What Does it Mean to THINK?

First off, I am not a fan of being or becoming a prisoner of the Mind. To the same effect, the Mind, like the Ego, has an important function to serve. It is a tool, so learn how to use it. But it's important to discern and make sure that you do not identify with it.

You are not your Thoughts, just like you are not your Ego.

You have a brain. USE it, but don't BECOME it.

Yeah, at first this made absolutely no sense to me either.


BLlllllllllllah. I must vent. I've just read a blog post by Celtic Rebel entitled, "Why Must I Suffer Fools?"

A year ago, had I read it, I would have classified him as an egotistical, elitist ass wipe. I probably wouldn't have read the whole thing, just give it a brief skim and then either leave in a huff or leave a really sarcastic comment to "bring him down a peg or two." But now, I realize that reaction of defensiveness stemmed from somewhere else. Even something as benign as annoyance can point to something much deeper.

My own ignorance.

And how profound it is -- despite the fact that I've received assessments from people that I pretend to know everything or come off as elitist... not that they're even using that word correctly. They're using elitist in a way that the word would have to be defined as, "Someone who uses big words I'm too lazy to look up or talks about concepts that appear complicated on the surface" or "someone who refuses to make every post a digestible affirmation of what I already understand and agree with."

Oy(L).

WHY must THIS fooL be made to suffer fooLs??? It isn't FAIR! Bahahaha. Siiiiiiiigh. Yep. I don't know everything. Never claim to, and never will because there will always be something new to learn. That is the nature of Creation.

(Oh, good lord. I can just hear a vapid Darwinist going off a talking point of -- "'Creation'? Look! There, you see? She's a creationist! How ignorant!!!"

Siiiiiiiigh.

Irony fails those who cast stones.


Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. I'm probably an even bigger fool to even suffer fools. To even engage with them.

To say, "Oh, well it's because you think they're beneath you."

Siiiiiiiiigh. That is a reaction. Not a valid assessment. And it's a reaction to protect hurt feelings.

Yes, it's important to feel things -- but you are not your literal feelings. Because someone makes you angry does not make that person wrong.


Now I'm coming to a realization that when someone dismisses what I say with, "Well, that's just your opinion" or "Well, I think you're wrong. Dude, don't get mad, that's just what I think."

What is an opinion but a personal viewpoint and belief or judgment that rests on insufficient grounds of evidence?

As for thinking -- real, critical thinking -- doesn't that ask for you to utilize that tool you call your brain to come up with an idea or understanding that begins as entirely your own? What happens to it once it's out there, well... no one can really own. But the actual process of thinking -- that's freedom.

So the question I want to ask these peoples is this: is this what you really THINK, or is this something you've AGREED to believe?

An agreement is contractual by nature. What is a contract? It's a consent between 2 or more parties to agree on something under specified terms. There is no freedom in a contract. If you break one of the stipulations, the contract is vulnerable to being declared as null and void.

So when it comes to hearing something in the "news" (Think about it: N E W S -- North, East, West, South -- isn't it a reorientation of direction in consensus "thinking"?) usually information is posited. And, when you see the source as "credible" you tend to affirm or agree with the information, that it is real.

Off of THAT, one forms an opinion.

(note to self: be more mindful of pronouns in next blog post.)

Usually, when one is presented with news, one is asked to choose one: is what happened a GOOD thing or a BAD thing? That's where one is tricked into thinking that one is thinking.

But really, one is only fortifying a predetermined contract of what one agrees IS reality. That CNN and MSNBC is reporting on what actually "matters." They in-form us, keep us in line in this consensus-based reality and deliberately confuse us to distract us from asking harder questions, or questioning anything at all outside of what choices they've presented before us.

DUDe. It's kind of like the process of voting, isn't it?

Sorry, I meant for this to be an essay, but it's turning into this tangential process for me. Siiiiiiiiigh. I don't even know who I'm apologizing to. Myself? Quite possibly.

Does this absolve me of entering into an agreement of any sort? Of course not.

Something is happening, and other people tend to agree with what is really going on. And yet, I'm not contractually bound to these people. But I do think that we have a tacit agreement to look into alternative news sources and come up with conclusions independent of the reporter when we see the information connect to a much larger narrative of what is going on.

But, as it stands, right now I am in the process of thinking.

And too often people I talk to do not do enough of that. What I mean is that they tend to mistake "thinking" for "agreement" and are nothing more than pots calling the kettle black when they say my postings are "nothing more" than opinions, implying that critical thinking or labor wasn't involved.


Whatevers. Whoever smelt it delt it.

What the Frak? Final Facebook Rant.

In the process of letting it go.

::deep breath::

FWOOOOOOOOOOOOSH...!

RANT OF THE MOMENT:

Knowing a fact is not learning a truth.

Verbal sparring based upon empty talking points is not a real conversation.

I've learned sh*t and wanna share. That's IT. BASTA.

So why are people so friggin greedy, half-invested in debunking the Real and half-invested in wanting to Know? Greedy, greedy, greedy, needy, needy, needy.

Have I ever pretended that I was an expert academic on the subject of EVERYTHING? So why are you treating me like I'm some professor at some dinky arse panel discussion? So the only way I have any credibility is if I footnote every single thought and topic of conversation?

Really?

And so... what are YOU doing? The same? Funny how whatever it is that you expect from me is exactly what you avoid dishing out.

"Gimme more facts. More facts! Cuz you're wrong/lame/withoutValue until you gimme more facts! Cuz I'm too lazy to research for myself, you got to do it all for me to even listen to you, so I'm just gonna sass ya and harass ya until you fess up!"

or

"More facts, more facts, more facts - where are your footnotes? I need facts for me to pick apart -- I mean, if one piece of the puzzle is wrong, then it is all wrong. Research, toil in those fields, mine me more diamonds until you find one that is pristine. And then, and ONLY THEN might I TRY to understand you. Otherwise you're full of shit."

or

"I don't want to invest in your Truth until you tell me why the frak it MATTERS. If you can't tell me why it matters, then your point is without value."

Oh. A bottom line. So you need a return on an investment?

LOOK, ASSHOLE: I'm not trying to SELL you ANYTHING, so why the frak are you structuring our interaction like some kind home loan or job interview and then pretend to call it a conversation/dialogue? If you think that's a conversation, you're already tripping.

Sorry, no need to rain on your parade, but I'm not recruiting at the moment.

LISTEN: How are you gonna "get it" if your understanding of what is Real and what Matters is so short-sighted?

Siiiiiiiiiigh.

Ask an intelligent question, I dare you.

Talk to me if you really want to share ideas, because otherwise you are circling a drain and I don't want to follow you down there. Cuz there's nastiness and hair ball crap down there.

You want an ATM? Hit up Wells Fargo or J.P. Morgan and Chase.

No mo investments. This bank is CLOSED.

Codex Alimentarius: Criminalizing Vitamins, Minerals and Herbs

For more information on codex alimentarius: http://www.redicecreations.com/radio/2008/05may/RICR-080522.php

Perception: Strength as Weakness and Vice Versa

Reminder: re-read Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

So often we are taught to be "modest" and "humble" - but what function does humility - false or genuine - have for us as humans?




Altruists as "eviL".



This makes sense to me; at the same time it is so difficult to apply in the context of family, especially as a child of immigrants because there are so many obligations - familial and otherwise - that I am expected to play. That - because my internalization of these "values" and my inability to speak fluently in more than English - I have a hard time having a real conversation about, logically looking at what these roles mean, matter and do when they are performed.

It makes me think, though, putting my grandparents first is an understood sign of respect. At the same time, I know, at my core, that as humans, they are no more important than I am...despite the level of deference I show to them.

Which isn't exactly altruistic, per se.



There is a difference between religion and spirituality, which I shall get into on another post. I also have issues with her exaltation of skyscrapers in lieu of the stars, because I do see their existence as creative entities working in odd concert.



I think social responsibility is problematic. Her perspectives on responsibility are interesting, I do think personal responsibility is important.

The perspectives on Iran - also... erhmmm... are much more complicated than stated, and yet, I wonder if... if complications were something that came about "naturally" or if they were engineered in some manner.

Donahue seems to be taking something personally.



BobbLebot is sLeepies. But shall extend and explain this post at another juncture.

Lights

There are lights, some like tiny blue stars that flicker in the intensity of their brightness, others like burning suns radiating a golden light. Most everyone has a light. But like light pollution that shrouds the stars that hang above large cities, there is a lot of artificial light that dims the lights in all of us.

I can't see literal light.

But there is a quality that can be sensed, that any of us can sense. And sometimes it's not quite darkness, but it's like it's so hazy... like so much artificial light is going on in one's understanding of reality that it's hard for the real light, the original light to shine through.

Anyway, it's kind of pretty, seeing, or even imagining all these lights walking around the city, in the streets, across a room - like stars forever forming new patterns and constellations.

This blue planet is swimming in constellations. But there's also a lot of artificial lighting and external stimulation that kind of drains, dims and darkens the brightness of the stars within ourselves. I can see it. And so can you.

It's weird. But makes sense. If any of this makes sense.

Some shine brighter than others, and there are a few that have a very peculiar, particular quality. The weird ones. They tend to have a lot more clarity in the nature of their creative expression. But things like insecurity or external stimuli like excess entertainment tends to dim their inner twinkle lights.

