Journey To The End of My Life

Journey To The End of My Life

For the past ten years or so, I've been writing one manifesto after another regarding who I am and what I consider, very subjectively of course, as ultimate verities for human existence. I suppose the reason for these preoccupations is to deal decisively with the perennial issues of my true worth and my relationships with other humans. In other words who I am and how I stand in relation to others: identity and hierarchy, heavy issues for social beings, and more so for a sensitive social being like myself, the one who cries easily, gets angry quickly, and dabbles in poetry and other arts (fiction writing, singing, and dancing), and social justice. 

Lately my writing has taken a more practical, utilitarian function of testing for any signs of cognitive impairment. If there are, I won't be able to find words to express symbolically what I want to say. Language and memory including word retrieval are reliable indicators of the functioning of a human brain. 

One thing for sure that I have noticed that as I age, the inhibition of social disapproval weighs less on me. I don't know if that's a result of my conviction that I am rare and beautiful or is simply a sign of senescent arrogance. I look around and most of what I see are instances of human deception, physical and moral cowardice and cognitive enfeeblement, ironically compensated by pitiful complacency. In other words, most humans act as if they were really individuals of substance while in fact they are not. They behave like old fools, unwittingly. Now, back to another recapitulation of who I am/identity/my worth and my standing in relation to other humans.

1. Besides my looks which have held up, I am just different from most, if not a great majority, of humans I have run into: I am more into knowledge, honesty, compassion, and social justice than they are. 

2. I am more sensitive and artistic and intelligent than they are. 

3. I am also more violent and extreme than they are. But fortunately, I've managed to keep my violence under control by having vicarious pleasures through the violent acts of others or having fantasies of my committing these acts of violence myself. I am a firm believer that assholes and scumbags are vermin and must be exterminated. I look at their deaths with pleasure and contentment and peacefulness. I am convinced that life is a perennial, endless struggle between the forces of Good and Evil. Humans always have a choice. And if they choose Evil, they must pay a price for that, pure and simple. We cannot afford to pussy-foot with Evil. However, I do believe in giving others second chances, and in Repentance and Redemption. I also believe in the curative, redemptive powers of Love although I have not been lucky in that department/area. 

Conclusion: 

I have been preparing for my death for a long time. To live is to die. Death makes Life ironically more meaningful. I firmly believe that while consciousness does exist, its existence is contingent upon a functioning body. When a body dies, so does consciousness. Thus, I don't believe in Reincarnation. I think it is unalloyed bullshit and falsehood. So far there has been no empirical evidence to support the theory/doctrine. All we have are fantastic, phantasmagoric stories or unsubstantiated religious doctrine relating to the issue. The stories and the doctrine are manifestations of greed and willful self-delusion. 

Thus spoke Wissai

June 14, 2015. 

Why does Man seek death-defying adventures?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/sports/dean-potter-final-yosemite-jump.html?smid=nytcore-ipad-share&smprod=nytcore-ipad

Dean Potter jumped. Graham Hunt followed. Potter’s longtime girlfriend snapped photographs. Then came confusion, hope and despair.

Wissai's note:

I am afraid of heights. I admire risk-takers, but consider these base jumpers and those climbing mountains with their bare hands and no safety belts and ropes are suicidal people who have a death wish. Every time they beat Death, they feel alive and achieve an addictive high which has to be repeated over and over until they have an accident and die. But all humans do that, in a far less dramatic and extreme manner, from talking too much to overeating to irritating/provoking others to speeding. 

Freud had a very penetrating insight about human drives: Man alone has both a life force and a death wish. All other animals only have an instinct for self-preservation. 

Man somehow cannot live without excitement. If he does not have it imposed on him, he must seek it through unprovoked wars, sports, gambling, and other risky behaviors. 

Man cannot handle boredom. He must test the boundaries and his physical limitations. In doing so he feels alive and godlike. Look at the acrobatic movements/martial arts moves humans can achieve. 

Man is an incomplete, self-conflicting, but marvelous animal. I am glad I was born a human and a male at that. While a human female is more resilient and lives longer than a male, a male is driven to seek adventures and physical limits. He feels he must do so in order to find out what he is made of. To him, self-knowledge and curiosity are more important than survival. To him, life is more than just survival and pro-creation. It must be fun. And fun is achieved in seeking challenges and living to tell the tales. 

In a small measure, I've been seeking disapproval, raised eyebrows, and consternation by mocking and laughing at social conventions. To me, social conventions are for morons and monkeys. I hate and despise mediocrities and hollow, phony fame and glory. A real man must somehow act like a god: strong, solitary, free and numb of petty hurts and worries. I look down on petty-minded men who constantly seek approval and admiration from others. A man you must really impress is yourself and nobody else. By the way, I admire very, very few living men. My heroes are true intellectual or moral giants. Almost all humans I know personally are scumbags, deep down, who put on masks to deceive others and even themselves.