In the Force versus Reason divide, Shame is definitely on the side of Force.

On the Side of Force when people are wrong we Punish them to make them so full of Fear they'll avoid being wrong in the future. The feeling of Shame is what we feel when we Punish ourselves. (Or perhaps what we feel while we await the punishment we expect. Shame is a sort of wincing as we await the blow that we expect to fall.)

Shame can be carried all the way to suicide. In fact it is perhaps an essential component of most suicides.

Whenever anyone ever feels shame they should try to remember it's part of the violent monkey World of Force and dismiss it from their minds.

On the side of Reason, of course we all make mistakes. We constantly make mistakes. In fact our every moment is always to some extent a mistake. We are never acting perfectly. Life is constant failure. And should be a constant process of recognizing failures and continously improving.

But because instead we're in the Force World we can't stand to think that we're constantly failing. All that failing would mean constant punishment. It would mean a sort of mental equivalent of constant wincing waiting to be 'hit' which is the equivalent of punishing ourselves (Shame.)

Rather than do that we for the most part instead become uncritical of ourselves. We become Closeminded.

Robin Hobb: The Assasin's Apprentice, pg 426.
Suddenly I felt such energy in me I managed to get out of bed.

The book as a whole has many important concepts about human behavior but I was too busy enjoying the escape and falling for all the tricks to bother taking much note. This is the rare book that if it were me I could see bothering to write it.

The only question that troubles me is I think I already read it just a few years ago but can't quite remember for sure. Definitely read Liveship Traders but not sure about this one. Liveship Traders though was a relatively unique idea combined with lots of emotional anguish. The idea of a ship being alive with the lady at the front being able to talk and all seems goofy and perhaps childish but it really worked.

All of her books really do go heavy on the villains doing awful things to good people. In this one the main character almost commits suicide from the despair he feels. Yet, somehow, there is something happy to the point of highly dishonest about it all.... Thus a good escape. And the worlds she creates are pretty real. Not the realist. But quite real enough while somehow managing to have a positive feeling despite heroes having such awful things done to them that they are such a nice escape.

-

Forgetting is definitely an essential thing to be able to continue tolerating life. Or at least life as it's commonly lived, amongst a bunch of other people who are doing such a good job of forgetting.

In the case of completely forgetting that I've read 400 page books it is a bit distressing. But maybe I got to enjoy it twice then.

Hey my wife does read my blog!

Or at least she occasionally does a control f search for 'wife'.

This line here:

I'm sorry I've already been married for a decade and unfortunately my wife would not like the thoughts in my head so much at the moment.

Would have been better phrased:

"I've already been married for a decade and I'm sorry to say my wife would unfortunately not like the thoughts in my head so much at the moment."

BTW, I've reflected on why I almost never mention my wife in this blog. And it's not because she means so little to me. It's because:
1. This is a blog about negative things and for the most part there's just nothing negative there... not much anyway.
2. To what little extent there is, bitchin about her in a blog would be ridiculous in that it would just be griping about relatively insignificant things.
3. I don't go on about the positives because that would seem like flaunting.
-
Just bought 5 decadent books. Robin Hobb. I loved her Liveship Trader Trilogy. I think maybe I would be happy to write like her. Maybe that is someone I could write like and feel it worth the bother.

Robin Hobb: Comforting. Hm. Nothing. Exhilarating to be exploring new territory and setting up a fresh stage and getting to know new characters. 'Daunting' is always there in any book with any setting, old or new. I look at how far there is to go, how many pages, how many words, how many keystrokes, and the whole project seems insane. And sometimes I cross the safety line and say, "Wait a minute. Isn't this an inherently silly thing for me to be spending my life doing? Saying, 'hey, let me tell you a story about people who don't exist in a world that never was, and I'll try to make it so important that you'll spend hours of your life with me over the next three years?' I mean, if you really look at what writers do, it does seem a bit odd, doesn't it? So that can be the daunting part. If you let it. But I'm really good at denial.

Over all, I love to write, and read, and tell stories. Really daunting would be if someone said, "Nobody's interested any more. Go out and work for a living!"

Got another trilogy by her.

Then Gene Wolfe. A beautiful sounding book set in ancient times (Rome) about a guy who has no short term memory but can talk to gods, etc. So everyday he writes what happened to him then to read the next morning. Read a book about an executioner long ago by him. It seemed almost as if it were advertised as cheesy pulp fantasy, but I recall thinking... 'Geez this is really good.' Just found out recently he's actually very highly respected and not some Kilgore Trout.

I do seem to be slipping into a previous frame of mind. For the longest time I couldn't enjoy reading like I once did. But then immediately after getting the RN exam out of the way, I read some of Vellum while walking to my car. I had forgotten how strangely enjoyable that can be; walking while reading. (Dangerously unassimilated though it is.) Really being immersed. It was once such a nice escape. One that I effectively lost for quite a while... I was still reading here and there but not truly falling in...

I couldn't fall in while in nursing school. Previously I could while getting my BS and MS in engineering but for me at least those were easier degrees. Nursing was so much more subjective and had this annoying quality where studying didn't actually accomplish anything but one didn't feel like they could ever relax. So then, little time was spent studying, but I didn't feel comfortable instead falling into escapist type fantasy fiction. Could only turn to less satisfying diversions that were less likely to really pull me in so very much. Like surfing the vast internet wasteland. Which is ultimately such a pale world. Not the best use of time unfortunately despite the few interesting and nice people I've "met".

...I labeled this 'free jazz' because I don't really know anything about genres.

...William Golding is a helluva a guy but, if I were him I never would have bothered to write a book. I mean, even if I knew the end result was a nobel prize in literature plus the fact he was talking so much about the sorts of things I care so much about in a manner that usually gets labeled preachy... still, this song seems more worthwhile to me. Which, what does that mean?

