morbid, but whatever

Watching the film "The Boy With the Striped Pajamas" had the same effect most world war II movies have on me: How is it possible for enough people to believe in or go along with or remain blissfully ignorant of the evil the Nazi regime was proposing?

One reason, of course, was that the Nazis were lying to each other even before they were lying to the public. But then isn't that the nature of evil? Lies within lies within lies. Lies to hide the the lies about what you're hiding. They developed an intense dogma of Rationalization of what is necessary or what is "good," what it means to be human, which was fueled and kept together by the two elemental weapons of evil: fear and lies.

The Nazis give us one of the most excellent examples of the strangling web of evil than can only end in the way Hitler almost poetically obliged us all: suicide.

But just because most of us aren't Nazis, it doesn't mean we're any less capable of sliding down that same icy slope of despair and fear. That privation, that emptiness of goodness we call evil is like a quarter you drop between the seats in your car that you quickly resign to retrieve some other time. If you treat your lies like small change, pretty soon, you'll end up with a purse full of ...."treasures" that make more than your shoulder hurt.

"untitled" ooooooooh!

I feel the need quelquefois to express my daily depression.

FEAST ye happy few on the morsels of meaninglessness I have provided for your delight:

The United Postal Service is giving me grief,
I decided to turn over a new leaf,
but there was mold on the other side,
or whatever those fuzzy things are. I can't decide.

Radio stations weren't in the mood
to play any songs besides about some boy who's rude,
I'm ready for the Christmas songs, I won't lie
except The Little Drummer Boy makes me cry. a lot.
Dear God, another Christmas keeping company on a cot,
and explaining to relatives why it's a roommate I've got,
instead of a fiance or boyfriend or lascivious lover,
Christmas is coming and I'm taking cover.

distracted by introspection

Just when I began to pride myself on my ability to look inward, to see my own motivations, knowing my crazy so it can be controlled, I trip over my shoelaces and land face down in my mess.

I've gotten shallow and selfish in my introspection, which may be worse than no introspection at all. I miss important things. I obsess over trivial things. Constantly looking at and analyzing my own fear has, instead of diminishing its power, made it stronger. Fear is an overwhelming enemy when you see it lurking around every corner of your mind, every bit of your incentive.

Instead of learning the root of what I want/need, developing sensibility I've become more easily seduced by my emotions and physical senses.

How did this happen??? How and why is that we are made so that our own bodies and minds betray us?

My memory is untrustworthy. My emotions exaggerate reality. "Who I am" is almost irrelevant because the tools we have to know ourselves can come unbalanced so easily. I can be a certain way, but there is such a limit to how much of who I am I can actually know; and even then, "who I am" is a fluid state, constantly fluctuating to some degree.

How do I know who I am, who I want to be, who it's possible for me to be, and who I don't want to be?

We make choices sometimes we don't think will affect as as intensely as they do, and they change us either in actually changing who we are or who we think we might be. It depends on the choice we make in dealing with the choice we've already made: I guess it's the choice of dealing with the choice that makes us who we are.

Dear Boys

That's right, I said Boys, because I haven't met any men recently.

But this is beside the point, because this letter is meant specifically for the males inhabiting the Greater New Orleans Area.

Are you aware that it is common knowledge among girls of substance in this city that we are in the very LAST place you come to find a life-long companion?

Do you have any perspective on the fact that this means that it is common knowledge that girls of substance think you are ridiculous, childish, lazy, irresponsible, player, man-children?

Do you realize that if you can't land a girl of substance, you will end up being 60, alone, with nothing but copies of playboy, empty promises of strip club bouncers, and your own regrets to keep you company, keep you getting up in the morning? Sadly, you'll have deserved it.

I don't think any of you have really thought this through. In fact, I'm quite positive you haven't. So this is my gift to you, ye head-in-sand man-whores: Avert your eyes from the Greek hoochie who can't seem to understand basic street crossing for one second and pay attention.

Even the girls you're sleeping with (or want to be sleeping with) think you're lame because you have zero good intentions, and zero perspective on what it means to live well, to love, to be loved; and the worst part of it is that you have no idea, nor do you seem to care. Apathetic Idiots.

