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Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Noam Chomsky: The Dimming Prospects for Human Survival

“To put it bluntly, in the moral calculus of today's capitalism, a bigger bonus tomorrow outweighs the fate of one's grandchildren.”

I can't help but wonder if this modern time-bound carelessness is a result of the Western reappropriation of mystic Eastern philosophies into orthodox, hollow self-help guruism. Albeit, 'living in the now' is an important virtue to practice if one can read the statement between it's every line; but could it be that humanity is using the New Age interpretation of 'nowism' in a Freudian sense, giving an innocent thought and intuition dangerous creedence and affirmation in the morally degraded limelight of advert-culture (better known as 'public relations')?

How shallowly and carelessly this cultural 'nowism' is flaunted does not bode well for the salvation of the human race as anything more than a fad. I have studied Eastern mysticism and religion long enough to know that 'living in the now' implies a non-denial of fear, worries for the future, and the occasional flood of bleak hopelessness throughout every extremity of the body. It implies an unconditional acceptance in such a way as to make one a blatant hypocrite in the field of theory and rational interpretation, and yet in proper flow with the 'Tao' from its highest pole of absolute delight and calm acceptance, into its depths of burnt-bone despair and coinciding fear of human pettiness. It is the acceptance of one and all as both an angel and a demon. To keep blind faith in the goodness of humanity is to deny the possibility for evil and to be defeated by it once witnessed. To stay blindly angry and bitter over the human race and deny its level of implied goodness and purity as a cynic is to deny omnipotent love and the largely well-intentioned actions of most of the race. The cynic, more than anything, hopes to be proven wrong. But will always deny what is right in front of them when being 'proven wrong' seems imminent. Ignorance is bliss, and to trap yourself within the limited confines of optimism or pessimism is to remain intrinsically tied to ideology. Western Zen, or, as I prefer to call it: 'nowism,' is an ideology.

And ideology is the reason humanity is about to perish. It has always been our number one threat as a race.

Instead of simply telling students of Zen that they cannot control the mind, the Master must show them. So he tells them all to eliminate desire through different denunciatory practices. They go about doing so in different ways, whether it is simple self-denial or full-on retreats into hermitage deep within a forest or mountain range, bringing only the bare necessities to the point of very much starving themselves. And then, after months of practice, they return to the Master and he says, “Have you discovered the truth yet?”
Some of the students may rant on about transcendental experiences and having realized a ‘great truth,’ but then the Master laughs and says, “It was all in vain. You still desired not to desire.”

And, in annoyance, one student asks, “Master, how is it that we cease our desire not to desire?” And all the Master has to say in response is, “Ah, well, now you get it.”"

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The world is meaningless,

there is no God or gods, there are no morals, the universe is not moving inexorably towards any higher purpose.
All meaning is man-made, so make your own, and make it well.
Do not treat life as a way to pass the time until you die.
Do not try to "find yourself", you must make yourself.
Choose what you want to find meaningful and live, create, love, hate, cry, destroy, fight and die for it.
Do not let your life and your values and your actions slip easily into any mold, other that that which you create for yourself, and say with conviction, "This is who I make myself".
Do not give in to hope.
Remember that nothing you do has any significance beyond that with which you imbue it.
Whatever you do, do it for its own sake.
When the universe looks on with indifference, laugh, and shout back, "Fuck You!".
Rembember that to fight meaninglessness is futile, but fight anyway, in spite of and because of its futility.
The world may be empty of meaning, but it is a blank canvas on which to paint meanings of your own.
Live deliberately. You are free.