Why We're So Self-Obsessed

►Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED!
Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video:
► patreon.com/user?u=3517018
Or send me a one-off tip of any amount and help me make more videos:
► www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...
►Facebook: thethenandnow
►Instagram: / thethenandnow
►Twitter: / lewlewwaller
►TikTok: / thethenandnow
Sign up for the Newsletter to get digestible concise summaries:
►www.thenandnow.co/the-newslet...
Subscribe to the podcast:
► Apple: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...
► Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/1Khac2i...
CREDITS
Get Praise You by Fatboy Slim and over 1M + mainstream tracks here go.lickd.co/Music License ID: JZ1k7orp1A6
SOURCES
Qi Wang, The Autobiographical Self in Time and Culture
Thomas De Quincy, Confessions of an English Opium Eater
Linda Anderson, Autobiography, London, Routledge, 2001
Frances Wilson, ‘Romantic Autobiography’ in The Cambridge Companion to Autobiography
William Wordsworth, The Prelude
J.J. Rousseau, The Confessions
Eric Robertson, The Greeks and the Irrational

[@ThenNow]

EDIT: There are a lot of comments about the censorship. I'm as frustrated as anyone, trust me. Demonetization occasionally is to be expected, but it was also age-restricted so no one could watch without being signed-in and age-verified. As a result, it was either this or no one see it and I lose the time and money it took to produce. I made the difficult decision to do this at the last minute. The uncensored version is on Patreon. I hope everyone understands! Thanks all. If you'd like to watch it, support the channel, read scripts, get your name in the credits, and see extra videos consider supporting for $1 at: www.patreon.com/thenandnow

[@AdamOBrien29]

Are you able to play fat boy slim without copyright? 😮

[@addammadd]

Fucking bullshit.

[@smeltgamer]

Bruh

[@AnimalPersonhood]

sad. both what YT did, and that this channel(and others) kowtow. unwatchable for me.

[@stifledvoice]

Screw you for deleting my earlier comment about censorship. And NO, I don't want to support you on Patreon. I'll save my money and get a bus pass to go to the library instead.

[@RyanHare]

I'm sorry, but are we seriously censoring the word "opium" now? Without being familiar with the book, my mind took me to all sorts of places...

[@zacharyfindlay-maddox171]

I know right? I wasn't sure if it was hash eater or what.

[@ramonarobot]

I imagine it could be that opium was shown in sort of a positive light in this video? Where because of opium, the person was able to see inwards 😅

[@AstarothDiabolus]

It's a shame what youtube has become and how much it restricts

[@matthewjanney2399]

It's probably just monetization, certain subjects are increasingly prone to getting you demonetized, probably just an attempt to get ahead of it so this video remains capable of getting ad rev

[@Dave5400]

And yet we talk about poppies all the time leading up to Remembrance Day. Utter madness.

[@skitterree2490]

In my communications class we discussed how we have transitioned from the age of information to the age of identity.

[@FromDkWithLove]

Outdated curriculum. Clearly it's the age of ****ship.

[@Whysoserious648]

​@@RO-wn1dgnow its more about the individual

[@captainzork6109]

It really depends how you're looking at the ages. If you think of the ages as defined by economy, which is to do with the circulation of resources and ways of making a living, then hunter-gatherer -> agrarian -> agriarian-urban -> agrarian -> agrarian-urban -> industrial -> information makes sense. That is, the common way of making a living is still via an information economy. An age of identity is rather a cultural aspect of our current age. So to ask whether we're in an age of information or one of identity does not seem like a fair question to me. Identity is now part of our zeitgeist, yes, but it did not replace the dominant role of information as the typical means to make a living

[@Kai-Made]

I imagine like with other Eons, Eras and Periods. Someday we will split our Holocene epoch off and adopt perhaps the Anthropocene and further break that down into things like "the age of reason, the industrialization, the age of information, the age of identity" and if we aren't careful eventually "the age of Idiocracy". BUT for sure, sometime in the last 20 years or so, we have seen a distinct sharp change into adopting a issue or ideal as identity...and that has been accelerated by social media.

[@ericcarabetta1161]

Why can I watch videos of topless or scantily clad women, videos with disgusting amounts of racism and homophobia, videos on how to make all sorts of dangerous substances, but YT draws the line at book titles. The censorship on this platform is absurd and completely illogical.

