Trips and stuff

[imperfectclark]

I'm a bit overdue, but here's a quick mention on my vacation(s). First, I went to Virginia for a weekend for a 20-person gathering of top gamers on Nintendo titles over multiple consoles. The trip included organized tournaments for Mario Kart 64, GoldenEye, and ping pong, as well as plenty of Super Mario Kart (the original)--all things I love and

Comments

[imperfectclark]

Very well said, on the topic of defection. I've already had a few people dismiss the idea of embarking out West as an attempt to escape something; fear of the future, in general, maybe. But the emphasis of my relocation is on the new place and not the old place, which relates exactly to the (good) point you made about gain versus sacrifice. Honestly, I've looked at people who move around (for spiritual or romantic reasons) admirably if not enviably for their courage to act for the purpose of enriching their experience.

I'm tired of having to bear guilt for having long-term interests and goals that conflict with a majority with whom I share diminishing likeness; an American majority that believes in antiquated values bound to the "American Dream"--I'm sick of the American Dream. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of property" - that's how it was coined and that's what it might as well still be. Possessions improve status, which is important for survival (and this scales up to any wealth I think)... it's as though these pursuits are an accident of our the instincts that honed themselves over millennia to refine our survival rate. Maybe I'm being overly deterministic, but it doesn't really change the inherent emptiness of pursuing wealth and possessions. I suppose there's something irresistibly indulgent about pursuing, acquiring, and possessing new things, things that directly increment one's status (in any number of social contexts), but the driving force is seldom anything but selfishness or greed (the kind that deals loss to others). I think another reason people pursue these things is that they simply don't know how else to make themselves happy without becoming bored (in the broadest sense). Yet it's maddening to know "these" people, the constituents of the majority, are happier than I am, on the average.

I think the biggest mistake I ever made was thinking about any of this--ignorance is a far more potent survival mechanism than possessing wealth/status or perhaps--most dreadfully--enlightenment itself. I'll pursue it anyway, because what truths I've recovered, combined with my love affair with being rational (gasp), leave me no other choice. I just wish I could feel privileged with these epiphanies, the way I might if I were an Easterner.

I could carve these thoughts on the fucking moon and they still wouldn't even stir a ripple in collective human experience. So yeah... beertime it is.