Hatred and Life habits.

In the mission statement it says this is Hellenestic. I am not well-versed in it, but I will share with you my personal philosophy.

There is another school of thought called solitarity that believes in the idea that serious philosophers should isolate themselves in order to get clarity of thought. Usually this goes along with the Buddhism practise of meditation and devaluing all kinds of social interactions, ego and relationships.

However, I do not believe that is the way for me. I noticed that social interactions and relationships actually increase the quality of my thought and my creativity. I cannot go against my nature, I am a social creature. I do not believe that going against one's nature and living a loveless life is really a solution for all philosophers, though it may work for some. However social things are always a double edge sword. I won't deny that I am an incredibly hateful person and I am a bit of a sociopath in that I cannot derive any entertainment from other human beings. I have been abused by them so much that I no longer feel any connection to them, only pure hate. Hate is not conclusive to the quality of my thought and clarity. I am a hateful, miserable person, because I had a social life and it was taken away from me. It is like building a shelter on sand, but having a shelter on sand is better than no shelter at all. I want to love people but I can't, I hate them so much. They are not worthy of my love, they only mistreat me and others, treat me like dirt. I am pure hatred.

Objectivity increases when the mind detaches from self, as in self-interests, emotions, hopes, and so on. Not detaches from the world, and not detaches from self to stay there, as a Buddhist ascetic...but to detach so as to reattach with clarity.

It is psychological.

A man of self-control isolates socially not because he despises social interaction in general, but because the social options that are given to him are aesthetically unpleasant. He isolates in order to understand his reactions and, if it is possible, to find a way to aesthetically pleasant social interaction he craves so much.

One isolates because one is forced into isolation. There is no choice here. The only question is whether this isolation is an act of self-denial or an act of self-assertion.

When you cut yourself from your habitual behavior what remains is an excess of energy. Whether one denies oneself or asserts oneself depends on the manner one handles this excess energy.

Uncontrolled excess is what I call "mental reflex", whether it manifests itself purely mentally or is accompanied with physical activity.

Overeating is an example . . . thinking that social interaction is bad in general is another example . . . bad conscience is yet another . . . tics, mental illness in general . . .

I find that when things are going my way I find it easy to detach from self and look at things with clarity. The reason for this is the self and ego is a kind of negative thing for me. When things are going good I try to avoid having and ego and attachment to thoughts.

However at certain times when things are going really bad, and negativity is piling up, I feel so much hatred. And the feeling of hatred is even worse than ego thoughts, so it's almost like the ego is a defense mechanism as a way to distract myself from the hatred, hateful thoughts being a pillow to distract myself from the void of pure hate (though some would argue that ego thoughts are the source of the hatred itself, which I won't argue.)

[quote="Magnus]A man of self-control isolates socially not because he despises social interaction in general, but because the social options that are given to him are aesthetically unpleasant.
[/quote]
This seems like me, and I do crave social interaction at times, however most of the time it is either boring or distasteful so I don't do it. Socializing is like an investment, often times you have to lower your standards to the mindset of the group your in, and prolonged periods lead to total merging with the mindset of whatever group you're in, which in most cases, would be not something you would want to do. Sometimes it feels like willfully dumbing yourself down.

Magnus wrote:

One isolates because one is forced into isolation. The only question is whether this isolation is an act of self-denial or an act of self-assertion.

Not sure what you mean by this.

Do you mean
self-denial = someone who goes in a basement and says "i hate myself, because I have no friends"
"i have needs but i am going to ignore those needs because i dont deserve to have friends" ie. closet homosexuals or "i am going to fast, give up sex and meditate so I can become ego-less"

self-assertion = "he world is at fault, I am going to keep to myself and not care what they have to say. So I am going to just quit playing their games."

Probably not what you meant just guessing.

Trixie wrote:

Not sure what you mean by this [self-denial].

I mean this:

Trixie wrote:

willfully dumbing yourself down

If you act despite your body/brain reacting negatively to such an act, you are denying yourself.

Self-assertion means accepting your reactions, not walking over them, not ignoring or overriding them, but understanding them so that you can figure out a way to move forward.

