Freedom is not a philosophy, nor is it an idea - it is a stirring of conscience that causes us to utter at certain moments one of two monosyllables; yes or no. In that instant, fleeting as a lightning flash, it shows the whole contradiction of human nature. Conversely, man's life cannot be lived by repeating the patterns of his species; he must *live*. Man is the only animal that can be bored, who can be discontented, who can feel evicted from paradise.
An often used quote is "this above all, to thine own self be true", but there in lies the question; how can you be true to yourself if you don't know who you are? The greatest gift mankind has is free choice, but why do we feel obligated to make the choices that only end up getting us in more trouble? Why do we feel compelled to make the choices that are inherently bad and dangerous for us, yet we keep making them day after day?
For all my studies into the human condition, it still amazes me at the complexities of the psyche and its abilities to absorb and rebound from all sorts of stimuli. At the same it is amazes me how utterly stupid and lost we all are.
My cat died a month ago. It was not entirely unexpected, as he was 20 and had numerous cysts in his bladder and liver. But the speed at his decline and the obvious emotional impact has sent me down a dark path. Not in a "Hey, I'm going to jump off this cliff" but I've lost all interest in my hobbies or going out to deal with humans. With the brief exception of a few days of happiness, I haven't spent more than 3 hours a night sleeping in almost 30 days. Which, oddly enough given my normal sleep rotation seems perfectly normal and I seem to be no better off for it.
But it's made me realize how little I care about most things that people take for granted; that I have lost any fear or pleasure response, which makes crossing the street in traffic SUPER EXCITING. In essence, I have committed to following Todestrieb - A Freudian concept in which actions are taken which are counter-intuitive and tend to be the opposite of what's considered "normal"; ie desiring of human connections, of sex, of living. I find little to no interest in my hobbies, I spend most of my nights watching TV or playing video games.
"But Jared, that sounds like you are just depressed and should talk to someone about it and etc and blah blah blah and oh god please stop before I stab my ears so I can stop listening to you." I'm not depressed; I just don't care anymore. There's a difference. To quote Watchmen "I am tired of this world; these people. I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives."
I told someone recently that I stopped wanting things, because invariably when I get them, they are taken from me. So far 2019 seems to be par on course.
you can either be fat and jolly or a skinny bitch.
Monday, January 14, 2019
Monday, March 4, 2013
[:today we teach poodles how to fly:]
Lie when you have to, lie to anyone you want to if you think it's necessary, but never lie to yourself. For that way lies madness.
We are vicious, self-serving, and at times blindly stupid animals. The only difference between us and a pack of ravenous wolves is that we are capable of convincing ourselves that whatever serves our own ends, no matter how wrong, is good. And only then, when our own ignorance comes back and bites us in the ass, do we recognize the folly of our choices.
Today's case in point - Gas Prices. I can't even begin to fathom the level of dumb.
Problem; Oil is in high demand. Solution; Supply more.
This, kids is simple economics. So what's the government's answer? Drill in Alaska and oil shale in the Western U.S. Because, clearly, drilling in a wildlife refuge is the best way to help the tough economic times of the American people. And that "oh hey, we don't really need to preserve lands because oil can be recovered in a way that protects the environment now" should diminish our reluctance to drill in pristine lands.
Hmm. Oh wait. Isn't it when you remove something and don't put it back the equivalent of destruction? And how does one suppose to get all this miraculous drilling equipment into the wilderness? Maybe it will magically pop up. Maybe there will be muffin fairies. Or maybe, they'll have to knock down forests to build roads, and then pave over a beaver and light a squirrel on fire, and then things will be all white again. So it's the same rhetoric all over again. Oil companies that have ties to the government want to circumvent the law and expand their operations to fatten the bottom line. But, there is no other recourse, right? We need oil. We're dependent on that to power our technology. So, what do we do?
Not that I pay much attention to the world as of late, but at least someone has an idea that could save oil and gas, without destroying the ecosystem that FUCKING GIVES US AIR YOUR MORONIC DOUCHNOZZLE. And what pray tell is this idea from this genius, this modern day Kwisatch Haderach?
Re-institute the speed limit. Congress in 1974 set a national 55 mph speed limit because of energy shortages caused by the Arab oil embargo. The speed limit was repealed in 1995 when crude oil dipped to $17 a barrel and gasoline cost $1.10 a gallon. Now we're averaging 4.10 a gallon nationwide, with oil hovering around $145 a barrel. Studies that showed the 55 mph speed limit saved 167,000 barrels of oil a day, or 2 percent of the country's highway fuel consumption, while avoiding up to 4,000 traffic deaths a year. I think it's safe to assume that the increase in the number of vehicles on America's highway system from 1974 to 2008, the amount of fuel that could be conserved today is far greater. Fuel efficiency decreases rapidly when traveling faster than 60 mph, and every additional 5 mph over that threshold is estimated to cost motorists essentially an additional 30 cents per gallon in fuel costs.
