[222] Fix It Bitch

How do I propose to fix things? To me, this kind of comes across as asking the Ethiopian kid why he doesn’t just start a farm if he’s so hungry, or maybe the Canadian to read a book if they feel so stupid. It seems to miss the real issues. You’re still Canadian.

So Nick, you like to bitch. Always on facebook with your views and rants and yada yada. Do something about it bitch! Sure, I can agree with you from time to time, even give you a little shit just to see how well you can defend, but I clearly have much less invested in whatever the topic at hand is than you do. Why aren’t you spending every waking minute fighting this monstrous pile of problems you have with the world? Remember you’re an American! Your will and your will alone is going to save you.

This just in, we hardly ever create our circumstances. A whole ton of shit happened before I popped onto the scene in 1988, and I venture to guess people back then had about as much a clue as we do now. Why didn’t the 1988 bitchers just do something!? It seems so easy. What do you even want to do in the first place?

I want to change thoughts.

No, not just change them for the sake of changing them. I could whip my dick out and piss down your leg and I’m positive it will distract you from the Vivaldi symphony you were humming inside. I can’t really think of what that helps besides my smile at the thought. Let me illustrate via example of how I want thoughts to be conducted via mock conversations.

“Hey dude, this invisible man told me something about who you should have sex with.”

“Really? Was he cloaked with that new invisible technology I heard about on the military channel?”

“Ya, what else could it be, magic?”

“Hey dudette, did you know John McCain owns 6 houses?”

“Really? Does he have a lot of kids or family, because 1 doesn’t go into 6 without some crazy quantum stuff going on.”

“No, luckily when our government found out they told him the same thing. The waste, greed, and self-entitlement don’t outweigh the social cost and messages we send to our society about well-being”

“Hi, this is Article 10 section b. of the treaty you signed not to conduct war for insufficient reason.”

“I see your document and counter that I don’t care.”

“Go directly to jail.”

“You mean that this is the only planet we know humans to be currently living on and need water and an atmosphere?”

“I don’t find these compelling enough reason to all but cease and desist pursuing resources that can make it explode.”

“That’s why you’re seated next to that crazy politician while regulatory commissions and scientists break up and repurpose your equipment.”

We allow ourselves to be sold on this bullshit, become complacent with the results, and lose all will even to meagerly bitch on facebook about it.

When. You. Become. Specific. Objective. Reality. Exists.

Is cutting bad? It’s the wrong question. Should a girl with low self-esteem and the excuse, “this is the only way to make me feel” cut. Probably not. Should the masochist cut in an expression of sexual release? Could be dangerous, but certainly a different circumstance. It becomes a question about personal responsibility and societal impact over “moral truth.”

We need to allow questions to become as complicated as what they are trying to hide. This is what happens to my brain when I hear certain questions. For example, is sex before marriage bad? Ridiculously involved question! Unprotected sex? Sex with who? What state of mind would you venture a guess they were in? What pros or cons does marriage bring to sex? Bad for her or him or him or all three? Bad as in disease, emotions, location? Oral? Why are we supposing marriage and sex have anything to do with each other in the first place? It turns into an endless ball of philosophical speculation about the subjective experiences with sex and beliefs about marriage.

Is it not more coherent to tell someone the story and purpose of marriage given different time periods and across various belief systems and let them decide if they agree or disagree with a particular method? Is it not more responsible to teach people all the pros and cons of having the various kinds of sex and allowing them to figure out what’s best for their health and well-being? Is it not reasonable to assume that regardless of who’s fucking who under what conditions, if you find or pick people who are proven to be safe and mature, it’s really none of your fucking business or concern what’s going on elsewhere?

The financial crisis surely had thousands of people with little to large hands at play. Blame them all. More importantly, get them all to blame themselves. Is it not the whistleblower that can expel a wave of shit that indicts a mass of people? What if you can convince that mass of people to account for their own fuck ups, and then figure a way to fix them instead? What if a hundred accountable people worked at Lehman Brothers? Maybe only a few would need to be punished. Maybe it wouldn’t have gone bankrupt. Maybe bonuses and salaries would better reflect achievement and contributions instead of cronyism. And whatever could be said about the ones that went under, it goes double for Goldman Sachs.

You make excuses when you don’t accept objective reality. I would equate the same fallacy and damaging habit of keeping an abusive boyfriend with how we conduct ourselves in government or religious institutions. Of course, why be so eager to flock to such structures unless you’re predisposed against personal responsibility in the first place? I shouldn’t have to convince my friends that they’re boyfriend beats them or is scarily controlling any more than I should have to convince someone that if they don’t like the two party system, stop voting into it. Is the fear of being ostracized or judged really greater than whether or not you’ll have a job next week? Is the objective case for something better a change so uncertain and dangerous you’re willing to perpetuate your circumstances? Well, obviously at this point.

This is why I’m at my core opposed to magic thinking. I don’t see what it does but allow you to be selfish in a destructive manner. It persuades you that you have more control than you do. It allows you to literally outright deny evidence in front of your face. It distracts you from the very obvious things you could be doing to get a more humble and honest kind of satisfaction. And this assumes I would dignify what you get from many of those beliefs as satisfaction. So what am I doing about it?

I’m at least bitching enough to try and garner the questions and conversations in a direction that will bring the specific problems to light and hopefully answers to address them. I’m at least trying ever so fucking hard to be an example of feeling utterly alone in my head while still espousing ideas and ideals that I’ve yet to have a single fucking person tell me I’m so ridiculously destructive or outlandish to hold. I’m asking if it can be done with a “bitchy” solo blog, what can be done with two, or three, a campus or country?

It’s easy to be another protester, whistle blower, hot head, egomaniac, “intellectual,” and servant. History has told our story hundreds of thousands of times and we refuse to change this instant. We are not prepared to be accountable today. Even allowing for how little control I actually have in a parent system, I still manage to maintain too high a sense of responsibility for shit people couldn’t imagine.

I should’ve seen Javon was a psychopath and worked harder to find a better roommate. When her shit gets stolen or spilled on, all that matters is that it was my party. Never mind the months she had to buy a lockable doorknob that was left up to me too. I invited Chris to live there as well despite the anger I saw in him. Whether I bought the alcohol or not I’m still responsible for the drunken rabble in my house. If Rin’s pole gets broken, I have to pay for it. If Hatsam puts in ten applications, I have to find the eleventh that gets him hired. If the world goes to shit, I have to devise some master strategy or feel guilty and responsible for not fixing it all instead of merely bitching on facebook.

If I’m going to continue feeling this way, I’m at least going to keep bitching until I’m ignored or collaborated with. I’m much happier taking responsibility than pretending I don’t want any. Most people I encounter are happy to give it to me. I don’t know if this is extremely endearing and a sign of my potential or me just the proud scapegoat for people’s emotional instability. Forgive me for leaning towards the latter.  

[219] Veiled

As it goes with most major holidays, birthdays, or general classically exciting human social events, I tend to be awake long into the morning and try to tap into the “buzz” in the air and maintain a coherent digression of thoughts.

What’s the “true” nature of things? From a context of asking about the entire universe, we may never know. When you look at a relationship, you can usually tell a story about how the people have either fucked over or helped each other, and given some time reference, you try to gauge just how close or “in love” they may be. When you look at yourself the picture can seemingly change day to day, especially if you end up experiencing something traumatic or deeply meaningful. The easiest cop out answer is to say the “true” nature of things is whatever you choose to believe. Your perspective and your understanding being all that matter. I am of the idea that in order to tell a worthwhile story about what’s true, you have to remove yourself from the story as best you can.

