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We are <not> special

Started by Mistre, November 26, 2013, 08:17:38 AM

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Mistre

It's been some time since I last wrote. Mostly because I thought I hadn't anything to share with you.

Maybe that's still the case, but if anything, this may serve as a reminder to myself. Hopefully, to all who wish to take the path towards illumination.

We are not special.

It doesn't matter if we finally discovered the "Black Iron Prison" around us. Or that we started our jailbreak. Or that we finally realized that jailbreaking is too much of a hassle, and really, how would we jailbreak from our own mind? That's impossible! We might as well make our prison comfy and easy to live.

We are not special.

Sit there. Think of ourselves as above all that "sheeple" who go around the day without thinking, simply following routine. We are so above all that, aren't we? We can see the prison! We changed the decoration! Just last week, we decided that that wall simply had to go.

We are not special.

Big fucking deal! What's the difference that our prison is a bit more "home-ly" than that of the other!? WE ARE THE FUCKING PRISON, AREN'T WE!? But, oh no! Let's keep patting each other on the back, congratulating ourselves for being "so above all that". Let's change the name, golden the pill, so to say!

Know what? Stopping at decorating my prison is not enough for me. It's time to go back to jailbreaking. Maybe, as some say, I will end up in another prison. Maybe I will finally be free.

The self is the prison. Then what's being free like?

I want desperately to find out.

Or maybe I'm lying. Be the judge. Hail Eris!
Uber Supreme Poobah of Pope-Groping™

He who acknowledges his own inability to answer a question is wise, he who does not seek one is stupid.

Pæs

Fuck you, kid. You think we haven't heard this all before? You think you're the first fresh face running hands along the bars dribbling exclamations of surprise and wonder and hope turning to the stone walls, eyes wide, asking "what if?"

Fuck you, kid. You think you're the first one, not supposed to be here, destined for something more, smuggling a spoon into the cell and gradually chipping away at the walls, lounging about in the common space droning on about "when I'm free" and "life on the outside" oblivious to eye rolling and bitter, knowing smirks.

Fuck you. You want freedom? From what? From solid points of reference? From stability and structure? You're welcome to it, champ, but leave the rest of us out of it. You know what's outside of this prison? A blinding fucking search light, dazing you and inducing an immediate and irreversible headache. And then the dogs start barking, from every direction. You don't know close they are but you can feel them on your heels. How long have you been running? Gunfire. Screaming. Barking, always barking. The sirens rise from the silence you'll never know again.

But wait, you say, stretching the metaphor even further. What happens if you make it through all of that? Well, bucko...

Fuck you. That's what. You wind up crashing back into your cell and you spend a week or two, curled up on the floor, crying and trying to remember who you are, kissing the stone, running your hands along the bars, YOUR bars, and feeling an overwhelming gratefulness for your cell and everything in it.

So yeah, fuck you. Go ahead and fuck right off if you that's what you want. Or you can pull up a chair, make yourself comfortable and make your damn time.

Mistre

#2
Tell me more, Pæs.

Have you tried? I am not challenging you, I am actually asking. I want to know what possibly could be outside.

A blinding light, you say? No comfort, no security? Being chased, always in fear?

That's horrifying, but I want to know what's beyond this. Not because I am a special snowflake, or because I am destined to finally "break free from the prison and be a real discordian™".

...

Heh, I guess I'm really the kid lounging about in the common space droning on about "when I'm free" and "life on the outside" oblivious to eye rolling and bitter, knowing smirks. That's funny... I don't mind that.

One of my hopes was someone who tried that before telling me something.

Time for the blinding search light, dogs barking and gunfire. I have to admit, I'm pretty scared.
Uber Supreme Poobah of Pope-Groping™

He who acknowledges his own inability to answer a question is wise, he who does not seek one is stupid.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

The Prison is a Prison if you see it as a Prison. It does mean we have a limited perception of the universe and ourselves... It does mean that there are walls and windows between us and Reality.

However, a submarine has walls and a limited view. A spaceship has walls and a limited view. Its those walls and limited view that allow humans to explore the seas and sky... just as its our self, our perception, our walls and windows that allow us to explore this reality. We perceive a limited amount of the data around us with our senses. Without those limits, we'd be crushed like a poor sod that just jumped out of his submarine a thousand feet below the surface, or suffocated like the astronaut that took his dog for a walk outside the airlock without his spacesuit. The Prison can be a Prison, especially if you don't see it, if you never challenge it or if you never change it. It can also be the vehicle for your adventure through this life, which really isn't a bad thing at all
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

Mistre

I can see the beauty of viewing the "prison" as a submarine or a space ship, but isn't illumination the unlimited perception of the self and the universe? Don't the walls... get in the way? Shouldn't we try to go beyond them?

Extending the metaphore, while I want to get out of it, I want to be prepared for what's coming. Although an astronaut in a space suit isn't in direct contact with the space, he is a lot closer, at least personally, than he was within his spaceship. I want to be able to wear a space suit.