Crazy, huh?
stab stab bleed gravy
We are vicious, self-serving, and at times blindly stupid animals. The only difference between us and a pack of ravenous wolves is that we are capable of convincing ourselves that whatever serves our own ends, no matter how wrong, is good. And only then, when our own ignorance comes back and bites us in the ass, do we recognize the folly of our choices.
Today's case in point - Gas Prices. I can't even begin to fathom the level of dumb.
Problem; Oil is in high demand. Solution; Supply more.
This, kids is simple economics. So what's the government's answer? Drill in Alaska and oil shale in the Western U.S. Because, clearly, drilling in a wildlife refuge is the best way to help the tough economic times of the American people. And that "oh hey, we don't really need to preserve lands because oil can be recovered in a way that protects the environment now" should diminish our reluctance to drill in pristine lands.
Hmm. Oh wait. Isn't it when you remove something and don't put it back the equivalent of destruction? And how does one suppose to get all this miraculous drilling equipment into the wilderness? Maybe it will magically pop up. Maybe there will be muffin fairies. Or maybe, they'll have to knock down forests to build roads, and then pave over a beaver and light a squirrel on fire, and then things will be all white again. So it's the same rhetoric all over again. Oil companies that have ties to the government want to circumvent the law and expand their operations to fatten the bottom line. But, there is no other recourse, right? We need oil. We're dependent on that to power our technology. So, what do we do?
Not that I pay much attention to the world as of late, but at least someone has an idea that could save oil and gas, without destroying the ecosystem that FUCKING GIVES US AIR YOUR MORONIC DOUCHNOZZLE. And what pray tell is this idea from this genius, this modern day Kwisatch Haderach?
Re-institute the speed limit. Congress in 1974 set a national 55 mph speed limit because of energy shortages caused by the Arab oil embargo. The speed limit was repealed in 1995 when crude oil dipped to $17 a barrel and gasoline cost $1.10 a gallon. Now we're averaging 4.10 a gallon nationwide, with oil hovering around $145 a barrel. Studies that showed the 55 mph speed limit saved 167,000 barrels of oil a day, or 2 percent of the country's highway fuel consumption, while avoiding up to 4,000 traffic deaths a year. I think it's safe to assume that the increase in the number of vehicles on America's highway system from 1974 to 2008, the amount of fuel that could be conserved today is far greater. Fuel efficiency decreases rapidly when traveling faster than 60 mph, and every additional 5 mph over that threshold is estimated to cost motorists essentially an additional 30 cents per gallon in fuel costs.
Crazy, huh?
stab stab bleed gravy
Sunday, March 3, 2013
[:dont believe everything you read, act now time is running out:]
I used to like Sunday mornings. When I was a kid, there was nothing more exciting than the Sunday comics. They had their own section, and i could sit at the table and eat my breakfast in glorious full color print. I didn't care what they were- 3G, Mary Worth, Ziggy. But then I got older, and I discovered that the real "funnies" were wrapped inside a lot of the ugliness euphemistically referred to as "the news". And suddenly Sunday's weren't so fun anymore. I mean, I still read the Sunday paper - it's like a ritual - like brushing your teeth or putting the trash out. But now, most Sundays are just full of more "intellectual pursuits." Like playing Warhammer, or watching the cat bathe his testicles for like THE BILLIONTH TIME.
In the old days, talk shows were considered forums for discussion - Jack Parr, Dave Garroway, Fred Muggs. To wit, once upon a time, there were actually people who fought to use the medium for a purpose. But that was before people knew rating and share numbers better than they knew their own children, when access to television wasn't limited by a pundit's TV rating, and success wasn't measured in terms of decibel level. They say that television is a visual medium, that somehow the fact of its pictures gives the medium an inherent truth. I mean, "a picture is worth a thousand words." But are they really worth anything at all? The "news" blurbs that maybe coffee is bad for you again. It seems as if the research goes in cycles - one year its fine, the next its right up there with cigarettes and smog. Kind of like television. The funny thing is, the coffee itself never changes - just our perception of it.
