The Experience of Clarity

A Human Strategy Toward a genuine spirituality second edition Our minds are circumscribed by our immediate reality, but we stop short at the thought of it. by Matt Berry An attempt to find a positive orientation toward life which does not deny reality.         copyright © Matt Berry Table of Contents  A Human Strategy    1 My Slice of Eternity    5 The Descent of a Realist    9 If God were Permitted to Be Real    10 The Institution    20 Civilized Behavior and the Last Banana    23 The Unselfish and their Charity    25 The Impossible Individual    26 The Public Animal    28 The Error-Making Organ    31 The Irreducible Surface    40 The Written Attempt    45 The Turning Point    49 The Nature of this Book and Some Problems    49 The Impossibl...

My Slice of Eternity 1 In life we confuse equation with nature and settle into our recliners, buoyed with incredible smugness by our day-to-day routine.  If, however, this routine were to be unceremoniously pulled out from under us, we would find ourselves prostrate upon the hard earth ... upon the rude truth: we would not know where or how to begin anew, since we had thought that the principle was our comfort.  But what do we do?  We kneel and work out new equations, tearing out pages from our scratch pad as quickly as we fill them with numbers and symbols ... while the natural phenomenon, habit, on its own, slowly weaves out a new fabric for us.  One day the fabric holds, and once again we believe ourselves to float “above reality.”  We are content again.  “The principle!” But what if I discarded all principle from the outset?  Set fire to all the scraps of paper around me?  What if I found it possible to have wicked thoughts even within the ste...

Imagine the human task as a kind of game with clearly defined rules:  The only legitimate reality is that which we verify with our senses.  Consequently, reality is nothing more than surface and the relationships between surfaces.   “Mind,” “Depth,” “Meaning,” “Ideas,” “Other Worlds,” are unreal ... errors ... figments of an error-making organ, the brain. In short, wherever we can not reduce something “human” to mechanical explanation what we really have is fear. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

The Mind adds Infinity, then is divided by Reality which must then take away Infinity again to equal the Human Condition.  That is, we are less in mind for wanting to be more than reality ... that is, we are more or less fools. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

And cynicism shall set you free. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

Patience is a virtue ... and God has kept me waiting for so long that I have finally had to admit this one gift from and evidence of Him.  I still wait, and he still teaches this last lesson ... this teacher of teachers.  Very soon now, my Patience will wax eternal. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

No hero really wants to die for something as much as he wants to live on in the minds of others.  The contentment of our sacrificial victims, then, requires our assistance: we must not only throw them into the volcano but must always bear them in mind. However, the ultimate sacrifice, from a purely Christian viewpoint, would be to sacrifice oneself for all of humanity without any reward whatsoever — even the endurance of one’s identity in the mind of others.  It is thus that God will soon redeem all and make that final, pure sacrifice ... as only God can do.  It pains me to think about it.  All this while we have been waiting for Him, when it is He who has been waiting for us. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

Why I should not have to be an atheist: This is not a God-AntiGod world. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

Why I am an atheist: God is a cultural reality ... just as an eye patch is a reality. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

Answering the Christian: Why I have not abandoned myself to the Devil: If God is a white eye patch, then the devil is a black one. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

Toward a healthier religion: The more authentic the stigmata of our saints the more proof we have against them. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

Hell is that place where I have to beg forgiveness in order to enter ... and then apologize for having begged. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

God is not the ripcord I am to tape to my chest, nor is His religion a story of a parachute that will surely open when it is my turn to fall. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

The dishonesty lies not so much in the belief as in the reasons why we have no right to debate the assertion. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

Genuine Spirituality: Granted, there exist those rare individuals with genuine fear and trembling before the prospect of eternal consequences.  But could we regard fear and trembling ... this flight away as a sincere attempt at the spiritual goal?  The greater the coward the worthier the spirit?   Beyond the horrors of Christianity, could we not find at least a few attempts which are sincere and courageous?  We protest, for we have seen attempts to rise higher, beyond the drive to dominate other people ... beyond complacency, greed or fear.  Does not this rare and nearly extinct species consistently strive for greater and greater solitary difficulties?  “What could be more difficult than to become a sincere Christian?”  becomes “What could be more difficult than the impossible?”  They seek greater resistance to prove greater ability ... to the point of finding the greatest resistance: “achieving the impossible.”  They want this impossibility ...

