Every song file will result in a song!

Maybe that's not quite the way to go about it? Eh.

66 did grow on me. But actually anything can grow on me. Random crap can grow on me. Random chaos can occasionally sound really good once I've a memory of it. That's a problem maybe.

Always looking for problems I am. It wears on me.
---
If you feel shame when you do something wrong, you're liable to not want to face the possibility that you might be wrong. To be humiliated, to be made to feel ashamed is the stuff of force instead of reason. The person who associates being wrong with pain, being wrong with being ashamed or humiliated, being ostracized from society; such a person is going to be relatively closeminded.

The ideal is to view life as a continual learning process and to not feel shame or humiliation when you've been wrong but to simply recognize your mistakes, make what ammends you can and to continue to be openminded.

Shame, threats, expressions of anger, violence, humiliation, ostracization, cuss words, etc... these are all turning to force over reason and result in closed minds.

...shame is tied closely to conforming to whatever social norms a society happens to have. In the present this largely means obediance to power. And thus being a nonconformist means being ostracized by society and thus feeling shame.

It was shaped like us but little and soft. It was emitting a high pitched squeaking noise. Some of us laughed at the ridiculous sound. Something about its smell was making my mouth water.

As we came up to investigate it held up a little hand for us. The largest of us, Red, obligingly started chewing on it and it started squeaking louder. Red made a euphoric gasp and frantically bit half its face off.

I rushed forward with the others to quell the agony in my stomach.

My god what a meal it was. I lay in a hypnotic slumber feeling increasing strength coursing through my muscles. With the beat of my heart my thoughts bounced through a dream of devouring more such creatures. I wanted to eat their faces off. So vaguely like our own but disgustingly different. Weak. Weak little things that deserved to die for being so weak.
-
At the Rape of Nanking the Japanese were disgusted by the Chinese, disgusted with how meak they were. They lined them up and they didn't do anything to defend themselves. Just stood there while the soldiers started killing them. This disgusted the soldiers to greater violence.
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Constant fear of pain. So constant you don't even notice it. But you equate being wrong with pain and you're in constant fear of it. Thus you close your mind to never be wrong.
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One day a journalist talking head finds that he can no longer lie. The next day he's suddenly pulled off all his work for other people who are just performing better. Shortly thereafter things 'are just not working out' (trouble with his TPS reports) and he's let go.
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Unreal of spaceship, life reduced to clear absurdities. The bell rings and everyone spins around with a flourish. Tiddlywinks with fear, sweating, vomiting. Fear is a constant. 3 hours sleep daily. Every day a competition to survive. People regularly have to be released into space. ("Private property is essential to a free society!" and similar capitalist stupidity.) Simply no place for them that isn't owned by others. The people marionette to survive. The president is actually an alien as is revealed in the end. And this is the hell he's devised.
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Trying to defeat the ugliness by turning it into humor. But then every little monkeyish ugliness in your head pops out as questionable humor that would otherwise have been concealed.

Everything that's wrong. Everything that causes you stress. You try to turn it into something funny. Something that is unexpectedly wrong and thus causes a momentary overload which leads to all stress sliding away and being replaced by euphoria. But, all you're really doing is thinking things that are expectedly wrong are actually unexpectedly wrong.

Your humor doesn't go over too well.
-
Tortured to force the support of the status quo. Finally agrees and turns into marionette. Finally, "I'm nothing now. I don't exist."
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Bunch of people in hell. All panglossians. One day, one dares to see the truth. One person becomes Real. And immediately kills self. (Symbolic simplification.)

Just running once a week now. For the first 110 minutes I've improved about 5, 5 and now 12 minutes these last 3 runs. Have still gotten faster every run. This last run I finally had a slightly higher intensity I think. Breathing a little more elevated. I just felt so good (and felt like I was going so slow) so I had to go faster. Maybe some body parts just feel so strong now (calves, quads) that others are starting to get hit more now. More of a full body thing thus slightly heavier breathing.

Now making it down to a swampy area that reminds me of An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge. Feel like I'm in Lousiana. Not dreamy though.

I keep waiting to not improve. I figure that will put me in a bad mood when that happens. It seems we ought to always improve. But the long term reality of running is something between never improving or maybe a slight improvement once every 10, 15 runs, normally speaking.

Surely to some extent this is muscle memory and just what looong runs they are, plus chucking the weights halfway in. Still bordering on strange to improve every single time for 13 or so runs in a row over two months or so most recently by a ridiculous 12 minutes while not losing any weight.

A person must have a certain amount of positive social interactions and euphoria to balance out the boredom and fear. Some people turn to drugs to quiet the fear which is otherwise a constant. A constant which stops them from having the positive social interactions, etc that are essential to a life worth living.

I need positive social interactions pretty much every single day to feel right. And just my wife isn't enough. Although email is a pale thing compared to how we've communicated for 99.9% of our evolution, even that definitely can make a positive difference in me.

I get a couple emails and I sit here with a happy little smile on my face. My wife walks in and asks what I'm smiling about and I didn't even realize I was happy and smiling.

Work is a huge part of what we are. Without work many people just sit at home. The social interactions there... you can't entirely be you. At least most people can't. It's a bit of an acting job. And first off, if you're and honest person, having to act in the first place can really bother you. Secondly, the acting of it is a form of dishonesty which keeps relationships less real and meaningful and instead quite pale and hollow. Yet, work is a huge part of our social interactions.

In fact without work, many people pretty quickly are just stuck at home with nothing. The positive social interactions of work, (pale and hollow though they are) gone. Replaced by what? The new craze is facebook. It's somewhat pale and hollow, like email but worse. Because you're out in public posting under your real name where what you've said is stored forever and ever, so be careful! Don't say anything that someone might disagree with!

Still, facebook, work, and even email, they are 'positive social interactions' that we Need.

I can see email in that sometimes it's good to be able to think a bit more of what you're saying and what the other person is saying. Where in a face to face talk I might just be like, "Duuuhhhh". (Probably not.)

There is an accumulative effect of these positive social interactions, even though they may be just at work or facebook or email. There is definitely something. Something beyond the actual information received. Something emotional. Some positive change that can occur.

But at the same time a couple of days without any of them and quite quickly it feels that something essential is missing. Not like a drug being taken away. But something that as a human being is simply essential.

I do think we should return to a sort of communal living. Was thinking of say a huge house with a common center (kitchen, etc) and then spokes coming out from it that could be private areas. We need more positive social interactions that have more honesty then you can have at work or facebook, that have more sensory input then you get from email or facebook.

And we need to learn to get along with one another better. Learn to be openminded instead of dropping one another in the search for people more closely identical.

...I could see each little communal house ended up like the Hatfield's and McCoy's. Today there is the idea that outside of the family people (some people will honestly admit) don't really give a shit about anyone. But the blood/marriage family doesn't really provide enough so we still do bother to some extent, bother with being nice, dealing with other people. The problem with a communcal house of 50.... 75, etc people is that it would come much closer to providing all the emotional involvements you need, such that you could truly say to hell with everyone else, and descend to neotribal wars.

i gather) is the transcript of a TV advert for "Hefty" bin-bags -
__________________________

Actress 1) If I had a man like Hefty…
Actress 2) If I had a man like Hefty…
Actress 3) He'd always be coming up with new ways to impress me
Female Voice) Introducing Hefty The Gripper. The first kitchen bag with the stretch and grip top so it hugs the can and won't slip

Actress 3) oh, and he'd know how to hold on tight
Actress 1) …then he won't cave under pressure
Female Voice) Nothing is made like the gripper. It stretches, grips, and stays put so it can take it like a man.

Actress 3) and when I'm done with him…
Actress 1) (shown dropping a bag of trash into a garbage can)
Actress 3) Ciao baby
Actress 2) Bye-bye!
Actress 1) So long!

Female Voice) The Gripper – new from Hefty. The strong dependable type.

__________________________

I think that it's.... horrible. (O.o) really. Morally obnoxious, plain and simple.

I think it also exemplifies the whole 'disposable' society mentality....

So many people nowadays expect (or at least aim) to live in a way where they just throw away anything they don't want, with no guilt, repercussion or responsibility involved.... just maximum convenience for them.

:-P I guess that some people revel in applying such a superficial mindset to relationships too, hoo boy... I wish that I was cool like those people.... Gee, I guess that I'd better hurry up and get me some of those cool hefty bin bags, huh ?

Especially since I'm female, so am clearly the exclusive target audience for the advert.... which also doesn't manage to come across as being blatantly sexist, at all.

