The aim is not to be reactionary, nor “revolutionary”, in the standard sense of the overthrowing of government.  The aim, if ever there were a singular one, is to develop an ethos and spirit which will stand the test of time (and human incompetence).  I am under the impression that these are, indeed, the end times, and there is a need for some bastion of human excellence to survive the coming judgment (“Lif and Lifthrasir”).

The principles, then, are conglomeration and solidification: the bringing together of all individuals of sufficient vision, fervour, and intelligence; the subsequent ordering of these individuals into groups reflecting their skills, merits, and aptitude; the focusing of these groups on goals relative to their principles, all enabling the end goal of Hessian self-sufficiency.

A culture need not necessarily have a host people/State, but it is easier to abide by the dictum of a culture within a State centred on the principles of that culture.  It may become necessary (it is already a good idea) to form a Hessian State, recognised as autonomous or not, within land suitable to our purposes (likely Alaska, Canada, or Siberia).  Primarily, I envision a tribal social structure, devolved “government”, and authority based more on ability than precedent (though ability, of course, is based quite a bit on precedent).  Technology willl be used and advanced, though only for practical ends.  “Frivolity” or “whimsy” of the modern kind must be curtailed within immediate generations.  Much of life will be devoted to individual and familial survival, the pursuit of understanding, and, depending upon one’s position in the society, teaching, administration of a minor sort (given general self-government), and, in all likelihood, war.  I am unsure as to the position (or even the necessity) of currency, though is will likely come to be practical after solidification.  There shall be no money-lending, as this is a mark of a materialistic society.

There’s little point in deciding upon the precise details at the outset – these are likely to be sorted out by following general principles with which we are all acquainted.  Essentially, the ideal of Vir must be followed (irrespective of gender!), to the utmost.  Success in this endeavour shall ensure the recognition of Hessian spirit and culture as distinct and powerful in their own rights.  Our separation from the modern West shall further assure eventual sovereignty, hopefully before, but certainly during the collapse of this current human world.

I’m drafting a list of general ideals towards which we should strive.  This is the first.

The primary tenet is as follows:

Act so that you have the least possible negative impact upon the world.

This will later be mediated by subsequent tenets, but, as a “first commandment”, I find it satisfactory, for various reasons: it is not a direct command (as in “thou shalt not kill”), and inference and personal understanding are required of the individual.  This is beyond simpler concepts of “good and evil”, as the constitution of “negative” must be explored and understood by the individual, rather than proscribed by a teacher or leader (more on that later).  I see this also as being a step towards an understanding of Holism and Kamma (Cause and Effect): one will, through exploration of the concept, begin to see that the results of immediately “negative” actions (destruction, killing, dishonesty) may be positive in the long run.  As previously stated, the tenet does not mean “do no evil”; it means “consider the fruits of your actions before you act” and “act in the way most beneficial to all things”, simultaneously.

The tenet requires that we be eternally vigilant, and constantly assess our situation and actions, steering our course to avoid disaster, rather than blindly charging ahead into the maelstrom of morality, where the paths of “good” and “evil” are shadowy and intertwined.  After all, without God, we are amoral creatures.

Consider the birth of a physically or mentally malformed child.  The correct course of action as regards the child is that which will minimise difficulty and suffering (as necessary as such things are, they are provided in ample quantities for all existing entities [samsara]).  If it can be foretold that both child and parents will suffer for the mere life of the child, the child must be executed, as abhorrent as the idea may be seen to life-worshipers.  We, however, worship Death, and are not bound by frivolous concerns over corporeal existence.  Learn from the Spartans of old: only the fit and healthy will survive.

Consider a hospital in which there are seven patients, all with particular organ failures – they will die within the week if they are not given the necessary transplants, and the waiting list is months long.  You are a doctor, trying desperately hard to save these seven individuals, when a lone traveler, unattached to the world, enters your hospital for a regular check up.  He is perfectly healthy, and his blood type matches that of the seven patients, miraculously.  You have a choice to make: do you kill the traveler, who will not be missed, to provide the organs necessary for the seven other patients?  This would be said to be an immoral action: “murder is evil”, they say, regardless of whether it would save more people from death.  It is more wrong to kill than to allow to die.  However, upon inspection of the histories of the individuals in question, it is discovered that the seven patients are all scientists and doctors of high renown; the supposed “traveler” is, in fact, a criminal who has fled his country after committing a severe number of rapes and murders.  The choice should be simple.

