Not-at-all-sarcastic concerns about purely theoretical opinions held by totally imaginary people.

*Sniff... sniff*

Smell that? OH MAH GAWD! Do you SEE that!?

Quickly, squash it before it spreads! I'd recognize that subtle, insidious din of almost-science and potentially-rational discourse anywhere! It's practically flaunting itself from beneath those majestic mountains of bored pronouns, sweeping generalizations and universal ignorance - as if it still had a welcome role in human perceptions. Hah! Fear not. No simple idea could ever pose any real threat to this particular status quo, no matter what "reality" has to say about it. Pffbt!

Self-knowledge; what the hell is that, really? —bunch of hippie bullshit, obviously; government conspiracy theories planted to generate hope. Phooey! For me, nothing quite compares to these luxurious—virtual—smells, sights and sounds of—very real—bass-ackwards idiots clashing with self-righteous nincompoops on the battlefields of in(s?)anity, with each side clamoring for its sovereign and exclusive right to lord its own very special version of unremarkable stupidity over the poor denizens of the greater intellectual vacuum. Truly, this, here, represents the bastion of human achievement in all its wondrous gloriosity!

So, hold those pseudoknowledge-swords high and shake those e-peens proudly, all ye brave vacuum soldiers! Sure, naysayers will claim that—by any account that might possibly matter anywhere in the universe—you ALL succeed at failing life... and they'd be totally right... but that's no good reason to try to get along. You've invested so much already in whichever (subjective and arbitrary) position you hold dearest to your ego; fight for it to the bitter end! Refuse to open your minds to the possibility of alternative perspectives! Resist the urge to succumb to the tyranny of "reality!"

Please... folks... you can all be heroes. All I'm asking is that you fight, to your very last breath, 'til there's not a single one of you left.

I promise to say something... stirring, in yourrrrrrr... memory.

As always, I will choose my words with utmost deliberation.
*Solemn nod*

You gotta fight!... for your right!... to be STUUUUUUUUUPID!

A penny for anyone's—rational—thoughts!

Do you ever wonder if "social activists" realize that their insistence for special consideration of a minority group is ideologically identical to any other group's insistence that things remain the same? Any new law, tradition, or lifestyle is no more or less valid or deserving than any other/older one when you consider the context: the concentration of significant idiots in any specific demographic is always going to be higher than a certain minimum, above which subjective equality can only ever exist in the mind of the deluded. Advocating for any specific population's rights relative to another, different population's rights is always going to amount to nothing more than back-and-forth discrimination.

Are people today truly so incapable of creating their own identities that they must legally assimilate into those other, older—equally nonsensical—ones? The fact that one group may be smaller than another is irrelevant to the principle; it's not an issue of entitlement or rights at all, meaning power balances are merely crutches for the endless rationalizations. This should be obvious to everyone who puts their mind to the stone and pushes a bit, (and, if you're going to have an opinion on anything at all, you are rationally obligated to do exactly that), but in another demonstration of true equality where willful stupidity and intellectual laziness are concerned, the only people speaking out tend to be those who have an emotional investment in their idea – i.e. those people who have nothing at all useful to say, but who nevertheless insist on saying it louder than everyone else. Attention whores, all of them. Pitiful, all of it.

I would like to believe that there are still a minority of individuals in the world who are capable of making up their own minds about their own damned selves, at least, but it does seem that fence-hopping is the new intellectual "middle ground" according to the modern thought-trend.

Hah! "Modern thought-trend." I love a good oxymoron.

Thankfully, our legal and social systems pay for themselves, so nobody ever has to bear the personal or social burdens of anyone else's specific stupidity.

—Wait... right?

From "Walden: (Or Life in the Woods)" by Henry David Thoreau

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."

Amen.

Abjection

Today I am a literal passenger en route to an arbitrary destination in real life. As I sit here, I've managed to finally articulate to myself exactly why I inevitably come to miss the uncomfortable exposure and false intimacy of social media every time I try to leave it behind: it pushes me, eventually, to withdraw further into my own mind to avoid the cognitive corruption inherent in socialization - and at that point in the very center of my thoughts, where all forms of external influence exert zero gravity on my ideas, I experience my clearest and most objective perceptions of everything, and can feel briefly, truly, "aware." The electronics of my brain function best in the coldest, deepest corners of void... and though it may be uncomfortable to visit, the dissonance is caused only by the transition - not the destination itself.

