Joseph Tested – The Philosophical Argument

To be truly free one must accept one’s own abandonment. To accept a role in the world is to limit the choices in existence. Abandonment is the loss of prescribed function. It is neutral space, free to be occupied in any manner, to be granted other functions, and concomitantly, other meanings. These meanings are created. Meaning is created through and within symbol structures such as Logic and Language as used to connect (and consequently, in the higher discourses, to juxtapose and contrast) independent objects. ‘Feeling’ is the basis of such constructs. It informs the logical process, and as such, cannot be considered a logical process in the conventional sense. Because Feeling is individual and subjective, each consequent logical structure is unique. It has been argued that Feeling is socially constructed, i.e. the discourses that dominate the individual within his time inform how he will react to them, but such Pavlovian responses can be negated or unconditioned. They do not exist in individuals consumed in anomie. Therefore to be aware of one’s unconditioned responses (feelings) it is necessary to be indifferent (not in opposition) to the social norms and structures of one’s time. This is achieved most readily by accepting one’s own mortality. Once death becomes inherent in all things, once it becomes a real object, taking up space in the world, offering itself to the individual in all the moments of time, one is free. Death becomes a part of life, not simply its culmination. All conscious beings must be aware of this fact. A question then arises: What does it mean to live with death? When an individual acts in the light of this question, his actions are undiluted with the conflicting streams of discourse. The act is pure because it is truly chosen. It is the culmination of the individual logical process that is based, now, on the unconditioned feeling. In a sense, the universal struggle with what it means to live with death becomes a unifying aspect. The solitary contemplation becomes a universal contemplation. In this, and it is certainly enough, mankind can be considered a homogeneous entity.