What's going on?

I think I need to address my desires, goals, and efforts, even if for no other reason than to place it somewhere to reference my own progress.  I know I'm a very late bloomer.  My mind and ambition seem to work at the speed of tectonic or glacial movement.  Slow, inevitable, but unrelated to the immediate scale of time around it.  The time I've been spending toward this end has given some valuable illumination.  There is hope.  It's been a while since I've really considered some hope as possible.

What would be my dream job or ultimate goal?  I would love to make a living off of my creative endeavors.  This has always fallen around some facet of writing.  The writing I do all the time and have considerable drive to perform has been poetry and exposition, along with opinions.  I have discovered it is for some reason difficult to write fiction.  I think focus and fear of becoming obsessed make me avoid pouring too strongly into that.  I still would like to, but the reality seems to be that other steps may need to happen first to enable more.

I've been searching and evaluating freelance opportunities for writing: articles, blogs, whatever.  I am finally getting onboard to do "real" searching.  I think journalism is the way to go, for me.  The style and content are slanted toward my usual writing type.  I am pushing to put writing in those certain gaps where other distractions have taken control.  It is honestly slow-going but I have begun to see gradual benefit and progress there.  Things have just gotten drastically boring.  I find very few books or movies or anything can hold my attention or interest.  I want to make stuff now.  The first part of it is to improve the skills and find out what to do with it.

I have given myself a project: A Poem Per Day.  I am going to write a singular poem each day, entirely original, and perhaps never to find itself anywhere outside this project.  This serves many purposes: practice, keeping original, setting a pace and schedule, etc.

I also want to find some time each day to look up opportunities, and maybe catch a paying job which will hopefully line up with all this emerging direction.  I've also been going over old writings and starting to form another poetry publication, perhaps start taking my work at into the masses.  I'm just chipping away at the three columns of: Dream, Plan, and Reality.

I thank any and all for their help and encouragement.

Predictably Unpredictable Predictions

Prediction is one of humanity's strengths and worst dangers.  It can bring us to great heights, as well as great falls.  It can mean hope or despair.  It can have promise or foreboding.  It can give motivation or paralyze us.

As for myself, it is definitely a thing I grapple with and ever find frustration both at myself and the situation.  Particularly, when it comes to loved ones, I compulsively thrust flashes of what might be the worst result of an activity's consequences.  Getting close to stairs, using potentially harmful objects, etc.  It's a fear of the inherent clumsiness and ignorance I am so certain they will fall victim (pun?) to.  I know it's irrational, but inescapable in my mind.

To another degree are the conspiracy theorists and religious fanatics.  They are certain of what cannot be so, despite all to the contrary.  "The end is nigh!" type of people.  You can pick your flavor: invasion, epidemic, Apocalypse, technology gone awry, etc.

All that said, maybe the thoughts I've been having won't seem all that extreme.  There are three "First Contact" scenarios I find worth considering.  There are three prominent possibilities which have gradually come to grow in likelihood by my observations in this life, so far.

 What does "First Contact" mean?  What unites these scenarios is humans come into contact with other-than-from-earth entities.  However, could there already be creatures upon our own planet that we have yet to make contact with, or have yet to discover the ones we think we know already reveal their sentience.  It may be reasonable to qualify our sign language communications with various apes as a form of contact with another intelligent species.  These are aliens that were never aliens.

Criteria need to be better defined.

Besides aliens, first contact may be with artificial intelligence.  We may one day invent our own contemporary through technology.  We might build our aliens.  Where would THAT sentience come from?  Is it even farther removed than newcomers from outer space?  How "far" is sentience "away" from emerging than aliens traveling light years across vast swaths of distance?  Right beneath the surface?  Or deep within our inner space?  Will we make contact with entities psychically?  Our own minds still perplex and mystify us.  Maybe we're the aliens where our own ignorance has been the barrier between them and us.