Now on its face, this seems disingenuous. Surely, we are all a part of the collective story. Our perspective should matter. In fact, where do I get off writing if I didn’t see some merit or value in “my” ideas and manner of speaking them? It’s at this point that we need to get around a semantic problem. I, me, and my I think are our best attempt so far at describing what a collection of synapses makes us feel. My head tends to predispose me to thinking that we are observers; manifestations of the “collective everything” that organizes and seeks to understand through observation. This isn’t really a point I plan to get into in a blog for it’s really a sort of out there philosophical notion I play with based from a bastardized understanding of talks on quantum mechanics, but there it is nonetheless.

The real point is that when try to talk about something, I truly feel like an observer reporting what’s in front of me. It is in those reports that I hope people will tend to see the same things. For me, humans on the same page removed from their feelings generally leads to better decisions for the whole overall. So what is there to look at on Christmas? There’s thousands of kids returning home to families, stores littered with just, so much shit, it’s truly hard to wrap your head around where and why it all came from, and plenty of time to meditate on how quick this break from school will be over and how little most people know of what they’ll do after graduation.

Transparency is important for an accurate report. If you can’t see something, you can only assume that it's there. And while there’s a practical application of assuming, if you want something positive to come from your report, you need to be able to support it. I’d say most people refrain from complaining about parents during the holidays, after all cash and prizes are poised and ready to roll through, but from many of my friends the story of that relationship tends to come off as more bad than good, in general. If we take what people say about their parents or siblings as true, what can we then say about a society that forces itself “together” under the guise of cheer and love? Is it a helpful utility or a dramatic antithetical response used to mask deeper feelings?

It’s a pain to try and gather data on such a subject, and probably just has to be asked by people individually. Once you start to roll in the statistics it changes the behavior, so all you can do is once again try to observe and report.

So how many have you watched people spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars this season out of love and charity? More importantly, how many have you watched yourselves spend money out of these things? I would venture to guess that the concern wasn’t what company you were supporting or if the change you dropped into the Salvation Army box was actually going to a meal. It is most certainly at times like this, what convention does to our day to day reality that I love to report. I like learning of a company that supports a Christian group that prides itself on curing gays. Oh, the irony of your gay friends loving Gloria Jeans. I wish I didn’t find it delicious now, as if I get anything but the free samples anymore anyway…

I think the more crushing blows come from observing the planetary impact of consumption. I would just watch a TED talk on swapping and sharing resources two weeks before Christmas. Did dad get a new drill this season he might use a handful of times this year? How many tons of plastic are used in gift cards because somehow cash isn’t good enough anymore? Did that Friends box set really fill the emotional hole your older sister is feeling from not having a boyfriend or husband to share holidays with? I kind of see the human equivalent of a dog licking the wounds of a hurt companion. Clearly, Honda plus dog = vet, not box set. I wonder how many stories were told “so and so went through this or that and could really use a fill in the blank.” BUT NICK P. NORMAL PEOPLE REALLY DO LOVE EACH OTHER AND APPRECIATE THEIR GIFTS!

More power to them. I appreciate what I have and don’t expect anyone to be of lesser capacity. As with more observations and reports though, there’s always a deeper story. As much as I have moments where I like to get lost in dramatic displays and pageantry, I’m never happier than when I’ve bottomed out and become “enlightened” or educated about something transcendently personal and then share it. The only gift I feel helps validate why I’m here is knowledge and utility. If I can’t help you be a better you, then how can I gauge or appreciate what I’m doing or not with myself? Teaching my parents how to torrent for example instead of dropping 50 bucks on a season of some show. Applying thoughts on work or the meaning of friendship to help motivate previously tough decisions about who and where to associate with and why. If I throw a party, I want it not to be about that I could afford it, but that I provided an opportunity for people to connect, and the positive feelings or relationships from that should last more than any financial burden it may have felt like at the time.

I really hope people don’t get pissed off or afraid when they look for the more complicated story. The best way to do that seems to be observing from yourself the kinds of things that make your world conducive to fulfillment and happiness. If watching your credit card swipe is going to bring you more anxiety and worry than a friend or family members smile can absolve, maybe you shouldn’t swipe the card. It’s this sort of nitty gritty practical notion I’d like to see out of most people, and it’s obviously how I’m going to try and conduct myself regardless of the season.

HAPPY STOLEN BIRTHDAY BABY JESUS!

p.s. writing this has given me an awesome business idea.

[214.12] Politically Correct

Monday, October 25, 2010 at 3:23am

I want to entertain a frightening idea. What if we’re really not that stupid?

I should say, the following digression is prompted after watching Christine O’Donnell talk about sex and morality. In general, whenever there is a tea bagger or token idiot on a panel, there are three or four reasonable people sitting next to them. This at least puts on the idea that there are a majority of people who let facts and rational discourse govern their interaction, and woe to those who forget, there’s still bat shit crazy people out there. I have an initial problem with even giving that stupid a stage and allowing it to look like an equal position.

Nothing positive comes from resolving to negotiate with stupid. A different opinion is not the same thing as stupid. I can factually state that it is stupid to deny the effectiveness of condoms and pretend there are just endless waves of depravity and ill will if you fuck outside of marriage. Why have we decided it is a good idea to respect ideas that stupid? Why is something like the right for gays to serve in the military even an issue? How much time has to be wasted and how many civil and practical rights need to be reestablished?

Alas, maybe this speaks to a deeper stupidity. A stupidity of smart people in how they speak and what they allow their time to be engaged with. Bill Maher, for example, might have his celebrity influence, actual data, and education, but still be plagued by the stupid idea that Christine O’Donnell deserves to cross his lips for anything beyond meager entertainment. Perhaps there is real damage done to the nature of the discourse by genuinely entertaining harmful and ridiculous ideas. To be sure, this doesn’t mean the people will go away or that the problems they have will somehow fix themselves, but it does save the time and keep the dignity in what I’ll refer to as  “the smart discourse.”

How do we engage with children? When they don’t want to eat or sleep, they are ignorant, sometimes willfully stupid in how they behave. We don’t resolve ourselves to letting them do as they please, at least not those most would call responsible parents. Why do we treat “adults” with any less care for their well-being and what they need to grow to understand?

A point was raised about our current political atmosphere and why there is such a low youth vote and a ridiculously dirty group of people vying for seats. What smart person who respects their time and wants to get anything done joins this political atmosphere? Who can really respect their time and their position on, oh, believing in global warming and safe sex education, and be made to “compete” with an abstinence only “god made the world and will destroy it” position?

I really think we’ll let “ourselves” destroy ourselves before we really decide to jump in and fix anything. You’ll have people like Obama that say one thing and half-ass do some of those things, and you’ll have true believers in the process or their ability to change things, but how are we expected to trust or believe in the examples they set? Why do genuinely productive and educated people want to perpetuate a system that operates like that? I don’t think they do. I at least don’t. The problem of course is that being a part of this global community, their stupidity very literally affects me no matter how disengaged I’d like to be from it. When it falls, to some extent, I do.

What kills me is that stupid has attributes. We can point to something, give a list of reasons, causes and effects, and within a context explain why it would be stupid, damaging, or at the very least unhelpful. Need an example of how to stupidly answer questions, Bushisms. Need to embarrass yourself in an interview, model Palin. In a “discussion” the person who talks in generalities, drones endlessly the same, frequently beaten point over and over, and references the magic bible as their source of credibility is probably the stupid one. The people who can deny evolution, stem cell research, and global warming do not care about you. They don’t want the world to be a better place, they want "their world" to be the better place. Their views, while rightfully held, do not belong at the big kids table.

