Rant 152: The Self Habit

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

Rant 152
The Self Habit

"You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you."
-Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)

"You ever think about the fact that all these great religions have all these prophets who are endlessly quoted and studied? You know what those great religious forebears did to those prophets, don't you? They stoned them, tortured them, imprisoned them, and otherwise brought about all sorts of horrid deaths upon them. We Discordians don't do such things to our prophets. Never have, in fact. At times we may tickle them, poke them, and make them butts of our jokes, but they are our sisters all the same. You see the difference?"
-Tequilarius Malignatus (from the Sermon on Non-Prophet Status)

Now pay attention here. No animals will be harmed in anyway during the deliverance of this rant. (Otherwise the White Mouse would chew me up and spit me out in a spew of tequila/Guinness and cigar upchuck.)

The self you often think of as "you" is just a collection of habits running along the same old gerbil wheel of conditions being endlessly reborn in every moment. The only problem is that you have gotten taken in by the show. You have pulled the wool over your own eyes and others have collaborated with you. This fiction, or figment if you will, is as ephemeral and fleeting as a sunset or a passing cloud. Yet we derived and impute so much importance to it. We live in an ever changing playground, yet we insist that we can find permanence and a place where all the games will finally go our way. We could just play, but that seems to simple for our all important self schemes.

Like junkies, we insist that all we need is another fix of "if only" or the next best and brightest new thing or experience to make our "selves" truly real...another hit, just this once. Or maybe a few more times. And before we know it we have lost track of time. We have been duped yet again by the idea that the world may be impermanent and unreliable, but at least we have our own selves. We forget the self is just another part of the show we call the world. And all of our attempts at being "realistic" are more often than not attempts at getting others to agree with the way we see things. The real world is nothing but the conventional agreements about how to view this existence. In this "real world" you are simply being used as a means to others' ends as you are using others as means to your own ends.

The "real world" is simply a concept we use to further our sense of a strong self, whether our "realism" is negative and self-defeating or positive and self-aggrandizing. The trick to get out of this trap is to not emphasize either extreme because the truth out there and "inside" you is neither. I have proof that you are not what you think, no matter what that is. What is my proof? Answer this question: Who are you when you are not thinking? Who are you in the brief moments when you exist between plans or schemes or tasks or dreaming or whatever it is you do and think that succeeds in pushing away life's flavor?

What? Can you see it? Can you glimpse for at least a second the profound freedom that approaching life from a perspective that recognizes this ephemeral nature of all phenomena, including your self? That is the purpose of wisdom teachings, no matter what others label them as. This impermanent nature and endless flux is called "chaos" by Discordians and their Chaos Magic cousins (who care little for Discordia). It is called "relativity" (shunyata) by Mahayana Buddhists (who may be the closest thing to Discordian "religion" without ever calling it that).

It is high time you learn to get over your self-addicted habit of "if only" and "just one more," those conditions under which you have delegated your sovereignty. There is a lot of talk of karma and all that. But you are the master of your karma no matter what you may think. You create the habit-forming conditions and the responses to conditions that have given you a sense of identity and it is time to start recognizing this. There is no more of a "realistic" viewpoint than this. You can choose to stay asleep at the wheel of your life, either by thinking that all of your habits and cravings are what give you meaning, or by thinking that since the self and all other things are ephemeral then nothing has meaning. But either view is still the view of someone who refuses to grow up and awaken.

It is not necessary to see or experience new things. Simply learn to see and experience things in new ways. You can see through the stories that others tell, and you can likewise see through the stories you tell your self. You can grow up and learn that just as Copernicus discovered the radical truth that the sun does not revolve around the earth, your life...this thing you call existence, does not revolve around your self. In waking up, the dream may not go anywhere, but you will learn to have more control over your happiness in the dream. You will learn that you can in fact have some say in how things go. You can participate in this world, no matter what the crapscreamers say to try to get you to simply follow their prefabbed and pre-approved methods of living. In seeing through the self habit you can paradoxically become your own person. And you can allow others to become their own people without succumbing to the push-pull which we normally confuse with social behavior. If you can learn to cling to nothing, not even to your "self", no one can get a hold over you. Think about that and its implications for your life.

December 28th, 2005
-Irreverend Hugh, KSC

Delayed posting due to this forum being unavailable and me being on a retreat. It was the last rant of 2005.

[neongenesis816]

Thank you for that.  I am bordering on giving up in too many ways, and I needed something like that.  I got my next fix .

[Lord Daddy Lombrosis]

That rant got me so pumped up that I kicked myself right in the balls and didn't even care!

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

That rant got me so pumped up that I kicked myself right in the balls and didn't even care!

Well, I didn't expect anyone to go THAT far. Maybe that was TOO far. I hope your future progeny will come out wailing and ready to kick some ass because of it. We need some more people in this world who can help us in the eternal war against spam muffins.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

What's wrong with pulling the wool over your own eyes?

[Schizzy]

[enlightened]There is no "self" anywhere![/enlightened]

[LHX]

this thing you call existence, does not revolve around your self.

man

you have no reason to believe that



how can you tell that any of this shit is here with out a irreverend of game bird?

it would take a lot of pressure off the back if you could say that all this shit doesnt depend on you
but
that would be shrugging off some responsibility

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

What's wrong with pulling the wool over your own eyes?

The prices that the Scotsmen will charge you for the wool.

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

this thing you call existence, does not revolve around your self.

man

you have no reason to believe that

how can you tell that any of this shit is here with out a irreverend of game bird?

it would take a lot of pressure off the back if you could say that all this shit doesnt depend on you
but
that would be shrugging off some responsibility

Belief has nothing to do with anything. Reality keeps on the way it is regardless of what you think about it, unless you actually do something.

You misread much of the rant. It is not an attempt to shirk off responsibility. It is an attempt at reaching a clearing or a break in the clouds. And yes, reality doesn't revolve around any individual. You may disagree and assert that it does, but that is just a trick of your perception.

[LHX]

And yes, reality doesn't revolve around any individual. You may disagree and assert that it does, but that is just a trick of your perception.

you are sure?

100%?


even if you go all the way back?

[Cain]

What's wrong with pulling the wool over your own eyes?

The prices that the Scotsmen will charge you for the wool.

Too damn right.  Its not "selling", its out and out extortion.

And if we are getting into an argument about perception vs reality I am now legally obligated to type the infamous utterance:

"Barstool experiment".

You may now return to your labours, or even labors if you are suffering from the English "u" embargo against America.

[Fizzwitz Glorypoop]

Wow, Hugh. You're really, really sure that you're right, aren't you?

[Lord Daddy Lombrosis]

Shut up.


No.  Wait.

Shut up.

[Fizzwitz Glorypoop]

Sorry?

[LHX]

o blaarggag?

ya blaarggag