On Existentialism

Although it may appear to contrary, my thoughts are not always clouded with doom and gloom. Truth be told, this winter has been very difficult on me, and this has had a profound influence on my thinking. Fortunately, this winter is quickly on its way out, and it couldn't have happened a moment sooner . . . I was beginning to run out of ways to convince myself that life is still living, but winter hasn't died yet . . . so we will see.

However, in the spirit of forward thinking and the rebirth of the world known to us in the English-speaking world as "spring," I offer a philosophic concept I hold quite dear to my heart. And no, this one doesn't involve pain or suicide or much self-loathing: Existentialism!
Yes, you've no doubt heard that term before, and surely you thought that person who used it to be pretentious and dreadfully arrogant. Well, he probably was. In any case:

The birth of existential thought is genrally given to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, but Dostoevsky is almost always wrongly forgotten, as his works have a strong existential component that contributed a great deal the burgeoning school of thought. Imagine that, two of the biggest influences on my own thinking (that being Dostoevsky and Nietzsche) developing one of my favorite philosophical concepts! Take a deep breath, I know you're as excited as I am.
Existentialism is the idea that individuals create their own meanings to their lives, their own essence. This is naturally in direct opposition to the rather idiotic and completely worthless theories of determinists such as Calvin. In a nut shell, there is no determined course for your live except the one that you choose. You have complete free will.

Existential thinking is not necessarily devoid of religion, but it does exclude transcendent bodies such as the abstract God. Which is to say, as Dostoevsky put it, in the absence of God, all things are permitted. Since there is no God, your life is left up to you, you are completely responsible for every aspect of your existence - you are entirely free.

I will profile only a few of my favorite existentialists, for it is a large and unexhaustable subject. The major influences, and many might say originators, are Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus.

Come to think of it, I don't wish to profile either of them after all. You can research if you feel so compelled.

One thing that I feel I must discuss is Franz Kafka, who is also at the forefront of my personal influences. I discovered in an odd way, I had independently developed nearly indentical thoughts on existence has he had, so that intrigued me. His work is brilliant. It is brilliant because it is absurd, it is hopeless, and nearly all his characters are alientated by a surreal reflection of our modern times. Kafka manages to take the absurdity of life . . . actually, that is for another day. Look soon for a post dedicated to Kafka!

Not only that, I have been itching to get back into the music review arena, so I may start posting some of those. I also happen to have quite a talent for humor and comedy, perhaps I need to pick that back up . . . who knows?

Two Winters Only

After waxing philosophic the past few days, I decided that I wanted to take a rest pummeling your consciousness with my admittedly depressing philosophies of life. I was driving in my car today listening to one of my favorite albums from one of my favorite genres, and it dawned on me that Metal is horribly misunderstood and often maligned by mainstream music outlets, the entire message and reason of its existence is destroyed by the mainstream.

I will attempt to rectify that today.

First of all, most of the music that is touted as "metal" these days, are nothing but the creations of international marketing firms to cash-in on a genre that has, for whatever reason, been viewed as containing nothing but depressed teenagers looking to be angry at something, anything.

This is wrong.

What most people do not know is that the metal roots really lie in deep European musical traditions. The most faithful of metal bands tend to take cues from classical masters such as Richard Wagner. I would go so far as to say that, if the technology existed in his day, Wagner would have been a composer of metal symphonies, for the emotions that metal evoke (and metal is entirely about evoking emotion), and the emotion that Wagner evokes are in the same vein. He just needed a massive orchestral hall to achieve the desired volume, we just need to turn the dial up.

With that of the way, I should now like to narrow down to my personal favorite sub-genre of metal: doom metal.

The essence and raw emotion of doom metal lies in the very core of the human soul, and this why I have an endless well of appreciation for the style and those who create it. A great deal of music these days is just superficial, hypocritical, untalented garbage shoved down your throat by forty-year men in ten-thousand dollar suits. The radio is their propaganda tool. They tell you what's cool. They tell you what to listen to. They tell you what to buy. They tell you how to live your life.

Metal tells them to fuck off.

