Self-destructiveness

Ever feel like saying screw you world, tonight I'm getting wasted and I just don't care? Well weirdly enough it feels quite liberating....the not caring part, not the drinking until you start to puke part hahaha. And on a lighter note, school is OVER!!!! YEAH BITCH!!! And the funny part is that I'll probably go running to the library on the first chance I get hahaha. I'm such a dork.

Quote of the month...sort of

Yes late again, but blah. Having to take classes in the summer makes one sloppy and uncaring of etiquette. So sue me!

The idea for this post initially came from the fact that today while desperately trying to study for my finance exam, I got stuck with the song "A Little Piece of Heaven" in my head.



And while this is a nice song by Avenged Sevenfold from a musical point of view, the lyrics do tend to give you a shiver down your spine. And this reminded me of something that I once heard (probably from Bunny, though I really don't remember if it came from him or someone else). It went something like this:

"The most disturbing thing about necrophilia is that there have been enough cases in the world for us to have a name for it."

And it's kind of true. We are so closed up in our own little "normal" world, that we end up imagining that people who would want to have sex with a corpse are rare abnormalities, statistical impossibilities of the type of Ed Gein (another lovely case of a reeeeeeaaaallly fucked up mind). But while trying to see if my fabulous sentence was actually a real quote or just random folk wisdom, I stumbled upon a forum thread on necrophilia. And there was this self-proclaimed necrophiliac who said:

"No, necrophilia isnt a mental disorder per se. The diagnostic criterias in DSM requires significant distress on the behalf of the paraphiliac. Altough necrophilia are a NOS-category so there are no formulated criterias so you have to translate from the other paraphilias diagnistic criterias.

So on what grounds are you claiming that necrophilia is a disorder? Are you using ICD-10? Or just having an opinion on an subject you dont know much about? If its the later i think you should rethink your view on the subject because as i said before even masturbation was seen as an disorder before (as late as 1972 with the book 'Human Sexuality' American Medical Association officially reversed its earlier standpoint that it was an foremost danger to human mental health).

And, im not harming myself and i dont accept your argument. Even (hypoteticaly) if my sexuality made me socialy isolated and so on, got me in prison or even mental institution thats not because of "disorders". It is because of societies narrow minded views on this subject and thats the problem, not me. You wouldnt argue that homosexuals that got in trouble when it was illegal had mental disorders would you?"

And there was one thing that struck me. This person sounded very much like the Marquis de Sade quote I posted a couple of months ago and which went like this:

"My way of thinking cannot be approved you say? Why should that be of importance to me! The one who adopts a way of thinking for others is nothing but a fool! My way of thinking is the fruit of my reflections. It is part of my existence. I am not the master to change it. Even if I would be, I wouldn't. This way of thinking that you blame so is the only solace I can find in life[...]. It is not my way of thinking who makes me unhappy, it is that of others."

So this makes me wonder. Where do you draw the line? What is acceptable and what is not? When do you fall into mental disorders and when is it that society is being too narrow-minded and is imposing conformity on its members. I mean, many things that we have believed in the past to be true are now considered abominations (like homophobia, racism and discrimination against women). And it's arrogant to think that we now live in a perfect society where we have nothing more to learn. But then in that case can we say that anything goes? Should we consider murderers, rapists and psychopaths as just another facet of the diversity in the world that should be accepted as it is? Well, according to Camus, freedom must include murder or it is not real freedom.

Anyway, these are heavy things to ponder on and considering how late it is, my babbling at this hour won't get me any closer to an answer. But there's just one more thing that I want to mention. Now I mean this in the most respectful way possible and my philosophy in life is pretty much that as long as nobody gets hurt, anything goes. But man am I happy that I mostly fit into what the majority of people would call "normal". For one of the first times of my life, I'm happy that I'm just like everybody else. Because, even though I might be missing out on some aspects of life (or maybe not...sex with a cold, unmoving body is not really my cup of tea), I would be scared shitless if I would have to go through the whole self-discovery phase and then try to find a place for myself in society (and fail most of the time). I've seen friends go through it and it does not look like fun. So this post goes to Lily-chan and Cris. The strongest people I know!

