BOTOX AND BOOB JOBS: Philosophy Out of Fashion PART ONE: The 200 Blows
Full Text GRATIS
By Angelo Caiazzo
Preface- A Question of Faith
Without wasting much time as to my motivations or competence for the present work, which will be issued in several parts, I will remark only that most problems which exist, or continue to exist in our world, come from dual sources. The first is a nearly inborn arrogance that has arisen from Man’s mistaken assumption that he is, today (whichever the most recent date may be), superior to the Man that has come before him. The second, and having much to do with the first source, is Man’s increasing unwillingness to question authority, leading to a too-often misplaced allocation of faith. As to the first of these causes, that being the arrogance of modern man, the amount of bad logic and shoddy misconceptions which pervade the public consciousness stand as ready witness. Because we today have X novelty and invention, say I-Pod, PC, and personal fan, and some really ancient culture like the Sumerians did not, we are therefore superior to the Sumerians in technology. The ancients used an abacus, we use a calculator. The question we must ask is, by what matter or manner are we superior? By what do you define superiority, and then by correlation, any good or right course?
The Sumerians, around 2000 BC wrote, or rather etched, whole book chapters on stone slabs no bigger than a human hand. Some say this was because they had no papyri, yet others offer up the guess it was because they wanted permanence. Our doctors and scientists scramble to cure disease at no small expense of research space and dollars, yet our average lifespan in the supposedly most “advanced” era is no longer than that of Socrates, who lived his 70 years despite war wounds and without modern vaccines or medications…just similar restrictions on his liberties. Socrates’ sense of true honor, compared to our empty flag-waving and troops-wisher-wells, I think too, belies any primitiveness of his 399 BC death. As for Man’s arrogance, then, I will attempt to demonstrate with this book of aphorisms that our supposed “advancement” today is an exaggeration, often a sham, sometimes a straight-out lie.
This contemporary arrogance upon which we found further beliefs is inextricably bound to a misconception of history, namely Man’s putting his faith in this or that authority, by which he determines truth and falsity, right and wrong. The grounds for science and ethics, or more properly here, morality, gets distorted, in pure sophist style, by the opinions and behavior of “leaders.” The tenets of the most popular religions, the blustery rhetoric of cult leaders, the actions of “role models,” these are just some of the places faith gets allocated, and so Truth believed to be discovered. In actuality, that we continue to have problems today is attributable to just these sorts of inadequate authorities.
As I elucidate our sorry state, given a fair eye to history, I will try to also show by similar suggestion that this rampant rebirth of the disease of blind faith, as regarding especially the dictates of law and politics, religion, and science/technology, has reached, in society today epidemic proportions; that our leaders in science and politics are too often wrong and inferior to even the average man; and that religions are based on shady interpretations of even more shrouded historical documents. To put it simply, I write this book to tell you, by recalling the ideas of Gurdjieff and the methodology of Descartes, that ninety percent of what you know–that is, what we were taught– is merely convention, custom, or lie. Straight-out, piping hot, stinking lies in fact, that most of us have scooped-up, often with gusto, mistaking them, perhaps, for nuggets of gold.
And so who is MY authority, then? Rather than wait until the end, I shall tell you ahead of time, so as to relay full disclosure of my own axe in need of grinding. My authority is the triumvirate of written history, common sense, and a desire to know the Truth. I have a God, or Gods, just not one or ones you may have felt, but have yet known; I believe in science, just not all the things you say are such, nor do science’s conclusions in themselves present, for me, adequate evidence; I believe people need a government, just not these squandering, incompetent fools we have running the show. I believe in defending my homeland, but I despise an arrogant army imposing its will on sovereign lands in the name of my country‘s people…with my people’s health care money, and without any formal war declarations… Again, to put it simply, I am my own authority. Not right, left, or center. When it becomes clear that we all should really be thinking along such lines—and so choosing freely as the circumstances require, not as expected by the herd or will of the biggest mob—perhaps being one’s own authority will be seen as more than an egotistical statement. “Trend followers” is a term that doesn’t concern only fashion and this or that style, say of music, but it also is applicable to to the run-of-the-mill scientist and academic.
Introduction
Since at least Babylon wise men have referred to a significant portion of the human race as “sheep.“ The name for this flock has taken other forms, having also been called, among other things, “the herd,” “the masses,” and “the mob,” and it is probably what Aristotle meant by “the slave.” All these terms have been used to describe a concept expressing an idea of a certain type of human being that moves—mentally and physically, and with very little resistance—whichever way it is pushed. This part of humanity has never gone extinct, and per capita today, undivided by income or education or gender, we have as many, if not more sheep among us, than did the Babylonians.
Indicative of this tendency to follow the clan is that we live in a time when one is, if not expected, then assumed to have personal views consistent to a particular group‘s general guidelines. If I am for the right to own a firearm, then I am assumed by others to be against the right to a safe abortion and lumped into that category; if I am against prayer in schools, then I should also be pro gay rights; if I am against the warring going on in the Middle East, then most would consider me to be “liberal.“ When it comes to issues social, political, religious, philosophical, artistic, etc. (indeed, every waking moment may be seen as an occasion for choice), rather than weigh the merits of our alternatives, instead we too often choose as we think we should choose, as mandated by the groups to which we belong and by whose authorities we abide.
The dichotomies and disagreements produced from these “platform consistencies“ in large numbers of people–the left and right, the conservative and liberal, the atheist and theist, red and blue team–are artificial; they serve to, rather than aid, hinder human thought, action, and cooperation.
Only because of these blind allegiances do many inane practices continue. Consider the perennial war between Muslims and Jews. Coming from a religious bent, or style, one could say that there is no inborn, personal reason to hate a Muslim if you are a Jew, and that there is no inborn, personal reason to hate a Jew if you are a Muslim. There can exist, however, numerous real reasons for dislike, real cause to hate a person, situation, group, or any other entity. These dislikes are, as I think Nietzsche would have said, of the purer sort, based on the objective evaluation of perceived actions. Continuing with this example, some think that removing the labels, like “Muslim” or “Jew”—or for that matter “black” or “white“— would remove the hatred, but this would be false, and probably not desirable. Authentic hate is not predetermined by birth, it is acquired by experience, and important to society if for no other reason than for its constituents to know from what to steer away. This authentic hate exists, furthermore, independent of race, age, creed, or gender, in that what is despicable, in the main, traverses all kingdoms. Hate must be known, at least by he or she who would know also how to really love.
