The Experience of Clarity

16 Our Nihilism: Self-deconstruction feels very much like self-annihilation — and even appears so much like an attack on morality itself that one can only shrug one's shoulders at the accusation. We cannot waste our time debating others within the realm of body-relations when our own cerebral-effect has not yet understood cause-of-thought. We are still deconstructing thought into machine language.  First things first, or so we’d like it, for consciousness is already a second-stage event, and then in getting lost in herd-thought ... we are not even second -rate thinkers. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

140 This section is an important tack, in the nautical sense, against what I call the “surface,” that reality which is only immediate and does not include “repetition.”   This is a very difficult and hazardous attempt to sail against a violent wind.  It would be easy to imagine that I am rejecting the physical world ... rejecting the immediate reality; however, I assert that our “immediate reality” is a consequence of human perception.  More importantly, I assert that there are additional, simultaneous, and equally valid perspectives within our total reality.  (Again, I am not trying to set up “Metaphysics” here or paint a door onto a prison wall.  I am speaking only in terms of physiological perception.)   As a metaphor, consider the following: the left eye sees from one angle and the right eye from another.  They both look upon a single object, however, and the brain somehow manages to unify the separate perspectives into “one mental object”...

17 Some forms of cynicism are only an attempt to normalize the crisis of an adored authority who has just collapsed into a real human.  If one can secure the real as a vantage point then the figure escapes moral censure.  Just as it really is natural to be without clothing, one can justify his nakedness by appealing to the human in him , and thus recover from communal shame a sense of normalcy after all.  One creates a concept of realism, as a sort of conduit through which respect might continue to flow toward him, until, as is only natural, the very means of its survival in oneself undermines his self-importance — and so cleanly that he condemns one as a cynic and backs up the plumbing.     A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

18 It is possible within the throes of a passionate suffering not only to find alleviation in the realization that it inspires others but to actually leap to other side and enjoy the promotion of one’s status.  If one is talented enough, the drama fools even oneself, serving society well as an inspiration for others in their suffering.  We cannot pity others too much, for then we are either the accomplices in their self-deceit or the dupes of our own.  Nor can we seek to expose or debunk the object of pity, for then society will lose yet another moral agent and set a cynic between itself and its realization. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

19 On telling soft people hard truths: I would not undo what I did ... for only by that act do I know what I know now .  I would not undo that act therefore even though in this new knowledge I vow – cursing myself – never to repeat the error. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

138 What is depth?  To the surface of things I am converted.  That all else is illusion I am sure.  It even seems now that my soul is only as deep as my grip on the shallow is unrelenting.  “This is my reality,” I remind myself.  “I will never let go.  Given the chance, I will grasp for more!”   A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

139 I now see that my immediate realism may be just as much of a blunder as that idealism which places thought in a “reality beyond this world.” A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

141 It may very well be true that we are only realists of the immediate in the hope that it might bring us prestige.  Were there no acclaim for the written word perhaps we would even stop thinking.  Forgive me.  I cannot help but wonder what it could be that would send someone toward this forsaken viewpoint. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

 A Human Strategy, Matt Berry A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

142 We could say that the skin is the end of “my self, ” or, as some like to fancy, that “I” am further inward .  If I lop off an arm, for example, “I” still am.  But if one proceeds in this manner, parsing the definition down to the “core,” one will end up with nothing, and then of course one has to write a book about it: “Nothingness and (add any word here).”  But whatever it is that we are it cannot be found inwardly .  Outwardly is closer to the truth.  There is much of me that exists beyond my skin.  While reflecting upon such matters, who would dare say that glass was the end of the mirror? A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

 A Human Strategy, Matt Berry A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

143 I wish nothing.  I hope nothing.  I believe nothing — yet the surface of my world shimmers with beauty. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism