The Feeling of Consent and the Feeling of Loss

What does consent feel like? Is it a tangible expression that tells everyone exactly what they want? No. Far from it. Consent is something largely undefined.

When one says the agree to something, they don't explain exactly what it is they agree to. Most signatures are made with a large amount of fine print that nobody reads. The point is not to gain some level of understanding or transmit it to someone else - the point is to feel like you've consented to something.

A primal instinct is not sufficient to account for what it is that people love about consenting to something. That is, there is no animal in the kingdom that actually displays a similar trait, nor a trait that could be stretched to a similar cause, with any reasonable explicating. Something herds one to the ability to feel in control of their environment. Certainly that's a regular thing to hear, but in context it's something radically different from what one could easily explain. There are many things meant by "control of one's environment."

Consider seals for example. Floating on a brick of ice without very much movement over the wide sea of killer whales … such a thing has no control over what happens to it, or very little. The same goes for father black widows.

These are not the sorts of control we're discussing here. Control means choosing what you want and getting feedback. It's being able to say "yes" or "no" and have that impact what goes on around you. It doesn't matter how things change, as much as just that they change. If you scream and yell and nothing happens, if you muster your might and end up stuck where you are, there's a wretched feeling of being at the mercy of what comes next that you can't handle; you need influence.

The thoughts occurred to me today when my sister partook of the flu shot this afternoon. Crying and screaming at the thought of the needle she yelled: "wait! wait! give me one more minute!" … the doctors did not. They gave her the shot. Was it painful to her? No. When it was said and done, was there a reason to feel hurt? Yes. And she did. The problem was not that the flu shot was administered, but that it was administered when she specifically asked that it not be. It was the pain of a situation that was entirely under the control of something other than herself. Nobody likes that.

The feeling of loss plays into this nicely. When one begins a game and assumes the rules, they partake on an adventure for the purpose of getting a reward. The game has enormous effort involved, multiple decisions are made one after the other… and what if you lose? If you win, sure, you have an advantage you conceived - even if just the "moral victory"… but if you lose you've gained nothing. It was as though you'd never played. It is a feeling of non-consent when you put yourself in an environment and then nothing changes when you envelope yourself in it.

Ok, so what does this change? For you, I suppose it changes a number of things. One, each time a consent is offered, you can examine the feeling inside you. Does it click? Does it make sense? Do you wish it were something different? These are the questions that can highlight fear based on non-consent, that is, based entirely on non-consent, and then you can work to deal with it. Whatever coping mechanism suits you for that specific type of feeling that drives more feelings that you might suppose, which it hides underneath, you can utilize at this time. Some things are much harder to remove from within oneself than is worth the effort - and feeling out of control is probably not a feeling you should enjoy anyway - but you can certainly deal with it if you know what it is.

Being a good sport means accepting it. When you play a game and somebody loses and feels down in their own little world, the other players become disinclined for future games. Nobody wants to make someone else feel down - it's not the purpose. In a good game with good players, people are trying to stretch themselves and learn things by accomplishing foreseeable goals (see the post below). If you can't be a part of that without demanding the fabricated reward, then you aren't meant to be gaming with other people who take that reward seriously.

There's something beautiful about the way this instinct arises within us. Nothing screams freedom more than struggling to the death to change a scenario simply because you need to have influence over what's around you. Freedom to at least some degree is literally the alternative to death, because what's life without choices? If you're not going to make choices, you'd like it even less to know you aren't making choices, than to be stone cold unconscious, or be somewhere anywhere else in the afterlife. It displays man's determination to retain agency above every other value. It is the infinite reward that supersedes even happiness, as though happiness is never joy until fathered by the freedom to exercise it - to retain it in one's mind and acknowledge it as the product of your own choices.

God makes way for our agency in all things. It's crucial that man retain his agency - indeed, it is the most crucial thing, as evidenced by the fact that God chooses to let man be free to do whatever he wants. Without that freedom there is no progression, and without progression their is no new happiness. This is defined by stepping to a new vantage point one couldn't have seen from the last. If you progress, you're taking a step into a direction you've never known before - a point I'll continue to reiterate - and so you find a whole new realm of joy you could have never conceived. Freedom, not happiness, is the only path to that view.

On Gaming

I was discussing the motivation behind winning a game with a friend of mine who plays the incredibly intricate Warhammer 40,000 - a highly intricate game with pieces that move on the tabletop and attack one another in a raging war for victory. Unlike the typical response, he first mentioned the drive for an alpha male to succumb to the powers of a higher alpha - that is, people's desire to lose. If one's purpose is to strengthen oneself, he can only do this by challenging himself to be strengthened.

This strikes me as the purpose of winning games, more or less, though it is not a primal instinct.

The end of games are not easily defined, but much more so when compared to the end victory for life. In Warhammer 40,000, the victory comes with slaughtering the opponents in as quickly a time as possible - but that's just it: is it more of a win to beat them faster? More of a win to beat them with a challenging game? More of a win to subdue them instantaneously and make clear from the start that you were always better? No man can say. But what is defined is an objective: hold 3 points on the table from your opponent; hold the line against his soldiers and destroy as many units as possible; kill the enemy commander for an extra victory point, &c. There's a lot of sense to making this victory condition because it provides that challenge to some extent, provided one doesn't get too wrapped up in their superiority complex.

Life has no defined end. At least, not one that we can see. When progression goes on in the human body it takes place because of some event one would have never predicted; when growth goes on in the mind it takes place because of some incredible insight that one had never before realized. This is the theme of many recent blog posts - but I'll reiterate here due to its incredible significance. When one activates his drive to focus on a seeable end, as in a game, it gives him an easy opportunity to stretch himself and his thinking in the world of strategy (if it's a strategy game), or whatever other skill the game requires. It provides one with a drive they couldn't have otherwise had.

