Worried Sick

I went through a paranoid psychotic episode once.  It reverberated for about 6 weeks inside my skull until subsiding.

The things that pulled me out of it were what I consider touchstones. I was not perceiving reality correctly; my eyes and brain were not working together but fighting each other trying to send me mixed messages out of fear.  Confusion.
So I never knew what to believe, my senses and perceptions, or the recollection of the things I had done.

I realized my memory had been fabricating stories to support a narrative that was untrue.
And to some extent, all of our brains do that. However, mine was especially bad. I was out of work for a month and worried sick.

By talking and listening to other people, I was able to confirm my actions, behaviors, thoughts, feelings, and figure out slowly which things were true and real and which things were just that IV drip of fear, causing my deeper nervous system to go haywire and give me false images.
For example, I saw the headlines on my computer shifting in front of my eyes. I heard sounds of motor bikes driving by so loud that I could not focus. I saw what I thought was an explosion that was the start of WWIII.

All false. But at the time it was so real.

Surreal.

Surreal.

Wake up.

Wake up.

This is a dream.

Dev, circa January 2022
I have to thank the people around me who were there for me and supplied me with good reliable data again that got me back on my feet and trusting my senses again.

lost in a dream state

The following is an excerpt from a journal I made recently. I have been thinking about getting back into writing and more specifically, to bring together my sets of journals over the past 6 months and thumb through them and find new topics to write about. I am excited to know that I have a bit of a trove built up, which will make it much easier to start putting blog posts up again.

i have always subscribed more to being in the moment while writing rather than writing by ritual or routine
the important thing for me is that the thoughts I produce sound dreamlike and imaginative and almost almost, just a hint of improvisation!
but to balance my need for being lost in the dream state, the trance, the vision, the one focus becoming the writing
i need to become more disciplined
and know where to set up the boundaries that i wont cross
to steer my writing down the road
to get to the destination
and deliver the message

i will say however, that the ritual or routine part of writing is an important piece of the puzzle
there is quite some merit to the ritual being necessary in order to get into the meditative state
in order to refind the deep fast lighting quick piece of the mind that isn’t afraid to make mistakes or stiffen up, rigidly trapped in a hedge maze of my own design, designed to be so tortuous a path to not escape, to be controlled by my self, my human impulse not standing a chance

sometimes i will want to avoid curses
or i will avoid ill fated topics
and i will self edit as i do now, self edit in the moment in which i am trying to act as font of creativity

which is inevitably a broken thing, to be unable to break away
and that self editing process is so seductive, to trim the hedges, to bring back curb appeal to the construction
but
it is not where i am most free

in order to get to where i am most free
i must break down walls
i must break down the barriers of self edit
just simply let if flow within me the next 5-10 words i am going to say, as i do in speech, a conversation with a close friend, or in rambling, (as others see it)

i want to enter the kind of flowing state where i don’t realize i am typing,
i am thinking and typing and feeling all at the same time
and the thing of beauty in it is that it slows down the speed at which i think
and by slowing down the speed at which i think i am able to better steer 🙂 ironically, you have to go slow to go fast in this type of endeavor

i wish to be able to select each memory in my mind as easily as a page out of a novel and put my finger directly on the corner of the page of the book to open it

but its just like a book, you might get to a nearby chapter, but you have to scroll through it
you have to remember the order in which things occurred in order to place the memory inside the right set of pages
and then narrowing it down further, you have to look paragraph by paragraph, “have I read this part already? or is this new information?” and with the flow of new information sometimes you shy away from it, hoping that you aren’t reading something that wasn’t meant to be read out of sequence

and now i am out of the trance, i tried, i was able to sustain a few short sentences, without punctuation or capitalization

stream of conscious doesn’t reward the logical, but the curious type who likes to self examine the self to understand its function and in understanding the self aware nature of the brain, change it bit by bit, each corresponding 1 and 0 flipping

We Are Born Performers

I recently heard of the idea that my generation, as varied as they are, created the market drive for social media. That sounds reasonable on the surface… so it made me think. Narrow the scope of “my generation” to people around my age who have stable enough households, who have parents who spend a lot of time with their kids, and who have internet access and the free time to use it.