From the DLA forum:

I have no idea what to call this, but it’s essentially the kind of music I think I’m writing at the moment for Wiht.  It’s based technically in Black Metal – tremolo picked riffs, d/blast beats, “shrieked” vocals etc. – but that’s essentially where similarities end.  Black Metal evokes darkness, occasionally even melancholy, in the listener, while still, at its heights, emanating power and force.  When I first started writing Metal, this is the atmosphere I tried to create, and, probably because I’m not of a suitable disposition to do anything groundbreaking in this mood, I never quite “clicked” with it, and my compositions suffered as a result.  Now, I’m allowing myself more free reign, and I find that I tend towards melodies (important point there) and riffs which are focused almost enitrely on evoking a sense of sheer power and exuberance in the listener, a primal “joy”, for want of a better word.  The feeling of having just killed three enemies on the field in quick succession, tinged with the knowledge that the battle is far from over, never mind the war; the sense of being the Cimmerian, fighting an uneven battle, with death looming over you at each second, while your companions’ lives hang in the balance; ultimately, the notion of being the God, watching heroes struggle to act as best they can, faced with seemingly insurmountable horrors.

As ever, it’s very hard for me to accurately describe, in writing, the emotions which I’m attempting to bring about, which is why I choose music as my medium.  So far, I’ve all but finished two songs in this style, and a fair amount of “transition” material between last year’s purposefully “pagan” material and what I’m attempting to summon now.  I’ll break down some of the important points (or, at least, the points which are, to me, important):

1.  Melodies.  Rather than sticking to the idea of “the riff” – riff A x 4, riff B x 4, riff A2 x 4, etc. – I’ve started writing “riffs” of sufficient length that they feel completed after being played once (or twice, for emphasis/crescendo), which, I would say, qualifies them as “melodies”, albeit recurrent ones, depending on the song.  This is, in my view, the musical equivalent of moving from 16-bit to 32-bit processors.

2.  Harmonies.  I put a lot of harmony into my work (as well as counterpoint).  I use three guitars, and possibly a bass in the future, so why should all three guitars play one guitar line all the time?  One of the biggest annoyances of a lot of modern “Metal” is that the guitar work is absolutely static, and the presence of more than one guitar is so that there can be a backing riff for all of the wank-tastic solos that come after the second chorus.

3.  Expanding riffs.  This is more of a continuation of what I was doing last year, but I generally don’t repeat riffs as they appeared previously, either in an earlier section of a song, or even consecutively.  I’ve also started considering fusing riffs to create a new riff, either one after the other, or on top of each other (“layering”, as in Summoning, for example).  This can, of course, work the other way – a riff using counterpoint can be deconstructed, and each part can be played as a riff of its own, or fused with other parts.  Given that I absolutely love relating parts of (or entire) songs to others (the storyteller in me), this becomes a good method of melding and breaking apart “themes”, with the possibility of the end product seeming unrelated to the original without knowledge of the journey between the two points.

(4.  Clean vocals; choral work.  I haven’t (yet) put any of this into the two songs which I’ve written most recently for Wiht, but it’s something which I’d really like to do, especially considering some of the thematic content of the songs that I’ve written/am writing.  Deathmetal.org made a point about “unmoving and halfhearted chants” being the “blight of heathen metal”, and I absolutely agree, which is why I’m going to have any clean vocals be more reminiscent of Hansi Kürsch’s choruses for Blind Guardian, or Fenriz’s bellows on Isengard, than the standard lifeless warble of Heidevolk/Ensiferum/Forefather and co.)

(5.  No drums?  I’m toying with the idea of writing some guitar-only [or guitar and vocal] pieces, or at least diminishing the drumming to time-keeping toms, so as to let the actual music shine through.  The only problem with this is that quite a lot of the dramatic effect of metal riffs comes from the accentuation of the guitar parts by cymbal hits and drum rolls.  This will probably depend on whether I develop any thematic material which would make more sense without drums.)

The latter two aren’t as important as the former three, which are what make this music stand out from the rest of the epic, melodic, pagan-tinged pop metal being shelved out today.

