Analysis of the Self: the Existence and Meaning of Power

I have explored the topic of evil quite a lot. I have looked at what triggers such responses in people, what their goals are, why they form, etc. The root source is selfishness, so the main way to analyze evil is to look at what increases selfish behavior. One aspect of it is ignorance, another is amorality, and the most obvious: the reward gained is great enough to counter or twist the spiritual ideals of the individual. Ignorance is often present from a lack of intelligence, knowledge or experience. Amorality is linked with a lack of experience, but also comes from emotional retardation and a lack of empathy. Finally, there is the issue of rewards, which stimulate certain behaviors that appear to have positive benefits for the individual. 

Regression and damage to the soul is often not understood by the mortal mind until after death, so often the only things that are left are the observed consequences of action. Humans often continue behaviors that have positive reinforcement, and some will even adjust their thinking to ignore the negatives or turn them into positives. Such could be cognitive dissonance, or it could be altering one's own moral principles to validate personal behavior. In any case, if certain behavior leads to reward, that reward coincides with personal goals, and said behavior is perceived as the most efficient root to said reward, then it is likely that the behavior will continue. When a person finds it easy to reach their goals, the given method of goal progression exists as an example of power.

Power has many expressions, and people have a lot of reasons for obtaining it, but what is it ultimately? At its root, power is the ability to create change. More specifically, it is the ability to control a set of circumstances, likely impacting the individual in question. Physical strength, money, social influence – all of these are examples of power, but only when they can fulfill a goal. None of these can control any situation, but it is likely that a person has pursued the form of power that best suits their needs. It is also likely that those with some kind of advantage in life will pursue goals and positions that best work with that advantage.

Power is rarely the only goal of an individual, because the point of power is the ability to reach other goals. Those goals often relate to personal circumstance, so it is no surprise that people will use power to alter those circumstances. Power can be controlled by both the divine and the wicked, but ultimately, power makes it easier to change reality. Power need not corrupt, but it will increase the likelihood of gaining reward from behavior, which means selfish behavior can create better outcomes for the individual than it used to, at least in the short-run. Because more rewards can be gained from immoral action with the use of power, there exists a greater temptation to betray moral codes. It is not so much that power corrupts people, it is that power offers a greater ability to alter one's reality in one way or another, and it is up to the individual to use such an ability correctly.

Power is often associated with dominance, but again, this is only a single manifestation of what power truly is. There are many ways in which dominance can exist, and people can use that to their advantage in a way that benefits them. However, there has been an ongoing theme in life that the strong control the weak. If you are strong, then you have power. The problem is that there is almost never a worthy goal attached to the idea. Control is pursued for its own sake, but that is because it is confused with personal worth. The ability to make something happen alone is meaningless if no potentials are actualized. Obtaining power for the sake of having it serves no purpose when nothing is being done to enrich the inner life or perform some great task. Nearly any personal trait is pointless if it is obtained for the sake of having it. All in all, ability, power, strength, control, and influence are a means to an end. Whether either of those is evil is dependent upon the intention behind the end, and the effects of the means.

Analysis of the Self: Use of Consciousness

Self-consciousness is one of the first steps to both cosmic consciousness and cosmic citizenship. We simply must be fully aware of ourselves if we are to have some idea of where our thoughts and actions are taking us throughout life. This determines the direction and strength of our soul growth. It helps us truly appreciate our choices, our abilities, our achievements, and our character development. What is the quickest way to begin this step? You would have to deviate away from the workings of the subconscious and take an active role in understanding your personality and habits, and this begins by analyzing past, present, and future thoughts and actions.

Humans are often directed by their subconscious either unwillingly or unknowingly, and the only way around this is to engage the conscious mind in every minute decision appearing in one’s life, so much so as to not just knowingly decide, but to understand the root causes of why such a decision is the best course of action. The problem is that this expends two primary resources: energy and time. Humans have a finite amount of both, so people take shortcuts while making up their mind by trusting their gut. That gut reaction is the subconscious mind choosing the best alternative based on the current information stored within the brain, even if that information or the logic which stems from it is not perfect. More important decisions most certainly require conscious decision making, while smaller decisions are normally okay to be left to subconscious decision making.