If you have a lot of energy, this will be difficult to do.

Most people simply walk over their reactions, interacting with people they shouldn't be interacting with at all.

This leads to the accumulation of contradictions, to the fragmentation of the brain . . .

Our movement has two main dimensions: psychological and physical.

The psychological is the commanding one, and the physical is the obeying one. This means that all physical movement is a symptom, a consequence, of psychological movement, not the other way around.

The concept of courage and cowardice refer to psychological movement. To be courageous is to be psychologically free in movement, and to be cowardly is to be psychologically limited in movement.

To a common man to whom brain is literally an organ with a questionable existence, considering how invisible it is to an observing eye and considering how little of it the common man possesses himself, the only way to judge whether someone is courageous or cowardly is through whatever is apparent. And what is apparent, what is symptomatic, in this case is physical movement.

So the concept of courage, of self-assertion, and the concept of cowardice, of self-denial, is understood purely in physical terms.

Who is courageous? Who is self-assertive? He who is physically free, who asserts himself physically, who is physically confrontational and dominant.

Who is cowardly? Who is self-denying? He who is physically unfree, who does not assert himself physically, who does not confront but runs away.

Courage and cowardice understood in simplistic physical terms of fight or flight.

The problem is that there is no unique association between courage/cowardice and its physical expression.

A man of courage does not necessarily fight and a man of cowardice does not necessarily run away.

A clear example of this is the so-called phenomenon of "hyper-masculinity" where masculinity is reduced to a mere appearance. Criminals, who continually escape and falsify cost/benefit analysis among many other things, and the so-called "bad boys", who have zero self-control over themselves, are considered to be masculine simply because they are physically confrontational, simply because they appear to be masculine. Not mentioning the bodybuilding fags who are even bigger joke for trying to imitate what appears to be masculine but is not really masculine . . .

Whereas a physically weaker man, who is nonetheless in control of himself, is considered feminine . . .

This I mention in order to clarify my conception of "self-assertion". Not everyone who is asserting himself -- physically asserting himself -- is genuinely assertive, and not everyone who is not asserting himself -- physically speaking, of course -- is denying himself. You have to see what is happening inside the brain because denial is mental.

And what does it mean to deny yourself? To deny yourself means to ignore, reject, dismiss, override reactions of your brain, to leave them unprocessed, accumulating as contradictions.

Magnus Anderson,  

If I can understand: we are speaking of those individuals that isolate themselves, their social interactions occur without prior thought to the action, nor do they reflect on to the reasons why they feel as they do after the fact. People are directed by their emotional needs, whatever they may be, yet may fail to recognize their own desires, feelings, and thoughts, to reflect onto them, and it is because of this, their aimlessness & dishonesty with themselves, that their social interactions are continuously unsatisfying, and even hurtful, yet despite of the fact, they will continue to repeat the pattern until the point where the negative reactions reach a certain level, and the pattern diminishes.

Yet, here they are also at risk of self-denial, rather than getting to the reasons why in order for the how to come about [the possibility of moving forward], by attempting to take control of the situation, their defense mechanisms kick in, they think in order to protect themselves emotionally, by for example, 'thinking that all social interaction is bad', as you say, thereby, moving away from reality and further from the possibility of a potentially pleasing social interaction, and stunting emotional development.

In reference to, self denial, which you define as "to ignore, reject, dismiss, override reactions of your brain, to leave them unprocessed, accumulating as contradictions" - the concept can also be applied to, for example, a job, or the study of a subject, where an employee, or a student, re-act negatively to what it is they are doing, yet to nevertheless go on with it. In contrast, self-assertion (which you have defined above), would mean that, they are aware and accept their predicament, but unlike he who denies himself, will use his reaction as a basis for understanding his circumstances, and, if possible, move in an appropriate direction, more suited to his needs, for change.

As it may be that, during the period where your body/brain is reacting negatively to a particular action, it is endured, in order to reach a particular goal, this may also be self-assertion. It is the manner in which he endures and acts which will demonstrate whether he is courageous or cowardly, despite the negative reactions of the body/brain, as the situation was analyzed, understood, and processed. The actions behind all objectives will inevitably bring about positive and negative reactions.

