Ethics are always a sticky subject, and I'd like to discuss them in a little more detail.
I am of the opinion that the only difference between myself and the majority of people is that I choose not to deceive myself, or others.
I do not believe there is such a thing as good and evil. Without exception, when someone says something is "good" they mean, even if only subconsciously, to say "good for me". Every individual's concept of evil is what is "bad for me", whether or not they are correct in what is actually bad for them.
Everyone acts out of self interest. You, reading this right now, do what you think is in your best interest, and what makes you feel good. If you help others, it is because it benefits you to do so. Even if you help someone else at your own expense, you only do so because it causes an endorphin rush which makes you feel good.
I simply accept this fact.
I practice neither Satanism nor Thelema, but I find some of the philosophy interesting. People (including the people who try, poorly, to practice these paths) seem to misinterpret the intention. In terms of ethics, both give the imperative to do what is right ONLY because it is right. To do what you feel you should do in any given moment. They posit that if you do something because someone else tells you that it's right, then it doesn't count. "I was only following orders" amounts to the same thing whether you saved the world or committed genocide. If someone has to tell you to do the right thing, you're just a sheep. If you end up doing the wrong thing, then at least you made a decision, and you get to live with the consequences and learn from your mistakes.
I do lots of things some people consider wrong. I've been known to defend my friends with violence, both physically and mentally. I have very little interest in what is socially acceptable, politically correct, or even legal. I do what suits me, and I help the people I care about. At least I'm not a hypocrite.
Lots of people claim to have a code of ethics, they talk about what is good and right, and then they look the other way while someone else is suffering. They do what is good for themselves, and they talk about how good they are. They're liars. They lie to you, and to themselves.
I'm not better than some of them, but I'm honest about it.
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Understand That You Don't Understand
So many people don't seem to understand how depression works. Depression is not just being sad for a long time, it's something totally different. Most people have NOT experienced depression, whatever they may think.
I hear from time to time that if you're depressed you should just try to think positive, that you need to focus on the good things instead of the bad things. It doesn't work that way. No sentence beginning with 'at least' is anything but obnoxious when you're depressed.
Yes, we know it could get worse. Or it could get better. It wouldn't much matter either way. That's the problem.
Depression is like slowly going color blind. It's like all the colors in the world are fading around you. You still like what you always liked, but you don't FEEL it as strongly as you used to. Activities which normally would give you untold joy are merely slightly less unpleasant than boredom when you're depressed.
It's a chemical imbalance in the brain. You can't just make it better by changing how you think, or what you do. In the worst cases, you can't even WANT to make it better. Depression means losing your ability to feel good, until the pain of remembering how something once made you happy is worse than what little enjoyment you still get out of it, and doing anything other than sitting in the corner feels like a waste of effort.
If that wasn't bad enough, half the time all the medications for depression do is make you unable to feel ANYTHING, so you're just going through the motions of life. Sometimes, that's almost worse. The only reason suicide stops sounding like a good option is because it would be too much effort.
It takes a long time to figure out how to handle depression correctly, and there's no one right answer, but it never really goes away. You just build on top of it.
I hear from time to time that if you're depressed you should just try to think positive, that you need to focus on the good things instead of the bad things. It doesn't work that way. No sentence beginning with 'at least' is anything but obnoxious when you're depressed.
Yes, we know it could get worse. Or it could get better. It wouldn't much matter either way. That's the problem.
Depression is like slowly going color blind. It's like all the colors in the world are fading around you. You still like what you always liked, but you don't FEEL it as strongly as you used to. Activities which normally would give you untold joy are merely slightly less unpleasant than boredom when you're depressed.
It's a chemical imbalance in the brain. You can't just make it better by changing how you think, or what you do. In the worst cases, you can't even WANT to make it better. Depression means losing your ability to feel good, until the pain of remembering how something once made you happy is worse than what little enjoyment you still get out of it, and doing anything other than sitting in the corner feels like a waste of effort.
If that wasn't bad enough, half the time all the medications for depression do is make you unable to feel ANYTHING, so you're just going through the motions of life. Sometimes, that's almost worse. The only reason suicide stops sounding like a good option is because it would be too much effort.
It takes a long time to figure out how to handle depression correctly, and there's no one right answer, but it never really goes away. You just build on top of it.
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