7. LOVE: The Worries associated with Romantic Love

In order to execute this thought-process, I posited myself as a normal male specimen in this current social atmosphere. I also operated from the standpoint of pure reactionary instincts. And this honest thought-process allowed for interesting insight.

I asked myself: What do I worry about when I think of a romantic experience?

Firstly, I worry about the absence of a partner and experience. Dominant recurrent word-ideas were "fairness" and "what is then wrong?"

Now let's analyze its roots. These were a result of social-conditioning about what constituted a "full" and "good" life. Also, when I worry about the "fairness" of pairings, I am inadvertently thinking from the view of a partner as a "Status symbol" as an external measure of my "worth" and "prowess" in the acquisition of a "valuable" female specimen.

Next, I worry about security. Dominant recurrent word-ideas which resulted were "indignation", "shame", "hurt" and "betrayal".

Onto the analysis of its roots and social conditioning reins its subversive head again. "Shame" and "betrayal" result from the devaluation of myself by an act of two-timing by my partner. As a male specimen, I am supposed to be in charge of the situation and not to be taken advantage of.

"Hurt" stems from the broken clause of the dating social contract of exclusivity. This then stems from the need/ want to be loved exclusively.

So it is obvious that the more that I investigate, I find that on the core reactionary level, I am not a free-willing individual after all. This is why after-thought and the ability to see past social constructs is so invaluable in order to determine what one truly wants.

Moving on, I also worry about the incessant need for the "thrill of the hunt". And I realise that this stems from this is an exercise in validation or re-validation of the ego. This then stems from insecurity.

When my eyes wander, I am also suffering from the effects of social and mental conditioning of women as sex-objects.

Perhaps I am also contemplating other possibilities. This has its roots in a dis-satisfaction with my current situation with a "could-be-better" mentality. And I understand that this want for a "better situation" is conditioned as all wants are.

Lastly, I asked myself. From my current understanding of truths, WHY DO I WANT TO LOVE?

And instinctively, these ideas presented themselves to me and I am happy with them as they have shown me that my suspicions that philosophy is making me a happier and self-knowing person has been validated.

I want to love as I want to grow through loving. I want to laugh. I want to cry. I want to feel.

I want to make someone else happy. I want to make her also realise the true meaning and beauty of and behind love.

Moral-Realist Conception of "Karmic Seeds"

Now, to digress from my investigation of Love for a bit.

How does the idea of "Karmic Seeds" figure into my moral-realist theory of "Moral Man"?

Now, I understand that "What comes around MAY NOT/ DOES NOT go around." So from my moral-realist perspective, what is to prevent us from doing wrong and more importantly, what is the impetus for us to do good?

Our actions, irregardless of the potentiality of consequential payback, do have very real consequences. Either upon ourselves or the object of which we have enacted our will and actions upon.

Now, even if we remove the realm of consequential and reactionary action by external agents, our actions affect ourselves at the end of the day. And this is a very real effect.

Why, you ask? This is because we will associate mental perceptions and expectations with particular action patterns incorrectly and as this repeats itself, it will be reinforced over time.

As a result, this is equivalent to self-blindfolding and this impedes our ability to reach the understanding of Moral Man.

Tanabe Hajime and Nishitani Keiji

Tanabe Hajime

Religion and philosophy as sympathetic contact

Religion as a function of self-awareness

Their ability to enhance awareness of Existenz, love and praxis

Self seeking to appropriate in awareness the truth of the historical religions that occupied him

Existenz represents an awakening to the element of human finiteness

Love affirms the self in its freedom to be other than it is

Praxis represents the enlightened action of the self that has let go of itself and begun to realize its potential.

Final negation- one “lets go” and thus happens a affirmation of a new life

Rethinks love in terms of death

Clearest “representative of our exposure to contingency”

Otherwise the fact of impermanency ends in mere nihility.

Helps us focus on the business of life.

Conversion has to be “practical” as a “frustration in breakthrough” and of confrontation with one’s limits.

The focus has to shift from God as a subject who reigns supreme over the realm of being to a self-emptying divinity who is manifest only in the self-negating act of love.

A God who is love is an existence that forever reduces itself to nothing and totally gives itself to the other.

