A perspective on life

[Valiant]

Recently, I have changed perspectives on a great many important things.
An idea of a personal code of behavior has started to take form.
Here it is, in a rough and incomplete phase of its creation.

This if for those with a strong and keen mind, only.
People that shape the world around them.
This is not for kittens.

These are a few thoughts of mine.
Sort of like laws that I live by, or at least try to, because this is who I am.
Read it and think for a while.
Do you agree with me?
If you don't, what do you disagree with, and why? What basis of your own can you found that upon?
Try to think for a while, as I said. If you are opposed to this, is it not only society that has caused you to be a bit brainwashed with ideas that won't really benefit you at all?
Think about that, and that you only live once. You gotta make the most of it.
People won't remember you in a hundred years anyway, so experience life at its fullest.
What good will working a boring job do you, in the long run?
In the end, you will just have wasted a lot of time doing something you didn't want to do.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Family aren't those who share your blood by default. You choose who to trust in based on who you can actually trust to have your back when the shit hits the fan.
- 99.9% of all people are shitheads. They do not deserve respect by default.
- Totalitarianism as well as democracy are stupid ideas, since people are shitheads who can't tie their own shoelaces. Choose a group of individuals like you and work for your mutual benefit as brothers.
- Be healthy and true to yourself in mind, body and soul. Do not deny who you are, work constantly to make yourself sharper and more knowledgeable as well as physically fit and skillful.
- Life won't give you any free tickets, you must pry everything from the hands of others who most of the time work towards other ends than you.
- Meekness is seldom rewarded. Be kind and generous to those who do not go against you, and those who help further your goals. Crush those who oppose you, disregard them and discard them.
- People are just human, and you can be stronger and meaner than they can ever hope to be as long as you put your mind to it. Fear none. Mental and physical brutality can take you anywhere as long as you are past the point of constitution where only you dictates where the boundaries of your personal strength ends.
- Don't let life scare you into submission. Scare people instead. Hammer them to either leave you alone or further your ends. Shape them by your will.
- Treat your closest friends better than yourself, and expect nothing less in return.
- Life is pretty worthless without material wealth as well as feelings of all sorts. You can't really live a good life without either. It's only in romantic movies and idealistic, pointless arguments where you actually have to choose between the two, when in reality having one means that acquiring the other will be easier.
- It is better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
- Treat yourself as the highest authority and only abide by what you personally believe in.
- Take what you want out of life, as long as doing so won't conflict with those you love and respect as well as your morality.
- This might seem like anti-social behavior, but in reality I just want to be left alone to do what I want with who I want and live the life I need.
- Having a set of codes to live by is essential. If you share my beliefs, you are my brother as long as you respect me.
- Making smart decisions and surviving the game is priority two, but don't ever betray the trust of your brothers even if it will land you in a world of shit and pain. That is priority one.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[nolla]

Well, I kinda agree with many things here. I have basically turn my back on the society and chosen my group. But this stuff I don't agree with.

- 99.9% of all people are shitheads. They do not deserve respect by default.

It's more like 80% are lost and hardly ever look around to see where they are at.

- Life won't give you any free tickets, you must pry everything from the hands of others who most of the time work towards other ends than you.

This is not true around here. There's all kinds of free stuff you can get. Social benefits. A lot of alcoholics rely on them. I feel like I am no worse than them, so if I need money I am not ashamed to ask for it.

- Meekness is seldom rewarded. Be kind and generous to those who do not go against you, and those who help further your goals. Crush those who oppose you, disregard them and discard them.

I don't see how crushing people would get me closer to my goals.

- People are just human, and you can be stronger and meaner than they can ever hope to be as long as you put your mind to it. Fear none. Mental and physical brutality can take you anywhere as long as you are past the point of constitution where only you dictates where the boundaries of your personal strength ends.

These are extreme measures. I see no use for them.

- Don't let life scare you into submission. Scare people instead. Hammer them to either leave you alone or further your ends. Shape them by your will.

Shaping people is also waste of time.

- It is better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.

I usually ask neither. But the attitude of this line is what I disagree with. I don't find anything so important to grab that I would need such an aggressive mindset.

 

[Valiant]

^ All according to the nature of one's self. And the crushing part wasn't literal
I'll get my ground beef from a store instead.

 

[Arthur Schopenhauer]

I agree with a few of these guidelines and I have no great problem with the ones that I disagree with; but when I say 'disagree' I do not mean 'disagree' as in 'a stance of opposition'. Rather, these rules simply cannot fit into my personal life so I'm inclined to discard them on a personal basis, but I can still see how they would work positively for someone else. Like you said, this stuff isn't for kittens; I'm a slightly timid and fragile person. I'm still developing, currently.

