Бесплатный фрагмент - Beyond madness

Introduction

This book may not be easy for everyone to understand, because not everyone wants to do it. It is not difficult in itself, I explain everything here in simple language, without any specific terminology, since I myself do not like to stumble over incomprehensible words during reading, which could easily be replaced by understandable ones for most people. Also with a sense, it is not abstruse, why should I be clever and wise here. I’m just explaining in this book the things that we, most of us, usually call crazy. We look at a certain person, see something they are doing that we either don’t understand or think is wrong and call them mad. But if you think about what we see, understand it, talk to a person, learn about his motives, then his actions, words, thoughts will find their own clear logic and show us a certain meaning that is contained in them. This is not always the case, sometimes madness is really inexplicable, but not everything that we think of as madness is so.

Now, not everyone who writes in this book will be able to understand, not because of their abilities and not because of the book itself, but because of the habit of not accepting what is considered unacceptable for such a person. This is the only thing that can prevent the reader from expanding their horizons and increasing their effectiveness, learning to live in harmony with much of what is in this world and interact more effectively with a large number of people. Prejudice, judging, criticizing, and not wanting to think can prevent the reader from getting the most out of this book. It may get in the way, but it doesn’t necessarily get in the way if the reader pays attention to this warning and tries to open up to this book instead of fighting it.

In this book, I will address the reader as «you», for greater intimacy with each person and, therefore, a better understanding of my words. We will communicate as good friends, trusting each other.

This book, reader, will make you wiser if you accept all that it says. I do not say, take my word for it, I do not ask for it, read your thoughts critically, as you should, but carefully, without fighting with my every word and statement. Accepting means at least listening, thinking, and then deciding how to take it. Just think about what you’ve read properly. If you can accept what is written, you will become wiser, and therefore calmer, more reasonable, more tolerant, you will learn to live in harmony with many things and treat everything with greater understanding. It is wisdom that most people do not have enough to get along with everything calmly, treat everything with understanding and feel happy, thanks to harmonious coexistence with everything that exists in this world, or in any case with many.

We often do not accept too much, we try to fight too much, thereby poisoning our life instead of knowing it and enjoying it. This is wrong, this is wrong, this should not be, this should be different. We don’t want to understand, we don’t want to think about anything that is difficult to understand and that we don’t like. And this creates problems in life, in particular, problems with people.

If you are used to living by well-known rules, thinking according to generally accepted patterns, and adhering to old traditions, the book may seem unpleasant to you. It will also show that things are not as you thought, that some madmen are not really mad, that some supposedly wrong actions are actually necessary. It partly challenges the usual ideas about life, about people and their actions. And we, as you probably know, don’t like to change our habits. It is easier for us to criticize the fact that these habits are encroached upon. But I hope you can handle it.

Sometimes there’s a lot more reason behind insanity than what we think is reasonable. The following parable shows this well:

Once a powerful sorcerer, wanting to destroy the kingdom, poured a magic potion into the spring from which all the inhabitants drank. Every time someone took a sip of this water, they went crazy.

In the morning, all the inhabitants, having tasted from this spring, went mad, except the king, who had his own well. The sorcerer could not reach this well, and the king and his family drank normal water. Seeing that the country was in chaos, the king tried to restore order and issued a series of decrees.

When the country found out about the royal decrees, everyone thought that their ruler had gone mad and was now giving the same crazy orders. With shouts, they went to the castle and began to demand that the king abdicate the throne.

The king recognized his powerlessness and wanted to lay down the crown. But the queen came up to him and said: «Let’s go to that spring and drink from it too. Then we will be like them.»

So they did. The king and queen drank water from the fountain of madness and immediately began to talk nonsense. At the same time, their subjects gave up their demands: if the king shows such wisdom, then why not let him continue to rule the country?

Calm reigned in the country, despite the fact that its inhabitants behaved very differently from their neighbors. And the king was able to rule until the end of his days.

After many, many years, the great-grandson of a sorcerer managed to create a magic potion that could poison all the water on earth. Once, he poured this potion into one of the streams and, after a while, all the water on the ground was poisoned. People cannot live without water, and soon there is not a single normal person left on earth. The whole world has gone mad. But no one knows about it.

But sometimes people are born on earth, on whom this potion for some reason does not work. These people are born and grow up perfectly normal, and even try to explain to others that people’s actions are crazy. But they are usually misunderstood and taken for lunatics.

Perhaps, reader, this book will help you see the rational in the insane, and the insane in the intelligent. Or maybe not. What happens, happens. I just want you to understand more, know more, and be more sensible about what sometimes happens in this world.

I just have to tell you what I’m going to tell you in this book. I do not know what will happen to me, to my life tomorrow, I do not know how long I will live at all, no one knows, so I may not have the chance to share these thoughts with you. I have to give them to you.» Like any human being, being a social being, he wants to pass on something valuable that he has to other people. I don’t know why, why I should do this, but I know I should, I feel it. Who knows, maybe this is how my madness manifests itself.

In any case, all the things that I have learned from studying seemingly insane people and insane phenomena, I believe, need to be understood. This understanding made my life easier. It’ll make you feel better, too. You won’t worry about what you shouldn’t worry about. Understanding leads to calmness and peace. Therefore, read, understand, accept what you read, think about it and enjoy life, no matter how crazy it may sometimes be.

Chapter 1. Sweet Lies

There is nothing sweeter than a lie in this world. It is a lie, if it is very beautifully presented to a person, that can inspire him and improve his mood, so that he will feel happy. And at the same time, it may not have any material values. This is proved by some ascetics who, having nothing, feel very well at the same time, judging by the fact that they do nothing to get something.

After all, the main thing for a person is that what he learns gives him pleasure and joy in his thoughts. In his virtual inner world, everything should look as he wants, so from the outside world, he takes exactly such information that complements his illusions. And only then does he think about the benefits of this information, about the possibility of its application in his life. In this sense, we are all addicts, and lying is the most powerful drug for us. We need it not only to feel good, but also to simply live. This proves our ego, which by its existence and its work tells and shows us that lying is the elixir of life. After all, the ego makes our image of ourselves so that we are happy with ourselves. Otherwise, we will lose interest in life. And so it constantly lies to us about ourselves.

Lies are not omnipotent, but they can work wonders. Perhaps if you say «halva» for a long time, then your mouth will not become sweeter. But if you say for a long time that black is white, and white is black, then a person will believe it, regardless of whether it is true or not. The only question is how long to talk about it, so that everyone will believe, and not just the most naive. But something else is interesting. If you immediately tell people something nice, beautiful, that they will like, then they will believe it the first time simply because they want to believe it. Let not all, but many. Lie or truth, a person can perceive both equally well, because he wants to live in a world that is convenient for him, and not in a biting reality.

Think of all the other miracles that lie can do. The same placebo effect can have an analgesic effect, and according to some data, which I did not check, it is possible to treat certain diseases in this way, simply by telling the person that some miracle pill [calcium or ascorbic acid] can cure their disease. After drinking it, he will improve his condition. He will do this by faith-by believing in a lie. Or hypnosis, through which people can be inspired with a lot of things, and almost everyone, depending on how to hypnotize them. In general, I will not go into these things, because the essence of this chapter is different. It is not so much the usefulness and necessity of lying that we need to be convinced of, but rather how insane those people who call for the truth are. Whereas they themselves may think that what is written here is mad.

The world does not need the truth, but a lie to exist. The entire human civilization is built on lies and hypocrisy. Everywhere we see outright lies, duplicity, substitution of concepts, double standards, we are drowning in total lies. This is our world, we created it for ourselves, and it is the way we need it. We live a lie, we breathe it, it is our salvation in many situations when it is absolutely impossible to tell the truth or what we believe to be the truth. For example, you can’t tell a strong and angry person who can wipe you out everything that you think of them if you think badly of them. It would be suicide. Therefore, it would be outright madness to want to live in a crystal-clear world where everyone tells each other only what they really are or what they think, without distorting their information in any way for the convenience of its perception by others.

We bathe in lies, as in luxury, and at the same time lie, saying that it is unpleasant for us. Isn’t that hypocritical? Distorted reality is our environment in which we can survive. In a world where the truth reigned, people would not be able to live. Therefore, lies should be supported and praised in every possible way, nourished and propagated, exalted and multiplied, fighting all truth-lovers as heretics. All those villains who dare to spread the truth in a society that this society does not need, who try to open people’s eyes to things that we do not need to know and that we do not want to know, should be brought to public trial as enemies of society. If you want to know the truth, know it! If you want to tell someone the truth, ask them if they want to know it! You can greatly harm specific people and society as a whole with your truth. You can use it to ruin the fairy-tale world we live in. Even such a harmless truth as the truth about what, say, an elite sausage is made of, which is sold in a store more expensive than meat, can discourage many people’s appetite, and deprive producers of part of their income. You’ll ruin the mood for some people, and you’ll ruin the business for others if you open people’s eyes to such things. In this case, you can be compared to a terrorist who is capable of causing serious harm to society.