Contrary to normal belief, big decisions should not be left to the gut, because this is ultimately left up to a previously constructed system that uses current knowledge, but this system can easily be inferior to a new method created on the spot. Relying on the subconscious only has its strength when the issue is not so much deciding the best course of action, but recalling the right fact. Here, the subconscious mind is the best link to memory since the subconscious, in order to create an answer to a list of possibilities, must rely on that memory to function. Therefore, when we must recall facts to figure out what to do, we should trust our gut, and when we must use facts in some form of logic to figure out what to do, we should not trust our gut.

That being said, it is wrong of us to let our subconscious mind judge others or use our present set of values to evaluate pretty much anything. As stated previously, the subconscious can only be used appropriately by recalling past information, and much of that information is going to result from our active use of the mind to understand the world around us. If one only uses the subconscious to recall past judgments, there is usually no issue (provided that judgement took an active involvement), but all future rulings must depend on the conscious mind’s ability to use and manipulate the information present. This ensures that we do not rely on old biases, or reject new information because it does not seem to work with our past views. And with that, we have taken a step towards a better form of consciousness by tempering its use.

New Ideas: Ideals and Reality, Part Four

I find that curiosity is at its core the desire to discover truth. Yet, I also find that the more truth becomes uncovered, the harder it is to continue with the same unfocused curiosity that got us to this very place. Information overload rings a bell, as there is a certain limit to where a human can specialize. Discoveries, especially new ones, have to come from those who have developed a specialty in that field, but as we travel further toward the essence of the truth we strive for, we forget ever more about the world around us. To continue being curious over our original drives, we have to abandon what we used to know. We have to forget our childlike senses, and embrace a harsh reality where we cannot know the answer, and as we reach closer to one solution, others become ever more distant.

The truth we often seek becomes ever more specialized. We find facts and experiences that do not quite accomplish what we seek, no matter how minor the differences. The more we care, the less we can care about. Yet to avoid fixation completely abandons both curiosity and discovery, and discovery should be what drives our evolution in mind, spirit, and body. It must be held that absolute truth, though remaining as the anchor of our own pursuits, is simply unobtainable by a single individual in a single lifetime.

The question then concerns the value of relative truth, a value which cannot be equally judged among the many, for such judgements would come from others who also abandoned flexibility for focus, a focus that most likely differs entirely from the subject at hand. And even if such a conglomerate is excluded, what then? We are left with those who either chose to focus on anything and everything, or those who chose nothing, and neither of these kinds of people would possess the expertise to rate the value of the relative truth a chosen few have so tirelessly pursued. So we are left at a standstill. To reach for a truth that approaches the absolute, we must abandon a perspective that respects that which we do not search for – all while a perspective that appropriately gauges all relative truth, or seemingly supernal truth, cannot exist. In truth, diverse people will hold diverse opinions about both different and seemingly similar things.

We cannot know all things, for it is hard enough to know one thing, and even if we could know about everything we could discover, there can be no real consensus on the value of such discoveries or the various truths they uncover. Thus, even if the human race had the same level of curiosity existing within each individual (which is impossible), the developing fixation could never be expressed in the same way. Discoveries may become similar when we each develop similar drives, but the relative truth derived from those discoveries can only be appropriately valued by those with the original experience of them, and there could still be a lack of agreement among those in a single field.

