Football?

I do NOT understand how it is possible for people to identify so vehemently with competitive sports that they become crazed, maniacal zealots. Today, I intend to figure it out!

... so I can fix the problem >;-)

Getting Restless-er...

What has two thumbs, and wants to use them to build a new and better life somewhere in the wilderness? 

- this guy.

*Pinch*

I just woke up from a nap. I'm not sure how long I was sleeping.

Strange... I have a book in my hands. It's still opened up to the last page of the last chapter. I remember intending to read it, though I don't remember picking it up before I fell asleep. Actually, I don't remember falling asleep at all, now that I think about it. What an odd coincidence; just a moment ago, I'm certain I was dreaming about reading this very book. In my dream, its words made me forget who and what I am and was... and though I'm beginning to remember myself as the "me" I am now, I still can't shake how eerily real the dream felt, as if I were reading to myself from my own memories - but somehow experiencing them for the first time. As I continue to wake, I'm aware that a distant part of my mind is still frantically calculating the possibility that I may have things backwards: that my dream might have been my real life; as if—even while I know I've just returned to my native form and my original reality—I might still be asleep at this very moment. But I can feel the ink on the pages in the book slipping faster and faster out of my mind, as is to be expected when waking from a dream. Thus, I must be awake - right? Of course. As the words of the story dissolve back into the arbitrary neural ether that imagined them, I am remembering that I was not the story - I was simply dreaming about reading a story.

Well, then, now my groggy paranoia has been indulged and sated. I suppose I should probably put this book down and get back to reality. Now, I just need to remember what I was doing before I fell asleep...

Robot Morning

Still...

All feats of verbal communication considered... I still prefer touch. Spoken language is too accessible; it's too easily entered by external influences. I have come to understand that, beyond a certain point, the highest levels of profound interpersonal honesty require a type of more intimate privacy than verbal exchanges can accommodate. Millions of people share most spoken languages. That context is always attached to it.

When an idea of great importance needs conveying... fingers, lips, eyes, breath, the space between two bodies: these are the most effective tools for communicating, and perhaps the only comprehensive ones. 

Even Switters had a similar thought:

"In a reality made of language, the people who get to name things have psychological ownership of those things. Couples name their pets and children, Madison Avenue names the products that dominate our desires, theologians name the deities that dominate our spirit—'Yahweh' changed to 'Jehovah' changed to plain ol' generic 'God'—kids name the latest cultural trends or rename old ones to make them theirs; politicians name streets and schools and airports after one another or after the enemies they've successfully eliminated: they took Martin Luther King's life, for example, and then by naming their pork barrel projects after him, took possession of his memory. In a way, we're like linguistic wolves, lifting our legs on patches of cultural ground to mark them with verbal urine as territory that we alone control. Or maybe not."

Phenomenal Cosmic Dissonance. A Space Between Two Much-Nothings. Emptiness is Really F*cking Dense. More.

In my quietest moments, I think I hear the universe crying for its lost children.

It's 3:27 AM PST, January 30, 2014.
7.143 billion people exist right now.
Most of them aren't human any more.
Most of them aren't truly alive at all.

Stuck. Direction-confused. Expectations of me... arbitrary; meaningless; always there.Very, very heavy.

My mother was raised by rich parents, rebelled against the box, had me very young, was materially poor for a long time but gave me everything I need. Neither spoiled nor neglected. I loved every second.
- She regrets it now? Wants me to pursue a different life for my future children than the one I had, the one I loved, the one that made me? I like and respect who I am, because I earned myself... my soul is my own. I carved it carefully from natural resources: imagination, love, unspoiled wilderness, inspiration. Never tapped the chisel too lightly. Started over when necessary or when simply right. I had no material dependencies. Is that not enough? Always disappointment. Why?

Pragmatism: a lie told to myself, but by others. Another lie from somewhere else tells me to trust it. Endless web of lies sustaining everything outside of me; I don't fit anywhere in it. Ostracized by default... but I prefer that to mindlessness, soullessness, pushing the scale the wrong way.

Someone else would pay for my selfishness if I gave up. I can't care that little. Fuck everyone who wants to rewire me by force of shame and fear - reflections of themselves they never see, because almost everyone chooses to be a black hole. I am a mirror they fear. They will always try to shatter me. If I ever stop seeing my own reflection, I'll disappear. So exhausting. Constant vigilance is the norm... would be easy if I weren't a soldier in a war that only I acknowledge. Only way to win is to survive long enough to be seen - to reflect another.

Pragmatism. I want to have a family of my own. I know I can do it; already did it for awhile, once. I'm not worried. Still... irrational expectations attacking me at every turn. Materialistic conventions trying to buy me.
"Be rich... so you can be happy," the rules say. Nobody argues. Fools.
Impossible paradox, truthly; excess makes the soul spoiled, unappreciative, dim, ignorant... eventually claims ownership of it. The more you have, the more you spend; the more you spend, the more things you have; the more things you have, the less you are. Be rich or be happy.
"Choose one," says the universe to me. I chose happy - will continue to do so.
"Wrong choice," says everyone else. If they didn't eat, shit, breathe, fuck, think and speak denial in every waking moment, they wouldn't ignore me when I ask them to define happiness; they deflect because they don't know. They forgot long ago. "Don't question my beliefs." All blind worshipers, praying at their altars to capitalism, masturbating their emptiness, perpetuating global ignorance one random encounter at a time. Only habits, now: patterns of behaviors: self-sustaining, self-explaining, self-justifying, self-absorbed.


Language can be beautiful when abstracted, but the truth is that humankind uses it primarily to keep those real brain-fuckers of realities obscured in rhetoric forever. 

Most people's consciousness... isn't. Complex programming in a simple environment. Mind control is the conventional option: plug in to the reality of your choice; allow it to convince you that it wasn't your choice, that you're just a victim, that there's a villain behind your pain; remain plugged in long enough, and you'll eventually wake up with a mask where a face once was - the face of the villain. It won, and you lost yourself. The greatest trick a devil can play, I think, is convincing itself that it's just an innocuous human being.

We are all tools, gifted with purposelessness by the universe so we can apply ourselves to what cause matters most at any given time. Most become weapons; most choose destruction... so desperate for purpose that any control at all will do. Egomaniacal masturbation!

Nobody asks the right questions, so nobody has to face the truth that nothing's right about the way everyone lives. Not even just here, either... it's spreading. It's everywhere. New epicenters every day.

So many souls lost to such simple fucking ideas.

