Unbearable Ambition

This was your first mistake, and the one from which most of your problems probably stemmed. Ayn Rand is a chicken hawk propagandist who preys on immature minds. You should probably start reading different shit altogether. Having a mentality that’s predominantly informed by information regarding social stratification is a really big waste of a life. Learn to enjoy yourself. It sounds like you don’t know how.

Why is that, Fixed Cross?
I may be wrong here but perhaps when you are able to bear and to “see” the weak ones, and feel comfortable within your own skin with them, your whole philosophy will change. Does one not need to know one’s self, to acknowledge if not all, at least, many of one’s own human aspects, in order to see value and truth when it appears?

What do you think of Jesus? Do you think he was weak because he walked among those who were weak, he felt comfortable with them and identified with them? Does the ‘truly’ powerful person need to be surrounded by the strong at heart in order to feel and to know his own power? Or is the truly powerful person comfortable with and able to bear with all kinds of people? Sometimes we have a tendency to lean towards people and those things which make up for what we lack, even unconsciously, instead of developing within ourselves a balance.

It’s true that birds of a feather flock together but we aren’t often aware of just how those feathers came to be - what it was that they ‘grew out of’ and are continuing to grow out of. And sometimes those feathers get in the way of seeing the roots from which we developed. When we can see those roots and shape and apply them realistically, our ambition is not then unbearable but becomes a true raison de etre which flows out of a sense of love and solidarity.

Both cowardice and complacency become frustrating to people with ambition.
Once burned by such people, the mind decides for all time that such people are “bad”/“unworthy”/“a hindrance”.
Of course, the issue is one of getting frustrated - attempting to accomplish, disregarding the situation. Then making a decision “for all time”, continuing to disregard future actual situations.

The “cure” is to instill within yourself the notion that if you are trying something and not getting anywhere, it is You who is disregarding reality.

I do that but that is not all there is to life. I can enjoy days of just walking along the surf or preparing a nice dinner. But a deeper drive lives in me as well. We’re not all built to be completely complacent and satisfied with taking things as they are, and I accept that.

That’s cool.
I wish you’d post more on that, instead of on how bad the outer world is.

You’re an idiot for thinking that someone who quotes a writer is predominantly informed by similar writers. But thanks for the advice. I enjoy seeing people who spend their life running around drunk and stoned without any desire to reflect. I’ll try to be more like you for the remainder of the day.

In fact I’ve always been very gentle and accepting of weak people, but I noticed that the weak are not “innocent” but the opposite. Weak beings are almost necessarily parasites, even without intending to.

Jesus was obviously more tolerant than I am in accepting the influences that forced themselves on him.
But the problem with being surrounded with weak people is not that it prevents me from feeling my power, but that there is a great dissonance between what I am and what I can express. Weak people do have the tendency to gang up and want to crucify the one who is not following weakling-urges.

When in Rome…

Actually I first was so confident of the value of everyone around me, that I believed their judgments (this can’t be done, you’re crazy, blah blah, don’t do it I feel scared, etc) to be relevant to my own. This thread was started around the time I rid myself if the idea that I can perceive anything accutrately (and therefore accept it as real) that does not enter directly into my own perspective. I was able to throw off the judgments of the weak.

I just had to make one decision - to begin to anchor my own perspective. I then rediscovered that this was an immensely powerful ground to build on, and to think from. I started to enjoy the objections of weaker minds, as natural phenomena occurring wherever there is a strong self-achnoring. I kind of played around with that - I am still very tolerant of “real life” weak people. But I am wary of giving them any moral authority or weight just because they are weak.

Of course. But in order to try to attian something, one must know what one wants to attain, in concrete terms. The ambition that is the subject of this thread has not, precisely like my ethics, been crystallized into concrete terms. It is still a drive, a sense of ascent, underlying the world of separate object(ives).

I’ll ask again;

What if after very careful study and consideration, you find that your ambitious goal isn’t in line with your ethics?
What if your ethics actually indicates that you should NOT be trying to influence the world in such a way or become so wealthy?

The point is never to become wealthy, or influential for the sake of wealth or influence. If that was the objective I would just have followed the path set out for me by my youth and society.
The unbearability of the ambition is in part due to the fact that most paths to wealth and influene involve compromising almost everything else, especially clarity. That is part of this threads “spirit” - the frustration with the constraints put on the nature of accomplishment by the structure of success. What counts as the greatest success in this world, as I wrote earlier, is quite meager. Precisely because it involves separation, fear, exclusion - it all directed toward the opposite of what I’d consider successful.

In any case I never formulated a specific ambitious goal. The OP describes the feeling of necessity, of potential.

