0.
The actual taboo upon
strategic planning: What can
ever become more toxic than the great divide, sheer failure of imagination, between passive lofty philosophical
inquiry,
inert and never building strategy much less taking action, and practical
discussion willfully and woefully uniformed by abstract reasoning or background
research, and therefore unteachably condemned
only to the most rash, simplistic and misguided action? Riddle me this:
When is the concrete abstract? Answer: Whenever reasoning is argued. All
sound practical consideration resorts to abstract principle, just as all
sound abstract reasoning must be informed by
Empirical
practicality. Otherwise, positions become arbitrary. And it happens all the
time!
As shall be seen, the above rhetorical
questions, in application, can even become literally a matter of life and
death! Exactly this fallacious paradigm is
actually formalized in the disastrous lunatic irresponsible firewall between
medical research and medical practice, expressly in order to keep doctors in the
dark as regards progress in cutting edge research, and researchers in the dark
about real life practice. The toxic rationale, incidentally, is verificationism
or justificationism, the long refuted
Epistemological and
Methodological doctrine
that science consists of heteronomy to firm
foundation in an ever growing corpus of verified or justified
knowledge. -All inspired by
dread of uncertainty because of fallibility in the human condition, and
therefore of autonomy in Hypothetic-Deductive
Method by which we learn only from our mistakes. And What bridges abstract and
Axiological morality with
Ontology
of concrete
reality,
remains nothing more or less than responsibility to foreseeable consequences of
free
choice deciding among
alternatives in taking action.
Philosophy
and
habits
of clear
thinking,
creative
and
deductive,
convergent
and
divergent,
abstract and concrete,
all
remain
ever
crucial.
Because
information which one can express and yet is not used, although seemingly
available, may often never be brought to bear in dealing with actual
situations.
Perhaps improperly indexed or mindlessly memorized for an exam. Such
knowledge may
be called:
inert.
For example, abstract principles never brought to bear and applied to
concrete circumstances as ever arising. "A dunce once searched for fire
with a lit lantern!" Thus writ are the
koans, plain and profane. The knowledge
was
inert!
Alas then prevailing
social, institutional and cognitive segregation under anti-intellectual
anti-intraceptive
taboo
upon
bridging abstract and
concrete.
Anti-intellectualism
being
defined
as
hostility and mistrust
towards
intellect,
intellectuals,
intellectualism,
and
deprecation
of
culture
whatsoever,
but
perhaps
more
precisely
designated
as
anti-intraception
defined as
discomfort or
even opposition in very
principle, toward
the
subjective,
the imaginative, the
tender minded.
Alas all
cretin philistine witless pragmatism, practicality and
boredom
with idle curiosity, that spurns all understanding as dull and needless. And
alas all snobbery of rarified contemplation too lofty for
banal
Empiricism or crass
utility, soiling ones hands with
worldly
power
and advantage.
Because
philosophy indeed risks
living down to ill repute as unbalanced and ivory tower effete, unless ever
bridging
the gap and maintaining connection between unquenched Promethean
fire of the mind,
being generality of abstraction, and the veritable wick, being the
specificity of Empirical
practicality.
In truth,
compartmentalization between the
abstract and the concrete,
remains a prevalent and highly effective conservative memeplex, undermining
both Empirical science
and transfer from scientific discovery into empowering
practical strategy for undertaking
capable
and effective
action.
Cognitive
inertia,
indeed! Thus confusing the ever hapless masses into such blithe dependency
upon
heteronomy
to hierarchical dominance and authority.
Indeed regarding hoped for
liberation into purposeful and
substantive
deliberation,
analytic yet strategic
as attempted herein,
all sound practical
consideration needs must resort to abstract principle, just as all sound
abstract reasoning needs must continually remain informed by
Empirical
practicality
The very word: 'responsible,' not in the sense merely
of obligation or accountability to anyone else, or of having caused some or
other result, but in the sense of the very capacity to think and act
responsibly, derives from portmanteau of two other words: 'response-able,'
denoting denoting initiative, the resourcefulness to assess and initiate things
independently, and the very ability to respond rather than merely to react if
even that, to think and to act rationally, a capacity so integral to
autonomy.
Realism is the
honest
and creditable endeavor to present conditions
truthfully in correspondence to reality,
and an attitude or practice of accepting and confronting circumstances as they
are and being prepared to deal with whatever
situation responsibly, in rejection
of the inaccurate and impractical. But it will be a mistake therefore also to
reject the abstract, the speculative and theoretical so integral to higher order
thinking, thinking for oneself, for
capable
autonomy.
For such anti-intellectual false pragmatism as indeed to reject or to neglect
the abstract, the speculative and theoretical, turns out to be vastly and so
dangerously unrealistic!
Because as all too often, except by
bridging
abstract and concrete, anything less becomes senseless and
arbitrary. And once set into motion of research and preparation, even before
then taking
action,
already makes for an important outcome towards
authentic wellbeing.
Because as the saying goes:
life is the journey,
the ongoing experience even however arduous and uncertain, and not just
deferred gratification in the destination or desired result in hoped for
success. And in
charting any path along the way, all sound practical consideration resorts
to abstract principle, just as all sound abstract reasoning must remain ever
informed by
Empirical
practicality. Because precisely such is the nature of
collaboration
among equals in
brainstorming
and creative
solution
finding:
That anything truly concrete must be framed in abstraction. Especially
anything new. That description comes prior to recommendation. That any good
must first be conceived of, before even becoming desired. Indeed that
nothing will be too good, when lucid and striven for in earnest. That
imperative no matter how explicit, all therefore indeed first begins from
reasoned observation.
-
“People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring
explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is
subversive about
love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people
have a corpse in their mouth.”
— Raoul Vaneigem
Wouldn't it be nice to bet on the horse,
only after it has crossed the finish line and won the race? But to dare not so much as the very secret
desire, until certainty arrives, that is only sour
grapes. Yes,
just for prime example, the paradoxical responsibility and ultimate heroic measures of
Cryonics
may epitomize all that is
speculative,
experimental and uncertain endeavor, in
the
creative
tension
of tantalizing engineering feasibility. But
for any individual person, still unamazed even with the latest
emergency room breakthroughs, waiting
until the first success in more radically delayed resuscitation
and reanimation, even
experimentally of very small mammals, might be like
waiting until the coastal cities flood before buying into all that
global warming
fuss and pother: Too
little too late! Indeed, is
Cryonics
selfishness distance induced? For even though
death is well recognized
among the most obvious roots of
Existential depression in the human condition,
nevertheless death itself is still generally simply accepted as inevitable.
Hence even the taboos against
Cryonics and Radical Life Extension research towards
a cure for aging and the eradication of natural death, may be regarded
as only a special application of a far broader ubiquitous and sinister
Nihilistic master memeplex, not only the longstanding justificationist
taboo
against uncertainty and the truth that hypothesis begins in unfounded
conjecture, but actually the taboo
against
relevance in and of itself, of possibility, of learned
helpless taboo, replete with
Inductivism even to the point of
the oracular, never to dare bridge reciprocally
inert
knowledge of the
near and
far:
For, as Dr.
Chen Yehezkely points out, at the most proximate and concrete
all doubt vanishingly diminishes, becoming too small and few really to
necessitate much rational deliberation, all readily a matter of simplest
expedience. While in the loftiest even
Metaphysical abstraction, doubt so vastly unfolds and
diffuses as to render rational deliberation increasingly impossible, and thus
we often may even be tempted to readily fall back upon authority or arbitrary
choice, even in any sheer leap of faith. Whereas, rational deliberation open
to controversy,
dispute, criticism
and dissent, resides neither in the completely concrete nor in the totally
abstract, but in any intermediate range between, where, in so many surprising ways,
the concrete even informs the abstract, and abstract principle may ever guide
concrete considerations.
Thus that
bogus support group
mentality taboo
upon strategic planning,
proscribing the abstract from the practical, the vocational from the
theoretical, the
near and
far, and all vice versa that never the twain should meet, is a highly
successful conservative device or memplex surviving from antiquity, indeed
undermining all intimacy, preventing alike, lofty principles
from guiding practical action, and practical observation from informing and
revising broader abstract principles, not only retarding
Empirical scientific
progress, but also responsible morality bearing
in mind foreseeable consequences, indeed ruling out even strategy as such, which
by definition means application of principles into practical action under
Empirical observation of
situation. And that is why coercion
remains the default tool of policy, one way or another, in everything from
education and economics to foreign affairs,
while democracy is seen as an at all desirable luxury only under the right guarantees
of correct decisions, but tactically
irrelevant,
rather than an actual viable principle of policy solution for the remedy of all
manner of adverse conditions. Clearly, the
abstract and yje concrete, the
near and
far, will never
relevantly harmonize in such bizarre and deformed segregation, keeping
action stupid, thinking blind and both entirely rudderless. Obviously,
cogent solution to any real problem demands both abstract reasoning and concrete
Empirical practicality.
Indeed only thus is the world around us even intelligible.
Thus perhaps the most insidiously
expansively and pervasive heteronymous
taboo
of superficiality in our times, routinely violated here on
FoolQuest.com,
is the trenchantly ingrained taboo upon any and
all questions of
relevance as manifest in the strict segregation of
near and
far that inxludes all lofty Philosophical abstraction,
Axiological
principle and scientific quest for truth and the perspective afforded thereby,
from tangible and immediate practicality, strategy and action. -the effective
segregation of the grasping of principles from the exigency of practical
endeavor guaranteeing the
hypocrisy of uplifting lofty Philosophical
principles with no practical impact, or else sanctimonious Hell-bent
irresponsible Moralistic ideology heedless of foreseeable consequence and any need of
serious problem solving, all together with equally pointless, purpose defeating,
irrelevant
and destructive pragmatic or routine practical undertaking and tactics bereft of guiding
vision and
therefore often actually purpose defeating and frequently ending
repeatedly in
tragic
Peripeteia.
For happiness, Epicurus espoused freedom,
friendship and thought.
Indeed:
Happy
people talk more seriously together, freely,
and with less
small talk.
Because otherwise, to quote Olmstead: “After all is said and done, much is said and little is done.” And to quote Benjamin Disraeli:
"Action may
not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.”
Indeed, one feature of serious conversation is
agenda, moving
from the abstract and general, to the concrete and particular. Characteristics
of
agenda
are open ended inquiry in the practice of
criticism
and controversy,
strategic planning into action and expanding
collaboration.
