[241] Engineer Sincerity, Depravity

Honesty is a funny thing. It changes the nature of what you’re trying to be honest about. It’s going to change this blog as I figure out what the hell is on my mind.

I write for me, for clarity, and to maybe in small, ever so small ways, influence someone who reads me. I talk about religion, personal squabbles, from time to time political crap. I used to just endlessly complain about things until I no longer had a headache. Granted, that may still happen, but it’s not the norm anymore. I have a problem where I never feel like enough has been said. I take things that people want to remember as “a fight” or “a platitude” and go on for days about the implications. My attempts, I suppose, to relate to this simple method of understanding is the random rhyme times or poetry. I’ll sort that under ironic.

I hate and love patterns. I love their utility. I hate when I see someone stuck in them. I hate to think of myself as simply being part of a huge one. Perhaps to some it’s some token of relief, “oh hey, it’s all planned out for me I can sit back and ride it out.” I have this searing desire to blame people for their actions and find pride in objectively accounting for how and why I behave. I’d like for there to be an inherent respect for using this chance to think about things to actually matter even a marginal degree more than those who say “fuck it” and scurry about haphazardly.

Logic is cold. When things behave in calculable ways, they just do. It doesn’t matter how you feel about math, things are going to play out according to the numbers, at least for this universe.

I don’t believe in free will while acting like I do.

As a result, I judge, while having very little faith in my judgments past a meager point. It keeps me perpetually confused, yet not necessarily frustrated. The problem is I want free will. I understand the implications of believing in free will. It would tie up a lot of loose ends about the battles I’ve engaged in or the decisions I’ve made. I just can’t convince myself it is real. If anything, I do things to perpetuate an illusion.

The illusion of free will is itself an illusion.

I thusly restrain myself to capacity. Let me explain. Because I can feel pain, I work on creating an illusion that keeps it minimal. Because I hate certain patterns, I mold my illusion to surprise me. I engage in this for the deliberate randomness. In this sense, I engineer keeping myself happy and sane. If there is a ridiculously high limit to what I can create or control, I try to find it. I keep going until I get bored or find “good reason” to stop.

A significant issue with this is when I involve other people.

I’m a loner primarily for the utility of trying to refrain from being deliberately evil. This is fundamentally why I seek out people who don’t just like me or get along well enough, but genuinely understand how and why and where I’m coming from. I can’t hurt people who know what I’m doing. And no, it’s not enough to act like you know, or assure me that you know, like recognizes like. When a psych experimenter goes into the doctor’s office pretending to have schizophrenic episodes, there’s a reason he fools the doctor but not the real schizophrenic sitting in the hall.

I admit I’m a social primate. I like hanging out and drinking, talking, fucking, gaming, Frisbee, and the occasional pissing contest. The conflict is whether these are the goals or the distractions. I think they’re both. Then you go a level higher, justifying the means, or lack thereof, for the ends. How much money do you think I need to make to drink, talk, fuck, play games, and continue on my quest to watch all the media on my hard drives? I’ll tip my hat to my relative ingenuity and perspective to say, not that much. But I hate hippies. I know that I would feel lazy and that I’ve wasted my potential. I mean, even having the idea of potential is part of my acting like I have free will. As long as my ideas about potential stay…stable…there’s still hope right?

You’ll learn it’s not your job to save the world. Excerpt from here. (now broken)

But it’s my world. And my world is worth saving. Once I learn this nugget, I’ve grown complacent, resolved to my fate. My world involves all sorts of people from those marginally helpful to the ones who are utterly destructive. I have very explicit goals and ideas about how these peoples’ behaviors influence my world. As a result, I need to change them or myself accordingly.

I know I can change people, but act like I can’t.

I want to be an arbiter of fate, not dictator. That would just fall victim to the pattern problem. It’s hard to look at social psychology, history, or mirror neurons and make the case against the potential for influencing people. We think because we can scream “you don’t know me!” and it actually convinces people, that we’re somehow insulated from everything before and around us.

This is me veering off topic. Any master plan I had to take over the world would have to make a priority out of nuance. There’s no way to account for every interpretation, but theoretically you could build in mechanisms to address the fallout. At the very least, try to protect yourself. This is me veering back

I like people, for a while. Thus I hate them, for they are the source of all my “misery.” My capacity for hatred should not be understated. Now, on the surface, even I want to call this projecting. This isn’t a bad thing. If I have very specific things that I hate, of course it’s because I recognize my own capacity for them as well. But, more of course, it’s because of the destructive nature of certain position. It’s not your pride or laziness or fear in and of themselves that I hate. It’s when you don’t yet, or moreover care, to learn when and why they’re bad things.

Maybe because I don’t see my potential for ever “getting over” being deliberately evil, I get frustrated when I see other people refusing to change. This compounded with my lack of belief in free will, creates a perfect storm of timidly pointing the finger, essentially back at myself, relying on a naïve hope about potential that can break the cycle. Yet, I never feel like a slave. I don’t go out of my way to cause harm; I just know I’m prepared to. I reach a point of “overtly compelling feelings” and simply make a decision. Or, at least, feel like the decision is mine.

So then the idea is to convince people they have a decision, even if it “should” only be in the service of goals on one end of a spectrum. Self-interest only works when people feel like they’re going to die and don’t actually want to. Social welfare only works when you even understand how much you’re getting from “the system.” Get your government hands off my Medicaid. I think this is why I opt for a “tough love” position; essentially forcing people to act in their best interests, the ensuing drama of not doing so not being worth it.

I’m left with just working with whatever is on my mind. I’m not trying to lie, but I feel I’m going to inevitably make myself look like a liar. I can state a goal or something about my character and still hold tight to the idea that the only truth is change; the rate and nature of which to be determined. Fate is more than just convincing yourself of an idea; it’s the moment to moment commitment to that idea. Maybe you’re only free when you realize your commitment to each moment.

[240] Sick Sick Sick Sick Sick

Wonder if I need to talk

Talk talk talk talk talk

Wonder if I need to walk

Walk walk walk walk walk

Wonder if I need to die

Die die die die die

Wonder if I need to cry

Nah

Wonder if I need to scream

Scream scream scream scream fucking scream

Wonder if I need to dream

Dream dream dream dream dream

Wonder if I need to sleep

Sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep

Wonder if I need to pee

Nah

Wonder where I’m going next

Where where where where where

Wonder what I’m showing next

What what what what what

Wonder who I’ll lose and when

When when when when when

Wonder why I care again

Why why why why why

Circles spinning round my head

Spin spin spin spin spin

Restless legs kicking in

Kick kick kick kick kick

Tired but I cannot quit

No no no no no

Growing ever sick of it

Stop stop stop stop stop

[239] Random Rhyme Time 3

Break bills; make change; aide with your modicum money shot. Too hot, triple sexotic, dropped the pot, forget me not. Working, caught me jerking, twirk twirk twirk twirking. Asking why for no reason; treason, ideas stick around; adhesion. This lesion cuts deep, like a knight, can’t sleep, Bo Peeps; sweet treats. White meat hippy hopping through my dreams.

 Shine’s bright; can’t be seen at night; white shades take on a spade. Drama; Shakespearean; Catholic Presbyterian. In and out an ear again. Choking back a tear again, smoking stacks of fear again, overdosing oxy, gin. Recite for me the lines again, we’re running out of time again! The show begins at 9, but when you scream I want to die! Ascend.

