Continuing ragnarist symptoms

Introduction to Ragnarism

Symptoms, Part 1

Weather

The natural environment is one of the enemies of hateful minds. As discussed before, the primary (yet unattainable) goals of the fearful mind are order and control. The weather represents one of the most disorderly phenomenon of human habitats. For a long time, people have been pouring billions of dollars into meteorology in an attempt to learn how to predict the weather. Computers were invented and developed precisely for this purpose, to handle all the variables necessary to help predict the weather. The ultimate goal of prediction is control. Once prediction is 100% accurate, fearful minds believe that they will be able to then move to the next stage and take control of the weather, finally removing the uncertainty it provides.

100% accuracy of prediction will not be attainable, however. Firstly, because according to the Uncertainty Principle, advanced meteorologists will not be able to measure whether or not they are exactly right, because they will never know everything about the particles making up their weather equations. And secondly, because without that knowledge, they will never be able to make wholly complete predictions about the future of said particles. Yet, the “mapping-ahead” prediction of weather remains one of the fixations of the fearful mind. While the peaceful mind accepts the weather and goes on with life, the fearful mind is excessively interested in predictions of the weather, to attempt to gain control over the uncertainty of their future.

Lawns and Shrubbery

Lawns also provide a good crucible for life. In the natural world, grass grows up, sometimes so high that it denies sufficient light to the lower strands, who then become yellow and turn into fertilizer for later generations of grass. Across the surface of its natural growth, it develops endless, unchartable variations of height that cause a furor in minds fearing the disorder and randomness of the world.

To a mind seeking to resist and repress life, these natural variances are the enemy. As such, lawns must be kept under control by regularly mowing them to a rigid height, turning the grass into a neatly segmented geometrical block of color. The lawn must be excessively watered, so that it maintains an even shade of green. If planted in an area which does not naturally support grass because of its climate, the lawn must be reseeded and fertilized and watered even more, because life cannot be trusted to handle itself: it must, instead, be controlled with an iron fist.

Development

Shrubbery is another arena of control over nature. Trees cannot be trusted to grow in any random spot where nature has seeded them. Instead, the fearful mind prefers to place them in orderly positions, even if those locations cannot sustain their life and strength. Bushes and hedges must be chopped and mutilated so that they maintain life only within an orderly geometric area that has been designated to them.

I used to wonder why housing developers would move into an area, chop up everything and level the ground off, then save a handful of trees in pots on the back of their giant trucks in order to plant between the road dividers later on. The trees would be too weak to survive on their own, having to be taped to wooden posts just to stand. If the theoretical purpose of these hideous acts was to enjoy the trees, was there not some better way to go about it than the transplant? No, because the real purpose was control and rigidity. Of course this process is not sustainable, healthy, or real. It is merely part of the struggle of the fearful mind to control the disorderly way in which natural trees grow. Displaying it ravaged and pegged up as part of a roadway divider, a decoration around an entryway sign or the fancy name of a housing development, is like displaying the flayed corpse of a disobedient medieval peasant to other peasants considering not paying their taxes. It sends a message to nature, and to the disorderly and beautiful universe, that life is under control here, under control by power- and order-hungry minds. It is momentarily reassuring to other fearful minds, in much the same way that a medieval lord fearful of losing his position will be reassured by the sight of a flayed peasant when he comes to dine with his friend. “Ah--things are under control here.” He can breathe easy and feel temporarily safe through the demonstration.

This is why American suburbia was characterized by the lawn behind the white picket fence. The uniform block of green lawn represents that nature has been brought under control. The picket fence and straight sidewalk to the house demonstrate the same. This is also why corporations, self-producing singularities of “logos” and identical copies of the same “product,” enjoy rigid geometric displays of grass and shrubbery control. They also insist upon employing regular teams of nature-control agents who will ravage the shrubbery for them. The sidewalks must be swept so that no aberrant leaves disturb those who walk on the bare concrete. Bushes must be constantly fought to keep them from extending their filthy limbs through walking or window space. Leaves and other natural detritus may not even be dropped on the ground, between the bushes, because it will distract from the orderly appearance of the rock or grass arrangements underneath them. Spare the rod, spoil the child!

