Posts like this, about my deep philosophic issues seem to appeal to a tight and not particularly responsive audience. Which is why it comes out here and not somewhere else, when I write about my issues here it is just that I need to write out the thing. If I get some sort of feedback I value it, but feedback isn’t expected, if that makes sense.
Which brings back to the point that I’ve never fully internalized the idea of myself as a person and not a very complex and temperamental machine. I don’t mean my identity because that is external to my mind and perhaps in the soul. My mind and body though are an interconnected array of hardware, firmware and software. When I’m sick my work is all about narrowing it down to whether my program is shit, my OS or BIOS is bugged or there is a hardware failure. Example right now I’m having lower abdomen problems, a hardware issue that is presently unavoidable.
This machine that is me is immensely powerful and that is the only justification I have for the complexity. It does me no good to be so complex, it makes diagnostics hard and makes it hard to get people interested in the workings of my mind. Humans like simplicity and understanding, and I am neither of those.
Due to the power though I have quite a bit of trouble aiming. Much as I have trouble applying the complex power of computing not because of lack of understanding but because the excess of power creates so many possabilities. Which is why I outsource much of the desire portion of motivation to other people. Simple people don’t have the agony of trying to aim a giant mechanism, the difficulty of all the things it might do but doesn’t.
Sometimes I get this fantasy like I could chart my own course, be my own boss and such. I long for freedom from the very things that keep me on course. At this point I’m only going in this direction because it is going so well, I have invested so much in building the foundations for my current project that emotionally I feel attached. It’s not that I like it though, at least not today.
Maybe I’m just trying to escape myself. I just want to rest and not have the responsibility that comes with controlling all the parts of my body and mind, and the extensions that are my house, car, computers and so on.
Then other times I think that I’m wanting to die out of aggression and bitterness of not being appreciated. It’s a childish thing of feeling like I deserve adulation just for having ability, and not requiring demonstration of said ability. Then I think about the end goal, where people will admire me because of this massive workpiece I’m chiseling away on.
Every once and awhile
I sit down with myself asking:
“Onceler, Why are you a Onceler?”
And I cringe I don’t smile
As I sit their on trial asking:
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, you old Onceler?”
“You ought to be locked in a hoosegow you should;
The things that you do are completely ungood!”
Yeah! But if I didn’t do them then someone else WOULD!
“That’s a very good point, Mr. Onceler.”
2 comments
So you desire no feedback yet you value it? That right there makes no sense. You cannot value something you haven’t had and learned to expect. But that’s besides the point. I just wanted to understand what you meant by machine? And I would debate the idea of human beings simply being machines because the definition of a machine is that it fulfills a purpose, having many parts which eventually work together to perform a designed task. Humans are not machines, when they are born they are molded by their surroundings, but they exist independent from their surroundings. Humans are individuals first, and they are programmed over several years to fit in a structured idea called society. But they don’t all end up where they are expected to be, that alone to me defeats the idea of a machine. 6 kids can be raised around the same things yet end up desiring to be part of different things that may not have to do with anything in particular. A machine is something that gives an output corresponding to input so that alone seperates man and machine.
To sum up your statement, you center your life around social approval. Something I can say is a bad way to live your life.
It’s entirely possible to not expect something but like that thing. I’m trying to get better at lowering my expectations, as they are too high in general. I have this ideal of how I think others should be, but it isn’t realistic.
I’m resolutely interested in other humans. They are more influenced by emotions, yet less emotional, what a paradox. I’m highly emotional, but I treat my emotions like illness.
Which comes around to the machine metaphor. I’m aware of the mismatch and that humans are living things not machines. Would that they were, machines are easily replaced with another with similar parts, and computers with similar programming. Yet two people with similar ideas disagree, because ego and the concept of self messes everything up. Sometimes though I banish my self and ego off to a corner while I work various processes. In my mind I am determined that solutions are more valuable than my pleasant feelings.
I can’t get away with being cruel like this to anyone else. Yet I am that way to myself, because I make mistakes that I don’t forgive I just correct.
It would certainly be nice to live without need for approval, but at present it is what presses my career. I’m not interested enough in money to do the things that I need to do to be well off. I understand the value of being well off, which is why I find motivations that work. My standards of living are far too low for my ambitions or ability.
Which is why I desire to become intelligent enough, wise enough and skilled enough. There are other values behind these ideals, all of them make a person more effective at what they do.
The one thing I’ve noticed about my failed past careers is that I was not of high enough value to the companies that I worked for. If I was, and if the work I did was important those jobs would still exist, I would still be doing them. It’s my goal to be essential, impossible to replace, and secure. I don’t care for my ego, it’s large enough already. I was content to dig holes for a living(literally.)