Twist

Ride the wind, it will take you
Flow like water to low ground
Against erosion what can you do
Digging in you'll only drown

Confrontation ends in grief
Where they advance the wise retreat
Flowing free where walls are weak
Acceptance always bring releif

Paradise

That's how I would describe the past week or two. Complete paradise. Being unemployed, leisurely wasting the hours away with my hobbies and my love. What could be better?

However, as with all highs, this paradise comes with a cost. The cost being that it is a result of external elements in the physical world. It is subject to change, as all things are. Money could run out, we could be evicted, even arrested, and at the very worst, one of us could die. Such is life. What goes up, must come down.

It is important to enjoy the good times as they are given to us. It is easy to get lost in the fear of "what if this ends?" which hinders any enjoyment of the circumstances provided to us. To truly enjoy, we must be without fear. It is not a question of "what if this ends" anyway, the real question is, when will this end, for it will, as all things do. For the most part this is completely out of anyone's hands and is not worth concerning ourselves about.

What is important is to pay attention to how things are now, at this time. Not in the future, not in the past, but right here in front of us. This applies to all circumstances. The past is but a story and the future just a dream, what is here, now, is real.

The ego is ignorant, and it is easy to let it make us miserable with it's desires. The ego's desires can never be completely satisfied, it will always want more and it will always want to possess and secure what it has, often at great cost.

When I begin to forget this, I like to find a quiet place to sit where I can be alone and think, I am well fed, I am warm, I am alive and breathing, this is as good as it gets.

All Give and No Take

And maybe that's the secret to a long lasting and fulfilling relationship. I know I've tried doing what I should, I've tried taking what I can, I've even tried a low effort mutually beneficial relationship thinking, how could this have a down side?

However now things seem different. If seeing a smile on her face is enough to make me happy, then it's in my best interests to give with everything I have, completely, and selflessly. It's in my best interests not to think, how can I get what I want from this person, but instead think, how can I get this person what they want. Sure, this mentality may end up with me being a doormat, in which case the relationship was doomed from the start. However if this is reciprocated, that is something truly special. Giving feels so good, and receiving that which is given freely feels even better. To hell with taking, demanding, expecting, and deserving.

This is a strange concept in a culture of greed. In a dog eat dog culture of competition, of each man for himself, of having to take what you want in this world. Perhaps we're doing it all wrong. I give freely to my cat everyday without a second thought, and he adores me for it. His freely given adoration is much better then anything I could take from him, and from this perspective it seems so obvious and simple. However the ego is always afraid, particularly of other humans who could be perceived as equal or even superior and it is this fear which is the source of selfishness.

A society in which everyone gave freely all which they could, would this not be considered utopia? And if you extend that same reasoning of freely giving resulting in utopia to a partnership, if you could find a person whom you cared so much for that you would give everything, and whom cared so much back that they would simply return the gesture, would that not be perfect happiness? Time will tell.

Whoaa, Settle Down There

So, it occurred to me yesterday that I've basically been on a 3 week bender. Sure, it may be a natural high, but that doesn't make it any less hard on the body or mind. I need to settle down and get back into the present and accept the present. I've been spending so much time focusing on future events, or reliving past events, that I almost forgot that now is really all that exists, so may as well enjoy it. Certainly no amount of wishing, yearning, or longing, is going to bring the future any closer or the past back to life. All that wishing, yearning and longing does, is wear the fuck out of me and tie my stomach in knots. I haven't even set aside 20 minutes to sit for over a week, I'm sure thats not helping.

So, here it is. Reality check. Now is now so I better enjoy it. There's still plenty of things to do now, here. No need to predict or to reclaim or to prepare for a million possible outcomes. I'd be better off focusing my attention on now, to ensure that I'm making the best decisions right now.

Now the snag is, despite my mind accepting this, my body still hasn't fully absorbed the feeling. Basically that knot in my stomach, yea it's still there. Convincing the body will take subtlety, concentration, and a bit of time. It's likely worth the effort though because I certainly can't go through the next two weeks sustaining this feeling.

Hello me

Ahh sweet solitude. You may not be the best company but what clarity you provide. Isn't it nice to hear your thoughts and your thoughts alone without the intermingling of those around you. It's times like this when you get to preform the ol' sanity check. The ol, wtf am I doing? Am I sure wtf I am doing? It's an important question, especially during tansitory phases in life. And so I test the water... what do you think solitude?

You're doing the right thing and you know it. Don't you feel alive? Haven't you reclaimed some part of yourself which was lost long ago? Isn't that a smile on your face? I'm with you 100%, my only advice is that you don't forget current obligations for the sake of the future. In other words, even I am appauled at your slackerdom at work. Funny that your house is clean yet your inbox is full of red flags. What a switch!

And thats about as much objective self criticism as I'm willing to take in one sitting. The truth is there though, there is really no doubt. They say when taking a test your first answer is probably the correct one. Yet I find myself second guessing and checking my answer over and over, yet even the second guess arrives at the same conclusion. I have confidance in my answer.

Er... Hi, me again, one more thing to say....

