Halx

This is Part 2.
Part 1 is here

Since I've written the first installation in the Book of Halism series (now available in paperback from Bantam) a few of you have likened the guide structure as a sort of religion. Well, I'm here to tell you that it's far from being a religion, because no matter what you may believe in, Halism has a calling for you. Atheists and agnostics pay special heed, for life could take on new meaning if you hear me out. I myself am an atheist. I do not believe in God, or any higher power, or any supernatural force. I won't be asking you to change anything about your beliefs; all I ask is that you hear what I have to say and perhaps incorporate just the more cerebral elements into your daily life. Yes. That's it. Now tune your mental receiver to the "Hal" frequency.

I am in control.
You are in control.

The most common question I receive from those who believe in a form of afterlife when I tell them that I don't believe anything happens to me when I die besides blink out of consciousness and start to rot is, more or less, "How do you get up in the morning and live your life when you have nothing to look forward to when it's over?"

My answer for them may make you pause and think a little. Given that the only plane of existence is the 'Now' and that all we have is the moment and the memory of moments past, there can only be two goals one could hope to acheive. The first goal is simply pleasure in the moment. If you do not feel pleasure, then you are wasting your vastly limited engagement with your beating heart. The second goal is to exist beyond your own demise, in the only place you can; the memory of others. This is done by influencing your fellow people enough to where they will, at the very least, miss you when you're gone.

Exactly how you influence people to get them to remember you is entirely up to your imagination. I will let you in on how I figure it to go, though. You didn't think I would keep silent when I could easily banter on for another paragraph or two, did you? No, you didn't. As well, I will tell you that the only two forces that will affect your memory as it is mapped across the hippocampi of others are those of "hurt" and "help." As a bonus, if you do enough of either, you can possibly live forever.

To be dealt the greatest honor; to be inscribed into the world's history books, one has to do enough hurt or help to affect the lives of enough people to get mention. When they refer to the act of sculpting someone as a statue as immortalization, THIS is what they meant. Granted, I'm not quite sure they were talking about this exactly, but it sure works in my book. You don't all have to grasp for immortalization; after all, there are only a select few from each generation that the historians deem worthy enough to torment middle school kids in social studies class with for centuries to come. It is quite acceptable to remain a legend to your family and friends. One who is never forgotten, though they have been gone for quite a while. That is my "afterlife."

Note: Here come the more cerebral parts for you to digest.

Pleasure is not always what you'd expect. If it were what you are thinking right now, I probably would have ended my misery years ago. No, to truely enjoy life, in my opinion, you have to find more ways to enjoy yourself than the ol' nudge nudge wink wink. I find my pleasure through observation. I believe how I approach it can possibly help others to, at the very least, oil the teeth of their cogs. Pragmatics are the most powerful tool in communication I know. With a firm grasp on how they work, one hardly needs to speak a word or make a gesture in order to be understood. Going through the steps of developing first your observational tactics, then your pragmatic skills will (and you can quote me) make you a better person. (By the way, if you're too lazy to look it up, a really easy way to refer to pragmatics is "reading between the lines.")

I'll say this in layman's terms: the human brain is designed to cut corners through the use of what we refer to as "instincts" and "human nature" along with a lot of more subtle cheats in order to limit brain usage when processing common daily sensations. The reason for this is, if you were to process through your conscious every single bit of data that your sensory receptors receive, you would overload. Good things, these little shortcuts, eh? Well, the flipside to it all is that if you rely too much on what all these filters tell you to process and mentally take note of, you become nothing more than just a human animal - also known as "AOL subscriber," "Starbucks Customer," and "Cult Member." I'm aware that by simply being a member of this site, many of you are some degree above such ranks, but the true nature of where you stand in the mental heirarchy of your community has yet to become apparent to you. Why? Because you have to know what to observe.

Knowing that your mind conveniently limits the sensations that you perceive gives you the power to turn down this very mechanism; sort of like by knowing that someone is going to pick your pocket, you can cover your pocket up to prevent the filthy bastard from stealing anything. You just have to make a point to observe things that you normally would not. In hippy terms, it is expanding your mind. The difference is: you're not stoned out, sitting in your basement with the sound of Jerry Garcia echoing through your ears - you're fully integrated into active society, viewing it and experiencing it as it happens. There are nuances to the whole thing... in fact, I really haven't told you what to look for. I suppose that will be the wildcard of my lesson. Can't give it all away, ya know?

This brings me to my final point in today's passage. I intend to hype the importance of pragmatics even more. I also wish to warn you that whatever sleep deprivation you may experience as a result of indulging yourself in the practice of Halism is... not my fault.