The people around me have no real value of knowledge. Books, learning, they don't matter. In my real world I don't know anyone at all who gives a flying whoop about William Golding. I think I've been influenced to some extent by the people I've been around. Perhaps if I'd been born at... the Great Party as some relatively wonderful person recently typed... born around people who cared about such stuff, sat around and talked about it, etc. Drank cappuchinos while they blogged at Starbucks or whatever. As things are though it would require an amazing bit of creativity for me to become a writer.

Not in the creating the writing, but in creating/pretending I lived in a world where people actually cared about such stuff.

Oh yes, that was the point of this blog. Imaginary eyes that actually give a damm.

Hmmm, article of faith number two...

I prefer creativity which has an interactive quality to it; where one is sort of experimenting, not really knowing what the outcome will actually be (at least not entirely...). With music one can imagine music in their head but with playing an actual instrument there is a degree of flexibility where one must work with the instrument and let it 'speak' to them. The same still with simply programming music on a computer. Certainly with multiple tracks and endless virtual synthesizers but even with just a plain piano track where you're slowly working your way along, looping bits as you inch forward. How does this sound...? How about that...?

But then I recall some guy who makes a living composing classical saying he has to hear it all in his head. There doesn't appear to be anything interactive in doing that. And then there's writing. It doesn't seem to very interactive.

Both appear to just be trying to painstakingly reproduce something that is already in one's head. And that just doesn't strike me as fun.

Or I could say it doesn't strike me as interesting. It's all just me. There's nothing I'm interacting with which is showing me things, such as an instrument or VSTs/music sequencer.

Each time I bother to write a song there is an essential curiousity at work; thanks to the feeling that I'm interacting with something which may show me interesting things.

I on the other hand have lots of music in my head. But I'm finding that for the most part, to the extent it sits already completed in my head, I've no interest in successfully bringing that music into the real world.

It's already in my head. Such a process would just be frustrating (full of failure) combined with not interesting. As there'd be nothing actually learned by just pulling it out of my head exactly as it is. (And to the extent I don't pull it out exactly then it seems like failure.)

Oh well there's other ways to think of this.

I'm lately motivated to possibly... probably try a new medium. Some sort of creating of a virtual reality. In part thanks to Rideflame. But here I see, the same as with fiction writing, the problem of a lack of interaction. Instead just painstakingly creating what's in my head.

People say that writing is a process of discovery and/or that they think through a problem themselves through writing a story. But it seems such a strange way to go about working through problems.

Almost the equivalent of someone rocking back and forth for the reassuring quality of it (back to the womb). So then the story form has a reassuring, calming quality to it. And maybe is a pulling back to a psuedo objectivity.

Or I don't know? Really I don't understand it. If I want to think about something I just think about it. Thinking about it in terms of a story is no good as there is so much about stories which are false in order to appeal to man's innate primal nature.

Eh, I don't know.

Would be nice though if writing, etc, mediums other than just music felt interactive as opposed to just being attempts to reproduce something in my mind exactly as it is.

There is additionally being able to listen to music, whereas... one maybe isn't going to be rereading their books, for example. I guess a little time may be spent rereading a finished book, but really not much. Too much would just be very weird ultimately. Whereas one can play music in the background without totally concentrating on it in order to create a mood.

..I'm trying to use my productivity in music to find a way forward into other mediums.

Just rambling really though.

It seems for other mediums the way forward is thinking in terms of a type of coping. And perhaps solidfying the coping to be used through writing it down. For possibly doing mapping...? I'm not sure. Was thinking very much in terms of a... 'coping'. And maybe the term 'coping' doesn't entirely make sense. One could say everything is coping. Eating, exercising, etc. In the virtual reality/mapping one can have music also. But then the question is: to what extent is one going to return to what one has created?

Is it solidfying a coping mechanism? (Like future fiction writing might perhaps be for me.)
Or is it like writing music?

Men aren't as good at recognizing when women are angry.

Also in the specialization of tasks, tribes in which the men became somewhat cold and stoic and thus better warriors were more likely to survive. But then women that were better at communicating were needed to stop the tribe itself from falling apart from violence.

I guess I better write it down. Preferably somewhere I won't lose it.

The fictional book has a dystopia. There's no convincing the reader it's a dystopia. There's no carefully pointing out how certain actions much like what commonly occur in our own world are a big part of how it's a dystopia. There's no trying to convince the reader of what's right and wrong. There's certainly no grand scheme for fixing the whole world. There's just hero/s whom are finding ways to cope with the situation. Not exactly just merely surviving. But finding/applying positive coping mechanisms.

Along the way various insights may be included but never ever in a manner that they get in the way of the story at all.

It may be that to a large extent what could have been learned will simply fly over the readers head. Oh well. There is fiction and there's nonfiction.

...I think of Devo. And how their message, which wasn't really that hidden, (but was partially hidden as it would have pissed a ton of people off) was missed by almost everyone it seemed. Devolution. We're evolving into a stupider race. Our idea of a good time is getting drunk and laid. Being really (noncompartmentalizedly) smart is like having a disease.

They weren't hiding it much.

">

Mongoloid he was a mongoloid
Happier than you and me
Mongoloid he was a mongoloid
And it determined what he could see
Mongoloid he was a mongoloid
One chromosome too many
Mongoloid he was a mongoloid
And it determined what he could see
And he wore a hat
And he had a job
And he brought home the bacon
So that no one knew
Mongoloid he was a mongoloid
His friends were unaware
Mongoloid he was a mongoloid
Nobody even cared

A guy has Down's Syndrome but no one even notices because everyone else is at about the same level. Endless such songs parodying everything in our culture that disgusted them and, for all their preachiness they might as well have been mumbling grocery lists.

So it flies over everyone's head. Oh well.

