December 29, 2020

I stepped into the shower thinking that something is missing, that something isn't right in my life, that I am supposed to be doing something more important—saving the world from destruction, working on the alchemist's opus magnum, or whatever other dream. But instead I am putzing about the apartment, waiting for my menial job to start. 

Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story came to mind, and it took me a bit to figure out exactly why. From a writer's perspective, Buzz is actually quite clever. Buzz comes into this world with (flase) a priori knowledge, thinking that he is a Space Ranger equipped with deadly weapons and military training. But he's really just a child's toy, which he eventually learns to truly appreciate. He overcomes his inborn fantasies/complexes and fruitfully embraces reality. 

I wonder how many times I have arrived at this same conclusion—that I must stay in the present, awake, attentive, and with care, all in spite of the feeling that this is worthless and that I belong somewhere else. If I would like to go somewhere better, I must make my way from here, this spot right here where I am standing; this is the end and the beginning, the end and the means. 

"Each day is equal to the rest," said the weeping philosopher.

It appears that the process of realizing the value of my everyday-mundane-life is like the sun, rising, then setting again. I'll be here again, with a new metaphor or story in hand.

...

Last night, I couldn't sleep, so I was sharpening our kitchen knives, thinking about the following: 

For years now, I have felt a part of me, an internal part of me somewhere deep, struggling with the distinction between being and experiencing. It's as if a deep part of myself didn't understand how to differentiate between these until just recently. (I have the intuition that this is related to a process of maturation, a concretizing of identity.) These two words are deceptively simple and, at times, almost interchangeable. But I will be differentiating them here.

Being and experiencing are related to each other, quite intimately. 

Being is what a man is. 
Experiencing is what a man feels he is.

I'll tell you of two:
Humble is the first,
Internally exalted,
his station is low.
The other is mighty,
tho may not feel it so.

..

A ghost speaks: Many great things can be achieved with little awareness.

I do not know what he means.

...

The world at large is uninterested in me as I am. Yet, I crave its attention, a tiny seedling in me wants to be adored like a celebrity. 

A ghost speaks: respect is more mindful than adoration. 

I do not know what he means. 

December 17, 2020

Yesterday, I was hiding from the rain, standing under an airplane, probably one of UPS's MD-11's or 757's. I waved hi to a coworker, and—over the noise of an idling airplane (or whatever the technical word for it is when an airplane is hooked up to generators on the runway and makes a lot of noise, but the turbofans aren't running to avoid sucking in FOD or union employees)—I said, "Melodie, right?"

She nodded yes with big starry eyes that were framed by good-looking, yet obviously fake, eyelashes. We stood relatively close to each other for a while without really looking at eachother or talking. I realized that (and how) I enjoyed her mere presence, something I wouldn't have noticed, oh say, a year or two ago. I also noticed that Phil, a 40 year old truck driver who wants to become a pilot and also my favorite coworker, noticed me waving hi to Melodie; he nodded his head, to himself with a kind of, "huh, okay then," as if to acknowledge that a part of my personality is flirtation. —And then May, who has been exceptionally friendly to me, walked past the three of us. She looked angry, jealous even.

I stood under that jet for ten minutes and stared out into the air ramp for ten minutes, processing what had just happened, thinking about how I would be here, writing this.

Granted, it is entirely possible that I am projecting all of the drama I have described here. Even if that is the case, this is still the drama that I am (perhaps only semi-consciously) living. This is the game that I am playing whether I choose to acknowledge it or not. —Not that I want to play this particular game. We all play social games. A Jungian analyst would say that we're all living various myths and that it is in our best interest to understand the myths we're living because sometimes those myths are not in our best interest, which is what I'm trying to do here.

Standing under the jet, I realized a game that I play—or perhaps a strategy, or a modus operandi. It's a bit devious. When I go into a new place, I turn on my charm and I lightly flirt. This flirtation isn't explicitly sexual. It is possible to flirt with people's various interests. In this non-sexual sense, flirtation is non-committal socialization; or perhaps that is what charm is. Anyway, I "flirt", promising more social-attention than I care to give. This is attractive to some people. However, I merely continue to flirt; that's all they get—shallow, friendly greetings and small talk. I am not really able to move beyond this stage and really get to know the person because that would ruin the charm, and they would see that I cannot live up to the expectations set by my charm. 

The end result of excessive charm ends in one of two extreme cases: (1) enthrallment or (2) disenchantment/disappointment.

If someone is enthralled, they worship someone in the way that movie stars are beloved by their fans. The result of this is a cruel power dynamic, but it may also be fairly inconsequential.  Disenchantment may also work in my favor; the person may realize that they cannot have me, and I relish their misery because it proves my superiority (false superiority that is). Whereas when I elicit disappointment, it hurts my pride and vanity.

On a bigger scale, I think I am driven to this "charming/flirtatious behavior" by my need to feel special. I enjoy feeling like a celebrity when I walk into work. I don't want to be merely greeted by people; I want their adoration. The worst part of this is that I think many people have recognized this behavior in me. I don't imagine that they always had the words for it, much less a reason to call me out on it, since confronting me wouldn't do them any good. 

I would do better to earn respect, not adoration. I suspect that is a very important distinction for me to make when I try to gather people's attention, especially in the work place.

....

I've been reading The Listening Society at work during my downtime between planes, oftentimes huddled over my phone in an attempt to keep the screen dry from rain. There is one main argument in this book which I find simple, yet profound: the reason for much of the suffering in this world is that many people have failed to (psychologically) develop themselves across a sufficient number of domains. The author then also describes the process of development in a way that I agree with; moreover, this process unfolds in the individual and within a group/culture/society (scalefree). This parallels "my" ideas on sophistication as a virtue and our human tendency to a particular type of universality. 

Reading this book has been uncomfortable in the way that reading Nietzsche was uncomfortable. But, at least, it is more hopeful.

December 14, 2020: Family Garden

A lot has happened in the past two weeks. Perhaps the most important thing is that I started working, and I also drove down to Redmond, Oregon to take the entrance exam for the IBEW. I'll hear back in 4-6 weeks, hopefully sooner. 

It's 9am. I have work in the early noon. I have a pot of coffee brewing. 

I have a story from my high school days. It's about one of those moments in time where a lot of information is suddenly revealed in a flash of light.

"Thunderbolt Steers All Things," said the weeping philosopher. 

As a teenager, I attended a Bible study every friday evening with my family. The Bible study was lead by Shawn Sather. He was an interesting guy who deserves to be written about in a separate entry. Half the time my parents would host the Bible study, and the Sather's would host the other half. 

Sometime during my sophomore or junior year, when I went to the Sather's house for Bible study, I saw a picture of the Doak's hanging on their fridge. The Doak's were a family close to the Sathers who lived in Alaska. They were a beautiful Christian family. The father of the family was a retired army sergeant major (or first sergeant, who knows). And, what I believe was their oldest daughter, who was nearly my age, was also exceptionally beautiful. —Tall, pale white, dark hair, blue eyes (probably), and looked nothing like any of the (all but exclusively) Mexican girls I went to school with. For better or worse, I can't remember her face or the clothes that she was wearing, other than the fact that it was a sweater. —I fell in love with her picture. And I do mean love. 

I never met her. I met her father, John Doak. I met her brother, Tom. But I never met her. Almost every time I went to the Sather's house, I would look at that picture on their fridge. I would stare too long. I thought I was being sneaky, but now I'm sure I wasn't.

Falling in love with a picture is a metaphor that adequately describes how capable I was of loving someone. The Andy that went to that Bible study was only capable of loving the mere image of a person. I had more feelings for that picture than the girl I lost my virginity to. —Is that tragic or merely pathetic? (Now, after reflection, it is tragic; back then it was pathetic.)

But when I woke up this morning, I wasn't thinking about the picture I fell in love with. (—Jessica, perhaps? I would rather forget her name.) I woke up thinking of John.

The night of one particular Bible study, I knew the Doak's were visiting, so I was trying to be on my best behavior. I walked into the Sather's living room. John was there, sitting, speaking with somewhen. He noticed me when I stepped in.

He looked me up and down and said, "Oh, you're a punk." 

His tone made it obvious that I did not have his respect or approval. Apparently, that comment lodged itself really deep since I'm writing about it now, twelve years later.

I was wearing bootcut Bullhead Jeans from PacSun that were torn at my heels from being stepped on by my converse, which were dirty and written on with pen. I was probably wearing a too-tight Volcom shirt or a tattoo-inspired graphic-T from Anchor Blue. I didn't feel cool or trendy, (and I wasn't). I only remember feeling an urge to dress in that particular style. I was beholden to values I didn't understand.

I didn't consider myself a punk. I had a specific idea of what it meant to be punk. Punks were anarchists, and while I appreciated the aesthetics and rebellious energy of anarchy, I had every intention of joining the military after I graduated high school. I thought I was a good teenager, a Christian. I spent my Fridays at Bible Studies—not with friends or girls (not yet anyway).  I figured John didn't understand me—not the real me, at least. So, his comment rolled of my shoulder, but it left an ugly taste in my mouth.

But he was right. His judgement was—as far as he was considered—very correct. He had no business respecting me. He could see that I was not like him.  John had his niche; he was a well-established American, a Christian, the father of a large family, and a retired soldier. He was well-adapted. And it was in his interest to protect his family from people like me. The World at Large was calling me. I was not a good christian. I was already beginning to lead a double life that would, only a few years later, cleave in two, leaving me on the side of atheism.

John did not understand me, nor did he care to try; but I do suppose that I could have eventually earned his respect. (On the contrary, Shawn thought he understood me, and he idealized me.)  John saw that I wasn't a good Christian; I certainly did not look like one. He could tell that I was trouble. He knew that I was not like him. He could see that I would not do well in his community.  I was an outsider. All of which was true. Despite my ability to keep a cool face and have reasonable conversations, I was immature—emotionally stunted. If he would have let me into his life I would have been trouble.  And he made his feelings instantly clear with his first words to me. 

Well, good riddance, John. Thank you for sparing me your virtues and vices. For now I know how tall the walls are around your family's garden and how vast is the world outside of it. And I know that you can hardly even bear to look beyond those walls, for there isn't a gate. 

...

The past weeks I have looked back at my days in college. I've thought about a few of my relationships. Back then I wouldn't allow myself to say, "I love you." I always wanted to say "love" and really mean it. I didn't want to cheapen the word. Instead I withheld the word when I should have said it. I left love unacknowledged. And because of that I lived in a poorer world. Sorry. I won't name you here. But I have in my heart. 

November 24, 2020

I'm sitting at my desk, which means Caitlin is in bed working. We'll switch later, and I'll be sitting in bed. I ate a sugar free yoghurt this morning. It was fine, but the taste of the artificial sweetener is still lingering half-an-hour later. Lastly, I'm appropriately caffeinated, which is a nice change.

I started work yesterday. I spent the entire day doing HR mandated training—safety videos, how to efficiently load shipping containers, tips to prevent heat exhaustion, etc. I will be doing the same thing the entire week.

To be frank, I am disappointed. I joined the military, got a BA, moved to Seattle, and this is what I get? I get paid a bit more than minimum wage to do a job that anyone with a functioning body and reliable transportation can do?

I was earning nearly twice as much last year. Granted, I was miserable. I left that life because I was miserable. I needed to leave. I hoped for a bright future. And what was the future is now the present. And the present isn't bright. It feels pathetic.

I think I know what I have been doing wrong. It's an existential thing. I have Irvin D. Yalom's book Staring at the Sun to thank for this insight. I have lived my life in the expectation that it would resemble an ever-growing upwards spiral of increasing potential and opportunities. That is where I found my sense of safety. That is how I escaped my own personal fear of death. 

I thought I was brave because I joined the army. I thought I had a grip on my fear of death because I was able to read The Death of Ivan Ilyich and still be mostly-unbothered by thinking about slowly wasting away on my deathbed. I thought I was facing my mortality every time I rode a motorcycle.

But those are not the ways that I fear death. 

My safety bubble—what Jung would call the womb-tomb—is my hope in my merely-latent potential. 

The tragic thing about (my) latent potential is how much greatness and beauty it promises and how little substance it seems to generate when I actually try to access it. I've accused others of getting high on their dreams; now I see that I am doing the same thing.

I've said this all before in different words. This time it is a little bit more accurate. This time it is a little bit more real. This time it is a little more incarnate. 

...

Better to have true despair than false hope. 

...

Moving boxes for UPS is only temporary. It is humble. Many people look down on it; I know this because I look down on it. I know I shouldn't; and this would be less painful if I didn't. But I do, and I'm working on understanding the meaning and value this type of work can provide. 

I fucking hate the thought of working only to make someone else more wealthy. I just don't want to be—or feel—used.

Well, it's not like I have any other choice right now. I hate this. But at least I know I hate this. 

Hate is okay. I just shouldn't grow resentful. Hate may become fuel. But resentment is always poison. 

I will try to learn as much as I can. I will try to make this a valuable experience.

...

A ghost speaks: Every moment is a microcosm.

...

A dubious koan inspired by Nietzsche comes to mind:

How do you do it so that you can do it forever?

...

My writing here is not achieving anything. 

But my writing is doing something: I am transforming my thoughts.

November 22, 2020

It's early in the morning. I woke up at 5:00am from a mild nightmare. I read an internet comment where someone threatened to kill me, telling me that I would be choking on my own blood. I didn't wake up scared; I just woke up with no hope of going back to sleep. Then the following sentence immediately came to mind: 

“Our culture has formed a deep epistemic-schism that makes it appear is if there were two realities.”

Then I thought of mitosis. So I looked up a PBS CrashCourse video on the subject. The image that I had in mind was of the telophase of mitosis where a single cell forms two quasi-poles (centrosomes) that pull the cell into two parts. 

What is interesting about this metaphor is that DNA is like a zipper that splits in two, which fits into my intuition that despite the fact that both sides appear to be fundamentally different are actually mere inversions of the other side. Granted, I don't fully trust this intuition, but that is where my head is at.

...

I created a Twitter. 

I asked James about Q Anon because it seemed like Q related stuff was getting much more traction recently. Oh, am I late to the party. He pointed me to two interviews of Sarah Hightower. She's an Aum Shinrikyo expert and looks at Q conspiracy through the lens of cult-studies. I created my Twitter account so that I could follow her. 

I am afraid she might be too influenced by studying Aum. Or maybe I don't understand her finer points well enough. She seems to think that there is a massive cult forming in the US which is based around the Q Conspiracy. 

I won't call Q a cult because the problem is that Q does not have definitive leadership. However, there are certain cult-like qualities. But the cult-like qualities are not merely cult-like; they are quasi-religious and mythological in nature. I think we're dealing with something more broad than a cult. 

I would go as far as to say that this is more like the emergence of a culture. 

I think Q-Conspiracies are the folklore and mythology of this emerging culture, and they are (somehow) compatible with American Christian religious values. Q-Conspiracies are transmitting and communicating values—not facts. Values are transformed slowly over time; they are not reasoned with through logic. This is the world of dreams.

I'm not sure if this is the sign a culture that is in the process of emerging or if it is in its death throes. 

...

My ideal leftist movement? Pragmatic, patriotic but not bellicose, the kind of left that is pro-union, the kind that is distrusting of large corporations but not anti-business.

...

I didn't realize until recently that one of my closest friends in the army has become heavily influenced by Q. He used their language but never name dropped Q. He was convinced Trump was a genius. In 2016-2017 he tried to comfort me by saying to trust the plan.

One of my first exes, who is very conservative, is also up the Q hole, sharing "proof" of massive pedophile rings. I didn't realize that there was a common thread between my army friend and my ex because they're such different people.

...

Photography is a matter of perspective.

It's interesting to apply this to profile photos and uploads in a generalized way.

If a person only takes selfies, they're liable to be a mirror-gazing narcissist.

If a person only has photos taken of them by other people, especially by a photographer, they're liable to rely to heavily on the perceptions and perspectives of others. 

If a person has a diversity of pictures, that is a good sign.

If a person has over-curated photos, that is a bad sign; they're liable to hide the bad parts. (Which I am guilty of.)

...

I have a hard time framing things. —I think it's why I can't finish any stories.— When I go through my old sketchbooks, I draw in fragments. I never complete one picture. I would do best to draw a square and then fill it in with an entire picture even if it's simple bullshit. 

The Problem: disembodied, alienated, lacking context, ungrounded.

We frame things out of necessity.  

On psychedelics I learned that "all things are connected". But that truth took too much space in my head. I lost myself in that idea, that interconnectedness. 

