Journal $$$$$exyGal's Journal: My secret personal thoughts... 55
Nothing silly and nothing sexy this week. I've been on vacation for the last week or so, and haven't been anywhere near a computer. It gave me a lot of time to think.
I'm going to post some of those private (but probably boring and definitely depressing) thoughts in here, because I want to talk about them, but I'd rather not complicate my real life by talking about them to people I know (that's a long sentence). That's enough introduction... here's my thoughts.
I'm too old for existential angst. I feel very very small. I remember the first time I realized how unimaginably short my life was. Manimal was on TV, and I was sitting at the kitchen table making Christmas decorations with my Mom. For some reason, I started thinking about the length of eternity, and it made me feel so small. It felt similar to the feeling you get when you go to the base of a 100-story building and look straight up at it. I felt dizzy gazing into the face of forever.
After 20 years, that dizzying feeling is back. I know what sparked its return. It's really really stupid. It's movies. Well, it's not just movies, but partly movies. If you take movies like The Matrix, Thirteenth Floor, A.I., etc. for more than just entertainment value, and you really really think about their underlying themes, you may start to question your existence. For most of you, this questioning will probably be a short exercise, because your brain has already traveled these pathways before, and it just lead to an un-pragmatic dead-end. But if the conditions are just right, you might start reconsidering those dead-ends.
Now, when I look at my cat, I see a 3-dimensional representation of my cat constructed with trillions of atoms. Sometimes I just see meowing meat. Other times I look at my cat and see the deaths of the millions of cats that have died in the past. Then I think about the billions of trillions of thinking breathing animals that have ever lived and then died. Most of those animals died alone.
I look at myself in the mirror and I make wild unpredictable facial expressions just to make sure I'm really in control of this body. Deeply into my eyes, I gaze into my soul, and there is no infinity. Nothing special is looking back. I carefully raise my awareness level a few extra notches and gaze further into my eyes. Nothing. The extra-awareness is difficult to sustain, and yields nothing new, so I fall back into my comfortable level of awareness.
Late at night, I shake. It's only happened a few times. At first I thought I was having a medical problem. Maybe blood sugar, an early onset of Parkinson's, or something else strange. After a medical checkup, I'm pretty sure it's not medical, I think it's in my brain. Late at night, I stare at a picture on my wall, and I start to see the huge strips of empty space in between the protons and electrons, and then I feel my legs quiver. Walking around afterwards, I try to forget, and then I sleep on the couch.
If I were a teenager, I suppose I would start wearing all black, dye my hair green, and date dangerous men. I'm too old for this shit.
equilibrium (Score:2, Informative)
Re:equilibrium (Score:1)
Re:Every living thing dies alone... (Score:1)
Re:Every living thing dies alone... (Score:2)
another good one is dark city.
Re:Every living thing dies alone... (Score:2)
Never too old (Score:2, Insightful)
-Francis
Re:Never too old (Score:1)
After those moments of self-awaren
It does help to get it off your chest. (Score:2)
With that out of the way, I believe what you're going through is perfectly natural. You have to try to realise that although you may feel small at times, You are still in full control of your worl
Re:It does help to get it off your chest. (Score:1)
I do realize I am in full control of many things in this world, and that does give me comfort. When I feel the most self-aware, however, that is also when I feel the least amount of control. It's as if a war is being waged in my psyche. It is then when I feel the most irrational, and I start to shake.
Re:It does help to get it off your chest. (Score:2)
What helps some people, specificly the intellectual type as you appear to be, is to try to battle it with logic. A good example of this would be the movie A Beautiful Mind. I wont spoil it for anyone who hasnt seen it, but if you have I'm refering to the observation he made about the little girl.
You
So what have you found in the void? (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is a pretty effective combo (like Thorazine- who said religion isn't the opiate of the masses?).
For me, I take comfort in the unknown. That undefinable X represents chance and challenge- I guess that makes me an incurable metaphysical and existential optimist. So fuckin' be it. But when I look at the univerese, and see these simple systems that don't have any "Grand scheme" behind them, and see us hurtling towards this end point of death, and see that things really do balance out on a cosmic scale- the evil of one balancing hte good of another, I come to the same conclusion that most do. Everything equals out in the end, making everything pointless.
But for some reason I see that not as a point of despair, but instead as a handle to "free my mind", so to speak. Since there is no reason, I reach out from my ID. Life is a rational extension of hedonistic thought. Don't get me wrong, I've "evolved" past the simple "Hungry! EAT! Horny! FUCK! ANgry! HIT!" connotations of the ID, but everything I do, I do to further my own goal, at that moment. And my goal is always the same- do what makes me feel good. Even if it involves pulling all nighters, bending my brain and body just to produce some piece of work for another, that act of "burning chrome" into the night is what gets me high. So thats' what I live for.
