"We'll give you money if you'll feel fear for us."

Never thought of it that way before. The Wages of Fear. Great movie but had always thought the title was flashy but nonsensical.

Liked my new job so much in part because it seemed to me so much better than my previous jobs. Whether or not this was even actually true doesn't matter. Just the perception matters. Lately haven't been thinking in such terms. The newness has passed. No longer comparing it to whatever rebuilt memories of past jobs I had.

Anyway, to think, it could be worse, can work quite well for standing bad situations.

-

hope replaced by fear.

-

Bob Dylan is freakishly overrated. I do like his music OK. He used to have a nice voice, which he's since lost. Lyrics and composition are nothing special. Emperor's new clothes effect. Which I think occurs so often. So nice to believe in something. Not just to brown nose to the powerful but even just to agree with a group about something and to build something up.

-

Need some fantastic dream. Or just some dream. Something to keep me going forward. I've no children. My dream was to write. Lost that. Think it just doesn't matter. I guess need to find a way to bring that back. Need a dream to give me hope. Without hope negative things fill the void. But I've lost all belief in the fantastic.

The problem is people communicating with me that I don't actually speak to. On facebook for example, despite clearly stating that I strongly prefer the phone I still have people just ignoring that and still communicating with me there. A girlfriend from more than ten years ago that I've almost not actually spoken to in a decade occasionally writes me, not entirely sure why. I'll assume just to be nice. We broke up ugly. (Totally her fault and absolutely no way around that.) It's nice that we're on good terms now. I guess it's nice the positive sentiment of her facebook messages. But... she brings up veganism to me, notifying me of something happening like two hours away, (which is as good as it gets where I live, but useless to me.) I ask if she's interested in veganism. She isn't. End of long spiel she says: "Maybe you can send me some vegan recipes? :)"

I'm not much of a cook and I seriously don't want to do recipes with anyone. How can I communicate this via typing with someone I've virtually not spoken to in a decade without potentially hurting her feelings? I don't know how exactly and so I spend days putting it off, being preoccupied by this pretty useless conversation with someone who's ignoring what I've clearly stated in my status and profound saying or whatever, that I strongly prefer the phone. This is another of the endless people who won't use the phone of course. I'm stuck trying to communicate via this method where miscommunication is so highly likely. Face to face this would be nothing to communicate. It would take a second and would be forgotten. Instead I'm stuck with this bit of crap in my head for days on end, this useless communication (although the positive sentiment from someone who had treated me so shitty is nice) taking up my life ultimately. My life ultimately because one after another follows. This sort of thing over and over again with people who won't actually speak to me, whom yet I'm so worried that through miscommunication I'll manage to offend.

After being stuck at this point and seeing no way forward for quite a while, I read that book, and finally decided to just be direct with some people. In return I was told by one to 'fuck off. I'm a sociopath.' (Although that one seems to think everyone's a sociopath, so it doesn't mean much.)

So, perhaps I should just delete my facebook account. That too will offend people. But it will be a short term thing as opposed to years and years of this, my life passing me by, with this absurd stupidity. Being dragged into unhealthy ways of interacting which are seriously ruining my life. Do I owe it to anyone to be forever dragged into such arrangements with people who refuse to even occasionally use the phone?

I really don't think so. And I would absolutely prefer to just not have anything at all to do with someone than to only communicate via email, etc. Better of course would be to interact in a more healthy way, but if people won't do that, they hardly have any basis for villifying me when I say goodbye and wish them the best. (But that again, is the exception I guess. Most people aren't so tied into seeing themselves as the perpetual victim.)

It is a sort of social anxiety perhaps that I've developed that I don't want to communicate via this medium anymore (with people whom absolutely won't communicate any other way) but it is at the same time highly twisted on their part that they're like this. And that's a huge part of what's causing the anxiety on my part. The understanding of these things. That the whole communication has such a basis in fear.

It doesn't have to be based on fear of course. It's possible for it to be a basically healthy thing. But I know damm well it's not in the case of this past gf for example. And many others.

I know it's fear and I see the bigger picture. I see how it all connects (albeit vaguely). And it ultimately drives me bonkers. Drives and drives me bonkers, on and on. And finally I tell someone please use the phone, or just have a nice life, and I'm a sociopath.

So of course I can't win. This is the one thing I know. No matter what, I lose. The problem being of course, trying to care about people who are utterly selfish. Of course I lose. In the same way, I'm so worried about saying something to offend old gf.

