memory, morality

I feel ashamed for being touched at all by the stress of life. I feel ashamed for honestly expressing my annoyance/anger at the way this world is. I feel this way because I currently don't have much stress and have managed (at least lately) to forget past stresses.

So I forget the past stresses and am relatively "happy" at the moment. Just enough going on that I'm not quite bored. Yet I remember talking quite negatively at times in this blog. Why did I do so?

Well because really I was stressed and I don't actually think it's a good thing to just be quiet about all the negatives of this world.

But at the same time it's in me to try to just forget. Ultimately we can't ever have any instant in time that we're happy unless we forget all negatives. And this process works in me (to an extent) as it does in others. Then what's left is the memory of ranting about negatives in this blog.

I guess I could try to forget that too?

The other stuff, the suffering I've gone through can simply disappear like it never actually happened, but there's a written record left of my ranting, focusing on negatives, etc...

So this feels like some wrong thing. Like I should be embarrassed and/or ashamed. How much inappropriate ranting have I done here? I don't really remember. It's probably not as bad as I think. But to a "normal" person it's probably plenty bad enough.

To some extent it's a bad memory and recreating the past and doing so incorrectly (I don't actually want at the moment to go back and reread this blog so much today...) and then what if I said something very negative like such and such? Or just something that can easily be misinterpreted?

Silliness.

I don't want to forget. That's the point. (long term)

But yet I do want to forget. Because I must to ever have a moment of happiness. (now)

I want to focus on all the ways in which we cause one another to suffer. To find answers. Ways to improve how we interact, etc. So this blog is about being incredibly negative. About never just focusing on short term happiness. Never ignoring/forgeting the negatives.

...with the forgetting of past stress I only remember I wasn't "coping" well. I wasn't happy back then. Actually I had damm good reason to be annoyed with the situations with which I was so annoyed. But now, forget all that. Forget all that negative stuff. All that's left is me not being happy, thus I ought to feel ashamed of myself for being unhappy.

It's a simple absurdity. Forgetting half of the past thus the context is lost. So like Kundera's character ripping an old diary to shreds in disgust that he finds many years later. He's forgotten all the perfectly good reasons why he acted the way he did.

So someone treats you badly and you get angry. Maybe eventually you manage to forget how they treated you. Now all that's left is the memory of you getting all angry. What the hell's wrong with you? What a shameful thing that. I guess you better forget that part to.

...but on the other hand I was thinking that generaly we remember being treated badly much more so than we remember ourselves doing bad things. Generally the people who've really hurt us, totally forget what they even did while we still remember it so clearly...

Yes? No? Just totally depends on the person....?

Maybe this here is just a special case in that a written record exists. And that otherwise the last part above is generally true...

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There is a double basis for morality. The first is utilitarianism, where we are concerned about the greatest happiness for the greatest number over some long term (but actually solely for selfish reasons). With this method we establish our concept of morality, which varies somewhat from person to person because people have a different idea over how long the long term should be... But on this basis we establish a basic set of rules.

Of course for some people the thinking is so incredibly short term that 'the rules' they've calculated aren't much more than doing whatever it seems the majority is doing. Morality becomes simply conforming. Marveling with the rest at the emperor's new clothes, etc. And it can still be incredibly complex though. Some person may manage to get one single differential equation correct while making addition mistakes on other problems.

THEN in day to day living we rarely if ever attempt to calculate the most moral actions. We usually just dumbly follow whatever set of rules we've come up with.

When just following the rules without thinking, emotions get involved. When one follows "the rules" successfully they feel proud of themselves. When they see someone not following their own set of rules they may think them a monster, etc.

So there's a complicated calculation for their basic rules based on short term versus long term thinking. But in day to day living they simply follow those rules and feel pride/shame to the extent they do or do not successfully follow them.

These two get confused. People try to examine why do they ever bother doing seemingly nonselfish actions and they're stuck with feeling pride and 'doing the right thing' based on the moral rules they've established. Often they never manage to get to the underlying calculations that they've somehow made. In trying to get other people to follow their own rules they make emotional appeals that can't work unless the person had already made calculations that resulted in the same day to day rules.

Some people have made up their basic set of rules in such an unconscious manner that they don't even realize they've done so at all. As a result these people don't believe utilitarianism exists. They believe absolute moral laws, Kantian ethics, whatever. Absurdity. Or they recall people justifying killing some people now for some longer term greater good that maybe never came and on that basis have decided therefore utilitarianism is evil. Absurdity.

One way or another people manage to get it all effed up and the end result is that I can't recall anyone getting to the heart that all morality is very simply, bluntly, long term selfishness.

If they did, they'd realize a lot of contradictions between how they act and what they say they believe, etc.

Anyway, the really long term thinker recognizes that someone else's suffering could eventually reduce their own happiness in turn... Out of their own long term selfishness they want the world to be a better place to live in. The short termer has no such concerns, your pain is just your pain. He's "sorry" that you're in pain and he really "wishes you the best" (or "hopes for the best" I guess if he's a militant atheist) but he can't see it affecting him in turn anytime soon so he's not really going to worry about it.

He's much happier then you. He focuses on the positive of himself and this world. He is excessively proud of himself. Doubts are usually ignored. He's sure he's right. His mind is closed and he sleeps easy at night.

The long termer persecutes himself. He is constantly questioning his actions. He constantly has himself on trial as he searches for better and better ways to think and live. The long termer is not ignoring the negatives to enjoy life now, he is instead searching for negatives. Scrutinizing his potentially mistaken thoughts, his subconscious drives, to try to achieve greater happiness for all in some distant future. He is openminded because he is a long termer.

And to the extent he is a long termer he is miserable. To the extent he is truly openminded he lives in a constant state of apprehension.

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To really think of anyone's suffering is to suffer yourself. Any man who can honestly claim he's always happy is perfectly immoral. Happiness is not something to brag about. Only in a dysfunctional winner take all dog eat dog society would people brag about such. One should instead boast of the suffering they have taken on. (OK, that's slightly stupid.) The suffering they spend time thinking about which they could instead just ignore. Not just the sufferings of others but also their own suffering as through analyzing such things one can find long term solutions which can then be used by all of society. Solutions a little less brutal then: "Shut up and quit thinking about it."