Thursday, June 30, 2022
Sunday, June 26, 2022
Rant#216-215 shitty (wok) thoughts
I'm terrible at updating this blog, but I gotta...because THE WORLD NEEDS ME!
Anyway, here are semi-coherent thoughts. I'll be trying to post more BS like this in the future for your sakes. All your sakes.
Ugh...people are gonna hate me, but I must persevere, for I am super important.
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
New Story
Because I do not have enough incomplete stories, I started a new one...
its a post-apocalyptic tale.
I'm putting a strange restriction on myself in the writing.
I named the story No Turning Back...because I'm not allowing myself to. In other words, every error and gaff I make, its staying in. Every bizarrre decision in the narrative. Its stuck there. I'm not turning back; there's no editing whatsoever.
God have mercy on my soul.
Since its doomed to be the best piece of awful writing ever, I'm hoping you won't have to wait too long for it. Stay tuned.
its a post-apocalyptic tale.
I'm putting a strange restriction on myself in the writing.
I named the story No Turning Back...because I'm not allowing myself to. In other words, every error and gaff I make, its staying in. Every bizarrre decision in the narrative. Its stuck there. I'm not turning back; there's no editing whatsoever.
God have mercy on my soul.
Since its doomed to be the best piece of awful writing ever, I'm hoping you won't have to wait too long for it. Stay tuned.
They're Not Bigots -OR- Its Not a Problem
This morning I'm thinking about the so called Conservative mind. Because its me, who can overthink a tea kettle, and because I get lost not just in trying to figure out what makes a person who calls them self a conservative tick, but what even is the definition of conservative. Should I apply the modern American understanding of the word, which is maybe a certain kind of tribal affiliation, maybe just branding? Should I talk about what they 'say' they believe, or what they do? Should I use the dictionary definition? And should I even be picking on Conservatives so much? Before removing the splinter from your friends eye, remove the plank from your own. You see, because I don't trust my own reasoning, precisely because I see so much unreasoning from others (who also see unreasoning in me), so why should I presume I'm smarter than anyone else.
Well, I'm not going to presume that, I'll just lay out my reasoning and let you decide. I'm at peace with being wrong. All it would mean is that global warming, the death of all global wildernesses, the end of democracy (if it ever existed), and all the problems of inequality in fortune and power are actually non-problems...
So let's start there, with this one thought: "Its not a problem"
You'll run into this with wealth inequality. "Prove to me that inequality is a problem." Now they aren't asking for evidence or reasons, they're asking for proof, and boy howdy do they mean it...kinda. Because obviously they don't really want a proof, they want to not change their mind. Now, being attached to your beliefs isn't surprising, and its not politically Conservative, not by any means; its a deeply human thing. You and me, we both get really attached to our point of view, because we identify that point of view as OURSELVES; to threaten a belief is to threaten the very identity of a person. Global Warming: not a problem. Racism: not a problem. Childhood poverty: not a problem. Or at least they're personal problems, to be fixed at a personal level; my heart goes out to good conservatives at this point, as they often are great problem solvers at a personal level, who genuinely care about the people around them, without concern for race or creed. When it comes to discussing it though, particularly with a Christian Conservative, these problems become a strange kind of means to an end: we don't help the poor because they're poor, but as a path to heaven.
But...maybe that's what Conservatism really is then, that attachment to order and regularity. And not necessarily to order and regularity in the real world, but the order and regularity of meaning.
I've mentioned this before. All those Confederate soldiers sending letters back to their loved ones, mentioning fighting the good fight for "states rights", but not slavery. They gobbled up that propaganda hook, line, and sinker. They were willing to kill for it; they were willing to die for it. But they were fighting for slavery.
Or how about this...we look down our noses at the medieval peasantry, who bought into the divine right of kings, maybe, but who just didn't question that authority, didn't question the order. And they'd plow their fields and march off to war at the whim of a tyrant, and proudly so. Long live the King! Long live Nation-State!
