HERRO.
I guess I have to blog, because it's the last day in 2023 and next time I'll implement my brilliant new archive solution. I'm not sure how I will proceed with that, exactly. I'm pretty sure the only people consuming my e-wares are SDFers, but this is fine. It's Sunday and I'm about to do bible study.
Happy new year! Maybe there will be fireworks and/or gunshots tonight. We have one neighbor, just o'er yonder down the way a bit, who likes to shoot. He's not very friendly and is sort of a hardcore redneck, with old junked cars on his property and frenzied, frothing-at-the-mouth dogs chained in his yard. My stepfather and I used to walk by his house but my stepfather got bit by a small frenzied dog, then yelled at by its owner to walk somewhere else, even though I think we are part of the same HOA. My stepfather being my stepfather, of course, pursued no legal action; I would have. It wasn't a serious bite, from such a small dog.
In spite of this, I'm not in fact surrounded by banjo boys from "Deliverance"; mine is a fairly purple county, as far as things go. It's diverse -- maybe not racially or even "ethnically," whatever that means, but in terms of politics, attitudes, wealth, education...just about every parameter other than being a White Older American. That said, there's maybe a plurality of redneck and redneck-adjacent folk. There are two flavors of male redneck, of manhick: your good ol boys, clean cut, with a substantial beard, baseball hat, and pickup truck usually in pretty good condition. Then there are flat brimmed hat-wearing, beat up sedan-driving guys who may or may not be tweakers but who would not stand out at a tweaker party; kind of the country underclass, or something, usually clean shaven or just with stubble in pre-beard growth state.
Jim and I are getting rid of stuff in the garage. It's a little painful.
I'm listening to a Queensryche song that I have on mp3, on Youtube. I am using bandwidth when I don't have to, but this is not a large ethical issue I don't think. HOWEVER, neither is throwing away a single aluminum can, but that feels terrible, right? RIGHT?!
Today I will meet my aunt at McD and get food. Sunday is one of my two BIG DAYS, the other being Thursday, when I go grocery shopping AND attend (and cook, sometimes) family dinner, for four. Last week I cooked Jim's birthday dinner: beef Stroganoff, per his request. It's a good dish because it is easy and unusually delicious, and weirdly so because it has no spices in it other than salt and pepper. But, it does have heavy cream, butter, and sour cream, so basically it's a celebration of fat and looks like grey goo while it's cooking. Other flavor comes from onions, mushrooms, Dijon, wash-yer-sister sauce, gaaaaahlic, and beef bouillon.
I also made a cake and it was an exercise in Zen because I basically ruined it on two fronts but salvaged it, and it was edible or even delicious. The cake layers stuck badly to their pans and broke apart on removal, so I reassembled them Tetris style. Then the ho-made strawberry icing was way too thin, even after I kept adding more and more confectioners sugar, and I had to use it more like a topping than normal cake frosting; consequently it went all over the kitchen counter after being poured on the layers, and cleanup was an engineering feat involving a rubber scraper, a square plate, paper towels, cleaning spray ("FABULOSO"), dish rags I committed to later washing, a sponge with some soapy dishwater, more paper towels, and more FABULOSO. Our counter sucks: it's tiled, and has crevices between the tiles where food accumulates and that are hard to clean; some designer did not have their thinking cap on. There are many things I'd like to do to this house but 1) it's not mine, and 2) it's all going to burn anyway, or less dramatically, it's temporary, made so either by my death, property sale, or fire. And, of course, 3) I don't have the money. Sometimes I forget I am not a normal adult.
Here endeth 2023.
I keep trying to write but it doesn't work out. I guess now I have written and am safe...I can press the PUBLISH button and I win. I'm just waiting for the year to turn over so I can implement my Yearly Archives Solution (YAS). There really is a publish button: ctrl-option-command-S, then hit enter a number of times, and the document FTP's. The only problem (well one of the problems) with BBEdit is that the preview feature creates temporary files that are auto-placed in the trash can. It's not really a problem per se but it is kinda unusual for a Mac program to behave in this kludgey way.
There was a brain injury party at my brain injury provider, but I didn't go on account of the rain -- driving and parking would have been too much. I kinda wish I had gone, but route 50 and Sacramento is NO JOKE, traffic-wise. Really it's not even Sacramento -- it's the east Sac sprawl, which is a notorious shithole: massage parlors, auto detailing, check cashing, liquor stores, palm trees...the whole kit and caboodle. It's just an ugly place. The buildings look bad. California as a whole suffers somewhat from this problem although areas of Sacramento proper and San Francisco look like they are supposed to be there -- the buildings blend into an aesthetic whole that has some of the look of art. For the ultimate in This, see: New York City.
But East Sac, meaning, Roseville, Carmichael, Citrus Heights, etc, is awful. AWFUL I SAY. And I swear to you Cali on the whole is just not as nice as the eastern sprawl when it comes to architecture. The palm trees don't help, although maybe that's some weird quasi-racist notion of equatorial things being junky and lazy and not working with the Teutonic precision of the northern hemisphere.
The thing I don't like about spirituality is that there's no end goal and no solution...it's just a continual practice that doesn't lead anywhere. It's a similar problem I have with exercise. Maybe this is just CULTURAL CAPITALISM talking, though, and there should not be some desirable outcome attached to every activity. The truth is that we're here stuck in these brains and we perceive the cosmos in a very strange way, and we're not really capable of understanding the way things REALLY are. I have no choice but to be human and live a human life.
Christmas this year is going to be beyond low key. Maybe I should go for a drive or something.
Wix is gay.
It is my break between dinner and the movie. We had leftover birthday dinner, and it is "choose a new movie" day. We divide movies into 2 or 3 segments and watch it that way, so 40-60 minutes a night. It's cold but not THAT cold. I looked at the forecast and it's going to be the same for the foreseeable future: sunny, 40 at night, 55 during the day. Ayep. I smoked a joint yesterday, and it was fine...the trick is to smoke it all in one session, and then don't smoke again for at least another week -- preferably more. And now, finally, I've absorbed an indica-sativa mythology of my own: I prefer sativa, I think because it doesn't sedate me or affect my appetite so much and I don't feel as depressed afterwards.
I was going to do one more movie review today but I deleted my list -- I just have the complete reviews below. Remaking it is not a big deal (copy the filenames from the Finder and paste them into a text document) but fuckit. BUTT FUCK IT.
hullo peteyboi
I just picked that hex color out of the blue: #fac999. Petey renounced because of NTK, but then NTK renounced, and Petey never came back. But wisdom shows that renunciation is temporary.
Christmas is coming...HO HO HO. Just 25-8 days to go. Um...............17 days. I'm so bad at head math. Some of it is anxiety, and some of it is just never having gotten comfortable with my own methods. Above, I have to break it up and think "ok 8-5=3, and 20-3=17"). Tis the season of Advent on the Christian calendar, since December 3rd. The heathens, however, start opening their Advent calendars on December 1st. My aunt is into Christmas in a way the rest of us up here in deez here hillz are not. The four of us used to go away every Christmas to some beach house for a somewhat stressful and unpleasant four days, so this aforementioned aunt would not feel sad during Christmas due to my deceased mother's absence from our troupe. But, this year, finances preclude FEEEEEEEELINGS. Which is fine by me...I prefer staying home although a change of scene is nice, I admit. Vacations are sort of like exercise: not fun but it's nice having done it. Vacation logistics always feel like work to me, certainly compared with my usual schedule of cooking, walking, guitar, computer (unpack this one if you dare...in fact unpack any of these if you dare!), and napping. Sometimes I think I need more in my life but sometimes I don't care, or even think I can squeeze enough out of my meager allotment to make life worth living, if I just change my mindset or focus on the details or something.
I got a RAW DEAL, though, I'm pretty sure, just according to social conventions. But if you get all froofroo about it then sure, I'm lucky to have so much free time. What I should be doing I suppose is meditating nonstop, but I keep my brain buzzed with screentime instead. I'm sure it's not good. What will my deathbed regrets be? I'm hoping to curtail them now by thinking of everything, and more importantly, to think about why the whole concept is flawed, or at least that individual potential regrets are confabulatory (WotD). Let's say I think to myself "I wish I'd gotten married" or "I wish I'd had a career" or "I wish I'd lost weight." Those are the easy ones: I tried all of them repeatedly and nothing worked out. I even tried meditating and that didn't seem to work out although I keep thinking I should re-attempt. I guess the big one might be "I should not have wasted so much time thinking about the kind of life I thought I should have been leading according to some shitty cultural capitalism, but instead just relaxed and enjoyed the internet and snacks and naps." Easier said than done I guess.
It seems like an easy answer ("just accept being a useless loser") but there may be baked-in neurological problems there: the great Jordan Peterson thinks that you need to pick the greatest burden you can bear and shoulder it, and from thence comes happiness or at least satisfaction. I think maybe I should work on reducing screentime.
Well I didn't get far in my movie review project. It was just too much...felt too overwhelming. Maybe I'll hold onto it and work on it a bit from time to time and then POOF one day it'll be done. I guess I can post what I did write, in a flurry, on the 30th:
25th Hour - Spike Lee movie about Nu Yawk Citaaaaay. My mom saw it with me and was sort of intimidated by its hipness and modernness; the movie came out in 2002 and includes references to 9/11. And it does have sort of a try-hard contemporariness about it I think: along with mentioning 9/11, the mobsters are Russian as opposed to Italian. It's trying to be THE canonical New York movie at the turn of the millennium and in fact I think it does okay at this.
300 - White supremacist comic book about the virtuous and manly West defeating the mutant subhuman foreign darky hoards (my spellchecker flags "darky").
A Few Good Men - Play-like, overly-clever Sworkin dialog (no one actually talks like this) about a Navy trial. Kinda Shakespearean, or something. I once used it as a modernist counterexample to the movie "Drive." I performed Colonel Nathan R. Jessup's "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH" monolog for my freshman acting class and did it so convincingly my aunt asked me "You don't really believe that, do you?" I win.
About Schmidt - I've gone back and forth on this being sort of a sneering and mean-spirited movie that makes fun of clumsily earnest and unattractive bumpkins in the midwestern USA; it makes a joke out of everyday people and the embarrassing ways they fall short of a glamorous Hollywood standard by being ugly, stupid, poor, unsophisticated, etc. There are genuine emotional moments in the mix but you never know when the writers are going to change their mind and laugh at you again. I sound like I don't like this movie, but I do...it's just that it has this uncomfortable two-facedness as it blends earnestness and parody, which maybe is sort of brilliant in and of itself. Maybe a more succinct way to say all of this is that "About Schmidt" is a comedy.
Amadeus - One of the best movies, I think. Really it's about Salieri, and more broadly, about resentment, envy, revenge, pride, regret, etc -- all those "compare yourself to others" egoic feelings that are right up my alley, purely analytically now, of course, after my enlightenment.
American Beauty - Maybe kind of a misunderstood movie; Kevin Spacey is (appropriately, right?) the villain, even though he appears to perform the sort of common hippie and moralistic trope of "modern employment is meaningless." Yes, it is, but even if you realize this you can still do terrible things like seduce teenagers and neglect your family and smoke drugs. I think "Beauty" is sort of like "Breaking Bad": it fools the audience into sympathizing and empathizing with the villain. Maybe it's about misguided enlightenment.
American History X - Redemption of a neonazi. One interesting thing is that he, the neonazi, engages in a lot of convincing or at least impassioned and quasi-logical rhetoric around racialistic stuff, but then his redemptive moment consists only of "it's all bullshit." A good LA movie.
American Psycho - Another "misunderstood" movie, but I think it's more deliberately misinterpreted. My feeling is a lot of bros like Patrick Bateman: he's fit and rich and mean, like they want to be. But the whole point of the movie -- maybe better communicated in the book -- is that PB is empty on the inside and you would NOT want to be him. His "love" for Phil Collins and Whitney Houston is parody that is supposed to illustrate this emptiness, but people started downloading and listening to Sussudio around the turn of the millennium after AP came out. Sigh. Not that I'm immune...I want to be fit and rich and mean, too.
Arrival - Rather beautiful movie about alien contact and the redemption of humanity.
As Good as it Gets - A little too clever and mannered, especially after a billion viewings, but basically it's a nice time and a nice story. There are some weird moments where the director tries to be too subtle for his own good and things just seems awkward, with some facial expression or whatever that yanks the presentation in another way than what he planned. Hard to explain, but it's like subtle human intuitive nonverbal communication passed from writer to director to actor to audience gets corrupted by the game of telephone, and sometimes it's just AWK-waaard, AWK-waaard.
Back to the Future Part II - Just like "part I," but in the future. The star is Biff, I think: in real life, known artist and intellectual and general Renaissance Man. Here's where we see flying cars in 2015 and go "HA-ha, we don't have those," but some other stuff they thought up for BttF's future was prescient. The thing with futuristic fantasy tech is, it's often stuff that was doable or almost doable at the time of its inception, but is unlikely to ever be made or at least widespread, instead being precluded by cost, impracticality, or other logistics. The 80's were a weird time, I infer from movies and sort of being there myself, although I was young and Canadian at the time: there was an self-infatuated sense of "we are living in the future," with people marveling at giant cell phones and music videos and punk rock attire. Now, when we have realized literary fantasies such as talking digital assistants, most people have gotten over that infatuation with tech and in fact complain in a boomerish and curmudgeonly way about too much of it. Remember land lines, and how you could actually hear and understand the person on the other end without a delay? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Back to the Future Part III - Just like I and II, but set mostly in the past (the wild west). I think the official ranking is I, III, II, in order of quality, but all three seem pretty equivalent to me. They were made pretty close to back to back and no one in the movie seems to age too much, although Marty's girlfriend gets replaced by a less-hot Elizabeth Shue (in my opinion).
Back to the Future - I saw this when it first came out in the mid 80s, in the theater, and it was great. I think this was the original star vehicle of Michael J. Fox, patron saint of short men everywhere, although you can hide that pretty well on camera. Probably the bit about the Libyans in arab headgear, scooting around in a minivan with machine guns, wanting to build a bomb, would not fly so well today, but this is true of so many things it becomes tiresome to point out all the examples.
Beetlejuice - I remember this movie frustrated me a bit when it came out because it didn't quite make sense in a few places. But I was an overly categorical, overly literal, overly linear, overly spergy child, and I've since postmodernized. Anyway it's a comedy about a couple who die and become ghosts and navigate the world of the living.
Black Robe - Maybe my favorite or one of my favorites, about Jesuit missionaries in Canada around the year 1500 and their dealings with the Natives. This movie is tough on religion, like Trump is tough on China: the French missionaries and the Indian shaman are seen as similarly power hungry and misguided, with their supposed altruism leading to bad outcomes. I guess this sort of broad critique of religion can be a little adolescent, but it isn't done hamfistedly here.
Bloodsport - This is a bad movie but I don't care. It's a comic bookish or video game-ish story of a mixed marital arts tournament, and I think there are some nods in the modern MMA community at Bloodsport being somehow seminal, sort of like Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do: pitting one martial art against another to see how they do. The funny thing is, when my friends and I saw it, we though the most unrealistic part was the existence of a fat American "brawler" and his fists holding his own among lean Asian martial technicians and their spin kicks. Turns out, though, that this is a thing (see: Tank Abott, Kimbo Slice, others). Supposedly the guy the movie is about, Frank Dux, is delusional or a liar, but oh well...there is a huge amount of BS in the martial arts world.
Borat - Cringefest as Sacha Baron Cohen assaults American culture. One of the victims, the now deceased Jim Sell who discusses Hummers with Borat, worked in my hometown at the big Chevy dealership. There is "where are they now?" material on the web about all Borat's targets. A few of the frat bros filed a lawsuit after they told the world that slavery should make a comeback.
Bram Stoker's Dracula - I've read that this movie is about as perfect a representation of the "Gothic" aesthetic as you are going to see. It's so overblown it's almost comical, but never quite provokes any laughs, at least from me, although hearing them is not hard to imagine. How to describe "Gothic"? I think it combines feminine, delicate loveliness with violent excess, so it can be fairly distasteful or even sadomasochistic inasmuch as it glorifies and beautifies horror, pain, death, etc. Imagine a vampire in a lace dress covered in blood, over-acting (relatedly, Gary Oldman is in this, in his perfect role). But you don't have to imagine -- just watch dis flick. RAAAANUNCE. RAAANUNCE LA DUMNEZEU!!!!
Braveheart - Mel Gibson movies catch a lot of shit, because he's an evil right winger and enjoyed some publicized indiscretions, and Braveheart particularly catches more shit for historical innacuracies (Isabella of France, Mel's lover, would have been a baby at the time). But I think this is nitpicking and unfair, and that Braveheart is a good story. Of course it's about fighting for freedom and how good this feels and how essential it is, which is politically controversial in dis day n age.
Brokeback Mountain - Maybe my favorite love story of all time, or rather, the only love story I like. Since it is a gay love story, I can enjoy it and see the desperately compelled devotion without being colored by my own feelings on love and loss and women and sex and navigating all that poorly and to my own detriment throughout my life. Instead, Brokeback Mountain can be a beautiful love story because gay love is so far removed from my own experience. Or maybe it's just well directed and well acted, I dunno. I once told a class full of 18 year olds it was one of my favorite movies and a low giggle rippled through my audience.
Carlito's Way - Good gangster movie, and very stylish with its 1970s costumes. It features a real gangster turned actor, the late Frank Minucci as "Tony T" ("DONCHOO fuckin lie to me you scumbag...you lie to me again I'll tell you what, you gonna end up in dat river out dere, eh? Now you tink about dis when you go out, you take a look down...and imagine what it's gonna feel like, eh? Slidin around down da bottom with dem eels and dem crabs...crawlin outta ya eyeballs *cough cough*"). Also Viggo Mortenson as Lalin the Rat ("Look wat I got, look wat I got...I mean, look at me...joo got everything, mang. I mean...come on! Look wat I got to fuckeeng go around weeth: fuckeeng diapers mang! I got fuckeeng diapers! I chit my pance erry day! I can't walk...I can't hump...joo know? Go ahead and keel me JOO COCKSUCKER").
Cast Away - Maybe the quietest movie I've ever seen; most of it takes place on a desert island and the only thing we hear is the waves. I once had a really stupid stoned inspiration to make my own movie about the month long interval between Tom Hanks being picked up by a passing ship and his getting on a plane headed home. I guess my movie would have been mostly about medical treatment, but I was seeing all kinds of potential and subtleties there, in my state.
Contact - Adaptation of a Carl Sagan story about first contact, where we never see the actual aliens and the contact is all projected into the brain of Jody Foster while she falls through a wormhole. It's about faith, and science, and how we need both, man.
Dances With Wolves - Starring Kevin Costner's mullet and his bland reading-aloud tone. Very idealized and romantic portrait of North American Natives, especially considering the Sioux were reputed to be one of the most violent tribes. Costner chose to vilify the Pawnee, but in other movies ("The Revenant") the Pawnee are nice and the Sioux are the oppressors. Fact is, Native tribes were not any kinder or better or more "spiritually evolved" than colonists -- they just had less power. Modern Americans tend to romanticise and idealizing Native culture as a reaction to not only historical horrors like the Trail of Tears, but also to old John Wayne'ish movies that portray Indians as cartoonish villains. The director's cut, which I have, is about four hours long, and features an "intermission" graphic in the middle where you pause and pee and so on.
District 9 - This is a disturbing movie. It should be one of my favorites, because it's relentlessly anti-human -- portrays people as greedy and cruel and tribalistic -- but I don't watch it often. I considered deleting it, in fact, like "Requiem for a Dream."
Dr. Strangelove - "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the war room!" HAAA-ha. Strangelove is surprsingly watchable even though it's in black and white, although I wouldn't want to show it off to a friend for fear of the movie not aging well for them. I believe this is the oldest movie in my collection, in black and white.
Drive - As I said above, a very postmodern movie, both aesthetically (80s sounding music) and in terms of the acting/dialog. By that I mean, it's not stylized or crafted and sounds very natural -- "naturalistic as fuck." Ryan Gosling plays a shy pokerface, and then Cranston is in it so you know it's gotta be good.
Dune - I didn't realize this was a bad movie til pretty recently. My EX FRIEND PYARE FORTUNATO WHO DUMPED ME IN 6TH GRADE introduced me to a copy his family had on VHS in the late 80s. Later I showed another copy to other friends and we quoted it to each other incessantly. I still think it's "good" in a sense (costumes, much of the acting, many of the characters, overall STYLE), but I can see why it's so lambasted today, especially in light of villeneuve's accepted masterwork, which I question. I showed it to my mom and stepdad and they both fell asleep.
Edge of Tomorrow - Groundhog Day scifi (there, I said it). It's a super well crafted movie, in terms of production value, effects, story. It makes sense and is TIGHT TIGHT TIGHT!
Fargo - One of two Cohen brothers movies in my collection. This features one of my all time favorite movie villains: Jerry Lundegaard, because he's believable and has that Hannah Arendt "banality of evil" quality that makes him realistic; he's not a psychopathic monster, but only sort of a greedy coward, like so many of us, who is driven to do horrible things by desperate circumstances.
Fight Club - meh. It's hard to like this movie because of the fanbase, which is kinda bro'y and redpilled. Like "American Beauty," "Fight Club" takes aim at cultural capitalism, or capitalistic culture, or something -- maybe just employment and consumerism. As such it becomes a fantasy for people who feel trapped in aforementioned Americana or at least who can agree on some level with "Fight Club"'s idealism. Of course, few would ever cut the cord themselves, because frankly this is stupid; who wants to be homeless? Better to keep the 9-5 and vent frustration by watching movies like "Fight Club," which is what THEY want you to do.
Full Metal Jacket -- I AM GUNNERY SARGEANT HARTMAN, YOUR SENIOR DRILL INSTRUCTOR. FROM NOW ON YOU WILL NOT SPEAK UNTIL SPOKEN TO. AND THE FIRST AND LAST WORDS OUT OF YOUR FILTHY SEWERS WILL BE SIR. DO YOU LADIES (maggots?) UNDERSTAND ME? You should know I recalled that without googling or other prompts. In fact I could probably get through the entire initial speech to the new Marine recruits, with a few minor mistakes like choosing ladies over maggots or vice versa. A common crit of this film is that it consists of two parts that are too unrelated: the first half in boot camp, and the second half in Vietnam. FMJ is a movie about DEATH, and how one person -- Private Joker -- learns to apprehend it. At the end of the movie, he gazes ahead under his brow after killing a sniper, and we see his "thousand yard stare" ("a marine gets it when he's been in the shit too long"). Finally then Joker has lost his proverbial virginity and comes of age as a killer -- something he wanted to experience in an abstract intellectual beatnik way, but now that he's there, he can't go back.
Gangs of New York - Great long sprawling epic complex movie I don't think I've fully appreciated yet, and need to watch some more, maybe. It features another great movie villain, Bill "The Butcher" Cutting, played by none other than Daniel Day Lewis in what might be his most memorable role; he has some great quotes that are not repeatable here. This movie is a little like Bram Stoker's Dracula in that it seems exaggerated and overblown to the point of being Gothic -- but I think maybe New York City in 1863 really was a hellscape of sorts.
Get Him to the Greek - I love this movie because it's really 'Hollywood' and makes me feel like an insider. I assume that was Judd Apatow's point: to make fun of his stompin' grounds. I showed it to my stepdad and he just stared straight ahead and was clearly completely uninterested, and I was ashamed.
Ghost World - Good portrait of adolescence and maturing into adulthood, and how some make it and some don't.
Ghostbusters - Ehhhh...whatever. A lot of bad jokes by today's standards, but it was an 80s movie so what can ya do. 80s movies do this thing where they focus on one guy's face after something momentous happens, as if he were going to say something really profound, and then he says "What an asshole!" or "That guy is a piece of shit!" or some dopey profane exclamation, and it's supposed to be funny and shocking, or something; I don't quite understand it, but I swear to you it is a thing. I guess they didn't swear so much in the 70s?
Gladiator - I guess this is sort of like Braveheart and Dances with Wolves, maybe just in that it's a historical drama. Is it also "epic"? I dunno. I think it won some awards.
Glory - Really beautiful movie about the civil war, slavery, the black experience, etc. Maybe I better take a break as these are starting to get suspiciously short.
We Need To Talk About Kevin - I've probably seen this less than any other movie in this list because it's fucking disturbing, and has this weird sheen of artsiness (it's very aware of being 'fine art' or 'high art') that somehow makes the perverted grossness worse. It's a GOOD MOVIE in terms of critical acclaim or whatever -- those built in standards upon which there is broad agreement among the learn'd astronomers -- but I have mixed feelings about it. I deleted similarly disturbing movies from my collection such as "Requiem for a Dream." Maybe WNtTAK has some redeeming value the others do not. It has Tilda Swinton, for one thing.
Is this the longest I've gone without blogging? I have big plans: after January 1st, I will clear the entries below and put them in a linked archive page! It will be exciting. I guess I've been kinda depressed, and I guess I've just lost interest in writing regularly. I wonder about secret readers, and secret browsers of my website, and secret listeners to my stream/podcast. That's the thing: all my creative output is on the web and I don't know how to access the logs, and even if I did, I don't think it would work out quite right (as in, the logs are somehow communal OR just not distinguishable from bots). I think this is probably a thing with internet work: one must get used to not having any REAL audience. My first audience was my mommy, when I'd draw dinosaurs and animals and robots. Then I had art teachers and fellow art students. Now I'm kinda on my own, and maybe this happens to a lot of potential artists who then stop making work after art school is over. It's probably partly that, but also probably partly that many people need someone pushing them to be creatively active.
But fuck that. I'm re-watching "Money Ball." I have...lemme count...120 movies. Most of them I renamed prettily but a few still have their hax0r filenames from wherever I acquired them from. I must note that many or most of these were downloaded in Canada, eh?!?...where they statedly don't go after individual downloaders. The USA keeps their position there ambiguous, although word around the campfire WAS that if you don't share on bittorrent but only download, then you are safe. A lot of people get a VPN so they can download with full impunity but this is expensive and slow, in my experience. My service was also hard to cancel; they sent me I think 4 confirmation emails before they allowed me to do so, which was very scumbaggish of them.
For a long time I've wanted to write reviews or blurbs or something for all of MYYYYY MOVIES. In a way I consider it to something like my bible or my cannon (especially since I don't/can't read books); a set of stories I watch and re-watch and that form great portions of my identity and values and language habits. I started working on this project just now and got decently far (20 or so entries) but it's too much for one day or maybe even one week or one month, I dunno. I don't know if and when I'll finish it, but if I do, maybe I'll post it on the blog or in the mjt.sdf.org essay section. I could turn it into a BEWK like Roger Ebert's "1000 Nights at the Movies"!
Sheeeit.
Comic Sans doesn't display in the entry below when viewed in mobile Chrome. OH WELL. I don't really feel like writing. I feel constrained. Like someone is WATCHING. Why blog? People just read it, or they don't, and both possibilities are bad. Maybe I should try a diary again, like Queen Elizabeth. I've been through all this before -- in fact I've been through EVERYTHING before -- and I reach the same conclusions every time. I have the same thoughts over and over. I think Ima do some more Yoga.
This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. I just read something about how there's nothing inherently wrong with Comic Sans and so decided to publish an entry in it. My arch enemy art professor boss when I was TA'ing lept upon the cultural THING of Comic Sans being terrible. He was sort of like a teenager: very eager to embrace the latest thing as he saw it, whether it be some art movement or whatever. Just very ideologically driven. Ego driven, perhaps.
There's liderully nuttin t'dew.
I went for a walk, made breakfast, made dinner, went for a drive, went to McD, went for another short walk, drove back, and here I am and it's only 2:17pm.
This was yesterday's entry and I never published it. LK;SAJDGA poklasjg;kl lkjsdlkj Polk was the president adt sdalk;ads ds distribute the narcotics bag of dental hymen cro-cro-Croatia sagagalicious nibble
I'm
HARRO. I am really getting tired of media: Youtube, which I just agreed to pay $15 a month to watch ad-free, FM radio, and random Google searches plus the webpages they yield. I feel like I want to stick to my chatroom and to this here blog. But "yeah, right"...I've never been able to make a big change in my habits -- never been able to do what I actually want to do. I like to say to imaginary people, "I don't even have the illusion of free will." I can't control what I eat or what I watch or anything. How many more years of his somehow both boring and stressful roller coaster ride must I endure?
th'LOOOOOOOORD. I have to keep my extended word strings under control in order to keep the horizontal scrollbar away in mobile browsing. I put on some CLASSICAL MUSIC and am attempting to write an entry because I just got sick of media...everything was making me depressed. I was searching for ukeleles, related to a chatroom discussion, and saw a pic of a little girl playing the uke and got depressed. I see some cute animal and I think of it getting hurt or neglected in some way then I get depressed. I think media is driving me INSAAANE (repeated letter restraint, yet again).
I think ima try a new text editor: SUBLIMETEXT. I am antibuddhistically searching for MORE, in life, when all I need is Right Here (in ma haaaaaaaaaid). BICH. I think I'll probably stick to BBEdit in spite of its faults. I really like the built-in FTP.
Shall we take a look at the lectionary now, with 8 minutes til Sunday bible study? At a glance it appears to be more of the same: God is great, God is good. What's the advantage of loving and praising some imaginary entity? Sophisticated Christians embrace "panentheism," or "all in God." In other words, God is somehow 'outside' the universe or even encapsulating of the universe; the concept is like Tillich's "ground of being." This has always sounded a lot like "infinity + 1" to me -- you can use language to set up something like "yeah but it's beyond that," and there can be no counterargument. As always my endpoint is human neurology; I don't think it's either wise or possible to try to see beyond it. But maybe even seeing human neurology, in and of itself, is also impossible, in a sort of "biting your own teeth" way. Not in looking at the folds and bumps of the brain, which we can do, but in understanding how experience REALLY comes out of physical structures.
I'm pretty sure philosophy is a waste of time and is a similar kind of species-specific masturbation to contests to see who can get the highest combined poundage total from a deadlift plus a bench press plus a squat. I guess sure, it's meaningful within some small context, but it seems high on the list of things that don't matter universally. I think philosophy might be the same way: it's just people, with their people-brains and their people-language, running in circles and scribbling furiously on a tiny paper they can't go beyond the edges of. The answer to that could be, "Yes, there is stuff we can't grasp or see or understand, but this doesn't mean we should just do nothing." I often think of some observing alien and wonder if somehow I or any other INTELLECTUAL is close to some universal truth. This is my Truman Show delusion.
In a way the Snowden revelations realized the Truman Show delusion -- you really ARE being watched, at least potentially, although this is not the same thing as being the center of the universe. REE. Short "ree," because of mobile browsing.
Pretty soon I'm going to come up on 1 year of bloggin'. Maybe that'll be the point to start an archive page. The thing with blogs is, people visit them for the new content and I think they almost never read the archives. For a website to be interesting, post 2008 (?), it has to be DYNAMIC.
Back when ESR (Eric S. Raymond, formerly famous hacker and internet personality) was bloggin', I read his old entries with some regularity, as well as the comment sections which tended to be juicy and spicy: threats of violence, insults, etc. Lately I've been watching ESR on Youtube, where I can find him occasionally on a video with 300 or so views, and hear him bark "TALK FASTER, WE ONLY HAVE 15 MINUTES" to someone with an obvious neurological disability (I cringed and stopped the video at that point). ESR is in a lot worse shape, physically, than I was lead to believe reading his discourse around his martial arts prowess and physical strength for all those years (not just in the early 2000s); he is very fat, can't move easily, and seems to cough up a lot of phlegm. But in his defense, he says (said) that he exaggerates his stories about himself for some career-related reasons; I guess the leader of Open Source has to be a Superman. He took down some of his more questionable blogs including one where he asserted that he was a natural born "pick up artist" (philanderer and playboy, like Sir Tristram). I really wanted to re-read that one.
I fell into the ESR personality cult back around the turn of the millennium. I guess I can go ahead and say that he's a good writer, as in, a compelling and clear writer -- a good communicator. People took issue with a perceived narcissism or egomania (as well as political militarism or cultural fascism or whatever phrase you want to sub in for 'right-wingery,' after 9/11) but so what -- writers often have this problem (*AHEM*). He seems to have disappeared off the internet, for the most part. At some point he stopped blogging. I wrote him, for maybe the 3rd time, and he replied that things were broken over at his host (ibiblio.org) and that he may need to move the blog. However I think something else was and is going on.
My guess is that ESR retired from public life, feeling a little betrayed by the computer world who seemed to reject him when he got political after 9/11 (he was apparently ousted from some Open Source thing? Don't quote me), and on top of that is MAAAAAAAYBE a bit disappointed that his fame in those early web days just sort of fizzled into nothing as the Facebook/Youtube/iPhone paradigm was thrust upon us in the late aughties. This feels like a similar thing that happened to me: when I was blogging and website'ing around the year 2000 everyone loved it and paid attention, and people found my blog via Google search results. A piece I wrote about the Bunnyranch got thousands (or maybe tens of thousands) of views and was linked to by lies.com, a big blog at the time. But then the internet and web changed and little guys like me got shunted back into total obscurity. So I feel some kinship with ESR as his celebrity status fell away. He still has a Wikipedia article, though.
I found ESR's character compelling in some sense. I liked his writing at any rate; it held my attention, which is rare. I don't necessarily disagree with what are usually seen as right wing arguments or analyses or just 'a certain kind of world view,' but more feel as though those sorts of things are impolite to say, or maybe more accurately, lead to bad societal outcomes in the long run even if they sound true or seem true or even are true in the here and now. I guess I have kind of a blue pilled view, in the parlance of our times.
But I also think that no one REALLY knows what they're doing, or has anything even close to a grand grasp of the machinations of civilized society; it's just an evolutionary THING, and it operates on its own. I think this extends even to, or especially to, big companies like FAANG (I love this acronym): Facebook Amazon Apple Netflix Google. They fell into their slots by luck and things just snowballed. But I think more specifically, big companies (corporations, I suppose) don't really know what they're doing and end up operating as more than the sum of their parts, in spite of massive waste and mismanagement. There's just something about human organizational behavior that is efficacious.
It's a wonder corporations work as well as they do (stick around, earn money) and there is something else going on there that we -- analysts and sociologists and psychologists -- don't have a good grasp on. Furthermore I think this lack of understanding is hugely pervasive and extends to all of human society, and to the universe: we're trapped in our bubbles as humans, trapped in our brains, and everything we do and think is a function of that and does not really map to reality at all.
Of course it makes sense that this sort of 'passive observer' argument comes from a person who is lazy and unsuccessful, but as I like to say "your psychology is irrelevant": pay attention to the truth value, and not my motivations for saying it. Psychology is peripheral at best. At worst, throwing it in pretty much proves that my assertion has something to it in that you're trying to tear it down by any means necessary. Of course this is just more psychology (REEEEEEEEE). Everyone is lying all the time and everything you hear and read is a lie; if someone took the trouble to make an assertion that means that in some sense the opposite is true and they are trying to convince you otherwise.
Heppy Helloween \m/ 666
Every year I think of getting a goalie mask, dressing in jeans and a flannel shirt and boots, grabbing the chainsaw, and walking the earth. I think this probably is not a good idea and I'd get shot, especially if the chainsaw were running. Besides I'd have to order the goalie mask a few days in advance. In other news today is my SDF dues day -- every year I pay $36 to SDF for no real world reason but only to support SDF. I guess maybe hosting my website on the MetaArray is better somehow, but it seems like the MetaArray is down a lot. And just like my Halloween Jason'esque fantasies, every year I fantasize about not paying these SDF dues but only emailing the membership committee (?) with "Please demote MJT to ARPA." But every year I pay them.
