Why I keep living

I think it keeps coming back to this...
Why do I keep living?

And the answer I keep coming up with is that I simply don't know.

I don't know and until I know why I keep living and can gauge (accurately) that whatever that is is no longer valid--then I guess I'll keep living.



Life is mundane. Life is repetitive and cyclical. At times it seems like all that happens year after year is that the name change, the players change, and we keep doing the same things.
There will always be an annoying presence in your life. There will always be a fearful presence in your life. There will always be something to make you mad--and you will be damn lucky if those things are less fierce than they were the previous year.

Maybe Buddhists are right: life is just one giant wheel that keeps spinning over and over--[though I disagree that it's anything to worship or change your life in any way to study or spiritualize it]

The hardest challenge I have come across in life isn't getting past the bullies, it isn't getting past being lonely, it isn't graduating or gaining confidence to interact with other people. The hardest thing I forsee for myself and for everyone is learning to be comfortable with who you are on the space-time continuum.

Who you are right here and right now. 

That's what counts, and I guess sometimes I get frustrated because I'm lacking on one of those three (who, here, now). Most often I'm fine being who I am. Most often I'm okay with being here. But occasionally, I don't want to be right now. And maybe that's what my whole death vibe is--I don't want to be right now, even though I want to be who I am, and where I am.

I've psychoanalyzed this enough to know:
I do want to be a nice guy. I do want to have money and financial security. I do want to be healthy. I do want to be positive. I do want to be intelligent. I do want to be giving. I do want to be active. I wouldn't trade any of these good things away because I'm happy with the levels they are at.

I like where I am. I like having a job, I like having a place of my own. I like being able to drive a short ways to get access to all these camp sites and hiking spots and beautiful locations.

Yet, I don't want these things right now. I want them 10 years from now. I want them 5 years from now. I wanted them 5 years ago and 10 years ago but didn't realize that I would have to make tradeoffs for them. These tradeoffs would be fine if I had what I have right now Plus a little more. --greed--If I had more friends, mentors, proteges, comrades, a family, and I had more experiences on the outside of whatever category I fit in right now (Utahns? Westerners? Idk). If I had that, it would be different.

I guess looking at it this way puts it into perspective.
I'm free.
Financially, Mentally, Physically. Hell, I'm even emotionally free to feel however I want to feel whenever I Want to feel it whether positive or negative, because I know how to make an emotional choice about what I hold onto and what I let go of. --Not many people have this. Not many people are as free as I am, and I take it for granted because my freedom isn't challenged enough. People aren't constantly opressing me the way they should be--or at least the way they do with other people. They literally leave me alone and I complain about that. ...hmmm

Depression is Nihlism is Life

I want to die most days.

That's what I've amounted to.
I wouldn't say I want to kill myself but I don't think it's all that easy to die.

My life has amounted to a cycle of what I call simply "living." I find things I enjoy and move towards them. I find things I don't like and I change them. And often times I don't like myself, so I change.

It has been a long, drug out process. I've become who I thought I wanted to be and slowly tweaked it over and over as I learned that I don't want to be that exactly. --It's the life of a perfectionist and I don't want to be a perfectionist.

I know a lot of things that I don't want to be and very few things that I want to be. I've found that there are many things that I can't change about myself and I've learned that part of life is accepting the things you can't change about yourself.--and that's unsettling to me.

I think if people really knew me. The full me. The one I have to live with every day, they would say that my biggest fault is that I'm a dreamer. I dream too much. I think too much, and that's the same thing really: creativity flows in many ways and for me it's easy. It's been a long time since I had "writers block"--I don't even think that's a thing anymore. I think you either have creativity or you don't--of which I have plenty--or you learn to trigger creativity --of which I must have learned the secret formula.

A lot of my life has been ruined by things I know. When people perform magic tricks, if I know the outcome I hate the process. People trying to deceive me--I hate that too because I know the outcome and usually know the process and I just have to sit through life and wait for it to play out. I'm very impatient and it's one of the many things that I try to accept about myself and try to change--but I've always been this way.


Let's shift gears for a moment:
I usually have a really hard time coming up with things that I want. I prefer to let things happen and react to them I guess, because the times when I worked for what I wanted I became jaded about them.