Oil and Solar Power

The more beloved way for a fearful mind to attempt to control a lawn or chop limbs from trees is with the use of a lawnmower or hedge clipper that relies on burning gasoline rather than human exertion. Hateful minds are fond of gasoline-powered machines because burning gas, which is created from oil, is burning the decayed corpses of microorganisms that lived millions of years ago. However, even if they are not aware of the origins of oil, they enjoy burning it because it shuns the natural source of earth’s energy: the sun. The sun will be around for billions of years; it burns constantly; it is the most readily available source of energy on this earth. The energy inside oil itself comes from the sun.

The fearful mind does not like energy from the sun, because the sun is a constant reminder of the fearful mind’s lack of control and singularity. The fearful mind is unable to control whether clouds will come out, unable to keep the sun from moving around the sky, and unable to make it daytime or nighttime when it wishes. Likewise, the fearful mind shies from wind power, because the wind cannot be controlled.

An energy source that can be controlled is oil. Because it represents a “battery” of sun energy stored through photosynthesis within the bodies of organisms from millions of years ago, it is a more reliable, more predictable way for the fearful mind to gain energy. It prefers a cold, black, liquid battery instead of the sun, even if the process of utilizing energy from that dead battery is smelly, loud, and disgusting. Indeed, the foul burning and refining processes that allow energy to be drawn from oil are a blessing to the fearful mind, because they are an attack on the tranquility of the natural world.

Oil and Cars

This is why fearful minds prefer loud, smelly, consumptive vehicles. It may not be wise for their wallets or convenient to their urban lifestyle to, say, drive a vehicle six times as large as they need. However, it is an expression of power and control. The great noise it creates upsets the equilibrium of the natural environment and tricks the human into thinking that he or she has exerted some manner of control. Its size can also fool the human into feeling shielded, isolated, and singular. Its ability to consume and destroy more than it needs flies in the face of the way natural things reach a state of balance with their environment.

Nuclear weapons and mass Destruction

One massive quandary for me as a youth was the question of nuclear bombs. I would agonize with worry at the thought that, during the Cold War, some madmen might actually consider using nuclear weapons. How insane could you possibly be, I wondered, to even begin to consider employing in your defense a device that released deadly radiation over a large area? Let alone more than one? Wouldn’t it be preferable to die, or even to--dare say!--compromise, or make concessions, in order to avoid killing yourself, and billions of others, and kill them slowly, by poisoning the ground, the water, and the atmosphere itself by flooding things with bomb after bomb filled with radioactive particles?

As always, the theory of stupidity came back to save me. I ended up concluding that anyone who would use nuclear bombs was “stupid.” Well, maybe I was right. But viewing the quandary anew under the concept of a fearful mind offers a better explanation. Indeed, it is utter madness to think that so many people accepted or were willing to carry out the concept of a shared nuclear exchange during the Cold War. What would be left to save? Once something got started, where would it stop? The mere idea of being willing to let loose such unfathomable terrors is a bluntly hideous evil that stands directly contradictory to any concepts of mercy, peace, and life. But to the fearful mind, this is all par for the course.

Instruments of death and destruction are always fascinating to the fearful mind, because the fearful mind is the hateful mind. Destruction is the only way to attempt to bring about order, because once something has been demolished it is no longer capable of disorderly acts. Death is the ultimate expression of order; the ultimate victory over life and our living universe. Nonexistence stands as the opposite of existence. As existence is constantly fluid and changing, nonexistence is forever one single way. It is orderly and perfectly under control. Everything balances out, and all equations can be completed without trouble. The nonexistence of death and destruction is continually sought by the fearful mind, because it offers an end to the struggle with deviant thoughts. Hateful minds perpetually rush to fill the fearful void with more, more, more weapons and destructive potential. It is never enough.

This is the reason for the creation of terrible weapons. This is the reason for the willingness to use terrible weapons: because however it is expressed, it actually represents a desire to wipe out life. This seems like a simple conclusion--that those who want to kill have serious problems and could be the death of us all--but raw tons of stinking propaganda have somehow managed to muddle the issue and convince otherwise reasonable people that it is acceptable to argue for poisoning and destroying the human population.

People who on the surface appear good-natured and loving can, if they fear the multi-faceted nature of their mind, fall victim to the hate of life. They may say they love their children, regularly donate to charity, help old ladies with their groceries, and then casually mention that they are “willing to use ultimate force” to teach this or that faction a lesson, even if it could bring retaliation in kind. They would say that they don’t “want” such a thing, but that would be a falsity; being “willing” to use said force merely means that they imagine themselves wanting to do so, if merely the conditions were right.