Even most intelligent people can't break out of the conundrum. Just because you CAN do a thing... you don't need to do it. What the fuck good is choice—our greatest gift, our most valuable skill—if you allow others to make it for you?

The hard truth is that the world ended a long time ago. The aftermath is now.

Apocalypse is a fantasy. This is as much contrast as the human condition will ever display. The view from space is clear: dismal. So lonely.

Movies Every Human Should Watch

I realized that I've seen so many movies and TV shows that were powerful, thought provoking and/or inspiring in my life that I can no longer keep track of them all! I don't want to forget them. I want to watch them all many more times before I die. So, with that in mind, I'm going to make myself a list here - and perhaps accidentally expose some other wandering souls to something magical in doing so.

I'll add to it as I recall them.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Most—but not all—of these exert their influence primarily in the form of very subtle esoteric currents, (consistent with Straussian analytical philosophy, for example), even when they appear to focus on highly polarizing counter-cultural concepts that are more widely recognized. They are often not what they seem, and that's part of their brilliance. If you don't look beneath the surface, you will miss many core ideas!

In no particular order (TV series marked with *):

- Solaris (2002)

- Hero

- The Shape of Things

- Firefly* 
- The Life of David Gale

- Cloud Atlas

- The Science of Sleep
- Oblivion

- I Heart Huckabees 

- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

- Pan's Labyrinth

- Idiocracy

- Schizopolis

- The Book of Eli

- V for Vendetta

- Gattaca

- The Dollhouse*
- Equilibrium

- How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

- Falling Down
- The Truman Show

And in the category of excellent entertainment:

- Mr. Brooks

- House of Cards*

- Dexter* (very esoteric undercurrents - could easily fit in the above category, as well)

- Sinister

- Day Break*

- Hannibal*

- Hot Fuzz

- Lie to Me*

- House*

- The Game

- The Asylum*

- Boston Legal*

- Bates Motel*
- The Usual Suspects

Thoughts for today:

People create the futures they inhabit. If you know a person to be dissatisfied in later life, it is rational to consider their earlier behaviors and decisions which led up to that point.

I always contemplate sexuality, and while the last few years of my life have led me to a few epiphanies in that regard, they've also lead me to a few big questions that I'm still trying to answer. For instance: is it actually possible to compartmentalize sexuality, and interact with it at a purely physical and/or egotistical level? My experiences and instincts, as well as my ponderings on the matter, have thus far convinced me that it is not. So far, the only pressure to subscribe to that belief comes from the fact that many people already believe it; it's a simple matter of environmentally-precipitated trends intersecting with peer pressure and monkey-see-monkey-do. In actuality, I think sexuality is an inseparable dimension of any person's overall self; it is intrinsically connected to all the other elements, just as they are all connected to each other both individually and as a unified idea. People can absolutely hide those other ingredients temporarily when, for whatever reason, the desire arises to have a completely superficial experience seemingly free of risk, exposure, danger, surprise - and when two people have that same goal, the interaction can feel light and uncomplicated... but I don't believe it ever actually is. My observations have led me to conclude that every one of these interactions creates cognitive dissonance, a clash of the instinct with the intellect, and that only one of two results seem possible: either the dissonance will become so severe that the subconscious eventually has to take action and implement a series of irrational behaviors or beliefs to obscure it somewhat permanently, or else it may serve as a catalyst for an epiphany of self that leads to a change in the inciting behavior and in the associated perspective.

It saddens me to see so many people still stuck in the former, even very late into their lives.

It strikes me as unnatural and very contrived that many (if not most) men and women interact with the notion of sex as if it were simply an activity - a physical pursuit for entertainment, pleasure, etc., much the same way as football, knitting, cooking, or hiking. In fact, sex is a fundamental expression of a person's individuality and identity on both a conscious and biological level, and every interaction with it is significant somehow. I went through a very brief phase where, not wanting to succumb to intellectual arrogance, I allowed myself to approach sex through a simpler, more limited perspective. The common term for it is, I believe, "casual sex," or sex outside the context of any other sort of relationship. The result for me in every instance was that I felt that I was being both lied to and taken advantage of, while committing the same offense myself at the same time... but all in a context of mutual denial - so the experience was governed by a silent, mutual expectation that the other would simply accept their implicit resulting wound and proceed as if it didn't exist - as if denying it would cancel its eventual effect on the psyche.

I was aware that there was something fundamentally wrong about the interactions I was having, and at the time, that made it all the more confusing and frustrating to see my partners seemingly so immersed in it - relishing it, or at least believing that they were. At the same time, I could clearly feel that very awareness exerting tremendous pressure on me to emulate the experience that my partners were having: to close off my mind to the reality of what was happening beneath my physical self; to feign ignorance of the past and pretend there was no such thing as future; to allow myself only to experience this distraction passively, rather than fully comprehend it; to be in the moment - but only in a specific part of it. I was unable to achieve those feats of self-deception, but in the interests of preserving my experimental integrity, I was able to at least reciprocate their physical pleasure and behave as if it were the only factor or product of our intimacy as was the expectation. On the surface, I maintained the illusion of belief in the superficiality of our encounters. I learned much from it, though the knowledge was not without its price.

At one point I simply had an epiphany that snapped me out of my experiment: I realized that, while I thought I had no idea what my partners' internal responses (ooh, pun!) were to our casual interactions after they'd occurred, I had in fact been witness to those exact responses as a third party for my entire adult life. Nearly every woman I know has had one or several experiences with men who have never followed up with them after having "simply" had sex. The male friends I used to have earlier in life had experienced the same disappointment. Even when that was exactly their expectation going into these encounters, the result was always—on some level, somehow—still sincerely unexpected; there was a type of innocent shock and disbelief at the core of their frustration when they realized, often repeatedly, that yes - people actually do that. What they neglected to accept was the fact that all people can do that, including themselves. Irrational beliefs are almost always preempted by psychologically damaging experiences, and that first shattered innocence was exactly the trauma that was needed for further belief in the idea of "casual" intimacy to parasitize them and begin growing.

I saw the familiar falseness of theism in the eyes of the women I was with during this time. Our sex was their god, and they truly followed blindly. They had lost their conscious connection to this part of their reality, and they were attempting to recreate the closest approximation in its absence. They were lying to themselves and believing it, because the lie was complex and dynamic; it could expand to address and encompass new questions as they arose. It was distracting, too - as both pleasure and pain tend to be, drawing attention away from the ideas above and below them, the ideas that created them. The experience almost entirely obscured the reason for the experience. What could have been a lesson was lost in the semantics of hedonism, as is often true in human society today - not just in the case of this particular aspect.