I thought I was done with you? Do you even read what I write?

Well... yes but this is important. Once again you are excersizing your bad habit of pointing fingers. If you're the one going through major changes, and suddenly there is drama in your life, perhaps instead of pointing your fingers at external circumstance, I suggest a mirror.

It's true. If a bullfighter goes head on with the bull, is anyone going to feel sorry for him? He's compeltely at fault. The correct action is to step out of the bull's path. Thats something I've needed to learn for a long time. Rather then approach confrontation head on, perhaps it's best to let it slide and realize that prespective in the present can be skewed, and many things are forgotten in very little time. I don't need to defend my position, and I certainly don't need to educate anyone. Tough lesson to learn.

Karma

I was reading an interesting topic on the Buddhist forum I sometimes go to (www.lioncity.net/buddhism) which began by asking, if everything is the result of Karma, how do you explain to a mother of a handicapped child that this is a result of the kids past life's karma?

It is hard to believe that past lives affect the current one isn't it? Thats the one thing about Buddhism that I have trouble with. Certain Zen schools do away with the issue by simply saying it is neither skillful, nor a beneficial usage of time to concern yourself with past lives and understanding details of Karma. I tend to agree with that mentality since there's really nothing we can do except speculate.

I tend to think that the idea of rebirth is kind of thrown in to make Karma work when people try to interpret Karma in a very literal and physical sense. For example, someone could do nothing but good deeds their whole life, yet end up getting served shit on a stick everytime, and die young. How can Karma be real in a literal and physical sense if this can happen? So the idea of rebirth gets put in for two reasons, firstly, motivation to be good since it "appears" Karma may not ripen in this life, rebirth is required to motivate someone to be a good person, and likewise, rebirth is required to motivate someone to not be a bad person.

However, people shoot holes in this too, they ask, if it's not "me" who's going to be reborn (since, in Buddhism there is no self, yet there is rebirth, which is extremely confusing...) then why do I care if some future version of me has to experience my bad Karma?

There are various responses to this. It isn't you that is reborn but at the same time it is, is one which is particularily tricky to explain. Another response is, if you only care about you, and not your future self, then why would you care about any creatures around you? Why not just go kill a cat? Of course this results in people saying, yea, why don't I just go kill a cat? Why does anything matter?

I think it can be simplified without even stating whether or not rebirth is a fact. If you believe there is a future you, and you do things which you believe could generate bad Karma for that future you, then that is bad Karma in itself. However, this is sort of a circular argument if you believe Karma will not ripen in one lifetime.

My personal take on Karma, which is probably not the official accepted belief is this: I suspect Karma does ripen in this lifetime. It does not however need to manifest itself in the physical world. It will however manifest itself through positive and negative states of mind. I'm not even talking about concious guilt or anything, but I just think it affects the way we think, which affects our actions, which in turn affects the outcome of events.

You ever play a game where you get halo's or horns as points depending on what you do? Saw a racing game once, if you ran people over you got horns, if you avoided them you got halos. If you kill a bug, you may not ever feel conciously guilty about it, but I think it puts a seed of aggression in you. If enough seeds of aggression ripen into an action, there may be negative consequences. It's also kind of like crossing lines. Have you ever noticed that once you cross a line, it's always easier to cross again? Like stealing, you steal once, it's hard, you're nervous, but if everything goes right (and assuming you don't feel too guilty, or maybe even if you do) it's easier to do it again. This is also like helping strangers, easier to do if you do it often. Not only is the same line easier to cross, but crossing a line also makes similar lines easier to cross. This is the entire theory behind gateway drugs, try one, you cross that line and may be tempted to try harder drugs. Or back to the stealing example, maybe first you steal a pop, then you steal a magazine, then you steal movies, clothes, video games, and so on. Maybe first you kill a bug, maybe next it's a cattapillar, maybe next a frog, where are you going to draw that line in the sand? In this sense, Karma does ripen in our life time, just not in a direct and physical way. Just because I randomly punch someone in the face doesn't mean I'll get punched in the face, it will however put a negative spin on my thoughts which will result in a negative outcome to my actions.

As far as the original question, how does Karma come into play when a child is born handicapped? I don't think it does, in most cases. If the doctor preforming the delivery comes in drunk and the kid becomes handicapped as a result of a mistake, well... thats got nothing to do with the kid's Karma, and everything to do with the Doctor's Karma. Either way, it's the kid's choice to take his life and turn it into something positive or something negative. Sure, this means some peoples lives may be harder then others, but at the same time, succeeding through a hard life would also be much more rewarding don't you think? It's like betting double or nothing.

Click

Anyone who remembers "The Princess Bride" will remember Wesley, Buttercup, and the idea of true love. Once upon a time, before I knew women, I believed in this ideal. I thought I'd meet a girl and the love would smack me in the face like a ton of bricks and we'd just be happy together.

My first intimate relationship ended on a very black note. It made me wonder, what if I was incapable of love, or it did not exist at all. What if all there was to relationships was desire and needs which had to be fulfilled for both parties.