Modern Hindu and Buddhist traditions share a common origin in the Indian religions of the 5th century BCE, thus it is unsurprising to note that there are many similarities between them. Both religions acknowledge a cycle of life, death, and rebirth, known as samsara (“continuous flow”), which is characterised by dukkha (“suffering”), and which can only be ended by the rejection of all illusions and false beliefs, thereby attaining moksha (“release”) in Hinduism, or nirvana (literally “blowing out”) in Buddhism[1][2]. Even these two concepts are similar, the former referring to the individual attaining oneness with Brahman – the Hindu concept of the Absolute, a single God which is all existences and possibilities – the latter referring to the obtention of a state of complete emptiness, a passivity which allows one to merely exist with all things[3]. Both moksha and nirvana promise an end to karma (“deed” or “result”), the law of cause and effect which rewards good actions with good results and bad actions with bad results, dictates one’s lot in a next life, and the nullification of which leads to transcendence of samsara. However, even with so much convergence, there are still many differences between Hinduism and Buddhism when it comes to karma and samsara.

In Hinduism, the concept of atman refers to the eternal and unchanging soul[4], a true self which is incarnated in a physical body until the death of that body, and is then reincarnated in a new body, and so on, ad infinitum, until moksha is attained[5]. Atman is the individual soul which persists through all of an individual’s lives and afterlife, and which holds the karma generated by all of the lives lived in the physical world. Upon the death of the physical body, the atman leaves, according to some traditions to visit heavens or hells and establish its karmic debt before coming into flesh once more, according to other traditions to be immediately pulled into a new body fit for the karma and soul of the individual in question. In Hinduism, the method of releasing oneself from the cycle of samsara is to recognise this atman, the true self, thus dispelling all illusion: for example. in the Dvaita Vedanta (“dualistic Vedanta”) school of Hindu philosophy, attaining moksha results in the atman recognising itself as part of an even greater being, known as paramatman, an aspect of Brahman. Ultimately, an individual can only attain moksha once all of their karma has been experienced, and they have no more desire to be reborn.

Conversely, Buddhism openly rejects the concept of atman, as the idea of a perfect, unchanging and individual entity goes against the Buddhist concept of anicca, “impermanence”[6], by which it is understood that all things are in constant motion, and that nothing is static. Buddhists use the term atman to refer to the propensity of consciousness to consider itself separate from all other things, rather then the actuality of separateness. To combat this supposed delusion of conscious beings, Buddhists consider the concept of anatta (“not-self”), which states that the entire idea of there being an individual subjective experience – an “I”, or a “me” – is an illusion[7]. Buddhists do not believe in the reincarnation of a being, as they do not believe that being (atman) to exist – rather, they consider consciousness to detach itself from the dead and, due to a desire to continue existing and experiencing the material realm[8] (as in Hinduism), be reborn in a new body, without retaining any individual identity (thus differing from Hinduism), though potentially retaining some aspects of the past existence.

This concept of anatta has certainly had an influence on later Hindu philosophies. In Advaita Vedanta (“non-dualistic Vedanta”), moksha is attained through the recognition of the true self, as in Dvaita Vedanta. However, the true self is then further recognised as being no different from Brahman itself. It is understood that the concept of individuality is illusory, and that all things are Brahman[9]. The state of moksha is described as being one with Brahman, as opposed to the Dvaita concept of being with Brahman, separately, as a part of paramatman. Advaita Vedanta, like Buddhism, makes no distinction between self and reality once release from samsara has been achieved. However, unlike Buddhism, the concept of atman is welcomed, and is seen as being an intrinsic part of the nature of Brahman, rather than a delusion created by a devolved consciousness.

Despite subtle differences in the mechanics of rebirth or reincarnation, many of the beliefs associated with karma and samsara are the same between Hinduism and Buddhism. Both Hinduism and Buddhism recognise karma as being an intrinsic aspect of cause and effect, and as affecting numerous things such as events in one’s own life, events in future lives, and even the very life to which one is reincarnated or reborn. Both religions recognise that one who had been a human may be reborn as an animal, or perhaps even as a spirit, in some forms of Buddhism, or Deva or Devi (God or Goddess) in some forms of Hinduism. Some Theistic Hindu philosophies associate karma with their God or Gods, and even believe that the placation of a Deity may rid oneself of bad karma earned either in one’s own life or earned in a past life.

