When Giving Up is Good -- The Directory of Despair
Updated: 4 days ago
(The Subcategory on Despair and Surrender:
Part I: A Personal Case Example
Being a man with a massive physique who ruthlessly worked to be his master's competent solitary executor, I have suffered from over-body-fat for many years, no matter how physically active I was. Despite being an ascetic hermit, I invested a lot on working on myself, physically and mentally, and became regularly hungry and fatigued as a result to this very day.
I have purposefully neglected society and I purposefully neglected other people's love and empathy towards me, so I could focus on becoming a ruthless communicator, as to better and better deliver my grandmother's wishes unto an awful world that made her suicidal.
I actively searched for ways to lose belly fat, and, in some periods, I've been the most active person I have ever been. Yet, despite all the hours of walking, the gym, ground exercise, and healthy eating, I have failed to reduce my annoying, unnecessary fat. All the time I spent working out and eating healthy appeared futile, as I got even more fat, regardless of the activity I attempt to maintain on a regular basis.
The only way for me to not give up, which proved successful, was to intensify my asceticism even further, to the point I become near-oblivious to my hunger, as I work on Philosocom and function nonetheless.
I am a very hungry man, as I am driven by pain to improve my philosophy skills further and further. I need more food than the average-sized human being, and even more than people who are as tall as me. I am driven by the intensity of my emotions. Also, I am hard-wired to be more depressed than happy, and hard-wired to work very hard.
On Specified Hopelessness
My ambitions, ironically to my asceticism, are wide and only end when I die. I refuse to retire. Nothing satisfies me fully. Eating jungles of vegetables and meat, I would often remain unsatisfied as if I didn't eat much. Even on an average day, when I get to eat, food used to be one of my top subjects when thinking. That is, until my transformations. On an average day, whereas an average person eats 3 meals a day, I used to eat 9, I believe. It didn't change my hunger. Nowadays, eating 2 or 3 meals hasn't changed it either.
I have accepted my suffering as for granted. I only talk about suffering-reduction because most people are not ascetic, but rather, hedonistic.
All of the wasted time on physical health, which was quickly deteriorated by exhaustion, made me realize how futile my attempts to reduce my body fat were. Therefore, the only logical conclusion to become healthier, without compromising my ambitions, is to hone my asceticism even further. To accept my hunger, physical as well as mental, as unseparated from my own existence, for the rest of my life.
I don't care whether I am liked or not. I don't need my ambitions and my pains sympathized nor empathized nor validated. If I am not about to die from starvation, I can wait several hours until I get to eat. I am unrelenting for my work and I am more and more independent of the external world when it comes to my inner peace.
Part II: Analysis of My Demonstration
Based on my personal example, giving up should only be made when there are absolutely no other options left, or when the options (and people) are far too incompetent to deal with the problem. Those who give up early are not aware of their potential, and those who give up late are unaware of their own futility. Therefore, the middle ground is to stop trying when there is no other alternative, or when the alternative is too costly (Not necessarily in money).
Based on this, there's a difference between giving up on a core activity, and giving up on total hope; pure despair, versus specified despair. Thus, some activities, when given up, can help us amplify the efficiency of our other/main activities. Thus, some giving up is good, for some activities, based on our respective philosophies, aren't worth it.
A hopeless liability, when given up could boost the fruition of new possibility, subverting said liability. If you are in a reality where you do not tolerate it enough, at least make the best of it, while you're in it.
Conclusive Musings On The Expression
It is strange to use the word "up" in "giving up" because "up" is supposed to be something better-spirited, like a stand-up routine. Yet, when you give something "up", you give it to something or someone that is above yourself. Therefore, giving up can be seen as an expression of modesty, where the self is not the goal but the means that gives itself up for the goal.
Helping others, is when you literally give up your resources, time especially, for their aid. Therefore, not all forms of giving up are forms of defeat, but sometimes strength too. It's just that we are biased to see the term in a pessimistic manner.
The expression can also give us the following insight: When you give up, it is our choice afterwards, whether to look down in despair, or look up in hope and/or resourcefulness.
The usage of my personal situation has led me to create something new, AKA, look "up" for something else that is and will resume being far greater than myself exclusively, as a result of giving up.
"Giving up" could simply mean "stop what you're doing and look forward to something else thereafter". When we give up on caring about something, it can be a strength for us, as it can increase our focus on doing something that might be more important currently. Conversely, when others are dependable on us, it can become a weakness more than a strength.
It really is a more natural term than it appears for most of us.
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