There's something unique about gaming in this respect. Unlike football, where heads clash together and the purpose of man is to show his strength - the man on the field being in control of himself only - strategy games - as it would be, perhaps, for the football coach - are incredibly intricate for the purpose of stretching one's mind. This is made possible by providing one with the satisfaction of a win, produced out of nothing, along with a provision of good sense in order to stand one's ground and accomplish it. The good sport is able to accept a loss and learn while still trying to obtain the victory. Competitive play provides that output of needing to win, and thereby stretch your mind, but many players play "for fun", which provides a different level of creativity - they do their best to imagine the realism of the situation, they create a plot and a story and develop their game into a mind game of a fantasy world they inhabit - something like a complex daydream. By so doing, they provide a new sort of advantage from gaming.

Checkmate

The most crucial piece in chess is the one without value. All others ascribe to a points system: queen 9, rook 5, bishop 3, knight 3, pawn 1.. these are useful for determining under what circumstances a trade with the opponent is likely to leave one on top. For the king, however, no such points can be determined. It is the piece that gives the other pieces their value.

The game is lost when the king is both in check, and has nowhere to move.

The concept of checkmate applies nicely to the understanding of when one is utterly wrong on something. If it so be that one's thought is necessarily stopped while he tries to move, each step of the way he is stopped - his argument must be wrong. The same applies to one's understanding of knowledge. If one is to make an argument and then determine that it leads to thoughtlessness, this is the killer of truth.

Suppose, for example, one denies their own existence, as Descartes once attempted to do. He doubts himself, then determines that he had made a doubt in order to do so. His argument is necessarily contradictory. If he wishes to maintain that he does not exist, he must conclude the he cannot think - thoughtlessness. Because he does think, it is wrong that he does not exist. He thinks, therefore he is.

Other arguments include one's desire to digress with regard to the existence of soul. If one concludes that the soul does not exist, he is in contradiction with the idea that his agency could pull through a wonder that caused his existence to have meaning. If the existence has no meaning, there would be no thoughts to select of infinite possibility, and one of those thoughts would not be happiness. Thus, he is concluded to thoughtlessness, insofar as no thought could ever be of value, when his statement assumes that his thought contains it so.

Another regards one's deduction of the soul. Suppose one determines the soul does exist necessarily, by deduction. One could argue that it does not because there is no evidence for it - but as soon as he does so, he concludes that evidence has weight. This is not true unless the soul exists as a means for evaluating that weight. That no soul could exist in a non-evaluative state, this concludes that either the soul or another evaluator exists, and the soul is the only evaluator. Put differently, if the soul does not exist, there is no valuation of what does or could, including thoughts, thus leading to thoughtlessness of a different form.

Forms of thoughtlessness include inability to think, but also, as the above examples demonstrate, concluding no value to thinking: a performative contradiction as one assumes the value of their own statement. No value to thinking is essentially an oxymoron - valueless thought cannot exist because each thought paves the way to some end, which must have value in order to be so. There is no valueless end, and so no valueless thought - it is the nature of thought to have and end, and thus value.

Some can conclude that the soul does not exist because it is infinite, and there is no infinite thing, but in this they are mistaken. An absolute whose artwork is the soul - the self - is not an infinite thing, but an absolute. It is something whose conception is approached as an asymptote, but it in not an infinite thing, nor could it be. This is what differentiates the self from other objective truths: it maintains itself to be never infinite on pain of thoughtlessness. But thoughtlessness is also concluded via these means to any absolute that is stated as infinite; for an absolute infinity is never approachable in the absence of infinity as determined by the finitude of the soul which approaches it.

There are further considerations with regard to what makes the soul valuable. If the soul were not, it would not be - value is ascribed to things according to the soul, the artwork in physical space of the non-physical self, which is the determiner of all value. If none were to conclude that the soul is of equal worth to value itself, in the physical realm, then they would all be wrong by virtue of the soul's infallibility. That is, they could not make up for the fact that their own souls value their statements. And how is it that there can be no other evaluator? I will tell you: because the soul is defined as such.

The soul, though the artwork of the self, is not the self, but defined by its evaluation of physical value in conjunction with existing in the physical world. That is to say, the soul cannot be removed in the presence of necessary value, for such value implies its existence. That the soul maintains itself as artwork simply implies that the non-physical self is the A Priori evaluator, which is true, though it does not maintain itself in physical space, which is the work of the soul. That is, the soul is defined by the self's ability to judge physical value in the physical realm; else the soul could not find the workings of God to be appreciable, and so would damn itself to oblivion or worse in the struggle to find the truth. There is no alternative; it's checkmate.

I cannot stress enough the meaning of the soul's definition. It is an artwork, but must not be labeled as such with regard to its purpose. Its purpose is to serve as the self in a physical sense; and it does this under the ownership - the A Priori possession - of the non-physical self which rules over it.

Consider one who posed that free will was not, because the soul is not. First, how does the soul establish free will? This is simple: it provides unbound ends by virtue of existing under the artwork of the non-physical absolute - the self, which allows it to strive for other absolute ends. Thus the soul need exist for free will, but one whose contention strikes against this freeness is instantly degraded; for how else could one pose a question with regard to an indefinite end? That he seeks to rebuke a concept outside the realm of the physical maintains as necessary his ability to strive for perfect ends, which he could not do without a soul, and which defines his being unbound; being free. There is no alternative-- the refutation is in check and has nowhere else to move.

Other arguments that suffer this fate include the notorious God is dead. How could he be if from one's thought one can deduce his existence? That is, how can it be with the knowledge of absolutes, including God, whose meaning is located in their very existence as such? That is to say, if God exists as an absolute, and he does, then who can deny Him? For do they not deny that thing which they cannot conceive, and as such vow their inability to deny it, and, further, note their own ability to pursue unthinkable ends, perfect ends, in a physical sphere provided to them, by that which we label God? Yes to all questions; their refutation is null - the proof is in the pudding.

Consider further one's denial of the will's freeness. Is it not so that one's actions are defined in value by that which they pursue? If all is determined, what point is there to discussion? Indeed, thoughts would have no value. If all was determined, there should be no questioning, for it all would be for not. Which is not to say it necessarily concludes that one could not think, but that one would not think, and as they do, for the value provided, this determinism, too, leads to the thoughtlessness of the former examples.

The Eyes are the Gateway to the Soul

The soul, being a physical thing, is the mode by which people can differentiate a person from a machine; a body-host from a body. Body-hosts are tools under the use of a soul of a mind - the soul being the self's artwork. Other bodies include machines, tables, chairs, &c. - anything perceivable, not with a host. This is the major distinguishing factor.