What. Is. Wrong. With. You?

There are many among us who would like so see a mass de-johnsification because that's the only way you might start using your MINDS. While I don't support a maiming, perhaps a temporary paralysis might help you to understand that you continually throw away good things because they cost too much. Why wait for the goddess when you can get the dairy maid whenever you please? here's the answer...wait for it...because SHE'S a GODDESS, you morons.

I'm sorry for all of you in advance who will end up siring illegitimate children in spurious relationships that end in infidelity and emotional trauma.

But then..

I don't feel sorry for you.

bastards.

Doubting Tobias

A brief return to a paper I wrote exploring the validity and definition of DOUBT.

Whether Doubt is more Rational than Faith?

Objection 1: It would seem that to reason is to doubt, and is the rational opposite of faith. Descartes says that the essence of man is his reason. He arrives at this conclusion through a process of doubting everything, whittling his reality down to his own doubting thoughts, which he accepts as real because he is, in fact, thinking them. In the cogito, (“I think therefore I am”) he shows that to doubt is the base truth and ability of the human person, which is human reason.

Objection 2: Doubting may be defined as critical thinking which allows the thinker to deconstruct ideas, analyze the parts and their origins, and formulate opinions accordingly. This is also known as the reasoning process.

Objection 3: Doubt is necessary for examined faith. Man continually formulates and reformulates opinions though the process of doubting, i.e. reason, which includes the breaking down (doubting) and rebuilding (faith). Reason as a part of our free will allows us to be aware of and understand on varying levels why we believe and act a certain way. Therefore, it is more rational to doubt because faith is inherently dependent on a person’s ability to doubt that which he has faith in so that he can understand why he possesses the faith to being with.

On the contrary, “Even if faith is superior to reason there can never be a true divergence between faith and reason, since the same God who reveals the mysteries and bestows the gift of faith has also placed in the human spirit the light of reason. This God could not deny himself, nor could the truth ever contradict the truth” (Fides et Ratio chapter. 53. Quote from the First Vatican Council)

I answer that, The clash between doubt and faith can be compared to the “convictions” in Paul Ricoeur’s “hermeneutical detour” : Doubt and faith are two convictions which are navigated and governed through reason. Doubt should not be used synonymously with “reason” because it, as is faith, is merely a mode of reasoning, rather than reason itself; Doubting is not an end in itself. Rather, it must return to faith in some form as its product of reasoning. We formulate opinions through the process of having faith in some things and doubting others. Neither of these two, faith or doubt, is somehow contrary to human nature, nor is one less a part of the human rational being; and if both are part of our nature, than it follows that we should govern them with our reason. It is not possible to live in the state of doubt. Even while doubting, a person must be living positively in some way. For Descartes, his positive state was that he believed his mind (and its history) existed. While doubting is an acclaimed product of the modern, educated mind, and rightly so in the method of self-critique, it is incomplete without the necessary rebuilding of what it has broken down. In addition, it should be mentioned that doubt when it is not subject to the reasonable critique, it too may be as incomplete and unexamined as the faith it breaks down. Doubt which is not subject to the reasoning process, a constant movement back and forth between itself and faith, is simply another occasion of unexamined faith—or perhaps, just apathy. As I have stated above, it is impossible for a person to maintain a stasis of doubt.

Reply to Objection 1: Humans possess innate proclivities toward both doubt and faith, and we use our reason to choose when to doubt and when to have faith.

Reply to Objection 2: The first problem with defining doubt as reason is that it automatically takes faith out of the picture as something that is reasonable unless faith is modified by doubt (there is no faith without doubt.) Likewise, if faith were to be defined as reason, it would alienate doubt as something that is reasonable as well.

Reply to Objection 3: Faith is the product of examined doubt, towards which it is impossible for doubt not to aim. One cannot live in a state of doubt without also living in a state of faith on some level. For example: One who may doubt the existence of God will be likely to simultaneous harbor ardent belief in his own existence.

