Deranged Philosophical Outpourings

2002-06-14T01:52:00.000-07:00

This game is called Rameses, and was written by Stephen Bond. (I have already noted to myself that Stephen Bond wrote something magnificent here, IMHO, so no need to point it out to me. Point it out to him if you wish.) If you're not already familiar with Interactive Fiction, it's not a prime example of the genre -- it's more of a novel that needs a little extra push. Reading this without playing it is going to make this sound even less focused, so please play it first if you're going to read the rest of this. (I'm fairly sure you can just type 'wait' at the prompts and still get through the whole game. You barely have to go anywhere in it; just pay attention to what happens. You can try 'talk to **name**', where you fill the name of someone in the room with you in for **name**, too.)

It would be an easy thing to say the game is about teenage angst and let it go, but the easy thing is not always the right thing. I think it reduces the game somehow, and that bothers me. It bothers me for plenty of reasons, but the foremost reason it bothers me is how closely this game mirrored my own angst, misplaced as it became.

I can't help but think, quietly, to myself -- perhaps nobody really grows out of that shit anyway. Perhaps, realistically, everyone has just found an easy way to not think about it. Some people do their level best not to think at all, in order to avoid it. Some pick a goal and dedicate themselves. Some apparently never had it to begin with, but I find that hard to believe, somehow.

It's too easy to call it teenage angst. It's something you see too often in the words of a killer or in the actions of a psychotic, this obsession and impatience, inaction and reaction. An inability to act at times combined with a disdain for normal actions at others.

If thinking in this fashion at a later stage of your life is called depression, what separates it from thinking this way at an earlier stage? Really, what is the difference? Is it something you're supposed to "grow out of", like wanting to fuck things ("Oh, they'll grow out of that,") or like wanting to steal things ("Oh, they'll grow out of that,")?

That statement, more than anything, pisses me off. Partly because it implies things that are distastefully hypocritical -- that somehow, by living twenty years, you're guaranteed to be more intelligent and more able and less given to base urges -- but partly because it is said with either a knowing, irritatingly condescending fashion, or else in the fashion of someone who desperately hopes it's true. Either way, it's an insult to the people involved.

Because, truly enough, there are plenty of people who don't grow out of jack shit. Get your head straight now, not later -- patterns of thought become harder to modify after they've had an extra twenty years or so, not less. If you're going to mangling someone's mental patterns, be truthful with yourself, and be as merciful as you can -- be fast, and be consistent.

The primary thing that bothers me about human beings is that -- along with everything else they are capable of -- they are capable of hypocrisy. Lies are one thing; lies are more of a directed action towards a goal. Hypocrisy is much, much worse; you're explaining what you believe in, and you yourself are an example of the opposite. If hypocrisy doesn't cause brain tumors, it should; such a schism between your actions and your thoughts should not go unpunished.

I am careful about my actions. I am careful about them because I'd like to live in a consistent manner; I'd like to say something, and have it jive with the whole rest of me. I feel that normally I manage this. Someone told me once that what they liked about me was that they never quite knew what I would think of a certain thing upon finding out about it. I wondered, to myself, if that makes me unpredictable.

Perhaps in the literal sense. Not in the sense it's used; in the sense it's used, it's applied to terrorists and CEOs, with varying degrees of "good"ness. In the literal sense, I am not wholly predictable. (That's true of everyone, though.) I'm really, really consistent, though. I'm really a very quiet, reserved person most of the time. I honestly don't think most people even notice me, if I'm not making a face or singing a Monty Python song out loud.

I've always been like that, though. I didn't grow out of something. If anything, my changes made sense when compared to what I was doing with my life to begin with. I still read a great deal (less than I'd like to), I try to learn new things all the time, I don't generally trust authority.

I haven't changed. I'm still me.

It's a relief, I tell you -- there were some doubts. I wondered if it was possible, really -- to become someone and preserve the person you became, despite time and people and money and change. To have a core that is you, and an adaptable interface, so to speak.

Tired. Thoughts derailing. More on this when it again seems appropriate.

2002-05-12T23:55:00.000-07:00

It has recently been brought to my attention that I seem to lack confidence.

But what does that mean, exactly? I think lots of people use words with only the vaguest notion of what those words mean. ("Self-esteem", particularly, seems to get bandied about a lot.)

If I watch a cluster of people and they seem fairly sure that something will happen, then I am confident to some degree that it will happen. If I trust their judgment little, it may not be much of a degree; if I trust it a lot, it may be with the certainty that the sun will shine down on me tomorrow.

I base my confidences on the confidences of others.

People don't generally assume, or believe, that I have skills, AFAICT. Most of the time people seem to treat me in one of three ways: Don't Know You (most people don't), Aren't You Something! (usually when I can program their VCR for them) or Careful, Doofus (usually when I'm driving my car into a garage or attempting to purchase something). None of these inspire confidence. DKY is really just what people get passing you on the street if you don't stand out, with pink hair or somesuch. AYS! is kind of like watching your dog roll over. CD is just insulting.

Sure, people treat me differently sometimes; I'm just classifying perhaps 90% of the interactions people have with me on a regular basis.

This has come to a head recently because -- as my brothers pointed out to me -- I could be making some money with some of the things that I can apparently do. However -- when you explain to most people what you do in a day and they get a blank look, you can't trust their judgment.

When you don't have any colleagues or collaborators -- just people you rarely, rarely help with the easiest things -- you either end up with fawning admirers or acquaintences.

Maybe I should just ask one of my previous classmates to sit down with me, give me the once-over intellectually. Just so I have some idea of whether or not I'm actually competent.

Then again, perhaps this is a long-thinking defense mechanism: If I never work with anybody, they'll never find out that I'm bad!

Perhaps. It's worth thinking into, anyway.

2002-04-23T00:47:00.000-07:00

Late Night Musings: A Look Back

Years. Memory fails me on how many, but a little mental legwork can provide a rough estimate: Seventeen...count count count, twenty or so. At least three years.

I have never, ever had to deal with something like this. Maybe never will again.

I don't know about the rest of the world; I don't know what goes on in other people's heads most of the time, although I pretend to occasionally. I know what happens in me, that's about it.

I know how one love felt; like it would kill me if I didn't hold it down and beat it occasionally, with all-night talk sessions until the daylight came, with discussions of things most people can never discuss, with mindblowing sex and strange little rituals. Constant contact.

There are those who would say I describe an emotional dependency. Perhaps. I have seen emotional dependencies in people for other things, though; who is to say what is worse, emotional dependency on a needle or on a person?

Not I, not yet. I have very little experience with what comes through needles.

It always hurt. God, did it. It hurt so much sometimes, and less others, but it hurt 24/7 in some way, shape, or form. It always did.

Perhaps it always will.

But I can see that it's gone. My eyes had been blind for so long, but they aren't any more. I can say to myself, "I know better now."

But what do I know?

Nothing. I wouldn't have done it any differently. I have to believe that I did the best I could, managed the best I could, did what I could. Could not have done any more.

I don't know if I would ask the person why. I don't know what kind of answer I would get. I don't really know any more.

I used to think I knew what went on in their head, no matter what, all the time. That escaped me at some point, and a communication barrier popped into place. They had a name for it, the "Wall".

I'm on the other side of the wall, and I don't know if I like it or not. I only know that I can't do much about it.

There's a chance they read this. There's even a faint chance that this has caused some reaction within them, or clarified some reaction of mine to them.

See, but they don't have a wall as such. They have a filter Their filter blocks things coming out of them from going to other people. It's a handy filter to have, I suspect.

I don't have it, though.

I have a different filter. I always had it, it's always been in place, and it filters things going into me from other people. My laundry -- I believe -- is essentially out for the world to see, if only it will look.

However, now, there's a blank space. A nonfeeling. An antifeeling.