Because of the violence in our societies, women can be very afraid to dump men, so being able to do so as easily as throwing out the trash, without worrying about repercussions is seen as empowering.

OTOH we do live in a society where ultimately if a person just suddenly dumps you with no explanation, you're expected to just not even care, to the extent you instead are filled with moral outrage and want some kind of explanation at least, you're considered a stalker.

Ultimately with so many people stuck together instead of living in tribes of a hundred or so people, what people do is instead of trying to work on relationships, they just bounce around from person to person and when they aren't quite happy with someone, why bother talking about differences at all? Just say, "this isn't working out, bye."

If that isn't considered an adequate reason, if the other person wants more explanation than that, then they're a stalker. And they need to just piss off, there's millions of people, what the hell's their problem? Just go away. Geez, what a pyscho.

...so it's potential violence (anger, hate, etc... stalking) on one side and indifference on the other. And with millions of people living together, there's nothing for it but that indifference must be considered OK, as it would be so very difficult to not be indifferent to most people when there's so many of them. While of course violence, anger, hate isn't considered OK for obvious reasons.

But speaking unpractically, speaking philosophically, indifference is actually worse then hate, anger, etc. In that hate is ALWAYS a reaction to indifference. Or at least a reaction to the perception of indifference.

Which isn't to say that hate, anger, etc is a good thing. It definitely isn't. But generally I try to respect it more then indifference. I try to understand that it arose from the perception of injustice thanks to indifference on some person's part.

But the social norms of our society go the opposite way. Indifference is basically OK while expressions of anger are very seriously looked down upon.

Looking at the planet as a whole, indifference is the real problem. Millions of animals are killed daily not from hate but from indifference. The destruction of the environment is a matter of indifference. Ultimately the suffering of billions in poverty is the result of indifference.

...the idea of having an actual society though means not being indifferent to those around you. It means you don't just dump a man like you're throwing out the trash. The commercial, while 'empowering' women, is ultimately praising an anti-society social norm. A social norm which destroys the idea of people having meaningful connections to each other in a society.

In India they have arranged marriages. This is seen as horrible to people in the west. But there is a beautiful thing in it. It is similar to the guy from a commune I met who says the members were married just at random. Again, sounds horrible (and the two examples: India and the commune) are of course quite different in some ways, but both show the ideal where people are Openminded. And thus open to discussing differences and seeing where they may be wrong and ought to change in certain ways, see how some of their actions maybe are causing harm. And furthermore Openminded in the sense of being able to see the good, the beauty in one another. And thus being able to love anyone.

This openmindedness, suggests that if something isn't working in a relationship, you should talk about it.

But when you've got tons of people thrown together, people will instead learn to be closeminded. And from a closeminded point of view, there's no reason at all to discuss differences as it's accepted that people don't change. Thus no point in pointing them out. This closemindedness comes about in a number of ways. One way is simply by using force to get people to do what you want them to. They learn that being 'wrong' equals pain, thus they try to avoid ever changing their minds.

Another way is just simply with tons of people around you, there's no need to work things out with people. Just drop them and find some other ones that are more identical to you.

For our society to work we have to learn to not be indifferent to one another despite the fact that there's so many of us. We have to learn that despite the fact that hate, anger and violence certainly aren't solutions, they aren't the real problem. The problem is indifference.

...along with 'preachy' and 'polemical' I'm also suspicious of the term 'emotional blackmail'. Perhaps I just haven't been lucky enough to know anyone who did such a thing.

It does seem an incredibly ugly term to me designed to cause people to just hide whatever unhappiness they feel and stop the person in question from taking responsibility for their actions. Of course some people must really do emotional blackmail. Some people are manipulative/dishonest. So, I dunno.



...I asked someone who uses the term 'emotional blackmail' A LOT what his thoughts were, about the term potentially being used in an unfair and very harmful way. The gist of his response was to tell me that he's not a monster and that I should lighten up.

I didn't call him a monster but to even suggest some harm may be tied into an action of his apparently causes him to immediately reduce things to whether or not he's a monster. Also he did not actually address at all the point as to whether or not the term causes harm, instead dismissively telling me to lighten up.

Hmmmm.

This strikes me first off as a person who is closed to the possibility that they might be wrong. Secondly, that this is a person who prefers to be light as opposed to serious. And by 'serious' I mean a person who bothers to think about whether or not their actions are causing harm. Thirdly this is a person who responds to criticisms by inflating them into strawmen in an attempt to more easily dismiss them. "Can the term emotional blackmail be harmful?"->"I'm not a monster!"

I don't think that causing harm makes someone a monster. I do think that people who refuse to even look at the possibility that their actions might be causing harm are a tad monsterous.

But there are certainly reasons that people become closeminded. Perhaps as children when they were wrong their parents beat them. People learn that being wrong equals unhappiness and so one way to avoid being wrong is to simply refuse to face that they're wrong.

Then after decades spent never changing one's mind, if someone questions their usage of a word, it's not a matter of an action causing harm which can simply be changed, it's a matter of a part of their essential unchanging character being a thing which causes harm. Thus to even question the usage of a word equals accusing them of being a monster.

And anyone with a higher morality then their own is an emotional blackmailer.

The above may not be entirely true. But it's partially true. For a nice preachy polemic I'll have to make sure the antagonist/s use the term 'emotional blackmail'.

I had liked this one, 64, immediately when I wrote it. Just wonder if it should somehow be longer.

This one, 65, I was really not so sure about, but it's grown on me. Still like 64 better...

So now upon posting 66 I'm thinking... eh. Not so sure about it. Maybe even more so than 65. So I'm curious to see if it will grow on me. I'm enjoying not worrying about VSTs/synthesizers and just writing on a piano for a while.

Hmmm, anxiety is still an issue. That book Fearless Creating divides anxiety up into different kinds. No doubt 66 could be better and I've failed to an extent as a result of a certain kind of anxiety it mentions that I can't recall at the moment... Perhaps if I could I wouldn't be failing as much...

Only me I guess. Hiding from futility.

Kurosawa's The Idiot. The 'fallen' woman will not be with the idiot because she thinks she's not good enough for him. He then gets with another woman instead who I think really acts kind of vile. Although mostly just in the typical way that passes as 'normal' in our society. The 'fallen' woman, having never met the idiot's SO sends her letters urging her to marry the idiot. The 'fallen' woman does this because along with caring so much for the happiness of the idiot, she idealizes his SO. She idealizes her as the woman she could have been if not for her unfortunate life circumstances.

Finally the idiot proposes to this other woman and she does accept. And finally they all meet. The 'fallen' woman is so worried about this meeting because she's idealized this woman. What if she totally falls short of her idealizations in their meeting?

Meanwhile what is the idealized woman worried about? She's just jealous. Filled with hatred that the idiot had strong feelings for another woman. While the 'fallen' woman is worried about the happiness of others, the idiot's SO is just consumed by the typical ugly selfish jealousy as such that owns most women in this world.

The 'fallen' woman realizes this soon enough and is disgusted and appalled that she thought she wasn't good enough for the idiot and instead gave him over to such a vile creature.

So she asks him there to instead choose her.

He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't want to hurt either of them of course. The only thing he takes into consideration in the choice is who needs him more. On that basis the 'fallen' woman seems to need him more.

It ends in disaster with the two good people in the story dead. And the jealous woman says how wonderful the idiot was and that she was the true idiot.

And perhaps to women really in touch with the jealousy which clearly owns them, (or men) perhaps they (if they managed to watch this whole movie) would then say, "Oh how nauseatingly preachy!" If they managed to understand it. Not that they'll ever be seeking out this movie to watch. Nor will they ever accidentally watch any such a movie.

Polemical and preachy. I think that people who use these words in a derogatory manner have issues. The last person I recall who used the word polemical to dismiss things was this strange person who I guess was attracted to intelligent men just in the way that women are often attracted to power. And intelligence is a sort of power. So I guess in that way she was attracted to me. And thus as my idea of a good time is talking about intellectual stuff she was an intellectual poser. But it was just a pose. Ultimately she actually found talking about religion, politics, sociology quite boring.

And then when someone said things she disagreed with, they were a polemcists, etc. And this was some kind of derogatory quality.

It turned out that she was a moral monster BTW. Which probably goes along well with finding religion and politics boring...

Then there was this guy recently who in response simply to the the phrase "I'd like to write books with some social critique.." (and perhaps also because he looked up what one of my favorites book I earlier mentioned was and was trying to take an unfair shot at me), bizarrely replied with this long shpiel(sp) about being preachy, having 2D characters, etc.

