ignorance

Pride

It was strange to watch a traffic accident.  Everything seemed to slow down.  It was the same with the slow death of our country.  It started with a quiet ritual, a pageantry of sorts, as if nothing had changed.  But it had changed and everyone knew it.

Those that supported this change radiated with spite and revenge in their eyes, or with subtle hope-for-what-I-can’t-comprehend.  Others saw the coming change as one might watch a large asteroid hurdling towards earth: with awe and disbelief; aware that something had not started as much as it has ended.

There was a desire to protect just as there was a desire to explain to the blind what color was or to the deaf what music was.  And so we stood back and hoped there was something left when the atrocity was over, which it always and inevitably would be.  But we all knew one thing:  Human idiocy was only overshadowed by the pride we had in being so.

Freedom

What is choice but an intent on not being determined? We are all set on a a path, evolutionarily. We do not choose who we are for we are nothing but an end product. That is, until we choose to be curious and create our freewill.

It is (at first) a creation of our imagination. But imagination is laid to rest by evolution.

We are enslaved by natural drive, lack of intellect, lack of curiosity, and we waste our time in the delusion that we are free without even knowing what the word means, what the concept is. Often we call ourselves free never knowing that we are lying and deceiving ourselves.

It is only our capacity for intellect that can save us from the illusion of freewill.

It is only through thinking that we make a choice. We must think ourselves free.

Note: coming up Excerpts from The Trump Diaries

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Prejudice

Prejudice is an emotional commitment to ignorance – Nathan Rutstein

We all succumb to prejudice.  It is in our genetic makeup.  It follows us around like a stink that just won’t go away.  We don’t notice it because it is always around.  We breath it in and call it fresh.

It doesn’t take much to bring out the flowery stench, at least in our own minds; in the secret recesses of thought that come over us when we least expect it, when we “notice”.

We are all bigots to a certain degree.  We have to live with it even though we try not to.  Some have simply succumbed to the contradiction of thought that rolls through their minds.  Others dismiss it as impossibility while unfurling their national pride.

But in order to do those things they have to dismiss the fact that they have an “emotional commitment to ignorance.”  But of course, such people don’t think that way, if they think at all.

They simply know they are better.  They know that they are above the fray.  They are simply prejudiced.

Some Aphorisms

To be a master you must feel like a novice.

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Don’t dumb down the divine

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Ignorance is a challenge; stupidity a choice

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Happiness is not constant pleasure; nor is it unending progress

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Fear is a hammer. It can be a useful tool or a violent weapon

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There is no purpose, only process. There is no point but only progress

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Time knows that it is all there is

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Know what is necessary and take the rest in stride

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It is not that we let loose. It is that we don’t tighten up again

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Laziness is not a virtue. Popularity is not a talent

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The drive to be better at the cost of everything else is an empty bargain with the devil

Good Enough

This is dedicated to the feigned skepticism of those that fear happiness and its cost, who have taken the low road and call it good enough.

The judgement of others hurts. The off-handed remarks, the silent look and lack of questions and curiosity. The worlds said and unsaid. The forgone conclusions that hang in the air. But what is most irksome is that these conclusions are ignorant and ill-informed.

It is in the traditional that [these] attributes are found. Those that see the world through the lens of the past, through their own biases. Sometimes it is from those you love and care for, your parents, your spouse. sometimes from people whom you dislike or don’t know.

Sometimes it is yourself. do your own beliefs color you? Do they remind you of something bothersome? Should you fight? For what is a dream without doubt?

What is independence without ridicule?

How much is enough? Be yourself and the world will look away because it will have lost you to your own happiness.

Ignorance is a heavy burden to bear, but regret is a chain that binds you to it.

Ignorant Wisdom

There is a pervasive attitude based upon pride and a hidden weakness that undermines the ability to be great and erases the path towards it. There must be a word for it as it comes in many forms. It is found in typical places, where the weak and the prideful mingle and hover.

It is empathy gone awry. It is a bloated sense of importance concerning personal endeavors and interests. It is both humble and braggart in the same voice and is spoken with a smile or a “concerned” look. It comes from those who do not do hard work or are not accustomed to discomfort. They are blatant in their ignorance but thinks themselves wise.

They are not lazy, and so the thing is not laziness. It is not the same as the arrogance found in those familiar places. It is, perhaps, fear of the unknown and a grasping at a self-satisfactory savior. But all things are fear of death in the end, even this thing. But it is more than that. It is a fear of ego. It turns away from the unknown and despises the difficult.

The strong often bow to it because it is easier to do so than to fight. “It” is unending and blind. It turns the world beige and normalizes the lowest common denominator. It is soil in which only the genetically modified, the typical, the unspecial and spoiled can grow. This is the empty-eyed stare of the future.