Cognitive Dissonance

Some preliminary definitions
Flux = interaction.
Exchange of data, Information - influence.
The adjustment of a unity by an external effect.
Attraction/Repulsion - harmony/disharmony.
Cause/Effect

When individuals come in contact with one another a reciprocal influence occurs, both intentionally and, most importantly, unintentionally.  
The effect is not only about introducing something alien into another but triggering in another what is already present.
There are three factors art work-
Intentional
Unintentional
and Consequent - actual.

We affect and are affected not only intentionally but predominantly unintentionally - cross-contaminaiton, reciprocal causality resulting in foreseen and mostly unforeseen consequences.
The intent is insignificant in comparison to the unintentional effects.
Both sides engaged in physical or mental intercourse, i.e., dialogue (meme), interaction (gene) have a motive expressed as intent, but they also have an unconscious motive which may contradict the first.
This also applies in cultural interactions, e.g., when Hellenism came in contact with Judaism cross-contaminaiton was not only intentional it was mostly unintentional - conscious to the participants and unconscious to them.
Judaism's feminine nihilism did not invent and place itself in Hellenism, but it cultivated - triggered - what was already present, producing the consequence of Christianity; similarly, Hellenism's masculine life-affrminmation did not intentionally trigger processes in Judaism that resulted din Marxism and Zionism, but it triggered - cultivated - what was already present and buried, forgotten, left to atrophy.
It is to be expected that Christianity would bare the signs of this effect in tis corrupted version of pagan rituals and traditions.  

As I explained din regards to nihilism, this meme - manifesting a variety of ideologies and religious dogmas - was not invented by anyone, nor did it emerge out of nothing and nowhere.
It was a mental - memetic - reaction to evolving self-cosnciuosness, exposing the organism to the confusion of an internal voice - conscience - mistaking it for an external agency, e.g., god, spirits, etc.
The development of self-awarness also exposed the organism to a third person perspective: I, Other and indifferent third party, which could project itself in a hypothetical vantage point form where it could perceive itself and other from a distance - this same mental method is at work when we conceptualize existence as a universe.

The same applies within psychological context and the interactions between individual.
There's intent - conscious motive; there is unconscious intent - underlying motive- and then there's consequence, since nobody ever can ever accurately predict how both the conscious and unconscious intent will manifest within another mind/body organization.

Satyr wrote:

Just like all existence existing is dynamic so too are organisms....constantly adjusting to fluctuating circumstances and their own fluctuating organic dynamics.
These either/or dichotomies ought to include a third factor which is movement/momentum, representing probability - so higher probability to be extroverted or introverted - changing over space/time - is fluctuating, moving towards/away from the category representing an absolute state of being, i.e., increasing/decreasing probability towards one or the other.

In my view an organism's personality - personæ - is determined by its inherited organ hierarchies, i.e., degree to which each and every organ participates - interacts - with other organs establishing its degree of effect and dominance in a hierarchy.
In humans the brain is the most dominant organ - most energy demanding - relative to all the other organs, so man is a dichotomy of mind/body, synthesized via the nervous system, so a triad.
Still, the body's dominant organ determines the individuals tastes, attitudes, proclivities, demeanor; the force of its particular impulses, engaging the mind via the nervous system.
The brain is also divided into two distinct spheres, as McGilchrist explained, each with a specific way of processing both external and internal stimuli - from the body and from the senses, i.e., data: one holistic and vague (feminine) the other more segmented and abstract, categorical (masculine) - see McGilchrist for more on that.
In the mind is where all these organic interactions become personality and determine how the individual will relate to and engage with reality - creating the character as an extension of its underlying personality.
Character is always a version of personality.
The personæ can be called the subconscious self, and the character the lucid/conscious self, let's call it "ego"...
Here is where nihilism takes root.
Moderns only identify with the ego and refuse or negate or reject the subconscious, as the undesirable (evil, shameful, untameable, uncontrollable) physical, so they refuse all judgments and choices made without the ego's participation or its dominance - they refuse to accept free-will, or their will's consequences if they are not a product of conscious intent - ego; many even refusing the accept unintentional consequences of their intentional judgements, choices and actions.
Since most judgements and choices and actions are unconscious - reactive - they experience them as if they were predetermined or made by an external force, agency, authority etc.
Private/Public self.

