PEAS' Discordia

[Dr. Paes]

This post is unlikely to contain any new ideas for you.
I need to get it down here, though, to be built upon... because I'm getting my head to a point where I hope I can contribute content of some substance. Maybe. Unless I start screaming again.
Sometimes people ask me about my religious beliefs.
Hearing that I am a "Discordian" they are perplexed.

"What is a Discordian?" is usually their second question.
These people are seeking the Wikipedia definition of Discordianism and that's what I give them. "It's a religion disguised as a joke or a joke disguised as a religion; nobody really knows.  We believe that God is a woman and she's crazy. She's the Greco-Roman Goddess of Chaos actually. Eris, y'know? We're not allowed to believe anything we read. Actually that's not what we believe. I was only kidding."

This is what people want to hear when they ask me about Discord, and upon hearing this absolutely nobody is enlightened because the Principia Discordia was written by a couple of stoned hippies. It's not all bad. It's something to start with. Parts of it might work for you and others might not and can be discarded. The book is true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense. It contains some handy metaphors and useful ideas which some may not have encountered yet. It also contains a whole lot of fluff. It's a model to be improved upon, but not something I think you should take and use as is. Some people get hung up on the fluff. They take the Principia as their holy book and spend their time repeat 50 year old jokes. This gives the convenient illusion of being a freethinker without having to do any actual thinking. These people missed the joke entirely.
Some people get cured of Discordianism™ and evolve, stronger than they were before they caught it, but to me, Discordianism™ is just another form of mental bondage and it's not my Discordia.

Sometimes, though, they ask the question in a different way. Sometimes people ask  "What do you believe?" which, despite being very similar to the first question, is in fact entirely different. Whether they meant to or not, these people are asking about my Discordia. These people are asking what Discordia means to me. Sometimes I'm in a bad enough mood to try and tell them.

My Discordia is what separates me from the rest of you primates. It's in my refusal to suspend disbelief, instead embracing it and confronting issues head-on... and it's in the way that I deal with these issues. It's in acknowledging the horrors as horrors, rather than denying their existence. It's in laughing at these horrors, not as a coping mechanism, but because they're so ridiculous that there is no other way to react to them. I mean, it seems fair. If you keep doing what you're doing, you'll keep getting what you're getting. My Discordia is in pointing this out to you. It's in sprinting, climbing, leaping... dodging security guards, evading the police just to get a message put up on a wall. A simple protest. Just to share a tiny part of my Discordia with others, in the hopes that it's something they can use... and if they can't, at least I get a laugh out of confusing them.

It's not a set of beliefs I hold. My Discordia is in my questioning those beliefs. It's in the understanding that everything I might gather together and refer to as my "self", should not just be accepted as immutable truth or exempt from critique. My Discordia is in my taking responsibility for the way I process, interpret and form relationships between the information I gather. It's in my acknowledgement that the world as I see it isn't the world as it is... nor is the world as I think of it even the world as I see it. Everything that I observe, I change in my observation.

My Discordia is something I rarely talk about, because as soon as I start to make statements about my beliefs, I find further flaws in my philosophy. Inconsistencies and contradictions... and my Discordia is in my attacking those. It is likely that in the time between my posting this and your reading it my philosophy has changed again. Watch this space for further updates.

My Discordia is in my acknowledgement that what is popular is not the same as what is best.
It's in my rejection of the status quo as being something beyond criticism and inherently "right".


My Discordia incorporates parts of your Discordia. It has been inspired and shaped by your elements of your Discordia... but my Discordia is not your Discordia.
It's not something I believe. It's something I am and something I do... It's a multifunctional tool, because when it doesn't fit, I modify it until it works. It's my private, heavily modified copy of an Open Source Religion... and it's not for sale.

[Eater of Clowns]

I think I very much enjoy Paesior's Discordia.   

[Elder Iptuous]

Good enough for me....

From my version of the good book:

24"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on sand. 25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash, yet he was at peace for he knew there was no foundation of rock; and he rebuilt. 26But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who thought he built his house on the rock. 27The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash, and he was destroyed, and rebuilt not."

[Triple Zero]

My Discordia is the reason I can't sleep at night.

My Discordia is what separates you and I, you pathetic fucking primate.
Through my Discordia, I see horrors which could inspire me to climb a clocktower with a high-calibre rifle.
Through my Discordia, I take those horrors and I turn them into mirth and I forget about the rifle, instead laughing for hours on end.

This is a littlebit angsty, though.

