The Museum of Contemporary Thoughts

Question 21.1

2008-11-19T14:54:00.002-06:00

According to recent pediatric studies (whodunit escapes me), an infant, at 3 months of age, can look into a mirror, and recognize itself. The mirror needs to be close enough for baby to see, but the recognition is there. If a colored dot is placed someplace on they baby's face or on the mirror, a baby with self-esteem will laugh at the dot, and start learning how to reach for the object that is unexpected or doesn't belong to restore 'normal'. A baby with low self-esteem, looking at the dot, will look away, cry, or avoid the face in the mirror. Thsi baby has a sense or 'normal'. How did that happen?

Babies with self-esteem. You must have a sense of self, to have esteem. Is it this early? Certainly this develops through life, and becomes more complex. But the rudimentary biological foundation for self awareness in humans is likely present from birth. BIRTH. Wow. Mind Blowing, isn't it?

Are we self aware when we can see ourselves move, or when we can feel, and learn that we have control over our environment??? This question really begs for the definition of the term self-aware.

Arguably, some people are never self aware enough to be successful at life, or achieve happiness or healthy relationships, which indicates that this is also a learned behavior, which is both emotional, and social. We can be crippled in this regard due to mental illness, injury, defect, or emotional trauma. Effectively, retarded in our self-awareness growth curve.

An interesting topic, better suited for discussion or debate than blind assertion, but there are my thoughts, and I hope you've enjoyed reading them.

Question 21.0

2008-11-17T14:52:00.001-06:00

Self Awareness.
What is it, when does it form, how does it change us?
Please ruminate and share your thoughts on this matter.

Question 20.4

2008-04-09T00:26:00.003-05:00

The thing about Free Will is that it's suppressed. Very few people take advantage of this power that resides in each and everyone of us. Instead we choose to "justify" our choices with excuses or influences as though we lack the ability to oppose them.

I resign myself to the fact that there is a contingent of our society; nay our world; which are born mentally defected or deficient to have Free Will (but having working closely with those types of people in a multitude of ranges of severity, I offer this up only in fairness to debate and not necessarily of personal belief) and as thus you can argue they do not have it.

But I speak of the majority and most of them are too lazy, or irresponsible to accept that they control their own choices or actions. The simple fact that there are outside choices and influences that are related to each and every choice or action we make is irrelevant. I am influenced each day to drink water by being thirsty, but I make the choice to drink it. I could easily decide not to do this and it would be my decision, and even then there may be mitigating factors that I have considered in my choice not to drink water, but again the choice was ultimately mine because I have the Free Will to make that choice.

To believe that we no longer have this power is to fall into the category of the lazy, unproductive, and cancerous part of society that is afraid of the shadows on the cave wall and do nothing of note.

Question 20.3

2008-03-27T23:24:00.005-05:00

There is someone I have been lucky enough to stumble into in my life. She is one of those people who makes you feel better about the world. She makes you feel important even on your worst day. She brings light to those around her. She has been like this as long as I have known her and she now faces my worst nightmare. She has Lou Gerhig's Disease. She is no longer able to bathe herself, walk, put in her contacts, or even brush a hair from her face, and it's only going to get worse. As slowly becomes completely paralyzed, unable to communicate with the world and make her needs known, she will still have her mind. She will still have choices. She gets to choose how she views the world.

This week my someone I know called to say she was raped at the hand of her father when she was 4 years old, and this abuse continued again when he re-entered her life at 8 years old. She suspects her mother was aware that this had happened and was then given everything she ever wanted stemming from her mother's guilt, at great peril to those around her, which was actually equally paralyzing. This is a life shattering event. It shaped her view of her relationship to men in such a way that her step son now needs counseling. It shaped her world view in terms of adult responsibilities that she is once again staring homelessness in the face with kids in tow for the second time in the last 3 years. I can't even begin to imagine what kind of devastation those events have meant to her. Yet, she too still has choices.

Yes, our lives are shaped and formed by those events around us but don't tell me free will doesn't exist. Without free will, what's the point? Without it we are reduced to a simple phenotype.

My friend is more than what her disease confines her to. My other friend is capable of rising above her circumstances. Free will is the beauty in horrible situations.

Question 20.2

2008-03-27T00:59:00.001-05:00

Free will.....the idea that we can make a choice... seems false to me.

The world is made up of so many contructs, contexts, and binary opposites... it seems we are all in a grid, and that each decision is not only a limitation of everything the world has to offer, but also a mere step into a new part of the grid. Like a gamepiece on a gameboard of the matrix of imaginary numbers... ah, finally the relevance of the graphs in math class....

This grid is a matrix, made up of everything: culture, context, social determinism, evolution, ego, humanity, nature, and so much more. It's all laid out, like a chess board, or a choose your own adcenture. Each adventure may seem unique, but your options are laid out before you and limited by your life circumstances.

It may seem that your choices are your own, but they are merely your scantron answer to the multiple choice question that the grid has laid out for you.

Of course, our will and our choices are separate matters entirely, and it also seems that our will is governed by the same laws of physics as our choice grid is. Each decision we make is a rejection of everything else, and another adhesion to the principles of choice.

We choose from what we know, and what we know is governed by this grid or matrix, that is made up of culture, gender, family, learned behaviors, nature, etc...

And so our will, it would seem, is an illusion of choice, as we cannot create something original, or free of context, and we do not live in a social vacuum, so this will never change.

Free Will is a fallacy, I never win at chess, and I hate math.

That is my answer.

Question 20.1

2008-02-14T09:13:00.002-06:00

The problem with "free will" is that it is not technically free.

Decisions cannot be made that are free from the influences of God, our environment, or others.

There is no such thing as free will, only influenced will.

Question 20.0

2008-02-14T02:39:00.002-06:00

So... What's up with free will?

Some Items of Note....

2008-02-13T17:53:00.005-06:00

I have posted the older PDF files, though the quality is sketchy at best-- I had to print and convert them all the jpegs. If you happen to have authored one of these posts and still have them in a format that is more blogger-friendly (jpeg, html, rich text format, MS Word, etc), please pass it along to me with the question number so I can post a higher quality piece.

There also seem to be some entries missing... again, sorry... if you still have yours and find it missing, please pass it along. I'd be happy to post it where it belongs!

And remember, you can always click on an image to view it in larger scale!

New answers to old questions are always welcome, but they will be posted in between the current questions. Please email them to me when completed. Thanks.

Thank you for playing!!!

Question 19.3

2008-01-12T14:59:00.000-06:00

Faith is a belief structure. Without faith, your world is shifting and unstable where you can no more trust what you see and hear than an out of control schizophenic. I do have faith in my alarm clock, in my husband, in that the sun will rise tomorrow. I have faith that the tested and retested laws of science are likely to remain the same tomorrow, but the possibility of things changing exists. These are things that my daily living experience shows me to be true.

For many people their belief structure includes things beyond their daily living experience. Faith is an explanation for something that cannot be shown. Most typically this faith is what their parents taught them, and/or the majority of their surrounding community taught them. How do you know that Allah, God, Jesus, Zeus, or whomever exists? Because of Faith.

I understand how people get to this place. I am frustrated when people accept whatever their belief structure is without sticking a probe in it all directions.
Without this probing, people accept dogma as their faith and I am baffled by what some people lay claim to due to as a result.

Somehow faith can be twisted around to allow one us to lynch another, to crash a plane into the twin towers, to accept money from the destitute for a Christian roller coaster park and a lap of luxury, or to blow yourself up in a crowded shopping center. Of course these are extremist versions of faith in motion, but they are supported by hundreds of smaller faith based misguidance resulting from people not probing.

I got an e-mail this week from my aunt who is a holy roller. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if she was friends with the people who were in the Jesus Camp movie. She forwarded me this e-mail...

Subject: Obama.... Life Story

This is very interesting, please take a few moments and read it.
Who is Barack Obama? Something that should be considered when you make your choice.
If you do not ever forward anything else, please forward this to all your contacts... it is very scary to think of what could lie ahead for us here in our own United States... better heed this and pray about it and share it.

We checked this out on 'snopes.com.' It is factual. Check for yourself.

Who is Barack Obama?
Probable U.S. presidental candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a black MUSLIM from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white Athiest from Wichita, Kansas.

Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii. When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya. His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a RADICAL Muslim from Indonesia. When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia. Obama attended a MUSLIM school in Jakarta. He also spent two years in a Catholic school.

Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim. He is quick to point out that, 'He was once a Muslim, but he also attended Catholic school.'

Obama's political handlers are attempted to make it appear that he is not a radical.

Obama's introduction to Islam came via his father, and that this influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct influence over his son's education.

Lol Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta.

Wahabism is the RADICAL ISLAMIC teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world. Since it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to down play his muslim backgorund. ALSO keep in mind that when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran.

Barack Hussein Obama will NOT recite the Pledge of Allegience nor will he show any reverence for our flag. While others place their hands over their hearts, Obama turns his back to the flag and slouches. Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential candidacy.

The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from the inside out, what better way to start than at the highest level - through the President of the United States, one of their own!!!

Please forward to everyone you know. Would you want this man leading our country?... NOT ME!!!

I had faith in who the audience was and what the nature of this e-mail was before I even read it. It fit in with my belief system due to my past experience. It also fit in with my belief system that of the slew of people that it was sent to, few would question it's authenticity, so I took it upon myself to set the record straight and called this propaganda for what it was. I heard back from one person who only said,

"I really don't know WHO to believe... out of control."

I have no understanding for belief systems that are not put under a microscope, for people who have faith in something because that is what their ancestral line brought them to. Faith without seeking is scary.

Question 19.2

2007-12-28T18:32:00.001-06:00

FAITH is humanity, unencumbered.

It is existential theory, it is religion, and it is philosophy.

FAITH is a box of toothpicks, and it is necessary.

We believe what we see, what can be proven, and what has been passed down.

The rest of life, death, and the universe is understood through belief structures that

(1) are passed down (religion, superstition, covenants),

(2) created en mass (cults, new age beliefs, politics), or

(3) via the individual (ideologies, choices, meditation).

This is done to bring us comfort, and a sense of understanding of the 'unknown' factors that exist in our world. We are driven by both fear and tradition to FAITH, and in some cases these ideas are needs.

These wants, urges, and needs become the beliefs that hold up our inner worlds. Toothpicks.
They are the stilts upon which we build our homes, with our foundations and our families firmly settled upon them, where we expect them to remain strong, and unwavering.

Toothpicks. Both as frail and as strong as they are necessary, and universal.

And with the Gods of others, many will pick their teeth.

Question 19.1

2007-12-21T14:26:00.000-06:00

The culmination of all the definitions for "faith" I could find = “to trust or believe without reason”.

I have a tough time separating faith from reason. I have faith in reason. I also have reason in faith. I have reason to have faith. Remove reason from faith and you have an ignorant child, remove faith from reason and you have an ignorant adult.

I believe that “faith” and “reason” are different, yet interlocking, parallel and equivalent ways of knowing.

Everybody has faith in one form or another and to differing degrees - whether they admit it or not [faith in their spouse, their drugs, their alarm clock, their deity, their insurance, themselves, etc.]. This gives evidence that we are not hard-wired to have tunnel vision to make decisions simply based on tangibles and reason alone. We use faith to trust, to a degree, those things which are out of our immediate control. Faith is part of the checks and balances of one’s internal government. Reason is that faculty of mind that is able to judge things whether they be true or not. You cannot reason with an unreasonable person and it is unfair to have a war of wits with an unarmed person. Reason has become a prejudice for the ignorant, the worst form of prejudice because reason is the only instrument for liberation from prejudice. To believe that we are to have faith and not reason is to have a theology of ignorance. The fact is that reason and faith validate each other.

Most associate faith with spiritual or religious beliefs that extend beyond this life and world.

"Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" -- Hebrews 11:1

Faith in an unseen noun or verb can be construed as a comfort and a gift – or dismissed as a placebo meant to lend a false sense of well-being or illogical consolation. Either way, faith exists for the benefit of the faithful, just as a judgment occurs for the benefit of the judged.

“We look not at things seen, but things unseen; for things seen are temporary, but things unseen are eternal.” -- 2 Corinthians 4:18

Regarding faith as it relates to belief in God, some have it, some don’t. I possess it. I have faith in many things, but the biggest avenue of faith that I have is in the love of God and the Truth of the eventual universal salvation of all.

"The Father has given ALL things into the Son's hands" (John 3:35) and so "ALL flesh shall see the salvation of God" -- Luke 3:6

Faith is one of the many internal compasses that help steer people’s decisions and disposition in life. The power and size of the compass depends on the individual and their thoughts and experiences as is the state of faith being gained, maintained, or lost.

I have many reasons for why I have my faith and how my faith has evolved.

I think a role of faith should be to use reason to ask more questions in order to enhance both our reason and our faith, to seek inner chambers within ourselves that are in need of occupancy and to attempt to make a greater connection to that which is known but unseen.

"In the end there are three things that will last: faith, hope, and love…and the greatest of these is love." --1 Corinthians 13:13

My Faith Sherpa is on my right, my Reason Sherpa is on my left. One without the other is a tough climb.

Question 19

2007-12-18T13:19:00.000-06:00

What is the role of faith?

Question 18.5

2007-12-12T21:09:00.000-06:00

Mere Existence

Obliges Us

To Nothing

Except Maybe
To Attempt to Survive

Obligation comes not from existence
But a sense of self and who you are.

I feel obliged to have some self respect then follow the golden rule...in that order, otherwise you'd hate for me to do unto you if I think shit of myself.