Why would a samurai ritually slice his belly open to be buried at the base of the first pillar of his lord's castle? There was meaning to it, that's why. He felt it. To die for his liege was his duty, and to fulfill one's duty was sublime.
Of course, that Samurai meant it. He put his money where his mouth was, so to speak. You can't get much more committed than ritual suicide. By comparison the attachment to the modern social order of Consumerism and Big Business Worship seems pretty, I don't know, insipid and uninspired. Maybe that's why the patriotism porn is ratcheted up to 90 with a lot of these folks; they smell the decay of their morality and mask it with a whole can of Axe Body Spray for Real Americans.
Meaning is what I believe it to be. And in a consumer society, I can buy it. I have a deep love and appreciation for my country, so how do I demonstrate that? By wearing the commemorative T-shirt.
Hardly slicing your belly to become the literal (and therefore metaphorical) foundation of a dynasty.
(aside: I find this reminiscent of Heidegger's 'Building, Dwelling, Thinking' at this point. The gist is by and large, that the best symbol is also something that is itself the reality. The sign matches the signified. I hadn't thought of that in ages. Way to go philosophy degree)
So, maybe at this point you're wondering about when I'm getting to the bigotry, and how things like very real racism fit into the conservative point of view.
They don't.
Its true that you're going to find all the white nationalists, so called, basically on the Conservative side of the spectrum. Of course, just because the vocal ones are there doesn't mean they all are. It doesn't mean that all racists are conservative nor that all conservatives are racist. But when it comes to discussing politics and social-justice in this world, what you are more likely to get from a Conservative than a Liberal is this: "It's not a problem."
And here's where you're about to be really disappointed. You've labored your way through my hodgepodge of thoughts to get to this point, hoping maybe that I had some kind of conclusion. I do, but its terribly, terribly unsatisfying.
Why do we get this, "Its not a problem."
Its simple.
Because that. Would. Change. The. Meaning.
And that is scary. Its scary, and its also, how do I put this...not heroic. Its not virtuous. And the whole ethos of the Conservative--who does a bang up job of personally taking care of their family, their community, their church, and those around them--is that they really do believe in virtue. And so when it turns out that their virtue is questionable, well...that's why you don't question it, isn't it?
I will die to protect my king, and moreso the idea of my king's rightful place, the idea of my king, because if you destroyed that idea, there'd be no meaning to my life. Destroy my ability to consume in a consumer society? Holy hell you are an evil, evil mind.
Again, I feel I gotta reiterate. I see this from my perspective because I'm not conservative (really I think of myself as a Left wing conservative, but I'm def not the popularly branded American conservative). And you can see the same kind of problem on the Left with things like the vilification of Syrian rebels and US involvement there in favor of the brutal Assad regime, because that keeps the meaning for those folks on the Left...that America is the most evil Imperial power today. It does happen...but it doesn't happen with climate change, racism, inequality, lack of healthcare, increased rates of auto-immune disease from industrial toxins and screwed up hormones from endocrine disruptors...with all those things, for the conservative brand, "Its not a problem."
But there's no king to be attached to. There's no great cause to find meaning in. There's just consumerism and pretending that being an American automatically makes you virtuous and superior, and that what we earn is what we deserve. And that's enough. And people will fight for it, kill for it, die for it, just so they can be lazy enough not to change their minds.
...
I thought that was a nice, bleak, cynical, and pleasantly final way to end the post. But I had an afterthought, so I'll ruin it all.
So why not change their minds? It is scary. I mentioned that before. It does threaten ones identity. But if I left it there it would be because I'm a westerner enamored with the self as the core unit of, well, the Identity of Western values, as it were. See, I got suckered into faulty reasoning myself. The real reason...well, the other real reason...that its so hard to change our minds is that we're not wired to find truth, we're wired to get along. We are hyper-social animals. Its made us really successful, adaptively. So when it comes to fitting into our groups, we subvert truth for commonality and togetherness. And who are the folks who really like groups? Who identifies most strongly with their team? With their church? With the notion of their Nation as God's great gift to the world? For whom does that group identity become their own identity, and the modes through which the group become a group...even if that's focusing on the importance of a lone figurehead? I'll leave it to the reader as an exercise.
Well, I'm not going to presume that, I'll just lay out my reasoning and let you decide. I'm at peace with being wrong. All it would mean is that global warming, the death of all global wildernesses, the end of democracy (if it ever existed), and all the problems of inequality in fortune and power are actually non-problems...
So let's start there, with this one thought: "Its not a problem"
You'll run into this with wealth inequality. "Prove to me that inequality is a problem." Now they aren't asking for evidence or reasons, they're asking for proof, and boy howdy do they mean it...kinda. Because obviously they don't really want a proof, they want to not change their mind. Now, being attached to your beliefs isn't surprising, and its not politically Conservative, not by any means; its a deeply human thing. You and me, we both get really attached to our point of view, because we identify that point of view as OURSELVES; to threaten a belief is to threaten the very identity of a person. Global Warming: not a problem. Racism: not a problem. Childhood poverty: not a problem. Or at least they're personal problems, to be fixed at a personal level; my heart goes out to good conservatives at this point, as they often are great problem solvers at a personal level, who genuinely care about the people around them, without concern for race or creed. When it comes to discussing it though, particularly with a Christian Conservative, these problems become a strange kind of means to an end: we don't help the poor because they're poor, but as a path to heaven.
But...maybe that's what Conservatism really is then, that attachment to order and regularity. And not necessarily to order and regularity in the real world, but the order and regularity of meaning.
I've mentioned this before. All those Confederate soldiers sending letters back to their loved ones, mentioning fighting the good fight for "states rights", but not slavery. They gobbled up that propaganda hook, line, and sinker. They were willing to kill for it; they were willing to die for it. But they were fighting for slavery.
Or how about this...we look down our noses at the medieval peasantry, who bought into the divine right of kings, maybe, but who just didn't question that authority, didn't question the order. And they'd plow their fields and march off to war at the whim of a tyrant, and proudly so. Long live the King! Long live Nation-State!
Why would a samurai ritually slice his belly open to be buried at the base of the first pillar of his lord's castle? There was meaning to it, that's why. He felt it. To die for his liege was his duty, and to fulfill one's duty was sublime.
Of course, that Samurai meant it. He put his money where his mouth was, so to speak. You can't get much more committed than ritual suicide. By comparison the attachment to the modern social order of Consumerism and Big Business Worship seems pretty, I don't know, insipid and uninspired. Maybe that's why the patriotism porn is ratcheted up to 90 with a lot of these folks; they smell the decay of their morality and mask it with a whole can of Axe Body Spray for Real Americans.
Meaning is what I believe it to be. And in a consumer society, I can buy it. I have a deep love and appreciation for my country, so how do I demonstrate that? By wearing the commemorative T-shirt.
Hardly slicing your belly to become the literal (and therefore metaphorical) foundation of a dynasty.
(aside: I find this reminiscent of Heidegger's 'Building, Dwelling, Thinking' at this point. The gist is by and large, that the best symbol is also something that is itself the reality. The sign matches the signified. I hadn't thought of that in ages. Way to go philosophy degree)
So, maybe at this point you're wondering about when I'm getting to the bigotry, and how things like very real racism fit into the conservative point of view.
They don't.
Its true that you're going to find all the white nationalists, so called, basically on the Conservative side of the spectrum. Of course, just because the vocal ones are there doesn't mean they all are. It doesn't mean that all racists are conservative nor that all conservatives are racist. But when it comes to discussing politics and social-justice in this world, what you are more likely to get from a Conservative than a Liberal is this: "It's not a problem."