Vancian coping was stoicism. That's why it appealed to me so much.
Salvatore appealed to me in that the dystopia/versus the compassion of the hero resounded with my own life. His coping was also.. stoicism.

Another coping is turning things into the absurd. Another is focusing on the welfare of others instead of the self. (Thank god for children?) What else? Religion/mysticism/art..., love, well... then maybe endless others. Could say everything is a coping mechanism. But focusing on the coping mechanisms of 'the hero'.

The books that gave a euphoric feeling had the hero's with coping mechanisms that were new to me.

There is also Ayn Rand's heros. Her coping mechanism was thinking you're superior to others and that The Game is all there is. Endless competing against all other people. The individual against all others. That is Life. That is The Way. Love it. Become it.

Such is the coping mechanism of a monster.

There is also Milan Kundera's coping mechanism. His was showing that yes, he agrees, life is horrible. Look at this. See? I understand. I agree. But I'll go further. I'll show you that it's even worse then you thought. In fact it's so bad that what you must do is give up. And turn to relatively small bits of happiness. Like a nice hot piece of ass. A beautiful sunset. That's all one can hope for.

Kundera is probably right but a real hero would not agree.

More 'bad' words

These are words that bad people very often use to attack good people or that bad people use to justify their own harmful actions.

Additional bad words:

'Inappropriate'

This word seems to really just mean being against tradition, against social norms. It doesn't have to be a bad word but usually when you ask someone why the given action is 'inappropriate' they can't actually give a reason. It's usually just that they're mindlessly following some social norm and disapprove of someone else who isn't. And, often the thing is, the 'inappropriate' person was just more questioning of social norms and found a particular norm to have no useful value thus discarded it.

This word is then used to justify disapproving of them without actually giving any coherent reason why.

'Privacy'/'Private'

Only slightly a 'bad word'. But what's the difference between privacy and secrecy? To have one's privacy is OK but to be secretive isn't. When someone uses the word privacy it's understood that you can't question them further and it's not that they're being secretive, it's just that they have the right to their privacy.
...not necessarily a bad word but certain people will often use it as an excuse to be secretive, etc.

Of course generally speaking honesty/openness is a good thing instead of secrecy/withholding.

'flip flopper'/'waffler'

This is a retarded rightwing propaganda word which attempts to make being openminded and thus able to change your mind some kind of negative. Hardly worth mentioning as it's so far gone beyond the pale.

Past words:
emotional blackmail, manipulative, stalker, troll... ?

These words can be put into the mouths of fictional villains. Also useful to remember these words as you go about your life in the real world. See the weapons of the ... bad people.

The 'bad people'. Heh, it's so obvious it's hardly worth posting an article. (But the way one forgets...) We are to an extent shaped by our language. Such common 'bad' words have been used to shape our culture, our norms. But I'm stuck with 'bad people' to describe ...? The people who cause a relatively large amount of harm. The relatively closeminded. The short termers. The indifferent. The people who more generally use force. The stupid. What term is there? "Bad people."

What of 'evil'? The word should not exist. A crude simplification which reduces our thoughts to dysfunctional anger/force.

I suppose one doesn't really want to have a specific term for such people so much because one wants to dislike the actions not the person. Of course such considerations don't hold them back in return.

I suppose I'd call them Short Termers. The Short Termers. These are a few words they're far more likely to use.

...'nutters'. This is one as anyone who dares question the basic social norms of this society (any truly good person) is in danger of being called a nutter. It is also a word that is insensitive to people who are genuinely mentally ill. But, it's perhaps mostly just a politically incorrect word as opposed to being a word that stands as part of the material of the wall which closes off meaningful examination of harmful social norms.

Or simply calling a person mentally ill.

The social norms of 'the good german,' of post-industrial living have won. Of monogamy, capitalism (including in how the proclaimed socialists act), etc. To actually really step outside does of course mean potentially being smeared as mentally ill.

The Short Termer will stoop to such an attack more often than the Long Termer. And also may genuinely believe in their opinion/not realize they're just smearing. The Short Termer is the conservative blindly following tradition. Anything different is a bizarre scary thing outside their comprehension. Thus the jump to claiming anyone who says they're causing harm is mentally ill is often not much of a jump.

OK so I showed up for my RN board exam yesterday, a very crucially important bit of flaming hoop chop chop and whoopsie! I forgot my all important 27b-6 form. Can't take the test without it. Sorry! :)

But I just knew it. There's always something like this. It's like a predictable plot in some B movie. It's old and tired.

So it's about a 35 to 40 minute drive back home and I have 60 minutes exactly to get there and back with this paper. I had to park far away and run to my car like a little... I don't... animal... slave with a whip at my back. I'm supposed to be frantic but there's a part of me that's not capable of letting myself be affected that way.

I'm just stoic.

Torture me, etc. You might make me angry, (although I've gone further than anyone I've heard of in trying to eradicate such emotions). You might put me on constant edge for years. But that's just a sort of low grade stress... real fear, no. I don't play that. I laugh or just sit stonily like Spock.

So I hobble/run to my car as my knee has been hurting.

In the car and off speeding on the highway at an average speed of 90 miles per hour.
An old cd of my music happens to be playing. How about this?

No, that's no good. LOL. That's just heightening the stressful feelings.

How about this:

No! That just heightens the primary feeling I have about this, which is one of just being tired of this crude mere survival. I am just tired of such games.
But this one?

Yes, that works. I let it repeat a few times at least as I speed along. Of course my speeding causes road rage in a few other drivers who try to go as fast and cut me off, etc. I need a gun that shoots bananas... (Road rage is absurd.)

Why does this song work? There's something grand about it. I can't explain it. It was written randomly. Outside of rational thought.

But unfortunately it lurks in the back of my mind a good part of the time. Both a good thing and a bad. So now that I'm in the perfect frame of mind I take this test and it shuts off at the minimum number of questions which means there's about a 99% chance I passed. (They don't immediately tell you because they're afraid someone who fails might go nuts there.)

