alone

Some of us like to be alone, but not lonely, and others like being lonely in a crowd. Some guard their loneliness fiercely, while others just are. It is imperative for some of us that our rebellion be noticed and acknowledged, while others conceal their struggle. There are different kinds of people all around us, all very interesting. Everybody is nice at the basest level, but where would we be if everyone stopped looking out for themselves? Everybody has an agenda, even if some of them don't know it themselves. Everyone is going somewhere, even if they are now lost. We lose sight easily of what got us into this quagmire. All that is left then is the struggle to stay alive, the struggle to find our way out.

Those who are alone might not be lonely, those who are lonely might not be sad.

Flying pans, room service, and mothmen .

Do you realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun don'-go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do You Realize - Oh - Oh - Oh
Do You Realize - that everyone you know
Someday will die -

-Wayne Coyne, Do you realize?, 2002.


How much longer till we leave ? How fast have the last five years ripped past ? How much faster will the next fifty go ? Things are so much easier when you know you wont be around to face the music. A free ride. Escapist ? Don't think so.

Is it any different, the phase after life ? Will we know ? Did you die yesterday and are "living" only in some projected universe concocted by your mind ? Well, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference, would you ? Does my overuse of question marks irritate you ? or does it ?

Some believe that the flow of time is just the mind flitting from one universe to another parallel one. This begs the question: "Is there time across parallel universes?". Can my mind jump from Tuesday here to Monday night in another universe? That depends. Are parallel universes static? Once in existence, does a parallel universe exist forever? If it does, the mind could just jump into an older parallel universe. And I'd be in the past. And some mind from last week could jump straight to next year.

Nice. Very nice. However, there is a fatal flaw. Well, more a gap than a flaw. It is this: "Why should the mind be above parallel universes?". How can something be outside of a universe ? Well, just because human intellectual self-promotion is shamelessely infinite. Its a human mind, after all. Not some frying pan flying between parallel universes, grease dripping down its sides. The human mind can do anything. It is above science, unlike the frying pan. We don't even have to graduate from school to be taught that the human is the most intelligent creature on the planet. The largest, most intelligent brain, scientific thought, art, literature, room service, complementary breakfast, 24-hour coffee shop, the works. And why not? Has any other creature tried to communicate with us yet? I'm sure the cockroaches down in the sewer think the same way. Nobody has tried to communicate with them either[1].

Their minds also flit between parallel universes, I'm sure, deftly avoiding being squashed against the frying pans.

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[1] As Alexander Leek so sarcastically stabs John Kliens skepticism, in Richard Hatem's version of John Keel's "The Mothman Prophecies" .

Follow the White Rabbit

Stalks of light grow from the ground
When I cry there isn't a sound
All my feelings cannot be held
I'm happy in my new strange world.

-Steve Harris, Strange World, 1979.


Life has very little utility. There is no purpose served by it. And I
wonder what moron ever came up with the idea that it should have a
purpose. Why the f**k does life have to have a purpose. Let it be. Let
me drive into a pole as my heart pounds in my temples, my vision blurs
to a wonderful light, and the rush of pure madness makes me
scream. Let me be blissful. There has to be no purpose. It is all
bull. All the purposes are damage control exercises. Life itself is an
accident of birth. We live because we were involved in the
accident. And then there is the other Phlogiston theory about the
pursuit of happiness. That one takes the cake. The pursuit of
happiness.

The acceptance of madness is what we desire, what we crave, what we
lust for. A sense lost by most as easily as they accept that the
useless details are really what happiness is all about. Good food,
good scotch, the love of the love of your life, divine, sweaty sex, a
brisk walk on a glorious day, a mountain road violated by a 1999 M
coupe shifting up from second, a fine leather belt, the lovely smell
of which still reminds you of the stupid beast that was skinned so
your pants can stay on. Try madness. You'll never look back. There
will be no need to. There will be no hunger, no thirst, no fatigue,
and no need for the belt.