Which, I guess, is kind of like television too. But that all belies the issues - the real point is money. Image. The picture. "Experts" reduce issues to glib sound bites and witty asides because they need immediate reaction and if they don't hold your attention, you might change the channel. Then ratings slip, and the dollars and influence and power start to slip as well. It doesn't matter what you say as long as you say it well. To accuse television of being shallow and all surface is an insult to things that are shallow. Because television never understood that the only pictures that really matter come from within. You can't watch them on a 42" screen. "Experts" can't tell you about them. You have to feel them. Feel what they mean. Feel the real, human pain behind the wisecracking and five second sounds bites. Television doesn't see things for what they are. it sees them the way those in control want them to be seen. They can translate the horrible into something out of a boy scout manual. They can pretend their way into solutions, trivialize a problem into a remote abstract, but the picture always has a face behind it.
And now, they have shows that are nothing but commercials, disguised as legitimate programming. Programmers wonder why their shares are falling - it's because they've lost touch with the people. Everything is so processed and refined. I mean, I don't want to see Angela Lansbury playing detective, or watch a bunch of whiny thirty-somethings moan about their tax returns and pathetic sex lives, or endure a panel of self-appointed "experts" reducing the issues of the days to pabulum. I'm sick of that shit. Screw the phony histrionics, the dumb laughs, the mock dramatic moment. Give me something real, something tangible, give me something that can get old paint off a table. We count on the experts. We count on them to tell us who to vote for, what to eat, how to raise our children. We watch them on TV, listen to them on the radio, read their opinions in magazine and newspaper articles and letters to the editor. We trust them to tell us what to think, because there's too much information out there and not enough hours in a day to sort it all out. We should stop trusting them right this second.
Maybe I'm pushing the analogy. Maybe its all a crock of shit. But just think about what I've said, the next time you see a news report, or a commercial advertising the next best thing, or really anything on television. Question everything, question the source of the info, and decide for yourself if "experts" really matter.
we build a future to honor the past we've left behind
In the old days, talk shows were considered forums for discussion - Jack Parr, Dave Garroway, Fred Muggs. To wit, once upon a time, there were actually people who fought to use the medium for a purpose. But that was before people knew rating and share numbers better than they knew their own children, when access to television wasn't limited by a pundit's TV rating, and success wasn't measured in terms of decibel level. They say that television is a visual medium, that somehow the fact of its pictures gives the medium an inherent truth. I mean, "a picture is worth a thousand words." But are they really worth anything at all? The "news" blurbs that maybe coffee is bad for you again. It seems as if the research goes in cycles - one year its fine, the next its right up there with cigarettes and smog. Kind of like television. The funny thing is, the coffee itself never changes - just our perception of it.
Which, I guess, is kind of like television too. But that all belies the issues - the real point is money. Image. The picture. "Experts" reduce issues to glib sound bites and witty asides because they need immediate reaction and if they don't hold your attention, you might change the channel. Then ratings slip, and the dollars and influence and power start to slip as well. It doesn't matter what you say as long as you say it well. To accuse television of being shallow and all surface is an insult to things that are shallow. Because television never understood that the only pictures that really matter come from within. You can't watch them on a 42" screen. "Experts" can't tell you about them. You have to feel them. Feel what they mean. Feel the real, human pain behind the wisecracking and five second sounds bites. Television doesn't see things for what they are. it sees them the way those in control want them to be seen. They can translate the horrible into something out of a boy scout manual. They can pretend their way into solutions, trivialize a problem into a remote abstract, but the picture always has a face behind it.
And now, they have shows that are nothing but commercials, disguised as legitimate programming. Programmers wonder why their shares are falling - it's because they've lost touch with the people. Everything is so processed and refined. I mean, I don't want to see Angela Lansbury playing detective, or watch a bunch of whiny thirty-somethings moan about their tax returns and pathetic sex lives, or endure a panel of self-appointed "experts" reducing the issues of the days to pabulum. I'm sick of that shit. Screw the phony histrionics, the dumb laughs, the mock dramatic moment. Give me something real, something tangible, give me something that can get old paint off a table. We count on the experts. We count on them to tell us who to vote for, what to eat, how to raise our children. We watch them on TV, listen to them on the radio, read their opinions in magazine and newspaper articles and letters to the editor. We trust them to tell us what to think, because there's too much information out there and not enough hours in a day to sort it all out. We should stop trusting them right this second.
Maybe I'm pushing the analogy. Maybe its all a crock of shit. But just think about what I've said, the next time you see a news report, or a commercial advertising the next best thing, or really anything on television. Question everything, question the source of the info, and decide for yourself if "experts" really matter.
we build a future to honor the past we've left behind
Saturday, March 2, 2013
[:things fall apart, or how i stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb:]
Society disgusts me.
