/lit/ - Literature

The fundamental question for me is how to act. Action is informed by values. I have to options:
>derive values from the outside
>derive values from myself
I think it's too late to go for the first option. We demolished most spooks through reason already.
The problem is that I'm not sure if the second option is possible either.
I try to do introspection but I don't find anything within myself I can derive values from.
>If I ignore my thoughts, like doing some sort of meditation, I can experience my Self (consciousness), senses, desires and some feelings, but I can't function in the world in that state - I have to make complex decisions, interactions, etc otherwise I would become a phenomenological animal essentially. It's just empty perception.
>If I embrace the Ego, I can't derive values either. It's just flows of language, images, associations, chains of thought. It seems that there is no coherent structure In the Ego I can derive normativity from

The only thing that comes to mind that resembles normativity to some extent is that I have some impulses, that vary in intensity - libido, creativity, aesthetic affinity, "will to power", etc


But what if these impulses are spooks too? I mean, just because I want to have sex it doesn't imply I should rape someone. The impulses of the Self are subordinated to the Ego, and the Ego can repress them. So if I articulate my impulses with discoursive reason and integrate them into my Ego, I am basically accepting a spook.

The only way out is accepting values from something above the Self and above the Ego, through Revelation.

What that would be? Is there such a thing? Hoe can I do that?

Or am I doomed to act inconsistently?

I followed a chain of thought and now I think I need to understand some metaphysical doctrine in order to live a meaningful life.

Because of an addiction, I started questioning what was my ego. There was a cognitive dissonance going on, because I wanted to quit but still relapsed constantly.
I started thinking of myself as a parasite in my own body. As if the ego was just a flow of language imposed on the body, with rationalizations and discourse, using the body to extract pleasure.

Recently, I started meditating. Although most of the time stuck in thought patterns and flows of language, I am able to silence the discursive reason in my head and focus only on my breath, when meditating. The thoughts in my head seem to be autonomous, I can notice them without pursuing any. My true self is the thing that watches the thoughts, not the thoughts themselves. Also, when deeply engaged in something, my awareness of myself seems to vanish.
>Why should I attach myself to any thought? Why not just ignore them and stay still, doing nothing?
I have to act, otherwise I will die. I need to eat, sleep, etc. To do that, i need to follow thoughts, let them decide what I will do.
>but why should I live? Why not just kill myself and silence all thoughts?
The only answer I could find to this is that there is a “will to survive” within myself. I also have other wills, like the desire for sex. These are the most primitive impulses.

So as far as I understand, my psyche is constituted of: (I probably used the wrong terminology, I hope it's intelligible)
>impulses (the will to survive, libido, etc)
>the Self (the thing that watches the thoughts and can silence them, the deeper I)
>the Ego (discursive reason, flows of language, thoughts, images, memories, and things that are associated with my "identity")

But if follow impulses and experience them phenomenologically through the self while ignoring the ego, I would basically turn into an animal. Without the ego, I wouldn't be able to plan things, function in a complex society.
I also think there are wills that need the ego to be realized: it seems to me that there is a desire to use the ego, to follow thoughts, to understand, explore, build, articulate; to attach the self with the ego, and form an identity.
I think this process is called individuation, or development of the Self. The will to integrate, to became whole.

So how is it possible to allign the impulses, the self and ego into an harmonic being?
One possibility is doing what I tried to do here: trying to systematize the psyche, articulate impulses (with psychoanalysis) and self (with philosophy) into language and trying to act coherently

Another possibility is to explore an higher consciousness, a state above the Ego. Using discourse reason and phenomenology, seeking metaphysical knowledge. I think this process would be deeply meaningful and I would become less fragmented, confused and alienated.

What do you anons think of this? Am I full of shit?