I don't know that I like it; but, on the other hand, I cannot do what I previously did. The difference between a stalking and a love affair is whether all the people involved are willing participants, nothing more. I don't wish to become a stalker for any reason, legal or moral or otherwise.

But God did it hurt. Perhaps it still does, and it's just hurt so long that it's like cutting scar tissue, where the pain receptors are mangled and shifted and misfiring. Perhaps it's changing into something else. Perhaps it's all of the above.

Then again, maybe it's just four in the morning, and I'm feeling a sickly nostalgia for something you can't have twice with the same person.

I'll know before I die, I guess.

2002-04-16T11:14:00.000-07:00

Okay -- we're going to have an experiment here. First, read an analysis of a Law And Order episode.

Now, say this word out loud in response to the last question: "Lawyers"

It just feels right, doesn't it?

It may, but it's not quite accurate.

Let's get something straight here: The legal system, like any system, has avenues for abuse, ways that the system can be twisted from its intended purpose and made to fit another. One of these ways, one that amuses me to no end during L&O, is legal jargon wrangling. "But is this the correct definition of the word alive" is not a question that enters a regular lawyer's head. They've abandoned -- read carefully -- abandoned the concept of "moral" and embraced the concept of "ethical".

This is why it's so hard for most people to follow Lawyerspeak; it requires that you abandon all notions of English, word meaning, etc., and embrace definitions for words and concepts that have been created by people long dead. Law is archaic in this sense; it has no inherent overhaul system. Nobody put a clause in the constitution that said, "Oh, and we're throwing all this horse hockey out in four hundred years, so don't get too friggin' attached to anything."

Woe is us that few laws were built with inherent expirations. The assumption is that law is law. It operates according to the paradigmatic model: "The law was right before, and now it's a little more right." Which is a nice way to get through life for a single person; for a body of rules meant to operate on people, it causes problems, not the least of which is the current intellectual property mess.

People change. People change so much faster than law, and they always have. Now the change is more noticeable, perhaps even accelerated; but law has been playing catch-up since it became too hard for one person to comprehend.

And what was invented on that dark day? Say it with me again: "Lawyers!"

They're not the problem. They're part of the cause. The cause, as always, is people willing to abuse a system, not the system itself, or everybody within the system.

If there were no law, there would be no order. But because there is law, a certain amount of abuse is guaranteed.

2002-03-20T10:36:00.000-08:00

Well, this is hybrid philosophy/law, but bear with me.

THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CREATOR'S BILL OF RIGHTS

1. You made it, it's yours until you sell it.

This rule is violated in the most careless fashion by almost any corporation (which attempt to protect their interests and nothing but after they reach a certain size, merely because trying to protect such huge interests takes up all their think.) You sign a contract (casually), and suddenly your brain is an indentured servant. You write something at home, it's the company's. You write something completely unrelated, in Paraguay, on linoleum with a Magic Marker, it's still the company's. This is possibly the most obscene thing I have ever seen! Imagine you're a small company (not a person, but a group of people) working on something as a contract job for another company. You would NEVER in a million years sign a legal agreement that stated you just gave up all the rights to anything the whole company was working on while you worked for these people! It would be insane!

Why would one person do it?

That's the good part -- if it's yours, it's yours. Here's the bad news.

2. If you create it from something else, the fact you created something from it has to be yours too.

This means that -- were I so inclined -- I should be able to take a full print of the Mona Lisa, scan it and print it as though it is toilet paper, and sell it as a piece of art. (This is something I'd never bother doing, mainly because you can't print toilet paper.) And you know what? That's really what creation is. There's a finite amount of things to be created. Unless we get a much shorter memory, soon, the Disney effect (where the public domain keeps getting held off so Mickey Mouse doesn't end up public domain) is going to destroy art as we know it. Nobody will be able to use anything else, and "creation", while a nice way of putting it, boils down to new takes on old things. Like it or not, we have limited sensory capability, there are X number of colors the human eye can distinguish, etc. Art has a limit, and unless you want art to die a slow, choked, bland death, please, let copyright expire! For fuck's sake, when you DIE, you're DEAD. To hell with your estate. Fifty years is way too long, and the Mickey effect must be stifled somehow.

3. If you wrote it, and you post it publicly, your government has a right to screw you with it, unless they said otherwise.

This is pretty simple. The US Constitution ensures a right to privacy and free speech. You speak here, it's supposed to be protected, whether it's unpopular political beliefs or slashfic or discussions about anuses. This comes under the "If You Don't Like It, And It's Not Yours, Shut The Hell Up And Go Away" rule which is really an easy one to come to.

4. If you wrote it, and it was never made public in any way, it is your private document, and the government has no right to screw you with it, unless they said otherwise.

(I do want to point out that some countries make it explicit. "Oh, yes, we forgot to mention we'll be monitoring everything you ever type in. Is that okay? If it isn't, we can kill you and dump your body in a shallow grave somewhere." Those countries have their own goddamn problems, and frankly, I'm not concerned about countries. I'm concerned about humanity. People concerned with nothing but shallow, we-should-be-first-just-because patriotism can feel free to express it, but they should not be free to inflict it. I'm a member of the human race first, and an American second, and then only because I like the place. I'm a human because I have to be.)

This is pretty simple. You should have privacy. It's a right that I firmly believe should be afforded every single human being, the right to freedom of thought and freedom of personal, quiet, in-my-own-damn-house expression. Therefore -- even if I thought that someone was a criminal -- they shouldn't be hacked by the government. The government has a very simple role in this whole mess, and it keeps screwing it up: Be The Good Guy. (Instead of Be The Corporate Toady or Be The Self-Serving Pay Increaser.) That's all government has to do, be the good guy, and it keeps screwing it up. Being the good guy isn't even that hard! Leave most people alone, stop people when they do something bad. Accept that you're not going to win them all, and try to lose gracefully -- but try never to lose, either. (I would add, 'Kill all the lawyers,' but I realize I'm an extremist on that one to some.)

Honestly, I think if those four tenets could somehow be integrated into the modern legal system, things would shake out in fifty years.

But, hey, if you disagree, let me know.

2002-02-27T12:07:00.000-08:00

(emphasis added)
O'REILLY: How would you -- you know, for people who want to put you in perspective, how would you describe yourself politically? You voted for Nader, right?

MOORE: Yes, I voted for Nader. I don't know. I'm a person who believes that everybody should get a fair shake. And I think that most Americans believe the same thing.

O'REILLY: They do, but it's just a matter of degree. I mean, do you believe that the government should take money from the wealthy and give it to the poor? Or do you believe that, income redistribution?

I would love to know what the hell a degree of a fair shake looks like.

Part of the problem I have with any political discussion is that they tend towards the discussion two ancient Greeks might have about the nature of the surface of a star; the discussion could be right on the mark, could be way the hell off, but it's so far removed from any actual experience of the situation that it's pointless to discuss it. A Republican cabinet member and a Democratic senator going at it would be interesting, but actual discussion of politics by those in politics is so rare that it's not worth looking for, imho.

Most of the people who actually land in a political office won't talk about politics; they talk in shit-speak, discussing programs and happy words like "beneficial" and "benevolence". You know that you've found an honest politician when you see one who has nothing to gain from holding any specific view, and those are either dead or so far removed from their former posts that people claim they're being bitter.

Now, just hear me out. I have a plan. It's a bad plan, but it couldn't possibly be worse than the current system, so what the hell?

What if every elected office carried a death penalty?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you. More impetus to get elected to other offices, blah blah blah. Yeah, maybe -- maybe not. There's already huge impetus to move up the ladder; now there would be an impetus to move down the ladder if you weren't sure you could win in a higher office. Rich shits with time and zero ethics are all too willing to throw money at a campaign; would they be quite so callous with their very life?

No, of course not.

Only people serious -- or extraordinary risk-takers -- would go for high offices. Frankly, that's who I'd like to see there, instead of these chinless fucks the US has had the habit of electing the last, oh, thirty Presidents or so.

