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Showing posts with the label power

περιπέτεια (peripetia)

Much of my pain and disappointment has stemmed from my expectation. I expected to receive much from the world on the account of who I am—whatever that may be. I saw people with wealth, and I thought I deserved that same wealth; when I saw that the path to wealth crossed decades and generations, I came to resent wealth and the wealthy for many of the wealthy did not need to cross the violent and vast river of trial-and-time.  I grew resentful, fearful, and hesitant as time passed—feeling as if I was trapped in a devious mechanism whose purpose was to drain my life and soul to sustain the livelihoods of those that stood on the shoulders of generations. I saw that I was a man living in the shadows of vampiric titans and kniving gods. I attempted to brush away this image as being the result of bruised and temporarily wounded ego, but my heart told me that this was the truth: the world is a tragic place for a tiny man who dares to look up with open eyes.  Regardless, I sense the ne...

The Failed Science

A real possibility: I fucked myself up by reading Nietzsche. Alternatively equal possibility: I was fucked up, so I read Nietzsche. But Certainly: Well-adjusted adults in their mid-twenties are not fascinated with Nietzsche. I am no longer fascinated  by Nietzsche. I don't think about him regularly, even though I have a portrait of the guy hanging over my desk. He's interesting. He's still relevant albeit overdone. And I worry that he left a mark, for better or worse—or for good or evil or whatever lies beyond (WINK WINK). Thinking about power is...destructive, corrupting. Power flows in ways that are not our ways. And mimicking the  flows of powers  that you may observe won't win you any good prizes, because they cannot be copied from observation. Look, I do not know if that makes sense outside of my head, but I have to put it out there: if you try to merely mimic the flows, you will fail, and you will pay for your failure . Power is more like a dance...

Will and the Ape

When you're writing a story, you're supposed to know what your protagonist wants. If you don't do that, then you don't have a real character. And that strikes me as a really obvious metaphor for real life: if you don't really know what you want, then you don't have a really well-developed character. If you don't know what you want in a particular situation,  then someone else will want on your behalf,  and you will serve them.  This is a rule with few exceptions. ... It's important to get to a place where you can act according to your subjective experience–your visceral, unedited reactions; that is, your natural reactions. Most people tend to be alienated from their natural reactions, their "true will".  Natural, uncensored, candid, flowing—I have found these to be a suitable goalpost for crafting (nearly all) my reactions to social situations. However, the challenge is that human nature is ape-like, impish, infantile,...

Aphorisms you never asked for Pt. 1 v1.3

If you don't believe anything I write here, you're going to have a bad time. If you believe everything I write here, you're going to have a worse time than I did. ... Live the life of a thousand aphorisms. ... You can't own what you worship. (It owns you.) ... Strife is the law of life. You don't need to spend long seeking it out. Strife will find you. ... Listen, it is not necessary to pursue pleasure nor greatness nor wealth. It is sufficient to live a life dedicated to mindfully avoiding suffering. ... The Logos  is the word (stories, narratives, values in the form of the written and spoken word) that carved their way through time and death and war and famine and plague and generation. Seek it. Learn from it. Its other name is History.  ... God, they say, is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent—all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful. Man, is omnivore— all-consuming. ... At the center of being is void. When the self tries t...