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The final solution: Human consciousness and angst explained.
    #1766797 -

Last night I took some acid for the first time. I enjoyed it, but found it to be more recreational than mushrooms - and, after 6 hours, as the acid began to wind down, I ate some mushrooms to top off the experience.

So lying on my bed, enjoying the CEVs and contemplating life, my thoughts wandered to a basic concept of tripping: I am willing to accept discomfort for the sake of reaching a transcendental state; further, I acknowledge that the greater the transcendence, the greater the discomfort associated. Probably not an unfamiliar concept to any of you.

However, this was in the context of examining the basic problem of life - namely, the fact that one must always endure hardship and toil in life. One is always tied down to something; the only real hope is that after decades of work one can obtain enough wealth to retire and live in relative comfort for a while longer, as one's body and mind withers away and eventually dies.

But one eventually dies. This is seemingly inevitable, and something I came to peace with long ago. And I realized: Why should I bother with this? Why should I endure years of bullshit merely to die at the end of it?

Further, I came to view human consciousness in its current state as a flawed state - maybe a momentary flop sideways; a brief, awkward stage in the development of consciousness, a time of 44&2 before we can advance to 46&2. Or maybe the existence of consciousness tied to flesh in this manner is by its very nature flawed; an accident of evolution that is normally batted down immediately, but by some tragic twist of fate humans possessed enough fear of death and enough religious impulse to adapt to this unhappy state and utilize it for their own physical advancement.

Where should we be? The problem of existential angst is one seemingly peculiar to humans. The side effect of self-awareness in an advanced physical brain is that one possesses the capacity to question the state one is in, to question the basic fairness or purpose of one's own existence; and again, it has been the fear of death and the presence of religious impulse that has kept self-aware humanity still gasping for breath, rather than sink back into the warm darkness of animal instinct and existential satisfaction.

Again comes out the social taboo built so heavily by the government against the use of mind-altering substances, and against suicide. Again comes out the constant urging to find "God" (noting that most religions regard suicide as a mortal sin), get married, have children, contribute to society - in one long, pointless life, with its inevitable conclusion of death.

Yet it is suicide itself that is the answer to this. Every now and then there comes a person who sees beyond the pathetic facade that humanity has become, and realizes the only true answer comes in crucifying the ego not for a few hours with the aid of a drug, but for eternity through the severing of mind from body.


And thus I saw that just as I am willing to endure nausea and cramping and jaw tension to reach a few hours of enlightenment, so I am perhaps willing to endure a few minutes of intense pain to reach an eternity of enlightenment. Some may call it the coward's path, but these are the people that needlessly submit to the pointless and pathetic hardships of life; these are the people that do not see the pointlessness of enduring this for decades when one can leave it behind today.


--------------------
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom... keep that in mind at all times."

--Bill Hicks (RIP)

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Re: The final solution: Human consciousness and angst explained. [Re: Pyronate]
    #1766965 -

As much as I agree with you, I trust my animal instinct to live just for the sake of living. My self awareness is too skiddish and loopy.. It's like an explorer out in foreign lands, while my instinct to live is like the warmy cozy homestead, that stands firm and vigil, rooted to the earth.
I don't care how many hardships there are.. as far as I'm concerned it is a test. (handed out by creation itself, we have no one to complete the test for but ourselves.) I'll keep going till inhumanly possible. (death)

Thanks though, the air of pointlessness to life in your post inspired me to be myself even more.

I don't want to try and change your mind, it's something you'll have to do on your own. I think you may have lost communication with a part of yourself but it's just waiting to return. All I can say is REALLY THINK ABOUT THAT ONE. You are human whether you like it or not. I agree that we just 'happened' but I think the act in itself is divine. It does not need a god or a purpose. It just IS and it's absolutely beautiful no matter how shitty it seems at times.

be patient man

peace

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Re: The final solution: Human consciousness and angst explained. [Re: Grav]
    #1767063 -

Death and Life, what's the difference? If you haven't crucified the ego while you're alive what makes you so sure it will happen all by itself when you're dead? At least you know (or have a good enough reason to have faith through the example of others) that the crucifixion of the ego is POSSIBLE while you're alive. Who knows what the possibilities or lack thereof are when you're dead?


--------------------
What you're searching for is what's searching.

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Re: The final solution: Human consciousness and angst explained. [Re: Grav]
    #1767112 -

Grav said:
I don't care how many hardships there are.. as far as I'm concerned it is a test. (handed out by creation itself, we have no one to complete the test for but ourselves.)


But then there is no reason to complete the test, unless you're trying to prove to yourself that you can.

Quote:
I don't want to try and change your mind, it's something you'll have to do on your own. I think you may have lost communication with a part of yourself but it's just waiting to return. All I can say is REALLY THINK ABOUT THAT ONE.


