Evil Enlightenment

[lazydullard]

Have you garnered any lasting benefit from evils you undertook? Breaking the law, violating other people, stealing, verbal abuse?

I have cured my existential anxiety from undertaking evil acts of stealing. I was a prolific shoplifter for about five years. It was the main source of my income. I feel that I have freed myself from cultural pressures from my evil actions. I feel that I have affirmed my right to exist by taking from others. I realized that life is what you make it, however you make it. I'm now a positive nihilist turned hedonist.

I haven't stolen in seven months. I'm slowly reworking certain cultural pressures back into my mind, because my life as a thief became untenable. I've been sober all this time too. I feel that my evil actions have gained me a better acceptance of life. I'm now attending college and have goals to be a self-actualized lawful citizen, because I found that good, honest living does feel good. I'm basically doing it because it feels better than being homeless, not because of any moral imperative. If homeless shelters didn't suck, I'd still be out there.

There's an old Christian sect known as antinomianism. It says that we're released from law by grace. Certain sects even took it further, claiming that committing evils like necrophilia brought them closer to God. I certainly feel closer to God than I used to. This is because I wielded my personal agenda with impunity for many years. I have experienced impunity. That's God right there. I don't mean this to be religious discussion (though I'm fine if it turns out that way) but I just wanted to include some historical basis for evil enlightenment.

My question is, has evil improved your life? Whether your evil or someone else's.

[slash112]

Yes once I did something really evil and it had a short-term positive effect on my life. I never thought I would be saying this in public, but if it's to help a fellow human, I will. I scammed a guy on the darkweb for money during a time of desperation. The dude was trying to get stolen credit cards so I figured I'm just stealing from a thief. But the dude was in desperation too, just like me. I conned a fellow human in a way I would never like to be treated myself. If I could track the guy down I would pay him back once I've got money, but this was the darkweb, no chance of that.

But yeah, I needed the money, I had literally no other means of getting money, so I done it.

Is it ok to do such a thing? I don't know, but he will have learned a very important lesson that I had to learn the hard way too once upon a time: don't believe the bull**** on the web (especially the darkweb, c'mon lol). BUT it made me feel horrible and I still think about it from time to time, which means there is a LITERAL and CLEAR negative effect it has on my life.

So in conclusion, evil acts have short term pleasure boosts, then screw you over the rest of your life (even if you don't know it).

Forgiveness is one way out of the effect it has on you.

Originally Posted by lazydullard

Have you garnered any lasting benefit from evils you undertook? Breaking the law, violating other people, stealing, verbal abuse?

Not in recent times. There's been no need except in slanted ways that did no harm to individuals - better not say more. Any law-breaking has been on moral grounds, not because it feels good to do something bad, that is against social conditioning about what's bad and good.

I see so much permitted evil in marketing and consumerism, a few people tinkering with unsuspecting minds in ways they'd never believe to sell them things they don't want, to solicit brand loyalty and stuff, to give people a sense of identity.

I have cured my existential anxiety from undertaking evil acts of stealing. I was a prolific shoplifter for about five years. It was the main source of my income. I feel that I have freed myself from cultural pressures from my evil actions. I feel that I have affirmed my right to exist by taking from others. I realized that life is what you make it, however you make it. I'm now a positive nihilist turned hedonist.

Good, if you believe you've turned things round - and I'm perfectly ok with hedonism as a "larger" spiritual path. Self-denial and abstention; and hedonism can lead to spiritual "enlightenment" (if there is such a thing - it can surely bring you a vast swathe of experience that self-denial doesn't); and there's something to the argument that excess normalises and desentises things.

But I do believe we should consider duties and responsibilities alongside rights and entitlements. Someone demanding their right so often robs someone else of theirs.

I haven't stolen in seven months. I'm slowly reworking certain cultural pressures back into my mind, because my life as a thief became untenable.

The economist would say you're redistributing wealth but that's a cop-out at street level. It deprives people of something they have which may in turn have precious connotations for them. At an entirely different level I am deprived of money by a heavyhanded government taxing me - legalised theft to me. I have no say about how this money is used. I am rewarded for labours and have a big chunk of that reward taken away. Which is morally more evil - the government taking my money to fritter or the starving person stealing a loaf of bread from a shop?

I've been sober all this time too. I feel that my evil actions have gained me a better acceptance of life.

They've certainly given you a broader view and been significant in self-development. Alcohol is a stupefactive drug - it has it's place in spiritual development if you're trying to reveal your inhibitions to yourself but that's about all.

I'm now attending college and have goals to be a self-actualized lawful citizen, because I found that good, honest living does feel good. I'm basically doing it because it feels better than being homeless, not because of any moral imperative. If homeless shelters didn't suck, I'd still be out there.

Well, maybe there is a moral imperative. If you've stolen from individuals then you've caused others misery, loss, fear, despair. That's on your hands. But if you've fiddled benefits or stolen from corporations then morality resolves more as dishonesty which isn't spiritually good unless you're following a left-hand path. (I have some experience of sorcery and some of my commissions veered well toward the left.)

There's an old Christian sect known as antinomianism. It says that we're released from law by grace. Certain sects even took it further, claiming that committing evils like necrophilia brought them closer to God. I certainly feel closer to God than I used to. This is because I wielded my personal agenda with impunity for many years. I have experienced impunity. That's God right there. I don't mean this to be religious discussion (though I'm fine if it turns out that way) but I just wanted to include some historical basis for evil enlightenment.

My question is, has evil improved your life? Whether your evil or someone else's.

Well, another saying is "God helps those who help themselves," used as an excuse by many thieves! What's evil and not is debatable and can be classified. A chunk of my work contributes to the very marketing I upbraided up there. I could cop out by saying caveat emptor! but it pays for my survival (aside from the chunk the government deprives me of!) So if that brands me evil it's an extension of necessary evil. I have to work. The alternative is I don't work and have to steal my way to survival (also necessary evil). If I were to shoplift or steal someone's purse today, that would be unnecessary evil.

What of salespeople trying to con the unwary into buying something they probably don't need? What of Direct Debit Companies lobbying firms to punish those who refuse their services by charging them more for transactions?

All in a day's work I suppose.