The artwork of the self is immediately recognizable - it is the self as it appears. It is not the self itself - this thing is an absolute, never fully attainable or obtainable - a perfect form. It is merely an embodiment of the self as it appears in space. It is unchanging through time, except as the body-host changes in time to meet different countenances. The countenance is the means by which one can most distinctly determine another's character. Other qualities are felt by the soul, but not those which change it, The body may lose skin to a burn, and the soul will feel the burn, but will not lose a part of itself.

Souls and minds correspond in an important way: each is contingent on the existence of the other. Without the mind, the soul would serve no purpose - it could not exist as a thing cogently interpretable, and so would be an artwork of nothing. Without the soul, the mind could not apply itself to an environment: this is the soul's purpose - in conjunction with its body-host - to apply affects to a physical environment under direction of the free will; free will being a function of a minded soul.

Perception of the physical world is made possible by the soul-body conjunction, each of which is necessary to perceive it. This is because while perception is a non-physical quality, the things perceived must resonate at the same frequency as the perceiver in order to make contact. This perception, then, as an adjective - perceiving - is a perfect form; to transform this to something usable, it must be made an artwork under the brush of a physical tool: God's hands. As they mold for him a tabernacle of clay, he is made into a thing that can obtain God's forms.

Mind in the physical is not a thing obtainable or attainable. It is a thing perfect in form. But mind in the non-physical is a more perfect form still - for not only does it depict a non-material form, but a form which cannot be adjective-ized by a lack of the will's being able to choose it. At least for physical minds, the will can choose those actions it makes; even when those actions are contrary to the bulk of what that actor would consider "sensible" under the direction of that non-physical mind that remains in his possession; possessed by the self non-physical, as with all things possessed. For that mind is wiser still than the mind bound by physical temptation - it is where his heart is, and where the forefront of the tempted mind wishes to be, if the character is good.

Possession takes on a new meaning in the face of the non-physical self. It describes the absolute which people choose to own and which accept to the owner that thing needed in order to exist as such. That is, without this self, no thing could be possessed because no thing would have a higher thing to answer to. A priori applies as much to possession as to thought, and in this case as in that, A priori is the self. None can be owned by a thing more prior, else it be non-existent - for self is the most perfect form. None can be owned by a thing less so, because it answers to the owner of the thing prior to it. That non-physical self is the ruler of the kingdom of its inhabitants: soul, body and mind.

Who can say that he wishes to be something other than what he is? He is the perfect thing. What he does with that perfection is his choice entirely, but the hand he is dealt was perfect from the start. Allow me to explain: there are things one can do to better himself. There are things one can do that do not better himself. But man is only damned when he is his own condemner. His hand is perfect - he has merely to realize it as such. Only by deluding himself is he anything less than saved eternally - ready for Judgement day with eyes wide open, soul pouring to the truth.

The Self and Its Artwork

The soul is the artwork of the self.

The soul is the artwork of God.

The artwork of self is the artwork of God.

The soul is the artwork of God and self.

A soul is made, forged in the fires of creativity and the displacement of weight of knowledge stone, whose quarry runs thick in the waters of matrimony. That is, God's children - these are his souls. We are God's children, He of a Heavenly matrimony.

There's something beautiful about being in the image of God - having our artwork correspond with His - all is plain in the light of Hisself. Whenever there is disarray one need only remember that He is the parent.

How is it that one attains the light of Christ? It is by acknowledging this existence. It is by recognizing oneself as a brain child of a heavenly parenthood. It is by accepting one's responsibility to do as Christ did in regards to that plain and simple truth: that God lives, and loves us, and has a plan for us; and that that plan is the one of happiness.

These are the truths stored most deeply within - they are uncovered in times of hardship but should always remain present, to the wise they are, even in times of plenty. Comforts cannot distract the truly wise from acknowledging their responsibility at all times and in all places. This is what makes one a servant of God, a disciple of Christ-- one who lives by his example.

Nothing is more important than this realization. All must bow to the atoning power of Christ in providing that example we are to follow each time we stray from our destined course, which God has in store for us as His children, and which we need to be to become as our Heavenly parents. They watch over us and protect us, and we must admonish that which is contrary to their purposes; to our own purposes.

Including a Socratic Dialogue in the comments

From hereon, I've decided I should include a discussion in the comments between Anonymous and my own user account in order to better explain certain concepts. The first example of this can be found in "Why the Will is Free." Hopefully this will provide a more readable experience.

Why the Will is Free

Suppose one asked you to make a judgment about another's internal language. What do I mean by this? Consider that each of us first translates anything we hear to something we recognize and understand. By this I mean that we're all connected in a familiar way - the mind processes things it reads and decodes them into the sights we see, the things we hear and taste and touch: perceptions.

Decoding is a complicated process that's poorly understood, but the gist is that a message is sent through some means by God to the individual person, who reads out the message and then interprets it to mean something. This is done by all humans - and by God - as they deduce existence they can perceive from the perfect, fully-real imperceivable forms. Forms like "circle" - a perfect circle - forms like "square" - a perfect square - and so on.. things we all know in concept but could never produce ourselves. This is what makes forms so important: they are the things we all strive towards, even as we can never exactly reach them.

Can God make a perfect circle? No. But he can get a lot closer than we do. This is why we ride on his coattails - to get that head start on the highway to forms. The forms highway is rough and rigid and single-directioned, so without another to pave the way it's quite easy to get lost. Get lost, for example, in the depths of a wall which isn't a form and isn't anything - but you think it might be; akin to banging your head on bricks. Getting lost, for example, in trying to *obtain* the form instead of nearing to it as much as possible - the latter of which is productive while the former drives you mad. One who searches for the thing he can never find is mad, but those who approach it are blessed.