What is funny is that his favorite two books were a rightwing preachfest that makes Fox News look fair and balanced and a Stephen King book (how much more 2D can the bad guys get then Stephen King?)

The reality is that as long as he agrees or it's irrelevant, then it's not preachy or annoyingly 2D. The minute he doesn't agree with what is being said then suddenly it's preachy, etc.

I think that perhaps I should consider it a warning sign whenever anyone uses the word 'preachy' or polemcist/polemical. Most like the person in question has issues.

All literature has social critique in it. That's what makes it literature. If it has nothing so relevant, then it's just fantasy fiction or sci fi. Occasionally works get miscategorized of course.

The majority of fiction simplifies the characters. It's understood that such is usually happening. Not a problem when it's something irrelevant like Stephen King or something you agree with. But if you disagree? Then suddenly most people start finding things wrong with it. Like endless things have been found wrong with Ayn Rand....

But I think if you dismiss something for being preachy or polemical, the problem is probably you. Personally I've never done such a thing. Even Ayn Rand, as much as I disagree with her, I still respect her for having an actual opinion about things that matter and trying to share her opinion. I don't hold it against her for making the characters more simplistic then real life.

What are the big idea stories I've really liked?

Fellini's Satryicon. What it symbolized for me I know not at all if that's what he was going for. Maybe the same idea could more or less be potentially drawn from endless movies. To me it symbolized all the endless (wonderful) people that have lived and died such lives that I'll never ever know. Of whom no meaningful trace is left.

It sears my soul somehow this movie. It is for me the best movie of all. The music and images are crucial. Much of it, the crucial symbolic stuff, is beyond my conscious mind. And perhaps I'd rather it stay that way.... Nah. But for now it is.

Kurosawa and Dosteovsky's The Idiot is such an important concept to me, yet is paid virtually no attention to in modern society. I think because people just aren't honest basically. Everyone hides how being good leaves them open to be hurt. Like most of the blogs I've got linked (with a few exceptions) people hide almost all their weaknesses.

And so many of these good people are tied into minority activist causes (I think) and I really suspect activists feel the need to be kind of fake. They feel like they're always on display as a representative of whatever activist cause they're associated with and thus must hide any 'weaknesses' lest that weakness be used against them in some attack by the conformists. And so The Idiot concept is all around us and yet something of a secret.

I think? Ultimately who knows for sure what all these people are hiding. I'm pretty sure they're hiding so much though and it annoys me. It is against truth seeking. Although, it means they're not as big of Idiots.

Panglossianism. Voltaire's Candide tried to show it. Anyone else? It is the most crucial concept in politics, yet it seems to rarely be mentioned. Would I be attacked as preachy and polemical if I tried to write a story primarily dealing with this concept? Probably. Was Voltaire being preachy? Would Candide even have gotten published today?

I love how over the top Kurosawa's Ran is. I would like to see that same feeling reached but concerning social actions reminiscent of the most awful of Milan Kundera's stories. Surely someone else has managed it but no one comes to mind at the moment. ...I think of Monty Python's The Search for the Holy Grail where he gets the "what's your favorite color?" question wrong. A world where humans are utterly hopeless to the point where they aren't capable of telling the truth about anything. They can't do anything honest. Everything is an act. And behind the act there is nothing at all.

I appreciate how Kubrick didn't use the same actors over and over again unlike most of the other best directors. Also he was more consistently very good, excluding his last film which unfortunately starred two miscast truly ugly human beings. It's only chance was by making them clearly evil, which it didn't. Kubrick didn't strike me as being as ambitious though. He didn't get crazy like Fellini. He didn't go for the big, cerebral ideas quite like Kurosawa.

Tim Burton was lucky/smart enough to latch on to Richard Elfman of Oingo Boingo to do the music to his movies. Although he's a long way short of the others mentioned....

Terry Gilliam did some nice things. Brazil was a nice little dystopia. The ending of that movie reminds me strangely of the bizarre happy ending to Jack Vance's Emphyrio. I'm sure Vance was given orders by his publishers to cut it short and make it happy. And it seems he purposely made it ridiculous. Which works in a way, if you're thinking abnormally hard. Because there won't actually ever be any socialist utopia.

...or it's unlikely anyway. Still should move forward somehow.

From Kurosawa's The Idiot:

Woman: Tell me, what are you like? I want to know more about you. What did you do before the war?

Idiot: Well...

Woman: You'd rather not say?

Idiot: It's not that. I remember the day my life was spared, but everything before that feels like it happened to someone else.

Woman: Then tell me that story. How did it feel when you were facing certain death?

Idiot: Everyone in the world suddenly seemed so dear to me.

Woman: Everyone in the world?

Idiot: Each and every person I'd ever known. Everyone I'd ever passed on the street. And not just people... the puppy I'd thrown a rock at as a child. Why hadn't I been kinder?

Woman: To the puppy?

Idiot: No, everyone! I told myself that if I were spared... I would be kinder and more considerate to everyone. But I knew all was lost. They were sure to execute me. That thought alone was so unbearable that it drove me mad.

From the Spurious blog:

Albee, from Beckett Remembering:

I've never felt Sam to be a pessimistic playwright. A pessimist does not try to write. The true pessimist wouldn't take the trouble of writing. Writing is an attempt to communicate, and if you're a pessimist you say communication is impossible: you wouldn't do it.

Much earlier he had some other person talking about something which seemed the opposite.

Anyway, thinking about how wanting to write means being happy enough to just be alone and letting the thoughts in your own mind entertain you. This, to an extent, suggests not desiring the company of other people. It doesn't mean being entirely indifferent to the company of others or even just always prefering to be alone. But for me when younger, and plenty of others with writing aspirations I'm sure, when the moment comes that we ought to write, we couldn't quite stand to just be alone with just ourselves. And in such a situation trying to learn to not desire to actually communicate, to not actually desire the company of others, would seem helpful. Such a person then, prefering to just be alone, is in a much better position to write.

But it's just a question of degree really. Of course, hopefully, you still desire some company, but you also want some alone time. Some 'hush' time as described in this book Fearless Creating I've been reading.

Feeling that better now. Getting better at being alone. Don't feel so much as if I have some psychic connection with my fellow humans which had been severed thus leaving me too alone. Perhaps becoming a person who likes to be alone at times is in part a matter of having had enough quality not-alone-time with enough people.

We can't hate that which we understand.
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If you truly understand someone you cannot help but love them.
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I vaguely remember thinking of love as truly understanding someone and that ideally with truly understanding everyone we could love everyone. And I mean by 'love' a very deep euphoric feeling. This contrasted to an idea lately of 'love' being more or less the opposite, where instead it's based on idealizing someone. Basically just pretending they're someone other than who they actually are. Or doing that to some extent anyway.

Which is more correct? I think when I felt the former, the highly positive feeling about love, I was at the time idealizing actually. And that exactly because I was idealizing my 'understanding' equaled truly loving the person. (Because they just then happened to be exactly what I wanted them to be. Because I simply decided to perceive them as exactly what I wanted them to be.)

The above is an example of failing utterly to pangloss anything. Here I started out trying to hope to for a change successfully say something positive.

The first quote: "We can't hate that which we understand."
Is true. I made it up.

The second quote: "If you truly understand someone you cannot help but love them."
I took from someone off of facebook. And unfortunately I can't see that it's quite true at this time...

I was hoping it could be true because that which appears to be evil is hard to spend much time facing. I can face it and manage to see that it's not actually evil. It's never actually evil and thus something to hate, it's instead always some combination of stupidity and/or ignorance. If only understanding this led to love. But stupidity and/or ignorance is not a thing to love at all. It's still an ugly thing I'd rather not spend a lot of time thinking about.

If instead focusing on that which appears to be evil led to understanding it and thus loving it, then it would be much easier to want to spend one's time focusing on that which appears to be evil. As it stands it is instead an activity that it's hard to stand doing much of, this recognition of stupidity/ignorance.

So, can I make it about love?

Love is such a motivator.

And it seems to me that ultimately my art must be about investigating, examining and understanding that which appears to be evil. Understanding every little facet of IT. If at the end of the tunnel stood love I could stand to do it much much more. Instead all I see is ugly ignorance, stupidity... fear. Nothing worthy of love... And it's slightly torturous to spend time dwelling on it.

