Free To Be Human

The real choice is between obediance and expulsion. For this reason, there is a powerful tendency for people to want to believe that their thoughts and behavior at work are voluntary-the alternative, of perceiving the actual conflict, is simply too painful. Indeed, this struggle with conformity will be painful to the extent to which they are aware of their own conflicting inner needs, thoughts and desires. A person will suffer more intensely the more he or she is strong and independent. Given the apparent hopelessness of resistance, there is a powerful and continuous incentive for individuals to become less aware of their own feelings, beliefs and needs. Indeed, the only rational solution for an individual may often be to become dead inside, to become alienated from his or her feelings and desires. And it is exactly this internal deadness which has been declared the great sickness of modern man... pg 36 (David Edwards, Free to be Human)

I suppose I hadn't very coherently thought about how the nonconspiratorial way in which the mainstream media only allows an extremely narrow range of allowable debate, is exactly how virtually all of us are forced (generally to a somewhat lesser extent) to conform in whatever job we're doing...

The MSM though. They are our 'culture'. Whatever record we manage to leave behind... there they are. All on video and short of entirely blowing up the whole planet there will surely be left plenty of videos of them; the banter between the weatherman and the news anchor, between Bush and the friendly reporters. There is our culture. The decision to keep it light. To pretend. The Fake Smile. Etc.

'They (the public) ought to be sitting alone in front of the TV and having drilled into their heads the message, which says the only value in life is to have more commodities or live like that rich, middle class family you're watching and to have nice values like harmony and Americanism. That's all there is in life. You may think in your own head that there's got to be something more in life than this, but since you're watching the tube alone you assume, I must be crazy, because that's all that's going on over there. And since there is no organisation permitted-that's absolutely crucial-you never have a way of finding out whether you are crazy, and you just assume it, because it's the natural thing to assume.' (Chomsky, Spectacular Achievements of Media Propaganda)
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In the light of the evidence of reality-distortion provided by the propaganda model, it seems reasonable to suggest that the vast majority of modern neuroses are not at all rooted in repression of childhood trauma or sexual drives, but in a violent individual/social conflict between the desire of human beings to live and think in reasonably sane and rational ways and the requirement of our society that we live and think in ways which are absurd. Given the extent to which reality is filtered to fit the corporate need, it seems hardly imaginable that anyone today could have the independence of mind to form a balanced, realistic, sane view of the world-on which human happiness and sanity surely depend. (Edwards, Free to be Human)
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Hillman goes on to argue that our obsession with childhood, feelings and relationships in the absense of concern for the world around us leads us to place an impossible burden of expectation on our relationships, which consequently disintegrate under that weight. The most notable non-material obsession of our society is, after all, the dream of romantic love as an answer to all our troubles. When we listen to the endless stream of love songs, we hear continuous references to 'eternity','truth','dreaming','searching','the promised land' and so on, and this is surely the sound of the search for truth banished to the only permissible realm-the personal.

Unfortunately no romance can ever provide an adequate answer to a life lived in a society of dramatically limited freedom. 'All you need is love!', in fact, is an economically 'correct' fiction which, like green consumerism, corporate responsibility and the Western 'yearning for freedom and human rights', serves to divert genuine concern, genuine searching, into a harmless cul-de-sac while appearing to be a genuine message of hope for humanity.

Psychotherapy has been transformed into a similar mechanism for diversion, as Hillman seems to argue: "Psychology, working with yourself, could that be part of the disease, not part of the cure?"

Certainly, and we might suggest that the reason that psychotherapy has persisted with its irrational approach, rather than seeking rational norms for sanity, is because that search is in profound conflict with the propaganda system, which requires an essentially insane set of presupposed (but not explicitly stated-becase absurd) norms for the successful functioning of corporate consumerism. (Edwards, Free to be Human)
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'Here I could not agree with Freud. He considered the cause of the repression to be a sexual trauma. From my practice, however, I was familiar with numerous cases of neurosis in which the question of sexuality played a subordinate part, other factors standing in the foreground-for example, the problem of social adaptation, of oppression by tragic circumstances of life, prestige considerations and so on.' (Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections pg 170)
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'Both the 'economic' man and the 'sexual' man are convenient fabrications whose alleged nature-isolated, asocial, greedy and competitive-makes Capitalism appear as the system which corresponds perfectly to human nature, and places it beyond the reach of criticism. (Erich Fromm, The Sane Society pg 77)
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Like Chomsky, Fromm has the tragi-comic distinction of being sufficiently accurate in his analysis to know that he would be declared absurd and irrelevant. Thus, he too, has been consigned to the Lutheran 'zoo' along with Copernicus, Chomsky, and all the other 'asses who dare to speak out against the limits of 'respectable' discourse. We spend our time well when we consider that this fate befell Fromm-an outstandingly clear and rational thinker-within the 'science' devoted to explosing lies! (Edward, Free to be Human)
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...We have all, no doubt, been criticized for discussing something that is 'too deep', whether we are discussing matters psychological, philosophical, religious, environmental-anything that attempts to go to the root of problems. We all sense where the limit is. We know when we are steping over the line and when we can expect a sarcastic aside, or groan, from someone around us. We may even make a self deprecatory joke to pre-empt the diapproval. Similarly, when listening to other people, we immediately sense when the conversation has stepped over the mark and will elicit disapproval, when it has become too 'serious' or 'deep'. We might ask who, or what, is setting the tolerable limits of 'depth'?

The answer is that they are set by the same framing conditions on which our system depends; the same system which maintains the near-uniform frivolity on our magazine shelves and in our television schedules; the same system that depends on our commitment to light-hearted, frivolous consumption. The simply fact is that our culture needs to be infused with a 'buying environment', it needs to be swamped in 'muzak' encouraging us to have fun-and fun requires that we do not consider anything too seriously. For were we to do so, the version of common-sense reality to which we are continually encouraged to adhere (that fun, status and consumption are everything) would be revealed for the childish absurdity that it is. (Edwards, Free to be Human)

private tyrannies searching online
Couldn't find the similar article talking about how you should avoid ever saying anything critical about any employer you've ever had when you're online. Was thinking about that last night at the same time watching some corporate commercial going on about education for the younger generation; one young girl saying how she has learned 'to ask why?' Except of course when it comes to any action any corporation ever takes. Then, you better not ask why, lest you end up not getting fed.

We do have an insane set of social norms which we do not actually state out loud because they are clearly insane. Out loud we say one thing but it's understood-or you better learn to understand it-that what is said out loud is not what how you're actually expected to act. This applies first and most clearly to journalists in the MSM. And this is what unfortunately 95%+ of people just don't understand. Thus they figure there is no meaningful bias in the MSM or absurdly they believe the MSM when it complains of itself that it's too liberal. Because they think the alternative would mean a conspiracy.

But then you go for a job interview and it's understood-among other things-that you are quite simply expected to lie about certain things. You never ever admit to not having liked any job you've ever had. The boss doesn't say, "I expect you to lie and tell me every job was wonderful." It's just understood. It's no conspiracy. But if to you it's not understood then you won't be working in that job.

And so for me I recall an interview where I refused to take part in that absurdity and admitted to a R&D company that I had not enjoyed working for Toyota. Now, the reality of Toyota (in Kentucky) is that everyone hated it. Absolutely hated it. It was incredibly bad. To sit there and pretend that, "Oh yes! What a fun job that was!" Instead I attempted to assume my potential boss wasn't utterly retarded and could comprehend that there are actually bad jobs out there.

I didn't get the job. In fact I could quickly tell I had really bothered him by saying I disliked this past job. I was expected to adhere to the unspoken insane social norms and I failed.

I was glad I didn't get it though, the little fucker. I choose to be a slave instead of a slavemaster. But in some cases I'll take being free to starve.

chop chop, tick tock
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hell analogies... they're the way forward. But actually just about everything already is a hell analogy, it's only necessary to reflect privately upon it. Still, want to write a book called 'Hell'. A bunch of stories only slightly connected where Hell is more noticeable.

I enjoy life so much better if I just think I'm already in a sort of hell. Nobody's trying to turn hell into utopia or worrying too much about how awful it is and why can't others see? Why don't they try to do something other than just accept that this is how things are? If you recognize that this is hell and not utopia and never can ever be anything remotely like utopia and that all the things that would make "life" "meaningful" just don't exist here in hell, then you can get down to the just managing to survive without getting too particularly worked up about all the crap you're constantly put through.

