existence – William Dare

The point of existence

The point of existence? To survive in order to propagate and promulgate our influence, be it through progeny or ideas. The will to power moves us to dominate through influence as a means of transcending death. Despite it’s various guises, that’s as basic as it gets.

On Selfishness, Values, Creativity, Death

There is no selfless act. Though you die for values and ideals, they are nonetheless yours and yours alone, subjective and independent of external facts and realities. Insofar as self-preservation is the prerogative of all life, the preservation of ideals and values is the prerogative of the human consciousness.

But what of love? some may say. Love is a selfish conception. If it is not predicated as a pleasure or passion, it is predicated as a subjective concept projected onto the world to characterize a type of relationship. To die for another is to die for your ideals and values, not the subjective values of others. The act of dying for another or another’s values is embedded with subjective valuations. Camus said that what man believes to be true must determine his action.

Echoing Nietzsche in his essay On Truth and Lies in the Non-moral Sense, truth is a metaphorical representation that is coined from an originally subjective perception of experience and passed on as an objective fact of experience. Though it may be passed on as objective, its application in life through experience is nonetheless a subjective assertion. Insofar as we exist before we perceive the world, all that is conceivable and doable is a sui generis selfish act, whether it’s to preserve the well being of the body or preserve the conceptions of the mind.

But what of martyrs or saints? others will say. Are not these selfless acts of death or denial? I would reply that they are no more selfless than suicide or any other act that preserves a subjectively possessed belief or ideal.

The only selfless acts are those selfish deeds which indirectly and consequently improve upon the lives of others so that they must do the same when taken to denouement. That is, selfless acts are no more selfish than any other act, only that their corollary influences others to perform actions which empower others to empower others.

In this way one may pursue the ideal of freedom selfishly but in doing so he not only apprehends freedom personally, but apprehends this freedom for others as well. Likewise it is with equality, so that by cherishing equality for selfish motives he secures equality for all. What must be preserved in these acts is an inherent method of propagating the power of others to do the same.

Creativity must not be confused as being exclusively devoted to the arts. Creativity is the ability to stipulate something from nothing, to instantiate new conceptions according to new or existing demands. The constructive value to life inherent in creativity also contains an equally threatening detriment to life. By their very nature new and original conceptions destroy uniformity, disrupt equilibrium and threaten the familiar. The foreign and alien, the new and novel, have no place in circular systems. Circular systems arise from habits formalized as convention, routine, pattern, method and the like. They allow predictability and consistency and uniformity. Their adoption requires a suspension of familiarity so that a leap of faith is required for their assimilation. In many cases the familiar must not only be amended, but totally destroyed and annihilated to sufficiently accommodate change. In this way change requires adaptation, an alteration of existing units and relations within a system.

These systems may represent cultural practices, or histories, or traditions or rationale. One must not rely on the past to sufficiently guide and navigate the future. So long as there is time, there is change, and all change must be embraced accordingly. Negating the existence of changes is the source of all problems. If life is an activity characterized by growth, problems are a natural phenomenon and must be welcomed as such. But what is growth if it is not life? And what is life if not a continual pursuit of preservation? To preserve the past is to celebrate death; but this is precisely the natural character of humans. Nietzsche said “Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.” As with all things living, it is human nature to preserve the self, to struggle to exist, but the rarity arises in man’s specialized ability to preserve. This ability resides in the act of perpetuating equilibrium through adaptation, through the creative employment of reason and imagination to adjust to changes. Non-living matter can be said to be in the greatest equilibrium of all.

But this is where man diverges from other life. It is not enough to maintain equilibrium. Man contains a will to create equilibrium where there is not, to dominate his surroundings in an effort to project an ultimate equilibrium that renders a congruency between the inner life of the self and his environment. This is why Nietzsche dismissed the Darwinian notions of struggle for existence in favor of the will to power which more accurately reflects the nature of man. Evidence of the will to power becomes obvious when we turn to the modern day manifestations of man and witness artificial disequilibrium instantiated as civilization and technologies. Going far beyond all the past pursuits of life that merely sought to preserve corporeal existence, man has successfully learned to preserve the inner self. He has fully exercised his freedom to impress his inner world onto the outer world, to fashion it according to his liking.