Although still it is an attempt, no matter how unlike it is of any meaningful success, to do good. Ah, but it is an almost surely futile attempt which instead only leads to endless time spent dwelling on stupidity and ignorance. It is like torturing one's self with Fox news.

If the end result was that I could learn to love Bill O'Reilly (lol) then it wouldn't be so bad. But instead I can at best just learn to feel sorry for him, just feel sad about the harm he's causing. I cannot love such actions.

It's just torture to face that which appears to be evil. But I think it is perhaps an essential thing to do for the production of 'worthwhile' art...

Or maybe I could love Bill O'Reilly. Maybe I could work on that. Brings me back anyway to the point that I love complex real antagonists instead of the 2D stuff. What is the reality really? I can only look inside myself and try to find common points with such people it seems...

Which reminds me to think about lying. As I feel asleep last night I was trying to remember the examples of me still having dishonesty lurking within me. (And not practical stuff like saying I loved my last job at a job interview).

First thing that strangely came to mind is lying about the number of women I've slept with. Which is truly silly. What's wrong with the number of women I've slept with? I was imagining a scenario where I felt the need to hide how low the number was... Then when I actually thought about it, actually just simply used my fricking brain, the idea of hiding such a thing was clear in so many ways as simply STUPID.

And I fear that in understanding that which appears to be evil; that which is stupid or ignorant, there is unfortunately not usually some complex and interesting thing going on. Instead of some mistake hidden amongst a complex line of reasoning there is usually just blank stupidity at work. Just simply not thinking at all.

Which I suppose then the point is to understand why people don't want to think in the first place. Surely somewhere in here there is something actually interesting. And there's a myriad of reasons for that....

...heh. Why do I fear that? Being interesting is only related to writing stories. As far as that what is more or less interesting is reading about the protagonist's reaction to these actions, thoughts, etc which cause harm.

This is two different things I've slightly convoluted I think. Real life 'evil' which usually isn't very interesting and 'evil' within fiction stories which also usually isn't very interesting of itself. But two different things. In real life I want to find a way to stand thinking about 'evil'. In fiction stories it doesn't necessarily matter that in truth 'evil' isn't interesting. The positive reactions of the protagonist hopefully are.

Just the laugh at the beginning of this old Ministry song. The first 5 or so seconds. ...Don't bother with rest...

The song was called You Know What You Are. I haven't listened to this song or Ministry in many years. They had some good stuff though.

Last night I turned the TV on. Why? Because I decided to lift weights at home once a week for two hours. In between sets TV kind of works I guess. And an old Clint Eastwood movie was on, Fistful of Dollars. It's a remake/adaptation of an old movie by Akira Kurosawa. I hadn't seen it before but not too long ago saw the Kurosawa original so was interested in how this one compared.

Halfway in Eastwood's bartender friend laughs. Immediately I recognized where I had heard that exact laugh before.

What is going on in the recognition of this laugh? Something beyond just my conscious mind?

In the same way, how do we understand when a music note is exactly one octave above the previous note? We're not consciously counting the vibrations. Is it the same process. Is this something occurring on a subconscious/unconscious level. Is it a huge part of why we can enjoy it? That we cannot totally consciously understand what is going?

One octave higher is exactly twice the frequency. The two go together. Like math, the one divides into the other. So it goes. A sudden discordant note isn't so divisble with the rest. How in the world are we understanding that that one note doesn't belong?

I have previously wondered if because we 'understand' it while not consciously understanding it, we automatically think Magic! And that if we instead truly consciously understood it, if all the magic would disappear and all the beauty and enjoyment of art would disappear.

I wonder though, if it possible to go beyond this. I think of a C.S. Lewis book. I think it was the triology, Perelandria, That Hideous Strength and something else, where love is destroyed by explaining that it's just a bunch of chemical reactions. Lewis was trying to call this explanation a sort of evil thing and it always stayed with me.

That perhaps, even though 'love' may be exactly such and such chemical reactions, it doesn't actually destroy it at all to understand such is the case. In the same way, being able to reduce music to a bunch of math and synethesia shouldn't destroy the enjoyment of it. In partially the same way understanding how so much of our actions harken back to how apes live in the jungle shouldn't destroy out ability to enjoy what we are and what we enjoy. In the same way, perhaps, eradicating the unconscious, being totally aware of what is going on inside of us, perhaps, wouldn't be awful.

I think that last one would be awful. It seems some things must remain not understood. Some things must remain 'magic'.

At the same time I still think we should pull back all curtains even as we scream in horror at what we find. Pull it back and then either learn to forget, to disremember, to invent something else beyond, etc.

Ran much faster today than before. Have run faster every time but improved this time the most of all. Made it all the way to a new house along the secluded river that has a bamboo grove. It rained the whole way. I had to run shirtless because running in a soaked shirt for two hours will chafe my nipples to the point of bleeding. It was a very dreamy run. Didn't breath hard until the last couple minutes (steep hill at the very end). The secluded area. The rain. The river. There are river scarecrows at one point. Don't know what they're for. Then the bamboo grove. I want one. Saw one human being in 2 hours.

It makes it seem that life is a dream.

Which, it turns out, isn't necessarily such a good thing. As life isn't a dream and I have to reacquaint myself with that fact after each run. And also if it were a dream... just increases the nihilism. As dreams go, it's kind of boring and also filled with running away (metaphorically and literally) from boogie men.

Then I slept horribly. Lots of nightmares lately. Then went to clinicals when I didn't actually have to. I made the mistake of trying to verify if I needed to go and the teacher messed up and told me to come. So, dead tired from a two hour and no sleep I went off to clincals.

Afterwards a person started a conversation with me at Panera's. This person said we had gone to school together long ago. (We hadn't). The actual basis for him feeling some relation to me is that we look so much alike. He went to a different high school and I've never spoken to him ever. But we look so much alike both our mothers have mistaken each of us for their sons. We look so much alike and are the same age (but I started school a year earlier) and were also very good athletes.

And we don't have very typical looks. A sort of horsey, almost baboon like face combined with a voltairean impishness, almost devilish. Red hair and freckles (although mine has turned darker while his stayed bright.) And even the same height 6'4". And both large framed. But athletic. Very athletic. Not ponderous. Lennox Lewis type builds...

But he's a financial analyst and very corporately professional. And didn't even mention the obvious thing we actually have in common. And I was too dead tired to bother bringing it up. It is a weird sort of thing... But if I hadn't been so dead tired I would have just blankly pointed out the obvious.

As I become capable of running faster the world around me starts looking different. The few houses in the distance don't look as far away. The river doesn't look as wide. Even the parking lot at this one hospital I notice bits of scenery in the distance I hadn't noticed before... Our intellects are somewhat determined by our physical bodies.

But then my unrelated twin doesn't seem to have much of anything in common with me.

1. The darkest protagonist. A creature like in the Alien/Sigourney...Weaver? movie. It so happens such creatures are actually intelligent but utterly overwhelmed by their urges and desires and they will eat themselves to death or die to have sex. Average life expectancy is 6 months. They often hide in the garbage receptacles of spaceships and will wreak havoc at the next planetary stop. They are always killed on sight, if possible. But this one ended up very different. Somehow... He hides in a huge garbage pit on a densely populated planet and survives off garbage. He's lived for a long time this way and has learned to read, etc....

But there will be multiple dark protagonists so that more than one direction can be explored of related ideas and just for the escapist fantasy of it. The Alien creature befriends a young person. Because that person isn't quite right in the head... etc. What are they doing? Just surviving. The Alien mostly just surviving his self. His genetics, etc. The young person not much better. Primarily escapist.

2. Imagine dark times from my own past and try to figure out what in the world could have possibly been done to make those moments relatively happy. Somehow lived in a way that if I had then shortly after died, death wouldn't have felt like quite such a horrible thing.

3. The same as two except taken over completely into fantasy situations.

4..... Ahhhh. Did I write it down as I've now forgotten....? Oh yes, I remember. A happy story. Light and simply happy. I could start for example with the text message I got from S yesterday. "Happy Easter!" Just light and wandering, outside of social norms or not to somehow manage it? Ignoring horrific realities? Just trying to find as practical a way forward as possible to live in This World and be happy.

5. And then the truly awful one. The Kunderesque story. Taking the social norms of our society and showing them in the worst possible light. Turning everyday stuff into the macabre. What possible end result? People changing the social norms? Or people just becoming hermits?

It will be hard to write a socially conscious book. Invariably, you will show your bias, and it will sound preachy. That gets old quick.

I've read books like this. The good guys are always right, the bad guys are too evil, and it's unrealistic.