But that's just me.
Re:So what have you found in the void? (Score:1)
I've been fortunate to have the opportunity to be near a child lately. Watching the child slowly develop human characteristics is very joyous, and sparks something inside of me like nothing else can.
But, being near a child is just a drug. Religion is just a drug. Solving problems for profit is just a drug. All those things make me forget about my self-awareness, and it helps. But there inlies the problem. I am only happy when I forget that I am self-aware.
Re:So what have you found in the void? (Score:2)
Sounds like Zen Buddhism to me. (or FLOW [amazon.com]), And sounds pretty good to me, too!
But I'm not here to bring you over to the "dark side" of the force. I'm just trying to establish a common ground so we know what the other is talking about.
To be happy, I seek total self-awareness.
Self-awareness brings to light my inherent limitations.
My limitations bring dispair.
The dispair causes irrational thoughts.
The irrational thoughts ne
Re:So what have you found in the void? (Score:3, Interesting)
But here's my take on all of this. You're seeking total self-awareness. I'm not sure exactly what that's supposed to mean. But I have an idea: why not live your life, while keeping your mind active? Sure, mental masturbation is part of it (so is physical, but obviously you'
Re:So what have you found in the void? (Score:2)
(and I don't just mean hospitalization!)
I mean, you can be self-aware of your place in the universe and be at one with the vibrations of the universe, but you are not living- you are only being. Living is
Re: (Score:2)
Re:So what have you found in the void? (Score:1)
Self-awareness brings to light my inherent limitations
There has not been a moment in my life when I even considered the possibility that I might exist. Therefore, I have no known limitations.
There are puzzles, and patterns to solve them. You walk without thinking about it because you solved the problem long ago, and the pattern plays itself out, allowing you to absorb more patterns.
You can drive a car because you know the patterns. A doctor can perform surgery if he knows the patterns. We are like compu
Ever read Travels by Michael Crichton? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Ever read Travels by Michael Crichton? (Score:1)
Snap out of it (Score:3, Insightful)
As for your cat, yes it is a bunch of matter hold together by the forces of the universe you cannot control. Don't worry about it - the physical composition of your cat doesn't affect the intangibles benefits.
Cats have come and gone, people have come and gone. The bottom line is that you are alive right now in amazing, fragile, destructive, progressive, incoherent times and from what I know this is the only shot you get. Go out and do something interesting.
Re:Snap out of it (Score:1)
Re:Snap out of it (Score:1)
True 'dat (Score:1)
Check out funny man Bill Murray in the not-so-funny The Razor's Edge [imdb.com] for more on the fundamental difference between 'knowing' the path and 'walking' the path. Probably won't solve anything, but, really, what ever does?
Weed solves things
Shhhh. This is a Dr. Drew crowd here. They're not down with drugs. This is a nerdy, computer blog. The worst thing these people do is look at boobies online. Now just be cool OK?
You saw God on Acid
Yes, I saw lot
What are you looking for? (Score:1)
You say that you feel limited by this? That makes sense because the human body is very restrictive. However, I donâ(TM)t think we look at it correctly sometimes. I think we view the human body as restrictive because we havenâ(TM)t learned how to use it properly. With time, i think we will learn how to use our bodies to do amazing things. And donâ(TM)t forget, our body is the casing for our mind. And without it the mind cannot function (
I tend to have overly simple solutions to things.. (Score:3, Funny)
1) Read Ecclesiastes.
2) Go skydiving.
Re:I tend to have overly simple solutions to thing (Score:2, Interesting)
This is what I have seen to be good: it is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of the life God gives us; for this is our lot. ...
That pretty much sums up what my own mind and body has been telling me for the last 15-20 years. Lately though, my mind values freedom more th
humor and not (Score:2)
One day I got on the bus, and when I stepped in, I saw the most gorgeous blond Chinese girl. I sat beside her.
I said, 'Hi', And she said, 'Hi', and then I said, 'Nice day, isn't it?'. 'It is, I guess.' 'You guess?'
And she said, 'I saw my analyst today and he says I have a problem.'
So I asked, 'What's the problem?' She replied, 'I can't tell you. I don't even know you.'
I said, 'Well, sometimes it's good to t
Mind expansion (Score:3, Insightful)
1) go to work
2) collect paycheck
3) pay bills
4) goto 1
Their day is even less exciting.
1) wake up
2) go to work
3) work
4) eat lunch
5) go home
6) find passive entertainment (books, tv, video games, whatever)
7) eat dinner
8) go to bed.
9) goto 1.
Most people fall into their routine (somewhat resembling the above), and that is life. There's no thoughts of the beginning or the end or even what's outside of their simple loop.