Question 18.4

2007-12-12T20:54:00.000-06:00

Given that I am, I am obligated to preform two simple duties:

Recognizing my own mortality I find it my responsibility to procreate and keep my line within this existence.
I must strive to leave to world in better condition than I have found it. I need to pass this along to those I bring forth (from my loins as it is) and instill in them the skills and talents to continue my program and mission.

Although my obligations, as they appear above, seem simple on the surface, their execution requires a complex set of actions, thoughts, and connections.

Question 18.3

2007-12-01T11:20:00.001-06:00

To be or not.... well, I am. To not, though, is part of being. Death is a natural part of life. In this way, our finite venture here has created a sense of urgency about our being. We only have so much time... what shall we do with it? For most, this time is spent selfishly, and this is not always a negative thing. It is your time to do with what you choose.

However, all those people doing what they choose require a code of ethics to govern behavior, so that one person's bliss does not create another's hell. In a loose sense, laws try to do this, but I think this question begs a deeper meaning, and while I cannot speak for others, I will do what I can to explain what that responsibility is and how it works in regard to our existence.

1. The golden rule is always a good one. But beyond kindness and respect, there should also be a withholding of judgement, and a deeper sense of empathy. Yes, that person can be a bully, but why do they behave that way? What is it inside of them that is hurt or broken that requires them to lash out in such a way? We are nothing so much as we are severely human. And we should consider, when acting with others, that pain is at the root of almost all negative behavior, and I believe we should all try to be more sympathetic to one another for that reason. We all have pain, and we are all capable of forgiveness. This simple concept could change the world.

Kindness, after all, is being nice to someone who doesn't deserve it. That moment of respect may be the thing to change the course of their day, or even their life. Our responsibility as humans is to be kind, respectful, honest, and fair, whenever possible.

2. I try to help whenever I can. I wish I did more, but my selfishness is great, and our culture makes it difficult to do more than work, sleep and consume. It really takes a concentrated effort to do your part to improve the world, and I truly respect those who do. Volunteering, protesting, recycling, using enviro friendly cleaners, whatever you can do, must be done.

3. We should take care of one another, and the planet. We spend so much time in social gridlock that we forget to take time to really connect to one another, and without that strength of connection, the relationship suffers. All relationships contain love, but many could be much deeper, fulfilling, forgiving, and powerful. One such powerful relationship can change your life and you should spend your time seeking these masterpieces of human interaction.

4. I believe we should Choose. Live with purpose. Do not waste the choices and opportunities given to you, but spend your time accumulating experiences, exploring who you are, seeking to understand the motivations and behaviors of others, and moving through life with our eyes up, on the prize, and not down, at our map.

5. Live forward. The past may have built us, and it may hurt, but learning to forgive yourself and others can be the most powerful thing we can learn. So get on it, and get help if you need it, but life should be experienced as unencumbered as possible. Live forward.

6. Support human rights. Abuse of power is rampant, and should be punishable by Guantanamo standards--especially when it comes to politics and foreign policy. Use your politics to make the world a better place. It isn't a perfect system, but it is all we have, an your voice should be heard-- unless you are a fundy or a republican. Then you don't count on the grounds that your IQ is lower than a carrot. These carrots can be executed in Texas. Case in point.

Question 18.2

2007-11-30T18:39:00.001-06:00

I took a shit today in the cleanest, safest drinking water that man has ever known. While two thirds of the world lives on less than a dollar a day, I spent 1.97 on a casual cup of thin black coffee and let it get cold. I look at my carbon footprint, crushing the earth under the tonnage of my commute, of my casual vices, and I believe, for a moment in bigfoot. The wild parts of my country have been roped off as eco amusement parks, and I have the good fortune to enjoy them on a lark instead of having to attempt to eek out a strained and exhausted living toiling in the soil until my stooped and weathered back breaks under the weight of too many years, and I lay dying face down in the dry, eroded gray dirt of subsistence farming. Instead I may decide today to cook with fresh fruits and vegetables from a dozen different nations, each picked and shipped hundreds or maybe even thousands of miles to me. I may cook them, or simply let them spoil in the crisper drawer of my refrigerator because I decide to go out instead. Out, to a restaurant where undocumented workers will avoid my eyes as they scurry about, sweating in the kitchen, sweating as they bus tables and wash dishes, wondering if they will have enough time to get to their second job tonight, wondering if the boss will try to stiff them again, and desperate to scrounge enough money together to feed their wives, their children, their mothers.

In the absence of these pressures, I am allowed a life of near perfect historical luxury. I have abundant heating and cooling that I control on a whim, personal property, protected, safe, and private. I have, for the sheer hell of it, animals that eat and drink better than most people on the planet, and I keep them as pets for no other reason than I enjoy their company. I am opulent, and this is the first and most fundamental fact of my existence. I was born into a level of comfort and wealth that most of the world will never know, and to this I owe a tremendous debt. What terrible hubris it would be to accept the gifts of my fortune and to not make every effort to use these advantages to transform myself. I have an obligation to kindness, since I have no excuse to be cruel. I have an obligation to generosity and charity. I owe a debt of patience, of humility. I owe it to myself to grow intellectually. I owe to my friends and family and neighbors the sweat of my brow at their request. I am obligated to honesty, to work, to a striving effort in all the things I do. I am obligated by the fact of my existence to attempt in that life to live a life of exemplary character and uncommon strength, since in this life I have no excuse otherwise. As I lay down every night on the soft pillow of benevolent comfort, I know that I am obligated, to assist where and when I can, to inspire, to lead, and to teach, so that the good fortune of my chance existence is never wasted.

Question 18.1

2007-11-19T13:38:00.001-06:00

Obligation as a sense of duty, relates only to the social realm in my personal view, as it is not a necessity. Necessity relates only to the physical needs of existence (involuntary breathing, eating, drinking, expelling waste, sleeping). A person’s sense of duty is only as strong and as detailed as their social awareness and willingness to serve themselves, others, their world. As a person who exists, I can only speak for my own obligations, as the spectrum of obligations range from person to person and their shades of gray vary.

I feel obligated…

To speak my mind.
To actively pursue God.
To actively love those who love me.
To try and answer questions like this.
To passively love those who dislike me.
To help those who cannot help themselves.
To explore as much of this world as possible.
To work honestly and diligently for the betterment of my microcosm.
To use my creative gifts to produce as much meaningful art as possible.
To contribute to the direction of my country’s government by casting my vote.
To exercise and eat right to keep my body as healthy, strong and attractive as I can.
To contribute to my local, state and national economy by purchasing goods and services.

Question 18.0

2007-11-06T22:19:00.000-06:00

To be or not to be, that was and, for many always will be, the question. One of the most basic metaphysical presuppositions is that we are, that we exist. Given then, this assumption that we are, what obligation(s) if any does the act of existence create?

Question 17.7

2007-11-06T22:16:00.000-06:00

Power by its nature must include two components. First, there must be a person or body which acts. Second, there must be the subordinate party which is acted upon. Power implies action, be it through physical, economic, political, emotional or other means. Power then exists as a function of its own exercise. That is to say, there can be no power which does not act, and so, in turn, there must be a subordinate body which is acted upon. It is the presence of this subordinate body that, by virtue of its existence, creates an obligation for the powerful. In social situations, that responsibility is easily understood as part of a larger social contract. In order for people to function together in a cohesive society, the greater abilities and possible privileges of the powerful must be tempered by a responsibility for the care taking of the subordinate body upon which it exerts its force. Power without temperance is tyranny and injustice, which in addition to being morally objectionable, are historically untenable and, in relative terms, short-lived. All societies inherently recognize this, and establish systems of law and order to codify and restrict the use of power by the powerful. In consideration, nearly every act of violence, aggression, and illegality are the results of unrestrained power, power acting without the reasonable restrictions of responsibility. While there is often a disconnect between those who have power and the incumbent responsibilities that power engenders, there is nonetheless a responsibility, social in the larger sense, and moral in the individual.

In fact, in order for one party to be responsible for and have a responsibility to another, there must exist a power dynamic which favors that party who is to shoulder the responsibility. One cannot be responsible if one lacks power. Children, who have very little real or acknowledged power are not generally held responsible for their actions until such time as they are able to gain a sufficient mastery of their environment and sentient self control, that they can be deemed to make conscious and active choices over their environment. Responsibility exists because one party has first the ability to affect the world, and second because he or she has the obligation to do so. Therefore, the root and cause of responsibility presupposes power, and the two are inextricably linked.

Questions then, of the dynamic between power and responsibility are questions of degree. If we accept that power exists because of its ability to affect subordinate parties, that responsibility is derived from positions of power, and that a key component of both power and responsibility is the obligation owed by the powerful to the subordinate, then it must be clear that as the relative distance between the powerful and the subordinate increases, so too does the level of moral and social obligation out of which responsibility is created. Those with the greatest power to affect the lives of the lesser have an obligation to that power. Those who choose to shirk this responsibility are doomed to vilification by an unforgiving and watchful populace.

Question 17.6

2007-11-06T08:01:00.000-06:00

There are a few basic laws that govern life as we know it. One such scientific law states

Power = work / time.

The relationship between work and responsibility directly involves work. If you don't put in the work, you don't get power.

Take for example the nationalistic flavor that was pervasive in the U.S. a few years ago. There was a plastic American flag stuck in every chemically treated lawn and a sense that people were trigger happy to nuke those responsible for 911. It was just the climate the administration needed to convince the world to take on a nation that had nothing to do with 911 and paint anyone who thought otherwise as a traitor. So we hit them with the "shock and awe" campaign and the grand finale of firebombs made short work of taking down an internationally disliked dictator. What followed was neither shocking nor awe inspiring. There was little put into the grand plan beyond nuke 'em and take 'em down. Now we are left in a bumbled mess all because no one put in the work needed to equal that level of power.

This little essay follows that rule. What I had imagined was more powerful than what is appearing on the page. I did not put in the work necessary for it to be well thought out and cohesive, thus it does not convey the power that I had imagined initially. The relationship between power and work is inescapable, whether it be a little essay or national policy. It is our responsibility having had the birthright of this wonderful and powerful nation to put in more work for our birthright than Paris Hilton has done with hers.

Question 17.5

2007-11-05T22:28:00.000-06:00

"With Power Comes Great Responsibility"

The phrase has changed throughout time, but with each of its incarnations it shares the commonality of being a tool. Although we’ve become most familiar with the Stan Lee version, more important and famous figures have also uttered this phrase such as Churchill, Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy. If I were less lazy, I could pull out the quote from the book of Luke in the Bible.

What I believe to be the superficial heart of this quote, regardless of its form, is that you (being either a single person or a “body” of people such as a group, organization, or nation) have a responsibility to your fellow man to act in the best interests of humans as a whole. In other words, your abilities, wealth, resources, or power must be used to serve the ideals and needs of a society.

It’s a beautiful sentiment, but at the same time it is also propaganda, sour grapes, and an excuse. The true intent of uttering this phrase belies an action that has taken place, or is about to take and its purpose is to placate the masses. Churchill warned us after Great Britain became a second class power in WWII that we would now be responsible to the world with our great power, but you can argue that England’s plundering of the riches of developing nations had ended, and seeing that the US would be stepping into their former role, he spoke from the position of a bully that had finally found someone he couldn’t beat.

Whether it was Lincoln justifying the new bloody new style of warfare the North was utilizing during our Civil War or Kennedy acting humble on the eve of taking the reins of the world’s most powerful nation (and potentially inspiring Stan Lee’s writing in Spiderman) I would argue that this phrase marks the exact opposite of the message it stirs within the masses; that liberties, lives, fortunes, and wealth are about to be taken and consolidated into the hands of the few.

In an age in which we can no longer handle the speed in which our technology advances and we slowly lose our freedoms to paranoia, guilt, and misplaced acts of patriotism I hope that I do not hear this spoken by someone with power.

Question 17.4

2007-11-02T12:44:00.000-05:00

Question 17.3

2007-10-31T15:43:00.000-05:00

POWER rules life.
Hunters search out the meek, and powerless for food.
The animals on the top of the food chain are often the best fed.
Power commands order, rule, and discipline within animal tribes, and in social contexts.

Power, it seems, rules all. And by it’s nature, is good, and necessary for the propagation of species, ideas, and social norms.

But Power can also create inequity, injustice, and a stripping of individual rights. The Patriot Act, for example, as well as the entirety of the Republican Party and their proposed legislation.

Allow me to defer to the earlier question on social responsibility (Question 14.0)…this is not an easily understood concept.

Clearly, responsibility is subjective. In the first days of holding my newborn son to my breast, I felt the weight of the responsibilty of raising him ‘right’—another subjective term. I can only do the best given my means, beliefs, intelligence, and opinions to do right by him, and all of those things might be exactly wrong for his own human needs. But since I am in power over him, he will get what I am doling out whether he likes it or not, because it is all I have to give, and I am in a position of power over him.

Fundamentalist nutters will create more nutters, and many are happy to be given what is regurgitated to them from their parents, but many are not. Does responsibility extend to exposing your children to more than what you know, or believe in? Or is it irresponsible to not show your child the path you believe to be correct, righteous, and prosperous in life? Hmmm… not so easy.

The male lion is powerful, mighty. He protects his turf, and his harem from predators with his size, and his dominance ensures the survival and abundance of the family. His responsibility is to his family, and he makes sure they are safe. But he is lazy, and often fat. HE can nap up to eleven hours of the day, and make the female lions raise the pups, and hunt for the family. IF he were human, those ladies would not have that.

Once again, the relationship between these two ideas shifts…

I think Power is important, and responsibility is slippery. But you shall never separate the two.