The one I feel we may be close to and might even present a higher state of profundity is making contact with the dead.  If incontrovertible proof were demonstrated that spirits are really there and actually all around us, it might change the world even more drastically than aliens, creatures, or artificial intelligence.  Ramifications are certainly large and sweeping, probably close to unfathomable until such a thing might happen.  I believe this scenario bears the most merit, really.  What "aliens" would be most interested in trying to establish contact with us?  The other first contact scenarios require the active pursuit by us.  The culture shock and difficulties are most difficult when considering just how alien the aliens would be.  Their development and circumstances are almost impossible to offer assurance of success in establishing communication, let alone co-operation.  At least with the spirits, chances are that they have a much more understandable nature, with at least as much experience of being human as ourselves.  Plenty of hurdles will already have been hurdled there.  We would not need to travel as far as suggested in other scenarios.  We can search right here, with all the time and energy put into investigation, rather than the expenses in all the things needed to explore others.  This goes for animals, too, I suppose, which is probably as likely as spirit contact.

There has been a generally higher interest in paranormal or supernatural activity of late.  It feels that the world has been looking into that direction than others, as of late.  I have a feeling it's all a race between smart animals and human spirits, which are the leading horses.  Horses?  Ghost jockey on ghost horse and Mr. Ed with Wilbur as the jockey.  The long draw in getting to that archaic reference was totally worth it.

Government Evolution: A Social Network Model

This might have it turn out that I am in beyond my depth, so let me sabotage my credibility and underrate my thoughts right away, allowing me to plunge into whatever kind of rant this becomes.  I am not a political science guru or sociology guru.  I am not a particularly society- or politics-oriented type of person by any means.  However, considering how long I've been alive, I should have some sort of opinion by now.  Here goes…

It seems to me that politics and government has started to become like religion.  As religion and its superstitions and archaic social engineering has become nearly a defunct organ in the human species, so too have a number of institutions.  Has there been any evolution or progress that can firmly be taken seriously?  The systems all of these things have are based and operated on many extinct precepts.  Their presence is not helping human beings become any greater.  Many sciences, and particularly physics, have kept pace and pushed us forward, currently.  Some sciences have gone through changes and still are going through more.  This is the area in humanity that still offers vibrant, developing new thought and ideas.  Many of its true core tenants persist by their very nature, from observing the world currently around us, it seeks to update itself with some intensity.  It also seems that science has been able to sustain its viability when other things, both older and newer, have reached some sort of swampy stagnation at some point.

Of course, it's all fine and good to point out these things and discuss all the problems and difficulties along with them.  Talk, though, has to some time become action to effect any meaning to all this supposition.  If these things need to evolve, how do we do it?  What do we choose to do?  What criteria should we use and what process will allow a strong, lasting change toward the better?  Have any of these thoughts and questions even been put forth to be seriously considered?  Is anyone interested in stepping away from the illusion of status quo and move toward bona fide "greater good?"

Since the advent of the social network paradigm, I have been banging around ideas that might deserve more consideration, using social networking as a model.  Facebook, as an example, lets us see how easy it is now to reach out and connect, put forth ideas and media, engage in discussion, etc.  The US has been a particularly virulent breeding ground for this activity.  Since so many are connected, a very wide population base can be brought into the process of governing their country, from the smallest units to the largest.  Voters and those interested in putting their own fingerprints on the developing process of the place they live and share space with others would be able to do so any time, anywhere.  It could effectively decentralize the government, putting the power directly back into the hands (or tablets) of the citizenry.  There would still need to be those that put into action policies and projects, but they would directly be working for the very people that want that work to be done.  Budgets and finances could be totally transparent, letting anyone in-depth and instant access to just where their taxes go and what they are being used for.  There are numerous, logical benefits to this type of model.

