Learn me

Can I just say that it drives me a little crazy? 

Not that none of my friends understand me, but that they don't understand that they don't understand me.  They are ignorant of their ignorance. 
I really do feel always like I am some sort of other species and I am living in another world.  Like I am an outsider.  I have learned the patterns of behavior of the humans, and I use that knowledge to engage with them and build relationships.  It does not feel very natural to me, because it is not.

I do not do things out of spite.
I do not ever want to make anyone feel stupid.
I do not ask questions to which I already know the answer.
I treat you as an individual.
I do not forget who I am talking to.
I do not think that you are doing something just because someone I once knew did something.

Stop treating me like every other person you know.
I think that I may be not like any other person you know.
I think that you will admit that, if you are asked.

Ramble On

I usually watch shitty tv. Or sometimes good tv, but mostly just sitcoms and other light nonsense of that ilk.  It is the only way that I have found to at least temporarily dull the sensation of her absence.  I don't know why I still have to endure it.  I would think that it should have passed by now, it has certainly been quite a while.  For whatever reason though, I can't move on.  I am stuck.  Stuck at 250, stuck on her, stuck on this couch.  I really do know and believe that she was wrong for me, and that she could never be right for me.  I get that.  I know and believe that she treated me like shit, even if she maybe also loved me.  It is how it is sometimes.  I used to wonder about my friends having trouble getting over their emotionally abusive boyfriends.  I would ask "What is it?  Why would you even think about talking to that guy, let alone want to be with him?"  Now I understand when they said, "I don't know."  I understand because I do not know.

Once a week, usually.  Sometimes when I am driving.  Too many songs remind me of her.  So sometimes when I am driving, I will scratch lazily at an itch on my cheek, and then I will understand what is happening.  I sing sometimes when I drive, too.  Before, I used to scream.  Loudly and unabashedly.  I think that I actually did some real damage to my throat doing this, but it helped me express something.  Probably anger, but I think frustration most likely.  I for a while was scared because I found myself converting all emotions to anger.  My old self thought that this was bad, and that all anger was to be avoided.  In real hindsight, anger was saving for me.  If I didn't learn how to change despair into anger, I would not have come out of it.  A few times, I thought about borrowing something from a friend to finish things off.  I figured out slowly how turn anger into movement.  How to use it as fuel.  I don't hold a grudge, and I don't do things out of spite.  I learned to use anger.

Closed Letter to Someone

Dear Matthew,

There are nights like these every now and then.  They seem to be more frequent lately, but I have not been able to pinpoint why exactly that is.  There are a number of variables, and not all of them are under my control.  That last part is sort of frightening, because it means that there may be nothing that I can do about it.  It is quite literally "out of control."

Despite what some of my acquaintances believe, I am not a control freak.  I believe that you should exert as much control as you can over everything of which you have control.  This is a human thing.  As I become older and begin to become what I think may be called "a man," I observe that people are in fact not inherently good.  The most simple example of this is a baby.  A baby is truly self-obsessed, crying and causing a big scene every time it wants (not needs) anything.  A baby does not care about your need for sleep, or that you may be speaking to someone.  It wants your attention, and it demands it right this instant.  This is how people really are.  People are concerned only with their own well-being, naturally.  It is society that conditions us to believe that there is such thing as a "greater good," and even that is a fallacy.  That belief exists because it benefits individual people to have their society believe as a whole that there is an inherent value in taking care of and caring for an individual other than one's own self.  In reality, this belief in a greater good serves only the very top and the very bottom of society.  The people who receive the benefit directly are at the bottom (welfare, charity, etc), and the people on top benefit because it draws the "needy" away from them and they are therefore not distracted from their own pursuits.  Don't think that just because some people have made a complete life out of "self less" service and that such that my theory is disproved.  It only proves true that not everyone measures a benefit in the same way.

Do not forget that we will always fail to express the truth of our own insignificance.  Here we hurtle through the universe at incomprehensible speeds, and under the weight of tremendous forces that we only barely understand.  We are but one planet of an uncountable total of planets.  We are the tiniest fraction of a unit of time in the lifespan of the physical world.  So to make ourselves feel better, we create GodHeads and other cosmic distractions.  This mostly serves to make us feel special.  Like we were put here, in this very place, for a reason.  Once again, this does not bear out to be true.  Perhaps 0.000000001% of all people who have ever lived will be remembered by more than 50 people 100 years after their death.  And I have a feeling that I am being extremely generous in my estimate.

On nights like this one, I think we can run around the planet and save the physical life of every god-forsaken wretch who is born while we're alive.  We can do this.  We literally have the means to ensure that no one dies, quote-unquote, prematurely.  What the fuck does that mean, anyways?  Why do people seem to think it is less valid to die from cancer or a car accident than from a heart attack while you're 90 years old and asleep?  Humans never were meant to live this long anyway.  We used to die out in our 30s, then 40s, then 50s.  After our 50s, it's almost a joke.  With modern science we have been able to prolong our bodies well in to our 70s before things really start going wrong.  Our muscles fail, our organs fail, our bones fail.  We are built to fail.  We were meant to live hard and fast, all the way up until the point at which someone else is living even harder and even faster and we were just in the way.  We're barely animals anymore.  I look at myself in the mirror and think, "God, what an embarrassment," and I'm not even all that bad!

On nights like this one, I feel compelled to sell something, buy some gas, and drive away.  Pick a direction and drive.  Doesn't matter where.  Never stop driving.  And once I'm out of gas, start walking.  Same direction, just keep walking.  And when I can't walk, die.  Just lay there and die.  Why not?  What's the argument?  So much to live for?  A brilliant mind?  An ability to excel at every single thing that I attempt?  So what?  What the fuck is the point?  I can use my mind to solve the problems of everyone I know, and what have I achieved?  I have robbed them of the opportunity to use their own mind.  I can use my body to build homes and shelter those who have no shelter, but what is gained?  I have momentarily distracted them from their past lifetime of shit and their assured future of shit?  Why?  Even if that is a good thing, what does it matter?  Do not tell me that it is all we can do to help people in our lives while we're here and hope that we made some kind of impact.  Not an acceptable answer to me.  Fuck 'em.