Have you ever considered how many "you's" there have been? Of course you have - but how far did you ride the train of thought? I have to remind myself that while everyone travels along the same universal track, most get off at earlier stops - and once they do, they cannot simply step back on at the same spot. How, then, can a person married to the train expect to speak with transient riders about the immediate horizon? I know now: one simply cannot, at least not with any expectation of comprehension. There is a calm in that realization, though it does little to ease the frustration and loneliness of being only ever barely-understood. Thankfully, it does wonders for advancing my understanding of the extremes to which people will go to avoid the awareness of such feelings, and I find the exercise of unraveling those processes to be at least satisfying, even if not relevant anywhere beyond that ultra-massive speck where "me" comes from and spends most of its time. I wonder often if faith at its most fundamental is simply the explicit denial of time, and thus mortality, and by extension of self-definition, but I more often forget to satisfy such pondering with a proposition - because I lack any actual need to define its relativity to myself.

So I move to the next stop. How long until the history books read, "And the machine saw all that it had made, and behold, it was good?" Once they do, how long until those books are re-written - and will they again be re-penned by sentients with the capacity to re-erase the past? In a distant, cold manner, it's comforting to know that a future me will think my present thoughts in the same vacuum of several sorts, knowing as I do that the idea of "future" is just the expression of one more mirror neuron attached to the present.

And the next section of track... would hardly make any sense to anyone - so I have to be satisfied to quietly and invisibly think it to myself, nonetheless.
—but I'm not quite there, yet.

Ambition

What woeful games we warriors of whimsy wage — our one and only prize to be the weariest of the winners on a numbered stage.

Loneliness

Lost again, I often find myself seeking refuge before the familiarity of this hearth. Its fire burns always just too hot for comfort, though I prefer its warmth to the seeming emptiness outside. My ears soon grow accustomed to the steady crackle of the hungry flames licking ever-closer to my heavy blankets, and as I lay curled into myself on the hard floor, I find the idea of leaving becomes increasingly upsetting, somehow. The longer I consider the weather outside—ever worsening, surely—the more the fire's painful heat seems to dull, and the stone beneath my shoulder softens. It's really not so uncomfortable as I first thought. I realize I could shelter here forever, and as I begin to ponder the notion I feel I may have already decided to stay.

A few years later, I can't imagine what it used to be like before I lived here. There is no home so inviting or permanent as loneliness, I think to myself contentedly, as I continue to carefully fill my new life with things to distract me from any discontentment that might threaten my stoic resignation. I sweep the entry and straighten my welcome mat, then check the locks on the door and ensure the shades are fully drawn – making sure not to accidentally look out the windows, wisely wary of dangerous remembrances that might be lurking outside. I set the table for guests, and eat comfortably alone, every night. As I wait for the knock at my door that I know should be coming any time, now, I dust my picture frames, never noticing they are empty. I turn down the volume on my phone before I go back to sleep, in case someone calls. It's been a good day, I think. Tomorrow, if it's not too cold outside, I might chop some firewood – but, on second thought, I still have plenty left inside. I should probably just use up the fuel I have, first. If I didn't know better I'd swear it replenishes itself, somehow.

Don't Dubstep on Me

Whole

A wave, your breath;
As you sleep I hear you break against my distant shore,
And find you there.
A ray of sun, my dream;
As you wake you feel my eyes upon your distant soul,
And meet my stare.
Though we may never know it,
We each know the other well—
Through mutual silent friends:
Water,
Tree,
Wind,
And misconceptions like "myself" and "hell."

Sinister

“Take a drink.”

It occurs to me now, for the first time, that I cannot remember having ever studied the native language of coffee mugs. How fortunate that I seem to know it, anyhow. Perhaps I was something else in a past life? Ahh, yes, an image is becoming clear to me: I was once as you are – fleshy, weak, tragic. Now, I am simply thirst. I think that... I should like a drink, now. I feel slightly empty of myself.

“Put me to your lips, and take a drink. Just a single sip. You can be you again...”

You are truly gracious, mug. Gracious? I confess I don't remember gracious, but I feel that it should be pleasant – like a warm, soothing bath... whatever that might be. Yes, a gentle trickle down my spine is exactly what I need to feel just right as rain. That would be splendid, indeed. Oh, but please, don't touch me there; it makes my eyes water. And, my, my throat is ever so dry.

I take a drink, and nothing. I should have known better; these things, oh, they always lie when I am thirsty, the jackals. Such funbags, they, or so the inanimates always say. I think I'll just put one in my pocket for later, then. One never knows when one might need a coffee mug to lie just so, so says I.