I have, in great depth. I've never gone ahead and done it; in a past shroom trip I became aware that I possess a fear of doing anything with significant permanent consequences. But this thought is nothing new; years ago, when I first stripped down my belief system, analyzed and rebuilt it, I came to the issue of whether or not to live, and decided I might as well live, at least or a while. The decision to persist seems to have been spawned from a residual religious fear that I would "go to hell" if I killed myself; my current stance on this is that if there really IS a God who is loving, compassionate, etc., he would understand why I did what I did and would not condemn me for it. He cannot hold against me transgression of a rule I do not know exists.

Quote:
You are human whether you like it or not. I agree that we just 'happened' but I think the act in itself is divine. It does not need a god or a purpose. It just IS and it's absolutely beautiful no matter how shitty it seems at times.


But, frankly, I don't see it as either divine OR beautiful. I see it as a tragic evolutionary accident - yes, it led to our species establishing dominance over this planet, but it created that peculiar state of existential angst that cannot be cured; it can only be ignored, through the use of irrational means of self-delusion. And I see no reason to stoop to such means.

Quote:
be patient man


I have been. But it's not a matter of waiting it out; ultimately, life is merely a matter of waiting for death - and why wait?


It's not a result of sadness or clinical depression or distaste at some bad turn of events in my life. It's an evaluation of a basic problem of existence in this flesh, and a realistic analysis of my options.


--------------------
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom... keep that in mind at all times."

--Bill Hicks (RIP)

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Re: The final solution: Human consciousness and angst explained. [Re: Pyronate]
    #1767134 -

so every moment you ever had was just a waste of time? you have no desire for those anymore?
Is there nothing you are insanely angry about and want to change?

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Re: The final solution: Human consciousness and angst explained. [Re: Grav]
    #1767182 -

if this is the case then why are you wasting your time on this forum? why are you communicating?

face it, you are still curious of yourself and of life, you are still searching.

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Re: The final solution: Human consciousness and angst explained. [Re: Grav]
    #1767408 -

In my opinion, there are more worthwhile things to do with the life thats been given to you, either by accident or on purpose. Let's just assume that no God even exists for a moment, and that you have no spiritual consequences for "sins". So in this scenario, if you ended your life now, there would be no punishment. Though, it has been a common idea that hell is not a place at all, but more of a state of suffering, like an eternal guilt-trip and sadness. So there is no god, no afterlife or whatever. Just think of all the possibilities, and all of the amazing things that one with nothing to lose could do? First, if there was ever a time where I considered suicide more seriously than i ever have, I would ask myself why i would want to choose such a path. If you asked yourself that, and came up with an answer, couldn't you also give it everything you've got to try and change that aspect of life that torments you? wouldn't be willing to die for it? think of all the great causes to die for when you are ready to leave this world regardless.I believe that everyone has been given this life to do something spectacular, and its up to us to choose whether we do or not. I agree with Grav, that this is definitly something to reaalllly think about. Just think of all the endless possibilities of things to do with a life you don't have to worry about. Wouldn't you wanna leave a mark on the world?


--------------------
-------------------------------------------------
We're all children here, so could we please start acting like it?

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Re: The final solution: Human consciousness and angst explained. [Re: Pyronate]
    #1767436 -

years ago, when I first stripped down my belief system, analyzed and rebuilt it

Replacing one belief system with another belief system does not change anything. Quit thinking too much about how you should live your life and just live it. Peace.

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Re: The final solution: Human consciousness and angst explained. [Re: chodamunky]
    #1768436 -

I hear where you're coming from.  What I've realised is that we ALL think about this at one point or time.  Death is (you guessed it!) a part of life - everyone that you meet in your life time will one day no longer exist - EVERYONE - so everyone (for the most part) has a fair shot at things.  There are differences in culture, race, religon, and creed - but one thing remains: we're all human.
We're all moving at about 30 kilometers + rotation around this massive thing we can't get close to, only able to speculate on whether or not there's more to 'it' then 'this' .. 

Don't let it get to you - go with the flow.  We're all here together, and there's not a whole lot you can do about it.  Let it ride and have a good time while you're doing it.  If that involves a little discomfort here and there to help you enjoy the infinite possibilities of the most complex organic piece of equipment ever discovered, so be it!  Just do what you know is right, and things should work out just fine! :wink: 


--------------------
No one knows the worth of innocence till he knows it is gone forever, and that money can't buy it back. Not the saint, but the sinner that repenteth, is he to whom the full length and breadth, and height and depth, of life's meaning is revealed. Good and evil loose all objective meaning and are seen as equally necessary and contrasting elements in the masterpiece that is the universe.

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Re: The final solution: Human consciousness and angst explained. [Re: nubious]
    #1768521 -

Enduring bullshit?

You're here on this planet, no point in bitchin'. Live life how you want. You only got one of them, as far as I know! :wink:




--------------------
Fold for The Shroomery!