Doom metal, as an art form, is about romanticism. In a capitalist society that has no sense or appreciation of art, only concerned with dollars and figures, it is a breath of fresh air, it is beautiful. A great many people these days are all too concerned with being happy (whatever that is), that they fail to see true beauty. Don't get me wrong, the calm ocean on a warm day is beautiful, the sunset over the mountains is beautiful - but pain and sorrow are equally, if not more, beautiful . . . if you are willing to open your eyes, and your heart.

This can be shown point of fact with one of the genres most well-known acts, and their song Two Winters Only, a song that holds personal meaning to me, is viscerally and painfully beautiful each time I hear it. I do occasionally get chills down my spine:

What is it you hope for, even though you are dying?
And even though life is closing your tiny eyes
Why did I leave them all?
I should be with them to die in the same place
The pain I think, should go on forever. For always
But no. Not mine. Not now. My life now begins

Call me what you will, but I'll die for no man, at all
My limbs and the life that spreads from them
Cross my path and you'll suffer like no man before, at all
What I hunger for, is the trial of God

For just two winters only did we live for
My God, What have you become? Dear, dear lord

We could have changed the world, had you been here with me
Right now
Held you in my arms. In my arms, my love
Jesus wept so man could life forever on earth. In peace
But my tears, They fall for you. Only you

When Aaron bellows "we could have changed the world, had you been here with me," he is not only delivering an unbelievably strong line, but also delivering what might be considered the common theme in all of doom metal - a blind romanticism on all subjects, not solely having to do with love. To understand the true emotion, you need to hear the song, the music is incredible. Coincidentally, Two Winters Only is not a good musical example of a doom metal song, it is more in line with a ballad.

I will choose another song of the My Dying Bride's The Angel and the Dark River (what I consider to be the doom metal album) as contrast:

Take your own
Sick with fever
And cry out loud
To God
Your sorry own
Will be piled upon me
That I can't see
My God
I've cried for earth
More than once
But rivers still run
With reddest tears
Be lost in me
And I'll never need to ask
Who wants me? Who wants Me?
Be mine tonight. The sight of your light
I'll breathe in you. I'm a fool, just for you
I'm in pain
And I don't know why
Under heavy rain
From darkest skies
We're in pain
The two of us
And I no longer know
Which way to go

Open wide. Let me see
Your bleeding heart cries for me
Look straight up. Look at the sun
This song's for her. Her requiem
Open wide. Let me see
A poisoned soul in agony
Self pity strangles me
I'm lashed by grief
And I'm killing me
Don't fear. My fire is enough
For both of us

This is a much better example of the traditional doom sound, and one of the finest songs on the album. To explain it is really futile, it is dripping with raw emotion, the sort of emotion that I don't think even Hemingway could have transcribed into text. Just listen to it.

There are a great many bands that are making music of breathtaking quality in the doom metal realm these days, not to mention the back catalog of the flagship bands would keep a new fan busy for months, if not years. I am running short of time, so I won't go into the history of the genre, or the other major bands . . . but I would strongly suggest, my highest suggestion even, that you consider conducting a bit of research (or email me) for some new music to listen to.

Turn off the radio and hear real music! Don't keep allowing multi-national corporations to feed you their lifeless, talentless, bullshit music!

Also, a word of caution - if you are new to the doom metal sound, you will not like it the first time through. You may not like it the second time through, or the third. However, I guarantee that if you give the music ample time to sink in, you will be a changed person. This is not passive listening, you need to focus all of your attention to what is pouring out of your speakers.

You won't regret it.

On Happiness and Pride

There is a common misconception that is rampant in the United States, and most Western European nations that have succumbed to the oppression of the free-market system. That is that what a man has will make him happy. This, dear friends, is why all men are miserable! For what a man is adds more to this happiness than any possession he could call his own.

For a man may surround himself with things of the highest order, the latest and greatest of everything and anything, and still feel empty. This is because he shuns his individuality and his intellect and attempts to replace them with things boughten. Such a foul mistake! For the only thing continually and pervasively with a man is himself. One may lose their riches and pomp tomorrow, however they will still be the same person, the same intellect. This is why today so many fear solitude, and why solitude as a whole is shunned upon by society. Man is afraid to reflect upon himself in the dark, silent solitude of night. Solitude is something to be cherished, something to be sought after! For how can one possibly think when they are being badgered by the needs and desires of lesser creatures and hedonist beasts seeking only sensual pleasure and material goods? He cannot, and he will not. Thus he must remove himself from humanity, from the world, and from himself. When referring to humanity in general, he must cease saying "we," and start saying "they."

