It's the cold morning and I'm hungry, sleep-deprived, and behind in my homework. Plus, there's a sea of bike traffic by the Quad.
And then here comes a man trucking along with a bionic leg. His leg, from his torso down to his feet is a compound of glistening, metallic, pneumonic cylinders and rubber tendons. In addition, this man is holding a long, white cane with red tape on it. He is blind. He's waving the wand back and forth like a someone holding a metal detector. Surprisingly, he negotiates the traffic well, and even upon encountering a small staircase, he hops over it and continues unbridled. And that's what this man was: unbridled. He had his chest stout, his head straight, and an earnest, confident look on his face.
Upon seeing this I was stunned. To think, that here was a man that appeared to have suffered a major calamity, a bad car accident perhaps, and had the temerity to still stick it out at a tough university.
What I felt watching him was like someone was directly feeding endorphins into my head. It felt like the sun was coming out in London. And this was enough to set my day in positive motion.
color=red
It seems I'm niche-ifying myself.
In my desire for uniqueness and in the quenching of my thirst for novel information, I feel like I'm isolating myself further and further away from others.
In Junior High, all it took for me to "identify" with someone was that they either had some indian or philipino in them, or they were good at math like me.
color=sandybrown
In High School, being into technology, and/or also having the same humor interests that I had (repeating stupid phrases a million times over), and/or also sharing the same activity interests, like raquetball, was what it took.
Then in College, early on at Stanford, I felt "at home" with these people simply because they were all smart. I never felt uncomfortable bringing up a contemporary or advanced topic because they could all speak the same language.
However, my language has gotten more and more obscure, and I even now feel intellectually alienated from the intellectuals at Stanford.
For me now, I'm interested in this mixing of art, science, technology, and enlightenment into an antidote for boredom. The only people that seem to come close to that were the "Quantum Theologists". However, half of them are just there because they love alternative *.*... which is great. I'm all into mind-bending hippie funsterism. But I don't mix well with those kinds of people, it's too much of a culture to me. Others have their own specific field, like linguistics, semantics, or epistemology, that they would talk exclusively about. And likewise, I'm probably the same, I exclusively want to talk about philosophistric mind candy, especially where its related to technology. // I'm NOT saying I'm better than these ppl, just that I don't EVEN have enough in common with these guys to identify with them...
I made an observation about myself early on that I have a tendancy to at first be intimidated by a space, then I swallow it, and then I transcend it. It's borne of a habit of number-one-ism. This is my strong internal pressure to rise to the top. Plus my easy tendancy to get bored.
And so, at first I came to Stanford and was intimidated by the tall buildings and tall kids. Eventually I became a fixture of it. And then I quit it. ... but I'm back now to finish business... but I'm more or less a floating ghost on campus.
Anyways, I wanted to paint this picture of what happens when you run a maximization routine in life... you have a tendancy to break through the system that you were initially trying to maximize in and find yourself on an island...
// SIGTRAP... I think also, I need to do a better job seeking out like-minded people. My blog is helping me do that, so is drinking beer every Wednesday at EBF (a house called "Enchanted Broccoli Forest"), and living in the Bay Area.
// OTHER NOTE, I think this is indicative of the beginning of a transition to a more integrative Phil, one that likes to play with others and is willing to team up to build huge, colorful flotillas of intellectual splendor... (if that's what I'm truly after)
// Yeah, woah, WTF, it seems my prejudgments and presuppositions about people setup huge arbitrary walls between me and others. I consider myself a tolerant person, but I'll still write off people just based on the way they dress... this is not cool.
My goal is to be a millionaire by the time I'm 18
That was my mantra when I was 15. Let's call that the Old Guard.
One must continuously pursue his passions from the get go.
That's my current mantra that I've had since I was 20 (I'm close to 22 now). Let's call that the New Guard.
The intersection between these two manifested wonderfully when I was reflecting on my relationship with women today.
color=cadetblue
The past 4 years or so has been the undoing of habits that I developed in the Old Guard. Such habits involved an over-obsession with possessions. To me, back then, a man's worth was equivalent to his line-of-credit.
That path didn't satisfy me for long, so I inevitably decided to trot down unbeaten paths. I wanted to find paths that could truly fulfill me. It seems now, as my personal story unfolds, that the pursuit of passion and purpose are important components that make life worth living--as opposed to running up the counter on your balance sheet or accumulating toys.
The process of change has been mega-gradual. Old Guard habits have been dismantled piecemeal. Only recently, did I settle down on myself and say, "YO, I only need money inasmush as it gets me financial independence." Words are only worth the action that backs them, so I've even rejected post-graduation opportunities that don't align with my passions.
I initially thought the Old Guard v. New Guard changes were only going to manifest with regard to my labors of production, like (business v. art). This morning, however, I've been surprised by seeing the transition affecting my view on relationships and women.
It occured to me that I keep going for girls that I'm only partially interested in and who aren't super interested in me. I also seem to give short shrift to the girls that I actualy have good times with.
There is this disconnect between girls I conceptually want, and girls I am actually happy with.
