Venting nietzschean grapes

[esse_est_percipi]

Nietzsche said somewhere that we think we know ourselves, or think we can know ourselves, through some kind of introspection or soul searching a la Socrates.
Yet not only are our real instincts hidden from us by a thick veil of socially manufactured intuitions and moralities, but even the blood and guts insides of our bodies remain mysterious and alien to us, throughout our lives (ok, maybe he didn't say exactly that, but I'm paraphrasing from memory and what I think he may have said).

Anyway, I was just thinking how strange and frustrating it is that the organs and vital elements which we desire so much to stop functioning are right there, all the time, a few centimeters away, yet they're so difficult to access, so hidden and seemingly unreachable because of SI and whatnot, that they may as well be on the moon.

This results in a high number of constantly suicidal people (as opposed to the hypothetically very low number if the body's vital organs were easily accessed and neutralized by the individual owner), people who have to find ways to rationalize and cope with their continued existence because of their forced alienation from the insides of their own bodies.

They find themselves in a similar position to the fox in aesop's fable, where foxy was unable to access the grapes on a near vine, and rationalized (or sublimated) his thwarted desire by excogitating their bitterness. It's a cognitive dissonance created by desire and its continued frustration.

I hope this made some kind of sense. My mind all over the place

 

[Ren Elsie Jewelria]

It makes a lot of sense. I love the picture. I like philosophy.
Are you some professor at the uni?

 

[esse_est_percipi]

Are you some professor at the uni?

No, I'm a nobody

 

[Ren Elsie Jewelria]

No, I'm a nobody

Then I want to be a nobody too!
Horns up!

 

[schopenh]

This was great, thanks for writing it. Your discussion of being alienated from the underlying processes of our bodies reminds me of Noam Chomsky's discussions on linguistics and the development of language. If you've never watched him speak I have a feeling you'd enjoy him (just based on this post).

 

[esse_est_percipi]

This was great, thanks for writing it. Your discussion of being alienated from the underlying processes of our bodies reminds me of Noam Chomsky's discussions on linguistics and the development of language. If you've never watched him speak I have a feeling you'd enjoy him (just based on this post).

Thanks.
I actually really enjoy listening to Chomsky, he's such a clear and logical speaker and writer. Though I haven't listened to him in a while.

 

[Captive of Mind]

Wow, I love this! I have been having similar thoughts but you put it so well! Seriously, you nailed it here.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

I know you said you were all over the place, so no criticism here. I'm just trying to understand. Other people seem to be getting it, so it could easily be me that's overlooking something right in front of me.

I think (?) you're saying that more people are suicidal because they can't connect with their organs, which are part of them yet kept separate from them. If we had access to them, there wouldn't be as many suicidal people, because, well, they'd be able to make themselves dead and not walk around being hopelessly, impotently suicidal. Is that right?

After that, I'm not seeing what the cognitive shift is or how it relates to the fox and the grapes.

The person who doesn't have the power to affect their own internal organs in order to die -- what is the cognitive shift? Is it, "Oh well, I didn't want to die anyway, it would only turn out shit" ?

Did they have hope for connecting with their organs, and when they weren't able to, then hate their organs and perhaps self?

 

[esse_est_percipi]

Wow, I love this! I have been having similar thoughts but you put it so well! Seriously, you nailed it here.

thank you, I appreciate you saying so.

I think (?) you're saying that more people are suicidal because they can't connect with their organs, which are part of them yet kept separate from them. If we had access to them, there wouldn't be as many suicidal people, because, well, they'd be able to make themselves dead and not walk around being hopelessly, impotently suicidal. Is that right?

Yes, I think that's right.
I think the general point is that self-knowledge is literally skin-deep, if you consider the fact that the bulk of our material selves is found on the inside and that we never really know anything about what goes on there, we never see any of our internal organs etc.
Our conscious selves are (mostly) alienated not only from our real unconscious desires and instincts, but also from our vital bodily processes (I mean, we can feel the effects of those processes, but we never actually see them or experience them viscerally).
So yes, if we really had 'self-knowledge' (that high principle of classical greece and later rome) in the visceral way nietzsche was talking about, suicide would be something eminently attainable for all because SI wouldn't really be an issue and we would be much more in touch with the notion of death (montaigne famously said that to philosophize is to learn how to die, which I really like.)

After that, I'm not seeing what the cognitive shift is or how it relates to the fox and the grapes

The fox desires the grapes which are tantalizingly close yet he cannot reach them (this is the (unsuccessful) suicidal person in relation to the vital processes and organs of their own bodies). The fox cannot satisfy his desire to eat the grapes (suicidal person cannot satisfy their desire to ctb via disrupting some internal process or other).

The frustration of the fox causes it to rationalize its defeat (the cognitive dissonance) by imagining the grapes to be sour. Similarly, the frustration of the suicidal person at not being able to just fold into non-existence despite all their vital processes being at their fingertips causes them to have to rationalize in some way the continuance of their unwanted existence (either to themselves or to others).

Is it, "Oh well, I didn't want to die anyway, it would only turn out shit" ?

yes, it could be this, or any number of other cognitive shifts. I wasn't thinking of any one in particular.

Did they have hope for connecting with their organs, and when they weren't able to, then hate their organs and perhaps self?

yes, this too is possible I guess depending on the person.

I didn't think the whole thing through very deeply to be honest. I just had this thought about nietzsche and self-knowledge and the body, which led me to think of suicide (obviously), which led me to think of thwarted desire, which led me to think of aesop's fox and grapes fable.
Seemingly random connections, but I hope there's some logic to the whole thing, even if the analogies aren't perfect.

 

[Lostandlooking]

This is why a depressed person will always be able to think of a reason to continue living despite being in constant misery. Suicide isn't something that's naturally available to us. So we keep rationalizing about it, endlessly.

Very well put, really liked this.

 

[ghostspace]

I love this perspective, it really makes me think! I wish my 'grapes' were like a lightswitch but even then, I'd probably hesitate.