It is very very hard at times continuing on in my life, having motivation to bother doing things... when I know that these actions which I take, which I consider the most ethical, don't cause people to like me. They result in hate or most often just indifference. Mostly they just don't even matter at all to anyone. I try to be the best person I possibly can be and the end result is nothing. For all my efforts I might as well not even exist.

It is the truth. I might as well not even exist. Everything I've done matters nothing at all.

...in the past I've often thought: "I don't exist!" Because well, that's about what it amounts to. For all intents and purposes I'm not even really here. Not really even alive.

It is partly, or completely, the result of the collapse of community in America, I guess.
http://www.bowlingalone.com/ Sometimes though, I doubt there's ever been a time when it really would have been different in any positive way. Although I'm sure there have been times when it could have been much worse...

But they have some example solutions:
http://www.bettertogether.org/about.htm

And I've just got to point out the problem with each:

* A mentoring and reading program in Philadelphia that brings together retirees and elementary school children to the benefit of both – the children get help reading and the retirees have a richer, more purposeful life

It's just random kids that don't actually live anywhere near you. One day (each day) another one doesn't show up and you just never see them again. It's not a real community. It's just random people pretending like they've got meaningful connections whom actually will disappear from each other's lives almost immediately. Because, this is how Philadelphia is set-up. Millions of people all plopped down together. Not a single one of your nearest 200 neighbors probably even works at the same job as you. You're teaching some random children that you'll otherwise never ever see. There is no community the two of you are actually a part of.

* A group of sixth-grade activists in a small Wisconsin town who managed to persuade local authorities to improve safety at a railroad crossing and in doing so learned a valuable lesson in civic activism

...ok. That's fine. A small town. Improving an unsafe railroad crossing. Sure. Not really a big deal though..

* A neighborhood in Boston that has been revitalized by a civic association that overcame ethnic differences and now plays an ongoing role in the neighborhood

Well that sounds good as it sounds like an actual neighborhood. Most "neighborhoods" don't deserve the term. It's just a bunch of houses in the same area. From car to house, from house to car. You go ten years and never speak to your next door "neighbor". If they're saying they've got an actual bonafide neighborhood, that's something.

* A community effort in the impoverished Rio Grande Valley, one of the poorest regions in the U.S., that brought such basic services as electricity, roads, and health care to the mostly Spanish-speaking residents

...ok, that's great.

* A successful small business initiative in Tupelo, Mississippi, that began sixty years ago with the purchase of a prize bull

Not enough info.

* Chicago public libraries that have broadened their mission and have become true community centers

Public libraries broadening their mission sounds like a good idea. My town though only has one very small, very moribund public library. Seems to mainly be used by homeless people to get inside for a few hours in the winter. Which of course, is something, I guess.

* Two huge and rapidly growing churches in Los Angeles that are making people feel connected to other church members and their community

Not enough info. Also as Putnam mentions the KKK is also a sort of community. And OK, the reason I feel this whole issue more than most people is probably because I'm not a christian. The endless churches are generally people's sense of community. And this is largley why I suspect there hasn't really been a time in history where my personal situation would have been any better. Becuase, the way I think, I'm just too small of a minority for me to ever really feel a part of any community. Unless I used the internet to go off and find some community that more fit me. But I'm married to a woman that won't let me. So, here I sit in my unexistence.

* The city of Portland, Oregon, where the anti-war movement of the sixties actually changed the institutions so that now there is a remarkably high level of civic engagement in government and politics (more so than in other cities, even other cities on the west coast).

Yes, they're just better people out there. The west coast and even more so in the northern part Oregon, Washington and up into Canada. I would love to move out there. And as Putnam's book says, the sense of community/civic life, hit an alltime high in the 60's as the idealistic baby boomers hit their 20's. And set out to change the world.

The problem with these solutions, is at least what's mentioned here doesn't touch on the problem of geography. There is a book called the Geography of Nowhere which talks about our zoning laws, etc and how we've become a car culture and how this has played such a crucial role in destroying our communities. Solutions to the current lack of community must focus on this problem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geography_of_Nowhere

And/or http://www.ic.org/ needs to get much, much bigger. The idea of an intentional community shouldn't be dismissed as some kind of fruity, hippie thing. It would be good if even smaller towns had many such intentional communities, where there was real structured ways and a certain way of thinking whereby the people actually had meaningful connections, associations, etc. Where it wasn't just people holed up in their houses in front of the internet or TV day after day as their lives passed them by, as if they practically hadn't even existed at all.

