Wednesday, July 20, 2011
once again
Staring down the dark and dusty road of anxiety, not knowing where I'm headed, although I do have some ideas. Meanwhile the hoops and hurdles which trouble me puzzle me, I burn the candle at both ends, at times feel as though I am destined for a life filled with obesity and alcoholism, and fucking wisdom teeth. Damnit. Constant underestimation of myself and possibly irrational assessments of expectations are likely the root of my current duress. Though the inability to comprehend a text which seemed so clear to me two days ago haunts my intellectual confidence as well. What haunts me most however is my goddamn inability to manage my time. I know what I need to do, and when it comes down to the line I simply dont do it. Somehow I've scraped by this far with good grades and friends and whatnot....but I'll be goddamned if my dad wasn't right many years ago telling me "YOU'RE SETTING YOURSELF UP FOR FAILURE" though it made me feel like shit even at the time I could detect some possible truth to the statement. I am a creative person but have very little motivation to create. I used to be in shape but I have even less motivation to be that. And here I am whining about it on the internet like a little bitch. I guess writing it down is therapeutic for me. I guess...what am I saying that for, I know it is, thats the whole reason this damn blog exists...that and other things, perhaps because I had a pretentious moment where I thought some insight of mine might change someone's life. I read a lot of this stuff and laugh, you know...I overlook so many things staring me in the face.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Hey Again
SO cold in Marin...New York wont be much better I'm sure. Absent minded me left my suitcase back in santa cruz. Wondering if thats just a lot on my mind or inadequacy of my mind...either way I need to get it together. Working on fighting resentment lately, it builds quicker than any other passion a man will ever encounter, just as Neitzche said...although, when I think about it, I can't help but wonder how long it had been since Nietzche got laid last... thought of the moment..whats this "monetize" tab blogger has up at the top of the page now? I realize those of you reading this (haha probably no one who wants to read this garbage except me in a futile attempt to take an objective look at my self once in a while) dont know what I am talking about but on the page where I am writing this there are a bunch of tabs and one of them says "Monetize" ...does that mean they put impressionist paintings in the background of your profile and play Debussy? Honestly I think I'd be pretty down. Debussy time...peace out king crimson! Ah, thats more like it. I use this radio program called last.fm, its a lot like pandora. Exactly the same, actually, minus the advertisements since I use a downloaded program instead of the bonehead website. Anyway, you type in king crimson, adrian belew, robert fripp..whatever you like. Once in maybe 5 or 6 songs you'll get a song by one of those artists. One in every 3 or 4 songs that actually play will be good..the others are just some cheesy bullshit that someone decided they would call "progressive" and thats the genius of the "progressive" genre....you can't really descriminate against much unless someone is playing a 12 bar blues...thats pretty obviously not progressive. All this music talk is boring you, I can see it. Ah, here I am talking like I'm Fyodor Dostoyevsky or something...then again from what I've read of his works I feel a stronger connection to his thoughts and supposed mannerisms than to any other author I've recently read...(cough cough nietzche cough cough). Am I being pretentious right now? Probably...but that's the fun of thinking. Judge me all you want, chances are I'll judge you right back. It's human nature and there isnt a god damn thing any of us can do about it, or anything else in this godforsaken world except breathe. No I'm not pessimistic, I just let my mind wander and when I drink too much espresso, it doesn't really like to stop and smell the lilacs. Had to substitute lilacs in for roses there cause I can't stand using those damn cliché's all the time...and there I just admitted to knowingly using it. The irony here is great!
Thats all, man!
Thats all, man!
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Stream of consciousness
Some of my stream of consciousness writing, in the form of a story.
Enjoy.
-------------------------------------------------
Spontanaity
1)
There was an eery glow to the sun that day, he noticed. They were walking down a dark green pasture towards the ocean. “Why are we here?” He asked. Ignoring him, she continued to traipse through the meadow, light hearted, without much cause besides those which are inevitable and present from time to time in one’s life. His lusts outweighed his doubts, so he continued to follow. Fractals of light reflected off the water from the bright sun above, causing him to squint. He wanted to ponder his situation out loud, but was afraid to do so for various reasons, one of them being his fear of the potential impressions he might give. She was starting to lose him, so he jogged along in an attempt to regain lost ground. This was only the beginning of the distance he would regain, or would he regain the distance? And he didn’t even know her name.
