Apathy apotheosis

 This should be freeing.  

The culmination of a lifetime of pursuing detachment as a grand overarching strategy for coping with the rigors of life.  A path set upon as a direct result of being born seeing too keenly, being too aware, and quickly making count of the chips i started with, and correctly, harshly, shrewdly assessing that i had no hand to play.  No power.  No money.  No status.  No exceptional thing that would allow me to circumvent the laws of capitalism, the laws of nature.  The strong have always eaten the weak.  Such is life.  Technology has streamlined the process, ensuring there is no fair fight to be had.  You see, most of the time, the tiger wins.  Rends the flesh, gets the prize, but sometimes... sometimes.  The beasts fight back.  They work together.  They stand an outside chance of winning. 

Now, our overlords can't have that possiblity existing can they?  They don't intend to put themselves in play on the field of battle and risk the chance of losing it ALL.   They will only play the game when the game is rigged.  The land itself comes first.  They poison the water, the air, the food to ensure no one truly strong exists to oppose them.  They divide and weaken, they distract and devour.  

Then comes the confusion.  They change the language of the world.  Make you uncertain of everything to such a degree that you no longer trust yourself, or others, and you have no way to know what truth is any longer.  

Then comes the dependency.  They give you just enough to feel like that kind of power is within your grasp.  That a faint possiblity that YOU one day could be in the spaces they occupy.  They give you enough to survive and perpetuate the lie.  They encourage you to spread it far and wide, they encourage you to become like them if you want to get ahead.  They encourage you to idolize them until you no longer believe in the spiritual gods.  You only believe in the money gods.  Living pharaohs walking among us.   You will steady yourself on bread, water and cold gravel, dreaming of a better tomorrow.  Dreaming of they things they promised you.

Then comes the foot soldiers.   Loyal broken beasts they employee to act as another level of control.  To ensure you fall in line, either with constant reinforcement of the propaganda they utilize or by force, to bash your skull into concrete for daring to stand against them.  You fight with words and heart, they fight with money and violence, murdering hurting and harming you all the while gleefully clapping and pointing whenever one of you gets lucky enough to land a punch.

"Look at the EVIL HATEFUL people that would harm us!  That mass murdering CEO or bought and paid for government official HAD A FAMILY!"

You did too.  They don't care about YOUR family.  Not if denying your medical care makes another million for them.  They would happily watch your mother die in a hospital bed while you weep and curse the world that would be this unjust. That would ALLOW this, passively, to happen to so many of us, to so many people we love. 

Now they take the field of war.  Now killing you is easy.  Now you are buried by so much toil and suffering, so much pain and grief, so many lies and false promises that you are nearing the end of the cycle,  

two doors remain.

Nihilism, or Apathy.

Either you reach your limit under compression and can no longer be crushed, propelling you towards rage, indignation and violent response to those who would do you harm while pretending to do you a kindness,

Or you simply become compressed and live through it somehow.  You no longer care about the evil done to you and around you.  You no longer feel guilt or sorrow or pleasure or pain, your everything goes blank into a white noise void, you touch No Mind and try to hold on to it as long as you can until they monetize your last breath. 

This is the funnel through which everything pours.  This is the treadmill that gradually reduces, decaying and disintegrating from the heels up as we walk, and turn to powder, heels then ankles then hips then heart then head, powering the soulless thing all the while, unable to escape, never to know what it might be to die with dignity, or to be truly free.  

Another urn.  

Another gravestone. 

Another invoice, 

more blood and bones for the machine. 

 

Simple minds and they harm they cause

So.

The world has ended.

We are beyond the pale now, and about to embark upon a furious and masturbatory dismantling of all sense, kindness, law, candor, and justice.

Ravenous jackals have descended upon this once hallowed place to desecrate and destroy any and all notions of America's status as a "shining city on a hill."  

The victory was a complete rout, and while the how and why will be datamined and diagramed endlessly from now until the heat death of the universe i have to wonder one thing.

Was i wrong to be gentle towards stupid people? 