I have actually gone years at a time doing exactly that in the past. Believing an evil god was trying to kill me was living as if I knew I was in hell. It was a happy time. Believing that the dog eat dog world of capitalism is the best of all possible worlds is a sort of belief that you're in hell. Many are managing something like that. Perhaps the very ability to not have an imagination comes out to being about the equivalent of living as if you believe you're in hell... Happy enough.
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Missed my run Saturday night as I was too tired from my 15 hour day. Missed it again Sunday as I was delirious from my 15 hour day. Finally ran today, Monday, further and faster than ever before. Maybe starting to push things too much. But I very much want to go a bit faster than I am. Dips haven't improved last few times. About 23. Although bodyweight is closer to 245 than 235.
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Went out Friday night with D and husband. D doesn't have any coherent designs on me. It's just when she gets drunk... She pinched my ass while I was playing pool. Finally occurred to me Sunday night that that was highly inappropriate behavior on her part.

I just want to occasionally do something other than sit home alone reading, etc. I figure eventually her husband will get pissed at me. I outweigh him by 100 pounds but he'll probably break a beer bottle over my head or something. So far he's been a really nice guy though. But I hear like so many, he occasionally gets into fights when drunk.

Never ever have I gotten into a fight while drunk. I wonder why I'm not affected in that way. I don't think I've ever even been angry while inebriated(sp).

I had thought the thought processes that matter the least to you give out first when drunk. For me my eyesight and hearing usually give out first and I slur my speech. Do so many people secretly just want to go around beating each other up? If nothing else I know I wouldn't fight as well when drunk.
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Finally that one smearer actually criticized the way I walked from my car into the hospital Saturday morning. With a smile like it was funny. I was "shleping." I pretended it was funny and did an exaggerageted Jim Carrey drunk walk.

She's just like everyone else. Has both good and bad in her. Hardly trying to be an evil person.

The other smearer told me a story about how after working at a hospital for 15 years her boss brought her into the office one day and accused her of deliberately ignoring the boss when she walked past and said hello. (She didn't actually do this.) She got a written warning for this. She asked how in the world was she supposed to respond to such an accusation. She figured she could starting crying, burst out laughing, or do what she did, just with a stony face say, "I'll try to do better."

I told her something along the lines of crying would have worked better. Try to seem upset at least and apologize profusely. Make the boss feel that she had successfully brought her down a few rungs.

This "smearer" is of course also not some kind of evil lady. Far from it. It's just how people are. They mostly really try to be good.

Ape Life

(song 63 removed)

I mentioned earlier a nursing teacher whom my fellow students were smearing. They were smearing him as if oblivious that they were destroying his life. They went to the dean about him, etc when he hadn't actually done anything wrong. I defended him but such women were successful. And it was some kind of strange women thing where excepting the effeminate men, no men had any problem with him whatsoever.

So they were successful. He's taking his wife and 11 year old son and moving some unknown place out west. Going to be a travel nurse as his reputation here has been ruined. Travel nursing is hardly the best thing when you have a family but he has little choice.

The one nurse who is currently smearing me for among other things supposedly hating my job had been insinuating he was sexually harrassing people (utterly untrue I've no doubt). She did so with a smile on her face as if it was funny.

The medical teaching doctor who was cheating on his wife came home to her. He's been spending his days laying in bed curled up in a ball crying. They're off to Martinique for a job interview in search of that magical thing which will give his life meaning.

This song is badly mixed. Not very dynamic.

And I recall from this interview, Nivek Ogre talking about making a dark protagonist as opposed to "walking up someone's asshole and smelling it." Yes, that would be preferable but it's not so easy to do.

This song is an attempt to better deal with the reality of this world instead of being periodically surprised by what I already know to be reality.

The Ape in the Corner Office

Throughout this book the author is trying to convince that monkeylike hierarchies are just the way we are period. Although I would guess there may not be a business with more than 15 employees on the planet that isn't a hierarchy to some extent, I'd still very much want to believe that there are some groups of people who truly live in an egalitarian manner. At least primarily in an egalitarian manner.

hierarchial living versus egalitarianism is like Force vs Reason or Fascism, etc vs Democracy... Capitalism versus Socialism, etc.

Or even Closedminded versus Openminded.

"No two men can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other." Samuel Johnson.

I, personally, was thinking it doesn't take half an hour. And so Richard Conniff (author of The Ape in the Corner Office) says in the very next line. 'It doesn't take half an hour.'

Oh how I hate that this is the case. I think maybe the understanding that it's the case and endless similar stuff in this book is why I find myself so much wanting to be a hermit.

The ideal is that people simply recognize that they're all equal, but just with different strengths and weaknesses. And usually the person who appears inferior just has strengths which are not as apparent.

The biggest thing here for me is the case where one person is clearly more intelligent generally speaking than the other. Better at math, way more well read, etc, etc. In such a case though, such people often are awful at actually enjoying their lives. They are much like the title of this blog. Too caught up in minutiae to have the sense to enjoy their really quite short life... Lacking in a sort of wisdom. Working too long hours, worrying too much, etc.

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Related to specialization of tasks: Women are better at smiling then men. They literally have stronger smile muscles. It's not known if it's genetic or the result of lives spent making simpering smiles to show their nonthreatening subordination.

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"Individuals with power (even randomly assigned power) tend to talk more, interrupt others, speak out of turn, and engage more readily in conflict. They use more expansive body language and smile less (subordinates specialize in smiles of submission or appeasement). They're more likely to enter the social space of others, stand too close, initiate physical contact, and flirt in less inhibited ways." Richard Conniff pg 110. The Ape in the Corner Office

I don't smile so much in appeasement/submission. Not as much as I should. I guess I need to work on that more.

I also disagree more than I should. I think when I add in other extenuating circumstances I ought to be more careful than the usual about ever disagreeing. The other day someone commented on some old picture of a colleague that she looked much younger now with her new haircut. I thought the opposite and said so. This first person took great offense. I would like to think such a disagreement as this would be a trivial thing but no, even disagreeing about something like that I have to be careful.

The problem is that in my egalitarian mindset a disagreement is a chance for me to change my mind and I love to change my mind. I love to find out I'm wrong and learn new things. But for so many others me disagreeing with them is instead me putting them down, me expressing my dominance over them (in their monkey worldview), etc.

So evolution comes up one day in the breakroom. And guess what? We've a number of nurses who don't believe in evolution. (Exactly the ones a person would guess BTW). They ask me if I believe in it and I admit that I do. But I'm smart enough to not even talk about it further. It's dangerous to disagree with a creationist. And in general it's dangerous to disagree with dumb people. As they are viewing the world through a monkey worldview and by disagreeing period you are challenging some hierarchy in their mind.

Go around and disagree with such a person and suddenly you're an arrogant elitist. Just by being intelligent and disagreeing with them they jump to that. Somehow with the quality of being openminded (unlike them) they make the jump to labeling you the opposite quality (arrogant). And then, hmmm, perhaps you're too arrogant to be trained as a nurse? Hmm, they'll have to keep a really close eye on you. Perhaps thanks to your arrogance you sadly just aren't going to make it in this profession...

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"So the dominance hierarchy "just sort of plays out, and the submissive sorts don't get to say anything, or their ideas get squashed," according to Jeff Johnson, a former software engineer at Hewlett Packard and Sun Microsystems, who now runs a consulting firm called UI Wizards. Technical writers tend to be at the bottom of the hierarchy, and if one of them actually says something, people exchanged puzzled looks. Then the conversation resumes without a ripple, often on a completely different topic. It's as if the wallboard has spoken, and everybody has tacitly agreed to pretend it didn't happen.

Johnson adds: "If a technical writer says something interesting, I'll stop and say, "I think what she said was interesting." And because I said it, and I'm an engineer and higher in the hierarchy, it will then be discussed."
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(Through his Institute for Better Meetings, DeKoven tried for more than 15 years to make meetings "collaborative and fun." But he finally concluded that "meetings are ceremonies to reinforce the hierarchy, to remind people who's boss, and to praise or chastise anyone who isn't." If people would just admit it, he says, meetings could be shorter and cheaper.)

I think men and women became more (evolved to be more) specialized from each other in large part so that men could go out and be successfully violent. In this sense I like androgynous people better. Less evolved for violence. Instead we have this specialization which helps the group as a whole primarily in committing violence but makes each individual less complete. It becomes an ugly thing to me in both directions. The cold alpha male type. And the simpering airhead female full of unthreatening smiles and never anything serious.