A blog IS a good thing. And I think I should start running again. Except there's a half a foot of snow on the ground. That will burn out my calves too quick. And starting a running program in the dead of winter will probably give me a cold. I actually own a really nice treadmill. But still it sits at the old house. It wouldn't but my wife is so very good at throwing up obstacles. She mistakenly thought the cold would destroy it. And where would we put it anyway? "Oh my god you couldn't put it there!!!!" We still have half the pictures not put up because I have to ask her approval first and she hates making decisions so much that instead she finds something to scream at me about whenever I ask about finishing to unpack. So the treadmill sits unused in the cold at the old house as I really wish I had a way to do some jogging her in the dead of Januaury. But then the house is so big and circular I can just jog in it. And I hate treadmills anyway. I bought it for her. ($1000). She never uses it. Endless excuses why she can't exercise.

But, I lay in bed at night and if I'm touching her I can sleep. Just the back of my hand against her upper thigh and the overheated feeling and insomnia abates a bit. And I sleep. She hates to be touched when she's going to sleep though. So I have to be kind of clandestine about it. Reminds me of my past cat Gulliver. He wanted to be touching the much older very grumpy cat when he went to bed. And it was just like my wife. It would hiss at him to get away! So, he'd wait till it was asleep and then reach out delicately with one paw lightly touching his back.

So I do the same with my wife. I do wonder about how cats sometime seem to act like the people they live with.

Gulliver was killed by coyotes in New Mexico.

So my wife rolls over in her sleep on top of my hand and I finally wake up with my hand all sweaty and pull it out from under her. And immediately that relaxed sensation is gone and the insomnia and overheated feeling is back. I lay there and experiment with lightly touching her upper thigh with the back of my hand and then not, back in forth. If it's just in my head why can't I pretend I'm touching her when I'm not to get the same effect?

I work night shift so we usually don't get to sleep together. I haven't been sleeping so great. So many factors go into sleeping good/bad.

Through a bad memory I feel guilty about Gulliver's death. I used to let the cats go outside, now I don't. Gulliver died because he was allowed outside. But the reason we don't let them out now isn't because they could die. It's because the one cost us 800 dollars when someone shot it with an air rifle and broke it's leg. I periodically remember that all these years later Loki's dad could still be here with us, if only I had kept him inside. And I feel guilty. But it's because I keep forgetting. The cats we have right now I'd also let outside except that I can't afford huge vet bills when they hop home with dangling legs.

-

Started a song on the old "music" computer using z3ta+, that new wonderful reverb, and Partch's 43. Just using 6 notes though from it. The root, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75 (the lost harmonic seventh), 1.33 and 1.66. So effing beautiful. z3ta+ destroys every previous VST. But on the old "music" computer just one instance of z3ta+ and that impulse reverb uses from 40 to 60% of the CPU. But it sounds so beautiful it's worth it. I guess I should upgrade the computer to 4 gigs of memory. Had been thinking to just go right past 4 up to 6 or 8, possibly just buy another computer. But, actually 32 bit systems can't use more than 4 gigs anyway. And most VSTs are only 32 bit I hear.

The new piece is so beautiful I have to just let it sit untouched for at least a few more days.

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It would be better if he looked like he meant it. As that is an essential part of what a real idiocracy is about: Everyone feeling forced to pretend an absurd happiness they don't actually feel.

How can there be change when to even appear unhappy to anyone other than your significant other is socially unacceptable? In the real idiocracy it would be revolutionary to appear unhappy. And this fellow's simple "lack of enthusiasm" would cause him to be considered an unemployable dangerous radical.

Some "revolutionary activities"/activism:
-Honestly expressing unhappiness or simply refusing to constantly express fake happiness. Even this is a step in the right direction.
-Buying food grown locally.
-Choosing art that isn't supported by corporate power. If you personally know someone who does art. Look, listen, etc and try to comment, to the extent you're not afraid you'll offend I guess.