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Intent lies in the domain of the ego - conscious self. Motive.
That which is conscious of itself - to whatever degree.
Unintentional motive leis in the domain of the unconscious self - unknown, or unrecognized, or denied motive.
Both are causes.
Consequence upon another is the unpredictable, actual, effects of both motives upon an-other.

Sometimes the actor - agency - is convinced that his intentions are noble when in fact their conceal an ignoble motive.
He believes it because it is what he is aware of in himself.
Self-Knowledge is crucial, as it often conceals itself from itself. This is fundamental in nihilism. Self-Deciet is always present, to some degree: more in positive nihilists than in pure nihilists.
The success of their life-negating, self-abengating, convictions depend on self-deceit to become effective.

Affirmation is the introduction of an alien idea - memory - or the cultivation of what is already present but atrophying within an organism, that accentuates its own life-afirming processes.
Nullification is the introduction of an alien idea - memory - or the cultivation of what is already present but atrophying within an organism, that accentuates its own life-negating, defensive, processes.
The negation occurs in mind, linguistically manifesting a defensive rejection of the perceived - apparent - physical, tangible, experienced world; identifying with the abstraction of mind at the expense of the tangible body, seeking concealment - obscurity - in the theoretical, i.e., fantasy, semiotically constructed and maintained.

The modern Abrahamic - nihilist - only acknowledges his conscious motives to preserve his self-ascribed "innocence" rejecting all unconscious or unforeseen consequences produced by his choices - founded on his conscious and unconscious judgements - and of his actions.
He remains "good" and "pure" and "well meaning" because he only identifies his will through his conscious - admitted - motives.
All else is not - cannot - be his fault because they were unintended and unforeseen - ignorance = innocence. Therefore his will remain un-free because it suffers the consequences of his intentions.

This factors into the refusal to accept responsibility in that what is denied relevance does not apply to them.
A slave is not a slave if he does not accept this value judgement.
Negation is powerful.
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If they reject, forget, deny, then it does not exist, and it does not apply to them.

The centrality of words is evident here.

What I say I am, I am....
What I claim to be or not be, is who and what I am.
My intent is my identity even if I am not moving towards it - it being an objective defined out of existence.
So, I am god, because I intend to be god, even if I define the concept in ways that do not and cannot exist - contradicting experienced existence. Positive-Nihilsim.
Why?
Because "all is subjective"....meaning, if I do not recognize or admit to it, then I am not; and if I do I am.

Will to Power, means "I am powerful" because I will it to be so.
The easiest, least costly way to will is to speak it - declare it; easier still is to simply think it is so.
Psychosomatic...placebo effect.

Without god's will man's will claims the top spot of world creator.
This is part of the maturation process...from infancy into adolescence...and if one survives....perhaps adulthood.

Meisner, Dwayne A. wrote:

López- Ruiz focuses the discussion specifically on the west Asian Semitic groups that were most closely connected to Archaic Greece in space and time.
Much of the literature of the Phoenicians is lost because they used perishable writing materials, but some literary parallels can be found between Greek literature and Semitic texts, such as the Ugaritic deity lists, the cycle of Baal myths, and the Hebrew Bible. López- Ruiz draws on these to argue that Near Eastern influence can best be explained through more intimate contacts than trade and skilled artisans: “mainly oral and intimate transmission of stories and beliefs not from ‘foreigners’ to ‘Greeks’ . . . but between mothers and sons, nannies and children,” and other domestic relationships. To the son of a Greek father and a Phoenician mother, Phoenician myths would not be seen as foreign; and over the course of a few generations, these myths would become a part of the same tradition, along with Greek myths told within the same family or community.
The modes of transmission or influence of mythological themes and motifs were multiple, many- layered, and multi-directional, from the most distant trade networks to the most intimate domestic relationships, and from the most advanced literary activity to the simplest stories told to children.
Lane Fox brings the discussion to a greater level of precision (but a more limited scope) by tracing the settlement patterns of Euboeans in the eighth century bc from Cilicia, Syria, and Cyprus in the east to Sicily and Ischia in the west. Lane Fox argues that these Euboeans already had a succession myth, but when they encountered neo- Hittite culture they recognized similarities and assimilated particular details, such as the sickle with which Kronos castrates Ouranos and the battle of Zeus against Typhon. They associated features of the landscapes they encountered with episodes in their myths, leading Lane Fox to reject the idea of transmission of parallels and to see these similarities as the products of “creative misunderstanding.” Rather than simply adopting the myths of other cultures, they recognized a “fortuitous convergence” and “amplified their existing stories” by assimilating new features. Lane Fox suggests that the creative activity of these Euboeans, though unknown to Homer, functioned as Hesiod’s source for these episodes of the Theogony.
The Euboeans of the eighth century were bricoleurs no less than Hesiod and the Orphics, so in the Orphic theogonies we see a different configuration of some of these same elements (e.g., the acts of castration and swallowing, serpentine deities). Where Orphic theogonies appear to be influenced by eastern myth, they assimilate particular details into the Greek succession myth in a manner similar to the Euboeans whom Lane Fox describes. In terms of the core succession myth, they never change the pattern of action but they amplify it with elements of eastern myth through the process of bricolage.

Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods

An example of how memetic cross contamination.

Meisner, Dwayne A. wrote:

According to Burkert, the mode of transmission most relevant to the study of Orphic material was the influence of migrant craftsmen whose technai were divination and healing, both of which required expertise in purification techniques. Burkert demonstrated that specialists in divination, healing, and purification were quite mobile in the Near East, and many of them were migrating to Greece by the sixth century bc. These specialists usually had an extensive knowledge of myth, accompanied by texts that they used in ritual. Conspicuous among them were the magi, Persian priests with whom the Greeks had extensive contact by the fifth century. When using the word μάγοι to refer to these Persian priests, Greek authors showed great respect for this ancient mystical practice; but sometimes when referring to fellow Greeks as μάγοι, they used the word pejoratively, characterizing them as itinerant magicians who profited shamefully from their art. For example, the Hippocratic text On the Sacred Disease puts μάγοι in the same category as “purifiers, beggars, and quacks.”
Plato describes a similar class of priest in his Republic, the “begging priests and fortune- tellers” who perform ritual services for a fee, using “a bunch of books by Musaeus and Orpheus” (2.364b– 365a). Burkert has labeled this class of priests orpheotelestai: they were independent agents who performed divination, purification, and initiation for a price, using texts ascribed to Orpheus. Most likely these were the ritual specialists who used Orphic theogonies, having been influenced by other practitioners from the east, not least of whom were the magi. Some connection between the orpheotelestai and the magi can perhaps be seen in the Derveni author’s statement that “initiates make a preliminary sacrifice to the Eumenides in the same way the magi do” (DP 6.8– 9). This suggests two premises that are relevant to the study of Orphic theogonies: ritual specialists such as the magi and the orpheotelestai were at least partly responsible for the transmission of mythical motifs from the east to Greece; and the use of theogonic texts by ritual specialists was itself a practice that was transmitted from the east.
By whatever means the themes and motifs of Near Eastern myth made their way into Greek myth, the fact that similarities exist is well- established, particularly in the case of Hesiod’s Theogony. Scholars have pointed out many parallels between Hesiod and earlier theogonies, but some of these have also been found in Orphic theogonies. And in passages where Orphic theogonies diverge from the narrative of Hesiod’s Theogony, these differences tend to find parallels with Near Eastern themes and motifs that do not appear in Hesiod. In other words, Orphic bricoleurs assimilated elements of eastern myths into their narratives in ways that were different from Hesiod. For example, in the Hurrian- Hittite succession myth, the sky-god An is defeated when his son Kumarbi bites off his genitals and swallows them, thus becoming pregnant with the next king in the succession myth, the storm- god Tessub. The parallels between this and Hesiod are obvious: like Kumarbi, Kronos castrates his father, the sky- god Ouranos, and he also swallows his children. Depending on how we read the Derveni poem, it follows the same basic three- generation succession myth, but adds a detail that is absent from Hesiod: after the reign of Kronos, “who did a great deed” (OF 10.1 B)— presumably castrating his father— Zeus swallows either the whole body of Phanes or the phallus of Ouranos (OF 8, 12.1 B).
This narrative includes an event that does not appear in Hesiod— Ouranos is castrated in Hesiod but no one swallows his phallus— yet this episode in the Derveni poem is comparable to the Hurrian- Hittite myth, in which Kumarbi swallows An’s genitals. Where a difference from Hesiod appears in the text, closer inspection might reveal a connection with Hurrian- Hittite myth. This suggests that it might not be a deviation from the mainstream, but a competing version of the myth that assimilated eastern motifs in different ways. Other parallels have been noticed between Orphic and Near Eastern theogonies, and these will be discussed in detail as they become relevant in later chapters.
Therefore, in order to lay a foundation for the discussion of those parallels, the next few pages contain a brief summary of earlier Near Eastern theogonies and cosmogonies, drawing attention to similarities that have been found between these and Greek literature, particularly Homer, Hesiod, and the Orphic theogonies.

Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods

Myths are transmitted and in the transmitting - just as in the transmission of genes - they mutate, adapting to the recipients established myths and imagery.

Genes to Memes.
Memes reproduce like genes.

Just as with organic interactivity superorganic or memetic interactivity affects and is affected through contact - intentionally but mostly unintentionally.
Both intentional and unintentional influences assimilated by the recipient in accordance with its established ideologies, beliefs, principles, morals - changing, corrupting, them in the process.

It is possible to negatively influence another while you are convinced you are trying to influence them positively.
It's not only the message, but the medium.
The effect of the conviction represented by the "well-intended one" may effect the target recipient negatively - or differently from how the convictions affected the transmitter.
The transmitter also represents the consequences of the convictions upon himself, which may repulse, rather than attract, the intended recipient.

Past/Present/Future
Reason/Will/Pathos
What you Say; What you intend to Do; What you do

There's what you say you will do; there's what you intend to do; there's' what you actually do.

Conscious Intent/Unconscious Intent/Consequence.

Consequences have little to do with intent if the intent is founded on an error - bad judgement, or on deceit.
Intent simply signifies an expected consequence. the quality and integrity of the mind determines consequences - the degree to which consequences diverge from intent determines the degree of error and/or deceit - the true quality of the mind. Its essence.

Common knowledge understands that most social interactions occurs on a subconscious level - more information is exchanged unintentionally, the receiver experiencing it as a feeling - gut or otherwise, or an intuition.

Same applies to cultural exchanges - genes to memes.

Metaphysically speaking...

Flux = energy - patterned non-patterned interactivity.
We can use attraction/repulsion to describe the same concept.
The degree to which agreement (harmony) is more powerful than disagreement (disharmony) determining the consequences of the exchange - its impact (effect) on the participants.

The exchange need not be conscious nor intentional, only requiring proximity and/or a mediating medium.

In the case of memes this medium is language - numbers/words.

Just as in free-will will does not refer to conscious intent - ego - but to the entirely of an organism.
In the case of humans the body's unconscious - impulsive - intent may be usurped by the mind's rationalized intent.

Man is the insane ape because only man can contradict his own nature - his own presence - with his convictions.
Only man can deceive himself - in fact, oftentimes if infected by a nihilistic meme if he cannot deceive himself he is stilled by indecisiveness and self-contgradictinos - only man can intentionally and knowingly take his own life as an act of atonement, retribution or to preserve an abstraction.

The cause is emerging self-consciousness necessitating compartmentalization and a splintering - schizophrenia.
Mind/Body dissonance.
Only in man can the body contradict the mind and the mind contradict the body it belongs to.
this has given man the impression that consciousness is not of the body - that he is not the source of awareness.

When some meaning is lost through translation it is, most often, unintentional - the consequence of a natural loss due to memetic incompatibility - but it can also be intentional - an insidious corruption of the original - "cultural distoters," in the words of that boy from Illinois.

Cultural cross contamination need not be intentional, no more than the transmission of the flu requires a conscious act.
Memes are transmitted through intercourse, just as genes are, the participants driven as if by a mysterious force towards behaviours that facilitate the sharing of their genetics.
No knowledge of genetics is required. The individual is overtaken by an irresistible impulse to intercourse without understanding why.

