Thursday, 31 August 2017

Living your Afterlife Today



To continue a theme from previous posts, their stance on death is one thing that particularly troubles me about major religions. Many of them preach morals and rules that you need to abide by to ensure happiness in the AFTERlife. (Cue: Record scratch sound effect!) What!? I should inhibit myself during my entire existence, holding back all my desires, spend hours and hours to save up for a nice retirement when my life is over, wasting time while my life is actually going on? What sense is there in that?

Death is not the beginning. It is THE end. This does not make it your enemy. It is merely the end of your life. But after all what is a good story without an ending. Any good tale has to have an ending. The ending is what gives the story value. The fact that death is lying at the end of the Road Taken should not make you afraid. Instead it should help you in your navigation on the Infinite Freeway, choosing your route more carefully because you will eventually run out of fuel making every mile you drive all the more important. In that sense, death is what gives life meaning, what gives it purpose. There can be no light without darkness and thus there can be no life without death. Like Tyler Durden says; “you have to realize that one day you will die, until you know this you are useless."

Death gives meaning to life. It shouldn’t make you afraid to live. Lying at the end of your path, it should rather propel you forward to achieve as much as possible during your time here and make your own micro-universe as pleasant and rich as possible. That responsibility is yours and yours alone, you are the master of your own micro-universe, no one else. Not some celestial being who is going to reward you after you are dead. 

Unfortunately, religion is very well thought out. The popes of the Middle Ages made fortunes selling prime seats to heaven after you die because they knew nobody ever came back for a refund. Why? Because when you are dead, you are dead. There is no afterlife, at least not in any form preached by religions. How do I know? Being a transcender or not, like them I try to maintain the humility to not think I have the ultimate answer to any question. But I still have the sense to only base my decisions on the evidence and knowledge available to me in my given lifetime. 

So answer me this: How many do you know who have been to Heaven or Hell? Experience, people. Let your rationale answer the question. Nobody has ever been there, because it does not exist. But this is the typical trait of religions, it is based solely on the preachings of certain individuals who told people what they wanted to hear, and even if these prophets themselves believed it to be true, they did not have a shred of evidence. This lack of evidence is what really set believers apart from transcenders. Religion works only on faith, it requires no proof of anything, rather it dares transcenders and scientists to DISprove all their claims.

Dawkins touched upon this in The God Delusion. Of course, no one can disprove that God exists somewhere, but at the same time no one can disprove that ghosts, werewolves, Santa Claus, Odin, the Loch Ness Monster, Extra Terrestrials, the Tooth Fairy, or as Dawkins lists; the Spaghetti Monster, exist. The point is that it is very easy to make up stories and then ask someone to disprove it. Transcenders never deal in absolutes. But at the same time they look at the information available and make the soundest judgment based on this cold, hard evidence. This is as close to truth as we can get. And sometimes the truth is harsh, but that does not make it any less true.

Based on the evidence available, here is what I think happens after death. Nothing. When you die, you simply cease to exist, your actions in life will only matter while you are alive. After you are gone they will have no consequences for your micro-universe, because it will no longer be. It begins and ends with you, because it only exists in your brain. Once your brain is dead, so is your micro-universe. Transcenders and pretenders are very aware of this. That is why they can accomplish so much more than thedancers on the Dancefloor, working unrestricted and more time-efficient not wasting time praying or attending this and that religious gathering because so-and-so told me to. Religions are sending the completely opposite message that they should be. They are basically telling people to die in order to be happy. This makes the believers more docile and easier to control. The false prophets of yesteryear did their job well. Religion really is, like Marx called it, “opium des volkes”, the keystone in the Trinity of Control, it lulls people into apathy and gives all initiative to the false prophets or pretenders ready to prey on the sedated masses in order to promote their own agenda. It takes initiative away from their believers and turns them into mindless slaves easy to bend in any direction. Of course there was a time when such control was beneficial to unify and thus evolve our species, but as history has shown, it has time and time again also been misused to perpetuate selfish agendas just like some fanatics are doing today, so I remain wondering whether or not it has much benefit in the 21st century. Certainly not as a system of control. We ought to be smarter than that today. 


Thursday, 24 August 2017

Using Death to be more Alive



The reason I love “dark” shows and movies like Se7en, Dexter, Twin Peaks and True Detective, and gothic authors like Poe and Lovecraft is because they are not afraid to show the true face of existence to the world. By studying these works of fiction you are acknowledging this. Animal nature is human nature, works like this serves to remind people of that fact. It doesn’t have to make you depressed, afraid or cold. It is rather just another lesson to be had and as soon as it is over and you have stared darkness in the eyes, like anything feared for its unknown qualities it is suddenly no longer as scary.