I may only have proof of my intelligence being "top 2%," but I tend to think of myself as being in the general top 2% of people.  Meaning that I am not going to deny that I have several gifts that most people do not.  I am able to will things into being that other people could not have imagined in the first place.  I am able to manipulate my world and put people where they should be, and myself as well.  These things are tools in a toolbox that I carry with me everywhere I go.  Why?  A plumber has a monkey wrench, but a fat lot of good it will do him when he has to fix a broken window.  The problem is not problems.  The problem is enlightenment.  The problem is that I am not.  It is not true that love will (fill in the blank).  Love perpetuates hate.  It is true that if there were no love in the world, there too would be no hate.  People usually hate because they cannot love.  For those of us who are doing neither, I suspect we mostly just feel anger.  People tend to confuse anger with hate, because they think that we are angry at something that we hate.  This is not correct.  We just are angry.  It is like in Japan, where I understand that you would not really say to someone "I love you," but rather you'd say something along the lines of "loving" and the object person would infer that it is them who is putting you in that state.  This is how love works.  Or at least, this is how I remember love working.  It is a terrible place to be when you do not love anyone.  When you are a single atom floating through an otherwise voided vacuum, it occurs to you that there will be no reactions occurring.  There will be no chance collisions, and you will continue to be a single atom floating in a vacuum, until you off-gas or whatever enough to finally disappear.

What is the future plan?  Become a lawyer?  Make a ton of money? Fight for more rights for people? Or less rights for people?  Fight to write laws that save the planet?  Fight to write laws that perpetuate humans?  What is the point?  What is the point?  What is the point?  If I crashed my truck and ended up in the hospital,  who would be there?  Who would I want to be there?  Of those that I'd want there, how many would come?  How many would come without me calling them?  How many would demand others came, too?  What is the point?  What is the point?  What is the point?  Future feels distant and undesirable. 

On nights like this one, I listen to Lucero:

It's nights like these that make me sleep all day  

It's nights like these that make you feel so far away 

It's nights like these when nothing is for sure  

It's nights like these I don't want you anymore  

And I've only got this one wish  

That I was good enough to make you forget  

The only boy who ever broke your heart  

Cause nights like these tear me apart  

It's nights like these the sad songs don't help  

It's nights like these your heart's with someone else  

It's nights like these I feel like giving up  

It's nights like these I don't seem to care for much  

The beer tastes like blood and my mouth is numb  

I can't make the words I need to say  

She had a weakness for writers  

And I was never that good at the words anyways

It's on nights like this one that I look for something to hold on to, and it seems like there is not anything there.  It's on nights like this one that I realize how much I have accomplished, and how there has been nothing that I have really ever failed to accomplish.  To fail, you must first try, and for everything that I have ever actually tried to do, I have also succeeded.  My documented "failures" are all things that I never really tried to do.  Wouldn't this normally be the sort of thing that propels a person forward?

On nights like this one, I feel that it's all a big joke that no one else gets.

On nights like this one, the future feels like the past.  The path has been walked, and the lessons are already learned.  And what of it?  A very well informed corpse with a good understanding of the machinations of other corpses?  At best, yes.

Love,

Nathan

Creation

I was never conceived.

I was never born.

I spontaneously carnated after a million infinities of desperate belief. 

It is the desire for life that propels us into consciousness. 

It is the desire for death that commands us forward to find meaning before it is too late to learn anything more.

Violence begets violence.

Progress

Progress has always been a funny little thing in my life.  Whenever I think that I'm totally prepared and pointed in the right direction, I end up falling on my face, coming nowhere even close to whatever goal I thought I wanted to progress towards.  I have started to think of these occurrences not as failures, but as corrections.  I thought for a very long time that I was destined to be a healer in a literal way.  A doctor.  A person who saved another person's life.  So I went to school for it.  I completed a degree in a field of health that legitimately interested me, and still does, in fact (holistic and progressive approaches to health).  I planned on working for a little while, then going to medical school of one type or another.

This obviously has not happened.  This is a good thing.  I've realized that I am just too far at odds with medicine to ever be satisfied practicing it.  I want to be proactive, not reactive.  Medicine is ultimately a reaction.  Everything that medicine has ever come up has been as a reaction to an existing problem.  Once that problem is "solved," nature is still unsatisfied, and comes up with a new problem, and medicine goes back to responding.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I employed a strategy that has worked for me in the past.  When I once wanted to be a firefighter, I anticipated that I would feel underutilized if I remained only a firefighter, so I started going up the line and increasing responsibilities.  I thought maybe I could be a paramedic, and then work on promoting up the chain and get onto the administrative level (Chief, Captain, etc).  Then I realized that I would still just be following policies put in place by people who were supposedly smarter than me.  So I kept going, and going, and going, and eventually decided that the only place where I could practice life saving medicine and not have to answer to anyone would be as a neurosurgeon (I know now that I was wrong, and that even there I would have to answer to administrators and whatnot).  Anyways, this is how I ended up in school for medicine.  Then I thought that naturopathy would be even FURTHER down the line, since most people really only turn to naturopaths after western medicine has already repeatedly failed them.  Whatever, I'm getting bored talking about this right now.  The point is that I spend a lot of time thinking of the possible results of every choice I make, and I proceed accordingly.  I almost always end up having to change my plan, or the plan doesn't work out at all even when I did everything right.  This is a good thing.

Without this phenomenon, I would never have stopped to ask myself, "What is more important than life saving medicine?"  The answer is, "An innumerable quantity of things."  I've already mentioned my modern belief that it may not be the most honorable quest to try to save the life of every person who is born, so I will not expand upon this any further than to bring attention to it now.  If medicine is not the answer, what is?  Stop looking at the situation from your own point of view.  What do third world peoples need?  Food, ultimately.  It does not help however to just deliver food supplies to these people.  Population dynamics will win.  If a peoples can not support themselves, then those peoples will ultimately be destined to die away.  The only possibility for a third world population to really be able to rise to second and first world status is for that population to pull itself up without help.  So how does a nation suddenly provide food for itself?  By obtaining and maintaining a steady supply of water. 

