Suli Qyre @suliqyre - Tumblr Blog

Hello tumblr!

Almost ten years ago, I started @philosophybits as a completely unserious collection of popular philosophy quotations. Since then, it has grown to become, if not more serious, then at least a more sincere reflection of my philosophical interests.

I've also created other quotation projects here over the years, the most notable being @quotespile and @thirdity. Thank you to everyone who has followed my projects! I hope to keep supplying them with new quotes for as long as I have interesting material to share.

About a year ago, I started writing a new original project called Fragmentarium and I'm now slowly publishing that work on my website.

Fragmentarium is a collection of fragments exploring the complexities of human experience. I'm hoping to add five new fragments each week, provided that my long process of writing and editing continues to go well.

I'd greatly appreciate your support, which you can give by following me here, by subscribing to the free weekly newsletter, and, most of all, by reading my work.

Thanks so much, Suli

She feels lack in everything that happens to her. It doesn't matter whether it's an experience she chooses for herself or one that is required of her. It doesn't matter whether it's something she wants to avoid or something she desperately desires. Always there is some unnamed thing missing, which means all of her experiences are tainted with dissatisfaction.

What is missing, she does not know, but she knows it's missing and this causes her incredible frustration. Nothing ever feels as full or enjoyable as she thinks it should. At the very best, she feels a little happiness here or there. But she knows there is also a place beyond happiness, a place somehow more full than happiness, and maybe this is what she needs.

She thinks this must be a place free of pain. For that is how her frustration manifests, like a pain that cannot be placed, a pain that has almost become part of her existence itself. She thinks this pain has to be eliminated for everything to feel right. She wants the satisfaction of total rightness. That would be the opposite of whatever she is now. Now, nothing feels right. Now, there is always lack.

As our awareness expands, our understanding of truth changes. We begin to realize that we cannot talk about truth without also invoking paradox. We see that the subject passes into the object, the permanent passes into the impermanent, the multiple passes into the one, and so on. Even the feasibility of meaningful distinction between entities seems threatened by paradox, and we start to question our ability to denote truth.

What we eventually discover is that we can only talk about truth within the conventional world constructed by human beings. Within this system, what is true is entirely dependent on the conventions we use. Language, which is at the heart of this conventional world, cannot directly reach truths that lie outside of that world. But language — not merely as words and grammar but as all normative convention — is our only means of communicating with others.

When certain ideas have been codified into systems that form the foundation of our society, we feel obligated to act in ways that align with those ideas. These actions feel necessary to us — we feel we must take them in order to survive. We must, for example, align our actions with the demands of our economic system in order to obtain the resources we need to go on living.

This narrow sense of necessity often expands into a more general form. We start to think that it is not just particular actions that are necessitated by the system, but that the system itself is necessary. We start to believe that there is no alternative to the way we're already doing things and that we must carry on in this way.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Any system made out of rules and norms is one that human beings have created, and its further existence is conditional on our agreement to continue using it. All of the ideas and beliefs that underlie such a system are also contingent in the same way. We could at any time choose to create an entirely different system, which means the perceived necessity of any human-created system is always an illusion.

Any system made out of rules and norms is one that human beings have created, and its further existence is conditional on our agreement to c

“By systematizing our actions we have also systematized suffering. We have come to see suffering as something we must necessarily endure because our systems compel us to produce endless amounts of it.”

#fragmentarium

When I encounter genuine honesty, it hits me with resounding force. The words I'm hearing are so unexpected that they almost seem comical. I was expecting more of the same, more of the performance that comes from following the norms of everyday life. But what I've received is something entirely different. It stands out so starkly that my immediate reaction is often laughter.

But as the words settle in and I begin to feel their weight, I discover they're heavier than any I've recently heard. Then I realize this is no joke. These words carry a truth so significant that it feels incontestable. I'm not even able to respond to it because I'm left literally speechless.

When the honest truth arrives, I'm struck by its simplicity. I thought it would be long and complicated, but honesty is surprisingly austere. It feels almost other-worldly against the tapestry of ordinary life.

The more you read, the more you can see in each text. Words that were once limited to a single idea can now express varied meanings. A text that once had only literal value can now supply you with multiple worlds.

As your awareness of metaphor and its possibilities expands, you begin to see how it operates throughout language. While you once limited metaphor to certain poetic forms of expression, you are now open to it in even the most dry and prosaic texts. You are open even to metaphors that might never have been intended by the author. You are always looking for ways that the words you read might mean more than they literally say.

By allowing for the possibility of more, you also allow each text to become a more meaningful experience. It is now capable of communicating a more diverse beauty to you, and this beauty allows it to reveal new truths — truths that would have remained hidden had your awareness been too narrow to notice the possibility of them.

It was the colours that first grabbed my attention. The boldness of the combination and the playfulness of the hues. I felt immediately that I was looking at a significant work of art. Whether or not it would be significant for others, I couldn't say, but I knew it was significant for me. The intensity of the feeling seemed to say that I was in the presence of true beauty.

It was the colours at first, but then my attention began to go elsewhere. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it began to go everywhere. There was no part of the artwork that was unworthy of my gaze and I found myself automatically moving closer to it. It wasn't until I was very near that it struck me.

The brushstrokes. They were immaculate. The painting was in thick oils and I could easily trace each one. Every stroke seemed driven by an unquestionable purpose. Each with an exact weight, connecting perfectly with the others around it to form the greater image.

Our needs are broad and general. Some are very familiar to us and we know how to meet them, just as when we are hungry, we know to eat food. But others are not nearly so clear, and when our awareness is limited, we can struggle to see what we need and how to meet it.

