This will be a ramble, so I'll apologise in advance as I can see even QC doesn't understand my current life choices.
Quote: (10-14-2017 01:09 AM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:
1. Intelligence alone is no indicator of achievement in life. Genius and energy is one thing; application and discipline are something else.
What is 'achievement'? What is 'glory'? Is it social-based accomplishments that give you the illusion of higher status than others around you.
Danse macabre, mate.
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On the other hand, a man needs to do something productive with his life.
Again, what is 'productive'? How can it be measured? Is it even visible to others? Is it what the majority feel counts as the sign of a productive life? By the praise of others, or the gathering of sycophantic hangers-on, both of which are fleeting and conditional? By accumulating useless pretty things, your ability of which to accrue supposedly grant a measurement of worth to your existence?
Who did you ignore to achieve? What connection did you not make? Who did you fail to notice needed your distracted heart?
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I don't think a timid retreat into the wilderness is becoming a man of action.
I find great peace in stillness, more peace and satisfaction than in any of my life's 'superficial' achievements that might impress others, none of which were really that hard beyond putting in regular work. The quieter I am, the more distractions are lessened, and the less I need to prove myself to the world, so the closer I feel to God.
I've been battling some serious personal issues over the last six weeks, which is why I've fallen behind in my communication. When things were at their darkest, I looked up at ridge overlooking my property and decided I'd hike to the top, even if it killed me. I even took my guitar, which I haven't played for about two years, a lifetime for a guy who has never stopped writing songs from the time he was 12 until October 2015.
At the top, I came across a huge flat rock, sheltered by a thicket hedge of what I initially thought were flowering plums, due to the snowdusting of tiny flowering petals along ever branch. On closer inspection, I recognised it as young Walnut Trees.
I sat on the rock, felt the light breeze on my face, and looked out over the great expanse of the valley. Every few seconds, a petal or two would drift down past me. I could see the home I'm working to build, and imagine it taking greater shape.
In that stillness, I played the guitar, initially scared my fingers wouldn't co-operate.
They did.
I've played on stage for a few thousand people. It never reached the transcendental beauty of playing on that rock, for no-one but myself and God.
Again, what exactly is 'glory', when any earthly achievement I could aim for is humbled by the quiet beauty of moments like that?
I remember a female singer I knew telling me that singing was more of a 'higher plane' experience for her than sex.
My response was glib. "... and you can do both in the shower!", which made her laugh. But I understood how easy her happiness was for her to achieve, and she was one of the most pleasant,
radiant women I've ever met.
Now, imagine another girl attempting to seek transcendence through sex...
So, given that I've been facing something that would have beaten a lesser man, why am I relatively-happy and able to find peace in stillness and forced downtime, when so many around me miserable? Why haven't I turned to drugs, alcohol or gambling like so many I know? Whilst I've had a large amount of sex, it's always been a positive experience for both parties and a sharing of intimacy, so I don't feel the coldness and emptiness in the act others speak of.
However, the Driven around me are ravenous with the desperate need to matter when all become dust; endlessly-hunger for love that to amount of praise or intimacy can satiate; work tirelessly in hours misery to accumulate things that are transitory; scheme malevolently to be able to lord over others or to jostle to be that tiny step higher up the ladder; to take empty pride over the notches in the bedpost, the amount of likes on their social media post, or the trophies on their shelf.
I observe all, and
nothing fills the void for people. I've seen people will all the popularity and money in the world spike a vein a nod off. People with letters after their name who opened them out of loneliness and depression, bleeding out, their works forgotten. People who reached the highest office in the land only to use that power to regularly-order up young American Boys from a brothel in Fyshwick, of whom it was assumed they would be too politically-ignorant to recognise them. Great sportsman who drunk and fucked to excess to block out the pain of the toll it had taken on their bodies.
What is the
human cost of a man achieving greatness? How many have to die in a person's quest to finally satisfy themselves that they are powerful?
The fear of
mattering is destructive. What drives the Feminist? Harvey Weinstein? Hillary Clinton? Hitler? Thomas More? Einstein? Marx
The men of the Manhattan Project? Trump? What constitutes Social Good? What is owed by a person to society? Is every idea an intelligent person holds a Just one? I guarantee the EU Heads truly believe their cause is righteous just as much as a Silicon Valley nerd thinks Transhumanism will benefit society.
Fortis mentions he'd respect Langan if he offered his descendants great wealth, where my repeated experience with the children of the wealthy is that they're highly-damaged: emotionally, sexually and morally. They're the Commies, Genderfluids and Drug-users.
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Man was made to wrestle with problems, to confront obstacles, and to overcome barriers.
I have absolute-surety by now the battle of life is internal, not external. The world is the world. Your soul is your soul. Only one is in your power to repair.
Fortis suggests the Highly-Intelligent, (and I say I am highly-intelligent as a statement of fact, not a boast or a inflated-value judgement),
owe society something for being granted intelligence.