I’ll fix it, lemme try to win. By win I mean, bite me, Charlie. Si vous plait? I’m game. To lose, what a shame. You rang? A neck in vein; hunger pain. Dirty mouth, Kandy Stars in Hershey Stains. Growing pains, Captain Kirk, “God created the big bang” Light speed warp through golden gates. Sulu set the phasers, stun; that’s one way to smoke a gun.

Honey, am I sweet enough? Rio, do I tease enough? Lining up the lines of dust. Cut like diamonds, fine, the rough. Find the bust-stop and just, pop ya nuts, nocuous Candy corn syrup in the populous, Choc-u-las, wiggle room homunculus. Suck it down, vacuous, pack a snack, puke it up, whatcha got, have a look. Just like momma used to cook. Shake ya butt, have a cup, think it’s time to wrap it up. 

Shake around your curly hair, cancer patients stop and stare, place your bets on their demise, Moe and Larry poking eyes. Why so wise? Asinine, ass so fine, cat-o-nine. Tails you lose, heads again, peaking at you through the blinds, bubble time, sipping wine, faucet running over-time. Get it girl it’s not too late, there’s no shame to masticate, to taste the fame, to entertain, the teeny boppers, boxer stains. Tighty whitey’s, voting race, black guy always sets the pace. Raising money for the cure, lost the battle; racial slur. 

Had a dream, then I died, awoke to find my other life, some other guy’s, another strife.

Familiar yet I still surprise, I’m in disguise. Trust rely, bust re-try. Forgetting all the reasons why. Remembering, cycles bike, spoken like I’ve done this right before. Whores! Back hand in to settle scores. Shoot the rock, pass the cock between the team of cream and crimson memes abound, party time, riders to the starting line. 

Overhill, found the spot, when you sweat its cus I’m hot, pocket poking shocker locking, don’t stop now I’m only jocking, juking, riding up like Daisy Duking. Pulling buckets sucker’s puking. Kiddies at the fucking bash always out of fucking cash. Drink it up, every drop, this ain’t soda, pop pop. When it burns, then you know, lightning round, second go.

[238] Hey

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.

[237] Little Victims (incomplete poem)

Let me take you on a roller coaster ride.

I take it back.

Let me take you to the place I love to hide.

And just like that,

Never mind

Are you bored, my dear?

I try to excite.

No no, you’d never shed a tear

Walk alone at night

Ever clear

A fantastic array you can paint

Or maybe quite daft

Holier than thou, but never a saint

No need for a draft

It’s faint

[236] Flaws Paws Laws Flaws

I think as long as people either refuse to change, or choose to be hopelessly slow in doing so, I’m going to make myself more comfortable with treating them how I feel about them “instinctively.” Now, I’m not so naïve as to think that feelings are the governing factor, I’m just instead putting more stock in others’ perceivable actions. The flurry of thoughts that get me to make that “off” joke or that semi-condescending look will just have to hide a bit less. I have a lot of trouble trying to resolve myself on how to assess people. As long as I don’t want to project helplessness, fear, and such an overactive ego as to suppose I can’t be wrong, I’ll have to find myself impossible to accept it in turn.

I want to stress that it’s not because I want to be mean. It’s because I don’t want to condone ignorance and excuses. There’s so much about our culture that more than bugs me, and it tends to put me on the outside. This is perhaps another thing I need to better resolve myself to. I’m not lonely, but I do think I’m alone. Much of what I do makes this a deliberate position. I do it because I think it keeps me honest. I think I engage in so many conversations with people because I’m ever searching for more objectivity. More respect for an objective standard than a comforting credo. For every person I think may hint at this understanding of reality, I also engage with, overhear, or am forced to be made aware of hundreds who don’t have a prayer.

I find every time I try to define myself, it comes up lacking. I tout phrases like “on the level,” “real,” “objective,” or “deliberately aware.” The deeper I dig into the arbitrary whys, they start to fall by the wayside. I think ultimately I’m just trying to point to things, illuminate, or expand upon necessary or obvious circumstances. When someone is sad or struggling with some issue, I don’t need a super computer brain to come up with “cosmic gems” of advice about relationships or your capacity.

Things have patterns. I forgo delving into some psych profile about one of my friends because I’ve had enough all react in foreseeable ways to the information. Double blind exists for a reason. I bar myself from “caring too much” because anticipating the letdown is more fulfilling and meaningful than perpetuating what I can only perceive as a child’s dream. What’s more self-fulfilling though? Allowing something to happen, or deliberately acting in defiance? Couldn’t such an opportunity lie between two people who’ve reached this same impasse?

I think my biggest problem is not really knowing how to make people genuinely happy. I know how to give people everything they need and “want” and know exactly how to watch them get bored with it. I know how to watch people revel in their “disease” or “love” or personal heartache, not so presumably, because it makes them the center of the universe. I don’t like to believe that people like to cry or struggle or be illogical, but nothing about what they generally say or do speaks to any other reality. “Logic” is a standard of personal responsibility, not a zero-sum game between your feelings and mind.

[235] You Deserve It

You know, you fucking deserve it. You get and deserve every fucking thing you ask for. I’m tired of being pissed off for people. I won’t hold your fucking torch or belabor your cause. You’re weak. You’re complacent. You’ve accepted “how things are” instead of dictating how things are going to be. Fuck you. Fuck you so squarely with a massive dick I can’t even put it into words. You’re fucking pathetic and hopeless.

I have this problem. I tend to believe that I’m a rational actor in this game I like to call life. My decisions matter. My perspective influences how and why I do things. Apparently, I’m utterly fucking alone on this premise.

I can’t do it anymore. I can’t hope for you. I can’t believe for you. I can’t take up your cause. In fact, I’m so disgusted by what I’ve heard tonight, I will work in stark contrast to your cause. I will debilitate you in the manner in which you expect. You weak pathetic fuck of a person.

I have no patience for people who think they don’t matter. I don’t want to hear you bitch. I want to hear what the fuck you are doing to change something. I don’t want you lamenting your last fifteen years of work or complaining about how shitty your manager is. I want you dictating how they should and are going to behave if respectable people are expected to work the fucking job you are working.

Nothing will elate and then completely depress me than the exercise of talking to fucking people.

You minimum wage burger junkies working to get your kids through school are complacent. You are scared. You have no idea, and worse, no inclination or will to fight a shitty and dishonorable paradigm in which you work. That’s your fucking fault.

I hate you. I fucking hate you. I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I fucking fucking hate the ever loving fuck out of you. You dangle the idea that I can have hope in you and then fucking shit on it when it matters. I fucking hate you. You are the fucking reason shit never changes. You are the reason the world will be marred in shit. You are the weak fucking link that needs to die off and leave room for the fucks that actually believe in themselves.

You’ve allowed yourself to be beaten by “The system.” You make excuses. You deny. You fear. I fucking hate you.

[233] I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

I wish the world was smart enough to realize that it doesn’t need to freak out. It almost always doesn’t need to stress or fight, or even be confused. I want to be a part of a new social game. I want people to rely on each other because they know how and what to be relied upon. I don’t want leeches. I want investors. I want lessons to be taught in the kind of people you can trust and ones you can’t. I want people to be honest with themselves about what they are capable of and what they aren’t.