GAIZ GAIZ GAIZ I'M SO SMART I WROTE ABOUT JAMES JOYCE. Certain books -- well all books in a way, but some more than others -- function as "smartbadges:" things that prove you're smart. There are a lot of smartbadges out there in life, such as chess, computer programming, Rubik's cubes, Sudoku puzzles, foreign language learning...generally stuff that looks like an IQ test, or pattern-based problem solving. You look at objects, recognize a pattern, then test objects against it and see if they fit, usually (and this is key) by VISUALLY PROCESSING ABSTRACT SYMBOLS. Not everyone is good at this but we tend to base our notions of general mental ability on it.
Joyce is sort of a midway point between math and language, or maybe just computer programming and language. But it's not beyond anyone -- you only have to take the time to unpack everything that needs unpacking, and whether you want to do that or not has to do with where your interests lie. The rub is trusting the extant scholarship vs doing it on your own (looking up all the foreign words after teasing apart the Joyceisms...it's very much like solving a Rubik's cube on your own vs using a known method).
This is a similar thing I hear vis-a-vis computer programming: that it's not so much about being "smart" but rather about being dedicated to doing the legwork. You don't have to be REALLY smart anymore because all the text and examples are out there, usually on the interwebz -- you just have to be interested enough to slog through them and practice them, and then you can achieve "genius by rote" and get a job editing .config files. So now I've moved on to the third sentence of "Finnegan's Wake" and I'm thinking about doublin my mumper (all the time).
SMART.
Also the thing with literary smartbadges -- difficult texts -- is that your status is not really obviously performance based; you only have to say "yes I read Joyce, I double my mumper all the time," and the test ends there. A similar problem exists in GRADUATE SCHOOL in which they jury you on the reading cannon, and this just amounts to essays, which are words based on other words -- it's not like you have to type out "Finnegan's Wake" from memory, although I should say that I never got Shakespeare til I performed it in an acting class.
I didn't properly read-and-understand a whole lot in grad school. I read around stuff, moved my eyes over the text, strongly parsed a sentence or two, read ABOUT the ur-text online, then participated in class discussion and riffed on what other people said. Finally I was awarded my 4.0. But that's the thing with reading -- it's a personal journey, kinda, and you can't really tell anyone else how to do it or really presume that your own way of doing it is the best way, although maybe this is the kind of relativism I often caution against.
There are people who ENJOY READING, and enjoy the process of looking up every word they don't know, and going over and over a long sentence, paraphrasing it their head or even on paper if they need to, til they get it. Most people don't like to read THAT much. "Reading" is also kind of a thing-in-the-culture; a lot is made of loving to read and being a 'voracious reader' and blah blah, books books books, cartoons of kids overjoyed to visit the library, and so on. You get all kinds of encouragement from everyone on your reading ability/proclivity, unlike, say, on solving little puzzle game things in your spare time.
Hi Zilog...I saw your post in the anonymous room. Did you leave because NTK is so awful?
Okay now I'm really over my high school reunion. I have resolved all issues and have emerged a better person. To demonstrate I will write about James Joyce.
James Joyce was a premier modernist (turn of the milennium'ish) intellectual -- he joins Freud and Marx and all of them. He was Irish, but an arguably England-influenced Dubliner (a "Jackeen") who disparaged the "red haired west coast louts" in one of his x-rated letters to NORA BARNACLE, with the best name ever. Being too good for Ireland, Joyce left it for France. Apparently he was an insufferable narcissist, egomaniac, preening self centered reactive prima dona, etc. An artiste, but a REAL MAN too, like Hemmingway. Animus and anima, all in one. The perfect white man, with an eye patch! I wonder if he knew how to box. He looks pretty skinny.
Joyce wrote basically 3 things that people know about: "The Dubliners," a collection of short stories, "Ulysses," a novel taking place over the span of one day that makes use of different styles to mirror "The Odysssey," and then finally FINNEGAN'S WAKE: this is the craziest book ever written. Just about every other word is semi-made up, or a portmanteau of different languages, or Irish brogue, or some such. There's a site that links all of these neologisms or Joyceisms to an explanation in the lower panel of the page, but I would caution against being overly-literal with this.
If some modern rando assembled "Finnegan's Wake" or a similar work -- meaningless with jargon -- then probably it'd be ignored or laughed at if submitted to high culture somehow. Maybe I'm just revealing my inability to distinguish good stuff from bad stuff but I am really suspicious, I think rightly, provably, of the existence of a "pure aesthetics" that organizes one work above another due to its own specific properties; instead I think culture is always there, doing most of the legwork. Is "Finnegan's Wake" only interesting because its social location demands increased attention, sort of like "Building 7" 9/11 conspiracies? Hard to say.
I mostly like that I can read about "Finnegan's Wake," and read about Joyce -- tidbits and snippets and Wikipedia articles -- and I'm immediately on the same page as actual English majors or literary scholars or WHOMEVER, whose focus is the Wake, because you have to look every other word up and there's no serious suggestion that you have to actually 'read' it like you read a normal book (I think). I did the first sentence and I'm already in the top 1% -- I then looked at Howth (a small Irish peninsula east of Dublin) and Howth Castle on Google Maps and saw that there are some cookie cutter residences there; apparently it's an expensive place to live. There's no mention of Joyce on the Wikipedia article for Howth.
The funny thing though is that "Finnegan's Wake" reads: you can kind of get through it in the same way they told me to read French in French class without necessarily knowing every word -- it sounds in your head, it flows, and it almost makes sense. Let's do the second sentence (the first, "rivverrun...", is no doubt overdone, and is weird because it's palindromic with the end of the novel):
Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passencore rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war:
Technically this is not a sentence but one of several colon-demarcated phrases in the second sentence-paragraph of "Finnegan's Wake." I arrived at my own parsing by looking stuff up (such as "Armorica", a Latin/Roman name for Brittany or Normandy, meaning "on the sea"), but sometimes my own apprehension or first impression contradicts the scholarship on finwake.com or potentially elsewhere; for example, "violer d'amores" just HAS to be a violator of hearts, non? And not (just) some kind of viola player or whatever they say there. "Penisolate" is like "peninsular" but contains a penis -- in keeping with Sir Tristan being a kind of manwhore. Joyce himself was a horny bastard, as we know from his letters to Nora, which we really should not be reading ("You had an arse full of farts that night, darling, and I fucked them out of you").
Sir Tristam, musician and playboy and philanderer, sailed over from Brittany to Howth in order to engage in the struggle of life with all its personal, political, and sexual components.
Kind of makes you want to read on. Here's more:
So it goes on like this. In the movie "Little Miss Sunshine" there's a character who has made a career of studying a single work by Marcel Proust: "In Search of Lost Time," written about the same time as "Finnegan's Wake." It's easy to see how studying texts can turn into massive institutional scholarship, if you unpack everything enough. And in Joyce's case it seems like you're just not making the unpacking up -- unlike, say, with (perhaps) "Moby Dick," where the scholarship is sort of notorious for inserting all kinds of Freudian symbolism Melville didn't intend (although maybe he did "unconsciously" -- aHA!, right?). It's no coincidence that Freudian psychology came out of the same movement as "Finnegan's Wake;" this represents to me overtextualization -- an inward-turned fixation on language as a thing unto itself rather than a way to describe reality. And here we have the roots of postmodernism, once people started realizing stuff like FW is weird. I think it was originally an old Irish ballad where Finnegan is presumed dead but then woken up at his wake, but in Joyce's version, they eat him?
Petey, I hate you. I hate the way you speak and think and are. The universe would be a better place if you were not a conscious entity in it. You are a DMV client, a facebooker, and a high school reunionite. I am going to END you. Ima get you in the end!!!
JUST KIDDING <3
Ok I have one final thought about high school reunions: it's all try-hards -- people who want to be cool, who care how others see them, who want to make an impression, who want to SEE AND BEE SEEN, and read/write where they fall in the pecking order. They want to be part of the group, the in crowd, and by definition to exclude others out of this in-group. They want to relive the caste system of high school. It all makes sense now. If you want to attend your high school reunion you are a piece of shit!!! LIKE PETEYBOY!!!!!!
jk.
jay kay lololol
F U
I'M SO BORED AND DISSASTISFIED, I SIT HERE AND DO NOTHING ALL DAY EVERY DAY, STARE AT SCREENS AND LISTEN TO AUDIO MEDIA OF USUALLY JUST SOMEONE TALKING, I DON'T FULLY ABSORB ANY OF IT AFTER 30 SECONDS, I DRIVE TO MCDONALDS OCCASIONALLY, MAKE DINNER OCCASIONALLY, ETC. I guess it's not that bad (beats workin', amirite?). I feel like a better life is possible though. Maybe the Scientologists will contact me now.
It does feel like to some degree the problem is: 1) expectations and comparing myself to other people, per the ancient wisdom, or more deeply, 2) a lack of Buddhistic anti-desire. But I am also cautious of RELATIVISM, which tends to creep in when the realm of fistcourse is humanzees. There are some absolutes, like number of calories burned, number of complex structures created, etc. There is also SCIENCE, which tells us ugmanzees need work-play-love (no mention of God or enlightenment). I think I am a little messed up though. Maybe a lot messed up: I'm not sure I enjoy stuff or get into stuff the way many or most people seem to. I am not really inspired to do much I guess -- anhedonia or depression or just "avolition," as a sequelae to the BRAIN INJURY.
I think anxiety and reactivity come into play: I've had too many bad experiences out there navigating the world so I avoid them at home and ultimately that is preferable; boredom is better than anxiety, as I have remarked many times. I also think that I have prematurely aged, mentally -- I've had enough of the world and so retired to a simple inactive little corner of it, like many seniors do. And, I live among these seniors and so I carry their influence. Some 50 year olds are out there windsurfing and marrying 18 year olds (I know one specifically like this...his name is Ulf).
Today I drove to McDonalds and got a #7 (2 sausage egg burritos, hash browns, and cawfy) and sat in the parking lot til my dad called a little after 8am. I talked to him, sat some more, and then drove home a different way than I came. Now it's a quarter to 10 and I will make a mac and cheese for when my neighbor comes to dinner this evening. My mac and cheese secret is a shredded onion, ground mustard, ground paprika, and a hand blender. Then, if it's for company, I top it with Ritz crackers. If I were in prison I would say "OH GOD I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT I HAD BACK THEN...A WHOLE WORLD OF RICH EXPERIENCE AND FREEDOM...EVERY MCD BURRITO IS SUBTLY DIFFERENT".
I think this is a trope: imagine yourself as younger and in the past, and ascertain if you'd be disappointed in your present self. I'm not sure I would but I was kind of a weird kid. As in, I don't think I accepted the available value systems that other people did...I didn't "follow the crowd" so much. I feel I'm in danger here of falling into some "EVERYONE SAYS THIS" psychologist trap, but again...relativism: sometimes things are actually true. My kindergarten teacher told my mom that I "march to my own drummer." This might just be a physiological/neurological thing, like being tall or being fat, as opposed to some try-hard 'wanting to be special' ego thing, that the psychologists, amateur and professional, are so fixated on.
I AM SPECIAL AND YOU ARE MERELY AN AVERAGE BUTTKISS: A BREEDER, A FACEBOOKER, A DMV CLIENT, A HIGH SCHOOL REUNIONITE. DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE *eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh* (sound of machine gun). I have a lot of hostility, m'kay. Lots of all caps today, ah tel u wut.
I got the COVID booster and I feel flu'ish *shake fist at Biden*
I feel better today about my high school reunion, that I didn't even go to, but it was bugging me yesterday while I was in the throes of minor weed withdrawal (yes I'm a pothead again...oh well). I was depressed or had low dopamine or something, and so then a slew of thoughts that I should have all the time and that should bother me all the time but normally do not, by some grace, suddenly did (see: depressive realism): I thought about what a loser and what a failure I am, compared to everyone in my high school class. Well there's one guy who's a registered sex offender, but apart from him, LITERALLY EVERYONE did better than me. Even the blue collar guys mostly own houses and have BBQs and drive big pickups and have wives and kids. I guess maybe that sort of mediocre flavor of success is just normal -- what people do. And the fact that I didn't do it points to something being wrong with me, as in, it's not really my fault?
Am I legitimately disabled or do I have personality problems (cowardly, lazy, antisocial)? Why not both, I guess. I know SOMEONE (O_________O) who sustained a (probably) more severe TBI than I did and who did well afterwards due to his perseverance. I, on the other hand, was not doing great before the TBI. Here's what I think happened: I did not have a lot of motivation or drive and had some cognitive and emotional problems before the TBI. When I hit my head the cognitive and emotional problems got worse, but my drive increased for a little while for some reason: just getting older maybe, or entering a strange and short "innocent period" post TBI during which I was kind and honest and open, til the world fucked me and I became bitter and resentful. The TBI happened at a transitional time I think -- age 21 and a half. Who knows how I would have turned out if not for that, but I believe I would have done better by most normal or mainstream measures. At the very least I would have been forced to work without a welfare safety net and so maybe I'd be CEO of McDonalds by now, or VP in charge of social media at least.
Immediately after the TBI, I attempted to make something of my life, taking one class at a time as necessary or entering easy college majors as necessary, applying for jobs and hearing nothing or interviewing occasionally then hearing nothing. And, ultimately, it didn't work out -- I ran into roadblocks (unable to perform required tasks). Maybe if I'd never hit my head I would have gone through the same period of self improvement and self betterment, but it actually would have worked. And, I think obviously, tautologically, if I had, then and now, a herculean amount of motivation and drive, I could overcome almost anything. I think ultimately, whether shaped by injury or genetics, brains are what they are and some point toward success and some do not; neurological determinism.
I was thinking more about Facebook high school reunion videos, with the cool kids in the foreground just like they were back then, shouting and grinning and hugging and so on. I was on my walk this morning and muttering to myself, "They're fucking stupid...and they're popular/successful because they're stupid" -- this obviously sounds bitter but I think there's SOMETHING (maybe not a lot) to it: thoughtful kids aren't often such loutish clowns, I don't think, and/or maybe there's something about transitioning to adulthood as a smart person that makes you a little weird. But these are vagaries and apologistics and a more solid truth is that social "intelligence" and "real" intelligence are not really correlated, negatively or positively. When I was younger I thought if you were not a social butterfly then you then had to be smart -- in a success-engendering way -- as some kind of fallacious 'just world' scale adjustment, maybe as a way of boosting my own self esteem, but of course that's not true.
I keep thinking about (a photo of) three guys at the reunion -- one of them was a popular kid who befriended me because I was all that was available at the time (I think I mentioned him in an earlier entry), the second was a guy who said a few mean things to me but nothing too awful, and the third was captain of the football team or something and I don't think I exchanged a single word with him in four years, although I watched his performance art in "average level" math class, which I was bumped down into way back in 8th grade. None of these guys were the sharpest knives in the drawer but they were not and are not, apparently, scared of people; they like people, anything they do is fine because it FEELS fine to them, and other people respond positively to their self assuredness. They can't lose. And dim or not, they have normal adult lives now.
Social awkwardness comes about vis-a-vis try-hards who WANT to be liked and go about it wrong, whereas social anxiety causes people to not even try. And, the thing is, social awkwardness is ultimately just in your head; lots of people make blunders or say dumb stuff but they laugh it off and their emotional carriage is such that everyone likes them regardless. Few things -- maybe nothing -- is as socially unattractive as someone who's scared all the time.
My high school reunion came and went without me, but I ended up having a little private virtual reunion of my own -- my friend who did go texted me a picture of him at the designated bar with a mutual acquaintance, and then the next morning I had a half hour phone call with this friend, catching up. We talked about people he had seen, etc. And then, on Facebook, attendees posted lots of photos and a few videos. Especially after seeing the videos, I came away with the conclusion that I would not have fit in or done well at the reunion and that I probably would not have had a good time.
It's as I thought: the kinds of people who attend high school reunions are the loud extroverted kids who hang out in the hall with their social lives on happy public display and want to relive that scene 30 years later. People like me, who had a small group of shy and quiet friends and didn't exchange two words with most of that aforementioned loud social "core", if they attend their reunion(s), end up on the sidelines just like they did in high school. Maybe if they're lucky they find one person they were friendly with and have a small short shallow conversation. I don't KNOW that this is how my 30 year high school reunion would have gone for me but I would bet in that direction if compelled to bet.
I have remarked that high school reunions are about finding out what classmates do for a living and to see if they have gotten fat -- basically to gauge social status, in a sick continuation of the intense human pecking order that permeates high school like Stephen King's evil mist. But now, after it's all over and after seeing some footage, I think my assessment of universal or at least common motives for attending high school reunions might amount to projection. The reunion-goers, the loud social hallway core, the extroverts, the drinkers and partiers and sports fans, just want to yell and dance to "WHOOMP THERE IT IS." If they play status games or think status thoughts, it's unconscious. They're basically animal machines running a program and they're going to do what they're going to do, vis-a-vis other people: engage in the fast fluent happy back-slappy interaction that has mostly been outside my sphere of experience and ability.
Thanks to Facebook and Linkedin, I already know how most everyone ended up; I have all the reunion information I want and don't have to go be awkward around my social superiors, again -- to re-live my high school mediocrity. That said, I'm sure a lot of my feelings have to do with being fat and unemployed. If I were a big success, probably I'd want to go and show off my gold pinky ring.
In other news I made a small cheesecake with leftover frozen cream cheese. It's in the fridge hardening as I type these letters. It could be a BREAKFAST CHEESECAKE or a DINNER CHEESECAKE, or really an ANYTIME CHEESECAKE.
So I suppose in high schools generally there are the loud extroverts with their social lives in constant performative display, and they are the heroes or leaders to some -- let's call them the bright wallflowers -- who appreciate that and want to be around it, even if those hangers-on don't do it much themselves. And then you have people who are shy and can't really partake in that social system featuring one fundamental group of cool kids and their orbiters, but those shy kids' strategy -- call them the faded wallflowers -- is to disdain the cool kids and go off and do their own thing. I was friendly with one "cool kid" I remember, just because we were in French class together and he had no one else to talk to so he picked me for recruitment into his radiant personal aura. I played along...I even went to a party at his house. But it really wasn't me.
They say it's sad and pathetic when someone is 'obsessed' with high school but I think it's an incredibly resonant experience for people and discounting it as unimportant doesn't make sense.
fuck you petey
GOOD MORNING PETEY. From now on I will address all blog entries to Petey. I have mentioned Zilog a few times too, as well as Randy. I HATE WIIIIIIIIIX
An unnamed SDFer subscribed to my podcast, as in, they fed my XML script's URL to their podcatcher. I am not sure how I feel about this: it's good to have listeners and that's theoretically why I publish (to be heard/read), but now I have the new subscriber's PERSONA in my mind and will imagine them LISTENING and it will affect my aforementioned porous personal boundaries (plus I'll just worry about saying the wrong thing more now that I am personally aware of more audience members).
It sort of seems like on paper someone who is autistic would't care much about other people and their opinions. But I think that's not true -- I remember a kid, whose parents apologized for his behavior by citing his diagnosed autism, who had responded defensively to being corrected with a loud, performative, emphatic "I wasn't!!!!" along with a pleading, persuasive, hurt, angry, bug-eyed face. This seems to fit with ego: the kid's self concept was being challenged and so he had to leap in and defend it. To him, it was as if someone was saying "You cannot determine 'you' and I'm going to do it for you," and so his defenses were immediately raised. I remember Wonko, known autiste, would get angry when I or anyone else threw psychology at him (i.e., suggested personality-based causes for his behavior). When I've brought up autism on SDF I've gotten two reactions I remember: 1) "LOL autism is made up," and 2) "Pshh as if having high intelligence is a bad thing." Both of these are telling.
I see this personality type all the time: the bipolar sperg. A reactive, self centered, overly literal, overly categorical person with high or high-average IQ who doesn't quite act "right" around other people and who comes across as somehow eccentric or odd. Usually all this just gets shunted off onto "autism spectrum," and I think that might be accurate, but there are other traits I believe are autism linked but dont get talked about much. For instance, having a big ego, I've found (and can justify my findings logically), is autism linked (aut = self -- if all you can process is YOU then you're going to come across as self centered). Also, transgenderism is linked to autism (something I saw online), which maybe doesn't surprise anyone who visits /lgtb/ on 4chan. This sorta makes sense too: if you're in your own head and ruminating all the time and are not affected so much by social norms, thinking "I might not be a girl/boy but instead might be a boy/girl" seems reasonable. And finally, bipolar disorder (basically being reactive, defensive, emotional, overly intense, and hard to get along with) is found in 27% of those on the autism spectrum. I got that stat from this article which then goes on with "yeah but," which is also telling: a lot of the internet material on autism is written by self-obsessed spergs going on about how wonderful they are and how their affliction is really some 'beautiful mind' thing, like Greta Thunberg and her "superpower."
It's interesting, though, how autistic egotism looks like the anti-spirituality -- most Asian systems (and maybe Abrahamic systems too, on some level) emphasize connectedness, oneness with the universe, self awareness, and killing the ego. So it's doubly funny that PHM often referred to himself as "enlightened," when he was pretty much the demon prince of bipolar spergs.
In other news I ordered a new garlic press just now this early morning. My current one sucks: the garlic pops out the sides when I squeeze it, and I have to fish garlic flesh out of its skin on the counter, often while in the throes of cooking with a hot pan and rapidly burning onions. FIRST WORLD PROBLEM, that I solve with $9 and my Amazon Prime trial membership that I need to end in a couple of days lest I transition into monthly payments.
I feel ok I guess. I'm pretty bored at times but as I have said maybe boredom isn't so bad and you just need to accept it and "flip the switch" (revert to the present moment, realization of the self, meditative awareness, joining the Hindu pantheon, blah blah) when the thought "I'm bored" enters the mind. I have to go for a walk today; my back is starting to hurt from muscular atrophy. I feel sort of condemned to exercise, like a hamster on a wheel, but I guess we're all in the same boat there, aside from the people who ignore this and go about their lives blissfully unhealthy. For me though, my body starts to hurt and get injured if I don't exercise. In LARGE part, I'm just too big. Not only fat but big, although of course fat is the BULK of it. Do you get all these jokes? They are in all caps to help you.
I'm pleased with my newly mobile friendly writing directory so at least there's that. Changing the subject without starting a new 'GRAPH, when did the nerd cooking explosion take place? Suddenly all these techies are sous vide'ing and so on. I think there's a certain kind of cooking that goes hand in hand with geekdom; namely, a sort of "techy" cooking where you use lots of gadgets and maybe measure things a lot. I don't know exactly how to encapsulate it, but I maintain that it is a thing: nerd cooking is different from art cooking.
YOU WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND BECAUSE IT IS BEYOND YOU. I like that sort of thing: psychological catch-22's, like denying that you drink being just the sort of thing an alcoholic would say, or quibbling about the definition of autism identifying you as autistic. The great Eric S. Raymond called this a KAFKATRAP and said it amounted to psychological attack that should be responded to with violence. Spergs are vulnerable to psychology because of their low self awareness and attachment to the importance of their own minds; when someone comes along and knows them better than they know themselves, or worse: predicts their behavior, they flip out.
meBeauty is not only skin deep; it's the method by which we choose our mates -- by which evolution operates. It's impossible that something so crucial can be a shallow or simple attribute. We aren't holograms -- 'beauty' isn't just "looks," but SHAPE and FORM and ACTUALITY and BODY. It's what you are (in some sense). However mating/evolution is a separate realm from the rest of human behavior, and isn't necessarily "the point of life." Well yes it is the point of life, as in, biological life, but there's also making art and sitting around and staring at the wall.
In other news I think politics might be a huge society-wide boundary problem in that it amounts to some people hating other people's behavior in spite of or because of the fact that they cannot control that behavior. Politics seems to violate Reinhold Niebuhr's serenity prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
The concept of personal boundaries can be problematic in that erecting strong ones seems to push empathy out the window. In fact I think it's impossible to distinguish between these two concepts (weak boundaries and empathy). Empathy is not always or entirely a good thing and you can certainly find empathy without compassion -- all that's required for empathy to take place is for other people to psychologically affect you in some way. Consider the counterexample of an autistic child who doesn't make eye contact or respond when his name is called. Conversely, compassion does not require empathy, or at least felt empathy -- you can dig wells for Pygmies without feeling one way or another about it. You can decided logically to be a good person and that this requires service, and tears need not be wept. Empathy on the other hand seems connected to ego and a fixation on other egos.
I have not written in a long time and I don't know why. Just TIPA, I guess (see far, far below). Petey complained. Hi Petey!
I've been working on the /writing/ directory of my website, making all those documents mobile friendly, except for two that didn't work out, one being incredibly complicated thanks to being generated by MS Word, and the other featuring nested blockquotes that wouldn't look right on a tiny screen. I published warnings about those two docs on the writing index page. Not that it matters...no one goes to or cares about my website (that I know of...I don't access the logs and am not sure I can, in detail at least). The degree to which modern people do not care about looking at your website is notable. And by that I do specifically mean "YOUR website" -- personal sites, blogs, portfolios, etc. Modern netizens seem to have some kind of built in resistance or revulsion there.
I was sort of 'raised' to make HTML 1.0, 1990s-type websites. That was my program in college, which came along with the dot com boom: the WWW was all the rage, and there was a massive capitalistic feeding frenzy around basic HTML and just "having a website," which art institutions briefly felt they needed to attach themselves to and make a fine art version of. That's where I ended up, my other option having been 3D animation. I'm not sure if I regret my choice. On the one hand I might have been more likely to have found a job if I'd gone that other route, but I dunno...maybe I would have had the same issues (insufficient skills, insufficient ass kissing). I do what I do now, and that is write "vanilla" HTML to create text/image/sound combos on the World Wide Web that everyone ignores for no real good reason other than "websites are stupid." Yeah, but, what about what's ON the website? No one seems to notice that now.
Yes I realize I have grand expectations of "only child"-level attention and grand celebrity generated around a battery of mid-tier work, but there's SOMETHING to my complaint: websites, certain kinds of websites that aren't Youtube or Facebook or etc, have become diminished. People just don't care about them anymore, as they did briefly around the turn of the millennium during the dot com boom. I suppose it was that newness, that grand opening, that produced my entire ouvre, which is sort of interesting in and of itself; maybe that's my one shot at attention: as a sort of anthropological subject ("Web 1.0 guy").
In a way I'm happy that I found this niche where I'm ignored, or perhaps more accurately, where I can pretend that I'm ignored because of the presentational container rather than the work itself, although as Marshall McLuhan tells us, these are inextricable. But does anyone really care about art, about "fine art"? Maybe not, and there might be good reasons for that (it just isn't as compelling as movies or video games or comic books -- it's less complex, doesn't tell a story, the production value tends to be low, and it purposefully cordons itself off from capitalism and mass culture).
However there's something satisfying about toiling in obscurity...it feels Van Gogh'ish. And if anyone ever asks me what I've been doing all these years, I just point em to my website and explain it took a really long time and is a collection of lifetime-spanning projects rather than just a single page that says WELCOME 2 MAI WEBSITE. It's funny that I do have to point this out but I'm afraid that people really don't distinguish a massive sprawling personal site from a one page Geocities (remember them?) throw-away.
All of the above is true but at the same time yes, there is something haphazard and low effort about a lot of my work, or at least it has that 'appearance' (although maybe with this concession I'm falling into the same "websites are dumb" trap I accuse everyone else of falling into...minimalism is considered legit, but just don't put it on the web). Plus I simply don't know if my work passes muster, being that I serve as my own curator -- I decide what is good enough to publish. I probably deserve to be laughed at for taking my stupid little website so seriously, but it's really not all that stupid or little -- there's a lot of content and a lot of man-hours here, including some continually updated stuff like this here BLAWG and my podcast. People don't care about me, and that's fine; I don't care about them either and just want to do my work. I think ultimately my work just isn't that good -- it's pretty good but not THAT good.
Country folk vote Republican because it suits them better, and city folk vote Democrat because it suits them better. I say: why not let city folk vote for their own policies that don't affect the country, and let country folk do the same? Why does there have to be universal policy for urban and rural areas of the USA, which have different populations, different values, and different needs? It would be better to enjoy a sort of federalization where urban and rural areas can govern themselves and not be subject to the wills of each other's populations.
Maybe this is already taking place to some degree at least, and the problem is too much centralized government or too visible centralized government. Maybe all we need is mayors and county executives and to drastically strip federal and state power. Again, maybe this has already pretty much in effect and there's a lot of self determination for localities, but people are just stuck on the idea of wider-scale control/leadership and allow it to define them in some abstract or ideological way.
I think we could take away the president of the USA as a position and everyone would be happier. This is sounding libertarian and adolescent, but maybe if the federal government just printed money, maintained the armed forces, and paid out welfare (like social security) things would be better. Get rid of state governments entirely, and then county/city governments would have all the power to legislate and police and so on. Somehow you'd have to write it up in the new constitution how cities would be enclaves within counties and not subject to the counties' laws.
I don't know what the endgame of these changes would be; maybe it's be worth trying out in some computer model, at least. The federal government would still have to collect taxes for army/welfare/bureau of engraving and printing/miscellaneous, and that would probably produce resentment since the feds would not appear to do much. Maybe you could obscure the federal tax somehow by putting it into sales tax or something; don't have people expressly pay it yearly but just bake it in in some way. Of course cities and counties would need money too but since services would be so immediate and close-by maybe people wouldn't have so much of a problem with that.
I guess you could experiment with entirely taking away the feds -- no army, money, or welfare. Another sim to run.
A lot of people point to Somalia and now Haiti as examples of what happens when there is absent or weak government, and then they say that criminal gangs or oligarchs would come into power in the USA under those circumstances. I'm not so sure though -- Haiti and Somalia aren't the United States; the culture is different, and we would need to see what happens there.
But my main focus is the urban/rural thing...letting each of them govern themselves. It seems like it would solve a lot of problems. Basically I think it's hard to have something like "an American identity," and it might be better to give this up.
I have humiliated myself in my chatroom with a bad overblown joke so I have to hide in shame and get my writing fix with my blog. I was thinking this morning on my walk that maybe AI will deal better with me than human society has. By that I mean, our new machine overlords will better recognize and make use of my talents; discover me as a special snowflake, say "you matter!", and keep me fed, warm, supplied with sex bots, etc, in exchange for well-utilized output. It's kind of a failure of economics that not everyone contributes, although of course one can revise what it means to contribute and assert that almost anything counts. I have a (mostly unknown, hidden, fringe) website and I cook for my stepfather (who doesn't really care what he eats). Those are my contributions.
I was fantasizing about a great leap forward again -- some kind of personal revolution in which I totally revamp my life and start a useful highly paid career I am good at. But I can never think of anything specific or viable. Plus, at this point there are practical roadblocks: not only am I fucked up neuro-psychologically, but I'm fat and have basically never had a real job, in my life. The closest I came was pizza delivery. I semi-facetiously claim that as my career, since I did the same thing (drove) for a 3 or 4 different companies. I even did a write up on it, years ago, but I think it's pretty bad. Lemme see if I can find it. It features my annoying all lowercase style; I'm glad I stopped that. Here's an excerpt:
pizza driving is a stressful job at first, when one is driving around frantically looking for addresses and roads, meandering through maze-like apartment complexes, and shining one's flashlight around frantifcally. the stress comes from the customer, who wants their food fast, and the restaurant, who wants their food delivered fast. nevermind that you're losing money by being slow -- this is the last thing on the delivery neophyte's mind. essentially, the job is based on time-pressure -- this is the definition of workplace stress; people wanting things from you, and wanting them in a certain amount of time.
but, the job goes from horribly stressful and suicide-inducing to laid-back and even fun once a driver basically memorizes the geography of his little segment of the world. now, the thing that causes grumbling is not getting good tips, or having to hang around inside the restaurant filling those little styrofoam cups full of cole slaw. when i do this, i keep imagining someone i went to high school walking in and seeing me.
So yeah, there are things I can do: cook, drive, write, music, art, talk, stare into space. Is this enough to snag a job in advertising or something like that? Maybe not at 48 years old and 320 pounds, with a lifetime of unemployment. Plus I get confused and upset a lot and can't get along with anyone. Additionally, I can't really read or focus or learn on understand or remember. And finally, the truth is that I was never really able to develop my talents beyond a sort of teenaged introductory level. OH WELL, IT WAS A THOUGHT. I will probably never stop going to indeed.com, though, and thinking "what if?".
I made a "real life resume" once. It has too much personal info for me to repost here but it's basically a year by year chronology from high school graduation on, including personal projects, hobbyist accomplishments, and medical events, along with jobs. It's kind of interesting. What's even more interesting is above the "2017" line I was unable come up with notable or original items to include, even though they don't all have to be jobs, so the document stops there. I think until around then I was sort of still trying to be a normal employed person, albeit slowly and haltingly, with attempt after attempt. Sad! So recently, in the field for "2018" I entered "RETIREMENT." It's no coincidence that my mom died in 2017. I'll post the headline paragraph (it all fits onto one page like a resume should, albeit with a teensy font):
My resume is a chronology of my productivity, education, and life experience. I’m legally disabled by a traumatic brain injury, but I’ve recovered a lot in 20 years. I received all three of my university degrees after my TBI, maintaining “A” averages within my specialties. Writing and music have been constant presences and pursuits in my life since 1994. My highest rate of pay was $30/hour as a teaching assistant, and my lowest was around $10/hour in retail.SAD!
Unlike the past two entries, I don't have a specific idea of what I want to write about today, but oh well. I like the 3 days in a row thing, now at this late stage -- long after I APPEAR to have quit writing regularly! One never knows when a homosexual is about. My high school reunion sign up date came and went, and I thought I was safe, but I received a spam today telling me to RSVP, again. Most people -- I don't know how they got such a complete list of emails -- did not RSVP. Around 50 of around 450 are coming, which is in some sense a lot of people to be gathered together but it's still a fairly small percentage of the total number of grads. From this I infer that most people are uninterested in high school reunions.
I think that the ones who ARE attending are the weird ones. I would attend if I had done well in life, looked good, and had a partner to bring -- everyone coming has at least one guest, and I read on the internet that this is "a thing" at high school reunions: bring some backup. I have no backup. Plus, I'm fat as fuck and am a disabled NEET libbin' in da basement. Overall just not a good look. In fact it's so bad that I almost want to go and present all of this ironically or aggressively or something. But no...it's not worth the expense. I guess maybe that's how many non-attendees feel: not worth it. Like, they don't have all these complex feelings of inferiority or whatever that makes attendance impossible, but they just can't be bothered because they have other things going on in their lives. That's not true of me...not much has happened to me, relatively speaking. Most people spend their lives in some job and I think that's hugely significant. A job isn't just a job -- it's interaction, and problem solving, and politics, and friendship, and navigating enemies peacefully, and all of that. I'm missing that and several other large chunks of the human experience. Well one main other one: kids of my own. I never wanted them though. I don't know that most men want them outright, but they do want to have sex with hot girls which can lead to kids. But I don't even want that last thing anymore, although my porn habits might tell another story. But it's possible that porn is a thing unto itself.
Life got a lot less interesting as I got older but my tolerance for stress declined as well, so it works out. Sitting at home and doing the food shopping once a week is about all I can handle. I'm just here, on the internet, waiting to die. HAHA. FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU
I was saying on my show today (!!!) that before or shortly after I turn 50, or perhaps as I turn 50, I am going to have to DO SOMETHING. Stay tuned!
I thought about something else to write about, but it may be stupid.
I was playing my favorite game, "Stratego," on my iPhone. I like to take chances in Stratego -- I will go exploring with my Marshall even though he might get killed with a Spy, or attack unidentified pieces even though they might be bombs. So each game I play amounts to lots of little gambles -- times I take a chance, and maybe in that one instance odds are that I come out on top. The problem is, every game I play I take several of these chances, so the odds start to stack against me. The result is I rarely do well at Stratego, because after 5 or so of these risky moves, one ends up being the death of me.
