Horse 3349 - Kakosynaisthima - Element VIII - Anger

I have heard it said that Anger is not actually an emotion but a response to what has happened. I reject this notion entirely as every emotion including anger can be played out some kind of response to what has happened; if this is true, then does this mean that all emotions are merely responses to what has happened? Of course not. It must therefore be a stupid notion. By way of demonstration, this paragraph is proof of the fact that rather than being a response, I have chosen to be angry at the statement and made a value judgement about it. Can you actually have a response to something which has not happened? 

Whilst it is true that emotions can be a response, the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos in an effort to bring the "yummy, yummy, yummy" closer and push the "not yummy" further away, has a massive amount of agency in the decision process to determine what those responses are. Furthermore, an emotion as a materiel of the human heart can be generated before an event has happened. Abstract notions of love and hate can be the result of circumstance but they can also be be the result of active decision. To that end, Anger operates like any other emotion and can very much be the result of an election. One can very much choose to be angry.

If fear is the mind killer and the anesthetic of bravery, because it quietens and deadens someone into inaction then anger is a kind of cardinal opposite. Anger is one of the twin flames which burns inside the human heart, which fires up a person into action; with the other being the flame of hope. Of themselves, flames are neither good nor bad, because the true measure of goodness or badness is fitness of products which result. 

The broadest telos of anger is that its job is to turn wants and desires, needs and wishes, into action which occasions work. Power is the ability to do work and anger as a deliberate choice, is a consequence of the exercise of some kind of power. Of all the elements of Kakosynaisthima, Anger appears to be the most active. Whereas boredom, pain, loneliness, poverty, longing, frustration and even fear all happen within an individual and are mostly confined within that individual, the results of anger are turned outward and the effects also tend to happen to other people.  Just like fire of itself is neither good nor bad, neither is anger. Just like fire can keep someone warm, do work by boiling water make steam trains work or spin electricity generators, or can burn a house down, anger has the power to do work and whether or not that work is useful, useless, constructive or destructive, is a matter of where that work is being directed. Also just like fire, anger tends to burn from the fuel of the other elements. 

Anger which burns from the fuel of boredom, tends to refine it into diligence. Boredom and its close relative ennui, tend to stand in the face of things that need to be done, and then not do it. Again the question of what kind of work comes into play, as an angry kind of boredom can result in random vandalism. The stereotypical bored and angry child or teenager who engages in graffiti, or minor property damage, or passive loitering with no purpose, are the most visible signs of an outworking of anger from boredom. Refined properly though and that anger invents legitimate projects, such as curiosity or the creation and invention of some arts. 

Anger which burns from the fuel of pain, tends to refine it into revenge. When pain causes injury, anger directed to eject the cause of that pain is the natural result. The problem here is that directing anger is not necessarily something which people are skilled at. The beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos in an effort to push the "not yummy" further away, thinks itself the hero of its own story. In burning the fuel laid down by pain, the beast often discards and burns any notion that what is doing is either just or unjust. When pain demands a salve to sooth it but the beast is either unaware or actively does not care about the consequences because it has convinced itself that it is righteous by its own standards, then the flame of anger is only likely to create more pain and continue to fuel the fire. It is really only when the object causing the pain has been removed that someone can move on.

Anger which burns from the fuel of loneliness, has no obvious ends by which the loneliness ends. One can attempt to fill the void by finding community and commonwealth other people, but if anger is the manufactured response then the more likely outcome is by trying to fill the void by filling with the the unlimited lusts and wants that the heart generates. Generally speaking, lusts and wants that the heart generates as demand drivers fall into an ungluttable market for which there is no end. What do we find at the centre of someone who has tried to satisfy every desire by all means necessary? We generally find someone who has discovered that they like everyone else are uniquely alone in the kosmos.

Anger which burns from the fuel of poverty, is met with only two genuine ends. Either the person works to change their circumstances or joins a collectively to collectively change the kosmos, or the the person works to change their circumstances by stealing from others; or the person learns to accept their conditions as being independent from their value as a person. Poverty exists as a direct result of the fact that the marketplace for the control of money and power always results in an exactly square ledger. All of the great pushes for democracy, the expansion of the franchise, the winning of civil rights, and the blessings of a welfare state which actually apportions the rewards of the economy to a greater number of people than merely a select few, has always been the result of anger which has resulted in the collective change the kosmos. Anger because we wish to secure some kind of basic dignity or equality in some way, is more often than not, justified. 

Anger which burns from the fuel of longing, can refine it into envy. Envy as the refined product takes the basic desire to fulfil various needs and wants, and boils it beyond the point of frenzy. At the most extreme point, it turns what once was longing into envy and then turns the flame outwards to scorch others and take the objects of those needs and wants, maybe by any means necessary. Envy and its driver of covetousness, is simply expressed as the statement that if you have something that I want, then I will either take what you have or I will invent designs so that you can not have it. On the other hand Anger which burns from the fuel of longing, can refine it into the building of commonwealth and community. 

Anger which burns from the fuel of frustration, is possibly the most productive of the lot. Frustration which suggests that someone can not do something, which is then burned in the flames of anger either creates a work of success caused through directed effort, or failure which results in someone coming to the sometimes awful realisation that they have found yet another limit to their powers in the kosmos. The beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos upon burning the fuel of frustration in anger and the failing at what it wanted to do must either find the will within to try again or come face to face with the fact that a being limited in space and time and power is in fact limited in space and time and power.

Anger which burns from the fuel of fear, generally tends to have no objective attached beyond getting rid of the source of fear. Fear is the notion that a thing, circumstance, or person, has the power to harm, damage, or even kill you. Fear itself as a dumb indicator that a thing might go wrong, is not particularly a good indicator of the wisdom which someone might need to take necessary actions to deal with the thing. Anger therefore, when directed at a thing wants to get rid of the thing, when directed at a circumstance wants to get rid of the circumstance, and when directed at a person wants to get rid of the person. The danger is that Anger fulled by fear, shortens the event horizon to the point of extreme myopia such that in wanting to get rid of the power to harm, damage, or even kill them, wants to deal back similar or a greater degree of harm, damage, or even death back at them. All too often we see someone who in a perceived state of fear, burn that fear into anger, and actively try to hurt the people that were close to them; all while claiming that they were always in the right.

Anger because we have been wronged in some way, may or may not be justified. Indeed that notion itself of what is just and what flows out of that into justice is instructive. Anger which results in a just outcome, means that the flame of action has burnt through the dross and refined the situation into a proper acceptable product. Anger which serves only to burn through everything and which destroys anything which might have been good, while it might achieve perfect peace through the destruction of all components, is unlikely to produce anything of real lasting value.

Anger because we have lost some kind of advantage in some way, may or may not be justified but is more often than not, not justified. Remember, the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos is interminably selfish and because it can see the world from not other standpoint, will invariably think that its cause is just. The problem with this is that the loss of some kind of advantage, is almost always because other people have had to fight tooth and nail for it. It must be said that one of the aims of power once secured, is to retain control of that power. Power of course is the ability to act, to force change, and to do work to bring about some desired outcome. 

Of course it must be said that if one can choose to be angry, then one can also choose not to be angry. Choosing not to be angry at something but accepting that a situation is difficult, or that other people are stupid, obnoxious, and daft, or to come to the ghastly revelation of looking at one's self in the mirror of reality and realising that we too can be stupid, obnoxious, and daft, is to realise that anger as a choice, is not necessarily productive. To reject anger as a choice, might require the manufacture and exercise of the harder virtues of patience, kindness, forgiveness, and peace making. Whether the object upon which someone's anger is fixated and which burns towards is a thing, circumstance, organisation, system, or person, then setting aside anger and choosing a different course of action might be a better thing to do. If one chooses to remain angry and yell at something or someone, then the chances of that thing ot person turning around and coming to wild agreement with you, are lower than any genuine attempt to try to reach reconciliation and restoration. The response to someone who is angry at you, is usually one of the other elements of Kakosynaisthima, such as anger, fear, frustration, or even loneliness or boredom.

Horse 3341 - Kakosynaisthima - Element VII - Fear

 Fear is the easiest thing in this list of elements of Kakosynaisthima to define, by virtue of it being the easiest to excite. Put simply, Fear is the emotional response to the fact that another entity has the power to cause harm, damage, or to kill you. In principle that is a perfectly rational thing to have because of course it is reasonable and rational to have a fear of the things that can kill you. Any examination what what people have a fear of will bear this out. A fear of heights, a fear of the water, a fear of certain beasts, a fear of god, a fear of other people, a fear of things in the environment, a fear of diseases - all of these things due to their power to do work, can and will kill you if the circumstances are right.

Herein lies the dual nature of fear and why it is both useful and can be utterly useless. Fear as the thing that heightens the senses, triggers the flee or fight response. That famous Shakespearean instruction "Exit, pursued by a bear" from The Winter's Tale sounds like a jolly good idea because the bear can and will kill you. However, Fear as the mind killer, fear the anesthetic of bravery, fear the turgid morass which is able to keep the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos stuck and still, is both a self-preservation device and a self-defeat device. While on one hand it is fit and proper to be afraid of the things which can cause harm to you or kill you, on the other to be stuck in a place of crippling inaction is awful. 

Personally, I can not swim and this has led to the fact that I have a probably unreasonably overactive fear of the water. This is arguably a good thing as it means that I do not really have much of a desire to go to the beach and swim in the ocean, nor to swimming pools and swim in them either. Fear in this case has acted as a self-preservation device and so far, I have not drowned. It could be argued that because I also miss out on the fun of going swimming that this is a but thing but in all honesty, I don't really care. Of course also speaking as someone who has been permanently injured as a result of being hit by a car, you would think that this would result in a fear of the road and yet it has not. Perhaps I am more careful than I was but given the fact that I was crossing the street at a pedestrian crossing and still got hit anyway, perhaps my fear of the street should be magnified more than it is; maybe it has not been magnified more than it is because my underlying set of assumptions are that the street is a rules based system which is reasonably predictable. 