Take democracy. No, really. Take it. Keep it away, lock it in a box, and then kick the box as hard as you can. Because you see, kids, "Democracy" is really an minority playing on the emotions and gullibility of the majority.
Gun control is a damn good example. Just cause a couple kids decided to stop getting kicked by life and start kicking back, doesn't mean we should ban shoes. Society is screwing with those kids and then blaming them for being screwed up. Rap, metal, drug use, misuse of guns, violent games, etc. are all SYMPTOMS, not causes, of what's wrong with our society.
The more valves you block off, the more likely they are to explode -- or implode. And whose fault is that? If you shake up a bottle of Coke, then open it and it explodes in your face, who do you blame? If you kick a dog and he bites off your foot, who do you blame? The slow loss of liberties is going on right now, and you won't even notice until they take away something you care about, like free speech. Politics is a rich man's game, anyway.
Just *try* running for public office without millions of dollars and the support of a major party. Actually, everything is like that. Think about it... to get any sort of a good job in this country, you need a college degree; to get that, you need four years (at least, longer for advanced degrees or if you should happen to need a job in order to eat/ have a place to sleep/ pay your tuition.) of free time, and either a) have been a supergenius with no life in high school in order to have gotten a scholarship, or b) have the tuition or the means to get it. Which means you already have money. Or c), you can take out a loan (student or otherwise ) and get screwed over by some rich bastard (not all rich people are bastards, just some of them) who decides the interest rate, and you can't do anything about it, since you're the one who's begging for money.
Either that, or you spend your life flipping burgers at some greasy fast food "restaurant" which should have a sign on the door reading something like "WARNING: The mere act of walking through this door may cause a heart attack." If cancerstick companies and gun manufacturers should be responsible for how people use their products, those people should be responsible for the heart attacks they cause. I firmly believe that you should be responsible for what you do, or you should be locked up until you are. No more of the defense that goes, "It's not my fault that I bought the gun, bought the ammo, learned how to load, aim, and shoot, found someone I disliked, and shot that person. It's the gun company's fault for making the gun, never mind that there are many legitimate uses for them." Anyone using that should be laughed out of court and be given a double sentence for contempt of court.
I'd tell you more, but no matter how much you sympathize with me, feel for me, love me, hate me, test me, or judge me, you will never understand me; you will never know me. No matter how much I tell you, beg you, plead you, I will never hammer it into your thick head. Even my small inner circle of friends, who are possibly the last thing I love on this spinning cesspool in space that we live on, don't really know me.
In closing, if there's anyone out there who feels the same way I do about Life, the Universe, and Everything, don't let them push you so far over the edge that you a) kill yourself or b) kill one or more of them. Keep your anger, your rage, your pain, your angst, your hate, your fire, your frustration. Hold on to it. Use it to fight back against this world.
Don't get depressed that you're so screwed up, get pissed that they screwed you up when you were too young to think for yourself.
In fifth grade history, I "learned" (actually, my teacher told me as a fact) that the Civil War started because Lincoln was the first President in almost a hundred years to recognize that slavery was evil and to have the courage to risk splitting the Union for what was right. I was tested on that, and I accepted it as truth. In eighth grade, I "learned" (same deal) that the Civil war really started partially because the population based representation in the House and in Presidential elections favored the North way too much, partially because the merchants up North got richer than the farmers in the South, but mainly it was still about slaves. In twelfth grade, I was told that it all started when Lincoln was elected without even being on the ticket in the South, and slavery didn't even come into things until about halfway through. And authority wonders why I hate and despise them so. (and by the way, there are still slaves. Everybody at fast food places cleaning up bathrooms, working for minimum wage, is a slave. They can't educate themselves cause they have neither the spare time or the money, and they can't get the spare time or the money cause of the job that they need the better education to get out of)
This is why I like math. Some corrupt scion of authority can't tell me that the derivative of tan is sec squared and then change their mind three years later.
So there.
And if you don't like it?
Bite me.
si vis pacem, para bellum
Take democracy. No, really. Take it. Keep it away, lock it in a box, and then kick the box as hard as you can. Because you see, kids, "Democracy" is really an minority playing on the emotions and gullibility of the majority.
Gun control is a damn good example. Just cause a couple kids decided to stop getting kicked by life and start kicking back, doesn't mean we should ban shoes. Society is screwing with those kids and then blaming them for being screwed up. Rap, metal, drug use, misuse of guns, violent games, etc. are all SYMPTOMS, not causes, of what's wrong with our society.