Always and at all times, the most terrible crime was to spread the truth, which was inconvenient and objectionable not only to those in power, but also to ordinary people. The mob needs lies even more than its rulers. If this were not the case, people would not support leaders who promise them a lot of things, but do not fulfill any of them. And if you tell the crowd the truth about your political ambitions, not a single dog will vote for you, no one will recognize you as their leader. People will hate you. And not for your ambitions, but for what you said about them. So what is considered madness-a total lie or the truth? Who is really mad — the one who calls for the truth or the one who teaches to lie?

Here, reader, being beyond the edge of insanity, the very insanity that we are accustomed to consider as such, I can advise you a crazy thing-learn to lie. It’s one of those skills that you learned when you were still in the womb. But it needs to be developed. I will punish you for both telling the truth and lying badly. But they will adore you for your clever lies. Remember: people love lies, but only those that don’t look like lies. They love convincing, truthful lies. Does that sound weird? Well, what do you want, people are kind of schizophrenic in this sense. They can live with two conflicting attitudes in their heads, wanting both at the same time. And you, in order to please them and get along with them, must be able to adapt to this human oddity. Give people what they want — a true lie!

I’m just telling you something that most ordinary people would consider delusional. Well, this should not be surprising, because we already know that people think as they are comfortable thinking, and not as circumstances require. Therefore, you will either remain among them, or you will consider a different point of view, which I share with you, in this case, a lie. And this point of view says that lying is a beautiful, fabulous phenomenon. And most importantly, we need it for life. Don’t trust those who speak ill of lies. These people are either madmen or terrible hypocrites.

Whatever you say to people, they have to like it for them to like you. And if it’s a lie, well, then they need a lie. And this will often be exactly a lie. Because people need it. You don’t really need to think about it, so that you don’t really go crazy from the inconsistency of some thoughts with others, from not understanding how to behave. Look at the people that everyone likes. Well, most of them, at least. Or those who are important to you. They will show with their words, speeches, their beautiful, sweet, fabulous lies what others need. They say that the Earth is flat, so it means flat. It is reasonable to say the same. It is not necessary to think so, but it is desirable to speak. Just otherwise you will be a madman and not only in the eyes of the blind crowd, but also in the eyes of nature. Because your behavior will not be flexible, which means you will not be adapted. They don’t survive. They’re dying out. The bonfire is your place, if you’re too truthful. Further in this world will go those who live in lies, feed on lies and produce them in huge quantities.

Now, when we discuss the topic of lies, we are talking about life under the hood, that is, what to talk about, and often think about, is not accepted. How can you approach a person and say, "Lie to me about me, for example, about my appearance. Tell me how beautiful I am or how beautiful I am, what a stylish suit or fashionable dress I have.» Let people tell you how good, smart, beautiful you are, and so on. Ask them to do it. You need it.» So ask people for it. But you won’t do it, because it’s not acceptable to do it. It is customary to disguise a lie, to pass it off as the truth. And if you do, if you say what you really need, people will think that something is wrong with your head. So, in order not to seem crazy, you ask people to tell the truth about you, but you expect them to lie. You will expect from them a sweet lie that is pleasant to the ear, believing that it is true.

The world seems crazy only when all these things I write about are not explained to a person. Intuitively, of course, we all understand that we are playing some strange game in which things are not called by their proper names, so that everyone is comfortable. We understand that you can’t always say what you think, you can’t always present information in its true form, you need to somehow adapt it to people. But, on the other hand, in most cultures, the idea is drummed into a person’s head that you need to be honest, that the truth is good and right, but lying is bad. One thing doesn’t add up to the other. Reality does not coincide with what is in our head and on our tongue. So people are then perplexed when they see an obvious lie and say, first of all, to themselves, how is it, because this is not true, regardless of what is being said. And they are also punished for pointing out this lie and for telling the truth themselves. Does this happen? And quite often. And then these people claim that the world has gone mad. No, he didn’t. He’s always been like this. You are crazy, dear truth-lovers, because you believe that people need the truth.

On the surface in our life there is always only cosmetics, but no one wants to consider its load-bearing structures, except for such curious people as you, the reader. After all, if you are reading this chapter and this book, then you want to know something different about life, something new, and not just what everyone knows. Well, you see what comes of it. It turns out such thoughts that you want to argue with, which you want to object to or even criticize their author for them. This is what is new, which always gets into us with difficulty, through resistance. How so, we all know that lying is bad. We know that people, especially children, should be taught to be honest, they should not be liars, although for some reason they know how to lie when no one has taught them this. And here lies in this form are presented as something necessary, demanded not only by the liar, but also by those who perceive the lie, and even as something rewarded. It doesn’t look like anything is right.

Try to avoid using words like «true» and «false» altogether, and start thinking about information only in terms of its usefulness to you, regardless of what you do with it — perceive or give it away. Think about what information a person needs to be highly valued and loved? It is obvious, like a white day, that it should be convenient, pleasant, beautiful information that is easily perceived, right? It is also obvious that it should be useful. If you, thinking that the earth is flat, can still live normally, maintaining good relationships with the people you need, earning a living, solving other everyday tasks, then what is the bad thing that you think so, why does it bother you? Let it be flat, let it be square, triangular, but what difference does it make? As long as you live normally, as long as people see you as their own person, as long as you don’t have any problems. This is reasonable when you think about your own well-being, and not about the truth, which no one needs. But to give out information, because of which you can lose a lot and for which you can be punished, this is somehow abnormal. Such a person might well be thought of as a madman. So they think.

See how well liars disguise the road to hell with good intentions, what pleasant stories they tell, and how people are willing to believe them. Whenever people want to be used, they are told that everything is being done for them, they are drawn to a beautiful future in which they so want to be. This is the most common type of deception. In general, any deception in which something is done ostensibly for us is always directed against us. This approach is known to our people under the label «due to numerous requests from workers», and it is precisely with this wording that numerous abominations have been committed and are being committed against these same workers. But the interesting thing is that people like it. That’s the whole secret. Here’s what’s important to understand. According to their logic, it is better for them to be deceived than, for example, beaten, or better to see and hear sweet lies than bitter truths. So it turns out that some people pretend to care about others, and these others show that they see and feel this care and are grateful for it. Complete hypocrisy. And this hypocrisy is nothing more than adaptability — a necessary quality for survival, according to the theory of evolution. That is why lying is good, and truth is evil. We put this world on its head. Insanity is not the desire to live a lie, insanity is the desire to live in the truth and see the truth.

Blessed are those who lie, for they create a world in which we can live, rejoicing in what is not.

Chapter 2: Boundless Greed

Greed, like stupidity, has no measurable limits. It is limitless. The universe is more likely to end than greed. To a certain extent, greed is reasonable, well, a person wants more, why not. And then it becomes insane, when it begins to bring neither benefit, but harm. But if you look beyond this edge of insanity, you can see very interesting things.

One of them is the expansion of the boundaries of a person’s perception of this world, this life. Well, think about it, reader, how would you know that there is a limit to greed if you kept to the limit and stopped in time, not allowing this greed to harm you? A person simply will not experience special sensations, such as are inaccessible to most not very greedy people. They stop, do not go further, do not know, neither this world, nor their own capabilities, nor the limits of what is permissible, which can be learned through their greed. It’s like living only within the boundaries you know, without going over them. This is possible, of course, but not interesting. Life becomes more interesting when we begin to learn its secrets, including in such a difficult way. You need to go beyond the known to live a rich life. That’s what you need to be greedy for, and very greedy at that. And this is actually not easy. This requires courage, especially when a person is smart and understands that greed can destroy him. But he still had to follow her lead to see beyond the horizon of the known. If a person is not very smart, then in this case everything works out for him by itself, he simply cannot stop, his appetite comes to him while eating and greed itself carries him on its wings to the end that is possible. Therefore, having a head on your shoulders, without courage and determination, you will not take risks, going to the last in your desire to get more and more. And without this, it is impossible to get to know life better and to know the limits of your abilities.

Some people tell me that you don’t need to learn anything, you don’t need to strive for the maximum through insatiable greed, that what you have is enough, so as not to bring life to serious problems that can’t be solved later. But this, again, is their opinion and nothing more. Well, what makes a person think that this is not necessary? If life is designed in such a way that unlimited greed is possible in it, then it may be necessary for someone. You don’t want to explore this world through it, you don’t want to cross the line after which there is no way back, others want to. It’s like with the same drugs, alcohol, sexual perversions — someone wants to know the world through these things, look at life with such eyes, wants to build their destiny on these activities. Can a person afford it? Well, if no one stops him, then yes. And we know that people live like this. Therefore, what is needed in this life and what is not is a matter of choice. Yes, a person can do it unconsciously and this is also possible, and therefore permissible. So a person has the right to go through life along this path. And he has the right to use this right. Someone wants to die because of taking drugs ahead of time, someone wants to get drunk, and someone is looking for the end of their life path in their greed. And he will find it. Let him search. Such a life can be very interesting, even if it is short-lived.