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Re: The final solution: Human consciousness and angst explained. [Re: Pyronate]
    #1768813 -

this passage from my tattered copy of Hesse's Steppenwolf. take strength.

". . . What was said above on the subject of suicides touches obviously nothing but the surface. It is psychology, and , therefore, partly physics. Metaphysically considered, the matter has a different and a much clearer aspect. In this aspect suicides present themselves as those who are overtaken by the sense of guilt inherent in individuals, those souls that find the aim of life not in the perfecting and molding of the self, but in liberating themselves by going back to the mother, back to God, back to the all. Many of these natures are wholly incapable of ever having recourse to real suicide, because they have a profound consciousness of the sin of doing so. For us they are suicides nonetheless; for they are ready to cast themselves away in surrender, to be extinguished and to go back to the beginning.

As every strength may become a weakness (and under some circumstances must) so, on the contrary, may the typical suicide find a strength and a support in his apparent weakness. Indeed, he does so more often than not. The case of Harry, the Steppenwolf, is one of these. As thousands of his like do, he found consolation and support, and not merely the melancholy play of youthful fancy, in the idea that the way to death was open to him at any moment. It is true that with him, as with all men of his kind, every shock, every pain, every untoward predicament at once called forth the wish to find an escape in death. By degrees, however, he fashioned for himself out of this tendency a philosophy that was actually serviceable to life. He gained strength through familiarity with the thought that the emergency exit stood always open, and became curious, too, to taste his suffering to the dregs. If it went too badly with him he could feel sometimes with a grim malicious pleasure: "I am curious to see all the same just how much a man can endure. If the limit of what is bearable is reached, I have only to open the door to escape." There are a great many suicides to whom this thought imparts an uncommon strength."

Hermann Hesse from Steppenwolf 1929

Edited by tomatoes (08/01/03 12:52 PM)

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Re: The final solution: Human consciousness and angst explained. [Re: tomatoes]
    #1768913 -

1961 author's note to Steppenwolf fwiw:

"Poetic writing can be understood and misunderstood in many ways. In most cases the author is not the right authority to decide on wheree the reader ceases to understand and the misunderstanding begins. Many an author has found readers to whom his work seemed more lucid than it was to himself. Moreover, misunderstandings may be fruitful under certain circumstances.

Yet it seems to me that of all my books Steppenwolf is the one that was more often and more violently misunderstood than any other, and frequently it is actually the affirmative and enthusiastic readers, rather than those who rejected the book, who have reacted to it oddly. Partly, but only partly, this may occur so frequently by reason of the fact that this book, written when I was fifty years old and dealing, as it does, with the problems of that age, often fell into the hands of very young readers.

But among readers of my own age I also repeatedly found some who -- thought they were impressed by the book -- strangely enough perceived only half of what I intended. These readers, it seems to me, have recognized themselves in the Steppenwolf, identified themselves with him, suffered his griefs, and dreamed his dreams; but they have overlooked the fact that this book knows of and speaks about other things besides Harry Haller and his difficulties, about a second, higher, indestructible world beyond the Steppenwolf and his problematic life. The "Treatise" and all those spots in the book dealing with matters of the spirit, of the arts and the "immortal" men oppose the Steppenwolf's world of suffering with a positive, serene, superpersonal and timeless world of faith. This book, no doubt, tells of grief and needs; still it is not a book of a man despairing, but of a man believing.

Of course, I neither can nor intend to tell my readers how they ought to understand my tale. May everyone find in it what strikes a chord in him and is of some use to him! But I would be happy if many of them were to realize that the story of the Steppenwolf pictures a disease and crisis -- but not one leading to death and destruction, on the contrary: to healing"

bold, itallics and color are mine.  :ooo: 

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Re: The final solution: Human consciousness and angst explai [Re: Pyronate]
    #1769066 -

Quote:
But one eventually dies. This is seemingly inevitable, and something I came to peace with long ago. And I realized: Why should I bother with this? Why should I endure years of bullshit merely to die at the end of it?


Having a mortal lifespan is just the most annoying of all the conditions of human existence. But the human condition has many lesser limitations, in addition to this one. If you really have come to peace with the inevitability of your own death, and you now accept this as a limiting factor for your existence, then you should try and accept the other limitations in the same way.

If you think that your own life must be limited to endurance followed by some relative comfort for a while before you die, and that's all that matters, then you must never have transcended your ego and seen your own existence from the deathless perspective. When you do that, you'll find that the only thing suicide does is to end one life prematurely. Everything else stays the same, apart from the contributions you could have participated with but didn't, and apart from the sorrow your suicide may have caused the people who love you.

