Channeling the Chatter Stream

Take for instance the inane chatter that runs along in our minds. Our minds? I'm guessing it's a shared experience. The meditation people call it the monkey-mind. Maybe it's not the meditation people. I misremember all the time.

Anyway, why I thought this was worth typing about was because I think it serves a function and its worthwhile to figure out what that function is - particularly since meditation seems to at least be in part the skill of turning off the chatter.

http://goo.gl/kZJhng

Blah - nothing that I'm looking for. The perceived existence of this inner monologue has lots of angles of consideration to play with. Who/what is speaking, who is hearing - is it hearing? Where are the boundaries of self? (that's one I play with a lot)

A lot of the time I try to keep this .. my intent...
It is my theory that I should be able to not hear the inner dialogue monologue, whatever and just let it fall out of my fingers. There are agreat deal of habits that will need to be broken for me to do this, and I think I'll have to learn to think a lot slower. Right now, I'm still at least half a sentence ahead of my fingers.

I don't know if that would be considered channeling or not. The constant stream is there, can I channel it through my fingers instead of through my audio simulation hardware?

image source:  http://goo.gl/xNbtDO

Who is Santa to you?

To me Santa Claus could be any one of these things, depending on my mood:

• A tradition originating way-back-when in some other country, passed on from family to family during childhood for a shared cultural experience
• An abomination to God and a corruption of Jesus's Birth
• The natural result of capitalism on a non-birthday gift-giving occasion
• A conspiracy by the rich elite to further squeeze the life blood (money) from the poor through emotional manipulation - Feel guilty for not buying gifts, show your love for others by buying gifts, buy cards to stay in the wills of old relatives
• An indoctrination of children for one of the following purposes:
• To binge on greed and materialism
• To cause their minds to grow comfortable in believing in something while completely rejecting all evidence to the contrary
• To teach them that their parents are fallible and deceitful, weakening familial bonds
• A romping good time.

Image Source:  http://www.deviantart.com/art/That-s-Not-Santa-106264682

End of Year One

It's been one year now since I quit my job to pursue my dreams. I certainly have learned quite a bit. It's not looking promising. However, it does look like the terrain is going to be changing. Perhaps rapidly, perhaps violently.

I were asked, I would recommend stalling if you can bear your current living situation and you have the alternative. The shift is inevitable, and it's always harder for the pioneers. Then again, only you really know if you secretly want to be a pioneer or not.

I feel impatient. How long will it be before the rest of the people realize freedom-from-work is an achievable goal for humanity now?

Remember the space race? It was this supposed thing between Russia and the United States to get to the moon. Well, how bout we race toward the shortest work-w
eek, so that people can spend their lives pursuing their passions?

Why don't the people want it bad enough? Have they been convinced they don't deserve it?


End of Year Assessment
I suck at pursuing my dreams - which means that the crux of the dream had been to make a living wage by dumping the contents of my mind through my fingers in the shape of words. 

Time to either abandon the entire thing or redouble the efforts. The appeal of abandonment lies in that it would abate the Kafka torture. The appeal of redoubling the efforts is the neurochemical rewards associated with hope.

I see a book as still the most viable way to monetize myself. Whore myself. What can I do that the most people are most likely to pay for? - probably a book. I've been thinking maybe I could go through my posts for the last year and have my friends on G+ pick the ones most book-worthy. 

I've also been considering doing a pdf of something like my Personal Matrix Theory. Do downloadable pdf, free version and paid version. Paid version because I need the money, free version because withholding information for profit is morally repugnant to me. 

But the book is the best bet, if only to be able to hold something in my hands and say "I made this." 

Ask anyone near Denver, Winter is Here. Stay warm, friends.

Post PRISM App Permissions

App permission requests feel particularly dirty to me. This isn't a particularly new thing, I've always found them slightly disturbing. In the past, it used to be mainly over my reputation though. Now it's privacy. Well, I don't actually believe I have privacy anymore...so I can't really call it that.

Whatever you call it though, it's the special kind of irritation you get from the uncertainty of why they want access to this or that particular piece of information. In the last couple of weeks, both Google and Twitter have asked for access the my text messages. Do you think the NSA will double pay for the same texts?

When Altruism becomes Profitable

Maybe greed isn't bad and the problem is that we value the wrong things. What if we're greedy for love and the other warm fuzzies. Is servitude the natural behavior of someone greedy for love - or hungry for love, appreciation, validation - recognition, valuation. 

If you love me, it gives me a permission slip to love myself a little bit.

The profitability of altruism is indicative of alignment of moral and economic values.

Metallic Liquid Venom

I can't say that I recommend trying to compose a symphony during an earthquake. I also don't think what I do qualifies as composing a symphony or that my first world problems qualify as an earthquake. Advice seems to like being wrapped in hyperbole, though.

Just do it - do it until you're good at it - do it because you don't feel like yourself unless you're doing it - those things are responsible for this. I've been trying to increase product quality - terribly self-conscious, particularly after Google plus. For the brave, G+ can cure elitism.

I spend a whole lot of time trying to figure it out though - what I need to do to make this work. Eventually, shut up and do it is all I am left with. I don't know that I'm comfortable calling it a character flaw, as 'they' say you have to love yourself before you're allowed to love anyone else - but part of what makes me such a special and unique snowflake is how good I am at not doing anything.

I could write pages and pages about what I'd like to do - but actually doing any of them requires facing the obstacles, risking failure - and what I think is scarier than risking failure, risking wasting one's time. Maybe that's wishful thinking - maybe fear of failure is sufficient. Someone once suggested I was more afraid of success, and my ego definitely lapped that shit right up. Still comes back down to fear of failure though - if you're afraid of success wouldn't it be because you'd still feel like a failure after you were successful?
Then what?

At least by not actually trying you get to pretend you have ideas that would work, and that feels pleasant. Once the die is cast though -

Google Plus Grim

If I were to hazard a guess, 100% of the people who have seen Craigslist Joe and know me well have suggested I give something similar a go.

I would kind of make the argument that I already have/am, but that's not what I'm trying to write about right now :)

I've seen about half of the actual movie, and it's great for a documentary. My take away thus far, however, has been this:  It's because of the camera. It's the power of the panopticon at play.

So - my recommendation to you, should you become homeless - is to find a partner and a video camera. I'd take this further if I had the pull, and start a campaign to donate Google Glass to the homeless - though I'm not sure how such a project would be negatively impacted by the tradition of 'rolling the homeless' (as depicted in 'The Warriors' video game for the PS2.

As for Google Plus Grim - I'm trying to do it without the day-to-day uncertainty, in my own special way. I'm documenting without making a documentary.

Full Moon Rant

Imagine, if you will - that right here you can click to play the scene from Game of Thrones where Tyrion and the Varys play "who has the power". You can thank your precious intellectual property trumps the first amendment for me not being able to conveniently share that experience with you.
Bottom Line - Current Intellectual Property laws hinder my ability to communicate and it pisses me off.

