Random Thoughts Part 28

If you’ve been certain that Putin had pee tapes he was holding over Trump’s head but never once considered that Jeffrey Epstein might have something similar on him, your opinions are not your own but mere echoes of what the media has told you.

Flint drinking water: Obama didn’t fix it. Trump Didn’t fix it. The next president isn’t going to fix it. Don’t even try to voter shame people. Why would anybody in Flint vote for a candidate that can even provide water?

In the transition from words in physical form to words we read on electronic devices, we lose two very important aspects of reading: 1. A book does not offer you a world of cheap distractions the way anything connected to the internet does and 2. Words on paper cannot be changed, whereas news articles etc. are constantly rewritten as soon as the words and ideas prove the writer a liar or a moron.

What did we intend to do differently in Syria than we did in Libya, which left that country a smoldering wreck and a haven for terrorists where open-air slave markets thrived?

In the relationship between humans and cell phones, I’m fairly certain which is the master.

Anybody who would pay $1.50 for a bottle of water is a moron and anybody who would sell it at that price is evil.

The problem with capitalism is that it is run by capitalists.

My expectations of the world are so low it would not surprise me to hear that Adam Sandler was making a sequel to Jack And Jill.

A lot of time we see the packaging and assume there must be an actual product. We look at the politician and automatically think he must stand for something. We think with so many words and such passion in their voices that there must be some importance and meaning somewhere, and that the problem lies with us for not understanding them. We seem to have forgotten that marketing was once able to make Pet Rocks a fad.

The atheist has a way of blaming God for allowing evil to exist while absolving man.

The Earth is you mother, not your whore.

From here on out, I’m totally okay with giving every U.S. President who doesn’t get us involved in a nuclear war a Nobel Peace Prize.

When the media says they looked into Biden’s son’s business deals in Ukraine and found no wrongdoing, who is “they”? Who decided that profiteering in a country where your dad helped overthrow a democratically elected government and install their own puppets is okay?

It costs a lot to live in our society even if you’re poor, because our society was not created with the poor in mind. No one can live a simple life, even if that is their preference. We don’t have a freedom to live as we choose, we only have the freedom to live as a rich person would choose.

The heart is capable of understanding what the intellect cannot, but it requires patience. Wisdom breathes deeply, slowly. But we live in a world where we only have time to understand with our minds, and even then we are fed information so quickly we don’t have time to sift through the information. So it is not even our intellect that is in charge of our decisions but the 5-second response aspect of our consciousness. This is the most primitive part of our psyche, and the most easily manipulated. It is not an accident our society has come to be shaped in this way.

Numbers don’t lie and guns don’t kill, but put numbers in the hands of a liar or a gun in the hands of a killer, and you have a bad situation on your hands.

An Excerpt From Seven Stones Book Three: Stolen Soul

Stolen Soul

A Magic Show In 1923 Germany

A large box sat upon the dais, front doors opened to show it empty. Doug closed the doors and began placing items into the box from an open door in the top. Springs, cogs, vacuum tubes, all the building blocks of the dawning civilization. They clanked as they dropped into the box. When he was done, he closed the top of the box, stepped down from the dais, and approached a board of dials, gauges, and levers. He pulled a lever and the electrical pylons on either side of the box sprang once more to life, snapping their energy menacingly. The stage, the entire theater, pulsated in the flashing light, so that the audience could both see and feel what was going on. The result was an audience that felt both threatened and helpless. They were mere spectators of an event that could at any moment overwhelm them.

The lightning throbbed and arced, each pylon reaching out to the other. They met at the box in the middle, the one that contained the cogs and tubes. The very air seemed to fry as it carried along the electrical charge. Behind the box, vast cogs began to spin, unstoppable wheels of industry coming to life, energized by the pylons.

Something immense was being born. Something beyond the comprehension let alone control of mere humans. The man who had pulled the lever, who was now busily adjusting dials and gazing at gauges, was in the grip of the energy as much as any of the cogs. Strobing blue light revealed him lost in ecstasy. He was part of something larger, and it did not matter that it had taken control of him. His posture, his movements, the manic look on his face made it appear as though he was no longer a man at all but a part of the machine.