I really like these people. Because they're not all hippy dippy, but down to earth and have a real human smell to the way their lights shine.

And even when they're acting like assholes, I tend to have more patience with them, because they're all just coming into their self hoods like myself. So we stumble and get distracted along the way. But it does concern me, because they're unaware or are ashamed of the very qualities that make them so rare and choose to actively dim their brightness in the presence of others.

BobbLebot's speaking BabbLebot again.

I suppose... por ejempLo, I've got a soul speaker in one corner, a weird one, but has a fuzzy clarity to his light. (Paradoxical, I know.) The source is clear, the edges are fuzzy. In another corner I know a thundercat who's a stealth weirdo. He's intensely and intelligently weird with a very humanish smell to him. His light's more amber/yellow, like a sun. Very fuzzy, warmer than it is bright at the moment.

The affect is there, but the clarity in light isn't. But I could tell that it once was. It flickers. Like a street lamp that can't make up its mind whether or not it wants to stay lit. Fluttering like butterflies or allergy-inflicted eyelashes. Eyelids? Eyelashes sounds better.

Babyface, his is such a cute and intelligent light. Can't decide what color or tones yet. It floats around like a bubble unless something catches its attention. Then it kind of stays still and glows brighter and brighter. And then dims quickly when it gets overstimulated and exhaustimicated.

Thumbprints, I suppose. Everyone has their own signature.

What's mine? Hmmmm... I dunno. Mebbe someone else can tell me. I'd like to think it's a twinkle, twinkle shiny star the bops all over the place. If I have a star inside me, it's probably one that doesn't sit still for very long. But then again, I don't know for sure. Cuz I don't have a mirror.

And there are other lights, really pure and bright. Otherworldly. And they don't smell very human - but in a good way. I suppose it's like those lights are kind of beyond the superficial fallacies that most of us go through.

But anyway, here's an example of a light that doesn't smell very human and burns very brightly. Blue-whiteish. Not quite ultraviolet.





Lights like these give me a lot of comfort in knowing there are those that don't need to be "helped" along, but just ARE. Each and every burning star.

2012, Selfhood, Shadow Selves, omgz etc.

More so than any other lecture that I've studied this summer, this is the one that truly encapsulates a lot of the way in which I now perceive myself, my purpose and the importance of the human connection in a very cerebral way.

Yes, it's 3.5 hours and if you're allergic to "conspiracy theory", skip 23 minutes into the presentation when Tsarion begins to talk about Consciousness. It is an amazing presentation that I am so stoked to share with anyone who is open to the idea that the otherworldly may not be so otherworldly after all. In fact, it may be our very reality and we can choose to shape it with our very Consciousness.

In other words: briLLiance!

Oh, Bama...

Okay, so here's a youtube vid that's unnecessarily titled, "Barack Obama, Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" - and it's from this 2012 myspace group - but I don't think you have to be a 2012 enthusiast or lover of ominous music in order to glean a lot of interesting information from this video and new perspectives on, yes, the Obama campaign, but also new perspectives on the way in which government and politics function. Historically and presently. And to pay attention to repetitions and patterns while opening an eye and an ear, a sense of awareness, of what is going on beyond rhetoric.

Obama is a very charismatic politician. But what percentage of your vote is riding on charisma, on a very talented, smart personality? When it comes to speeches, he is brilliant. Yes, he's got speech makers who help him out from time to time, but the delivery is all his. And yes, we can admire him for that. But is it logical to use that as a major brownie point in terms of giving yourself over to this person to lead you? Because what he is buying from you, in the end, is your faith. For there is no way for you to know where exactly he will lead this country.

Change. I do believe it. But what kind of change is it that we are looking for? And are we looking in the right places for change?




This Obama-as-Messiah, very much in the eye of the beholder. But it is very real, this affect, this need for a political savior because there is no "yes we can" in the hearts of those voting who believe they can "save" themselves.

So let's go into the very people Obama will be working with when he gets elected into office. I say when because there is no if about it. Let's say he is a single, autonomous person. This is the system he is walking into.



How much will the vote be based upon real, concrete visions of creating change, and how much of it will be based upon real, concrete emotions?



The thing is, if we are looking for change, we will not find it. Not the kind that lasts. Not the kind that we intuitively want or envision in a very abstract way. Why?

Because change is created. It is not found, it is not discovered and it is not brought into fruition by a leader we invest in.

It's in investment that's first made in ourselves. Plant it, grow it, take good care of it - and, when it's ready, enact it externally.


I suppose what concerns me are what happens to voters when they get too wrapped up in all the rhetoric and emotions of it all. Emotions are important and are a positive force under certain conditions. When they are coming from within and processed accordingly. But when they are exploited from without, then it becomes a very real concern.

Let me ask you - are you afraid of disliking Obama? Are you afraid of seriously considering all parts and parcels of his platform? I'm not talking about editing out all the "bad" stuff and just paying attention to the stuff you like.

If you answered yes to the 2 above questions, what does this tell you about yourself? About the campaign? About what we are investing our energy in?

our shadow selves

Relative isolation can be a good thing.

At first you feel lonely or loopy or like the only sane person skipping around in an insane world, which makes you feel paranoid and half-convinced that you're crazy and everyone else is sane, but if you really look at it, no, your brain and rationale are pretty sanitary as they are.

ALL THESE THINGS ARE NECESSARY for you to be productive in your isolation. In order to find self hood. In order to come closer to a state of sovereignty.

Though, there are times when you are ready to reengage with the world in a new way, with new eyes and feel discouraged. Because the only thing that's changed, it seems, is you.

So yes, there are times I get a little restless, a little impatient. Sometimes I just want to shake them, but what can I do? I am only responsible for myself and for my own transformation, though if people are interested in certain modalities of living, I do have information I'd be more than happy to share with them.

Before we get into it, let me get into what this is NOT.

This is NOT me seeking for external stimulus, an artificial culture of identification, or a state of codependence.

It's me, seeing a lot of really cool shit that's happening RIGHT now, RIGHT in front of us - right INSIDE of us. The period of deconstruction, Pluto/Shiva, transmutation and transformation. The masks falling. The confrontation of the Shadow Selves - because if we find ourselves ignoring them now, they will force their presence upon us. Of course, if we aren't ready for them, then there is a chance we may perish. Not physically, but we may end up irrevocably harming our selfhood.

The shadow selves (I think a Carl Jungian thing, but not positive) are the parts we can't handle, we can't deal with, so we stick them in the closet. And they are a useful part of ourselves. We need them in order to move forward.

I mean, a child born into the world cannot provide for itself. It needs to be taken care of. The ego in that sense, takes care of you, after you've thrown all the "bad stuff" in the closet.

How selfish you are, how jealous or possessive you can be of others. Your materialism.

So what happens when you can't confront your shadow self? When you've forgotten you've forgotten it?

My understanding is that when you are ready to face them in any capacity, your shadows will manifest in the physical realm.

Were you once an ignorant asinine jerk in highschool? You can confront that shadow in a multitude of ways. You can meet the physical manifestation of your former incarnation, only this time, it's that asinine jerk in your workplace who beats women. It's an exaggeration of what you could have become had you not chosen to eschew that part of yourself.

You feel immediate repulsion, a strong taste of anger or judgment. Maybe not even guilt, because you're not that person anymore, in fact, you forgot you were that person.

OR you could meet someone who is, though kind-hearted, a bit low in self esteem, constantly placing the worth of others above her own. She's a bit sad, and you want to help her. But after a while, you get frustrated when no progress is made and you become coldly critical or closed off. So that whenever you confront this person, she BRINGS OUT that asinine jerk you were in high school.

Now why does this happen? Why are our shadow selves so important, when they are all the bad and horrible parts of ourselves? Every dark, pathological fantasy of rape, incest or murder?

Because denying that mildew is growing on your shower curtain doesn't make it go away. Sure, you just push it aside and forget it's even there because - first of all, you had no money for cleaning supplies - and second - your curtain has become so black with mildew that after a while you think that you own black shower curtains. Your forget that it was originally purple or beige.

But if the mildew is never addressed, it will continue to spread and when you turn on that hot shower, the steam will release the mildew and fungal spores and enter your lungs, making you sick. At first it's very subtle, but if you never address it, it will eventually make you sicker and sicker -- and you may not even know what it is that is making you sick.

With the shadow self, you one day have enough money to buy some rudimentary cleaning supplies. Maybe a bottle of Formula 409 and a dual-sided sponge. That's it. Cleaning will not be easy or pleasant, but it will be possible. But you develop these things, you receive these things JUST as the mildew is ready to release its spores.

The shadow selves come to you at specific junctures for specific reasons. To embrace and understand the shadow self is to come to a greater understanding of the self. Now, why is this important? Understanding the self? Because it helps you get more strongly connected to your intuition. When you are more strongly connected to your intuition - when you just KNOW something - you are less inclined to allow yourself to be ruled by Uncertainty.

Uncertainty causes stress which creates the parent of all addictions. When you are ruled by Uncertainty, you are not ruling yourself. You are ruled by the words "should" and the words "trying." To "try" is not to DO or to manifest. So forget trying. "Should" is also another word that indicates that you are operating under the sovereignty of another. (Sovereign meaning the unquestioned Ruler.)

