Admission of a Obsessive Compulsive Perfectionist

I try to control the mundane details of life in order to create a facade which can mask the infinite chaos that is my life. I long to bring order and perfection to myself when all I am is laziness and inadequecy. Instead of dealing with the root of the problems in my life I busy myself putting everything into straight rows, placing everything just so, hoping to avoid cracks with my toes, making sure that all the doors are closed. I dot my i's and cross my t's, periods at the .beginning and end.

New Years resolution- bring order to something meaningful and allow the rest to go to shit...right after I uniformly scrape all the enamyle off of my teeth...

No Escape

I realised last night that my answer, given in response to a question posed by a friend of mine, was false. I was asked what my fears are. I answered quickly that I fear being "unknown" more than anything else. This is a lie; a complicated lie granted, but a lie nonetheless. Where in one sense I do fear the fragmentation, isolation and solitude of the existence I see around me, I also dear the opposite of this. I fear being known. I construct arguments and theories which support my flight away from "the other". I latch onto the extreme of knowablity and claim triumphantly that because I cannot be known fully by a single person that it is futile to try to interact with and know "the others" who surround me. What does this extreme look like in more detail I wonder.

I am thoroughly convinced that human beings are not finite beings. This point ultimately brings me back to a point where one can be known, but I will return to it at the end of this piece. I shall begin my argument from the opposite of what I deem to be true. All human beings are finite. This should necessarily narrow the scope of aspects that a human can possess, making them effectively knowable. Yet, let us look at the different ways in which a person must be known in order to be known fully. This shall prove to be an infinite list, contrary to my starting point.

1. People can be known emotionally.
2. People can be known physically or carnally.
3. People can be known intellectually.

A scientist would look at these categories and collect data from numerous sources to create a centralized and agreed apon individual. They would ignore outliers from the data and create a very convenient and simple, albiet quantitatively vast, picture of an individual. This way of investigating an individual is inherently misguided and flawed. There are underlying complxities to these categories which force open the picture of the individual to an infinite spectrum.

The first is the difficulty of the perspective of the observer or interacter. Every person interacts in these three ways differently. For example, John Doe's wife and son know him in very different carnal ways. The notable difference is that his wife knows him sexually, but the son is a part of John's flesh and has a different physical relationship with him. Even John Doe's office affair partner knows him differently than does his wife because the physical sensations are different. The relationship is different. This is an example of the perspective difficulty in the physical sense, but also applies to the other two categories as well.

The second difficulty is the different tones and tinctures within even one observer. Emotions are not all the same. There are different intensities, durations and initiations of emotions which make an emotional experience different every single time. It is not the same thing to get angry at a dog for pissing on the carpet as it is to get angry at a person who has just shot your wife. Even the emotional response to the same person changes due to different circumstances.

I have some other thoughts of the differences. They involve remembering/history, reputation, the interaction between the three ways of knowing someone and irrationality. I do not have time to elaborate on them now, but I may get to it. I feel confident that the difficulties hitherto described are enough to support my claim that human beings are not as finite as they seem. All of the different ways of knowing a person makes it impossible to finitely nail down a definition. Perhaps to be known is to be known in relation to everything else in existence. Buddhists call this dependant origination. In sum, that everything arises in relation to other things and do not exist on their own, but in connection to one another. That is not to say that the self does not exist, but the falsely imagined lone sense of self does not exist. This brings me back to my musing on knowability.

Do I fear being known or unknown? Take for granted that we cannot be fully known by a single being. Yet, we can be known by the infinite fully. Perhaps this is what God is. I do fear being unknown, I fear oblivion, an existence without God, an existence without the connection. I also fear being known on a more primal level. I do not want people to know me deep down, because I, like everyone, have deep dark spots. I do not want those places to be found by people. But, can I escape the infinite, can I escape God. NO! To be known is to be fully exposed, something my mortality will not allow me to do.

I have to stop for length, sleep and sanity. I leave the question as open as it was when I began writing tonight, and I pose it to you my reader. What are your fears? My fears are simultateously to be unknown and known, a frightening paradox which threatens to tear me apart, from which there is no escape...

Epitaph For a Friend

A man is a mosaic of all the different relationships that he has had in his life. Throughout life he makes inumerable utterances of who he is to all the people whom he comes into contact with. The mosaic of all these utterances is who that man is.

When a man dies all those people, carrying with them their piece of the mosaic, come together to sort out who that man was.

Is it possible for a Eulogy to do a man justice? Even if the speaker takes into account some surface differences of that man's relationships with different people, brother, son, friend, teacher etc, it is impossible, for no one person can understand let alone explain who that man was.

Can their be a person in a man's life who holds the guidelines to put all those pieces together?

I don't think so, and that is the loss, not only the physical death, but the fragmentation of the mosaic. The fragmenation of the person's memories, impressions, relationships, dialogue---self.

Those left behind are left with only the piece that they had. Some have small pieces, others large. All incomplete, broken, hurt.

It is the wish of all men to be known fully. This cannot happen in life, and it does not happen upon death, perhaps it can happen beyond death. Perhaps man has 100 senses and upon death we are awakened to the 95 senses that have lain dormant since childhood, only retained in the heart of the poet and the comedian. This is why the idea of heaven has been man's desire for countless aeons. We long for a place where we can know and be known perfectly.

We want someone who can read a dramatic epilogue in a sad film while the music reaches its climax and the shot slowly fades up into the clouds, until everything becomes light. This cannot be.

It's been 4 months, and I'll always remember the piece of Garreth that I knew while he was alive. To my most joyful friend who always smiled, especially when life was kicking him around...

hmmmm.....

And today I wonder as to what this has become
whence we shallowly sit, awaiting to succumb
- to incolence and lack of minds -
wandering wearily in a dreary time.

I bring a plea to end all this,
for there is more to life than infatuated bliss.
To return and ponder the greater expanse;
that dim and dreadful may no more hold stance.

Clothed in Skin

I am going to say something which very few people will believe. Ready? Wait for it...
My consciousness once spontaneously drifted out of my physical body and I lost all conception that, whatever I may be, I was not my body, but was something much more connected with the rest of reality, something more ephemeral, but at the same time much more than the tiny physical body which I so often mistake for myself.

I told you that you wouldn't believe it.

I tell this story because I have recently come up against some rather frightening medical problems involving my heart. It probably isn't anything, but nevertheless I have been gripped by fear for my mortal body. To quote South Park, "You know, I learned something today". Well actually I have known it for a long time and am reminded of it every time my physical body is in pain. I am afraid of death.

I don't think that I am alone in my fear of mortality, but I feel like a hypocrite in my fear. I must return to the inebriated blog which I deleted referred to in my last post. In describing my decietfulness I also discussed, albeit drunkenly, the fact that my blog name is thephilosopherone. I ranted drunkenly that I am a charlatan and that I do not deserve this title. I don't think that anyone really does. I have considered changing it, but that would just confuse me. I have developed this persona on the web and to change the name would be disasterous. I would like to clear up the misconceptions surrounding that name. I do not profess to have any answers. I do not profess to be intelligent. I read a lot, who gives a flying fuck! I think a lot, who doesn't! I am not trying to bring enlightenment to people, I do not possess esoteric knowledge. I strive to be free, to be free from knowledge, belief, faith...I strive to be free from mortality? So, I am a hypocrite. For all my talk, all my ideas about a loss of self, the fact that " I do not know" WHO I am, is all bullocks. When it comes down to it, I feel a strange attachment to this flesh suit which I think of as myself.

Am I merely like a new arrival to a nudist colony who is reluctant to remove his boxers? Is my attachment to my physical body something that will leave as I grow older? as it wastes away to nothing? Can I truly escape my dependance on my body in this life. The goal of the ascetic is to do just this, but prophets from Buddha to Jesus to Mohammed(don't worry no pictures) denied these practices. They stressed the importance of the physical body. I think that this is where gnosticism (the belief that the physical world is nothing but illusion) falls apart. Our physical bodies are important to our spiritual quests. To deny the body food and water entirely would make it impossible to search for some sort of enlightenment.

I have never fully understood the motivation of a martyr. I have heard many North American preachers exhorting people to praise martyrdom, but it never sat well with me. Perhaps there is something wrong with martyrdom? Could there not be as much value in uttering a few heretical words, but continuing to LIVE? Is not LIFE better than death? I am not denying that martyrdom is a noble thing, something to hold aloft as venerable, but I am just wondering why I would not be able to do it. I would not be able to choose death over life. I WANT TO LIVE! I have something to do, something to say, something to experience. I haven't finished with life. Jesus didn't die until he said that "it is finished". Jesus knew his thing to do (not that we have the faintest clue what that was), but I don't know what I have to finish. How can I ever die if I never find out what it is I am supposed to do, or be?

Perhaps I should focus on just that, on being, rather than doing, I have said this many times before, as has the Introspective Irishman, but when I try to focus on being I end up torturing myself mentally and spiritually and with this recent heart issue, physically as well. My vain struggle to find an elevated state of being leaves my physical body in ruin, which begs the question, should I just give up on seeking? Should I live a contented animal life? sleep and feed, sleep and feed. I can't do that without a lobotomy, so I can't and I must face physical ruin. Maybe then I will be able to shift off these clothes of skin and really start LIVING, finally begin BEING. To be a real living being instead of a shiftless anxiety ridden animal. For now I am caught in a cycle of compulsion to seek something beyond myself with the ironic result which makes me physically unable to seek anything but sleep and food.