Say the economy tanks again. Say people are doing here what has been done throughout history. They buy up all the Walmart resources; they buy up guns and try to stockpile gold or some other form of local currency. If America wants to continue to be an example and a standard, I think the best they thing they can do is not freak the fuck out. When you think you can’t pay for something or can’t support someone, start with refraining from freaking the fuck out. There is no nobility in dying alone, and there is even less in ensuring the death of those around you because of your petty or naïve sense of selfishness.

I really don’t think, even now, people understand the utility of cooperation. I think the idea of things being “fair” is naïve. When you cooperate, whether it is for one or the group, you’re espousing an ideal that goes beyond a naïve conception of fairness. After all, how many times can you hear the adage that life isn’t fair? How much less can you care about the starving kids in Africa before you forgo “fair” as a mantra around which to construct the meager morality of your life?

I think people need to resolve themselves with the idea that they are going to get squarely fucked. Not just inconvenienced or provided with some opportunity to grow and learn, but squarely and supremely fucked. Too often, you won’t have the money, the cure, the answers, the resources, or maybe even the will to endure some level of bullshit. This is where I’d like to come in. This is where I’d like to encourage like-minded individuals to join me.

I’d like to die being more of an enabling resource than a hindrance. Helping people doesn’t mean you have to open yourself up to abuse or that the people who need the help are looking to abuse. It isn’t rocket science to figure out when the help needs to stop or start. Here’s the secret, try not being a fucking idiot.  

It feels good to help people, and it feels good to be able to trust that someone is there to help. Things really don’t need to come with strings attached. I start beaming smiling at the idea of just helping or contributing for the sake of helping or contributing. Making someone smile or relieved because that is an end in and of itself. I find life too…empty, lonely, and depressing, if I don’t try for these ideals.

My idea is to make a specific goal of making life simple. If you have a question, ask someone. If you have a problem, make sure you line up the kinds of people that can actually help you with it. If all you have to invest is yourself, then do it and use that to trade or try to equate what you wish to get from someone else. Don’t feel alone, it’s unnecessary and rarely helpful.

I’ll keep making the appeal. If you make your problems known, I want to see if there’s anything I can do to help. Maybe when everyone realizes there are simple answers, we can start to understand problems in a different way. Maybe when we daily actualize the capacity of people, we can stop superficially hoping and instead objectively justify where our reasons for believing in something lie.

[234] Spilled Over

This has no point, no continuity, and is purely because I’m drunk and bored :p

Games can be fun. They can be taken too far, but they can be fun. After all, I run this whole life thing as a game. I try not to be too far up my own ass, but who’s to say sometimes haha.

It’s hard to state how much disdain I have for some things. I don’t let it weigh me down by any means lol but when my aunt, for example, has 400,000 in cash to deposit on a new house and I need maybe 5 grand to comfortably start this coffee venture, and I can almost certainly hope to hear some level of scrutiny and bullshit about lending me the money, the depths of my hatred tend to peak out.

I love opportunities to shine a light on the utter bullshit that consists of our life. Here’s some more from my “family.”

As previously stated, I have an aunt who is hella richer than I ever conceived. $400,000 cash on a new house, $90,000 on a new Mercedes, and get this: My dad asked either her and/or my uncles for $500 bucks to help pay some of the utilities because work is slow. Here’s where we enter the world of perspective.

My grandma, my uncles’ mom, aunt’s sister has been brain dead and dying in my living room for about four years. My uncles have “kinda” showed up to oversee her over the years; my aunts have practically never come to take care of their sister. My dad and step mom have taken the burden. My dad works as an iron worker, which means getting up at 4 in the morning to drive up to 2 or 3 hours away to a job site, and might get home around 9 or 10 before he has to go back again.

What assessment of my dad’s effort do his brothers and aunt have to give?

He’s a slug. (Their words.) “What the fuck are you doing with your money?” How can you expect me to pay for your living expenses…yada yada.

My uncles, who when they come over, are leaving the faucet running when they think it helps my grandma use the bathroom, do their laundry in my dad’s washer and drying, use the internet, watch the same ten programs on the history channel on cable…I just utterly hate everything about this situation.

Why have I played along? I wouldn’t mind a loan. I don’t dramatically need their money or anything, but I don’t want to live off of ramen noodles for the next year. Both my uncles have been primarily single their entire lives with better than average jobs and almost nothing to pay for beyond rent. My one uncle was living with my grandma until he was like 40 or something. I have realized that a couple hundred bucks a year a few cubs games aren’t worth not calling out the bullshit. But then again, I tend to have the balls to actually speak up.

It’s sick to get texts and calls from my dad who so endlessly believed in ideals about family only for them to be utterly shattered during times their true colors really show.

It’s peoples’ odd and sick games that are the reason things will never get better. It’s only one thing to know how to fix something. It’s only anther another to have the will to fight for change. At the end of the day, you will have someone literally one degree away who can fix practically any problem you could encounter, and they will still give you shit or deny you.

I hate wasting time. My stupid fucking hippie architect spending way more fucking time than I ever conceived getting these plans. My friends thinking college will last forever. What’s funny is how little that matters. I set a fucking goal. I will open a fucking coffee shop September 1^st, and regardless of what it costs me to build a kiosk or figure out my product, that’s what’s going to fucking happen. Who else feels so fucking powerful making a statement? Who else will make it come true?

I’ve had way too much on my mind lately. Do you think it’s funny or perhaps odd that I literally want to vomit with the degree and compulsions of my thoughts? I’ll go with odd because I’m never laughing when it happens haha.

It weirds me out to think that I have to live in spite of the world. That I would have to do things because you don’t believe in them instead of because they are the objectively correct and obvious things to do. It makes me uncomfortable. Granted, I’ll fucking live in spite. Fuck you and your ideas, especially if they are utterly shit ideas. But, I can’t help but feel a sense of loss or hopelessness because that’s what I have to resort to. Lol oh well I guess, fuck you. I suppose their’s a false duality or something here, but we’re speaking more to the feeling than the endless amount of labels we can ascribe to resolve feelings.

I’m nothing until I need to be. What the hell does that even mean? I don’t want to be a threat until you think I’m not one. I don’t want to be condescendingly right until you so hopelessly think I’m wrong. I sometimes if not semi-primarily don’t want to try until you think I won’t. This is fucking odd.

It’s ridiculously, if not almost and practically impossible to try and hold an objective position. I can never get overtly frustrated, or, I can never care that much, because I see and respect the end game. No, it’s not “death equates us all” for you despotic lazy mother fuckers. It’s localizing your priorities. I just don’t care about what you do. I can’t. I will never be able to be persuaded to. It’s hard to even conceive, outside of brainwashing, a scenario in which I would give a shit. And yes, this is vague, please feel free to comment or ask if you don’t get what I’m getting at. (Hint: general life philosophies, nomenclature, and method of being.)

I want a good reason to stop hating. I understand I’m capable of persuading and deceiving myself. I also grant how ridiculously happy a disposition I currently maintain and work to continue. Ideas?

