There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. – Soren Kierkegaard
Prologue
-- This essay is like rambling, because I can’t master English well.
Today, I find an old video about Russell that I have seen a few years ago and the video aroused my real interests on the wisdom and limitations of human. I used to try to tell what’s what, to tell what the truth is, to tell what the reality is; I hated the people believing that torment is inevitable, life is meaningless, or everything is in a mess in which we can’t say anything about it. And I thought that all the possible scientific questions should be answered and only then will I be able to answer other questions. There were much more mysteries in science than in humanity.
However, after reading Camus, Dostoevsky, the opinions changed a lot. I though that thinking only begins at the point where we have come to realize that reason is the ‘only’ rival of thinking. As a result, I applied the philosophy of irrationalism, agnosticism译：不可知论 and the notion of ideology to all the fields involved human being’s impulses, after which it’s impossible for me to answer the real questions, despite the fact that I knew ‘a lot’ about humanity. Even though I knew the exact answer to the question, such as ‘whether there is an idea called identification’, the opinion of unknown refused all the answers.
Besides, a few days ago, I tried to use a theory about ideology, just like the past theory about existence, to explain everything in my life. Obviously, it’s in vain. All the subsequent explanations of human actions, social events are nonsense. It’s a absurd thought, I admit, but what can I do?
I have no specific ideal or belief on the future of myself or human beings. I try to convince others of my ridiculous theory, although I don’t believe it myself. I try to demonstrate that now is important rather than past or future and construct an idea that we only live at the present instant, although the sufferings from past and the hopes to future inform me that you are living at another time. I try to face death squarely like Heidegger said, but I can’t do that because of my weakness.
Therefore, I try to look further and look back to learn something from the mirror of history. But history isn’t an objective mirror - there’s all confusion and disappoints me. I find that all the progress is propelled by genius and I’m clear about that I’m not a genius. It seems that ordinary people are just the cells of an revolution again and again. In a historical work, an ordinary person killed himself to show his regret, whose whole life is no more than a footnote, with no name left.
As the negative thoughts are arriving at my deepest heart, I come to know that the pressure of fate is too heavy for a single person. Despite the acknowledgement of the importance of relationship, I still live myself - with the bias on betrayer. If someone asks me: “why do you like Chester Benington?” The answer varies, but for now, that’s because “the sun goes down, I feel the light betray me”. I don’t know why the hatred of betrayer weighs out the love - I don’t even suffer for it at all.
Let’s go back home, focus on my fault. I’ve talked about scientific approach, irrational approach and several ridiculous theories, the weakness; it’s turn to talk about the real question.
Body
After expressing the negative thoughts of myself, which is just an excuse to my inability and weak spirit to risks, I will escape from the jail of myself/ego and treat the question seriously.
There’s no doubt that humanity is important for every individual. But humanity is nothing but humanity, while the world is an expression of humanity and all the other things. It is not our brains that matter most, but that which guides them - the relationship, the paradigm and something we learnt - the truth. Life is everything including sufferings and things outside our minds.
Therefore, I try to overcome my arrogance to the reality. It seems absurd that a person living in the world hates the facts; however, there he is.
The hero of this era isn’t humanity but the mixture of humanity and something else, which might be ideology, artificial intelligence or the glorified natural science, especially biology. This isn’t a decoration of dualism. It’s a proposal that we shouldn’t focus on ourselves, because the problem of this era is to live with something beyond our control instead of the thoughts of an individual.
I’m clear that humanity is a black hole absorbing wisdom and insights. The more we devote ourselves, the less we will get, and the deeper we sink. And I want to tell you that the effort of Sisyphus is just an illusion of the real life. Life is different from rolling a huge boulder endlessly up a steep hill. What’s more, the scenery we’ve seen isn’t a bleak hill. The meaninglessness has changed the way we see the world. Someone wants to live in the palace of crystal, while someone wants to live in the underground that he thinks is superior, realistic. With an insight on the meaninglessness, I impose myself to the world merely composed of uncertainty and emptiness. It isn’t a pragmatic way to live in the world.
I’m not here to stand up for the optimism or the ‘beauty’ of the world; I’m here to against living with only sadness or depression. In previous article in Chinese, I found a pest in our mind - illusion. And cooperating with another pest self-deception, they confuse the reality with the imagination. Although there isn’t a clear borderline between them (reality and imagination, illusion and self-deception), there is a difference. As the result, some people, including me, are convinced that paradox is the truth. However, it is just stupid to tell yourself that I suffer more than anyone else.
Let’s summary the disorganized words and then move on to end. Although I’m ‘aware’ of my weakness and possibility, I still hide in the underground. There are much more things than my awareness. That is, the illusion and self-deception make up dream that we acknowledge the world, but actually it’s a way to escape from the harsh facts and will end up with a nightmare.
Epilogue
What I want to present is to understand others, the world without any assumptions, and change our minds with new knowledge because there’s no perfect formula for them, we need to adapt our brains to the changes. I’m clear that this is cliché, but I always lose my directions for losing that opinion. At every stage of my life, the principles should vary a lot.
I want to answer some unanswered questions myself, but it’s hard for a person to answer them. Putting too much pressure on my soul has destroyed my life. And I hope that readers don’t suffer from that.
We should be aware of the facts, of what’s true, of the reality. That isn’t betrayal to Kierkegaard or Dostoevsky; that’s what they want us to do, I think. Don’t fall into frustration; don’t leave yourself behind the truth and the facts; don’t ignore your sufferings as well as the pains of others.
Only with the acknowledge of facts will we truly love others, truly be involved with the fate of ourselves; otherwise, we are just the machines programmed by ideology or science. Although there’s a question about real fact, it doesn’t matter a lot, if we are conscious to the fact that facts exists.
Don’t panic: life is not just philosophy about humanity.
I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again ‘I know that that’s a tree’, pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him: ‘This fellow isn’t insane. We are only doing philosophy.’ – Ludwig Wittgenstein
