According to records, the philosopher Buddha was born right around this time in 563 B. C.
Buddha taught, roughly speaking, that all life is suffering and that we must strive for release from the endless recurrence of suffering life through a renunciation -- an annihilation -- of self.
The flaw, or paradox, of this philosophy has always seemed to me that we must first be able to develop a self, capable enough of enlightened self-awareness, in order to renounce it.
In any event, Buddha and his adherents called this self-lessness, or egolessness, anatta. Ever since Buddha's time, of course, and before it, societies have conspired to facilitate the process of eroding and destroying the individual self.
Which leads me to today's ghost word: anattamization.
Anattamization is the systematic eradication of the self, carried out by the state in collaboration with the culture.
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