These factors contribute to the ability of anyone to express themselves. There is a lot of supporting narrative here that I’m glossing over, but the gist of the argument is this: We, the newest generation, are entitled performers constantly seeking outlets for attention and for people to listen us and give us a penny for our thoughts. We record our lives to share for others. We record other peoples’ lives and see more interesting and surreal moments than ever before in history. We record ourselves enjoying concerts that we are at, placing ourselves at the center of the entertainment role that entertainers have in our lives. People perceive these kinds of people as people who think they are important enough to gain an audience, and, failing that, gaining at least a few glances and views or likes or comments or subscribers, etc. To me the idea of millennial entitlement giving rise to social media comes off as a bit too cynical.
A good question to ask would be: Is the social media market saturated with things to watch or read? There is already more video being posted to YouTube each successive year than there were videos that existed in all previous years. Do we need to hear on Facebook about your accomplishments, goals, generic Chipotle burrito, with pictures of all of the above? It’s a pretty tropey answer to say “Nobody wants you to Instagram every meal you eat.” It’s unpopular to want to express yourself too often. I guess it’s just unpopular to think of yourself as too important, or to try to put yourself on a pedestal, or to try to be anything that’s not humble. I feel that the drive for humility is something that comes with the North American cultural background. Hardworking, honest, humble American people. That’s why there is a lot of unwarranted backlash – granted, in addition to what’s warranted- against people who are successful, but who are not humble. I’m not sure if Kanye West deserves all of the hate he gets. “Arrogant” is what people in our culture use to name-call people who are confident. Arrogant people are often too hard-headed to let other people weigh in on their ideas. They are just seen as negative. However, arrogant people are often clairvoyant in their ability to create their own brand. They are able to generate something clear and concrete out of a vision, without many hands to manipulate and misinterpret their ideas. They can sell Air Yeezies for $225 without the oversight of a money man. That’s because there is nothing stronger that people connect with than an individual.

Personality-driven content is quickly becoming the one way to success: YouTube personalities doing all kinds of things, Vine artists impersonating people, Snapchat legends (🔑 🔑 🔑). There are all kinds of strong individuals who gain an audience. And yes, there is a market for it. In an economic sense, people stop generating content when they feel that their efforts are unnoticed, or start generating more when they realize that their value as an individual can be validated through these emerging forms. Tending toward an equilibrium, we find out that Joe Blow from high school will eventually stop posting on the Facebook reunion page with fond memories when nobody is there to validate that post with likes or attention. The well for attention dries up, so Joe Blow decides to strike out on his own as a master Snapchatter. Always with the best moments, best places, most major keys, people initially find it interesting to be bystanders in his life, but if he doesn’t change the tone or produce anything more valuable than “I can’t believe you guys aren’t here oh my god it’s life changing”, people stop paying attention, and the well of attention dries up, and he moves on to a new one. What I’m getting at is most people are sensitive to their audiences. Sure there are people who will keep producing content regardless of recognition, like Derek Jeter played hard for the Yankees every night, even during unwinnable games. The majority of people know when to quit and move on, and while they are also the least successful, they keep the market for content at some sort of an equilibrium. Instead of 2,000,000 cat videos with 10 views apiece, we get 200 cat videos produced by a handful of specialized cat video experts with many, many more views. Or somehow it may work out like that. There are too many viral video one-hit-wonders to really say for sure.

It should be subjective to say whether or not it is a bad thing that millennials feel like we are entitled to an audience, but using the word “entitled” usually brings out the bias in most of us and our hand is practically forced to bash and hate on them for that. I guess, maybe at the very least, we expect an audience, and if it’s not there, most of us stop. We give it a go. When I was in middle school, I made many many many Facebook posts that went unvalidated. I reacted to that by reducing the amount of things I said, even if I thought I was very clever or felt like I needed validation from others. Here’s a post from high school which received exactly 0 likes and 0 comments:

0 Likes

Welp, I guess I’m not gonna post too much uninteresting stuff ever again, he thought.  The market value of those two words was apparently so tiny, not even my mom liked it.  And for every pair of eyes that looked at those two words, 100% of the people probably felt like they wasted their time.  They did.  And I still didn’t learn quickly.  I mean, now I don’t post nearly as often, and I’m sure that other peoples’ social media habits are similar and have changed and adapted.  People adapt to receive the most validation they can, which is why saying obvious things seems to be very popular, and cultural references are popular, and saying you like really obscure things or talking about things other people aren’t interested in is a surefire way to that rock bottom 0 likes level.  I find it interesting how much self-worth I used to put – and still put -into how well-received things I say are.  I think a lot of people feel this way.  You feel me?

