What is there to Lose
but the ego and its constructs
Archive for the 'The Human Condition' Category
Machinas Animatas: Bad
From the Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera:
“(And that is why it is so dangerous to turn an animal into a machina animata, a cow into an automaton for the production of milk. By so doing, man cuts the thread binding him to Paradise and has nothing left to hold or comfort him on his flight through the emptiness of time.)
Thoughts on Love
Right now I think that we don’t actually fall in love with people, instead we fall in love with Love. These dear objects of our affection are spectacular, wonderful vessels bringing out these feelings of love within us, yet that is where these feelings originate, within us. 
It has little to do with them, actually. They can’t help the irresistable things they do. We love them despite all of the torture they put us through. We love these people ideally, with all their flaws and imperfections, unconditionally, for however long the ideal lasts, matched up with them. It could be for months, years, maybe lifetimes… time and the events of earth test this ideal.
And yet I am not cynical about romantic love. I think all this because of my observations in this world, and because I am hopelessly, hopelessly in love, with all of my loves from the past, with nobody in particular. I carry around an ideal that I would lay my life down for. I know my soul-mate is out there, somewhere, and I’ll scour the earth looking for him. The irony of it is, he’s probably already within.
On Improving our Lot
Scholars weighing in on happiness and displeasure, society, the Spirit of Capitalism, and “new consumerism.”
It may be true that in order for us to co-exist harmoniously in society, we must exercise self-control when it comes to our natural sexual and aggressive instincts, and that this plainly causes frustration and a degree of unhappiness. What has been presented in this essay is that images of sexuality and violence in the media do not make us happier with civilization, but on the contrary, the effects of this phenomenon do more harm than good as some people imitate some of the violent acts they witness through it. Additionally, what is revealed is that media is a large contributor to unhappiness in society with the ratcheting up of standards of what we perceive we should own and what our lives should look like. These phenomena are far-reaching, as consumerism is exported through media throughout the globe. With all of these factors there is cause for concern regarding not only the contentment of individuals with their own individual and unique lifestyles, but the well-being of all citizens in the world, who live in a world already plagued with violence prior to the infusion of media with sometimes violent content.
Our Political Culture- Strong or Weak?
What I have taken from the third essay of Nietzsche’s Geneology of Morals that I like is first and foremost, his valuation on the uselfulness of a multiplicity of perspectives on approaching objective truth, since this is a realm so universal and enigmatic, and we as humans are so limited by our subjective intellect. I have found the value of the mulitiplicity of perspectives valuable in my own quest for spiritual truth. Human beings, who all have some truth to contribute to the collective, also have their bullshit, this is the duality we are born into. Since religion is a human construct, I believe the same holds true for religion, and thus pick and choose among that which gives me “truth shivers” and that which does not. As religion divides, I am not a fan, but am a fan of spirituality which unites, revealing a treasure found within each and every one of us. In this way I am a “sensual,” not ascetic spiritualist, and not totally hostile to religion, because religion, at it’s best, unites a person with the treasure within, and then can transcend separation and suffering.
Divisiveness is rampant in society, one in which conservative religion is in ascent. Nietzsche also addresses a split within society, he describes the greatest danger in society being sickness- those that are weak and resentful, prone to nausea and nihilism. These people, according to Nietzsche, are herded into church by the ascetic priest, where they find anesthetic to their suffering, without addressing the causes of it.
Perhaps their digestion is off: I like how Nietsche says: “A well constituted man digests his experiences (his deeds and misdeeds included) as he digests his meals, even when he has to swallow some tough morsels.”
A weak person, instead, according to Nietzsche, turns to anesthetics- drugs, religion, to numb the pain of his existence. I love the following paragraph taken from Nietzsche’s Geneology of Morals and in horror, see a reflection of today’s national political culture:
It is on such soil, on swampy ground, that every weed, every poisonous plant grows, always so small, so hidden, so false, so sacharaine. Here the worms of vengefulness and rancor swarm; here the air stinks of secrets and concealment; here the web of the most malicious of all conspiracies is being spun constantly– the conspiracy of the suffering against the well-constituted and victorious, here the aspect of the victorious is hated. And what mendaciousness is employed to disguise that this hatred is hatred? What a display of grand words and postures, what an art of “honest” calumny! These failures: what noble eloquency flows from their lips! How much sugary, slimy, humble submissiveness swims in their eyes! What do they really want? At least to represent justice, love, wisdom, superiority– that is the ambition of the “lowest” and the sick. And how skillful such ambition makes them! Admire above all the forger’s skill with which the stamp of virtue, even the ring, the golden-sounding ring of virtue, is here counterfeited. They monopolize virtue, these weak, hopelessly sick people, there is no doubt of it: “we alone are the good and the just,” they say, “we alone are the [men of good will].” They walk among us as embodied reproaches, a warnings to us– as if health, well-constitutedness, strength, pride, and the sense of power were in themselves necessarily vicious things for which one must pay some day, and pay bitterly: how ready they themselves are at the bottom to make one pay; how they crave to be hangmen. There among them an abundance of the vengeful disguised as judges, who constantly bear the word “justice” is their mouths like poisonous spittle, always with pursed lips, always ready to spit upon all who are not discontented but go their way in good spirits. Nor is there a lacking among them that most disgusting species of the vain, the mendacious failures whose aim is to appear as “beautiful souls” and who bring to market their deformed sensuality, wrapped up in verses and other swaddling clothes, as “purity of heart”: the species of moral masturbaters and “self-gratifiers.” The will of the weak to represent some form of superiority, their instinct for devious paths of tyranny over the healthy– where can it not be discovered, this will to power of the weakest!”
N. Lois Turtledove is a graduate student at the University of Colorado at Denver obtaining a Master's Degree in Humanities. She teaches yoga inside and outside the home, and is an apprentice in the ancient therapeutic art of shamanic practice. She understands that the only real enemy is the self, and the Self is the deepest source of nurture. She wishes freedom from suffering for herself and for all sentient beings.