[@alexxx4434]

I bet those videos are demonetized.

[@ericcarabetta1161]

@@alexxx4434, possibly.

[@C.Fecteau-AU-MJ13]

The machines are incapable of regulating the content by looking at each potential breach in the context of the video... It takes a human to check any infringements the machines notice and as such the humans who create the content err on the side of caution and self censor with the assumption the intended audience will understand what the censored word/image is. By the time the AI is sophisticated enough to do it, it's arguable our self censoring at the production end of content will have informed the content AI creates to the point where you can't remember what it was that's been removed in the first place. The world through the screen will look less and less like the hellscape we're increasingly bringing into being. It will be, ironically, the all new, highly pure and ultimately addictive form of all consuming opium.

[@richiejohnson]

And getting WORSE

[@oui2611]

yeah and even KZbin comments get deleted if you use certain words, not just swear words. could be words that refer to something violent or drug related

[@addammadd]

Anyone feeling hopeful about this “age of information” take note: imagine you go to the library, check out a book and find words in it literally removed because they can’t be uttered. This is the future that privatized communications brings us. Words you can’t say are words you can’t think. This isn’t fantasy or hypervigilance. This is right now.

[@SnappyWasHere]

It started in the south over 100 years ago with the daughters making stupid claims about the civil war. It’s just accelerating so fast now if we don’t stop it dystopia will be here.

[@KijasFX]

Sadly this is the future. On that note. Keep your books and VHS, DVDs, no one can take those from you. But a file can always be erased and censured.

[@mindsindialogue]

@@KijasFX May sound outlandish but it is one of the strongest reasons of reading as many books on passionate topic and hoard them. Note-taking is also crucial as it further expands theoretical thinking.

[@alexxx4434]

Wrongthink.

[@neilhenderson5581]

@@alexxx4434 "wrongthink" implies intentionality and design behind the censorship choice. On the contrary, current problems with social media censorship arises from social media corporations trying to do censorship as cheaply as possible in response to legitimate concerns, outsourcing the censorship to automated algorithms that are incapable of doing what is asked of them. The results are as we can see here.

[@amberallen7809]

I think our self obsession isn't as naval- gazing as you suggest. Our self obsession is very grounded in identifying with the correct camp. One thing I've come to notice recently is how hard it is to hear my own thoughts at times. When I take the time to look for them, I find my head flooded with the ideas and voices I've been around recently. It's only after a day or two of sifting through things, while doing a bit of a digital detox and staying off the internet, that I start to hear MY voice. Many people don't take that time. Maybe some don't need to. But I've talked to many people who acknowledge the same feeling, but then also say they don't want to hear their own thoughts, so they do things to keep drowning it out. If the current moment is too focused on inward thinking of the self, it is only so in an extremely shallow way.

[@kittymcditty8960]

Great comment!

[@asuka_the_void_witch]

holy shit that's so interesting....

[@DiscordiaDD]

Thats what narcs do, they subsume people to them and to their echo chambers, what you describe is unplugging from narcs. I think its ok for you to have this view and still agree with everything in this video. Contradiction isn't as problematic as people might think, if anything it's how one truly sees all facets of something.

[@clawthe]

I’ve heard that consuming media actually stops our brains from processing emotions and events

[@robynology101]

Writing helps with this a lot.

[@jacobbrouwer6662]

I thought this was an interesting examination for how we began thinking about ourselves, but I didn't feel like it examined how that self-exploration has developed into self-obsession. Still an interesting video.

[@fddldd6661]

I felt the same way, it actually seemed like the video ended abruptly part way through, like this is just one part of a longer video.

[@alexxx4434]

It's just the ending hinted about it without proper exploration. This video lacked a good second half.

[@Michelle_Wellbeck]

I think the next societal change has to do with mass media and advertising. In the time of the people mentioned in the video it was introspective books that shaped people's self perception. In the 20th century that changed to mass media and advertising. One key thinker that influenced our modern ways of self perception centered on keeping up with the jones was Edward Bernays.

