 news intervention news website published an interview with me about my nothingness philosophy it is so concise and so comprehensive and such a good introduction to nothingness that I'm gonna read the entire thing and then I think I will upload it to my nothingness channel and make it the lead video the video you see when you first visit the channel because it's really pretty good so I'm gonna read the whole thing from A to Z Sam Baknin is the author of Malignance of Love narcissism revisited as well as many other books and ebooks about topics in psychology relationships philosophy economics international affairs and award-winning short fiction he's a visiting professor of psychology in southern federal university was still on dawn Russia and a professor of finance and a professor of psychology in CSC ups center for international advanced and professional studies here we talk briefly about his philosophy of nothingness newest intervention website Scott Douglas Jacobson is the interviewer so Scott asks our focus today is the proposal of nothingness in a specific sense by you to start in negation what is not nothingness in your sense my answer nothingness is not about being a nobody it's not about doing nothing it's not about self negation self denial self denial idleness fatalism or surrender it's not about any of these things Jacobson asks following from the previous question what is nothingness my answer nothingness is about choosing to be human not a lobster it is about putting firm boundaries between you and the world it is about choosing happiness not dominance it is accomplishing from within not from without it is about not letting others regulate your emotions your moods and your thinking it is about being an authentic you with a single voice Jacobson asks how does this nothingness connect to neo-deoism and Buddhism and I refer him to a video on my nothingness channel which deals with neo-deoism and Buddhism and I recommend that you watch it too Jacobson proceeds we live as many know in an era of narcissism you brought this issue to light in 1995 particularly pathological narcissism what are the roots of the ongoing crisis or rise in individual and collective narcissism my answer the need to be seen the need to be noticed in an overcrowded and terrifyingly atomized world ironically narcissism is a cry for hell a desperate attempt to reconnect there is no such thing as an individual we are all the products of our interactions with other people object relations but increasingly technology is rendering us self-sufficient and isolated so our social instincts metastasize into narcissism dominance and hierarchy replace sharing and networking Jacobson asks how does one choose happiness over dominance authenticity over being fake in humanity rather than lobster kind with this form of nothingness I answer we need to choose happiness over dominance we need to be human not a lobster we need to choose meaning over complexity we need to choose fuzziness incompleteness imperfection uncertainty and unpredictability in short we need to choose life itself over illusory and fallacious order structure rules and perfection which are essentially imposed on reality in other words death we need to choose the path the journey the trajectory over any destination the journey over any goal the process over any outcome the questions we should prefer to any answers we need to be an authentic person the single inner voice proud of the internal not of the external Jacobson asks what is the importance of living a life worth remembering in the philosophy of nothingness I answer identity depends on having continued a continuous memory of a life fully and well-lived and actualized at the end of it all if your life were a movie would you want to watch this movie from beginning to end nothingness consists of directing your life in accordance with an idiosyncratic autobiographical script your script no one else's being authentic means becoming the single story which only you can tell Jacobson what type of personality or person can accept nothingness in its fullest sense my answer only those who are grandiose are incapable of nothingness grandiosity is the illusion that one is godlike and therefore encompasses everything and everyone grandiosity therefore precludes authenticity because it outsources one's identity and renders one's identity reliant on input from other people I call it the hive mind Jacobson how is nothingness an antidote to narcissism I I respond narcissism is ersatz it's fake the only self in narcissism is false others other people are instrumentalized and they are used to regulates to regulate one's sense of for coherent oneness I'm gonna repeat this narcissism is ersatz it's fake the only self in narcissism is false other people are instrumentalized and they are used in order to regulate one's sense of for coherent oneness nothingness in contrast is it is real it's true the Ray McCoy harking back to the only true authentic voice eliminating all other interjects not using other people to regulate one's internal psychological landscape narcissism is alienation it interpolates in a society of the spectacle nothingness on the other hand gives rise to true intimacy between authentic selves what is the ultimate wisdom in the philosophy of nothingness my short answer is identify the only voice inside you that is truly you peel the onion peel the onion until nothing is left behind but the onions smell read yourself of introjected socialization become Jacobson then to conclude what is the motto or catchphrase of nothingness in this sense and I say do unto yourself that which you want others to do to you Jacobson thank you for the opportunity and for your time professor that professor vaknin much obliged for having me always a pleasure