..but it is maybe much ado about not much really. I mostly started up this unhealthy communications with people far away I've never met. I just won't do so in the future.

And it is a sort of neurotic behavior on my part. Two types of people: those making other people's lives hell and those making their own. So I'm definitely the latter. And it's just not a good way for me to communicate.

My wife, feh, she has to do almost all of her communicating at work via email. I think that would drive me bonkers. She handles it way better than most but she is about driven bonkers presently.

The other thing of it is, is that I strongly desire to be a part of an actual community. I strongly desire more interaction with thoughtful people. And in the 'real world' that just isn't happening.

And so, I turned to the internet, where I ran into a whole bunch of people who unfortunately communicate in unhealthy ways. So I've got either ....'solitude' or unhealthy unfulfilling miscommunication. I've spent the last 10 years trying to avoid 'solitude', recognizing that such personal solutions really are simply not the best way forward. And instead I've been having unhealthy unfulfilling miscommunications.

I'm better off with 'solitude', if the choice is one or the other.

I say 'solitude' with reference to Robert Johnson claiming in Heaven and Earth that the cure for loneliness is solitude. I think it sort of sounds like crap. Or at least not well explained. It is possible to not mind the state of my life though. It's not really that lonely. I just had wanted so much more.

It's mostly a matter of forgetting what I wanted. Forgetting what should be.

And that's it then. I've told a number of people to either communicate by using the phone or just go away, basically. I may not have come across as very nice but I cannot think of any way to sound nice about it. If there was anything else to do to manage to sound nice that I could have thought of (along with being world record good even as it's killing me) I would have done it.

So the phone: I don't think that's asking so much really. Really it's not asking hardly anything at all. And so then, these people I communicated online to for years without ever actually speaking to, how many do you think simply picked up the phone and chose to be a real actual human being?

Try zero. And ask yourself, what kind of person will spend endless hours communicating online with someone that they won't even once speak to on the phone for even a few minutes?

People with issues clearly. And although it appears to be disgusting indifference. Although it appears to be postindustrial living, (so easily dropping people). And it appears to show a complete lack of empathy. And it appears to be dishonest (communicating online with someone you don't actually think enough of to actually speak to). I try, to somehow just leave it at fear. Fear which has overwhelmed people. And of course being a weak, fearfilled person means you cannot show compassion for others. Such people can only be indifferent, or worse.

And it's no good feeling frustration that just about everyone is so well assimilated (thanks to their fear.) To not be assimilated is generally to be dead. Literally. It's no good being frustrated with those who aren't dead. So all these people are owned by Fear. The personal muppets of Fear.

And finally I've never used this blog with much concern for how I appeared. It should have always been a given that this gives a warped picture of me. And it's always been a given that anyone who knows me through this, is probably going to run in the other direction in fear. Occasionally I've allowed a tiny bit of hope that a person or two maybe was intelligent enough to manage better. But with one exception, all have failed. And that's OK.

The only people who know me through this blog, did so exactly because they expressed great unhappiness and it's a matter of my ethical laws (the same ones which would have meant immediately picking up the phone to speak to someone I had communicated online with for years) that I respond to people in distress. I saw them in distress and had no choice in the matter.

Perhaps though, when the need to follow my ethics, exactly when it does not appear at all to coincide with my own self interest. Perhaps I need to think harder at such times, instead of usually being kind of fatalistic. I'm fatalistic exactly because I know I'm almost certainly going to pay one way or another for my kindness. But perhaps at the same time whatever altruistic act I then perform isn't thought out well enough...

...mmm no, not really. Being openminded, I persecute myself. Always looking for flaws. But here, at least, there isn't one. It's more just that there's nothing to be done. I do the right thing, knowing it will do no good and will only hurt me, but there really isn't anything else that can be done. Over and over, it's hopeless. You reach out to people and they respond, "Don't pity me!" Or with suspicion. Or anyway, basically you're not allowed to actually do anything helpful for them anyway as to actually do anything would go against social norms. (I'm married!) Nuclear families. Post-industrial living. Fear of any action that even looks vaguely gay. Simply just fear really. Fear that both stops people from giving compassion and ever receiving any compassion. Fear that keeps people isolated. And makes it all basically hopeless. And thus the only solutions are completely personal solutions. Learning to not mind the established order.