And just when the noise of machinery and crackling electricity had reached its crescendo, it accelerated. This was no show for humans, it was a spectacle they were forced to participate in. They were witnesses to the dawn of a world that was indifferent and hostile to them. Their only choices were to surrender or perish.

In the midst of the madness, a sudden final climaxing throb arose. Then suddenly there was silence and darkness. The effect was even more shocking than the chaos it followed. It left the audience without anything to hold onto, as if they had been carried up into the sky and then left to fall. But the figure at the control board flipped a switch, and two lights cast their illumination upon him and the box upon the dais.

After a moment, the small sound of an opening door could be heard. The front of the box was opening, slowly, almost painfully. The hinges of the front doors seemed to shriek in pain as they gave way, as if the lightning had fused the metal. The audience peered inside the box in anticipation, waiting in fear for what would emerge from the shadows within the box. Amid the darkness inside, sharp light glinted on something shiny and silver. As it emerged it became obvious that it was a woman and yet not so. She was beautiful and bright, and yet she was not human. She was a machine, and yet something more. She was a goddess. Untouchable. Inhuman.

Upon her was an air of imperiousness. The man who had created her was enthralled with what he saw. Here was a thing of beauty to be worshipped, though it was the work of his own hands.

It could not be denied she was beautiful, despite her unworldliness. She was austere and pure, unblemished by the world, not of it. Untouched by mortality or imperfection. She was everything humanity had attained to, and yet she was not human. She was physically ideal, and yet within her gaze and within her movement, one could see that she had no soul.

Her movements were slow and stiff, but majestic. Upon her diaphanous clothing, light shown like the aftereffects of the electricity that had given her life. And all the while the man at the control board look on, transfixed.

She made her way slowly towards him, and as she neared he fell to his knees in obeisance, in worship. He bowed his head to the floor in front of her. And yet, though he did not cast his eyes upon her, he rose when she commanded him to do so with a wave of her inhuman hand. He got to his feet, head still bowed, and followed her as she walked slowly towards the box. They both entered, then the doors shut of their own accord. Once more, the machinery sprang to life, no longer requiring a human operator. Once more, lightning flashed, puffs of smoke arising from the pylons. A smell of burnt flesh, sulfur, and oil hung in the air. And when at last the machinery was silenced, when the lights died to a single circle focused on the box upon the dais, the doors slowly opened to reveal nothing but darkness.

Conspiracy Theories: True, False, And Perhaps

There are two equally dangerous reactions to conspiracy theories: 1. Ceasing to even consider the arguments behind an idea the moment the conspiracy label is applied and 2. the tendency to believe all of them are likely true once the evidence for one becomes overwhelming. A conspiracy theory is, after all, merely a theory that two or more people conspired for a purpose. People do that all the time. To call something a conspiracy theory should not carry with it negative connotations.

It comes down to which type of conspiracy you are first introduced to, I suppose. If you are first introduced to a conspiracy theory that, after probing deeply, either is proven false or seems to be false, you will afterwards tend to dismiss whatever conspiracy you come across. You will have been inoculated.

Similarly, if you are introduced to a conspiracy theory that seems to hold true after extended investigation, you will be tempted to believe whatever conspiracy theory that is floated about must have some validity. You will have become infected.

The appeal of both is to our intellectual laziness. It is being exacerbated by the information overload that is unavoidable in this age. We are overwhelmed by both theories and propaganda from official sources, and we are left to ourselves to decide which side we tend to believe. And with the endless amount of leads to follow, it is not only convenient but necessary to dismiss facts in bulk, to cling to a mindset, opinion, or group of authorities in order to avoid ambiguity and the pain of not knowing.

The answer to this problem is in letting go of a need to have a definite opinion. Between yes and no, we can add the option of “I don’t know.” Egoically, this is an unsatisfactory answer. But ego has never been our friend.

Just think of what a boon to our society it would be for people to say “I don’t know” when engaging in an argument. True, too often “I don’t know” has been followed up with “and I don’t care”. This is a third form of intellectual laziness, I suppose. But more often failing to engage in debate stems not from disinterest so much as the idea that a debate must have a winner. That’s where “I don’t know” comes in handy. “I don’t know” is you admitting you don’t have the answers, and therefore don’t feel the need to win an argument.