Wrapping the Truth in Fiction
That's another thing that sucks about trying to communicate with people. To avoid triggering your cognitive dissonance avoidance, writers have to wrap the truth in fiction and hope the seed of truth hidden within takes root. I used to want to do that, be a writer - an author. Things have gotten too bad for that though, so I'm just going to call it like I see it.

Power is where we believe it lies. I'll paraphrase the Game of Thrones reference since I can't just play it for you.

Say you have the president, the pope, and a guy and his boss in the same room. The guy has a gun, and the other 3 all tell him to shoot the other 2. Who gets shot depends completely on what the guy with the gun believes. For the Pope's sake, let's hope the guy is Catholic.

This is how it is. This is why perfectly nice people are flying robot planes and launching explosives at children. Because of what the guy behind the joystick believes. This is why obedience and following orders is so stressed in the military (that, and if the other guys are obedient and your team isn't, it gets messy).

Point is, whatever you believe defines your reality. It really irritates me to no end that so many of you choose to live in a world where making a sex tape gets you a TV show.

Unwrapped
We live in a world where we believe in property. Think of the world as a big house, and you're getting the Cinderella treatment. People use up all the hot water while having you shovel coal into the furnace for them. This is because you believe what's necessary for this to be possible. Basically, that if you stop shoveling coal, you'll be made to suffer. Can't really blame you though, you were born into it.

You live in a world where people who are technically equivalent to you - awareness inside a bag of meat - get to decide how much money there is in the world. Then, they loan it to the people playing Government, who then does all sorts of bullshit with it. Through a series of groups of people playing pretend - I'll play the CEO, you play the wage-slave you get to do the work and they get to reap the benefits. 

What the hell is wrong with everyone? The way things work now, we end up with Child Pornography, and Kids getting blown up by robot airplanes. WTF?

The game you're playing is stupid. I was born into it though, and quitting early is poor sportsmanship - but come on people, let's play a game that's less shitty.

The Evolution of the Blogosphere

And who are you, the proud lord said,

that I must bow so low?

Only a cat of a different coat,

that's all the truth I know.

In a coat of gold or a coat of red,

a lion still has claws,

And mine are long and sharp, my lord,

as long and sharp as yours.  - source:  http://goo.gl/Dpf5vt

+Demian Farnworth is apparently having a go at +Mike Elgan 's stance on blogging on Google+ versus the traditional blog.

This breaks down to the traditional either/or scenario - which some old guy in a youtube video says are a great opportunity to answer with both. So - how the hell can we get to the point where we can do both?

We apparently can't do both now, so let's look to the future. To look to the future, let's look at the evolution so far and try to predict the direction in which it is evolving. Where 'it' is the way content creators distribute their content (and how others redistribute it).

The blogosphere was a manifestation of the network's ability to eliminate publishing middle-men. This trend has continued. Google+ has created a means of closing the gap between creator and consumer, while at the same time limiting the creators means of monetizing his or her own content. Meanwhile, they profit from data collection - whether or not they use it to sell product to advertisers or to aid the government for other benefits is somewhat irrelevant.

Google is just another middleman that will be replaced as the evolution progresses. As both creators and consumers, we desire the ability to customize experiences. Do we really want to go to different social networks? I don't see why a single open-sourced portal can't display all of my content as I prefer it to be displayed.

At some point, we'll realize that the value in our collective data is valuable. The content we create and the sharing of content are statistically significant data. If Google can sell that information, then shouldn't we be getting a cut?

So, an open-sourced hub for all content that sells the aggregate data and partitions the proceeds to the participants of the hub.

How far are we really from the point when the average joe can render the movies in his head to a digital format he can share on the network? 5 years? 10?

Down to Fundamentals

Who Am I?
Well, I'm a human being on planet Earth, as far as I can tell. This seems to be a natural development of the known universe. Science has gone to great lengths to prove that nothing mystical is going on here. That's starting to sound more and more like "Things the man behind the curtain would say".

Then, you have other ones like Neil deGrasse Tyson and the +Neil deGrasse Tyson Fan Club saying we're all made of Stardust. If we are just a naturally occurring part of the Universe - that shifts the question a little bit.

Where does the Universe stop, and where do I begin?

How much God am I? If I was omnipotent and omniscient, why wouldn't I know that I was?

The answers have been Sticky Things - and hopefully I can get +Wai H. Tsang to engage and tell you how diffuse something or other is the computer way to simulate this process. That guy is really on to something, but his signal is on a very specific frequency, so you may have to extrapolate what he says to get it to resonate - and cut out the distortion toward it's target audience as noise.

One of my sticky things was a line in +Anne Rice 's Memnoch the Devil. She, by the way, has been on a spiritual roller coaster as far as I can tell. I'd love to interview her about that some time. Her ride looks to have been fascinating, and into deep dark holes. Anyway, she gave me the line where her fictional Vampire gets to have a Conversation with Jesus. Somewhere in it, Jesus says something like: Sometimes I forget I'm God.

Long Story Short

Since I feel my focus beginning to slide - It's crazy to believe people have super powers. Therefore, you obviously have to go crazy to get super powers.

That Moment When

You look around, and all you see are different masks to wear.

Which mask do I choose, and why? How do I not choose a mask without getting hurt? What to do, what to be?

Image Source: http://www.pondjumpersspain.com/2009/08/24/a-stop-over-in-milan-and-venice/

Vulnerability is a Bitch

Hey Folks, Page of Wands here - maybe. 

I had a tarot reading last night. You can see, it's in the video below. My path connected me to the Raven - Kelsey Lenore. She's the Raven because of the Lenore part, through Poe. I don't know if that's a Corvid or not, but I think so - and this showed up when I was trying to find something else:

http://io9.com/5969515/corvids-the-birds-who-think-like-humans

From the synchronicity perspective, these conversations have happened over the last few days, also pointing to corvids, messengers, and messages.[1]

I'd love to take you through it all, but this is a blog post - not a book. This is my letter to you, because I don't know how soon I'll see you again. 

The Uncomfortable Truth

There's a good amount of my personal backstory in the reading, and the universe arranged so that the only way for me to receive this reading was through a live Hangout-on-Air with consequent public YouTube video. Great marketing on her part, in my humble opinion.

I know that the openness of the reading influenced my behavior during the reading to some extent - but I would consider it a very small extent. I felt the choice there though, just like I feel the choice now. In order to stand up for what I believe, I have to be uncomfortably vulnerable. Thanks Brene Brown. So, rather than just letting it sit on Youtube hoping that no one ever stumbled upon my nakedness, I am sharing it here with you.

The reason why can be seen through the perspective of Chakra balancing. They work as shields, layers you have to peel through to connect. Doing so - peeling through the layers, being vulnerable -  increases the potential depth of connection.