I guess what I am trying to communicate is that you can take individual risks, but if you take a lot of them then the aggregate risk goes up. This might be some known gambling problem.
But the thing with Stratego is, I can just quit my current game, start a new one, and again hope to come out on top with risky playing. I don't like to play calculated, careful, strategic games -- I like to win in a dominant way, easily, with luck on my side, so I just restart the game however many times it takes to achieve this. Of course in life you don't get a reset, so this kind of aggregate risk is more consequential. Thing is though, if anything, in real life I am risk averse and should probably take more risks.
So who the fuck knows.
I thought of something I wanted to write about during the drive to do the weekly grocery shopping this morning. On the curvy, narrow country roads around here, sometimes a car will swerve over into the oncoming lane while negotiating these curves. Some drivers HATE it when other drivers do this, and lean on their horns in furious reaction. I used to do this. But then, someone honked at me when I apparently crossed over the yellow line on such a curve, and I was taken aback -- I didn't mean to do it or notice I was doing it. And, in fact, the yellow line is an abstraction and what matters is that you don't hit the oncoming cars. There's more room than you might think and it does not necessarily have real world consequences if you go over the line a bit.
So, I have learned to do two things: 1) try not to go over the yellow line on curves because some drivers really hate it, and 2) don't worry about it when other drivers do it because it doesn't actually mean an imminent collision in spite of whatever category violation going over the line represents in my head. Generalizing, I accept more shit from others, and give out less shit myself.
This is an ideology in software engineering I read a long time ago although it may not be widespread or current; I think it was around some small open source project. The maxim is to be liberal in the type of interface or input the program will accept from other programs -- to understand and cope with a large variety of stuff -- and at the same time, to be conservative in the output it passes to other programs (always the same, in some universal format, etc).
This looks a lot like a LESSON FOR LIFE.
HALLOOOOOOOOO
I'm back!!!! The entry before last is bad. Kind of try-hard philosophical or something. It seems forced, like I HAD some ideas, a while before I started the entry, and then tried to squeeze them out in their corrupted, faded, tattered state. But I can redeem myself with prosaic (?) excellence now. I got some curtains for my glass doors, finally, so assassins can't place a shot on me in my bed from outside, at night, when I have the light on. They're also nice to have for the winter and summer for insulation, and to keep light out in the morning when I'm on the computer and get blinded. They're rolled up now but they can be deployed with the flip of a switch. Not literally but you know.
I'm listening to Spotify. Youtube got old, and my mp3s got old. I think the "recs" thing, where a service provides you with suggestions based on your consumption history, has kinda turned the internet into TV and made it worse. I don't want to search for stuff anymore and only eat what they feed me, and then complain that there's nothing on Youtube. And I guess maybe the ugly truth is that I don't want to search for anything because I don't actually want to watch anything -- it's just easy to go to Youtube when I'm bored, or reflexively, or whatever, and click a video thumbnail.
Today is THE LORD'S DAY and soon I will do my bible study with Jim. Let's have a look at today's lectionary...Exodus (spreading lamb's blood on doors), Psalms (OH God you are so very big...), Ezekiel (be good for goodness sake), Psalms (SO absolutely huge...), Romans (Love is all there is...but also, be good). and Matthew (how to deal gently with wrongdoers). Now that I've summarized it'll make it easier to talk about, I think. Basically the over-arching theme is finger-wagging, as seen in the Koran, but with some cushioning of gentleness around it? Maybe Jim will have a different perspective.
Every Sunday I do this.
I slept really well last night, even though I took a nap yesterday afternoon. I was getting tired of forcing myself not to nap with the hopes of sleeping better at night, because it wasn't working. In fact it may have even made things worse. So then I said fuck it and took a nap, and last night I slept til almost 5am -- UNPRECEDENTED! Well, no, but rare. Waking after 4am is a victory. It's supposed to be quite warm today: 88f. But, that ain't shit. Hottest I ever saw it here was 111f, I last summer. This summer was akchuly quite cool: just two heat waves, and even there we didn't go above the low 100s. Other than that it's been really nice -- around 90f in the day and then dropping down to 65f at night. That's the way it SHOULD BE!!! The way I WANT IT!!!! me....ME....ME!!!!!!!!
I kinda decided I don't like anyone on SDF. In the past I met some people I like there but I now have external relationships with them. I don't really need to be on SDF anymore...I'm not in the market for new friends. You forget what a real friend is when you just interact with a bunch of guys in something like a prison dayroom. For now my website and my radio show are stuck here and that's fine I think, except that it really is kind of a constraint -- SDF pagerank and other web-stuff (?) has been ruined by Google, or so says SMJ, and possibly spammers/hackers/etc as well. In other words, it could be that Google unfairly blacklisted SDF, but maybe some of it was deserved. I don't know enough to comment more on it but SDF has kinda been relegated to the dregs of the internet. It is where the hacker 4chan lives!
Maybe it would be a good move to buy my own domain and do my own podcast elsewhere and be totally free of this clique of shit. Fucking 20 years I've been wasting my time here. I don't REALLY think I can blame SDF for all my problems but I dunno...maybe some of them. Randy was asking me if would have ended up so much of an "internet person" if not for SDF and I told him I think so...in 2006 when I said "fuck this I quit" ("they all come back") I released all my pent up chat energy on the web forums of a new defunct CD trading site called lala.com. It served as kind of a methadone clinic, anyway, at least. That domain does not appear to be working at the moment.
I need to be not so much online, at the very least. I think it has not been good for me. I put my Chromebook in the closet and I moved my iPhone to the table, both off my nightstand. But really, the problem goes back to computer use in the 1980s. And before that, books, TV, and radio. I have an information addiction problem I think, like a lot of people, and the internet didn't create it but only made it worse and harder to handle. I don't know if blogging counts. At some point it becomes ridiculous and you realize you have cut everything out under the guise of some kind of moralistic lifestyle management and just end up staring at the wall, because that's all that's allowed. So I suppose some BALANCING is in order...some buddhistic middle path stuff. I hate buddhists so much though. I hate everything! FUCK YOUUUUUUUUU
Just kidding.
I have been working on this entry for three days. I guess I'm not under any deadlines or whatever but it FEEEEEELS bad. FEELINGS!!! REEEEEEEE. It's not really anything new...just some summaries of things I wrote earlier down below. I guess I'm really out of practice, and the fact is, I am at odds with people reading this. I like to write publicly but I don't like it when people read it and comment on it. I have always had this issue with blogging. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. Antidisestablishmentarianism. Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peckers. P is the hardest letter to type on the keyboard.
I went shopping this morning but no family dinner due to COVID. Life is empty. I guess writing can be a meditative exercise, but I'm sure I'm doing it wrong. Well not SURE...somewhat afraid I am doing it wrong. Maybe it's just a good calming exercise for the brain and one should write all day for that reason. It's fucking hot but that's ok because we had such a nice lovely cool summer for the most part that I am still weighing heavily on that. And, it's supposed to get nice again soon.
Science is not very scientific -- it produces a world view that is unnatural, and thereby causes mental health problems. In large part the modern way of doing things -- the modern world view, the modern paradigm, etc -- is scientific-materialist. Not only is there no place for God or gods, but there's little place for any kind of transcendent or immanent mystery. It is the age of autism, both in the sense of a sort of linear causality laid over top of everything, but also in terms of self centeredness -- we have it all figured out. Postmodernism is weakness ("MAYBE this is true," or "this is KIND OF true") and sometimes you need a particularist sort of self assurance to fight other flavors of particularist self assurance, if they are encroaching or threatening to do so. This is contemporary politics: a never-ending tit for tat of caricatured straw men. I guess it's just WAR.
I went for a walk today for the first time in a week and it felt pretty good -- I didn't get overly tired or out of breath or sustain other damages. I nearly forgot my cell phone though which is tempting fate, or "Murphy bait": the ONE TIME I forget my phone on my walk will be the ONE TIME I fall and need to call an ambulance. This is magical thinking, and maybe it's the last vestige of real spirituality left in people. I liked what I arrived at some weeks back: that spirituality is just what goes on in your head. In that sense, if you're an introspective type that means you are a spiritual type. Unfortunately scientific materialism means that even introspective types often balk at notions of "the spiritual," because they think it means believing Jesus walked on water and is coming back tomorrow, or Hell is real with fire and brimstone, or some such.
But I think people crave real spirituality, even if it's not accessible to them, and so oftentimes they end up with an alternative encyclopedia -- alternative facts, like evolution denial, this denial, that denial. People go through this world in efficacious feeling scientific materialist control over their day to day lives, putting gas in their tanks and sending emails and wallowing in capitalistic tech comfort, and when they get some inkling that they are missing something, they don't know how to go about getting it and turn to dogma instead of turning inward, to THE SELF.
One more thing: the dharmic "ultimate self" can easily be confused with an 'egoic' or egotistical self. It might even be that they're the same thing. The whole dharmic position is that consciousness is somehow mystical -- that it is the buzzing of the universe itself. It sometimes seems like Hinduism and Buddhism are pre-neuroscience misinterpretations of human experience; consciousness, the great I, is built into the brain -- it's parts of the brain experiencing other parts. I find it suspicious that sages can distinguish perfectly from the true self and the false self.
Sullen faces sneer and snarl from doors of mud-cracked houses.
ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES MJT A DULL BOY
ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES MJT A DULL BOY
ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES MJT A DULL BOY
ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES MJT A DULL BOY
ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES MJT A DULL BOY
ALL WORK AND NO PLAN MAKES MJT A DULL BOY
ALL WORK AND NO PLAQUE MAKES MJT A DULL BOY
ALL THE WORKD AND MOPANE WORKS MAKE MJT A DULLES AIRPORT
ALLEWERKEN ZE MOBODIQTEAZZZZZZ MAKE MIJIJIJIJJIJI A DINGLEBERRY!!!!!
DOOFUS DOOFUS DOOFUS
I've had COVID for the past week, so now I'm in the club, 3.5 years after the pandemic hit. The pandemic did feel like some kind of social or cultural or historical reset or pivot point, I think...Pre- and Post-Pandemic. Doubly so for me, as I broke my leg right when COVID was getting started. One thing of note: I lost 5-10 pounds during COVID and I clearly and immediately noticed the difference in the way it feels to walk. It's just much easier, and my knee doesn't grind as much. I hope I can keep the weight off. I'm still on my sugarbusters diet thing but it's a fuzzy diet, which I sort of think all diets need to be lest the dieter go crazy and renounce.
I'd be almost happy if I could stay at this weight, 310, forever, or at least until I start to lose more muscle mass as I age. Then I'll need a new normal. I think I am doomed to restriction. I recently read a thread where people who were thin said whether or not they restricted. It seemed to be a mix...I'll say 50/50. Some people just aren't built to gain weight and have to work at it. I think I'd rather have that problem. Social issues notwithstanding, it's healthier to be over-thin rather than over-fat.
All these changes taking plaaaaace...I wish I'd seen the plaaaaaace...but no one's ever taaaaaaaaken meeeeeeeeee
Hearts and thoughts they faaaaaade....faaaaaade awaaaaaaaay
I'm losing weight, my housemate is having a lot of skin cancer scraped off, my aunt is in bad health and no longer cooks for us, and I've been taking BJJ classes. In maybe 2007 or 2008 I re-acquainted myself with "The Real Book," which is a jazz fake book (collection of lead sheets for standard tunes), and learnt me some shit. Using the melody in the treble clef and the indicated chords, I came up with "chord melodies" (playing melody and harmony at the same time) for eight tunes, including one that I'm not sure had been interpreted much or even at all for solo guitar: "Blue in Green" by Miles Davis. The tab for that one is online on this website and by now it has propagated to tab sites like ultimate-guitar.com. I got an email once thanking me for my Miles Davis tab. I also got an email thanking me for my Danielle Brisebois tab ("My Only," as heard in "As Good As It Gets").
I played through these eight chord melodies, plus one more ("Deacon Blue" by Steely Dan), and my god am I bad. Awkward, slow, shaky, badly timed, you can tell where I pause struggling to get my fingers into position, and even a few splats (bad or muted notes). I'm not sure why I thought for so long that I was some kind of genius guitar player but I did. I'm at the high end of mediocre, for an amateur, I think. Or maybe not even that. But no...I should give myself due credit: I think I'm not bad for an amateur. However I'm not like pro level and undiscovered, which I shamefully realize I sort of thought for years. I remember at age 18 my actual dream/plan was to be a rock star -- to get a four track tape deck and make songs that would be a big hit.
I think the one thing I should have stuck with is painting. I did some impressive work for a 17 year old and then just abandoned it. Imagine if I'd worked hard at it all these years -- if I'd made painting my main thing. Well...I'm not sure I have that in me, though, for any activity. But imagine if I did! The result is that I have a lot of natural talents that fade dimmer every year due to lack of discipline and lack of 'good' 'real' practice. I don't really fault laziness here though -- I think I'm learning disabled, focus impaired, etc, and can't really help being a massive piece of shit. Whatever. Life goes on, man.
I don't know what to do about BJJ. I sort of like it but I have qualms: injury, injury, injury, cost, not liking the instructor, and injury. I've only had two lessons though so I will push on. Every day though I feel dread at the thought of going there and am relieved when I don't have to. That's just my mental issues, though...it's nothing real world. I don't care about self defense, I already get better exercise from walking, and I don't want to pay thousands of dollars. So why am I compelled to do it? Possibly some mannish "learn 2 fite" thing. I dunno. I told the guy I would probably pay for a month and then make a firmer committment, or not, after that month. This seems wise. There are enough large people there so I can be paired up with my fellow fatties. Today I drilled a 280 pound man...err drilled WITH a 280 pound man! Yeah.
As someone pointed out today, BJJ is kind of like a gay troll. First of all it's called BJJ (Blow job job). Second of all, the mount position is just awful. I can't believe -- I won't believe -- that others have not noticed this: you are on your back with your legs in the air and your partner is between them with his genital region against your anal region. It's horrible. I guess you get used to it. I can't even imagine what it's like to "roll" with a woman. Probably if "my" school read this I'd get kicked out for disrepsect or something. Good thing my name is off this!
Fuck. I never published this entry because I was afraid of my BJJ school finding it. But, now that I've made the firm decision to renounce BJJ (cost, don't like instructor, can't stand constant exercise music in the gym, too injurious), I can talk shit. TALK SHIT. Let me amend the date to today's, and then perhaps I will just friggin' publish. I guess do some edits. I have to make dinner in TEN MINUTES. Hi zilog!
DEAR DIARY,
I HAVEN'T WRITTEN IN 6 DAYS. THAT FEELS FINE THOUGH. I DUNNO WHY ALL CAPS. SOME IRONIC 'PRETENDING TO BE A DUMBASS' THING. It is unflattering. Of course, I *am* a dumbass, in many or most ways. But there's SOMETHING to me -- something worth paying attention to, worth appreciating. This is true of everyone.
I had a McD decaf coffee today on the way to do the weekly food shopping and I suspect it was insufficiently decaffeinated, because I was unnaturally hyperactive and happy for most of the morning. Even now I feel it only just beginning to wear off.
I'm so sensitive in the brain that anything can trigger bad feelings. And not just bad feelings -- uncontrollable and often aggressive behavior. I eliminated coffee, weed, tobacco, and now I've gone "low GI" -- eating low on glycemic index scale. Basically it's a pre-diabetic diet, which suits me, according to blood tests, which I need to do again, soon. SOON!!! Fuck medical care though. I've had enough experience within that system that I see problem areas: 1) over-treatment, 2) iatrogenesis, 3) cost. And, on top of that, the modus operandus of medicine is to TREAT -- to solve a given problem often at the expense of well being, and, relatedly, to stave off death at any cost. This is why many doctors are conservative and shy when it comes to their own treatment; they have some perspective. But patients are mostly just shuttled along by capitalism and do what they're told, and the machine keeps chugging.
I asked Jim if he thinks the main purpose of religion is to cope with a difficult life in the here and now, or to cope with the foreknowledge of death. He thinks it's (a), and that fundies tend to incorrectly opt for (b). I'm doing everything I can, pretty much, to feel better without medication. Including BJJ! I took my first free lesson and the instructor wasn't there. This enterprise is made up of nice people and in fact I think that might be its best value. My biggest fear is injury, which I hope to avoid by not fighting very hard. Hopefully I don't get kicked out for being a lump. It's not a very good workout, though, although I didn't "roll." Maybe on Monday I can "roll." Rolling means wrestling -- sparring, doing Jiu Jitsu, the point of which is to achieve a good position from where you can attempt a submission. At least, that's the way I understand the sport. I call it a sport even though apparently it's the most effective single 'system' for self defense. As I texted a friend yesterday, however, "self defense" is a flawed concept: how many street fights happen without the enthusiastic participation of both combatants? It seems like a lot of the necessity of self defense is inspired by "what are you looking at"-type ego jousting.
How much longer have I got? I could die tomorrow. A giant meteor could hit right now. They missed one recently in their detection, and it missed the Earth by a hair. It seems like it's just a matter of time before something bad happens, like COVID. But COVID wasn't that bad as far as things go. In fact, we the people have had it pretty easy from the mid 20th century on. The past seems much more disastrous, although that might be some kind of bias.
Why does time go by so fast, and then so slow? Why are things different from the way I think they should be? It is a mystery. I don't know how much longer I have to live. Both parents died young and I am fat. But, I only need to drop 10 pounds to go from "morbidly obese" to merely "obese."
BMI calculators tells me that in order to be "normal weight" -- to avoid being "overweight" -- I would have to weigh *at most* 194 pounds; that is the UPPER range of normalcy, for a 6'2" tall man. I call BS, I think. Hearsay and memory tells me the BMI was designed years ago when people may have been different (?), and more importantly that the BMI is statistical -- on average, it is true, but there are outliers. Of course anyone who has a BMI they don't like can bring this up, and for most of those people, they will be wrong. But, some small percentage will be right!
If you have a lot of bone and muscle then the BMI will be slightly off. I think I fall into this, maybe, so I will say that at 210 I would not be "overweight." I was 210 in college and I looked normal -- not thin, but not fat. But I was working my ass off at it, and in fact I may have only been 210 for a day -- that one instance of that one number on the scale in the gym between sets. I think I'm going to have to be content with being at least "overweight" according to the BMI.
According to the BMI, I have been obese most of my life. If I'm 233 or above, I am obese. It may very well be that I will never go below 233. Of course it may be that I will never go below what I am today, which is 320. But I'm SUGARBUSTING again: eating low on the glycemic index. Simply put, this means no sugar, rice, potatoes, or flour (bread, crackers, pizza, cookies are a double whammy, etc). But perhaps even better than weight loss (of which there has been some, down from my all time high of 329), are other bennies: 1) I can weather the high temperatures better, and 2) I'm less angry, anxious, depressed, and generally reactive (fewer blood sugar spikes, possibly less inflammation). SO FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
I lost the taste for all things spiritual, again, this time maybe a few months ago when I blogged about that stuff last. Partly, I feel like I already "get" the dharmic message: everything is one, the self does not exist, blah blah. You don't need to hear this over and over. But what you do need to do over and over, perhaps, is some kind of quieting the mind-type spiritual practice like prayer or meditation or just sitting around staring into space. They talk about MINDFULLNESS a lot and the definition of this can be elusive -- something like being aware of your own thoughts as they occur and sort of separating "your" "self" from "your" "self." I'm not sure this is possible to do when you're engaged in things like cooking or blogging or walking, but maybe I'm just unpracticed. Meditation, as in, sitting with your eyes closed for 20 minutes, seems off to me now, as in, it's maybe unnecessary or even potentially harmful? I don't know. All I know is I tend to get annoyed when I do it.
An easier interpretation is BEING PRESENT. But even this requires some unpacking, or even if it doesn't, I'm going to unpack it anyway: I am a little turned off of "the present moment" because I read this as an Eckhart Tolle'ism, and I don't want to throw all in with some particular guru, especially one so modern and non-Indian. But "present" has at least two relevant meanings: 1) now -- not the future, not the past, but now, and 2) being here, as in, being present -- raise your hand in class and yell "present!". Rahm Dass wrote "Be Here Now" and I suspect he was on to the same thing. Another 'gateway' is "consciousness" -- that works for me sometimes. My mom explained what it was when I was a little kid and I got it immediately. Maybe I've realized the self! Maybe I should open an ashram. NO BUT SERIOUSLY there's a little mental switch I can flip and be aware of myself or experience or the 'present moment' or something. Unfortunately it seems to be contigent upon doing nothing else, although "walking mediation" is, as they say, a thing. Writing meditation?
"Writing meditation will literally transform your life in just a matter of days."
The distraction-peppered environment many or most of us are in is kind of the anti-mindfullness. Phones constantly pinging, moving from one browser tab to the next, etc. It's not what we evolved for and it triggers our fight or flight response, provoking constant anxiety and rage and depression. We seek it out because otherwise we get "bored." But boredom might be the desirable state -- embrace and accept boredom, and realize it's not that bad. I type this while listening to music and glancing over at pcom to see if wix has said anything new.
My sore throat is better though which is a relief. I went for a walk this morning for the first time in a week and it was surprisingly easy. Easier, I think, than it has been in the past. And, I didn't get as sweaty. Could this be my diet? Could I be on the verge of joining the Hindu pantheon?
I took some new calculations involving waist and neck size, and determined that my goal weight is officially BETWEEN 240 AND 250 POUNDS. This would put me at approximately 20% body fat, which is the upper ceiling for desirable according to bootstrappish sociopathic doctors for whom life has never been anything but easy. So let's just say 250. Nice round number, and I like nice round things. HO, HO, HO. I just want to be able to fly more comfortably without spending twice as much. But the only place I'm going to go, I think, is Maryland. It's stupid the way everyone in a family or friend group lives so far apart. THINGS WERE BETTER BEFORE, says the old guy.
Blah blah blah blah. It's been 6 days since my last entry, sort of like a confession. Today I confess that I visited a bunch of Czechs in Lafayette, in East Bay, near where I used to live in Concord, and contracted some kind of illness comprising a sore throat, fatigue, and general flui'sh feeling. I think it's going away but I dunno. But as a result, I not only postponed today's scheduled free lesson in BJJ (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu), but skipped today's visit of my aunt and uncle. So today turned out to be an empty day, during which I napped. I'm sick though so it's okay.
I tried BJJ in maybe 2017 or 2018 and it did not go well -- I got frustrated screwing up at some drills and quit in a huff and on the spot. As a consolation prize, I signed up for a single private lesson with the second-in-command, who wore a mohawk and chest tattoo, just like Connor McGregor, and said he might have fought in the UFC if not for some circumstances. He bruised my trachea and sprained my thumb and I visited the doctor the next day, because I was having trouble breathing due to swelling. I hear from many people online that injuries are inevitable in BJJ. This is not good because I am frequently injured as it is even without fighting, have been seriously and permanently injured several times, and don't want to add more to the pot. So, I'm having second thoughts about this upcoming lesson, which is now postponed again another week (it had been scheduled for the week before this one, and then I had postponed it to this week because of a another virus'ish illness).
Why do I want to do BJJ? The main reason is I want to be able to beat people up, or more charitably, I want the confidence that comes from knowing I can defend myself. And, I could use the stimulation and camaraderie, which I hear flows like milk and honey at BJJ schools. Maybe I can just do it for a month and learn some basic stuff? I dunno. Then get a punching bag and practice my punches? I'm 48 and this is ridiculous, of course. It would have been ridiculous at any age, I think, although you can find people who say self defense is not only a right but a responsibility. But I am a huge human being and that deters a lot of would-be attackers; I have "giant privilege" that I will never fully grasp. It must be a very different feeling to be a small adult human. Perhaps it lends itself to developing good conversational skills, since you know you are at the mercy of larger stronger hungrier animals. That said, I have been challenged by (drunk) men who want to test themselves against a big guy. I need to learn to stand up for myself better, to say NO, and to exercise sheer tyranny of will.
I will try BJJ next week, but if I get injured, even in minor way, during that session, I think I will hose it. But I think I need some other THING in my life to make it more interesting and fulfilling. Jim suggested I deliver meals to disabled seniors around the county but that sounds a lot like pizza driving, which I used to get paid for, and was my most successful set of jobs and the closest I ever came to a career. I think if I were to volunteer I'd like it to be something less like drudgery. I could voluntarily make art, or music, or voluntarily spend time on the internet. Or voluntarily blog! There used to be people who made money from their blogs, so hey -- that's legit. I just haven't taken off yet (nor is my name on this thing). I told the wife of one of the Lafayette Czechs that I was pretty much done with internet art, because no one really cared about it. She did not jump in with "That's not true! I care about it!" but seemed to nod along.
It seems that it's rare that a person makes art so good or compelling or whatever that it transcends friends and family appreciating it out of something like obligation, good feelings about the artist, or encouraging a young emerging artist. This is why Brad Pitt can just start cranking out objets d'art and people pay attention, I type bitterly.
Signing off. I gotta broil my ribs soon (in 9 minutes). Ribs are pretty cheap but in fact a large portion of them is bone, and a full rack doesn't last two meals for two people. Maybe we're just pigs. OINK OINK
Exactly one month after my last entry, I will write a new one, maybe only so this doesn't look like typical internet project abandonment (TIPA). I was kinda put off by blogging for some reason. Blogging is paradoxical in that it is public but at the same time it's supposed to be like a diary (maybe that's only certain kinds of blogs, the kind I always did...Livejournal, anyone?). I've been over this before and the conclusion I reached was 'yeah it sucks but it's worth it because I like the sense of having potential readers,' even though I might not actually want readers per se, or especially, comments. Maybe I should just write in a local textfile. Or, just get through my remaining years fretting and waffling and not accomplishing or doing anything, and then finally one day comes the sweet release of death.
Anyway magizian has ruined pcom so there's another reason to take to the text editor.
I ain't got nuttin t'say no mo, tho. Maybe this ship has sailed. TOOT TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT
I am cheered up every day by the sunrise. It sort of makes life worth living. Imagine if the sun stopped rising for a while and we were stuck in nighttime, and then suddenly the sun started rising again -- that first sunrise after the long night would be a huge event and everyone would carry on and party (this sounds like some ancient myth). In other words, be grateful for what you have -- be grateful that the sun will rise. No matter how much of a disappointment humanity turns out to be I'll at least have that, every morning (except during wildfire season when sunrise feels a little off).
I thought of a good headline:
Monday, June 6th, 2023, Placerville, California
A 330 pound man today continued to do creative projects, all of which are fairly unremarkable. He has been doing this his whole life, and somehow came to believe his projects were special or unique or something -- that they mattered in a real world way or could compete at a high level. This man didn't realize til it was too late that he's just like any number of people -- of unsung semi-marginal losers, of employees, of everymen, of neolithic cave painters -- making art in the world. This is fine though. Also, if your enemies call you "mediocre" you know you're doing something right. quantumx's best zinger on SDF was "you aren't all that bright." He couldn't in good conscience call me stupid, so that was what came out in the heat of battle.
I asked ChatGPT if I should continue to make art even if it's not very good, and it replied "Certainly!", with that enthusiastic exclamation mark. I think I will go back to bed and finish this entry later. Randy took down his stalker bot but warned me that he may not read my blog anymore as a consequence, which is fine. I don't really need anyone to read this, but only want a place where I can journal such that the world is POTENTIALLY reading. My words sitting there, open on a web server, is what inspires me to write, even though there are some things I can't and won't say because of this public exposure. But if I were just writing in a textfile on my hard drive I would not be motivated to write, so I think bloggin' is worth its built-in constraints.
I'm not really 330 pounds but only 326. This is way up from where I was though. OH WELL. Ok now seriously: back to bed.
I think AI should restructure society and assume leadership, because people have been proven incompetent. People in general, or the masses, or etc, should be reduced (or elevated) to children in a daycare center, where they no longer have to figure out how to live -- where their food arrives in little packages every day, mysteriously at the door, like in prison. This is pretty close to the way most people live now -- I'm not hunting for my food and I didn't build my house. I don't even pay for my house. I have often thought that an AI takeover will be subtle and done in such a way that you might not notice. It might eventually mean getting rid of all the type-A leaders, which is fine with me; they seem to be the root of the problem. This is the age of happy sheep! YOU WILL EAT BUGS AND THEY WILL BE TASTY (like lobster).
In some ways the systems we have in place now, such as a legal code or capitalism, function like AI: algorithms that determine how we live; it might not be a big step in terms of lifestyle to AI truly being in charge. I have no idea how the computer in front of me works. Well that's not quite true -- I could produce a narrative involving transistors and 1s and 0s and magnetic charges, but it would be a rough one. What's a real mystery is the monitor. It's all pretty impressive when I think about it. I often feel like we don't deserve to use all this fantastic technology if we didn't make it ourselves, or at least understand it on a deep level. Instead you just have armies of fat proles flipping their Bics. I can say that because I am a fat prole too, albeit one who has MASTERED LANGUAGE. BOW TO ME SPLENDIDLY, BOW TO ME FAITHFULLY
So I re-embraced pcom but I still feel like I want to write a bit in spite of "writing" in pcom. It's interesting how people who love to chat online do not necessarily write grammatically or fluently, and I suppose vice versa, although I think the barrier to entry in chatting online might be lower. I probably lost some READERS in my 2 or 3 week absence but whatever. I still have Randy. Hi Randy! Randy still has his creepy script that alerts him when I have posted a new entry. I don't like it but meh. Maybe I'll come to his house and kill him with pepper spray and a hammer. JUST KIDDING ^____^;
I summoned him to pcom and he didn't show up so he may be dead. Don't email me, Randy...DON'T DO IT. YOU AND YA FRIENDS ARE DEAAAAAAD!!!!
The mosquitos are truly disturbing: big clouds of them chasing me while I walk. Even though I seem to have lost my allergy to mosquito bites, I still don't like them chasing me, landing on me, biting me. Not only have I not noticed a single mosquito bite -- as in, itchy bump -- this year, in spite of the sheer biomass of them after our abundant rain, but I caught one en flagrant: in mid-bite, such that it exploded into a smear of my own blood when I squashed it, and not even in that case did I develop a reaction. I hope this lasts. I did confirm with some gewgling that mosquito non-reactivity sometimes happens later in life and after a lot of bites. Oddly, not all allergies work that way -- poison ivy/oak gets worse the more times you succumb. Maybe I just haven't had enough mosquito anticoagulant injected this year for me to develop an itchy bump but I doubt it. I dunno, ultimately. Facts on the ground: no mosquito bites, as in, bumps, so far, in spite of fuckin' absolute hordes of them flying around everywhere. I read they need a 50f - 80f temperature to survive, so their days are numbered.
I have destroyed one wasp nest inside the slats of the garage door, with spray. The way you kill waspers (Appalachian slang I learned from ex-girlfriend #6 -- "waSPS" is hard to say) is, you wait til they are safe and cuddly inside their nests at dawn and too cold to do much, and then you blast em. Jim got stung last year or the year before, but I haven't been stung in years. Last time was I think in Maryland when I stepped on a bumblebee wearing sandals and it got between the sandle and my toe. I also got bit on the toe by a fire ant in Utah and that hurt, but it wasn't awful and the pain went away after a few minutes. In that case it bit me while I was taking a shit on the ground, in a hole I had dug, and then covered with dirt, like a civilized person. I have a pooping trowel in my glove compartment just in case I ever make car camping a lifestyle. I also have a KNIFE, but it's for opening packages of mozzarella cheese. This is what I say to the cops when they go URB DURB DURB DURB DURB DURB DURB, USA! USA!
I've become quite anti-redneck, living out here. It's not a case of ideology but of disliking people generally -- if I were in Berkeley I'd hate yuppies, or hippie-yuppies. I arrived at a Venn diagram model of humanity years ago in which there are three circles, labelled "Yuppies," "Hippies," and "Rednecks," and everyone can be placed as a dot somewhere inside one or more areas; maybe the position of the dot within an area would mean something in terms of how much of one particular element that person had. By the way, hippie-rednecks can be referred to as "trailer hippies" (copyright 2023 barnacle/mjt, all rights reserved).
I have been called a redneck at least once. It's kind of a relative term, and everyone I suppose is a redneck compared to someone, except maybe the king of England (!). All hail Charles III. I am a subject, since I hold Canadian citizenship, but as Mel Gibson says in Braveheart, "never once did I swear allegiance." I remember a time back in Soviet Canuckistan I said something insulting or dismissive about then prince Charles, in the company of one of my dad's anglophilic friends. He told me, light heartedly and with a wink but still, that I had better watch out because he'd be king one day. This angered me, at age 7 or whatever, I think because I knew on some level that King Charles III could not cut off my head for lèse-majesté and the suggestion that he could was offensive to some larval sense of democracy or freedom or whatever. I remember when Reagan was shot in 1980, also while I still labored in the northern gulag. My mom was upset and I didn't understand why, as this was a character on TV and not close to my family or our lives or anything. I inquired and she replied angrily "Because he's OUR president!" This confused me, and in fact it wasn't even true, of me. It was true of her -- she was an American expatriate living in Canada, but I didn't get my American citizenship til I was 16 and needed a driver's license. Now I'm a filthy dual, and I don't even have to keep re-applying -- my status is permanent.
I was asked in grad school if I felt more Canadian or American and I said it was a toss up, which is a postmodernism the asker enjoyed, being an artiste. I suppose now I feel more American. I've experienced way more of America, at any rate; a childhood in West End anglophonic Montreal and 2 years in an Ontario art department do not a TRUE CANADIAN make, I don't think. If you don't understand postmodernism then you have autism, which is incurable.
Herro.
There's nothing to DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
666 \m/
On second thought I don't think randomly behaving quanta imply free will; maybe they would imply "random will" which is kind of the opposite. I don't know though and I'm out of my depth. So instead I will tell you about how fat I am: I am very fat -- 323 pounds, up about 7 from the last time I weighed. In the recent past I was down to 310 or even 309. The least I've weighed in my adult life is 210, back in KOLIJ, where I was eating low carb and lifting weights. I think I hit 330 once, or even 331, here in Kuhlifohnia. I enjoyed a couple of plateaus in the more acceptable ranges of ~230 and ~280. My knee surgery in late 2019 caused me to lose my apetite and I dropped down to at most 285, which is when I was able to weigh myself, but probably even lower.
This was weird because it only took 3 months and I was eating 3 meals a day the whole time -- just not very big meals. I felt sort of nauseous and food just didn't feel right in my mouth -- various stomach-brain complexities. But this is kind of useless information except in that it confirms that it is physically possible for my body to convert fat stores to glycogen. Aside from than that, it seems I would need continual knee surgeries to maintain a lowered apetite.
There are squadrons of mosquitos outside, I assume because of the unusually wet winter we had, with a major rainfall in May. My aunt said a bountiful Spring growing season is actually bad for wildfires, inasmuch as it generates FOLIAGE that dries up and becomes fuel. It seems like you can't win.
The eating/fat thing is a serious issue. Being obese is really bad...REALLY BAD!!! GAWWWWDDAMMIT. It was at least partially responsible for my broken leg -- if I had not weighed so much the injury would not have been so devastating. "Just eat less," right? By the way, exercise does nothing -- I've been exercising my ass off since last August and my weight is the same (although maybe it would have been MORE if not for huffing and puffing up hills).
I think it's all a matter of apetite: most people eat what they want -- what their body tells them they need. I do the same; I "eat naturally." If I restrict for a while I compensate later by eating more. Speaking of free will, I have very little control over this and if I somehow force myself not to eat for a few hours I will obsess about it until I do. I'm sure there are stronger willed (differently brained) people who can do this but I guess I'm just a little babby who wants his comforts. GOO GOO GA GA
WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES, they ask? WRITING, I reply. I am a PUBLISHED WRITER!!! My agent is my FTP client, lololol. Also I do music and art, and wack off and pick my nose.