All in all, there is much more to say here which would make for a much more fleshed-out, logical argument about why social media is actually a good thing as a platform which allows for the free flow of information, no matter how inconsequential, and creates a market for people doing interesting things in exchange for the acceptance of peers (or that YouTube money $$$).   I’m just a wee bit too tired to get into that.  Some other time.  For now, I’ll cringeworthily say:

Social media is a major🔑to how people connect and gain audiences and engage others around the globe, and it ain’t going out of style.

And for more information about a living meme, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heSRLhniCqE

On Food

Actually, this is a dairy cow, not a meat cow. I try to stay educated.

Actually, this is a dairy cow, not a meat cow. I try to stay educated.

I love food. I love meat, I love veggies. I will eat anything that other people have called/could call food, which I owe to an upbringing of constant dietary conscientiousness from my parents. “Eat your vegetables” was an uncommon phrase, largely due to the fact that if you dust something with enough butter and salt it will be quite good.  I appreciate that my parents taught me from a young age to enjoy these foods, as it has allowed me to pretend to be an aspiring home cook with humble experimentation.

Recently, a buddy of mine mentioned he doesn’t like eating meat. He’s not a vegetarian or vegan, and isn’t outright opposed to the moral ambiguities associated with raising animals whose sole purpose is food.  His reasons are two-fold and somewhat related: Meat is expensive for a college budget, and that there is an energy cost associated with turning higher level “plant calories” into “animal calories”.  In no way does this mean meat is bad, morally wrong, or unhealthy, although arguments can be made for these contentions which I don’t intend to get into.  Instead I’ll try to delineate the two reasons as I interpreted them to get some insight into why one might share his opinion on the matter.

Energy in Food Production

In order to separate these related reasons, let’s first isolate the idea of energy in food production.  In a large sense, from what you’ve probably learned in biology class, food energy initially comes from the sun.  It goes to first to plants through photosynthesis.  In America, some of the main plants we use for this purpose are corn, soy, potatoes, and wheat, among others. Then some herbivores eat this matter and get a share of the energy (pooping out the rest, of course) and using some of this energy to grow and some to physically move their bodies.  These are things like cows, chickens and pigs.  Finally, the lowest in this cycle are the carnivores and omnivores, which eat animals which have already eaten plants or other animals.

What you should keep in mind is the idea of energy loss through each of these steps.  The further you get away from plants, the more energy losses occur before ending up at humans.  During photosynthesis in corn, for example, there is an associated energy loss from what the sun initially shines as radiative heat on the leaves. Now let’s suggest that a cow uses a generous 20% of the energy it gets from its diet of corn stalks for its growth/physical development.  When a human eats the animal, it probably gleans another 20% from it for all its uses.  After just one more step, there was a huge increase in the amount of energy lost.  If you look at a sample 1000 calories that a plant contains completely due to photosynthesis, a cow receives 20% or 200 calories from it.  When the human takes even 20% of this (which is about the same efficiency as human muscles), that means of the original 1000, only 40 calories made it to the human for growth, with another 40 calories saved for muscular movement.  This overall 8% efficiency from plant to human is something that we need to take into consideration to be an ecologically sound species.  Although meat is tasty and good smoked or roasted or grilled, there is merit to the idea that eating plants alone would be better for the environment.  Something which is at the top of this cycle can be considered a “higher order” calorie, meaning it goes through less steps and therefore less losses.

Done in maple, just guesstimates about the inefficiencies of meat consumption.

Done using Maple, a fancy calculator with strange syntax. These are just guesstimates about the inefficiencies involved in letting us eat glorious meatsicles.