As a self-preservation device, fear also has a strange way of making people do irrational and/or unethical things. As deeply selfish beings, humans often act in ways that are consequentially harmful to other people. If by way of seeking out the "yummy, yummy, yummy" they have found advantage by resorting to needing to lie, or cheat, or steal, and there is the possibility of someone else exposing the lying, cheating, or stealing, then fear often drives people to cover their tracks; which in turn may warrant more lying, cheating, or stealing.

Also as a self-preservation device, fear also has a strange way of making people do irrational things in order to escape the horridness perpetrated by other people. The elements of Kakosynaisthima can cause other to spring forward, but the fear of what others may do is a very strong cause of loneliness. Fear as self-preservation device demands that someone withdraw from the thing causing "not yummy" and when that withdrawal is to pull away from other people, then the population in the immediate is one. This is fear causing someone to withdraw and be alone, with the product of loneliness. Left unchecked, fear blossoms into anxiety; which is not only real but awful.

As with Pain, Fear is kind of like being equipped with a warning system but with all of the generality of an engine check light. In people are fearful, then they generally have the faculties to know what the cause of their fear is but not necessarily the ability to know what to do about it. In dealing with matters in the environment, people evacuating or getting out of the situation is usually the most sensible course of action. It stands to reason that if you are standing in a field with an angry bull, that you should probably run away and get out of the field. If on the other hand, the thing cause someone to be fearful is another person, then fear as a warning system might very well be utterly useless in informing someone what to do. 

When people find themselves being fearful of other people, the situation is one in which they are generally unable to escape from very easily. Someone who has to deal with a bully in school or a workplace, can not very well leave their school or workplace very easily. Of course in the most intimate of situations where you have someone who is fearful of someone else inside a family unit, either a parent or a spouse, then the suggestion by well-meaning people who can only observe from the outside to tell people to get out, while made with the best of intentions, could very well be utterly useless. When one is tied that closely to the cause of fear (where someone not only has the power to cause harm, damage, or to kill you, but actively threatens to do so), then leaving may in fact crystallise that fear and the cause becomes manifest. When a spouse fears that their partner might kill them, believe them. The fear is real and the possibility is close. It is not that simple to just leave. Fear which is the result of being treated badly to the point of harm and injury, especially at the hands of someone whom they should not have to fear at all, is awful and a terrible thing to have to go through.

If fear drives someone to make decisions which are unthinking and unfeeling, then the result is often damage to themselves and other people. Fear as the mind killer in control of the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos, makes people act irrationally and yet because they think that they are the heroes of their own universe, a mind driven by fear is even less convinced that it can do wrong. Fear as the mind killer in control of a now unthinking beast, wants people to build more walls to keep their personal fortress intact. Fear as the mind killer in control of a now unthinking beast, wants people to fire as many weapons in as many directions as they possibly can in all directions because in keeping everyone off at a distance, fear wants make sure that the person is not hurt.

Fear which drives a now irrational mind to blame other people for their misfortune unduly, while at the same time writing a safety myth that the person is the hero of their own universe, invariably leads to layers of support being made hotter and hotter before being blown off like a supernova. Yes, the person at the centre might very well gain a sense that they are right and just and good in their own eyes, but it means that support networks which have been blown away no longer operate; leaving the person in possible a worse state than they were before. Fear successfully builds more walls in the fortress of people's minds but at what cost? This would suggest that fear as a manufactured response to the things which you think might harm or damage you, might very well be a response without due cause. In this case fear acts as a warning system where the information is asymmetric to the correct response.

If you have a system with a general warning lamp letting you know that something, as yet unknown, is wrong, then it is common sense to take inventory and find out what has gone wrong. I of course use the term "common sense" advisedly as common sense turns out to be not so common when fear drives people to do things. As the telos of fear is to serve the purpose of acting as a warning, then defence against the things which cause fear, is either to face those things or to get out.

There is a reasonably large dearth of information to suggest that exposure to the things that cause fear, can help to quash or ameliorate those fears. There is also a degree to which the consequence of facing those fears, changes the perspective of one who is fearful, to the point where they very quickly develop the confidence to do the thing or to face the thing immediately. I have heard it said that courage is standing in the face of fear, and then doing it anyway. Of course there is also the distinct possibility that facing the cause of one's fears might only serve to perpetuate the problem. 

A fear of public speaking for instance, is mostly an imagined response to the prospect of looking silly in front of a lot of people. However, most people find that with a bit a of practice in front of the people. the actual experience does not match up with the supposed cause of their imagined fears. Similar experiences exist for other minor fears such as a fear of flying, or dogs, or the dark, or spiders, et cetera, where the actual harm is small. Exposure therapy for fears caused by bigger and more important fears, may not be so simple. Put bluntly, if a thing causes you to be fearful, then you can eliminate the fear by proving that the thing is not actually a just cause for the response, or by gradually desensitising yourself to the thing. Or you can get out.

Fear as the easiest thing in this list of elements of Kakosynaisthima to define, is also ridiculously obvious in its telos and can and does serve a useful purpose. If the general warning lamp of fear is blinking, then common sense also suggest that it might be an idea to get out. It stands to reason that if something or someone is causing distress or harm, then it makes sense to get as far away from them as possible. Life however is far more complex than so-called "common sense" might concede that it is. Sometimes people are in a situation where getting out is not as easy as other people telling them to do so make out that it is, because in such cases the the general warning lamp of fear is blinking for a very good reason. Remember, fear is the emotional response that an entity has the power to cause harm, damage, or to kill you. Particularly in situations which involve domestic violence, simply telling someone to get out when the other person is presumed to have the power to cause harm and damage, and might actually become sufficiently angry enough to act, then fear is working perfectly because it is rational to have a fear of the things that can kill you.

Horse 3338 - Kakosynaisthima - Element VI - Frustration

It can probably be said of all the things that we would consider to be lusts, that is things which people unduly love in raw gratification of the self, basically extend from two main telos; those are the elimination of pain and the maximisation of pleasure. It should surprise no-one that once again we stare hard at the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos which wants to make value judgements betweem what is "yummy, yummy, yummy" and what is "not yummy" and then yell longly and loudly when it does not get what it wants. Indeed the fulfillment of what the beast wants to an unlimited capacity, which is the basis of gluttony and greed, is nothing more than the beast going to unreasonable lengths to achieve the fulfilment of those wants

All of that is fine and we can acquiesce to reasonable limits being placed upon us, where the beast is chained and power restrained, but what happens if the things which we want are not unduly selfish and in some cases quite reasonable; yet we still can not have them? What then? People will acquiesce that undue desire in pursuit of raw gratification of the self is bad but by the same token, it is not of itself bad to have needs, desires, preferences, and wants. You are allowed to want things. Some of those things such as a want to be happy, or find fulfillment in work, or to achieve something, or to make the kosmos a better system, or to improve the lives of other people, or to fight for justice, equality, fairness, or even to love and be loved, are arguably the higher and better ends of life and may even hint at what the telos of life actually is. 

The kosmos however, is apathetic and agnostic to our existence. Perhaps one of the most brutal realisations that one can come to, and this especially comes into sharp focus when one is attending a gravesite memorial service, is that the kosmos is perfectly capable of carrying on when someone has departed.  It seems almost cruel that everyone else in the world, goes on exactly as they had before as though the person of whom your are attending the memorial service, matters not a jot. To them, that person does in fact matter not a jot. Likewise, the people attending the memorial service, matter not a jot to the rest of the kosmos. As limited beings who can only see the world from a single perspective, it sometimes seems utterly horrific that you, matter not a jot to the rest of the kosmos. Likewise, it immediately follows that the kosmos will also carry on completely perfectly after we too have departed this mortal coil and been and gone. 

That sense of utter apathy by the kosmos to us, is sometimes an immense source of angst and frustration. Perhaps one of the most obvious consequences of being a very small thing in complex kosmos which is mostly apathetic towards us, is that we have very little control over the kosmos at large. We have some degree of control of the space within the fortress of our minds and if we are granted responsibility and authority over circumstances and other people, we might have control over those too. However, for the vast vast vast bulk of the kosmos, we have very little control of very much. Even the richest trillionaires who control vast amounts of dollarpounds, or general in armies who control large numbers of soldiers and troops, or politicians who can control the shape of the law and the destiny of nations, all still can not control very much. Consequently, the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos knowing that it has very little control over very much, is often frustrated at what it can not do.

As far as the environment is concerned, we can not control whether it is hot or cold outside, we can not control whether it is sunny or cloudy, and we can not control whether it is windy or calm. We can control those things to some degree if we are inside but that still leaves things that we can not control. We can not for the most part control the automatic systems within our own bodies either. We can control a lot of gross and fine motor controls and yes, you can control your breathing and maybe the blinking of your eyeballs, but you can not control your digestion, or the internal movements of your bowel, or  even the beating of your heart to much of a degree.

Yet here we are, as the central character of our lives; being unable to control particularly a lot about them. We have agency and we can make decision about a lot of things but even then, so much of our lives are a total crapshoot. Some people are just lucky to be dealt with sixes and eights, and some poor people roll box-cars and snake eyes in the great dice roll of life. Depending on what your religious views of the kosmos are, this may or may not be the result of election by a supreme being but even if it is or is not, when life hands you horrid circumstances then people very quickly to cursing the skies, cursing god, cursing the kosmos, and trying to yell into the great apathy. For someone who is the main character in the narrative of their own lives, everything that they can not control, everyone that they can not control, everyone circumstance they can not control, can all become immense sources of frustration.

