Broken links, chains, furniture, guitars, hearts, limbs, relationships... Why can't we hold onto something more stable? If I had a moment where I could read a person's mind, even one, that would be a wish come true. People are so complex, so intriguing, so mysterious. It is impossible to know the truth from the words that come out of a person's mouth. The distance between the language, the thought and the emotion is miles apart. So I ask, why isn't there something stable? Something that is certain, some foundation upon which we can lay all others upon.
I lost my faith in a being such as 'god' a long time ago. That can't be grounding for me. What do I trust then? If I follow a little bit of Descartes and claim that I ought to believe that I am real and leave apart the rest of his philosophy, I would go insane. I guess one option is to just redeem myself by claiming that I am right and the rest is just bullocks. People, this computer, this keyboard is all simply a figment of my imagination. We are all brains in vats...
The problem is, I can rationalize all of these valid ideas and contentions, but it is in my emotions that I know I can't ground myself on the idea that I am the only one here and everything else just happens to be at my disposal, for my use, to do with as I please. Then the senses take over and all I can see are polar opposites and the million shades of gray in the middle to muse over.
XOX
Sunday, 29 May 2011
Tuesday, 24 May 2011
Pessimistically Optimistic.
How can there be beauty and horror in the same darn thing? Is it what we bring to the circumstance, or what the circumstance brings to us? Are we afraid of the dark, or is the dark afraid of us? Is it simple or are we just leaving something out of the complicated picture? I could stop and stare and wait and lie in this pondering forever and still not be finished the task of doing some intense inner searching for forever. I wish it were black and white and that those neutral didn't mix and there was no gray. I wish it was easy to blame the objects of our senses and claim that they made us scared, they made us happy, and they made us sad... but, we all know none of that blame game is true... or is it simply not true, but not false either?
I keep waiting for that moment when I can finally see the light in the darkness and the darkness in the light. The latter seems easier to find than the former. I guess that means that I am always half glass empty. Forever seems too long and life... short. Eternity seems selfish and life, selfless. So, are we inherently selfless? Are we forgivers, not sinners, because we couldn't possibly sin. Are we afraid of death or is death a permanent truth that we can't evade. The metaphors, the symbols, the ideas, the thoughts, are they real, or simply creations of the physical realm that we can't see. Is reason, is thought, that sense that we ought to be relating to, to understand that we are confined to our five sense and can't fathom anything outside of it? Is that the mode to reach an entirely DIFFERENT way of thinking?
Right here, in this moment, being alive, is a good thing, or is it?
We are complicated, not simple. Had we been simple, one brain couldn't control, manipulate or destroy the other.
Put two minds together in a room and you have war for each one tries to out-wit the other. With one mind, a person goes insane.
I keep waiting for that moment when I can finally see the light in the darkness and the darkness in the light. The latter seems easier to find than the former. I guess that means that I am always half glass empty. Forever seems too long and life... short. Eternity seems selfish and life, selfless. So, are we inherently selfless? Are we forgivers, not sinners, because we couldn't possibly sin. Are we afraid of death or is death a permanent truth that we can't evade. The metaphors, the symbols, the ideas, the thoughts, are they real, or simply creations of the physical realm that we can't see. Is reason, is thought, that sense that we ought to be relating to, to understand that we are confined to our five sense and can't fathom anything outside of it? Is that the mode to reach an entirely DIFFERENT way of thinking?
Right here, in this moment, being alive, is a good thing, or is it?
We are complicated, not simple. Had we been simple, one brain couldn't control, manipulate or destroy the other.
Put two minds together in a room and you have war for each one tries to out-wit the other. With one mind, a person goes insane.
Saturday, 21 May 2011
The Warmth I Feel Beside Me...