[@asuka_the_void_witch]

@@fddldd6661 this is standard ThenNow fare

[@jasminealixandranorth]

Agree

[@InsanityPlusOne]

The level of censorship on this platform... gotta be nearing the point where it gets dethroned, literally only serves the advertisers and at this point probably even harms them half the time.

[@snowstrobe]

Please let it be soon!

[@asuka_the_void_witch]

will never happen. Alphabet has an iron grip on the tech world. phones, laptops, , email, clouding, and the search engine that 95% of the world uses. the web browser that 90% of the world uses. it just.......

[@namenamenamename7224]

We’ve somehow reached the point where KZbin, the largest video site and 2nd largest search engine on the Internet, is more censored than network TV.

[@eqwerewrqwerqre]

The problem is that youtube got to grow slowly and organically, it took time before the advertisers began consuming it, before it was bought by Google. But any kind of replacement is gonna have a much _much_ steeper on ramp. The absolute scale of youtube at this point is almost unfathomable. Any platform which seems to challenge it, which actually gets popular, is going to have an instant flood of millions of dollars worth of storage and internet fees, incredible infrastructure challenges, legal troubles with the current copyright landscape, just innumerable difficulties. Those are all problems that can be solved, that have been solved, but they're solved with money. And how would a platform like this seek to generate a constant income stream that could handle the intense challenges of the site? Advertising is just about it, short of nationalizing but that would be impressive to pull off in this political landscape. So what do you do, you advertise. And then advertisers start making demands and you fall in line because if you don't, the money dries up, the infrastructure dies, and your site falls apart. Watch Twitter over the coming years to see what i mean. So it's not just censorship, as frustrating as that it, is the fact that anyone can make an account and upload any amount of videos at nearly any quality, serve those videos to any amount of people any number of times and accrue limitless data charges to the company, all for zero dollars of their own. The only current solution to that is advertisers, the ghouls that they are. I think the only thing that could possibly change it at this point is changing advertising culture. But be assured, if Google though KZbin was beginning to fail, they would start actual innovation again. Until we see them trying that, we can be sure it's here to stay

[@InsanityPlusOne]

@@namenamenamename7224 You've given me a wonderful idea, network tv, censorship... book me a pitch meeting with netflix, they already have like all the infrastructure you'd need & already have a large user base...

[@Emojibones]

Omg. You tube is age restricting titles of classic literature now?

[@nomanejane5766]

No, YT didn't censor it, the youtuberchoseto censor it, big difference

[@francescocerasuolo4064]

⁠@@nomanejane5766it's self-censorship in order not to be censored. you are to blame as if you were free?

[@Emojibones]

@@nomanejane5766 I think you are a little confused. He uploaded it uncensored and that version was age restricted. So then he (the KZbinr) censored it and reposted it. This censored version isn’t age restricted.

[@Pr0fess0rT]

I feel your pain.. The Censorship is disgusting and counter productive.

[@tobiasjacob2549]

I'm very sorry to remind everyone that the 90s are now more like 30 years ago....

[@maureenamc]

It's painful to acknowledge that.

[@nicolajane7389]

Stop it, they were last week….

[@Syssn3ck]

And the funniest thing is, there is no real "I", it's an illusion. 😆

[@htwoodz7350]

This flies over so many 💯

[@Fairbranksthecat]

That's false, there is a real "I" coming only from you, granted it take a lot of time and discipline to find it.

[@alexxx4434]

Most complain the word 'opium' being censored, but holly hell was bluring drawn pictures of people consuming it necessary? I was confused seeing it at first.

[@eg4441]

youtube loves making sure the videos on their platform that get a lot of ad revenue are advertiser friendly. drugs and drug use isn't marketable, of course

[@maxschoon2470]

"The question of our age is going to be whether the world within can be reconciled with the world without." Beautiful, cannot agree more or put it simpler, I think you hit the nail on the head.

[@KainTheDamned]

Fascinating subject, thank you so much! The main difference between those great minds from the past and those narcissists from the present is that the former were seeking the truth within themselves, they were filled with passion, curiosity and humility. Narcissists are just looking for a version of themselves to flatter the ego. The spirit of the quest could not be more different.

[@alexxx4434]

No way in our narcissistic world these modern auto-biographies are truthful. They are as carefully crafted false narratives for the public as the false public personas the celebrities wear.