Another interesting thing that depends on greed is human evolution. Or you can also say about the evolution of his consciousness, in which people must somehow learn to look at life differently, perceive it, having burned out from their greed. I think that greed should destroy us all in the form in which we now exist, so that we can move to a new level of existence. We must somehow transform ourselves, maybe partly in the form of technological beings, like cyborgs, or maybe in the form of artificial intelligence, which we will become a part of. In general, a person in the form in which he exists now, should cease to exist. We must get away from our primitive animal nature through its maximum manifestation. We must stay at the broken trough to start building everything anew, first of all ourselves.

Greed is a path to self-destruction, not only for the individual, but for all of humanity. The fact that greed destroys individual people-we know this, we have seen it more than once. But when this feeling destroys all of humanity, then, probably, we will move to a new level of existence, or awareness. Or rather, what’s left of us will be part of a new world, maybe a new form of life. The same weapons of mass destruction are also a manifestation of greed. This greed is expressed in aggression, because of which wars occur, the purpose of which is to enslave other people, seize resources, expand power. Right? What is it but greed? It is not enough for a person, and he wants more, and he strives for this in a simple way-through the manifestation of aggression. It’s so easy to use your power to get what you want. And when a person gets enough of playing with matches, when these matches burn him, then what remains of people, according to the logic of development and improvement, will have to be deprived of at least this feeling, and maybe other low feelings. Greed will become unnecessary, not only because of its destructive power, expressed in the lack of a sense of proportion, but also because it will be replaced by some other driving force, thanks to which people or that, or those who will replace them, will strive for something more and perfect in a more reasonable way.

Greed will one day lead to a massive war that will destroy all of humanity as it exists. Is it worth being afraid of? No, of course not. Why be afraid of the end, which, first, is inevitable, and secondly, will be the beginning of a new one? Nothing disappears in this world without a trace. We will not be the same as we know ourselves, we will be different or there will be something else or someone else who will be the heir to the history of our existence. Well, how do you like this version? Well, there must be some point in being insanely greedy.

Let’s say I don’t know what it’s like to be immensely greedy, so greedy that I don’t stop at anything to satisfy my greed. I also always want something bigger and better, I understand that it is not interesting to live if nothing changes for the better in your life for a long time and you do not gain more. But somehow in this matter, I always adhered to a sense of proportion. And he stopped just in time. Or maybe not on time? Maybe my fear of crossing the line prevents me from knowing, seeing, feeling something more, which can be in those cases when a person completely surrenders to this crazy feeling? Maybe we should go further to learn something special? And how are you doing with this, reader? Are you also afraid of being too greedy? I look at some greedy people, very greedy people, and I see their eyes burn. They seem to know more about life than I do. More precisely, they know something so special about it, they have seen something, felt something, thanks to their immense greed, that is not available to me. It turns out that my reasonableness in this matter, and in our book it is unreasonableness, slows me down and does not allow me to explore the world at a higher level. This is a very risky level. After all, where thin, and torn. But the feelings at this level are also special.

That is why people who have power and therefore have the opportunity to satisfy their immense appetites steal so shamelessly [not all, probably, but very many] and never get enough. They have the opportunity to discover new horizons of being and use it. They strive to go beyond all possible limits of what is permissible, they want to transcend all existing features that imply some kind of self-limitation. They want to see what is beyond moderate greed, when you are satiated to the limit and there is simply nowhere else to go. But I want even more to understand what it feels like when there are no borders at all that restrain your vice. After all, it’s not just a matter of a beautiful life, not in the luxury that is available to you, all this, you can say, is a joy for the stomach. It’s also about the state of consciousness when you live the way you can only live if you steal a lot, which means doing something that most other people don’t do, because they don’t have the opportunity to do it. But everything is available to you, you have superiority over others, thanks to your unrestrained desire for more and more. And you get an experience that you would never have had if you didn’t steal like this, if you didn’t choke on greed. You would never look at life the way you do when you steal so wildly. It’s just interesting when you don’t live the way you should. After all, we are used to moderation in everything, we are taught to live in this way, we are taught to control our passions so that we can get along with others with whom we must reckon. And greed, when it is boundless, helps us to live not as we should, but as we want. And this is a special feeling, similar to what a person feels from a very large power.

In any form, greed allows you to look at life from a special side, which also gives you special feelings. It takes a person on an unusual journey, into a world in which he behaves as if in a dream. This is a dream world in which a person is free from all prohibitions and restrictions. People who have suffered from greed and with whom I have had a chance to talk thoroughly about this topic have told me that when they experienced this feeling, when they were driven by it, they lived as if in a dream. They didn’t control themselves with their minds at this time, they just flew around in their delusions of permissiveness, doing what they wanted and not what they should.

You just row, row, row under yourself and it doesn’t matter to you why, for what, you do it, you just get involved in the process itself. Whatever you’re greedy about, you want to do more to experience something new that you’ve never experienced before. More money, more power, more chutzpah, more sex, more food, and anything else you can afford to take more in. You get impudent with greed, not for the sake of any particular result, but just to understand what else you are allowed in this life. Well, this is, as you know, drinking, that is, drinking, until you lose consciousness. People, according to them, do not control themselves at the last stage of intoxication, and then the objective laws of nature interfere with the process and stop it, the person simply switches off. Just like with any other greed. A person goes along with it until the objective laws of life stop him, showing him the limits of his immensity and arrogance.

Being immensely greedy, of course, you can suffer greatly, because greed often destroys a person. But who says that a fate ruined by greed is more unhappy than the fate of a person who has never seen or experienced anything special in his life, because he has always adhered to certain restrictions, either by himself or by force, out of fear of punishment? Who says that life without greed is better than with it? Moderation? A sense of proportion? Sufficiency? Yes, all this looks wise, reasonable, but at the same time it is too gray, too limited. What’s the point of living with restrictions? Just to live longer? And for what purpose? To die when you’ve already started to crumble, when all your teeth will fall out and it will be scary to look at yourself in the mirror? It is difficult to say what is right and what is wrong, but if a person is allowed to be infinitely greedy, even deadly greedy, insanely greedy, then he has the right to live such a life, has the right to suffer from such a vice, succumbing to it.

I don’t know what I have to lose by not letting my greed show in all its glory. I do not know what life will be like when you allow yourself to live without any brakes, I do not understand what it will feel like if I am greedy, very greedy, insanely greedy. I lose something here, but I also gain something. But how do I know that what I lose is worse or better for me than what I gain? It is necessary to compare. And how do you compare it here, you can’t live two lives at the same time. You have to believe that you made the right choice, choosing a life with limitations. But anyone who has allowed himself to look beyond the edge of his madness, allowing his greed to consume him, also has the right to believe that his choice was the best for him.

Chapter 3. Noble cowardice

Is being a coward good or bad? Think carefully, reader. A lot of people will tell you that being a coward is bad. And if you tell them that being a coward is great, convenient, and profitable, they’ll twirl their fingers at your temple. Let not all, but many. Well, it’s understandable, in our society, the most sane people have always been considered mad. And hypocrites should not be discounted, who are still cowards themselves, but want others to be brave in situations where it is dangerous to be brave. Why would I climb into the fire to save someone, climb better you, you’re brave, risk your life, including for the sake of my interests. And I’ll sit here quietly and then start telling some stories about my exploits when the real heroes are gone, because their courage will destroy them all. In fact, the real madness is to be brave. You and I, the reader, will look at both of these states from the side that is beyond insanity.

Let’s think about what is mad cowardice, not noble, it comes after insanity, namely insane? Talking to such people-insanely cowardly, I realized that we are talking about such cowardice, which does not make sense from the point of view of protecting a person from danger. Such a person is afraid of absolutely everything that is necessary and what is not necessary. He avoids any conflicts, is completely uninitiative, tries to keep a low profile, tries not to face any dangers at all, so he doesn’t get into anything. This is what he puts himself in danger, because by his passivity he provokes others to aggression in his address, and by his lack of initiative he deprives himself of the opportunity to do what he must in order to protect himself from future or even current threats. Such a person is not just content with little, if they do not give him more, they will give him, because he is afraid to take something, even afraid to ask, he also puts his life in danger. His instinct for self-preservation, which makes him cowardly, does not work properly, it is too active or even distorted, so it does not protect a person’s life, but puts it in danger. We can say that a genetic failure leads to insane cowardice.