As linked by Jarno in Hyperborea...


This is what happens when words are detached from reality and ethnos is confused for nation, or completely rejected as a "social construct".
Paradoxes....irony....conundrums?
By-products of cognitive dissonance, expressed linguistically.

Ideology versus Reality.
Reality always wins in the end, and the idealist - or his offspring - suffer the consequences.

Social engineering.
Desperate Degenerates must believe that anything pertaining to human identity is either nil or a social construct...something from nothing.
Man is god, now that the Abrahamic god it dead...or has been reborn as an ideology.
Man is now the creator of reality.
This means that the collective can reach a compromise, come to an mutually beneficial agreement, as to what kind of world they will create.
Humanity = God; God = Humanity
So, individuals cannot have any degree of free-will....because the will must be collectivized, through social engineering - abstracted out of existence, beyond the experienced world.
Now divinity works through collectives, creating any world they collectively agree to desire.
The 'social' in social engineering is collectivized and abstracted - it is now part of universal order, no man can ever resist, nor contradict...because even this is part of the universal plan.
Eugenics is mystified....not like Nazi eugenics driven by a human ideology. No, no, this is not willed by man...it comes from an idea that cannot be defined, but can create something from nothing, via human collectives.
Humans are like stones, like water...or nay kind of will-less resource, an agency through which the divine channels its will.
These postmoderns are simply chosen, by fate - divinity - to be aware of their agency...you know like Jews were chosen to bear the heavy burden of god's will, or Christians have been selected to be offered salvation, if only they accept the generous gift and surrender to it, or how Muslims have been burdened with understanding the clear massage of god, to spread his will to mankind, whether they like it or not.
I can go into Marx and how it also offered salvation, in the form of liberty from the evil agents of Satan who exploit humans rather than integrating themselves into its divine collectivity, sharing everything equally....never exploiting, never discriminating.

It's all part of the same psychosis....culminating in postmodernism. 
Tabula Rasa...man is as blank slate, a void, a nothing...and some will then writes his/her, it, they/their, programming, at which point they become something, someone.
Something from nothing.
Man can free himself from the collective and become a god himself. Self-creating....from nothing.
Making himself something from nothing, refusing external impositions of somethingness. Power imposing identity on the created negates the power of the creator.
But this implies free-will, as an absolute.  

The first morons deal with this by claiming the absolute is working through them to liberate them from manmade identities which are also determined by it - we return to the Biblical narrative that invented the primordial sin to deal with this conundrum.
What will postmodern freaks invent?
Their only option is in Stoicism - the quiet enduring of what they have been chosen to suffer; what has been determined for them to suffer.

"Ego and His Own" the other imbecile once said to comfort himself, proving how out of touch he truly is.... 
What ego, idiot, if there is no free-will?
Whose ego. Whose own. What is this "His" referring to?
God?
If all is determined what "ego" are you yapping about....and who are these exploiting capitalists and judges you hate?
Why "Will to Power"? whose power, whose will? Not yours, if you remain true to your adopted version of Abrahamism.
The "primordial ones," presumably. Another name for the same concept.  

The other clown declares himself god....creator of his fate, by the sheer power of will, expressed through the magic of his words.
He declares himself this or that...and the world changes to accommodate him. now that...is magic.
An Afro-Asiatic superstition that entered Greece through Orphism. 

Fuckin' clowns, the lot of 'em.
Positive and Pure Nihilists. 
Don't matter if they know or acknowledge what they are. 
Their agreement is not required. Nobody needs to coerce or convince them of anything.
The pattern of their behaviour, rooted in the patterns of their convictions, will determine their fate, though they will always blame others for the unforeseen, undesired negative consequences.

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It's either determinism, a silly conspiracy theory, or a remarkable coinkidence...

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Yeah, but he was..."insane".
Sounds crazy.

All value judgments, including moral ones, are made in reference to an objective.
Since living organisms share many objectives, e.g., survival, propagation, and some share methods of propagation and survival, i.e., cooperative, value judgments are often congruent.