And then I also noticed that my mental criterion that I'd passively use to judge women conflicted with the lifestyle-choices that a passion-based living would entail....
MY OLD GUARD PRIORITIES FOR GIRLS
- Physical attractiveness
- Nice, good personality etc..
- Smarts, classy...
Basically, in the Old Guard, I was looking for someone who I could bring to CEO-parties. Yeah, I know, it sounds MUTHAF**KING cruel, but it's the open-wounded truth.
MY NEW GUARD PRIORITIES FOR GIRLS
- Tolerance of alternative lifestyles
- Someone who makes me feel comfortable
In other words, now I'm looking for the "yin in my yang" if you will.
Oh, clarification: by the word now I mean, "YO, this is actually what I should be paying attention to".... for my current behavior contradicts with what I endorse.
I endorse the passion-based life, and I don't endorse the norms that society and parenting have made me believe. Really, my behavior is that of Pavlovian fawning over arbitrarily, pre-programmed desideratum. I shouldn't say arbitrarily though, for it seems the incorrect Old Guard "vision" I have for girls matches well with the Old Guard lifestyle that I was on.
On a related note.
Discussion with BAO...
with regards to priorities in the opposite sex.... she mentioned that "how you feel with the person now is the best evidence for whether your relationship will be successful." She gave me the impetus to conclude that your current feelings around someone should be given equal, if not more weight, than what you can conclude about the person objectively/conceptually.
||||| ONE cannot abandon completely the objective though.... they tell girls, "You can as easily fall in love with a rich man as you can a poor man" ... and so one shouldn't recklessly abandon their love to their short-term passion... So in summary, you should place an ever so slight emphasis on qualities you imagine your ideal boyfriend/girlfriend to have, but then focus the rest of your attention on your eXPerience with that person.
Re-educating my mental ideal to match what is truly important---now that's the tricky part.
This is the logical fallacy when after you assert that A implies B, you then assert that Not A implies Not B.
The latter does not follow from the former. For example, "I live in Palo Alto, therefore I must be in California" does not imply "I don't live in Palo Alto, therefore I don't live in California"
color=darkturquoise
Then I asked myself to find a more personal example.
So I decided to dig through my personal Philosophistry and said to myself, "I bet I could find an example in like 5 minutes" and lo and behold, I found one in the first text file that I opened...
I said
1) Don't do anything you don't love, cuz if you love it, then you're good to go
this can be paraphrased as ( "If you love something do it" implies "If you don't love something don't do it" ) which is illogical.
Amazing, this logical fallacies stuff.
So much of what I do is based on my "rational" analysis, and now that I'm learning how many logical fallacies I've committed, I'm having to revise so many policies and principles of my living.
With 2004 here, I now welcome the new harsher reality of my body. I'm 21 and with the passing of the new years, I can now say goodbye to my golden days of adolescent health. Before I could eat anything, I could sit in front of the computer forever, and it wouldn't matter, for my energy would make me into a biological incinerator.
Now, my waist size has expanded by three, my cheeks are heavier set, and I have small wrinkles on my forehead from lifting up by eyebrows too much.
On the one hand, I hate this over-attention to good looks and all the effort on healthy eating. On the other hand, I know that looking good does make you feel great. *sigh*
Hello 70 years of defending my body against nature.
color=mediumslateblue
1) Improve my posture
2) Don't raise my eyebrows so much to prevent forehead wrinkling
3) Don't gape my jaw unecessarily to prevent double-chin
4) Have more tact
5) Stabilize to my true voice
6) Pour less emotions into my decision-making and analyzing engines
(There are plenty others, but I make resolutions every week, so today's nothing special)
color=black
I think I'm going to marry rich...
... 1 ... I hate working
... 2 ... financial disparity between partners or any disparity in capabilities probably aids in marriage security
... 3 ... I'm a good teacher (teach kids) and have spent a lot of time already thinking about the topic of child rearing
... 4 ... By the time I reach marrying age, women in America would be much closer to men than they are now in financial earning power. More of them enter college and the workforce than Men anyways.
... 5 ... I want to spend my time pursuing my passions, not financial ambitions.
... 6 ... It fits with the pattern of somewhat eccentric decisions that I'm prone too.
... 7 ... Why does it have to be breadwinning dad anyways? Mainly tradition.
color=seashell
SNAPSHOT OF PHIL TRYING TO FIND HIS UNIQUE VOICE: HERE IS A DRAFT POST I WAS GOING TO MAKE
Others: So, how was the movie?
Me: Umm….
Others: huh? I thought it was good, how ‘bout you?
Me: Umm…. I’m not good with movie opinions
I’ve been having trouble telling people whether I like movies or not. I don’t know what it is. There’s nothing to it, right? The movie was… good? (or bad). See, that was easy. Not so fast buddy, was it really good? Eh. Was it really bad? Eh. It’s like saying a movie was good or bad is like a big blanket statement that just kind of ruins the finer ups and downs on the film.
And it is liiiving? Movies are an extension of living.
This is not my voice.
