Philosophy – “Why Self-Help Books are Fiction” – 12/28/2021

“Telling a story, especially of another person’s life, is always fiction. It is when that story has been written for togetherness’s sake. When truth is not told, in that story, the deception in its stead will bring unity if only as a short-term distraction. A fiction tale is something that never occurred, and the more a reader to a story is distracted from reality into fantasy, their knowledge of themselves becomes less aware. A story is merely a distraction. Fiction is deception. Seeing ourselves in a character or in the author’s feelings is simply a way to not feel alone with the self’s own burdens.”

– Modern Romanticism

If to tell the truth, then tell it of the self. Understand the self. Then, tear the self apart. Tear your own image, the capturing of yourself upon photographs, into shreds. Shatter your own mirror, your current comprehension of where you reside, both of body and mind.

Self-help books are there to tell a reader that their own faults are not in a scape of loneliness. However, to come to the realization, and then the reminder of what is truthful, being that loneliness, is how any addict ignores the truth or a necessity. Insecurity is addicted to the concept of blending another with the self, without inherently comprehending it in automation. As in, we are insecure when we must be reminded that we are not alone.

All people are subject to insecurity. No one is immune. Writing this as a hypocrite, there are always the addictions, to all persons, to differing mirrors at different directions. At those directions, we believe we might see something different from ourselves, because our addiction to fleeing loneliness has kept us broken. In being broken, we want a new story. We crave comparison and also contrast from the details to our life. Soon, we begin to see if we are special, even in our sorrows. However, all those directions will lead to the same people with their pair of broken arms. They each weep, without difference.

We are all selfish, when we want to be reminded of our suffering. When that happens, we remind someone else, without knowing it, of their suffering.

To alleviate suffering, we should know truth by knowing it at the first glance and the first direction we face.

Self-help books have a market on the insecurities of others. One is not enough, through the same mindset of an addict for cigarettes. When does an addict stop with one dosage? One might think if that were the case, they were never an addict. Purchasing one self-help book is no more the difference to hoarding a collection of novels from differing authors. However, while a novel will be truthful, at least in the sense of being described as fiction, a self-help book deceives in stating that it is non-fiction. How is a self-help book non-fiction, when it does not tell the truth?

Self-help books do only two things:

  1. They remind a reader of their loneliness.
  2. They tell a reader to not feel alone.

Inevitably, the former overlaps onto the latter, becoming its dominant. That is because the addiction to self-help books is never fulfilling. No addiction is fulfilling. Addictions are merely a placeholder for a necessity. In this lack of fulfillment, being reminded of loneliness is the constant or the plural to the singular of being told the reader is not alone. That is, the reminder is what stays as the addiction being against or being the dominant to the truth of their loneliness.

As an addict ignores what it is they need, then so does a reader to self-help books. And what is needed is to tear apart the self to see the wounds, up-close. One must be able to smell the blood that perspires, the flesh that looks the most ragged. One must be able to feel their pain, and then shiver in a cold sweat. Although, anxiety has never killed. Insecurity never kills. It merely feels that way.

Being addicted to what never tells the truth for how wrong a person is, is common. This is to say that self-help books enable people.

Be miserable, if it is needed. Be depressed, if it is needed. If you must comprehend how sick you are, then do not deign yourself in running from it.

And do not run from others who are also sick in their own way, only to return another day to hear another story.

Philosophy – “The Two-Step Sequence to Problem Solving” – 2/13/2021

“Without the desire to care, one cannot advance to where one solves what is wrong. With all the knowledge in the world, there is none that can teach a person to admit a problem exists.”

– Modern Romanticism

Wandering to a bookstore to purchase a volume that teaches a person how to solve a problem, will not solve anything deeper than that.

The deepest problem that a person suffers from, is the unwillingness to care for what is wrong. One can have all the world’s knowledge, with no care for how to apply it. Whereas, it is possible to solve any problem, when the first step to this sequence, has been conquered.