Operating under the Sovereignty of Another, meaning that you are voluntarily giving your authority to Someone Else. In effect, instead of Creating Yourself, you are Being Created. That means, someone else, some other entity or social structure is creating the persona you choose to wear in order to protect yourself from external reality and find community in that external reality. For when you feel lonely.

If asked that question: WHY ARE WE HERE?, deep in my heart I do believe that the task and point of all human existence is to become completely sovereign. To become responsible for ourselves, all parts of ourselves. And the way to get to that is through Self-knowing.

The thing is, sometimes we trick ourselves into thinking that our egos - or WORSE - our personas are who we are. That persona = self. Or that ego = self. But that is not true.

The persona and the ego are mere tools. They are the USB cables and flash drives to our hard drives. We NEED these USB cables and flash drives to download and upload new information, to interact with other technological interfaces. But the USB cable is NOT the computer. The flash drive is not the hard drive, your Word documents, all your files you've stashed away and forgotten about.

Shadow selves are those diary entries, those emails that you can't delete. It's like deleting Windows. Windows AREN'T you in your present state, but you need an operating system for the computer to even function, don't you?

So the day you get your bottle of 409 and sponge, you're like, "Shit. There's mildew on the curtain." And you don't have the money to buy a new curtain and you can't throw it away either.

Free Will: So you can choose to ignore it or you can choose to clean it. Ignore it, you'll chronically get sicker every time you take a shower.

Now here comes the 2nd problem. You don't know how to clean it. You've been so spoiled your whole life that you've never once had to get on your knees and cleaned something really filthy and hazardous to your health.

So you spritz your 409 and start scrubbing away with the yellow side of the sponge. You do this for an hour. You get so frustrated you leave the bathroom.

It didn't work and you ended up getting mildew and fungus under your fingernails, GROSS!

So you can ignore it. Or try again. This time, you use the green scrubby side of the sponge and some of it comes off, albeit very slowly. But it's progress. And then you try spritzing 409, leaving the bathroom for half an hour, and the scrubbing it again after the solution's set. All of a sudden, ALL that gunk is coming off! And you're covered in it at this point, but you don't care, because you are getting a clean curtain, but more than that, you are learning how mildew works, how the cleaning products work, and how to clean it YOURSELF.

You understand a part of your bathroom soooooooooo much better now and now understand what to do at the first signs of mildew. And what's more, the more you clean it, the more adept you are at finding cheaper, more effective cleaning products.

THAT would be my analogy of a healthy confrontation with the shadow self.

And after the shadow self is the Anima/Animus/WiseOldMan/WiseMother archetype, and after the process of getting in touch with that intuitive, wise aspect of yourself, you finally reach the SELF and become a whole, fully integrated human being.

It is a process by which we become truly sovereign and truly free. You cannot find freedom when operating under someone else's sovereignty. You cannot find Wholeness or intuitive Knowingness when you are ruled by uncertainty.

And, not to discourage you, but there is more than one shadow hiding in our closet, and they will come out to play and fight with you when the time is right and you are equipped with a stronger emotional and intellectual capacity to deal with the darker sides of your character.

You can expect for it to feel painful, you can expect to get sick. But you can also expect to fully understand this side of yourself and, in understanding it, know what to do when it presents itself. And NO, it does NOT mean shoving it back into the closet... the closet... the closet... (sorry, random R. Kelly reference.) You can expect, through accepting and understanding these parts, to be on your way towards true freedom and sovereignty.

Freedom in a political paradigm doesn't exist.

But spiritual freedom, freedom of the mind, of the emotions and of the intuition - these things can be found and readily accessed at any time once you allow yourself to go through this process of becoming a fully integrated being.

Once upon a time,

There was a boy who lived in a clean room in a messy house.

He lived a moderately exciting life in a moderately exciting manner, though he held a deep desire for something out of the ordinary. Alas, his search for the extraordinary followed very ordinary routes and only connected him to very ordinary people, which was good and well enough for him...with the exception of profound periods and stretches of restlessness.

If anything, he was content being alone in his cleanly ordered room and didn't care much for the rest of the house.

One day, a spritely elf entered his home with a trash bag, a mop and a vacuum. It was the most incredibly strange thing he ever saw.

A sick sense of gladness filled his heart.

The elf fulfilled his paradigm of strangeness, a secret breath of adventure, even before he knew or could visualize what that paradigm was. All he knew was that he was immediately drawn to and fascinated by this odd sort of creature.

For a few brief moments the two stared at each other. In the eyes of the elf, the boy saw new and incredible things flash and dance with his reflection. Even though he'd never met the elf before, it was as if he had known the elf -- or, at the very least, that the elf had known him. Very well. Uncomfortably so.

It was at this moment that the boy suddenly felt very, very awkward.

He did not know what to say to the elf. How to speak its language. The elf appeared to speak his and was equally fascinated by the boy. And yet, every time it hopped forward, the boy jumped back in fear.

Needless to say, the boy felt very ambivalent towards the elf.

So the boy returned to his room and shut the door, returning to his usual routines. But ever so often he would hear the elf puttering around his living room, cooking up unfamiliar but heavenly smells in the kitchen.

This disturbed the boy in his very clean room in his very unclean home. The thing is, even though he did not respect the home outside of his bedroom very much, it was still his home.

Besides, what did the elf want from him? Why was it cleaning his home? What was he going to have to pay the elf in return?

"Just your attention," said the elf.

Oh, now the boy got it. And he got angry. He didn't want to have to pay any attention to the elf at all! Is that what the elf wanted? For the boy to forget about his clean and ordered room and pay all his attention to the elf all day long? For the boy to completely disrupt his way of doing things, his formerly contented existence?

"No and yes. Yes and no. If you give me a moment, I'll explain what I mean."

The boy stalked into his room and slammed the door. For the next few days, he would hear a few noises, here and there, coming from the kitchen. Once in a while there would be a note slipped under his door, quivering with a sense of excitement. The boy made a big show of paying them no mind. After all, he was a very busy boy.

So then came the day when a long breath of silence stretched over his home. Thick and heavy, cloaking over everything outside his bedroom like a dusty shadow.

The boy opened his door a crack and found a pile of dusty notes outside his door. A horrible sense of guilt stained his thoughts.

When he ventured into the kitchen, he found a plate of odd treats that had gone cold.

The boy wished to find some way to thank the elf, but didn't want it back to disrupt the order of his home. Besides, he wouldn't know where anything was anymore. And if the elf were to come back, would it try cleaning his home again? Would it end up uncovering his secret stash of bestiality porn that was lying under some mess somewhere? What would it think then? And if it finished cleaning up the rest of his home, surely the elf would venture into his bedroom, which was OFF LIMITS to all creatures, strange and ordinary.

No, no, the boy was a very busy boy and had no time for elves. Just time enough for all his commitments to the concrete reality of a world he was exerting so much energy to stand out in, though he had no idea why this was so important to him. It was just something that was to be done. Something he had to do in order to feel in control.

Because if he didn't do that, if he didn't make that a priority...

...he didn't know.

The boy sat and contemplated for a moment on how uncertainty was his greatest fear.

As he contemplated, he heard a soft noise outside his door.

After a few, long moments, he opened his door. On the floor was half a cookie and a note, "I ATE THE OTHER HALF. IT WAS TOO DELICIOUS."

The boy returned to his room and worked, worked, worked - and forgotbutnotreally about the elf. By the end of the week, he ventured out into his chronically cluttered kitchen and returned to the cookie - or, half of it - to eat it.

But it had long gone so stale and moldy that he could not even identify what kind of cookie it once was.

In a moment of kindness, he wrote his own note and slipped it under his front door, "WHAT KIND OF COOKIE WAS IT?"

No sooner had he slipped the note that the door popped open. Only this time, the elf stayed outside in the hallway, kicking at an invisible rock. "So..."

The boy opened his mouth to speak, but could not find words enough to say anything that meant anything important. Anxiety, like spider legs, crawled over his beating heart.

His hand touched the edge of the door, undecided as to whether it should close it or open it a crack wider. That's when a new thought entered his thoughts: it never occurred to him what it would be like to see the world through the eyes of an elf.

ChaNce

What are coincidences?

To be lazy, the 1st definition provided by dictionary.com is as so: a striking occurrence of two or more events at one time apparently by mere chance

Apparently. Seemingly so.

Even in the very definition, there is an air of unknowing - not even the dictionary for sure knows if it is only by chance. What it does know, is that it appears as such.

The common understanding of coincidence in my experience is that there is no "apparent" - that it IS by mere chance. That there is no guided pattern. That there is no explanation beyond its occurrence.

My 2nd favorite word in this definition is CHANCE - something that is by luck, accident or a seemingly random probability.

But I think I've come to a place where I don't think I believe in the common understanding in coincidence - that it is a seemingly random pattern with no meaning or intent behind it or that comes as consequence. As for CHANCE - my attitude toward its definition taken when it is TAKEN.

The thing is, I associate "chance" with "impulse" and "intuition" and "risk." There's a sense of thrill that shoots up my bones and sparks the neurons in mah brains. I'm always surprised by where my impulses lead me, when I do decide to take that chance. It's almost never where I ever expect for it to go.

COOL STUFF!