And then I would think being androgynous would potentially put someone in a position to be better able to see many points of view. This is also preferable.

Whatever it is I love the look of androgynous people.

...it's the sort of thing though it seems one ought to really keep quiet about. I think people hardly want to be thought of as androgynous probably. Possibly could feel quite insulted about it. Like, really insulted. And permanently hurt by it. Could give someone a lifelong complex... Yet then, probably every single such person is exactly aware of it exactly to the extent it is true of them.

I wish I was somewhat androgynous looking though. I'd like it. I think. Although it's easy enough to say when I'm not though.

tragic mulatto

I remember falling in love. Needing love to survive in this world. And of course choosing a demon to fall in love with. Repeatedly.

There are such people and there are those who don't need love because they like the world just fine. And then there are those who needed it and repeatedly fell in love with demons and finally learned to ridicule love.

Salvatore's Drizzt is basically asexual. What if that weren't the case? It would be more realistic if while stuck in Menzoberranzan, in desperation, he tried to find some female drow to love. In the book there isn't a single drow that is worthy of his love, but, still, I think in desperation he would still try, and would thus fall in love over and over with demonic women.

Or there could be someone he sees from afar who appears worthy, but he can never quite reach her. Endless such loves always safely off in the distance.

Mind speeds up

Strange thing. Took a test today in nursing school. In the farther past (before nursing school, during engineering school, etc) I was always very quick with tests, with reading in general. Reading an entire book on an airplace flight, etc. During nursing school though I've been only finishing these tests in about the average time. And I've not been reading so much. Been reading slow.

Suddenly on this test I was the first done of 100 people by a long way. And during class today I read half of that book about how the office is so similar to chimps in the wild.

Is it that I've gotten back into running? The main other variable (and damm but there's always other variables) is the weekly day of fasting I've been doing.

Last two runs: 115 minutes w/ 5 lb dumbells, then 110 minutes w/ 5.5 lb dumbells. Each one faster than the last.

But also this running / (fasting?) may be contributing to my recent melancholy. Normally I do go to work and leave in a pretty good mood. Not so much lately.

Dreamt last night that I was eating dinner at this large rich family's house. The old man, the head of the house. Like a mafia don was sitting beside me and he forced me to give him a big french kiss before the meal while everyone else around the table looked on appalled. I did so stoicly and then ate my dinner.

Then dreamed I got banned from a discussion board. Ten awful years of those nasty things and I've never actually been banned.

Anti-multitasking

my issue with art

I think I was wrong there. I dislike Camus' solution because the idea of not thinking period, in any situation, seems a negative. As we exist to the extent we think, etc. But, practically speaking the mind can only do so much. At least in the formative stage of a piece of art it is best if you are solely concentrating on just that piece of art. You should not be thinking at all about whether or not anyone else will ever hear, read, look at it. That is energy taken away from the art itself. This idea instead of imagining you're going to be the next Hemingway, or whatever, (thus the creation isn't so futile...) you end up daydreaming about absurd things like being famous instead of concentrating on whatever art you're working on.

There is something to be said for putting your head down and just not thinking about certain things. I just worry about what will happen when I'm not looking. If ever I have any actual "syndrome" it would be this idea of wanting to keep awareness of all things. A ridiculous idea. ADD stuff. Should try to concentrate on one thing at a time probably. Yes, will do so.

Angel Syndrome

As to the last post, first off, it's no big deal. That's how it is all over for everyone. Slightly more important for me to keep such things in mind because of who I am and what job I happen to be doing. (Being a scientifically minded man who does come across as really intelligent working in a field with mostly women of average intelligence.) (And as ridiculous as it is I probably should mention that I'm tall and in good shape too. As that really is held against people too, absurd as it seems. I could maybe try to hunch over a bit???) Secondly, as to responding the correct way in such situations, I mostly do. I'd already have been fired otherwise no matter how perfectly I did my job and how nice I was. I've put on an act perfectly on a number of occasions to let people feel they had sufficienty put me down a rung or two on the ladder.

My thing is that maybe I don't do it always quite well enough. And also, that I get sick and tired of it. I understand too well, logically speaking, what is going on; that it's monkey stuff, literally. In fact, I just found a book tonight for a dollar which goes on about exactly that; how the workplace environment is so similar to how monkeys behave in the wild. (It then furthermore goes on about how to the succeed is the workplace with keeping such things in mind.)

I think most people who do well in these environments, are 'getting it' on an unconscious level. Both how to avoid getting attacked and also how to 'attack' like the two smearers whom actually are trying to be nice people for the most part. They're just slaves to their unconscious' like all of us to an extent. Really, they're not trying to destroy lives. It's just how they're hard wired. They want to be good.

Anyway, though, this maybe not doing it as well enough at times on my part, one could self persecute themselves and think they, say, have aspergers for example. I'm thinking of something I think original instead: angel syndrome.

Where basically everything outside of the norm which causes someone to not get along in the world as well is labeled a mental disease/syndrome, thus simply being too good of a person we can go ahead and say that in and of itself means there's something wrong with you.

So, the person with angel syndrome can't understand that people really don't want to be egalitarian at all. They want you to very clearly bow down to their authority and never even appear to do otherwise. The angel doesn't understand this not because they're unable to understand human emotions very well, they don't get it because they're too good for this world and just don't understand this ugliness that is in most people.

Like Aldous Huxley's brother who committed suicide, "(they're) too good for this world."

And so they (I) don't understand jealousy for example. Or other things. The general level of indifference. Etc.

And as opposed to being "fixated" on things that happened long ago because I've got OCD, or aspergers, etc, etc, it is actually quite truly that I at least, and I don't speak for others, just have an extremely strong sense of right and wrong. And feel a ton of moral outrage, just amazement still over the things people did to me when I was just a kid. How could adults treat kids like that? Such things I still think about in amazement, etc. Although I've never mentioned such here.

So then, to see people (and I know more than one such person) who are unhappy and seem so so good and seem to be consumed just with moral outrage, persecuting themselves; thinking that there must be something wrong with them, really bothers me.

I would instead call it angel syndrome. Which of course isn't to say that aspergers, etc doesn't exist, etc.

Work

So then there's this one lady at work who is always moaning and groaning about how much she hates her job; how she wishes she just worked at WalMart instead. I tried to cheer her up and talk about how positive the work is that we're doing. And that I've had a lot of jobs in the past and really this one is not so bad... Honestly I like it the most of any job I've had by far.

So, she keeps trying to convince me that once I become a nurse I'll see, it's horrible. And then, of course, I'm disagreeing with her instead of just saying, "Yeah, wow, this job sucks!" (While I'm trying to be positive mind you, as among other things I'm still trying to get through college. Along with the fact that relatively speaking it actually is a decent job.) So she starts getting annoyed with me. And then one single time I didn't get some venodyne boots fast enough because I had 4 other things I was doing and then the person went down for two hours for an MRI. So now she uses that as an example of how if that happened as a nurse they could fire me, etc. But there's more, she then starts going on about how I'll make a bad nurse, etc, and smearing me behind my back. Simply because I didn't agree that yeah this job sucks, what the hell am I thinking going to college so that I can do this for a living? I should quit and go make my 10 dollars an hour for the rest of my life with no health insurance at WalMart.

So now I'm getting smeared because I like my job. (Nurses aide.) By a person who other people had in turn been smearing for asking too many questions when she first started here. At that time I defended her and went out of my way to help her with all her questions concerning the various workings of this particular hospital. Asking over and over again about phone numbers instead of just writing them down for example.

So I defend her and go out of my way to be nice to her. And then apparently based on trying to cheer her up and be positive about work she in turn is now smearing me behind my back and claiming I forget to do things (based on the single example of the venodyne boots), etc.

Which manages to put me in a melancholy mood to a slight extent.

Which, as a result of then being a bit melancholy, immediately some other nurse is on my case, ridiculously, saying I must hate my job. Probably I shouldn't go into nursing; smearing me behind my back in such a manner. This despite me being one of the most positive people at this hospital for the last year.

I guess if they sit down to smear me together they might have to coordinate their smear stories a bit. As according to the one I love my work and to the other I hate it.

I suppose that could make a halfway humorous story. The two sitting down in the break area. The one starts smearing me. The other starts in. Do they directly contradict each other? Or does the one just keep to herself that the other is clearly saying what is actually the exact opposite of my actual attitude.

