St. Hugh's Rant # 3

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

RANT # THREE

I am getting sick of all the mental posturing and self-deceptions by which we imagine ourselves to be free. We have simply traded one set of mental manacles for another set and think ourselves special because of it. What we call free thought is simply an intellectual pose with which we console ourselves. I have news for us all, kiddies, Eris is not about consolation. Eris is about confrontation. She is not concerned that we feed our ego complexes with Erisian-sounding affirmations and free-thought-type dogmas. She is not going to console us when we realize that we have yet again cluttered up our minds with deluded crap while we thought we were getting free. Eris may in fact be the bitchslap of reality that could save us from such delusive mental posturing. She will confront us when we think we have got life all figured out. She will remind us what freedom really is. And frankly, many of us run away from that freedom faster than a prairie squid from a purple monkey.

What do many of us think the word discordia really means? Well?ñbesides having a disco element to which I will have to refer later, many of us never think out the implications of the word. Discordia is the opposite of accord and also the confuser of concord. I write that because many people have the funny notion that discordia only  means something cool, counter-cultural, and subversive?ñlike smoking pot or group sex. Unfortunately, that??s not what it??s all about (although the group sex thing could be nice for some). Discordia is not meant to be a pretty label for us to wear because we want to appear special and unique while imagining ourselves to more intelligent than the rest of society. We believe ourselves to have free thought. How many of us really do have free thought? How many of us are really open to DISCORDIA in our minds and in our lives? Well? If you call yourselves Children of Eris, you best work out the implications of that last question.

Most of us underestimate the ideas embodied in our myth of Grayface. We believe that Grayface-type thoughts are dull, stupid, sluggish, and dogmatic. But believing that is a serious mistake. Think about it. If Grayface-type ideas were stupid, dull, and dogmatic, why would they become so attractive? Those who choose the thoughts we carelessly label Grayfaced are exercising as much free thought in the matter as those who label their thoughts Discordian. Grayface-type thinking is simply another way of seeing the world which those of us who call ourselves Discordians reject for its humorlessness. Period. To kid ourselves into thinking that it??s anything else than that is rather stupid on our part. Grayface-type thoughts are intelligent, complex, attractive, and comforting (to those who want them). We deceive ourselves if we think we don??t use Discordian thoughts for the same reasons. There is much talk about liberation and free-thought and undogmatic expressions, but eventually even those become cliches and conventions. And there is nothing wrong with those conventions if we remain aware of them. I posit that we are not aware of them at all, for the most part. In this day and age, we have not only locked our minds in fear, but we have also locked our minds in Discordian-sounding cliches. Herein lies the truth that stupidity is intelligent.

Some of us have gotten into the mistaken notion that we are going to break down the order that authority rests upon. We too easily kid ourselves into believing that authority is a figment of our imaginations without testing that belief. Authority may have its roots in our collective social imagination but it impinges upon us in very real material ways. If we were considered a true threat to authority and the order it survives upon, we wouldn??t be here. Some of us could say that our ideas are a true threat and that authority just doesn??t know about us yet. But trust me, authority knows and just doesn??t care. We are simply another ?´life-style?? choice in the consumer market of life-styles. Sadly we are another strange collection of artefacts and ideas that are ripe to be bought by some yuppie who thinks Discordia goes well with their yoga practices and lattes. We can pose as revolutionaries all we want. That only makes us a more marketable product for sale.

How do we escape from this? Is there an escape? I posit the ?´maybe?? that many of us don??t want to face. Maybe it is too late. If we have an open mind, we at least should investigate the issue before we dismiss it as wrong. Maybe it is too late?ñmaybe not. And if we can find some freedom for ourselves what do we do afterwards? Think about this. We live in a world in which the vast majority of human beings are content to live in dumbed down consumerist lives with no more thought about the meaning of their lives than the cows they eat. Life is a grand video game where the one who gets the highest score wins. And with that winning they earn respect, power, and admiration. Now those of us who do not want to play that video game and who want to subvert the processes of thought that lead to such a game?ñwhat do we have to offer instead? That is our challenge. Eris bless you if you can work out that one for yourself. This rant is done.

[NotoriousNox]

So group sex is ok then? Good, not that i was waiting for anyones approval.

[Trollax]

Nothing...

what we will offer however is to teach others how to be comfortable with that. all I need is a two by four...