The frame is Apollonian. The great unified mass is Dionysian. 

...

How would I go about drawing a Jungian Mandala? In a way it's a meta-frame (frame as referenced above).

Metaframe. Framing frames.

A mandala is a representation of a lens/paradigm more than it is of a frame. 

...

Went down a Random Rabbit Hole: Discovered the phrase Metamodernism. 

On the wikipedia page, there is a reference to a 2010 paper that refers to metamodernism as being derived from Plato's metaxy (middleness/moderation) rather than meta as "aboutness" or "abstraction." 

This is important. 

From wiki:

For the metamodern generation, according to Vermeulen, "grand narratives are as necessary as they are problematic, hope is not simply something to distrust, love not necessarily something to be ridiculed."

Vermeulen asserts that "metamodernism is not so much a philosophy—which implies a closed ontology—as it is an attempt at a vernacular, or…a sort of open source document, that might contextualise and explain what is going on around us, in political economy as much as in the arts."[11] The return of a Romantic sensibility has been posited as a key characteristic of metamodernism, observed by Vermeulen and van den Akker in the architecture of Herzog & de Meuron, 

...

My brain and/or heart has decided that it wants to listen to Billie Eilish. I don't want to want this. But I do, so I will, in this case at least.

...

The rabbit hole deepens: https://metamoderna.org/what-is-a-metameme/ 

Hanzi Freinacht seems to be saying that the metameme is the meme (idea/ideology) that unifies other memes (according to a particular process). It might be the caffeine talking, but holy fucking shit, this guy is interesting.

...

From https://metamoderna.org/what-is-a-metameme/ 

...memes are developmentally determined, and that goes for all memes from the pure technical to the more ideological. That means that not any kind of meme can emerge, or take root, at a given time and place, but that the possible memes that can emerge and prosper are limited by which other memes currently exist. More specifically, the kinds of memes that may emerge in a given context depend on the overall developmental level of that cultural context’s other memes.

This reminds me of CG Jung's quote where he says he treats the contents of the unconscious like animals in the garden, they come up and visit him, but they have a life of their own. 

A metameme is thus a non-randomly ordered collection of memes in which the memes that don’t fit in with the other memes simple cannot emerge or co-exist without breaking the very logic of what holds the metameme together. Each metameme builds on its predecessor, but it is by definition not merely a further development of it. Not only is a metameme the overall context in which all other memes are ordered, non-randomly, but also the basis of which they are rejected if they don’t fit the overall logic and structure. So what differentiates one metameme from another is that they are always in direct opposition to one another. Just like modernity was in direct opposition to the ancien régime that came before, the postmodern metameme is in direct opposition to modernity. And with that opposition follows the threat of replacing its predecessor. Scary stuff. This dynamic explains much more of history than what it’s usually given credit to.

Hmm. This is like a more sophisticated version of the Hegelian/Marxist dialectic .

Further reading his work he seems to overlap the two words ideology and meta-meme. 

Meta-ideology, there's a word I could use.

Today we are living in a particular multi-centered time where the gravitational shredding of society is particular noticeable. Somehow the old conflict between left and right (in economic terms) has diminished in importance compared to the rifts felt by the conflict between the pre-modern, modern and postmodern metamemes—something that has been amplified by today’s globalized and multicultural society.

This type of cleaving is somewhat loosely related to what I described earlier as mitosis. 

Modern > Post Modern > Metamodernism (as an attempt at unifying the Modern with the Post Modern)

Hanzi seems to believe that there is a clear path of development—that Postmodernism is more sophisticated than Modernism and that Metamodernism is more sophisticated than Postmodernism. This is in agreement with Kuhn's theory of paradigms, which Hanzi directly mentions.

...

Oscillation between ideas/things is apparently something important to metamodernism. I relate to this very deeply.

...

An old blogpost of mine bears a significant resemblance to an article linked to an article linked to an article (3 deg. separation) written about metamodernism.  Not sure what that means, but it is interesting.

...

I need to look up the following two metamodern authors: Quentin Meillassoux and Karen Barad.

November 17, 2020

It occurred to me that I am mad at reality. 

Or rather, I am mad at my real—material—circumstances.

I'm not sure what to make of it, but it's true.

...

Strange question. Maybe an obvious question.—

Do I have power over myself?

If I can exercise power over myself, then I am not powerless. 

That makes me feel better. But it sounds stoic. I don't like stoicism. Stoicism is problematic in that it can be life-denying and life-suppressing—self-imprisonment.

It makes more sense to say that myself is my source of power. I have the power to change things. So what if my accomplishments are ephemeral and relatively trivial?

Lastly, I have the power to transform my attitude. I don't have to remain beholden to despair—looking up at titans. I can take pride in my own excellences. I can take pride in myself.

November 16, 2020

 Rant:

I am in a bad mood because of the new COVID restrictions, namely the fact that the gym is closing again tomorrow for at least one month.

I understand the reason why. I am fully, rationally aware of why it's happening.

But, right now, the rational reason—the facts—do not make me feel any better. I don't care how fucking reasonable these restrictions are or how many lives are going to be saved, I am pissed. That's human nature. That's my nature.

I don't think the restrictions are objectively ethical. However, they were put into place by people who were voted into power, so they're, as far as I'm concerned, an extension of the collective public will; I'll respect that. But it's hard to respect Inslee's smug face. He's not suffering. He, among others, is gaining power through this. I can feel it in my churning gut.

November 5, 2020

It's nearly midnight. I'm sitting at the living room table, which is messy, typing on a cold keyboard that is starting to warm up. I just finished playing Diablo III for nearly six hours straight. Caitlin is asleep. Dani is in her room watching something. Grr is wandering the house; she slept all day curled up in our bed. Carolyn is texting me. Across the street, in a lit the third floor window, there's a skinny guy in his 20's wearing a maroon tank top looking like he's washing dishes.

I feel too-awake. I finished an energy drink at noon. That might still be in my system. 

The gym has been going well. My bench is relatively weak. And I still suck at wide-grip pullups. But I've been making steady progress. I'm up nearly ten pounds. And I comfortably squatted 215 lbs for 5-reps over 8-sets. I'm hoping to be repping 315 in two months. And I would be really proud of myself if I could one-rep-max 405.

I'm going to need to find work soon.  COVID unemployment ends in a little over a month.

On a related note, my neurotic persistence paid off; alternatively, I was lucky in the sense that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. I've submitted multiple applications to become an apprentice electrician: one in Seattle, one near Salem/Covalis, and one in Spokane. The way it goes is that I am going to take a test, then I will attend an interview. If I am accepted, I will become an apprentice. 

Well, I called the Seattle branch and the person on the phone said that I was tentatively scheduled to test in February. However, I managed to snag the last open spot only two weeks; the catch is that it's 300 miles away in Redmond, Oregon. —Worth it. And the funny part is that I don't need to pass. I get a free pass to interview because I am a veteran. To quote the lady on the phone, "the test is for tutoring purposes; we need to know where you're at." So, once I test, I'll be on the list to interview. 

This is good news.

...

Grr is sitting on the corner of the bed in our room facing the door. She has her feet tucked in, and it's the cutest thing. That cat has really stolen our heart. I would take a photo, but the lighting doesn't allow for it. 

...

Caitlin and I rearranged our bedroom. It completely transformed the way our room feels. I mean that in a practical way but also in a more metaphysical way. The vibe, or maybe the texture, is different somehow. 

She has a box of her old dog's stuff that she needs to go through. She tears up when she mentions it. But it's time for her to move on. She has been hanging onto it for two years and hasn't opened it.

...

I have a classic case of insomnia on my hands. Let's see if I can write in a flow until I get tired. No. I doubt I have the ability to sustain focus like that. 

...

I briefly spoke with my uncle Pawel before he received a letter I sent him. I told him that I was going to pursue an inside wireman apprenticeship. He said, "The work is hard, and it can be very tedious, but it pays well—six figures, easily." I could almost swear he sounded proud of me. Almost. —At the least we'll be able to relate to each other better. Common ground.

...

I wonder what I'm getting myself into.

When I started at Amazon, I had high hopes. I was overflowing with energy and enthusiasm. It was excessive, and, apparently, it was unstable. I didn't have a goal. I just wanted to be successful. But I never defined what success meant; and that was a big mistake. I had money that I didn't know what to do with. 