I have to write another entry, because yesterday's is so bad I want it pushed down off the top position. It looks like a short essay someone was forced to write on free will -- like something you would see in high school. I whip out all this quantum mechanics horseshit and say "well yes maybe in a sense." I should be KILLT. I wrote it because I said I would and because it seemed like I needed to, after getting into theology and ethics. "Free will" appears to be such a dead end, though. I just now deleted a paragraph on the uncertainty principle and observer effects from yesterday's entry and now it's not as bad. Editing: it is my bread n butta. Did you know: I once did an editing test at a temp agency and was quickly ushered into a position at IBM because of my RAW TALENT?
I don't know what to do with my marijuana edibles; they make me overeat and sleep oddly. Maybe I should throw them out, or even better, let them sit forever in their ziplock bag. I'm starting to hate going for my morning walks. It's something I force myself to do. Last week I took Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday off (why are weekdays capitalized?), but lifted weights on TUE and WED. When I say "lifted weights" I really mean "lifted bar" -- I use an iron barbell without plates on the ends, because every time I have tried to lift weights in recent years I have ended up hurting myself. The bar is akchuly 40 pounds so it's the equivalent of two substantial dumbells. I exercise with it til I feel some muscle burn or fatigue: just shoulder presses and deadlifts. It feels pretty good I guess. My FRIEEEEEEEEEND says that compulsively adding more and more weight is a trap to be avoided. I agree and add that weightlifting should be more like Yoga. WTF do I know, though? I just say words.
I'm going to go for a walk before the dadgum sun rises.
A couple of difficult topics then I will quit:
I was walking and a little bird looked like it was annoyed at me. I told it "don't peck me" as I passed by, and then I thought "Ah, you said that because of Hitchcock's 'The Birds'." But then I realized that my statement to the bird generated this analysis and not the other way around. The analysis was based on observation of the pure text of the event: why might someone say "don't peck me," about a small bird? Well he must have seen THE BIRDS.
The problem is that my inner psychologist is me, so I tend to think "well he must be right on some level, and maybe this is my way of telling myself what I REALLY think." I don't think so, in many cases, at least. Me, the real me, the main me, saw that the bird was annoyed and did the most obvious response: don't peck me. THEN, I thought about "The Birds." So it's important to maintain the order of events.
Ok so I have a problem with multiple personalities. Only a few documented cases on earf! Inner psychologist just observes pure text -- he isn't looking at me. He's an automated text engine, like ChatGPT, who draws parallels between things he recognizes -- in this case, 'HITCHCOCK'S THE BIRDS' and 'PECKING.' This is a good way to look at Freudian psychology, or the "I know you better than you know yourself" type of psychology: much or most of the time the narratives come from a movie, a book, a trope, a cliche, or just a general sense about the way things ought to go, rather than the personality/behavior of an individual subject.
2nd difficult topic: how might free will be elaborated on by quantum effects?
"The Observer Effect means the act of observing a system will influence what is being observed, whereas the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle has nothing to do with the observer or equipment used during observation. It simply states that a particle behaves both as a wave and a particle and therefore cannot have both a definite momentum and position."
I don't know that the above quote, from some worksheet or test I found on the web, matters, but I fell into this trap 20 years ago in an essay (confusing Heisenberg uncertainty with observer effects). Some shitty person then commented "you should read up on Heisenberg" and did not elaborate so I've been in the dark for 20 years til yesterday. I hate this: when people have a notion that something is wrong but can't flesh it out or generate anything original, they only give you the psychological smirk and are done with it.
If the brain, its chemicals, and its electricity are made up of particles that are "strange" in this way -- we can't fully know what they're going to do based on their present conditions -- then this seems to support a non-deterministic sort of free will. But the details are not forthcoming, and I suspect that the concept of free will is irreparably broken and as such we (maybe especially we Western scientific materialists) just dig ourselves deeper the more we say about it.
Quantum physics doesn't replace classical physics, but elaborates on it -- quantum effects are at the edges, and around very small things; it's less a whole 'nother paradigm than detailing that refines and sharpens the overal picture of reality. So maybe we mostly do not have free will, but in some small or infrequent or partial cases we do?
One more thing: they say "know thyself," but this only amounts to cooking up a bunch of bullshit stories about your past that feed your ego. BE WITH THYSELF is maybe better advice.
I intimated 3 days ago that I would tackle free will with my Superior Intellect *tap noggin with finger* However I keep spilling coffee down the front of my shirt trying to drink it iced in a glass, which discourages me. I drip food on myself nonstop. It is a habit I never got out of, dating back to the very beginning. Probably I was never disciplined there so I just don't give a shit. Or, I'm clumsy. Or porque no los dos?
My sense is that the problem of free will in philosophy is not solvable and "do we have it?" may be an incoherent question, because a will that decides or does not decide means there has to be a "self" -- as Sam Harris describes, a sort of homunculus apart from the rest of neurology that directs the rest. FUCK I SPILLED COFFEE AGAIN. The problem is the ice cubes: they get stuck down in the glass and then slide toward the rim suddenly, carrying coffee with them, and smack into my lips and dump coffee onto my shirt.
The problem of free will is that it feels or seems like we have control over our actions, but a closer look at Newtonian physics tells us every event is derived from a preconfigured state, and since the human body (including the brain) is made of energy-matter like everything else, it cannot be exempt from this causality. I've heard vagaries around quantum indeterminacy allowing for free will since it breaks classical Newtonian causality.
Another sense I have is that the problem of free will arises out of the sense or construct of self, which is something I've been thinking about a lot in terms of Hindu and Buddhist traditions. For there to be free will, there would have to be a self, which is taken by those schools to be an illusion. In those traditions "you" are more the observer than the agent, whereas in America we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and swindle dumber people out of their money.
There was some big news recently on free will. An experiment in the 80s supposedly concluded that the brain made decisions before the mind was aware of it, but apparently it was recently debunked. Before it was, a lot of people got excited about it and used it to bolster their feeling that free will does not exist. Free will is contentious, and people often want to believe one way or another because of circumstances in life, political orientation, religious orientation, etc.
Asking Google if we have free will yields for the top hit a piece in Scientific American that says yes, we do, right in its title. Since I am an American and I think science fuckin' rocks, or whatever that Facebook meme was, I am confident that I can read and understand this text if you will give me a moment.
It is basically a takedown of people ("willusionists") who believe science has proven that free will does not exist. Interestingly, it cites studies on what people believe about free will as much as or more than it cites studies on free will itself. You can write about this til the cows come home and not solve anything, and furthermore I believe non-agnosticism tends to come out of personal psychology more than dispassionate observation of the world. I'm interested in free will because ethics seems to fall apart without it, but on second thought I'm not so sure; even if we don't choose our actions we still label them as ethical or unethical, even if this tends to be in hindsight, sort of keeping square with Dharmic ("Hindubuddhistic") ideas of being the observer rather than the agent.
When I consider free will I sometimes conduct personal experiments by thinking up something to do and then doing it, like swirling circles around a knot on my desk with my fingertip. What else? I can make up a word and say it: "Bagushnihai!", I cried. Does this demonstrate free will? Possibly not, because the responsible brain goo was put into motion years ago and just now came to this point via its wigglings; the goo is so complex that its mechanics are puzzling and appear to come out of nowhere, but ultimately it's just another material system.
I feel empty. Or, peaceful. Empty and peaceful, in spite of having had a cup of coffee with demon sugar. Basically I feel the threat of boredom but don't actually feel bored; I am anxious about getting bored some time in the future. If there ever was a portrait of modernity as a disease, this is it. I don't get tired of walks per se, but I get tired of the sense of obligation that I MUST TAKE A WALK and therefor enjoy skipping it from time to time even if this makes me less happy throughout the day, which I'm not even sure it reliably does. I have a bad memory and can't keep stuff straight, plus things are variable to begin with. ADDITIONALLY it's ME I'm doing this research on and there are all kinds of strange loop tail eating snake problems there. FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
IIIIIIIIIIIII LIKE POOPIN'
*riff*
*riff riff*
IIIIIIIIIIIII LIKE POOPIN'
*riff*
*riff riff*
POOPIN' ON THE BEACH, THERE'S NOTHING BETTER
*riff*
*riff riff*
BUT I LIKE POOP WHEN IT'S WRAPPED IN A SWEATER
*riff*
*riff riff*
I am wearing a shirt with one long sleeve and one short sleeve; it is top alternative. It's funny how in high school you can only go so far with "being cool by being different"; like, if you wear a clown suit with big red curly afro and bulb nose that's just weird, but not desirably weird. You have to rebel in unison to a degree and wear what all the other cool nonconformists are wearing. The reason my shirt got to be this way is I caught the cuff on something months ago and tore it, and the tear gradually got worse til the sleeve was hanging on by a small swatch of cloth and my arm came out the rip hole rather than the cuff. Sad! So I amputated the lower sleeve and now my shirt looks like a pretty normal short sleeved button down shirt, on the left side. I either need to cut off the right sleeve to match it, or give myself a much needed sewing lesson and reattach the amputated end to the left half-sleeve.
Y'know, two things I really did accomplish: 1) I quit biting my nails, and more amazingly 2) I went from messy person to neat person. Of course it's possible or even likely that this transformation came about 'naturally' and not as some great act of will, but it does count for something. My ROOM is orderly to the point of inner psychologists (IPs) suspecting OCD. EVERY. SINGLE. OBJECT. has a place and if it is not in its place it's only a matter of time before it gets there. The longest things ever go homeless is clean clothes during some phases of the moon, during which they are left on the floor and logic overrides OCD (why should I pick this up now?). There's no firm place for shoes either...they migrate around the room. But other than that my room is pretty orderly. No pics because this is an all text blog, I decided.
Um um um...I had some good thoughts on divinity yesterday while feeling da FX of a single 10mg weed gummy but I'm not sure I fully have them, now. I was thinking about the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's article on "God and Other Ultimates" and how it says God or The Divine or whatever can be broken up into 3 conceptions (spirit person, sum of all reality, 'good' behavior). The silliest of these seems to be spirit person because it looks obviously false to a scientific materialist, which we all are to some degree in this modern time and place, as opposed to being obviously true like the other two (of course everything is one, and of course actions have consequences). But I was thinking yesterday that it would be better to be open minded about spirit people.
I think gods are built into us. We are a social species and tend to see things in terms of personalities, and acts, and will-to-action. Only once more will I pull out this example: in traffic, someone cuts you off, and you blame him and think he did it on purpose to be a dick, rather than consider that he just wasn't paying attention. This is a construct in non-Freudian psychology called "Fundamental Attribution Error," and I suspect it maps to other people -- other minds, other wills, other behaviors -- being so crucial to humanity's survival. Beyond that, FAE maps to GAWWWWWWD. God is the ultimate person, the ultimate will, and functions as a stand-in when there are no real people to praise or blame. If there's a flood, it must be because the rain god is angry with us, since this human tendency to see a will behind everything is so pervasive. Every event must have a cause and every object must have a creator. People are everything! "Man is the measure of all things." Etc.
I say to atheists: why not just allow yourself to think this way, since it is natural? I say "thanks a lot bitch" when I drop my keys and express gratitude to SOMETHING on those rare occasions when I realize I do have a lot of good things in my life. How should we flesh out the details of this spirit person or spirit people? I don't think monotheism is necessarily the way to go. In terms of the evolution of human religion, monotheism makes sense: people start off with a pantheon of gods for every little thing, and then one god takes precedence, and eventually the other ones weaken and vanish altogether. Then that one God (here I start capitalizing it) becomes increasingly eminent, increasingly transcendent, until it's more like a synonym for the universe or cosmos or all that exists than a father in heaven or national war god or whatever. The interesting thing is you can take this approach (a pantheistic monistic godhead) and still have many gods. The Hindus do it, and I think Taoists did it, if you smudge Taoism, folk religion, and Chinese society a bit. Hindus use their gods when needed (pray to Ganesha or whomever for more money, or even have one of them represent or "be" ultimate reality itself).
The question of the existence of gods can also be made complicated. I was saying a few days ago that most theists would deny God exists in the material universe as well as solely in the human mind, and so God's existence for them is "atypical" and possibly they need a new word -- "to exist" might not be applicable to God. This is easy to get around with language if you call up the supernatural, and terms like "The Beyond Realm," where the Beyonder lives (this is from Marvel Comics).
I may wear a textual smirk but it's possible that theists are right, because they really haven't said much: could there be something else we don't understand and in fact do not have the capacity to understand? Certainly. But it's a ret-con that eases God's existence within a logical framework, when the source of this God or gods is human social brain wiring. This too makes sense: of course God exists because I feel Him, much as consciousness is obviously a thing because we all feel it. Fitting this fact into a modern civilized world view with its inner combustion engines and email is of secondary importance.
So if Jesus is your man, or Jehova is your man, or the Holy Spirit is your man, then fine...go with that. I think basically my point is we can conceptualize God or gods existing 'only' in the mind-brain but still use them -- sort of like Hindu acknowledgment that Ganesha et al do not (necessarily) constitute or comprise ultimate reality, but can be helpful anyway because people need to relate to other people -- in this case invisible people who control the weather.
Gods are ridiculous, but so what? I suspect in ancient times there were atheists, agnostics, and don't-give-a-shit'ists, but they didn't write as much down as the religious fanatics. There's something about our human consciousness -- brain-shaped consciousness -- that enables us to step outside of our environments and bodies and say "what the hell even is all this stuff, anyway?" Why this, particularly? Why are there neutrons and protons bound together with electrons orbiting them? Why 32 teeth? The answer has often been "because God made it that way;" this is what my mom used to reply when my question blitz got to be too much.
In conclusion you should do all three -- hold these truths to be self evident: 1) the universe is all one substance (energy), 2) spirit people are built in to human neurology and as such it makes sense to acknowledge, shape, and use them, and 3) choose your behavior carefully. Now that I have this down it seems like #3 is the most controversial, because of FREE WILL. Also interesting because Fundamental Attribution Error amounts to seeing a WILL everywhere. More later! Maybe. Maybe too hard. Maybe back to cooking blog.
Spring is progressing. I haven't written in 3 days because I've been smoking w33d. But now it's all gone so I can recommence. I tried to write an entry under the influence and all I got down was "I'm stoned." I also tried to start on the paragraph I posted a few weeks ago in weird case, but got bogged down. I can try that again, having re-run it through a case converter and made the font size normal:
I often conduct arguments in my head in which the "other" party calls "me" out for not practicing what I preach -- for talking about other people when I, myself, suffer from the same ailment or bad quality or whatever. I sometimes answer back calmly, sociopathically: "we're talking about you, not me" or "don't change the subject." The whole "people in glass houses should not throw stones" thing has always bothered me; someone having some bad quality should not preclude that person from discussing this bad quality found elsewhere. In fact "do not preach on what you do not practice" seems dangerous in that criticism is needed for improvement and if you cut it off, biblically in this case, then more errors happen even if everything is kept equal with no one sinner standing out.
I'm trying to say not allowing "person A" to criticize a failing of "person B" when "person A" has the same failing is a bad rule. Unfortunately in the paragraph above I lead into it with an example of having arguments with myself, twist up a familiar example, and bring in the bible, which is all maybe a little distracting. But my reasoning is still good: criticism can be essential, and if you aren't allowed to make it for whatever reason then the consequences can be dire.
In fairness, probably the central case for this maxim is more like calling someone else ugly when you yourself are ugly, rather than the addressing of advice given in more practical real world scenarios ("hey don't stand so close to the pit" etc). But there are edge cases like being too fat -- it's an insult, yes, but it's also good advice to try and not be fat. Imagine a case where someone else, your fat friend, has NO IDEA that being fat is unhealthy, and imagine that his losing weight is simply a matter of choosing to eat less. Are you then required to conceal this information if you are also fat?
Maybe in cases where something could be taken harshly or as an insult, but the information could still be useful, all that's needed is to cushion the criticism with politeness. It doesn't seem it would ever be necessary to tell someone their eyes are too close together, whether yours are or not. I used the word "biblical" to reference what might be the origin of this whole thing, namely:
Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, "let me take the speck out of your eye," while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye. - Matthew 7:3-5
I guess that's the key word: hypocrite.
hypocrisy - the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense.
This shouldn't be a word. Or, at least, should not be stated in the culture as something to avoid. Probably this practice has lead to all kinds of problems.
I still have a full pack of gummies. Smoking is rough. It's definitely addictive, for me, plus it stinks and is hard on my lungs. My car smells like weed now. No REAL feelings of anger or depression, but again maybe I'm repressing it. In other psychological news, maybe I don't like the concept of hypocrisy because I myself am a hypocrite, and furthermore I should not criticize the concept of hypocrisy because I myself am a hypocrite!
When the psychologist in my head makes a suggestion, sometimes it's wrong. This is demonstrative of psychology's privilege: if some observation is 1) made by another party, and 2) is made under the label "psychology," that gives it MORE credence than self reflection, when in fact it should have LESS credence than self reflection.
Extremely astute readers noted that the psychologist in my head is still me, so #1 falls apart. But my own psychological observations on myself, whether they amount to intrusive thoughts or not, still have the same inherent problems all psychological judgements do: they are more culture and narrative driven than individual and personality driven. I.e., it 'just seems natural' that someone gave up on a project because of fear, or that that other driver cut them off on purpose. No! Instead, human behavior is part of the fabric of the universe, and as such is complex and predetermined without a single narrative linear cause. Let that sink in: "predetermined without a cause." It sounds paradoxical but I think I'm just trying to say that the determination is not obvious or even necessarily definable at all.
Maybe it's worse that psychology comes from stories in the culture, and it's not such a big deal that it amounts to a one person judging another. It would have been better, though, if instead of having arguments with myself someone else had told me "hypocrites should not criticize the concept of hypocrisy." Any takers? My answer is "INCORRECT, for aforementioned reasons."
Reading it again, I think the above bible verses require a bit more unpacking: (to see clearly) the analyst should first remove the log from his eye before either noticing or offering to help the neighbor's eye speck, which is implied in this case to be smaller than the analyst's. So maybe the wisdom here is less a prohibition on all hypocrisy than on only gross hypocrisy (your neighbor is making a small mistake while you are making the same one but larger).
"To see clearly" -- the implication is that suffering from the same problem affects your judgement. I can buy that, and perhaps the best judges of a problem have experienced that problem but are now free of it. But what if the speck is not removable (the analyst cannot solve his own problem)? I think that's where the bible FAILS: we should still be allowed to point out specks in others even if our own specks are stuck in, and I don't think having a particular problem necessarily and opaquely clouds our judgement on that problem observed in others.
The FOLIAGE is amazing. We're enjoying one final rain event, in early May, and leaves are greener and fatter and lusher than I remember seeing. Plus there's actual grass, in places where there is usually not grass, like on rocky sandy hillsides and such. I went for a walk in the rain and my shoes got wet. They are now in front of a fan.
So I did end up getting some w333333333d yestiddy at the w333333333d store. Quite a lot: five half-gram joints, and a pack of ten 10mg gummies. They hit me with a marketing blitz but I did not respond too rudely. The security guard I think is just a friendly guy and he sort of chitchats when you drive up, and opens the door for you; seems like a decent way to earn 15-20 dollars an hour. Once inside, the ID checker gave me that old familiar retail attack: "How's yer day goin'?"
I have just stared back in the past, and I think at least once I gave a small speech on how this is a marketing contrivance that's only 5 or 10 years old and as such is shitty. But this time I just replied "fine" -- I'm very proud of myself. Then a young woman gave me a barely audible pitch about vaporizer batteries, to which I responded "thank you." Then I was handed a small free sample pack of CBD gummies, along with the line "it won't get you high." I declined and apparently that was weird. "Do you have any friends you could give them to?" "I don't have any friends," I really did reply, but at least I chuckled while I said it. Finally I recognized my cashier from 8 months ago and commented that he cut off his dread locks. He rang me up and $50 was too much, so he subbed in cheaper products and applied a discount til my total was under $30. Then I drove home and smoked a joint in my car.
It was fine. Kind of underwhelming. I had stoned creative impulses to monetize this blog and to open a restaurant. I ate some cookies afterwards but not too many. I didn't sleep weirdly but only a little better than I usually do. I feel pretty good now. Showtime in 10 minutes. I'm going to try to smoke or eat the weed in this batch not that often -- not every day. Then, when it's gone, I don't know when I'll buy more. I don't feel bad for blowing my abstinence, or, I have repressed it. See THIS is the problem with psychology: the psychologist in your head who says "you don't really know yourself."
But I think the real problem is the internet, and its "trolling culture." Entities there want to attack and win, and one of the best ways to do that when face punching isn't an option is psychological attack: "you behave the way you do because of some fault or flaw that you are not aware of, but that I know, because the construct of 'psychology' allows me to know this while simultaneously concealing it from you." So it's kind of irrefutable, and that makes it powerful, IF you believe in psychology, which most people do. Psychology not only accepts that someone else might know you better than you know yourself, but it lends special credence to this position and asserts that someone else -- 'the psychologist' -- MUST know you better than you know yourself, because this its central tenet and central conceit. FIGHT BACK!!! FIGHT BACK!!! *riff*
HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO. I didn't spell check that. Cinqo? Maio? SHEEEEIT.
wai u bein a lil beeich, beeich?
I'm thinking about getting some weed today. Yesterday the internet was down and Jim and I couldn't watch our evening Netflix, and I felt so deprived I had to race out to the dispensary at 7:45pm to beat the 8pm closing time. I made it, but turns out it closes at 7:30! I think they changed it. I called the other local dispensary and the hottest girl there picked up. I told her I knew they also closed at 8, but did she know of any other "weed stores" nearby that stayed open later? She borderline rudely said no, she didn't know. I later googled a bit and turns out there's one in Sacramento open til 9, but FUUUUUUUUCK THAT! Right?!?!!??!? More gewgling later told me there are laws about when Cali dispensaries can be open: no earlier or later than 6am - 10pm, apparently.
I gave up on weed and got some gas, then drove to 'downtown' Placerville, which is kind of nice and boutique'y, but still populated with loutish rednecks. Well that's not fair; I just don't like people and tend to SUBCATEGORIZE them in a quasi-racist way regardless of where they actually fall, sociologically or otherwise. People being loud and having a good time threaten me. People walking around in groups threaten me. It all goes back to preschool where a gang of predatory children chased me around the blacktop for no reason, repeatedly, if not every day; it was "a thing" in that local culture, to chase MJT around and make him cry.
Unfortunately I was either born a pussy or raised to be a pussy. Most I can do now is be aware of this and take steps against it. But that is PSYCHOLOGY and therefor at best IRRELEVANT and possibly TOTALLY ILLEGITIMATE. Back to yesterday evening:
I got gas, drove downtown and parked streetside, browsed a couple of window menus for $20 plates of artichoke salad and so on, called Mel's Diner, ordered cheese sticks, drove 2 minutes to Mel's and waited in the parking lot listening to NPR for 10 minutes, was rudely but briefly ignored by a tattooed waitress, got my fuckin' cheese sticks for $10.50, ate em in the car nearly spilling the ranch dip, drove to a nearby frozen yogurt place and bought a rather small mocha yogurt with badly chosen toppings scooped from the unsanitary public bins from the somewhat pleasant teenaged attendant, ate THAT in the car although it wasn't very good, then drove home uneasily in the pitch black, foggy, unseasonably cold country night. So that was my evening, my replacement for an episode of "Mo," which I think I will vote not to continue because it is pretty typical unfunny try-hard Netflix'ish garbage; I might even say HAMFISTED and ON-THE-NOSE. I sometimes feel like I should be writing for Netflix but I've never done fiction, plus....you know.
I might go get some weed today, now, after I upload, but my mind is not made up. I kind of made a big deal of quitting by writing a whole damned essay on it. But this is a thing with writing: it dangerously or helpfully, but always powerfully, self-defines; this is why they tell you to journal as a kind of therapy, spiritual complexities vis-a-vis psychology and 'self' notwithstanding. I feel like once something is put down in visual text, it stands somehow, having more declarative or truth value than the dozens or thousands of word strings that float around in my head all day, every day.
I do have an addiction thing with marijuana, but maybe that doesn't matter -- I also have an addiction thing with coffee, and sugar, and overeating, and probably all kinds of day to day behaviors I'm not aware of. I never got addicted to exercise, I don't think; it's an easy habit to get out of. But the point is that maybe imbibing THC occasionally is not a big deal for me; it's hard to say. I haven't had any since August 1st of last year -- I'd be forfeiting my upcoming 1 year NarcAnon "chip," virtual though it would have been (I looked into buying one but determined that this was stupid, plus they are not very attractive). I have a similar "chip" from Overeaters Anonymous, but I think it's the "just joined the group" chip, and then a year later you get the more meaningful one.
I am FAT and smoke WEED and drink COFFEE and generally FUCK AROUND.
I think of my readers languishing and I have to put fingertips to keyboard -- my bluetooth miniature, with no number pad. I tried replacing it with a full size Apple keyboard once, but I found it awkward and difficult to fit into my setup. This is Steve Jobs's lesson: you don't know you want it until you use it for a while, or, stated another way, Apple knows You better than you know You. Akchuly it's just that people are more flexible than they tend to give themselves credit for, and it's easy to dream up that perfect thing you think you want, but then BAM something comes along that you like even more. This is internet dating service wisdom.
I might be done with Taoism. There isn't much there: just living gently and quietly and in such a way so as not to cause too much of a disturbance. But more importantly, it seems to boil down to Chinese civilization. In that way it's a lot like Hinduism is to India. I go through periods where I say "this shit is stupid" regarding all spirituality/divinity, and clear my Youtube recommendations. I was going to say I always come back to it but maybe there hasn't been enough time to establish a pattern. There needs to be a new category alongside atheism and agnosticism: don't-give-a-shit'ism. It's sort of like space alien visitors -- before maybe 1950, most people did not have a stance of "they exist" or "they do not exist," or even "I cannot be sure if they exist," but simply didn't think about them. Likewise, you don't need to bring 'the divine' into the picture at all.
God 'exists' in a sense -- personification of material phenomena like love, water, war, etc, as well as the universe at large, is built in to human neuropsychology, and maybe it's nice to have an imaginary friend(s), or put less snarkily, a spiritual presence can do some good in life. "Put your trust in the Lord" is helpful I think, because it amounts to an unburdening. The same thing happens with Self Realization and/or Enlightenment, I have heard -- suddenly you don't have to worry making the right decision because it all just flows and is not up to you.
An observing alien would say the purpose of religion is not pie in the sky like heaven, self realization, or enlightenment, but real world effects like reduction of fear and anger. The religions of the world seem to work on this but Taoism seems to approach it directly via action or non-action, rather than hoping to cultivate it as a result of imagining a spirit person beyond space and time, or the hope of a fantastical unattainable state. I don't want to come across like an internet atheist but it seems obvious that god isn't real, and that it only takes the tiniest bit of self awareness to realize that "god the imaginary anthropomorphic entity" is a function of Fundamental Attribution Error (everything is seen to have a will-based cause).
It would be fine if people acknowledged "god exists for you" or "god does not exist for you", but there seems to be a need for a universality there. Theists would mostly, as far as I know, deny that god exists in the material universe (like in the vacuum of space or on some other planet), and also deny that god is imaginary -- that he exists in the mind. So god's "existence" is atypical, and it's possible that the verb "to exist" cannot apply to him. HIM!!!!! Maybe it's adolescent not to capitalize GAWWWD but I can't bring myself to do it consistently. I must have leftover issues from my Christian upbringing.
I got into spiritual Youtube somewhere around 2018, possibly after me mum died. Mostly what I was looking for was the present moment, or 'deep' self awareness, I think. For that you don't need biographies on Ramana Maharshi. In fact, specifics start to contradict each other after a while and this can be discouraging, like when Nisargadatta Maharaj says consciousness is NOT 'the main thing.' Well I always thought it was, and that the Upanishads said it is. This kind of thing can trigger a lapse from Spiritual Youtube (SY) and then you realize that the key really cannot be an intellectual approach, and does not reside in text (perhaps especially translated text).
The problem with spirituality and theology is that it doesn't seem to lead anywhere. You have to spend your life in a seeking state, feeling like you're progressing toward something but never getting anywhere. This is fine I guess but I don't find it very sustainable. The closest thing to a truth I arrived at was that you can sort of flip a mental switch in your head and feel the present moment happening. I'm sure there are other ways in, and despite the fact that "the present moment" predates Eckhart Tolle, I am hesitant to repeat this trope. Feeling your deeper self? Maybe just sitting back and relaxing, or quieting the mind.
Oh, MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU. HAAAAA-ha. *adjust bifocals*
It's raining.
I needed a BREAK, man. But now I'm back! That's right Billy I'm BACK and I want YOUUU. Today I am making a birfdae dinna for my AUNT. It will be comprised solely of requests: 1) ribs, 2) Waldorf salad, 3) mashed potatoes, 4) chocolate cake.
Regarding ribs, the main thing is buying them. They are really easy and forgiving and you don't have to do anything fancy like marinate or bestow Druidic blessings or etc. That said, one can always talk specifics, no matter how trivial. First thing I always do is preheat my crockpot on HIGH for however long it takes to prep its future contents and then switch the pot to LOW for the actual cooking. I don't know how necessary this is and it may be purely ritualistic, and I suppose it only cooks the food a bit more in the long run, which may or may not be desirable. YMMV.
I cut the rack into groups of two ribs, baste them with not-too-much BBQ sauce (it's all going to end up simmering in the crockpot and you don't want TOO much liquid in there -- "partly (not even half) submerged" is a good crockpot maxim), salt and pepper them, and line the pot walls with the rib twins; they may collapse mid-cook but it doesn't matter. Then I sprinkle a chopped onion on top of the pot-lining ribs, and pour on more BBQ sauce (!!!). Finally I pour about 1 cm of beer into the middle/bottom of the pot (the liquid really does add up, especially after a few hours). Cook it all on LOW for 8 hours, then transfer the ribs to a baking sheet, meaty side up, top them with STILL MORE BBQ SAUCE, and broil them in the oven til they are somewhat altered to your liking (browned? Sticky? Black? I dunno). I'm going to make pork gravy out of the crockpot liquid, for the mashed potatoes -- just add a bit of flour and salt and boil on a burner for a few minutes.
It doesn't really matter, gaiz. 1) Ribs are forgiving -- really all you need to do is apply heat to them til all the salmonella is burned away: oven, crockpot, grill, etc. You can even salt and pepper them only at the table. All else is pretty much pure vanity. 2) Crockpots are forgiving. It's hard to go wrong, except it is possible to overcook meat such that it loses its meaty texture and becomes mush. So for pork ribs, keep the cook down to 8 hours on LOW, or maybe 9. It depends on what GAWWWD hath wrought.
Waldorf salad is kind of hard just because it involves a lot of choppin', and some toastin', of the NUTZ (in this case pecans, but walnuts is more normal; the grocery store didn't have walnuts). Core and de-end and dice (but do not peel, unless you wanna) 4 apples and toss the chunks with lemon juice (or lime juice, in this case, again because my grocery store is retarded) and sugar. Add 4 chopped sticks of celery, the toasted nuts (oh yeah: 350f for 10 minutes), and a bunch of halved grapes (pain in the ass but slice two at a time and it's fine). A true artiste wants all the celery and apple chunks to be about the same size as a halved grape. Then, for dressing, blend about equal parts mayo and sour cream, maybe .75 cups each. Add some salt but not too much. Toss your salad with your dressing and chill it in the fridge for a few hours. I tasted it and it's quite delicious if not a bit oversalted.
I have never peeled a potato and do not see the point, harumph. Instead I scrape out the eyes and other gross bits with a spoon, and then scrub em with the rough side of a sponge -- if you do this hard enough you actually thin the skin a bit. Then quarter them, and only just cover them with water in a big pot. Add salt and turn the burner on HIGH and bring it to a boil. Cover, and boil for 15 minutes (or until tender enough) at a burner temp selected so as not to boil the pot over. Turn the burner off, drain the potato quarters, and put them back in the pot on top of the cooling burner. Add a full stick (or possibly 3/4 of a stick) of butter (I pre-melt it in the microwave), quite a lot of sour cream, not too much shredded cheese plus some decent quality Parmesan cheese that will actually melt, salt, pepper, and garlic (I use garlic powder like a Philistine but please feel free to upgrayedd). Mash it up ril gud with a potato masher then finish the blend with a wooden spoon.
The chocolate cake was from a box but it still managed to stress me out. First of all, I was softening the can of frosting in the oven using leftover warmth from the cake bake, and forgot it there when I restarted the oven for the nut toasting. It could have been a lot worse, but the can of frosting was ruined: heated to thin liquid in places and mixed with melted plastic, so I bought another can. Other highlights include a smooth baking/cooling process for the cake layers, something I have fucked up in the past. Here are my NUMBERS: 27 minutes at 350f, and cool for at least 2.5 hours. They don't give you any frosting to spare, with those store bought cans.
I think I can give philosophy a break, for the time being, having singlehandedly solved all fundamental problems in theology and ethics.
Enlightenment isn't a thing -- Buddha never attained it, just as sure as Jesus never rose from the dead. This is what makes Buddhism a religion and not just a self-help system: it purports the mystical specialness of a historical character, who achieved some special state which is never described, and promises that you can get there too if you dot your p's and q's. That said, meditation has been shown to change the physical structure of the brain, but then probably so can prayer, or just sitting quietly.
Christians and Muslims have an advantage over Buddhists in that they don't have to do anything; Jesus or Allah does it for you, or more accurately has done it for you. All you have to do is accept this and you're golden. Buddhism by contrast seems difficult.
Although Hinduism itself might be too broad to slap out of the sky, Ramana Maharshi never realized the self; he had a similar brain as every other human. If he was special, it was in his outward behavior: sitting around all day looking beatific, and understanding the Upanishads pretty well ("everything is one" -- got that?).
Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Ramana, etc, might have been charismatic narcissists or even bipolar schizophrenics who simply thought they were special -- that their own powerful experiences amounted to direct communication with the divine, and who then demanded or suggested others try for the same. I've thought I was communicating directly with the divine, and it was when I was on drugs. However, I didn't open up an ashram afterwards.
What the fuck even is "the divine"? No one can tell you. Stanford says it's either the sum of all reality (Buddhism and Hinduism), an imaginary anthropomorphic entity (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), or good behavior (Taoism), all flavored with uncertainty and ineffability and so on. When I was on my drug binges "the divine" was more like a feeling of brilliance, excitation, connectedness, etc, rather than any particular thing in the world or beyond, and so sort of obvious even then as a neurological state. It's like I said before: art, god, love, etc, are best seen as things humans do or experience, rather than things unto themselves.
Religion is like psychology: it promises fundamental change based on a particular culture, and then if it doesn't deliver, answers with "well you didn't do it right." That said, religion is meaningful to some people and I suppose who am I to sink their battleships? Maybe I can close the blog on religion and spirituality now, having summed it all up so succinctly. HARUMPH.
I might have just accidentally converted to Taoism, or Unitarianism, or both. There's something to all of these conceptions of god (spirit person, sum of all reality, good behavior): even the least defensible, "spirit person," is neurologically obvious in the way people tend to personify everything around them, blame bad driving on other people out to get them, and say "thanks a lot prick" when they stub their toes. I might not totally have a handle on Taosim, but no one does and it's sort of incomprehensible by design. Sikhism seems like it might be a good compromise, from what I understand. Bahai is full of hippies, plus in spite of their purported open mindedness they're pretty strict theists who believe god sends messengers out onto the earth.
Yesterday's was a rough entry. I should probably edit it some more.