It does not help that one of the problems that we have with living inside of the prison and fortress our own minds is that we can not see into or know the minds of other people. This means that we can not fully understand the minds of other people or even the actions which they do. This also plays in concert with the fact that as we are living inside of the prison and fortress our own minds with only our own perspective, then we are by default the central and main character of our own lives and our own story. In trying to make sense of the kosmos, we construct narratives and stories which make logical sense to us. The problem in doing that is that as we are small beings with incomplete information, the narratives and stories and actions of other people might not make logical sense to us. There is massive amounts of space between what makes logical sense for us and the narratives and stories and actions of other people; which means that other people can appear stupid, obnoxious, and just plain daft to us. Quite often it is not the materiel of what has happened but the seemingly illogical actions of other people which is the source of our frustrations.

I think it was Jean-Paul Sartre who quipped that "Hell is other people". I do not claim that this is necessarily true but what is true is that other people are obviously playing with as much incomplete information as I am. Even then that's generous because deep down we all know that not only are other people stupid, obnoxious, and just plain daft, but they can on occasion be belligerent, cruel, irrational, cranky, mean, revengeful and above all selfish. The reason why we know this to be true is that we know first hand that we are exactly like them. However, it is one thing to find fault with other people but the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos point blank refuses to admit that it is the source of an equal amount of belligerence, cruelty, irrationality and selfishness, even though we know it to be true. What is worse is that when you have eight billions of people who are all selfish, that creates massive feedback loops everywhere. For example, the fact that just five people control more income than half the world's population or that the largest 200 corporations account for more than a quarter of all economic activity, are facts in the abstract which stem from that mass selfishness but when that is narrowed to a very micro view of the world, the effects of that mass selfishness are still noticeable.

Given that the kosmos is apathetic towards us, and that people are irrational, and sometimes mean, revengeful and above all selfish, then what are we to do? Frustration in response to both the kosmos and people not working (including ourselves), would indicate that there is at least some residual hope that the kosmos can be better. If the kosmos can actually not get better, then the two rational responses are despair in the face of it and/or acceptance, because refusal to accept reality seems like a losing game to me. If things can actually get better though, then the first and most obvious reponse to to ask that favourite question of small children - "why?" Sometimes children will ask this because they are genuinely curious about how the kosmos works and sometimes they ask the question out of boredom or because it is fun to get an annoyed rise out of people but that simple question if "why?" as people get older generally gets more desperate as people grow up and realise the sheer horror of being a small thing in a vast kosmos with very little power. Why don't people like me? Why does my boss hate me? Why doesn't that thing work properly? Why is the system broken? Why haven't they done what they said they would? Why is the kosmos so unpleasant? Asking questions about how the kosmos works via the process of science nurtures curiosity but being forces to ask questions about why the kosmos is apatheistic or agnostic or atelostic, is quite another.

Does frustration have any telos or serve any proper purpose? Maybe. Within the 1944 Jean-Paul Sartre play "Huis Clos" (No Exit), three people are trapped in one single dark room. They can not escape the physical space that they are in but worse, they can not the watchful gaze of each other. Is the room actually Hell? We never find out. What we do find out though, is that beyond being trapped by the space and each other's gaze, they are trapped by the judgments of their cellmates. Hence why "Hell is other people". Their response is that after they have got beyond passing judgment each other as objects (for it is objects that I everyone appears to other people), they end up confessing their sins to one another and fall into a bizarre love triangle. Perhaps even scarier of all, they learn to love themselves.

Maybe this is what frustration is actually for. Sure, you can try and hide yourself in a dark, lonely room so that you don't have to put up with other people and so that you don't have to put up with the kosmos at large, but you will never ever be able to run away from yourself. Sometimes things are just horrible. It is a reasonable to be frustrated when machines do not work and/or fail, or when systems do not work and/or fail, or when systems do not work and/or fail. Being frustrated when someone was mean or nasty, when the bus never arrived, when the computer crashed, when someone took the last of the coffee and didn't replace it, when you were standing outside and suddenly it rained down nine kinds of rain, or when your supplier said they'd deliver something on Thursday and they never did, or when your train just stopped and your were an hour late, et cetera et cetera etcera. It is a reasonable response to be frustrated and angry and cranky and sad and disappointed with the kosmos, with other people and with ourselves but that frustration at least indicates that hope still exists. 

Horse 3334 - Kakosynaisthima - Element V - Longing

Even deeper than the idea that the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos can reasonably easily make value judgements between what is "yummy, yummy, yummy" and what is "not yummy", is the notion that the idea that the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos actually needs things. The fact that there are things which are "yummy" and "not yummy" does not exist in a void but springs forth from the fact that humans are living and breathing creatures who would like to go on living and breathing most of the time. On top of this, the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos which makes value judgements, and processes needs and wants based upon "yummy, yummy, yummy" and what is "not yummy" and fashions them into more than just needs but into wants, preferences, desires, likes, dislikes, disgusts, revulsions et cetera et cetera et cetera.

Psychologists like Abraham Mazlow have tried to enquire into what people need at an atomic level and at their most elemental, those needs are found to be not broadly wider than air, food, shelter, clothing, protection and to love and be loved. Who would have guessed that relatively small living beings need the things which keep them alive and not dead. Seeing as we have come to the highest end of this, we can say that the job here is done.

Or is it?

The kosmos is notoriously awful at satisfying needs and wants and at matching resources to the fulfillment of those needs and wants. There are some mechanisms such as the abstract idea of the market which matches volumes and prices, or justice which matches torts and injuries to consequence, or karma which purports to match moral goodness or badness to some kind of wages and rewards; but we all know that the market fails, that justice fails, and that karma never really worked in the first place.

The difference between what people need and/or want and what the kosmos will assign them, boils down to a crude equation: Needs and Wants minus Allotment equals a Gap. Nature generally abhors a vacuum; so instead of leaving an individual with the gap, it leaves us all with a sense of Longing about the things that we do not have. In principle it is not bad to need things because the alternative to staying alive is not to be alive any more and the mere thought of that can be terrifying. In principle it is also not bad to want things because wanting things is the result of the beast making value judgements et cetera, to chase the "yummy, yummy, yummy". It is when that wanting is excessive and harms others and yourself that it is a problem.

As limited beings who live inside electro-mechanical meatbags, with some kind of unknowable operating system of soul/spirit/zoe (your conception of the kosmos will vary), and who operate in both limited space and linear time, we have expectations about how the kosmos operates. It is good to have expectations about how the kosmos operates because whether we like it or not, we had no choice about entering it and we need some set of base expectations in order to live inside of it. Those expectations come with all kinds of attachments in relation to how narrative should unfold. Part of the reason why stories work is that they unfold in the direction of narrative and match up with the way that our expectations about how the kosmos operates suggests that they should. We also live inside the narrative of our own lives; and of course with continuous reinforcement and observation of how other people live their lives, our expectations  are in turn shaped by those same inputs.

There is an entire question surrounding the whole notion of desire and the relative value and morality of wants. Some people have answered the question with the broad answer that because the human heart is selfish and evil, then everything it wants must also therefore be selfish and evil. While that sounds like it might be true, it fails upon testing when you consider that some of our wants spring forth from our needs. Is it evil to want to love and be loved? Is it evil to want to express the various forms of civic philos and be part of a broader community and commonwealth, or to want to express eros and be part of a very intimate partnership, or to want to express storge and be of service and helpful to others? Granted, the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos can reasonably made out to be nothing more than a brute but even the beast has needs and wants to know and be known and to validate and be validated. Indeed you have to take a very very cynical view of the world to reduce literally everything down to transactional elements based upon selfishness but even then when you do scrub everything down that very Randian view of the world, even the notion of evil itself disappears.

As we do live in a kosmos in which other electro-mechanical meatbags live lives which are broadly similar, the expectations which we form tend to trend towards some kind of central normality. If it is reasonable for other people to have a thing, then why isn't it reasonable for me to enjoy something similar. If 95% of all things lie within 2 standard deviations of some central normality, then the fact that we do not or can not enjoy a thing, means that we must be an abnormal edge case. Yes it is true that every single person is an individual but at the same time we all develop some innate sense that outliers from a central normality give rise to the possibility of some kind of defectiveness. As with loneliness which implies some state of defectiveness which people need to stay away from, an unfulfilled needs or want within ourselves, might imply some kind of defectiveness within ourselves. A sense of longing can be a kind of warning lamp that something inside ourselves needs to be corrected. The problem as with so many elements of Kakosynaisthima is that it can not be shared with anyone else, except as some broad collective project.

Here is both a paradox and a problem, everyone at some time does develop at least some sense of longing for things that are not, will be not, and/or must not be. If everyone does develop a sense of longing at some time, then it can not definitionally be an edge case which lies beyond two standard deviations of some central normality. Longing is very much a part of the central normality of being human, yet due to the fact that we are simply unable to share so very much about our experience with anyone else, that sense of defectiveness from cosmic loneliness is real.

It is quite true the idea that the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos is selfish but having both needs and wants which stem from more than purely selfish roots, means that a sense of Longing can't always be implicitly or actually evil. The wish that will never be fulfilled, or the desire which will never be satisfied, or the goal which through circumstances of time and space, all of which will never be achieved: can and do create a real sense of longing. Mere gluttony and avarice stem from the unchained beast's desire for more and more to an unreasonable degree, but a wish for something which is reasonable and still will never be met, is a different thing entirely.

Gluttony and greed extend from the fact that selfish people have an unlimited capacity to produce wants and then will sometimes for to unreasonable lengths to achieve the fulfilment of those wants. Longing in contrast, usually has to do more with wants that are not fulfilled at all and when those wants are fulfilled, the sense of longing disappears entirely. In some respects if gluttony and greed are the racking up of expenses within the human soul, then longing is like the issuance of some currency which is looking to retire a debt and square the ledger; and when it does so both the debt and the longing disappear.

