holy shit. late. class in morning. must....post...
I gotta jot this shit down before i forget
I talked with Sam tonight. very long. very long
Also very valuable. I am glad you guys (my livejournal has a readership of 2) are my friends. you are very helpful.
WE spoke of cognitive schemas. in depth. mad depth, yo.
Important concept : 'PRETTY GOODNESS'.
There's this old chinese story (why do i know it? no idea. just listen, fucker) about Confucius walking around in the mountains. All of a sudden, he hears singing. And he sees this dishevelled, crazed mountain man lunge out of the forest, singing and dancing at the top of his lungs (the bottoms of your lungs are TERRIBLE for dancing). But this dude is FUCKED UP. He's naked, and dirty, and lousy, and obviously thin and malnourished and suffering from exposure and going mad from loneliness up in the fucking mountain. So Confucius is...well...Confused-ius... and he asks the dude, "how can you be so happy, when your life is so obviously shitty??". And the dude pauses and very calmly replies something like, "My life isn't shitty, silly. I am alive, which is better than being dead. I am a man, which is better than being a woman (delicious mysogyny. ok. NO MORE PARENTHESES FOR ME TONIGHT!) . I am a human being which is better than any other sort of animal. I am completely free on this mountain, which is better than being in prison. And I have the sun and the animals and all that jazz to entertain and warm me. So my life ROCKS.". And with that, he dances and sings off into the forest. Confucius says something terribly profound, but the gist was, "Fuck yeah!".
So. A lot of problems come from trying to get 'the best' instead of 'good enough'. Optimization destroys enjoyment. (one last parentheses. To ben: i understand that sometimes optimization IS enjoyment, or at least increases it. But in MANY cases, this is not so. I enjoy writing these posts MUCH more when i just jam them out like this, then if i tried to make every turn of phrase EXQUISITE.)
Anyway. Optimization threatens 'pretty goodness', also known as 'CONTENTMENT'.
So. THINGS I REALIZED TONIGHT.
My last post is...not quite right.
This is true in one facet, at least. WIth regards to Sparky (or Zippy). I'm gonna stay, or revert to, vegan. 'cause fuck it. I'm not a hyena. It's very easy to not eat meat (it's not like beans are in short supply). And the fact that I can't save ALL the animals, i.e. wildebeests, makes no difference. Not eating meat = doing something nice. Perhaps insignificant. But nice. And i like to do nice things, within limits. So i'm gonna keep that up.
Ok. I think in pictures that represent wider concepts (note Sparky and Timmy).
The picture that expresses what i fear about sub-optimization is The Gray Man.
This is basically a stereotypical vision of a 40-year old white collar suburban Father who is having a midlife crisis. He 'wakes up' one day and realizes that he hates his wife, can't stand his kids, has no love for his job, and has not done any good for the world. HE is bored and trapped and feels intense REGRET. I fear to be The Gray Man.
I apply RATIONALITY very heavily in order to handle problems in my life. This works well with problems/ goals with VERY SPECIFIC inputs and very specific and certain outputs/results.
This way, i avoid irrational feelings that lead to bad concrete results (like buying a bunch of lottery tickets instead of investing my money. The first is irrationally exciting, but the second is obviously a more efficient way to achieve the level of financial security that i want). This is an acceptable way to deal with this sort of problem.
But this is NOT an efficient way to deal with LIFE. Life (mine, specifically) does NOT have discrete, specific, calculable inputs/outputs. It has a million of each, which blend into each other and interact in unpredictable ways.
So, after talking to Sam for a LONG ASS TIME (thanks again), i finally concluded that perhaps I should try a DIFFERENT WAY of making BIG LIFE DECISIONS, because past experience indicated that EVERY TIME (this is 100% frequency) I tried to make them with a pure, rational schema or plan or whatever, I FUCKED MYSELF UP and lapsed into CRUSHING DEPRESSION.