Even taking into account the laughing.

Though it's probably right, and it's the way I experience Discordia as well, but ... it shouldn't be angsty. I shouldnt be angsty.

That's what people pick up on.

A friend tweeted me a few days ago that "Oh dear I hope you don't really believe that, the government isn't ALWAYS out to get you, you know"

In this case, it was indeed something facetious that indeed I would not have expected this particular person to understand. I had quoted a line of ENKI's feed that said something like "You dream what we want you to dream". I just liked the sound of that line, the extra layers (who is "we"?), of course I didn't quite believe that.

However, he was aiming at my tweets about freedom and privacy. Is that angsty? There are actually some fairly good developments happening around the subject of privacy in the Netherlands, so it wasn't just bad news and depressingness. I know it just made my friend uncomfortable, regardless of whether the news was in itself good or bad. Good news just means we're heading (possibly temporarily) in a good direction. However the fact that it was news at all, sketches the current picture of privacy in the Netherlands and it is absolutely dismal.

The point is, yes there are undeniable gloomy and horrible things happening in this world. My Discordianism makes sure that I do not ignore or gloss over these things.

But we must not forget to have FUN.

And not just horrormirth. Laughing at horrors is a way of coping, but never a source of fun.

Perhaps deluding myself? Don't the Subgenii say to "pull the wool over your own eyes"? Maybe all the chaos hippie philosophywank Discordians are on to something there. As long as you do it part-time. Part-time hard-realistic rational gloom and doom Discordian, part-time insane chaos magicky fluff bunny rainbow fnordician?

I don't know.

Somewhere in here btw should tie the fact that probably the single best thing I like most about Discordianism is Operation:Mindfuck and pranksterism.

[Dr. Paes]

My Discordia is the reason I can't sleep at night.

My Discordia is what separates you and I, you pathetic fucking primate.
Through my Discordia, I see horrors which could inspire me to climb a clocktower with a high-calibre rifle.
Through my Discordia, I take those horrors and I turn them into mirth and I forget about the rifle, instead laughing for hours on end.

This is a littlebit angsty, though.

Even taking into account the laughing.

Though it's probably right, and it's the way I experience Discordia as well, but ... it shouldn't be angsty. I shouldnt be angsty.

...

The point is, yes there are undeniable gloomy and horrible things happening in this world. My Discordianism makes sure that I do not ignore or gloss over these things.

But we must not forget to have FUN.

And not just horrormirth. Laughing at horrors is a way of coping, but never a source of fun.

Perhaps deluding myself? Don't the Subgenii say to "pull the wool over your own eyes"? Maybe all the chaos hippie philosophywank Discordians are on to something there. As long as you do it part-time. Part-time hard-realistic rational gloom and doom Discordian, part-time insane chaos magicky fluff bunny rainbow fnordician?

I don't know.

Somewhere in here btw should tie the fact that probably the single best thing I like most about Discordianism is Operation:Mindfuck and pranksterism.

Yeah, I agree with that part sounding pretty angsty, which doesn't accurately portray my Discordia. I think in the next edit I'll change the theme of that bit to something like"My Discordia is in my refusal to suspend disbelief, instead embracing disbelief and confronting issues head-on. But also it's in the way that I deal with these issues. It's in laughing at the horrors. It's in sprinting, climbing, leaping... dodging security guards, evading the police just to get a message put up on a wall. Just to share a tiny part of my Discordia with others, in the hopes that it's something they can use."

But I think there is fun to be had in laughing at the horrors.
They no longer surprise me, or shock me... so it's entertaining to see what The People are going to let The Machine do next.

[the last yatto]

like i told sin, when wip used discordians and beliefs in the same sentence

'HAHAHA i know right'

[Dr. Paes]

Updated. Still not right, though.
Shame that I only get to this thread when my eyes are nearly closed and I'm about to pass out on the couch.

[PeregrineBF]

My Discordianism is attempting to be aware of my assumptions. I can't get rid of all preconception, and to do so wouldn't really be useful or practical anyway, but I can be aware of it. I can attempt to evaluate each thing for itself, and be aware of what past experience is changing my views. I can try to think for myself, but I will fail. It's too complex, and takes too much time. But I CAN be aware of my assumptions, and I can change them when they become irrational. I can listen to what others say, and evaluate their statements in reference to my assumptions & other conclusions. I can accept or reject what I am told. In this way I can think for myself, just... perhaps not completely. The assumptions & pre-evaluated statements are still there, and it can be hard to remember what they all are.