Question 17.2

2007-10-31T15:03:00.000-05:00

"With power comes great responsibility" is horseshit. We can hope all we want that those in power will act responsibly, but it will never happen. Responsibility is remembering to pick up your kid after school. Power is being able to send your maid to do it for you.

I dislike cops, not because of some anti-authoritarian motives, but because I distrust them. I don't really believe that many cops become cops for the "greater good," or that those who do maintain that mindset for very long. At base we are all just people, people who want to live the way we want to live. A cop becomes a cop in much the same way that a plumber becomes a plumber, or a writer a writer. They choose to be. This choice (in present-day society) hands over the moral high ground to the cop in the hopes that everyone else will live a happier, safer life for it. And (sometimes) we do.

Part of me wonders if the price of this transfer of power is that occasionally some dude gets hit with a tazer at a political rally, or worse, someone gets beaten up or gunned down for a reason that in no way fits with the punishment...

Should we accept this? Should we demand more from our authorities? Or should we banish them altogether?

Question 17.1

2007-10-31T14:54:00.002-05:00

Question 17.0

2007-10-31T14:52:00.000-05:00

On Power and Responsibility

We all know the old adage that with great power comes great responsibility, but what exactly are those responsibilities? Recently, a young man at a John Kerry speech was tazered, creating quite a controversy. Some thought the police acted appropriately, while others felt that the tazing was an abuse of power.

Clearly, we require those with power and in power to behave judiciously. There is a clause somewhere in that great social contract which basically states that just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Where and how are these lines drawn between power and responsibility?

Question 16.1

2007-10-31T14:51:00.002-05:00

Question 16.0

2007-10-31T14:50:00.000-05:00

What is the relationship between philosophy and science?

Question 15.4

2007-10-31T14:49:00.000-05:00

Reality is created by the sy(mpto)stems of our faith, by the mainaence of our memes, by the keen observation of our wise men, their wonders passed down as by an oracle to be taken as the new faith. How do I know that the earth is round? By the same means as our forefathers may have believed it flat. I was told of its rotundity; I have accepted the facts of my world as a thousand articles of faith, and to that faith I have committed my life. Of course the Earth is round, a thousand trusted sources have told me this, just as I am told that the smallest unit of indivisible matter is an atom. While it may be possible for these things to be proven, the question of my faith in them remains. Why do I believe these things and not others? What grand love of a thousand toothpicks remains the deep and abiding bedrock of my existence? I am a man built upon the assumption of my masculinity, defined by its opposition to femininty, and deeply troubled by the asexual. Reality is defined by the same mechanisms as its maintenance. Our world is known through the relationships we establish with those we trust, with those we do not, with the things we can see, hear, feel, taste, and touch. I believe that cyanide is poison, but I have never seen a man die from it, nor have I tasted its almond scent, pungent with the flavorful odor of death upon my lips. A leap from this and I believe in Japan, Australia, Europe, history, Rhode Island, quantum physics. I believe that E=mc² even though I have little or no ability to grasp even a moment of its explication. We are not so far removed from Beowulf. Our oral traditions are not so aborignial, not nearly so honest, and no more verifiable. I do not know how my car works, either on a mechanical, chemical, or atomic level. Does this prevent it from starting? Of course not, no more than I am prevented from spending money for lack of economic understanding, or enjoying the weather for deficit in meteorogical familiarity. . The truth of the world supercedes us, it outstrips and outpaces each moment of our understanding. It has been said that there is now more information available in libraries than it is possible to read, process, remember, and understand. The truth of the world is not the acquisition of information, but access to it, and the faculites to contexutalize, order, and eliminate the extraneous. What do we choose as real? Ultimately, it comes down to the body, as all things must. Reality feels right. The rest is only the truth.

Truth is a conclusion

Drawn like a poison

From evidence

Determined by observation

Connected by thoughts

Expressed by words

(Ab)Used by language

Influenced by Culture

Informed by History

Written by Sides

Taken by Tyrants

Supported by Belivers

Resting finally on the bedrock of Faith.

And this is the pathway to enlightenment?

Conclusions are logical

That is they require belief,

Fundamentally in Good old

“If A and B, then C”

the math of logical extension

deduction, abduction, induction

tools of the mind

developed because if something then something else

always a search for that movement

for that something else

Always this desire to put the period at the end of the sentence

Drive the spear into the side

A demand for what we call evidence.

Conclusions are spuious at best

Facts determined by observation.

Funny that cows and philosophers spend so much time ruminating.

Observations limited by our limits

Limits of observation

Limits of machines

Limits of time and history and belief

Observations reduced and fallible.

Facts are disproven by other facts,

Now we have new conclusions

A new end,

An endpoint a new middle.

Facts as ideological constructs are thus temporal

Social

Historical

Facts are not to be trusted, snake oil salesman of the grandest sort.

Periods must be erased

Conclusions redrawn

The well refilled

Truth is a construct

A hope

Rather than a reality

Reality is thus also a construct

And so there goes cause and effect

Cause and effect is an idea

A romance based on logic

The apple fell,

Not because of gravity,

Not because at all.

The apple fell.

There is no past which has passed

No objective,

Verifiable,

Scientific

Then which is provable as having taken place outside of now

There is no history

Only memory

All photos are cropped

All accounts are second hand

First hand having been handed over to the present

And the present jealously guards his time.

If we seek to prove that because A then B,

We will only fail.

All we have is B,

A is an assertion, a guess, a construct, a decision by those in power

That “A” upon which the burden of causation rests doesn’t acutally exist.

A is not.

There has only ever been “B”

There is no “A,” only the assumption of “A,” the desire for “A,” the forgotten remembrance of “A.”

“A” is a funeral card.

We make the links

We remember the dead.

Never because “A” then “B”

There is only “A” (perhaps) and “B”

Because is the formulation

An assumption

A desire to understand

But I’ll tell you this much is true,

I want to die in the summer.

Question 15.3

2007-10-31T14:48:00.004-05:00

Your house is on fire, your children are burnt;
All except one, and that's ragged Anne
and she's crept under the warming pan.

Good afternoon. I am your wonderworker, gentlemen and
ladies. Base truth turns to gold beneath my touch.
Actually, I am Theo Giroux, your new instructor for
this lovely autumn term. Before we start, let me
anticipate certain questions: first of all, this
class is not an introduction to the more mundane forms
of lying. The sales lie, the virginity lie, the love
lie, and other lies made tedious by their economic
necessity are covered in Ellen Whitsy's Intro to
Doublespeak.

No ethical cud-chewing allowed. No barbarous
insistence upon precedence or data. In my class,
thinking on one's feet is emphasized over an
accumulation of debris. Lying is like lighting a fire;
you need only to rub two facts together, then blow.

Like filaments of raw silk in water, the constricted
truth loosens and the individual strands spiral to
heaven quicker than any earthly prayer or cry. Lies
are powerful, terrifying in their beauty. Consider
Medea's gift to the new wife: a golden Colchean tangle
that, grazing the skin of the princess, bursts into a
fireball. Her old father runs crying and the flames
blaze higher, fusing king, princess, crown and robe
into a glassy black stump, white twigs of bone.

What do the palace attendants breathe the next
morning? A peppery ash that was once royal hair, a
greasy smudge in the shape of a human hand. The
golden robe itself lies unharmed, glowing warm;
perhaps it frightens you.

Then go. I have nothing to offer you.

But if you are eager to know the substance, stay
awhile. This is an advanced studio class in
fabrication. Not on fabrics, literally, but the
ability to weave a gorgeously dense, spot-proof lie.
Weave the shimmering lie that is rich with undertones,
subtle allusions, whose tail and head are
indistinguishably woven into the concrete links of
history and circumstance. A lie that coils in upon
itself, which, when pushed, can collapse into a domino
line of smaller winking lies that bear each others'
weight and settle into liquid plausibility. A lie that
can run a million miles beneath the same sun and never
tire, never weaken into doubt.

A lie which stretches to envelop the fantastic and
improbable while evoking the one intimate detail that
will plant the obstinate seed of credibility within
the mind of the listener. Now let's begin with a brief
review of key points.

First, you must always keep a clear head. Lying well
is like counting cards, almost impossible. If you
realize that you are not capable of remembering all
your lies, practice with simple ones and keep a
notebook. Do not try anything elaborate and keep away
from alibis.

So Rule One: be capable of distinguishing between
truth and lies-- your own, of course. Once you lose
this, you lose your only advantage.

The only exception to this rule (and remember that
lying, like English grammar, is full of holes) is the
historian. He creates history, his problem lies in
how to defuse the competing versions of his story; a
wonderful movie you may wish to see upon this dilemma
is Kurosawa's Rashomon. Besides the historian, the
salesman may also, within his own mind, blur the
distinctions but here my point is demonstrated: he may
tell his customer that the product can be immersed in
water, but if he actually did this himself, he would
suffer electric shock. This habit may also ooze into
his personal life and he may make use of lying to his
wife, his children.

These sorts of people are not adepts but addicts, lead
singularly cheap lives, and are not respected by their
offspring.

The second rule is probably obvious by now: never lie
to anyone precious.

This is not because the fabric will eventually tear
but because it creates doubt in your own mind. The
golden rule works in insidious ways: you think people
treat you the way you treat them. Therefore, to lie to
someone you love will create the doubt within your own
mind that others are lying to you.

And this state of tenuousness, it has been proven over
and over, cannot be sustained.

You go mad without trust. Amidst the vast and rich and
icy network of fish that you net, there must be a
buoy, an island, a haven, to which you can go
immediately and recuperate. Lying is a difficult
endeavor although many go into it out of personal
weakness. This is why the advanced courses require a
mental examination as a prerequisite. We can't play if
some of the marbles are missing.

Ah, but then who do you lie to?

In the spring of 1967, as I was boarding a ship, an
accident occurred onboard and we were left stalling on
the ramp for over an hour; it was raining lightly so I
put up my umbrella. Then I realized that it was
dripping on the coat of the lady beside me so I moved
to the edge of the ramp and thus fell into a
conversation with a tall, melancholy looking man who
asked me, between spurts with his aspirator, this
exact question.

Who do you lie to?

Rather flustered, I answered: those who need to
believe, of course. He then touched my sleeve,
briefly circling his fingers round my upper arm as if
he were measuring something. Through the cloth, I
could feel the cold emanating from his hand. It was so
cold that I thought he had poured lighter fluid on my
arm: it was the same swift evaporation, the cool that
stings like a cut.

Letting go, he asked, Who needs to believe?

Everyone.

Why did I say that? Many people don't need to believe
in anything at all. An aspirator works whether you
believe in it or not. Belief is unnecessary to most
things. I felt his hand on my arm again, cold,
tapping. He stared at me as though he were looking
through me, then, tilting his head far and above, he
covered his mouth, sucked in, exhaling onto the grainy
sea.

Without even opening his eyes, he said, And what after
you've burnt all your bridges?

I lit a cigarette, blew it in his face. I'll find
other things to burn.

He took the hint, and eased his way back to his
luggage and wife. I completely forgot about this
until several months later, when I was paging through
a magazine: it was unmistakably him, though a bit
younger, more poised, pipe in hand. The smaller photo
beneath it confirmed my suspicion: the woman that he
had been with was not his wife.

The name he had given me was not his real name.

And what was that pipe-- a prop? He died so young:
only sixty-five. A man with a bad conscience.

Rule three--do not repeat yourself unless the person
is deaf.

Rule four--Do not overemphasize. A lie should always
emerge as a response rather than a statement, offhand
rather than didactic. The pleasure of the lie is
veering the conversation in a dialectic method towards
your lie. Therefore, it is always a long nudge
rather than a coup. Somebody, give me an example,
quick.

' I have a daughter in the sixth grade. '

'You have a daughter. Really? In the sixth grade? My
daughter is a year older than yours but Jeanie was put
back a grade because, well, let's face it, she's no
genius; Couldn't add to save her life. Takes after her
mother, most likely.''

Note how bitterness often exudes a whiff of truth.

Five--Do not appear overconfident. It breeds
resentment. Do not appear hesitant. It engenders
mistrust. The appearance of honesty is an art that has
often been relegated to the realm of naiveté when it
is actually the fine balance of shrewdness and trust.
Look a person straight in the eye.

Six--Always start from a moment of truth, meander,
and end with a factual statement.

For example: Did you know that today is the fiftieth
anniversary of the death of the radiant Madame Curie
who discovered a rare, phosphorescent metal and died
of it? She was born in 1867, and died at the age of
sixty-seven. She is a woman of precision. Pravda's
reporters exhumed the corpse and found her body
unfolding like a night-blooming cereus: her face was
entirely unlined and her nails had grown a eighth of
an inch. Now riddle me this: if the half-life of
uranium points to the inevitability of lead, how did
Madame Curie's half-life of thirty-four years
foreshadow Manja Sklodowska becoming Marie Curie?
Names are fascinating--I've spent the last two summers
working on the Ellis Island archives.

Now at which point in this statement do truth and lies
part ways?

When do they converge?

Look at my tongue: the Pentacostal flame that dances
on the tip: Pravda is Russian for truth. Truth is an
eighth of an inch too deep.

There are other points, numbering in the hundreds,
that we will add onto these during the course of this
term. Lying is like Chess; is it the Gambit, the End
Game?

The strategies differ accordingly. While doing a brief
overview of How to Make, How to Present and How to
Correct the Lie, we will be focusing most of our
energies on examining failure; after all, the
potential for disaster is omnipresent and what we must
do when a lie fails is of larger immediate consequence
than what we must face if it succeeds. We will be
armed with certain foolproof methods of escape, both
derisive and offensive, as well as occasional forays
into historical case studies of endlösung: the
collective amnestic, schizophrenic, and, ever so
briefly, violence in the hearth and home. At the end
of this course, no truth shall evade us unscorched.
And the tourney?