We will defend the truths we have either uncovered or created for ourselves, and when we fail to discover anything else, we will spend our time discrediting the ideas of others with similar experiences. And worse yet, if another with an entirely different background is in disagreement with the conclusion of our curiosity, then we lash out against them and all people who exist outside of our walled-in existence. How dare those foreign to our area of proficiency cast doubt on us because of their own lack of understanding. Such is curiosity for all the wrong reasons! Instead, we must shine light on our areas of knowledge, and toil away as we attempt to represent the value such experiential truths hold for us. After all, if we hold enough sway, a new childlike mind will direct its focus upon our work, and become fixated on the unknowable.

Logic Puzzles: Possibility and its Usage in Language

"Anything is possible." It is a common phrase that is used when one wishes to acknowledge the existence of other possibilities. The problem is that "anything" is not possible. To truly accept this is to destabilize the foundation of all human knowledge. While it is indeed true that many facts rely on assumptions as a foundation to build upon, discrediting all foundations is equivalent to eradicating the value of information, knowledge, and learning. It declares all truth unobtainable by mankind. And, of course, such a philosophy can only be regarded as a belief, because it would be contradictory to have a truth that discredits all truth. Truth must be compatible with itself.

The idea that anything is possible leads us to the idea that none of us can know about anything – the idea that all thoughts, affirmations, or assertions cannot exist in the realm of certainty. While this puts truth on the ultimate pedestal, it also makes it unreachable. And when something cannot be found, you might find people who lose interest in the idea of discovering it. Now the general idea does not go about vilifying any particular belief, or beliefs in general, nor does it reproach man's desire to not believe something. In fact, the philosophy itself does not cause too many issues itself because there exist a great number of cases where mankind cannot know the answer. However, it does man a great disservice whenever an individual or a group uses it 1) for the excuse to abandon discovery, or 2) to accept improbable causes or effects on the same scale as probable ones.

Yet this post is not about this philosophy, per se. It is more about accepting the broad idea within the confines of a single case of circumstantial ignorance. Just because you yourself do not know whether a fact is actually true or probable, that does not mean you should accept the potentiality of absolutely anything. It is a case of temporarily adopting a philosophy in order to explain away one's lack of information or logic. This means, that through the usage of a simple phrase, one ignorantly believes an idea when the foundation previously required to establish such an idea is not present. Not even the values of the philosophy and the individual are compared. It is simply a lapse in judgment we all have at some point when trying to communicate.

The simple solution? Instead of saying anything is possible, say that you could be wrong, or that something specific is unknowable.

Analysis of the Self: Wisdom vs. Vision

The intellectual struggles for people are often split between the attempt to be wise, and the attempt to become a visionary. Both of these traits, wisdom and vision, are both exemplary and complimentary. However, this means the lack of one can make the other unsatisfactory to some degree.Vision without wisdom and wisdom without vision each create unique pitfalls for the individual, so it is imperative that if one means to use one trait, the lack of a complimentary trait must be identified before action is taken.

What is wisdom? It is having the combination of experience, knowledge, and good judgement. Experience is the foundation of this trait, because with experience naturally comes knowledge, and hopefully, improved judgement. Wisdom is all about learning as you live, and then taking what you have accumulated to create a method of thinking and doing. Life lessons can be extracted from personal events as well as facts, so experience ultimately guides what information a person possesses, as well as how an individual uses said information.

What is vision? It is being able to envision probable potentials, especially relating to one’s behavior or goals. The ability to envision what we should do points us in the right direction. It also enables us to select the stimuli that is most important so that we know what to react to and how. Vision acts as a kind of knowledge. It influences our judgment of both the present and future, and is impacted by past experience.

Vision without wisdom is like a fruitless idealism. You may take action toward a specific end you actually have no hope of reaching, or your actions could create unforeseen circumstances. It is the same with possessing knowledge without experience or good judgment skills. The right information (or goal) is there, but the person just doesn't know what to do with it or how to progress.

Wisdom without vision implies one often knows what is best in the present moment, but preparing for the future is rather difficult. Too many possibilities seem real or relevant. It can also be difficult to make progress on one’s goals, especially if they are more long-term. A lack of vision is similar to a lack of knowledge, which means there is ignorance. However, a wise person often takes such ignorance into account as well, so there may not be a reduction in judgment, but direction. It just depends on what goals and circumstances are involved.

