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Knowledge is Awareness!
Happiness
My happiness is paramount. Anything else is hypocrisy and as any deceit it is detrimental to your dearest to you to the broader circle of your acquaintances and relatives but above all it destroys you. Truth hurts but we are alive because of that pain that keeps us from self-destruction. Dishonesty is ultimately bad because it muddles the clarity of communication of my desires to the world and the world’s response to them the information that I need to pursue them. Lying to others leads to deceiving yourself, forgetting what you really want to accomplish, doubting yourself, hating yourself and ultimately – destroying yourself.
We are the sons and daughters of God! (Or nature for the atheists). It doesn’t matter if you believe in intelligent design, divine purpose or accidental combination of favorable circumstances. Me, we, you, our chemistry, genes, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, desires exist interwoven into the universal scheme of things and here is only one and only most important part of that system – me!
Why me?
Because that’s from where I look and can see and appreciate the world. I am my watchtower, my belltower, my lighthouse with my guiding light.
Who Owns the Government?
Political systems are created, funded and supported by us – the people to cater to our needs and desires, to make our lives easier, healthier, more rewarding and ultimately better.
The problem is that by choosing the best of us to deal with this most important task we end up with a bunch of people who understandably look for the best way to make themselves happier which sometimes comes at our expense. Humanity has devised multiple ways to ward against that and they were almost always successful in the beginning until elite rot sets in and the system becomes ungovernable working against its original purpose.
Science, planning and forecasting
Science is not supposed to tell you what to do. Scientists attempt to describe reality as it is. To figure out what to do you must:
- Know what you want
- Devise a way to get there
- Assess the resources you have to get there and revise #2
- Asses the environment and the favorable and unfavorable circumstances and revise #2
- Put together the best forecast you have and revise #2
- Start implementing your plan and revise you forecast to accommodate your new knowledge and revise #2
There is no reality as such, a given.
- It’s constantly changing
- I am one of the main actors who actively and purposedly contribute to recreating that reality
- We act on the basis of our desires and perceptions of the state of affairs
- The effectiveness and efficiency of our actions depend on how close our perception of reality is relevant to the actual reality
- Our perception, our understanding of reality is biased by our desires, beliefs and experience.
- Our biases, experience and desires are constantly changing.
- Same with reality.
If reality doesn’t align with my happiness there is a way to fix that. See above or better devise your own. It would also be nice if you share it with me. Because I don’t know about you, but I am neither the smartest person ever nor perfect in any manner.
Follow your dreams or follow the instructions
Actually, don’t follow the instructions* because that will most certainly screw your life.
The only chance that you have to set things right and succeed (and I mean chance, not a guarantee) is if you follow your dreams. Still, if you have faith, a door will open. It may not be exactly the door you were expecting to open, but it may lead you to happiness that you weren’t expecting.
Creativity and imagination are the most precious resources of civilization. They are the building material forming the basis for understanding and invention. Luckily it seems their seeds are spread widely and abundantly. At the same time, they seem to easily wither and die without proper nurture and care.
A dead dream is everyone’s loss and people can’t follow their dreams if they are hungry, scared or oppressed. Need, fear, and ignorance kill freedom and with freedom the chance for understanding and prosperity.
Freedom doesn’t come free of charge. Precious as it is, it must be cherished, earned, and defended. It’s not a goal but a process and indispensable first step towards the good life and happiness. Freedom is not divisible. You cannot be partly free. Freedom can only reign supreme or else it dies.
You cannot be truly free if your neighbor is not. That’s even more so if you have special talents and, in my opinion, everyone has talents. Only some don’t bother to develop them. That’s not simple laziness that is a crime. By ignoring your talents, you rob yourself and those close to you of the happiness and the good life that you deserve.
*Instructions are like crutches designed to prevent you from falling when you are weak and insecure but will get in the way if you are running towards your goal.