Leaders are creators who operate to conjure and implement new realities and visions that accommodate real or perceived changes. While leaders can be oppressive in this way, they can be, more importantly, liberators who sow new realities and ideas that empower others. The difference lies in the values contained in the given vision and whether or not these values empower others to empower themselves to empower others.

Spatia Ante Materia

Spatia ante Materia (Spatia Rem or Spatia et Materia)

Is consciousness chosen? No. Therefore, there is no free will.

Consciousness was pulled out from within, forced into by demand.

The objective of life is to satisfy demands. All matter is a response to space. As matter, we exist to fulfill these flowing demands of space.

I want to write a magnum opus on a theory of everything which explains phenomena such as mind, knowledge, and reason. The theory will take on a form resembling mathematics, whereby balance and equilibrium serve as the natural progression for all cause and effect.

The exposition will begin by grounding three main concepts: polar pairs (+, -), equilibrium (=), change (, ->)

What is important is not what is included, but what is excluded. Cause precedes effect, just as demand precedes supply, as space precedes matter, as form precedes substance.

Demand and Supply

Demand: (-),space, empty, negative, cause, pull, question, eternal, infinite, possibility, freedom

Supply: (+), matter, full, positive, effect, answer, temporal, finite, actuality, necessity

Equilibrium: (=), balance, harmony, synthesis, (life energy of being)

Change: (), (->), condition, (A third relation between +&-)

Why do we live in a dualistic world?

Phenomenon: L.L. phænomenon, from Gk. phainomenon “that which appears or is seen,” noun use of neut. prp. of phainesthai “to appear,” passive of phainein (see phantasm). Meaning “extraordinary occurrence” first recorded 1771. Plural is phenomena.

What is the origin of phenomena? Occurrence? Change?

Equilibrium, a balance of tensions, results from change.

Why is there space at all?

Life is a progression of changes toward equilibrium.

Entropy is a progression toward an equilibrium state.

Is life the most efficient form of entropy?

Reality is a question; not an answer.

Time a measure describing a rate of change, . Time is not constant but relative to rates.

Knowledge is never so pure than in its moment of conception.

Change must not be rigid, otherwise is will not adapt. Knowledge is inherently rigid: determinate; composed and formed. Understanding is fluid: indeterminate; flexible and open. Knowledge sufficiently supplies for necessary demands.

Where S & + are matter and D & – are space:
MP: S->D/ S// D
MT: S->D/ ~D// ~S

Demand is a necessary condition for all supply: without demand, there is no supply; without space, there is no matter; without problems, there is no knowledge. Supply is a sufficient condition for demand; knowledge is a sufficient condition for problem. As a sufficient condition, demand may be satisfied by any posited supply; problems may be satisfied by any posited knowledge. Equilibrium is reached by a supply that accounts for and satisfies maximum proximate demands.

LEM: (+ v ~+), that is (+ v -)
LNC: ~(+ ∧ ~+), that is ~(+ ∧ -)
LI: (+=+), that is (+<=>+), reflexive relation/ tautology

Mind

Intentionalism:

“In an intentional state, something is presented to the mind. So any intentional state is a presentation. What is presented is called an intentional object; for a state of mind to have an intentional object is for it to be directed on that object, So, insofar as a state of mind is directed, it has an intentional object. The intentional object of a thought is given in the answer to the question ‘what is your thought about?/what is your thought directed on?’ For a state of mind to have aspectual shape is for it to present its object in a certain way. And so, insofar as the state of mind has aspectual shape, then it has intentional content. The intentional content of a thought is given in an answer to the questions ‘what are you thinking?/what is in your mind?’ Since, according to intentionalism, all mental states have directedness and aspectual shape, then all mental states have an intentional object and intentional content.”