The reason why is expressed in THIS image. I imagine rationality and rational 'ways of thinking about/ dealing with stuff' to be like some sort of machine that converts cubes into whatever sort of shape you want. But it can only make one kind of shape at a time, and it only accepts cubes. Everything in the real world is....ectoplasm, like in the Ghost Busters, or a fucking squid, or EXTREMELY NON-CUBIC THINGS. You must crush or mold or carve up these things, in order for the RM (rational machine) to work on them. And, of course, you will get very specific shapes out of it, but it can't make a squid, or ectoplasm, or anything ORGANIC and PERFECTLY SUITED TO HUMAN LIFE. So the machine is only useful when either 1) the inputs are somewhat unimportant or non-vital ( e.g. the timing of my meals) or 2) They are already somewhat abstract or easily divisible into cubish units (e.g. financial issues, business decisions, packing a suitcase). Also, the outputs have to be similarly non-vital, since the result will necessarily be kind of awkward and non-intuitive (timed meals, severely restricted wardrobe, etc). THIS IS OVER-ANALYSIS. WHERE WAS I GOING???
OH. So, the goddamn POINT is, LIFE (as in the whole shebang, 'what is my purpose in the universe?' sorta thing) is enormous and fantastically amorphous. In order to get it into the RM (i.e., to devise a rationally generated Life Philosophy) you have to cut off vast swathes of it, which means that, no matter how perfect the machine is, the output is necessarily DOA. Though it may be noble and beautiful and perfect in many ways, it is no longer...liveable. It has become incompatible with Human Nature, which is, frustratingly and intractably, wobbly. This wobbly-cube conflict is expressed in me as a loss of the DESIRE TO LIVE.
The question IS: where to go from here?
My answer, as expressed in the last entry, was 'well, hell, let's cook up a new, improved, souped-up RM, crank out a new Life philosophy, and see if i can use it to destroy the old one, which is fucking me up so bad.'. This has been tried before. It has ALWAYS failed. Like, EVERY DAMN TIME. I just, honestly, had no better ideas.
So, Sam, over the course of several hours, managed to suggest one (through a hail of my objections and qualifications and defensive maneuvers). It is still scary and weird to me. But it's not an RM, and that means, at least, i'm not CERTAIN that it will fail. This is good enough.
So the name for this alternative is either CALM THE FUCK DOWN or PRETTY FUCKIN' GOOD. Nice vocab, right?
It's operation is best demonstrated through a variant of the Gray Man visualization. In GM2, the same dude is in a NON-OPTIMAL situation, rather than a HOPELESS AND TERRIBLE one.
Still 40, still suburban. Still wife and 2.5 kids. Still a relatively dull job (not the one he dreamed of as a kid, but gives him a decent level of fulfillment and money, and he definitely doesn't HATE it). But now he actually deeply loves his wife and kids, and cares a lot about them. He also has friends whom he cares about, and who genuinely like him, with whom he engages in moderately fun leisure activities (e.g. bowling). He doesn't donate a big portion of his income to noble causes. But every once in a while, he will feel sad about the dying babies somewhere, and so he 'adopts a child' and sends a LITTLE money every month and gets smarmy little letters and all that jazz . His life, in other words, is not BAD. He doesn't hurt anyone. He takes care of himself and his family, and loves those around him, and has a vague positive feeling toward humanity in general. He's a DECENT GUY.
BUT. This guy is NON-OPTIMAL.
He COULD hunt for a better job. He COULD spend more time with his kids. He COULD keep up with politics and vote in the elections (he doesn't right now. Most importantly (for me), he COULD spend a little less time or money on bowling, and adopt another S. American baby.
This man, interestingly enough, is extremely like my Dad. For a long time (and a little now) I desperately feared being like this. Just...average. Unremarkable. A 'decent guy', but definitely not a 'great man'.
The most important part of GM2 is that, one day, he is doing his thing, and the suffering people of the world come to his mind. He feels vaguely positive towards them, and he thinks, 'you know, i could give a bit more, if i gave up some bowling'. The idea is that GM2 has, after many incremental changes, reached his equilibrium point. He is giving a significant part of his income charitably. At this point, giving any more will require significant reduction in his bowling. He likes his bowling a lot. It is really fun. So THE KEY IS, he thinks, "hm. Nope. I like bowling.". And he changes nothing. And he DOESN'T FEEL BAD ABOUT IT. It's just that at this point in his life, giving some more money away doesn't make him any HAPPIER than bowling does. He doesn't OWE the suffering masses anything. So he just makes the decision that makes him happiest.