Sex, Evolution

Sex is one of the most loathed concepts of those who hate life. This stems in large part from the fact that it can create life. The reproductive process itself is bane to the hateful mind, because it cannot be controlled. As mentioned earlier, when two people reproduce the child will have some different characteristics than either of them. This is not just because of the random mixing and matching of the parents’ characteristics between the child. It is also affected by the natural process of mutation, whereby--just as particles pop in and out of existence in a vacuum at random--life evolves and changes even as it is created. Without these random mutations during reproduction at the subatomic level, it might never have changed from single-celled organisms to starfish, ducks, and chimpanzees.

These random mutations that life undergoes are loathsome to the fearful mind, because they cannot be controlled or predicted. They are proof with each new child that the world is disorderly, just like each unexpected gust of wind. Fearful minds attempt to counter this by fabricating theories of human “creation” or “crafting,” as out of mud, wherein a singular deity creates mankind directly as mankind, rather than by going through a random process of cellular mutation. Even without biology, minds at peace can easily imagine that humans were not always the same, simply by seeing themselves change over the course of their lives, seeing different children being born, or by watching generations of flowers and crops and using the imagination. Likewise, well before Christian creationism hateful minds can and have conjured up visions of humans being created purposefully by a singular force.*

The most important reason for the hatred of sex, however, is not its connection to life, because many who battle against sex are not even consciously aware of, or accepting of, the mutative properties of life. Rather, it is the battle with the individual mind’s own sexual drive that spawns much of the public behavior toward sex. As a part of life, human instinct is a constant natural drive that continually assaults the fearful mind with reminders of its own lack of control. Instinct is one of the providers of the “deviant thoughts” that upset the false singular view of the self at the base of the fearful mind. Among these deviant thoughts are sexual urges, which never stop reminding the fearful mind that no matter how they dislike it, they remain a part of a real, changing, living world.

The struggle within the mind is cataclysmic. The fearful individual tells him or herself that he or she is singular and in control of their thoughts and actions. They focus fervently on this belief, perhaps praying, perhaps meditating, perhaps just squeezing their eyes shut and concentrating. Then they get up and attempt to go through the world. But then--bam!--their mind generates a sexual urge. They are guilty and shamed that they could have thought something so wicked. They are afraid of the depths of their own mind, and wonder how “they”--their singularness--could have produced such a thing. Are they wicked themselves, through and through? Are they defined solely by that foul sexual thought they just experienced? They must be, because they are singular. But no, they believe they can control it, so they fight it back down. The sexual instinct, however, remains a powerful one, and the battle will continue as long as they are alive, unless they manage to alter their chemistry or biology enough to flee entirely from sexual life.

The sexual battle within the head can never be healthily resolved. Many who attempt to repress their sexuality have, as when attempting to plug a geyser, outbursts that result in even more negative behavior than that they were attempting to repress originally, such as imposing their sexual will on a weaker person, after which they may regain control for a time. A more simple way for them to win this battle, though, is by acting it out in the larger world. In the larger world, they can “win,” because while fearful minds cannot control the thoughts in their own head, they can control what their mouths say. Thus, fearful minds can group together for the purpose of bolstering one another’s sexual repressions by play-acting perfect expressions of anti-sexuality.

For example, fearful minds can form social groups where sexual activity is rigidly controlled, and where they congratulate one another incessantly on their victory over sexuality, while at the same time lambasting others for not winning that same victory (an act which is in itself self-congratulatory). These constant congratulations are needed to continually reinforce the charade that they have each won the battle inside their heads, which they never have and never will. Nonetheless, the charades must continue. For example, religious groups will congregate and discuss the sexual sins of their community at large, feeling superior as they bolster their own image of triumph. Occasionally, they may confess weak moments and deviant thoughts or urges to one another as part of a ritual celebration of the greater victory against sex.

* Of course, the divide between “creationist” and “evolutionary” views of the world is not the end-all determinant of which minds are fearful or peaceful, or how much. No one fearful mind will necessarily exhibit all of the fearful characteristics, just as no peaceful mind will be immune from every failed search for order. Indeed, many fear- and hate-based religious organizations now accept evolution simply because they wish to be seen as scientific even as they perpetuate their core messages. This phenomenon will likely occur similarly should any of the other trends discussed here--like the use of solar energy--become overwhelming enough to cause a shift in fearful-mind behavior. The primary and most important defining conflict of the fearful mind begins within their own thoughts, irrespective of public actions, and the trends discussed here are merely the way they are playing out within a certain period of time.