I hope, I hope I hope, I so freaking utterly hope you understand what it means when I choose to be your friend. I literally need some reflection of the, ill-named, ideals I have about life reflected back at me. I need to be kept in check. I need to see what I’d like to believe about myself in the company I keep. My reality is a choice. I was born into a “family” but god for fucking bid be it that I’m constrained to that circumstance. I choose my shit. I work towards my shit. I’ll fight and defend what the fuck I actually come to respect.

I wanna be dramatic. I want to be loud. I want to be overcome by things I can’t put into words. I want to fight and I want to fucking scream. At the very least it’s exciting, and at the most, life altering. I’ll use my hatred. I’ll respect my happiness. I’ll die defiant and laughing.

[231] Death To America

I want to see certain people dead. I want them punished for thought crimes. I want them to feel the impact of letting their blatantly destructive and psychopathic thoughts provoke or inhibit their actions. We’re protected from our potential to think in this country. We all get to wear the same clothes and hide how little money we have. Wouldn’t want to let troubling ideas about poverty in now would we? We get to go to supermarkets and pick from an endless stream of food that will certainly still be there next week. Who could be hungry with so much abundance? We get “debates” about some of the most serious issues facing our planet which help to confuse yet superficially involve us just enough to feel “informed.”

I don’t want to die. This is my starting point. Before I want a business, before I want to enable my friends and be creative and spend my life blissfully unaware of how many honey bees are left on the planet, I don’t want to die. Whenever I learn just a tad bit more about some massive company or environmental issue or, god forbid, a comment from a politician, I’m depressingly reminded of how this may not be just a taken for granted meager goal. Bad ideas, your ideas, can and will kill people. If I have to force feed one idea into every person I meet, I want them to appreciate that one.

I just got done watching Gasland and Collapse. These are two documentaries about fracking and oil. I am just floored at the amount of things that can be going wrong at any one time. I wrote once that I wondered why people couldn’t just be “fill in the blank” problem, but instead compounded their stupidity with failure after failure really trying to convince you of your naivety in befriending them. At least that terminates to just being annoying or some fight. When a company is destroying the planet, it isn’t like they just cut down a few trees or accidentally squashed a rabbit with a tractor. They kill ALL the trees, poison ALL the fish, contaminate the air, their employees, and the animals that are destined to be your next burger.

You know when I say things like “this isn’t my opinion” and “I think?” I should make a greater effort to reference or link to the reports and documentaries so you can maybe understand what I really mean is “the numbers say” “common sense says” “so and so actual scientist points out” and “you’re dumb if you try to argue against…”

Do you understand even the concept of interconnectedness? There is no just doing one isolated thing. You are jointly personally and collectively responsible for everything. When you hold even one horrendous idea, it colors everything you think and say. When you become so emotionally invested and argumentatively entrenched in an idea, and absolutely refuse to change or understand even one reason that you should, you’re the kind of person I want to see dead. This is not the same as saying I’m going to go out of my way to kill you. I just want you to experience the consequences of your thoughts.

But let’s make this more pleasant. Oh don’t worry; I’ll get back to dramatic in a minute. Let’s run with dual personal and collective responsibility. If I’m to understand my position in life correctly, much of my present happiness relies on the unseen, untraceable, massively complex interplay of the world at large. My food, shelter, entertainment, and less I forget porn are practically handed to me on a silver platter. Therefore, while I want to see bad ideas punished, I don’t want to fall to my own edict by genuinely thinking that death always is or is even necessarily the best method to go about fixing things. While it can be effective, it doesn’t translate well as an acceptable option.

So I can blog. I can learn. I can read more, grow my fat pretentious head and struggle to contribute. Key word there is struggle. Do we forget that people lie? They do it comfortably, to our faces, to our congress, at the expense of themselves and others all the time. It is these people that we are struggling against. It’s when a scientist has to defend facts about environmental impact against a lobbyist or hopelessly ignorant politician. It’s when an investigative journalist gets threatened or mocked by fanaticized media outlets. But it’s especially when we don’t even voice how and why we support something or someone.

I read statuses all the time about shitty days, forgetting phones, delicious food or some random comment that you “probably had to be there” for it to be supremely funny. I get maybe two or three friends who post about things they support or people they respect. Does this mean you don’t care? Probably not, but it does mean there is something going on culturally or personally that is either distracting, fear inducing, or generating what I think may be a dangerous level of apathy. I want you to be an expert in something and flood facebook with what you think is most relevant and most helpful. I would love for ideas about how and why to share information to change.

I want things to change because I’m capable of identifying problems. Something tells me you might have a knack for it too. For example, is it a good thing to pollute drinking water? No? Good answer. So when someone can light their water on fire because of fracking in their backyard, we can agree a problem exists. I think every problem we face is this simple. I would even invite the exercise of breaking down moral questions and ideas into economic and psychological terms. Our well-being absolutely rests on keeping a balance between what we fuck up and what we do right. It depends on us actually understanding and knowing the consequences. It’s not how we feel about the subjects; it’s what we can show to be true. The fundamental laws of nature are at play and will react.

What are your priorities? Is it just getting out of school, or finding a job, or becoming the next leader or member of some group? Do you want to resolve some conflict with your boy/girlfriend or family member? Do you want to keep hidden some secret? Do you care more about the injustice to Cambodian tree frogs more than life itself? Are you concerned that maybe you haven’t even sat down and prioritized what the hell it is you’re doing and why? Would you still manage to respect yourself if you were honest with what you would find and are currently finding to be answers?

I’m always asking because I’m frequently shocked and dismayed by the answers. I get people who are confident and comfortable telling me they want to be ignorant. I don’t really care what the topic is, the capacity to feel comfortably and confidently ignorant scares the living fuck out of me. That’s my competition. I get people that just want to grow balls enough to tell their parents about a tattoo. I get people who are concerned about problems that I can’t even define because they are so particular or nuanced it would take weeks or months of study to find a clue. There’s the “kind-of-right” people who may hold a view I can agree with or see some logic to, but have convoluted, contradictory, or simply back-assed ways of arriving to their position. “I’m an atheist because Mark chapter 5 conflicts with Luke chapter 2, and because all Catholics are pedophiles.”….so close.

I need help. I don’t have the patience for scenarios like the example of above. I can’t learn every detail about every problem alone. I need help drawing the interconnectivity map so that we can isolate the specific problems and actually change things. I want to stop hating everything and everyone and be a part of something greater than any one hero’s effort. I don’t want to see our food run out, water get rationed, or the atmosphere disappear before you’ve found the motivation. If you could maybe do me a courtesy as well and defriend me, tell me to fuck off, and/or disappear if this is too hard or dramatic a proposition for you.

We are a society that champions death. How often are we collectively cheering for something? I don’t see 100 statuses hoping to usher in the new clean burning fuel into their cars. I see cheers and hear fireworks for when 10 years of death and economic strife “culminate” in the alleged death of a “mastermind” who said, “use box cutters to run planes into buildings.” Sending such a dramatic message about greed and hypocrisy is worth noting beyond racist country songs and redneck pronouncements of your target shooting proficiency. There are STILL people who would deny or never care to know how we used to support Osama amongst the myriad of other random thugs and dictators around the world.