What does this mean in a larger scope and for industry?  Well, first off, it means we need to maintain lots of crops. Many, many crops. Lots of crops that humans will only be able to harvest 8% of the energy from, because it first has to pass through some inefficient cows.  These crops are fed to the cows (bear in mind I’m simplifying, saying that humans would potentially eat these crops which is largely not the case, unless you yourself like eating corn stalks and various “mystery meals” and whatever else goes into feed), and then to us.  The energy was lost to thin air.  We need to maintain, according to the my made up numbers, around ~30% more crops in order to eat meat. Here’s a worksheet.

This is as much as I can do today. Expect the second half going into why this costs more money soon.  Disclaimer: Know that this is mostly guesswork and not based upon rigorous scientific method or research but rather estimates.  

If you have better knowledge than I on certain efficiencies or percent of crops dedicated to animal feed, let me know and I’ll recalculate with the new numbers.  Right now, this is just a method used to determine the general idea, to be refined at a later date by people who know a lot more.  I tried to be fair to both sides in my calculations, realizing that there would only be a portion of farms used for this purpose, and realizing that the farms that produce these feed crops are not currently suitable for producing food consumable by humans, and that a lot of the time we give our domesticated animals food waste to eat.  I’m sure the situation is not as catastrophic as it seems, but the principle is true: some level of inefficiency exists in the current system.

Note that I’m not dealing with nutrition at all, and I agree that meat and domestication has helped humans become healthy and strong and abandon our nomadic lifestyle many many thousands of years ago. On the other hand, there are alternate sources for nutrition. Proteins/fats would have to end up in the cow somehow, in order for the cow to be nutritious to us.

A few links for more interesting stuff:
Harris-Benedict equation, on how to calculate calories burned per day.
If you’re more interested in the physics of human efficiency, this here is a University of Chicago physicist’s presentation.
I’m not the first one who has done math on this, see this Cornell ecologist’s work.
If you’re interested in this stuff, I remember watching this documentary called King Corn.  It’s a little bit hokey and prodding, but worth a watch.
This NY Times article gives a bit more insight, written during the continental drought in 2012 by Colin Carter of UC Davis and Henry Miller of the Hoover Institute.

Source: http://raduluchian.com/resources/ostrich-feather/

Needs and Wants ep2: Progress

Progress has no concrete definition.  It is as subjective as values, in the sense that some people just want to enjoy their 9-5, get home, flip on the TV, read a book, and make family dinner, while others want things which reduce their Needs and satisfy their Wants. As we humans multiply and go forth, we reduce the entropy of our environment, we decide that we want to have an improved status quo.  We believe that progress in the most general sense is the improvement of the the average well being of all.  However, in one big farcical power struggle to monopolize progress, we leave behind many as a result of misleading values and our selfish nature.

I remember reading in high school an essay about progress.  It posited that there is no such thing, that maybe we aren’t any better off than we were before, because as humans we are all going to die out as soon as the sun runs out of fuel or a cataclysmic asteroid strikes or World War XXIV: Now With More Nukes(!). Time will tell.  Many arguments can be made against the thesis, namely that our technologies and progress have improved human life, but I think it’s an interesting worldview to not immediately evaluate inventions as improvement, but rather mindless milling about until we reach the end of the line as a species.  That makes us ask ourselves: what the heck are we doing on Earth?  Good question, too big for a blog post.  Nevertheless, there are many who answer these questions theologically, some nihilistically, and some who ignore the impending end by burrowing their nose a bit too deep into desk work, among other methods.

Instead, our survival instincts and social conditioning lead us to believe that anything that improves life, lengthens life, or prevents death is progress.  Leading us to an auxiliary theme of many great American novels, among them:

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. – F.S. Fitzgerald, last line of The Great Gatsby

Although I’m using this out of original context a bit – which is that humans keep struggling to stop repeating history and trying to move against a current but inevitably – I think it can be drawn more generally to mean that we will never stop as humans to keep struggling for ourselves and our wants. As Gatsby wanted Daisy and a brighter future, we want affection and a chance to improve ourselves.  Not a bad ideal.  However, in the modern world I don’t think we’re near the realization of such an ideal for the masses yet.  Too many people are missing out.  As we compound our successes and build higher and higher, we start to recognize that there are people wallowing in the foothills as we ascend an infinite man made mountain, unable to find the right climbing gear and without climbing partners.  The higher we climb, the easier it is to think of the others as ants in mounds of dirt, to dehumanize and to ignore the masses.  This lack of empathy increases with distance.  The more technology, the better we climb, the higher we raise our status quo, the more that we forget there are people who probably could use some help.  So we’d want to take action.