The first step, the desire to care…

Versus, the second step, the knowledge applied for the problem to be solved…

And, one cannot skip the first step, to move onto the second. This is because, as it’s already been stated, one cannot solve an issue, without the genuine care for it.

An “excuse” or a “reason” for why one cannot accomplish their task, may come in all forms. One can say the words, “I do not know how.” Though, their lacking knowledge, for how to solve their issue, is never the true reason. Their truest reason is that they do not care enough. Such means, they have not conquered the first step, in this “two-step sequence to problem solving”.

This is how rehabilitation centers fail, for addicts. What with all the knowledge such a center possesses, will become useless when the addict, themselves, have not conquered the first step. Such an addict can only ever move onto the second step, when the first one has been accomplished.

Having a heart, is the first step.

Having a mind, is the second step.

Why else does a person enter a bookstore to purchase a volume on “how-to”, if not having accomplished the first step? It is then an impossible task, for any author, to write a book to teach a person to be motivated enough to solve their issue. This is to say that one cannot teach a person to care. Such motivation needs to come, from within.

One can receive advice from another, though only ever in requirement for sheer knowledge. Neither a friend, nor a therapist, can teach a person to care about what is wrong.

Philosophy – “Empowerment is the Path to Addiction” – 12/11/2020

“External reliance motivates a person to see the beyond. Does anyone question if ‘the beyond’ resides beyond human capability? It is ‘the beyond’ to stare into a direction from where one currently stands. To advance, to the average person, would mean to achieve. Though, does this contradict the knowledge of a person, to how they should limit themselves?”

– Modern Romanticism

Capability makes a person efficient, in where their current skills dwell. If their desire is to advance, then they’d not stare very much ahead, at quite a length in direction, if they intend to do this in rapid succession of so-called improvements. When one has a voice, has an idea spoken from their lips, it can be randomized in whatever direction it takes. Chaos spews, just as a tree grows endless twigs. When one never looks over their shoulder, to remember their painful beginning, they become lost in their own arrangements.

The beginning of a person is how one was most tried. To remember those trials, those tests, makes one automatically grateful to where one stands, at the current level. To each step, is where any person can become evermore grateful when looking over their shoulder to review the previous one. Life does not guarantee satisfaction, unless when one stops to do this.

If empowerment is less of internal reliance, though more of an endless path towards needed or unneeded progression, then it becomes an addiction of pursuits. One’s madness becomes acute, upon when gratitude can never come into their own picture. One’s madness, or one’s own personal dissatisfaction, cannot ever be personally accepted, for no person ever develops, or advances, without trust in right areas. Those “right areas” can only be described as placing trust in what will never simply be in one’s life for the short-term. For we do not treat people like addictions, nor distractions, if we do hold them in a genuine heart.

Short-term effects take a person nowhere, unless to remind one of something they lack, being of what could last. Addiction is that, being of something short-lived, never to be held in one’s memory for eternity. Even of the person who remembers their “best meal”, would only do so because of how it was made, not because of how it fueled them. They remember the ingredients, the toppings, and of all details to that arrangement. Was one grateful, to that? They were so, by how it was made by whatever skills the careful cook took to make it. One can get lost in remembrances, becoming lost to the current time, as well as to be lost in the current time, when never remembering neither pleasures nor the pains of the past. Gratitude comes when we can express it either for what protects us, in the now, or what pushed us forward, in the past.

To be empowered, would mean to find comfort in short-term effects. It’s the same as being uncertain for when one’s phone will die. It means to be caught in the effects of one’s own fears, remaining frozen without ever truly advancing. It is because to “truly advance” would mean to place trust in long-term effects, as was already mentioned. Just as life, we are like the cellphone, put on a supply of battery, before we run out and stop functioning.

The question becomes, does a person accept belonging to the current, forever unknown of the future, because they never plan? Or, does a person plan ahead, because they wish to retain control over their own lives? It becomes the matter of what a phone becomes, if it could control itself, beyond the touch of human hands, of external reliance.