I still remember how excruciatingly painful it felt to even begin thinking about saving for a house. I didn't even have the fortitude to even think about it. So, instead I spent all my money on misc. I wanted the-ill-defined-everything, so I ended up with nothing. Well, I did get some good clothes out of my excess spending and camping gear.

Things are much different now. I'll be starting at a much lower wage. If I'm in the Puget Sound region, I'll be starting at ~$20 an hour plus benefits, which is fantastic, actually. I was technically earning over $35 an hour at AWS. But that came at a price: risk of stagnation and immobility.

The work will be physically demanding. I am physically equipped for that.

I will have a lot to learn. I'm looking forward to that. I want a skill that will make me valuable. And then I want to use that skill to make money. And I want to use that money to buy a house. And I want a small farm.

I didn't realize that I wanted a farm. It took me a while to realize that what I had been describing to multiple people was in fact a farm—dogs, chickens, a large vegetable garden, etc—a farm.

Holy shit, this could be beautiful. 

A motorcycle farm, perhaps? 

Hmm. 

Anyway, going into this apprenticeship, I'm a good candidate. But I'm going to need to stay humble.

My god, I've been unemployed for over seven months now. I am looking forward to getting back on track with a career. 

It's important to make the most of this time, of course (i.e. not playing Diablo III for six hours straight too often.) There is a very real trap of potentially getting too involved with work. But really, why even work? Money is good. But money isn't an end. Money is a means. And it's important for me to stay grounded in my ends, my goals and values. 

Reminder: when you have a really important dream, it's important not to blab too much about it. It must be, to some degree, a secret. You can't go bragging to everyone everyday that you're going to buy a yacht or whatever; the process devolves into mere spectacle. 

...

You know, the funny thing I've learned about writing is that sitting around, gritting your teeth and puckering your butt doesn't do any good. (Unless you're editing.) Writing has to flow. 

It's almost as if you gotta keep looking at the thing that you're writing about. You can't focus on the keyboard or the pen or your grammar or your fans. You need to keep your eyes on the thing itself, the idea that's there, latent in your mind, behind a thin veil, just under that quicksilver glimmer on the surface of a pond; you can't quite see it, but it's there, and it calls to you; and you know it's full of life, so you sit and you stare because it's important. It's magic. That's the magic I find in my dreams. And that's the magic of "writing as an act of revelation and creation." 

You can't force it. It comes from who you are. And, for the self aware and the initiated, such a reflection is absolutely terrifying.

...

I'm becoming increasingly tired of social media, namely people sharing political posts. I just want to shake everyone by their shirts and say, "YOU'RE NOT SPREADING AWARENESS; YOU'RE BRINGING IN AD REVENUE." 

Is that too cynical? Calling out that behavior is ironic because I would be doing the same thing by posting more noise on the same platform.

November 3, 2020

 I realized that I fell in love with Seattle last year. And it really was just that—love. It was the kind of love that comes with a lot of blindness. 

I had a lot of hope for this city. 

When I would visit from Bellingham during my college days, I would read deep into every storefront and every interestingly-dressed person. I tried to read too deeply into every single detail They felt to me as if they were full [trächtig] with stories and potential, like dark cloud promising a long-needed rain. But those clouds grayed out. And not much came out of it. It was a flat gray sky with a steady mist. 

It's hard for me to love Seattle right now. I feel like I got spit out. It's mostly my fault, and COVID has complicated everything. 

Wherever I am, I need to make the most of it. And I'm in Seattle right now. It isn't the promised land. It's home just like Horizon City was home.

...

I tired to draw, but the lines never really came together on the page well enough. I never learned to feel the depth of objects. I never even attempted to learn to manage color and value. 

Writing never brought me much in the real world; it only shaped my internal world. It has always been too fragmented. Separate characters never fully developed any sort of meaningful depth.

My academics were always weak. I never learned how to juggle my individual thoughts with telling professors what they needed to hear. I never felt the need to strive for perfect scores. 

I had my hands in too many baskets. It hurt too much to stay stuck with one thing. It always felt like too much of a sacrifice.

A ghost (and I'm not sure which one) says, "Blow its fucking brains out." 

It means for me to kill my stillborn dreams of being a writer/philosophy/artist-type.

My half-desire (my day dream) to be a writer was probably never a true desire. I think it was founded on the wrong ground—to egotistical or rooted in emotional infantilism, needing to feel special.

...

—Not Navel Gazing. Not Solipsism.—Not Working for Them. Not Doing it for Them—

Suppose a man is put into solitary confinement. Then suppose that he has a wonderful time in his cell because he sees a tremendous inner cosmos: dramas unfold before his eyes, great beauty visits him, and the sweetest music plays.

When he leaves his cell, he is totally unable to describe the pleasurable and profound experience. Moreover, he wishes to go back to his lonely cell. 

That is sad solipsism. It is madness. It is not good; I take this last fact gratis.

Next, imagine a movie star that is known across the world and has brought joy to many people. Wherever they go, their charisma brightens people's days. They create value in others. But now suppose the movie star is sad and broken inside. 

It is not good; it is alienation and lacking in integrity.

Profoundness-in-obscurity and Hollowness-in-prominence.

October 21, 2020

The First Part:

Stolen away from the mundane passage of time, 
I was seized by a vision of the world:
Frothing dust, busying itself with itself. 

Cosmos reduced to a gray void.
Time and eternity congealed to flat slate. 

The Second Part: 

From the slate-gray void,
there formed a speck. 
A deeper void within the void. 

The speck was black.
And its name
was desire. 

The Third Part:

Desire was negative,
A selfish locus,
A lonely eddie.

...

There was a fallen sparrow on the side walk on my walk home from the gym this morning.

I think it was a sparrow.

...

I spent my late morning in Bothell, thirty minutes away from home, drinking a small latte at a cafe. I was to meet a man named Ron. I arrived over an hour early and plugged away at pre-algebra lessons online. We first met at a small gas-station-and-diner off of Highway 2 somewhere near Wilbur or Davenport when I rode the bike to Spokane a few weeks back.

I thought we were to meet for coffee. Turns out he owns an office building next to the cafe and he's frugal about his coffee. (You can't get rich and drink a latte on the daily, supposedly.)

We spoke for thirty minutes. I told him my goal: A house in the country, some land, a big vegetable garden, five motorcycles or so, chickens, 2-3 kids, etc. 

And in a long series of words, he told me about his wealth and how he would help me become wealthy. I'm not sure he used the world "wealthy." Rather, he talked about my potential success in vague terms. He says he sees potential in me; and he said something about some wells having more oil than others.

He's quite the salesman. But I'm not sold. 

He gave me a book called Success, written by the editor/publisher of Success Magazine. I skimmed through its platitudes. 

He said two things that I remember and have not been able to successfully purge from my head this late evening before I sleep: 

1. There's a war going on in this country: those who are free individuals and those who want to take that freedom away from us.

2. I never sent my kids to school. I don't believe in what they teach. My son is a successful business owner. 

Point 1: This is a naive American-conservative, or perhaps more accurately, libertarian platitude.

Point 2: If skipping college means becoming infatuated with self-help books with titles like Success, then I am glad I went to school. While I think there's a lot of bullshit in school, I am still convinced that learning the humanities in school can impart a deep sense of value that cannot be found anywhere else. Philosophy, poetry, history, literature, music—these are the deepest foundations of our culture; school is a good place to learn about these.

There are many successful self-made businessmen, but I would bed good money that the best businessmen and the majority of above average businessmen have secondary and post-secondary education. 

I don't see eye to eye with Ron.

...

My voters pamphlet sits beside my computer as I type this. I am looking at it with tired and ambivalent eyes.

...

October 15, 2020

I feel flat today. I have spent the day at the living room table with my computer, a pen, and grid paper for simple math. My brain is going extra slow. Yesterday was busy—heavy lifting at the gym, a hike, followed by a ride and an evening with a few friends that ran far too late. I woke up at 11am today; I don't remember the last time I slept in this late. Khan Academy has gone slowly today, with many trivial mistakes.

...

My vision is scabbed over with a gray film.
Streaks of red break through.

A voice says: Don't stare at the sun. 

...

Went to the barber and got a haircut on Tuesday. Had a long conversation with my barber. Covered much ground on a non-physical plane. Something was said about 3rd eyes being pried too far open.