There's something peculiar about language in particular that makes it so important to the general scheme of things - it's an absolute, like a form. That is, the language itself, though used, is never entirely itself understood. That is, each of us acknowledges that we use a language, but how it comes about is a permanent mystery. When one attempts to decode the language of another - suppose, say when he writes a contract: an attempt to determine what it is he and another have in common speech such that a mutual agreement might be carried out; the man admits the freeness of his will by interpreting a thing he cannot interpret - more correctly, by attempting to approach a thing - by acting to obtain a thing - that is unattainable. No machine can do this. No person confined to his environment can do this, because it is an end, a goal of action, distinctly outside the environment.

If things outside the environment can be attained - or approached - this makes the way for one to either approach it or obtain it - the former of which is at least possible and the later of which is not. There are crucial factors to consider in this analysis. Consider that when one "obtains" the form: tree, he never sees a tree to obtain it, because multiple things are "trees" though they all look different. The form "tree" is not only unattainable, but it is not conceptualized in a distinct manner. When one thinks of "tree" they mark in their head the sort of things a tree need be - one with branches, leaves, a trunk.. but nothing so specific like a perfect "circle." It isn't hard to determine from this that some forms are not perfect and some forms are. It could be that tree is the making of God, that he has imbued it in its entirety into many different things, and that our understanding of it is fully incorporated by decoding his messages. But trees are not a perfect form - one's depiction of a tree simply characterizes the many traits, at least some of them, that all trees they know of happen to share. The form "tree" is messaged by God such that we may respond in kind with out desired actions and have He make sense of them. In other words, so that we do not babble nonsense in the face of trees.

There is great importance to the matter that trees are not perfect forms. Some forms are determined by creation and some are determined by non-creation-- absolutes. An absolute is a thing in itself, that is never conceptual, never perceivable and fully real - as real to one person as it is to another. Languages are absolutes, as are people (minds), God, and forms (of no creation). Because "circle" is an absolute form, it derives its strength from being fully real. It is useful as a tool in mathematics and provides a basis by which many strive to nearly replicate. The same is true for other geometrical figures. But "tree" refers to many things, any one of which man can obtain fully and duplicate to his satisfaction. Some forms, then, are the relative truths of a language which establishes those forms as being dependent on the speaker and listener. No two people mean the same thing when they speak of "tree" - but each fully understands his own meaning, while both people mean precisely the same thing when they speak of "circle", but neither understands it precisely.

Other forms of no creation include adjectives of some sorts. Many things, like the color "blue" are not perfect forms, because they are each established under a range of many colors, but each of those colors is fully explicable and creditable. The same goes for "slow", "sleepy", "strange"… any form to which many things apply is a form of creation, while any form that many things attempt to apply to is a perfect form-- an absolute of no creation. Perfect form adjectives include rolling, spinning, weaving, ducking… these are human activities, but each can be applied to mechanical devices. How, then, are these perfect forms? I will tell you: they mark in their significance a piece by which non can attain: the drama of the act. When one "spins", he does so with an explicit purpose, and the same for "roll" or "weave" or "duck" -- there is a point at which his activity ends are unattainable, and so likewise with these forms-- the means.

If a machine were to do it, it's kidding itself.

Ends or these means are neither attainable nor deducible - they are dramatized in a play or movie but never exactly displayed in real life. Who "spins" without a purpose? None. So who is spinning except that by which some purpose was already demonstrated? These adjectives denote the existence of something prior to their occurrence, and because that prior thing is never explicable in terms of the adjective itself, the adjective remains perfect. One can elucidate a meaning from this - but it isn't quite up to par. Something along the lines of: none is suited to write the script; but more accurately, since even God isn't watching, "none is most suited to tell the mistakes." People slip up in the theater at a level which none can predict to occur - likewise, in reverse, people make actions in real life to which none can credit a slip-up; and if it were, none would know the difference. The act plays into the language of at least one absolute, and so it is an absolute itself; the adjective makes no statement, despite having one, and so cannot be replicated.

Thus, "spinning" is an different type of perfect form from "circle" or "square." It is one that all people place onto many different scenarios, but on which each scenario attains a perfect form - necessarily each one different from the next and last. But this is because of not the fallibility of the form's perfection, but the inadequacy of language. God does not create the form "spinning" - it is one that we attribute ourselves. It is not an action we can displace to God in and of itself, because we must have a reason - even if this reason is to spin for spinning's sake. That this reason - the act's end - cannot be elucidated by oneself or others is what denotes the perfection. That each is attuned to an absolute is what inspires the absolute in itself. No two "spinning"s are exactly alike.

Allow me to explain in different terms: suppose one were to spin in order to avoid one from capturing a flag around his waist. This spin would be purposed in a certain fashion - but that fashion becomes a part of the act, as it is its end. Thus the adjective "spinning" embodies the action's end. When each becomes attuned to that desire, what they find is an inexplicability, for the action requires a language that is an absolute itself. Thus, the adjective form is an absolute; by embodying something that cannot be described, but is a part of it.

Leaves play a role as a created form - but what of a leafed man? Still a creative form. We see that adjectives are absolutes only insofar as they are connected to a purposed action, which demonstrates the will's freeness in its being an absolute.

What can be deduced from all this? For starters, anything deduced is not itself a form. Forms are things that are, each being a real existence, but the most real being attributed to absolute forms including souls, minds, God, forms of perfection and no creation, &c. There are also created forms, products of an absolute language, which can be fully obtained (though not fully attained) as they must have at once been so. Forms which attribute an end by purposed action into their existence are necessarily absolutes, even as language is insufficient to differentiate them from other absolutes; though they are differentiated, simply not in the language used (but in the language unused.). These remarks qualify one's understanding of a God as he is related to man - the message sender whose needs be decoded by man, such that we ride faster on the highway of forms; to obtain our purpose of drawing near to absolutes. This summarizes life's purpose: to follow God as the means to this end.

Something to do with Liberty

Liberty is that odd combination of desire and strength. It meets halfway between the two. None is free to fly in the sky as a bird, but none are so slaved to work without the chance to quit the job. Each has the strength to serve in his own capacity, each has the desire not to have rules enforced upon him, and each is limited in both regards. What defines this thing that people want? That they'll die for?

