u/Doomsday103

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Nobilitas Et Sacrificium

Nobility and Sacrifice

A Personal Journal

On Suffering

The one thing that I have seen in my experience is that suffering seems to be writ and embedded within the structure of reality itself. No matter who you are, where you were born, one thing that each human faces from the beginning of their existence till the day they breathe their last breath is suffering. No other thing can be assured with such bold conviction.

This arises the question: what makes suffering so special? Really, think about it. What is it that makes suffering a constant in our life? Love cannot be guaranteed. Happiness cannot be guaranteed, nor can satisfaction.

Evolution is explained by adaptation to suffering but the very cause of suffering? The way I see it, there are only two ways in which suffering can be such a constant:

Either the universe is inert, cold (not to logic but to life itself). Human existence does not matter. Because of this impartial chaos of the universe, everyone experiences suffering in some form or another. This even explains why some people suffer more than others; the answer is pure chance, bad luck.
Suffering touches each soul because it was designed to do so. Now this may appear the same as the above with an exception: pure chance implies that there could be at least one person that didn't suffer at all. That is not the case. One may argue that the very odds of a person not suffering at all are very miniscule (the logic is sound). But to this I say: if suffering/pain happens to us externally, why are we incapable of imagining a world where suffering does not exist?

Thought Experiment

Think of a world in your mind where everyone gets everything they want. Really, think about it! Whatever you want happens. What would be your first wish? Maybe it's a partner, all the power in the world, all the knowledge in the world, maybe a trip you've always wanted to complete? Maybe it's a wish to be a superhero (but who will you save in a world without suffering?). It could be anything.

Now hold on to that thought, that perfect life. You live that 1 day, 2 days, 3 days, a week, a month, a decade. Start feeling hollow? It starts with boredom which then leads to that hollow feeling. See? The human mind is incapable of not imagining suffering.

Why is that? Is that because of our human nature? Could be. But my bet is on something else entirely: meaning. Instead of suffering coming from our need to project meaning onto a universe that feels indifferent, I believe meaning comes from suffering. A game where there are no risks, no costs to be paid for your actions... that would feel boring, no? Without suffering and pain, even concepts like good and evil break down because one path by definition asks you to sometimes choose suffering willingly for the greater good while the other is full of shortcuts.

Without suffering, without pain, without something to push against — we feel incomplete. Suffering gives our life meaning. I'm not saying we are all sadists and masochists inside and helping others means increasing their suffering. No! But we require baseline levels of suffering... actually, it doesn't matter whether we require it or not because our world's design is such we can never get rid of suffering.

As Albert Camus pointed out: smile and stand your ground in the face of suffering. Personally, I feel honoured every day that I get to stand and face my problems because problems and pain are what gives life its fullest brilliance.

Without sadness... no happiness,

without pain... no delight,

without fear... no amount of courage will ever have any meaning.

No matter what happens I want you to remember this, Samad:

Do not pray for the darkness or the pain to be lifted, because there is no lifting it in this life. Instead pray for strength to face adversity. To face pain and not let it turn you bitter.

"Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth."

— Fyodor Dostoevsky

On Morality

What makes a task good or bad? What makes a choice evil or angelic? Why do morals even exist in a world where each individual human being has strived for something more than just survival? I see the following reasons logically placed as answers for the above asked questions.

Evolutionary Bias / Sense

One of the most common answers to the question of where morality emerges from: because it made evolutionary sense. Now think about it for a little bit. Sure, this explanation or answer neatly reconciles the survival of the species to morality. If you want to spread, make sure that you don't kill members of your own species.

Now what this overlooks is the fact that damaged members of the human species are still looked after; in other words, for the human species a human's usefulness doesn't matter. But no other species does this. An infected ant is killed by the colony and dumped far away. A lion with a damaged limb is driven away from the pack. A worker bee always snuffs out the already improbable sterile male offspring of the queen bee.

Why do we care for our own even if they are complete strangers and their actions can't possibly impact us or our lives? This rhetoric of evolutionary sense doesn't survive much under scrutiny. Why do we feel bad internally digging a buried body? Why does hesitation even exist in cases of euthanasia? Why does stealing food feel bad even if the person you're stealing from has more than enough and you are literally dying from starvation?

Why do you, a human, feel bad or pity for a dog that looks like a walking skeleton? A dog is obedient, good and pleasant to humans in general... I get it. But then why do you feel bad for a now extinct species of animals or even when trees are cut down? We need homes! Why should we feel for a creature that can't even express its gratitude? All of the above questions cannot be answered by evolution.