But what I've always wanted and never achieved is a family to come home to. Perhaps because I'm a hard headed asshole. Perhaps because I'm a jerk when I'm angry. Perhaps because I get clingy and needy. --Ya. Maybe it's that. But more likely its that I can't relate to anyone. I hate feeling superior and I'm sure others hate feeling inferior and in some ways I'm just superior. I hate that about myself. I hate that I'm naturally good and I hate that I know so much about so many things and I hate that I have so many fucking experiences that the average jerk on the street doesn't. I hate this shit because I know I'm sitting on potential. I know I'm sitting on wisdom from hard lessons, and I have no one who understands them. I have only me and I don't like myself.

I've hashed this over numerous times. I've written about relationships before. I've described the philosophy of them and how they should work. I've analyzed them and picked them apart and I still feel like somewhat of an expert on them--I know what people need to do to have good relationships and I know how to keep relationships. But that's not the point. I can keep any relationship if I just mix the right amount of avoidance and keep my mouth shut now and again. >>>The point is that I want a GOOD relationship. --And that's something I don't have full control over.
I tend to go through life collecting baggage. People see me as secure. They see me as stable (if they only knew) they see me as a dream because all they see is what's on the surface.
People want relationships with me. They want me in their life and with some people I treat them like shit and they still want me in their life. But I don't have healthy relationships. I don't have good relationships. I do my part 90% of the time and they do their part 10-50% of the time. Or maybe they do their part in the beginning but they get tired because it's a lot of work. I don't know, I'm not them, I'm just me.
I just care about people. I listen until I get stressed out and really need to say something and then I say it. I respect people and their decisions and opinions. But I know I'm different. I know my opinions are different and sometimes people can't handle those opinions and they can't respect me. I know some people can't talk and I have nothing to listen to and some people can't listen and I get frustrated. I know that some people have been damaged and they can't receive caring. And if you can't receive that then you can't be loved.
I know how to love and be loved. And it kills me inside. Loving is not human even though it's at the root of our nature. I say that because I mean that so few people know how to truly love. I want to be loved and respected.

I want to be loved and respected.

Forced Respect

Which is better?
Forcing people to earn your respect, or respecting people who do things on their own accord without force of manipulation. -- 6/23/2012



--- It's been a long time since I Wrote that and I'm not sure where I was going to go with that idea, but I have a little bit of spare time to write and figure I'll expand.

I think it is better to grant everyone respect first, and then have them lose it when they do things to harm you/against you. In other words, treat everyone as a friend and then when they prove otherwise, take your respect away from them,

The alternative seems to be treat everyone as an enemy and until they do things to assist and benefit you, don't give them respect.

That type of world just seems too harsh, too scary, too dark, and purposeless. If we went through life in a cold-war state of affairs I don't think it would be good at all. I don't think we should attack neutral bodies, nor should we describe neutral bodies.

A person is your friend until they get motions of greed or jealousy or refuse to work through conflicts.

There is a philosophical accord that says it is unethical to fire upon someone until they fire on you. This is the dilemma police forces have. They must perceive the fear of deadly force before they are legally protected to make the decision to fire their weapon.
In the movies, they disregard this accord. Soldiers and police forces, detectives, even mercenaries engage in war and fighting before they see any sign of threat. They will pull weapons on people who are running away and tell them not to move or they'll shoot--this kind of cultural portrayal is silly though and to the trained individual (one who understands these ramifications) such characters can be construed to be excessively agressive, violent, irrational, and 'non-benevolent'. I think a good story would reserve such characters for the 'bad' guys or the 'noir' types (where character are notoriously neutral-but-self-serving).---But I think in this day and age people understand that noir movies are not accurate depictions of the real world and I've seen most contemporary noir films transform to be blatantly exaggerated[such as sci-fi worlds or larger-than-life characters]


No.

Respect should be given to everyone. Peace should be the first response. alw

Make a man: friendship

I'm still on my quest to determine "What makes a Man" and "What makes a Woman" aside from the physical.

One thing I discovered was the topic of friendship.

Men approach making friends as though you have to earn friendship. Particularly when friendshipping with someone they are attracted to, they will place priority on determining if they are friendship quality, and if not they proceed to determine if that person is 'sex' quality.

