Sunday, March 11, 2012

L'Être et le néant

I am responsible for everything...except for my very responsibility, for I am not the foundation of my being. Therefore everything takes place as if I were compelled to be responsible. I am abandoned in the world...in the sense that I find myself suddenly alone and without help, engaged in a world for which I bear the whole responsibility without being able, whatever I do, to tear myself away from this responsibility for an instant.

I am an existentialist. Some of you may not know what this means. It means that I believe the world, the universe, all of creation itself, has no meaning except that which we impose on it. Some may see this as silly, considering I believe in a tall, slender being with godlike abilities. But the Slender Man is not God, merely godlike. Some believe that he is a Tulpa -- created using our very own thoughts, the ultimate reflection of an existential world -- but I do not believe that. If he was created with our thoughts, he would have been easier to comprehend, but he is not.

It does not matter what he is or where he came from, he is here now. And everyone who sees him assigns their own meaning to him. Perhaps this is why there are so many different versions of him -- because different people see him in different ways. For some people, he is a ghost-like being, haunting the very corners of their eyes; for others, he is a rampaging monster, a minotaur in the center of a labyrinth. For some, he has no servants; for others, he has cults; and for others still, he has a whole bureaucracy attached to him, a ladder of servants assigned to his every whim.

These details are irrelevant. The only detail that matters is that he exists. Existence precedes essence. And since he exists, it is our responsibility to get rid of him.

With despair, true optimism begins: the optimism of the man who expects nothing, who knows he has no rights and nothing coming to him, who rejoices in counting on himself alone and in acting alone for the good of all.

So, we come to this: we must end the Slender Man. Because the world has no meaning except that which we impose on it, so we must not let the Slender Man impose its own incomprehensible meaning. We must impose the meaning that is best, that is good. We must be good ourselves and face our fates with eyes open. We must make this into a world that is, if not good, than better than it was.

We must because we can.

12 comments:

  1. that's Abit deontological, with a teleological aim, you intrigue me, but in the words of descarte I think therefore I am, and As the Slender Man is He must think, and logic and reason attached to him, so instead of killing the beast why not reason first as then we would be no better than him.

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    1. I am not deontological nor teleological. I believe neither in intrinsic rules nor in final causes. There is no absolute right nor absolute wrong; there is no way to distinguish whether we do something for someone else's happiness or our own selfish happiness.

      But in the end, it doesn't matter. What matters is not why we do things, but what we do. If there is no meaning, then we must let ourselves impose the meaning we want, the meaning that we will benefit from: the best meaning there is, the one where good prevails.

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    2. As for why we do not reason with him instead of killing him: it has been shown time and again that, even though he appears to be a thinking being, the Slender Man's reasoning is beyond comprehension. He is a being of blue and orange morality, one in which we can probably never hope to comprehend. I do not think talking with him will provide us with anything except a quick or slow death.

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    3. Then do you infer he is merely instinct, or will you just kill it as it is different, very authoritarian, if it is instinc that's very immoral as you don't kill the tiger merely due to it killing to survive.
      -Manic

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    4. If the tiger killed my friends and was going to kill me? Yes, I would kill it.

      But we do not know if it is the Slender Man's instincts that cause him to do the things he does. He is so completely alien in nature, comparing him to a tiger would be like comparing a butterfly to a butterfly knife.

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  2. The big words hurt my brain!

    Ok ok let me see here. So in order to stop The Slenderman from imposing his will on reality you want to destroy him? You intend to do this how?

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    1. I say we nuke him from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

      Hey, maybe that will get the Birds too.

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  3. *Le sigh*
    Do you seriously think happy thoughts will kill slenderman?
    "If we BELIEVE, we can MAKE IT HAPPEN!"
    Didn't Zero die testing a theory similar to this one?
    Whatever. Just do what you do...

    Keep updated.

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    1. Happy thoughts will not kill him, I am sure. But I am not saying it will. Happy thoughts are merely the impetus to action. And there must be some action which will harm him.

      Even gods can die. Just look at Norse Mythology. Look at the death of the gods, the Ragnarök, where all the gods died and the world was reborn just for humans. Let's make a Ragnarök for the Slender Man.

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    3. I think we can all agree that if gods exist, they aren't the ones from Norse Mythology... You're using a work of fiction as your guide to kill one of the most powerful creatures on earth.

      And as I've said, people have TRIED harming him with positivism before. It usually ends up with those people either dead or badly hurt.

      So yeah.

      Good luck with that.

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    4. And as I said, I'm not trying to harm him with positivism. That is merely the impetus.

      Also: I do not believe in God nor gods. Ragnarok is merely something to be used as an example. The Slender Man, though godlike, is not a god. It can be killed.

      As we face our fates, we must make it face its own.

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