This divide is not something I mean to state out of arrogance. A part of me feels apprehensions in writing this because even I can imagine the ridicule and opposition that comes from saying something like, "These people are superior, and these people are inferior." However, this is not my claim. My claim is simply that there is a division.
Earnestly, it could be argued that a person who is almost purely the result of circumstance is the lucky one here. An existence like that can be guaranteed. It can be distilled into a series of conditions that we maybe could then make essential for human beings in society to maximize happiness. Because earnestly, I think most of us would be perfectly happy with the simple life. Most would be satisfied with finding a lover, starting a family, and accumulating wealth for their progeny so that they may do the same. With a religious figure present to answer the unanswerable, for all those swirling torrents of difficult questions and emotions, you can call upon some god for comfort.
If maximizing happiness is our primary motivator, then yes, this does seem perfect. But it is in the "others" that our problems begin to arise. In order to craft this system that maximizes happiness, you must give people a set of rules to follow. A system works on a series of dos or don'ts, cans or cannots. In most cases, most people are able to follow these rules. Being able to see these rules and being able to follow them makes it easy to belong. However, because of this, it is possible to be wrong. If assimilation means happiness, then why would some people be so driven to fight against that assimilation? You could almost consider it a mistake of the human condition.
Very often, for human beings to consider a system legitimate, they need need to have a scapegoat or otherized group to channel their negative experience onto. This is a fault of human cognitive dissonance and if we are to truly create a great system for achieving simple happiness we need to cast aside this type of reasoning and see how these exceptions arise in the first place.
For this example I am going to be speaking about the LGBTQ community. These individuals shouldn't be such a target of hatred from the systems that allow human simple happiness, but unfortunately, it appears for a great many that a part of creating this simple happiness is creating objects or states of being to channel ire into, a simple way to hand wave their internal conflicts without actually confronting them themselves. And the non conformist expression and statistical rarity of someone in the LGBTQ community makes them an easy target for things like the Abrahamic religions. If belonging and happiness were so readily achievable, then why wouldn't people who are gay or trans simply cast away those aspects of themselves to allow assimilation? It appears that there is this fact of the matter for these individuals: that happiness cannot arise without also expressing their LGBTQ identity, this aspect of their identity is intrinsic and cannot be changed. If that was not the case, they wouldn't exist—there is no incentive to do so in systems that would kill or hurt them in response to this being expressed. That is reason enough for me to believe that those are aspects of consciousness that cannot be chosen or disregarded when we consider the systems we build society from. These cannot be the things we target as "undesirable" if we are to build society to maximize self actualization and happiness.
I do believe these people could be granted this simple happiness if the systems that allowed for it would accept these people, which is why this is not necessarily an argument against simple happiness for all. You do have to completely overcome and redefine existing systems for this to happen - but systems are malleable as long as the core of simple living is kept strong, and it can prove those results to the masses. Simply change the arbitrary rules, held in by claims of tradition and the discomfort of social conditioning.
Their is another roadblock to establishing simple happiness and this will come from an individuals ambitions towards knowledge.
Knowledge is a burden. As a person learns about the inconceivable vastness of the universe, the immeasurable-ness of time, and the fallibility of the human mind (prejudice, memory, manipulation), you begin to see an abyss. People can lose themselves within it or feign ignorance towards it. A lot of philosophy is built on people looking in terror towards that abyss and then choosing ignorance or a convenient answer in the face of it.
The lucky ones can bury it away and choose the simple life after brushing against it, but the ones that cannot become our scientists, philosophers, and artists. Those are the people who, after looking into the abyss, never stopped questioning it, so in response, they started to look for answers. The tragedy being that, in the light of every answer found, two more questions surfaced. Their quest for answers either stops due to death, or when the weight of infinite ignorance makes them step away in fear—causing them to seek simple happiness, delusion, or hedonism. If the pursuit is endless, why bother?
In the throes of adolescence, humans seek identity. After years of being defined by the family unit, a property emerges in the brain that demands independence. Because you cannot create material independence, you instead seek out independence in your identity. You begin to challenge conventions for the sake of it. To know what it feels like. You are attracted to the progressive because it is exciting, new, and different. You seek out different cultures and different perspectives because they differ from those that you grew up with. Just experiencing these things makes you feel individual.
Simultaneously within this intellectual searching also comes the experiencing of romantic relationships. Those two distort from one another, and because the libido is so strong and insatiable during adolescence, romance typically takes the majority of attention, and all other pursuits also occur in service towards romance. The exploration of certain thoughts or aesthetics will only occur if they also happen in service of sex and companionship. This may lead to a person casting aside their religion, seeing the grand tapestry of the world, and knowing about the many unique ways people live their lives. This is the first step into deconstruction: Why is it this way?
People may flirt with these concepts but never in a substantive way - just a neat thing to consider and feel smart and unique considering. The breakthroughs in thought do not occur because eventually, material independence comes to us, and the fruits of our romantic relationships result in children. And in the pursuit of sustaining that material independence and ensuring the safety of your children, you choose the simple happiness. It is natural, noble even, when framed that way.