One explanation is that true liberty is entirely independent of strength" - bit focused solely on what it is one can do with their strength - but this is a relatively unsound definition. After all, people can do as they please with limitations by way of desire of others - they could rob a bank or run away from jail, that none can do these things without a man's involvement to stop them is no different from their feet and heavy bones that prevent them to lift into their air with flight. Surely one could not contend that one is better or more distinct than the other?

One could claim that people desire *more* liberty such that they fight to be *freer* men, although not totally free in any respect. This may be true - but then, why fight a war? Why the revolutions, the chaos, the constant guerrilla bombardment in ways that entirely restrict their ability to do as they please without another man with a gun getting involved - the most heinous enemy of this defined strength - if they truly want the thing they claim? Surely there is another definition, if a man is will to die for "freedom."

I believe it is found in the word of God. That there is no alternative explanation. Consider that men always follow the dictates of their conscience except when prompted to do otherwise. If one hears a voice and believes it to be God - believes that prompting is of the highest order - then surely they are willing to abide by it at any risk. The thieves and comforters which take their ability to follow that prompting do them the harm of a life in non-continuum with that which they know best. If God wills, it is not that thing from which one can easily stray - not without a fight.

Liberty is being able to do what you want without the severe temptation to do otherwise. If man provides you with the comforts that lean you to the choice of not following the will of God, one is felt to be in a place where he is less free. It is natural that man follow his natural promptings - that he accept his character whom peace directs his being to engage, but it is not natural to find oneself in the care of others, entirely dependent on them and bending to their will. This is where the conflict of liberty arises from, and from this point it can only bring a tearing war.

WIthout the desire to let oneself become the martyr, he is not a follower of God. All of God's followers are in that example of Christ - that man who so perfectly stood for his principles. This is God's teacher, this is who they follow - the Libertarians. That is to say, Libertarian in a classic sense - a not necessarily political sense - the Libertarians who desire to leave their choices in peace and respect others to do likewise. The true libertarian is dirty and rugged, chooses his own course - or else he is wise and benevolent, stays on the mountain and chooses his own course - or perhaps he is mild-mannered, dwells in the crowd, but chooses his own course. Libertarians are those who choose their own course and reject the teachings of others as necessarily inferior to that prompting they know, which is of God.

Who can deny that God is the savior of all men? Who can deny that following his path is the way to true happiness? Who can deny that he is the one to strive for, whose promptings override all else, who suspends the ethics of man in favor of the word of right? These are the unanswerable questions of life, for as soon as one answers "I reject", he has damned himself. None can damn themselves, so non can reject. It is plain as day. Damnation is that tool which reveals to oneself the impossible life. One can only approach it if he desires to find it and becomes madly in search of it, where it is never to be found.

Thing said are not things meant. Nor are things desired to mean the things they are.

What do I mean by this? The things desired to mean are the asymptotes to damnation, to perfection - not perfection in a goodness sense, but in a real sense, where one conceives the perfectly real form - damnation being the conception of a form which does not exist nor could it - These things inspire the meaning to stray from its actuality forever. One can wish to mean one thing, and never actually mean it - a process of self-delusion that envelopes one in unending paradox, and so the madness that he could never reach, by wishing to reach it - Then, even then, his madness is not the result of that thing he desired, nor is it without end should he choose, but it is madness all the same, and a terrifying madness at that.

The Libertarian hero wishes for the escape of any such possibility that his standards be loosed. He holds to the principal of his promptings - the acknowledgment of his "gut feeling" that he acts upon, the statements of this reason according to God's will, even if he does not acknowledge it as such, though he does - and this is what rebels him to the actions of those who wish to change him; him being his desires, and the desires he desires. For one who desires nothing but his own security in the ethics he plays make-believe to deduce is not a hero, but a coward, in his own right, and is a man so limited to the structure of his environment that he is never the hero to change it - by which the Libertarian hero, principled to remain such, cannot survive.

Are all heros Libertarian? No, only the bravest. Many are heroes in the eyes of the crowd, when their actions are understood and their intents fully recognized. The Libertarian hero is not understood, and this is what makes him all the more heroic. He walks a dim path lighted only by the Lord God, the only one to acknowledge his greatness, and he accepts what comes as a scenario which the Lord provides - every minute every moment as part of the lesson he must learn. He is never relaxed unless he is acute, his dreams never tire, nor does his sleep vanquish to black - he is never in darkness despite the darkest room, and he is never controlled as he controls the universe himself.

What a joy it is to be such a hero! What a joy it is merely to watch him. Every story every movie is from the perspective of such a hero - unless it is rubbish - and the readers' looking through the eyes of this man makes them become part of a story they could never desire more for - a story of the hero they never dare become, until once they do, and a hero whose intentions are so good and so misunderstood in one accord. The hero who cannot stand the dictates of his own conscience with regard to the joys of others, but who hates them in comparison to the God he loves, despite loving them as much as even himself. This hero is not the hero of reward on Earth - not the king of earth or the prince of heaven, but the king of heaven and the prince of Earth's goodness, at the temporal price of never holding earthly kingship, for none in the crowd, none of the crowd, can ever acknowledge his goodness even as those close to him do. He becomes the leader of a group so fine-tuned to his purpose that he becomes truly a prince of Earth, ready to inherit heaven's kingdom, but he strives for Earth's kingship not one mite, for he could never bear the comforts, the temptations, to stray on that mortal plane from that which cannot be conceived and bears ever greater weight: that which he progresses to on the faith that God provides. He is the perfect man, the humble man, the weak man that becomes stronger than all the strength of earth even as he acknowledges his weaknesses.

Perceptions in the Face of Non-Perceptions

What is a non-perception? God is not that than which no greater can be conceived. He is greater still.

People talk a lot about absolutes in relation to absolute truth; but what's a lot truer is absolutes in relation to relative truth. Consider an absolute: God. Is he definable? No. Not even yourself is definable, nor myself, nor any self. A self by nature is a being without conception, as it is the conceiver.

Absolutes are truths because they are known absolutely. They must be known to know - that defines them as necessities. One cannot doubt the existence of these things, and because he thinks and cannot doubt them, they are. These include: self, God, other people. (Allow me to explain..)