This idea of needs being met turned my next major relationship into one giant power struggle. Who could get more out of the other person? Who needed to put forth the effort, and who was the one worth putting forth effort for, were key issues. In hindsight, in that particular relationship, I'm pretty sure I got the short end of the stick. I was the one working to impress someone who felt they had settled on someone less then ideal. I was working emotional double shifts for someone who wasn't interested in me for essentially, a trophy. A beautiful prize that I could call my own and take pride in. Boy was I wrong. As the relationship began to become impossibly complicated, the lines of communication slowly erroded to the point where talking with my girl friend was alot like praying. I ended up finding out the hard way that she didn't give a shit about me, kinda like god!

And so it was that I was received into the arms of a woman whom I have much respect for. After the previous debacle, the idea of emotions being involved in a relationship at all seemed wrong. I'd gotten so hopeless as to think a relationship was nothing but a functional domestic team. So I ended up driving, fixing the electronics, and providing reassurance to trivial worries, she mostly cooked and cleaned. We functioned fairly well, but something was missing. It felt like a cold relationship, without passion and little feeling. I rationalized by thinking this is normal as people grow older and more jaded. I began to feel like, this is as good as it gets, like it or leave it. In the end I wanted to leave it. It's hard though, leaving a relationship that really isn't that bad, especially when there's really nothing wrong with the other person. Of course nobody believes you when you say "It's not you, it's me." but that was the truth. I'm positive she's a great girl for someone, I'm just not that person. Being unable to leave, and dragging the relationship out a bit more then I needed too probably resulted in a lot of tension and heartache which could have been avoided, I'll admit that. I'm sure no saint.

Now? Now I think, the physical needs aren't what makes a relationship strong. Being functional in the material world is not an issue for me. I have been and can continue to take care of myself perfectly fine, so why would I look for a mother? Now I realize I need to have my mind engaged, I need to have thoughts provoked. I want someone who understands that I think life is about thoughts, feelings, and ideas, not money, houses, and things. I want someone who makes me feel like there is more to life then being jaded for the sake of protecting yourself. Someone who is interested in seeing the walls come down even though sometimes things get through that hurt. Building an impregnable fortress of walls to protect yourself from the onslaught of your common man doesn't sound like a happy way to live out my days. Those same walls that are intended to keep out pain also keep out many good things. I want someone who can feel and enjoy right now instead of always looking to the future. I want someone to show me the good and the beautiful parts of life and maybe even to appreciate the idea that sometimes things, people, don't have to make sense. If everything made sense, and was easily analyzed and categorized, I definately would be bored.

And what if I found these things? What if I found these things and more? Would it hit me in the face like a ton of bricks? Would I be able to say, this is the girl for me for sure?

It makes me think of tanking. When the World of Warcraft expansion came out, I was the newbiest 60 warrior ever. I'd never really tanked anything challenging and I pretty much sucked. Nothing changed for a while, I just kept sucking, until one day, it just kind of clicked. I realized I'd been too focused on certain aspects that weren't important and not focused enough on other aspects that I didn't even realize were an issue. Ever since, tanking has been great instead of an uphill battle. People even regularily tell me what a great tank I am, huzzah.

Thats how I feel about life right now. An overwhelming sense of "Ohhh so that's how it's supposed to go!". A feeling like, from here on out things will be alot clearer. It clicked.

We will consult: The Fingers

Once upon a time, I chased girls, who doesn't? I chased some girls for the wrong reasons. No question. It's hard to feel good about it, and surely I'm part of the reason why some women think men are scum. Sometimes it's confusing, but I think tidbits bubble out of the sub-conscious, like seeing the weather on a distant horizon.

Once I was chasing a particular girl, who I've since had a chance to apologize to unlike some who are long gone. I was working on a construction team, renovating apartments. I nearly effortlessly scribbled this on the floor, it seemed to come out so naturally I still remember it by heart.

Long summer nights seem short
When exiled with one so loved
Nothing to do but court
You're latest beautiful dove
Until she bows on hands and knees and worships you as the sky
You're lies have won one over again
Yet in guilt all you want is to die

I thought, well, that's pretty good, but do I really feel that way? Obviously I never showed her that. I tucked it away, thinking it was just randomly inspired. Read: Denial. Even though I don't have that poem written down anywhere, I've remembered it for ~8 years.

Sometimes it's still hard to know if I'm hungry or I'm just looking for blood. When a cat runs, a dog will chase it, you know? Who's to say what I'm keeping from myself.

I haven't been able to focus at work all week. I've done nearly nothing. There's only so much room for all this shit in my head, so when words began to form, fingers began to type. Filters off. I'm almost afraid who might read this, but thats the whole point of this blog. Feelings are a dangerous thing to have in this world, especially for a man, but I'm getting tired of living in a shell.