Stupidity
There is an old Bulgarian saying: “Stupidity occurs to humans”. Indeed, it does. All too often. More often than we all would like to see. But what can we do? There is no stupid animal. Animals are just natural, so are trees. For people stupidity is natural too. In order to achieve something more than naturally occurring stupidity we need to make an effort and think. By making an effort I don’t mean – over exert oneself. No, on the contrary, natural life is hard work and full of frustration and disappointments only the clever ones can lead a truly good lazy life in luxury or whatever you consider good life: might be devoting your life to yourself, your family, the advancement of humanity or science and invention. But alas good life doesn’t come naturally. You must plan it, build it, and then enjoy it. And all that involves thinking. And thinking is a dangerous process always prone to stumble into the trap of stupidity especially if it is done in a stuck up self-conceited: ‘holier than you way’.
We all know stupidity after the fact. Well, most ot the time. That’s not a big feat. It’s easy to notice when it hurts. It’s harder to grasp it before the fact: Danger! Stupidity! Will get us into trouble! Will most possibly hurt! Probably a lot! Evade, prevent, desist, in one word: THINK!. Thinking may be painful and confusing and is not a sure antidote to stupidity. Actually stupidity is a one of the possible outcomes of thinking) still it is the only known remedy against the pains and frustration of stupidity.
If faith and ethics mean anything in life they must bring real profit
But what is ethical and what isn’t. Eve’s pursuit of divine wisdom doesn’t seem to have yielded any tangible results. I know there are uncountable sets of rules and regulations – legal, religious, cultural and whatnot. And most of them are very useful and going against them can get you into real trouble even if your indiscretion is not discovered by the relevant authorities. I am not talking about divine intervention because it seems that God more often than not looks the other way when the good are crushed and evil prevails. To sum it up life’s different from an old Western with a happy ending. Perhaps there is some higher purpose or perhaps the atheists are right and the only real law is the law of the jungle of a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye.
Do moral principles work at all? Could there be a workable set of rules worthy of keeping by providing adequate return for the good guys apart from the questionable place in that luxury retirement home – Heaven – resplendent with scores of virgins singing boring hymns? What if there is no afterlife and we just die and rot which seems rather obvious except for that atheist Richard Dawkins who reckons we live forever in physical form through our own immortal selfish genes. And we are destined to live in this real, material and fluid world which could be Heaven or Hell depending on perspective, luck, attitude and the results of your actions.
Can you judge others and complain about their actions – yes you can but that is mostly a waste of time because you have to look at yourself first). If you don’t like the world you’ll have to start and from the man in the mirror and be the change you want to see in the world. To look deep inside and find that divine God given soul or genetic predisposition for survival – depending on how you prefer to call it. Because that idea/form/gene/meme/soul that will survive is the only thing that matters. There is the way of life and the dead end of death. There is a way to learn to be immortal – we are all offspring of a race of survivors – all the way back to Adam and Eve. So we have inherited a treasure of useful knowledge and a lot of nonsense (there were people who believed you have to kill someone to make the sun rise or kill an innocent child to win a battle). I don’t covet the neighbor’s donkey or his ass and we all believe his partner in life is free to choose. Still if I treat my neighbor badly and disrespect his right to life, liberty and to choose the way he pursues happiness than most probably my neighbor will disrespect my rights and property. And then we’ll both be in real trouble.
And if you ask whether you are your brother’s keeper then your brother might be asking the same silly question too.
Is God always Happy?
Why not? All powerful, immortal, all knowing it looks like God should be happy at all times. If you imagine God as a content Buddha – free of desires or like a Jesus ascending to Heaven satisfied with saving humanity by his sacrifice…That may be so but I doubt it. If you imagine God as a content Buddha – free of desires or like a Jesus ascending to Heaven satisfied with saving humanity by his sacrifice…That may be so, but I doubt it. Yes, I too can see the serene beauty of a stone or of vapour rising to the clouds but is that happiness? Rocks are peaceful lacking desires, but they do not have souls either. While God of the Bible seems to have doubts even about creation. Remember God creates something and then sees that it is good. Then God creates humanity – the pinnacle of creation in God’s own image but is so often disappointed… Happiness seems to elude God. God just like us humans is in a constant search of? Happiness? That seems believable, but it not my problem.