God is bold, not weak.  God does not cower before bold and honest questioning.  God does not vanish with disbelief or antagonism.  God does not garner in brow-beaten slaves.  God’s chosen are not the lowly, not the meek, not the sick.  God is the noble in us ... the resistance and not the compliance.  God is this Human Spirit ... that within us which stands up what would otherwise fall down.  So let us never again prostrate ourselves before an institution ... a book ... a history ... another human.  Let us be great ourselves ... for the real God shall only be seen by the godly ... in a glass ... and face to face. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

If there were a God, then there could only be one way to Him — and that would not begin with “God,” but with God’s reality.  A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

God, truly understood, would “set one free” ... even of “God.” A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

I do not know enough about Heaven to speak of eternal consequences.  But in life itself — the one that ends after a few years — I have found an unpardonable sin: laziness, to be inconvenienced by my own reality. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

Why are we more concerned with the name “God” than with the reality from which that name springs?  Is it something like a superstition after all to resist an air-vibration? ... as if a Pavlov would take a stand against using a church bell? A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

20 Why is “Do I believe in God?”  not synonymous with “Do I know how to live?” A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

Why is “Do I believe in God?”  not synonymous with “Do I know how to live?” A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

God is not in the sacrifice but in my increase.  And where there is no sensation of increase there is no God. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

How desperately we humans want to be complex ... delight in our inability to see around the last fact when the shadow of that last fact is nothing other than our own vanity.  Anthropomorphism accounts for all of our confidence in the beyond, whether in religion, in metaphysics, or in a realist’s “philosophy.”  I propose that we begin to worship this anthropomorphism for what it is.  Why not?  We will never get around it, and it accounts for the universal prayer of the species: “Something of me in this too.  Dear God!”  An unrelenting effort to expose the anthropomorphic in every leap away from our condition would create a suffering ... a passion unequaled by all religious attempts thus far: this effort not to leap would be equally impossible but would have authenticity on its side.  A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

23 More significant than the fact that there never was an external God is my inability to get beyond the “loss.”  I lament the shipwreck, when I should feel relief that it was not I who was on the ship. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

24 It was not merely Christianity that had collapsed, but every denial of our own existence — leaving our neglected nature and the task to harness that nature toward another, higher task: our authentic relation to our own reality.  We may console our loss of religion with this new task: it serves as a last obligation to ourselves. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

What do we insects do with a word like “Hallowed?”  Even in the distance it glows before us like a beacon.  “We will fly after it!”  ... and why not?  Our materialism has no direction or goal of its own.  It stands before us in irrefutable silence, while we have at last found a light to fly after.  And this flying after also belongs to our species, is consequent of human material, and as such, is also undeniable. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

Who can deny the glory of immediate reality within an ascending repetition?  The sensation is equal to gazing up into the heavens on a starlit night: the magnificence is not so much in the wonder as it is in the realization that such power is real. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

The Truth is not the choice between material reality and the subjective struggle to realize it.  It is not however even the reconciliation between the two — this would presuppose them to be naturally separate.  The Truth not only shows how post-science and pre-science exercise each other, but how materialism develops the god within us — and as we approach this unity, we become worthy of our own reverence. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

28 The happiest qualities in life come on their own after I have labored and suffered vainly for the things that represent them.  It is provident, this web of habits that supports mentality above the mundane or dangerous ... it lives in the luxury of the sweetest illusions and then through sour disappointments delivers a permanent understanding in sudden shocks of pleasure. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

29 For the sake of truth, to resist the maximum sensation produced by a strictly mechanical projector, wouldn’t that be something like the anguish of sacrificing a cherished god? Wouldn’t that be our own crucifixion?  A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

30 Facing but defying the godless in the universe, I rise to the stature of the cruelest fate, equalized in a love for its necessity to my being.  This too is providence. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

31 I would rather keep my purity as an atheist than profane God by denying His creation. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

32 This is Purity of Heart: to ask for nothing in return from God — not even that He exist.  In fact, a saint could renounce all of the “world beyond” just so that his worship might become genuine. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

33 An honest atheist is worth more than a smug “believer” — easy argument since there is no such thing as even an honest believer.  Were I so wise and brave I would not even be the atheist ... since this is not a God-AntiGod world. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