I loved MA’s Meditations - I thought they were beautiful. So much wisdom within them to reflect on. That is a man I would have loved to know. Could have sat for hours and hours and hours and hours exchanging with him. :laughing: I received more and more the sense of Nietzsche’s “amor fati” from it than anything else…as in love of fate…or one’s own fate…

I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.
Freddie’s - The Gay Science

My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary—but love it.
Ecce Homo - (Why I Am so Clever)

But there were some moments when reading it, that I thought that Marcus Aurelius was just a bit too tough on himself…perhaps because he was a Roman Emperor and…duty first. There were times when he would have liked to simply chuck it all and disappear but alas …duty first. He was a truly noble man in my book…and not solely because he was a Roman Emperor.

Were you to live three thousand years, or even thirty thousand, remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment; and furthermore, that he can have no other life except the one he loses…

I seek the truth…it is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance that does harm.

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

Wisdom

Not so wise.

Note that he chooses to love whatever is necessary but then declares, disregarding what might be necessary, to forever want for nothing to be different.

Loving the necessary is ensuring one’s awareness of what is in need of being different and wanting/loving only the changing of it… starting with oneself.

Fixed Cross…

I thought of Icarus in reading some of what you wrote in here, FC. You know, we all have our own personal BUT sometimes unconscious myths which live within our psyches which drive, pull and motivate us. As far as I’m concerned, I think that sometimes that can be a good thing…depending on the myth and how we relate to it. I think the myth of Daedalus and Icarus is yours. Is it possible that you have become too overpowered by it? For me, our myths are meant to serve us by teaching and guiding intuitively - once we’ve discovered our own - showing us the ways in which to go but we have to be careful because at times they might harm or destroy us or others if we begin to live them too literally, if we get too caught up, (universally speaking) for instance, in our own self-aggrandizement, delusions and illusory ambition. Icarus in his own ambition flew too close, far too close to the sun and fell to Earth. Perhaps you’ve read the story - perhaps not. But probably. If not, perhaps it would be good for you to read and ponder it. I don’t mean to say that in an arrogant way, FC -we can’t always see ourselves if we are standing too much in our own light or trying to fly so high that the sun blinds the truth of us. I think that Lucifer (I’m not calling you a devil- don’t believe in them) is a counterpart to Icarus. Both got in their own way of seeing the truth and pride always goes before the Fall. I think it is a very good thing to begin to peel back that onion (our perception of what is true - ‘real’), despite how strong and negative its aroma may become, to come to the realization, if it be so, of why we seek to be so far beyond or ‘unbearably’ ambitious and in what way it might perchance serve us MORE or truly serves humanity. If we’re afraid to even begin to do that - then there’s a good chance that we instinctively and intuitively know the metaphorical onion is rotten to the core. And by the way, ‘real’ humility is not weakness but rather a strong, clear and integral knowlege of who we are. It brings us in harmony with who we are - it does not separate or diminish us.

icarus.jpg

Actually, AD - the Icarus myth is ingrained so deeply in the northern European protestant mindset, it is so natural to think that one must not put ones head above the cornfield, that I dont think anyone around these parts is unfamiliar with the threat of flying too close to the sun. In fact, it took me extreme amounts of energy and courage to liberate myself from this disempowering idea. Because the idea is disempowering, and meant to keep people down (and governments up). It is related to “Render unto Caesar what is his” - a message saying: don’t even try to be what you can be.

I foresee a very different future for man. The coming two thousand years will be, I expect, a steady preparation in which man learns that there is no God above who will punish him for aspiring to greatness, but only a dormant “divine” (fundamental) will that, on the contrary, wants the individual to “approach the sun”, to shed the fear of rising above the mud of fear and superstition, to shed the authority of those who insist that individual must remain small, and to become conscious of being. In such a state no man or society will let itself be fooled into submission and servitude.

I\ve been “accused” both of being Icarus and Daedalus, by different people - I see this as a result of doing something people are afraid even to observe without judging it, let alone to do it - claiming my being for myself.
I hope and trust that more people will adopt my attitude in the coming millenia.

Sound to me like you need to do what I need to do with my ambitions and thats glen some perspective on the matter and realise we will never reach an end point that we think we desire not until the day we die, but its the chasing that we REALLY like. Its easy to lose sight of this though as we get so attached to the idea of fulling our ambitions. So yeah man i think the world needs more people with said ambitions but people with said ambitions may also have to deal with said ambitions :smiley:

A few years down the road, I must say that the ambition has in part given way to a confusion about what to do with what is in my hands. This is not a time where men who come forth with theories exist - this is a time for the scientific clergy, to blob together in anonymous goo, and repeat statements made a hundred years ago. The idea that science could progress, develop, has been absent for decennia. The quest for the Higgs boson is a sad and dreary reminder of this void.

What to do with this ambition, that still resides at the heart of the idea of value ontology?
I am a few years down the road as I said - a number of people have neen ‘initiated’ into the philosophy, and we are growing understanding in the dark. At this point I feel very little urge to share the views beyond my direct circle; it is perhaps better to let the world run its course for a while - as Einstein regretted the publication of his theory, when he found out the arms it was leading to, I am caught by a strong inhibition — why would I actively seek to enlighten, if knowledge is usually used for nefarious ends?

