When exploring the ideas within many of the ‘smart’, short but sweet philosophical quotes out there, sometimes we can see that they are actually a complete load of crap!
This is an exercise in seeing beyond the surface of what we are told. We all generally lounge on a frequency of lazy communication. We absorb the messages of our media services and take what we are told, and what our peers believe, as being our general cultural and moral norms – we make it our world. Think of this article as an exercise in looking through the simple messages that saturate our world.
The aim is to look at these quotes intellectually and understand that the limited perspective from which they view the world, actually makes the quotes completely wrong and dangerous when looked at from other perspectives.
By looking at everything from everyone’s perspective, we can choose to ignore our cultural bias, and understand that essentially all people are one, we are all connected in the web of our mere existence. At the very basics, our humanity should completely disregard our national, racial, cultural, and religious differences.
1.
I think this shows pure delusion, with hints of arrogance, and frustrating ignorance. When a person chooses to do bad things, sometimes it is because they simply want to do so for immoral personal gains. In this case, the person knows fine well that what they do is bad. There is no mistaking involved. The happiness they receive as result of their evils is taken with conscious ignorance to care. They choose to ignore their heart. They know fine well that the evil should bring them sadness – they consciously ignore that knowledge.
Sometimes when people do bad things, it is because they believe they are doing it for a greater good. For example, al-Qaeda believe they are committing necessary evils for the benefit of the greater good. Even in this case, it is not the evil act that brings the happiness. The happiness is felt when they focus on the goodness in the badness of the act. They know fine well what is bad, but they see through that darkness, and focus on the light.
Main point – There are no conscious mistakes in happiness, without madness.
2.
You! You! You! You! So much individual blame, and given so aggressively, it could have the aim of encouraging the individual to make the most of their situation, to do all they can to better themselves; or it could be simply shifting the blame from somebody else. But no, it’s not all about you! Because you live in an environment, in a community. In the environment Paris Hilton was born in to, she has to put zero effort into living a safe life of luxury. How about, for example, those poor Syrian children living in the Jordanian refugee camps? The world can’t even manage to work together to help them by even giving them enough tents to sleep under, so how in the hell are they going to help themselves?
The cause for blaming your situation on yourself certainly has a lot of weight: There is an incredible amount you can do to change/avoid any situation that you face. But “nobody else is responsible” – Complete absolute bullshi’. In no way at all are your hard work and quality of choices comparable to that of others. For example, 2 people could study from the same book for the same amount of time. How much information they each absorb depends of an immense amount of further factors, which are beyond their control.
We are all affected by the world in entirely different ways. Placing primary blame on the self is sheer ignorance in the face of the immensity of outside complexity. To help ourselves, we must focus on helping eachother.
Main point – The success of the self, is the responsibility of the community.
3.
Oh, so it is that simple? Being at one with the truth is how to be happy? Well firstly… no. And, what is the truth? Because that in itself is subjective – one persons truth is another persons delusion. Telling a person that the way to be happy is to blindly believe their truth, is nothing other than a promotion of ignorance – ‘al-Qaeda, it’s okay, you carry on in your delusional endeavours, because at least you are happy’ – Mohandas Gandi.
We may feel content when we are being ‘true to ourselves’ and following our aims, but we should never say, “that’s that, I’m happy now”. Because that is the point that we get defensive, and protect something merely because we think that our happiness is at stake. Happiness should be sought through enlightenment and discovery, not stagnation, and cultural conservatism.
Main point – truth is not always what it seems, so don’t attach it to blind happiness.
4.
I have seen this ridiculous quote so so so many times. The truth is that yes, for 99.9% of us, we do not do anything to improve our chances of living forever. But reality is, some of us do! Calico, a Google company has the aim of giving us the ability to live forever. Immortality could be as little as 30 years away – So “we all die”, is a completely false statement. And we could all help fund the companies that are working towards extreme longevity. Immortality is on the horizon, our goal CAN be to reach it
Main point – Understand that immortality is possible.
5.
Okay… firstly, power and love… they are not even comparable. You can aim to have power, and you can aim to have/give love. In no way, is it useful to split the two into separate, and comparable ambitions. You could aim to gain power in order to protect love; in Charlie Chaplin’s world, philanthropists must just not exist. If the people who want to do harm, are the only ones to have power, then we wouldn’t have police. I could go on and on and on with these examples…
Now, if we were all filled with love, then we would live in a world where no one would need power, because we would not need to be protected from evil… Right? Nope – Because, for example, scientists would still need to have authority in government policy; doctors would need power over a patients health advice and privacy.
And love… that can still make people commit evil acts. We can bring al-Qaeda up yet again here: They are slaves to the love of their God.
Main point! – Love is enough, but without power, it is doomed.
6.
Ow wow. Well… just wow! Worrying is a natural feeling, created through evolution, with the purpose of ensuring that we stay safe, so we can keep enjoying the good! If you have lots of worries, it’s because you also have lots of good to protect. Worrying too much is called paranoier – which is a whole other subject.
Main Point – Worrying WILL stop bad stuff happening!!
7.
This is so massively flawed. I wish I could make that ‘WRONG!!!’ bigger.
How do you know what is not meant for you unless you pursue it until it brings you to complete exhaustion? If something is not meant for you, then you will barely have it anyway, and so you will not need to put in effort to ‘gracefully’ let it go – because you will realise that you don’t care. The people who pursue something even though they don’t care for it, are defined as psychopaths.
How gently you lived!? How do you achieve anything by being gentle? Thankfully Nelson Mandela did not follow this advice.
How much you loved!? Yes that one is important.
Main point – Let’s not focus on the end…
Focus on commenting below, sharing this article, and sharing some more bad philosophy?