Imhotep and Djoser - the first egyptian pyramid

If you ever want to understand this "truth" that you talk about then you're going to have to let it go. Becoming defensive and insecure, even irritated all relate to the idea that your idea is insecure, irritated, defensive, knowing that every waking second it could go away, and you can't let it go. Why must we hold on to things? What are we afraid to lose? Why do we always need justification for everything? Seems as if we just keep making it up as we go along.

Airport scenario:
"Hi, my name is Anthony and I'm real, can I get on that plane?"
"Not until I see a government sanctioned piece of material that assures me that you are who you are, better yet that you aren't going to try to scare anybody on that plane."

Birth certificates, death certificates, names, identification, you think we're not all insecure about everything we do? We have to write it down, the ones that think we are important, to keep a record for ourselves. Then we study the record to make sure that we all know what it is that we did and why we did it: doesn't that sound like a whole bunch of fear? History. We write history because we are afraid. Afraid that we won't be remembered, the things that we think were important. We write them down, like this email, hoping that through this new technological age it will last forever in cyberspace. I'm insecure so I write. I tell myself I'm happy, I tell myself I'm having fun. These are the lies I tell myself everyday in order to continue to exist the way I want to exist. Sounds like desire again has gotten the best of me.

Cause and effect, every cause is its same effect, everything is an effect, everything is a cause, which tells me that nothing is a cause, nothing is an effect. Take the bible; take any doctorate's thesis. All you have to do is make something up and you'll be able to find "reputable" documentation that proves or disproves your hypothesis. It's damn near full proof, this education thing, which brings me to my next unorganized non-point: stability.

Studying political science (or for us commoners who history will forget "the art of making simple things complex") taught me a thing or two about political science, which shouldn't be a redundant statement but it sounds like one. We pick a class we want to study, and we study it to learn it, it being given to us, and whether we do or whether we don't doesn't matter: it's all about the grade. Back to education in a fortnight.

Back in the day there were three main ways to vote. One was the vote of belonging, meaning that you did what your parents did because you wanted to belong to a group, a club, and you felt good being supported. Two was the vote of exchange, when you were bribed with change, power, money, etc. Four is vote of conditioning, the act in which the media tells you what to think about and how to think about it. All of these promote for a stable continuation of politics because change is very controlled, things run slow, people know what's going to happen. I left out number three on our list: thinking. Thinking involves taking a topic, any topic, and thinking about it. Not reading books, not seeing what popular culture or your political party says about it, but thinking. Letting ideas manifest themselves, figuring out what you value (what you are afraid of losing), and making a conscious decision. This, unfortunately, promotes for a very unstable voting platform, because we think differently at different times. One day we might be against abortion, the other we might be for it, and it depends on the day and what's going on. But if we never think about it then we never think. This makes sense to me, not that it is right or wrong, but if we had a lot of people thinking about everything all the time, wouldn't there be a lot more shit to deal with? In other words, what if we taught people to think, grades didn't matter, the subject didn't matter. Better yet, what if we let people think? Sounds grand, sounds like freedom, sounds like violence. Sounds like everything, which is what I think thinking is.

That our own thoughts are who we are seems another one of the famous farces. Pooping the other day I wondered to myself why I wasn't a more angry person. I don't feel angry, I feel alive. I think all good philosophers are hypocrites, because what's the point of taking an idea and running with it, preaching just another dogmatic way of thinking to try to control more people?

It's all one big joke, and even the idea of it all being one big joke is funny. So I laugh at truth, I laugh at life, and I have a good time, and I laugh at that. It's the best lie I got, but to me it's not a lie, or at least it doesn't have to be, it can be true when I want it to be true: back to desire, back to truth. Can we stop putting off our happiness for another day? That day will never come.

Watched religulous yesterday and laughed a lot. Maher's point is strong: religion will kill us all, it is the cancer of cancer, and we really need to say that we don't know anything about anything. He markets doubt, and I like it, not as much as I thought I would though. I think his point is stronger than the obvious: we don't like talking about religion. It scares us, we're afraid because there is a great chance that we're wrong. Faith, have faith, believe in something just because you're told to. Hey man, don't worry about this world, there's another one, and if you follow these rules you get to go! I smell bullshit, and it stinks. How come one's a myth and one is fact? Why did the catholic church rape and kidnap jesus?