This falsely assumes society will willingly-listen to higher wisdom, and genuinely-wants their behaviour directed without demanding their own will triumphs above all. I mean...
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I can identify the key psychological issues damaging people's lives and driving their behaviour very quickly when I spent time around them. Now, whilst some people will ask for help, they very-rarely will act on it. Most often, they just want to complain for the sake of complaint, and their free will generally triumphs.
I've spoken in the past about dating the oldest of three sisters in High School. The three of them were locked in an vicious battle for their Ice Queen mother's approval, tilting at windmills, since the middle child was the prettiest and most accomplished, (and these were all accomplished women), and the Mother favoured her.
I can't begin to describe the psychological darkness I observed taking place over the nine months I dated the eldest. Every conversation was, functionally, about wounding each other in their mother's eyes. I know, I know... If women ran the world....
Sometimes it was
incredibly-petty. I turned up one Saturday to find the oldest and the youngest rolling their eyes at some pictures half-hanging out of a the little envelopes physical film would be put in after processing.
"She went on and on last night about how the Limp Noodle [her boyfriend, so named after a page in her diary of her trying and failing to give him a handjob in the back pew of a church] took 'beautiful pictures' of her around town and Mum and her oohed and ahhed over them for about an hour last night," the youngest explained.
My girlfriend sneered audibly. She left them here,
half on display, because, of course, we'd have nothing better to do than to look at stupid pictures."
"... and they're
so false!" the youngest said. "She's trying to look natural and casual in artsy black and white and they look fake as."
"...
so staged."
... which is every female profile picture ever taken, really.
The youngest was really riled. "I mean, she just left them here when she left for the day, tempting us to draw glasses, buck teeth and a mustache on every one."
"... so," my girlfriend continued. "We're trying to figure out the best way to fuck with them."
I flicked quickly through the pictures as the youngest groaned. "I hate that one. It so 'oh don't take my photo i'm so bashful'. Like she didn't order the Limp Noodle to do it."
Realising they'd otherwise be in a foul mood for the entire day over this, and having inherited my Dad's ability to always go that little bit further with practical jokes, I said "I know where all these places are. If you want to fuck with her, let's parody the pictures."
As a would-be photographer, I was always looking for any excuse to take pictures, and the challenge of matching the framing interested me. However, both their eyes lit up: you'll always win a girl other by suggesting causing trouble.
The youngest jumped out of her seat. "I brought her shirt in from the line last night."
My girlfriend was already following her up. "Her hairclip is on the bathroom sink."
"She's holding a hairbrush in this photo," I said, flashing it as they headed out of the room. "Grab it too."
We spent a couple of hours driving around town to the locations, each of them swapping the shirt and taking turns parodying their sister, matching clothes, poses and expressions, but taking the piss ever
just so, then dropped it into the 1-hour processing service. Pictures in hand, we were all impressed at just how well we'd matched the originals, so simply removed the entire set of originals from her sisters envelope and replaced the lot, in the same order.
That night, their sister returned. The youngest had predicted the first thing she'd do was 'go look at herself again', so, everyone pretending not to be watching her, everyone watched as she opened the envelope, looked at the first few pictures, then shuffled them back and
really looked at them.
She put them back in the parcel, looked up, and said, deadpan. "
God you two are bitches."
Later the pair of them agreed that although it took hours, the reaction was worth it. Myself? I saw myself as channeling their negative emotions into a controllable reaction.
See the jostling? Trying to matter
more than someone they despised?
I'd still visit years after we broke up. This never stopped. Sometimes it was much more vicious, and didn't even abate after the middle child had left for University.
I turned up once to find the Sisters discussing a glossy portrait of the Middle Sister and the Limp Noodle dressed up in a park holding a half-rolled up piece of parchment. I barely glanced at it, but the pair of them were seething over it.
"Mum loves it, and said it was such a beautiful picture she just had to get it framed, and now we have to look at it every time we come inside."
"What was it for?" I asked, as I sat down.
"She won some award at Uni, so they gave her a ceremony."
"Huh," I said, as I sat down. "It looked too formal for that. Something's off." I'd only seen it for a second or two, but the story didn't ring right.
My ex understood my casual observational powers by now to immediately press me for
what I had noticed without consciously-noticing.
"It's a public park, not a University Hall. They're too dressed up for that kind of daytime event. Limp Noodle is clinging to her for dear life like she's finally deemed him acceptable, she's subtly-leaning away. So, that thing in her hand would be a Marriage Certificate."
"Oh," my ex said. "She wouldn't dare..."
But, like I said,
she knew me by now. She leapt up and pulled the picture down from the wall and laid it on the kitchen table, both of them trying to see.
"There's a magnifying glass near Mum's sewing machine!"
A minute later, they used it, and they saw I was right, as, greatly-magnified, the heading was clearly-visible.