The more valves you block off, the more likely they are to explode -- or implode. And whose fault is that? If you shake up a bottle of Coke, then open it and it explodes in your face, who do you blame? If you kick a dog and he bites off your foot, who do you blame? The slow loss of liberties is going on right now, and you won't even notice until they take away something you care about, like free speech. Politics is a rich man's game, anyway.
Just *try* running for public office without millions of dollars and the support of a major party. Actually, everything is like that. Think about it... to get any sort of a good job in this country, you need a college degree; to get that, you need four years (at least, longer for advanced degrees or if you should happen to need a job in order to eat/ have a place to sleep/ pay your tuition.) of free time, and either a) have been a supergenius with no life in high school in order to have gotten a scholarship, or b) have the tuition or the means to get it. Which means you already have money. Or c), you can take out a loan (student or otherwise ) and get screwed over by some rich bastard (not all rich people are bastards, just some of them) who decides the interest rate, and you can't do anything about it, since you're the one who's begging for money.
Either that, or you spend your life flipping burgers at some greasy fast food "restaurant" which should have a sign on the door reading something like "WARNING: The mere act of walking through this door may cause a heart attack." If cancerstick companies and gun manufacturers should be responsible for how people use their products, those people should be responsible for the heart attacks they cause. I firmly believe that you should be responsible for what you do, or you should be locked up until you are. No more of the defense that goes, "It's not my fault that I bought the gun, bought the ammo, learned how to load, aim, and shoot, found someone I disliked, and shot that person. It's the gun company's fault for making the gun, never mind that there are many legitimate uses for them." Anyone using that should be laughed out of court and be given a double sentence for contempt of court.
I'd tell you more, but no matter how much you sympathize with me, feel for me, love me, hate me, test me, or judge me, you will never understand me; you will never know me. No matter how much I tell you, beg you, plead you, I will never hammer it into your thick head. Even my small inner circle of friends, who are possibly the last thing I love on this spinning cesspool in space that we live on, don't really know me.
In closing, if there's anyone out there who feels the same way I do about Life, the Universe, and Everything, don't let them push you so far over the edge that you a) kill yourself or b) kill one or more of them. Keep your anger, your rage, your pain, your angst, your hate, your fire, your frustration. Hold on to it. Use it to fight back against this world.
Don't get depressed that you're so screwed up, get pissed that they screwed you up when you were too young to think for yourself.
In fifth grade history, I "learned" (actually, my teacher told me as a fact) that the Civil War started because Lincoln was the first President in almost a hundred years to recognize that slavery was evil and to have the courage to risk splitting the Union for what was right. I was tested on that, and I accepted it as truth. In eighth grade, I "learned" (same deal) that the Civil war really started partially because the population based representation in the House and in Presidential elections favored the North way too much, partially because the merchants up North got richer than the farmers in the South, but mainly it was still about slaves. In twelfth grade, I was told that it all started when Lincoln was elected without even being on the ticket in the South, and slavery didn't even come into things until about halfway through. And authority wonders why I hate and despise them so. (and by the way, there are still slaves. Everybody at fast food places cleaning up bathrooms, working for minimum wage, is a slave. They can't educate themselves cause they have neither the spare time or the money, and they can't get the spare time or the money cause of the job that they need the better education to get out of)
This is why I like math. Some corrupt scion of authority can't tell me that the derivative of tan is sec squared and then change their mind three years later.
So there.
And if you don't like it?
Bite me.
si vis pacem, para bellum
Friday, March 1, 2013
[:teach a man to make fire, he'll be warm for a night. light a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life:]
Faith is not something I often talk about. Raised Jewish, spent
eight years in Hebrew School to learn a language that requires you to either have the flu or be congested, I
socialize mostly with Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, and the
occasional Satanist. Hell, the Mormons once tried to convert me. I had
to tell them that I listened to a bad called Ministry, and that they
should give it a try. They kind of stopped, after that.
I've seen quite a bit of religion and have never really taken to any of them.
When I was child, I remember talking often with God. God was like an imaginary friend - someone you just talked to that no one else could see. I didn't pray to God, I conversed. I talked about my day, had one way discussions on why world events were as they were, asked a couple of questions about why every fucking fish I ever owned felt the need to jump out of the tank and try to eat my face, occasionally requested peace among family members. I played G.I. Joe with God sometimes. God was the only person I told about my secret metal box of treasures I kept in my closet in case the house burned down so I could grab it when I had to evacuate. I figured if anyone would remind me to take it, God would.
