Imagine...
The world has a uniform climate, one which supports all the nutritional requirements of the human body. The people have only one faith; this cannot be challenged, has no variations, is universally believed, and so exists as reality. All humans are of one race. But, in one part of this world, there is an abundance of a mineral necessary to the production of Jell-o. This is the only source.
In this world, wars are fought and blood is spilled...for Jell-o. When the vital mineral is exhausted, the wars continue over the grudge of past wars.
In this world, men walk gladly to their deaths...for Jello.
---
Behold! For his is golden sin.
You'll beg him to trespass again.
Just keep in mind the golden rule:
The Devil's lover is his fool.*
*Not sure this is mine. Seems a bit too...good.
---
There is evidence of all viewpoints in the world; indeed, viewpoints are born of this evidence. Resolution involves only acknowledging evidence supportive of one's viewpoint. Objectivity involves acknowledging all evidence. If one is resolved to the reality of their own objectivity, however, they assume the role of the dillusional, seeing all evidence within their field of perception but having that scope narrowed from reality. The Resolute, bu their nature, believe themselves Objective. The key, then, is to never acknowledge any boundaries to "reality."
---
A sense of purpose is necessary for the development of any and all skills or abilities one may ask for. The direct pursuit of skill itself is a doomed endeavor, lacking that vital benchmark of accomplishment furnished by an un/completed task. For one who persists in desiring ability for ability's sake, the one best course of action is to choose for one's goal that which will be most demanding, most difficult, and above all most distant; the highest mountain makes the greatest achievement, but the longest mountain range makes the best climber.
---
There are two primary influences on Will: compulsion, and choice. Though apparently distinct, these who factors lack anything so convenient as a clear line of seperation between them. Both, after all, are products of experience; both are dictated by some logical process; both are goal oriented. Given the cloudy nature of Will at present, it remains unsurprising that the hypothesized distinction above may easily go unobserved.
There are things which may be both wanted and unwanted. Or, perhaps it is the want itself which is unwanted in this case, the case being compulsion. Since coincidences of compulsion and choice are indistinguishable from choice alone, compulsion must be defined as a contradictory want. Further, a compulsion might be defined as a primary want, one to which choice later comes into being in opposition. Compulsion is the first want.
Is there anything in the nature of the want itself which distinguishes it as either choice or compulsion?
---
Talisman - physical object which is invested with authority over the self. Relative permenance is relied upon in place of fickle mental or spiritual inclination. Examples include dated check lists and justified talismans.
Character - personal role definition for which natural inclinations are conciously chosen. Application ranges from individual, periodic actions for constant state adjustment. Whatever the application, character goals mush mesh with the whole character. Contradictory character goals discourage faith in, and thus weaken, characters.
Ticks - constant, periodic, or situationally specific actions or inclinations which reafirm and increase faith in characters. Examples include biting finger nails, posture or stride, or musical preference.
Principle - long-term definition of personal action. Distinct from character for being 1) necessarily long-term, and 2) goal specific: behavior governed by principle may comfortably contradict other personal behaviors, but it must be adhered to indefinitely. Examples include following one's given word, honesty, and repaying debts.
Higher Power - loosely defined figure of authority upon whom the burden of judgement against a particular moral or ethical code is placed. Examples include God and deceased relatives.
---
First two are from my second year of college, the rest from right after I moved to Red Wing.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Us
Identity is a fun thing to play with. If you can think of a soul, a brain, a human body, and even a child born of that body as parts of yourself, it isn't an impossible mental leap to think of something like a dog or a rock as parts of yourself as well. It's the same way you try to understand what it's like to be another person, how they feel and think and see the world, just directed at things you wouldn't normally try to relate to (like a city or a tree or something).
What if empathy weren't just something you either had or didn't, but something you cultivated? It may start with seeing yourself in others, seeing all the ways they're people like yourself instead of focusing on the few qualities that make them strangers, but if you keep running with this habit of looking for common ground you eventually lose respect for the permanence, the "reality" of the distinctions between us.
If you don't know where to stop, where to draw the line you won't cross, empathy becomes kind of an existential mindfuck.
