{"id":15854,"date":"2012-04-12T08:24:38","date_gmt":"2012-04-12T15:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=15854"},"modified":"2012-04-12T08:24:51","modified_gmt":"2012-04-12T15:24:51","slug":"from-man-alive-the-greatest-love-of-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/15854\/from-man-alive-the-greatest-love-of-all\/","title":{"rendered":"From Man Alive! – “The greatest love of all.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

From: Man Alive! A survival manual for the human mind.<\/em><\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

Extract from Chapter 5. The greatest love of all.<\/a><\/h3>\n

<\/a>What’s the purpose of life? Scruffy, bearded teenagers of all ages have been asking that question for thousands of years, and each one of them has come up with an answer even more ludicrous than the absurd prescription put forth by the previous nitwit. But here is the full answer to that age-old question:<\/p>\n

The purpose of human life is self-expression.<\/p>\n

The purpose of every organism’s life is to be lived, and since your own life, most fundamentally, is the life of your self, the purpose of your life is to make your self manifest in every way you can. This is a matter of ontology – of being. It sounds like shoulding – teleology – but in fact this is what you are regardless of what you or anyone else might say<\/em> about human nature. Every purposive action you take is taken first by<\/em> the self upon<\/em> the self, and this is the unavoidable consequence of your having come to be<\/em> a self. You didn’t cause this to happen – your parents did – and you could not have stopped the process even if you had known it was happening. Only a mind already<\/em> possessed of Fathertongue could even conceive<\/em> of the possibility of preventing the cultivation of Fathertongue in any human mind.<\/p>\n

You are a self as a matter of inescapable ontology. The effect was caused by volition, by choice, by an iterative shoulding process initiated by your parents. And of course it can be terminated – by your death or by a serious head injury. But the fact that you are<\/em> a self is a fact of being, not a behavior to be caused or prevented by shoulding. While you are a self, you cannot not<\/em> be a self. You can pretend you are not a self, albeit not as deceptively as you can pretend your house-cat is a vegan by feeding it nothing but spinach. But you are a self by no choice of your own, and you cannot stop<\/em> being a self Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From: Man Alive! A survival manual for the human mind. Extract from Chapter 5. The greatest love of all. What’s the purpose of life? Scruffy, bearded teenagers of all ages have been asking that question for thousands of years, and each one of them has come up with an answer even more ludicrous than the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,212,29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15854","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-egoism-in-action","7":"category-flourishing","8":"category-group-therapy","10":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":15845,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/15845\/from-man-alive-speaking-in-tongues\/","url_meta":{"origin":15854,"position":0},"title":"From Man Alive! – “Speaking in tongues.”","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 10, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"From: Man Alive! A survival manual for the human mind. Extract from Chapter 3. Speaking in tongues. One of the things that protects humanity from all of the philosophers and academics who insist that we are nothing special is the power of speech. Not speech deployed to argue against them;\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15820,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/15820\/sneezers-wanted-pre-release-announcement-for-my-new-book-man-alive-a-survival-manual-for-the-human-mind\/","url_meta":{"origin":15854,"position":1},"title":"Sneezers wanted: Pre-release announcement for my new book, “Man alive! A survival manual for the human mind.”","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 2, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"One of my favorite jokes about the art of advertising copywriting is a matchbook cover reading, \"Save the world from home in your spare time!\" I don't know if anyone still advertises on matchbook covers. I don't even know if anyone still makes matchbooks. Presumably, by now, smokers can light\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15851,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/15851\/from-man-alive-the-greatest-invention-in-the-history-of-humanity\/","url_meta":{"origin":15854,"position":2},"title":"From Man Alive! – “The greatest invention in the history of humanity.”","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"From: Man Alive! A survival manual for the human mind. Extract from Chapter 4. The greatest invention in the history of humanity. In the last chapter, I raised the idea of your being stranded on a desert island. That\u2019s a hugely unlikely scenario, but it\u2019s interesting to think about because\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2005,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2005\/the-common-denominator-of-success\/","url_meta":{"origin":15854,"position":3},"title":"The Common Denominator of Success","author":"Russell Shaw","date":"October 5, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Today I received two emails from Dean Selvey. One of them was a forward of an email from one of my least favorite people, Mike Ferry. Clicking on the link for the free audio allows you hear a 15 minute commercial for the Action Workshop. I can't say it isn't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Enduring Interest"","block_context":{"text":"Enduring Interest","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/enduring-interest\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"key_success","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/key_success.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":15974,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/15974\/unchained-melody-sam-cooke-with-a-change-is-gonna-come\/","url_meta":{"origin":15854,"position":4},"title":"Unchained melody: Sam Cooke with “A change is gonna come.”","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 4, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorry if I seem to be ignoring y'all. I am all but completely unable to make an honest living in real estate right now, and that leaves me with next to nothing to say about making an honest living in real estate. I am not without things to say, of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15869,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/15869\/from-man-alive-evaluating-values\/","url_meta":{"origin":15854,"position":5},"title":"From Man Alive! – “Evaluating values.”","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 13, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"From: Man Alive! A survival manual for the human mind. Extract from Chapter 6. Evaluating values. We like to think of human history as a clash of great men, their hair flowing in the breeze, their muscles rippling, their eyes fixed firmly on the horizon. In reality, virtually all of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15854"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15856,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15854\/revisions\/15856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}