TOPICS IN 0.1%
LIFE
LIFE IS UNPREDICTABLE AND A MIRACLE IN ITSELF. We are embodied miracles. We have been given so much. 99.9 percent, to be exact. For that, we should be grateful.
HUMAN NATURE
ONE THING IS CRYSTAL CLEAR: we do not understand human nature and its ramifications. Understanding human nature is critical to detecting, exposing, and proactively responding to potential system failures or dangers posed by our own built. We are fully unaware that we, humans, are the source of all our fragmented perceptions and that the universe is not at all what we think it is. We do not understand what human nature is; therefore, we do not understand its existence. Questions like what is life? How can we make sense of death? These are rather deep questions and the answers can only be found deep in ourselves.
SUFFERING
SUFFERING IS INESCAPABLE, inexorable and unpreventable. It cannot be doubted, neutralized or negated. Wherever you point your attention or observe life, suffering is omnipresent…
Not all suffering is the same; not every negative feeling and negative emotion can be called suffering and not every person experiencing suffering necessarily has to do so.
LOVE
NOWHERE IS IT WRITTEN that we have the right to love or be loved. Nobody actually knows what love is, yet it is pervasive in human culture. For sure, I do not know what love is, for the secret of love resides in its plasticity due to imbalances in the universe. That and the infinite number of ways to express love.
However, we all certainly believe we know what love is and what it is not. My impression is that we have extrapolated the concept of what-we-believe-is-not-love and wrapped it into the processed product we call LOVE.
HAPPINESS
LOVE AND HAPPINESS are the same in that 1) nowhere is it written that we have the right to be happy or to attain happiness, 2) nobody actually knows what happiness is, and 3) it is pervasive in human culture. In the chapter on subjective reality, we saw that the pursuit of happiness is even included in the U.S. constitution.
Happiness, strictly speaking, is the state of being happy. Happy is an emotion embodying pleasure, contentment and satisfaction through fortunate and convenient standard achievement that complies with our goals. Unfortunately, happiness is not only the state of being happy in which our drives, needs and desires are fully satisfied through effortless, favorable and pleasurable experiences toward a goal. In society, happiness has become a goal in itself.
MEANING
WE SPEND OUR DAY avoiding people, avoiding new experiences, relying on others for answers, giving up goals, giving up control of our lives, lying, tolerating abuse, deferring to others and being unwilling to help others because of our tireless dedication to selfish goals. Dysphoria inevitably follows a state of unease or generalized dissatisfaction with life.
In other words, we are empty, existential vacuum, a personal form of nihilism, our self clearly has no meaning. Regrettably and by extension, we believe that the self is inseparable from our being, therefore our being is meaningless, and, as a result, our life is meaningless. Ultimately, we own the means but lack meaning in our existence.
SEX AND DEATH
SIMPLY PUT, if it were not for sex, multicellular human beings would not exist. But this kind of reproduction indeed entails the death penalty. Isn’t it fascinating to see that sex and death, two processes that so critically influence our existence in the universe, have always been taboo subjects in many societies? They remain controversial, notably in education and politics, yet unconsciously, we seem unable to detach ourselves from our reproductive and life cycles.
In essence, the fact that sex and death are so closely related is a very powerful thought. It explains expressions such as the French slang for an orgasm “la petite mort” or “small death.” They seem to understand the connection between the ecstasy of sexual intercourse and the constant reminder of our finite but plentiful existence.
The 0.1% realm and our 99.9% Realities
