All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher. ~Ambrose Bierce

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The swing between boredom and pain (fear more so than pain really), from tick tock to chop chop. Now I make that swing once again. Not so much chop chop now. A lot of boredom, nihilism. Looking at this world and being beyond disappointed. We might as well just chop chop chop all night long. We don't know how to do much else really.

When the chop chop was heavy I was really into going out occasionally with S, with D. Now I'm not. Now I just think that I've really nothing in common with these people other than sexual parts that fit together. And so perhaps it would be better if I didn't go out with them. What in the world ever was I thinking before? That being gregarious was some kind of good thing? Now with the chop chop not so looming over me I can look a bit more closely and see 'hanging out' with such people a bit better for what it is: a waste of time at best.

S though works 6 days a week and is struggling to survive. The chop chop is heavier for her and also she's younger. Hasn't realized how pointless it all is. In fact she may even be a virgin despite being 28. And I think she's adopted some nauseating positivity act to try to end that. It's sad that she's not found a man yet. I do find her very attractive. All the more reasons to stay away.

Really, no reason, not even close to enough in common, to warrant me having anything to do with anyone at all that I know who lives in the same state as me.

The alternative then, at first appears quite depressing. I've no children to distract me, to focus my life on. It's me and my wife. Whom, actually also I don't really have much in common with.

And so nihistically I ask: what is life? Other than merely surviving what are we doing?

Not much of anything really.

It seems life is so short though. A mere blink of the eye and it's past. And people spend the first 25 or so years just trying to get their survival secured. And then by about 40 they're all but finished. Nothing much to live for but whatever children they've got.

For me what can I do with my free time? Meaningless stuff.

And what I've got to do, I suppose, is narrow my focus so that I don't pay quite as much attention to how meaningless it is.

So then: Write. Which I seem to be getting better at. Compose. Read. Get around to playing some video games. Make stuff. Etc. Right now shall work on alphabetizing my library. (Fiction, nonfiction, odds and ends...) Then will upload my Vancouver pictures. Eat some stew. (Back to using the old crock pot.) Try to find some sleep in there before work tonight. I bet The Man Without Qualities by Musil will make me fall asleep. Etc, till I eventually die. And that's it. Other than merely surviving, that's it. That's all this life will hold for me. The main game is finding a way to continue bothering. Which, I think, consists of having a certain myopia. But at the same time I do want to not be too myopic, though it hurts me to not be so. Because I want to hold on to some extent always to the viewpoint where I've stepped back and see the bigger picture. No matter how awful it is.

My anti-happiness it would seem is solely made up of fear and nihilism. But much more fear than nihilism. Nihilism is like boredom. The creativity killing thoughts are also the nihilistic thoughts.

Ultimately I prefer nihilism to fear. I happily kill the fear, kill the chop chop with the tick tock if possible.

This tick tock/chop chop or nihilism versus fear, the bouncing between the two, it is I think the same concept as being bipolar/manic depressive? Maybe. Maybe not.

Eh, possibly not at all. But then anti-happiness, is composed ...solely? of sadness, fear and nihilism(boredom). The depressive stage of the manic depressive generally consists of which? I was thinking it consists of fear actually. Paralyzing fear. Don't get out of bed fear. Occasionally this fear is overcome by boredom/nihilism/understanding of the shortness of pointlessness of life, etc and the person thus overcomes the fear and acts in irresponsible ways. Spends all their money etc, because what does it matter? They're just going to die. Might as well just act out. It may seem hardly a positive thing (nihilism) but compared to paralyzing fear it's not so bad.

Although this nihilism, etc most logically suggests that all movement is illogical, in reality not too many people decide to just quit moving because movement is illogical, more often this nihilism may be used to overcome fear and results in varying levels of mania. "nonconformed" behavior, etc. And of course when you decide that you're going to die anyway, that 'life is short' etc you then run off and do dangerous, unconformed things...

Most likely it's not so neat as that.

...but yes. Some people hide the fear they're feeling. The manic is the nihilist stage. Nihilism is just a bad word for it. It's the, "life is short, live it to the fullest while you can!" stage. It just happens that such a statement has an absurdity in it where if you really examing what you're saying you end up with nihilism. 'manic depressive/bipolar' is tick tock/chop chop. Life is short, live it to the fullest/some degree of fear.

Maybe with a more coherent understanding of this people could utilize the life is short concept, rein in it's excesses and use it to pull out of the fear.

The excesses are in part because when saying 'life is short' you're kind of thinking about your death. Becoming familar with it and not taking as much care to avoid it's eventuality.

...and then idealism versus pragmatism. I really think when faced with idealist versus pragmatist choices, if we decide that, "What the hell, life is short, I might as well stand up for what I really believe." then we're going the idealist route. So Obama could persecute the torturers. So Lincoln could have been outspoken against slavery from the beginning. So you refuse to descend into making compromises with morally bankrupt people. So, you're using 'life is short' to be an idealist and refuse to compromise...

you focus on your death and don't live in the actual world...

The motivation for every action of humans is to increase 'happiness'. Where happiness is defined as the perception of moving away from death. Every single thing you do, reading, gluttony, friendship, accumlate money, sleep, love, have plants in your house, take drugs, work to make other people happy, even caring about animals that you'll never meet, every little thing.

Except sex? I dunno about sex. Will have to think about it. There is surviving and then there is the instinctual drive to reproduce. 'Instinctual drives' though are normally about mistaken perceptions.

