[272] Drunken Bar Banter

What do you get when you have two ex veterans arguing about war, politics, and morality? A time to intervene!

I’m getting fairly sold on the idea that I really don’t need to talk to anyone anymore on the whole “life” issue. Here’s why. When I do, I find that they either have some “life experience” that ultimately informs their position in such a vehemently held way that you could just never understand, or they have some “of course you know this” rhetoric that blankets the issue with unsubstantiated facts or tentatively held figures.

Ultimately, when you’re fighting, the irony is that you want peace. Whether you want to call the middle east a bunch of towel headed fatwa inciting America hating sand niggers or not, you don’t want one of them to shoot you. Nor do you necessarily want to go out of your way to make sure you can shoot one of them. I talked to a guy tonight whose job it is to hunt down traitors (read dissenters) and see them prosecuted (if not dead if I understood him correctly) but could still agree that despite differences, “America” (think South Park) was “more evolved” than the people in the middle east and it was our responsibility to show them how a country is supposed to be.

Can we pause and soak that in?

(Ignore this paragraph) It’s the position of the 30 something in the bar to step in and try to qualify the conversation in terms that are fair to both sides. Because, after all, the youngins at the bar are all still discovering themselves and the extra 14 years he’s had on the planet has given him this unique perspective on breaking up potential fights and qualifying bar patrons. But really, the guy I talked to who wasn’t the one after dissenters was alright, but I can be condescending in my own blog he’ll never read. (you didn’t ignore this paragraph)

When I pulled out the figures for the amount of civilian casualties in this “war on terror” he fired right back with the alleged number of soldier casualties. The guy who stepped in and pointed out that neither sides’ number mattered, was right. I didn’t pull out Google and site my shit, though I would have, and regardless of his, dramatically inflated number of soldiers killed, his point was that “AMERICA’S troops are being killed” and mine was about collateral damage. Neither was reaching a point that was going to be mutually respected and understood.

Facts don’t matter. And that is hard as fuck for me to swallow. The culture you create around them does. If I’m to make any difference in the world, it’s going to be developing an environment that breeds understanding. It’s not going to be in merely presenting the facts, but entrenching them in someone’s life. This military guy, this republican, this whatever the fuck label you want to give him, wants the same shit as you do, he just wasn’t brought up in in an environment to realize it without his fair share of bar debates or time spent in the military. People aren’t THAT different.

The ones who are out there finding the relative few to have informative and fulfilling semi-drunk bar conversations don’t believe the rest of the world gets it. Really understand this. The ones that believe or have the potential to change and discuss things, basically don’t believe in their potential to change things, let alone through discussion. This is a problem for me. I overhead people qualify their conversations all the time. “I’m not necessarily saying this or that and I don’t mean to be this or that, and I hope you don’t take this to mean more than what I’m saying” from the dumbest sorostitute to the public intellectual. People are smarter than they want to believe. They recognize opportunities to be misunderstood. They maybe just don’t understand the nature of how smart they are?

And I don’t want to think I’m grasping at strings for hope in humanity. I still think we’re fucked. I just see enough to work with. Just remember that you’re human, they’re human, and we’re all dumb fuck animals trying to figure shit out until we die. Getting drunk at a bar or dicking around on an instrument or mouthing off about how compelling our feelings are, is the PINNACLE of the human experience. When you can’t respect someone else’s right to waste as much of their time as you do yours on shit that makes you a hypocrite and liar, you’re the biggest kind of asshole. How wonderful it would be if we didn’t have to keep making excuses.

[271] C'est La Vie

I feel like a weight has been lifted. I've been a Debbie Downer for the last week and it stemmed from an overflow of anxiety about the “immorality of the world” and being seemingly unaware of the forces that oppose it. Luckily, or maybe it has nothing to do with luck, I managed to have a few conversations with friends to talk me down and I figure I’m back around normal. Maybe it’s the timing, but right as I’m settling back in, the discussion of free will is back. I want to explore my experience under the likely certainty that I don’t have it.

If I didn't feel like I had free will, from where would my anger, angst, or fear come from? Does my inherent non-belief in it speak to why I don’t generally persist in these modes of thought to begin with? What personhood named “Nick P.” is there to justify labeling anything as if he really understands the nature of it. If I’m at the same time the most horrible and most moral creature and I’m “one with everything” then where is the room to get pissy?

If we don’t have a choice, that shifts the priority. It is no longer about punishment and judgment. It becomes wholly about the experience; the very fact and act of perceiving. It’s not confusing why someone would be friends with a person who is openly “fake” because the experience between those two is simply a net positive. It’s not a secret why you can switch areas and switch friends, because it was never about that specific person, it was about what they allowed you to experience. When the memory of them becomes non-existent or painful, it slips away. Nor should you feel like you’re immoral or cold, you don’t have a choice, that’s how your brain operates.

Speculating from a “universal” standpoint, if there was one agenda that our cold and empty vastness could want, it would be to experience itself. I mean, we exist. I see and hear from no gods or anything else magic. It wasn’t born with a conception of good or bad. It just is. We just are. Our planet has seen millions of years of animals be born and go extinct and hasn't blinked an eye. When you get wrapped up in your personal feelings, you lose the game you’re not acknowledging you’re playing.

You have to convince yourself you have control to feel anxious. It’s logically unsound to believe you control anything. Your decisions are made well before you become conscious of them. The consequences you see obey different or more complicated rules than your perception governs.

I think when you lose yourself it isn’t a bad thing. I’m feeling creepily zen in typing this. I’m not motivated to get angry and the anxiety has been drained. It’s a constant reflection. When you’re not afraid you don’t engage in consequences of the fear response. You don’t have to fear and speculate about the consequences. It no longer becomes about justifying a presumed future. You don’t have to denigrate your current experience or understand anyone else’s as anything more than something they do in fact feel.

I hope this allows me to conceptualize my judgments in a manner that does not stem from or create more of the feelings I've been exploring this last week. I hope if I make any sort of sense to someone who reads this it allows a deeper appreciation for our time and experience together. We were brought here and we’ll leave here without our will consulted. Why should we think the forces that can do that would concern themselves with the messy details in the middle?

[270] A Conversation Worth Having

Allysia Sims

tell me something that will blow my mind.

Nick P.

Seems like a lofty task

I'll tell you something, but it's your responsiblity to get your mind blown

Allysia Sims

ok

go!

Nick P.

I don't think what I'll spend my life working towards will be worth it.

I think my conception of people as tools and bags of meat will destroy any and all relationships I hold where that isn't assumed.

I think I hate more than any other feeling, this peculiar given how happy I can be and how often I laugh

Allysia Sims

why do you hate so much?

Nick P.

Because it's for things worth hating

I'm probably developing a psychological hold and pattern on a bastardized conception of honesty.

Allysia Sims

I don't think anything is worth hating.

Nick P.

I think that's retarded

Allysia Sims

Thats ok

I think it's retarded to consume yourself with hate

Nick P.

To experience and to consume are different

If I felt consumed, I'd think myself retarded as well

Allysia Sims

So, then, you having the feelings shouldn't be an issue

Nick P.

The feelings in and of themself, no

how they help me translate and justify my actions, potentially

I corner myself mentally, from that "desperate" position I get creative

Allysia Sims

shitty feelings create the most inspiration.

thats why I only paint when I'm depressed. lol

Nick P.

the cursed blessing

Allysia Sims

it's stupid

Everything is.

Nick P.

so it seems

I think I'd rather be honest than friendly

honesty does more for me psychologically than friendship

I don't think some of my friends would enjoy this disposition

Allysia Sims

me too, especially because most friendships are lies.

no, but if they are your true friends, they'll accept it.

Nick P.

The standard I certainly hold them to

Allysia Sims

as they should be

Nick P.

I hate people that want me dead

Allysia Sims

who wants you dead?

Nick P.

Those at the top of society

And the people who "don't care"

The question is the ratio of passive/active desire

Allysia Sims

I don't think not caring means they wish you were dead.