-Crane, Stephen: Elements of Mind (2001)

I would like to explore the origin of presentation. The presentations that give rise to mind result from causal demands. All matter maintains a spatial relation between other matter. Equilibrium progress manifests relations as tension from unresolved demands. Bodies present themselves in relation to other bodies; everything else. Matter is not inclusive, but exclusive. This relational tension manifests a pull, a demanding force, a gravitation. All bodies, exclusive and distinct, are in misrelation until an equilibrium reaches universal homogeneity.

Consciousness

Consciousness was pulled out from within, forced into existence- into a condition, a being, a change, a continuous enactment- by demand.

Self

“The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but that the relation relates itself to its own self.”
— Søren Kierkegaard

The notion of self. Self. What is self? What is consciousness?

I can’t just dive into it. I must rivet it out of me. The self is reflexive. It is an enactment, a verb, a being. The self is a struggle, a despairing misrelation between polarities, between infinite and finite, temporal and eternal, possibility and necessity. It is idealism and realism. It is the struggle that we cannot stand still within and move without.

How to consider what is and what will be. Induction and deduction. Static and flux.

Life stands out in all its sinewy gnarliness. The rudimentary lines drawn along the edges of contoured bodies, people and trees and other furniture filling the landscape of life. Self. There is no intermediary between the subject and object: there is only the self. We stand between ourselves. We are the demons that claw within, we are our own worst. The relation. The self-hood. This reflection.

I stare into the mirror and see a body. I move and this image moves correspondingly. An extension. A living breathing extension. I relate myself to this image that is myself. The dilating eyes. My dilating eyes. I cannot objectify this experience without losing hold of it. Thus we have the story of self.

The world is like a painted canvas. These objects are nothing but smearings of color that bleed in time and space and affect my sensitivities, prompting an involuntary response. I manage by distinguishing these smearings.

Distinctions. The whole is a comprised of parts, distinctions. Let us grapple the whole. Let us toss the parts. The whole is the self. We cannot construct a full self with handfuls of parts. Everything is a distinction. Dissolve distinction; then peel it back. Peel back the teguments and unveil the nature of experience, awaken your being.

Intention: Directedness that holds objects and content; point of view, reference, marked by aspectual shapes. We point and see the contours of experience.

The self is a continual realization of what was and what will. Faith places one in the now, somewhere in between.

Tired

I cant sleep. I went to bed at 230am thinking that I’d be fast asleep by now but no… that isn’t the case at all. Instead I twist and turn and adjust and readjust the covers and think about random thoughts. Just dwelling. Where? I haven’t got a clue. Somewhere on the margins of my mind where passions mix with memories and modes.

Clouds with eyes. Snail eyes. They petrude from the starry night sky and blink. You reach out to touch and they retract, only to inch their way out, slowly with caution, and peer once more.

Some friends stopped by tonight around 100am. Very uncharacteristic for this crowd, but then again its finals week and they’re all finished up. I, on the other hand, have an exam at 1200pm tomorrow. I need to wake and take my sister to work and study for a few hours more. At this rate I’m not sure if I’ll get the sleep I need.

My thoughts. What thoughts. It’s all the same. Over and over. Cruel. To have form or be formless? To mold to the world, permeate and penetrate its pores, saturate and shape with its contours and fall gently on my feet with formless grace? Or do I ram and butt and blow the world around me? Do I force it to mold to me and make it in my image?

Colorful stringy things. Lily pads. Plum fruit.

All I had today for food was an eight ounce steak, an apple, a coke, and a glass of milk.

The ants go marching. Giant iron telescopes. Lion eyed. Smile. Flash.

We are the source of it all. The juicy details. The leviathan. Concentration. Attention. Ten-hut. My toes are cold. I battle with my room mates to keep the heat up. I don’t like paying more in utilities as much as the next guy but you gotta stay warm for christs sake. A home needs to be habitable. And not just habitable so long as you’re wearing seven layers of clothing. I like the nude, and winter doesn’t jive too well with that. I have to compromise and wear a lot more clothing. But anything more than two layers, in my own home, is just unbearable.