It seems like you are closing yourself in and shutting people out and this process is something that I've been thinking about a lot recently. It seems to me that life forces us into various specific fields and it seems like this continuous growth only secludes us from even more people or professions and many other things. Eventually, it seems, that we become continuously more limited as we become even more liberated; this is a strange thought, yet I think it is true. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but you can still see it happening nonetheless. I do wonder if it is unhealthy to only know people like yourself though, as it may cause stagnation in various areas of ones life.

Maybe I should make a thread about my core philosophies as well... Perhaps? Eh, now you've got me wanting to finish them all off and they need a lot of work...

[YOUTUBE="e7nwvmhbCac"]Born To Bleed[/YOUTUBE]​

I find some of this groups lyrics are very inspirational and perhaps you might find them interesting also. To be honest, I'm not a big fan of the music itself, but the lyrics are so very captivating.

 

[nolla]

It seems to me that life forces us into various specific fields and it seems like this continuous growth only secludes us from even more people or professions and many other things. Eventually, it seems, that we become continuously more limited as we become even more liberated; this is a strange thought, yet I think it is true.

This is true. It might work well for an extrovert, but I find that the more I narrow my field of action the more free I am to do the things that interest me and hang out with people I truly enjoy. But narrowing the field doesn't mean narrowing myself, quite contrary. I think I can focus better this way, so I am more often fully doing whatever I am doing.

 

[Donna Cecilia]

I also have my own set of rules to live by.

My close friends often say that my life philosophy resembles that of the Samurai, because I am very strict to myself.

I can identify myself with most of your points. I only disagree with the following two:

- Meekness is seldom rewarded. Be kind and generous to those who do not go against you, and those who help further your goals. Crush those who oppose you, disregard them and discard them.

While it is true that meekness is seldom, if ever, rewarded; one of my faovurite quotes is "keep your friends close and your enemies closer". I will not crush them immediately. Some life experiences proved me that people who opposed me, given the proper treatment, helped me to achieve my goals. I learned how to make the opposition work for me, without them noticing.

Mental and physical brutality can take you anywhere as long as you are past the point of constitution where only you dictates where the boundaries of your personal strength ends.

My disagreement on this part may have something to do with gender. I´m very conscious of my charm, so I choose to "kill them with softness". Again, using my mind and speech, not in a brutal manner. A combination of good manners, looks, and the right choice of words have always taken me further than brutality. I can´t survive a fist fight, but, in a duel of wits, I can count on the fingers of one hand the people who are a good match for me.

 

[Lark]

I reckon a perspective on life is important, its a good idea to try and outline your values and find out if they resonate with anyone else, a lot of history and politics, philosophy and spirituality, is people doing precisely this.

I reckon its clear here that you're prioritising brotherhood or fraternity, that's grand and pretty popular, the TV shows and movies which seem to epitomise it are all the rage at the moment and I understand their appeal. Its why gangs are popular in some neighbourhoods, on another level its why politics, patriotism and even terrorism are popular.

I'm not sure there's anything that shocking about those priorities, alientation with atomism isnt that new, the novel atomised was a sort of neocon/cultural con angry rant which publishers thought would crash and burn, it was an over night success and became a classic flogged by Penguin Books along with War and Piece and stuff.

Fight Club struck a similar cord with loads of people experiencing "man angst" despite the author having gone on the record that he created it from lots of cooky chain mails which circulated in the ninties, including stories about split personalities.

 

[Stanton Moore]

Recently, I have changed perspectives on a great many important things.
An idea of a personal code of behavior has started to take form.
Here it is, in a rough and incomplete phase of its creation.

---

Go get all those assholes on your way to empire, little dictator.

 

[FigerPuppet]

You sound like a bitter misanthrope who has just watched Fight Club and read The Art of War for the first time. Add one of the many disappointments of life as a catalyst and you've got this thread.

Anyway, I agree with the following:

Try to think for a while, as I said. If you are opposed to this, is it not only society that has caused you to be a bit brainwashed with ideas that won't really benefit you at all?
Think about that, and that you only live once. You gotta make the most of it.
People won't remember you in a hundred years anyway, so experience life at its fullest.
What good will working a boring job do you, in the long run?
In the end, you will just have wasted a lot of time doing something you didn't want to do.

I am going to comment on the points I disagree with.

- 99.9% of all people are shitheads. They do not deserve respect by default.