Both of them looked at each other. After years of fighting, they finally had something on Little Miss Perfect that they believed could destroy her in her Mother's eyes.
I knew it was pointless, because her Mother simply favoured the middle child the best. I'd even told my ex-girlfriend this years before. "It's not fair and it sucks and it's not something a parent should do, but your mother simply loves her more. You can accept this and stop letting that hurt control you and find out who you can be without that baggage, or you can keep at this Sisyphean task." (She'd understand the reference. Her parents were Oxfordian Ancient History Majors - she was almost named Clytemnestra).
Of course, girls don't like hearing brutal truth, so you can guess how well that went down, hence the breakup.
But, man, the look in the eyes of those two girls at that moment, when they realised they had her. The lust for power, for love, to be on top, to matter. Those instincts revealed in such a naked, voracious form visibly don't serve the light.
It turned out they married each other for convenience, as it increased their Ausstudy payments. It also didn't stop the mother favouring her the best, she said it was 'a practical financial decision'.
I had dinner with the family last year, when my Ex was back in the country. It's 25 plus years later, and now the three of them are competing via their children. Still fighting a war that will never be won. Wasting their lives on what, realistically, is pointless.
Extrapolate this drive and obsession outwards into other areas.
I recognise money is a superficial comfort that can be withdrawn at any moment. So is fame. So is power. I could work for years as an intelligent man to, say, invent rediscover Penicillin, only for another group of intelligent men to encourage destructive, disease-ridden lifestyles that will burn through the various types enough that eventually render them useless.
Social Justice is as pointless a boulder to push as is Utopia as is Nationalism. You can conquer continents but all empires crumble. All returns to dust.
What use is intelligence, or accomplishment, really, in a Post Objective Reality Society? Why do we need to make
any mark when it makes most miserable?
And this is the commonality of every 'Great' intelligence I've personally met.
We all eventually withdraw with the realisation of the importance of understanding humility, because it tempers the real danger of intellectual arrogance and the inhumanity it can lead to. Truth, beauty and love, man.
Flash back roughly 100 years. William James Sidis was a genius who was despised by the press for failing to live up to his potential to 'better humanity'. Like Langan or myself, he'd take menial jobs far below his educational standards, and find satisfaction in the physical work and greater connection to nature.
After his death they'd discovered he'd privately-formulated the existence of black holes. He also wrote of his interest in the spiritual beliefs of the Native Indian, and followed the philosophy of a particular tribe:
"One's contribution to society should be anonymous".
This reminds me of something else:
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And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. Truly I tell you, they already have their reward. But when you pray, go into your inner room, shut your door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Perhaps our symphonies should be private ones?
One last thought: a while back a friend shared a clip from 'the Exorcist' of two dogs fighting under the gaze of the Demonic Statue, and noted to me the resemblance to the current political climate.
A girlfriend pointed me towards a book she loved on near death experiences, and I read this description yesterday, that reflected that realisation.
The man having the experience had left his body and ended up in a dark, hellish place, until he prayed to Jesus to come and save him. Jesus took him upwards, back to earth, and showed him the lost souls wandering around, described as
'People permanently invisible to the living, yet permanently wrapped up in their affairs'.
Later, he's taken to plains far from the cities, where 'Hordes of discarnate people' are jammed together.
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"Lord Jesus!" I cried. "Where are we?"
At first I thought we were looking at some great battlefield: everywhere people were locked in what looked like fights to the death, writhing, punching, gouging... They could not kill, though they clearly wanted to, because their intended victims were already dead... These creatures seemed locked into habits of mind and emotion, into hatred, lust, destructive thought patterns.
Even more hideous than the bites and kicks they exchanged were the sexual abuses many were performing in feverish pantomime... and the thoughts most frequently communicated had to do with the superior knowledge, or abilities, or background of the thinker. "I told you so!" "I always knew!" "Didn't I warn you!" were shrieked into the echoing air over and over... In these yelps of envy and wounded self-importance I heard myself all too well.
I too heard myself all too well. Hell, that describes most of Social Media, which is why I eventually found it pointless and, as my sister described it, "a window to negativity".
I've spent my late thirties and forties tempering these instincts in myself. With disconnection from the wider world, I have found closer connection with those around me, and my life is more satisfactory for it, because, well, love really is all.
This is why withdrawal from the self-inflicted misery society wallows in makes spiritual and emotional sense to a highly-intelligent man.
Everything else? How can I make this understandable? There's an observable pattern to everything, to a degree that speaks of intentional and darkly-humorous design, but making other people understand this seems impossible for me. Here's one example, simplified as much as I possibly can.
Work steadily towards a desired goal based upon your own Free Will and you'll eventually get exactly what you thought you always wanted. That's when you'll discover it's never what you actually need.
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Guess ancient India Roosh made some good money selling game guides to ancient India hapless betas. The Kama Sutra even mentions other game guides (lost through the ages), so there was definitely a market for it 