Death
lingers. It watches as you live and pretend. A daily reminder of
what’s to come. We’re obsessed with it. It’s not an accident
that news centers on the terrors of the world. That tugging on what
people are afraid of will always get a reaction. Death has power.
It’s the ultimate power. When you make it your goal to enlighten
your perspective to always include death, nothing stops you. When you
learn how fear of death controls you, you learn how to control
others.
I’ve
said I watch so much TV because it makes me think.
To
a greater extent, I don’t think it’s too rash of me to say I’m
obsessed with death. I could shape just about anything I do on the
premise that I will almost certainly one day die. I respect few
taboos, and only if they have overtly negative consequences. I don’t
treat anything, but the pursuit of rational behavior as sacred. I
take chances to keep things exciting, and because I realize how
little chance has to do with it. I observe and record consequences.
The
more I force myself to be aware of things, the harder it is to force
a veil of naivety. I’ve had opportunity, and will almost certainly
continue to have it. I take what I already know I have to say or do,
and do or say it, or I don’t. It always depends on the game.
Because it’s here where my obsession with death takes a back seat;
when it comes to games, I treat everything like I’m in one. It
could be from this core behavior that I adopted the term “learned
sociopath.”
You
don’t care about the enemies you kill in Halo, the money you spend
in Grand Theft Auto, or how many times you die in either. You’ll
see people get angry, throw controllers, shit talk, huff and puff.
You’ll see people get ridiculously “skilled” at centering a
crosshair and pulling a trigger. They’ll win money and take pride in
what they do. It’s safe to say they’ve had opportunity too.
It’s
superficial; a chief tenant for a game. You need to buy into that
reality. You deliberately put emotional capital in your character.
You perceive intent from your foes. You revel in the futility of your
victims. The game is what you make of it.
The
fun idea is how close of an analogy I’m making, and how little most
people realize. Your brain doesn’t care. If you lock a super
computer and a person in a box and ask them questions, and no matter
what answer you get you still never manage to pick out which
answered, your brain is happy to equate them. What happens when you
can’t deny a computer’s “consciousness?” Is something alive
just by virtue of saying it can feel and realize as such? Questions
for a different day.
My
current concern, or maybe ongoing concern, is with my social scene. I
get to learn about practically anything I want. I have a wealth of
knowledge to pick from. It’s not so much “how do I pick what I
believe” that’s the fairly easy part. It’s “what do I believe
other people are believing” that gets tricky. For that I have tepid
metrics like “popular opinion,” “misplaced ego,” or “fear
response.” The stronger metrics I’d rather leave left unsaid;
it’s just too much to explain right now.
I
want to understand my current social scene in the context of history,
where applicable. As far as I can tell, the whole of existence
is…almost thought I could answer that it one sentence. What I see
when I look at history is people using things. I don’t even want to
suppose what their “ends” were, but speculating at this point
appears to be all I have. It’s looking for stability. It’s
non-living particles becoming more stable as complex living
organisms. It’s using information to try and feel better. It’s
seeking a purpose even if that purpose is only to believe you have
one. Adopt your neighbor’s creed and raise your fists in
solidarity. Information spreads as an end in itself.
The
story of us, to me, while the most fantastic story of overcoming
obstacles and technological advances that we’ve ever known, is
still sad and pathetic. We still die from almost everything. We still
harbor irrational fears. We are experts are saying one thing and
doing another. While we are imbued with all the feelings necessary of
a cohabitating species, we still rebel; we still find novelty and joy
in things being different. We set rules to establish a set of
principles, but few to none to abolish old ones.
I
think this is why I will always suffer in a social scene. Understand
that suffering does not mean I would somehow be unable to enjoy,
understand, or proliferate in one. But I do suffer. I watch people
play by rules that maybe used to make sense. I see them confound
their principles, assuming they have them laid out at all, with the
highest mantra a “mere beast” could aspire to. It’s not enough
for me to play by the rules, or be around people who basically play
along with me. I need people to understand their roots.
This
is a most formidable wall between me and other people. It’s
impossible to merely convince someone else of your position. They
have to feel it with the understanding that thoughts inform those
feelings and vice versa. You can pick a mutual goal and try to pursue
it together, but at best, the goal gets completed and you’re never
closer to understanding anything. A shared will is necessary. A
shared “soul” if I’m to annoy myself by confounding language.
In much the same way as you can’t quantify either a will or soul,
it’s prevailing push is towards, what I think, understanding.
If
you set your “soul” or will on understanding magic sky daddies,
no shit you feel ever so enthused the more unexplainable or terribly
rationalized a situation you encounter. If you set your will on a
person, how unimaginably filled with love you will proclaim you have;
what more could we possibly exist for!? I see these as handicaps.
They arrest your mind. When you set your will to yourself, you open
the biggest door for understanding. Shame on you if you call it
ego-centrism.
Underneath
any subjective claim we can make about ourselves is a string of
information, history, objectively identifiable and quantifiable set
of things that quantified into you. It harps on the idea that if you
can understand one thing completely, then you understand everything.
I don’t need nor care to understand everything. But, if I get
really good at understanding the things I can, then I’m able to
understand everything I need. More importantly, I’m able to
understand everything about you I need. When I care to know more,
facts about your specific history, we become friends.
The
big secret, at least as far as I see it, is that this isn’t a
secret. Why do people pretend like it is? Why do I consistently make
certain kinds of people cry when I ask “why?” Why do I have zero
qualms about anything I say? Why do I establish a boundary only to
break it or push past it? I want to see if history plays out like it
always has. I understand that change is neither good nor bad. I
understand the kind of person I make myself out to be and the hows
and whys people get used to or justify what I say. I know what I’m
capable of as a mere human; therefore I know what you are capable of
as well.
If
I don’t get to get away with fooling myself that we actually live
in a video game, I don’t respect your ideas about magic sky
daddies. If I understand that someone can view anyone or anything as
the most beautiful or most hideous thing on the plant, I don’t
respect your ego about your looks or what you
think of me. If I can get bored or confused or utterly disagree with
someone who thinks themselves as thoughtful as I am, I know I can
come off as boring or confusing or disagreeable. These kinds of
reflective and reflexive thoughts need to become implicit. As easy as
it is to deceive, you can be deceived. If your metrics by which to
gauge life or your place in it don’t exist in a place independent
of your ego, you’re doomed to either repeat or fail.
I
want my social scene to be more than what I can read from you after
catching it in myself. I seek that deep appreciation for how and why
it exists. I want something worth fighting for. I think that’s why
I put up with so many people being alive, and their shitty, shitty
ideas. It’s because I know, I feel, what they are capable of, and I
still manage to be primarily happy. I know what pitfalls I have
fallen into and am always capable of falling into, but can quantify
and respect my objectively good life. I know what one example of
something can mean to someone; so I want to be as honest an example
as you’ll let me be.