A few days ago I said craneflies just eat and fuck and that's their life, whereas humans create art so humans are special. This is WRONG: craneflies also do art, in the form of flying around, wiggling their antennae, sitting on a wall, and existing minute to minute. I've never seen a larva doing its 24/7 buffet thing, or a larva at all (they are underground). I have only seen one adult gingerly licking at a piece of food. I have only seen two adults mating -- a square-butted female and a pointy-butted male -- together. But I see craneflies just apparently doing nothing useful, all the time. Basically, it's hubris to assign special significance to the non-evolutionary things humans do while dismissing the non-evolutionary things craneflies do.
"Hey! Quit sitting on that wall/making that sculpture and get to mating, or at least eating!"
"Just a few more minutes."
You know how Randy has a bot that reads my blog and alerts him when there is a new entry? I wonder if my constant editing gives him false positives. Should I reform, for his sake, and only publish when an entry is REALLY ready? No, that's impossible -- changes after publishing always happen, du-u-u-u-u-u-ude. Editing is nearly as important as writing, and some go so far as to say it's half the battle. I think Hemmingway said you should write drunk and edit sober.
"The quote 'write drunk, edit sober' is often misattributed to Ernest Hemingway who, as it turns out, never wrote drunk. While Hemingway was definitely a boozer, he wrote in the morning and didn't start drinking until the afternoon."
Well fuck me then.
Yesterday I didn't go for a walk or eat protein as part of my first meal of the day, and I had a cup of coffee with sugar in it. I think as a consequence I drove out after dinner and bought a candy bar and beef jerky, which was a little bit disgusting, I think only because I ate the whole bag. I can't really not eat the whole thing, of a thing. If I don't, I think about it nonstop, sitting there on my desk or counter or whatever, til the beast is satiated.
Does this constitute an "eating disorder"? Probably. Ex-GF #5 was ANORECTIC. I aspire to be anorectic, or have exercise bulimia, or some such. It has always struck me that psychopathological labels can easily be applied to 'normal' behavior. I have heard that the way out of this is that the defining thing must become intensity or disruptiveness -- like, you don't have OCD if you touch a doorknob twice (maybe three times though). I dunno, I don't think a whole lot of psychology and I even wrote a weird paper on my disquiet. It seems at least like it's unlike any other treatment field, and I think it can function easily as a replacement for religion.
"The spiritual" essentially refers to what goes on in your head. When Native Americans dreamed they assigned great other worldly significance to it. Ramana Maharshi said "the I thought" arises in the "heart." Perhaps 'spiritual mysteries' like dreams, consciousness, and random events out in the world, which confounded cavemen into inventing gods, amounted to a lack of understanding of the brain. I can see how this view might only replace old words like god, spirit, and soul with new words like brain, dopamine, and synapse, but I think there's more to it: we can SEE the brain, and more importantly, SEE what it does and how this corresponds to supposedly spiritual events like dreaming or god or consciousness or whatever.
This is why I hesitate to say science is just another religion or just another world view: it works, and yields the technology that makes our modern lives possible. Whether or not we should be living this way, is another question. Maybe uncontacted tribes without mass scale agriculture or mechanized industry enjoy the best cultures because they have existed unchanged for thousands of years, and are sustainable. But maybe modern civilization will find a way to have its cake and eat it too. Cold fusion is coming! REALLY!
UNPRECEDENTED: I took a peripheral paragraph out of yesterday's entry and am pasting it into today's.
I oFtEn CoNdUcT aRgUmEnTs In My HeAd In WhIcH tHe "oThEr" pArTy CaLlS "Me" oUt FoR nOt PrAcTiCiNg WhAt I pReAcH -- fOr TaLkInG aBoUt OtHeR pEoPlE wHeN i, MySeLf, SuFfEr FrOm ThE sAmE aIlMeNt Or BaD qUaLiTy Or WhAtEvEr. I sOmEtImEs AnSwEr BaCk CaLmLy, SoCiOpAtHiCaLlY: "We'rE tAlKiNg AbOuT yOu, NoT mE" Or "dOn't ChAnGe ThE sUbJeCt." tHe WhOlE "PeOpLe In GlAsS hOuSeS sHoUlD nOt ThRoW sToNeS" ThInG hAs AlWaYs BoThErEd Me; sOmEoNe HaViNg SoMe BaD qUaLiTy ShOuLd NoT pReClUdE tHaT pErSoN fRoM dIsCuSsInG tHiS bAd QuAlItY fOuNd ElSeWhErE. iN fAcT "Do NoT pReAcH oN wHaT yOu Do NoT pRaCtIcE" SeEmS dAnGeRoUs In ThAt CrItIcIsM iS nEeDeD fOr ImPrOvEmEnT aNd If YoU cUt It OfF, bIbLiCaLlY iN tHiS cAsE, tHeN mOrE eRrOrS hApPeN eVeN iF eVeRyThInG iS kEpT eQuAl WiTh No OnE sInNeR sTaNdInG oUt.
Anyhoo, it's 4:12am. I went to bed early, before dark, at around 8:30pm I think. I've been up since 1:30am. I didn't brush my teeth when I went to bed, with the knowledge that I could brush them when I woke up in the middle of the night. I have had trouble accepting my insomnia, but it has been going on since I was around 30, I semi-recently confirmed reading an old blog.
When I restarted blogging in January of this year I thought about reposting that old blog and just having this one be a continuation of that, but decided against it. I did a lot of whining in that old blog.
It's interesting to note that I had a lot of the same ideas back then as I do now, which is does not support my writing having improved, as I kind of secretly thought and hoped. At least I capitalize my prose properly now. For a long time I wrote in all lowercase, for some reason. Maybe it was easier, and then I ret-conned a theory on how caps are unnecessary, do not impart meaning, and are a post-medieval contrivance. While this may all be ultimately true, caps do make text easier to read. When I entered my grad program I was slightly worried I would not be able to transition from lowercase typing, but it was no big deal. Allow me to reprint a paragraph from bloggin' of yore, dated October 6th, 2004:
i took a big step today. i wiped out my buddy list and uninstalled AIM, deleted my email address book, and turned off the ringers of both house phones, as well as the volume on the answering machine. the next step is to leave up a permanent vacation message on my email account, but i expect messages from the c & o canal association and the national park service, and don't want to give them the 'crazy idea' that i've completely flipped out and am eschewing society in its entirety.
It's sad to see me struggle with jobs and vocational rehab and just generally trying to make something of my life. I complain about boredom now but this is way better than feeling like I needed to radically change my life in order to fit in or feel better. I think the final nail in that coffin was around-about 2016, when I failed a cognitive screening to be a 911 dispatcher. I had sort of given up before that in 2014, after I exited my med tech program into the loony bin and moved to California, but that sort of encore or whatever with the 911 thing in 2016 slammed the book shut. I went on my last date in 2018. It was technically a success, at least for me: not only was she not-fat, but she wanted me more than I wanted her and I ended up "ghosting" her. So I get to enjoy a final lingering flavor of my own mate value, plus the knowledge that I am not an INCEL but am in fact a VOLCEL.
Reading more old blog, I find it wasn't much worse than this blog is...it's just in all lowercase and so seems childish. Sad! Maybe the difference between then and now is something like having had more innocence, energy, and passion then, and something like wisdom or more ability to take a step back and see myself now. I dunno though. I suspect people have leftover expectations from childhood that they should be progressing throughout life -- getting better as they age. But this doesn't really turn out to be true.
I had a thought yesterday: I endeavor to keep my ego in check only because ego looks bad.
Wanting to look good, even if that version of "good" really means enlightened or evolved or whatever, clearly amounts to MORE EGO. So, moving toward killing or suppressing or just awareness of the ego, can be a trap. I bet a lot of new agers fall into the "ego of no ego" or "more enlightened than thou" snare and subsequently have their genitals gnawed off by syphilitic meerkats.
The real reason, the valid reason, etc, for awareness of and potentially diminishing the ego is that said ego is harmful: to yourself, to others, to the planet, and to the YOONEEVERSE. I see ego in other people and fantasize about calling them out on it: "your ego is showing," which is obvious shitbaggery; ego always sees and is bothered by other ego. Q: How do you tell a narcissist? A: He accuses you of being a narcissist.
"A narcissist is someone better looking than you." - Gor Vidal, known narcissist
So, first of all, there's Freudian ego. I don't really know what this is but it's something like pure rationality negotiating between childlike desires and moral ideals. And then there's Dharmic or new age ego, which could be the sense of (false) self, or the feeling of being you. This sounds a lot like consciousness to my ear, but consciousness is supposed to be good or desirable or true while ego is bad or undesirable or false. I dunno, I think there's some confusion in this ontology. Anyway, ego is also sometimes taken, in the parlance of our times, to be pride or excessive pride: "that baseball player has a lot of ego," when he's grinning and dancing around and pointing to himself after hitting a home run. Is there a broad strand that connects all these 'ego' constructs? I find it especially perplexing that ego can look like consciousness and that you're supposed to distinguish between the 'true self' and 'false self,' with the the false self being the stories you tell yourself about "you," and the true self being pure awareness. This smells like pre-neuroscience BS, and maybe "ego" is just selfishly inconsiderate behavior, but no -- "ego" in the Dharmic sense is "the construct of 'me' that can be hurt by words." As far as Freud goes, who can say? His id, ego, and superego all seem like they could function as "the I thought."
Maybe ego is a thing such that the correct way around it amounts to taking a step back and not allowing your behavior to amount only to reactions to simuli. Try pausing for a second and thinking something like "I am me," and turning more and more inward to focus on that inward-turning itself, as opposed to the wall in front of you or the sounds outside...try slowing things down and not actively pursuing any thoughts. Another way "in" is THE PRESENT MOMENT, as discussed by Albert Camus and Eckhart Tolle. This is basically meditation, and I think Ramana Maharshi et al did/do this Jedi mind trick 24/7, although RM still ate and pooped and went for walks and wrote things down, so I dunno. Maybe it doesn't take much to be a spiritual teacher/figure/leader, and all you have to do is look weird and not get angry or speak too fast. There's a notion that we are all enlightened or self-realized (or saved, or submitted...etc) and just require occasional reminders.
Another trap related to "ego of no ego" is spending all your time thinking about having no thoughts. I've seen this and I don't think the people who do it can really help it; they write guides to enlightenment instead of just existing, because that is how their brains are: they are intellectuals, for better or for worse. Eckhart Tolle falls into this, and so does Stephen Wolinski, and Krishnamurti, and Nisargadatta Maharaj. Basically all of them, except for Ramana Maharshi, and even he produced a surprising amount of text -- he wasn't just a lump on a rug despite most often being portrayed as such. Maybe these 'spiritual teachers' are stuck in a state of non-enlightenment where they jibber all day -- a sacrifice they make for the benefit of the public, who can absorb their text and then become one with the universe, without writing more screeds themselves.
Stephen Wolinski says "there's no such thing as nonduality" ('nonduality' is just a word) and "you don't want enlightenment" (a "you" that wants is incompatible with being enlightened). Self-negating paradoxical traps like these suggest that trying for THE THING will keep you away from THE THING. But like I said maybe it's all BS and no one is really more enlightened than another. Or maybe no one is enlightened at all, and just trying to get there is the best anyone can do. Neurological studies confirm different brain structures in people who meditate a lot, which points to the whole enlightenment/self realization thing being a brain trick you do to be more at peace throughout life as opposed to some incomprehensible-by-design spiritual vaguery. David Godman says he still does actively meditate, as in, sits for a period of time with his eyes closed, in spite of knowing the real trick: that you 'meditate' all the time, or exist upon the world with constant quiet meditative awareness, like his guru Ramana Maharshi did, as far as we all know.
Samadhi - a state of intense concentration achieved through meditation. In Hindu yoga this is regarded as the final stage, at which union with the divine is reached (before or at death).
Does everyone know what I mean when I talk about quiet meditative awareness? About focusing on your own inner experience? And about potentially turning this act into a constant state of being? The problem could be a matter of not getting it, a matter of not doing it, or both. What's interesting is that many well-read smart people who are engaged productively, actively, and perhaps consumingly with the world must have a way of encapsulating all of the foregoing just as a part of general cultural knowledge. How do they do it? "The whole present moment consciousness enlightenment thing," and then they move on to other projects?
I gotta do 3 entries 3 days in a row, then I can take a week long break again...HA-ha. I regret writing what I wrote about Trump; I don't know what I'm talking about. I can barely read...how could I possibly know a thing about politics? I am pure ego and love the sound of my own voice talking and should be jettisoned into the sun. I didn't get enough sleep again last night, but no pricklies this morning. Nevertheless I plan to take a nice nap after my show.
I am going to give my old iPhone to my neighbor. I have a spare because my dad gave me his old iPhone when he thought he lost his and then found it after buying a replacement. This happens, I have heard; it is maybe the main vehicle by which phones are recycled and redistributed among the populace. Giving someone a phone is a little bit of a problem for the giver in the form of carrier lock and implied required tech support (who else are they going to call?). Already I have dug it out, found a cord and AC adapter, charged it up, wrote an informational email, and generally stewed about it. But I will persevere. I am glad my old phone will have a home. I have an old broken Mac and an old shitty (although flat screen) monitor I need to dispose of responsibly.
I have had weird/bad experiences on Craigslist. Before I moved from Maryland to Ontario for school, I sold a few things, and recall two interactions. The first concerned my spring powered BB pistol. I had bought it on what I suppose was an impulse, and maybe also as some kind of attempt at recapturing the lust I had for BB guns, and guns in general, as a preteen and young teen (I think age 9-14 is prime "boy"). I had this BB gun sitting around the house, which was well-reviewed and supposed to be pretty good as far as BB guns go, which I did not enjoy shooting, and which was also an inappropriate Canadian import. I put it up for sale on Craigslist, and the guy who ended up coming for it was an unusual individual. He was short, small, and skinny, maybe in his 60s or 70s, with oily, shining, jet-black hair. He was too weak to pump-load his new BB gun, trembling and struggling, tendons flexing mightily, but bought it anyway. What was he doing with a BB gun at his age? Why did he dye his hair so cartoonishly? Why did he buy something he could not use? These are my main questions.
The second notable Craigslist encounter came vis-a-vis a southeast Asian man; I don't remember what he was buying (possibly a tent) but he tried to haggle. I refused, the prospective buyer moved like he was going to leave, and I thought that was the end of it. Then at the last minute he said "Ok" and paid my asking price for the item with an annoyed demeanor. I was genuinely surprised and said something like "oh, you do in fact want it?" He replied something like "yes I have no choice." So, this is how you haggle: don't actually care if you sell your item. Now-a-days, I'd rather throw or give stuff away than have wheeler-dealer horse trading experiences with odd looking strangers.
Another CL incident comes to mind, but I think this was before the great MJT stuff purge of 2009. In this case I was the buyer of some computer speakers. The seller met me at the mall, and brought her boyfriend along; I guess this is smart or understandable or something. But then when I got home I found the speakers didn't work. I emailed her and she sent a BS reply asking form letter questions like "Did you install drivers?", which you don't need to do when you are plugging a speaker into an audio port. I think I sent her a final email like "you win this round."
Still another: someone asked a question that annoyed me for some reason. I answered snarkily, and they replied "fuck you and your boyfriend too!" Good times.
Finally, here is a shitty thing I did: I had posted a guitar amp for sale, and received many inquiries. So, I scumbaggishly raised the price and was chastised by someone using a .mil email address, telling me he was no longer interested in the amp at any price, and suggesting I "take an ethics class." I asked him if he would recommend one, and did not hear back. Years later -- just last year or the year before, come to think of it -- I was on a "fuck you" email spree against people in my past who had bruised my aforementioned monstrous ego, and told this guy off; I may have called him a baby killer. Anyway the email bounced back so I guess he had retired or was fragged by his men.
I have to do my stupid SHOW in 30 minutes. What should I do? What should I say? Eamonnw told me that my guitar playing was mediocre and that my true art was my spoken word. I sort of agree in that no one wants to listen to extended noodling; it needs to be interspersed with talking. But it's so much easier to play guitar and keyboard than it is to talk for an hour, that I often go there out of laziness.
I'm all dry now from my walk. It's definitely getting hotter and I think I'm not sleeping as well because of this.
Hullo, centrist scum.
I'm watching utub vidyas. I didn't sleep well most of last night -- only at first from about 10pm to maybe 2am, and then I felt something I haven't in a while: THE PRICKLIES. They happen when I don't get enough sleep but my brain is stuck in wake mode anyway. Basically the pricklies amount to feeling hypersensitive, mostly physically, but also mentally; I can SNAP like a TWIG!!!! (then snap u like a twig). While in this state, usually lying in bed with the lights off, I have to get up and use the bathroom every 30 minutes or so because I am aware of the tiniest amount of bladder pressure. I feel sudden painful tingling itches on random places on my skin. My nose is dry. My eyes are dry and I keep trying to rub the crust out, finding no crust. I am thirsty but water doesn't seem to help or just makes me pee endlessly. I can't get comfortable on my pillow. Etc. The only cure for the pricklies is sleep, and eventually I did fall back asleep, possibly with the help of some classical music although maybe I was just ready at that point, I think around 6am. Then I slept til just before 8am and felt fine. I don't need a lot.
During my second sleep, those two hours before rising, I had vivid dreams. This often happens. Specifically I had SEX DREAMS, but not about Serena (yay). But as I said my sex dreams are never just about sex, as in, pump pump, but instead are about the surrounding thoughts and feelings. I think in this dream it was a sex worker I was with, but we shared some connection, and then I woke up.
What should I do today? My calendar is empty. Drive to a building and purchase food? I already went for a walk. I can play guitar. Ok I just did that. I'm still sitting here though...same chair. Maybe 30 minutes passed. I haven't played recorder for a long time. I sorta lost interest I'm afraid, or maybe they're just too far away on my desk. I'd better pick one up before too long so I don't forget the fingerings. Um....I have a list somewhere of things to do. Lemme FIND:
Ok so this list is BS, I realize -- it's deliberately depressive and compartmentalized and so on; it is a SELF FULFILLING PROPHECY of some kind of Kafka nightmare. The second-to-last (drive out) might require more in its parentheses, but not really in a sense -- there aren't many places to go around here, especially that I'm comfortable burning gas/money on or suffering unfamiliar crowded highway driving for. I'd have to drive far away, and then, what's the point of seeing some historical site or eating the same basic type of sandwich or whatever? I dunno. I guess I am rather anhedonic.
._.That's the logo of the American Anhedonia Society; only the Georgia font produces nicely spaced eyes. It's almost 11:30am and I think I'll get CHINEE FOO. Finally it turned warm; it's been in the 30s at night up until yesterday. So now however many days of Spring and then THE HEAT COMES. And then the fires. HELL!!!!!!!! The craneflies are out which is nice. I like them. They're very innocent bugs, except they do look like giant mosquitos and sometimes they get BIG around here...bigger'n Maryland craneflies, ayep. The adults don't have much in the line of functional mouthparts (although they will lick and nibble at things) and they do basically all of their feeding as larvae. They are shy and fly away when you get close to them but they are slow and clumsy and brittle and delicate, and in some ways rather beautiful, once you get over their giant mosquito'ness. All they do is breed, as adults, to make more larvae, and all those do is eat. I guess this is life, except that's not totally fair -- humans do all kinds of things, such as AAARRRRRT. They say that cavemen worked less than modern people, that they had more down time. I wonder if they got bored.
There's an IMPLICIT TROPE floating in the ether that there's all this existential angst in modern times that was not there before, what with staring at screens and so on in lieu of hunting mammoths, but I question that; I think maybe cavemen and precolonial Native Americans and Andamanese Islanders felt and feel the same dissatisfaction that modern people in industrial civilizations do. I suppose this is Buddhistic wisdom and DUKKA is not dependent on some particular lifestyle other than neglecting the (noble) eightfold path. Ohm shmohm. Are my occasional all-caps for effect annoying? Perhaps a bit.
Wow, time passes. I haven't written for six days! Nearly a week. UN-AC-CEPTABLE!!!!! I channel my friend's authoritarian father when I say "unacceptable" to myself, in that imagined style (emphatically pronouncing those first two syllables). I'm not sure he ever actually said that, but this is what I do: think with other people's heads; it's immaterial whether or not they have had that specific thought PER SE.
Um...I'm about to go shopping. "About" as in, will go shopping in maybe like another hour or so, which is PARRRRFECT in terms of bloggin' time AMIRITE GAIZ GAIZ GAIZ GAIZ GAIZ
I miss pcom sometimes. I feel wix was the glue that held it together. I think his deal was that he really did listen to, like, and appreciate people, and maybe most importantly, he wasn't a snob. I speak of him like he's dead...RIP wix. I think maybe that was the important thing that set pcom apart from regular com, or SDF in general, or the world at large: it was, underneath the insults and threats, mostly (!!!) an accepting place -- it didn't matter if you were a duder or a davek. In fact I have apprehended lore that this constitutes its origins: fleeing from the "alpha geek" class oppression of regular com.
A few topics have occurred to me over the past few days but I didn't leap onto the keyboard to address them, as I perhaps should have. I've been fantasizing that Serena, the unrequited love of my life, reads my blog, even though that's really, really unlikely for two reasons: 1) she makes an effort not to think about people in her past and googling them would be a violation of this maxim, and also 2) you can't find this site with my name.
Searching Google's index of mjt.sdf.org, I see only 9 pages, out of 459 extant. Why does The Google hate me so? I think it hates SDF, for 2 reasons: SDF has a bad spam rep (I once was denied account registration using an SDF email address for this reason), and I have heard that Search doesn't like subdomains. So there you have it.
Fuckin' anyway: one thing I wanted to amend from entries past is my comments on Trump, whence I suggested people just didn't like the look and feel of him and that he didn't actually do anything bad. But then I remembered: the incitement to riot on January 6th was bad, and claiming election fraud was bad. This lead me to an analysis: the bad stuff that Trump did mostly falls under "not being a good (small d) democrat," to use the words of my dad's Canadian friend when he described why he didn't like Steven Harper. In other words Trump did not play the game of electoral politics fairly or according to the rules. Trump apologists/cultists might say "GOOD!", and that his domestic and foreign policy is so great that "meta-policy" like trying to stay in power through any means necessary is not only justified but ESSENTIAL. I think Trump loved his supporters so much and was loved by them so much that he really felt -- not thought -- that he could not have lost the election. So in a way he was being honest. And, as my Nazi friend points out, 2020 *was* a highly irregular election, what with COVID and all the mail-ins. Still though...orange man bad.
The sun rises early these days and the dawn is starkly visible at 5:30am. If it weren't for the time change about a month ago it would be getting light at 4:30am! I would like this. I like it to be dark in the late evening and light in the early morning, because I'm an early bedder and an early riser. I plan to get another BIG BREAKFAST at McD today before I do the fewd shoppin'. That reminds me: I have been eating like a giant monster hog lately. I put away 5,300 calories in one day, I approximated. I'm not sure what's wrong with me. The binge in fact lasted a few days and it might have been triggered, near as I can figure, by an iced mocha at McDonald's, but maybe that amounts to something like fundamental attribution error (believing every event must have a specific single cause). Ultimately I just suck.
Another topic: why Asians are terrible. For those of you feeling nonclicky, this is a qz.com (?) article on how China is the most materialistic country in the world, followed up by India and then Turkey. The good part of this article is an infographic reflecting a poll that asked citizens of various countries if they measured their success by the things they own. I will copy down the results (percent of people who answered "yes"):
China: 71% India: 58% Turkey: 57% Brazil: 48% South Korea: 45% Poland: 39% GLOBAL AVERAGE: 34% France: 34% South Africa: 33% Russia: 32% Argentina: 29% Belgium: 28% Germany: 27% Australia: 24% Japan: 22% Italy: 22% USA: 21% Canada: 20% Great Britain: 16% Spain: 15% Sweden: 7%
The thing to remember about polls like this is that they amount to self-report as opposed to observations, so responses might reflect ideology rather than practice. For instance, most Americans probably would not admit to measuring their success by the things they own even if they very much live that way, whereas it may be different in China, India, Turkey, etc -- the poll question might not carry the same bad weight in those cultures and languages. But relatedly and perhaps more importantly, countries at the top of the list are either poorer or are just now coming out of poverty, whereas countries at the bottom are rich or have been rich for a long time. It's sort of like in "The Aviator" where Katherine Hepburn's wealthy family is having dinner with Howard Hughes and tell him "Oh, we don't care about money here!" and HH replies curtly, "That's because you have it," causing a stir and a rift and a squirm.
It's worth mentioning that I have often felt outclassed by Chinese Americans (AHEM SERENA AHEM), and this might not be an accident; they might play the social status game skillfully, if not unconsciously. On the other hand I might just have issues. I'm pretty obsessed with social status but it's in an academic way. IF U BELIEVE THAT I GOTTA BRIDGE 2 SELL U
I GOT 10 MINUTES TO EDIT D:
Happy 4/20. puff puff
Ok so THIS is what I was trying to get at vis-a-vis morality/ethics: "And then there's the moral/ethical dimension of cleaning up after other people, or even after yourself in a public space." Cleaning up after others seems to have moral significance in a way that deciding whether or not to tap your finger on a desk does not. What kind of special category of act might it be? "Favors for others"? So we have that, and then conservation of resources, and then finally things that make you happy that you do for yourself, like eating a Big Mac in spite of adjacent animal torture. So those are the three categories of good behavior...take heed.
I'm just being THILLAAAAAAAAY. I guess that special something that makes volunteer elder care different from picking your nose, and also includes getting a vegan Big Mac (McPlant!) involves making people happy, which is similar to Peter Singer's "suffering" fixation but is not exactly the same thing; if all you do is avoid suffering that's a pretty bland existence. And what if you don't in fact make a centenarian happy when you change his or her diaper? It could be that increasing health of other beings is broadly, ethically the same as making them happy; in fact it's easy to see happiness as a 'good health' construct (brain chemicals, low stress and related disease resistance, feeling inspired enough to exercise, etc).
Resource conservation isn't good in and of itself but only in that it makes the world more livable for people, present and future. This is old news but the planet doesn't care if it has more carbon in its atmosphere -- it's the people and animals (and plants, I suppose) that feel this impact, although of course you can't really separate a planet from its generated biosphere; we ARE the earth, more so than we ARE the universe, experiencing itself or not.
Maybe the big moral construct I'm looking for is HEALTH. That could amount to a new religion for ugmanity, except the term is broad and a potential panchreston, even though all good stuff is, man. And I suspect if you focus on the intuitively obvious manifestations, like not being a fat fuck or giving your wife a black eye, other stuff will work itself out.
I took some stuff out of my blog, this single massive blogpage: namely my high school transcript, some of the expressive multi-repeated letter words like "GAWWWWDDD!!!!," and my ASCII art of a bald naked woman with weird boobs commenting on her conditions. These items were fuckin' up the way the blog displayed on my phone. I am very proud of my meta viewport tag that magically makes this document phone-friendly and am willing to make some sacrifices for it. My thought has been that the web is now dead, basically, but in fact that's not true, although I suppose it has changed a lot since its inception. I bet there aren't many people in dis day n age hand coding a vanilla html blog!
Anyhoo, it's 1:24am. Special time! I had a friend in high school and beyond who wrote a short story about a girl losing her mind, who, when she looked at the clock, always saw that it was 1:24. After this friend wrote that story, she started noticing it was 1:24 AM or PM seemingly more often than it should have been. When she told me about this, I started noticing 1:24 too, something I continue to do to this day, although I think it has calmed down some in my most recent years. Maybe it'll pick back up again now. This high school friend was genuinely spooked about the phenomenon back in high school, but a normal world view points to it being something like Baader-Meinhoff as opposed to demonic influence.
This friendgirl was important to me...I've thought about her a lot and until recently still occasionally had sex dreams about her, although maybe now finally that ship has sailed, I hope. My sex dreams aren't pleasurable, but are only ABOUT sex, if that makes sense, so oftentimes they are just cringey and frustrating. I am reluctant to discuss friendgirl because I'm afraid of triggering the obsessive thoughts I am realizing have now sort of passed me by, finally, after god knows how many years. However, journaling can be a good way of doing a brain dump so as NOT to be plagued with issues. I find that to be the case, anyway.
Her name is Serena and I met her in high school. She was part of my friend circle and we shared one or two classes. She was best friends with my girlfriend, although my girlfriend wasn't quite my girlfriend at that point. I was interested in Serena and asked her on a date, which is something I've done only a handful of times in my life. My pre-girlfriend then told me that Serena didn't think of me that way, and so I phoned Serena and changed our date to "just two friends going out," which we did -- we saw the 1992 movie "Lawnmower Man" (Tomatometer: 37%). Later I found out that Serena HAD been interested, and pre-girlfriend was only dishonestly, manipulatively staking her claim. I wish that had been the end of it but I maintained a wounded crush on Serena for years -- for most of my life, I think.
After high school we became extremely close when she was at university in Baltimore and I was living with my parents while not doing well at a nearby community college: hours-long phone calls, frequent visits, etc. I was in love with Serena and I think she loved me too in some way, but I never made a move. Finally I mustered the courage to write her a incellish love letter which of course did not bring about my desired result, and shortly -- I mean REALLY shortly -- thereafter my other friend hooked up with her and all hell broke loose: lots of bad feelings, drama, angry phone calls, etc. Then she dated another one of my friends, and confessed to having a crush on a third. All this time, she "didn't think of me that way," even though she apparently used to, back in high school. There's been a lot of bitter internet text on this phenomenon -- on the 'friend zone' and related concepts.
Serena and I tried to continue our acquaintanceship a bit after I moved on to a real university right around the turn of the millenium, but it wasn't the same and the difference in rank between us was starting to show: she was a cool city chick destined for status and money and I was a suburban turd, oozing along. Serena was friends with everyone I was friends with for a long time but eventually she faded out of all their lives too. She may be in Denver now, or just working for a Denver-based company. She may be married but I would not be surprised if she were not. She had kind of a thing where she'd want to redo her life every 5 years and sever all her connections, and I think that approach tends to preclude marriage and family.
I don't know what I would say to her now..."hi"? The connection we shared, pathetic as it is that I never corralled it into the boyfriend-girlfriend relationship I desperately and perhaps not-so-secretly wanted (although I did make out with her on drugs once), was profound. I don't think I've ever felt so close to someone or shared so much mental similarity. We understood each other, back in them thar mid 1990s. I don't really connect with people anymore, I don't think...at least certainly not like that.
Anyway, that's the story of Serena, the unrequited love of my life. Pretty typical shit I think. I didn't understand about "getting girls" back then -- that you have to put some conscious effort into it in the form of lunging at their genitals, slowly if necessary, and furthermore that this process is pretty effective, although if you're an ugly loser you tend to attract other ugly losers. I didn't need to worry about that back then though because I was THIN and did not yet need to be RICH, being too young. But as the Lutheran pastors boom on candlelit evening Good Friday services after the bible is slammed shut, "IT IS FINISHED." Now it's 2:36 AM.
I picked up trash near my house, AGAIN. I am being performative about it to address thoughts on telling others about my ethical behavior and how that affects things. I picked up trash with a church group in Maryland a couple of times, twice on my own in Cali shortly after I moved here, once recently with Jim, and again this morning. That is my good boy resume. Well also, I am currently washing my sheets. Does that count? I don't know that cleaning has been intellectually addressed much. It's sort of similar to repair inasmuch as you are optimizing a thing or making it like new again, and it's sort of similar to art/decorating inasmuch as you're beautifying or organizing a visual field. And then there's the moral/ethical dimension of cleaning up after other people, or even after yourself in a public space. Or just cleaning your room, which Jordan Peterson talks about in terms of making you feel like you have your shit together generally and then hopefully this spurs bigger acts of world domination. Cleaning usually feels good, to me...it feels EFFICACIOUS (new favorite word). I think even showering involves mild paltry dopaminergics.
If you do something like give blood or clean up the roadside, should you tell people about it? Or, should you strive NOT to tell people about it? Maybe you should just 'be natural' and if it comes up in conversation sure, go with the flow. What if you don't tell anyone and then not telling makes you puff up with pride, more so than telling others would? More broadly, does whether or not you tell people about your good deed affect the goodness of the deed? Maybe generally it's not worth worrying about and is pretty minor in the grander scheme. But it could be a big deal depending on how someone regards their own behavior; maybe I pick up trash, blog about it, and am driven insane by awareness of my own ugly ego.
People don't need philosophy to do the right thing; in fact it might be detrimental in that you get caught up in abstracted logic and OCD'ish "if/then"-type constructs. I knew a philosophy prof who was hired by big business for ethics consulting, and who knows what he said or wrote ("make money, but not too hard"). Moral philosophy is sort of a unique field in that maybe you tend to use your intuition or emotions as a guide, and only then talk about it later -- justify your decision. I'm new to this so it's likely I'm descending into known territory and there are answers for these things.
I'm pretty sure THEY talk about some acts being 'morally insignificant,' like whether or not to tap the desk with my finger right now. Should I do it? My guess is that if polled a majority of people would vote that I do it, just because it's "a thing" -- I've brought it up, called it into existence, and I believe there's a tendency to do rather than not do. I never did it...I forgot about it while writing the above. Also, it seems OCD'ish, something I struggle with a bit. For a long time I would pat Mandy, a doll who belonged to my mom and who sits at the top of the stairs, on the head, and then give the small plushie snowman she holds in her lap a pat too, every time I passed by. This seems pretty innocent, and maybe even cute or desirable in some way. But it got out of hand and was starting to disturb me, so I forced myself to stop -- now Mandy and Snowman are neglected, even though I still think about them every time (or most times, some times) I go down the stairs. This is one way an insignificant act can become significant.
Jim said conservation is the highest good and I'm not sure I agree. I noticed that I started to adopt his ethics a bit, and that most of this has to do with recycling or not buying stuff...resource use, basically. It does seem to occupy a special place in my own personal moral landscape, and I'm not sure why. Maybe Jim is right and it is the highest good, but no...another voice says I DON'T THINK SO. An easy out would be to get all Nietzschean and say that man gave himself all his good and evil -- that there are no moral absolutes. I guess I would answer back, "no shit, unless you're some kind of theist." Ethics can and should be contextual -- they differ depending on the situation. It can be fun or interesting to ponder every single act and judge whether or not it's the "right thing." What often throws a wrench into these gears is one's personal psychological needs, so maybe it's wise when doing these types of thought experiments to discard those -- pretend the act doesn't matter to you, won't make you happy, cause you to succumb to OCD, etc.
In that case I think I have determined that tapping the desk is unethical, because it is wear and tear on the desk -- resource use, yet again. But the thing is, ethics just amounts to whatever you think of; there are practically unlimited reasons something might be good or bad, and categorization amounts to whatever you come up with first. Should I blog? Yes it's good for me. No it's a waste of resources (bandwidth, disk space). Maybe it often or always (!) comes down to that dichotomy: psychological health vs resource waste. I think this dichotomy could end up going nowhere, because you get into weighing the gas burned on a drive to McD vs the happiness acquired from a Big Mac, and then this sort of pedantry or over-detailedness or inappropriate use of mathematics indicates that ethics/morality should stay intuitive.
I'm focusing on the weird ambiguous middle ground cases. There are more obvious ones, like whether or not to torture an animal. Problem is, this leads to veganism due to factory farming practices. Is it morally acceptable to only have a burger on your birthday? Double patty or single?
All this stewing might be a reason some people take refuge in the Bible or Koran or some other wisdom text(s): you don't have to determine what good behavior is, either for yourself generally, or worse -- contextually, for every situation. Instead, you just go by the guide and spend time and energy on other things rather than succumb to "analysis paralysis" or become Burridan's Ass or whatever.
But really that's not what I wanted to talk about, believe it or not. I wanted to take on 'being good' vs 'feeling good,' and if these are ever in conflict. I.e., does intuition ever fail you in ethics? I think 'yes' but ultimately you can't know if something is logically good for a large span of time or for the entire universe, so it's best just to use your gut.