I am, by all measure, an objectively smart person.  There are a myriad of metrics by which to measure this marvel (alliteration is one of them) and i chart well by all metrics.  I have a mensa level iq.  I have 2 degrees.  I am widely regarded by people i know or have known in my life to be a very intelligent person, a bellweather of valuable information and insight.   I have known i was different from a VERY young age, but i didn't always know what that meant.  For a while in my teen years, when i realized just how much smarter i was than those around me i amused myself with people, using my words to confound them, expose them, humiliate them, essentially bully them for no reason other than i found them incredibly stupid.  I thought them beneath me. A rare few were elevated to positions of respect  but most to me then, and sometimes still now, seem like drooling mewling children unable to understand anything of value with any degree of depth.

sometime in my late teens early 20's i studied Zen, bushido, and other religious and meditative disciplines.  I came to the conclusion then,  "You can't fault a dog, for being a dog."  In a manner of speaking to say, i cannot judge those that are stupid too harshly, because of the limitations they were born with.  I used this idea to try to find a way to be more forgiving and kind to those around me i considered ignorant, hateful, or just so simple minded that explaining to them why there are wrong would be a fruitless endeavor.   As John Cleese said: 

"If your very stupid, how can you possibly realize that you are very stupid?  You have to be relatively intelligent to understand just how stupid you are." 

So it's the Dunning–Kruger effect then. 

I of course labored under the misapprehension for a while that i COULD convince a person of supreme stupidity or hatefulness of the error of their ways with well crafted and thoughtful words about the topic at hand or the matter of the day but i realized quickly that was a fools errand.  There are many aphorisms for a reason you see, such as:

"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

I could lead you to a conclusion where logically, you could not in any rational way refute the position i led you to AND STILL, irrationally refuse to accept the objective reality as truth. 

I want to be kind to people, honestly i do. I know that i did not STUDY a great deal to be this smart, i was born autistic, with a hyper mind for words, a larger brain with more connections than a normal human. I did not EARN my intelligence, at least, not at first, it was GIFTED to me.  So what kind of self righteous asshole would i have to be to deny that just as my brains were given to me at random, other's LACK of said brains wasn't also just a matter of random chance?  How could i blame them for being BORN stupid when i was BORN smart? 

Because we learn. 

Or, rather we have the capacity to learn.  While it's true as of at 2022 study, 21% of adults in America cannot read, and 54% of them read at a 6th grade level or lower, that does not suggest they CANNOT learn.  Perhaps the circumstances surrounding them were not favorable, perhaps they were poor and grew up on welfare (like i did) perhaps their childhoods were profoundly traumatizing (like mine was) perhaps due to some mental disability they are truly rendered unable to learn (below 80 iq is the technical threshold for the beginning of mental handicap) but how many are out there truly INCAPABLE of learning? 

I suppose we can't really know that.  I choose to believe that most people, CAN learn,  but there are many reasons why they may choose not to.  Some of those are nurture, in that they may have not been raised to be inquisitive, to be curious, to be encouraged to ask questions and seek true answers in a rigorous manner.  In the absence of that motivation you may be left with people who "learn" by choosing to believe emotional lies that line up with the things they WANT to be true, otherwise known as confirmation bias.  Wherein we simply SEEK OUT ideas that tend to confirm or reinforce our desired worldview,  regardless of if those ideas are facts, or entirely fictitious spun from the minds of manipulative sources.

Some of those reasons may be nature.  That is to say, we are unable to engage our rational thoughtful minds before succumbing to emotional cues that would lead us astray.  Our heart wants what is easy, what is pleasurable, what our ancient DNA tells it to want.  To lust after a person with our eyes is a genetic imperative, but our higher thought steps in to tell us to act rational, to be true to our partner and not our lust, that pursuit of that office crush might end in job loss and financial and professional disgrace. 

