For the Unenlightened
There are many ways in which people deal with the inevitable and unknown, many styles in which they face their future death. Perhaps as many as there are people, but, due to human-specific circumstances which form the dimension of biological facts on one hand and social choices on the other, those modes of behavior can be roughly put into few general areas.
On one extreme, there are the most insecure people who want to devour the world. These people are sufficiently scared of their eventual demise to be possessed by the greed needed to bite their way to, albeit relatively short-lived but nonetheless absolute, institutional power and dominance. They are so powerless, they simply cannot help themselves and the primal impulse always wins.
Then there are those who want to own the world. Like a pet. Cared for and treasured, but on a leash in public and under (strict) control behind closed doors. These are all those normal, upstanding people fighting each other in meritocratic hierarchies worldwide. This is our human status quo, our current reference point.
Of course, there are also those who have enough strength to recognize and face the human existential situation. These are all those who search for a way away. From fear, from greed, from control. But, more often than not, only from reality of said mental fetters.
Average individual is then a frightened opportunist locked within the malleable social walls they themselves shape exactly as told by the controlling authorities of their individual choice. All the while they reference the stubbornly persistent status quo concept of normalcy which gets thus further validated and its persistence cemented even more.
Well, unless you are enlightened, you remain a slave who repairs their own shackles inherited from the generations that came before. You are a trained but willful self-harming parasite. A cancer cell by nurture and choice. On a scale of harmfulness for sure, but still.
How can anyone even wonder that the world appears absurd and sick? It is. And you are the cause. Thought to be precise, the world is perfect. It’s people who don’t know who they are who are fucked up and the problem. No matter how minuscule the problem is.
Hence, if you suffer, if you are scared, if you feel anxiety, anger, or even apathy, if you are unhappy with the world being as it is, don’t complain. It’s your fault and your responsibility no matter what happened to you. Eventually you will realize that having no fault is the pinnacle of auspiciousness.
Therefore, and to hint at a classic, be perfect. Or rather, know that you are and behave accordingly. After all, that’s what taking responsibility truly looks like.
Which is the whole point and the only way “out.”
