This air conditioned life has me gasping for some real conversation. I thought as you grew older, your conversations would get better in a way. As a child conversations aren't enlightening in any way. As teenagers conversations end up becoming gossip or angst with little or no value coming from it. Now I've had plenty of good conversations before but it takes some direction to get there.

 

When we were growing up, I think we all watched our parents read the newspaper so the question is why?

When does one come to the conclusion that current worldly events are worth reading? does it come with age or a certain mental 'click'?

Does reading the paper make you an 'Adult' or does becoming an 'adult' mean reading the paper?

Once you start reading the paper, does one find it important or is it just water cooler chatter?

 

For me, I'd say tragedy came early. I came from a small town... no, average town with little to do.

when I first went to college I thought I'd be able to find a small group of enlightened people to talk to and discuss worldly issues. Now only did I NOT find these people, the college was located in an even smaller town with even less to do than my average town. With literally no mental stimulation I walked the line of insanity and boredom.

What can I say? I'm an elitist prick.

After dropping outl, spiralling into a drug binge and not giving a fuck about anything or anyone I found myself searching for meaning, trying to re-evaluate my entire life, calculating the choices that had led me to this inevitable fall of sorts.

 

That's when I realized, "Someone would love to have my first world problems" the shit I was tied up on were meaningless in a sense compared to the greater picture. Up until that point I was just following the path society had laid out, go to school, graduate, go to college, find a girl, get a job, get a place, have kids, retire, die.

Needless to say people called me a fool for dropping out, telling me I'd have no future without a diploma/degree. To this day I have no furthur education past highschool. Do people still call me a failure? of course but do I call myself a failure? hell no. I call myself an intellectual, a writer, a philosopher, metaphysician, a human and a hundred other things but failure is not one of them. I've become both student and teacher, I've learned more and read more books in the past 3 years than I have in the last 5 years of school. Now i'm not saying school is useless, I'm just saying school isn't the only path. I turn to Kierkegaard and his 'ignoring the self is the only sin of the self' but even simpler Plato,

"The uneducated have no single aim in life to which their actions, public or private are to be directed; the intellectuals will take no practical action of their own accord, fancying themselves to be out of this world on some kind of earthly paradise."

 

In a sense we all live in Plato's cave, tied to illusion. Edward Bernay's really did a number on the average man, from the "american worker" overnight to the "american consumer". The sad thing is everyone has their own idea of what's really important in their life from money to family to luxury to love... it's all the same rat race. Not everyone dreams of world peace, ending hunger and disease or agrarian reform yet if they did think of these things than perhaps the idea of money, family, luxury, love and everything else would not matter as much or perhaps they'd become easier to attain for everyone. When one thinks of their life it's exactly that... THEIR life. Things like equality and phrases like "all men are created equal" don't even enter their minds. Some even have the audacity to believe "Greed is good" and depending on the context it can be. Greed for love and knowledge for example where as greed for power and money is evil, not totally evil but perhaps just misdirected.

 

Unfortunetly in this superficial materialistic world the latter rules the former. I've come to a point in my life of profound realization far beyond my years, at this rate I'll be having my mid life crisis befor eI'm 30. This brings me back to Plato. The uneducated have no single aim in which their actions are directed except for survival, they hold strong to their dreams to pull them through their daily dull routine. All they want is to live through this ugly world in hopes that they're one step closer to their dream. I could fit into this catagory but I don't.

The intellectuals take no practical action of their own accord fancying themselves to be out of this world. That's where I fit. As much as I care I rarely act because in a way I feel it's beneath me. I see all the problems with the world and I want to do something but at the same time I'm over encumbered by philosophical ideals beyond this world which brings us back to Kierkegaard.

'We exist as either one of two forms. infinite and finite. we must shed our finite form tied to external influences and vices to reveal our true infinite nature in which our subjective truths are all that matters. yes, i have mentioned this all before but I thought you all needed a reminder.

 

The end all and be all of these, of my philosophical endeavours must lie with Kierkegaard and my dear old friend, Nietzsche. Once we realize that 'ignoring the self is the only sin of the self' only then can we ever come close to becoming Nietzsche's superman.

"overcome, you higher men, the petty vices, the petty prudences, the sand-grain discretion, the ant-swarm insanity, miserable ease, the happiness of the greatest number and rather despair than submit"

Deadly habits, you know everyone has them. We all pray for the best outcome but most people will never know what some people face. They can be a number of things, some people do ugly things, excessive behaviour, drugs, alcohol, hell anything can turn into a deadly habit.

Sometimes it's something we can control and other times not. The worst part is some people will never know which makes change or help near impossible, aside from like a full blown intervention which is rare.

 

enough of this shit though, we'll get to my deadly habits.

 

first cigarettes, then marijuana, then alcohol, then other drugs, then what can only be described by the mainstream as "anti-social" behaviour. the first four will put my into an early grave, the last will put me into jail or atleast community service. the deal with deadly habits is once you recognize them, you have the ability to change them if you so desire. Most gain a kind of gratification from them so they don't change and it's not like you can just stop cold turkey, you need something to fill the void left behind. the most important thing is the reason for change.

 

Real change only occurs when the reason for change is one you come to on your own terms not anyone elses. of course without carefully examining your life, you'll never reach the right reason.

It was just Rememberance day so it seems like the appropriate time to reflect on this so called life. Many people don't take the time to examine their life or only do so once in a blue moon. I on the other hand over examine my life in spades.

 

First thing to get off my chest, Congrats to Obama. We've just witnessed what could be the greatest turning point in American history aside from the Civil war or the passing of the Federal Reserve Act. Anyways there's going to be much speculation ahead so keep your ear to the ground.

 

Another year has almost passed so what have I learned, what have I done, what still needs to be done? Am I still the same person I was a year ago? These are only a few of the philosophical issues which plague my mind. What of love? happiness? security? Am I still having fun in this life? Have I become a social outcast of sorts? Do I even care what others think? Am I using my talents and abilities or are they just wasting away? Will I... will WE ever get out of this rat race?

I feel too old for this body, too withered by this existence. I guess the scariest thing about this life, this path is the looming feeling of failure mixed with emotional and economic instability.

 

It's as if I've come to the fork in the road. One way goes left the other goes right but instead I continue forward through the trees, unable to see the real beauty that surrounds me. In the past year my social life has become non-existance. I haven't really met or done anything outside of work. Most of the things I do, I do on my own either because they're solo activities like reading or writing or because no one else has any interest what so ever in the things I do. It's all due to a mix of working nights and hating people in general, it takes a lot to impress me. I think back to highschool when it was easy to get a rep, hell it was easy to get anything back then.

 

The last year had a few milestones but all in all I feel my life has become stagnant for the most part, like I can see myself locked into this pattern for years and years to come... that might scare me the most. I can't quite put my finger on it but I know I'm missing something constantly overlooked. I'm just at the edge right now, ready to fall yet still holding on. Really though I feel as if I suffer from "Caulfield" syndrome, where one thinks everyone else is phony and in many ways, it's not too far from the truth. It's a superficial life for the most part and that might be what's killing us the most. Superficialness leads to materialism which breeds greedy which gives birth to envy.  I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm just bored.

 

"My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation."
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four, 1890

 

So here we go again, time just keeps on ticking. Nov.1/2008. Shiiiiit, year's almost over again.

 

I haven't been writing much here anyways, I've been heavy on script writing as of late but this place servers as a great way to get things off your chest.... put things into perspective and it's all about perspective.

 

So this life is as strange as can get, well it'd be stranger if zombies were around but that's besides the point. If you haven't figured I'm just shooting the breeze.

 

I was asked a question, "Is there such thing as cold?" and I obviously have to say, "yes" the reply is "No, there isn't such a thing as cold only an absence of heat"

I pause and I see the logic but know it's flawed logic. Of course there's such a thing as cold. There must be. For everything that exists there is an opposite. life, death, good, evil, love, hate, up, down, cold, hot, black, white. Everything must have an opposite... it's practically a rule of metaphysics.

 

People. I guess I got something to say about people now. It's odd how seeing some people from your past can bring about a feeling of dread. Sometimes I imagine of seeing someone I know somewhere and how excited I'd be to talk to them other times I imagine people I don't want to see and then end up seeing then not knowing what to do about them. "Did they see me?" "what's his name again?" "don't make eye contact, keep walking away" shit like that.

 

So what happens when people are no longer the people you remember or when the person is no longer the person you remember?

How much can a person change physically? how much can a person change mentally? Is there a difference between the two? Is the difference more than obvious?

what is change? Can change be guaged? Is change permanent? It's all surface and depth, surface and depth.

physical change is surface, mere appearance, a pale reflection of reality. mental change is depth, deceptive, unbeknown to the average looker. Anyone call look at someone they haven't seen in 5 years and know they've gained or lost 100 pounds or dyed their hair but you can't tell anything mentally about a person until you sit and talk to them. Although talk will not always provide the answers one seeks, talk is cheap and without asking the right questions one will never get the right answers.

 

The relationships we have with people are odd. Some people deserve more attention than others and some people command attention more than others. How strange how some things or even just a smell can remind you of someone. How certain people you can't pull out of your mind for the life of you. How sometimes you feel like calling someone just to hear their voice but then don't call them or do. How sometimes we alienate the ones we love for whatever the reasons be them selfish or not. The worst thing about people is their inability to change or their WANT for self change but their inability to will those changes. 

 

Now those changes are both physical and mental and it seems only after extensive philosophical debate can one truely know how or what to change. The catch is after enough philosophical debate, you realize it's not about you, you gain perspective and again of course it's all about perspective. Then you become content with your life, ignore the bullshit. You know what you want, you know what you need, and you find out who you really are. Could I be more vague or cryptic? yes I could but that wouldn't help. Sometimes you just have to shoot the breeze awhile. It's the only way to escape that which is phony... which is just about everything. hahahaha!

 

Plato remarks that the descriptions that we give objects in our world are usually in some way relative to the context of presentation and he passes from this to the conclusion that reality consists of a world of eternal and unchanging entities, of which the world we know is merely a pale reflection.

 So what's Plato getting at? Everything that we see and describe are relative to the context in which they are seen or described right? I think... but then he goes on to say everything we know is merely a pale reflection... I guess Plato was a pessimist? You know I've thought about what Plato said and I've over thought it completly. The phrase no longer makes sense to me, that's how much I've thought about it, that seems to be how much I think about everything now a days. Thinking of the philosophers of old helps put things into perspective, along with the new age philosophers after all this world just keeps getting more complicated than ever.

 

I just need a stiff drink... then maybe i'll discover the secrets of the universe floating in my drink.