What is the source of this sudden empathy?  Emotion, perhaps.  We want to solve the problems of others because we see them as ourselves in different circumstances.  We are able to feel their pain and think they’d reciprocate given the same.  Some would apply a “golden rule” here.  When we reach this breaking point from plain pity, we realize that there might be something to do.

But we don’t.

We are the quilts of a fabric that refuses to cover the homeless, the cogs that grind grain only to make ethanol.  The selfishness we have is understandably from our distance, physical and metaphorical, and not from a lack of means.  People berate you for not being MLK or Thoreau, telling you that the only way to solve injustices is civil disobedience.  Else they’d name you armchair warrior of the week.  There’s no middle ground on these issues, no way to stand sturdy unless I hate the Haves or I ignore the Have-Nots.  So I take inaction.  In the end, I guess I’m selfish as well.  I support this endless system in kind, working to progress a world that helps myself.  I guess the best way to avoid heroes is when there are 2 billion bystanders.

But that’s the last depressing crap I’m going to think about for awhile.  From here on out it’s all rainbows and happiness, full ostrich-mode.  Stay classy out there, mates.

Memento Park, Budapest

Needs and Wants

As I was on the ricketiest bus ride of my life, bouncing around through some rough roads outside the capital of Hungary, I naturally contemplated how much more comfortable my rear would be if the roads were nicer, the bus had seen some wheelbase maintenance within the past decade, and whether the two were correlated.  In short, I wandered off to dream land.  To a theoretical country where the buses were clean and rode like stiff jelly.  Where they arrive exactly on time, where convenience is the prerogative of commonfolk and kings, more Austria than Siberia, wondering what more I would get from the experience.

Sadly, I realized what I was contemplating was the gap between functionality and convenience, Needs and Wants, and consequently where an individual values convenience in his or her life.  I needed to define what functionality and convenience meant and what worth I put on each.

It’s a tricky topic, as the two are inherently linked.  Something more functional is utilitarian, meaning it provides the most good for the greatest number.  Something strictly convenient is a thing that doesn’t directly lend people necessary advantages, rather fulfilling a Want.  For example, when the streets of a city feel safe. Depending on the person asked, some would say it’s a convenience to not feel like a thief will come take your money, although others would argue it is a Need.  The difference between “want-to-haves” and “need-to-haves” varies from person to person.  Societies value some things universally as Needs, like institutions such as working to earn money, becoming educated, having a mode of transportation and having the opportunity to buy things.  The Wants are the water and salt on top of the dry buckwheat breakfast, or the comfortable chair in my chosen mode of transportation, or the choice of when to eat at the cafeteria (the open hours falling somewhere between “just woke up” and “still in class”).

More traditionally developed countries will have many more Wants fulfilled, until the wants eventually become a Need for the people through a change in the general consensus.  Cell phones are a prime example.  The convenience of calling from a car phone has quickly become the standard need for life.  For myself, having a smart phone is the new standard need.

If the Internet was more than 3 meters from my pocket life would be much less convenient.

As I’m thinking about defining the difference for myself, I think about the natural experiment of economic disparity between Germany and Hungary, through my own observations.  One is a government with money and modern standards, stemming from its industrialism and subsequent “economic miracle”.  The other was riddled and hurt as post-war Europe took its population and industry, with much more modest Wants.  Comparing their budgets without exact numbers, Germany has more wiggle room to cover the basic Needs and some extras.  With more limits, Hungary has to neglect some things and prioritize more.  For example, the buses and roads.  For Germany, it would seem imperative that the buses are nice, relatively clean and comfortable, and functioning. My bus struggled as the Little Bus that Could, nearly not making it up the steep hill that was its daily chore. It was dirty, and panels revealed rust and a curious lack of nuts and bolts preventing said panels from rattling like neurotic street musician steel drummers, attacking their audience let loose with a jolt and propelled by gravity.  It was easy to see, that the country had to prioritize differently, not covering the things taken for granted in Germany.