He's their property, but he wasn't always. He doesn't have to be, but for some reason we listen to the church(s) to hear about him/her/them and what he/she/it did, what it meant, and why it is important. I think Maher has a great point: we're all a bunch of sissies when it comes to religion. We can't say we don't know, it's not right if we don't know. What's wrong with not knowing?

Emotions, perception, education. I wanted to mention more about education. The stranglehold schools have on it, capitalism. We need to work, we can't watch our kids, we send them to school to get an "education." They are molded, taught how to think, learn, and what to think about and learn about. Our system does not promote for thinking, wrong. Only sometimes, we have martyrs, philosophers, every once in a while we get somebody that is radical. Radical is a funny word, it means to the root, to the center, to the bottom of things in a more contemporary context. How in the hell does it have a bad connotation? To the root, to the fact, to the truth if we're still hanging on to it. It's funny the way propaganda really can influence the way we think. Conservative too comes up. Saving, holding on to things. We're staying somewhere throughout the chaos, maybe it isn't so bad after all.

A fundamental theory in psychology is that we externalize things that we think are bad and internalize things that we think are good. That's why I never make myself mad, other people do, and that's why only I can truly make myself happy. It's our perceptions, the way we view the world (or are taught to view it), that allow us to choose how to feel. We have control over it, the way we assess a situation, an idea, and our reaction to it. It's no one's fault but our own. Happy? your fault. Sad? your fault. Mad? your fault. Calm? your fault. The good ones we say ok, we can be at fault if we are happy, but the bad ones, for some reason in our brains, or somehow we are instructed by our parents and friends, aren't a part of us. Again, when I'm happy I'm happy, but when I'm anything else that I see as negative it's always someone else's fault. We don't like to be responsible for our own emotions, seems like we are afraid of those too. But why? Always looking for neutral statements, "hi, how are you, where are you from, what do you do, that's cool, I like that, it was nice talking to you, see you later." We call it "being nice, being formal, respect" we throw a lot of words at the behavior because we are afraid to let it go. "I think god is an imaginary friend for adults." "I don't understand why we have to wear clothes all the time." "Do you believe in truth?" I feel like sometimes we never ask these questions, questions that I personally feel are more important than "how are you," but then again I go assuming that there is a better way of doing things, trying to instruct, to control, by talking about being controlled. The irony of it all, we can't escape our own minds, we don't have to, we shouldn't want to. More rules. I just keep adding more and more rules by taking them away.

How things are "actual." This ideological view that there is truth out there and there is a way to find it. What is the meaning of life? We don't know, but we know that we have the capacity to know. So one says to not question everything, another says to question everything. One falls back on discipline, on education, on the farce that there is a better world out there and that we have to do what WE say to do in order to see it. Plato, interesting, everything stems from one idea, the ideal, and we have to break ourselves out of the cave in order to be able to see the truth. Nietzsche, as interesting, the only world is the perceived, there is no such thing as the ideal, truth is relative. I like them both, I don't feel the need to choose, to say they are different, to classify. I'm just doing what we all are doing, living.

What is life? Life is floating around a miniscule speck of dust in a vast open nothingness that we have no idea how to understand. So we make things, we hold on to them, we write things down, we think, we try to know something, and we have fun. Or we don't, does it matter?

Paradox: everything is meaningless. The statement has to have meaning in order for it to be true, which negates its very existence.

Paradox: the truth is that nothing is true; there is no truth. Again, the statement has got to be true for things to not be true, a never-ending circle (always back to those damn circles).

So what do we have to make of it: question, be unsure, enjoy ourselves. Know that we can be happy wherever we are, because we're really nowhere, floating around on a speck of dust. The universe, what an adventure. To think it’s the biggest thing out there, to think the atom is the smallest, only limit our ability to think we can understand. Time to get rid of freedom and truth, to become truly free.

-Anthony