We don’t want peace. We want our naïve ideas about peace. We want to be idealists and to simply state our ever-lacking opinions. We want to leave everyone blind with an eye for an eye. We want everyone to know how angry we are and for them to play along like it isn’t a reflection of how sad we are. We want to stop being bombarded with this seemingly endless stream of problems and wait around for “them” “they” or “someone smarter than me” to fix it. We want to be right beyond reason because it makes us feel good. We want mommy and daddy to pick up after us. We want to create personal drama to feel involved and important. Fuck your feelings and fuck you.

I say death to America because America is killing itself, and the rest of the world, with its bad ideas. The country started for reasons. It lasted and progressed and became an example by extending and fighting for freedom and equality. It used to respect science and had its points where the environment mattered as well. We currently get so caught up in buzz words and catch-phrases that identifying, let alone solving issues, seems non-existent. Obamacare, socialism, death-taxes, death-panels, and drill baby drill are not acknowledging the failings of health care, taxing the rich appropriately and preventing an economic collapse, or protecting the environment. We don’t punish the liars or the propaganda. We punish ourselves and the people we pretend to care about.

I want to stop playing this kind of game. I want to start from “Look, I know you’re an asshole, ignorant, non-caring, lazy, afraid, and eventually going to kill me, so these are the conditions you have to play under in order for that not to happen.” Your “rights” are as valuable as money. They exist when there is an illusion of control and order; it’s only when enough people adopt a relative standard. Your quality of life is up for grabs. More importantly, so is mine.

And clearly, I have no capacity to be a diplomat, so I could use an expert in that as well.

[230] Inside Outside Box

I need to learn more. What I learn needs to influence what I do more. When I say more, I mean it needs to extend some branch of “understanding” that I can only find frustration in currently. I suppose a good gauge of whether I am progressing is the more I feel engaged, happy, and productive. These of course predicated on how you know or can come to know about yourself and the various ways you can relate to people.

This whole notion of progress is frustrating. The only reason I have goals is because I picked them, or at least felt like I picked them; it wasn’t because they were magically revealed to be truer or better. The problem is when I realize how easily it is to think in a contradictory manner. How often or easily your once heroes can be taken down. What ideal do you hold “sacred,” terrible word, when foundations of your thought are proven to be untenable?

I’ve picked goals. To be as happy as possible as often as possible while understanding the various and often conflicting means to happiness. I want to enable my friends where possible. With these broad goals it’s easy to move to the specifics. I want to run a business, coffee shop, learn taxes, make money, etc. under that context. I adopt words like “utility” and drop words like “love” in order to better understand and express those goals. I want to create an internally sensible world that doesn’t pretend there isn’t an overlying, potentially chaotic and horrible, objective context.

I don’t like things to get dramatic. Why do we have to wait for a revolution before we figure out why and how government should be run? Why do we have to wait until the planet fights back when we screw up the environment? Why does the middle class have to disappear before we even acknowledge class inequality? Why do you need to be sick before wanting health care? Why do we strive so hard to be extremely wrong first? Is there really some ultimate annihilation button at the proverbial end if we decide to tip the balancing scales towards uninhibited objective realization?

I don’t want to care. Does that make things self-fulfilled or am I just holding out for the right time? I mean, I already care, so how can I not want to? Care about what? Well, myself, my friends, my shit, my ideas. It follows that I would care about the world, our political climate, emotional and mental stability and ability. What if the real questions is, how connected are we?

Perhaps an analogy for the world: Is it like saying you're like an apple, but part of it is rotting, and you try to eat it anyway? There are still good parts, but it’s still rotten. Can people be a barrel of apples? Can we simply chuck the rotten ones until they decompose and simply provide more soil over the next cycle? I suppose not as long as other stupid apples fall in love with the ones who are rotting. And, one of those rotting apples is threatening to die as the sole bearer of the knowledge on how to cure pimples, asshole.

So these apples can provide something, even while they are rotting. Maybe a deeper insight understands the capacity of every apple to rot. But an apple left on the ground doesn’t choose to be there. Either directly or indirectly it fell or perhaps thrown to its current position. It’s not like other apples can go pick it up, whether they had the capacity to care to or not. Maybe people should stop acting like apples.

Do we have a societal goal? It can’t be that whole life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness bullshit. Really, you can’t tell me war for oil, prison time for weed, and deregulated markets drew from wells extolling those ideals. That’s called the wrong kind of “selfish happiness.”

What if we had tactical kidnappings? We bust into foreign or warring countries, take the people doing a ton of bad shit, imprison them, but treat them like they are normal or potentially valuable people. You kidnap them, and put them up in a prison/hotel. Let them Skype with their brethren back home and learn how not-give-a-shit Americans really are let alone be in direct opposition to their favorite sky daddy. Of course the ones left who no longer wanted to fight or be indoctrinated would be threatened with death if they defected here, but it can’t be any worse then they’re current standing. 

What if we flew in and carted tons of people to be relocated in other countries who were equipped to handle new social and cultural programs, not unlike this melting pot of America and simply made sure that we treated other people well? You don’t force those that don’t want to leave and you don’t impose on those that don’t want to or can’t handle. You just provide the opportunities and make more examples out of people. What’s more convincing that someone’s own family member in their own language?

I guess that was my random let’s explore this idea moment after I wrote through initial frustration. I can’t help but to default into something “seemingly productive” once I think I’ve found a place for the bullshit.

I guess all I can do is keep living vicariously.

[229] An Infinite Capacity For The Happy

People need to die as long as they have the capacity to experience perpetual and potentially unending woe. It taken four days of pumping a depressant substance into my body, but hopefully we’ll reach a fun catch-all happy sentiment by the end. Doubt it.

One of my biggest problems is complacency. Complacency speaks to redundancy. Redundancy implies predictions. Take Dot Dot Dot. Good group of people. Talented musicians. They love their craft and the people who come out to see them. They play the same shit. They are a cover band. They got really good at taking other peoples’ idea and dancing behind it all. The same vigor and awesomeness I experienced my first round with the band is forever lost as long as they are just a cover band.

Next round: conversations.

I’ve reached the point in any and all conversations I have where I “cock-block” myself. Let me explain why. I have no interest in playing the game that makes you think I’m witty and attractive. I don’t want to deliberately phrase something or “accidentally” do or look a certain way that queues you up. So I go out, get in cool conversations, and as fun as it may be to go down some perverted track, I just pick that point to explain how and why it could go down that track. My saving grace is that the conversations are always different when the subject is that person’s history. It just feels hopelessly weird to be so fucking bored with it all. I either want to be extremely belligerently angry, or give the fuck up. And odds are, it’ll be a while before I give up.

I can’t think of a more depressing thought than to not be surprised anymore. I think I avoid conversations because of this fact. When I see how someone is just hardcore failing at something, but it’s the exact same way the last fifteen assholes I talked to are failing, it just depresses me. I’m lucky I have a perspective to know that five days of a depressant liquid are making me sound cynical and feeling like utter shit, but knowing the feeling exists just sucks so much ass. I would hate to think of the implications of a little bitch who feels this way. Or better said, the majority of people who don’t have the knowledge that they’re going to feel better eventually.

Final battle: recent events.