What I think most people fail to consider is that, when they all return to their regular lives after this sort of encounter, they all feel exactly the same way... there's just no connection to facilitate the expression of that mutual pain, and so it's written off or chalked up to insecurity or traditionalism or closed-mindedness - when in reality it's just an absence of awareness that their hurt is universal. That reality is the staple of all psychological analyses of trauma victims, (which I have studied extensively), so I can only conclude that I missed such an obvious hint due to my proximity to the source of the conflict. Eventually, I realized that these people had become so desperate for connection that they were willing to pretend one existed... just to be reminded of what physical affection could be.

I'm still not sure I've gotten over that, completely. I feel like I should mourn for them, but it also bothers me that their actions perpetuate a type of sadness and disconnection that is already far too prevalent in the world. It really bothers me that I allowed myself to buy into it, even temporarily - even experimentally. I even sometimes wonder, still, a couple of years later, if my sexual psychology might have been permanently damaged by the experience, and I worry that I might bring it into a future relationship if so. I expect that the experience has a similar effect on everyone once they can look at it objectively, so I do know that I shouldn't worry - but still... it was unsettling.

The questions I find myself asking now are, among others, these: how much is reasonable to expect of another human being? How well must a person know him or herself before I should take them seriously when they claim to be "honest?" And, most important of them all: can I ever really trust somebody who either can't or won't both ask these questions of themselves and commit to answering them at any cost?

Articulation Propagation

Sincere ignorance I can forgive - but once ignorance has been dispelled by exposure to the truth, all that's left is a choice. Everyone has a choice. Far too many people ignore theirs.

I've had the unexpected pleasure of cause, recently, to articulate my personal thoughts and feelings on the subject of my own physicality - but, to my frustration, I haven't yet been able to comprehensively abstract the ideas in my head... until just now, in the shower, as I was appreciating my body while getting all clean and fragrant. I often have my purest intellectual moments when naked.

I am thankful for my physical being. I'm glad I have a body; it allows me to interact with a dimension of reality that I believe is important, and not merely because I strive for complete comprehension of reality (which I do). My body lets me walk, touch, kiss, taste, feel the earth between my toes, sense and interact with the energy of nature, convey important ideas to and plant positive feelings in the minds of people I care about, and much more. It's important to me. I understand that it's necessary, and I will always do what I must to allow it to persist for as long as naturally possible.

What I am not at all appreciative of is the idea of my body being defined by the context of a group mentality. What frustrates me is that, in the company of others, "I" as a physical idea, am defined by whatever physical common-denominator exists in that social environment; beyond that, anyone exposed to this purely social definition will automatically accept that definition as the current reality, and will then interact with me as if the idea of "me" that they hold in their minds is fact - when, in fact, it is anything but. Only I have the right to define myself arbitrarily! Only I am allowed to own the concept of who or what I am, and that includes every possible dimension of my existence both physical and otherwise. When I interact with other people, their willing acceptance of these ambient notions of physicality are "in control." The more people that are present and aware of it, the stronger the exertion of control becomes; the greater the pressure exerted upon me becomes, and I feel it. If I were to simply give in to it, I would lose a part of myself - and even if it returned to me once I escaped the prison of such toxic social interactions, I would be a coward and a hypocrite for having allowed myself to be enslaved, even temporarily.

Whether I have short hair, long hair, movie-star hair, hippie hair, dirty hair, or no hair; whether I am short or tall, skinny, muscular, or fat (or appear more of one or another based on what I'm wearing or how I walk); whether I am clean shaven, trimmed, or Grizzly Adams; whether I am seen as conventionally attractive or conventionally ugly, whether a woman stares and drools or sneers and gags, NONE of these things represent what I actually am - they are all external perceptions that are forced upon me by others, and I loathe them all equally, even those with positive social connotations and especially those false ideas that encourage people to find me "attractive." I can't possibly be attractive to people who have only interacted with me using their eyes; I refuse to be subject to their delusion. Whether it makes them feel good or bad, or whether it encourages my subconscious social coping mechanisms to make ME feel good or bad - it's irrelevant, because it's all a lie.

That is my beef with my body: that others will always push, hard, to possess ideological ownership of it, and that they will always interact with me falsely - through a completely invalid perception created by an arbitrary, purely-socially-derived misconception of me. An equal frustration is that the entire problem could be avoided if everyone simply acknowledged that all sentient beings have the rights of full and sole proprietorship to every dimension of themselves. It hurts me to see other people allow themselves to be marginalized and reduced to simpler, lesser ideas of themselves when in the company of others - simply because the alternative would be for those misunderstood elements of self to remain perpetually unknown. I certainly relate to the powerful instinctual drive to be known and understood and appreciated for *exactly* what you are—and absolutely nothing else and nothing more—and I absolutely relate to the profound feelings of discontentment and worthlessness that fester in the absence of this kind of fundamental intimacy... but I cannot understand how nearly an entire species could possibly be willing to simply abstain from such a fundamentally necessary element of their natural existence for ANY reason at all. On some level, being acknowledged—even falsely—can feel better than realizing I'm invisible... but it's just another comfortable delusion. How can everyone know this and yet do nothing about it!?

 All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that the good among us do nothing.

Inaction is its own form of contribution to these violations, as well. The self-destructive version of this concept is called "vanity" by most; giving it a name conveniently compartmentalizes the crime in an innocuous word that can simply be "accepted" or written off as a "vice" without needing to interact with the full scope of what it actually means. Rarely does anyone ever define "vanity" comprehensively and consciously; of those, nearly none reflect on what its definition says about themselves or others. But if you do it to yourself, you project it on to others as well - and it damages them! Allowing oneself to assign either positive or negative value to any person, on any level whatsoever, based on evolutionarily-irrelevant components of what they either do or do not look like, perpetuates a criminal level of ignorance and constitutes a bald-faced lie.

Let's talk about "evolutionary advantages" briefly, because I hear that offered up as an excuse for superficial ideologies very commonly. I was talking with some idiot acquaintance of mine who claimed he was attracted to women with a certain waist-to-bust ratio, and his—honest—rationalization for preferring skinny women with big breasts and big hips was that he preferred women with "ideal child-bearing figures." Ugh. Idiot. He inspired me to follow up my somewhat significant pre-existing genetics expertise with a comprehensive review of evolutionary biology - and I feel that everyone should know what the facts are. First of all, neither the survival capability nor, more importantly, the overall biological success of any human offspring can currently be enhanced via visual selection of any particular genetic trait... because nearly every single genetic trait relevant to either survival or success is not visibly physically expressed at all. Period. That's scientific fact. The only exceptions are specific debilitating hereditary diseases which can shorten one's life, some of which have outwardly-visible physical symptoms which might be perceived - and that's a whole 'nother ethics argument in and of itself.