Self-emptying is God’s activity ion the world of being. God’s only reality is the continued “negation and transformation”

Nishitani Keiji

The Great Doubt, in which one lets go of even the thinking ego to become the doubt

Standpoint better expresses the Buddhist ideal of a “middle way”…sees the world as objectively real and the rejection of it as subjective and illusory. One can see both ideas as two sides of the same reality.

A “foothold” from which to see more clearly

All other consciousness is caught in the fictional darkness of ignorance

While it appears “higher” it is in fact the most immediate and down-to-earth form of experience

Noesis noeseos, the knowledge in which knowledge is self-conscious of knowing, as the completion of becoming in absolute being

Self grasps the world through self-possessed faculties and naturally comes to see itself as the center of the world

Knowing of an ego which knows it to be different from them

Cosmo centric view in that faculties of mind are seen as applying to all things that live. Mind becomes a universal and the human mind only one instance of it

Critique of ego-consciousness (Satre) at the heart of humanism, in which it sees in that an image of humanity, as the source of meaning because it is the one thing that protects the individual from becoming an object among other objects in the world, greatest disvalue that can be done to the human

Keiji argues that this is no less demeaning of the true self because it ends up putting the self on the same substantialised ground as the objects it apparently lords over and closes itself off to its true nature

Freeing of oneself…a freedom from all means a freedom to all

Remove the substantial ego and contradiction disappears with it

True and direct communication between two human individuals, but without anything being communicated..each in knowing himself essentially knows the other…

Moral vacuum….fundamental relativism of values

Only a sense of responsibility that issues naturally from a deep awareness of the utter contingency of life and openness of the future is the proper foundation for human action
Reason for personalizing god is to paint over the nihility at the core of human existence with an image of harmony between the world and human existence

The world is pushed to the periphery and the special qualities of human existence are put at the center

Important goal is to reestablish the image of god as a lover who is “impersonal” in the noblest sense of the term- God beyond God

Recovery of the mystical search for God by letting go of God

Exclusion of other faiths passes itself as a certitude of faith offends the very heart of religion itself

Perception In Indian Philosophy

The early Upanishads explained it in terms of the self as
an Inner Light which shines outward and illuminates the objective world.

The realism of the Nyaya school on the other hand explained it in terms of immediate sensory apprehensions. They are not bound up with language.

Error in perception then occurs as a defect in the sense-organ because only partial apprehension of the object has occurred because one mistakenly identifies an object based upon associations remembered from previous experiences.

Clearly, the Nyaya school is based upon empirical evidence and continued experimentation.


The Buddhist conception speaks of sense-perception which does not involve conceptualisation and is immediate and non-conceptual. What we apprehend with our sense in its unmediated giveness is the particular instant that characterises what is really there.

The picture of reality, that we construct as unenlightened beings is the product of our "pure sensations"/ "pure experience" with linguistic forms and results in a mis apprehension.

Each person's apprehension of reality is also conditioned by our karmic baggage.

So the Buddhist conception of perception and experience is unlike the Kantian one (in which the a priori categories are unbreachable conditions of human experience) whereby one can transcend the cognitive limitations and attain the immediacy f a direct-cognition of Brahman.

The Yogacara school of Buddhist thought went on to posit hat all knowledge-events are fundamentally mental in nature. One does not require the postulation of external objects as the cause of our perceptions to make sense of the world- all that one experiences in perception are the images or mental-representations of objects. In this sense, it contrasts very strongly with the direct realism of Brahmanical school and some argue even repudiates the existence of an external world.

More likely the Yogacara school with its emphasis upon the transformation of consciousness does not thereby involve the postulation of external objects in order to explain our experiences.

5. Love: A Dream About Spontaneous Neutral Romantic Love

I had a very enlightening dream yesterday night. I think that its occurrence was highly due to the fact that I was talking and thinking a lot about spontaneous neutral action in Romantic love the day before.



Ok, before I go about the description and analysis of this dream. You must understand that your reading of this post must be abstract and mature. This is a thought process. Not a stance or reflection of myself as a person. So please approach this from a mature analytical and philosophical position, I stress.

In my dream, I was in a camp situation and there was this girl who caught my eye and vice-versa. I was showering in a uni-sex toilet. Do not ask me why but the floor of the shower cubical was slanted higher towards the door. So I was soaping up close to the door when I realized that she was in the toilet too. And she was stark naked at this point and smiling at me. She knew very well that I was aware of her nakedness but she did not seem bothered in the slightest. At this point of time, I felt compelled to talk to her and so I initiated and we made small talk.