But what does the person himself feel when he is in this state? It is necessary to understand what is behind such madness, maybe everything is very reasonable. Getting into the soul of such people, I realized that they feel confident that they are doing everything right, when they are too afraid of something and do nothing at the same time. Despite all the fears, anxieties, misgivings, all the exciting feelings with which they live, fearing, as they say, a cart creak, they are nevertheless sure that their caution, expressed in excessive cowardice, is completely reasonable, and it absolutely correctly guides them through life, saving them from senseless risks. In a sense, these people feel quite mature and wise, probably because of their ego, which justifies their cowardice in their own eyes. They don’t worry about their condition. Just a cowardly person, may recognize the problem with their cowardice and may even try to get rid of it. And these, no, will not work with this feeling, try to remove it. They don’t want to. They will only want to adapt their cowardice to the tasks they have to solve in life, they want to find a way to do what they need to do, while remaining as they are. This is exactly the problem we solved with these people. They didn’t see themselves as wrong, they just wanted to find a way to solve their problems while remaining cowardly. That’s their attitude to life. They don’t recognize their condition as a problem.

People who are not very cowardly, of course, find it difficult to understand this when a person is generally afraid of everything. Most of us, of course, have been in situations where we were afraid and behaved like real cowards. Well, who did not have such experience. And it gives us some understanding of absolute, insane cowardice, when you try to avoid problems, conflicts, and do not try to sort them out, when you are shackled with fear or want to run to save yourself. But this will be an incomplete understanding. Because each of us can be cornered and then we will turn from a mouse into a lion, and our cowardice will go away, we will defend ourselves. But for an absolute coward, this feeling will remain in any scenario, even in the most hopeless for him. He will be ready to die, but will not put up any serious or even any resistance at all. And he will consider himself right. Such a person is convinced that it is more dangerous to fight for oneself than not to fight. It is better to accept your fate than to try to awaken the beast in you. Because there’s no one to wake up, the beast is dead. Such a coward doesn’t care what happens to him, his fear, which he doesn’t realize, is so strong that he believes in its reasonableness. And his conviction in his own rightness, in the reasonableness of his fear, in the justification of his cowardly behavior, makes his cowardice noble, both in his own eyes and in the eyes of those people who respect someone else’s fanatical conviction in something. A person has decided to live like this, he considers his attitude to life correct and follows the chosen course, despite any obstacles and provocations. I’m afraid, so I’m afraid and I’ll be afraid all my life, that’s my right. There is a certain nobility in this, expressed in devotion to one’s beliefs, one’s feelings, in honesty to oneself, in readiness to sacrifice one’s life for the sake of spiritual comfort. Yes, and there is a place for morality here, because cowardly people are often said that they have not offended a fly in their life. And it really is. Because such a person was afraid to do it and was true to his fear all his life. That is why it is a noble cowardice, and not just crazy.

What else can you find in such cowardice? It can be useful in certain situations. Just imagine, reader, a war begins and everyone is taken to war, to defend their homeland. The strongest and bravest respond to such a call, do not resist it, do not try to escape from the war. They should go for it, in their opinion. And how else, otherwise it is impossible, they will consider you a coward or a scoundrel. Yes, and then he will be ashamed to look in the mirror. And the coward runs away from the general mobilization, pretends to be ill, and in some other way avoids being sent to war, which can turn out to be very cruel and merciless, with many victims. And that keeps him alive. Someone will be killed in the war, someone will be maimed, and he will be both alive and well. And then he will come out of the shadows, and may even present himself as a hero, composing a story about how he fought. Society will accept this, because it needs heroes who will glorify it. But, as a rule, insane cowardice does not claim to be any heroism. Such people simply escape from death and that’s all. And yet they consider themselves very noble people, because they remain true to themselves, they save themselves by refusing to participate in any conflict. And who’s to say it’s wrong?

But with other people, these cowards are no longer so noble and can easily betray because of their cowardice any person, even one who has done a lot for them, even to the point that he saved their lives. I know quite a few such examples. These people, I repeat, are true to themselves, to their life course and will not change it for the sake of someone else, whoever he is. This is the madness and nobility of their cowardice. They are afraid for themselves, for their own lives, but they are not afraid for the lives of others. For the sake of self-preservation, they are even ready to betray close people, just not to take risks, just not to get hurt. Ask them how they put up with this, how they can calmly relate to the problems of people close to them and not participate in solving problems, and they will say that they do not have to take responsibility for others and let other people, even if they are very close people, take care of themselves, solve their own problems. Everyone should be responsible for themselves. And they will think about themselves. This is the attitude to life.

But the most important and most valuable thing that gives a coward his insane cowardice, which for him is noble, is the position of an observer of life. Such a person gets used to simply observing the course of life, both his own and the one around him, and not interfering in it unless absolutely necessary. It’s like watching a movie or participating in a movie shoot, or like watching a sporting event, like sitting in the grandstand and watching a soccer match or playing soccer yourself. The one who is brave, who is active in life-he plays, he is a player. But such cowards who are afraid of everything and do nothing — they are spectators.

Which is better, to be a participant in life or an observer of it? To be honest, it is difficult for me to answer this question unequivocally. I used to think that you definitely need to be extremely active in life, that’s why you are a person to act. But now I’m not so sure. Life is constantly opening up to me from different angles, and I realize that the truth is still unknown to me. I myself have taken both positions in my life, in different periods of it, and I must say that each of them is wise in its own way. There are certain things, certain objective processes, that we can’t influence or change if we want to. Well, let’s say some natural disaster, some natural anomaly, some social processes, say, the same technological progress, we can’t do anything about it, at least at the current stage of our development. It just happens because it has to happen. So, it remains only to accept and watch this, so as not to worry about it. That’s how there are seasons, there is day and night, there is rain and there is sun, which we watch, and so much more in our life happens regardless of our desire. We take an observant position in relation to what we cannot interfere with, what we cannot influence, and it is better to do this voluntarily, so as not to torment ourselves with our own resistance to these things. In such cases, they also say that if you can’t change something, then change your attitude to it, so that it doesn’t bother you.

A noble coward takes exactly this observant attitude towards almost everything in his life. In any case, to everything that poses any danger to him, in which, in his opinion, it is not safe for him to interfere. Brave people participate in life, play it, act, fight, achieve, change a lot or try to change, and the coward just watches it. And I can’t say that he’s so completely wrong. He’s not a madman, though he seems to be. Although, I don’t know, you can call him a madman if you want to. But it also often looks like madness and senseless activity, struggle, the desire of people to change what can not be changed, meaningless in appearance is also courage, which gives nothing but illusions of greatness. Of course, there are interesting discoveries and prizes beyond the limits of crazy courage, this is such a life and such victories that can only be achieved if you take a big risk by turning off all the fear sensors. It is also interesting to live your life with everything on the line and if you are lucky, you will get a lot. If you win, you’ll get almost everything. And if you lose, then you will sink into oblivion, and then others will go, more careful, attentive, prudent, because they are cowardly. Different approach to the game of life and different prizes. That’s how it works.

Do you see, reader, how life can develop in each of the extremes? We usually think that, here, a person has gone mad, he is abnormal, because he acts thoughtlessly, one recklessly risks, as if life is just a worthless thing, and the other, on the contrary, like some kind of plant, does nothing at all, as if he does not live. But each of these extremes has its own special, let’s say, gifts. A person who is too bold can get something as a gift that can only be obtained by taking a big risk and nothing else. Isn’t that a reason to go to the extreme and risk everything? And the too cowardly one receives as a gift a state of bliss and peace, in which he does not care what happens, because his fear is so strong that he ceases to react to it as an incentive to something emotion and simply lives in a state of absolute passivity. Many people dream of living like this without worrying about anything. And an absolute coward already lives like this.

In this chapter, we will focus on underwear, so it is important for us to understand first of all the meaning of the extreme to which they have fallen. And they look at life as if it were a movie and are absolutely convinced that their worldview is absolutely correct, reasonable, and wise. How many of us can boast of such confidence in the correctness of our actions, decisions, beliefs, and the correctness of our worldview? But they can.

Beyond insane cowardice and at the same time in a state of noble cowardice, there is a cherry in the form of a feeling of absolute rightness, harmony and calm. We can say that in this state, a person firmly believes in the fate that is predetermined and that no matter what you do, no matter how you behave, it will still be as someone intended. You can fight, you can bite into every situation in your life to defend your opinion, you can fight to the death, or you can do nothing, put up with everything, accept everything, do not interfere in any processes, and everything will still be as it should be, as it is written in the law. scenarios of your life and in the scenario of all existence.