Agenda
is therefore
so often
taboo. In any bureaucracy,
especially as in any way influenced by or affiliated to what passes for
education, if
calls to
agenda
cannot simply be ignored or condemned, they will typically be countered with
call for compromise in the name of convention and sensitivity, all amounting to
the heteronymous
annihilation of all the aforementioned responsible and
liberating characteristics of
agenda.
The taboo
in question applies against any other attempt to bring abstract question to bear
in practical strategy or even experiment, or likewise ever to exceed the bounds
of third degree pipedreaming by rendering game changing concepts into strategy and
application or
action
agenda. Why, even Sigmund Freud on his very
death bed, was bullied into the abandonment of
any mission of
social change, relegating Psychoanalysis to the function of comforting suffering
patients in Philosophical reconciliation with personal tragedy.
And of course
ever more pervasive and insidious
Behaviorism increasingly
taboos
even that!
For further examples, the principles of
justice and the banality of injustice are never deemed a practical issue in
dealing with the problems of serial bullying; our social routines grow ever more perfunctory and stultifying, because
intrinsic emotional needs of human nature are never allowed to inform
superficial strategic action mounted towards social
success or in resolution of
loneliness
or
boredom;
and of course, the exploration of outer space and the deep oceans is trivialized
as a cultured luxury along with the arts, and never yet fully
envisioned and exploited
as the transformative technological solution to revolutionize all of our
Terrestrial problems.
And as Dr.
Chen Yehezkely points out,
the perhaps inherent
ambivalence of the open democratic society we so cherish,
particularly in the practice of openness comes in our sense of moderation to be
less than completely open, because some things must remain sacrosanct and
inviolate. True enough. But which values
shall be inviolately sacrosanct? Indeed, in truth, are any really? To ask so
broadly and flatly is taboo. In particular, we
all cleave to the sanctity of human life, while at the same time embracing the
sacrifice even of human life in defense or pursuit of other cherished and urgent
values
and priorities. This invites every question as to under which circumstances and
subject to what restrictions must life be risked, given or taken?
Dishonest
taboo
squeamishness to confront such key questions that are invited, begged, directly
and courageously, all simply as a matter of routine antiseptic exposure to
daylight, can only result in policy that is tragically half baked, reckless and
worse.
Indeed, such real prospects as of
Cryonics and radical life extension, let alone
anti-abortion lunatic fantasies of
conscious zygotes, only further press the
issue: Exactly why do we kill and die? The question is more than rhetorical
lament, more than only lofty and
Existential but urgently practical and immediate.
To
wit, how well
observed in foreign policy analysis of our various costly and failed policies of
coercion, it is that the United States of America is all in favor of democracy in
countries of no strategic importance. Prioritizing stability and therefore
perpetually destabilizing politically volatile regions around the world, the lofty abstract principle of democracy
is routinely relegated a nicety and a luxury prioritizing the strategic
practicality and unteachable Philistine Realpolitik exigency of global security
and national interest! Lofty ideology justified heedlessly unprincipled
expedience. Whereas, most notably
George Soros, despised by
perfectionist Utopist all-or-nothing Manichean ideologues on both
the Left and the Right, the pioneering Robin Hood like international financier
with his own highly successful and cost effective personal foreign policy, his
doctrine of constructive positive intervention, that actually strategizes and
nurtures democratic
and free market grassroots action, foreign and domestic, by
piecemeal
engineering, immediate small and reversible steps as events unfold.
The intimidating schism of discourse into
the impractically lofty and the mindlessly pragmatic, practical and well precedented,
is one of the most successful and enduring conservative tactics and a deeply
engrained taboo that few people dare violate, much less so flagrantly as here on
FoolQuest.com
Because what is there truly important, compelling and transformative in life no less than in
drama, except as regards
character
growth out from the near
practical implications and application of the
near and
far, lofty and abstract, and vice
versa?
Alas, all intention of implementation
whatsoever from any reasoned guiding principle or research whatsoever, is
commonly subject to virulent attack as impractically and repressively Utopian,
just as seeking to draw plans of action beginning only from the exploration of
whatever general principles and background research as deemed
relevant before
committing in haste to tangible specifics ("Measure twice, do once" as the
saying goes!), is so often scorned and derided as
Utopian
pipedreaming when
it's exactly the very opposite!
Thus precisely, is such unconventional
considered action as requisite to substantive change effectively fnorded out,
swept into an heteronymous collective blind
spot of fear and loathing, ruled out of order by adamant unwritten
consensus.
1. What is the
meaning
of life?
First of all, as to
meaning:
Meaning is
comprehension in the mind. There is no inherent
meaning to all
that simply is.
Hence:
The TRUE
MEANING
of LIFE
is that HAPPINESS is subjective
wellbeing, an INDIVIDUALLY REACTIVE STATE
VARIABLE to howsoever favorable circumstances,
objectively.
Wherein: (pleasure +
engagement +
meaning) ÷ t =
gratification over time = fulfillment
resulting from actively doing whatever one loves for whatever
intrinsic value
of whichever activity in and of itself.
2. What is happiness in life?
Even given the above,
individual power and close
relationships are by that token all the more important to
happiness.
Eudemonia = freedom +
friendship + thought
where freedom and power =
autonomy +
capability.
Moreover,
effective networking is often crucial to
success.
Happiness comes in
Eudemonia,
in the Menschlichkeit of
meeting ones needs by capable interaction with
responsible others.
Engagement,
visceral or intellectual, elicits the
intrinsic
motivation
of perseverance and concentration. Underserved stimulus needs of nurture for
intelligence via optimal reciprocal
engagement include steady emotional support,
exploration and
fun, active participation, sensory
stimulation with opportunity for social interaction, freedom from undue
pressure and distress though suffused with a degree of
pleasurable intensity or:
eustress, with varied selection and alternatives of successive
novel challenges neither too easy and
boring nor too difficult
and frustrating, promoting lifelong
growth in a broad range of skills and interests,
intellectual, physical, aesthetic, social and emotional.
Therefore, for happiness, Epicurus
espoused freedom, friendship and thought. But we may add: freedom consists in
autonomy
together with
capability.
3. What are our
motivations
in life?
See: questions 1 & 2, above.
Of course material and physical needs of
comfort and survival will also obstruct
fulfillment,
unless satisfied. So the enduring ideal remains to achieve the means of meeting even material
tangible needs and comfort through doing what one loves: doing well by doing
good.
4. What defines
success?
Success is attainment of whatever
goals
put forth,
such as, in our case, love and happiness, not to mention comfort and survival,
or perhaps as best put:
authentic well being, all as above, in meeting ones needs by capable interaction with
responsible
others in autonomy,
capability,
friendship, freedom and
thought.
5. Implementation?
Lamentably, only
FoolQuest.com
strives at
(pre-)incubation
towards the underserved needs of perhaps more
ambitious aspiring cutting edge
Entrepreneurial collaboration from scratch,
perhaps even on your ideas (I'm looking and I'm interested!), teambuilding and business planning from the
most embryonic "kitchen table"
stage or phase,
implementation from first
concept to completion, showcasing
innovative
project proposals for business start-ups,
social entrepreneurship,
grassroots activism and more.
Anther underserved need pursued on
FoolQuest.com,
more playfully, is that of simply sharing creativity for its own joy by approaching online
collaborative fiction
writing more seriously, for a more valuable experience and output that
does not suck!
Automated
Sociometry and
Project Kriosgrad are two vastly different
social entrepreneurship
business models showcased here on
FoolQuest.com nevertheless bearing in common strategy of offering transformative services to the public that urgently need to be universal and
free of charge in order to function broadly as necessary in society, all at
comparably negligible cost from tremendous profit potential in the range of
lucrative fee and commission based service byproducts, with the
empathy
and deep human understanding for reframing commerce for
innovation of whole new
areas for growth.
-
-
-
-
-
6.
The
failure of conventionality:
The
conventional alternatives
in our lives....
-
-
To quote Russell Brand:
“Society is collapsing and people are starting
to recognize that the reason they feel like
they’re mentally ill is that they’re living in a
system that’s not
designed
to suit the human spirit.”
Yes,
alienation
baked in.
Indeed, even
most anciently in the repressively totalitarian curriculum of Plato's Academy,
the ancient prototype of all
formal education
as we have
known
it,
boredom
was deliberately inflicted upon students as a conservative
measure to test and filter in favor of
heteronomy
and conformity by weeding out
boredom
prone
original thinkers and
innovators,
purveyors of dangerous novelty, from rising to
influential positions in society.
In the
words of Albert Einstein:
“It is a miracle that
curiosity survives formal education.”
Ordeal of
oppression ensuing life long, in every walk of life, indeed as expounded
anon: at long last resolvable via simple first implementation of the present proposal:
Creativity can and Should be Social,
striving at nothing less than
Eudemonia,
the
value
maximization of precisely such vastly underserved
intrinsic
human needs, indeed the ever elusive
meaning
of
life
and freedom in an
Existentially
Absurd
and unfree
world.
-
Indeed, in accordance with
the common model of mental illness and treatment for maintenance of
better mental health, one way or another, a crucial path in life
remains that of what is called: self-work. And certainly, those various needs served by formal Psychotherapy if not already
in lay therapy, as it is sometimes called, meaning howsoever generally elsewhere in personal life less formally,
are certainly nothing less than crucial and irreplaceable. But
FoolQuest.com is
not therapeutic. And little, however, in the vast range of
therapeutic modalities and alternatives as such, however non directive,
respectful and supportive, remain so woefully
underserved as the pursuit, beyond insight alone, of
success and authentic
relationship in general and
friendship
especially, specifically in sharing the
authentic wellbeing that is
subjective and individually variable
intrinsic reactive happiness to
objectively favorable circumstances of
doing what one loves for whatever intrinsic
value, such being the unique primary focus uniquely of
FoolQuest.com
- Any endeavor towards unprecedented
solution finding
might benefit from a quick review of whatever range of existing
practice for which all manner of help and advice exists, plentifully,
including, first of all, the more conventional,
reasonable and moderately ambitious and solitary possible undertakings, especially starting small, reaching for the
low hanging
fruit, the more readily available will
be all manner of support, qualified advice and expert texts, already. So there
is far less of a gap to fill on that score.