Then she was sitting on the small patch of green behind the toilet, staring out at a field from behind the fence. So I joined her. There we sat in silence lest for smiles at each other.

At a moment, I asked her, "Can I kiss you?" She replied, "Can I?" We both laughed and continued staring out at the field but never did kiss.

Very wierd, spontaneous, neutral and yet warm. Before you dismiss this as lewd and pornographic and mentally prosecute me, read on.



Now let's analyse it.

The fact that we were both naked has a philosophical and psychological meaning. We were as we are. As Nishitani Keiji argues, "Remove the substantial ego and contradiction disappears with it. True and direct communication between two human individuals, but without anything being communicated..each in knowing himself essentially knows the other." With no emotional posturing, no hidden agenda, we were "free from guises" as it is.

We were sexually attracted and knew it, recognized it and were honest about it. Once we were honest about this, it ceased to be a taboo pleasure. In our mutual nakedness, we re-subjectivised and rehumanised ourselves away from mere sex objects for each other.

Mere companionship and the presence of the other was then the main concern and it allowed for pure and simple delight.

The whole "meaningless-ness" of the situation and conversation then made the mundane special. It made the otherwise socially-recognized and upheld norms such as "propriety" and "gender roles" all melt into the background and exposed the beauty of pure and simple human connection.

The actions of this girl was pure "free agency" in motion. She bridged the moment by positing herself as an agent. Only then did I move past my "ego" and inhibitions as a person and connected with her from the position of a subject-object standpoint.

The last point about the kiss may leave you perturbed. What is the beauty behind a missed kiss, you may ask? It is not the kiss that is important, it is the meaning behind it which is of importance. Thus we did "kiss" and affirm our affection for each other, albeit not physically because emotive human connection is boundless and extends beyond pure physical action.

Buddhist Philosophy

New snippets that I have "captured" from the book.

Two extremes to be avoided: life of pleasure and life of self-torture

Rejection of the idea that there is an underlying identity or essential self passing from one lifetime to another

We do occasionally experience a state of happiness but they never last

Everything is impermanent and this prevents permanent contentment

Sentient beings are subject to an incessant cycle of rebirths, there is a way out and this is the attainment of liberation (moksa)

Does not accept reincarnation though it does postulate a continuous series of rebirths so long as ignorance and selfish desires perpetuate the cycle

Swinging a torch around at a rapid rate creates an illusion of a circle of light

Sentient existence is like a flowing river, ongoing process of changing evens and not a fixed or static state of being

Five bundles of fire sticks to illustrate what is going on as we experience something

All five sticks are alight with lust and desire. Although there is no abiding-self, we cannot deny the reality of our experience.

Five fire sticks are:
Material form- the material giveness of experience
Sensation- the initial sensory apprehension of forms
Cognition- the determinate classification of experience
Disposition- the volitional response that colours experience
Consciousness- awareness of the six sensory ranges

The five bundles are then continually undergoing transformation and do not constitute a persisting or abiding self of any kind.

All five bundles are inter-connected and mutually condition each other.

There is however, causal continuity between past, present and future. And throughout our mental and physical lives.

Sautranitika philosophy – karmic seeds are produced by actions and exist within specific streams of consciousness that bear fruit at a later time.

Sentient experience is a continuity of transformations of consciousness caused by the fruition of the seeds of previous actions.

Indian Mahayana school: Yogacara school, increasing emphasis upon skills-in-means as a salvation of beings

Six types of consciousness-event, arise as a result of the contact of the six sense-organs

Coordinated by a seventh- centralizing and organizing faculty of the mind. Processes all sensory data and creates a coherent picture of reality

Unless one has attained enlightenment, the mind is afflicted with defilements and constructs a false picture of reality, conditioned by individual procliviuties, attachments and karmic seeds.

Unenlightened beings construct a false picture as consisting of enduring subjects and objects which they superimpose onto their experiences

Inherent tendency to reify experience

Yogacara path is an exercise in phenomenological reductionism by relinquishing the language of subject and object one apprehends the bare awareness itself, devoid of the baggage of conceptual thought. Involves giving up deeply ingrained distinctions

Indian Materialism

Here are the main points that I picked up recently in my venture with Indian Philosophy.

