Existential Thoughtlessness

Good clothes; good car; good friends; regardless, smile; regardless, tradition; regardless, resentment; regardless, away from solitude; essentially it is this: look outward! Your salvation lies without! You are truly thus a human being; you are truly thus unhappy. You are a slave to others; you have no conception of yourself outside of the eyes of others. Your eyes are not even your own. You are all each other's puppets, and there are no puppeteers. Our age is a massive starvation of souls: we need introversion! We have no understanding of ourselves, and such is impossible so long as we are looking out for the approvement of others.

We are all each other's puppets, and there are no puppeteers -- yes! And how simply one can observe this. The girl who laughs a certain way, or who talks with a certain accent, the man who walks with a certain pomp, seeming to imply that he is indestructible to outward pressure -- when in fact it might be the complete opposite, and he may fear everyone and everything; and why? Because those he does it for may easily unveil what hides beneath his false, projected self -- nothing at all. We are all each other's puppets -- that is, we all control the actions and opinions of others; and there are no puppeteers -- for there is no one who consciously controls anything. A reaction that precipitates another reaction, this reaction causing another, and so on ad infinitum -- such is our state today. But not all are victims; those who aren't are out. Blessed are those who are out!

What is implied in the psyche of the individual who adheres to the drowning pool ideal of materialism? Look at me! It does not even have to be material one raves over, that one attempts to ravish the admiration of others over; it can be a part of your character! You act a certain way to garner the attention of others -- you are a psychological materialist, this is perhaps worse: you sell your self by making it inauthentic, placing it on a rack for the sake of others. Still it lies: look at me! We must ask why. All desire for attention implies a discontentment with what attention one already has; all desire implies discontentment. The person who wants attention wants to be seen; and being seen is the essence of love. You want to be loved, thus you are not loved sufficiently, you do not love sufficiently. The two cannot be dichotomized. You are by all appearances happy, by all social conventional perceptions you have what is needed, by all political and psychological standards you are sufficient -- but you still want more. Thus you are not complete. You cannot lie to yourself, no matter how dazzlingly the outside world lies for you, with shining eyes. The spirit of ostentation needs to be cut off and uprooted; one needs to resign oneself, to God if at all possible, and learn that the monomanic desire for satiation only catalyzes the disease each and every moment the process continues. You are attaching yourself to the world around you; thus you cannot know God, cannot know beauty, cannot know love. All things that would be good for you in themselves become distorted through this gnawing concern for what others think -- down to the very music you listen to. You cannot appreciate it; you can only appreciate the ghost of social opinion. Thus you are not far from insanity, you who fosters illusion.

You have money; this transforms into possessions you flutter before the world -- look at me!
You have intelligence; this transforms into pedantry, didactic behavior -- look at me!
You have wit, humor; you are the warm center that the world crowds around -- look at me!
You are attractive -- nothing even needs be said.

And the tragi-comedy perpetuates itself for the simple reason that most everyone is involved with it, which isn't to say that few people know what everyone else is doing. They do, and this mutual knowledge between decadents is what causes personal wars when the smell of authenticity rears its head to the equally inauthentic individual in the foreground, waiting with impatience and resentment for his turn at attention as another steals his thunder. But the truly feared are those who know, to the quick, what is going on, and still themselves refuse to join themselves in the same bonfire of depravity that everyone else is involved in. These are the knights of power, who stand above the opinions of others, and see the universe without obstruction. This, and this alone, is the single greatest advantage that religion has brought into the world: a purity of vision, a detachment from the world, thus an ability to enjoy it, and love those within it. And how sad that religion is exploited for social relations, that one might be noticed by others! Religion is used as a way to keep oneself in the warm waters of orthodoxy, that one may not be considered heretical by those whose attention one seeks to gain. And again, again, again, whoever does this, engages in this hypocritcal act, doesn't believe in anything. All is for show, nothing is held from true conviction, and thus the holy has become fragmented from impurity.

Do not look out, but look within. See the task you are called to do, and do it, and the result of single-heartedly willing this one thing, constantly changing in accordance to your situation in life, will bring you authentic happiness. The world is so busy, so incessantly busy, with tasks involved in it, absorbing what little stimulation it offers, that it is clear that what they are doing doesn't make them deeply, truly happy -- because, almost certainly, it isn't who they are; they are swallowing the faulty advice of those who presume to know them better than they know themselves. People, as Kierkegaard once said, seek pleasure so hard that they often run right by it; so it is here. Nobody knows what happiness is; yet everyone thinks he has it before his nose.