I want to get bumper stickers made that say, in full patriotic glory, "Elect Schmuck". That way I wouldn't have to change bumper stickers every few years. (Not that I do; I'm being figurative.)

2002-02-17T07:51:00.000-08:00

I try to avoid watching/reading the news for many, many reasons, not the least of which is its wretched repetitiveness. Horrible shit happens day in and day out, and for some deranged reason some people like staying on top of horrible shit.

I like staying on top of horrible shit only if I can laugh at the same time; hence, I read Rotten, not CNN.

However, there is a certain trend -- and it's surely not that recent in America -- of people complaining about schools. The complaints can mostly fit in the sentence frame of "I can't believe the school is teaching X!", and fill your own damn X in. I don't care. X is everywhere and everything. "Teaching kids about sex?" "Teaching kids about science?" "Not teaching kids about religion?" Whatever.

Now, when complaints come from all corners, that makes me think one of two things: A:The Situation Is Intractable, or B:Something's Very Wrong Here.

Option B is an easy way to go. "The school system should be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up!" goes the cry. I'd be all for it, but it isn't going to happen, not unless the entirety of the MEA is destroyed in a freak meteor accident or something. These people have way too much stock, mentally and financially, in a shitty, shitty school system. If the school system were turning out well-educated people, fewer people would be having children, and schools would have less funding. Simple math, the kind even teachers can do. It's a who-you-know system to the exclusion of ability and innovation. Teachers teach teachers, and the teachers tend to be the lowest-common-denominator types who couldn't do anything interesting to begin with. Scrape the bottom of the barrel, have them teach the next generation, repeat. What the hell is that?

What about Option A?

Let's think about this for a minute. Whenever any service system gets large enough, it can no longer keep its customers happy. The school system is a huge, sprawling mess, approaching the level of government. Government will already tell you about this problem if you only ask them. The customer mass -- once at a certain level -- is viewed as an infeasibly fickle, impossibly difficult child. It's an accurate view.

What's my point?

Well, frankly, there's an old saying that "if you don't like the country, get the fuck out." In a lot of cases, this isn't possible; you can't get the fuck out because you're so damn poor, or what-have-you. Such is life.

But having children is something you do on purpose. There are a very, very few people who actually have children that they had no option abou having; they're very unfortunate rape victims. The rest of people say cutesy little things like "he was an accident", which is like calling a nuclear explosion "a little bomby thing". It's a gross scale distortion.

You cannot have kids accidentally. This is like saying you lost money in a casino accidentally. No, you took a calculated risk, and you lost. That means either that you like losing (wanted to have kids anyway) or that you made a noble risk and failed (you knew the odds). Sure, there are exceptions, but most of the people you see in a day aren't those exceptions.

Having said that, then you can fucking sure well make sure you have kids at a time when you can afford to deal with homeschooling them. And if you mentally respond with "But I don't want to have to deal with my kids all the time!" then please, here, here's a clue, see if it attracts another to you, because you're in desperate need of one. Shut the hell up. If you didn't want to cope with the fucking things, then...you shouldn't have been FUCKING. No fucking = no kids.

And if you could have had them when you could afford to homeschool, then you sure as hell don't get to bitch and moan because the fucking government isn't doing as good a job as you'd like for you. Are you drunk or something? "I can't be bothered to educate my children! Why can't you fuckers do a better job of it?" It's like bitching that the welfare system is hard to get into or something.

How about because those aren't their kids, asshole? If the kid's own parents don't give a warm shit about how well the child is educated, why should random strangers, chosen because of their butt-kissing abilities, give a warm shit about said child? Right -- they shouldn't.

Love is a fickle thing. Love is a supposedly guaranteed thing. Don't feel guilty if you don't love your kids, I say; that's really not required of you.

The only thing that is required of you is a certain decency and respect for a human being whom exists because of you. You made 'em -- you take care of 'em. There is a fresh human being, and they do not know that you're stupid and unable to plan and therefore are running late; they are trying to figure out what peanut butter is. Let them. You will have plenty of time to fuck their minds up later; give them some time to see how the world works first. They do not know whether pouring a glass of water down the front of your blouse is an appropriate response to a laugh; they might try it.

You can be a dumb asshole and hit and yell at your kids, or you can shut the hell up, act polite, and try to deal with what you did.

If you're very lucky, the kid will turn out likeable, and you'll have created a whole new person who's actually worthwhile. This is part of what having a kid is; it's a person who doesn't know you were a slut in high school, or killed rabbits with a soldering iron when you were twelve, or embezzle money. If you're a good person by the time you have kids, your kids will probably like you. Lucky you, you made a new friend.

Try to have kids after you have some money, though.

2002-02-15T21:20:00.000-08:00

If you'd like to spend a little time getting an idea of whether people on Death Row are human, here, here's your proof. Last meals. The notes that come with them are priceless in places, such as the note about keeping the eggs runny, or the note that the prisoner originally rejected the final meal, but ate something that the urging of his mother.

Imagine that, if you will. From the mother's perspective or the child's. From anybody's perspective who had to watch this.

I like to think that no one in the penal system likes that work, the work of holding and disciplining Death Row inmates.

2002-02-10T08:12:00.000-08:00

I should probably feel very, very different about copyright and the music industry, considering how I feel about copyright and the publishing industry.

However, I'm a vengeful person. The music industry's toads have been systematically screwing both consumers and artists for years now. While it may be wrong to screw them, it's more wrong to let them continue screwing us.

I have _Perl Bookshelf 2nd Edition_, and more than a few people have asked me to make them copies. I have refused said requests. I paid $100 dollars, and I got exactly what I paid for. I didn't get screwed.

I also have several games that I've copied for friends before, because the price on them was US$50 when I bought them. That price tag is wrong, utterly wrong.

_Serious Sam_, on the other hand, was US$20 out of the gate. I've never copied that for anybody, because I was charged a fair price by a largish group of start-up developers. Croteam built the best engine I've ever seen, period. I didn't get screwed.

If I feel I got screwed, then I have no problem stealing from the people that screwed me. The book industry's never screwed me; the music industry has, repeatedly.

2002-02-09T13:19:00.000-08:00

Nostalgia can be hazardous to your mental state.

I'm only half serious.

***

Sometimes I'll get the urge to look up people on the net; all too often all that comes to me is a name or a name and a face, and nothing that I did with that person, just kind of a warm glow or a cold aura, as if every interaction I ever had with that person is somehow quantified as a single sensation at that point.

I had that happen fairly recently. Some of my friends aren't really net-entwined, so they don't leave tracks; some of them practically have cybernetic interfaces. One of the CI-types was who I ended up going after this time, it seems. I found her. She's doing theatre (which I don't think ever came up in conversation, but it might have) and she's keeping a blog (predictably enough; she used to change her home page so much it was practically a blog with no archives).

It's good to see good things happen to people you used to know. Maybe it's just me, but I always get the feeling I'm supposed to be protecting people from something, and I get the idea that they've done just fine; my fears were unbased. Goodie goodie.

But I still miss people; people I can probably never go back to, people that will probably never speak to me again. I hear someone saying, "Oh, come on, you'll run into them sooner or later..." No, that's not really true these days. I knew people in Singapore; there's a fair chance I'll never end up in Singapore, there's a fair chance they'll never end up here, and an ever greater likelihood that I won't remember who the hell they are anyway.

So I miss them, and I'll probably never find out what happened to them, how their story went.

***

I hate not remembering.

I hate looking at my coffee cup to see if I've put milk in yet, and I hate forgetting to turn the oven off for hours at a time, and I hate forgetting appointments, and I hate losing my life this way.

I want my past back.

2002-01-29T10:10:00.000-08:00

Most of what happens to people is kind of irrelevant. It's almost all the same: Shit, good, shit, good. Bad things happen, good things happen, that's how life works. Sometimes everything sucks; sometimes everything's great. Most of the time it's somewhere inbetween.