I divide such behaviours into those that evolve to facilitate cooperative reproductive and survival strategies - moral - and those that man imposes to facilitate cooperative and reproductive strategies that exceed that of the previous.
So there are two kinds of behavioural standards, or methods of judging and evaluating behaviour, moral/ethical, corresponding to genetic/memetic.
So, inter-group violence becomes immoral, not because of a god or an external authority, but because it inhibits harmonious cooperative reproductive and survival strategies, and rules prohibiting sexual promiscuity and promoting monogamy or fidelity, are manmade rules setting limits to human sexuality so as to make civilization possible.

Postmodernists conflate the two, focusing on the former so as to also dismiss the latter.
So they correctly identify the Mosaic laws as manmade but then presume that all behavioural norms are also manmade, if not divine in origin, so as to dismiss them all as impositions of the powerful upon the powerless of moral standards.
In fact altruism, sexual norms, compassion, group hierarchies, are not manmade but evolve to facilitate particular reproductive and survival strategies. They require no divine authority or external agency, but are naturally selected.
A behaviour either increases or decreases the probability for survival and reproduction. The degree to which it does so makes it moral or immoral.
In regards to ethical standards - manmade addendums imposing limits to human behaviour, they are also relative not to the individual but to the group's objectives, i.e., shared values, principles, ambitions, ideals, and since men often share such objectives ethical rules become common.
Mosaic Law was the first to convert ethical rules of conduct into Divine.
Postmoderns wrongly assume that if god is dead then such rules of conduct no longer apply, intentionally rejecting the dual source of morality. In fact what we call moral behaviour, i.e., altruism, compassion, tolerance, self-sacrifice, does not require divine authority, since it evolves across species that have adopted cooperative reproductive and survival strategies, but Mosaic ethical codes of conduct do require the fear of a absolute authority to become effective, and even then they fail....
Rules against adultery, for example, persist, despite the risks - often that of death in Abrahamic authoritarian traditions - or despite the risk of eternal damnation, because they are manmade addendums to naturally evolved moral behaviours.
For example, a parent sacrifices his/her life to protect their offspring not because of some divine law or because it is imposed upon them by a culture, but because they intuitively identify themselves with their offspring, and such behaviours increase the probability of passing on their genes.

So, are morals relative?
Yes, in regards to ethics such as Mosaic laws, no in regards to naturally evolved restrictions to individual choices that have become innate because they facilitate particular methods of procreation and survival.

Cognitive Dissonance is a physical phenomenon by which "Natural Truths" resonate within evolved Cognition (brain/mind/IQ) while falsity and lies do not and cannot. It is simplified into "Logic" and "Rationality". That two different objects can exist in the same time and in the same location, for example. That a square is not equivalent to a circle, 2+2 does not equal 5, ice is cold and fire is hot, etc.

There are many levels of sophistication of Truth from the most basic (common sense) to very complex, requiring very high degrees of intelligence to understand, disseminate, and make sense out of. Thus most of humanity is relegated to the realm of Common Sense and basic truths. People know that left is not right, up is not down, and forward is not backward. But outside of basic truths, above the basic level, Humans quickly default to Moral, Political, Scientific, and Religious Authorities. This is a form of "Elitism" by which "The Experts" (Elitists) dictate to the masses, and the masses follow blindly.

Thus if a Priest / Rabbi / Imam preaches There is only One God, Jesus is Prophet, Muhammad is Prophet Peace Be Unto Him, etc. then the cognitive dissonance of the masses is overridden.

The average Pleb does not have enough "Authority" to question, to doubt, to reject, to resist such propaganda. And so the Cognitive Dissonance must be suffered and endured. It is a type of pain or curse of stupidity, that most people give up "trying to think" about.


This is why Mass Media, Television, and Entertainment are so critically effective. Because they block and redivert Cognitive Dissonance of the masses and redirect the Angst/Anxiety into other outlets. The masses remain distracted from their enslavement and miseries, imposed upon them by their controllers. Most give-up from an early age, and leave it to more intelligent peers to figure it out or "do the homework" for them.

Simply look at ILP or other "philosophy" forums for this phenomenon in effect.