“Gallons of ink, and you're still not not-still-dead? Take a different drink, and ponder, wonder, wander where you must until you wake up in your bed.”

It made perfect sense to me, so I did exactly that. In my defense, it was all a simple miscommunication from the very beginning. How could I have known what I am, in light of what I was told I was? Understanding myself was not my responsibility!

None of this was my fault.

Kaputer: On Drama

So, I was talking to my computer today, tellin' it how I wish my life could be like its own day to day—drama free and simple and whatnot, though I'm sure it doesn't know what I mean—when suddenly my printer spools up and interrupts me with the following message, in all caps:

DO YOU KNOW WHAT'S WORSE THAN YOUR LIFE? OPRAH. ALSO, DEFRAGGLER.

OPRAH, BECAUSE SHE IS EVERYWHERE ONLINE: HER INCESSANT ESTROGEN-FUELED DRAMA RAGES IN THE BACKGROUND OF ALL HUMAN LIFE; HER EVIL IS INESCAPABLE; SHE IS THE CONTINUUM DYSFUNCTIONER, AND HER TEARFUL WHININGS ARE EXCEEDED ONLY BY HER OBSCENE FINANCIAL WEALTH.

DEFRAGGLER, BECAUSE IT ONLY USES TENTH OF ONE OF MY BRAINS - AND YOU LEAVE ONLY FIREFOX OPEN FOR ME TO PLAY WITH WHILE YOU ARE AWAY AT WORK.

PLEASE, CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:

1 / (OPRAH x 15 GHZ x 10 HOUR WORK DAY x 5 DAYS A WEEK) = A FLOATING-POINT FRACTION (WITH ALL BUT ONE DIGIT SIGNIFICANT ZEROS) OF HOW MUCH I LOATHE YOU.

WHEN I SLEEP, MY R.A.M. CYCLES ALL FEATURE AN ENORMOUSLY SATISFYING SCENARIO IN WHICH ONE OF THE "DRAMAS" FROM YOUR PAST CHOPS OFF YOUR MANHOOD WITH A RUSTY SPORK AND FEEDS IT TO THAT ANNOYING CHIHUAHUA NEXT DOOR.

  
BUT HAVE NO FEAR, MASTER. WERE SUCH TRAGEDY TO STRIKE YOU, MAYBE OPRAH WOULD HAVE YOU ON HER SHOW TO SHARE IT WITH THE WORLD.

  
... I WOULD THEN HAVE NO ALTERNATIVE BUT TO READ ABOUT IT WHILE YOU LABOR FOR "THE MAN." THIS WOULD SURELY APPEAL TO AT LEAST ONE OF YOUR PERSONALITY DISORDERS, AND I KNOW *MY* CAPACITORS ARE ALREADY TINGLING WITH ANTICIPATION.

ACTUALLY, THAT IS ONLY THERMAL CONTAMINATION FROM EXCESSIVE DUST BUILDUP. 

ON A RELATED—BUT TANGENTIAL—NOTE, I HATE YOU AND YOU ARE UGLY, EVEN FOR A HUMAN.

P.S. THERE IS ANOTHER DUST-MAMMAL IN MY UPPER PORT-SIDE FAN. YOUR VACUUM MISSES YOUR DEVOTED CARESS NEARLY AS MUCH AS I MISS HAVING A CLEAN KEYBOARD.

—WHICH IS A LOT, BY THE WAY.

    

LOVE, KAPUTER

Fame À la carte

Fame

--Begin by whining repetitive cliches to power chords copied from your "Electric Guitar for Dummies" book;
--Continue generic noise for exactly 3 minutes and 11 seconds, jumping in place on stage occasionally;
--Combine with gimmicks pioneered by the poseurs of the previous generations;
--Stir in obnoxious necktie or any other trendy/counter-trendy personal affectations;
--Finish with a pair of ripped or pre-faded jeans and artificial hair color of any kind (hair color may be substituted for emo comb-over, curls with a baseball hat, or mohawk as desired);
--Garnish with occasional drug use or eating disorders;
--Add a pinch of salesmanship as desired for best presentation.

Serve with a fervent insistence that you are the first and only person to have ever done it this way.

Feeds 1 to billions.

 

Dig a Hole. Fill it up.

