This Weak: Mind Conspiracies

Manly P. Hall was an expert on ancient occult symbology. Or so one of my out-of-the-box-buddies informed me when we started our friendship. I have since finished the first chapter of Hall’s most famous book The Secret Teachings of All Ages. Or maybe it was the first section--the imagery is overwhelming and inspired a couple of black and white sketches of weaponry and a Wikipedia Hole the size of New Jersey. My new aggravation is trying to connect the story of Noah to events or parables in the other major religions existing before 1500 BC. If Cain and Abel represent the original tribes of Canaan, what of the other ancient people of the world? Whatever. My obsession in collapsing theological ideas into the scholastic “open source” creation story bereft of moral undertones (but accepting fully that these stories survived because of them) is becoming an obsession. If Jerusalem were but mine for a day.

Two third of the way through science-fiction writer Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin series invokes the same degree of sheer and speculative (but not laughably naive--think Arthur C. Clarke’s Indigo Children of Childhood’s End) awe dealing with the transcendence of consciousness I had while reading Stephen Baxter’s Manifold trilogy. So much so, that all three books are two days away from arriving at my front door step... Along with the Epic of Gilgamesh, The Iliad and The Odyssey. After three years of labor/party, I am catching up on my reading. The next set of books after that will have anything to do with Ancient Egyptian Mythology, but hopefully what is known of its history during the First Dynasty. Can you tell that I am preoccupied with the origins of man?

Following that, I am pushing into the realm of anthropology. The fact that Caucasian and Mongoloid races contain traces of Neanderthal DNA pulls my ideas of occult knowledge and secret societies farther down the path of insanity--a rabbit hole I may not come out of unscathed. I am running farther away from people I can explain this fixation to, this need to find the purpose for us all, even if it is a purpose predetermined by others.

The idea is that every human is born into the dreams of our ancestors, a set of social mores, a definitive moral spectrum, a guide to behavior. The question posed is: What mysterious dreams have they born us into, and to what end? My hypothesis: We were made to kill each other. It’s primal, carnal, and barbaric but indubitably the goal of progenitors was to promote the survival of their genes by whatever insane means necessary (humans go insane under relatively mundane circumstances). And by following our ancestors sacred rites of passage, their prefabricated notions of right and wrong, we are only preparing to do battle with each other, violently or not.

The positive side to this idea of genealogical patricide (we are all still Homo Sapiens) is that if these groups are so willing to fight for their survival, they can also consolidate for survival, provided they share a common enemy. That enemy (ironically) can be themselves (ourselves?), and it is only them/ourselves that we must overcome.

This understanding of our violent origins--and more specifically the reasoning behind our intolerance for one another--give us the ability to reconstruct our ideas and motivations concerning survival and make a better place for our fellow man. Granted, the idea of an altruistic utopia has always been gained by some unbearable sacrifice, so maybe I’m just beating a dead horse again.

Sneakers +2

I was inching my way towards the goal line. By editing a few words here and there, I have achieved the status (followed the signs) needed to pursue this identity I have been trying to commit to for years.

Now, I am footing my way there. This is solidarity in progress. This is solidarity on a walk.

To start it off: With every decision, I become more and more comfortable with my judgement, both in a micro and macro picture. I can better justify--to myself and to others--my worldview and the spectrum I have made between benevolent and cancerous. I can easily paint the context in which I place these decisions and the consequences thereof. Every decision made is a thrilling calculation.

What I have no time for are people who are unwilling to understand my revelation. While keeping myself adaptable to compromise and improvement, I have taken the effort put myself at a distance from elements destructive to this vague understanding of my well-being. It is a difficult distance to keep; it balances a thin edge. To one side, I am a gullible fool, to the other and I am a sociopathic asshole. Neither is desirable.

And though my logic may be errant, it is still upheld to values that are important in maintaining my personal Nash Equilibrium: Loyalty, Harmony, Goodwill (which if, it didn't throw the whole damn thing off balance, would be at the apex of my personal pyramid). Honesty, justice, ambition, sagacity and an (albeit imperfect) altruism will carry this character through a journey into the unknown.

While even now, this sounds like an obsession with goodness, I still remember that goodness is objective. What may be beneficial to one can be detrimental to another. And more, this allocation of positive and negative connotations to every action and word and concept is different to every universe, to every world, to every mind.

The Yin and Yang are two parts of a whole, and so are both ends of the moral spectrum. I used to say the more sane you seemed, the more insane you really are. And in age, I have come to understand that. I hold my own secrets, and with time and trust they will be told. These are issues for the future to deal with.

My audience will never be unanimous in its assessment of my actions, of my life, of my beliefs and my decisions. My world is my own, and cannot be truly understood without truly experiencing it. The only way to reconcile separate worlds is to accept that discord will be ever-present, evidence be damned, in every interaction, and that faith and love are the counters that holds these worlds together when they are all striving to be torn apart.

Salt Pillar Descriptions

“The only absolute truth is that this is the only absolute truth"

I posted this as a profile on a social website before I committed myself to city-livin'.  I enjoy this as a snapshot of my proclivities, an insight to pre-tsd me, and an amusing look at what I used to think passed as cool.

To be concise: I am an open-ended, transchronological, multimedia artist/musician with hyphen-over-usage-disorder, and a special place in his heart for philo-sci-fi, mischievous language, and tactful appropriacy.

You ask me what I am doing with my life. I am reprogramming for optimal performance, giving in to irrelevant media intake, writing on white-boards, making sandwiches, drinking coffee, impromptu group psychology experiments, babysitting twenty-one year olds, turning esoteric scenery into photography.

I’m really good at giving impartial opinions. I also have a talent for self-reflection, forgetting where I place oft-used objects and biking uphill.

How do I stimulate my senses? I’ve read and thoroughly enjoyed Siddhartha, The Man Who Folded Himself, Brave New World, and Inverted World. Movies I like saying are my favorite are Lock Stock Two Smoking Barrels, Ocean's Eleven and The Waking Life with Freaks and Geeks and Top Gear BBC being programs I will always watch more of than I should. This Will Destroy You, Talkdemonic, Nujabes and The Album Leaf satisfy my instrumental fix while Minus the Bear, The Strokes, Elliott Smith, MF Doom, are admired lyricists. I also love anything pickled, anything spicy, tequila sunrises, or a good porter.

If there were six things I could never do without, they would be my situational awareness, my math ability, a little bit of money (just enough to match a favor), a pen, a tune in my head, somewhere to go.

I spend a lot of time thinking about motives, bass lines, perception, typography, the ghost in the machine, "The Future", effective and efficient solutions to modern problems, the power of synchronicity and accumulation, dichotomies, coincidence v. fate, interpersonal dynamics with consideration to growth and impressionability, what my next bike is going to be.

It’s Friday night, and I’m looking for something to do. Usually, I read a book. I draw people on buses, I admit it. I also admit to enjoying double entendres, accepting challenges, craving meaningful conversations, doing caffeine, and having questionable adventures and giving off an aura of “screw you, don't talk to me.”



Circa 2012