In other words, men are comfortable sleeping around and not forming real friendships, but if the candidate is friendship quality, then they will build a friendship that (if romantically stable) will include sexual components.


Women, on the other hand, tend to do the opposite. They gauge whether the other person is sex-quality material and if not they proceed with building a friendship with that person.

Women are comfortable making friends with everyone and not having sex, but if the candidate is sex quality then they might just build a friendship with the sex.

Think of it this way:
Women hold sex as more valuable
Men hold friendship as more valuable

When men give friendship, it's more valuable than sex
When women give sex, it's more valuable than friendship


One can assume that this comes from the deep rooted risk factors for the genders, --I.e. cavewomen who have sex and get pregnant it is a greater risk. caveMen who develop friendships and enter dangerous situations with those friends, it is a greater risk.

Gender Roles--A new conclusion

A year or two ago I set out to study modern gender; or rather, what modern culture sees as gender. --I hold a belief in a Rational Evolution of Society, meaning that society rationally evolves or it does not change unless it makes sense to change, and that this rational society "knows best" about the particular topic. In other words: The more society's opinion evolves, the closer it gets to the platoian Truth of the topic.

Gender and sexuality has been around for a long time. It has been studied for a long time and there is a diversity of opinions on the matter. I wanted to find the platoian Truth--the root of what it means to be Male or Female. My quest was prompted by what I thought was strange: if society advanced to the point that there were no differences between men and women, would anyone care about what your gender was? would they be the same? And in light of the things I've learned on this journey, I would say yes and no. Because it is still complex, yet it IS understandable.

The differences extend beyond the physical differences: hair style, clothes, tone of voice, manerisms, and yet they are connected. It extends beyond chemical makeup, and yet, it is connected to the chemical makeup.--and strangely, humans are very astute at detecting the chemical makeup even though that makeup is so subtle.

Part of the trouble of this research endeavor is the constraint of language in describing minute differences. This quest has primarily been one of discovering the right words to use and secondarily has been actually understanding the differences. One can easily point out comparisons, such as the color blue been socially seen as associated with males, and pink associated with females, but to put into words why that is, is a challenge.

I'm going to start by describing men and women by their perceptions of each other, however, both sides are contradicting.

Women see men as both lazy and hard working. They are aroused by hard working me, and yet assume that all men are lazy. These two contradictions place the male gender into two categories: those worthy of 'mating' and those not-worthy. --Mating isn't the best term for this, but it will have to suffice. Mating as I am using it can be sexual attraction, fathering children, coming to for protection, desiring his attention, desiring to please or impress him, and many other things.

Those non-worthy men obsessive over their hobbies and interests but present and share that obsession in excess to the annoyance of both men and women, while those worthy men keep their interests and hobbies secret except to fellow interest-lovers or when prompted. Curteous communcation skills make a worthy man, whereas discourteous communication makes a man fall into the not-worthy category--with one exception. Worthy men challenge the status-quo, they refuse to submit to blind obedience without purpose, and the key to this exception is what I deem Quiet Understanding.--worthy men make the appearance that they know some further information, which prompts them to disobey and be discourteous to the status quo. One can infer that worthy men incite change, they stand alone in order to force that change, they challenge the norm seemingly because they know better than the norm. --whether they actually know or not is debatable, because this Quiet understanding is afterall 'quiet'. To effectively pull this off, the man has to remain quiet up until the moment they are challenged to explain themselves. Their plans must be kept secret up to the moment when the tension has been ratcheted up and the situation has become a sort of do-or-die.
If the man brazenly barks his agenda all over town and cries the end of times or openly disobeys the powers that be to make a point, he becomes the unworthy man who is passionate about his hobbies and interests and won't shut up about them to the annoyance of both men and women everywhere.

To be a worthy man, you must have a mind of your own, an agenda and plan of action to obtain it, and you must be constantly working towards it in secret to those who might oppose it, but opening to those who encourage it and want it just as badly.

In the viking age, the worst insult a man could be given was to be accused of being like a woman. --The same is true for these days, though the definitions are construed... The worse insult for someone who professes to be of male gender is to accuse them of being unworthy. Unworthy men carry bias as being weak, unintelligent, awkward, cowardly, and lacking in life-purpose.--making jabs at a man on any of those fields will breach him to the core unless he is so far on the worthy side that his confidence isn't affected by them.