I have probably been being all the time. I just want to be concious of that being which only seems to happen beyond my grasp. Oh well.

I still haven't ever seen the dusk...

Paradoxos: My Hermeneutic of Self

I composed a post a few nights ago in a smashed stupor . Naturally I deleted it first thing the next morning. I hope that no one read it, it was mainly based around the music I was listening to at the time which happened to be Blind Melon, that pretty little grunge band that made it big because the lead singer died of a drug overdose.

The central idea in the post was more concerned with me...as all my writing is. I rambled about my deceitfulness.
I am a liar!
Disingenuis!
False!
Nothing that I do, say or am is true.
All the words that I use to convey my sense of self to another person are elaborately concocted lies. How do I know this?
For one, I do it consciously, I am a deliberate liar.
Also, I have no sense of self, how could I convey an image of myself to people without actually knowing what that self is?
If I convey a personality, a concrete self to other people, it must necessarily mean that I am lying. But then again...
Am I being dogmatic? Just because I do not know myself for certain does not mean that my falsely imagined interpretations of myself are outright lies. They are simply interpretations. Again I find myself back on this topic of interpretation. What did I conclude last time? I concluded that interpretation is a dialogue, a discourse, a discussion or a relationship between two beings. We gain knowledge of ourself and "the other" through the dialogue.
The sense of self is found inbetween the two beings.
The space between the two is where everything is found.
Our falsely imagined senses of self are lies, but by interacting with others we find ourself.

I have a rather split personality. One dogmatic, the other sees only grey. Sometimes a third inbetween sees both at the same time. Another sees nothing at all. What does this have to do with what I just concluded about the relationships between people? Perhaps I can find a sense of self within myself. My different and contradictory selves are in fact in dialogue with one another. My writing, my speaking, my eating, breathing and walking are enactments of the dialogue within myself. Perhaps people with a dissosiative disorder/multiple personality disorder (commonly and incorrectly called scitzophrenics) are merely those with very distilled versions of themselves. We all have them, they are just not manifested as clearly as mentally distressed people. That is the root of mental illness anyways, extreme versions of normal behavior.

I within myself am a dialogue of opposites and compliments...I am a contradiction...I must interpret the dialogue between these parts to find a self...not a centralized sense of self, but a self created from dependant relationships between different compartments...this is the hermeneutic of self...I am a paradox...

Tear in the Curtain

give me extremes, give me excess,
to hell with temprance, sobriety and success.

fuck contentment, peace and rationality,
cleanliness, order, health and
feelgood sentimentality.

prudence, planning, straight roads, business ties, cubicles...
roooooowwsss of urinals!

why these platitudes, these reasons,
this purpose business.

no more reasons, no more excuses

stop trying to defend this divine cerebral spasm called existence!

just let it be!
raw unadulterated reality.

let it flow down like water falls
and echo with wild animal calls
let it rise like mighty snowcapped mountains
and spring up like subterrainean fountains

wrench these dreamers from their slumber
with shrieking lightning and calamitous thunder
tear this peaceful world of illusions asunder...

much too raw and teenage I know, oh well, it stays as it is...

The Twelve Smells of Christmas

The Twelve Smells of Christmas will be a progressive post if I am witty enough to develop it.

12 murdered pine-trees
11 heretical turkies
10 uncle's special egg nog
9 incontinent snowmen
8 upper class chinese ancestors
7 baked/stoned gingerbread...people (pc)
6 Great Aunt Gladys' perfume
5 holly being kissed beneath the mistletoe...let your imagination flow
4 salt in the wounds of the driveway
3 a real stable in which a woman has just given birth
2 burning wrapping paper
1 uncle's special egg nog revisited

This is just an initial impression of what Christmas smells like...

things that would make me happy right now...

1) firing purple paintballs during the meeting of a cult, quickly rolling up the windows and then shouting "whoo!" at the top of my lungs and then speeding off. yes, all in that order.
2) taking a random trip to montreal and living w/ correy for a couple weeks and talking about how depressing life and love can really be
3) quitting the olive garden
4) seeing an obese, furry, little animal outside my window. preferably lost or running into something and knocking itself out
5) gopher hunting or just finding a gopher skull to decorate my room w/ (no really, they're so intricate and cool!) actually i take that back, i *need* to shoot something living that's furry and that screws the farm over...
6) beating a table full of guys in texas holdem and spending the money on barcadi breezers, yes a drink right now would be very nice...
7) knowing the rest of, "DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD..."
8) setting a certain dutch reformed, the-only-public-Christian-school high school in edmonton on fire
9) waking up tomorrow morning in coquitlam next to john and since i'm going there, i minds' well wish that time would stand still for 2 years in that moment. there i wished it.
10) being able to hand out a decaf drink to a bitchy customer that needed their caffine fix just one last tiiiiime
11) wipping my brother's ass at family guy monopoly and then gloating about it for days about how i'm so awesome and better than him b/c i'm older. *sigh* those were days until he grew and got smarter. no really, i'm a good older sister, nathan and i are close.
12) finally finding that yellow brick road therefore making all my referrences not insane and not stupid.

that's it, i'm tired. i just downloaded, "butterfly" by crazytown and that's made me pretty joyful. oh orange county, you were such a good movie now weren't you? ahem. if any of you guys give me any of the above things you will instantly become a good friend of mine. yes, since good friendships are fucking cheap these days, i thought it appropriate to put that out there. excuse my french, i'm a little bitter right now. damn it, i so wish canada had volcanoes right now...

retail

In my experiences at The Gap, Starbucks and now The Olive Garden I keep being reminded that people generally are just stupid. And it seems like the half of those people have dedicated themselves to the growing, world-wide cult of beligerency. I'm sure under the cover of darkeness, they secretly drive off in their mini-vans to their domain where they swap stories of how they made servers cry and baristas make their drink over 6 times b/c it wasn't exactly 180 degrees before they floored it out of the drive-thru. Then i'm sure after they have their sharing time, the leader (which often times is referred to as "satan") makes his expected, courteous and seemingly caring and inspirational speech of how they can be even worse the next day. Then it's followed by rounds of rip-roaring texas holdem where customer recovery coupons are the anty and the winner gets tipped out everything that wasn't tipped to all the servers of that week. It can be pretty good money depending upon their bills and believe me, the victory and honour of winning such a holdem match would be instant glory and bragging rights all around. Even the moms who were on a tighter budget in the corner on the green, ripped sofas would nod their approval as they played a milder version of dutch blitz. They may even offer you a ride home or ask about your personal life. Yes, this is where one can build true friends. These people must be in a pact, they feed so hungrily and come in waves honking their horns, pounding their fists at the till or intentionally messing up the men's colared, striped, hard-to-freaking-fold-again long-sleeved shirts in Section 2.

Though sometimes their comments may seem to fall on deaf ears, they're very much heard. We give them their chicken romas for free, refund their clothes over the due date and continually make them their Venti, no water, 6 pumps, soy, 180 degrees, no foam, w/ cinnamon powder on top, double-sleeved Chai Lattes. It's what we do best. I sure hope their weekly meetings go well and that their chants can be heard well into the streets of Whyte Ave. If I find this place, I will rat them out to the hippies or maybe I'll call up my friends who religiously buy everything you can think of for their paintball guns and we'll fire off a few rounds. I hope they have purple paintballs...that would make me a very happy girl. :) Yeesh, anyone want to vote that i'm starting my period soon?

LIFE

So this is what life is: a lot of disapointments and some randomly placed "good times"? I'm asking b/c part of me is wondering if this statement is generally true while the other part is trying to weigh if it's worth just giving up. A person can only go one for so long and can only invest so much of themselves until nothing's left. And you're just left w/ yourself or whatever is left of yourself that is, when "friends" and experiences are done deteriorating you. This is sounding quite hopeless isn't it? I guess it shouldn't though b/c I'm a Christian and should have all the hope in the world, right? Don't you hate it when you know one thing and believe it yet it's so contrary to you feel? And what's the deal w/ feelings and emotions controlling humanity anyways?! I don't get it, it frustrates me. Actually, the reason why it frustrates me is b/c I do get it and sometimes I just feel stuck inside myself and I can't express the ways I may want. I see myself acting and falling into things like everyone around me and sometimes, I can't seem to stop myself. We have so much potential and so much power behind us and gifts w/n us, yet we limit ourselves constantly. It's incredibly dissapointing, i can only imagine how it must make God feel Who has all these amazing plans for us and Who built us for success.

I'm semi-depressed. Maybe i shouldn't blog when i am. I like life, i think it can be very vibrant and fun and there's many times where i've stood still and soaked in all life had to offer. I value those times. And if Iwere to step completely out of the self-centered bubble that's around my mac right now, I would honestly say that I love my life too. It must just be one of those days...so how does one deal w/ these "days" and in some cases, seemingly "months"? Do they just stay busy and keep going and forget? Is it healthy to forget? Maybe I should just lower my expectations but then again, it's b/c of lack of expectation that people settle for what's around them and it soon becomes normal and there we have it, the world...The one we helped create b/c we couldn't believe for anything more. At the same time i am only 19 and maybe it's best that I don't go there until then. I think i'll just settle w/ *this* just being LIFE...mainly b/c it's easier to say that and shove it to the side. Maybe someday i'll work on all the things i've shoved to the corners of my table but right now it's what's easier. Yes i'm human and yes i'm settling for less but it seems like it hurts less to settle for less and get less than to hope and be disappointed once again.