Furthermore, energy transfers are like fusion. Energy is released on a massive scale. Our communication is what is facilitating the construction of the planetary consciousness. You can couch it in perfectly scientific terms and perspective, because that's the way truth works. It's true from every perspective.

Don't call it the global consciousness or global awakening if it makes you uncomfortable. Couch in technological terms about connectivity and the internet and how that is changing our society. View it as approaching the Singularity with +Peter H. Diamandis . 

From the chakra perspective though, with the layer-peeling - fear and overcoming those fears is how you open up to others for deeper connections - greater energy transfer and creation. It let's more of the truth out.

The bottom 3 Chakras (red, orange, and yellow) correlate in a manner I haven't yet thoroughly explored with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Red is survival/fear of death, Orange is self power/powerlessness, Yellow is power/powerlessness with regard to others. 

The Fourth is where love comes in. Green is Love. The heart Chakra. For the dimensional transcendence crowd:  Note that 4 comes after 3 and we consider ourselves 3rd dimensional beings. If we are evolving spiritually, would we not be moving from 3 toward 4?

Anyway, that's too deep for most so - 

Let's Talk About Sex

The layers and depth thing is most easily understood when you scale it down to the level of sex. Most of us have spent a lot of time at least mentally with sex, and that makes a good common ground. 

Red - The first layer you have to deal with is survival - the basic instincts that drive us to procreate. 

If both parties can respond to those instincts while feeling safe, the mutual transfer can proceed to the next level.

Orange - Power over self. 

This is the orgasm stage - where the goal is a situation when both parties feel confident and safe.

Yellow - Others.

This is the level where S&M relationships and the balance of preferences can lead to a deeper exchange. If your needs are to be dominant to a certain level, and that's in of balance with how much your partner is into submission - you can proceed to the love level.

Green - Love.

Simultaneous mutual orgasm. Energy creation and transfer. Connection.

But it's true of all interpersonal Communication

So, in order to provide value to the Network (you), in the hopes that the Network will find a way to support me for doing so (the Lower Maslow), I have to walk this path. I have to trust that being vulnerable will create the connections I need. The Human Network Cisco is trying to make you believe it's selling. 

For it to be true, I have to be able to prove it to you. So, I have to be vulnerable. I have to feel safe enough to open myself up to deeper connections. So here I am - exposed. Everything I post, here or on twitter, or on G+ is saying here I am Universe. Prove It. Prove that vulnerability leads to better connectivity and the expansion of the planetary consciousness. Our world is in shit shape. Human society is in shit shape, and simultaneously it as advanced as it has ever been (as far as we know). Prove it to me that vulnerability is the way to go - that love can be the answer. 

And honestly, if love isn't that answer - you can kill me for all I care, I don't want to be here anymore.

With Love,
Grizwald Grim

See also, via this Conversation Community Thread
Corvid reference 12.28.2012 - by +Bernard De Koven
We're a Murder - by +Bruce Marko
and this

Hate Yourself All You Want

Inspired by https://plus.google.com/u/0/115590411932376027038/posts/3JHuG98voKr

If the opposite of Love is Indifference
Because the absolute value of a negative is positive
Then it's perfectly okay to hate yourself.
Despite having done it for decades, I don't see why anyone else would want to.

We learn from negative experiences. Some of my worst romantic relationships have helped me grow the most.

So - you're probably here to learn some pretty profound stuff if you hate yourself. I'd recommend doing the introspection to figure out why you're making the choice to hate yourself - but, it is a choice... So, hate yourself all you want.

Snowden's Deadman Switch

Flash Fiction Plotline

- A deadman's switch is one in which if one stops pressing the button, and device activates
- Snowden set one up, so that when he stops pressing the button backdoors to #PRISM are released
- He makes it to Venezuela and ends up feeling safe
- He decides to quit pressing the button

- Backdoors to #PRISM pop up on the internet
- #anonymous launches #operationOracle
- Operation Oracle creates a user interface with #PRISM through the generation of social networking accounts that can be queried by the public.
- Operation Oracle goes live when #PRISM creates a reddit account and hosts an #AMA (ask me anything)

- The first question it answers is "What's in these backpacks?"

- Possible angle of #PRISM achieving self-awareness
- ending that leaves open the possibility of a trilogy/sequel

Future Music

I spent a couple of months back in small town Oklahoma this year, and I had a vision. I'm guessing that due to the freedoms resulting from being a really small town, they have a kickass radio station. Being a small station affords them a level of interaction with the community that larger stations just don't have the freedom to enjoy. Probably because the money in radio is relative to the size of your audience, but it's not good enough to pay for the manpower required for low ratio staff to consumer style interactions.

At any rate, America is full of these small towns, and these small towns are full of kids with big dreams. In a materialistic society, they're worse off than those in urban areas to the extent of in person activities and entertainment. They're the kids raised by people trying to find a nice place to raise kids.

So, with local radio stations, local bands, and youtube - we don't really need record labels anymore. Everyone has the technology, or could with a little new-industry teamwork. Your plusses and shares are how you'll pay for future music. Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd - people sharing the stuff to which only they have access and is of high quality is valuable to the network.

1. GO TO LOCAL MUSIC EVENTS
2. Find the good ones.
3. Pimp their youtube videos on the your social network.
Share what's good.

There's nothing you like about paying for music unless you're deriving your pleasure from your purchasing power. No one likes having to sell out to make money. We have the technology to get rid of the parasitic middleman between creator-content-consumer.

The Benefits of a Slippery Mind

Firmly held beliefs have no power over a slippery mind.

What you see is what you get 

So choose very carefully what you see

You can slip into believing anything

Some people slip into paranoia - that's a fun ride

If you don't want to enjoy the roller coaster

That's a choice

You can be bored, scared, or having the time of your life.

All valid options based on your subjective perspective.

A slippery mind can ride emotions, then slide upwards and watch itself enjoying the ride. 

It can surf the emotional chaos and put the board where it wants it.

Being mindful that your subjective perspective is subjective - you can change your perspective to one that sees your current situation as a gift, not a curse. But it's not easy.

What's the best way to #endthedrugwar ?

By Grizwald Grim

No matter which side of the issue you're on - the evidence says that the drug war has been a complete failure.

So, hopefully we can all agree that it needs to end, and we need to try something else. I mean, if you actually care about your fellow countrymen struggling with addiction.

Here's the best way I could come up with to end the drug war:
You take all the money spent on jailing your fellow countrymen on solely drug-related charges (excluding violent and fatal related charges) and make rehab centers.

Then, you completely decriminalize all drugs, and pay people struggling with addiction to go to the rehab centers. Do we have statistics on the number of working people that are functional addicts seeking help? How do you support a family and go to rehab? How can you afford the freedom to get the help you need.

The tax dollars are paying for the addicts room and board sooner or later. Why not sooner?

Would it work?
I'd have to see the numbers crunched (tax dollars currently spent on arresting, charging, trying (sp), convicting, sentencing, incarcerating, housing, feeding, 'healing' addicts during the course of the incarceration vs. the projected cost of the 'pay addicts to get help' program.