Nick P.

two different people, the top, and the not carers

and they certainly do

they're the extreme passives, but that must be what they want if they truly don't care

it's the people around them who's intent sparked their will to attack their own will

Nick P.

the thieves who rob them of an identity or purpose

to the point where the only reply, the only way to "fight" is to give in and say you don't care

but that's the disenfranchised base

the real problem are the ones who create the conditions under which that happens to people

Allysia Sims

Well, the person I love the most wishes I were dead, so those people who "dont care" are irrelevant to my emotions, I don't need to waste time hating them.

Nick P.

it's less about them and more the ideas they espouse and reinforce

Allysia Sims

So?

Nick P.

they make excuses, they give up

I think those are things worth hating

Allysia Sims

So?

Nick P.

they are antithetical to life

if you are genuinely that way, kill yourself and at least be consistent

don't drag people down and go nowhere

don't set a shit example

Allysia Sims

alright, well it sucks to have people like that, but I still believe it's a waste of time and effort to even put thought towards people like that. If you're so anti-attitude of theirs, then paying them any mind only fuels the fire.

for you and them.

Nick P.

you can't consider solutions to the problem without respecting and acknowledging that it exists

and if you don't understand the nature of it, you 'll be incapable of addressing it properly

Allysia Sims

You can do that without expressing hate.

expressing*

Nick P.

if you can't understand your own hatred and what it does to inhibit or motivate you, the message you have for others about their feelings will be incomplete

to be a proper teacher and example, you need to own the extremes

Allysia Sims

Yeah, I guess thats true. If you didn't have a passion against it, then you couldn't fight against it.

Eh, stop proving your point. I don't like it. lol

Nick P.

I appreciate you at least qualifying that I'm doing so

Allysia Sims

I'll always admit it, but you better believe I'll bitch about it. lol

Nick P.

hatred is merely a tool, all feelings are. how you express and empathize are what count

Allysia Sims

very true.

Nick P.

my issue isn't my feelings, it's the fact that I'm prone to action

that when I say something, I really mean I'll do it

Allysia Sims

thats not always a bad thing, as long as you can control your words and actions.

Nick P.

until you can't control your words or actions, or better, until you lose your conception of what you think is worth controlling

Allysia Sims

is that something you think you'll have to worry about?

Nick P.

when all you do is think and reevaluate, of course

Allysia Sims

isn't that all anyone does?

Nick P.

I run the risk of severely altering my perception every day

not at all

the "anyone" reaches a point where they become to mentally exhausted, afraid, or disinterested to keep pursuing the implications

and they'll tell you this outright

they meet your inquiry or personal exploration with a polite smile and glances around the room for a way out

they hear that you're upset, not that you're calling them to arms

Allysia Sims

So what are you saying?

Nick P.

they won't fix themselves

so does someone have to?

and then who among them is that person going to listen to? how can they be considered when they don't know or care enough?

how do you establish a survivable system that doesn't have mechanisms for self correction? That doesn't know how to weed out what doesn't help or actively harms?

you need to make people courageous enough to be scientists

Allysia Sims

It's simple, if you are aware of it's happenings, you pull yourself out of it. Stop doing what you've been doing that cause the feelings, and try something new.

^exactly

Nick P.

there's the rub, they're aware. They're just too stupid, and I don't mean academically

they live in a stupid society

they are born and raised with horrible conceptions of themselves and reality

and breaking those requires behavioral therapy

Allysia Sims

well if we didn't have the stupid, the smart wouldn't be so appreciated, nor would our intelligence even matter, because there would be nothing to fix.

I wonder how stupid females feel when you talk to them/

Nick P.

I don't think that follows. First, the smart aren't appreciated. I don't know if you've caught any Santorum speeches lately ridiculing the idea of going to college. Second, Intelligence, technically, only matters to the extent that it helps you produce offspring, so any appreciation for it needs to come from contrived but respected rules about it's utility beyond that. Third, as someone who considers himself intelligent, if only because I try to inform myself and people seem to be helped by my advice, I know there is no "peak" of things you can learn and that given the changing nature of everything, something you used to be smart about is almost certainly different now, always leaving a gap to fix

Allysia Sims

....again, I wonder how these girls feel.

But, I see what you're saying. But personally, I appreciate stupid.

Nick P.

appreciate stupid? expound on that

Allysia Sims

Because sometimes I feel like I'm too complex, the workings of my mind can drive me absolutely mad. Stupidity at its finest has the ability to remind me to stop taking life so seriously, as damaging as stupid can be, it's also a reality check in way, for me.

Nick P.

stupid as a measure of what it simply means to be human isn't the problem

Allysia Sims

touche', however, you can't fix stupid. But you can learn to deal with it better.

Nick P.

the "fix" for stupid is to change the culture around it

first getting people to recognize there's even a culture to begin with

Allysia Sims

No, it might improve the amount of stupid, but stupid will never go away.

Nick P.

the goal isn't to get stupid to go away

i'm not being clear

Allysia Sims

You, my dear, need your own blog or something

Nick P.

I have one...written some blogs or so

Allysia Sims

I believe that

Nick P.

we just did to stupid what society needs to do to it

we conceptualized it

as a human facet, who cares, everyone's going to do stupid things

as a societal womb, it's insanely dangerous and has far reaching implications

but in recognizing that it has two different meanings or can be implemented in different ways, we get to have a coherent discussion about it

I can in one hand "take it as given" and project the sort of ho-hum attitude most people take about it, while acknowledging what I'm actually fighting against and focusing on to change

there's a huge problem with language that speaks to why problems perpetuate...

Allysia Sims

well, as much as I'd love for you to expand on this, I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes open, therefore, I think it's time for bed.

So, I shall talk with you later. Goodnight. lol

Nick P.

kk sleep well, it's been a pleasure

[269] Animals

I want to put my disposition up to a vote. I’m tired of trying to think my way past or justify things. I want to know what the rest of the world actually wants, if anything, and then respond accordingly. It would be a huge oversight to just try and work at things without anyone actually believing in what you’re doing. If they don’t buy into it you won’t get any change, let alone the big ones you’ve assumed to be the most worthy and over reaching. So tell me, how should I feel, and for how long?

We live in a country that outright denies someone DNA testing that would likely prove them innocent in order to “finally put them to death” and move the financial burden from our minds. How do I categorize that? Is it collateral damage of too many people with too many views? Is it the most abysmal example of a human rights abdication I can think of? Is it secretly a positive thing because we should be cutting back on the amount of people on the planet anyway? I want to know.

We live in a country/planet where people are comfortable hurting people because they would feel bad allowing those people to live otherwise. We let people’s ignorance reign supreme. I know my friends are a small sample size of the population, but you are primarily not the people I’m referring to here. So tell me, how should I feel about evidence not mattering, equality not mattering, or uninformed and dramatic feelings dictating where I can get in life? Tell me how I should feel about my ever fleeting time being spent hearing the words [and debating the merit!] of the weakest and most evil among us.

It is becoming increasingly less about my effort or knowledge. I put in the time to try and be informed and productive. It doesn’t seem to matter. How should I feel about not mattering? Do I need to bring in all the theoretical examples I’m setting for people that I’ll never hear or see? Do I need to stop giving into the façade that my impact is truly as powerful as I’d like to believe? Is it better for me to adopt “that’s life” adages and fit? I want to know the secret. I want to know how to stomach it.

I’m feeling less and less justification for being happy. I’m asking because I don’t precisely know why I should continue making myself. It isn’t about what I have. It’s about what we are. Animals.

[268] Spilling My Guts

I can feel a rift forming and I think it’s because I tempted fate. (Impossibly vague and indirect)

I have the power to start a fight without anything actually fought over happening. I have an innate ability to send signals insanely deeper than an advertisement (fucking hopefully) or silly moral anecdote about life and your place in it. Is it a matter of respecting power or engaging and acknowledging it? You should respect the consequences of course, but the power? The power is there, it isn’t biased or judging. You just take it or you become subjected to it.

