Some Less-Known Principles of Life
Updated: Apr 8
Rethinking Common Beliefs
This article explores unconventional ideas that challenge some widely held assumptions.
1. Redefining Evil As Necessary:
Evil, often defined as pleasure derived from inflicting suffering, might be unnecessary. Clean water, essential for survival, doesn't inflict pain. Perhaps true evil lies in the unnecessary harm caused to others. Kindness, demonstrably beneficial, could be a more effective strategy to get what we want.
Masochism, the joy of being tormented by oneself, is also an act of evil, as you enjoy your own misery, and thus you're being evil towards yourself. The willingness to enjoy causing others to suffer, nor to oneself should not exist in a morally optimal society.
The infliction of pain should be seen as a necessary evil, like when training the body and mind. As such, pain shouldn't be avoided at all times, and joy could lead to corruption, meaning that it should be avoided sometimes.
2. The Illusory Nature of Society:
Rubinshteinic philosophy proposes that society exists primarily as a shared consciousness, not a physical entity. It's a collective mental dimension. We might be fundamentally alone, connected through a web of ideas and social constructs. This means that even the norms and the ways which social harmony is preserved, are not necessarily true or even existing like we think they do. In theory, much of oppression lies in our weak-spirited ability to accept it, and in the unwillingness to oppose it through our revolutionary potential.
3. Seeking Eternity Through Absence:
The pursuit of the absolute, like "immortality" and ultimate peace, might be best served by embracing the expressions of non-existence (death or void). Even in a cosmic catastrophe, the "dead" remain unaffected. The closest touch with eternity, immortality, for example, could be creating a lasting legacy, and the closest touch with ultimate peace is by largely abstaining from society, which is a very conflicting setting.
Therefore, should we learn from the nature of death, we would be able to harnass the power of absence for our own goals, less hindered by distractions from humanity.
4. Thoughts: Interpreters, not Creators:
Our thoughts interpret reality, not generate it. They are there to process the same reality, and different brains process reality differently, with each interpretation having an equal subjective value to all other interpretation. Their equality rests on their legitimacy.
Actions have a greater impact than thoughts, as the law of attraction is logically flawed. While thoughts reflect our personality, they don't dictate reality directly. To be able to understand the world beyond the mind, we need to understand that reality exists independently of how we choose to perceive it.
The emphasis on beauty might be driven by social anxiety and the need for acceptance. Beauty standards vary wildly across cultures. Perhaps, the evolutionary purpose of beauty is to signal the potential for healthy offspring.
Emotions might be tools for survival and social influence, not inherent parts of ourselves. Our choice to react to emotions, and how to react, is ours. Love, admiration, and zealotry can be manipulated to gain power. Serenity, a state of minimal desire and suffering, might be achieved by transcending emotion, or, in other words, by learning to look beyond it, and thus act independently of it. We are not our emotions.
The Takeaway
The article encourages questioning assumptions, regarded as the truth. It acknowledges the limitations of philosophical thought and the possibility of error. If these ideas resonate with you, consider sharing them for further readers to learn more.