-
-
“Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where
the fruit is?” —
Frank Scully, Variety, Frank's Scrapbook, September 1950
[Low-Hanging
Fruit, noun.
An
actual
or only deceptively perceived
excellent short-term opportunity.]
-
-All
too often unripe and
unpalatable-
And
yet, all too many experience an outcomes gap, meaning: no results
no matter one one does, only continual frustration under ever the same
sycophantic
user unfriendly
Existential
bait-and-switch, the same racket.
A racket is any
dishonest
scheme or ongoing
transaction,
all not as it contrives to present itself and as is tacitly accepted or
endured by the majority of those involved, but in actuality a
scam
or fraud, a deceptive
practice of coercion and
manipulation
conducted for the benefit of the few
cronies
at the expense of the many. Get with the program:
The program never
fails. You fail the program! The masses will always comply in ever greater
effort and diligence jumping through hoops and fighting amongst ourselves for
scraps, believing and rationalizing just about anything, all in order to obtain
whatever artificial scarcity and bait-and-switch, no matter how plainly
contrived. For it remains that
Eudemonia,
capable
relationship,
Eros
which is liberating union with alien difference,
and especially true
friendship,
will accrue
only for serious people, arising as byproduct of full
engagement
in
purposeful
interaction
and/or
substantive communication
and
never otherwise.
This holds true as manifest
and self-evident, because
all such hallmarks of
the
cult of
socialization
as:
heteronomy,
futility,
meaningless
mediocrity,
craven
social skills
and
hierarchically predictive
social cognition,
ever facile calculating
sycophancy
of emotionally distant
simple minded popularity and
social success,
all remain
nigh tautologically
antithetical
to the genuine close
involvement ever essential
of
autonomy,
values
and true
friendship.
The latter comprising the noble
philosophical
ambition
of
Eudemonia.
As
Socrates
so famously declares: “An unexamined life is not worth living for a
human being.”
For it is the oppressor, in all of his guises, who in whatever lies and subterfuge, exhorts the masses to cast aside all
values
and principles and never to think of feel too deeply.
Our
rôle
models, the star student, ideal employee,
perfect disciple or
model prisoner alike, are all
characterized, beyond mere responsive obedience and
passivity otherwise, by obsessive-compulsive eager beaver hard work and
initiative in anticipation of their superior's desires, without
complaint or resistance. Exactly such adaptation of enthusiastic
approval seeking, still held up as exemplary in order to vindicate
systemic failure and disappointment in most every walk of life, remains,
by hierarchical intent, indeed the benchmark that for better or worse,
most of us will fail and fall by the wayside, make do, for each to learn
their
place and accept one's lot. Gentle reader, have you a name for your
suffering? Mine might be:
heteronomy,
a pervasive feature in society of everything so
insufferable. So, what do I bring to the table? I
propose a unique solution, an alternative, but I
cannot do it alone. Can we talk?
It may well be that
I do not have what you need, but
dare we seek for
it together?
As
so excellently and eloquently expressed in that
Postmodern driving staccato
refrain of
The Godfathers:
“Birth,
School,
Work,
Death...”
-
“It's not that we need new ideas, but we need to stop having old ideas.”
— Edwin Land
FoolQuest.com is
not yet another website for
being
set up for failure
at every turn and in every walk of life, (in such
dystressing
user hostile
outcomes gap).
Nor
recreation (dreary
small
talk,
fake fun,
nightlife, etc., the dull and trivial
Ecclesiastically
futile and
meaningless
alienation
of
Existentially Absurd desperate effort and struggle to recover on one's own time and
expense, from the learned helpless sheer exhaustion, fear and loathing entailed
in...), formal education and
socialization
(that which none dare call: indoctrination or
brainwash),
employment, soul crushingly joyless workaholism in pursuit of material
success alone (e.g., Network
Marketing and similar
scams).
No solitary and self-reliant so called:
"well-formed plans"
(consisting of tasks and factors entirely under ones own control, even
abandoned entirely
to our own devices, and entirely without regard to actually getting results).
No such blatantly heteronymous
self-help/self-improvement
peer pressure fitting in socially howsoever
dishonestly and at the
dire cost of alienated
lonely boring and stressful compromise
ego-disyntonicly. Not via religion or
ideology, nor
Moralism even however
secular into self abnegation whether material,
sexual or otherwise. Nor
magic,
Zen or other
Mysticism or otherwise via inaction seeking
sheer apathetic
bliss intrapsychicly, entirely in a crushed spirit of resignation and hopeless disregard of external conditions
one way or the other. Nor likewise unflagging effort by sheer purported
power of positive
thinking
motivational cheerleading snake oil behavioral conditioning and
Transactionally
dysfunctional bogus support group
marshmallow throwing (blithe
dispensation and exchange of
invalidation
sickly sweet patronizingly insincere positive strokes or sweet nothings in
order reciprocally to pacify hesitation and discontent, a reciprocal sickly
sweet brush off). All in a'priori
abrogation of medical ethics in explicit
violation of the Freudian injunction against suggestion, not to mention even
further and more desperate levels of reaction formation as bolstered by thriving
industries of psychopharmaceutical medication and self medication,
currently feasible or
into possible
futures. -And
leave us not forget the most open exhortations to evil such as Fascism and
bullying,
even devil
worshiping sadomasochism outright...
That is your way, it is not mine, thus spake
Zarathustra! Seek then elsewhere for plenty of all such as above. ersatz exuberant consolation to insidiously
stultifying and perseverant plodding mediocre institutionalization
of docile heteronymous
denial and
alienation, the
sheer
skilled incompetence
of committee politics for the rest of us,
dishonest
Anti-Critical
lip service to false emotion and no end of existing resources all thereto, many claiming
such great reliability
and success. Indeed, alas how all such dubious
sublimation remains
woefully typical in the
Existential bait-and-switch of the human condition.
At the risk of arrogance, it has been rightly observed that
discourse online often tends to quantity over quality, and with much repetition.
And yet of course, there remain diamonds to be painstakingly sifted from the
effluence. To anyone espousing or defending any of those life options herein so
roundly rejected and condemned, I am available to debate the matter upon
request, but on one condition please. Do me this courtesy.
After all, I routinely do as much for others. In order to
save us all time and needless redundancy and keep our discourse fresh and
interesting, please at all read and familiarize yourself with the arguments here
on
FoolQuest.com
against whatever said life options that you espouse and seek to defend, in order
then to form whatever pertinent rebuttal instead of only blithely repeating
points already covered and countered here on
FoolQuest.com.
Such points already answered will only garner the response: Asked and
answered, along with the pertinent hyperlinked reference. Please: I
shouldn't need to explain this! Why should I be expected to take anything more
seriously than my opponents in any such a
controversy?
In the words of Eric Hoffer: "A mass movement [in contrast to a
practical organization] attracts and holds a following not because it can
satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion
for self-renunciation [...] to those who crave to be rid of an unwanted self."
Worse, ostensibly practical organizations such as those of formal
formal education and employment,
are actually just respectable mass movements in promulgation of
socialization and
self abnegation, once indeed
publicly embracing religion and virtue, and now instead even
Zen Mysticism and
Motivational
Behaviorism. Indeed historically, they all
have their ancient roots in cults, one way or another, with the dean, guild
master or corporate boss, all following in anointed footsteps of the High
Priests of old. There seems actually a lack of real new
vision. What
would a real practical organization opening congenially suitable doors for each
of us, particularly any conceivable practical organization as might be suited to
individuals in a democracy, even truly look like? That is a central question
here on
FoolQuest.com
And the only thing we have to sacrifice, is sacrifice itself!
Lonely
people often fall prey to their own wishful thinking and unrealistic
expectations, even sheer snake oil everywhere proffered to the vulnerable and
unwary. Lonely
people craving popularity, may often struggle to keep themselves occupied, drift
into unhealthy habits or even addiction of one kind or another, join into
dysfunctional social circles or bullying cliques, even gangs and cults, and enter into generally
unviable relationships.
Alas and astonishingly, across the
socio-political spectrum, no matter the range of ideological perspective upon
responsibilities, the
authentic wellbeing and
thriving that is
subjective and individually variable
intrinsic reactive happiness to favorable circumstances of
doing what one loves for whatever intrinsic
value, even the most ambitious
meaningful
collaboration,
autonomy,
friendship, freedom and
thought, such being the primary focus uniquely of
FoolQuest.com,
are elsewhere barely even considered if not fearfully
taboo from consideration at all, so really dismissed as
pipedream for wont
of prior foundation or justification!
Nor are values of authentic
relationship often found at the crux of any practical
outreach, as they so desperately need to be.
In society,
disarming
propaganda
manipulation
and
unremitting
cognitive
dissonance
come in
adjunct to
ongoing
coercion.
Thus the
chains upon
the mind
remain
distinct and
different
from those
upon the
body.
Alas that good
science and
engineering
feasibility
can be so
often
thwarted for
wont of
political
will and
public
consciousness.
Because of
prevailing
taboo
and
crimestop. At the
very least,
let truth to
power be shouted from
the roof
tops! Ever
popular and
propagated
denial
of
objective
physical
reality
is
magical
thinking and
delusion,
and all the
more
prevalent,
that timid
slave
mentality of
such blithe
acquiescence
to
chimerical
and ever mutable
and yet in
the meantime
constructed
and yet intractable social
reality.
Innovation
and
subversion
whereof
therefore beginning
even in deep
dark secret,
when
generally
speaking,
any two or
more begin
doing things
differently
and persist.
And yes, in
particular
as extolled
herein.
What is the
Matrix?
Wake
up,
Sheeple!
Here is the
Matrix: No
maya
or
samsāra
of Virtual
Reality, but
no less
constructed
and
chimerical
social
reality. An
insane
priority. A
will-o'-the-wisp!
And yet so
contractive. And when the
dance
finally
collapses
and
dissipates,
the spell
broken and
no longer
enforced, the dancers
ashamed and
benumbed, all just
walk away,
gaze forever
reciprocally
averted.
Such has it
ever been.
In the words
of Neil
Gabler: “American
society is a
society in
which
individuals
have learned
to prize
social
skills
that permit
them, like
actors, to
assume
whatever
rôle the
occasion
demands and
to "perform"
their lives
rather than
just live
them.”
And forced
cheerful
willful
positivity
and
interminably
vapid
small talk
notwithstanding,
a morbidly
serious
matter.
Nothing
could ever
be less
playful.
