Belief systems

Gloomy thoughts, grumpy thoughts, nice thoughts, clever thoughts, stupid thoughts, wonderful thoughts...Thoughts are just thoughts. They come and go and they are seldom worth bothering about.

Your philosophy of life, on the other hand, is very important paying attention to. It can ruin your life. It can also ruin other people's life.

So, what is your philosophy of life really like? To find out you have to observe your actions, not your thoughts.

Some people claim that they Christian, but they do not turn the other cheek and they store up treasures on earth.

Others claim that all humans are equal, but they use an indifferent tone of voice when they talk to the plain-looking and uneducated and they talk ingratiatingly to those who are attractive and successful. 

Some advocate the benefits of positive thinking but they depend on antidepressant medications to survive.

What is your actual philosophy of life? What philosophy of life you are living according to?

What comes first? Pleasure? The importance of not being a nobody? To have an identity, a title? To be knowledgeable of something, meditation, sailing, literature?

What ideas do you refuse to give up? What do you refuse to see?

Do you believe that career climbing is important? Do you believe that the rich and strong are blessed? Do you despise yourself? Do you trust yourself? Are honesty, uprightness, and friendliness important to you?

Is it possible, do you think, to give up one's actual philosophy of life and start anew, to be born again, without adopting another belief system?

Do you believe that it is possible to live without a philosophy of life, or do you believe that it is a matter of replacing bad ideas with good ones?

Do you believe that the meaning of life must be created or discovered?

The end of the world

More and more people no longer believe in a future for the human race. We have given up all hope, but we avoid talking about it. This view is taboo.

People die, civilizations collapse and species become extinct. This is how life and evolution works. 99% of all species that have lived on earth have disappeared; all previous civilizations are wiped out. But it is very difficult to digest that life functions in this way. It is unpleasant to think about death, doom, and destruction.

How much time do we have left, 10 years, 30 years, 70 years? The scientists do not agree on when they think we will perish, but most of them agree that we will, if we don't drastically decrease the greenhouse gas emissions within the next few years. But the emissions are increasing. In Asia, they are planning to build tons of new coal power plants. They need cheap energy because the western world continues to locate its industrial production there.

Is it not unwise to think about death and the end of the world? Is it not better to be optimistic and hope that smart engineers will come up with clever solutions so that the world economy can continue to grow unhindered without destroying the climate and the environment?

Yes, it is better to be optimistic: Life becomes much easier. But there are also disadvantages to positive thinking and upbeat delusions. They have an existential cost: you can end up in a fool's paradise. And if you are young and save money in a pension fund, you give your hard-earned money to banksters to play with, but you will never get them back because you will never get a pension. All the banks will be gone when you reach pension age.

There will be no new climate policy here on earth. There are too many people, stinking rich, as well as poor, who are craving money like junkies who are craving a fix.

We who have understood that there is no future for humanity do not bury our heads in the sand. We try to seize the time, we have stopped fussing and fighting with friends and foes, we don't care about goal focusing and career. And strangely enough, we are not the ones who are frustrated and depressed. It is all of you who still think that we have to do something to save the climate who are suffering.

Awakening and selfishness

Think of a selfish middle-aged man. He has read in self-help books and heard on Youtube that happiness is important for health and wellbeing. So he attends a weekend retreat and learns how to meditate, to love himself, and to appreciate the present moment.

However, he doesn't find much happiness and harmony after his exercises. But he doesn't give up. He keeps on trying and trying. He reads more books and listens to gurus and enthusiastic motivational speakers. But nothing is changing in his life. He doesn't experience any happiness.

Some people tell him that he is a selfish asshole behind his smiles, but he thinks for himself that such people are negative and miserable. He is not able to see what a jerk he is and how he has injured so many people with his selfishness. And as long as he refuses to see this he will never heal, he will never have a chance to wake up, he will never experience genuine small scale happiness.

You have to make your way through the swamp to get to the meadows on the other side.

It is painful to wake up

Psychotherapy is of no help to people who suffer from serious self-deceptions. A therapist doesn't tell his client that he is a needy sucker, even if this is his main problem. If his client is a selfish, narcissistic asshole he will not tell her that this is the case. It is pointless. She is not listening. (It is as if a medical doctor doesn't tell his patient that she has diabetes because she doesn't like negative news.) 

A needy sucker has a chance to wake up if he or she gets ditched by a narcissistic asshole, but the narcissistic asshole will never wake up. Narcissists die in their delusions.

Needy suckers ought to be immensely grateful if they have the luck to be connected to a narcissistic asshole. Narcissists serve an important role in life. Without them, suckers would also die in their delusions. Narcissists are doing what nice and understanding therapists don't dare to do.

Defense mechanisms

Spirituality can function as a powerful psychological defense mechanism. If you can't accept how the world works you can invent a spiritual fantasy world, a castle in the air filled with angels, gurus, and life coaches.

Rationalization is also a well-known defense mechanism. The smart-ass delivers clever scientific explanations and philosophical expositions while his spouse is cheating on him.

Denial, delusion, idealization, there are many kinds of defense mechanisms.

We have to protect ourselves. Defense mechanisms help us to cope in this terrible world of war, terror, pain, disease, and falsehood.

The past

Fortune tellers believe that they can see into the future. They believe that the future is located somewhere, like a foreign country. What stupid belief. The future is here, right now, for us who were waiting for it a few years ago. Here it is. Isn't it amazing? You couldn't possibly have known that you should sit here today, reading this. This is not what you expected.

Non duality

The spirit world and the material world are the same world. They are the two sides of the same coin. Body and soul are not two separate substances.

What is matter? What is an electron, a particle, or a wave? What does it consist of? What is a quark? What does a quark consist of? Vibrating strings? What is dark matter? 

Why is it so hard for you to see that matter is as mysterious as a spirit? What is a spirit made of?

You have no idea of what will happen to you after your death. Maybe you will live on in some other physical form. Maybe you will be resurrected in another universe. Maybe you simply dissolve and disappear forever. You don't know.

Life is a mystery; death is a mystery, everything is a mystery.