But I outgrew talking to God. At some point I started talking to myself instead. Not surprisingly, people react much more positively to children talking to themselves instead of "God". Too reminiscent of Joan of Arc, I guess. Also, God never talked back and I got a bit impatient with the one-sided nature of the relationship. God became this ridiculous part of my past - a figment of my imagination that I was foolish enough to believe in with my childhood naivete. By the time I was 15 I was a full fledged Atheist. The idea of a god or an afterlife seemed like the most ludicrous, arcane idea born of weak people who needed a fake higher cosmic being to give their lives meaning. I gave God away like everything else I'd outgrown.
I've been comfortable in my adult life vacillating between Atheism and Buddhism. I guess Jewdism might be a better, more true statement. I mean, don't get me wrong, I haven't been to a Synagogue for anything other than funerals and weddings since I was 13 for the "Today I am a Man, Tomorrow I return to the 7th Grade" Bar Mitzvah Fun Time Love Explosion. Then again, as far as I can tell (and the video shows some proof of this) a) I was drunk, b) There was a clown, and c) I cracked my skull open during limbo. GOOD TIMES HAD BY ALL. Anyway. I've been confronted many times by people who believe that I must be without hope or inner peace as an Atheist, but I feel quite the contrary. When I, or others without organized religion, do good deeds, it's not because of religious doctrine or to get into an afterlife. It's a purely altruistic gesture. The more good I see done by Atheists, the more I can believe in the inherent goodness of humanity. I see people who choose a positive path because they want to, not out of fear of religious retribution. And that makes me happy and hopeful. Trying to live your life out of a book that pretty much says "Do this, or I'll fucking kill you" tends to get old pretty fast.
But I do miss the community that temple provided. I miss singing on Saturdays and smelling the lilies at holiday time. I miss little kids dressed up for Purim and bad pageants. I miss celebrating life with a room full of joyful people. I even miss getting shitfaced as a 12 year old on Manischewitz, and the fact that religion introduced me to my good friend Jack Daniels. But I just can't consider myself Jewish. I don't have those beliefs of the supernatural aspects in my heart and I would feel hypocritical and disrespectful to the congregation if I went to a service for the fun of it. I just don't believe in the idea of God as anything other than a really good guy and grass roots organizer who made some pretty incredible changes in a corrupt society. And that supernatural belief in God seems to be a pretty fundamental religious concept. It's non-negotiable to believers; to believe in something greater than oneself.
I miss getting excited for the holidays. I miss eating dinner, and lighting of candles, or the reading of the haggadah. Opening the presents, or wondering why the hell the front door was open, and who the hell Elijah was. I can barely remember those days anymore. I miss having a connection. I'm fastly coming to the conclusion that I have no emotional attachment to any human being in my life, and that's a scary thought.
dear buddha, please bring me a pony and a plastic rocket.
I've seen quite a bit of religion and have never really taken to any of them.
When I was child, I remember talking often with God. God was like an imaginary friend - someone you just talked to that no one else could see. I didn't pray to God, I conversed. I talked about my day, had one way discussions on why world events were as they were, asked a couple of questions about why every fucking fish I ever owned felt the need to jump out of the tank and try to eat my face, occasionally requested peace among family members. I played G.I. Joe with God sometimes. God was the only person I told about my secret metal box of treasures I kept in my closet in case the house burned down so I could grab it when I had to evacuate. I figured if anyone would remind me to take it, God would.
But I outgrew talking to God. At some point I started talking to myself instead. Not surprisingly, people react much more positively to children talking to themselves instead of "God". Too reminiscent of Joan of Arc, I guess. Also, God never talked back and I got a bit impatient with the one-sided nature of the relationship. God became this ridiculous part of my past - a figment of my imagination that I was foolish enough to believe in with my childhood naivete. By the time I was 15 I was a full fledged Atheist. The idea of a god or an afterlife seemed like the most ludicrous, arcane idea born of weak people who needed a fake higher cosmic being to give their lives meaning. I gave God away like everything else I'd outgrown.
I've been comfortable in my adult life vacillating between Atheism and Buddhism. I guess Jewdism might be a better, more true statement. I mean, don't get me wrong, I haven't been to a Synagogue for anything other than funerals and weddings since I was 13 for the "Today I am a Man, Tomorrow I return to the 7th Grade" Bar Mitzvah Fun Time Love Explosion. Then again, as far as I can tell (and the video shows some proof of this) a) I was drunk, b) There was a clown, and c) I cracked my skull open during limbo. GOOD TIMES HAD BY ALL. Anyway. I've been confronted many times by people who believe that I must be without hope or inner peace as an Atheist, but I feel quite the contrary. When I, or others without organized religion, do good deeds, it's not because of religious doctrine or to get into an afterlife. It's a purely altruistic gesture. The more good I see done by Atheists, the more I can believe in the inherent goodness of humanity. I see people who choose a positive path because they want to, not out of fear of religious retribution. And that makes me happy and hopeful. Trying to live your life out of a book that pretty much says "Do this, or I'll fucking kill you" tends to get old pretty fast.
