[Note on the font: they “upgraded” the whatever. I don’t know how to fix it–it’s not as obvious or easy as you would think–but it IS easier to read.]
I am enjoying a rare day off. I’ve been working a lot lately. I’m smoking and reading and drinking good coffee, as I like to do.
I am going to make two comments, neither about Memorial Day.
First: Anything that can be done better by a robot is not a properly human activity. The two foundations of transhumanism is that machines are a way to personal immortality–which in my view science has already established is our birthright–and that machines are better than humans.
What machines do better than humans is manipulate anything that can be formatted in 0’s and 1’s. They can do math, map out options, bring forth any written knowledge, and suchlike at vastly faster speeds than human beings. Neo learned martial arts at an exponentially increased rate, but he did not learn emotional self regulation, an intimate understanding of the wisdom in his own body (which to be clear he did not even have in that realm), or any of the other host of valuable human teachings that come with an extended practice of self discipline and exploration.
Robots are not capable of enjoying poetry, are they? They are not able to FEEL life around them. They cannot take part in intuition, and spontaneous non-local spiritual connections. They cannot attribute VALUE to anything except when a predetermined outcome is posited for them.
Oscar Wilde said about a century ago that the great promise of machines is that they could be slaves without our having lost our own dignity in forcing them into a sort of servitude, and that the time freed up would be very useful for properly human activities, like love, life and laughter.
Second: the more I ponder on it, the primary human task is learning self soothing. All evil comes from unregulated anxiety, which we might as well call fear. All evil comes, then, from fear, and the opposite of fear is learning to be calm when our bodies and brains tell us to be afraid.
To take the example seen on some network pretty much every night of every year, the essence of serial murder, or cruelty of any sort, is in my view a temporary release from the pain of the shame/fear/rage complex that comes from unprocessed trauma, itself obviously the result of that person being unable to calm those feelings in their own brains and selves.
I like the show the Mentalist, which I will watch reruns of in hotels sometimes. I’m not going to binge watch it, but I got curious about this Red John character, so I read the synopsis of the series. Very clever man, seemingly based on Moriarty, but one whose main pleasures in life came from the fragmentary moments when he could allow a release of his always latent rage by attacking some part of Human Society, from which he was detached by a sense of shame and humiliation so deep it was invisible to him. All he would have known was how hurting other people made him feel. It made him feel giddy, no doubt. It was a release. It was a momentary relaxation in a life filled to overflowing with unregulated terror.
And these shows are popular because as a nation we lack the wisdom of self soothing, and thus relate easily to rage and violence. We call people like Red John the bad guys, but I see more pictures of Jason on cars than anyone who faced him. All the violence we see is vicariously participated in. If you choose to watch, you are choosing to participate in the crimes and the lives of the criminals.
Many of our parents failed, for various reasons, which has I think been common forever, but our culture has also failed to provide backup, which most cultures have done until recently, including our own, through religion, through tradition, through known and knowable patterns of behavior that COULD be depended on. July the 4th is beer and picnics. This is knowable. This is soothing. This is calming. Take that away, more panic attacks, more fear, more reflexive conformity to anyone who seems to have a plan.
And all the knowns are under attack, and the only way out of this is to join the attackers, or find yourself under siege. There really aren’t any other good options, other than to opt out of popular culture entirely, which is also a form of self harming, really. It’s not a good solution.
In my view, the solution is not better drugs, but a more focused and honest concern with emotional self regulation.
What I am finding is that, for my own work, I have to go even farther into solitude for my healing. In solitude, all the old emotions come up in greater clarity. I can see better. The pain of loneliness is really the pain of living without soothing, without calming, without touch, without love. But each and every one of us, with practice, can learn to ALLOW those things to arise spontaneously. This is the effect of proper meditation, and I am beginning to feel them.
And anyone who can soothe themselves is, to use the Feldenkrais word I will never not love, reversible. We are flexible, adaptable. You can be happy alone, and you can be happy with others. This is freedom, and most spiritual work is gradually building up such freedoms, which are not least the freedom from fear. Some people fear all human contact; others, like Sartre, believe that “hell is others”. Both of course are both true and completely wrong.
My two cents for today. Things are going well, on balance, even if also sometimes very difficult. I’m used to difficult by now. I’ve had a lot of practice.
And I’m losing weight. That has long been my bellweather, since I have long used both food and alcohol for self soothing. Something seems to be clicking finally.
I’ll post another update at some point, but it will be a minute. I may do another upload in a few weeks. I always have a list of ideas working.