The new, less noble type of hatred is not so much learned as it is instilled. Following social customs, heeding the beliefs of our fathers and grandmothers, holding the opinions of the political authorities, believing the claims of various advertisements commercial and non—many shortcuts exist for one who would rather not bear the responsibility of making his own decisions. Instead of thinking freely on each issue or topic, and weighing the worth of each stance, too often we herd toward a generalized, better to say compartmentalized belief system that takes the need of a personal evaluation or judgment out of the equation. What results, which can be witnessed every day, everywhere, are people with no real selves, what would be their authentic personalities and styles replaced by motley assemblages, distorted interpretations of the beliefs of others, hating, and even loving only when esteemed appropriate, and perhaps even then not really knowing why.
A world melting pot that should be a mingling of flavors, of styles, has become instead a muddy soup wherein all the ingredients have decomposed. An analogy can be drawn from politics and lawmaking, where accepting a rider to pass the bill is commonplace. Because I like Christmas, I must be Christian, but why is this so? Can I just like the colors, the parties, the festivities? Can not good and bad men be found amongst all races and creeds? When do we stop following the herd’s opinions, and decide on our own? The desire to seek the answers ourselves, to discover the truths, to map out the correct ways to go, to choose the right way to act, to determine the best thing to believe—instead we, with ever more frequency, leave in the hands of others those decisions which are most critical, and which form our very essence.
As a champion of the individual, this trend is disturbing, but no surprise, given our usual school systems that by their very design stifle all inborn creativity, curiosity, and liberty. This herd mentality is also nothing new, as preparing for life as a member of the tribe has had a long history. Psychologically, it is perhaps easier to get along this usual way and just do what [place chosen authority here] says to do, believe what the prevailing majority believe. It takes little philosophical training to understand clearly the psychological buttressing such alignments provide, and a consistency in thought regarding closely-related matters is even to me still a virtue. Yet, I believe this herd mentality–this tendency to alter or set one’s beliefs based on the influence of the majority–is not good for a civilized humanity. This phenomenon of implicit allegiance too often goes too far and, were we to borrow for explicative purposes scientific terms, we could say this phenomenon wants to apply to other genera, families, and even kingdoms that which ought rightly only apply to a particular species.
The impositions legal and cultural that continue to curtail individual liberties are as they have always been: bigotry, prejudice, and the acts of the mobs, all grounded in an ignorance often disguised as an allegiance, adherence, or “patriotism.” The only real difference, in our more “sensitive and kind” world (Nietzsche would say “prideless and weak”…) is that our mobs are not usually the club-carrying kind you imagine from the black and white photos and artist’s conceptions of mob behavior throughout history. These mobs today are the legionnaires, the churches, the groups, like “environmentalist” alliances, Green Armies, special interest clubs, PACs and similar lobbies, even “animal rights” activists, and “Madd” mothers against drugs or alcohol, all produced from this same phenomenon of the herd mentality, the precise wrongs being that each spreads its influence, in the manner of a pestilence, beyond its original purpose.
Two great aphorists are owed debts by me, however reluctant I am to pay. Friedrich Nietzsche and E.M. Cioran both used this medium to express their own thoughts about living and society with surprisingly great clarity and effectiveness. I also want to add that it is Jean-Paul Sartre who I think came closest to understanding the human predicament. In a sense they all understood the meaning of what Nietzsche resurrected and called the Revaluation of Values, an emphasis of rethinking accepted and even clichéd ways with a mind toward fresh, honest, new evaluations suitable for an evolving world and just that much closer to the truth.
Perhaps some of the subjects touched on herein may bring about similar such feelings in my readers.________________________ I dedicate the following space to all thinkers who read this book. For you a handy place to remember to find room for your objections.
AC 2008, revised 2015
Botox and Boob Jobs: Philosophy Out of Fashion The 200 Blows
1. Style…to even write with style! I want to know–is it possible to write without any style?
Can what I say or what I write be both stylistic and objective?
2. Secrets never told are the only real secrets.
Truly, what good are secrets anyway?
3. A caregiver labors for the comfort of another.
Paying for kindness has ergo become tradition.
4. I see my life before and aft, but only feel the present.
Such is the brevity of real existence.
5. Think if you will (oh how ambiguous a phrase!) of any fruit; now do not think of that fruit.
There is something strange, even shocking to me, that nothing changes there, in that both mental acts are the same.
6. When one begins to think about his own style, that is the moment any valid claim to style begins to disappear.
7. In America the Christian pastors and priests were at one time the poorest of men.
It is worth noting that what once were one-room chapels of God have now become freestanding Christ Complexes with room to let…
Most preachers, deacons, pastors, priests, rabbis, even shamans have become too fat to do their jobs, too complacent to fulfill their duties.
Apparently, God, no longer requires sacrifice–of any kind.
Ditto for Aesclepius.
8. Sleep, Friedrich, is most like a woman, not truth!
When you want her to come on most, she just teases you with glimpses! But when you need her to go away…
9. Does every man crave a legacy?
Be careful how you answer.
Two minutes acting the stooge, or feeding the hungry in front of the cameras, might very well both be identical claims to fame.
10. Surprises being, in our experience, mostly bad, we therefore are developing foresight as a legitimate sense–so we will know, or be able to see, what is coming.
A defense mechanism par excellence, or even the burden of knowledge, one could say.
11. Praying with style: is this blasphemy?
12. I hear my stomach gurgling, as sometimes too, my veins pulsing. Both mine, both functioning without me nonetheless.
Really makes me wonder whether I belong to them rather than them to me.
Indeed, they function probably still because of my absence.
13. They talk about Nietzsche, always have, as if he is either genius or swine.
But have they not read Nietzsche at all?