[Slarti]

okay guys, lets be serious here. this thread is too good to degenerate to sex talk and burps.

So Hugh, you're saying that (like lots of us have been saying) that thinking that we're free doesn't make it so. We're really acting like the other religions of the world in that we view every other religion as wrong and stupid. and i agree with that. we do.

We have switched our mental manacles, but what do you suggest we do about it. how do we take off the manacles?

i think the purpose we need to fulfill here is based on the grid:

HERE FOLLOWS SOME PSYCHO-METAPHYSICS.
If you are not hot for philosophy, best just to skip it.
The Aneristic Principle is that of APPARENT ORDER; the Eristic Principle is that of APPARENT DISORDER. Both order and disorder are man made concepts and are artificial divisions of PURE CHAOS, which is a level deeper that is the level of distinction making.

With our concept making apparatus called "mind" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us. The ideas-about- reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently. It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ. Real (capital-T True) reality is a level deeper that is the level of concept.

We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids. A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The ORDER is in the GRID. That is the Aneristic Principle.

Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.

DISORDER is simply unrelated information viewed through some particular grid. But, like "relation", no-relation is a concept. Male, like female, is an idea about sex. To say that male-ness is "absence of female-ness", or vice versa, is a matter of definition and metaphysically arbitrary. The artificial concept of no-relation is the ERISTIC PRINCIPLE.

The belief that "order is true" and disorder is false or somehow wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion. To say the same of disorder, is the ERISTIC ILLUSION.

The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely. Pick a grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered.

Reality is the original Rorschach.

the problem is that we can only look through one grid at a time. i believe that Illumination occurs when you can look through all existant an nonexistant grids simultaneously and see them all as equally valid. i don't know about you, but i'm pretty far from that goal (although a hell of a lot closer than i would be if i hadn't found this forum.).

thoughts?

[NotoriousNox]

look if my definition of freedom is being able to make terribly cheesy sexual inuendos i never intend to fufill, let me have that. Unfortunaley i do not have the gift of being as eloquent as most of the people who write on the boards, but i do understand the message. My digressing into sexual comments is merely my way of saying i agree with what i read, or something of that nature. I'm sorry if i offend people but isn't that what part of discordia is, being able and open to new and sometimes the vuglar nature of humanity?Maybe you are more inlighten than me, after all i am new to discordia, but you can't be free if you are limited by your mind
.

[Slarti]

lol. i'm not offended, i'm just trying to have a serious discussion on the topic that hugh started this thread for.

i'm not offended by random burping and sex talk, i'm just trying to keep the thread on topic, so we can actually follow through with something that someone starts a thread about.

[Penumbral]

Grayface-type thoughts vs. Discordian-type thoughts Show down!
Discordian has challenge Grayface-type thoughts!
-Ok First Grayface-type you defend first.-
"Well I think people are given the wrong image about me in general, I acctully would not like to be called Grayface-type thought he abused me by thinking that I could answer everything. I see the uses of order and control. My thinking is in no way dull, stupid, sluggish, and dogmatic. If they where would we have any interesting goverments today? All in all I am a utteryl usful tought prosses."  
-Discordian-type have at him!-
"Acctully I never had anything against grey-face thought. Only solely Greyface-type people, but for that matter I am just as mad or acctully more mad at only Discordian-type thinking. Its only misinterpriting "discordians" who lash out on people they should try to better understand they could learn a lot from Greyface-type people."
-Grayface-type your rebuttle?-
"Nah I knew what he would say we have been good friends for a long time."
-GENO would like to say somthing.
Go aheah geno.
"Thought is not of the path"

[Pvednes]

I'm inclined to believe that true freedom is impossible for all but Eris herself; We shall always have the mental shackles holding us. However, we need to be aware of the shackles, and the nature of these shackles. If we understand the shackles, we can work our way around them, get closer to that unattainable, impossible freedom.

[DJRubberducky]

Will anyone else out there be totally unsurprised when the final Matrix movie is released and we learn that the supposed "freedom" of Zion is simply another level of the Matrix?

You think perhaps those director dudes are Discordian and trying to say the very same message posted at the start of this thread?

