suliqyre

[suliqyre]

Everyone you meet feels cold. They lack the fire you so desperately desire. They do not live for beauty and ideas like you do. They do not seem to care about the things you feel are important or true. You do not seem to fit in anywhere. Your desires and beliefs do not seem to be shared.

You realize you are an alien, without any people of your own. You despair over this discovery. But you also tell yourself it isn't true. Your people exist. They must exist because you find them in the books you read, so they must be out here in the world too. But where are they?

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[suliqyre]

A human being is a body — a physical entity that takes up space in the world. This seemingly obvious fact is often obscured by the nature of contemporary experience. Physical bodies do not seem relevant in the realm of the internet. Here, we do not care about our own bodies, let alone the bodies of other people.

Inside the virtuality of online spaces, we exist as disembodied entities. We can forget about our bodies entirely and interact with others in ways that exceed our ordinary abilities. We can engage in situations where we would otherwise face harm. We can enter into contexts we would not be able to enter as embodied beings. Disconnected from physical existence, we engage with each other in these spaces as though we really are disembodied.

By extending the range of our experience, the freedom of virtuality makes us more powerful. But power is also dangerous.

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[suliqyre]

Everything she does is wrong. She feels she's wrong about everything. She knows this isn't true but she still feels it like a weight pressing on her chest. She knows she doesn't act how others want and expect. She knows she's strange. But she's only trying to do what she knows is right — to create her own path in the world.

The world refuses to yield even an inch. The world is relentless in its fight against her. Being herself has become so difficult that existence itself feels like a burden. Why can't she catch a break? Why is her life a constant battle?

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[suliqyre]

If I am not honest with myself then I run the risk of living a lie. I can easily delude myself into thinking something is real and true when it is actually fake and false.

To keep myself honest, I need to ask myself questions. I must question my intentions, I must question my understanding, and I must even question my values. By posing these questions, I gain an opportunity to become more aware of myself. But how do I know my answers will be honest ones?

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[suliqyre]

Paying greater attention to the world might alleviate your boredom or it might not. Perhaps you simply aren't excited by what the world has to offer right now. But there is also more for you to experience than just the world. There is also yourself, and in particular, your own imagination, which can take you far beyond anything that already exists.

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[suliqyre]

Words that come from nowhere exist in empty space. They have no meaning, as they are only symbols. Meanings are human — words on their own do not have them. Isolated words are independent of any human being and of humanity itself. Here, there is no me and there is no you. There are only words.

A text that has no humanity has no author, no context. It is only an object. Context would usually come from the author, and the world of meanings they carry, but there is no such person. There are no persons at all, only this collection of symbols, arranged into a text.

It is when you arrive that everything changes.

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[suliqyre]

Rule making begets rule making. We first make a rule only to later discover an exception. We then modify the existing rule or make another rule to cover the exception. But then we discover an exception to the new rule and the whole process repeats.

What we end up with is a frustrating and unmanageably complex set of rules. We find ourselves with laws that require professional guidance to follow, sports with rules that are impossible to adjudicate, and philosophical distinctions that are incomprehensible to non-specialists.

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[suliqyre]

The afternoon sun shimmers off the water's surface. There are wobbly patches of intense light in the foreground and an abundance of sparkles in the distance. The patterns that emerge possess a mesmerizing beauty. I feel an urge to capture the moment, to save its magic in some way. But I know it won't work. Whatever I could preserve by taking a photo would not be this. It would just be a representation, a reduction of what is here and now into a lesser form. Right now I just need to see, to absorb the view, to live in it. This it that is already so fleeting.

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[suliqyre]

Suffering might take the form of anger towards others, despair over my life, or anxiety about the future. It might be one of these feelings one day and another the next. All of these feelings drain me, and I expend enormous energy trying to appease them. For the conflict between my ideal and reality is not a passive consequence. It is a battle I actively maintain. I manipulate my attention and actions in response to my suffering, and I quickly use up all of my resources.

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[suliqyre]

Even if each particular instance of joy is something you create through your own actions, the very possibility of joy itself is not your doing. How is it possible that there can be an experience so peaceful, so uplifting, and so perfect? That joy exists at all seems to be a singular and inexplicable gift.

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[suliqyre]

Doing something you do not know how to do can be frightening. Your goal is to do it correctly and not make a mess of things. You want to be successful, but more importantly, you do not want to fail.

You are worried about your performance because any mistake might doom you to failure. Your actions become rigid and tightly controlled because you are evaluating your every move, judging whether or not it will help you achieve your goal.

To approach your task with no intentions, no focus, and no plan might seem foolish. It seems this way because your sole focus is the potential failure you see ahead of you. But it is when you let go of the desire to avoid failure that true creativity becomes possible.

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[suliqyre]

A star in the sky seems permanent, for it appears the same each and every night. But it is no more permanent than we are. Like us, it will eventually burn out and die. A blossom on a tree seems temporary, for it might last only a few more days before vanishing. But it is no more temporary than we are. Like us, it is sealed into history for all eternity.

All things are impermanent (in time) and permanent (in eternity). This is the nature of our experience and of the reality in which we must live. Everything lasts for only a finite time and yet it also goes on forever, since what has happened cannot ever be changed.

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[suliqyre]

The way to happiness, he thinks, is this: 1) ask himself what he wants, and then 2) do whatever he has to do to get it. Only when he gets what he wants will he be able to feel happy. In the meantime, he will have to suffer. This is just how it is and how it always has been... He figures life is just like this, fulfilling goal after goal, and when he has achieved all of his goals, he will finally be happy forever. After all, there will be nothing left to want, and if he has everything he desires, how could he not be happy?

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[suliqyre]

If I can already see that compassionate action is necessary to bring an end to my own suffering, then I must learn how to empathize with everyone I encounter.

I have to allow myself to see the experiences of others — their desires and worries, the beliefs they hold about the world, the wide variety of feelings they have, and so on. My own experience is necessarily limited because I am only one person. There is only so much that a single person can do in their own lifetime, so there will be many experiences I will never personally have.

To develop greater empathy, I must grow out of my narrow experience of life and into the varied experiences of diverse others.

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[suliqyre]

A sailboat rests on the rocks, its single mast tilted slightly to one side. It has run aground, pushed in during the previous night's storm...

Is it better to run aground or to sink? If there is someone on board, surely it is better to run aground. But assuming the boat is on its own, resting in the harbour, which is the better outcome? The question might seem straightforward for an outside observer, but what if you are the boat? What if it is you who must either run aground or sink?

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[suliqyre]

It can be terrifying to choose the unknown. Between an already-tested option and an untried one, more often than not, we want to go with the safe bet.

But what if the safe bet is not actually safe at all — what if it is really the more dangerous option for our current dilemma? With only a limited awareness of the situation, it is difficult not to be deceived. We easily become confused by our existing views and biases. After all, the safe bet was the right choice in the past, and so we believe it must still be good now. We are not able to see the true risk of our options.

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[suliqyre]

Insofar as I make choices at all, I am responsible. Not just because of the consequences my particular choice produces, but because the very act of choosing itself creates responsibility. Every choice I make influences the choices of others, and it can also reduce the range of choices available to them... My freedom limits the freedom of others, and their freedom simultaneously limits mine.

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