I need to sleep. Care bears. Clouds. We see people as we are.

The waterfalls cascade upwards. Rain trickles up in binary digits. Cascading code.

I need to smack the shit outta myself. Wake up. Not now. But in general. Now I need to sleep. In general I need to wake up. I need to get zesty about life. I don’t wanna talk about meaning, existence or any of that bullshit any more. I just wanna be content with whats happening.

Freckles and a smile. Cubicles. Rows of cubicles. If you lived in a digital world, there would be no more icicles. Only cubicles.

Who am I going to be? Every day I become more of that person. Who will I be someday? What will compose that person. Breath in ten times. Feel light headed. Be absurd.

Erase. Pink e-racer. Ticonderoga.

My lap top is half closed on my lap. I’m typing with my eyes closed. Images pass through my mind. They exit through my finger tips. Leather hats. Feathers. Beads. Mountains. Glorious mountains. Ice capped mountains. Their peaks frosty and blue. Dark blue against the azure sky.

Echoes. Giggles and playful things. Smiling eyes.

Sleep. sleep. Leather. Dark leather. The story is ending. The scene is closing. The plot has unfolded. Turn the page. Turn to the last page. Moustache. Blur. Hard work.

I press the eraser into my eye.

The sky is beautiful. Not now. In my head. It is majestic. Pink . The flowers move back and forth in the breeze like excited little school children. They shake with excitement. The sky is bleeding upward away from the horizon. It bleeds with the dreams of those who sleep. Our dreams will bleed for those still awaiting the night. What a magical place. Inside my head. The arches. These twin arches. They transition from silver to gold and back again. Family is important.

I want adventure. I want to so bad it ruins the taste of life. Adventure. Daring adventure. Risky adventure. Adventure that is open and bright. The adventure where everyone is expecting you. Where there are countless paths and everyone has something marvelous in store. A new person. A new discovery. Wonders lurking like salamanders. Cool places rich with surprise. Every corner turns over a new leaf.

Vermont. Chapped lips. Pine trees. Maple trees. Gray skies. Blankets of sullen snow. Virgin snow. Snow like a canvas stretched out on mother earth. A half painted canvas that wears its way in with every passing day the sun shines brighter. Each trail is a bursh stroke. Summer sets in as cold gives way to warmth, as pallid playgrounds portray their hints of color. With these days the canvas becomes full of life. The canvas is no longer pale but teeming with painted living. Vivacious life. Under the shade of great big trees. Pine cones. Water ice. Dusty trails. Dew drops. Sweat. Patios. Insects buzzing around, landing on pages as you rock in the breeze. Nod your head into its arms.

Dolor.

I am not running any longer. I am not fooling myself. The world looks on, the circus continues. I want real. I want a real me. Why must I be something greater than the clod of earth that I am? Somewhere I lost sense of the point. The higher calling that was my own soon became an lone empty echo. I am alone. My room seems to fall away from me. Everything is distant. I seize consciousness and my senses reach out. The floor vent releases a streaming chill that catches my pant leg; the skin tightens and my follicles erect. Air palpitates through my nostrils in soft attenuated breathes. I slouch. My eyes fixate ahead. A dyspeptic yellow emits from my lamp and sinks into the noxious green walls. I am lost in this yellow sea.

Fuck it all. I do not want to look inward any longer. Narcissism has left me nauseas.

There is no hope in ignorance. The deficiencies and flaws gather and glare with evil eyes. There is no escape from who and what I am.

I’m finding it difficult to read for class. I’ve spent far more time reading for leisure. It leaves me feeling open; accomplished. Confession number one: Class is a bore. School is boring. It is mind-numbing. Is it me? I fear it is. But I’m more than alright with that. My mind was not meant to be domesticated. It comes and goes and there is no wall or discipline that will harbor my curiosities. Such things are ineffable.