I don’t think or feel “macho” when I refer to power. Power for me is cause an effect. I’m a “moral” being simply out of cause and effect and it’s hard not to throw in the word cynic stating it that way. I genuinely can’t feel happier than when I can contribute. Be it a joke, a helping a hand, an idea. What the fuck ever. When I’m an active part of the process, my disposition grows, hence my obvious friendships. When my level of comedy or productivity grows because of them of course we should grow closer.

I’m not even positive what it means to say “the human component” to things. There is no humanity to me. There are bodies with feelings and potential. You play by the rules that make each other happy or you don’t. If there is some universal balance rule at play, it surely doesn’t give a shit which you “choose.” But there has to be a choice. Why become conscious if not to collapse that wave function and dictate? Why pick a mate, pick a friend, develop an agenda or sense or moral outrage if not because the choice projects a much more enjoyable ever present now? Maybe the particles don’t choose, maybe the cooperation allows for choice. Haha oh fuck I’m talking myself into free will. That’s kinda cool. #notbackedupscientifically….yet

I think I want to make a difference, but it’s very important for me that it makes sense. I can’t think of a bigger identity crisis than to consider everything I say just a happenstance relative position about an undisclosed and uncertain amount of constraints that I “feel super strongly” about in order to project some safe or contented future. When I attack something like religion, it’s not actually because I want you to feel bad. It’s not that I don’t think your feelings are genuine. It is simply that I’m insanely more concerned with honesty than I am about how you feel about me. Being “real” is hard. It’s often depressing. It’s not something you choose lightly. But I’d rather be dealing with the tear inducing bullshit of life with people I know who get it than jump into a pool of excuses and formality.

I want and expect the best. As a result I find myself moved towards dramatics. It’s one thing to get stuck in a day to day habit and another to flip the entire script with a pointed and calculated decision. I’d like the decision to be collective. I’d like a convergence on reality. There are too many barriers from people who don’t care or don’t realize the harm they cause. I can’t have them in my circle. I’m only good at cutting things off from practice. I wasn’t actually born this cold, and maintaining it is fucking insanely stressful.

The best course of action I can take is to run the experiment. If I manage to obtain some old fuck disposition with clichés like “that’s life” and “just be happy with such and such” I’m going to get there the hardest way possible. Barring some tragedy, you can spit in my face and call me a failure if I’m not pursuing the full extent of my vision. I hope you can find me dramatic, but not unreasonable. I hope you have my ideas well before I ever get to them. And I really fucking hope it’s worth it.  

[267] Stuck In The Middle With You

I’m stuck.

How do you balance your practically lost “hope” for things with a need to be practical? I mean, I genuinely have no hope for the “big picture” at this point. I think we’re going extinct. I think we’re all the most horrible kinds of people in the world. I think the planet is more than on its way gone at least for our long term or mass habitability. I don’t trust a single thing I eat. I think people are allowed to feel too safe which makes them too dumb and the majority of people will claim being “too nice” to do or say anything about it.

I don’t like staring at the fact that it isn’t about how much you work or are willing to do, it’s about whom you know and how much excess you have to waste to achieve your means. I’m the kind of person who is willing to work 23 hours a day. And even having done that I’ve found myself exactly where I am, stuck. The only thing I have going for me is that it drives me crazy. I want to be doing something more or better and frequently different.

I don’t really see the good in people. Sure you can catch them off guard and they’ll often opt to be polite or lend a hand. Not going out of your way to cause harm is not the same thing as being “good.” To me, it would be good to see more people constantly pissed off. I want to see people who can’t take their minds off of worldly problems to the extent that it alters their disposition and behavior. The level of comfort and complacency is what scares and bothers me the most. Everything is taken for granted.

When you take on responsibility for your actions, you aren’t allowed to see things that way. It simply doesn’t make sense for me to think that I’m going to just go about my happy day doing as I please and spending like it’s my job, and I’m going to be able to maintain a business. I don’t get to blame my feelings or actions on a divine plan or will so when I dictate the reasons you’re a friend of mine and the kind I’ll try to be to you, that’s mine to own. I don’t pretend that I’ll always have friends “just because.”

I often wonder where my responsibility stops and someone else’s kicks in. I’d like to think I can just chalk it up to history. Literally every financial hurdle I’ve had to deal with is the result of dealing with a greedy non-caring and massive business entity that knows the game of fucking people. It’s my responsibility to own the decision to open and when I need help, but it would just be wrong to say opening was a bad idea or that I somehow can’t do this. I mean, it’s a glorified lemonade stand. Everything about the food industry is wash, rinse, and repeat.

How do you have the conversation with the person who’s comfortable selling shoes out of a hole in the wall for 20 years that there is exceedingly more to life and even if they feel like they help or give back, clicking Paypal donation buttons or commenting “that’s just awful” about something you see on the news is not nearly enough. How do you persuade the primarily waddling masses that the problem isn’t their thyroid? Who hears the message that practically everything about their day-to-day is built on a culture of greed and death…like literally…people dying so you can complain that your screen isn’t loading fast enough.

And it sounds so angst ridden teenager or crazy hippie, but it’s actually a thing that bothers me. And you read about the pathetic little activist groups who don’t see how things work and let their emotions drive them to some country or to a picket line while business conducts as usual. It really is no wonder why some of these people choose to get violent. They know nothing is changing and it must feel like a dramatically lesser evil. Worse, think of taking these “feelers” and explaining to them their pet cause is misguided, naïve, or flat out wrong. Now you’re toying with a group already motivated to action.

This may speak to why I never feel like I can stop writing even when I’m not feeling like I’m saying much. Unless I see it in the news or sneakily slip it into conversation or trap someone in a rant, nothing gets discussed. No reason or plan is ever established. No time or respect is given to the circumstances. No moment of silence or reflection. We just go about our day.

[266] That Settles That

TL:DR People are stupid, I still hate them, things aren’t getting better.

I think that everything that can be known about us or the nature of our existence currently exists and has always existed. Knowledge is discovered, not invented. As a result of this thought, I’m on the endless pursuit of running thought experiments. Given X constraints under Y conditions, what can we probably discern about the nature of reality, if only with regard to the practical implications? I’m starting to get burnt out on news because, as with most things, I’m starting to see a very depressing pattern. When the world around us starts crashing, it’s always predicated on someone being willfully ignorant.

On the surface, it seems naïve to rally against the “stupid people.” You get the “well who’s really stupid, who are you to judge” conversation. You get model court cases where you present your side, they present theirs, and everyone loses because no one pointed out that it’s possible to argue for years under no or bad logic.

There are tell-tale behaviors of people who don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. There are explicit actions and statements the ignorant make. I could watch a hundred interviews and pick out the liar or the half-truth teller every time by simply sorting and counting instances in their language. Why can’t others seem to see it?

This honesty thing is lost on us. People don’t know how to tell the truth or hear the truth so they simply pass themselves between the various groups looking to take advantage. They squeeze the world into their tiny perspective and declare absolutes in utter disregard to reality, let alone nuance. Meanwhile the thinkers warn, the scientists inform, the peaceful campaign yet are all silenced because money reigns. The powerful have created a culture where what you have or the luxuries you can afford “win.” The part about you buying into their game is their real victory.

These campaigns against Wall Street, secret and not-so-secret bailouts, attacks on unions and education, debate about how your charitable donations are being used….name your issue, the center of the controversy is monetary. Who gets it and why. I so rarely see, if ever, discussions of human responsibility; instead its name calling, pointing fingers, scapegoating. They allow the issue to become obscure in the first press release, with the first interview until there's no telling how far the discourse degrades.

