The Complete Manual of Instigation
Notes from the Night of Nov. 20
We must distinguish the nature of a madman’s act of burning down his own house—just as Schopenhauer distinguishes starvation from ordinary suicide—from the act of calmly burning down one’s own house out of absolute reason. First, we shall demonstrate the correctness of this rational act, which I have wrested from Schopenhauer’s grasp. What will subsequently be discovered is the absolute rationality of this action.
Schopenhauer overlooked the other side of suicide, namely, the reverse manifestation of the negation of the will. Even though he mentioned in passing, "yet they still feel guilt when indulging in harmless pleasures.“ What Schopenhauer still overlooked is the emergence of the other side of the negation of the will. Not every act that alleviates suffering is an affirmation of the will, for there clearly exist more painful and prolonged methods of suicide than starvation—such as subjecting oneself to the death of a thousand cuts while starving? These means of amplifying suffering are precisely what Schopenhauer so lavishly praised. That historian ought to have gouged out his own eyes, for the eyes, as the finest weapon of cognition, need to be destroyed by cognition itself—or rather, this is the self-sublation of cognition, much like a valiant warrior severing his own wrist. Only thus could it be proven that cognition itself is powerful enough to annul volition. And thereby sanctify oneself all the more. Furthermore, ought he not to have committed suicide while seated before a feast of dainties from land and sea? Otherwise, it is difficult to say whether it was merely objective conditions that led to his death by starvation; before the moment his cognition could annul the will, he prematurely, passively, met a painful death—perhaps he wished to eat, yet found himself in a desolate wilderness, a place unsought by man for a month, with nothing at all to consume. Thus, his sacred starvation degenerates into what Schopenhauer views as a madman’s act of taking poison, the impurity of a slow death. From the above, one can see just how inadequate this example cited by Schopenhauer truly is. This will further illustrate the non-existence of Schopenhauer’s transcendental change—that is, its lack of empirical existence—thereby arguing in favor of my own view on suicide.
Another point I have long wanted to gripe about (since I cannot find the book right now, I am quoting from my own vivid memory) is: ”They (the ascetics) may plunge from snowy mountains or be crushed beneath the wheels of a carriage out of an extreme negation of the will. This too is their asceticism“ versus what he says in Chapter 67: ”Nothing approaches the negation of the will more closely than this special manner of suicide, starvation. It is as though, while he starves, some noble voice is guiding him.“ This is truly baffling. Why, sir, do you not condemn those monks who did not starve themselves, but instead committed suicide prematurely, through ordinary acts that shortened their suffering? You ought not to praise them. Unless, deep within your heart, you were aware of the inadequacy of your own theory, and a psychological movement akin to Kant’s took place within you, thereby exposing the flaws of your theory. Schopenhauer accepts only starvation, yet lavishly praises plunging off a cliff; this is a direct manifestation of Schopenhauer’s contradiction. Indirectly, it manifests in the impurity of the details of these acts, such as that historian—he actually ate something.
We arrive at the conclusion:
Schopenhauer failed to provide any realistic account of the ideal transcendental change. His irresponsibility and self-contradiction are embodied in Section 67. Like saintly virtue, that which utterly renounces the mundane and cannot be acquired a posteriori does not exist within this world.
Here, Schopenhauer’s restrictions on suicide fly right out of this world.
Since transcendental change, like saintly virtue, cannot be subjectively acquired, it does not exist within the world, for everything within the world can be acquired—that is to say, can be spoken of. Therefore, this means that even passively accepting a transcendental change that suddenly flies over to you becomes—just as the reader feels when reading this for the first time—something utterly abstruse, a mystery of mysteries. The existence of saints is not one in ten million, but zero.
Here, after Schopenhauer’s death, I begin my inquiry into rational suicide. First, it is worth emphasizing that negation is an absolute value of the will. In moments of happiness—which is to say, when volition manifests just as wildly, as it is being continuously satisfied—this too is a fine opportunity to slay volition. Unlike the commonly held distinction between “laying down the butcher’s cleaver to attain Buddhahood on the spot” and enduring “the nine-times-nine eighty-one tribulations,” I believe that a good man is already a Buddha. What remains for him to do, the eighty-one tribulations he undergoes, is on the contrary a meaningless business of agitating volition. Those eighty-one tribulations are, instead, just like food, something worthy of guilt. Because the negation of volition is fundamentally an absolute value rather than a numerical one. Attempting to train oneself not to fear suffering, and to crave suffering as if it were life itself, still 【cannot turn suffering into something beloved】; all of this is meaningless, a reverse agitation of volition. The suffering thus obtained is likewise meaningless, utterly incapable of curbing volition again. In the positive direction lies fine food; their absolute values are fundamentally identical.
We need do nothing extra; under rational conditions, so long as we calmly go to meet death, we achieve the success of Lincord. He was not perfect. Perfection, in this world or within the world, within our sphere, does not exist. Thus, 【after bringing Historian Lin down (from atop Schopenhauer’s head)】, we possess the opportunity (the right) to sit as equals with him.
My notes, in a small part, suffer from a profound confusion of thought, making it difficult to express within those few words, much like Kant’s. They require copious annotations, especially for the purpose of supplementation and explanation, I suppose.
Notes from the Morning of Nov. 21
As an attempt to violently destroy volition, contraception, in Schopenhauer’s view, is just like what he calls phenomenon-destroying suicide: entirely an exercise in futility. Volition exists outside the individual, yet does it exist within the individual? Schopenhauer did not offer further refutations regarding methods of contraception, an attempt akin to ordinary suicide. Because here, he could not make an explicitly stated explanation that violates logic. Regarding suicide, perhaps it is difficult for us to discuss. However, regarding methods of contraception, we can state with absolute certainty—contraception is unequivocally effective; so long as we wish it, we can, in this one-off act, avoid the consequences of failing to practice asceticism—provided the condom meets quality standards. Which is to say, the effectiveness of this rudimentary method of contraception thoroughly and completely proves the effectiveness of suicide. How perfect. The objective is effective; the objective is a means to assist our asceticism. For instance, the objective impossibility of satisfaction can assist in the arousal of our reason—is this not asceticism? That is the first point; second, this objectively restricts the manifestation of action, namely, knowing something is unfeasible and thus refraining from doing it. Only manifestation is volition.
Notes from Nov. 22
Only the existence of natural law can ensure the logical existence of the future.
There is no necessity for a past life to exist; we cannot explain our own origins, our own birth. Even if a past life existed, that would be a higher-level “I,” just as after this phenomenon of “I” dies, the higher-level “I” does not die. As a phenomenon, “I” can explain nothing at all. The higher level here does not refer to “humanity”—taken literally, humanity will undoubtedly go extinct as well. Thus, the teacher’s explanation of Su Shi’s line, “If we behold them from that which changeth not, then neither the myriad things nor I shall ever know an end,” is nothing more than a postponement of death, failing to solve the problem at its root. Because that is contradictory.
My purpose is to demonstrate how to commit suicide so as to be happier after death.
I am nearly a cult, nearly anti-human. Yet my theory is grounded in humanism; everything is for man, for the human individual, rather than the happiness of humanity as a whole—abandoning the individual for the sake of the whole is something only socialism would do. Therefore, in my view, suicide as a practice of transferring suffering is also permitted—because the suffering is not inflicted by the suicide at all, but generated spontaneously by yourself; the one who commits suicide has merely defended his life completely, and the right to suicide is the true embodiment of valuing life.