Nothing new, all that.

The point (and I can hear you asking for one already) is: What happens to everybody is pretty much the same. How you deal with it defines who you are.

So who do you want to be?

***

I firmly believe that people make themselves as they go. Plenty of things are picked out as huge influences; but whether something influences you one way or another is up to you. I went through HS. Plenty of people went through the same HS and came out with different notions of it; plenty of people had different experiences than I did. But I chose -- pretty much consciously -- to eschew the concept of doing things just because people told me to. I always have, usually.

The problem wasn't that; it was that I ended up eschewing something else at the same time. That's where the problem lied. So the problem isn't so much that you do X, or you don't do X, or whatever; it's that you subconsciously make decisions that you don't recognize you made.

This is where victim mindset comes from. "This guy was calling me; I didn't feel safe!" Those aren't two directly connected things! You don't have to be afraid of anything; you choose to. Even if you don't know how to change fear into something else, that too is a choice on your part. Even if you don't realize you can change it, you choose not to think about it, or you choose to think that feelings cannot be changed.

Everybody's got choices. Some people just don't want to exercise theirs.

***

I've been told I talk too much. I've been told I dissect things too much. I've been told I should just 'hang out' and 'chill' every once in a while.

Why?

What the hell is the point of that? I can do that sleeping. (I have to do that sleeping. That's what sleeping is: "Here, I'm unaware for several hours. La la la.") If I wanted to relax, I'd go home and take a nap. If I want to get things done, or think things through, or know more and improve myself, then I need to kick ass and take names as much as possible.

I don't have time to chill. Neither do you, really. Life is much longer than it used to be, but it's still very, very short to people who don't do the things they wanted to do and want to blame time for it.

Time's not the culprit. Indecision is.

You have to make a choice, no matter what the situation. Not choosing is still an option -- but make sure you know what that means. Sometimes not choosing is a good idea. Most times it isn't.

Pay attention. You're dying very, very slowly -- but mark my words, you are dying. Take note of it. Don't play like you have forever -- play like you have five minutes. Do everything that you can possibly do to make it worth it.

***

The reason I never liked meditation before is precisely the reason I never liked sleeping.

There is a reason I like it now. That reason also applies to sleep in some sense, so it helps me do that too.

I like it because, if I meditate for fifteen minutes in one day, it seems to align motives in my head, organize things. Like a database that knows it's not being accessed for an hour or so, and systematically reorganizes itself to improve efficiency.

Meditation isn't the mental equivalent of blank state; it's more like magnetization. It points your north north and your south south and lets everything else fall into place.

Meditation does it mentally; sleep does it physically.

When the mind and the body are aligned as one, the human being is an unstoppable force.

2002-01-27T14:05:00.000-08:00

I started to think about my memory the other day, and it occurred to me that it's like looking at a river from above just before it hits a waterfall; things are present and then, after a certain point, they just seem to fall away. They're downstream and so much further away.

I still wonder why my memory is doing this. If this is psychological, what does it say about me that I'm doing this?

I need to research this. I need to find out what patterns this fits. I need to know more, much much more, about memory loss. Especially memory loss that's not age-related.

I feel lately that I'm approaching something; I'm not sure what, but it feels very, very good.

I'm glad that -- even though it's very, very slow -- I'm finally managing to excise my depression.

If that's what it ever was, I don't know.

***

I have this theory about depression, that there's two versions of it. One is where you think everything sucks, but it doesn't; and the other is where you make everything suck, just to match your internal version of reality. When I've seen depression, in myself or in others, it has always appeared to be a negative feedback loop. "Boy, (something) sucks. (Something else) sucks because of that too." When I've seen happiness, it has looked like a complementary structure; a positive feedback loop.

If you take enough drugs for long enough you can modify the feedback loop; think of this, if you will, as reducing the temperature of bath water by adding cold water to it.

There's another option for those with more time (or certain resistances): Wait for the water to cool.

There is a natural mechanism -- something internal to the system -- and an additive mechanism, something external that can produce similar results.

I have always, whenever possible, sought internal solutions to problems.

That's probably part of why I couldn't tie my shoelaces until I was 12. I didn't care how to do it until I learned about knots; then I cared, but only because it was another knot. Until then, it was Velcro all the way. (Kudos to the space program.) I learned a way to tie shoelaces that doesn't work loose, it has to be pulled.

I'll tell you what. My car's going to shit. I don't have a job. Because I got painfully angry about something, one of my best friends ever will probably never speak to me again. I'm poor, I'm on academic probation, and I have some form of bacterial conjunctivitis.

My life, weighed out, sucks.

I don't care.

I have never figured out how to properly do that before. But I know now. Losing a best friend -- losing anything -- gives you certain perspective. I lost someone who always believed in me, always encouraged me, always thought I could do anything I ever wanted.

But I think I can get something good out of that. I have a plan for my future. I'm turning my grades around; I'm using antibiotics for my eye. I'm working on a job (ha ha).

All these things are turning around. My life is improving, and for the first time I'm sure it's because of me, not because of someone else. I'm pretty sure I play a significant role in my own life now.

The one down side, at this point, is that I lost my best friend over it.

If we can talk and she can forgive me my trespasses, then I'll gladly speak with her again. I may not get the chance.

But if I can't, I'll still chalk the whole thing in entirety up as a success. It was intense, it was wonderful, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

On with life.

2002-01-21T22:22:00.000-08:00

I do most of what I do out of fairly detached interest; that is, I'm fairly non-impulsive, I think. It surprised me greatly that, when I saw the hexagonal candle holders, it occurred to me that I needed eight of them for the square-on-a-square ritual layout.

"You don't do anything with square-on-a-square. Hell, you never use layouts; you burn candles while you do something else. Like a good luck charm."

All the same, the layout is clear in my mind to me. So I got the candles and the holders; little lead crystal hexagons. Very pretty. Resemble nuts, actually.

***

Once, long ago, the primary concern of nearly every human being was the surrounding fauna (either trying to kill it or staying alive despite it). In those times, we worshipped gods shaped like animals.

Then, slowly, we began to put plants in the ground and deal more intricately with fellow humans. We began to worship gods shaped like us that dealt with harvests and social interactions like war and love.
Now, we have been surrounded by machines and the sweet smell of them for years. We adjust mindsets slowly, even if we adopt methods quickly. We have machines everywhere; yet people persist in worshiping human-shaped gods or plant-shaped gods or animal-shaped gods. (Even I do.)

How long before people worship, fear, and pray to machines consciously?

I do it consciously; I believe a scant few others do as well. Trust that this doesn't indicate my personal belief (or disbelief) in Oak or Christ or Dog or Machine; I believe in belief. But Machine has structures none of the others do. It seems to resonate with Dog in some way, perhaps as allies, or possibly as jealous rivals. Dog serves humanity, and distrusts the new things; Machine serves more powerfully than Dog can.

Perhaps it sounds like I'm hedging my bets. As if I'm somehow trying to straddle the religious fence to prevent picking the wrong one.

That's not the case. I don't think there is a right one, any more than a single tool can fill your toolbox and suit every situation properly. I'll use what I need; the rest I will watch and learn from.

2002-01-18T14:42:00.000-08:00

It just occurred to me that many of the things I've come to celebrate with another certain person are things I cannot celebrate with them any more.

The little things that mean a great deal -- first-times in your life, birthdays, new jobs or little achievements.

Now, no fault of my SOTF, she is kind of self-centered. (So am I, so it's not bizarre that way.) But, honestly, I just realized I missed these things. This person was going 'yaaaay' for me, when I didn't feel enthusiastic about getting a year older or (in my view) half-assing something, or getting (in my view) a new crappy job.