Aristotle says: It is not wealth but character that lasts.

Pain and boredom are the two most disastrous forces against happiness. All life exists on a sliding scale between the two, there is no escaping. For one can be in pain, in which instance he is not bored, for the pain occupies him. However, one may be free of pain, in which boredom takes over for there is nothing to occupy his mind. There is not better buffer from either of these forces than wealth of the mind, inner wealth. For as the wealth of mind and intellect grow, they leave less and less room for boredom. When a man can sit in silence, alone, for hours and not be bored - he is not stupid, he is highly intelligent. For he needs not the external influences that others allow to devour their wills and lives - he needs only himself and his thoughts . . . and he is happy.

The greatest time in life is what we, in the English language, term leisure. That is, a time where one is free from responsibility, from work - a time one has by themselves. However, most peoples' leisure time yields them only dullness and boredom; except of course when it is occupied with sensual pleasure or folly. Ordinary people think only how they will spend their time, the man with talent thinks how he will use it.

To be happy means to be self-sufficient says Aristotle. That is to say, all other forms of happiness wither away and die in time. This is especially true in old age when all happiness must dry up. When a man is old is the time when all men reflect on their previous life, whether they posses the most feeble of intellects or the greatest. For in this wretched state, nothing exists for man. He is left alone, sickly, and about to die. All men will reflect on their past life; all men will wish to live their life over again. Then they will die.

I shall leave pride relatively untouched, although it must be noted that national pride is the most base form of an already insidious concept. If a man has no qualities of his own for which to be proud, which to sharpen and exercise, he will seek pride in his nation. Otherwise, he would not wish to associate himself with something that he shares with so many millions of his country men.

On Suffering

I make no attempt to debunk the contention that I am a supreme pessimist, one who offers only comfortless philosophy to those who hear it. This is not due to some faulty wiring in my brain (which is most certainly there, nonetheless), but everything to do with the obvious nature of existence and the human condition. There is no comfort. There is no hope. There is no happiness. You are condemned to languish on this wretched rock for a small period of time, until at which time you die and will revert back into non-existence once again. Everything you do, everything you say, all the people you meet, all your hopes and dreams - they are nice to have (and perhaps serve as the only reason for living) but they mean nothing. Nothingness is the only certainty. If this has upset you, I would recommend not continuing further, for you will be better off sleep-walking through life in an ignorant shell where each day melts into the next forming a cycle of nothingness.

It is absurd when one views how much suffering is so pervasive in this world. If suffering is not the direct aim of human life, then we have failed miserably. There is so much misfortune, so much pain inexplicably tied to life itself. Every single misfortune one will experience seems to come as something that is exceptional, but misfortune and suffering as a whole is the general rule.

Generally speaking, humans tend to find pleasure not nearly as pleasant as they had thought, and pain all the more painful. In our early youth we are like theater patrons awaiting the curtain to rise, waiting for the show to start, with highest of spirits and the grandest of dreams. It can be marked a blessing that we do not what is really going to happen. Children are innocent prisoners. However, they are not condemned to death . . . but to life. And as one lives, they may go through things fairly well, but the longer that one lives the more and more they shall feel, with great clarity, that life is a disappointment.

Animals are much more content with their existence than man. The animal lives only in today, his range of emotion and sight cannot see its entire past, and speculate about its future. Therefore it carries much less sorrow, but also joy, than man. It also doesn't hope. That fatal flaw in mankind, his hoping for something - hopes are nearly always met with disappointment, only adding further to the miseries.

This is a short treatise (I am running low on time), but if one would look to life with the information presented here, they would find far less sorrow and misery to be hold. Rather, the misery and sorrow would not affect them as much as otherwise. For instead of viewing ones misfortunes and miseries as uncommon events, one should view them as what they are - the very basis of existence.

None of us were asked if we wanted to be here, if we wanted to be human. And yet, here we are. Our eternal stretch of non-existence has been disturbed for an infinitesimally small amount of time.