The idea that I might have failed is so ridiculous that to entertain it as a possibility does maybe cross over into mental illness. I once scored in the 99.85% on the GRE (relative to the population at large, not limitied to people who take the GRE). I missed the triple nines society by I think one question. Last week I had just gotten some other standardized test they made us take of roughly 100 questions. I was hoping for a perfect score on it... I missed 1.

But I really do think I could have failed. Because it seems that's the sort of life I've had.

Surely it isn't that bad really... but ultimately I do think I'm stuck in a low grade nightmare. (Although negative to the point of 'nightmare' primarily not with respect to my luck but just to what I see all around me. What acceptable behavior is, etc.) And I feel I've had to be an unfeeling piece of steel in the face of it. While at the same time managing to be pseudonormal as such thoughts mean I'm not well adapted. I'm the anomie. I'm the outsider. In our monkey society I'm to be ostracized, unfed, etc.

Of course I did pass.

I can now actually relax, for the first time in over a decade I think. I surely couldn't relax while getting my BS, MS and working on my PhD and for that paranoid schizophrenic at Los Alamos. I couldn't relax while unemployed for a year. (Have to get a job, a jobbie job!!) I couldn't relax through nursing school. Ridiculous subjective tests along with at first feeling very very out of place...

Now, I suppose, I can finally relax. I only work three days a week. I can stay up all night and read some escapist fiction if I want. It may take a while to kick in. Maybe it's been so long I'm not capable of it. Hopefully not. Although I expect I'll mostly always be held back by the knowledge of how bad others still have it.

So anyway, I've got an easy life then. Really I do. Most people don't. Most either have to work much harder or have to worry a lot more about money. Not to mention romantic troubles, physical problems, etc.

Was thinking I want to write music where I, the composer, can later listen to it and easily lose any sense of where in the song I'm at. So, it's not like being cursed with the knowledge of the exact day and manner of your death without being able to do anything about it... (cept live improvisation of course.)

So to accomplish this I think the track should be quite long. But, it would seem it must also be pretty repetitive. Or I should say the changes are very gradual and slight. ?? Minute 9 is different than minute 2 but it's hard to say how...

Ways to do this:
-Low frequency oscillators gradually changing aspect of sounds. The filters on them, etc. (I need better technical know how. Most synths don't do such things very well, if at all.)
-Tons of stuff happening at once. Too much for the conscious mind to keep up with. Happening too fast, etc to very well grasp all the minute changes. (Problem is tons of tracks with a long song is tough for my computer to handle.)
-Lots of noises that are just slightly different. (Problem is tons of tracks combined with a long song is tough for my computer to handle.)
-Just not think while listening to music. (Much easier to do if it's just not my music. Which brings up the problem of not being able to assess my music compared to others. But who cares? I shouldn't but occasionally really wonder, then really wish other people would occasionally comment, then remember so many good reasons they don't, then repeat the cycle.)
-Make very long songs. (Much harder for my computer to handle).

Even this song which was a sad attempt, gave my computer serious trouble.

I was one of the nobodies who happened to be there, for complicated reasons, so naturally I only talked to other nobodies while stars talked to other stars. I was in a line for the bathroom next to Farrah Fawcett, and she made polite conversation with me while we waited. An amazing breach of protocol! Never Engage the Nobodies is one of the basic rules of Hollywood stardom; don’t even make eye contact; they’ll only try to give you a script or something.

As I climbed the steep driveway on a gray afternoon last winter, a large dog barking at my approach, I tried to banish the irrational expectation that Vance and I would exchange Vancian dialogue. Me: “Why did you persist in writing hurlothrumbo romances of the footling sort favored by mooncalfs?” Him: “The question is nuncupatory. I grow weary of your importunities. Begone.”

Jack Vance

Heh. I've read 40 some books by him but I don't really consider attempting to write like him. Maybe try to incorporate some elements. His manner of describing a setting was so perfect. His worlds were so real. And the description of them never got in the way of the story. There was never this, "now bear with me while I stop the story and spend 5 paragraps describing some buildings, etc." It always flowed so effortlessly. There was never the conscious action of suspending disbelief. It really was and I remember needing to believe that all those worlds literally are. That because they exist in our minds they really exist...

Vance takes pride in his craft but does not care to talk about it in any detail, going so far in his memoir as to consign almost all discussion of writing to a brief chapter at the end. Jeremy Cavaterra, a composer who lives in an apartment attached to Vance’s house and helps look after him (and who was recruited as a lifelong fan when he read “The Eyes of the Overworld” at age 14), said of this reticence, “Part of it is that he feels like it’s the magician telling you how the trick works, and part of it is that he writes by feel and doesn’t interrogate it.”

I've wondered why the old christians tried to make enjoyment of sex a sin; saying that it must solely be for procreation purposes. I had thought one reason is just tied to the idea of this world being a mere blink of the eye; an extremely short brutal bit of nastiness which is nothing in the face of eternal heaven. The idea being somewhat tied into one of those eastern religions where by not seeking any material enjoyment you are also less susceptible to the negative feelings of this world. Well whatever.

Another possibility that is less out there and perhaps more practical. (Although before pain killers, etc that was a very useful idea and ultimately still is.) Quite simply humans can't handle highly enjoyable things like sex/love. We get so crazy that we endlessly fight and kill one another over such things. Like buying your children some toy and they fight and fight over it so you finally give up and just get rid of the toy. Or like I recall a tribe of apes were given a bunch of bananas (a delicacy for that particular tribe) and they had a huge fight as a result. The humans decided to not give them any more bananas.

So then it was decided to attempt to just take sex away from humans. You could have sex just with one single person to reproduce (but don't have fun!) and that's it. This instead of endless fighting and ultimately ending up like some types of monkeys with their alpha male having all the women. Or like the middle east harems or the Mormon bigamists. (What about all the other men? Awful situation.)