I am going to disregard the percentage that you pulled out of your ass. I believe you should respect everybody on your road through life until they have proven themselves undeserving of it. You should do this in an effort to make society a better place by making your fellow human beings feel appreciated. This is of course not the case on the internet, where people aren't people and society in the form of give-and-take is non-existent.

- (1) Treat yourself as the highest authority and (2) only abide by what you personally believe in.

(1) In matters of knowledge and opinions? Sounds arrogant. In matters of respecting the laws of society? Sounds antisocial.

(2) This doesn't really work if you want to thrive in society while not being antisocial. To thrive you need to be flexible, and sometimes you need to give in and conform to the beliefs of other people whose positive thoughts of you somehow give you an edge. In cases where you don't lose anything from conforming, but don't gain anything either, just do it for the sake of peace and respect. I'm not saying that you should adopt their beliefs, but you should respect them - at least externally.

- Totalitarianism as well as democracy are stupid ideas, since people are shitheads who can't tie their own shoelaces. Choose a group of individuals like you and work for your mutual benefit as brothers.
- Don't let life scare you into submission. Scare people instead. Hammer them to either leave you alone or further your ends. Shape them by your will.

The 4 points listed above would not be antisocial if you lived somewhere desolate where you didn't have to interact with society outside the tightly knit circle of which you speak, that consists of "brothers," loved ones and close friends. For society to function, people have to follow certain unwritten rules. You want to work against society (not respecting the unwritten rules = working against) while at the same time benefiting from the sacrifices that other people make to ensure the survival of it. It reminds me of - amongst other things - the small groups of antisocial Muslim immigrants that are present in all western European nations nowadays, who do not want to be a part of society, thus working against it, but still benefit from it. Your success depends on people being willing to follow the rules so you can take advantage of them. I know you didn't spell this out, but it is insinuated in the things you have written. What do you think would happen if everybody adopted this codex of "circlecentrism"? I have a few ideas, and they aren't positive. What you are preaching is unfair to all the people who make an effort to make society work.

The way you have worded yourself reminds me of a religious or self-help flyer; a religion of antisocialism. The Club of Antisocialists.
It is healthy to be a bit antisocial and it is sometimes necessary for you to be successful, but it shouldn't be a lifestyle like you put it out to be. I know you don't think of your values as being antisocial, but I believe they are when you put them into the context of society and people outside your circle.

 

[Stanton Moore]

Are you in a gang or something?

 

[Sparrow]

Pretty hardcore, did someone screw you over?

 

[Lark]

Pretty hardcore, did someone screw you over?

It sounds like a paradigm shift from social conscience to an extreme version of small scale mutual aid, personal not political, with an emphasis upon loyalty.

 

[Valiant]

Pretty hardcore, did someone screw you over?

This is a reaction to the over-all picture that I see before me.
Society in its entirety. It's rotten and corrupt, I don't see why the comfort is more worth than true freedom to do what you want.
There is no easy way to be free. It could even be bloody and violent.
But it would be natural to many of us.
Many of us are not born to wear a suit and tie, even if we look great in such attire.
I do realize that many people would die. Hell, maybe even me! I'm certainly not immortal.

It sounds like a paradigm shift from social conscience to an extreme version of small scale mutual aid, personal not political, with an emphasis upon loyalty.

Yes. I realized that I have been fooling myself since I was eight.
That was when I first gained a political awareness and started leaning to the leftist totalitarian side.
Today? Center-stage or left and far removed from the belief in a system.
Groups should have laws and codes, and one should be able to choose his or her own grouping out of free will.
One shouldn't get born into a humongously large group (aka country) that forces you to abide by their rules, or suffer imprisonment and persecution.
That's just sickening. Location shouldn't have anything to do with what laws you have to follow.





Anyway. I am not in a gang. Maybe in the future, maybe not.
I am thinking about it, to be quite honest. It all depends on what results my thinking yields.
I do object to some activities of most groups, though.
I think drugs and prostitution are filthy things, and most groups deal with either or both.
I'd not touch that, or theft from common workers or small-business owners, with a ten-foot pole.
I never felt like preying on the weak and innocent.
Shark hunting, as opposed to pulling up little fish, is way more profitable, and society doesn't care as much, either.
If a drug dealer disappears without a trace, nobody would care but his idiot customers.

