You saw it, I saw it. Reality, summarized.
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Either you are serving some ideal external to yourself, or you are serving your own baser interests.
You can call that external ideal God, Jesus, posterity, Humanity, the future, or whatever but that is really the binary choice that fundamentally determines a person's character and direction in life.
Children all start out serving themselves because they lack the capability to comprehend that anything could be greater than their immediate whims. If they are lucky they are surrounded by good examples of people who "grew up" to serve the external ideal and thus are able to do the same for themselves. Most people aren't that lucky.
Eat more cruciferous vegetables, and less whole grains. And never ever go full vegan.
Heath advice, for someone who seems lost at all times, during every moment of your day, no matter where you are. It doesn't matter where I drop this. You seem broken.
Bingo: The narrative that our "base" instincts are something terrible to be overcome appears to represent the world view where things created by man are superior to natural things, imagining that we ourselves are something outside of, and greater than, the natural world.
And the world view where our "base" instincts are all wonderful and should be pursued at all times is the world view of pure hedonism and savagery. Its the one that hippies, sluts, and niggers live in every day.
Controlling and channeling our instincts is what makes man man and not monkey, and allowed us to create everything great that we are.
This is exactly right. ACP's original post is wrong because it is about more than seeking higher cause, but he is right in recognizing the hedonist class. It is also important what you choose to look to and why. But the hedonists absolutely are failing the humanity test.
now that's a novel concept; finding a compromise between our base instincts and our higher selves. (for the record, I'm not being sarcastic.)
It makes sense on another level, because this country was founded on compromise. The Articles of Confederation were an unqualified failure, so the Continental Congress got to work, hammering out a new agreement, arguing and no doubt nearly coming to blows, but working out a compromise everybody could agree upon, even if reluctantly.
Hell, even the Declaration of Independence was signed when it became clear that the Crown was uninterested in hearing the Colonists out and instead demanded they be crushed under booted heel.
You are still in thrall to your public education indoctrination. The Articles of Confederation were not a failure. In fact, they worked perfectly to prevent federal power from encroaching on state sovereignty. The central power supporters didn't like that so that illegally wiped them out and started over. And I say illegally because the Articles had no provisions for legal dissolution.
It's the difference between our instincts which teach us how to live in the natural world and our ability to adapt to the artificial world which we have created. I'm convinced that "base" instincts get a bad rap largely because people tend to self-destruct if they can't find a way to adapt, but that really puts an onus on us to make sure the world we pursue is as unintrusive as possible, which leads me to have a very huge problem with the way some people are trying to alter every facet of human life through the use of technology.