But I do miss the community that temple provided. I miss singing on Saturdays and smelling the lilies at holiday time. I miss little kids dressed up for Purim and bad pageants. I miss celebrating life with a room full of joyful people. I even miss getting shitfaced as a 12 year old on Manischewitz, and the fact that religion introduced me to my good friend Jack Daniels. But I just can't consider myself Jewish. I don't have those beliefs of the supernatural aspects in my heart and I would feel hypocritical and disrespectful to the congregation if I went to a service for the fun of it. I just don't believe in the idea of God as anything other than a really good guy and grass roots organizer who made some pretty incredible changes in a corrupt society. And that supernatural belief in God seems to be a pretty fundamental religious concept. It's non-negotiable to believers; to believe in something greater than oneself.
I miss getting excited for the holidays. I miss eating dinner, and lighting of candles, or the reading of the haggadah. Opening the presents, or wondering why the hell the front door was open, and who the hell Elijah was. I can barely remember those days anymore. I miss having a connection. I'm fastly coming to the conclusion that I have no emotional attachment to any human being in my life, and that's a scary thought.
dear buddha, please bring me a pony and a plastic rocket.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
[:this is what you want, this is what you get:]
"For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold
under sin. For that which I do, I do not allow: for what I would,
that I don't do; but I do what I hate. If then I do that I would
not want to do, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it
is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know
that in me (that is, in my flesh,) nothing good exists: for the
desire to good is present with me; but how to actually make that
desire reality is still a mystery. For the good that I want, I do
not do: but the evil which I would not do, that I do. (Ah, the
Irony). Now if I do that I would not do, it is no more I who do it,
but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would
do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God
after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring
against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the
law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who
shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
One of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought;
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny..." Or, by contrast "Oops". I think in all my attempts at discerning the better part of the universe, the one conclusion I've come to is that he who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. You have been trapped in the inescapable net of ruin by your own want of sense. Few things are brought to a successful issue by impetuous desire, but most by calm and prudent forethought.
"No scientist, however devoted, can avoid the personal equation. Note even a computer can arrive at a cold, impersonal scientific conclusion for they are programed by fallible humans. All that the scientist can do is to hope that his opinions will be like Ivory Soap, 99% pure. The sad fact is that most of us don't make it by about fifty percent. "
Oops.
you’ll never take me alive, you robotic son-of-a-bitch.
One of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought;
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny..." Or, by contrast "Oops". I think in all my attempts at discerning the better part of the universe, the one conclusion I've come to is that he who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. You have been trapped in the inescapable net of ruin by your own want of sense. Few things are brought to a successful issue by impetuous desire, but most by calm and prudent forethought.
"No scientist, however devoted, can avoid the personal equation. Note even a computer can arrive at a cold, impersonal scientific conclusion for they are programed by fallible humans. All that the scientist can do is to hope that his opinions will be like Ivory Soap, 99% pure. The sad fact is that most of us don't make it by about fifty percent. "
Oops.
you’ll never take me alive, you robotic son-of-a-bitch.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
[:this is not the world you deserve, but the one you let happen to you:]
So I was watching Demolition Man the other day, and as I watched, I began to realize that besides being a horrible movie, the parallels to what was happening in my life (as well as the world around us) were very striking. In terms of the background; It's a 1984-esque society, complete with a Big Brother figure in Dr. Cocteau, who has created a society devoid of social evils including violent crimes on the one hand, but also including drinking, smoking, and foods high in cholesterol. "Exchange of bodily fluids" is also prohibited to keep disease at bay. In its stead is virtual sex, and even day to day interactions devoid of any casual touch and replete with innocuous greetings such as "be well." The "oldies" radio station plays "mini-songs" of the 20th century, which in reality is food commercials. Lines from favorite jingles can be heard in the background of the scene in the fancy night club Taco Bell. A caller to the police department emergency line is instructed by an operator,"If you would prefer an automated response, press 1 now." It makes a lame attempt at pointing out the evils of political correctness by showing the consequences — namely, we’d all be stuck in a boring society that won’t let us masturbate and forces us to wear bathrobes all day. Except that we get to eat Taco Bell all day and have sex with helmets on.