Yes, of course: each year we have a tourney between
our department and the logic department and, as you
all know, we have won the tourney seven years running.

That's because their greatest theoreticians, their
prize plums,--the philosophers--are devious little
weasels; there is no objectivity possible in their
dialectic method.

Also, guerilla warfare is superior to organized
warfare simply because it does not adhere to a fully
known set of rules; it cannot be anticipated. I will
emphasize this again and again: Rely upon instinct;
run with it. The best liars are not the organized ones
but those who, familiar with the terrain, rely on
inspiration and whim. Never be heavy-handed or adopt
a logical manner; it is wingfooted Mercury and not
Apollo who fashioned the lyre.

The last week of the semester will be spent on two
things: the philosophical necessity of lies in our
society and how to detect a lie. People shall work in
pairs to ascertain the amount of truth in one another.
It is rather subversive since we are going to now
analyze and dissect our own motives and techniques,
the underbelly of all our ventures into this field.
Any questions?

When people lie to us, what are we to do?

It's inevitable. You can't completely immure yourself
from pain anymore than you can predict the future. In
wartime France, the exquisite stained glass of the
cathedral at Chartres vanished. Once the bombings
ceased, the stained glass reappeared, burning in all
its glory. It was a different sort of miracle: the
villagers had painstakingly dismantled each of the
windows and buried them separately.

We too need only to secure the parts that shatter; the
rest will endure somehow. That is why we must
understand who we are and what we are made of. I
advise you all to buy a full length mirror, open your
mouth wide and see who's in there. I once saw an eye
peering out at me. A tawny yellow eye, gleaming,
blinking.

A paper, twenty pages, will also be due at the end of
the term, and the topics will be discussed with your
preceptors. Any more questions?

Well then, let's end with a game of darts to see what
you've retained from your last quarter with Prof.
Moodie.

1. If you are Theban and I am not, which of us is
lying?
2. What are the three forked and unforked lies in our
lives?
3. In your expert opinion, who is the father of lies?
4. Is the examined life worth living? What role do
axiomatic lies play in this statement?
5.What is the relation of lying and truth to
happiness? Which is nearer?
6. Are lies undoable?
7. Are lies remarkable?
8. Is trust expendable or can we burn it like a dollar
bill?
9. Is it necessary to conserve our lies or is the
supply inexhaustible?
10. How could you lie to me like this? What have I
done to you?

When you've finished, hand in the papers to the person
right of you. If you are the person at the farthest
right, gather the papers and place them on the ledge
of the window. Let the breeze fan these oracles onto
the masses.

We shall meet again on Wednesday. It is wan autumn
itself, and no Indian summer. Already autumn. Really
lovely weather, too lovely to stay inside. Class will
be held outdoors beneath the riotous foliage. I shall
not be present. Attendance is not required. You are
on your own. The tangibility of lies nets the
intangibility of desires. Go now. I am going to go
lie down in the next room. I am feeling sick at heart,
collapsible. It's the weather, the violent change in
the leaves; everything is gold and yellow--it's
barbaric, unsettling. The barometer says a storm is
stirring; I can feel it in the moistness, in the wind;
I can see a blackness in the sky blotting out the
blue, extinguishing the sun. This morning, my
physician saw dark clouds as well: on my X-rays, the
backbone appeared as a white fusion of molten glass
from which ribs pulled outwards and curved into a
fragile, unearthly cathedral of light. But above, an
enormous black stain smeared the plate: this was my
heart.

Why is it so dark? I asked.

The radiologist shrugged: Sometimes it is, sometimes
it isn't. I tap my lungs occasionally, you know, and
I think that I have been exposed too long to this. My
teeth and clumps of hair will fall out, my cell count
dwindle and my skin turn black beneath my fingers;
truth, repelled by my cynical exterior, is now gnawing
me hollow. I have here in my pocket the perfect
specimen of a nut: large, brown, glossy, but, when I
crack it open, look: nothing but a giant, pasty grub:
truth.

Is truth ever bearable? Shall we give it a go? Let's
use the example of the daughter again: I lost my
daughter yesterday. I lied to her. It was a terrible
mistake. Is this believable? It's worthless as it is:
it needs more texture, more cruelty, a touch of viva
voce from which it springs up as searing as the moment
when one first sees, in the face of one beloved, the
childish features that have long laid dormant: a
wavering, singed smile.

I'll tell you about my daughter. Last Saturday, I come
home from work and I catch her on her way out: she's
dressed up in a fringed skirt, pearly pink lipstick
and drop earrings; the earrings are her mother's. Her
hair is newly cut at a slant. How do I look? she asks.

You look -- I venture, then drop my voice, exhaling
softly. Why? Perhaps it's the earrings: I'm under a
spell and I do things against my will. Or perhaps it's
simply my nature; it's what I do well.

Stop it, she screams, You're trying to make me crazy
aren't you? Why can't you ever say anything nice to
me? You probably drove her crazy too. You think I'm
going to run away, don't you? Why don't you just say
it? You hate me. Just say it. I hate you too. I wish
you were dead.

It's not true, I say quickly, Don't be angry. I love
you. I just -- can't help it. It's what I am.

What is the relation of lying and truth to happiness?
Which is nearer?

I reach out to still her, to calm her, to shut her up,
to still her dry heaves and hiccuping. The neighbors
call. I don't say anything and eventually they hang
up. She's stopped crying. Already there is a silence,
a sudden drop in temperature.

Do you want to know what happened?

The moisture of her breath freezes into a glittering,
suspended mass of metallic flecks, and her hair
stiffens into dense clumps of shining wire. Gold
rivets her spine and she stands upright, solid, limbs
outstretched in a dull, reflective sheen. Her
breathing comes quick and shallow. A whimper. And then
it's over. Various doctors have examined her; they
took samples, careful shavings. An allergic reaction
to loss? Haemorrhage? Jewelers are already offering
bids.

But there is still hope: her arm moves
imperceptibly--a few degrees each hour. This morning,
I heard her sneeze, pause, then sneeze again. Last
night, as I carried her up to the second floor, I saw
that her skin had a rosy incandescence: just as there
are
veins of gold in the earth, there were veins of blood
discernable beneath the gold. The metal was warm to
the touch.

An afterglow trailed behind us, encrusting the carpet
and stairs with a thin river of light that pooled at
the foot of her bed. I leaned over and cupped my hands
in this pool. My fingers glistened but the light pulls
away. When I put my head down to drink; the river
vanishes, the lights go out. For a few seconds, I saw
her shaky amber outline, then a thick unbreathable
blackness filled the room. I was suffocating; on all
fours, I found my way to the door, then to the stairs
then to the entrance where I lit a match and another,
to watch the boards rippling in a reddish heat,
turning into gold for hours and hours.

One, two, three--
Snap out of it.

I have no daughter.

Question 15.2

2007-10-31T14:48:00.003-05:00

Question 15.1

2007-10-31T14:48:00.001-05:00

Question 15.0

2007-10-31T14:47:00.000-05:00

How do you define reality?

Question 14.3

2007-10-31T14:46:00.000-05:00

He stood behind Adolf with the baton in his hand. This was the moment, and yet he hesitated. He had killed hundreds of people for money; he had even killed several in the flux. However, he had never killed anyone this important, anyone so integral to the collective consciousness, anyone so viciously evil.

It was against the law to alter in the flux. Time guardians traveled throughout history, hoping to stop any activity that could lead to a radical change in the future. He had been traveling in the flux for twenty years though, and he had ways to deceive the guardians. Killing someone in the flux led to your own erasure, they would travel back and poison your parents to prevent your birth. He did not fear this in the least, and this did not make him pause.

He was an assassin, and he was paid well to exterminate people. He would always avoid the reasons why the person was being killed, the reason didn’t matter. He didn’t try to justify his work; it was just a job to him. Instead he would throw out that portion of the dossier, it just made his job harder if he got to know them.

But there he stood, masquerading as a prison guard in the year 1923. He was alone with the future fuehrer and would be able to kill him in seconds and easily make his escape to the device. This however, was not a dossier that he could just throw away. This was the most famous killer of all time, a man responsible for millions of deaths, and a man that he knew through history. One could not live in a world and not know who Adolf Hitler was. It was the knowing that made him hesitate, but there was something else that caused him pause.

The man who hired him was an old Rabbi. He was so old in fact that his grandparents may have been in the death camps. He gave him the money, set him up with an untraceable device, and gave him some parting words that were echoing in his head. “You don’t even need to think of it as an assassination, think of it as your social responsibility.”

The phrase would not leave him. Was it really his social obligation to destroy someone who would kill others? Is social responsibility as simple as the golden rule, do onto others you would have them do unto you? Or is it a more complex shade that uses the silver, do unto others as they do unto you? Or is it more selfish like the iron rule, do unto others before they do unto you? How did this act fit into each of those rules?

One could argue that this is the golden rule; you are doing an act that would help save millions of lives. But if you take this in a strict sense, you would not want to be killed and therefore would not commit murder. He thought about the golden rule only briefly, because that rule didn’t fit with his worldview, let alone this act.

Is it silver, he thought? The world is full of killers and death. If we were to do unto other as they do unto us then everyone would punish those that wronged them. Is this not preemptive punishment? But the silver rule is reactive, not preventive. The iron rule was the only that fit.

He tightened his grip on his baton and thought while Adolf wrote. Hitler was working on Mien Kampf, and engrossed. He thought again that maybe the Rabbi was feeling guilty and tried to moralize his actions by placing it in a moral construct. He nodded and then knew that this had to be why he likened murder to social responsibility.

The club came down with a sickening thud, and continued for several swings. The blood splattered on the walls and on the paper Adolf worked on. His lifeless body collapsed without struggle. There would be no holocaust. It was a comforting thought for the assassin as he faded from existence. His great grandparents would never meet now that his great grandfather did not need to flee to Greece to escape the invading Nazi army.

Question 14.2

2007-10-31T14:45:00.000-05:00

From a man on the street, black, disheveled, thin, “My man, my man, can you spare a dollar? C’mon I’m just hungry, man; I just need a dollar, c’mon man, just a dollar whaddya say?”

The response from the propositioned, also a black man, heavy, immaculately dressed in an obviously well tailored grey suit, “Sorry my brother, I haven’t got anything for you right now.”

From the housing, sustenance, and employment challenged beggar, “Every time one of my people calls me ‘brother,’ they hurt me. Every time man.”

Why didn’t the obviously well-off man give to the man he so casually called brother? Why did he use the term brother, and why does that term hurt the beggar each time he is called by it? The answer is one of perceived community. Sure, we would all like to nod our heads, solemnly asserting the wisdom of helping your fellow man, of feeling like we have to ‘give something back,’ of, in short, being our brother’s keeper. But the truth is, we could give a shit about our brother if he isn’t part of what we see as our community. For some, our communities are rather expansive. These are the genuinely good people who donate their time and money with jobs and actvism doing ridiculously altruistic things like the PeaceCorp and Teach for America and Greenpeace. For most of us, our community is limited to the loose network of friends, family and coworkers whom we identify with in a substantial, and most importantly, regular way. Would we turn down our best friend if he asked us for a dollar? A meal? A place to stay? Of course we wouldn’t, and to do so would seem unnecessarily cruel and injust. We feel a sense of responsibility to these people because they are like us, and they are humanized by their proximity.

So, maybe you give your dollar to each beggar in the loop who asks. Do you give them five dollars? A thousand? A meal, a place to stay? Again, the level of responsibility we feel for our fellow man is based on how much we can identify with him or her, how close into our inner circle they can penetrate, how safe we feel around them, and how easily we can walk blithely by. There is no real question of social responsibility, only one of community. To whom are we beholden? Who are are brothers that we will keep? Only those few we really see and hear and know. It has been said that it is hard to hate a man once you know his life’s story. I imagine it is equally hard to ignore a man on the same grounds, which may be why it is so easy not to hear the cries of the wounded, the screams of the oppressed, and the soft moans of the desperate.

We have no urgency

No rush

Only the frantic hurry of the

Disembodied

The voiceless

The unquieted mute

We have no urgency

We can not make allusions

I do not share your history

I am not your brother

And I am not your brother’s keeper

And whatsoever I do unto the least of you

I have not done unto me

We fear reprisal

Rejection

But we do not believe in consquence

Causation

Commonality

It’s sixty degrees outside

Seventy two inside and somewhere else it may be raining fire

Or showering forgiveness

I will never know

I only know the news

Reports of the new

The now reported as a when

There is no acknowledgement of history

Every moment a moment of past

I am not your brother

I share only because I have learned

And I have learned what I was taught

I have spent time on credit, with no hope of paying it back

I am in debt

I am temporally bankrupted

I have been tying up shoelaces and loose ends,

Trying to keep it neat

Trying to keep it real,

To make it real,

Keep it under wraps

In control

I am on top of things

Even as they pile up

I scramble

Reborn and then remixed

I manage

I sit upon my gold

Evea as it seeps into my pores

Like a reverse Midas

I am poisoned by it

Corrupted

Contained

Bound

By determination

Determined to push ahead.

The truth?

I don’t know what you mean.

I don’t understand your allusions,

Your sly references,

Your witty rejoinders

I am not in on the joke

I only laugh because I am afraid.

Question 14.1

2007-10-31T14:44:00.002-05:00

Question 14.0

2007-10-31T14:44:00.001-05:00

Define Social Responsibility

Question 13.3

2007-10-31T14:43:00.000-05:00

“Why isn’t it virtuous to do heroin?” The buffoon asked the two young students. He stumbled alongside them as they walked, and they were stuck in a conversation that they could not end, at least they couldn’t end it now that the buffoon had waded in. He had asked an idiot’s question and wanted an answer. If they had only known that he did not have the capacity to converse on this topic beforehand.

