How to go mad in three easy steps

1. Have a grandiose sense of self. Take credit for all good things and blame others for all bad things. Seek entitlements. Believe you were meant for great things.

2. Be a Shuddist ("Should"-ist). Say "The world should be like this" or "People should not be like that". Junk food shouldn't make me fat. That person gets away with that behavior, then so should I. You should treat me better. Life should be fair etc. etc. I should be successful - I deserve it.

3. Be a wound-licker. Hang onto life's disappointments and injustices. Hold a grudge. Make people pay for not living up to your expectations. Never let go of your rotten childhood, your crappy romances or your second-rate education. Fester.

Other tips for speeding up insanity.
Avoid self-improvement.
Be very afraid.
Accept your place at the bottom of the totem pole - but be unhappy about it.
Dwell on the negative.
Marry someone worse than you.
Complain.
Insist on changing people.
Give in to your impulses.

Avalanche

Most of us spend our adult lives like trapped miners or victims of an avalanche. Whether it's economics, family/social problems or health, we spend our most valuable time surviving in the hope of someday finding our way out of our predicaments. Like the WWI soldier that scribbled 'Flander's Fields' on a piece of paper before getthing himself killed, we make our little notes, our SOS's to the universe, our hallmark cards to ourselves and we make our wishlists.

If, remarkably, we do not invent another avalanche of neurosis, paranoia and fear, we still spend most of our time looking for a vent of fresh air. And even if we find it, others are determined to keep us away from it.

Stowaways, hiding immigrants, living under the floorboards, waiting for the nighttime - where can wander our small space, live briefly the way we would like, while the guards that normally keep us crouching, sleep.

Oh to be royal

We have a desire to live in a court, to be admired and honored - basically to be royal.
Even communists, when in power, create a court and crown themselves rulers - then proceed to loot the treasury.

Why do so many pop stars call themselves prince, queen, king etc.? They, like royalty of the past, want to dominate, rule, program, and rob the public. It is in us all. We are the homely girl that wants to be told we are beautiful. We want more gifts and sweet talk. We want to be embraced by the handsome overlord and be invited to live in the castle. The real facts are repugnant to the princess and interesting to the artist, horrible to the dreamer and fascinating to the scientist.

The world is not what we make it, but what it is. A philosophy is what we make it. It doesn't change the world. I can be bombarded with negative energy and yet be protected by my philosophy. The negative energy is still there.

Yet, problems can be solved. The world, like clay, can and will yield, however unexpectedly.

Western Indigestion

What gives the West Indigestion? There are many things the West has eaten which trouble the imperial stomach. Mainly, other countries and cultures. Without understanding the narratives which make up the history of a country, we employ our considerable power to pursuade that country to join our great cause: Freedom, Liberty and Prosperity etc. etc. However, because we don't care to do our homework, when those countries (Turkey, Pakistan, India, Russia for starters) dabble in capitalism/democracy they bring with them their history of power struggles, national obsessions, cults, feuds, superstitions, tyrants, biases, chauvinism, royal and divine status, extremeist and libertines etc. So when they arrive on the stage we are aghast, (urp! trouble in the tummy) that they are so barbarous. Without being an apologist, one must realize that their narratives are all still firing on all cylinders and that their dabblings with western concepts is but one new narrative in the national mind. The smart money already left the country and immigrated to the west a long time ago. So whoever is left is part and parcel of the national collective memory. And guess what? They will never give it up. Jamaicans will be Jamaicans, French the French and Iraquis the Iraquis. It will always be a huge mess. Peace will only exist in novels and poetry.

Notes on Articles of Faith

Why is believing in reality an article of faith?

Because everything a human experiences is through the filter of human experience.
Whether walking in a field or taking drugs in an isolation chamber, the experience is always human. It occurs in a human body which has a human mind. Almost all humans are non-feral. That is they have some sort of education and some sort of way of thinking about the world. This is added to the filter. Even scientific concepts like energy, matter, cause and effect are totally human constructs. Whatever is happening in the universe and the "unaverse" (the inner world of your sole mind and body) cannot be known, except through the human filter. So, every the most obvious truths are articles of faith. The good news is that we need never stray from the most obvious truths. Doing so is at our own peril.

Questions for theology and random thoughts

If there is a God is, by definition, perfect, then wouldn't the universe God created would be perfect too?
Why would God create a perfect universe and then mess with it?
Why would God interfere with the processes of the perfect universe, thus making it imperfect?
Why does every religion, philosphy and spiritual book say you "Must" do this, this and that?
Why is intolerence at the heart of religion and philosophy?