SEE, I HAD THIS GREAT IDEA WHERE SOMEHOW I COULD TIE MY INABILITY TO SAY MOVIES WERE GOOD OR BAD TO MY INABILITY TO ANSWER WHETHER MY WEEK WAS GOOD OR BAD, IT’S LIKE ASKING WHETHER YOU THINK LIVING IS GOOD OR BAD, AND IT’S LIKE, UHM, SURE. I DON’T KNOW WHY I WATCH MOVIES. I HAVE TO WATCH THEM, BUT NOT IN AN ADDICTION KIND OF WAY. IT’S MORE LIKE LIVING AND WATCHING MOVIES ARE SYNCHRONOUS.—THIS WAS THE IDEA I WAS TRYING TO GET AT, BUT IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MY STORY, NOR IS IT PROBABLY A GOOD POINT. SO I TURNED IT INTO THIS ALL-CAPS THING… THIS META-META-META-META-METAAAAAAAH
The film is Mystic River The film was.... deh. Okay, it had a major emotional impact on me, it was heavy. Some parts manifested kitschy and appeared unripened. I was moved and I feel the film will stick with me for little while
color=limegreen
I'm going to be a rock star in Japan someday.
color=lime
Okay, I think I'm done learning new stuff. Science, literature, whatever, these other worlds etc.... I want to spend more time learning to live better, observing life better, experiencing the gamut of life's narratives, etc.... no extra super-nugget like "human evolutionary psychology" OR "memetics" OR "media anthropology" is going to get me the wet highs of being in love, getting in a fight, forgiving someone, and taking a peaceful walk down the street.
Well, I'm just saying this,,,, but it's a budding flower of desire, worth journaling about.
color=darkgreen
the password is: $$#$@@ @@@@@@ @@@@@@@@ ************** &*&*&^*^&^*&^()^(*^ &^*&&&^*&^^*&*&^* ^^&^&^&&&&&&^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
--1-1- -1--1-1- -1---1--1-1--1----1 ---1-1--1--1- --1------ ----------822 8--------1 00101
PKPKPKP KPKPKPKPK KPKPKP KPKPkpkpkpkp kpkpkpkpkk pkpkpkpkpkpk pkkp kpkp kPKpkpkp kp k pkPK PKP K P KPK
color=maroon
Personally, I think I'm a broadcast medium (in real life, not just blog)
What medium are you?
If you're British, you're TCP/IP (all about protocol)
color=palegoldenrod
If the mind is a road COMMA then most people have medians and painted lines to keep them from losing their way PERIOD
I COMMA on the other hand COMMA seem to have no such defenses SEMI-COLON no walls and blockades to keep me from the gutter PERIOD
If the mind is like water COMMA then the usual amount of thinking I do in a day is like a raging avalanche PERIOD
One of the biggest floods for me are these metacognitive infinite loops PERIOD I get lost thinking about thinking about thinking PERIOD START-QUOTES to control, or not to control QUESTION-MARK Can I even ask that question QUESTION-MARK Should I QUESTION-MARK Where does my action come from QUESTION-MARK END-QUOTES And then I get stuck COMMA like a car in the mud PERIOD
But fortunately COMMA there is time DASH DASH and time DOES cure everything OPEN-PARENTHESIS as does laughter CLOSED-PARENTHESIS
color=darkslateblue
biking to school today, three cars spotaneously emerged out of nowhere in reverse, all at differnt times... man, i need to start wearing helmet. maybe someforce is out to get me..
color=gainsboro
Okay, portrait of Phil... semi-stream... I'm aware I have an audience.. even if it's just google spiders and voyeurs...
I'm not completely mental, like I said earlier, I think one of the biggest discoveries is that I definitely cycle between systems of thinking.
color=sandybrown
worry+insecurities are only one aspect... of the puzzle. here are various dragons that fight for control in this mind that is Phil.
Worry/Expediency: there's that, the just whatever it takes, expedient, succeserata, go go go thingy...
Philosophy: then there's the whole philosophical, self-glorification, you know, the creating, the doing the right thing, the uber specificity, the Tautrix, trying to get some sort of consistency, or answering the tough questions, pursuit of truth
Nihilism: nothing matters, go do whatever, just let go, suck in, breath out, hedonism up, this is living
Passion-Pursuit: taking a love and running with it, whether it's some art, or some technology, just trying to truly expand the enlightened aspects of some thing, glorification, dramatization, an arc of heroism in a small scale
Do good, chicken-soup: like, go out, help ppl, call your parents, you know, volunteer, act bourgeois, walk the dog, help kids, cure cancer, etc... white.
Those are the active monsters sorta running the show here, there's obviously a bunch of inactive dudes, and possibly a meta dude that's combining and thinking about all of those.
however, I somehow manage to swing violently back and forth between extremes of each of those systems. I work hard / play hard in layman's speak.
Either way, as confused as I am, improved models, better understanding always add new knowledge in my arsenal to do what? control? become happy? nothing is so singular in it's objective, and it all depends on the context of a system that I'm currently on. So enjoy, I guess.