We’re so dumb we can’t learn or appreciate just how dumb we are. We’ve had an economic model for the past 60 years that has always degraded into “kill for freedom and democracy.” We try to apply mathematical models onto populations and pretend that there aren’t instantly things to be said about how they won’t apply. Or worse, we know they won’t work and persist in them anyway. In the mainstream, there’s no discussion about the human psychology behind people who hold terrible or oppressive ideas and how they’re used. There’s no discussion about how unhelpful the rhetoric is or the fact that it’s even rhetoric.

We’re quick to judge and conceptualize things in a sound bite. I click through a montage of the dead famous and accomplished and each one’s life is summed up as “So-and-so, philanthropist, died August 20, 2011.” What an insult to their motivations, to their potential message. If I'm remembered as anything less than an "Everythingist" something went wrong. We say things like “right to work” and “national school choice” and pretend they aren’t complete misnomers. We reinforce our delusions every time we repeat the script. Every time we give it a stage, that’s all we come to know, the only thing we can manifest. From Congress to shitty fast food jobs, until you raise the level of discourse and act in deliberate and informed ways, all you can do is manifest hatred and complaints and pass the problems onto the next person.

I’ve been told I’m naïve or dumb for what I expect from people. I, who [somehow!] is basically peaceful, accepting, desperate to get informed and work towards something that matters, I observe and draw conclusions, I don’t accept an ideology and proclaim it’s the only way. I manifest my will and my views in relationships, writings, and work. I am the kind of selfish that understands I’m “alone” in a social and real context. For me to disregard the potential for others is to deny my own. For me not to respect your ability to make good or bad decisions is to deny my own. I may be the result of a seemingly random confluence of forces, but what I currently am is mine to choose. The very fact of my life is the standard I expect from the world.

I don’t want to lose sight of the point of struggling. I kind of just want to sit and think. Or maybe just sit and breathe. The same story gets old. It’s the same ignorance and fear. I know I keep writing the same blog too.

[265] Tech(no)Logic

“Reality is that which, when you cease to believe, continues to exist”

I’m confused as to why people don’t opt to be logical. Let’s quickly do away with the clichés and non-starters:

“People aren’t logical, that’s just how it is. Thinking is hard and people are afraid. You don’t understand everything, so you can’t possibly make sense. Just because you think you’re so smart or logical doesn’t mean that’s actually the case. Who says in their own little way, they don’t make sense?”

I’m not talking about any other context than reality, as far as it can be discerned. I’m not culturally relative or sympathetic to feelings. I’ve been known to say that logic is “cold” in this way. What seems to be missed is that the more informed you are, the more explicit in the hows and whys of your actions, the more you legitimize your sympathies.

I hope people will call me out when I don’t make sense. Drugs; legalize all of them. Nothing about the legality will determine whether or not I will choose to do them. If alcohol can kill you and others you’re not smarter or morally righteous by opposing “harder” things. Abortion; not remotely wrong if you’re not shooting for late term. You “kill” more cells scratching your nose than you do if you abort properly. Less we forget how often a woman’s body naturally aborts. How about the death penalty? No one wants to see more people dead than me, but how we run it and what it’s supposed to do simply doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t deter crime and doesn’t send the message that “killing is wrong.” Then there’s sex. If it isn’t hurting anyone and you’re comfortable, keep on fucking whenever you please. Religious and spiritual issues is as simple as, if you become an incomprehensible or raving lunatic, I have a problem with you. When you unjustly condemn people or pollute knowledge, I have a problem with you. When you make shit up, I’m less than a fan.

It’s hard for me to call positions I hold as unreasonable. If you look at the consequences of my views, they tend to lead to less stress, more knowledge, acceptance, and freedom. They allow people to be honest instead of make excuses. What about that sounds bad? Surely I have been wrong on a multitude of issues over the years, but anyone who’s even remotely followed my blogs, or if you pop over to tumblr right now, you can see how once I learned more I changed and improved my view. At present, it’s hard to imagine some “aha!” moment where I need to revamp everything I think. It’d be great if it happened in light of new evidence, but most of the way I conduct myself and my thoughts on the world I would categorize as “oughts” of behavior for most people of similar circumstances.

It seems like most people’s biggest problem is lack of imagination. The world as it stands had to come from the intention of people before you. The changes I see happening, the role I want to establish for myself, and the various veins in which I’ll feel accomplished all stem from imagining the consequences of being rational. They come from playing to cause and effect instead of how you or I may feel. It bugs the living shit out of me when people pretend like there aren’t consequences. As if absolutely nothing can be foreseen.

I guess I just wanted to raise a flag for thinking. I’ve been slinking back into reading things related to religion and arguing again and it’s just sending my brain for a loop. There’s so much “folk knowledge” or many “common sensibilities” that I just wish people would check. Everyone’s dumb.

[264] Life and Everything in It

I exercise my right to be. Fundamentally, it’s the only assumption I need to assume to be true in order to forward any agenda. I perceive. I’m typing. It’s all just a chain of decisions, for better or worse, that are supposed to speak to what’s “me.”

Sometimes, I really don’t understand where I’m coming from. Other than a basic cost/benefit analysis, I don’t really get how I justify. Tonight, for example, I helped a drunken kid get home as I waited for my ride. We bullshitted about the Bulls and ultimately realized Derrick Rose would never touch Michael Jordan. Who thinks I give a fuck about this guy? What the hell possesses me to engage in cordial conversation and make sure he can find his stupid ass home?

Perhaps I sound cold. I’m just confused. Is there some innate thing pushing me towards being a good example? Is it just a result of my practicing? I didn’t even get his name. Maybe I just never want to see myself “falling” too far into the kind of person I know I could be. The more good acts in my favor, the less I need concern myself with flirting around dangerous edges. Does that seem right to you?

I’m fascinated by the power of a decision. I get it in my head that I own something, I will, regardless of what the fuck you think, accomplish something, and it happens. I literally dictate existence if I work towards it. This power I find stunning. I can become anyone. I can play any game. I can even tell you how and what I’m doing and then mold that into how I run something. There has to be something odd about that. Some form of red flag has to go up. I seem to only really relate to people who play with that fire.

It isn’t some cheap thrill either. It’s literally all I can think about. How I can be a person who’s been head over heels and work towards being endlessly dismissive. How I can care hopelessly deeply for a friend and be prepared to cut them down when they decide to crack. I don’t want to say that you “shouldn’t” or man not ought to have to deal with being both, but I can’t deny the conflict. I can’t pretend to know the medium in which I err on the side of positive while someone practically explicitly like me could pull some utterly atrocious shit.

I talk about the regulating influence of my friends. I talk about being the boss and owning shit. I allude to being the most evil/moral/cold/understanding etc. All for what? To better understand myself? To contribute to some haphazard idea of a collective consciousness? Maybe somewhere in the depths of my naiveté I’ll come to believe some future I shape was really about me and my intentions. It feels so crass and simple to say “because it feels good.” Like I’ve simply been conditioned enough to work towards relatively agreed upon societal good things from which to start my positive feedback hamster wheel.

All I can do is flow along with what I like. I like people with strong positions. Strong not meaning intransigently irrational and fear based. I like the simple human interactions and games. It isn’t a lie just because I know what’s going on. I like the idea of being better than someone; of fighting. I need to stop caring if I’m understood and just overtly be, regardless of where I’m drifting towards next. I can’t possibly be hijacked by the problems of the fucking hippies and head-up-their-asses conservatives for I’m far too dismissive of everything. The best I can “hope” for is a meager message that translates in ways that permeate deeper than your shitty opinions.   

[263] Mr. Lonely

Let me explain the nature of my loneliness. It’s very particular, potentially volatile, and stems from making an effort.

It isn’t that I don’t have friends. I have the best friends. They spend money at my shop so you know they’re not just faking it. They loan me their cars. They let me drink their alcohol and eat their food and crash on their couches and be a whiney bitch in blogs and not really give me shit about it while a few even put up with run-on sentences. It is nothing lacking between me and how I view my friends that speaks to this kind of loneliness.