Hence my further education plan:  I intend to go to UA in Fall 2012 to begin studying Environmental Hydrology and Water Resources.  This is a Science college program, but I will be able to take (and hopefully pass) the Engineering test, if I so desire (I do).  I will be able to take skills from this program (actual skills!) and use them in the real world.  I will be able to choose where I work.  I will be able to work internationally and in crisis areas.  In fact, a few of the faculty helped set up water systems in Haiti following the earthquake there.  I would be able to stay in Arizona if I wanted to (up in the air right now), since water supply is a constant source of worry in the desert.  The point here is that I'd be able to go to a third world area and impart the tools and ability to sustain water supply, which could be used to maintain a food supply, which could be used to bolster an economy, which could be used to improve infrastructure, which could be used to expand the economy and build connections with other peoples and other nations, etc ad modernum.  Or, I could focus on engineering better and cheaper water related supplies, like ground water pumps or filters.  Either way, I would be impacting an entire population in one fell swoop, instead of working with one patient at a time.  It's all about maximizing your impact, right? 

Then there's body image.  I have recently sort of come more to terms with my body.  I don't have an unreal image of myself in either direction anymore.  I have a healthy and accurate image of myself, and I'm okay with it.  With this "revelation," or whatever you want to call it, I have found that I've also been better able to lose weight.  Weird.  I have been slowly but regularly losing since May.  I estimate that I topped out this year at 298 lbs sometime in January.  On February 14th, I was 295.  On March 1st, I was about 288.  Now I am 263.5.  This is a full loss of just under 35 pounds.  I'm still moving down.  I'm getting some of my strength back in a big way.  This is all good stuff.  I have lifting goals that are realistic and impressive.  I think that I can get there.  I'm not worried about these things. 


"Do you ever feel like you just landed
On this earth?
See the creatures all do their dances
Back and forth
You get restless and then you join them
On the floor
Suddenly it's tomorrow
It's not today anymore"

Hi-Speed Soul - Nada Surf


"When I accelerate
I remember why it's good to be alive
Like a twenty-five cent game
Maybe this weight was a gift
Like I had to see what I could lift
I spend all my energy
Walking upright"

Do It Again - Nada Surf


The lips of time, they kiss again
When I walk alone into the night
They know my voice, they know my name
My need for love, my fear of heights

So I keep my wit, my running game
My shoulders straight, chin up high
But it's all a lie
It's all a lie, it's all a lie

And I forget how the time, it flies
When my fingers crossed, I hope in vain
That you'll be home with sleepy eyes
To fix it all, cause you know my pain

And I forget how the time, it flies
When the day is long, and it keeps me dry
Cause it's all a lie
It's all a lie, it's all a lie

There's no perfect way to clear the mess
We both have a past in a silver frame
See my heart, it died a slow weary death
In the tainted arms of another man

You and I we're no different
Than the rest of the world when the morning rings
Everyone wants a piece of the love of God
Everyone sings, everyone sings

I know you can tell that I can't help myself
Can't help myself
Cause it's all a lie
It's all a lie, it's all a lie, it's all a lie, it's all a lie, it's all a lie

The lips of time, they kiss again
When I walk alone into the night
They know my voice, they know my name
My need for love, my fear of heights

But seen I'm not different than the rest of the world
When the morning rings
I just want a piece of the love of God"

It's All A Lie - Keren Ann

Get Real Already

What do you think is going to change?

You're going to look different?
You're going to act different?
You're going to be better at something?

You're going to worse at something else?

It's all bullshit.  You are who you are, and no one ever changes.  The only thing that changes is how the world perceives you.  In one moment, you're talentless, and in the next, visionary. 

You already know these people, and you know how they think.  You cannot change them.  There are other people, though.  People who may get it.  I hold on to some sliver of something that tells me that they are out there, and that they will form the army that I see in my mind.  They will understand the importance and the historic nature of you.  They will tell their children, and their grandchildren's children will find photographs and do research, and love you from afar.  They will feel kinship and wonder what it was like then.  They will wonder what you would think about their modern issues.  Things that you never could have conceived of having to have an opinion on.

They will wonder what things would have been like if the world only understood you.

Human As Destroyer

Has anyone ever noticed that humans seem to be hell bent on self destruction?  Yes, tons of people have pointed out that we are essentially a literal virus on the host body of the earth.  But really let it sink in.  Every other animal has instincts that guide it towards life.  Every single one.  Every plant.  Every animal.  Everything with life in it seeks more life.  Except humans.

Imagine a world with no humans.  Imagine the tremendous zen of this concept.  An entire planet covered in things all striving for more and more life.  Death exists, because without it, life could not.  But no animals killing each other for no purpose.  No animals killing themselves.  No animals killing thousands of other animals for the sake of money or prosperity.  No prosperity.  No money.  It would be nature, naturally.

But we are here.  We, the creators of guns and bombs and poisons and nuclear reactor meltdowns and medical testing and pollution.  We are here.  Correct me if I am wrong, but no other species has such a thing as suicide.  Imagine it, the very concept of a dolphin deciding that it has nothing left to live for.  A cactus wren resting on the desert floor, waiting for a bobcat.  It does not exist.  All animals are geared for life.  There are rare instances in which one animal inhabits the brain of another and forces that animal's body to commit itself to death (see: thousands of videos about parasitic worms that make ants stand out on branches waiting to get eaten).  It could be argued, I suppose, that this happens to people, too.  That our "parasitic worm" that takes over people's minds and makes them act against nature is something we call "mental illness."  Or, we could more realistically examine our lives.  We live on giant fields of concrete, formed of the crushed memories of mountains.  We sleep hundreds of feet in the sky, on top of fake ducks.  We eat things that do not grow.  We create food.  So arrogant as to think that there is not plenty available already, we make more.  And then we throw it all away.  We create wars, since suicide isn't fast enough.  We create great machines that collapse and kills hundreds or thousands at a time.  We have accidents, and whole countries get cancer.  We have cancer.  We are not some supreme destroying force.  We are a supremely self-destructive force.  We will not destroy the earth.  The rest of creation simply tolerates our presence.  One day, when our air is too thick to pass through our lungs and into our bloodstreams, when our water is too blackened to swallow, when our food is made only of plastic, we will simply cease to be.  And dolphins will still swim.  And cactus wrens will still fly.  And bobcats will still try to eat cactus wrens.  There will be fewer of them, but they will not be destroyed by us.  We are an accident.  We are not the proof of evolution, but rather the DISproof of it.  What other animal evolves to point of self-destruction?  None.  Or if it has, it surely does not matter all.

