pictures

-A man who has psychic "ropes" coming off this body. They are meant to be connected to others, but they have been cut. The cuts are angry looking wounds and his facial expression is one of great pain.

-A couple walk with their young child. The couple's features have been blunted away like river rocks leaving just a hint of sadness while the child's features are perfectly distinct and he/she has a glowing aura.

-A psychic wind blows to the left. It doesn't affect the trees and so on, just the people. People have their faces turned to the left and flow with this wind. One face faces to the right and tries to brave this wind. (Such a fundamental and simple idea, surely it's been painted already? I haven't seen it.) The wind distorts people's features.

Ropes to nowhere

A basic idea to explore: being happy when it appears truly ridiculous to do so. For example people living in a concentration camp being worked to death, still greeting one another with a smile and trying to make jokes, etc. Out of consideration for each other...?

There is a endlessly large cavern filled with ropes hanging from a ceiling. One can look up and see that there is an end. The ropes don't lead to safety, they lead to a dead end. They just hang from the ceiling. Below is lava which is rising. One must endlessly climb just to gain a futile temporary reprieve. Endless people are frantically climbing the ropes to escape the lava despite the realization that the lava's going to get them anyway eventually. Somehow they are climbing for years yet can see the dead end ceiling.

And so... two guys are climbing and the one guy looks over at the other and smiles and says, "Hi, how are you doing today?" The other guy smiles and replies, "Oh, fine! How bout yourself?" They both start laughing insanely and let go of the ropes and fall...

ugly relationships

I was reading Einstein quotes and found that he made a mistake so many people make. People just need (or really want) certain relationships in life. To the extent that they'll turn other people into things that they really aren't. Like most, Einstein wanted/needed to love someone. So he chose the seemingly best possible person, probably based mostly on looks or some other unessential thing and he jumped right in. In reading the quotes it seemed that he was more in love with the idea of being in love then with the actual person.

There are obvious problems with that. It can mean ignoring the reality of the person. It can mean being stuck in what are actually hellish relationships. Einstein, like so many others, certainly was.

This general idea occurs so often and is so rarely understood. There are many young men for example who complain that women only like assholes. That they don't like guys who are actually caring, compassionate, etc. The truth in this is just that women don't like guys who are in love with the idea of having a girlfriend as opposed to actually really liking this women they want as a girlfriend. These guys just want a girlfriend and they are willing to go to unnatural lengths to get one. They are too nice. They sacrifice their own real wants behind just doing whatever will make the women happy. It appears as if they're being very very nice. Except there is a stipulation. Which is that they (the women) be the girlfriend of said "nice" man. It isn't truly being nice just because they want the person to be happy. It is instead a businesslike transaction. And it is not natural and although the women may not necessarily understand what's consiously wrong with it. She usually understands that something doesn't feel right.

And so, they go along, not understanding what they're doing (the nice man). Easily enough they find endless women they "like". But who don't seem to think much of their "niceness" and instead like men who aren't anywhere near as nice.

They can end up full of disgust for the world in general. Going years without realizing they're going after women.... they don't even actually like....

And, they can get annoyed that these women drop them with little to no explanation. Not understanding that the women herself may just not be able to put her finger on what exactly is wrong. (Humans are still very "instinctual" and women especially like to claim it as some kind of good thing.) She may further even feel guilty as she recognizes that this man she doesn't like, is much "nicer" than the one she does.

But actually she's probably right. The nice man is probably so over the top nice because just the idea of having a girlfriend has come to mean too much to him. And he is just in love with the idea of love as opposed to her actually. And he needs to understand that there are things more important than trying at all costs to keep a relationship together.

It is a very good thing if things can be ended on good terms with an understanding as to why they should end. But that sometimes just can't happen. Quite often people don't understand why. And though it would be great if they'd try to work together to try to figure it out, they are afraid. This is a violent world. And as such they are justified in being afraid to openly discuss disagreements. And so relationships are cut off with no real explanation. They are cut off in ugly ways that the person is then stuck with (essentially ugly memories that can accumulate) for the rest of their life; possibly the entire life passes with no understanding ever gained.

The problem of sadness

So to summarize:

When someone appears to be causing unnecessary harm there are two possible responses that I see, anger or sadness.

People turn to anger because they believe in 'evil', where it is defined as knowingly causing unnecessary harm and just not caring. If you believe in such 'evil' then you feel it's no use to try to reason with such people and that leaves only force. We believe in evil and thus feel hate and get angry. It does have a somewhat useful result in that I guess we're better able to potentially apply force.

I've decided though to relabel 'evil' as 'profound stupidity', where the person causing the unnecessary harm is just currently too stupid or ignorant to understand why causing unnecessary harm is a thing to be avoided. And thus trying to keep it somewhere still within the area of reason, and if not very practically really within the realm of reason, the possibility is still there in the long term thus diminishing any potential feelings of anger.

That leaves me with just sadness.

The problem is that what if the person performing the harmful act is doing so exactly because they're think that I'm evil and that they have no choice but to punish me (resort to force). If I show sadness then, I'm only confirming that their actions are having the intended effect.