Steve was ruffling through papers at his desk, exhausted and disappointed. A short and wiry man leaned through the doorway, “Steve, are you coming?” “Just go on without me, Earl” he said in a distant tone. There was something unusual about Steve, normally he was very direct with Earl, but today he seemed to be somewhere else. Earl considered giving him the same half hearted verbal-pats-on-the-back an empathetic co-worker on friendly terms would tell another. He wanted to tell Steve not to be so hard on himself, but in truth, all Earl really wanted was to lock up and go home. “Steve, you know I cant leave you here like this. C’mon, we’ll grab a drink or somethin’ “ he said. Reluctantly, Steve arose amidst overwhelming stacks of ruffled paper, cough drop wrappers and empty coffee cups, and grabbed his briefcase, slamming it shut with no regards to the several papers which spilled out onto the floor, yanked it up and trudged head down towards the door. “I think im just going to call it a night, Earl, but thanks.” Steve flagged a taxi and was gone momentarily. Slightly bewildered, Earl shrugged and headed down market in the opposite direction.
Earl didn’t enjoy drinking alone but then again drinking alone was much preferable to not drinking at all. His job was dull and stressful, and he had no idea where it was even taking him to begin with. Every time he pondered this he became uncomfortable and shielded off his thoughts with any mental distraction possible. It was getting progressively more difficult to ignore, however, and he knew that ultimately it was a problem he would have to confront. Confrontation was never Earl’s forte, and the only reasoning which he could use to reassure himself that this was alright, was that he preferred to allow what was determined to take their natural course. “Yeah, right” he thought, as he remembered his friend who had wrapped his Chevy Nova around an oak tree several years before. He should have taken the keys, he should have taken those god forsaken keys. But was it really guilt he felt? Doubtful, he had been completely apathetic about the accident as far as his compulsory emotions were concerned. He realized that he should feel badly about what had happened, whether or not it was his fault, it was a shitty chain of events. He felt nothing, he hadn’t shed a tear since probably the time he had skinned his knee in fourth grade after his brothers graduation. Where the hell was his brother anyways? They hadn’t spoken in several months, Earl had given up on trying. His brother Calvin was too damn busy for anyone. Earl, on the other hand, couldn’t help but feel as if he were doing next to nothing, considering his potential. A college degree had gotten him a position as a clerk in a dingy legal office on the edge of town. “Oh, now I’m just being negative” he thought. “You gonna order anything or are you just gonna stare at the wall all night?” the bartender asked. Startled, Earl looked up. A Cute little blond was standing there, waiting for his command. HIS command. “Well?” she asked. Earl ordered a gin and tonic and continued to think about his brother.
Steve, on the other hand, had no particular destination in mind. He realized he had to get out of the cab at some point, because he was running low on cash. He exited the cab near the bridge and walked along the river. This had happened to him in the past, where his thoughts got the better of him, causing him stress, sadness, confusion. Usually after a couple days the feelings would wear off. But for the time being? His mind was his only companion. No one else could possibly understand what was going through his head, or maybe, he just didnt want to tell anyone exactly what it was. Even the thought of exposing his true feelings to the world was overwhelming. There was only one individual he could comfortably reveal them to.
-----------------------------------------------------
I kinda lost inspiration on this one, but if I choose continue it I'll post more.
Enjoy.
-------------------------------------------------
Spontanaity
1)
There was an eery glow to the sun that day, he noticed. They were walking down a dark green pasture towards the ocean. “Why are we here?” He asked. Ignoring him, she continued to traipse through the meadow, light hearted, without much cause besides those which are inevitable and present from time to time in one’s life. His lusts outweighed his doubts, so he continued to follow. Fractals of light reflected off the water from the bright sun above, causing him to squint. He wanted to ponder his situation out loud, but was afraid to do so for various reasons, one of them being his fear of the potential impressions he might give. She was starting to lose him, so he jogged along in an attempt to regain lost ground. This was only the beginning of the distance he would regain, or would he regain the distance? And he didn’t even know her name.
Steve was ruffling through papers at his desk, exhausted and disappointed. A short and wiry man leaned through the doorway, “Steve, are you coming?” “Just go on without me, Earl” he said in a distant tone. There was something unusual about Steve, normally he was very direct with Earl, but today he seemed to be somewhere else. Earl considered giving him the same half hearted verbal-pats-on-the-back an empathetic co-worker on friendly terms would tell another. He wanted to tell Steve not to be so hard on himself, but in truth, all Earl really wanted was to lock up and go home. “Steve, you know I cant leave you here like this. C’mon, we’ll grab a drink or somethin’ “ he said. Reluctantly, Steve arose amidst overwhelming stacks of ruffled paper, cough drop wrappers and empty coffee cups, and grabbed his briefcase, slamming it shut with no regards to the several papers which spilled out onto the floor, yanked it up and trudged head down towards the door. “I think im just going to call it a night, Earl, but thanks.” Steve flagged a taxi and was gone momentarily. Slightly bewildered, Earl shrugged and headed down market in the opposite direction.