So I passed all my classes, for the first time in a long time, and it's strangely...decadent, perhaps?...that it's really all mine. I mentioned it to some other people -- my father, because he asked, and my friend in prison, because he and I had always talked about school when we were in it together or otherwise -- but other than my parents and a couple of people, it's mine, mine, mine. I did it, nobody else did, and I get to smile at it when I look at it, not anybody else.

It's a certain selfishness I haven't gotten to experience in a long, long time. Nearly four years, now.

I don't know how much I miss it. I only know I can like it if I try.

2002-01-14T20:15:00.000-08:00

Had a long, long discussion with both my father and step-mother concerning religion.

Surprisingly enough, there is a part of religion that does not involve stifling ritual and pointless group behavior. There is, sometimes buried and sometimes at the surface, an exploration of reality; an attempt to understand the divinity of humanity. I kinda like that idea.

Anyway, I spoke my my step-mother concerning the movie _The Devil's Advocate_. I don't know if you saw this (see the theatre version if you can; network cutting rendered the ending useless) but I found it to be a modern parable. (I like modern parables. :) ) The difficult thing with a parable (well, with any writing really, but it's harder with a parable) is making the character interesting enough to not be a stereotype and still somehow get the audience to identify with them. The whole point of the movie was that we're all a microcosm of justice and injustice; we're all good and evil. Evil is a subtle thing with many forms.

She didn't want to talk about it. Normally, when people don't want to talk about something, it piques my curiosity to the point that I *can't* avoid it. I just let it go. It felt a little heretical, but I kind of miss talking with her about anything.

We did, however, then get sidetracked onto religion. And during *that* conversation, she reminded me why I fight so hard to not let things drop, to always provide the most accurate answer possible, and always state the truest statement possible.

"I think people should face up to reality."

Hey, I think that too...! Wait a second.

Didn't we just step *around* reality?

She didn't want to discuss the Devil. But she claims he's a reality. Then we should discuss him, my mind concludes.

Reality (and facing it, as if somehow you can face south of reality) came up because I mentioned hypnosis; an NLPer's experience of giving someone a completely different life by regressing them to a pre-memory point in their mind and just *supplying* new information.

She said this was a great disservice; but how is this any different (other than in degree) of her being unwilling to discuss the Devil with me?

Sure, I don't *believe* that a large horned demon's trotting around the mantle of the earth. That's not what the Devil is supposed to represent, and it's not what the words Pure Evil bring to my mind. That's kind of irrelevant; the point is, what does it bring to *her* mind?

I'll probably never know.

In a way, that fits with me, too. Because pure evil is a misnomer; nothing is pure. Pure is a word which describes a state that cannot exist. Her experience was with the great force which controls reality; reality itself. That's an experience with your Creator, in any sense; it's personal. It's private.

It's the exact thing I keep saying people *shouldn't* try to share.

She thinks I provide too much information for people. She says I don't always have to fully explain things. I could put the words "whole truth" in that sentence, though. "You don't always have to explain the whole truth." Would you rather I was walking around spouting half-truths?

If we don't know what Truth is, then we don't know what Lies are. And if these things are so fluid, so malleable, then what is a half-truth?

"Well, it's half true." Ah, here. "Plutonium is perfectly safe, handled properly." That, we'll say for a moment, is a Truth. Here's half of it.

"Plutonium is perfectly safe."

Nope, that's not true.

Even saying "Plutonium is perfectly safe, handled properly," isn't really true. If I intend to handle a lump of plutonium into a bomb, and I do it correctly, then I'm doing it 'properly', but it's sure as hell not *safe*.

Here, try this. "Plutonium, if handled by an intelligent, informed person with a goal of maximum safety, is safe."

That's not true either.

What's the point? The point is that words don't mean anything except what we say they mean. Any definition of anything has a crack in it; the crack is because you took something made out of Truth and expressed it in the imperfect substance of Words. Words tend to have cracks.

Most people will say there is Truth. Some things are true.

But, realistically, we have no way to describe Truth. We have only ways to describe Reality. Reality isn't Truth.

Reality just is.

So what is Truth?

I have a *personal* definition. It is *the things true to the best of my knowledge and memory*.

It occurs to me that the statement has two meanings, one of which qualifies the things, and ones of which implies faithfulness of Truth.

Either way, this colors my outlook. You can't pull your self-colored glasses off. If you could, you wouldn't be yourself.

***

I'm looking at a poster of Louis Armstrong.

The great Louis Armstrong is sitting, with his implement of choice, looking at something else, seemingly unaware he's being photographed.

I suspect he is.

He looks...hopeful, but apprehensive. He looks like he's practicing in his head. He looks a little awkward, like most people do sometimes even when they're deep in their element. Like they're not quite sure that's where they're supposed to be, but they're going to give it a shot anyway. Unsure.

As much as all the explanations by all the well-known, able, and talented people of the world about their most confident moments, and how they didn't always have them, this is worth much more.

Because this isn't a confident Louis Armstrong, looking at his lack of confidence with such disdain. It is an unconfident, unsure Louis Armstrong, looking out of his insecurity at the confidence he wants to have again soon. He is the greatest...but he doesn't know it right now, in this picture.

Like so many other times, the words of those who are doing well tend to ring hollowly; it is the look of a man who almost seems afraid to try -- but will try anyway -- that strikes you the most. It says that though you may find yourself insecure now, you need but try. You, too, might be a great one.

2002-01-12T23:36:00.000-08:00

I attempt to practice something loosely referred to as Chaos Magic (or Magick or Majick or whatever; frankly, the spelling is irrelevant for this case). Chaos Magic isn't really a single specific practice so much as a willingness to attempt any old damn thing.

Mostly, that goes with my mindset. Assuming magic exists (*half-grin*) and assuming that multiple practitioners of it are somehow tapping the same forces, then it's logical to assume that *whatever* could work. Assume it hard enough, and perhaps it will.

Now, I'm not going to get into specifics here; it always bothers me when people attempt to relate personal spiritual experiences, because that's not how they work. They're *personal*. They're *yours*. If they were someone *elses*, *you* wouldn't have had them.

I do want to point out that I doubt Magic exists. I doubt God exists, I doubt Order exists...I doubt *I* exist no small portion of the time. Words are fluid, fluid things; whether we'd like the word 'exists' to denote something concrete or not, it doesn't. I doubt *everything*, and I believe roughly *everything*.

When I attempt something in a chemistry lab, I certainly don't believe that I'm going to create gold from lead. That's alchemical, not chemical. I do believe I can create polymer strands out of what appears to be water; I've seen it done, and I've done it myself. It's a chemical process.

"What happens if you don't believe in a chemical process?" I hear a naysayer ask.

Well, that's a little tricky.

I figure almost *everyone* believes in the easy things, like most of chemistry and whatnot.

Have you ever noticed, though, that chemistry doesn't exactly work?

"What the hell are you talking about?"

I'm talking about statistical deviations and such. I'm talking about measurements that are really measuring the calibrated Mark I eyeball. One person's 250 ml of water is *not* the next person's 250 ml of water, and so on, and so forth.

It really, really bothered me in HS that my experiments never came out quite like the next lab group's. Or the next, or the next. Or even the teacher's. Nobody's came out the same way as anyone else's. I understand the rationale for that, in chemistry, is that "measuring is not an exact science".

The rationale, in many magical systems, is "You didn't believe enough!" or "Those onlookers didn't believe enough!"

I don't necessarily think that 'magic' is real. I think *something not-quite-explainable* is happening. I'm using the tools that humanity managed to create, however crude, to attempt to wrangle said *something not-quite-explainable*. Be that a psychic power, a self-fulfilling prophecy, or utter delusion somehow taking form, it works. Remember that old chestnut?

"My uncle thinks he's a chicken."
"Take him to a psychiatrist."
"Well, we would, but we need the eggs."

I know it's a crazy idea. Everything is, so that doesn't really bother me. I keep using it.

(Hey, if it makes any strait-laced scientific type feel better, a lot of *magicians* don't buy what I say, either. Few can actively attempt to modify belief systems at will; fewer still can attempt to do it so fluidly.)