"Dark night of the soul," he said.

"Black implies white," I said.

"I needed to hear that," he said.

It is a quote by Alan Watts that I now find meaningless and trivial, I thought to myself sitting in the barber's chair with bits of hair caught in my mask tickling my nose.

Deepest metaphors sound like nonsense to reasonable persons: alchemy is nonsense, They say. They are not wrong.

...

Forgot to mention: everything makes music. —Any of it can be beautiful, but not much of it is beautiful; this is proof that the gods are amoral and they have their favorites. 

...

Beauty is a virtue. But any virtue may be paired with vice—that is, paired with the bad. 

Did Socrates ever say anything about The Bad Life? He had a lot of questions about the good life. I wonder if he ever used the phrase, "the bad life."

Good is rare—the exception.

...

I realized that cleaning shares important things in common with resting: When you rest, you repair your body, and when you clean, you repair your environment.

If you rest or clean in the right way, it can be enjoyable. Alternatively, either can be stressful: rest can be stressful suspense, and cleaning can feel harmonious and valuable (still working on learning to enjoy the latter). 

October 11, 2020: Against Voting the way They Tell You To

 I'm not convinced that I should vote for a Republican or Democratic candidate in this upcoming election. Douglas Adams captured this idea here nicely in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: 

“[Ford said] ".. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people." "Odd," said Arthur. "I thought you said it was a democracy." "I did," said Ford. "It is." "So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?" "It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they voted in more or less approximates to the government they want." "You mean they actually vote for the lizards?" "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course." "But," said Arthur, going in for the big one again, "why?" "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in.”

South Park captured this idea again in 2004.

Now, like most people, I think there is a less-evil primary candidate.

But at this point, I do not intend to vote for that candidate.

Why? —Well, that's not too straight forward. 

First, I would like to address an obvious objection. 

Many people—people on either side of our increasingly growing political divide—will say, "If you vote 3rd party or don't vote at all, then you're responsible for the more-evil candidate to gain power, and you will be just as responsible as a wrong voter for enabling the evil actions of the most-evil-candidate. Whatever the most-evil-candidate does, you will share the blame too. It is wrong not to vote for the lesser of two evils."

Well, I disagree. 

Though, I must admit that I am disagreeing in spite of common sense. Common sense says that I have two options—pick the one that is least-evil-and-most-likely-to-win. 

But the value that I see in my least-evil-and-most-likely-to-win is insufficient. Metaphorically speaking, my candidate is a lizard. Why would I vote for a lizard?

A person on either side might say to me, "But you're just thinking about yourself. You need to look at the bigger picture: innocent people will suffer and our country will go to hell if the least-evil-and-most-likely-to-win candidate loses."

I struggled with my potential moral blame. Surely the least-evil-and-most-likely-to-win candidate will cause less suffering.

But then I realized something. I was facing a moral argument. And like most moral arguments, it is a line of reasoning that has been around for a long time. The way I see it, telling someone to vote for someone that they don't fully support because if they don't they will be morally culpable for the wrongs of the more-evil-and-most-likely-to-win candidate is a form of consequentialism. 

I am not a consequentialist. 

According to google/Oxford Languages (whatever that may be), consequentialism is the doctrine that the morality of an action is to be judged solely by its consequences.

A more thorough definition can be found at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on Consequentialism.

My argument against consequentialism is as quick as it is dirty. It is an argument from epistemology, and it goes like this: 

We may know the first and perhaps second order consequences of our actions. But it is more difficult to know the third and fourth order effects, and even more difficult to know the fifth and sixth order effects. This is because every action sends out endlessly interweaving causal chains. So, we do not—we cannot—know wrong from right based on consequence alone. 

Examples are many and frange from obvious to absurd: Give a hungry person bread and they may choke on it; cut somebody off in traffic, and you may prevent them from running over a pedestrian who is on his way to murder a future industrial tycoon who would bring about total environmental destruction.

This is not an argument for moral nihilism or ethical skepticism. I do think we can know right from wrong. But trying to intuit the consequences of our actions alone is not enough. 

And what that means to me is that it is not morally wrong to vote for a good candidate even if he or she will lose. 

But why violate common sense? Well, first off it would be nice to escape our two-party rule, and voting for independents and other parties is an attempt at going in that direction. But I have no intention of making a pragmatic argument. This is must more important than that. Listen closely:

Consider that your vote is not merely a bean in a jar that is to be weighed en mass.

Your vote is a sacred form of self expression. It is a political act. It is an exercise of power—your power. 

There is something metaphysically important about your vote. Do not just give it away. It is neither a token nor commodity. It is your will and power.

But they will tell you otherwise: They will reduce your vote and power to a mere means—the end of which you will not benefit from.

Our mass failure to understand the metaphysical significance of our vote is partially why we're here—voting between lizards.

I warn you though—the realization of your political power is as profound as it is both infuriating and lonely. 

....

It's Sunday afternoon. I could be on my Switch playing Hades or Diablo 3. Instead, I'm here sitting at my dining room table, looking out of a raindrop-dotted window, writing. I am writing for no significant audience. A few friends gratuitously and kindly read my posts.

So why am I here? 

Well, I can't think of anything better, so this will have to do. It orders my mind, gives me a sense of earned peace.

I'm writing for myself.

Moreover, I am frustrated by politics. I have not found a politician that remotely represents my views. So, what else is there to do? If I merely sit around my frustration grows. I must do something. My soul must express itself, (even if it is merely an ineffectual scream into the cluttered void of the back pages of the internet).

October 1st, 2020

There's a Tweet that goes: how are people out here with no therapy not taking any prescribed or illicit drugs just raw dogging reality — giabuchi lastrassi @jaboukie · Jan 23, 2019

 

That Tweet is truer than it is funny. It sets the tone of this month for me. Every October is like this. My experiences are raw, like going for a walk with soft, barefeet. Sensitive and liable to injury, forced to attentiveness, knowing that calluses take time to form and do not always adequately develop.

...

I was in a minor car accident today. It's not clear who is at fault. My front driver-side quarter panel is banged up pretty bad, but everything still functions as it should. 

I benefited; my pride needed pruning. And better a car accident than a motorcycle accident.

September 30, 2020

I laid awake in bed last night for a while just sitting with a feeling of disappointment in myself—wishing I was an artist. I felt deep loss and regret for something I never achieved. Impotence and desire make despair. Swallow it. Move on. Be happy that art and beauty exist elsewhere.

I don't think I will attend Saint John's College. I think I'm going to look into trades—welding, pipefitting, carpentry, or something to that effect. 

Every time I open my damn mouth everything changes.

"Men make plans; God laughs." A Yiddish proverb I read this morning in a new article. 

...

In alchemy, the soul is the philosopher's stone. It is the soul that creates value from base things. It is we who create meaning from worthlessness. 

September 28, 2020

I'm in my apartment wearing jeans and a sweater with my hood over my head and ears. It's 10:40 am. This morning was leg day. Thalo, our building manager, is just outside the window sweeping the roof of a carport, gathering the first of many piles of leaves.

...

I was in Spokane and Boise last week. It was a long way. I listened to Matthew Crawford's book Why We Drive. It sat very well with me. I think he's on the right track. 

I met an army friend in Boise. We haven't seen each other since Ft. Hood in early 2015 He said I haven't changed much, which was shocking at first. He hasn't changed much either. We've both matured. We acknowledged that much.

I rode straight home from Boise which is a long way on my bike. I hit heavy rain on I-90 as I made it into the Cascades. There were four lanes. I was way on the right lane, going 55-60 mph being passed by semi-trucks, closely watching the tires of the vehicle was in front of me for signs of deep water, straining to see through a fogged and mist-and-rain-beaded visor. I haven't hydroplaned on a motorcycle yet, and I didn't want to learn firsthand, yet.

I had to embody truth to give myself the best shot at survival: Relax and focus. Pay attention. See the whole picture at once. 

A motorcycle is a gyroscope and therefore is pretty good at keeping itself stable and upright. I needed to fight my body's tendency to become tense—loose grip, low elbows, deep breaths (slow so that I minimize fogging my helmet). If I were to hydroplane, I would relax and slowly-and-deliberately ease off the throttle—not panic. —If that's not meditation, I'm not sure what is.