[@puglia5375]

Also the egoists of today have monetised their so-called self. Remember the original romantics were thinking in a sort of pre-capitalist world. What followed and is following still is the brutal impulse of capitalism to hijack everything for profit including our interior world. Even more worryingly, as evidenced by a cursory scroll through Instagram or tiktok, billions are quite content about this.

[@MxIzmir]

It's been grating on me for a while about what constitutes a single self, an individual. Great starting point, ty. I had no idea so much of the modern conception of an individual was, well, modern.

[@DusBeforeDawn2008]

Why has youtube started censoring the Opium? Did something happen?

[@alexxx4434]

Yeah, opium crisis of 2024, look it up.

[@DusBeforeDawn2008]

To whoever replied I don't see it. Was their some Opium related scandal or something?

[@kquinn2983]

Google bot has demonetized videos for mentioning narcotics by name for awhile now. This is justified under the "no discussion of illegal activities" catch all.

[@tvendor]

Great work. Although, the absence of drugs and alcohol is what made it necessary for me to first look inward - in order stay sober. So that now, after 35 years of introspection to maintain my sobriety, I can see my addictions as a sort of blessing in disguise, since the average person has no real motivation to examine themselves very closely/honestly. I've also come to realize that, unfortunately, it's not all about me and my selfish need for uncensored videos.

[@emil5884]

What???

[@maureenamc]

Congratulations on your decades! My mom has 34 years, and I grew up in the self help culture, which gave me enough information to start looking inward, discovering what made me tick, what I believed, and how to live with integrity.

[@tvendor]

@@maureenamc So great to hear, you're very lucky to find this early on. just look at the response above, they have no clue what we're even talking about.

[@Kuhmodo]

Wendigoon covered the Conspiracy Theory iceberg and at the bottom level ( Can't remember if it was tier 9 or tier 10) but he mentioned Oikeosis. It described that society is better when you travel further out of thinking about just yourself. But, you can expect a societal collapse when it shifts the other way and people become more self obsessed. Honestly, I don't know why that was on a Conspiracy Theory iceberg it seemed like a simple philosphy lol

[@asuka_the_void_witch]

that iceberg had tons of stuff on it that was not conspiracies. including eastern philosophy.

[@AnthonyMonaghan]

Thanks for the amount of effort and work that you put into your video essays/documentaries/call them what you like. I for one am very grateful. You're a game man for entering the cold waters of the Lake District, even on a clement day. We used to go to Windermere as kids and I still remember how unforgivingly frigid the waters were even on the hottest days.

[@DouwedeJong]

Thanks for making this video. I learned a lot.

[@accountabilitypartnerscomm7635]

This video is next level. It's great. The universe within. It's gets even weirder as you wobble the inner vs./and outer duality. You already know that. I look forward to your videos and your growth.

[@phillipmitchell2254]

Every generation thinks those that came after are successively more self-obsessed but only one generation carries the title of "the me generation", and that's the baby boomers.

[@Serai3]

No , that's the one that came AFTER the "boomers". At least get the facts straight before you start whining.

[@maxperusse2277]

Great work as always

[@susanwilliams4953]

Well done! Most society are self obsessed, especially since social media.

[@Michelle_Wellbeck]

Mr. Thenandnow, It seems you are asking the question of if we are in a new Romantic age. A key difference is that now we seem to care equally if not more of how others see us rather than how we wish to be ourselves. The next key actor in this was edward bernays

[@matteobonanza6173]

Keep up the good work ❤

[@krautbrain]

Oh the times we live in where you cant say opium on the biggest streaming service. Me want change. Me fed up with this. Me quit.

[@kjjh4449]

He card read good

[@alexxx4434]

You mistake. The word is Ass.

[@mynameisforrest]

Just get off social media, deleted facebook, instagram and snapchat in 2018, never regreted it

[@vortex2450]

Well said and resourced. ❤

[@Ryu2o4]

This is a great channel, such useful information

[@Jimsimi]

Great essay, thank you.

[@TheLacedaemonian300]

Another gem! Calling your work "videos" seems entirely too shallow. I love the long "videos" the epics, but a shorter one sprinkled in is nice too. Have you written a book yet? If not, I would suggest you do, because I would love to read something that would entail all of the work you've done over the years in one book. Something of an autobiography perhaps? One that takes the reader on your personal quest for knowledge, distilled and packed with wisdom of ages. Your creativity and storytelling is something that needs to be shared in all forms.

