Open your eyes, don’t drown in illusions.
Prologue
– I’m not going to oppose the desires to dive into ego or debate with others on some abstract arguments.
Saint Augustine Quote: “Don’t go outside; get back to yourself, in the inner man lies the Truth.” The quote is true indeed, however we can’t go back to ourselves.
A few months ago, I listened to a podcast arguing that linear thinking is the killer to students’ future. At first, I thought that it’s just an old-fashioned argument without any consideration. However, things change a lot. Although two years ago, I argued that experience/acknowledgement is what we should pursue rather than just know it, I still failed to know the essence of that argument.
Linear thinking isn’t what we can figure out by ourselves. Only by others’ insights and risks we encounter can we know what it is. People like me who have few ideas about their future and their lives always try to take everything into account, and finally get nothing. For instance, I decided to pursue MSc degree outside motherland, which might be easy for others, for me, however, it is very hard. There’s a huge gap between my thinking structure and pragmatic thinking structure: I don’t think truth or life itself is important, but think of me/ego itself as something really important. It seems ordinary, but it’s not actually.
I think that’s the result of linear thinking and ego.
Body
How the story begins? I have no idea. Maybe it’s because my long suppressed soul or my misanthropic view and so on, among which the most important one is that I have no passion or courage to face the truth. My first exposure to philosophy located at the point what I call Enlightenment, where I read Rousseau. In the early 18 years, I’m just a student, maybe eccentric in some ways, but generally, I’m a good student because of my intelligence and hardworking. I had the first contact with Internet at a very young age, but I’m not aware of what it was. As Internet is the dominator of modern society, I can get everything there. However, I just engaged into video games, novels and music online. Therefore, I gain no progress from it. When I entered university, the huge divide between my naïve thinking and reality forces me to find out the real problems. That’s why I encountered Rousseau. I still appreciate Rousseau’s philosophy that’s a real enlightenment to me.
As I dug deeper, the fact that life is absurd shocked me a lot. That’s where Camus goes. Camus revealed the truth to me as well as a ridiculous answer: he said that Sisyphus was well-being because of his futile efforts. I couldn’t accept the harsh truth, so I went further to Dostoevsky, to Kierkegaard, to Heidegger. Among those thinkers, only Heidegger proposed a practical way to live. However, this pragmatic way to exist came too late for me: I was trapped in my own ego.
I knew that life isn’t in captivity of ego, however it’s impossible for me to get out of the prison without any help outside my world. The limits of my world mean the limits of everything – I couldn’t see any cheerful prospect in my life. What I want to do, to deprive humans of ideology, makes no money, not to mention my poor ability. What I want to do, to get money by working abroad, is difficult because of the lack of money. Without cognition to life itself which contains ego, families, relationships, and the whole society, additionally, with inner thinking structure as linear thinking which confines me in only one way to success, I couldn’t jump out of my frustration and depression, and thus, there’s no way to do something helpful to myself.
With or without egoism, I always place spirit higher. But without it, I would never ignore the truth and reality – this is just a dream. In fact, the abstract concept restricted the only way: use art to chase away so called ideology. Somewhat similar to the pedants译：腐儒 in ancient periods of China who devoted themselves into the Tao of sages and thought that only by teaching commoners the spiritual Tao, the world can be better, and disdained craftsmen, doctors, peasants, I thought myself of the saver of this era, namely, to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail, although I always quoted Kierkegaard to negate myself “objectively”. Actually, I never transformed from a naïve kid to an individual. I don’t know the situations of others: they might finished the transformation at an early age with their actual experience and thoughts in lives, or they might still in that jail.
Someone argues that literature or philosophy are just game of humanity, with which I agree. A few days ago, although I admitted this opinion, I still regarded philosophy and art as the highest beauty and sublimity. As an “intellectual”, I thought that what stimulated our mind is the only thing important – what about eating and sleeping? Without actual experience of life, the beauty is rootless, the sublimity is ridiculous. Although I felt strong emptiness and solitude, people always have anxiety and depression, even in childhood: my suffering might be an ordinary one of them no matter how deep it is.
The first challenge comes in. Since I drowned in abstract concept for so long time, I have never opened my eyes to find out what I really wanted to do. When I entered university, the challenge has yet started, and in senior year, it became more fierce. After a few failures in job market, I turned to pursuing a master degree abroad that might be more difficult for me. At first, I listed all the target schools without further consideration on other possibilities. A few days ago, with the bad news of lack of money, my weakness was exposed without any decoration. However, I confined myself in the zone of shortcomings and inabilities, but I could do something more – this required me to get across myself.
To get across ego isn’t something happening suddenly: I have to pick up rationality to evaluate my situation reasonably. As I evaluate more, the ways are revealed.
That’s the whole story hitherto.
Epilogue
No insights, I no long insist.