The contradiction for women is that men are both courageous and cowardly depending on their worthy or unworthy status.

Unlike women, Men see women as a collective of categories. They generalize women into one category and assume the biases of all categories.--or more simply put, they form a personal opinion on women that they use as a paradigm for all women even when it contradicts the subject (a woman) before them.

To men, women can be any combination of the following traits: the sum of beauty, curvy, long-haired, domestic, motherly, lover of animals, pacifist, friendly, intelligent, bitchy, demanding, demonic, rude, fake, selfish, self-serving, sexual, dominant, jealous, full of and interested in gossip, passionate, naive, and many more (a longer list is due, but may constrain my argument).

The varying opinions on what a woman is can be confusing for a man (and perhaps even women)! For this reason, men don't talk about women as often to their fellow male friends because the differences of definition confuse the conversation. It is rare for two men to find this shared definition, and by very virtue of what makes a man, if he is 'worthy' then he doesn't reveal such until he is confronted--and if he is unworthy, then his opinion is taken lightly because of his annoying ethos and few will join with him in discussion.
This explanation also justifies the common statment by men that "women are an enigma." Yet, women are able to understand other women because they compare their own beliefs about what is womanly, and they compare themselves against their own biases about what a woman is and feel negative emotions if they fail to meet their own personal definition--at the same time they shun women who don't meet that same definition. In a sense, women self-regulate what it means to be a woman, and as society evolves and changes, the definition will change as well.

---

I will continue part 2 at a later time. In part two, I will discuss the ramification I philosophize occurs when we cease to make distinctions between genders and allow people to choose their gender completely.



(personal note: not a spectrum, but various levels and fronts)

Feeling emotional today so...This!