My problem is that I don’t seem to be happy all the time either. I know there are those of you who will say that happiness is actually the pursuit of happiness or else something that you cannot achieve on this world, but I will disagree. There are moments on this world when I feel definitely happy but then there are those moments when I don’t see any meaning at all. On the other hand – the pursuit of happiness can definitely be breathtakingly inspiring at times still there are moments when it suicidally frustrating. Then if it is my human nature to suffer from unsatisfied desires pulling my soul in different directions with no apparent meaning at all and if I am created in God’s image then God must be just like me and I dare not imagine what will be the impossible passion of happiness and hellish depth of frustration that God is capable of feeling! DOTUK
And whose responsibility is all this? (I will suppress the intuitive reaction to blame the government.)
There were times when people believed that if prayers to God do not provide quick solutions perhaps a contract with the devil will do. But that seems like an illusion too. If I was the devil, I wouldn’t be very interested in providing services in exchange for a corrupt soul too anxious to prostitute itself. That’s damaged goods.
With no apparent help from above or below it seems that happiness is my responsibility alone. And if desires seem to contradict each other it’s up to me to mould them into a coherent and satisfactory vision. But even then – the path remains elusive.
It’s easy in the Wizard of Oz – just follow the Yellow Brick Road and the dreams that you dare to dream will come true. In real life the roads of faith, enterprise, politics or thinking seem to lead into different directions. Faith seems like the best (and deceivingly easiest) choice but believing without acting can easily degenerate into hypocrisy because how can I know who I am by the results of my actions if I do nothing.
The pursuit of happiness it’s what’s it all about.
To be able to indulge in that you have to be free.
To be free you have to be alive.
That’s the meaning of life.
Or 42.
Does God like to pray?
If for us the people praying is a way to communicate with God then for God prayer must be a way to communicate with us. I can say that because i believe we are created in God’s image and if that is so then possibly the good parts of us are the Godly parts – in other worlds the true unadulterated image of God and I believe prayer is one of those things.
It would be impossible to know if God likes prayer in general but I can personally say that in my particular case the answer is – yes.
I feel good about it and so should God.
But what is the point in that.
Does God ask us to do certain things as we tend to do in our prayers.
Or does God simply pray may thou will be done.
I believe that is what God does and that is scary.
It’s easy for us to pray for God’s will to be done safely assuming it will be good for us but that is an illusion.
If God set us free because God loves us even in our stupidity it is prudent to assume that God will make our deepest wishes come true without judging them if they are good or bad.
That means that God not only makes our dreams and most elevated yearnings come true but our nightmares and basest urges too.
Be careful what you wish for.
Because your will will be done.
What’s It All About 2 Me
Pinky: Gee, Brain. What are we going to do tonight?
Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world.
This is a work in progress. Intended to serve as a scaffolding for thought and research. I am worried that we (humanity) have made such big strides ahead in technology but so little in our understanding about the big issues in life as Why, What and How?
The question is:
Why humanity doesn’t live in peace and prosperity?
Why humanity doesn’t live in everlasting peace and prosperity if we have already mastered the technological means and have access to the resources for that?
Possible answers:
Is it a greedy clique of corrupt politicians and businesspeople who conspire against us to protect their undeserved profits because they know of no other way to safeguard their privileges other than instigating division, conflict, war and chaos?
If that is true – how powerful are they?
How can we stop them from doing that and prevent anyone from doing that in the future?
Or are our institutions the culprit?
Is it their failure to allocate resources and distribute profits fairly while safeguarding against those who plan to disturb the peace to gain unfair advantage?