You mean as opposed to just an entertaining story, ending up with the equivalent of a long speech droning on about one's opinion of the correct moral character?

The problem is that people don't want to be misunderstood about their moral values, about what they think are good and bad qualities to possess.

If the antagonist/s in a story are literally monsters like in a Stephen King novel, then it's a little bit more permissible to make them 2D cardboard cutouts without people finding it unrealistic and also far less do you have to worry about someone mistakenly thinking their actions are something to emulate. But without literal monsters, if you still want to have actual characters who are antagonists, you run into the problem of either making them simplistic, unrealistic 2D bad guys, or of people misunderstanding that such and such actions by said character, in your opinion, leads to harm generally in the world.

The latter can be less of a worry to the extent that you're openminded, and not so certain that such and such actions necessarily always lead to such negatives.

But still you can be left with a choice to err in the direction of being 'preachy' in some people's eyes or instead just being misunderstood.

Preachy or misunderstood?

Depends on why you want to write. Just an escape. To help you just think things out better in your own life. Because you just like to create. Because you want to contribute to making the world a better place. Some combination of all of the above and more...? If the final one plays a large role being misunderstood becomes more of an issue. If being entertaining is very important than of course worry more about being preachy.

And often all that is actually meant by 'preachy' is that the author happened to be saying things relevant to the real world that the reader didn't agree with. Some people indeed only want to read stories that are either totally irrelevant to the real world (Stephen King) or that support the idea that we are living in the best of all possible worlds. Anything else is in serious danger of being 'preachy'.


Preachy and boring versus amoral and entertaining...

It will be hard to write a socially conscious book. Invariably, you will show your bias, and it will sound preachy. That gets old quick.

I've read books like this. The good guys are always right, the bad guys are too evil, and it's unrealistic.

I remember long ago when I first read R. A. Salvatore I laughed in embarrassment at how simplistically black and white it was with respect to the evil dark elves. Somehow I got into it though. Learned to enjoy the simplicity as an escape from a more complex world.

Black and white morality tales can be fun as escapism to a world where life is more simple and straightforward. I'd like to work on one such story. But then I want to write something much more serious also. Something that attempts to show people exactly as they really are. And in the real world I don't believe in evil. Instead misunderstandings, fear, closed minds, etc.

I think the thing about being preachy is the reader feels like they're being treated like a child. It ends up being a difficult thing of who exactly is your audience. What level of intelligence should be assumed in the reader... If you assume too much intelligence they end up cheering on some character who has a lot of traits that the writer personally thinks are very negative things and doesn't want people to adopt. If you're solely trying to entertain, so what? But if something more it becomes a potential problem.

Right now reading about an obese Russian millionaire who's kind of an ass, but is portrayed as the protagonist (Absurdistan). It's light and humorous enough that a normal person should understand to not actually act like him. But I can see people still objecting to the story as he's beating his servants, etc and is still being portrayed sort of sympathetically.

The closeminded people with certainty in their hearts see the actions which they cannot understand, the actions which are something other than the idiotic and acceptable conformities of our corporate owned society, and they label them insane.

Anything that dares to question the mindless conformity, anything that goes against the corporate social norms, is simply dismissed out of hand as the reasoning of an unbalanced mind.

And everyone's social norms are the corporate social norms, whether or not you even watch TV, as the vast majority of people are watching, and we all are having to deal with such people and we all are having to make sure to appear 'normal' and thus we all are following the corporate social norms. The ultimate goal of which is to not think too hard, don't really question what is going on around you. Just go buy more stuff.

Van Gogh was a stalker. He sent a woman he loved a 'present'. Such was utterly beyond the understanding of our norms. He was said to be bipolar, schizophrenic, even perhaps to have had an ear disorder. The reality is simply that he was an artist who dealt in terms of symbols and who had fallen in love with someone that was utterly indifferent to him in return. He wanted to express to her how badly she was hurting him with her indifference. He did so quite grandly. Of course, not understandable to the average person, and simply dismissed as insane. And also can be dismissed as an evil stalker who should be locked up of course.

About that compassion article then:

Research conducted by Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin recently studied brain activity in a European-born Buddhist monk, Oser, who had spent three decades meditating on compassion in the Himalayas.

Davidson's research had previously found that people who have high levels of brain activity in the left prefrontal cortex of the brain simultaneously report positive, happy states of mind, such as zeal, enthusiasm, joy, vigour and mental buoyancy. Oser was asked to meditate intensively on compassion and then to relax after sixty seconds while being monitored by an fMRI magnetic imaging machine. Goleman describes the results:

"While Oser was generating a state of compassion during meditation, he showed a remarkable leftward shift in this parameter of prefrontal function... In short, Oser's brain shift during compassion seemed to reflect an +extremely+ pleasant mood. The very act of concern for others' well-being, it seems, creates a greater sense of well-being within oneself." (Goleman, ibid, p.12)

Oser has some kind of association going on where thinking compassionate thoughts causes him to feel happy. This of course doesn't mean the same is true for all people. Also I don't understand what's the point of spending three decades meditating on compassion. Maybe he could instead join the peace corp or something, I don't know.

In another experiment, Davidson monitored the base-line state of left prefrontal cortex activity indicating normal everyday mood in 175 American individuals. Subsequently, he also monitored the base-line state of a 'geshe', an abbot, from one of the leading Buddhist monasteries in India. Davidson reports:

"Something very interesting and exciting emerged from this. We recorded the brain activity of the geshe and were able to compare his brain activity to the other individuals who participated in experiments in my laboratory over the last couple of years... The geshe had the most extreme positive value out of the entire hundred and seventy-five that we had ever tested at that point." (Goleman, ibid, p.339)

Davidson describes the geshe as "an outlier" on the graph - his reading was "three standard deviations to the left", far beyond the rest of the bell curve for positive emotion.

And this means... what? It's still just one single person of course.

These findings support claims made by meditators over hundreds of years that compassion and concern for others are in fact the basis of human happiness. They also support the claim that human emotions such as compassion, love, anger and jealousy arise more intensively and more often, the more often we generate them.

Well it's only two people actually. The first of whom being one single person who did happen to associate compassion with happiness. The second of whom we don't really know anything at all except that I guess he/she spent time meditating...

It is important to understand the fundamental nature of the meditation in which Oser had been engaging.

...although it wasn't Oser who had the extreme happiness going on..., it was the second meditator. The one we know nothing of really.

In Buddhist psychology, the word meditation has a very specific meaning. Here, the Dalai Lama explains:

"Meditation means creating a continual familiarity with a virtuous object [idea] in order to transform your mind. Merely understanding some point does not transform your mind. You may intellectually see the advantages of an altruistic awakening mind, but that does not actually affect your self-centred attitude. Your self-centredness will be dispelled only through constantly familiarising yourself with that understanding. That is what is meant by meditation." (The Dalai Lama, Awakening The Mind, Lightening The Heart, Thorsons, 1997, p.51)

In other words, repeatedly familiarising the mind with the suffering of others, and acting to remedy that suffering, has the effect of increasing the intensity and frequency of compassionate thoughts. The implications, as Buddhists have long claimed, and as science is beginning to confirm, are remarkable:

"If everything you do with your body, speech, and mind is done for the benefit of others, there is no need to do anything more for your own benefit because the one is included in the other." (Gampopa)

Time spent worrying about others means less time spent worrying about yourself. This can reduce stress somewhat (as it's hard to really worry about others as much as yourself, haha.) Also if you happen to know that you're performing some activity that will make other people's lives happier (which isn't happening at all if all you're doing is sitting on your ass and thinking about others) then by long term self interest their happiness could potentially improve your own life. There is just the thought of the world having become a better place. Which in turn then you feel happy yourself to be living in a slightly better world.

But, I don't really see that this has much to do with meditating at all.

From Rideflame:

Is there concrete evidence that a person who meditates is actually happier than someone who does not? Or is the happiness a product of engaging in an activity that person enjoys doing. Secondly, a person meditating on compassion says that he feels compassionTM...but does that make a person actually compassionate?

What in the world meditating on compassion actually entailed for this one single person I don't know.

Personally I used to lay in bed at night and imagine I was a cow, etc and having horrible things done to me. It did not make me feel happy at all. The opposite of course. And then I'd sit down to eat and have a bit of trouble enjoying my food. I've no idea what Oser was thinking about. I would think thining about suffering might make a person compassionate. And that actually thinking about suffering wouldn't actually make a person happy. It's later on, actual actions that might make the person happy. Oser was supposedly just feeling happy immediately while thinking about whatever he was thinking. Was he daydreaming that he was out there in the world actually doing good deeds? I guess he could be. I don't know. But that of itself still tells us nothing at all. He's one single person, who may or may not have previously spent time doing what I did, etc.