I've come to a point where I'm not going to dismiss something for grammatical or spelling errors. Because I miss a lot of good stuff when I get caught up within the trappings. If you find yourself resistant to enjoying something especially yummy, try thinking of these materials as stories. Because that is, in fact, what they are: stories.

no need to be creeped out. they're just stories!



bedtime stories.

origin stories and science fiction.



fascinating stuRF.



interesting how he connects the dots.



i wonders if BSG people read into Tsarion and Maxwell.



mythmaking from olde myths.



now... what if these myths had some modicum of truth? would that scare you? why?



why are myths with the same or familiar symbols or narratives passed down for so many generations? beyond the why - because I do think that question may be useless at times - what function do you think this passing down would serve?



is there really a danger in asking "what if"? or is there more of a danger in absolute dismissal?



is there anything of value that we can glean from these stories?



if there is a pattern of symbols or narratives, what happens when we learn what it is that they mean? wouldn't it mean that we'd become more literate? more discerning? more in control of our own understanding of the world around us?

bahahaha, I love how they use the dude from Quantum Leap and BSG.

cool shit, no? though there's a little discrepancy as to whether or not Earth existed before "Tiamat" was "destroyed" or whatnot.

Narratives are important in framing agendas, yes, but when framed as fairy tales, bedtime stories or sci fi (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, how eyez ruv thee~!), it's safe to pass down certain histories. I think where a lot of people get "caught up" and "paralyzed" or even "evangelized" is when they take texts - religious and not - quite literally.

But these stories, simple enough so that they can be easily remembered and passed down, are cloaked in a protection of fiction. And they are fictional. But within these stories are certain patterns and repetitions of narratives - and that is where I don't believe in things like coincidence. There is a pattern and there is a repetition for a reason.

Not because these are supposed to be taken literally, because there really was a big, bad wolf out to eat Grandma.

Not because it was an actual snake that lured Eve from the Garden of Eden, or that there was even truly a literal Garden of Eden.

In these tales are SYMBOLS. Familiar signposts, stars that make up an overall constellation and map of human understanding of from where we came and what we are becoming. Isn't it strange that across the globe are legends of human beings being descended from serpent "gods"? Isn't it strange that almost every religious text records a great flood that covered the earth after a war between the "gods"? Or the idea of plagues?

There is a distinct difference between taking something seriously and taking something literally. One has a practical application towards movement, taking chances and figuring out new ideas whereas the other is an impractical shackle or trap that prevents you from learning or changing your very reality.

The danger is in the "FRAMING." For 2012, let's say, there are a bazillion theories as for what's going to happen, since the Mayan "calendar" ends in 2012, we move into the "Age of Aquarius" and a lot of agendas and presidential terms end in 2012.

It can be framed in death and destruction, Armageddon, being saved by alien beings, etc. But I don't think that's very helpful.

What I do find helpful is LOOKING at the pattern and repetition in that from various different mediums and texts, something culminates in 2012. There's no point in trying to predict what exactly WILL happen, but what you choose to do with your time in between now and then.

There are symbols, stars and entire constellations mapped out in the repetitions found in stories. Connect the dots to find out what the core of the narratives are saying. Take it not as warning or advice, but just as is. And act accordingly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIu2rA0yd9s&feature=related

is there an Esoteric Agenda? BLARGH!

Those who believe that it's real are Conspiracy Theorists and those who do not are supposedly Realists. But as of late, my whole idea of reality has been turned inside out and has beens meLticated.

Like I've mentioned before, facts and truths can be quite ephemeral, just like our perception of the physical materiality (matter-reaLity <-- bahahahah! too punny!) of our very bodies can shift when we look at it from another angle. Even in a physical sense, our bodies are very mold-able, adaptable and plastic.


If you want to see the film, you can see it HERE.


Speaking of here and not THERE, here are clips of the "yummy part" that the esoterics favored and savored:

GENERAL CRITICISMS OF ZEITGEIST AND ESOTERIC AGENDA:
* factual inaccuracies regarding the birth of Christ or alignment of stars
* fear mongering
* conspiracy theorisms
* "too harsh" on government
* only has the "good stuff" at the end (Esoteric Agenda)
* is hypocritical in its use of fear
* confusing in what it's trying to say
* goes off the deep end when it connects government to spirituality and religion
* is it criticising paganism??
* it's got SPELLING MISTAKES!!!

What I found interesting is that I found a lot more criticisms of Zeitgeist from more religiously-inclined folk...aaaand "academics" - cuz, well, for reals, it just shoves stuff out there without citations or whatnot. For Esoteric Agenda, I saw a lot of criticisms from those who practice more "esoteric" spiritualities, like those who regularly converse with spirit guides or take psychic phenomenon very seriously.

Sure, it is not a perfect video because a lot of it can be misconstrued or posit ideas that can be misleading - yet what I find interesting 1st and foremost in the criticism is that the film is mostly criticised by those who feel attacked or "misrepresented."

Ahhh, so self-centered are we all! So vain! (yours truly included.)

Yet, let's look at this criticism...

IT'S FEAR-MONGERING: yes, it certainly appears that way, especially for the first hour-and-a-half. Unfortunately, that's kind of a gimmick or staple of this genre of documentary. The bombardment of images of past and present world destruction does jolt the viewer awake and does try to scare the viewer in a sense. Though... I think this is unintentional on the part of the director.

I honestly don't think the director is trying to SCARE us into believing his own agendas, but is trying to wake us up, as if to say, "DUDE. The world out there is SCARY and the people who rule it are SERIOUS."

But it's a bit awkward. Like a newbie 6'4 dancer who's trying to boogie with a 5'2 athlete. There's a lot of toe-stepping and awkward, rough re-directing that's going on.


I THINK IT'S ATTACKING ______: Again, the problem normally lieswith the insecurities of the viewer. What is the intention of the video? Is it to attack? I'm not quite so sure. And, if you think it's attacking YOU, then I think skepticism of your dismissal may be a wise choice to make, indeed!

WHERE'S THE CITATION? An academic's chief complaint. Where is he getting this information from and who's saying it and why, exactly, is he putting a rhetorical quote in the middle of all this "factual" evidence? Obviously, he's trying to convince us through rhetoric, which is dangerous because rhetoric hides fact and truth, rhetoric is propaganda, a dangerous form of hypnotism.

Neeeigh! whinnies the bobbLebot. Neeeeigh! It thinks not. At the moment.

If I am understanding it from the director's standpoint of the importance of connecting the left and right hemisphere's of the brain (PLEASE watch the Jill Bolte Taylor video~!), the quotes are more than just artistic touches or attempts to posit opinions as fact.

Sure, it ascribes to some of the staples of its genre, but it is jumbling the abstract and the emotional heart of it with "cold" facts to... well, I can't know what exactly his intention was, but I can say what it elicited from me: questions. Lots and lots of questions and discernment.

The thing is this - when people - like the New Agers/Esoterics and the religious don't get it immediately, a knee-jerk reaction is to say, "Well, it's just a conspiracy theorist talking. It's just a THEORY" and walk away without having taken it seriously. But how many theories in the humanities and sciences do we take pretty damn seriously?? How many are we REQUIRED to take pretty damn seriously?

Everything is a theory and there is no fundamental truth that is absolute 24/7. And I'm not saying that in a flippant, "ooo, I's SOOOOOO meta-meta!" kinder way.

I suppose... what IF we decided to take it seriously? What? We need a Pulitzer Prize or have it formally listed as required text in a university-level classroom for it to hold any sort of value or validity to take it seriously?

Think about it... when we do THAT, it's like an Amazon.com booklist. We are submitting to the arbiters of taste and validity. We are... "sheepLe" - as described in Esoteric Agenda. We need someone to taste our food for poison before serving it up to us to seriously digest. But we aren't really questioning who is deciding what is and isn't toxic.

BASICALLY... if you criticize anything, your criticisms don't hold water... at least, not with me - until you've taken what you've criticized seriously. Which is hard. I mean, it's something I struggle with day by day, but once you're conscious of it, it's your responsibility. Your choice. Deep down you know that your criticism doesn't hold any real weight when you haven't taken what you've criticized as a serious text or piece of "truth."

Do I think it's a piece of art? NAH. It's a bit sloppy in some areas and the production values are low. (bahahahahaha! sorry, SouthPark reference)

But I do think that there's a lot of interesting material to wade through, some of which honestly resonates with much of what I've been looking into over the summer with The Holographic Universe, certain "universal" Laws, Mayan Calendar stuff, Nibiru and Annunaki stuff, Sitchin and Maxwell with a little Tsarion and Cremo on the side. A LOT of material, and it DOES all connect, but at the same time, it's key to use DISCERNMENT when looking through a lot of this.

Basically, if you look at criticisms, take them seriously. See where they stem from. See if they challenge your own formulation of understanding something. If you dismiss something - study that as well. You may be surprised by how much we dismiss on account of a bruised ego or a side effect of identity politics.

Siiiiiiiiiiigh.

Politics.

It's just a religion by another name that functions by indoctrination of the sheeple and the deification of a material "leader." Yeah, yeah - I might come off as "oh, I'm like, soooooooo past THAT" but no - it's not coming from a place of elitist intellectualism. Where it's coming from is a place of "it is what it is" with a side of sadness.