By outlawing everything that is bad, we lose ourselves and become sissified, mindless drones who obey without question. And in doing so, we lose your aggressiveness. And without aggression, there is no passion. Without passion there is no music or art. We become something less than what we really are because we have been beaten down, brought up, spoon-fed what to believe, and any that challenge the authority gets silenced. And it's happening today.
Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and
where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. The world we live in is a lie. We're killing ourselves working 12 hour days, getting fat on cheap take-out food bemoaning how it used to be. Just because you've got a nice car and a big dvd collection doesn't mean you are a free man. You're just a well-paid slave like all the other cattle out there. And after you read this, you're going to go out and buy something else that you don't need to make yourself feel better about the life you lead. You work your fingers to the bone for 50 years and at the end of your time, you get a crappy party and a shitty watch.
So wake up. Look at the world around you, and the utter dumb that you see. I'll write about that later. But start looking. See what I am talking about. See the rampant and wanton idiocy that prevails in our society. Watch the news. Read how people sue McDonald's because they were never told that eating greasy fat food 3 times a day for 5 years makes you fat. See how parental responsibility goes out the window, when a lesbian couple gets asked to stop kissing because some woman doesn't want to explain it to her daughter. Ask yourself why there isn't a stricter law on texting while driving; I don't remember seeing that as part of my road exam.
See the truth of things.
A friend once told me, "what would you do if you weren't afraid". And finally, I have an answer. "Everything." And so I take hold of what they took from me. Of what I let go 10 years ago. I take
back what's rightfully mine. I shall know no fear, and fight for what I believe. And I will strike down the dumb with such force, that their unborn children will quake with fear. I'll fire the first shot;
I told some annoying preppie Greenpeace "volunteer" who bitched at me outside a Starbucks while she sipped her no-fat, half-caf, mint frozen mocha latte with a shot of espresso that I should help stop global warming that I actually thought the world was too cold, and that's why I drove an SUV, kept my A/C's on, and spent my free time shooting spray cans full of CFC's into the air. Chrome the moon, pave the forests, fuck Gaia, she want's to get off. Nuke a pregnant gay whale for Jesus.
Fight back, and reclaim what's rightfully yours. Storm the reality studio and retake the Universe.
For this revolution, will be televised.
end of line
By outlawing everything that is bad, we lose ourselves and become sissified, mindless drones who obey without question. And in doing so, we lose your aggressiveness. And without aggression, there is no passion. Without passion there is no music or art. We become something less than what we really are because we have been beaten down, brought up, spoon-fed what to believe, and any that challenge the authority gets silenced. And it's happening today.
Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and
where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. The world we live in is a lie. We're killing ourselves working 12 hour days, getting fat on cheap take-out food bemoaning how it used to be. Just because you've got a nice car and a big dvd collection doesn't mean you are a free man. You're just a well-paid slave like all the other cattle out there. And after you read this, you're going to go out and buy something else that you don't need to make yourself feel better about the life you lead. You work your fingers to the bone for 50 years and at the end of your time, you get a crappy party and a shitty watch.
So wake up. Look at the world around you, and the utter dumb that you see. I'll write about that later. But start looking. See what I am talking about. See the rampant and wanton idiocy that prevails in our society. Watch the news. Read how people sue McDonald's because they were never told that eating greasy fat food 3 times a day for 5 years makes you fat. See how parental responsibility goes out the window, when a lesbian couple gets asked to stop kissing because some woman doesn't want to explain it to her daughter. Ask yourself why there isn't a stricter law on texting while driving; I don't remember seeing that as part of my road exam.
See the truth of things.
A friend once told me, "what would you do if you weren't afraid". And finally, I have an answer. "Everything." And so I take hold of what they took from me. Of what I let go 10 years ago. I take
back what's rightfully mine. I shall know no fear, and fight for what I believe. And I will strike down the dumb with such force, that their unborn children will quake with fear. I'll fire the first shot;
I told some annoying preppie Greenpeace "volunteer" who bitched at me outside a Starbucks while she sipped her no-fat, half-caf, mint frozen mocha latte with a shot of espresso that I should help stop global warming that I actually thought the world was too cold, and that's why I drove an SUV, kept my A/C's on, and spent my free time shooting spray cans full of CFC's into the air. Chrome the moon, pave the forests, fuck Gaia, she want's to get off. Nuke a pregnant gay whale for Jesus.
Fight back, and reclaim what's rightfully yours. Storm the reality studio and retake the Universe.
For this revolution, will be televised.
end of line
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