Competent or
incompetent,
whether in
true
hardnosed
practicality
or in sheer
aimless and
empty
acting
out
of
mimesis,
many all the
same remain
no less
consumed
with the
burning
question of
how to
perform as
expected and
to fit in:
How best to
placate The
Great
Faceless
They,
thereby to
obtain the
key to life,
playing
somebody
else's game.
Moreover, given
tautologically
that social
interaction
occurs only
between more
than one
entity, can
there even
be any such
thing as
individual
social
success?
Because
surely
cooperation
and team
effort is
required.
Otherwise,
individual
performance
notwithstanding,
any person
remains at
the mercy of
others,
therefore
ever fearful
of rejection
and
exclusion.
Perhaps
instead, by
whatever
criteria,
a better
measure of
success
might be in
due service
one way or
another,
within
societies
most broadly
or more
proximately,
to the needs
and desires
of each
participant
in whatever
constructed
social
reality.
Surely a
better
agenda
of better
functional,
more
emotionally
secure and
worthy a
striving
between
people of
good will,
responsible
adults. A
long overdue
paradigm
shift
away from,
in such
immature
unrelenting
subtext,
all such
harrowing
intimidation
of the
individual
as manifest
in the
endlessly
oppressive
and
destructive
dance of
hierarchical
dominance,
terrified
jockeying
for
power,
perpetual
suspicion,
justifiable
paranoia
and
necessary
hypocrisy,
that quashes
anything
happy and
genuine.
Alas that as
things stand, not
only the most
hapless and
broken, or even
the most
ordinary and
average, but
especially our
best and
brightest, so
often meet only
with failure and
frustration.
Nothing works!
Why then must it
come as any
shock to so
many, the very
idea that there
may remain not
only whatever
personal human
imperfection,
whatever various
defects of
individual
personality and
character,
great and small,
but also the
most intractably
severe and
pervasive
systemic
problems and
stumbling blocks
out there in the
world
at large? As if
the very notion
of such stock
iconoclasm,
where actually
anything new!
Indeed
as in the words
of Russell
Brand, that: “Society
is collapsing
and people are
starting to
recognize that
the reason they
feel like
they’re mentally
ill is that
they’re living
in a system
that’s not
designed
to suit the
human spirit.”
And speaking
of
bullying,
alas mean
spirit and
the decline
of civility.
Because far
better than
all such
fawning
sycophantic
social
skills,
hierarchically
predictive
social
aptitudes
and cynical
popularity
contest,
remains any
true social
grace of
honest,
trustworthy
and
creditable
Menschlichkeit
whereof
there remain
15 purported
signs.
And in the
words of
George
MacDonald:
“To
be
trusted
is a greater compliment than being loved.”
Therefore
beware the
18 Easy Ways to Destroy
trust.
Indeed, in
dedication
to
lofty
consummate
dharma
and right
action
of
Chivalric
values,
gaining élan
and repute,
artfully by
saving face
for others
who stumble,
as must we
all
eventually.
A far cry
from, so
much kinder
and more
noble, a
far, far
better thing
than any of
the usual
pointlessly
toxic
bullying
power
plays of
entrapment
and
humiliation.
And new
beginnings
in
autonomy,
freedom and
individual
will to
power
over ones
own life,
become
possible,
practical
and
practicable
in
outreach
together
intentionally
choosing how
and why to
interact and
relate
to one
another.
And no one
else need
approve.
-
A
dose
of
reality
-
Alas
that
as
things
stand,
not
only
the
most
hapless
and
broken,
or
even
the
most
ordinary
and
average,
but
especially
our
best
and
brightest,
so
often
meet
only
with
failure
and
frustration,
boredom and
loneliness.
Someone
once
kept
a
tabulation
of
time
and
expense
expended
in
using
an
online
dating
forum
until
“getting
to a
cup
of
coffee”
by
which
was
meant,
a
first
date
in
order
just
to
meet
in
person.
Let
alone
any
further
connection
or
interaction.
I
only
wish
I’d
kept
the
URL
of
the
article.
Now
why
is
said
missive
so
unusual?
Why
is
there
never
seen
anything
resembling
a
business
plan
for
the
considerable
personal
investment,
with
projections
of
time
and
effort
expended,
and
projected
results,
for
any
ongoing
endeavor
at
individual
social
outreach,
by
whatever
means,
online
or
IRL
(In
Real
Life,
offline
onsite)?
In
answer,
there
remain
two
obvious
possible
reasons:
That
prevailing
wisdom
about
just
putting
oneself
out
there,
is
all
just
half-baked
to
put
it
kindly,
and
because
any
dose
of
quantifiable
Empirical
reality
inevitably
remains
quite
bluntly
just
too
discouraging.
Social
climbing
and
fitting
in remains
an
eager
and
dedicated
full
time
job,
24-7.
For
such
remains
the
cult
of
socialization,
whatever
superficially
trendy
gloss
upon
the
most
enthusiastically
cornball
conformism.
-
-
Alas,
in
Existentially
Absurd
social
reality,
there
remains
such
dystressing
user
hostile
outcomes
gap,
wherein
instrumentality
equals
zero,
meaning,
even
causally
and
deterministically,
no
relationship
between
performance
and
outcome,
no
real
hope,
no
results
no
matter
what
one
does,
other
than
mounting
frustration
and
defeat.
So
much
then,
it
might
seem,
for
individual
real
world
freedom
and
capability. Society
is
no
conduit
to
success,
but
a
filter
of
the
incompetent
and
noncompliant
alike
and
without
distinction,
a
crushing
and
threatening
obstacle
course
to
be
overcome,
an
unremitting
chore
and
a
bore,
setup
for
failure;
thus
to
self-esteem,
a
proverbial
death
by a
thousand
cuts.
-
-
And
any
claims
to
the
contrary,
are
just
part
of
the
racket.
Indeed,
from
any
end
user
standpoint,
the
existing
system
has
remained
broken
from
time
immemorial.
Alas
the
masses
abide
in
false
hope
from
blinding
propaganda
myth.
And
what
a
racket!
A
racket,
no
matter
how
reputable,
can
be
any
dishonest
scheme
or
ongoing
transaction,
all
not
as
it
contrives
to
present
itself
and
as
is
tacitly
accepted
or
endured
by
the
majority
of
those
involved,
but
in
actuality,
indeed,
a
myth,
scam
or
fraud
of
heteronomy,
a
deceptive
domineering
practice
of
coercion
and
manipulation
conducted
for
whatever
benefit
of a
few
cronies
at
the
expense
of
the
many.
Nothing
works!
Why
then
must
it
come
as
any
shock
to
so
many,
the
very
idea
that
there
may
remain
not
only
whatever
various
defects
of
individual
personality
and
character,
great
and
small,
but
also
the
most
intractably
severe
and
pervasive
systemic
problems
and
stumbling
blocks
out
there
in
the
world
at
large?
As
if
the
very
notion
of
such
stock
iconoclasm,
where
actually
anything
new!
Indeed
as
in
the
words
of
Russell
Brand,
that:
“Society
is
collapsing
and
people
are
starting
to
recognize
that
the
reason
they
feel
like
they’re
mentally
ill
is
that
they’re
living
in a
system
that’s
not
designed
to
suit
the
human
spirit.”
-
-
And
yet
even
if
not
in
so
many
words,
the
admonition
seemingly
persists:
Just
get
with
the
program.
The
program
never
fails,
you
fail
the
program!
In
truth
however,
in
so
far
as
the
distinction
even
matters,
many
both
fail
and
are
being
failed,
as
they
see
it,
for
wont
of
meaning
and
intrinsic
fulfillment
necessary
in
order
to
sustain
pleasurable
engagement,
quite
regardless
of
all
extrinsic
reward,
punishment
and
broken
promise
of
conventional
life
options.
Indeed,
the
ranks
of
the
bored,
lonely,
isolated
and
alienated
ever
swell,
ripe
for
radicalization
and
renunciation
of
prevailing
values
one
way
or
another
and
of
one
kind
or
another.
And
if
not
in
mendacity
of
manipulative
empty
pandering
propaganda
to
rage,
destruction,
and
yes,
even
such
malice
as
the
most
extreme
coordinated
serial
bullying,
cause
inspired
or
otherwise,
if
not
even
more
extreme
violence
and
mayhem,
then
it
had
better
be
into
righteous
indignation,
constructively
idealistic
resistance
and
truth
to
power.
For
as
as
Socrates
so
famously
declares:
“An
unexamined
life
is
not
worth
the
living
for
a
human
being.”
-
-
Such
palpably
urgent
need
of
anything
so
radical
and
divergent
as
anywhere
proposed
herein,
arises
in
the
inherent
failure
so
typical
of
perpetual
heteronomy.
Indeed
enduring
and
unexamined
heteronomy
to
such
a
host
of
such
readily
debunked
standardized
life
options
of
flagrantly
well
refuted
conventional
expectation
and
propaganda
ideology.
Wake
up,
Sheeple!
And
all
the
more
so
as
regards
apologism
for
serial
bullying,
exploitation
and
abuse.
Even
the
urging
to
helpless
passive
forbearance
on
the
part
of
those
victimized.
And
all
hence
such
urgent
and
dire
need
of
CliqueBusters
TM,
embryonic
first
concept
proposed
of
the
most
radical
and
subversive
known
anti-bullying
initiative
and
innovation.
Again,
not
to
digress,
but
the
dire
menace
of
pandemic
serial
bullying
overshadows
all
else.
Beware!
As a
rule,
rational
individuals
of
honor
ought
simply
to
apprise
one
another
where
they
stand
and
just
talk
over
whatever
their
problems
and
prioritize
obvious
shared
concerns.
Alas,
such
seems
so
seldom
the
case. It
may
be
generally
accepted
that
common
interests
and
passions remain
a
key
factor
in
building
relationships.
But
in
actuality,
interests
in
common
may
turn
out
to
be
the
least
predicator
in
interpersonal
compatibility.
Indeed,
interests
in
common
need
not
correlate
with
shared
core
values
or
character,
by
far
more
profound.
Moreover,
it
may
be
generally
accepted
that
people
make
friends
as a
result
of
chance
propinquity
by
spending
casual
time
with
one
another.
But
as
shall
be
seen,
this
too
simply
is
not
true.
In
truth,
given
limited
options,
people
have
often
come
to
accept
the
need
to
cultivate
and
acquiesce
to
tolerable
relationships
with
whomever
most
continually
proximate.