I think this probably comes down to me trying to rise up above the usual violent (force over reason) way of our society (behind the pretenses) and unfortunately just putting myself in a position where I'll more easily be hurt by others.

The problem with sadness

If only sadness is left.... what if a person is harming you exactly because they are using force, because they think you are evil? Expressing sadness only makes them think they're successfully accomplishing exactly what they were trying to accomplish.

Then what?

Expressing anger

Just supposing one was still devo and occasionally forgot and went back to believing in evil, and feeling hate and anger, in the spirit of honesty should they express this anger?

Never express anger unless you are very close to actually using some force. Expressions of anger are Only a message that you think the person in question is evil (causing harm and just not caring, not possible to be reasoned with). All such expressions do is potentially cause the person to feel fear and thus you have indeed reduced the interaction to Force instead of Reason. We're all devo and feel anger anyway, but unless you're actually about ready to go beyond Reason, you should simply be Dishonest and Hide this.

Honesty isn't always the best policy. Finally. For the first time in my life I'm saying this.

For me you could express anger and it'd be OK. I have empathy and can see the pain which caused the anger and that you've reached a point where you feel like I'm just not even trying to understand. But apparently the vast majority of manking isn't like this. Everyone else sees the anger and assumes the worst; they assume force may be coming any second, and apparently that completely takes precedence over any attempts at empathy.

Express sadness only. And if that doesn't work, float away on the postindustrial wind.

In response to harm

In response to harm there is sadness and/or anger. Are there any other alternatives? Crying requires belief in god, does any sadness at all require that...? Not sure. Is there some other undefined thing near sadness? Should sadness be broken down into different things? Is there a sadness that beseeches god or some person to help and then is there another kind of sadness?

The other is anger. For that one must believe in evil and thus think force is necessary. (Because the person knows they're causing harm and just doesn't care, thus reason will do no good; Reason versus Force).

What can cause a turn toward anger instead of to sadness? Some people are disposed to usually go towards anger instead of sadness. Of course, the main thing is simply believing in evil. That may explain it. Would you ever just get sad instead if you felt the cause of the situation was evil? If you feel that no one really is to blame, or the situation is just such a hard to thing to fathom that you can't see who could be culpable really... You could then turn to god for help, IOW turn to sadness.

Is there any other reason to turn to sadness? ...? Just in general if the situation is beyond the ability of humans to fix it. Or so far has been. If it seems hopeless. With no belief in evil there is no anger. Yet that only leaves sadness (if any generally negative emotion at all...) What does one feel if they don't believe in evil yet don't believe in god either? (And of course aren't just intellectualizing all the emotion right out of everything.)

Pity. Pity is a sort of sadness. Just a sadness for some other person; this profoundly stupid person. Sadness doesn't require belief in god. It's just that as a situation becomes hopeless we naturally start thinking about gods.

In this world of force, men with pride turn to anger instead of sadness.

To sadness there is potential crying; and men don't let some person who caused them harm, cause them to cry. They don't even let some person who caused them harm, cause them to be sad. Instead there is anger.

And he who turns to the rightwing adaptation first, wins. (He stabs the other guy in the back first, wins.) Anger is the rightwing adaptation.

The sad man is the loser (the jackals all laugh at him). The madman still has a chance...... :((((((( Or so he thinks. When really he's a bigger loser than the sad man.

suicide, inventing gods

Once there was a man who had good reason to want to kill himself. The good solid physical reason of agony which stretched off in to the future as far as he could see. But he struggled for years contemplating. "Perhaps he'd some day find a way to heal this chronic ailment and so killing himself would have been a mistake?" Finally, finally he did something very creative, that at least partially eased his mind. He decided that an evil "god" had done this to him. That he was that special, that some god had singled him out as someone that it must be made sure was killed. Certainly this was a dangerous thing to convince one's self of; it opens the door to a number of mental illnesses.

But he thought of this evil god, and it gave him such strength. It became a game to simply survive as long as possible despite his agony. And he did just this for years. And finally he healed his body.

The need for the god was now gone. But he hadn't quite so coherently understood what he was doing. And now when other relatively trivial bad things happened in his life, there again was the spectre of that "god". His anger against this "god" was both impressive and barbaric.

So he realized what was going on and got rid of the god.

Nostalgia

Kundera goes on about nostalgia at great length in Ignorance. He ultimately says it's like ignorance if I remember correctly as looks at it's meanings across various languages.

I often used to think back to the far past; to being ten years old, 14, 7, etc. And I would feel such yearning and pain to go back to then; such nostalgia. It seemed that back then the possibilities were endless. All doors were still open. There was real hope for.... something, that magical something. So many dreams could come true. There were so many beautiful people that I could meet and have fun with, be close with, love.

Hearing really old songs way later from the far past of course greatly heightened those nostalgic feelings. One in particular was this one:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=b9Ox-lGm-wA
I do remember very hot, humid summers and I remember a girl around this time that would look at me and her eyes would sear right through me with such longing.