Yes, that is what I am saying.

It is related to uncontrolled excess of nervous energy.

In the first stage it manifests externally, as hypocritical social interaction, in the second stage it manifests internally, as hypocritical thinking.

In both instances one steps over one's reactions . . .

This stepping over one's reactions is brain turning against itself, becoming masochistic (and through social agreement, sadomasochistic.) Energies not released outwardly, but inwardly. (What constitutes outward release, however, is difficult to tell because we are multi-dimensional beings . . . it is a mistake to think that every external physical release is outward release of energy.)

Self-control deals with harmonizing ( = organizing = focusing = concentrating = coordinating) one's energies.

This should be the foundation of all behavior, but in this day and age it is not. Modern varieties of self-control are always partial/selective, always restricted to a selection of energies. Most people confuse total self-control with partial self-control.

Great, I think I understand.

Magnus Anderson wrote:

Self-control deals with harmonizing ( = organizing = focusing = concentrating = coordinating) one's energies.

This should be the foundation of all behavior, but in this day and age it is not. Modern varieties of self-control are always partial/selective, always restricted to a selection of energies. Most people confuse total self-control with partial self-control.

To clarify the last paragraph: modern varieties of self-control would be done without harmonizing one's energies beforehand. They identify negative behaviors or circumstances, then without attempting to understand them and then reason in order to calibrate the behavior, in order for there actions to reflect their own minds, they counteract the behavior without much thought given to it. They only went as far as to recognize their (negative) reactions at an emotional level, and so, their attempt at self-control will require much emotional investment, and so, of-course, they soon find themselves in the same situation, or rather, they degenerate.

The most common forms of modern self-control is to restrict one's self from eating this or that. In many cases, the diet lasts for a short period of time, and sometimes if the goal is achieved, there is a reversal at said point to the original circumstances. Why? It is simply because they did not carefully reason beforehand, so their actions will be forced & tiring; they use a primitive corrective method, you could say they become their very own oppressors, and will soon enough be over-ridden by other instincts, or overcome by the unprocessed contradictions floating within them. What you say makes sense: they may be trying to correct a behavior (over-eating) which is rooted in unprocessed reactions. They are only dealing with symptoms.

It is a very energy consuming, inefficient process, this self-imposed repression, that which appears to be total self-control, but is not. On the other hand, the one's who do think, and have integrated ideas that they have thought out and understood, in relation to their own circumstances, it is their behavior that will be more natural, governed and dependent on the quality of their ideas relevant to them in time, and which they grow with. They will have higher levels of free energy, and it is this that allows for further flexibility in other areas. I hope this a valid way of differentiating between your ideas of total self-control and partial self-control.

Yes, it is valid.

But there is an element which is missing which is crucial to understanding what I am really saying. Though self-understanding, and reason in general, is extremely valuable, and though it is s mark of a higher level of development, it is not always so. Far more important is the primitive, the animilistic, the emotional, which is foundantional and determining of the quality of reason built on top of it.

There are two levels of self-control: top-level and bottom-level.

Top-level control is the primitive, lower brain, emotional level of control, one call it the "Dionysian" level of control. It regulates the build up and release of energy and has very little to do with the logical.

Its reason, if we can call it one, is minimal, and it consists in making sure that every increase in energy (sensed as tension or stress) is adequately, simultaneously, smoothly and seemlessly released (sensed as relaxation, comfort, pleasure.)

The actual order in which thoughts and actions are introduced is irrelevant at this level. The only thing that is relevant is the way sympathetic nervous system (shortly SNS) reacts.

When SNS starts releasing far more energy than the brain can deal with, the energy becomes toxic and this is where parasympathetic nervous system (shortly PNS) kicks in, or should kick in. The responsibility of PNS is to discharge this toxic energy. One must detach from one's thoughts and actions in order to get rid of the excess. Not try to understand them, to logically deal with them, but to detach from them, to "forget" as Nietzsche would say, to shut one's mind down.

The concepts of courage, detachment and indifference, as well as Nietzsche's "faculty of forgetting", are all related to PNS.