I think smart people tend to avoid out of necessity. You can’t remain sane occupying your time with shit that literally makes no sense or you can prove to be harmful. How can you justify pulling out of being an active educated member of society to engage with stupidity? Where’s the balance? What’s it worth selling to people who actively make themselves unwilling and unable to understand you?

At this point I’m just asking a ton of questions I don’t really want to explore right now. I guess I’d simply like to make the appeal to the four out of five people presumed smart until proven otherwise to ask themselves better questions and actually translate their answers into better discourse and effective time management. The stupid won’t go away and does affect you. How can we push the façade that we’re being diplomatic out of respect, while truly understanding how important it is to keep the stupid from exploding? What kind of examples can we set for the people so lost and disenfranchised, yet earnestly hoping and working towards a sustainable future?

[223] Midnight Madness

It isn’t until the wee hours of the morning I can be creative. And of course by creative I mean deep enough in thought to forget who I’ve stolen from. I don’t think there are any answers. Only stories, methods, and tendencies. You’ll take only what you’re capable of from anything. It’s terrifying to think you have to lose so much in order gain so much. What could be a more deconstructive process? If who, what, and when is so ready and capable of shifting. You’re always in flux. Or maybe you’re not, but everything about you and your environment is, so why not “you?” What is it called when you maintain during endless flux. Self? Observing? Collapsing? Your particles are shifting, connected to things you can’t ever know. Your decisions constantly affecting and controlling what is and isn’t. What happens when you realize you already have ultimate power? You don’t want it. You don’t qualify it as powerful, just a matter of fact.

I connect with characters. They are the dramatic portraying of what actually goes on, and yet they feel more real to me than much of my day to day. It’s easier for me to imagine getting on in an episode of skins than in life. Or maybe it’s just simply appealing because it isn’t my life. Because a story is in place, one I can kind of rely on. Characters resolve, generally. The story can’t die. It can be relied upon. They play with death, drugs, and emotions. They speak to ideals we wish we saw in others. Love. Bliss. Trust. And we’re made to believe that even in a world we’d never want to actually imagine these things exist.

I have a corner, but I want a corner. I don’t want to make sense to people can’t make sense. I wanna be OCD, if not just obsessive. I want cohorts. Losing the attachment makes you inhuman. I wonder what it feels like to have an emotional component to being completely understood. I don’t respect isolated emotion. It’s too easy to get angry, it can be just as easy to be happy, if you want. I don’t necessarily think you lucky if you are disposed to “falling in love” with people you are desperate to connect with.

I can’t help it. The danger coupled with infinite opportunity to learn. To tell a different story. A compelling story. One that changes you before you can dictate how.

How can you ask that of someone? To get lost in them. To understand. You can’t. Unless you both can appreciate just how quickly it can change. Mutually reverence for the moment. Amplify the observation. Make real infinite potential.

I should play more.

Do I stay up to prove to myself that I won’t run out? That I have more control when I really try to. Sleep is a condition, a compulsion, but not what controls. Do I abstain out of fear or respect? Have I already tasted what it is I’d be losing? When I stopped loving I stopped feeling such a ridiculously driving force I allowed it to control me. Control is important, no? There was a time that she didn’t have a hold on me, other than being the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. But I wasn’t dramatic. I wasn’t prepared to lose myself happily. I wasn’t prepared to think of anything but myself under the spell of love. Maybe I find myself too convincing. I got too many ridiculous ideas and have trapped myself into them because I’m too sold by how they made me feel. Is it just because it was the first time? I find myself obsessive because it was a sole incident? Am I looking for the next one? The next one would have to be a completely different flavor. What does that say about the original? What does it say about the feeling? Do I behave in reaction to what I’m not feeling? Comparing all others as if there is a standard. But of course there is, her individual person, something you can’t “logically” compare across people. I won’t be a slave.

How am I so unable to stop thinking about the same things? And what the fuck is it doing to my mind…

Punctuated moments of sincerity. Save your tears for when they matter. So many loose ends.  

[221] Recalibrating

I feel I’ve made an error in my use of the word passion. I have made a habit of saying people should live for their passions, taking for granted that passion comes first. Surely many people have “found their calling” after happening upon an opportunity and pursuing it. There isn’t necessarily some incessant blinking light in our heads that we actively ignore as the truer inclination from what we’re currently doing. I guess it’s at this point it is important to really nail down how you define your passions. Not all are going to need to manifest in the same behaviors.

If I were to recall times I felt passionate. As a kid definitely; playing tag, kicking ass at tetherball, stringing together curse words like a boss. Go all gaga for a damsel and that will get the blood rushing. Arguing with creationists and learning about the whole god thing was the source of much time and energy. Learning the guitar, not so much playing it every day anymore, but the initial learning I was up to around 8 hours a day. When I got the house I was looking constantly for ways to keep making it cooler or change things up. The initial starting of Mystik, the meetings, stencil, research, form organizing, website planning etc. was a constant pursuit.

So according to my old understanding of passion I should be someone who learns how to play instruments, falls for girls, fights all the time about god, and owns little kids at their little games…I fail to see the profit potential. Well, this simply means there has to be a different set of words that you should probably go with before passion. This also helps me justify my ever increasing role I’m giving to circumstance being a gigantic player in why things play out as they do.

The question seems to become how to manipulate yours circumstance. Depending on the degree this can be a pretty…fucked up…game. Worse is when you’re passionate about manipulating circumstances. Like there is a line in the sand or something.

I like controlled randomness. I don’t want to be on a random couch every night desperate for my next new conversation or perspective. I do like throwing parties for example because alcoholic ingredients and friends can play out any number of ways, most of them not dangerous.

Gonna drift away now…

[220] What's Your Problem

I think there is a problem when you try to solve problems.

Say I go on my initiative to collect as many college stories about the wasted effort, bad teachers, useless information and so on. I spend years compiling stories, edit the videos together, create this massive chain of anecdotal evidence that at the very least speaks to peoples’ subjective views about the utility they are or aren’t receiving while in school. What if I garner enough attention? I get to sit down, express my views to the university president. Maybe I am allowed to sit on a board of reform. It is at this point I think you would start to see the pageantry start to outweigh the utility.

Who still has the money? Who owns the buildings, pays the teachers, and is making money from some convoluted structuring that is more than a few steps removed from your ideas about Spanish class? The problem with fixing problems is that people are immediately resolved to negotiations. After you invest the time, get the attention, and are made to believe are moving in a positive direction, you have to find a way to actually fix something instead of just creating a debate around it. When too dramatic a change occurs too quickly, old angry white men get fearful for their profits or positions of power.

Sometimes I feel like I shoot myself in the foot before I begin. I am always the most gung ho for my ideas and the biggest detractor. This digression seeks to explain why.

We start with a lot of bad ideas. People are self-sufficient and totally responsible for their own well-being. Everyone is equal. Your entitled opinion should be allowed to be represented as fact. It’s someone else’s problem. Nothing will change. Who cares? If I can’t understand it, it must be wrong. Let’s assume they had the best intentions. So and so will protect us. One day, by some nondescript method, they will finally realize something or get what’s coming to them, even if only after they’re dead.

Everything I think, or read or try to work on, once it is put “out there” is affected by horrid ideas like these. A gun is a great method for killing something until you try shooting under water. And the seas of ignorance, despair, and irresponsibility flow mightily. If there are a hundred men marching with spears at the ready and you decide “fuck war” and start marching in the opposite direction, you will be subsequently stabbed and trampled. Our ideas, I think, have an even more powerful flow than the direct impact of marching into a spear. If you pit a sea of bad ideas against the riled up and passionate detractors who specifically act in oppositional ways, their effort seems even more desperately meager than before.