So lately, since I began to think more about this idea that people have in their minds that we are protected by some higher entity, God or not, I have realized that there seems to be no satisfaction left in the idea that we are natural, organic beings. We claim to be different from animals and other species, because of this one faculty called rationality and our ability because of it to dominate over them, but our inability to control our passion, raw emotion and desire, proves otherwise. Yes, here I am taking one vice and claiming that it makes us who we are. I think we are a little too hasty in claiming that we are different from the creatures we premeditate our differences out of. I am not condoning killing other humans, as animals do - kill each other, that would be barbaric, but I am saying that it does happen. We claim that this is a defect in the brain and that the "good" people are the ones that are civilized. Is civility then a product of suppression of raw emotion? Or is it that of self-control? And, when does this self-control get you no where?
In order that we understand who WE are, who I am, and what the HUMAN BEINGS as a species' role is in the world, we have to look to other beings, deconstruct their mental conditioning, their thoughts, their actions, their manners of being and their place in the world. This might as well be the project of biology, anthropology and a definitive applicability of the laws of physics. We are past the survival stage... the one where we could just as well be considered animals. But, are we? We shove and push it down our own throats that we are "better than that", but are we? Because, really, we do have multiple sex partners, follow the theory of the "survival of the fittest" and continue to criticize the poor for the inability to keep it in their pants or for their lack of education. The contradiction that we live under is that we (as privileged folk) live like we do because we have no worry of the next meal. Had we had to worry about the next grain of rice, some crazy individuals stealing our daughters to sell them off to prostitution (be it our husbands or other male authority figures, or ourselves out of desperation), other crazy individuals or animals feeding off of our food, our bodies, or worrying about the next wave of disease, we wouldn't have the time nor the moments to think about our lives, to think about the complex ways the world works. We would just be, just those animals, living just like them, which, lest we forget, 70% of the world's human population is conditioned to live under.
So, I ask myself, as organic creatures, ought we to give up our so called progress in terms of technology? The mechanisms, artificial, that we have created that help us KNOW more... without the practical forbearing on our mentality. No reality, just virtual reality.
That's all for now.
XOX
In order that we understand who WE are, who I am, and what the HUMAN BEINGS as a species' role is in the world, we have to look to other beings, deconstruct their mental conditioning, their thoughts, their actions, their manners of being and their place in the world. This might as well be the project of biology, anthropology and a definitive applicability of the laws of physics. We are past the survival stage... the one where we could just as well be considered animals. But, are we? We shove and push it down our own throats that we are "better than that", but are we? Because, really, we do have multiple sex partners, follow the theory of the "survival of the fittest" and continue to criticize the poor for the inability to keep it in their pants or for their lack of education. The contradiction that we live under is that we (as privileged folk) live like we do because we have no worry of the next meal. Had we had to worry about the next grain of rice, some crazy individuals stealing our daughters to sell them off to prostitution (be it our husbands or other male authority figures, or ourselves out of desperation), other crazy individuals or animals feeding off of our food, our bodies, or worrying about the next wave of disease, we wouldn't have the time nor the moments to think about our lives, to think about the complex ways the world works. We would just be, just those animals, living just like them, which, lest we forget, 70% of the world's human population is conditioned to live under.
So, I ask myself, as organic creatures, ought we to give up our so called progress in terms of technology? The mechanisms, artificial, that we have created that help us KNOW more... without the practical forbearing on our mentality. No reality, just virtual reality.
That's all for now.
XOX
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
Plastic Hearts.
A little late to be thinking about V-day, but cupid can be a little cruel and shoot arrows in the wrong direction at the worst of times. I believe that in the 21st century, money does buy love. Yeah, yeah, I know it's that feeling, that tingly, oogly, lovey dovey feeling. Sure... please come back to me after the honeymoon stage of the romance and tell me you have that same feeling. Maybe, I am just ranting about this 'lovey dovey' feeling, because I envy the people who have it, for a lifetime. But, my point still is, there is a monetary standard to love now that makes it seem so fake and so unreal.
Well, let's check out the folks that claim unconditional love is possible (leave aside god's love for the sake of simplicity). The absurd phrases that start with 'no matter what' and end with '...I still love you'. Gawk! Are we obsessed with losing the love or just the connection we had for a very long time? Or is it just that we want to be saintly and forgiving and morally 'in the right'. I suppose, anyone can find that kind of love. But, it could be confused with admiration for persons with truly wretched minds. (I am thinking of all those people who join cults and praise its leader in admiration --- that truly is unconditional love) And, then again, how much more wretched do we have to be aside from simply having a mind!