A story I probably won't bother to write. It all just tires me.

Such smears go on endlessly. Of course agaisnt everyone. Not just me. I'm always amazed by it. That, they think it's OK to smear some other person when that one person isn't present but still plenty of other people are, like they've no idea they look like a witch to act that way.

I know they smear me too. Absolutely no doubt about that. And most likely they smear me more than average. Because I seem really smart. And that bothers people. I'm sure they'd all appreciate it if I seemed a little bit dumber. As it is, no matter I act like Ghandi I'm probably still on the edge of getting lynched as an elitist.

If I only I could cry at work. Cry in the appropriate manner. Not nervous breakdown crying. There is a way that women manage to cry that is still relatively acceptable. They'd love to see me come down a notch in that way. As simply by seeming intelligent, etc, I bother them. If only I could be degraded somehow.

I don't have such crying in me period. Not remotely. Perhaps I can think up some other way where in their eyes I can be humilated sufficiently that they'll find some other target they can move on to without actually destroying me.

Acting dumb (but not too dumb!) is useful. And I do try to do that. I always try to put myself down. Never ever say anything good about myself.

I guess I have to work on my acting though in that I'm too stoic. I need to seem more affected by their machinations.

before the music dies

Transfixed by the sheer joy of the elves' play, Drizzt hardly noticed the commandes his brother issued then in the silent code. Several children danced among the gathering, marked only by the size of their bodies, and were no freer in spirit than the adults they accompanied. So innocent they all seemed, so full of life and wistfulness, and obviously bonded to each other by friendship more profound than Drizzt had ever known in Menzoberranzan. So unlike the stories Hatch'net had spun of them, tales of vile, hating wretches.

Drizzt sensed more than saw that his group was on the move, fanning out to gain a greater advantage. Still he did not take his eyes from the spectacle before him. Dinin tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the small crossbow that hung from his belt, then slipped off into position in the brush off to the side.

Drizzt wanted to stop his brother and the others, wanted to make them wait and observe the surface elves that they were so quick to name enemies. Drizzt found his feet rooted to the earth and his tongue weighted heavily in the sudden dryness that had come into his mouth. He looked to Dinin and could only hope that his brother mistakenly thought his labored breaths the exaltations of battlelust.

Then Drizzt's keen ears heard the soft thrum of a dozen tiny bowstrings. The elven song carried on a moment longer, until several of the group dropped to the earth.

"No!" Drizzt screamed in protest, the words torn from his body by a profound rage even he did not understand. The denial sounded like just another war cry to the drow raiders, and before the surface elves could even begin to react, Dinin and the others were upon them.

Drizzt, too, leaped in the glade's lighted ring, his weapons in hand, though he had given no thought to his next move. He wanted only to stop the battle, to put an end to the scene unfolding before him.

Quite at ease in their woodland home, the surface elves weren't even armed. The drow warriors sliced through their ranks mercilessly, cutting them down and hacking at their bodies long after the light of life had flown from their eyes.

One terrified female, dodging this way and that, came before Drizzt. He dipped the tips of his weapons to the earth, searching for some way to give a measure of comfort.

The female then jerked straight as a sword dove into her back, its tip thrusting right through her slender form. Drizzt watched, mesmerized and horrified, as the drow warrior behind her grasped the weapon hilt in both hands and twisted it savagely. The female elf looked straight at Drizzt in the last fleeting seconds of her life, her eyes crying for mercy. Her voice was no more than the sickening gurgle of blood.

His face the exultation of ecstacy, the drow warrior tore his sword free and sliced it across, taking the head from the elven female's shoulders.

"Vengeance!" he cried at Drizzt, his face contorted in furious glee, his eyes burning with a light that shone demonic to the stunned Drizzt. The warrior hacked at the lifeless body one more time, then spun away in search of another kill.

Only a moment later, another elf, this one a young girl, broke free of the massacre and rushed in Drizzt's direction, screaming a single word over and over. Her cry was in the tongue of the surface elves, a dialect foreign to Drizzt, but when he looked upon her fair face, streaked with tears, he understood what she was saying. Her eyes were on the mutilated corpse at his feet; her anguish outweighed even the terror of her own impending doom. She could only be crying, "Mother!"

Rage, horror, anguish, and a dozen other emotions racked Drizzt at that horrible moment. He wanted to escape his feelings, to lose himself in the blind frenzy of his kin and accept the ugly reality. How easy it would have been to throw away the conscience that pained him so.

The elven child rushed up before Drizzt but hardly saw him, her gaze locked upon her dead mother, the back of the child's neck open to a single, clean blow. Drizzt raised his scimitar, unable to distinquish between mercy and murder.

"Yes, my brother!" Dinin cried out to him, a call that cut through his comrades' screams and whoops and echoed in Drizzt's ears like an accusation. Drizzt looked up to see Dinin, covered from head to foot in blood and standing amid a hacked cluster of dead elves.

"Today you know the glory it is to be a drow!" Dinin cried, and he punched a victorious fist into the air. "Today we appease the Spider Queen!"

Drizzt responded in kind, then snarled and reared back for a killing blow.

He almost did it. In his unfocused outrage, Drizzt Do'Urden almost became as his kin. He almost stole the life from that beautiful child's sparkling eyes.

At the last moment, she looked up at him, her eyes shining as a dark mirror into Drizzt's blackening heart. In that reflection, that reverse image of the rage that guided his hand, Drizzt Do'Urden found himself.

He brought the scimitar down in a might sweep, watching Dinin out of the corner of his eye as it whisked harmlessly past the child. In the same motion, Drizzt followed with his other hand, catching the girl by the front of her tunic and pulling her facedown to the ground.

She screamed, unharmed but terrified, and Drizzt saw Dinin thrust his fist into the air again and spin away.

Drizzt had to work quickly; the battle was almost at its gruesome end. He sliced his scimitars expertly above the huddled child's back, cuffing her clothing but not so much as scratching her tender skin. Then he used the blood of the headless corpse to mask the trick, taking grim satisfaction that the elven mother would be please to know that, in dying, she had saved the life of her daughter.

"Stay down," he whispered in the child's ear. Drizzt knew that she could not understand his language, but he tried to keep his tone comforting enough for her to guess at the deception. He could only hope he had done an adequate job a moment later, when Dinin and several others came over to him.

"Well done!" Dinin said exuberantly, trembling with sheer excitement. "A score of the orc-bait dead and not a one of us even injured! The matrons of Menzoberranzan will be pleased indeed, though we'll get no plunder from this pitiful lot!" He looked down at the pile at Drizzt's feet, then clapped his brother on the shoulder.

"Did they think they could get away?" Dinin roared.

Drizzt fought hard to sublimate his disgust, but Dinin was so entranced by the blood-bath that he wouldn't have noticed anyway.

"Not with you here!" Dinin continued. "Two kills for Drizzt!"

"One kill!" protested another, stepping beside Dinin. Drizzt set his hands firmly on the hilts of his weapons and gathered up his courage. If this approaching drow had guessed the deception. Drizzt would fight to save the elven child. He would kill his companions, even his brother, to save the little girl with the sparkling eyes-until he himself was slain. At least then Drizzt would not have to witness their slaughter of the child.

Luckily, the problem never came up. "Drizzt got the child," the drow said to Dinin, "but I got the elder female. I put my sword right through her back before your brother ever brought his scimitars to bear!"

It came as a reflex, an unconscious strike against the evil all about him. Drizzt didn't even realize the act as it happened, but a moment later, he saw the boasting drow lying on his back, clutching at his face and groaning in agony. Only then did Drizzt notice the burning pain in his hand, and he looked down to see his knuckles, and the scimitar hilt they clutched, spattered with blood.

"What are you about?" Dinin demanded.

Thinking quickly, Drizzt did not even reply to his brother. He looked past Dinin, to the squirming form on the ground, and transferred all the rage in his heart into a curse that the others would accept and respect. "If ever you steal a kill from me again," he spat, sincerity dripping from his false words, "I will replace the head lost from it's shoulders with your own!"

Drizzt knew that the elven child at his feet, though doing her best, had begun a slight shudder of sobbing, and he decided not to press his luck. "Come, then," he growled. "Let us leave this place. The stench of the surface world fills my mouth with bile!"

He stormed away, and the others, laughing, picked up their dazed comrade and followed.

"Finally," Dinin whispered as he watched his brother's tense strides. "Finally you have learned what it is to be a drow warrior!"