Idea that Indian thought is essentially theological is misleading

Cravakas: “eating up” all that is given in perception



Accepted only sense-perception as an independent means of knowledge

Rigorous empirical “seeing is believing”

We have only one life, there is no after-life.

So we should “live for the moment”

A philosophy of pleasure-seeking (kama) as the primary goal of life and an emphasis upon happiness (sukha)

But the carvakas took moral stances such as non-violence (ahimsa)

Not an unsophisticated or unreflective hedonism.

Since kana was the universal goal for all, this meant promoting a lifestyle based upon the avoidance of suffering for oneself and for others.

They also rejected the status of the Vedas as revelation and the authority of Brahmanical priests.

They also rejected the validity of inferential reasoning.

This stance relected anxieties about the ways I which logical inferences could be applied to justify belief in the existence of various metaphysical entities that draw our attention away from the here and now.

There is no spiritual realm, no spiritual self. The self is identical to the material body and dies when the body ceases to function as a living organism.

Our consciousness then is merely a very sophisticated by-product or function of complex material formations.

From my previous post "What is the SOUL?": So far I have only been analysing the idea of the SOUL from a very physio-psychological view point. More importantly, do I believe in the SOUL as an entity that is seperate from our physical body. I will be back later to write about this. I have to consider more about this.



So now I have come across one viewpoint and I will put in the Brahmanical and Buddhist conception of the soul in a while. So it seems that I have come back to this topic afterall, albeit unknowingly. So many thoughts swirling, so many books, so many ideas, so little time.

4. Love: True Love transcends the Romantic?

Now we are at the being able to love from the standpoint of "I-in-not-I" in a situation of romantic love.

I have to ask myself: What is the advantage of such a level of Romantic Love? And I arrived at a "BooBoo". This is how it went.

Firstly, I thought of the possible advantages that a "I-in-not-I" standpoint would bring into a situation of romantic love.

It would enable a deeper and more meaningful relationship. Without the need for emotional guarding and leveraging and spontaneous honesty, the partners would be able to invest themselves more and hence build more.

Security? It seemed quite natural that a greater sense of security would result from a understanding of the fragility of the
"here and now". Then I asked myself: Why do we even need security?

I realised that security was first and foremost in many's minds because it arises out a natural desire for self-preservation. We want to prevent ourselves from experiencing harm and hurt.

Security firstly would indicate an incomplete understanding of the "I-in-not-I" position. Security is a condition that we wish to possess so that we can hold on to the desired and is not accepting of the true fluidity and fragility of all experience and phenomenon.

Secondly, security also indicates an ego-centric selfish need for a reciprocity of affections and love. If we had truly understood the "I-in-not-I" position and was loving from this standpoint, then Love would be a self-emptying phenomenon and would be unconditional in nature.

Security as a condition of "Good Love" then ironically negates and makes impossible "True Love", which is unconditional in nature.

Since "True Love" is unconditional and self-emptying, it transcends and extends beyond any limits. Why then would our partners receive special attention? What could explain why they are accorded such a special status and position when rightfully True Love extends to all?

This is the big "Boo Boo" that I had run into. And somehow I do not believe that "True Love" negates Romantic Love and renders it as illogical and undeserving of being cherished as an experience which is a good in and-of-itself.

Maybe Romantic Love then is a bridge if you may which plays the role of a Free Agent which allows us to step closer towards True Love and away from Egocentric Love. It gives us a safe realm within which to practice the ideals of True Love with a partner who would reciprocate actions of self-emptying love with a greater degree of certainty.

I will ponder more and be back to write more about this. :)

3. Love: Best of Both Worlds

So I am trying to construct a level whereby we can love from the Best of Both Worlds.

To love from a position of "I-in-not-I" and yet experience "Hypersentivity".

But then I realised that the only way to make this possible is to reconstitute "Hypersensitivity" since this is born out of an inability to handle the subject-oject dialectism so this would only serve to negate the first level.

What then will take the place of "Hypersensitivity"?

"Hyper-consciousness" will take the place! And this is highly in line with the apprehension of the subject-object dialectism of reality.

