The Art Of Giving Up: (4) An Antidote To Suffering

If my pain is not physical it will be mental, if it is not mental, it will be unfair in nature. Perhaps it will be an external force that cannot be stopped. A force that renders you powerless to fight back, leaving you only with the option of stoically weathering the storm as bolts of lighting, thrown down by the master, take chunks out of your back. However, and worst of all, your pain could be your own doing.

Great amounts of discomfort could be avoided with the removal of aspiration, for the death of your aspiration leads to the death of the master. You rise up and kill that which has enslaved you for your entire existence, liberating yourself in the process.

However if you are successful in your endeavours you will achieve something of value and the valuable thing that you gain will also enslave you. Whatever makes it valuable will need to be maintained which will require time and effort. It can be used as leverage against you. It will give you happiness whilst it is there but the possibility of its absence or it’s devaluation will be on your mind.

The unfortunate truth is that you cannot free yourself from aspiration. Just like in many areas of philosophy, the truth is more demoralising than what one would hope or expect.

To live is to aspire, to aspire is to be enslaved. Given this absurd state of affairs that we find ourselves in, what should be the master of our Ontos?

I believe that the Ontos must be the master of itself. In other words, you should be your own master. To do this, you must split your Ontos into it’s two parts, existence and intention. Existence is the state of obtaining or being, whilst intention is the state of attempting to bring about some possible world or situation. Existence, just like the Ontos, is priceless and the same can be said for intention.

However, just like the opposites that we see repeated through nature, existence is the constant, never changing aspect and intention is the ever changing, constantly morphing aspect. Intention is chaos and existence is order, a duality that is comparable to yin and yang.

We cannot give up our existence. That is comparable to self-termination, a topic that I have already covered and condemned. All that is left is to give up your aspirations to the best of your ability, whilst keeping your existence. You sacrifice as much chaos as possible whilst keeping order so that you don’t lose both. This means having intent as the master and the slave simultaneously.

Your master should not be an external thing, neither should it be another person. It should be a part of you. Your master should be the aspiration to give up your aspirations.