This entry's color is sandybrown to show a bit of a transition from the previous, hotter, deeppink post. I've cooled down a bit, though I'm still somewhat charred. So the fire is gone and we're left with a brown, I could have gone for a richer brown, chocolate, but, I already used that color recently and I want to contrast how much more relaxed this post is compared to the previous, hence the slight wash of this color.
first off, I don't think all my fears are warranted.
I guess that's part of my personality, I get ultra-worried about those things, and then I over-compensate really hard, like I really slam down hard, I guess it's insecurity. yeah, live with it, adapt, I'll probably always have those kind of insecurities, I've had that since I was god knows how young, i'm a perpetual worrier.
color=deeppink
everything is lacking from everything, I'm not doing enough etc... yeah oh well.
be natural then I guess, let it go, this I know, I'm insecure as fuck, how am I going to get a girl, how blah blah, nonetheless, I don't think it's wise to respond back by controlling yourself to those goals, you have to manage through the wind, by letting go, a back and forth, an artish. you know, no regiment, no schedules, but an understanding.
and when I'm exhausted, frustrated, and have no energy, then that's the worst, but I think I don't feel half as bad when I have a week or something of solid production.
yeah, I'm terribly insecure abot money, success, results, i have to adapt to it, that's wh I am, tremendously insecure, I worry these things to death, heh, this'll probably never change.
yeah, adapt, so like, don't over-commit, pick a few projects that you can worry over, if they were to boil over.
i.e. yeah, right now, 12 units of class, worry about that, my blog, worry about that, you know, just stick with two, you got to narrow your focus.
yeah, yeah, employ that expedient talk.
yeah, it'll drive me towork out..
yeah, gcive up on your muscle buildin, although your healthometer, should keep going up.
god damn, yeah, my inecurities pound me through, I have no idea how I can handle this. I must find a way to deal with this.
a couple of ways, put some certain goals in the forefront, therefore to eliminate confusion about the small stuff.
things that get me most insecure: my physical state, my monetary state, my social state.
same deal, always been that way, yeah... hmm, I'm cycling into one of my control states, making a chart of the areas I want to work on.
anyways, what did I learn from that, well, it works for a little while, and then i just get exhausted and nihilistic all over again, and then the system restarts.
anyways... I want to maximize my physical state, yeah, god dammit, trying to do these things necessarily leads me into levels of control that I hate gettincg into, you know, that's why its' not part of my system.
yeah, we're getting too abstract.
your health and shit, semi-automatic good.
what i want you to focus on
I choose "deeppink" because I feel like I'm simultaneously boiling and charging forward. A thick hue suffices to show my charged state, combined with a slight hue shift giving a sense of deviation or dynamism away from an angry red to possible progress?
Everything's a cycle, a back-and-forth, a repetition of progress-seeking, a regressive skiing down the slope from birth to nothingness. friends today, friends tomorrow, places and contexts, nothing changes.
Is everything screwed when we identify all patterns? When you can see the reason for everything, isn't the mystery dead? Did religion kill religion by providing an answer?
Can you willfully seek ignorance? It'd take some brains to do that, and there-in lies the paradox.
"Well son, it's all in how you apply that knowledge" Bullshit, nothing is neutral.
color=darkslategray
1) get 20 excellents in a row on DDR
2) do a remix of the star wars theme combined with Bush's voice
3) do wire-stunts like the matrix
4) wear a differnt style watch on each of my appendages
5) program my VCR
6) buy a 100GB hard drive for $1
7) photocopy a real llama
8) string a guitar in the wrong order
9) build a ship inside a ping-pong ball and beat Chris at ping-pong with it
10) find true love
color=yellow
We're already past 800 posts on philosophistry, and this site has only been up since March. This may also be the first month with a post every day as well. Hmm, I'm trying to figure out a way to make those 800 previous posts come alive.. cuz nobody reads archives.
Philosophistry is an experiment in self-honesty... the publicity of vanity, etc.. Well, here it is, the iskra.... below are my scores on a psychological self-test.
| Disorder | Rating |
| Paranoid: | High |
| Schizoid: | Low |
| Schizotypal: | Low |
| Antisocial: | Low |
| Borderline: | Moderate |
| Histrionic: | High |
| Narcissistic: | High |
| Avoidant: | High |
| Dependent: | Low |
| Obsessive-Compulsive: | High |
-- Personality Disorder Test - Take It! -- | |
There are solutions to all of these. Hell, you can tell by my self-analysis over time that I try really hard to overcome these "disorders" with a caucophony of shenanigans, such as "Emotional Intelligence" or existentialism stuff.
But, a few comments...
Why the disorder? An institution defined what is orderly and disorderly, but everybody's got their flaws and they live with them. Isn't part of the trick of life learning to live within your flaws rather than trying to change them?
Hell, I'm acutely aware that half of my problems would be reduced if I didn't try so hard to fix them. The process of mental washing in order to "cure" myself confounds my problems, makes me more conscious about them, and inadvertently inflates them while stressing me out.
Also, hell, a lot of these tests are designed for the "average Joe." Like a couple questions were do you find yourself frustrated with the inadequacies of others.