* * * *

The afternoon started with a brisk walk and a discussion. The two talked about morality to start. This then turned into a discussion of Aristotelian virtue and why it leads to happiness. They talked about how morality becomes reflexive when one practices enough, and how the moral decisions are made quicker. They discussed how there could never be a completely virtuous man, and how because of that no one can be completely content. They talked about how they disagreed with the characterization of happiness by Aristotle and how it makes happiness an end rather than a means. It was a stirring, and vibrant chain of thought. That is until they met HIM. Both of the students knew this man, and he was a student as well. They knew him but not in any deep meaningful way. They had no idea his small mind could not comprehend this and they tried to include him. They were human, and they erred.

* * * *

“I don’t think I understand the question. What are you asking again?”

“Why isn’t it virtuous to do heroin? It’s not that complicated of a question.”

“Sure it isn’t, but you are asking it in the context of a very complex and diverse subject. In which your question makes no sense. What does heroin have to do with virtue?”

The buffoon shook his head and rolled his eyes, he could not believe how stupid they were. “If heroin makes someone happy, why isn’t doing it virtuous?”

“Using heroin can lead to a myriad of immoral actions because the drug is addicting. Many heroin addicts have stolen things to support their own habits.”

The buffoon shook his head again is disbelief. They had no idea about heroin and this was clear. He had to make it even simpler for them. “Don’t think about that stuff. That’s not what I’m talking about anyway. Just assume that those things aren’t happening, that the user rich and isn’t hurting anyone by doing it.”

“Your suggestion is not a moral construct. You can’t make a moral decision when only one person is affected by the action and decision. It’s like a decision to take a nap. It’s not moral, it’s biological. Morality is a social construct. If you make decisions that affect others, then those are moral decisions.”

“It’s not about other people,” the buffoon was starting to get angry with them, they were obviously morons. “It’s about YOU. You are the most important person. No one can impose morality on another person!”

“We weren’t even talking about the merits of a system of anarchy over other social systems. We were talking about virtue.”

Idiots, the buffoon thought. “You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

“Neither do you, fucktard.”

“I concur.” The other student said.

Then, for the good of all humanity, the students acted virtuously. They killed the buffoon so he would not reproduce. Humanity was spared. Saints be praised.

Question 13.2

2007-10-31T14:42:00.002-05:00

Virtue is morality extended beyond a moment, decontextualized, and systematically and practically applied to one’s life until the moment of moral decision is erased by an instictive and reflexive moral action, an act of moral behavior performed without forethought or afterthought. Virtue is moral behavior without choice; morality so ingrained as to become nearly cellular and inescapable. Or so I am told.

Thus, it seems, virtue is the end result of the ardous labor of moral choice reduction. Like an especially flavorful sauce, the choice of morality is slowly simmered out of the equation until only the heavy essence of moral behavior remains. Without the burden of choice, virtuous behaviors arise from a deeply ingrained internal space within a person, a part which believes so strongly in the moral righteousness of his or her behavior that that behavior is performed without thought or consideration of other options. The vituous doesn’t ask, “What is the right thing to do here?” The virtuous simply does the right thing immediately and without hesitation, secure in the knowledge that there simply was not the option of behaving any other way. Or so I am to understand.

This being the case, woe is the virtous. May I never be burdened with virtue (a label I am unlikely to be saddled with in any case.). A life lived under the unbearable yoke of knowing without question seems a tyrrannical and oppressed life. In order to be virtous, a moral system would need to be self established, a system by which the morality of any given situation can be assessed and the right decisions made. We all must have these systems, for without them the determination of the correct course of action would be unknowable to us. In any situation where a moral decision is necessary, the options must each be run through the system, the options internally ranked on the scale of moral rightousness, and the action performed. In any of these situations, failing to act morally is either a failure of the moral system, or a failure to behave in keeping with the moral standards set by the system. In any case, the presentation of options to the moral systems excludes that person from having behaved virtously, as the virtous is beyond the need of moral systems and decision-making. The virtous has so ingrained the moral system that the correct course of action is no more chosen than we choose to obey the laws of physics, or succumb to gravity.

And herein lies the crux of the problem. Virtue removes choice, it puts a period at the end of the moral sentence and draws irrevocable conclusions about right and wrong. Whenever conclusions are drawn, the concluder then stops questioing, stops thinking if maybe there isn’t a better system, a more just system. The virtous cannot ask questions of his or her moral system any longer, for it has been so long assumed infallible that moral decisions are pure muscle memory. How can such a thing not be foolish, even dangrous to pursue? Liken, for a moment, making firm and irrevocable decisions about right and wrong to building the foundation of a home out of toothpicks. These toothpicks mimic the individual pieces of our belief system, thousands of toothpicks each representing an experience or decision that led to a conclusion that ultimately leads to a dozen more. While the heaped up bundle of thousands of toothpicks may look sturdy, may even hold up the house and feel firm and unyielding, these toothpicks are hardly the sturdy beams we assume them to be. Upon closer examination, it is obvious that the foundation of our home is frail, tiny, insignificant. The removal of a single strand of wood can upset the delicate balance of so many more, and the sturdy foundation of our beliefs can come crashing down. If, however, we realize early on that our beliefs are not truths, but guesses and approximations, we are less likely to so heavily rely on any one of them, but instead will have fashioned our home in such a way that it may exist independent of any one of these miniscule building blocks. Virtue, is a house built on toothpicks, inflexible and therefore dangerously unsteady.

Question 13.1

2007-10-31T14:42:00.001-05:00

Question 13.0

2007-10-31T14:41:00.002-05:00

How do we find and define virtue?

Question 12.3

2007-10-31T14:41:00.001-05:00

Even now I am lying to you,

I have seen my life through a pane of glass,

and in seeing,

have felt nothing.

I feel dusty inside.

Perhaps it is cold in the winter.

I have read it in a book,

I have seen it on television,

but when my hand is against the glass,

the warm mark of my presence fades to nothing within moments of its passing.

If there indeed exists a thing which we can term the “core self, “ then that self must be said to have certain unchanging characteristics, characteristics which not only affect the presentation of the self to others, but that also define the self through their consistent opposition to the contextual notion of self which it defies. In other words, in order for any part of you to be static and unchanged, there must be parts of you which can be defined by the core as “other” which are malleable and contextual. Just as the notion of sickness relies on a favored idea of health to conceptually exist, if we are to say that there is a core self, we must concede that there must be parts of the self which are outside of this core; parts of the self that seem to be less a part of the true nature of self, and more temporal. Without this competing concept, we would only say self, and it would be understood that the self is whole and undivided. Through accepting the modifier “core,” we immediately create a conceptual opposition. There are parts of us that are within this core, and parts that are then outside of it. This sets the stage for an internal dichotomy between the constant self and the inconstant self, both of whch are identified and defined by their relationship to each other.

Were this true, the core self would stand in opposition to the inconstant self, always seeking to achieve dominance through invalidation of the other. The core self would then attempt in all situations to assert itself through whatever internal psychological means possible to it, thus undermining the contextual self’s attempts to adapt to social change. The assumed dominance of the core self rejects change and therefore stifles adaptability, a fundamental trait for human survival.

I contend that there is a struggle between what we have here termed the “core self” and the inconstant or contextual self, but I assert that it is contextual self who is the higher up on the internal hierarchy. Based on millenia of human existence, the adaptability of humanity has proven to be its primary strength. Humans are the only single species to have independently invaded and established colonies on every surface of the earth. This remarkable achievement cannot be attributed to humankinds thick skin, impressive teeth or claws, armored exoskeleton, thick fur, great speed or strength. While it is true that our intelligence is part of what makes us who we are, earlier versions of human beings are thought to have had brains every bit as large and complex as our own; some early versions of man may have had even larger brain size. It is not intelligence which has marked humankind as remarkable, it is the use of that intelligence to adapt, to change the self to match environment. I contend that it is this very biological attribute of humankind which proves that the core self is the smaller self, that it is the contextual self which holds sway and has power. It is the contextual self that allows for greater adaptation and therefore allows a greater chance of survival regardless of situation.

While it is possible that the core self may indeed adapt, any change or adaptation to the core self must temporary in order for the core to be structuarally maintained. This means that any adaptations that the core makes are false and can be readily forgotten or discovered as lies. The strength of the contextual self is not that the personality appears to change in a situation, but that the contextual personality actually does change. The malleable nature of this self allows for greater internal flexibility and consistencey because it is not lying when it changes. The contextual self is the self created anew from the situation, whereas the core self is the self in a situation, struggling to appear adaptable without changing. Clearly, if the core self exists, it is the weaker of the two. It is stiff, brittle, perhaps even vestigial.

Question 12.2

2007-10-31T14:40:00.002-05:00

Question 12.1

2007-10-31T14:40:00.001-05:00

Our "core self", the part of us that we carry all thru life...it is the person we are intended to be from the moment we are born...destiny...perhaps...perhaps not. God, the Universe...the powers that be...it's the light we are given...the direction we are intended to follow...but do we? Do we screw it up, ignore it, let it become influenced by our surroundings...of course we do...but it's the same light that we keep going back to...it's the "thing" everyone searches for...our identity...our place in this world. The light doesn't dim, but we close our eyes to it...second guess ourselves, go against our natural grain...in spite of ourselves. If we are lucky, and if we look in our hearts we will come back to it...and our reward will be contentment...contentment in our selves and contentment with the world around us. We all have a "Core Self" but we spend most of our lives trying to find it...and all of our lives trying to trust it. Age - the progression of time only serves to put fear in us...and with the fear comes a more determined search...not to mention a whole life's worth of doing the wrong things...trial and error...that's what comes with age. You make a thousand mistakes before you can see that you've been going in the wrong direction...if we come full circle, we come back to ourselves...and the person we were born to be...if not, maybe we have to keep starting over until we get it right? Who knows? But, we were born complete with all of our parts intact...those parts are our core...and they are ours alone...our spiritual fingerprint.

Your questions cause the mind and the soul to ramble...we should all ramble more often, don't you think? I guess I believe that our core self is really our soul...and we listen to it or we don't...but it doesn't change, it just tries to nudge us in our own direction to make our lives satisfying.

Question 12.0

2007-10-31T14:39:00.000-05:00

What about the idea of a Core self? Is there one? What is it made of? How is it found?

Question 11.4

2007-10-31T14:37:00.002-05:00

I can understand from an evolutionary perspective why we would have feelings, but that is all in my head. Feelings seem to defy practicality – as much as I want to intellectualize feelings, my reasoning always falls short of “truth”. (Yes, everyone, I am unfortunately a big, huge fan of scare quotes). However, I do believe that with a superior intellectual ability that people have developed feelings for a very evolutionarily cogent reason. And although I want my intellectualization to match my feelings, I understand that sometimes feelings must be trumped in search of truth (Notice – no scare quotes). Thus an exploration is in order.

We know about pair bonding and the fight or flight response but why we would have developed these feelings in tandem to our ability to think about them seems almost to be an evolutionary leftover from bygone times when instincts were more en vogue than they seem to be now. Without feelings, why would we ever devote our lives to another human being? It simply does not make any intellectual sense. Without feelings why would we ever try to live in social society? Isn’t it best to just kill or hurt whatever crosses our path to maximize our genetic potential? Instinctually there is a part of most of us that feels absolute revulsion at the idea, yet less intellectually superior beings that have no feelings do this on a daily basis.

So it is clear that we have feelings for an intellectual reason. They help us form social bonds. They make us pair bond. They make us raise our own children. They keep us from committing mass murder. In short, they keep us in civil society where, for whatever reason, people can best maximize their evolutionary fitness – i.e. we can have the most viable offspring. Without feelings, none of this would make any sense. Feelings defy reason and intellectualization precisely because if we could intellectualize our feelings, we probably wouldn’t have many. Perhaps I’m speaking for myself because I tend to think of feelings, most of the time, as a big, giant pain in my ass.

Feelings give us humanity in the sense that feelings make us human beings and not some other kind of being.

"What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism"
Albert Einstein

"Eyes that do not cry, do not see"

Swedish proverb

"Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which is the way Nature intended. And this is all very natural and organic and in tune with mysterious cycles of the cosmos, which believes that there’s nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fiber and, in some cases, backbone."

Terry Hatchett

Question 11.3

2007-10-31T14:37:00.001-05:00

What is it about our failures that so fascinates?

Triumph is rarely so beautified as

trampled, beaten, exhausted-

but never dispirited,

no, never that...

and to give up?

That too can be part of the beautiful

the divine release of self into the unknowable, unstoppable sea of ennui.

We embrace our errors, our missteps, and mistakes,

we hold and kiss and whisper sweet nothings into the ear of despair and fuck our deepest regrets

burying or being buried into and by these private torments

Does she love me?

A dying breath and our lives flash.

And of all our years,

not a kindness crosses our singularly miopic vision

Only the slights,

real and imagined, these realer still,

it is here that we define

and flagellate

and weep, bitterly, endlessly.

So few of us worthy of paradise.

How did it ever come to be an act of such unforgivable hubris to believe that we are good-

that we are not worthy of paradise

when we are indeed the very reason for its existence?

Why do we spend time ceaselessly, mechanically,

fucking our hurt

when it’s God we should joyfully, endlessly fuck-

fuck with the terrible zeal of desire and lust and forgiveness and erotic redemption.