Just don't forget to factor in that every addict incarcerated not only costs X tax dollars - and also however much they would be paying in taxes if they had been able to get the help they need before the situation got that bad/(the government needed to meet its quota)

and I know it's not the case that everyone incarcerated on drug related charges is an addict - but I think it will pitch better to the right if it's worded like this - possible change in next draft.

Unabashedly You

"Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is.." - John Milton

I was first exposed to this via The Crow. It turned out to be one of my Sticky Things.

As of now, I'm coming around to the idea that the way I want to live is Unabashedly. I already know I'm a product. That's how Google and Facebook work. They get my data, apparently give it to the government, and sell it to advertisers.

What do you want to be when you grow up?
That's a trick question. Being 'something' is playing a role. There will always be someone better a playing a given role than you. Roles are masks we wear, trying to be something to someone. Pull the mask off. Be yourself. That's the one thing no one will ever be better at than you.

Quantum Entanglement and Mental Illness

Through the network, I'm connected to some brilliant minds. I may just plus-tag them in so they hear the compliment. Here, see for yourself: https://plus.google.com/communities/109257599738414342408/members

+John Kellden has assembled the most inspiring group of people I've ever encountered in my 35+ years of life. This is my network. Somehow, I got in, and now we exchange thoughts on the regular. We also exchange them on the irregular and just flat out weird. There's a special category for 'deep stuff'. Today's post there by +Bruce Marko
https://plus.google.com/115590411932376027038/posts/BR5qE5gSWuy
..covers the fundamentals for where I'm going with this.

Here's an anecdote from my outer network, but I'm not naming names as it came from a heated debate. The debate took place in my reshare of _this_ video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eOScYBwMyAA

"There is no such thing as mental illness" is a direct challenge to a held belief. Thanks to cognitive dissonance, that means the debates about such things can get pretty heated. Someone new someone who's life had imploded and 'mental illness' was the culprit. To challenge that belief, about the thing that hurt someone very close to them, understandably was pretty upsetting. In the initial response she plainly stated there was NO WAY she could be convinced by someone citing statistics.

Her friend could see and talk to angels and demons, and was tormented by that ability to the extent that rendered her unable to function in our society. So, maybe she had mental illness. Maybe she didn't.

I bring this up because, quite frankly, I don't believe most crazy people are crazy. Actually, I think our definition of crazy is just... crazy broad. Of course, I'm intentionally excluding cases that result from traumatic brain injury. However, you should see this case of traumatic brain injury if you haven't already:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU
(if you have any I should see, please let me know in the comments)

If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy,frequency and vibration. - Nikola Tesla

So, let's talk frequency. A good deal of the channeled material (see: http://www.tuninginmovie.com/ 'Spirit Channelers in America') talks about our conscious experience in terms of tuning in a frequency. Increasing our vibration.

I see no reason that our minds aren't similar. Bipolar? Maybe that just means that your wave is of greater amplitude than most. You have higher highs and lower lows, but everyone is on a wave.

In that conversation I stated the following, and this belief continues unshaken:

I believe your friend has extrasensory input, true input, that most of us have learned to filter. Her understanding of this input is based on growing up in a society that doesn't receive this input. Therefore, this input is translated by her mind in potentially incorrect and harmful ways. She doesn't have the mental tools necessary to integrate these perceptions in a meaningful fashion. 

Until we accept the possibility that some forms of mental illness are from inputs we aren't taught to recognize, the data from those perceptions will always manifest in ways considered by society to be 'mental illness'. 

If you think you can shake it, by all means try. I'm trying to build a scientifically sound belief structure, after all. There's just so much _beyond_ what we know about the universe that to assume it's null requires too much faith for me.

Maybe we should quit treating crazy people like crazy people. Maybe they're just quantum entangled with information that can't process given their life experiences. Maybe they're just tuning in on a frequency we haven't learned to recognize as a species...yet.

Belief Shopping: Are we a science experiment?

We interpret reality on the foundation of what we already believe about reality. I'll try to demonstrate.

A spaceship landed in my back yard last night.

Do you believe that? I could tell the people closest to me that, and about 98% of them wouldn't believe me. It conflicts too much with their existing belief structures - what they already believe about the world.

Can you do something with your eyes closed? Something you've done so many times that it becomes automated?

Beliefs are the same way. If you think something over and over again, or interpret events through a certain belief structure (all of which are conveniently and intricately designed to reinforce every belief structure you currently hold) over and over again, it becomes automatic. 

Once you recognize that, you can toss the ones that aren't working for you (I hate myself and I want to die, you're nothing but a failure and a loser, your sole purpose for existing to give others a reason to live) it pulls the thread out of your belief structure scaffolding.

So far, I haven't been able to not have beliefs entirely. I suppose I could master that if I wanted to. What I've found to be more fun is to try on different beliefs and see if I like them or not. One of the funnest ones I've tried so far has been the belief that we're a genetics experiment by alien races.

One of the more notorious fringe beliefs is that we are ruled by a secret group of reptilians (the alien races). Most of this stuff comes from Zecharia Sitchin (http://www.sitchin.com/), and is supposedly based on an assload of work he did on the Sumerian Tablets (like the guy in Stargate). The reptilian-thing has been made more famous (I think) by David Icke, but I don't know if they collaborate. Sitchin I had heard of always spoken with disdain, and to this day there's nothing on his website that makes me think otherwise. Icke, on the other hand, is good stuff when you're belief shopping. If he's pure snake oil, he's damn good at his job. That video is worth a watch even if it's just to see a master at work.

However, the lunatics aren't necessarily wrong. I wasn't going to write of the possibility he was wrong, Poking around into the Oxford translation of the Sumerian Texts reveals he didn't stray too far from the beaten path. At least it's Oxford This looked official enough to me: http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/

Enki and Ninḫursaĝa: c.1.1.1
First he put his feet in the boat, next he put them on dry land. He clasped her to the bosom, kissed her, Enki poured semen into the womb and she conceived the semen in the womb, the semen of Enki. But her one month was one day, but her two months were two days, but her nine months were nine days. In the month of womanhood, like fine (?) oil, like fine (?) oil, like oil of abundance, Ninnisig, like fine (?) oil, like fine (?) oil, like oil of abundance, gave birth to Ninkura.

52-60. When Father Enki goes forth to the inseminated people, good seed will come forth.

When you go looking for ancient astronaut theory, you'll find what you need to believe it. I think that's what seek and ye shall find really means. If you seek the truth, you'll find something you believe is the truth. Funner to keep seeking, I say. 

I haven't written off the secret cabal being of a specific bloodline - families of successful interbreeding with the alien races. 

Captain Kirk would do it.

Maybe aliens did create us through tinkering with the genes of prehistoric man. Maybe it was a long trip back and they didn't bring enough women. Maybe they put their hybrid children in charge and now live beneath the Denver airport. 

