___ ___ ___ ____ __ _____ __ ____ __ / __\ /__ \ /__ \ / __// | / /__ \ / / / / |/ | / /_/ // \ \// \ \/ /_ / /||/ // \ \/ / / / /| /| | / __ // / // / / __// / | // / / / / / / |/ | | / / / //___/ //___/ / /__/ / / //___/ / /__/ / / | | /_/ /_/______/______/____/_/ /_/______/\_____/_/ TEXTFILES ---------------------------------------------------------------------- #101 : Sunday 10 August 2003 : http://addendumtextfiles.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes on the search for fulfillment, by Steak ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ I like to think, I have several different spots where I sit and ponder things in the universe. A reoccurring thought that I have is trying to work out why exactly it is human beings are so fucked up and illogical all the time. This isn’t just something that I think about from time to time, this is a full on obsession that I just can’t stop thinking about. Week after week I will spend minutes, hours, days trying my hardest to work out what it is that drives us to do what we do. I want there to be a simple answer; I want there to be a piece of writing that is easy to comprehend, which will make all these problems magically disappear. The only error there is that deep down I am more than one hundred percent sure that it just doesn’t work that way. There is no easy answer, in fact it is debatable if there even is an answer at all. Every time I think about these things all I can come up with in the end is the sad conclusion that there is no answer and never will be. There is no solution to all the problems I perceive in the world, there is no way to interact with other people so that they will instantly like me one hundred percent of the time. There is no way I will ever truly know what other people are thinking about or what drives them The sad fucked up thing is that in the end we are totally alone, completely devoid of anyone else for company. We have been alone all our lives and we always will be alone. We will never know what it is to be anyone else and no one else will ever know what it is to be us. We may get close, but we will never truly understand other people, just as we will never truly be understood. This wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that we often don’t even know ourselves very well. What little we manage to piece together from the incomplete jigsaw puzzle that is our conscious mind is uncertain. It’s questionable, often clouded and almost always made biased by all manner of emotions, hormones, feelings, morals or whatever other barriers we consciously or subconsciously choose to place between us and the one thing we know we are constantly searching for - personal fulfillment --- Sometimes there are so many problems in my head, sometimes there is so much bullshit, so much complication (a complication so complicated that the solutions to the complications are in turn more complicated than the original complication) inherent in just going about my day to day thinking, that sometimes, for me at least, it seems almost impossible to cope. These feelings are the closet thing to suicidal feelings I have ever felt. I reach a stage where I find some idea I’ve had so complicated that my head cannot cope with the complexity of the idea that my mind just retreats in terror with it’s tail between it’s legs, I find at that point, for a few brief seconds at least, that it would be impossible to go on without that problem being solved. I feel completely helpless at a point like this, it’s like I suddenly realize that the problem has no answer and to carry on trying to work out the answer to this problem would be fruitless as the search would result in nothing, or worse than nothing, nothing but more questions; the complexity of which surpasses even the most impossible mathematical equation. My mind will go off into these sorts of ‘illogical circles’ with disturbing regularity. When they happen they are often unpleasant but luckily last only a very short amount of time (in the region of one to three minutes) before I manage to find a way of ignoring the problem. The only possibility I have for solving this problem in my head is the hope that one day I, and more importantly, my brain will mature to a point where I am able to stay hold of these problems, comprehend, understand and then hopefully solve them. Either that or I reach a point where I am able to easily and confidently ignore the problems, so much so that it will become another non-issue. The only question I would have for myself in this case is asking whether it is better to be thinking about these things and having to endure these illogical circles or be dumb and enjoy the blissful ignorance of the worlds complexities. --- As I have stated in many different places and ways before this time, human beings are problem-solving animals. This simple fact is what I believe makes up most of the ‘unhappy’ ‘unfulfilled’ and ‘empty’ feelings that most people seem to have. It can be reasoned quite simply that the only reason we exist is to solve problems, it’s what we do best, we enjoy doing it and so hence forth we do it, most of the time without even thinking about it. On the face of it, being a problem-solving creature seems all well and good, but when you start analyzing our problem solving ability, significant and slightly worrying flaws start to pop up. Humans don’t actually like having the problems themselves, ironically enough they also (most of the time) don’t like the solutions that the problems encourage, they only like the *process* of solving the problem, if we aren’t doing this then we are not happy. We have a natural desire to solve all the worlds’ problems; we want to think that we hold the key. We like the idea that if were presented with an easily understandable form of the ultimate question that we would be able to crack it without much trouble. We fantasize for a time when there might be no more problems to solve, (being naturally compelled to solve problems leads to wishes like this) but we have to realize that such a place just doesn’t exist anywhere in the universe. It is also interesting to note that if such an area did in fact exist