It's more complicated than that, obviously, but it might be a good step in the right direction.  There are issues of security, availability (some don't have or know how to use the internet or other services), and there would need to be some direct oversight to ensure everything is put into effect officially.  People will primarily need to be shown that they can trust this system more, even though their real risks are found in "real" social networking sources, where privacy rights are still being toyed around with.  Pulling away the veil of ignorance may need to be done gently and patiently.  The problem at all levels of society comes from a general mistrust of the world and people at large.  No one is absolutely trusting of anyone else's motivations or moral behavior.  It would have to happen and be proven all at the same time for everyone.  One big step into the open all together, no underhanded trickery to exploit vulnerabilities, etc.  But, that's a long way off at becoming possible, if it is possible at all.  However, I would like to explore this model of government evolution, so I may actually try to give a better analysis and better ideas by doing some of my own studying and research.

Four Things

Today has had an interesting and somewhat disconcerting start.  First, while driving my son to school, I see two kids at an intersection.  The boy looked around my son's age and the girl looked like she was probably in kindergarten.  They had helmets, pads, and other safety gear, holding their bikes waiting to cross from the corner they were standing on to the opposite one.  Can you guess their missing safety equipment?  If you said "adult supervision" you'd be correct.  No parent or even an adult looked like they were watching them.  Essentially, their parents let their son to take charge of his younger sister's safety.  Am I being paranoid when I say that was the stupidest fucking thing I saw in a while?  I was a little appalled.  Did I stop to help them?  Well, no.  I'm sure they have done it many times.  I just couldn't put my mind into whatever kind that could allow that to happen.  Next, when we were at school, waiting for the buzzer, there were a few kids waiting inside without an adult.  Of course, that's fine.  Why wouldn't it be?  School is supposed to be a place a kid SHOULD be without a parent around.  However, one teacher was passing by and said the kids had to wait outside if they weren't with a parent.  What the fuck!?  Really?  This also paralyzed my brain trying to understand that logic.  I could think of no reason this should be proper, especially in terms of keeping them safe.  Are they worried about crowding the doorway as some inconvenience or crowding, or is it a fire hazard?  It didn't compute when I tried to model the sense of it against the safety of those children.  Third, I giggled at something which some might find funny or maybe slightly racist.  There's this Asian dad and daughter that I see come in the morning.  What's funny is the fact his daughter is as tall as her dad, while probably they are proportionately triple in age ratio.  He had to be in his forties or so, while she was obviously in single digits.  It was funny in a semi-cute way, I suppose.  The last thing was when one of the children that act as crossing guards flipped me the peace sign when I passed.  I returned in kind, so it was a nice way to wrap up the madness into perspective on the way out.

Sincere Insincerity

Currently, I have had some interest and concern in getting to know myself psychologically.  In a sense, it has become a bit of a hobby, with therapy and my own research habits.  It has always been a partition of thought during any given day, largely out of curiosity and the fun of working out a mystery or puzzle or game.  I've looked up and explored various sources toward this aim, which has taken me some interesting places, whether positive or negative.  Growth is growth.  I hope that I can keep thinking of it this way, because turning stagnant is repugnant to me.  Knowledge is my religion, I think.

Bringing things to the present, I've come to a fairly irrevocable belief that I may have Asperger's Syndrome.  It is a developmental disability and you can use your own initiative to do some reading on it or not.  From my inner journey, so far, at the psychological level, it contains a large majority of traits that it would be a lie to say I don't have it.  I've done all those internet tests, which are, of course, unofficial, but I use it to provide my own mind to reach a preliminary evaluation as to whether or not to consider learning more about it or find some way to officially give confidence in the notion.

Even more recently, I've aimed a more penetrative eye on sociopathy.  Do I REALLY think I am or could be?  Let's dispel that inexplicable fear which may occur when that word is used.  I have just been curious and interested, but down inside I don't think I am likely even slightly sociopathic.  I will probably explain that more later.

What I want to do next is give some earmarks that have given me my strongest indications of this or that, as well as some of the benchmarks I use in evaluation, in no particular order.