Both of these qualities have an impact on how an individual reacts to the determiners of choice. Wisdom, for instance, may create a heavy focus on details, most commonly values, though any specific category could become important depending on the situation. However, vision relates heavily to goal progression, so things such as time and growth have a big influence. Values also impact the original goal of the individual, so such could frequently impact decisions as well. Ultimately, both are very similar, as each is a quality that influences the decision-making process in a positive way. Wisdom is more so the ability to deal with events as they come, while vision foresees the events beforehand. However, wisdom deals with so much more than just environmental or social changes, so such a comparison is only cursory.

Obtaining wisdom is not too difficult, provided the individual is an avid thinker. However, it seems like such thinking makes seeing the bigger picture more difficult, especially when trying to know how that picture will look in the future. Thinking about all one does implies there is a high probability of learning from said actions. The more this happens, the more you know about yourself, and the better your judgement becomes. This is not universally true, as you may still make poor decisions in an area you are unfamiliar with, but wisdom indicates you are properly using the information available to you. Vision, on the other hand, is closer to extrapolating information, and knowing how the reality of such a projection will change the physical, mental, or spiritual landscape.

Analysis of the Self: Time in Relation to Decisions

The relative value of time is dependent on the goals of the individual. Increments of time will often be valued less if more time is needed to reach a goal, as the increment of time the goal gets pushed back is small compared to the total amount of time needed to reach it. The reverse is true as well. If the time needed (or if the time remaining) to reach a goal is short, then very few distractions will be allowed.

Time is also valued differently depending on the importance of the goal in question (or how troublesome or difficult it is). Progressing on important goals often becomes the primary use of one’s time, just as unimportant goals become more long-term, eventual affairs. The same is likely true for unclear goals. What this means is that we are more often distracted when a clear objective is not before us. If a person does not know how to properly use their time, he or she will instead create new and easier goals to spend time progressing on, even if they are clearly less important from an objective standpoint.

The point is that we are often driven to do something, even when it is not clear what that something should be. Validating our actions later is easy, because all we need to do is compare our actions to doing nothing. Of course, there is no guarantee that such behavior is really constructive, just as there is no assurance that future actions will be either. We may get distracted for some other reason, or we might fail at a task completely.

As time exists as a determiner of choice, it must fight other motivations or values. If our primary concerns were about guaranteed effectiveness rather than presumed efficiency, then the actions of our entire race would differ. Yet time is an ongoing component of temporal life. It holds its own value just as our own interests do. We cannot pursue interests without time, so an interest of ours becomes making time, or at least utilizing it well.

Time is invaluable, but only because it is so scarce. This scarcity exists as part of our temporal nature, but is also impacted by all we wish to accomplish within a time frame. However, this does not mean time is valued properly, because in order to judge this resource correctly, we must know what our goals should actually be. Time is not important so long as our goals are not important. Future time is valued by future goal progression, just as past time is valued by our accomplishments. This is our subjective perspective of how time is valued as a resource. An objective stance would require knowledge of the best usage of time in every situation. Then, one could truly know how much a segment of time could possibly be worth. Naturally, such knowledge requires unlimited foresight, seeing the ongoing repercussions from a continuous stream of action. Since this is impossible, we estimate the impacts of our decisions, and we only do so for the amount of time that appears needed. Thus, we are caught in an ongoing struggle in our decision making: "For how long do I consider the consequences, and at what point does my questioning worsen the situation?"

To summarize, time exists as a determiner of choice because it limits both our choices and our ability to make choices. It is valued based on the choices available, our ability to progress toward goals, and how much we desire making the right decision.