I never wanted to be human.

On Suicide

I was thinking over the past few weeks that it is quite pathetic that any civilized society should make the act of suicide of illegal. Does it not stand to reason that if a man should have only one thing to have complete control over, that it be his very existence? His own life?

It amazes me the way that many Western cultures view the act of suicide. Rather, I should have said that it amazes me the way that Judeo-Christian based societies view the act of suicide. It is lowered to the level of a petty crime, something that only a madman is capable of, something that is to be viewed as wrong. Could a more ridiculous claim be made then this? To attempt to deny a man the right to his own person! To his own life!

This is not the result of disorganized thinking by delusional madmen and irrational sociopaths. This decision can be reached by a very rational line of thought, and it a quite simple one at that: When a man ceases to see value in life, ceases to see why he should bother to fight on, he will choose to end his life. And yet people bastardize this act! As if their own fate wasn't going to be the exact same. Instead of sticking around to see the entire show, a man may choose to skip right to the end. For in the end, nothing matters.

These religious crusaders with their superior intellects hurl the Bible at those who have considered, and carried through, a suicide. Members of the clergy, the most vile, idiotic, and ignorant of all men! If you wish to speak with the most base and loathsome variety of man, you need not venture to a prison, just converse with a priest! One will not find a single passage in the Bible regarding the prohibition of suicide . . . so where do these men, these creatures, get off pontificating about such matters? They are but scoundrels.

The Church aside, there is the legal matters one must deal with. In modern American society it is considered a crime for one to make the decision not to exist. One must then proclaim that such a law is of the most asinine nature! For what can frighten a man that does not fear even death!

It may generally be found that the when the pain and suffering of life outweigh the fears and terrors of death, a man may very well put an end to his life. And one may go so far as to say that perhaps each and every one of us may have already put an end to our lives if it was a guarantee. That is to say, if suicide was guaranteed stoppage to existence. Great mental suffering makes one immune to bodily pain. Bodily pain can usually be cured; great mental suffering in terminal. The fear of the pain one might endure during their annihilation is mitigated by the intense mental suffering that one is forced to continually endure.

This can also be used as an argument against God. Many will have you believe that God is all-knowing and all-powerful. That is a contradiction and proved rather easily. If God willed himself to no longer exist, it could not be. For even a creature as base as man can perform such an act.

Suicide may be perceived as the greatest question of nature, and that question is man asking for an answer. Rather, he is attempting to force an answer from nature. In a way, the act of taking your own life is asking "what is existence, and what change in my existence will death produce." Perhaps a fool hearty enterprise when you consider that in the process one will destroy the very consciousness that allows him an answer.

"Let us imagine a number of men in chains, and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows, and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the condition of man."

"Transvaluation of all Values!"

The promised atheist side of the argument. This excerpt is a somewhat weak example of Nietzsche's ideas contained in The Antichrist, but it really is impossible to sum up what he says in such a short philosophical treatise as it is, so I just drew out the conclusion. If you are interested in the rest of it, quite a short piece, I would suggest going to buy a copy.

As with yesterday, please read it, please think about it, and if you want to leave some of your thoughts in the comments, feel free. There is no right answer, only the the right process of how you got to that answer. That is: critical and original thinking.

"With this I will now conclude and pronounce my judgment. I condemn Christianity and confront it with the most terrible accusation that an accuser has ever had in his mouth. To my mind it is the greatest of all conceivable corruptions, it has had the will to the last imaginable corruption. The Christian Church allowed, [sic] nothing to escape from its corruption; it converted every value into its opposite, every truth into a lie, and every honest impulse into an ignominy of the soul. Let anyone dare to speak to me of its humanitarian blessings! To abolish any sort of distress was opposed to its profoundest interests; its very existence depended on states of distress; it created states of distress in order to make itself immortal. . . . The cancer germ of sin, for instance: the Church was the first to enrich mankind with this misery! The "equality of souls before God," this falsehood, this pretext for the rancunes of all the base-minded, this anarchist bomb of a concept, which has ultimately become the revolution, the modern idea, the principle decay of the whole social order, this is Christian dynamite. . . . The "humanitarian" blessings of Christianity! To breed a self-contradiction, an art of self-profanation, a will to lie at any price, an aversion, a contempt of all good and honest instincts out of humanitas! Is this what you call the blessings of Christianity? Parasitism as the only method of the Church; sucking all the blood, all the love, all the hope of life out of mankind with anemic and sacred ideals. A "Beyond" as the will to deny reality; the cross as the trade-mark of the most subterranean form of conspiracy that has ever existed, against health, beauty, well-constitutedness, bravery, intellect, kindliness of soul, against Life itself . . . .

