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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A special fear is in me today.

I who was once... I hesitate to say fearless... but not afraid of knowledge anyway. Slowly there has come to be some knowledge, some pulling back of the curtain which I can't take so well.

Face to face I often see negative thoughts lurking within people. And often, usually, there's nothing that I can do. Very likely these negative thoughts are with regard to me but I can bend over backwards trying to be nice and it still often does no good. So then I pretend I don't see it. Not a lot of pretending. Just a very little as indeed the person was trying to conceal it. There's only so much I can do short of just going nuts. And anyway I shouldn't be expected to have to constantly read people's minds. Even if I'm just reading how they're going to backstab me, etc.

And I suppose some people have said it would be a horrible thing if you could do it (read minds) and I suppose in a way it would be. The thing would be then; to iron out those differences as a result of such mind reading. But you know, to keep it not so pointlessly sci fi nerdy, the short term is it drives me nuts how face to face I can see behind the bland if I want to.

Mostly I can't stand to anymore. Go ahead and think you're horrible thoughts. I want no part of it.

Online there is another similar fear of knowledge. Because here the blandness is surely gone... but it isn't replaced by people successfully ironing out their differences... Here the ugly things are endlessly revealed, but things are still not resolved... For various reasons... it's still not mind reading...

Ultimately I'm an extreme bleeding heart. An ethical vegan and so on and there's a limit to what I can stand. Probably I can stand less than average. The opposite only may appear to be the case because I push myself so much farther than normal people.

Astro, you're right. People aren't trying their best. That was panglossianism and elitism. They could do better. But then I could do better also I guess. Right this moment I could. But I've too much fear of a certain type of knowledge. I've been stomped on by it too much.

I'm going to go for a long run in the snow. Stupidify myself to the point that maybe I can stand a little more...

I do believe in evolution.

I think our ancestors were single celled organisms with no ability to "think"; that certain mutations improved their ability to spread their genes.

That ultimately we exist, we are alive; solely to try to keep staying alive. This "thinking" thing we developed has... sometimes really increased our ability to spread our genes. But there are many other beneficial mutations that are highly illogical.

So much of what we do is ultimately pointless and bizarre. It's... stuff related to what was generally beneficial mutations that doesn't necessarily make any sense in this very different world today.

I ruthlessly pull back the curtain; strip everything bare and scream at the result. (And one of these days I'll check the proper use of a semicolon...)

At the same time I've recognized that atheism is wrong in that it's not thinking towards the future, it's not practicing enough forethought. With such forethought there is no reason to get out of bed in the face of the final total memory swipe. So I want "magic". I want "gods".

It's a huge contradiction. I'm pulling back all the curtains while wanting magic so bad; trying to create magic.

Something needs to be done about this contradiction. It's not possible for me to stop pulling back the curtain. I can't stand that which is unknown. Yet I desperately need that which is unknown because only the unknowable is magical/godlike/something other than ceasing to exist.

And everyday is like an entire life. Waking up and trying to quickly retrace the patterns in my mind; the important patterns; why am I doing such and such again...? Some days my mind just is too tired. Some days I fail. Some days by 4pm I'm ready to punch whoever so hard I'll decapitate them.
----
Another pulling curtain example from long past very quickly and partially slapped down:

The heart of sex is just some bizarre illogical thing going back to single celled organisms. We can greatly heighten the enjoyment of it at least mostly by adding really ugly things on top. Suggestions of power, etc.

Like I talk really intelligently while caressing some lady's breast and she just about goes bananas. Ugh. She thinks I sound intelligent and that suggests power and that adds so much. It's reproduction plus latching on to someone who will even better ensure her genes will be passed on. Thus totally biologically, the beneficial mutations kick in. Etc. Ugh. Could go on and on. Can't stand to.
----

Too intelligent. Devolution. That beneficial mutation called thinking went too far and quit being beneficial.