The difference between noble men and ignoble men, between gentlemen and vulgar men ( = barbarians), between masters and slaves, lies precisely in energy dynamics, in the way one moves from one psychophysiological state to another. With gentlemen, this movement is, to be expected, gentle, which is to say seemless, smooth, gradual, linear, in one word, graceful, whereas with barbarians, this movement is abrupt and non-linear, a consequence of clogged up excess of energy.

Bottom-level control is the sophisticated, higher brain, intellectual level of control, one can call it the "Apollonian" level of control. This level of control deals with understanding and decision making.

Understanding and decision making -- in one word, intellect -- is a privilege and not a choice, though it is possible to use it any time. This availability is what we call "free will".

People with a weak PNS, and hence with no top-level control, are entirely dependent on bottom-level control, which is to say, on intellect. They do not resolve their emotional issues using PNS, but by using intellect. This leads to over-thinking (hyper-rationality) and hyperactivity, or as I say, to "stepping over one's reactions".

The partial/selective self-control which is popular in this day and age is bottom-level control without top-level control.

Consider how one deals with overeating.

Not by releasing toxic excess which leads to overeating, reaching a state of calm which would allow one to experiment with one's diet, but by redirecting it.

You become a slave to health authorities.

Either your PNS is strong, and you can discharge your excess, freeing your intellect to focus on goals which are unrelated to pleasure, or your PNS is weak, unable to discharge your excess, in which case your intellect is forced to focus on pleasure ( = energy discharge) as a goal.

I don't agree with Trix, if by humans are basically social creatures, she means socialism and brotherhood as an ends in itself.

Quote :

"The strong are as naturally inclined to separate as the weak are to congregate." [N.,  GM, III.18]

I also disagree with Magnus' saying some are "forced" into solitude due to the quality of environment and interactions available.

Quote :

"Few are made for independence - it is a prerogative of the strong." [N., BGE, 29]

Some people are such that even given an assembly and company of rare individuals, would still prefer their solitude. Its akin to Kafka's repulsion at the sight of sheets laid out too clean, too orderly that can stimulate disgust and hatred. For a hypersensitive/warrior soul, complacency can arouse nausea. Solitude is not necessarily a choiceless and forced exile,, but for some, their very environment, and a condition of their natural state. It is not experienced as oppressive or repressive, but even more, something they can't get enough of - one needs a rich internal landscape to experience life this way. When this inner solitude is felt as aggressive joy, one moves about undisturbed even in the thickest, nauseating crowd that doesn't disturb the inner composure. I'm speaking of something more than the stoic ataraxia.

Quote :

"...not to cleave to one's own detachment ... not to cleave to our virtues; One must know how to conserve oneself: the sternest test of independence"." [ib., 41]

Quote :

"The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude". [R.W.Emerson, 'Self-Reliance']

In modernity, the solitary and the individual is conflated in two senses.

One - his atomism is taken as his solitude and indifferent independence. And two. His atomic "loneliness" is confused with the state of solitude.
And thusly, you confront two situations in modernity.
The increasing intrusion of the public domain into private matters, making an individual feel he's "ready", he's a "man" and his increasing loneliness within this enlarging private bubble and he feels the "blues".

And that is the raging [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] between the pomo. leftist [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and the modern leftist Marxists. According to the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], human nature emerges from [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]; nurture precedes nature. Tribes precede individuals.
To the latter, nature determines culture. Individuals capitalize into classes.

Both variants of leftists revolve around the same misconception of solitude.

Quote :

"For the pious there is no solitude; this invention was made by us, the godless." [N., JW, 367]

I believe that it's like a choice. Many intellectuals take comfort in their solitude. But when the choice is taken away...eg. Society doesn't give them the option to socialize, or have friends of any kind, it ceases to be a choice, and more like entrapment. Though someone prefers alone time I don't think they would feel comfortable forever alone or to be robbed of the choice to socialize.

Trixie Celūcilūnaletumoon wrote:

Many intellectuals take comfort in their solitude.

That's exactly what I am saying is not.

Solitude is no consolation.

One does not "hide" in it, just as much as the best philosophy or philosophizing is no consolation and one does not take refuge in it.

