26 February 2019
jp melville
This is a list that I wrote and have stared at since 2011.
Then it dawned on me about a week ago that lists are common, if incomplete.
A famous list is those darn commandments.
Ten of them.
Which, about 2,000 years ago, someone boiled down to two: love God and love your neighbour.
That's a pretty lean list.
I mean, for living life.
Not a grocery list.
My list is not lean.
Probably somewhat redundant between the points.
Nevertheless, here is my list:
Nobody cares about you. Even if they do, it does not matter if their care is selfless and they do not seek reciprocity.
One day you will be fifty, or older, whichever comes first.
Every day you will get hungry.
Someone will sell you anything you can imagine.
Money cannot be saved, only earned or spent.
Kids know next to nothing until they are sixteen and none of us much more after that.
You are off your guard if you think humans are interesting.
The only satisfying rewards are found in love, compassion, and pleasure.
Never avoid pain and suffering; mitigate the first, learn from the latter.
Be tolerant, understanding, and loving to those who seek safety and security because they pay the price of your selfishness.
Yes, you have to fight for yourself; yes you are nobody without putting everyone else first.
People are like magnets: if you flip them the right way they come together as one.
All seasons come and go; prepare for all of them one year in advance or you will never have that thing called time.
Fear is the constant companion of everyone you will ever meet, so too the devil and angel in your left and right ears.
For the most part, you seek the constant middle and spend the rest of the time avoiding conflict.
Laws against bullies are a travesty because they inflate the value of an individual; such laws are a distraction from the one bully that matters - the state or group that pressures to conform.
Remember that almost every decision you make is arrived at presuppositionally; you avoid spending time thinking, you are typically not rational, your decisions are biased, you are lazy.
Most of what you think you did not learn, it was taught to you.
An individual is a construct; no such thing exists.
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