-----

..."Finish them," Dinin instructed.

A wide smile spread over the other drow's face, and he pulled a jagged knife from his belt. He held it up in front of a gnome's face, teasing the helpless creature. "Can they see it?" he asked the high priestess.

"That is the fun of the spell," the high priestess replied. "the svirfneblin understands what is about to happen. Even now he is struggling to break out of the hold."

"Prisoners!" Drizzt blurted.

Dinin and the others turned to him, the drow with the dagger wearing a scowl both angry and disappointed.

"For House Do'Urden?" Drizzt asked Dinin hopefully. "We could benefit from-"

"Svirfnebli do not make good slaves," Dinin replied.

"No," agreed the high priestess, moving beside the dagger-wielding figher. She nodded to the warrior and his smile returned tenfold. He struck hard. Only Belwar remained.

The warrior waved his bloodstained dagger ominously and moved in front of the gnome leader.

"Not that one!" Drizzt protested, unable to bear anymore. "Let him live!" Drizzt wanted to say that Belwar could do them no harm, and that killing the defenseless gnome would be a cowardly and vile act. Drizzt knew that appealing to his kin for mercy would be a waste of time.

Dinin's expression was more a look of anger than curiosity this time.

"If you kill him, then no gnomes will remain to return to their city and tell of our strength," Drizzt reasoned, grasping at the one slim hope he could find. "We should send him back to his people, send him back to tell them of their folly in entering the domain of the drow!"

Dinin looked back to the high priestess for advice.

"It seems proper reasoning," she said with a nod.

Dinin was not so certain of his brother's motives. Not taking his eyes off Drizzt, he said to the warrior, "Then cut off the gnome's hands."

Drizzt didn't flinch, realizing that if he did, would surely slaughter Belwar.

The warrior replaced the dagger on his belt and took out his heavy sword.

"Wait," said Dinin, sill eyeing Drizzt. "Release him from the spell first; I want to hear his screams."

Several drow moved over to put the tips of their swords at Belwar's neck as the high priestess released her magical hold. Belware made no moves.

The appointed drow warrior grasped his sword in both hands, and Belwar, brave Belwar, held his arms straight out and motionless in front of him.

Drizzt averted his gaze, unable to watch and awaiting, fearing, the gnome's cry.

Belwar noted Drizzt's reaction. Was it compassion?

The drow warrior then swung his sword. Belwar never took his stare off Drizzt as the sword cut across his wrists, lighting a million fires of agony in his arms.

Neither did Belwar scream. He wouldn't give Dinin the satisfaction. The gnome leader looked back to Drizzt one final time as two drow fighters ushered him out of the chamber, and he recognized the true anguish, and the apology, behind the young drow's feigned impassive facade.

Twitter?

Don't want to be like that. But there can be good ways to use technology. One can wander off in bad directions though. I've never really looked into to twitter but to some extent at least facebook, blogs, can be similar.

Found my new favorite VSTi: Superwave P8.

Otherwise usual issues. Fatigue. Can't be bothered to spend more than a few hours on a song. Why bother? Much more than that and I'll just ruin my own enjoyment of it. And it's not like there's anyone else I'm doing this for.

Adding movie soundbites seems a bit dorky on some level even though I usually like it in other songs. Spent most of my time here just trying to find some specific soundbite that I didn't make comprehensible anyway. But a beautiful synth, sounds like hardware to me, and it just happens to be free. Yay for that.

Additional House Qualities

I am not going to spend a major portion of my life mowing grass. (Too late!) This means either no lawn, a small lawn, or no lawn nazis. Perhaps a house outside of city limits where I'm free to have tall grass. But would I really be free even then? Looked at some houses outside of city limits and the lawns were all perfectly manicured. House after house with large yards. Yards that aren't actually being used for anything. Too steep for the most part to play on anyway. Hardly any trees. Yet, every inch of grass: uniform and short. Perhaps only mindless zombies lived there.

Would like the freedom to do crazy stuff. This again would suggest living outside of city limits, or at least a tall fence around the yard. Like I could plant bamboo and just let it grow and grow. Saw someone's house today that had a little bit of 20 foot tall bamboo. I could just let it take over the entire yard but for walkways, a pond, etc.

Really dislike lawn nazis BTW. Live beside one right now. Cost me 3000 dollars last summer. Tad difficult to continue being nice to the bastard.

Need a house that I can be loud during the day time while wife is working. I haven't been able to work on music vocals for a long time now thanks to her work at home job.

Does seem an isolated house outside of city limits would be a good idea. But all those rednecks, and their 4 wheelers, and their hunting, etc.

In most cases one isn't even allowed to put up a tall fence. The lawn nazi next door would not agree to me putting up such a fence around my yard.

...the way people are it would be best to live in isolation. But all these houses in nowhere are still amongst... cattle farmers, outcroppings of houses where everyone is related... and all with large well manicured lawns...

I would really like to live someplace where at least at my home I'm actually free to do with it as I please.

I would like to be able to take these headphones off. The one set makes me ears hurt. The other one squeezes my head and makes my head hurt.

second run was 68 minutes. Third run yesterday was... 98 minutes. Each with 5 lb dumbells in each hand. Very slow. Still not much soreness at all though. It is interesting to me that the arm running motion mimics the motion of performing a dip and I'm interested to see if running with dumbells will improve my ability to perform dips. After yesterday's run I did a set of 25 dips without even breathing hard. Although the range of motion was not quite what it could be. Hopefully when I get faster the arm ROM will improve a bit.

But I may not necessarily improve much. Beyond the first month or so most people don't. And that's why most eventually just don't bother. Hardly anyone can do a set of 20 chinups for example. People will do that stuff for years and years and still struggle to do 10, 15. Which doesn't seem right to me. Surely there ought to be a way to train that people can manage to improve beyond that first month of so. Yet, really, virtually none do.

I've seen people here out running for years and years and they still hobble along looking like crap. I recall one guy especially he did this thing that was halfway between a run and a speed walk. He was chubby. In the summer he went without a shirt and had a great tan but was really quite chubby. Year after year so he went, never any faster that I could see. Finally he got cancer and died. He wasn't even 60. Perhaps there were unseen benefits to his running. Maybe he got a great high from it and had a good sex life.

An issue with art is knowing that if while making it or beginning to make it you think about how no one is ever going to listen to it, if you think you're doing the equivalent of rolling a boulder up a hill where it will just immediately be let loose to roll back down, it makes it harder to bother doing so. But making exactly that analogy provides the answer. You can do it like Camus' atheist who just doesn't think about that relatively important fact that no one's going to listen to it and instead concentrates on rolling it well. Or you can pretend that it's not just going to roll back down, that other people are going to appreciate it, a sufficient number to not make it a waste of time. But what exactly to pretend? Shall you pretend you're the next Kafka or Hemingway and eventually hundreds of books and articles will be written about you? Or shall you try to return life to a preindustrial age before mass production; where the numbers aren't quite so gaudy/obscene. Perhaps the difference doesn't matter too much.
-
So sick of how people talk about one another behind their backs.
Like this article about Samuel Beckett; the writter of the article is annoyed that their doesn't seem to be gossip in Beckett's voluminous letters. He doesn't talk about the women he's with except to say he likes her. The article writer apparently wants an assessment. But what is that? Even if he's saying just good things... to go on about someone behind their back... I guess if it's exactly things you have said to their face. Otherwise it's an ugliness. And it's rampant in this world.

Making me want to be a hermit. Hard to find people who don't take part in it. I myself could do a little better still I guess. Although I do pretty well.

Last night wife and I went out to dinner with S from work and two or her friends. Afterwards of course as we're driving home we talk a little about S. Which again, heh, I hate that. Even though I only said good things. Solely good things. I think pretty highly of her. And... what if I thought bad things? Would I just shut my trap and keep them to myself?

The good doesn't matter much when the bad is just censored. (Like the clear empty fakeness of facebook.) The ideal is that all assessments would be things you'd have no problem saying to the person's face thus it's not like you're hiding anything when talking about them behind their back...

And thus, my favorite people are those who will at least just throw out negative stuff in front of everyone. Many such people come to mind... Take S for example who probably hurts herself at work by just telling people what she really thinks. Being like that will catch up to her most likely, over and over again. Many others...

There is the question are they making a moral choice to be real instead of fake? Seeking truth? Or, are they just too dumb to assimilate to the social norm? I hope it's the former. But still, even if it isn't, I still prefer such people. People who will scream and yell and carry on at times.