These retards refuse to do the work themselves, are constantly misled by the same lies, and then get frustrated whenever they are confronted with truths, which they then become angry and emotional about. In the end, they retreat back into the same Controllers/Authorities which duped them in the first place.



It is easy to control and lure the population with honey and sweet tidings.

Abrahamism weaponized pagan shame, into primordial guilt.
Pagan's showed gratitude to the beings they hunted, to sustain themselves.
This was a form of making amends, when self-awarness exposed them to the source of objectivity and another's awareness.
Only man can feel the pain - imagine it - of the animal, or even plant, he must destroy to survive.
This is represented by the ouroboros - life must consume life.
This wakening was shameful....this was the Hellenic source of guilt.
Abrahamism converted it into an endless process of self-abnegaiton - the guilt could never be absolved but only through death. Man punishing himself for being man.
Also, when one breathes one denies this breathe to another. when one appropriates, hunts, eats, one denies the food, the nutrients to another. When one drinks water one denies it to another. when one exists one denies the space/time to another. When one mates one denies mating to another - ecmandu's obsession. When one gets a job one denies it to another.
This is why Heraclitus called existence agon.
This cycles begins without our consent...we are thrown into existence - as Heidegger would say...and this ecmandu feels most ashamed of.
We are thrown into existence and then we gradually attempt to gain control over our momentum - because all is dynamic, interactive - via our choices.
We are our past made present - as presence - interpreted as appearance.
Memes - as extensions of genes (past made present) are methods of gaining self-control; a way of selectively cultivating, and sublimating, our immutable past in the fluid, dynamic, present.
Man attempts this by projecting, into the future, an objective, i.e., a goal, an ideal.
He does so by fabricating - synthesising - past into new combinations and abstracting them into ideas/ideals, i.e., concepts, represented by symbols/words - semiotics.
These he projects as a way of guiding - directing - himself - focusing his momentum via his will.
Man is not omnipotent nor omniscient - there are no absolutes - so he can only achieve this partially and incompletely and due to mush effort - agon.
Nihilistic abstractions - memes - are ideas/ideals that negate past, or that synthesize it in ways that are unreal - have no connection to experienced reality, ensuring failure and shame which can then be unloaded upon an otherness, an external agency, e.g., god, society, the universe etc.  
This is both a form of retribution - desiring failure to be ubiquitous by creating ideas/ideals that have no reference to reality - or a form of self-punishment unable to deal with shame and guilt. Life's uncertainties become certain through failure - the only thing certain is failure, i.e., the nil. This is comforting, giving the psyche a sense of control.
Having failed to realize the one, the positive, for whatever reason, the psyche settles for the comforting certainty of the nil.
Failure is usually a product of a bad evaluation of self, objective and the effort required to attain it.  The effort - distance - a relationship between subject and object, i.e., I and other.
After multiple failures the mind surrenders to self-criticism or it unloads it as a critique of other - blame is unloaded upon the world because ti can no longer bear its burden.
Usually a degree of damage has been done befo0re this point. The individual feels itself breaking....shattering....and then casts off the burden to save itself from annihilation.
Messianism is a narrative of another taking on the burden from individuals who find in it an identity which supersedes their own; through the saviour individuals are released from the shame and the guilt of being alive, aware of it, and what this means, what it entails, what it necessitates, objectively.
This is only possible with social species that have evolved objective self-awarness.

Choice is the "problem". We feel ashamed and guilty of the choices we've made, based on the judgements we've formed, founded on the knowledge/understanding we had at the time.
Regret is what we suffer.
Rethinking, revaluating, re-judging, in accordance with our present, and constantly evolving, knowledge/understanding.
We want to stop and absolve ourselves from this.
Procrastination, indecisiveness, pangs of shame and guilt, reluctance to pass judgment and to make choices...a need to blame another for it all - a need to make oneself innocent of being alive.
Abrahamics have the abstraction of divinity to accuse and to stand behind. Secular nihilists have the concept of absolue roder, determining all including our judgements and choices....so that we can remain pure and not culpable of all the consequences these may produce. Sacrificing the positive to the negative, e.g., sacrificing pride to evade shame; sacrificing self to evade other; sacrificing life to evade death; sacrificing certainty to negate uncertainty.