Perhaps there is something to be said about the beast which shouts "I" at the heart wanting more and more and more, to the point of greed, gluttony and avarice. However, that beast can certainly be chained through the art of training, of will, and of practicing temperance (kind of). The idea that the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos has needs that can not or will not be met, or wants that can not or will not be met, must invariably cause a degree of anxiety and worry. A need that is not met, or a want that will never be fulfilled, especially if that need or want is reasonable, is a just cause for sadness.

On the other hand, what kind of comfort is there to someone going through a a sense of Longing about things that might or might not be. What do you say to the person who will never have a child? There may be circumstances which prevent it from happening, such as physical ability, or simply because life and destiny did not take them there. What about the person who never finds a significant other, through seemingly no fault of their own. What about the person who wanted to go to university, or wanted to go overseas, or simply wanted a place that they could call home? What about those people who had something which has been torn away from them by circumstance, disaster or war? What they want is a world that been and gone, and must not be again. Again we return to the fact that the kosmos does not have a very good distribution system, and it is often the actions of very very evil people which changes the fortunes of a great deal many other people for the worse.

Longing might very well drive someone to change their circumstances because of the flames which burn inside the human heart. If one hopes to change the kosmos such that the sense of longing a thing can be fulfilled, then that is mission accomplished. If one is angry that the kosmos is faulty and bad at satisfying those needs and wants, then that will also drive someone to take action. Of course, those flames can very much be extinguished because even electro-mechanical meatbags with some kind of unknowable operating system of soul/spirit/zoe must realise that there are things that will not or must not be. Then what? 

Strip away longing to see what lies underneath and what we find is a sense of hope, which has been hurt. People develop a sense of longing over what once was or what might be because they have needs and wants which they hope will be fulfilled. The refugee who has escaped awful circumstances has a sense of longing that they will be able to find a better life for both them and their children. The person who lives in a country which has been snapped in half due to war, or some kind of cultural separation, has a sense of longing that they will once again live in a country which is repaired. The person who is currently estranged from their family or friends due to some argument, conflict, dispute, distance, et cetera has a sense of longing that they will be able to reconcile the relationship. Some who is desperately single and lonely has a sense of longing that they will be able to share their life with someone with who they can love and be loved and validate and be validated. All of these are underpinned by a sense of hope that the kosmos can and should change in a way that they would like it to. Again, we return to the awful truth that the kosmos is bad at satisfying needs and wants.

If there is anything to be gained from having a sense of longing it is the reminder that hope still exists. However badly people have been hurt and however much the kosmos has failed to meet people's needs and wants, as the future remains unwritten, there is still possibility in the unknown. It could very well be possible that the kosmos might apportion something and those needs and wants will be fulfilled; in which case a sense of patience is in order. It could very well be possible that the kosmos might never apportion something and those needs and wants will always remain unfulfilled; in which case a sense of gratitude for the things that we already have is in order. 

"Follow your dreams, unless your dream is stupid; then you need to get a better dream."

- Journey.

The actual telos of longing could very well be that final push for people who are still waiting for a world that been and gone and must not be again, that the winds of change have blown and blown again, and that what they were hoping for is impossible. It could very well be that a sense of longing is the kosmos' way of trying to display 403 Forbidden or 404 File Not Found messages and it matters not a jot, because you simply will not get the thing you were hoping for. Remember, the other side of a market which is about satisfying needs and wants and at matching resources to the fulfillment of those needs and wants, is that sometimes the market will either refuse to line these things up due to market failure, or refuse to line these things up because the volumes and costs of doing so can never be reconciled. It hates to admit it but the most offensive thing to the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos, is being told "No."

Horse 3329 - Kakosynaisthima - Element IV - Poverty

Mostly the various elements of Kakosynaisthima have to do with materiel which are invented by the self. I have heard it said that anger for instance, is not really an emotion but a reaction to a set of circumstances. I am not sure that I agree with this as as emotions are invented by the self, they are also very much the product of choice and will. I think that it is more likely that an emotion might very well be the product to circumstances' multiplier and the will's quotient. 

However Poverty is not necessarily a product of the materiel which are invented by the self. Someone who is currently living in a state of poverty could very well have been once in possession of a large estate and then degraded and dwindled it down, but equally another person may just have been unfortunate in the lottery of life. We can no more blame someone for being born a girl, or a slave, or for being born in a colonised or occupied nation, or being born into any other particular time and space in history, any more than we can praise the son of a merchant banker who in control of the affairs of millions of dollarpounds for having being born into such circumstance. Yet those who have won the lottery of life often act as though they are entirely self-made. 

One of the unfortunate consequences of living in a society which has been awash with very tory ideas based in nothing more than raw mercantilism but masquerading in the language of efficiency for about two and a half centuries, is that many people actually absorb and then believe the messages that they are told, despite the evidence of their own eyes and the circumstances which they find themselves. There is a pervasive belief for instance that people are poor because of something that they have done. Even scratch this notion beyond the surface even just a little bit, and you soon discover that people exchange the truth for a lie all too easily if it happens to fit their own selfish narrative for their own ends; which incidentally is one of the cornerstones that economic though happens to sit upon.

Are people really always poor because of something that they have done? Can you really blame a child for being born into one family or another? Is there any example ever in history of an unborn person having a choice of being born as a child pauper or a billionaire? What of the systems which people are born into? Does classism, sexism, racism, nationalism, really mean nothing? Why is it that the rich choose to send their children to private schools, and then wrong the neck of the state to subsidise that private exclusionary choice, if not to perpetuate advantage and maintain a kind of economic apartheid between classes?

As for the notion of work itself, is that really true? How come someone working their guts out cleaning toilets might earn $70,000 per year, while a three million dollar chunk of money on deposit at 3% earns $90,000 per year? Is there really a moral argument to be made that a person renting and paying money for the privilege of living in a house works less than the person who owns that same house and collects that rent as well as accrues the benefit of that same house appreciating in capital value? 

Perhaps one of the reasons why people who control money and power need to keep society awash with the idea of meritocracy is that if the great masses of people awoke from their dream and realised what was and is happening to them, then things would change pretty quickly. This is also why people who control money and power hate the idea of democracy. Democracy, that is rule by the demos, runs counter to the whole kosmos of retaining and controlling money and power. In their eyes if the right people no not have power, then the wrong people do.

Let us abandon the notion at this point that poverty is purely caused by the person in question, because while it is certainly true that people are sometimes profligate, or self-destructive, or unwise, or wastrels, or spendthrifts, the awful unspoken truth is that for the vast majority of human history except for a brief period which the French call les trente gloriuses, the rewards due to capital thanks to compound interest, the general principle of wealth condensation, and active measures to protect wealth and money like taxation measures, poverty is mostly the result of mass collateral damage by the rich and powerful.

Even if we admit all of the above as just causes for poverty, including the sometimes unwise and destructive nature of the people in question, then surely the mere existence of poverty demands a response, no? If there is to be found any telos in poverty at all, then there are two immediate perspectives that need to be considered: namely from the standpoint of the person in that state, and the standpoint of someone who is an observer.

Firstly, from the standpoint of the person experiencing poverty, it is awful. Depending on how impoverished someone is, the list of things forgone and not bought, is run through the matrix of necessity and affordability. Very big items such as house ownership, new car ownership, the quality of holidays, et cetera, all disappear. Depending on the level of poverty, increasingly smaller luxury items are struck off. Even things such as new clothing and nice food are struck off. Maybe things such as car ownership will be struck off. 

Further down the line, the list of which bills need to be paid immediately become a priority. It is reasonable to think that things like rent, electric, water, gas, telephony are going to be progressively cut back through domestic economies, but there still is a tipping point when even those things are struck off too. 

One of the ironies about being in a period of poverty is that it is actually more expensive than it would be otherwise. Quite apart from the fact that poorer people in an effort to gain some kind of immediate happiness in spite our their reduced state tends to create a sense of hyperbolic discounting, the very fact that one does not have access to a large amount of money means that buying things in larger amounts which is more efficient, is unavailable. In a broad sense, this also very much helps to explain why people who are renting somewhere to live get trapped in renting from other people. With arguably the biggest ticket item in someone's life being perpetually struck off, it only leaves a place for the economic vampires of the world. No wonder it is fun for people who derive their income by being tory vampires, to blame poorer people for making bad choices; especially in the light that the choice was never available to be made. 

Of course as more and more things are struck off, then this infringes upon one's ability to be connected with a group of friends and peers. It is more likely that a poorer person is more likely to either have fewer friends and/or become increasingly isolated. Perhaps the biggest blow to someone's happiness and well-being is not the loss of stuff, but the loss of friends.

While there is some degree of sympathy from others, a poorer person is more likely to cut themselves off from others. We can merely observe someone else's pain and suffering but to live through it, also imposes a degree of almost responsibility to not share it. There is sort of an implied or imagines perception that whatever malaise someone is suffering from, is at least part way contagious. Probably a great deal of the reason why people who control money and power want to make sure that their children do not associate with poorer children, and deliberately design systems such that private advantage is maintained by to sending their children to private schools, is that the real or imagined fear is that their children might accidentally catch poverty as though it were contagious. While that imagined state of catching poverty is almost certainly not real, the idea that if you can dream it you can be it, is still very very powerful.

In the immediate kosmos, someone who either through deliberate choice or because of active shunning is cut off from other people, has a very real need for validation and community also cut off. Poverty has a nasty way of firstly depriving one of the things that make life nice, then tolerable, then necessary, and as it first steals away one's standing, it then takes away one's pride, one's self worth, and perhaps drains away someone's soul. To go through that and experience that, is awful.

However, there are those people who through reasons of self-discipline, of spiritualism, of asceticism et cetera, who take on poverty as a thing to be cultivated. This is a way in part an attempt to tame and train the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos, by deliberately depriving it of the "yummy, yummy, yummy". If there is a telos to this, it is to teach that one can be content despite the circumstance, though beyond that I am not entirely sure what kind of special revelation is necessarily transferrable to anyone else. Certainly various monks and nuns and other kinds of positions in various religious orders have all arrived at similar conclusions as to what poverty can teach and what its telos means. Perhaps it is really only when the "yummy, yummy, yummy" has been removed that people are forced to face and decide what actually is important.

