But is it impossible to go back to that position? I mean what if the rest have their fun, if that is what you also want than go for it, and if not then don’t. The perfect statement of a tolerant plural society. You have your morals and I’ll have mine. Bad morals drive out good. I think morality operates exactly the same as money supply. If you have debased gold currency competing with pure gold currency, then all pure goal will be driven out either through hording or export. Does this mean that debased gold is somehow “Superior” or “Stronger” or more Darwinian fit, than pure gold? It is precisely because it is objectively bad that it triumphs. The general tendency of morals is towards the lowest common denominator. This is why I don’t believe there can ever really be a plurality of morals.
But I mean lets say you had lived your Dream life. You accomplish everything you wish to, justice is done, the world is set right. If the price of that deed, was lifelong celebecy, not only would you pay the price, you would actually consider such a biography superior to that of an Aristotelean man who enjoyed some pleasures but not in excess. Your morality generally tends towards a worldly asceticism. You don’t believe in being a monk hidden away in the cloister, but you believe you can live up to the standards of monkhood while being active in the world. So in a way you WANT celibacy to be the price. You find the ideal of a totally dedicated fanatic denying himself all pleasure, superior to the reasonable well-balanced Aristotelean’s moderate hedonism. So its not just a life you would be willing to live it is your ideal life.
Where does that leave me after the Fall?
You could just a set a new goal, and dedicate yourself with the same intensity.
You don’t expect the entire population to be celibate and advocate voluntary human extinction. Even under ideal circumstances. In that sense the standards you set for yourself are unachievable even by a utopian populace.
You had a lot of high ideas about virtue, yet you never developed in a sophisticated manner what exactly was to be valued in them. Does it really make so much sense to be so anti-sexual as a matter of principle? I mean granted if we look at the real world of sexual relations there is much to object to. And it is easy to become cynical and jaded and dismiss any Disney notions of chaste love. And maybe romantic love is an impossible purity. But that doesn’t mean it should be condemned. I mean I guess in your younger days your position was all sex should only be for procreation, something of a national duty. Along a “Lie back and think of England” approach. Is that really superior to the loftiest of romantic love? I mean it is hard to approximate the Ideal. Even Romeo and Juliet is nothing more than a story of teen lust. But you do have an idea of what ideal romantic love would be even if it is totally unrealizable in our world. Now would sex in such a relationship be less honorable than Lie back and think of England?
So what if adventure became your life mission with the same zeal the grand ambition once held? You would not sacrifice the life of Indiana Jones in order to be Tucker Max. I mean in some sense an Indiana Jones life is also a form of hedonism. At least in and of itself, it doesn’t really do any good, adventure the quest for the exotic, the occult, mystical, enchanted, paranormal. Those are the pleasures you seek. And if you can link up the pursuit of those higher pleasures with some sort of utilitarianism so much the better. But this is not sour grapes. You would genuinely prefer to be Indiana Jones over Don Juan.
Well lets be honest. Your asceticism was somewhat overplayed. Maybe its toned down now. But to some extent you blurred the lines between morality and girls have cooties. There is no reason why virtue forbid you from having closer relations with the opposite sex, even going as far as what in high school would have been considered a “date”. At its rawest, this morality was a patronizing misogyny. You may not have been completely off the mark, but I think you took “virtue” beyond where it was justified. As the popular girl said in 8th grade, you were anti-girl. You wore that as a badge of pride because to you it proved incorruptibility. And perhaps more cynically you were playing hard to get, under the old maxim the worse you treat a girl, the more she likes you.
Well look if your just against life, and think it was a curse to be born in all conditions. Then say so. But if you think a life of adventure for a good cause, is better than never being born, then at least say precisely how “real” adventure is different than the multicultural USA alternative. I think your coming pretty close to saying existence itself under all circumstances is an evil. Well isn’t that the end result of saying pleasure in and of itself is evil. Granted pleasure is often tied to sadism, but if even the higher pleasures are to be denied, what is the point of existence other than suffering? So instead of framing it pleasure/ anti-pleasure, perhaps you ought to follow JS Mill with higher and lower pleasures.
Your so beaten, that I can’t be sure that you would even want to live the life of the Dream if it were offered to you.
Just as some refuse to accept failure, you ironically refuse to accept recovery out of Hubris. You stated so strongly that all was over and you were doomed, that to begin to rehabilitate would be to admit that you were majorly mistaken. Success would be a loss of face.
But the only ones who oppose your demise, are your parents. And they should not hold this much influence over you at your age. Losing face to them, shouldn’t be a concern. You resent them for underrating you, and yet the course of your life since high school is perfectly in line with their undervaluation and diametrically opposed to your overinflated self-image. Think like a scientist. Which cause would lead to this effect?
Your like a bubble economy, you need to crash before you can make genuine growth.
How tragic that it is you the long-term investor who ended up peaking in high school.
IDK decide strongly one way or the other and follow through. If you want to be doomed be doomed, if you want to be saved be saved. Neither is wrong. The only wrong choice is to continue waffling and doing nothing. Decide decisively one way or the other. If recovery is what you want make a full dedication to it.
Well ask yourself what possible future biography would make me want to recover. If you can’t think of any, or it is beyond the realm of possibility, then let us decisively give up on any dream of recovery. If there is a reachable goal, then lets commit all out to it.
Lets use the grand ambition as a starting point. You still haven’t rebuked it. First off you never considered GA a guarantee. So if you had lived the life of a mid-level military officer just stationed around the world, maybe some combat duty, and then an honorable retirement, that would have satisfied you. So what about that life is missing in civilian life? And remember that doesn’t change the existence of Roissy and Tucker Max. If anything it is more hypermasculine than the general population. Your whole life you have went for “manly” activities. So is that all this is about? You want to live an ascetic virginal life, yet at the same time you want your manhood to be beyond reproach?
Part of the problem is that with your college major, and this sunk economy, I can’t really paint you a specific picture of what your life would have been like. So its all pretty vague when we speak of what your career would be. Its hard for me to make you a concrete offer.
Well look if all you want out of life is to retire to a utopia, you can work a career, and then retire to either a hippie commune or a monastery once your financially secure. Unless it is hubris that you will only retire to a utopia you have created. Does it really matter if your utopia is not worldwide?
IF security is all your after. Getting a public sector job is not beyond the realm of possibility. And you have a union, your better protected but not immune from layoffs, basic benefits, decent retirement, and you can’t be fired without just cause.
The world just doen’t appeal to me. Theres no job I would really want to do. And I would just be working all day for a boss, to live in a world I don’t like.
I mean if thats your position. That the world is hellish. You can not survive in it. You don’t want to exist. Then let us strongly make that your position.
But were you or were you not wrong about your grand ambition? And if not what has changed? How is a career different?
Is it just a status thing? You want to be a leader? I mean you can make it your ambition to be a leader in any organization. Is it the glory of war? But be warned that the average soldier is more police guard than warrior in modern warfare.
Why is there no enchantment or charm with life?
You have lost the Hegelian struggle for recognition. And now your fate is to be the slave. Is that not what your reject?
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