So they tried to take sex away. But for most people it wasn't really so possible to still be procreating while making sure to not enjoy it. So it became.... more or less OK to enjoy it provided you were only doing it with one single person. No free love. And, well, I think homosexuality may have become so frowned upon in the process as they can't claim they're trying to reproduce.

There are other possibilities but I think this may be the primary reason. Humans just can't share very well. So it's best to just take away such a beautiful thing from them. Otherwise they go back to true alpha male monkey arrangements/Mormom bigamy and/or endlessly killing one another.

So then I'm supposed to never find any other women then my wife attractive. I used to think that I could indeed just not think of anyone else as a sexual, sensual, beautiful creature and could instead just focus on them as if they were a disembodied brain.

I'm coming to the conclusion that such just actually isn't natural. And that actually, pretty much anyone who I genuinely like as a human being, I should ultimately find them physically attractive also.

So then there is the issue of this idea that men and women can't be 'friends'. A married man can't just be friends with some other woman. Indeed, once I really know some other women and really genuinely like them, I can't pretend they're a disembodied brain.

So I'm sitting in a movie theater with my wife on my left and S on the right. (sigh). I'm sorry I've already been married for a decade and unfortunately my wife would not like the thoughts in my head so much at the moment. I don't particularly hide my thoughts from my wife. I don't hide that I find other women attractive. She knows I find S attractive. But... maybe better for her to not understand exactly what I'm thinking as I'm sitting here in this dark theater with her and S on each side... A big part of the problem (FWIW) is that S is a 28 year old virgin. She's a bit unusual and not too many men I guess find her attractive. This appeals to my compassion/pity? I think if she were conventionally attractive and had had all kinds of boyfriends I'd have done better at just finding her "theoretically" pretty and practically speaking a disembodied brain. As things stand, what I'm thinking is now unfortunately going off in a ...not so good direction. She's 28 and practically never even been kissed. For me, the sort of person I am, that makes it incredibly difficult to ignore finding her attractive as it's like just being indifferent to someone in need.

(In response to VictoryGrey on Dysamoria's Blog):

Yes, that was you trying to be manipulative, trying to make him pity you thus giving you the job.
No, I don't think that of course but a surprising number of people seem to think that way. Expressions of unhappiness are viewed with suspicion in general and they're especially verbotten in job interviews. In an interview you have to go in and smile, smile, smile and go on about how you've loved every single job you've ever had, and are just a happy, happy, happy well adjusted person.

I always liked this from 2:08 till 6:15 for the average job interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH6-XWFtR54

The way generally to approach it though is to remember that it's actually a very negative experience for the person giving the interview also. And making sure to completely hide any unhappiness, anything negative at all, is considered being considerate to them.

I don't mean to be negative in what I'm saying. This was important stuff for me to understand. And I had bad interviews through not understanding it well enough when younger.

For Jace's previous job for example I'd just gloss it over as short as possible. Not in the sense of lying, but in the sense of being considerate to the interviewer who really doesn't want to have to contemplate anything negative at all. And who probably genuinely wants to think good thoughts of all people. And so they want you to just gloss over past negatives.

There is all something very strange about how humans act. How so many obvious things (Like: No, we're not really all that happy, in fact a considerable portion of the population is on prozac, etc, etc. Yes, we've all had crappy jobs, etc.) we're supposed to just pretend about, through some kind of unspoken ...social norm or whatever which seems to amount to something like insanity.

But then many people have pointed out that to be happy you need to be insane. Mark Twain for example. Sorry, not trying to go off in such a depressing direction here. Basic thought: hide all things negative in job interviews out of an attempt at being considerate to the interviewer.

-

Meanwhile a neighbor's house caught on fire yesterday. A lady died.

In the newspaper article our street was described as a very close knit community.

The house across the street from us is less than 20 yards away. Both our houses are right on top of the street. The street is just a straight stretch that comes to a dead end; not even 20 houses total. In this house across the street lives a couple in their late 70's, a daughter in her early 40's (C) and then her daughter who's about 10. The house that burned down was two houses up. In it lived a second daughter (who died in the fire) and her boyfriend.

We have spoken here and there to the couple in their 70's. The daughter C has never spoken to us in the three years we've lived here. We figure she's just very shy. Otherwise 4 other people on the street have spoken to us. The lawn nazi to the right, a nice older lady to the left, a nice guy to the right of the older couple's house, who doesn't actually live in his house but comes by occasionally and then just barely the people who live down from the lawn nazi. Inbetween the old couple's house and the house that burned down is an apartment house where lives the people who keep getting cats and leaving them to die outside and whom had the dog that mauled the ten year old girl.

In the article it was said the fire burned hotter than any seen in 20 years. The siding on the house across the street actually melted it burned so hot. It was an inferno.

The old man next door has a very bad heart and they were afraid finding out his one daughter had died might have killed him. So the boyfriend sat on our front steps and sobbed, hidden from the old man's view by a firetruck. I'd also never ever spoken to this man and just let him be. Nor had I ever spoken to the lady who died. I'm a little introverted I guess. But mostly in this day and age it's normal to have not have ever spoken to a couple that have lived 50 meters away for three years.

I suppose it is a 'close knit community.'

Relatively speaking anyway. Relative to the rest of 2009 America.

Once I had a teacher who told a short story of how when he was a student he once sharpened his pencil and then the kid next to him bent over while seated at his desk. The back of his shirt rode up at this moment exposing his lower back and my former teacher on a sudden demonic whim launched his pencil at his exposed back. The sharp point of the pencil landed perfectly right in his lower spine, stuck and the kid began screaming.

LOL, such absurdity. Such pain caused for no real reason at all. What would be more ridiculous than that?