And as far as off shore comments go, I would not reccomend long-distance relationships to anyone. I'd like the say that is most of why i feel hopeless and depressed tonight...What can i say? Life just gets hard when you can't be w/ your bestfriend and boyfriend. But that's just how life will be for the next couple years so you just gotta run w/ it and give it your best shot. I sure hope i'm still a good person and can still love and invest in people the ways i want too when the day's done. To me, that's what matters most i suppose.

Paradoxos- a Fraction of an Explanation

Don't build your house on the sandy land, don't build your house too near the shore...

These lines begin the common sunday-school song which teaches children that the desirable goal of life is certainty. I believe that most people are stuck in this mentality. They are afraid to step out of their comfortable beliefs to explore the possibility of something beyond the same rocks on which they stand. Freud calls this arrested development, clinging to the oceanic feeling in which people are trapped like infants completely dictated by their superego. Nietzsche said, balhadghdshghhjaksghfs, and that those people are weak and insignificant. Up until recently in my life I identified with those people on the rock. I was content, but then it cracked. I was forced to move on.

I did not leave my rock intending to find another more desirable rock. I have abolished the idea of certainty from my thinking. In a way...

I would like to return to the song about building one's house on the sand. It has occured to me that the rocks on which we sit, our beliefs, our perceptions, our faith, are very small rocks. In fact, if you step back from all the arguments, discussions and debates you can see that everyone is sitting on their own little rock and all those rocks are the sand. People who claim to have the rock solid truth are just sitting on pieces of sand. It is merely a problem of scope and perspective that they cannot see the fragility of their position.

The problem with what I am currently saying is that I am being entirely unoriginal. Plato being the first to mention this idea. The aforementioned Freud and Nietzsche also said this. The problem with all of those dead white guys is that after criticising peoples' knowledge they set up their own system of belief and then founded their own little rock. They sat down on the beach with everyone else. Nietzsche arguably didn't because he went nuts, which leads to my final thought...

Is the alternative to certainty, insanity?
I hope not! I am looking for some sort of order to chaos. I am looking for certainty to uncertainty. I am looking for knowledge in ignorance. I am seeking the unseekable. I am experiencing paradox. Sometimes it seems futile and it is terrifying, but sometimes I see the paradox and I become ecstatic. This bipolar experience of life is infinitely more certain than the small certainty offered by belief and whatever else people use to delude themselves. I'm not building my house on the sandy land and I am nowhere near the shore, I'm sailing away, and it turns out that the ocean is made out of kool-aid and seahorses are just ancient aquatic saxaphones cursed by Posiedon to float androgynously through the ocean.

My mind is shot from studying for exams, among other things, salute for now...

Entangled in Nightmares

Can the human imagination create something real? Something that, although delusory, has the power to act autonomously of our initial fabrication? By deciding that our perceptions of existence are real we create our world around us. This is true for the mundane details of life, but also affects the most lofty and grand ideals which control our lives.

Our notions of god are nothing more than idols.
We create god out of thoughts and words rather than the wood and bronze of ancient times.
This god is a very weak god, it is no god at all, it is a puppet whom we create and give life.
It is the antithesis of God-
The Infinite, the Beginning and the End.
The One whose name I cannot and must not utter.
But this puppet god that we create, what is it, is it the devil...

Although it is powerless and our creation, we give it power.
It is a chimera dreamt up by children who are afraid of the dark.
It is a judge concocted by those who want to control others.
We bow down and worship this god.
This is blasphemy!

This puppet god is given power by our perceptions.
All of our neurotic fear, shame, guilt, feelings of inadequacy and general puniness are a result of the power we give this dark imposter.
Our own nightmares trap us in a futile cycle of unworthiness.
Christian attempts to sanitize and humanize religion have done nothing but produce an even grimmer god, one who loves us yet is still the perpetrator of an insane existence which forces every individual into submission to those who have the power. There is no freedom from our nightmares within religion.
This is why it has often driven people mad. It is driving me mad.

I find no hope in certainty.
There is no impetus to continue seeking a captive yet enslaving god.
Vagueness does not exist in the incomprehinsible One.
There is all the reason in the universe to seek The Unattainable.

One more thought...a compass does not tell the traveller which direction to go, but rather allows the traveller to choose which way to go by clearly stating the options. Two questions remain:

1. Are up and down and every other fathomably degree alternative options aside from the x and y directions on the compass?
and
2. What will happen to our compasses when the magnetism of the poles reverse? Which way will be up and which will be down. oh no I sound like Nietzsche, I should stop...

What do you get when you cross an elephant and a rhino?

El - if - ino...

oh glory, the nectar of life yet retains some sweetness...

My Hermeneutic- genesis of my articulating an idea coherently

I thought that I would clarify my last post. Judging by the rather glib comments mostly poking at my substance abuse issues i take it that the post was too abstract and vague. On one hand I wish to leave it abstract and vague, so that the readers of the text can interpret it in thier own way. The preposterous notion that a text can mean one single thing has long ago been erradicated from most thinking peoples' minds, but it creeps back in subtle ways. People still persist in the fantasy that they can know something that is true. Perhaps this is because people are all very egocentric and are trapped in the sad idea that they even know themselves...back to hermeneutics though...I write so that the reader can read their own human experience into the text and thereby learn something about existence by engaging with the text, i.e. the expression of my human experience. The relationship between writer and reader creates a space where two beings can understand one another, in a form of conversation which has advantages over verbal conversation.

In my last post I wished to say many things:
1. I was commenting on the futility of writing. First, most of what we write in our society is meaninglessness embodied in ink and paper...memos, essays, post-it-notes, reference letters, birthday cards etc...We live in a completely mechanistic and utilitarian society in which most writing constitues the next command into a computer for an international paperclip manufacturing coorporation. Second, the depressingly full libraries of our society are enough to make any writer feel miniscule. Unless, perchance one person reads my work and engages with it in the way described above. Then maybe a scrap of meaning can be found in writing.

2. I was also commenting on a environmental/economic issue, connected to the first point about futility, that we consume huge amounts of natural resources to keep our meaningless society from collapsing in on its paper frame.

3. I was commenting on how we ignore that written text is a connection between writer and reader, described above. We stack our books away and treat them like objects when they are actually an opportunity to communicate with even the dead. To learn more about this idea read Emily Dickinson's poems "In a Library" and "A Book".

What I really want though, is that my readers would respond to the text with their own experiences. That is the written dialogue which is made possible by blogs. I don't want to know if someone liked my writing or not, I really don't care, although literary criticism is a useful exercise. I want people to be affected by the text, allow themselves to be affected, and to respond with their own utterence of their existence.

It is way to late for this and I have hardly clarified my last blog, but I am getting somewhere. I am producing, havn't found the joke yet, but I need the hermeneutical feedback of the other to get anywhere.

and I'm spent...

Black and Blue

It dawned in me a while back that the ink with which we write is black and blue.
This may seem insignificant, but now whever I look at a clean white sheet of paper-
All I can think about is that I am about to bruise its skin black and blue.
A veritable pummeling.
By transferring my thoughts onto paper I am committing an act of violence.
I don't think that I can write anymore.
Think of all those screaming pieces of paper.
In your desk.
In your binders.
Crammed into the books on your shelf.
Waiting in your printer-tray for their impending doom.
Literature is a violent hate crime.
This is a mad world.
Yet, I am comforted by my infrequent use of red-inked pens.

An Unexpected Direction

So, I had some more thoughts on the snow. I have noted before, perhaps not on this blog, that humans generally hate each other and wish to kill one another. I realised this on the bus one day when people were being especially brutish to one another. I wondered why people don't just kill each other. I concluded that people get their latent hate for one another out by focusing all of their anamocity towards prominent figures such as presidents and actors. Take for example the frequent and unrelated references towards George W. Bush everytime something bad happens. eg. "George Bush made hurricanes kill black people". Although much anger towards Dubya is also pent up sexual attraction, which I will someday expand on in my novel "Fuck George Bush: The Modern University Student's Hard-On For Dubya", my point that people release their anger for one another on prominent figures stands. Furthermore, as I watched many snowball fights and the intense facewashes which often come with them I realised something further about human nature. We play war, we have snowball fights, wrestle and often use hyperbolic phrases like "I'm going to kill you". These things, I have observed, are done for the same reason as our focused hatred of prominent people. We hold deepseated hate for each other and seek for relatively non-lethal ways of expressing this hate.

I suppose that I have entirly absorbed a Freudian way of looking at life. I havn't even read much Freud. I don't know whether I have absorbed it diffusely or whether I have thought this stuff up on my own. Probably a bit of both.

I have been feeling a lot of anger lately. I blew a gasket on an old woman who treated me with extreme disrespect and imposed herself on my individual rights and freedoms. I have spent my life being ignored and silenced. It is rather like Lord of the Flies, where the one kid who knows what to do is inevitably crushed. This world, civilization, is run by the murderers and megalomaniacs. I could jump out right now and get into this, but I have turned a post that began as a light hearted comedic observation about how humans behave and now it is treading into my darker side. We don't need to go there.

The joke of a comedian is always supposed to make you weep and laugh at the same time. All I can do is either make someone weep or laugh. I can't tell a good joke unless I can elicite both responces at the same time. I cannot find the subtle tragicomic dusk of human communication.

This post has taken a rather unexpected direction...