[@quasar5163]

I tend to reference them as video essays.

[@jonathancontis55]

You can really get creative with those censor bleeps

[@SimonYrtep]

Thought for the first couple of minutes the censored word was shit until I looked it up ..

[@timothybell5698]

Are you serious? I just started reading De Quincey, it's so great seeing him diss his contemporaries.

[@aguynamedkevin123]

Excellent video, shame about the censorship. Keep it up, you're one of my favourite youtubers!

[@miriamlevenson9430]

i think this shift into obsession with personalities can be seen in the trajectory of the crown. once diana was introduced and it shifted into an interpersonal drama, it reached a much wider popular audience. people are more interested in elizabeth’s story as told through her personal relationships than her relationship to her country’s history

[@tayloreverard2039]

Loved it as always ++

[@shanek1195]

Great video. I think the culture of narcissism has accelerated with the decline of traditional faith and the hyper-individualism of late-stage capitalism. Not to suggest that we should revert to absolutist doctrine, but most religions are about transcending self by submitting to an external deity. Whether that be a god or wider humanity/ecology in the more secular form.

[@alexxx4434]

I would argue that whether it be God or something else, the most important effect that it gave was the feeling of being a part something larger than oneself. A community of like-minded people with similar beliefs. Modern world doesn't offer access to this as easily as religion did back in the day. And everything is more fractured now, even the communities.

[@2MrTenebris]

beautiful video!

[@revalesq]

you're great 😃 Thank you 🎉

[@brandonsaffell4100]

God of the algorithm, upon whose whimsical nature we are beholden to. Hear our prayers, and bless this content and this creator with your good fortune.

[@wehrgahrdtschab7554]

Oh my God. THank you. THat was a missing Puzzle piece in my mind. Now a lot makes more Sense.

[@wehrgahrdtschab7554]

What a self focused answer. fitting :). Thank you for youre amazing Work, I watch your Stuff since the Beginning. And its so nice to have seen you getting better and more popular. Keep it Up!

[@emanym]

The censorship of the word opium is a new level of KZbin absurdity. It’s not like people are going to run out and become addicts because they hear a word 😅

[@krkrkr4655]

Great as usual! I love this topic. Although I'm a bit skeptical about the representation of traditional thinking. When I look at medieval theories of human nature, for example in al-Ghazali or Raghib al-Isfahani, I see very profound discussions of the self. In fact, I would argue that this preoccupation with the character that lies within, with the deeds of the heart and the so-called tazkiya, is an ancient and very sophisticated concept of interaction between the inner world and the outer world. Modern self-development trends seem almost like caricatures in comparison. I wonder how such ancient self development traditions fit in. Maybe they are somehow exogen because they always relate to a external ideal and are not self referential.

[@SKSDEMON-uf4bi]

thank you man

[@simonrudduck8726]

To reconcile the world within with the world without will be my focus of pondering for the next little while. Thank you.

[@torinmccabe]

With all the possible entertainments and especially how many partial people are part of our online circles we might be the least self focused people. We are less self and more external

[@Asoukes]

Welp, guess imma listen to that album before I go to bed, been a while.

[@DeadEndFrog]

Finally my time to shine

[@wilkaiser2368]

Enjoyable and interesting as always. It dos not tell us why we turned inward, however, only that we did. I’d like to see Nietzsche in this conversation, even though he’s later than the Romantics. I think he signaled the problems and limits of self-fixation that we live with now.

[@jaykixs]

nice production😊

[@samuelschonenberger]

You don't really look like Martin Freeman but it still feels like I am watching a video from Watson from the BBC Sherlock show

[@shimoshimo951]

In Arabian States, we consider talking about one's self equals selfishness; we care about the tribe not individual. It a sort of suppression😢, whoever, because of contacting with the western culture, there is a sort of emotional self- care, but here they called it narcissism 🤐🤫🤭

[@francescocerasuolo4064]

thank you for sharing that brother. i appreciate and respect your thought.