-

Books I've read lately:
The Tyranny of Email: Nothing actually stupendous in it. Just mirrors actually what I've been thinking increasingly for the last decade. Been thinking it but trying so hard to be understanding to all these people who will only communicate online because they're so overwhelmed by fear... Decided I'm just encouraging something harmful, for everyone involved, finally, as a result of reading this. So, life changing book.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas: Excellent writing. Excellent insights on slavery that reach far beyond actual slavery in my opinion. Best book I've ever read on this issue. I'm wondering if instead of my crude attempts at depicting a Dante type hell, I should be going more in this direction here...

Temperament by Stuart Isacoff: Smirky 12TET polemic. Still useful. In trying to decide whether or not one should use TET (not just 12, by TET in general). I had decided that one might as well just use TET. That art is ultimately about symbols. To complain about TET is like complaining about seeing a zipper of a Dr. Who monters. As long as the symbolization is made it really doesn't matter... And then I finally slept well after a long bout with insomnia. And suddenly music just sounded so much better. And I listened to my pythagorean song and the tuning gave it so much more... So I still don't really know. It does seem that laziness played a huge role in eventually just deciding on TET. And that with today's technology, any thinking composer would be questioning it and experimenting with other tunings.

Heaven and Earth by Robert Johnson: (Haven't finished this one and not sure I will.)Jung disciple. At first I liked it but the language is getting so vague. I agree some mysticism is necessary but this guy just personally got extremely lucky. And then after the fact attributes all that luck to some divine power. That is incredibly annoying to me. (People don't normally literally find a suitcase full of money sitting in their hotel room given as charity by a crook so that they're able to continue their studies at the newly opened Jungian institute.) It's always incredibly annoying to hear the few lucky people giving what amounts to motivational speeches. They like to pretend something other than luck had anything to do with it. Johnson thought he was just following his 'thin threads'. And apparently if we all did the same we'd all be so happy. Bullshit. You got lucky. Extremely lucky. If 'following your thin threads' had led you to being stuck working at mickie D's I bet you wouldn't be going on about following your thin threads. And the majority of people who act like you did, (commune new age, wandering to a foreign land without a penny, etc) it doesn't work out so well for at all. Ultimately you're combining some wise insights about modern society with stuff that sounds like someone stuck a blender in your ear.

But, I understand, for a thinking man, finding a way to keep some mysticism is difficult to do... To believe that 'religion/spirituality,etc' is within our dreams, is for example one road forward, I suppose... But Johnson really it seems is so much strengthening his mysticism just through the incredible luck he's personally had. And that is nauseating BS.

How Much Money Do You Make?

"How much money do you make?"

In 'utopia', this is at worst an entirely innocent question. A bit of mild curiousity. Even better, if you don't make much, the utopianist now knows that he should keep an eye open to the possibility of offering you any help you might need.

You make a lot? Perhaps you own a lot of neat toys and have a cool house to invite people over to for parties and so on.

If nothing else it's just a bit of information. People who do such and such job make good money. Perhaps I should look into a career change?

In dystopia this is a wildly inappropriate question. Why? Because if the person doesn't make as much money as the questioner, the questioner will then judge them as beneath them, reducing their interaction to an incredibly crude materialistic competition. And if the person makes more than the questioner, the questioner will be jealous and who knows? possibly try to rob them?

Really those are The Reasons it's an inappropriate question to ask in this world. In this dystopia. Although if you ask someone in this dystopia why it's an inappropriate question, chances are very good they won't be able to say other than it's just inappropriate. Or 'it's private!' They don't even hardly really know why. They just know that you ask, and they feel fear. They feel offended by your invasiveness.

The default is fear, don't you know that?

It's private!

"What do you do for a living?"

A bit of small talk? A way to break the ice at a party? As often as not considered the same as asking how much money someone makes. Again, the default is fear. Stay away! Keep your interactions meaningless. Talk about the fucking weather. Make a stupid joke. You're not supposed to be collecting information you could use against the person. Just don't even ask questions! Just fucking sit there and shut up. Or, 'we've certainly been having nice weather lately.'

'Oh, why yes we have, haven't we?' (SCREEEEEEECCH!! THIS IS FEAR! THIS IS THE DYSTOPIA. YOU ARE A POSSIBLE ENEMY. Perhaps over the course of some very long time span I'll quit considering you an enemy. If I'm single and you stick your penis in me. Otherwise, really no need to take any chances.)

