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The loss of "freedom of speech" is the end of all freedoms.
Equally dangerous but less acknowledged is "freeing speech," which is a form of liberation from meaning. We lose correspondence and consensus once interpretation is impossible because it relies on subjective feeling.
The specificity of language tends to dissolve, stretch, or spread, but when attenuated beyond commonality, there is no communication, just noises of pain or appreciation.
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The drive to find purpose, to fulfill ambition, is a misdirection forcing you to disconnect from reality.
Sam Harris says ambition and purpose are imaginary friends; there is no reason that reality is insufficient.
This is true, but also privileged nonsense. Having the ambition to achieve lands you in a place soft enough to consider purpose, where before it was clear: survival. Many people are hip-deep in reality (aka survival), from which our ambition can drag us free.
The irony Harris brings to light is that achieving the comfort that allows us to consider "purpose" is to overcome survival, that is, to escape the nagging confrontations of reality. Once free (free of reality, free to consider purpose), we should turn off our ambition to return to reality.
Yet overcoming requires such persistent effort that humans are conditioned and are dreadfully afraid to return to the state of survival. It is not that Harris is wrong -we should reconnect with reality and drop illusions- but it requires a mad overcoming or padded life before such returns to reality are wise.
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The “siege perilous” is the seat held empty by Merlin at King Arthur’s round table.
It is a place of supposed honor reserved for the worthy one who will accomplish the improbable.
To be granted the seat is often a curse, crushed beneath its pressure and politics.
The trap is to provide a seat at the right hand of power, which draws forth the ambitious and unfailingly proves them undeserving. The king is always gracious in the offer; the ambitious are fools or naively pure of heart. If the seat is legitimately claimed, then the king is stronger for it.
Either way, the opening up of a space adjacent to power is brilliant: a void begs to be filled while distracting from those who set the game board.
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While we find it relatively easy to forgive others, it is more difficult to forgive ourselves.
We feel wounded and blame our internal pain on another, which justifies lashing out. Yet, as Anthony DeMello, Alfred Adler, and Victor Frankl reveal, you have chosen to be hurt and hold onto your pain.
This is why you can forgive them easier than yourself: they did not cause the pain as much as you held onto it and weaponized it.
The focus of your rage is merely a proxy projection for your internal disgruntlement. The trick of forgiving yourself is now doubly tricky because you allowed yourself to treat someone else poorly: to forgive yourself after lashing out is to accept your monstrosity.
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We say we are looking for happiness, but we are looking for a marvelous life that comes from a great pursuit.
Almost none of which appears as happiness. Happiness is a byproduct of doing excellent work.
Furthermore, even if we achieve happiness we promptly destroy it agitating for a novel heightened level of experience or meaning: we destroy happiness seeking more happiness.
(in part from Jordan Peterson)
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The Herculean hero is striving for depth. Constrained by external challenges or internal heroics they are either slaying dragons or destroying themselves.
During times of peace, the hero enacts images of salvation or expiation.
If the image is read shallowly, the hero must conquer the motif repeatedly (continually becoming) leading to self-destruction.
However, if the hero can embody the image with depth, that is to remain within the image rather than use it as instruction, the fantasy image can save rather than destroy.
from James Hillman
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If we are programmed, the question is: “how do we know that we are alive and free rather than performing scripted responses?”
Consider this: It appears that our conscious attempts to dissuade us from painful actions, yet once we are comfortable, we seek out and find more pain and revel in it. This new pain we embrace gives us a new purpose: avoiding pain again.
This causal circularity allows us to continually overcome or to continually fail, both of which provide movement, purpose, and drive even if they achieve nothing.
For comparison, we have programmed machines that also attempt specific repetitive actions and either succeed or fail but look as if they have drive and purpose through movement. They just don’t rationalize their behavior through happiness, contentment, or pain.
(from Samuel Butler)
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Given the insanity of the world, the contradictions assail us daily (such as the definitional inability to achieve a purpose that is transcendent) the only response is to laugh, or to find it humorous.
While laughing off serious inquiry can develop into dark apathy, recognition of ridiculous situations can help you move through them into something greater: if failure is inherent (immanent) so is rebirth, allowing you to choose optimistic action over static, determinist recognition.
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To be free, you must find a purpose beyond yourself. Which is slavery to a purpose.
It will be championed (and reflected) by your friends, which provides a sense of joy.
This freedom that is not freedom, providing you with reflected joy, is absurd. Wallowing in purpose can create a disgusting bureaucrat or motivated altruist, or any manner of thing between.
Be cautious: see it, be wary of it, and yet still maintain a disposition beyond contradictory futility.
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Viktor Frankl says to make the pain of life bearable; you must find meaning: a purpose by looking into the future.
Yuval Noah Harari says fantasy provides meaning for suffering.
We can conclude that the only way to bear the absurd pains of existence is to have a rich fantasy that you genuinely believe in.