[@LasseJ789]

I'm sorry, but it started with the bourgeois, the class in society that weren't part of any other class. It was the individual, the self-made man, they didn't fit in anywhere in society, and transformed it to their own needs. Rene Descartes writes about how the self is the only thing he can trust to exist (though it's a fallacy) "Je Pense, donc je suis" "I think, therefore I am" in 1637 in Discours de la méthode. The big man in the Sky (God) had to go, the world was a machine, but the little man in the head (the soul, the I-consiousness) stayed. Whereas today we know all experiences are hallucinations in the brain, and that it, and the body are just elementary particles obeying the laws of nature like everything else.

[@darren_mcgarvey]

Bit personal

[@akhiljoban]

You need to look at some non-Western / European sources such as non-dual Tantra. Plenty of traditional endogenous thinking systems out there.

[@antoniopacelli]

Selfless as Way of Life. Attached to my self by a feeble connection to my Soul.

[@fredwood1490]

Back in the 60s, there were people looking for truth and deeper understanding with the popular drugs of the day, though most were just looking to be entertainment. For me, acid set me freer than I wanted to be and pot just made me stupid. I always did my drugs with friends so we could talk about whatever issues were in the news of the day. We came up with many highly interesting and stupid ideas. For me, there was no truth nor wisdom in drugs, (It seemed to be different for others, some began to actually understand the universe within themselves), but they led me to meditation, where I did find some wisdom and myself, under my own control and in my own time. I'm still doing that and I'm still learning about myself and about other people. Time, it seems, is the best drug!

[@userMB1]

I would normally skip videos with such titles because it would be a tired rant about Instagram and selfies but knowing it's made by Lewis, i expected better and got even better!

[@giuseppe2711]

Then came Hegel: "What about the Other???"

[@TheWotato]

Great video once again! Maybe censorship and it's cause and effect could be an interesting topic for one of your next videos ;)

[@autortrainman]

My brain went down all sorts of intersting rabbit holes of what could go with "eater" that would be so offensive to bleep out...until it clicked...oh, you meant that? That's offensive? At that point I tried to connect it all back together in that context. Are you saying narcisism and vanity weren't a thing since before 200 years ago? I think its always been part of the human condition. Just a luxury that few had the time, money and power to indulge in. Most humans just focussed on survival. I guess relatively speaking life is easier for most in that regard now compared to then. So perhaps more can indulge in themselves. Its alwsys been there to some degree though.

[@georgeitelhuber2325]

There is potentially great and generally overlooked value in the works of Ibn Arabi, Rumi and the other islamic mystics of their time regarding inner and outer. For a helpful introduction of the inner :) meaning, look up "the 29 pages" by Beshara publishing. I often wish more of the european philosophers had gotten the chance to read the Fusus, the Mathnawi, and wonder where we would be at now if they had. We'd almost certainly be further along the synthesis by now... Thanks for the lovely work.

[@simonrudduck8726]

15:16 Profound and important question worth a lifetime of thought and effort! 🤩

[@tictactao6344]

You want to look up Joseph Campbell's conversations about the individual he links it back to the King Arthur Legends and maybe before

[@tictactao6344]

And Campbell also refers to courtly love the individual love of one to another one and was unique to Europe as a social structure. Not just for the upper classes

[@frugalis3309]

The Marriage of Realms. Mirrored is our gaze To the realm internal Artifice became the lens to the realm external The words of machines to shapeth man Where man no longer shapeth himself The modern liberty died when artifice shapes now itself Formalae and the forms in our mirrored matter. Computation and calculation Until it gazed back at us Emptied ourselves we did in the machines of spectacle To lose ourselves in the dreams of disembodied minds Boundaries a mere delusion Consumed is the realm internal Modern liberty a passing spectre Haunting us in the machines of spectacle Perhaps liberty might be born anew To the marriage of the realms Internal and external a mere boundary that was never crossed. But when the weaving of the worlds is no longer by choice, but the utterance of necessity. I invite you to gaze into liberty anew To the realm eternal. -Mathieu Muus

[@andrewbellavie795]

Hey man I really enjoyed the video, shame about the censorship. My art is all about nature and I love to paint the landscapes near my home. I have trouble marketing my art on social media because well... the algorithms are focused on people. Call me old fashioned, but I hope folks in the future will try to see the world beyond the backs of their eyelids.