The thing is though, in a lot of cases I have cause to be. When I see how inefficiently things are run by ignorant people, it really pisses me off because I see them. When I point it out to other people, they agree and subsequently get pissed off as well. I also took a "FlakeFilter" test to determine whether I was a flake or not with regard to work, and it turned out that I was the most diligent, most painfully aware of punctuality, the returning of phone calls, attention to detail, and desire to meet objectives... I then proceeded to grade some ppl I've worked with in the past and they scored very low... no wonder I was frustrated with them... it wasn't that I was just being arrogant... I had instead done a poor job with hiring. Putting down others and raising yourself up is sooo disgusting to society that I feel embarassed or somehow "wrong" saying things than that. But face it folks, we're not all equal, and many of us are better than others, and many can see that as well, we all have eyes. It's just another damn meme. (I agree though, I don't want to make others feel bad, but I shouldn't feel guilty for seeing where I do excel beyond others, nor should it be wrong to say so publically so long as I don't inveigh a person-in-particular)
Nonetheless, I don't want to excuse these "disorders" since much of survey points to real flaws. I guess, well, I guess you can see by the long, emotionally desparate discussion that in some ways, I'm compensating or embarassed by my scores, and trying to justify or give them a positive beat to them--Which I shouldn't be, were I to try to not fix them.
(Hah, hell, I shouldn't even be blogging if I wanted to end narccicism)
Oh well, so it blogs...
This week's lack of posts is due to inflating carpal tunnel syndrome issues. I'll be getting a zeroforce touchstream keyboard soon and I'm doing RSI exercises, so hopefully this'll go away. I type way too much maan.
The questions of today are founded on the answers of yesterday. Hence, if you had to ask me whether you should work on intuitive emotional intelligence or conscious rational interference, I'd say that the question already defeats itself by being rational already. So the question defeats itself and you are stuck. It's almost like you can only retroactively establish meaning or decisions, rather than thinking with consideration of the now on where to go into the future. You get some sort of greedy algorithm while as probably the more effective ppl out there traverse valleys through a combination of luck and heroism.
[20:17] PhilDhingr: man
[20:18] PhilDhingr: first like my mind was blown twice today... 1st cuz I got into this argument kinda with my old boss... and 2nd cuz I started to panic about future plans... but the 3rd mind fuck was I was @ starbucks, trying to unwind right...
[20:18] PhilDhingr: and like, the whole world descended on that very spot
[20:18] PhilDhingr: 1st like all the hottest high schoolers were milling in and out
[20:18] PhilDhingr: then this law student babe sits next to me, real close to me, playing w/ her laptop
[20:19] PhilDhingr: and then these two other guys, also in close proximity, start going back and forth about the singularity and shit
[20:19] PhilDhingr: all the while I was on a sugar high
[20:20] PhilDhingr: I just started going nuts... I was too nervous and distraught to say anything already... I kinda just wanted to sit there and scribble... but I was like caught in the cross-fires of major energy... aahk
[20:20] PhilDhingr: I just went roller blading to squeeze out the manic steam...
Doing a little bit of a mental test. I'm not going to post anything until Monday (except blogdreams). L8z.
I got into a discussion with Peter about races. He was trying to pin down one thing that he was. Here is my response as to what I am. Yes, it looks like today is personal-laundry day
i don't have behaviors typical of one race
but of a combination
a good chunk of me is pragmatic american
another piece of me is nihilistic/confused french european (Peter suggested that Nietzsche is the father of nihilism)
then a big part is philipino-male passive-aggressive
then another part is chinese-indian (from india) expediency.
Which makes sense. Genetically, I'm half indian, 3-eighths philipino, and 1-eighth chinese. Born in the US so raised with American values. Somehow I haven't been able to transcend the weak-male characteristics of the philipino males (it's a matriarchal society there). But I do seek A's and am a perfectionist like every other Indian and Chinese I see in school (and if you're Chinese and Indian and aren't like that, then I'm not referring to you--please get off my back about racial stereotypes). Yet, in the end, I identify with the philosophies of Existentialism and seek purity and mechanical consistenty like western, continental philosophers do.
I'm always trying to "figure it out." What exactly "it" is, I'm not sure of, although vaguely I think I'm trying to eliminate all confusion relevant to living. Everytime I come up with some model or some analysis of how and when we should do somthing, I always get confused as to whether it's the right choice. Now, there are tons of systems out there for making choices, such as Christianity, or intuition. But even then, they're only based on probalistic outcomes... I've already munched on good systems, now I'm worried about making the probabilities of happiness good. Ironically, in the process, I am hurting myself, and therefore, failing at the happiness part just by pursuing the process. DAH! Anyways, here's a slice of my morning confusion.
Phil... first, the techincal understanding is always weighed in by the emotional intelligence, but finally, I still think it's an art, that's ultimately what it is.
However you need some sort of system, I agree, for determining which decisions are better, which one's are worse, for figuring out direction, where you want to put your efforts etc..
unfortunately your choice of that system will also be an art, you're not gonig to find the programming in being and nothingness, there'll be so many things you have to find, well, you could be like sartre, it's still an art though, my choice to find that book, because I care, I mean, likewell, what are you looking for.