I want to act in ways that aren’t exceedingly wasteful and extravagant under the guise of accomplishing something. I can write a blog, attempt to clarify my ideas and connect with someone on an intellectual level. It doesn’t cost anything but time I’m happy to spend. If the simple idea being my ideas and time can positively affect someone else’s thoughts, then how much more can I do at that level? Is anything lost or gained by taking big risks and trying to accomplish “more” with money and power? Do I need to “leverage” (go into debt) my assets against my best guess as to what I’ll make in return with a business. What lessons are best learned from other people’s mistakes and what do you need to screw up on your own? You can find just as many horror stories as success stories about what happened when someone started a business. If you get a real good talk, you’ll hear about the fifty failures before the person stumbled on the thing they are there to talk about. I don’t want to fail on principle. It’s clearly inefficient and seems more than a bit unwise.

I think it is truly the mark of million dollar households when someone said “of course that’s what we’re gonna do” when the opportunity found them. I do not think it is the case that most successful people are living the life of the immigrant who started with sheer uncertainty and will and simply fought extra hard to be the best and most profitable. Yet these are the stories we tell. Maybe one of the best kinds of success is to truly grasp all ways in which you are failing. The best companies choosing to redesign and conserve instead of expand. The best people choosing modesty over pride. A description of the life of something that includes the bad decisions and feelings of uncertainty if there were in fact that many bad decisions and underlying feelings.

I think in order for more people to find the mindset to make those “of course” decisions we need a better human philosophy. It needs to be centered on something that literally has nothing to do with or ability to be hurt by the worst kinds of ideas. I clearly advocate the scientific method for this reason. Billionaires shouldn’t block legislation that levies an estate tax in Maine, of course. We should do even the minor improvements to our roads and bridges because we don’t want them to collapse, of course. When are we going to set the course and leave the debating and fighting for people who don’t belong on it?  

[218] Campaign Speech

Campaign Speech: Running for Benevolent Dictator of the United States.

“Thank you ladies and gentlemen so much for your allowance of me to be a nominee for this prestigious position. I hope to at least touch on every point of concern this evening, and we can hold a ten minute Q and A at the end.

::as Martin Luther King Jr.-y as possible::

My countrymen, we have a clear and present danger with how we conduct ourselves in government. It is outdated, inefficient, and corrupt. It is lazy, non-committed, and deliberately obstructive. We have failed at our sole responsibility, and that is to serve and protect the people of this country. Our elected officials neither represent us nor our interests, and fail to empathize with, or help to fix, our struggles. No, this is not the time to note few that have stood strong and actually been there for you. You know who they are, and they did not get the support they needed.

And they were after fairly modest goals. This country needs what those heroes preach and more. Let us dive right in. If you are not the ones being represented, who is? If you ventured to guess corporate interests, you would be correct. And how is this done? Why lobbying of course. That is why, as your Benevolent Dictator, I would put an end to lobbying. You do not get to wasted millions of dollars trying to in turn make billions upon your billions of dollars for your company. At a certain point in a company, you just planted a seed and can no longer claim rights to all that the tree produces. If that point is not when you’ve made a billion dollars, I don’t know where it is.

So now, at least when it comes to financials, you are all equal in my eyes. Now, though you might all be equal, your ideas are not! There will be some issues that I will refuse to pretend there are “two sides” to. These will include, global warming, evolution, and war. As with much of how problems either get solved or compounded, these three hold very close ties. Regardless of whether the planet is warming or not, and it is, it is a bad idea to pretend otherwise. WE LIVE HERE. There is no other plant to pop off to when this experiment fails. If the science says we are at risk, we do what we must to reduce or eliminate that risk.

Risk. What is a bigger risk to well-being, safety, and happiness than war? Of course I believe in protecting ourselves. There will forever be people plotting and loving the prospect of hurting you or me. It is not the quality of a lasting human race to react in turn. An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. I won’t just stop the war in Afghanistan, I will pull the troops from every country that we are allies with. Does this scare you? Does it bring up a certain level of fear and doubt when our eyes are not everywhere? That is called the first step of you learning to trust that there are better ways to live and deal with people.

War is expensive, we went into this one for a tool that helps destroy our atmosphere, and it actively campaigns on dying for your country. I will never stop someone from sacrificing their life for something they truly believe in, but if it’s going to be for this country, I want to give them a country worth sacrificing for.

I want you to be educated. I want you to know that when people get into power, things happen in their psyche that can change them. They can be coerced and threatened to change how they behave. They can need help and be stressed to the point of making bad decisions. That is why it is important for their goals to be yours. Their ideals need to match your common sense and decency. And when you disagree, you need to disagree on details and not use your philosophy to oppress or infringe on objectivity.

Yes, Science is my God. If you choose to believe that something “extra” makes you special and that you don’t share something with every living thing on the planet, it is within your mind to do so. It will not have a place in the classroom. If the legacy of objectivity is to continue, there simply cannot be people who rely on magic to support their decisions. It is harmful to our children, to ourselves, and disrespects the process of evidence based conclusions.

Controlled freedom! The ability to do as much as you can with and for yourself without hurting or infringing someone else. All drugs would be legal. One statement needs to be made as to why. If I wanted to do heroine, I would go and by heroine, I don’t, so I don’t. When we have a culture that is open to experiencing or enabling these things in those that want to do them, we can move past our own issues and devise ways in which to do it responsibly. The untold lives and money that will be saved from just getting over ourselves about drug use. You do well enough with alcohol already, no?

Under my dictatorship, you will be equal in prospects, but not ideas. When you contribute I will work to make sure it is you who are awarded. I will do everything in my power to create active minds and passionate souls to the point of no longer needing my leadership. All I ask in return is that if I try to fuck you, you fuck me back. Accountability is the fundamental idea we have lost in this nation. No one gets punished, no one learns, no one changes. I will be as open as I can about my policies, how and why they are instated, and I will do it in plain English striving to cut out as many unnecessary words as possible.

So America, are you ready? Are you ready to make this an adventure that involves a lot of work, a lot of caring, and a lot of righting of so many wrongs? Are you ready for fast, dramatic, and lasting change? I don’t mean that Obama change where it’s just a different colored hand passing the buck; I mean change based on something that’s entirely me and you. Thank you”

[217] Fail Government

I want to know what it’s like to live in a country that makes sense. I want to deal with people who speak the same language and behave by the same rules. I want to go to sleep at night so far removed from feelings of utter dread that I begin to forget I was capable of feeling that way. There are a number of things I’m fairly concerned about as they dance around old rich white peoples’ mouths in our government. Net neutrality and regulations about file sharing are two of those things.

First, the fact that net neutrality isn’t a given is just another symptom of the Fascist monopolistic mentality that governs our country. We don’t protect the Constitution, so why should we think to extent freedom of speech to our content on the web? Where are the idiots chanting “Obama’s gonna take our guns away,” because maybe we can teach them to replace guns with “personal websites.” I’ve signed a number of petitions online with at least 2 million people and it may as well be a fart in the wind.

File sharing. Fucking file sharing is not stealing! Never was it stealing, it wasn’t established to steal, it never will be stealing, and the fucks who keep pouring money into lobbying to sue and punish file sharers need to be shot. When you sue someone who “steals” a copy of the movie Avatar, you are called an extortionist. Somehow we fail to comprehend that most people never cared nor would have ever seen 99% of all media ever produced. It’s getting hard for me to find friends with cable let alone ones that drop ten bucks to see a shitty movie every weekend. When I download music it’s usually from bands that I would probably have gone out of my way to ignore had I not an outlet to give them even a meager chance.