It isn’t that I don’t have a supportive family. I have a dad that would go to the ends of the earth for me. I have, at least a few relatives, who I know if shit got heavy I could count on. Even in some very odd plane of existence I somehow get transported to, without my knowledge, my psychotic mom and bro sibling would probably help me if need be.

It isn’t that I think I’m too smart. I honestly feel like 90% of the shit I say is testing the waters. I wait for people to offer a differing or more refined idea. I want to be stumped and corrected early. I may respond vehemently or have to dig my way up after starting with an initially unclear premise, but the idea remains the same. I try to share my ideas so I can make sure I’m focusing on the right things the right way.

My loneliness comes from a state of always being “on.” I never really allow myself excuses. I’m never comfortable with the status quo. I loathe clichés and complacency. I want to be different. I need to be an example. I think I sometimes, okay often, try to see this in other people who very likely don’t give a shit. That doesn’t mean they give no shits, but they either don’t care about the same things I do, or don’t care to act in general against a perceivable wrong. Hell, if they even regard it as wrong to begin with. And I don’t feel right just saying “that’s okay.”

I don’t know how I would justify not fighting. Everything I want is grounded in this world, in my relationships, and in the examples I set. My life isn’t exactly a direct and calculated path, but nothing I do makes sense outside of the future I envision. I never feel more motivated than when I start to work through the details of that future. It’s perhaps my biggest current failing to be unable to empathize with being motivated by business as usual.

When I roll with the “smart kids” I hear echoes of disenfranchisement. “If only the world this, if only people that, I’m just going to disappear into an area of intrigue I find interesting and cross my fingers.” And then I lose touch. When I roll with the “regular” people it's “Well, all I can really think about is drugs or my boy/girlfriend and you wouldn’t believe how much I hate my job.” Obviously, again I’m lost. I talk to the old crowd, “This is how it’s done, how I remember it, what ‘worked’ for me, and I admire your spunk, but don’t get dragged down by all that ideal stuff, you’ll just get old and waste your life.” This, a prospect I find incredibly hard to believe. I read articles from the rich, poor, the connected, motivated, scientific, militant, and plain ignorant. All with their own personal resolve to sit from their perch and offer their brand of white noise.

People are happy to get lost in their own lives, and who can blame them? At what point do I turn myself from “that friend with a coffee shop” to “this person I genuinely believe wants to take over the world.”? I recognize my life as a shared experience. I don’t drink alone. It’s extremely important for me to get people on my page, and I’m terrible at it. I’ll save the obvious reasons why for another day, because I see enough in others to concern me well before they learn my disposition.

I’m genuinely worried about damaging my relationships for holding too strenuous a standard. I don’t really feel I have that much time to be perpetually misunderstood, misrepresented, or dragged into fights. I have no idea the extent to what I say matters or who reads what I put out there, but I put it out there. I have 265 blogs, thousands of pages, about who I am or am trying to be and why, and I don’t think I give people an excuse to be wrong about me.

But they are, and likely always will be.

If I didn’t care to try, it would be much, much easier. I’d hack away at a greasy grill, hide away in my basement and grow closer to TV characters than I ever could actual people. I’d get really good at guitar, and no one would hear me. I’d rearrange furniture and try not to think about the constant stream of foreboding information I read every day. My conversations would be safe, “friends” meek and indecisive.

It isn’t that I want to go so far as to say I don’t see people trying or that they don’t care. I think many if not most fall into that category, but nonetheless. I just don’t think the ones that get it, feel it as deeply. Understand just how far implications can carry. They can’t always tap into an endless stream of motivation. They don’t want to be the loudest, the greediest, most kind or be capable of doing the most evil. They don’t want to expect everything. I do.

[262] Housing a Counter Culture with My God Complex

Within a few months here, I should be able to start making bigger leaps into creating a counter-culture. Most of my speech and actions will be about the prospect of making money. It will be all about the money. Money does buy happiness, at least for people like me who want to get things done in a world controlled by idiots. Money speaks to idiots. While I’m distracting people with money, I’ll be able to sneak in all of my ideas.

And what are my ideas? One is being small and sustainable. Another is fulfilling actual needs. I’ll go further and say sacrificing in the short term for a better long term outcome. I think accountability and humility are important as well. I want to open businesses right next door to ones I think do it wrong. I don’t view things as competition that don’t stand for the same things I do. Starbucks in Target is simply a target, and an example I get to shine against.

I want to get the grunt work out of the way and make it easy for people. I want to play with the immoral people so they don’t have to. I want to create a pyramid scheme that rewards your effort instead of exploiting your good nature. I operate under the, what I’ll no longer denigrate as an assumption, that people are idiots. They will act from their ignorance well before they know how to act in their own best interest. I’m not going to appeal to the idiots. I’m going to give the people that understand and opportunity to be an example that the idiots will feel the consequences of ignoring.

These are monetary consequences, of course, because again, money speaks to idiots. When I get a building full of Hatsam’s that want to be comfortable and spend their time having fun, while getting the work done, then I’ve done something right. With a bottom line that depends on dependable people who motivate themselves and see problems for what they are, I don’t think you can lose. At the end of the day, when one number is higher than the other, the numbers that say “fuck all” to your opinions and ideals, you know to keep pressing forward.

I can only move as fast as the people who agree with me. I don’t make the endless appeals for people to get onboard to tell me their ideas for nothing. Culture changes when behavior does. Until I find the people to stand with me, I’ll keep having to invest my time in how I appeal to idiots verses refining the full implications of standing with good ideas. And I’m okay with that, for now. It’s why I’ll work 3 jobs and opt out of sleep. I refuse to wake up when I’m 30 and wonder where the last 6 years went. If you think it takes 10 years, I want to do it in 6 months. If you think it won’t work under the current paradigm, I’ll show you how it works in mine.

Changing and adapting are easier when you have the resources, and people can change more than they give themselves credit for. We live in a world that charges you to use money you’ve earned. Punishes you for using a service a handful of colluding companies provide. Persuades you that change takes a lot of time and is very hard. And all of that is bullshit once you start acting differently.

For as many reasons as I have to hate much of this world and fucking people in it, ultimately I am the keeper of my mood and my acts. I will always be more motivated by my ideas and what I can do for my friends than I will be dragged down by the oblivious idiots I will no doubt collaterally help while they rain criticism. I’ll try not to be the guy who adopts a puppy and then kicks it for shitting on the rug.  

[261] Brain Vomit

Legalize all drugs. From a “moral standpoint” if people die from alcohol your inability to swallow the connotative impact of the word heroine doesn’t make you more moral or logically consistent.

I’d rather not have hope then meagerly grasp at the frayed tapestry of the current state of our species. In other words, I don’t respect when people pray for things to get better because of their isolated and small perspective related to acts of kindness. Problems are systemic and take practice to alleviate. Your short term solution and hope mean DICK.

If there was a god, the only sin would be being unaware. You’d think of this being that is supposed to be in and around everything, seemingly existing to question and get to know itself, so the parts that just float on by and pretend like there isn’t a world around them would be the bits you want to weed out.

I’M NOT A FUCKING INFORMATION KIOSK. I’M NOT A FUCKING HAND SANITIZING DISPENSER. YOU WON’T BE BACK. I’M NOT A FUCKING BANK. YOU CAN’T BORROW A CUP OR PAPER TOWELS, THAT SHIT COSTS ME MONEY.

I understand that most people don’t want my ideas. I’m reality based. I must have no ideas how to get around this. How naïve I must sound when I say I’m in the business of ideas. Clearly, I must not know how successful businesses got that way. Clearly, I’m thinking too small.

There’s something wrong with a system that has you graduate college, open your own business, and still requires you to work all night on the side while the corporate umbrella you’ve chosen bleeds you with rent. That second job has 2 ½ hour orientations that go over how to wash your hands and mop a floor. Why bother with school in the first place if our fast food jobs can teach us? In universal terms, I’m no better or worse than anybody. In the realm where we pretend judging people matters, I’ve never felt so degraded. I’m hopelessly better than someone who needs to be explained to them how to carry on cleanly in a workplace.