Hence
a
necessity
of
lowered
expectations
and
fearful
timidity.
A
sore
travail.
So
famously
to
quote
George
Bernard
Shaw:
“Reasonable
people
adapt
themselves
to
the
world.
Unreasonable
people
attempt
to
adapt
the
world
to
themselves.
All
progress,
therefore,
depends
on
unreasonable
people.”
And
in
the
celebrated
words
of
Margaret
Mead:
“Never
doubt
that
a
small
group
of
thoughtful
committed
citizens
can
change
the
world.
Indeed,
it
is
the
only
thing
that
ever
has.”
Hence
in
any
more
ambitious
and
intentional
paradigm
shift
away
from
status
quo
and
into
Eudemonia,
capability
and
greater
expectations
of
ourselves
and
of
one
another
will
become
most
desirable.
Thus
better
investment
of
time
and
attention
together.
In
short,
freely
to
relate
to
one
another
instead
of
fitting
in
socially
to
all
manner
of
repressive,
isolating
and
toxic
expectations.
New
and
better
collective
endeavors
such
as
herein
proposed,
must
be
tailored
by
social
engineering
design
of
new
and
lasting
social
institutions
serving
as
better,
more
freely
accessible
and
more
efficient
hubs
for
social
connection.
Substantive
conversation
on
any
topic
or
subject,
exceeds
lecture
and
short-answer
formats
for
transition
of
information.
Full
engagement
in
substantive
conversation
and
even
into
the
practice
of
controversy
consisting
in
the
welcome
and
invited
exchange
of
criticism
as
inherently
friendly
expression
of
abiding
respect,
involves
people
more
profoundly
with
one
another.
Whereas,
conventionally
expected
vapid
small
talk,
deliberately
insubstantial
and
distant
conversation
and
pervading
anti-intellectualism/anti-intraception,
conflict
aversion
and
the
conviction
that
disagreement
is
tantamount
to
strife,
thwarts
vital
social
and
intellectual
arousal
and
stimulus
appetites.
Thus
undermining
attachment,
bonding
and
relationship,
particularly
friendship.
And
thereby
inflicting
such
crushing
oppression
of
protracted
loneliness
and
boredom.
Or
worse,
mounting
peer
pressure
and
targeting
for
serial
bullying.
Yet
again,
not
to
digress.
And
what
a
racket
are
such
as
above
conventional
expectations,
of
irresponsible
authoritarianism
masquerading
under
cache
of
respectable
and
reliable
sociology.
Of
norms
in
blithe
recursive
authorization
of
said
norms.
Sophistry,
slight
of
hand
and
victim
blaming
to
make
the
most
outrageous
imposition
seem
only
fair
and
judicious.
For
a
racket,
no
matter
how
reputable,
can
be
any
headgames,
dishonest
bad
faith
scheme
or
ongoing
Ulterior
Transaction, all not as
it
contrives
to
present
itself.
And
yet
as
is
tacitly
accepted
or
endured
by
the
majority
of
those
involved.
But
in
actuality,
indeed,
a
myth,
scam
or
fraud
of
heteronomy,
a
deceptive
domineering
practice
of
coercion
and
manipulation conducted for whatever
benefit
of a
few
bullying cliquish
cronies
at
the
expense
of
the
many.
Thus,
it
never
works
for
anyone
else,
because
inherently,
it
cannot
work.
Therefore,
no
measure
of
denial,
compliance,
delusional
wishful
thinking
and
lunatic
faith
or
willful
positivity
and
perseverance
will
ever
prevail.
-
And
in
better
though
taboo
alternative
in
the
first
place,
so
very
clearly,
paradigm
shift
favoring
rather
than
routine
and
perhaps
even
fairly
benign
well
meaning
exercise
of
authority,
let
alone
worse,
instead
ongoing
Dialectical
collaboration
among
equals
in
brainstorming
towards
creative
solution
finding.
Indeed,
reserving
recourse
to
whatever
mode
of
authority
as
the
even
somewhat
rare
exception,
ever
only
as
need
actually
arising.
Because
ongoing
Dialectical
collaboration
among
equals
in
brainstorming
towards
creative
solution
finding,
continues
to
be
discovered
as
most
conducive
not
only
primarily
to
Eudemonia,
to
authentic
wellbeing,
of
such
paramount
intrinsic
value
and
fulfillment,
but
thereby
indeed
also
excellence
called:
arête.
Indeed
perhaps
even
extrinsic
value
of
networking
and
material
success,
but
actually
through
doing
what
you
love.
And
all
because
Eudemonia,
important
close
human
relationship
with
psychological
visibility,
Eros
which
is
liberating
union
with
alien
difference,
and
particularly
true
friendship
in
autonomy,
arises
entirely
as a
byproduct
of
purposeful
interaction
and/or
substantive
communication
and
believe
it
or
not,
never
otherwise.
-
-
Not
by
way
of
any
as
so
commonly
extolled
cult
of
socialization
(that
none
dare
call:
brainwash)
to
excruciatingly
vapid
small
talk
or
facile
sycophantic
social
skills,
hierarchically
predictive
social
aptitudes
and
cynical
popularity
contest,
cretin
social
success,
alienated
and
alienating
disrespectful
sore
travail
of
mediocrity,
invalidation
and
conditionality.
Nor
by
any
compliant
behaviorally
conditioned
heteronomy
to
formal
education,
corporate
employment
or
any
other
dysfunctionally
inoperant
conventionality
and
setup
for
failure.
Every
mind
numbing
habit
that
exists
to
keep
conversation
stupid,
emotion
stunted,
and
the
masses
intimidated
of
one
another,
isolated
even
together,
complacent
and
powerlessly
bereft
of
initiative.
-
- And all such remains the looming and dire implication whereof the oppressed masses still so often balk. Indeed, of all such shabby subterfuge as so routinely foisted upon us all in every walk of life, We the Sheeple, the mortally terrified labor pool of mindless worker drones and desperate careerists, remains nothing more or less than a classic blithe propaganda big lie, futile and Existentially Absurd. And that's not your fault! In the alternative, and returning to theme: Crucial peak experience of Eudemonia,
attachment and connection forged together in the creation of meaning and in the joy of engrossingly engaged
purposeful interaction together, convivially substantive communication and even playful psychological visibility, all are elicited nigh inexorably in the course of heady collaboration among equals, brainstorming in creative solution finding. Thus indeed full and true inclusion in Eudemonia,
Heaven on Earth! And these are conditions and situation that can at all be understood and just perhaps even reproduced at w ill according to plan, if only together we shall find the honest diligence, resolve and wherewithal, and stay interested. Thus genuine autonomy in meeting ones needs for the dignity of capable interaction with even adequately responsible others, and thereby at long last together changing our story. And how many can say that? Any questions? Any objections? Any takers? You are all invited! Dare we take action? Let's talk!
-
-
-
As we are all admonished
per the venerable maxim
of journalism: Never
bury the lede!
Yes, spare us all from
thinking too hard. Get
right to the point.
Who, what,
where and when,
and only then, if ever
at all:
why.
Answer: G
entle
reader,
unmet
friend,
never
fear:
I
am
just another looser, stuck in a
rut, a maladroit wanna-be with a
cable modem, ever mouthing off
online.
And
as my own boss,
I
have
fired myself for utter failure
and incompetence in the
sore
travail
of
life!
No,
I
don't
want your money or your
devotion.
I
am
no bogus formulaic callow
motivational
grifter
here
to
tickle your ears,
psyche
you up, and then leave you in
the lurch, abandoned once again
to your own devices
and
set up for failure.
On
the contrary:
The Absurd
It remains
Existentially
Absurd to seek for
meaning
in life because there can be none. Because life is inescapable chaos,
suffering and injustice, all ending only in
death,
most repugnantly Absurd and pointless of all. Therefore no matter what,
gaining
knowledge
and understanding will never discover
meaning
or consolation in life, again because there shall be none to discover, no
matter how one balks at the ugly truth. Therefore seeking
meaning
in life by gaining knowledge and understanding, remains quite pointless. Can
there then be any other remedy at all, save for utter
denial,
if anything only even all the more pointless and Absurd?
"Birth,
School,
Work,
Death"
RESISTANCE IS
FUTILE
-or is it?
The
Existentially
Absurd ever consists in two
parts: First, on the one hand, an indifferent physical universe
unmoved by human and animal suffering, and secondly, on the other hand,
social reality remaining both incubator of and shaped by unique and often
extravagant human incompetence, evil and stupidity. Any tear in the façade of constructed
social reality may promote such lucidity as to reveal the disheartening
indifference of reality to
all of our yearnings and best interests. In
Existential
Philosophy, "the Absurd"
as Albert Camus names the human situation
investigated also by uncompromising Zen, and that must stick in
one's craw, impossible neither to stomach nor to expel, refers to a
relationship between the rational mind and the irrational world, the
powerless disillusioned and
alienated
Sisyphusian
contradiction,
conflict and
tension between human nature
characterized by the tendency to
strive for
value and
meaning
in life, on the one hand, with the frustrating human inability to do so in the brutally indifferent and
unyielding real universe and
most particularly in contention with the unreason and injustice of other people,
on the other hand.
Camus recognized three categories of response to the Absurd: suicide, which
Camus rejects as only the more Absurd, transcendent
denial
via religious delusion, or else acceptance of the
Absurd. But how can one live then? After all, Zen in quest
of futility, exhorts complete surrender to the
Absurd, perhaps as the next best thing to just being
dead. But the Absurdism of Camus holds that
meaning
may be sought for, only in the rebellion of open eyed confrontation with the Absurd.
Futility in the face of the Absurd should never
deter us from unrelenting and righteous struggle. Kierkegaard expands thereupon, contending
that true faith demands that it is precisely when it makes no difference what
one does, one way or another, that one must therefore take action! After all, as
the saying goes, the best causes are all hopeless lost causes.
How then might
Camus and Kierkegaard conceivably have responded
to Emortalism, ever advancing
Longevity, Radical Life Extension research with the
objective
of the eradication of natural
death by the pandemic degenerative
condition only named as: aging, indeed much as hither to with such pandemic
killers as smallpox and polio? Indeed, how might Camus and Kierkegaard
related to the ongoing practice of Cryonics? Mot
to digress, however.
Life as a grand gesture?
