The Babbling Buffoon with a Thousand Voices
If one writes down what he genuinely feels to be true regarding a few substantial issues and finds that what he has written corresponds to the predominant views of the day, chances are that he could not tell you with any specificity or context what questions these beliefs are meant to answer; that is, that he does not at all understand what he is saying.
Unfortunately this is the case for most of us. Beliefs arise as a result of forces from within the individual and forces beyond him, but on an individual basis beliefs of any substance either arise from forces mostly from within or mostly from without. “From without” — I mean that babbling buffoon with a thousand voices, culture, what is common, which is by nature opposed to both genuine authenticity and self-knowledge. It provides answers to questions one did not ask. It force-feeds the individual with a meal, not because he said he was hungry, but only because it is a thing that eats. In the worst case scenario, and in this context I do not mean a small category, one comes to prefer that meal before he even realizes there is other food, and that meal, the common one, becomes not only what he prefers, but all he knows.
Such an individual — of “the herd,” as Nietzsche would say — has little chance at either authenticity or self-knowledge. He is a unique collection of even further unique materials and mind, never having been nor to be repeated in the universe, ripe with potential to flourish and to display his particular markings, and all of this, even what he actually eats, is given over to and lost in the wash of the factory to produce what is both predictable and, as could never be more clear than in our present day, controllable with the prod of politics.
Authenticity and self-knowledge are the result of self-discovery, and one discovers himself by drawing questions from his own gut. Write down your beliefs, and ask first whether you even care about the questions they answer. If not, the brevity of life commands you to move on. If the question stirs a fire in you, then remind yourself that there are many other answers and ask, simply, why not them? Seek them out. Pursue the question down every nook and cranny that opens up as you write through the question in a journal. Here is the beginning of discovery, of authenticity.
“Don’t preach!” they say. As if they have no ears for preachers of all kinds. In any case, lest you think I am immune to that babbling buffoon — alas, I write to myself.