Here the same wisdom can be called the ability of a person to minimally, but extremely pointwise and at the right time to influence life processes, the most important ones on which its course depends. A wise person does not spin like a squirrel in a wheel, does not try to embrace the vast, does not try to take control of everything, he does little, but then and then, how and when it should be done, so that changes are targeted and competent. His actions are like finding a fulcrum with which to turn the world upside down. And you can only rely on what provides resistance. Life resists, people resist, some more, some less. A wise person always finds the resistance that is necessary for him to exert the necessary amount of effort for the necessary changes, but at the same time it is not so strong that his efforts are not enough to initiate changes. In other words, there is no point in fighting windmills, but you can’t do anything serious without environmental resistance.

But we are not talking about wise men, but about cowards, and they do not interfere in anything dangerous for themselves at all and can consider it their wisdom, and, in fact, they do. They are like centuries-old trees, just stand and watch the surrounding bustle and do not interfere in anything. Come what may, there is absolutely no need to participate in all this vanity of vanities, since this will not change anything. And if tomorrow the woodcutter comes and starts chopping them, well, so be it, because there’s nothing the tree can do about it, just accept it. Maybe it’s for the best, thinks the cowardly tree man. It should be for the best. Otherwise, why was this world conceived, if all the changes in it are not for the better?

Chapter 4. Fairy Tale Revenge

Revenge or no revenge, that’s the question. And this is not an easy question. When you are faced with such life situations, in which, on the one hand, it is clear that a person was deeply offended, he was incredibly insulted, humiliated, deprived of something, after which his life changed dramatically for the worse, then you are inclined to the need for revenge on his part to his abusers. You can not leave evil unpunished, otherwise you will not find peace of mind. But, on the other hand, a person can have a good life in the present, after experiencing evil and even more impressive prospects, for the sake of which it makes sense to concentrate on completely different things related to the present, and not mentally return to the evil past, which remained only in the head and do not waste time and effort to return an unnecessary favor. That is why it is difficult to decide what is best to do, whether to take revenge or not, any option can be right or wrong. And whatever decision a person makes, he can be reproached for each of them, calling him a madman.

In one case, a person will be mad because, out of revenge, he will give up the prospects that he has in life, and they always appear in the life of every more or less active person. That is, because of the dead past, it will ignore the living present and the emerging bright future. He will not invest in improving his life, but will throw all his resources at making life worse for those whom he decided to take revenge on. Well, it’s not crazy. And in another case, if you do not take revenge, then they will call him insane for not showing character, not paying a debt, leaving a pain in his heart, not relieving his soul, and thus betraying himself. It also seems like a reasonable argument. Punishing evil is a sacred thing. I do not know what is right and wrong for each individual in their situation. But I know what lies beyond the edge of insanity that a person crosses when making this or that choice. That’s what I’ll tell you, reader. And you will decide for yourself when and to whom to take revenge, and when it is better not to do it. I just want you not to regret any of your decisions, not to doubt their correctness. Because that’s what gnaws the most afterwards. Madness is not what you do, but what you do afterwards is regret your actions and eat yourself out of your decisions if you find them wrong. That’s what you really need to be wary of. Everything else is nonsense, as many people, so many opinions.

So, revenge. The thing is, of course, strong. It works great as motivation. It is only a pity that it is not applicable to any case, but only to those cases that are mainly associated with causing harm and pain to the offender. And what is most interesting is that revenge is associated with such cases that force you to think about how to do bad things to another person, to other people to whom you are taking revenge, and not about how to do good to yourself. But to be more precise, a person wants to do good to himself through the opportunity to do bad to someone who once did bad to him. After all, having taken revenge, a person throws off a heavy burden from the soul, he finds freedom from the once-arisen sense of duty. This is a sense of duty to yourself. The evil that once entered your heart must come out of it and return to the one who gave it birth.

The desire for revenge is a desire that, if realized, gives a person such pleasure that he is not able to experience from any other things. Yes, you can improve your life in many ways, you can achieve a lot, succeed in something and enjoy the state that you will experience from your achievements. Yes, what can I say, you can eat a delicious bun and experience great pleasure. Many things in this life can bring us joy. But having taken revenge, a person will experience a special pleasure, incomparable to anything. It may not be better or worse than other types of pleasure, but it will be different, just different. That is, through revenge, we can come to a special state, thanks to it, we are able to experience completely unique sensations. And I believe that a person who passionately wants to take revenge on someone is not so much concerned with this task itself, but rather subconsciously strives to know this special state. He wants to discover a new and unique world that only appears after revenge.

A fairytale revenge is the perfect revenge, the kind that is intoxicating, after which you enter a state of nirvana, as if you have fulfilled your destiny on earth. You destroy the evil that once arose, which struck you, but did not kill you. I don’t care what happens to you, the main thing is that the offender gets what he deserves. Maybe in this way good and evil balance each other, thanks to the return of evil to the one who released it. But in any case, the feeling after taking revenge is special, incomparable. I speak from the words of people who managed to take revenge on their abusers. Some of them paid a very high price for the realization of this desire.

Think, reader, of the energy that fuels the desire for revenge. This is a very powerful energy. Where does it come from? No, I understand that from calories, I’m not talking about that. Why did nature make it possible to mobilize human resources away from thoughts of revenge? Yes, love does not mobilize someone so much, does not awaken, does not explode, as the thirst for revenge! It’s not for nothing. Some people take revenge for years, just think about it, for years! They are either waiting for their chance, or plotting revenge, throwing all their resources at it. They live on it, for many years. Therefore, if revenge were a manifestation of insanity, and therefore something frivolous, spontaneous, meaningless in the usual sense, then this very idea would quickly crumble. After all, most people, what can I say, do not make long-term plans, they do not know how to do it, they live in one day. And if they do, they don’t follow them clearly, they don’t adhere to them. But the avenging person learns to do this, often thanks to revenge. If earlier he lived for one day, then after someone did him harm and he decided to take revenge, then after that he can start making long-term plans for revenge, looking far into the future. Of course, not everyone does this, many people, having succumbed to emotions, want to take revenge immediately, in the most primitive way, they do not work on revenge plans. That’s why they often can’t take revenge. But if a person really clings to the idea of revenge, he will live with it for a long time, considering every step he takes. And even if he doesn’t take revenge, he will do a lot for it. Therefore, I think that the desire for revenge is a very serious desire. It’s not just emotions, it’s a whole program of actions that is embedded in a person from birth. And when it is activated, the person begins to supplement it with deliberate decisions in order to find not an instinctive, but a smart solution to this problem.

The very people who successfully took revenge on someone said that if it were not for this burning desire, they would not live at all, but simply exist like a plant, only maintaining their body in a viable state. They had no other interests in life after they became victims of evil. Revenge helped them not just to come to an unusual pleasure, it saved their lives! This is not just a relief from the burden of the soul and not even just a great joy, it is a life elixir. So everyone finds something different in revenge. Do you want to experience great fun? Then take revenge on the reptiles! To all those reptiles who once poisoned your life, and maybe continue to poison it now. These are your enemies. Anyone who makes your life, your life, or anyone else’s worse is your enemy! And he needs to be dealt with. Any way you want. This should also be done in cases where there is nothing else to live for. Sometimes the dream of revenge is the only thing that remains in a person’s life, besides herself. Perhaps the price of your revenge will be too high. Perhaps this price will be your happiness, no matter what you see it for yourself. But the state that you will come to when you get your revenge, it is also worth a lot. It’s a special feeling. This is a reward for your contribution to the fight against evil, which will always be there, but which also always needs to be punished. Well, if you don’t get revenge, and even more so if you go missing trying to get revenge, well, then so be it. You did what you could, and everything else is in the hands of the higher powers.

To understand the beauty of revenge, let’s imagine how you will take revenge on all your abusers and enemies, how you will make these scoundrels pay for everything. I don’t care about the price of revenge, don’t think about it at all, just imagine what you will do to them, to all your enemies. Well, or with one of them, to whom you most want to take revenge. Imagine that I can hear your thoughts. Please share them with me. Tell us now about who and how you would like to take revenge. Think about it. I am sure that you have such people, you have abusers who once did you harm. Imagine them. Imagine their impudent faces. Now take any of your enemies in the focus of your attention and think about how best to deal with them. Come on, tell me all the details of how this is going to happen. No need to think about the possibilities, consider that you have them, you can do whatever you want with your enemies, so think about your desire. Whatever you want to do with them, imagine it all in every detail, in every detail. And tell me about it in your mind. I’m interested to know. I want to share these feelings with you. The more vivid the image of your revenge, the stronger the feelings associated with it will be. I also feel that this is a great idea when you deal with him in the most refined way, give free rein to your wild desires. This is a completely unusual experience. If you can imagine your revenge in all its details, I can assure you that even without it, you will experience the deepest satisfaction. Experiment with your thoughts about revenge, let your imagination run wild.