How about some really smart philsophical type person spending decades ruminating on a bunch of actions that are the equivalent of that? In effect pondering and pondering, attempting to understand the thought processes of the kid who threw the sharp pencil. Absurdity cubed.

You could call it projection. I can't quite call it anthropomorphisizing. Not quite anyway. Mr. Smarty Pants Philosopher just can't quite comprehend a vacuum.

Unfortunate Trends in Human Society

Very quickly summarized because I just needed it.

1. Fake Smiles: both in the sense of showing I'm not a threat, don't fear me, don't feel the need to ruin me. And in showing that my 'moral' positions are right because I'm happy/well adapted, etc. The best way to smile though is to learn to really believe it and the way to do so is largely by becoming a traditionalist/a near panglossianist where whatever consistent moral framework you might have had is instead fragmented into a few pet causes.

1.1. The flip side is The Idiot. The truly good person in a constant state of shock at how awful others act. The unfortunate reality that to be truly good means seeing this world as a hell, etc.

1.2. One of the most essential concepts towards humankind's potential for understanding is being open or closeminded. Unfortunately being closeminded generally results in greater happiness. The openminded person persecutes themselves constantly worrying about how they might be wrong, what flaws there may be in their thinking. They're constantly tearing themselves down while the people who actually are causing the majority of the harm, are busy thinking how great they are and just finding reasons to justify such thinking.

2. Anti-elitism: hiding test scores, convincing self you're no better than anyone else... and/or at least hiding the obvious reality. Some combination of the two. The best way to hide is to really believe you aren't. But then as you're faced with others constantly causing harm you're left to think they're evil (and thus be consumed with anger) instead of recognizing the incredible stupidity around you.

3. Force as the method to solve disagreements. Rage, anger, frustration, annoyance, punishment, shame.

4. The alpha male: competition against everyone where their success is a something to be jealous of, etc. Where even showing compassion towards someone becomes a demonstration of superiority thus making you a person to dislike. (Oh that artist finally died? Well then I can finally quit being quite so jealous and actually give his work half a chance.)

5. Isolation trends-The fear of being perceived as gay, thus making men cold and distant to one another. Eh? Monogamy. Most technology. I suppose capitalism. Etc.

6. The burying of our mystical beliefs within our subconscious while outwardly following a Camus atheism, studiously ignoring such an important part of the future (our apparent nonexistence) while still performing endless highly ethical actions as a result of long term forethought.

The most essential charateristic of humankind is the extent to which he is a long term or short term thinker. This Camus atheism wrecks all possible understanding of why we act the way we do. Why we act 'ethically' to whatever extent we do.

6.1. Refusing to recognize that the enjoyment of art is so strongly tied into subconscious magical symbolizations.

7. The incredible extent to which we conform out of fear of what will otherwise be done to us. How we do this subconsciously. How we avoid thinking. How we are just trying to please people with power over us instead of actually thinking whether or not a given action actually is such a good idea.

8. How the structure of our society is greatly increasing our indifference towards one another and that indifference is the heart of all suffering. Hate just ultimately being a dysfunctional reaction to perceived indifference.

9. I suppose the sophistication of the corporate news media system in brainwashing the populace.

10. Art becoming about getting fame through it's mass production, especially in an age where very few artists are needed to entertain billions.

11. Not really a trend but, the fact that we're mostly still just merely surviving despite the fact that technology is such that we could all be living like kings.

..then there's other stuff. "Bad" words. A few insights and odds and ends. It's not so bad.

Trying to be less critical. Not worry about being repetitive. Not worrying about the fact that ummm, someone could probably make a computer program that could churn out music about as good.

I think there's maybe something slightly sick about the attitude that it seems most composers have of wanting to become a famous mass produced artist and thus they spend years in trying to write just a few super fantastic super original songs.

Ends up mostly not being so enjoyable. Mostly just failure, failure, failure and getting sick of hearing the same few tracks. Not to mention from what I hear actually making a living as a musician sounds awful.

Again just the free VST synth1 and a distorted drum loop from cratekings.com

Preachy or Pretentious

What's wrong with 'preachy' is just the oversimplifying of complex ideas. There's nothing wrong that one tries to convince people of a point of view. Nothing wrong that one has many strong opinions. Nothing wrong that one really tries to tackle complex concepts.

What's wrong with pretentious is ending up being too hard to understand for no good reason at all. And what is a good reason is up for debate. In fiction one may be going for a subtle effect. Such as Hal Duncan's Vellum has a mystifying effect which a reviewer complained about as hard to understand and ultimately just pretentious. But it's intent is a somewhat subtle effect.

Preachy is a dumb word I've never used to describe anything. I'd just say a gross oversimplification or something like that. Otherwise you're left with the idea that any attempt to state one's point of view about any ideas/concepts that aren't universally agreed upon is possibly preachy.

I think I need to quit thinking of such things. Actually had in mind a graph. heh. Was thinking a quality of language and seeming complexity of thought that's too complex for the ideas ends up to the upper left on the graph (pretentious) and a level of thought/language that's too crude for the complexity of ideas end up on the lower right (preachy). And a slope of the perfect writing which is neither preachy nor pretentious goes from the lower left to upper right.

But then thought of endless complications. Writing I think both preachy and pretentious, etc. Oh well. The main problem is that 'preachy' is just a dumb word. Secondly the parameters of such a graph are just too crude.

Not the best use of my time, lol.

...the graph would work better if that which fell to the lower right was deemed oversimplifications instead of preachy. Otherwise... I don't know. Maybe that's halfway useful. To me and me alone. The harder the concepts you attempt to tackle the harder it is to not fall into oversimplifications. The word 'preachy' is just no good though. It's not necessarily a bad thing at all to be preachy although certainly some people don't want to hear it.

It is possible though to manage to be pretentious while also oversimplifying as each new sentence is a new chance to mess up in a new way.

