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vonjuice

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I did not know much context about the specifics, and I just informed myself, and I have to see I entirely disagree with you.

Betrayal, control and alienation are exactly what informs Kafka's request. Faith (in his friend, in art) and openness are what inspired his friend not to obey Kafka's wish born out of that alienation and shame.

Bureaucracy never enters into this at all. There is no humiliation, Kafka is considered to be one of the greatest writers ever.

First of all, the request was in a letter. His friend (they were friends for decades) found the letter, it's not like he agreed beforehand. Secondly this friend was a writer himself. No one knows more the embarrassment and shame that can come from looking at one's own art as much as another artist, but this is just inherently the nature of making art, and what are friends for if not to shake us out of that wrong view that we get from our perspective being too close?

Frankly I think you're making lofty claims for their own sake. This is not a matter of "humanity gaining honor", it was a matter of a man believing in his friend's art, and the rest of us benefiting from that "betrayal".

I spent a long time searching, and then trying to invent my own "perfect" system. Where to archive done items, how to organize item priorities, what date format to use, etc.

I saw the system as this external thing that if I could get it just right maybe my life would be solved (exaggerating obviously).

Eventually my focus shifted from the system itself, to my interaction with it. I realized that it wasn't about having a system, it was about removing as much friction as possible.

I have a question for the community? Where do you find the strength to keep going? What keeps you going and energizes you? I'm tired of trying, the work seems endless.

The first thing I try to remember (and this is really hard, during those times it feels like a blatant lie) is that things change and you get out of the rut.

Accepting the mental storms, knowing they will pass, and having faith that somehow, somewhere in that fog there's something gestating, something moving, that will take shape only after the fog clears, that's helpful.

And when I'm not in that storm, knowing that it will come eventually, and welcoming it instead of constantly wishing it away, I try to prepare the ground for my future depressed-self, to make his life easier.

There should be a collective shift towards making art for art itself, and for one self, in the same way that yoga and meditation are encouraged.

Comparing end products and foregoing the process itself, people don't know what they're throwing out.

What's fairly clear to me is that it's not designed to be read. At least my own, it's just too easy to end up with an almost doctor's hand writing. I refuse that on principle.

I had a similar click as you describe in starting to gain enjoyment out of handwriting, but for me was simply to get a pen that felt fluid and smooth.

Man, declare that headphones are the same experience as a great pair of speakers, he really was mainly a salesman

First of all no one declared themselves a virtuous pacifist.

People don't participate in murder and they think others shouldn't either.

People don't participate in wars (which are essentially large scale murder) and they think others shouldn't.

Murder happens anyway. War happens anyway.

Yet if someone says 'war bad' people jump and say 'virtue signaling', but no one does that when people say 'murder bad'.

There's some really weird moral entanglement happening in the minds of people that are so eager to call out virtue signaling.

Thanks for the details. I'm very far away from this world but it's always been my suspicion that that is what it takes.

As for your last point, I think if you amass a certain amount of money then you can eventually just get out of that and into something more "legit", it's like buying your way out of morality. I do wonder deep deep down what these people are like in their minds when they're not riding the highs.

I actually used that exact car argument when someone here was strongly against any use of psychedelics unless medical and aided by a professional.