Nothing Has Meaning

Yianni Stamas is my brother, in both senses of the word.

Remarkably enough he is also my friend.

Happy Birthday Bro, love Markos.

So I was having this conversation with Devin Castles the other day when the topic of directness and honesty being construed as rude or insulting came up. More to the point was that people perceive this as a put down, or somehow a reflection on them, most people being so self involved that everything is about them.

So I mentioned that wonderful old saying the truth hurts. And yes it does. Mostly due to what I just described above, where people perceive honesty about them, others, whatever as a slight. But I’m looking inward now, tying this with the underlying theme of this web site on the meaning of life, that we only have us, that we only control us, that we only know us, that we can only affect us ultimately, and that we are responsible for us. So looking inward as trite as the saying is and as trite and stupid sounding the term is means, if you give it value, just to see oneself, a topic of another post here and many more to come.

So the truth can not only hurt others, it can hurt yourself.

If you aren’t where you want to be, cognitively, or in your mind, for real then you see this and either deny or hurt yourself or feel bad as it were. Feel pain. Feel melancholy or call it depression if you want the pharmaceuticals to sell you drugs.

But really as you have learned if you aren’t where you want to be you are lying to yourself because you are where you want to be or you wouldn’t be there. So how does the truth hurt then? It shouldn’t. Only being blind to fact hurts but what you don’t know can’t hurt you. Haha.

Is there a point here? Not really. Just recognize that the truth may hurt emotionally but it will set your free in reality.

Fear.

Fear is the mind killer, Frank Herbert, Dune.

Lot of validity to that thought, fear being a very basic animal instinct, thought being anything but.

Afraid. Afraid of what? The unknown? The imagined? The real? Is there a difference?

I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened. Mark Twain

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. Mark Twain.

I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. Mark Twain.

I’ve lived a long life and seen a lot of hard times…most of which never happened. Mark Twain.

OK. You get the point.

What I like about this quote, and its various generic permutations, is the obvious implication that what we fear most, invariably doesn’t happen, or hasn’t happened. There are other versions out there, with different wordings to the effect that life as we experience it is largely imagined.

The reason I am tying this fear topic to the freedom of will and actuality of the freedom of will is due to the fact that fear is the ultimate absence of freedom. Fear is paralyzing. Fear is blinding. Fear is complicating. Fear is not real. Fear is imagined. Fear is the mind killer. Dune.

Now let us not get into all of the animal levels of fear that are incredibly useful to protect our beings from physical harm by getting our blood and hormones flowing when needed, physically. This is a philosophy site. We deal in imagination only. No. . . wait . . . I meant to say truth only. Yeah, only the truth. I want the truth and nothing more. Yoko Ono. Moving On. Double Fantasy. (Yoko’s portion of that album actually smoked Lennon’s, to this day, but when you have I Found Out under your belt what’s the difference?)

So why is it that we experience so much fear? The ongoing struggle between animal humans and enlightened reasoning humans. Logic. Cold, hard, logic. The cool and calm never flinch under fire, under stress. This is because they have no fear. Time is a factor. Fear will take away many opportunities to make decisions much more effectively to meet one’s goals and values. So part of the enlightenment of full responsibility and recognition of true desire and the revealing nature of action is freedom from fear. Next we can address fear. We can see that fear is our imagination playing tricks on us as we make excuses for not being true to ourselves, or actually, being true to ourselves and not realizing that the selves we are being are not all that.

Let go of fear, take responsibility, make reasoned calm decisions, be at one with the universe and all is peace.

Peace, contentment, calm.

Goals or states of being? Both.

A recurring theme here at Nothing Has Meaning is that your actions reveal your values. Simply put, you do what you want.

Whatever, whatever, I do what I waaauuuaaant! Cartman from Southpark on Maury Povich.

This is a difficult idea for many to take as our society is largely based on placing blame or claiming that actions are mandatory or rather involuntary. Involuntary action? Ridiculous. By action I am not talking about swatting a fly or closing your eyes as a reflex I am talking about life moves, choices made, avenues followed or not, the path taken.

Two roads diverged in a wood and I took neither, I blazed my own.

So for the sake of actually illuminating this idea, and the underlying freedom of realization that we are in control, further explanation may be necessary.

Strip away all of the outer forces and all of the outer influences and all of the outer external crap and you are left with yourself. See yourself. Understand that you live within yourself and that only you can see yourself clearly, only you have that potential. No one else can impinge on your world. From there, you act. Voodoo is voodoo, not real.

So the idea, the reality, the fact, is that once you realize that all choices you make are yours to make no matter the appearance of being forced or coerced or pushed, freedom, true freedom looms.

Once you let go of all external input as being relevant at all, freedom looms.

Once you become aware that nothing matters, but you, then you are free. This is the dichotomy of freedom because this appears selfish. Giving however is a logical extension of freeing yourself from the bonds of influence. Once you know that you are free, you can then give cleanly, knowing you aren’t reacting but rather acting, from the being, the internal being.

More on this dichotomy at another time.

Suffice to say, awareness of self will set you free, however, you will also get really irritated at yourself for not being true when you make decisions based on fear only to find they weren’t all that, and then you know that still, that was what you wanted, so you ask yourself good questions like am I really such a wimp? When the answer is shown by your action to be yes, well then, you can hone your true being, truly sharpen the image, the internal image of yourself.

So fear is the next thing to go.

Afraid.