34 A genuine worship does not make room for God.  On the contrary, it is just this making room for God which I attack, so as to elevate myself ... to win the honor of struggling toward honest conclusions. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

35 To repeat solid inferences from claims beyond anyone’s possible sensory experience ... to be so stupefied by the preceding that finding oneself a “genuine follower” is not a contradiction ... to pay tithe now for one’s inherited obligations to this institution of averaged minds ... what kind of religion is that? What kind of God does its herd-unity require?  It has its claims however: it is mostly Good, for it requires all of the virtues except honesty. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

36 If there is no God, then how can I oppose his non-existence?      I am to take a stand, it seems, upon what is not there and so fall comically. If there is no God, then “God” was only a word ... a representation of something Human.  What is that something? Hope of compensation?  Is this life so horrible?  And when it is indeed horrible, does this life have no compensation for those horrors? Hope of Heaven?  Is Hope a business contract where I am to forgo the luxury in this world so that I might have more luxury in the next? Immortality?  Is this another clause in the business contract, where I am to serve my master faithfully only if I am guaranteed an Eternal Pension?  If I received no such guarantee, would I forsake my God?  Is Hope cowardice?  Does the word “God” represent nothing more than a Human fear of mortality? If God is not the other-worldly, then perhaps God is that which persists in the absence of the above menti...

37 Perhaps it is weakness that accounts for society’s dramatic evolution: against the superior individual, two cowards had to come together to defend themselves. Or is it strength that accounts for civilization?  ... a single individual so strong that he conquered all others ... or perhaps the others simply cowered under his protection, just as a dog cowers under a tree during a storm.  But then if this is so, if we see these “others” as essential to the definition of the city, have we not again suggested that our city is made up of weakness and cowardice?  And if so, how can anyone, after coming across this discovery, expect to value existence through the standard of community spirit?  A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

38 There is a type of human that must be contained, a type which will send the whole machine of civilization flying apart if allowed to accelerate beyond its capacity.  It is one of the oldest cogs of civilization ... formerly called the “slave,” but now called the “good citizen.” A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

39 This man has a dull exterior, but when I brush up against him, in opposition or polite conversation, he gains a luster, which only begins to cloud over again when a third person enters the room. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

40 Youth often suffer from an identity crisis because  we  insist that they be someone else ... that they abandon themselves to become a piece in  our  jigsaw puzzle.  We twist them this way and that in the hope that they might fit into our perspective of ourselves.  In short, they suffer  our  identity crisis ... and then we criticize them for it. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

aphorism 209, A Human Strategy, Matt Berry A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

aphorism 387, A Human Strategy, Matt Berry A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

aphorism 247, A Human Strategy, Matt Berry A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

42 Duty and Meaning: Where our duty has no personal meaning we wish for a little understanding from our superiors.  But they can spare none, for without our duty, their meaninglessness is exposed. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

43 The only irrefutable systems of philosophy are those we preserve with physical force. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

44 Most of our thoughts on world peace descend from institutions with a vested interest in preserving the invisibility of their dominance.  No one avoids conflict like an established conqueror.  Under this light, Christian peace is indeed the end of war ... as the final step of its conquest. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

41 Every principle for personal growth, once institutionalized, shifts from serving as a vehicle for self-actualization to serving the actualization of the vehicle itself.  We are no longer nurtured, but managed. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

45 To achieve peace for all, the disadvantaged must be given a false “advantage” that they can call their own (serving as a human weapon as a “patriot” ... or remaining with one’s own cultural inheritance as “one of the faithful”).  We hold up every label which secures the tractability of the individual, such as “good citizenship” or “virtuous.”  The contentment of the masses depends upon this trade of a disadvantage for an illusory status, as does the illusory contentment of the “powerful elite.” A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

46 Why I flee from all social movements: It is not their threat to tear all non-members apart as much as it is the morass I would have to wade through in search of an acceptable stand.  Authenticity betrays a need for cleanliness that perhaps outweighs the destiny of all mankind ... but I’ll stop here; I sully myself with the explanation. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