I used to feel such nostalgia.

It's long gone. Feh. I should try to find something back in there where I was correct to feel nostalgia. Something in there were I really did have an actual chance. Where possibilities actually were open to me.

Because quite a while back I sat down and really thought hard about it and realized that that nostalgia was illusory. At no time did I ever have a chance. There was nothing I could have done differently that would have made any real difference. Which isn't to say I had it so bad. Better than most really. Goals just too high.

There was something I guess. A couple little somethings... But I feel no nostalgia for such specific precise few moments.

Ederlezi

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_mb1atYo5V0
A people that are continous trodden upon who despite it manage to continue on defiantly. (Just the song.)

Kundera quote

"He thought that he saw in that face thousands of other faces he knew well. He thought that his entire life had been an unbroken dialogue with that face. Whenever he tried to explain something to it, that face had turned away, offended, responding to his arguments by talking about something else; whenever he had smiled at it, that face had reproached him for his superficiality; whenever he had implored it to do something, that face had accused him of exhibiting his superiority--that face which understood nothing and decided everything, a face as vacant as a desert and proud of its desertedness."

Farewall Waltz

Building compassion/public service nightmares

For people to be compassionate they have to be able to feel what some other person is feeling. For them to care about others pain they have to either have felt that pain also or had it well described and spent some time thinking about it.

In this world most people like to avoid thinking about negative things. Only a warped minority really will willingly face very negative things.

So in a society that was trying to promote compassion in all it's people you could have "public service nightmares". Where people simply Have to watch some horrible stuff. They simply have to subject themselves to seeing suffering and learning to truly understand it.

Somewhat similar is (in a more coherent and systematic way than is practiced in reality) simply reading stories where there are bad guys and good guys. Where these stories can be related to the real world. Where people can then recognize in their potential being that bad guy and not wanting to be that. Instead we have people who don't read, who somehow have avoided most of the movies, etc that would be of use. Who are ridiculous caricatures of "evil" and have no idea.

This kind of stuff:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-8U_Etj0wNo
is of positive use in this world.

Long ago in a land far away there was this very large group of people who were relative to other groups they had run into much better organized (homogenous) while still keeping around some few creative individuals that had helped them to build better weapons for killing. They ran into another very large group of people and had a huge war.

They won the war and took this other group of people (who looked different "enough") and turned them into livestock for meat.

Within this winner group there were some people who thought this was a horrible thing to do. They thought so and refused to take part. They were called vegans. And as long as they just kept their mouths shut and didn't take part, they were only slightly persecuted. But unfortunately they here and there would speak out about this. And well, so, eventually they were all rounded up and killed.


So then in future generations there were still a very few people here and there who thought the same, as the compassion gene isn't so easy to completely eradicate, that what was being done was horrible. But what was there to do?

Shut up and try like all hell to convince themselves that they were wrong; to panglossize things.

Some really couldn't do that though. For whatever bizarre reason their sense of right and wrong was too strong.

So if they couldn't change things, if it was a real dumb idea to even speak out, what could they do at all?

They could refuse to play any of the games. They could just reject everything. And try to just survive on the edge of society. Just observing.

"Why wouldn't you just assume that everyone else is an idiot?" asks the frontman for the EBM group Novakill.

Because that means being an "elitist", arrogant, misanthropic, potentially closeminded, and probably lonely and miserable person.

But the alternative is to think that (in this case) my music is utter crap. That in everything that actually matters to me I'm without merit. And in the much more important general case; to think people are "evil", as I watch the things they do and don't do and can't believe it.

He's right to think everyone's an idiot basically. And most people really don't like him very much. (Of course.) I don't even care much for the arrogant bastard... as he just gives away free VSTs.... He/you can't win. You lost when you started questioning things in the first place.

Assimilation

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fjINMLy3l1E

And so there's a bunch of monkeymen and they're harming an isolated individual. Another person looks on, he's knows what they're doing is wrong, but there's nothing he can do. If he steps in, then he's being as unassimilated as this person being harmed and then he too will be harmed. So he keeps his mouth shut and stays in line; the threat of harm, fear, stopping him.

It would be ridiculous to do otherwise.

And so he survives.

Before him, there were others who didn't keep their mouth shut. Eventually these individuals were all killed; as assimilated/"united" groups almost always beat individuals in violence competitions.

So eventually the only people who thought for themselves kept their mouth shuts. And the best way of all to keep one's mouth shut is to not disagree, not think for one's self in the first place. In this way evolution has gone against individuality and creativity.

Although there is the fact that when two groups meet for a violence competition, the group that tolerated these "individuals" just a little bit, is likely to have an edge in innovative ways to kill. We can see that easily enough when looking at the history of man.

There is that as a positive at least.

I used to work as a scientist and I built an innovative device for sampling biological aerosols. Really something highly useful. After a vacation where I met up with some fellow vegans in Manchester I was escorted out of my workplace with no explanation thus destroying my scientific career.

So I was a case study of this.