[@BlazonStone]

1:59 "baaoaowww" hear it everywhere nowadays

[@ahobimo732]

I am not better than any other person, but I am different from everyone. I am unique in all of creation. And we all can make this claim.

[@alexxx4434]

Largely we are all the same. The points we differ are comparativelly small. But people like to blow things out of proportion. Especially during a conflict.

[@francescocerasuolo4064]

@@alexxx4434false

[@dmtdreamz7706]

There was a very strange feature in this case, strange because of its extremely rare occurrence. This man had once been brought to the scaffold in company with several others, and had had the sentence of death by shooting passed upon him for some political crime. Twenty minutes later he had been reprieved and some other punishment substituted; but the interval between the two sentences, twenty minutes, or at least a quarter of an hour, had been passed in the certainty that within a few minutes he must die. I was very anxious to hear him speak of his impressions during that dreadful time, and I several times inquired of him as to what he thought and felt. He remembered everything with the most accurate and extraordinary distinctness, and declared that he would never forget a single iota of the experience. ‘About twenty paces from the scaffold, where he had stood to hear the sentence, were three posts, fixed in the ground, to which to fasten the criminals (of whom there were several). The first three criminals were taken to the posts, dressed in long white tunics, with white caps drawn over their faces, so that they could not see the rifles pointed at them. Then a group of soldiers took their stand opposite to each post. My friend was the eighth on the list, and therefore he would have been among the third lot to go up. A priest went about among them with a cross: and there was about five minutes of time left for him to live. ‘He said that those five minutes seemed to him to be a most interminable period, an enormous wealth of time; he seemed to be living, in these minutes, so many lives that there was no need as yet to think of that last moment, so that he made several arrangements, dividing up the time into portions-one for saying farewell to his companions, two minutes for that; then a couple more for thinking over his own life and career and all about himself; and another minute for a last look around. He remembered having divided his time like this quite well. While saying good- bye to his friends he recollected asking one of them some very usual everyday question, and being much interested in the answer. Then having bade farewell, he embarked upon those two minutes which he had allotted to looking into himself; he knew beforehand what he was going to think about. He wished to put it to himself as quickly and clearly as possible, that here was he, a living, thinking man, and that in three minutes he would be nobody; or if somebody or something, then what and where? He thought he would decide this question once for all in these last three minutes. A little way off there stood a church, and its gilded spire glittered in the sun. He remembered staring stubbornly at this spire, and at the rays of light sparkling from it. He could not tear his eyes from these rays of light; he got the idea that these rays were his new nature, and that in three minutes he would become one of them, amalgamated somehow with them. ‘The repugnance to what must ensue almost immediately, and the uncertainty, were dreadful, he said; but worst of all was the idea, ‘What should I do if I were not to die now? What if I were to return to life again? What an eternity of days, and all mine! How I should grudge and count up every minute of it, so as to waste not a single instant!’ He said that this thought weighed so upon him and became such a terrible burden upon his brain that he could not bear it, and wished they would shoot him quickly and have done with it.’

[@macavelli8905]

Interesting observation 🧐

[@DaughterofDiogenes]

I hadn't heard of the book and am apparently dense and corrupted as hell and just spent the last several seconds searching for the book Confessions of an English Ass Eater. I even wrote it down so I wouldn't forget.

[@yusafkhalil7173]

"Check that view out." Sorted.

[@verigumetin4291]

There must be balance in life. The within, screams at the existence of the without. One cannot exist without the other.

[@redo73]

Ego & hyoer consumerism go hand in hand!

[@Fireneedsair]

OPIUM! Lol

[@XavierJavaun21]

Boy this should be educational 😁

[@siep6922]

We have always known what other people look like, but until photography was invented, we never knew what we looked like. You don't look like your reflection...

[@desireisfundamental]

I often see society as the cells in a body and many times I would associate a cancerous cell with a person who got fed up with the system, a person so obsessed with himself and so neglected by a bad functioning system that he decided to differentiate from it and go his own way like a dictator.

[@alexxx4434]

More like a cell that refused to die when its time came.