...the problem with spending a long time on a song, story, etc is that you get sick of it eventually. And by the time you're done, you've ruined it for yourself, just thanks to the amount of time you've spent with it.

So then the ways around this are:
1. Have multiple people working on it? So it can get two, three, four times as much work without anyone person getting so sick of it...
2. Get better. So that you can make something great much faster.
3. Try at least to think of yourself as the legendary artist and that millions will listen to this song, read this story, etc for decades... centuries and thus you must spend a long time working on it.
4. Don't spend a long time on most things. Just do it to the extent you can amuse yourself.

In a bad enough mood that I really enjoyed this song yesterday morning. Hadn't in years.

I should do vocals even though my voice is wrong. Maybe I could make a new vocal paradigm/vocal meme or something. If nothing else was thinking of holding on to the thought "Fuck you!" while singing the vocals that if anyone ever actually listened to they'd snickered, quickly click off, etc.

Skinny Puppy's last two albums aren't any good. Again, what the hell happened? Dwayne Goettel died. They sold all their hardware and switched to software... (sigh) I don't know.

The running? Is essential. Despite how stupid it seems in a way to me. I should make sure to do it for rest of life. And I can, provided I keep the right form.

I'm stuck in this mortal shell. To enjoy this mortal shell I need to do things like running. Could be something other than running but... eh. But what else actually? Running is my favorite.

...it brings back my mind's ability to make symbolizations which I'm afraid are actually essential to living.

Fasting

Only fasted twice so far, last two Wednesdays.
Pros:
1. It makes my stomach shrink so that I don't want to eat so much and so often the rest of the week. Instead of wanting to eat to exploding I just want to eat till I feel nauseous it seems. And I end up eating much smaller meals. And I'm losing an increasingly sluggish feeling I was having. Also, when I'm stuck at work for 13 hours with nothing vegan but junk to eat, it's much easier to just not bother eating till I finally leave. Or just have a little juice...

So I'm feeling less sluggish.

2. I'm eating healthier.
3. I'm losing some fat.
4. It may actually be healthier. (Scott Nearing out in the woods-100 yrs. All sorts of studies showing less food equals longer life.)
5. Also fasting is very easy for me to do. I don't feel at all like I'm starving to death or weak, etc. I just feel like that's one less annoying thing to bother with. Or one could say it's an immortal thing (not eating) like running for two hours with ease. Or like a purification. So it's sort of pleasant.
6. I'm hardly wasting away to nothing. I probably still weigh 235 pounds. If I get down to 215 will reassess.

Cons:
1. The evening of the fast I get bad breath.
2. I've had insomnia the fast nights.
3. With a clearer mind I can see even better just how wrong this world is; which is difficult to deal with; feeling more and more like becoming a sort of hermit as a result; maybe would be better to drown myself in the distraction of food.

What a banal time suck is this internet.

grace
sent its rays
bustling
heartless
gloom
meander
profound
foreboding
stark contrast
havens
haunting
incessant
ascension to power
invites the pretense of justice
treachery
sweeping view
emblazoned
insignia
strode
a sense of wonder
learned their trade
a wicked smile spread across his lips
crept along the side
slipped in the alley
sped off
they took care not to
paid them no heed
strewn with stones
...permeated the air
smile spread wide
when the whispers ripple out
they streamed out
weapons waving menacingly
rummaging
pulling his stare from the spectacle
involuntary shudder
botched
the word prompted a jumble of emotions

"What place is this that is my world; what dark coil has my spirit embodied?"

"Look at his eyes," Vierna whispered to Maya as they examined the newest member of house Do'Urden.....
..."What do you see that the rest of us cannot?"

"How long will I survive?"
"How long until this madness that is my existence consumes me?"
-
Forever dark. Seeing in the infrared spectrum, glows and weak candlelight. Every one is evil. But a single one who happens to be phenomenal with his swords.

An analogous world. And escapist in that the hero is a phenomenal fighter. But also in that the characters are 2D. Either clearly good or bad. A very few later go beyond this although still in a somewhat simplified way. The 2Dness is also a sort of escape to where life is at least more straightforward. Good is good and bad is bad. Along with it being a world where a sword can solve problems.

The last and first quotes above: neither is actually made by the hero although they are basically his thoughts. He never utters anything as straightforward as that. Why?

In The Watchmen: Rorschach, The Comedian and Dr. Manhattan are all fragments of the same idea.

"8 pm, I'm probably crashed by then! Sorrrrry!"


Step one to becoming an angel is refusing to believe in the existence of devils.
-
Find them when they are at their lowest points; at their most vulnerable. When they most need a friend and appear at first to be that friend. Then-wait till the moment is right-and make fun of them, laugh at their pain, and dismiss them to die.
-
You can't believe in their existence because what if even once you are wrong? What if even once you mark a human as a devil? We cannot allow this to happen and thus the devils are free to torture us. We've no defenses at all.
-
Step two is total honesty. Always used against you. Always believing in the other. Believing that they're worthwhile. That they value the truth. That they won't just hate you and attack you. Step two is believing we are something more than animals.

link
The Board's List:

Yes ULYSSES by James Joyce
Yes THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
No A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
online
Partial LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
Yes BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
No THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
Partial CATCH-22
No DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
Yes SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
Yes THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
No UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
No THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
online
Yes 1984 by George Orwell
No I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
No TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
No AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
No THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
Yes SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
Partial INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
Partial NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
Yes HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow
No APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O'Hara
No U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
No WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
No A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
No THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James
No THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James
online
No TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald
No THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell
No THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford
Yes ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
No THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James
No SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
No A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh
No AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
No ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren
No THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder
No HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster
No GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin
No THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene
Yes LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
...saw the movie? DELIVERANCE by James Dickey
No A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell
Yes! POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley
Yes THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
Partial THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad
No NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad
No THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence
No WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence
..partial TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
Yes THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer
No PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth
No PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
No LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
Yes ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
No THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett
No PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford
No THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton
No ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm
No THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
No DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather
No FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones
No THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever
Yes THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
Yes A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
No OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
partial HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
No MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis
No THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
No THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell
No A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes
No A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul
No THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West
Yes A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
No SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh
No THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
No FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce
No KIM by Rudyard Kipling
No A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster
No BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
No THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow
No ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner
No A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul
No THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen
Partial LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad
No RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow
No THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett
Yes THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
No LOVING by Henry Green
No MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
No TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell
No IRONWEED by William Kennedy
No THE MAGUS by John Fowles
No WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
No UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch
No SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron
No THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
No THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain
No THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy
No THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington

Well that's just awful. 22 out of 100. Wife read 31. She's read more because in her high school they made you read books. Also I bet I've just totally forgotten at least 5 that I actually did read. Possibly as many as ten. I've been thinking about getting Kindle 2. Was holding back because the selection wasn't so great. Maybe this is enough reason to go ahead and get it. I've been an extreme bookworm at times in my life but not so much with the classics.