So, to put it simply: unless a person's physical appearance indicates one of very few detrimental genetic conditions which are likely to afflict his or her offspring, (and taking into account a very basic drive for people to prefer mates with—non specific—genetically-different physical features than oneself), no person's physical appearance can ever be significant to the evolutionary potential of his or her offspring. The only other specific factors that might actually be relevant, (just to cover all the bases), are those which occur at the microbiological level and which are completely invisible to visual physical scrutiny. For example: immune hyper-efficiencies (did you know that you can tell ideal immune chemistry in a mate by their smelling "good" to you?); vascular abnormalities that reduce the risk of certain diseases or increase oxygen or other nutrient absorption efficiency; extra folds in certain parts of the brain which can increase cognitive capacities, etc.

On the completely contrary to evolution, such things as skeletal structure, muscle distribution/mass/tone, body weight, height, skin blemishes, skin color, hair color/length/texture, eyesight: all of these are either arbitrary (so inconsistent as to be effectively random) or else 100% environmental, and none have absolutely anything to do with a person's genetic suitability or physical health. TL;DR: Unless a person is by any means so physically impaired that his or her health is obviously likely to suffer, or unless a person is very physically similar to a potential mate, nobody can have any rational justification for any particularly-significant level of physical repulsion for a person, ever. The version of physical attraction that most people experience today is a COMPLETELY false concept planted in their minds over the last hundred years or so by other people who want to own their minds.

– Those other people are succeeding!

Allow me to go ahead and dispel any remaining delusion for anyone who happens to be reading this:

Men, your only significant genetic directive for which physical attraction might be a factor is that you are programmed to impregnate as many healthy women as possible in your lifetime who are capable of child-rearing, and who are ideally as physically different from you as possible. The type or extent of the physical differences are not significant. If it's a woman, it counts. If she is capable of reproducing, she qualifies. The only biologically-legit reason you could possibly have to be less physically-attracted to any particular woman is if she possesses physical characteristics which clearly suggest that she is either infertile, carries a hereditary disease that would cripple your children, or else is physically incapable of successfully caring for children.

Women, your only significant genetic directive for which physical attraction might be a factor is that you are programmed to seek out men who are capable of impregnating you and sharing the burdens of child-rearing, and who are ideally as physically different from you as possible. The type or extent of the physical differences are not significant. If it's a man, it counts. If he is capable of reproducing, he qualifies. The only biologically-legit reason you could possibly have to be less physically-attracted to any particular man is if he possesses physical characteristics which clearly suggest that he is either infertile, carries a hereditary disease that would cripple your children, or else is physically incapable of successfully caring for children.

Any physical factors that a man or woman considers "attractive" or "unattractive" beyond the boundaries of those specific directives exist completely and solely in their heads - put there by an external source, either directly or indirectly. Nevertheless, men and women alike will continue to rationalize their attraction to arbitrary body ideals, as marketed by mainstream media, by citing genetic suitability or instinctual factors, or by writing it off as "simple, harmless" vanity.

... Like idiots. Sincere ignorance I can forgive - but once ignorance has been dispelled by exposure to the truth, all that's left is a choice.

There is something inherently dehumanizing about the way members of human societies interact with the notion of their physical selves. I am determined to strive for full humanity at any cost, because I've tasted it. Maybe that's what's missing; maybe there's just no hope that things will ever truly get better - that our collective soul will be able to heal itself. Regardless of the cause, I am not accepting anybody's excuses! Each and every human being is responsible for differentiating between their biases and what is real, and given that we live in social environments we all have an inarguable obligation to do our absolute best to achieve exactly that. Any person who fails to at least constantly try to deliberately enforce a conscious distinction between "what is perceived about a person based on their physical appearance" and "what a person actually IS" is committing what might most appropriately be called "identity rape": forcing an inaccurate, offensive, completely arbitrary concept of a person upon that very person, by way of reinforcing and contributing to the social herd's false inferences about his or her body and what that body translates to in terms of a person's "value" on any level.

Maybe everybody just agrees that this poor compromise we call life is as good now as it will ever be again. Maybe nobody believes that it can ever be salvaged - so why should they invest the effort when others won't? I refuse to accept that, and I will continue to grieve for the righteous intellectual ideals—possibly the true next steps in human evolution—that many have given up on. I will continue to trust that my honesty about my pain might eventually change someone for the better through their association with me - and that through my persistence and adherence to principles I know to be both rational and ethical, I at least might someday be known—by at least someone—as exactly what I truly am... nothing more, nothing less.

I want to have children with a woman who knows me like that. Until then, living in a world full of adults who need to be coddled and can't be separated from their pacifiers without throwing tantrums... is an irony not lost on me. I can only hope that my trust in the universe to eventually correct this cosmic imbalance is justified.

So far, it's just a vague, and often cruel, hope. But I'm incapable of giving up... so I don't give a fuck. I'm fighting on, and I'm even going to find ways to laugh about the problem until I can squash it completely. But seriously, fuck anyone and everyone who's too lazy or apathetic to fight for what's right - particularly in today's world where we are increasingly inundated by so many dimensions of wrongness just by opening the front door.

Choice is the ultimate gift of sentience. Every single time a human being fails to properly apply their right to choose to the world... the rest of us should simultaneously grieve for that loss, nurture the mind that made the error, and revolt against the notion that it wasn't a mistake.

Everyone has a choice. Choose not to ignore yours.

The Wisdom of Switters (Applies Yet Again...)

There are times when we can feel destiny close around us like a fist around a doorknob. Sure, we can resist. But a knob that won't turn, a door that sticks and never budges, is a nuisance to the gods. The gods may kick in the jamb. Worse, they may walk away in disgust, leaving us to hang dumbly from our tight hinges, deprived of any other chance in life to swing open into unnecessary risk and thus into enchantment.

- Switters

Audio Journal: "Imagining the Waterfall"

Apocalypse Now'days

So, the question I find myself asking is: where do you shoot the REAL zombies to kill them for good?