This is boring for the reader (HI PCOM). Unethical! I'll redeem myself by talking about the homosexual paraphernalia I found cleaning up. Last time, I found an unused, still-wrapped condom and some homoerotic cartoon art. This time, I found a pair of underwear and a spent bottle of Jergen's lotion, although maybe that's a STRETCH (get it?).
Hi.
I had too much coffee. I'm trying to quit, more or less, but still allow occasional consumption, which may be a known error. I had a mocha at Mcd and then I bought $10 worth of bewshit at Starbucks: a grande cinnamon frappe-latte-stewed milk thing and a chocolate KWAH-SO(N)H. I pronounced it that way and was ashamed; cringe moment to fuel intrusive memories years later...in 'murica we say KRUH-SAHNT!!!!! USA!!! USA!!! *nuke*
I have been interested in ethics/moral philosophy lately. I got info on a paper by Peter Singer that basically says Westerners in the 21st century are all bad, presuming they don't give disposable income to OxFam or some similar efficacious charity (i.e., not the Salvation Army or similar scumus bagi). The argument is basically that luxuries are morally vacuous, or some similar word, and suffering is morally LOADED, so basically you need to flip your Starbucks grande latte enema into a tax free donation.
Singer also says it's unethical to eat meat, and that capitalism is the best we got even though it's imperfect. Anyway, I was thinking that his seemingly central premise, basically that suffering is undesirable, requires challenging, if only because this premise steers people into weird behavior like veganism and giving all their money away. Maybe suffering is good, even if it's just in the form of delayed gratification. But more broadly, it seems that oftentimes to appreciate life you need to suffer some and then feel relief; it's easier to appreciate time off if you work for a living. I'm also not 100% sure animals "suffer" -- they have pain receptors like us, but suffering seems like a verbal-philosophical construct and dependent on something like rumination or awareness of one's own pain. Don't worry, I still think factory farming is bad.
Also, Singer is a philosopher and as such he lives in textworld, as opposed to the real world, where 'ethical' decisions live -- scare quotes because ethics is really just decision making: what to do, without spiritual morality or ego attached. This is not to say Singer does not practice what he preaches, because he does, to an extent at least -- he's vegan, although I believe he does eat merely vegetarian when confronted with social pressures like being served at a dinner party.
Let's say I have extra money that's not *really* doing anything. Why not give it away? I would say that my safety net has moral value inasmuch as it amounts to insurance, prevents my own suffering, or just feels good, and furthermore that it doesn't make sense to weigh this against however many children would be nourished by my OxFam donation, because 1) OxFam is going to get donations anyway, 2) people are allowed to prioritize themselves, and 3) I might give to the wrong entity and my money might end up wasted, although maybe that's just the built-in uncertainty or spillage we have to deal with in anything.
Maybe most importantly, if avoiding suffering is your only goal, this leads to hedonism, which is more obviously, intuitively questionable.
Maybe I'm a bad person for saying this, but I don't think it's that obvious -- Singer, and maybe ethics in general, I think tends to get caught up in abstracted logic. Plus we should take into consideration the Taoist proverb: A young man breaks his leg. Bad luck! But he avoids conscription. Good luck! But he gets bitten by a turtle native only to his hometown, which he would have avoided being deployed, and dies. Bad luck! But his sister grows a fat ass on all the family groceries he would have eaten had he been alive, and attracts a rich suitor. Good luck! Etc. The takeaway is that we don't really know what will turn out to be good or bad in some ultimate sense, either in the universe at large or given great spans of time, so fretting over the correct action at some decision point is fallacious, incoherent, other big words.
In conclusion, FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
I yearn for melody and skip distortion. HIT THE POSERS WITH THE METAL.
I took a sweet dump this morning.
I don't really know what to write.
This entry is akchuly 4 days old -- I just never published it. All I had written were the above 3 lines. Today I wanted to attempt a bit of talk on consciousness, because I Am Smart.
I notice that what hinduistic intellectuals take to be monistic consciousness -- that is, that thing that we all feel, that is equated with Brahman, or a pantheistic god -- seems more like a set of neurological events than anything mysteriously spiritual. For instance, take "awareness" -- if you are in a quiet place and don't think any verbal thoughts, then the leftover experience of being there is taken by some (ahem, Rupert Spira, ahem) to be somehow fundamental. I think it may just be the brain buzzing to itself and then noticing its own buzzing with other parts.
I'm confident [CITATION NEEDED] if you duplicated the complexity of a brain with other materials and energized this configuration, that this thing would then experience consciousness. There's nothing magical about humans, or brains, or biological life -- 'consciousness' is what happens when complexity is energized. I suppose in that sense you could call consciousness a fundamental property of the universe, but I think it goes beyond "a property of a thing." Other primates look like slightly dumber people, in the wild and under a microscope. Same pattern with dogs, cats, fish, worms, etc. There is not a specific line of simplicity where a system stops being conscious, just because it can't verbalize thoughts or pass the mirror test.
Ramana Maharshi's sorta-famous experience of self-realization went something like this: contemplating death, he couldn't fathom his consciousness -- that sense of being himself -- simply snuffing out when his body died. He took that "his" in "his consciousness" -- the sense of "I" -- to be something special, something different, and not merely a neurological illusion. In my cursory, incomplete, poor reading comprehension analysis, Buddhists *do* take it to be a neurological illusion, and in their texts there's something close to neurological concepts and a caution against taking these things to be...the main thing. This is anatta, or the doctrine of no self.
Some years ago I happened upon some apologistics I was proud of, that handyc was quick to inform me was NOT ORIGINAL: the resolution of the great theological conflict between Hinduism and Buddhism is Monism. Is there no self or does the self amount to everything? If everything is all one substance, than the difference is academic -- a matter of semantics. Everyone feels the same thing; it just varies what they call that one thing. That said, I'm not sure what Buddhist thinkers take the experience of consciousness to "be," or if they even address it. There's clearly SOMETHING there, and it sort of doesn't make intuitive sense to simply deny the self; "But what's this, then?"
Realization of the self can amount to similar 'pie in the sky' as Abrahamic afterlife. People have problems conceptualizing their own deaths; it's impossible to imagine, with a thinking brain, what it will be like when that brain stops thinking, although we get a fantastic clue every evening in the form of falling asleep (and an even better one in the form of general anesthesia, if you've ever experienced this witchery where you close your eyes and then open them, and 4 hours have supposedly passed). So this sort of 'glitch in the matrix' produces things like Hindu notions of death not REALLY happening, or Abrahamic notions of sitting on a puffy cloud playing a harp, although perhaps that sort of dumbassed version of salvation is similar to some Buddhist bumpkin thinking he will come back as a frog if he's bad. They were a little more sophisticated in ripe and lush India than in the fever dream desert, but not much.
Yes, the universe can be taken as one object, and a person dying as a minute change in configuration rather than the grand loss of a soul. But that 'awareness' that Rupert Spira equates with Brahman is going away just as sure as the visual cortex, unless, of course, you take others' awarenesses to be the same thing as your own awareness. But that seems self contradictory because the sense of "I" -- the experience of consciousness -- is dependent on a particular brain existing in a particular head and focusing on itself. Right? RIGHT?!?!?!?
Maybe I haven't really said anything. Like, what am I even talking about, man? I think I'm maybe positioning myself into a Daniel Dennett'ish anti-religious stance, because I want to take the oomph out of consciousness and say "what you take to be consciousness is really just a set of neurological processes, and beyond that, it is simply the universe." So back to the drawing board in a sense, or back to the original Advaitic wisdom which states that consciousness, the "I" thought, the self, is the same thing as the pantheistic god-whole. It makes sense in a way...of course everything is all one substance (energy); modern physics confirms this.
A dualistic universe in which there is 1) matter-energy, and then 2) consciousness permeating it (what about time? Gravity? etc), seems weird and wrong, even though on paper it looks tautologically true: of course there's such a thing as consciousness -- we all feel it -- and of course consciousness is immaterial, although this doesn't seem to preclude consciousness being energy. There must be some wisdom in conceptions of reality that divide it into world and spirit, if only because people have been thinking that way for a long time, but maybe consciousness just looks like "a thing" to us because of the way our brains are. That might be my central point, and it is indeed very "Daniel Dennett."
Pantheism and atheism are the same thing -- if you want to have reverence and awe and get all fruity-tooty about shit then pantheism might be your speed. If you just want to play video games then atheism might fit better.
you're in high school again
you're in high school again
YOU'RE IN HIGH SCHOOL AGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN
*riff*
NO RECESS
I was in high school in the early 90s, and I saw the transition in pop music from hair metal to grunge to hip hop; the headbangers all received the signal from outer space and cut their hair on cue. They didn't have to take their earings out of their left ears though which was convenient.
I have been obsessing about high school. My 30 year reunion is in October and I mused on inserting myself there, but then I realized I'd only sit uncomfortably on the sidelines, wanting to get in the mix but not knowing how, while the social butterflies danced. Plus I'm monstrously fat and financially dependent; pretty much the portrait of someone who would not want to attend a high school reunion unless they were extremely enlightened or doing so ironically or some such contrivance.
I wasn't completely ostracized and friendless in high school...I found my cliques: the total nerds, and then the semi-nerdy preppy wallflower nothings often with an 'alternative' bent, post 1992's "Nevermind." One thing that struck me recently: in high school I wanted to be part of the cool mainstream, with sports and dances and parties and so on, and at the same time scoffed at it, most likely as a defense against feeling excluded from it. I am rethinking my do-over fantasies now, and perhaps they have become do-over nightmares; Dante's 10th circle is a high school reunion.
Facebook is like high school. It seems to nurture the same kinds of people: normies, basically. The same people who seemed part of the loud social "core" in the high school halls get all the "likes." There's certainly something missing from the way I interact with and regard other people and I think I cannot ever precisely know what it is. Maybe I just don't look happy to see anyone. No, I think it's basically autism plus a superiority complex, which is as common as shit on the street. HAH.
Someone posted a high school TV production club video from 1993 on the Facebook group page linked to the upcoming reunion, and I watched all 10 minutes of it, sneering at the announcements of a homecoming float build, club meetings, and athletic matches, just like I probably did back then. I somehow thought everyone was faking it -- putting on some kind of show to which I couldn't quite figure out the mechanics in order to "be normal" -- but I realize probably for the most part they were not and I was just a freak. But even that sounds too flattering, especially post-Grunge; I was just a piece of shit. Totally unremarkable. Or worse: slightly remarkable. Whatever the worst thing is, I was that.
One of my crushes was in the video. I remember one day in the hallway she gave me a friendly little smile that seems to have suggested so much. I wanted the cream of the crop and my crushes tended to be the pretty rich popular girls; plenty of cute ones in the lower strata but I turned my nose up at them. I am a true scumbag, concerned only with STATUS and POWAAAAAAAA, and feeling only envy and spite. SPITE!!!! But no of course the main thing was her personality: she liked pizza, watched some TV programs more than others, and even sometimes said words and/or made faces.
I fantasize now that this ancient crush (one of the Megans) felt trapped in the plastic world of popularity and yearned for a semi-outcast such as myself, like Molly Ringwald and Bender in "The Breakfast Club," which was about high school kids in 1984, when I was in 4th grade. I exaggerate and flatter myself -- I was more a Brian-Bender-Allison hybrid: not so much bright or badassed or unique, but just shitty and awkward, with a 2.74 GPA...Bender without the tough or Brian without the smarts or Allison without the originality. The only thing I decisively was not, was Claire, with or without the grace, or Andrew, with or without the discipline. I was not a mainstream extroverted sort of wealth-and-athletics cool kid, who seemed to rule the school back in '93 (my high school won the state championship in football one of those years). I used to think that if you were not popular then to make up for that you had to be smart, and only later realized that "to he who has everything more will be given." Megan was gorgeous, back then...like an angel. Younger people are better looking. I suppose that's evolution talking, and is basically a tautology. That's how you know that if you fall in love at an advancing age, it's REAL LOVE (gonna try n git sum).
I'm supposed to be seeing my own kids off to college right about now, but instead I'm in "my room" on my computer, much as I was at age 12. Sad! I did what I could though, and the rest will go by quickly. I think a big part of my spectacular failure as a human being had to do with being learning disabled, in a broad sense. I was diagnosed with ADHD as a teenager but I think it goes beyond that, especially post brain injury, which made everything (cognitive problems, emotional problems) worse. At the risk of braggadocio, it often seemed like some people resented me because I was smart and good looking. Well, those people would be happy now to see me fat and brain damaged. I'm still "smart" in some sense -- it just doesn't seem that way unless I'm writing or in a therapy session. I've been intellectually vain, though, since I was a kid, and a lot of times I think people were taking the "MJT is smart" cue from my own presentation. Again: sad!
APRIL FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLS
It's Saturday and I'm going to do my show in 90 minutes. I question the wisdom of bloggin' before showtime because I will have spent the contents of my textual wallet before having to fill an hour with audio. I suppose I can always quote myself. I think just a few pcommers read this, which is FINE.
I've gotten into trouble for blogging twice, for similar reasons: speaking ill of others. In one case it was just disparaging them, and in another it was reporting on sensitive facts. So I'm cagey, which I think is good practice. Plus my name is off this now so I can say whatever I want -- I can threaten the president! JUST KIDDING. Juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust kidding ^_____^;
I think sometimes about the limits of publishing, and what you'd have to do to get away with saying truly unacceptable things. I think you'd have to live in and arrange web hosting from some country, and then write about a person living in another country having cold relations with the country you're living in. So here and now, I'm free to talk about some guy in Iran without consequences; I can slander him all I want.
I hate Wiiiiiiix
I hate Wix.
I hate Wiiiiiiix
I hate Wix.
The rainy season is drawing to a close and I think of fires. I hope my house doesn't burn down but if it does then OH WELL...down the hatch. I think there's a built in wisdom, or a sort of stoicism, or at least just giving less of a shit after you pass with a large margin the halfway point of your life; I think to myself, "I made it this far...I can do the rest." What's going to be weird is all the old people in my life dying over the next 10 years. Then I'll be almost 60. I've aged visibly in the past 7 years in Cali. I wonder maybe if it was like the Obama presidency: so stressful that it turned my hair grey. First my mom died, then I broke my leg, then COVID. And also Trump, if you're generous with your disasters. It's so hard to see politics clearly. My smirking contention was that the Trump presidency was not that bad as far as things go, and most of the hand-wringing was mostly symbolic discomfort with a head of state who didn't match some particular set of cultural ideals. I still do think that was a thing but I'm open to the possibility that Trump did some real world stuff that was bad...I just don't know what it was.
Regardless, there is a lot of fixation on the president as head of state. Even in parliamentary systems there's fixation on the PM as a personality, which I think they try to avoid. People are just regent-oriented. DEAR LEADER.
Today I'm making an experimental dish. It was a request: 'some kind of hotdog-potato thang.' I had a bad dream about it actually, I'm remembering now: I dreamed that I prepared the hotdogs and there somehow turned out to be only 4 little tiny chunks of hotdog for the whole casserole and I had to carefully center one in each quadrant. These are my deepest fears. A lot of times I have really basic dreams like that...just not-at-all deep or interesting dreams, like a dog dreaming about running.
Roller coasters are funny. While in line there's definitely the sense that you are going to your own death, but you just sorta go "lol" and do it anyway. I start thinking about mechanical failure, which has happened in history, but of course is rare or they wouldn't allow roller coasters to exist. The Wonder Woman ride was pretty friggin' bad. It was scary. Like, unpleasant-scary. Terrifying. Horrifying. Riding Wonder Woman wasn't as fun as it's made out to be! Supposedly Wonder Woman was sexually active in DC Comics and "they" made some explicit content rule as a response? Don't quote me.
What it is, is a spinning disc attached to the swinging end of a 150 ft high pendulum that swings in an arc such that, at the ends of its run, the pendulum arm is about halfway between parallel to the ground and straight up and down -- a 45 degree angle pointing up. So if it weren't for your restraints you would fly out. The arm swings at 70 mph while the disc is spinning, according to the official website. This was not only scary at the time, but I was nauseous for maybe half an hour afterwards. I don't think I will ride the Wonder Woman again.
The roller coasters were more scary in anticipation -- actually riding them was pretty fun and not as bad as it looked. The only problem is my back hurt afterwards due to I suppose the compression/G's. I'm afraid of heights so I don't like the climb up to the top when I can look over my shoulder and see the ground 100 feet below, but once I'm moving downhill on the track things happens so fast I sort of don't have time to be scared. I remember disliking the ferris wheel when I was younger; something about looking down into the depths of the apparatus with all the spokes passing in front of each other pushed bad buttons.
I was sort of done with rides at the end, and skipped the last one. I'm not 100% sure if the roller coasters were fun or if I just got through them and was happy I did it, sorta like going to church as a kid. At least I didn't puss out and not ride. I know people who refuse to ride roller coasters. I even know one who panicked at some almost-there point and had to get off or stop the process or something. Sad! REAL MAN, is what I am >:] <--- (real man face)
As I said in my journal I did get kicked off two rides for being too fat. This wasn't bad...I sort of expected it. I am pretty fat. My friend got kicked off the same ride in one case for being too tall, which is of course less shameful, but it was sort of psychologically helpful to me anyway. Some of the best times though were the food, speaking of being too fat to ride rides (TWSS).
I'm making chicken chili for family dinner night. Just basic shit: brown chopped chicken breasts in a stick of butter, add 2 chopped onions, then spices (I use chili powder, paprika, turmeric, cumin, cinnamon, garlic powder, salt n peppa), and fry til a cancerous black crust forms on the bottom of the pot. Move browned glop aside and pour wine onto this crust and scrape it off. Add sour cream, lemon juice, WOOSTER SAUCE (oops I forgot that, I just realized, and should go add it right now...HOLD ON), and a can of tomatoes. Then add chopped veggies -- I use squash, zucchini, carrots, bell peppers, and mushrooms. Keep adding salt to taste at various stages but DO NOT OVERSALT OR YOU WILL DIE. What I usually do is start the dish on a pot on the stove on "high" and then transfer it to a preheated crockpot, but you can just keep it in the stove pot and cover it on "low" if you prefer, for maybe 1.5 or 2 hours, as opposed to in the crockpot on "low" for around 7 or 6 hours. I think it tastes better crockpotted. In this case, I think because I initially forgot the wooster sauce AND used all green peppers (I usually use some combo of red and yellow), it tasted too bitter and so I added quite a lot (maybe 1/4 cup or more) of honey. Now it's very sweet but sweet never hurt nothin. BICH.
GOOD MORNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It snowed last night and we have an inch or so on the trees with the morning sun shining and water dripping down and probably some mist in the air. I haven't checked on that last thing. I should probably GO FOR A WALK.
I went to Six Flags over the weekend, with friends. I wrote a quick journal at the time. I will publish it here:
saturday: stressful scary drive, delicious croissants, booze, deep and reminiscing chat with JOE, basketball with JOE and STEVE, BILL comes over with JEFF, swim and hottub, semi failed hike, get angry, plan to leave or at least skip 6 flags, bed
sunday: decide not to leave, buy a 6 flags ticket online, mcdonald’s drive thru with JOE, group call with MIKE, 6 flags (3 roller coasters, tigers/penguins/alligators, delicious burritos, comic book discussions and general autism with JOE, STEVE, MARY, and JACK) chicken curry by JANE, bed
general comments: lots of walking...especially to and from car for lunch and coming and going. STEVE and JACK are similar to each other and nothing like their fathers. MARY is somewhat moody and whiney. tigers a bit depressing. wonder woman ride was horrifying. liked the roller coasters somewhat, especially "the medusa." too fat to ride twice and was kicked out. scariest part is the climb to the top. made involuntary chimp like noises. reminds me of a medical procedure: you just get through it. hated walking on a fenced in path; people behind me made me nervous. $50 for a ticket seemed sorta fair i guess. got screened by security twice...metal leg? BIFF's house was cold and was a construction site still. everyone was nice. slept fairly well on a fairly comfortable mattress. mild sunburn.
Do you like my fake names? I am very negative, except for mentioning the delicious burritos. But it was a positive experience for the most part. Or, maybe more accurately, it amounted to minimal suffering. I think that's my best bet in a lot of cases: pick the option that sucks the least. Maybe that's what all pessimists have to do. I decided to give up my 16:8 fasting because it was making me depressed and I was tired of starving in the mornings. I guess I can still cut down on sugar but if I'm hungry I'm going to eat something. I realize I do eat when I'm not hungry so maybe I can work on that. I dunno. It's hopeless, I think, mostly.
Diets are just EXHAUSTING. Everyone should eat naturally -- eat what they want and not put huge amounts of willpower into restriction. If some of us turn out fat because of this then oh well...we just won't leave the house much. Deal?
Driving on Bay Area highways really does suck though. California is massive and crowded and in a hurry, at all times. I wish people would drive slower and farther apart, but CAPITALISM demands that they hurry, and they are all too stupid to take sensible precautions when operating their wheeled death machines. It's always struck me that driving is a professional-calibre activity executed by amateurs.
The best time to blog is in the morning, between waking up and breakfast. I still experienced some BAD FEELINGS last night but it wasn't as bad as before. I dunno, blogging is lame. It's so early 2000s! Today I take my car in, and more importantly, buy pizza for $1 a slice, which is a deal THEY implement after 2pm so as not to waste all their leftover pizza. It's really good pizza too.
I guess I feel better now that my name is off this website, but it's not an ironclad anonymity or anything. I think I'm just crazy paranoid. It seems like there are two kinds of people in this world: those with the desire to publish about themselves online and those without. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc, have mostly taken up that slot. But this is a little different: for one thing, it's the comments that always ruin everything on those platforms. And secondly, just doing the whole thing from scratch is more fun.
I already said this. I dunno, am I a loser for blogging? I think maybe so. But what am I supposed to do?
OK FINE I'LL WRITE. The reason I haven't in 6 days is I've been very depressed. I think I figured it out though: SUGAR, especially in conjunction with this new 16:8 intermittent fasting bewshit. It whips my blood sugar back n forth, and this causes mood swings. So basically, no more 15 cookie binges for me, which is something I should do anyway to lose weight. LOSE WEIGHT!!!!!!
I think I get bored more when I'm feeling depressed, or just feeling bad -- I've never liked the word "depression" and think it is too broad. Well...maybe it just feels too broad but in fact is neurochemically fairly precise. I think we can safely say that my brain is too sensitive. Almost anything, like coffee, sugar, exercise, or weed, can set it off. I am pretty sure I should be meditating but that fell by the wayside in a series of unfortunate events:
It all started on a web forum about meditating. As far as my understanding of meditation goes, you sit there, and don't actively pursue thoughts (don't do math problems or plan your day). Sometimes you realize you HAVE been planning your day involuntarily, and so then you stop and return to a neutral receptive stance. It's this process of transition from involuntary daydreaming to "back to meditation" that requires unpacking. For help in this, I posted on aforementioned forum.
There's a common trope in meditation pedagogy (??) that you should not be having thoughts and should stop the thoughts you have, but there's another almost equally common countertrope which states "NO you don't STOP your thoughts or try to have NO THOUGHTS because this is IMPOSSIBRU, scold scold scold, but only rather let everything flow and observe what comes." But at the same time, as I said I think you aren't supposed to actively plan your day or do math problems, so clearly there's something like "thought stopping," or only just "thought non-continuation," going on. That's what I was posting about...where to draw this line and what exactly you're supposed to do in the transition between daydreaming and waiting for more daydreams.
Anyway I got scolded by some simple minded internet sperg, who could not grasp the liquid postmodernistic genius of my prose, with trope #1, and then I got mad and was banned. So, I quit meditating, because fuck them. Logical? Yes.
I tried a few times since, and it worked ok, but didn't produce obvious benefits like it did during the Caldor fire when I started off meditating for 2 minutes at a time with my phone timer while sitting in Carmichael Park in my car before it got too unbearably hot outside.
I'm making a pizza. 28 more minutes til I preheat the oven.
I was so into meditation at one point I wanted to write an essay blog entry on it, with a title, no rambling, and all due formality. The benefits of meditation I noticed were, ironically or just notably, related to the aforementioned thought stopping or thought nonstopping: after a few weeks of meditation sessions I found myself more aware of my own thoughts and that if I was depressively ruminating I could just quit doing that, and thereby stop feeling depressed. Similarly, I caught my mind wandering more and was able to draw my attention back to, say, a movie plot. So basically mediation is about learning to control your own thoughts via awareness of your own thoughts. Maybe some people are born awesome and don't need meditation but I think I do. However, I'm still sort of stuck on my bad experiences and I don't know that I will ever be able to take it up as a regular practice again. It's also boring, sort of...or just uncomfortable. I suppose it's a discipline thing and I should approach it the same way I do my morning walks: JUST DO IT.
Pizza dough was ruined...unsalvageable. Too much yeast I think. FUCKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT. I used the tomato sauce in some pork chop stew instead. Mourn the wasted flour and yeast, though. If I made this mistake in the apocalypse, the balance would be extracted from my flesh.
I found the best way to say it: "I am not concerned about others' welfare, nor do I enjoy their company."
I just spent all this time and effort on a new artist's statement on my root index page, and then I realized that my grand finding (art is a human endeavor and as such is defined as "what artists do") is ruined by AI art. At first consideration it seems wrong to say "this isn't art" about something that clearly has the look of art, regardless of how it was created, but maybe not: if the wind arranges the fallen leaves into "Starry Night," I don't think that's art, so maybe similarly, AI art doesn't qualify. On the other hand someone programmed the AI, and someone seeded the AI, so maybe the AI is just another kind of paintbrush, the way Photoshop or Flash turned out to be. I realize I'm not answering the question, so here: "AI art is sort-of art." Maybe I'll tack this paragraph on.
My car is on the fritz: check engine light blinking and shuddering engine. The World Wide Web says "misfire." I just had this problem addressed but I don't have the invoice from that repair so fuckit. I'm tired. I'll just keep getting ripped off over and over til I die, and that's as good a definition of life as there is, I think: getting fleeced, having things extracted from you, by the damned dirty apes, til there's nothing left. What I dislike most about people might be greed -- that constant need to better themselves, do well, maximise, optimize, and get a good deal; it often turns out to be a zero sum game at my expense.
I wish I had superpowers.
Our new internet arrived and it is a dismal and abject failure: it's slower than our current or previous service...I guess 'current' (LOGIC REEEEEEEEEEEE). I could try repositioning the gateway/router *pause to look up the difference* (all routers are gateways but not all gateways are routers), but the new service's mobile app tells me said gateway is already positioned optimally according to where the signal is coming from.
I had a hell of a time explaining what 5G is to Jim yesterday, and I realize it's because I don't really know what it is myself, but only use the term to mean "the best and latest way cell phones transmit and receive signals, which is better than 4G." It's similar to the way I conceptualize megabits per second for internet: 'big number desirable,' such that 1 is unusable, 10 is ok, 20 is better, and 30+ is SWEEEEEEEEEEET. No, that's not quite fair -- "amount of data per second" is a robust concept, unlike "5G." I suspect 5G is mostly a marketing contrivance, with shark-toothed grinning men in power ties and eyes swirly with greed quivering in the background.
I have encountered similar definitional problems with http://, a protocol. WTF is a protocol? A way of doing things. So what defines this way of doing things? Maybe it gets into numbers and electrons too quickly for the hoi polloi to furrow their sloping brows at. But no, I think there are subconcepts there that I can grasp: "http" includes hyperlinks. But a lot of times in science and technology it seems you run into barriers when describing an object with language, such that every term you use to unpack, itself requires unpacking, and you run up against a wall and understanding amounts to 'doing' or 'action' or 'numbers' or 'wires' or some shit, rather than words. I dunno. But I think this is a known issue with science: explanations or definitions replacing words with more words, and you never really get a satisfying idea of what something "is."
In other news the plumber is here putting in a new hot water heater. Beacoup moneh.
Over the past few years I've received a shitload of CDs (insert SEE DEEZ NUTZ joke), from my dad and from my neighbor. I just started listening to them and it's pretty fun. There's a sort of Heraclitic wisdom embedded: you might think that CDs are pointless what with web streaming and speakers pointing at your head as you sit at the computer, but delicately putting a CD in a boom box across the room and listening to a full album, at a different distance from your ears, is a different EXPERIENCE. Some of these seedeez are so scratched and cloudy on their mirror surface that they barely play, or the boom box makes so much noise doing so that it's obstructive to that aforementioned EXPERIENCE. I have four cardboard boxes of these things to go through, so I'm set for a while. But, this is what I thought about all my musical equipment, one time when I was stoned or in an afterglow, and that turned out to be wrong: IT'S NEVER ENOUGH. The whites are always wanting.
It's funny: on the one hand I want to be famous and I am jealous of all the media personalities I encounter on the internet, where if you are seeing a face it pretty much always follows that this face is famous, usually for some great level of achievement or competence, or at least desirable attribute. But on the other hand I have executed a lot of paranoid privacy-protecting maneuvers to accomplish just the opposite of fame, and I suspect if I actually were famous that I'd go nuts. The most recent one of these maneuvers is cleaning my given name off this website and replacing it with "MJT," which is pseudonymous or whatever but it's already in the subdomain so fuckit. I got purranoid the other day after I said a terrible word on Anonradio and asked da bawss to delete that archive, which he did, so maybe anonymizing my site becomes moot, but WHATEVER...LOGIC REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. I think what I really want is (more) competence. I try to expunge my name from people finder sites occasionally and it seems to have sort of worked over the years. At the very least there are several people on the web who share my name and that helps foil stalkin'. I used to be the only one, when the web was young, but now I'm part of a clique of MTs (there's even a couple MJTs). I friend requested a bunch of them on Facebook once and none responded.
I ate something bad yesterday (possibly hot tendies at the grocery store) and my intestines have been in medium-to-mild disorder for the past 12 hours. The plumber is still here so I can't go attempt a shit.
Waiting for my eating window to open up, there's nothing to do besides WRITE. I really can't focus on books; I've been trying lately and it's impossible. I tended to think if I just tried a little harder, but no...something insurmountable is going on and as of now I officially give up.
My housemate tells me a member of the PROUD BOYS attended his church, which is LGBT-friendly, as a kind of intimidation tactic. However, my housemate also tells me the pastor had a good talk with this Proud Boy and told him he'd pray for him, and it all went well. This seems weird but I guess it's not totally fantastical. Anyway I think that visit implies this church is in danger of being subject to some kind of right wing or reactionary terrorism. I told my housemate to beware of active shooters today while he attends the service, and he said he would.
The issue is drag shows, and school sponsored drag shows, and kids attending drag shows. This church has been supportive of this and has participated in it, and some parents are not happy about it. Apparently the pastor and his husband have received death threats.
I admit to a sort of conservative impulse of "that ain't right" when I first heard about drag shows for kids, but upon more examination I think I understand it better: they amount to sending a message that it's okay to be transgender. I suppose a counterargument would be that this is not in fact a good message -- that it's not okay to do this, which isn't very libertarian. Opponents also bring up "grooming," but really, what they mean is susceptibility to suggestion, while often deliberately and disingenuously conflating this with sexual predation.
It's not out of the realm of possibility that a kid will see a drag show, think it looks like fun, and want to dress in women's (or men's) clothing as a result, but I also think it's key to remember that the current medical narrative is that gender dysphoria is real, and rare, and if a little boy puts on a skirt he won't then catch it like some kind of gay plague but only hopefully come to feel more empathy for trans people.
The problem with any psychiatric or behavioral disorder is that the mechanism of action is invisible, and the disorder can be malingered or just have a number of different causes. I'm not sure that 100% of people who exhibit transgender behaviors suffer from gender dysphoria; maybe in some cases they just think it's fun. The bible tells us that men must never wear womens' clothing, and maybe that's the source of some or most of the conservative ire. Not all, though -- I was surprised to learn of anti-gay and anti-trans feeling in places without Abrahamic backgrounds, such as China. Maybe it's just that homosexuality and transgenderism seem weird and humans have hang ups about sex and sexuality as they wrestle with being animals vs being gods, or maybe it's some primitive "every sperm is sacred" reproductive maximization strategy. Who knows.
I can't help but think of the way homosexuality was a psychiatric disorder til maybe the 70s or 80s. Is it always okay to equate transgenderism with gender dysphoria? I think even "transgenderism" is a no-no, because it sounds medicalized. Transgender behavior? "Behavior" sounds lab rat'ish. I think there's no good way to say it except to talk about "people who are transgender," in person-first language. People experiencing transgenderism are often high strung, self centered, and emotional. There's a correlation between autism and transgenderism, which makes sense to me: it seems like transgenderism could be an overreaction to socially imposed identity rather than some innate construct of "gender" not matching physical sex, and mesh with broader ego and self and identity issues. Autism amounts to a kind of self centeredness, and often people on that spectrum also read as egocentric; this is kind of the classic nerd archetype, like an ESR or an RMS, or a Wonko-of-SDF. It can be hard to distinguish sociopathy from narcissism from autism -- all three are defined by difficulties with empathic relations with others. If you're always navel gazing and are socially awkward and dont really know where you fit in, it seems thoughts like "hmm maybe I'm not a man/woman but really a woman/man" could ensue.
Anyway I hope there's no active shooter at church today.
I cut myself shaving this morning and it's having a hard time stopping bleeding, I think because I was damp from a shower and still sweating from a walk. Now I think it's ok. Tomorrow and the day after will be big days: on Monday a plumber comes and fixes the hot water, although I'm thinking about keeping my cold shower habit just to be weird. It's also way faster, not waiting for the water to warm up. Then on Tuesday, we get new internet! This one I'm excited about. We've had 10 megabit per second "Wireless Internet Service Provider" (basically long range wifi, with a little plastic dish pointed at a house on a hill o'er yonder) for all the time we've lived in this house, and it's often unreliable. So this will be an upgrayedd, to cellular internet downloading supposedly at around 30 megabits per second. I'll believe it when I see it, and I'll believe the signal reception when I see it, and I'll also believe the new router's ability to reach the whole house when I see it. I am tentatively hopeful, like an Obama voter.
Isn't it strange how internet speeds are measured in megaBITS but computer memory is measured in megaBYTES? I suspect the former is a capitalistic contrivance to make the number bigger and appeal to dumbasses.
I support child drag shows and I crap on capitalism. I'm a stated apolitical neutral centrist who is secretly a sloppy shrieking progressive, unlike most 'centrists' who are secretly harumphing conservatives. I just have to be different and unique at all times.
I should jot down topics as they occur to me. I have a meetup in late March with long-time friends I've known since I was a 7th grader. But they're not my oldest friends. Well maybe they are, depending on what you consider a friend to be. There's a guy back in Maryland I've known since I was 11, and a guy in Canada I've known (of) since I was a newborn. I mentioned him in another entry...the one about "The Terminator." We haven't communicated since maybe 2015 when we shared a Fakebook laugh over how bad Trudeau was (I did not and do not hold an opinion there, and was only trying to make this pseudofriend like me). This guy in Maryland, I have been friends with sort of off and on throughout life, I think the biggest break in relations taking place between ages 15 and maybe 27? Then it evolved or deteriorated into an occasional contact relationship which is I think pretty normal for adults. My dad has "friends" he talks to once a year or so. I visited this Maryland dude and his family when I flew out there last summer, and it was good.
Obviously friends hit different when you're older. When I was a kid I saw my friends every day or nearly every day...a few times a week, at least. But no one wants to do that when they're older. For one thing people are busy with their jobs and families, but I don't think that's the whole story: I think there's something INNATE going on leading to middle agers and beyond being more solitary. I suppose everyone ultimately amounts to a person you know or whom you don't know, but then "people you know" comes to include store clerks and the like. It's all very NEBULOUS and BOUNDARY-CONFLATING.