Of Snowmen and Timberwolves

So, it is snowing in the land of Vancouver, and I am actually enjoying life. The phenomenon of snow in Vancouver brings out many odd things. In the endless suburb of Surrey life springs from the white smoothering blanket of snow. Couples tromp through the snow as if they have an obligation to walk in the rare snowfall. Neighbors who never talk chat while they shovel their driveways. Kids and teenagers are dragged behind the family truck on sleds or snowboards. Snowmen and snowwomen, and I guess snowgendermixedbeings abound. Snowball fights are intense and joyful. I have two comments to make about snow.

1. taking a snowmsn into a hot tub is the best thing in the world, his last moments would be glorious and then he would return to the liquid from whence he formed--all snowmen are buddhists.

2. the only thing that could make snow in the suburbs better is if packs of timber wolves appeared every time that it snowed--life is only worth living if one has to battle timber wolves once in a while.

If only I could live in my imagination. Perhaps I already do...remember to fear yet respect timber wolves and snowpeople, they are our only hope to redeem the human race.

Forty-Second Street Station

Three blocks west of Forty-Second street, and about thirty feet below, there are twentythree people huddled together around three tile posts, waiting for the train. One is a short, jaunty man, with thick eyebrows and a cap, and another is an older woman, wearing a long, thin evening dress, on this otherwise cold day.

The short man is a gambler, probabally not wealthy. He's wearing a grey cap that makes him look like a Sam. Or maybe a John. His briefcase is probabally filled with apples. It's black leather, like every other suitcase, but has several suspicious bulges on each side. He's wearing two suede shoes that almost perfectly match his cap. He just strikes me as a man named Sam.

The woman's the one I can't quite figure out. She's not very attractive, but tall, and thin. She has thin eyebrows, and very dark hair. It looks almost black where she's standing. She probabally argues with her husband about the price of tinto's, or salt, or something. It's a very long dress. Her skin is very white, the mans is dark.

There's only two others sitting on the benches. A woman with a two year old daughter, and an elderly man with a beat up homburg, pretending not to notice the child pulling at his shoe laces. Everyone else is standing. It's perfectly silent, save for the little girl, and the two lovers whispering to eachother. It's so quiet. You can just hear the high wistle on down the line. Everyones head turns left. Only the two lovers remain captivated in eachother. Even the child looks up from the old mans shoelaces.
28

Chicken Pot Pie

In the Empire State building, when men conferenced for newer, more efficient, cost- effective rubber solutions, and women hurriedly scribbled memos to drop in the void- tube to nowhere, there was Helen, an old hen, living her final days in the coo-coo's nest, left of the barn, near
the farmhouse. When the time came to lay an egg, she would try and try, and yet every time still, come up at a deficiency. This happened time and time again, until at last, the other hens began to notice.

"She's just not got any left, I'm telling you," said the two little hens from accounting. "She's run out!"

"Oh hush you two," Said the Work Horse, peeking in through the door, "I bet she'll still have many."

"She's missed nearly three, horse," said one of the young hens, flauntingly.

"It's never been a problem before," Replied the Horse, " In all the years I've known her."

"Then your memory must be going before your age, horse, she's not laid an egg for near a month."

-"Yha, Yha! Forward!" Cried the farmer.

"I still DON'T REMEMBER ANY-" Neighed the work horse.

The whip finally snapped, and the horse plodded on forward. The gossiping hens heard the wagon beat on, and grow more faint.

The days rolled past, and things in the cubicle stayed much the same. The old hen had still not laid an egg, and the farmer grew more and
more impatient. By the end of the fiscal year the old hen seemed infertile, and finally the farmer came by to inspect.

"I tell you Josephine, there's only 6!"

"Well check again Robert, we need more than that!"

The farmer counted off the eggs, pointing at them dumbly, "One, Two, Three, Four-"

" -Robert, the carton is empty. I need another dozen," Josephine interrupted, standing with her hip to the door post, holding the empty carton in her left hand, above her elbow.

The farmer walked down the row of cubicles to inspect the three hens. He lifted the first, then the second, and patted each gently on the
head in the vain belief that one more should fall out. He gathered two eggs in his left hand and rolled them gently in his basket. He finally lifted old
Helen, the third, and patted her on the head. Nothing falling out, and not wanting to be wasteful, he picked her up, placed her gently on the table
outside the nest, and removed a knife from the wall. He held it against the skin above her neck, and drove it quickly through.

General madness

Am I the only one who thinks it would be great fun to go temporarily insane?
A truly mad person is in all likelihood the only person on earth who truly believes; and never doubts for a moment, their own sanity.
Wouldn't it be nice, if only for a short time, to feel such certainty about the matter?

Even if you WERE to believe that God lives in the big house across the street-
the one with the polkadot curtains, which emits the overpowering smell of potatoes.
That the ants are stealing your thoughts and selling them to the wily badger that is plotting your downfall from inside his sinister, underground den, reciting FIERY propoganda before a packed house of mice, stoats, vole, and other vermin.
To say nothing of the fact that you believe with the firmest conviction that the "advil people" are in collusion with the badger, and are trying to slow your cat like reflexes, so- BAM! the badger can get you...

It'd still be worth it...

mmmmm, mushrooms... http://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com

Lyrics and Lithium

I like music. It makes me happy. Or angry depending on the tone. But it seems that some songs have no lyrics and are just noise. Yes, yes I know what you're thinking. "But oh great pretty one, should I have toast? " The answer of course lies in any Chuck Norris film. Some might say rock and its divisons are nothing but noise. Some rock songs are truly poetry. While others dwell no more deeper then an ant in pudding. Case in point Maroon 5.
The topic of this blog is, as I have stated, lyrics. THere are some songs that I'm fairly certain are completely bat-plop insane. The first being 'Louie Louie' by the Kingsmen. What the deuce are they going on about? Granted it was the 50's and rock was just stumbling onto the scene but even then songs usually had intelligable lyrics other then 'Louie louie, oh baby we gotta go'. I put it down to booze. Not that booze hinders. But it does reduce ones way of coveying a message.
Another song I'd like you all to listen to is 'Even Flow' by Pearl Jam. If one person on this wide web can give me the exact lyrics to that song, that doesn't contradict to another version I will give them all the money in my pocket. 'Even Flow' is pretty much Eddie Veder stumbling into a recording studio and cranking out a song. Not that its a bad song mind you. It just has no lyrics other the 'Even FLOOOOOOOOW'.
In todays music, lyrics are trying to be all imagery. If you read the lyrics from Green Days 'American Idiot' album you'll find alot of nuances and hidden messages. Mostly about how they hate Dubya. Going back a bit to a project band, Temple of the Dog, thier song 'Wooden Jesus' is a satire of why it costs money to purchase a religious icon and the irony behind that. Most Nirvana songs are like that. Nirvana came at the right time in history when a generation of young people were moody and searching. And lyrics from all thier albums convey a message of the same. Thats why it relates so well to people no matter where they are in life.
There are plenty of other songs that the lyrics either make little sense or none at all (IE Peaches by Presidents of the United States of America) or a combination of loud guitars and drugs. But is it better to have non-sensical lyrics or shallow ones? TOO DEEP TOO DEEP! PULL OUT! These questions will continue to be until I see fit to answer them. If there are other songs that you're pretty sure have no lyrics, by all means comment them. But if you're that pushy Rogers guy again, I will consume you in a ball of fire. Goodness gracious. Oh and before I forget, does anyone else think that the lead singer of the band Godsmack, Sully, is singing "Speak the truth, or make you're pee some other way"? Just me I guess.
Adieu
Jack White is scratching at my door.

ummmm

WE CAN USE BIGGER FONTS with different things and even colour. This is by far the coolest thing I have ever seen. BOLD FONT! sweeeeeeettttttt...

Ignorance

Teenagers have a natural rebellious behavior. We all seek to develop an opinion of our own, and often this search leads us to a conflict with the traditional beliefs of our society. Traditional society of course being Christian. This rebellious attitude against Christian beliefs has spawned such popular fads as "The DaVinci Code." Unfortunately, it also spawns irrational anti-Christian opinions, and effectually causes the public to acknowledge the average believer to be a right wing neo-fascist.

We all already recognize teenagers as being rebellious, so to a certain extent, we simply roll our eyes. But what happens when this attitude continues into adulthood? Should we continue to roll our eyes? Should we tolerate their ignorance? I recently read several reader comments in the "Vancouver Sun" newspaper about several issues, all religious, and I am ashamed to say not one well-informed person, with a logical, intelligent opinion, either replied, or had their letter printed.

I respect differing opinions, but I cannot help becoming enraged when a clearly immature child, or adult, presses upon others their irrational opinion based on little more than popular culture and misinformation. Our culture is not a Christian one. Our populace publicly denounces Christianity, and with frequency takes delight in poking fun at Jesus Christ, where Muslims, Buddhists, or any other religious group would demand a public apology.

In a nation with standards as high as ours, we respect those with differing opinions. So why must ours not be heard? Why must we be silent, and endure this onslaught of public hatred and mockery based only on ignorant opinions? With a policy of tolerance, why must we not be tolerated? Our government preaches high ideals, and our people make a farce of them.

I am no Republican. I do not agree with either the notion that all Christians must be right-wing pseudo-fascists, nor do I agree with whatever truth may be behind it.