1 ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
2 THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
3 BATTLEFIELD EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
4 THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
5 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
6 1984 by George Orwell
7 ANTHEM by Ayn Rand
8 WE THE LIVING by Ayn Rand
9 MISSION EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
FEAR by L. Ron Hubbard
10 ULYSSES by James Joyce
11 CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
12 THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
13 DUNE by Frank Herbert
14 THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS by Robert Heinlein
15 STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Robert Heinlein
A TOWN LIKE ALICE by Nevil Shute
16 BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
17 THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
18 ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
18.5 GRAVITY'S RAINBOW by Thomas Pynchon
THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
19.5 SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell
20.5 LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
SHANE by Jack Schaefer
TRUSTEE FROM THE TOOLROOM by Nevil Shute
A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY by John Irving
21.5 THE STAND by Stephen King
THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN by John Fowles
22 BELOVED by Toni Morrison
THE WORM OUROBOROS by E.R. Eddison
THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
MOONHEART by Charles de Lint
ABSALOM, ABSALOM! by William Faulkner
OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
WISE BLOOD by Flannery O'Connor
UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
FIFTH BUSINESS by Robertson Davies
SOMEPLACE TO BE FLYING by Charles de Lint
23 ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
24 HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
YARROW by Charles de Lint
41 AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS by H.P. Lovecraft
ONE LONELY NIGHT by Mickey Spillane
MEMORY AND DREAM by Charles de Lint
TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
TRADER by Charles de Lint
25 THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams
THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
THE HANDMAID'S TALE by Margaret Atwood
BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McCarthy
26 A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
ON THE BEACH by Nevil Shute
A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
GREENMANTLE by Charles de Lint
27 ENDER'S GAME by Orson Scott Card
THE LITTLE COUNTRY by Charles de Lint
THE RECOGNITIONS by William Gaddis
28 STARSHIP TROOPERS by Robert Heinlein
29 THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP by John Irving
30 SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by Ray Bradbury
THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson
AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
31 INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
THE WOOD WIFE by Terri Windling
THE MAGUS by John Fowles
THE DOOR INTO SUMMER by Robert Heinlein
ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE by Robert Pirsig
I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
32 THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS by Flann O'Brien
33 FARENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury
ARROWSMITH by Sinclair Lewis
34 WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams
35 NAKED LUNCH by William S. Burroughs
THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER by Tom Clancy
GUILTY PLEASURES by Laurell K. Hamilton
36 THE PUPPET MASTERS by Robert Heinlein
37 IT by Stephen King
V. by Thomas Pynchon
42 DOUBLE STAR by Robert Heinlein
43 CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY by Robert Heinlein
BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
38 ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST by Ken Kesey
39 A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION by Ken Kesey
MY ANTONIA by Willa Cather
MULENGRO by Charles de Lint
SUTTREE by Cormac McCarthy
MYTHAGO WOOD by Robert Holdstock
ILLUSIONS by Richard Bach
THE CUNNING MAN by Robertson Davies
40 THE SATANIC VERSES by Salman Rushdie

43. Wife had 29. Definitely I've forgotten some there I actually did read. I've read a few by Charles De Lint but have no idea what they were called. Had no idea he was that popular. Where's Herman Hesse? 7 out of the top ten are Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard. Makes me shudder yet I've read 6 of the 7 of them. Oh well. I once reread an entire book without remembering I had already read it. So, I'm sure I've forgotten plenty I read here.

Ayn Rand is the most wonderful panglossist in history. Read her books and learn how to love this hell we're stuck in.
Hubbard that one time at least showed he knew how to keep it light while you still bothered to turn the pages. Dianetics showed him clearly to be a nut.
Tolkien nailed that middle earth setting. Light plot, light characters. All about the setting. Perfect invoking of another world.
Ulysses mostly defeated me.
Dune: political intrigue. Not really all that interesting actually. David Lynch's movie was good.
Huxley was pretty good.
Fitzgerald did nothing for me.
I had forgotten Heinlein wrote Stranger in a Strange Land. That one at least was a good book. He wrote a lot of books that weren't any good.
Bradbury was OK.
Salinger seems tremendously overrated to me.
Orwell was very good.
Pynchon did nothing for me.
Vonnegut was very good.
Lord of the Flies was pretty good.
Disliked Kerouac.
Douglas Adams was good fun.
Ender's Game is a complete gimmick book written by a rightwing raving loony.
Richard Adams is an eclectic writer. Downs was pretty good.
Stephen King needs a new hobby.
Hemingway certainly had a distinct voice.

Huxley, Vonnegut, and Orwell stand out to me on this list. No Jack Vance or Milan Kundera of course. I can't actually recommend a single Kundera that would quite belong. It's more the accumulation while patiently plodding through the awful parts. Vance was a strange habit. Definitely one of a kind.

The writing goals:
1. Making people seek/value truth more. Getting them to equate knowledge with happiness, no matter how untrue this may actually be at times.

2. Reducing indifference/increasing compassion in people.

3. Getting people to choose reason instead of force for solving their differences.

Why? Because I choose to play the game of trying to make the world a better place. Such can be done in many ways. I prefer the most grand way.

Why? Because I live to create things. It's my idea of fun. It's how I prefer to spend my free time. Create this, create that. I wish I had a castle out back I was slowly building. But that would just be a small diversion as it would be less grand.

...the secret polemical heart. The overriding direction.

But the above is of course extremely vague. The ways to attempt to accomplish such tasks are endless.

...when you write of villains, the reader learns to recognize what a "villain" is and hopefully have such memories of what villains do ingrained in them so that they themselves don't later in life become such a person. In this way you reduce indifference. You reduce the use of force. Etc. Etc. So often I see people act awfully and I think of how they're practically a 2D bad guy and I wonder how they can be that. And I think (and it seems to be true) that usually they're the sort who never really got into that whole "reading thing."

The standard stories generally accomplish tasks 1, 2 and 3. There can then be further levels; where in order to take compassion, reason and the love of knowledge even further we have no choice but to learn to reject the social norms of this society...

Both of these are mixed well on headphones but have issues over speakers I guess. The second definitely. The first not sure. I hate using headphones but such is life not living alone I guess. Ideally I'd play them outloud and get up and walk around listening to them. I think better when I'm moving. I keep perspective better. Music especially.

Also thinking I prefer writing music fast. So what if it's no big deal? Seems a big part of enjoying it is not taking an entire year to write 10 songs. Instead getting about 2 minutes of music at an absolute minimum of 30 minutes put in. It's kind of a rejection of industrialized capitalism perhaps; where art is mass produced so that there's hardly any "successful" artists for every few million people. I don't want to be a part of that... at least not with music. I want this to be fun. The goal isn't to put my blood into something so amazing that I successfully get famous. The goal is to "succeed" every time I try to write music and I do more often than not. And these sorts of 'eh' songs are OK. They do something for me. The second went well with thinking about capitalist insanity the other day. How every single person my wife worked with at a power company a decade ago they eventually managed to fire because that's what they do. How every single person pretends to be well adjusted and happy while actually on the edge of divorce and taking prozac for years. How I remember all the children my age that lived within walking distance growing up and how two are unemployed hermits, a third hates everyone from back then and refuses to speak to anyone for no reason that is exactly known. The fourth a real life Eric Cartman. The fifth a nice dumb guy whom because I was nice to I was to an extent... I dunno not quite ostracized but dismissed, nose turned up to, whatever by endless people such as the sixth.

Saw The Watchmen. Was really good. Maybe by the same person who made the story of V for Vendetta? I don't know. Will find out later. The two best movies I can recall seeing in a long time. ..better than Tarkovsky; who is the only other good stuff I've seen lately.

The character Rorschach(sp) follows truth no matter where it leads. Even if it means destroying world peace. Even getting himself killed. An idea that obviously interests me. Dr. Manhattan also in "reaching" truth and to me anyway it had seemed finding it not such a great thing really. And then I suppose same idea with The Comedian also. The Comedian and Dr. Manhattan both realizing just how awful humankind is. Rorschach still searching for uncompromising truth even as he's going to get killed for his trouble.

Packed into an entertaining story. The sort of thing I guess I'd like to do. Might as well keep it something that people will actually want to read the whole thing. It is possible to do so while also having meaningful ideas.
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Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev: Did they really need to set a cow on fire and push a horse down the stairs? Well whatever.

"The pressure Rublev is subject to is not an exception. The artist never works under ideal conditions. If they existed his work wouldn't exist, for the artist doesn't live in a vacuum. Some sort of pressure must exist. The artist exists because the world isn't perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn't look for harmony but would simply live in it. Art is born out of an ill-designed world. This is the issue in "Rublev." The search for harmonic relationships amoung men between art and life, between time and history." Tarkovsky

This is either obvious-almost a tautology-or, depending on how you construe it, not necessarily true. Maybe ultimately just too generalized. Like his movies, perhaps a little too open to you adding whatever meaning you want to it. Which, is the same for endless other artists of course.

But I guess a nice thing to keep in mind while having the pressure of censors or just stuggling through a prolish existence.

Kevin Oglivie/Nivek Ogre of Skinny Puppy's album Devil in my Details from 'Ohgr' would be a good album I think but the mixing is bad. I have to turn the treble all the way up in my car to adequately hear the vocals which are just too low. It otherwise has some neat stuff going on. Good songs, etc. But if not for turning the treble all the way up, it's not something I really want to listen to. With the treble all the way up, maybe. But still the vocals are too far down in the mix.

Comical to me that they could do so many things well and then mess up something so simple.