Why so? Allow me to explain: with an understanding of the subject-object dialectism, this posits us in a state of "Hyper-consciousness" and in turn we will recognise the fragility and finitude of all our actions (romantic relationships included)


The inescapable finitude of romantic relationship arises because even if both parties understood how to overcome the subject-object dialectism as individualsm they would still be bounded/ enacted upon by an object (individually or as a couple-unit collectively).

Sounds pretty bleak? Ah, there is where the weak-willed give up. In fact, it is in the presence of such finitude that true selfless love can occur.

Hence, we will overcome "Vulnerability" when "the absence of Romantic relationship" is understood as a condition that gives meaning and gravity to the presence of "Romantic relationship".

This will in turn inform reciprocal appreciation and result in honest and valued actions. There will be then be no need for emotional games and leveraging.

Another positive aspect to be born out of this is Spontaneity of action since in light of finitude, we would "love like everyday was our last" and "as if we have loved once and wrong before."

If we ever think that this is of a purely unrealistic level, Nishitani Keiji reminds us while it appears “higher”, it is in fact the most immediate and down-to-earth form of experience.

2. LOVE: Romantic Love

After I had done a little investigation into "Puppy Love", I considered "Romantic Love" in yet another invigilation session.

I understand it as "Love" between mature-aged individuals who have had prior romantic experiences before. Once again, this is for conceptual and working simplicity.

Love, I find, takes on a greater tinge of selfishness once we hit a more mature age and look upon our partner to be able to fulfill some basic requirements.

Then what is the End goal of being involved in a romantic relationship, I ask? Since this informs the requirements that we have of our partners.

For many, it would be marriage. For some, it would be fun. For others, it would be to achieve a sense of self-worth. All of these end-goals do not sound overtly selfish in a sense. That was what I felt initially as well, until I applied myself more.

Then I realize a very crucial question, "Would we love if we do not receive?"

When we demand something/ require something of our partners, we basically objectify our partners. They become not a subject who possesses a unique will but an object that is the medium to which we receive certain requirements. They become an object, something which you enact your will upon.

This comes from a very ego-centric standpoint, as a subject (with prior judgment, motivations and bias), whereby you enact your will to acquire love as an object from your partner as an object.

So love becomes objectified as well. When in essence, it is meant to be a reciprocal and spontaneous set of neutral actions between people.

Love, when properly understood, is in itself selfless and self-emptying by nature.

It was then that I realized that the only pure form of love was selfless love. And that romantic love as many people experience it has a long way to go.

How then do we achieve purer love within the earthly constraints of romantic love?

The very first most contingent realization that we must come to is that we should not achieve a sense of self-worth and security through romantic love.

The full comprehension of ourselves as subject is the healthiest experimentation that we can give ourselves. And this must go through self-discovery and self-consciousness. Only from the basic position of a self-confident subject can we hope to overcome the subject-object dialectism of the world and all its encompassing experiences.

When we remain in a position as a diminished subject who has to survive by relying on a partner as an object to fill in the part of our missing subjectivity, then we are not truly loving our partner as a subject but rather as an object/ tool. And secondly, we are blocking our progression to become more fuller entities.

Acceptance of our partners as subjects also means that we should not enact our wills upon them to the extent that we diminish their wills and in the worst case situations, we render them into objects again.

What about the changing of our partners' bad habits? If these habits are self-hurting in nature then it would exist as an irrational act of will. Thus coupled with the motivational point of your desired will to correct the particular self-hurting will as a "Free-agent", it would make justifiable sense to aid in the elimination of such bad habits.

But this only exists justifiable to a extent. We as subjects should avoid enacting our wills up to the point that it does not diminish our partner's will.

Thus ultimately, acceptance of our partners as subjects exists at the purest/highest level of reciprocal action/acceptance and neutral judgement. With acceptance then comes appreciation and with appreciation of our partners as subject with unique wills, we in turn learn more about the subject-object dialectism and appreciate our finitude better as a subject.

So far, we have "self-confidence", "acceptance" and "appreciation" which all work in combination to a better understanding and overcoming of the subject-object dialectism and towards selfless love.

Now I am ready to move onto an investigation on my desired position.

How do we love with the "Hypersensitivity" of "Puppy Love" but from the position of "I-in-not-I"?

1. Love: My investigation into "Puppy Love"

Ah, the "Roller-Coaster Ride" of "Puppy Love"...

Being in a profession where I am in constant contact with and proximity of young couples, I often look at them and think back about the "Puppy Love" experiences of my peers and myself.

