T

his is an important time in my life. I have attained the all but impossible state of Nirvana defined by Buddhism as

Now, I know what you're thinking ... "Ol' Ebtx has finally gone completely off his rocker" ... but that would be wrong. That's why I have to explain exactly what this state is. Then you'll see why it's so difficult to attain but also why anyone at all might attain it ... including yourself. Whether it's a desirable state ... I leave that to your judgment.

What is Nirvana? Really ...

It is that state of mind wherein one's accumulated experience has caught up with one's reason. I know that doesn't make much sense without further elaboration so ...

Your emotions are the result of a summation of all that you are mentally, i.e. your experiences. Thus, seeing dead babies being unloaded from a truck by a guy with a pitchfork might cause you to become nauseous because the sum of your experience revolts against the scene. Your emotion is one of revulsion. Any number of items might trigger an emotional response. For instance, the sight of a beautiful woman seeming to look right at you across a crowded room might cause you to "fall in love" (even though she was actually just trying to see what time it was on the wall clock behind you). Emotions are easily fooled and if you follow them always without reflection, you can be severely misdirected.

Which is why you need an "intellect" which is the mechanism of your reason. For without a means of directing ones actions consistent with reality, one is surely doomed to bad ends. So, if you reason that the above gal was not really looking at you but rather at something else, you would tend not to make a fool of yourself in that case. Whereas in the first case, reason coincides with with the revulsion for the vile off-loading.

What we are looking for is to be as in the second case in all things whatsoever ... at least in all things of great philosophical importance. And so to that end we reason and "feel" ... and note that ... when the two are incongruous, there must be something amiss with the one or the other. Such incongruities designate a state which is not Nirvana.

I don't have any more major incongruities because ...

I've recently dumped the very last one which weighed me down. Which is the sense that (as a human being)

Hence, the fear of death ... hence, rejection of a clear observable (being the after death mortification of the flesh) ... such rejection being irrational because it generates contrivances to sidestep the inevitable (such as the creation of a religious-god-salvation-meaning-continuance of the individual after death ... which is inconsistent with the blatant facts).

By everything, I mean that when we die we continue on in the memories of those who knew us. We are certainly still part of humanity. And when all those who knew us are dead, we still live on in the minds of those who in turn knew them though much of the specifics about us is gone from memory. What is left is that essential part which is absorbed by every new being through "cultural osmosis" as Ayn Rand called it. That this is true is undeniable for we are not much different than Cromagnon man in our physical makeup (genetically) but we are certainly much different in the way we look at nature, ourselves and others. That difference is what we absorb from the culture into which we are born and raised. Here is where our final resting place is.

Of course, this is of no use or value to us as individuals. But that is the clearest and most obvious truth. I accept it and am no longer bothered at the thought of complete (individual) oblivion.

I embrace these facts.

• When I die that is the end of me as an individual
  This is neither good nor evil ... only "real".
• The earth does not need me or my ideas even if true
  For certainly, without me, someone else will fill in the necessaries.
  Things come in their time. If now is the time then it will be done by ... someone or another.
• Failure is more common than success.
  Therefore, one should not be put off by it but rather try again so that one might attain the desired goal by dint of perseverance.
• I shall assess reality in light of that which is most demonstrably true. And if I can make no sense of a thing I shall withhold judgment till such time as one proposition rises clearly above the others.
  And lastly,
• Being that one has attained Nirvana does not mean that one does not get pissed off and proceed to kick ass now and then. It merely means that I will not pursue an inconsistency in any vain attempt to re-compose reality to my own specifications ... which goal is impossible.