New Ideas: Ideals and Reality, Part Three

When I think of a world such as this, I grow despondent. We are primarily selfish beings because selfishness commonly benefits the individual on a physical level. We create economies and philosophies that thrive off of this behavior, and then call on an aggregate force to reign in on the terror some would create for others. The ideal is to use money taken from others and use it to alter the world we live in, often combating the very selfishness we ourselves perpetuate.

The ideals of government are grand, yes, just as the ideals of freedom are. But in a world with imperfect people with selfish desires, we find ourselves with poor uses of both government and freedom. So we develop a mindset that favors one over the other, mainly to create a scapegoat for our poor state of existence, using the opposite force to combat what we detest. All of us urge the government to reduce freedoms we dislike, and all of us reduce the power of the government in order to create certain opportunities we do like. It is a tug of war between the selfish interests of society.

There is a reoccurring theme of order versus chaos. People see society as if it existed on such a scale, but that scale is simply a great oversimplification of the combined action of all present individuals. Self-governance never exists in these polarizing scenarios, simply because you cannot have both order and freedom when a large majority of a particular society acts on selfish impulses. One need not be evil to be part of the problem, but ignorant, and ignorance abounds in the human race. So does mediocrity, as well as complacency and laziness.

Humanity does not currently exist as a race that focuses on the ideal state. Few can even agree what such a state would be, let alone act on such beliefs. So we do not know what to believe, what to fight for, and when we do take that leap into action, it is often against others who faced different challenges and arrived at a different solution. So then, by focusing on our problems, we focus on those who reject our solutions, and suddenly humans become expendable. In our desire to make the world a better place, we destroy each other, and that is because selfishness has always ruled our very nature.

New Ideas: Ideals and Reality, Part Two

Every decision we make is life altering. The questions are how great, and if life is being altered in the right way. We all hold an ideal image of who we want to be, and what circumstances of life we want to be in. It is a shame that, through our daily decisions and challenges, we rarely get closer to that image. Some might say our expectations are too high, but I believe society simply isn’t structured to make us the best we can be. It is structured so that we can survive, provided we are willing to put in the effort, and sometimes, just get lucky. But for a Son of God, simply surviving holds little meaning. Sure, it is true that one would rather exist than to not exist, but existence itself loses its flavor when there is so much out there we could be doing for ourselves, or for others.

How do we measure this pathway from our current lives to our ideals? We hardly have the time to map out every decision life throws at us. The causes of every choice made, the consequences of deciding, and the near-infinite possibilities we could create for ourselves – it is a lot to take in. But to simply live, to exist, does not make life livable. After all, the challenges of life still exist, and overcoming those challenges is a requirement for survival. Highs must follow the lows. Solving problems must bring with it rewards. Without light to shine on our darkness, we seek deliverance through nonexistence (at least temporarily).

Living truly has little to offer without a sense of progression following us in our age. This is why stagnation can be so suffocating. It is why cabin fever creeps under our skin, as we feel we must go out and explore when the opportunity suddenly disappears. The appearance of a stagnant lifestyle, or even a day where nothing noteworthy appears before us, strikes a sudden fear in our hearts. It is because at that moment, we stare into the eyes of our greater self, the self we had imagined ourselves to become. We realize that we cannot become what we imagine, and that we never really got closer to our ideal selves as life soldiered on. We just lived. We took what life gave us and ran with it, hoping that someday, things would improve. We trusted society to clear the way for us, to make our path visible, to highlight the choices needed to not just survive, but thrive in a world that has always been unforgiving. Society is a construct made up of fearful people, putting their trust in one another to ignore the darkness eating them inside. A darkness that becomes once more familiar as we have no choice but to validate past decisions.