We Are Not Wolves, Though We Should Wish To Be

I realized, sometime during the past two months, that people really like to refer to humans as "pack-animals."  They like to say that we operate best as a community, and that we are genetically designed to seek communion with each other.  They say that isolative people die younger, and have greater rates of depression.  They often compare humans to wolves, which is weird because, as far as I know, wolves only exhibit the frequently referenced wolf-pack hierarchy (alpha, beta, omega) in captivity.  In other words, people love to say that wolves exist in highly structured packs that are run by the dominant or "alpha" male.  Second in line is the beta, who acts sort of like a servant to the alpha.  Last in line is the omega who apparently is just everybody's bitch.  In reality though, wolves only do that when they are packed together with wolves that they are unaccustomed to (like they would be in a zoo or a refuge or something).  In the wild, wolves travel as families.  Father, mother, kids.  Cousins?  I don't know, I'm not some wolf expert.  My point is that the "wolf pack" that everyone loves to reference so much is actually an artificial construct that is sort of a due directly to the meddling of man, or possibly to extraordinary natural circumstances (disasters, famine, etc). 

I've been thinking about this concept for a while though.  Before I learned that about the wolves.  It seems to me that the people who insist that humans are pack animals are generally members of the pack.  They aren't the Alphas.  They aren't the leaders.  They are people who are confident in their incompetence, and know that without a strong leader guiding them, they would not survive.  They may not be stupid, or weak.  But they are afraid.  And furthermore, it seems that the leaders generally look at the pack as a group of pitiful creatures.  People who can not care for themselves.  And so the leader is there.  To make the decisions, and to save people from their own backward instincts.  We are so firmly modernized that we say things like "Without air conditioning, he could die!"  Granted, people die all the time in Phoenix (where I currently am) from heat related issues, but think about how long we as a species survived in all sorts of environments without air conditioning.  Cars.  Sunscreen.  Rectal exams.  Flavored yogurt NOW! with Fiber!  It seems that we are this weird accident that inexplicably continues to propagate, and the rest of creation is just waiting for us to go away so that they can get on with it.

Preparedness

Preparedness is a concept that I have been thinking about a lot lately, especially with all of the recent uncontrollable natural disasters.  The most important question is simply, "Are you prepared?"  however the other side of that question is, "What is preparedness?"

I am attempting to separate out the various arenas of preparedness.  I am not talking about being prepared for slight changes in the weather, or being prepared for a job interview.  I am mostly talking about survivalism in the face of sudden catastrophic disaster.  Something along the lines of a nuclear war, I suppose.  In this instance, there are a few key areas that I think I should consider, and maybe try to improve on.

Mental Acuity
Strength
Endurance
Orienteering
General Usable Skills
Hunting/Trapping
Cooking
Water

So let's just start at the top, and try to describe each one.  Then, I will try to come up with a series of questions that should give you an idea of where you fall in the spectrum of preparedness, as observed by myself.  I am not talking about becoming the ultimate warrior, so most of the markers that I am creating are applicable to both men and women.

Mental Acuity
This is your ability to analyze a situation and come to a logical and rational conclusion.  You don't need to be trained in most areas of survivalism if you are just a generally sharp person who can use rules of science and logic to figure out a problem.  Additionally, this also encompasses your ability to keep a calm head during times of extreme distress.  If you lose it, and start acting like a fool, you will certainly die.
Can you use science and rational thinking to examine a situation?

 Strength
Quite frankly, strength will be extremely necessary if you find yourself suddenly thrust into the wilderness.  There may be situations in which you have to be able to pull yourself up off of a cliff.  Or maybe a boulder has rolled on to a companion, and you need to be able to move it.  Now, some lack of strength can be offset by intelligence (lever and pulley systems), but there may still be situations in which you have to act immediately and with great strength.
Can you do 15 chin ups?
Can you lift a two foot diameter boulder off of the ground?
Can you press at least 135 pounds over head? 


Endurance
This would be the other half of the athletic spectrum.  All the strength in the world will prove itself quickly useless if you suddenly need to run far and fast.  I think that this domain is obvious, as many natural predators may be willing to chase you for more than a mile.  Additionally, in the event of something like an erupting volcano, you may just need to flee.  I suppose it is true that if a predator that is wildly faster than you (think cheetah) is coming upon you, you're sort of screwed.  But if you're being chased by a group of roving cannibals or something, you may stand a chance if you can respond affirmatively to the following questions.
Can you run 6 miles without stopping?
Can you run 6 miles without water?
Can you climb a 30 foot rock face?
bonus: Can you run 100 meters in under 15 seconds?

Orienteering
Orienteering is really the ability to use a map and a compass to determine your location and a route to get where you want to go.  In the case of a sudden disaster though, I assume that you won't have a local map and a compass on you, so this is more about the ability to use geographic landmarks and astronomical figures to determine your bearing and present location.
Can you draw a rough topographical map of everything within sight?

General Usable Skills
This encompasses all areas of survivalism that you ought to know beforehand, instead of trying to figure out on the fly with your mental acuity.  Things such as how to use available materials to braid a rope, how to create an arrow head, and how to carve a spear using rocks.  In the event of complete societal collapse, this may expand to include simple things such as how to build a chair, or dig a latrine.
Can you braid a 15 foot rope using grass and plants?
Can you create a temporary shelter using found wood?

