The first premise is that there are multiple levels of consciousness.
The second premise is that, at some point, we cannot control ourselves.
I think that people are both totally control of their lives and hopelessly controlled by their circumstances. I think that the only meaning is human meaning, and I also believe that people cannot control what meaning they see.
Meaning is like taste- religion is a matter of taste, just like whether you choose to live your life believing that buying shit is the way to happiness, or making shit or writing shit. Everything is exactly the same, in that it fulfills the same desires and needs within people. Now, some involve lying and delusion, and maybe all of them do, even love. I'm still thinking about that one.
But my current point is that, like taste, values depend on what one is exposed to. There is no way that I can listen to all the music that's ever been produced, so how can I say, with certainty, that Blonde on Blonde is my favorite album? Of course I can't. Similarly, I can't think every possible thought- so how can I know that anything I think really appeals to me especially, because it's true? Or: truer than anything else? How can I believe that I am meant to think anything when my consciousness is so limited? Because of this, I ascribe things like values and taste to chance. Except...
Choice comes in: when I listen to new music, how do I choose what I want to listen to? Hmm. And, for the racist, who chooses not to talk to black people, and thus is able to have his prejudice without having to question is, choice is important, too. So, the extent to which I control my values is the extent to which I choose to expose myself to new things. As soon as values become exclusionary to new ideas, they become nonsense. Right?
Sartre says a man can be anything he wants to be. I think so, too. Attitude has a lot to do with things. But aren't emotions delusions? Isn't that the point of emotions?
The way I see it, it's coincidence that some levels of consciousness are tied to others. And also that those are tied to reality. What I mean is: at a certain level, my consciousness exists beyond my circumstance, beyond my gender, age, etc. And at another level, it's wholly defined by those things. But those levels of consciousness might have nothing to do with each other. I believe that people are multiple people, and that a man who commits murder one second can be as docile as a fieldmouse the next, without being deceptive. And so these multiple consciousnesses are tied together, against their will, and they can't be controlled. I can't help it that I feel bad when I see roadkill, or that I sometimes get erections. It's beyond my control. But in the same way, I can't help it that I can be obsessive; I can't control that I like Starry Night more than any other painting I've ever seen, or that some Sufjan Stevens song made me cry once. Or that I like certain people, and not others. But see: THIS IS WHO I AM. My identity is not mine to establish; it's a series of involuntary reactions to the world I live in, and to itself. Isn't that fucked up? This is what I really think, and think about.
Here's an example. My values are very much based on a book I read called the Brothers Karamazov, which was recommended to me by a friend who read it for a Russian literature class she takes at an arts boarding school she decided to attend after going there for summercamp after deciding she wanted to be a painter after wanting to be an actress and before she decided she wanted to be a writer. Look at all those steps needed for me to have the values I do. What nonsense, for me to stick to them, or think they're special. But see: just because I am aware of the transience of my values doesn't make me believe in them any less. I still think the thoughts of the book when I see certain things; the concept of responsibility is very important to me. Just being aware that you're being affected doesn't "account" for that affect, or make you free. I am helpless to what I have been exposed to.
At the same time, I believe in active identity- I believe that individualism exists- after all, people's involuntary reactions differ, are special. The only way to not have an identity is to try to control it.
Seek the man who seeks the truth, but go away from the man who claims to have found it. I think Abraham Lincoln said that.
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