Originally I was delighted by the internet because it was a chance for people to be honest. Normally in face to face interactions so much is held back. But on the internet, while perhaps speaking anonymously, there was a chance to finally get to The Truth. Not to mention bringing minorities or 'iconoclasts' together from across the globe.

Unfortunately it turns out that 'The Truth' mostly consists of hate and for additional reasons not too many 'iconoclasts' have been brought together. And furthermore I've finally come to feel like interacting with people online is like having paint chips for dinner. That it's not nourishing. It's not healthy. It's the desperate act of someone who feels like they're just not getting enough face to face interactions... And I feel like every interaction that occurs online is not 'real'. That I can interact online with people for decades and still they don't 'know' me. I still wouldn't 'know' them. And that thus, ultimately all online interaction, beyond exchanging technical information, is utterly meaningless. A waste of time.

That furthermore in the act of trying to formulate a reply to someone, through revising, etc, determining what one wants to say and never actually saying it outloud, one can start forgetting what one even actually said. And with thinking of it all ultimately as paint chips for dinner one cares less to even try to remember so that eventually one has no idea what they've previously said. So everything is quickly forgotten. And knowing you're just going to quickly forget a thing truly makes it meaningless. So it becomes meaningless twice over.

At the same time, taking more time to think out what you want to say, (while to an extent clearly a good thing) ends up going way too far. One gets into an antagonistic exchange and instead of it usually passing relatively quick in a face to face interaction, one spends days, weeks, slowly formulating replies in their head and imagining the negative responses. One wastes days stuck in ugliness that's all just in their own head. Which is awful and after a few years one has had about as much as they can stand of it.

But going back to not really being 'known' in online interactions, wait a second, there are people I've interacted with face to face off and on for decades who haven't got a clue who I am. So perhaps each type of interaction has it's flaws and good points and online interaction is useful and not necessarily any worse than face to face?

No. There is important information that one can only get from a face to face interaction. It's just that most people are too stupid to get it. Bluntly put, a stupid person can't interact with a smart person and really understand or 'know them' very well.

And of the internet, it hasn't brought 'iconoclasts' together so very much. Why?

Because the ones who are really interesting, who in face to face interactions have to censor themselves, who then come to the internet to supplement their crappy face to face interactions won't then ever have a face to face interaction with whoever they're being more honest with. Because it would be scary to be 'real' with someone they haven't been properly censoring themselves with.

To be honest face to face is dangerous. Very dangerous. And so this honesty they've exchanged anonymously with someone who lives far, far away and has nothing to do with their 'real' life, they can't make it become 'real'. It has to stay unreal. It has to stay meaningless. Because they can't be honest face to face. And they have been honest with this person. Thus there can never be any face to face.

The above two paragraphs are somewhat overstated but I think do play a role on top of the normal fear everyone has. And perhaps people who are just more introverted to begin with go to the internet more in the first place, thus one is more likely to be interacting online with a shy person.

And so not so many people really have been 'brought together' from around the globe.

Occasionally sitting down and thinking out your thoughts while alone and putting them in writing is a really good thing. I'm glad I have this blog... (At least until the fascist takeover utilizes the compiled lists...) Also having a technology by which people from around the world can become aware of each other is a good thing. But very quickly it does go from a good thing to just paint chips for dinner.

Most technology can be put to good or bad uses. Television for example doesn't have to be such a bad thing. But it is. It's one of the worst things to happen to humankind. So then also, the internet doesn't have to be a bad thing. But it mostly is.

For each character at each moment ask the question: what is this person afraid of? Their fears are like a fire beneath them that impels them to action. I suppose it isn't entirely based on a negative? According to Schopenhaeur it is. And I think him ultimately correct...

So just stick the fear in them (and perhaps some carrots in front of them) and watch them go. Through understanding the fears of each they are all real and interesting. Not just to the reader, but to the writer of course. It is perhaps the understanding of their fears that makes the writing it's most worthwhile. Trying to understand the different ways in which we each deal with our various fears.

And so each morning as they wake, what impels them to bother getting out of bed?