From neurological research, the sensory input always goes through the emotional centers of the brain before it reaches the frontal cortex — the place for our rational thought. With that understanding, one must realize it is actually physically impossible for thought to come before emotions. Some people struggle with this issue more than others.  It has been suggested that those with lower iq's are more prone to this handicap, being lead around by how a thing FEELS, versus how things really are in objective reality.   Remember we are all motivated by the same very basic things:

Seek pleasure and plenty

Avoid pain

and do you know what thinking does? It causes pain.  Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person's behavior and beliefs do not complement each other or when they hold two contradictory beliefs. It causes a feeling of discomfort. People may do this via defense mechanisms, such as avoidance. When you BELIEVE something because it feels right, it feels like the truth, it sounds like what you want to be true, and then you run into facts in the real world that disprove what you believe in with cold scientific facts, you get a headache.  It HURTS to think that this thing you feel so strongly, could be wrong, and your mind jumps into action to protect you from pain, reassuring you: 

"It's not possible for that other idea to be true.  How you feel is correct, how you feel is true, what you feel is all that matters." 

Do you see the problem we have now?  We have those that see the world as it is, and those that only see the world as they want it to be.  Two parallel mindsets, seemingly incapable of reconciling. 

There is of course another factor.  What about the environment in which we all live? 

Unfortunately that is yet another black mark for the simple minded.  Those with lower iq's are more suggestible then others, meaning they can be easily manipulated.  Untold amounts of money have flowed into politics as a result of Citizens united.  Of the top 12 megadonors in 2024,  only 2 supported democrats.  10 out of 12 billionaires supported republican candidates.   Naturally the rich are going to support the party that promises them more money, lower taxes, less regulation, more power.  They then spend tiny fractions of that money to finance endless ad campaigns to convince the most gullible among us to vote for the billionaires chosen avatar.  By hook or by crook, cheating, lying, distorting the truth and all the while leaving you feeling more frightened and less certain of ANY objective truth or reality while doing so.  You see, if you are scared, they can more easily influence your limbic system, hijacking your emotional response to fear and assuring you, scared, lost, confused, lonely little you, that only THEY can protect you from the strawman other, the bad man.  

WHY are they bad?  Because they are not us, that's why! Don't think about it, just FEEL.  It feels good to vote for us right?  WE'LL SHOW THEM!

They feed you this message.  On Tv. On the internet.  On Facebook, and twitter, and truth social, on message boards and discord chats, on billboards and bumper stickers, on podcasts and youtube videos, all assuring you "BAD MAN IS COMING FOR YOUR *insert cause relevant to you here* and he is BAD AND EVIL and we believe in the things YOU believe in citizen!"

All the while they have made you forget, that this is all a feeling.  and feelings can lie.  

They made you forget that they are millionaires and billionaires and you are struggling to pay off your mortgage and your car insurance and your health care bills.  They are pointing, furiously gesticulating fingers at people who are different from you just slightly, and encouraging your righteous anger and DISGUST at these OTHER people who are scumbags and scam artists and thieves and dastardly villains all the while they steal from your future.  They plot to control your rights.  They take away your freedom to read any books they deem unfit, to demonstrate peacefully, to have enough money to live a life like they do, and to think.

What they have left you is the right to feel, because so long as you do not think, rich and evil people will have control over you until their outstanding greed, avarice and over reach DOOMS THE WORLD. 

And all of this was avoidable.    You won't get a pass from me anymore. 

Science suggests that we CAN learn. Even people with disabilities, even people under duress. Those with brain damage who have lost the ability to speak words have in multiple cases RELEARNED how to speak with guidance and practice utilizing different pathways available in the brain, stimulated by music.

In spite of the fact that it is no doubt harder for some than others to learn new ideas, to embrace new concepts, to work towards empathy and compassion, i do not believe we should accept excuses any longer.

If you can learn, and simply choose not too, then no, "you can't fault a dog for being a dog." no longer applies. Even an old dog, can learn.

You. The human race. You have chosen not to learn. 

 You have CHOSEN hate, cruelty, racism, misogyny.  You have chosen to worship false idols in place of your gods, to make billionaires who would eat your children, steal your land and poison your air your new kings.

While you all burn in the raging conflagration you chose to feed,  i hope you understand i cared for you, so much, for so long.  I wanted to be kind just as much as i wanted you to be kind to me in return.  