Change the world and live forever

Quote of the (last) month

I kind of realized that I forgot to put a quote last month (bad bad me). So I thought I'd just put an extra one this month. Kind of like a two-for-one deal. Except I'm not trying to sell you anything. Unless you might consider that through this blog I'm selling my ideas, but that's more of a metaphor than anything else cause I'm not getting any money nor other benefits from this, other than the narcissistic pleasure of seeing my "thoughts" on a screen. And I am rambling...again...

I've been reading this book called First you build a cloud: and other reflections on physics as a way of life on and off for about 2 years now (I'll end up finishing it eventually) and it really is a wonderful piece of literature for the amateur physicist in you (or scientist in general). It is a very vague introduction to physics as it relates to our everyday life, but it is written in such a way as everyone can understand and I consider it to be a very pleasurable read (not to mention that it boosts up my ego when I discover all the stuff that I already know about physics...yes yes I'm an arrogant narcissist...shoot me).

This is a quote I discovered a couple of hours ago when I was reading in the metro on my way home and it struck me because it represents the epitome of my vision of the world (I think I was trying to explain this concept to my boyfriend at one point but it really didn't come out as great as this hahaha). And it's sort of poetic-ish...

"Whenever an infant is born, the dice, in the shape of genes and enzymes and the intangibles of chance environment, are being rolled again... Each one of us is a statistical impossibility around which hover a million other lives that were never destined to be born - but who, nevertheless, are being unmanifest, a lurking potential in the dark storehouse of the void."

Loren Eiseley

Doesn't it just contrast so nicely with Einstein's whole "God doesn't play dice with the universe"? Well, take that All! God DOES play dice with the universe (and when I say God, I mean the personification of all the natural forces and laws that make up our world, and not some invisible man in the sky watching our every move to make sure we're all good kids). Yes, as far as I see it, the world is merely one probability after another with the chances slightly tipped into one direction or another by natural laws and forces.

However, if the universe is simply a statistically determined chain reaction, we come to a sort of cause and effect vision of the world. And in that case, if everything has a physical cause, that had another physical cause, that had another physical cause and so forth until the beginning of time, up to what point is free will an actual part of our life?

I shall leave you with that question until my next post (because I'm frankly falling asleep in front of my monitor and I feel this might be a long discussion).

Quote of the month

credit: http://nnoik.deviantart.com/

Continuing a bit on yesterday's topic, this month's quote talks about the extremes of freedom:

"La liberté, surtout quand elle est le rêve du prisonnier, ne peut supporter de limites. Elle est le crime ou elle n'est plus la liberté."

Marquis de Sade

And even though it strays from the topic (yes I know I'm very bad at staying on topic, just deal with it), here is another quote from the Marquis de Sade which I love due to its "screw the world" type of tone (despite everything he stands for, I actually like the Marquis de Sade...or in any case I like the attitude he takes when it comes to standing up for his beliefs):

"Ma façon de penser, dites-vous, ne peut être approuvée. Eh, que m'importe! Bien fou est celui qui adopte une façon de penser pour les autres! Ma façon de penser est le fruit de mes reflexions; elle tient à mon existence, à mon organisation. Je ne suis pas le maître de la changer; je le serais, que je ne le ferais pas. Cette façon de penser que vous blâmez fait l'unique consolation de ma vie; elle allège toutes mes peines en prison et j'y tiens plus qu'à la vie. Ce n'est point ma façon de penser qui a fait mon malheur, c'est celle des autres."

I think, therefore I am...or maybe not.

