I am so beyond blackpilled I feel like I've transcended into a completely different mindset. I will occasionally prod my friends and family with ideas, but they are so locked into the status quo I don't really bother. It is also increasingly hard to relate to people because I essentially consume no pop culture.
I don't know what exactly will come next. However, I believe that a spiritual revival and a rediscovery of value is not only necessary but inevitable, for me and the society at large.
Funny that, I've been seriously mulling over rejoining the church because of everything that's happened these past couple years. Not in a devout way mind you, more for the community, values and structure that it tends to bring. Trouble is most of the Protestant denominations around here are hitched to the woke wagon.
I cannot in good faith call myself Christian. I admire the devout, but I also have found every church I've attended insufferably woke.
Instead, I've turned towards exploring spirituality on my own. Reading the older texts, including the bible and the analects. It's been challenging since of course, these texts require traditional interpretation, however much of the tradition has been corrupted.
I've also found creativity to be an avenue of spiritual exploration. Artistic creation is constrained by aesthetics and is therefore a means to discover the nature of reality. I think this is a very good balance to books which tend to be measured against pure reason which can just as easily lead to insanity.
To start with, the sense of beauty is a natural thing we are born with. It's hard to say why, but there seems to be an innate association between goodness, health and beauty. When you go up to the mountains and just see nature in all its glory, or watch a sunset across the sea there is a sense of wonder. Add a cabin to the mountains, or a lone boat on the horizon, and that sense of wonder may even be enhanced. You might ask who is there, that appreciates nature so much that they can't watch it from far away, but need to be surrounded. Replace all the trees with apartments and fill the horizon with freight ships, is that wonder preserved?
Now, the interesting thing is that ideas can be beautiful. There is an aesthetic to mathematics, simple and symmetrical ideas are often the truest. There is an aesthetic to programming, which is the tool I use. Elegant algorithms can often solve problems with less code and fewer potential errors. In philosophy too, there can be beautiful ideas. There's a beauty in a phrases such as "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or "from each according to his ability to each according to his need". Two morally opposite phrases both share this quality of beauty. Now, it becomes apparent that beauty and good have a dubious relationship. Why is that?
I'm speculating here, but I think that the difference is the relationship with reality. It is the act of constraining our creations, forcing them to conform to something, whether it's our sense of aesthetic or mathematical axioms, that imbues the beautiful with the good. Therefore, the good artist lets external beauty be a guide to his thinking. The bad artist tries to impose his internal reason on the outside world.
This interplay between beauty, goodness, and the mind and hand of a creator forms the basis of some kind of spirituality.
I am so beyond blackpilled I feel like I've transcended into a completely different mindset. I will occasionally prod my friends and family with ideas, but they are so locked into the status quo I don't really bother. It is also increasingly hard to relate to people because I essentially consume no pop culture.
I don't know what exactly will come next. However, I believe that a spiritual revival and a rediscovery of value is not only necessary but inevitable, for me and the society at large.
Funny that, I've been seriously mulling over rejoining the church because of everything that's happened these past couple years. Not in a devout way mind you, more for the community, values and structure that it tends to bring. Trouble is most of the Protestant denominations around here are hitched to the woke wagon.
I cannot in good faith call myself Christian. I admire the devout, but I also have found every church I've attended insufferably woke.
Instead, I've turned towards exploring spirituality on my own. Reading the older texts, including the bible and the analects. It's been challenging since of course, these texts require traditional interpretation, however much of the tradition has been corrupted.
I've also found creativity to be an avenue of spiritual exploration. Artistic creation is constrained by aesthetics and is therefore a means to discover the nature of reality. I think this is a very good balance to books which tend to be measured against pure reason which can just as easily lead to insanity.
If you don't mind, could you expand on your last point there?
To start with, the sense of beauty is a natural thing we are born with. It's hard to say why, but there seems to be an innate association between goodness, health and beauty. When you go up to the mountains and just see nature in all its glory, or watch a sunset across the sea there is a sense of wonder. Add a cabin to the mountains, or a lone boat on the horizon, and that sense of wonder may even be enhanced. You might ask who is there, that appreciates nature so much that they can't watch it from far away, but need to be surrounded. Replace all the trees with apartments and fill the horizon with freight ships, is that wonder preserved?
Now, the interesting thing is that ideas can be beautiful. There is an aesthetic to mathematics, simple and symmetrical ideas are often the truest. There is an aesthetic to programming, which is the tool I use. Elegant algorithms can often solve problems with less code and fewer potential errors. In philosophy too, there can be beautiful ideas. There's a beauty in a phrases such as "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or "from each according to his ability to each according to his need". Two morally opposite phrases both share this quality of beauty. Now, it becomes apparent that beauty and good have a dubious relationship. Why is that?
I'm speculating here, but I think that the difference is the relationship with reality. It is the act of constraining our creations, forcing them to conform to something, whether it's our sense of aesthetic or mathematical axioms, that imbues the beautiful with the good. Therefore, the good artist lets external beauty be a guide to his thinking. The bad artist tries to impose his internal reason on the outside world.
This interplay between beauty, goodness, and the mind and hand of a creator forms the basis of some kind of spirituality.