When I came home I poured water out of my boots. My hiking boots were water-proof at some point. But they aren't anymore. Caitlin came downstairs to help me unload my bags and locked us out because she forgot to bring the keys. I had to ride up another 15 minutes, one way, to The Barking Dog, to borrow Dani's keys. I love riding, but by then I was past the point of diminishing returns.

...

Thinking about meditation, I am becoming suspicious of mindfulness meditation. I can hear the words as if they were coming from the mouth of a horny college senior frat guy: do not worry; it is what it is; let it happen; it's only passing waves. 

...

I've spent a good portion of this morning wishing I could be productive. But I lack a definition of success and therefore cannot achieve productivity.

Actually, I think I told my therapist that I think success for me would be owning five motorcycles, owning my own house and working for myself. That's a shallow definition. But it's a starting point. 

I am fully aware that I am making no progress. I don't even know where to begin. 

...

The word rest has becoming more meaningful. I'm reading Practical Programming for Strength Training. They offered some very general advice: when the body undergoes stress, it adapts to the stress and supersedes it; this is called supercompensation. When we adapt to a stressor, if it doesn't kill us, and we have enough rest and food, we can survive even greater stress.

I wonder how broadly I can apply this idea to my life. How many situations can I approach like this?

...

Adaptation transforms an organism. Adaptations are not always good. 

...

I've had difficulty resting this weekend. The past two nights I have woken up several times a night, panting, as if startled. 

The night I came home from my ride I couldn't fall asleep because I kept seeing the road in front of me. —I'm not the quickest at adapting.

...

I wonder what would happen if benevolent aliens came to Earth and gave us technology that would rid us of scarcity. I would like to think that most CEOs would be miserable. 

Much of human life is overcoming material scarcity.

September 22, 2020: Motorcycle Voice Transcription 1

I'm just south of Kerry Park right now putting on my gloves, hopping on the bike, putting the kickstand back as I straighten out the front wheel and sit up on the bike—and not precisely in that order. 

To my 11 o'clock there's people, and a dog.

[Engine starts]

There's 23.6 miles on the odometer.

The dog is crossing into my headlights, and he's got a reflective collar. He's shaggy.

[Motorcycle shifts into first and revs into first gear]

I'm making my way down the street. Making a left. A man crosses my bath and hobbles along, as if rushed by me. But he has plenty of space. 

I'm going down hill, somewhat uncomfortably. These hills are steep. But I'm engine braking and feathering the front break and then coming to a complete stop using the rear brake—despite knowing that the rear brake doesn't do much as you near the end of a stop. That is, unless you have a passenger, and there is a disproportionate amount of weight on the rear wheel. 

These streets are rough and bumpy. 

I have a small faux leather bag on my front forks that, when the forks have sufficiently compressed, the bag bumps into the headlight. 

I am at a four-way-intersection, two-way-stop, narrating this. My right blinker is on. I make a right onto a well-lit road—Olympic Place.

[Engine steadily revs]

Behind me, not even a block away, there was a protest—well, not even sure if I can call it a protest. There was maybe fifty people outside a local representative's apartment. —Protesting. 

This is different than the last protest—less heated, less chanting, less people. This time they only brought bikes, no cars. 

(Cars came later in the night while I was gone.)

[Sighs]

Last time they came through, I was scared. I was spooked. I ran down, got my bike, which was ten meters from the route, undid the lock as quickly as I could—which is still pretty slow—and I got the fuck out of there. I rode north through the Queen Anne Suburbs, winding through historic road, ending up just south of Fremont. 

—And I was scared. I was spooked. I was thinking, my god they might tip over my bike. Which that was a little bit of an irrational fear. But it's not like I had anything else going on that evening. ...I was spooked.

Out there, I saw a dragon, marching its way down the street. —Dragons don't march. But they were marching, making a serpentine trail through a quiet neighborhood. Angry young people, calling for revolution, chanting slogans—woke, awake but mindless. 

Today, Caitlin sent me a picture when I was still making my way home from the gym. There were people gathered outside of a house nearby. I figured it was another protest—and it was. I messaged an acquaintance who lives in that building. And he confirmed that there was a local representative in the building. And that they were trying to speak with the representative. 

I was annoyed. I made my way home. Put my stuff upstairs. And I walked down. I walked through the back entrance. I walked around the building to the front and not more than twenty meters they were there. I walked around the group. I made a quick survey of who was there. Mostly young people. A few black people. 

[Wind and engine noises]

I went back upstairs. Mariah was there speaking with Caitlin. She left. I took a shower. I put on pajamas. 

[Engine idling]

I went down. And there was a line of bicycles. they were just starting to back up. I approached the line of bicycles what exactly they were trying to do. Naturally, more articulate people stepped up (from the small crowd) and started talking. 

[Engine engages 1st gear]

I heard just about everything I expected to hear. They wanted to talk to the local representative. They finally dragged him down to his level, and they spoke with him. And um—they spoke with him. And they said, "We weren't able to speak with him under other conditions." 

And it's like, if he's not willing—. I said, "I'm here. I live in this neighborhood." I pointed to the building that they were infront of; rather, the building that was behind them. And it's like, "This is government subsidized housing. There's a lot of people of color here. This a pretty woke neighborhood. I thikn what you're doing here is counterproductive."

And they said, "No we spoke with Andrew"—something. I don't know his last name. (Andrew Lewis) And they said, "Well, we got you down here." 

And I told them, "I feel alienated from your movement because of this."

And one of the half dozen or so people said, "oh we're so sorryyy you feel alienated." 

Obviously they don't. They do not care what I feel. Which I don't expect them to. They're a fuckin group of people; —a group of people generally doesn't care. And I'm not a black person, so obviously they don't care. I'm just another white person to them, anyway. 

[Engine and starts from first gear, revs high. I say, merging issues in response to the high revs.]

There wasn't much of a conversation. I don't think they were really talking to the representative. Like, if he's not talking to them under normal conditions like town halls, etc. etc. —I mean they're challenging his authority. It's a power move. It's not communication. 

[Engine idiling]

I am now at Dick's. The question is do I want to get food, or do I want to keep going? 

I'm going to keep going. I'll get Dick's on the way back. 

So, um...

[Engine revs]

So there's this one girl in particular, a young black girl—well, mixed race. And shew was antagonizing. Young. [20ish] Adolescent. She had adolescent frustration. And she was surrounded by people enabling her, enabling the means by which she is channeling her frustration. And she made some at hominims (at me). She said, "Get out of here with your flip flops." And she kept talking about my flip flops. And I mean, I was wearing them because I was at home. I was ready to go to sleep. 

[Engine idling, visor opens]

I'm not sure what else there is to say other than, I walked away. I remember saying something like...—I don't remember when I said this, if this was the first time I left or the second: I hope you continue to develop. And as I walked away they said, "Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter. Black Lives matter." They wanted me to say Black Lives Matter. It was a power move. —You're with us or you're against us. 

Do black lives matter? Yes. 

Do all lives matter? Yes.

Do I understand the meaning of the phrase—rather—do I understand the meaning of the slogan Black Lives Matter. That's a yes: It is a slogan Colin Kaepernick came up with. Or at least I know it from him. Because black people keep getting shot by the police because there are some fucking serious problems with the police force. I know that. And the entire fucking (Western) world was protesting that for a minute. So I feel like most people know what that means. Or there's just such a political and ideological divide that people don't understand each other at all anymore.

[High wind]

(Unintelligible because of wind) ...this is the final straw for me. BLM is fucking meaningless. It's a fucking slogan that people chant to see which party someone is in. It has nothing to do with black lives anymore. It's just a little fucking political game. It's a little social game. It's not about saving lives. There's a lot of heat and not a lot of light. 

[Engine idling]

I'm still going to do my best to respect people who do the whole Black Lives Matter thing. 

[Engine revs]

—Because there are good people who mean well. unfortunately that phrase "good people who mean well" is universal to a fault—well, no that's not... There are good people who say BLM and think about what it means. And I'm sure they (only) use it in appropriate places. I think the main thing is that BLM is (generally) bullshit and kind-of-fucking-meaningless. 

And they killed it. And by they I mean—that's it—they, all of them, all of us. It just got overused. That's just the lifetime of that sort of thing. These things come and go like animals in a forest. That's what it is as far as I am concerned. 

So, I try walking away—frustrated.

[Engine idling then revving]

Frustrated. 

An angry young black woman insults me as I am walking away. —That's personal. That's personal. That's personal. 

