Madness: a form of love

“ Significance of madness in the history of morality . - When in spite of that fearful pressure of ‘morality of custom’ under which all the communities of mankind have lived, many millenia before the beginnings of our calendar and also on the whole during the course of it up to the present day (we ourselves dwell in the little world of the exceptions and, so to speak, in the evil zone):- when, I say, in spite of this, new and deviate ideas, evaluations, drives again and again broke out, they did so accompanied by a dreadful attendant: almost everywhere it was madness which prepared the way for the new idea, which broke the spell of a venerated usage and superstition. Do you understand why it had to be madness which did this? Something in voice and bearing as uncanny and incalculable as the demonic moods of the weather and the sea and therefore worthy of a similar awe and observation? something that bore so visibly the sign of total unfreedom as the convulsions and froth of the epilep

Since human beings are fundamentally the same in so many ways - while their manifestations vary, their potential is undoubtedly alike and they all share the same basic faculty for consciousness, pain and pleasure which gives them their moral significance - trying to restrict your love to just a selection of human beings rather than all of humanity is utterly illogical, and only demonstrates one's detachment from reality and his or her own inability for true objective evaluation itself. That being said, when people love only their family, tribe, nation, etc., in reality they are usually loving the whole of mankind through them. What I mean by this is that their seemingly parochial love is actually a Darwinian mechanism which connects them to the species as a whole; when they love their tribe over others, what they are really doing is loving the process of natural competitive selection which has been proven to advance the species as a whole. Realizing that their own tribe has just as

"One of the main aims of philosophy - if not THE aim -, as I understand it, is to correctly and adequately grasp one's own identity, inter-relationship and ultimately one's best policy/ 'God-given mission' in relation towards the concentrically outward stacked domains of self, family, friends and locale, country, planet, and Universe, with an emphasize on and understanding that it is the first and the penultimate categories of this series which are most definitive and most important. It is only by doing this that one comes into one's full humanity, since it is only by this way one realizes one's destiny as a valuable, meaningful and conscious agent of that great brotherhood. Though this, as I say, is the aim, very, very few fully attain it. Fortunately, there is a shorter and easier interim method. Though very few of us can consciously grasp the Whole in all its infinite complexity, we each have an instinctive emotional attitude towards it, together

"You can teach yourself to feel differently. That is the essence of being a conscious spiritual Being.  And yes, you can choose your thoughts. And you're right that is one of the main methods to effecting/affecting yourself positively in general. It is all a matter of constant concerted determination. An Enlightened individual is constantly vigilant about everything they do, both internally and externally. He or she only indulges himself or relaxes his defenses such that it makes for overall spiritual growth. Everything else is recklessness and dissipation. It is precisely a matter of paying close attention one's feeling/emotional state. This feeling is our deepest and most RATIONAL impulse, a succinct summary of all our intelligence put together that, because it is so very rich and densely packed, can only manifest as a general FEELING, rather than individual, isolated thoughts which can cognitively, intellectually only be processed one at a time in much more detail tha

A questioning attitude towards oneself can be good practice, but... not so much when it comes at the expense of attending to external threats.  ;)  I tend to think that the latter should be the main impetus for the former, rather than a kind of navel-gazing which is not only usually rather unproductive and unfulfilling, but can also be extremely dangerous. Ironically, (or perhaps not so ironically) when we think of our environment as a safe haven, is a time when we can fall in to nihilistic despair and become a danger to ourselves. If there is no havoc in the environment, we have a natural tendency to create havoc for ourselves! Human beings thrive on and often require adversity in order to motivate ourselves, as animals we are programmed primarily to seek survival, and when that survival comes to too easily, we feel like life is meaningless. Our own sense of self-value tends to come from being in touch with our own mortality. Therefore, in my opinion, even the urge to reproduce is a f

The reason our deepest thoughts and emotions can't be said, or even sung, is because they are individual and are of endlessly shifting and indefinite form. Words and music are both too Universal, too humdrum and too specifically molded, too finite to convey them. That is why music is so unerotic. True egoism - love; the flesh; truth itself- is unknown to it. At least mere words still leave something to the imagination, a tremulous shudder of doubt to fill in with heroic action and obscene innuendos. A deafening and abysmal silence pervades all speech, that is its strength. Silence within music just becomes another part of the music, a part that is even more limited. My love isn't beautifully and finely crafted like music; my love is limitless terror and a lilac handkerchief thrown into the void. The only soundtrack I can possibly imagine to it is the music to a stabbing in an Alfred Hitchcock film. But how would that do justice to its infinite gentleness? As Ludwig Witt

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The Scapegoat A primitive tribal superstition... A mad mob craving a target for its rage.... A hive mind trapped in fear and ugliness... Sacred refugee cast out amidst the desert; Inner fugitive from the pitiless public glare. The part that we throw-away and desert; The forbidden side we don't dare to share. Lucky victim of persecution and cruel hurt, The innocent child on the sacrificial stair. Watchful critic who is just too alert, Bringer of tidings we just cannot bear. ....If He could rise... ...Then so can the outcast in us... The custom that deigns to be an "ought", But that is really the most of all unfair.  The way people just do as they're taught... Doing Wrong without so much as a care. ...If our bad habits lose their grip on us... ...Divine once more we will be... So much pain by ignorance is wrought, So unhappy and guilty we are reared, Put your past at last behind you, martyr of Greed,  martyr of Lust, martyr of Ignorance, And shed for him, O you mart

Why Study Philosophy? There are many reasons to study philosophy, from moral, to practical, to hedonistic/Epicurean (the philosophy of pleasure associated with 3rd century B.C. garden philosopher, Epicurus), to scientific, to even religious. Once we recognize that we don't know the ultimate answers to the most ultimate questions about how we should live, and the nature of the Divine and reality in general, the remaining desire to live a morally good life, a pious life, a happy life, of even simply an honest life, seems to compel us, as the great philosopher, Socrates, (who said 'All I know is I know nothing') famously maintained, to devote ourselves to this quest. In fact, as Plato famously argued, our ordinary, pre-philosophic beliefs are similar to living in a dark cave never having once glimpsed the light; we simply grow up acquiring beliefs much like an uncleaned shelf acquires dust over the years, never inquiring into the their ultimate basis. We are like a tree al