The Need to Express Oneself

One curious thing that I have noticed in observations is how much people talk when they say they have nothing to say. An example is the phrase, ‘I am speechless’, which is obviously oxymoronic as they are speaking to say that they are speechless. What the phrase, ‘I am speechless’ actually means that they cannot think of anything to say and yet, instead of being speechless, they still speak. Why is that? Another thing I have noted is when people say, ‘that is not worth replying to’, seemingly unaware that they are, indeed, replying to the comment.

There are many more examples, most as banal and inane as these, but when one looks more closely then one can see these behaviours not only happening in the relative tedium of daily conversation but also, more concerningly, in the upper echelons of society. The most obvious example is the former US President Donald Trump who would sit in meetings being broadcast live and ask questions such as, ‘can the pandemic be ended by burying silver by moonlight’, to which the exasperated medical experts reply, ‘no, that’s for removing warts…’.

The old adage, very well known adage, that the wise speak because the have something to say and the fool because they have to say something,  is true and great and created by some of the greatest minds that have ever lived, yet the problem with this quotation is that it does not go into the explanation as to why people tell you that they are speechless or that something is not worth replying to, when to be speechless or to deign something not worth replying to is best met by that- silence.

Over the last few months, we have gone on a journey in which we have seen that much of the bad behaviour in society, indeed some of the ‘unwritten’ laws, are built by insecurities. People feel insecure and so engage in bad behaviours with harmful consequences for them and others (just think of how gossip can be harmful to others and those gossiping in, for example, loss of reputation etc.) and as these behaviours are common, society accepts them as good behaviours and punishes those who are truly good. In relation to people expressing themselves, if only to say they have nothing to add, there can be very few reasons why they feel the need to do so. Before we assume that they must be bad reasons, let us look at positives. Often people are scared of silence and so, if someone speaks to you (as I have found out many times) and you have nothing to say in return, then they are made very uncomfortable by the lack of verbal response. As we know, the art of conversation is give and take and that is how not only conversations but also relationships grow so by one not responding can cause a breakdown in this process so to say, ‘I am speechless’, is to acknowledge the other and respond which the other often finds comforting, even if they think that they find the response unnecessary.

However, these are few and far between and often only take place in more intimate settings/contexts. Often this behaviour is done in public. Some of the reasons why are as follows

1. The other person does not know how to respond as it is on an intellectual level above them and so responds with anger and frustration, mostly born out of an unconscious (and unadmitted) self-loathing (it is easier to blame and look down on others for that which we do not understand which the German philosopher Nietzsche beautifully articulates as, ‘The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those below us’.)
2. The other person feels that if they do not respond then they will be considered, or not considered at all, stupid and so respond in a manner which adds nothing as many fear what others think of them
3. The other person needs attention and so attempts to draw attention to their self, albeit in a superficial manner

The list can go on, but it seems clear that the common thread which binds them together is an insecurity as to how they are perceived by others which shapes how they perceive themselves.     

Whilst this is damaging to society as a whole, more immediate problems can come when those in ‘power’ speak and express themselves when what they say can have disastrous effects. How many problems in geopolitics are caused by people not being strong enough to say nothing? The threat of tariffs can cause economies to hover on the brink of collapse. An expressed lack of faith may cause the markets to crash, after all they are in reality as real as fairies, only existing as long as people believe in them. What people don’t seem to realise is that words have consequences (as do silences at inappropriate times) and as the great French writer Marcel Proust noted cruelty in not knowing or caring how our actions affect others and so a simple insecurity which manifests itself in a need to express oneself can lead to cataclysmic outcomes both personal and in terms of the world in which we live.

‘till next time     

The Slave Race: A Study of the Master/Slave Dynamic in Society and the Reason why it Exists

The philosopher Bertrand Russell once stated that life was a battle to either be the killer or the killed. This melodramatic statement, something common with those confined to the sterile unphilosophical world of academia, bears some truth in it. If one looks at history then one can see that much of ‘civilisation’ has been about who is the master and who is the slave.

As noted before, I was curious as to the origins of civilisation, was it  built by lofty men like the mythical notion of Pericles of Athens, in part the founder of democracy, or was it built by petty little people? Working my way through the lives of the great ancient Greeks and Romans by the Roman historian Plutarch, my suspicions that many of those responsible for the foundation of the current (modern is such a meaningless, vague term) Western World were small minded and petty, indeed, even Pericles could not live up to his reputation. The few, as depicted by Plutarch, who were lofty, great people, for example, Agis the IV, Thales, Solon, Phocion, were harder to learn about as there are very few, if any, other books on them. The books that there are on a couple of them being academic books and thusly charging serious money for a small book. Why is this? Simply because when we consider history, we generally go for the sexy version of history. We know from Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus that Julius Caesar was mocked by his friends for preferring sexual intercourse with women over men, yet we do not know the character of Solon in as much detail as no one in ancient times wanted to, or could, write salacious stories about him. The lack of scandal surrounding the four aforementioned could be why that, even in ancient times, there was little public appetite for their lives (showing how much of a debt of gratitude we owe to Plutarch).