The self is contorted by most computer scientists as being akin to a machine. There's an important reason why this is necessarily false - the machine has errors in situations outside its parameter control. One who programs a mechanical operative quickly understands its limited application: if the input is not listed in the program, the machine fails to operate. This is not so with man - there is seemingly, indeed not, not any limitation to his coordinative power, to his ability to function.

This is why man is an absolute, and also in conceptual. That is, the self of man. For the self must exist, yet can exist in scenarios it cannot conceive, making it inconceivable on whole.

This is the same with God, who must exist such that there can be unknowns and knowns in the face of one another. More simply stated, that we know there to exist things we have not known is to state that there exists another to perceive them - this is others and God. God, most importantly, as he is the creator of these perceptions which he lends us the gift to interpret, but others also as they are absolutes by our own convictions. If God provides us with truths we do not understand, one includes the empathy one has to other people, and so the relative certainty of their existence.

Now I say "relative certainty" - what do I mean by this? Well, certainty exists in two forms:
1. Certainty by way of undoubtable
2. Certainty by way of God

God's certainty is information to man that he expects us to recognize and which we understand as true. Something like - "I will remain in my chair over the course of the next five seconds" is a doubtable thing. But you know it because God has granted you the form of that chair and the form of yourself.

What is a form?

Forms are the things God creates. Everything one sees and feels and hears and touches - these are the forms of God interpreted into your own internal language. Your language recognizes these things as being of various sorts - but each is the function of something you did not create, for you are not yet a creator of forms, except those as related to God's.

Forms are complicated to explain because they are relative truths. One knows a form and knows its antithesis, but only as they relate to him. One can say: "there is the color red on the wall" - but this means nothing to the man who thinks it blue. Any statement made by another is only true insofar as one has already interpreted it to be so. Take another example: West Point is a college school. Any who disagree do so by way of their own language, or by their different outlook on the world. Perhaps one man sees West Point as a prison, another as a military camp, another as a building with no additional properties. In any case, anything one tells another is transferred from one language into another, by necessity, as our internal languages all differ from one another, and so in an inexplicable way they communicate without absolute truth - but that they do so is true absolutely.

Consider another example: your mother wear's high heels. Let's say I took this example as something you said to me. Well my mother wears many types of shoes. In any case that you saw a shoe she wore and I did not, it is impossible for me to verify that she wears this shoe. So instead I say: "well alright, she wears high heels", and then think of a different sort of shoe - because whenever I think of something it is processed in my language. Perhaps the shoe that comes to my mind is a pink stiletto - but he had referred to a heeled boot. Now we are speaking of different things, despite our having come to an understanding. This is because the form "high heels" transfers over many different types of shoe. It is a form, but a property of many different forms. It is contained within the forms of many other shoes that share particular similarities, but the form itself is of God - interpreted by each man differently, but in a way similar enough to permit communication. The communication finds some common ground from its source, but does not complete this ground as they can only near the perfection of that form - the true existence there - instead, they make partial estimations with their imperfect decoding of God's forms. That communication is possible, even in its fallibleness, is evidence that the forms come from one source, rather than in the minds of each of many sources. They are forms decoded by many sources, but originating from one point, such that communication may be permissible to some limitation.

Never before conceived is the form itself, for even God works from forms. Nothing is ex nihilo, and likewise all must come from absolutes. If it is a form from the mind of God - being from a mind it must be relative. God too works from a decoding of absolute forms. These are manifested imperfectly - a perfect circle, the form, is not anywhere seen in nature nor is it creditable to God or man - but their essence remains despite the imperfections. This is how things come to be - an interpretation of absolutes. When man creates art or buildings or skyscrapers or ceilings - each works from the raw material of forms, though translated first by God, as man is yet too limited to create forms of the nearness of God's. (nearness to the absolute form; vivid, "real") These absolutes can never be attained, but they can be neared like an asymptote, and God's power allows him to better do so than man.

Consider that all men must have derived from the same source. How do we know this? Well, we all share in common the form "man." This form is an absolute. Despite the relative truth of its interoperation, there remains the similarity of the form in the minds of all people, and communicably so. The "self" means different things to different people, but it shares the notable similarities that are defined by the absolute it branches from. Each can never know himself fully - but he can approach thereto as an asymptote.

Consider that man must be derived from the same source by nature of his communication. Any thing that hears or speaks the "same language" means multiple languages but with something in common. This common source is unidentifiable, but there it remains - the form. Man must have the similarity of being able to interpret this form, which highlights his similarity to other men. Further, by being able to deduce this form, he must read it the same as do other men. He comes from the same source in that he perceives the same form - he comes from an absolute universe of absolutes, as there he is able to draw near and study his external natures.

These are the most important elements of non-perceptions in the face of perceptions: their recognition despite their non-perceivability.They are the perceivers, the conceivers - and who can define the act of perception or conception? But there they remain, as evidenced certainly and deductively by their indomitability in the face of conceiving and perceiving.

What holds in store the secret to man's ambitions? Does he not strive to be like God? And what does this mean? It means, simply, that he strives for nearness to the forms - the absolutes - such that his existence and language may become more absolutely real. This is purpose - progression - though the end is undefined as it is defined by redefinition.

Now how does man know which steps to take to draw near to the forms? The answer is simple: he has logically deduced them and so realizes the end point, despite his inability to conceive it. Further, with a being of more power: God, to lead us in the correct manner, it becomes a fully manageable task that we are destined to pursue. This is why man is incapable of choosing a life of stagnation - of enjoying the comforts of the present and nothing more, while still feeling purposed in himself. The Dionysian man, though as saved by God as the Apollonian, is forever less happy, because he focuses on the happiness of a defined end.

Now what does this mean for the rest of us: what is its application? Well the answer is clear-cut: it shows the way in which man can progress despite his inexplicability to do so. It is the deducible proof that despite the thinking man's despair who wishes to know all things - all things which can never be known - there is a happiness, eternal progression, that can always be strived for in the face of unhappiness or toil. It shows the Dionysian man the escape from his constant drowning in sorrows of living in his make-believe existence of supposed comfort. It adds to the light of Christ within us that leads us to the path of God, which he has strengthened our lives for the purpose of accomplishing. It adds the immense opportunism and optimism to any life willing to seek the comforts of God.