I cannot placate my anxieties with deception. My hate and ill intentions shape my nature. I am all too human. I need to embrace the quaking anger, speak my mind without remorse. Just as today will take care of itself, so will tomorrow. No need to disown whats mine. There is no illegitimate me.

-Taphs

Libraries are nothing more than tombs filled with epitaphs and eulogies of great men. The living flock to universities to find some common truths among the confusion that can provide some unifying meaning, e pluribus unum- out of many, one. Men spent their lives entertaining fancies about their ephemeral existence and the ether in which they swim.

I rack my brain thinking about life’s questions. Just when I abandon the pursuit and turn away, I find myself faced with even more vexations. I cannot run. Its as if I am suppose to walk in the darkness and knowingly tread on unfamiliar ground. I want to be sure, but there is no security.

blah blah blah. where are my muses?? inspire me! I can’t wait to start school. I need challenge. I need some social exposure, some stimulation.

I am free. I have to remind myself of the bigger picture. Sometimes I tend to lose sight of why I’m doing what I’m doing. I have to remind myself that I am free and that the actions I’m undertaking are a result of a prior choice made on free will. My continual commitment of that choice, reflected through daily disciplines, is apart of a greater freedom I’m seeking to achieve. I cannot forget the prize. When running a marathon, or any great race with great rewards, I suppose its easy to forget why your running. I must not lose sight of the finish line, even if I cannot see it. I must visualize what it looks like to finish victoriously and strong.

I’m always trying to evaluate my strengths and weaknesses. Just when I think I feel that I’ve mastered progress in a particular subject, I’m humbled by the realization that I don’t know anything at all.

***

All day long I contemplate what I must do and hesitate to do it. I just want to be. Life is a choice. It’s about the moment. Its about choosing to let go of your past, consider the future, and live in the present. I choose to be content, fulfilled and joyful. I appreciate the current situation. I am grateful for who I am and what I have.
***

Why do i consider so much? Why can’t just let go. Forge ahead and blaze new thoughts, relationships, realities.

Meaningless Existence

Do the laws of the universe create life? Do the forces that act on all matter inevitably lead to reactions causing organization that begets more organization? And begets organization to the point where the molecules begin to question themselves and their intent? Organized states of matter drawing from the universe around them that produce something out of nothing? Ideas? Truth? Philosophical concepts and laws to live and govern by? I would rather say we are gods. If we are not, we are made in God likeness. A consciousness exists within us that is more than the resulting whole we’re composed of. If we were solely matter, we would be no more relevant in the scheme of time than dust in the wind. Our experiences would be lies. Lies would be lies. There would be no right or wrong. The evolutionary reaction would persist until it fizzles out. All of these thoughts, however personal we make them, attached with sentimental penchants to make it worth understanding, are nothing. Do not convince yourself they are more than the reality you accept them to be. You swallow lies if you think you are worth more than the ashes that construct and guide these inclinations. If there is no real meaning to life, and everything is meaningless- aside from the lie you’re convinced it to be- than knowing this is meaningless. Getting to the bottom of anything, the truth about something, knowing everything- is pointless. You will not be any better off.

I suppose people, once they’re convinced that there is no origin, no God or purpose or real plan, they can begin to make life whatever they want it to be. They are masters of their fate. The opportunity chance has given them allows them to be a god for a brief moment in time. They infuse their decisions with the illusion of meaning, deciding and believing in a fabricated existence. They declare their own laws and morals and philosophies to be paramount to anyone around them. Even if they’re tolerant, they’ve arrived at the conclusion that everyone can believe whatever they want because there is no meaning, and they are right because they believe it to be so. This is called existentialism. This is the current state mankind has found for itself. Because there is no truth, and all is relative, everything is debatable. True meaning is vapid.

Is there a God? If he is, why are we separated from him? If all that is can be measured and calculated before our eyes, where is this God? What is love? What is faith? What is honesty? What is truth? What is compassion? What is empathy? What is kindness? What is a will? Are they mere reactions? behaviors? patterns? How can these things be measured? Is right and wrong measurable by a definite scale? If not, why do be place faith in such things as hope?