I wonder if it has a statistically higher rate of missing persons. They eat humans, you know. Perhaps a suspiciously low homelessness rate?

I honestly didn't find anything that caused me to write the whole thing off. It seems more plausible to me than just straight evolution. I look at what we're tinkering with these days and wonder:

Maybe we're just like our father.... species that is.

What if reality broke?

More specifically, what if the continuity of reality broke. Sort of like in the Butterfly Effect - but without the childhood journal nonsense.

   

More like quantum leap, but with no Al. Just... 

"WTF, I'm apparently Ted Danson today."

Would you grow less attached to who you were up until the day reality broke over time, or cling as tight as possible to those memories?

CrowdSourcing the End of Unemployment

Being unemployed sucks. Working sucks too.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but humans don't really need to work anymore. Here's a shot at how to get from here to there.

Some of the people don't have jobs.
So have the ones that do work less, 4 hours a day instead of 8.

But then the ones working less won't be able to afford the shiny things.
So make the shiny things free. You can start with cheaper. You know, ease into it.

How do we make the shiny things cheaper?
You have 7 billion minds on the planet. Surely someone can come up with something. In fact, someone somewhere, or a team of someones somewhere can solve every logistics problem we face. That's what got us to the top of the food chain.



How ridiculous is it that an hour of your time is worth $17, and an hour of your equal's time is only worth 17 cents?
No wait, he's not your equal? You've been through highschool, and bullying, and endless hours of regularly scheduled programming. He's been living in a hut washing his hands with water you wouldn't piss in. You're more skilled, more qualified...

Sand Castles

You know what really gets me about the super-rich and the super-powerful? Their shortsightedness.

How is it that their massive egos haven't caused them to recognize the potential creative power of the individual human mind? How have they not set about harnessing that resource?

You've seen those ridiculously intelligent baby commercials, right? Why aren't all babies being schooled that way? Not all parents can afford it. Why can't all parents afford it? Because people are mouths and shoveling arms and remedial calculators, fleshy whiny machines that make us money.

Sand castles. They build sand castles with us, competing with each other about who has the biggest castle. The tighter they squeeze, the more we slip through their fingers.









img source:  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ultimate_Sand_Castle.jpg

The Need

I have a need to write right now, but I'm hesitant. My internal judge and my plans and schemes and maybe even beliefs stand in my way. As you can tell, I decided to say 'to hell with that' and sit down and start typing.

I have this notion about gaming the system, of broadcasting in the most effective way - reducing the noise, increasing the signal. This makes me think that there's an optimum way to go about it. That certain things should be blog posts, certain things should be tweets, on others just posts on social networks.

My plots and schemes have been to tweet the base ideas, all summed up neatly within 140 characters. That the really rough stuff, the in-process exploration of the thought - while it's cooking in my mind - should be social network posts. Then, that something of a finished product - a painting of the bigger picture should be what I post here (despite that I've named the place Raw Thought). Turns out I'm staying truer to the blog's name than my plans would have me do. I'm not sure what to make of that.

I saw my (maybe) son for the first time in person on Sunday. There's been no DNA test (the mother refused). I'd like to put that story out there, how it happened - particularly the improbability of it all. I'd like to publicly question my interpretation of that synchronicity. Yet, I'm not. I'm not sure that I won't. If I do, I'm not sure that it will be here. I've created a couple of communities on G+ (one public, one private). It might be fare best suited for the private one.

Who to share with, where to share, whether or not it will resonate or be received merely as noise. These are the questions that haunt - but the need is there. My inner judge that calls the endless monologues I constantly compose to you as unworthy, not good enough, holds only limited sway - for here I am telling you my secrets anyway.

My plans and schemes fall victim to procrastination and the notion that the circumstances aren't right. I don't have a private place to write you. I don't even have a desk at the moment. These are the things my mind tells me I need to have in place before you will hear me - before there will be resonance with what I broadcast. Every now and then though, the need wins out - and I write you anyway. Pouring what I can squeeze past the judge and underneath my plans. Missives from the cell in which my ego has me imprisoned.

We're All Whores, Really

When there's material wealth, we all trade our time and energy for it. Literal whores only differ that they cross the line by adding their body as up for trade.

The people that love what they do for a living? They're just getting to fuck in a way that isn't that unpleasant. A vast majority of us though? We don't like the way we're getting fucked.

We thought we could unionize and find a good pimp/government, but that's not turning out the way we'd hoped.

The Death of a Dream

or Faith Falling Short
or A parting of ways

I always struggle with the title. I have a whole unpublished post about struggling with titling of these damn things. Unpublished, there's a good title.

Once upon a time I was an office drone. I saw the Holstee Manifesto in a bookstore and bought it. I hung it on my office wall. Slowly it's evil hopeful message wormed its way into my dreams. A part of me was screaming, saying "if you keep doing this it's all you'll ever do! It's adding up to be the sum of your life!"

So, one day I said "fuck it." If you want to start living your dream life, you have to start living your dream life. So, I quit my job. I was nice enough to stick around and train my replacement, I would like to note. On my last day I got a fortune cookie from Panda Express.

And that, my friends, is how these leaps of faith get you. Little shit like that. The too-coincidental coincidences.

Next thing you know you're committing financial suicide (more like euthanasia), trying to live your dream.

Lesson #1:
You have a financial self.
It is a vampire.
It can die.

Medusa is capitalism, and we're all the little snakes that make up her hair. I have a great artist I want to do a visualization of that, but he rates about $500 and up for custom jobs, and I'm one of those reluctant vampires. I don't want to feed on other humans, so I end up eating rats. I won't be swinging $500 to spend on art any time soon.

In a capitalist society, you've got to find a consenting victim and bleed them a little - and I'm really bad at that. So, back under the fang I go. The time and effort I should be spending living my dream instead feeding some corporate entity, grown fat from feeding on people just like me.

Indicators of Societal Health

Essentially, a society sets for itself a level of acceptable existence for its member-entities. Currently in America, society believes it is acceptable to have prisoners and homeless people. What quality of existence is acceptable within a society is variable. For example, a society could put the infirm to death to preserve limited resources.

Laws against suicide and human euthanasia (we're completely fine with applying a different set of rules for other life forms such as cattle and pets) are reflective of a society's morality. We denote a society's level on this scale with terms like 'barbaric' and 'civilized'.

I would argue that we currently have the foresight to realize our current practices are barbaric in comparison to where we would like to be as a society.

Having recognized this scale and our ability to increase or decrease our positioning on it, I fail to see why we can't start some goal-setting in this regard.

Some would say we've done the goal setting, for as a matter of culture we've agreed upon where we would like to be by identifying things as 'problems' (crime, homelessness).

However, I'd say we've been approaching these problems as if they were the disease when they are in fact only symptoms. I believe its time we start examining the evidence for the root causes of these symptoms. What failure in the system results in homelessness? What failure in the system results in criminal behavior (including unnecessary laws like marijuana prohibition).