47 As reformers, we resent not only our opponents but most of all the honest critics of our own devices and motives.  Not one motive of ours can be tinkered with ... not one ray of light enter our own closets.  Our reformation of other people is not as much a will to improve mankind as it is a diversion away from our own failings and responsibilities. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

48 A man should not build an institution until all his creative powers have been exhausted on something worthwhile. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

52 I appear to protect her, and that is more than a duty I impose upon myself.  I do not know what would become of me if I did not have to protect my angel ... but how she fully justifies her independence!  And I, being a rational man, must now confront the brutality of my “protecting her.” A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

49 What is our weakness?  Not the falsehood of our inherited morality, nor its harm, but that we need it. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

50 The profit-loss man, lacking all taste, has at least purchased a little tact through the demands of the marketplace: he has had to influence people on a daily basis and therefore knows how to move people to his own advantage.  Those who have been sheltered by luxury and good taste have never felt themselves moved in this manner and thus confuse his salesmanship with taste; perhaps they even feel themselves indebted to him.  It may be said that a refined and inherited taste preserves and cultivates only what tact will harvest later.  That is to say, the tactful acquire the sensibilities of the privileged ... and soon thereafter, their graceful signatures.  Tact over taste — it seems to conform to the natural justice of the species ... as when the privileged have lost their grip on the fundamentals to their power and so lose it over a truffle. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

51 I am rude when I do not point my act toward the other person.  I can break any rule of etiquette but this and keep the other’s sympathy. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

53 Man is the reasonable ape which will swing from tree to tree to get the banana, but when satisfied, will sit and brood about how his logic should not have to swing about with such indignity ... should not have to leave one vine for another, for there is no real “connection” after all.  What he really should do, he decides, is find one infinitely long vine on an infinitely tall tree by which he might have the whole jungle at his disposal, or to hell with it, he won’t swing at all.  This lasts for a few hours or so, depending upon the metabolism of the ape, but if he is a professional logician, then his metabolism is quite low, and so the hours of non-foraging can be quite long, but not so extensive that they cannot be calculated with precision: he broods, without fail, between the hours of nine to five ... then leaps to the nearest vine, confused by his unreasonable craving for bananas, but which he quickly and decisively refutes again by eating a few. A Human Strategy...

54 Taking a step back, out of range, can be healthier than turning the other cheek.  It can also be more benevolent. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

55 How to kill what I love: do everything for the beloved ... mercy, pity, help in every way ... never let the beloved strain a muscle.  Ah, but to be truly kind ... one would be crucified for that. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

56 I am convinced that if we were to die and enter paradise the devil would ruin it all by having the damned reach their hands through the gates, begging for alms and forgiveness — and the greater their sincerity, the greater our misery. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

57 He who has a heart of gold is pure in heart: Here is a rich man who has his strongbox full of coins, with no room for more.  He casts what remains to the feet of the less fortunate, nonchalantly and perhaps with an ounce of arrogance ... but also with a pound of foolhardiness, for where else might he have put these trifles and without effecting such a return from their black hearts? They must pay for the respect they now owe, all the more grudgingly when the debt is forgiven: a humble gratitude, from the poor to the rich, becomes another word for humiliation, and this is a debt which must be paid with the coin of resentment.  It is impossible both to owe and to be pure in heart.  ... a warning to those who owe tithes to anyone other than themselves. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

58 To bracket someone within moral condemnation: first method, expose him as an outsider to our morality (an easy task, since “morality,” as commonly understood, is artificial).  Second method, expose him as just another member of the herd (even easier). A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

59 I cannot be an individual without social attachment.  How else would I get the training?  And from whom would I flee? A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

60 The “Truth” is not something which must be defended.  If “Truth” is what is absolutely necessary to well-being, then it need only be pointed out.  That which we have been defending at all costs is only what is necessary to the well-being of our group . But the fact that we defend the needs of our group at the very expense of our own well-being, and successfully I might add, damages my argument.  For certainly, if my own well-being were pointed out, wouldn’t I attempt to secure it?  Wrong question.  Why don’t I try?  ... and how did I learn that I should try?  From that smaller group, the individualists?  It is easy to forget that individualism is a social movement.  So, what am I seeking?  For I need my group ... A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

61 How can I put this crowd behind me and shut them up ... after we have abandoned each other?   A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

