WRESTLING
PRINCIPLE OF LIFE – LAOCOON
What
is life and what is the consequence of life?
Answering
the second part of the question gives the definition of life –
slavery.
While
Buddha aimed at deductive, reasonably convincing answer, proving that
life is suffering, I will now turn it upside down, not changing
anything factually, proving that life is slavery because of the
inherent conditioning of all matter, the consequence of which is the
uttermost slavery to the “rules of engagement”. But, to jump to
the explanation of it, lets say that what the “nature of things”
is, call it the “law”, isn't really obligatory, though it is
violently imposing.
The
legend of Laocoon is that he, the priest of Apollo, warned Trojans
not to accept the Horse, as Virgil bluntly put it: “Timeo
Danaos et dona ferentes”1.
As a consequence of this, Laocoon was punished by angered gods to be
crushed by the serpent, a giant constrictor.
So,
Laocoon and his sons suffered, and it is all said in their facial
expression.2
These facial expressions resemble those of Gorgon Medusa, goddess of
wrath. Just a look upon them results in petrification of the looker.
Lets
think about it a little, what really angers gods? Remember
Prometheus, the disobedient titan who opposed Zeus and disclosed
secret divine technology to humans – the fire! For doing so he was
punished with eternal suffering.
Another
story goes, that Adam disobeyed God Lord and tapped the pool of
knowledge, for which he was expelled from Eden, supposedly the place
of eternal fun, right into the world of
suffering.
Life is
suffering and is also punishment. Not dying in horrible pain –
living in pain is the ultimate punishment. This would be later, in
another and somewhat aphasic altered system of reference, rephrased
as – Hell.
Also
characteristic is, in the Hellenistic era, the emphasis in art is
often placed on suffering, like in the famous sculpture of a mortally
wounded Gaul. It was the time when Greek civilization suffered
decline, Romans were advancing after defeating Carthage and
eradicating Etruscans, slavery was the main source of profit. Very
much like today, with one difference only – present art doesn't put
emphasis on suffering. The purpose of art has been remodeled and
reduced to the function of marketing “having fun”. Marketing is
important in this story, it is what life offers as a lure, a promise,
a hope. The price for falling to its advertisement is – suffering.
Global suffering. Hope is another name for advertising fun, and hope
was itself the most advertised item during the long period of Dark
Ages. By the effect of hope, people endured enslavement and suffered
from huge attacks of self pity, and that was – fun.
What
Laocoon said sounded like prophecy, was labeled as false and
misinforming prophecy, because gods wanted cunningness to win and
Troy to be destroyed. Troy, which stood for the type of economy
unacceptable to the rising idea of state. The idea of trade, an
idealistic exchange of goods, was to be replaced by the idea of
extortion.3
Civilization instead of culture, empire instead of ethnos.
It took centuries or a millennium for this replacement to take effect
globally. By the time of the man-god, Alexander, the world was pretty
much mapped and ready to be tailored in a more advanced fashion.
Virgil, who was obsessed with Troy, their descendants believed to
have founded Rome, in his epic poem Aeneid,
pursued this
transformation of Trojan model into the Roman model, headed short
before Virgil's time by another, ultimate man-god – the Emperor
Octavian Augustus Cesar. Who was an unscrupulous, cunning beast.
Virgil
punishes Laocoon for seeing the “cunningness” and spins it into a
very clear political message. Virgil's ideal of pietas
or
dutifulness
towards the state and religion, was the main stock of his marketing.
And the message was clear: anyone who trades obedience for honesty
must suffer. This is very much the same idea that dominates the rest
of the history, at present day culminating in the form of a robot
(worker, slave), Nazi Aryan superhuman, or the pop-cultural hero
Superman, now genetically possibly, advanced servant of the state
with incomparable physical and psychical abilities and a dream of
fully self-conscious artificial intelligence. The – pietas!
Gods
are there to ensure “predestination”, they direct the action of
men and create drama (of suffering) because the idea of order must
win and all resistance is painful and futile.
Rosebud
How
is an emotional dream of feeling good concealing the ugly side of
life?
Emotion,
as it is, a conditioned reaction to a trigger, hides the cause of its
appearance by pretending it is something else – the hope, masking
the ugly reality and emphasizing a “better future”. This is
typical marketing of life. Lets hope it will be better, as soon as we
are over the crisis.
Why
are we in crisis?
The
cause of the crisis is life itself. Life is exchange, but it is not a
simple, equal, just exchange. It is actually extortion, exchange is a
misnomer. The free market of life is nothing but life's marketing,
and marketing is imposition of projection, struggle of one idea to
take over other ideas and to control by using them for its own
purpose (which is self justified). And its own purpose is also
marketing, the struggle of Uroboros
to feed on itself. It's a deadly, vicious circle of self marketing.
The excuse and justification for marketing is – crisis. Because
auto-cannibalism is a permanent crisis.
Thus
we have Laocoon and his sons struggling with the constrictor, just a
bit more elaborate representation of Uroboros, the symbol of
auto-cannibalism.
There
are many missing links in operational language – for instance, when
finishing previous sentence I should have said: the symbol of
auto-cannibalism of life. I omitted “life”, so it is not clear
that auto-cannibalism and life are synonymous. This is in practice
resulting in Babylonian confusion of languages4,
because there are so many synonyms which are not recognized as such.