Brain? – nope, nothing there at all.
Junk? – nope, because they'll just buy new junk - fuckin' stem cells...
Heart? – nope, too much plaque from smoking for the bullets to cut through.

GOT IT! 

Girls: aim for the tramp stamp! The pure, unadulterated irony of shooting a deadly projectile directly at a douche-bullseye screaming "aim here" will destroy them outright.

Boys: shoot them in the tribal band on their deltoid, tricep or bicep! The unrealized irony of having an aboriginal tattoo and being killed by a firearm will melt their subconscious and ensure they don't wake back up.

Stream of thought, stuff I can't get out of my head right now...

Genetic selection; the value of experiential pain (what is the value?); loving children for whatever they are biologically; diversity of perception (which I know is of paramount importance) as a function of diversity of experience; would biologically homogenized humanity still really be "humanity?" Would it be worth having at all? We're already almost there with our increasingly popular and endemic consumption of mainstream marketing trends of both personality and biology (appearance); people already feel pressure to both look AND act according to unnatural and arbitrary blueprints TODAY! At what ratio of natural biology to artificial biology do we lose it all - or could there actually be nothing at all of value to lose in that exchange? What would be the value of choice when choice no longer matters, because it's no longer relevant? Does hardship really make us stronger than we could otherwise be without it, or is that just a rationalization - a coping mechanism to create the illusion of power in the face of our ultimate powerlessness? I am lost. On some level I know I always will be at least a little bit lost, because that's life. I don't care about any of that right now. I just want to feel safe in my own mind, in this moment. Why? I don't know. I am lost.

Audio Journal: "What I Hear When I People-Watch"

The Shape of Things

I had a brief conversation with a female friend today that really fucking upset me. We were discussing some repairs to her car and the topic of her not having the proper tools came up. She was pretty stressed out about it, so at one point I tried to lighten the mood and quipped something along the lines of,

"Well, don't worry about the logistics of getting it lifted - I have biceps for that. Hell, when I was a Navy Seal, we used to bench press cars like yours to work up an appetite for the hard stuff."

Instead of rolling with the joke like a good-humored person would, she gave me one of those annoying "... really?" stares, and said in a flat, snotty voice,

"Have you ever looked at yourself? You were definitely never a Navy Seal."

I've been a friend to her for awhile, so I'm used to her habit of lashing out and trying to jab people square in their insecurities with a hot poker when she's frustrated; fortunately, I conquered any insecurity about my body a long time ago - but as a matter of principle, and because it's my responsibility as her friend, I couldn't just say nothing and let her get away with being a bitch. So, in an effort to force her into changing the subject, I challenged her with a half-playful,

"Heyyyy, you know, I was pretty freakin' buff in high school, all right? But that was over ten years ago, and men don't age like fine wine the way women do."

To my surprise, she smiled, which was a good sign... or so I initially thought... but then, instead of returning to a less-angry version of our conversation about her car, she feigned a flirty face at me, winked, and said,

"Oh, I know you were. I've seen the pictures of you from back then. Mmm-mmm."

And then she looked away and spaced out for the rest of the short drive. She had actually been completely serious. I could tell she was genuinely distracted, and a little turned on, by whatever mental images she had seized on in that last exchange. While I understood that her withdrawal into superficial bullshit was a coping mechanism so common it might as well be universal, I was nevertheless absolutely fucking seething. I actually wanted to slap her like the child/sheep she was, right then and there, and hopefully dislodge the stupidity out of her mind and off her face. I think she actually thought that what she was saying was a compliment, and in that moment I was painfully aware of the fact—not for the first time—that, while I was her friend, she would never be capable of being a friend to me. It made me sad and pissed at the same time. I absolutely never have even the slightest violent urges toward people I care about to any extent whatsoever, and maybe that's part of what brought me to this moment: realizing that I can't justify caring about her any more. I don't think I should allow myself to.

She had just chosen the most superficial, shallow, hollow, ass-backwards form of my former, far lesser, insecure self... and then right in front of me, decided to indulge her own little personal fantasy about how much more she would appreciate me as a man if I were to simply trade 12+ years of careful, painful, deliberate, absolutely fucking profound self-evolution for... totally fucking useless muscle definition?! A fake tan?! A canned haircut?! What a fucking cunt!!! That exact phrase crossed my mind. Repeatedly. What a vapid, vain, vacuous woman this was sitting next to me. How the fuck could I justify maintaining even the slightest investment in the life of this complete fucking IDIOT - so far removed from any significant knowledge of herself that she can't even break free of mainstream body-image marketing? What the actual fuck?! This is 1+1 level shit! Never mind the fact that she's known me for years, and knows exactly how much well-deserved pride I have in the person I've made myself into, struggling against just about every external force out there the entire way; ignore the fact that she cares so little for me as a human being, has so little respect for me or what I believe in or what I fucking AM, that she didn't even realize that I might take offense to the idea of being reduced to an object - and then comparing my current self to that meaningless object unfavorably! At the moment, all I could think about was why the fuck I would want to have such a negative, ignorant, hopelessly-lost person anywhere near me, ever, for any fucking reason.

I felt dirty. I felt existentially raped. I felt like a fraud and a hypocrite and a pussy because I wasn't exploding into a huge ball of verbal rage all over her like she deserved and needed, and like I really fucking wanted to. I felt disgusted with myself for ever having dated her (a few years ago), for ever being attracted to her. I felt like an idiot for ever acknowledging the good qualities in this person whose flaws were outweighed only by her denial, willful ignorance, and apathy for herself.

I drove straight to my apartment, practically exploded out of the driver's seat and out the door, tossed the keys across the car to her, thanked her politely but briskly for letting me use her car again, shut the car door, and walked straight to my door and went inside. I felt physically ill. I almost puked, but I hadn't had anything to eat yet at that point - thank fucking god.

As I'm writing this, I still haven't decided if I ever want to talk to her again. It would be useless to try to explain to her what she'd just put me through, or to ask for an apology. (And even if she were capable of understanding at least the effect it had on me, and even if she did apologize, I know that I wouldn't be able to take it seriously because it came from her - and I know that she will never let herself grow up enough to understand WHY).