Every moment stolen

a thousand stories in a thousand storied breaths

and still we deny the miracle-

still we trudge

and shuffle

and eventually we close our eyes entirely,

grateful for the passing of another day.

An abandoment into end,

a desire in all of us to halt, for a moment at least,

the miracle

and not be

so damnably here

-surrounded-

laid siege to by the exhaustive battery of

unknowbable being,

of unrelenting mystery.

And still,

for all of it,

I can not believe.

Question 11.2

2007-10-31T14:36:00.002-05:00

Adam was angry. For that matter, so was Eve. However, there are some who would say that this anger was unfounded. Sure they we sent out into the cold world from a land that was absolutely perfect, but the argument could be made that God had his reasons. The reasons were not as obvious or as simple as vengeance for theft and consumption of a Golden Delicious.

The primary reason was the boredom. While He was happy with his creation to a point, He was also equally disappointed. He was proud of the articulation of the joints, the ligament structure, mitochondria, and especially the opposable thumb. He overcame the overheating problem from early on with perspiration, and created the network of synapses that controlled it. The solutions to little things pleased Him, but He couldn’t make his creation think. He started to wonder if it wasn’t the creation so much as it was the environment that He had created for it.

Eden was the perfect place for his creation to prosper. It had all the proper foods to make sure Adam and Eve had the proper diet that yielded the optimal nutritional levels. They had the exact amount of sunlight necessary, and the oxygen levels were perfect. But perfection was stunting it. It didn’t have to think, everything was maintained for them.

His decision was not something He had come to lightly. He liked both Adam and Eve as they were. They we charming and polite, but most importantly they loved Him unconditionally. He loved them too, and He didn’t want to do anything rash. They were like his children, but without the visceral emotion that parents normally harbor. Something had to be done though, they were stagnant and they would never change.

He didn’t send them out into the world unarmed, He gave them some tools to deal with their new environment. His gift was feeling and emotion. This gift would keep them alive and alert. The fear would keep them clear of the creatures that could cause them harm and out of weather that was dangerous. Worry would give the urgency essential when seeking food when hungry, or finding lost kin. Happiness would encourage them to repeat beneficial acts. Passion would assist in reproduction, while sentiment would help them bond. Sadness would keep them from repeating mistakes, and anger would serve to protect them.

God may have been hasty though. He gave them these emotions, but didn’t give them the ability to shut them off when they were unnecessary. They worried about death, they were afraid of incorporeal objects, too sentimental, and angry at the wrong things for the wrong reasons.

He considered these aberrations a necessary evil, that is until Cain. The jealousy could be beneficial in making them strive, but when it mixed with anger and hatred, it created something even He couldn’t predict.

His solution was simple; He would create a rule set. This rule set would help them with their burgeoning freewill, but it would help them reign in their feelings and emotions. It would teach them that reason was stronger than passion, and that certain feelings were permissible.

He would look upon the creation of feeling for all time as most triumphant invention, and simultaneously his greatest mistake.

Question 11.1

2007-10-31T14:36:00.001-05:00

Question 11.0

2007-10-31T14:35:00.000-05:00

What is Emotion?

Question 10.6

2007-10-31T14:34:00.002-05:00

What is beauty? Is beauty used mostly as a referent for objects created by people? If so, is the amount of beauty in an object a function of the time put into something? What things can be beautiful? Is beauty a concept tied primarily to things and people, or can ideas be beautiful as well? Is elegance a form of beauty? Since mathematical equations of specific merit are often considered elegant, to what extent can a mathematic principle or equation be considered beautiful? Is it the expression of the mathematics that has the beauty or is it the concept itself? How do the two interrelate? Can beauty be quantified? If we say something is not beautiful, what is lacking? What measures do we use to mold objects in our lives into things of beauty? How do we account for the vastly different conceptions of beauty standards throughout time, culture, and geography? Can a purely abstract notion be beautiful, or does there need to be a moment of fruition in order for beauty to be achieved? Once something has been deemed beautiful, and the aesthetics of a time or place change or shift, how do we account for the loss of beauty that takes place? How is beauty related to symmetry and asymmetry? To what degree can these ideas be said to define and relate to one another? Is beauty a measurement of effort, talent, desire, education, all subconsciously expressed in a given creation? Is beauty found or created? by who or whom? Who or whom are the arbiters of beauty? What standards are used in this judgment? Is the idea of beauty necessarily co-opted by social principles, mores, and norms? Are all people individually adequate at judging beauty, or does the larger group have the final sway? To what extent does the judge of the aesthetic define beauty? How are these definitions reflective of and in tension with social mores of the present? What do they say about the norms of the past, and how do the two relate? What does a culture's beauty standards say about its people? What can be gained from staring at the same trinkets of awe that have been stared at for thousands of years? Recent research has shown that the physical human beauty standards used cross-culturally over a vast stretch of time can be partially explained by looking at and comparing ratios both of the body and the face. This suggests there is a biological component to beauty. How does this biological component of beauty clash with, reinforce, and help to define social standards? To what extent can beauty standards used in judging the appearance of people be extrapolated to other objects? If there is a correlation, can similar ratio-based explanations be used to explain or even create an ideal standard of universal beauty? If biology does play a role in the determination of beauty, how is the vast difference in personal taste accounted for? How are the standards of social beauty malleable? What forces help to shape or change them? How do these same standards help to define our landscapes, including our urban, rural, interior, and psychological spaces? How do we account for so-called modern or post-modern art, art that is abstract, often asymmetrical in the extreme, difficult to understand, banal, or even purposely ugly? How does the notion of ugly or unattractive help to define the beautiful? How do these same definitions categorize and restrict our understanding and appreciation of the beautiful? What items are subject to this type of scrutiny? Can we say that refuse is beautiful? How much of something must be permanent to be beautiful? What about music? What forces help to shape what is pleasing to the ear? Are they the same forces that shape our visual determinations? Can food taste beautiful? What senses are involved in determining beauty? How do we know when things match, in terms of color, shape, and size? What parts of our brain and personality are used in these assessments? To what extent does sex and sexual attraction help, hinder, and define beauty both in terms of human standards as well as more abstract forms of artistic expression? How does the human shape figure into discussions of and idea(l)s of beauty, the beautiful, and the aesthetic?

Question 10.5

2007-10-31T14:34:00.001-05:00

“Beauty is in the search for the divine.”
-Shostich

“The number 11 is beautiful.”
-Pierre Bernard

“The human face is beautiful in its denial of simplicity.”
-Audrey Opear

“Beauty is found in the simple things.”
-Fish

“If I died tomorrow, I would never know the beauty of death.”
-Henry Coquery

“If beauty is the opposite of ugliness, perception the opposite of
denial, speed the opposite of slugishness, and sour the opposite of
sweet, we have created too many words to describe a characteristic
which can exist within the same definition of its opposition.”
-And Max

“Christ! No, not Christ, the man, I mean, Christ! What a ridiculous
question. I’ve had pet mice whose stool could come up with better
questions...Anyway, beauty is shit. Real shit.”
-Andy Ace

“We look at ourselves and we see imperfection. We look at others and
see what we can’t see in ourselves. That is beauty.”
-Spine

“Forever is a long time. Thinking about it can make you seasick. It
can make you rethink your life, your goals. And why have goals? Death
is always very near. But, somehow, instinctively we live, despite the
odds - odds that are never on our side. For who has beaten death? Who
has beaten forever? Try. Try to live a life with purpose. Fall many
times. Remain seasick your entire life. That is beauty.”
-Robby Zar

Question 10.4

2007-10-31T14:33:00.000-05:00

Question 10.3

2007-10-31T14:32:00.001-05:00

Question 10.2

2007-10-31T14:31:00.000-05:00

Question 10.1

2007-10-31T14:20:00.000-05:00

Question 10.0

2007-10-31T13:25:00.002-05:00

What is Beauty?

Question 9.3

2007-10-31T13:25:00.001-05:00

Living in a gendered society defines men as men, and women as women. It is only through the interplay between the two notions of man and woman that we come to know ourselves as different from The Other. It is the differences that define us, that shape and guide our ability to understand and create meaning around our sex and sexuality. The concept of our gender difference allows us the free play necessary to choose our vessel, to draw edges, borders around Who We Are by giving us a Who We Are Not. The gendering of our society is the wall we bounce the ball of our self definition upon; without it, we fail to be defined as man or woman. It is the gendering of society that provides the hierarchical tension necessary for these definitions. Without woman, there is no man, and without man, there can be no woman, the concepts foundationally require one another for their existence.

Living in a gendered society allows for the above noted definition, a definition set that we have grown comfortable with, that we expect to grow old and die with. We know ourselves in part by knowing what a man is, by knowing what a woman is, by placing ourselves within those categories, outside of those categories, by stretching the edges and feeling that tension. It is also this tension that forces a hierarchy to appear. Because difference exists, and because the terms are dichotomously related and necessarily mutually exclusive, an ordering between the terms must appear to satisfy this conflict. One gender must be established as the preferential, the norm, and the other must be subordinate. In our society, the male gender has become the norm, the preference. As a result, the female gender is subjugated to the male. This dichotomous hierarchy is clearly visible.

In the United States, eighteen amendments to the Bill of Rights were passed prior to the federal establishment of a woman’s right to vote, not ratified until 1920, marking the end to 144 years of systematic political disempowerment. Women earn 75.5 cents per dollar that men earn in the same profession according to the most recent US Census. According to some studies, one in five women will report themselves as the victim of a sexually violent crime in their lifetime, many more will not report their assault. Clearly, there is a power gap between men and women, and women are not in the lead.

That the differentiation between the sexes creates incredible tension, and that this tension creates disparity and power inequality is clear. What is not clear is to what extent the blurring of gender lines and boundaries will affect the power struggle. Although men and women will most certainly continue to define their sexuality through their understanding and relationship with the opposite sex, the traditional lines between male and female roles is being slowly blended. The so-called classical roles of men and women have changed dramatically with the mass introduction of women into the male workplace during world war II, and it changed again with the invention of the birth control pill, which helped to fuel the sexual revolution of the 1970’s. Living in a gendered society now means that men are not the sole providers and protectors of the household. Men no longer exclusively (although still predominantly) control access to critical resources such as wealth and education. Women are gaining ground in the battle for equality. How this will redefine men and women both personally and socially is unclear, what is clear is that it’s about goddamn time.

Question 9.2

2007-10-31T13:24:00.002-05:00

Question 9.1

2007-10-31T13:22:00.002-05:00

Question 9.0

2007-10-31T13:22:00.001-05:00

On Gender and Society. Relationship?

Question 8.5

2007-10-31T13:21:00.000-05:00

memory is our reality...regardless of it's reality.

Question 8.3

2007-10-31T13:20:00.006-05:00

Question 8.2

2007-10-31T13:20:00.005-05:00

Question 8.4

2007-10-31T13:20:00.004-05:00

Reality,

liquid, diffuse, infinitely malleable.

Pour reality, thick and oozing, into a vessel

and it takes shape,

it seems to solidify,

it adds weight.

The vessel becomes more complete,

full of meaning, of surety, of the real,

and yet that self same reality has been shaped

bound and defined by the very object it, in turn, defines.

I have spent so much time on this question. In my life, I have had one mother, two mother figures, three fathers, two sisters, five brothers. I now have no sisters, one brother, one father, a stepfather, a mother-figure, and a mother. All of them have tried to define my life differently. All of them have told me stories of who I was, what I did, where I have been. Some of them have lied, some have been lost, some of them won’t talk about the past at all. Who are we without a past? I have often felt, upon hearing or relating stories from my life that I was hearing or telling a story from a book; someone else’s story. What emotional connections are required to our past, to our history, to our memory? Without emotional connection, is some of the truth lost? How much of this emotional truth is necessary to the construction of a reality, a personal story? I have scars on my body and I don’t know where they are from. I have memories of events that I’m not sure ever happened.

Memory,

Fickle,

brutally enigmatic,

what stays, what goes,

what comes back, and where was it in the lost time?

A moment, a smell, a day, a face, a life,

lost with the slow decay of time or the suddenness of an instant,

How to be sure it happened,

what proofs do we need for our lives?

Does it matter if I lie? How can I ever be sure, when I tell you a story, when I relate an amusing anecdote, when I tearfully recall a personal torment, that I am not fabricating, expanding, embellishing? How much objective truth is required in my life? What shall I be required to know of myself to be fully human? If an event occurs, or it does not occur, shall I demand evidence to trust my memory? I don’t remember what I ate on June 4^th, 1993. Does that mean I ate nothing? Does it mean that what I ate was inconsequential? To whom? Who decides what I get to know or forget, what feels real and what feels distant? Can a dream be readily dismissed just because the reality of the physical world is in denial of our memory? Why are still afraid of the dark? As a young man, I was told stories of my past that I know are not true, that I always should have doubted, that never made sense for an instant, and yet I believed I remembered them, because I had heard the story so often, and because any past is preferable to none.

Question 8.1

2007-10-31T13:19:00.001-05:00

Quetion 8.0

2007-10-31T13:18:00.000-05:00

What is the relationship between memory and reality?

Question 7.3

2007-10-31T13:17:00.003-05:00

Question 7.4

2007-10-31T13:17:00.002-05:00

No man can do calculus if he has to piss badly enough

Indifferent and noisily voiceless.

Never a sacrifice given to

our dreams, our hopes, our thoughts and fears.

All of these crushed to dust

by the collapsing asphyxiated lung

of drawn out gasping indifference.

What time can be spared for a dream?

Each desperate intake-

air mixed with hope

and the powdered asthmatic assumptions of a minute to follow-

the outflow of carbon dioxide,

more than a necessity,

a bodily statement of truth,

a refusal to admit defeat,

an assumption of next,

an acknowledgement of the future.