'Revolutionary' is a better word than 'activist'. I haven't used 'revolutionary' because I figure the usage of such a word increases the chances I'll eventually get rendered to Sudan. But by feeling intimidated into not using the word, the direction of my own thinking has been influenced. As our words shape our thinking to some extent.

Partch's 43

z3ta+

..it's actually 12 out of 43-tET (1/5-comma meantone). Whoopsie.
http://www.huygens-fokker.org/docs/scalesdir.txt

I remember being very annoyed with myself in either the first or second grade because I couldn't stop daydreaming. Seemed at times I couldn't concentrate continously in class for a single minute. Instead... I'm suddenly flying off, literally, out the window, etc.

I wrote a story when very young about finding a secret door hidden in the corner of my room that led to a hidden place where I ...what was it that happened? Did I obtain power? Something like that...

And so endless such daydreaming. Daydreaming of being a: professional basketball/baseball/football/tennis player/boxer/composer/musician/writer/scientist/inventor. More fantastic when younger, then I dreamed of really doing amazing things: levitating, magic in general. Such daydreaming.

Of course dreamed of women also, etc, etc.

As I got older these dreams have disappeared. First in that it became clear they weren't actually going to happen. Then in the understanding that even if they did it wouldn't actually mean anything to me anyway. And that most of it was really just the desire for power...

So then hope was gone. All my grandeur dreaming, was it seems, primarily my hope. To sit and have such dreams was a fun way to spend my time. To work towards such dreams was something actually worth doing.

Perhaps it's what I got from my biofather. Going back to Rowling's Slitherings whom desire power.

I've negated most such dreams and where/what is my hope now?

...so much to be said for forgetting. Someone (nobody famous) asked recently, "Does total forgiveness only come with total forgetting?" Such a horrible thing to say as forgiveness should be about understanding. But actually forgetting it seems is so essential to life in general...

Horribly insomnified and facing the prospect of a 15 hour day taking care of critically ill people. I can't fall asleep. I finally get up and turn my music on, as it sits up in the far right corner of this blog like so many trees fallling unheard in the forest. I manage to catch the edge between sleep and waking. And enjoy the collapse of logic as I lay there and try to make nonsense sense of the music. The songs speak. Obviously literally speak at times. For hours I can't actually sleep but I lay there drifting to the edge at least into some other consciousness. Something different at least. Through at least the first 60 songs. A very few times I fall into a 10 minute sleep. Once I wake up to Tschai's Spaceport. I hear it. Not able to place it. I know I wrote it but have no idea what it's name is, or what the construction was... Instead I hear it in it's true beauty for the first time ever.

I'm laying there and praying I'll get the call that they have enough people and I don't have to come in. And I do get that call for the first 4 hours off.

I can't sleep remotely anymore though. I come downstairs. I check out the demo for z3ta+. High CPU but has a nice sound and does indeed do the microtuning. Great!

Alternative consciousness, perhaps symbolism or false symbolism or synthesia or sycretism or just blissful illogic... combined with getting 4 hours off and finding that z3ta+ looks nice... The earlier despair about the end of hope which is slowly dragging me to Nothing is forgotten for the moment.

And I had forgotten: just feeling physically horrible. Insomnia is an awful feeling. Combined with my body feeling like it's on fire. This was caused by overzealous Grease The Groove exercise. So I knew to rest and as I missed the next and next workout my body relatively quickly repairs.

So then, happy for a change. Now 4 days off. Where will I be in four days?

The cycle repeats such that one could perhaps remember better and predict... But what would such remembering do? Would it improve the situation or make it worse? Would the remembering help the predictions such that I could avoid the pitfalls? Or is the forgetting the only respite that there ever really is?

Censored stories I missed this year:
The origination of the Somali pirates:
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/3-toxic-waste-behind-somali-pirates/

Interesting timing in the death of Karl Rove's voter theft engineer.
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/12-mysterious-death-of-mike-connellkarl-roves-election-thief/
"Timing of Connell’s deposition may have saved the 2008 presidential elections from electronic theft." (I had been wondering why they didn't also steal the 2008 election...)

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/category/two-thousand-and-ten-book/