This is how it is and how larger material structures of government function.

I catch myself from time to time making comments while watching an episode of Heroes or LOST, "There they go killing Black people again!" or "ABC hates Black people!!!" - but when I do this and crack jokes at the ridiculousness of such blatant racism or blindness of multiculturalism, it's often to elicit a laugh or an act of affirmation from someone who's watching it with me.

Like, "This PISSES ME OFF!"
"WHOOOOOOOO! Yeah, it pisses me off, TOO!!!"
"We're so AwEsome!"
::pat selves on back::

Why do I do this? Why do so much of us do this? I suppose for me, it's an affirmation that all this struggle into coming into my identity or understanding of the world around me wasn't in vain. That my opinions are, in fact, valid, because they so easily elicit validation. They're valid because there is a group mentality that supports my statements. They are real. They hold water. They matter.

But often... though a lot of these "witty" remarks have come through processing and struggle and questioning things - by the time they come out in a social environment, they've lost some power because they've become cookie cutter statements. It doesn't mean they're not longer true, but that they're no longer "subversive" - they no longer hold any profound weight or value to me because they're things that reside on the tip of my tongue. Memorized slogans. Politics worn as fashion statements.

No processing there. Because it's already been processed. Like Kraft singles.

Mmm... Kraft singles.... ::drools::

But yeah. I get it. I still do it. It's hard feeling alone and unheard. But what I'm coming to understand is that as long as I understand and hear it myself... as long as it resonates with me and challenges me and doesn't feel pressured to conform for the sake of affirmation, then I am well on my way of becoming a more fully integrated being.

Socially, I've been plugging out a bit. And Facebook... has lost its mojo, you could say. It's still a useful tool, for sure, but I dunno... there's something about status updates (which I still utilize!!) that creeps me out. Like, WHY? Why do I feel the need to announce that I am sick? To seek sympathy? Why do others feel the need to announce that they got the iPhone or saw The Dark Knight?

To affirm that we matter? To validate our lifestyles? To assure ourselves that we're not alone?

Again - not throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

But isn't it disturbing when you catch yourself in that moment?

Why do we care that other's care? Why do we care if someone we see separate from us affirms that we're right? Why all this emphasis on the left hemispheres of our brains?

I suppose the HEART of this post is - why ESCHEW one part completely in favor of another? I don't mean it in a lazy sense that EVERYTHING HAS VALUE, but I think it's productive to seek the value in something we automatically are inclined to eschew. Like the esoterics who discounted 90% of Esoteric Agenda, only favoring the last 12 minutes that makes sense to them, that makes them feel good, that makes them feel like their viewpoint... MATTERS.

Yeah, yeah... we are allllll special.

But no, really look at that. "We are all special."

Not in a material sense. Not to be quantified in a list of accomplishments.

Seriously look at that statement. "We are all special." 4 words. Once you get past the surface...

"We are all special."

What does that mean to you?

Question Marks . Process

Something I struggle with is, that when I get too excited, I throw myself into something but only get the affect of everything. This is odd because as much as I am in tune with my emotions when I'm reflective, I tend to not value anything beyond excitement when caught up in a moment. Sometimes I don't know if this is due to the Aries in me or because I've been conditioned to not value emotions - or to value sharing them with other people. And then a thought occurred to me - why must intellect and intuition be perceived to be polarities?

Why see them as separate? Because we don't know how to trust. We don't know how to trust how we feel or some otherworldly feeling that's directing us.

We've lost the ability to trust when we've privileged intellect above intuition. Because intellect is more concrete in a material way. Because we've become material beings, privileging what we can perceive with the 5 senses above all else. Intellect - we can trust. Because it can be molded and dealt with when it no longer fits our reality in a very materialistic way.

If a certain ideology no longer serves us, if we aren't GETTING anything out of it, we use our intellect to figure out why it is no longer working and then map out a new way for new ideologies to serve us. To take care of our material understanding of the world. Whether it's an attainment of wealth and friends, or a redistribution of it.

The thing is, with intuition and feeling, there is no clear GETTING. Wait, correction. When there is no GETTING, then we devalue it.

You see, we've trained ourselves to perceive feeling and intuition in a very materialistic way. If we invest in grief, it is so we can get over something or relieve ourselves of guilt. If we invest in loving someone, it is to be loved in return. Some would say that love is unconditional, or that it SHOULD be - and perhaps this is so... but when you love someone and that person does not love you in return - whether that person is a child or a dog, your mother or your partner, doesn't that feel terrible?

And then what happens? The way we've been taught is that if there is an investment, there has to be a return.

And when I say "we" I mean as a mainstream collective being of entities that see themselves as separate. Whoa, that was wordy. Blah, blah, blah - there are always exceptions. ::rolls eyes:: Seems like America is the land of exceptions. As are most nation states and people who identify with them. Blah. BLEH, blah!

So what happens when we grieve and don't get healing? We're "depressed" and need to "fix" that. Anger is not a popular emotion - it's something one should not express at another person. Love - is it an emotion? Well it's an abstract feeling, for sure. Love, if you express it, then it should be returned. With the exception of family, if you love someone "separate" from your blood and it isn't returned, then we are conditioned to divest ourselves from these feelings. Because it doesn't GET us anywhere. Because it doesn't GET us a return on our investment.

The thing is, when the feelings aren't Practical or Logical, we are encouraged to keep them to ourselves.

If you express Love to someone who does not return it, not only is it an expression "wasted," but it makes the recipient feel obligated to return it. And if the recipient doesn't, then people tend to feel bad. All around, for different reasons. But is this a way of "dealing" with emotions?

Again, "deal" with. Emotions are something that must be 'dealt' with. A chore, of sorts. Because they are messy, because they aren't super convenient. Because, if not utilized in the "correct" fashion, emotions don't get us anywhere.

So we are trained to laud the happy, more positive emotions and to devalue those that aren't as positive. Or, we can feel them as long as we keep them to ourselves or as long as they serve a purpose - so we can "get over" them so that we can move on towards more positive emotions. And when we "feel" too much without a return on investment, a common solution is to self medicate or go to a therapist to "fix" it.

My conundrum is... if we aren't encouraged to experience a full range of emotions, what happens? Repression or possible conditioned anesthetized emotions.

Because the lows aren't socially acceptable to be "so" low, the highs probably won't be as high.

More importantly, in my mind/Intellect, is that when we anesthetize the experience of emotions, we become less equipped to process them in a way that resounds with us - not a mainstream kind of affect - but within our own network and complex of affect.

When something bothers us, it's our emotions that point to that red flag. And why is this important?

When we don't know how to deal with our feelings, when we just go to the surface of it and cannot logically or rationally understand them, often our first reaction is to either ignore them, exorcise them/"fix" ourselves or to go Unconscious.

But when they come back, when they won't go away, what do you think that indicates?

Process is different from Understanding. The thing is, Understanding comes FROM some kind of Process. If we don't Understand our emotions, chances are that we haven't fully Processed them. How can we Learn without Process? The thing is, when you look at it beneath the surface, our emotions try to trigger within us a Process.

But why are we so wired to struggle against this process?

I've thought and struggled with the idea of struggle for a bit. Struggle has a purpose. To learn. But is struggle the only way? Isn't there a way we can process things without struggle? Not in a lah di dah kinda way, but in ALLOWANCE. Allow, allow, allow for the process to happen. Don't fight the process. Let it happen.

Don't you think we'll learn something new, come to a kind of understanding where in which we'll learn the value of our emotions and Intuition that is Outside of the Immediate Understanding of What We Get Out of It?

MorTaLity of Logic and Reason

A recent email touched upon the topic of a falling out with someone that person cared about. Long distance friendship/relationship, little regular contact, yadda, yadda, yadda - and then BOOM! One person makes a choice to use passive aggressivity to hurt the other person. Long story short, time has passed, and while they're "okay" with each other, there really isn't the kind of connection there used to be.

People hurt out from a place of hurt.

It’s hard to see when someone is trying to hurt you – intentionally or not – and a lot of that, I think, comes from our own conditioning of our material attachments to things – even books. On the surface, we know we do not and cannot possess people, and yet, despite ourselves, when we become attached to or perceive that person to be an integral piece of our being or expansion, that’s what essentially happens.

They get upset when they can’t see you or when you don’t fulfill a role because a part of them is responding to an unconscious understanding. And that understanding, beyond reason or rational logic, is that a part of you is supposed to belong to them. They’ve made claims on it and invested in it.

So it hurts when something that is theirs is denied to them. It’s unconscious. Usually it is unintentional. But it hurts because it makes them doubt how strong that claim is. How loyal you are, or how much you do, indeed, care. It makes them feel vulnerable because they fear that you don’t love or don’t love enough. At least, that is my understanding as to why people who love or care for one another hurt each other.

Does this mean that no one is at fault? No one is to blame? Yes and no. It is what it is. But once you become conscious to what is happening, you must become responsible for your own actions, for your conscious behavior, at least – in order to maintain your sense of integrity. But realizing your own culpability can be a scary thing, indeed, because… what do you do? What do you do when you realize what’s been done? What do you say?