The main thing is not to rush in your thoughts to do something, play each episode of revenge slowly, looking at each frame. This bastard must suffer, add more cruelty, stall for time, give the reptile the opportunity to experience all the suffering that he deserved. God forbid that he will prematurely deprive you of the joy of watching him suffer. Whatever your revenge is, whatever it boils down to, the last episode of its implementation should be watched slowly. In such matters, you can never rush. Otherwise, the pleasure of revenge will quickly pass. It’s like a good wine that you have to enjoy slowly to get the full taste of it.

At the moment when you carry out your revenge, even in your thoughts, there is a transition from anger and hatred felt towards a person, to pleasure derived from harming him in one way or another. The main thing is not to move abruptly from one thought to another at the moment of mental revenge. Otherwise, the effect will be smudged. In real life, anything can happen when you take revenge on someone, and in your thoughts exactly what you decide will happen. Don’t think that mental revenge is something frivolous. It is as serious as the actual thought. Everything you do in your mind right now, thinking about your revenge, happens for you almost the same as in reality. After all, for your brain, there is still no difference between the conditionally real world and the one that you draw to it. All the same, it all comes down to a set of chemical reactions and electrical impulses in your brain, and it is they who draw you a picture of the world. This is your own virtual world, where you can do whatever you want and when you want.

Now you are taking revenge on your enemies, abusers, in the way you want it. And it happens. The more you think about it, the more detailed you imagine this revenge, the more real it will be.

Do you know what I’ve been told by people who have dreamed of getting revenge, but never really got it, and yet they’ve tried to do it? They said that mentally they had taken revenge on their abusers and that reality had changed for them. And they changed themselves. Thinking about their revenge, imagining it, planning their every move, every action, they changed their inner world and changed their real life. People said that they had never felt so strongly motivated as when thinking about revenge. So much for insanity. Revenge moves a person, changes him, and at the same time, mental revenge can replace real revenge. Therefore, is it so bad to strive for it? Whatever a person gets out of a desire for revenge, it’s not a small matter. Whether he takes revenge in reality or only in his mind, he will still get something. A fairy tale will become a reality, even if revenge remains only a sweet fairy tale that has arisen in the imagination of a person. Because the person who created such a story for himself will change.

Well, if we talk about the other side, about the one where the madness is the desire not to take revenge, the desire to forgive, forget and move on, when a person swallows resentment and anger, when he forgives the offender, then if he does it with a clear understanding of why he decided to do so, for example, for the sake of his better future for the sake of his peace of mind, for the sake of some values, then in this case he lets go of the past and becomes free from it. And this decision itself is the decision of a free person. You cannot forgive if you are not free, if you think that you should react to something, to the same offense, anger, in a certain way. But we don’t owe anyone anything if we decide to. We don’t even owe ourselves anything. You see, everything is conditional, everything depends on our desire, on your desire. There is no right or wrong solution, there is a solution that you need, which is convenient and suitable for you. If you don’t want revenge, don’t take revenge. It’s your right. Tell yourself what you want and make it happen. Don’t think about any debt, it’s not there. There is only your desire. Which is the most important law in your world.

It’s an absolutely amazing feeling of freedom when you allow yourself to act as you feel comfortable, and not as you’re supposed to act. This is your freedom from the need to serve yourself, freedom from the duty to yourself. You also need to be able to decide on this. A person, overcoming his emotions, tells himself that he decided not to take revenge, because he wants it so much, this is his right. A person doesn’t want to be beholden to himself or anyone else, he just wants to move on with his life. Resentment, anger, they are not his, he does not accept them, he does not even think about them. And then they will leave on their own. Because it’s a product of our mind, not the outside world. And then a person will not be a hostage of his past, will not be a hostage of evil, and will not commit evil through revenge. Such a conscious choice can only be made by a truly free person who decides for himself what and how will happen in his inner world, in which he is the full owner. So there is no insanity in either solution. Crazy are those who have not thought about these decisions.

Chapter 5. The War

Is there anything crazier in the human world than war? You might think that there are few threats to human life in this world, so that a person also regularly destroys himself, and even en masse, unleashing major wars with a large number of victims. Moreover, wars are waged by people throughout their history. We kill each other all the time. We haven’t gotten one gram smarter in thousands of years to learn not to. And at the same time, a person also calls himself a reasonable being, which is ridiculous. At least he didn’t talk about reason, living only on his instincts. There is no more intelligence in a human being than in a cockroach. He just has more reflexes. And a whole ocean of madness. But what is behind this madness? Let’s see.

And behind this human madness is a very reasonable course of things, independent of the person. This course of things depends on something really more reasonable, which man, apparently, is not given to comprehend. People are purging the planet of themselves. So far, from the surplus, and then, perhaps, it will be completely cleared of itself, as from a hopeless species. War is like general cleaning, in which the planet is cleared of people, as from garbage. In wars, the most physically strong, healthy people who are the first to go into battle often die. These are the people who could create, both physically and mentally. Instead, they take other people’s lives and lose their own. So that’s the way to go. So it is necessary to get rid of such people, because they are the most active and the most, let’s say, insatiable, by virtue of their abilities. If such people are not used in peacetime, they can engage in crime, including organized crime, but you never know what a physically strong, energetic person is capable of. If he succumbs to his vices, he can do so many things. And here, once, and there is no person. The planet was cleared of it.

War is a conflict. This is a certain form of conflict. This is when people can not agree and prefer to convince each other through physical pressure. In other words, it’s the most primitive way people can influence each other. And our conflict is an innate quality. The same children often conflict, you can even say that all the time, and for all sorts of trifles. We are told, well, this is normal, they assert themselves, in this world you need to fight for a better life. And the struggle is a confrontation, rivalry, competition and, of course, hostility. That is why it is written in a person’s blood: «strangle your neighbor.» Sort of like natural selection — the strongest survives, the weakest dies.

Only here, as a person once found out, using small fragments of his mind, and even then, we are talking about the most developed representatives of the human race, who were able to think, if they live in peace and harmony, then people have a much better chance of survival. And in general, life will be better if people are friends and cooperate, and not enmity. Therefore, an adult often extinguishes the quarrels of children, separates them if they fight, teaches them to be friends with each other, to help each other. Well, because it’s better than letting the kids fight and fight all the time. It seems that we understand that the innate desire for hostility must be taken under control.

So it turns out that on the one hand, our animal nature tells us that fighting with each other is the right thing to do. This is part of natural selection. Then what madness it is — war is the most natural thing in the world. On the other hand, if people do not fight each other, but cooperate, they become stronger and can create a very comfortable society. The same civilization, it was not the result of the laws of the jungle, but at least some humanity, at least some justice, at least some order. And civilization is a culture that makes a human out of an ape, it is a science that shows that one person can feed much more people than previously thought, if he works in a certain way. It is also an art that shows us that we are much more than just eating and shitting creatures. And this, it turns out, is also quite a natural thing — such cooperation. Only, it will be smarter than enmity. In other words, a person is given a choice: what laws to live by. If you want to kill your own kind, go ahead. You’ll get one world. And if you help your neighbor, help the weak — you will get another world. Figure out for yourself which of their worlds is better, which is more satisfying, safer, more interesting, more fun. That’s how people get the idea in their heads that it’s better to avoid war and hostility in general. But for now, these fragile thoughts are not strong enough for society to live by them. And that’s why people, as they killed, still kill each other. And this also makes sense.

War is not just a human cleansing of the planet from itself, it is also an exam that a person cannot pass throughout his entire history. This is an examination for intelligence, for humanity, for the right to get something more by giving up your animal nature. Just imagine: people refuse to kill each other and instead throw all their energy into their own development, and who knows what kind of life they will be able to build, what results they will come to, what laws of existence they will learn and how they will put them in their service. Such a paradise can be created that no imagination can draw such a picture. Well, if the exam is not passed, then one of the wars will be the last for everyone. Weapons of mass destruction are already enough to destroy everyone. In this direction, people’s heads work well and if you try, you can come up with an even more terrible weapon that will instantly destroy the entire planet. So there is something to strive for. War is a stick with which life hits a person on the head, drawing his attention to what should not be done. It’s like raising a child with a belt. If you don’t understand the words, you’ll get a belt. That’s how a person has a huge choice of how to live, including how to live without conflicts. They gave him religion, science, and culture to bring him to his senses. And he still kills his own kind. Still fighting to suffer and die. Well, if even so it does not reach a person, then it is not his fate to survive. It’s hard to beat a child to death with a belt, of course. But the belt in the form of wars is quite capable of ruining us all. And ruin it. If the person fails this exam. I don’t think he has much time left to retake.

