/lit/ - Literature

The central flaw behind Western civilization is the creator/creation dichotomy which is associated with substance metaphysics and the idea of thing-in-itselfness, that something only needs itself to exist, removed from anything else. This is the philosophical justification for private property, which requires dismissing parallelism and focusing only on linear causality. Substance metaphysics is the metaphysics of alienation, and one possible route to transcend this is process metaphysics, in which thing-ness is the total web of relationships between an event and everything else. In this view there is no distinction between a creator and a creation, and the concept of a singular creator creating a singular creation is replaced by an immanent creativity in which all events co-author the tapestry of existence.

The perception of reality that comes with this is all of existence as continually co-creating art, of not a singular purpose and meaning but an infinite number of them, a universe alive with unfathomable richness and depth of meaning that while we can only glimpse a small fraction of, such glimpses give a hint of the hidden vastness that while unreachable to us, can be experienced. Try to imagine your life as a relationship with the universe, not in a paternalistic sense or a dominative sense (as with the idea that the universe is a passive, meaningless void upon which one creates meaning out of,) but in a mutualistic sense of complete equality. Remember that this isn't a relationship between yourself and a singular unity, but a web of relationships of which the totality comprises your life, including your relationship with yourself. Seek mutualistic co-creative relationships in all affairs, not just between humans but all things, including elements of yourself, and you will find well-being and happiness.

Your afterlife is literally what happens after your life: there is no distinction between you and the rest of the universe, and so your becoming is truly immortal; you live on as the universe. Those who place all meaning in their own existence have their meaning die with them, but those who place their meaning in all that is outside them have immortal meaning.