Memento Park, Budapest

The lonely park south of Buda.

On some level, it wasn’t shocking to me. This bus had a higher standard than the daily brightly decorated tro tros in rural Ghana.  It did its job, got its people from A to B, allowing for mobility although not much more.  For me, it filled my need to get to the lonely but awesome Memento Park on Budapest’s outskirts.  It led me to think about what I value, what my Needs and Wants are, and through this deep introspection I’ve realized that I don’t need as much as I think.  I am not afraid of a lower living standard.  Maybe my bourgeoisie sensibilities would be offended by the thought of a late bus.  However, I feel I’d still be happy as long as I have a few select things: a way to express myself, a way to survive, and a source of happiness.  In short, the minimum necessities to reach the top of Maslow’s Mayan pyramid of needs.

Building blocks for life.

Maybe it’s more of an Egyptian pyramid.

As my own thought experiment subject, I first tried to imagine myself in the most functional environment, void of frivolities like comfortable buns or clean, level streets.  It’s not a bad place.  The extras are missing, but I am still privileged, to an extent.  There will always be people with more, but many less.

Similarly, I can empathize with the people in Ghana. I realize they don’t have all their Needs met, much less their Wants.  It makes me appreciate my place more. However, I do not pity their position, because they don’t want it. Such pity underlines a sort of savior complex which creates a negative feedback loop of reliance. Instead, any effort to bring a country’s people forward (much more complex than donating money) should involve fulfilling first the foundational needs of food, water, shelter, and safety. Laptops for school kids fulfills a perceived Need that is actually from its own society’s perspective a Want, moving too fast before the rest of the pyramid solidifies.

Mentioned earlier, it appears that as a country moves up in fulfilling Wants, its expectations start to solidify around each until it becomes a requirement or Need. Placing a laptop on a jello pyramid just ends up with water damage.  The wants need to be systematically fulfilled in the right prioritization.  I think every country is at a different level, and it’s not one dimensional.  Some countries have fast Internet, while others have great national healthcare.  Some are full of violence, while some lack nutrition.

And back to myself, I want to think I’m tough, and think I could lower my standards pretty far before I screamed of discomfort.  However, the reality is that my expectations will always be informed by my life in middle class USA, so I need to maintain some form of self-awareness to know where I’m from, and where I’m going. I need to maintain a sliding scale of values, Wants, Needs, and all that falls within the gap for different situations.  As long as I keep my personal pyramid sturdy enough, I believe that I’ll stay happy.  What about you?

Dating this Post, Pt 2

Corinthians 1: Law from Before the Dark Ages

I’ll preface this by my pragmatic view of religion.  They’re amazing communities in which to foster children, make contacts, and grow spiritually inany desired direction to improve our understanding of the world.  Growing up in the church, I’ve had so many positive experiences, however, I’m not beholden to what I’ve learned then and try to use it as a looking glass to view the rest of the world.  My life as a choir boy has really helped me gain insight into the valid opinions of those on the right.  However, a prioritization is at hand: love over law.

The context of Corinthians is letters written to a church by a man, Paul, to help it grow, prevent further immorality, and to encourage following in the footsteps of Jesus, around the year 55. Some 1970 years later, views have changed. The Bible today has to be reconciled in various fashions with the liberalization of our nation. This is what this pastor means: we no longer follow the Bible to the letter.  We haven’t for ages. Selectivity with doctrine does not mean we’re immoral. It means society’s values have changed and will keep on changing, and in attempting to stop the leak we will just wear ourselves out. It means we’re not stoning women with rocks and it’s the same reason other religions in truly democratic societies aren’t forcing morality on their respective regions, but rather reserving it for their own sub-communities. Religious furor and radicalism from any side, following rules from nigh 2 millenia ago written by a man giving some practical advice to grow in his contemporary situation (whether or not you believe God wrote through him), that can’t be allowed to preside over the laws of a society with a separation in church and state and no national religion. It’s for the protection of everyone’s right to self-determination. Sure, we can pray for those who don’t fall in the paths we ourselves judge as right, but we ourselves make any number of greater mistakes daily when we lie, cheat, and break any laws of high order. The greatest commandment we’re told is to love others, all else is immaterial in our modern society. still understand it’s hard, and that a celebration isn’t in order for all people, but as a victory for democracy we can be happy that a portion of our nation has experienced an increase in their ability to be who they want, regardless of our own opinions. Maybe treating others they way we want to be treated means letting them do immoral things, just as we do.

As far as the definition of marriage is concerned, many opinions abound.  It’s been a real shitstorm trying to track down the origin story, trying to prove “this is what it’s always been.”  It doesn’t matter what it has been, it matters how it needs to be if our values as a culture are to:

  • Merge with the changing pace of a modern, international culture
  • Do so, to allow freedom and justice for all, and self-determination
  • Protect those who don’t yet have the rights we ourselves have (be an empathetic people)

As before, prioritization in this country really sucks.  We expect the majority to make rules that benefit themselves, we expect them to vote in their own interest, we allow corporations and miraculous “job creation” to take precedence over happiness and contentment, as business leaders line their pockets simply because they can get and have gotten away with it.  Finally, we allow a religious majority (which I grew up in) to fever the pond.  To come before all others in a nation.  To impose their arbitrary moral rules on the rest of society.  If we truly seek equality for people, we must realize that we can’t achieve it with our current democratic voting system, which, depending on the type of reform, tries to take million-colored issues and force them through a binary sieve of “yes” and “no”.  This is not equality.  It’s rule by 50.1%, or 66.8%, just as 49.9%/32.2% disagrees.  We can’t write just laws for all people: that’s a post for another day.

How To Date a Post

What does this title mean?  Is it literal?  Well… Actually it means, today is 6/28/15 or 28/6/15, and 2 days ago, a Friday, same sex marriage was federally legalized in my country.  We are the 18th in allowing the marriages to take place.  We are also the most widely celebrated victory yet, seemingly.   American politics have a very very far reaching effect, even in the countries that it doesn’t, on the surface, seem to have anything to do with.  The first piece of evidence is the sheer number of international students I know, all of whom have heard the news and celebrated it.  First off, that means they’re globally aware, as us kids who do exchange programs tend to want to be. Second, many of them have changed their Facebook profile pictures with a rainbow filter.  Let’s discuss that.

First, I’ll say: changing a filter after the fact is still alright by me.  It means you’re in support of the decision.  However, it weakens the good intention a little bit.  There’s a psychological phenomenon at work, mainly that it’s easy to do, or easier, especially now that the Supreme Court’s decision legitimizes the opinion as the de facto popular opinion.  But that’s why so many people use this visible sign of support.  It’s easy, it means something (however, not in a fighting-in-the-trenches-for-justice way), and other people are doing it, which means it’s widely socially acceptable.  Unfortunately, I fear that for the majority of people it’s the most radical show of support they will ever do.  I find it a tad ingenuous to show outward support when the “battle is won” already. But maybe it’s not ingenuous at all. Maybe that’s the hipster’s disease.  I want to “hate on” the fact that many people banded together and showed support, even in the simplest of ways.

Second: Battle is won, eh?  No. Not by a long shot.  We will see in the coming months the resistance of many states, the refusal of the wishes of people who want to be wed, not allowing couples to marry even though it’s federally a crime through suave use of various loopholes and other devious semi-illegal (in the spirit of the law) actions.  It’s bleak for most in these states.   I think that people are still hurt, and that many places in the US are still not safe or welcoming for people who don’t see eye-to-eye with the local, traditional (usually Christian) definition of marriage.