So, we should be happy about the war. While there are wars, a person is still alive and passes the exam. His stupid head is still being tapped to get through to his mind. He suffers, starves, suffers from pain, dies to realize a simple thing-to fight is bad! But to develop is good. Everything is simple and everything is complicated at the same time. We still have a chance to survive, just as a species, a chance to find some kind of intelligence, a real intelligence, and not the one we made up for ourselves. We need to stop fighting like little stupid children, we need to start living without wars and everything, the suffering will stop. You can make your life better by focusing all your efforts on learning about the world and improving yourself. Transcend your nature, man! Or can’t you do it?» If you can’t, I beg you, don’t put yourself above the cockroach, for you are not much different from it.

War is not madness, it is a teacher. And the teacher is quite strict. He teaches not with a word, but with a stick. And many people need it. Look at how much suffering has been caused by wars in history, how many people have died, and how much pain people have experienced. And now look at those fools who justify wars and who like war, who want to try to fight, who like weapons. Think about what to do with such fools to bring them to reason? Wouldn’t it be wise to let them go through what they love and justify so much? Wouldn’t it be wise to make these people suffer pain and deprivation? Imagine yourself in the place of God and think about how you can teach fools to perceive bad things as bad, and not as good. I think you’ll come to the conclusion that you need to dip a person’s head in the muck that he praises, so that he will be fed up with this muck. Maybe then he’ll understand something. Well, how else to teach fools?

Well, that’s all my philosophy. You never know what I think here. The reader is not obliged to agree with this. And what about the people who fight and send them to war, what do they think? And they, my dear reader, are absolving themselves of responsibility for wars and their consequences. Yes, if you talk to them about this topic, they will admit that war is bad. It may not always be madness, some believe that people are forced to fight, but it is still evil. But no one wants to take responsibility for wars. Those who are sent to fight usually say that they are only executors, so they only follow orders. So what is the demand from them? And those who send people to their deaths and kill, I really only talked to one such responsible person, talk about the same human nature that forces people to be hostile. They say that life is like this, that people are aggressive, and that God made us like this, so we just live by the laws of this world, one of which is our innate hostility. And there’s no getting away from it. Well, if you fight, then so that you win. Like that. A person who is accustomed to consider himself reasonable does not want to make a reasonable choice, but refers to his nature and the laws of this world. We’re not like that, life is like that, right?

No, I still came to the conclusion that war is a good thing, useful, even necessary. It will either make a person sane one day by slapping them so hard on the head that it will be impossible to bear the pain, or we will all be gone. In both cases, the result will be good. Either we will see a new person worthy of being called intelligent, or he will free the planet from himself and, probably, give an opportunity to develop other types of living beings, more promising. For example, cockroaches.

Chapter 6. Ignorance

To know or not to know which is better? Any sane person will say that it is certainly better to know, especially about the things that are important for life, so that you can make the right decisions, be aware of the dangers of various things, and feel that your life is under control, thanks to your understanding of the observed processes. Still, as the Russian proverb says: «Learning is light, and ignorance is darkness.» Well, how can you doubt the benefits of knowledge? However, we have all heard another saying that says that the less you know, the better you sleep. But in the opinion of many people, life still refutes this idea. Therefore, most people are drawn to knowledge. At the very least, they stretch. For knowledge is power. And no one, being in their right mind and solid memory, will argue with this.

We associate knowledge with education. And the more educated a person is, the easier it is for him to get settled in this life. Educated people most often earn more, and live better, from a material point of view, and make fewer obvious mistakes. So knowledge of many things is considered good in our society.

But if I tell you, reader, there are people who don’t know much and don’t want to know more, at least not until they feel the need to, because they think ignorance is good and knowledge is evil. What do you say, this sounds crazy? I don’t see anything, I don’t hear anything, and I don’t want to know anything. But only after talking to them well enough, I realized that their view of the world has, not only meaning, but its own special secret of happiness. It is this happiness that is beyond their madness. Now I’ll tell you what it is.

From the point of view of these people, madmen are those who are drawn to knowledge, who want to learn as much as possible, thinking that thanks to knowledge they will be able to control their lives. But in fact, they will only be more disappointed if they are smart enough to understand that in this life nothing depends on them at all, everything is the will of chance or the will of God, if a person believes in God. Knowledge creates only the illusion of control over life. But in reality, life can change in any way and no matter how knowledgeable you are, you can’t influence it. Everything in your life can change for the worse for you, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Moreover, knowledge also puts pressure on you, forcing you to think about things that make no sense to think about at all. For example, about the fall of an asteroid that can destroy all life. Fall and fall, why do you have to think about it? Even if you can do something to prevent it, are you going to live forever? Well, if an asteroid doesn’t hit you, then some disease will kill you, a car will hit you, some psycho will cut you down late at night, an icicle will fall on your head, you will choke while eating, and many other things can happen that will end your life. I do not frighten you, reader, nor do I frighten myself, but only show you that our life is an infinite number of accidents that we encounter every day. And they don’t depend on us. Or, to put it more precisely, only a small part of them depends on us. You can’t argue with that for sure. And from the point of view of people who consider ignorance a good thing, it is generally better for us not to know about the bad, so that we can enjoy life when everything is good in it and not be afraid of all these innumerable accidents, trying to lay straw in case of falling in infinite space. Well, if it gets bad, you need to act on the situation. What can be changed, the person will change to solve the problems that have arisen. And if it doesn’t work out, then it’s God’s will.

In much wisdom is much sorrow; and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. Thus spake King Solomon. And he was right. From the point of view of these people we are talking about. The desire for knowledge is a manifestation of insanity. Or, as some believe, such cravings are a manifestation of the ego. We want to think of ourselves as something we’re not, like knowing everything and everything.

Why do people read books, why do they get an education, why do they watch the news, why do they try to learn something from other people, what control do they want to gain over their lives in this way? There will never be full control. And in the rest of the knowledge does not give any guarantees. In this world full of all sorts of probabilities and surprises, a person can never foresee everything, foresee everything, be safe from everything, take everything into account. But people are still desperate for it, wanting to know as much as possible. There are some who believe they can know everything. Here they are, the real madmen. The desire to know nothing, according to those people who prefer to live like this without knowing anything, is a relief to the soul. Since we still have no control over our lives, anything can happen to us at any moment, why bother thinking about it at all, why try to take control of the elements beyond our control. It is easier to live with a minimum of knowledge, the most necessary for a simple life, than to worry about a lot of things because of their excess.

You can often see people who know a lot being surprised by other people’s unwillingness to know more, and those who don’t want to know anything are surprised at the fuss that people who know more than them make. Just think about how crazy a person must be to read, watch, and listen to the same news every day, especially about things that a person can’t influence at all. Ah, somewhere someone has been killed or robbed and it makes you feel bad, because you are afraid that this will happen to you as well. And this can really happen to you, because in the world every day a lot of people are killed and robbed, and you can’t do anything about it, because this is life, understand, nothing. All your reinsurance, they don’t guarantee anything. That’s why you don’t need news about such incidents at all, they won’t help you in any way.

You won’t know anything, you’ll be as calm as a boa constrictor. And all the troubles that arise in your life can be attributed to fate. Well, this is your life line, whether you like it or not, but it is. Live what you see, make decisions based on your intuition and based on your thinking, you will make no less mistakes than all these experts on everything and everything, who are able to conduct the deepest analysis of various facts. Well, even if these mistakes turn out to be more, because of your ignorance, what’s the big deal? All the same, we don’t know how this life works, it’s full of accidents that you can’t prepare for. People try to insure themselves against everything, they try to learn everything so that they can see further and understand more. And then some accident happens, for example, on the road on the same look around and bang, you were hit by a car or you had an accident and all your efforts were useless, you lost everything in an instant.

And how much time a person spent on the same study, how much time he spent reading books instead of like this, and it still did not help him. Well, does such a view of life have the right to exist, is it as crazy as it seems at first?

They also say that knowledge helps you earn money to live well. Even so, although this is not always the case, sometimes it is enough just to be able to take someone else’s things to live well, can’t you live without money? You will always earn something for a living by learning something simple but in-demand. And you’ll live normally, not really well, but normally. And how many of these knowledgeable people, these clever educated people who plow all day in their prestigious jobs and do not see the light of day? Well, they have money and what? 90% of their life will be a job. They can afford a lot of things, except for the time that you can’t buy. Well, yes, there are those who have both the time and the money, and therefore they have a beautiful life, but such a life is not so easy to come to, even if you can fit an entire library in your head. What, all the smart guys are rich? No! Well, then, why idolize knowledge, as if it guarantees a happy life.

