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. 
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.
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 
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’.
Having spent all my time writing and developing the idea, the past three years, I have not been very active economically, and right now I find myself here again, in the editing suite of a small tv station, making my pay, gathering the rent – none of the people here has the faintest clue as to my real work - I have, in the past, tried to entertain conversations with people about what I was writing; it is received with glassy gazes, invariably, even at the first mention of a word like ‘value’ or ‘power’, nervous systems rebel. But I have absolutely no desire to communicate this to anyone - directly, eye to eye - who isn’t asking for it, who isn’t expressing curiosity or who isn’t directly attacking it.
But recently I have finally begun preparations for a more ambtious economic plan. It had taken me all this time to realize what, in terms of my own values and self-valuing, I had to work on. The psychologial implications of VO are as vast as the scientific ones. To self-study using VO was not a given possibility; the terms had to be developed first and this is, retrospectively, what most of my time in the past three years, working with close friends, has been dedicated to. What is a self-valuing psyche? What is its consistency?
Freuds conception the selfs main drives has to be abandoned here, or at least seriously revised; that is one of the first serious implications I noticed. It is simply not possible to self-value consistently within a Freudian hierarchy of pathos; the Freudian attitude towards ones roots (and thus towards offspring) is crude and ultimately groundless, and deadly - by his means of self-analysis, one ends up erradicating the self; thus, in cynical terms, ‘solving’ it - and one dissolves into the fabric of society, economy, expediency.
A question to those reading: consider that I am working in television, and am quite capable of producing quality material, technically. I have tried in vain to conceive of a concept fit for tv that does some justice to philosophy, or what I consider that name to truly signify. It may be, probably is, a lack of imagination on my part. The question then is as simple as this: What could I do with my tv-skills to benefit me as a philosopher? I notice that I am quite thoroughly paralized in this respect. My ambition seems to fail me here - is it that tv is just not a suitable venue? It can’t be that; I am sure there is an angle to be found. But do I truly want to find it? It is true that I quite loathe the compromising nature of the television making process when it comes to content - this is why I am satisfied to work at a smaller station that does not flatten things quite as drastically as, say, CNN does, or equally our own larger stations for which I have directed in the past. It would be absolutely impossible for me to work there, as under this header of societal truth, factual truth is the very first thing that goes out the window, and dignified illusions aren’t often conceived.
Yet I love the magic of television. I love the medium, even if I havent had a tv for maybe two years now; nothing is on it. Theoretically it is great. It always felt good to watch my own programs come on. But I can not muster any enthusiasm for any formula. Give me a new formula. I will mention whoever gives me the idea that turns out to work for me in the credits. Money can be arranged too, proportionally to what I make of course.
Bargain and banter, not very Exalted in my Ambition here. But it’s friday night in the workplace.
I suspect something about your idea is insidious to the common worldviews people cling to for their livelihood. So that perception provokes the fight or flight event, and flight more efficiently restores the status quo.
If you broach the subject with anyone, work is probably the last place you want do so. Most employers demand the conformity of their employees in ways that at first appear well-defined and harmlessly pragmatic but which often turn out to quietly demand a deeper subjugation of thought and creativity. Challenging mindsets are not welcome.
Is the goal that your project will be financially self-sustaining, i.e. are you also trying to make a living from it?
That might be quite difficult.
If that’s not the case, or the primary concern, why don’t you consider YouTube or some other medium for broadcast on the internet?
Many younger people no longer watch television nor find the television subscription model worthwhile anyway.
I keep up with any interesting t.v. network series entirely through online venues.
Pat of this is clearly true, but there is no boss required for this behavior; people are, by their own devices, perfectly capable of recognizing what goes outside of the drawn lines and of distrusting that. Not to mention that it is all quite complicated for an ordinary mind, philosophy in general. Most people ask themselves why the hell anyone would find that interesting, when you can also watch funny stuff or the news, or talk gossip. I dont feel that I am exaggerating here either.
That is not the case at all, I don’t even want that at all. I do not want to make money off my thinking, as this would most certainly put conditions on it. I do wish to use youtube, create a philosophical channel, with no monetary aims, as indeed internet has outgrown television. But the thing with tv is that lots of money goes around in it, and I have the professional capacity and network to get something on air - I just don’t know what it should be.
Perhaps it should be the precise opposite of philosophy - a kind of release, relief; though I do not at all feel burdened but rather liberated by philosophy, so that makes no sense either. Dammit.
In the past I had enough trust in politics to be able to make a political program, now that would be either pure farce, or very dangerous for whoever would broadcast it. It is quite annoying that politics is such pure deception, it means that no sensible thing can be done with it or said about it.
So do I. I like to watch these high quality series, The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, etc - Right now, I find Homeland worth watching. Not because of its social relevance (it’s deceptive enough to be irrelevant) but because it is extremely well made.
An there’s the real issue; I feel that I should be making movies, or high value television, tell great stories.
It’s just that I have this access to tv, and not to cinema. I’d probably have to migrate to get into film.