In 'The
Deconstruction of Reality : What Modernism and
Postmodernism Say About Surface and
Depth' author Ken Sanes expounds:
- "Some of these
theories of
postmodernism
then take an additional step, arguing that since life (or
much of life) is a fiction or since
fiction is all we can
know, we
should join in the
drama
ourselves and live a life of
play. In effect, they
recommend that we treat life as a symbolic arena for the
acting out of fantasies. In place of merely discovering that
reality is a construction, they would have us
consciously
take over the process of creating it, inventing selves,
subcultures and alternative "realities," as forms of social
experimentation."
Quoth the Bard: "All the word's a
stage." And in the ongoing
drama
of
real
life,
inner
conflict,
ambivalence,
may be either more
plot
driven,
resultant of circumstance and
conflicting
external pressures,
entirely
situational,
or alternatively
inner
conflict,
ambivalence, may be more
character
driven, a
dramatic clash of
conflicting
motivations
unique to individual personality. Indeed, any
real person, no less than
some
fictional
character,
may become utterly embroiled in whatever dilemma,
situationally, or they might be even just be somewhat neurotic, and
actually take refuge in
ambivalence out of sheer irresponsible
decidophobia. Some rise to shoulder even the most crushing responsibility,
while others evade any responsibility at all upon very principle. But we all
confront
Existential
Absurdity. Indeed, some say that one becomes
addicted to shame when another's heart is closed to one, because, however
excruciating, the sheer megalomania of taking the blame protects one from the
ugly truth that we
really have no control over others and the universe or
God.
We can neither make others love us or, ultimately, even protect those who do.
Indeed, our Frankensteinian creation having
escaped our control, social reality that
only exists as the aggregate of individual participation, generally remain
no less baffling, unfathomable, destructive
and crushingly Absurd than
objective
external physical
reality
that exists independently regardless.
Indeed, in the face of our complete ineffectuality
to fathom the world in which we live, much less gain any
power over the actual
situation or circumstances in which we
exist,
Albert Camus extolling the uplifting act of creation, recommending to approach the world as no
more that the setting for living out
ones own ongoing dramatic performance. In the alternative to remaining a puppet of such
bewildering external conditions, freedom is the possibility to think and behave as however we may prefer, in life
affirming passionate pursuit of a life rich in experience, creating
meaning
and finding beauty to make life worth living.
Absurdly free
characters, perhaps poor cousins to Nietzschean supermen, include the seducer, the actor, the conqueror and the artist.
One can even seek
Absurd freedom in rejection of Absurd personal constraints, including neuroses and
other personal baggage, or such taboos as
promoted howsoever arbitrarily by society, all values
save for those of a full life, and yet inefficacy in the face of
intractable reality remains
daunting as ever. Therefore, Camus dismisses and denies the existence of any intrinsic external
meaning
to discover, recommending instead, the cultivation of any
meaningful
human experience to express as by the arts and the artistic life. Camus surrenders all hope in any attempt to explain
or to solve the problem of the Absurd, instead recommending only artistic
expression in the quest for
meaning
and dignity.
In the words of Kurt Vonnegut: “We are what we pretend to be, so
we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” Nietzsche passionately extols the possibility of
perseverant
lonely
struggle for self realization and the achievement of
meaningful
growth and personal accomplishment, even in suffering
if need be. Indeed, in
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley even
perhaps amplifies upon Nietzsche:
-
“Actual happiness looks pretty squalid in comparison
with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn’t nearly so
spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a
good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with
temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.”
Bait-and-switch
is when bait,
the chimerical
allure of any one
desirable good on
howsoever
advantageous terms,
is dangled out to
beguile and ensnare
the mark into the
switch,
reluctant and
bewildered
Transaction
for some other,
lesser and more
costly approximation
entirely.
Resignation,
exhaustion and
defeat ensue,
selling out and
buying in.
Thereafter,
desperate hopes
may endure, of later
someday somehow
trading the
investment of life
long compliance, for
ones actual hearts
desire all along,
and thus at last
recovery
of ones own long
lost and craven
bartered soul. But
all for naught!
If You Desire
Anything You've
Never Had, Try
Something You've
Never Done.
On the level, then:
I
do not have what you
need, gentle reader,
but dare we seek for
it together?
At last arrives the
hour of Faustian
recantation and
cheating the
cheaters.
But don't balk, or
you might miss out!
Because
power
and influence remain
a function of
capable
relationship
on ones own terms,
interaction with
responsible others.
Am I then your
unmet
friend?
Can you even see
me?
Will you make
yourself
known
to
me?
Can we talk?
I
do not have what you
need, gentle reader,
but dare we seek for
it together?
Expert or layperson
in whatever fields,
old pro or neophyte
aspirant, we each
and all bring to the
table whatever ones
own insights,
questions, answers,
knowledge,
talent, ideas,
perspective,
experience and
connections.
-Alas,
hard work
all too often so
vastly unappreciated
and blithely
squandered.
Befuddled masses
yearning to breath
free! What then is
liberty, freedom so
alluring yet
forbidden,
taboo, that
nevertheless all
people so yearn and
strive for? Freedom
whether in creative
expression or
effective action.
Freedom of
association, self
esteem and more. How
is freedom actually
experienced? By what
values? And most
importantly, what
must we do,
I
and thou, gentle
reader, to win our
freedom, liberty to
pursue happiness?
Can we organize?
Should we? And how
so?
In the words of Viktor E. Frankl:
"It did not matter what we expected from life, but
rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop
asking about the
meaning
of
life, and instead
to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned
by life—hourly and daily. Our answer must consist, not
in talk and meditation, but in right action and right
conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility
to find the right answers to its problems and to fulfill
the task which it constantly sets for each individual.”
In other words: Metaphorically playing the proverbial
ball where it figuratively lays. But what then should
one fail therein, or balk at the task? What when
Absurd expectations grow
ever more wearisome and repugnant? In the end, precisely
how is identification of tasks putatively set before us
by life thus nigh anthropomorphized, any different
interpretively, and so neatly divorced from, any
conceivable
meaning creation
regarding life to be lived? What shall become one's own
priorities? What remains individually most important?
And mixing in more metaphor: Nose so close to
grindstone, when comes time to take a step back in order
to sharpen blunted and jagged grindstone?
Alas, as things stand, so dazed
and confused, we all oppressed, find ourselves
continually robbed of such very capacity of intellect
and sensitivity for
ever crucial
substantive communication
much less
purposeful
interaction,
by such crushing intimidation,
manipulation, and
confusion, under social norms of paranoid distance,
uncritical
willful positivity,
dishonestly
cheerful triviality and interminably banal
small talk,
all as
Behaviorally Conditioned by
systematic
reward and punishment.
Under exclusion and isolation of
serial
bullying,
no dissident
lone individual will ever prevail in any
tasks set before them by life. But returning to
Ecclesiastes, any two or more individuals, should
they only find one another, connect, and so resolve, may
interact more congenially, freely, intelligently and
effectively. Indeed, all else remains
Ecclesiastical
vanity and
futility!
For to reiterate: Even so little as
ever crucial
substantive
communication
much less
purposeful
interaction,
can never be compelled. To further reiterate: One can
but extend invitation, as indeed herein on this very
website:
FoolQuest.com,
my
own proverbial
Message in a Bottle.
Out there in TV land our
fictional
heroes, ideal whereof we all cannot but stand so
helpless,
Absurdly
unworthy and in awe, make epic struggle and contend
but ultimately unite in the face of adversity. Meanwhile
here in the
real
world we languish and
despair under a veritable epidemic of
bored
and
lonely
alienation.
Many hit TV shows and blockbuster movies,
pander
and mock us, serving up vicarious experience not merely
of
stimulation, adventure and compelling discovery of
meaning
and
arête,
but in some context of true
friendship,
profoundly close
relationships
or
situations
that so many of us are very badly missing. Indeed, It is
the simulated freedom, challenge and achievement in
mastery and competence, together with social connection,
that explains the addictiveness of multiplayer
videogames online, for so many. And all such realization
should be received as a call to action for urgent actual
lifestyle changes. True life
drama
must either advance or falter and fizzle out in
anticlimax
of
anti-drama.
After all,
how would our heroic avatars, our cherished
rôle
models, heed the call to action and rise to the
challenge?
This much may be
known:
Without decidedly formidable connections, appeal for
help from whatever powers that be of status quo,
generally remains
futile and opaque. And
rather than sweeping the
world
out of nowhere, even the slightest glimmer of daring,
heroic and transgressive
subversion
necessarily begins in microcosm, in
real
life no less than in
drama, when any two or more individuals,
indeed boon companions or hitherto
unmet
friends,
begin doing things differently together and persist. For
such will be the first germ of interaction perhaps even
as proposed herein, within a small
intentional social
circle let alone any grander
intentional community,
amongst ourselves together turning away from the social
rat-race, living our truth, and perhaps even together
reaching out
in the
world
at large but even actually at all on our
own terms. Just maybe:
We can be heroes,
asking of others what no one else does, and offering in
return, what no one else offers.
Subjective
happiness, being most precious and scarce of
all achievements going beyond
characteristic individual disposition
alone, remains a reactive state variable of
inner
life, responsive to favorable external
circumstances
or: happenstance
as arising,
situation
in
objective
reality
amenable to investigation, strategy and
feasibility study. But defeatism balks at
ambition and difficulty, even making do by
seeking refuge from
reality
in
wishful thinking,
willful positivity
and
pipedream,
all eventually collapsing into disgruntled
despair. And indeed, hence
The
Great Quit. Yes, we'll all become slackers now!
Loneliness
is the wont of intimacy. Hence, when mass anxiety fails to
challenge our very way of life or to trouble the powers that
be, and thus individual
dystress fails to evoke sympathetic feeling and
therefore mutual aid, and if none any longer shall rally to
the alarm sounded, then such only will signal vulnerability
to predation and exploitation, merely endangering others as
well as
oneself. If as we are told, indeed keeping things light is
indeed so crucial to popularity and
social success,
then popularity and
social success
must come at the sacrifice of all happiness. Thus indeed popularity
and
social success
on the one hand,
and
friendship
on the other,
remain starkly antithetical. This is because
friendship
is genuine, substantive and intimate in
psychological
visibility, while popularity
or
social success
depend upon
boring
facile superficiality and ever maintaining
lonely
distance. Therefore the inherent
contradiction remains
irresolvable in very principle, and nothing but a setup for
frustration, failure and craven exhortation to lowered
expectations and making do with mindless
small talk.