Philosophers and religious people Would not criticize a catepillar for gorging? So why do they criticize people for doing so?
If man is an animal, why is everyone so surprised when he acts like one?

If you were to cull the truth from religious books you would have a fine, very small volume. Why must I do this?

People describe their wacky, spiritual experiences to establish their spiritual superiority (as if there were one) to make you feel empty and unfulfilled. Like salesmen, they create a need for their product by describing it in glowing
terms. Why do they never say: you will puke. Your limbs will tremble with cold and fear. Your heart will race and pains will shoot through your body. You will be so overwhelmed with sadness and agony that you will pray for death? Why? Because
they are selling 'containment' experience. Containment experience is what might happen to you (or not) if you subscribe to their pronouncements. Example: Be here now, let go, judge not etc. etc. Great for your blood pressure but certainly not going to give you any mind blowing out-of-body, supernatural, weird experience. Those must be induced. So you do all that and feel a bit better. Then you figure, I'll sign up for Level Two, then Level Three. Finally, you'll have so much invested the experience, you'll have to come up with something to justify all the investment.

So what is the answer, my nieve friend? You cannot have an answer to a non-specific question. So you have only have advice. Advice that is unpleasant is usually a better tonic than the pleasant.

Many people are genetically advantaged to succeed, in sports, in music, in science, in art, in many arenas of life. You can try to succeed on their level, but you will likely only end up with an appreciation of how excellent they truly are. This is not a bad thing.

The foolish seek answers, the wise seek advice.

As a young fool I invested many, many years seeking answers to flawed questions.
Had I a better question I might have found an answer.

What is life? Who am I? What is my purpose? Is there a purpose? All these questions
are academic. A young art student spends their time drawing and sculpting nudes. Eventually they master drawing and sculpting nudes. Then, after they enter the workforce they find there is no market for nudes. None at all. Have they wasted their time? No. Should they try to create a market for nudes? Unlikely. They use their considerable skills elsewhere. Similarly, pursuing academic questions about meaning, ethics, purpose, beginnings etc. have little value. But they do sharpen the mind. You can put your thoughts on these matters on the shelf as a souvenir from your student days, then use your mind for better things.

If you are failing at an enterprise, ask yourself "am I holding back?, am I willing to pay much more for this?

A complex of self-determined cells make up your body. A complex of self-determined people make up our species. A complex of self-determined beings are constantly trying to kill us. A complex of self-determined animals avoid us whenever possible.
A complex of elements creates the world we live in. Instead of hello, say "How's the complex?"

Everything that is, is, and an equilibrium of sorts is always acheived. But beware the equilibrium you create. Forces known and unknown will always be collaborating with you and fighting against you. You cannot know the outcome of an event, but you can use probability as a guide.

Beware acting and beware not acting. In any event, be aware.

Can you live in a constant state of wonder? Yes, if you are the wonder type. Otherwise, no. Can you learn a skill and excel at it? Yes, no matter what type you are. Can you succeed so well that the world take notice and reward you with cash, fame and love? Yes, if you are the driven, talented, bloodthirsty, egomaniacal, healthy type. Otherwise, no. Can you bring to your life a mastery of things so that anyone entering your realm realizes your determination and hard work? Yes, no matter what type you are.

Success on a large scale is determined by numerous random factors.
Success on a local scale is determined by you.

Intelligent Design - Commentary

If the proponents of Intelligent Design (ID) are correct - that is, that there really is a superior, "divine" being planning everything concerning earth - then they should be very worried.

The dinosaurs ruled the earth for millions of years, yet they were extinguished along with almost everything else in a nuclear winter believed to be caused by either volcanoes or crashing asteroids. I guess in the ID schema this heartless devastation and ruin was planned to make way for mammals and, ultimately, humans. But who is to say humans are but a temporary step on the way to yet another dominant lifeform? Since we humans are along the path of creating silicone lifeforms, it seems likely that sentient machines might survive the next nuclear winter and go on to rule the Earth. Think of it! After billions of years, the supreme being would have a reasonably obedient following!

Lets follow this idea a short while longer: If robots ruled the earth for millions of years and got smarter and smarter, perhaps one day they too would wonder about their origins. How did we get started? How did CPUs and computer code come into being? Did wireless packet technology spontaneously come into existence? Then, if someone (meaning some robot, let's call him Darwinoid) suggested (to the other robots) that beings composed of meat and bone created them, I'm sure the other robots would kick Darwinoid out of the room. Imagine the insult to the super intelligent robots that meat-beings, almost identical to monkeys, created them. How could they come from such humble origins? How could they have come from that?