I had gotten away from the slow long distance running because I was losing the ability to run fast at all. For the SLD I remember managing 11 miles at just under 12 minutes per mile. So instead I started running much faster. Running 30 seconds then walking. Even with walking half the time my pace was up to 10:30 per mile that way. But I guess it had been just too long since I'd done much fast running and my knees started hurting then. So then I went 2 or 3 weeks without running to let my knees get better. And then my back started hurting again. I hadn't noticed just how good it had been feeling during the SLD (we generally notice what hurts, not what doesn't). With no running I've gone back to waking up at 4AM with my back hurting so that I have to get up even though I'm still sleepy.

OK so...? I guess try to combine the two types of running somehow. The thing is even alternating with walking I can cover more distance that way with fast running/walking then I can with the slow long distance. That makes the slow long distance truly seem a waste. So, not sure how to proceed exactly. OTOH, all that stopping and starting is mentally just a little annoying. I suppose 5 minutes of the stopping and starting and then go to the relaxing SLD? It was really nice having no back pain.

As to how I physically look, the SLD does nothing at all for me. As to my heart rate, the SLD does nothing for me. Was 75 resting. For that the run fast/walk is great. In two weeks my resting heart rate dropped to 52 BPM. Also I gain muscle and lose fat. I don't know. The SLD is close to useless except mentally it was enjoyable and my back started feeling really good.

Trying to get back into lifting weights. Managed 3 chinups with 70 pounds attached to me @245. (pr is 105x3.7@225) And 90 lbs x2 for dips (pr is 120x3). Of all the endless ways to strength train I wonder if the best for me is just one hard set every 6 or so days. And then the thing being that I can't expect to improve a rep each time. More like hope to improve 1/5th of a rep maybe. And then try to make that improvement without injuring self.

Freedom of Speech

2. Don't badmouth your current or previous employer
Just like in an interview, keep your rants about your boss or company to yourself. If hiring managers see that you're willing to trash a colleague online they assume you'll do it to them, too. Plus, there's always the possibility of getting fired if someone sees your negative comments.

If you want to get fed, if you want to survive at all, you better shut up, slap on a smile and act like this world is perfect.


Better yet, don't act, really believe it. The happiest cotton picking slave was the one who wasn't just putting on an act when he slapped that smile on around the master. The happiest ones were the ones who convinced themselves that they really were inferior, that they needed white slave masters and that his personal master was a great man who only whipped him because he had to and that this was truly the best of all possible worlds.

(The following refers in no way to anyone I converse with who might happen to read this blog.)

Note to self: showing concern for most people is not considered a nice, friendly, compassionate and decent thing. It's considered an attempt to lord over them that they're inferior to you. That they're unhappy while you in turn are so happy that you have leftover energy to care about them, thus you're the winner and they're the loser. You're right and they're wrong.

And so you're the only one who shows compassion, and it's taken as an insult. Like if you found a lame racoon and tried to help it and it responds by hissing at you and trying to bite you.

And so almost all of us are locked into some stupid alpha male battle. Including those of us who couldn't possibly care less about such stupidity.

And when some do seem to maybe perhaps be responding to your compassion with decency? Is it actually just this? Giving the thumbs up while secretly thinking of you as 'the fucker in the cowboy hat'?

So today the tennis get-together with 'friends'? Absurdity heaped on absurdity. How much can I stand?

The fellow got pissed that I was too much better than him and apparently not taking it easy enough on him. In truth I played at about 50% but apparently that was still way too much. Did he bother to say hit them a bit easier? No. Did he have a problem when we played before? No. But this time our wives were there. So he just suddenly quits with no warning and throws a hissy fit. I was apparently embarrassing him in front of his woman, because I'm better then him at effing tennis. For the record both wives thought his behavior bizarre.

They just don't understand how us disgusting men think.

Most attempts to be nice to other men who seem unhappy are taken in a negative way as they're busy trying to compete with you to be an alpha male. (And with respect to the tennis example, this fellow finally threw his fit when I showed concern that he seemed a bit sluggish out there, maybe his lunch was sitting heavy with him..? So it's me truly just trying to be nice, sensing that something was wrong and trying to show empathy/compassion. Him taking it as explained above. And actually seeming lackadaisical just because he was pissed.) Most attempts to be nice to women are taken as sexual advances.

And so I'm annoyed that all interactions reduce to the mundane and meaningless and yet I'm surrounded by people like this, who can't even manage a pleasant bit of meaningless tennis.





Such is life. Enjoy!

And smile!





..but does this mean that women are better? That they don't have such alpha male concerns?

Excuse the stereotyping but generally speaking they're constantly judging each other on the basis of status, on what they've accumulated in life, on their possessions: husband, house, car, job, the cleanliness of their homes, their cooking skills... but primarily: possessions.

...I've seen over and over again that men end up conversing with women online far more so than men with men or women with women. I've wondered if it's just entirely for sexual reasons? I think not entirely. Is it because men have such a fear of being perceived as gay? Not entirely. No idea really how much of a role such a thing plays. Occasionally I try to get other's thoughts on the subject, from both straight and queer people. Always just get silence in return. I guess the only thing I could ever get other than silence or denial of this as a legitimate phenomenon would be someone admitting that the fear of being perceived as gay does cause them to be relatively cold to other men. And with respect back to the endless alpha male battle, not too many people admit negatives about themselves.

A third possibility: this alpha male thing, where to an extent each man feels like he's competing with all other men, thus he doesn't want to confide so much with them, they're the enemy while women are much safer. And perhaps the same in return? Although still it seems like less of a concern for women, no matter judging each other based on possessions...

But if gay, then such concerns go out the window? No idea how that works.