It's heavy, it's soft
Senses having trouble
I'm big, I'm small
Thoughts are racing double

Green grass I knew
No matter how I lie
Not brown, Not dead
You're new
Sea of green I can't deny

Blue sky it's true
No matter how I try
Not gray, Not red
You're you
It's nothing but Blue sky

Formless clouds you too
Shaping in my eye
Not this, Not that
Always new
All shapes formed do die

Its massive, dense and delicate
A lucent sheen cuts through
Tastes like love and smells like home
With room inside for two

The clouds can be our pillows
The sky can be our view
The grass can be our bed
In a dream we drew

Patience

Patience is something nearly everyone can work on. Certainly I could use some practice, and practice is what I'm getting. It's one of those days where I could jump in my car after work and just keep driving until I hit warmth. Yet even that fantasy has it's massive gaping holes, sending me right back into the merciless bosom of the wait. In one sense driving off would avoid the need for patience at work, where I need it right now, yet in another sense I'll still be waiting.

Waiting for something causes anxiety. Anxiety causes time to slow down. Time slowing down increases the duration of the wait, further fueling the anxiety, and so it goes. I suppose the limit will be when time comes to a complete halt and my stomach implodes from the tension.

Then again, perhaps the waiting is just a scapegoat. It's easy to shoot the messenger. Perhaps the real culprit is the desire. Let go of the desire and there is nothing to wait for. That would be the Buddhist solution. However right now it seems like another cop out. Reminds me of someone who chooses not to play a game because they can't always win. Is this particular desire quellable? What if ignoring it removes the wait for a while, and replaces it with a wait for the rest of my life? Yet now that I read that, it just sounds like fear.

On the upside, at least I feel engaged. I am inspired to do and create which is a welcome change from the past few years. Almost like an infusion of restless energy, which definitely has it's ups and downs. It's an odd mix. I feel like I'm practically bouncing off the walls, yet at the same time I must do so alone. No one really wants to know and I couldn't communicate anyway. After having a fist full of life forced in my face, it seems inconceivable to go back to shooting the shit and getting high. I suppose once you get a taste of gourmet you never go back. And so I wait.

Zero Concentration

It's true, I'm supposed to be fixing a security leak on some of my .asp pages right now. Problem is, I can't keep a straight thought in my head. There are too many completely unrelated questions bouncing around up there to even attempt to dissect some random dudes database queries. I'm not normally one for planning, but here I am attempting to cook one up. Catch is, these damn unanswered, and as of yet unasked, questions.

I'm not normally one to try to manipulate the natural course of events, but when you've been out to sea this long and you spot some land I it might be time to think about adjusting the sails a bit. However, before you land your boat and potentially risk the entire crew, it would be prudent to scout the area. Thus we arrive at questions, questions that need answers.

I'm fully prepared for this land to be hostile, uninhabitable, or over-crowded, and if such is the case, I will have no qualms setting sail once again. However sailing by without at least an investigation seems like folly, especially when the wind seems to be blowing me in anyway. All it takes is one act of bravery to scout the shore. Sure nobody wants to get devoured by wild beasts, but perhaps this is one of those times when the risk is worth the potential gain.

long slow strokes

the chips fall where they may
but where they lay they'll stay
no second chance on days long past
but lessons learned and paid do last
and wisdom gleaned can hold us fast
we splash around we're sure to drown
relax, dont pray, let's float away

WoW cancelled

So the real question is, now WTF do I do with myself? So I'm on WoW boards and I read that even the new BG loot is going to require arena rating. Fuck arenas man. There is nothing MMO or RPG about arena.

So I continue reading the many many posts that clearly explain why arenas suck and how the arena focus is damaging the game. In one particularly long thread a CM (community manager, aka Blizzard representative) actually has the balls to say, and I quote, "People who say arenas suck don't actually think arenas suck." and goes on to explain they usually have a problem with something "related" to arena. Fuck that man. I think arenas suck.

Then some random poster says something fairly rude like "You're just a peon towing the company line". It wasn't exactly that, but that's the just of it and he definitely called the CM, Drysc, a peon. A good CM would just delete the post, maybe give the person a ban, and STFU. What does Drysc do? He fucking has the nuts to post "Enjoy your 3-day vacation. I post what I want. I say what I want." He fucking said that?! WTF. So I posted and said "Anyone who knows anything about public relations knows that you are either A) Lying or B) delusional. Where do you get off telling me whether or not I think arenas suck? Guess what? I think arenas suck."

I then replied in someone else's "I quit because of arena ratings on BG gear" thread. I even commented that as I was going to the WoW page I was assaulted by they're "JOIN ARENA TOURNAMENT!" splash page. GAH!

Shortly after I received a ban from the forum and all my posts were deleted. WTF? I didn't even swear or anything, I thought I was being quite reasonable, much more reasonable then many of the posters I see getting away with all kinds of shit every day. But hey, I called out a CM and he took it personal, what a dipshit. Drysc will be gone soon, he's just another Tseric / Gfraizer who's getting too big for his britches. Whatever.....

Point is, fuck WoW, fuck arena, and most of all, fuck the cesspool that is WoW forums.

Except now I'm realizing, video games are mostly pretty boring unless you're playing with friends. The only friends I know who game.... are all playing WoW. lol? I need a new hobby.