Old friends are back in town. So much time lost with people that I never had a problem with and never had a problem with me. Psychopathic cunt to blame? Geographical circumstances? I really want to stress to people. Particularly if you’ve never read my shit and stumbled upon this wondering how and why we’re “friends” on facebook. It isn’t hard for me to forget you. It isn’t hard for me to cut ties. I’ve actually recently learned of the neuronal basis that could account for my learned indifference. (Fun shit I need to learn more about) My point being, if we’re friends: If I give you the time of day: If regardless of everything I could ever hate about this life, and your being, and my thoughts, and whatever the fuck else excuse I might like to use for my actions….and I still manage to do you a favor, help you with some problem, or invite you out for whatever, I really give a fuck. I’ll probably kill myself the day I don’t think the fuckers I call friends realize that.

So here it is. Another digression amongst others. Like I had a choice, right? ;)

[228] Where The Hell Was This Going?

It’s nice when things are simple. Simple to understand. Simple to explain. I try fairly hard to take the litany of issues I can have with any particular subject and break them down into simple rules of how to deal with or fix something.

Take one of my biggest problems; how to deal with people. I find it almost too easy to disregard people. Yet, the conflicting thoughts of “wow, this is an awesomely fun time and I really appreciate or dig whatever this person said or did” pound away in defiance of my…habit. I had a really good time tonight where this is what happened.

I think realizing your potential can be a terrifying thing. Apparently, when I can’t remember the things I’m saying, my drunk mind speaking a sober heart has all the faith in the world as to my mental capacity for doing things. Having to always play the devil’s advocate to myself, it’s easy to dissuade myself from the seemingly outlandish implications of how I would choose to conduct myself. I think if I broaden my definition of what it means to be an acceptable human, I can get away with hitting the inevitable pitfalls of a broadening responsibility.

Explanation by example. I want to run the world. In a weird quasi philosophical notion-ish sense, I already do. The problem of trying for that kind of level of responsibility or understanding is knowing too much. When problems aren’t problems, just annoying temporary bumps on the road to the inevitable. When your relationships are practically impossible to maintain via mutual respect and understanding and always “degrade” into what you are or aren’t getting from them. The more you understand, or at least tout that you understand, the more you feel jaded. You get irresponsible, you test waters, you deliberately piss people off because what do they matter. This is a clear problem.

Simple equation. Food + music + alcohol + conversation. It’s an equation that I have had a ridiculously large amount of fun with. Does it last when you get to “serious” topics? When your friends start to think of themselves as too old or too responsible to act like the kids they were in college. I have this utter dread that the outlets in which I get some of the most fun I’ve ever had are going to continually dry up as people find the comfy spot they want to conform to. Then I become some kind of junkie looking to establish “new and exciting” relationships that will fall to the wayside like all the others.

It’s almost the same story when it comes to business. Yes, I want to own my shit. I can’t find the motivation to do it for myself. If I’m not enabling, if I’m not showing people how easy it can be when you have even one person who gives a shit, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I hate wanting to be that kind of person amidst a world designed to tear my ideals apart. We play political games instead of rewarding and protecting talent and innovation. What happens when I get the world? The exact same human things that make it the place it is will fuck something up. How do you justify fighting a battle that never ends? Because it perks you up? Gives you a sense of purpose? Maybe you can’t be about the “overall battle” and just have to bring it down to specifics. Fight for the people you choose. Fuck the world, I’ll just try to be an example for my friends. If only it was easier to ignore the world.

This feels all over the place. I don’t handle happiness well. I don’t know what to do with a ton of positive thoughts and a positive outlook. As if one day the impending cloud of “oh that’s why I stopped caring” will disappear. I wish I was more naïve and could just bask in it. This might be why I like dreaming so much. Stupid friends, making me want to grab them and never let them go, fuckers.  

[226] What Are You On About

I guess it’s just a symptom of staying up all night.

TV helps me think. It gives me a template. The show Greek has let my mind wander about relationships and cheating. Gantz prompts me to think about futility, redundancy, and cynicism. Of course I can just kinda space out and watch some other shows, but in general I catch myself just thinking.

I take for granted how I think and behave; my sense of practicality, sarcasm, and logic specifically. I’m told that I should respect other people’s opinions. I find this hard to accept. Opinions ought to be reserved for food and entertainment preferences. If you think something that is incorrect, and voice your opinion, to me, your opinion doesn’t matter. I understand that you “feel” something or believe yourself to be correct, but that only matters to you.

I suppose I bring this up because I need to explore how and why I behave in the context of so many opinions. Why I fight. How I’ve come to my relative conclusions on how and when to deal with people. If we are to accept that everyone is a hypocrite, then we can be sure that no one is completely reliable. Fair enough? I think people extend this understanding too far and suppose as far as believing nobody is reliable for practically anything. I think this is an extension of what they believe about themselves.

I have an extremely hard time finding myself unreliable. If only my demeanor and thought process remain fairly constant, I never “get lost in it all.” I don’t really feel diminished or surprised by anything for more than a few moments. I sometimes wonder if I should be more worried. I doubt that I should, but I do wonder.

I think about the point of operating under “the world at large” context. Why open a business in a world on the verge of destroying itself? Why engage with people you’re planning on forgetting? Why act as if you need more than a bit of food and shelter to be fairly happy? I suppose my short answer is that it’s exciting and it’s to spite pessimism and ignorance. I get off on being an example. I’m not sure why outside of this blissful potential future I envision. Oh naivety, you take us so far.

I hope it’s not the case, but I suspect it is, that no matter what you do, how you think, or what you show people to be true, they will trump you with their opinions. I think selfishness reigns supreme. If and when you don’t distinguish the kind of selfish you are, you default to the stupid destructive one. We aren’t fundamentally conservative, respectful, or thoughtful because the majority of our existence it wasn’t required of us. Perhaps another argument against free will?

Regardless, as long as I can identify things I want I’ll continue dictating and working towards them. I want good ideas to be enabled. I want to continue believing and proving that some ideas are better than others. I want to enable freedom, my own and for others who can appreciate it. I want to live seeing what I’m capable of more than die “knowing” what I could’ve done. Although it’s weird, I kind of feel like I’m working towards losing my will to live. Like, once I’ve done enough of what I want I’ll just sort of be like, “Well yeah, kinda done now, guess I’ll go ahead and die.” I’m intrigued to see if this moment ever comes. I think I feel worse anticipating the thought than I ever would if it genuinely arose.

I think I’m special while understanding I’m not. I hope for more people to accept this view. You’re not that smart. You’re not that hot. You’re not that talented or innovative or selfless. Yet, because you hopefully matter to yourself, and almost certainly matter to someone else, you can confidently proclaim you are special. You are what you observe about yourself and what others observe about you. Existing is special. I think this isn’t enough to inspire most. Until you kill yourself, you at the very least perpetuate the idea that existing is special, if only your existence. Is that all you’re going to do?

If everyone is a particle, and particles are more stable together, I’d like people to be more together. Most importantly, I’d like it to be in the realm of ideas. The rate and connectivity of your neurons firing determine the strength and potential for action. We have far too many examples of what happens when you cultivate fear and anger. I think we are literally suffering for truth and genuine well-being. I’ve think we’ve been like this for our existence. Perhaps the advent of the scientific method is the first development of this need. Perhaps the ones that don’t respect or care to understand science just haven’t suffered the consequences of their existence yet. If only those consequences didn’t involve a shared planet.

