is less right for
us than what we think is desirable? What we think is desirable is not
always as right as fate, we shouldn’t suppose that we ultimately
know what is best for us and at what time.


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