What about online people? I've known some of them for 20+ years. Known or "known," because there's something off about internet acquaintanceships, and it's hard to differentiate "interacting with a person" from "interacting with your idea of a person" (yes, I know, this could be a thing in real life too, but I think it's more pronounced online). The strange thing is when you have an "in real life" friend you talk to more on the internet than you do in real life -- is he two different people? Yes. I have often spoken of an 'expanded definition' of social media that includes phone calls and letters. Certainly some of the same pitfalls are there: I remember receiving a letter from a penpal who criticized me slightly and playfully, and then I flew into a rage that I would not have had the slight been face to face. I think there's not a huge difference between postal letters and Facebook, and the "social media revolution" only amped up speed and frequency of messages.
I often say to myself "I don't like people," or if I'm particularly upset, "I don't fucking like people", or "You know, all things being equal, I just don't particularly like people all that much." Etc. The truth is that this is incoherent. People are so fundamental to experience that my complaint is like saying "I don't like breathing." Sure, sometimes you have trouble with breathing, like when your lungs are full of snot, but saying you hate it and don't want to do it doesn't make sense. That said, I seem to have more trouble with my relations than many or most others, although I'm not psychic; what I experience may not be more difficult or unpleasant than what some imaginary bulk average of humanity experiences, and the truth may simply be that I complain a lot because I'm expressive and hyperthenthitive. But there are some FACTS ON THE GROUND with which we can claw our way out of toxic rrrrrrrelativism (Nixonian jowel shake)!!!! Ahem: 1) I don't talk to many people often...not even my housemate. 2) I have a lot of blow-ups or issues with people. 3) Fuck you.
After 9/11 someone wrote a song where the refrain was "I HATE YOU...BIN LADEN...I HATE YOU...BIN LADEN," but the southern'esque rock 'n' roll drawl made it sound more like AH HETCHU...BIN LADEN...AH HETCHU...BIN LADEN. It was interesting because it was a compelling rhythmic chant, and also because of the post 9/11 cultural phenom. As far as I understand, public opinion of G.W. Bush went up when he was seen as shepherding the country through that emotional crisis. Guys, Trump wasn't that bad. Obama was doing the "kids in cages" thing long before Trump. Trump's wall was a joke but at least that project never really got off the ground. But, the economy did well, and there were no wars. The hand-wringing under Trump was mostly a function of this boneheaded American kulturkampf featuring the latte-drinkers vs the NASCAR-watchers: college educated urbanites simply couldn't stand their head of state being so different from them.
Oh yeah! I remember what I was going to write about...well one of the things, anyway. I was going to talk about how I don't like doctors and why this might be the case. Basically I think they are overconfident, having been thrust onto the top rung of the social hierarchy, and they don't react well when they're challenged, proven wrong, or taken out of their comfort zones. But they really aren't all that smart...they're regarded as almost superhuman I think, but dey ain't. I had some healthcare training, and when I was little I used to draw out of an anatomy book, and read a home medical book featuring "visual aids to diagnosis" such as a horrific photo of BLACK HAIRY TONGUE. My dad was a historian of medicine and provided me with odd books and papers and tidbits here and there to look at. Perhaps more significantly, I've been in treatment I believe more than most people: hospitalized as a child, a teenager, and an adult, put on medication, broken bones, Lyme disease, etc. There's been a lot. Maybe THE CANCER and THE BEETUS are next. It's ok though...as long as I outlive the older generation I will have done my duty in terms of OTHER PEOPLE and can relax. That'll be my retirement. Maybe I'll take that trip to Great Britain and Ireland.
I've been to Japan and France, and of course Canada and the USA. Not really "all over the USA" -- there are significant chunks I've never seen, like the 'northwestern midwest' (Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas), upper New England, the true southwest (West Texas/New Mexico/Arizona), and deep into Florida to Miami and beyond. I've never even been to LA! There's lots left to see here. I should not even start on my Canadian travel deficits: I've only been to Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Kitchener, London, Windsor...then skip the whole damn middle of the country all the way to Vancouver, and that's it. Sad! I feel I need to see more places. I recently went to Reno, which I had never been to, and it was a shithole. It's possible I need to avoid cities and stick to the cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuntry (gyelk). There's definitely something spergy about fixating on cities, or countries, or any kind of compartmentalized category when considering your own travel resume. I've never sat under my desk right here in front of me. I haven't walked on every piece of ground within easy range of my home. That sort of thinking becomes dishonest and relativistic, though, and there must be some value to travelling far away before you've eaten an orange while wearing a top hat in your own bathroom (on a Tuesday, on one foot, etc).
I did my morning walk in the rain, to which the snow has turned. Now we have flood warnings for a few days as the fallen snow in the Sierras melts and runs downhill. I think this may be it for the snow this year, which is fine by me. It's pretty (???) but it's a huge pain in the ass (slidin' all over the place in yer car and power failures). This is sort of bad place to live: blizzards and multiple feet of snow in the winter, 111F in the summer, and fires in the fall. Just 3 months or so of peace from April to June if you ignore the bugs. Maybe the fires will get me before the cancer and the beetus, but I doubt it -- wildfire fatalities amount to usually just a few people who can't get out due to infirmity or disability. I recall that a larger number of people were BBQ'd in their cars in the fire that burned Paradise, California, but that was unusual.
Me me me me me. Me? Me! Me me me. Me...me me me. Me, me me me: 1) me, 2) me, 3) me. Me! MEEEEE!!!!!! Me me me me me me me me me me me. Me me me; me, me me me (me). Me -- me me, me. Me. Me. Me. ME. ME. ME. Me me me me me me me. Me me me. Me me me. Me me me. Me, me me me, me me me me, me me me me me, ME. Me: me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
SORRY I TOLD YOU TO GO FUCK YOURSELVES (not). NAAAAAAAAHT. I remember getting angry at imaginary readers when I blogged ca. 2003. Imagining an omnipresent personality is the innate presence of GAWWWWWWWWWD, and relatedly, the source of FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR. I often experience intrusive thoughts in the form of a person criticizing, suggesting, correcting, or otherwise doing infantilizing parenting. These personae take the form of some person in my life, past or present, and often pop up when I'm under stress (like when I'm trying to finish preparing a dish before the oven preheats). I think the inherent radical sociality that leads to these thoughts also leads to belief in...
GAWWWWWWWWWWWWD.
Or, more charitably, 'experience of God.' But I'm so hopelessly rational that this doesn't work on me *adjust bifocals*
I think I experience God but I see it as an innate human neurology, sort of like Chomskyan language, rather than a thing outside myself. Maybe I got attached to a scientific world view too early with all my dinosaur and animal and technology picture books. It's interesting (or contemptible) the way fundamentalists seem to feel they will lose their connection with God if they accept evolution or an old earth; it's as if alternate facts have replaced 'real' spirituality, because modern people, or perhaps just most Westerners, are for the most part not capable of 'real' spirituality. I guess I'd define that as feeling one with everything and at peace. That said, it's fine to experience a personality and curse Shiva or Loki or Jehovah when you drop your keys...Ramana Maharshi won't come back from the dead and burn holes into your soul and dick with his luminous doe eyes. OR WILL HE?
I went for a walk in the snow and took a cold shower afterwards. It's sort of a caricature but it's not on purpose: I must exercise or I start composing suicide notes, and/or my knees start hurting and getting more injury prone, plus we have no hot water. I've had to cancel the plumber twice now because our road is impassable. Fun fact: "impassible" is a word that means "incapable of suffering or feeling pain," mainly used to describe...GAAWWDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!
I'm trying intermittent fasting and had some surprising early success: about 8 pounds melted away in days. Probably it was mostly water but whatever...it seems to be working and if I keep it up WHO KNOWS: one day I will be thin and hot like Jon Jones before his move up to heavyweight when he got all lumpy and doughy. I'm gay.
Jon Jones won his first heavyweight fight, for the vacant heavyweight UFC title, against Ciryl Gane (sih-REEL GAHN). A lot of people have trouble with his name and call him Cereal or Surreal. Jones submitted Gane in the first round after just a few minutes by some kind of head/neck manoopilation -- either a choke or neck crank. I need to look it up. It's really not clear to me what exactly is going on in fights other than really obvious things like an uppercut or roundhouse kick knockout, which the crowd loves too I think for the same reason: that obviousness brings a visceral "A THING WAS ACCOMPLISHED" dopamine hit to spectators in a way that technical submissions, where fighters are tangled up on the canvas and suddenly one of them taps for no apparent reason, do not. Jiu Jitsu matches I think are almost universally boring unless you have firsthand knowledge of what is exactly going on in terms of body position. Maybe I'm just ugpid.
I think this is the most it's snowed since I've lived in the Sierras. Maybe 2.5 feet in just a week or so. Some areas of THE GOLDEN STATE (?) have 10+ feet and people can't leave their homes. HA-ha. BETTER U THAN ME. I'm a narcissistic autistic sociopath.
I've been thinking lately that my emotional problems are caused mostly by the experience of cognitive disability out in civilized society, and relatedly, low social status brought on by obesity and unemployment (and not having my own place or gettin' ladies). In other words the bad memory, bad reasoning, and bad focus came first and brought real world issues that lead to low self esteem and lack of confidence. Maybe there's SOME "innate" depression or anxiety but I don't think all that much. Maybe if I were unusually, pathologically super-happy all the time I could get more into things and cognitive roadblocks would not be so daunting because the thing in question was just so compelling.
It *is* a little weird the way I can write but not read. I can even read my own writing when I'm in edit mode and am making changes. Maybe the secret is just to 'edit', say, "Moby Dick," as I read it. Ima make a pizza. We'll never get to the bottom of ol' R.P. McMurphy.
Go fuck yourselves.
I called my ISP and they said a tower is down that they can't get to because of SNOW. They offered a credit for however many days our internet would be down and will supposedly call me when it's back up. This second offering might be moot because I will probably be obsessively checking every few minutes anyway. We are snowed in, I can't really walk (ok maybe I can but I don't want to in the melty refreezing 15" shit-slop), and we have no internet to help us through being cooped up. Truly a test of mettle.
KILL MEEEEE I'M HERE!!! C'MON, DO IT, I'M HERE!!! KILL ME, I'M HERE!!!
It's funny how the numerative descriptor (?) for dates changes: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th. For the first three numbers we go through -st, -nd, -rd, then finish the rest with -th. But then for 11-13 (the teens) we just use -th for everthing. 21-23 and 31 goes back to the variations. Is this because of English pronunciation issues, or is something more meaningful going on? There is lore in my head on a tribe with counting numbers only for one, two, three, and then "many." So maybe the first three are special. I encounter this every time I hit the beginning of a base 10 group in my blog dates and have to redo those descriptors rather than copy-paste them. Woe is me.
This is basically all I have to do: write and not-publish my blogs. Meh. I just absent-mindedly started up Chrome and tried to do a Google search. Double meh. As of now my ISP gives no timeframe for restoration of service; it could be DAYS. Just imagine if I had been 50 years old and unemployed and living in the woods in 1993. Probably I would be more into books. But I really do have a lot of trouble with reading books, as do a lot of people these days, according to THE INTERNET. I could read sort of okay when I was in high school but it took some doing. Then later right after my BRAIIIIIIIIIIIIN INJURYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY for a brief window I found I could read and I never figured out why. Maybe I was at some special stage of healing such that my mental hyperactivity slowed down, or maybe it was the drug I was on at the time (Dilantin, I believe, which messes up your gums). Maybe it's Maybeline.
I suppose like almost anything reading is a matter of discipline. But the thing is, people do it for fun. Is that discipline? I think not. I used to think that everyone just did what came naturally and easily, but I have seen people who really do use something like self discipline to do stuff that is hard or even unpleasant, and get better at it. I can write pretty easily, play guitar pretty easily, and draw a thing that looks like a thing pretty easily. So I guess those are my talents. I suppose then what you're supposed to do is take those things to another level such that they become hard, and then you start entering the proverbial top 1% of practitioners: "developing your talent." It's hard to know how to do that in a way that doesn't only amount to performing that activity over and over. I suppose producing forms of the thing in question that you have never produced before could be a way of developing a talent. Well, I've wasted my life, then, just 'noodling' rather than improving on all these GAWWWWD-given talents. Sad!
Art is sort of insidious that way, though; there's an ethos, stated or not, that work should be minimalistic and shoddy so as not to run afoul of the institutionalized disdain for capitalism, for the mainstream, and especially for their juncture (I'm quoting myself here). So there's not really a built-in incentive to make better and better work unless you redefine "better." You do all the real art as an undergrad when you learn to draw and paint bowls of fruit and floppy-titted nude models on a stool, but then after that you poop in a jar and write ART on it in sharpie. That's the tired old cliche, anyway...that art, or "contemporary art," is low effort and obscene and an inside joke intended to mock cultural proletariates. I guess maybe I just don't 'get' art, man. It seems obvious to me that the avant garde, minimalism, and abstraction engender laziness, but that kind of thinking is seen as a kind of conservatism and frowned upon by grad advisors. But who says that university and gallery-driven art has the final say on what it means to be an artist? They do, I guess, in many or most cases (my favorite weasel phrase).
I had some insights recently about things like god, love, art, etc -- stuff that's hard to define. Basically I think the thing to do is to see these things as human activities, or experiences, or just neurological processes, rather than products or objects. So art is what artists do. If you look at art practice, the stand-out is that it's reliable -- people did it often and will keep doing it, no matter what writers say about it. Art historians tend to study art itself, and not artists, which is an oversight, in my opinion. My grad department merged art and art history, which is apparently unusual. So, the art historians had their own ant-farm of artists they could potentially poke and giggle at, but I don't think they did a lot of that.
There are some contemporary projects that are "about the process" (filling a giant paper with the number 6 or some such for days, while you starve and shit your pants and scream AAAAAARRRRT occasionally).
Randy is going to have so much to read when my internet comes back. He told me he wrote a Twitter bot that tells him when I have a new blog published. At first I was flattered, then it made me self-conscious, but now I don't mind. I do wonder how often his bot hits the SDF servers...once a day would be good I think. Randy is a hacker, and a cracker, and a slacker. And a jacker! A snacker, too, especially when he hits the MJ edibles.
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14 SANGRE SIEMPRE HUELGA NORTE FUQ WIX 14
In a way it's nice to have no internet. I suspect internet has been my downfall; this is something I've had on my mind for years. So, maybe I can occasionally turn off the router for a while. Or, better to hide my devices from myself, because I shouldn't inflict weird temperance strategies on my housemate who just wants to watch the occasional Youtube. The internet most certainly feels ALIVE and I think that's why I love it so much. Well not 'love' but more like 'am addicted to.' The way I keep using it but sort of hate what I am doing feels addiction-like. I don't know how I can solve this problem but maybe it's the next thing to tackle in lieu of curtailing my eating, which I have mostly concluded is physiologically impossible. It's way easier not to smoke tobacco than it is not to snork down Hostess Orange Cakes.
I had an insight: you know how they say 'if you're centrist, you're on the right'? I think I know why. These days, at least, Republicans have taken up a sort of non-position; they are the opposition party without a clear consistent ideology and it's their only job to answer NO to everything Joe Biden et al says. If you place yourself at the political center, you must then criticize "both sides." The Democrats are the main party proposing government and societal changes, so a modern centrist can and probably will comment "um maybe that's not such a great idea" on any or all of these changes. There's not much to say in terms of criticizing the right because the right doesn't put forth (as) many ideas now. So, from a Democrat's perspective, "centrist" behavior looks like Republican behavior.
There's more to it than just the Democrats being in power. According to *a* (not *the*) classical understanding of the term, "conservatism" means keeping things the same (not doing anything), which contributes to conservatism being a non-position regardless of what's going on now in electoral politics.
Also, what I said a few blogs ago: the natural state is tyranny -- the strong oppress the weak, and life is like a junior high school gym class. Then someone comes along and says that we should organize to put a stop to this, and there you have Leftism. So in a sense "Rightism" doesn't exist as an ideology because it's just the way things are naturally, and the only real political position is Leftism. To be "on the right" is only to be in opposition of Leftism, or, to be in opposition of Leftism taken too far, the well-worn example of which is Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, where you couldn't own property or even have a name (so I recall -- again I can't fact check myself at the moment).
I believe a lot of the "republicanesque" are where they are for no other reason than they feel a need to oppose the politics of the Left. There are exceptions, like Ben Shapiro and the deputy I did a ride-along with who said he was a reluctant Trump voter because he could not abide by gun control or abortion, but maybe that sort of relative ideological clarity is less common than it used to be. It seems now that it's mostly Team Blue vs Team Red -- us vs them. Politics appeals to power hungry simpletons...to sports fans.
'Big tent syndrome' has turned Republicans into lots of things: MAGA Republicanism is about change in the form of a rewind -- going back to a seemingly better time in the past (regressive or reactionary conservatism, I suppose). I think neoconservatism was mostly about military power but I can't look it up right now BECAUSE MY INTERNET IS DOWN. In many cases political stripe really is like a religious, racial, or sexual identity. My aunt tells me a story about her housemate who was a lesbian, and a conservative only because this is what her parents were -- never mind that those conservatives didn't think much of lesbians (this was in days of yore, before Milo Yiannopoulos). Maybe she had some vague ideas about freedom and small government but she would have only been parrotting. For some reason everyone has to do politics, even if they don't care or are unsuited for it.
For a long time I didn't understand why there are only two viable political parties/positions in America and thought that it was just people being stupid. But then I realized there is strength in numbers and people want to win elections more than they want to remain ideologically pure -- better to join forces with people who are similar-enough and win a coalition government than lose to THE ENEMY.
You'd have to forbid political parties in the constitution in order to put a stop to this sort of electioneering, but I think people would still find ways to get around it. Furthermore, if such a law were passed, how would candidates communicate their positions in a way that everyone would clearly understand? It's so easy to say I'M A DEMOCRAT and then voters check the D box on their ballots. It's hard to oppose such simplicity. And I think even in countries with different electoral systems that engender more than two viable parties, people will tend to simplify the positions of candidates into "mostly on the right" or "mostly on the left."
My internet has been down since midday today. Usually what happens is: we lose line power and switch to generator power, which powers our router and WISP dish, and then we mysteriously keep our internet for 8 hours, at which point it disappears. My guess was and I suppose still is that as long as our signal-feeding house o'er them thar hills has power, then we will have internet, even if we don't have line power ourselves. But I'm not so sure anymore, especially because it's so consistent in terms of timeframe (power gone, then 8 hours of internet). Maybe some internet juice is like floating around in the tubes and is usable before it all fades away due to lack of power? Now line power is back and internet is still down so who knows.
Internet is weird. Networking is generally weird. It doesn't seem to have the same instantaneous mechanistic properties that normal computer stuff does: things take a while, and you often aren't quite sure why a thing is doing what it's doing. You try this and that and use your intuition and poof maybe it works suddenly and no one knows why. Or maybe you come up with a theory on why things are working but it doesn't matter because it's working and no one cares. Maybe there are just too many variables over too great a distance, like squirrels gnawing on cables and such.
I would rather have my own blog without comments and have 1 reader every 10 years who misreads it and doesn't really care, than drown on some social media platform. I came to truly hate Facebook, mostly because I didn't get many "likes." Here I can imagine that everyone "likes" me and I never have to find out otherwise. Doing your own webpage is like having your own Facebook -- it's a domain name, and a website, made of pixels, in a browser tab; it's the same thing. Tomorrow I will talk about how I AM GOD. Hopefully my internet comes back soon.
We are snowed in. There's about a foot of snow on the ground and it's still coming down. The reason I stopped my essay blog was I couldn't keep coming up with topics. I thought maybe I could start writing and then a topic would form, and then I would delete the first few formative sentences, and that did work at least once, but it was not sustainable. I think in part I also am doing the single index page so bloggin' doesn't seem like such an intimidating undertaking. I think my audience is pcom only (and, like, 2 people) which is fine.
At the very least I can use it for typing practice. I have an instinctive way of typing and it doesn't always correspond to the way you're supposed to do it. Mostly I type my p's wrong by doing them with my ring finger instead of my pinky. It's one of those habits I got into a long time ago -- 4th or 5th grade, I think, was when I learned to type -- and just stuck with. Maybe it's better if I don't think about it too much. When I do I start making more mistakes, it seems like. It's like my frog kick when doing the breast stroke: forever screwed. But I worked on it last summer. "Doing it naturally" yields lopsided diagonal spastic kicks, but thinking about it every time yields good results. I guess maybe this becomes instinct eventually, or that's what they say.
ANYWAY. My breakdown of human sexual attraction is: appearance, personality, lifestyle. The redpill pickup artists say it's looks, status, money. At first glance, and according to the trappings of logic, it seems there's an obvious one to one correspondance between items in these sets. However I don't think so. Specifically, someone could have lots of money and still lead an unattractive lifestyle -- a lazy trust fund baby, for instance. I think mostly what women want is PASSION: someone who's excited to get out there and grab life by the horns and wrestle it into a nearby briar patch for sodomy. Of all the 3 elements I list, lifestyle is the hardest to get around -- you need that the most. It's easy for me to imagine an ugly broke man who is so exciting and charismatic that he is attractive, and it's also easy for me to imagine a beautiful Adonis with tons of cash who sits and stares into space and draws no interest.
It's that old maxim: men are attractive because of what they DO. I won't go so far as to say that the only thing that draws man to woman is the shape of her body and face, and likewise I can't say that it doesn't help a man's prospects when he looks good (especially when everyone is younger). But I think in large part it's like Napoleon Dynamite says:
"I don’t even have any good skills. You know like nunchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills. Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills!"
Basically women are attracted to competence, in a provider sort of way. Makes sense.
Good morning. It snowed, but not much. I took a walk in it this morning and it was A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE. "Pretty"? I dunno. Beauty is an experience and as such does not exist in a real world way. I remember a time Jim pointed to some snow capped mountains and remarked on how beautiful they were. In fact, the snow was a surprisingly dark pinkish grey shade and was sort of ugly in my artistically trained pure aesthetic experience (PAE); I would have preferred the mountains stayed uncolored and uncovered. Imagine that the snow had not been snow but an identical looking coating of toxic waste. I am sure in that case that Jim would not have experienced the mountains as beautiful.
Snow on the ground and the trees is certainly striking -- it takes you by visual surprise, like a person with skin colored differently than their owners sometimes takes dogs by surprise. If I didn't know what snow was I might suspect chemical warfare or some such calamity. Sometimes I think my ADHD is more anhedonia than distractibility; it's hard for me to take an interest in most movie plots. There are occasional exceptions, and that re-enforces the above hypothesis, although I suppose in the case of distractibility something can be SO compelling that a person is able to focus on it. So back to the drawing board.
[wix] guys
[ntk] the civilization built by europeans and their descendants may not be superior per se, but it's certainly popular
<peteyboy has left for disappoint>
[smokeydogg] i got trapped under a cement mixer and cut my foot off to escape. it wasn't bad
[duder] bbl league
<duder has left dienda>
[zaylea] my tits are so big
[wix] guys
There's a problem in both psychology and intelligence: it doesn't matter if the psych/intel is true or good because the resultant action is carpet bombing, and once you've killed your target it's easy to say "that intel was perfect." In psychology, the diagnosis may be schizophrenia; that is the intel. Then, Haldol or some major tranquilizer is prescribed and the patient is cured of his schizophrenia by being turned into an avolitional zombie. It worked...he's not hearing voices or believing a government alien angel is sending messages about the end of the world via patterns in the falling leaves. In military intelligence, the diagnosis or intel may be "that house is a terrorist operation center." Then you bomb it, and who cares if it was 'true' or not? Everything is gone and there's no problem.
I've always said that the weak link in government surveillance is psychology: you can collect data but it doesn't have strong predictive power because psychology is such a soft art. But this might not matter, because you can err on the side of caution and neutralize any entity that your data and models indicate is a threat, and it basically doesn't matter if it really was or not; that becomes a philosophical question. I have read that in days of Soviet autocracy, authorities needed to verbally justify their imprisonment, torture, and killing; they wanted a narrative and a confession, a verbal blanket of morality, even though practically it doesn't matter if your subject confesses before you kill him or not.
Yes I am gradually turning into magizian. Take heed.
I think star gods might be listening.
Nothing can move faster than light. But the one thing that does "travel" faster than light is space itself; space is expanding at a "rate" far beyond the speed of light, such that there are parts of the universe that can never be informationally accessible to us via radiation, gravity, light, etc -- conventional energies, none of which can travel faster than ~186,000 miles per second. If you could "nudge space" -- poke it somehow -- then that minute change in spatial expansion might be detected huge distances away, with no speed of light restrictions. Maybe all energies, particles, waves, etc, when they move, do a bit of this nudging, and the right kind of sensitive equipment is required to detect the nudging elsewhere. Human thoughts are electro-chemical processes and as such would be detectable in this way -- they would nudge space.
So the star gods just have to be listening for me not to feel alone -- for that psychological sense that someone is listening or watching to be true, and not just amount to NSA metadata. When I say "star gods" I'm talking about entities so advanced that they seem like Bronze Age gods to us; technology indistinguishable from magic, basically. It's possible that such things exist. The observable universe is a bubble with us -- Earth -- at the exact center, and we do not and cannot know what is beyond it (unless we learn how to detect nudges in space). Imagine a pen pal in some distant galaxy to which you can never travel; with spacenudging (tm) you could carry on a Skype call with some tentacled beast ("Skype! Now with SpaceNudging!").
I had a friend who had what seemed to me outlandish ideas of what could be out there in the universe. In a way, what's out there is pretty uniform. Our universe is bounded by the physics and chemistry we know -- four big forces, and a bunch of atoms of just a few common types floating around that sometimes combine into bigger molecules. So I don't think that things could "go" some totally inconceivable way, in our universe at least. Technological life probably arises on Earth-like planets and that life all looks kind of similar: macrofauna detecting and interpreting and manipulating their environment with sense organs and brains and hands/tentacles/etc. They probably all breath oxygen, at least til they become so advanced that they merge with their technology and listen to my thoughts via spacenudging.
Sometimes it occurs to me that it's sort of weird that this what we see -- a big inky black void with the occasional star surrounded by planets, and it's all made up of the 92 or so naturally occurring chemical elements -- seems sort of weirdly "specific" for All That Is. If the big bang had gone differently, that pure energy at the start could have shaped up any number of different ways: maybe elsewhere there aren't protons and neutrons bonded together with electrons orbiting them, but something else entirely. Maybe there isn't gravity but something else entirely. Etc.
My favorite way to conceptualized our universe is as finite, but without edges, such that you could conceivably move far enough in one direction and end up at the same place you started, because space itself starts to warp. I don't see how other universes could be accessible to us; spacenudging doesn't translate into entirely other realities. Furthermore the only reasons I have for thinking there may be other universes are 1) scifi tropes, and relatedly 2) that aforementioned suspicious specificity. It's weird to me that hydrogen, helium, lithium, berylium, etc, are all that there are; it seems like a very tight and bounded configuration to account for "the cosmos", or all that is, or whatever you want to call existence beyond this thing in front of our faces, which amounts to rocks and gas bubbles orbiting stars in a giant finite bubble without edges. There just has to be more to it than that.
Maybe the star gods know something about it. If star gods are reading this blog, I would like to have my consciousness transferred, such that I still felt like "me" and there was no notion of loss or death, into an android with infinite or practically-infinite toughness and strength, plus computational "brain" powers billions or trillions or more times what human beings are endowed with. Probably this would involve micromechanical subatomic structures, not to do your job for you. And no "monkeys paw" shit where I end up with no volition or uninterested in people, like Dr. Manhattan; make it go well. Thanks!
If there aren't other universes and this is all that there is, then that would lend a new order of religious importance to material reality. This is it! And maybe the aforementioned "specificity" -- the seemingly bounded nature of everything -- is more a function of our perceptions and brains than the way things really are. Or, it's just the building blocks, and it's up to us to make more complicated and interesting things. I dunno.
While we're on the subject I should mention the tictacs (UFOs or UAP that the US military has video footage of). Tictacs could be one or both of two things: 1) extra-terrestrial technology that exists on earth, or 2) someone or some group of humans has somehow completely outstripped all other human technological development by tremendous magnitudes. The second possibility seems unlikely, considering that it's hard or impossible to keep technological secrets for long and nations tend to be just about on par with each other, racing to edge out their peers (consider WW2 and nukes). I suppose the tictacs could be 3), a massive conspiratorial lie by the government in preparation for some new world order clamp down ("Hey! There are aliens. Take this pill!"). I had an "a-ha!" moment when I heard Joe Rogan being skeptical at the tictacs being alien technology simply because the government has said "we don't know what these things are," and therefor they must be Area 51 superweapons etc. This is the conspiratorial mind at work: thinking a malevolent or at least dishonest "elite" is in charge and whatever they say, the opposite is true. I've seen this world view enough now to recognize it.
I think the tictacs are drones that have been on earth for a very long time -- billions of years, maybe -- and they may not know what they are either. In order for them to have gotten here, they would have had to have travelled here from some other place in the universe and as such would have made a very long journey indeed. But if they are drones -- certainly drones with some intelligence -- this is doable...they don't run out of patience. Once they land, they observe, and use spacenudging to transmit back to their origin, which is most likely some kind of advanced civilization or aspect of one. Another possibility is that some alien "nudged" or even used normal EM radiation to bring tictacs into existence, using that nudging or radiation to bump a few quarks or strings or whatever into guided action, and then a natural process of evolution slowly builds them, over some period of time and out of pre-existing matter and energy on earth.
By the way: if I were an alien programming a drone, I'd tell it to hide itself on the ocean floor. Maybe there's a whole school of them down there.
The next step for us is to use a tictac to talk to its alien masters, by gently capturing one with a net. I am guessing the technology would be quite unfathomable -- something like the aforementioned subatomic micromechanical structures. Basically what I mean by that is, using the energies in quarks and strings, and in things we don't have a name for, to power computation and movement; imagine a TINY circuit board or a TINY piston-and-gearbox, and imagine splitting a proton into quarks like we now split an atom into protons and neutrons. Maybe it'd be something like the T1000 metaloid Terminator from "T2": we capture one of the tictac drones, crack it open, and it just looks like a solid substance on the inside. "Oh. Back to the drawing board."
The amount of power you could get from micromechanics would seem practically infinite from our perspective, which is why I'm holding out hope for my infinitely strong, infinitely tough, infinitely smart android plan. Any day now, guys, would be fine. But no probably they can't do that, because the tictacs don't have that capability. All they can do is observe and transmit, and easily escape fighter jets with fantastic-seeming subatomic power and processing. We'll never actually meet the tictacs' masters face to face, but we might have a Skype call with them.
Hullo libertarian scum. I'm re-watching Breaking Bad. Not completely, but skipping around and fast forwarding the family scenes. Today is SUNDAY and is THE LORD'S DAY!!!!!!!!!! th'LOOOOOOOOOOOOOORD.
I take my walks in the morning, and that is what I do. Once I have done that the day is basically over and can proceed unimportantly any way it wants.
FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Jim is gone and I am ronery. I have seperation anxiety. He's at a memorial service at church. Someone DIED. It was someone I had seen but I do not think had ever spoken to, at length at least. That's a weird thing about church: congregants die sort of regularly and it's no big deal...you just go to the memorial. So I did my show today and I was pretty happy with it I think, although you may not agree. I read from the BIBLE, which I did a few days ago. I dunno, the bible is sort of addictive. There's a lot there, cognitively and culturally. It's a LIVING DOCUMENT you can play with, espeically in conjunction with modern tools like biblegateway.com.
Whatever. I made a doctor's appointment for the first time in a long time for some ISSUES, including a bump that I am worried about. I GOT THE CANCER. And the beetus, as I said last entry, or the entry before. My bloodwork has said "pre-beetus" for a long time and maybe now will be over the line. OVER THE LINE!!!! I'm sorry Smokey, that's a foul. I'm fiddy tho. Life b almost ova. As long as I can outlive all these old peepau in my life so that they won't be sad and distraught, then I can just go sit on a rock and die of exposure/vulture bites.
It is the duty of the common ugmanzee to weather the deaths of his elders, and in exchange, that ugmanzee is cared for by the young. Um...not in my case. I didn't have any kids nor am I close to anyone in lower generations. I am going to be jettisoned into a meat grinder.
RANDOM BIBLE VERSE:
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. - Ezekiel 36:26
I should stop with this bible thing or Randy will quit reading. RIGHT RANDY?@!?!@?@?2
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I just saw Al Pacino talking to Robert Deniro and realized I'm not a good actor, which is a little bit of a relief. I took an acting class 10 years ago and the teacher said I was good and that I could think about it as a career. This is silly (there are many competent actors who can't earn a living) but it was nice to hear anyway. I think I might be good in some way, but it is in a spergy, non-relational, way. The Pacino/Deniro dialog, copypasted from IMDB, goes:
Vincent Hanna: What are you, a monk?
Neil McCauley: I have a woman.
Vincent Hanna: What do you tell her?
Neil McCauley: I tell her I'm a salesman.
Vincent Hanna: So then, if you spot me coming around that corner... you just gonna walk out on this woman? Not say good bye?
Neil McCauley: That's the discipline.
Vincent Hanna: That's pretty vacant, you know.
Neil McCauley: Yeah, it is what it is. It's that or we both better go do something else, pal.
Vincent Hanna: I don't know how to do anything else.
Neil McCauley: Neither do I.
Vincent Hanna: I don't much want to either.
Neil McCauley: Neither do I.
It's cool the characters' names have the same number of characters. Anyway, the impressive moment is after this, Pacino smiles with his eyes. The character is trying to be stolid and cold and policeman-like, and so he holds the corners of his mouth down, but he can't conceal that he's smiling "on the inside;" it's a genuine smile, and he represses it, but it still comes through. I don't think I could ever do this. I can do brash pompous Shakespearean monologs, but I never really got the chance to be a REACTOR. This is apparently sort of a Hollywood cliche I think...that to be a good actor you need to be a REACTOR.
Maybe I could do it but I think maybe I'd have more trouble with that than just speaking.
I think I'm not a good anything, really. ADHD and being a bunny boiler plus THE BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN INJURYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY made short work of any real world, important, paid competence I might have enjoyed. Harumph.
It's nice to be nearly 50 in some ways. Namely, that you can sort of give up on life and relax. I'm not putting in any applications for love or work and this is a relief. I guess I was not put here on dis earf to be useful to humanity (in a real world, important, paid way).
I was texting with PETEYBOY and he said I should find some way to let us -- the characters of pcom -- comment on my blog. I didn't reply but I thought to myself YEAH RIGHT. Comments are the worst. I like that about writing: that *I* have a voice and *YOU* do not. I like the POWAAAAAAAAA. UNLEEMEETED...POWAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!! *force lightening* Also, comments are beyond my technical abilities and aspirations.
Did you like the ASCII art yesterday? I didn't draw it but rather copypasted it from a site I found by googling 'naked woman ascii art'. It has a signature on it. I will draw my own naked ASCII woman:
o8<
The natural state of humanity is for us to be murderers and torturers, to feel unrestrained hate for our enemies. If it weren't for Christian ethics this is where we would be today.
In other news I am one of the most important, if not the most important, artists of the 21st century. Every bit of furniture I arrange is a revolution in visual culture.
I smoked another Black n Mild and my "frozen throat" is just now starting to recover. I can't tell if I regret smoking them enough to actually stop. But it may be that I am on the way to both the beetus and the cancer.
I had another BIG BREAKFAST this morning at McD. Thursday is now our food shopping day, because family dinner was moved to Thursday and I like them on the same day in case I have to buy stuff for it. Family dinner was moved to Thursday because my aunt has a dog agility class on Wednesday for the next 7 weeks. I don't think there's a need to move it back, though.