People often say they don’t like social media because of all the arguments. That is precisely why I enjoy social media, so that I might argue with others, many of whom I do not know. It really is an unprecedented tool for communication and education. And despite the missteps many have taken in figuring out the unwritten rules of online communication, I truly believe humans are working their way towards understanding how communication with family/friends/strangers can work. We merely have to let go of rigid opinions in order to allow more facts to help us form a more sophisticated view of things.

In short, we should not hold rigid opinions so much as theories. Theories can be modified whenever new knowledge is introduced, whereas rigid opinions necessitate the molding of new knowledge to conform to biases. The braver course is always in laying out the information you possess and offering it to others. The smarter course is in listening to valid criticism and defending your position when it is legitimate, admitting flaws and incorporating new information when it is not. Not only will you convert more people to your position with this approach, you will make those around you more accepting of spirited debate. And I'm firmly convinced the world will be made better by the collective mind than by a few know-it-alls.

P.S. I'm pretty sure JFK was not killed by Oswald, Russian election interference is a laughable argument, and reptile aliens are NOT running our planet. I'd be pleased to have a friendly argument on the first two, not so much on the third.

Random Thoughts Part 27

Time and again they brag about how shiny their machine is and how fast it goes. But never do they bother to answer when you ask them where it’s going.

The difference between driving your car up a curb in order to run over a bunny rabbit and flying to Africa to shoot an animal is merely the degree of commitment required.

As insightful as The Matrix is, they got it wrong. It is the illusion that is always the painful place to live in, though it can appear to provide comfort or at least refuge. It is ALWAYS better to know the truth, because when you know the truth, the subtle lie does not weigh on your conscience, poisoning the sweetest joys that are available to even the poorest and most set-upon of us. 

Here is the paradox of life: if you want to stay young, you have to keep taking chances, but if you want to grow old, you will have to stop.

You really can’t blame people for making bad choices until you make sure they have good ones available.

When most non-Christians reject Christianity they concentrate on the mystical aspects while ignoring the revolutionary teachings of Christ. When most Christians embrace Christianity, they too concentrate on the mystical aspect while ignoring the revolutionary teachings of Christ. Both sides give lip service to such notions of non-violence, forgiveness of others, loving others as oneself, and a desire for peace. But somehow the message that Christ delivered not only in word but in example seems to be the elephant in the room.

Is it weird that I should be nostalgic for a past that was spent dreaming of the future?

As I grow older I come to regard all that is natural as miraculous and all that is manmade as suspect if not outright corrupting. Awe is to be found in nature, distraction is all one can find in the world made by humans. I despise the use of the word “awesome” being applied to anything created by humans with the exceptions of Notre Dame Cathedral and Anglagard’s first album.

Truth without power is a dangerous possession.

You ever get the feeling humans have fallen a little too in love with their technology? It is not too different from the story of Narcissus falling in love with his own reflection.

I sometimes get the feeling that the 17^th Century will eventually wake up and realize human flight and the internet were just a crazy dream brought on by something they had eaten. After all what a silly notion it is to believe that at this moment there are people sitting comfortably in the middle of the sky accessing information instantaneously from all over the world. Wondrous stuff for a fantasy novel, though.

We all want to shape the world in our own image, and we all envision a world where people such as ourselves sit a bit above others and are revered. 

I’d rather be the quiet than the noise.

Science not in the service of nature is an abomination.

Man: A creature strong enough to destroy the earth, but not strong enough to save it.

It is best to treat everyone you know as an equal, because everyone you look up to will eventually disappoint you, and everyone you look down on will sooner or later humble you.

Numbers don’t lie and guns don’t kill, but put numbers in the hands of a liar or a gun in the hands of a killer, and you have a bad situation on your hands.

Sure, they call it a restroom, but you try taking a nap on the floor in one at a Barnes And Noble and people get all weird about it.

The Ocean Of Sorrow, The Ocean Of Fear

There is an ocean of sorrow. Its surface is calm, its water clear, and in it we can see depths we can never hope to reach.

There is an ocean of fear. Its waters are ever-turbulent, so that we can only imagine what dangers lie within its depths.

Between the two runs the thinnest of islands, barely existing amidst the endless stretches of water. But on this island, there is neither sorrow nor fear. It is an island upon which we can find perfect contentedness.