What if empathy weren't just something you either had or didn't, but something you cultivated? It may start with seeing yourself in others, seeing all the ways they're people like yourself instead of focusing on the few qualities that make them strangers, but if you keep running with this habit of looking for common ground you eventually lose respect for the permanence, the "reality" of the distinctions between us.
If you don't know where to stop, where to draw the line you won't cross, empathy becomes kind of an existential mindfuck.
Misc
If you never left a building, would it matter what floor you lived on?
---
A man bound strictly to his duty is most valuable to the one he serves; a man willing to follow his heart over his duty, however, is most valuable to the one he loves.
---
There are 3 things: The past, The future, and The moment. This moment includes all that is. The last moment includes all that ever was. The next moment includes nothing; the next moment does not exist.
---
I am a thing without location, existing only as a concept. What is limited to a single space is my physical perspective. Mentally, however, and in reality, as I am no more or less than my mind, I am everywhere. Omnipresent.
---
Boredom long since dead
I wait for my pulse to stop
I'm not really real
---
Morning comes too late
The sun shines down on corpses
Look at what I've done
---
Silence now your breath
I don't want to kill again
Please don't make a sound
---
Knife against my throat
I can't supress my laughter
I died long ago
---
Blow out the candles
The world is consumed in flames
I smile as I burn
---
Trees become lumber
Kittens grow into killers
A mountain just is
---
Condemned to comfort
Raised to never feel the world
Pain is my freedom
---
Last night I had a dream about Waffle House. Nothing really unusual, except that I got an eight dollar tip. I need my day off...to remember who I am without this job.
---
Empty. Not in a painful way, like what love songs and broken hearts cause, but just a simple lacking. I remember being more than this. This is why I write, because I'm scared of disappearing.
---
If theres nothing I want, does that mean I'm satisfied with what I've got, or just so fully resolved to my lacking that I can't tell the difference anymore? It doesn't matter. All that matters is that you are without a goal. Respond to that fact without regard to its cause, however you will.
---
At first, I didn't see what love had to do with faith or hope. Then I got the joke. If I have no faith, and I don't waste time on hope, am I then incapable of love? I can still trust. So maybe thats just how I feel love: action against my instincts out of a lack of supporting evidence. Romantic, no?
---
This is my soul*. Is this my soul? This is my soul. Is this my soul? Your soul is in your smile. I have no soul. I am my soul. It doesn't matter, I have money to make.
* What I called the notebooks I used to carry around during this period of my life.
---
Anger.
---
On reexamining this soul I have built working here, one will find only anger and boredom.
There is satisfaction in my life, something bordering even on happiness, found when I count the money I make. If this is the joy of millionares, I pray for poverty.
Adderall is the only way I've found to tolerate my rage when I find stress in my job. Not because it gives me energy, but because it elevates my mood.
My own private bubble in the universe. For so long I've dreamt of curling up in the darkness, I think I've finally found it. And with only 15mg/day.
---
I think my emotional disturbances must be small time, as I've never seriously considered killing myself. Only once did I ever find the idea really appealing. I went outside and punched a tree instead. Death seems like losing whatever battle drives most to it.
---
I don't want to need drugs to get through life. Its okay for the summer, though, because its for a specific purpose. Just so I can survive without it.
---
I've learned to tell when I've given up: when I'm surprized to be getting off of work. Like I had already accepted my damnation.
At this particular moment, I feel fine. The above is just a thought I remember from this morning at shift change.
---
The deeper you dig into yourself,
The closer you get to your goal,
The less you can see of all that you started with, or all that got you there.
---
5 hours of sleep...13 hour shift...no adderall...God, watch me
---
The sky becomes a speck
As I dig deeper inside
Where did I come from?
---
Maybe I've never found myself to be suicidal because I understand death as merely the transition from one form of self to another. "Born Again" is just a sunny term for my perpetual suicide.
---
We live for relief
Relief from what, if not pain?
Peaceful is boring
---
Murder/Suicide
A minute begins
Thousands die in each second
The minute dies last
---
What are angels, but the slaves of God? Who would choose such a fate? No, if I must choose between angel and demon, I'll savor my suffering and remain more than the hand of another.
-----------
I can't stop myself from being afraid...but I have other things, stronger feelings with which to oppose my fear.
I have pride.
