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.
4.19.2013
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 I have a whole unpublished post about struggling with titling of these damn things. Unpublished, there's a good title.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.
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 I have a whole unpublished post about struggling with titling of these damn things. Unpublished, there's a good title.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.
4.09.2013
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
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
4.03.2013
Metamorphology
From wordnik.com: n.
So, for me, Metamorphology is:
Metamorphology is an attempt to understand how this process works, from somewhere between neuroscience and spirituality.
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.
4.02.2013
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.
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.
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.
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.
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