From this we can deduce that society as a whole has a base foundation- as we have spoken of before in these pages, people’s interests generally stem from the primitive survival part of human nature (sustenance, reproduction, and fear). Ergo, when considering the interpersonal relationships within society, we must look at a simplistic interpretation stemming from the survival instinct.

As we have said before, the driving emotion for most people is not hate or love, rather it is fear. This fear manifests itself as insecurities. People are scared that, as Russell alluded to, they must either kill or be killed, that it is a dog-eat-dog world in which humans project their worst qualities onto what seems, on a fundamental level, to be a superior species. And so, the world becomes binary, it becomes black and white. You are either the master or you are the salve. Please note that this mastery, for many, is defined by society. If you have a high paid job, then you are a master. If you have a socially acceptable job, then you are a master. Once within the confines of a job, you are then subject to the social structure within the job. The basis of this is not personal merit, rather an arbitrary hierarchal structure. The higher you rise, the smaller those below seem and the more justified you are to step on them like ants. As the cliché goes, people only look at the rung above them. This arbitrary environment creates inauthentic social structures and communication depends mostly on your ranking. In meetings, people have oft said how those below fear speaking up not realising that the fear is, often, due to uncertainty as to how those in ‘power’ react for all of the claims of ‘equality’ (as we have spoken of before) the actions of those who assume themselves, based on arbitrary measures, to be superior often bely an insecurity as to their position. We oft hear the adage that ‘Knowledge is Power’, however, as with most forms of ‘power’, it is undefined and inaccurate. A stable boy seeing the Queen have an affair will, if he can even speak to the King, carry less conviction than the Queen denying it. Why? Because often people hear with their eyes, they only hear what they see the words coming from.      

The fear reaches further. The assumption that to be the Master is to be above fear is perfectly illustrated in the story of Damocles. Damocles becomes king and as he sits on the throne, he looks up and sees a sword above him on a fraying thread. Thus, he knows, that the one fear of those in power is losing the power. Yet this does not create empathy and other positive emotions/thoughts. Rather it often means that the king becomes a tyrant so as not to lose his power. Once his power is taken by one who has seen all of this, the next person sits on the throne and looks up and mutters, ‘oh, crap’.

There is a simplistic thought that all white people are bad for enslaving black people, and that black people are superior. However, we have seen that the reaction of black people to other races, such as Asian, are those as a master to a slave, we have seen how Asians react to white and black people etc. A North Korean maths book for school children poses questions such as, ‘If I have three big nosed American bastards and two die…’. From this we can clearly see that the issues of race are not about skin colour they are not about ethnicity, they are about fear and the illusion that to be in ‘power’ makes you immune to fear. The ‘Slave/Master’ dynamic (please note I am using the original meaning of master which is genderless) dominates society (if you want an example, just look how humans have enslaved dogs and cats and called it ‘domestication’). For Civil Rights movements to actually enact real change, we must move away from the myth of power and end the Slave/Master obsession and accept that on a fundamental level all humans are just that, human.

‘till next time     

The Greatest of All Time and the Myth of Equality

Often in sport we hear the question, who is the GOAT? The answer is not, as one may assume, Billy Gruff, from the fairy tale, rather it means, who is the greatest of all time?

As you can see, this is an asinine question because no definitive criteria is set out. In football (soccer) it is all stats based and focuses on attacking prowess. Questions such as how many goals did they score, and how etc. dominate the discourse. Nowadays, people believe that the answer is either Lionel Messi or The Fake Ronaldo, Cristiano. Why these two? Because they are the ones playing as we watch and as C.S Lewis said, as we move forward in time, we assume that what we have now is better than all has come before (chronological snobbery). As it is impossible to answer this question, people throw stats at it which taken out of context is meaningless.

However, I think I have worked out how one can attempt to answer this question with a methodology which applies to daily life. And that question is what impact did they make?

The names you hear often have one thing in common, they were stars in stars. Messi played for a great Barcelona team, Fake Ronaldo, Real Madrid. The Real Ronaldo played for Brazil and Cruyff played for one of the best Dutch national teams, as with Pele and Brazil. Yet when the players were taken from their comfort zones things were different. The Fake Ronaldo failed to secure a Champion’s League for a transitional Juventus and lost their first league title in ten years and Messi floundered as his Barcelona supporting cast drifted away.  

