Although I could not clearly explain why, I always rejected philosophies that originated “outside of me”.
The Christian religion was the first ideology I rejected. I found it silly and impractical, and would spend years ridiculing the idea of an imagined deity I must obey, and who last exposed himself thousands of years ago in the form of a man who would die for my sins, and rise again to save me.
Unable to see religions as metaphor, and demanding practical, observable answers, I turned to secular science. But over time, I began to sense that science was more similar to religion than I had earlier realized. For all intents and purposes, so-called “science” was also a fixed set of dictates by a larger external authority. They both promised that if I behaved in a certain way, I could see and validate the truth myself: in religion, by living a “godly” life; in science, by getting “educated”. Practically, religion and science are based on conclusions others have reached that I would never directly experience.
In short, both robbed me of my agency to explain my existence outside of a narrow, predetermined framework. In religion I would see the world in terms of a man who supposedly lived and died for my sins thousands of years ago. And in science I would see the world in terms of men who have explained the world by conducting experiments. In both, I am merely one in billions of spectators watching and waiting for others to make sense of my existence for me.
The selfist model restores that agency to me by giving me a framework for explaining my existence with nothing more than my direct experience as its inputs. The result is my repossession of authority: total sovereignty over the explanation and understanding of my awakening and my existence.
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