And that culture, the one of discovering new things and throwing your support behind things you actually enjoy and don’t just take chances on, actually supports artists. Recording companies have raked in billions from musicians for years, and now that they aren’t the only outlet they cry instead of catch up. Movie makers, if your movie costs 40 million to produce, maybe you should focus on smaller budget ones with, I don’t know, actual story lines and compelling characters, and people will feel even a meager compulsion to support the work. You gain nothing by me not seeing your movie; I open even the chance of looking more into your work by “stealing” it.

I’m not convinced these people ever knew how to make a profit. The prospect of suing over “rights” is just the quickest way to buck without any work. When 9/10 artists you sign lose you money (Yes, that’s why you hear the same ten songs on the radio for months) you don’t deserve your job.

[216] Taking To The Streets

I wanted to sleep tonight, but when trying to meditate I became invigorated by an idea. That idea was taking to the streets. My heart races at the prospect of owning a megaphone and throwing more passion behind my words than I ever imagine blogging could do. After all, I’m a showman. I love to engage and challenge and argue. I, more than anything else, want to be a very poignant and standing example of how I honestly think. And let me tell you why.

I am not afraid to be wrong. I am conspicuously honest. I am perpetually happy.

I think many of the details about people’s lives become fairly irrelevant, at least for me, if they manage these categories. Now, the idea that kept me awake was ::drumroll:: bitching about school on the road to Ballantine. I make no secret of how much I despise being in school, my problem is, I only have my, and a handful of my friends’ perspectives. So, how exciting would it be to take oversized questionnaire billboards and ask passer-bys their perspective? Quite exciting indeed. I already have an opening speech lined up:

“Excuse me ladies and gentlemen! My name is Nick P. and I am a senior here at IU. To my left, I have a few oversized billboards with questions I am desperate to get answers for from you. You may have also noticed this handy dandy camera sitting here. This is to collect your stories and perspectives of your time in school. You see, I have this problem, and it’s illustrated in my first question up there. I hate fucking school. So, I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, do you feel the same? Now, before you think I’m just some stoner hippie who has snapped, take a look at this list of things I concede. It reads: I concede some teachers are amazing. I concede some students retain most of what is taught. I concede that teachers, administrators, etc. are not necessarily “evil” or of the mind and will to screw you.

God forbid I am unclear, for I am not taking aim at your teachers, or your futures, or personal decisions, I am making an enemy of a system of thought. I reject the idea that it takes four years and forty thousand dollars for you to be a worthy and productive member of society. I reject the idea that school is living up to its purpose and ideals you expect from it. In the place of what I reject I wish to forward some ideas as well. I am a believer in dramatic and quick change. Efficiency. I believe that passion fuels the best work. Therefore my goal is to work towards enabling passionate and efficient people towards their goals. I want to create a discourse that leads to results.”

If it has to start somewhere, why not the random crazy haired guy with a megaphone? If ridiculous preachers can garner a full page article in the IDS every year or every semester, why can’t I bring the conversation to something I find more relevant and potentially helpful? If I take a note from my time working with Daniel, I want to get your school story. What are kids saying about their classes, assignments, fears and passions that can’t be answered on a survey? What is school teaching people about life or themselves? And why shouldn’t we expect something that takes so much time, effort, money, and sacrifice to play a role in these things?

As with any idea that keeps me awake or makes my heart race, I like to set it down, turn away, and see if I’m just as motivated a day or two later. Before I jump into the self-indulgent pageantry of yelling through a megaphone, I can just set this idea here and hopefully glean some ideas on how to make it better or more relevant before I hit the pavement. So, what do you think?

[215] Follow Me Down This Deadly Road

I think I’ve spent a good portion of my time thinking about my “final moments.” I just got done watching an interview with Christopher Hitchens and how he feels in, what are likely to be, his final years. I’m also prompted by a status that talked about how old we’re getting and how scary or ambiguous the future is.

I think the only way to really get over a fear is to desire it. Become a suicide bomber so to speak. And to a certain extent, and in a number of scenarios, I can see myself wanting death. If I’m sick and will never get better. If everyone I’ve ever given a shit about is now gone and I’m forced to repeat the cycle of watching people mature or deal with the stumbling blocks of a new relationship. If I’ve just become so good at everything I no longer feel like there’s something to learn. If Mexicans took over the earth. (Think how skewed your racism scale is if I had said “Blacks”, haha)

I think one of my most over used words is perspective. I think about “depressing” things because they give me perspective. When something fails or succeeds I try not to get too pissed nor ridiculously lost in happiness. In a way, having these ideas is what allows me to be perpetually happy. It’s like I’m stuck on a loop labeled “deal with it.” I know that regardless of what tomorrow holds, let alone years down the line, I’ve led a fulfilling life and been luckier than the majority of anything that has ever existed on this planet.

At the same time, I feel this manifests as me looking fairly indecisive about things. School comes to mind. I literally loath almost everything I do in class. I hate the amount of money spent. I hate not feeling like I’m learning anything beyond random factoids I could pick up from a week of stumbling. I’ve still yet to drop out because I could make an “I hate” list just as long about the working world. The most hovering and impeding thought to my happy flow, though, is that I’m wasting my time doing things I don’t want.

Now, of course, what we want and “have” to do have conflicting practical implications. We are thus forced to “lower” our wants in accordance with what a specific system provides. My “escape” from doing this is to make my expectations of myself more important than what I would like to believe I can accomplish in the world “out there.” If I can flow mentally, I’ll get along just fine in my day to day regardless. I assume I would be happy with a bad-ass, custom made palace just outside of a city where I could throw parties and slip in and out through secret doors. That is a very “out there” kind of goal. But inside my head I understand that what I want is to create, be surrounded with good people, and be capable of making noise without getting in trouble. All are doable without money.

The real problems occur when you don’t see yourself even living up to your mental expectations. The beginning of last year, when the house had so much work to be done, I was practically high. New seating, pole installed, tack up the white board, tear up the basement, invent a new version of pong…it feels brilliant to feel accomplished. I certainly don’t feel that degree of “getting shit done” this year, and while I blame myself, I’m not crushed with guilt or think I’m the only thing to blame. I just wish I had the level of perspective to know how heavily I can weigh my culpability verses my circumstances.

When you’re constantly reminding yourself of who you are and how you expect yourself to be, it bleeds into how you deal with people and your circumstances. I pity the fool who thinks I merely hate school. I hate what I think while I’m practicing it. I hate what I see it do to people. I hate how corrupt and blatant in its exploitation it is. I also don’t qualify hanging out with my friends or meeting new people as “school.” I can audit a class if I’m looking for inspiration or contact a teacher if Almighty Google fails when I have a question. It doesn’t take ten thousand dollars a year. In the exact same way that I feel myself waste my time in school, I see it happen with people. Luckily those are easier interactions to fix, but my “coldness” or indifference and impatience stems from this.

I want to believe that regardless of the rules, ideas, and settings we allow ourselves to inhabit we can dramatically and quickly change into something better. Everything is changing at all times; I don’t want to sit around for sixty years before gay people can get married or we decide the earth is worth saving. I think this culture of dragging our feet and constantly hoping for the future permeates so much of what we do. Every time I’m reminded that I just have “one more semester left” I’m asked to join in the game of denying every second that semester consists of. Every time a bill is passed that doesn’t take effect for years we sell the idea that good things take ridiculous time frames that we don’t really operate under. The completely obscured and ambiguous future brings me no comfort whatsoever because it’s made up and assumed as potentially viable. It’s a reality we trick ourselves into finding solace with so we can remain contented now. It’s a trap.

