The Autobiography of a Raccoon

So, we were talking about the vertical hierarchy, which spans every mode of existence from the immanent apeiron below to the divine nous above. In between are such familiar landmarks as inanimate nature, vegetative nature, animal nature, the passions, the local ego, and the nonlocal intellect/nous. 

Again, there is depth at both ends, and even a kind of inverse mirror image; the apeiron, of course, despite its mysterious depth, cannot be conflated with, or collapsed into, the divine ground. 

But this doesn't stop people from trying, for example, Schopenhauer. His one Big Idea was precisely this collapse and conflation. You could even say he is a sort of "immanent mystic," or apostle of immanence: there is no divine ground, and I am it! 

Schopenhauer was neither the first nor last to overlay a second reality over the first. It's pretty much what humans do in that projective space alluded to a couple of posts ago. 

How do we avoid f-

a-

    l-

         l-

               i-

                     n-

                            g

for this, i.e., living in the comfort and safety of our own projected delusions? Frankly there's only one way, but it involves God -- specifically, God breaking into what is otherwise necessarily a closed system. 

The man does not escape from his prison of paradoxes except by means of a leap of faith.

Interestingly, the choice is ours. This freedom is the basis of man's dignity, of his shame, and of his shamelessness, in that order. Depending on how you look at it, a shameless man has ether sunk beneath the human or is all too human. All I know is you can't shame a Democrat.  

Liberty intoxicates man as a symbol of independence from God.

And 

God allows man to raise barricades against the invasion of grace. 

So, thank God for atheism!

Are there really two modes of existence -- existence in truth and existence in untruth? NO. For there can be only one truth of existence and countless alternatives. 

A few lines are enough to demonstrate a truth. Not even a library is enough to refute an error.

Tried. Check. 

The learned fool has a wider field to practice his folly.

Been there. Check. 

Great stupidities do not come from the people. They have seduced intelligent men first.

Of whom I am first. Check. 

Foolish ideas are immortal. Each generation invents them anew.

So far. Check. 

The great imbecilic explanations of human behavior adequately explain the one who adopts them. 

One of my favorites, but Nietzsche said much the same thing -- that most philosophies are but unwitting autobiographies. What he did not say is that the death of God isn't a fact, rather, a confession, and a shameful one at that. Supposing one is capable of shame.

Now, ideologies are quintessential second realities. Think of the tranny contagion, which is literally projected and superimposed upon the primary reality of biology. 

Similarly, "progressive economics" is projected onto the economy, feminism onto sexual differences, homosexuality onto sexuality, CRT onto race, AGW onto the weather, and a functioning mind onto Biden.

Everything about the left is a second reality -- and proud of it!

It is also the Autobiography of a Fool. Dreams & Schemes from My Marxist Father.

Okay, I'll bite: First Reality. What is it? 

It's a little orthoparadoxical, or even goround zero of what Bob means by Orthoparadox as such, and how to put it? 

The most elegant way to put it is:

O

(↓→↑)

(¶) 

It is the simplest way, all other ways being number two or lower.

Really? Or is this just the embarrassing Autobiography of a Raccoon?

Man is much like -- I said like -- an Immanent God. Which he cannot be unless he is a kind of projection of the transcendent God -- the image and likeness, or something. 

This accounts for the quasi-infinite apeironic depth of (¶). I mean, have you ever looked down there? Circumnavelgazed the whole existentialada? 

Supposing you have, then you know what the Aphorist means when he says... many things, among which some of my favorites are:

If man is the sole end of man, an inane reciprocity is born from that principle, like the mutual reflection of two empty mirrors.

True, but I did get a Ph.D. out of it.

Man is the animal that imagines himself to be Man.

Been there; strictly speaking, no God, no man.

Man inflates his emptiness in order to challenge God.

Done that. Check.

Pure (↑) with no (↓)?

When it finishes its "ascent," humanity will find tedium waiting for it, sitting on the highest peak.

That and a Ph.D. 

Now,

Modern man seeks above all a religion that denies grace [↓].

The soul [¶] is the task of man.

Then again, 

Man is an obligation that man often violates.

The truth is that we exist, and cannot not exist, between the tension of the two poles referenced above:

The two poles are the individual and God; the two antagonists are God and Man. 

There's also a good one that says something to the effect that the punishment for the man who seeks himself is that he finds it. That and a Ph.D.

The greater the importance of an intellectual activity, the more ridiculous is the claim of certifying the competence of those who exercise it. A diploma of dentistry is respectable, but one of philosophy is grotesque.