ADDICTION III 12/07/21
The self as in My Social Relations, is an accumulation of dreams, wishes and desires forming its image. As the senses, feelings and emotions become addicted, the image took on new meaning, came to life and took over the real person. (At this point, I want to make a claim that when we say 'be yourself' is not referring to the self but rather to the person.) The person becomes a slave to fulfil the wants and desires of the self. Thus the self is an entity.
Addiction is not limited to food or drugs and alcohol. It also dominates selfish behaviour. Such that someone is driven by desires to look good, have nice things and fashionable wares for the eyes, but also nice things to say for the ears.
So in keeping with aggregates, these selfish entities turn up in gatherings such as meetings, functions and services etc., to satisfy their desires. That is to feast their eyes and ears and indulge in reaction from others. It is possible that some traditional services have become aggregates for entities to fulfil their selfish desires. (For example, one guy never misses a community meeting because he likes the cakes. Change the cakes and he might not turn up again).
However, some other entities take the spotlight away, he/she is less noticeable than the successful one. And unsatisfied desires trigger negative emotions such as envious and jealousy to heightened instincts.
Usually, reasonable people are just as happy to credit and congratulate successful others for their efforts. But this is not a common practice in our material subjective world. Driven by instincts of negative emotions of unsatisfied desires, they set out on a warpath to destroy the object of their scorn like a wounded animal. And we are familiar with demonisation, character assassination, race discrimination, bully; the whole works.
And so it appears that the selfish entity is on a narrow vision path to indulge in one's own desires and at the same time destroying other entities on the way. The saying 'loneliness in a crowd' suits the occasion; a niche on the structure of reasonable thoughts of the second level.
On the ground level of developments, habits are consequences of demands of feelings and senses. Since senses are now contaminated by addictions, when one experiences a craving for something sweet and tasty, memory would indicate the location where the desire is met.
And habits have carved out a demographic map where desirable spots are located. The entity's behaviour is thus predictable or led by his/her nose. And we are also aware of habitual behaviour that is focused on selfish desires without consideration of others. So it is expected of habitual aggregations to be troublesome.
These habits have inherent filters through experience. For example, experiences of being ganged upon by others might shy one away from selfish attitude to be aware of others. And one might learn to let the big guys eat first and if anything is left is his/her lot. So a custom is sorted through ranks of size and may be kinship.
As we have learned through time and socialisation, we become more rational and allow women and children to have their meal first. It is culture that we become aware of the needs of others and to live among them in a peaceful and functional society.
Here in the modern, the entity has transformed to a corporation. And the single self's desire is not sufficient to meet the demand. So all the desires of the aggregated are accumulated to produce a decent return. And in so doing, we have returned to the self and its image on the ground level.
Well, in the age of Technology, we are perhaps required to be up with the abstract and virtual world. And at the same time, we need to be addicted and habitual in corporate entities in order to be sustainable.
It's a forceful organisation demanding on the mind to be up with the abstract and play dumb at the same time. It is likely to be the most unequal era divided by knowledge of technological industry and wealth. This in time of Climate Change, Refugee and Equity, it's not likely to be manageable in terms of sustainability.
This is demonstrated by the onslaught of covid-19 pandemic that poor countries depend on rich nations for vaccine handouts in order to prevent total wipe-out. It is a practical outcome of differences in technological development.
It is the result of Colonisation that witnessed the subordination of peoples and their cultures in the expansion of capitalists and landlords' market. Thus poor nations are disadvantaged and left behind. Their struggles in trade and developments maintain existing gaps and basis for consumer market.
What now for the natural world is none other than static on consumer mode. And that is; maintaining the image of the entity. Unless they return to nature and shred the image, their true persons remain slaves of the entity.