Ok, I have to get back to work. Stupid webpage is breaking my mind so I needed to procrastinate somehow. Since Lauren doesn't seem to be blogging anymore, and the WoW forums suck balls, the Buddhist forums are a giant hairsplitting contest, www.whatreallyhappened.com is completely one sided and even when you do find some good information it's usually mega depressing, even the Hellgate boards are no fun to troll anymore because all the other trolls left long ago. Basically all the ways I used to procrastinate, aren't cutting it. Now all I can do is rant on this blog. Huzzah.

/end rant

Obsession as Usual

I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I'm fuckin obsessed with Blade Runner. It's been non-stop for a few days between repeating the soundtrack and the film itself. I'm actually watching it at work :O

Something about a dystopian hopeless future, a deadbeat cop, societal persecution, and contemplation on the meaning of existence, totally appeals to me. The fact that there are no heroes, and no villains in this movie I find interesting. It's just a bunch of people who are all set against each other due to circumstances well beyond their control. It's got a very real feeling about it because of this. It's not your typical hero defeats bad guys and gets the girl movie. Not at all. Even the end of the movie is nothing like your typical ending. Lots of things are uncertain and there is nothing resolved, if anything there are just more questions.

When I was finishing and for the year or two after I just got out of high school, I was completely obsessed with Fight Club. I related to the main character a lot. Now it seems my new obsession is Blade Runner, where I also relate to the main character somehow.

Alternate Viewpoint

On 2nd thought, half the time I don't even know what the fuck I think.

The previous post sounds like another cop out. I can't make changes because I believe in death and Buddhism said if I believe in death I am doomed to a life of sense seeking. Fuck that. There's no reason not to make changes now that will benefit me for the rest of my ~40 years of life. Just because death is the end doesn't mean I have to be a slave to addiction.

You know, addiction isn't even my only problem. It's a close tie with being extremely lazy. So lazy I can barely keep up with day to day tasks like paying the bills and taking care of my cat.

Sometimes I think these traits are problems which cause me distress. However... I'm not so sure today. Can't I drink a cup of coffee full well acknowledging that it is unhealthy for me yet enjoy it anyway? Does this force me to be incongruent with my ideal self?

Maybe it's time to adjust the ideal self instead of trying to adjust self to match the ideal. But then.... isn't that just another cop out? Just another easy way out of not having to change or improve.

I have no facking idea.

/me hands himself a mirror

I'm starting to get a little pissed off at myself. I've spent the last day or so psycho-analyzing those around me. I like to tell myself I'm trying to help, but I'm not sure I really am. Sometimes shoving truth (or maybe only what I perceive as truth) down people's throats isn't the best way to help them.

I think I need a strong dose of truth shoved down my throat though. Likely I'm just analyzing people around me because it's so much easier and impersonal then examining myself. If I examine myself, there are implications, I have to make changes. If you don't examine yourself, if you keep your eyes blurred a little bit, that idealized version of self you hold in your mind looks just like the real you! However if you look closer, maybe focus your eyes a bit, they sure don't fucking match up. You can either adjust yourself to match your idealized self, you can adjust your idealized self to match your real self, or you can just live with the discrepancy.

Living with the discrepancy results in all kinds of poor decision making. It is the least favorable result if you ask me, and humorously, is also the result you get if you don't do any self-analysis at all. Which is what I've been doing. Seriously, who am I to be giving advice or cautioning anyone about anything when I can't even straighten myself out? It's time for that pointing finger of mine to do a 180.

I would say the majority of the self-incongruence begins with addiction, or more specifically a lack of discipline. I have a distinct lack of discipline. I'm not sure how or when this started, but I can actually acknowledge that something is harmful to myself, and do it anyway. Well now that I put it like that, it sounds like a lack of self-respect. Which is the exact opposite of what I was just harping on about on someone else's blog.

I felt they were grasping/craving (any research into Buddhism will explain these concepts) existence. Who knows if I was right or wrong, in the end it doesn't matter. When I look at myself I see the opposite. Grasping for non-existence. Buddhism is the middle path between what is defined as eternalism and annihilationism or nihilism.

1. self-doctrine clinging: first, one assumes that one has a permanent "self."

2. wrong-view clinging: then, one assumes that one is either somehow eternal or to be annihilated after this life.

3. resultant behavioral manifestations:

(a) rites-and-rituals clinging: if one assumes that one is eternal, then one clings to rituals to achieve self-purification.

(b) sense-pleasure clinging: if one assumes that one will completely disappear after this life, then one disregards the next world and clings to sense desires.

So (a) would be eternalism. I'd like to expand this idea and suggest that reproduction is a form of eternalism, lasting fame is also a form of eternalism. The false belief that one, or ones ideas, or ones seed, can survive forever.

(b) would be annihilationism or nihilism which is probably the side of the fence I'm leaning on. It would certainly explain my many self-destructive tendencies.

The question is, what the fux do I do about it? According to Buddhism this is rooted in the idea that I will die and be dead when I die and thats the end of my story.