Really bothers me how unfriendly the world is. I don't say this with respect to any one person. I'm just weighed down by a lifetime of unfriendliness. Most particularly a decade on the internet. So much time resulting in so few friendships. It is in a way amazing to me. How can I have come this far with so few close friendships?

I almost don't even exist!

I need more but I expect more will never happen. 36 years (6^2!) and so little. No reason for things to ever change.

I'm not alone in not having adequate close friendships. In fact such is the case probably for the majority of people. Although perhaps it bothers me quite a bit more than average.

Things are like this mainly because people are afraid to be friendly. And then also the way our society is set up... there's too many people whom are constantly moving in and out of our lives as we bounce from job to job, etc. There's nothing concrete holding us together... And just too many people generally speaking. We can't treat them all with such friendliness as we should, so then who get's picked out as deserving to be treated like a human?

But for a spouse often no one at all.

I feel starved.

And I'm annoyed about it. I wish that people would find a way to break free of the standard way of doing things. I wish people would be so much more friendly. I wish that people would act the way I have tried to act.

But me being 'friendly' can be perceived as some unconformed bizarre scary behavior. And I realize this and hold back myself. I act less friendly then I otherwise would because I recognize that I have to conform. To the extent I don't successfully conform in a given person's eyes I'm just some bizarre scary person to be ignored altogether.

Conform to the coldness which makes everything pointless or be ostracized.

To the few who may read this, it doesn't really apply to you. Just what I feel about my entire life and what it's been.

Here today I look back, and what pointlessness it's all been. And oh how I've tried.

In truth the happiest people are the ones who don't even comprehend any reason for having close relationships. The people who keep all their interactions universally pointless. The fake smile people talking about the weather. The ones who have absolutely no idea what the point even is in being close to others. These are the well adapted people today. The mere survivalists. Food, shelther, sex. That covers it. Try to be meaningful with them and they assume you're looking for sex, lol.

And they're happy, I'm not. Thus they're right and I'm wrong.

Does that even make any sense?

Does this world make any sense?



Tomorrow my wife and I are going to meet a couple we occasionally do stuff with. Maybe we manage to do something once every 4 to 6 weeks. Which is to say very very often indeed considering this post-industrial world where we all 4 have different work schedules, etc. All 4 of us having an entire day off at the same time and no other plans is incredibly unusual. In fact it may be the first time such has ever happened. Usually it's just an evening after work with at least one person having to suffer the next day through sleep deprivation as they had to get up very early for work.

Once every 4 to 6 weeks is pitiful. That's no basis for a healthy mind. Yes, it is what it is. It can't be helped. But it's not how humans are meant to interact.

Ultimately we all get, or don't get, the mental/emotional food we need from work and our spouse and that's usually it. And such is just not the way it should be, the way it ought to be, the way it needs to be.

Humans are gregarious animals. We're meant to live in tribes. We're meant to see a lot of people, whom we are truly friendly with, whom we are emotionally open with, on a day to day basis.

We don't.

So we see this couple once a month maybe. A few others the same. It works out to 2 or 3 times a month that I have something to do with people other than my spouse or being at work.

Of this other couple for example, they've got hardly any friends. The husband I think has none at all. And this is normal. I've seen it over and over again. And we won't ever be really close friends. I'll almost certainly never express any emotional unhappiness about anything in their presence (never be real), as that would be 'inappropriate'. They'd have no idea how to respond. We don't have sufficient concrete stuff attaching us for which such a thing would make any sense at all. So I must keep it light and fluffy. Joke around. That sort of thing. That's all. That's probably all there will ever be for this life.

And I must erase such thoughts as these from my head or I'll come across as a wet blanket tomorrow and then even this type of pointlessness will eventually be closed to me.

...which it will eventually. Almost certainly.

Almost certainly, if I don't have children, I'll die basically alone in hospital someday. An entire lifetime of trying so damm hard to be so good, and it will be (and basically already is) like I never existed. Which again, is exactly how it is for most people. (Minus trying so damm masochistically hard to be so good, for the most part.)

To the extent I and others think hard and see this world for what it is, we are like the imaginary christ immersed in piss. To the extent I and others let our thoughts unravel, turn away, avoid seeing the big picture we are instead this:



But almost no one is really taking the first so very far really. Almost everyone is doing the second in my eyes. Including me it seems, to the extent I'm happy.

Stupidifying myself. Making sure to not see what things are symbols for. Making sure to not see how things reduce so simplistically to mere survival. Not seeing the underlying harmful nature of our actions. Short terming. Not seeing the fear that lurks and controls. Constantly closing our minds. Constantly turning to force. Almost perfectly isolated thanks to fear. Almost perfectly myopic in order to stand it all. What few pay face value to believing that we are symbolically immersed in piss, still are turning away, still letting the coherent truth unravel. To stay sane. To stand it. To get their happiness Now.

I'm doing it right this moment. I've been given no choice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_psychology

The psyche spontaneously generates mythico-religious symbolism and is therefore spiritual as well as instinctive in nature. An implication of this is that the choice of whether to be a spiritual person or not does not exist—the only question is exactly where we put our spirituality: do we live it consciously or unknowingly invest it in nonspiritual aspirations.

Hah! I ...sort of have been reinventing an argument against atheism. (Although that's not really how I would put it. Not so much 'invest it in nonspiritual aspirations,' as stay sane basically through the spirtuality in us we're unaware of, but whatever.)

So here's the thing: some people would read this and realize they weren't the first person to think of this and think, "Darn!"

But I read it and it's such a relief. It does not remotely make me feel good to think I'm that alone, that no one else ever thought such a thing. (Although I think I knew that other people had thought the same, just hadn't yet seen it described so similarly to what I've thought) And also I don't look at life as much of a competition. My moments of being proud that I'm so 'special' are extremely few and far between. Always instead focusing on problems. Not nice hard science ones unfortunately. Much uglier ones. Ones involving violent little monkeys (people).