The ocean of sadness is the past. Should we attempt to do more than wade in it, we will be sucked down by our memories and drown in our regrets and our loss.

The ocean of fear is the future. It holds within it not only imagined horrors, but also our inevitable death and the wreck of all that now is. We may believe we can navigate it by the stars, but once we lose sight of the island, we will soon lose our bearings as fearful waves crash down upon us.

The island that separates the two is the now. On it, we are free from sorrow and fear. On it, we can find peace without cessation.

Live Sanely, Live Simply

Reality occasionally cuts through the artificial world we’ve created for ourselves. It is at such moments we realize how distant the two have grown from each other.

It happened to me today at work when a coworker noticed I was being bothered by the fan blowing at me and stated that it really wasn’t warm enough to have a fan on. He then said he could point it in a different direction if I wanted.

That’s it. That’s the moment. I realized that people no longer consider turning things off as an option. That would have been the logical choice for anyone from a past generation. That is the correct action that was drilled into my skull by my parents as a child. If you're  not using it, turn it off. If you’re not watching the television, turn it off. If you’re not in a room, turn the light off.

Sounds like nagging, doesn’t it? What it actually is is common sense. Your parents nagged you for a reason, because you had a lot to learn. They nagged you because they knew there was an electric bill to pay every month and there were real consequences for wasting energy.

More than that, though, they grew up in a different reality, one where thrift was not only wise, it was necessary. You did not waste because the alternative might just be hunger or abject poverty. For many of our ancestors, it was a matter of life and death.

We no longer have real connection to the world in which we live. Out of sight and out of mind is the supply side for the electricity. We do not see the power plant where the electricity is created. We are not aware of the excess heat created along with the energy that contributes to a warming planet. We do not see the mountains of coal that have been shipped from out of state, mined by people who work horrible jobs and destroy their health in the process. We do not see the ravaged landscapes that are the result of coal mining. We never think about the many people involved in bringing electricity to our homes and places of business: the linemen, the loaders of ships and the crew of such vessels. So given our blindness to our reality, why would we ever think to turn something off, especially at work where someone else is paying for it?

I caught myself in my own little bubble recently. I was about to pour myself a glass of water but had just done the dishes and didn’t want to dirty another glass. So I thought about just having a can of Pepsi. And then it hit me: I would save myself the energy of washing a dish by having others mine aluminum, ship it somewhere to be fashioned into a can, fill it with ingredients from God knows where, and then take it by semi to my local grocery store, where I would waste gasoline extracted from Saudi Arabia, shipped to Texas where it was refined, and then brought north to Wisconsin where an attendant is paid money to take mine. But it really was simpler on my end to have a Pepsi.

The problem is that we are all interconnected in ways we don’t ever stop to think about. In fact, we have become so interconnected that it is impossible to comprehend. Truth be known, we would not have a cell phone or the clothes we wear without people—often children—being exploited in order to provide us with cheap goods we don’t really need. Nobody, given a direct choice, would choose to have children mining precious metals for subsistence wages. But, you see, it’s just so darn…convenient. And the underlying principle of convenience is that we don’t want to think too much about it. So much easier to go with the flow.

The problem with going with the flow and with convenience is that in the long term they lead us to a bad end. Nobody got anywhere worth going by taking the convenient route. There’s a price that isn’t being paid and a reality not being dealt with, and eventually it will come back to bite us.

It is time—way past time—for us to begin reconnecting to our world and our fellow humans in simple and concrete ways, of trimming out the complexity that leads to alienation. To do this we have to swap out the concept of convenience for simplicity, replace quantity of goods for quality of experience.

We don’t need more possessions, larger televisions, or faster internet service. Anyone complaining they don’t have enough of those things in 21^st Century America is sick in the head. In truth, we are a society that has been suffering for quite some time now with the disease of consumption. We have made as our heroes those who do much, create much, have much. The people we need to start holding up as role models are those who take little, both from others and from nature. Those who find contentment in the simple joys that are afforded to the many instead of those that can only ever be afforded by the few.