Humans Are Intelligent / Morality Comes From Intelligence

Now, the modern world and even the most ancient of civilizations cause discrepancies here. If our intelligence was truly the cause of our morality alone, then all the humans with cognitive impairments may be monsters. Now, I am willing to consider humans can be conditioned to learn arbitrarily what is right and wrong so the baby with stunted growth only behaves morally because he/she was conditioned into the behaviour — but now that leaves the infants of our civilization exposed to scrutiny.

A child may not know more complex rights or wrongs like stealing, self-harm etc. but knows somehow what is acceptable and what's not. A child when born, physically and emotionally latches onto his/her mother. Hurt the mother, upset the child. A child's first response is never violence... why? With his/her current limited intelligence, a child doesn't know that harming anything alive and sentient automatically is bad, but they instinctively feel bad.

A child can unknowingly eat bugs... but that too is out of curiosity and not hatred. A child feels no fear... so a snake, an alligator is all the same to babies. But they never harm these creatures — why? Instinct? Survival? I believe the answer is something else. Something that is missing.

Intelligence + Basic Nature

I believe morality lies deep within us. Intelligence only broadens that code of honour. A child, even with limited intelligence, knows what's right and what's wrong at a basic core level that is concerned with day-to-day.

Why ever feel compassion? For the survival of our own species makes sense but even for other species? Illogical. Inexplicable. Each child is born a blank slate with an innate sense of goodness that only expands with intelligence if nurtured, or turned evil with persistent effort from other humans. That innate sense does exist, even if it can be overwritten through human intervention or negative reinforcement.

Each and every single one of us are born with immense potential: the potential to bring justice, even if it hurts; the potential to spread happiness and joy; the potential to lift instead of drag. No child is born petty, born a thief, born a murderer, born a rapist — but is taught, first by parents/environment/friends, then seldom by life experiences.

But I am not interested in the corruption. In the mangling of the soul. I am interested in who we are born as. I go as far as to believe no child is born dumb or slow. They require care and knowledge in their own way, and not in the way the systems want. We all have our own mental frameworks I believe; something may be obvious in my mind but difficult to understand from another framework.

True education happens when students are taught how to transform ideas from one framework to another. That takes time. Patience. Love. Care. We must teach our children not to merely abandon an idea because it is difficult to translate. Wrestle with it. Grapple with it. Eventually clarity will come!

"Goodness is what sets the heart at peace and evil is what burdens it."

— Prophet Muhammad

You can't lie to your heart. The soul comes with a compass. Evil is the discomfort when we ignore it. No complexity, no amount of greyness or nuance can stop that compass from pointing true.

Some can be born with a broken vision of morality, because both intelligence and functional biology is required for working. A broken compass doesn't negate the existence of a compass.

On Love

Love... the strangest of emotions. Often the strongest of them. Love is intoxicating in great amounts and kills when in deficit. Love is a powerful emotion. So powerful, in fact, that it can make us do irrational things. But this does not make love strange. Fear and anger also does the same. Great fear can blind the mind's eye. Blind rage makes the most unacceptable of actions a reality. You know what makes love an oddity? A beautiful oddity? It's strange working:

Fear has a clear evolutionary origin — it is a biological and evolutionary adaptation. Fear is what kept our cave-dwelling ancestors from death. Heights? Nope, maybe I'll fall and die. Dark? No thanks, I'll pass, who knows what's there. Spiders, snakes, cockroaches, lions, tigers — it all makes sense. Fear causes anxiety and anxiety can make us do irrational things. Fear is a closed, consistent book. Fear is justified.

Anger too, like fear, is a biological adaptation. It is an emotion that helped our ancestors fight and ward off threats. Someone took your food? Better growl and let them know without doubt that it is unacceptable. Someone ready to fight you? Use anger to inhibit your sense of reason and neutralize the threat first. Anger is justified.

I can go on and name emotions like disgust, sadness, happiness and justify them through the rhetoric of evolution — but let's now consider love.

What Makes Love So Special?

At first glance, love seems as simple to explain as the others — simple evolutionary trait: love your offspring/partner and procreate more. Kids with loving parents survive more throughout the animal kingdom. But here's the caveat:

Why love someone dead?
Why isn't all love equal? Why do some fade and some are alive as long as we are?
Why love an inanimate object?
Why do some love a book as much as some love a newborn?
Why does love, especially love of a partner or friend, hurt to the point of physical pain when unrequited?

In my opinion, the answer to all of the above questions is comprised of one single principle, or belief even:

"Love is something more than raw emotion."

A person can die, but the idea of their being can never leave you. That's what makes us mourn the dead.

You may think you love a person but once you start noticing the misalignments — the clash of their nature with yours — love starts fading. Not because you actually loved them, but the idea of them aligning with you.