Do 'instincts' exist at all? I ask yet again. We have our rational mind and then whatever else is up there is outside of our rational mind. For every action the rational mind is actually the origin. Nothing can be dismissed to the hypothalmus or amygdala, etc. ((Or can it?) OK your blood pressure increase because of something you ate as opposed to a flight of fight response...etc. But the former is not an 'action'.) The baby suckling 'instinct' is an action but it is not an instinct. It is based on an attempt at increasing happiness. I don't know how exactly. But I think it follows that it must be so. Claiming anything is instincts is somewhat like saying 'godidit'. Endless actions, possibly all, have an element of the unconscious. But none are 'instinctual'. All things originate in attempts at rational thought. All actions originate in attempts at increasing 'happiness'.

Are animals sentient or are their actions the result of 'instincts'? They are the result of attempts at rational thought where the illogical directions that still manage to produce beneficial actions get passed down through evolution. The originating attempt at rational thought may have nothing at all to do with the beneficial action. But there is conscious and unconscious in animals the same as human. They have the same parts. They have conscious thought just at a lower ratio of conscious to unconscious most likely and thus more illogical actions. Still the basis is attempts at rational thought to increase 'happiness'.

Bleh.

We act in order to increase 'happiness'. We are happy when we perceive that we are moving away from death, no matter how untrue it may be. We have interest in increasing other people's happiness because we perceive that their increased happiness increases our own.

Fear. The chop chop against the tick tock. A balance? Or the eradication of both?

Without fear there can still be nihilism. Getting rid of fear is not enough. Nihilism can conquer fear. Fear can conquer nihilism. One could spend a lifetime bouncing between the two...

But it's not an either or. There are other options.

There is actually personally moving away from death. There is helping others literally move away from death and thus having the perception (not necessarily remotely true) that this is causing yourself to also move away from it. These are the primary concerns.

(sigh) Then there is personally being 'happy' through perceptions that aren't necessarily true. But the most happiness comes from choosing actions that result in longer term perceptions of moving away from death. Gluttony, drugs, etc doesn't do so much. Plants in your house? Sure, why not. Friendships. Sure. Love. Yes. Things that aren't necessarily actually moving you away from death at all. Plants not so much. (They are symbolic of a world full of life. Straight to the unconscious, reduces fear, IOW, reduces concerns that you might be moving towards death.) Love and friendships potentially really are.

Making a world with more love and friendships in turn could greatly increase your own 'happiness'.

The opposite of happiness is fear and sadness and nihilism.

I feel fear and nihilism. Fear is the perception that you're moving towards death and you ought to be doing something about it but you don't know what. Nihilism is that there's nothing at all you can actually do to move away from death.

Sadness and crying go together. Crying is a greater degree of sadness. They are where you perceive you're moving towards death and you are asking for help from someone outside of yourself. Whether or not you rationally really are meaning to ask for help has nothing to do with it of course.

Anti-happiness is fear, sadness and nihilism.

Can one actually manage to cry when they're only asking for help (mostly unconsciously of course) from other people as opposed to help from god? Hard to believe it could be possible.

What does it all come down to? False perceptions that you're moving away from death. Bad choices. How to correct them? Just make people smarter. That's all. But of nihilism? Sometimes false perceptions are the best possible choice...

.....

I don't use emotions to ask for help I guess. Thus I never actually get sad. At least I don't think I ever feel sad. I know I don't cry unless it's a movie. My anti-happiness it would seem is solely made up of fear and nihilism. But much more fear than nihilism. Nihilism is like boredom. The creativity killing thoughts are also the nihilistic thoughts.

Ultimately I prefer nihilism to fear. I happily kill the fear, kill the chop chop with the tick tock if possible. (That is if I can't put a finger on what in the world is really causing the fear.) If I can, then of course I should just solve it or perceive that I have and thus feel happy.

There's a lot more smiling going on in dystopia/hell then in utopia/heaven.

What's the point in the huge smile I get from that old Chinese man when I buy food from him? Is it really that joyous an event? Is he really that happy to see me? I've bought food for a long time from him but never really had a meaningful conversation. Am I all that?

(1) Is he smiling at me because he's always so damm happy to see me? (2) Or is it because he's trying to say that he's not a threat to me? (3) Or is he trying to conjure a happier world for both of us to pretend we exist in instead of this one where he's just selling some chinese tofu and broccoli to some guy whom he's got no meaningful connection to nor ever will despite seeing him once or twice a week for a couple years now?

I'm obligated to smile back. But I don't want to. I don't want to pretend three with him. I prefer to see this world change instead of just pretending things are OK as they are. But then I don't want to do number 2 with him because I want to pretend I'm in a world where we don't have to continously verify that we're not any kind of threat to one another. I would like to not be continously mired in such savagry(sp).

But we are mired in such. Me not smiling in return could mean I'm a anti-chinese racist. It could mean I consider him just some lowly chinese food making servant. Someone I think so little of I can't give him a friendly smile. I'm supposed to smile. I fucking smile. Down here with the savages. Have a banana.

I want to pretend one thing. I want to pretend we're basically civilized. And that we don't need to act like buying the broccoli is such a joyous occasion.

He either wants affirmation that I'm not a savage (and I guess more importantly to show me (over and over and over again) that he also isn't) or he wants to pretend we're in some very strange utopia or he really is just that happy to sell me some broccoli.

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When the chop chop (stress of life) gets bad, try thinking about the tick tock (how short and pointless your life is).

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The first step in being an advocate for nonconformity is proving how good you are at conforming. This to show that your advocacy of the nonconformity isn't simply because you personally are incapable of conforming but that you simply think the conforming behavior is wrong. Unfortunately this means having to do exactly what you think is wrong. Or otherwise being dismissed as a nut.

And at what point do you get to then introduce the nonconformed idea? For most people you can conform for years on end and whenever you suggest something unconformed they will immediately dismiss you as nuts no matter all that came previously. Your chemicals have finally gone out of whack or what came before was all a lie.

(Not true)

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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