I want to clear something up real quick first though. It's fairly out of character for me to act like Buddhism (or anything, or anyone) has all the answers. I don't think anyone has all the answers and even if someone did as soon as they tried to transmit those answers through words the meaning would change and the message would be lost. However, Buddhism has provided me with more wisdom and hope then any other school of philosophy or religion has even come close to doing. It's certainly provided me with more wisdom and hope then our education system, our society, and the religion of my family's choosing: Christianity. So, at least for the time being, I'm gonna stick with it.

Sidenote: My co-worker just tried to tell me she was sick from work for two days because she's type 2 diabetes, ate too much fruit, and had a reaction from high blood sugar levels. FOR TWO DAYS?!?!?! I know a thing or two about diabetes, and I know, this is some BS. Whatever, she's a bona fide hypochondriac. She can think whatever she wants.

So. Me having a ton of harmful addictions of which I am not in denial is the result of thinking that death is the end. I think this makes a lot of sense. I mean, who really cares what happens, or what you do to yourself if you're just going to die anyway. The real snag is, how do I fix this. How to I alter a core belief of my own that when we die, it is the end. I really have no information to suggest otherwise, yet continuing to believe this will get me nowhere but an early grave. Then again, look 2 posts back and an early grave seems to be all I'm after.

I think I'm searching for the early grave because I have difficulty seeing the value in life. What I'm not sure about is whether or not this is my true perception, or a result of my addictions. Maybe if I did not have so many addictions demanding my attention I would be able to more clearly see the value in life.

Then again, not seeing the value in life may go back to the root cause of believing that after we die it is the end. If after death, it is the end, and as time goes on forever, everything dies, then the end value, no matter what, appears to be zero. The same as the start value. From zero you get -1 and+1, and so the universe began. When the universe ends, -1 and +1 converge to zero, and we're back to where we started. From this philosophy comes the view that it doesn't matter if you are a + or a - because in the end you will still be zero. This is not to say I think it's ok to be a bad person, I certainly think causing others to suffer is wrong, though I can't really explain that belief if nothing matters in the end.

Hmm. My belief that causing others to suffer is wrong clearly shows me that I think now matters. People suffering now matter. People feeling good now matters. But this leads right in to me having addictions that please me now but harm me in the long run. Yaaarrgghh. Apparently I am more of a nihilist then I thought.

The Buddhist philosophy gets around the whole "nothing matters because we all die" mentality by throwing rebirth in there. They say there is no constant unchanging self (in fact, there was no self to begin with) which is reborn (not eternalism) but there is rebirth in some form (not annihilationism/nihilism). This is by far the most confusing and hardest to swallow pill there is in Buddhism. I still haven't swallowed it. There are actually endless debates on the Buddhist board that I read regarding rebirth. So many in fact that they posted a few stickies on rebirth and changed the whole forum rules regarding conversations on the topic. This is always the topic that turns me off of Buddhist wisdom. Every time I remove Buddhist, from my religion field on Facebook, you can bet it's because of rebirth.

I seem to be at an impasse. I require new information to break the root cause which is the belief that death is the end. As long as I believe that death is the end, I will continue to whittle away at myself, I will continue to dig my own grave.

Words to Live By

1. Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.

2. Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow.


I need to remember this more often. I also, on a whim, looked up the definition of Sophistocate.

Sophistocate:

1) To cause to become less natural, especially to make less naive and more worldly.
2) To make impure; adulterate.
3) To make more complex or inclusive; refine.

Funny. I feel society has definately made me feel less natural, impure, and more complex. Yay, I am sophisticated!

Er...... normally being told I was sophisticated I would consider a compliment. After reading this definition, I'm not so sure. Being sophisticated kinda sucks.

"If you cannot be at ease with yourself when alone, you will seek a relationship to cover up your unease. You can be sure that the unease will then reappear in some other form within the relationship, and you will probably hold your partner responsible for it."

Ain't this the truth? There's a billion signals in our culture every day that tell us, all you need to be happy is to find love and get married! What a crock of shit. If you aren't happy alone, what the fuck makes you think spending an outrageous amount of time with another person of the opposite sex is going to fix it? I assure all ye readers (1!) happiness lies not in love.

Only One Cure for the Disease of Life

Man I'm fucking miserable. And you know, when you tell people that, usually they are full of advice. Fucking retarded advice. Maybe if I had a lifetime to explain myself to you, you could give me some worthwhile advice, but in general, your advice can go to hell.

I keep thinking somehow WoW and weed and my many other vices are preventing me from being happy. But somehow "happy" gets mixed up in there and replaced with lonely. Suddenly I think I want to replace all these things by surrounding myself with people. But then everytime I do fuckin hang out with people they just drive me crazy. Thats when I realize I'm just replacing one vice with another. It's like drinking booze to help you quit smoking weed, which I've also done.

How does this make any fuckin sense?

You know... I want to quit all these things I've called "vices" but what the fuck else am I supposed to do? Just sit, all day and all night? What do you do when you don't like anything, and nothing is fun?