Did you know we live in Utopia? We have the means to live anywhere and feed everyone. We can create what it means to live life, explore interests and invent questions to our heart’s delight. We can build upon knowledge to not only fix problems, but make it so they never need exist again. I think it’s not just important but absolutely necessary that we stop thinking as if we don’t understand our circumstances, our potential. Stop fearing or expecting anything from the future and get your mind right now and things will always play out as you expect they should. And if my final thoughts are anything like what I fall asleep with every single night, I’ll be just fine.  

[214.3] War On Happiness

In Waking Life, one of the speakers asks the question, “What’s the most pervasive human characteristic, fear, or laziness?” While I think they work together, I’m finally convinced the answer is fear.

The last couple of weeks I’ve been trying to make myself comfortable with the idea that people don’t change. When I think about the failed “friendships,” the lies, the hypocrisy, and oh the dramatic irony, I’m singed by the notion that I am literally in the midst of the reasons we will fail as a species. I am utterly convinced we will not survive, our efforts to gain more knowledge will be abused, exploited, and squandered, and the vast majority of people will never learn how or why they can be happy. I am convinced that for every one person that asserts who they are, there are a million who don’t know they are even allowed to ask such a question. I truly do believe my efforts to merely talk to people about, one of the few topics that really matters to me, religion, will serve to make people angry or uncomfortable, and if anything provide more fearful feelings that create a stronger resolve to ignore and deny what I say. I think we are stuck because of fear. I think we are doomed because of fear.

I’m not afraid of not finding a wife or perfect girlfriend. I’m not afraid of my grades being “too low” or if I’ll manage to find some job that pays off the amount of debt I’m not afraid to be in. I’m not afraid to die, I’m not afraid of fights and drama. I’m not afraid to fail. I’m moderately afraid of the dark, only because you’re vulnerable to unexpected attack, so it’s more of an air of caution. And, on the off chance ghosts existed, those would scare the shit out of me, because really, how the fuck can you fight a ghost and what does it say about all the weird “magical” shit that can happen if you have a fucked up death.

I think it is perhaps a significant reason that some people don’t like me because I behave like I’m not afraid. I don’t believe in a god because I don’t need to. I don’t care if your feelings are hurt over something petty, because it would only hurt me to play pretend in our fickle relationship. I’ve been accused of being an instigator, which I don’t think is fair, but let’s examine why it may be true in some instances. If someone does nothing but provoke, unjustly accuse, and look down on you, what do you have to lose in your relationship with that person? I may instigate the first direct comment, but the negative behavior initiated with the other person. To me, if I want to instigate, I will go out of my way to get a point across. I’ll create the plan and how it will all play out. Bringing an issue to the forefront is not instigation to me.

In any event, I think I started this to explore the differences between myself and other people. Note, this should not be read as “me or everyone who thinks like me vs them.” It’s my perspective, my ideas, and my exploration of the consequences when you adopt certain kinds of behaviors. I take responsibility for my thoughts and actions. I can tell you straight up that I didn’t wash the handful of dishes I got dirty in New Orleans. I can tell you I told John to get over it, threw his shit out, told Michele the best description I ever heard for why she hung out with our group was that she was “fuckable.” I took my doorknob back from Javon and moved her couches off the stadium after she said she was worried about them getting fucked up at parties. Yes I did, I asked why her and Jeremy weren’t fucking already. Damn, I didn’t tell this to Jesus or a priest so I guess it doesn’t really matter…

My point being, I act within contexts and respond as necessary. It doesn’t embarrass or tarnish who I am to accept when things are wrong. When people abuse my house, I don’t feel compelled to clean up after them on vacation. When people relate through internet memes and weed , and I don’t, I don’t take it upon myself to be a quite awkward stick in the mud in the room with nothing to say. When someone is worried about their shit, I move their shit. When someone tells me how they can afford to live in the house, and I try to reach a middle ground and help them live in the house, I don’t expect to get chastised and yelled at for it. When I share crab and shrimp I don’t expect to get yelled at over corn. It’s all so petty, stupid, wasteful, angry….and it will never change. The people involved act the way they do because they are afraid of themselves and they are afraid of me. (Read: they’re scared of each other too, not like I’m special.) So be it. The “worst” aspect of what it means to be Nick P. is that I can and will make you think. I’ll remind you when you’re empty, I’ll call you out when you lie, and I refuse to accept exceedingly untrue conjectures about this world or my behavior and personality.

Maybe you can call it complacency, but I’ve gotten used to the idea. I think that I will continue to claw my way to the “top” (read: place of happiness and accomplishment that really has no end) and it will simply have to be in this world and amongst these kinds of people. It’s a sobering thought to say the least. It doesn’t make me happy. It doesn’t scare me. It only makes me wonder about a cure. I can stop asking why; the answer is fear. I still think some people are genuinely afraid I’ll haul off and hit them in the face for disagreeing with me sometimes, which is stupendously funny. I kinda just want to go on a list of typical things they’re afraid of. Afraid of talking…that’s a sad one. Afraid of being wrong. Afraid of what they’re parents will think. Afraid of “looking stupid.” Afraid of being alone, both in thought and without another person. Can this be simplified as a fear of change? A deep ingrained fear of the most inevitable fact of our existence. That would be odd. Or maybe it’s a fear of too much uncertainty or responsibility.

You can’t really be afraid when you feel like you understand something. And you understand something when you actively use your knowledge. How you use that knowledge is important though. You can use your beliefs and religious upbringing to make hundreds of “friends” and you can know all the right verses and things to say to get people waving their hands and or tearing up. To me, this way too manipulative. These things are done to create a net of happiness or security, not necessarily truth or objectivity. When science uses its knowledge of evolution to combat a disease or trace a genetic lineage, regardless of the scientists’ feelings, shit just is. When you predict something will mutate or adapt a certain way, and you’re wrong, you make a better prediction with the knowledge of what doesn’t work. The more you fail, the more you doubt, the better you can become. When you say or do the wrong thing in the wrong religious context, you threaten your very well being. The more you doubt, the more your friends dislike you, the more your parents get angry at you, the more you feel out of place during the things that once brought you so much joy. It’s easy to be manipulated when you’re desperate to be happy and not right. To me, the standard and use of knowledge in these two realms can’t be distinguished enough.

But hey, not like we have free will right, so I can’t blame you for being afraid. You can’t help it right? You don’t believe you’re hurting anyone, or worse, you very much don’t care if you are. Why should any facts of the matter tarnish your precious feelings? How can I be such an asshole and attack them? For me, it doesn’t matter how much denial, fear, bullshit, resentment, anger, confusion, hatred, piety, ego, pettiness, or wastefulness you present me with, I’ll be resolved to contemplating the cure.

[214.11] Titled

Do you know you’re in my dreams?

Can you feel when my thoughts

Are no longer for me,

Distraught over what

We can no longer be.

It never mattered if you cared

Got lost in a place where

You’re empty and scared

Walking alone down the

Spiral stairs

Was it so hard to find an answer?

Watch the clock tick by

Afraid of what you’ll find

Ever waiting, no one forcing

From what are you divorcing?

Did you ever know?

I can no longer think so

To mar innocence

To bar happiness

As some sad penitence

Alas you inspire!

For while I do not weep

And memory fades

You’re with me as I sleep

Do you tire of the fight?

