The Implusiveness of Evil

Go eat a giant greasy hamburger with a mountain of french fries. Wash it down with a gallon of your favorite ice cream.

Tastes pretty good, doesn't it? Leaves you feeling satisfied at having gorged on a plethora of unhealthy food?

Now wait an hour or two until your stomach starts revolving from the grease and your thoughts grow foggy from the sugar. Already the immediate pleasure from that decision is fading upon recognizing and suffering undesired consequences.

Now wait a few days and take a look at yourself shirtless in the mirror. Now with that transient pleasure long-gone you can start examining that decision objectives--and seeing things getting even worse as your body stores that food as fat and your appearance suffers.

Long after you've forgotten the taste and enjoyment of that hedonistic pleasure, long after you've lost the original impulse that first compelled you towards stuffing your body with unhealthy junk, the consequences of that choice remain.

You felt worse than you look worse--and you'll continue looking that way until you put in hundreds of times more work in the gym than it took for you to eat that food and cause that physiological damage.

You know this. Everyone knows this. Eating unhealthy crap is terrible for your body, your mind, and your physique.

Yet time and again that impulse grows ascendant. And time and again you find yourself stopping for another burger and more ice cream.

Are you a sadist? A masochist? Or are you just so focused on indulging that impulse that you momentarily succumb unto impulsiveness and indulge in a decision that carries with it long-term adverse consequences?

Evil is impulsive like that. It thrives on catering towards urges and impulses towards committing acts of overt and subtle destruction against others--and against yourself.

Good, in opposite, revolves around performing acts result in short-term deprivation--repression of instinct--aimed towards attaining long-term lasting gains.

Going to the gym sucks in the moment. It's hard work lifting heavy weight and constantly pushing yourself to the limit. But for an investment in suffering of three to five hours a week, you can stay fit and look good essentially forever.

Eating healthy is the same way. It hurts denying yourself that greasy food your body craves because of habits ingrained in the neurological structure in your brain. But if you put in that small amount of discipline required for resisting urges at mealtime, your reward comes in form of a longer life with fewer diseases.

So just by investing a few hours in the gym and a few ounces of restraint at the dinner table, you can easily feel and look better for the rest of your life.

Yet look around you and examine how many people are willing to make such a minor investment in suffering for such a large return in gains. A very small percentage of people are willing to exercise the discipline and restraint necessary for obtaining those immense benefits.

That, in essence, is the war between good and evil.

And that's the very struggle facing mankind today.

Being rude to others or leaving a negative comment online might make you giggle with snarky glee in the moment, but along a longer timestream you're only hurting yourself by giving yourself a bad reputation that will affect you later.

Theft might feel like the easiest way to acquire new things, until you get caught once and suffer a conviction that sticks with you for the rest of your days.

Even killing someone might seem like the easiest solution to a problem, but undoubtedly a lifetime in prison is never worth succumbing unto that impulsive urge.

In all things, evil is nothing more than succumbing unto base instincts that feel good in the moment but leave you in far worse states going into the future.

Good, conversely, is repressing those animalistic impulses within until the divine nature of your true spirit emerges.

Think about that the next time you're confronted with any choice in your life, any fork in your own personal road.

You can take the easy path that feels good in the moment, and suffer more long-term.

Or you can choose the harder road and benefit perpetually going into the future.

Invest in the path of goodness and reap rewards lasting into eternity. Or succumb unto the impulses of evil and suffer in countless ways ahead.

This is the choice facing us every day in everything we do. And the path we choose most often will be the only thing that matters when this life expires and our time here reaches its end.

So if nothing else--keep that concept in the back of your mind as you go through your day tomorrow.

And, if you use it for nothing else, use it as motivation to stop stuffing your face with rubbish.

This is really something to think about and great inspiration.

The Id vs the Superego under new names.

a reply to: Trachel

Damn...

Anyone else want a cheeseburger right now?

I don't feel drawn to such polarizing concepts. Going to a gym, or exercising isn't necessarily a drag, nor is eating a fastfood meal necessarily an immense pleasure.

Personally, I found that these experiences are much caused by mental concepts, myself. The idea that the greasy fastfood is delicious excites my mind (or used to). I don't know why that was... it made me wonder if it wasn't from advertising, being flooded with that idea, and perhaps subliminal suggestions?
But when I really started living in the moment and paying attention to the sensations while I ate crapfood, I realized I was not enjoying it like I thought I was.
It didn't taste good.
As if my mind was disconnected from my tastebuds before.