(Sighs)

And so I said, and I felt my voice shaking and my tongue getting in the way, and I said, in anger and fear, tempered by sadness and suffering, "Do you want to make this personal?" And I turned around and made a beeline for her, saying, "Do you want to make this personal?"

A black man—not particularly athletic, somewhere between 220 and 250 pounds,—stepped forward with great energy. I stopped advancing. I stood there. We stood there somewhere on Olympic Place. I looked at him, sizing him up. Sizing the fight.

One beer and the right insult and, hell, all that would have been fair fucking game. He was not particularly scary.

He said, "yeah, I'll make it personal. I'll make it personal right here." He brought a lot of energy

[Engine idling, visor opens]

I have been wanting to fight.

[engine idling, sighs]

I have been wanting to fight. 

[Engine revs, wind]

It's dark out. I'm on Aurora. Someone had their fucking lights out. I tried waving like a madman at them, flashing my high beams at them trying to get them to turn on their fucking headlights. They did not get the message. —There's a metaphor.

So, yeah but uh. 

[Engine idling]

I think if it was just the fight, I think it would have been fun. —Nothing ideological. Not business. Just violence. That's what it would have been. Fuckin' good old fashioned violence.

I'm on Aurora and N 192nd street. It is unremarkable. The air is cold—and suddenly smells like smores, and it's gone. Yeah.

Out of some strange habit I often try to go from fifth gear to an imaginary sixth gear. —I only have five gears.

[Engine idling, then revving.]

Anyway, fighting him would have been for the wrong reasons. I would have fought him because an adolescent black woman wanted to start a fight, one that she could not finish. That man might have done her a disservice. 

Anyway, it was immaturity on her part. So...

[Engine idling then reving.]

Violence feels good.

Sometimes violence is necessary.

As far as the species is concerned, violence itself might be good. 

Somewhere Plato says, "Not even Achilles could have fought to men at the same time." 

There were a lot more than two men. 

Maybe I could have been any one of their asses. Maybe even a few pairs of asses. There were some small people there too. But it wouldn't have done much good for me. 

What did WWII do for the human race?

I'm on Aurora and 212th. I wonder how high these numbers go. 

I hope this is a phase. I hope these people grow past this.

They asked me what I am doing. I didn't have a satisfying answer for them. I said that I am voting and educating myself. What else is there to do?

I said, "I might be having no effect. But you're having a negative effect."

I do actually think we're doomed. Revolution is not the answer. Revolution ain't the answer. That ain't it chief. These people out there are very good with slogans, but they aren't good with guns. 

[Engine idling]

Yeah—[engine revs]

Now, I'm at 196th St SW. Looks like the numbers start going down now. There's a Sherry's. It's like Denny's but somehow not Denny's, which is IHOP but somehow not IHOP. 

[Engine calmly revving as wind blows. Engine idles and revs again.]

I think that there's a good chance that uh these people and the movement they represent will not really amount to very much. Granted it's not something that you can prove or disprove.

(As I type this the following day, they are marching outside again at 1:28pm)

I'm making a left at 176th, just because.

I made an illegal u-turn, so that's fun.

I have yet to see a prostitute on the side of the road. I can only imagine approaching one on a prostitute and saying, sorry I can't let you on without a helmet, that's illegal, maybe next time.

I'm passing the Sherry's again. 

I think it's important to confront these things. I mean, I also feel like I don't have that much of a choice. My spirit won't let me rest; there's a dragon outside. Maybe I'm dramatic. But some part of me thinks there's a dragon outside. 

I passed a police officer. I am going the speed limit. But that own't stop me from experiencing mild and fleeting panic for a brief moment of self awareness, a self illuminating spotlight of consciousness that is the experience of being alerted to the possibility of being found out. 

I wonder if that man, the one who stepped forward to fight, I wonder if he's been to jail. I have no idea.

But I bet most of those people haven't been to jail. 

I've been to jail. 

[Engine idles]

It was a rough weekend. 

It was worse than the psych ward, even though it was shorter. When I went to jail, my soul was still... [engine revs] recovering from the psych ward. 

I met some bad people. 

[Engine idles]

I mean, who am I to judge a man's soul?  But I sure as fuck wouldn't call them good people, though there may have been good people among them.

Yup.

[Engine revs]

224th street SW and Aurora. West Coast Auto Works, used cars, vans trucks. 76 Gas Station. Cash, Regular Gas: 2.74, plus 10 cents for credit. 

[Engine idles]

This bike takes premium. I wonder what that's running. 

228th: Miller Rent-All. [Engine revs] I wonder if they have prostitutes. No. Only heavy machinery. And chainsaws.

The individual is always the exception. But the law of averages is a force to be reckoned with. It is not fate, but my god, it is close to it.

I am unremarkable. You are probably unremarkable, especially if you're reading this. I mean this, objectively...statistically... 

[Wind]

I'm not set up to do anything great—whatever that means. I'm beginning to realize the extent of this. Much of the past two years, especially the past year, has been a realization of my irrelevance to the world. (Unintelligible)

The smell of smores is back. Nice dry logs. Fragrant. —not quite smores, it's a beautiful smell of wood.

I don't even know where I was...

[Egnine idles]

The past year...

[Engine revs hard]

The past year...

[Wind]

I don't know why I ever thought differently. I've always hoped for something more. For purpose. For a unified narrative. For something for it to all make sense—a final moment of achievement, a label, something to say this is it. But that ain't' it, chief. This ain't it, chief. 

I get the sense that the universe—the real big universe— is all possible worlds.

[Engine idles and then revs]

Then, in relation to all possible worlds, our absolute size because meaningless. —At least it does for me. 

It's like comparing yourself to infinity. 

[Engine idles]

It just doesn't make sense. 

North 152nd Street and Aurora: McDonald's, a bus stop, a pot shop, a Korean Calamari place. —A Korean Calamari Place—with an open sign. I don't image they will be open, but my god I will find out. I don't know if this u-turn is legal...

[Engine revs]

Oh, it's by Tandy Leather. That's where I get my leather. Haha. 

Is this it? Nope. [Engine revs] Next block.

I missed the exit. Time to make another u-turn.

Maybe it's a prostitution front. I don't think Caitlin will be happy if I take a prostitute home. I definitely can't afford a hotel and a prostitute. Damn. Maybe next time.

[Engine revs momentarily]

Hae-Nam Kalbi & Calamari, open quite late on a Monday, let's see what this is about.

"Is it open?"

"I think they're open till ten."

"Okay thank you."

I guess that's it—

....

There was no space for reason. There was only power. 

You must grab the beast by the head. 

There is no reason, only will. 

Approach and behold the magnificent terror of the crowd.

...

I do not matter to them.

A voice—no—my voice says, "Get the fuck out of my neighborhood."

I have no reason to say it. I do not need a reason to say it.

September 20, 2020

Over-the-phone job interview tomorrow for a position as a construction laborer at $18.00 an hour. —Not sure if giving up my unemployment a few months early is noble or foolish; unemployment pays just a bit over what I would be making if I worked full-time.

...

It's Sunday. Caitlin and I started going to the gym on Saturday. My entire body is sore. It is a good feeling. I need to eat more.

I'm trying to teach her what I know. I am not a good teacher. I am overbearing and take everything personally. 

...

It's looking like I'll postpone graduate school at SJC till next Fall. 

But right now my current thought is that I might just be better off reading Plato on my own if I should ever feel like getting back to it in spite of my flakiness. The world doesn't need to me to achieve anything. The world doesn't need me to know anything or write anything. The world doesn't need another academic. The world doesn't need me to do anything in particular; —though I could lower my carbon footprint. Maybe if I had a special talent, then I would be called somewhere or be needed somewhere. But I don't have anything like that to offer. 

I've done everything—within reason and sometimes beyond reason—I could to make myself useful in a noble, authentic way; it didn't amount to much . I have developed my own values. I'm not a slave or a drone. I am an individual. I have value, and I can see that, and my friends can see that; and I think that is enough for now.

There's nothing I can do to change the world or move the tide. I have two hands, a body, a mouth, and too much on my mind. 

...

I'm dreaming of a brand new Yamaha Tracer 900 or a Honda Africa Twin and a long ride down to Oaxaca.

...

I don't like Seattle. 

...

 It is all so meaningless and pointless today that I am writing this in bad faith. I shouldn't be writing anything at all. What a waste.