Yet one player’s impact stands above all others (if we focus purely on attacking players). Diego Maradona took a struggling Napoli team to win the Italian league and then the European Cup. He single handily (pun intended, hello England fans) won the 1986 World Cup with an average Argentina team therefore, in terms of real impact, Maradona must be the GOAT.

Please note that what I have written above for the most part is nonsense as these questions not only cannot be answered but shouldn’t be asked, however, it seems clear that in a team when judging the value of an individual, the question should be, not are how are their stats and behaviours, rather what intangible impact do they have on the lives of others.

The question as to ‘the greatest of all time’ in whatever genre creates an interesting contradiction with how society claims to see itself. As we have mentioned ad nauseum in these pages, how we see the world is primarily subjective with our entire universe expanding from within us. Society tells us that we are all equal, but it does not put word to action. People spend many pointless hours arguing about who of X and X is the best at whatever. The hierarchal structure often sees those getting nearer to the top getting lightheaded, presumably from a decrease in oxygen, and thusly form judgements of those below on arbitrary basis’s such as job title, social class, income etc. The thinking seems to be that the higher up one becomes the clearer one can see. Whilst this may be true, as we have said before, in relation to scaling the mountain of knowledge, understanding and their child, Wisdom, what few see is that the ladders that we climb in our daily lives do not elevate one above another for instead of standing vertically, this ladder is lain on the floor (which could be why so many people trip over it). Yet it cannot be denied that, although on a fundamental level we are all the same, some people have natural gifts which elevate them in certain niche fields or work very hard to acquire skills which elevate them. For example, one who refrains from cruelty when angry has a greater level of maturity than she who lashes out, justifying the actions with the je june plaintive cries of, ‘misery loves company!’ (which as we have said before is untrue for if misery is in a state of flux then it would desire not to be miserable by being happy or if its natural state is misery then it will be happy to be itself). We can see in our daily lives that some people are above others, maybe not as a whole but in certain aspects. The lies the Nazis told were to justify their own inferiority complexes, the attempt to keep women ‘in their place’ stems from nothing more than fear as to what women can do.

To get back on topic, Messi may be a greater player than the others he is playing with, but in order to thrive he needs to be put within an environment to which he is suited. In sport teams are built around superior players to bring about better collective results but in most avenues of society, the greater person is crucified so that the mediocre need not realise that they are the ones arguing so vehemently as to who is the better player as they can never even dream of reaching such levels and by bestowing their ‘approval’ they attempt to elevate themselves on the shoulders’ of giants.      

’till next time

The Story of Us: How Society is Shaped and Shapes Us

When I was a child, my first loves were music, literature, sport, nature, and toys. Later my tastes developed into poetry, philosophy, physics, mathematics etc. Someone whom I know who had spent his life being very successful called me a polymath. After googling the word and seeing that it put me in the same category as the likes of Goethe and Plato, I very happily took on this title. Later, I began to question it. Am I someone so extraordinary that mind my is so restless and brilliant that it seeks out all of these disparate things? Or is it so much simpler than that? I began to analyse what I liked and saw that there was a thread that ran through them all. The thread which binds them all is narrative. Music tells a story and takes you on a journey. Nature only makes sense in the context of it being lived in linear time. Psychology is the story of how we became who we are. Mathematics is the story of how we try to understand the universe and so on and so forth. All of the things that interest me fit within a narrative structure and thusly, instead of being a polymath, I was just someone who liked stories.

My interest in stories shaped the world around me. I would seek people whom I found to be interesting within my broad definition of interesting (for example, authentic, not ‘normal’ etc.). More often than not, the books I would read would, in some part, remind me of me and help me to grow as a person, drawing upon the lives and wisdom of those who have come before. Great writers such as Erich Fromm I stopped reading as his thought was too much like mine, I didn’t think I could view his work objectively. Other writers whom I loved, be it literature, film, music etc., I lost my connection with as I outgrew them, or the lessons they could impart. My interest in poetry diminished or evolved (maybe both) as I gained more life experience and many of the threads of poetry that I loved, for example, philosophy and politics, grew into more definitive, specialist, subjects as opposed to vague allusions in the poetic form. However, through it all, I was still the child playing with his toys, creating (and documenting) complex worlds which made perfect sense to me, exploring the narrative that is my life.

Just as my inner life started to shape the reality around me, I began to notice that others were being shaped by their environment. Society, for it to function, has to aim for the lowest common denominator. Although it can be presented in different ways, fundamentally it is still the same. We hear about previous generations going to the theatre and we think them to be highly educated superior societies. When we look more closely, we find that probably the same amount of people as now went to the opera and ballets, and the reast would go to vaudeville-esque shows, the equivalent of popular TV dramas which people watch now. Thusly we could see that people had not become less highbrow, rather it had remained consistent.