I get the feeling people shy away from talking to me or offering advice because they think I’ll jump down their throat or won’t appreciate where they’re coming from. This isn’t the case. I simply don’t want obvious advice. I literally never again want someone to tell me I should advertise. It insults your own capacity for thinking and only wears on my spirit.

I think people need to be controlled by something, but they should pick better things than the banks, Wall Street, and the government to do it. I want to take of the world. “I” is a collection of the ideas that would serve to show cause and effect tendencies that have proven to result in improved human happiness and productivity. “The world” is simply the medium in which we actualize my intentions. It’s an easier task than people realize and it can manifest in a million ways.

If everything isn’t designed to screw you, we need better metrics for establishing what those things are. It makes no sense to say “corporations are evil.” The “We’re No. 1!” status of a company is irrelevant. I don’t really care if you get free lunch and sing on a jukebox at your company, how are you using your employees and your influence to change the very corporate world? What other standards are you holding yourself to once you get beyond the flash?

90% of the music I reject sounds like a failed attempt at something “electro” or played out super chill indie crap. I won’t say songwriting is dead, but I think ease of access and a completely retarded younger generation has pushed it to the margin.

One of the integral factors for why I will always and consistently win, if only eventually, is that I am not afraid. Better said, I don’t allow myself to be arrested or impeded because of fear. Given that I don’t live a ridiculously troubled or traumatic life it’s hard to site a “hardcore” example. Just, when shit gets serious, I get very calm. I’ll look more hysterical at seemingly stupid and petty shit than I ever will if a bomb actually goes off.

I need to get more organized. If you’ve tuned in this far, I offer this blog as evidence. I read once that the more we try to multitask, the worse we are at it, and I only keep adding things to my plate.

A driving force for my actions, or inaction, is the idea that all things are connected. Why it can never be “just think about the money now” is because the moral has to carry or I’ve defeated the purpose. Nor can you simply push a moral without caring about how and if it’s understood. People may not know, or just forget when I tell them, nothing I genuinely care about or have worked towards, have I ever failed at. It’s an extremely long game I’m playing, and it’s something I’ve never stopped caring about.

[260] Oblivious

How can you miss it?
You can practically taste it.
How are you? HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU!?

Oblivious nimrods stroll on by to the beat of their own dumb…thoughts?
I shudder at the implication.
We the people of this tuned out nation missing the train standing at the station.
Oblivious is all that describes you.
The ubiquitous ridiculousness of your being unable to maintain a stable awareness of the world in which you are hopeless to collapse into a function is beyond me and certainly beyond you.

Wave goodbye to your mind’s eye that may clue you into to the subtleties like the rocks I would use to wake you.
Condemn you to the stone-age where a consumed slave state you embody would reign supreme.
A being vile and obscure the only remedy a watcher from on high could take would be annihilation. It’s not like you exist anyway, right? I’M SPEAKING TO YOU!

Or more what you would be, could be, should be if even the moral precepts are to be believed. Conceived in minds you’ll never know or know you should know how to understand.
A sham and shallow pride you imbibe, smile wider honey, I want to get your teeth just right.
The biting and grating in my head makes me yearn for something more, something pure like what keeps your tongue from spewing bile in my general direction.

Never a time for reflection, rejection stinging the puddles you haven’t jumped in.
Affection shared for all that was never there, never cared, unaware.
Oblivious to how obsequious you are to the tides and the ebbs and the flows of the two tone time changes.

You aren’t different, you aren’t special, and I hope it haunts you, a daunting reminder as to why you get blinder and blinder as it sinks beneath your skin. As you grow fonder of your deepest sin, taking for granted what you’ll never acknowledge lies only within.  

[259] Random Rhyme Time 4: A Holiday Ejaculation

Commercialism, change the channel, a panel to discuss the merits of your wardrobe. Wartime, get in line to fight for greed, you need that new tv, you bleed for the opportunity. I scream cus I hate you, ain’t nothing new. What you see before you is lies, how you trust your eyes is beyond me. How you trust your ties, just wait n see how they fuck you, out luck you, run you over and duck you. It ain’t real and won’t make you feel any better bout yourself or your ills.

But keep it flowing hunny, it’s only money and in time your mind will subdue your doubts with the chim chime of the register. Beggin her to put down your card, put the flames out. Prayin she aint devout like a mega church. Stuffing your life into a closet, still fits, the doors broke and I ain’t got the two dimes to fix it. This shit, not comfy and warm just tattered and torn like your heart from your chest, some alien newborn. Your teeth too white and your hairs just might slip out of place like yo nipple from your tit job. Not rim job slut, ain’t no time to be witty, we conclude this hearing bout yo saggy ass titty.

Pause. Reflect. Reload the check book, eject and look at the mess you just made. Quite the sticky situation I’d say. How’s it taste? Worthy of a turkey baste? Many thanks on this day to appreciate aye bay bay baby batter, up, the bird, flies to third, dinner was great! I’ll take it from hur. Turn and cough, oh now that’s where we get off, what a treat, footsy time under way, uncle Ray? Weak sauce.

Who’s got the time? We best get going now. Can’t be late for the showing how, we’re oh so proud of the lessons we teach our little bastards running round. Let’s dig a hole you pick out by the finger full, that ain’t dirt under your nails, just the whole wide wonder world. Nuggets to take, swallow and rake up knowledge, not a lesson for college. Be loyal to your brand, a fanatical fan, writing letters saying you Da Man! Who laid out the script and made you like this, invite this, into your life’s list of shit to own and call your soul.

Consume, it won’t suck like a vacuum, it’ll fill you up, make you full of shit you never knew you’d want. When you’re bloated and tired, dial it back for a while and admire your empire of treasures. Shining diamond necklace takes the eyes off your teeth that don’t see Crest, out they fall, back to the mall for another round to forget what who you are, cus who you aren’t is a person with dignity, with class, who won’t sell their ass on this black market. A target, the victim, woe is me I’ve got the symptoms, I need to do it, it’s my weakness, let me keep this! Sold.

[256] The Bottom Line

I’ll sell you a dream. I’ll make you believe. Try me, buy me, hold me, love me. Make sure your time is spent tryin to find what went out from your life and how it was spent. Not up for you to decide if it was right or wrong, just tryin to get by and buy some semblance of happiness. I’ll sell you a dream, like sweet cream you’ll be smooth and lean like the mean machine that brought you to the show. 99 cents doesn’t that sound great? Doesn’t That Sound Great!?! 99 problems, heart attack to come. It’s a gun to your head poppin off at the seams. What it seems to me is that you could use a, yous a loser, choose a new one, a band aide, a great escape from the scrape to get by.

I’ll sell you a dream. You’ll have buckets of money, yes duckets for hunnies, and peace. Your mind at ease, don’t have to fall to your knees thanking sleaze for this chance to beat your meat. But please, your prey, you must obey and pay it backward. Fuck the mall? FUCK ‘EM ALL! It’s our world son, cashing in, you’re so dumb. There’s a lesson in store, work to be poor, stomp your foot, slam the door, don’t try to defy in spite of their lies, their spiteful lives. There empty tries to find a reason to keep dreaming, their lives well spent pleading, repeating mistakes until you can’t take it, you’re crippled and stripping what you never had from those who can’t bring themselves to fake it like you.

What’s it gonna take to make you, break your foot off in an ass and say thank you, this opportunity is amazing I’m gracious, the pugnacious bastard in me wants you to taste this. Aimin for your head, here’s the pitch, I’m swingin for the fences you never cared to mend. Wring out your throat for a single note of truth as you struggle and plead with your eyes, balling up, bulging out for a moments reprieve. How’s it taste? Like humble pie? So that’s what I’ve been choking down all this time.

[258] Pick My Battles

Here’s a paraphrased excerpt of a line of “reasoning” I heard the other day.