I have willpower.
Greatest of all, I have a dominating fear of fear itself.
---
Being a person that lives only for experience is easy enough until one finds that they have done everything they particularly want to do. It is at this point that one sees the potential limitation placed on their future...by their past. It is here that one must overcome the limitations inherent in the self they have become in order to continue their growth.
If I do this, but am too weak to maintain control, it is possible that I will become something I don't like. If I am strong enough, however, to take in this experience without being consumed by it, the gateway to all that has long been beyond me may finally be thrown open. So many impossible experiences to find at my fingertips.
What do I have to lose but the respect and love of an outside world that can never really know me at all, so judging me with fleeting, biased, and so Weak perceptions.
---
Pain breeds greatness. Any intelligent person, fully utilizing their gift, finds it a burden. Poe and Lovecraft were tortured men, after all.
The fact is, happiness is a dead end road. Those perpetually seeking it are those perpetually lacking. Joy accomplishes nothing more than relief from the stress of life and growth, and so is only useful in small quantities. "Happy" is easy enough. My challenge is "strong".
---
Every time I fall, it gets easier to rise. Every time I rise, it is to new heights. And with every new height, I leave a little more behind.
---
My head hurts.
My stomach threatens to eat me alive.
This is what it is to have strength.
---
This job can consume you. This makes it ideal if I wanted to go into long hibernation and wake up tens of thousands of dollars richer, but only painfully useful for these several weeks I've had, since the maintenance of my humanity was a daily necessity; one I just-too-late mastered. A mask to hide who and what I really am. Because no one can live as they truly are for very long.
Because like that, even the slightest illusion of connection with any other creature is lost.
I'm tired of being the unconscious engine of a mask.
---
Oh, what a height to fall from.
I can't wait...
---
There's no expression
Not since I was a child
Have I felt so free
---
The best things in life are the most fleeting
---
The minutes tick by
Depleting the future when
I will want more time
---
I wish there were an off button for humanity. Nothing permanent; I'd just like a break every once in a while...
---
An event is meaningless compared with the circumstances that surround it.
-or-
What you do is pallid in significance compared with who you are.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nietzsche must have worked at a Waffle House XD
Found a bunch of old note(book)s while cleaning out a file folder. Fascinating to read through my old thoughts...I would have been around 19 for these writings.
---
A man bound strictly to his duty is most valuable to the one he serves; a man willing to follow his heart over his duty, however, is most valuable to the one he loves.
---
There are 3 things: The past, The future, and The moment. This moment includes all that is. The last moment includes all that ever was. The next moment includes nothing; the next moment does not exist.
---
I am a thing without location, existing only as a concept. What is limited to a single space is my physical perspective. Mentally, however, and in reality, as I am no more or less than my mind, I am everywhere. Omnipresent.
---
Boredom long since dead
I wait for my pulse to stop
I'm not really real
---
Morning comes too late
The sun shines down on corpses
Look at what I've done
---
Silence now your breath
I don't want to kill again
Please don't make a sound
---
Knife against my throat
I can't supress my laughter
I died long ago
---
Blow out the candles
The world is consumed in flames
I smile as I burn
---
Trees become lumber
Kittens grow into killers
A mountain just is
---
Condemned to comfort
Raised to never feel the world
Pain is my freedom
---
Last night I had a dream about Waffle House. Nothing really unusual, except that I got an eight dollar tip. I need my day off...to remember who I am without this job.
---
Empty. Not in a painful way, like what love songs and broken hearts cause, but just a simple lacking. I remember being more than this. This is why I write, because I'm scared of disappearing.
---
If theres nothing I want, does that mean I'm satisfied with what I've got, or just so fully resolved to my lacking that I can't tell the difference anymore? It doesn't matter. All that matters is that you are without a goal. Respond to that fact without regard to its cause, however you will.
---
At first, I didn't see what love had to do with faith or hope. Then I got the joke. If I have no faith, and I don't waste time on hope, am I then incapable of love? I can still trust. So maybe thats just how I feel love: action against my instincts out of a lack of supporting evidence. Romantic, no?
---
This is my soul*. Is this my soul? This is my soul. Is this my soul? Your soul is in your smile. I have no soul. I am my soul. It doesn't matter, I have money to make.