Its easy to embrace madness. Even though we keep it locked and abused
most of our lives, even though we have scant respect for its
capabilities to transport us to the eternal, it will still embrace
us. If we only let it. It takes little time to realize that
happiness is not something you have to pursue. Happiness does not
exist. Only the value of time. Happiness is an excuse for time wasted
on impotent ventures. I spent 6 f**king precious years of my sad
little insignificant life on this, so it must make me happy, even if
it leaves a quart of warm, fragrant dung on my face. Happiness is
ascribed to everything that took time and effort. Well, you know
what?? It doesn't fucking make a difference. Time has no value when
you open the doors of madness. There is no time. Now is
forever. Unchanging, limitless. There is no time wasted. There is no
looking back. Because there is no past. All is now. And now is
forever.

I want to let the madness soak into my brain. Every single neuron
firing itself to glory, sparks leaping to eternity. I want a higher
level of happiness. This stupid, insipid wine-women-and wealth
bullshit just doesn't cut it. Not for me it doesn't. I want to feel
everything, and nothing at all. I want pain, and I want delirium. Lift
me till I am one with the darkness. Show me something worth
something. Don't give me this pursuit-of-fucking-happiness bullcrap.

Fear tomorrow

Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the
source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness

-The Architect. The Matrix Reloaded (2003).


To call it a delusion would be like calling our entire life a
delusion. Which probably is true, but not for the usual reasons.

Not that every one of us lives our lives on a hope (or on multiple
hopes). The architect, however, fails to notice the generalization
that is an imminent and a natural consequence. Hope might be our
quintessential madness, but both hope and fear stem from the same
stream. Two sides of the same coin they are not. More like two points
on the surface of a sphere. Just different in their location. They are
beasts of the same kind. Scalars of different magnitudes. Asking about
their direction is futile. Without a sourcec of reference external to
the sphere, they share the same blood. They are like confidence and
denial. Confidence is not the opposite of denial. Confidence is
denial. They are classifications of beleifs. But that is for another
day.

The generalization the architect should've known is uncertainty. An
unknown future. Unknown future . A tautology. Redundant
words. It is the source of our hope, and our fear. It is what keeps us
going. It is what prevents a healthy overdose of muscle relaxants. It
is what drowns us in panic attacks. It is what keeps us alive till
graduation.

Not knowing the future, then should be our greatest asset. But is it
really? Is the warm hope of a better day worth the horror of being in
a miserable one? "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." A
philosophy guaranteed to make life miserable. Fearing fear is living
in hell.

The delusion then is the constant contemplation of the future. It is,
however unavoidable. None but the simplest of minds can really live in
the moment. For most of the rest of us, we live neither here nor
there, temporally. We don't live here because we worry about
there, and when we get there, there is more to come, more to
worry about. Fear. Hope. That's all we do. And not for no reason. One
cannot really live in the moment. A moment is static. A moment
is smaller than we can imagine. Nothing happens in a moment. Nothing
can. We are not alive. We can never be alive in a moment. Life is just
an abstraction of fluidity we construct on a bed of cold hard
rock. Life is hope and life is fear.

Quiet Noise

Nothing has been written for a long time now. A lull caused by a
content mind. Little details of life at work, deadlines, and social
obligations. There are always things to write about, not all of them
interesting. Every blog begins with a single word, to bastardize an
old Chinese saying. As the days shorten, the air clears, the trees are
stripped, and the land is cleansed by the arctic air, minds are muted
by nonsense. Even if one does think about what is instinctive and what
has been fed, the distinction is usually lost with time. Everything
is a trivial pursuit.

No one thing is more important than the other. Except survival; or
life, whatever you choose to call it. It is the only imperative. Or is
it really?. It probably is. Because it is the beginning and the end of
everything that exists. How do you know the universe (for lack of a
better word) exists outside of your mind? The entire universe,
everything that is seen, thought, felt, scratched, hurt, loved, and
tasted; everything that is ever dreamt, hoped, spat, chewed; everyone
and everything. Its all in your head. How do I know others exist? Is
there really a distinction between dreams and reality? Sounds we make,
thats all they are. We are not even sure if others read it the same
way that we do. Who are these others? Are they different from the
people in my head? Do they see what I see, hear what I hear? Perceive
time like I do? What cause the illusion of time? Why do clocks show
time passing at the same rate all the time, all the time? How do we
know time flows evenly?

I am the necessary and sufficient. For the entire universe. There was
nothing before, and after me there shall be nothing. Its a trip
though. I'll just sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. Wake me up when
we get there.

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