[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.   

[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.