[The man was aged twenty-one years old. His notion of progress was challenged. So he went on a quest for ‘progress’

He trained more seriously to become a knight. He rose up the knight ranks. When he came to a bottleneck, he asked his comrade how he could progress in life. The latter told him to get a house. “Just be pragmatic,” the comrade said. The man reflected and followed suit on his comrade’s words.

The man, now a knight, met various people. One man told the knight that he couldn’t possibly make progress, since he was just a knight. Knights, the latter said, had no goal in life, than to protect people. The man became a captain. He met other companions. During his journey with them, he met homeless kids. He was about to order a squad to make a wooden shelter for them, and prepare their food for them. A companion objected to that. The companion suggested they volunteer to construct the house themselves, and give the homeless kids the food themselves.

The captain thought these terms were alright. So, they proceeded. The captain noticed that progress was something achieved based on free will. He could do something, and see it as progress, it his objective thoughts and personal emotional memory indicated to him that he had done something important.]

Acute phenomenological recession can be the start of civilizational demise.

The formful cannot exist without the formless. Order cannot exist without freedom.

***

[I like to make sure that I’m not worried about my close friend. I like to see people being independent and strong.

I don’t want my friend to be constantly stuck redoing his exams. Neither do I want my friend’s parents to keep worrying about him without any silver lining in sight. Even so, weak people die. It is a natural statement. A bloodless moral compass does not exist. People looked to me for many things. I had thoughts too. That I wanted to do good, that I wanted to help people, that I was a good person.

We grow up, with an instinct to trust and imitate. That is ‘belief’. Belief is discrimination. Disbelief is rejection. It hurts for anyone.]

Success begets expectations; failure begets withdrawal of expectation. As long as you are willing to keep going, you can continue. It’s reality. You can think ‘everything is on the same echelon’ - that’s a lie. We are all different human beings. We are given our chances. We give ourselves our chances.

...

“You know, people make it sound complicated, because it has never been achieved. But, in my regard, the concept of a utopia is simple. At least, the version that I’m imagining. That’s because the world is simplest when it kills you without even properly considering whether you are wrong or right.

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That’s the world of tyrants.

Tyrants come about when the utopias require ‘gods’ which are perfectly divine, and demons which are perfectly evil. It’s simple enough. Orthodox enough, if we look at history. The middle line, you will notice, is necessarily a fake middle line, well in favor of the utopia. Anything approaching beyond better or appearing as odd must necessarily be specially divine or evil.

Source: Just play Genshin Impact, Inazuma Archon quests 1 and 2.

“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” (Abraham Lincoln.)

““No ideal is absolute. You cannot be humanitarian and claim to despise the depraved. You cannot be someone who looks at the bright side and claim there is no hierarchy. The only thing you’ll achieve in saying is that you have no reflection looking back at you when you expose yourself directly in front of the mirror. No one is spared from discrimination. We distance ourselves from such a mindset, and take up agency. That's it.”

....

When we speak of the eternal, it was indeed the belief in the eternal which helped create civilizations. The eternal is a symbol of love, for people, for things that you love, will come to love, and will cherish as if it were an eternity. Even for your life span. When you come to know causality, you come to know the nature of the world. When you learn, you are able to come to certain conclusions.

Causality, as a concept, is reassuring, because it provides a sense a belonging to the universe, in terms of a history and shared repetition. It is a remedy for infinite possibilities. Causality is an echo of Nietzsche’s concept of ‘amor fati’, which I don’t understand in detail, but means to love what you do today, what you did yesterday, and maybe what you will go on to do. In contrast, entropy is defined as the state of maximum disorder in which any system will fall, when left to itself.

***

Moral relativism is a power tool, built around nationhood. It is less reliant on individualism. If a group stagnates around the most oppressed person’s lifestyle continuation, rather than fair individual progress, that’s it. I haven’t read Cal Newport, by the way.

A book with too much darkness, without any light moment or any solution, usually isn’t much good.

“Faith is both reassuring and destructive. Use it wisely. The actual desire to do something you want to do as part of entitlement or gratefulness regulates your emotions.”

….

***

I dreamed. I was in a desolate passageway. The path led up. I exited the passageway. I was on top of a mountain. I saw an old man, staring at the sky. At his foot, there was one sunflower. “I don’t want to get away from the sound of this place,” the old man said. “Even if it is an illusion, it is fine.” He turned to face me. “Hello, traveler. My name is Narcissus.”

I saw a young boy beside Narcissus. “Hello traveler. My name is Nihile.”

The old man gasped, lost in memories. “Did people have expectations from you, traveler?”

“They did,” I replied.

“Lucky you,” said Narcissus.

“Lucky you,” joined Nihile. “As for me, I don’t think it is worth it. I don’t like to be gaslighted. Therefore, I rejected expectation. It was good that I escaped vampires. It was good that I had my free time, intact. Now, no one expects anything from me.”

Narcissus took over, “traveler, why would you struggle if no one expects anything from you?”

“I understand,” I said. “You have not found your answer to that. And you feel useless even when you’ve given up on your absolute, unfounded opinions.”

The old man frowned. My dream broke. I woke up to the cool air of the night.