It is time for the public to dispense with their infantile opinions, and mature into a truly intelligent, free-thinking populace, rather than an ignorant, irrational group of blind and deaf lone wolves; vicious and misinformed.

Alienation, why do I puke out words when I could say them so much better if I took the time to stop and write like someone who is worth reading...

So, I thought that I would write something worth reading as well. I was studying for an exam the other day and reading about different theories of perception, such as Direct Realism, Indirect Realism, Phenomenology, and Disjunctivism. It was all rather mind boggling, but I think that I have a grasp on what each of the positions was trying to say. As I sat there thinking, I began to realise, not for the first time, just how much of a facade our physical existence is. I thought about that one thought for so long and hard that my vision began to blur and it was as if the world was vanishing before me. Now, I don't do drugs, other than medicinal pain killers, MEDICINAL, but is this wierd? Does this happen to normal people? I was told yesterday that I am not a human, and I am inclined to agree. I really have no idea what humans are talking about and why they would do the things they do. Am I the only one, or is this alienation felt by all those who has gazed at a wall until it has disappeared? Maybe I should stop reading Emily Dickenson, she was a wacko...but so right. Ahhh, maybe if I go contemplate the colour green everything will glow with an emerald sheen. I want to climb a mountain and have a maitai kickboxing match with a blind tibetan monk. Anyone else in?

Recant

Ok, so I read the articles and take back what I said. They are very good. Please don't come to my house looking for sexual gratification Pretty One, you will find an infertile womb and an untouched glass of wine in the face. Where have you been, you've been out with that floozy again, haven't you, HAVEN'T YOU! Well that's just fine then...Hey could we seriously get sued, cause if so let's try for it. I shall be ranting about the abolition of women's suffrage later if anyone cares...p.s. Margaret Thatcher was a man.

Huzzuh, I LIVE

I cannot believe the acid trip this place has turned into in my absense! I am not even going to bother with all this reading. Can't a guy go and fight for the People's Army of the Republic of Congolese Anarchists (or PARCA for short) without the whole place going to the turkies...well I guess it was inevitable. Who are these other people who have been added to the list? They had better be hot and if not rich and if not that then incredibly good people, like the elephant man. Well, I have to get back to my propogandizing of African minorities...

Sex starved love monkeys

We live in a sex crazed society. Instead of the elaborate social gatherings of yesteryear, in which a formal dance was alive with passion; the brush of a cheek, or the touch of hands electric, we sink to the highly sexualized 'grinding' of modern "dance". Were this an isolated occurence, restricted only to dance, or even to entertainment as a whole, it would be easy to turn a blind eye to this harmless fun. However, this cultural change is symptomatic of a complete shift in society; a general numbing of our more refined senses.
Like one addicted to pornography or narcotics, our society finds itself needing stronger and stronger doses of stimuli to arrive at the same buzz. Where once romance, and it's undertones of sexual fancy was commuicated through the brush of hands, or a longing gaze, we now must resort to grinding our sexual organs together in a mute pantomime of the sexual act. An orgistic aerobics class for the sexually depraved. A sexual warm up, to the pounding beat of the latest pop hit.
As we grow ever number, we've required more and more forceful stimuli to arouse us; just as a crystal meth, or cocain addict, a porn addict or serial killer requires more and more potent doses, explicit content, or gruesome acts to satisfy their hunger.

So where does that leave us? In a darkened corner befouling ourselves, perhaps?

But what does this isolated issue speak of in relation to society as a whole? A time when both men and women are ashamed of their bodies, and strive relentlessly not to be healthy, fit and active, but to appear healthy, fit and active, to look like the supposed ideal set out by the media, models, and movie stars.
Now, the difference between these mind-sets may not be readily apparent, and although slight, make all the difference, both physically and phsychologically.
The former stresses a healthy attitude and lifestyle, without worrying about counting calories, obsessing over the scale, and purging oneself to the brink of bulemia; instead it strives to eat, live, and exercise healthily- looking fit and healthy are of course natural by-products of living a healthy lifestyle.
The latter thinks only of the final product- looking good, and tries to achieve it through extremely unhealthy means. Through purging, crash dieting, and unhealthy levels of exercise; in short, is hell bent on the illusion of healthiness, rather than living healthily itself.
It is this simple difference that leads to the epidemic level of chronic low self esteem across all demographics in western society, and beyond.

Western society as a whole is dysfunctional, unhealthy, and is quickly reaching a point of catastrophic damage from which we will have only two choices- immediate change, or a continued and irreversable slide into unimportance and obscurity.

But what, if any link is there from chronic low self esteem, to modern dance style?
Quite simply, the overwhelming majority of western youth have such poor self esteem that they have lost their respect for their bodies, and for themselves as people. For this reason, and naturally, a broad range of other factors, we find ourselves in this state of modern decay. Where once the flutter of eyelashes, or the subtle walk of a preening woman were enough to capture the affections of a suitor, young women today grind their thin, malnourished bodies against the crotch of strangers in clubs.
And for what?
To forge an immature relationship between oversized children for the purpose of mutual esteem? A young womans' feeling of sexual power or control over men driven to the brink by a woman practically laying him right on the dance floor?
Is this healthy?

Clearly this is merely a symptom of sociological downfall that effects every facet of life. A problem so far-reaching that it cannot be escaped.
So do I propose banning such acts, no. Treating the symptom is as ineffectual as putting a band-aid on an arterial hemorrhage. Instead we need to look clearly and unflinchingly at the nearly impossible mire we have trapped ourselves in, and begin to shovel ourselves out.

Oh, and the monkey, he just got off the dance floor and he's feeling very...satisfied. OOOoooh, Yeah!

A year and a Day

Huzzah! Yes, my fellow Nut Jobs. We here at the Insane Ramblings of the Decreped have reached a full year of blogging fun. It has been a hard stuggle with the FCC and the CIA and various organizations that would like to see our downfall. But like the crazy guy on the bus, we persevere because we need booze and drugs.
As creator of this blog, I feel it's my duty to thank you all for scanning over what we have written in our various states of anger and influences. So if I could I would go to each of your houses and pleasure you each one at a time. But apprently theres laws about that. But not in international waters! HA HA! Loophole!
So here we are a year later and a year...worse. Have no fear though. We aren't leaving any time soon. Theres still people who haven't heard us, still haven't read us, still haven't paid us. And what have I, the Pretty one, learned? Nothing really. I know all I need to and make up the rest.
There will be more postings by myself, the Philosopher, The Irishmen and the Canuck and maybe if we can supply her with booze and male prostitutes, a final FEMALE impression of the word. I know, it'll be like watching the Womens Television network but with more work invovled but bear with us. She has powers.
Continue to post comments, and laugh and read, people. For the revolution must begin at some point and with the state of the world today, someone needs to be proded. So be on the look out for blogs on Harper to Hamas, Iraq to IEDs, Bush to....Katrina, whoever she is. And maybe, perhaps if we don't get sued we'll have another year post. Two years I might be dead. I'm not kidding. Theres several people looking for me. Please help.
Adieu.
My spine is glued to the chair.

Hamartia

Insanity is defined as an unsoundness of mind. It is seen as a disease, or a defect that renders one unable to understand, or comprehend logical ideology. If the layers of ourselves are peeled away, we are left simply with our core. At the core of ourselves, at the core of humanity, however, lies, by the traditional definition, insanity. Insanity, contrary to belief, is the essence of our being, and the cornerstone of our lives.

Our sanity is a lie. It is the facade of honesty, only the illusion of truth. Sanity is what we aspire to, and yet never achieve. It is time we had to the courage to understand and admit to everything we are, and the false pretences with which we have use to hold it. It is time we recognize our intention is not to civilize, but to conquer. It is time we understood that everything we are is built on the backs of subjugated people. We come to North America, Africa and Asia to build our empire, and to execute our interests. This is what we do; this is what we are.

We are all responsible, each of us in our way for the bereavement we bring. We leave our people without homes, we throw them to the mercy of the dogs, all while keeping with the facade of justice, and civility. We come not to reap, but to rape. We come to execute our interests on false pretences, making our intentions honorable. This flaw in humanity, this means of insanity, is the cause of our corruption.

There is an honesty, though, in our insanity. It is the truth of ourselves. It explains our actions, our intentions, and our flaws. It is a true form of being, a form which frees us of our bind to false civility. We no longer require a facade of false pretences. We are given the freedom to be as we are; we are given the freedom to be pestilent, destructive, and savage.

With the means of insanity, we become adept. The horror that is ourselves is unbound; the horror that is the truth of humanity is brought forth. Our greatest failure is given reign to cut us down, and blight is the resolve.

Revised.

Infinitely unfathomable

No area begins life as a rotting slum; no building is created dilapitated. Matters appear much as they did the day before- just a little nastier than the last portrait stored in our short term memory.
No one intends to foster peeling paint, a rust-speckled car, or a failed marriage; these things just happen while we fail to exert the effort to properly maintain the object of concern.
If however, people are going to notice and effect change in any state of affairs, they will do so nearly immediately. Once material objects, or indeed relationships have gone unnoticed and unaddressed for a sufficient time, they simply become part of the landscape.
The human mind has a curious method of assimilating objects that have ceased to be novel- there exists little likelihood that it will be much different today then it was yesterday; so we simply react to it from memory.
The citizens of Nepal, or the Bedoins of Arabia find nothing noteworthy or altogether spectacular about the Himilayas, or the vast expanse of the Saharan desert. Fishermen as well, find nothing grandiose about the roll of their vessel atop the waves, or the unfathomable sprawl of the ocean. The witnessed phenomena remains unchanged; it is the person recieving this sensory input which has changed-
wonder and novelty seem to be intrinsically entwined.
The human mind seems to be nearly offended by the concept of wonder, as though it were a cutting insult to be presented with something beyond it's ability to name and categorize; to comprehend and define-
a thing to admire, rather than master.
It seems then, a gesture of spite, this blinding to those things beyond our scope and grasp, as a means to isolate ourselves from the sensory overload that is, amasement.
We call these things death, or ocean, mountain, god, or universe.
A working concept much more comfortably functional and infinitely less complex-
unfathomably less wonderous, than the named itself.

Just

Good fellows!
I have discovered something the likes of which this world has never before yet seen! This something is so Earth shattering it may infact doom all of Human kind! This something will bring about the destruction of us all, and because of it, we shall all voluntarily lay down and give up our very lives! Of course, I can't tell you what it is, but at the end of 'RadioHead's' "Just" video, there is a frame of film which shows "Dick's Restaurant." ... Oh, and giant ants have enslaved humanity or something, I forget.

Our Forefathers Hands

PART THREE

Life was no better at any time in Human history since we left the Garden of Eden than it is now. The history of mankind has followed a logical progression in both the happiness of each individual, and the state of our technology. Were the Human race to be wiped off the face of the Earth, as it was nearly in entirety in the time of Noah, and a new identical breed of Human beings were created, those Human beings would have done just as we had in our history.

The heart of man is essentially dark in that greed is what propels and drives us. At one time, this was a positive quality, It kept us alive, it sustained mankind through our infancy. Greed is the single quality that can be seen throughout our history. The first Human being could not help but to reach up and pick the apple, and his son, in his malice, killed his very brother. Though this quality may have sustained humanity, it has, in fact, become a burden. Greed has gotten in the way of progress with the invention of developed societies, where many millions of us can live where only hundreds did before. This is a flaw in mankind. This is a flaw in ourselves.

Rather than learning to love, we have only been consistent in our hatred of each other. I am, in fact, saying it is impossible to change. I am not, however, saying we should give up, and do nothing. Until this flaw is bred out of us, or given up voluntarily, we will never have the ability to function is large Societies. What is needed, is for us to leave the city, and seek our happiness elsewhere, in the country. Mankind existed for centuries in small societies, tribes, in America and Africa. The same people that adapted to their environment in Europe and Asia, bringing the glories of mercantalism to America and Africa, existed once in small, functioning, hierarchal communities.

Human beings, following the European style of life, have moved into large city centers, and have lost sight of any hope of happiness that our forefathers may have had with the exploration of new lands. Changing the heart of man is a futile endeavor, and this was recognized by even the Saviour of mankind. Human beings have needs that could never be met through life in a City, and this is the reason so many of us feel unfulfilled at the end of our day. We need to work, and we need to feel as though we belong. Contrary to belief, neither of these needs can be met in the City.

It is difficult to imagine how mankind could exist, let alone be happier living outside of Cities, however concittering the nature of human beings, this is not a far- fetched concept. The life of a man is, and always was, a mundane one, only now it is equally as unfulfilled. This unfulfillment came to be through the invention of our technology, and in the pursuit of happiness and fulfillment, the same technology that 'made us who we are' is to be cast out, along with our will to recreate it. The same human qualities that brought about the creation of these technologies is what is destroying us, not simply the technology. The technology is only a symptom of this issue, and this issue is hopefully what will be dealt with.

Let the people cast out their technology; throw away their television, and persue a greater existence. Let the people leave the City, and live a justified, fulfilled life on the Earth they now destroy in the same persuit, through the invention of technology. Let the people live well, as they were meant to, by God.

Give me that Old Time Nihilism

So, as I was walking about campus today I ran into a militant vegan...and I've caught your attention.

I had found a pamphlet concerning the maltreatement of animals in slaughterhouses urging people to cut back on meat and lobby the government for better/more sanitary conditions for the animals that we eat. I agree that our food animals should be kept in cleaner conditions and not tortured as they may be in some cases, but it was the conversation with the Vegan Marine that almost made me puke.

He explained to me that his organisation was for the elleviating of all suffering around the world. This sounded like a pretty good idea until I asked him why he would not rather spend his time elleviating the pain of say Somalians and Rwandans (ie humans) to which he answered and this is a quote, "there is no difference between a Somalian and a chicken". I refrained from spitting in his face for this blantantly racist and animalistic comment. It is a sad day when the rights of humans are considred less than the rights of animals.

The pamphlet also contained photographs of dead male chicks, ie chickens not allowed to hatch and the eggs merely smashed and the foetus left to die. They demonised this and arguably compared it to the Holocaust. This is made even more complex for the fact that the man also told me that for humans he is pro-choice. So he oppossed the abortion of chicken foetuses, yet woudn't think twice about killing a human foetus. The barbarity is almost laughable if my throat wasn't so full of vomit.

During the conversation, my firend asked him if he also oppossed the killing of trees. He said yes. I then asked him why he was wearing cotton clothing, and asked him where we stop in elleviating suffering. He said that it is a balance that humans must acheive by consuming only what is needed. For a minimalist he was suprisingly well dressed.

The greatest contradiction in this man's stance is that he did not want to tell anyone to stop eating meat altogether, just limit. No, if you believe that there is no destinction between humans and animals then every hamburger must be murder. In an attempt to be more politically correct and not offend anyone, he sufficiently castrated his argument beyond recovery. I left him politely, telling him that he wasn't as bad as PETA , but I am so shocked that someone could have lost his senses so badly that his opinion was just a flashy new gun shooting nothign but blanks.

I end with a summary of an aphorism from Fredrich Nietzsche's The Gay Science. In it there is a mad man running around with a lantern shouting that "God is dead, we have killed him". He then goes on to say that now that God is dead, "which way is up, which way is down, we shall all go spinning out of control" (these are not direct quotes). It seems to me that this society has completely lost its bearings. Humanists are bad enough in their faith that humans can achieve greatness through eductaion and progress, but these brutally disgusting animalist make me gag. They have no standard for what constitutes anything really. Give me a good old honest nihilist or someone who believes in God. Either God exists and we should try to figure that out or God does not exist and we should all go and do what we see fit which also sounds like a good old time. But, to create transient and inadequate systems of value based on fleeting ideologies is downright stupid and leads to the loss of what it means to be human, whatever that may be.

Eat drink and be merry or believe in God, or perhaps both at the same time, but don't feed me this vegan propoganda. Life is a hot steak not a chilled bowl of guspacho.

Right, wrong, and permissable

[He] claimed that crime rate has gone down because of abortions. That because most people who have abortions are in a lower class, our acceptance of abortion has effectively "nipped the problem" of crime caused by poverty by killing the criminals before they were born.

The idea that there could ever be made a mathematical or economic correlation between social groups, physical/mental/emotional disorders, and crime rates, or even general undesireability is absolutely ludicrous. No repudable economist would ever wade into the social quagmire that begins when you begin to assess value, or worth to society at large, by any of these, or any other external variances.
Given that we are talking about not only an intellectual idea of worth, but the actual threat of physical annihilation or sterilization, if indeed a sound economic link can be found; delving into the very real, very basic ideas at the heart of these theories becomes of vital importance to our society.

Let us first wade into the initial idea of creating a positive link between social position, and eventual worth to society. For the sake of brevity, a very preliminary scan of the offering of the lower classes, visible minorities, and the poor, illustrates the basic worth of these classes- if these classes had been eliminated through sterilization, or extermination, so many great contributions to society would have been missed; like those made by Martin Luther King jr, to cite only one example. As well think of the great contributions made by those who suffered from disease, or disorder, who, if this economost had had his way, would have been aborted because there was a likelihood that they could be a financial burden on society; Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Steven Hawking, among so many others. Bear in mind also the vast array of artists, writers, and filmmakers who suffered from sometimes debilitating emotional or mental disorders, who's products would have been missed out on, had an economist told us that their paxil would cost the tax-payers $800 a month, for life, and had been aborted- Hemingway, Kafka, Plath, Van Gogh, Munch, and Picasso; and this to name only a very few.
This simply to prove what should be self evident, that when human beings classify other human beings as worthless, and exterminate them, we are all the less for it.

To address the second point, the supposed link between race, class, and crime level, I'll begin simply by saying this- that any economist who would make a broad socio-economic statement of this nature must be influenced by a deeper issue with minorities. While a link could be superficially made between economic want, and turning to crime to fill that void, so many more factors are involved that any economist who's degree is worth the paper it's printed on would not sully his name by getting involved in such a subject.
First, more reputable ecomomists have shown that regardless of base income levels, the same percentage of yearly salary is spent, that is, disposed of, across all income and class levels. All too often, as has also been proven, these levels of spending are too high, leaving people across all income brackets, proportionally in debt. For this reason, I would contend that it could be proven that regardless what income bracket you fall into, a sufficient cause for theft can still be made, as evidenced by the Enron, Worldcom, and high profile insider trading charges.
In fact, a strong link could almost certainly be found, showing that in many cases, the severity of thefts flow upwards; with the poor involved in petty theft, while the rich are involved in more substantial crimes.
As well, given the culture of entitlement pervasive in our upper and middle classes- found most often in our youth, contrasted with the close-knit, loyal family units found more often among poorer households, any sociological analysis would likely find that upper and middle class youth were in a higher risk category for crime than a more stable, though poorer one.
The popular conception, that semantics and philosophics aside; in the very harsh reality of our prisons, that this economists view can be justified by the simple fact that minorities make up a disproportionate percentage in our prison populations is fatally flawed. This view is unrealistic, naive, and desperately requires a deeper look.
Here in canada, whites do in fact make up a majority inside our prisons, hardly surprising in light of the fact that minorities make up such a smaller percentage of the population than south of the border. But upon further inspection, the United States prison records may in fact be skewed for different reasons.
The simple fact is that in the United States, more White peope are charged with crimes, than Black people. The fact that the latter make up a larger proportion of the prison population point towards an unjust court system, favouring the White over the Black, and the wealthy over the poor.
The popular conception that minorities commit more crimes than the white majority, is therefore deeply flawed, unless it can be proven that the police in the United States unduly arrest more innocent white citizens than they do black, a ridiculous argument based on past evidence on the subject.
For these reasons and so many more, grave doubt is cast on the basic assumptions of this economist; and, when it comes to a thing as final as abortion, sterilization, or extirmination, even a hypothetical few unjust exceptions to the rule, is unnacceptable.

Praising abortion, as this economist did, by claiming that by reducing the number of poor, often minority families, is having a significant effect on our crime rates, is simply not justifiable logically, or indeed morally. While in a society such as ours, where law determines what is permissable, rather than what is right, there can be found little legal justification for banning such acts; but justifying them with flawed logic, and a basis of class and racial stereotype is certainly wrong, and should definitely not be permissable.

Delay and Dear Lover (Social D)

Tom Delay has stepped down from his position as leader of the house. Wow. Only took him 4 months to realize he may not win that whole inditement thing. US politics is fairly amusing to me. Me being a Canadian, Suburbanite from the hippie side of the country. It seems that every other week theres a major scandal going on in the Bush Administration. But they always seem to come out smelling like roses. Or at least Febreeze.
Being Canadian, I realize that the political system is flawed all over the world. And seeing as how the government has been screwing people since some dude in Egypt decided he was a living god and should rule over the people. Canadian politics is like the US', but more watered down. Worst we got was Cretien and his golf balls. Sponsorship scandals are all well and good but wheres the meat? The sex, lies and video tape. Oops, almost forgot the Mulroney tapes.
Politics makes me happy. I enjoy watching these guys say one thing and do another. Politicians have been two faced since Rome became a republic. So it's not going to change. I believe Winston Churchill once said that democracy is the worst form of government. Except for all the others. And its true. Fascism works.....for a while. Until the great and mighty leader goes kaput and the country along with him. Communism is a wonderful happy dream. In realistic terms it fails quite badly. Only extreme manipulation of it to make it work is almost a parady of itself. Monarchies were fine...until people could read. Then it kinda went downhill til now only Saudi Arabia and Switzerland are the only aboslute monarchs. The rest are mere figureheads and images of a bi-gone era.
The world will never truly be at peace. Its just a fragile alliance of nations that keeps people from going anarchy on one another. There will always be one group that hates another. There must be an enemy. Its just part of the human morality and psyh that I'm not going to get into because A) I dont have the knowledge and B) I really dont care all that much. Society is flawed because humans are flawed, government is corrupt because people are corrupt, bananas grow upside down because theres just not enough gravity in south america.
Now, due to recent comments and such, you dont have to agree with me. In fact, you can argue my point to the brink of death. Problem is I wont care that much to respond. What I think is inconcequential. And what you think is totally up to you. Pro-life, pro-abortion, war hawk, peace dove, hippies, nazis we're all people. The world may be messed and it may never get fixed but theres one thing we can all agree on. Bananas are just too good to pass up.
Adieu.
My legs are behind my head.
PS. I never seem to have a point do I?

A Mere Bagatelle

Anonymous said...

"What an unconvincing argument you present. This economist found a correlation between abortions and the crime rate. He made no moral commentary on the topic. Are you upset that there is a correlation? Or, if you do not believ (sic) that there is a correlation present something on the matter. This is just drivel."

Oh, with what joy I recieved this criticism for my last posting. It seems that my A average at the University of British Columbia means nothing these days. I believe that this comment shows this in two ways. The first is that you damn kids don't respect nothin' no more. The second is that he/she is probably in fact a crack pot student of said university as it is full of vacuous ninnies. Anywho, I will answer this cowardly anon's questions. The first question as to my level of menstraul stress of my mind over a correlation is simply answered. Correlations do not bother me silly rabbit, murder does. You have sanitised the economist's view down to its most basic level without taking into account the more complex issues surrounding the entire abortion. I would ask you anonymous, do you consider a topic like this one of intellectual intrigue or do you have any kind of passion for a deeper understanding of what it means to be human?

Let me tell you a story ripped from the pages of Rousseau's treatise "A Discourse on Inequality". In it he tells a story of a man held in a cage and forced to watch a wild beast tear a baby from it's mother's womb. The man has no relational connection to the woman or the child, yet an empathetic response was necessarily elicited from him. His arguement from this story is that human beings are innately empathetic towards one another. That, I believe, is what LOVE is in part. I can see no point to academic or intellectual queries into the justifications of abortion or any kind of killing for that matter.

My little jittly may in fact be drivel, and I was not in fact trying to make an argument. I care about human beings and all the complex trappings that come along with them.

I believe that a struggle for peace is the most righteous activity that a human can undertake You, sir or madame, Mr or Mrs or Miss or Ms. Anonymous (see I cover my bloody PC bases), may say that I'm a dreamer, but I will tell you just as many before me have said that I'm not the only one, I hope some day you'll join us, and the world will be as one. That isn't logic, that's a dream, and no matter how hard you try to destroy that you will find yourself grasping at nothing but a zephyr.

A mere bagatelle, a mere bagatelle.

Hang Ten

PART ONE.

JUAN RIVIERA. HANG I

I don't have a card, and I don't have a soul. I haven't got a piece of plastic the size of my palm, and therefore I don't exist. I am treated as if I were a dog, and am beaten, thrown, and killed. My body lies where it fell, with two holes in my belly the size of my thumb, and two holes in my back the size of my fist. I see a boot, black, walk past my blood-shot eye. I see another boot, black, fall in succession with the other, and as he walks past I see a badge. My blood is still, but I see through the dead of night a white truck into which the man steps. The omni-red and blue of the lights shine on my face. I can see my cheek light red, then blue. A sustained red, then nothing. A whole in the fence, Mexicana, 1994, and I am dead.

ERNESTO PAREZ. HANG II

Crack, crack, ends the night. My eyes open, and I haven't the time to feel tired. The bullets sound as though they were traveling through water, as they tear the walls in two. Beams of light shine through the open holes in the wall, and for an instant I am unafraid. I hear the screams, and the cries of everyone around me. I know my assailant. I know the reaper is about me. A bullet tears the skin of my throat, enters, and exits out the rear as I stand. I fall back, and as my chest rises and falls, I can hear the air whistling through the gap, now temporarily filled with my left hand. I have time only to think of the pain before I feel the hand of the reaper on my shoulder, and the life leaves my body as my lungs empty of breath and fill with blood.

PETA NOCONA. HANG III

The morning is brought in with the thunderous sound of hooves on the soft soil. My eyes open, and I hear the sound of a bugle sounding the charge of Cavalry. I climb to my feet to the sound of my infant sons cries, and the sound of hooves and hollars. I take my son in my arms, his face wet with both our tears. As I come out into the early morning light I see my people running, screaming, and dying at the hands of a mounted oppressor. I run to my left, and I see the eyes of my sister, wide with fear. With a sharp pain, and the now silent screams of my infant son, I join the ranks of the dead. A horse, and man, and a saber. Blood, germs, and steel.

AHMAD HASAN. HANG IV

As I gaze over the horizon at the setting sun, I silently admire the beauty of the colour streaming over the ground, and staining the sky shades of yellow and red. I can hear toward the east the city, and all its wonders. It's markets, it's structures, and the streets I know all by name. I look back to the west, and the glare of the setting sun is suddenly interrupted by a pair of Soviet warplanes that seem to rise into endless space as they approach and pass over me. With blistering speed, they scream over my head, their cannons tearing, and shearing the building to the sand. I hear my brother yell, and I see others running. As the second aircraft passes, I hear a thunderous noise, and I lift my head from the sand to see a cloud of dust moving away in every direction from the site of the explosion. A column of fire rises to the heavens, and streams of smoke move off in every direction, arcing toward the ground before disappearing. Everyone is running, everyone is dying, and the thought hasn't crossed my mind to move an inch. A stream of fire comes from the heavens, felling dozens, and I try to move, but I am unable. Death has taken me, and I feel as though I were alive. I try in vain to grip the earth. My lungs are empty, my blood is still.

CHINH HOANG. HANG V

I turned my head up from my bowl, and out of the trees came nine men, clad in green, carrying rifles. I looked to my daughter, off to my right, playing in the trees. I looked at her and she stopped, turned, and stared at the men. I turned back to my left, and the men began to scream. They spoke in French, and in my terror I could not understand. Several entered each house. They threw me out, on to the ground, and kicked me. One pulled me up, then pushed me down, onto my knees. The other pulled my arms back, behind my head. They were still screaming, and I knelt there, terrified. They lit a bundle of straw, and held it to the roof of my home. They turned my head back straight, and screamed in my face. He put his hand to his waist, and swung a pistol back to my forehead. I fell backwards, and rolled to my side. I felt nothing.


PART TWO.

JASON DOCKERY. HANG VI

Rushing to work, I fumbled my keys as I pushed the third from the keychain though the steel lock in my apartment on the third floor. I glanced briefly upon the newspaper I knew I had no time to read as I turned the key to the right, and waited for the low 'thump' I knew signified the locking the door. I don't know why I always locked my door. There had never been a robbery, and the only strange character was Miss. Roth three doors to my left. I entered the elevator with a woman I did not recognize. I pushed 'P,' and decided to inquire.'Hello,' I said.'Hello,' she replied.Second floor. I looked over again and inquired, 'Do you live here, or are you just visiting?' I said with a smile.'I'm just visiting my mother here,' she said, 'I'll be here until tomorrow, then I'm back to work in Chicago.''Oh, I'm from Chicago!' I said, lying.'Oh, really?' the woman said.'Yeah,' I said, 'I came here when I was offered a job at Pencey. I'm a commodities broker.'First floor. The doors open, and I quickly glance down her blouse before my eyes dart back. Surely noticing, she smiled politely and said 'I hope to see you around the building, then!''Ofcourse,' I said, 'perhaps we could go for some Coffee or drinks some time?''Well, I'll be pretty busy, I'm leaving tomorrow, but perhaps I could squeeze it in my schedule.' She replied, holding the doors open.'Great! So your in twenty-three?''Twenty-nine,' she replied, leaving the elevator. My mind suddenly returned to me, and I pushed 'P' twice more. The doors opened, and I stepped out into the garage. I turned left, past a Mercedes, and six spaces down, parked on a slight angle, was my car. I had just bought it, and the novelty of this new item was still with me. I unlocked the doors as I jogged slowly up to the drivers door. I opened the door, and in the corner of my eye I saw a blur of black and white. I looked up with my hand still on the door handle. There was a young man there, about 17, white, perhaps 195 lbs, 5'9. I took notice of these traits as I had been trained to through so many hours of watching 'Top 10 Most Wanted Criminals.' He said 'Hey man, gimme your wallet,' looking side to side. I reached back and slid my hand into my pocket.'Watch it, man, don't do any shit,' he said, pulling out a pistol, sounding aggravated. I pulled my wallet out and said ' I haven't got much.''Are you shittin'? I know who you are!' He yelled.'Look, I know you don't wanna kill me, so just calm down. Put away the gun, you don't have to do this!' I said, calmly, reenacting the many movies I had seen. There was a siren in the distance, and he looked as frightened as a child on a roller-coaster. Becoming increasingly more aggravated, he screamed 'Gimme it!' and briefly looked behind him, took a step backward, and fired. The truth is, I heard only half the sound when I fell over. I felt nothing. I saw nothing.

MAUNO AALTO. HANG VII

I open my back door and gazed out upon the pristine November snow, the surface of which being precisely eleven centimeters above the earth. I was invited yesterday to a Sunday lunch with my friend and his wife of twelve years, Aamu. My boots are on, and I walk out to see the rest of snow-covered Oulu. I move out into the alley, and turn to my left as I walk rather meanderingly down the sidewalk. I walk across the alley, and turn to my right. I walk up the back steps, and knock gently on the door. Noone answers. I open the unlocked door, and call out for my friend or his wife as I enter. I walk into the kitchen, and see a broken dish on the floor. I pick up the broken dish, and place is gently on the counter top. I call out again for my friend, and walk into the living room of the small, city house. I am startled to see a man, hunched over. He turns around, and sobbing, says 'I heard you come in.' beside him is the body of his wife.'What happened?' I ask.'We got into an argument,' he said, nervously, 'I didn't mean to.. She was screaming, and I was screaming, and she broke the plate, and I pushed her.. She threw the plate at me, and I hit her..'In shock and disbelief, I looked down on the sobbing, frightened man and said, 'We need to call an Ambulance!''No!' He said, with strange conviction. 'She's dead!''The Police then!' I replied.'No!' he said, 'Help me clean, noone will know!''Have you lost your mind?' I said, shocked. He stood up and grabbed me by the shoulders. She is bleeding badly, from many apparent wounds. He screamed 'Help me!''No!' I said, 'We need to call the police!'He pushed me, and I fell as I hit the counter.'We don't need the police!' he screamed, 'We need to hide her!'I stood up, and tried to move to the door as he jumped my back. I fell to the ground, and as I tried to stand, the air seemed to escape involuntarily. I fell back to the ground, and I realized I was unable to breathe. He stabbed me again in the abdomen, and again in the back. I looked foreward along the floor, with an expression of utter shock on my face. I could feel my life bleed through my wounds as the pain slowly subsided. I knew my life was stolen, and suddenly I drew a blank.

ANNETTE BARYL. HANG VIII

I turned the key, and the engine started with a bang. I shifted to reverse, and backed out of my driveway, into the street. I was headed to my grandmothers house. I turned left, out of the city, and down the street. I opened the window, and let the early evening air move throughout the car. I watched over the horizon, at the end of the long, empty road, the sun fall to the earth. The air became colder, and I glanced up to see the last beams of the sun bend over the horizon, and disappear. My car coughed, wheezed, and ground to a halt. I turned it off to the shoulder of the road, and with a sigh of depression, opened the door and walked to the hood. Completely incompetent mechanically, I opened the hood and peered in quizzically. I saw two headlights over the horizon, and walked up to the road and waved to get the attention of the driver. He slowed as he approached, then rolled past, and continued on his way. A near eternity later, I spied another pair of headlights. I stood up and waved. This time the driver pulled over beside me, rolled down the window and asked what the trouble was. I explained to him that I had no idea whatsoever, and he stepped out of the car. When he came out, I realized he had a shotgun. I stood deathly still, in complete shock. With a should of 'Take it, Nigger!' I fell over backward. He walked up to my still body, and fired again into my chest. He wrapped me in a large blanket and heaved me in the back of his car. After some time, the vehicle came to a stop, and he rolled me out onto the shoulder. He closed the door and rolled me to the side of the road, where I lay waiting.

ANATOLII KARATAEV. HANG IX

The brisk air rushes in as I open the door to a bitterly cold Izhevskian morning. I step outside and walk to the sidewalk. I rub my hands together as I walk to the small market just down the street. I step into the store and the clerk smiles and says 'goodmorning!' I have seen her before. She lives in my building, though I rarely see her. She leaves very early. I can hear her every morning, walking down the hallway, the old floorboards squeaking under her. Occasionally we will have lunch, or a few drinks together. She came here from the east, three or four years ago, to work with her father here, in the market. I remember when she moved in. She was so nervous, she cried once, on my shoulder, because she was under the impression everyone thought poorly of her.'Goodmorning,' I said, smiling politely. She's very sensitive that way. If you seem at all sad, or depressed, she will make it her mission to cheer you up. Sometimes it's best simply to pretend.'What could I find for you today, Antolii?' she said, smiling, looking right into my eyes.'Oh, nothing really,' I said, still smiling.'Than to what could I attribute your visit to?''Well, honestly, I just felt like dropping by.''I don't believe you,' she said 'You never just drop by.''Alright, well, now that my plan was entirely foiled, I suppose i'll just have to come right out and say it.''Say what? That your madly in love with me? I already knew that, Anatolii..''Well, I was just wondering if you would like to get some lunch, or a drink?''I'd love to,' She said, taking off her apron. She leaned over and yelled into the back room to Alina, the baker.'I'm going to go get some lunch, can you take over?''Well, I'm not certain,' She replied, ' I might need you around here.''Oh come on, Alina!''Alright, Alright, go on, I'll be fine here!'Down the street about three blocks, on the right, was a small resteraunt. It wasn't bad, the food was good, the waitresses were nice, and it was always nearly empty, whenever I was there, anyway. I ordered a Sandwich and a bowl of warm soup, she ordered the same. I heard a ding as the front door opened, and an old man with two younger men, came in. They sat at the table next to us. The waitress came over and took their orders before stopping at our table and asking if we would like our glasses refilled. We both answered 'No,' and she wen't to the kitchen to deliver to order. With the passing of the sixtyfirst minute, a car stopped with a screech outside the glass window beside us. The men all turned, and one of the young men pulled the old to the ground, behind a seat. A spray of bullets flew in, as we leaned over to get behind the seat. I felt as though I had been hit in the chest. I could hardly breathe. I pulled my arms tight to by body, and looked down to see my rib protruding from my chest. Saying I was shocked would be an understatement. I tried completely in vain to inhale. I could hear the bullets ricocheting around, tearing the walls, shattering everything in their path. I could hear the screams of the waitress, and the cries of my Anatola. Everything suddenly became silent, and I could hear only her tears striking the floor.

YASUO MORIOKA. HANG X

My eyes opened as the light seeped through the blinds and onto my face. I stared for a moment at the roof, in complete disbelief. I peered at the bumpy pale yellow ceiling in my one bedroom, one person apartment. I saw my entire life displayed in each ridge, and in each miniscule crevice of the drywall. I sat pondering eternity, pondering life, staring at my buttercup ceiling. I wondered if I should bother to live. I wondered if I should bother to die. I saw my beginning, I saw my end. I squinted, and peered deeper into the ceiling. I saw my life, I recognised my dreams; my ambitions. My eyes focused, and to my dejection, I saw all man.