Secondly, from the standpoint of someone who is an observer of the person experiencing poverty, it is possibly sad. 'Possibly' is the opposite word because watching someone else suffer, might not actually illicit any kind of response at all from the observer. There may be sadness and sympathy and/or empathy which forces to the observer to act, or there may be apathy which forces to the observer to do nothing and maybe invisibalise the the person experiencing poverty, or there may be antipathy which forces to the observer to act with contempt and revulsion.

There is an asymmetry between pleasure and pain; likewise the reaction prompted by observing someone else going through pleasure and pain is also asymmetrical.  The beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos, which wants to bring closer the "yummy, yummy, yummy" and push away that which is "not yummy", when encountering the person experiencing poverty, has either met with a circumstance demanding an exercise of humanity or met with a circumstance which internally demands a defensive position against the circumstance. 

It is really easy to sympathise with someone who is pleasant and going through something pleasurable because we hope that the "yummy, yummy, yummy" brushes off on us. It is harder to sympathise with someone who is not pleasant and going through something painful because we do not want that which is defective and broken infecting us. Observing someone else experiencing poverty, quite apart from the circumstances which caused that state, including those circumstances which are in no way under the control of the person in question, is in face cause for people inventing defensive strategies and coping mechanisms to keep poverty away; which itself are causes for further kakosynaisthima in that person.

A response of sympathy from someone who observes someone else going through poverty, first assumes that that observer takes at very least, the assumption that  the person suffering is in fact a person. A reaction of apathy mostly implies that the other person has lesser or zero value. A reaction of antipathy, which occasions contempt and revulsion, is evidence that the observer considers that the other person has value of less than zero. Those assumptions that another person has value of less than zero, are often caused by conditioning and continuation of classism, sexism, racism, nationalism, et cetera. The practice of antipathy actively solidifies that assumption and then puts action behind it.

As for the question of the observer who watches someone else going through poverty, you would hope that they at least make some kind of effort to alleviate or improve the situation. The actual solution to poverty is a systemic one; via larger persons corporate in community and commonwealth. Of course the biggest person corporate is that of the state; which is why the best person to actually change the systems which create poverty in the first place is the state. While there is a case to be made for charitable organisations, the truth remains that even the biggest of charitable organisations is still only really a private corporate person who is working against other private corporate persons who also act according to the same rules as individuals, but magnified. Corporations very much either act with apathy towards poverty, or active antipathy if there is profit to be made in creating a sense of contempt and revulsion in the general public. One only needs to see the terms used like "dole bludgers", or how the word "welfare" is demonised, by profit-driven corporate persons; when the word "welfare" in every given sense is to do with the well-being and care of people.

If there is anything to be gained by questioning whether or not there is any telos at all to poverty, then as the person going through it a sense of gratitude for what one does have, and perhaps even a sense of jealousy if it results in self-improvement might very well be in order. As someone who observes someone else going through poverty, then I would hope that their sense of empathy at least compels them to either change the system as best as they can to try and make it fairer, or to be generous with what they have.

Horse 3324 - Kakosynaisthima - Element IV - Poverty

 Mostly the various elements of Kakosynaisthima have to do with materiel which are invented by the self. I have heard it said that anger for instance, is not really an emotion but a reaction to a set of circumstances. I am not sure that I agree with this as as emotions are invented by the self, they are also very much the product of choice and will. I think that it is more likely that an emotion might very well be the product to circumstances' multiplier and the will's quotient. 

However Poverty is not necessarily a product of the materiel which are invented by the self. Someone who is currently living in a state of poverty could very well have been once in possession of a large estate and then degraded and dwindled it down, but equally another person may just have been unfortunate in the lottery of life. We can no more blame someone for being born a girl, or a slave, or for being born in a colonised or occupied nation, or being born into any other particular time and space in history, any more than we can praise the son of a merchant banker who in control of the affairs of millions of dollarpounds for having being born into such circumstance. Yet those who have won the lottery of life often act as though they are entirely self-made. 

One of the unfortunate consequences of living in a society which has been awash with very tory ideas based in nothing more than raw mercantilism but masquerading in the language of efficiency for about two and a half centuries, is that many people actually absorb and then believe the messages that they are told, despite the evidence of their own eyes and the circumstances which they find themselves. There is a pervasive belief for instance that people are poor because of something that they have done. Even scratch this notion beyond the surface even just a little bit, and you soon discover that people exchange the truth for a lie all too easily if it happens to fit their own selfish narrative for their own ends; which incidentally is one of the cornerstones that economic though happens to sit upon.

Are people really always poor because of something that they have done? Can you really blame a child for being born into one family or another? Is there any example ever in history of an unborn person having a choice of being born as a child pauper or a billionaire? What of the systems which people are born into? Does classism, sexism, racism, nationalism, really mean nothing? Why is it that the rich choose to send their children to private schools, and then wrong the neck of the state to subsidise that private exclusionary choice, if not to perpetuate advantage and maintain a kind of economic apartheid between classes?

As for the notion of work itself, is that really true? How come someone working their guts out cleaning toilets might earn $70,000 per year, while a three million dollar chunk of money on deposit at 3% earns $90,000 per year? Is there really a moral argument to be made that a person renting and paying money for the privilege of living in a house works less than the person who owns that same house and collects that rent as well as accrues the benefit of that same house appreciating in capital value? 

Perhaps one of the reasons why people who control money and power need to keep society awash with the idea of meritocracy is that if the great masses of people awoke from their dream and realised what was and is happening to them, then things would change pretty quickly. This is also why people who control money and power hate the idea of democracy. Democracy, that is rule by the demos, runs counter to the whole kosmos of retaining and controlling money and power. In their eyes if the right people no not have power, then the wrong people do.

Let us abandon the notion at this point that poverty is purely caused by the person in question, because while it is certainly true that people are sometimes profligate, or self-destructive, or unwise, or wastrels, or spendthrifts, the awful unspoken truth is that for the vast majority of human history except for a brief period which the French call les trente gloriuses, the rewards due to capital thanks to compound interest, the general principle of wealth condensation, and active measures to protect wealth and money like taxation measures, poverty is mostly the result of mass collateral damage by the rich and powerful.

Even if we admit all of the above as just causes for poverty, including the sometimes unwise and destructive nature of the people in question, then surely the mere existence of poverty demands a response, no? If there is to be found any telos in poverty at all, then there are two immediate perspectives that need to be considered: namely from the standpoint of the person in that state, and the standpoint of someone who is an observer.

Firstly, from the standpoint of the person experiencing poverty, it is awful. Depending on how impoverished someone is, the list of things forgone and not bought, is run through the matrix of necessity and affordability. Very big items such as house ownership, new car ownership, the quality of holidays, et cetera, all disappear. Depending on the level of poverty, increasingly smaller luxury items are struck off. Even things such as new clothing and nice food are struck off. Maybe things such as car ownership will be struck off. 

Further down the line, the list of which bills need to be paid immediately become a priority. It is reasonable to think that things like rent, electric, water, gas, telephony are going to be progressively cut back through domestic economies, but there still is a tipping point when even those things are struck off too. 

One of the ironies about being in a period of poverty is that it is actually more expensive than it would be otherwise. Quite apart from the fact that poorer people in an effort to gain some kind of immediate happiness in spite our their reduced state tends to create a sense of hyperbolic discounting, the very fact that one does not have access to a large amount of money means that buying things in larger amounts which is more efficient, is unavailable. In a broad sense, this also very much helps to explain why people who are renting somewhere to live get trapped in renting from other people. With arguably the biggest ticket item in someone's life being perpetually struck off, it only leaves a place for the economic vampires of the world. No wonder it is fun for people who derive their income by being tory vampires, to blame poorer people for making bad choices; especially in the light that the choice was never available to be made. 

Of course as more and more things are struck off, then this infringes upon one's ability to be connected with a group of friends and peers. It is more likely that a poorer person is more likely to either have fewer friends and/or become increasingly isolated. Perhaps the biggest blow to someone's happiness and well-being is not the loss of stuff, but the loss of friends.

While there is some degree of sympathy from others, a poorer person is more likely to cut themselves off from others. We can merely observe someone else's pain and suffering but to live through it, also imposes a degree of almost responsibility to not share it. There is sort of an implied or imagines perception that whatever malaise someone is suffering from, is at least part way contagious. Probably a great deal of the reason why people who control money and power want to make sure that their children do not associate with poorer children, and deliberately design systems such that private advantage is maintained by to sending their children to private schools, is that the real or imagined fear is that their children might accidentally catch poverty as though it were contagious. While that imagined state of catching poverty is almost certainly not real, the idea that if you can dream it you can be it, is still very very powerful.

In the immediate kosmos, someone who either through deliberate choice or because of active shunning is cut off from other people, has a very real need for validation and community also cut off. Poverty has a nasty way of firstly depriving one of the things that make life nice, then tolerable, then necessary, and as it first steals away one's standing, it then takes away one's pride, one's self worth, and perhaps drains away someone's soul. To go through that and experience that, is awful.

However, there are those people who through reasons of self-discipline, of spiritualism, of asceticism et cetera, who take on poverty as a thing to be cultivated. This is a way in part an attempt to tame and train the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos, by deliberately depriving it of the "yummy, yummy, yummy". If there is a telos to this, it is to teach that one can be content despite the circumstance, though beyond that I am not entirely sure what kind of special revelation is necessarily transferrable to anyone else. Certainly various monks and nuns and other kinds of positions in various religious orders have all arrived at similar conclusions as to what poverty can teach and what its telos means. Perhaps it is really only when the "yummy, yummy, yummy" has been removed that people are forced to face and decide what actually is important.