Hunting/Trapping
This one is pretty obvious.  If you find yourself living in wilderness, you'll need to be able to acquire food.  You can get by for a while by foraging berries and edible plants (although, if you don't know how to choose edible plants, you can get yourself in trouble quickly), but eventually you will need to hunt or trap some game.  Some of the other areas come in to play here as well, as you will probably need a spear or boomerang type thing in order to hunt.
Can you track game?
Can you accurately throw a boomerang device?
Can you create a trap for small game?


Cooking
If you manage to capture yourself an animal, do you know how to make it ready to eat?  Some of cooking will depend on the availability of water.  In the greater Phoenix-Tucson area, you can mostly assume that you won't have a great supply of water, so you'll have to cook everything on fire (instead of boiling).
Can you gut and dress an animal?
Can you build a fire using natural materials?

Water
Without water, you will die.  Relatively quickly, too.  There is a certain art to finding water in the desert, or maybe even in a place like a tropical island.  On an island that gets rain, but does not have any real lakes or rivers, you  will have to look first for plants that are designed to capture rain water in their leaves.  If you can't find that, then you better know how to convert salt water to fresh water without the benefit of fire (assuming you don't know how to make a fire, or don't have a vessel to boil water in).  There is a cool distilling method that involves one large tub with salt water, a small cup standing up in the middle of that water, and then a plastic sheet over the top of all of that with a small rock directly over the cup.  You end up creating a very humid type atmosphere inside, and fresh water will condense on the ceiling plastic.  Then, it will congregate and roll in towards the middle (due to the weight of the rock), and ultimately will drip in to the cup in the middle.  Additionally, if the island gets rain, you can use certain obvious capture methods (mental acuity comes into play again).  In the desert, finding water is significantly more difficult, and requires some basic common sense.  The only hint I'll give you is you find a wash.  After that, you're either going to be hiking forever, or digging forever.  Your choice.  There are also a certain few plants that can save you from immediate lack of water death, but I wouldn't count on them as a major source of water supply.
Can you find or make water?

More later...

Chasing Manhood

It's probably true that every man (and many women) wonders at some point what it is to be a man.  Masculinity.  Testosterone.  Other buzzwords.  Some men think that masculinity is modern rape and pillage.  Some women think so, too.  Some men think that masculinity is being able to be a woman, sometimes.  Some women hope this is not true.  There are those of us who see and acknowledge a quantum leap between biological human men and the things that we are now.  While once we performed outrageous feats of strength and athleticism merely as a daily necessity, we now throw up after running 10 kilometres.  Do you hear what I am saying now?

One of my favorite blogs recently pointed out one of my favorite truisms.  Scientists and the such rebuilt Viking longboats and tried to replicate their, um, adventures.  They used Olympic rowers, but found that it was impossible to conduct the same things that the Vikings are documented to have conducted for hundreds of years.  It was too hard for Olympic rowers (considered the best rowing athletes in the world, apparently) to power Viking long ships.  It was too difficult to navigate with their technology.  It was too cold.  Is this registering?  Some of our best living athletes could not even temporarily perform the task that peoples of old routinely performed.  ROUTINELY.  There is something missing.

Has anyone thought about work?  What does this have to do with the world?  What does this have to do with being men, and being women?  What did your money...save?  Prevent?  Create?  I don't think there are answers to these questions, of course.  This is something that most everyone thinks about.  It is related to the question of masculinity.  I think that, biologically, it is very much related.  People like to think of the differences between men and women as being the differences between "Hunters" and "Gatherers."  I don't think that it is this simple, of course.  Cavewomen, as I will refer to them, probably hunted a ton as well.  They were bigger than modern women.  Most muscular.  More like what modern people consider men to be?  Don't know.  The point is that they were well equipped.  They were strong.  They were vicious and biologically inclined, and they killed.  Is killing the key?  I hope not.  Or, at least, if it is, I hope that nature does not abhor a metaphor.  Men killed too, of course.  Until civilization, men killed for dominance.  Men killed for food.  Men killed for sex.  Dominance.  Food.  Sex.  Not necessarily in this order, I suppose, but definitely IN.  To be a man, it appears that you must care about domination.  You must care about food.  And you must care about sex.  Don't be an idiot.  Nothing I ever say is literal.  Unless, I say it is.

It appears that every important thing any man has ever done that was great enough to be remembered by the collective consciousness was done for food, domination, or sex.

What would you kill for?

I am looking for something to dominate.
I am looking for food.
I am looking for sex.

"There must be something we can eat
Maybe find another lover...
...Try to see it once my way
Everything zen...
...There's no sex in your violence"
-Bush

Duh, lil' 'piph'nies

Sometimes I have "duh" moments.  Moments when super obvious things finally occur to me in real time and in real words.  The latest is the concept of "worth."

A person's worth is directly related to the amount of time one is willing to spend with or on them (notice the use of the words 'worth' and 'spend' which are obviously linked).  This means that a person's worth can be consistently quantified in units of time.  In other words, what a man's worth is may be answered by "2 hours."  A person is worth time.  People who are especially valuable (for one reason or another), remain present in timespace far beyond their actual living time.  Think of any now-dead historical figure.  They will be worth the aggregate total amount of time ever spent with or on them.  I think that I would like to add the personal caveat that time defined by negative energy (time spent bad mouthing a person, or perhaps planning and executing their assassination, just to give examples) is akin to negative time.  So here is a concrete example in super basic time: 

A ruler of a land.

Total amount of positive time spent on this person DURING their lifetime: 50,000 hours (remember, this would include time spent willingly WITH the person, as well as ON the person, which may include buying gifts or doing favors, or whatever).

Total amount of positive time spent on this person during all time AFTER their lifetime:  100,000 hours (students doing proud history projects in school, people debating this ruler's creative ruling style, et al)

Total amount of negative time spent on this person DURING lifetime: 65,000 hours (this person may have been a despot and a tyrant, which a large group of people constantly wishing them death and a few actually planning his assassination).