Well, fuck! I guess I just answered my own question. That's it, then. Another friend one bites the dust. I fucking hate society right now, and how fucked up it makes people - and how it teaches them to ignore—and even celebrate!!!!—their fucking insanity, and how it encourages everyone to positively-reinforce the idiotic behaviors of everyone else so the denial can be mutually reciprocated. I hate the machinations and contrivances of the corporate overmind doing everything it can to convince people to buy this idea and that perception and so-and-so definition of beauty - and fucking succeeding, without even so much as a struggle! I HATE THAT MOST OF THE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD (AND ESPECIALLY THIS COUNTRY) ARE FUCKING SLAVES, BUT ARE SO FAR REMOVED FROM REALITY AND SELF-AWARENESS THAT THEY ACTUALLY THINK THEY'RE "LIVING," OR THAT THEY CAN POSSIBLY BE HAPPY, OR THAT THEY HAVE THE FAINTEST FUCKING INKLING OF WHAT FREEDOM IS.

I fucking hate sheeple! FUCKKKK THISSSS SHIIIIIT.

Things I need to stop forgetting:

Magical moments between people don't ever just "happen." They're created consciously—if not always deliberately—when both of you just can't help sharing your magic... because it feels good.

Moving on feels great. Once you're past the obstacle, it's suddenly not scary any more.

It means something significant when you get to the point in life where you can take away all of the good that you want to remember about a person without dragging along the baggage; it takes a certain kind of self-honesty and objective self-appreciation that's very difficult to access.

No peer is worth feeling irrationally guilty or responsible for... and if they aren't your peer, you already know better.

Finding happiness may be merely a combination of preparation, luck, and persistence, (and fate, if you believe in that sort of notion), sure - but being open to happiness is a choice. If a person is fortunate enough to stumble upon the blessing of your happiness, but can't reciprocate it... there's a reason, that reason existed before you came along, and they'll never find it until they're free enough of distraction to pursue it. They need to simplify, but you need them to grow. Don't enable their stagnance; human resilience will always trump you, me, and guilt alike.

Speaking of which, everybody moves through life in stages, and no matter how complex they may seem, every stage can be reduced to one of two trends: simplifying, or growing. Be aware of this in both yourself and others, because you can only ever work with the process - not around or against it.

Touching is important. Many important things can only be communicated with a deliberate touch... but choose carefully who you share yourself with. Every significant connection is a two-way street, and it will change both of you; if you have to guess whether or not it will be good for you, it won't be.

Students of science know that "coincidence" is merely the perception of individually-insignificant events as being inherently connected on some intangible plane... but if you stumble into it with open eyes and an honest mind, that perception can be significant. Don't ignore your instincts if you've labored to refine them. Happy accidents DO rarely happen.

Something just occured to me:

... everyone sleeps naked.

Lacuna Coil + Pink Floyd + Theatre of Tragedy + Daniel Lanois? (A Wee Transcendent Moment of the Musical Type)

Close

Your

Eyes

First

Just listen...

What if I told you...

I have the good misfortune to interact with the customers of a company that I shall not name, and which may be related to the following image... but which—for purely legal reasons—definitely isn't. It amazes me how many of this unnamed-company's customers have no idea what the fuck this unnamed-company actually does – despite them paying out the ass for said service.

Explosions

Evidently my brain isn't ready for sleep quite yet.

Please listen to this, and TELL ME! if it makes you want to run naked through the rainforest, explode into a flash of lightning, then rain down upon the canopy from a thundercloud, too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXGUKqVXH-A&hd=1&t=414

Right now I'm listening to a certain part of this one song, over and over. I've probably played it repeatedly about 8 times now while I've been sitting here thinking... and it keeps getting more interactive every time through. I have it open for editing right now, and I've selected about 1.5 minutes of the 9-minute song to repeat. I started out wanting to grab a sample of a certain synthesizer, and got distracted as I was listening. It starts out with a sinister feeling, and grows in complexity; a few seconds in, the best approximation of how it makes me feel is "anxious." Maybe scared. It's a dirty beat, getting generously sloppy with pitch and speed controls, wandering a bit all over the musical landscape, and that sort of reminds me of fucking - not the telegraphed, mechanical, repetitive sort that kids are all the rage about these days... I mean the visceral, animal but still sensual, only vaguely-regular colliding of bodies to a rhythm only those two bodies can perceive. In any case, it all feels good with the music. Somehow it's adding energy to my consciousness instead of wearing me out.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been having these steadily intensifying daydreams about music. I will hear a certain melody in a song, and then my brain will completely tune out what my ears are actually hearing and just run all the fuck over the place with something somewhat similar to it - but infinitely more complex, and lengthy. They are so complex that I can't possibly keep track of where they go or what they become, and I ultimately forget 90% of them. The other 10% don't come out quite right when I try to put them together in my software studios. I'll try, but get distracted, and inevitably find myself sitting for hours at a time with my headphones on, playing the same short parts of the same few songs over and over and over again, almost every night - and I don't know why.

I'm aware that some of the songs remind me of my younger times, but I had a weird fucking youth, and my early years were just as tormented and overly-saturated with difficult intellectual concepts as the present day. I can't imagine why my mind would want to revisit or relive much if any of those past times. Actually, that's a lie; I just now realized that I used to feel emotions much more clearly back then, and I used to appreciate them more - even the negative ones. Now that I think about it, I first started my habit of meditating by listening to music when I needed a respite from my conscious thoughts in my pre-teens, especially after starting middle school. I would lay in bed, seething with either frustration and anger or sadness and powerlessness, but relishing the complexity and raw force of whatever it was that I happened to be feeling at the time.

I don't do that anymore; my negative emotions just exhaust me. Somehow, though, the music in my head and even the music in my ears takes the hurt and tiredness out of me. That said, I don't feel particularly overwhelmed by anything at this point in my life. I'm unsatisfied, somewhat depressed, and unfulfilled, but not particularly upset about anything specific. I don't have any significant dramas to obsess over. I have everything I need, even if I have none of the non-things that I want.

Whatever.

I like music.

The end.

What the Fucketh?

I've had a roller-coaster day. I'm not even sure what I mean by that, but I know it's uncomfortable.

For starters, I woke up this morning to the tail end of a weird-as-fuck dream...

I was visiting a church that I used to attend, but had for some reason distanced myself from for quite a few years. (I am not a religious person in real life). I remember driving in through a weird car port, and then I was suddenly inside. I was sitting in a large room, like an open library, with large square tables spread out across the entire room and divided by bookshelves that were about as tall as the tables. It felt like school, somehow. 3 or 4 people sat at each table, and most of them were teenagers or 20-somethings. If there were any older adults present, I couldn't see them from where I was sitting.