Call this a note to Cioran.
14. “The Rightful Heir”: Is there such an animal?
15. A man becomes melancholy when faced with the prospect of his own imminent death.
If he appears angry at the prospect, he is intending to fight it off.
This “fighting off” of death seems then synonymous with life, living itself, while the melancholia, with all that is dead.
Those fittest for survival indeed.
16. Fashions, styles, manners, they all come and go, as is indicative of anything at all, including me and you.
That styles sometimes return, whether they are remembered or not, is then a legitimate fact to consider.
17. “Non-Profit” organizations nevertheless have employees—and administrators—who draw salaries, and today these “services” make up more than one-quarter of all industry.
We see Marx was right in one thing, that only capitalism can manufacture a true communism.
Slowly the production and distribution of products becomes secondary to the redistribution of capital, all under the guise of “work.”
Call this the Goody-Twoshoes Law: The larger and more established is the charity, the less percentage of donations actually go towards the cause.
18. Optimism! Pessimism! The glass is both half full and half empty you silly armchair philosophers! Is there no wisdom to be found in that?
Most likely, this wisdom will seem alien to you.
All the more reason to pepper the offerings.
19. What about loving wisdom is not narcissistic? A philosopher seeks truth, thinking himself a worthy recipient, knowing himself above all else…
20. A poet, when good, is a philosopher; a poet, when bad, is a nuisance; a philosopher, when a nuisance, is good.
Muse logic.
21. But who really has time for philosophy anymore?
Talk about the mind-body problem around the office.
Just watch ‘em scatter….yeah…
22. I was once asked by someone “Who is the greatest philosopher?”
I replied that the answer to the question depended entirely on what the meaning of “great” was to him in that context.
He said “OK” and went away.
23. Subtract refined plumbing, electricity, refrigeration, the combustion motor, and aids to long distance communication, and “progress” is only a synonym for “toys.”
Call it the Myth of Progress.
24. Something about that bet Pascal made still bothers me.
Shouldn’t the odds change when the rules do?
25. Do the elite represent us? Are our leaders the Americans best qualified?
Nearly everyone except the flag-blinded “patriot”–who will agree and so eat any dish placed before him–will answer in the negative.
And how good nearly all of us are at hiding our embarrassment!
26. “For your own personal safety”: when spoken by any figure in authority, a prelude to a reduction in your freedom.
27. Can style draw on any source, and so is it free and unlimited?
Or must a style be somehow metered, tempered so as to exhibit the element of control?
The élan surely seems never free at least, rather always pointed and to a purpose.
Purposefully?
28. To imagine a time without values, without morality, without virtue.
If this can even be done, what would such a time be like?
Would the answer depend on your own idea of human nature?
29. When the mind has completely free reign over the spirit, one becomes flustered, or “out” of one’s self. For lack of better words, this is when the spirit has “stepped away,” or if you are Schopenhauerian, when the will has abandoned the body.
You feel it going every time you almost lose your car on the highway, or almost get in an accident.
Your essence protected from pain?
Apparently, we are really the last to see impending doom.
30. Without the spirit, or creative mind (nous poetikos), the soul (psuche) has no direction other than instinct.
Is all art and creation possibly instinctual?
One part of our mind, as Aristotle said, is passive, a chalkboard for memory and reflection. Another part, he said, was active, creative, and poetic.
Many animals have enough mind to be trained in a particular style. Man alone has the capacity to be a creator of style, so it goes.
Clearly the spirit which creates is informed. Graced, even.
31. The gods must have known to put the stars far away from mankind, so far that we have yet to even touch (what they say is) our own; and so the constellations continue their marvelous consistency.
32. Hammurabi codified his beer recipe. The oracles such as at Delphi had the good herbs and even inhaled the intoxicating fumes emanating from the Earth. Wine is known from 3000 BC in Georgia.
Libations and natural products to alter the mind have been around since the dawn of man, indeed a mark of civilization.
Civilized to get high, to be civilized while high, perhaps lost virtues.
At the very least, thousands of years of legal precedent.
33. Nietzsche wanted man to “go down” and so become base and low, so the Overman, or Superman, can come.
But are the Overman and the base man the same man?
At the very least, the seed, buried low, gives birth anew to a stronger man, a man of the Earth literally.
Finally an heirloom, no longer hybrid?
34. “Insensitive Speech!” “Politically Incorrect!”
Accusations hurled by bigots and prudes.
35. Anyone else notice that Hobbes’ maxim about life being “nasty brutish and short” was declared before the Theory of Relativity?
Then again it was surely after the Vedas.
36. Most men are only moved to act when they suffer, or to avoid suffering.
Might this suffering be nature’s way of punishing indolence, of avoiding laziness?
Hence again, foresight’s development as a sense?
37. I like heated, passionate arguments, especially when they are almost to the point of blows.
Truths tend to some out, real selves forced out from beneath their costume crusts.
The burst of spirit is refreshing.
Call it an ode to Andre Malraux.
In honor of him, my next book shall, like his Time of Indifference, reflect my own era, and so be called The Time of Incompetence.
The natural progression…
38. If Adam and Eve were instructed not to eat of the resinated tree, they must have been able to understand the instruction, if but to disobey, and then again to know of their disobedience at all.
So then what kind of knowledge was granted by the fruit, did you say?
Knowledge of self: a blessing, or a curse?
To know what will happen next, yet also to know we will one day die…
39. Many poets die young because they have completed their purpose. Byron, Boccaccio, could they have really improved?
Older poets have proven to be more willing megaphones, either continued heralds of the world-spirit, or mangy dogs made to live with themselves that much longer. Playthings of the muses.
40. Heroes? I admire certain deeds of certain individuals yet not one can I call a hero to me.
I agree with Horace Greeley that I accept unreservedly the views of no man past or present.
But what does a man do, after he has smashed his idols?
He aims to become one, of course.
41. The world’s first billion-dollar “home,” being built by one of the world’s wealthiest men, is almost complete.
When I first heard that, I reflected upon how comfortable I could be with one room, one shower, and one toilet.