In all honesty, I’m a bit of an asshole when it comes to these things, choosing to sit on the sidelines entirely instead of pretending I was sticking up for the rights of others the entire time.  You won’t find me out there waving flags, although on a deeply fundamental level I support the decision. Maybe that polarizes the LGBTQ community, that the people who really do put themselves out in the open resent the massive majority like myself who passively support but never say anything.  I think it’s always been the problem with social change, however, if you are a person who takes action for the cause, and you hate people like me, it creates a sticky alienation situation.  Opinions on the issue are not black and white, there’s a difference between people who are strongly sided and those who are loosely sided with the movement. The majority who don’t speak need to be handed weapons in the form of Facebook profile picture filters in order to fight the good fight.  There are yet even more who don’t help, although they know it’d be just, but they can’t be arsed to do it for fear of even the slightest eventual public backlash.  It’s definitely easiest to be the sideliner as I am, and I’m not proud of it; it’s a truth I must agree with.

I would much prefer to be on the side of the greats like Thoreau or MLK, jr., who both wrote wonderful essays on passivity being the enemy of activism in some form. I guess it’s just hard to be extraordinary.  Thoreau’s essay in particular includes some of the greatest conceptualizations of mankind being free and just.  Summary: if you aren’t supporting a movement, you are against it, and if you feel that something is unjust, you must do something about it.  Many unjust things happen, and I don’t do anything.  Does it make me a bad person? No. Does it make me normal? Probably.  And people labeled normal find extra-normal quite difficult to swallow.

Edit: *Ingenuous

Quote

Manipulative Thoughts

I can’t write as a scientist, just as an observer of people. I don’t perform any experiments, no surveys, but the tool of the bullshit writer is life experience. Los geht’s.

I think it’s natural for highly motivated people to look for the most efficient way to get what they want. Changing self-identity in different situations – not being true to yourself as Disney movies want you to act – can actually help you manipulate the situations you find yourself in for the better. Sadly, it is branded immoral and people will tell you all the time that honesty, integrity, and being true to your emotions is the right thing, because it removes the hassle of being caught in an awkward situation, lies catching up to you. It’s a bit like robbing a bank, though, because as soon as you get caught, the advantage is taken away and you go to jail for a long time. Lots of films are based on the white fib turning into a huge cover-up. Even some peoples’ entire lives. But don’t let that dissuade you from trying. The youngest child of a large family can attest to feigning actions and behaviors, basically being an actor, to get preferential parental judgment. I’ll go through and detail my lies later, and how I avoid ending up in the clinker that other peoples’ mental blacklists are.

Don’t worry about “losing yourself”; that’s just bullshit to make you feel morally inadequate. Hell, Eminem did that and won a rap battle.

Such behavior is great, unless you consider that it can tarnish a reputation if you live in a vacuum like on a college campus, in which case move to China and develop an entirely new identity. Call yourself Chackie Jan. Get what you want through manipulative stancing. Make your JDM low-rider life as extravagant or as minimalist as you need to get by.  Get yourself into good situations.  Bend the odds in your favor.

It’s possible to be more manipulative if the risk is less, such as living in a large city or moving around all the time.  This is true with almost everything.  Anonymity aids with all amoral ventures.  For example, when disturbed older guys look for cheese pizza (CP) on the internet through Tor, or when schoolboy bullies take to the airwaves and piledrive some helpless kid’s social life into the ground on Facebook with fake accounts.

Lying happens because there is something to gain. Presumably.

Hello, world.

This isn’t strictly a place for people to read what is written. It’s just a place that if you incidentally find yourself in, you may want to stay and smell the p-roses until you find a dandelion, which, as they say, is a weed, so I guess you might decide after that to take leave.

It’s a witting room. A place to try on new ideas. A semi-public place to get anonymous eyes from the creepy 55-year old trying on too-big pants in the adjacent cabin.  As I figure the best way to get better at writing is to put on these ideas, semi-privately, until I feel a need to do something more substantive.

I understand that nobody reads blogs. Ergo, this is the best idea I’ve had yet.

For the time being, it’s a feelings place, my Kohl’s bedroom, in which to test unsubstantiated, superficially clever ramblings, until I take one out the store and let those new luxury boxer-briefs out into the world.  A witting room.

Other notes:  I’m not big on making the text pop, but I’m not so small on it either.  I keep a journal of even worse ideas than this crap. Well, Google Keep holds onto it for me, before they crush my soul when they go defunct.

echo…