62 The subjective world is unshared and isolated, each of us contained in our own bubble of illusion and calling it the universe, each of us feeling this universe in common with all of humanity ... and all the more lonely for it. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

63 Individualism is a disease of the social animal for which one amputates a large part of oneself in the hope of a cure. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

64 To grow one must never expose one’s roots to sunlight ... just as one must never hide one’s foliage.  To use a different metaphor, one must build a door between private and social contexts ... one which we lock shut. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

65 We are spiraling; that is sure.  But are we rising or falling?  And if we are indeed rising ... as is the end of all our efforts and sufferings ... are we only rising within the stratum of our class?   A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

66 “Are you higher or lower in rank?”  The first question one asks every stranger ... in spite of oneself. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

67 A: You say that I am not easy to work with ... which tells me that I am not exploitable.   B: You say that I am easy to work with ... which tells me that you are easily taken.   A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

68 In most philosophical arguments there emerges a leader whose arguments do not follow, thereby. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

69   You will learn more from losing your way than from someone else finding it for you.  The many ways to indulge in dominance are so subtle and all are so prone to self-deceit that even the sincerest of them only finds in you their way.  A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

70 That which tears at the moral fabric of society is of the same claw as that which condemns the attack. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

72 From the horrible monster, Reality , we organize ourselves behind a standard, en masse, ... in brilliant tactical retreats.  Forever looking for a fixed, naturally fortified position from which to make a final stand.  A few of us exhaust ourselves in the attempt, see the futility, stray, then unconditionally surrender all that we have.  The irony is that only then do we find our sanctuary ... but within the walls of our former fear, Realism , and the new horror is not that we have become, nor even that we always have been, this solitary monster, but that now the others have found us out.   A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

71 It is not difficult to find a man who accepts himself as a pincushion, and if he is under our care, we protect him from himself and from the others who must find something to prick, if for no other reason than to prove that they can prick. This act — drawing our own sharp weapons and keeping the others at bay — is not duty.  On the contrary, it is one of the pleasures of the flesh, for we too must prove that we can prick. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

73 We were not born realists , nor did we make a choice.  The civilized climb from what-is to the peak of what-should-be has been so mob-driven and the height so fearsome that we can not even contemplate the solitary descent back down to the truth.  And it is no matter that this problem never shows itself to consciousness — for we are not without help.  Our friends elected us to the congress of complacency, then dispatched us for the public discovery that we were real.  It is possible that no one became a realist who was not first carried up to this Tarpeian Rock upon the shoulders of his fellows.   A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

74 The question sets the trajectory of the answer.  The crowd stands safely behind.  If the crowd has aimed the canon askew, I can only lose: if I answer, my answer will be set off in vain ... if I refuse to answer, I have “avoided the battle” ... if I stop to debate the positioning of the question itself, there will be no crowd pleasing thunder ... if I seize the question and turn it round, correctly aiming at the problem — the crowd — I will be torn to pieces.   A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

75 Is it really possible that we were selected by nature according to our arrogance?  That the human is the highest possible creature?  It is more likely that we were selected according to our humiliation.  The fact that ten humans united by a fear are stronger than the highest, most refined species possible has perhaps devalued our planet ... but we protect ourselves from such belittling discoveries by banding together and surrounding the bastard.   A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

76 The positive function of the masses upon the individual: silently to revere strength so much that once a man has acquired the right to this reverence they have at last the fear to tear it back out of him ... and this makes him even stronger. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

77 Object A falls with great velocity.  Object B falls slowly.  From the perspective of Object A , Object B rises ... reason why after we fall from a lofty religious experience, the idea of “mind” or “metaphysics” remains seductive. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

78 We laugh at ourselves and our foolishness, for until now we had thought that “meaning” was a need, an undernourished organ of human nature, and when we found it impossible to satisfy “our need,” we found a name for this absence of meaning, “nothingness.”  In reaction, we even thought on occasion that this vacuum was the goal.  At last we had a voice to sound out the depths of our souls ... and with great success, for we had become hollow. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

79 Sometimes I feel as though I am the last to get the joke — and it took me an inordinately long time just to crack a smile.  Now I look around me and find no one else chuckling.  But the humor is so obvious to me that I cannot presume to be the first among my acquaintances to have laughed out loud.  It can only be that everyone else has, once again, found something more serious than existence. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism