Escape Fantasy

The ovoid is many spheres from another perspective.

2011-11-14T02:55:00.002-04:00

A sphere that vibrates up and down fast enough becomes an ovoid because from a particular reference in space/time one cannot observe the sphere as it exists in each distinct position in space/time. The positions overlap too rapidly and blend together so that one sphere becomes the blending of multiple spheres in different positions (an ovoid made up of spheres from different dimensions created by the combination of the overlapping waves and the observer's perspective based on the observer's relative position and orientation in space/time determining where and to what degree the waves overlap). In this way one thing can become many, the thing is both itself and many other things, but those other things are each only seen by each different perspective outside that thing. In this way all things are practically real but technically illusions, objects that for all intents and purposes appear definitely one way from one perspective are actually existing in many ways at the same time; no one of those ways sees itself as the object from our perspective nor can our perspective see from the object's perspective. While our perspective's object is real to us it is illusory from another perspective. All things can be seen from another perspective. Nothing is definite. Everything is a real illusion. There is no ovoid; furthermore there is no sphere; furthermore there is no observer. The ovoid exists to an observer because it is of the observer. The sphere is of another observer, the observer is of yet another observer.

Ebay is an awful company

2009-04-04T16:29:00.005-04:00

Nobody seems to realize what Ebay has done recently. Is everyone buying into the bullshit?

Ebay created something called the Final Value Fee which is a fee charged to the seller based on a percentage of the final sale. This final value fee ends up usually being much more expensive (for me it was 5x more!!) than any standard (non-premium) insertion fees.

They've been veiling this change in how they make their money by marketing "FREE INSERTION FEE" sales.. which compared to the old system aren't sales at all but rather they are just charging you way more while telling you the exact opposite.

Essentially this is just a marketing scheme by Ebay to charge way, way more and advertise as if they are charging less. I didn't even realize they had added a Final Value Fee until I actually sold something on Ebay.

Between using Ebay (standard insertion) and Paypal (credit card payment) to sell an item and receive payment, an item I sold for $377 cost me $37.19 just to sell it and receive payment. That's approximately 10% of my sale going to Ebay and Paypal. How much effort did Ebay and Paypal really put into my sale and the transferring of money? To say that this cost is exorbitant is an understatement. This is even higher than paying tax!

This is in addition to Ebay's already ridiculous policies. At first I decided to sell my item with some premium insertion options in the hope that it would sell for more. It cost me about $30 to do but I was hoping I'd make at least that back because I was selling a rare item. It turns out that when the item sold the winning bidder never paid me. I filed an unpaid item report which automatically credited me the Final Value Fee (which at the time I didn't even realize existed).. however it did NOT credit the $30 insertion fee and barely penalized the winner with an "unpaid item strike" which essentially amounts to nothing. In other words, if someone happens to win your item and not pay you are liable for the insertion fee and they are not penalized. It took me something on the order of 10 disgruntled calls to ebay berating them on their policies and threatining to boycott their business to finally get the insertion fee credited to my account. For all I know ebay could have special agents who bid on items with high insertion fees and never pay for them so they can make more money when you re-insert the item. In any case the customer gets screwed and Ebay gets profit.

Don't fall for Ebay's bullshit like I did. Hell, boycott Ebay. There are new online marketplaces that you can use.. FOR FREE.. http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=online+marketplace ... So much for all this costing companies money .. Really it's just them making bank by marketing you that their service is cheap when really it's expensive as hell.

The stone and I

2009-03-02T05:27:00.001-04:00

As I command my hand to lift the stone, the stone also commands my attention to be lifted with the proper force.

Which one of these is truly in command: I who commands the stone be lifted, or the stone who commands that I pay attention to the lifting? Would your answer change if the stone turned out to be too heavy to lift? Why?

What drove me to lift the stone in the first place? Did I simply look at it and decide that it must be picked up? Did I command that the stone be picked up, or did the stone command that I must pick it up?

The only logical conclusion to this dilemma is that I am a part of the stone and the stone is a part of me. It has a will to be picked up that I see and act on. The will is as much a part of my nature as it is a part of the stone's nature.

As such I must surrender myself to the notion that I am in control of absolutely everything and absolutely nothing both at the same time. That I am as much a human as a stone and that neither are in control over the other and yet they both move in accordance with their natures.

How different the world would be if we could just let go of our ownership of will enough to realize that the stone plays an equal part to our own.

The Elements

2009-01-06T21:04:00.014-04:00

What if we take the 4 archetypal elements (Fire, Earth, Water, Air) and relate them based on their natures to human motivations and states of being? We already do this in a way. An angry, driven, or excited person can be perceived as fiery for instance. These qualities that make up fire (and others) exist in all people. Let's expand on the traits of all these elements and see how they operate in people.

Earth:

Earth is steady and immovable. It is heavy and stubborn. With enough effort it can be shaped. Earth is the slowest and longest lasting of all elements, but can be consumed quickly by Fire.

Human Traits: Knowledge, Determination, Stubbornness, Tranquility, Strength

Earth can be expressed in human trends and actions as being stubborn and judgmental or headstrong and determined. It can also be expressed in general as organization or society itself (any social system that was created and now stands). It is a very important element to the evolution of human knowledge. It is the very structure of human knowledge and this structure of knowledge can redirect Water, Air, and even Fire forces within us. It is capable of great tranquility if left alone, but can have effects on the motion of Water and Air. If combined with enough Fire it can be easily consumed, but this consumption can also redirect Fire's shape and growth dependent on the structure of the Earth that Fire consumes. Earth also has the power to contain Fire and keep it from spreading.

Opposite: Air. While Earth is steady, present, and immovable Air is flighty, invisible, and constantly in motion. Earth cannot be directly affected by Air and as such people strong in Earth and Air but weak in Water may have a disconnection between mental and imaginative life and actual life. Earth can also block Air in society by the structure of already established knowledge holding more weight than new ideas and points of view. Earth is convinced by the way things are and not necessarily the way things could be. It needs to be softened by Water if Air understandings are to affect it.

Affected By: Fire. Fire can consume Earth. Earth wants to remain steady, Fire can destroy Earth's steadiness. Earth can also shape the path of Fire however, blocking it in certain places and allowing it to grow in others. Any organized Fire that gets something accomplished requires a well organized Earth, but like wood burning in a stove once it consumes all the Earth it can the Fire will go out. This can be seen in society as something like a riot where Air and Fire forces gather and explode to uncontrollably and without any direction at all consume Earth; once the Fire has consumed and destroyed all the Earth it is able it will go out. In this instance some understanding of Air might have caused Fire to explode, but that understanding can easily be lost as Fire spreads. Air cannot control the raging destruction of Fire on ignited Earth.

Found Most With: Water. Water and Earth are able to shape each other without destroying each other. They are connected on the planet's surface as Water is attracted to Earth. Water and Earth can be an excellent combination as the forces of stability and the forces of compassion can cooperate. This is an excellent bonding for any organized structure like a family unit or a business.

Affects: Air, Water, Fire
Earth's slowness has a small ability to stop or redirect Air and a larger ability to change Water's motion if it happens to be in that element's path. Fire feeds on Earth and Earth can also shape the motion of Fire as the Earth blocks it or is consumed by it. Earth can also stop the Air forces within us from reaching anything physical. Earth can give Water a path to move along (a purpose). Earth can prevent small Fires from spreading as well as be consumed easily by larger ones.

Afraid Of: Fire. Fire consumes Earth, destroying the structure of it. Not all Fire will consume all Earth, but a strong Fire can make easy work of Earth until it runs out of Earth to consume.

Fire:

Fire is chaotic, hot, quick and consuming. Like the Sun, it can be feared or cherished by others for its heat. Fire feeds on Earth and gives Air the fastest motion. It is also pure light and energy, and as such is by far the fastest element, but its speed is due to feeding on other elements. It cannot exist without Air. Fire will also consume Earth until its Air is cut off either by an abundance of Water or the lack of Air itself. Fire from the Sun is also much of the force behind life. It keeps Water and Air in motion, and allows Water and Air to mix. Fire is responsible for the heat infused in Air, Water, and Earth and as such its effects on Air, Water, and Earth allow these elements to have any interaction at all.

Human Traits: Strong Emotion, Drive, Action, Motivation

Fire can be expressed in human nature as the spark of life, youth, and vitality itself. It is the "get up and go" force in us that can breed the strongest of emotions (be they laughter and happiness or despair and anger) and the most profound of actions (be they creative or destructive). It is at the root of all human motivation and drives everything else. Water would freeze without the Fire of the Sun. Air would remain motionless. Earth's structure would have no use in directing the other elements and would go unseen and unchanged. A Fiery person can have seemingly bi-polar changes in their emotions because Fire feels very strong emotions comparative to the other elements. Fire people are also spontaneous and always craving new stimuli to consume.

Opposite: Water. Water suffocates Fire. It calms strong emotion. Water can soothe the most intense Fire people giving them calmness. If Water is used in synergy with Earth forces it can reshape a person's Earth and Water and take a very chaotic and restless Fire person and give them peace and steadiness.

Affected By:
- Air. Fire requires air to grow. Without Air (observation) Fire (emotion, drive) cannot exist. Fire and Air together can be a very powerful and destructive force as Fire has the will and Air has the way. Fire and Air together can cut through any illogical argument or situation with indisputable logic and focus that seemingly comes directly from the illogical situation itself, pointing out the absurdities of a situation and destroying them. They can be a source of vast and uncontrolled creativity through destruction if a person's Earth forces are bypassed or burned down. They can also cause a powerhouse of emotions and leave a person completely out of control of himself while Fire and Air take over. If Earth forces are strong a person's Fire and Air may remain contained beyond one's ability to let them out or burst and explode into a huge fire assisted by and feeding off of a person's Earth.
- Water. Water suffocates Fire, calming strong emotion and drive. Without Water forces a Fire person can easily lose balance and stability. The only other element able to stop Fire is Earth, but if a Fire is strong enough it can overpower and then feed on Earth creating massive destruction. Without Water the Fire in a person is always restless and can at times explode uncontrollably overpowering and consuming a person's Earth forces to create a strong burst of emotion that breaks the person down and leaves them with nothing until they can recover.
- Earth. Fire feeds on Earth, changing its structure. Earth can contain Fire but if a Fire is hot enough it will consume Earth. Stability is burned down by strong emotion, but the stability of Earth can also contain it. A person with strong Earth forces can have Fire in them that doesn't ever come out, creating internal strife. When the Fire does finally come out, the stronger the Earth containing it, the stronger the Fire will be and without Water it can destroy a person's stability uncontrollably.

Found Most With:
- Earth. Fire attaches to Earth and consumes it. Fire also can be contained by Earth, and any long lasting Fire must be in balance so it does not completely consume Earth and then go out.
- Air. Fire requires Air to exist. Combined they are incredibly powerful and can overpower the strongest Earth barriers, consuming them to feed the Fire. It is possible for the understanding of Air to blow strong enough (if assisted by a logically driven fire) to put out an illogical Fire, but a strong Fire, logical or illogical will simply pull the Air into it allowing it to grow.

Affects:
- Earth. Consuming it and changing its structure through destruction.
- Air. Speeding Air up, giving it its motion. Air can be Fire's most powerful ally allowing Fire to overpower Earth or have an affect on Water. The understanding of Air is always fueled by a fiery drive to understand.

Water:

Water is very movable. It is necessary for life, nurturing its growth. It is a medium speed element, not fast like Air or Slow like Earth, but is more present and visible than Air as it moves. It has presence and form, but no specific shape itself. It is able to meld with and shape Earth and Air because it is very empathic. The solidity of Earth can force Water to move, but Water in motion can also move Earth. Air and Water will mix with each other if assisted by the heat of Fire. A stone thrown into a lake will create ripples throughout the entire lake. A wind on the lake will create a wave that passes through the entire lake. The stone and the wind become the motion of the Water. This is the Water's empathic quality. Water can calm the strongest Fire, absorbing its heat to become one with Air, and in putting out Fire can give the forces of Fire a channel of motion without destruction. Water and Fire can't combine on their own but when their forces are combined through Air they can be a great force of directed creativity (like clouds and rain).

Human Traits: Compassion, Empathy, Wisdom, Calmness, Connectivity, Malleability

Water is the empathic force within human nature. It is very nurturing, loving, and understanding. It runs in the veins of all living things (even the Earth itself), linking things together and as such is the channel for great directed creativity. Water takes the powerful and destructive forces of Air and Fire and calms them, giving them a channel to affect things while controlling the raw destructiveness of Fire and Air; Water channels Fire and Air towards creativity without destruction (like clouds and rain). It is also pure wisdom, and can calm the strongest of our fiery emotions, or meld with Air and Earth to reshape knowledge and understanding.

Opposite: Fire. While Fire is drive and strong emotion, Water is calmness; Water puts out Fire and channels destructive Fire forces into directed creativity with the assistance of Air.

Affected by:
- Air. Air's constant motion can be picked up by the empathic quality of Water to create waves, connecting Air's flighty and disconnected nature to something physical. Air is understanding, Water is the ability to use that understanding wisely. The only other way Air can affect something physical is through Fire. This is very destructive and the wisdom of Water will not keep the balance. Fire can easily overpower Air and rage uncontrollably and without any logic if there is no Water.
- Fire. Fire's heat and destruction is absorbed by Water to create clouds and rain (a great source of directed creativity). This should not be abused however as it may breed a hurricane of self-righteousness as the Fire (self-motivation) in the water clouds (connection and affect on others) becomes too powerful and destructive.

Found Most With:
- Earth. Water can coexist with Earth without destroying it. It can calmly and slowly reshape Earth in a directed manner if directed by Air and Fire forces. If Water is constantly used to put out too strong Fires it can build up into a hurricane able to destroy Earth.
- Air. Air can meld with Water with the assistance of Fire forces for great and directed creativity like the clouds and rain create rivers to reshape the earth itself. Air is the understanding that gives motion to Water. Water's wisdom allows Fire and Air to affect Earth without destroying it or losing control. If the heat of Fire is too strong however it can overpower the soothing nature of water and create self-righteous destruction in the name of nurturing.

Affects: Fire, Air, and Earth in that order due to the quickness inherent to those elements. Water is very empathic. It is the quickness of the other elements that determines how Water will affect them. It is because Water absorbs the energy of the other elements. Water puts out Fire instantly, absorbing its heat and cutting off its Air. Water absorbs the heat of Fire and the motion of Air making clouds and rain every day, and becoming waves in the sea. Water reshapes Earth without destroying it and over much time can change landscapes.

Air:

Air is the second fastest and most movable of all elements, but its movement remains invisible to the eyes. It is flighty and nonphysical. It is a fast moving element. Air is very important to life and Fire's existence, and greatly affects Water's movement; but Air also goes unseen. Only the affects of Air are seen. As such it is a very ethereal element and really is more conceptual than visible.

Human Traits: Thought, Understanding, Observation

Air is the mental and observational force of human nature. It comprises all thought including dreams and fantasy. It is the force of sight and understanding. It is the only element able to coexist with all the other elements without destroying them or being destroyed itself and as such understands the other elements through a sort of distant observation. It goes unseen and seems mostly disconnected, but in actuality it is important to our driving forces as life (including Fire) requires it to breathe. It doesn't like being trapped, greatly valuing freedom it will always try to spread itself out rather than be confined and is very difficult to trap. Despite this desire for freedom Air can find itself trapped if it is unable to bring its ideas and understandings into a structured (Earth) world. Air is unable to affect Earth on its own and requires Water or Fire to bring its ideas into something real, physical, and lasting. Ultimately it requires both Fire and Water to create a desired effect on Earth as with Fire alone it can lose control.

Opposite: Earth. Air is very flighty and ethereal. Earth is very present and physical. Air has a hard time affecting Earth on its own. It needs Water or Fire. Earth also has a much harder time redirecting or containing Air than it does Water or Fire. No matter how much knowledge Earth has an understanding of Air that shows Earth to be incorrect will overpower it in the ethereal realm of one's mind. Despite this Air will find itself trapped if unable to reshape the physical Earth that it finds to be incorrect creating a difference between one's internal understanding and the physical world that can separate one from reality and create internal strife. It may bond with Fire to affect Earth, but this bond is destructive and the further the Fire spreads the less the understanding of Air that first fueled it has control over it. If Water (wisdom, compassion, connectivity) is used in balance with Fire (Drive, Motivation), Air understandings can have great effects on Earth's knowledge.

Affected By:
- Fire. Fire changes the qualities of Air and puts it into fast motion. Fire gives Air the speed to affect non-destructive change in Water and Water gives Air and Fire the force to affect Earth. If Air combines with only Fire it can be a powerful creative force, but it is also very destructive and uncontrollable, combining with and consuming Earth directly in a way that will break down Earth's structure rather than simply reshape it.
- Water. Water and Air mix to become clouds and rain if the heat of Fire is applied to them. Fire's drive combines with Air's understanding and Water's wisdom to bring forth physical manifestations of understanding (knowledge.. Earth) without the raw destruction of Air and Fire alone. Be wary however, if this is used to put out strong Fire (strong drive) too often one can become self-righteous as one's personal internal drives (Fire) are more powerful than one's wisdom and compassion (Water) and understanding (Air).

Exists Most With:
- Water. Water and Air mix to form clouds and rain. There is almost always some amount of Water in Air even if it goes more unnoticed than the Air itself. Water is the wisdom that the understanding of Air lacks.
- Earth. Earth and Air are usually found together but remain separate from each other unable to affect each other unless Water or Fire is added to the mix.
- Fire. Fire always exists with Air as Air allows Fire to breathe. Fire and Air alone can easily overpower and destroy Earth, but when combined with Water can reshape Earth in a directed manner allowing for creativity without destruction (as long as the heat of Fire doesn't overpower Water to create a hurricane).

Money is Religion

2008-07-10T21:15:00.033-04:00

I'm going to talk about a religion so ingrained in the western world that it dominates the minds of every member of every society that has it. Whether you know it or not, even you are probably a follower of this religion. No this religion isn't Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, or anything of that nature. But this religion is monotheistic. It believes in the one, the all mighty: dollar. Sometimes the dollar is seen in some other form such as the pound or the euro; but whatever form the dollar takes it is the same to us. It is our lord, our god, our faith.

You see money is a religion more powerful than any before it. Everyone is a believer because we all have faith. We have faith that so many dollars earned can buy us our survival. We place our faith in these little paper bills. But the bills we hold in our wallets are not merely paper to us; they are magical spells written on enchanted parchment. With them we can summon food, clothing, gasoline, a car, a home, and perhaps even freedom itself.

Adorning the American dollar is a saying "IN GOD WE TRUST".. but what god might this refer to? Did you ever stop to think that perhaps the dollar is just a bit conceited and refers to itself? For we do undeniably trust in our god the dollar. We trust that when we walk outside we can spend it. When receiving the dollar for our goods or services we have faith that it has value and can buy us what we need to survive, or even merely what we desire (Oh Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz). But despite this trust, despite our faith, the value we give the dollar is illusionary; the value is not in the dollar, it is in ourselves. The only reason the dollar has value is because we decide to give it value.

And so you see, we believe in the dollar. It is our food and our shelter; our very existence depends on this dollar. But the magic is not within the dollar, it is within our collective belief in its value. Indeed IN THE DOLLAR WE TRUST.. and as such money is a religion. It is in fact a god that we all have faith in. A god that can perform miracles in summoning the items we need to survive. A god more visible than any of the gods other religions talk about because the power of this god is in your very wallet. It performs its miracles on a daily basis. You pray to it both in earning and in spending, you pray to it when selecting a career path, you pray to it when deciding what to purchase; indeed we are all devout.

* * *

Now that we see that money is a religion I will show you more. You see there is more to this religion than nearly 6 billion followers. Money as a religion was created for a reason. There is an ultimate purpose to it. This purpose is the same as most large-scale religions: control.

Yes, money while it gives you magical powers it also keeps you in a stranglehold. It is a system designed to control you. Don't believe me? That's alright, once again the dollar is a vain creature blatantly tattooed with this truth. In the seal on the back of the dollar there is a saying "Novus Ordo Seclorum", which means "New Order of the Ages" in latin. What is this new order? Of course once again it is the dollar.

How does the dollar control you? Simply; the dollar is not merely magic. The dollar's magic is in its ability to grant you power over other people. You pay a waitress for serving you food, and a restaurant for that food. Someone pays you when you are earning that money you just spent. The dollar is magic that calls forth labor, and to the ones who possess it in mass quantities, everyone else is merely a slave they can call forth whenever they wish while leaving their servants asking "Please sir, may I have some more?".

So you see those who have grand scale control of the dollar are your masters. They guarantee their dominance through inflation, the devaluing of the money you make. While your money and thus your power loses its value theirs only becomes more powerful because they make sure to put their money in places where inflation wont affect it. When you hold on to money it loses value, when they hold on to money it gains value. The money you spend translates directly to what you earn. The money they spend is self-propagating, earned not by them but by you for them in each devaluation of your money through inflation.

The dollar: New Order of The Ages. While we are all slaves to those who control it, it is we that keep ourselves in this slavery by coveting the dollar. The more we want it the more power we give to its masters to control us. It is a self-enforced, self-propagating system of slavery cleverly disguised in the veil of the power it grants to those who wield it.

* * *

So money is a religion designed to keep us controlled. But how do the values, tenants, and moral truths of this religion affect us? You see unlike other religions, money has no values save for itself. In the religion of money you are only worth what you can earn, and if you have no money or potential to earn money then you are worthless. Does this give you a new perspective on things? What about the homeless? As a society we treat them as if they are worthless, don't we? It is because we follow the religion of money, we indeed place a value on people's lives based on it.

But our devoutness to the dollar and its lack of moral tenants affects our societies in far more insidious ways. You see in capitalism the lowest cost product/service is what has value. If a product can be produced for less, it will dominate the market. Any product that costs more cannot compete. Now what determines the value of a product? Lots of things, some more insidious than others. If a company can produce a product cheaply using something like child labor it will dominate the market causing all other products to either have to fall to the same low moral standard of utilizing child labor or be unable to do business. This is why everything you see on the shelves says MADE IN CHINA or something similar. It is because businesses couldn't get away with having certain practices we consider unacceptable locally, so they go elsewhere to do them. You can see this sort of practice time and time again; a company will lower its moral standard in order to make a profit and once it does it dominates the market forcing any competition to follow that low moral standard in order to be able to do business. This is a pattern that inevitably leads to the downfall of morality and lowering of the overall quality of life for everyone (even those it may seem to benefit). It is because we, the devout followers of the dollar do not purchase our goods and services based on the moral practices of the companies that produce them; in fact often times we don't even know the moral practices of these companies. No, we purchase what we require based primarily on their dollar value because our religion dictates that the lowest price is best.

But there is more that our god the dollar commands. The greatest commandment of the dollar is by far: efficiency. You see efficiency creates lower costs; the more you can cut costs in any way possible the better. Therefore workers are only valued based on their calculable efficiency. The assembly line was a discovery made early on in the industrial revolution. The idea was that instead of one person assembling a whole product, the product could move down a line with each individual person assembling one small part of the item. Seems logical, efficient, and the best practice doesn't it? Tell that to the artisans who created their goods on a by-person basis, assembling an entire product because it was their art. Those artisans were all put out of business by the efficiency of the assembly line. What does this mean? This means a skilled artisan, a shoemaker perhaps whose clients he worked for specifically designing and creating based on his skill, artwork, and creativity cannot do business because the costs saved by hiring cheap unskilled labor and increasing efficiency using an assembly line are enormous. What does that matter you might ask. Well the artisan shoemaker may inevitably find himself working in one of these factories, assembling a small part of the same shoe over and over again instead of forging shoes out of his own power of creation. Don't you see how crushing that is to his spirit? How crushing it is to all our spirits? And the shoemaker is not alone; this mentality of efficiency is paramount to the dollar. Essentially every large scale industry has evolved with exactly the same assembly line mentality. Our labor has become so highly specialized that a person is expected to be trained through college for a particular skill, a particular specialty and is then hired by a company to fit a very particular role; a role that may even become obsolete in 10 years time. Do you not see it? This is not unlike workman number 23 in the assembly line of shoes (he hammers the heel's nails in).

On a grand scale reaching through the very roots of our education system we are all treated not as individuals but as commodities. We are put through an assembly line of education that is designed to hammer and temper us for a particular skill necessary for a particular role within a particular industry. We are not made to be intelligent varied thinkers capable of standing on our own two feet; we are made to be specialized tools serving the needs of industry so that we may work in an assembly line of production. For some reason this seems okay to us because we expect that the companies we will work for to take care of us. Fat chance. In a large scale company your job is a calculable asset. If downsizing is necessary the numbers will determine your worth, and you will not be taken care of.

In this system there are no artisans because everyone is merely a member of the line. Individual creativity, diversity in skill, mastery of a craft, all are unnecessary because you are designed to be a small part of the larger machine. We are duped into believing we should get an education that bends and breaks us into tools of industry. We pay incredible amounts of money for this education; money that we will have to earn and repay whether we like it or not by working a job using the skill we were trained for.

We live in a society where there are no masters. Virtually no one understands the whole of their business. The people are trained to only become small parts of a mastery; and they are hireable at a particular salary for a particular work regiment. This inevitably creates a society where no one actually commands their business, they merely exist as a part of the greater machine (figuratively hammering nails over and over again). This creates a vast spectrum of problems for us. Often times a worker's skill translates into no visible connection to anyone. As in, a person will work a particular job for a particular salary but will never see the true effects of their labor and what the company they work for is actually doing. And more than that a company may use the worker in a project that the worker would find detestably amoral (should he even know he is a part of it), but if the worker wishes to keep his salary (perhaps to pay off the monstrous school loans that he had to take out just to become a cog in the assembly line) he must remain working. This inevitably creates a separation between the worker's will and morality and the will of the company, the machine. And what is the will of the company? Money. The great calculable dollar is the life blood of a company, and thus a company prays with greatest devotion to the all mighty dollar at the cost of any other values, even the livelihood of its own workers.

In highly specializing our work we create a society of highly skilled unskilled people; people who know only one role within the labor force and nothing else. Let's look at a hypothetical worker John. John works in a tiny cubicle in an office calculating percentages and doing cost-benefit analysis. He's still paying off the mortgage on his house. He goes into work early in the morning and comes home after the sun has already set. The most light he sees during the day is not the sun but the buzzing fluorescence of the office, and the highest temperature he is aware of is a highly regulated 65 degrees. For most of the day his world is a 5 foot by 5 foot visible radius. His labor is in using relatively simple mathematics to make decisions for his company based on how much money the company can save and where the money can be saved. John is in actuality a high priest of the religion of money whether he knows it or not. Now when John comes home to his children after a long day of routine number-crunching in his pen of a cubicle what does he have to offer them? Well obviously he is able to support them with the money he earns through his job. But what else can he offer them? Does John know how to run a business? No he doesn't. If his children ask, he will be unable to teach them. Does John know how to care for and maintain a car? No, that labor is taken care of by his mechanic who he pays. Does John know how to create toys or games for them? No, that he pays for to toy companies. Does he know how to entertain them? No, that is handled by television. Does he know how to cook for them? No, various fast food restaurants handle that responsibility. Does he know how to teach them to live in society? No, that is handled by educational institutions that he pays. In actuality most of the way John expresses himself to his children is by buying their livelihood through the money he earns. A great many people who don't even know who John is therefore have the greatest affect on his children because John relies on the services of others to take care of them. John's greatest teaching is therefore how to spend money. Having no viable skill to pass down to them they will inevitably fall into the same educational trap he fell into. Forced first to pay off a school loan and later a mortgage and children they will become more cogs in the great machine of labor.

This pattern does not merely affect our interaction with our children it affects our interaction with every other member of society. We end up not communicating with people based on our skills, our ideas, or individual abilities that we might offer them; instead we communicate with people based on the language of money. When you walk into a restaurant do you even see people or do you merely see an assembly line machine by which you are able to attain food through your money? Do the people working there even see you as a person or merely some dollar bills? A salesman comes to your house to sell you something. Did he create the product he is selling? No. Does he really care about the product itself, or is he just using it and you to make a buck? When you speak with people asking "What do you do?" do they even care to answer? Do you even care to hear the answer? Is their job simply a means by which they make money? Is yours? Someone driving a fancy sports car shrouds himself in his money as if gloating for all to see and we look at his car in awe. Someone driving an old used car we overlook completely. Why does the amount of money someone makes cause us to become interested in a person even when our own work is used merely to attain money? Do you see it yet? Do you yet see the absurdity that is our modern life in our religion of money?

* * *

Now what does money translate to? Labor. Plain and simple. It all comes down to who does the labor. People like to think that because they have the money they have the control, but the real control is in the hands of those who do the labor. The more these laborers pray to the religion of money, the less control they have and the more control they give to those with the money. The more these laborers pray simply to their work and those around them, the less control the money has. When all of a sudden those with money find that their money doesn't hold the same power because of something like a strike or a boycott they are baffled and confused. Being devout to the religion of money, their faith is put into question and they are left so distraught that they don't know what to do. Usually in these cases they will try to find labor elsewhere, or spin more illusions to get you back into the religion of money. Being that we have a global system of labor and various marketing strategies it isn't that hard to do (dependent on the scale). Which is why we need a global understanding that money is merely a religion to veil your eyes and prevent you from seeing that the real power behind the illusion of money is in the labor itself.

So open your eyes to realize that all of you collectively: the laborers of the world... you make the world go round. Search yourself to find what it is you really want. Not just the wants you have for yourself, but the wants of the great self of you and your laboring brothers and sisters. Through understanding and clear action without illusions clouding our minds we may once again stand as free men and women. Do not submit to the religion of money, or it will claim your soul and the souls of your brothers and sisters. For every man who submits to the will of money over the will of the people, there is another who will feel the despair of his actions. Do not allow money to decide for you the moral tenants of your existence. Each man who does this will create a small piece of freedom of mind, body, and soul not just for himself but for all those around him. The more men who follow in this example will create more freedom for themselves and for their brothers and like a wave of understanding and enlightenment the laborers of the world, those who keep the world going round will be free.

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

2008-07-10T12:29:00.003-04:00

I'd like to make a new post soon.. but before I do here's something I should have put on here a long time ago:

Will of Nature

2008-04-24T14:49:00.005-04:00

Rattling the bricks that hold up the wall. . . Here goes nothing. . .

Will.. What is it?

Essentially will is our ability to cause things to happen. We will something and it occurs. But what is will?

Cause and effect. Will is the cause and the effect is whatever we will to happen. But we forget that will is not simply an ultimate cause; it too had causes to bring about the act of willing. In forgetting this our understanding of will is not unlike a god's act of creation scenario along with its inherent paradox.

Our will is created by forces outside our conscious experience. The perspective of willing is merely that.. it is an illusion. What actually does the creation.. the "willing".. is not some god entity we call ourselves.. we are simply not the ultimate cause.. what creates the action are the forces outside our comprehension. When we will we are merely viewing the experience of willing.. willing being a more complex phenomena than what we can perceive.

We are not the ultimate cause in our act of willing.. If we understand this.. then what do we become?

Well what are we to begin with? How does a person define himself? Is he merely what he perceives as himself? Certainly not. We have already shown that will is merely an illusionary perspective of something more. So we too are something more than we think we are.

Are we then a collection of cells to form a body and a collection of experiences and understandings to form a mind? What is it that wills? Is it our cells? Is it reality bent into perspective by our minds? Which of these things is us? Cogito ergo sum -- I think therefore I am... But how do I know I am thinking? How do I even know what thinking is? I so easily define it.. but why? A thought is merely a perspective.. an experience.. and a very personal one. Who is to say that when I tell you "think" you envision the same experience of thought that I do? Furthermore who is it doing the thinking? As we pointed out earlier will is not the ultimate cause.. well neither can be thought. It is not you who does the thinking.. you are merely experiencing a perspective on the thought.. a thought being a collection of actions outside your comprehension.

I think to raise my hand and I raise it.. The splendor of my will.. but what forms the thought to raise my hand? What forms the will? We are not all individual gods.. Our thoughts and will are determined by forces outside our perception. The notion that we are merely what we perceive to be ourselves is incorrect. This view is illusionary... Thus we cast away all faulty faith in our separate and solitary godhood and are left with one idea.

We are not merely what we perceive to be ourselves. In fact what we perceive to be ourselves is but a small view of something much more.. it is illusionary.. and masks the true nature of existence. We must therefore redefine our understanding of ourselves. What then are we?

We are everything...

You are what you eat.. You are what you see.. You are what you do.. You are what you believe.. You are everything you have ever known and everything you might ever come to know swirling in, around, and far outside your body.. even in places that don't necessarily exist.. nonphysical "locations" of thought, feeling, and imagination..

You are the chair you sit in.. the words you are reading.. the light reflecting off of them.. and the eyes taking in the light.. You are even me who writes these words and the reality that caused me to write them..

So you see all things are one and society, humanity, nature, earth, stars, galaxies, and life itself are all but pieces of ourselves as we are each pieces of them.

Wall comes crashing down. . . That went rather well. . .

Society's Addiction

2008-04-06T14:20:00.004-04:00

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You can't cure an addict until you give an addict everything they want and then they ask for no more. That is when we have owned an experience and that is when we are wise." - Ramtha

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ambition, promotion, wealth. Fast cars, fancy clothes, expensive jewelry, the latest gadget. What is this love that our society has for status and the possessions that accompany it? Where does this love come from? Why is it so pervasive?

I realized from the Ramtha quote that this is merely Society's Addiction and that I was once a part of this addiction. I realized that I had owned the experience in my youth causing me to have a new perspective on it and giving me wisdom. How did I manage this?

In my youth I played very intensely a game called EverQuest. This is an MMORPG. You might know of a more popular game that is essentially the same thing called World of Warcraft. Many articles have been written about addiction to MMORPG games. What the writers of these articles don't understand (because they have not experienced it) is that the addiction to these MMORPG games is not isolated. It is indeed an addiction that belongs to most of our society. It is Society's Addiction to status and possessions.

You see, in these MMORPGs the main driving force for many people is leveling up your character and gaining rare items within the game. In gaining these levels and items you differentiate your character from other people. A level 20 looks at a level 60 in awe at his power and shiny items and wants them for himself. A level 60 seeks more levels and more shiny items in order to become more powerful, to give himself more power and an even better appearance of power to others.

Is this not unlike working to gain that promotion (a new level up?) and earning enough money to afford the flashy sports car or the designer clothes (new shiny items)? And oh how we love our new power in a promotion, and how we love to show off our shiny possessions and have people take notice of them. This addiction to the MMORPG's levels and items is in fact the same addiction we have in society to status and possessions.

The difference here is that the MMORPG is a virtual reality in which one can climb to the very top of levels and items. Once you do that you begin to see a trend. You see that once you reach the top there is nothing left to do. You become bored with the game because the driving force for playing it (the addiction) has nothing else to level up to, or no more items to find. You get everything you want, and there is no more to ask for. In reaching this point you begin to understand that the game is merely a vehicle to experience an addiction for status and possessions, and once you have experienced this realization the very addiction becomes different. You gain a new perspective on this virtual addiction that translates to Society's Addiction. You see that you are merely filling a void of feeling powerless within yourself thereby appearing more powerful to yourself and others by gaining money and all the best possessions that physically show this power you have. If you realize that in reaching the top there is no where else to climb and you had only lived to fill a void, then you no longer have the same addiction and in a way are finally satisfied in the realization that there is no such thing as satisfaction. Possessions and status can no longer have the same meaning to you because you understand that they had no true meaning to begin with other than the temporary satisfaction of your addiction for more poessessions and a higher status.

In the realm of society this realization from having climbed to the top is only experienced by the very few who do make it to the top, and it is usually only later in life that they experience the realization of the addiction. The virtual realization within the MMORPG in a way shows us something in only perhaps a year's time playing the game that an entire lifetime within society might never show us. It shows us the nature of our addiction to status and possessions.

So the next time you look at someone playing an MMORPG and think they are wasting their time in trivial pursuits and lost in some fake reality know that in a way they are playing the same real game of addiction you are playing within society, and by playing it more intensely and reaching the end goal more quickly they are gaining wisdom about the nature of this addiction that you might never attain from playing the game in society.

It is perhaps in exploring our most unreal creations of fantasy that we may best understand our true nature within reality.

Reality

2008-04-02T16:21:00.004-04:00

So I heard this comedian doing his skit. During it he said he was an atheist. That one statement started me spiraling in a crazy pattern of thought.

So I thought to myself "atheism?". I once defined myself as an atheist but that word no longer holds the same meaning to me. I realize what he meant by atheist and realized I was still an atheist based on his definition of god. If god is defined as an all powerful father figure entity outside of ourselves then I am an atheist. However I have begun to wonder about another definition of god.

What if god is simply defined as reality (everything)? Everything you experience is therefore god. But you yourself are the observer of this experience.. and as such are tied to every part of the reality you experience. In fact you are another part of reality that you experience and are another part of god.

The reality we experience is a construction of our ability to experience reality. In that way it is very personal, each of us having our own realities. Now what would reality be without your experience of it? Without experiencing reality it wouldn't exist. Everything we see, everything we do, everything we know is created by our ability to experience it.

If humans are a part of god and create god in the form of the reality we experience then how do we define ourselves?

If you define yourself based on your name, your height, the way you look, where you grew up, what you like to do.. are you not defining reality? These things are all examples of reality, they are not examples of you but rather what you've experienced. How much of us is actually not ourselves but rather the reality we experience, and what are we?

Our past, our preferences, our desires.. these are all just experiences in our reality. What we are is the ability to experience them.

Now what about thought and the things it can create.. like reason, and logic? Thought is another experience for us.. but what is it? Can you find a thought outside yourself? You may read this and think there are a lot of thoughts written down, but what is this reading but merely words on a piece of paper? Are not words defined in our own minds? As we experienced earlier in this passage the definition of atheist also requires a definition of god that can be very different from one person to the next. I write the word atheist or the word god and what do you perceive as the idea behind the word? You do not experience my thought, you experience your own.

But if thoughts are so personal with each of us having our own thoughts then how do we manage to communicate? Simple. By having the same thoughts.

It is because thought is in actuality not personal. Thought is based on ideas, principles, logic. One can begin from certain commonly perceived base understandings of concepts and using logic combine and follow those understandings to new ones.. arriving at the same conclusions as another person.

Do you see what this means?

The sum of all knowledge is attainable within your mind. It merely requires base observations and the reasoning that follows. Knowledge is in itself another plane of reality that we as humans can interact on without ever interacting with each other on the "physical" plane of reality. People can come to the same ideas, the same conclusions, and be physically far away from each other while their thoughts are the same. Having the same thoughts they are actually closer to each other in their ability to understand each other.

So we interact with each other within our own minds using our ability to reason. It therefore follows that as we interact with reality to gain base observations with which to reason we are also interacting with each other. The conclusions we come to are reality expressed using logic. They form our thoughts.. understandings.. our view of reality and our very ability to communicate.

Again just like the past we experience.. the thoughts we experience are reality..

So we continue with our question. What are we? How could we possibly define ourselves and not the reality we experience?

Separate yet connected

2008-03-27T12:34:00.003-04:00

Woo! Here comes a METAPHYSICAL and EXISTENTIAL post !!!

So check it out. Here's what the universe is looking like today...

Reality is based off of 4 dimensions: X, Y, Z, and T... X, Y, Z being what we perceive to be spatial dimensions, and T being time. Contrary to popular belief time is not one-dimensional... (it doesn't flow in a line)..

For a moment just imagine that T is actually another spatial axis. How would we then plot it out?

Well there are seemingly infinite moments in time. From our perspective these moments flow linearly, but we don't have to look at it that way. Right now you have any number of possibilities that could bring you into any number of potential futures.

So if we plot reality out, you have a bunch of paths (T) that you can move along from this moment (this moment being an XYZ reality) to the next. As you move from that new moment to the next moment after that we get the same thing. This starts to look like a tree of XYZ realities moving based on the T axis.

Now let's visualize this further. Forget for a moment that you exist in a single point in time and let's look at the universe based on this model. There exists out there a seemingly infinite amount of "present moment" XYZ states all connected by T. We are constantly moving through them as time passes. Where we go is determined by us and how we navigate through time.

Are you following? Because here's where it gets interesting:

Due to this we all exist in our own realities and in a way are separate from everyone else. Why? You move from T1 to T2 in the way of your choosing, but your friend also moves from T1 to T2 in the way of his choosing. Let's say you are in the supermarket and want to buy ice cream. You want mint chocolate chip but your friend wants cookie dough. You only have enough spare change for a single pint. What happens?

In our universe model it is possible for you to buy mint chocolate chip in your reality, and cookie dough in your friend's reality. In your reality you got what you wanted, in your friend's reality he got what he wanted, but these realities have diverged. You are with your friend who is eating mint chocolate chip, not your friend who is eating cookie dough and your friend is with you who is eating cookie dough, not mint chocolate chip. This is because we are constantly moving through XYZ planes at each new T based on our choosing of where we want to be.

Just let that sink in for a moment... It might take as much as redefining of your concept of the self in order to understand what I'm talking about, but what I'm talking about makes sense conceptually. The ice cream example seems kind of trivial but it can be applied to any situation where people are moving from T1 to T2.

I could keep writing and go off in a ton of different directions from this point, but I'm going to stop there because that idea is really the point of this writing.

Do you speak "Desire"?

2008-02-01T16:24:00.001-04:00

I've been thinking lately about how people interact, especially when people first meet and haven't yet learned how to communicate with each other; when people still have their own minds quite separate from each other. In fact it's not even just about when people are interacting with each other, but when people generally interact with anything (themselves, ideas, their environment). I've been noticing the pieces that build the interaction from the high levels of information exchange to the low levels of desire, and what a person wants both out of the interaction and the ideas the interaction expresses. I've also been noticing that people can communicate on these lower levels of interaction in effect giving them an incredible power to influence any situation.

Hmm.. this is all very confusing.. why don't we start from the beginning:

Your friend is sad and you want to make her feel better. Do you know how to cheer her up, or does anything you say just seem to make things worse?

Two friends are about to get into a fight. Why are they fighting? Do you know how to get them to stop? Or if you'd rather just let them beat the hell out of each other, do you know how to further entice them?

You see someone attractive and want to interact with them. What do you want from them exactly? What might they want from you? Are you wondering about any of this before you say hello? Do you even say hello at all?

Someone unattractive sees you and starts flirting with you. You know immediately what they want, but you also know what you want (you don't want to deal with their advances). Do you know how to make them stop pursuing you? Can you make them go away without being impolite? Or perhaps you know how to play with the interaction on their level, making it clear that they aren't going to get anywhere with you while not offending them, and even having an amusing or interesting exchange with them.

Within each of us are many different pieces; these pieces combine together to create what we think and do, and the way we think and do it. Our wants and desires are very low level pieces. They come from our subconscious mind and influence us each in different ways. But we have more to us than simply our desires. We are stimulated by information: thoughts and ideas that we find interesting, pleasing, or useful to know. But notice that we are stimulated by information, thoughts, and ideas. In a way this "idea oriented" mind is built on top of our "desire oriented" mind because ultimately we think out of the desire for information and ideas.

How we think, and what we do is therefore determined by how our desires interact at a low level (usually our subconscious) and at a high level (in our idea oriented conscious mind). Ultimately it is desire that is the driving force behind everything we do. Desire spans from our wants in the plane of mere physical satisfaction to our needs in the complex world of ideas and mental satisfaction.

People always want something out of communication when they communicate. The question therefore is what do they want? Or rather why are they communicating, and what can you do with the communication?

It is quite possible to figure out why people communicate. One can start by understanding one's own desires and how they interact with one's thoughts. By translating one's desires and connecting them to thoughts, feelings, and actions one can understand the motivations behind thoughts, feelings, and actions. By knowing one's own desires and how they affect thought and action it is possible to see the same desires in others and read what people say and do from how exactly they say and do it.

What people want and how people think can be observed in what they say/do and how they say/do it, but there's so much more to it than that. When a person is confronted with some sort of stimulus they will react to it based on their wants and desires in the situation. It is therefore possible to actually communicate not on the higher level of spoken language and information exchange, but directly on the deeper level of wants and desire. This can be attained through many methods of stimulation including spoken language, but the actual language in this communication is the language of desire. This takes our investigation of desire one step further. Instead of merely reading peoples desires you are able to interact with them; talk with people's desires both to learn more about them, and to work with them.

The language of desire is ever present in interaction. For instance people discussing politics of any kind generally discuss politics because of the desire to be correct. The best way to feel correct is to make other people appear incorrect, and thus the argument ensues. Oddly enough politics is one of those things where both sides of an argument can feel more correct about their positions after the discussion is over which makes it perfect for these types of "reassuring correctness" desire-level discussions. People who have similar political arguments on the other hand will discuss in order to agree with each other, reassuring their correctness and becoming closer and friendlier with each other at the same time (satisfying two desires).

Then of course there's the infamous "one-upper", a person who always has something to say that tops anything else you say. For instance if you have a story about when your friends drank 3 whole cases of beer, the one-upper will counter to talk about how he and his friends turned their monster truck into a giant keg and drank it way faster than you your stupid 3 cases of beer. Generally the one-upper is a humorous subject, but really what drives his desire to one-up? It's like he's initiating a game. How do you interact with him when he begins this game? Would you play along and say something like "Oh yeah? Well me and my friend Jesus used magic to turn this lake into wine one time and we drank it in like 2 seconds." or would you sit back and think to yourself "What's up with this guy?" and say, "That's pretty cool." Why might you want to respond one way or the other? What desire within yourself makes you respond one way or the other? What are the effects of each response?

The hunter is an ever-present persona. This is the guy who will come up to some woman in a bar and say, "Hey baby, how you doing? I'll buy you a drink for your number.." We all know what the hunter is after. The thing about the hunter is he is generally only thinks about one thing. You can't talk to the hunter with regular language, the only thing he responds to is the language of desire. The hunter therefore speaks and generally understands the language of desire better than his prey because he is thinking in it more often (perhaps he understands it even better than normal language). A skilled hunter can use his language of desire to subdue his prey; he can successfully get her number (and far more than that). This is something he can only accomplish using the language of desire (whether or not he understands the language at a conscious level).

Anyone skilled in desire can accomplish things that others couldn't even imagine because the language of desire isn't about communicating information, it's about working with people's desires and actions. For the hunter it's really much like fishing. He just has to know what kind of a fish he wants, where he can find it, when it's hungry, and what bait it will bite at. The skill and command of this sub-language however need not only be beneficial to the hunter; it can be beneficial to anyone engaged in any sort of communication. For instance a command of the language of desire would be quite beneficial for a psychologist, a manager, a salesman, an advertiser, a hobo, a "fish" being pursued by a hunter, a paraplegic in need of a cookie, or anyone really.

Command of the language of desire gives a person special powers such as the power to calm (or entice) someone who is angry or aggravated, reassure (or further distress) someone who is distressed, get something out of (or sell something to) someone, convince someone of something (or get someone to reject an idea), motivate someone who is unmotivated, cause someone to be unmotivated, attract someone who is attractive, or make someone unattractive leave you alone (among infinite other possibilities). But more than that, we always speak the language of desire whether or not we realize we are doing it, and having poor command over the language of desire can create some very unintended effects such as making a friend who is distressed even more distressed, or attracting the undesired hunter by making it appear as though you are biting his hook, or even worse: two people failing to show / realize their attraction to each other. Therefore not only is having a command of this language beneficial, but not having any command of it can be highly detrimental.

Whenever we communicate with someone they will want us to interact in terms of desire. How many situations have you been in where you could have used the knowledge of someone's desires to communicate on that lower level and bring about a change that is better for both of you? Whether it's just joking around with a friend who wants to laugh, getting to know to someone who just wants a new friend, convincing all your friends to get together when you know it will be fun for everyone, or just being friendly, listening to, and reassuring someone who is having the worst day of his life you have the power to affect yourself and others through understanding and communicating using desire.

If you didn't think in terms of interaction and desire before reading these thoughts then I may have just given you the key to quite possibly the most powerful tool ever known to mankind. Now that you know about this power and realize that in ignorance you have probably misused it in the past what are you going to do next?

Priorities and The Downfall of Experience in Society

2008-01-21T12:11:00.000-04:00

This writing is all about priorities; priorities we don't necessarily understand, or even realize we have. I started thinking about this (like many things I think about) while on a long drive. I decided I would visit some friends back at school for the weekend and started on my 3 hour drive to reach them.

I find it interesting that we gauge our travel not by distance but by how long it takes to complete. There is an inherent attitude to that system of measurement. I don't know where the attitude originates, but I know it's all about priorities.

When most people I know travel they punch in the addresses on a map website and get the directions out. I often do this as well, however I noticed something perplexing about my trip from home to school. The directions given took a route using a main highway, but this main highway was a very indirect route. It had a heavy curve to it. I noticed that there was another route that was much more direct, but didn't take a main highway. When the time was calculated for the more direct route it came up about a half an hour more than the main highway, but I decided to try it out anyway because it seemed odd to me to have to curve in a completely wrong direction to get to my destination (despite the computer telling me it would take less time).

So I took the more direct route, and I would never have imagined what I found. This was no major highway by any means; it was merely a one lane road. There weren't many traffic lights along the way, but there were constantly changing speed limits ranging from 15 to 50 mph. At first I was worried that the trip would be much slower than anticipated, but as I continued on the drive I started to realize more and more just how much that didn't matter. I began to have a change in attitude, or perhaps even a change in priorities.

This one lane road ended up being an incredible experience. It wasn't like driving on a highway at all. The road took you through the mountains. It curved around with sharp turns, and climbed up mountains to slide down the other side. I could watch as the mountains passed on either side of me as I curved around them. I could feel myself pushing through the curves in the road as I took them on. The most incredible part however I think was that I could enjoy my experience alone, and without worrying about other people on the road with me. There was the occasional traveler on the road with me, but they usually were only traveling locally and left the road quickly, or if they were going too slow I could simply pass them when the road had a broken yellow line. This feeling of being alone with the road, and not having to constantly worry about what other drivers were doing was incredible. It was something I had never before experienced on a long drive. The drive itself was not only enjoyable but it was exciting, I never once felt like I was going to fall asleep. When I got to my destination it was indeed half an hour longer than what the main highway would have taken, but I soon realized I would never again take the main highway for this journey.

Priorities. I really have to wonder about that. It seems that our modern society is obsessed with things that make our lives faster and more efficient. It is wholly concerned with numbers, percentages, and ultimately things it can easily calculate. With these priorities in mind it is obvious that 2.5 travel hours is less than 3, and therefore the better choice (as the map website would point out).

But what is this? From my experience 2.5 hours was not better than 3. How can that be when 2.5 is less than 3? This might seem illogical to number crunchers, but in order to get that half an hour I would have had to pay for it things that were not at all worth paying. I would have had to take a major highway as opposed to the more enjoyable road. What is a major highway? Let me compare it to my more pleasant route. If I had taken the highway I would have driven faster yes, but there are many downsides to that increased speed.

1- The highway is filled with other drivers that you constantly have to monitor. There are tons of people who don't follow the rule that the left lane is the passing lane (and they won't move over to the right lane for you to let you pass them). There are people trying to pass you, and people you try to pass. There are groups of cars huddled together like sheep all going the same speed. There are bad drivers and reckless drivers that can cause accidents. Would I choose this over being alone with the road? No.

2- The highway has lots of cops on it constantly pulling people over. The speed limit is 65, but that limit is a joke, most nobody actually goes 65. What does this cause? A situation where you are constantly going above the speed limit, allowing any of the many cops looming over the highway to pull you over whenever they please. Is this a pleasant mental experience while driving? Would I choose it over the feeling of being alone with the road without cops looming over me? No.

3- The highway has tolls. Why does the highway have tolls? One might say to pay for the maintenance of the highway, but in actuality those tolls might as well be a tax because the money doesn't go into merely paying for the highway. Furthermore why pay this tax while on the highway? Why not pay it through some other form of taxation that doesn't waste your time while driving? I have seen toll booths that have CAUSED traffic jams simply because they couldn't allow people to pay fast enough. How ridiculous is that? And instead of removing the toll booths and funding the highways through more logical sources we create computer systems (that you pay for) to let you pay the tolls faster. How logical is that? Do I really want to have to deal with the wasted time and traffic caused by paying this asinine tax on my drive? Would I choose it over not having to pay tolls? No.

4- Traffic. It's unavoidable. With so many drivers on the road together somebody for some reason or another is going to clog the traffic. Whether it be the sheer volume of cars causing it (and disregard of drivers for the passing lane rule), or an accident up ahead, or even a toll booth, chances are you are going to hit some kind of traffic on a long major highway drive. Do I enjoy being stuck in traffic? No.

5- Boredom. Our ease at falling asleep on these types of highway drives is just a sign of how incredibly boring they are. Whether in stop and go traffic or merely having your foot on the pedal and driving clear it isn't an interesting drive in the slightest. Do I want to fall asleep from boredom while driving? No.

Now I have to question these veritable nightmares we call major highways. They were most certainly designed with priorities in mind. But were their only priorities money from tolls (number one priority) and time from point A to B (number two priority)? Shouldn't the enjoyment of the trip be a priority? And if it isn't a priority, then why?

We as travelers tend to think of our trip on the highway not as something we are doing, but something we have to get done. When we take this attitude, time to completion becomes one of our most important priorities, shadowing all other priorities. We don't merely think of ourselves as being on the drive, we think of ourselves as being X time away from our destination. We look at the drive as an obstacle between us and our destination, not an experience in and of itself; this is a dangerous attitude to have. It is the same attitude that created a misguided priority in the structure of these systems, and it is an attitude that flourishes as more and more travelers just want to get through the nightmare that is a major highway. As we create more and more systems with this priority in mind we create more things that we "have to get done" rather than things we merely "do". More time in our lives becomes having to get somewhere in the future rather than enjoying the present moment. Sure we might get to the future more quickly, but if we keep creating systems that cause us to concern ourselves with how long it takes to get to the future rather than enjoying the present, when will we ever be able to enjoy what we are actually doing?

We are not machines, we are humans who constantly experience reality. If we always concern ourselves with numbers and abstract concepts like "how efficient", "how fast", and "how much" we end up forgetting about the baseline importance of experience and concerns like "how stimulating", "how enjoyable", "how relaxing", and "how fulfilling". When we forget about the baseline importance of our experiencing reality we tend to create realities that aren't worth experiencing and justify their existence based on more abstract (less real) terms. At the end of the day do I really care how fast or efficient things in my life are, or do I ask myself whether or not I had a good day? Which is therefore more important, efficiency or enjoyment of experience? I have to conclude that efficiency is merely an illusion, a fantasy we create to satisfy a compulsion to have numbers. We create numbers because they are easy to understand, compare, and use to justify what we do; but these numbers are not real, and by no means should be used to determine what we experience.

Abstract ideas taking precedence over baseline experience is merely the beginning of the downfall of experience in our society. If we don't fall back and remember that the experience of something is what makes it worthwhile we are going to evolve as a society in such a way that causes us to no longer have worthwhile experiences. It's already been happening in how we structure our highways, our cities, our work environments, our advertisements, how we spend our money, and our lives. Unless we take a good hard look at this misguided priority and take steps to remedy it there will continue to be a growing void of experience in our society that will ultimately drain our lives of enjoyable experiences.

But how can we remedy this growing problem? The simple answer is to begin creating systems that promote worthwhile experiences, systems that are planned out while being mindful of the experience of the system. For example, if you happen to be planning a party think less of how much alcohol you are going to buy and where the most efficient place to serve it is, and think more of the experience you want to create for people coming to your party. Keeping in mind the experience created by simple things like the placement of alcohol, furniture, sitting areas, standing areas, moving areas, and dancing areas can change the overall feel of a party immensely. For instance there is a party my fraternity had called "Around The World" where each room in the house supplies a different flavor of drinks. Many of these rooms also served as sitting areas. Each room had a different lighting and feel with different styles of music (or no music at all) playing. This created an experience in which you would move from room to room when you wanted to try a new drink, or stay in a room if you liked the atmosphere or who you were talking with. It also broke up the interaction so instead of people standing in their own unapproachable jumbled groups they were moving around and breaking off and combining into different interacting groups based on location. It made for an interesting party and everyone generally enjoyed when it came time for Around The World. If we merely conceived the party based on quantity and efficiency (how much alcohol to buy, where the easiest place to serve it and get it would be) we would have completely missed out on the essence of the experience and what made the party enjoyable. I think everyone attending the party would agree that it's a good thing we didn't.

Whether you're designing a device or a physical space, inviting a friend over or organizing an event, creating an advertisement or a mass transportation system simply keep in mind the experience you want it to create for people. Keeping this in mind will enhance the experience created by anything you do. If you're a person using any of these systems of experience, think of how you might change it to enhance your experience or the experience of those around you. For me it was something as simple as avoiding the highway for the road less traveled. What might it be for you?

Jacob's Ladder

2007-11-20T21:33:00.000-04:00

Someone I randomly met online sent me a message asking "So what's your story?". I realized I didn't really have one. So I made one up. Here it is:

Jacob's Ladder

Once there was a man who thought he could build a ladder to the moon. The townspeople all told him, "You're crazy Jacob, you can't build a ladder to the moon!" but Jacob never cared much for the townspeople's opinions.

So Jacob started building his ladder right in the village square. At first most townspeople ignored him, and a few laughed. Jacob's friend Jim saw him carefully assembling the ladder and told him, "Excellent work Jacob! Keep it up I know you can do it!" and so Jacob continued diligently.

Jacob worked for months to assemble his ladder. Every piece was interconnected with perfect precision. The ladder looked like a geometric marvel. Watching it being crafted was like having watched the village church when it was first assembled, but no one would compare the simplistic church's steeple to Jacobs's work of art. More and more townspeople stopped to watch this work of art being assembled. A few townspeople were so captivated they decided to lend Jacob a hand. Eventually the entire town was helping Jacob build his ladder with as much devotion as Jacob himself.

For years they worked on the ladder as if it was their religion. They carefully assembled with Jacob's direction. The ladder quickly became the tallest structure in the land. People from many towns over came to marvel at its height and design.

One day while Jacob was working towards the top of the ladder a carelessly placed board (no doubt placed by Sniggins, the town drunk) snapped from underneath him. Jacob fell plummeting to the ground. Townspeople flocked around him, "Are you alright?? Jacob!!??". Jacob's last words were, "Finish what I started."

And so the townspeople continued building the ladder. Moved by Jacob's example, Jacob had seemed to inadvertently martyr himself to the cause. And so the ladder grew taller and taller. People from far away towns heard of Jacob's ladder and and traveled to this little town to help.

What began as a laughable impossibility was now turning into a reality. Jacob's ladder towered higher than any structure known to man. The base of the ladder itself had engulfed the entire town, and work was being done all over the ladder. The many people who died for the cause were but a testament to Jacob's example.

Finally the day came and the ladder was complete. The workers realized they could jump from the top of the ladder and they wouldn't fall. They had truly reached the heavens. Those who jumped from the top drifted far out into the stars headed straight for the moon. And so all the workers religiously climbed the great ladder and jumped from the top, floating.. no.. flying through the heavens towards their prize.

As the last worker jumped he followed the trail of flying workers. He was so excited to be flying. He couldn't believe what was happening. He was actually flying through the heavens. But shortly after his jump his excitement was overwhelmed by another sensation. He soon realized that he couldn't breathe. He struggled but there was nothing he could do. He like all the other workers before him who jumped blindly into the heavens suffocated before reaching the much sought after moon.

After a while people came to this ghost town to find the legendary Jacob's ladder and nothing else. Some believed that the town all climbed to heaven. Some climbed the ladder themselves. Other's believed that the ladder was cursed and swallowed the town whole. Some believed the villagers would return one day as the only living people to ever see heaven. Other's believed the ladder was something too great, too ornate to be disturbed.

Whatever legends and beliefs circulated among townspeople far and wide, there is but one truth. A truth that was once quite evident, but now no towns-person near or far would believe....

....You can't build a ladder to the moon

Authoritarianism and Driving

2007-11-07T18:15:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about this off and on lately so I thought I'd write about it. Basically stated: the attitude you generally adhere to while driving is a prime example of submissiveness to authoritarian influences.

There are a vast number of rules to the road that we all follow when driving. Certainly it makes sense to follow many of them (like stopping at a red light), but the rules themselves force an authoritarian attitude. Whenever you're driving and the green light up ahead turns red you must obey the machine and come to a stop. It's like a forced contract between you and the road. Certainly we can understand why we stop when the light turns red (we don't want to accelerate head first into into moving traffic), but how many times have we been sitting at a red light late at night with absolutely no cars around just thinking to ourselves "..why?". This color red coming out of an electronic light-box has a distinct power over us. It is a generally understood rule (a law even) to remain stopped at the red light. In the instance when nobody is around you could just think to yourself, "Why not go? This is ridiculous." and go for it. You might even be right and have zero chance of getting into an accident, but if a cop is around he's going to pull you over and slap you with a punishment anyway. More likely you won't even think about it and will remain sitting at the red light. So we follow the general rule first and when that rule ceases to make sense to us we may even continue to follow it, or we may just follow the authority of a potential (imagined) cop punishing us.

Just the attitude that you have to constantly keep your eyes out to follow these various rules and regulations while getting from one place to another (driving) is incredibly submissive to the authority inherent in imposed laws. Maybe its a necessary thing to keep the system of the roads operating properly without a barrage of accidents; but the fact is that you primarily follow these rules because they are rules, and you follow them whenever you are in the driver's seat. Half the time you don't even realize you're following them. When you automatically put your left/right blinker on it's pretty much a conditioned action (perhaps so conditioned that certain people like to leave their left or right blinkers on while driving for no apparent reason).

But there continues to be an interesting phenomenon. If you are driving on the highway and look at the speed limit sign it tells you 55mph, but often times anywhere from 50-90% of the cars around you on the road are speeding at somewhere around 70mph. When viewing all these people speeding you figure that the law of the "speed limit" isn't being followed and therefore isn't valid. In actuality even the cops generally won't pull you over if you are going 70mph on a 55mph highway. But technically by the law they could pull you over if they wanted. So when we see those around us following a different kind of law, one that says "going faster than the posted speed limit is a-ok" and we see that they generally aren't punished for doing it we adhere to that new law (we follow the common attitude) as opposed to the more official law. We follow this new law even though it gives a power to the authority enforcers (police) to punish us at their discretion. And yet despite this divergence between the actual law and the common attitude the law doesn't change. The posted speed limit remains 55 despite this common disregard for the law (even by the police who enforce it).

And then there's the alienation of drivers. We drive on a road with other people but they aren't people we generally see and interact with, they look more like other cars to us. When we see the peculiar car on the highway coasting in the left lane with its left blinker on for no apparent reason we tend to think "What a moron!", and maybe we even flash our brights (or our fingers) at him. Do we think "Maybe his blinker is broken", or "Maybe he can't see that his blinker is on because his car has no clicking sound or light to indicate the blinker is on", or "Maybe its a little way he came up with to stay awake at the wheel", or any number of possibilities that we could imagine? Generally we don't imagine these possibilities; instead we just think "What a moron!" and leave it at that. It's much easier when driving to look at the people around us as though they are idiots because we don't have any direct interaction with them. The interaction we might have with them is blocked by the walls of our cars, the air rushing around us, and the walls of their cars. It is influenced by the idea that we are only seeing this other car for a short time before we will each go off in our own directions. There is no reason to maintain a polite attitude or concern for the other drivers around you, and so one doesn't arise. Without the consequences of being incorrect or acting impolitely our true feelings about the people around us come to surface. They create themselves based not on what actually is, but what we would rather believe. We aren't creative in our pondering as to why another driver is doing something odd or annoying to us because we don't have to be. Our favorite conclusion tends to be "They are a moron, and I'm a way better driver".

Granted it isn't always the case that we are impolite to other drivers. In fact we may view the actions of this other car as being impolite to us causing us to feel justified in our impoliteness to the person. Maybe then politeness itself is redefined when we take the driver's seat. There are conventions and etiquettes we tend to follow as drivers. There's the "Thank you" wave, where you extend your hand in thanks whenever someone politely stops to let you go by. There's the other side of that interaction which is the act of stopping to let someone else go. In fact there is etiquette in obeying the rules: "put on your blinker before you make a left turn" and "at a 4 way stop if both cars stop at the same time the right car goes first". In fact many of these laws of the road can be looked at in terms of etiquette. We don't generally want to be the car that 5 other cars are honking their horns at because we did something wrong. We also don't generally want to have to honk our horn at someone else who did something wrong. Following the rules therefore is sort of like being polite, or being a good (upstanding) driver. Perhaps many of these laws are in actuality primarily enforced and understood using our own tendency to observe and adhere to etiquette. This can also show us why we tend to think that speeding at 70mph in a 55mph zone is acceptable when everyone else is doing it. We follow more the rules that we see others following than the actual law itself due to a system of shared etiquette. If many cars are following other rules, we follow the rules of those cars; if one car isn't following the rules however we view it as impolite, and going against the etiquette of the group.

Viewing this example of our actions on the road we can ask these questions: How much of authoritarianism in general is enforced by our shared understanding of etiquette? How much do we ourselves enforce an attitude that is submissive to authority in others using etiquette? And furthermore how can we use that same power of etiquette when not being submissive to authority and instead get others to follow in our non-authoritarian example? I don't know exactly. But our driving example shows us that something like this is possible, and may very well shed some light as to how and why it can occur.

Here's how it works...

2007-11-06T11:38:00.000-04:00

just one of the things TV does:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uBm9ZyIg3I0

let's not forget the news:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pajKfN9VP8&NR=1

Depths

2007-10-04T20:42:00.000-04:00

What is attachment?

The reliance on a thing external to yourself.

We attach ourselves to things.. to people.. to places.. its like we can't help but cling to anything and everything around us...

But an attachment is an odd companion.. It treats this thing as though it is a part of your body... inseparable.. despite the fact that it is not a part of yourself..

We become so hurt by losing this thing.. what we don't realize is that possession is merely a comfortable illusion we create for ourselves because we want a thing to exist as if it were a part of us.. when it can physically never exist that way..

Only the idea of it can exist that way.. and ideas are as much a part of you as your tone of voice, the words you speak.. they are a collection of the world around you interpreted by your subconscious mind.. You don't possess them.. you are them.. they as much possess you as you do them.. and ideas themselves are ethereal.. inherently unable to be possessed.. wandering through everything we think, see, and do..

As the swirling colors blue and red mix to become purple each particle actually remains a separate entity.. Examining them closely you see that they are still blue and red.. they only appear purple when you look at them from the outside...

Our minds are constantly outside.. never fully existing in the present moment.. always directed by the past, and dreaming or worrying of the future.. Creating fantasies within the mind, and using those fantasies to interpret the external world.. What is the present moment? Does it even exist?

Can we free ourselves from attachments? Can we free ourselves from our pasts and fantastic futures to find the present moment?

I don't know.. but what I have learned from my observation is quite simple: the external world is truly breathtaking if you pay attention long enough.. but you have to keep an open eye and an open mind.. or something incredible you never realized might just pass you by.. and love is one of the many great ideas.. it must not be chained by illusionary possession.. it is a gentle yet passionate beast that wants to roam free.. sharing in interaction with all things around you.. do not look to chain your love or the love of others.. leave it as a free entity that wanders through all the places in your world.. and you might find it wandering where you would least expect it..

John Mayer Concert

2007-07-27T14:13:00.001-04:00

Just got back from a John Mayer concert. My cooky sister got some front row - center tickets.

If you don't like John Mayer, you probably haven't given him even half a chance. Chances are you just hear some shit on the radio and figure that its supposed to be marketed to groupie girls that want his balls. Since you're not a homo you don't go for the marketing and turn him off. The truth however is that John Mayer is actually, really, an incredible musical talent and his band rocks out hard.

The show was totally awesome. He played all his songs (mostly off the new CD, some others) with his band. He has a huge band by the way. Himself, 2 other guitarists, a bassist, drummer, keyboardist, trumpet, and sax. During the show there was lots of sweet improv going on. Even the singing John improv-ed on (the mark of someone who really understands music).

Being so close to the band I was picking up on it and getting wild improv in my head (dare I say more wild than John??) it reminded me of when our band plays our shows how my singing is just way better. I think our entire band is way better when we're playing live. Going to this concert allowed me to better feel out why that is.

When you have an entire group of people forming a rhythm there is this sonic wave that resonates through the entire band. The drummer lays the beat, the bassist lays the bass, but they both play off each other and the rest of the band. Guitarists / keyboardists may lay out some chords or some soloing. The main guitar and singer (at any given point) hears all of this and like a series of mirrors reflecting the sound onto him he takes it all into the subconscious and pushes it out of him using his instruments back on the rest of the band. He can improv like crazy because he's getting all kinds of cues from the rest of the band and from them he feels and becomes the music. Not the music like melody or rhythm, but that incredible mathematical understanding only the brain can have that allows one to feel and create music on the fly. John definitely has this ability to resonate the music through him back to the rest of the band. It took me a while but I finally started getting into it and resonated the band via singing myself. I caught John watching me while I was. I think it gave him a bit of a boost.. seemed like he started improv-ing the singing more.

So in essence a band playing music isn't a collection of individuals it is a single mind. A mind not connected by neurotransmitters, but by sonic waves. A subconscious understanding of music flows through each band member allowing the music to echo throughout the group as if each band member is a mirror taking in music and pointing it back on the band. Each clear reflection makes the musical mind more powerful, improving each individual's part in the band's mind.

Pretty cool I think.

Preface

2007-04-04T23:51:00.000-04:00

I recently watched this documentary called "What the Bleep Do We Know?" http://www.veoh.com/videos/e160107zmQCfjTW

Nearly everything explained in the documentary fits with my current conceptual model of reality. If you have even the slightest interest in exploring the complexities of the world around you .. take a look at the documentary.

The Song and The Music

2007-04-03T14:07:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about this off and on for a while, and am constantly reminded of it. In fact whatever I will talk about here probably will only encompass a very small part of the larger idea. So what am I talking about? Quite frankly the scope of it is so big that I'm not even 100% sure about what I'm talking about, but I can guarantee you there's at least a few novel ideas in this article.

We as humans have some knowledge of our surroundings. We have motivations at many levels of our being (some that we act on knowingly, some that we repress, and some that we act on unknowingly). Our beliefs and actions in our daily lives are built on the knowledge/understanding of our surroundings and the motivations we possess.

But how well can you understand your own motivations? It seems to me like you can start with the question "Why am I doing this?" and either move from there into an infinite number of questions all starting with the word why, or end somewhere at "I have no idea". Despite this however I think there is wisdom in asking these questions.

You might be asking "What the hell does the title of this article have anything to do with this?". If so then excellent question, because the title itself is the wisdom.

When you listen to a song and like it do you understand why you like it, or do you just simply know that you like it? If you answered yes to the latter, that's wonderful. It's good to know that you like something. But here's the thing: a song is more than just a single indivisible entity. You are most probably liking certain aspects of the song, and the liking of those aspects causes you to like the song itself. Those individual aspects.. are the building blocks of music.

Having an understanding of music and what you like about it, you then have a stronger base for finding more songs that you like, or more things in general that you like but never realized were there, or even creating your own song.

This relates to everything. Simply knowing your surroundings and acting on them is like pushing play and listening to the song of life. Knowing the motivations you possess that determine your actions is understanding the music behind the song, and creating the song itself.

And life is more than listening to a song, its creating a song; and how can you expect to create a song that you like without understanding the music that defines it? Instead of you creating the song, your motivations create it. You can easily end up listening to a song you don't like and not understand why.

When I think about the implications of this idea it astounds me simply because the idea applies to all aspects of life and human interaction. People can simply get into a rut, listening to a song they don't like because they aren't creating it for themselves by understanding the music of their motivations.

Take a look at people who act "irrationally". Why do people seek revenge? Revenge won't bring back what was lost, yet people still act on it. Why? Because after someone loses a song that they liked listening to, the motivation of revenge can create what seems like the only song that can come anywhere close to replacing the lost song, even though the music of the song has changed dramatically. The actual act of gaining revenge therefore isn't the point at all. In fact once revenge is gained they will need to find another song to listen to, or perhaps the song of revenge was so good that they keep listening to it by looking for other things to fight. People then end up listening to a song based on fighting, changing, or destroying things around them.

Take a look at governing bodies. Why do certain people have such strong convictions to change their society by changing the laws? Sometimes it even seems like the most motivated of people push for changes that are trivial, nonsensical, and inconsequential. Take a look at intolerance. All throughout history people have despised, put down, and killed those of a different mindset, skin color, heritage, or religion; sometimes with the utmost conviction possible. Do they even know why?

People who don't understand their own motivations and act on motivations to fight blame the fact that they can't listen to the song they actually want to listen to on someone or something external to them (different from them). After they blame that individual thing changing it or removing it may seem like putting on another song to listen to, but in actuality the real thing creating the song isn't something external, it is them and their motivations to fight. They simply unwittingly start listening to the drums of the battle march and don't stop to create the song they actually want. Instead of blaming everything but themselves and going on any number if quests to eradicate some perceived external (different) thing, they should be going on a quest of the understanding of their own music in order to create their own song. That is assuming that the battle march isn't the real song they want to listen to, however I'm sure there are many who enjoy the battle march above all other songs anyway.

The next time you are motivated in some way try to keep in mind one simple question: Why? Doing so will allow you to step back from your song and see the music behind it. Whether you like the song or not, by stepping back in this way your vision should become more all-encompassing.

But always understand that there is also a motivation involved in creating the action of stepping back and looking at the music of your song, and by acting on this motivation you will always end up listening to a different song. This can actually cause the music to continually evade your perception. Is it therefore any better to step back and look at the music of the song? Is it even helpful towards creating a new or more elaborate song you like listening to? I don't know, but it's something to think about.

Running on Empty

2007-02-27T03:19:00.000-04:00

I've been getting to thinking about exactly what our mental energy is how important it is to our lives.

Basically I've come to the thought that our brains have many different mental energy reserves, basically Full to Empty reserves of energy that allow our brains to function (aka. allow us to exist). The brain uses this energy for all of its functions. For instance there is a specific energy used to allow you to think to solve problems (as a small example). Some of these energies regenerate only through rest (by not using the energy), other energies require you to actually do something in reality in order for them to regenerate (they feed off of experience).

Everything we think, do, and feel is dependent on the balance between different types of this mental energy. Our very emotions and motivations themselves are powered by it. Without a certain type of the mental energy you can't properly think, and the forces behind your motivations in your mind become weakened. Without another type of mental energy you become depressed.

Why did I come to this thought? Lets say you have a lot of schoolwork or job-work that involves heavy thought. Your mental energy that powers your ability to think is going to become very drained by doing this work (especially if you are trying to do it continuously without giving yourself breaks). Once it is drained you might not even be done with the work yet, forcing you to continue working but be unable to fully concentrate on it. When you are done with the heavy mind-labor what is left of you is a weakened mind, unable to think that wants only to rest. Your ability to think is weakened, and your motivations behind everything you do are weakened. You require time to regenerate this mental energy, and in that time you basically can't do anything, and yet you can still become bored (you crave experience). You might be thinking: "No big deal. Why not just rest for a while watching some TV or something?" See.. here's where it gets more complicated..

There is another type of energy in your mind that makes you happy, and still another that makes you fulfilled. But this energy doesn't simply automatically regenerate. In fact this energy depreciates while powering your feelings of happiness and fulfillment. This type of energy can only be naturally restored through happy and fulfilling experiences in your daily reality (experiences that make you happy or fulfilled help to regenerate this energy because they power your feelings of happiness and fulfillment, replacing the energy for this task allowing the energy to regenerate). The thing is, in order to have happy and fulfilling experiences in your daily reality you need to use at least some of the kind of mental energy that powers your thoughts and motivations to find them (the kind of energy that gets drained by doing heavy mind-labor is needed to find happy/fulfilling experiences). You may be thinking: "But I can relax and watch a funny TV show. No energy drain there, and that will make me laugh!" Unfortunately laughing is not quite the same thing as happiness and fulfillment. A laugh is a short burst of happiness where you require far, far more to regenerate this energy. Furthermore paying attention to a TV is still draining your thought energy (even though its at a lesser rate). This is because entertainment like TV (and video games) requires attention, still draining your thought and motivational energy.

Some people turn to a wide array of drugs (prescribed pills, alcohol, etc.) to regenerate their happiness energy because they don't understand this concept, or don't have enough thought/motivational mental energy or time to regenerate the happy energy naturally. The drugs however are an artificial way of regenerating the happy energy, allowing you to be happy for a time (unnaturally) but ultimately leaving your fulfillment energy unfulfilled.

Whether or not we realize it, everything we do in our daily lives is a balancing act between these different mental energies. It's no wonder why there are so many commercials for "mood enhancing" pills when so many people drain the mental energy they require to think and be motivated in their daily lives with things like work and entertainment that don't give them any substantial happiness or fulfillment energy. Mood enhancing pills are selling like candy along with the many other mood enhancing substances in our society. It really disturbs me to think that so many people in our society are simply unable to naturally refill their happiness and fulfillment energies using experiential reality, and turn to these other unnatural sources that try and do it for them. Just what is it about reality that makes people unhappy and unfulfilled? Do people really think that mood enhancing substances are going to fix their reality? Or are they just using them to alter reality?

How aware are you of your mental energies? What do you do to properly balance your energies and keep yourself from running on empty? Are your mental energies properly balanced? Could being aware of the energies be helpful in allowing you keep them balanced? Is trying to balance them at all even helpful? I don't know, but it's something to think about.

Outsourcing our Entertainment

2007-02-11T14:20:00.000-04:00

I can't help but think lately about how we as a society treat our sources of entertainment. Entertainment in our society is more than just a noun to describe a group of things, its a multi-billion dollar industry.

As a result your entertainment is marketed and sold to you, the consumer. In fact its marketed and sold to as many consumers as possible as much as possible. People therefore don't have to go out and find their entertainment in order to be entertained because it's right there in front of them. This is outsourcing your entertainment by letting someone else create it for you.

You might be thinking "Well what does that matter? Doesn't that just make our lives easier?". To a question like that I would have to ask how you define easier, and define life. Finding entertainment is perhaps easier, but is it as enjoyable? And furthermore I think that it forces other things in life become much more difficult. Not to mention that this type of entertainment is unquestionably fantasy, and not even the fantasy of our own personal creation. It is a preprogrammed world subordinate to the real world we all live in, but it often governs our real world interaction with others.

People gather around the TV watching some show for the entertainment of it. They do it because the TV is right there, and at the moment they can't think of anything better to do; but is watching TV what they really want to be doing as a group activity? This sort of thing wouldn't normally concern me.. but when this entertainment becomes the commonplace for interaction in society, it's hard not to be concerned.

And it's not just TV.. I'm also talking about movies and video games. Any consumer entertainment where the role of the person is the viewer or the player relative to the entertainment.

See.. when a group of people looks for entertainment and turns to one of these sources, everyone's perspective becomes the same. For TV everyone is a viewer. For video games everyone is a player. You interact with other people based on this common perspective. You might think that a common perspective would bring people closer together, but in this respect I think it drives people further apart. I think that quite possibly the strongest way to interact and learn from other people is by seeing through their perspective; but when the playing field for interaction forces the other person's perspective to be relatively the same as yours there really isn't much of a different perspective to see things from.

The perspective is centered on the thing you are watching or playing causing the interaction to revolve around it. You therefore aren't learning things as much from the people around you, but rather anything you learn is going to be coming from the entertainment itself. Not to mention that with most of this type of entertainment learning new things that actually matter to you is a near impossibility because it has been mass produced for a mass audience.

And the perspective doesn't end when you are done with participating in the entertainment. In fact the entertainment itself doesn't end. Why? You will probably interact with the people who commonly know the entertainment later on without the entertainment actually being present, but will still interact along the terms of the entertainment. People will make references back to the entertainment (usually referencing TV shows for laughs and jokes, or discuss video game strategy and gameplay). This may even be the majority of interaction you have with such people. But how much do you actually care about the entertainment? Really enough to have it be the primary source of conversation with people you know?

Often we don't realize the impact these forms of entertainment have on our interaction with others. This entertainment is quite simply a ritual within our society, and an often visited one. But instead of it being a ritual where different people bring different things to the table to share with the group, we all go to the flashy table with the blinking lights and don't share anything that isn't directly related to these flashy lights we are commonly perceiving. And more than that, do any of us even actually have any real personal interest in the flashy lights? Do we really care about them? I don't think so. And that forces me to ponder a major concern: how much of our interaction with others revolves around things we don't really care about?

How much of your interaction with others revolves around preprogrammed entertainment? How much time do you spend with this sort of entertainment? How much do you really know about the people you solely spend this sort of entertainment time with? Do you know about their histories and interests? Do you know how they see things in reality, and what they really care about? Should you? What do you really care about? I don't know, but it's something to think about.

The key to tying a tie

2007-02-10T17:21:00.000-04:00

I've been less than an amateur at tying a tie. I could never quite figure it out from following the directions online, or remember it from the directions of others.

I finally just decided I would stand in front of a mirror starting with the common first step and try to tie the tie from there.

While I was doing it I thought about how I used to do Origami and Lanyard as a kid and I realized I was thinking about tying the tie all wrong. All I thought about was following the directions.. the steps of tying a tie that other people came up with for me to follow. But what are those steps but the lingual representations of something more? There is an understanding of how to tie a tie, and what a tied tie is.

So instead of thinking about following the directions I thought about the actual tie itself and what sort of wrapping around itself it would take to create the actual tie. And you know what? I made a tie. A damn good one too. Not only that but I can do it again, and again, and again. Not because I remember how to follow the directions properly, but because I understand what a tie is and for that reason creating one is an obvious task.

This really makes me wonder about learning and memory. Sure you can learn how to tie a tie by following the directions and doing it enough to subconsciously understand the process, but you can also bypass all that repetition and understand how the tie is formed .. thus getting it on a conscious level. Furthermore there are subtleties to tying a tie that the directions don't tell you, like how you should hold it and the precise way you should wrap it around itself. Again with repetition you should be able to use a trial and error sort of approach to get this, but a conscious understanding lets you do it instantaneously. Also you understand the actual thing at the conscious level rather than at the subconscious level, so it would probably be easier to build on that understanding and communicate it to others.

How many things do we understand how to do on a subconscious level but not on a conscious one? When we learn new things, how do we go about looking at how to learn them? Do we look to follow other people's answers, or do we look to understand the actual thing itself? I don't know, but it's something to think about.

Why I think the news is fantasy.

2007-02-10T15:03:00.000-04:00

You might say that the news is real because it reports on real things really happening. Seems reasonable right?

While it may be true that the news reports on real things really happening .. it's not quite the same thing as reality.

Allow me to demonstrate.

Typical day in reality:
1- Wake up
2- Go out
3- Talk to people
4- Do things

Typical day in the fantasy of the news broadcast:
1- Fire
2- Rape
3- Murder
4- Advertisement (on the news program) for TV show
5- What star broke up with what other star and had sex with a janitor?
6- Steam engine explodes killing thousands of orphans

See what I mean? The news might report on real things, but it only reports on outrageous real things. This results in creating a fantasy picture of reality more flashy and terrifying than real, using images and ideas taken from reality to disguise it as real. There isn't really a rape or a murder or an exploding steam engine affecting your real world every single day. That is, unless you watch the news.

And people watch the news all the time. They watch the fantasy picture it paints of reality and call it the world. People watch the constant news stories about someone out of millions of people somewhere getting raped or murdered and start to fear for their children. They begin to have an inherent fear of strangers in their own communities, in the greater society, and in the human race.

Why is it that back in the day people both hitch-hiked and picked up hitch-hikers all the time .. but now nobody does it? Could it be because the news is feeding us a fantasy that leads to an unrealistic view of the world causing us to fear our fellow man? I don't know, but it's something to think about.