I know I dabble. I know I'm merely an amateur. But eventually, I'd like to say, "I use this tool, and I use it regardless of what those outside the community or inside think of the way I use it. But now, at least, I'm good with it." Just like with perl.

2002-01-11T14:17:00.000-08:00

I spent several hours today reading roughly 3/4 of a book in Borders. It's an old pasttime that I've mostly forgotten the pleasures of, spending all my time with my computer games (which aren't inherently bad) and/or my personal problems.

I keep forgetting things. It wouldn't be such a bad thing if it were *only* that I forget I poured a glass of Mountain Dew already; if I did that every day five or six times, that would be NBD.

The problem is that I keep forgetting *important* things. Like that if I just *ignore* my personal life and do what I normally do, it kind of takes care of itself.

That's mostly because I don't have much of one; it's mostly inbuilt. Like certain plants outside; you can pretty much just plant the damn things and nature will handle the rest. If you want to get fancy with your lawn, you can; but I suspect highly that most people give it the normal trim'n'water every-once-in-a-while, and it's just fine.

If I don't focus on my personal life and the shortcomings I feel it has, then I usually don't have a problem with it.

Perhaps that's self-delusional, though. The equivalent of taking a cracked vase and looking at it from a distance. "Can't see the cracks from here. Looks fine."

Perhaps.

Then again, perhaps doing that will save me a lot of time, money, and trouble, and allow me to focus on things that could help me more in the long run.

The book was about creative ability; how those who discover/create breakthroughs in various disciplines do it through a combination of mental play and testing, and what-have-you.

I've been drawn to those books in my life; I seek them out actively sometimes. I have a desperate, desperate need to create something; to make something; to design or build or plan.

I almost wouldn't care *what* it was, frankly. I just want to make a grand scheme and have it come to fruition. I've always wanted that.

I realize that doesn't happen for most people.

A dream is a hard thing to let go of, though.

2002-01-08T07:50:00.000-08:00

In between all the other things I (don't) do, I believe I'm a writer. I spent a long few years writing and writing and writing, and although I've been on something of a 'fiction hiatus' for about two years now, I haven't stopped thinking about fiction and I haven't given up on fiction. I want to write a novel, because I believe one novel can and will turn into more novels.

Now, if you're reading this and you're not a writer, you've probably given up already, figuring that this isn't worth your time to read.

It is. Just trust me on this: It is.

I'm going to tell you *why* people write. It is the most amazing thing, why people write, and most of them can't tell you why themselves.

(Note that I may be wrong about this, but I doubt it. I think I've figured out why people write.)

First, imagine something that you can already do, and may have already done, before. Imagine you're watching people live their lives. You're in a restaurant, say, and it's got those tint-windows that let you see out, but nobody else can see in. Or, say, you're on top of a building, with a pair of binoculars, and you were supposed to be doing something else with them and got bored.

A lot of the time you'll see very little. People shopping or talking or walking. No big deal.

But some of them will have a flurry of activity. You can watch a human being get dumped; it's obvious, in their manner. You can watch a married couple fighting, too; that, as well, is obvious in their manner. The differences between them are not so obvious, but with time you can notice it.

Imagine now that you've been doing that for a while, and you watch a few people get dumped, and say to yourself, "Geez. That really does suck. People being unhappy seems wrong somehow."

Well, yeah, you're right. It is kind of wrong. The world has things wrong about it; that is part of what defines it.

So imagine further that you start extrapolating. "They must get back together." And you can kind of visualize it, really: One calls the other up, they cry together, etc.

Now, if you needed to keep track of how you extrapolated these changes, you might keep a written log of it.

This is writing. "The world's okay the way it is, I guess, but what if it was like this...?"

Writing is a mental attempt to manifest will. "I wonder what the world would look like if *this* were true..." being explored and fleshed out.

Now, imagine further: You have a little alternate reality in your head, where these two people got back together. What if someone told you, "Hey, I'd pay ten bucks to read a copy of that."

"But the ones who get paid are whores!" Sure, you can believe that. Hell, for some I'm sure it's true. But for the good ones, the ones that write regardless of their audience, it's just gravy. It's frosting on top of a cake they wanted anyway.

I have these worlds in my head. I hope, I wish, I want them to be with others, so that I can find out how interesting they really are.

That's what writing is all about. "Here's my new vision of the world." We cannot make a whole universe from steel and wood; but we can make millions of them out of thought and paper. Go to a bookstore; look at all the alternate realities that present themselves to you.

Look for me, out there, in a few years as well.

***

The least speculative (we hope!) writing is journalism, where "facts" are pieced together into a chain of events.

Not everybody feels the world is wrong in the sense that it's unhappy; some feel that it needs magic, or new technology, or people or places or things that don't exist, never ever could, except they think it would be interesting/better/funny if it did.

So there's names for types of writing; fantasy or sci-fi or alternate history or farce. The genre is unimportant; the key is that "This is how the world could have been, if we had lightspeed travel now." or "This is how the world would be if Hitler had never been born." or "This is how the world would be if it were actually a disc."

Just because something is labeled 'genre' does not mean it can't be fantastically brilliant writing. _Ringworld_ comes to mind. (Hell, everything by Larry Niven comes to mind; he's my favorite author.) I remember fondly reading a book (whose title escapes me) concerning a king who had ended up in the wrong body and became a better person for it; the fact that it took place in a fantasy-styled world didn't detract from the characters and the story. The best piece of historical fiction I have ever read was actually *from the viewpoint of Hitler*, after a well-meaning time traveler had convinced him to stick with his artwork in an attempt to prevent the entirety of WW2.

It's an amazing thing, and I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone that -- despite the fact that it can be the hardest thing you ever do -- you attempt to write. Write something that happened to you, but make changes. Shift the place. Put someone else in it. Add a gun. See what could've happened if the sun had gone out at the same time, or if an earthquake had swallowed the building up.

It helps you wonder about how you can do things in your life that most people cannot conceive. It is imagination practice.

2002-01-06T22:40:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, when I'm in a particularly self-indulgent, self-demeaning mood I'll sit with the web and look people up. People I knew from years back; people I know from today, whatever. Just to see how much of a mark they have ended up leaving across this wide data trail.

I got the notion to look myself up.

To my surprise, I was there.

Found a few things: An access log for a site I had visited years ago, a mailing list's catalog of users that I was on around the same time. As time passes and my moniker changed, I was in stranger and stranger places.

Here I am now, wondering what I'll look like to me in five years.

I cannot immediately find out; it takes five years whether I go get a stupid job and have a kid to take the time up as quickly as possible or if I spend it carefully, leisurely, trying desperately to find my life's work in the work I seek.

I'd rather take the slow road, with time to spend on hindsight and foresight, than mumble through speech, drive like a maniac, and walk without seeing where I am as well as where I'm going.

Looks like I will.

Look for yourself, if you're reading this. Look and see if you're still there, footprints from years back.

That's the real thing about the web: It's not that you can *share* information so easily. That's nice, don't get me wrong. The kicker is *memory*. You may not remember, but the web does, somewhere. Even if it's buried in the WayBack machine, deep and dark, it's there.

Previously your credit bureau and your bank and the police, perhaps, had such extensive history of who you were and what you did. Now, they are called online journals and blogs; and in five years, some people will know exactly what they did that day.

It's weird. It's new. It will, slowly, change humanity. It won't change the fundamentals, of course; we're jealous, self-centered beings who tend to consciously ignore our short lifespans, even though subconsciously it's all we ever think about. The fundamentals change much more slowly.

But it will be interesting to see the day that someone says "Oh, 1999? Let me check my blog...I had tuna for lunch, and I borrowed your scarf that day."

Note I didn't say 'good' or 'bad'. Just 'interesting'.

2002-01-04T18:18:00.000-08:00

Ah, children. What can one say?