I particularly enjoy the horror genre in a number of entertainment venues, particularly movies.  I find little to find interesting in nearly any comedy, other than stand up, or romance and a number of types in the drama spectrum.  Stepping back from any person's first impulse about this would not think anything particularly abnormal here.  There are lots of horror fans.  It also isn't that I have never liked a comedy or romance.  Plenty of reasonable exceptions certainly exist.  I think I am drawn to the horror genre in particular is explainable.  Seeing people act in extreme situations feels a little less pretentious.  I don't really know why, but other types feel fake.  It seems weird and unrealistic for people that don't know one another in real life to act like they love each other in some movie.  Of course, the flip to that is people in a horror movie aren't in real danger, so their fear and reactions are also made-up.  Perhaps I take it more seriously when considering fake love versus fake fear.  I will probably focus on horror and treat it as a whole topic at some later time.  What is relevant here is that I also consider it a good simulation for me to gauge my reactions.  How would I feel if I were the killer?  Do the motivations seem plausible?  How would I feel if I were one of the victims?  And so on.  A lot of the time I think people are stupid and unrealistic, but I suffer a lot less needless confusion or frustration.  If fakery is the stigmata I am implicated to have, then I hate to see it, since I can't pretend not to see it.  I have been able to see what causes me to react and it has been consistent enough to place faith in the certainty of what I may or may not feel, accordingly.

I am not a fan of "torture porn" and its ilk.  There have been some that has been interesting and perhaps even innovative.  It makes me squeamish and uncomfortable, but I admit my curiosity can outweigh my trepidation.  Just that someone could imagine these things can get me intrigued.  I know I would never be able to do this kind of thing to anyone.  I did some random cruel things to insects and field mice back in my childhood, but I can honestly say I abhor the thought of harming an undeserving life.  I am interested in having as little impact, particularly as a drawback, to anything's pursuit of just trying to get by.  What if I were angry?  I have honestly been a little scared of myself when my temper has gotten the better of me.  I don't get angry like that very often, but I've seen the face of that beast and it is willing to take whatever action it wants to feel satisfied it has removed the object of its wrath.  I have never been violent, particularly to a living thing, and only then when I was provoked or was threatened.  I believe violence is stupid.  It indicates a mind that is unable to reason, the way I look at it.  Those that can't think fight.  Most conflict of a "serious" nature usually has me shaking my head, not understanding how someone would get so upset enough over something like gas or a lover that they feel the need to resort to violence.  Would I kill if I had to?  Yes.  What constitutes "having to?"  When loved ones or my own life if threatened.  It feels like a waste of energy to thrust into a conflict and kill for most other reasons.  Even practicality would agree with the sentiment, wouldn't it?

Admittedly, day-to-day my mind floats in the sort of ambivalence I imagine most do.  I don't pursue acts of malice or anti-social agendas.  I understand the basic laws we all should abide by in society.  Whether I believe in some of them or not is rather moot.  Any of those I encounter or have ever dealt with hasn't put me at odds with it.  My general thought is that if I obey the laws then I am protected by them.  I don't transgress, because it will result in lots of inconvenience, at the very least.  I also understand some of these "laws" are invisible ones governing one's general interaction with society as a whole.  I usually understand any of the norms to be observed to keep life uninterrupted, primarily because in that environment, those laws are rules and they can be broken without the sort of objective system that our legal systems are there to regulate and adjucate.  Those are usually the type of things that, if you break them, it opens up the justification for someone to "break them back."  Of course, this is situational and graded by degrees with all the ambiguity that human interaction places upon itself.  If you aren't ready for some sort of conflict, then there's no reason to complicate a matter for the sake of it.  The vast majority of other people will rarely be of any importance.  This is reciprocal, of course.  It's a little egotistical to think someone else would think more of you in the same circumstance.  But this is the only place where it can get a little awkward.  I don't know if I am gauging the right importance of something in some exchanges.