Secondly, from the standpoint of someone who is an observer of the person experiencing poverty, it is possibly sad. 'Possibly' is the opposite word because watching someone else suffer, might not actually illicit any kind of response at all from the observer. There may be sadness and sympathy and/or empathy which forces to the observer to act, or there may be apathy which forces to the observer to do nothing and maybe invisibalise the the person experiencing poverty, or there may be antipathy which forces to the observer to act with contempt and revulsion.

There is an asymmetry between pleasure and pain; likewise the reaction prompted by observing someone else going through pleasure and pain is also asymmetrical.  The beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos, which wants to bring closer the "yummy, yummy, yummy" and push away that which is "not yummy", when encountering the person experiencing poverty, has either met with a circumstance demanding an exercise of humanity or met with a circumstance which internally demands a defensive position against the circumstance. 

It is really easy to sympathise with someone who is pleasant and going through something pleasurable because we hope that the "yummy, yummy, yummy" brushes off on us. It is harder to sympathise with someone who is not pleasant and going through something painful because we do not want that which is defective and broken infecting us. Observing someone else experiencing poverty, quite apart from the circumstances which caused that state, including those circumstances which are in no way under the control of the person in question, is in face cause for people inventing defensive strategies and coping mechanisms to keep poverty away; which itself are causes for further kakosynaisthima in that person.

A response of sympathy from someone who observes someone else going through poverty, first assumes that that observer takes at very least, the assumption that  the person suffering is in fact a person. A reaction of apathy mostly implies that the other person has lesser or zero value. A reaction of antipathy, which occasions contempt and revulsion, is evidence that the observer considers that the other person has value of less than zero. Those assumptions that another person has value of less than zero, are often caused by conditioning and continuation of classism, sexism, racism, nationalism, et cetera. The practice of antipathy actively solidifies that assumption and then puts action behind it.

As for the question of the observer who watches someone else going through poverty, you would hope that they at least make some kind of effort to alleviate or improve the situation. The actual solution to poverty is a systemic one; via larger persons corporate in community and commonwealth. Of course the biggest person corporate is that of the state; which is why the best person to actually change the systems which create poverty in the first place is the state. While there is a case to be made for charitable organisations, the truth remains that even the biggest of charitable organisations is still only really a private corporate person who is working against other private corporate persons who also act according to the same rules as individuals, but magnified. Corporations very much either act with apathy towards poverty, or active antipathy if there is profit to be made in creating a sense of contempt and revulsion in the general public. One only needs to see the terms used like "dole bludgers", or how the word "welfare" is demonised, by profit-driven corporate persons; when the word "welfare" in every given sense is to do with the well-being and care of people.

If there is anything to be gained by questioning whether or not there is any telos at all to poverty, then as the person going through it a sense of gratitude for what one does have, and perhaps even a sense of jealousy if it results in self-improvement might very well be in order. As someone who observes someone else going through poverty, then I would hope that their sense of empathy at least compels them to either change the system as best as they can to try and make it fairer, or to be generous with what they have.

Horse 3321 - Kakosynaisthima - Element III - Loneliness

I have stated at various times that the centre of the observable universe is 19mm behind the corneas of one's eyeballs. For every person who has ever lived, they can only see the world through their own perspective and by virtue of being that central point, they are also the main character in the narrative of their own lives. It therefore makes rational sense that the self which is at the centre of its own observable universe, which wants to make its existence pleasant, should want to command more of the things it likes and reduce the frequency of the things it does not like. I think that one of the the consequences of being at the centre of the observable universe, is that everyone without exception is both rationally and irrationally selfish. The central character for the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos is none other than "I". That rational and irrational selfishness, logically means that people want to do what they like and do not want to do what they do not like. The beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos wants things that are "yummy" and does not want things that are "not yummy". Yes, this is obvious but this is the cornerstone from which I extend the following set of argument.

The beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos in an effort to bring the "yummy, yummy, yummy" closer and push the "not yummy" further away, has come up with quite effective stratagems for doing that. When you put various beasts which shout "I" at the heart of the kosmos together, then what ends up happening is that they form like communities. We find other people who are like us and who like us. Paradoxically this is both excellent and horrid at the same time. Human beings as individually small beings can achieve things on their own but achieve massive things together in community and commonwealth. This is the underlying reason why families, clubs, churches, societies, partnerships, companies, corporations and even the nation state exist. Human beings as social beings also have a need for validation and reflection, and so forming community and commonwealth is essential to the proper formation and functioning of a human.

However, although in forming community and commonwealth in an effort to bring the "yummy, yummy, yummy" closer and pushing the "not yummy" further away, human beings are also hideously excellent at shunning and excluding other human beings who for whatever defect, might undermine that community and commonwealth. This is the logical consequence of trying to push the "not yummy" further away. It makes good sense to push away people who are cruel and nasty, but in forming community and commonwealth, cliques are also effective at pushing away people who are perceived as defective in other ways; such as being shy, poor, small, smelly, disabled, mentally different, weird, et cetera. Other people who do not meet the crietria for  community and commonwealth are othered; sometimes in not very nice ways. The grounds for exclusion and pushing away people also extends to aspects such as sex, race, religion, et cetera. Those people 'over there' must be excluded, lest they damage us in some way and we accidentally catch their poverty, weirdness, race, disablity, religion, et cetera. Living inside the fortress is lovely for those inside but for those outside, the wilderness can be awful. The ugly truth is that it can be fun and much sport, mirth, and jolity can be had from making someone else's existence miserable. Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.

Loneliness as a thing is so very effective because it makes excellent use of the fact that humans are lost and trapped within the fortress of their own mind. Whilst I think that the idea of solipsism in principle is a rubbish idea, when it comes to one's perception of the world, it makes no functional difference in perspective. At a cosmic level, nobody else can experience the world as you do and neither can you experience the world as they do. There are things that people experience together but these are experienced together proximally at the third thing, or intimately at each other. On that level, there is no experience with someone else from the same perspective, ever. Excluding and shunning someone is so very powerful because they uniquely feel that exclusion; with good reason. Quite literally nobody else can feel what they do.

The hint within the word 'Loneliness' itself, is that this is a singularly singular experience. Keeping that in mind, Loneliness is experienced by someone who stands as the central character of their own universe and by nobody else and this explains why it is so awful to endure. Loneliness can not be shared; which means its burden also can not be shared. Moreover, you can not tell yourself to go away to try and get rid of it either. 

There is of course a distinction between being lonely and being alone. It is possible to be alone and yet feel a sense of connectedness and community with people who are not present. It is also possible to be lonely within a sea of people. There is a difference between being alone in a place where you feel that you are supposed to be, as opposed to being in a place where you are supposed to be and are yet still devoid of connectedness and community. There is also a difference between being lonely in a great multitude of abstract indifference, to being lonely within a room of people who in maintaining their own fortress of community and commonwealth, have excluded you and perhaps are being cruel and nasty about it.

The art of weaponsing loneliness is learnt at a surprisingly young age. Children actually get to learn both the joy and power of making someone else feel miserable as well as the hurt from others making then feel miserable at an early age. The phrase "I don't want to be your friend" or "I don't like you" is a direct attack on a person. Children learn very quickly that they can hurt people and be hurt by people in ways that does not involve physical violence, though in some circumstances when bullying crosses that line, weaponised enforced loneliness and physical violence can and do go together. The strange thing is that because the kosmos which we have constructed for ourselves turned schooling into a societal servant for the purposes of serving industrial capitalism, that we place children into hot-boxes of learning factories for more than a decade. Within in these factories, the mechanics of enforcing loneliness is weaponised.

When people get a wee bit older, probably the most intense feelings of loneliness are experienced by teenagers; who biology is flooding their bodies with chemicals in an effort to finally build the child into the adult. I have no method of actually determining if emotions are actually more intense but the proximity and repeated exposure to others for whom deriving sport, mirth, and jollity which is had from making someone else's existence miserable, can not be avoided. It is probably in one's teenage years when one feels the most of everything, love, hate, joy, sadness, community and loneliness. 

As with Pain, people who experience Loneliness might develop virtues such as self-esteem, self-worth, resilience, and independence as manufactured responses to Loneliness; but again, not necessarily because Loneliness produces those things. As with Pain, manufactured responses to Loneliness can also include hurt and sadness, despair, hopelessness, depression and even a tiredness of life itself.

Paradoxically I think that Loneliness as a thing is both "not yummy" and yet actually has a purpose. Loneliness is perhaps the process by which we learn that on some deep level no-one else is really there fighting for you in the last garrison; but more importantly, nor can they do so. It is impossible for anyone else to truly have your back until the absolute end. Other people have their own worries and have to make sure that they too are keeping their own head above water. It's enough for them to worry about what today holds, much less about tomorrow for that day holds worries of its own; they have to look out for what is coming over their own horizon. Is any of this actually a bad thing though?

Perhaps people experiencing loneliness might imagine that other people are engaged in expending energy in actively hating them, when this is mostly untrue. Although everyone is intrinsically selfish, an imagined sense that someone is spending their spare time in active hate is simply pointless, when in truth the other person is not thinking about them at all.

Again we turn to those manufactured responses of self-esteem, self-worth, independence, and resilience, as products of the process of Loneliness. Resilience is a necessary quality for an individual to possess in a kosmos which is indifferent and which is populated by other ultimately selfish individuals. Loneliness itself forces us not only to confront the fact that we are ultimately alone in the universe, but that we are on a cosmic level. Nobody does know "what it's like to the bad man, to be the sad man, behind blue eyes"; which means that The Who were correct. The outstanding question is what one is supposed to do with that confrontation.