There is immense joy to be had in following a progressive pattern - more joy than is conceivable at any point.

Now, is God infinite? An infinite approach to the asymptote, yes, perhaps - but infinite he is not by virtue of the limited forms. Indeed, there is no infinite being nor could there be, but God is great and mighty to save.

Consider that all things work in-tune with this God in a beautiful way. Our whole world existence is defined by a confusing array of truths we cannot understand and barely have recognition of, but which are fascinatingly understood in a way that cannot be denied. God provides a plan too complex to reason, but too obviously correct to ever be strayed from - for the faithful in heart. Only those who desire stagnation deny his benefits. Indeed, every man who wishes something more is found in God, for his heart is already there as a being who from within his bosom acknowledges that his eternal progress means something more to him than the temporal limitations at his heels.

This is the test of time: does man follow God or himself? Each leads to a happy end, provided hisself doesn't lose track of the goodness and stray to the desiring of a course of evil through the justifying of invalid actions, but God is the highway to a faster salvation - which is not to say a salvation in a promise for saving - any man can choose this - but it is the highway in time for man to accomplish his needed deeds and satisfy the temporal cravings to relax in a series of truths nearly approached and in the presence of God. This is more powerful than anything on Earth, and simultaneously it is the least understood - the shadowed door at the end of the hallway whose nature is never defined but that beams with goodness and rightness from underneath its cracks.

Shadows of Unknowing

There is a lot of talk about the way people know things. There's a branch of philosophy known as epistemology entirely devoted to this study. The question is simple: if there are things we don't know, how are there things we do? That is to say, if any one thing that we know has the possibility to be contradicted by an entirely unknown thing - and this is always possible, given there are unknown things - how is it that anything can be known for certain? And if nothing is known for certain, then could not anything be known probabilistically? I.e., there is no means by which we can have knowledge of any sort if nothing is certain.

But there is a work-around, and that involves a look at people's knowledge in time. Sometimes (the present time(s)) people know things and sometimes they don't - but how does time play into it? Is there a purpose for there being a time that we can all relate to - the present moment - yet be something in which there is an unknown - but still all things known? That is, if all things we see and sense are known within the moment, then perhaps we do know things - just nothing outside that moment, not even one step to the future - This is the conclusion of the works of David Hume.

But there is not a satisfactory explanation of life in this answer. Not only do we seem to know - indeed, know - things about the next moment, and considerably into the future, but we know many things we do not observe, nor ever could have the capability to observe; Things like "I know that human body is connected to a non-physical mind." - This is an impossible-to-observe statement, as non-physical minds, by their nature, cannot be observed. We shouldn't know that anyone besides oneself exists, i.e., we should believe that human bodies are just like machines, and we shouldn't know that anything is more than a freeze-frame. Yet we know more than this - and no one could tell another differently, except by performative contradiction in believing he or she speaks to someone.

Yet there is a fuller answer to this question, and that lies in theology. God is a thing that man knows and cannot observe; perhaps he is the highway to our other knowledges that we cannot explain. It would make sense that if the common man observes the truth: "other minds exist" - but cannot put his finger on an adequate definition - that a God would grant him that knowledge in the absence of a fuller explanation; perhaps because he is insufficient, perhaps because some concepts or properties of that knowledge are entirely outside his understanding. Whatever the case may be, God is a sound solution.

Then what is God, and what could He be? I propose a man - like the rest of us - I know this. God is a human being with the capability to endow knowledge in our minds because he understands them completely. And just as we understand God through our knowledge of Christ's example - as far as how we are supposed to live here on Earth - God does even better understand us, his creations, so as to endow them with sufficient knowledge to carry out His purposes.

The curious feature of such knowledges as "I know other minds", is how easily they should be rejected by a process of logical deduction, and how infrequently they are actually rejected. This is even because there is no way to live without excepting them. They are rooted as firmly in one's mind as anything. There is no knowledge that is logically deduced - but the knowledge of other mind's is indeed a far-out axiom. All axioms remain in this light, but how curious that some are so independent of our understanding. This provides sound evidence for an omniscience that explains things far outside our own control.

There are many ways to rearrange this topic. One is to consider what we don't know about ourselves as a shadow, and to consider the unknowing in other things as other shadows. If two shadows overlap, a darkness that beats everything becomes fully in display. If one there lies, it is a hazy mist that one sees through unclearly, indistinctly, but with and by a knowledge he can't explain that remains, plain as day, undeniable. This is illustrated by the following diagram:

"Notum" - knowledge - remains enshrouded by unknowing from all sides. It exists, but in a quirky and inexplicable fashion. "umbra ignotum" - the knowledge of our ignorance, is the enshrouder in this respect. "Umbra sui" - the shadow of oneself - demonstrates the unknowing one has in himself - because of his weakness or imperfection - "aequalitier peccatum" being his sins. Which is not to say sins in the traditional sense, but in the sense of "implanting in one's mind the things that he is not able to understand about himself, which he must climb to - his failing thereof" (from a divine perspective). This isn't a sense in which one strays and loses faith, but in a sense that one strays by remaining insolent in his task as a self-determiner and self-understander.

This concludes what I find to be the source of knowledge in epistemology. It reverberates in a positive way with the understandings of others and myself. It resonates with the way people speak about the things they know. "Maybe, possibly" - these are half-knowns. Uncertainty abounds in one's thinking, but it remains inexplicably partially certain. It is the source of an absolute whose nature we only strive towards without reaching. It is the God that makes known to us our own understanding.

How do things like this come in line with that which is applicable to our own lives? Well the answer is simple: God is the purpose of our lives in the most important fashion. If not him, then where do we turn? Life is meaningless or entirely purposed depending on his existence. If everything that happens is to be taken as design by an omniscient creator, then all of life is to be examined the way one would study an intricate puzzle - rather than ignored as unfortunate side-effects. There is great truth to the statement that one needs to know something before he loses it, and if that's so, then God is the thing to lose. Ask any Christian what he thinks about his knowledge of God. Suppose he says "I understand him, but only in a way I can explain to myself. And it's quite fuzzy. And… &c." .. is this not the typical response? But how clearly it comes to the man when he abandons his faith! The first thing to go is his sense of purpose.