Why is humanity stumbling from war to war for no particular reason using ever more sophisticated instruments to kill and maim fellow human beings?
Why?
Why does our justice system seem eager to punish severely petty crimes but keen to ignore major ones?
Those are obvious questions that anyone can relate to. What bothers me that there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on how are we going to go about resolving those issues before humanity self-destructs? I know: Democracy, Free Markets, Rule of Law! Truth is – regardless of the validity of those they don’t seem to work.
Why?
Where is the theoretical, philosophical, ethical, legal knowledge that we need to develop to overcome these obstacles and what are those obstacles?
One possible answer could be – our institutions do not have the built-in accountability devices to guard against them being highjacked by corrupt people who misuse them for undeserved gains.
For me a first step would be better understanding of what’s happening because personally it has been more and more clouded with the years.
First, I thought communism was good and capitalism bad.
Then, capitalism is good and communism bad.
Democracy and market forces should take care of that….
And that seemed to be so true because then we won the Cold war – Soviet style communism crumbled under its own stupidity eager crowds dismantled the Berlin war and turned the pieces of the hated barrier into souvenirs – under the sounds of Pink Floyd singing “break down the wall…” Then the US bombed the Serbs!
Then NATO didn’t disband and kept going for no obvious reason. Then the Chinese communist system managed to bring their country out of poverty to the leading position in the world economy.
Then America is in multi trillion-dollar debt…
I still believe that it’s not by the benevolence of baker and shoemaker that we enjoy prosperity and that we have those inalienable rights.
What I don’t know is – what went wrong?
I know Marx does – he was confident that it was the ownership of the means of production that was the problem but while that does seem to be true with China’s success and the recent economic crisis triggered by US financial institutions it doesn’t seem to explain everything. Communism did fail in Russia and Eastern Europe.
Therefore, I am starting this blog hoping in a series of essays to manage to get maybe if not straightforward answers – to at least build a scaffolding that will help me scramble up to the shoulders of those giants and be able to see further (or perhaps to the tops of their heads?).
What’s in it for you?
Not much.
I am doing this mostly for myself. Why making it public?
If my thoughts help you in your own quest for knowledge – please, tell me – your encouragement may add a plank or pillar to my scaffold as I may help you build yours.
In general, I believe that understanding the fascinating and disappointing reality we live in will help enjoy it more and for longer.
What can I do to make it better, safer, more prosperous for me and those close to me and by implication everybody?
Better understanding will lead to realistic forecasting and will result in more robust planning that will make more sensible use of whatever resources I have available at my disposal in the moment.
But how?
Being open to learning and other’s opinion (just like the wise Chinese emperor) while being certain in what I personally want, cherish, desire, dream about as my guiding star though the cosmos of reality.
Last, but not least, is space travel.
What does space travel have to do with all this – you may ask…
It’s obvious – space travel is the latest and most exciting adventure of humanity. If anything is going to pull us out of the swamp of hate and division that we are drowning in is the unifying vision of a common quest. It may also provide purpose and employment for all those talented inventors, engineers and technicians who are now preoccupied with creating fancy tools for destruction. So my aim is to travel to space and in between now and then work to promote space travel for civilian purposes as a a worthy endeavor that will save humanity and civilization and may prove a useful substitute for the dangerous and wasteful arms race
So that’s my plan to take over the world. I know it may sound kind of naïve or even dodgy but that’s all I can think of for now and… you never know.
It’s the critical thinking people’s support that counts.
You can call it a blessing.
The mindless pseudo faith of cultists too lazy to think for themselves comes not as an inspiration from above but is a work of confusion inflicted by the great deceiver.
It’s a curse.
The facilitation of people’s intentions which are distilled from desire is the essence of civilization.
My point is – there are good people and bad people.
The good people are honest and smart.
Honest and true first and foremost to themselves – they know what they want and smart because they are looking for and finding ways to achieve that.