Exercise, I have always done because I observe that it feels good. I do it for the pleasure, and if it stops feeling good, I stop. I can't stand doing exercise while watching a tv or talking with someone- it distracts me from the internal pleasure experience.

Quieting the mind and simply sensing the moment brings about a natural harmony between immediate and long term gratification.

Meh screw that I like Mexican food. This whole thing sounds like a vegetarian writer threatening the population with burger hell.

*sips coffee* I think if you wanna eat you should eat, just be prepared to work your butt off if it bothers you that much ...

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: Trachel

Damn...

Anyone else want a cheeseburger right now?

Hahaha, fight the urge!

originally posted by: SevinSix
This whole thing sounds like a vegetarian writer threatening the population with burger hell.

Not really, I could write the same article with "vegan" food. Most vegetarians and vegans eat just as unhealthy as anyone else, consuming way too many low-quality carbs without enough protein and healthy fat in their diets.

But burgers and ice cream are staple american diet foods that are equally unhealthy, so I write to the audience.

Cheers!

originally posted by: DarkestConspiracyMoon
This is really something to think about and great inspiration.

Thanks DCM!

And welcome to ATS!

If humans were meant to eat leafy greens all the time, we would hunger for leafy greens at meal time. Instead we hunger for all that is sweet and savory - foods like steak, cheeseburgers, pizza, ice cream. If we weren't meant to eat these things, we wouldn't hunger after them.

OP forcing yourself to eat something that you find disgusting is unnatural. You are a freak, a disgusting sack of inhumanity. I despise you.

originally posted by: peskyhumans
If humans were meant to eat leafy greens all the time, we would hunger for leafy greens at meal time. Instead we hunger for all that is sweet and savory - foods like steak, cheeseburgers, pizza, ice cream. If we weren't meant to eat these things, we wouldn't hunger after them.

OP forcing yourself to eat something that you find disgusting is unnatural. You are a freak, a disgusting sack of inhumanity. I despise you.

Thanks!

I love you, too!

originally posted by: peskyhumans
If humans were meant to eat leafy greens all the time, we would hunger for leafy greens at meal time. Instead we hunger for all that is sweet and savory - foods like steak, cheeseburgers, pizza, ice cream. If we weren't meant to eat these things, we wouldn't hunger after them.

OP forcing yourself to eat something that you find disgusting is unnatural. You are a freak, a disgusting sack of inhumanity. I despise you.

If let's say cows, eat grass, then you eat a steak, then it already has the greeens incorporated!

Because I strive for Promethean excellence, I will work my ass off at the gym, THEN eat a big-ass, greasy hamburger with all the fixin's.

Deprivation is unnatural, forced asceticism is degenerate. I live in balance because it brings both pleasure and strength, the two chief goods.

originally posted by: Trachel
Go eat a giant greasy hamburger with a mountain of french fries. Wash it down with a gallon of your favorite ice cream.
Tastes pretty good, doesn't it? Leaves you feeling satisfied at having gorged on a plethora of unhealthy food?

Someone forgot to tell the human "food stuffs" are fuel ONLY for the body and not to be corrupted (re-engineered) just for tasty enjoyment that will eventually ruin the engine/machine (housing the soul).

originally posted by: yosako

originally posted by: peskyhumans
If humans were meant to eat leafy greens all the time, we would hunger for leafy greens at meal time. Instead we hunger for all that is sweet and savory - foods like steak, cheeseburgers, pizza, ice cream. If we weren't meant to eat these things, we wouldn't hunger after them.

OP forcing yourself to eat something that you find disgusting is unnatural. You are a freak, a disgusting sack of inhumanity. I despise you.

If let's say cows, eat grass, then you eat a steak, then it already has the greeens incorporated!

The greens have been (though mastication) altered into sustaining a living meaty animal form/animal. Vegetables=Meat equals more meat formation/sustainment. Humans are meat TOO. Makes sense except we (illogically) are not being harvested as part of the natural food chain unless as fertilizer for Earth (get rid of coffin/vault burials) so we can decompose/compost properly and feed the Earth.