What parts of our society are having these discussions, which aren't? What are the reasons for parts of our society not working toward these solutions? Is it a symptom of a 'problem' that these discussions aren't taking place?

If so, how do I turn starting these necessary discussions into a living wage?

How do I help fix the system if I am unable to survive within the system? Martyrdom?

#metamorphology
#firstdraft

Metamorphology

From wordnik.com: n.

In biology, the science of the metamorphoses or changes which an individual undergoes from the time it ceases to be an embryo to the time it ceases to live as a bodily organism,

For me, meta-morphology involves meta. Best I can tell, meta = self-referential. My favorite example is:

I'm so meta even this acronym.

(I couldn't figure out to whom to credit this, so if anyone knows please tell me in the comments below.)

So, for me, Metamorphology is:

The study of self-referential change.

You go out, live your life and experience new things and get exposed to new ideas. All of this is interpreted based on what you've previously experienced or been exposed to. The integration of the new information either changes you or not. How resilient are your belief structures to contradictory experience/ideas? Are there ideas or experience that can affect that resiliency? How does one's belief structure resiliency inhibit or facilitate someone's metamorphosis?

Metamorphology is an attempt to understand how this process works, from somewhere between neuroscience and spirituality.

Energy Sex

Sometimes, I don't have the energy. There's something I could be doing around the house that I want to have done, but I just don't have the right combination of internal variables to put that desire into action. It's this feeling I associate with when people say "I don't have the energy to do that".

If it requires energy to do things that require time and attention, then clearly we are expending energy into the things we give time and attention to. Certain interactions also energize and excite us. We can receive energy from our interaction with external energies.

Every interaction is an energy exchange. You reading this is part of an energy transfer. I'm placing my time and attention into its creation, and your experience of it is the energies intermingling.

There are an awful lot of similarities between energy exchanges and fluid exchanges. Additionally, I think it can be useful to think about everything in terms of sex.

[Image Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sexual_Energy_by_mizi.jpg]

For example, think of a conversation as energy sex. Two parties (or more) are having an interaction for a specific result, trying to experience a certain sensation. How they conduct themselves in the conversation determines which positions are taken, who has a good time, whether or not it's too rough, and who (if anybody) ends up satisfied.

Either Or Beliefs

Either my life is turning into complete shit, or everything is as it should be.
Or
Life is as I believe it to be, and I'm perilously close to believing it to be really shitty?

Constructing a belief system is a major pain in the ass these days. Mainly because there are so many to choose from.
Would you like to believe the powers that be are a charade to mask the banker puppeteers?
Would you like to believe that those powers that be are of descendant royal lineage of reptilian inbreeding?
Would you like to believe that the universe is ultimately a loving place, where we agree to be separated from that love to experience the joy of discovering and remembering that truth?

Then, once you decide what you want to believe, you have to toss it out there for peer review to see if there is actual evidence contradicting what you want to believe. When you find something that starts to hold up to this sort of peer-review, you begin to notice how little people notice the choice of belief they have.

Take my model of faith and beliefs understanding. No one seems to have anything to attack it with other than their personal definitions of the terms. No one is willing to contradict the psychological mechanics of it, though.

Idea + Faith = Belief. You can nest beliefs.

If you have the belief that you exercise no measure of faith, you can find the beliefs requiring faith that support that claim. You can always trace beliefs back to faith. Anything you believe that does not come directly from first hand experience is something you've taken on faith. You had to apply faith to each and every one of those ideas in order to believe them.

You probably take it on faith that cyanide is poisonous. You may add faith to the idea that there has been scientific tests proving cyanide poisonous, and make it a belief. You can add faith to the idea that 'they use it as poison in movies and someone would call them on it if it wasn't poison' and use that to believe cyanide is poisonous.

Faith is everywhere. There's just a lot of competing notion of what qualifies an idea as worthy of the application of faith. Some, for example, believe that the only ideas worth applying faith to are the ideas that have survived the scientific method. Once they believe a thing to be true, they reclassify it as a fact instead of a belief.

What are you Selling?

That's putting it a language everyone reading this should be able to understand. I think we owe it to each other to understand what it is we're selling, so we can have honest dealings with one another.

I'm selling the perspective that however well what we've been doing up until now has worked - how well it has gotten us this far - we need to move on to something new. I'm selling the theory of evolution, but only if applied to 'all the things'. All the things evolve, including society.

I'm offering a healthy dose of - A species is an organism. Humanity is an organism, a giant sprawling thing consisting of 7 billion or so individual cells. I'm selling you the perspective that the health of the whole is intimately connected with the health of each and every individual.

Slide on these magic goggles and see that the fact that your neighbor is an obese, ignorant man, with a nasty habit of beating his wife is indicative of a systematic illness within our organism. Consider also that a malleable cell, such as a stem cell, is chiefly the product of his environment. While all of the individual cells have built in self-regulation, that they fail to thrive in an environment is the responsibility of their society. The society entity is chief architect of the environment in which a new citizen-cell develops.

String of Words

There is, in the realm of possibility, a string of words that I could type here that would change my life forever. I'm not sure of the length of that variable string of words, or what subject matter its words would dance around. Somewhere though, there's a string of words that could change it all.

This fabled String of Words would have the 'just right' amount of emotional appeal to resonate with 'just the right person', prompting them to share it within their network. In this manner, the String of Words would weave its way through human social networks to just the right person. The String of Words would create a bridge between my life and the life of just the right person, for our mutual benefit.

Somewhere in the realm of possibility, that string of words exists. For those that dream of making their way through life by stringing words together, that string of words is the Holy Grail, Fountain of Youth, and Lost City of Gold.

Ask and Ye Shall Receive - Field Test #1

Dear Universe,

After much inward searching and contemplation, I have identified my hearts desire to be as follows:

I would like to spend my life sharing my unique perspective with others to mutual benefit without being a burden to others.

In exchange for granting me an existence in this fashion, I will experience it and share all the sordid details with you. I leave the details of the manifestation of this possibility to your discretion.

With Love,
Grizwald Grim

Chapter 3: One Story

There's only really one story that any writer can tell with complete honesty, their own story.

Fiction authors that become successful have an ability to filter their story's telling in a way that allows others to learn from it. It's their story, dressed up in a way more people can relate to.

There's this thing called archetypes, and educated people will gladly point you to references of how they're currently understood. I'm not sure if my understanding matches one of the ones already out there. It's relatively common for me to share an understanding and have people tell me it is in resonance with something someone with a reputation has already written. In this case, I'm not aware of who understood archetypes in this way already, but maybe you've never read them either.

In a large part, these archetypes are identified as specific relational roles. The archetype of the 'mother', for example, is representative of the way we understand mothers to act toward their children. The archetypes are optional perspectives that we can choose to adopt in our interactions with others. They're a way for a society to communicate within itself, models of the various ways of conducting communication with other individuals.

