Chronic Sophism

The best term I could come up with is “chronic sophism”.

“Chronic sophism” is where one, over an unexplained period of time, wrongly concluded. Was never corrected, and thus one cultivated that which destroys them. Slams into a wall of reality inevitably.

I’ll go through a couple of examples to illustrate.

A fringe example is “solving the problem of loneliness”. The obvious “conclusion” is to predominantly seek more companions for sake thereof. This won’t work though, for reasons I’ll leave you to wonder. But if you don’t learn that conclusion you will find yourself with ten years missing and still at square one against all of the other things you could’ve done.

Many interesting examples come from “good-hearted” people. These are the most typical belief sets imprinted from young age and probably scream out from your emotions. You say hello to your neighbors most jovially, offer your cookies. Let machines watch lovingly over you.

Of course, one day, such good-natured people are cheated and shattered: they, after all, exist in a civilizational anomaly, where we can afford to be nice until we can’t anymore, and wolves lurk around waiting. If you’d retort about an example I think an easy one is an employee who stayed at a company for fifteen years and got discarded at first inconvenience, skills deprecated, washed away in perpetual unemployment. Whenever I read arguments about primitivism sometimes I do wonder if civilization itself breeds chronic sophism.

Anyway, sometimes the sophism is not so obvious and thus it continually destroys a life without ever making the connection. Sometimes the sophism passes through the generations because, after all, it seems to work, doesn’t it? This can come in the form of addictions or deceptively corrosive beliefs like love. Alcohol as man’s best friend; what other way to get through all the cognitive dissonance? Sometimes addiction is the only choice one can take after a long enough battle with all of the other sophisms.

An interesting corrosive belief is the idea that one “deserves” things. Though I could doubt it ever came to view other than within palaces and verandas with the sea sparkling ahead, servants waiting on your demand. Now today we’re all personal people Of Caliber, and thus of course, of course, everyone “deserves” everything. It seems to work, if you were raised that way… though there is no ending that’d be satisfactory. Given everything and yet so one demands more; given nothing and so one feels slighted and condemned to a short life of bitterness and an inability to understand that Nature doesn’t owe you anything. Never owed anything even if you think you are: all contracts and IOUs are contingent on your ability see it through.

There are more tragic forms of this chronic sophism, often captured in an “evolutionary” process. What worked for thousands of years prior of the family continued inevitably reaches a breaking point: gone in another generation, two. Whatever strategies weren’t ultimately agreeable to reality. I suppose one could see this through history by the slaughter of the prior ruling class so certain, or the classic “rags-to-riches-to-rags”.

The scariest forms of chronic sophism are how they can take you to your grave unknowingly. One amusing example are those who project that everyone is exactly like them, with the same sensibilities and how atrocities are only examples in history. If you just love people and torturers enough they’ll love you back! Naively walking about so sure Love Is Everything until decapitated. To fatally learn the monsters within men never left.

Indeed, this very outpost could be another case of chronic sophism. I could very well be entertaining many destructive beliefs that lead me to write here. The worst part about this chronic sophism, or plain stupidity, is how long it takes to unravel. Or that it never does.

In fact, I am privy to a very obvious type of chronic sophism: the website builder project I was working on. It’s a classic mistake, where you build and build without ever asking would anyone actually want to use this or, more importantly, for server costs, pay to use it. As I rack around for any reason, I mean, I don’t even pay to use this place why would I pay elsewhere? I don’t have an answer. There are incremental improvements to be made… but I don’t understand what exactly would make it a service that one would pay for. I think this is why I’ve been dragging my feet on continuing with it: I wish I saw the value proposition more clearly.

But one could suppose the first step is to acknowledge you could be sporting some chronic sophism, today. Indeed, even the monks and enlightened ones so admit, the very concept of one’s “I” story is chronic sophism that humanity clings to heavily. How many are so burdened by their “life trajectory” and replay their entire “life story”, repeatedly, driving them crazy!

My favorite form of chronic sophism that I consistently fall for is how words themselves are so magical. If you find the perfect configuration then everything will be alright! I worked it out in my head after all. But only those who live beyond words are the ones who figured it out.

Sometimes words-above-reality can be so intense that people argue semantics and how perfect the forms appear, all the while ignoring that which is immediate and tangible to their detriment. You can pace back and forth on the True Spiritual Configuration only to let the crops rot in waiting; I guess you’ll find out if you were right by the end.

The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish,
and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten.

The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits.
When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten.

The purpose of words is to convey ideas.
When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten.

Where can I find a man who has forgotten words?
He is the one I would like to talk to.