Does it hurt to read these aphorisms?
Ha! There is pain in Truth!
42. Economists tell us two percent of the people in the world own over eighty percent of the wealth.
Even braggadocio won’t get the people riled!
43. My dog Marvino, actually my son’s dog Marvino, a few weeks ago, bit off a huge limb of my newly-planted fig tree. So I beat him with the part he bit off.
Don’t worry it was a small switch. Oh he knew what he did and he knew it was wrong so don’t go feeling pity for the dog.
Just like a human when trying to hide such things, when I held up the limb and asked him “What’s this?” he looked away, and even when I repeated, he purposefully avoided my gaze.
He knew his wrong to me.
Really, that’s why I beat him.
44. The miraculous is an experience open to all.
Plant just one seed, watch it grow, and explain away the process, if you dare, with DNA.
Genetic mutations bearing again the brunt of the blame…ex post facto determinations never short on blind speculation and arrogance.
45. Our problem today is that we have too much, most of which requires upkeep.
We are too busy insuring and maintaining to have any time for living, which after all needn’t even require clothing.
46. Whatever speaks in me operates in short bursts.
After a while, the well dries up, making me wonder about the limitations of my own knowledge, or whether the well has there run dry. Stamina, you say?
Discipline, maybe, or will power is what I lack?
Not in the least. I could write and speak continuously, voluminously…but really, why abuse the muses so?
47. After some short bursts begin lengthening into reiteration, repeated analogies, and anecdote, I begin to lose the track of thought.
My memory is bad…or I bore myself.
Is stamina required for communication of any kind, would you say?
48. “To pay attention”: The ability to do this, and doing this, is evidence of the human soul.
What should really be called “soul” is that locus which directs the attention; only afterward, is the attention required for acknowledging any perception.
Even he who is not “paying attention” is surely giving his attention to something, usually something in his own mind, and too often, of his own imagination.
49. Men hiding from women: what it would be like without the silly taboos about sex.
The first impotent, probably a saint, who said “coitus is bad” (or is that coitus male?) ought be reborn sans phallus, then beaten in the public square.
Beat second in order that is; first we flog all of his disciples, those who spread the good cheer.
You must know we already punish the instigator—or the original theorist—too much for his endeavors. We do not punish enough the instigator’s followers, who more often than not fail to carry out the instructions properly.
Marx’s disciples…sons of the American Revolutionaries…can you hear me?
50. To be able to look at something without possessing it. What an admirable ideal!
Art appreciationists, their minds the most sensual, indeed sexual of connoisseurs, not in possession?
Lest we kid ourselves…
51. People talk about “coming to a crossroads” as if they can point to two or three such events in their lives.
If you look for them, you can find such crossroads by the minute.
52. Inner conflict is the result of letting the mind do things only the will can.
Being divided on an issue, likewise, means you are leaving the decision in the wrong hands.
53. It is possible to actually see more while walking one block than by driving across the entire nation.
54. I have, it seems, developed an addiction to gardening.
Perhaps I should be cured, sent to detox in the Sahara maybe, possibly a Mars stay to cleanse the system?
55. Tomorrow our space probe will begin digging on Mars.
“Digging on Mars!” How a propos!
Perhaps the aim is “ore you can eat?”
File this under “Wastes of Money” in the Useless Occupations section.
56. Poets and philosophers-by-degree ought check themselves just once in a while to see whether they are making sense to anyone else.
Space junkies and particle physicists might heed the same advice.
The worst lunatic can even make sense to himself, and his ambitious—or sterile, or lost—converts.
57. When the explanation is longer than the work, most of the idea for the supposed work of art, and its inspiration, are still, as Michelangelo would have put it, encased in the stone.
58. So, I write not to offend you or anyone else, yet I offend maybe you, and quite likely, some others.
What is it that offends us? Is it the subject, the object, the truth…the style?
59. This man in a funny hat, sitting in front of the Superstore, asked me, as I was going inside for politically correct and un-stereotyping foodstuffs, whether I wanted to contribute to the same charity the guys with the boot asked me about at the stoplight as I was driving in.
Aggressive beggars: almost worse than the government. Perhaps the same?
Beware also of beggars in fancy cars, with busy cell phones, who wear suits.
In fact beware of any wealthy person who makes nothing.
60.“Sinning” is not your doing wrong, sin is refusing to admit what you’ve done is wrong.
Mistakes may be made by everyone but the real sinner, while he may apologize nonetheless, in his heart never makes any.
61. You think freedom is easy? If you think so, you’ve only known freedom as an interlude.
62. When one has the freedom, or rather, leisure, to “develop” his own style, he has had too much time to contemplate style, and most likely has none, any claim to real style having disappeared along with his real actualization and true authenticity.
63. And who am I then who holds the pen?
A carcass, a bundle of matter, if but for my spirit would lack the means to hold the pen long enough to the paper to form one word.
Thus saith my spirit, through the pen.
So don’t blame me.
64. Maybe the “me” that knows the spirit is my spirit. But then it would not be my possession, my spirit would be me.
By what arrangement is it all hidden from me?
That would depend…!
65. “Learning to think”: better to teach “Learning to be honest and true.”
In a right society, such courses wouldn’t be necessary you know.
66. Nothing comes from me, really. My spirit is informed, and sometimes I think it is omniscient, the only limitations put on it being my own lack of exposure, my own inexperience, my own lack of understanding..
Our experiences provide the avenues. Only there can we go.
67. Our consummate power is to will something done.
68. When we are determined, by which I mean when we “have our mind set” and are focused, we are aided.
Some people know this power that gives you what you really want, and they use it only sparingly. This way the power comes in force when really needed, and it only comes in force when your are headed in a good direction and have made a commitment based on a sincere and uninhibited desire.
Called on all the time, for trivial matters, and this power can aid you to your own demise.
Call these powers the Muse-ical Interludes.
69. There ought to be a yogi competition. A Psychic Circus.
Yes, as oxymoronic as that might sound to good mystics of all creeds eastern and western, we need some objective validation for these supernatural claims of all kinds.