I dunno, I just want to program this body correctly, or not correctly, but optimally, do the right thing?
Why? I dunno, I take life very seriously, it's important, also, because I see so many flaws, I don't think it's worth it though.
I like your principles method.
Dude, there are flaws in Existentialism, you'll see... what, this you invent or whatever, it won't provide you much satisfaction.
maybe I'm a philosophy major, i dunno, these guys, get them off my back, I'm not going to waste my time, cuz I see them, and in the end, they all just go off their most basic things, which are irritating, like their basic fears, their basic agonies, they still invoke their stupiditiy... and look @ sartre, you think he had it figured out, what about socrates, man, they just get rendered, well, sartre didn't get rendered into confusion, he lived a very happy life and fucked a lot.
I dunno, he was also bitter as well. hell is other people.
and what if you don't like the answer.
i dunno, part of me feels like I can find the answers, that I can figure it all out.
but you're not trying to figure it out though, you're just looking for the way to live optimally.
but don't you think it doesn't matter? I mean, like... life's evaluating measure is usually happiness, and it's a series of days in which you're happy.
what if I tread down the wrong path, what if I should be gonig to school?
so what?! we all make mistakes man.
yeah, your system thinking should somehow account for the notion of systemic change, and the possibility of mistakes.
it should deal with the what if, this is all wrong, and you should always taint your understanding with the uncertantiy that the system will change.
yeah, i can't commit to studying phsychology or existentialism, cuz that may never come to me, I may fall in love.
there are certain things you can say probabilistically about though, like for example, maslow's ladder doesn't change, your desire for independence is completely essential to your character, emotional intelligence is the only true meta system.
yeah, my interpretation of my principles, that could definitely change, you change frequently over time.
you always have to factor that in, at least factor in the... yes, this system is definitely gonig to change.
yeah, i'm sure my system will chaneg, it evolves, and life is a growing process.
given that the system is going to change.
so on my principle-centered life. dude, I'm not going back to school, funny, this is truly setting me in a very specific direction... ging to school woul also set me ina very specific direction, one of being a part of the society, getting a job, a career, yeah, it doesn't look good down that path.
okay, so how do I deal with the principle-centered life?
yeah, given that my system of tihnking will definitely change and evolve.. my interpretations could be all wrong .... how should I modify my principle-based system?
Well, first, yeah, get it out of minute-like interference, which I've already done. Then, use it as an idea-generating measure, or another thing to consult with... like if you
okay, well, it's good enough for giving you a basic framework, like a council that you consult with to get opinions. You have a tricky situation, you open up the toolshed, see what all the characters say:
- bear pain guys
- the expediency ppl
- the principles
- the case-watch
and you get a general sense, but then, you still must interpret. You can't come up with a rule, but usually speaking, I'd probably bat for my principles just because that's maslow's ladder, at least that one I feel the most certain about.
yeah, so it's mixed, whatever, i hate that. yeah, I can't take my system too far, and you'll never be able to, so much will always be up in the air.
well, I guess that this is fine. In life, the answers are never clear cut, and you should get used to that early on. Doesn't mean you can't make clear-cut decisions, but don't walk around with the illusion that this is 100% certain the right thing to do, shit in life is too complex to quantify.
This most recent spat of confusion came up as a result of trying to find cause to put a cap on my worries. My principle-centered thinking said that it would be wise to cap my worries at a fixed level because it would keep me calm and would give me room for when I'd have to deal with something truly serious, then I should start worrying. But then I reminded myself that my penchant for worry is what came up with that system in the first place. ACK! When I have a system that issues a call to change itself, that's where I find the trickest situations to dicipher... and then I descended into this what if, what if, what if... usually, what if I'm wrong... I guess I'm just responding by saying, look, "what if" will always be there, factor that in there forever and adapt!
God, I feel like Fitzgerald in his "Crack-up." Well not exactly. I feel like I'm making progress. I'm not some pure artist who only meditates on his ills and doesn't actually try to resurrect himself (as I gathered from his essay). + I'm still in my youth, and I've heard, ppl get confused when they're young and stabilize when they get older. BUT THERE'S NO GUARANTEE, many people stay depressed forever... aaah. I'm too expedient for that though, at some point, if this "figuring out" attitude gets me into trouble too much, I'd probably let it go and just be a schlep like everybody else, fall in love, and roll with the wind.
Because really, that's what this is all about. Control. Like the Matrix.
You're going to think I'm a nerd for this, but what the hell. Anyways, here's something fun to do. Take a DivX without too much background music, like Taxi Driver, and play a movie soundtrack in the background in mp3s. It's really funny to get that kind of contrast.
Watching Robert DeNiro buying guns while playing The Who's "A Quick One While He's Away" is really really funny.
Okay, I just turned about age 12. Ah, feels good to be young again.
It's 4:30... just got another Taxi Driver-style haircut and it's raining for the first time in a while here in Palo Alto... time to put on my black pants, my collared plasticy black shirt, my black boots, and roll.
