I
It is true that we can fall upon our own swords. The ascent of the self is the highest cliff we can climb and crumble upon. It is a very real possibility that we will appear to our future selves as derelicts do to us today. I grew up with a sensation of loss, very, incredibly real to me. It was not a lost toy, but a lost life, repeatedly. In these fires, great things are fuzed, and some joints that need to always be pliable became fixated by the same heat. It may be this way for some part of you, people.
II
The consequences of these precise and obtuse mechanisms of the psyche working together make for an interesting engine. The way that resources get used seem manifold, but it is analogous to the variations in the color of garbage, or salads. It is how there are many different products, but they are all different shades and colors of convenience. This dynamic exists on an individual level, and reflects in our international community. We see in the wars and disturbances man cannot help but create--we've basically allowed a defining trait of our species to be subjugation and war amongst itself--we see in this eternal struggle, the reflection of common individual struggle.
III
Man preceded civilization, and yet both function with different dynamics that overlapping, neither necessitate, and often invalidate, one another. The individual struggle that reflects in this civilization, and in many before us, of "wanting-ness"leaves man always begging for more. A society of beggars clothed in the convenience of life reflects the feelings of individuals that base satisfaction on the exercise of will in a personal vacuum. This is a way of being, not of thinking--it speaks to it's opposite. It reflects the communal desire for joy; running up against different definitions that come into focus once one is back beneath the clouds.
IV
Yet neither necessitate the other, and both may invalidate the other. Man can be soaked deep in his own heart, "free from greed and wanton needs" as Lao-Tzu says in the Tao Te Ching concurrently with a society that is critical of such a man--naming his unconventional ways as the root cause of the societies issues. Conversely, many unlearned people blame society alone for the snakes writhing within themselves, and society in turn points back with blame or shame. It is never this clear cut, it is always both. This is the Yin and Yang I suppose.
V
Thus, pointing in the direction of the other, we are in part pointing to a part of ourselves. By that perspective then, we begin upgrading our processors made in the fiery experience of spongy youth. We ping off the other, that which we point to shamingly, and increase our own bandwidth. This is all theory, though I have seen a great amount of difference in the stages of being and I am still very young, so I don't even fully comprehend the meaning of 'change,' or 'difference.' Like the Grand Old Master said, "He who feels punctured, must once have been a bubble."
VI
The answer to the ascent of the self; the way up the rocky crag is brought about then by neither pointing away, or pointing at one self solely as both are reflections off of one another. It is instead, what the conversation hangs within. Life hangs in the balance, and what it hangs in is where the minds must rise and float to be able to ascend the valley. It is how, as said by The Madness, the ground appears as the top of a mountain. To play it out practically, this means a mystical approach to the conversation about practical and pressing matters like slavery and the privatization of natural resources in an increasingly demanding world.
VII
Language creates reality, and reality influences the creation of language; after all, the sounds of primitive man were responding to something--whether it be a call for the moon to send rain, or the desire to convey the first experience of what fire was when lit by the angry lightning. These old tales and myths that flow into the fabric of cultures create the intellectual soup our minds rise up within, and become entrenched with. On a macro scale, these change, and if we think consciously about the macro scale, pointing to it, we see it pointing back to us on a micro scale--so perhaps we begin our species ascent with communal individuality. We must blend the two, not just prickle against what in the other, is deficient in ourselves, certainly not dismissing the concept of unity because the language creates an oxymoron.
VIII
These answers are long, and never complete. If they would be, they would not be the correct answers. We are carrying these forward and dipping them into every generation. For their struggles were, and will be like ours, they will just have different names, and different problems--but the struggle is defining to life; as such, as long as our species can experience joy, it must find the pain, and when it knows that both are neither tied to them alone, or to society away from themselves, then we can begin the delicate and necessary process of caring for all variation of our species.
IX
We are sold on the delusions created by language--that blessing and curse of our species. We can communicate finite concepts, yet the way in which we express them, the context of the epoch the communication is conveyed in, and the subjective understanding on the receiving end, all make for an enterprise doomed to fail if left to itself. It is trying to talk a person who is grieving out of grief, or just allowing them the silence or histrionics to grieve and experience that with them to lessen the load. Introducing what is commonly understood as the mystical approach would allow the scrutiny purported by the inquiry, of 'what is better?' Better cannot be narrow enough to be only what is best for the individual--come commonly to mean 'the most'--and cannot also be only what is best for society, else you end up with an impossible ideal.
X
The answer is undulating, it does not hold on to itself, it doesn't hold on to anything but basic understandings that all should eat, sleep, and drink water. That we must reduce suffering caused by the definition of life, and that we should look never to impose suffering on others in our species; understanding that we are really just pointing at ourselves. To introduce a previously 'mystical' word into the mix, would be to allow all able, to experience affection. If we can even start with such a basal experience of joy, then perhaps one day, far away, we can attain the ability to love--one another, and ourselves in a manner which enables and promotes the same in others. In closing, if the modern intellectual revolts at the thought of love as a tired and overused and misunderstood answer, then perhaps we should begin our inquiry and common goal with a concerted effort for the experience of affection. It will change the world, already has, and will again.