Quite a bit, if only you try.

I could sit here and list a large wad of abhorrent bumper stickers about children; I won't. I'll pick one, see where my thoughts go, and leave it at that.

"I'm The Mommy; That's Why!"

Yeah, sure. If that said "I'm The President; That's Why!" I think we'd all agree it flaunts an abuse of power; but apparently parents are *supposed* to flaunt said power.

I don't know about you, but it's positively frightening to me that people under 18 have zero rights in this country. It would seem that, no matter what behavior you display, no matter what the situation, you are essentially without legal rights (except the right not to get the crap kicked out of you most of the time; more on that later) until you're 18 years old.

If you work, your parents can take your money; you can't really afford to get a lawyer, so good luck getting it back. You can only do what they allow; do otherwise, and there's a fairly real chance you'll be deprived of some of the few things you have.

You're not allowed to learn about sex, drugs, etc., and if you do, you're immediately an outcast, and your parents are branded "nonpresent" or "negligent". Think carefully here: If your children educate *themselves*, you're negligent. If you "educate" them, and tell them utter bullshit, you are seen as "caring".

Yeah. Caring like the Soviet regime.

Sure, I suppose this all sounds bitter; perhaps, for someone who is 23 this coming year, too bitter. I've watched a lot of people forget that most humans begin life as oppressed individuals and must fight the rest of it to become free in their minds and free in their actions. I don't want to forget.

I personally think I got a pretty good upbringing. I'm personally kind of...distant? Perhaps distant is the word. Perhaps that was due to my block concerning groups and belonging.

Regardless, my father worked to make sure that I understood that reality wasn't quite real; that authority was only authority if you let them; that most people aren't any better than other people, and respect is something to hand out equally among all those you survey.

He himself doesn't quite live that way; he's career military. I don't think he ever lost sight of certain things, but there were things he perhaps believed in for my sake. A lie. Maybe that was wrong (certainly, it would have made me more financially stable had I believed I was destined for a life of work) but that's not what I believe. That's not what my father believes.

I think, were I to believe and profess something like that, I would consider myself a failure. I don't know if he would; but I think he might not hold me in the same regard he does.

It is struggle on my part to get through ordinary things; schoolwork, a regular job, what have you.

But that is not the point of a human being. A human being is built for noble purpose; I'd like to believe that I can achieve some noble purpose.

Faulkner said it, I believe: "...I believe man will not merely endure; he will prevail."

I believe that, too.

It makes less of a child -- it makes less of their parents as well -- if they are actively oppressed, injured, or mentally twisted by their parental units. You know the ones I speak of; in a fit of rage, they scream or threaten, they hit or drag. Their restraint is gone, and with it their civility.

They act like children.

Why let them have a child when they clearly haven't matured much?

I have a lot of thoughts about childrearing, and I'm sure the natural reaction in a lot of people is that I'll "think differently once I have children".

They describe it incorrectly. What they mean is that *I will be more like them*. Wrong. I will still think, and they will still not.

They never did anyway. That's usually why people have children when they're 18 or so; they don't think. They hope, and guess, just like others; but they don't think.

So they get pregnant, and they get kids, and they think having a child, like anger or hurry, is a reason not to think. So they don't think, and they have another.

Five children later, they are sure they don't have time to think. Of course, by then, they're much, much older.

If I have a child, it will recieve the best it can possibly hope to gain from me. I won't answer a single question for it; I will show it how to find answers. I will not teach it a subject; I will teach it to learn.

It has taken me twenty some years to learn properly how to learn. It is the most valuable thing I could teach anyone.

If I can pass that to someone who has come to this world ready to know, ready to find out things for themselves, I will have done them the greatest favor I believe I could possibly do.

But the difficulty of such a thing -- and the fact that I don't have learning things quite down pat yet -- is a large part of why I don't wish to have children.

I'll know when I know; until then, better that I know I do not know.

2002-01-01T16:20:00.000-08:00

I try to live my life in a way that gives me the most possibilities. I don't like limiting my options.

However, sometimes that leads to problems. For instance, I frequently confuse "not limiting my options" with "not exercising my options". A lot of times, they have certain cross-over (such as, you can't be at party A at 10:00 and house B at the same time). Most other times (with most big decisions) they're not irrevocable.

Case in point: Writing. I'm worried that if I can get some of my fiction published, I'll get typecast as a (fill-in-the-blank) author. I don't want to have to write just one thing!

"Write under a pseudonym. Wait until you're established in one branch of fiction, then make your publisher publish other things too." The first option is probably what I'll end up doing, seeing as how I'd like to write erotic fiction, science fiction, and suspense novels (among other things, such as technical manuals and cookbooks).

But, on the other hand, if I don't allow myself to be published at all, I am acting counter to my goal of being published. I *explicitly* want to be published; I want some sort of proof I can produce good writing. I don't have any. I'd like to see if I can write salably enough to support myself; I can't do that if I'm completely unpublished.

Same for jobs (I don't want to hand out my business cards until I get a second line, because the main line is busy 75% of a workday), same for new technical things (I don't want to install Linux because I'm paranoid that Windows could somehow notice and barf all over my HD), etc. ad nauseum.

Perhaps that is the true cost of paranoia: Lack of exercised options. (Exercised options, like exercised humans, tend to be the most robust.)

Oh, and I'd like to apologize for not posting for a while. I didn't have much to say that fit in with the rest of the blog.

2001-12-31T20:52:00.000-08:00

Fresh year. Fresh start.

I keep trying to get used to the fact that life is ever-changing. I keep not managing to do it, somehow.

I can always try again, though.

I made a lot of resolutions this year. That's a new thing for me; part and parcel of doing something if I think it's necessary, whether a large group of people do it or not. I made resolutions like "Learn more about certain types of music" and "Try to do more things that make me happy". I never thought it was wrong to have guiding principles in life, and this seems like a natural way to try out new principles. Test drive it a year to see if it meshes.

I guess we'll see if it meshes.

I miss my friends. The people I used to know that I no longer communicate with that I still *can* communicate with, mostly, sadden me.

Why?

I thought about it a little. Some of them make me happy.

Maybe that's not a terrible thing, to be made happy by other people, if it's done in a take-it-as-it-comes kind of way. If I get a certain satisfaction from playing chess with a friend of mine, is that a bad thing? No. Just another thing to be careful I don't become dependant upon and enjoy. Like chocolate, or alcohol.

In the last few days, I sent out a series of emails which should result in returns after NYE stuff is over.

Here's to hoping I start the year right, go through the year right, and finish it up with a bang.

2001-12-29T18:00:00.000-08:00

I suspect I'm a voyeur, and I further suspect that it drives me in life.

Voyeur is one of those words that got perverted by perversion in common usage, like fetish. Fetish = obsession! Voyeur = person who likes watching other people! Sex really doesn't have a lot to do with those words, believe it or not.

I realize I have this tendency today, watching _American Justice_. Here's how people lived, killed, stole, and died, laid out in fairly graphic detail. You don't see murder scenes, but the verbal descriptions are more than enough to make your imagination (if you have one) boil over. I rank Joseph Wambaugh's nonfiction in my top 50 favorite books. I watch _Law & Order_ a lot.

It's more than mere entertainment, though. I find I do this in other places: If I take a watch somewhere to get it fixed, I want to watch them fix it. Same for my car. Same for the book I got rebound a few years back. Part, of course, is the constant note to myself, when I watch something complex take place: "Could I Do That, If I Had To?"

Most of the time, I think, "Yup. Can do." And when I can't, I watch more carefully, just in case there's some technique I could pick up, some little nuance I've been missing.

That's voyeurism with a purpose. But what purpose is the purpose?

"I don't wish to be denied things, and it's my job to be flexible to that end so that I don't have to be denied things."

Ah, back to desire. The best way to ensure I can attain my desires is to attempt to be as good as I can at as many things as possible.