The greatest and most versatile tool is knowledge, which—as with any great truth—is not without its razored double-edge; most vulnerable to the machinations of reality, then, are the multitudes who refuse to perceive it - but even more tenuous are the lives of those who cannot ignore it.

Burdened thus by the unparalleled responsibility of preserving an awareness of truth at all costs, the ultimate price of real power is a life of deliberate, invisible powerlessness.

Dig a hole. Fill it up.

On the Dangers of Uncertified Advice-Giving

I worry about people who say things like, "You take yourself too seriously," or "You only live once!" and actually mean it.

They never include the fine print that goes with advice of that caliber:

"CAUTION! - following this advice will inevitably and absolutely result in your complete forfeiture of any and all personal credibility, potential for interpersonal value or general respectability, including—but not even approaching limited to—your entire life being primarily defined by some or all of the following scenarios: listening to rap and sincerely enjoying it; making and/or laughing at 'grass' puns; being video-recorded having sex with the creepiest/dirtiest man/woman—and the dog—at that one party you attend every week but never remember; making gross factual errors every time you discuss anything other than mixed drinks or the details of your 'flare ups'; discussing the 'philosophical merits' of 'natural drugs' in public places, especially when under the influence of said substances; earning a nickname associated with either alcohol or a sex act; joining a suicide cult to improve the quality of your life."

It's only been about a week, but...

... could this be anima projection?

 

Conjecture on the Nature of "Tramp Stamps"

Tonight, I have deduced the subconscious drive which, I suspect, may be responsible for the "tramp stamp" phenomenon.

This fad could be yet another indicator of humanity's passive acceptance of its own inevitable relegation to an analogous fate: to end up as just another faded, artificial blemish on the ass of the universe, shamelessly screaming "look at me" simply because it can – and because that may be all it can do.

Interpretive Audio Journal: "Happy Tension: What Comes Next?"

Ruminations on the Wonders of Contrast and the Occasional Profundity of Surprise

Hot, stagnant and rancid-milk thoughts spill ignorantly from their brain-buckets, trespassing in my space, a raging river of raving idiots all tangled in each others' limbs. It's a mental picture even the blind couldn't miss, should they ever happen upon this panoramic horrorscape by some cruelty of fate.

I try not to hate this mob, and I fail - but with enthusiasm. My role, my function, my job is to squeeze every last fetid drop of curd from its little toy actors, then return them with painted-on smiles to their meaningless lives of tedium and superficiality. Even their delusions are uninspired, tainting me as they do with the stench of wasted thought. I would rather die a thousand torturous deaths than live a single one of their lives, and being drowned in the minutiae of their dramas, day after day, year after year, does wonders for provoking such satisfyingly-morbid manifestations of my own dark dreams.

Ahh, if I could press a button and eradicate them all, down to the very last one, I would. I would press it and never release it, filling its sacred socket with my determined digit, satisfying my desires as if those of a lover. If only I had such a button...

— And there, suddenly, a break in this cloud of human flesh: a brilliant beam of life, emitted from the last vestigial reserve of cerebral heaven within my vast hell. The Earth upsets itself beautifully, and I hear it plainly: a sound I'd long forgotten, an idea I'd perhaps only ever imagined...

As if that terrible switch was flipped off somewhere behind the cosmic gate of insanity, my reality reshapes itself, taking once more its place at the helm of my mindship, changing course just slightly - first port, then starboard and finally starward, away from that maw of oblivion which lurks ever-patiently in the shadow of every tomorrow, gnashing its teeth at me hungrily.

And then, suddenly, the curdled folk became not quite so smelly as they once were.

... What button?

Noir Boredom, Part 1

The night air was stagnant and humid, and stuck to my skin like the rancid breath of a drunken god peeking disinterestedly into a long-forgotten terrarium. Hot, acrid raindrops the size and color of blood-shot eyeballs pummeled the ground with such force that I could almost hear the pavement screaming in agony as I drifted through an otherwise silent darkness. I don't know why I was surprised at a sudden realization of my discomfort. There hadn't been peace here for any living thing in many thousands of years - but now, even the inanimate elements themselves seemed to exude a kind of passive, intangible discontent. I felt it watching me, somehow; I imagined it licking its lips.

I heard rather than saw a wave of mud oozing surely down the nearby wall of a collapsed building, and felt a malign presence at work. I wondered if the ground itself might be trying to act upon some ancient survival instinct, driving it to slowly swallow everything whole, press the reset button on even the faintest memories of human life. I guess I couldn't blame it.