So, now I wonder, are we caught up in a world of loving pretenders or pretending to love? I feel a little like Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City saying that, but I suppose she would ponder over something like this - had she been a real person. We all have checklists: not the brunettes, not the isolated maniacs, the rock star, the Irish man, the duplicate of Jessica Alba, and so on. Are we checklist-ing ourselves into a lifetime of disappointment and indirectly setting up standards that we know we can't possible sustain in reality?
I suppose we could argue that dreaming is always healthy, but does that justify waiting for the person with the perfect score on the checklist and wasting time, money and emotions on the ones that don't? One of two ways again: yes and no. The ones that argue yes, have had no pleasure of having experimented with a ton or few people and grown to know that the checklist is superficial or needs alteration. The ones that argue no, have been either crazed out or don't believe in waiting for their perfect mate.
Whichever category you fall under, it seems clear that neither really satisfies the inner urge to know somebody so well that you can be ANYTHING to them. No relationship definition necessary. No control, just a simple letting go. Of course, this relationship is impossible unless one is crazy. I digress. What it also doesn't satisfy is one of the points on the checklist: will he/she make me happy in the future by societal standards? Buying a house, a car, furniture, a steady job... and we are back to the checklists again. No love in sight. Just checklists and whether or not they sustain that 'lovey dovey' feeling long enough so that there is no question of separation. Let's face it: love is not just a feeling, unless you were suspended in time and space and let yourself simply live in the X moment when you felt Y with particular person Z. The practicalities to it are endless and ones that we have never been told at childhood.
I'd suggest an end to the publication of the princess stories for children and the superhero comics for boys, but it would be a shame to not let the children reading them be a little brainwashed by the unreality and then come to terms with it later.
That's all for now.
XOX
Well, let's check out the folks that claim unconditional love is possible (leave aside god's love for the sake of simplicity). The absurd phrases that start with 'no matter what' and end with '...I still love you'. Gawk! Are we obsessed with losing the love or just the connection we had for a very long time? Or is it just that we want to be saintly and forgiving and morally 'in the right'. I suppose, anyone can find that kind of love. But, it could be confused with admiration for persons with truly wretched minds. (I am thinking of all those people who join cults and praise its leader in admiration --- that truly is unconditional love) And, then again, how much more wretched do we have to be aside from simply having a mind!
So, now I wonder, are we caught up in a world of loving pretenders or pretending to love? I feel a little like Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City saying that, but I suppose she would ponder over something like this - had she been a real person. We all have checklists: not the brunettes, not the isolated maniacs, the rock star, the Irish man, the duplicate of Jessica Alba, and so on. Are we checklist-ing ourselves into a lifetime of disappointment and indirectly setting up standards that we know we can't possible sustain in reality?
I suppose we could argue that dreaming is always healthy, but does that justify waiting for the person with the perfect score on the checklist and wasting time, money and emotions on the ones that don't? One of two ways again: yes and no. The ones that argue yes, have had no pleasure of having experimented with a ton or few people and grown to know that the checklist is superficial or needs alteration. The ones that argue no, have been either crazed out or don't believe in waiting for their perfect mate.
Whichever category you fall under, it seems clear that neither really satisfies the inner urge to know somebody so well that you can be ANYTHING to them. No relationship definition necessary. No control, just a simple letting go. Of course, this relationship is impossible unless one is crazy. I digress. What it also doesn't satisfy is one of the points on the checklist: will he/she make me happy in the future by societal standards? Buying a house, a car, furniture, a steady job... and we are back to the checklists again. No love in sight. Just checklists and whether or not they sustain that 'lovey dovey' feeling long enough so that there is no question of separation. Let's face it: love is not just a feeling, unless you were suspended in time and space and let yourself simply live in the X moment when you felt Y with particular person Z. The practicalities to it are endless and ones that we have never been told at childhood.
I'd suggest an end to the publication of the princess stories for children and the superhero comics for boys, but it would be a shame to not let the children reading them be a little brainwashed by the unreality and then come to terms with it later.