Next, a problem with the idiot-school of contemporary science is faith in simplistic definitions of what constitutes good and bad. By the time you get to meditators the whole thing has exploded into a mess of FUBAR-ness the like of which you may never have experienced before! So someone meditating on compassion says he is now compassionateTM, and yet all you get in a real world situation from this person is a set of platitudes and explanations as to why you are hurting yourself!

No idea what he was up to in his life. Rideflame would have far more experience then me with people who meditate.

I mentioned (I think) long ago public service nightmares. That in a 'utopia' everyone would be forced to watch people suffering, (via movies, etc). To try to make them really understand suffering. That might make people more compassionate (or it might really backfire...). But such imaginings are the opposite of the happy stuff people are doing with meditating, or so I hear. Yes, I do really think it would be better if people sat around and tried to imagine awful things instead.

Basically meditating on compassion does not necessarily make someone compassionate, any more than playing Quake makes it possible to hit someone hard enough to cause them to explode! The idiot-science derived from psychology would have you believe that practicing loving people in your head makes it easier to love people in the real world...well no...I don't believe so.

Ok. Sure, I agree.

I do like Abba kind of though. (Not that I've ever bought their music...) In part because I'm 36 and I attach them to a short time of innocence in the mid to late 70's when I was very young. When my parents were young enough that they bothered to go out and mingle with the other young professors, go to parties and so on. Running around with other little kids without quite so much of the mental junk that we eventually aquire. I don't know. I can pretend there was hope in 1978 or so, there were choices... and Abba (which mirrored a sort of innocence) was playing in the background.

The problem with politics is that if you're outside of the extremely narrow boundaries of allowable opinion, you just don't even count. If you're getting all your information from the mainstream media you probably won't be outside of this narrow range. But if you are outside then nothing you do is going to change anything. All your political actions are pretty much futile.

You're not going to stop any wars. You're not going to stop international monetary fund structural adjustment loans. You're not going to cause a socialist democratic revolution. You're not going to cause a restructuring of our mainstream media. It will continue to be owned by billionaires who will in turn decide what the vast majority of people are going to think.

One thing that's nice about Edward's Free to be Human is that he takes what was to me basically a political thing (Herman and Chomsky's media propaganda model) and suggests a way that any two people who recognize it's existence should be able to just in how they interact with one another, perhaps make some positive differences.

Maybe.

It's too abstract though.
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Dreaming of fame. Sadly I feel more creative when I do this. Although rarely do it anymore. To dream of fame is like dreaming of being the/an alpha male. It's unfortunate to realize how much of creativity can be tied into such things. I think. I guess. But if one truly took away all such crude absurdities, would there be anything left?

There is perhaps some other way of looking at it. Fame doesn't necessarily equal alpha male ape at all. My thinking has been too crude. It could equal having the power to make positive change for example. Failure after failure. Not thinking well. Recognizing how haphazard my process is.
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Ate a huge meal. Haven't fasted last few weeks because it was problematic with two hours runs.
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Need to not forget to write about issue of stalking. What percentage of stalkees bear some responsibility? (Which isn't to say the futile activity of stalking someone is justified.) How come all I ever hear is stalkers demonized, said to be mentally ill, etc and no one ever speaks up to say that the situation can be more complex? Surely people realize it can be more complex. I think people are afraid that they'll be suspected of being a stalker themselves if they attempt to add any complexities to the issue. So instead they conform and shut up.

Research conducted by Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin recently studied brain activity in a European-born Buddhist monk, Oser, who had spent three decades meditating on compassion in the Himalayas.

Davidson's research had previously found that people who have high levels of brain activity in the left prefrontal cortex of the brain simultaneously report positive, happy states of mind, such as zeal, enthusiasm, joy, vigour and mental buoyancy. Oser was asked to meditate intensively on compassion and then to relax after sixty seconds while being monitored by an fMRI magnetic imaging machine. Goleman describes the results:

"While Oser was generating a state of compassion during meditation, he showed a remarkable leftward shift in this parameter of prefrontal function... In short, Oser's brain shift during compassion seemed to reflect an +extremely+ pleasant mood. The very act of concern for others' well-being, it seems, creates a greater sense of well-being within oneself." (Goleman, ibid, p.12)

In another experiment, Davidson monitored the base-line state of left prefrontal cortex activity indicating normal everyday mood in 175 American individuals. Subsequently, he also monitored the base-line state of a 'geshe', an abbot, from one of the leading Buddhist monasteries in India. Davidson reports:

"Something very interesting and exciting emerged from this. We recorded the brain activity of the geshe and were able to compare his brain activity to the other individuals who participated in experiments in my laboratory over the last couple of years... The geshe had the most extreme positive value out of the entire hundred and seventy-five that we had ever tested at that point." (Goleman, ibid, p.339)

Davidson describes the geshe as "an outlier" on the graph - his reading was "three standard deviations to the left", far beyond the rest of the bell curve for positive emotion.

These findings support claims made by meditators over hundreds of years that compassion and concern for others are in fact the basis of human happiness. They also support the claim that human emotions such as compassion, love, anger and jealousy arise more intensively and more often, the more often we generate them.

It is important to understand the fundamental nature of the meditation in which Oser had been engaging. In Buddhist psychology, the word meditation has a very specific meaning. Here, the Dalai Lama explains:

"Meditation means creating a continual familiarity with a virtuous object [idea] in order to transform your mind. Merely understanding some point does not transform your mind. You may intellectually see the advantages of an altruistic awakening mind, but that does not actually affect your self-centred attitude. Your self-centredness will be dispelled only through constantly familiarising yourself with that understanding. That is what is meant by meditation." (The Dalai Lama, Awakening The Mind, Lightening The Heart, Thorsons, 1997, p.51)

In other words, repeatedly familiarising the mind with the suffering of others, and acting to remedy that suffering, has the effect of increasing the intensity and frequency of compassionate thoughts. The implications, as Buddhists have long claimed, and as science is beginning to confirm, are remarkable:

"If everything you do with your body, speech, and mind is done for the benefit of others, there is no need to do anything more for your own benefit because the one is included in the other." (Gampopa)

If it is true that concern for others is a source of personal happiness, then the implications for our relationships are also remarkable.

Ms. Jones isn't maybe a truly original song. Well at least partially 'original', definitely. To the extent that anything is when there's millions of songs.

My dad bought about 100 VHS Indian movies about 25 years ago, at least. I found two porn movies hiding on one long ago. More than 20 years ago I watched The Devil and Ms. Jones and some other movie. I'm not so much for porn. Usually they ruin the very idea of sex; going off in ugly directions and/or having no passion anyway. The Devil and Ms. Jones was just not a turn on, no thanks. Ugh. But the opening scene where she realizes she's dead had a certain something to it. And the end scene where she's in hell was good. (Neither was sexual). In between there was this one song I really liked and I remembered some version that I suspect I mostly made up on my own over the years. But now I'm curious if it's even anything at all like the original song that inspired it. Maybe it's very similar. Maybe hardly similar at all.

I have another song that I played on my walkman as a kid delivering newspapers. I thought for sure it was by Jan Hammer or in some way related to Miami Vice. But I searched and searched and can't find it. I think I went through every song related to either...? Was surprised at how cheesy Jan Hammer's stuff sounds now, extremely dated.

But this floats in my head 2 to 6 times a year. Usually when very tired. I've been trying to recreate it in Reaper. In my head it sounds beautiful. When it's turned into midi notes somehow it's too simple... In my head it keeps it's mystery. In a sequencer it's been too, I don't know, revealed. I don't know why that makes it less interesting though really.

It is like saying that love is just such and such chemicals in your brain. One can go along that way and indeed ruin love. Or one can show the underlying 2^2, 2^3, etc of so much music and really hurt it to.

But of course we're chemicals. Or course numbers can be used to describe the world. So what? That hardly should make it lose it's mystery, it's 'magic'. Hardly should make it less interesting...