You can turn the knives inwards. You can accept the accusations of defectiveness with the intent to harm one's self. The scary thing is that people who choose to push away people on the basis of some defect, are very often more likely right than wrong. Anyone who has spent some time introspectively looking at their own person and character, very quickly becomes aware of the defects which others quite rightly suggest exist. You could very well in fact be shy, or poor, mentally different, weird, et cetera. Since you can't escape those grounds of accusation, is it actually worth acting upon those grounds of the accusations of defectiveness? There is no shortage of so-called "self-help" books; which has to be one of the most morally repugnant ideas out there. Self-help assumes that the person who suffers due to the accusations of defectiveness and subsequent exclusion, is more responsible to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, than laying the blame for actually acting  cruelly and horribly in the first place.

Or, you can accept the accusations of defectiveness as a statement of inventory. Remember, those accusations are very often more likely right than wrong. A better response is to show one's self the kindness which others withheld. Every manufactured responses to Loneliness is created in the silent and dark workshop of the quiet self. One does not build self-esteem, self-worth, or resilience, without first accepting the premise that one's self is an object which is worthy. The words "I love you", "I need you", "I want you", are the most powerful words in the universe and when backed up with action can and do change lives. When those words are used to to works of kindness to others, they build other people up. When those words are used as hammers to work-harden the self, then the accusations of defectiveness can be met with acceptance that the defect exists.

There is a neat illustration called the "hedgehog's dilemma" which basically states that we are all afraid of getting close to other people, lest they turn their spines outwards and hurt us. However, as deeply social creatures who both need to love and be loved and who need to validate others and to be validated, those spines make it hard to actually fulfil our own needs. Accepting the premise that one's self is an object which is worthy and accepting the premise that others are also objects which are worthy, might very well be the key to solving the dilemma. It really does not help that the hedgehog's dilemma itself is cause for people inventing defensive strategies and coping mechanisms; which themselves are causes for accusations of defectiveness.

The unspoken truth which hides behind the corneas of someone else's eyeballs, is that they too are also small, pathetic, and often do not have terribly much power in the kosmos. People dare not speak about this awful truth that often because the idea in the face of a mostly indifferent kosmos is horrifying. People are afraid to be vulnerable because if they hold themselves out and other people do not like them, then that's all that they have. The telos of loneliness if there is one, is that realisation that if this is all that one has, then the fact that one is alone and adrift in the kosmos, is not necessarily sufficient grounds to turn the knives inwards. IF this is all that I have and all that I am, I might actually be pretty neat.

Horse 3317 - Kakosynaisthima - Element II - Pain

In the discovery and collection process for this series on Kakosynaisthima, one recurring thing that keeps on recurring is that the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos can reasonably easily make value judgements between what is "yummy, yummy, yummy" and what is "not yummy". The things which it determines are "yummy, yummy, yummy" are almost always animal desires to have physical, emotional, relational, spiritual et cetera, needs met. At the same time, things which it determines are  "not yummy" are either impediments to the acquisition of those things, or actively things with endanger or harm those things. I think that it is obvious that there are many different kinds of pain, such as physical, emotional, relational, spiritual, financial, situational: because I think that this is a logical consequence to the being as many kinds of pain as there are variable states within the human condition. 

As far as the telos of pain goes, the obvious purpose for which it exists, is as the signal that something is "not yummy". Pain demands a course of action which removes the agent of its cause. If it is physical, then the removal of the thing which caused the trauma is advisable. If it is emotional, then pain demands that the thing which caused the bad feeling either be removed or remedied. If it is relational, then pain demands a course of reconciliation or removal. If it is spiritual, then almost always as a small being which is capable of causing pain to others we are at fault and this demands some course of repentance and renewal of purpose. In all of the above, Pain demands that the "not yummy" be corrected so that something that is "yummy, yummy, yummy" can hopefully fill the space.

The biggest problem with pain is that as with any other experience which human find ourselves in as semi-rational electro-mechanical meatbags, it can not actually be shared with anyone else. Neither can it adequately explained to anyone else. Neither can anyone else feel that particular pain in the same way as we do. What's even worse though is that it is not particularly good at doing its job either. What I mean by that is, is that pain is a hideously vague and perhaps unreliable signaling system. Imagine an aeroplane with many systems. On board that aeroplane with many systems, the designers will equip it with many specific error codes so that the people whose job it is for fix them, can specifically fix where the system has gone wrong. When an aeroplane is going unexpectedly down, the signalling system is specific. Fuel pressure, hydraulic pressure, stall angle, trim alignment, et cetera et cetera et cetera. When investigators pore over the signals which are recorded on a black box, they can efficiently pinpoint what when wrong and maybe why. Pain has no such exact and specific method of explaining what has gone wrong exactly. You can ask of someone where something hurts, but beyond that, the information is non-existent.

Physical pain is often a sharp or a dull throb; which is all very well if you know that you have been physically hurt by someone else or come to some accidental harm but many physical pains like below the surface, so who knows what is going on in there. Emotional and relational pain are often because someone has tried to hurt you and been successful, or you have hurt someone else and just happen to be in possession of a conscience and a mind aware that something is not right. Spiritual pain if it is not caused by the awareness that you have hurt god (some readers my not concede that this exists) is at least caused by the awareness that the universe and the kosmos is undeniably indifferent, awful, broken, et cetera and that you as a small thing are practically powerless to do anything about it. In the general case, Pain is like having a warning light that comes on in a motor car but often with no error codes to determine what went wrong or worse, what the injury was. 

There is a broad argument to be made that people develop virtues such as patience, longsuffering, maybe sympathy and lived experience but I do not think that Pain itself actually produces those things. Those virtues are moral products which are manufactured in response to Pain; not because Pain necessarily produces those things. Manufactured responses to Pain can also include hurt and sadness, despair, hopelessness, depression and even a tiredness of life itself; none of which many people would call desirable or a thing to be cultivated. That says to me that Pain is a thing which should be objectively avoided, and that coping mechanisms in the face of it, or uncoping mechanisms in the face of it, are in opposition to but not of Pain itself. I will suggest that of itself, Pain has no real dividends, ulitmately no meaning. What does that mean for everyone else? I think that this implores other people if they have any decency at all, to be patient and kind with the person going through pain. There might be likely, no actual solutions to be had. 

Perhaps I am personally a good witness for the power of pain with no actual solutions to be had. Speaking as someone who was hit by a car and got a broken leg and a broken arm out of it, pain is a residual companion. Imagine being pricked with a pin, deeply, then imagine that same prick being about six inches long and worn like a lapel on your left shoulder. I experience that kind of pain 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, without ceasing. The problem is, I do not actually know if the pain is in fact real or not. It might very well not be. It could in fact be nerve endings for whatever reason, yelling constantly because they have been severed. It is like having a silent parrot, which yells forever and constantly. What have I learnt from this? Quite frankly, nothing. I can not describe this to anyone, nor can I share this with anyone. Nobody else really wants to know about it either because this is a thing that they have literally no frame of reference to put it in. This is my burden that I must carry in silence.

In summary, Pain can not be shared with anyone else, can not be adequately described to anyone else, can not be experienced by anyone else, does not do a good job at signaling what has gone wrong; yet demands and yells to be felt. Usually when someone issues a demand they can express what they want; even my cats who do not possess the gift of language, can still make fairly easily understood demands by meowing and yelling. Pain does not do that. It just yells. It just demands to be felt. So when it comes to answering the general question of what if anything can be learned from Pain, I think that my conclusion is that nothing can be actually learned from it. I don't even think that the quality of character which one builds as the result of experiencing pain serves any other inherent purpose, than providing the resilience to survive more pain.

People as beings who want to experience "yummy" and remove "not yummy" have two problems with pain. If it can not be removed, then it must be coped with. The net reward for coping with pain is always a minus and yet, there are very few options for doing precisely that. Pain can be masked with pain medication but this doesn't actually address the root cause. As we live later and later in time and people get more and more used to the idea that various kinds of medication and drugs can be used as a deadening, amelioration, or otherwise gratification in the face of pain, then the irony is that those things themselves can end up becoming their own root cause of more pain. This quite frankly is utterly terrifying to people.

Worse, is the problem which follows when there is never going to be a solution. If a loved one has died, there is some broad solace to be had in a spiritual sense if someone believes in an afterlife but even then, the simple fact that a relationship is broken and destroyed and is never ever coming back in this life, still quite rightly causes pain for one who has been left behind. One can accept the situation which exists but there are some instances where the thing that is broken can and will never be repaired, at least not in this life.

It therefore follows that any attempt, by well-meaning people (and some ill-meaning people) to try to extract some kind of teleological meaning from Pain, I think are misguided. The people who cruelly tell others to "get over it", might inadvertently have the best advice because the thing that demands to be felt, and demands bluntly and badly, doesn't really have a sensible purpose beyond itself. Although it must be said that the people who cruelly tell others to "get over it" might be doing so from a place ranging from sympathy or empathy, to outright sociopathy and direct cruelty. 

Horse 3298 - Kakosynaisthima - Element I - Boredom

Sixteen months ago, I embarked upon a series of posts on the subject of Eudaimonia. That is the Aristotlean idea of a "good spirit" and what Aristotle thoiugh was the highest end of human existence.  Element I - Truth, can be found here:

https://rollo75.blogspot.com/2022/09/horse-3062-eudaimonia-element-i-truth.html

While it is good and proper to explore the best of humanity, the truth is that we simply do not live in a kosmos which it is even possible to live like this all the time. You do not have to believe the tenants of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hindusim, Buddhism, Taoism, Baha'i or even concepts which are not religious like economics, politics, behavioural science, et cetera, to realised that humanity is either selfish, broken, flawed, or just plain nasty and cruel. Some writers and philosophers such as Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand, or Friedrich Nietzsche, seem to think that selfishness is actually either rational and/or necessary in the kosmos.

I do not think that von Mises, Rand, or Nietzsche, provide anything useful in actually dealing with the problems of the human condition, nor do I think that selfishness is a thing which is good for the kosmos. However there are elements within the kosmos which are Not Great™ which are still worth interrogating to see if there is any useful telos to them. Also as before, I am going to name my terms; since I think that that is a useful starting place.

