Why make a difference (an interview with TEMPOK)

So straight to the point: why do you want to make a difference in the world?

“Firstly, I lack a wide emotional range (probably due to a combination of the psychosis and antipsychotic medication) and the little feeling I do have I tend to supress because it is just too painful to engage with; so I guess because of that I see the world in a less human way.

“I don’t succumb to emotion or feel great empathy when I see suffering; instead what drives me is logic.

“It makes sense to help each other out because if there are enough resources available and if technology is as advanced as it’s supposed to be, then why is everything so biasedly distributed, and why are the majority of people suffering when their suffering could be avoided?

“I don’t care about the vast majority of people on the planet, but I recognise that they are suffering needlessly and that doesn’t make sense to me.

“Everyone should have the same chance to live and I want to help people realise this.”

Hold on, so you don’t care about the vast majority of people?

“That’s right – although saying that I do have some feeling; but it’s kept firmly on a very short leash for most of the time; I am gradually becoming more able to engage with it but only very slowly.

“At the moment I feel somewhat disassociated from my emotions; I do things because that is the way I have worked out (from observing others) that they should be done, instead of how I would personally do them. I don’t actually know how I would do things; I don’t seem to have developed that ability yet.

still life

“I sometimes wonder if I am now going through the kind of emotional development that generally happens during a child’s development, but which I’m having to go through it in an unnatural way because I am now in my late twenties and am only just getting started.

“So yes, I’m not really able to care in the emotional sense. However from such a standpoint it is hard to agree with people who seem so focused on their own gratuity; but maybe the way that they are is just the natural way to be.”

Interviewer: The voice in my head

Date: 11/02/2014

Body over mind (the illusion of self)

You are a vessel for your genetic code and this thing inside which you call ‘you’ is a gimmick and an illusion. This isn’t in any way negative - although it is very necessary to accept it as reality in order to lead a fulfilled life.

It is easy to think that you are in control of your body but are you?

If you move your arm you don’t have to think “move” in order for it to work; it just happens. So does that voice in your head have any actual power? Sure you have the ability to take your own life, but is that control? Or is that your body controlling ‘you’?

In fact you are your body. I accept that the decisions I make are, in the end, a product of my nature; which all boils down to the continuity, by reproduction, of the genetic code I carry.

This puts life into perspective for me. It doesn’t take anything away from the wealth of human experience but it does contradict this idea of importance that humanity has imbued itself with.

And spirituality is at the top of the list; the idea that we transcend our physical bodies becomes meaningless and actually gives us a greater purpose.

You are a being that is capable of experiencing pleasure and suffering. Once you understand the root cause of these sensations you can stop kidding yourself that there is fantastical meaning in life; the only meaning comes from nature.

So stop wasting time putting your faith in crap and connect with the world around you.