we would find it excruciatingly boring, by it’s very nature there would be ‘nothing to do’ So why, after all this evidence that it doesn’t even exist are we still working towards a time when there are no more problems to solve? The answer is a multi layered one, biologically it’s quite easy, we need problems to advance, they are how we have managed to come as far as we have done. I think there is defiantly a direct link between the amount of problems that we solve as a species and the more complex that we as a race become. For example, our distant ancestors might have thought this way: Problem: How can I kill that dear far away? Solution: Create weapons, or problem: How can I keep warm at night Solution: Discover fire, henceforth problem solving leads to two the most important discoveries of our existence. Lots of different questions and answers like this build up over time eventually leading to such questions as "how can I add up quicker?" "How can I talk to people in far away places in real time?" and "how can I download copyrighted music and pornography?" after many questions and answers like this we have managed to form the society that we see today, a society completely based on problems. The way our capitalist economic system (not that that’s necessarily a bad thing) works is by people helping other people out with their problems. Every single company is there to help you solve a problem, whether you actually have that problem or not. There are millions of advertisers hell-bent on trying to persuade you that you have certain problems and they magically have exactly the right solution for your new problem - you just will need to part with some of your money. This money will in time help them with their problems, eg buying stock, paying employees, general business evilness etc. Wham bam there you go, you have a business model. Human beings will never be happy with what they have because they are never truly happy period. We have to solve problems to make ourselves feel worth while, but the solutions never present the grand reward we are hoping for, the relief we seek always seems one problem solve away, just out of reach. This in turn leads to phrases like 'the grass is always greener on the other side' and it makes people create such rules as 'I shall no covet my neighbours ass' to live by and feel good about. But even with these age old long and complex rules being followed to the letter, they to strangely never seem to reach the personal fulfillment that they seek. --- It’s interesting also that people try to bypass the problem with trying to seek spiritual fulfillment. An ideal that if you follow a strict set of someone else’s (who’s actual existence is fundamentally uncertain) rules, then you will feel respected in their eyes. Do this for long enough and you hope you will be able to fill that gap with a ‘fulfillment’ that is pre packaged and stripped down to fit into an outdated two thousand year old civilization. Even the source isn’t not even pure, something which has been perverted and distorted from the original texts in the first place anyway. This, as you might imagine does not work. You still see people in religions as unhappy as ever, these people tend to skip from religion to religion trying to find one that is 'right for them' but in the long run all they are really looking for is personal fulfillment, they really haven’t found anything in any religion. They never will, they will continue looking until they realize that they are never going to find what they are looking for in religion. It’s the ones that settle on one religion, or have grown up with one religion as a child that are the most far from help yet ironically the closest at the same time. They have had it drilled into them from a very early age and there is unfortunately little hope for them, no matter how close they are they will never hit the target. However they are ironically almost the happiest of the bunch, having the blind faith and ultimate dismissal of all who disagree leads to a quite happy life, being convinced of your own righteousness is very comforting. However, to live like this you need to sacrifice one thing that I hold very close to my heart, your ability to see things for what they are. Your ability to be open to new ideas and new theories, the possibility to say "yes I’m wrong and hence forth I’ll change my rule". Not to have to say "No, my rule can’t be wrong, it says it can’t be" only to say later that "my rule is outdated and doesn’t reflect the nice clean politically correct changes of today, so of course it will need to be reinterpreted" No, for me spiritual fulfillment is not a substantial substitute for personal fulfillment, it just will not do, people who follow this way in my view are fundamentally flawed be it even in only one small way. This is what I mean when I say they are ‘so close’. They have the right idea -you have to ignore the search, you have to think of something else (the delusion of spiritual fulfillment) but while they are thinking about this they are not thinking about the things in life that are important and living life to the fullest possible extreme. They are spending too much of their precious time making sure they don’t offend some overly authoritarian father figure, one who a long time ago was overrun by fat cat profiteering pseudo businessmen. --- It’s now really late into the night, my seat is uncomfortable, the light is giving me headaches, the topic is tiring and the fire is burning dim. The lights will need to be switched off and plans about sleep will have to be made. With thought I study the beige buttons on my keyboard, ‘I’ll come back to this topic again’ I think ‘but for now, I’m going to stop’ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclamer - This content of this issue of Addendum is copyrighted the respective author whose name or handle should appear at the top of this page. You may copy this textfile but please keep it in its original configuration. Please note that the views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of addendum as a whole. Thankyou. ----------------------------------------------------------------------