If it's scary it's because you are afraid of how they will receive it. Saying sorry, or trying to offer insight to a deeper truth to what is really going on. Getting people to understand or recognize the uglier sides of their selves or actions can be painful because you don't want to hurt them. Because you're scared if they do, they'll hurt you back. Especially when you're feeling most vulnerable.

This is where my inner cheerleader kicks in: be brave. Be brave, even if you're scared.

Acknowledge the fear, but avoid giving control over it, because when fear hijacks the mind, like a meme, it will come up with a multitude of excuses so that you can protect yourself and that other person from expanding. Like a virus, it is infectious and can dismantle your ability to listen to your intuition.

That is where it is hard, because it is an inconvenient thing: paying attention to your intuition. To value it and see it as a part of the intellect, not as a separate process. It's inconvenient because there is a threat that if you apply or practice this channeling of your intuition, that the person you are sharing it with will not understand, or worse, hurt you via emotional and intellectual denigration. Whatever you're paying attention to, you become conscious off. But sometimes consciousness is not enough. And you've got to learn to be okay with that. That, when applying consciousness, when practicing the sharing of your own understanding of truth, there will be mistakes.

And that if you allow it, these mistakes, to happen - you will learn from them. And so that every time thereafter that you practice this flow of consciousness, you will get better at it. Better at communicating what it is that you're trying to say. Better at reaching that other person's consciousness, so that he or she can see that you are not saying or doing something with the intention to hurt. You are doing it to help.

I, myself, have realized a mistake. That I may have unintentionally hurt somebody when I plugged out of a connection to keep from getting hurt myself. Because it made me feel too vulnerable. Because I didn't think it was fair that I was so exposed and the other person seemed so distant and far away.

So what do I do?

A convenient thing to do would be to leave it alone. Because, if I listen to just the memes of fear, then I can rationalize that this is all in my head, that I didn't hurt this person. I mean, I'm such an insignificant blip on this person's radar, why would my disappearance hurt this person? If anything, I doubt this person even cares as to whether or not I exist. If anything, this person found my presence annoying and irritating. That, you know, disappearing actually did this person a favor.

And in that moment, I realized, wow. I was getting defensive, I was going into a mode of self-protection. But why? What was I trying to protect? Beyond rationale, beyond intellect, what I've come to realize is how my interactions with this person made me feel much more attached than would make empirical sense. And that I was resisting it. That it scared me - how I ended up caring this much for a person, if I were to count the hours, doesn't add up. Didn't make sense.

This had to be some sort of infatuation. Which is dumb and stupid. Logically - LOOK, it IS stupid!!! It's stupid because it serves no immediate, practical purpose!!

And perhaps a part of it was. An infatuation of sorts. But more than that, I cared. When I sensed that person was having a hard time, I cared. Despite myself, I found myself channeling energy towards being good to this person, trying to find ways in which to relieve a burden. I cared, and that scared me. Because the level to which I cared didn't make sense to me. Because it would totally UnMake everything I believed to be true about the nature of the human condition - and as a close extension of that: the human connection.

The more I plugged into Logic and Intellect, the more confused I became. The more dissatisfied. The more I misunderstood what was going on. I knew everything. Or thought I did. So when I came up with a diagnosis and the treatment didn't work, I didn't know what to do.

The thing is, my intuition knows what to do, but my intellect is scared to do it. Because my intellect doesn't trust my intuition, because my intellect is more scared of the consequences, of what will Happen, than in making myself vulnerable enough to apologize for something maybe even this other person may not be conscious of.

The more I resist, the more this persists and hijacks my thoughts. Another meme that is battling the ones already trying to control my actions in interest of protecting my emotional spirit. That, and Pride.

The thing is, up until I met this person, I was a very Rational Being. Even when delving into more esoteric topics such as astrology, mimetics and spirituality, I did it from a very Rational standpoint. I used my understanding of Logic to guide me. Everything I was interested in HAD to HAVE a very Practical Application. A function. If it served no immediate function, I often abandoned it.

Even when it came to betrayal and other forms of heartbreak, I was very Rational and Logical in creating rough time lines in my head as to how long it would take for me to get over it, what my course of action would be, how I would heal from this situation and bullet point what I was supposed to have learned from it.

The thing is... and I shall get to this in another post - but the recent reports of the Real breaking into the Imaginary (from the Lacanian standpoint) from the "chupacabra" to the gnome in Argentina, to the giant stingrays found in the South Pacific and off the coast of Florida, chemosynthesis, the Montauk Monster, the Vatican announcing that believing in extraterrestrial life is okay with God, Dr. Edgar Mitchell from NASA coming out that the government has, indeed, covered up its contact with alien lifeforms, and, most recently, Big Food/Yeti - which will be officially revealed today, its DNA testing and everything, at a conference today -- all these things, when we deny they exist, WHY do we DENY them?

Because they CAN'T exist.

Well, if they show up in the real, if they PERSIST - if there is photographic evidence and witnesses and news footage showing us that these incidences DO EXIST, then what happens?

First is outright Denial.

This can't exist.

Why?

Because to believe that it does will UnMake all that you believed in, it will shatter Reality as you know and understand it. Because Logic and Rationale aren't as reliable as we've come to understand them. Because we treat Logic and Rational like we do Science - like a Religion. Like it is infallible. Because we need to believe in something concrete and infallible to feel in control of our own existence and destiny.

The thing is, I think we are in control through choice - that destinies can be infinite, but that the problem is that the manifestation of destiny is so incredibly different that what we've come to understand it as: linear, concrete.

So if Logic and Rationale have Holes, what do we do?

If we're scared, we Deny. We protect ourselves.

Bahahaha. It's easier to talk about it when I distance myself from what is going on with me internally. The thing is, the connection that I experience with this person is something that defies my Logic, my understanding of how people are SUPPOSED to connect. The conditions to foster this level of affect and emotion aren't present in this connection. Hence, it cannot exist.

And yet it PERSISTS.

And it won't let me go. Gahhhh... I feel like that nerdy Dr. Horrible who can see everything but himself, who can aspire towards everything but what makes him feel emotionally vulnerable.

Logically, I should not contact this person. That I should continue to sever our level of contact. Logically, if I give it a few more weeks, this person will become but a distant memory and I can move on my merry little way without having this person plague my thoughts. Unbeknownst to me, this person's infected me with a meme. Or, perhaps, an "eme" since it is emotionally-based.

But I've been listening to my Logic and Rational for a long time now. And nothing is panning out the way it's supposed to, on a mathematical timeline. A meta-Logic beyond that would Logically say that it is because Logic is Failing me.

So what am I supposed to do? Even as I ask this question, I realize that I am asking it in the context of - what can I do to fix this situation and fix myself and keep myself from being emotionally vulnerable in any way? A very selfish question. How Can I Protect Myself? How Can I Stop Caring About This Other Person?

I know what I should do. But I don't know what will happen after that.

And that's what disturbs me.

If I listen to my intuition and I contact this person, it will shatter my sense of Logic in connection to human connection. The thing is, if I contact this person, there has to be a Reason. There has to be at least a sense of a concrete Outcome. But there isn't. So why am I being interpellated to contact this person? There is no Reason, no Outcome, no Rationale behind this ghost that continues to haunt me.

And that's what disturbs me more.

I've created this system of Logic and Rational that has never emotionally failed me. It is INFALLIBLE!! At least, it was supposed to be. And now that I'm not sure if it is anymore, now that it appears to be, in fact, very, very mortal...

Is there such thing as being called to do something or say something without a clear, discernable Reason?

What is the Meme-ing of Life? And – there is no “I” in Temes.

As of late, I've grown quite enamored with Ted.com and am currently mining it for a lot of interesting presentations I'd like to share with you in the near future. Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike... NOW!

I misunderstood memes when I first riffed on science vs. religion. (science IS religion and vice versa, as I now understand it). So I got to the core of it and bring it to y’all: MEMEs (a concept by Richard Dawkins in his The Selfish Gene) – information that copies/replications with variation and selection; that which is imitated – according to Susan Blackwell. It is that which is imitated. Wearing jeans, eating peanut butter with jelly – ideas that are passed on from person to person. Selfish information packets that will get copied if they can. Like viruses…

Dan Dennett has an interesting take on memes (“an information packet with attitude”); how ideas can hijack our brains, not much like viruses, but AS viruses. Ideas that we decide that we are willing to die for are, essentially, pathogens to the human psyche. They are infectious. Its interest, as a virus, is to replicate and to survive, whether or not it is damaging the body or mind of its host. The thing is, viruses/memes do not care whether or not the body/mind of its host deteriorates, for its primary interest is to replicate itself and to spread. That is its aim.

Not to say all infections are bad. There are good bacteria and bad bacteria, like cholesterol. Some can be utilized to save the body of the host or build the host’s immune system. Think of and thank all the helpful bacteria swimming around in your gut that helps you digest the many germs that enter your system every day.

What I find interesting is his focus on responsibility. We are responsible for ourselves, our ideas – their intended effects and their possible misuses. When we are the vectors of specific memes, we should also take upon ourselves the responsibility for their possible mutations. When people are afraid of ideas that make them confront the mortality of their own belief systems, it is common to “caricature” – as Dennett puts it – or mock these ideas so that they are taken out of context. Infecting the idea of the idea with a mutated understanding of it.