In general, reader, I listened to people who wanted to spit on knowledge and live without knowing anything, looked at their lives and realized that such a philosophy, concept, such a worldview has the right to exist. I myself strive for knowledge, constantly receive it and I like it. But I’m not sure that if I had pursued ignorance, my life would have been worse. Maybe I would have liked it no less, or even more than the one I live in now. These people like it. So, people who don’t want to know much, they’re not crazy. Their perception of life gives them enough to make them feel happy. They may not always be happy, but when they have everything they need, which is not very much, they are quite happy with their lives.

Chapter 7. Enjoying Hate

What do you think, reader, is hate a bad or a good feeling? Can you enjoy hate? And save yourself with it? But some people only survive because of it. As crazy as it may sound, living with a feeling of hatred can lead to many adversities. And why? But because hatred gives hope that the time will surely come and you will either punish the person you hate yourself, or life will punish him. After all, we hate for a reason, but for the cause. Only when we can’t do anything to the person who offended us, insulted us, humiliated us, but we can’t accept the evil that he did to us, we can only wish him evil inside. This is hate. Thanks to it, we are at war with a person in our inner world, not being able to fight with him in the external world. And we defeat it in our world, imagining how we will deal with it. Well, there, who knows, the same thing can happen in the outside world.

When we hate a person, we do not forget that we wish him harm. And when we have the opportunity to do this evil to him, we use it. It is hatred that helps us not to forget someone else’s evil in order to respond to it with our own evil. Whether this is correct or not is another matter. I think that if hatred helps people, and it helps them, then it’s the right thing to do.

Hate is a great feeling. To enjoy it, you just have to give up the idea that hatred is something bad. So I was told by people who helped this feeling to get rid of the inner anxiety, because of which they could not find a place for themselves. They didn’t know what to do, how to respond to someone else’s evil. It was only when they decided to hate the person who had done them this wrong that they calmed down. Hatred enriches our inner world with all sorts of experiences. It switches our thinking to a new wave, when, for example, yesterday you loved a person madly, and today you hate him fiercely. Because you understood what he really is, you saw his real image, and not the illusory one that was originally there. It hurt you, and you want to hurt me back. Hate helps you dream about how you will cause this pain. Or, you had a friend with whom you had an absolute understanding, and then he became an enemy, a fierce enemy, for whom you now feel a furious hatred. And it helps you find ways to destroy this enemy. Well, how else? Otherwise, what is it to remain with the same opinion about a person, if you know that he is not the same as you originally saw him? No, you can’t do that. New knowledge, new facts, new experience should also form a new attitude towards a person. And if it is bad, then the person deserves it. Although, it happens that we make mistakes at someone’s expense. But this is not so important for us now.

The human psyche is a very complex thing. Because by it we mean [I mean] the totality of conscious and unconscious thoughts of a person with a preponderance in the direction of thoughts that are not conscious, of which there are much more. And one of the regularities of this complex system is such a pattern, according to which any evil that someone once caused to a person requires some kind of answer. You can’t just swallow it, as they say. Either the person will somehow respond to someone’s evil, or it will degenerate into self-harm. The brain seems to tell the person that if he can’t protect himself, then he is not worthy to live and must begin to destroy himself. Therefore, people get drunk, take drugs, and harm themselves in other ways. Evil never goes away without a trace.

And so that this does not happen, so that the evil experienced by a person does not continue to harm him from within, it is useful to hate those whom you cannot harm in revenge for their evil. Otherwise, you will start to hate yourself and think about how to harm yourself, and not always realizing such thoughts. It’s scary to think about what you want to do to yourself badly, because you consider yourself a weakling. But you have to think. I’ve pulled such thoughts out of many people with suicidal tendencies. They didn’t know what was happening to them until they realized that they hated themselves. So it is better to keep a hostile attitude towards the one who has offended you, your ego, and enmity with him inside yourself, feeling hatred for him instead of hating yourself for weakness. Some people talk about forgiveness as a way to resolve this internal conflict. But I know very few cases when people actually forgave someone and it made them feel better. Much more often they forgive in words, but the resentment and anger inside still remain and affect the person destructively.

So, you see, reader, it’s not so crazy to hate someone. And the fact that some people like to say that you can not live with a constant feeling of hatred, this is a harmful feeling, because of it a person suffers and you should not talk about any positive aspects of hatred, there is nothing good in this. But I say that there is. I say that there are positive aspects and that it can be useful and pleasant to hate. Well, I made such a discovery while working with people. You can twist your finger near your temple while reading about it, or you can wind it on your mustache. Only here, what difference does it make who thinks about it and what they think about it? After all, people both hated and will continue to hate each other for a million different reasons. Someone will be burdened by hatred, and someone will be able to enjoy it if they choose and develop the right attitude towards it.

Here are some people who, before deciding on their attitude to their feelings of hatred, talked to a lot of people, listened to a lot of people, to decide what to do with this feeling. They were advised to forgive, let go, suppress feelings of hatred, turn to love and forgiveness, and other positive feelings. But nothing worked. And as soon as we decided that it was right and good to hate, as soon as we discussed the details of their hatred, imagined how they would deal with their abusers, it immediately became easier for them. This point of view proved to be a healing one for them.

Do not deceive yourself by adhering to public morals. Or you don’t always need to do this. Otherwise, you will not come to inner harmony. And living with internal discomfort is unpleasant even in the best external conditions. What living conditions do not create for a person, if he does not have harmony inside, he will not be able to feel happy.

You can hate everyone. You can hate your parents, children, wives and husbands, friends, colleagues, boss, all men or all women, and even all of humanity. All hatred is useful in its own way. Just first, you need to admit to yourself that you hate a person, people who, perhaps, you can not hate, but you still hate. For example, you can hate your parents, you can wish them harm. It may seem immoral to think that way, and it may be hard to accept such thoughts, but you should not drive them away from you. If you hate it, then you have something to do with it. While you may be wrong, you can see people as someone they aren’t. So, you need to understand your hatred, but do not hide from thoughts about it.

All those people who enjoy their hatred are convinced that it is justified. This, of course, is not always the case. But people don’t want to think otherwise. They like to hate. They are used to this state, they enjoy it. Over time, hatred becomes part of their nature, and they can’t imagine life without it. Well, let them hate you. Let them look for a reason to hate anyone, even if it is not necessary. A person should have some kind of interest in life, if not the meaning of life. Why shouldn’t it be hate? I believe that hate helps people live their lives more fully. This is a special feeling that a person needs. A person tends to run away from pain and reach for pleasure. So hatred, which is so common in people, gives them pleasure, if they do not refuse it, but on the contrary, are drawn to it.

People feel good when they wish someone evil, experiencing it inside themselves. They want to make someone feel bad so much that they even forget to make themselves feel good. And it helps them live. Because in some cases, people have no idea how to do well for themselves, they do not see such an opportunity for themselves. But they think well about how to make others feel bad. They carry this bundle of evil in them and dream of releasing it someday in the form of open aggression towards those they hate. You can live like this for the rest of your life, hoping that one day you’ll have a chance to bite your enemies ' throats out. And take away this desire from people and what will they have left? People will lose their last joy and then life will definitely not be pleasant for them. So some people told me that apart from hatred, they have nothing, no other strong emotions that would help them get out of bed in the morning and go to do something.

A person should hate, no matter who or what, because this feeling is inherent in him from birth. Of course, it is not necessary for him to do this, it is not necessary to fulfill this duty to himself. But I have to. Or rather, I want to. Every feeling is asked to come out, so that a person can have the experience of experiencing it. Just as we want to rejoice, be surprised, cry, suffer, so we want to hate. We have a lot of different feelings and they are periodically activated, due to various external stimuli. And maybe by themselves, just for the sake of satisfying a person’s life. It is difficult to trace a causal relationship here.

Since a person cannot completely suppress natural aggression in himself, after all, we also need it to fight for our interests, then one way or another it will manifest itself. Therefore, senseless wars occur when elites set their peoples against each other. Yesterday you were able to perceive some people normally, but today you have been taught to hate them. And it is not so difficult to teach people this. Given the innate aggressiveness of a person, he is just waiting to apply it to someone. It is enough to emphasize the differences between peoples, to show the most negative aspects of them, not to mention the crimes and provocations that can be arranged, and people will already begin to look at each other as a completely different kind of living beings, not realizing that we are all basically the same. What difference does it make what different peoples look like, what language they speak, what god they pray to, and what traditions they adhere to, all this is the essence of human nature. Basically, all people are the same. But if you pay attention to all the differences that make each of us unique and see something bad in this, there is always a reason to hate a person. Usually, people need to live among those they hate, get to know other people better, communicate with their best representatives, get into the culture of this people in order to understand that these are the same people, among whom there are evil, kind, stupid, and smart people. Only here’s who does it. Ordinary people don’t need it. It’s easier for them to think in a cliched way. And if they have a negative pattern, then no matter who it concerns, people will all row under the same comb. This is very convenient for those who are used to dividing people, pitting them against each other and thereby dominating them.