Earl didn’t enjoy drinking alone but then again drinking alone was much preferable to not drinking at all. His job was dull and stressful, and he had no idea where it was even taking him to begin with. Every time he pondered this he became uncomfortable and shielded off his thoughts with any mental distraction possible. It was getting progressively more difficult to ignore, however, and he knew that ultimately it was a problem he would have to confront. Confrontation was never Earl’s forte, and the only reasoning which he could use to reassure himself that this was alright, was that he preferred to allow what was determined to take their natural course. “Yeah, right” he thought, as he remembered his friend who had wrapped his Chevy Nova around an oak tree several years before. He should have taken the keys, he should have taken those god forsaken keys. But was it really guilt he felt? Doubtful, he had been completely apathetic about the accident as far as his compulsory emotions were concerned. He realized that he should feel badly about what had happened, whether or not it was his fault, it was a shitty chain of events. He felt nothing, he hadn’t shed a tear since probably the time he had skinned his knee in fourth grade after his brothers graduation. Where the hell was his brother anyways? They hadn’t spoken in several months, Earl had given up on trying. His brother Calvin was too damn busy for anyone. Earl, on the other hand, couldn’t help but feel as if he were doing next to nothing, considering his potential. A college degree had gotten him a position as a clerk in a dingy legal office on the edge of town. “Oh, now I’m just being negative” he thought. “You gonna order anything or are you just gonna stare at the wall all night?” the bartender asked. Startled, Earl looked up. A Cute little blond was standing there, waiting for his command. HIS command. “Well?” she asked. Earl ordered a gin and tonic and continued to think about his brother.
Steve, on the other hand, had no particular destination in mind. He realized he had to get out of the cab at some point, because he was running low on cash. He exited the cab near the bridge and walked along the river. This had happened to him in the past, where his thoughts got the better of him, causing him stress, sadness, confusion. Usually after a couple days the feelings would wear off. But for the time being? His mind was his only companion. No one else could possibly understand what was going through his head, or maybe, he just didnt want to tell anyone exactly what it was. Even the thought of exposing his true feelings to the world was overwhelming. There was only one individual he could comfortably reveal them to.
-----------------------------------------------------
I kinda lost inspiration on this one, but if I choose continue it I'll post more.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
That elephant in the room
Why is it that I want this formidable thing? Why is it that outside this thing all signs point to no, even my own mental roads, yet inside this thing all roads lead to yes? Why do I call myself rational and yet go against everything I would tell another person in this situation? Well not everything I guess, but everything I would have told a person in my position given everything in the past. I guess its human nature and there is really no more specificity to it than that.
[curse word]
[curse word]
Thursday, July 8, 2010
On Psychological Egoism
Psychological egoism, an idea thought up by philosopher John Hobbes (yes, this is who the stuffed tiger hobbes in calvin and hobbes is named after, as his character can attest) suggests that every conscious action we commit as humans is done for ourselves, in one way or another. To put it simply: BY NATURE, HUMANS DO EVERYTHING FOR THEMSELVES. Humans will not commit an action that their mind does not perceive as benefitting them in some way. Lately I have thought up a few cases where this could be argued and then realized they do not evade the argument by any means. I will start off with a few examples to clarify this subject first.
1. A man walks to the store to buy bread. He buys bread so that he can feed himself. That one is obvious.
2. A soldier throws himself on a grenade to save his 5 other soldier friends. In this case, there must have been some mental idea present that being a martyr would benefit his name, that others might see him as a hero--he had SOMETHING to gain, whatever it was, he committed to the act because it benefitted him.
But here was an example that troubled me for a bit.
3. An immature teenager who is not all that bright gets bored so he decides to burn his arm. He doesn't know what will happen, he just does it. It hurts him, leaves a mark. Well it came to me that this example is the most obvious of all! The answer is within the very beginning of the sentence, too. He wants to free himself of boredom! Or his parents are perhaps neglectful of him and he wants attention, positive or negative, he doesn't care---just like in the case of a child trying to aggravate their parent just for the hell of it.
This can obviously be a horrible thing but on the other hand it gives me some hope for humans, as a race. The fact that we have enough nuclear weaponry to blow up the world over 6 times does not mean we would ever do that--why would anyone ever want to wipe out the entire human race? Perhaps they might wipe out a large portion of the race--but the human race itself is destined to survive.