"Walk alone like a rhinoceros."


Its the fecund vitality of making your own path.

One, like Socrates or Zarathustra is forced to move between the mountain and the market place, to and fro periods of alternating hibernation, *because* one possesses solitude, and not for it, its consolation, whatever Boethius may say.

To be able to with-stand and linger with yourself is not meant for the many.

Because the title mentions Life Habits, a recall.

Nietzsche wrote:

"Brief habits. - I love brief habits and consider them invaluable means for getting to know many things and states down to the bottom of their sweetnesses and bitternesses; my nature is designed entirely for brief habits, even in the needs of its physical health and generally as Jar as I can see at all, from the lowest to the highest. I always believe this will give me lasting satisfaction - even brief habits have this faith of passion, this faith in eternity - and that I am to be envied for having found and recognized it, and now it nourishes me at noon and in the evening and spreads a deep contentment around itself and into me, so that I desire nothing else, without having to compare, despise, or hate. And one day its time is up; the good thing parts from me, not as something that now disgusts me but peacefully and sated with me, as I with it, and as if we ought to be grateful to each other and so shake hands to say farewell. And already the new waits at the door along with my faith - the indestructible fool and sage! - that this new thing will be the right thing, the last right thing. This happens to me with dishes, thoughts, people, cities, poems, music, doctrines, daily schedules, and ways of living.

Enduring habits, however, I hate, and feel as if a tyrant has come near me and the air around me is thickening when events take a shape that seems inevitably to produce enduring habits - for instance, owing to an official position, constant relations with the same people, a permanent resi­ dence, or uniquely good health. Yes, at the very bottom of my soul I am grateful to all my misery and illnesses and whatever is imperfect in me because they provide a hundred back doors through which I can escape enduring habits. To me the most intolerable, the truly terrible, would of course be a life entirely without habits, a life that continually demanded improvisation - that would be my exile and my Siberia." [JW, 295]

The very fact that a rare individual interacts with another rare individual betrays a social need. It does not matter whether he enjoys it or not, the very fact that he decides to socially interact betrays a degree of social need which will never go away, as needs never go away but infinitely recur.

That an individual with whom you are interacting is rare and noble does not mean that the interaction itself will be of a higher quality. Interaction requires certain predispositions, certain discipline, that if the rare individuals are lacking will result in unpleasant interaction, signifying, for the time being, impossibility of interaction.

The rare individual, given that he is rare, and so, must be in possession of self-control, will observe his negative reactions and back off, not because he does not want to socially interact, but simply because he cannot interact, because he is forced to back off.

A consequence of obstructed energy, of unsatisfied need, of unmet expectations, this will be experienced as suffering, but not all people experience suffering in the same way.

Brave men and cowardly men experience suffering in different ways. A brave man, a man with a strong and properly controlled activity of parasympathetic nervous system, will find his suffering agreeable, a consequence of his ability to cool down, whereas a cowardly man will find his suffering disagreeable, a consequence of inability to cool down, and so he will overreact, either by exaggerating his suffering (pessimism) or by exaggerating his positivity (optimism.)

The rare individual cools down, and then, after he finds an adequate mental position, he tries to understand what makes his interaction with other rare individuals unpleasant, such that he can attempt to find a way to unblock his path towards quality social interaction.

He also learns from this experience and adapts, no longer desiring to engage with rare individuals in the manner he used to.

So, no, people do not "choose" solitude, unless their past has trained them to stop choosing it. But the social need will eventually recur . . .

Magnus wrote:

The very fact that a rare individual interacts with another rare individual betrays a social need.

Its because existential solitude is our essential and primal condition, humans need to socialize. Some remain in denial of this conditon, some try to bury it in escapisms, some accept it grudgingly, and some feel motivated by it.

Socializing, etymologically, is the need for companionship. When one is "always in one's own company", its not necessary that an interaction between two rare individuals be that for as-sociation, esp. when it maybe of it.
Then you have agape.