This eternal accusation against Christianity I would fain write on all walls, wherever there are walls, I have letters with which I can make even the blind see. . . . I call Christianity the one great cure, the one enormous and innermost perversion, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are too venomous, too under-hand, too underground and too petty, I call it the only immortal blemish of mankind. . . .

And time is reckoned from the die nefastus upon which this fatality came into being - from the first day of Christianity! Why not rather from its last day? From today? Transvaluation of all Values! . . ."

Excerpt from: The Antichrist: A Criticism of Christianity by Friedrich Nietzsche.

"Fathers and teachers, I ponder 'What is hell?'"

It may be of note that I am an atheist, and have been for many years. However, because I believe in equal representation of both arguments in any debate, I will present forth a section from The Brothers Karamazov that I find to be a good example for the existence of God, or the very least - a good example of how organized religion may not always be a disease.

I will not give you my commentary, for I think today there is far too little free-thinking going on. That is to say, too few people are critical of what they see the talking heads on television telling them to believe.

That said, I might request that you read the following passage. After reading it turn off your iPod, turn off your television, turn off your computer - and just think. Think for a half an hour or so, rid your mind of all other thoughts that aren't yours, think for yourself! Break the shackles of thralldom that your mind may be in!

Feel free to post your thoughts, there is no right or wrong answer. The only important thing is that you are actually thinking and not sleepwalking through life!

Tomorrow I will present an excerpt from the opposite viewpoint.

"Look at the worldly and all who set themselves up above the people of God, has not God's image and His truth been distorted to them? They have science; but in science there is nothing but what is the object of sense. The spiritual world, the higher part of man's being in rejected altogether, dismissed with a sort of triumph, even with hatred. The world has proclaimed the reign of freedom, especially of late, but what do we see in this freedom of theirs? Nothing but slavery and self-destruction! For the world says:

'You have desires and so satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the most rich and powerful. Don't be afraid of satisfying them and even multiply your desires.' This is the modern doctrine of the world. In that they see freedom. And what follows from this right of multiplication of desires? In the rich, isolation and spiritual suicide; in the poor, envy and murder; for they have been given rights, but have not been shown the means of satisfying their wants. They maintain that the world is getting more and more united, more and more bound together in brotherly community, as it overcomes distance and sets thoughts flying through the air.

Alas, put no faith in such a bond of union. Interpreting freedom as the multiplication and rapid satisfaction of desires, men distort their own nature, for many senseless and foolish desires and habits and ridiculous fancies are fostered in them. They live only for mutual envy, for luxury and ostentation. To have dinners, visits, carriages, rank and slaves to wait on one is looked upon as a necessity, for which life, honor and human feeling are sacrificed, and men even commit suicide if they are unable to satisfy it. We see the same thing among those who are not rich, while the poor drown their unsatisfied need and their envy in drunkenness. But soon they will drink blood instead of wine, they are being led on to it. I ask you is such a man free? I knew one "champion of freedom" who told himself that, when he was deprived of tobacco in prison, he was so wretched at the privation that he almost went and betrayed his cause for the sake of getting tobacco again! And such a man says, "I am fighting for the cause of humanity."

How can such a one fight, what is he fit for? He is capable perhaps of some action quickly over, but he cannot hold out long. And it's no wonder that instead of gaining freedom they have sunk into slavery, and instead of serving the cause of brotherly love and the union of humanity have fallen, on the contrary, into dissension and isolation, as my mysterious visitor and teacher said to me in my youth. For how can a man shake off his habits, what can become of him if he is in such bondage to the habit of satisfying the innumerable desires he has created for himself? He is isolated, and what concerns has he with the rest of humanity? They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less."

Excerpt From: Conversations and Exhortations of Father Zossima; as contained in The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.