This is a little something I wrote on the ANONYMOUS bboard on SDF. I find writing anonymously to be very freeing. I thought it was so good that I decided I needed to post it in my blog, and confound the anonymity.
I'm consistently flabbergasted by the way fundamentally uncreative, socially retarded computer fetishists are so quick to presume that 1) they have a working definition of 'intelligence' that they can equate with some kind of human worth, and 2) that they can judge a person, based on a few snippets of written interaction, to be an 'idiot.'
I guess it's good that they stick to their own tiny little world of unix boxes and sci-fi conferences, and leave more open-minded people the task of managing civilization.
There's nothing quite as satisfying as making people feel badly about themselves.
The reason I don't get to see that many people is that I don't leave my house. The reason I don't leave my house is because 1) I don't have a car, 2) I'm fat and ugly, 3) I don't have any money, and 4) I don't really have any friends. Alternate theory: I am a gossipy little bitch who has slowly and steadily driven his friends away by giving them the impression that at any given moment I hate them all in some capacity.
Whatever the case may be, I need new friends. Problem is, it's hard to find them when you're 30, and especially hard when you're 30 and are fat, unemployed, crazy, afraid of people, ugly, etc. I'm thinking about just picking up and leaving. Just taking a few possessions, selling a few others to get a couple hundred dollars, and taking the Greyhound somewhere.
Of course, I won't do it.
Of course, I won't do any of the things I talk about in my blog. To be quite honest, I think I'll just slowly rot away and die in my mother's house, sitting behind this computer, blogging about how I hate this or that or how I am going to do 'radical thing x.'
Whatever. This is dumb. I keep wanting to stop picking up the phone, but of course every time it rings I hope it's for me. I'm such an idiot, and such a passive-aggressive little weakling. What I really need is assertiveness training.
This blog is over. Finis. Done.
I was thinking about hugs today, and the fact that I haven't enjoyed a hug as an expression of human intimacy and emotion in at least 10 years. It's possible that I never have, actually. I don't quite understand hugs, on a very fundamental level. Intellectually, I can see that it's similar to the affection and open warmth I showed for katie, my dog. But the fact is that I just don't see people that way, and I'm not capable of being that open, warm or intimate with them.
I often semi-histrionically say that 'i hate people.' I'm afraid it might be true -- I don't really connect with them emotionally.
In the past, I behaved with affected intimacy or affected emotions, because that's how I assumed people were supposed to act, from watching my mom. So, I sort of parroted these gestures that she made (and genuinely felt, I think), the difference being that I didn't actually feel them. I engaged in all of this emotional behavior (and still do to an extent, even though I'm getting better): hugging, making empathic noises, facial expressions, words of condolence, etc. I was just imitating my mom -- I've never felt any of this stuff.
Why do I interact with anyone? What is it that I'm seeking when I do so? I think it might just be intellectual stimulation -- that's really the most fun. I don't get any joy out of seeing a human face or touching a human body.
I was thinking about joining the canadian armed forces, but three things present themselves as problems: 1) pubic bathrooms, with very likely unguarded stalls (i can't pee when there's someone watching). 2) I'm sure I would get hurt in some way -- I'm extremely accident-prone. 3) the 1-800 number has been busy literally all day. I wonder if maybe it doesn't work from the united states. At any rate, I sent the recruiting department an email asking for more information.
I feel like I haven't blogged in a while, but I see that I blogged yesterday. Actually, I wrote that last blog a bit after midnight on the 27th (it still felt like the 26th, since I hadn't been to bed yet), and then I took a long nap today, so it feels like more time passed than is accountable by the passing of one day.
Free will is a comforting thing to believe in, very similar to a loving god: the notion that we are these powerful, autonomous beings who exert our will and ego over reality. What is known doesn't seem to support this. But is believing in free will such a sin? Is it all right to tell ourselves that lie, just so we can sleep better?