And it all falls apart as soon as you have a character who's fears you don't know yet whom you still have performing actions. Then you've just got random meaningless shit going on and why bother?
--
Watched What Happened to Jack Kerouac? Totally changed my opinion of Kerouac. I did think him the main character from On The Road. He wasn't, nor was that some shining ideal to him. It was something that just interested himi (and it was only one of many many books he wrote which were wildly different from each other). Keroauc(sp) was an intensely anti-Dean Moriarity person. He was perpetually nervous and perhaps a bit aspergers, though I don't like the label. He did though have a friend like Dean Moriarity that in some way fascinated him. To me it only makes sense when I actually see in my mind the relatively young Kerouac speak.

Must say it's a bit depressing in that one can write and write and write and it just doesn't come through. Then you hear them speak for 5 minutes and bamm! it makes sense. (At least until near the end when he drank himself to death. Then him speaking imparted nothing of much use.) Makes writing seem a futile exercise. Although it's not always like that.

...and I must say you absolutely don't get it from his writing plus seeing pictures of what he looked like: http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=image&fr=yfp-t-701&va=jack+kerouac&sz=all
In fact that takes you even farther away from the reality of who this guy was. The idea of some macho cool guy that we get from On The Road is only heightened by seeing pictures of Keroauc such that one assumes that was some kind of ideal he was surely trying to emulate.

Pictures (of people) generally speaking it seems to me are a lie. They do more to take us away from the truth of people than bring us closer to it. Sometimes it's best not to attempt to explain a thing, because a partial explanation is almost certain to take us further away from the truth than we are if we're just completely in the dark.

If on the other hand, you can see the way a person moves...
---
From the movie also: What a prick William Buckley is. I don't see how anyone could hear/see him speak for any of his even typical 5 seconds of pretentiousness and not feel disgusted. How did the rightwingers not see it?

I think they liked that he came across as intelligent. Which being the party of the dumbasses has probably always been a sore spot for them. Now they've no one at all who can manage it, they've just got dumbasses like O'Reilly and so they've settled on smearing the left as elitist, etc. Something that they just could not have done while having such a nauseatingly pretentious prick like Buckley on TV.

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

-

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.

One has to still believe in people's potential while recognizing the stupidity behind their actions. One has to somehow still believe in their potential while recognizing their willful ignorance. If you don't believe in their potential then you're basically believing that they're evil, that they must be punished in order to learn to be good, that they must have fear in them to keep them on the straight and narrow.

Must somehow believe they have potential despite their willful ignorance. Despite their closedmind.

But how do they really have any potential when such is the case? In the face of the closed mind what is left really but anger and force?

The mind is closed because of fear. Have to reduce their fear enough that it opens...

Once I thought of a certain person that: 'if the truth took two sentences and a lie would take one, he'd lie.' Even about trivial stuff he was constantly lying. It occurs to me it could be that he was just (and is) uncomfortable with speaking much. And also perhaps not so good with words. So he tries to keep things very short. And that perhaps he's got enough fear/nervousness in him that it causes him to say really stupid things.

Perhaps I incorrectly thought he was 'evil'? And thus in return was fearful of him and thus somewhat indifferent?

---

In regard to a recent email was also thinking somewhat related that perhaps this is the main cause of indifference, that people are too busy being afraid, too busy being suspicious, fearful, too busy erring on the side of selfish caution, and thus just simply avoid others.

Over and over again I can look at indifference and see this at it's heart. Which is to say again, that it simply takes strong/happy people to be compassionate. Where 'strong' and 'happy' mean about the same thing.

Where someone can be rich and 'successful', have tons of 'friends', have great health and even seemingly be happy (to some extent...?), yet be full of suspicion of others and thus indifferent and even hateful.

And so then the obvious thing to do is to try to reduce their fear, their suspicions, and to somehow make them 'stronger' and 'happier'. The end result being that they can manage to find more time to have concern for others instead of being selfish. (This as opposed to the zombie basis for compassion. The too far future. What a good blog title that was.) The end result also being they become wiser perhaps? And thus don't need to err quite so far towards selfish caution.

But it means that at times two seemingly contradictory things must be done. You must manage to truly show them that you want them personally to be happy while at the same time making very clear that you disagree with their actions. Successfully doing that is so difficult because their suspicion gage will go into the red the moment you express any disagreement.

From R.D. Laing's Knots. Something along the lines of because the person can't respect themselves, they can't respect anyone else who treats them with respect....