And we often sigh and marvel at the intensity of experience. So what is it that makes "Puppy Love" such a strong experience?

So whilst I was invigilating, I applied myself again.

I understand "Puppy Love" as the first romantic experience that an individual encounters. Though the contingent variable here is the romantic experience of the individual, the age technically does not factor into the equation. Of course in reality, the age of the individual does play an important factor. This will be extrapolated further upon later. So for working and conceptual simiplicity, I understand an individual who is experiencing "Puppy Love" to be of an adolescent age group and also the romantic experience should be his/her first.

Firstly, I can describe the experience of being in "Puppy Love" as one of "Hypersensitivity". There is a magnificaton of emotions and this is predominantly informed and influenced by the high level of "suffering" involved in the experience.

This high level of "suffering" is in turn caused by "hyper-Confusion" and "hyper-Vulnerability". I will explain more about this later when I explore the subject-object dialectism that young lovers encounter.

Returing to the idea of high levels of "suffering", this in turn leads to corresponding high levels of "pleasure" as the "negation of suffeirng". Thus the "pleasure" that young lovers experience is in correspondence to the
"suffering" that they have to endure.

Now, I am going to apply the Kyoto school's theory of "Subject- Object Dialectism" to analyse the phenomenon.

Firstly, young lovers have little or no comprehension of themselves as objects. They hence do not see/ understand the influence upon themselves by "history". (Here, "History" is understood as the sum total of Mankind's understanding of "love" and "romantic relationships")

Since they do not understand the external influences of "history" upon them as objects, they cannot resist such influences and clearly delineate what is it that they want of a romantic relationship and what it is that "history" has informed them to "want". Thus "hyper-Confusion" ensues.

Yet, as a Subject, young lovers also experience difficulties. They are still in a stage of self-discovery thus they are not true masters of the enactment of thier wills. Also, due to thier age, they may be in underpriviliged positions in society to be enact certain wills. They are bounded then. This leads them to feel "hyper-Vulnerability" and as if they are "Flotsam in a world of Greater Fate".

Hence, the subject-object dialectism confronts young lovers very harshly and they are unable to love and experience love from the standpoint of "I-in-not-I". Due to this, they experience "hyper-Confusion" and "hyper-Vulnerability" and due to a combination of these two factors, they experience "hyper-Sensivity" and hence the Roller-Coaster Ride of "Puppy Love".

1. What is the SOUL?

Now I should not waste my thoughts so I will include it as an entry. I posed myself this question while invigilating 2/6 one day.

I understand the soul as the realm between and of the mind and the body.

Our SOUL is the agent that is truly you that is operating from within a physical shell.

The SOUL is however, closer to the mind. It encompasses of our memory (if deficient, it must at least be functional to be able to remember of ourselves as an entity), thoughts, feelings and our mind's voice (self-awareness).

Our SOUL exists in a private realm within which we possess a private identity and undergo private experiences. This private realm is very important as it separates us on a level from the external world and allows a calm space in which we can exist as a entity with a rational WILL.

I think that the existence of our Soul is given a push with Language and thus our Mind's Voice. Language arms our Mind's Voice with conceptual tools to term our experience, to give it meaning (direct or laden).

Without Language, emotions and experiences would and may be stuck at basic feelings.

Thus from here, we can see that Language (semantics) plays an important role in our interpretation of emotions and experience and thus our idea of our SOUL as well.

How many times have we heard the expression, "An old SOUL"?

So far I have only been analysing the idea of the SOUL from a very physio-psychological view point. More importantly, do I believe in the SOUL as an entity that is seperate from our physical body. I will be back later to write about this. I have to consider more about this.

Schopenhauer: On the Suffering of the World

Unless suffering is the direct and immediate object of life, our existence must entirely fail of its aim.

It is absurd to look upon the enormous amount of pain that abounds everywhere in the world, and originates in needs and necessities inseparable from life itself, as serving no purpose at all and the result of mere chance.

It is the good which is negative; in other words, happiness and satisfaction always imply some desire fulfilled, some state of pain brought to an end.

This explains the fact that we generally find pleasure to be not nearly so pleasant as we expected, and pain very much more painful.