Then there are the two most recent Skinny Puppy albums. They were awful compared to the old stuff. It's interesting to me to try to understand what went wrong. Greater Wrong of the Right for one thing is extremely overcompressed. And so then the parts that need to hit you just don't. It's instead this endless wall of noise that kills the ears.

Same with Ohgr's Devil in my Details. To get the vocals loud enough I'm really hurting my ears with the drums, tubas, etc.

I've barely listened to MythMaker. Just a little on Myspace and seemed to be more of the same. Heard bad things about it.

Ridiculous to think that it might just be primarily bad mixing. But to an extent it seems to be.

Started running again last night. Will be once every 4 days for two hours like I once did. Just did an easy 40 minutes to start.

The pros are:
1. It adds a dreamy quality to life being able to run at a decent speed for two hours straight without getting tired.
2. I'm getting a bit of chunk I really ought to address.
3. Like it or not we are creatures of flesh and blood and things like running long distances are ingrained in our genetics.

The cons:
1. Time. I have maybe 30... 20 free hours in the average 4 day span. (Well a lot less right now. But eventually will have something like that.) Giving up 2 hours to something that seems a tad ridiculous is an issue.
2. My ego gets in the way and I go too fast and it can end up being torturous at times. I remember the last really good run I had... The first hour was bliss; just floating along at a good pace like I wasn't mortal. Not even the slightest discomfort. And even just the bounciness is discomforting to the normal person BTW for running a few seconds. But I had the proper gait that was so smooth.

But then from boredom I'd take a different route every time. And this time I hit a hill that went for 15 minutes straight. By the end of it I'm afraid I was shot. And I guess I had gone too fast. Then I was still at least 5 miles from home and I forced myself to keep running at a decent pace for that 5 miles and it was torture. 4 days later I just didn't want to do it again with that memory in mind.
3. Injuries. Mostly not an issue for me. I run/jog like a sprinter does. Very smooth and flowing. Plenty of calf use. I did most recently experiment with a more economical typical stride. Cloppety clop. My knees and hips started hurting. But with the correct smooth almost ballet like stride up off your heels I think injuries are not an issue other than a potential pulled calf muscle.
4. To consistently go every 4 days I'll have no choice but to have days where combined with work it is not possible to get 8 hours of sleep. I've decided occasionally getting an hour or two less isn't the end of the world.

The thing about just doing it every 4 days is that actually the important part of running is having adequate muscle development. As far as being any good at it, it's a matter of having a good strength to weight ratio in the right muscles. People instead think of it as primary a cardiovascular exercise that should be done more often. As far as being any good at it, it should be treated like a strength training exercise and thus more rest seems to be needed.

At least that's what worked for me. Trying to do it the normal way never did me much good. Certainly never experienced that blissful almost immortal feeling with shorter more frequent runs.

It unfortunately has to be it seems at least two hours. This I experimented with much. I have done a ton of experimenting with exercise over the years. Two hours is the minimum that your body gets the message that this is something it regularly does and thus ought to get better at. Or whatever.

I recall a guy who would run a marathon every single night. His wife didn't care for the time he spent (210 minutes each night), so he waited till she went to sleep. He almost solely ate pork chops and orange juice. He had a debilitating stroke at 62 and died at 64.

I recall the Taramara(?) Indians who once a week, once every 4 or 5 days... Will run for 12 to 36 hours straight. They used to chase down food this way; run it to exhaustion. Now they do it more as a game. It can be a blissful thing to run for extreme distances. But at the same time such a waste of time.

Analogy and analgous are quite a bit different obviously when it comes down to writing.
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Are people essentially good or bad?

'Good' and 'bad' are relative things. And so, are you relating to yourself or some other thing? What thing could you possibly compare/relate with instead of yourself? And good and bad ultimately come down to intelligence although of course not intelligence in the simplistic IQ test way.

The end result is that over and over again, the smarter people are less happy. In part because more and more everyone else appears essentially... not so good. And they can't even say these things and in many cases really honestly even look at them because then they're an elitist for even thinking in terms of their selves as being smarter.
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Nostalgia is a longing for return. Most people have nostalgia for their youth. I only have nostalgia for my youth in the sense that it felt as if there was this great hope; of unlimited possibilites. That hope was mostly not real. It is no more or less real than today. Life has slowly taught me how unreal it was.

All of my nostalgia is really just for the return of ignorance. Or at least a bad memory of the reality of the past. This does not mean that it is the same for other people. Other people I suppose had happy carefree childhoods and their nostalgia is legitimate and something entirely different from mine.

'Art is the lie that helps us understand the truth.' Picasso
'Being entirely honest with one's self is a good exercise.' Freud
'Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.' Beckett

Every bit of fiction writing is a sort of analogy to the extent that it has any meaning at all to the reader. Making a monomyth is the same idea. Every character worth mentioning ought to be an analogous symbol. There is nothing but the analogy.

?

..well to the extent that's true I've probably lost the original meaning of the word.

Writer's rooms

Reminds me we're going to buy a house soon and I really ought to make sure there is a room with plenty of sunlight for such things.

Composer's room

I don't use it to originate sound - that has to be in your head, much as other people might compose a letter in their mind's eye - but it is terrific for checking the architecture (are there proportionately the right number of bars of fast music?) and for providing a score for my publishers from which they can extract parts for the individual players.

When I am composing abstract music (ie without a text), like the Piano Quintet I am currently writing for the Nash Ensemble, I tend to start with a sense of atmosphere - a feeling of something quick and frenetic, perhaps, tempered by the slow and mysterious. These amorphous ideas have to be trapped and then manhandled on to the page in such a way that they will successfully leap off the music-stand in the hands of musicians.

When things are going well, or if I have a looming deadline, I can work anywhere; I wrote a lot of my Clarinet Concerto in a hotel room in Minnesota, so having conducive surroundings is a luxury.

...well that must be easy enough when you're limited to just an orchestra... Will have to try to write that way soon. Really, would prefer to start with paper and pencil. (Have done so a little, but crudely.) But it requires I either limit myself to a few instruments, like an orchestra. Or I get a lot better at making sounds with a number of synthesizers. I can work with a few but haven't managed too well with Oatmeal or Pentagon. I guess MiniMoogV and Synth1 have been easy. Going from paper to endlessly wandering through presets is just no good. I need to get better at making sounds I guess... I dunno. Part of me wants to just keep the composing a light thing lately. Just continue with the 'duh, it sounds ...ok' composition method.

I guess there's something (a lot) to be said for just getting really good with a few instruments. But I hate to limit myself. And if I'm going to do that I want to make sure it really is a great instrument. What are a few truly great synthesizers to get really good with? Synth1 is nice in that it can be learned fast but the sound is really not quite good enough. As to orchestras, I don't know if I'm quite there yet in terms of technology. Using East West Silver instead of Gold. To really get the nuance is not so easy, especially when taking into consideration the CPU usage and the need for constant rendering. I guess that comes back to the point of having it all written down beforehand.

Oh well stuff to do in the future.

One house we looked at is really reasonable and yet has a guest house. I'd like to not have to wear headphones while composing in the middle of the night. I think it's much harder on the ears.

Not quite so far out on the chopping block lately but so busy. I've talked of veganism lately just because it can serve as a simple analogy. I don't want to appear to actually be being interested in talking about veganism. For some reason I really want to avoid writing vegan propaganda. It is just meant as an analogy for moral questions in general.

Hell analogies somehow work a bit for me and I've more on paper than in this journal. They circumvent my issue with pitting people against one another in this attempt at a somewhat escapist creative outlet. But why exactly? And will it last? Analogies end up becoming ridiculous as they go too far. Too many things end up needing analogized. And also they are just misunderstood anyway. Like Kafka's Max Brod; his very good friend who even wrote 30 books himself and thought so highly of Kafka yet, hadn't a clue that The Trial was something other than a statement against fascism.

The analogy is supposed to help us understand a thing better. To help us change ourselves. But knowing that the majority of people who read it won't get it...

Why do I want to avoid writing what might even be misunderstood as vegan propaganda BTW? Is it just because vegans are so disliked? Or because in it's most simplistic form as a moral question it's too obvious? Too beyond the pale?

Before I wrote music I thought when I finally did I'd write some songs about vegnaism. I never did and now the idea strangely disgusts me.

It is amazing how little I know myself. It is scary in that I'm pretty damm sure most people are trying a lot less to know themselves, thus they most likely know their selves even far less. And this means being a slave to our unconscious. It means being machines; automatons. It means potentially causing lots of harm. It means existing less.