As with everything else on the Starbucks menu, pragmatics comes in all flavors and sizes and tastes really bad. I don't suggest ingesting such a concept. Instead, sniff it... smear it around on your face... yeah. It's simply the key to knowing what people mean when they communicate something. I'm not referring what your girlfriend means when she says, "We need to have a talk." What I mean is more to the tune of picking up a subtle, unspoken joke. Being able to jump to conclusions correctly based on the observable clues that are apparent. To the programmers in the audience; think of it as debugging a real life situation.

My intention is to shed light on the notion that if more people sought to truely understand everything that takes place before their eyes (on a secular level; don't get all "know the ESSENCE of the banana" on me.), then there will be more people in the world who are smarter and more accepting of others. Most importantly, there will be less irritated tech support representatives.

Later, tune in for Part 3: The Asshole's Guide to Contentment

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ARTelevision

I agree with much of what you say except I do not want to be remembered. That would be way too much "immortality" for me. I'm happy in the "now" and I couldn't be if I wanted to be remembered. It's desire of any sort that keeps us out of the now.

"...vastly limited engagement with your beating heart." Now there's a hell of a phrase.

Thanks!

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Bryndian_Dhai

I have been a fan (not quite a devotee, but a fan definitely) of Ayn Rand's principles of self for a long, long time.

The whole point of pleasure being important to one's daily existence is exceptionally valid. Honestly, no matter what you believe happens after death, living one's life as fully as possible is the only way to truly live a life that is worthwhile. Materially, the taste of that first sip of coffee in the morning is as important as the feel of sheets on flesh as you crawl into bed at night. More intangible things, like the feel of the sun on one's face, or the bite of winter chill, the sound of music one enjoys.... These things all combine to give a person ways to find deep, visceral pleasure in their day to day life.

A person who is fully self-aware, completely involved in what constitutes the pleasure of making life worthwhile, is not self-absorbed... rather, he/she is one of the few who are comfortable in their own skin, confident in whatever they believe (or don't believe) and are able to see past the insanities of conflicting messages and fairly impervious to the slings and arrows of others who are not self-aware.

I'm looking forward to reading more about Halism. *grins* Maybe I'll dig out my ol' dusty copies of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and give them a go again. Or maybe I'll just curl up in my favorite blanket and enjoy a hot cup of my favorite tea.

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flstf

I wouldn't be so sure that we just blink out right away. I am pretty sure that we will exist at least for a little while after the body dies.
An OBE Experience

I read years ago about the difficulty they were having with vision systems and what information to process in navigating bots. As they traverse across the room for instance the receptors pick up everything, the crow flying outside the window, the person making coffee in the corner, etc.. The trick is to teach the bot which information is important and which is not. The processing power to receive and categorize this information was tremendous compared to what our brains do easily in seconds.

Lak

Huh, what do you know. I'm a Halist and I didn't know it.

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ignorance really is bliss.

warrrreagl

Tom Robbins has said three things about the hereafter that intrigue me along these same lines.
1) Just because everybody else before you has eventually died, why does that prove that you will, too?
2) I'd rather celebrate through all the shit and suffering this world can throw at me than focus on some cloudy afterlife.
3) Imagine placing a ticking clock inside a hollow log and watching all the woodpeckers go nuts trying to get at it. They will even shun all the easily available bugs all around them as they focus on something that they're not even sure really exists.

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ngdawg

Thanks for my morning chuckle!

Gortexfogg

Interesting and well made points. One might expect everyone to be quoting Halisms in the near future...

Halx

They aren't Halisms.. IT is Halism.

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Suave

Have you read any books on Zen, Hal? A lot of aspects of your philosophy bear striking resemblance to it.

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"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." - Albert Einstein

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Plato

thinktank

A lot more on that concept in Milan Kundera's "Immortality".

Hal -
Well said, much of that more or less describes "Tankism", if you will.

reiii

great quote, interesting philosophy, reminds me of when I attempt to listen to people talking without hearing words for words, as If I did not speak the language. It's a hard exercise but with concentration, you can really hear the flowing cadence of your own language.

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ironmaiden7o7

I always like to read stuff that exercise my mind, and Halx, this is something that definitely gives me inspiration to write some stuff of my own.
"Most importantly, there will be less irritated tech support representatives." I so agree with you on this one. :-)

saut

I thought tankism was an actual school of thought until I saw your username. I was all excited about a philosophy centered on plowing shit over in a tank. Oh well.

kurtisj

another great installation to Halism, thanks for the different look on things...Can we expect a number 3 in the series?

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