In Hinduism, karma is broken down into three subcategories: Prarabdha (“commenced”) karma, being the results of past actions which have accumulated and are to be experienced during the life of an individual; Kriyamana (“being created”) karma, which is the karma being generated by the actions of an individual during his lifetime, being either good or bad karma in reflection of the morality or immorality of the actions in question; Sanchita (“accumulated”) karma, which is the total karma built up over all past lives and the life being lived, and which must be entirely dispelled through successive physical existences before an individual can attain moksha. All actions create some amount of karma; however, it is stressed in the Bhagavad Gita that actions undertaken by a detached individual, that is, one who is not concerned by the results of his actions, but acts as he must at the time according to Dharma (“duty”), will lead an individual to perfection, whereas actions undertaken with attachment lead to delusion[10]. Perhaps it is implied that action without attachment will lead to such a general loss of Sanchita karma that an individual’s actions will only yield immediate karma, instantly dispelled, even if this process takes a number of lives to fulfill. One’s karma directly influences one’s reincarnation, to the extent that it is sometimes believed that one is born into a particular varna (“caste”) according directly to one’s karma, and the aptitude of one’s soul towards the actions required of an individual of that varna.

Buddhism takes a slightly different, though generally similar view of karma. In Buddhism, karma can mean either “action” or “result”, and is broken down into only two categories: Kusala (“wholesome”) karma, being the results of good actions, and Akusala (“unwholesome”) karma, being the results of bad actions. However, whereas Hinduism focuses on the actions (and all actions) themselves, Buddhism tends to focus more on those actions which were intended by the actor, and, furthermore, on the intention itself[11]. While Hinduism attaches karma to individuals, Buddhism attaches karma to reality – all actions have results, as per cause and effect, and karma is simply a manifestation of this law of cause and effect. It is not a spiritual or transcendent force, as it can be in Hinduism. The fundamental concept of reaping what one has sewn, however, is still within Buddhism, and as it is not a separate, eternal individual who suffers or enjoys the fruits of his or her actions, it is known to be consciousness itself, as a grand, overarching entity (of a kind), which both suffers and causes suffering. It could be construed, thence, that nirvana must be a state of unconsciousness, for consciousness itself is dukkha, according to Buddha[12].

Buddhism and Hinduism represent two possible evolutions from relatively similar origins. Buddhism focuses fervently on the concepts of anatta, anicca, and dukkha, stating that all existence is suffering, that atman is an illusion, and that there is nothing permanent in existence. Hinduism, on the other hand, while accepting the concept of samsara and suffering in the physical world, sees the true self as being a permanent and unchanging entity, and either a part of or synonymous with Brahman, “all-that-is”.

[1] “Samsara is the endless cycle of birth and rebirth to which each soul is subject until it obtains liberation (mukti or moksha) in brahman.” – Weightman, Simon, (1996) “Hinduism” from Hinnels, John R. A New Handbook of Living Religions chapter 5, Blackwell Publishing

[2] “The escape is nibbana (Sanskrit nirvana), for the Buddhist the supreme bliss and the final liberation.” – Cousins, L.S., (1996) “Buddhism” from Hinnels, John R. A New Handbook of Living Religions chapter 5, Blackwell Publishing

[3] “The individual who reaches this final goal experiences great joy and happiness. All doubts and burdens are gone. His mind is free from prejudice and complication. He has a firm knowledge of freedom and liberation.” – ibid.

[4] “There never was a time when I was not, or you, or these rulers of men. Nor will there ever be a time when we shall cease to be, all of us hereafter.” – Krishna, Bhagavad Gita, 2.12

[5] “As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.” – ibid. 2.22

[6] “Anicca: Everything is limited to a certain duration and, consequently, liable to disappear. ” – Monk Dhamma Sami, (2001) “Three Characteristics”, en.dhammadana.org/dhamma/3_characteristics.htm, Translated 2001 by Thierry Lambrou.

[7] “According to the teaching of the Buddha, the idea of self is an imaginary, false belief which has no corresponding reality, and it produces harmful thoughts of ‘me’ and ‘mine’, selfish desire, craving, attachment, hatred, illwill, conceit, pride, egoism, and other defilements, impurities and problems.” – Walpola Rahula, (1974) What the Buddha Taught p. 37, New York: Grove Press

[8] “Thus the terms ‘thirst’, ‘volition’, ‘mental volition’ and ‘karma’ all denote the same thing : they devote the desire, the will to be, to exist.” – ibid. p. 22

[9] “The first step in the direction of true knowledge is to give up all activities (karma) that are the driving force of the universe…” – Olivelle, Patrick, (2003) “The Renouncer Tradition” from Gavin Flood, The Blackwell companion to Hinduism pp.271-287, Oxford: Blaclwell Publishing Ltd.