Levitation? Which mystic can go higher and stay up longer
Mind-reading? Who is most accurate?
Soothsaying? Who was most correct?
Which chant or prayer is most effective?
On a related note, who is willing to wager the most on his professed psychic abilities?
One must think either like a good emperor or a pharaoh—or at least a good consumer—when choosing prophets and holy men.
70. Power, happiness, monetary wealth: no one has all three.
And love not the consequence of at least one of those three? A bonus, a gift.
71. I was amazed by a recent television program about cosmetic surgery, not the needed kind of cosmetic surgery like skin grafts for burn victims or prosthetics for lost limbs, but the “quality of life“ kind, where all that needs to be wrong with you is a negative self-image, indeed rightly assessed or not.
At one point in this show, a woman had several of her toes literally severed for her stated reason that she needed to fit into smaller designer shoes. A butchering the doctors—all of them without expertise in aesthetics, or even common sense—were quick to recommend and perform.
Procrustean medicine?
Does this have even as much effect on problems as does a good drunken binge? At least after a time the effects of the alcohol wear off.
I think Hippocrates has been as much ignored as our American Constitution, of late.
But then again, regress and devolution, disguised as progress and advancement, have become scientific standards.
72. Anyway let me tell more. The plastic surgeon “doctor” said this pretty woman was a pretty woman, but that she had ugly feet.
Imagine that, aesthetic training now included with your Ph.D. in medicine? Maybe a trained auto mechanic is therefore qualified to assess brain function.
Anyway, the result of mademoiselle‘s alterations? Post-op, her toes resembled those of Tom Dempsey, who of course would rather his weren’t that way, despite his record 63 yard field goal.
Maybe she is going into professional football.
Or shopping for a similarly deformed husband.
More likely, pursuing a similarly deformed (and informed) career.
73. Several of my friends asked me why I burnt hundreds of pages of my writings.
I told them I did not want to see those papers anymore.
They didn’t say anything, and left it at that.
74. A shameprise!
Going through your host’s cabinets, casing a joint, smoking a joint, picking your nose, scratching your crotch, going through papers you shouldn’t be, masturbating…and then someone sees you!
Automatically you do a cover-up, a sleight of hand, a physical stammer as if to instinctively whitewash your deed!
But why, you have not, and you yourself feel like you have not, done anything wrong? Why that feeling of surprise mixed with shame? Why a “shameprise?”
There is only one way such a shameprise makes sense.
You are embarrassed, yes…but not for yourself.
What strange empathy is that?
75. A cluster of matter designated to summoning certain forces of life: a seed.
76. When I am happy I do not know it.
Once I realize I am happy, the feeling begins to go away.
77. Sure, anger wells up in me sometimes.
Reason, preaching its logical mantra, becomes frustrated at its being ignored. So it lets go.
When I am angry my reason leaves the body to its own devices. I think I go with the reason, but I’m not sure…
78. So the poetic reason, Aristotle’s nous poetikos or active mind, must tie directly into the spirit and as such both should be considered distinct from the passive mind which is memory and reflection.
The first creates, imagines, invents, and exerts its will; the second is the storehouse of perceptions, tools, information, and symbols by which the mind exerts, or executes, anything at all.
The passive mind, or “Mind’s Eye,” is a bodily presence manipulated and utilized by the spirit, the active mind [read: your real self]. This process is called reasoning.
Without reason, without spirit, the so-called “mind” is empty, and all its perceptions and memories—verily, life itself… is invisible.
79. The sub-dividing of the psyche (or soul, and as opposed to nous or mind) is really unnecessary, whether we are talking about soul and mind, mind and body, body and spirit, ego, superego, and id, or the various forms and degrees of consciousness. They are all part of one organism.
But were we to elaborate…The spirit can only be understood, or made manifest through the reason, and so in the most proper sense is reason, “reason” in this instance being the spirit’s interactive process with memory.
As reason is the spirit made manifest in the mind, the will is the spirit made manifest in the body.
The reason and the will in a particular combination is, again, spirit, and determines the type of soul whether mineral, vegetable, animal, or human.
Sure, reason is present in us from the beginning, but it requires the will’s manipulation of the otherwise oblivious senses in order for there to be any understanding.
The question for you to ponder here is: Is this “spirit” unique in each individual? Or are we all drinking from the same spring?
More properly asked: Are we all simply different tracks for one single train?
Well if so I guess I have to re-edit this and capitalize every instance of “spirit”…
80. Regardless of the style one employs reason is always omniscient.
As with Plato’s anamnesis, reason needs only be reminded of any concept. Once perceived through the senses, processed by the will, and stamped by reason or spirit upon the passive slate aspect of mind, the reason gains understanding, it remembers.
Without this attendance by the will even the otherwise obvious can go unseen.
81. Why write like this…in this style? Why quick spurts? Why the cryptic approach?
Understand this and you understand me.
But do let me know what you discover.
82. A child drops his ice cream, and cries.
That child has dropped his ice cream at least once before.
83. Should not the hardest physical work deserve the highest pay, today?
I say yes, as do the construction workers, and miners, and farmers.
But what do the doctors, the lawyers, the stock brokers, the CEOs…and plastic surgeons say?
We need to think more about “education being its own reward”…
84. A young nation should be like a young man.
When a young nation is like an old man, that nation has too much wisdom and not enough virility; it talks a good game, but no longer has the vigor to play it.
Consequently, an older, more experienced nation should not act like a young one, and rather instead use its experiencing wisdom to substitute for its lack of vigor.
A note on beginner’s luck…and world politics.
85 Pestilence and disease, when most severe, arise unexpectedly, and are only known as such after they have already done their damage…only after which time we “discover a cure.”
Sure it’s true, read some history. I get sick just reading about it.
86. A real “man of God” is a rarity.
Most of those claiming to be so blessed, not necessarily those chosen by Grace, yet remain men among men, claiming to have had some sort of personal contact with something paranormal.
What really is “divine,” or “godly”? Can we ever really know?
A phantasm, a demon, an angel…which paranormal vision did we have?