People call WoW a hamster wheel, even I have. Thing is, you get out of that hamster wheel and you're just back into the bigger hamster wheel of life where you get to run until you're dead. Driven by fear of death, by fear of hunger, fear of having control over your own life fall into someone else's hands. For what? When does the fucking good part come? It's no fucking wonder people invented a place like heaven, cause it stands to reason that perhaps there's some decent reason for this rat race. However that's totally false logic. That's like saying life is fair.

Other times like this I've said "This is as good as it gets. You aren't hungry, you got air to breathe, you aren't in physical pain. Just accept it and be happy." But it's just not working today. Feels like it's hard to enjoy pizza for the 100th day in a row, metaphorically speaking. Heh and right as I think, I don't know what I want that would make me feel fine, I know, nothing I can get will make me feel better. It's got nothing to do with what I have or don't have, or what I'm doing or not doing. There is no cure for this.

I think the icing on the cake is that... I'm at work, about to get off in 20 minutes, and I couldn't care less. What the hell am I gonna do when I get off work? Facking nothing. What am I doing at work? Facking nothing. I don't even know what I want to do after work. I hate that feeling. I like to think I work my job so I can have fun and be happy the rest of the time. Not so I can get off work and say "uhhh now what?". I'll probably end up playing WoW, not because I want to, but just, you know, familiar patterns. It's like how water will take the path of least resistance.

It's days like this I'm thankful I'm not immortal.

How words destroy experience

"So if I am eating a steak hot off the BBQ, I perceive that it tastes good and comment in my mind that "this steak is delicious". Is this considered being "unmindful" of the process of eating, because of mental commentary? If so, then what else would there be to be aware and mindful of?"

Says some random dude in a post. My reply was:

"In my humble opinion, if you label the steak as "delicious" as you eat it, you are placing it into a box labeled delicious which you have created and has various properties. Basically, saying a steak is delicious is an extreme over simplification of what eating a steak is really like.

Here's an analogy. You tell your deaf friend "Wow this is a great song!". Does he have any freaking idea what you're talking about? No. The actual song is infinatley more detailed then the words which can be used to describe it.

Therefore everytime you analyze a moment and break it down into words (mental commentary) you are over simplifying. The words are simply not accurate.

My 2 cents. "

Yea. Freakin words man. It's funny that the second you describe something, you're fucking wrong! Words just fail, that's all there is to it. I really feel they can cheapen an experience by placing it in a box. You end up with a ton of experiences which all belong in the same box and you think, i'm bored, this is all the same. But really, it's not all the same. You just don't fucking notice cause you threw everything into the same box.

Yes, coffee is coffee. But no 2 cups of coffee are the same. God, even different SIPS of coffee have different consistancies and different temperatures. If you think everytime you drink a cup of coffee it's just another tally on the box labeled "coffee" you're fuckin doing it wrong! Pay attention grasshopper!

Don't get me wrong here, this has very little to do with coffee, and I'm as guilty as the next guy. I guess the buzzword here is:

conceptualize

1. to form into a concept; make a concept of. –verb (used without object)
2. to form a concept; think in concepts.

Once you conceptualize anything, you're probably wrong. There are some exceptions, rigid science can reach certain truth's through words, though most science these days isn't really science at all. Now that I think about it, the science that expresses real truth's can be represented in numbers like the acceleration of an object under the influence of Earth's gravity slightly above sea level. However even with that there is some inaccuracy. Wind resistance isn't taken into account for one thing. You could measure the force of gravity on an object at a particular altitude, but if the Earth isn't perfectly round, that altitude measurement becomes a bit fuzzy.

Man I'm just proving my own fuckin point trying to disprove it. Once you conceptualize something, you're wrong. Shit is just too complicated. You could spend a lifetime describing the interactions of atoms and molecules when you take a bite out of a sandwich and you still wouldn't have described the taste.

Weak Beggining

Funny how you can have a million random thoughts bouncing around in your brain yet when it comes time to put pen on paper (or fingers on keys in this case) there's nothing.

Currently reading Freud theories, re-reading I should say. I'm not sure if it's because I wan't to figure out other people or myself. His theories on Id, Ego, and Superego remind me of things I've learning visiting E-Sangha (www.lioncity.net/buddhism) which is a Buddhist forum where I learned (or was linked to) pretty much everything I know about Buddhism. I suppose I already read some very short books. They had to be short, because I have a short attention span. AFK washroom.....

Well now that the ice is broken, I'm content to just ramble on to myself, since likely I will end up reading this more then anyone else. Seems my memory just doesn't have extra room these days, so I better fuckin write this shit down if I ever want to remember anything.

Some guy on the Buddhist forum posts "is using psychic powers to win the lottery wrong?" man... some fucking people. It just makes you wonder if they missed the whole point? IF (big if) enlightened people DO INDEED have psychic powers... do you think they give a rats ass about the lottery? The fact that this guy cares about the lottery clearly demonstrates he's not enlightened which even further reduces the believability that he has psychic powers. And as someone just posted... just because random numbers pop into your head doesn't mean they are lottery numbers. The lottery bit is a self intepretation and a sign of greed, clinging and attatchment.