A good fiction writer can take their story and tell it from the perspectives of the various archetypes. Storytelling is a language. It weaves the space between the seed and the blooming tree by describing how the two are bound by the glue of life over a span of time. Storytelling is the chronicle of the journey on the cycle of life. The truth that a writer learns on the journey, he is capable of binding and spinning into variant manifestations. A good fiction writer translates truth of his learning in a way that can help others recognize that truth in their own journey.

I am not a good fiction writer. I could be, now that I 'get it' though. Time, effort, and practice stand between me and there. I'd honestly rather not take that route. You can call it laziness, I'll call it the desire for efficiency.

Personally, my preference is to have an interesting enough journey that I can relate the truths directly to you as I figure them out. I'd like to be able to chronicle my story to you as it happens, but not always in a retelling of events. I'd like to be able to share with you 'what it looks like from here'. That's "my dream job".

This post you're reading is part of a story of a guy who saw the way things work and thought, "we can do better." This post you're reading is the 'true story' the film might be one day based upon. Can the protagonist just tell his story as it happens, or does he have to drape it in fiction to not starve to death?

Chapter 2: Sticky Things

It's interesting what sticks.
I understand the image to the left to be of a 'diffusion limited aggregate'. I was exposed to the concept recently when I watched +Wai H. Tsang's video on fractal brain theory, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axaH4HFzA24.

Essentially, there's a bunch of seemingly random dots that occasionally stick to the center point and become sticky themselves, creating an image similar to the one pictured here.

While somewhat tangential to the point he was making in the video, the concept seems to be one that has proven somewhat sticky for me.

What makes it sticky?

Why this, not that? Of the multitude of moments that make up our lives, why do we remember some and not others? I think one answer might be resonance. I am almost certain another is trauma. One of the things that's proven sticky for me is a scene from the 2005 film, Kingdom of Heaven. Liam Neeson has Orlando Bloom swear an oath and then smacks him upside the head with his gauntlet, saying "That's so you'll remember."

Resonance

You're likely familiar with the expression 'the ring of truth'. I think certain things we're exposed to 'ring as true' or resonate as truth to us. There has often been times in my life when hearing a certain phrase for the first time I experience an unusual physical sensation - goosebumps, the hair on the back of my neck standing. It comes with a sensation that I've recognized a piece of the puzzle, that the information is valuable.

Mystery

There are other things have stuck for me that haven't necessarily come with such a physical sensation. Both of the two that follow have the quality of mystery, which is why I currently think they've remained sticky in my mind over all these years. The first is an unexplained phenomenon, which has persisted to remain unexplained primarily because the plausible explanations my rational mind has been able to come up with haven't rang true. The second I believe has stuck because it seems like a clue to great existential mystery: Why am I what I am?

The Music and the Cloud

The most beautiful music I have ever heard may have existed only in my mind. At the time, I was unloading trucks at night for a living and going to sleep in the mornings. I was living with a girl who I may or may not have gotten pregnant, but she was out of town visiting a dying relative. We were living in a one-bedroom apartment, the upstairs of a two-story duplex.

I had just snuggled into bed that morning when I began to hear the music. It didn't seem that the music started at the same time I began to hear it. Rather, it was as if I had been tuning a radio and stumbled upon the frequency with silence being the static. The music defies description, as I have never heard its like before or since - but if pressed, Angelic is the word I would use. 

I wasn't completely tuned in, but it was completely clear. Rather than the clarity waxing and waning, it was the volume that gave the sense varying reception. After a few precious moments, only the ordinary sounds of the morning birds remained. I had lost the frequency.

This seeming evidence of the existence of the divine and rather difficult life experiences eventually resulted in me attending a Pentecostal church. It was during one such attendance that the second sticky thing occurred. 

As part of the customary practice of the church, following the sermon there was an altar call. Those seeking the divine would make their way to the altar and pray while the rest in attendance would pray, worship, or twiddle their thumbs from the comfort of the pews. On the particular evening in question, I made my way to the front of the church at the altar call - though my state of mind is so far removed from what it was then I can't remember what led me to that behavior.

It was not uncommon for those answering the altar call to be joined by others. The faithful would come and pray with and for those in supplication. On this particular occasion, I was joined by an elder woman during my praying. When I had finished, she spoke to me.

While I don't recall the specific words she used, I remember that she told me that I was unusual in that she had sensed a dark cloud about me, enveloping me, that I carried with me wherever I went. That much, at least, I continue to remember. Her sharing of that perception as proven to be sticky for me. 

Was it genuine? Was she capable of sensing things other's do not? Was it just her figurative description of something about the nature of my mood? Does the darkness dwell about me or within me? 

The mystery remains.

The Secret of Success

Chapter 1: What do you want me to say?

It's happening again. You can call it the desire to write, if you want to euphemize it. Really, it's just rattling. All these thoughts rattling around in my head. Flowing up from some dark abyss with me sifting through them. Will this one resonate? Will anyone care?

Sometimes it feels like a distress signal. A desperate cry "no more of this, please" - variations stretching toward infinity in number. My mind tells me I must sift. I must find the one that resonates with someone, anyone, who can help - who will help. So far, no luck.

I feel like I've said it a thousand times and no one was moved - it didn't resonate. That could be a misremembering though. Maybe I've always wanted to say it but never have. Maybe it slipped out a couple of times. 'It' is that I've had suicidal ideation for so long I think it qualifies as 'as long as I can remember'.

The first visible manifestation that I can remember was in the 7th grade. It was math, though I'm not sure which particular math it was. Likely one of the Algebra classes. I was sitting in class writing over and over "I hate myself and want to die." I remember that got out somehow, but I don't remember how.

That couldn't have been the first manifestation though, because years before when I lived in Hawaii I was seeing a shrink. That was fun. There was playing with toy cars in a sandbox. Drawing. I remember one of the drawings because it was my favorite. I drew a muscular shadow figure with glowing red eyes, standing in a pile of skin at his feet. It was supposed to be me. What's on the inside, with the pile at the feet the me that everyone else can see.

I assess my memory as relatively horrible. There's really so little I remember, and that was true long before I found the bliss of marijuana. Oh, how I miss the bliss of MJ. Not every time, but a lot of the time, it let's me shift my perspective to one in which everything is so fucking beautiful. I like to think of it as channeling my higher self. Get it? Higher self.

I'm about to take a job at 7-11. It's weekends, stocking in the back for now. With threat/promise of being trained for more later. The notion fills me with dread on so many levels, particularly the part of not being hidden in the back - with having to deal with people.

I believe I can write a book, though. That I should be writing a book. Unfortunately, I have no idea what to say.