[10] “Therefore, without attachment, always do whatever action has to be done; for it is through acting without attachment that a man attains the highest.” – Krishna, Bhagavad Gita, 3.19

[11] “It is the only volitional actions- such as attention, will, determination, confidence, concentration, wisdom, energy, desire, repugnance or hate, ignorance, conceit, idea of self, etc.- that can produce karmic effects.” – Walpola Rahula, ob. id. p. 16

[12] “Whatever is impermanent is dukkha. This is the true meaning of the Buddha’s words: ‘In brief the five Aggregates of Attachment are dukkha.’” – ibid.

Bibliography:

Cousins, L.S., (1996) “Buddhism” from Hinnels, John R. A New Handbook of Living Religions chapter 5, Blackwell Publishing

Dhama Sami, Dhammadana (http://en.dhammadana.org), translation by Thierry Lambrou (2001), accessed 26/02/11

Johnson, W.J., (2008) The Bhagavad Gita, Oxford University Press

Olivelle, Patrick, (2003) “The Renouncer Tradition” from Gavin Flood, The Blackwell companion to Hinduism pp.271-287, Oxford: Blaclwell Publishing Ltd.

Walpola Rahula, (1974) What the Buddha Taught, New York: Grove Press

Weightman, Simon, (1996) “Hinduism” from Hinnels, John R. A New Handbook of Living Religions chapter 5, Blackwell Publishing

Another older article, this time about what it means to be “Black Metal”.

Losing the theatrics of the early and mid ’90s – Euronymous’s constant attempts to portray both the Norwegian scene and himself, as the leader of the scene, as “evil”; the exterior façade of Les Légions Noires, seeking to out-do the Norwegians’ supposed Satanism – many purveyors of modern Black Metal experience only cold, sharp capitalism. To the mind of the mundane man, the entirety of what occurred in Black Metal, both musically and otherwise, is “entertainment”, a short distraction from the drudgery of everyday life, something to laugh and joke about with friends and colleagues. Money goes in; fun comes out. We’ve already ascertained that these people will leave the movement alone, as, indeed, they are doing now, with the endless waves of Hipster Black Metal beginning to falter and fail, and the dominion of Hessiandom rising. However, what is left of something once it has been milked for all it was ever worth?

We should reject the usage of the term “Black Metal” to refer to a specific style of music, a specific way of playing and writing. The core ideas which influenced the early musicians (and by “early musicians”, I’m referring to the second wave, circa ’89 to ’94) yielded vastly different forms of music, from the doomy, atmospheric dream-journeys of Burzum, to the lightning fast battle songs of Immortal, with forays into the musical landscapes of Emperor and the Wintry occultism of Darkthrone and Mayhem. From a technical point of view, Darkthrone stated that palm-muting “was not Black Metal”, despite the fact that Burzum used palm-muting up to and including Hvis Lyset Tar Oss. Euronymous’s playing style relied on tremolo picking and ringing minor chords, whereas Burzum and Emperor made copious use of broken chords and dissonance. Darkthrone inhabited a realm of their own, focusing on absolute simplicity, and rarely deviating from tremolo picked intervals/single notes played over blast/d beats. Even vocal styles were vastly different between these bands, with Burzum opting for the trademark wail, Emperor making use of a subtlely disturbing screech, Darkthrone employing mid-range growls, and Mayhem’s Attila delving into the inner workings of the human voice on every single track, unveiling the extremities of tone and effect therein.

The prime concern of the moment, therefore, is not a solidification of style (which was never the intention until the “third wave” of musicians arrived), but, rather, a solidification of intent. What is the purpose of our music? What are we attempting to evoke (or invoke)? How is our understanding of Reality and its many facets translated into sonic Art?

The observed traits of Black Metal are as follows; understanding of the failures of the modern (human) world (consumerism, materialism, capitalism, individualism); hearkening back to ancient values and concerns (truth, honour, glory, God); respect and reverence for Nature and the natural world (forests, the Moon, wolves); submission to the inevitability of Reality through acceptance of our intrinsic yet surpassable humanity (tl;dr: WAR, bloodshed, struggle); opposition, playing the devil’s advocate (quite literally – “Satanism”, “Nazism”, and so on).