However, in some, there is this will to truth. People who, in the face of the question "Why?", begin to seek answers, and in the face of these answers, begin to deconstruct them. If this is the answer, then why is it the answer? It cannot be cyclical or self-existent; every answer needs a reason for being an answer. The terror in this pursuit comes when the questions no longer have answers. You cannot substantively prove life after death - you cannot conceive of it. You cannot substantively prove God - to say you can perceive God is true arrogance.
So the responses are either endless meandering for the answer, or the three mentioned before: delusion, hedonism, or to fall back into the simple happiness.
But to wrestle with these to me is proof of a division of human beings. There are those who simply and easily assimilate, and those that cannot help but feel the drive towards deconstructing all. This doesn't help an individual. These ways of thinking wouldn't exist if its only purpose was a simple, happy life. If that was the case, then assimilation would be easier for all of us.
But this is a division of the mind - an intellectual division. I also believe there to be a division of spirit within humanity. The ability to transcend circumstance is exceptional. For a person of upper-class birth to stay within the realms of the upper class is not a reflection of will; it is the expected result. This goes for all class levels. If you are born middle class, you are most likely going to stay middle class. If you are born poor, it is expected you will die poor. People are typically a direct result of circumstance. This is only natural. The conditions we are born into compound onto themselves to ensure the same outcome in the future. The systems produce the people.
A poor family has access to poor schools, a poor school has access to poor resources, poor resources lead to a poor life, a poor life leads to poor choices - and then you have kids amongst all of this poorness. An upper-class child has access to the best schools, the best resources, the best opportunities; of course they make "the right choices." Even if they make poor choices, they have access to the best resources—of course they'll recover. And the poor person who has poor resources? When they make "the wrong choices," then they receive the worst punishment for it. They don't get the best lawyers. They don't get therapists. And people act surprised when this person stays destitute and poor.
The upper class isn't so because they are intrinsically better people, the middle class isn't so because they are intrinsically average people, and the lower class isn't so because they are intrinsically evil people. Their systems produce the same people.
Then what is the explanation for those born of poverty who ascend to a higher class? Exceptionalism. I believe most classes of people make roughly the same amount of mistakes. And this context keeps them staying within the confines of that class. So to ascend class means you must make fewer mistakes, and you must make exceptional choices. You have to exhibit endurance that is exceptional, you must have willpower that is exceptional, and you must have drive that is exceptional. Do not get this confused with luck. People can know a guy who gets them a job that assimilates them into another class—that is not exceptional. Being exceptional means having the ability to make choices based off the results you want, not as a result of peer pressure.
It is in this intersection where I believe the most exceptional of us lay: within the intersection of intellectual exceptionalism and spiritual exceptionalism. To have one of either makes you exceptional, but to have both is exceedingly so. Unfortunately, the people who have both qualities do not seem to be the happiest of individuals. In fact, these maybe the most hopeless. To have the ability to say exceptional things, think exceptional things, create exceptional things; but for what? Upon realizing you can achieve through your own efforts, you then have to ask what those efforts are for. Most in this situation fall into hedonism or aim to change society for the better—fundamentally shitty society and culture in their wake. Of course, even then, is the work ever done? Is there a pleasure that leaves you entirely satisfied? Is there such a thing as an absence of injustice? It's enough to make a man throw up his hands and give up.
But this begins the trap of knowledge. You cannot unknow these things. If you stopped at the beginning, you may have been able to delude yourself into living the simple life. But now, even if you were to try and live it, you would be haunted by the fact you are distracting yourself from your own knowledge.
So what is the solution? The most ancient one comes from the Hindus and the Buddhists. These problems have been so integral to the human experience that the oldest surviving religions are based off of them. They state that one should detach. Your suffering is because of your attachment to worldly things. So let go. Realize the body is just a shell, see that the universe just is, and you can just be as well. It's nice; there's a reason such beliefs have existed for so long.
However, I prefer to look at things a little differently. The suffering is the point. That's why you keep going. We see the suffering as the thing we are trying to get rid of, the thing in the way of our contentment and happiness. Suffering is the succor to greatness; it is the tempering of the soul. The great misgivings of humanity are a result of giving into suffering, whether that is escaping it or trying to find the easy way to overcome it. Finding convenient, easy answers to our problems in the face of the suffering—such thinking gave rise to things like Nazism.
This human condition is not about getting answers or arriving towards a utopia. It's about self-mastery in the face of it all. It's about deconstructing and understanding at the deepest level we can achieve in our lifetime - so that those problems can be chewed on further by the next generation of exceptional thinkers. Why else would we be given these faculties? We speak on the intelligence of other creatures in comparison to our own - as if there even is a comparison. The chasm of understanding. The ability to even consider, to consider and deconstruct infinity, to be able to understand the intelligence of other creators. Surely the point is to march forward towards infinity. Finding answers to the once unanswerable. Tearing the fabric in our understanding with new discoveries. Leading us to have to start anew. No other creature can, so we must.
Escaping the suffering isn't the point. The suffering is the point.
No comments:
Post a Comment