The strength of love... do not underestimate its potential. It can kill a grieving mother, give a dying mother immense strength for the sake of her children. That's why they say "love wisely." Not because you control who you love, but because you control how much you can return someone's love.

The only type that is purest, unconditional, is the love of your parents and within that the love of a mother. A mother's love is powerful — never disrespect it. She can erase herself for you 30 times over. She'll happily walk through hell for you. Never squander this love or take it for granted for no one lives forever. Cherish it. Acknowledge it.

Loving someone and then not getting loved back is one of the greatest pains the human spirit can take. It crushes you. "Never normal ever again" seems to be true. It hurts because you opened and they rejected your core. At times like these one must remember the countless others that love you. Even if you don't have anyone (sadly some are not even fortunate enough to have loving mothers) — you have... YOU!!!!

You, a masterpiece of a machine. A being that is precisely you will never exist again. Don't measure your worth with love. Because most of us get it, some of us do not. Your existence alone should suffice. Why? You are unique, you are the only one who knew your struggles. Your pain. That hurt and pain — breathe it. That means what you felt while real was just not meant to be. Never despair. Even if love never comes knocking, just think to yourself this:

"I AM ENOUGH"

My existence proves it. My ability to think, to feel is enough.

Learn to love yourself and love your existence because even if everything is taken away you'll still have... well, you. A rose doesn't grow because it knows it will be loved or appreciated. It has no beauty standards, no expectations, it just grows. A rose has thorns but to the right person that doesn't make it any less desirable.

Be the rose.

On Grief

Grief... real grief feels like a knot inside your chest that just never seems to get untied. You ever had too much water at once and you feel a sharp pain in your chest as it rushes down? Seems funny what even the smallest pocket of air can do once at the wrong place. Grief at the highest level feels like that, but inside your mind. That's what makes it so dangerous. By grief I mean not just sadness, but regret as well, for most of us grieve not for the future or the present, but for the past.

When I was a child I used to read (and sometimes hear too) how grief can kill; how regret can paralyze your present; how sometimes your past can make you prisoner. I used to think dying from an emotion was impossible until I saw it happen right in front of my eyes. Do not take your sadness lightly, my friend, because if left untended it seems to compound, until all you can see around you is darkness.

I hope and wish for grief to be not so common, but it is. We all feel sadness, yes, but I wish you don't know the kind I'm talking about — the one that leaves you helpless, that one that makes you feel worthless, the one that consumes your every waking moment, the one that makes you WANT to live out a life inside your head, to go and live inside a memory. The memories then seem so sweet, so vivid and so right.

I have come to terms with sadness; I believe almost every one of us shall feel it within their lifetimes. It's just that some do it sooner than others. I cannot tell you the hours I have spent thinking: why me? What have I done wrong? I realize now that it just happens, there is no why.

You then start questioning yourself... maybe it's you that's the fault. Maybe it's you that is wrong, maybe it is happening because of you, maybe it is common and others just don't talk about it (sadly it's worse than common — it's inevitable... despair knocks on everyone's door).

What happened during my childhood made me feel anxious, angry and frustrated at all times. I felt powerless as a child and that made me angry. But the fuel, the real fuel behind that anger was sadness. Let me show you what powerlessness feels like: it makes you blame yourself, it crushes you, it consumes your every waking moment when you are not distracted, it makes you long for the simpler times.

Oh the things I would have done to return back to the good times, as they say. It makes you want to stay in bed, even when you are not tired. It makes you want to miss the real world so that you live freely in your dreams, sleeping all day. Everything feels monotonous, you start running simulations inside your head... living or doing something inside your head rather than doing it in real life. Mostly for me it made travelling and going out unbearable.

It made / and still makes it seem futile to go and ACTUALLY do something. I won't wish this upon the most hated of my enemies. This merciless thing knows only how to consume, leaving nothing behind. It makes you recede from your friends and family.

I actually did at one point, stopped doing anything. Then came books and they saved me. Suddenly I was someone else, someone with power over their fate. I rose — just barely. Even now I'm not impervious to its effects. It still returns sometimes to burden me. But then again at times like these I feel a certain strength push back against it.

Grief will push us all. What matters is how much we are going to let it push us. Some never learn to push back and lose this battle. They give in and end themselves, whether quickly or through addiction — it doesn't matter.

At times like these you must remember that:

YOU ARE LOVED
YOU ARE NOT A COWARD
YOUR ABSENCE IS NOTED BY MANY.
TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY.

"I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief."

— C.S. Lewis

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing."

— C.S. Lewis

Skyrim is drugs