To this end, I shall borrow Plato's term συναισθημα, or synaisthima, meaning emotion. In Plato's "The Symposium", which has the framing device of what I think is a lot of drinky-drunky people chatting semi-rubbish and making speeches at a banquet. A synaisthima is a mental activity resulting from diverse simultaneous physical stimuli. It is the effect of stimulating the senses through an outside agent (that is not of something like stomach ache) of a person.

However people live far more interior lives than just chatting rubbish at the war table. Real people who live in a busted kosmos have to live with things that are Not Great™ which come from inside. To that end, I like the word κακός, kakos; which means "bad" or "evil".

Put them together and you get...

κακόσυναισθημα - Kakosynaisthima, from:

κακός - kakos, meaning bad or evil

συναισθημα - synaisthima, meaning emotion

Speaking as someone who works in an accountancy firm and as someone who has read a lot of economics, my view of the kosmos is very much viewed through the lens of trying to find the value of things. Value is one of those concepts which seems intuitively obvious but upon even the barest of inspections, vanishes below the surface of the ocean like a proverbial sea monster. I think that the best method of approaching a description of what Value is, is to think about that other economic concept of Opportunity Cost; which is what you have forgone in order to get this current thing. Herein lies the atomic basis of practically all of economics. Even a dollarpound is just the token system which acts as a set of counters which measures Opportunity Cost in discrete units.

However, when it comes to the nebulous problem of trying to work out the value of things that can not be bought or sold, our sea monster once again disappears. Opportunity Cost is handy because it tackles the problem of what one would have given up in order to get something but of itself it doesn't describe that almost subatomic problem of human nature; that is, that humans are semi-rational electro-mechanical meatbags, with some thinking muscles, and some kind of spirit/software which drives them. As semi-rational electro-mechanical meatbags, humans have some basic needs in order to remain alive, and beyond that a range of wants which can be unlimited.

I think that this point that we can take it as moot that religion, psychology, economics, politics, and even theatre, have in various ways described the irrational part of a human being, which is that part of the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos. It is only a very small leap to go from "I", to "I need", and "I want". "I want" itself, is actually itself one of the drivers which ultimately arrives at the Opportunity Cost of something. Yes, "I want" is probably not much more than a sophisticated version of "yummy, yummy, yummy" versus "not yummy" and so I probably can leave that part of the equation alone, but what of the other side? 

Once again I return to the problem of Value. Is there any Value in the things that are "not yummy" of the kosmos? Moreover, do they have anything to teach us? What happens if those wants can not be fulfilled? A semi-rational electro-mechanical meatbag can yell and kick and scream about it but that's not exactly productive. 

Synaisthima - Element I - Boredom.

The fact that you are reading this on a computer of some sort and the fact that I am writing this on a computer of some sort, is evidence of the fact that we live a long way in the future. I think that it's really difficult to forget the world that my great-grandparents were born into in 1874, looks very little like world of today but very similar to the world of the same period in the other direction, in 1724. In that 150 years, the arrival of mass literacy, radio, television, and the internet, has meant that the very thing of Boredom itself, can be scraped away at an instant. Perhaps one of the objects of the plan to put the world in your hand, was to try and banish Boredom to the pages, and then digital archives, and then deleted.

Certainly the killer of Boredom is Distraction. Distraction is lovely. Distraction is a "yummy, yummy, yummy" sweetie. The "I want" here can be more than adequately sated by instantly gratifying the "I want" of entertainment. There is so much Distraction available to us, that Boredom as a thing may as well be functionally eliminated. Boredom is one of the very few things which previously thought unsatisfiable, can now be sated. The "not yummy" of Boredom can be pacified.

If Boredom is therefore a temporary state which can be made to go away reasonably easily now, then what is the "not yummy" going on here? That part of the beast which shouts "I" at the heart of the kosmos, as part of the spirit/software has that "I want" for constant input that it likes. Boredom usually arrives when that input doesn't currently meet the irrational part of a human being; which may include tedium, a current sense of emptiness while anticipating something else, repetition of task, repetition of thought, or being pushed to do the "not yummy" thing.

Perhaps the most classic example of someone appearing to be bored, is the child who without having any specific thing to do is spooked at that same prospect. The complaint about being bored in this case is not so much an inability to invent their own pastime but a semi-weaponised demand for someone else to provide that gratification of the "I want" of entertainment. 

There is likely an overlap of the same kinds of people who appear to be bored without having any specific thing to do and those people who when tasked with a thing to do, shirk at the sudden responsibility. The child who objects to having to do sums at school, the apprentice who would rather not change that gas fitting, and the person in the office now tasked with doing that grunt work, would all rather be doing something else "yummy" and not the "not yummy" thing in front of them. 

I should at this point make the distinction between boredom and ennui, as well as boredom and that quiet stillness which happens in a place when people can transcend the here and how and float off into the liminal kosmos of daydreaming. I have heard this space called "the Nothing Box"; which comes about with the suggestion that men in particular with think about something in discrete boxes, open that box and think about nothing else. "The Nothing Box" is a box which actually contains nothing in particular and when visited, is different to a place of boredom in that opening the nothing box is actually a place of rest, recovery, and a place which one is free to roam around inside of.

What is actually inside the nothing box? There is space; vast amounts of space. If you leave that child without having any specific thing to do, and allow them to be bored without giving them that gratification of the "I want" of entertainment, then they are forced to invent their own. A mind that has been left with space and time to do nothing other than invent its own silent and invisible space in the kosmos, will eventually be forced to pull the nothing box off of the shelf and start to pull things out of it. I have heard it said that of a cigar box guitar, which is a guitar built of the lowest quality of technology and usually very badly made, that the box actually contains many many songs and that the player just has to pull them out. If you leave a mind without having any specific thing to do in the world, then it will be forced to eventually imagine and create a world for itself.

I can not speak for anyone else but I possess a mind which just constantly wants to play with everything. I can not speak for anyone else but I find the idea of meditation intellectually interesting but actually pointless in action for me. If you leave me by myself with nothing but blank cloth to work with, then I will be  goofing off in a world of my own invention. I think that I would be one of the few people mentioned in nineteenth and twentieth century texts, who were placed into solitary confinement as a punishment, who come out the other side having suffered almost nothing as a result. I think of the story of the lady who went into an underground cave with no contact with the outside world save for a text terminal upon which she could let some scientists know that she was okay; and what happened for her while she had no outside stimuli, was a kind of slowing down of time and weirdly a negation of boredom as she invented a cast of characters.

Likewise, when I get to the railway station in the mornings, I typically have about seven minutes before the train arrives. At my end of the train station platform, I see the same cast of characters every day. Bruce is the mechanic who works at Mazda in Parramatta, who has a wife and two kids and cars that are laid up in his backyard; which he will get around to 'eventually'. Beatrice is the short lady with the Saturn Hat who has three cats and who produces prize-winning tulips. Xi is the student who is studying to become a doctor; not because he wants to but because he is trying to make his parents happy. Julia works in an office which she hates and is counting down the days when she can triumphantly quit and walk out which will embarass her boss. I have no idea what the actual names of these people are, apart from the mechanic who works at a Mazda dealership, I have no idea what they actually do. However within those seven minutes I have been left to run around inside of, I have created a world. Indeed the answer to that classic question posed to prose writers, song writers, comedy writers et cetera, of where they get their ideas from, actually has a simple answer. Ideas come from inside the nothing box.

For many people, the act of meditation is quite rewarding. I have heard of many stories where through the art of meditation, people achieve states of heightened peace and comfort. Perhaps this is just a lack of understanding on my part and maybe it does take deliberate action on the part of people to find their own Nothing Box, to find that place of rest and recovery. However all of this looks like semantics of sorts. Meditation involves a deliberate removal of stimuli in order to achieve a desired state. The person involved in the process of meditation is still actively engaged in something. Boredom is not a state which people necessarily try to cultivate. 

With nothing but the passage of time to play with, and with the constraints of no material to work with, Boredom is the vast infinite canvas upon which a mind without having any specific thing to do, will eventually paint upon. It is interesting that in the twenty-first century, when people can scrape away Boredom at an instant, that people will readily choose to do so. The desire to fill up available space with the "yummy, yummy, yummy" sweetie of Distraction is likely so attractive for people because when people are left to themselves, they have no material to work with, and that prospect might very well be terrifying.

Left with nothing else, the only person inside my internal monologue, left inside the life of my interior, is me; and I can't get myself to go away. I can understand that that could very well be terrifying for someone who left in that situation, turns their own metaphorical knives inwards. With no outside targets, a mind with no material to work with and which is bent on hurting itself, can be both a prison and an torture device. There is a very good reason why prisons in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries used solitary confinement as a punishment. That is effectively a metaphorical extra gaol, within extra gaol, within a gaol. 

I think that this is what people find to utterly terrifying. Boredom is essentially a call of the void, with the infinite horror of a space in time which unless filled with internal play, meditation, an appreciation for the kosmos, religion, or distraction, is an inescapable solitary confinement inside one's self. At some point, people have to come face to face with themselves. Perhaps the most stark reason why people do not like being vulnerable in front of other people is that you might not like me, and this is all I have; however when that is turned inwards, what then? If boredom as a thing is "not yummy", has a purpose, then it seems to me that it is a space for the self to decide if it likes itself, to play games with itself, to open the nothing box, to find that place of rest and comfort, to find one's place in the kosmos, and to stare full face into infinite horror of the void.

If being bored means wanting to be engaged when you can’t, which is an uncomfortable feeling, then what do we do about it? This is what I can not answer for you. The problem with boredom is that while it tells us something is wrong, it does not tell us what to do about it. Ultimately the bad thing about boredom, as with everything else in this short series is that nobody can help us to navigate through it and finding useful, productive, healthy, sensible ways through boredom is still up to us.