Also, side note. In the BEST version of GM2, the question doesn't even OCCUR to him. He is just CONTENT with his life, and feels no need to question it. He knows he's a DECENT GUY, and that's GOOD ENOUGH for him. There's no need to be a SAINT or a ROCKSTAR. THIS, the here and now, the somewhat mediocre, utterly forgettable life he's leading, is PRETTY FRICKIN' GOOD, and he's not going to ruin it by WORRYING about little details like whether he gives another $5 to the United Way.
The point is, that GM2 makes NO RATIONAL SENSE, by any schema that I can devise. He CARES about others (his wife and kids, even the amorphous 'suffering masses' that he's never seen). But he cares about them in an irrationally (but very naturally) uneven way. His kids are much more dear to him than any other kids, even though he KNOWS they are no more intrinsically valuable. He just loves them more, and cares about their happiness more deeply. He cares about amorphous people enough to give SOME money, but he doesn't take that caring to it's RATIONAL EXTREME and care about them enough to give A LOT of money, so much that it would make him less comfortable. There is no rational system that I can figure out, no set of rules or principles or ideals or beliefs, that justifies him and makes him it's goal. EVERY system (both the 'GO TIMMY' and 'FUCK TIMMY' systems) says that he's not really on track. He's stopping short. He's FAILING.
But, the irrational truth is, he's succeeding. He's not WINNING, but that, itself, is vital to succeeding. He feels good when he's caring about people and doing nice things. He also feels good when he's doing completely selfish things.
The key is, he's NOT HYPER-REFLECTIVE. He NEVER stays up at night thinking about whether he's Fulfilling his Potential or Achieving Self-Actualization or Doing his Best or being As Happy As He Possibly Can Be (ahahpcb). He just DOESN'T CARE THAT MUCH. He's fucking calm. In his own mind, he is GOOD ENOUGH. No sweat, man. He's not dancing in ecstacy, but he's humming the same tune as the guy on the mountain was.
He is what he is, and BY DEFINITION, that is good enough. There is no reason for him to change, or to become any better, unless he just FEELS LIKE IT, or thinks it would be FUN, or something.
So. This guy is not a beautiful glorious bastion of Truth and Justice. And he also isn't a ripped-core, charismatic go-getter who Slays Mad Hot Bitches every night. But he's also not suicidal, and he doesn't regret missing out on those extremes. He's fine. He's himself. They're great, but he's good enough.
ok. i need to fucking get to sleep. I'm trying to move toward GM2. And, as Sam says, this involves.... a weird sort of 'soft focus' lifestyle. A shedding of excessive reflection and planning and agonization over my 'overall worldview'. Since every 'overall worldview' i've ever had has made me miserable, perhaps the solution is to STOP FORMULATING OVERALL WORLDVIEWS. Fight Club: We are a generation of men raised by women. Do you really think another woman is the solution we need?
OH MY GOD. IT is snowing!!!!!!
MAJOR BULLETIN. STOP THE PRESSES. THIS IS THE REAL FUCKING DEAL
I made a pact with the powers of the universe after we built the Snow Pyramid. I declared that if it snowed again, to a significant degree, i would construct the Ozymandias legs and head, at least 10 feet high, out of snow. It's from a poem by Shelley:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:-Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
I am still trying to decide what to inscribe (i.e., write in Sam's red paint, which i still have, and will pay for, if necessary) on the pedestal. So far, my best idea is 'Despair?', both to make the allusion perfectly obvious, and to mock the poem's original meaning. Shelley was trying to show the futility and transcience of all human effort and power. The 'Snowmandias' would celebrate the defiant human spirit of creation and accomplishment, in the face of his own insignificance in a vast and uncaring universe. Waddayathink? If it does not snow enough, i will be pissed. If it snows enough and you guys are not interested in helping, that is ok. If anything, it makes the whole project more dramatic and...meaningful, i guess.
