A young woman, a student it seems from the looks of it, shuffles in bursts behind me, in small steps one foot just in front of the other, staring down, then she wiggles her head at the sky, then she shuffles on, stops, wiggles her head. The light turns green and I walk, just walk away as if I must, feeling guilty, fleeing the scene. I steal one more look, also because she is attractive. An easy mark for the fulfillment of desires – who would ever know if I took her in the dusk? I feel for her, feel pain, but then I envy her, too. She has an aim, perhaps. She has her way of dealing with her pains, perhaps she deals with them in this way, and I am here to suffer, not able to deal with mine nearly as efficient. Broken robots, but nature’s, never not “broken”.

 

Humans, all around, I seem to be one of them, trapped alone in myself. I am my story, the experience of a body’s perspective, feeling the urge to connect to those perspectives of the bodies around me. They, those perspectives, those stories, are possible as are mine; my body is in their stories as their bodies are in mine, connected by that our stories make only sense if everything in the story is grounded in a common history, our 'causal creation myth'. Yes, I must be one of them; in some sense, they exist relative to me in precisely as much as I exist to them, whatever “exist” is supposed to mean.

 

Postmodern philosophy is somewhat like atheism or homosexuality have been not long ago. These have been seen as perverted; “pervert” actually meant “atheist” once, but they were "perverted" mainly because they seemed antisocial, threatening some vital social structure. From an evolution theoretical perspective, it is social structure defending itself, immune reactions. More generally speaking, it is society emerging as systems (autopoiesis – a term whose use has been described as “promulgating a solipsistic epistemology with abhorrent social consequences”). Philosophers rarely admit this, but this has been always clear to the wise: Society is a monster.

 

Today, we witness the turning of the economic paradigm into a medical one – all problems, crime, mental illness, work inefficiency, traffic congestion, are ‘treated’, namely as something that the doctor-game-attitude may best be able to prescribe something for, often via epidemic models, or in other words, social engineering. In this transition, ‘sustainable (economically) medicating’ appears at some point as the best that could possibly be done, and having arrived at this point, I shudder, as it was so simple to try to be good and arrive straight at evil. ‘Social engineering’ does not imply any say in the resulting design! All it does is adding variation, which is good for adaptability of emerging structure. The monster evolves. At the edge of thinking, in hindsight, it is not surprising that philosophy not only turns toward the individual in Wittgensteinian, therapeutic ways, but moreover turns toward the social, as always, in as threatening perceived ways, because if you turn to the social, you describe its construction, potentially facilitating deconstruction.

 

A Last Rationalization: The rationality of suicide is, via coming to terms with death and irrationality, a positive life affirming insight. Describing society the way I do is rejected as anti-social by those who are enslaved and invested in the kind of power that dares no transparency, as it is an ineffectively protected, not integrated, primitive power from an evolution theoretical standpoint – what kind of silly system would I be if I had to hide from my hand that I have power over it? Harmony evolves; it is evolutionary integration or it is not. The wise have always embraced their personal death to gain inner harmony; holy men of India are initiated through ceremonial dying; claiming thereafter to be dead already (rather than the rebirth into adulthood of usual initiation rites).

 

It is a novel, at first crazy appearing idea, but its self-consistency in its various aspects is impressive: Positively recognizing the death and likely free-death of future society, its peaceful disengaging, giving up fighting for paths to everlasting life and salvation, be they religious or political or scientistic, is the price for peace. What can I do for this? Nothing, yet I increasingly find myself enjoying my inner peace of mind as being a part of co-evolving environment, because all I know with certainty is that in the causal description, any bit of suffering environment naturally selects for structures that reproduce through it and thus reproduce it. The more complex social structure becomes, the less we know it. Only one thing is left certain: Whatever I am part of is by definition not harmonious if my mind, a part of it, is not. Enjoying the peace of your mind is once again shown to be the only relatively consistent primary “ethical obligation”, not “selfish”, but strictly your “social duty”, if you insist on such higher order language. 

[Vongehr, S.: “Rational Suicide and Global Suicide in the amor fati of Modal Totality.” Chapter 12, pages 229-268, in “Death and Anti-Death, Volume 11: Ten Years After Donald Davidson (1917-2003).” Charles Tandy (Ed.), Ria University Press (2013), Distributor: Ingram (Paperback edition: ISBN 978-1-934297-18-6) - see here for more on this chapter.]

 

Aimless drifters are frowned upon as much as loners or some other anti-social, often wise forms of living, as much as the depressed. “Why did you come here? For no reason? Go away, for we fear you more than the liar – the liar may steal from us, but not infect us with that unspeakable illness of your mind.”

 

All my life, I had “good reasons” for everything. Not only did that drive me, but moreover, society responds: The world lets often pass who seems to know where she is going, or so somebody famous said. Mere rationalizations; seldom is the goal I make myself believe in also the urge that drives me. Coming up with a good reason, even long after, is recommendable in several ways. On the other hand, rationalization makes deceivers out of us, liars to others and ourselves.

 

Why do all that special unique and weird stuff? Why did I study the deepest and darkest and weirdest? Why did I leave home to go ever further, from one place to the next yet further away? I am expert at giving progressive justifications about interdisciplinary thinking and internationalism, desire to understand the pathological - in order to prevent of course. But is it not just a drive to being special, a narcissist fear of being common, a way of ensuring to not fit in and thus be excused automatically for all shortcomings that I would have to otherwise admit: “Sorry, I fail to fit in although I tried so badly.” Now I obviously don’t fit, and where I do, few point it out as my failure, and I have my cake and eat it: I participate like everybody, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I am the one who does not fit, who never fit, who is excused as a special case on judgment day, because I am special.

 

Different people have different strengths of such urges. Social evolution made us have them, and also made us have variations among ourselves; such is adaptive. Humans are evolved to live in relatively small groups where everybody can be known, where everybody is an individual. Today, we live in masses, homogenized by the internet, where there is somebody better than me for whatever I may attempt. The urge to be known as of unique worth to the community has become a stressful aspect. Ever more become depressed and some take desperate measures, like killing yet more than the last one who went on a shooting spree.

 

I am a drifter, a loner, a psychopath, all justified in a world of such uncertainty, where the repercussions of your choices branch into many different kinds of futures, and if you knew the role you will have played in them, if you grasped your function in the perspective of the thus emergent social structures, you would be paralyzed from disbelief, outrage, and sadness. Those with strong aims and convictions fall for silly beliefs, and much pain in the world is due to that. Work hard to cement your house of cards. I drift along until we drift apart, driven by my spastic splashing.