That pact is broken.  That bridge is burned.  Your stupidity is a shield no longer. You choose violence over kindness, and i will delight in watching you stare slack jawed at the falling sky that you prayed for. 

Fuck you. 

Good night. 

Smiling like it's no big deal stabbing wounds that never heal

I need to go to my own funeral.  

Build a new me again, like i did when i was 15.

Then again, when i was 23

and again, when i was 30. 

Another improvement around 38.

Seems like it's time. 

I achieved my goals and sitting idle simmering is not working for me.  

I wanted zen. I wanted no mind, but my mind is just too ferocious to accept it, this lovely transcendent calm, for long. I can bask in it's healing light for a while, appreciating all the mountains i've climbed, all the obstacles i've conquered but the air up here... Is thin and cold. 

 Rest feels alien to me. Rather then a reward it feel like a sentence.   My limbs locked to my sides,  drinking in my own achievements.  It feels so self indulgent. Prideful. Arrogant. To sit here and think, "yeah, i've done all i need to do. I achieved more then most people have achieved.  I can rest now."

It should be enjoyment, but to me it just feels like waiting. Like wasted time.  Like staring into heaven suddenly turns into a swirling abyss.

My fingertips should be dug into the side of a new mountain somewhere, 

determined even if fruitless to overcome it, even for it's own sake. 

How am i so restless that i want to burn down my life just to build it up again?

Honestly,

that is the very embodiment of zen.

Dig a hole, fill it up,

then do it again.

Find peace in the movement.  Find joy in the ritual. The goal is there is no goal.

The point is

There is no point. 

Zen and the art of self sabotage

One new years eve, instead of a party or a bar, i went to a monastery on a mountaintop.  

Yes really.

Lets give this a little context.

I am an autistic adult.  Formally diagnosed at 30 years old as having Asperger's syndrome.  Yes, i followed all the clichés about gifted kids on the spectrum.   I had very advanced iq scores, a savantism for language and spoke like a professor at a young age. I was speaking sentences at 18 months old. 

One might think that this sort of intense skill for communication would be a boon going forward in life, the ability to be a great communicator is often a very desirable and oft applauded thing.  Turns out the mouth the message is coming out of matters a whole lot.  When it's coming out of a young child, adults chaff at the idea of taking advice or gaining insight from "just a kid" and other kids... wellllll, they look at you like a cow looks at an oncoming train.  You end up looking like this to your peers,

Re: a young child with autism talking to kids his age

and like a mutant all adults observing you.   You may be wondering when this is going to tie back into the start of this story.  Trust me i'm getting there.

So it will come as no surprise to anyone that i was bullied a ton as a kid.  One of my uncles described me as a "Bully Magnet." Not that i could do much about that.  I didn't understand what i was doing wrong because EVERYTHING i was doing was wrong. How i FELT was wrong, how i problem solved was wrong, how i appraised social situations was wrong. Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. 

After a period of getting my ass kicked, running home from school, being let out early just so i COULD get home from school without getting beat up, i had a sea change, somewhere around jr high.  I got angry. REAL angry.  Sick of getting beat up by kids, ignored and given no assistance from teacher or my own parents, an orphan, a man on an island, i started to fight back.  I would just punch people down if they locker checked, throw them down and kick them, greet malice with even greater malice. I had nothing to lose. I would fight 3 against one, i would remain standing even with a broken nose and blood pouring out of me until kids knew to just leave me the fuck alone.  Upon the transition to a new school, high school, a place where no one knew me yet, i tried to lay low.  I was too strange for that to work.  My first day in high school, i went outside after lunch to smoke, there were a hundred or more kids out there already.  I walked to the other side of the street, and smoked alone.  Of course not understanding what i had done just drew an incredible amount of attention to myself without meaning to. I was adopted by some NT people who found my oddness charming, but the violent anger was still there.  When someone locker checked me my first week in i just punched him as hard as i could.  This sort of thing went on for a while, until once again this new school was made to learn, if you fight me, your gonna have to kill me. 

All of this anger made it hard to maintain friendships.  On top of the radioactive mess that was my autism i was now volcanic, on a hair trigger, and it wasn't going to end well for me. 