Totaly amount of negative time spent on this person AFTER lifetime:  750,00 hours (his legacy was well known by history).

This would mean that total positive time equaled 150,00 hours, while total negative time was worth 815,000 hours.  This human being's net worth was -665,000 hours.  This was not a worthy person.  This person COST existence that much time.

The fun part about this line of thinking is that it begs the question: How much time are you willing to spend on YOURSELF?  How long can you stand to be alone, without feeling the need to obtain company?  Your answer will apparently be directly related to your concept of self-worth.  Your self worth should always be a positive amount.  If you spend your time hating on your looks and your abilities, you are depreciating your own value.  You are devaluing your most abundant resource.  Stop it.  Start investing in your self, and your self worth will increase in value.  USUALLY, this translates into other's worths of you, as well, which will help give positive time back to creation, in turn helping to make up for the massive empty hole left by the aforementioned cruel leader. Anyways, this is sort of rambling, but I do believe that I've made my point.  Let's start reinvesting positive time into the universe in order to increase our worth and expand timespace.  Or, at the very least, let's start being  honest about how we rate the worthiness of our friends and family.  How much is that person ACTUALLY worth to you in measurable units?

Gyroscope!!!

Gyroscope!!!  Watch it.

Chasm of Color

The worst thing of us all is that we refuse to believe that we are only biology.  Granted, our current definition and concept of biology may be limited, but that does not mean that it isn't still what runs this place.  Hira Ratan Manek is alleged to be able to sustain himself completely by the rays of the sun.  No food.  Just water and the sun (and an occasional cup of tea, from what I understand).  Now, let's assume that this is real truth.  The fact that a task was accomplished which cannot be explained by current science is not a failing of that task, but of the science that seeks to define it.  It does not mean that the task can not be, but that science must apparently be expanded in order to accommodate the very observed notion that the task in fact, IS.

I wonder at times if Satan knows he is the devil?

We are all compelled by varying but ultimately equal forces (the net measure of influential forces involved is "decision" which occurs only in units of one since you cannot make two decisions about one single choice).
  
 So what I wonder is if people always assume that their decision is the right one at any given moment.  The word "right" may be argued, but that is inconsequential.  People may say, "Well, it seemed like the right thing to do at the time."  This statement can never be false.  Even if a person describes a decision process as feeling wrong even as they were going through it, the fact that they ultimately made one choice only means they decided in one direction only, and it is antithetical to human nature to choose damage (this is why suicide is so abhorrent to society, which should probably abhor the person who is so non-functioning in their societal demand that they feel it is a good idea to end things).  Actually, let me add to that parenthetical note I just made.  Most people who try to suicide themselves but end up surviving say that even while they were falling into the abyss, they were thinking "this is the wrong decision."  For more on this subject, look up the studies about people who survived suicide attempts from the Golden Gate Bridge.  Only a tiny percentage of them ever return to try to finish the job. I guess that isn't a true statement though.  The act of jumping was the right decision.  In retrospect, it may not have been the most beneficial decision, but it had to have been the right decision, or else it would not have been made by that person.  In any case, this is all just meandering around a general idea.  Not really important to anyone other than myself.

I don't much regret choices.  I don't much think that I've made a few bad turns.  The problem is when you extrapolate a current path based on your previous navigational decisions and try to orient yourself to the anticipated route.  This is when you realize that you are a slave to your biology.  You are universally compelled into making a million tiny decisions at every moment.

Let's take a person with a wheat gluten allergy as an example.  They have the allergy, but it isn't severe enough to kill them.  They maybe just break out a little bit, or have an upset stomach.  Every now and then, this person will decide that these discomforts are worth the treat.  The problem is, you aren't just deciding to have a rough night in the bathroom and a sudden need for more makeup.  You're also dealing with the discomforts of the depressed self esteem resulting from the complexion issues.  The ultimate damage to your internal organs from the flood of long absent insulin and other biochemicals that will be released.  The decreased motivation and drive to do important things that results from the low self esteem and inner malaise.  Hell, you're even dealing with the possibility that you'll find yourself stuck in the bathroom at an inopportune time.  Maybe this is the night that the new girlfriend feels comfortable enough to want to spend the night.  Maybe this is the night that you are the victim of a home invasion.  Who knows?  How ready can you really be for these things?  Not much, as far as I see it.

People assume that they are meant to live forever.  This is why we fight so adamantly against things like cancer and whatnot.  The funny irony here is that most of these cancers are caused so very easily by us, but cannot as easily be fixed.  Combine our generally damaging diet with the definitely toxic environment we live in daily (air, water, stress), and you don't have much of an argument for genetics.  Not that it matters, since there is no way to say whether you picked up your cancer somewhere along the family tree, or from the pesticides that lace the orange grove that you visit every year.  The point is, not every person who was ever born needs to never die.  Death is the ultimate proof of biological finality.  At some point, the puzzle falls apart and the pieces just won't fit together anymore.  What happens when we "beat" cancer?  Then there is no longer this tremendous limiting factor supplied to our population.  When the earth failed to keep our numbers in check, we decided to proliferate cancer.  Maybe we didn't do it consciously, but don't forget that we are all just stardust.  We are compelled by biology.  We are compelled by forces that appear to favor biological necessity or convenience.  Maybe we don't need to eat, but that it's just an easier way to keep moving than it is to stare at the sun for hours on end every day.  After we "cure" cancer, then we'll move on to the next thing, and the next thing after that until finally we've got so many people living for so long at a time that we can't make enough food, and the skies are so full of our byproducts that we can't see the sun either.  At this point, Cosmos pushes restart and we all starve to death.

In different places, I have different names, but that does not change who I am.  It also does not change the fact that I am an unending drill pointed at the heart of the Earth.  Someday you will all bask in the glow of warm molten rocks while I become one with them and create a light that engulfs all suns and consumes all black holes.