Having said that I now feel like an idiot because nature could wipe out our entire race with ease by throwing upon us natural disasters of magnitude we could not comprehend. Then again, we do have space shuttles, but to where? There has to be somewhere else we could live, because the entire scope of our knowledge as humans is less than one millionth of what actually exists in entirety, and in addition to that, another thing outside of our scope of knowledge is what the FUCK existence even is, how the FUCK we know that WE even exist, god, its so overwhelming when you think that this could all be a dream, but what is a dream? What do we even fucking know? Do we know that there are 4 million other colors we cant see? We certainly dont know there aren't.
From all this, my conclusion (and digression) ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
Love youself.
Much love,
-Zephyr
1. A man walks to the store to buy bread. He buys bread so that he can feed himself. That one is obvious.
2. A soldier throws himself on a grenade to save his 5 other soldier friends. In this case, there must have been some mental idea present that being a martyr would benefit his name, that others might see him as a hero--he had SOMETHING to gain, whatever it was, he committed to the act because it benefitted him.
But here was an example that troubled me for a bit.
3. An immature teenager who is not all that bright gets bored so he decides to burn his arm. He doesn't know what will happen, he just does it. It hurts him, leaves a mark. Well it came to me that this example is the most obvious of all! The answer is within the very beginning of the sentence, too. He wants to free himself of boredom! Or his parents are perhaps neglectful of him and he wants attention, positive or negative, he doesn't care---just like in the case of a child trying to aggravate their parent just for the hell of it.
This can obviously be a horrible thing but on the other hand it gives me some hope for humans, as a race. The fact that we have enough nuclear weaponry to blow up the world over 6 times does not mean we would ever do that--why would anyone ever want to wipe out the entire human race? Perhaps they might wipe out a large portion of the race--but the human race itself is destined to survive.
Having said that I now feel like an idiot because nature could wipe out our entire race with ease by throwing upon us natural disasters of magnitude we could not comprehend. Then again, we do have space shuttles, but to where? There has to be somewhere else we could live, because the entire scope of our knowledge as humans is less than one millionth of what actually exists in entirety, and in addition to that, another thing outside of our scope of knowledge is what the FUCK existence even is, how the FUCK we know that WE even exist, god, its so overwhelming when you think that this could all be a dream, but what is a dream? What do we even fucking know? Do we know that there are 4 million other colors we cant see? We certainly dont know there aren't.
From all this, my conclusion (and digression) ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
Love youself.
Much love,
-Zephyr
Monday, June 28, 2010
Hypocrisy
Am I losing my morals and values? Am I going against things which I very strongly believe in? Am I even worth shit if this is the case? Am I merely human? Well yeah....
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
A Guided Meditation? (Not in the traditional sense, of course...)
And I said unto mike...
Z:At times the sentiment prevails within me that I often, if not constantly overthink trifles and underthink relevant and self concerning matters. Is this normal?
M:God Bless America!
Z:On a less shallow level than that, of course...(I hoped...)On a personal, non materialistic level, closer to psychological egoism than anytthing...something which I want to learn to overcome to the best of my ability. The obvious answer which you just gave me is troubling, not because you gave it, of course, but because it iis in fact the obvious answer. [to my question]
M:I know. It sucks. But there's nothing to keep you from being the exception to the norm.
Z: Not a damn thing I can do about it? The only way to succeed is to play ball, I suppose.
M: I don't really understand what you're saying. my experiences hitchhiking disproved psychological egoism at least in enough people for me.
Z:What I mean is that social situations which affect the well being of my ego at certain times seem to take precedence over serious matters concerning my existence and the good that can come of it.
M: When that happens, look at your hands and see if someone's opinion of you is making you disintegrate. Ignore that advice if you're on psychedelics.
[end]
M
Z:At times the sentiment prevails within me that I often, if not constantly overthink trifles and underthink relevant and self concerning matters. Is this normal?
M:God Bless America!
Z:On a less shallow level than that, of course...(I hoped...)On a personal, non materialistic level, closer to psychological egoism than anytthing...something which I want to learn to overcome to the best of my ability. The obvious answer which you just gave me is troubling, not because you gave it, of course, but because it iis in fact the obvious answer. [to my question]
M:I know. It sucks. But there's nothing to keep you from being the exception to the norm.
Z: Not a damn thing I can do about it? The only way to succeed is to play ball, I suppose.
M: I don't really understand what you're saying. my experiences hitchhiking disproved psychological egoism at least in enough people for me.
Z:What I mean is that social situations which affect the well being of my ego at certain times seem to take precedence over serious matters concerning my existence and the good that can come of it.
M: When that happens, look at your hands and see if someone's opinion of you is making you disintegrate. Ignore that advice if you're on psychedelics.
[end]
M
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