Belief Systems (BS) One

The last time, I wrote about the non-existential anxiety. Now still on the self as a part and whole, during the war, there was anxiety. Also, those who had no anxiety had given up and reasoned with death. The age of reason was then and civilization came after the war and so did anxiety. 

Decadence is a state of deterioration in standards, especially of morality. This started somewhere in the 90s after the wars. This period started after the Golden age, the period of innovation and modernism, a time of your life where you as a person of wisdom achieve a lot in a stable society and you retire, in an ordinary sense. The Golden age was the period after the middle age. A decadent person quite self indulgent and has no bid for culture and tradition. The artists then used art to express this moral decline. A decade itself is a period of ten years, eg 2000-2010.

The present age lack standards. The social media today is full of criticisms. Everyone knows what you should and shouldn't do. - Societal expectations - those resentments waiting to happen. You cannot live when it comes to the social medium. It is a medium for validation. You always have to teach or be taught. 

You post something once and the sociopaths (personality disorder manifested in antisocial attitudes and lack of conscience) using it as a medium look for a thousand and one inappropriate things wrong with what you have posted and such people are after the ones who are actually living. It's always all things and people around them who they look up to and compare themselves with that must make them feel safe. They're actually not in control of their lives. It's not only sociopaths I'm referring to here, of course we have other mediums and such other pathogens, if not pathological living people such as those.

There are huge suicide rates due to family problems, the woman stabs her husband, the man beats his swife to death, not doing well in classes, bullying, peer pressure, drunk and alcoholic regular guys engaging in cyber crime, living flamboyant lifestyle while in debt. 

This creates anxiety and affects both you and those around you. The economic recession has got to the point of depression. People even sell their families. This is a stage where anxiety turns negative. You're unable to change your wardrobe, you think you're the worst person in class. Anxiety sets in. Being victim of emotional abuse, domestic violence, sexual harassment, the many things happening behind closed doors. You were forced into being a member of a cult group, you got blackmailed, you're wishing to be like other people. 

But have you created an identity for yourself? A standard? These levels of unreason creates a lot of decadence and unreason. You know, it's really not what you think. Nobody's perfect, not even your role models. Nobody  has a bigger portion of the world no matter the fame. That person only lives but what about you? If death ever approaches you knowingly, is it not better to think of living and having a life than that death.

There is sagging, which is the most popular form of decadence. It started with the US prisoners because you did not usually got your pants size. Then outside of the prison, a musician, just one musician made it a trend. The homos also really wanted to be accepted so they started to sag.

Then this earring thingy followed.

Wow! Shock! Am I homo if I put on earrings? 

It was the gay musicians who sold their homo-tradition through this. And today, the standards have decreased so much in every aspect that nothing really means something to anyone. The standard which has been created is just that which is 'en vogue' unfortunately. Everything and anything strange is normal today because we use the internet to live. 

There was an age where books were read, where people learned from scholars but now the norms is the internet due to the rise of technology. We learn how to dress, watch movies, listen to music of low standard and the future generations as we term the children today, all pick it from us, all that we leave behind.

It takes great courage to see in world in all its tainted glory and still to love it.BOLD

-Soren Kierkegaard

THE COURAGE OF DESPAIR (What you make of yourself 'in spite of') =

When man loses his subjectivity to the world, sacrifices himself to his production but experiences this as despair and does it courageously, this shows a passion to live and this is what can be referred to as 'existentialism.

EXISTENTIALISM

Tillich describes the word, existential, self-created knowledge of a thing and the word, existentialism as regards to philosophy. And example of an existential attitude is one's belief in the kingdom of God.

Courage to Be as an individual- Individualization 

Existentialism itself is not a bad thing as you may think after this. This is known as the most radical way of self-affirmation as oneself. It's a solution to the anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness. Kierkegaard also expresses his anticipation of death. 

A certain man named Nietzsche. He was the truest existentialist. He went through the wars believed that the whole system of values and meanings in which one lived is gone. His belief led him to his awareness of non-being. He had this 'courage of despair'. And Nietzsche through this became self destructive that he even uttered the statement, 'God is dead'. 

Despite what happened around him, he still had the courage, it would have drove another to nihilism. In a simple sentence, he made a purpose for himself.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

-Freiedrich Nietzsche

The world would not be what it is without the individual self. There's this physiological term called 'neurosis'. There is just little difference between existential and neurotic anxiety. This neurosis as per philosophy, is a state of self reduction. It is a state whereby you act like you're against the world and think that the world is against you. You may not be in reality but you are aware.

Self realization is acknowledgement of your spiritual self. If you are still scared of your anxiety, you have not self-affirmed. Owning your flaws and anxiety is a part of being human. 

TRANSCENDING

The reformers are those whose courage affirms and transcends. This reformation is a period of new beliefs, religions and ideas. A popular reformer of the middle age was Martin Luther, also a theologian and the starter of Protestantism. 

Religion is the state of being grasped by the power of being itself, which is never completely absent according to Tillich. This mystical experience helps with the courage to be.

The courage is threatened neither by the loss of oneself nor by the loss of one's world. It is the fate and courage to accept acceptance.

 

For Socrates, the courage to die is the test of the courage to be. Death is the negation of that which is negative and the affirmation of that which is positive. Non-being is no tlhreat because it is finite being  and you know what that is?

 It does not end. And therefore non-being cannot be separated from being because there was non-being before us so it's this little curiosity that matters.

'If 'participation' is dominant, the relation to being itself has a 'mystical' character, if 'individualization' prevails, the relation to being-itself has a 'personal' character, if both poles are accepted and transcended, the relation to being itself has the power of faith.

- Paul Tillich

Therefore non-being cannot be separated from being.

So what is faith?

Faith is the ability to honor stillness at some moments and at others to ride the passion and exuberance that is the artistic impulse, the flight of the imagination, the full engagement with this strange and shimmering world.

-Alan Lightman

Why live based on the delusions that you have done nothing bad or wrong. In all you do, be total, be responsible. 

That question of 'Do I feel fulfilled? Have I really lived that I wish to die? What should I expect after death?' 

That little awareness, that personal criticism, that is all that matters.

Courage means taking risks and it's not just risk-taking behavior that illusionizes bravery and strength. This strength is that to be vulnerable. It is to be aware and live 'in spite of'. And these all happen when you have faith. You can self affirm through faith, that is, believing. Faith gives you the courage. That is the difference between the mind and the spirit. It is consciousness in spite of.

This transcending is moving beyond the self or participation. The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself as accepted in spite of being unacceptable. This is called absolute faith and that is the way to avoid your anxiety.

Now repeat after me:

It all doesn't stop here.

I have faith. 

There is purpose and only when there is hope.

I have hope.

I am human becoming eternal.