Well we came from that. Ooze. Amino acids. Early forms of bacteria. Perhaps some sort of predecessor to the virus, something neither dead or alive. Perhaps from something apallingly ordinary. And whose to say those primal forces weren't, in their own way, clever?

If a Supreme Being wanted dinosaurs, or humans, or robots (or humans programmed like robots), why bother with a universe that takes over 40 billion years to get the job done? If you can create matter just like that, why not just create little planets full of people like an ant farm? That would be the intelligent thing to do. Why, as religious people believe, would God appear to different people all around the world creating different religions and then sit back and watch them all murder each other? How much sense does that make?

Unless, of course, the Supreme Being is lazy and vindictive. Then whats a few billion years to get what you want? (Lazy) And when they finally come into being, if they don't jump to your commands, then murder them all! (Vindictive) Yeah that would fit. Or are there problems even with that? Problem one: A lazy God wouldn't give commands, in fact, they wouldn't give a damn what happened.

Why would any Supreme Being bother creating a universe like ours at all? Don't say Love. There is nothing loving about the billions of light years of dead rocks moving in a vacuum called the universe. There is nothing loving about SuperNovas, Black Holes and Quasars.

Mystics say that conciousness is matter becoming aware of itself. It's an argument that can't be refuted. But if that were really the case, wouldn't there be life on every planet and even on the Sun? If matter wanted to become aware of itself there would be Sun beings and Moon beings and on and on.

Proponents of Intelligent Design want poetry. They want an Uber Father. They want to surrender to something else. They want to be off the hook and forgiven for their many sins. They want the last word on imaginary friends. They say, "MY IMAGINARY FRIEND (GOD) IS THE ONLY IMAGINARY FRIEND". HE SAYS YOUR IMAGINARY FRIENDS ARE FAKE. HE DIDN'T TELL ME EXACTLY, HE APPEARED TO A GUY, WHO TOLD ANOTHER GUY, WHO PASSED IT ON TO ANOTHER GUY AND A FEW HUNDREDS YEARS LATER ANOTHER GUY WROTE ABOUT IT IN A BOOK THAT WAS LATER REVISED, EDITED, PURGED AND REORDERED, THEN TRANSLATED SEVERAL TIMES OVER SEVERAL HUNDREDS OF YEARS UNTIL IT GOT TO THE COPY HERE IN MY HAND. YOU WANT PROOF? HERE, READ THE BOOK!"

Asism - Articles of Faith

Articles of Faith:

The world is perfect, and so is the universe. Any moment is unpredictable, yet is the perfect result of the preceding moment. The past is predictable but not the present and certainly not the future.

Our world, our life and each day is an outcome. One need look no further than yesterday to see why today happened. Only if yesterday had happened differently would the world be different today. Today's outcome is always perfect. The present moment always contains randomness, for good or ill. We throw our weight into doing or not-doing and always live in the outcome.

This is not consequentialism. There are far too many things that cannot be explained by cause and effect - especially in the workings of the mind. But either way, the predictable and the unpredictable can never be wrong. Anything that is, is, and is as perfectly part of reality as anything else, like it or not.

The universe is a genie. We rub it and it produces an event. Often we get what we want. Often we get what we don't want. In any event, the universe is a genie; we rub it and it produces an event.

Free time and death of the censor

Once humans get some free time to themselves, they do not spend it studying academic material. They explore. They explore the works of genius (retail and otherwise), they explore their bodies (food, drink, exercise), they explore the natural and man-made world. They explore each other (friends, families. sexual partners). Their exchange of ideas is limited to tips and gossip. Talking is a means of showing off and asserting one's place in the tribe. History is entertainment. Politics is as well. Their pursuits are of a experiential nature and they are entirely satisfying. They spiritual problems lie in a lingering guilt. This nagging feeling of betrayal works against us. It is a rare and wonderful thing to live fully and enjoy life. It is the prize which we can yank from fate without shame.

Killing the censor.
The censor is the part of you that denies your wishes, even in your dreams. Even when your fulfillment of desires is the most harmless and uneventful, the censor will have you do without - or punish you with guilt and shame if you perservere. To live fearlessly the censor must die. All the considerations of tradition, ethics, sexual modesty, good behaviour, manners, political correctness etc. are clothing which we can learn to wear to please ourselves or to please others. They have no redeeming qualities in themselves unless we assign them. And there are times when they can all be dismissed: in the creative process, in dreams, in all the arts, in solitude or in orgiastic swarming with the like-minded (not recommended).