The Rubinshteinic Art of Conscious Sabotage

(Philosocom's Directory on Sacrifice)

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Introduction to Sabotage

Have you ever wondered what it's like to burn bridges? Some people do it wholeheartedly. There are two forms of sabotage: One that is intentional and one that is unintentional. Think of it like destroying a building for the sake of building a new building on its ground, sometimes renovation or creation requires a little bit of conscious destruction.

In this article you'll learn how to use sabotage to your own advantage, and how to avoid using sabotage in a way that hinders you unintentionally.

Sabotage as a Gateway to New Opportunities

Sometimes, sabotage is there to allow us new opportunities. With the example of destroying a building, its destruction allows the formation of a new building. That is how sabotage should be seen: as a getaway to new opportunities.

Another, more practical example of sabotage is when you cut off toxic people from your life. Sometimes, cutting toxic and ungrateful people in your life allows you to open up new paths in your life.

Personal Examples of Conscious Sabotage

A personal example of mine of sabotage is when I left much of social media for the sake of working on this site. I deleted off many of my personal accounts so I could focus on what I like doing best: working on the site.

I remember returning to Philosocom and thinking to myself, how much work I have left to do! And indeed, I use solitude for the sake of building a large article empire in the name of altruism. Also, I decided to use the loneliness epidemic of our world to always become strong, so during my life I cut off connections with many people so I could prepare for a life of strength.

As a website owner, I need to be strong to keep it running, so I sabotaged connections so I could keep mastering the art of writing philosophy articles.

Based on your desires and ambitions in life, sometimes conscious sabotage is the right thing to do. Our time and our resources are limited, and we cannot be available for everyone. Sometimes a little bit of cutting off is very well for the sake of our wellbeing.

We live in a very toxic world, especially the online world, and we should often ask ourselves how much of that toxicity is necessary. Those who can afford cutting off the toxicity in their lives, should do it.

Strategic Sabotage and the "Mad Genius"

And in my article about "mad genius", I further explained "mad geniuses" used sabotage in a strategic way and I quote:

The physical traveler seeks answers without the mind to understand the world's perceived absurdity without traveling. The genius mind sabotages their own progress over "time", handing out the impression of incompetence, because they see no point catering to a world that understands not what they do.

Thus, with perceived carless-ness the genius mind retires early on, while the physical traveler retires only very later in life.

In their own self-sabotage of orthodox progression, the genius may already deduce profound insights from the backseat of their own solitude.

Sabotage, Sacrifice, and Reality as a Canvas

Sometimes, to get ahead in your own way in life, you have to look where you can sabotage what you already have, so upon its ashes, you can find new opportunities. Reality can be seen as an application of a system illusion, and I quote from Philosocom:

Life is an illusion. More specifically, it is a system of illusion. The value of it on Earth is only measured by our heads and our unified perception of reality.

One that does not necessarily deviate from our own unique perspectives, but one that can allow us to follow our common goals. To proudly have our families filled not only with love, but also to enter our own purposes in existence.

Perception is, in other words, but a means to an end. A tool that can have different degrees of functionality, in relation to our ambitions.

To see where you can sabotage what you have in life, while still being able to get away with it, requires much strategic thinking. Sometimes, you need to sacrifice what you have in order to get something.

Sacrifice can be seen as a form of sabotage, but not necessarily. Sabotage allows us to understand that we are freer than we might think we are. The problem comes from not understanding the power of creativity as a practical tool.

Creative intelligence can allow us to see not only opportunities in a blank canvas, but also see life as a canvas itself: A canvas of many actors and many opportunities. By sabotaging what we currently have ongoing, we are basically trading one thing for another.

Trading goes beyond the world of economics. Trading is the very fabric of our resource management that goes beyond the trade of wealth.

Smart political leaders, for example, know that they can't please everyone, so they also deduce from this that: sacrifices must be made. To be in power is all about survival.

To be in power, for many, requires to please those who are most useful for you, so your business can continue thriving.

The Demands of Website Management and Personal Sacrifice

As a website owner, I dedicate my life to running this website, and as one advisor told me once:

Website management is a 24/7 job.

Many give up on website management because it's too much work. It requires a long time of dedication, and some people give up on it because they simply don't have the time for it. As Ruler of Philosocom it is my job to give you a high-quality website and build and maintain something truly tremendous. I had to sacrifice most of the friends that I had so I could continue doing this.

