#man. i fucking hate the mental gymnastics my brain does to justify hating myself

[hauntedhopeghost]

Why would I continue being me

When better people are all I see?

There's nothing changed - doesn't matter if I'm here

This time I might just disappear

-Good Enough by atsuover

[cyanpeacock]

Critical thinking skills are a good thing to have. They help you understand ~the universe~, or ~life itself~, if you take the path far enough. Hint: it's a fucking circle again.

It's unfortunate, because critical thinking skills can be turned against yourself, to an extent where they demolish your security in your perspective, i.e. your body, your social place and history in the world.

This is the battle I've been struggling with.

How can I practice critical thinking, on the topic of my future, without realising that should I survive, and make change in the world on a globally significant scale, I am only a coincidental instrument of natural selection, and that I will cause pain, and perhaps even death?

I... just have to accept it. I have to accept that eventuality.

This is not critical thinking. Accepting things is not critical thinking, because critical thinking takes you in one huge fuckoff circle, and we kind of have to switch off to... to sleep. To enjoy our own happiness without thinking of the possible repercussions on others.

How do we balance acceptance and critical thinking?

We just... find what makes us happy. We can accept what makes us happy. Which, annoyingly, is inextricably tied to the traits our caregivers rewarded in us.

This becomes very hard, with critical thinking skills that are developed over skills of acceptance. There are times and places for both. Figuring out which to use, and when, is a hell of a task - but I have to presume it gets easier, with practice.

I sound like a politician. I guess I can't get away from it, considering I've been exposed to and involved in it from a young age.

I'm angry I didn't get the chance to... choose. Critical thinking and politics are some controversial shit, man. This is not easy, and I'd like it to be... but then, if it was easy, I wouldn't know what the difficult was like.

And now I have the chance to choose, I find it's something I'd rather keep, because I'd lose too much of myself. I'd have to kill my body. Those pathways in my brain aren't going away.

So, it's 1984 again. Accept your conditioning. The government won't send you away, not here, but if I surveil myself... I can send myself away, if I deem myself immoral?

I tried, many times. I failed, many times.

What now?

Accept my conditioning, and... just do what feels right?

Life is based in feeling, because thinking too hard... well, it kills you?

Fuck me. So you just have to accept that you have to go with how your body feels its best? And try to make that your everyday life?

Man, fuck, humans are one wack-ass species.

The peacock is very tired of this human shit. The peacock knows exactly what to do. The peacock eats and sleeps and breathes and occasionally fucks and he appreciates a sunset and dies.

Humans do that too, some of them just think about it way too hard, trying to kill their egos to make sense of the horrors others perpetrate against them?

And in the process of getting caught up in the thought loop, they may end up being complete arseholes, or even abusive, themselves?

These are the mental gymnastics and leaps of logic humans use to justify horrendous things?

Fuuuuck me.

Yeah, man, fuck, all this talk of "objective reality"?

There may be one. It's certainly not one we can observe, because our perspectives are inherently biased, by virtue of being... one body among many. Limited in realm of material experience.

If you hate it enough, and I say this tongue-in-cheekly but entirely seriously, you can just... go insane. I did. You can drop a bunch of acid and go there that way, if you like.

Your brain can register the horrors of the universe, turn within itself, and conjure an entire universe. We're calling it psychosis, nowadays. My summer episode was... oddly awesome? I miss it, often actually. I miss being caught up in that crazy fucking world.

I guess that experience taught me something about... the value of creation. I value that universe this brain created.

Does this mean I might be able to enjoy getting caught up in this crazy fucking world?

I have to presume so. And that's an exercise in acceptance. And that's an exercise in critical thinking.

And old people are bastards, because now I understand "well, worse happened to me, and I turned out well-balanced."

I suppose you did, because you're saying that, and you have to believe it to be happy and secure in yourself. But then, if you couldn't believe it, you'd be causing yourself a lot more trouble, wouldn't you?

Good lord. Abort post. I can't be fucked to traverse the whole circle.

Death is coming. I take comfort in that.