If God is real, why would he allow people to suffer? Is it his will we suffer or, like a father’s love for his child, does his heart break to see us struggle? Does he pain and weep when he sees us scrape by in life, accepting pathetic answers for help instead of looking to him? Does he want to know us? Does he even care? Did he make us for the insignificant novelty of it all? Little beings hurting, hurting others, suffering to survive, questioning life and existing, crawling through life on their hands and knees to spread themselves over as much material or immaterial gains as possible, only to find themselves on their deathbed with the cold reality that it was all for nothing. The suffering, the joy, the relationships, were for nothing, and they slip into oblivion. Or do they find themselves in other place, confronted with answers to the questions? Are they blinded by the radiating perfection of a just God who they’ve reserved as an afterthought? Does this God accept them to a place they never wished to seek? Does a door open to those who don’t knock? Is there a place where a relationship with a perfect God exists? A God who you never desired to look for or know? Where would a perfect justice place the blame? On God or us?

Is Life Really What They Say It Is? Life or Bleak Beginnings.

Ebbing and flowing. I stare off, too encumbered to think anymore than necessary. I don’t need to question why, although I spend all day thinking about the answer.

Do I have to lie to myself to get by each day? Is life really what they say it is? Meaningless and void. My personality, my will, all a product of evolution. I am not me, I do not have free will, I am the result of unbelievable chance. Matter in the universe totally coincidentally organized to a place that is now my current condition. My thoughts are not mine. I am merely matter that has evolved. I am the result of chance reactions. I can lie to myself to instill meaning behind my actions that lead to my circumstances and the current circumstances that man has faced throughout history… but it’s a lie. Me thinking it’s a lie is meaningless. Knowing anything is meaningless. Why do I say this? If this life is how they say it is, a freak evolution in the course of time, defying all odds- but maybe not- or anything that would cause matter to stray in disarray, what is the point? Who I am? What I am doing here? Is it enough to accept that by chance we arrived to a point where we dissect the very fragments of space and time we’re composed of? We turn and pry and poke at matter and energy and calculate predictions with Godlike accuracy. If we are just matter… where is it in the laws of nature or the evolutionary scope of man that he questions what he is? Does a rock question its origins? Do we, composed of trillions of seemingly innate molecules, as more organized states of matter, have any greater place in space and time? If my thoughts are motivated by mere molecules simply happening by chance, programmed to respond from a long line of genetic codes that have been constantly victimized and molded by chance circumstances and mutations, am I void of a will? Do I even have a choice?

Recently I’ve been trying to entertain the idea that there is no God. This concept is so foreign to my inner being that when I look for reasons to do something, apart from knowing there is a purpose and a plan and perfection behind it, everything is for nothing. Lies? What is reality? Who can prove it to me, or themselves, any more than what they are willing to accept? I cannot run from the reality I swim in every day that needs answers.

Why does man create? It’s not for survival. You don’t need to create to survive. You need to do whatever you can, but you certainly don’t need to create. Why paint? Why build monuments? Why is man so hungry for power?

I look around and I see meaningless. I see people who are sick of the lies they swallowed. Everyone thinks they’re going somewhere. That they have it figured out. They need to in order to move on. But is anyone any closer to substantial understanding? People accept delusions, deceive themselves by settling for cheap answers, and continue delve into this world of matter and molecules that we create as a playground for itself. We are the molecules organizing molecules. For what purpose? There is none. We are a bubbling, frothing, chance reaction of minuscule matter in the universe that’s miraculously persisted to churn on. Somehow the random and unorganized matter managed to find a way to organize, and produce more organization, and even predict patterns of organization and devise ways to see into itself and ask about the origins of itself, only to arrive at the conclusion it was all a random chance. The fact that order exists at all amazes me. Laws?

Do I have a soul? Is that what resides within me?