Do quantum effects provide an alternative to strict determinism (quantum probability)? From my understanding of these layman-metaphors that I find on the web they do, but I'm still not sure how to fit 'free will' into probability. I suppose that delving deeper into how we define our terms is necessary. 'free will' amounts to the choice to instrument any neurological process we 'choose' to at any given time, independent of the surrounding environment. The nervous system is clearly complex enough to be chaotic, but that doesn't mean it's not deterministic. I think maybe, rather the opposite.
The mind is a pre-scientific notion of the brain, and all human thought is electrical impulses and organic structures. 'mind' is a concept almost as silly as 'soul,' which people have largely rejected. However, I think 'mind' is still an active concept. We are our bodies, and nothing more. Furthermore, any thought can be seen as a behavior -- a neurological event, not fundamentally different from lifting an arm to scratch your head. I think this approach is seen as cognitive behaviorism: that all thoughts amount to behaviors.
Thoughts are just things the brain does, actions that a physical structure takes. Let's assume that physical events are probabilistic, as quantum mechanics demands. So then, thoughts are not deterministic in the classical sense -- they might go any which way. The brain is incredibly complicated, unlike a simple system, like a coin that is tossed by a tossing-machine onto a table, and quantum mechanics seem like they would apply to brain's processes.
Therefore, they have to be subject to probability and randomness, like any quantum process. How does this relate to free will?
I'm inclined to believe that just because our mental processes exhibit quantum randomness doesn't mean that we have any more control over them with something like 'will' or 'freedom' than we would if the processes were strictly deterministic. In other words, quantum mechanics does NOT make free will possible.
One thing I notice is that I really don't have the education to be talking about these kinds of things. In order to be able to understand things like this, I need more science and math background. Philosophy is a metaphor drawn out of science, and it's always at least a hundred years behind.
I was going to blog about what a loser I am, but no-one wants to read that. I'm watching 'the shawshank redemption' for something like the 50th time. It's still a good movie. I've developed a perhaps irrational fear of being dragged off to jail by the authorities. The worst part about voicing this fear is that the reaction is always 'why would you be afraid of that? Have you done something wrong?' I don't know, to be honest. But I do know this: they'll never take me alive.
Imprisonment of people without trial at guantanamo bay doesn't make me rest any easier. I've expressed sympathy for anti-american sentiments, have expressed anti-american sentiments, and have portrayed 'terrorism' as the natural reaction of the global underclass to the international new world order -- a multinational cooperative structure of governments and corporations exemplified by the sauds and the united states aristocracy's cooperation against the saudi people to facilitate exploitive oil production, the united nations security council, ECHELON and the anglophonic electronic spy network, etc. There's no shortage of examples of a power structure that works to keep wealth out of the hands of world citizens and into those of the global aristocracy. Money is increasingly a more meaningful split than national borders or ethnicities.
Or, it's possible I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm quite comfortable. I'm sitting here on a cable internet connection, listening to finnish power metal, typing HTML. Any casual observer would call me an aristocrat, feeding glutinously on the blood of laboring peasants. Maybe I'm the root of the problem, and the revolution I'm advocating is going to rip what I have away from me. But, maybe that's ok. And I have to admit, I don't know for sure, and I'm really not willing to make these kinds of unilateral judgments (anti-state terrorism is morally and practically analogous to a 'revolution of the people'). But it's something to consider, and it might help the reader to keep an open mind.
It's very likely that I just like to say things that piss people off. I think I could argue convincingly for anything, as long as it was in opposition to mainstream culture and monolithic power structures. I'm certainly not an idealist.
The american media aims to portray terrorism as solely based in islamic extremism -- as a holy war that we need to defend ourselves against. The majority of what we think of as purely islamist terrorism can be looked at as the beginning of the new revolution: those from whom their resources are taken are finally fighting back. It really isn't largely about islamic extremists wanting to destroy freedom, or even our 'way of life.' it's about people who have less than we do (or less than they do, depending on how the reader self-identifies), and who are tired of the international coalition of western financial elite sucking up global resources at the expense of certain ethnic, religions, geographic, but above all else financial untouchables.