And here's where you're about to be really disappointed. You've labored your way through my hodgepodge of thoughts to get to this point, hoping maybe that I had some kind of conclusion. I do, but its terribly, terribly unsatisfying.
Why do we get this, "Its not a problem."
Its simple.
Because that. Would. Change. The. Meaning.
And that is scary. Its scary, and its also, how do I put this...not heroic. Its not virtuous. And the whole ethos of the Conservative--who does a bang up job of personally taking care of their family, their community, their church, and those around them--is that they really do believe in virtue. And so when it turns out that their virtue is questionable, well...that's why you don't question it, isn't it?
I will die to protect my king, and moreso the idea of my king's rightful place, the idea of my king, because if you destroyed that idea, there'd be no meaning to my life. Destroy my ability to consume in a consumer society? Holy hell you are an evil, evil mind.
Again, I feel I gotta reiterate. I see this from my perspective because I'm not conservative (really I think of myself as a Left wing conservative, but I'm def not the popularly branded American conservative). And you can see the same kind of problem on the Left with things like the vilification of Syrian rebels and US involvement there in favor of the brutal Assad regime, because that keeps the meaning for those folks on the Left...that America is the most evil Imperial power today. It does happen...but it doesn't happen with climate change, racism, inequality, lack of healthcare, increased rates of auto-immune disease from industrial toxins and screwed up hormones from endocrine disruptors...with all those things, for the conservative brand, "Its not a problem."
But there's no king to be attached to. There's no great cause to find meaning in. There's just consumerism and pretending that being an American automatically makes you virtuous and superior, and that what we earn is what we deserve. And that's enough. And people will fight for it, kill for it, die for it, just so they can be lazy enough not to change their minds.
...
I thought that was a nice, bleak, cynical, and pleasantly final way to end the post. But I had an afterthought, so I'll ruin it all.
So why not change their minds? It is scary. I mentioned that before. It does threaten ones identity. But if I left it there it would be because I'm a westerner enamored with the self as the core unit of, well, the Identity of Western values, as it were. See, I got suckered into faulty reasoning myself. The real reason...well, the other real reason...that its so hard to change our minds is that we're not wired to find truth, we're wired to get along. We are hyper-social animals. Its made us really successful, adaptively. So when it comes to fitting into our groups, we subvert truth for commonality and togetherness. And who are the folks who really like groups? Who identifies most strongly with their team? With their church? With the notion of their Nation as God's great gift to the world? For whom does that group identity become their own identity, and the modes through which the group become a group...even if that's focusing on the importance of a lone figurehead? I'll leave it to the reader as an exercise.
Friday, January 25, 2019
Shade Thoughts
A ten year old lies in bed, hugging his teddy bear after a hard day, and wondering why it doesn't bring him the comfort it once did. He realizes he can never go back to the child he was.
A teenager has his sexual innocence stripped away by a stranger called puberty. He misses the simple joy of imagination, of action figures and make believe and five foot walls being castles, but at least he has new toys to play with.
In middle age he loses his appetite. He is dead now, but still living to witness his lost self somewhere back in the folds of time.
A girl falls in love, gets married, has children. She gets to be a mother. The mother who would have been ages past menopause, and that identity is forever shut off from her. She's never to be a mom.
Everybody dies everyday, their identity stripped away by ceaseless time and our hormonal fates. There's the person we were behind us, and we can never be them again. We can never again feel the ecstasies we have already lost. Our new identity becomes one of acceptance, by necessity. Should I therefore not fear death, having died already? There's always something more to lose.
A teenager has his sexual innocence stripped away by a stranger called puberty. He misses the simple joy of imagination, of action figures and make believe and five foot walls being castles, but at least he has new toys to play with.
In middle age he loses his appetite. He is dead now, but still living to witness his lost self somewhere back in the folds of time.
A girl falls in love, gets married, has children. She gets to be a mother. The mother who would have been ages past menopause, and that identity is forever shut off from her. She's never to be a mom.