This time must be one of the stupidest times in human history; the clergical belief in the base derivations of scientfic determinism, ‘philosophical determinism’, is nauseating as maggots are, the sheer passivity and reliance on death, that these ideas require and select; the scientific paradigm of this age is one that commands absolute apathy and lethargy facing The Truth; and it is enough that my mind has been a sword to destroy this paradigm within my own world – I have sort of lost the hope that, within the coming years, men will be open to a less lethargic position.

So we continue to build in the dark.

On the other hand it is pleasurable to share views, to radiate outward, even without the purpose of bringing them across effectively. A sun does not care if its rays are received; it must simply radiate enormous amounts of fury by the nature of his being. I think the same applies to me. The past years I have felt happiest when I would just write, write, and create-onward, as I once saw the nature of the universe in a flash of clarity when I bit on a spine of a chicken in a tapas bar; I tossed away the spine, aware of the infinitely beautiful complexity of its making; this product of perfect intelligence now only served as a stick to hold some meat, for a more complex organism to devour. And similarly, I can not hope to “be” anything except that which I create, even though it may at one time be used as toilet paper; this is not my concern. I must work to the utmost of my capacity to create-onward, or else I simply do not exist - I must be both the process of evolving a spine and of irreverently eating that which that spine holds together; and in this I find my happiness.

And yet, the world is waiting for the theory; at least, the greater part of sensible scientific minds are waiting for something of the sort; the very quest for the Higgs Boson is a misguided statement of the wish for a consistent epistemology; the proposed god particle is in reality an absent logic, a piece of knowlegde that ‘ties the atom together’ - in the human mind. But the world, currently in political and sanitary turmoil, does not appear like a place to disclose such logics right now. It does not feel as if a profound expanse of our congnitive sphere is on the agenda right now - it seems wiser to patiently let the stem grow and allow it to break out of the forest into the light at its own pace. To be discovered, seen only when it has grown its roots so deep into the internet, into the ungraspable and uncontainable community of anonymous thinkers, that it can not be defined in terms of the Academic Lodge, not contained by its greedy clutches.

Science and Academia never were so far apart. Academia has truly and wholly replaced the Church of Constantine. It is perhaps even preferable to rely on the internet as a basis for a whole new type of Academy; I utterly refuse and refute the corrosive standards of academic scholarship, and do not wish to even touch this realm. Yes indeed, the internet offers a way of building a basis of knowledge and method that is as solid and consistent as Aristotle ever hoped for his science to become; indeed perhaps we can finally replace the dreaded University with a true Academy.

I think that you became what you wanted to be really - a supernova.

What now?

The successful demonstration of the Unified Field Theory. Where there may come a time when the Church of Scientology will become what it should have become in the first place, theplace of worship of a totally pantheistic God of every nuance of science and relgion, incoprorating all religions, Muslim, Science of Mind , Televangelism, Communistic Capitalistic Humanism , Existentialism, every ism which ever existed, in a retro fit of pragmatic usage
ad hoc, and correspondingly, all members of such congregation holding hands worldwide, realizing in an instant, that all is one.

John Lenon, “Imagine”

But seriously, it is not at all a mindset of spiritually based belief to hope for a micro instand of total peac, incorporating the non materialistic conception of the thrust of consciousness in it’s self. This is no Supernova, it is a cosmic seed ready to create new forms , new worlds, and to become God, again. (For others’ to reoccur)

A supernova is the source of seeds of life. I like the comparison, as indeed I have spent the initial ‘star’ quite fully across the darkness of space, the internet; the content of the theory propelled with the force of my own self-valuing. This force of joy was, in the beginnings after the discovery, immense, indeed almost unberable.

The years passing, I became more used to it and found calmer ways of discourse. I’ll post the recent talk I had with SIATD on the subject again. The difference between the initial passion of the OP and the rather calm way in which I speak here represents the transformation from supernova/cosmic body (I felt wholly superhuman, beyond human standards of possibility as they had been taught to me) and the ‘mere mortal’ state of one sensible human talking to another.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB_wLm-m91c[/youtube]

But all sensibility and modesty taken for what it is, the theory has implications far beyond politics. The scientific implications are much more dramatic, as they point to things that were truly unthinkable and thus un-wishable and un-fearable, whereas the political aspect only points to quite well known realities; be they of capitalism, socialism, monarchism, anarchism, aristocracy, any form. The world is quite ready for these insights, nor are they especially revolutionary in their implications. Nothing will change, politically, if man understands himself better; this will not cause power-mongers to back down. But in science, once a new overarching systemic law has been disclosed, the entire apparatus shifts its course. There is more than one way to initiate such a shift; I wonder if the consequences will differ very much, though.

Because of this I do not feel pressured; or do I? I can not tell anymore. I suppose Ive always felt pressured, in the face of human understanding, to have my say; human understanding has always seemed unbearably primitive to me, even when I was a child. There was one fundamental idiocy that bothered me most; the presupposed ‘coldness’ of science, its presupposed ‘neutrality’.