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."