[Penumbral]

I'm inclined to believe that true freedom is impossible for all but Eris herself; We shall always have the mental shackles holding us. However, we need to be aware of the shackles, and the nature of these shackles. If we understand the shackles, we can work our way around them, get closer to that unattainable, impossible freedom.

Why not just learn lock picking???

[SMFabal]

Look, I'm a slave.

I know I'm a slave.

You know what else? I'm HAPPY as a slave!

Total freedom scares the ever-lovin' crap outta me. I LIKE stability in my life. I LIKE knowing that I get a paycheck every other Tuesday. So why am I here? Because choas is a force that exists; nothing You, I, or anyone else says or does can change that. So we should, then, pay respect to chaos.

But I prefer being a slave. You know how much of a slave I am? I used to post as "Capitalist Runningdog". I sell "secret reports" online that are composed of information anyone can find out with time and patience. How do I justify it? "I like money".

Anyone care to debate my ideas?

[Jesus]

RANT # THREE

*drivel*

You need an editor, douchebag!

[Bella]

Look, I'm a slave.

I know I'm a slave.

You know what else? I'm HAPPY as a slave!

Total freedom scares the ever-lovin' crap outta me. I LIKE stability in my life. I LIKE knowing that I get a paycheck every other Tuesday. So why am I here? Because choas is a force that exists; nothing You, I, or anyone else says or does can change that. So we should, then, pay respect to chaos.

But I prefer being a slave. You know how much of a slave I am? I used to post as "Capitalist Runningdog". I sell "secret reports" online that are composed of information anyone can find out with time and patience. How do I justify it? "I like money".

Anyone care to debate my ideas?

I'm not sure that debate is what I want to do, but I would like to comment on your ideas:

I used to be a slave, but I didn't know it.

And I WASN'T happy.

I got up every morning and went to the courthouse to work with victims of crime.  My official job was to advocate for the victim and/or their family, to sit with them in court, to deliver their messages to the attorneys, to explain the justice system, fill out paperwork, etc.  A noble profession, no?

And then one day Big Al, the head baliff, escorted me out of 'his' courtroom and demanded that I go back in and keep 'my  victim' under control. I was supposed to go tell the mother of a murdered child that she had to behave herself in court.  When I said no, he looked at me and said, 'Who do you think you are? You're an agent of the court. You're a whore for the prosecution, so you get in there and do your job."

That's the day the light went on and I saw the chains for the first time. I came home and dusted off my tarot cards and built a website. It took two more years before I could afford to quit and work for myself - because when you have a family, you need that paycheck every two weeks!

So.....now I sit at home and wait for the people to call me for

information anyone can find out with time and patience.

I want to tell them, "just wait a couple of hours and see if he calls, you dunce!" But I don't because, like SMFabel, I like money. Once in a while someone calls with what I consider to be a 'real' question and that's a bonus.  It's a joy.

The bottom line is that I am still a slave.

The difference is that now I know it.

And I'm happy because if I didn't know it, I wouldn't see the need for change.

Even the bit of freedom I have is scary as hell, but that keeps me on my toes. It's a matter of balance people.  I need both order and chaos in my life. Yes, we should pay respect to chaos and to the other forces that exist.  If we cannot be respectful and open to other schools of thought, we will close ourselves off from further growth.  

When I grow up I want to be like my daughter, Sara - who once told me she believed in Buddha and Zeus and Pandora and Mercury and Jesus.  Only Eris knows what Sara will believe tomorrow, and she's not telling.

[SMFabal]

Actually, I'm almost to the point where everything I do on the internet pays as much as what I do for a "living" (MUNGO MOVE BOX!). I much prefer the internet. And I very much prefer working for myself!

[Trollax]

Will anyone else out there be totally unsurprised when the final Matrix movie is released and we learn that the supposed "freedom" of Zion is simply another level of the Matrix?

You think perhaps those director dudes are Discordian and trying to say the very same message posted at the start of this thread?

Actually, if you have a good look since Neo's awakening everyone's gotten a bit more powerful. The symbolism of there being a matrix within the matrix would lie not in the levels of control within the self but in the perception of barriers all around, that's why neo could destroy the squiddies. No more barriers.

The perception of layers within layers largely a western one, there are schools of thought that teach about reaching a place where there are no more levels. Where there is form but no structure. Where people can move without moving.

Freedom is possible, but not as we conceptualise it.

~Matriculated Trollax~