This is not only necessary, it will feel good. Once the sickness has passed, we will realize just what a fever-induced delirium we have been living. Once we have freed ourselves from our insulated bubbles, we will feel how healthy it is to be connected to the world in real and meaningful ways. We will once again know how it feels to walk barefoot through the grass with the sun on our skin. We’ll realize that sun-dried sheets smell infinitely better than a dryer sheet. We’ll once again eat real food, live in the seasons, wear clothes made by willing workers rather than children under threat of starvation. 

This is going to be good.

Meditations On A Poem By Caitlin Johnstone

If you have not yet read it, I highly suggest this wonderful poem by Caitlin Johnstone. Her book Woke is never too far from my side and I often reread it and meditate upon it. I was recently doing so and would like to add to what she said in my own non-poetic way.

Have the courage to speak, yes, but also have the courage to feel. Because the bastards not only want to shut you up, they want to shut you down. Sadists are like that. They not only want to control your behavior, they want to control your very thoughts and emotions. They do not permit you your own feelings. Your feelings are an assault upon their mastery. They will seek to convince you your very feelings betray what a worthless person you are. Feel!

And you are tempted to shut down your feelings, aren’t you? You see the horrible things the bastards are doing--the killing of innocents, the perversion of childhood, the destruction of forests, the defaming of truth-tellers--and it all becomes too much to deal with, so you look away, pretend it isn’t happening and distract yourself with lesser things. You create you only little niche where you feel you can have some impact, and in so doing abandon the idea of being powerful on the more important issues. You create for yourself a smaller--tiny--world, because when you open up your feelings all you get is pain.

But don’t stop feeling. Take it all in, every bit of it. Accept what your eyes see, what your ears hear and what your heart knows. It is not your feelings and senses that are betraying you but the sadists who see you as another commodity on the shelf which they can buy and then dispose of when you become useless. Feel more intensely, and you will feel the power surge back into your weary and faded essence. Feel more fully and you will once again be flooded with your own power, and it will rinse away the fear and self-loathing that has dominated your life for too long. Feel and you will have the power of righteous indignation Dr. King spoke of. Feel because that’s what it means to be alive. And you are ever so gloriously alive. Feel because if you don’t you are already dead. Feel, because if you are already dead you have nothing more to fear from the sadists.

Feel because only in feeling do you realize your power. Only in being fearlessly yourself can you counteract those who wish to possess you in a material as well as a mental and spiritual manner. To feel is to be in touch with that miracle of life that flows through you every second you are on Earth. And this alone is the answer to oppression. This is the spiritual response to the materialist’s preference for possessions over human beings, domination over love. To be open to what you are feeling and thinking is the answer to conformity and authoritarianism. If you allow yourself to feel, you will finally realize you are not a thing which can be owned but an individual who needs not bow to anyone.

To be open to that which flows in you is to take the greatest of pleasures in the simplest of experiences: the smell of a flower, the touch of a cool breeze, the sound of waves lapping on the shore. In being open to that flow you realize all the temptations of the sadists are perverted and ugly distractions. In being open to the life within you, you understand that there is nothing they can threaten you with that is more fearful than closing yourself off to yourself. The only real hell is submission to their dominance. In realizing you are not a thing but life itself, you will no long require their baubles and their cheap toys they sell as the keys to happiness, no longer fear what their wrath.

Live, and do not resign yourself to a life within the shadows. Live and abandon the cages they wish to keep you in. The only real means of resisting is by rejecting. They cannot define you.

It means nothing to speak without fear, it means everything to feel and look without fear. The timid soul can speak fearlessly because, never daring to look at things as they are, never allowing themselves to feel genuine emotion, they will never utter a disquieting thought.

Nietzsche’s expression “When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back” sounds as if it comes from one who has been to the edge and come back to tell the tale. It sounds like the statement of a great explorer who has come to the end of human ability to explore reality. In truth they are the words of a coward who peered into the depths, saw things that frightened him, and ran away. Look, look into the abyss without worrying about what stares back. Do not fear the utter darkness for it is your mission to bring light to it. When the abyss stares back be so unafraid and open that your brightness causes it to avert its gaze. You are light. You are life.

Once you have gazed upon the abyss and driven away the monsters of your own creation that lurk there, you will have no need to worry about what it is you should say. The words will burst from you. They will burst from life itself, because that is what you are.