As to the matter if i'm antisocial... Yes, possibly. I have anarchistic sympathies.
If I am bitter? Yes. Why wouldn't I be?
Anyway, maybe I was a bit forceful in my choice of words here and there.
Mental and physical brutality, is indeed good... But I completely understand and support the fact that honey is more efficient than shit.
Most of the time. Until you meet a hard bastard that won't budge.
Then, you "crush". Not just randomly because you can. That's stupidity.
I never liked senseless violence. It's a tool like any other, just a continuation where negotiations fail.

 

[KDude]

It would seem that I could agree with some of your code on some days. Then other days not.

I am a kitten playing with a ball of yarn... That ball of yarn may be someone's head, but to me it is a still a ball of yarn. I mean, I am somewhat playful in my "crushing". Not code-like. Or I'm just actually playing with a ball of yarn. That's fun too. I have one code that I like to follow, and it's very typical, the "Do unto others" thing. Golden rule. But I like stepping in on those who don't do it. I would not be so passive as to not trip a thief.

Anyways.. I don't know if I could come to all of the same conclusions as you. You sound like you're trying to cover the bases of basically being an honorable person, and one who doesn't take any shit or let people profit from hurting the innocent. That's cool.. I'm an IFP, but still along the same lines. As for gangs, I don't know if there are any that meet your requirements. In my experience, they all suck. Perhaps you should form your own. The only thing I suggest is always be aware of dynamics and details (ack...yeah, I'm suggesting you be a sensor..hmm, maybe that's going too far). i.e. Always keeping an eye on when to hammer down or befriend someone, etc.. Imo, the real question is always a matter of "when" or "where" or "how". Not if we want to do it. Some things aren't always what they appear. And sometimes we hammer down too fast or in the wrong place or if we get in a mode of carrying ourselves with a hammer in hand at all times, we scare the shit out of good people..and we end up resembling a little of what we hate.

 

[Lark]

YLJ have you read Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed, its a pretty good book, its subtitled an ambiguous utopia, the central character moves between two societies, one an anarchist collective and another a capitalist police state, he sees the worst of each as the utopianism of the anarchist world deteriorates into authoritarianism and the other as it breaks down into a revolution. Interesting read.

I've got to say that I'm still a socialist, I was vaguely aware of socialist values from I was about eleven, when I was about twenty or twenty one I moved from totalitarian quasi-stalinist position to sympathies with anarchists but it didnt last that long, I began to think, and still do, that none of these ideologies accurately reflects the radically mixed nature of the economy and political structures in the world.

I tend to believe that there's personal, cultural and structural sides to all the things I dont like the economy, state, society and realistically I'll only ever influence the first two, to be honest I think those two sides are the most important. Realistically the institutions and structures of our society are always playing catch up, most of the time they dont need revolutions to catch up but sometimes they do.

That's maybe simplifying it because there's a great deal of lies and pretense in politics and national culture sometimes, for instance in the US I think that the "furies" that the establishment released to motivate the fight against the USSR are coming back to bite them in the form of the tea partiers etc. when they have to find an alternative way of circulating the money other than a wasteful arms race. Its how I see it though pretty much.

Thanks for sharing man because there's nothing I like more than hearing how people view these things, see if they've had similar reflective turns to me.

 

[Lark]

As to the matter if i'm antisocial... Yes, possibly. I have anarchistic sympathies.
If I am bitter? Yes. Why wouldn't I be?
Anyway, maybe I was a bit forceful in my choice of words here and there.
Mental and physical brutality, is indeed good... But I completely understand and support the fact that honey is more efficient than shit.
Most of the time. Until you meet a hard bastard that won't budge.
Then, you "crush". Not just randomly because you can. That's stupidity.
I never liked senseless violence. It's a tool like any other, just a continuation where negotiations fail.

I dont think anarchistic sympathies are anti-social, not if you consider Colin Ward or Rudolf Rocker's takes on the deal, not at all, its about personal responsibility and self-government and dealing with your own consequences.

Why you bitter man? I wouldnt be, change comes with growth and that's how it is. I'm not sure that its too stark, there's philosophers, some of them capitalists, conservatives, good members of establishment society that use worse and pull less punches. They quote Capone now not Smith.

As to crushing people and stuff you should consider The Godfather, the book not the movies, its pretty clear about the mafia's philosophy, they wherent into violence the way that the Young Lords or 19th Street Gang or their like are, they used to use violence sparingly, that way it never lost its shock value. Like the Badder-Meinhoff used to say "Kill one educate a thousand"

 

[nolla]

I think the key here is not about anarchy. It can't work in the way it should since there will be always people who will try to get more power. If not in your village, then in the next one. So, it is always just a temporary solution, though in many ways it would be better. I think democracy would work a lot better on a village scale.