Lately I have been thinking about the concept of freedom and just how free we actually are. I remember talking in a previous post about Jean Paul Sartre and how he says that men are free and that freedom is their burden. In a sense that is true. We do always have a choice, even a slave that works on a sugar cane plantation. He can choose to obey his master or to rebel. What limits our freedom are the consequences of our choices which are not the same for everybody. But in a way you could say that the bigger the consequences, the more important are our choices because they reveal our true nature and how much we are willing to sacrifice.

However, that aspect of freedom is not really what I want to talk about. This post is not dedicated to freedom of action or freedom of speech, but to the freedom of thought. And the limits here are more subtle and much more insidious because most of the time we are not even conscious of them. What I'm trying to say is that without even realizing it, we are the ones who limit our freedom of thought, firstly, through our personality and who we are and, secondly, through socialization and our adhesion to social norms and values. No man is born free for the simple reason that we come into this world in already made cages that we spend our entire life refining. We are trapped by our perception of the world and it is very difficult to extend ourselves beyond our boundaries when each new day that we are alive and that we come into contact with society we only add new bars to our mental prisons. In a way, we are all chained in Plato's Cave but none of us will ever be able to break free and see the Sun.

An atheist who cannot find within him the power to believe in God, how can he fully comprehend a christian who would give his life away for his beliefs? How could one walk in the shoes of the other when, in order to do that, he would have to change his beliefs, thus changing who he is. Aristotle said that "it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it". True. You need to be open minded in order to be able to reflect upon points of view with which you disagree. But can you fully comprehend them in that case?

No matter what we do, we are always biased. And ironically, as we grow older, we accumulate more and more biases. Which leads me to ask myself. Traditionally we see old people as being wise due to their life experience. But what is wisdom? Is it real knowledge, or is it just an extensive accumulation of societal norms and values which have been embedded in rational and empirical arguments? Because our culture, our society, our friends, our parents, our idols, our experiences, our hobbies, they all limit our ability to think freely and creatively. In 1984, George Orwell even explores the idea that language can limit our thoughts and therefore our freedom. Of course, some people and some experiences can on the contrary broaden our horizons, but that is only possible because our mind is so closed to the real world to begin with.

And what's more, what is the real world anyway? Is there such a thing as absolute truth when there is not one single person alive or dead who is able to perceive it in its entirety? No matter what we do, from the instant we are born, we will always be closed to certain aspects of the world. And therefore, if we are limited in that which we believe in, we are limited in our actions. So even in the purest anarchy, which Proudhon considered to be the epitome of liberty, there is no true liberty. And the irony is that it is not another human being who cuts our ability to act, but we ourselves who set limits on our liberty. Of course, in that case, one might wonder if it can still be considered lack of freedom when we are not conscious of it. But then we fall into a question of semantics and I really don't want to get into that.

Quote of the month

These are a couple of quotes by Jean-Paul Sartre that I discovered this summer while reading Sophie's World and they struck a chord in my own reflections. They didn't bring any answers, but they kind of confirmed some thoughts that I already had (which I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not....I try to stay as far away as possible from confirmation bias, but that doesn't always happen). They are kind of long, but they develop the same idea in a brilliant way.

"We are like actors dragged onto the stage without having learned our lines, with no script and no prompter to whisper stage directions to us. We must decide for ourselves how to live."

"Man is condemned to be free. Condemned because he has not created himself and is nevertheless free. Because having once been hurled into the world, he is responsible for everything he does."

"Man must never disclaim the responsibility for his actions. Nor can we avoid the responsibility of making our own choices on the grounds that we 'must' go to work, or we 'must' live up to certain middle-class expectations regarding how we should live. Those who thus slip into the anonymous masses will never be other than members of the impersonal flock, having fled from themselves into self-deception. On the other hand, our freedom obliges us to make something of ourselves, to live 'authentically' or 'truly'."

"Life must have a meaning. It is an imperative. But it is we ourselves who must create this meaning in our own lives. To exist is to create your own life."