That's all for now.
XOX
Thursday, 5 May 2011
The Complicated Simpleness of Thoughts
So, I suppose we can start to get a little personal. Of course, this doesn't mean that I will strip down all my layers and barriers and reveal to the world what I truly think about said subject X, Y, or Z. The truth is that nobody ever really knows what they are thinking about X, Y, or Z. They think that particular thought now and then it erases itself. Just self-destructs within seconds and before we can capture it in coherent words, it's lost.
Does that mean then, that the idea in and of itself is lost in the process of thought? Or does it just mean that the essence of the idea or the original idea is lost? Of course, the rationalist will believe that this is a coherent process to follow to distinguish the pure thoughts from the impure ones. The odd part of it is, it makes me question, do we think impure thoughts, always, or are we struck by the obscurity of our thoughts and seek revision for the better understanding and relating to our thoughts? If it is the latter, why are we so concerned with what other people think of our thoughts? Are we afraid to be alone in our own thought that we want others to approve of it?
Perhaps these seem a little to extreme ways of thinking about the concepts of empathy and sympathy, but I suppose in a way it seems more likely to think that we are scared of being alone in our own thoughts and seek the approval of others.
How would, I, or anybody else then, really strip down the layers that make up me? After a point, we are alone. And, yet we seek solace in the notion that we are not. Be it by the idea that our souls are somehow connected to a higher being that is God and will protect and guide and never let us be alone. Why are we so afraid of being alone? Could it be just the biology that we are built to be social creatures that is making us create these impossible imaginary notions of satisfaction and solace in arbitrary thoughts of comfort, or are we truly that complicated?
Somehow, I like the former opinion that we really are just social creatures. Perhaps the thing about complex thoughts is that we only think them when we have nothing better to think of, or nothing better to occupy our time and our minds with. Have you ever noticed how all 'great thinkers' seem to be pretty well off or living on meager wages that they want to change their desperate situation? But, I guess that covers the sum total of the human population. Polar extremes, those examples, but of course we all fall somewhere on that scale.
---- Leave one mind alone and it will conjure up reasons to fear, melancholy will soon follow. Give it another mind for company and they'll both find reasons to mistrust the other... they will seek war.- Anonymous.
That's all for now.
XOX
Does that mean then, that the idea in and of itself is lost in the process of thought? Or does it just mean that the essence of the idea or the original idea is lost? Of course, the rationalist will believe that this is a coherent process to follow to distinguish the pure thoughts from the impure ones. The odd part of it is, it makes me question, do we think impure thoughts, always, or are we struck by the obscurity of our thoughts and seek revision for the better understanding and relating to our thoughts? If it is the latter, why are we so concerned with what other people think of our thoughts? Are we afraid to be alone in our own thought that we want others to approve of it?
Perhaps these seem a little to extreme ways of thinking about the concepts of empathy and sympathy, but I suppose in a way it seems more likely to think that we are scared of being alone in our own thoughts and seek the approval of others.
How would, I, or anybody else then, really strip down the layers that make up me? After a point, we are alone. And, yet we seek solace in the notion that we are not. Be it by the idea that our souls are somehow connected to a higher being that is God and will protect and guide and never let us be alone. Why are we so afraid of being alone? Could it be just the biology that we are built to be social creatures that is making us create these impossible imaginary notions of satisfaction and solace in arbitrary thoughts of comfort, or are we truly that complicated?
Somehow, I like the former opinion that we really are just social creatures. Perhaps the thing about complex thoughts is that we only think them when we have nothing better to think of, or nothing better to occupy our time and our minds with. Have you ever noticed how all 'great thinkers' seem to be pretty well off or living on meager wages that they want to change their desperate situation? But, I guess that covers the sum total of the human population. Polar extremes, those examples, but of course we all fall somewhere on that scale.
---- Leave one mind alone and it will conjure up reasons to fear, melancholy will soon follow. Give it another mind for company and they'll both find reasons to mistrust the other... they will seek war.- Anonymous.
That's all for now.
XOX
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