When we feel an indistinct need that we cannot fully recognize, we tend to wander around aimlessly looking for something to fill the hole inside us. Such wandering can be helpful, as it provides us with new experiences that can expand our awareness and allow us to better see the need.

But what also usually happens is that we tend to jump at the first solution that presents itself. We identify a specific object or action that we think might resolve our nebulous need and we make attaining it our goal. Our need has then spawned a desire: we want this particular thing because we believe it will help us meet our need.

Time moves in one direction only: forward. As such, there can be no question of our direction. It is always away from the past and towards the future. Noticing this and the uncertainty it brings, we want to escape from time. We want to find a way to maintain what we have despite time's ever-forward movement.

But time always wins in the end. The only thing we discover by expending our lives on efforts to conserve and preserve is that we have lost everything of value. For what is truly valuable is life itself. Contrary to our desire for things to stay the same, life always grows and expands. It continuously works to create more than there previously was.

Our choice then was never between going forward or not, but between accepting life or trying to deny it. Denial takes the form of narrowly focusing on preserving and conserving what already is — a kind of stagnation no different from death. Acceptance means seeing ourselves as always-changing, as beings capable of becoming more than we already are. To accept life is to accept risk, for life is always a gamble on a future that we cannot fully know.

What is divine cannot be debased merely by talking about it. We would never imagine that the splendour of nature could be degraded by talking about its parts or how they function. We would never for a moment think that human beings are reduced by talking about their experiences or feelings. Even if we were to condemn nature or humanity with extreme vitriol, we would understand that we could deal no real damage to either.

At the same time, we have the tendency to believe that criticizing an artwork might cause it irreparable harm. As though mere words could hamper the work's beauty and cause it to fall from grace. But anything like this is impossible. What is valuable in an artwork can no more be harmed by language than nature or humanity or the universe itself.

When I'm facing a particularly bad situation, I immediately start looking for signs of reassurance. I want to know that things are not as bad as they seem. I want to be able to see a way out of the difficulty. I want to know that there is a route back to the relatively comfortable existence I'm used to living.

But sometimes nothing like this is available. Even as I try to find something that might at least temporarily satisfy these wants, nothing provides me with any solid reassurance. What I instead discover is that the situation truly is bad and it's likely to get worse. The realization that the comfort and certainty I desperately want are not only distant but receding almost always brings on the suffering of despair. I feel miserable because I'm trapped where I am.

It's half past five in the morning and he is awake. He has managed less than four hours of actual sleep. The heat in the room is already intense even though the sun hasn't yet made it over the horizon. Hot energy is pulsing through his body, through his feet and hands, through all of his extremities.

He lies there knowing he cannot possibly sleep further. The heat demands action. It is telling his body to get up and do something. But he cannot figure out what. He is far from attentive and his mind is sluggish.

He imagines a swimming pool, or even better, a lake somewhere in the north, somewhere close to where he grew up. He remembers jumping into the lake in late spring, the frigid water enveloping him, the shock of genuine cold rapidly spreading through his body. That would be wonderful right now. A swim in cold water and then a long nap in the shade, two or three hours at least. Then he might feel alive again.

Awareness is the amalgam of everything we have seen in all of our experiences throughout life. In this way, awareness might be thought of as a kind of memory we have formed. But unlike the memories we can directly recall and explore, awareness only reaches us through intuitions that arise from it.

A past event that we have no ability to recall might still have influenced us in a way that causes a particular intuition to arise. Since we cannot see where this intuition comes from, we might become distrustful of our awareness. We expect to be fully conscious of our past experiences and the impact they have had on us. But we also know this isn't always true. Countless things happen to us every day that we forget entirely, and our ability to recall the details of even the most important events fades with time.

You're bad at being human. There's no point in denying it because it's obviously true. Anyone with a brain can see you aren't doing it right. The only reason they don't call you out is because they're just as bad at it.

Your problem is that you have too much power and you don't know how to use it. You can see more than an animal is supposed to see. You can examine the past, the present, and the possible future and see how they're connected. You can reflect on your past actions and plan your future actions.

These powerful abilities cause you to develop all sorts of intentions. There are things you want to possess, things you want to avoid, and a whole range of beliefs that you have about what is good and what is bad.

It's your intentions that get the better of you. You easily become attached to them, so much so that you build your whole life around them. You allow them to manipulate you into doing harmful things. You produce enormous suffering for yourself and the people around you. You make pain that has no purpose except enabling you to reach your goals or confirm your beliefs. All of this is unnecessary and it hampers your ability to thrive.

Every text is a story and every writer is a storyteller. Even the most conceptual, theory-laden, abstract text is still a narrative. For every text weaves together disparate elements into a cohesive structure using the norms of language in exactly the same way as we tell a story.

A text is a means of connecting a series of normative entities called words in order to reach a specific end, and as such it is itself a normative entity. Just as a story shows how one event leads to the next in a plausible fashion, an abstract text shows how its conclusion is reached through a chain of premises and logical inferences.

My attention is fully captured by the beautiful, which surpasses everything else in my immediate surroundings. I want to perceive as much of it as I can, for I cannot escape the feeling that by observing, it will be brought closer to me. I want to become one with the beautiful other. I want to incorporate its beauty into my own self.

The experience of beauty is always joyful. It seems to meet some profound need that lives inside me. At the same time, the beautiful transcends whatever pleasure it brings. It seems to indicate a greater truth about the world or the being that I am. I may not know what this truth is, or be able to put it into words, but the simple act of observing the beautiful adds to my awareness.

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Suli Qyre