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 Gladiators

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Obfendo



Gender : Male Leo Posts : 5
Join date : 2012-11-06
Age : 29
Location : Lithuania

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PostSubject: Gladiators Gladiators EmptyTue Dec 18, 2012 5:30 pm

Often I wish, that I'd suffer more. The more I suffer, the better my mind works, the more satisfied I am.
Today I had some thoughts about what could strongly intensify it and I ended up with gladiators. It started to seem as a quite amazing phenomenon.

When a man knows that there is only a small amount of time left for him to live, for instance, when he has a serious untreatable disease, he usually suffers a lot and his suffering is intense (it is caused by such distress). Also, when one knows, that the end is near, most of outer everyday actions seem to him so meaningless that he won't bother to pay a lot of attention or to put a lot of effort into them. Because of that, he can be called more mentally free than the others. Also, such distress would temper one's mind. Something stoics would appreciate.

All this could have been experienced in the arena and while preparing for it. To be precise, in the first ones, when fighters came out of them either victorious, either dead, when they didn't have a right to surrender or a chance that their lives will be spared in case of defeat.
Actually, similar benefits exist in war too, but still arena seems more acceptable because:
1) in arena one is on his own. No brothers in arms to save his life, everything depends on ones own skills and preparation. Both mental and physical.
2) arena fights are more simple. No confusing tactics or surprises, you just kill or get killed.
3) in war there are more possible outcomes, such as enslavement, runaway, sending home because of injury, sparing of ones life. All this increases hopes to survive, reduces threat and that obviously weakens ones suffering.
Still, the effects are visible: when soldiers return home from duty, many return back to military after some time, especially those who distinguished in battle by killing enemy troops. There is a Danish documentary about this. It is called Armadillo.

Another thing to consider is more mundane.
There is a saying that sense of victory is the best feeling there is. From my own experience, this is quite true, but I would add that the intensity of it depends on what's at stake. Winning 1$ in roulette and winning 1000000$ is not the same.
In the arena at stake is ones own life. And the victory in front of thousands of people must feel amazing... Especially in the first time. And in case of death, still, the moments when they were preparing for it, could be called more meaningful than the whole life of the most people who lived in comfort and died because of age.

So being a gladiator means intense suffering, stoical mind, and in case of victory large ego boost and strong sense of victory. Sadly, our old friends Christians banned this activity. Emperor Constantine I, to be precise.

What are Your thoughts?
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Satyr
Daemon
Satyr

Gender : Male Pisces Posts : 36742
Join date : 2009-08-24
Age : 58
Location : Hyperborea

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PostSubject: Re: Gladiators Gladiators EmptyTue Dec 18, 2012 5:52 pm

Suffering/pain is the sensation of existing.
Need is a lower grade of it.

To suffer is to be focused on the very experience of existing.
Pleasure, as Schopenhauer stated, is a negative sensation. It is the momentary, abrupt, disruption of the sensation of existing.
Sheltering produces this continuous detachment form the world; some consider this “positive” because it saves them from the need/suffering of existence.
This is how nihilism turns the “negative” of pleasure into the “positive” of avoiding, escaping, existence.
Sheltering leads to stagnation and then to atrophying.
Denying nature, the world, reality, can result in vulnerability towards it.
This is why internal social nihilism, modernity, must be produced by an institution which is perfectly aware of the world, but sells an ignorance of it so as to produce internal harmony.
Like a farmer that protects his animals from predators and viruses. With the current form of nihilism one must explore who and what is producing this internal social anti-nature culture.

This sensation is the ordering of life resisting, (re)acting in opposition to entropy – temporal decay. It is the very sensation of (inter)activity, also known as Fluidity, change, or Flux.
It forces a constant self-maintenance, which is the Will to Life.
When the organism exceeds its self-maintaining requirements the excess of energies are called “strength,” or growth.
Will to Power, as it is called, is this will towards excess energies. These can then be directed towards procreation, creation…growth being a primal form of self-creation (autopoiesis).

The ‘Will’ is the directing agency.
The idea of overflowing abundance is based on the willful accumulation of energies, increasing the aggregate energies available to the organism, so as to overflow in creative, procreative, erotic movements towards a projected object/objective.
This object/objective is what is called “thing,” in its most basic form, and then can become more sophisticated – depending on the mind projecting – and produce ideas and ideals.


Therefore, this resistance to entropic decay, chaos, disordering, either shatters the organism or it forces it to increase the aggregate energies at its disposal.
Without this “war”, this agon, there is no growth.

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PostSubject: Re: Gladiators Gladiators EmptyWed Dec 19, 2012 6:35 pm

I've found the Hypersensitivity essay Satyrs most esoteric writing. You can reach it from his blog (right side column on the screen). I've translated the last part into German, about the Stages of Enlightenment and sent it to family and friends (of course referencing the source) some time ago. I like how there is an implicit time frame incorporated in this theory. Stages of progress, rather than a one fits all solution for everybody. There are certain steps towards "Enlightenment" and one cannot skip any of them. There are no short-cuts, no faster ways. It acknowledges that. I like to look at it not as dogmatic, but as a possible guideline. Nuances. Anyways an interesting perspective, from a very pragmatic darwinian pov. It is a very cynic thing to write on a subject like this, that is deeply rooted in Indian philosophy and has been discussed and debated heavily ever since. ("Cynic" here in a Diogenes of Sinope kind of way.)
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