I don’t want to feel like I have to trick people into liking or respecting me. I don’t want to plant qualifiers into conversations. I don’t want to force a certain look. I want the kind of respect that comes from recognizing another thoughtful human being. I want to be liked because someone else likes themselves when they are around me. I want to help enable the best of you knowing I can only do it by being the best of me. I don’t think the best of me is based on my opinion.

[225] Courage Of Your Convictions

I can’t even sit and read.

For as much as I tend to rant or blog, it amazes me how little people can truly appreciate how I think or feel. I’d like to believe that when I say something a hundred ways a thousand times, it’s me refining my argument or building up the proper method of how I’m going to deal with something. My refinements never seem to be met with anything other than the same old tired ideas.

“You’re soooooooooooooooo close!”

Close to fucking what! I’m close to spending $70,000 fucking dollars for a degree in something I have no intention or desire to study further. Stop fucking telling me how close I am! Here, sit in a room with a paddle ball. Do it four just an hour a day. I don’t care how good you get at it. Just paddle, and don’t stop for four years. The thoughts you have after the first 10 minutes of this activity are the same ones I’ve had throughout these four fucking years. I can’t think of a bigger display of hating myself and woe than proving over and over again that I can learn arbitrary shit, apply it to arbitrary questions, and fucking hate everything about myself and the time I’ve spent doing it. What do you do to an animal that’s suffering? You kill it. I don’t even have to die to feel overwhelmingly better about what I’m doing with my time and money.

Maybe that analogy wasn’t good enough. Climb a mile high pile of shit. Every time you plunge your hand in, just think about how close you are. Ignore the smell and never mind your clothes. It doesn’t matter how many times you fall or slip, just keep pushing, digging, and fighting for the top. Once you get there, TADA! OMG YOU MADE IT. Covered in shit, cheering at the top of the mountain, please continue to explain to me how much better I’ll be looking like you.

“People won’t respect you if you don’t get a degree.”

I don’t want to work for or anywhere near a person who bases their level of respect on your grades or the titles of your classes. Tell me, theoretical future employer, you may have talked to some of my friends or can read my facebook notes. Can you respect what I’ve learned in the psychological field? Do you think my “skills” will transfer to balancing the books of the Sears or Kohl’s you want me to manage? Have I finally made myself worthy by proving that I could condition myself to hate every minute of my life and still perform a task? That’s what you’re looking for right? You want to make sure I’m so well rounded, rounded the point of an amorphous shell of who I once was so that you can dictate how I should fit into a company.

This goes further. Both my uncles have degrees. Both are unemployed. This notion that degree equals job is simply bullshit, especially today. A degree equals a job on shaky ground. A job that may or may not last till the next month. A job that is dictated by someone who may or may not have the best idea of how to run it or how to relate to you. I don’t want “a job.” I want my job. Something I’ll be actually good at for reasons dependent on me.  Anyone can crunch your numbers or follow a company directive; only you can maintain your relationships and foster growth or productivity from them.  I’ve heard enough of the horror stories of waking up dead. Dead to the world, realizing what you’ve become and where you’ve put yourself. How do I justify pushing myself closer and closer to such a reality?

It’s never been about ability, and that’s the problem. No one puts on like they care about what I’m capable of. They don’t act like my specific knowledge is necessary or relevant. If the one person that has to care is me, then so be it. When someone talks about how important the degree is, to me, it’s like saying “you know, the 3 and half years and 3.3 gpa, that’s all shit and doesn’t matter, the degree, now THAT will stick out.” The irony of course being that, to me, it doesn’t matter, but the context they’re pushing for, the one that needs those things, is the one they haphazardly dismiss.

It’s all about your philosophy. Do you think it’s about fitting into a society you don’t agree with because “that’s life” or do you maintain the struggle to fight against things you can show to be inadequate, destructive, and soul crushing? Are you about progressing down a line or growing as a person? I’d rather abstain from something than be a hindrance. More importantly, I’d rather be the proper tool.

IF, IF and when I graduate, it will mean nothing. If someone starts a sentence with “because you graduated you’re so and so qualified” I’m going to go with “you’re an idiot.” If someone tries to explain to me how necessary it is for me to open and that college broadened my horizon and perspective, I’m going to go back to the chorus and proclaim you’re a fucking idiot. I’m not a person because I know random facts. I’m not qualified because I answer questions we already know the answers to. I should only garner respect and admiration for choosing to do things and choosing to do them well. Anything less, or worse, the complete fucking opposite (you know like I’m doing in school), should make you sad or pissed off at what’s being wasted. But again, I’m the only one that needs to care about me.

Do I wander around campus looking for a party with Kesha blaring and a fridge full of PBR? No, I create a party house. I play topless pong, experiment with sheesha flavors, build a relationship with a badass DJ and accommodate guests. Do I think noisy chains or crazy hair says anything about how well I can do in school or run a coffee shop? Fuck no, and for those who do, the idea of looking a certain way and doing even better than a “normal” person could, frankly, gets me off. The management skills I fought for working at a theater I’ll translate into how I  run a coffee shop or any fucking else thing I want to run. I’ll bank on the relationships I foster because I MADE THEM.

[224] Talk To Your Teachers

I had a fairly interesting conversation with my P466 teacher not 20 minutes ago. I’ve learned that teachers are pissed off at how the university corrals students who aren’t qualified or caring into their courses.

I hope I haven’t undersold the idea that I do believe that most teachers are trying their best to teach you and actually care if you learn something. A phrase that stuck out from my teacher was “it’s bigger than you or me.” She had to cancel a class that she spent 15 hours preparing each class for. I have to spend four months in a class that I’m barely interested in and don’t have much a clue how to understand. I think her problem is worse. The real point is that they are both bad situations and I don’t think we should both have to resolve ourselves to the fucked up nature of it all when there is a bigger problem that can alleviate both of ours.

I’m an advocate of as close to one on one teaching as possible. You get to have an actual relationship with the person you’re working with and find out the best methods to teach them. If you are really passionate about a topic you can get specific answers or focus on specific questions. You get to structure the goals and pace of the course to your needs instead of just taking in information and spitting it out piece meal. A refreshing thing to hear from my teacher was that this is how her classes used to be conducted. She used to have kids who really wanted to take her course and could handle the technical jargon and wanted to go on to study the topic later in life.

At least one significant problem is at the university level. This semester is special. The class had to open itself up so that enough seniors could graduate on time. You either take the only class available to you, or you arrange to stay another semester or the summer etc. Does this not seem foolish on its face?

So you want kids to graduate. Maybe it isn’t explicitly about money because, as my teacher pointed out, a few kids here or there dropping out or taking an extra course or two doesn’t really matter in the end. (I still think there is something to be said about the money, but she may have some insight I don’t know.) How can you say you care about someone’s education when you’re willing to put them in a class designed to be over their head and outside of their interests? How can you not see how many kids are enrolling and appropriate classes or requirements in a smarter way?

College is supposed to be the place where you can get technical and learn the things that you simply can’t learn on your own.

This line stuck out as well in our conversation. The technical jargon of biology or a medical field, you almost certainly can’t learn alone. The cutting edge experiments and new labels of genes, diseases, etc…isn’t going to be in your Google searches. If this is a ridiculously smart teacher expressing this sentiment, why does college feel and act like it wants to pump you full of random facts and requirements and kick you out the door? Yes, you can be “open” to all sorts of things and pull some form of potentially helpful information anywhere you go and from every teacher you talk to. I think every time I get told to just “be open” or “deal with it” people are missing the point.

