As I crawl my way out of the desert, I should allow myself to not only hold to certain values, but hate certain things as well. And here I should be very clear: I will never hate a person (nor, I am grateful to say, have I ever in the past) - rather it is very specific values that I intend to spurn. Latterly, I made no distinctions between values: towards everything I was equally impartial. Between the loftiest of aspirations and the basest possible motives, there was no perceived daylight to me. I was, in effect, a moral relativist - a fact at which I should now gawk. But it is time that I perform an about-face in this respect, and adhere to those values that have long been latent within me with a staunch conviction - and, simultaneously, to hate those things that I have long known to be deserving of my scorn. I will look down my nose at the following with a deathly contempt.
Pleasure. I can hardly envision anything less fulfilling, less profound, less antithetical to nobility, than the pursuit of pleasure (for its own sake). Sensual pleasure is crude, ignoble, and paltry. Though it is certainly true that in some cases, pleasure can serve as a means to a moral end, to engage in that type of insipid hedonism wherein pleasure is pursued as an end in itself, as though it were the be-all and end-all of life - that posture is worthy of detestation.
Vanity. It is not a sin to endeavor to look decent, or to coax one's hair occasionally. But to sincerely set store by one's appearance, to let one's heart leap at physical beauty, and to let it falter when the winds of corporeality blow the other way - to do that, by my lights, is nothing short of spiritually fatal. In myself and in my culture, I should hate the valuation of appearance - and, most of all, I should hate the taking of pride in it.
Cupidity. There is nothing wrong with wealth. But to let the pursuit of it encroach on one's soul . . . there it becomes deleterious - and detestable.
Comfort. It's impossible to soar to any great heights while maintaining an attachment to comfort. I think that such attachment is an impediment to all that makes life worth living.
Social Comparison. Before a person who, though unsightly in appearance, though materially impoverished, though destitute in all worldly respects . . . is nevertheless perfectly equanimous, unconditionally compassionate, and noble (I am describing a saint) - before such a person I will bow, for I will consider them better than myself. Humility will fill my heart. I will not even notice those things by which others will consider them unlucky!
Conversely, those innumerable people at whom the winds of providence have cast such trifles as wealth, as physical beauty, as material success . . . but not such things - such truly valuable things - as nobility of soul, love of peace, and self-restraint - before such people I should shed tears of compassion, because really they have nothing at all.
So I will compare myself to others inasmuch as wisdom is concerned. But to make appraisals of another's worth on the basis of the aforementioned (wealth, etc); to look down on others thereby, or to compare oneself unfavorably on that same basis - I should hate this tendency.
Pride. Towards this I won't profess to have withheld distaste while in that place of no values. How could I have? There is nothing that more readily evokes hatred in me than vainglory. I think that the Christians are very much correct in saying that it is a sin - perhaps even the worst of sins. I hate it.
I should sooner hang myself on the next branch than besmirch myself with these things.
I am undergoing a complete overhaul of my psyche. Much of this work will be done manually, and my writing on this publication will serve as an aid to this endeavor. Some of it, I suspect, is going to be done by dint of pharmacology. There is nothing wrong with some chemically induced revelation (although, admittedly, I am terrified of the prospect of once again taking a high dose of psilocybin. There are few - if any - experiences accessible to the human mind more hellish than a seriously “bad trip”). This project will at any rate need to be undertaken very assiduously. Every thought I think, emotion I feel, action I perform will need to be taken heed of - ‘is this right?’ No - discard it, then. Or, yes - in which case it ought to be further cultivated. I will not stop at anything less than perfect enlightenment.
Enlightenment. This should be my master-value. Everything - every impulse, every thought, all in my consciousness that is amenable to my will - should be directed towards this end.