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For some time I’ve wondered why it is we can’t see so many obvious things right in front of us, why we take so many things for granted, why we can’t be honest with ourselves and others, why we can be so blinded by patriotism, religion, tradition, and friendship. What is the cause of our naivety- this blessing and curse, which drives us to block out the logical, and even the empiric, and allows us to so ignorantly accept the obviously impossible, or have complete faith in that which is doubtful.
When I say “we”, I am more referring to others [to which it applies] than myself, and if there is a reason why we can so openly accept these inconsistencies (which ironically tends to cause us to become close-minded to anything that might oppose to initial ideas), it would be that we all live in our “perfect little worlds”. I found a to-the-point explanation of this, referred to as “Private Inner Reality” (as contrasted with “Public Social Reality”), at prettyfuckedup.com.
As you may have guessed, this post is another iteration of my thoughts on rejecting knowledge.
I’ve found that knowledge is unknowable, probably because it’s infinite. Human being however, are finite- thus, we are incapable of storing and acknowledging even close to everything there is to know, although (interestingly enough) it won’t be long before single hard drives that can store more information than our brains can hold (<1 PB / 1000 TB)
Furthermore, it seems that for what knowledge we do have (and this is the interesting part) in most cases we can’t accept the whole truth about anything, and anyone who can is probably crazy, because such a feat would require the liquidating of rationality. Note that irrationality (which is considered synonymous with “insane”) refers to “the lack of reason”, which in turn refers to the inability to make decisions.
I’m crazy, and so I suppose I might attribute my craziness to my indecisiveness. But in all likelyhood, their relationship is mutually inclusive, with both of them a side-effect of my “FuckedUpness”. In my unhealthy and irrational pursuit (read: obsession) of knowledge, I’ve been able to find something closer to the whole truth, but it’s not a truth worth discovering, because there is an inevitable bias towards the negative truth of life (i.e. skeptical, critical, etc.). It’s possible that this has nothing to do with truth, but more to do with self-truth- that is, the truth within my own-little-world.
I suppose it’s because my motivations for seeking the truth were wrong. See, as truth is infinite (and thus unknowable) if a person seeks the truth, they will likely find one of two things:
(1) what they want to know.
(2) the truth that is reflected in oneself.
In my case, my search for truth ended up being a journey of self-discovery. My search for truth was motivated by a lack of trust. However, I’m tempted to think that most searched for truth will lead down the same path of negativity (criticism and skepticism), because the need to seek the truth would not exist if a person was full of faith and trust.
I was once like that. I lived in a “perfect little world” like Other People, I was a hopeless romantic, enjoyed chick flicks, was an active churchgoer and Christian- an innocent cheerful preppy. When a person lives in their “perfect little world”, any person, place, thing, or idea that significantly conflicts with that world’s opinion is “evil”. Google makes money off of ads because most people live in this naive manner. I used to be like that, so I know how great it was, and I envy it. I still have my own little world, but it isn’t perfect anymore. Now I can sympathize with just about anyone or anything, but is something as depressing as that knowledge really worth it?
As selfish as it might be, I want my perfect world back. There is absolutely no meaning in searching for this “truth”. I knew a while back that there would be no end to it, but I guess, due to this inconvenient “rejection” factor, that doesn’t do sh!t for me if I can’t accept it. Now the only thing I can accept is that which agrees with this increasingly dismal image of “truth”.
Right now I want to scream really load. I want to punch holes in walls. And I really want to get into a major accident, or get into a fight and get bloodied up. For me, it makes me a lot happier to get hurt than to hurt other people. Perhaps I really do hate myself. I don’t know anymore. I definitely need some sort of therapy. By seeking out knowledge, I only discovered how much I don’t know; through self-discovery, I only found my shortcomings and limitations.
To find truth, you must truly be searching for it, but a person who has good motivation for such a search will not find what they’re looking for, because their true self has at that point become so corrupted one could not bear to look at it. It’s a catch-22, so my way out is to stop searching for the truth, I don’t want to know myself anymore. I want to forget I exist, like everyone else. I want to take everything for granted.
I once said that taking life for granted is one of the worst things (evil) a person can do. Perhaps it is evil, but if so goodness will never make you happy. I stopped taking life for granted, and turned from an optimist to a pessimist. It was due to a misunderstanding on my part. Taking life for granted requires, and is the result of absolute trust. A person can take life (things and people) for granted because they can have faith in their continued existence.
Because people take life for granted, they can’t understand when relationships go bad, they can’t understand that their votes are almost meaningless, they are perplexed by the “evil” people in this world, they don’t know what to do when they are depressed, get addicted easily, hate the IRS, and buy useless stuff because they are told to.
In exchange for their willingless to be abused and used, Other People get some thing in return: faith. There is a reason why that I cannot believe in God, and why other people can, and it’s pretty much the same. Perfection is inherently impossible to know, but to those living in a “perfect little world”, everything they do accept is perfect. I suppose it’s kind-of like an inside joke.
Many people have called me interesting, and from an empirical standpoint, I’d have to agree with them. Perhaps I’m interesting because I’m indecisive. But more likely, I’m interesting because I suffer so much, and yet appear so cheerful. It’s not as if I act cheerful on purpose- it’s probably a nervous reaction- a sort of subconscious defense mechanism- a mask to hide behind.
So to a great extent, I can understand the feelings of clowns. The combination of underlying suffering and a cheerful demeaner result in a conflictive personality, likely resulting in eccentricity –thus having a unique personality, and it seems many people find unique things interesting (new is always a good thing in moderating).
As to why I don’t take self-destructive behaviors like mentioned above, it’s probably because of self-control, and I’d wager a great deal of it. If there’s one thing I improved on while in this otherwise regretful journey of mine, it’s self-control. If it weren’t for self control, I’d have committed suicide by now.