It was the main hall of the church, and at one end of the room there was a sermon going on - though I don't remember a word of it.  I DO remember a girl sitting at the table right next to me, on my right; it was her and I on that side, and on the adjacent side to my left one other teenaged boy was thoroughly engrossed in whatever else was going on beyond our table. The girl next to me was young, maybe 16 or so, and doing her damnedest—for what reason I had no freaking clue—to distract me, sexually, during this sermon that I was evidently attending-but-not-listening-to. She had her left hand under the table and was dragging the tips of her fingers back and forth across the top of my right thigh from my groin to my knee while she pretended to take notes with her right hand. I remember the feeling of her nose in my ear the most vividly; it was warm, moist, and felt tinier than I was used to. I couldn't see her face at all, but I remember thinking that if I could, she probably had one of those noses that are small, short, and slightly upturned at the end, and that she was probably cute. Anyway, she was nuzzled into the right side of my neck, and I remember feeling her breath rolling under my collar and down the inside of the front of my shirt as she nibbled—and occasionally bit, actually somewhat hard—on my neck and ear. A couple of times she grabbed a stray lock of hair from the back of my head and tugged with her teeth. It was arousing, of course, (though I can't remember any woman ever actually doing that to my ear or hair), but I also felt like she was trying to get me in trouble - and the fact that she was a complete stranger may have contributed to that a bit, as well. That made me nervous.

I remember having a sudden moment of near panic as I realized I didn't know if anyone else in the room was able to see under the table. The notion of having some uppity self-righteous religious nut discover my conspicuous erection was terrifying for a brief moment - until I thought about how sacrilegious it would be, and then for a different brief moment I found myself half hoping somebody would notice. (Of course, in waking retrospect, I have no idea how the fuck somebody wouldn't have noticed a girl—especially a youngish one—practically over-the-clothes fucking a dude twice her age in the middle of church, but hey... it was a dream, so what-the-fuckever I suppose). Then I started having some really dirty thoughts, all revolving around creative ways to get thrown out of church via various acts of a graphically sexual and public nature. (Admittedly, I've had those thoughts in real life before, as random fun exercises - but in the dream I took it waaaaay further. Like, "I'm not going to write it down even here because some member of my family might possibly stumble across this someday," further). Just as I started looking at other tables to see if any of them were unoccupied—while silently measuring the space underneath them, trying to decide if the girl and I could both lay down under one without any part of our anatomy hanging out—I woke up.

Weird. Fucking. Dream. I can only conclude that I am clearly sexually frustrated (which is definitely true), that I am feeling deprived of intimate physical contact in general (also definitely true), and that I need to start writing about my distaste for organized theistic religions more... religiously. I really wish I knew more about the girl, though; it seemed like a weird choice for my subconscious to make. (I mean, the age thing makes sense: our society represses young women in the prime of their sexual adolescence, and age of consent laws are quite frankly insane when you consider the fact that people these days operate with progressively-worsening intentions as both they and their social peers age... and all men of all ages are of course biologically programmed to prefer young, healthy, sexually virile women whose genetic features are at the height of their clarity and expression, for obvious reasons. But the fact that she didn't have any physical characteristics that I am aware of at all strikes me as both odd and significant). Maybe it's my subconscious telling me that I need to think less, be more of an asshole and start objectifying women like the majority of men? Or that I need to stop looking for compatible women my age and give up on my dreams of having a family, and go back to appreciating the simple, honest innocence of younger girls? I don't know. I've already thought about both of those ideas before, and while they both have their appeal to certain components of my subconscious, obviously I've chosen otherwise. Weird. Fucking. Dream.

— and, when I first started this entry, I felt like going into all of the other shit that's gone through my mind today and has since settled in the furry ass crack of my gray matter, but after reliving that obnoxious dream I really don't have the energy. I'm 28, single, childless, and evidently my subconscious needs to tell me something that's important enough to manifest as deviant sexual acts with a faceless, bodyless girl who somehow reminds me of all of my ex-girlfriends. I can't handle this shit! I'm going to bed.

The Wisdom of Switters

"You've got a brain, too, and don't forget it. If you develop it, it'll be around to enrich your life long after your tits and ass have declared bankruptcy."

- Switters

Bodies

Before I started public school, I was protected from the fear inherent in society. I was encouraged to nurture my creativity and curiosity, allowed to freely express my honest joys and sadness, and wasn't burdened by unnatural states of mind. I wasn't afraid of people; I wasn't afraid of feelings, even negative ones; I wasn't preoccupied with the prospect of potential losses or gains; I felt no pressure to subscribe to any performance or other criteria of anyone else (except in the case of trying to bring happiness to those I loved, for the sole sake of that love). I was as all humans are supposed to be in their natural habitats: peaceful, without needing to be still.

School changed all of that for me.

I remember feeling violently physically ill on the first day of 7th grade - my first real day of public school since Kindergarten. I didn't know why at the time. The anxiety was completely paralyzing. Being around these kids made me feel... bad, in a very fundamental way. I knew I wasn't meant to be there, and I was consciously aware of being caught in a process of change that was not only fundamentally wrong and backwards, but also somehow beyond my control to stop. It was the first time I can recall ever being aware of the physical component of other peoples' fear, and I hated the way it felt washing over me.

It took me a few months to understand what it was, exactly, that everyone in that environment was so universally afraid of: rejection of self. They all resented the fact that a choice had to be made between honesty and acceptance, and they were all confused because there seemed to be no comprehensible reason for this conflict. Why was everyone afraid of what everyone else was thinking - even while having no idea what that might be? That question exists beneath the problem itself, though, and—because this is a problem that our society still refuses to acknowledge—it wasn't approachable.

Before this time, I had never experienced this foreign, inhuman notion of "acceptance," because it wasn't relevant. In my natural state of being, acceptance was implicit, internally and externally. On some level I was aware that this new notion of belonging was a false dimension being added to reality without my consent - yet I had no choice but to adapt myself to its restrictions and laws, or else be ostracized completely. No young person's psyche can absorb that kind of cognitive dissonance; it's not really a choice, as I know now in my wiser years. So, I did all that I could. I fought to survive.

For the first few months, until the numbness set in, I thought only of escape. Every thought in class was focused on the bus ride home; every thought on the ride home was of the walk down my driveway; and when my feet finally struck gravel on the last quarter-mile, all I could think about was retreating to the solitude and safety of my room for as long as possible.

School was my first exposure to hell. Even once I'd learned how best to manipulate the environment to minimize my discomfort, it was never more than a crude tourniquet.