There's also another type that 'prefers' solitude, supposedly rooted in a lack of emotional development:

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Other people that come to mind, is that man from the documentary film 'Alone in the Wilderness', not necessarily an intellectual, but a craftsman, who made the choice to remain in the wilderness for decades. With such an intimate relationship with his beautiful surroundings, I am not surprised.

Stalagmites wrote:

There's also another type that 'prefers' solitude, supposedly rooted in a lack of emotional development:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

No, that's what I'd call loneliness than solitude. Solitude is only possible by someone who is able to live and feel life at its max. pathos... all the pressures and the pleasures.

A weak PNS means one's brain must trick its SNS to make it stop reacting.

(I say "must" as if the brain is obliged to act in a specific manner, as if it "reasons", as if it "chooses" such an act for survival, sanity or whatever other reasons, but this is not what's happening in reality. The brain is simply acting in a way in which it can act i.e. this is simply how it has been configured to act, the absence of PNS not accounted for, making such a situation "new", "unexpected" and, dare I say, "emergent". The brain is not "reasoning", it has no goals, it is not striving, not trying to avoid some negative state. In fact, it can be said, though it would still be wrong, that the brain is striving towards a negative state, avoiding a positive one.)

This is the difference between forgetting and denial, between detachment and distraction: forgetting/detachment uses PNS to release toxic energies, and so it is a reduction of activity, whereas denial/distraction increases energy in order to trick SNS to make it stop releasing energy.

In the first, there is no thinking, in the second, one adds further thoughts in order to falsify reality such that SNS can be put at rest.

Not seeing reality or closing one's eyes to reality (reduction of activity) is different from falsifying reality (increase in activity.)

In the absence of cooling mechanism, the overheating engine simply continues acting in its usual manner, eventually discovering that some of its activity can be used to make its general activity more efficient by cooling itself down. The name I use to describe such cooling mechanisms is "drugs".

Being relaxed (using lower brain) is different from being on drugs (using higher brain.) The two processes are experienced differently. The former starts with pain and fear and ends with baseline level of comfort, the second starts with pleasure and comfort and ends with pain and fear.

The overheating brain cools itself down by making itself stupider, and then when it starts overheating again it makes itself stupider again, and again and again, until it eventually crashes. When it's going to crash is hard to tell and it depends on the kind of drugs it is using since some drugs are more efficient than others.

"The Fox and the Grapes" fable is the famous example. The fox wants to reach the grapes but is unable to do so. The unexpected outcome stimulates its SNS, releasing energies to deal with the situation judged as problematic. However, since this release over-stimulates its brain, since there are too many reactions occuring at the same time, since the fox is emotionally maxed out,  no understanding is possible. Though no understanding is possible, it is still possible to attempt to understand what cannot be understood. The fox, due its habits, due to its weak or improperly coordinated activity of PNS, proceeds to attempt to understand its reactions. This is what I call over-thinking or hyper-rationality: thinking when you shouldn't be thinking. Eventually, this excess of thinking, through the process of trial and error, leads to the discovery of solution which is no solution, but the opposite, problem maker, but that's how it appears at first. The fox falsifies reality by telling herself, or rather, her SNS, that she never wanted these grapes, that she does not love grapes at all, and that she was just fooling around, not really trying to reach these grapes. The SNS then says "oh okay, sorry for bothering you . . ." and stops releasing energies. In this way, energy is used to trap energies inside the body -- these energies are never released. This makes humans weaker than they really are, since it takes energy to trap energy.

The difference between suppression and repression is that suppression creates excess energies, whereas repression traps these excess energies, refusing to release them (miserly psychology.)

Each time your reactions mismatch reality, extra energies are loaded into your brain, and if they exceed your emotional capacity, you are expected to release them. If you do not release them, you trap them, and you trap them by creating internal equilibrium through corresponding counter-energies.

Drugs are activity-powered calm.

Genuine calm is . . . inactivity.

Once you take drug-addicts off their drugs, once you make them stop acting, make them inactive, both physically and mentally, they start feeling pain, tension and fear, a sign of trapped energies trying to break out.

Mental illness is an extreme, especially the anxiety-related varieties. Panic attacks, or excess energies trying to break out but bouncing back . . . A consequence of drug-addiction treated with further drugs . . .