Anyone who's unhappy in this society I imagine may in some way not respect themselves... Eventually anyway, because they will reach the point where as opposed to believing it's others fault, that it's the inherent insanity of how the whole society is structured, they will start blaming themselves at least to some extent. Eventually seeing the fault as being their own, and thus feeling themselves to be failures. And then quickly on to not respecting themselves. And thus anyone who rants and raves about all the negative aspects of this society is likely to end up looking like a massive hypocrite. In that if you reach out to them, give them something other than more of the massive indifference which is the norm, they most likely won't be able to give anything at all in return.

Because you respect them and they don't respect themselves and thus they don't respect you... And because to actually break free of such social norms takes strength. And I don't know really. Truthfully it's beyond me. It's not a way I'd act.

More truthfully: In face to face interactions no one really dares to be so honest about the depth of the negative feelings they have, with respect to what this world is doing to them. A ton take prozac, etc. Which strongly indicates their negative feelings run deep. But in face to face such things certainly remain hidden. Short of it being someone you're having sex with.

On the internet a very few here and there will attempt more honesty about such negative feelings.

But, this honesty I guess is more than made up for by all that is lost in this medium. So much that would otherwise be imparted to get the whole picture is lost. And without that which is lost, it is perhaps hopeless and futile to even attempt to understand what in the world really is going on with any individual person.

Someone said the internet isn't real. Well, in face to face interactions no one is real either. The internet was hopefully a way to uncover the parts hidden in the endless banal and pointless face to face interactions where people are doing nothing more than having ritualistic conversations the goals of which are highly crude. Not much more than sniffing each other's ass. The smile to say I'm not a threat, etc.

In face to face interactions you get 10% of the truth. On the internet the hope is that some part of the other 90% will peek through.

That's been my hope anyway.

And it certainly has peeked through at times.

And what has mostly peeked through is incredibly ugly.

But still what we have in online interactions amounts to about 3% of the truth as opposed to 10% generally speaking in face to face where you still can get an idea about all that the person is withholding...

Maybe some of that 3% is different from what is received in a face to face. (Of course such percentages varying widely.) But more and more, this isn't even the case. And less and less is there any reason to bother with the internet. And more and more it seems that the main thing being revealed is that some people are so full of fear that they're afraid to interact by more traditional means...

I'm not trying to call anyone out. This is just how it seems based on a decade of experience. Because of this, among other reasons, I'm reticent to be online. Even this bit of typing, I would have much prefered to be reading a book with the little bit of time I have before work.

Now I've only got 30 minutes to read. And I still have to go make my daily attempt at a one arm chinup, etc.

I think back to the most unbelievable episodes in my life where I was treated just awfully by people and I suppose it was primarily the result of people mistakenly judging me very negatively.

I've been treated like a criminal a few times. But without a trial, without ever being told what I even supposedly did wrong. I had my scientific career destroyed on this basis. Escorted out without explanation and blacklisted without ever finding out why.

I recall an episode that happened to me when I was 13 where the way an adult treated me just boggles the mind (a school teacher). In both cases, I guess what happened is these people got some evil notion into their heads about me. And were absolutely sure they were right.

With respect to the just about uniform indifference I've received in my life (such as everyone gets) I figure it's a matter of caution. Every person is a potential danger. Who knows, maybe I'm an awful person?

This is how it is for everyone. We're all not very good at judging the character of people and so we err on the side of assuming the worst. You may not survive being wrong even a single time about someone. So we err towards the worst assumptions. We view people with suspicion. We aren't open with them. Most often we give them indifference at best. Guilty till proven innocent, (and why bother proving that?)

I walk towards a dog to pet it and stumble, suddenly this dog (which was previously friendly) thinks I'm attacking and bites me on the knee. Ever after it barks and growls viciously when I walk by.

People default to racism because they're so bad at judging who's really a threat to them.

We keep our shields up and keep people out. Some people go their whole lives this way unable to really let anyone in, some get married and still manage to stay this way.

And when we do mistakenly assume some negative thing, the ugliness just bounces back and forth growing with each bounce. Personally I think most of my negative thoughts about people are the direct result of them jumping to awful conclusions about me.

This awful awful article: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/8-toxic-personalities-to-avoid-461078/
which I think was written by Satan himself, is urging people to go ahead and assume the worst of people. It says they're probably too closeminded for you to even bother talking about whatever it is they're doing that bothers you. So don't even bother. Just dismiss them as toxic human beings.