ANYWAY. MASSIVE DIVERSION (although actually somewhat relevant: This serves no good but my own. But i do not feel guilty for doing it instead of something else. It is just good in it's own right, and requires no deep reflection to be justified).
Ok. So conclusion:
I will keep my statement from last post, that "I reserve the right to not give a damn" about anyone or anything. This is to make sure Guilt does not overwhelm me again. At the same time! I am scuttling the overarching philosophy of 'I don't owe shit to shit' and always following my own self-interest. I will leave my internal policies intentionally vague and potentially self-contradictory, with huge expanses of wiggle room. In order to counteract my tendency towards HYPERMENTATION, I will very intentionally NOT try to be consistent. I will NOT think deeply about anything farther ahead than the end of this year. I will NOT analyze any situation in terms of Timmy, or of obligation, or of morality, or of any sort of overarching principle; Instead, I will deliberately make such decisions based on 'vibe' or 'whim' or 'what feels right' and refuse to interrogate it any further. This is not necessarily a permanent state. IT is not necessarily a temporary state either. Once i have escaped the deadly orbit of guilt and overarching cognitive models, I will simply drift in whatever way occurs to me, and that will be GOOD.
Now, random thoughts and ideas and snippets and such that I don't have the energy to explicate:
my HONESTY THEORY: spongy. more of a guideline or a suggestion or a general strategy than a PHILOSOPHY OR RULE.
life is not valenced. there is no final score. 'the best' does not exist. 'right' does not exist. 'self-actualization' does not exist. Option A precisely equals option B, but they are diametrically opposed. There are a million different situations in which I could die saying 'I had a pretty good run. I have no regrets'. It is also just as good to die WITHOUT EVEN CONSIDERING the possibility of regret.
Tai chi. suboptimal IS optimal. Eliminate interfering muscle contraction. Relaxation IS motion.
AMUNEDAMUNEDAMA-THAT'S ALL, FOLKS!
I talked with Sam tonight. very long. very long
Also very valuable. I am glad you guys (my livejournal has a readership of 2) are my friends. you are very helpful.
WE spoke of cognitive schemas. in depth. mad depth, yo.
Important concept : 'PRETTY GOODNESS'.
There's this old chinese story (why do i know it? no idea. just listen, fucker) about Confucius walking around in the mountains. All of a sudden, he hears singing. And he sees this dishevelled, crazed mountain man lunge out of the forest, singing and dancing at the top of his lungs (the bottoms of your lungs are TERRIBLE for dancing). But this dude is FUCKED UP. He's naked, and dirty, and lousy, and obviously thin and malnourished and suffering from exposure and going mad from loneliness up in the fucking mountain. So Confucius is...well...Confused-ius... and he asks the dude, "how can you be so happy, when your life is so obviously shitty??". And the dude pauses and very calmly replies something like, "My life isn't shitty, silly. I am alive, which is better than being dead. I am a man, which is better than being a woman (delicious mysogyny. ok. NO MORE PARENTHESES FOR ME TONIGHT!) . I am a human being which is better than any other sort of animal. I am completely free on this mountain, which is better than being in prison. And I have the sun and the animals and all that jazz to entertain and warm me. So my life ROCKS.". And with that, he dances and sings off into the forest. Confucius says something terribly profound, but the gist was, "Fuck yeah!".
So. A lot of problems come from trying to get 'the best' instead of 'good enough'. Optimization destroys enjoyment. (one last parentheses. To ben: i understand that sometimes optimization IS enjoyment, or at least increases it. But in MANY cases, this is not so. I enjoy writing these posts MUCH more when i just jam them out like this, then if i tried to make every turn of phrase EXQUISITE.)
Anyway. Optimization threatens 'pretty goodness', also known as 'CONTENTMENT'.
So. THINGS I REALIZED TONIGHT.
My last post is...not quite right.