One difference I can discern is probably self-evident in this very rant.  I obviously think about and concern myself with this kind of thing more than I feel a "normal" person might.  What is instinctual or a "given" to others doesn't compute the same way to me.  Love, to me, goes beyond emotion.  I distrust emotion, really.  Emotions can change.  A "feeling" isn't admissible evidence in the court of my judgment.  I can both love and be upset with someone I love or care about.  I am willing to lay down the authority of my emotions upon me for the sake of those of another.  Things don't always make sense to me.  I may not always agree, but there has been very little I've ever felt that should be strong enough to consider it able to nullify love.  I would die for people I care about.  I will kill for them, too.  I have to surrender to the fact that my emotions often don't make enough sense all the time, let alone theirs, and I trust that our mutual devotion to our ideal of love will yield things that change to something that shouldn't.  I guess I have a sense of loyalty bordering on obsession.  Some call it tenacity.  However, this translates into severance should that relationship end.  Those people are removed from my concern if they feel they want to be removed from my love.  It isn't an animosity, but I would simply not have to deal with the emotions and confusion with what turned out to be a temporary endeavor, and shouldn't take up more of my time thereon.  It isn't an absolute and total rule, since I have had contact after this kind of thing, but I think it's an emotional defense more than a thing I want to DO to someone, out of some pitiful idea for revenge.

I feel stunted in my capacity to express my love, or at least in a way others seem to want me to express it.  This has caused friction, of course.  The pain, though, has been able to show me that I do care, giving me a confidence that the feelings are mine and they are genuine.  I wrap myself in a field of quiet isolation, which I am often not aware of.  My anxieties often make less sense to me than my absent reactions.  Rationally, these fearful feelings are baseless and have me scoff at my own ignorance.  For some reason I think I'm worried about being accused of not being normal or not feeling or not understanding and being pushed away, when I always feel it's the other way around.  Simply, it's not something I think anyone cares about all too much on any scale, just going out into the world.  Venturing into the wide world gives me small panic attacks sometimes, like I am about to go diving in the shark tank.  As I get older, I am discovering I'm not really that weird, and even if I am, it really doesn't matter to me much.  I want but don't want some attention, but I think I experience mostly the negative kind, either self-deceptively or genuinely.  I think it is blown out of proportion in my mind, and it's one of my major difficulties.  Sometimes I just want to pick something up and do away with the meaningless polite and shallow interactions, pay for it, and then just leave.  Do I really need to worry about being nice all the time?  Are the manner police out today?  It is probably the strongest reason I am certain I am not a sociopath.

Not sure if this is enough or not, but I'm tired of rambling about it for now.

Ignorance Is Bliss... For Only The Ignorant

Today has already brought me into contact with at least two occasions of blatant and blunt ignorance. One was from someone from The United Life Church, with whom I unfriended and felt good doing it right away.  The post equated gay marriage and homosexuality to being a product of evil.  Ever-increasingly do I encounter those last bastions of prejudice left needing to crawl deeper into the dark of the cracked, stony heart hanging heavy and lifeless in their ugly insides.  This prejudice has further developed into those crazy cannibal families out in the shrinking fringes of civilization, feeding on the unwary merely out on hikes or otherwise just minding their own business.  Those hills really DO have eyes.

Real evil is the enemy of love.  I see lots of inspiring and uplifting growth of this truth more every day, too.  The contrasts have just been increasingly glaring and pronounced.

The other thing was from a book I was reading called Spiritism: The New Satanism.  You can find it in Google Books, should you wish to lay eyes upon this offender for yourself.  I did make a review for it, because I felt strongly enough about it to say so.  I feel no remorse in doing so.  I have always been tolerant and I have only felt more justified in this personal code by the reciprocal intensity from its opposite.  I am wary of becoming self-righteous, but sometimes something is just so stupid and wrong, it is almost an act of nature that it should be opposed.  The universe itself feels like such idiocy does not belong in it.  A computer would spit out errors, because it is warped and fragmented code that simply has no means to run in the universal operating system.  Sometimes you can get a bug fix, sometimes a reformat is in order.  Format soul:\ /y or something.

