The Art of the Meme War: Trolling as a Form of Meditation

Hey friends, for the past few weeks, I have floated the idea that I will write a book about memes and philosophy. It started as a joke, but has generated so much interest that the book literally memed itself into reality. Too much real life. Now I have to make this book into a best seller, Kek willing. Please enjoy this excerpt from my upcoming book The Art of The Meme War! I appreciate any feedback and criticism.

Trolling as a Form of Meditation

Eastern philosophy

Zen Story: Time to Die

When Zen Master Ikkyu Sojun was a boy, he accidentally broke his teacher’s precious antique cup. Hearing the footsteps of his teacher, he hid the pieces of the cup behind him and asked: “Why do people have to die?”
The teacher explained: “It’s natural, everything has to die and only live for so long.”
Ikkyu produced the shattered cup and replied: “It was time for your cup to die.”

“道，可道，非常道。” - 《道德经》，一章

“The Tao that can be clearly expressed is not the eternal Tao.” - Tao Te Ching, Chapter 1

Western philosophy

“Fortune falls heavily on those for whom she’s unexpected. The one always on the lookout easily endures.” - Seneca, On Consolation to Helvia, 5:3

“My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it. . . but love it.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” - Albert Einstein

"When you are distressed by an external thing, it's not the thing itself that troubles you, but only your judgment of it. And you can wipe this out at a moment's notice." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8:47

Explanation

禪 (Chán) was a school of Mahayana Buddhism that was combined with Taoism in China. Later, it became known as “Zen” in Japanese. Zen de-emphasizes knowledge of doctrines and simply focuses on the practice of meditation itself. It is a way-seeking philosophy that contrasts with most modern Western truth-seeking philosophies. Nietzsche and the Stoics rejected the truth-seeking paradigm and focused on living the best life as an individual.

Trolling is a meditative practice of amor fati. When you troll, you drop all fears of death, all fears of social rejection, and all fears of negative results in your life. It is a conscious choice to completely focus on living in the moment and loving what you do. Your fellow trolls are your Band of Brothers in the meme war that you fight. No time for fear. No time for over-analysis. You are in flow state. You only care about accomplishing your objectives, enjoying the moment, and defending your Brothers selflessly. You are experiencing complete love of life alongside your fellow troopers.

According to Frank Yang, bodybuilder/ troll/ philosopher/ artist/ undefinable human being, trolling is very meta and self-referential. When someone trolls, people who get it will think that it’s clever, but the people who don’t get it will think that it’s stupid or even hateful. But the people who get it will think that the people who don’t get it are stupid or hateful.

Trolling is like Tao or Zen. It isn’t something that you can just talk about explicitly. If you feel it, you just know it. ;-)

Trolling is fractal, much like a psychedelic trip experience. Like LSD, DMT, salvia, shrooms, and other entheogens, trolling exposes you to unexpected additional layers of reality. When you don’t respect the entheogen, you will suffer the consequences of a bad trip. Similarly, when you don’t respect the troll, you suffer the consequences of a bad trip.

According to Buddhism, all suffering stems from attachment, and the negativity one suffers from trolling or from bad trips is an attachment to specific layers of reality.

“This is the way things ought to be.”
“I am right because life as always fit my current mental model.”

Well, guess what? You have met your Black Swan, an observation of an event that falsified your inductive reasoning. Proof by contradiction. Your perception of reality is accurate until it’s not.

Negative reactions to trolling demonstrate your own fears of uncertainty when you experience cognitive dissonance from the dissolution of your inductive mental model. By practicing non-attachment through trolling or other means, you can learn to avoid suffering.

Disregard attachment, acquire laughter.

Have you ever laughed so hard that you couldn’t stop laughing even when your stomach hurts already? Have you laughed so hard that you got 6-pack abs from laughing? When trolling or tripping on entheogens, there are jokes within jokes within jokes that extends into infinity and forms a Mobius Strip or Klein Bottle of jokes. As a result, trolls tend to be more fit than your average person. I just made this part up, but I believe it due to my personal observational bias of being around bodybuilding trolls.

Military veterans tend to enjoy trolling. They understand what it means to “embrace the suck.” When you’re in high pressure environments, one of the best ways to bond with your teammates is to talk trash with each other. It’s something that everyone enjoys and it shows how much you care about each other. They understand that in order to overcome the biggest obstacles, you cannot think in the same mindset as ordinary humans.

Einstein said: “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

Trolling is a practice of expanding your consciousness. All the most enlightened being have trolled in their life times. There’s a reason why Trickster gods have existed in nearly all cultures throughout history. This is an archetype that resonates within the souls of all human beings. The problem is that when we started to take life too seriously in modern society, we lost this ability to find amusement in the little things in life and expand our consciousness in all directions. Trolls are the altruists who seek to break everyone free from this modern matrix of one dimensional, bland way of thinking. And like many visionaries throughout history, they are misunderstood and persecuted by their peers.

Trolls are on a path towards enlightenment: a state of mind where nothing is unexpected and there isn’t an attachment to anything. Not all trolls think that they are on this path. But I am here to bring attention to the concept that everyone walks their own path towards enlightenment in different ways. The path that can be clearly expressed is not the true path. It is up to you, the reader, to decide if you are receptive to this concept. I don’t ask you for anything in return. It’s all your choice. You can choose to be bitter about trolls, or you can choose to love life without judgment.

I choose to love life despite the uncertainties and the obstacles. I continue to repeatedly choose this path, this Tao, everyday.

Memes

Meme on, comrades. Embrace the suck. Only you can overcome your own depression through the will to power.

Once upon a time, a man got a tattoo that said “Jokes on you”. However, once his picture was posted onto the Internet, he became the “Jakes on you” meme. His memified image transcended his self perception of reality. It also made others question their perceptions of reality. Is it “Joke” or “Jake”? Who is the joke really on?

This led to associations with other memes like “1 like = 1 prayer” for removing his tattoo and “No Ragrats,” another mis-spelled tattoo meme. He went viral. Sometimes, an unexpected mistake could lead to great fame and spread joy and laughter all over the Earth for many years. The unexpected mistake has deified this man as a lesser god in the Meme Magic Cult of Kek. Many keks were had around the globe over the appreciation of this meme. Embrace all that happens in your life, for better or for worse.

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Thanks for reading!