Bad Faith and Knowledge
You can take this however you would like to… a selfish rant, or something more meaningful. I am not totally sure which of the two I believe it is (if either at all)
There is something called bad faith in this life. The idea of a person having knowledge about something, but purposely telling themselves or another something different (despite knowing the truth). A smoker may know that they can acquire an innumerous amount of diseases from their addiction, but the convince themselves that it cannot happen to them. That is bad faith. A woman stays with a man who only wants sex from her, but convinces herself that it isn’t true. That is bad faith.
You can call it indecisiveness, you could call it fence sitting if you want, but there is something to be said about people in my situation. It is a very difficult and confusing situation, one that makes the person who is affected by it search for meaning in their ideologies. Wound up tight? Kinda too high strung? I don’t know, I don’t think these things are the case. There are people in this life, ones who don’t want to waste their life hurting themselves by excessive partying and drinking and smoking… living by a completely superficial standard of fulfillment… then there are people who reject these activities, citing them as juvenile and artificial. Where are those people that want something deep and beautiful out of life… but also want to experience some of the self-indulgent, care free side as well?
Where do the people go who want to have a deep, thoughtful conversation, but also want to belt out a few embarrassing tunes while drinking at kareoke? These people are the pariahs, the outcasts… because in a world of polar opposites, it seems almost wrong to be in a middle ground on anything. Right, Left; North, South; Black, White; Pro, Anti. It’s disgusting. Subjectivity is a dirty word. Why? Because it is counter productive by some peoples standards. “How can you get something done unless you believe in a certain side of something”. Yea, this may seem like a problem to some… but I don’t think it is totally. How do you get things done? Well, when you are a “fence-sitter”, you have the glorious skill that I like to call “compromise”, and although this skill requires a little more work than having a bullshit rule implemented for every case on a certain matter, it might actually get things done just as well as a sickening political or sociological dogma.
There are good and bad things about everything in this life… but the people who have an undying passion and conviction to a certain thing, and know its faults but deny their existence are just plain in bad faith. There are things that I am passionate about, like music… but music is very subjective, giving warrant to a world of beliefs, ideas, emotions, relationships and interpretations with it. People look at the indecisive person as one who is “soul searching”, or “trying to find themselves”, well I say why aren’t you? What makes your fucking self-righteous ass complete? I sure as hell don’t think you are, and if you are… then why are you here still? These people who think that they know everything there is to know about the world because they have gorged themselves on everything that their particular bullshit sub-ideology has to offer, they are the fuckers in bad faith. They are the ones who are lying to themselves about their freedom and their understanding of the world.
I do understand though ... I really do...it is hard to break out of a shell that has been built around a person from decades of ideological pelting and drilling… I still battle with some things to this day.... But it is possible, and it will not happen until a person tries to make it happen. It sometimes feels like the only way to make these people understand is to fucking beat them until their ideas come oozing out of their ears and then just start from scratch. But that is not to say these people are wrong… I just wish they could know that not everyone else in the world is wrong either. Why does my heat feel so bad? Because in this world, having grass-root doctrines of law is a necessary evil, because subjectivity is a virtue that has no place in our view of the world.
There is something called bad faith in this life. The idea of a person having knowledge about something, but purposely telling themselves or another something different (despite knowing the truth). A smoker may know that they can acquire an innumerous amount of diseases from their addiction, but the convince themselves that it cannot happen to them. That is bad faith. A woman stays with a man who only wants sex from her, but convinces herself that it isn’t true. That is bad faith.
You can call it indecisiveness, you could call it fence sitting if you want, but there is something to be said about people in my situation. It is a very difficult and confusing situation, one that makes the person who is affected by it search for meaning in their ideologies. Wound up tight? Kinda too high strung? I don’t know, I don’t think these things are the case. There are people in this life, ones who don’t want to waste their life hurting themselves by excessive partying and drinking and smoking… living by a completely superficial standard of fulfillment… then there are people who reject these activities, citing them as juvenile and artificial. Where are those people that want something deep and beautiful out of life… but also want to experience some of the self-indulgent, care free side as well?
Where do the people go who want to have a deep, thoughtful conversation, but also want to belt out a few embarrassing tunes while drinking at kareoke? These people are the pariahs, the outcasts… because in a world of polar opposites, it seems almost wrong to be in a middle ground on anything. Right, Left; North, South; Black, White; Pro, Anti. It’s disgusting. Subjectivity is a dirty word. Why? Because it is counter productive by some peoples standards. “How can you get something done unless you believe in a certain side of something”. Yea, this may seem like a problem to some… but I don’t think it is totally. How do you get things done? Well, when you are a “fence-sitter”, you have the glorious skill that I like to call “compromise”, and although this skill requires a little more work than having a bullshit rule implemented for every case on a certain matter, it might actually get things done just as well as a sickening political or sociological dogma.
There are good and bad things about everything in this life… but the people who have an undying passion and conviction to a certain thing, and know its faults but deny their existence are just plain in bad faith. There are things that I am passionate about, like music… but music is very subjective, giving warrant to a world of beliefs, ideas, emotions, relationships and interpretations with it. People look at the indecisive person as one who is “soul searching”, or “trying to find themselves”, well I say why aren’t you? What makes your fucking self-righteous ass complete? I sure as hell don’t think you are, and if you are… then why are you here still? These people who think that they know everything there is to know about the world because they have gorged themselves on everything that their particular bullshit sub-ideology has to offer, they are the fuckers in bad faith. They are the ones who are lying to themselves about their freedom and their understanding of the world.
I do understand though ... I really do...it is hard to break out of a shell that has been built around a person from decades of ideological pelting and drilling… I still battle with some things to this day.... But it is possible, and it will not happen until a person tries to make it happen. It sometimes feels like the only way to make these people understand is to fucking beat them until their ideas come oozing out of their ears and then just start from scratch. But that is not to say these people are wrong… I just wish they could know that not everyone else in the world is wrong either. Why does my heat feel so bad? Because in this world, having grass-root doctrines of law is a necessary evil, because subjectivity is a virtue that has no place in our view of the world.