(Untitled)

[smokedamage]

we tell each other tales of vampires and zombies and the dead coming back from the grave, and we always have. Why? Storytelling is a cultural tradition and also serves an educational purpose. But what is it that fascinates us so, and compels us to go over this same theme over and over again? Sure, ghost stories are fun (now), and box office

Comments

[pollyanna_n]

Ah just what is the meaning of life

[smokedamage]

There's so much to do though. The sheer volume is staggering. I think i have managed to let myself get intimidated.

[ideaspace]

Honestly, and I'd only tell you this if I were drunk, lucky you -- I think we all turn into fiction. That is, we are reincarnated as words and ideas. We only ever existed as people perceived us, so we return as that. We become stories.. IF we've developed souls enough to be considered story material.

It's all i got.

[smokedamage]

Beowulf lives on because Christophe Lambert played him in a movie?

I don't know about this soul thing though. Is the build up of infamy the same thing?

And i am always lucky, it seems.

This is my goofy brain

[ideaspace]

Not because people keep talking about you or remember you, but because you actually turn into the stuff that gets into creator's heads and becomes fiction. You translate, if you've grown a soul, you translate into idea stuff and actually become fiction. That's my new mythology. I think there's more to it, but I haven't really wanted to think about it because I'm afraid I'll actually believe myself.

Re: This is my goofy brain

[smokedamage]

So Arthur lives because Lucas stole parts of his tale for Star Wars?

So it's almost like an elemental recycling? As our bodies turn to compost and can be reused to grow plants to feed prey food and we eat the prey food, so does what we are and what we meant to people provide fuel for further creation?

Believing yourself can't be that bad a thing. Admittedly, it is your perception shaped by your own experiences, good and bad, but at least you are in real time, the present and right there. It really is no less worrying than believing someone else's translation of an interpretation of a ancient book allegedly dictated by a "God".

[evilmegsy]

I agree with pollyanna - experience is why we are here. I am not even sure there is some real purpose to it - hey I would like to say that we are all put on earth for some great purpose - whether it be as simple as helping a child that grows up to contribute something to the world, inspiring somebody or actually contributing something ourselves, ie an amazing new invention, saving a life etc. However, I think that is too trite. There are too many people in the world that simply exist - the Rod's of the world who don't contribute anything to this world and are just a waste of space. I don't understand the meaning of life or why we are encouraged to believe life is valuable but I do believe that we can make our own lives and those around us valuable by striving to live a productive life. That may be your interpretation of productive and therefore a interpretative version of value, but if you honestly believe it is valuable then it probably is in some dimension or other. It is when you settle for second best and mediocrity that

[smokedamage]

What does all the experience add up to in the end? An experienced corpse. Which for all intents and purposes is the same as an inexperienced corpse. If it is about a richness of soul, then how can all our values be so different? The breeders and the non-breeders, the hedonists and the puritans, etc. How is it that our souls are filled by different things. How can a home with white picket fences, and a little family and a dog and a tank full of dead fish be enough for some, and how can it be that the life of a nomad following the grateful dead be enough for others? I am so confused.

encouraged to believe life is valuable but I do believe that we can make our own lives and those around us valuable by striving to live a productive life. That may be your interpretation of productive and therefore a interpretative version of value, but if you honestly believe it is valuable then it probably is in some dimension or other. It is when you settle for second best and mediocrity that life becomes valueless and pointless.you've been at this Law

The law thing I know...

[evilmegsy]

I am just about to take two legal and English writing subjects on next semester! Maybe one day I will use it for good instead of evil.....speaking one wordsmith to another, I am full of shit

Re: The law thing I know...

[smokedamage]

i don't know. I doubt at times that it is worth it.

[fearlessflight]

Why are we here?

Maybe I shouldn't answer this while I'm drinking vodka... um I think it's a challenge to rise above. To turn the tide. We seem to be built with this fatal flaw- this insecurity that leads us to hate & envy & think we have to hold everything that we care about with such a clamped fist. Yet if we don't then things flow. We may not be the best, prettiest cleverest but that doesn't seem to matter in the true joys of little things. Like when you & I walked some beach in Sydney & I felt the full force of our shared friendship. Or some dumb conversation I have with Steve when I'm just walking to the shops. He might be singing the thoughts of dogs aloud 'bow ra row, I'm a dog & I can smell some other dogs wee, Bow ra row!" These things make me feel real good... even better than an encore believe it or not!

[smokedamage]

i think drinking vodka meant you were perfectly armed for this task, it's not just the weather that makes the Russian writers so grim.

Perhaps it is the conflict i am having between trying to turn the tide and looking after my own neck, especially because i am finding my efforts do little, and that is disheartening.

I adore you, by the way.

[saltdawg]

Man. Why do you have to ask this of me. NOW?

You know I could tell you, but then I'd be betraying the lie I've been rolling around in my head for the last year or so. You know I could tell you but it would only end in disaster. Just enjoy yourself as much as possible, and be as good a person as you can. And if the two contradict themselves...FUCK you've got me answering the question. I can't handle this. Not right now. I have other things to concentrate upon. Why are you asking in the first place? You know the answer better than I.

[smokedamage]

i don't know a god damned thing. I didn't expect an answer from anyone.

If you enjoy being as good a person as possible, then i guess the answer is easy, but there come times when that being good thing starts to get a bit boring, to become same-old same-old and i wonder if it's the temptation in specific or just temptation itself we give in to. Is it because we want to do something that is bad, or just that we want to be bad that lures us so.

[saltdawg]

when we buy ourselves Riot-guns and six shooters.

Oh. Wait.

Yer an Ozzie, you din't believe in such things.

Just cxomplain to your MP hten. That'll do trick...

[smokedamage]

My MP used to be a rock star.