No one can create a clear trajectory – that is obvious. No one understands the world enough that they can know where they will end up and why. We are all born with dreams, we are all given dreams, and we are all creators of dreams, but most assuredly, we are the mourners of dreams. If anything is to die, it is the dreams we lose grasp of as we live and grow. The ones we decided to ignore, as we either determined they were childish, or simply became impossible feats as we faced the reality that we became not as we wanted. So our dreams change – our ideals change – to something that is more manageable. Just being a little bit better than who we are becomes the goal, and as even that becomes unattainable, then maintaining the norm is enough. Stagnation becomes our sanctuary, and it is there and then that we find value in simply living. As it turns out, that value alone is meaningless.

Analysis of the Self: The Development of Evil

I have been thinking about the different variations of evil, and was looking for a primal cause. Some say greed is the root of all evil, but greed first requires human selfishness, and is often triggered by fear. The causes of fear are too diverse, and will likely exist even in a perfect society, so this is just a secondary cause. We must then take the primary issue, selfishness, and look at how it is created. When I did this, I remembered that it can be seeded to some degree in genetics, and it can be learned through experience. I also noted that both of these influence one another, so both must be addressed. Evil is technically caused by improper thinking, but such thinking also has its origins.

So in essence, evil has two beginning roots in human beings: genetics and experience. Genetics can either restrict or expand a human’s potential, impacting how we think, feel, and create. It grants us a specific level of intelligence and health that we must work with. Experience (or the lack of) impacts what we know and understand. It also has an influence on our character, our emotional intelligence, and our levels of ignorance.

Experience dictates how much higher our potentials can be, while genetics puts a cap on these potentials in the long-run. Both influence human growth and personality unification, but genetics ultimately influences the rate of growth we receive from experience. When we discuss evil, what we are truly looking at is selfishness in thought. It acts as a counterforce to goodness, but can ultimately make a being ignore truth and beauty as well. This trait is often triggered by one’s own experiences (which can include a lack of education), but the underlying traits or limitations of the being indicate either what types of experiences create such behavior, or how much learning is required for such behavior to be rooted out.

How is evil minimized in human society? It requires the multifaceted approach of improving our genes, changing how we educate ourselves, and improving the experiences of individuals. Not one of these actions alone will do the trick, because either the potentials of humans will remain just as restricted by DNA, or we will fail to change the very elements of life that shape who we are and how we grow. It must also be said that such adjustments to society do not create results at the same rate, nor is every change appear positive at first.

The Burden Series: Trust

Trust is something that is commonly valued throughout life, whether in the home, at work, or in general social situations. The heart of trust is the belief that an individual shares a common value. Even when that trust exists as relying on someone to follow a responsibility, you are trusting that accomplishing such a task is valued by the other party. The problem with trust is that even when the subject is only one human being, that trust cannot be universal. It is usually very specific.

Humans do not all share the same values, and universal trust between two individuals would imply that each shares the exact same morals, and even the same mores. But in reality, even when there is a strong commonality between individuals, circumstances and goals shift. While one person might feel betrayed about another’s decision, the other may just be following a higher priority. To trust an individual is thus a set of values you expect another to follow under certain situations. This is truly limiting and vague, which should tell us that no one should trust others completely, because such belief or faith does not account for a wide enough set of circumstances.

Instead of blindly trusting friends, family, or coworkers, we should trust each other to make certain relevant decisions. The foundation of trust is then the circumstances of the decisions a person is faced with. So long as the personal values of an individual create dependable results, you can trust that individual to take certain actions, and that is really where the trust ends. Of course, the boundaries of this trust are going to be different for each individual, and it is each person’s responsibility to identify these boundaries on their own.

This also changes how we look at people we do not trust, because instead of labeling a person with the negative trait of untrustworthy, we instead identify areas where we either expect problems in the decision-making process, or a conflict of values or interest. The point is that being trustworthy is not the same as being a good person, and vice versa. You cannot expect to satiate the ideals of everyone, especially if you intend to be genuine. Everyone has a different idea of what trust means to them, and this meaning is hardly communicated properly when we depend on others. We then suffer as a result of our own assumptions, something that could have been avoided by adjusting how we perceive human relationships.