I took it upon myself to start studying stoic philosophy, and then zen, and bushido. The idea of detaching myself to better control my overflowing emotions made sense and appealed to me on a foundational level.  I can't solve all my problems by punching them, so i better figure out an alternative way to manage my overly responsive brain. 

I even wrote a book loosely about it, how apathy and detachment helped me survive myself.  

https://www.amazon.com/Life-Meaningless-Handbook-Erik-McCarthy/dp/1544264976

I was 15 when i started this practice and direction. 

I am 43 now.

So here i am, in a Buddhist monastery in the freezing cold, listening to the master speak.  I am at my utmost attention and excited for a chance to ask a question that has been bothering me for some time.

"what is the line between nihilism and Zen? How does one separate the two?" 

The monk smiled, a few folks gasped (and actually thanked me afterwards for asking the question, as they wondered as well)  Turns out there is no answer.  It's up to the individual to draw his or her own line.  I was dejected.  Defeated.

But no less committed to the practice and idea.  

A decade or more later, i can say i have largely conquered my anger. Like an alcoholic i don't know that i will ever be truly cured, but it's incredibly rare that i feel that instinct rising in me and if it does i am able to recognize and deflect it. 

Life has mellowed and much of the substantial challenges have been surmounted.  I am in good shape and work out routinely.  I seem to be well liked by most people who know me and interact with me on a regular basis. I have been with the same partner for over 20 years and things seem to be going well.  I own a home and my bills are low enough that it's virtually impossible for me to lose my home. I have a meager amount of spending money but enough to allow myself to indulge in multiple hobbies regularly. I have achieved most of my goals set for myself including getting to the Magic the Gathering Pro tour on my own, without a team, publishing my own book, an achieving my strength goals. 

I have slain the beast. Roll credits. I am done. 

I am 43.

My day to day presents no concerns or challenges at all. My cool detachment leaves me feeling both insulated and isolated from others.  

My partner joked i "did zen wrong." but did i?

I'm so detached, the very point of zen (to achieve no mind, or Mushin) that i don't really feel anything.

I've reached such a profound inertia that every day i feel like a robot executing scripting code that i have meticulously crafted for myself.  I feel completely removed from the timeline, alien to others as they are alien to me, devoid of any internal motivation and unable to feel any sense of external motivation.  I have enough food. I have enough shelter. I have enough money. I have enough love. 

I'm standing still detached and vacant unable to enjoy it all because the journey seems to be over.  A long endless winter of sitting atop the mountain awaits and i am struggling to know the answer to the only question that matters now.

What's next?

Have i done such a thorough job detaching myself that i removed myself too completely? What is a man absence direction, motivation, desires, purpose? 

I feel like a rocket with no thrust. Having achieved escape velocity and reaching my destination, a thing i would have not though possible, i am now drifting, dream-like in space, perhaps for all time, wondering if perhaps i have made some kind of terrible mistake.

Maybe i DID do zen wrong. 

So i'm doing all the by the numbers things humans do to try to fabricate a purpose, to simulate a living thing propelled by something, the simulacra of movement, the simulacra of a real live boy. 

As i listen to my partner list off ideas for a new "thing to do, goal to set" i am cold and gaunt as nothing appeals to me, nothing stirs me, no special interest is peaked at a suggestion and i wonder if i'm simply missing the circuitry required to "human". 

I say "i think we are attempting to address the symptom, not the cause. How do i FEEL? What, if anything, MAKES ME FEEL?"

So here i am, on the precipice of another abstraction.  A feelings inventory.

Good or bad, writing down what makes me FEEL at all, and if i can understand what makes me feel, perhaps i can make some kind of informed choice as to what a man of 43 should be doing beyond meditating on a mountaintop with the remainder of his days.

Perhaps i will come to the conclusion that like my question to the zen master, there is no answer, and that anything i do, is what i was meant to do, and anything i do not do, i was simply not meant to do.

I am a flawed gnostic, an autistic zen disciple, a man sitting in the cold vacuum of space staring at the stars wondering, 

Is this it? 

"enjoy it."

But what's next?