The thing is, once an idea is out of your mouth or hands, it is open to be interpreted by whoever decides to engage with it. I think the tactic is not to combat this specifically. Allow for it to happen. Resistance, in a sense, is futile. But this isn’t to say that we should give up. If anything, remain vigilant and acquire new ways in order to return to the source of the creation of this idea – its intended core.

So how can we tell the difference between “good” memes and “bad” memes? The toxic and the helpful? Here’s where we go into the idea of utilizing one’s own consciousness in order to discern the helpful from the harmful. Discernment via becoming very conscious of an idea and its intended effects. Paying attention to the aim of this meme beyond self-replication.

Like viruses, we can build immunity to specific memes via a scientific process that Dennett underscores – find out the source of the memes, how it spreads and gather the facts. From there, one can build new mutations.

For me, when listening to his talk, it brings me to see mutations of memes that spread on “both ends” of a political spectrum. While the Christian, conservative Right prepare for the Rapture, the grassroots, radical Left prepare for a Revolution – both ideas that members of both sides are prepared to die for, and both ideas that will probably never manifest in their lifetimes. Because they can’t. Because the meme calls for a “moral passion” that calls for its affected and infected to not think or process, but to prepare. To wait. To get caught up in the cogs of a virulent machine that will never come into a physical or concrete manifestation, but will harm the lives of many in its wake.

Susan Blackwell - what catches my attention – that she glosses over – is how memes and temes may be affecting the cosmos – life beyond our very planet. This is a topic I would like to return to in the near future. As the week has been fairly busy and overly social for myself, I do need time to sit and reflect, contemplate and release thought upon thought so that I can come to a better understanding of ideas apart from the immediate emotions associated with them.

Us as meme machines is an interesting concept that Blackwell brings out. The idea that everything that’s ever come about – language, culture, belief systems – all come back to genes, that they benefitted the passing on of genes. An idea that is limited to the material as its source.

The idea of mimetics is interesting to me because a new replicator that was “let loose” was the spreading of mimicry to forward the passing on of an IDEA. Something immaterial. And yet connected to the material. These memes – her idea, not mine – are what drove for a biological push for bigger brains in the evolutionary process so that they can better take in and replicate memes. MIMETIC DRIVE, she calls it. And if you think of it, really – what IS the biological benefit of wearing earrings or speaking a certain way?

What Blackmore (from my POV) is suggesting/saying is that as we are outgrowing the passing on of things for the primary aim of spreading genes into flourishing into the passing on of ideas – MEMEs – there is something going on that is outgrowing our physical bodies as meme machines. (In a very Keanu Reeves Matrix sorta way.) TEMES she calls it.

I suppose the crux of it makes me wonder if there is a functioning hegemony going on in gene, meme and teme variation, selection and replication? That we are choosing to let them choose FOR us? That we are unconsciously giving consent to our own domination? That we only THINK we’re choosing to “improve” technology or ethical ideas, but that these are, in actuality, choosing US?

This also makes me wonder if these are all horrible. Probably not, but it possibly can become just so if we do not become aware of it – what it is, how it functions, what are its aims. Because it isn’t until we Pay Attention to it, until we become Conscious of what is going on, that we can exercise the Free Will to actually CHOOSE, selfishly, I suppose, what will benefit ourselves.
Like Blackwell ends when she asks if we will pull through, “Maybe we will. Maybe we won’t. I have no idea.”

As with a lot of forward-thinking ideas of science, religion and spirituality, I think it would be unwise to dismiss these ideas/memes at face value. WHEN we dismiss things, my plea is to ask yourselves WHY. WHY are you dismissing this idea? Is it because you think it may destroy the very memes that you are comfortable with? Is it because they don’t fit in with your idea of a reality?

Remember, a reality is made concrete only via consensus. So if another meme spreads, it can threaten your reality by becoming a new consensus.

STILL – what I want other humans to do is ask the WHY and WHAT FOR. WHY do we dismiss it, WHAT function does this SERVE? This doesn’t destroy a virus or a meme, much less, build immunity to it. For it will exist until it finds another replicator.

But Paying Attention to and becoming Conscious of its Source, its intent beyond replication – that, I think, is a better way of discernment, choosing which memes you will allow to spread or “hijack” your ideology. I think right now, most humans are selfishly and dangerously stuck on the ego and the material. Everything revolves around a sense of control – we MUST be able to control the world around us, or at the very least, ourselves. So it’s a scary prospect – the idea that we may not even be in control of our own ideas. And maybe we never will be.

But Choice still exists if we let it. Choice comes via Process. But how can one Process when one Dismisses whatever foreign meme it comes into contact with – or worse – imbibe without careful examination? Such has been the role of pop culture as of late in the very culture of reality shows. Which I would like to talk about, but I think if I go off on any more tangents, this will come off as increasingly rambly so that not very many – if any – will be able to make any sense of it.

But something is happening here. In Human Consciousness that is manifesting in the Material and connects to something beyond the scope of our planet. But I’ll get into that on another post about a lot of cool/inneresting/weird/scary/amazing revelations as of late of life that don’t fit into our current understandings of biology and civilization.

RambLings on The Dark (K)Night: PrescripTion JeLLybeans and CanDied PiLLs

DON'T READ UNLESS YOU'VE WATCHED THE DARK KNIGHT AND/OR ARE PREPARED FOR SPOILERS.

SPOILERS!!!

**********************************you'vebeenwarned***********************************

I just came back from watching The Dark Knight and was profoundly disturbed and moved towards picking apart all of this - sure, about "what does this all mean" but more like, what does this mean to me? Because I think I know how mainstream audiences who watch this simply for entertainment value sees this, "How tragic, this huge sacrifice Batman made on behalf of the people" - unconsciously, "the people" standing in for "democracy" - but for me, "the people" standing in for the sheep. For sometimes sheep are in wolves' clothing and vice versa.

There are a bunch of thematic mini critiques and some missteps along the way, but all in all an interesting film that should be dissected "as is."

The thing is, I did not find the Joker to be the villain of the piece. My housemate goes so far as to glorify and romanticize the Joker, but I don't go so far as that. I don't think this piece has any villains. Perhaps I've been watching too much Zeitgeist, listening to too much Jordan Maxwell and looking too much into the Mayan calendar, the foretold 2012 and how this all ties in with a New World Order versus the New Paradigm. I'm still processing a lot of it with its connections to planetary movement and how much weight our world leaders put in symbology, but gahhh!

Okay, let's start with symbology and why there are no villains in The Dark Knight.

Like Horus vs Set, there is initially Batman and the Joker with their copycat counterparts. The only difference is that the Joker has control over his counterparts by a total disregard for rules and agreements whereas Batman has no control over his copycats by his own codes of moral conduct and "honor." Sometimes, like Lee Adama in the courtroom, too much self righteous nobility can be a sinister thing, indeed.

But the writer and Christopher Nolan complicate the Horus vs Set/Day vs Night order by inserting Harvey Dent -- who starts out as the "White Knight" who fights crime by day while Batman fights crime by night -- who descends into darkness/madness after Rachael is killed. (OyL. Can Hollywood STOP using heterowomyn as SYMBOLS of nationhood and social justice to be fought over?! We're people, too!! Gah!)

Like the introduction of the Joker's crones and Batman's copycats, nothing is as it appears. The 1st clown we see is not the Joker and the 1st "batman" we see is not Batman.

Gotham City is as topsy turvy as it ever was, even with the futile enforcement of law to keep the city under "control," under some kind of order. But there is no order and the Law turns out to be just as illusory as the money the Joker burns up at the end. What I find interesting is that we never find the identity of the Joker, though we know the identities of 2 Face and Batman in their civilian attire. Perhaps a critique of those who have a foot in both worlds... and perhaps not. In either case, having a foot in both worlds leaves one vulnerable because under one guise, one must play by the rules of social order in order to survive under its rule.

Basically, what keeps a city running but its laws? Its illusions? It's just as vulnerable to anarchy as those who can see through these invisible reigns of order and justice. Like money. It's not real. It doesn't hold real value. It's just paper that's a Symbol for value.

And here's where we descend into real Darkness. When we spend too much energy fighting for Symbols. But symbols are only as powerful as you believe them to be. The Joker has power as long as there is a Batman and vice versa. One cannot be imbued with meaning without the other.

Yes, when Joker pretends to play by rules, by a set of instructions, civilians are uncomfortable, but swallow his execution of fellow citizens. But once the Mayor's life is on the line, oh, lord, "heaven help" the Joker. Because the Mayor is a Symbol, you see. The Mayor STANDS for something.

Why does Batman take the fall in the end? Because Harvey Dent STOOD for something. Because the people/sheep need something to believe in. Because without sheep, our illusions and daydreams cannot be built into a concrete "reality" of skyscrapers and H&M's. Because Symbols are what keeps things in some semblance of order. Even the Joker, in the end, has to respect that. Because he, himself, is a symbol of total Anarchy. And therein lies his Achilles Heel -- that he has become more of a Symbol than the ones he is using to destroy the System by which the city and "society" runs by. Basically -- he must fight Anarchy in order to enact a controlled semblance of Anarchy. If that makes any sort of sense.