September 12, 2020: Camus' Rebel

 It's 10:30am. The light outside is the brown-yellow of a cigarette stained wall because of this season's wildfires. Denis Villeneuve released a trailer for his movie Dune yesterday and there's a joke circulating around the internet asking, "How big is Dune's marketing budget?" because the West Coast looks like a balmy morning on Mars (or in this case, Arrakis). 

...

Yesterday I met up with a fellow redditor from /r/PNWriders. We rode for over seven hours: down I-90 to Ellensburg, then Yakima, 410, down 123,  and most importantly through Stevens Canyon. The views weren't as good because of the smoke. But it was still the most beautiful ride I have been on. 

Kris was going to come with us but he was afraid that it was going to get too smoky. But irony won in our favor, and our trip was less smoky than Seattle.  

I also finally bought a in-helmet mic/speaker system. —Total game changer. 

 When I went to sleep, I spent what felt like an hour laying in bed, restless, thinking of all the different ways I could have crashed yesterday. —Visions of The Sausage Creature. 

...

This morning I finally finished The Rebel. Here is my GoodReads review: 

For me, The Rebel was life changing and exceedingly relevant, a cornerstone to build my future on. A warning to those who would worship a virtue (see: justice) or sacrifice the present for the future. A call to respect the dignity and suffering of every person.

Camus makes an important distinction between a Rebel and a Revolutionary. The Revolutionary is a nihilist willing to use any means at their disposal. The Revolutionary thinks they will, once and for all, bring an end to suffering—to end injustice, oppression, disparity, inequality, scarcity. But the revolution does not stop because, how can it? For the perfect future has not arrived. So, the revolution must use any means at its disposal (namely violence and oppression) to achieve its vision.

It is as if the Revolutionary Leader says, "It is our turn to oppress."

The Rebel knows that the world will always be imperfect, but he does not become complacent. He bears the tension and suffering that this knowledge brings. He looks at both the oppressor and oppressed in the eye and thereby fights for all humanity, humanizing both master and slave. The Rebel changes the world in the ways that he can. He brings light and then suffers like Prometheus. And, like Sisyphus, he knows that his work is never done.

This was written in response to 20th Century Communism and Marxism, but it is much more than that. Camus touches on a philosophical problem in our collective human heart: our desire to unify our fragmented world into a totalizing unity and our tendency to sacrifice human life in the name of a perfect future.

The Rebel is saturated with brilliant paragraphs and one-liners. This is one of my most underlined and annotated books.

Quotes:

"Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is." p.11

"...the rebel's aim is to defend what he is. He does not merely claim some good that he does not possess or of which he was deprived." p.17 (Here, C compares Rebellion to Resentment, which he thinks is a motivating factor of Revolution.)

"The metaphysical rebel declares that he is frustrated by the universe." p.23

"From the moment that man submits God to moral judgement, he kills Him in his own heart." p.62

"There is only one religion that exists throughout all history, the belief in eternity. This belief is a deception." p.64 (Camus says this in reference to both religion and the aims of Marxist revolution.)

"For Marx, nature is to be subjugated in order to obey history; for Nietzsche, nature is to be obeyed in order to subjugate history." p.79

"Rebellion is, by nature, limited in scope. It is no more than an incoherent pronouncement. Revolution, on the contrary, originates in the realm of ideas. Specifically, it is the injection of ideas into historical experience, while rebellion is only the movement that leads from individual experience into the realm of ideas." p.106

"The insurgent rejects slavery and affirms his equality with his master. he wants to be master in his turn." p.109

"To kills men leads to nothing but killing more men." p.109

"...the terrorists were born, disillusioned with love, united against the crimes of their master, but alone in their despair, and face to face with their contradictions, which they could resolve only in their double sacrifice of their innocence and their life." p.164

"The future is the only transcendental value for men without God." p.166 (Not an argument for belief in God, rather an argument against building a life based on transcendental principles.)

"All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State." p.177 (Of slightly dubious veracity but meaningful and relevant.)

"...the negation of everything is in itself a form of servitude and that real freedom is an inner submission to a value which defies history and its successes." p.186

On Marxism: "Prophecy functions on a very long-term basis and has as one of its properties a characteristic that is the very source of strength of all religions: the impossibility of proof. When [Marx's] predictions failed to come true, the prophecies remained the only hope..." p.189

"That is the mission of the proletariat: to bring from supreme dignity from supreme humiliation. Through its suffering and its struggles, it is Christ in human form redeeming the collective sin of [the Marxist concept of] alienation." p.206

"Power cannot be looked forward to or else it is looked forward to indefinitely." p.206

On the good in Marx: "...[Marx] reminded the privileged that their privileges were not divine and that property was not an eternal right. He gave a bad conscience to those who had no right to a clear conscience. ... To him we owe the idea which is the despair of our times—but here despair is worth more than any hope—that when work is a degradation, it is not lif, even though it occupies every moment of a life." p.2019

"[Marx's] desire to systematize made him oversimplify everything." p. 213

"Poverty and degeneration have never ceased to be what they were before Marx's time, and what he did not want to admit they were despite all his observations: factors contributing to servitite not to revolution." p.214

"The authoritarian socialists deemed that history was going too slowly and that it was necessary, in order to hurry it on, to entrust the mission of the proletariat to a handful of doctrinaires." p.217

"...Capitalism becomes oppressive through the phenomenon of accumulation. [Capitalism] is oppressive through being what it is, it accumulates in order to increase what it is, to exploit it all the more, and accordingly to accumulate still more. [...] ...the revolution, in its turn, becomes industrialized and realizes that, when accumulation is an attribute of technology itself, and not of capitalism, the machine finally conjures up the machine. Every form of collectivity, fighting for survival, is forced to accumulate instead of distributing its revenues. It accumulates in order to increase in size and so to increase in power." p.219

"The end of history is not an exemplary or perfectionist value; it is an arbitrary and terroristic principle." p.224

"Lenin believes only in the revolution and in the virtue of expediency." p.226

"Pseudo-regulutionary mystification has now acquired a formula: all freedom must be crushed in order to conquer the empire, and one day the empire will be the equivalent of freedom. And so the way to unity passes through totality." p.233

"The real passion of the twentieth century is servitude." p.234

"Those who reject the agony of living and dying wish to dominate." p.248

"Rebellion, in man, is the refusal to be treated as an object and to be reduced to simple historical terms." p.250

"Rebellion's demand is unity; historical revolution's demand is totality." p.251

"To create beauty, he must simultaneously reject reality and exalt certain of its aspects. Art disputes reality, but does not hide from it." p.258

"...perhaps there is a living transcendence of which beauty carries the promise, which can make this mortal and limited world preferable to and more appealing than any other. Art thus leads us back to the origins of rebellion." p.258

"In art, rebellion is consummated and perpetuated in the act of real creation, not in criticism or commentary." p.272

"A creative period in art is determined by the order of a particular style applied to the disorder of a particular time." p.274

"And for those of us who have been thrown into hell, mysterious melodies and the torturing images of a vanished beauty will always bring us, in the midst of crime and folly, the echo of that harmonious insurrection which bears witness, through the centuries, to the greatness of humanity." p.276

***"Art, at least, teaches us that man cannot be explained by history alone and that he also finds a reason for his existence in the order of nature. For him, the great god Pan is not dead."*** p.276

***"The procedure of beauty, which is to contest reality while endowing it with unity, is also the procedure of rebellion."*** p.276

"The mutual understanding and communication discovered by rebellion can survive only in the free exchange of conversation. Every ambiguity, every misunderstanding, leads to death; clear language and simple words are the only salvation from this death. Plato is right and not Moses and Nietzsche. Dialogue on the level of mankind is less costly than the gospel preached by totalitarian regimes in the form of a monologue dictated from the top of a lonely mountain." p. 283-284

"...the rebel can never find peace. He knows what is good and, despite himself, does evil. The value that supports him is never given to him once and for all; he must fight to uphold it, unceasingly. [...] His only virtue will lie in never yielding to the impulse to allow himself to be engulfed in the shadows that surround him and in obstinately dragging the chains of evil, with which he is bound, toward the light of good." p.285-286

"Absolute justice is achieved by the suppression of all contradiction: therefore it destroys freedom." p.288

"...it is time to forsake our age and its adolescent furies. " p.306