HERE FOLLOWS SOME PSYCHO-METAPHYSICS. If you are not hot for philosophy, best just to skip it.

[andrewducker]

And with those words began one of the first things to really make me think:

The Aneristic Principle is that of APPARENT ORDER; the Eristic Principle is that of APPARENT DISORDER. Both order and disorder are man made concepts and are artificial divisions of PURE CHAOS, which is a level deeper than is the level of distinction making. With our concept making apparatus called "mind" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us. The ideas-about-reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently. It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ.

Real (capital-T True) reality is a level deeper than is the level of concept. We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids. A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The ORDER is in the GRID. That is the Aneristic Principle. Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.

DISORDER is simply unrelated information viewed through some particular grid. But, like "relation", no-relation is a concept. Male, like female, is an idea about sex. To say that male-ness is "absence of female-ness", or vice versa, is a matter of definition and metaphysically arbitrary. The artificial concept of no-relation is the ERISTIC PRINCIPLE. The belief that "order is true" and disorder is false or somehow wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion. To say the same of disorder, is the ERISTIC ILLUSION. The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely. Pick a grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered. Reality is the original Rorschach. Verily! So much for all that.

which, if you had to pin me down, would be as close to a belief system as you're likely to get me.

Various people have been very depressed over the last few days because of the US Election, and this is, in some ways understandable.  But the world is still full of amazing things - while the leaves are falling off the trees, they aren't doing so in a manner terribly different to the one that happened last year, or ten years ago.  Yes, there are bad things going on, but this, too, seems not noticeably dissimilar to the numerous bad things that have gone on throughout recent history.

You can still make a difference, and it's still important that you do. 
You can still seek out beauty, and it's still important that you do.
You can still find happiness, and it's still important that you do.

You have nobody to let down, except yourself.

Comments

[drjon.livejournal.com]

It's all true, man. Even the untrue things, they're true, too. Especially the untrue things.

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

Yes

That is True

There should be a word for something like "I completely agree with you but want to faff about explaining that I agree in an overly extended way to show I've really thought about it and I'm not just agreeing because it's the swiftest thing to do. I ain't no thicky."

I could shorten it to icawybwtfaetiaiaoewtsirtaiainjabitsttoiant

Do you think it'll catch on?

[code-delphi.livejournal.com]

I have a desire to understand the Truth (the underlying metaphysical reality)... which I can only do, like everyone else, by tinkering with my own Aneristic illusion; thus my quest is futile, as I can only interpret the Truth through the filter of my senses and processing consciousness, putting me back where I started.

The goal could be to make the illusion as thin a veil as possible... until you are perceiving the chaos directly. I wonder if our minds would let us do that? The human desire to perceive order appears to be fairly well hard-wired.

You can still make a difference, and it's still important that you do.
You can still seek out beauty, and it's still important that you do.
You can still find happiness, and it's still important that you do.

You have nobody to let down, except yourself.

Very well said! It is so easy to get caught up in events that one fails to step back and realise (again) what really matters. Thank you for the reminder.

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

Try taking a "heroic dose" of mushrooms, as Bill Hicks would call it. 6g dried. That'll remove your layers of preconception enough to have a better clue of what it's like to be without ego and habit. Experiencing reality not being would probably be useful in your quest ;)

Reality isn't.