And that sounded a lot less silly in my head.
Uber Supreme Poobah of Pope-Groping™

He who acknowledges his own inability to answer a question is wise, he who does not seek one is stupid.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: Mistre on November 26, 2013, 12:42:08 PM
I can see the beauty of viewing the "prison" as a submarine or a space ship, but isn't illumination the unlimited perception of the self and the universe? Don't the walls... get in the way? Shouldn't we try to go beyond them?

Extending the metaphore, while I want to get out of it, I want to be prepared for what's coming. Although an astronaut in a space suit isn't in direct contact with the space, he is a lot closer, at least personally, than he was within his spaceship. I want to be able to wear a space suit.

And that sounded a lot less silly in my head.

The spacesuit is just a modified BiP. 

As for Illumination, I direct you to the Zen Story on page 5 of the PD.  :wink:
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

LMNO

Mistre, it sounds like you're speaking of trancendent experience.

This is an experience that is impossible to accurately describe, because it is beyond words, beyond communication.  It is, some try to say, beyond self.

A close reading of the BIP suggests that while some of the BIP is based upon history, bias, and psychological barriers, a not-insignificant part is literally physical.  It's your own body.  And an enormous part of what it takes for us to exist are limitations.   

So, when you have a transcendent experience, you may stretch a metaphor to say that you've stuck your head through the bars.  Congrats.  It can be a pretty nice feeling.  It can also be a nightmare of eldrich horrors, but that's another story.

Do I really need to say that a human can't live like that?  That trancendent experience is only a moment.  It usually doesn't last that long without the use of drugs; and even then, you can't hold onto it.  (Incidentally, if you want evidence that you can't hold on to that moment, look at what happened to Syd Barrett.)

You're going to have to live almost the entirety your life in that prison/submarine/elevator/gimp mask; the amount of time in trancendence is miniscule.  Which means, if you want to be happy, and if you want to be the best human you can, you're going to have to figure out how to make your prison cell the best it can be.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on November 26, 2013, 03:14:14 PM
Mistre, it sounds like you're speaking of trancendent experience.

This is an experience that is impossible to accurately describe, because it is beyond words, beyond communication.  It is, some try to say, beyond self.

A close reading of the BIP suggests that while some of the BIP is based upon history, bias, and psychological barriers, a not-insignificant part is literally physical.  It's your own body.  And an enormous part of what it takes for us to exist are limitations.   

So, when you have a transcendent experience, you may stretch a metaphor to say that you've stuck your head through the bars.  Congrats.  It can be a pretty nice feeling.  It can also be a nightmare of eldrich horrors, but that's another story.

Do I really need to say that a human can't live like that?  That trancendent experience is only a moment.  It usually doesn't last that long without the use of drugs; and even then, you can't hold onto it.  (Incidentally, if you want evidence that you can't hold on to that moment, look at what happened to Syd Barrett.)

You're going to have to live almost the entirety your life in that prison/submarine/elevator/gimp mask; the amount of time in trancendence is miniscule.  Which means, if you want to be happy, and if you want to be the best human you can, you're going to have to figure out how to make your prison cell the best it can be.

And even then, we can't really say if a transcendent experience IS being out of the BiP or a temporary 'larger window' in your cell... or (IMO, more likely) an experience that is just as much a part of your BiP as anything else, based on your interpretation of stuff going on in your neurological system.
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

LMNO

Yes, absolutely.  I was using the most lenient of interpretations of consciousness, leaning heavily into dualism without jumping fully into Cosmic Consciousness.

popeluvicasksc

Explore the boundaries, delve into experiences, risk it all. Find out that the universe is impartial, that what you imagine is you is just a dying spark floating from the cosmic flame. A moment, a dot on the fractal. Out here there be monsters.
"Explorers in the further regions of experience. Demons to some. Angels to others."- Pinhead

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: popeluvicasksc on November 26, 2013, 05:42:47 PM
Explore the boundaries, delve into experiences, risk it all. Find out that the universe is impartial, that what you imagine is you is just a dying spark floating from the cosmic flame. A moment, a dot on the fractal. Out here there be monsters.

^^^ Uncle BadTouch.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO

Quote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on November 26, 2013, 05:43:37 PM
Quote from: popeluvicasksc on November 26, 2013, 05:42:47 PM
Explore the boundaries, delve into experiences, risk it all. Find out that the universe is impartial, that what you imagine is you is just a dying spark floating from the cosmic flame. A moment, a dot on the fractal. Out here there be monsters.

^^^ Uncle BadTouch.

And not even related to the OP, other than tangentially.

Mistre

Any advice on interior designing and trying to exit the "BIP"?
Uber Supreme Poobah of Pope-Groping™

He who acknowledges his own inability to answer a question is wise, he who does not seek one is stupid.

LMNO


popeluvicasksc

Quote from: Mistre on November 26, 2013, 06:11:59 PM
Any advice on interior designing and trying to exit the "BIP"?

Consult your pineal gland.
"Explorers in the further regions of experience. Demons to some. Angels to others."- Pinhead