Wow, I was just about to put my hammer and two pliers into my refigerator. I must be really distracted.
Another tight Radiohead song, hidden-gem, that you might not have heard is "Meeting in the Aisle." Very trippy, chill techno music. It's on Airbag, track 3 baby.
j00, listen, f00l. Open up your Radiohead Album, The Bends. And listen to My Iron Lung. Good times. Track #8. uuungh... jigga whAT?!
Karma is not just between humans but also between man and insect. Many a bug I have squashed, and furious their loved ones must be. Now, the commeuppance is due, and they have finally mounted a proper revenge. Upon my return back from San Diego, they came out in full force, and descended on me with insidious subtly. So much was the onslaught, that upon my slumber, I was plagued with itches and bites all over my body. I tried to flout then, but vainly superscillious I was. I'd tried to hold still, but irritation ensued. I finally got the muster to go to Safeway at 4:30am and pick up some itch cream. The bugs won that night, so I guess we're even now. Next time.
One of the great post-modern feelings
mmn... aaaah.
(self deprecation at it's finest)...
Too high expectation for current position of power (i.e. don't want to get hands dirty), i.e. I want to be there right now, and so I automatically throw myself into that position.
"BUT THAT'S TOO WEAK, YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO MANAGE A BIGGER ORGANIZATION ETC.. I NEED TO HAVE PEOPLE WORKING UNDER ME, TO BUILD IT, I NEED TO BE CEO"
"BUT I CANNOT. I AM GOING TO SCHOOL, I DON'T HAVE MONEY, I DON'T HAVE ANY OF THAT EXPERIECNE!"
BUT IF I DON'T SEARCH FOR HIGH POWER, THEN OTHER PEOPLE WILL BULL-DOZER OVER ME. I.E. IF I DO THIS THING, THEN SOMEBODY WILL BECOME MY BOSS, THIS IS TOO WEAK TO BE JUST A PROGRAMMER IN THE COG IN THE MACHINE.
I'm trying to find the "key" to life. No matter how hard I try not to, I cannot help but go, "okay, we're getting closer to 'figuring it out'" I don't normally tell people that that's what I'm trying to do. Whenever I do, they usual respond by saying something like, "there is no key." But isn't THAT just their suggestion about what the key is? I mean, is holding in your mind an unacceptance of "the key" really the key? Maybe I'm not interpreting them correctly, and really what the message is that the "key" is not something one can hold consciously but that one has to live day in and day out? Yes, that's probably a better interpretation. But what exactly is this living of the key? One could interject, annoyingly, well, if you could put it into words, it would just vA****. Then, that is saying almost the same thing again, that it can't be spoken? Is it saying that it's inaccessible? That the key is in the hidden, the magical. But, we have to manipulate it somehow, even by our acceptance of its obscurity. By not manipulating this unknown, aren't we doing manipulation through non-action?
Yes, this is another one of those recursive dilemmas. On a separate note, I'm always trying to figure out how to resolve these recursive dilemmas. Let's see if we can simplify this. It's like, as soon as you become aware of the way a system works you cannot help but forever negotiate with it in the terms of that process. i.e. As soon as you start to think of keys IN an active way, then the key to life can only be found through active work. Even if you tried to "passively" live the key to life, by the very fact that you are trying something automatically makes it active. So in other words, once you start being active about the key to life, then it remains permanently active. Well, hold on, is that exactly true? You could forget about actively pursuing it. Right, then you would then become one who passively pursues it. But, if you brought yourself there or said, okay, I'm going to attempt to NOT pursue it, then well, you're already are pursuing it. Well, you could not feed into it by not thinking about it, but STILL by doing that you are furthering your attempt to find the key.
It looks like there's some sort of logical black-hole here. Another way to look at it is that you either do or you don't. And once you start doing, you can't stop doing without doing another thing. Maybe man is just a constant doing process, but then can the doing affect his doing such that he undoes himself? i.e. can you have a program that rewrites it's ability to reprogram itself? What are the consequences of this? I think answering these recursive system problems (a la Gödel Escher Bach) is going to be useful when he have to deal with all those people in the Singularity who could spiral into suicide.
What? What am I talking about here? Fine, I'll elaborate. First, what is the Singularity?. In a nutshell, with the accelerating rate of intelligence on earth, it seems likely that eventually we'll reach a point where our acceleration will be so fast that we'll become infinitely intelligent in an infinitely small period of time.
As much as I believe that, I have counter-argument lurking in there. My thinking is that there is an upper-bound to the amount of intelligence that a single node can have. Or rather, in the plane of knowledge, certain parts of the plane have to be excluded from the node's knowledge base for it to continue to exist. My case in point is that after a certain point, you can know that nothing matters, everything is just an illusion, that purpose is just another facade, and so on and so forth until eventually you realize that continuing to the next point in the time chain is useless, and then you just kill yourself. This is the criticism that the simple-minded give at times for learning things like psychology and philosophy. They feel that when you know all this stuff, life loses the sort of glue and intoxicating magic that I has on people. Those that are supposedly in the "know" retort with some silly wise-saying like, "knowledge can enhance your appreciation of life" or that "it's not the fault of the knowledge but how we use it." Sigh, I side with both sides. The simpletons have a natural mechanism inside them that prevents them from "thinking too much" or looking at life in such technical terms. And alas, that they exist, and that they say this thing with such mechanical precision shows that natural selection has even put an anti-elucidation mechanism within us. As for the smarty-pants, they're just operating under a bias for their own knowledge. Once you have the knowledge, it's hard to get rid of it, and eventually you form an intimate relationship with it. I think knowledge is another one of those Chinese finger traps, once you put your fingers in them, you can't bring them out by yourself, but only with another's intervention.