Certain it is that work, worry, labor and trouble, form the lot of almost all men their whole life long. But if all wishes were fulfilled as soon as they arose, how would men occupy their lives?

every state of welfare, every feeling of satisfaction, is negative in its character; that is to say, it consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of existence

However varied the forms that human happiness and misery may take, leading a man to seek the one and shun the other, the material basis of it all is bodily pleasure or bodily pain.

man is not better off than the brute, except in so far as the higher possibilities of his nervous system make him more sensitive to every kind of pleasure, but also, it must be remembered, to every kind of pain.

In his powers of reflection, memory and foresight, man possesses, as it were, a machine for condensing and storing up his pleasures and his sorrows.

in order to increase his pleasures, man has intentionally added to the number and pressure of his needs, which in their original state were not much more difficult to satisfy than those of the brute.

Hence luxury in all its forms; delicate food, the use of tobacco and opium, spirituous liquors, fine clothes, and the thousand and one things than he considers necessary to his existence.

man has the pleasures of the mind as well.

Boredom is a form of suffering unknown to brutes, at any rate in their natural state

hope, in any real sense, is unknown to the brute. It is thus deprived of any share in that which gives us the most and best of our joys and pleasures, the mental anticipation of a happy future,

their quiet, placid enjoyment of the present moment.

In the same way, too, evil presses upon the brute only with its own intrinsic weight; whereas with us the fear of its coming often makes its burden ten times more grievous.

two things which make it impossible to believe that this world is the successful work of an all-wise, all-good, and, at the same time, all-powerful Being; firstly, the misery which abounds in it everywhere; and secondly, the obvious imperfection of its highest product, man, who is a burlesque of what he should be.

regulate your expectations accordingly, and cease to look upon all its disagreeable incidents, great and small, its sufferings, its worries, its misery, as anything unusual or irregular

we might well consider the proper form of address to be my fellow-sufferer, Socî malorum, compagnon de miseres!

This may perhaps sound strange, but it is in keeping with the facts; it puts others in a right light; and it reminds us of that which is after all the most necessary thing in life - the tolerance, patience, regard, and love of neighbor, of which everyone stands in need, and which, therefore, every man owes to his fellow.

Nishida Kitaro

I have never touched Japanese philosophy before. But I have always wanted to. So this was a very lucky and so far has been a very enlightening discovery.

And I know that I was halfway through "The Wretched of the Earth" but I will be back to that shortly.

Now Nishida Kitaro is one of the three leading philosophers of the Kyoto school, philosophers of Nothingness. How does this then relate to my theory of "Moral Man", you ask?

Well, I think I have found the mental key to enabling "Free agents" but of course I need to read more and think more. But this is what I have so far.....


"Reality is One, it has one single principal that makes it one. It is not a static unity but unfolds in Time.

The unity is refracted in a plurality of items that are transient and interrelated.

The cutting edge of the unity is human consciousness, or as fully conscious that a human can be.

It is to achieve a unity that mirrors the ultimate principle of reality and mirrors it from within the dynamic unfolding process itself.

His goal was to overstep the subject-object distinction built into our language of experience.

And talk of experience as pure and direct itself. It must be pure empiricum, without data or meaning of any kind.

It is then a strategy of rephrasing philosophical questions.

Pure experience would be of no prejudice, no judgment, no deliberation and no intention.

This contrasts itself with Knowledge since all knowledge requires an express distinction between the thing and one's own self.

"A "self-awareness" that the knower has transcended the subject-object world..the only way to confirm such an intuition was to achieve it oneself."

"The Wretched of the Earth"

Finally, I have found and bought this book.

Yum, Let me first start with Satre's powerful first two sentences in hi preface to this book.

"Not so long ago the earth numbered 2 billion inhabitants, i.e 500 million men and 1.5 billion "natives". The first possessed the Word, the others borrowed it."

Intellectual Orgasm. Nice.


I will do a summary on the main points that Fanon touches on in "On Violence":

1) the disparity between Universalist Humanist values and their actual implementation.

2) the muscular tension with which the Colonized wait to take the place of the Colonizer

3) force is no mere exercise of the will but has to depend on very real preliminary conditions. Force by the "weaker" colonized only and will succeed in this condition of the Cold War

4) Violence is invested with positive and formative features in the hands of the colonised and only by escalating it into the condition of a necessary evil will the colonised rehumanise themselves and gain their freedom