Everybody dies everyday, their identity stripped away by ceaseless time and our hormonal fates. There's the person we were behind us, and we can never be them again. We can never again feel the ecstasies we have already lost. Our new identity becomes one of acceptance, by necessity. Should I therefore not fear death, having died already? There's always something more to lose.
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
Not a real Argument about The Wall...(but maybe still fun)
Many people rail against 'sanctuary cities'. A sanctuary city is basically just a city where the local police aren't doing the job of the Feds.
There are also folks who rail against people with fences around their homes who are opposed to the wall. The analog is (supposedly) obvious.
It raises the question: If you are for The Wall, but not for building a wall around your own city, are you a hypocrite? If you are for The Wall, but do not have a fence around your home, are you naive?
There are also folks who rail against people with fences around their homes who are opposed to the wall. The analog is (supposedly) obvious.
It raises the question: If you are for The Wall, but not for building a wall around your own city, are you a hypocrite? If you are for The Wall, but do not have a fence around your home, are you naive?
Scattered Thoughts on Reading, Rereading
When it comes from learning from reading: You don't learn from reading, you learn from rereading. This just in rereading a very simple older book on kettlebell swings I hadn't picked up in a long time (Pavel's Enter the Kettlebell...there's no need to laugh at me).
You'll never catch everything, even in a simple book or manual, the first time through. Reread it. There are details you've missed.
I think I miss kids books a little because of this. I'd read the same dinosaur book every afternoon, pouring over the illustrations and descriptions. (I honestly wish more adult books had good illustration)
This is a problem with I daresay both reading and writing today; its too long (and convoluted) to read more than once. And the more it is read, rather than hidden gems being discovered on each rereading, we instead discover the lack of polish.
Fahrenheit 451 is only 46,000 words. Thomas Payne's Common Sense is only 21.5k words.
Part of being an inviting piece of writing (fiction or non) is not having to put up with a great deal of extranea. As Saint Exupery said, "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
I suppose this is one reason that, despite the lowering level of casual readers, there's such a high demand for knew books still...its because none of the new books are becoming classics, something to be read perennially, over and over. I can say as far as nonfiction goes (I read more new nonfiction than fiction) that I find the prose typically much more obtuse and roundabout than older, classic works...with the exception of philosophy...that stuffs been insufferable for ages (says the guy with a degree in it).
I'll keep trying to get better at it myself, because, jeepers, Celia 2 is long winded.
PS. Did you know extranea is not a word according to the dictionary? It certainly seems like it would be a useful one. Extraneous things=Extranea. Anyway, I can't claim it as my own as I'm certain I've heard it used before.
You'll never catch everything, even in a simple book or manual, the first time through. Reread it. There are details you've missed.
I think I miss kids books a little because of this. I'd read the same dinosaur book every afternoon, pouring over the illustrations and descriptions. (I honestly wish more adult books had good illustration)
This is a problem with I daresay both reading and writing today; its too long (and convoluted) to read more than once. And the more it is read, rather than hidden gems being discovered on each rereading, we instead discover the lack of polish.
Fahrenheit 451 is only 46,000 words. Thomas Payne's Common Sense is only 21.5k words.
Part of being an inviting piece of writing (fiction or non) is not having to put up with a great deal of extranea. As Saint Exupery said, "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
I suppose this is one reason that, despite the lowering level of casual readers, there's such a high demand for knew books still...its because none of the new books are becoming classics, something to be read perennially, over and over. I can say as far as nonfiction goes (I read more new nonfiction than fiction) that I find the prose typically much more obtuse and roundabout than older, classic works...with the exception of philosophy...that stuffs been insufferable for ages (says the guy with a degree in it).
I'll keep trying to get better at it myself, because, jeepers, Celia 2 is long winded.
PS. Did you know extranea is not a word according to the dictionary? It certainly seems like it would be a useful one. Extraneous things=Extranea. Anyway, I can't claim it as my own as I'm certain I've heard it used before.
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