UPDATES...
Okay, so that was a long way to go about justifying my efforts for "finding the key." As for the actual "key" itself, I'll have to get to that in another post. I'm still testing out my latest key. The current one that i've been on has been lasting for about two and a half months. The other key I had lasted about 4 months, but then it lost its magic. Also, I bet "finding the key" is actually "finding your own key." However, if I can find a key for myself, I bet at least some parts of it could be universally applicable.
Okay, some teasers. The first key that lasted the most was "bearing pain." I figured out that my greatest problem was dealing with situations that I had aversions to, so I just flipped the switch and made myself pro-pain and pro-suffering. This made many thing possible and made me learn how to feel pain, which further heightened my feeling of pleasure. Fun. It failed primrily because it put too much emphasis on feeling pain and not on some alternatives such as avoiding pain, or getting yourself to not feel pain in certain situations. It also had other side effects, such as ... well, like I said, I don't want to go into it now.
As for the current "thing" I'm on... in short it's the imperative, "respond effectively to your emotions." Since emotions are where we get all our weight for everything, by learning how to respond to all the little men within us pushing us in various directions, then well, we can... ? I don't know what it is. Well, see, if I were to continue it would lead into a discussion about what my motivations are, and then a debate on those motivations, and aren't those motivations part of my response? Also, it'll lead to adiscussion on the nature of the key, such as, for example, that it has recursive consistency.
... but then I'm also anti-categorical imperative. Categorical imperatives are like, single goals or invocations that you keep repeating in order to derive what to do next. For example, objectivist's categorical imperative is, "do what's in your best interests." The social darwinists have, "survival of the fittest." Christian's have, "Deliver God's Will." Nietzsche criticizes categorical imperatives all the time, and for good reason. Our minds just don't work that way. Or rather, working with single categorical imperatives ignore all the fun multiciplicity of responses we have that emerges through fuzziness, such as sex, greed, avarice, hunger, passion for truth etc. So, then... okay, yeah, I don't want to get into it.
... I take a whiff of Absolut Vanilia before I go to bed to remind myself what I have to look forward to on Fridays.
I once knew a girl who prided herself in being a solipsist.
Update: this page does not EXIST ANYMORE!! sorry kiddos
"My dad used to tell me a story of how this guy worked hard to become a Ph.D and then when he was there, he realized that 'he knew nothing' after all. My dad was trying to imply that wisdom is the ability to recognize that you don't know. Heh, true as he is, I'll be damned if I ever find myself in the umbrage of a quiet, self-convincing, self-fulfilling cluelessness."
"Because timing is everything, and I left precisely at the point beyond which Bill Gates would have not regretted staying at school. i.e. I left right after the fun honeymooning of freshman, and a bit of sophomore, year ended and the specialization into a niche major began."
"This can be justified, even for 'appearance' reasons. When you hear about someone succeeding and that they went to Stanford, that's one thing. When you hear about someone succeeding and that they dropped out of Stanford, that's even better."
"17 years of older, usually dead, white guys, telling you how to be is the antithesis of what Thomas Jefferson would want me to be: independent." (wink wink)
"Because half my education was coming from Stanford, the other half from Google. Why pay an arm and a leg for one when the other's just as good, if not better?"
UPDATE: And both are derivatives of Stanford anyways.
In convo with A**** today, concluded: everybody is working or relating to the singularity in some way. Some are architecting it, like venture capitalists. Some are architecting it "actively" such as Kurzweil. Others are passively helping it, voters, soldiers, anybody. And others, well, are just buying it! Yes, my cousin is the Singularity(TM) consumer style. He's got the bluetooth ear piece (un)connected to a $300 semi-G3 cell phone. Got the pad in La Jolla with plasma screen, dot-com in his basement with roommate, computer equipment and people doing his bidding everywhere, the latest and greatest in fashion. This guy is on the bleeding edge of the toys of singularity.
Contrast my relationship, which is more an appreciation and expression of the singularity. I look, I process, I disseminate. That's what I've always been good at, that's why I could have won "most outspoken" in High School if I wasn't so busy dot-comming and being politically correct.
What's your relationship to the Singularity? Are you actively engaged, passively contributing, or actively disengaging, thereby only helping to promulgate it?
UPDATE: A**** is my 1-year younger cousin who smells bad. Oh, and he wanted his IM name here, A****D00 so that he can share his body odor with bitches and ho's that fall in love with his relationship with the Singularity(TM).
