On Self-Destruction

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Date Line May 16, 2007

There seems a thread which travels through life, the thread of self. Self. Who we are and who we would want to be is a definition of self. What is “self” and how do we come to hate that self?

For about as long as I can remember – and my memory is getting shorter from the current end – I have played with the idea of self-destruction, self-termination, ending it all. Don’t you love that expression, “ending it all”? It is the ultimate statement of both self, and self-centeredness.

There are two possibilities, that I, me, this real “self”, is in fact the creator of all. The idea is in a new philosophy which says we are a dreamer, the product of a dream, that all we see and know is a figment of a dreaming mind.

Thirty-five years ago I saw it as a single celled amoeba playing mental gymnastics with itself in an effort to maintain its own sanity. In short, we are the product of thought. There is no deity; there is only a thinker who may, or may not, be dreaming at this moment.

If you kill a character in a story, does the story end? If you kill the writer of the story, does the story end? Before answering, how would a “fictional” character kill its author? And if the author continues, does not the story? Isn’t there always the possibility of a sequel?

Self-destruction. Ah, beginning a new aspect of the dream, or mental exercise, from a different perspective. Or, oblivion! Oblivion is ceasing to be, being forgotten, to be no more than a possible reference in the existence of the self which continues.

How many who read this would see the scriptural references, the idea that Revelation is very Jewish and so predicts a end and mandates that life is for those who survive? How many would immediately make the mental link to the direction, the admonition, “choose life.”

The author, the dreamer, the silly insignificant amoeba, each have their logical plot-line. It is so easy to interject magic, to make the hero escape from the inescapable; isn’t that what religions are all about? Isn’t it their objective to give each character an out? The fictional character gets to meet the author, and they “live” happily ever after.

Except for one small element, the “happily ever after” idea is very compelling. How does the fictional character transmute into the author’s reality? Hold that answer. Before you go there, are you sure that the “author” is not themself the product of a dream?

Infinity is the taskmaster. Each has the possibility of there being a before and an after. It is nice to think in limited novel terms. It is delightful to believe there is a page which contains the words “The End.” But think in terms of that poor amoeba. He is the product of creation and so is only a step, and we, his “mental exercise” would only graduate to being another amoeba.

Ah the logical, the rational, possibilities which have the weak minded minds spinning. The amoeba needs to maintain his sanity because he has no means of knowing there are other amoeba; or because he is the first, and the graduation for his “mental exercise” represents cell-division.

Thus there would be two engaged in “mental exercise” and then four and then, and then, and then we would have the evolution of life involving multi-celled entities. Thus we discover the amoeba was not the origin point, but only a step in the process we already know.

Self-destruction? How do we destroy ourselves when we are trapped in a sequence of all life infinitely back in time and infinitely forward. Self-destruction? The termination of one character within an infinite storyline? Of what end, or significance is that?

The dreamer ends the dream segment and focuses on another segment, invoking the same character. What was achieved? Depriving the dreamer of experiencing this storyline from the vantage point of this one character? That’s the dreamer’s choice.

Think about how pointless your life is. Think of life as just the figment of the imagination of some stupid amoeba. Realize that and, as the amoeba, life becomes pointless and the choice is self-termination, or the creation of a new dream. How does an amoeba kill itself?

Better to work out the mental exercise. Bette to follow the logic and the process to the very end. When the “Dream” ends naturally, when the “mental exercise” is complete, evolution occurs. Eventually the deity, the dreamer, the amoeba, realizes its sole purpose is to reproduce itself.

The objective is to be the deity which is dreamed of. Thus the objective is to follow all the logical paths and find the right answer, to know all the possible answers, to continue until perfection is attained; and only then does the cell divide, and the cycle begins anew.

Ah, get the head spinning. Too complex, too complicated, too far from perfection and that ah-ha moment when everything becomes clear. How do we move toward the point of enlightenment? How do we see what is so clear? That is the individual goal, the train of thought you, not I, must follow.

Why not I? Go back to the top and read again, when you say “Ah-ha, got it,” you will understand and be a step closer to enlightenment; at which point you will understand those parts of my writings which have, to date, escaped you.

Nietzsche has said: “Only a person of great faith can afford to be a sceptic.” So find faith.
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