This is true in one facet, at least. WIth regards to Sparky (or Zippy). I'm gonna stay, or revert to, vegan. 'cause fuck it. I'm not a hyena. It's very easy to not eat meat (it's not like beans are in short supply). And the fact that I can't save ALL the animals, i.e. wildebeests, makes no difference. Not eating meat = doing something nice. Perhaps insignificant. But nice. And i like to do nice things, within limits. So i'm gonna keep that up.
Ok. I think in pictures that represent wider concepts (note Sparky and Timmy).
The picture that expresses what i fear about sub-optimization is The Gray Man.
This is basically a stereotypical vision of a 40-year old white collar suburban Father who is having a midlife crisis. He 'wakes up' one day and realizes that he hates his wife, can't stand his kids, has no love for his job, and has not done any good for the world. HE is bored and trapped and feels intense REGRET. I fear to be The Gray Man.
I apply RATIONALITY very heavily in order to handle problems in my life. This works well with problems/ goals with VERY SPECIFIC inputs and very specific and certain outputs/results.
This way, i avoid irrational feelings that lead to bad concrete results (like buying a bunch of lottery tickets instead of investing my money. The first is irrationally exciting, but the second is obviously a more efficient way to achieve the level of financial security that i want). This is an acceptable way to deal with this sort of problem.
But this is NOT an efficient way to deal with LIFE. Life (mine, specifically) does NOT have discrete, specific, calculable inputs/outputs. It has a million of each, which blend into each other and interact in unpredictable ways.
So, after talking to Sam for a LONG ASS TIME (thanks again), i finally concluded that perhaps I should try a DIFFERENT WAY of making BIG LIFE DECISIONS, because past experience indicated that EVERY TIME (this is 100% frequency) I tried to make them with a pure, rational schema or plan or whatever, I FUCKED MYSELF UP and lapsed into CRUSHING DEPRESSION.
The reason why is expressed in THIS image. I imagine rationality and rational 'ways of thinking about/ dealing with stuff' to be like some sort of machine that converts cubes into whatever sort of shape you want. But it can only make one kind of shape at a time, and it only accepts cubes. Everything in the real world is....ectoplasm, like in the Ghost Busters, or a fucking squid, or EXTREMELY NON-CUBIC THINGS. You must crush or mold or carve up these things, in order for the RM (rational machine) to work on them. And, of course, you will get very specific shapes out of it, but it can't make a squid, or ectoplasm, or anything ORGANIC and PERFECTLY SUITED TO HUMAN LIFE. So the machine is only useful when either 1) the inputs are somewhat unimportant or non-vital ( e.g. the timing of my meals) or 2) They are already somewhat abstract or easily divisible into cubish units (e.g. financial issues, business decisions, packing a suitcase). Also, the outputs have to be similarly non-vital, since the result will necessarily be kind of awkward and non-intuitive (timed meals, severely restricted wardrobe, etc). THIS IS OVER-ANALYSIS. WHERE WAS I GOING???
OH. So, the goddamn POINT is, LIFE (as in the whole shebang, 'what is my purpose in the universe?' sorta thing) is enormous and fantastically amorphous. In order to get it into the RM (i.e., to devise a rationally generated Life Philosophy) you have to cut off vast swathes of it, which means that, no matter how perfect the machine is, the output is necessarily DOA. Though it may be noble and beautiful and perfect in many ways, it is no longer...liveable. It has become incompatible with Human Nature, which is, frustratingly and intractably, wobbly. This wobbly-cube conflict is expressed in me as a loss of the DESIRE TO LIVE.
The question IS: where to go from here?
My answer, as expressed in the last entry, was 'well, hell, let's cook up a new, improved, souped-up RM, crank out a new Life philosophy, and see if i can use it to destroy the old one, which is fucking me up so bad.'. This has been tried before. It has ALWAYS failed. Like, EVERY DAMN TIME. I just, honestly, had no better ideas.
So, Sam, over the course of several hours, managed to suggest one (through a hail of my objections and qualifications and defensive maneuvers). It is still scary and weird to me. But it's not an RM, and that means, at least, i'm not CERTAIN that it will fail. This is good enough.