But the thing that I like most about this thread is... that the society as it is, big and uncomprehensive, will fuck you up if you let it. And the only way you can be respected by your generosity, good deeds and your live-and-let-live attitude, is to have a circle of friends. It is an anarchistic unit inside the society, in a way. But, when you have that clan of yours, what to do next? You can only try to help them in every way possible. There is no revolution. The best you can do is start a commune and grow your own veggies. You don't need to bomb white house in order to escape the society. Shure, you still have to pay taxes, but so what, it is small price to pay, especially since you wouldn't be making much money on the farm.

 

[ReflecTcelfeR]

I have effectively detached myself from almost every physical aspect of this life, barring evolutionary needs to mate. It started out because of my religion, I took it quite literally and seriously. I was to live a life void of worries about what to eat, how I was going to survive through times of trouble because I had Him to lean on. I truly believe that this will never change. I will always need something stronger to lean on because that is how a base creature stays alive. This life should not be wasted, but concern for health should not become an obsession either. If you get sick, you deal with it, if you are maimed, you deal with it. It sounds harsh, but events done cannot be undone and the quicker you can move past such horrible things the more time you can spend examining life. This being said, I have extremely paranoid parents, for the most part... and as such I have tendencies towards paranoia as well, but I do everything to keep this within reasonable limits.

As for life itself? I don't know the ending and we can believe and we can hope that this isn't it, but if it is what choice do we get in the end that would deteur such a fact. We merely accept and move on, or stop. I often think about dying and what would happen if you ceased to exist. It's hard to fathom, but regret, or any feeling whatsoever would stop existing and you would've never realized what happened, and you wouldn't even be able to realize or understand your state, because you no longer exist. It is ironically quite scary because we think of not existing as a bad thing, when the term itself is COMPLETELY neutral.

I will say that self-preservation is keeping me alive, my internal instincts do not want me left behind without leaving something behind and so I can't off myself, though technically it wouldn't matter. I also believe that God exists we are just too presumptious to believe that he would keep us alive beyond death, we don't know, we never will and due to this fact we can only go so far as to assume that there is a God, which I believe is a fact.

Living is fun, for the most part, and we are to see this as merely a path to something greater. You can believe this, it is your right and I find that it can partially be true, but to live this life as if it were a test seems rather strange to me. If anything I'd say life is more like homework, where the test would be death.

 

[Valiant]

I dont think anarchistic sympathies are anti-social, not if you consider Colin Ward or Rudolf Rocker's takes on the deal, not at all, its about personal responsibility and self-government and dealing with your own consequences.

Why you bitter man? I wouldnt be, change comes with growth and that's how it is. I'm not sure that its too stark, there's philosophers, some of them capitalists, conservatives, good members of establishment society that use worse and pull less punches. They quote Capone now not Smith.

As to crushing people and stuff you should consider The Godfather, the book not the movies, its pretty clear about the mafia's philosophy, they wherent into violence the way that the Young Lords or 19th Street Gang or their like are, they used to use violence sparingly, that way it never lost its shock value. Like the Badder-Meinhoff used to say "Kill one educate a thousand"

Yes. You know how you get a certain responsibility when you're an adult...
But truly, we are never left without babysitters in this way of life.
The thing is, too, that society is way too intrusive and it enforces many, many things that some or most people don't believe in.
Like this whole thing with filesharing. It's ridiculous.

And yes, they do...

I think the key here is not about anarchy. It can't work in the way it should since there will be always people who will try to get more power. If not in your village, then in the next one. So, it is always just a temporary solution, though in many ways it would be better. I think democracy would work a lot better on a village scale.

But the thing that I like most about this thread is... that the society as it is, big and uncomprehensive, will fuck you up if you let it. And the only way you can be respected by your generosity, good deeds and your live-and-let-live attitude, is to have a circle of friends. It is an anarchistic unit inside the society, in a way. But, when you have that clan of yours, what to do next? You can only try to help them in every way possible. There is no revolution. The best you can do is start a commune and grow your own veggies. You don't need to bomb white house in order to escape the society. Shure, you still have to pay taxes, but so what, it is small price to pay, especially since you wouldn't be making much money on the farm.

That is a point. Maybe the key would be a society that has removed two thirds of its laws, leaving the elementary stuff that enables road building and national defense, health care etc.
Policing should be left to citizens. Maybe like how it works in sheriff departments.
A bit like in the "wild west".

 

[FDG]

Well, I would say that many of those points, if applied correctly, can get you killed rather quickly. So, if that's your aim, good luck.