Bet one thing for sure: The God or Gods are absolutely nothing like what has been yet described.
Call this Caiazzo’s Wager.
87. Nietzsche recognized two pains to be preferable to one.
He was right, it is just too bad the same is not true of problems.
88. The wiser a man grows the more remote from the waking world he becomes.
The more remote the wise man becomes, and the more distance he places between himself and ignorance, the more happy he supposedly becomes.
Call this the “simple pleasure” antidote for alienation.
89. While we grow our styles develop. As our styles develop, the nature of our choices, and the choices themselves, are made and remade.
The essence, the genre of our style, however, never changes.
This is the blank slate we’ve heard so much about.
Originally a unique slate nonetheless.
90. You would be surprised how many hours I have squeezed out of a day.
And at how many days I’ve lost to the hours.
91. Every genius or phenom is, in some way, retarded.
92. Science is the new religion, its priests the doctors and researchers whose determinations we take as gospel.
I ask we remember what atrocities religion has perpetrated, when given similar power. Indeed, the determinations of what we now call science are what we rely on for our health and knowledge.
Were real research done, real knowledge discovered, it would be found that science is merely a cult, its practitioners primarily witch doctors and/or parrots, its commandments–and so consensus– the best we can do at the time.
Surely, and at best, a new church of a pragmatic, and moneymaking, god.
93. The inborn style is really in essence, and by analogy, a particular frequency, or vibration, a total symphony reduced to one tenor, a particular speed broadcasting a singular rhythm. This is the only real style, all embellishment thereupon serving to stifle, rather than broaden stylistic emanation.
Trying too hard to be different, we risk losing our own full potential, and compromising of our natural, inborn uniqueness.
We look too far, for authenticity.
94. For a moment consider those of the NASA style.
If you protest the sterility of their activity, their using good science space, and lots of research money to travel basically nowhere and discover basically nothing of benefit to mankind, you are mocked by those of that scientific style as ignorant.
This, exactly the same as if you question the efficacy of the priestly vestments, whereby you are declared a heathen.
But really, what do these grown men, playing like boys, contribute to the welfare of us mere Earthly laymen?
Verily, taxpayers apparently support the joystick, the video, and the artist’s conceptions.
At least the athletes, and the actors, provide us some entertainment.
95. The dreams we remember are not the ones we have.
96. As of late, I am embarrassed whenever I consider the leadership of my homeland. It pains me when I contemplate how, and by whom, I am represented to the rest of the world.
In the old days, what did a person do when he felt ashamed?
He shuddered–and proceeded to atone for his sins, or in psychological terms, ease his guilty conscience.
A parasite that sinks its teeth into every aspect of waking life is a difficult one to eradicate.
True research must be done then, on how to live in peace with a constant state of embarrassment.
97. We have known since at least Plato that the government form known as “democracy” is in essence rule by the mob.
Is it any surprise most of our leaders are looters?
Let us observe also that your precious vote can conceivably be, and likely has been nullified by someone admittedly ignorant, someone neurologically handicapped, by a mental hospital patient, by a bigot, or a jokester.
Could I even suggest proficiency tests for the privilege of voting…without being labeled, in my turn, either ignorant, retarded, or a joker?
Call this: On the People’s Power.
98. Plastic people, throwaways, good for convenience, bad for the environment. Recyclable nonetheless?
99. Ask anyone to tell you what he knows. Be prepared for an answer of “nothing.” Pseudo-Socratics! ‘Fess up! Spill it!
100. The old risqué jokes frequently incorporated the milkman, the postman, the traveling salesman.
The last time a doctor made a house call many doctors and most educated people enjoyed smoking.
So who takes these delivery men’s place in the jokes now? Jehovah’s Witnesses?
But you know I have heard, and have to consider, that it is usual style for most women to go out to shop these days…
101. Science, the gall of it! To try and tell me that a plant moves away from the darkness, rather than towards the light! A prize was received for this proclamation, be advised.
102. The fact of the matter is that the style of science we have today has degenerated to the point of this science’s being merely an enterprise whereby millions play with toys and games for pay, toys no longer adequate to reaching either the microcosm or macrocosm, the entire enterprise without even the merit of any longer being good entertainment. Science’s own reflections and equipment malfunctions mistakenly represent, today, advancement and discovery.
Still in the dark with regard to the major questions of life, these pseudo-scientists nevertheless find their determinations better than what came before. But have we yet found the atom spoken about Democritus? Leucippus? Epicurus? Confucius?
Speculation is universal, and a game easily played by even the idiot.
However, speculation is neither productive, nor worthy of financing, in and of itself.
103. Further and further they go, the men of science, to the point where their pact with probability they take to mean license to speculate…at our expense.
104. Despite on-going war somewhere in the world, a continued prohibition of harmless personal activities such as smoking grass (while advertising for synthetics of many known detrimental side-effects receive prime-time airplay), an economy that is falling on its face, incompetent buffoons as leaders, and a government that does very little for the taxpayers which sustain it, still the voices in the style of protest are few.
We must ask seriously–does a simple majority of simpletons warrant the burial of truths?
The majority can count on its size as intimidation, and nothing more; once confronted, with gusto and without fear, this majority can be counted on to shrivel back, perhaps from the darkness whence it came.
A pragmatic mob it is, indeed.
105. Perhaps it is only the minority that is best fit to rule. What becomes of a democracy then?
Where is the place for the exceptional, these days, in the corridors of mediocrity?
We must surely reconsider, then, those we have heretofore considered “failures.”
106. People underestimate what deprivations of freedom and infringements on dignity can do to a thinking man. Such a person becomes a misanthropist, one with the intellect and mental resources most capable of, and motivated for, striking back.
You should be concerned that his discharge, his retaliation, might even come with a little delay, at a different time or place, after you pull his trigger.
107. Teaching abstinence, besides the very phrase being ambiguous (no it is not always the lack of educators in schools…), is essentially a sadistic enterprise.
A simple course on human sexuality, or even basic biology (or, indeed, animal husbandry…) is really all that is needed.