I got a mass mail once.. Not exactly spam, as it wasn't selling anything. It basically said that they believed there are only so many real people in the world, and the rest are filler. This mail had a series of questions (mostly math and mind games), that would guide to you a URL. There was a flaw in the game, but I found the site anyways. I wrote to him after I found his site, but he never wrote back. I guess I wasn't a "real" person to him.
I don't believe there are a finite number of "real" people. We're all real. Most people are in their fog of reality, and some fall out of the fog. We become the geniuses and psychopaths. It's a fine line, mind you, that I've been riding for years.
I only know some of the answers. I've spent 29 years pondering lots of things (there's lots of time to think in 29 years). Take things you know to be real, and ideas that others share with you (books, movies/tv, conversation), and you can build a tremendous understanding of reality.
People ask me what my religious affiliation is quite frequently. For some reason once you start pondering things beyond your daily routine, most people assign "god" to it somewhere along the line. I don't know of a religion yet that could possibly have all the answers, or even some of them. I myself have some conflicting ideas.
Our minds are an electrochemical process. What is the soul? Who knows? We don't right now. What happens when we die? Does the electrochemical process fail, and life is gone, as simply as programs disappearing from memory when a computer is turned off? Do we have a soul that becomes another being when this body dies? If so, why don't we remember the last life? Do we just pass on to another plane of reality (Heaven, Hell, Purgatory Nirvana, Shangra-La, Utopia, Zion, etc?)
I don't try to claim I know the answers. So many people do claim they know the answer (ask any Christian, and they'll tell you of heaven). If the electrochemical processess doesn't just fail, and there is a "soul", I'll find out when it happens.
If there is reincarnation, I think I understand why we don't remember much of anything of our previous life.. I have one distinct memory from when I was a baby.. I remember laying in a crib, thinking about the feelings in my hands and feet, confirming to myself that all the parts were there, even though I couldn't focus my eyes on anything yet. If babies are nice new souls, how would I know about my hands and feet, or know what should be there? If there is reincarnation, I believe you wouldn't manage to remember much. Imagine taking yourself today, and climbing into an isolation tank (no light, no sound, body temperature fluid all around). Stay there for 9 months. Then spend the next two years learning how to control your body, and how to communicate.. After almost 3 years, do you think much would remain from the last life? But the idea does help the argument of past-life regression. The memories are all there, they're just fuzzy.
There are very interesting folklore stories about other planes of existance. Rip VanWinkle is a famous one. He went out in the woods, took a nap, and came back 100 years later. Obviously he didn't sleep in the woods for 100 years without the environment taking it's toll on him. The Welsh and Irish have what are known as
Re:Mind expansion (Score:2)
Yeah! I got that too! Or at least some version of it- there wa
Re:Mind expansion (Score:2)
Ya.. I searched the message too, and found references on dejanews.. They sent out several versions of it. I think it may have been some cult wanna-be trying to recruit..
I didn't have any ceiling fans, howev
This life is short (Score:1)
Once I gave up hope (Score:1)
at first glance (Score:1)
From the sound of it you go to bed and obsess over these thoughts, and can't sleep (Insomnia). And from the description of the thought patterns you are having, they seem to removing a sense of self wor
Read this link: (Score:2)
That entry reminds me of.... (Score:2)
I read your journal-entry and the whole tone of it reminded me of the sort of stuff that Edgar Allen Poe writes...misery, doom and gloom. You question yourself, you question the meaning of it all, you question reality, you feel you are slowly descending into madness...to no avail. In the end Chtu
Thoughts (Score:2)
Re:More suggestions (Score:1)
The answer in movies... (Score:2)
What movie will you find this in?
"So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."
And I think the meaning is clear. If you feel small, look to your own actions for significance. Have you ever made a positive influence on the life of another? Perhaps there is no more meaning than to give the gif
hmmm (Score:1)
Re:actually gal, you should stop doing this (Score:1)
The general rule is that getting off is more fun with a girl around. Really, try it.
Was just thinking similar thoughts last night... (Score:2)
Think about it, and it's more complex than the basic
read will let you get. People do not think like you. When you think of death, what do you think? I don't mean when you think of other people dying, when you think of your death. No more thinking? If so
Yo, $$$$exyGal (Score:2)
Get out (Score:2)
Yes the universe is a cold and scary place but it is also truely won
Nietsche (Score:2)
It may be a bit too cliche but it seems to fit.
Circles (Score:1)
These are my thoughts, take it for what you will ...
Eternity is like a circle: no begining, no end. Circles are everywhere. You are born, you live, you die, you feed the living. William Blake said, "Drive your cart and your plough over the bones of the dead." You see, we, the living, rely on the dead for our survival. If we were to just disappear when we die, all of existence would cease.
Those that have lived before you, they are in the food we eat, the houses we live in, the cars we drive ... Without the
Re:Circles (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)