Ah yes, a little more of me projecting my superego on others. Clearly worded on this site.

"The Superego Inside Oneself but Directed at Someone Outside "
http://www.freud.org.uk/superego.html

I think I've been doing this pretty hardcore for a month or two. Feels like I am generating some pretty seriously bad karma these last months. When you just want to lash out at stupid people and infuriate them because their stupid comments infurate me so much I need revenge or something.... yea... that's bad. It's not going to get me anywhere, but I apparently love to tell people when they are wrong in the most blunt manner possible. Sometimes I even manage to convince myself that I am just about always right.... what a horribly unattractive quality.

Speaking of unattractive, I'm sick of attraction. It's easy to be attracted to someone, catch is it almost never turns out as good as you would think. And by almost never, I mean never. There's such a huge gap to bridge between men and women I sometimes wonder if it's worth the effort. Of course that's not to say I'm gay. I just think sex has got to be one of the most over-rated things on the planet, yet since I am "blessed" with a pair of nuts, I can't stop thinking about it. How nice. And thankfully society is kind enough to constantly display flawless half naked females everywhere possible while at the same time displaying the most idealized men possible thus making everyone miserable. You can't compete with your own sex's ideal, and you'll never get the other sex's ideal, but lets all torture ourselves about it so we can sell some shit. Don't I sound like an emo girl? Yes I do.

Hey self, stop being such an emo crybaby bitch and blaming everyone else for your problems eh? Show some fucking discipline eh? Is conciousness in control of the mind, or am I going to just let my mind wander all willy nilly doing whatever it wants? Heh.... I suppose I can tell myself that all I want. I'm not sure if discipline will ever conquor loneliness though. I'd like to think it can.

I can't help it. I can help it. Hmmm. I like to say modern society likes to adpot a "I can't help it" attitude. Blame genetics, blame upbringing, blame your friends, your environment, your job, the government, whatever, it's not my fault, I can't help it. It frustrates me because people don't accept responsibility for their own actions. Like a post on the Blizzard forums the other day. Someone was asking if Blizzard was taking any action to be responsible and make their game less addictive. First of all addictive is a loaded word and people throw it around without defining it which pisses me off. The whole modern concept of "addiction" is just another way of saying "it's not my fault I can't help it". Anyway to shed the blame right? Second of all, if people get addicted to WoW it's their own goddamn fault, not Blizzards. I mean shit... should Ice Cream vendor's be taking action to ensure people who eat ice cream are eating responsibly? It's fucking ridiculous if you take this addiction thing too far.

There's some more bad karma for me. Why do I require all the strong language? For some reason I must curse to make my point? Ungh... this is one of those things I sway back and forth on. Curse language... is it bad? Makes some people uncomfortable I think. But at the same time when people tell me to stop swearing, man it makes me want to swear up a storm. How about I fucking curse up and fucking down shitting all over your values and completely fucking disrespecting anything you care about cause I'm an ass who doesn't give a shit. Then I like to point out that despite my swearing, the person is still ok, they are breathing, seemingly healthy, and don't appear to be physically affected. Pretty cold way of thinking about it I guess. It's like if someone's standing on the edge of the pool saying "is the water cold?" and you just throw them in instead of answering. Shit, they'll live right? At the same time... they'll die eventually too. Is what really matters what happens on the physical plane, or is their emotional state what really matters? Then again, what is the impact on my emotional state when someone else wants to censor my speech?

I suppose what makes foul language bad is the hightened emotions that come with it. I suppose I swear so much cause I'm this big fucking ball of anxiety unless I'm totally stoned. Then when you get totally stoned you don't really pay attention to what your saying and just swear all nonchelant like. I suppose calm swearing is ok. When I say things like "Stop fucking standing in the whirlwind!" the hightened emotional value attatched to the curse is probably not helping. Just some more bad karma.

I say karma but I'm not sure thats what I really think. I don't beleive in rebirth or reincarnation in the literal sense, that's for sure. If anything my philosophy on rebirth is something like waves on the ocean. Is a wave a wave? Is it itself? Or is it just a part of the ocean. When does a wave start and when does a wave end? Another wave can appear in the same place at another time, but is it the same wave? Sort of..... not really. Thats how I think of rebirth. Like some big pool of conciousness. Like taking a small chunk of play-dough from a big chunk, then putting it back on, mushing it all up, then taking another small chunk off. You never really get the exact same chunk twice but it's all the same play-dough.

I do feel however that negativity festers in a person. This is what I mean by karma. I guarentee thinking bad things about everyone around you will make you more miserable then thinking good things about everyone around you. The catch is not to think TOOOO good things about everyone around you, otherwise you're going to get scammed, and walked all over. It's hard to find that balance though. Getting scammed, used, or walked on, sure turns you (and me) into a jaded, grumpy, son of a bitch. Not to say I've been scammed or walked on lately. I'm just being a grumpy son of a bitch for no reason.

This post has probably gone on long enough, I better end it and start a new one before it becomes a massive TLDR wall of text.