I suppose there is a point where you've got to give up on someone. I too have done so. But that point of course should be after you've repeatedly attempted to talk to them about such issues. My personal experience has been almost without exception that people instead just dismiss the person as "toxic" without ever talking about the disagreement; just like that article advocates.

I suppose there are certainly endless closeminded people in this world. And people are less likely to talk to an imposing, intimidating man when they've got differences. Perhaps I just can never really understand how full of fear people are and how attacked they feel if someone criticizes them?

Definitions

The seven 'deadly sins': Pride, Anger, Envy, Sloth, Gluttony, Lust, Greed

Gluttony, greed and (excessive) lust are all variants of the same thing. They're all attempts to move away from nonexistence which end up being excessive. (Although I'm not too sure when (if ever) lust gets excessive exactly. Fellini's Casanova?) They are straightforward attempts at happiness that are failing.

Sloth or laziness is an existential problem where you can't really see the point in doing anything. No matter what you do you won't actually be moving away from nonexistence so why bother?

Envy is where you see that someone else has some valuable thing that you perceive possessing would move you away from nonexistence. Envy is tied into hate/anger as we're hardly planning on using reason to take away the thing from the person. Instead some form of force is used.

Anger is about wanting to use force because you perceive that some person stands between you and decreasing your distance from nonexistence. And you think they can't be reasoned with.

(Excessive) Pride is more interesting. The dichotomy is pride versus humility. But it's quite close to being closedminded versus openminded. Excessive pride is like arrogance, being too sure of yourself, too convinced you're right, that you're wonderful, etc. All of that is basically just closemindedness. While being humble instead can mean seeing that you could be wrong, that you hardly know anything, etc, which means basically being openminded.

But of course what they really wanted was for people to bow down to god, considering him all powerful and themselves as disgusting bugs in comparison. This idea entirely trumped the openminded/closeminded idea that would have been of such great use. So people think of pride versus humility and they picture some imaginary god that is so so great compared to them. They're pitiful in comparison and should meakly follow the rules he has already laid out for them. And so that's what they do instead of seeing pride versus humility as being the same as closedminded versus openminded. And so they're humble before an imaginary god but arrogant before all real people.

-

'Unhappiness' is the perception of moving closer towards nonexistence. The essential types are anger, fear, sadness and existential nihilism (boredom, laziness...). When you perceive that you are moving towards nonexistence is there any alternative than these 4 essentials?

To try to overcome your feelings of anger (or hate, frustration, annoyance...) you can at least recognize what's going on. You think someone can't be reasoned with so you're subverting to your monkey ancestry and wanting to basically beat the crap out of them to force them to do as you say.

It is at least better to feel anger then fear. With anger you've at least got an idea what you actually want to do to remedy the situation. Some entity is causing you to move closer to nonexistence and they need some force! Fear is on the other hand perceiving that you're moving towards nonexistence and being very doubtful about what action you can possibly take.

Sadness is the form of fear where you want help from others. Sadness is better then fear right up till others reject you/will not give you any help. Although at least then you've got a bit more to work with to turn instead to anger...

One can get away from anger, fear and sadness by going instead to existential nihilism. (Instead of being stressed, realize that life is ultimately a short and meaningless thing.) And then when they get sick of that they can hopefully instead go get stressed out again.

Otherwise one can attempt to change their perception of the situation. (By actually changing the situation or by some other way.)

I'm not entirely sure where disgust/revulsion belongs. It is the considering of some thing that we perceive would move us closer to nonexistence but that we don't really perceive it to be that much of a real threat. And/or we take a step back and try to look at it 'objectively'. It seems it can be tied to fear or anger.

We focus on the negative because one punch in the face can matter more than a bunch of positives. But then worse, we scan for negatives. And scan and scan. We scan the past. But what is the past, what are memories? We're not skimming through the contents of a filing cabinent. We're trying to recreate past memories in order to review them. We're recreating past events in order to scan them for any negatives. So we recreate (remember) and rebuild and here and there we remake it wrong and the wrongly remembered event now has a negative in it and we focus on that negative.

But are we remembering it rightly or wrongly? Let's try again to recreate it. And again, and again. Is it right now? What if this negative really did happen? Then what? Let's now run through an endless number of possible responses to try to right this wrong. Constantly forgetting as we go and double back. Again, and again, and again.

Now scan elsewhere, etc.