Write about what you know. 
What do I know? I know about wanting to die. I know (now) that for me at least, it's not really wanting to die. It's just "please, no more of this." You're deep in it and it covers everything you see. You look forward and all you see is more of it. You don't see any way out of it, and any way out that occurs to you is quickly written off by your oh-so pragmatic mind as being daydreams - unrealistic- optimistic bullshit that will just set you up for another crash.
Don't believe in that, you're just setting yourself up for another fall. You can't handle another fall. You're down here in it, but you're holding it together. You're not sinking any lower. You're treading water, but if you climb up and fall again you'll go under. 

It's hard to talk about too. I've lost 'friends' because of it. Life is hard for everyone. Who wants to be around someone who is drowning? They might pull you under with them.

Drugs! You need drugs, and a shrink!
Sure. My self-esteem is rock bottom and becoming someone who has to take a pill every day is supposed to make me feel better about myself?

I don't want to die. I never have. But please, no more of this. Just let me wake up as someone else tomorrow. Anyone else, really. At least for the first day there would be nothing but relief that I'm not me anymore.

There's an addictive quality to suicidal ideation that most people probably don't realize. It worms itself into your identity. It becomes part of who you are, part of what makes you different. You don't particularly want it there, but who would you be without it?

There's actually a kind of beauty to it. It's better to feel pain than nothing at all. The pain has a purity to it. It's powerful, overwhelming. Despair, beautiful despair.

Right now, I'm tempted to hit publish, and tempted to hit delete. Still, I'm writing though. Actually doing something. Transmitting. It's not just rattling around in my head. Maybe I'm getting it out. Maybe that will help. Maybe it'll close doors. I mean, if potential employers found this those doors would likely close. Gotta lie. Gotta make them think you'd be a perfect little cog in their money making machine, or they'll find someone that looks like a better fitting cog and the despair will have even more fuel.
The beatings will continue until morale improves.

Maybe if I slap "Chapter 1" in the title this can be my book. I can just open up, pour it out through my fingers, call them chapters and self-publish on Amazon later. Then I will at least have done something with my life. I can't believe that it would sell. Like I said, who wants to be around someone who's drowning?
Schadenfreude.Maybe there is a market.

Why Get Up Again?

I had the below image on my desk at work for quite some time. In fact, I still have it somewhere in a box. One of the few possessions that I was able to fit into my car to take with me when I moved to Vegas.

Why, exactly, are we supposed to get up, dust ourselves off, and try again? Of course, if you truly want something you shouldn't let failure get in the way. Sometimes, though, we wind up in darkness. The inky black where you can't see or remember wanting anything.

Meh.
Sometimes, "meh" just covers over everything. There comes a time when you've been down in the pit so long you can't remember why you started climbing anymore. You try to call the memory to mind or imagine a reason to keep on climbing, but everything that shows up is covered in "meh." None of it seems worth the effort because the desire for it is too weak. 

For me, those "sometimes" are pretty damn frequent. I really don't get a whole lot of climbing done. More often than not, I'm just holding on. Usually what keeps me holding on is the one desire that I seem to be able to maintain no matter how dark and dreary things get. The desire not to cause suffering to others. Whatever keeps you from letting go, I guess.

I Think About You All The Time

You're such a pretty girl, don't you know. There you are, out on the dance floor, laughing and having a great time. Meanwhile, I'm standing next to the folded up bleachers with a glass of punch in my hand trying to think of what I can say to you that won't result in a look somewhere between confusion and disgust cropping up on your face when I approach you.

I've written you volumes. Of course, they're volumes of jumbled incoherent nonsense that any editor would balk at and exist almost entirely on the cutting room floor of my mind - but really... I think about you all the time. Composing is probably more accurate, but it feels like writing.

I'm here. I'm alive. Please give a shit.

That's the general overall theme. The specifics could be broken up into chapters, but essentially that's what they all boil down to.

The Signal to Noise Ratio
These days, it seems that's the important part. What's signal to you? What's noise to you? It's quite the challenge figuring out which is which when I know so little about you. You're a mystery to me. 

I'm trapped you see. Stuck in this ugly bag of mostly water, currently located in Las Vegas, Nevada, planet Earth. It has arms, legs, and what I consider to be pretty blue eyes. How am I supposed to know what's signal to you from inside this contraption? 

Atoms, aren't we all?

It is said that no man is an island. Doesn't that really mean that we don't exist in a vacuum? Maybe the atom is a better comparison. Personal space as what's between our nucleus and our the outer reaches of our electron cloud. Through our interpersonal networks we can form molecules. Perhaps a man with two wives is like a water molecule.

Humanity Needs a Safe Word

Look - We all know that a part of us likes to fuck people. We love the competition, we like to get one over on someone else. Part of being human, the quest for Win.

We all know that of the things we can be, we're all capable of being them all. We can be kind and loving, cruel and ruthless. We choose who we want to be and see how it plays out in the world we find ourselves in. Some people are going to want to be bad, hard and hurtful. Other people are going to be willing to be hurt.

The thing is, we need a safe word. For example: Banana. If someone's life sucks too much, they can say "banana," and then we all come together and make life not suck so bad for that person. Right now, we don't have a safe word and millions and millions of people are getting fucked too hard.

Let's keep it consensual and respect each other's boundaries.

Social Networking = The Death of Advertising?

One day, social networking will slay advertising.

The truth about products and the truth about the practices of the companies producing the products will be common knowledge. One day, if a company tries to privatize the water supply, society will quit buying their products.

If companies moderate their social networking presence, for example by deleting all of their negative reviews, then a new node will appear on the network for consumers to become aware of the truth.

We won't turn to commercials to decide which brand of automobile we should drive or laundry detergent we should use. It will be common knowledge which product is the best and which company has the best practices. We all like confirmation that we've made the best choice. It won't be long until that extends beyond product quality into business practices, now that we're all connected.

Disintegration - Live

It turns out what I may want to do is Rise like a Phoenix. I did get the tattoo after all.


Quick Note about Tattoos:  They are a great learning tool. People who can always see room for improvement/find fault can use them to learn to be happy with things the way they are.

My gut instinct is telling me that broadcasting the whole ride - including the burning into ashes part will get me better ratings. Growing up in America the way I have, it's no surprise that I might want to be some kind of celebrity.

Of course, I'd rather be a Gandhi type of celebrity. I could bear being the Pat Robertson type of celebrity too. Realistically, I'd prefer to be the YouTube type of celebrity in our day and age. I definitely don't want to be the Timothy McVeigh type of celebrity.

I don't really think its wrong to publicly admit these thoughts. Honestly folks, I think we could do a _lot_ better as far as a species. Why aren't we working harder to become the Extra Terrestrial First Contact we would like to have as opposed to the one we're scared of.

It is such a giant pain in the ass to have so many masks you have to wear to get by in our society - and that's just get by mind you. I so want to be done with that bullshit.
"Don't post that on your Facebook or you could get fired!"
Really? Then fuck this company. Hey everyone on Facebook, this company fires you for being yourself in public. Quit giving them your money.

Be yourselves people, even if it makes you homeless.

It's also okay if being yourself is being someone who wants to live in the safest cave it can find.
For me? The Flames.