In our sick sad
world,
the
helplessness of individual frustration and
failure everywhere pervades. We should sound the
alarm and shout from every roof top! And yet,
the customer, the end user, is always wrong: The
system never fails, you fail the system. For
such remains the most aggressive
normalization of
deviance.
And as
Edward Snowden observes, oppressors
who restrict our options, then pretend that we
consent.
Might in truth, such ubiquitous helpless
pandemic individual
frustration and failure, not merely of the
clearly and obviously broken and disadvantaged
nor even also of the most ordinary and average,
but especially of our best and brightest, their
possibilities squandered, actually be in any
measure in truth not only because of whatever ones own
individual human shortcomings and maladaptation
even however flagrant, but
largely in manifest consequence from whatever conceivable greater systemic
defect in society, of entrenched mediocrity and
worse? Of course, gentle reader, you've heard
this all before. And surely such
generalities of pop iconoclasm
so long clichéd and dissipated of of all shock
value, must come as little surprise to anyone.
And yet every question remains as to precisely
the nature of prevailing expectation and
conventional adaptation thereto. Indeed, where
is hidden the fine print in the social contract?
And at what cost? How Faustian! And deep down,
behind all
denial
and willful naivety, are we actually all of
us so cynical, submissive, even Masochistic,
so utterly defeated and in on the racket?
Have we truly joined the enemy against
ourselves?
Be seeing you,
Number 6. For we
have all been subject to exhortation, frustrated and tantalized:
“Follow your bliss!”
Empty blandishment and broken
promise ringing so hollow, as we
are all then summarily
abandoned each
to our own devices,
setup for failure.
All easier said than done.
Indeed, to quote Frederick Law Olmsted:
"After all is said
and done, much is said and little is done."
And so, we each and all then secretly await the call, to some yearned
for true to life
Hero's Journey.
And when it comes, don't blink or you might miss
it! For it comes now. At last arrives the hour of
Faustian recantation and cheating the cheaters. And more, anon.
For as
the saying goes,
life is the journey,
ever arduous,
the ongoing
experience, and not
just deferred
gratification in the
destination or
desired result in
hoped for
success.
For as per chapter
64 of the Dao De
Jing as ascribed to
Laozi,
the journey of a
thousand miles,
begins with but a
single step.
And rather than
sweeping the
world
out of nowhere,
subversion
necessarily begins
in microcosm, when
any two or more
individuals begin
doing things
differently together
and persist. For
such will be the
first germ of
interaction perhaps
even as proposed
herein, within even
a small
intentional social
circle
or group online, let
alone any grander
intentional
community,
amongst
ourselves together
turning away from
the social rat-race,
and perhaps even
together reaching
out in the
world
at large but even at
all actually on our
own terms.
After all,
Eudemonia
of
i
mportant
and
capable
close human
relationship,
Eros
which is liberating
union with alien
difference,
and particularly
true
friendship
in
autonomy,
arises entirely
as a
byproduct of
purposeful
interaction and/or
substantive
communication,
and
never otherwise.
Indeed, increasing
distance,
bullying
and and mounting
social exclusion, is
all well
known
precursor to
betrayal, never at
all any glistening
hallmark of secure
social embedment.
Even
the very least of
hierarchically
predictive
social cognition
and cynical
popularity contest,
relentless
punishment and
reward
behavioral
conditioning
making such
utter tools
of us all, remains
ever
antithetical to true
friendship
and
free, candid,
unguarded and
reciprocal
psychological
visibility
just being
known
and understood to
one another,
recognized and
desired.
Little wonder then,
the
outcomes gap,
meaning:
futility,
no
results no matter
one one does, only
continual
frustration under
ever the same
sycophantic
user unfriendly
Existential
bait-and-switch. For
life is
ongoing
bait-and-switch,
a
sore
travail!
To reiterate:
Bait-and-switch
is when
bait,
the chimerical
allure of any one
desirable good on
howsoever
advantageous terms,
is dangled out to
beguile and ensnare
the mark into the
switch,
reluctant and
bewildered
Transaction
for some other,
lesser and more
costly approximation
entirely.
Resignation,
exhaustion and
defeat ensue,
selling out and
buying in.
Thereafter,
desperate hopes
may endure, of later
someday somehow
trading the
investment of life
long compliance, for
ones actual hearts
desire all along,
and thus at last
recovery
of
ones own long lost
and craven bartered
soul. But all for
naught!
If You
Desire Anything
You've Never Had,
Try Something You've
Never Done. On
the level, then:
I
do not have what you
need, gentle reader,
but dare we seek for
it together?
At last arrives the
hour of Faustian
recantation and
cheating the
cheaters.
But don't balk, or
you might miss out!
Unreasonable people: Grand gesture is
not enough!
But even while rejecting
religion, Karl Marx's famous opiate of the masses, or any other brand
of inactive sublime apathy as weak, foul and fraudulent,
Nietzsche and Camus nevertheless begin in readiness to accept the worst
circumstances in life and then moving on, before questing for
fulfillment in
meaningful
action even within those restrictions. But given
pleasure
principle
and the natural and sane desire to minimize suffering, the problem of attaining
meaningful
fulfillment may be better
reframed as the problem of how to be any happier by bringing about improved
match between needs and circumstances,
situation or environment, if only at
all possible. And one most Absurdly tiresome and destructive approach in
solution finding,
nevertheless so popular even from antiquity, the surrender so scorned by
Nietzsche and Camus, is to content oneself to modify, minimize or even
eliminate needs, intrinsic and extrinsic alike.
In the mockery of Jonathan Swift: "The
stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off
our feet when we want shoes."
But the
other more interesting and constructive approach, and the greater measure of
hope,
trust
and genuine attitudinal faith, remains in seeking to improve circumstances
in order better to meet all manner of needs and desires. Therefore, life as
a grand and for practical purposes empty gesture can never be adequate or
trustworthy. In the immortal
words of George Bernard Shaw: “Reasonable people adapt themselves to the
world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All
progress, therefore, depends on
unreasonable people.”
Because in confrontation with situations
that any reasonable person would deem insurmountable, only the influence of
unreasonable people can provide
vision,
experience and direction in order to restore hope. Nietzsche and Camus,
then, are just too damned reasonable. Historically, humanity has
struggled to meet the most pressing and basic and practical of needs first, and
the loftier ones later if ever at all.
But in affluent technological society,
replete with the most flagrant Absurdity of all manner of
needless danger and privation bringing such oppressive despair even amid the
plenty, the problem has become of reconciliation of
priorities, of material and practical survival on terms dictated by
intrinsic needs
essential to fulfillment. And
intrinsic needs are met or failed by
social stimuli resultant from interaction that is a function of
circumstances,
situation or
social environment. What, then, are the optimal social
stimuli? -that which
has even been called: the opposite of loneliness. And under what optimal circumstances,
situation or
social environment? And by what means is implementation feasible, the
social engineering optimum social
stimulus struggle, not only in
principle, but practicably?
Mortality and
death remain likely the most weighty and dire
concerns in confrontation with the Absurd. And perhaps the most radical response
remains that of Emortalism, the the medical, scientific and
technological quest for liberation into practical immortality or:
emortality,
as expressed both in anti-aging research and in the practice of
Cryonics. Only click the hyperlinked terms amid
the present branching
hypertext
in order to
know more.
-
- Suicide remains more popular
than this website!
-
How desperate then need one be, in order simply
to focus and consider the following seriously?
Blithely and blindly trusting
agitated first impressions of the unfamiliar to begin with, can be
somewhat unhinged. Pay no heed then, to callow cretins quailing at
heightened language,
big
words
and big ideas. Because: Those who matter don't mind, and those
who mind, don't matter. Alas that not only the most hapless and
broken, and knaves and fools especially, or even the most ordinary
and average, but especially our best and brightest, so often meet
only with desperate failure and frustration. Nothing works! Whether
one deserves better or not. Whatever that even means!
Why then must it come
as any shock to anyone, the very idea that there may remain not only
whatever range of personal human imperfection, various defects and
foibles of individual personality and
character,
great and small, but also the most intractable, banal and pervasive
systemic problems and stumbling blocks out there in the
world
at large? As if the very notion of such stock iconoclasm, where
actually anything new! All no less true to admit, even for seeming
pretentious to say out loud and within earshot of the snickering
popular kids!
Indeed
as in the words of Russell Brand: “Society
is collapsing and people are starting to recognize that
the reason they feel like they’re mentally ill is that
they’re living in a system that’s not
designed to suit the
human spirit.”
And it remains most disheartening and
Existentially
Absurd,
how many people experience similar frustrated yearnings
and even, leave us face it:
mortal
terror,
and yet so utterly fail to find one another and connect.
And all for wont of the wherewithal, the channels and
the means. And such remains the probortunity at hand,
most dire and therefore most propitious. Because
Eudemonia requires,
among other things, genuine
autonomy in meeting
ones needs for the dignity of
capable interaction
with even adequately
responsible others. And also
no less crucial, the
value
maximization of
creative interaction, in order ever to abate pandemic
boredom
and
loneliness
for anyone.
Whoever is to
blame, however one cares to look at it, whether any
person is failing to function and perform socially, or
society is failing to address the social needs of any
person, clearly there remains whatever sort of even all
too often somewhat dire mismatch and incompatibility.
Probortunity remaining key to the ensuing strategic
agenda for serious people wracking our
brains: What
must be done?
Tautologically,
there can be no
self-help,
no
reliable
solitary
rugged
self-reliant
unilateral
DIY
(Do-It-Yourself)
"well-formed
plan"
for
interaction
among
more
than
one
individual.
Alas then how we each and all discover ourselves
typically abandoned
to
our
own
devices
in anything
meaningful.
Indeed, Existentially
Absurd!
Hacking social reality?
There
are ever the many urging resignation in life and simply making do. For anyone so well adjusted and entirely sanguine in
surrender to status quo, there might follow reasonable expectation of
that much less urgency to do anything at all much differently or to
strive towards radical change. Indeed all too often, even the most
unhappy, yet dedicate themselves in hope eternal and unflagging struggle
to conform, progress, win acceptance and succeed socially, one fine day,
gaining thereby, at any sycophantic Faustian cost, the very key to life.