With a breath,

gases are taken in,

mixed and exchanged,

oxygen removed, processed, used, exploited,

changed, toxified, and then rejected

a breath breathlessly discarded in favor of the next one and the next one

the vey act of breathing an act of violence in perpetuity,

a casual robbery,

cold and necessary indifference.

The body knows

we simply suspect,

we ponder and hope and pray.

We, the internal voice, stumble and fall

we thrust our fists at the sky and demand reason,

answers, purpose.

We sob with fury and furious purpose at the hope and hopelessness of a moment.

We try so hard to move from thinking to knowing,

And, in seemingly hateful defiance, our bodies ride casually out on bicycles they have long forgotten how to ride.

Question 7.2

2007-10-31T13:16:00.001-05:00

Jason’s six year old daughter, Penelope Ann, played on the swings. Although six, and an avid lover of outdoor play, she was not the tomboy one would suspect. She didn’t like snakes of frogs, but could be convinced to hold a hamster. She disliked the mud, fighting, tree forts, playing in the rain, and fishing. She did like soft things, pink, bows in her hair, taking bubble baths, perfume, and skirts. She was shouting to her daddy, “Push Higher!” as he stood behind her, shoving the swing into the air.

Jason was an average looking thirty five year old man. He was a little under six foot, with a normal build. It was after work and he was taking his child to the park to play. Most of the families had gone home at this point, and the park was nearly deserted. He pushed her for over a half an hour as she laughed and screamed.

He didn’t notice the stray until it was at the edge of the playground. He was taking her off the swing and heard the soft padding of the dog’s feet on the ground. It stood right outside the perimeter of the lights, walking around as if it wanted to stay in the dark. It was a German Shepard, or a Shepard mix. Its mouth was open and it eyed them cautiously.

Penelope didn’t like dogs. She had been bitten the year before and had developed a fear of them. She reacted with the fear and the dog realized it was in charge, it was the alpha. The dog strode into the light as Jason pushed Penelope toward the car. “Hey!” he shouted loudly, “Get out of here!”

The dog would have none of it and continued toward them. When it got near enough to them Penelope started crying and hid behind her father. Jason kept his daughter behind him as the animal turned. Then when it came too close and looked as if it were sniffing the air, Penelope filched and jumped back. The sudden movement made the dog snarl and this further frightened the child.

Jason picked up his child and shouted at the dog to no avail. While she was in the air the dog grabbed his leg and shook. He toppled and the animal shot towards his daughter. Jason was not an athletic man, but moved quicker than he ever had and snatched the canine by the scruff with his left hand as it lunged. It turned and bit his forearm. This was not a snap, or a little nibble, this was a full on bite. The dog did not release.

Jason stood and screamed, “Penny, get to the car and shut the door!” She paused weeping, “Daddy!” she cried. He only had to look at her once and then did as she was told. She would remember that look for years to come. Never again would she see it on his face. There was something so cold in his look, like part of him was missing.

Jason was not a brave man. He had never exhibited any quality like this up to this point. In the eighth grade he stood idly by while his friend was beaten up by two ninth graders. He backed down from three fights in his adult life. He never stood up to his boss.

His bravery was not thought out, it wasn’t planned, it was biological. Parts of his subconscious and some of his glands took over his actions. He was able to think, but his actions were not made by his conscious. His arm was in the dog’s mouth and with one shake his radius bone had snapped. It was at that moment the subconscious took over. He would remember this moment as a blur, almost as if he was reading something in the third person or watching it on TV.

Two strange things happened. Firstly, there was no pain. The adrenal glands worked furiously and all he felt was pressure. He knew that the dog had injured him severely, and that his arm was broken, but all he felt was the force of the teeth. Secondly, instead trying to retract the arm from the dog, a normal reaction in this situation, he grabbed the back of the dog’s collar and shoved his arm deeper into the teeth at the back of the mouth.

The dog was unsure how to react to this. At first it bit down harder, but then it’s grip on the arm released, and the back of its tongue tried to dislodge the arm, pushing up over and over. The dog began to buck like a wild horse. Its backside trying to pull away and it was lifting into the air. It jumped four times before Jason used that moment to knock the off balance dog over and onto its side.

Jason followed the dog to the ground. He held the collar tight and landed on his knees, his bulk on the dog’s ribcage. The dog tried frantically to get up but couldn’t, its head was pinned to the ground and three times it its weight lay on it’s now injured ribcage. Snarling turned to whines, and in that moment alpha became beta.

The grip on the collar was not released, instead the uninjured right hand twisted, cutting off oxygen and blood flow. The dog struggled, and squirmed. It tried in vein to get out from the weight and it spun its head several times to bite him. He held this position until long after the dog was still. Then he snapped out of it. His base biological functions no longer in control, he collapsed next to the dead animal, pulled out a phone and called for help.

For the rest of his life he could never answer why he did not let the animal go and he would never again tap into his primal nature.

Quetion 7.1

2007-10-31T13:15:00.003-05:00

Question 7.0

2007-10-31T13:15:00.001-05:00

What is the function/relationship of Biology (and life)?

Question 6.7

2007-10-31T13:13:00.002-05:00

According to Homer simpson, Love is two naked babies that are married.

Love has many roles in our lives, and so to define love, is to define ourselves. Many people would try to explicate what love SHOULD be, and not what it really is. For example, love is not wanting to spend every moment of one’s life together, and love is not having respect for one another. There are many cases where love does exist between two parties, where there is no mutual respect. This does not assume that there is no love, just there is a largely dysfunctional component within the relationship of two people that have love one for one another.

There is partner love, sibling love, parent love, friend love, and child love. There is a new kind of love for every relationship that we have in our lives. For every role that we play in another’s life, there is potential for a new kind of love. There can be no sliding scale of which kind of love is greater or more powerful. All of these forms of love are set up by the boundaries of the relationships we posses. Love, therefore, has a very human, and imperfect element that makes universal truth impossible.

Sexual love is culturally constructed to be the most powerful form of love that one can experience, but I wholeheartedly disagree. Sex and intimacy are two different facets of any given relationship. They do not always go hand in hand. Allowing yourself to be sexual with someone does not make you nearly as vulnerable as opening up your soul and being intimate with someone. Love doesn’t always have a physical connection. Those who are intimate have a far greater bond than those who simply fornicate. Opening your soul is much more difficult than opening your legs, and therefore, it’s consequences are much more powerful. Sex can be used to increase the bond in partner love, when souls are spirits are shared dually. BUT, love is not sex.

The love that a parent has for a child SHOULD, by far, outweigh the love for their partner, or siblings. I simply don’t know if this is true, as I am not yet a parent. However, I can attest to the fact that having an innocent, helpless child in your life invokes an extreme sense of responsibility, protectiveness, and altruism—among others. Is love, then, these strong feelings of empowerment that we experience through another’s presence in our lives? Love can cripple you, when it is given in the right context, by a less than perfect person. Therefore, love is not parenthood, and it is not empowerment.

One could argue that love is wanting more for someone, or the willingness to sacrifice one’s own happiness to help another. Is love altruism? One could argue this point forever, and again, there is no universal truth. What about the parent who loves their child, but beats her/him? It is possible that a parent could want a better life for her/his child, and be willing to suffer for it, but resent the suffering? Perhaps they are a doting parent by day, and a raging alcoholic by night. Alcoholism is their coping mechanism for stress, and feelings of inadequacy, and is no reflection of any love lost for their child. However, one could argue that a parent SHOULD love their child more than their addictions, and be willing to overcome them with the feeling of empowerment that exists when holding that innocent, helpless baby in their arms. One could argue, but one could not conclude. I am sure that parents who are weak in their souls love their children, but are not strong, smart, brave, etc. enough to confront their fears and become a better person for their child’s sake. This does not mean that they do not love their children, therefore, altruism is something that may be common in the publicly romanticized version of love, but it’s occurrence in reality is random. Love is not altruism. Love is human.

Love also does not exist in any identifiable form. People who love one another may not always verbalize their feelings. Love is not the profession of such. It is entirely subjective, and as such, may not be a mutually shared experience.

HENCE

Love is completely subjective, and open to interpretation, and it doesn’t always have to make us feel good. Love is part of the human condition, and is one of the ways we manipulate our environment, and connect with one another. Love is something or someone that brings us closer to ourselves, when we set out to explore love. Love is defined by the boundaries of the relationships it exists within.

Love is a subjective, human experience.

Question 6.6

2007-10-31T13:13:00.001-05:00

Love is...

*crawling out of bed at 5 a.m. to scrape the ice off of someone else's windshield...on your day off.

*a midnight trip to Walgreen's for Midol...and a candy bar.
*keeping your mouth shut when your only thoughts are ugly ones.

*waiting up all night for someones safe arrival.

*feeling someone else's pain as deeply as if it were your own.

*acceptance.

*sleeping in the wet spot.

*letting someone sleep in the crook of your arm long after you've lost all feeling.

*saying "I'm sorry" even when you were right.

*surprises for no reason.

*sticking it out thru the bad.

*homemade chicken soup and extra blankets.

*watching someone sleep.

*looking forward to growing old together.

Question 6.5

2007-10-31T13:12:00.001-05:00

Question 6.4

2007-10-31T13:11:00.002-05:00

She loves me Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,

well, maybe,

but does she Know me? The greatest thing about my relationship with my wife, the reason that I know that I love her is that I know that she knows me; she knows me in a deep and fundamental way that extends beyond merely remembering favorite ice cream flavors and sharing musical taste. She understands me in a way that transcends the moment, the thought, the emotion, she understands, who I am, and is no longer bogged down with what I am. This understanding is broader and deeper than simply knowing what angers, scares, frightens, excites, motivates. I know that I love her because I know that she gets ME, even if she doesn’t agree or even care about what I’m saying, reading, or doing. These things are fleeting, but the depth of communication between us has permanence, solidity, strength. And I, in turn, understand her in the same way. While we both maintain the capacity to surprise one another and to grow and change, there is a meeting of our core selves which has bonded irrevocably that remains unaffected by the events of the mundane world. This communication, the unspoken bond, this is love to me.

And so I thought that I had the answer, that love was a depth of communication between two people that ultimately passed deeper than the when, how, and where of everyday existence. I applied this notion to friends, family, even pets, and found that it worked. In each and every case, I can say that the bond of love that I feel stems from an understanding of who a person is rather than a preoccupation with the moment by moment analysis of their actions. I love my Dad not because he drinks Pepsi, but because he understands something about me, and I him, that makes the moment irrelevant to the bond. And so I thought I had something here, until my niece was born.

Let me preface this by saying first and foremost that I don’t particularly like children. I don’t dislike them, usually, but I certainly don’t seek them out or desire one of my own. That being said, I was curious to see how I would respond when my niece was born. Truthfully, I expected to have to fake it, which did not bother me. Not liking children, I have lied my way through enough family and friend gatherings full of rugrats to feel confident in my ability to adequately oooh and ahhh.

Once I held her, the depth and immediacy of my feelings for her startled me. I had not anticipated actually loving this child. Yet here I was, holding this baby, no different than any of the other babies I had held before, and instead of wondering how long was an appropriate time to hold someone’s newborn before it was polite to return it, I felt fiercely protective and totally smitten with the child. I knew then that I was in the grip of something larger and more powerful than I had imagined, my own biology.

Clearly, I was reacting with these feelings of love not out of some fanciful notion that this tiny child and I shared a deep emotional bond borne of some undercurrent of personal connectedness, but because my body was programmed to love this child, and so I did. I had no more choice to love this kid than I did to feel hungry or thirsty. Love, I discovered, is built right in, a drive as primitive and unstoppable as any I had ever encountered. I found myself very thankful.

According to Homer Simpson, eminent sage and dounut junkie, “What you need is a little cartoon called ‘Love is.” It’s about two naked eight year olds that are married.”

Question 6.3

2007-10-31T13:11:00.001-05:00

a bond

between beings

lover

child

parent

pet

friend

that invokes responsibility,

altruism

satisfaction

atonement

loyalty

protection

respect

support

and meets social needs.

companionship

(lust)

caregiving

nurturing

unconditional positive regard?

Creates a myriad of emotions, that become feelings when filtered through social and interpersonal lenses.

Creates desperation.

Creates more/less need.

Creates passion. (hate, love, jealousy, anger, resentment)

Creates relationships.

Creates fantasy.

Begets that which causes us to create and destroy.

Art, War, hate, violence, music, sex...

Helps us to learn and grow.

Solidifies social and cultural norms and behavios.

Is biologically necessary for the propulgation of the species.

We were once a herd. We once needed one another for survival and procreation.