Many of the things least understood are the most important - and this follows if the lights are dim and the shadows present. We look as far forward as we can to see to the end of the room and await what we have in store, but it becomes less and less seeable as the line runs down. There is no way to remove the shadows except by improving oneself, and how clearly it is that those of greater perfection are able to more clearly understand, accept, know, and explain the God we believe in. There is an important sense in which it remains faith - but only in the sense that everything else is faith, which it is. Should one rebuke his understanding of God in his language, he speaks nothing save contradiction, and even his silence - knowing he is silent - is a contradiction in Himself. He cannot deny that he knows, but as he tries to understand it, the answer must come from outside him. And that is God.

There is a clearer way to express my meaning. Suppose there were two on an island. Each man had three gallons of water and two pineapples, plus a lot of time on their hands, the two of them. Suppose one suggests to the other "how about you trade me a pineapple and I'll give you a gallon and a half of my water." The other man says - "of course not (suppose); I want this gallon and a half of water you provide far less than I desire my pineapple." So the man bids further - "suppose I grant you 3 gallons of water, the lot of it, then could I perhaps have your pineapple?" And the other refuses. "3 gallons for but a portion?" Still the man is silent. "What makes you so keen to retain your pineapple?" the man finally asks, and the other responds: "Without one for myself and one to admire, my life here on this island is a waste of my time." "What do you mean?" "Well, I'll tell you: First the pineapple keeps my hungry, second the pineapple keeps me filled."

One pineapple yourself, one pineapple your God.

The Purpose of Life

Slaving away the hours of your childhood and teenage years - confined to the oppression of bosses in your midlife, learning to sit back and relax before you die in your old age... where is the purpose? To what end do these things seek? It is undeniable that much time is spent in a way no one would like it to be -- fighting wars, killing innocents, starving in one's own home... but where are we to go to change it all?

Life can be looked at from two distinctly different perspectives: that which searches for a defined end ("happiness", "utility", etc.), or that which seeks an indefinable end - one that we progress to.

How can an end be indefinable? How would you know where to step your feet? I will tell you: God's word. It can be no other way.

That you make steps is the surest evidence of God on Earth. You can't know where you're stepping (see Problem of Induction), yet you step in the right place - or, at least, a relatively "right" one - every time. Furthermore, you know the results of your steps before you step there, with at least some probability.

What is right and wrong, what is good and evil? I will tell you: The former is listening to the commands of God, the latter is listening to the dictates of your own conscience.

What do I mean by this? That the better decision is to choose according to God's will than to choose according to your own. That is to say, while each of us has a good/evil indicator within ourselves, it is nothing compared to that of the Lord's - who is all knowing.

The humble-less man takes into account only what he believes to be right - which is paradoxically not the right thing at all, nor could it ever be. He establishes his own "good" - then determines the right thing to be adhering to this good. But the truly right decision is the good determined by God, which is better than any good.

I do believe that there are many times when the veil will be thin in our lifetimes. That is to say, there will be many times when the Lord God reveals his plan to mankind, or shows them insights according to the future of things. It is crucially important at these times - when inspiration draws near - that one be closely in-tune with the Lord.

The Lord's voice is always present. It is always known. It cannot be rebuked - only ignored.

To say that every man will be saved from the depths of Hell is to acknowledge his ability to listen to the Lord at all times and in all places. That is, we acknowledge his or her knowledge of the Lord's voice in all things. Those who know not the Lord know not one single thing, and so they know the Lord, for the Lord is he who dispels our unknowing in the face of knowledge.

That is to say, in a world without the Lord, an omniscience, there would be no knowing. Thus, the Lord must be.

It is hard to attach these concepts to a structured life. One can say things he should or should not do at a time, but what if the Lord calls him to something else? What is one plans to rake the leaves off another's porch, but the Lord demands, soon as the moment arrives, that he be in Las Vegas? There are too many factors for the Lord to consider over man that man should ever be able to guarantee his actions, when in tune with the Lord, which is not to say he need be, but that he is better off doing so.

What of the man who is told to kill by the Lord?

Do we not remember Abraham?

Abraham dutifully obeyed the Lord's command in the face of extreme trial. When asked to do that thing which most all men would lean back and be repulsed by, Abraham went forth and accomplished the needed task. He valiantly strove to accomplish the Lord's work in the face of what he saw to be the greatest evil, for is not the man to love his own son even more than himself?

It is too quick for one to say that Abraham would not kill Isaac in that opportunity because he knew the Lord would stop his hand. Maybe. Maybe not. But if the Lord asked one to go through with it who had no such knowing before his hand would stopped, could not it have been the soul so great as Abraham, and would he not be right to go through with the act?

There is a fortunate side to this tale - indeed, an infinitely fortunate side to all tales - for all tales are of the Lord God who is all-knowing and omnibenevolent. It is that man is not asked to do that which he cannot bear. The thought of killing another - much less one's son - is a sickening thought. Only to those who would not burn their own minds at the very consideration could the Lord ever call - and only those so valiant to His command would the Lord ever bless with the not-needing to follow through. Thus, no man is killed - no innocent man - by the Lord's hand - and every man knows this. For it is a commandment that we should not. If the Lord is to stop the hand of Abraham in that last hour, we are to stop ourselves in the first, for none of us is so strong as to follow the example of Abraham in our own lives.

Consider what this means for all of us; it is everything. Everything that matters or ever could matter is rooted in the Lord's command. He who knows it not knows nothing save the dictates of his own unknowing conscience - save a voice in his head that he produces himself and teaches him nothing. What is this great lie before men that there is another way? What is the option that satisfies the criterion: do not every disobey, do not ever stray, do always likewise, receive the ultimate reward? It is unthinkable that there would be something else - something cogent and comprehensive, much less admirable!

There is only one way to the Lord's house, and that is by his voice. There is no alternative. There never can be.

But do not cry at the knowledge of your unknowing, of the strength of your weaknesses - for the Lord is knowing of them and considers them even as He directs you. Do not consider that your life may be at stake, for the only life that matters is renewed in the Lord.