One More Time, With Feeling

Today was different.  In a physical way, it was different because I began using NOX as well as Creatine.  It was different in a preparedness way, because I brought a gym bag and used a locker.  I don't think that I can really overstate the gym bag.  In my mind, it is extremely important.  I think that the thing that has been stopping me from being successful in this aspect of my life is a lack of ritual.  I used to have this mental calendar, and the gym was not even officially represented on it.  A doctor's appointment would be a red bar.  A work shift would be a long blue bar.  A social outing would be a green bar.  All of these would have white words superimposed on them, explaining what they represented.  However, the gym was different.  It was just a black space.  No words.  Just a blackness.  Sort of like sleep.  In other words, it was an unavoidable certainty in my life on that day for a particular span of time.  It was not a rescheduable (neologism acknowledged) event.  Part of this inevitability was due to a ritualistic process immediately before and after the actual gym-going.  I would wake up, and immediately begin to make my breakfast - 1 cup oatmeal with two scoops of protein - and drink an enormous cup of water.  I would already have a gym bag ready to go with my wrist straps, weight belt, and towel.  My wallet, keys, and phone would get added to that bag.  I'd already be dressed by this time, and be on my way.  This whole process took nearly an hour, but it was an important part of my morning, I think, because it gave me time to prepare mentally for the upcoming workout.  The gym bag would also carry my water bottle for when I used one of those, and my post-workout shaker bottle thing.  Sometimes, I'd bring some pills or whatever I was taking immediately post-workout.  When I used a journal, it went in the bag, too.  This point has to be made by now.

So tonight, when I pulled out the bag, I felt something shift.  The water in the moon's surface melted a little bit and the surface slid slightly to the left.  The tides of the earth's oceans then ebbed and flowed in response, and retook the lands which used to be their floors.  Something in my mind clicked, and I felt stupid.  I felt stupid for not recognizing earlier something so obvious.  You cannot expect to be a serious gym-goer if you do not take going to the gym seriously.  You cannot just throw your keys and wallet and such in your pockets and head over whenever you feel up to it.  It must become a black bar of hellish seriousness.  You cannot take this too seriously, frankly.  You cannot be afraid to sound like a loser or a nerd because you make this a priority. 

Tonight, I have visions of a piano player.  An older man with tearful expression hewn into his medium-level talent which he displays regularly for friends and others in bars and the such.  A man for whom the world has become a sad display of a regrettable truth.  Now, amputate this man's hands.  Remove his only means of expression and connection.  Re-isolate him in a very real way.  Give him two years to realize that the human being is only so adaptable, and that once one loses one's ability to connect with other humans, that ability is truly gone.  It does not shift from music to suddenly being dance.  We all have only one way to say anything important, and it certainly can go away.  After two years, give him his hands back, and watch as he sits back down at the piano to express himself.  The past two years will come out in a soft approach.  Nothing as impressive as he played before, but a certain reminiscence will be undeniable.  A familiar sound will waft through his most used chords and melodies.  His blood will pump again, and his clothing will become cosmic dust.  

First picture of the new tattoo

Only took about 2.5 hours...Most ridiculous pain that ever has befallen a man.
By the way, it's a full skank flank (rib panel).  Armpit to beltline,

almost to my nipple forward, and about as far backward.

Just To Be Clear

In case I have not already explained this very important aspect of my worldview, let me do this now.  I have most likely already said this, or some variation of this, but I feel that I can not be misunderstood about this.  This would be the guiding principle of my life, as far as usefulness and worth is concerned.  I look at the things around me and I deconstruct them into their various components and constituent pieces.  The table becomes a collection of wood, nails, glue, and paint.  The rangers' shed in Lockett Meadow is coincidentally this same collection of materials, just in larger quantity.  So too would be the walls of the house that I see myself building.  In other words, the table is the shed is the house.  If I can build that table, then I can build the house.  The main philosophy here is that there is nothing that I see that I don't immediately think to myself, "I could make that, and I could do it better."  There is nothing that I see that I do not believe I could do better of.  Not just in the building of physical things, but the learning of material, the understanding of wisdom, and the general living of life.  I'm not the greatest human being to ever live, but I could be.  I live in a world literally void of obstacles.  I am saying this very specifically about myself.  This is not a philosophy that can be applied to all of humanity, and I don't pretend that it ever will be.  This is something that I'm saying about myself.  The only thing that prevents me from being that best welder that ever welded is that I have yet to buy a welding torch or learn how to weld.  The only thing that stops me from designing the most efficient airplane that ever floated around our planet is that I haven't tried to do that yet.  Keep this in mind when I conquer and ultimately destroy the earth.

A Little Bit of Lemonade In Your Eye

I found recently that I was avoiding writing about Lemon.  I'm avoiding it because it feels like a trap.  It feels like I will think about it and realize that I'm choosing to make my entire life into some massive sisyphean task.  I'm pushing this boulder up a hill, proving with every push that I'm worth her and definitely better than any other guy that she knows.  However, once I get up to the top of this hill, I get drunk and ask her out in the least attractive way possible.  What I'm saying is that I'm not sure yet whether I'm cool to just be her friend for the rest of my life.  I have a feeling also that she tends to date guys who end up really fucking her over.  I mean, that's based on nothing other than intuition, but if it's true, that means that I'd have to stand by and watch while that happens.  That is hard.  It's like watching Erin date totally obviously crappy guys.  Gets old.  Especially when i'm better.  It makes me have to question myself, actually.  I don't like having to question myself anymore.  I thought that I was past that?  I thought that I knew who I was, and what that was worth. 

Why is friendship more valuable to some people than love?  Why do so many girl-types prefer my company in that platonic way only?  I suspect that I know the answer, but it makes me sad, so I prefer not to.

"And I saw Sisyphus at his endless task raising his prodigious stone with both his hands. With hands and feet he tried to roll it up to the top of the hill, but always, just before he could roll it over on to the other side, its weight would be too much for him, and the pitiless stone would come thundering down again on to the plain." - Homer

Do You Want To Come In?