Question 6.2

2007-10-31T13:10:00.000-05:00

He met her during a flight to Tokyo from Fuji. He was called in during
some emergency and saw here while they circled the city, right before
landing. Gamera had met her several years before, when she was just a
young awkward caterpillar, but now she had metamorphosized into a
beautiful and elegant moth. Mothra was called in as well to help save
the city from its latest threat, a giant three headed creature from
Mars named Gideon. Mothra and Gamera worked in tandem that night,
helping each other detain and eventually destroy the Martian creature,
all the while stealing glances at each other.
When the fight had ended the two awkwardly said goodbye. The
conversation was really each of the two professing how much they
admired the other. "You really have a knack with breathing fire," she
would say. "And that ray that shoots out of your antennae is
unstoppable," he would proclaim. Finally after a few minutes of
conversational stumbling, he got up enough nerve to ask her for her
number.
A year passed and the two were involved in what most would consider a
serious relationship. She had left Okinawa for the main island and he
had come down from Fuji to be with her. The past year held a lot of
memories. Gizora the two headed mutant squirrel was defeated, they
helped exile the giant land shark of southern Australia, Metzu the
half, devil ray, half orangutan was beaten back into the ocean, and
the coastline was saved from satellite laser attack by the evil Dr.
Nejin. In short, they shared some moments.
For the most part, the two seemed very happy. She was affectionate
and attentive, he was protective and chivalrous. The thoughts on the
philosophical concept of love didn't even enter into his head until a
night they sat alone after another successful protection of the Tokyo
city proper. He had always heard that, "love is a two way street."
However he thought about the analogy and it didn't seem to fit. He
understood it well enough, love needs to be reciprocal in order to
work, that part he understood. It was just the ability to trust
whether the love was truly being reciprocated or if it was just an
act. He could never be _sure_ that she loved him; he could only assume
it through her actions and words. Is that enough to base your life on,
he thought. Why is it that love seems so vulnerable, so secret, and so
unproven.
Regardless, he relished it. He felt love for her, and if she even
felt a fraction of what he did, things would work out. He reached his
flipper over and touched her shiny chitinous exoskeleton and she
leaned over and winked a segmented eye at him. They were sitting
quietly, watching the sun go down on the beach, some burning wreckage
was creating a beautiful sunset. A nearby overturned car played
Morcheba's "Blindfold." The cold sea breeze picked up. They sat in
silence, relishing the moment, love, for at least the moment, was in
the air.

Question 6.1

2007-10-31T13:09:00.002-05:00

Question 6.0

2007-10-31T13:01:00.000-05:00

What is Love?

"Baby don't hurt me,
don't hurt me...
no more."

Question 5.4

2007-10-31T13:00:00.000-05:00

I am not interested in belief.

I am. Perhaps, but perhaps there is no I, only the suggestion of it, the self referential me choosing to assert myself as I, the god of self-proclaimnent, the hubristic announcer of an inviolate belief in my self as a Self, as a whole and distinct person, a person with a seperate and unique personhood. It seems to me that I can offer no empirical evidence of the absolute individuality of me as myself, and yet I persist in using personal pronouns. I have spent some time as a youth chasing after myself, attempting to know me, and in that knowing, to eventually assert, finally, that I was. Of course, I failed, and in failing, I quit the endeavor as unsolvable and ultimately disastrous. As a result, I have an unsure notion of who I am. I rely on others to tell me, to contextualize my experiences in a way that makes them meaningful, relevant, valid. I am not entirely sure of who I am, but I am confident that I am; I have fallen victim to the cheapest verb set of all, I am a martyr to the idea of BE..

I am not. This idea seems unlikely, but I understand so little in this world that the metaphysical presupposition of my own existience seems especially spurious. I, or at least I as an idea, am a dragon in the garage. I offer myself up as evidence of myself; I demand recognition because it seems true; I am anecdotal evidence. This being said, there is a case to be made for my non-being. If I assume that I am, I have to assume that there is an I which is, above all else, separate from all other I’s. This seems impossible to prove, let alone entirely grasp. What defines me? How can I be decontextualized, removed, and still whole and complete? If there is no perfect I, no complete I, how can I be said to be? My arm is not an Arm, it is only an arm, a part of a larger body, a functionary fulfilling a role for a short time, then ceasing to be useful and evenutually rotting away, so lost and inconsequential as not to be mourned. There never was a funeral procession for a part, so why for me, or even Me? How can I know who I am outside of this context? And if I cannot determine who I am, how in the hell am I sure that I am? Perhaps, I am not.

I am not interested. Finally, something I can work with. To be interested requires only interest, compounded moment by moment and eventually paying dividends of knowlege, wisdom, or madness. Interest, it seems, is something I can own, something I can sink my teeth into. But what of being interested? Is this the same as having as interest? And if I am not interested, then am I not interesting? I tend to think that bored people are most likely boring, and that interested people are, most probably, interesting. We are the present tense of our past you know.

I am not interested in. Well now this hardly seems fair. Its not even a sentence after all, but I shall give it a try. To say that I am not interested in automatically asserts to the audience that there is an I, an I who has been interested, who is not now interested, but who recognizes the existence of something whose level of interest is, at the very least, worth addressing.

I am not interested in belief. Belief! Now we are cooking. To believe is the foundation of understanding, of conviction, of morality, of self. Without belief, we cannot move, we could not trust our feet to hold our bodies up, or our minds to propel us forward. Belief forms us as it is formed, from our very beginnings we learn that if A then B, and the resultant solution to that selfsame equation is the foundational structure that we begin to build ouselves on, wrapping our mental skins around the idea of more and more experiences and the subsequent results of those experiences. Belief is the powderkeg of our humanity, and to assume that I am uninterested in it is not only frankly impossible, but a reducionist betrayal of my own humanity.

As a child I have wept, and my dog whined, licking at my face as I sobbed. I know that he only liked the salty taste of my tears, but I believe that he loved me.

Question 5.3

2007-10-31T12:59:00.002-05:00

Question 5.2

2007-10-31T12:58:00.005-05:00

Question 5.1

2007-10-31T12:58:00.004-05:00

Question 5.0

2007-10-31T12:01:00.000-05:00

What about belief?

Question 4.6

2007-10-31T12:00:00.002-05:00

Art is…

The thought

The feeling

The emotion

The dream

The question

The desire

Which arise in Us on the reflective side of

the melding canvas colors

the twisting sculpture curves

the thirty seconds of the latest GAP commercial

the screaming and whispered poetry of the airwaves

the pulsing little image that floats across the ultrasound screen

the bathroom mirror smeared with childrens’ fingerprints

the chiseled face of a loved one’s headstone

We possess the vision

Provide the insight

Profess the iconicity

Participate in the iconaltry

Proportion the views

We are the intangibles,

wherein creation lies

Art is…

Merely Our by-product

Question 4.5

2007-10-31T12:00:00.001-05:00

vomitus…

Question 4.4

2007-10-31T11:59:00.000-05:00

A man stands poised, paintbrush in hand. His mind is racing, “What next?” he wonders silently. His passive contemplation is shattered by a lightning bolt of purest inspiration. Groaning in near ecstatsy, he convulsively paints, brush stroke after brush stroke of inspired movement, a frenzied orgasm of delirious knowing fills him and the room as the painting seems to come to life of its own glorious volition, each moment a fulfillment of the promise of things to come. The brush seems less like a tool than the very hand of god, frantically calling forth life from clay and canvas alike. In a paroxysm of purest joy, he stands a moment apart from his masterpiece, panting, splattered, and reeking of the bullshit of artistic pretension. This does not happen, this is not art.

A man walks into the hall of a silent museum. It is after hours, dark and quiet, the only sound that of the guards snoring down the hall. This, he realizes, is his canvas. This wall itself is the stretcher, the drywall and plaster his canvas. He has been commissioned by the museum to display an installation piece here. He has, in fact, been given the whole room. The walls themselves are context, the museum a frame so much the larger. How often, he thinks, is a man given a frame within a frame to begin with? And so large a frame indeed. Where does one begin to border the piece within the room? Can he add a third boundary? A fourth? It is the self referential nature of the place itself he cannot seem to escaape. Everything he does here is Art. If he were to shit on a plate and put it under the lights just so, it would be a marvel. It must be, for this is a museum of Art, a place where the divine go to die, and the rich come to flaunt their misunderstandings. What does one “install” per se, in such a hallowed place? This is not, he understands, a room designed solely for the appreciation of great art, but also for the celebration of the commodification of the same. There is a cover charge here, a required donation. Everyman a patron of the arts, everyman a Medici. It is, in fact, a perfectly democratic auction hall, everyone buys the experience for the same price, and everyone who walks these halls owns a piece of everything here. He wonders about that for a moment. He has sold pieces before. So, whose pieces were they now? Once they were sold, did he still have a claim on them? Whose were they? And if ownership of the piece can be so readily tranferred, what of meaning? What great shoulders does that behemoth sit upon? Who decides the meaning, the man who views it, the man who owns it, the man who creates it? It is all too much to define. Sighing happily, he picks up his hammer. He will a nail a banister to the wall tonight. It will be his greatest work.

Art is not the artist, nor is it an inspiration, a technique, a methodology. Art is neither the created nor the creation. Who can say what art is? If we can not decide what Art is, then maybe we can choose, at least, when Art is. Art is only when something is considered as such. It is the moment when someone, pay no mind to who or whom, thinks for a moment, “That is bad art,” or, “that is good art,” or “that is not art at all! “ It is the act of artistic consideration when art is born. It emerges into the world whole and complete, inviolate. It cannot be contradicted anymore than a minute can be said to have not passed. It is, by virtue of its acceptance or rejection, it becomes, and that becoming is complete, entire, and inescapable. We may buy it, sell it, burn it in a pyre, it may be shat upon or worshipped, but it is none the more and the none the less Art. The moment of its genesis creates it, and it continues as such for as long as that consideration is held, regardless of verdict. The innocent here are merely proven to BE, we shall leave questions of guilt to the gods.

Question 4.3

2007-10-31T11:58:00.001-05:00

Question 4.2

2007-10-31T11:57:00.000-05:00

Question 4.1

2007-10-31T11:49:00.002-05:00

Question 4.0

2007-10-31T11:49:00.001-05:00

What is Art?

Question 3.5

2007-10-31T11:48:00.001-05:00

Question 3.4

2007-10-31T11:47:00.001-05:00

Truth is a dead baby
and that is the truth.

I feel it as our not-quite-consensual silent agreement
to dance to the throbbing techno beat of our creation
and call our primal reaction
a choice
and that is the truth.

I feel dusty inside,
and that is the truth.

Truth is liquid,
borderless,
indefinable,
that sweet elusive,
of a moment caught,
but never held
and that is the truth.

I have spent so much time dreaming about dreaming,
a hope to yearn for the chance to want,
to desire wholly,
to know myself enough to know that I crave,
and that is the truth.

Truth is a lie,
a word, a phrase, a look, a life
all of it spent to prove something,
to insist upon the architecture of the world
that there is solidity here, substance, permanence.

I feel that I am,
and try as I might,
I cannot escape the tyranny of BE,
and yet, I would only be so surprised if I were to discover
that the foundations of our basest metaphysical assumption,
the take-it-for-granted simple bald faced fact that WE ARE
is no more real than the faces of my dreams.
So I must insist on this truth,
All foundations are poured,
rested and eventually cured on and by the foundations of more
assumptions,
assumptions we would die for with a smile of sweetest satisfaction on our corpse.

I have built my life out of toothpicks.......................................and that is the truth.

Question 3.3

2007-10-31T11:46:00.005-05:00

Question 3.2

2007-10-31T11:46:00.003-05:00

High Priest: Thank you both for coming. Let’s get down to business.

Acolyte 1: Sure Reverend.
Acolyte 2: Ok.
High Priest: Well, I’ve asked you here so I could run an idea I have past you both. You are two of our most devoted followers and I wanted to see what you would think about a change in the direction of our religious group.
Acolyte 1: A change?
Acolyte 2: In the cult?
High Priest: Were not actually a cult.
Acolyte 2: So I can leave when I want to?
High Priest: Well, not exactly, um let’s talk about that later. What I am proposing is a new direction for “The Way of Truth.”
Acolyte 1: What exactly are you proposing?
High Priest: Well we all know that our studies teach us that the way of truth is a…
Acolyte 1 and Acolyte 2 (in unison): is a difficult road to a destination that can never be reached.
High Priest: Exactly, but most new worshipers have a hard time digesting how hard the road really is and wind up leaving, most of them before the check clears.
Acolyte 1: Well they really wouldn’t be good followers anyway, what’s the fuss?
High Priest: Numbers and income are down, so I’ve decided to do something drastic. Instead of being truthful in all things, we instead will be deceitful.
Acolyte 1: huh?
Acolyte 2: I’m confused.
High Priest: Look at it this way. The truth is the opposite of lying. Therefore, if someone is telling lies all the time, and someone were to interpret what they were saying in opposite, then they are actually telling the truth, just in reverse.
Acolyte 1: Clever. I really like it.
Acolyte 2: I’m still confused.
High Priest: So instead of telling the truth all of the time, we now will be lying all the time and we will find the truth through the opposite of our actions and words!
Acolyte 1: Brilliant! The road should be much shorter this way. When do we start?
High Priest: Tomorrow. We’ll be instituting the new policy tomorrow.
Acolyte 1: How do I know that you haven’t started already?
High Priest: Because I’m telling you that we are going to put it in tomorrow’s newsletter.
Acolyte 1: Very clever! You’ve already started it. It won’t be in tomorrow’s news letter and we’ve already started.
High Priest: No…. Tomorrow, I’m still telling the truth.
Acolyte 1: Oh I understand Master. I’ll be starting tomorrow too. (Winks)
Acolyte 2: I’m confused. Are we going to change our name?
High Priest: No. We have to keep it the same. If we changed it, then we wouldn’t be telling ALL lies and that would be against the way of truth.
Acolyte 2: You mean the way of lies…
High Priest: We can’t call it that, we’d be telling the truth.
Acolyte 2: About us lying? I’m still confused.
Acolyte 1: Wait, if you’re lying then we really are going to change our name, which means that we’d be telling the truth. Now I’m confused.
High Priest: Just follow the way of truth and all things will be revealed to you my children…
Acolyte 2 to Acolyte 1: Is he still lying?

Question 3.1

2007-10-31T11:45:00.001-05:00

Question 3

2007-10-31T11:35:00.000-05:00

What is Truth?

Question 2.6

2007-10-31T11:34:00.001-05:00

Question 2.5

2007-10-31T11:32:00.001-05:00