One thing many people are afraid of is death. Death is obviously part of the darkness that fuel the pretenders, it is their ultimate control of someone else and dealing death is usually what drives their addiction to hurting people. It is the ultimate power, catering to their entitlement as masters of any micro-universe they choose. But no matter how it shows its face, enacted by an agent of darkness or not, death is an integral part of life just like darkness is an integral part of the world. Death is in fact the most integral and constant aspect to life. No matter what might happen after you are born, dying will certainly be one of them. ‘You start to die the moment you are born.’ Ian Fleming put that notion into the head of his secret agent, James Bond, and the statement is very true. He elaborates further as well:

“The whole of life is cutting through the pack with death. So take it easy. Light a cigarette and be grateful you are still alive as you suck the smoke deep into your lungs. Your stars have already let you come quite a long way since you left your mother’s womb and whimpered at the cold air of the world.”

Ian Fleming is right. Take it easy. Do not fear death but do not forget about it either. Rather, you have your whole life to prepare for death, might as well start right now. The Grim Reaper will come for you eventually. Being alive WILL eventually kill you. Might as well be prepared. If you feel comfortable with death before the Reaper comes, then the aspect of dying is not that scary at all. I carry death with me everywhere I go. Every time I get in a car or on an airplane or go for a dive or even just a walk at night in a big city, I accept that there is a chance I might die. In fact, people die doing these things all the time. The majority of accidents occur at home. Cancer hits every third Dane. Why should I be different? But knowing death could be lurking around every corner does not make me afraid. Rather it makes me more appreciative of life and makes me enjoy it more. It is just like the aforementioned quote by Mark Twain:

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”

Mark Twain is saying that death is merely all the more reason to live in the moment. Enjoy your life while you can. No time like the present. Fearing death is not an excuse to not take any risks, it should be the opposite, take more risks, live life more fully. One day it will all be over. This is the great constant in life.


Monday, 14 August 2017

Lessons from the Darkness



As part of our human/animal nature, I think darkness is inherent in all of us, transcenders, sociopathic psychopaths, and everyone on the Dancefloor as well. Whatever triggers it, desperation, longing for solutions or a false sense of entitlement, when it shows its ugly face it can consume and destroy you completely and transform you into someone else entirely, brilliantly illustrated by Robert Louis Stevenson in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and numerous times by Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft. Like me, they are not afraid of acknowledging the darker side within us and I think this is also a key trait to transcenders. A more modern example is David Lynch. Like none other, he has repeatedly shown this inherent darkness in even everyday household fathers and husbands and small town America, lurking underneath the surface ready to consume and possess you, most exquisitely shown in Twin Peaks. A show that I coincidentally, what I would today term as true determinist fashion, watched around the same time as my fascination with Dexter peaked. This was generally the time when I for the first time really delved into the human dark side, including my own.

There is a reason I feel a fascination and in the case of Dexter Morgan, an actual connection, with the sociopathic psychopaths or pretenders as I call them. I now know what that is. In reality, they are very much like transcenders but fueled by darkness rather than light. Studying them and understanding what they and thus humans are capable of, enables you to better understand this inherent darkness. Once you realize what humans can do to each other, under desperate circumstances or just due to icy cold psychopathic evil, it gives you better protection against the dangers that other humans constitute. Instead of always expecting other people to be nice to you because of their good nature and their ability to control their emotions, when you realize that there is severe darkness in the world, you always have your guard up in life. Pretending the darkness doesn’t exist is like a child covering its eyes when it is scared. Instead staring blankly into the face of evil, into the human darkness not only increases your path to transcending, it also makes you better able to see danger approaching and if need be, defend yourself against it. Make no mistake, the world is a cold, dark place. The universe that surrounds it is mostly made up of an empty, freezing cold vacuum. Thankfully, more and more, popular culture is starting to acknowledge this darkness, instead of pushing the traditional happy endings.

One of the best TV-shows I have ever watched, True Detective, deals specifically with this inherent darkness in the world and brilliantly illustrates it through their main characters staring at a starry night sky. There is a lot of darkness up there, and only a few lights breaking it, Matthew McCoughaney states. This is a great analogy. I like to think that the lights are primarily made up of transcenders, but as the metaphor demonstrates darkness is unfortunately by far the prevailing force in our world. “The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.” Thus ends Se7en, but as Somerset - Morgan Freeman’s character - states, he only agrees with the second statement. The world of Se7en and True Detective is our world. It is the world we live in. Deal with it. Don’t shun it. Absorb it. Study it. Learn from it.