As is, this telling people at their hungriest that they should keep from eating, or by association that eating is bad, is simply condescending and abusive, and a lie.
Where is science, where is the education, here?
Are we still being censored by puritans?
Verily, true science can have no taboos.
108. Let us pause for a moment to honor the memory of that delightful 16th century courtesan who revealed to us that it takes one hundred times more “esprit” to master the arts of love, the styles of loving, than it does the arts of war.
What she tells me also, with her observation, is that war is some sort of compensation…for a shortcoming?
109. Many times I have had thoughts of the profoundest insight, only to have them flit away as soon as I get ready to write them down, or even mentally record them.
“Flit” is here a mightily correct word, for “dart” these ephemeral thoughts do not.
No, rather they mockingly allow me to glimpse them once again just before they go.
110. That both Nietzsche and Cioran used chapters shows their distrust of their readers. First of all, they had to sell it.
The better way: make it so that wherever the book is opened, there may be the beginning.
111. Epistemological shoppers! Really, this is what we ought to be, good buyers, weighing, valuing the offerings…another clue on how to best use our current education direction of producing good consumers.
112. “Real philosophers”: a neologism in the guise of an honor, bestowed upon certain thinkers and writers of the past by certain thinkers and writers of the present.
Of course what the critics mean is the tendency to a system in certain authors’ writings.
The compromise ought be that lovers of and for wisdom need not be so complete in their spectrum, or even consistent in their thought, at the expense of detail. There is a place for both.
But if you prescribe to the ancient maxim “as above so below,” is not one good insight really worth an entire system?
113. Sexual licentiousness, free love, nudity, debauchery…I take these, ten times over, as more moral than any act of war.
How dare some people call these things pornography!
Aren’t they so less nasty, so less obscene, these ejaculations thousands of times more thought-provoking than the gunshot or the bomb drop?
The cleanup so much easier afterwards?
I am a fan of Rasputin. And Larry Flynt.
114. And these others speak to me of their morality, their upright style.
A weird, indeed a perverse evolution?
What would someone wishing to test the fringes of free speech do today, anyway?
Treason would seem to work well…and be quite timely.
115. If we could learn the secrets of one plant, say one foot-tall basil plant, our species would gain more knowledge than it has in the last ten thousand years.
And benefit too, at least.
116. The will to lead arises in different people of varied mentalities. Charisma is the will to lead’s brother; together the two can converge in an individual, and therefore we might never become aware that our hero has the intellect of a Frankenstein’s monster.
Plato is only little help here, as he had these sorts of “silver” men enforcing the laws and judgments of the philosopher-kings. He also said the auxiliaries—the police and military— lacked the ability to reason in any detail.
My bet is that the three—reason, will to lead, and charisma—occur only rarely, if ever, in any individual.
117. In 2009, the avowed freest land on the globe leads the world in percentage of its own people behind bars.
With freedom, we see, comes freedom to punish. A paradox, when all parties are concerned.
In 2009, the avowed freest land on the globe spends more on military-related enterprises than the rest of the world does combined.
With freedom comes the freedom to attack? A paradox, whether or not all parties are concerned.
118. If Necessity is the mother of Invention, then Authenticity is the mother of Style.
119. All persons with apparent excess suffer somewhere of deficiency, I have said.
Also, though, the more apparent the virtue, the more hidden the shortcoming.
Just a bit more on this human balance of powers.
120. Defects, oh I have defects. Defects of style, defects of attitude, defects of constitution, character flaws. Dissatisfaction with just about everything pervades my evaluations. Feelings of impotence are common, as I can sense the problems, know the solutions, but can effect no real change.
Those in the past who have been so afflicted, I wonder…could they shake it?
Did they deny it?
121. Come to think of it, what real good am I anyway? Just witness all the da Vincis, the Aristotles, the martyrs, the lifelong strugglers…the stonecutters…the gladiators…the carpenters…the good disciples…the happy beggars…
122. The merits of a broad style, of wanting to know at least a little about everything, rather than a lot about one thing, are clear to me. Overcome with boredom easily, we lose interest after we grab the essentials; having found out the essence, we too often omit the detail.
On the other hand, the quest for a true mastery can never be completed, and just hurls one into the world of a more particularly focused Tantalus.
123. Give it up when the progress is no longer evident.
124. Oh, so you don’t like my attitude, “don’t care for it.”
Take me out of the equation. Now seriously, are you any better than the usual run-of-the-mill racist, or bigot?
What were I to say that I don’t like your approach, or the style or reasoning behind your criticism?
Only gullible fools limit prejudice to physical characteristics. There is much discrimination in the world, by far the most of it colorless…odorless…yes and absolutely tasteless.
And they think they do good, like MSG…and vaccines.
125. “Holier than thou”: still today, as ever, a legitimate reason for oppression.
Uttered always in lieu of any rational or even probable reason, an enslaved will seeking its own towel boy.
126. Surely it persists! Morality with no basis in reason is alive as much today as ever. Social taboos and even mandates in place that regulate what one does with one’s own self, justified simply because “they say so,” clothe us today as they have clothed us in the past.
This despite the fact that “Do as I say” is not a reason and never has been.
Rules such as these stem from one source, and that is pride, the evil pride and not the good pride.
Good pride is not compromising your beliefs in the face of adversity, and means standing up for yourself; bad pride is that of the prudes and the ignorant, the superstitious and the flock, the kind that would pass laws saying that you must run your own household, aye your own temple, as they run their own…anything else punishable by imprisonment and/or fine.
Prima facie, for me, reason enough to “transgress.”
127. So the man tells the clerk, “What do you mean you don’t take credit cards? Everyone does!” The clerk replied that were he to take them, he would in turn have to pay the bank for processing fees, and incur other expenses he could not afford. He would have to raise the price of the very product that customer was buying.
Persisting, the customer, quite angry by now, said that everyone seems to disagree, to which the clerk responded “then everyone else is wrong.”
The man did not buy the product.
Call this Overheard While Listening, or the Voice in the Wilderness.
128. Flights of fancy, “acting on whims,” are in themselves neither benevolent or maleficent. We can choose to be carried away sometimes, at others, we are swept whether we consent or even know it.