Diagram of the faith/doubt version of the Hermeneutic Arc:

faith |

| doubt

|

better |

faith |

|

V

REASON

Age old, eating away at my SOUL

While perusing my email today and attempting to clean out the 1500 or so emails that I've somehow found reason not to delete, I came across emails from my ex that once again cause my palms to sweat, my eyes to water, my throat to parch. Old flame? You might say that. More like splinter in my rear end. Splinter in my rear caused my the demolition of the cruise ship I was sunbathing on. The cruise ship I call "romance"... has "death trap" written on the underside of those life preservers.

Thoughts:

Why the HELL do I still think you're beautiful? Aren't you supposed to look ugly when you're an ugly person? YES you ARE."

The sick, ridiculous, frustrating and ultimately soul-killing part about this particular situation is that I still don't think he's an ugly person even though every logical part of my brain points to the fact that I should hate him.

No. I don't.

Not even now......

Nope...still don't.

#@$%@#$^@%^#$%&#$%&

Thoughts:

Why did you send me that goofy picture of you with you're hair perfectly mussed like you just got up from a nap, with your perfectly smoldering yet kind, little boy eyes looking out of the photo and then decide not to speak to me two weeks later?!

To summon The Merovingian, suddenly the reason, the why is not important, it's just the feeling.

It's really I who am the enemy here. It is I who kept the emails just waiting in my inbox like change you stash for a rainy day, purposely overlooked just long enough to be forgotten, but close enough at hand that you can bump into those shiny coins when you least expect it, and bask in the triumph of cashing it in for a desperately-needed caffeine fix. That's what you are, oh picture in my email. You're just today's meager fix as I continue trying to detox my body from the rush of hormones and decades-forward life plans I had to quit cold turkey. I'm just like any other addict, except my drug has a face. My stash-hole in the wall is my mind. Always easy access.

old colorado montage

Videos from my trip in February. I love you, Colorado.

the girl I mean to be

The girl I mean to be is an elusive specimen. Who knows where she goes when she's no longer attached to my body's brain stem. When I'm checked out, I think to myself, "she would have done it this way, but I don't have the energy."

That's it: I don't have the energy to be the girl I mean to be. I'm tired, dammit!

If I had the audacity to walk into work and be a completely different person, I might have more attitude, or break out into rap songs, or just plain ignore people when I don't feel like greeting them. I'm changing the tables of customer service--perhaps totally derailing the sensibility and decorum of what it means to serve the customer. Then again, maybe the public needs to be taught a lesson in customer service as well. We are not your serVANTS, but we serve. And there is respect involved on both parts. When the server treats the served with the kind of respect they receive, all HELL breaks loose. Well gee, people, can we learn anything from this?

Centuries long abuse from customers would suggest at the very least that we are still making 11th century decisions in a 21st century technologically oppressive, spoiled brat breeding world.

Am I a little sleep deprived? Yes
Am I a little cranky? more than a little


But the point of me saying any of this is not really to rant about how angry people make me, but to recognize that it's probably the many, many of us are deeply angry and sad about things that aren't clear even to us. We are prevented from being the people we mean to be--if we've even taken the time to cultivate an image of our ideal selves, which is unlikely in most cases--because we run into road blocks that we've not yet figured out how to get around. Knowing this, perhaps I can forgive the 3rd person today telling me that my job is ridiculous and my competence questionable. His or her emotional conflict and disquietude may well make my own look like a day at the park.

A Post-Modern Depression

I think my quarter life crisis is perhaps both a cause and effect of an insistent post-modern depression. My sister and I discussed our respective stomach knots and heart drops that plague our every day existence. Is it because we've achieved a certainty of survival, our needs of food and shelter have largely been met, that our default state of being is sadness? Is it that we have nothing but time to contemplate ourselves and the higher needs of community and love and trust are not being met?

Are people that are angry when they come into a place of business because...THEY are having the same existential crisis, the same poverty of the spirit?

The story of Alex

Sleep deprivation and Anger Management

Don't pay for anger management, just get some shut eye!!! I, a sleep deprivee now for 3 years, can fully admit that my irascible nature when it comes to the most meaningless, petty annoyances at work are a result of poor nutrition, dehydration, and most of all a lack of proper sleep.