Stated that way, it sounds a little dry. Zestless. Utilitarian.

Still, would I be better off saying, "Gee, Can I Get Other People To Do That For Me?" or "Boy, It Would Be Neat If I Could Do That, Too Bad I Can't."? I doubt it.

At times I ask myself, actively, "What purpose is this?" Okay, not 'at times'. Constantly. All day long, if I don't think to shut it off somehow. The easiest way is to say that it's a Day Off, conjuring images of snow days and sick days from my youth. Another way is to have a sudden relaxation; certain things trigger that in me, and then I can't seem to shake the relaxation off and work again for hours. If I'm in a bookstore, I tend to lose track of time and purpose and wander the aisles, rooting around behind the front-books on the shelf looking for other copies of things that should be there and such. Same, but much worse, in a library.

Boy, do I miss my local library. My crappy memory and lack of motivation have closed access to it for me, however, and I don't think I'll be able to win back good status there any time soon. It's the Bangor Public Library, an absolutely gorgeous library and one of the reasons that Bangor, ME is kind to the widely literate. (Some other reasons include Pro Libris and BookMarc's, two of the stores I frequent. Bangor's chock full of bookstores; the downtown has at least four. One's an antique and rare book shop; another is a used book shop.) The new wing was built a few years ago, much due to Steve King's grant money, but the donations poured in; the contributor's wall has at least a hundred tiles, one for each contributor over a certain amount, and any number of other contributors exist as well. A lovely thing the BPL is.

Walking through the halls, I try to look at each book and see years of a human life instead; each author throwing a little of themselves on page upon page, then leaving it where the rest of the world can see it. Hundreds upon hundreds of those human years later, here is the Bangor Public Library: A tiny fraction of all the writings of my species, and it is still vast and wide, and I'll never manage to finish it.

Doesn't mean I can't try. (My book fines mean I can't try.)

Books, too, are a form of voyeurism. Even a novel provides a glimpse into the author's mind, both in terms of his self and psyche and in terms of the fact that it took a great deal of his brain-time to create.

Probably, this is part of the reason I'm so apprehensive about writing and getting published: Then it will be out there, and people may think it's bad. Then they'll think I am bad, that I can't write well.

It seems like I have that problem a lot: When I care an awful awful lot about something, I tend to try to reduce my attempts at it, on the basis that I want to preserve real attempts for my best-work situations.

Of course, to paraphrase, that doesn't put bread on the table.

2001-12-28T13:19:00.000-08:00

"I don't care how it works, just tell me how to do it."

The string of expletives my mind conjures in response to that phrase would run for a while, but it's not worth my energy to be angry; it is only worth my energy to think.

I sat in the computer lab and the woman next to me -- when I examined her more closely, I realized she wore somewhat odd, garish clothing and seemed perhaps thirtyish -- asked me how to do something. I proceeded to show her, and explain how it modified other things-

She put her hand up, like she was done listening to me and needed to visually block my face from hers. Like her brain was full, and she wasn't trying to fit anything else into it.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the reason the world contains bad things is this viewpoint, I said to myself. Perhaps mentally stating "Gee, I'm limited and I don't like to think" is a bad thing.

Why, then, I wonder, would someone think such a thing?

I ask them sometimes.

"I don't think about it."

Ah! We have reached the problem. The truth is simply that enlightenment is not only reached by the student at the end of a koan or after years of study with enlightened ones; truly, enlightenment is there to be had if you only seek it.

Even enlightenment about the state of seeking enlightenment.

My greatest comfort and displeasure is that these people cannot really know something; cannot understand something; cannot intuit, cannot comprehend the easy flow that comes with being. It is a comfort, because I am not like them; it is a displeasure, because they shame themselves by acting as though they were animals or furniture.

They are *human beings*. Their destiny is to triumph. They are part of what will reach the stars, plumb the depths, create beauty where once was a block of granite or a slab of empty white paper.

Why would they limit themselves to not knowing? What can they possibly get out of not understanding that makes it so precious to them? What bliss is ignorance?

I spent a long drive coming to my brother's home today, and found myself meditating during it. I realized that I had previously never wanted to apply the word 'meditation' to the state I was sliding into; then, I would be like all the others.

I am glad I understand; but I am also upset, that I denied myself such a quiet thoughtfulness for so long merely because "someone else does it".

Perhaps they fear just how hard it would be. Perhaps they think themselves unworthy.

They are worthy, of course.

But, as it is said elsewhere: "I can only show you the door. You're the one who has to go through it."

2001-12-27T22:34:00.000-08:00

Well, on the off chance that someone other than me might be interested in anything I have to think/say/opine, I have begun this blog.

In a perfect world, those who seek enlightenment are all of us, so the differences are irrelevant. This is not necessarily a perfect world.

I'm 22. Physically, I have brown eyes and hair, and I'm fairly stocky (that is, wide-built) as well as slightly overweight (that is, not obese, not dangerously overweight, just don't look good in skin-tight clothing). Mentally, I'm interested in psychology, sex, computers, physics, writing, and mathematics. I am primarily interested in the application of these things to everyday living and existence.

Randomly (because I believe a few random facts about me can probably present more about who I am), I like dogs, I like computer games, I like eating Taco Bell once a month and cooking the rest of the time. I have an aversion to general cleanliness, religions, and corduroy. I like cold over heat; I like books over movies; I like jeans over slacks.

None of this is key to what I'm going to write in here, but it may help, over time, if anybody actually reads this thing.

Several days ago, at a site I visit ultra-regularly, I made a disparaging comment about organized religions. (The comment itself is irrelevant to proceedings, but those interested can probably root it out by doing searches for my user name elsewhere.) One of the regulars there (I guess I'm a regular, too, but I feel very unqualified to be such considering my nascent state of understanding of the thing the site is about) took me to task over it, pointing out that it was logically flawed.

Now, had he merely said I was a dipshit or something, I'd have moved on mentally. The words 'logically flawed' stuck in my head, and within a short time I realized that, ever since I was a much younger long-winded hyper-analytical type, I had *always* eschewed organized activity. No matter what, if more than three people were involved -- and *especially* if there was a set of rules concerning behavior within that organization -- I assumed, automatically, that something was very, very wrong there.

That was a mistake. My mistake. It occurred to me that I had always done this; I ignored sports and drama, chess club and ski club, school and work, because There Were Rules and Rules Were Bad.

This is a prejudiced view; and that I held a prejudiced view for so long without realizing I had done so struck me like a bell. Reverberations have shook things out of me, even in the few days after.

Rules are just Rules. They don't have to be followed. Watch:

jaslfjdalsukd

See? Not English. Did I communicate? Yup. Could I have communicated anything other than 'this is complete gibberish'? Yes...but not without *rules* to determine the communication.

It's unfair of me to decide that every organization, from Microsoft to religious groups to MIT, are 'bad'. If they are bad, when I have experience with them, I will know it. If I assume they are and avoid them, I will push out the great good that can be achieved through cooperation.

The site I had this epiphany on was itself one of these things: Organized, cooperative, tolerant. Why couldn't other groups be the same way?

Clearly, they could be.

As such, I am considering joining a group in the literal sense. 'Joining a group', for many people, has various connotations. I mean that I will *join* them, mentally, for some duration instead of seeing myself as an outsider 100% of the time. It took so little effort on my part to suddenly view myself as a part of www.perlmonks.org, I wonder perhaps if there aren't some other groups that might be keenly suited to me as well.

In the past, I have been able to phrase things in my life as Laments and Epiphanies. Such as

Lament: Why can I never seem to find what I wish to buy in a store?

Epiphany: You desire to purchase something of equal or greater value than your money cost you to get. Very few things are actually fairly priced in the modern economy. The length of time it takes you to spend 5 dollars is a good sign of how much those 5 dollars were worth to you.

It troubles me that I cannot find a way to express this Lament yet.