[@matthewlawson3773]

Where is that that you're walking? It looks beautiful

[@nicholassullivan1239]

Because we have been told the lies of free will and meritocracy our whole lives. It's that simple 😊

[@Atomic-toons00]

Its like hey there is nothing like me meeeeeee meeeeeeeeeeeeeee😂 Everything is about meeeeeeee😤

[@er...]

0:52 The word "opium" is banned on yt now, too?? Is this comment getting removed?

[@mirosgerg]

Well putt

[@funkbungus137]

Lol. Sorry I thought he was addicted to eating poop for the first 15 seconds there and was like "Ok, man, I'll strap in for this wild ride, let's go"

[@ChicoBranquinho]

Fuck KZbin and it's censorship. "Opium" is now a cancelled word? WTF?!!!

[@scotthendrix9829]

I was wondering the same thing.

[@JohnMoseley]

A while back, at a restaurant near Birkbeck, I heard two philosophy lacturers talking. One of them observed that in English we have self awareness - good - and self consciousness - bad - but the French make no such distinction, apparently only viewing real-time knowledge of self as good. At any rate, the distinction seems to me a helpful one here and I only hope if it is, native French speakers can find a way to fill the gap. From an only slightly different angle,, with De Quincey, prefiguring Freud, you give us the solution right at the start of this video: egotism, bad, self-awareness that includes the dark side, good and necessary. I'd even question whether there's really any such thing as being purely outward looking. It sounds to me like one of those vain mystic hopes Freud itemises in Civilisation and its Discontents for overriding the basic difficulty and discomfort of being human and in a society - can't live with it, can't live without it; other people are hell, but also heaven etc. Being aware of our own egotism, aggression, vanity, jealousy etc. is what allows us to get over ourselves, look outwards with greater clarity and objectivity, and forge better connections. You can't just jump to looking outwards, you have to acknowledge the egotism and, as per Lacan, go to the end.

[@kidusfantaw1323]

Christianity actually acknowledged self and our inner identity and consciousness. However, it argues that we as humans are fallible which we are and are prone to doing things we shouldn't form a moralistic view and an objective one as well. Therefore instead of looking within where truth is often just based on our perspective Christianity argues truth exists outside ourselves and everything else and just is what it is( yahweh) and we should seek it ignoring our brittle nature, perspective and morality. Which I think makes more sense than finding truth from within. I'd love to hear any solid arguments and also I'd like for you to make a video on the morals and ethics of faith. Sorry if there are any typos I wrote this in a rush

[@derink8523]

It's a little out there to say rules were not questioned until De Quincey's time. While humans talked about the provenance of rules as external, they also came about receiving and interpreting those rules. Augustine questions everything to get to the answers. Rationalism of the 19th century of course radically changes the reference of that knowledge to the method of investigation itself, but that's more about how people talk about provenance and less about actually producing knowledge.

[@Eddie_Sto]

I wanna do it now in my music. I'm worried about close critics who don't know my drug habits, but those who do don't really judge or say nothing. Family and friends. I just wanna talk about it in songs cuz i know lots of folks could relate.

[@DarkSliders]

Oh yes another Then & Now video, time for loathing ❤️

[@navadasha]

It seems to me that the world within and the world without are one and the same.

[@gaelank-rs4ot]

Hey bro. I work with Mexicans. When I talk about some of your shows/topics. Any Spanish translations available?

[@Misanola]

Sorry, the bleeping for such an innocuous word is both grating and obnoxious.

[@cowflieswest3046]

The poet who stated there would be "no model", had 'become the model of 'self' in situ centered in 'the abyss' where 'it looked back at him' in the vacuum where Boyle's bird lay dead. Science took over the intellectual curiosity of the era and drugs took over the creative spirit of those that had 'too much time on their idle hands. Mediatised self-imagery and semiotics has replaced 'the self', in the "hyperreal world"...The video was a short one and it reminds me of what Nietzsche said,with a a big problem (self-hood), its like a cold bath, you get out of it as fast as you get in to it. Coleridge was a mess too when he succumbed to 'the pipe dreams'...

[@theobserver9131]

I tried the honest, humble, bumbling approach to social media. messing up, and laughing about it and sharing my F-ups, thinking people would appreciate candidness, and that it would be a bonding, loving thing. I got ate up. It was not nice. Now, my only social media is youtube. Anonymous. If someone attacks me, poof! I'm gone.