Romantic! Dramatic! I can’t get what I want with longing alone!
The following idea is one I’ve held for quite some time, recently encouraged by my readings of Nietzsche and Stirner as well as some of the entries by you, my friends and audience. One ideally should see oneself as a canvas, empty glass, or raw slab to be shaped to one’s own liking and agenda. This would surely break apart that stranglehold so exerted on so many by mass culture, which insists that one must jump through hoops and run over hurdles in order to satiate its arbitrary ideas of “success”. No doubt, such destructive memetics have driven a countless many people to self-alienation – convinced them to live out their lives in the tight confines of external templates. The lack of artistry in the average person in regard to themselves is probably the reason why gender, religious and racial behavioural dogmas spread so virulently across the human landscape – the (willing) victims of such doctrines allow themselves to become canvasses for the the designs of the talented yet misguided social controllers.
Perhaps the thing that drives a lot of people into the rancid jaws of slave moralities is not so much any promise of moral salvation, or even “a quiet life” as such, but a) a yearning for a strongly aestheticized life and b) an inability to create said aesthetics for themselves. The willing slave not only wants to be “good” but to look and feel “good”, so, like a drunken, semi-conscious promiscuite, settles for the first thing that walks into its line of vision with fluttering eyelids – a rational gaze is such an inconvenience for the severely inebriated!
This idea of shaping and living out one’s own aestheticized life ties in with the whole “shaping one’s own culture” idea I wrote about several posts back; one does well to see oneself as both a slab to be sculpted by one’s own hand and a nation to be conquered, explored and expanded with one’s own sword and sweat. For my part, I’ve always viewed life as some kid of grand battle arena and the process of living as a continual fight against enemies without and within – as such I have the overlaying self-concept of the “warrior” or the “lone soldier”. Whilst a considerable degree of harmony is certainly important to me, there is also a considerable part of me that craves – nay, loves the thrill of conflict, whether I’m watching the clash of heroes and villains on the small screen, or engaging in a vibrant ideological debate.
For a damn long time however, I’ve known that my external behaviour has been at odds with this internal self-concept; for all my talk of being “the lone hero” in my life, I’ve let a certain and considerable restriction rule me for far too long; I believe this is tied to my streak of oversensitivity which I allow to get the better of me one time too often, blunting my sword of assertion in the process! I’ve sometimes feel fraudulent carrying around a strong inner self-concept and not actualizing on it. Recently however, I’ve felt a shift towards congruence beginning to take effect. Maybe it’s my testing said aesthetic in a “controlled” environment (work); perhaps it’s my reading of no-bullshit egoistic philosophy; maybe it’s my re-evaluation of the much maligned “might makes right” concept; or could it be my watching shitloads of animé with strong, assertive, badass leads. Fuck – for all I know, it’s a combination of all these factors and more – the point is I can feel a change for the better occurring in me, however slight at present! At regular intervals I’ve been known to utter and blurt out phrases like: “POWER THROUGH!”, “BEGIN, THE AGE OF WAR!!”, “DRIVING FORCE!!” (in dramatic animé-style “Engrish” of course), and most recently, “INVOKE THE WAR GOD AR(I)ES!!!”. This is only the tip of the iceberg however; I mumble less and speak more clearly; my speech is more direct and purposeful; I feel (slightly) less apprehensive about the possibilities in my life, slowly edging out fear with fascination; and, I’m projecting out this new rush of vitality into my creative endeavours…
It seems that Yaumaru (my fictional alter-ego) and I seem to have a reciprocally causative relationship!
Just the other day, I was able to fully able to articulate why I love listening to heavy metal – it’s music with a strong, invigorating sense of forward momentum (most of the time), resonating with my inner aesthetic of being “the driving force”. It is this momentum which I must fully cultivate and sustain in order to continue my charge to congruence.
Let docility be cast out with decisiveness! May restriction be overrun by ruthlessness and resolve!
It’s time for me to unleash Aries on the motherfucking massmind – for the Age of War has begun….
….and heartily I say: “To MRDA be the justice – and the victory!”
~MRDA~
“Don’t Sweat theTechnique”
You’re just doing research and developmment! 😀
Rock on.
As a child, every time I attempted to assert a male dominate attitude, I always managed to maim or injure someone at almost the exact same time. The emotional backlash of that “aggressive streak” has always caused me to sit on my hands in situations where aggression and passion might cause damage if I was to just ‘whip it out’ so to speak.
And yet, I can’t count the number of women who’ve secretly admitted to me that being manhandled, being bossed around, being dominated to some degree, is exactly what they want. And now that I’m older, I have trouble seeing the difference between an agressive physical nature, and just being an asshole (in my attempts at becoming more masculine.) I’m not really sure where to draw the line, but i do know that whatever feminists may say, WOMEN respond in a very almost sexual way to an agressive male. It can smooth over looks, intellect, finances, if you’re a shitkicking hardass, it seems to drive women wild. I just wish I could be one. heh.
There are two kinds of ‘aestheticizations’ of life, but they are as far from eachother as their concern with the same subject matter will allow. The first is, simply put, “looking good”, which can take the form of everything of following slave moralist dogmas one otherwise wouldnt for purposes of social esteem, to developing a physical “look”, to any sort of personal management of one’s “image” or “PR” or broadly, how one comes across to other human beings.
Then there’s the other sort of aestheticization, completely personal in nature rather than social: “treating one’s life as a canvas” or “living one’s life as though it was the plot of a novel one was writing” is a very succinct and cogent description of what this is about– The living according and becoming according to one’s own creative ideals to so as to, like nietzsche’s ubermensch, live such that one’s magnum opus is one’s own self. Ultimately, it seems quite possible to divide the full totality of possible egoistic agendas into two broad categories: the aesthetic/productive and the hedonic/consumptive. These egoism types are not mutually exclusive however– some acts, like ideological debate as you mention above, would have elements of both types simultaneously. (this is descriptive, not normative– i’m not falling into the normative human nature fallacy)
And about your new declarations of war, I must ask: when do I get to see yaumaru slay some spooks?
“And about your new declarations of war, I must ask: when do I get to see Yaumaru slay some spooks?”
Heheh…it’ll be awhile, but I’m working on it!
Hopefully by that time, I’ll get to see Nihil do the same….