Also, writing is a solitary task, and to master writing this well and long requires many years. For years, I consciously sabotaged different aspects of my life so I would be able to remain alone and work on this site under my own terms, because I believe doing things under one's own terms is the way to be happy.

In the end, my goal is simple: To build a high-quality article empire for you to enjoy for free. As such I deleted many of my articles which I believed their quality was poor and were not worthy to work on their renovation. Since then, I have renovated almost all of the articles I have here on Philosocom, and indeed it required me to also sabotage certain articles in the name of quality.

Sabotage in Fiction: Case Studies

In "Breaking Bad", Walter White sabotaged his legal life and his family so he could do what he likes best: Running a drug cartel and making his special "blue sky" product. In the end he did it for his own gratification, which was his aim as a cancer patient.

In "Star Wars", Palpatine sabotaged his connections with his apprentices, treating them as literal sacrificial pawns for his gambit to rule the galaxy. His aim was unlimited power as he was a power hungry narcissist.

In Virtua Fighter, Lau Chan sabotaged his duties as a family man by working hard on mastering a single martial art. His dedication to his craftsmanship came at the cost of his wife dying from overwork, and the neglection of his daughter.

The Bravery and Honesty Required for Sabotage

Sabotage requires the virtue of bravery and also requires you to be honest with yourself. You have to ask yourself if what you're currently doing is really worth it, because in the end we, in theory, have only one life to live. Per our ambitions, some existing foundations have to be destroyed so we could build other foundations which serve our goals in life.

Sabotage requires you to realize your own limitations, with the biggest of them being time. We don't have all the time in the world to do what we want, so sometimes, the wise thing to do, for the sake of our ambitions, is to sabotage ourselves in order to create the reality we want to see in our world.

The Ethics of Discarding People

Sabotage doesn't necessarily make you a bad person. However, you have to understand you cannot please everyone in a world where people have different values and priorities. Everyone is useful to an extent, but even the wealthy have to make sure they survive in the life they have chosen for themselves. Some people, in a limited reality, have to be discarded.

In an early article I wrote against discarding people. But you have to understand, that Philosocom is first of all a research center using the power of philosophy. What appears as contradiction is merely a way to view something from different points of views.

That is why I went out of my way to collect guest posts of various of writers across the world to build -- to expand upon the variety of what this site has to offer -- but I digress.

Developing the habit of looking both ways, we can deduce that sometimes people have to be discarded for the greater good specifically because our resources cannot allow us to keep them around any longer.

Perceptions change, and I wrote the article against discarding people when I sought to prove my own relevance. I have changed since then and as such I am keeping many articles as relics of the past.

Sabotage for Quality and Controlled Chaos

Imagine a large city, some of its buildings are abandoned and are just not worth renovating. So what do you do? You blow them up! Of course, when it comes to sabotage, you have to make sure that there is no additional damage made to things that do not serve your interests. So what do you do? You apply controlled chaos into life! And I quote:

In the grand scheme of human history, those who have achieved true mastery — whether in battle, philosophy, art, or the personal realm — have often done so by existing at the edge of chaos. These individuals did not simply endure adversity; they thrived in it. Chaos, when understood properly, is not merely a destructive force but a crucible for transformation.

The analogy of the blacksmith’s forge is fitting: steel, raw and brittle, is thrown into the fire to be purified and shaped into something far stronger and more valuable. So too is the human spirit, when subjected to the fires of hardship, reshaped and reformed. But there is a key element that most people overlook — controlled chaos.

In Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance, Zanetti used Controlled Chaos to eliminate his strongest soldiers, by creating an internal war within his organization. Unfortunately, it failed for him, and the strongest soldiers took over his empire, succeeding him.

Again, in Star Wars, Palpatine applied Controlled Chaos by playing into the two sides of the clone wars, so he could seize the Republic from within, sabotage his very own Separatist Alliance, and use the victory of the clone wars to establish his new Galactic Empire.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Conscious Sabotage is about using reality in a way that serves your purposes and your ideal vision of something. It requires you to understand that life is like a canvas and that sometimes, to create something new, you have to resort to destruction.

Sometimes, destruction also allows you to continue something you currently do, by destroying opportunities/connections with people for the sake of working on your passions, as demonstrated in me as a website manager and in the Virtua Fighter example of Lau Chan.

Sometimes, sabotage requires sacrifice because we have to admit that our reality is limited, and that we cannot please everyone. Sometimes, for the satisfaction of those who serve our purposes, others have to go. Being a leader is first of all about survival and the smart management of resources.