Quote:
The problem of existential angst is one seemingly peculiar to humans. The side effect of self-awareness in an advanced physical brain is that one possesses the capacity to question the state one is in, to question the basic fairness or purpose of one's own existence; and again, it has been the fear of death and the presence of religious impulse that has kept self-aware humanity still gasping for breath, rather than sink back into the warm darkness of animal instinct and existential satisfaction.


I often think about us humans as the missing link between animals and intelligent life-forms... :smile:
 

Edited by Rhizoid (08/01/03 11:29 AM)

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Re: The final solution: Human consciousness and angst explai [Re: Rhizoid]
    #1770020 -

just for future reference, the "final solution" is already someone else's idea/name. you'll have to choose a new one to kill yourself under.


seriously though, I've thought about this quite a bit. the short answer it that we are a dissident part of the whole, and that the other part is trying to tell us that we're not supposed to be incarnate-- but here's the kicker--that part is lying. I don't think there's really a guiding force looking down at us (it's us, it's me, etc) but there is an intention that we can almost remember, and that intention manifests as instinct.

don't let them fool you, there's lots of partying and tripping and art making and self expression and motorsycle riding and etc etc etc to do down herr... believe you me.


--------------------
The ultimate meaning of our being can only be fulfilled in the paradoxical leap beyond the tragic-demonic frustration. It is a leap from our side, but it is the self-surrendering presence of the Ground of Being from the other side.
- Paul Tillich

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Re: The final solution: Human consciousness and angst explai [Re: Malachi]
    #1770044 -

As long as we are in existence we will continually be tested. Escaping this life will make it so you wont continue on? Continue on here, until you die an inevitable death. Then in the next existence you can do it all over again. Why shorten the experience? Take pleasure in the simple things in life. Like pain. Just into an arctic lake, you'll remember why you want to live.


--------------------

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Re: The final solution: Human consciousness and angst explai [Re: Rhizoid]
    #1770079 -

Rhizoid said:
Having a mortal lifespan is just the most annoying of all the conditions of human existence. But the human condition has many lesser limitations, in addition to this one. If you really have come to peace with the inevitability of your own death, and you now accept this as a limiting factor for your existence, then you should try and accept the other limitations in the same way.


I don't see death as a limitation so much as an inevitable release.

Quote:
If you think that your own life must be limited to endurance followed by some relative comfort for a while before you die, and that's all that matters, then you must never have transcended your ego and seen your own existence from the deathless perspective.


I have not yet completed my journey into psychedelic self-exploration; that may be one of the reasons I bother to continue living - a desire to push further into the realms of chemically aided introspection.

Regardless. It's not even relative comfort before death, because at that point one's body and mind is deteriorating (and has been for a long time before that). Ultimately, one's body begins to decay at around age 25, and the mind at around 30; it's all downhill from there.

Quote:
When you do that, you'll find that the only thing suicide does is to end one life prematurely. Everything else stays the same, apart from the contributions you could have participated with but didn't, and apart from the sorrow your suicide may have caused the people who love you.


What I leave behind in this life is not something that bothers me. I don't think I'd care about missed opportunities when I was dead. As to sorrow of those that love me: They should not have such sorrow; they should see that I have been released from this mortal coil, and respect the fact of my transcendence. But odds are they would not, for they are blind (metaphorically, not literally); their sorrow would be their own fault.

Quote:
I often think about us humans as the missing link between animals and intelligent life-forms... :smile:


:smirk:


--------------------
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom... keep that in mind at all times."

--Bill Hicks (RIP)

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Re: The final solution: Human consciousness and angst explai [Re: Pyronate]
    #1770143 -

You have alot of pure unanalyzing feeling waiting for you when you decide to enter your life again.

Maybe it is just a primitve animalistic type function, but what makes it any less importance than some advanced method of self awareness? nothing. your self awareness just has an ego problem and wants to be on top of everything all the time.

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Re: The final solution: Human consciousness and angst explai [Re: Pyronate]
    #1770267 -

Quote:
Pyronate said: Ultimately, one's body begins to decay at around age 25, and the mind at around 30; it's all downhill from there.


hey, watch it buddy. i resemble that statement. lolz  :wink:

you know Pyronate, after a night like you describe, you might want to get some rest. bet you feel a lot better in a couple of days.  :thumbup:     

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Re: The final solution: Human consciousness and angst explai [Re: tomatoes]
    #1770904 -


I used to want to live a long life, now I don't really want that for some reason. I don't think I could stand being old.

I find myself cought up in worry- I worry about my financial future and how I will survive, when I know that it could be so much easier with a less complex society. I just want the basics, and I want to do what I love doing. I just have to fit it all in the pitcure somewhere.

This is such an artificial existance nowadays imo, and I just want some stability. I understand not wanting to deal with it and all, but killing yourself just seems like what a weak person would do. There is always something to do here on earth, you just gotta try not to get tangled up in all the bullshit.


--------------------
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know,
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection,
Is it all you want it to be?


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