This particular thing brings the image of a nursery school playground.  In the sandbox, kids pick on other kids, with taunts like,"my dad can beat up your dad."  Their dads, meanwhile, are nowhere at all concerned about this or wish to be.  They are out doing their jobs and taking care of matters that have actual importance.

God is a big boy.  All grown up.  He has been handling the finances of the entire universe long before species showed up and he had to reconfigure the budget.  Everyone is begging for an allowance, saying that they were defending his name, and that counts as real work.  The question that God might follow with is, "How is that getting anything done?  Now we have to work twice as hard since you spent the whole time squabbling, while paying no mind to the real mess to clean up."

Mystical Physics From Physicist Mystics

Physics appears to be following an interesting trend, at least as of late, and within my awareness, that has looped its progress almost back to where it had gotten its origin.  For a long time, after peaking during such eras as the Renaissance and the Age of Reason, objectivity has done battle with subjectivity.  The rallying cry called for verifiable evidence of falsifiable phenomena, theory, and results.  This is "the scientific method."  Gather data, correlate, and generate consistent evidence of something.  "Pure" scientific method should only be dealing with observable phenomena, and it should be able to be recreated through experimentation elsewhere.  It is not a prediction tool, per se.  It isn't entirely illogical to take results of experiments, have them verified as a consistent phenomena, then use that to give likelihoods.  We derive probabilities, which is necessary for progress.  However, it is supposed to be viciously contested and thoroughly tested for maximum certainty.

Some say that science is the new religion.  It is likely true.  Physics has been the flagship for science for quite a while.  "Mathifying" the world and what we encounter lends many a sort of security within a seemingly immense, uncaring, inscrutable existence that we find ourselves in.  It helps us all find a method to pass data in a form that can be decrypted and recoded.  It's a grab at the abstract to eliminate language diversity perverting a concept.  It can give a multi-translatable medium that is the same for everyone, regardless of the vast and sweeping currents of capricious interpretation.  2 is always 2, 4 is always 4, and 2 + 2 is always 4, too.  Subjectivity has been wrung out of math and physics in the hopes to find and understand a stable, consistent universe.  (You can probably relate the concept to that of the one between Java and the number of different web browsers.  Java is multiplatform, functioning no matter the medium.  It is a means to give a distributive uniformity and utility, all "under one roof.")

By putting physics in the frontlines, it has reached the border of objectivity perhaps the soonest.  Pushing ever deeper into the realm of fundamental reality has had physics come upon an interesting dilemma. I think one can trace this path starting somewhere around the time Einstein and others began dealing with relativity, going onto quantum mechanics, string theory, etc.  Let's fast-forward through that…

With the discovery of the Uncertainty Principle, consciousness has become a cause instead of an effect.  A Supreme Objective Reality has suddenly flipped.  Subjectivity has begun having a viable role in the operations of reality and the universe.  You cannot have a reality without SOMETHING knowing there even IS a reality.  Weird quantum effects has left those in earlier paradigms of physics scratching their heads.  There is suddenly an intrinsic and irremovable relationship between the observer and the observed.  Phenomena previously ostracized by the rational world as superstitious, religious, or psychological, has importance, albeit in a different light.  Science has gone and demystified reality to the extent now it begins to take on a new mysticism.  Once consciousness began taking the spotlight, explanations transformed into sense.  It only served to prove what it had so exuberantly had tried to disprove.

I should leave it at that, for the moment.  I hope to find and present key points that might give greater confidence in this idea.  It is a broad and strangely vectored web or netting of various sources.  Each deserves greater attention.  Some of them include Tom Campbell, Chris Langan, Terence McKenna, Rob Bryanton, and Stuart Hameroff.