But let's pay attention to that... to the Joker, I suppose. With the Joker, the only thing consistent about him is his inconsistency and his craving for the darker side of the willy nilly. You can consider him the black, snuffed out side of Harvey Dent's coin, the ravaged side of Harvey Dent's face. Even as how he got his scars, how he got "crazy" -- you never know because the story always changes. In letting go of order, the Joker is able to control the structured, ordered world around him. Pull people's strings. Know how to push them over the edge.

His saving grace is that he knows how to disrupt the system...though, in the end, I don't think that's what he REALLY wants. He only toys with the idea with never taking it across the line. That, he leaves up to the sheep. If anything, the world is his stage -- he gives life to his puppets and let them duke it out and take full responsibility in the end. He only sets up the circumstances.

That's what I admire about the Joker. He forces people to take responsibility for their choices.

Here's where Ideology versus Tools duke it out.

Ideology is a set of beliefs or dogma one adheres to so that one is absolved of ever being truly responsible for one's own choices. One is responsible for the upholding of the belief, but never the self. "Well... I voted for him cuz I'm leftist..." or "I'm protesting that cuz I'm a feminist." or "I blew up the abortion clinic because Christ compelled me to."

People who adhere to ideology let ideology take the fall for their actions. Their arrest? It was in the name of something. The shooting of civilians? It was for the "belief" in "democracy." But it's never really, "I killed" or "I hurt," you see? It's the belief in something. That's where I disagree with Batman.

He doesn't like his copycats because his copycats are putting themselves in danger -- this messes with Batman's ideology. So he smacks them on the wrist - "I'm supposed to protect you. You're not supposed to protect yourselves. You're sheep." Batman's choices are ruled by his sense of justice. As much guilt as he feels for the death of Rachael, he can at least, at the end of the day, justify it with the excuse that he chose Harvey for the Greater Good. Because Harvey was a Symbol that stood for Something.

Here's the interesting critique: what happens when those Symbols fail us?

The thing about the Joker is that he doesn't use a gun to kill people, really. Or he doesn't prefer them. And he doesn't kill people unnecessarily -- there is a method to his madness. It is to reveal to humans how dark they really can be. It's to see what happens when the coddled and sheltered are given responsibility, REAL responsibility.

With the bank heist, he gives his underlings guns - and a choice: to shoot each other for a bigger share of the money. They could have chosen not to follow his instructions. But like sheep, following instructions lead them to their own slaughter. With the boat -- he put the Tools, the detonators -- in the hands of the people. (Here's where I think the writers fudged a little bit by romanticizing the good of the people) But it's not the Joker himself who goes about blowing them up, he sets up the circumstances to see what they would do. To see if nobility would survive or if they would turn into animals in the face of Death.

He gives them Choice. He gives them Responsibility. If the other boat blows up -- they know it's because They pulled the detonator. It is Their responsibility, and that's a choice they would have to live with every day.

What's cool is that he gives Batman a Choice: to annhiliate the Joker (on several occasions) to protect the people, or to let the Joker live so that he can continue to uphold the Law. It was a choice Batman was responsible for. In the end of the first few scenarios, the Law won over the protection of the people.

Basically, Laws and Symbols and Ideology cannot protect us. Nothing external can really protect us. We can only look out for ourselves. And it's not a matter of being selfish, but it is a matter of being responsible. The only control we have is over ourselves, really. And if we don't, we must destroy ourselves in order to reconstruct (a very Fanon idea) who we want to become in our next incarnation.

Harvey Dent doesn't survive in the end because he never is able to make a choice for himself. He is never responsible. In the beginning he is beholden to the System, to the set of Laws that supposedly protect society (from themselves). His descent into madness is due to his grief over Rachael. He is never truly responsible for himself and his own choices. Good or "bad," his choices are framed in the name of fighting for something. In the end, when he is about to make a choice, he never really gets to. Because he was never meant to. Because, in the structure of the film, Harvey was a Symbol.

Harvey was the Coin. When we leave things to Chance or Fate or Ideology -- is that real justice? Justifying when bad things happen to "innocent" people (I'm skeptical of the word "innocent") is something that happens when we do it in the name of a "greater good," when we use it to absolve ourselves from responsibility. WAKE UP. Own up to it.

I know I have to.

But in the end, Batman is given a choice and he takes responsibility for it. In order to continue to fight for the people, he must disregard Law (break ties with the cops). He must take responsibility. At the same time, he does an injustice in that he does it in the name of Harvey's "good side." Only half the story. He absolves Harvey of any responsibility. How frakkin noble.

The Joker is never really a person, but a spook, a demon, an entity that forces society and the individual to take a good look in the mirror. What do we see? What will we allow ourselves to see?

If we see only our faces, then the Joker, ironically, has failed. The thing is, we're trapped in a consensus. In the name of the collective, we become blind to the blood we've stained our hands with. Votes and protests are not enough. Resistance is not enough.

The whole resistance -> rebellion -> revolution paradigm never sat well with me. Mebbe because intuitively I know that the way that people go about it, revolution won't ever come. Revolution is never here or waiting upon our doorstep. Or as soon as we fight for it, it vanishes. New figureheads replace old ones. Look, did France ever REALLY, TRULY have a revolution?

Resistance is such a defensive stance. A seat at the lunch counter. And it's too easy to get up in the cogs of "social justice." Protesting on behalf of Sean Bell is not gonna do it. Maybe the very fact that resistance and "free speech" is allowed is something we should really, truly think about.

So how can we create a "revolution"? Don't. Because it's as elusive as democracy ever was. Why settle for a "better" paradigm when it's just a mirror of the old one?

Creativity.

Create.

Imagine.

Simple, naive-sounding, but profoundly honest. Not true, but honest.

Create a new paradigm. Why waste energy in resisting when energy can be utilized in imagining? In the creation of something new? The thing is, when engaged in battle, we play by the aggressors rules. So if we win, it's almost impossible to NOT become the aggressor.

When playing a game of "resistance" we're merely taking a coin toss to another level. Different faces, wholly opposite - heads and tails - but both are still a part of the same coin. One side cannot exist without the other and is only a flip, a photographic negative. But the original image, the fingerprint of its hologram is still there.

So if there is a war of a coin toss, instead of waiting for your turn to flip the coin, why not ignore the coin and imagine a new game? Why not break out a roll of toilet paper? A smelly shoe? An electrical outlet? Something beyond binaries!! Something beyond Good vs Evil and Right vs Wrong.

No matter what new paradigm takes over, there will always be a darker or more complicated side. It won't ever be a true Utopia. But that's not what we should be fighting for. That's not the point of human existence.

Why struggle? Why feel pain? Why sex?

The thing is, struggle, pain and pleasure reveal things to ourselves. It's when they become routine that we lose something and feel hypnotized by pleasant patterns. Cease to learn. Grow stagnant. That's why if a so-called "revolution" ever happened, it'd be the same thing and we'd never really learn anything new or grow or fundamentally change.

The toilet paper in lieu of the coin, however, is a new paradigm with new complications. And, in the end, will teach us new things about ourselves in this newer struggle. It's a learning curve, the surprise that's in store for us in our new incarnations. As of now, we're deadlocked in the coin toss which is why resistance really is, fundamentally, futile. This is not the voice of nihilism, but the voice of Choice and Responsibility.

The human brain has such a large and infinite capacity that it's sad we only use such a small percentage of it. And perhaps this will always hold true because we're conditioned to utilize it in only a conditioned set of ways. So we never really get to reach those other parts of our brains within the whole scope and span of our collective lifetimes.

We need a new struggle, a new paradigm so we can reach a greater potential instead of stagnating in this repetitive cycle of lather, rinse and repeat. Aren't you tired of it? The redundancy? The disembodiment of the human soul? Doing things only for the sake of the ShouLd? The things we think we "should" be doing?



In the end, is Gotham a safer city? Sure "evil" is temporarily "vanquished," but is it ever permanent as symbols and their binaries are allowed to survive? And perhaps therein lies another power -- the struggle towards permanence. In the name of permanence. Sigh. Always fighting for the wrong/same things.




On another note, if the Joker truly took his false ideology ALL THE WAY, Gotham would have transformed into a new society. Not a "better" society -- pay attention -- but NEW. Different. Fundamentally transformed on a profound level. A breaking of a spirit is profound, indeed.

But he allows for Batman to survive. He needs Batman to survive, so the Joker can live to play another day. The killing of Batman was only a ruse to get Batman to show his true colors, to make a fundamental choice when his own, structured ideology can no longer protect him. He can't blame it on the Law, he can't blame it on Love, or Grief, or Society -- the choice was with Him. So, in becoming the Dark Knight, he was wholly responsible. (and for that, I do give him props).

In the end, the Joker doesn't really truly want to DESTROY society, but have fun in his own sadistically diabolical way to get the city to own up to ITSELF. To really catch at least a GLIMPSE of its true reflection in the mirror. And, I suppose in THAT aspect, the Joker is at his most human.

Because on a deeper level, he, too, needs a sense of order and structure so he can play pretend at destroying it.

I suppose, in the end, no one wants true Anarchy. Even "villains" need their sense of order.

I do believe in a sense of order, but not the upholding of the Imaginary. These hotels, these cars -- none of this is really real. And not even in a pretentious, academic sense. I mean, they are only as real as we allow them to be. We become our Jobs when we Let it.

Oy(L), I've more to say, but ze bobbLebot must get thee to bed.