Sudden shifts in barometric pressure always gets to me..
Let's play a game where I offend people for stating what I'm thinking right now and then a week later I'll apologize after I've lost a bunch of potential friends and the pressure has cleared...
I think life is incredibly fair and if you complain about it being unfair it's because you want it to be unfair...in your favor! If you follow the rules of life you get exactly what you earn, plain and simple. The unfair part is the way people treat each other. Some people get away with being disrespectful, rude, and complete assholes. In fact, being an asshole makes most people feel good about themselves--and there's not a damn thing anyone can do to stop another person from being an asshole.
Third, being a smart individual I can say this, and I'm going to say that the worst harm you can do to yourself is not physical harm or abusive relationship after abusive relationship--the worst thing you can do to hurt yourself is to become intelligent. If you can think critically about things, you will alienate yourself from everyone around you who doesn't also know how to think critically--and guess what, there are SOOO few of us, so it's about like alienating everyone. People are sheep and they want to stay sheep at all costs, and they get boiling angry when you try to make them think for themselves. The next worse thing you can do is to be confident. People will mock you and deter you from thinking critically, but if you're not confident who cares?--You'll be too unsure of yourself to care and others will convince you that your critical thinking is insanity. When you're confident, their mocking will hurt you more because you're no longer repeating verbatim what someone else came up with. If the person you repeat is wrong then it's not on you, it's on them, but if you're wrong, well... it hurts so much more.
Next, I'm convinced that this is something you're born with--to WANT to be nice and WANT to be fair and to WANT to have peace. Some people just want conflict. If is a hell of a lot easier to go through life seeking conflict than it is to desire peace. Why do people not understand that we don't need all of this conflict? We have plenty to share and yet people are so greedy that they horde everything in excess and they try to keep it from other people like the universe owes them. So my advice is don't fuck with peace if you question whether it's worth it, because it is not worth it. Those of us who desire it only do so because it is a part of who we are and we can't help but want it. Besides, there is only one way to obtain peace and I guarantee that you do not know how to get it, even if you think you do. The only way for true lasting peace (which is the only real peace) is through constant collaboration. No compromising, no avoiding, no accommodating, no aggressing--all of these will only bring a temporary peace--a ceasefire. And ceasefire is not real peace. And YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW TO GET REAL PEACE. Every attempt you make to create peace only creates more conflict you fucking asshole. I'm not talking about inner peace. Inner peace is easy. Just love yourself enough not to give a damn about the world around you. We have too many people who think inner peace is the only way. Why do you think there are so many assholes? Because people settle into this line of thinking...that they can avoid conflict, or accomdate conflicts, or that they can compete with others until they have dominated them into submission and that somehow their WAR will bring about PEACE. You fucking assholes. That is not the way to true peace.
No, what we need are people who have found inner peace to seek outer peace and to do it the right way. I've personally lost complete faith that in my lifetime I'll ever see any kind of social change that brings about such peace. Hell, as far as I'm concerned I'm the only fucker that's working towards it and it's  constant battle because I too would rather go the easy way and just seek inner peace. Sure, we'll make social advances in our institutions in my lifetime, but the people themselves will stay the same. You can't change a sheep's opinion unless you encourage them to be more sheep-like. I should know! I've been a sheep before. I used to think life was unfair. I used to be an asshole. I used to seek inner peace and la de frickin' da!--I know that that is what contributes to a world of shitheads because I was once one.
I don't want to hear people complain about life anymore, about not having a great job, or not having enough time to do what they love. It's bullshit. Use you inner peace like you always do and just say fuck-it to the world, then go do what you're going to do anyway. And I don' twant to hear people say that no one is like them and they have no friends. Try knowing all of the tricks of life, thinking critically, being confident, and realizing you have very little to complain about--only then will you realize that you have "no friends" and that no one is like you and that everyone is an asshole to you.
Be what you truly are, and if that's an asshole then cope with the fact that you're an asshole; but don't be an asshole if you don't think you're an asshole. If you think you are only a jerk because other people are jerks to you, then either you really are a jerk and need to settle with the fact that you were born in the dark and that your heart is cold and black, OR you need to realize that you're not an asshole and that nothing in the world will change the fact that you're not an asshole.
You are not a sheep though. No one is a sheep. You are just lazy. You don't WANT to think for yourself. You don't want to think about things critically because it means you'll have to take risks and make decisions for yourself rather than relying on the "advice" of others both live and dead. You're not a sheep. You may be an asshole, but even assholes need to think for themselves. I realize that there is nothing I can tempt you with to persuade you into not being a sheep. I realize that if I showed you how to have a million dollars sitting in the bank with your name on it within a year, that that would not entice you to think for yourself. I realize that me yelling at you, calling you an asshole, treating you like shit--that's not going to make you think for yourself--not even if I use your own sheepish logic to convince you that you're wrong in being a sheep or that you need to repent and make amends. I can't convince you that being who you really are is better than being a sheep either, because you'll convince yourself that you are being who you really are, and that who you are is a sheep. There is no argument that I can make that will convince you not to be a sheep. So fuck you for being an asshole, at least by me being an asshole I'll feel better about myself, you arrogant little pricks.
The truth is, if you think critically. If you are not a sheep. If you refuse to merely be a machine created by the environment that generated all of your robotic parts, but you instead choose to be a real, living, human being. Well...you'll realize that true peace, both inner and outter and most importantly: LONG LASTING PEACE is the only peace worth having. And you'll realize that everything else is a cheap imitation. You'll realize that everything else is second place and second rate and that it's not worth having because you can't have both--you can't have true peace if you're obsessed with the id or ego. You can't have true peace if it's only temporary. You can't have peace and will never have peace if you think it's going to just happen on day on no part of your own. And worse still, you make it so that the few of us who really are intelligent and confident and peaceful--WE can't have peace because of you. You are the weak link that is holding back humanity.
Lastly, I don't want to hear anyone else complain about what I just complained about. You know nothing, Jon Snow or whoever you are.--I complain because no one else complains in this way, and believe I am alone. If I had a soul-brother or soul-sister who thought the way that I do, I wouldn't need to complain. I would have renewed hope in humanity that there truly are people out there like me who are working towards real peace. I would have twice as large of a support system for the grief that all of these other assholes bring me. If you want to complain about this, please come to me brother, please come to me sister; but don't complain because that will only rub in the fact that I am wrong, and it will hurt to be wrong because I am confident that I'm not wrong.--Ah hell...do come to me and complain about this because I would rather be wrong and able to face that I'm wrong than be right and face that lonely path I foresee by being right.