Move past the lies

And tears and cries

Go back to when you

Were we

[214.10] Roll Over

I’m proposing a challenge. Help me drop out of college

I’m staring two papers (total 10 pages) two midterms (total bullshit) in the face and all I can think about is how bad I want to drop out of this fucking place. I don’t like the feeling of not being in control of my life. “Of course” I always am, and to all of you go-getters that say “Do everything you want in your free time just make sure to get the school work done” you clearly don’t appreciate how disgusting I feel dedicating any of my time towards school.

I want to start businesses. It’s a simple enough goal. I want to provide a service, make something, or entertain people for money. Whether it’s introducing rich kids to my hot friends dressed scantily, building custom pong tables, or helping start a coffee shop, it hasn’t taken anyone four years of random classes and unrealistic expectations to wrap their head around this process.

Presumably we are in school for a reason. We are arming ourselves with knowledge to “compete” with our fellow man for the ever decreasing number of jobs and opportunities. We are becoming “well-rounded” and “manageable.” The connections and resources we take away are supposed to influence everything, if only being able to email an old professor. When you achieve in school you matter just a notch more in society and can look down your nose at all those who’ve yet to swallow the amounts you have.

I have more than a few issues with that premise. Let’s take for granted it isn’t evil or purely designed for fucking me and my parents out of thousands of dollars. If you are so passionate about something you can think of no better time than sitting and reading old papers and theorizing new tests to run to further your field, go to college. If you want to be a number on a ledger in a corporate office and consistently told how to manage or behave or look, go to college. If you want to be a doctor, go to college. Anyone else is here out of tradition. Even our prestigious music school will almost certainly never place you anywhere beyond a feeder orchestra maybe making enough for a cheap apartment.

Every day I participate. Every day I shut up and deal, I feel as if I’m actively killing how I actually believe and am struggling to express while still immersed. I care absolutely nothing about how wrong the earliest philosophers and psychologists were about the nature of reality. I could never even persuade myself to care about why stereotypes of men and women exist and how blind we believe we are to advertising. Please oh please make me suffer a 26 year old p.h.d. teacher “skim” an explanation of evolution when I’d put money on at least 10% of the class not even believing in it.

Because we invest so much of our focus in this structure and it being the “only” or “best” way to achieve stability and happiness, we completely ignore and deny the conversations and relationships that could be shaping our current realities. Because there is no money is happiness and creativity. You always need an initial investment, or person to fill in some blank of knowledge. Once you’re “stable and mature” you’ll be capable of taking such risks and having fun with what you always dreamed you’d be doing. Of course by that time you’re 35 and have made much more impactful, and dare I say damning, decisions that provide all the excuses you’ll ever need.

I don’t want to die. I don’t want to kill myself over a 7 page paper discussing how people qualify the words sex and gender. I will derive no happiness; I will feel invaluable and wasted. It’s not something I could even remotely have reason to persuade myself to be happy about. And yet, I will watch and feel myself die a little more and struggle to tie together random papers and bullshit to fulfill the requirement and pass. I’m not sure why anymore. I thought it was to perpetuate my current lifestyle, but I could get a job and pay the bills. It’s not to impress parents. It’s not that I secretly do want to go into psychology. And it certainly isn’t the case that I have nothing better to do. Someone please explain to me why I lead such a contradictory lifestyle.

The whole problem is feeling like I have no purpose. I of course subscribe to a ton of purposes, but everything about being in school screams to me the idea that I’m not in control. My choices only matter insofar as they can let me bitch, but still hand over the cash. I can hate to my heart’s content as long as I’m “still doing what I have to do.”

It was here that I originally posted the opening lines of this blog. I want to enable and be enabled. I won’t leave to circle jerk my way around some pet project or ill-conceived dream. I won’t leave to jump right into the fast food or retail chain. I’m not joining the Peace Corps or randomly backpacking the world to find myself. I want to be put to meaningful work. I want to generate a profit. I want to be an example. If you know the people or the projects that want the same things I’m asking for your help to get connected with them. Here’s a secret, this isn’t a hidden world I desperately need to be introduced to, and will almost certainly involve your wishes, dreams and desires.

Of all the material things I could need to start a proper business, of all the know-how I never got in college, I will never escape the guilt of wasted time. No, assuming I really do need to pass midterms and turn in these papers it isn’t realistic to spend 8 hours a day playing guitar and drums. No, when I’m in class during normal business hours, I can’t spend two hours on the phone with the IRS trying to wrap my head around one of ten numbers that tell the government I’m legal. When you’ve got that job maybe jumping paycheck to paycheck it’s not hard to believe that making it out to city hall to hopefully run into someone that matters and can explain to you grants and zoning starts to seem impossible.

It isn’t just your “endless drive and spirit” that gets you places. You need time to focus. You need people to share the burden. You have to know the politics and personalities that will carry into all the future work you do. I can’t pretend that people who succeed to such notoriety or power didn’t have someone open a door or two. Yes, I hold the responsibility to act, but I reserve the right to act efficiently and purposefully. I’ve seen what a few hours or a handful of the “right” people can do to a situation. I’m under no delusion about the value of school or work for work’s sake.

To a greater extent, everything I want I already have. The only missing piece is feeling the pursuit of more. Being able to express how I feel about my life and the people I’ve let into it in a much more grandiose capacity than house parties. How terrible it would be for so much potential to stay trapped in my head.

[214.8] You Say You Want A Revolution

The theme of my recent discussions has been change and perspective. One fun fact that I’m learning, is that apparently in order to want massive change and gain the perspective on how to potentially achieve it, you had to have a stark raving mad parent or two. But that’s neither here nor there.

I am a firm believer that change, very dramatic and significant change, can happen instantly. This isn’t some mysterious notion to me as every new person I meet can take me somewhere or tell me something that instantly starts to take shape in a new experience. If that hidden asteroid hits the planet, in mere moments none of us will be able to ponder what it means to change again. It’s important to note that something simply changing doesn’t mean it is good or bad. My relationship with one person, regardless of how it turns out in a week or month, just “is” and either creates opportunities or doesn’t. The pain in the ass thing about change is that it is a double-edged sword. You can work to make something better, or change how it’s fundamentally run, but its propensity or potential to continue changing more or “backward” doesn’t stop. This is why a phrase like “lasting change” is, on its face, a contradiction.

What is truly important in establishing something is your ability to maintain. Where it gets complicated, is that you have to maintain something that is willing and understanding when it comes to change. The best way I can try to relate this idea is to talk about mental states. I try to keep my mind in a state of perpetual doubt. This doesn’t mean I don’t have ideals or standards, but it means I am and willing to change them if compelling reasons can be made for me to do so. I make my own mental rules for how to deal with any given person or situation. This, apparently, is very different from most people. In my world, when someone is unable to regulate and police themselves, I start to avoid them and/or cut them off depending on the severity of the problem. In the “normal world” when your friend or family member is being unacceptable, you put up with it at the expense of your reason and will.

In order for any sort of massive social reform to take place, I believe many more people have to get comfortable with being, for lack of a better term, cut throat. I cannot convince myself to feel anything towards someone who proves over and again that they are unable or unwilling to practice behaviors that improve or fix problems instead of create them. I am unable to conflate a situation with “love” or “morals,” as they are poorly referred to, if there is a very plain cause and effect nature happening. This moves us on to exploring how a small or skewed perspective perpetuates these disingenuous practices.

For as big as I’d like to believe my perspective is on at least a few important matters, I understand that it is infinitely small. Of course, I’ll never get credit for my humility on that matter, but it’s whatev. What bugs me is how many people feel, not just that they have authority, but that are in fact THE authority on something. What truly makes this upsetting for me is that I venture that this hubris is not from spending 30 years in a library memorizing and getting published, but instead is a manifestation of how passionately they feel about something. Good luck compelling any change in someone like that.