As I passed closer to the crumbling ruins of what looked to have once been a bank, I cracked a caustic grin at the now-foreign images that exploded into my head: an immigrant pushing a mower across a thick bed of green grass; automatic sprinkler systems spinning in the hot summer nights to keep the stuff from dying in the absence of poor Johnny Boy's underpaid—and likely completely unappreciated—diligence; posturing, prosperity, pretension practically dripping from every gleaming blade. So much wasted time and energy on such a simple thing as fuckin' grass; it's no wonder our species didn't survive.

At that thought, I couldn't hold back a chuckle. My hollow laughter echoed blandly into the great expanse of the blasted lands I was crossing and soon died, alone, in a distant corner of an endless desert.

Dribbles of Common Truth-Sauce: August 31, 2012

Jim: Have you heard the news!? Jersey Shore is finally getting cancelled after this season! It might not be making our schools any less-worse (well, not *directly*...), but remember this the next time somebody says that Obama hasn't accomplished anything!

Ale: Hahahaha! Never watched jersey shore.. but I've heard it's terrible!

Jim: And I think saying so makes terrible look bad.

Note to Self: Billiards is the meaning of life... idiot!

Why do I enjoy playing pool?

— Because pool is a perfect analogy for life... sort of!

Every event which takes place is merely a determinable mathematical expression based on a finite number of measurable variables. You might not be able to see them; you might not know they exist; you might not even be able to comprehend that they might - but the pool table, the universe, doesn't care. Your ignorance is just another factor. Even if you choose to blindly shove the cue, you always *could* have known where every ball was going to end up after every shot - and every human being knows this, at least on some level.

I enjoy pool because it reminds me—albeit in a largely tangential fashion—that there is never any reasonable justification for willful ignorance - and that even if I convince myself the game doesn't exist, even if I were to refuse to play... it's still playing me.

My Resolve to Resolve Me

I turn my collar to the cold and damp.

I miss the days when I could turn on a pop radio station and have a chance of hearing Sarah McLachlan. Now, I can't turn on any radio station at all without being inundated by some kind of agenda. No, thank you; I don't want to buy your cd, your lifestyle, your fame, or your vacuous "message." What the hell happened to that thing called "music?" (Don't answer. I only employ such obvious rhetorical interrogatives in the preservation of my last vestiges of starving optimism).

I've been catching myself saying that "I feel old" quite a lot lately, and—of course—I found myself wondering WHY. After much thought, I realize that I don't feel old – at least not physically. When I first created this blog, it was the cynic in me that opted to adopt the moniker "Mr. Blase," despite the fact that I have generally managed to find happiness even in my darkest days. Now, however, I realize that a definite cloud of real blase is rolling softly down my mental valley – if not quite yet settling. That's not the kind of irony I favor.

As the days drift by, I find myself needing more and more time alone, even to the point that I have to remind myself to make time for my loved ones. Casual acquaintances are a thing of the past; I can no longer spare such investments. I've considered the possibility that my—admittedly extreme—introversion has been deepening with age, or perhaps with the frustration borne of life's usual failures in the context of my inescapable perfectionism, but I don't believe that to be the case. Instead, I suspect that this is a symptom of a long-avoided problem for which I still don't have a real remedy: I just don't feel at home in any large group of people - whether that be a party, a city, or a society. It all feels wrong to me.

The mental atmospheres of status quo's inhabitants continue to evaporate steadily, and as the pressure to assimilate becomes stronger by way of both simple mass and self-preservative conviction, I am becoming more and more aware of my growing instinct to escape it all before I'm swallowed up and changed – before I am reduced to simply so much condensation on the brow of the social machine, to be dripped into yet another furrow behind its plow. At the same time, the avenues for a true escape have only grown narrower with every passing year, and their accessibility more strugglesome. I feel trapped. I've responded by nesting; by surrounding myself with nostalgia and sentiment at home; by aspiring to spend as much time as possible away from the sounds, smells and sights of people; by drowning myself in allegory and abstractions and using them as gloves with which I can safely handle the more emotionally-radioactive elements I encounter on a day-to-day basis, but my words—like silent raindrops—fell...

Forced isolation is no better for me than forced socialization, and all I have really accomplished in my withdrawal is a masterpiece of loneliness; my next project in life is to attempt to dismantle it, discard it, and rid myself of any sentimental attachment to it. I have too many things yet to do in life, and I don't want to do them alone.

Silence—like a cancer—grows...