Upon analysis of cultures, be they Rome’s Bread and Circuses, or minstrels, or whatever drama is currently on HBO, one can see the same basic thread running through them. The most fundamental part of a person is the survival instinct. This instinct manifests in three main ways: sustenance; procreation; and fear. With these in mind, go into a book shop, or turn on the TV, or listen to conversations as people pass and the majority of things you will find fit into three categories: relationships (procreation, sexual and societal); cooking and housing (sustenance); the latest, biggest, baddest news story about people or situations different to what the speaker considers ‘normal’ (fear). Thusly, these three categories, which thousands of years ago were the difference between life and death, become the dominant threads of the modern society.

Society was created, fundamentally, to serve the most primitive aspect of being alive, survival, and yet, thousands of years later, society shapes those new to it in the same way that it was shaped and so the shaped becomes the shaper and the cycle of primitive reactions continues to shape our world.

‘till next time                  

Special People

One thing the internet is full of is quotations. The great words of the great minds are taken (sometimes not even by them) and presented with much fanfare, often to elicit ‘likes’ and ‘comments’. Whilst this is all well and good (aren’t I magnanimous) sometimes the comments themselves are more thought provoking. Often one will see a quotation from the likes of Nietzsche, the German philosopher, speaking of how there are a few special people and the majority who, like herd animals, follow society not thinking for themselves. Underneath the quotation one can often see many comments, many with multiple ‘likes’ saying things along the lines of, ‘yeah, those people are so stupid’, indicating that they are one of the special people as alluded to by Nietzsche. Underneath the comment one can see many ‘likes’ and comments such as, ‘yes, you are right, why can’t others see their own limitations?’ (I’m paraphrasing) implying that they, as with the commenter, are the few, elite, special ones.

The notion of ‘special’, as with monikers such as ‘genius’, are misused to the point of meaninglessness. For one to be special one must be, to all intents and purposes, possessing something which is unique to the populous. As the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer noted,

‘Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see’

meaning that such things are incredibly rare, and often, in their time, incomprehensible.

So, the question must be, if specialness is so rare, why do so many people claim that they alone, plus the other people on the internet, possess it? The answer is twofold and in that contains a contradiction.

1. People like to think that they are special
2. People like to fit in with others

As you can see, this creates a contradiction. To use an old advertising slogan of a supermarket, ‘Exclusively for everyone’, people want to think that they stand on the hallowed (pun intended) ground of the likes of Nietzsche yet they fear to be separated from the safety of the herd they claim to despise. When a truly special person comes along it is rare that they can be understood. Countless quotations speak of how those who are special are subjected to the attention of the herd. Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher, noted that dogs only bark at things that they can’t understand in response to questions as to why the public criticised him. The great modern thinker, Taylor Swift (tee hee) noted it even more poetically,

‘So don’t you worry your pretty, little mind

People throw rocks at things that shine’

(profound, eh?) and so one must ask, if someone comes along and commands the attention of the masses in YouTube videos or Ted talks or asinine books that need to swear to get your attention (for example, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k, a middleclass version of Seneca’s stoicism, I assume) then can they really be someone who is special? Can they really be a great mind in our times? Or must we turn to Schopenhauer once more and his noting that, ‘The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience’?

The pages of history are soaked in the blood of truly special people who have tried to make the world a better place (Jesus, Socrates, Gandhi et al) for people are a contradiction. As we have noted ad nauseum, the prevailing aspect of human nature is insecurity. Whilst people want to think that they, and they alone are special, they are also terrified of being different. One may note that is it often those who think that they are special and different, who secretly know that they are not, who are the dogs barking or the people throwing stones for as the great writer Aaron Sorkin notes in his TV show The Newsroom, ‘Hell hath no fury like the second rate’.

‘till next time

I’ll leave you with an except from Monty Python’s Life of Brian

BRIAN: No. No, please! Please! Please listen. I’ve got one or two things to say.

FOLLOWERS: Tell us. Tell us both of them.

BRIAN: Look. You’ve got it all wrong. You don’t need to follow me. You don’t need to follow anybody! You’ve got to think for yourselves. You’re all individuals!

FOLLOWERS: Yes, we’re all individuals!

BRIAN: You’re all different!

FOLLOWERS: Yes, we are all different!

DENNIS: I’m not.

ARTHUR: Shhhh.

FOLLOWERS: Shh. Shhhh. Shhh.

BRIAN: You’ve all got to work it out for yourselves!

FOLLOWERS: Yes! We’ve got to work it out for ourselves!

BRIAN: Exactly!

FOLLOWERS: Tell us more!