“We can’t prove or show to be true the things revealed to us by Christ or in the bible to be true. It’s only after we accept on faith that what we’ve been told is true that we can start to draw some conclusions. After we accept that Christ died for us, then we can know that it was because he loved us and it was to save us from sin.”

This still shakes me to my core. How about this: “Once I accept on faith that black people are all about of an African cult, I can draw some important conclusions. They are inferior and dirty. I mean look at their skin, it matches dirt! Clearly God was setting us up to draw this inference and guide us away from this lowly race.”

Why is reasoning to be dammed? Someone explain to me in terms that make sense and not “just because people are different” how you allow yourself to say things so abjectly failing. I literally could not draw a closer analogy to what happens when you just accept some premise, let alone a divine one because it makes you feel good or that’s what you’re used to or whatever else.

The sickening idea isn’t that you want to believe in something; it’s that you simply don’t care to recognize that you aren’t making any sense! The obvious logical person in me asks, how can I get upset that someone who isn’t making sense can’t reason that they aren’t in fact making sense? But it then goes further into how they can draw proper conclusions about ANYTHING and EVERYTHING else less this one topic. As a result, faith becomes deliberate and calculated stupidity. I don’t care if you only feel like it influences a small part or every decision in your life, you are choosing, very scarily and clear mindedly, to go against making sense.

You didn’t get into a bad relationship because a god is testing you; you probably just had shitty role models and terrible ideas about yourself. You don’t deserve anything, you’re acted upon by a confluence of forces that you pray turns out into a net positive feeling that you can surmise your life into.

This is impossibly frustrating. What the hell am I fighting for? If no matter what I accomplish, no matter what example I set, it’s all going to degrade into society collectively breaking down and justifying how to pretend otherwise? I’ve truly never understood super villain reasoning like I do now.

“These idiots understand nothing but violence and fear, us vs. them, so I’ll play by their rules and get them to unite against the only thing that provides them the truth they fear is stained by too much reality.”

“Holy shit! They’ll believe in ANYTHING! I should do any number of the same steps that a cult, pyramid scheme, or ‘charitable organization’ has done to bilk them for every penny.”

“So what if I pollute or kill or steal, most people are too lazy to even state they may not like what I’m doing, and by the time anything gets changed, we’ll all be dead and I’ll have accomplished my goal.”

Deliberate and calculated stupidity needs to be eradicated, not excused. You’re not fucking children. OH wait….

[257] I Want, I Think, I Wish, I Need

I want to speed up so I can slow down. I want to be rich so I can act like I’m poor. I want to get in shape so I can eat like a glutton. I want to be moral to spite the immoral, then immoral to spite the doubtful. I want to control the world and to set it on fire. I want to hit and hit and hit and hit and never get out of bed. Every lesson I learn I want to turn on its head and sometimes I think how nice it would be to believe in things that aren’t there. I need to forget that I judge something as boring or mundane before I get the will to master it. I want to know almost everything, but never seem to care to remember.

I want to teach people how to think while being comfortable with them thinking whatever they want. I want to establish honorable distinctions between child and adult, mature and immature, professional and non-professional. I want definitions to matter more and disappear. I want to have it all and give it all away. I want to organize chaotic messes and then create more of a mess. I want my outside to match my inside. I want implicit relationships. I want to steal from enough sources to look unique.

I think I have an immeasurable impact that walks a very fine line of obscurity. I think I would do just fine in too many conflicting situations. I think it’s dumb to respect the cynic and hate the intellectual. I think too much. I think judging people is important, necessary, and clearly at the heart of every relationship. I think being a counterexample is not the same thing as being a hypocrite. I think people don’t want to believe I know too much about them. I don’t think I get enough credit for admitting when I’m wrong.

I wish that lasting change wasn’t something of an oxymoron. I wish I was surprised more often. I wish I could download information into my head. I wish I could be in a dream state for a week. I wish that I never experienced time going by too quickly. I wish it wasn’t about getting by. I wish my money wasn’t already spent. I wish I could understand how I know there will be a tipping point.

I need external forces to distract me and keep me in check. I need to see strong examples of what I believe in. I need to not be the only one trying to humble myself. I need to loathe idiots. I need to show I respect what’s gotten me here. I need to be an example.

[255] Talkin' Bout My Generation

Inspiration Here

I don’t think we dwell enough on implications and consequences. I think the people that do write things like John Cheese and try to wake the rest of the world up to the often not pretty underlying reality going on beyond your fears and ego are vitally important. At the risk of sounding impossibly ironic, I think the current zeitgeist, not just with my generation, giving or taking a few years, is one of entitled self-important bullshit. Peoples’ attitudes anymore don’t simply disgust me, they frighten me. Any sort of explanation that comes in to make sense of why I feel this way I think deserves a pause to take note.

I hear the words oblivious and ignorant tossed around frequently. I use them a fair share myself. Given that we live in a technology and information driven age, it’s fair to assume that by the day we are growing more and more ignorant of the growing number of things that are shaping our world. The one’s currently investigating are swallowed up in the infinite amount of amateur bloggers and loosely defined “journalists.” The ones who’ve had a chance to look back at how things used to operate are pressured to acclimate or become irrelevant. This new hybrid cultivation I can barely bring myself to use the word “culture” to describe seems fundamentally unstable or at least eerily flawed.

What do I mean? John speaks to it in the article. Human interaction, learning from mistakes, and being brought to your knees by a lot of crippling facts about reality. An entire generation, let alone an overall culture that espouses doing the opposite of these things, is going to have potentially very dangerous consequences. People did use to have to work constantly at dangerous or mundane jobs to ensure the very survival of their family. Now, we treat moving back home or working a minimum wage job as if we were slaves. [More accurate would be indentured servant, but still too heavily connotative :P]

Oh, you have to track your shipment to some unknown location in the mall? Your life is super stressful. You mean you spend a full 4 minutes! Trying to teach an Asian kid how to say “pretzel-dog” instead of hamburger? I wouldn’t trade for that if there were a gun to my head. Never mind the inescapable background noise of high school politics and gossip, that’s a given, but it’s truly a wonder how you survive sometimes under such harsh conditions. You might be quick to point out this is just informal conversation, people are really thinking all sorts of things that just aren’t polite. Short answer; they aren’t.

But that speaks more to the older 20’s and 30’s crowd. The worst are the kids my age or younger. They’re informed by the ones who aspired to be “slackers” or anti-establishment. They are mommy’s credit card holder and “only” spent $150 dollars on a pair of jeans and wrist scrunchies. I frankly dread when they come up to the kiosk because I don’t know any words that can beat pretentious, entitled, oblivious, etc. Maybe it isn’t a surprise they’ve developed this “old world money” attitude. They have been given everything and more their whole lives.

I’m most troubled by the culture of ignorance; one that fears even allowing for the words fear, wrong, or mistake. The one where 13 year olds post statuses about their failing love life culminating to a drunk send-off before they kill themselves. How man missed or failed conversations had to go on between him and his parents or friends in order for something like that to even be conceivable? It’s probably safe to say that neither he, nor his parents nor friends even have a conception of love that makes sense. They’ve never been given or shown an example of a relationship that doesn’t end in some movie-clichéd calamity. It can become the norm to freak the fuck out at every scary thing you’ve never been taught to deal with.

Everything has implications, and anything implies everything. If you download a game, you can download any game, every game. If you learn how to make an excuse, you can make any excuse, every excuse. If you don’t learn or forget something, you can forget or not learn anything and everything. And as much as I hate all-inclusive dramatic language, I don’t think it’s a secret why history repeats itself. I think when you look, it’s not hard to see into what people do when they are afraid, or dumb, or ignorant, and the differences therein.

All I’m saying is I’m going to clean up when all those young whipper-snappers lose all knowledge of how to flirt, treat anything as more important than themselves, and put all of their emotional value and self-worth into something so easily disrupted by a well-placed EMP.

[254] Majority Rules

But it isn’t really about me.