Capitalism Vs Socialism on a Grand Scale

Here we go...time to roll your eyes until they pop out of their sockets!

On a grand scale, Capitalism leads to giving away things to people who don't earn them, and Socialism leads to forcing people to earn everything they are given.

That's my bold thesis.

Here's how it works:

In a capitalistic world, entrepreneurs assume the risks. To counter risks, entrepreneurs band together--in a sense--and slowly get bigger and bigger to make sure that they are always profiting and that competition gets snuffed out. Competition is bad to a capitalist because it means part of their profits are lost and the risks are higher because there isn't a guarantee that they will sell the inventory they spent so much of their capital on. So in a capitalistic world, there is really only one megacorp because it is in their benefit to form a horizontal and a vertical monopoly. 

The problem, as many social philosophers have pointed out, is that it becomes a form of monarchy. History has proven that, left unchecked, a capitalist will become the equivalent of a king, and in some centuries that's exactly what they became. Owning the "means of production" led them to hold a power position and they leveraged their power to become the supreme ruler.

In the modern world, to prevent entrepreneurs from becoming kings, the government has stepped in. After all, it is the business of the government to be the ruling body, not the wealthy and powerful.

The problem with this is, that instead of the government stopping megacorporations from getting any bigger, they cater to these corporations and not to the population at large. Yes, they instigate laws that prevent monopolies and they furiously tax megacorps, but--they furiously tax megacorps. The government gets their money from megacorps. They pay for things like infrastructure and the military using money from megacorps. A very small percentage of income tax money comes from personal income of the middle and lower class and even the lower-upper class. The rest of it comes from corporations--businesses. 

Also, who has the power to influence the laws? Individuals? No. Corporations who can afford lobbyists. 

So what kind of laws do you think they write? Do you think they write laws that seriously cripple their megacorp? OR, do you think they write laws that benefit them? 

In America, the federal reserve hands out money to giant banks. Then, when they need a loan, they borrow money from those banks and pay those banks interest. I.E. Banks receive money for free, then they lend that money back to the government and collect interest on it. --Does that sound like it hurts these big banks, or helps them? Is there a way I could start a bank, receive the free money from the government, and then loan back to them and collect interest on it? No. 

How about if I loan money to someone to buy a house, can I get insurance that when they can't pay that I'll get 80% of my loss back --paid for by taxpayers? because that's what FDIC does.

In short: Capitalism leads to giving handouts. Sometimes (usually) those handouts are given to people with means of production, and sometimes (very rarely) they are given to startups who are trying to compete but aren't doing a good job (*think government bailouts or grant money). 

Now lets look at Socialism. (not communism, though that's a good example of socialism).

Socialism says that the means of production are owned by the people for the people, and not the individual. The land in a socialist society--owned by the people and not an individual. Depending on how socialized a society is, other things can be owned, such as "commerce" or the "financial market". Meaning, any transaction that is made using money, is owned by the society, so if you sell food you grew on the community land, then the community is entitled to a share of it. Or if you sell a patient, the patient is owned by the people, or the product produced off of that patient is owned by the people. You could extend socialism to say that ideas are owned by the people as well, but personally I think that's a stretch because no one can pry them out of you.

Because everything is owned by everyone, there is an urgency to make every member of a socialist society productive. Many socialist countries give you a test early on that determines your job function for the future, or at least assign you a job for the rest of your life. On a grand scale, they assign some people to labor and others to regulate/manage/police in order to ensure that everyone is earning their share. 

Do they give out handouts? Yes. Do they give them out when they aren't needed? No. Because there is no assumption that any one person is assuming the full risks as there is in a Capitalistic society. Capitalists will reward you for taking risks, even if you take stupid risks. Socialists will prevent you from taking stupid risks because they evaluate the risk to society and not just to the individual. They'll also support you in your risk taking because they stand to benefit when you benefit, but you still have to earn it. 

I don't know which is better: Socialism or Capitalism, but when I hear most people support capitalism they support it because they think it gives them control over what they earn, when in reality, other people are getting things they don't earn. And, Socialism isn't the giving out of things for free as people generally think it is.