Check me out. Erin said that she didn't really like me writing about her in here instead of just saying things to her face, but here I am, writing away.

Erin wasn't really responding to my texts. She wasn't exactly answering my phone calls. She most certainly was not calling me back. After about a week of this, I was convinced that there must be something up. Turns out I was right. She happened to also be sick that week, but that major player here was this very blog. She stumbled upon this thing most likely by following comments on Adam's Italy blog (not a big deal as I did originally gave her the address, but she told me she couldn't deal with the rules, and would therefore not read it). She most likely did what most people would do, and searched her name to see if I'd written about her, which of course I have. She found the old entry about herself, and focused in on a very specific portion of it.

I wrote about Paul, very briefly. Keep in mind that this was about a year and a half after he'd gone. My observation sounded cold,

"She has experienced shit, and her life is so empty, that it almost makes me angry. Paul died, and killed a large portion of her. The bags under her eyes are my monument to him, and they will seemingly never let me forget him or his impact on her. If I were to want her to love me, I am not sure that I'd ever be convinced that I had 100% of her. She belongs to him still, and I do not know how to help her let go; I'm not sure if she's ready to yet.
It was always understood (by her and I) that she and Paul would end up together after he cleaned up."

Now, to me, this doesn't sound as bad as I suppose it might to someone else. What I meant at the time was that Paul had become such a big part of her life, and with him gone, she didn't know how to refill that void yet. There is an interesting phenomenon to mention now. In some clinical studies, scientists looked at hibernating animals in order to understand the relationship between calories, fat, metabolism, exercise, and obesity. Basically, a hibernating animal is a very obese form of its normal self. The animal puts on a tremendous amount of weight in anticipation of a cold hard season that would yield an insubstantial amount of food to continue daily living. The weight is in the form of fat (brown fat, I believe), and it serves as an energy source for the animal, who then enters a state of something sleep-like wherein they can dramatically reduce their energy requirements. This reduction is generally attributed to the drastic lowering of core body temperature and the slowing down of all bodily functions. Blah blah blah, we all know how hibernation works, I guess. Anyways, scientists would take an animal who was in the midst of hibernation and then surgically remove a portion of their fat. Now, I'm not sure what I would have expected to happen, but what happened was certainly unexpected. The animal regenerated the lost fat to compensate. Considering that no additional food was going IN to the animal, it's baffling to try to figure out how they managed to regenerate fat to replace that which was removed. The point of this, though, is that when an important part of them was removed without their permission, they were able to replace it with something just as valuable that ultimately may save their life.

Erin is a hibernating ground squirrel, and Paul was forcibly removed by a curious surgeon. Her self has since regrown and recouped, in a way that ultimately saved her life. While once she was cold inside and her heart was beating very slowly, she is now gallivanting about the meadow with a thousand acorn-producing trees in each direction. The piece of her that was taken has not prevented this from happening.

To continue, Erin must have read the various parts of that post in which I extol her virtues and proclaim undying secret love for her. I wonder why I don't feel more embarrassed about this? I mean, she must have put the pieces together to understand that nothing has really changed, right? I think so, at least.

On Friday night, I had my bike and a jones for some trouble. I laced up and hopped on the light rail in to Phoenix. I rode in to downtown, where I got off and rode over to her (parents') house. I texted her, "Can you come outside for a minute?" and waited about for about ten. No answer, so I called her. She woke up and came outside to talk. We talked lightly for a minute or two to lighten up the mood or something? We hadn't spoken for like two weeks now, right? Then I just launched in to it and asked her what was going on. Laundry list. I hurt her with the stuff that I'd said. She didn't understand why I didn't just say it to her. She always comes to me with her problems, and maybe she should start to distance because she won't always be able to do that. A few others. Nothing that really surprised me, I guess. I apologized, because I think this was largely misunderstanding. She can't tell if I'm writing facetiously sometimes or not. Fair enough. I almost spilled guts when I started to tell her about how she had confused with me a few things, but it just didn't feel right yet.

Eventually, it became time to leave. I made motions to this effect, and she said that she would walk me to the light rail stop, which was right near her (parents') house. She was barefoot, but insisted that it wasn't a problem. We walked and talked and it was cute. Got to the light rail, bought a ticket, sat down. We continued to talk. Light rail arrives, but there appears to be approximately three crap loads of people on it, and no more bike hooks open, so I say that I'll just ride to the next stop and catch a less busy one. We start walking back to her house then, since I'm not going to get straight on a train. I don't remember when or how, but she offers to drive me home. I sort of felt like riding actually, but the night seemed unfinished, so I said okay. Drive home is light, but fun still. At the apartment too soon.

An interesting exchange occurred at the apartment. She had stopped the truck, but it was still running. We had a moderately awkward, "okay, well, I guess, goodbye then?" sort of moment happening, so I said, "Do you want to come in?" I was almost joking, but not really. Then, in a tremendous mindfuck, she thinks about it for a seconnnnnnnnnnnndddddddddddddddddd that lasted what God considers to be eternity. She eventually declined, due to lack of privacy, sort of? I mean, I don't think she was even considering the extrapolated extreme ending that is implied by my question, but it's fun to live in fantasies, isn't it? It feels like being a goldfish. You live in a fish tank with a castle and a rock and a seaweed thing. When finally someone introduces another goldfish to your tank, it is the beginning of an epoch. A new era of existence that surpasses your three month memory. Something better than a new castle, or a piece of coral, or a diver guy with a treasure chest that floats bubbles to the top of your tiny world. You can't ignore it when God puts a new colored rock there, but after three months, you forget why the rock was interesting in the first place. You always have someone to swim in circles with, though.

As for love:
"If you have it, you don't need to have anything else, and if you don't have it, it doesn't matter much what else you have."
-Sir James M. Barrie

Don't Forget

"The mere athlete becomes too much of a savage, the musician is melted and softened beyond what is good for him. The two should therefore be blended in the right proportion." -Plato

If You Love Me,

Make this happen