ART RIFT
In his masterful work on William Blake, Fearful Symmetry, Northrop Frye gives us the following Blake quote (p. 97):

"The great and golden rule of art, as well as of life, is this: That the more distinct, sharp and wirey the bounding line, the more perfect the work of art, and the less keen and sharp, the greater the evidence of weak imitation, plagiarism, and bungling....The want of this determinate and bounding form evidences the want of idea in the artist's mind, and the pretence of the plagiary in all its branches...What is it that builds a house and plants a garden, but the definite and determinate?...Leave out the line, and you leave out life itself; all is chaos again, and the line of the almighty must be drawn out upon it before man or beast can exist?"

It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play. - Dizzy Gillespie

Infinite directions to go. Only one is perfect. Not so easy to stay on track.

I like this one better:

So then, that one 'smearer' at work. I don't think of either as 'smearers' for starters. That was just as opposed to her actual name. What other defining characteristics does she have? She's I'd guess 5'10" 260 and holds her weight remarkably well. If only she'd been a man surely she would have been great at football

Anyway, a number of nurses were complaining/smearing her behind her back. A few decided to have a talk with her. Then in turn she later complains/smears to a couple people about those two who talked to her. I happened to be in the room at this time and she asks me my opinion of her.

My actual opinion is far more complex then what I put down in this blog.

I do think she is similar to me in having a problem with her sense of humor. It's a problem in that it's a little bit outside the majority's sense of humor. What's unexpectedly wrong is funny. For her it's unexpectedly wrong to have a bit of a go at people. To constantly criticize their work performance, etc. And she's been living it up at work recently in this respect to the extent a few other people (both more experienced nurses) took her aside.

So I attempted to answer her by first praising how much fun she is compared to others and then what little I was critical about I attempted to more direct it at me, just suggesting she slightly shared a trait I had and one had to be careful with some people about being misunderstood.

All the same she continued (before this time) to put me down at work all day. Was she just kidding? The end result is to make it look that I'm incompetent. It's the bad humor of an angel (when I do it anyway and I'll suppose her also.) To such angels it is unexpectedly wrong to really be having any kind of a go at others, etc. To 'normal' people: what the heck? Why are you bullying me, etc?
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...But the Fake Smile ties into pretending in general to be happy. If two or more people do so with one another the feedback can make the happiness 'real'.

And then a movie such as Life is Beautiful.

It is a pretending. And pretending, of course, isn't always a bad thing.

It is moral to pretend certain sufferings don't exist?

This pretend happiness is kitsch. Is kitsch always such a bad thing?

When the suffering can't be changed, perhaps the best thing to do is go off into one fantasy or another. But how can you know for sure if it can't be changed? You can't. Ideally a certain minority of the populace should think ALL the suffering can be solved. While the majority ignores certain sufferings.... The minority should do so to the extent they can stand it.

This only works in a nondystopia. Problem in this actual world is the slavemasters attack that minority as they're giving their solutions. And everyone else is too clueless to realize it thanks to their general ignorance of the suffering/problems.

What delusion, if any, should we all believe?

Depends on how long term or short them our thinking.
Depends on our level of intelligence and creativity how much of a delusion we can manage. But then with more intelligence it's more possible to successfully just face the suffering.

The very pretending, while a meagre short term solution, can it lead to something more meaningful long term?

Fakish happiness with 'friends'. Fun times, etc. Then disaster. And stony silence. 'Friends' disappear.

You've passed behind the curtain of suffering and must be ignored. You should ignore yourself. Certainly should have enough consideration to keep quiet...

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-Those who HAD to pretend but their situation has changed and unfortunately it's become habit.
-Society ruled by sadistic tyrant. Extreme kitsch art is the rule. Exaggerated happiness in hell. Pen ran out of ink...

Do I think better, worse, or the same at end of 33 hours of work out of 40? Surely I don't think as well but may feel bad enough that creativity might be more turned on.

The Last Fake Smile Post

My apologies if anyone at all is actually reading this blog. The whining and raging is not bad coping, it's material for later creative use. And it's working well.

Anyway, the original basis for smiling is that you're happy. And if you're happy, you're less liable to beat the crap out of someone. Thus smiling came to be associated with being a reassuring thing which communicates: "I'm not a threat."

So then even when actually you aren't happy you may still want to communicate that you're not a threat. So you smile even though you're not happy. No big deal. It's not rocket science. Yet, no one could ever explain it to me. Or couldn't be bothered to do so anyway. Oh well.

I think around adults it ought to be understood that we're not threats to each other. Or, anyway, at the very least it ought to be understood that people who actually are threats will smile anyway.

With children perhaps it's different. They're so little and defenseless and dumb. So, sure, smile to show you're not a threat.

But don't treat adults like children. When you fake smile at me, I feel like I'm 8 years old. I know someone who actually is a threat would smile anyway. All you're actually doing is reminding me that we live in a violent world.

45 minutes into my run today my right hip started hurting. I recalled this friend of my wife's-a former marine who replaced her third grenade with a makeup kit in Iraq-saying running with weights was really bad for the joints. I said, "Oh no, as long as I keep my form right I'm OK..." So here I was running with good form, muscles not even slightly tired and my hip is hurting. Probably it's a 99% chance that this isn't a one time anomaly. Almost certainly I'll need to change something I'm thinking.

So I thought about it some. Went up to 6 lb weights today which is really nothing. I used to jog with a 40lb pack with no problem. But, actually as the weight comes down in my right hand, it's picking up momentum and hits it's lowest point exactly as my right foot hits the ground and is actually a lot more than 6 lbs. It's rising and falling a lot more than the rest of my body. Furthermore-and I think more importantly-it's possibly making my body want to spin ever so slightly to the right at this moment. That could be the real hip issue. Surely my ancestors spent a lot of time running while carrying things. But maybe not so much heavy stuff that neatly fit into each separate hand.

Last summer I had the same issue with hip pain but dismissed it as the result of a change in form. It was last summer that I had first tried running with hand weights....

So I ran about 45 minutes with increasing hip pain. And finally I just threw the hand weights down.

Then it was like a libertarian propaganda story I once read. This person is at the ballet and the pretty ballerinas have to wear masks and dance badly so that everyone's equal. Then somehow this young guy comes running into the theater. He's 7 feet tall and hugely muscled. And weighed down with weights so he's equal with everyone else. He's escaped from somewhere I think...

He grabs a ballerina and rips her mask off. The audience gasps at how beautiful she is. He rips off the weights attached to himself and they start dancing. They eventually start floating up above the stage as people gasp in awe.

Then the police rush in and shoot them dead.

Libertarian propaganda.

("And the forest is all kept equal. By hatchet, axe and saw!")

I chuck the weights down and suddenly it's a combination of moon gravity and fast forward. And I just fly all the way back to the car. And by the time I get to the car the hip pain has gone away.

I'll have to find something else to do for my arms.
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You think I'm wrong but you know that you'll lose a disagreement with me about it if you voice the disagreement. Not because I'm right but because I'm a 'better debater'. You think I'll just manage to confuse you or something to 'win' the disagreement. So, instead, you just say to hell with me.

You think that no one ever changes their mind because you've virtually never done so. Certainly not as a result of talking to someone about a disagreement.

So, instead, you just say to hell with me. No explanation. Nothing. Gone. Never ever anything. Forever.

It appears to me to be yet another in the endless stream of indifference monsters. Another nazis descendant. In a world overflowing.

And of the 1000 or so people in my hick high school the smartest few ended up freaking christian libertarians.

And my wife thinks me saying I don't want her to be my everything is some kind of negative thing. Wanting her to be or her being my everything puts us in a disgusting dystopia.

And I just took some stupid test that supposedly is harder than the ACT. I think I got a perfect score.

And I checked out the triple nines society once (I only managed 99.85%) and it looked like a sad joke anyway.

Tick Tock.

Chop chop counters the tick tock. When you focus on the tick tock you can forget about the chop chop and talk about social taboos like how smart you are and/or unhappy. What the hell does any of it matter anyway? Tick Tock.

Then later you focus on the chop chop for a while. Backstabbing at work, etc. Money worries. What did Harvey Pekar say? He moaned and groaned so much you'd think I could easily find a good quote. But I can't at the moment. 'Working so hard to survive to die'. Something like that.
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...when you make the smile to say that you're not a threat. You are taking part in violence. You are recognizing it's existence.

I am anyway.

When you talk on the phone. There is often a correct vocal tone that you must use to do the same. To say you're not a threat. Again, to me, my mind is screaming to me what this is. This vocal tone I am supposed to use. I know what it is. I know it's meaning. It's about violence.

And with talking on the phone to a superior you must communicate that you'd be so happy to jump and dance around at their beck and call. So full of energy I am master. Yesss Masterrrr.

