The Faith of a Heretic

I feel pretty shitty about something that happened today.

I was staying after class and waiting to speak with my art professor who was having a conversation with another student and a girl who had not been there for the lecture walked in while I was on the phone negotiating a ride. I turned around and politely asked her to move so I could walk to the professor’s desk and she started crying, I asked her what was wrong and she *Really* started crying. It seemed as if she was about to tell me but walked out of the class instead.

I had to leave without perusing her to see what was wrong because my ride was waiting for me. But I suppose thats bullshit and I could have made him wait for me, I could have chased after her. But I’m not even friends with her and maybe she wouldn’t have felt comfortable with spilling out what was waying down on her with me. I know that when I have felt like that, I had always been begging for someone to talk to…

I feel like shit for leaving before seeing what was wrong.

Debunking superstition

He will surely honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. Whatever he promises he will fulfill. He does not care his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another’s troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, nor shamelessly extol his own virtues.

When you walk through a forest let no trace of your passing be left behind. This is how we should attend to all actions, judgments and decisions. Return the world just as you found it and you will encounter no discomfort. Treat everything as if it had been loaned to you by a long gone and important relative, as if it were precious, to be safeguarded against the human stain. Pissing, shitting, fucking, accusing, crying, whining, gasping, stealing, lying, envying, corrupting, destroying – leave those things from the path, take nothing that is not yours. Mark nothing external to you.

130: Try and control the world external to your mind and meet constant agony. Expect nothing of no one but yourself and expect nothing but contentment. The currency of the world is falsehood, and if you expect your fellow man to follow their words with actions, you are mistaken. Make expectations of nothing. Structure your thoughts so that nothing will shock you. Only the infant mind is manipulated as a puppet by the capricious masses. How can you so readily and so swiftly surrender your faculties to anger and accusation? Temper your passions so that you can always rely on your convictions to be true, for the sake of being true, with no pandering for reward or recognition. For everything that troubles you, detach the need for that in your life, and you will know no pain. You need nothing but what you define as needing.

Everything that is not within you cannot be in your control. How foolish we are to be disturbed when something material is destroyed, as if it were to last forever? You are deceiving yourself in desiring to control these things, these impermanent, momentary forms that will sooner than later rejoin the world as dust. Detach yourself from the desire and in doing so detach yourself from the grief of a mind dependent on structuring an external flux. Let nothing disturb you, let nothing shock you. Did you really expect anything else?

Don’t have expectations of anyone but yourself and you won’t be disturbed when reckless, uncharitable, vile people do reckless, uncharitable and vile things. Be strict with yourself and tolerant of others. Trying to control anything but your own judgments, actions and decisions will only lead you to pain; you are powerless to truly manipulate the outside world. If you expect people to act a certain way, or to have any logic or reasoning for their actions, they will only disappoint you. Most people don’t think through their actions properly and as a consequence often make reckless, (seemingly) random, deceptive or destructive actions. You can’t blame them for this, or expect anything else, just work on tempering your own judgments, actions and decisions, and leave everything else up to fate, always being cheerful of character, blaming no one.

You don’t need to take any philosophy classes to study philosophy. Philosophy is the ‘quest for honesty’, the discipline of fanatical and heretical truth seeking. Philosophy is used to make things bare, to remove the ‘legend that encrusts them’ and see how pointless many conventions are so that we can better determine our actions and avoid self-deception. Philosophy is the training of the mind to pierce falsehoods and illuminate fractured foundations. Action is the root, not books, nor theorizing. Although some words might catalyze our actions, they are not the end, but a means.

Hammers are created to drive nails, plants are born to sustain animals, animals are born to sustain humans, humans are born to foster reason and virtue.

When you call someone ‘untrustworthy’ or ‘ungrateful,’ turn the reproach on yourself. It was you who did wrong. By assuming that someone with those traits deserved your trust.