Only in retrospect, many years later, have I come to truly understand exactly how the experience has shaped me, and how it likewise shaped and marred the adulthood of the other kids that went through it at the same time.

I have come to understand that an absolutely essential part of a human's natural habitat is simple space, empty of other humans - and that the more of that you fill up, no matter who with, the less its inhabitants can be human. At a certain critical point, too many humans in a too-small space are all reduced to the lowest common denominator of their existence: their shared fear and discontentment. Forcing hundreds or thousands of people to co-occupy the same space is akin to starving them all of a nutrient fundamental to their survival... and then this "space," a thing that would and should otherwise be unspoken and unconscious and unremarkable, instead becomes a rare and precious resource. The fact that nobody can ever have enough of it at any given time creates a permanent disparity of personal power, in which everyone is in constant violation of everyone else at all times. Everyone hates and fears this powerlessness, but because the source of this unnatural rape is ubiquitous, it cannot be localized or abstracted; fear and hate must have an object, and the only obvious contender is the person next to you.

We do everything we can to obfuscate this reality and the people who are too close to us. We cordon off even smaller spaces, build walls to separate us from the people outside of them, and fill up the space between the walls with things to separate us from the walls themselves. As Switters once said:

"Things. Cosas. Things attach themselves like leeches to the human soul, then they bleed out the sweetness and the music and the primordial joy of being unencumbered upon the land. Comprende?"

I know that my physical self, in an extension of that idea, is just another thing.

For not just this reason, I have come to resent the current human obsession with bodies - particularly mine. I have always identified myself, to myself, as a collection of ideas that are simply confined to a physical volume. In those moments where I am nothing—where I experience existence outside the limits of my body or any definition of "self"—I know that my physical form is completely irrelevant to what I really am. Being that I am nevertheless literally attached to it for the vast majority of my life (and conscious engagement with said life), naturally I have grown somewhat figuratively attached to it, as well - and have even managed to incorporate its limited scope into the lesser joys of life and the lesser forms of expression. That said, however, I cannot in good conscience allow myself to invest more than an absolute modicum of value in the idea of my body. Beyond simply ensuring it has what it needs to maintain my incorporeal self in the state I prefer, I feel that paying it any more mind only detracts from the core of what I actually am. It's a distraction at best, and—being that perhaps my only social goal in life is to eventually be completely understood by another human being—while I find it to be a useful tool from time to time, I nevertheless feel false, and lonely, when others fail to see my ideas in light of whatever arbitrary physical attribute usurps their attention.

I have always felt that my body is merely incidental to my humanity, only essential because my primitive existence cannot yet transcend into a purer form - one in which thought and idea wouldn't require the physical anchor. The truth is that my appearance doesn't matter at all to me, and I don't want it to matter one way or another to anyone else. My truest understanding of myself doesn't include any physical characteristics... which means, to truly know me, any other person would have to completely ignore them all.

In a world where we are in constant, increasing dissonance with each other and our natural environment due to in part to a profound lack of personal physical space, I believe that spending less time interacting with our physical selves—and spending more time focusing solely on and sharing the raw contents of our consciousness—might in some small way mitigate the damage we cause ourselves and others by living how we do. I couldn't respect myself if I didn't embody (hah!) the change I want to see in the world, so I have taken a sort of vow to never spend more time or energy on my physical self than is absolutely necessary, unless that time or energy is also of some tangible non-physical benefit. Hardly an attractive stance, I know - but I can honestly say that attractive is an adjective I care nothing for in the physical sense. 

Rastafarfetched

... that moment when you pass from actively listening to somebody speaking Iyaric to actually understanding what they're saying — and then immediately realize, "Oh, you're not Rasta - you're just illiterate and can't pronounce normal human speech."

Housekeeping

Today I threw away your toothbrush. I wrote the words "Worries, sadness and regrets about (you)" on a scrap of paper, and flushed it down the toilet; it didn't work. I threw away your razor that's been hanging on my shower wall. I threw away the little notes you used to leave around my place. I cleaned your drawing off my mirror - though I saved one of your doodles, and put it in a box. (I still think you might be a famous artist some day, and who knows... maybe we'll end up friends again).

It took me all of three minutes, but now I am completely, utterly exhausted. I have a sense somewhere in the back of my mind that I should feel slightly unburdened in at least some way, but any catharsis I might chase is weighed down by sadness wrapped in guilt. I'm reminded of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and feel like watching it now, while at the same time I feel like I never want to think about the concept again.

I feel like I just threw a part of myself away. I know better, but I still don't feel any better about it. I can't decide whether my soul is being purged of impurities or simply hollowed out, but that's probably just because I imagine it feels the same either way.

As I ask myself how long this is supposed to go on for, I know I'm a fool for trying to quantify love in the dimension of time - it being a somewhat illusory concept in and of itself. I'm trying to remind myself that there is no such thing as cruelty in life, and that sadness is just a symptom of a mind in the throes of a certain kind of fear.

My rationalizations bore me. For a minute, I wished I were the sort of person who couldn't immediately see through them. For once, I'm sick of listening to myself. I don't care about being correct about anything right now. I just want to feel not-bad.

I did my best to throw today away. Maybe tomorrow.

Speculations on the Nature of Rhetoric

Rhetoric is a tool, always applied toward one specific goal: to abstract an ideological component of reality—one somewhere between the realm of accepted fact and proven fiction—for easier absorption. It can be used to point the way toward maybe-truths secreted behind the banal cacophonies of speech, but can also lead the inquisitive away from fearful—vital—realizations. Only the ingredient intent must change; even a simple tone of voice can boldly lie. Rhetoric, then? Always question it, interrogate it, until just beyond the apex of its intended point; always, but especially when you feel you might believe it.

Intellectual Confusion on the Subject of "Wealth"

Those who enslave others—whether by deliberate malice or deliberate ignorance of human goodwill—are the truest and simplest cowards, so foreign to the notion of human nature that only the illusion of power over it can sustain such backwards existences. In a capitalist society, money is that illusion, and those who hoard the most believe in it most strongly. Do not be angry at these self-titled "powerful," though, for they are the poorest and most naked of all among us - to all eyes but their never-inward-seeing own. Instead, pity them, or else suffer them nobly when you cannot; they will never know the cost nor reap the peace of honest introspection, yet will die—alone—pacified by delusions of having owned people, buildings, or a chain of malls. They will sow into the earth—and future—only their wasted flesh - never comprehending that they have never owned nor even known themselves, and that only by accident, (or in their own death), did they ever do a single thing that was truly worth doing at all.