So the name for this alternative is either CALM THE FUCK DOWN or PRETTY FUCKIN' GOOD. Nice vocab, right?
It's operation is best demonstrated through a variant of the Gray Man visualization. In GM2, the same dude is in a NON-OPTIMAL situation, rather than a HOPELESS AND TERRIBLE one.
Still 40, still suburban. Still wife and 2.5 kids. Still a relatively dull job (not the one he dreamed of as a kid, but gives him a decent level of fulfillment and money, and he definitely doesn't HATE it). But now he actually deeply loves his wife and kids, and cares a lot about them. He also has friends whom he cares about, and who genuinely like him, with whom he engages in moderately fun leisure activities (e.g. bowling). He doesn't donate a big portion of his income to noble causes. But every once in a while, he will feel sad about the dying babies somewhere, and so he 'adopts a child' and sends a LITTLE money every month and gets smarmy little letters and all that jazz . His life, in other words, is not BAD. He doesn't hurt anyone. He takes care of himself and his family, and loves those around him, and has a vague positive feeling toward humanity in general. He's a DECENT GUY.
BUT. This guy is NON-OPTIMAL.
He COULD hunt for a better job. He COULD spend more time with his kids. He COULD keep up with politics and vote in the elections (he doesn't right now. Most importantly (for me), he COULD spend a little less time or money on bowling, and adopt another S. American baby.
This man, interestingly enough, is extremely like my Dad. For a long time (and a little now) I desperately feared being like this. Just...average. Unremarkable. A 'decent guy', but definitely not a 'great man'.
The most important part of GM2 is that, one day, he is doing his thing, and the suffering people of the world come to his mind. He feels vaguely positive towards them, and he thinks, 'you know, i could give a bit more, if i gave up some bowling'. The idea is that GM2 has, after many incremental changes, reached his equilibrium point. He is giving a significant part of his income charitably. At this point, giving any more will require significant reduction in his bowling. He likes his bowling a lot. It is really fun. So THE KEY IS, he thinks, "hm. Nope. I like bowling.". And he changes nothing. And he DOESN'T FEEL BAD ABOUT IT. It's just that at this point in his life, giving some more money away doesn't make him any HAPPIER than bowling does. He doesn't OWE the suffering masses anything. So he just makes the decision that makes him happiest.
Also, side note. In the BEST version of GM2, the question doesn't even OCCUR to him. He is just CONTENT with his life, and feels no need to question it. He knows he's a DECENT GUY, and that's GOOD ENOUGH for him. There's no need to be a SAINT or a ROCKSTAR. THIS, the here and now, the somewhat mediocre, utterly forgettable life he's leading, is PRETTY FRICKIN' GOOD, and he's not going to ruin it by WORRYING about little details like whether he gives another $5 to the United Way.
The point is, that GM2 makes NO RATIONAL SENSE, by any schema that I can devise. He CARES about others (his wife and kids, even the amorphous 'suffering masses' that he's never seen). But he cares about them in an irrationally (but very naturally) uneven way. His kids are much more dear to him than any other kids, even though he KNOWS they are no more intrinsically valuable. He just loves them more, and cares about their happiness more deeply. He cares about amorphous people enough to give SOME money, but he doesn't take that caring to it's RATIONAL EXTREME and care about them enough to give A LOT of money, so much that it would make him less comfortable. There is no rational system that I can figure out, no set of rules or principles or ideals or beliefs, that justifies him and makes him it's goal. EVERY system (both the 'GO TIMMY' and 'FUCK TIMMY' systems) says that he's not really on track. He's stopping short. He's FAILING.
But, the irrational truth is, he's succeeding. He's not WINNING, but that, itself, is vital to succeeding. He feels good when he's caring about people and doing nice things. He also feels good when he's doing completely selfish things.
The key is, he's NOT HYPER-REFLECTIVE. He NEVER stays up at night thinking about whether he's Fulfilling his Potential or Achieving Self-Actualization or Doing his Best or being As Happy As He Possibly Can Be (ahahpcb). He just DOESN'T CARE THAT MUCH. He's fucking calm. In his own mind, he is GOOD ENOUGH. No sweat, man. He's not dancing in ecstacy, but he's humming the same tune as the guy on the mountain was.
