Materialism

But woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full. -- Luke 6:24 (NASB)

With the materialist one's self is the limitation of one's possessions unperceived by the eye under the inexorable disease of corruption. With materialism what one owns is a signifier -- not for his happiness, as the promise initially held, but for his self -- his possessions signify what will soon be his self crumbling away. What is materialism? Dependence on facticity. The solidity of the conclusion speaks: the other is needed, and only the other can save -- an eternal "you" over the temporal "it". For the nasty trick of materialism is the eternalization process inherent to consciousness: what exists objectively is embalmed by the mind through idealization, and it cannot be otherwise -- this is simply how the mind works. The necessary dichotomy of temporality and eternity is where the sting lies: the mind works through idealization, eternity; the objectivity that the mind feeds on works through becoming. Thus the infinite shocks that piledrive us when what is idealized must constantly be changed to fit the implacable demands of becoming.

Therefore, every thing must be resigned; and this is not possible in itself, lest despair results, but through the transcendence of another -- blessed are the others, for they are the life-rafts that keep us from drowning in the waters of despair. This other can be human or divine. The human is a synthesis of the temporal and eternal; therefore it takes cleverness to know how to extract eternality while leaving temporality in the ditch. The Zeitgeist these days revolves around the superficiality of appearance as criteria for acceptance (whereas in the past it was intelligence, creativity, courage, etc.); appearance implies facticity; facticity implies becoming; thus the process murders itself. Her looks -- they are here a moment and gone forever. They can be enjoyed, but only with a mind that knows the subtleties of ephemerality -- for the good looks are easily idealized, and therein lies the poison. To see the eternity in a person is to see him as a unity; it is to see beyond the particulars and the idealization they regress into to a center whose circumference is -- nowhere. This process of unification simultaneously makes transparent; one sees through the particulars that make up a person to a self that is the sole remainder of the melted remains of temporality at its feet, and it is this firm standing, this self without blemish at the end of the deal, that proves its eternity, its infinite hardness. This realization of self through unity is called love. Hatred is simply the focus on a particular -- almost always a particular as it relates to the past. To see a person you hate is a contradiction; at best one only sees the shell of oneself.

The human, then, has the danger of temporality; therefore the quintessential solution to materialism is: divinity. Eternity without the temptations of temporality. The problem is solved -- so long as you grow a will and accept your sufferings.