We call them entertainment, we call them passions, we call them bad habits, we call them addictions. What we don’t call them, are distractions. I’ve had many arguments regarding them, but I’ve never pointed the finger at the cause of the problem. But what IS, the problem?
First, I want to make it clear that I’m not attempting to silver bullet anything.
I’ve spent a large part of my life trying to reduce stress in my life; I can’t stand the shit. I’d gotten so far as to conclude, that stress and money are intimately entwined, increasing one always meant a reduction of the other; nothing else mattered outside of that paradigm. For this, I developed a deep-seated hatred for money. People like to throw around the cliche, “money can’t buy you happiness,” but what is happiness? Happiness is nothing more than a lack of misery, which translates to a lack of stress. By that reasoning, you could say that I hate happiness. You’d be right, but for the wrong reasons.
I am a coward, and I am a pacifist, and for this, I’ve never been competitive. I am also extremely introverted, so I’ve never purposely been the center of attention; my boogeyman is an embarrassment. Finally, I’ve spent my life surrounded by impoverished people, leaving me with a dim view of whiny poor people; own your poverty for fuck sake. To be blunt, I’ve spent my decades people watching.
People truly hate being categorized, no matter how perfect the fit of the box you put them in. Yes, you are an individual, just like the cogs of a clock. Civilization is a machine, and all machines require cogs to function. This is where we develop cognitive dissonance. Sadly, we are sentient creatures, self-reflective, wondering what our purpose is. Religion tends to fill the void with a non-answer, for those who don’t want to think about it. “You are part of god’s plan.” It’s an empty answer. Science has explained it more fully, but it is not nearly as feel good. “Sperm meets egg, nothing else matters.” In either case, the purpose is purposely not answered.
Unfortunately, no one can tell you what your purpose is, but in the meantime, bills need to be paid. Until you figure that out, you could say, your purpose is to pay bills. The more you think about this, the deeper the spiraling void of nihilism exposes itself.
Those of us who can’t determine our purpose, tend to fall victim to my original statement, entertainment, passions, bad habits, and addictions. How can we fall victim to entertainment or passions? Well… money.
Entertainers and athletes contribute nothing to society. But they’ll bitch and moan to get another million bucks to show up at an event. And you will pay it, out of the meager cash you earned keeping civilization tottering along, you will pay it. You will pay it because they will distract you from your reality. That distraction means more to you than you do.
I’ve made mention in comments that movies are getting too flashy for me to enjoy properly. It’s white noise, for the sake of noise. How much shit can we throw at the wall before people quit paying to see it? What is a professional athlete, but a multi-million dollar child at play? Women find more meaning in media stars private lives than they do in their own lives, and the same goes for men and athletes. As much as it sickens me, it’s still the cheapest form of distraction.
Passions are expensive. Whether it’s family, hobbies, or activism; this distraction doesn’t come cheap. That’s not to say it will fail; you stand a reasonably good chance of discovering your purpose in doing these. This assumes you can find contentment in how you go about paying the bills. If per chance you can pay your bills, and somehow finance your passions, you are a person with purpose clarified.
Bad habits are expensively cheap, for this reason, most of us avoid them. It’s no joke that prison is for the poor. People are inherently doers, and we will find things to do, whether legal or not, lest we let our minds take us down the spiral of hell. Men generally get nihilistic and self-destructive when they have nothing to do; women generally get narcissistic, but the end is the same, self-destruction. Crime in and of itself isn’t A problem, so much as it’s a venting of the frontal lobe trying to fulfill a purpose, which no living creature has. Crime can be prevented, through work; people will live and raise families in poverty, and even be content to do so, if they have something to do.
I’ve put a lot of thought to why we do this to ourselves, and still it baffles me.
Let’s look at addictions, sex, drugs, alcohol, etc. For the most part, what we deem as “addictions” aren’t even problematic, until something else comes into play. Take, for example, alcoholism. People can go their whole lives addicted to alcohol, and feeding their addiction, and it is never a problem. But add into that an unforeseen event (say a financial problem), which competes with the addiction; well now the addiction is THE problem, even if it didn’t cause the problem in the first place. Let me give an anecdote:
My uncle and aunt are both alcoholics. Traditional marriage, he commuted to work gone for weeks at a time, and she stayed at home raising the kids. He drove off-road logging trucks in some of the most dangerous logging roads in the world, to provide for a combative wife (and just for posterity, my aunt is the blood relation). One day he comes home, and she tells him they’re gonna need welfare; I’m sure you can imagine the scene of that. One thing leads to another, and he decided that if he needs aid, he just won’t work anymore, so he quit his job. This lead to a divorce, which I was too young to know the details of; but what’s remembered by anyone, is that they’re both alcoholics who struggle to make ends meet. You’ll be glad to know, that their three kids managed to survive the fiasco, and grow up to be adults of relatively good standing; the “what if’s” don’t bear mentioning.
Look at Jian Ghomeshi; one could say he’s addicted to aggressive sex. As long as everything is consensual, I don’t have an issue with his kinks. And his life went on rather smoothly until something else decided to compete with that, call it hypergamy.
Addictions are little more than distracted purpose.
So what is purpose? Purpose is the reason we tolerate the pain we go through. When you’ve gone through the gamete of reasoning out why you’re going through all your pain and suffering, and there’s nothing left to distract you from it, and there’s no purpose to be found, and the non-answers are no longer satisfying, suicide looms large in the mind.
Earl Silverman committed suicide on 26 April 2013; he had a great passion, and he made it his purpose to fulfill that desire. Gynocentrism came into competition with his addiction to male suffering, and drove him to the ultimate sacrifice, and still, what do we remember?
I have enough empathy to ball my eyes out whenever I think about it; but sadly, I don’t have the compassion, patience, and balls, to take up the torch and run. I am a coward, pure and simple; do you have the balls to say that much? I want to hear you say it, “I am a coward.” I will hold no judgment on you for saying it. Naturally, if you’re in the process of slaying dragons, I will forgive you for not admitting your cowardice. The following is for those of us cowards who may need purpose still.
Ye who wearith thy cog costume…
I recognize your impact on civilization. I appreciate your contribution to MY comfort. Be ye a trucker, farmer, plumber, electrician or ass-wipe measurer. I care about you because you have impacted my life in some measure, which I will figure out if given time to think about it, you matter to me. Please don’t add to the skeletal hands which haunt me, that hold up the comforts I so enjoy.