* What I called the notebooks I used to carry around during this period of my life.
---
Anger.
---
On reexamining this soul I have built working here, one will find only anger and boredom.
There is satisfaction in my life, something bordering even on happiness, found when I count the money I make. If this is the joy of millionares, I pray for poverty.
Adderall is the only way I've found to tolerate my rage when I find stress in my job. Not because it gives me energy, but because it elevates my mood.
My own private bubble in the universe. For so long I've dreamt of curling up in the darkness, I think I've finally found it. And with only 15mg/day.
---
I think my emotional disturbances must be small time, as I've never seriously considered killing myself. Only once did I ever find the idea really appealing. I went outside and punched a tree instead. Death seems like losing whatever battle drives most to it.
---
I don't want to need drugs to get through life. Its okay for the summer, though, because its for a specific purpose. Just so I can survive without it.
---
I've learned to tell when I've given up: when I'm surprized to be getting off of work. Like I had already accepted my damnation.
At this particular moment, I feel fine. The above is just a thought I remember from this morning at shift change.
---
The deeper you dig into yourself,
The closer you get to your goal,
The less you can see of all that you started with, or all that got you there.
---
5 hours of sleep...13 hour shift...no adderall...God, watch me
---
The sky becomes a speck
As I dig deeper inside
Where did I come from?
---
Maybe I've never found myself to be suicidal because I understand death as merely the transition from one form of self to another. "Born Again" is just a sunny term for my perpetual suicide.
---
We live for relief
Relief from what, if not pain?
Peaceful is boring
---
Murder/Suicide
A minute begins
Thousands die in each second
The minute dies last
---
What are angels, but the slaves of God? Who would choose such a fate? No, if I must choose between angel and demon, I'll savor my suffering and remain more than the hand of another.
-----------
I can't stop myself from being afraid...but I have other things, stronger feelings with which to oppose my fear.
I have pride.
I have willpower.
Greatest of all, I have a dominating fear of fear itself.
---
Being a person that lives only for experience is easy enough until one finds that they have done everything they particularly want to do. It is at this point that one sees the potential limitation placed on their future...by their past. It is here that one must overcome the limitations inherent in the self they have become in order to continue their growth.
If I do this, but am too weak to maintain control, it is possible that I will become something I don't like. If I am strong enough, however, to take in this experience without being consumed by it, the gateway to all that has long been beyond me may finally be thrown open. So many impossible experiences to find at my fingertips.
What do I have to lose but the respect and love of an outside world that can never really know me at all, so judging me with fleeting, biased, and so Weak perceptions.
---
Pain breeds greatness. Any intelligent person, fully utilizing their gift, finds it a burden. Poe and Lovecraft were tortured men, after all.
The fact is, happiness is a dead end road. Those perpetually seeking it are those perpetually lacking. Joy accomplishes nothing more than relief from the stress of life and growth, and so is only useful in small quantities. "Happy" is easy enough. My challenge is "strong".
---
Every time I fall, it gets easier to rise. Every time I rise, it is to new heights. And with every new height, I leave a little more behind.
---
My head hurts.
My stomach threatens to eat me alive.
This is what it is to have strength.
---
This job can consume you. This makes it ideal if I wanted to go into long hibernation and wake up tens of thousands of dollars richer, but only painfully useful for these several weeks I've had, since the maintenance of my humanity was a daily necessity; one I just-too-late mastered. A mask to hide who and what I really am. Because no one can live as they truly are for very long.
Because like that, even the slightest illusion of connection with any other creature is lost.
I'm tired of being the unconscious engine of a mask.
---
Oh, what a height to fall from.
I can't wait...
---
There's no expression
Not since I was a child
Have I felt so free
---
The best things in life are the most fleeting
---
The minutes tick by
Depleting the future when
I will want more time
---
I wish there were an off button for humanity. Nothing permanent; I'd just like a break every once in a while...
---
An event is meaningless compared with the circumstances that surround it.
-or-
What you do is pallid in significance compared with who you are.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nietzsche must have worked at a Waffle House XD
Found a bunch of old note(book)s while cleaning out a file folder. Fascinating to read through my old thoughts...I would have been around 19 for these writings.
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