We scan and scan and create negative things that didn't even happen. Persecute ourselves, bring about a constant state of fear concerning imagined wrongs we've committed.

Fear.

And fear, and fear. Eventually paralyzing you. You must find a way out.

"Life is short!" You're going to die anyway, so shrug off the fear and live life to the fullest. Throw caution to the wind. Take chances. Have fun!

Do stupid things. Act like an idiot.

In the face of what life otherwise is, just randomly do anomic things.

Everything that is wrong becomes unexpectedly wrong and thus funny.

The guy at the 'too far gone' facility going on about what a great man Hitler was, being lewd with women, endless racist jokes, endless neologisms, and puns. He pretended during his eval to be talking to someone on a submarine on the doctor's phone. Hilarious.

But then most days he won't talk, he won't eat, he won't come out of his room. Paralyzed by his endless mistakes and overtaken by fear.

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.

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.

Looks like my used $200 laptop is finished. Just won't connect to the wireless internet anymore. No rhyme or reason. ...I had some good favorites saved on it. Better than this desktop.
----
I played Quake 4 some finally. Think my video card isn't quite good enough. A little choppy exactly when it needs to not be.

I wonder if that fear is good (Quake induced fear). Keeps a person young maybe? I suspect though that fear does things like make the body direct more energy to reproducing, etc which in turn causes a person to live a shorter life... but also a more alive life probably.
----
''If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.'' Albert Einstein

Someone thought that Machiavellian. Of course Einstein wasn't but I guess it can look that way. I said, "His goal wasn't to gain power, but to bring about positive change to the world; instead of being consumed with trying to impress people/get people to like him."

But it does matter, making people like us. If no one does, then how can you be happy? You'd have to be like a machine. Not human. To live as if you didn't care if anyone ever liked you is to live like an abomination.

One should care. But that doesn't mean trying to impress people. Just treating them well.

... but you should try to treat them well no matter what...

I can't think of any action really that should be tied to wanting people to like you. (Even though you should want people to like you.) (Every action should be done totally aside from that concern.) Which is why it seemed maybe that's living like I don't care if people like me... Like an abomination, like a machine.

A bit of story mainly held together by the gimmick of withholding adequate information. A person, a traveler of worlds, is walking through wilderness in the late night, it's cold, but just barely warm enough that it's raining instead of snowing. The traveler is drenched and cold. And hungry. Where is he? What is he? Make him not quite clear... He finds a sign that makes him think he is in ... a fairytale land. And then he sees a house in the wilderness. In fairytale land anyone who would live so much out in the middle of nowhere would be some nonconformist type who would by sympathetic and helpful to Him.

He goes to the house... and finds he was mistaken. He mistook the signs, this is some other place. (Kentucky? Or is that even not enough gimmicky withholding?) The people in the house are .... rednecks? But leave it just open enough that they might be goblins...? Nascar racing, deer mounted on the wall, redneck accent, racist... They are far from welcoming.

And he is far from the hero we thought...? But then the hero can kill 100 golbins and that's great. What are they? We don't quite know. We've gone overboard on this one annoying gimmick. He kills them most gruesomely. The man, his bitch and 4 children.

He is so tired and so hungry. The frig is full of corpses. Disgusting. Well if he must eat flesh it might as well be fresh.

They taste effing awful. He spits them out.

This is one of the corpse worlds. The lowest of the low. He takes out the device. Too tired to calculate. He gives it another random spin and departs; not able enough to care where he might go next.

(Hold on to the fear. Hold on to some mystery, gimmick that it is. Otherwise go ahead and take a polemical stab. Whoopee.)

Needs more fear. The "hero" is like an alien/predator creature (the phung) which is in conflict with it's tribal/primal nature. Like Drizzit but much more conflict (much more animalistic than drow). When tired he fails more often.

The humans are racist to his race (wordsymth!). He is dismissed but rarely if ever reveals how uncommon he is in trying to spocktify himself and rise above his animalistic nature. The gimmick of teasing the reader. The humans are the same but to a lesser degree. It's hopefully easy enough to see but never really pointed out. Tschai.

Mystery. Little pieces of what he is. The veganism is mentioned... But he does kill and eat them. He is so weak. But his weakness affects his mind more than his body, such is his race. The redneck tries to shoot him.

There is the constant battle in his mind. There is the discrimination he faces from the other races. His goal..?