When you dedicate your time, effort, and money towards something, especially something that acts under the guise of truly caring about your time, effort, and money, it shouldn’t be a “deal with it” or “struggle to get something out of it” relationship. I don’t mean that you shouldn’t work hard. I don’t think that you won’t have to adjust. I simply think there should be a higher standard that this institution holds itself to. It should literally be in the business of empowering and enabling. I really do think that the good will and societal philosophy that “education is good” get subverted by business interests. I think no matter what you think you are or aren’t getting out of school, it is in some way correlated with someone who’s got more power and more money than you do and how they think the school should run.

This is beginning to sound conspiracy theorist-y. Of course it could be something else. We could just collectively be too non-caring or stupid to identify the actual problems. Enough people could just be happy with how things are run, have their own excuses or explanations and would never work to change things. Maybe I’m one of a handful of people who’s really this frustrated about the topic with not much a plan or strict evidence to back up my claims. I tend to think that it’s actually a combination of every story you could tell, to some extent, and hardly anyone is qualified enough to sort through it all and decide a course of action.

I am glad though to hear from my teacher that she specifically structures the course and grades easily so that it’s more about you trying to get something out of the course than being lost and worried about failing. She, like most teachers, will beg you to come to office hours. They don’t do it for the money. I just think their efforts are being subverted. You’re vulnerable when you care and aren’t thinking about how to fuck people.

I don’t want to pretend like I don’t see a problem or would rather ignore it for the sake of my other interests. I don’t want to resolve myself to adages about how “that’s life.” I don’t want to think people are more evil than they are. I’d really hate to think I’m carrying on about something that isn’t a problem for the sake of knocking down some personal demon I’m hell bent on making everyone’s problem as well. But it’s like, every time someone complains about a bad teacher, testifies to how little they remember or understand in a class, recount all the time they spent on some topic to barely pass, go into thousands of dollars’ worth of debt, are unable to find a job, and can, without much prompting, get teachers to complain just as long and hard about what’s happening to them, is it safe to say there’s something to try and fix beyond their subjective experience?

[227] Might As Well Talk To Myself

Might as well talk to myself

So now that I’ve gotten the most of the “little things” that it takes to run a business; tax exemption status, commissioned plans for the kiosk, a product list, and tentative menu, I can’t help but think even more so how this last little “push” of college is going to be a complete fucking pain in the ass. Two weeks after I came to this place I knew I didn’t want to be here. Maybe sooner than that, but I try to keep an open mind, haha.

I tend to have a problem when things are too simple. I mean, this running a business shit has plenty of shit I’ve yet to understand or figure out, but literally every question I have is a phone call or google search away. No matter how anxious or fucking lost I may seem, I have the ability and resources to find someone to fill in the blanks. That fact that it is so step by step kind of blows my mind. The fact that it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do, and when I finally have the time a resources to do it, it’s exactly as I thought it would be is just….wow.

I sometimes worry about this inability to be surprised. It’s easy to say “there are resources available, therefore I tapped into them and answered my questions.” It’s another thing to say, “give me five minutes with any person and I’ll probably dictate most of their views and life.” It happened tonight. I sat alone at steak n shake, got some fries and was planning on chilling. The girls in the next booth invited me over. They weren’t anything special. One knocked up when she was 20, the other passively referring the plethora of boys she’s been with or places she was trying to stay at. Granted, I don’t care who you fuck or how many nor whether you have kids, but I care when your story is that of everyone who fucks around or gets knocked up.

When it comes to getting everything I want, I of course want life to be everything I expect it to be. I want to know that opening a coffee shop, the only coffee shop, in a mall with ridiculously high traffic, is going to net me a shit ton in a relatively short time by comparison to most businesses. I don’t want to be so confident when I deal with people. It makes me want to behave in just, not fun, ways.

You ever write your 250^th something blog and feel so self-indulgent? That somehow your semi-tipsy “rants” or depictions of your experience amount to more than words that may or may not translate into an ounce of something meaningful for someone else. Of course I do it to hopefully bring myself more clarification, but there is a clear gratification in hearing that someone was even marginally affected or prompted to think about something. I still need to maintain a sort of self-humbling vendetta. To always shoot myself down and know that nothing I say is that original, that cool, that meaningful, etc. I think I simply pursue a dialogue with myself that I so rarely get from most others. Even more specifically, the spontaneous and exciting dialogue.

I suppose, most importantly, is that it’s not that I expect people to be surprising. I don’t think surprises are anything more than the “right” people under the “right” circumstances. I’m more dismayed that people don’t set themselves up to be surprised. They don’t go out of their way to try and be a surprise. They don’t hold too many “dangerous” contrary views. They don’t act on spontaneous urges. They don’t trust they’d know what to do if they’re day and night wasn’t planned. If the girls that invited me over to their table felt more inclined towards conversation instead of texting the boys from their past, something surprising may have arisen. When people put aside their bubbles, their expectations, and clue into the potential of any moment, you get to explore what would have never existed outside of your awareness of that moment.

And it’s not enough to just be aware of it, you have to want it. It can’t be forced. You can’t persuade someone to be “in to it.” “It” being that moment, the willingness, and the focus on what you can do.

Switching gears.

What does it mean to be stressed? Biolife has been telling me my blood pressure has been high lately and that it’s normally due to stress. What do I have to be stressed about? I pretty much disregard school. I could literally fail my last few weeks and I’m still infinitely confident in my ability to get the coffee shop running that I could give less than a fuck. I don’t surround myself with people I dislike. I’m always good to make myself laugh. Yet, I don’t think I could deny that some shit gets to me. I want to know why.

Why the fuck should I care? I’m genuinely confused by this. You’re talking about a person who doesn’t give a fuck about his own mother. What the hell could be so significant to break into that husk of sociopathic asshole? Do I maintain a sense of “worriedness” to perpetuate some semblance of humanity? Do I simply know that if I give up that last little bit I’m truly lost? Is it just a weird gene expression thing? Some family history of anxiety or angst that supersedes whatever I’d like to condition myself against? Maybe it’s just impossible to claim you understand something unless you can grasp all the “feeling” bullshit that goes along with a given concept. So I do it out of necessity in order to remain a reasoned and thoughtful person.

The reason this is a problem is because I can’t understand the reason to give a shit. I understand selfish hedonism. I understand trying to maintain and celebrate things that make you happy or things you recognize as positive and helpful traits towards well-being. I even get empathy for the most petty and naïve of feelings. I still have yet to understand how to justify giving a shit, overall, given blatant stated nature of things.

How do you care when the problems and solutions can be dictated clearly by any objective standard, and yet nothing gets done? How can you care about someone when they don’t even know, or care to know, what it means to care about themselves? How can you worry when you know it accomplishes nothing? How can you stand to be an example for people who will only fear or hate you? The ones who recognize you have your problem; they like the example, they understand the example, but being like you, they don’t need the level of impact from the example that the person is trying to be. They give a head nod, you receive a head nod, and meanwhile the children meander about the yard uprooting your garden.

I don’t want to go crazy.