Bad people are dangerous hypocrites.
The good people are easy to deal with – when you know what they want and you know what you want it is not hard to find a common language and common interests. Therefore ethics are important. Not because someone has declared morality good but because it is useful. And not useful for some imaginary common good. Useful for myself! For anyone personally!
The way that humanity has invented to manage the complexities of ethics in real life is politics. I know it sometimes fails. That is because the challenge is indeed enormous not because the approach is wrong. Robinson Crusoe relying on his own strength and knowledge is a fiction – in reality humans are political/social animals – that’s the way we get what we want like the giraffe who has a long neck to reach its food.
Does “Society” even exist?
There is no such thing as ‘society”” just a useful invention of sociopaths to exploit the gullible.
Society as something opposed to the individual is a travesty. The only useful use of the term is if it serves me.
There is no such thing as “society” apart from the personal interests if its members and only in the sense those members understand them – not as some other people or group will try to impose on them.
Any claims of primacy of the common good over personal interests betray either personal confusion and a repulsive “holler than you” self-righteous ignorant attitude or exploitative hypocrisy in a brazen attempt to shame you into submission.
As with the wise Emperor of China who was the wisest person in the land because he was able to learn something even from the dumbest person so everyone of me and you is an emperor of our individual destiny. Free to set up our own goals and devise the means to achieve those goals. Free to succeed and free to fail including free to learn from that or ignore the lesson.
But what if my quest for happiness harms others?
Can I Talk to the Manager!!!
Are Elites Dumb?
If that is the case then are political failures (assuming a failure is something the people do not want or approve) the result of the corrupt elites’ stupidity or that was their plan and the fact that we, the people don’t like it is too bad for us.
I guess elites – corrupt or not, as clever as they are – are just people like the rest of us and it is understandable if they make the occasional error. But bearing in mind the information and resources that they have on their disposal that is highly unlikely. Therefore, it may be beneficial to analyse so called political failures from the premise that they may not be errors, but planned actions aimed at some consequences preferred by the decision makers.
The elites prioritise their interests just like any human being – me first, increase what’s mine second and help those closest to me third. Citizenship, society, nationhood, global awareness comes after that. Cooperation and/or exploitation of others is always a plus in the pursuit of personal interests.
The difference between the elites and common people is in the scale of power and resources that elites have at their disposal. We the people would like to believe, and the elites would like to convince us – sometimes sincerely and sometimes hypocritically that they manage these resources on our behalf, but the truth is that they have the control and we only the choice to trust or not to trust them. And indeed, sometimes resources are managed to the benefit of all but when corruption and greed overtake the individual member of the elites the damage spreads like malignant cancer. Better political systems manage this spread more effectively than more primitive ones, but which are better is a matter open for discussion.
So, a typical member of the elites will prioritise defending and enhancing his or her exclusive personal privileges, encroaching on the privileges of fellow elites who have more to lose but then more to give and on those of common people who have less but are more in numbers and last but not least protecting elite privileges or as Marx would define it class privileges. While Marx is right on that part he is wrong about the whole class struggle thing because the workers – or proletariat are not interested in defeating the elites – the bourgeois class, they are interested in becoming part of it. That’s where an enterprising member of the elites may and will summon the support of the common people to increase his, hers or their groups power and wealth at the expense of the other members of the elites and of course – the hapless masses.
Does that mean that there is no hope for the establishment of a just and prosperous society? No, indeed there is hope as history and current developments have shown. Elites, masses, humanity strive towards a world where rules work and personal freedoms are protected. Yes, there are those who would try and will sometimes succeed to cheat the system and on a grand scale too – see the Military Industrial Complex as one blatant example of that, but the fact that with all their power and money they cannot keep it secret and won’t be able to get away with it for long gives us hope. Because arrogance leads to ignorance – ignorance to fear, and fear – to failure!
Facts, Theories and Opinons 