Etc.

The volume and pitch, possibly some other qualities, The Ape in the Corner Office talks about it. I knew it before so very well. Most noticeably with my wife who simpers perfectly in the presence of her 'superiors'. She's doing exactly what she should do. And it's like nails on a chalkboard because I know exactly what it is. It's a part of hierarchies. It's force over reason. It's about violence.

We have to both do it correctly and try like all hell to not think about what we're doing. Because the truth of it is awful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49cerBJo-HA





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAr5hBRuQjY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj_2LxY757I

Loosely categorizing everything as either survival related or silly diversions, artsy stuff goes in the latter category (actually it's ALL survival related but some things are not so straighforward). The dumb people stick to the more straighforward survival related stuff; the 'art' that isn't so indirectly related to survival/reproduction.

There was a backlash to the 80's from the dumb people; that the music was too silly, too far away from the survival basis of life. So then music had to become less 'fanciful'. It had to become something that the relatively unartistic people couldn't laugh at quite so easily for being too imaginative, too outside of just plain survival, sex, posturing... So the corporate monopoly dumbed it down.

Notice the gay men and androgynous people in general have mostly now disappeared except for those who got so famous during this time that they've managed to keep some following.

openminded and tortured

http://thetoofarfuture.blogspot.com/2009/04/halfway-through-free-to-be-human-now.html

You want to know what it is to be truly openminded?

Kafka's The Trial. A book he died without finishing and asked to have burned.

You constantly persecute yourself. Your mind is never totally at ease.

'The Good' are good exactly because they are constantly afflicting themselves, constant reproaches, constantly in doubt of the righteousness of their actions.

While 'The Evil' rest easy and unconcerned. The more evil they are the better they feel. The tormented amongst them are few and far between. They are the ones that manage to somehow become more intelligent late in life. And thus realize the horrible things they've been up to. But how does this happen?

As long as things stay good for them they can keep their mind closed and never need to take a closer look at their actions. Only if things really go to hell is there a chance they might feel the need to take the extraordinary step of opening back up their mind. And then they become a born again christian most likely; adopt that set of dogmas and promptly slam the door back closed.

But most have no such issues as their 'evil' is just following the unspoken insane corporate social norms that genuinely do help one get along better in this life. If you've never had an imagination you never notice you feel slighly empty. Only those who grew up in love with fantasy books find themselves feeling dead and searching for something more later. An extramarital affair, prozac, etc.

This is not well written. Muddled. In that the last paragraph suddenly adds an increased complexity that the previous don't address.

meaningless interactions

I do my best thinking in the shower. Why is that? I recall Carl Sagan saying something similar.

Was going to write up a friend contract. Just to think more about it. But it mostly amounts to being able to disagree with each other and still see some reason to bother keeping in contact. As opposed to some level of a fake relationship.

The reality for people is that they generally conceal differences and act in ways which are partially dishonest with new people. If it's someone they look at as a potential long term sexual mate then they'll usually try to slowly let the truth peek through. And then, how it works is that if one person lets the truth peek through and the other person finds that they disagree, they often keep the disagreement to themselves and dump them for no known reason. Occasionally they'll both recognize disagreements and both just not define what they are and mutally dump each other. More often one person will move forward and try to actually be real and the other will respond by dumping them with no explanation instead of even talking about what they disagree with.

Of course I don't just mean say, talking about political disagreements. I mean anything. Farting even. Levels of cleanliness. Seeming narcissitic. Too concerned with the superficial. Too 'serious'. Etc. Anything.

The ugly assumption is that whatever disagreement that is concealed ought to be concealed because no good will come of airing it out. Occasionally this may actually be true. (Well ideally it is literally never ever true.) More often it just makes the assumption that all people are closeminded and unchanging. Perhaps it's mostly projection in this way. But also people so often respond to disagreements with violence, force, and anger and thus it is no wonder then that women especially will often hide their disagreement and just drop someone with no explanation at all.

But so, if it's someone you're looking to have sex with for the long term you slowly reveal your true self, slowly reveal stuff the person could actually disagree with. If it turns out you're very similar in some ways then you have sex, etc. And then perhaps, thanks to sex mainly, you've got enough holding you together that you might dare to actually disagree with the person about some things.

If there's no sex, if it isn't a person that you're looking for that with over the long term, then just never bother to reveal any disagreements. Just keep whatever pointless relationship you have with the person pretty much meaningless.

And this, does tie into the unspoken insane social norms of our corporate society. It also perhaps just ties into what ugly violent closeminded creatures we generally are.

And so, you get to potentially be close with your mate. Maybe your parents and children. Maybe a few relatives. Otherwise...? Women may find a few other very similar women to confide in. Gay men maybe the same. Non gay men... whatever for? Keep it light and meaninglesss. Talk about your car or motorcycle.

And the reality is then that for a pretty sizable portion of people, not counting parents and children, they get to be meaningful with one single other human being. One person to supply their everything.

And everything else is mostly shlock.

Halfway through Free to be Human now. He's wrong about some things.

He's utterly ignored the fact that it feels good to be closeminded. The people who are committing 'evil' acts; committing 'sin' are generally the closeminded people who go through life certain they're right. And to be so certain feels good.

Actually as I was reading the first part of this book it was mirroring my own sentiments so exactly, that I felt vindicated and spent an evening being sure I must be right-just because one other person said the same but with more sophistication-I knew by doing so I was being closeminded and I knew it felt good and I knew I'd only spend a single evening enjoying doing such a thing.

My setpoint is to never be so certain of myself, to be full of doubt, to be openminded.

Edwards thinks those who hurt others, those who are indifferent and seek fame, and power in life are hurting themselves. He's mostly wrong. They're generally not at all like Tolstoy, they're closeminded and stupid and go through life relatively happy with never a thought for the damage they are causing. Yes, over the long term their sum total happiness is not what it could be. But in the short term it is mainly just the openminded people and the losers in corporate capitalism that are unhappy.

'Winners' like Tolstoy are the exceptions. To be intelligent and openminded, constantly questioning everything is to be less happy in this world and it takes a strong person to stand it.

Edwards is wrong to think that all these people who totally accept the norms are unhappy. They are generally more happy than those of us who recognize how pale such a life is, relatively speaking. And how morally bankrupt.
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To be meaningful is to disagree with someone. To be meaningless is to gloss over differences, to not mention them, because you're afraid of what will otherwise happen.

The worthwhile people are those you can disagree with and yet still have a reason to keep in contact with. How few such people there are for any of us in this world. It seems short of parents and the person you're fucking, there's just about none at all for most people. (If even those few.)
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Found the last promisingly intelligent person from high school. He found me and friended my on facebook. He's a libertarian and a christian. His favorite books are some procapitalist business book that I just ordered and Stephen King's Christine. He had a 160 IQ back then. Actually went off to a special school all by himself for a year before returning to one size fits all. Introduced me to Pink Floyd.

How disappointing it all is/they all are. Elitist as that sounds there's just nothing for it. They are disappointing.

I did (re)meet a guy recently who said he's addicted to learning. He's halfway through a PhD in Math but is now instead entering med school. He's also a triathlete. Mentioned he listens to lectures on everything while training. I need to start using my wife's ipod and doing the same I suppose.

Wife was envious of him in that his father is an extremely rich doctor and he's had everything on a silver platter his whole life. I don't think that should be held against him.

I played tennis against him a few times in the past. His parents spent tons of money on lessons, etc for him. He was ranked number 1 on the high school tennis team for a couple of years.

I beat him of course. I've also played basketball against a few guys who played professionally and held my own against them. I've also knocked out a few state toughman champions. How strange it all is...

I learned to play tennis by just mimicking the guys on TV and hitting a ball against a large wall. Then whenever the ball didn't go where I wanted it to I analyzed exactly what I had done wrong. I'd make a hell of a tennis coach except for having no credentials. But I've never had a lesson in my life. My net game is bad because a ball machine is extremely helpful for that and that I surely never had. My parents virtually never game me a penny for tennis. I never got an allowance, etc. They wouldn't even drive me to tournaments. Only the ones I could manage to walk to did I get to play in. (And I won those, but such were rare..)

I beat this guy who had been ranked number 1. When I tried out for the high school tennis team the coach at the time was a devil who simply pretended I wasn't there. Not even the pretense of cutting me.

Parents did nothing.

I bet he had an untroubled mind. I bet he felt quite righteous with himself treating a 14 year old boy like that. I bet he slept well and went through his days filled with pride.