He is what he is, and BY DEFINITION, that is good enough. There is no reason for him to change, or to become any better, unless he just FEELS LIKE IT, or thinks it would be FUN, or something.
So. This guy is not a beautiful glorious bastion of Truth and Justice. And he also isn't a ripped-core, charismatic go-getter who Slays Mad Hot Bitches every night. But he's also not suicidal, and he doesn't regret missing out on those extremes. He's fine. He's himself. They're great, but he's good enough.
ok. i need to fucking get to sleep. I'm trying to move toward GM2. And, as Sam says, this involves.... a weird sort of 'soft focus' lifestyle. A shedding of excessive reflection and planning and agonization over my 'overall worldview'. Since every 'overall worldview' i've ever had has made me miserable, perhaps the solution is to STOP FORMULATING OVERALL WORLDVIEWS. Fight Club: We are a generation of men raised by women. Do you really think another woman is the solution we need?
OH MY GOD. IT is snowing!!!!!!
MAJOR BULLETIN. STOP THE PRESSES. THIS IS THE REAL FUCKING DEAL
I made a pact with the powers of the universe after we built the Snow Pyramid. I declared that if it snowed again, to a significant degree, i would construct the Ozymandias legs and head, at least 10 feet high, out of snow. It's from a poem by Shelley:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:-Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
I am still trying to decide what to inscribe (i.e., write in Sam's red paint, which i still have, and will pay for, if necessary) on the pedestal. So far, my best idea is 'Despair?', both to make the allusion perfectly obvious, and to mock the poem's original meaning. Shelley was trying to show the futility and transcience of all human effort and power. The 'Snowmandias' would celebrate the defiant human spirit of creation and accomplishment, in the face of his own insignificance in a vast and uncaring universe. Waddayathink? If it does not snow enough, i will be pissed. If it snows enough and you guys are not interested in helping, that is ok. If anything, it makes the whole project more dramatic and...meaningful, i guess.
ANYWAY. MASSIVE DIVERSION (although actually somewhat relevant: This serves no good but my own. But i do not feel guilty for doing it instead of something else. It is just good in it's own right, and requires no deep reflection to be justified).
Ok. So conclusion:
I will keep my statement from last post, that "I reserve the right to not give a damn" about anyone or anything. This is to make sure Guilt does not overwhelm me again. At the same time! I am scuttling the overarching philosophy of 'I don't owe shit to shit' and always following my own self-interest. I will leave my internal policies intentionally vague and potentially self-contradictory, with huge expanses of wiggle room. In order to counteract my tendency towards HYPERMENTATION, I will very intentionally NOT try to be consistent. I will NOT think deeply about anything farther ahead than the end of this year. I will NOT analyze any situation in terms of Timmy, or of obligation, or of morality, or of any sort of overarching principle; Instead, I will deliberately make such decisions based on 'vibe' or 'whim' or 'what feels right' and refuse to interrogate it any further. This is not necessarily a permanent state. IT is not necessarily a temporary state either. Once i have escaped the deadly orbit of guilt and overarching cognitive models, I will simply drift in whatever way occurs to me, and that will be GOOD.
Now, random thoughts and ideas and snippets and such that I don't have the energy to explicate:
my HONESTY THEORY: spongy. more of a guideline or a suggestion or a general strategy than a PHILOSOPHY OR RULE.
life is not valenced. there is no final score. 'the best' does not exist. 'right' does not exist. 'self-actualization' does not exist. Option A precisely equals option B, but they are diametrically opposed. There are a million different situations in which I could die saying 'I had a pretty good run. I have no regrets'. It is also just as good to die WITHOUT EVEN CONSIDERING the possibility of regret.
Tai chi. suboptimal IS optimal. Eliminate interfering muscle contraction. Relaxation IS motion.
AMUNEDAMUNEDAMA-THAT'S ALL, FOLKS!