They are apparently neglected by assuming they have different
meaning, and that is not an accident.
Negligence
of knowledge is the strategy of life. Life pretends that some things
matter, those things which will bring in the profit, that is, deprive
someone else of life so that another life can go on. One needs to be
ignorant to pursue this strategy. And all the energy of thinking is
wasted on justifying (complying to) such behavior, instead of
debunking the very idea that controls being in ignorance. That is
typical and that is the nature of things. Because all nature is
alive, by definition of exchange being life. And if we watch closely
this “exchange”, we can clearly see that it is not what it
pretends to be.
All
nature, physis,
is conditioned to react to certain triggers. Atoms must get into
exchange with other atoms, there's no way they can refuse. This is
the basic definition of life – exchange.
Other
existing definitions of life are just part of the strategy to prevent
insight into the simple truth. Life must stay a mystery, a mysterious
mistress, times 70 virgins as a reward after you've earned your
ticket back to Eden.
The
rosebud of living.
The
Predators and The Meek – Know Thyself
The
division on predators and game, slave runners and slaves, capitalists
and proletarians, wolves and sheep, winners and losers, smart and
stupid, organized and chaotic, leaders and the lead – these are all
synonymous phrases. The good and the bad, the right and the wrong –
all these in function of perpetual motion, the true perpetuum
mobile, the unmoved
mover, the need to
feel, the need to be conscious, which are a proof
of being alive. Motion advertises itself, doesn't want to stop,
doesn't want to die. The opposition of life and death is exactly that
– empirical contents versus emptiness.
The
wise men of the past, present and future all arrived to the same
conclusion – one has to stop5.
It literally means – to die. Why is that so?
Death,
the fear of life.
The
ignorance of life keeps forgetting the truth about itself. This is
the engine of perpetual motion. Life is a struggle for ignorance, it
is the struggling ignorance, it is the slandered Laocoon struggling.
The real Laocoon, the one who pointed to the mistake, had won his
struggle. But life, through its prominent poet Virgil, claims that he
kept struggling – a permanent state of life. A lie told to cover up
the victory of knowledge.
Know
Thyself was
inscribed on Apollo's temple in Delphi.
Delphi
was a treasury site of ancient Greeks, not only a place where
prophecies were issued and Oracle abode. Gold and bronze values were
kept there, and also, apparently – knowledge.
Apollo
was not simply a Greek god, it was revered, under various names, in
many nations of ancient times – Thoth in Egypt, Orpheus among the
Thracian – its attributes are many and are compatible with other
deities, Prometheus for instance, the one who possesses and passes
knowledge. Again, we have to clear up the confusion and establish a
synonymous system of reference.
What
is knowing oneself actually? What kind of knowledge is that, as
opposed to the needs of living, which are a constant struggle to
ensure exchange?
It
becomes clear that being meek is part of the marketing strategy,
favoring both the predators and their prey – favoring the principle
of division which ensures victory of ignorance and enslavement. The
message is blunt: It is better to live as a slave than to be free and
die, because if you refuse enslavement you will be thrown to the
lions by the authorities, the zealous servants of the idea of life.
All
the propaganda and spin of Christianity as an institution of pro-life
intent is about persuading meekness. As a matter of fact, it goes
much further in the past, before Troy or Rome. Even before the
Jericho.
Pietas,
dutifulness was Hector's prerogative. He was the symbol of order,
family care, the symbol of economy, the Troy incorporated. And yet,
he was murdered by Achilles, the symbol of unrestrained violence, a
heroic figure nevertheless.
The
whole story of Iliad is about gods tampering and promoting bandits
into heroes; it starts with a priest Chryses wronged, whose daughter
was abducted and made a sexual slave by Agamemnon. The rascals refuse
to give her back for a ransom, and the priest prays to Apollo to send
disease upon them. First the cattle, then the men.
Eventually,
the idea of trade among the Achaians, the extortion actually, takes
over, and Agamemnon would give the daughter back, in exchange for
Achilles' sexual slave Briseis. This opens the crisis among Achaians,
for Achilles refuses to fight further on. You see, this is the
principle of crisis perpetuating on its own. It will result in
Patroclus' death on the battlefield (he was impersonating Achilles
for that dramatic purpose) and Achilles' rage (shall we call it
emotional intelligence?) which led to the utter destruction of
Hector.
Homer
explicitly described what is really going on in politics. Gods being
the hidden force, the gray
government, the shadow warriors. Gods are ideas and men are their
fuel and food.
1“Don't
trust the Danayans, even when bearing
gifts!”
2The
famous Hellenistic sculpture by three sculptors from Rhodes,
Hagesandros, Polydoros,
and Athenodoros, according to Pliny.
3The
idea of trade, the today's “free market” is meticulously being
implemented, despite the fact that trade was always being destroyed
in order to be replaced by monopoly, which would ensure dominance of
certain state. This is too obvious in European endless wars in the
last centuries, as well as today, when it is clear that everything
in the “market” is being manipulated to the last bit.
4This
is also a misnomer, because The Tower of Babylon was The Tower of
Knowledge, and its destruction resulted in confusion and
misunderstanding among peoples. The Bible itself is a good example
of that.
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