Others, even more deluded, only pretend. How obsequious! What a bunch of
suck-ups! Best luck to them all.
In the alternative, s
hould
anything herein presented or proposed, be rejected as difficult or
demanding and complicated,
I
defy anyone to point out an easier and simpler path towards any similar
objectives.
I, for one, would be intensely interested.
If
in my searching high and low,
I
ever came across anyone elsewhere already opening to all comers, any
equivalent endeavor as herein proposed,
I would simply ask to join in. All manner of
demands and conditions are placed upon the individual in life,
especially as pertaining to specific endeavors, often needlessly and
unreasonably or even quite detrimentally. But there are also conditions
that are reasonably imposed only by circumstances and of actual
necessity. It's all a question realistically of what will actually be required in
order to achieve whatever ends, and not arbitrary conditions imposed.
Desperately seeking serious and
interested people, nevertheless undaunted by the challenge before us,
all easier said than done.
Should
anything herein presented or proposed, be rejected as unrealistic, then
likewise the very
objectives
must be abandoned as unfeasible. Otherwise, I
defy anyone to point out any lesser prerequisites towards the same
objectives. I, for one,
would be intensely interested.
Collaborative
social engineering together crafting that ideal
setting for
Eudemonia
and the optimization of social stimulus struggle, is the often
tabooed
central
agenda
of
FoolQuest.com
People do indeed buy into and uphold all every terrible evil of social reality,
but people are also Empirically
well known do as much for
better values
and in order to improve social reality, making progress every day. Indeed, "unreasonable"
social engineering deconstruction and reconstruction of social
reality are central to the proposed implementation of Creativity Can be Popular.
Let's talk!
For anything private and sensitive, just
email me. Or to open provocative public discourse,
post to
the forum. Otherwise, if you prefer to post
about
FoolQuest.com
anywhere else online, the free promotion will be most appreciated. But please
email and/or
post the hyperlink so
that I can find it and respond, fully and promptly.
Copyright 2009-2022 by
Aaron Agassi
Please always inform me how I may be of assistance!: Congratulations!
You have discovered
FoolQuest.com,
often by far too detailed for any individual casual interest or narrowed
specific purpose of research, yet nowhere near detailed enough to meet the needs
of actual preparation towards implementation. Most of the time, any brief concise
plan can be sound only in principle. For practicability tends to demand detail
beyond casual attention span. And even then, the necessity of ongoing adaptation
to change frequently demands constant revision and improvisation. Therefore we have much to discuss. Other websites proffer the most trivial advice or
blithely over simplistic and flawed solutions that will never help you. Do not
be taken in by people working at frantic cross purposes, far too deep in a rut
from running the rat race and consumed by utter blind terror of
spending more than three minutes at a time on each sales prospect in turn, for the
sheer bother and actual respect of ever simply assisting or actually so little as even
paying attention to
one another!
Fearless stimulation seeking: Opportunities such as they are, that typical
consumers readily respond to, consist in any part of the at least howsoever
ostensibly self achievable and in any other part of howsoever at least
ostensibly guaranteed provisions. Commonly, texts upon
success
and worldly happiness, consist either of scientific reportage, philosophical
discourse, or declaratives and instructions. But scientific reportage
belongs in context of
criticality
and
controversy
of philosophical discourse, while philosophical discourse amounts to little
without
agenda
towards application, to which declaratives and instructions typically remain
inadequate. Indeed, so often as we are all abandoned
to our own devices
whenever it really matters,
successful
entrepreneurs tend towards solitary self reliance, reluctant to delegate, and
therefore stressfully overworked. Because, by contrast, the vast uncertainly of
teambuilding and real
cooperative investigation is always daunting. But how else can entrepreneurship
serve as a creative outlet, given that to begin with, creativity is a gregarious mode of expression rather
than a reclusive practice of contemplation? Indeed, great entrepreneurs
recognize not only that they must play to their strengths but to recruit for
complementary strengths and skills beyond their own. A
common twice exceptionality, lifelong deadly social and career learning disability
among gifted underachievers, ongoing products of lifelong asynchronous
development, in even somewhat rebelliously stunned apathetic
bored
and
lonely
deficiency of all such executive function including poor memory and low
organizational skills, in actuality may be entirely due to severe
under
arousal
to such fully active responsiveness as arising only to howsoever
valued
high standards of social support towards the grievously undersupplied stimulus of true
pleasurable, engaging and
meaningful
opportunity to rise to their true potential. That is why
FoolQuest.com
remains dedicated, first and foremost, to
systematic and concerted cultivation of exactly such optimally
pleasurable,
engaging
and
meaningful
interaction so essential to human flourishing. And what could be better?
No one is lazy doing whatever they themselves experience as worthwhile.
Engagement,
creative tension,
remains more than merely productive means to whatever end, indeed, an
intrinsic
motivation,
a fundamental human need not only for uplifting occupation but for truly
satisfying human interaction at all. Yet everywhere one turns, there is such
indifference, indeed timid contempt, malignant hostility and actual
taboo towards
engagement in very
principle, as can be seen forever spawning industries of travesty. Even genuinely viable
success strategies can
more quickly make you miserable, much less all manner of debilitating and evasive
scams. And mindlessly hanging out and
recreational passive consumption never really compensate the emptiness and
aggravation. As ever, marketing often strives to
confuse and inveigle the consumer into desperate compensation for unmet needs,
via the elicitation towards sublimation to positive associations and mystique, all seldom actually
substantiated or borne out in whatever goods or services. For such is the shameless peddling
of false hope, taking advantage of epidemic
alienation! Hence,
in flight from exactly such worldly vexation and deception, many claim solace in
religion. Indeed, there are even
those myriad disciplines and sophisticated techniques, ancient and
arcane or bleeding edge modern, all utterly to
cease
caring. And others still, ever exhort
a willfully
positive attitude towards sheer
determined drudgery as the path to
success,
or likewise
fitting in socially at
any cost, typically demanding either ruthless exploitation of others or else
submission to the herd, if not, actually, even both all at once. In truth, however, only precious few of us have ever actually been
happy in our travails amid the rat race under such typically oppressive punishment and
reward
systems as school or
employment,
demoralizing
subtext
only ever signaling
the same dire lack of sufficiently engaging
intrinsic
value. -Nor, for that matter,
politics and lip service to
revolution.
For anyone fired up with bogus appetite and hungry to eat shit with gusto, there will always be a
second helping! Vested interest can be no better than whatever the
object thereof. For anyone,
as is fashionable,
well and masochistically adaptive and content in relentless self
manipulation all in order simply
to tolerate and make do under the ersatz oppressive mediocrity of status quo and
travesty, life is that much more simple. Of course virtuous fortitude
in forging ahead is always a good recommendation,
as if
such could ever actually ever be so easy! Rather,
happiness being contingent upon
substantive discourse, the exercise and communication of the
meaningful
values
of imagination, adequate range of choice,
autonomy, mastery (competence) and
achievement, together with connection, self awareness and
conscience informed by rationality, the true key to
friendship and happiness is in the quest for happiness more
than in resultant success
alone, in any reasonable hope, in the dignity of risk, and also in true
friendship. So
there can be no simple and straightforward blueprint for living life, but at best,
towards any hoped for improvement in our circumstances, the following
thorny problem statement and daunting challenge of social aptitude and risk
tolerance, all towards
the hoped for fulfillment
of all such
real and vastly underserved fundamental human needs and
values
as
are all seemingly ignored, thwarted, dismissed or trivialized veritably everywhere one turns
except for the very frontiers of sheer escapist fantasy.
Indeed, according to the latest research,
those ever addictive multiplayer video games are now found to produce in
simulation, exactly the beneficial sense of
competency, achievement and connection, all so woefully absent from the
Existential dreariness of grinding daily routine!
I write from some experience with repeated failure, indeed even
defeat snatched from the very jaws of victory:
The plain truth is that having
been abandoned
to our own devices, in order to
actually mitigate the suffering of
alienated
loneliness and
boredom
in real life,
one general
integrative strategy presents itself, so obvious and direct in principle but extremely difficult in
endless details and every conceivable
obstacle of compatible implementation, all in pursuit
of the transitory but renewable experience of
fulfillment
from
fun
pleasurable
immersive engagement in personally
meaningful activity and stimulating
interpersonal interactivity as well understood to be requisite to happiness
and human flourishing. Neglect is the
collaboration
killer. Happiness being, as it is, an appropriate and relevant
subjective
response to favorable circumstances, requires any more optimal social
environment being crucial in order to
intrinsically
motivate or inspire determination,
productivity, insight, sociability and other such highly functional behaviors or
virtues as
are all so often observed to be conducive even to hoped for material
success
in doing what you love. And no less important, also, is undertaking
of all the aforesaid convivially in good company, pooling human
capital towards larger endeavors beyond all that can otherwise be
self achievable by any lone individual effort, sagacity, individual skill sets,
connections and influence;
social support being, after all, so important a predicator of
success. Famous
Entrepreneurs are often extolled as rugged self-made individuals,
but more often in truth each was well matched by compatible
partners. Therefore,
clearly, outreach, networking, connection and recruitment will each be crucial,
all towards
location of any such as may exist, or else the strategic inception and formation
from scratch, of exactly such a
specifically
agenda directed circle or group,
which,
though, and as should surprise no one, easier said than done, still seems perhaps the most direct
approach. -A unique opportunity to research and implement optimally suitable discourse
and conduct, indeed to purposefully forge intentional
relationship on our own terms, then to set
agenda, draw plans and take action in
hopes of gaining
meaningful
control of our circumstances so as indeed to create
value
and just perhaps by even slightly improved functional coordination only
amongst amongst ourselves, than the average which is often so poor,
mayhap thereby actually to accrue any new competitive advantage out in the world at large
also.
|
You
are all invited!
|
|
Just
popped in to see what condition your condition was in? So,
exactly what would you like us to do about it together? Share your thoughts!
All reply pertinent to
content is much appreciated, especially
agenda
directed response. For anything private and
sensitive,
email me. Or to open provocative public
discourse, post to
the forum. Or if you prefer to post
about
FoolQuest.com
anywhere else online, the free promotion will
be most appreciated. But please
email
and/or
post
the hyperlink so that I can find it and respond, fully and promptly.
|
|
| |
CONTACT:
OR
if
its private
Copyright 2012 - 2024 by
Aaron Agassi
- visit the
FoolQuest.com