Whatever we are, however you qualify yourself or your personality, however you qualify your intrinsic human rights or moral obligations, whatever goals you establish and evils you denote, even your very purpose isn’t about “you.”

You are a slave to your mind. You are the circumstantial electrical firings of the synapses in your brain. Your idiosyncrasies aren’t a deliberate attempt to be unique; they are triggered, unlocked, and practically inevitable given enough time and enough subjects. Your will power will never outmatch your base animal.

And what an animal that is.

“Real” to me is any intrinsically true statement. So many people claim to be real because, to them, the truth of their feelings or view cannot be any more present. I try to create what is real. To put it another way, as much as I can talk and seemingly get random or very hard to understand, everyone can identify a coffee shop….if only eventually. Right now I’m stagnant. I see the end of the road of whatever business I open. My mind is living in the reality I want to create now, and it’s driving me a tad insane.

I don’t really see the point in waiting. Why wait for permission? Why get held up on someone’s weaker stance or lacking morality? Don’t put it to a vote, fucking act. Apparently this isn’t a popular opinion until shit goes horribly wrong. We’re happy to go along like nothing has changed until we recognize signals from out base animal. We’re hurt, we’re hungry, and we’re tired or bored. This is all I see Occupy whatever as. A ton of basically idiots finally getting too many signals from their environment currently designed to endanger their lives.

But I don’t really want to talk about Occupy. I feel like I’m working to make myself tired. Build build build so I can look back and notice all the shit it’s built upon only to grow so tired constantly turning it over in my head for any conceivable way it could’ve gone and not been marred by shit. But it will never happen. I’ll always have to opt for optimism and put up with time wasting, life draining, undignified and amoral happenstance. I don’t know how to feel about this. I barely think I want to continue thinking about it. As if I had a choice.

I’ll never know what you think; I’ll only see how you act. Nothing I’m doing makes sense to me in the context of you; it only makes sense to me with you embedded in my context. So then from where am I coming? I want to enable the ideas? The ideas are fleeting, assumed, fundamentally prone to failure and scarily easily forgotten. What else do you have but them, though? What if your ideas are rooted in something you can’t even define like abstract notions about happiness or comfort or objectivity and “being on the level?” Do you just chug along until enough time has gone by that you forgot what upset you a few months earlier?

Good luck talking to people about it. You might get the splendid opportunity to hear what they always tell you. Good luck writing about it. You might get the special treat of going in circles or retyping ninety percent of a previous post. All you feel like doing is acting. You want to engage and make things sway. You want to make real what is previously unknown or utterly foreign. You want control. Why? Is the idea of not having it that terrifying? Is complacency a deep root of evil? You assume so for now.

Just be worth it.

[253] Where I'm Going, Where I've Been

I feel like the last three weeks has gone by too fast. Switching from sleeping in and staying up all night and being down for any event at any time to waking up every morning to run a coffee shop has put me in a dreadful routine reminiscent of high school. I need to regroup and remember that even though I’m not finding the time as often as I like, I haven’t lost sight of how and why I’m operating. My thoughts haven’t slowed and my ideas still need to evolve per my environment’s lesson plan.

The more I engage with people outside of my finely tuned bubble, the more I want to retract. My throw away statements about the stupidity or evil nature of people were not conceived upon nothing. Daily reminders of why I’ve managed to think the way I do start to take their toll.

I mean what could be greater than owning your own business? Well, when you own it in the mall, you don’t make your own hours. My goal is to have my time. My time is currently dictated by the mall hours and bills. I assure you this is something I will not perpetuate any longer than I have to. It’s also quite the unpleasant thought to realize just how unpredictable the day to day mall traffic is.

I’m fascinated by the sentiments like “starting a business is hard in this economy” and “70% of business fail within the first year, whatever else percent in the first 3 months.” This to me obscures the point. People fail, not business. I would fail if my first inclination was to get a massive loan. I would be failing if, on the days I wasn’t breaking even, I was in the hole for more than a trip to biolife or a part time job. There are stores in and out of this mall every 3 months, not because they don’t serve the “right” food or the clothes, but because they don’t accurately depict how good or bad an idea it is for someone like them to be selling a product.

My worst case scenario is a small amount of debt that literally could be paid with a part time job in a matter of 3 to 6 months. And, in that scenario I still have a kiosk that can be transported to better places. And, though horribly annoying shit may plague me at this mall; it won’t go on longer than a year. I say this not to brag, but to hopefully persuade people that the only thing separating success from failure, “good” from “bad” is a little common sense and honesty. When you pick a goal that highlights your morality and practicality instead of espouses greed, it takes away all of the alleged stress that’s supposed to come with starting a new business.

What gets to me, what has always gotten to me, are the stupid fucking people. It’s when I’m lied to and being made to play into a corporate game. It’s when someone makes it their goal, their habit even, to take advantage. This isn’t to pretend there aren’t diamonds in the ruff, but I’ve got enough diamonds that I want to work with. Little beacons of advice don’t feel like an oasis, they just remind me of a pattern of subjugation and meager peasant dissonance. There are no more rebels or fighters behind the complaints of the mall staff, than there are students threatening mutiny towards a teacher. At the end of the day it’s just a spit ball.

And what good I’d be doing trying to persuade them that I’m after something different. Yes, I want to pay the bills too, but I’m more after the whole changing the world thing. Or, at least a good portion of ideas in whatever portions of the world I make it to. I need to raise my prices? Because I’m not as greedy as you? Because I don’t understand my bills, or rent, or what? Because I need to pretend that making lattes or mochas is especially hard or expensive? Oh I know! The extra 10 dollars I make over the next 3 days is going to help me more than the good will of people who I’ve told I’m not trying to overcharge.

It just gets old. I see the patterns people get themselves into. “This mall sucks! Instead of joining together and putting some pressure on it to respect its vendors and change something, I’m just going to leave or rely on something else.” “These corporate games suck! I’m just going to give up doing what I think I’d like and resolve myself to something simpler.” Yes, fighting is a risk, but when you all stand against some very obvious and unjust bullshit, you move the risk to the people who were asking for it. Granted, fighting isn't for everyone, but I at least have a personal vendetta against resolving myself and becoming complacent. It also kind of sucks when the handful of small vendors have more invested than the majority of inline stores. :-/

I will move as fast as I’m able. When I had nothing but saved cash, the rent paid, and a good portion of my friends on board, I opted for party house. I wanted a place where people could be free to have fun, be entertained, and be safe enough. Of course it got taken advantage of, but that doesn’t mean I somehow lost my goal or forgot why I did it. I want to do the same in business. Run with what works, grow as I can, be an example for those ready to appreciate where and why I’m coming from. I love hearing about things like Panera with the pay what you can system. I want to get to a point where I can do shit like that, make it less about the money and more about feeding people. Maybe less about the “status” of drinking Starbucks (for the record, I don’t understand that even remotely) and more about indulging responsibility.

Here’s the rub. I’ll give it up if my ideas won’t hold in this society. If most people are somehow against saving money, against fighting greed or being needless consumers, or simply refuse to see the utility of being basically a good person who tries to enjoy their time, I’m done. I’ll go live in a shack and teach surf lessons or something. The mental turmoil of resolving that with living in a world even remotely resembling sanity would not be worth it. The real problem is me thinking this isn’t such an unlikely scenario. Prove me wrong?

But to not end on a sour note. Everyone that does enjoy our drinks, and what I'm doing, and has done nothing but been supportive, thank you, and you're exactly what I'm working for. Yes, this current routine sucks, and the some of my interactions with people in the "business world" have sucked, and days where there's seven people in the mall suck, it's the thoughts of what's to come that keeps me going. Like getting to a place where I can be helpful when you're almost kicked out of school or something ;). And I revel in the idea of being the one to remind you that getting drunk and doing stupid shit with your friends is always going to be fun no matter how old or "mature" you get.

I guess the whole point of this was to say that I know where I'm coming from and I hope it's somewhere the people I'm working for can respect. I'll bitch all day, but I won't forget.