To me, it only seems to make sense to want change when there is a problem and/or goal. Perhaps the most change only happens when there is a combination of both, but who knows. I would want to change how we educate people in this country because of obvious problems. My goal would be not to just improve a school or two, but to utterly reform the structure in a way to promote passion for learning and productive, willing people into society. A further goal would be enough of these people to alleviate other problems that arise when someone is uneducated, unmotivated, and underappreciated. Essentially, I want to change specific problems because their waves of influence will alleviate many more.

You will never “feel” your way to the proper head on the Hydra of problems. It takes a willingness to be objective. You must take responsibility for and action against the results of your analysis. You have to devise and enforce actual consequences when something or someone is wrong. This also speaks to why people don’t change. When you take into account both edges of that sword, you can also say that it not necessarily reasonable or the best thing for people to change what can be assessed as a negative or bad situation. The only way I think I can make sense of this is to talk in terms of family.

It seems to be a theme of existence to have one or more fucked up parents, step parents, or siblings. They are as irrational as the day they threw sand on the playground and they still resent that you stole their dreams. 18 years of them giving you hell and you can finally say “fuck you” and go on your merry way. But wait, they’re paying for college. They bought your car. They have the only recipe for your favorite mint chocolate chip cookies. Is it worth it to cut all ties and see if you can find your own way to pay and support yourself? Probably not. It is at this point that the ever important perspective needs to shine. No, realizing that everyone hates their families doesn’t make putting up with yours any easier, but realizing that you are capable of reacting properly towards, and conceptualizing, their behavior can.

Tammi, or my “mom,” is crazy. When she accuses me of studying witchcraft, I have more options than to get pissed off and write a three page email in protest. I can say, she is extremely weak minded. She is disappointed with herself and her family’s past. She’ll never accomplish more than being an adequate to exceptional secretary, nor does she have any knowledge or drive to express herself in any form beyond that of an insecure and petty dictator. Does someone of my mental caliber and personal respect dignify a person like that? No, so I won’t talk to it. I won’t pretend it makes sense and give it a stage. As long as the school money keeps flowing, I understand there isn’t even a real place to fix what isn’t a real problem. If anything, the only thing I would try to fix is how long offspring are practically forced to remain financially dependent in the first place.

My perspective on the matter doesn’t pretend like the faux expectations about love for one’s mother make any sense. I don’t wrestle with my anger for days and pretend that if I am angry at you it has something to do with unresolved feelings about her. Why is this hard for people? Why is being direct, rational, and honest in your assessment of yourself and other people a literal phobia? No, it isn’t always pleasant to truly feel that you are capable of atrocious thoughts or actions. I know how much you hate it when I make you say, and thus equate, that the “love” for your boy or girlfriend amounts to “well, he’s kinda funny and we hang out a lot” or “I don’t want to be alone.” How can anything be more painful and degrading than pretending you don’t have these thoughts? What purpose does perpetual resent and guilt serve you?

The tragedy is that there are people just like me who simply think and accept, and are overwhelmingly happier and better adjusted than most could ever hope to be. It’s not a secret why they are my friends. It’s not magic that they don’t hear condescension, anger, and sociopathy when we talk. If you want to compel change you have to be the leader of yourself. Even after you choose to do that, you have to guard against the problems that frequently plague leaders. Things like, distracting yourself with superficial and meaningless tasks or people to avoid your mental responsibility, thinking so much you make yourself sick, or settling with a smaller or meager standard that keeps you merely contented or at least stoves off insanity. In the beginning it will feel hard and be your job, but sticking with it will change and dictate who you are.

I personally think that nothing of significance can be done to reform or improve anything in a situation where there aren’t people who grasp and handle themselves. (haha) There won’t be a massive global shift in human rights, drug reform, health care, or any other of the myriad of complex and diverse problems until the leaders are motivated towards objective beneficial change instead of profit. This includes not just money, but power, protection, and influence. Whether you’re hiding behind lawyers and paid politicians or religious dogma, you should not be allowed to benefit from playing off of ignorance and fear. If it’s established that not only is it irresponsible to get too big to fail, but it’s a bad idea to get too big in the first place, we can start to identify and deal with not just specific problems, but problems that don’t carry dramatic or inconceivable implications.

Do you want to be a victim of corporate interest and waves of public feelings and opinions? Our world has already been there and done that with our problems. Do you like the idea of your life laid out in front of you? A “destiny” or sorts to live and die with the tide. If Captain Planet got one thing right it’s that the power is yours. If you understand that and use it right, you’ll find happiness, you’ll recognize opportunities, fix problems, and inspire others. Until then, I’m happy to run my game of pissing you off with endless questions and assessments while touting my know-it-all bad boy attitude ;).

[214.7] How To Read My Blogs

….my blogs.

Note: This and my next blog are in the wake of long ass discussions with Jake George.

It has been brought to my attention that when I write it may be very easy to misconstrue, get your feelings hurt, or otherwise find some way to massively fuck up in how to read my little blogs. With that in mind I decided to provide a set of things you should probably keep in mind before you decide to dive into my thoughts. Now, this is not for those of you who understand that for years I have in fact been writing in English. Nor should you bother with this if I have some sort of emotional hold over you, because frankly, you’re simply not going to believe me and get all flustered anyway.

When I write, if I am not using your name, I’m not talking about you. Yes, I have a recurrence of the days or months events, and you may have been there, or you may feel as negatively about what transpired as I do, but that doesn’t mean you are the topic or even relevant to a later point. I have “called out” specific people in the past about some bullshit action of theirs, and yes it was antagonistic, specific, and was a signal of how little patience I have for those actions, and how quickly I want them to be publicly ridiculed. Be aware, I never just run into a problem and rush to put it on Facebook. From my point of view, you literally have to do everything in your power to refuse diffusing something before it gets big, practically asking for it, before I mention you’ve crossed my thoughts. I care even less about your drama than a random reader who’s never met you.

Apparently, I write or think without a heart. If someone is a friend who no longer acts like a friend, I stop regarding them. I don’t think about them, I literally could not give two shits what goes on in their day to day. When I detail my reasoning, very pointed and play by play of how and why I mentally delete people, it does not mean I don’t give a shit about anyone or am somehow unable to have friends. If this isn’t like “what the fuck did you say that for” obvious for you, you probably shouldn’t bother reading. If you are prone to making insanely ridiculous logical jumps like these, you will fair terribly when it comes to understanding what I’m saying.

I am very dismissive of your feelings. I know feelings can be geared, manifested, and given perspective with proper mental vigor and practice. When someone “reacts emotionally” to something I say, all I’m telling myself is “An irrational person would of course behave and say what they did.” I do not empathize with “feeling my way through my actions.” I like to pretend thoughts and decisions compel me to do things, not physical responses. This does not mean I deny the existence or power of feelings, but I have no patience for them. So, when I go after a religious belief, or harmful action, or failing situation, I truly and completely disregard how you felt, I just state the facts. Call me insensitive I suppose.

Finally, the majority of what I write is me following a line of thought and drawing necessary conclusions. I report, rehash, and reword more than anything. Most of what prompts me to write is people’s own views as conveyed to me through their mouths. If I learn something or say something about religion or relationships, it’s not because I have some grudge or open wound that can only be dressed by bitching. I try to speak plainly and factually, and I want to be engaged in the same manner. I want to be challenged and put in a place to get as many details out as possible. Unfortunately, people hate details. Details make them feel uninformed, pissed off, or drives them to denial and indifference. This is why I don’t write for you, but it’s endlessly redeeming and uplifting when you like or agree with something because it is quintessentially how I feel and think.