Does this make your rudeness any less unacceptable, my dear friends? NO

But I take a certain degree of responsibility for my change in response in these post deprivation days: I may look at you with steely cold eyes after you insult my intelligence and mutter under my breath.

I MUST

I'm pretty sure the perfect accessory to my desk would be a sign that says "The Doctor is IN." Are you battling through an existential conundrum? Come, hash it out in exchange for coffee and food. The important thing, my good man or woman, is not HOW you are but WHY you are. I am because I MUST. And why must any of us...? Why is there something instead of nothing? To what extent to we will our own existence? If I ceased to want to be, I could essentially not be in a short period of time. Why do we want to be?

I kind of have an existential mini-crisis every time I see people working out. I think working out is kind of the most hilarious thing ever. Why don't we think its ridiculous to run nowhere? Every time I see people running on the street I imagine some alien looking down at the earth and seeing people running back and forth on a street, or in circles in a park, and wonder if they would think we were crazy, or delusional. Our lives are generally too fast-paced to incorporate exercise into our regular routine--like biking to the store, or anywhere--so we have to exercise our bodies in unnatural ways so we don't become like the people in Wall-E, floating around, eating all day.
Of course, on the other hand, we could view exercise as a means to both to physical conditioning as well as one of the few acceptable ways to do nothing for a couple of hours during the day. While we exercise with no other end but conditioning, we may in fact be creating time for our mind to rest enough to step back from the meaningless clutter that usually prevents us from becoming deeper individuals.

Mmm...could we say that is the something within the nothing?

Facebook Post

There's a sadness we may feel because our lives are not as real as we might appeal for life to be.What is good and what is sad, what is conscious, what is mad, may tear us down then make us glad, may rid of all the bad that keeps us tied, bound, and lost before we can see.

I wish life didn't have to be so ridiculously hard.

Facebook status worth keeping

Muppet hair posted, copied and pasted, time spent once only to be wasted, counting the days that I'll stay slim-waisted, considering the amount of cheese fries I've tasted.

How to Create Truth

How to create truth: Think about what you want your truth to be, what you want it to look like. You could draw a diagram. Next, repeat it over and over. Tell it to many people. Throw away the diagram (You don't need a reminder of the origin.) Repeat many, many times in your head until even you forget how you came to the story.
Voila, you've created your own truth.
I must warn you: your conscience may ache a little the first few times, you know, if you're not a seasoned truth creator

Just keep reminding yourself that you can't really feel bad if it hurts someone else because, hey, it's the truth. Sometimes the truth hurts.

Isn't it incredibly convenient to create reality simply by manipulating your own memories. Haven't you ever seen sphere? We have the power to forget. We have to power NOT to interpret information placed before us, and we are incredibly susceptible to misinterpretation even if we are so concerned as to consider the information at all.

So have fun with your truth creation. You might want to take Ambien for the sleep loss.

Being There

Sometimes I'm really afraid that I may be like that guy in the movie "Being There" who is a gardener and talks about things like hoses and watering and transplanting, and the whole world thinks that he's saying really poignant things and making these great philosophical points, but really he's just talking about gardening...

Ok, I'm not really afraid of that because that's totally based on the stupidity of everyone else. Actually that's a really interesting concept because our world is so devoid of any real meaning that we have to insert it in places where it doesn't actually exist.
On the contrary, maybe meaning is only where we put it...Or maybe, meaning is everywhere and we have only to learn to recognize it.

Muppet Hair

Everything I think about is a complication. There is no more straight-forward thinking. I supposed I've slipped over the threshold of adult consciousness where there are no lines, just misty barriers in a house of mirrors. Everywhere I look, I see the same thing: issues and confusion.

In addition: I officially have muppet hair. I tried to be all "edged out" and the hair cut has done nothing but reveal my muppetness. I was so certain that I was the narrator!! No matter, muppets are awesome and I feel privileged to be among you all for the duration of my hair cut.
Hm, so this is what it's like to have an identity...I am..a muppet. I have muppet friends who play instruments the muppet way. Corey, you're definitely a muppet. Welcome to the club.