I am in need of a nap. Probably I will lie down some time after noon. I cooked up some mac n cheese for tonight and it is in the fridge awaiting a final bake. Here are my special personalizations, my smirking ego cook BS: 1) 1 shredded onion, 2) paprika + ground mustard, 3) hand blender to further shred the onion. The rest is pretty standard (make a ROUX, add milk, add special personalizations + salt n peppa, add CHIZ). Bread crumbs n parmesan n pepper on top. Mac and cheese is fun and easy and popular. The ROUX used to bother me but I'm fine with it now. I'm not even sure I'm doing it right...I use a full stick of butter and just 1/4 cup of flour. FUCKIT
Art by Faux_Pseudo
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Waja doo 4 V-day?!?!?!? bich.
*IIIII* can't remember what I did. Not much. I did get 1 valentine, from my dad and stepmom. I keep having this problem where I think of something to write about and then forget it seconds later. Brain injury. BRAAAAAAAAIN INJURYYYYYYY
Elita, of SDF fame, used to call it my "brainjury," squashing the words together on their repeated letters. Truly she was a Math Genius. Fun fact: Elita never meant to be elite in a computer-related "1337" way when she chose her handle -- "Elita" is an established Mexican nickname for her real name, which is "Elisa."
Oh yeah:
Back in Canada and while pregnant with me, my mom befriended another young woman. She was pregnant too, at about the same stage, and when her son and I were born we were sort of assigned to be friends, and more or less grew up together. This worked out pretty well, like an arranged marriage. Then, my family moved to the USA right before I turned 10, at the end of 1984.
I am re-watching "The Terminator" in the background as I type this, and I just heard some minor dialog between detectives Traxler and Vukovich while they listen behind a one way mirror to a presumed-crazy Reese tell a story to Dr. Silberman about a time travelling cyborg's mission to present day Los Angeles. Silberman is the smug police psychologist we come to loathe and whose psychodynamic narratives on Reese and Sarah Connor are disproven, along with all of Freudian psychology.
"That guy Silberman cracks me up. Last week he had this guy in here that burned his Afghan. He screwed it first, then he set it on fi-" "Hey...shut up."
Watching "The Terminator" on videocassette for the first time around-about 1987 or 1988, four year after its theatrical release, this dialog left an impression on a 12 or 13 year old me. Not long after that, my parents and I drove 12 hours up to visit those aforementioned old Canadian friends. My assigned friend, whose first name is Lee, and I had grown up a bit in those four elapsed years. I still have a photo from that visit in which I sported an unflattering young teen's wispy dark moustache -- the kind you get when your hormones kick in but you haven't yet thought, or been directed, to start shaving. I also wore a "T&C Surf Designs" shirt, because I had made the decision to try and be less nerdy, more cool, and fit in better, and surf/skate T-shirts along with "jams" (long shorts printed with loud floral patterns, like a Hawaiian shirt) were the fashion as I understood it.
Lee turned out to be a naturally cool kid, without social anxiety or awkwardness, and didn't need jams or related props; I remember he had phone call with A GIRL during my visit. But the one thing I had over him was that I was American now. There's a thing in Canada where the educated class disdains America and the uneducated class worships it. This family was sort of part of the second group, and Lee was fascinated with starry eyes when he re-acquainted with me during my visit. He asked me if America was wild and crazy, or something like that. I wanted to score, to be cool, to impress, etc, so I repeated that dialog from "The Terminator" and told Lee that we had a guy who burned his Afghan after screwing it.
This just popped out of my mouth, but it turned out to be a big hit; Lee was laughing about it for a while, repeating to himself the word "Afghan." I think it was so funny to him that he didn't consider whether it was true or not. I sort of didn't either, when I was saying it. The social value of providing a criminal-anarchic "wild wild West" portrait of America for my envious Canadian friend was the priority. He turned out to be a skilled welder in Alberta earning a good salary for his own family. He's a small guy but he's good looking, with some angry right wing populist views. He was sort of part of the biker culture, I think. We may have little in common now but that didn't matter while we were growing up. I'm not sure it matters now, in fact.
Here endeth the lesson.
It's hard to feel good about yourself when you're fat and unemployed and live with your parent(s). I am permanently relegated to "child" status, at nearly age 50. My inner internet argument bot says, "well then just lose weight, get a job, and move out." But I've tried these things and they don't work. "Well try harder til they do work!" I think at this point I can dismiss the bot as a cultural capitalist. I've noticed that some people have a sort of "point scoring" mentality that is applied to all endeavors. For instance, if I tell one of these folks that I walked 13 miles in one day and that this is the furthest I've ever walked, their immediate response -- their automatic thinking -- is, "I know that if you keep working at it, you will be able to walk even further!"
Never being satisfied or happy and always wanting MORE might be like a kind of insanity, even though I feel this way, as evidenced in sentence 1, paragraph 1. In my defense, applying a "don't try" (see: Bukowski) wisdom to everyone smells like relativism; people have different circumstances in life, even though they might describe their feelings with the same vocabulary. That said, the same blanket advice of "be content with what you have," or radical acceptance, or etc, might be good for anyone, even if it looks bad saying this to a quadriplegic.
The imaginary person encouraging me to keep an incrementing ledger of miles walked is known as a "goal oriented individual," and their world view is celebrated and encouraged in modern America. Corporations need to continually grow, to do better every year than the one before, or else they have failed. It's pretty easy to see how this spells disaster vis-a-vis finite resources and environmental damage, not to mention inequality, which might not matter all that much in a real world way if you just don't think about it.
The end of population growth might put a stop to capitalism; the internet seems to say that in 100 years or so we'll reach peak population, but after that it'll level off and decline. Maybe then people will stop blaming me for my failures. In reality I might make it to 2050; I have always had this number in my head, probably because it's round and has a 0 at the end. Internet "death calculators" say I'll die at 75 (fat, quit smoking, exercise a lot), which points precisely to that same year. I confess to feeling like my life is pointless, but feeling like your life should have a "point" seems like a cultural capitalism trap related to goal oriented thinking/behavior.
If you fail at something the automatic narrative is that you just didn't try hard enough, and the problem is that this is tautologically true, issues of "ability to try hard" or fish riding bicycles notwithstanding. I think this is related to my central crit of psychology -- basically that the entire field is consumed by Fundamental Attribution Error, and relatedly, amounts to professional gaslighting. People are where they are mostly because of inherent attributes, rather than choices. No one would choose to be poor or sick, but the persistent narrative is one of "personal responsibility." People reshape their pasts in their minds to conform to this ideal, telling stories of perseverance.
See how cruel the whites look, their lips are thin, their noses sharp, their faces furrowed and distorted by folds. Their eyes have a staring expression; they are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites always want something. They are always uneasy and restless. We do not know what they want. We do not understand them. We think that they are all mad. - Ochwiay Biano (Chief Mountain Lake), quoted by Carl Jung
What I need is brain surgery. But no...I am in pretty good shape all things considered. I don't really believe that but it's a good thing to say. More like: things could be a lot worse. I have a place to stay and toys to play with and even people to see. Places to go? That's pushing it.
Ok so now what? "Only boring people get bored," right? I keep thinking I should nail some pieces of wood together and make ugly pointless contemporary art. I tried that once shortly after graduating from undergrad: I glued a bunch of trash to a pressboard on the wall, basically, and then it all collapsed into a pile on the floor and became True Art.
I definitely need a nap today but I have pizza dough rising for another hour or so. I finally perfected my homemade pizzas: the trick is, make good sauce. The way you do this is: fry up most of an onion (save the remainder for toppings) in butter and olive oil. Add basil, oregano, thyme, paprika, pepper, salt, and fry til you get some browning. Then splash some wine and lemon juice in the pan, add a small can of tomato paste, and about as much water as you have tomato paste. Use a hand blender to grind it all up ril gud. Let it simmer while your dough rises. I was using a can of tomatoes before and it was soaking into the dough while the pizza baked.
I did my radio show today. I sometimes feel like it's getting worse and worse. It's more like a blog than a show -- something intended for me rather than the audience. I really didn't like doing interviews even though I was told I was good at it. More accurately, I didn't enjoy listening to them. Doing them was ok. Not great, but ok. But I cringed hard when I played back the conversation.
I'd like to take a trip out today, but I'm a little worried I'll buy a Black and Mild cigar. I am addicted to them but manage to keep it down to somewhere between one a week and one a month. THEY say that you can smoke a cig a week with no statistical health effects, but these are not cigs -- Black and Milds are cigars, which I inhale. I read a headline or summation of a headline or something, to the effect of Black men endangering themselves with Black and Milds, which somehow became a part of Black culture like Newports, because they inhale them as you are not supposed to do, and like I do. All I can do then is go to the convenience store, buy some chips and/or a Slim Jim, and sit in the parking lot. It's not bad but it sounds pretty bad on paper.
Partly there's not much to do out here in the cuuuuuuntry, but when I lived in a more civilized place and was similarly unemployed I'd just drive to the grocery store and get Armenian string cheese. So I kinda leveled down, with the Slim Jims, I'm afraid. One thing I don't like about where I am is the distances; everything is 10 miles away. In the 'burbs everything is a mile away.
I've been thinking more about high school and why I did so bad(ly). Wisdom points to a combination of inability and disinclination; I suppose everyone faces this chimera. Success in life is most definitely easier for those of us who have more ability, but there are some people who are so driven that they can and do overcome almost any kind of roadblock, cognitive or otherwise. I wanted to do well in high school, which weighs on inability, but I also get discouraged and give up easily. Maybe I knew my roadblocks were insurmountable. School was harder than I wanted it to be. It's impossible to really know what someone else goes through. Even if they describe it, they all use the same language: "It was really hard for me." I, however, have my arsenal of diagnoses to help me past this relativism into TRUE victimhood.
Of course I have do-over fantasies, like a lot of people. But I know it would not go well unless I had a different brain. Maybe in my fantasy I could somehow still feel like myself but with better cognitive abilities: memory, reasoning, attention, and emotional regulation. But most important would be being an entirely different kind of person: driven, goal oriented, and strongly motivated by success. I don't have a good track record taking a lot of hard classes. In my aborted med tech program I re-experienced high school: it was just too much, too many people, too overwhelming, unlearnable...TOO HARD. I can do well at one or two hard classes, or a lot of easy classes, but not a lot of hard ones. Maybe this is not groundbreaking news. Anyway it's all over now. I am what I am and I am where I am.
Probably peak social status and peak self esteem (I take these to be either the same thing or inextricably linked) was from age 15 to age 22. Then three things happened at the same time, which confounds analysis: 1) my brain was damaged, 2) I aged out of the range of acceptable student bum-hood, and 3) I got fat. It was an effective triple hit combo that sent me down to the bottom rung, which is where I am today. My only option is to pretend it doesn't matter or achieve enlightenment or something. This is why I say spirituality is for losers: winners simply don't need it.
Whine whine whine. "Cheer up!", as ex-girlfriend #1 used to say.
I was reading about the Nazis, as one does, and how a guard at Auschwitz was prosecuted at Nuremberg in spite of regretting what he had done and being a small cog in the machine. I'm not sure I agree with the grand decision that "I was just following orders" is NOT an acceptable defense. After my reading I was having fantasies of being prosecuted by zoomers for eating meat or driving a car and thusly contributing to climate change and associated armageddon. My defense is I was just going with the flow. I know that not eating meat would be better for the planet but I do it anyway. Same with driving. So I'm guilty, and will be hanged at Nuremberg.
Maybe one day I'll do the right thing but now it's too hard. But I do know this: I'm never exposing myself to social media again and I regret ever having done so.
BBEdit has problems, yo. Sometimes I get the Beachball of Death when I click in a document. So, I switched back to TextEdit, even though I can't FTP directly from it like I can with BBEdit. OH WELL. Maybe I'll switch back. I like TextEdit though...it JUST WORKS plus it's small footprint. So my scanner doesn't work with my Mac but it works on Jim's PC. I think I blame the USB hub, or the conversion from USB (earlier kind) to USB (later kind). I don't know the designations. USB1? USB2? Fuuuuuck.
The reason I needed...NEEEEEDED...my scanner, after I think literally years of disuse in the storage closet, was to scan a very bad photocopy of my high school transcript I acquired in 2014 in Maryland, I think possibly as part of a sort of "goodbye" to the state before I left for Cali. My stepuncle, the one who makes the good grilled cheese sandwiches, has a dog named Cali. I never know what to call MY STATE on paper. CA? California? Cali? For a while my cool thing was doing an Arnold and typing "Kuhlifohnia" but that's cringe if you do it regularly. It's cool if it's a spontaneous one time thing. See how this works? DO YOU SEE?!?
My feet are cold and are starting to hurt. I will leave for food shopping in I think 15 minutes so I'm not sure if I should put on my NEW SLIPPERS or not. I think I will just put on some socks. I have this new thing where I don't wear my outdoor shoes in my room on my newly shampooed carpet. The rest of the floors in the house need to be cleaned -- the hardwood swept and mopped -- or my carpet shampooing project becomes moot because dirt is tracked on the carpet by my seemingly innocent indoor slippers. The complexity of the everyday is great.
My high school transcript is kinda bad. I think in fact I will use this blog to transcribe my transcript (haw). But, I need to get ready for food shopping and McD, where I will buy the BIG BREAKFAST on my dad's recommendation. I have never gotten it before, possibly...or if I did it was 10+ years ago. I'm excited.
I'm back.
GRADE 09 89-90 GPA 3.21 COURSE DESC GR CR H/C WD DT ENG 9 WW 1 - H A .50 HON ENG 9 high school INTRO - H B .50 HON FRENCH 2A B .50 CM FRENCH 2B B .50 CM US HISTORY A - HON B .50 HON US HISTORY B - HON B .50 HON ALGEBRA 1A B .50 CM ALGEBRA 1B B .50 CM LAB SCI A - HON B .50 HON LAB SCI B - HON B .50 HON FUNDAMENT ART A A .50 FUNDAMENT ART B A .50 GENRL PHYS ED 1 B .50 GENRL PHYS ED 2 B .50 GRADE 10 90-91 GPA 2.96 COURSE DESC GR CR H/C WD DT EDIT & REPORTING D .50 ENG10 ORL COMM - H C .50 HON ENG10 NARR DR1 - H B .50 HON FRENCH 3A - HON B .50 HON FRENCH 3B - HON B .50 HON NSL GOVERNMT - HON B .50 HON CONTEMP ISS - HON A .50 HON GEOMETRY A C .50 CM GEOMETRY B D .50 CM BIOLOGY A B .50 BIOLOGY B C .50 STUDIO ART 1A A .50 CM STUDIO ART 1B A .50 CM DRIVER EDUCATION CR .50 GRADE 11 91-92 GPA 2.71 COURSE DESC GR CR H/C WD DT ADV COMP A B .50 CM ADV COMP B B .50 CM ENG ESSAY/LYR1-H B .50 HON ENG11 WW 2 - HON D .50 HON FRENCH 4A - HON C .50 HON FRENCH 4B - HON D .50 HON MOD WORLD A - HON B .50 HON MOD WORLD B - HON B .50 HON ALGEBRA 2A D .50 CM ALGEBRA 2B E CM ANAT & PHYSIOL A D .50 DHON CHILD DEV LAB 1A B .50 STUDIO ART 2A A .50 CM STUDIO ART 2B B .50 CM GRADE 12 92-93 GPA 2.74 COURSE DESC GR CR H/C WD DT ENG NARR/DR 2 - H A .50 HON ENG12 NARR/DR3 - H C .50 HON AMER GOVT/POL AP C .50 DHON COMP GOVT/POL AP D .50 DHON CPTR APPLICATION A .50 CONSUMER MATH A A .50 ALGEBRA 2A B .50 CM ALGEBRA 2B D .50 CM CHEMSTIRY A B .50 CM CHEMISTRY B E CM 03/93 STUDIO ART 3A C .50 CM STUDIO ART 3B A .50 CM GUITAR A A .50 SPECLTY PHYS ED B .50
My "big breakfast" was ok. I felt a little sick afterwards. It was cheaper than I expected though and you get basically the components of a complete McD breakfast sandwich included (a halved English muffin, a sausage patty, and then you cut your scrambled eggs in half and use half to partly fill the muffin halves), plus extra eggs, 3 pancakes, and a hash browns. I also got a black decaf, and it all came to $10.50 or so. NOT BAD, in dis day n age. Comes with butter and syrup, salt, pepper, ketchup. And napkins, and a bag. Mucho waste-o. But, Cali has a new recycling program where you can recycle greasy and laminated paper, like McD wrappers and coffee cups and such. So really the only landfill deposits these days should be plastic wrappers and other cheap non-recyclable plastics, as well as horrible Frankensteinian composite objects like broken electric tea kettles. This is not to say that recycling is perfect and it all gets re-used perfectly, but it's better than nothing, plus I accept the "feel good" measure.
But back to high school. As you can see I didn't do very well, although my class rank was 194 out of 455. This is kind of in the middling range, and in fact those of you who did not fail math will note it is top half ("the middle class" is a capitalistic contrivance designed to stave off the revolution of the proletariate). Designations in the table above that might not be obvious are the H/C columns (honors or certificate of merit...CM meant a slightly harder class, I guess? Harder than Child Development anyway). DHON meant designated honors, and I think it was HIGHER than honors, maybe? One of them was an AP, or advanced placement, or college credit, class. NARR/DR is narrative drama. WW 1 = writing workshop 1. You should be able to parse the rest, smarty pants!
I failed twice: algebra 2B in 11th grade, and chemistry B in 12th grade, like Jessie Pinkman. Freshman year is notable for that sad string of B's. They say B is "high level of performance" but I think it's taken to be mediocre, by many or most. Then, C is low level, and D/F (or E, in this case) are two different flavors of failure: bland and spectacular. That said, I blandly failed geometry and journalism ("EDIT & REPORTING") in 10th grade, English and math and anatomy in 11th grade, then college level (AP) government and math, again, in 12th grade. After actually failing math in 11th grade I tried to attend summer school but it was just too awful and I quit, opting instead to take consumer math in 12th grade, like a champion.
The loudest narrative was that I was a slacker: capable of doing better but lazy. But I think it was more cognitive overload/disability than gentlemanly laziness -- consider my A's in consumer math and computer applications; boring and easy classes were no problem. Also, I got put on Ritalin midway through junior year and started to do well, til I quit taking it. I still remember my anatomy teacher's (Ms. Harris?) words: "you're an 'A' kid" (even though we see I ended up with a D, there). It's odd to me how I absolutely do not remember some of the classes or their teachers, like chemistry in 12th grade, which was my only withdrawal. I do however remember choosing a study hall period that must have filled the dropped chemistry's slot, and how nice it was to sit in a room doing nothing for 45 minutes. Probably the best classes were guitar and specialty phys ed (weight lifting) in 12th grade, plus I got something out of social studies and English most years. I even remember some of the stuff I learned in social studies. Math and science were wasted on me at the time, but I did well at these later in life, at the college level.
I was admitted to a set of mediocre universities with my 2.71 junior year GPA, picked my favorite, then dropped out after a month.
School for me has been a mixed bag at best, although I did well re-attempting undergrad once I had chosen my art major, in grad school, and at med tech prep classes ("hard" biology and anatomy for science and premed majors). But this high school level of performance we see here in my transcript -- a mix of grades, basically -- continued on through the community college I attended after dropping out of my initial post-high school uni. They joked that the local community college was "QO part 2." I'll dox myself here with my high school initials because I need to show off the near-rhyme (ENG10 NARR DR 1-H).
Here I am: another SDF-less day. Another empty day. It's 10:54am and I know where the monsters are. I've already complained about being fat and being unemployed so that's out. Relatedly I guess I can talk more about social status. My friend's father was obsessed with what he called "class," maybe somehow inspired by a Marxian or anti-Marxian worldview, but it's basically the same thing: human hierarchy, or who's better than WHOM.
As far as I remember this is often, mostly, generally, etc, taken to be an essentialist sort of distinction between right- and left-political world views: should you accept hierarchy or fight it? As much as I have come to dislike centrism or "centrism," I would say that the status of hierarchy should vary from case to case, in each of which one asks: "Is hierarchy inevitable? If so, then is it desirable? If not, then is it controllable?" An obvious example of acceptable or desirable right-wingery (pro-hierarchy) is parenthood.
A slightly different discussion than hierarchy being inevitable is whether it is built in to human "natural" (neurologically determined) behavior. I'd answer yes, to this. But the thing is, we are in a very different world than we and our brains evolved to cope with. So we can't necessarily rely on what was (and is) natural for people, now, in contemporary society. In fact, it might be a better generalization to say that we should avoid natural behaviors because we are in this bizarro world where we are are cashiers, food preparers, stockers, construction workers, janitors, accountants, waiters, nurses, bartenders, secretaries, etc, rather than hunters and gatherers.
I hesitate to say "we don't need leadership."
Maybe it's bad to distill political positions into such pure binary ideologies ("hierarchy is good" vs "hierarchy is bad"). I think in practice the only thing that matters about a tribe is that its members stick together and work for their own common interest against other tribes. Wikipedia says the Democrats are a "big tent" (ideologically impure, appeals to everyone) party, but I suspect this was written by a Democrat, maybe. My SENSE has always been that Democrats are for altruism and Republicans are for individualism. That's my reductionist distillation but there are probably other better ones you can think out loud to yourself right now! Ben Shapiro would say the big essential distinction between R and D is small gov't vs big gov't, respectively. This gets complicated because government = hierarchy, and left wing = anti-hierarchy. So in a way both parties are leftist. SOME ARGUE that in practice the R's are not in fact anti-hierarchy because big business are crueler tyrants than big government ever is or could be, especially under the US constitution. An essentialism that I came to like recently is that Republicans check the [x]freedom box while Democrats check the [x]democracy box.
But back to hierarchy and leadership. Just because someone is the boss doesn't mean they are BETTER in some universal sense, right? I dunno. Maybe it means they are smarter and stronger. I used to think that the, again, with scare quotes, "natural" (neurologically determined) state of affairs is right-wingery -- i.e., the strong naturally dominate the weak. But then comes along some smart altruist like Marx or Jesus or whoever, who says "no we should not do that," and there you have Leftism. It sounds correct but I think there is altruism that goes on reliably within the tribe -- the google will reveal archaeological evidence for cavemen keeping infirm relatives alive for no obviously survival-related reason.
In conclusion, crush the weak, but then feel bad about it while sipping wine from your skull cup. No...I think we should be on the lookout for badly applied hierarchy -- for tyranny, basically. But this is no good as a general, religious world view.
I forgot something. The most obvious essentialism of all is, of course, poor people vs rich people. Duh. Except we do that bizarro style in America too, with a plurality of voters earning less than $30k being or leaning Republican. Bibles and guns, I guess.
My new slippers came! I had ordered them, wore them for a day, discovered a missing stitch and gap in the seam, returned them, and was waiting days and days for a replacement pair which was late due to weather or postal problems or etc. The new ones are A LITTLE too small but I think this might be ok because they are soft and squishy. The main reason I got them is so I can have a pair of washable slippers. I have terrible problems with stinky slippers. I tried to ameliorate this with some newfangled odor free liner and this seemed to work for a few months but eventually the raw power of my stinky feet overwhelmed it and things were even worse, possibly, than with other previous pairs. These new ones I can just drop in the washing machine. I dunno about the dryer, especially since they're a little on the small side, but we shall see where th'LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORD takes me.
Also en route to me is a replacement remote control for a radio. About every new thing I buy, I can't help but think "it's all going to burn so why get new stuff," but lately I've had better success in striking these automatic thoughts from my head. I guess if everything does burn then I'll just be sad and replace what I can and life goes on, man.
I read some bible verses on my radio show this morning and that was kinda fun. Maybe I'll try that again next week. I'm really not a Christian in any sense of the word -- I don't find the character of Jesus inspiring, nor am I sure that if everyone behaved in a Jesuslike way it would result in a better world. I'm an effective "Cultural Christian" though, inasmuch as I know the material pretty well. My theory is that Christians are faithful in spite of scripture, not because of it. All you really need to onboard yourself is Salvation -- going to heaven where you sit on a puffy cloud, for Joe the Plumber, or feeling all right in the here-and-now, for some imaginary intellectual apologist who keeps square with scientific revelation.
I wrote a new essay on Christianity that details this a little bit. Basically I do think there's a "way in" for intellectuals who don't want to believe in magic, and it involves taking "salvation" to be something more like enlightenment in Buddhism rather than a ticket to eternal life. It doesn't seem like as dire an emergency I suppose when you take away the hellfire, but if EVERYONE were saved (or enlightened, or submitted, or self-realized) then theoretically things like greed and violence and other bad behavior would go away? This psychological heaven-on-earth is probably complete BS and just more pie in the sky, now that I think about it. So, therefor, in conclusion, there's nothing to religion...it's a bunch of shit. Focus on your cooking, cleaning, eating, pooping, exercise, sleep, etc, instead. No that's wrong too. Religion helps but it's not a magical cure-all. It's just another tool in the mental health toolbox, along with bloggin'.
WASSUP FAGGITZ. I will probably be fat forever. Not much to say today I guess. I went out for lunch, speaking of fat...to the WONDERFUL CHINESE RESTAURANT. Pretty silly name but it has hipster points. It's not bad...better than McDonald's at least. Not expensive either. I think I'm somehow attached to the state of California. It feels more like home than other places did. Well maybe West End Montreal felt more like home but I was a kid so that doesn't count. California feels more like home than Maryland or Ontario. I guess that's all there is to say. But certainly Montreal ca. 2012, when I tried to repatriate, did not feel like home.
Every week is exactly the same. I remember when I had my broken leg and sometimes I'd think about how I have to keep lying here, watching Youtube and sleeping, interrupted only for meals, for 3 months, and I'd start to feel like I was going crazy. But then I discovered that if I just didn't think about it, the moment-to-moment actually wasn't that bad. I guess it's these future conceptualizations that lead to anxiety and depression. They say that thinking of the future leads to anxiety and thinking of the past leads to depression but I sort of think it might be the opposite, for me at least.
Three paragraphs and then I'm done. That looks like a nice blog entry. Partly I have nothing to do, and partly I'm missing my typing/writing fix I usually get in my chatroom, which I have renounced. I take back what I wrote yesterday: I may not EVER go back.
G'day m8. I am feeling better today. FEEEEEEEEELINGS. I almost went back to pcom. But no...maybe I'll come back at some point but I think at least a long-ass break is good. LONG-ASS. It's 4:57am. I woke up at 2:30am and didn't feel sleepy so here I am, enjoying the cold. I often feel like I need to soak up the cold during the winter while I can. Like, even if I'm uncomfortably cold I think "welp at least it's not hot" and I endure the discomfort as if I were storing it up for the summer. Toadily irrational.
I guess it's good to have a little journal thing you can write in, even though it's public so there are things I can't say. But a private diary just isn't motivating, man. I like the sense that theoretically the world could be reading, and I'll never know. It's a little bit like the sense of a guardian angel watching or something like that, and in fact it's related to the sense of being watched all the time by the NSA et al. We have no choice on the internet but to feel watched, to feel that spirit-like presence of the other, and learn to almost enjoy it.
The alternative is to run Tor and get put on a list. And I think ultimately this "presence of the other" that I feel is the same thing as the presence of GAWWWWWWWWWWWD. Or angels, or something. I visited the NSA museum once when I lived in Maryland. I dropped $2 in their donation box or whatever. Actually I might have some pics I took of it. That's something I could do -- add photos to dis here BLAWG. Soon I will be famous again!!!!!
But let's talk more about NSA/Google/etc and being "watched" on the internet (should I capitalise "Internet"?). By the way it's Groundhog Day. I've seen that movie enough, though. Anyway: I suppose the Snowden revelations tapped people on the shoulder and let them all know that they are being watched, at least potentially...that there is no privacy on the internet. There was a guy recently who killed his wife and had done a bunch of Google searches on "how to hide a body" etc. I saw recently on a podcast that law enforcement doesn't catch the smart criminals. But really smart people are smart enough to realize that there are easier ways to go about life than crime, which is stressful, dishonest, and unreliable.
I think ultimately I am on the side of surveillance (hear that guys?!?!?). I believe it is an inevitability, at least, so making peace with it is helpful. It's illegal in California to record someone without their knowledge, and I don't like this. I often feel the need to protect myself from liars with surveillance. But a lot of people really don't like surveillance. Is this embarrassment at being potentially caught wackin' off? Or do they want to comit crimes? In self assessment maybe it's good practice to adopt those personal narratives that we have heard repeatedly from others. I have been told a few times that I am unusually honest. Of course this is just what a liar would say.
Anyhoo I feel like writing but can't start a new entry til tomorrow. My solution for this, in the past, was to do a sub-entry under a new time heading, but I don't think I'll do that. This is supposed to be a lo-fi blog: all on one index page, and perhaps no images (?). If I have a single page with images, then there would be bandwidth costs. So maybe I'll end up doing what I did before: an index page with archives on it, and then the most recently posted archive is the current blog. I wanted the blog to just be the index, though. In the past I did this by asking Randy to write me a shell script that would dump in the most recent file to index.cgi when a browser accessed it. I might still have that script but I have no idea where it might be. I guess I could search my hard drive for index.cgi...actually I think I found it. But then I remembered that cgi's tend to not work on SDF and I recently redid my site to be all static. So nevermind.
I wonder if it would be worth it to get my eyes fixed and get LASIC surgery. It would be a convenience, certainly. I'd be able to see the screen without glasses and read signs while I drive.
I am actually quite disabled. I have a very poor working memory and not a lot of ability to reason. I make a lot of mistakes, and I get very upset about these mistakes, which of course makes me more likely to make more mistakes, etc. I am in continual danger of people assessing me as competent, however, because I have pretty good language skills. I sound good in therapy sessions, and I can write (and draw, and play the guitar). But I can't keep track of stuff.
I also hate people. I mean really, really dislike them. I don't like seeing their faces or hearing their voices. I think I might be done with other people, in some sense. Like, I'm not going to put any more effort in.
There's a lot of text in the brain injury world about making the best of it or coping etc, but you never really get used to it or accept it, in my experience. Life just sucks forever. Probably not a single day has gone by since 1997 when I didn't think about THE BRAIN INJURY.
HALLOOOOOOOOOO here I am again. Today Jim and I went to Carmichael to visit my stepaunt and stepuncle. He makes really good grilled cheese sandwiches. Then I made meatloaf for dinner. It turned out good, but it always does. Meatloaf is foolproof I think. I think I'm getting used to not spending my life in a chatroom, and it's possible that it may even be a better way to be.
Oops I just realized I had been putting 2022 on all the dates on this little blog, instead of 2023. Silly me. I used to have a blog, back in 2003 or so, all the way on up, off and on, through I guess this incarnation. But that's not quite accurate. I blogged I think from 2003 up through 2007 quite regularly, and then tried to restart the blog right before and also right after grad school. Then I think maybe I did one or two other false starts. But this time will be different! No just kidding...I have no reason to believe that. It's either I feel like writing or I don't, I guess.
I tried to do a titled essay blog but I ran out of topics after maybe 5-10 entries, which is actually pretty good -- I got several essays out of it, which now are on my writing page.
Tomorrow is shopping day and family dinner night. I'm making beef stroganoff. It's easy but rewarding. Low investment, high return. Slice up some beef, brown it, fry up some mushrooms and onions, stew it all in sour cream and heavy cream for a while til it's THICK. Then pour it over noodles. Oh yeah, and you add Dijon mustard. Hon hon hon! And some other shit. My recipe is on my phone and I don't recall it precisely.
I find more and more that all I have to talk about is food. And, furthermore, that this is fine. Alan Watts said that we humans are "brief elaboration(s) on a tube," meaning that the simplest earliest organisms were essentially digestive tubes: things get eaten at one end, nutrients are extracted chemically by the tube walls, and then the remnants are pooped out the other end. Eventually these tubes evolved consciousness so they could swim around and find better things to eat. That is where we are today. I fully embrace my tubeness. If you don't reproduce, then eating becomes the purpose of life. So I might as well enjoy it.
Hello. I guess I will write a real entry. I renounced SDF again. Well not really SDF per se -- I still do my radio show and use the web hosting. But I don't want to chat online anymore. Social media is evil and TOXIC, mkay? SM gives people a warm fuzzy at times, I think because you can project any feelings you want onto other entities. On Facebook, you imagine everyone smiling at your content, or if you're in a bad mood, you imagine them smirking and frowning. There's no way to know how people are really reacting and I don't think this inherent blindness makes for a good or real experience, or for that matter good or real relationships. There's something terribly wrong with it all. Never again!
ANYWAY. The real reason is I am humiliated and frightened and don't want to expose myself to that anymore. It's just too dangerous, both psychologically and actually. It would be worse if I had a job and/or family. At least that, I guess. I sort of wish I had SDF to do over again so I could start off anonymously. But no...I think it's for the best that I just don't do social media at all anymore. I do have a Facebook but I have no pictures or friends and use it to look at old high school classmates and get sad that they all have careers and stuff (I also use Linkedin a lot). This doesn't mean I want a job, but I still feel the hit to my social status which unemployment, dependency, and obesity have brought about. It's been pretty devastating overall. From age 18 to around 45, I went from smart and good looking and lots of potential to a complete piece of shit in society's eyes. It's not good. My only option is to become some kind of guru I think. Self awareness is for losers -- if you make money and have friends and children and look good then you don't need to be navel gazing all the time to find out what's wrong with you, but instead can kinda bumble happily through life; you don't need to give anything psychosocial a whole lot of thought.
I had a busy week: I did a 10 mile walk, rented a carpet shampooer and shampooed the carpets, did some chainsaw tree work on the trail, and did some shopping for things like doormats and chairmats and and and...mouthwash/flosspicks. It was a good week. It's possible blogging is bad just like all of social media because I imagine people reading it and smirking, and I come to hate them all. I am such a porous easily possessed creature. It's sad. Sad! They say "toughen up" but that's bad advice. A person can control their behavior but not their feelings. I could pretend to be a detached sociopath but it would be a lie. Sometimes I think my honesty is one of my only things I have in this world. Well it's true -- it is. Along with four guitars.
I guess I should make this page mobile friendly. It's not hard to do as long as you don't worry too much about design. All you really need is <meta id="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> in the HEAD. I will also remove all the CSS and colors and shit just to be oldschool and minimalistic and UNIXy and geekish. I rule!!!!!!!!!!
Here we are working behind the scenes to create and maintain a noncommercial INTERNET.
Funnily, I don't think many people know about or visit my website. It's very hard to find me on Google. But I sort of like that, and I sort of like that I don't know how many visitors I have or how they are reacting to my work. This is part of the web publishing ethos I think. It's something I've been doing now for about half my life. Today I added descriptions of all my essays and journals to my writing page. I continue to edit the essays, most of all recently "Psych Head" -- it was pretty confused and haphazzard when I first wrote it but now it's a little better. I'm not entirely sure where it ended up going though. At first I was fantasizing about a massive society altereing takedown of psychology such that clinicians would read it and say "What were we thinking?!", but I'm afraid it reads more like some crazy guy in the woods (me) who doesn't like to be psychologized but on the other hand really likes to psychologize. More for me, less for you. That's how this works.
This page will grow indefinitely and become HUGE, like "Moby Dick" published on the web as part of Project Gutenburg or whatever. I was semi-recently reading it. Well, I got through the first chapter I think, just to see if I could. I can...it just takes a huge amount of horsepower and time and work that I'm disinclined to repeat often or at all, ever.
I ate a huge brick of milk chocolate at like 5pm and I feel sick now, at 9:35pm. It's getting close to bedtime. It's freezing cold. I feel like there's a draft or something, but I think it's just that we keep the heat on low, especially at night. Ima go to bed I think. I hope no one ever finds this blog! Reverse-reverse-reverse psychology. MWAHAHA
Fuck...chocolate has caffeine in it. I forgot about that. That would explain why I'm so hyper. Gonna be a long night.
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