That is, if there even are any terrorists. We've had yellow and orange alerts alternating for a long time now. People have predicted that a terrorist attack is 'extremely likely' for a similarly long time. We're still waiting, and in the meantime, while we wait for what may very well never happen, we are saddled with the patriot act, department of homeland security, wars overseas, etc.
A bee stung my the bottom of my foot, and it hurts (i think I stepped on one when I was walking outside with bare feet). I've been limping around. Also, I have an injured tendon in my left forearm, and one that seems to have largely healed in my right middle-knuckle. I'm falling apart here.
I'm just trying to get myself into trouble here -- daring the dualistic, black-or-white thinking, absolutist, moralizing, aggressive twats to label me as 'dangerous' or 'crazy.' come on. I dare you.
Largely, my sociopolitical convictions come from opposing the majority, and take the shape of the opposite of whatever I perceive the mainstream cultural current to be. So, when I had just come out of art school, I was ranting about liberalism and turning into an ayn-rand style capitalist, sneering at postmodernism and patting alan sokal on the back while toasting the enlightenment. Now, even though I'm still vehemently anti-artist, I've become anti-scientist too. And even though I'm still anti-liberal, I've become anti-conservative too. And anti-libertarian, because I read too damned much ESR on the web. I just don't like people, and any time one of the filthy little shits holds a conviction, I see it as my moral duty to tear that conviction down.
Considering a world-view that is uninfluenced by the desire to oppose the convictions of others, I think that maybe I don't have much of one. Reading my blog, one gets the sense that I hold fierce convictions, and then contradict them with the opposite conclusion just as fiercely a few months on down the road. The conclusion we can draw is that I don't really have any convictions (does anyone really have any convictions? I'd posit 'no'), but rather that I have an aggressive need to have convictions, and so I dream them up. But does someone like me serve any purpose? Someone who's permanently stuck in 'revolution' mode, like a broken record (number 9...number 9...number 9)? I don't fight for anything, but rather always against the majority, against the mainstream, against democracy (conformity sanctified?). I know that many would criticize this tendency as fundamental to destructive leftism.
I'm just thinking aloud, as always.
So, again: if I disappear, that's probably where I went: some dank basement CIA interrogation room.
I got a haircut and I look like a hard-ass. Having short hair is socially useful, especially in conjunction with a beard and athletic wear. One can see the glint of fear in people's eyes as one stomps by. In my mind at least, longer hair is associated with peace-loving hippies, while shorter hair is associated with mean marines. Steel-toed boots would make the transformation complete. I feel manlier. Grawr.
I've been noticing physical changes, now in my 30th year (i just realized that human age starts counting from zero, just like the year you turn 'one year old,' you've already lived one year, and are working on your second). I am more injury prone. I don't heal as quickly. My muscles atrophy more readily from lack of exercise. All this means in terms of hand-to-hand combat is that I need to learn to fight smarter as opposed to harder. I used to be able to get away with sloppiness because of my strength, but now I'll have to focus on a more precision 'surgical strike' techniques: pressure points, body targets, etc. Not that I've ever hit anyone in my life. Well, that's not quite true.
I met tom's fiancee last night; she's extremely nice. I think tom has made a good catch. She shares the 'miss congeniality prize' with shoko for brides-of-friends. Or, I should say 'spouses of friends,' to include helen and just in case serena ever gets married.
I don't have too many girl-friends, come to think of it. If you count my internet friends, I have a few more, but that's sort of iffy -- they're more acquaintances with whom I'm usually friendly. There's etsuko, my japanese pen pal. Mrs. White, james's mother. Preminda, my old art history prof. Of course it's hard to draw the line between 'friend' and 'acquaintance.' I usually like to do it by posing the question, 'who would you or could you call at 3am with some kind of emergency?' I think by that definition, serena and helen are my only female friends. The rest are acquaintances of varying caliber. Of course, there's sarah and megan (not to mention my mom and aunt) but they're really more family. I dunno about ana -- we just broke up a little while ago. I'm not sure she'd appreciate getting a phone call late at night.
Anyway, I bought black beans and rice and some kielbasas to cut up in them. It's very good, but my stomach is bothering me now.