The goal of any artistic endeavour is to “lift the veil from Reality”, in the immortal words of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Through Black Metal, we sift through the awful pleasantries of modern society (humanitarianism, political correctness, social guilt, etc.), and take a peek at what’s really there – Nature, the Supreme Ideal, Death, Suffering, and Power. We, as musicians and artists, must bring these things (and their compatriots) to the centre of our attention, so that we might best enlighten both ourselves and the listeners/viewers/readers.

First of a series of articles I wrote, only this was ever, and will ever be, published:

We inhabit a plurality of worlds, each of which fall in and out of the others, and of which only some are truly “real”, in the sense that they are eternal and indifferent to all other worlds. The two most prominent and common in the modern human’s life are the fundamental world – basic “Reality”, comprising physical and metaphysical objects and forces – and the human world, which is constructed entirely out of ideas, concepts, and memetic entities. The former is, as has been previously stated, indifferent. The latter cannot, by definition, be indifferent, as its very source is human conceptualisation.

There is a single and absolute Reality, which is self-perpetuating. This is what has, for aeons, been called “God”, in the highest sense of the word (Brahman). As humans have evolved and developed, they have constructed for themselves a fortress of humanity, which shields them from the harshness of this single and absolute Reality. We have tried desperately hard to rein in the real world, the forces of Nature, and all aspects of the divine and the mundane which we can experience. We claim land and shape it to our purpose, we build edifices to shelter and house us, we capture and train animals that we might, by our own ingenuity, be aided by an exterior force. As a result of the continuation of these actions, we now see ourselves as being fundamentally superior to all else that exists – certainly on this planet, if not in the entire knowable universe.

Of course, no individual would be so blasé as to state that the human race was the absolute pinnacle of existence, and all else was beneath us. We are not so consciously deceived – it takes no time at all to consider the scenario of a man locked in a room with a ravenous tiger, and we would be hard pressed to favour the man in such a stand-off. However, despite our ability to fathom something greater or more powerful than ourselves, we constantly march against the simple truth that we are not all-powerful in the face of Nature. This leads to a myriad of problems, affecting both the objective Reality and the human world. I will not list these problems: they are evident to those who open their eyes.

I wrote this almost a year ago, and it deserves to be read by more than two people:

Reverence is a necessity, in a world where complacency is the norm. What are we, but the most infinitesimal specks of inanity, compared to the Glory of the Cosmos, the beauty of Nature, the quality of the absolute which is inherent to Reality? We are nothing to Existence, and Existence is everything to us. What right have we to believe it to be the other way around? What right have we to see ourselves as the centres of Existence? What right have we to proclaim that all Existence is void upon our cessation? We have no right, we have no rights, and Nature laughs at our feeble attempts at Power, as she dashes our heads against the rocks, time and time again. Ours is neither the most glorious nor the most prosperous Civilisation, and it is certainly not the most virtuous. We shall fall, as all Men have fallen before us, and all Men shall fall after us, and we shall be remembered in histories of the future as a decadent and futile Civilisation, a failed attempt at a Global Culture. Men conspired to reach the heavens, and so they built a great tower, but God was displeased by their efforts, and he destroyed their creation, and sundered Humanity, that Men might never attempt such a thing again.

Reverence and respect for the Earth that birthed us. Reverence for our Forefathers, our Ancestors, who understood this world, and passed their knowledge down to us. Respect for the Heroes who once walked this world, putting higher goals above themselves, yielding their entire being to greater purpose. What is money to the Man who will live a million lives? Are we not all such men? Is our soul not an eternal object, does our Life not continue, even once this shell is emptied of it? What madman would bear the curse of Karma for hollow joys in one life, while his soul suffers indignity in another life?

I have been born into a life of luxury and ease, and for that I am grateful. I do not need to fight for my food, or my water, or my shelter, I am placed above plants, animals, and common men, and my purpose is to become all that I can be. How many lives are easier than mine, and how many of those lives are wasted on frivolity? We are given life that we might become more than what we are, not so that we can become comfortable in what we are. I am only happy with being who I am, for I am one who strives to become more than he is, and even now, I see a loophole there, which allows me to become better than what I am, for I can strive harder; I can strive to strive, and strive at that, and so on, indefinitely, until my evolution becomes instantaneous, and I am thrust towards Godhead, and my birth will never again occur. For eternity, I will live in contemplative peace and serenity, knowing the eternal joy of continuous existence with God.