Following impulses is, in a sense, like exploring, taking voyages of discovery. Sometimes dangerous, sometimes pleasantly refreshing. Either way we are better prepared the more we do our homework before we embark…the more experience we have behind us.
If but to know when to run.
Perhaps what is experienced takes priority over any “silly” ethics?
129. It’s like a ping pong ball, my style has been labeled. Keeping those eyes moving, at least, is a start, I‘d say.
130. Deniers of life, what can we make of them…?
Why we should kill them, of course, and so waste no time “executing our good will.”
Alright, we can let them live. But only in a house of mirrors.
131. If any single affirmation must precede any constructive thought, that affirmation must be that one is alive in a world.
To exist, surely, you must exist somewhere.
In this regard, Descartes’ only real omission. One genius to this day not refuted, despite throngs of relative, verily, relativistic inferiors attempting still to argue from atop the shakiest, even non-existent foundations.
A whipping boy continually flogging his abusers.
Wonderful and timeless correctness, I’d say, and so also that much closer to the truth.
132. People have not told enough the true story of the news reporter who promised to bring viewers, right into their living rooms, a particularly revolting spectacle.
In protest of the constant presentation of, and lust for violence by the news vendors (and by implication, their patrons), that reporter, on live television, did set herself on fire.
Truly, they ought to be put on display, these sorts.
Giving one’s life for a cause—where are these people today?
You mean one has to have feeling, and give real effort?
Oh my the labor! Isn’t it better to slowly rot away, they seem to say, wallowing in mediocrity, numb…above all, comfortable?
The justifications of the cowards, these, and the mantras of the lazy.
On a side note, it’s a shame, really, that investigative reporting is no longer a redundancy.
133. Philosophy, or Science, about truth!
I believe those equations ended with the death of Sartre, and Newton.
Sadly I must say it is better today for the lover of wisdom to seek out the artists, and then, only selectively.
If it is the truth you’re after.
134. You all have become anaesthetized, numb, unable to feel what comes from without, too busy, surely, within.
To get to you, you must be shaken, roused…made uncomfortable.
There is no reason real arguments should only be had by friends.
135. Nietzsche’s hammer must have been bought by a wealthy tenured professor (retired), and hidden.
While many have pretended to understand Nietzsche, who yet has adopted his method?
I see no hammers, only dime-store pens, churning out mass-produced synthetic and otherwise plastic drivel.
136. Once a man at a party asked me who I was.
I found that question difficult to answer.
So I told him my name.
I have conceded that the closer I get to knowing myself the further it moves out of my grasp.
137. Indeed, the cogito, the ego, I dare say the self, has no idea what it is.
It yearns, and grasps, and delves, and introspects, and then, only when it forgets the search, it makes a discovery.
Tell Socrates, or the Oracle at Delphi, that that ladder of love called “knowing thyself” is endless.
Even a Symposium couldn’t come to any conclusions.
138. Really, it could be that we are not meant to think.
Or better to say, perhaps this whole obsession with introspection is the result of idle hands and free time.
The spirit, then, could be an ever-active element in the human being, seeking outlet and expression every waking moment.
When without any avenue, when frustrated, this active spirit will carve out its own byway in the mind.
It will imagine action.
And please itself with its creations.
139. “Where are you from?”
Another dreaded question! So many choices, just going back to the womb!
So they tell me. I have no real recollection of any of that pre-cognitive time, of course.
Can it really be true that self-knowledge, too, is…based on faith?
140. The “Birth of Knowledge,” man’s Eden, why collective rather than individual?
Our slow realization of the difference between good and evil, our irritatingly gradual understanding of even our own physical form…
This legend of Eden would be better understood, I say, not as a metaphor for “man” the species, but rather “man” the individual, as expressive of that time during one’s life when the knowledge arrives.
An apple, then, we must ever eat?
141. One can dream a happy scene yet feel the emotion of sorrow at its sight, and one can dream a horrible depiction, and suffer no anguish in the face of the terror.
Joy in the face of travesty is not uncommon in the dream world. Similarly, when one is pleased by a pleasant scene in a dream, one is usually a participant, one is usually dreaming of himself.
How many places, how many roles we can have in a dream! One time I see myself, my whole figure, in another, I am looking through my eyes as I do when awake, another, I am an animal, or an object.
The position of the dreamer in the dream? Why here, why there? A riddle, and perhaps, a clue.
142. The key to interpreting dreams is to think of each one as an individual event. Here’s an idea: ask the dreamer what the picket fence in the dream meant to him. For one person, it can mean confinement, to another, independence, to yet another, a desire for peace.
What good are your symbolisms and archetypes here? Jung? Freud? Picasso?
143. It occurs to me that anything controversial is usually discussed in disguise.
Another riddle?
144. What constitutes an “enemy”? What is the meaning of “a crime”?
Seek these answers, without preconceptions, and you will find most of your “foes” merely different, and more “criminals” than you think, merely innocents persecuted.
145. “And so for what authority do you kneel?” A great way to break the ice.
146. Give me ten da Vincis over one hundred Michelangelos! Give me Caesar and Aurelius over Constantine and the papacy and the Talmud!
The history of the world is the history of the genius of great men, and the advancement of society begins always in one great individual.
The struggling but persistent humans, from them we came.
Yes, Hegel was right, on that.
147. Poor Sisyphus. Did he not know all he had to do was stop rolling the boulder back up?
Oy, the guilt!
148. Another sufferer, Prometheus — or Hermes Trismegistus, or Osiris, or whomever he may really be — and his having to endure eternal pain, punishment for bestowing to our frail species the gift of harnessing fire, for giving us language, metallurgy, agriculture…
It makes me question the intentions, “the will” of the gods.
The desire to keep men in the dark! What kind of deities are these?
Verily, the captors of Prometheus are our enemies…and a brutal lot.
So insecure are these “gods” that they do not want us to even glimpse them, naked.
149. Oh please, permit me to still use “divine” as a word!
Imagine a divine not explained by any existing religion or being.
That’s the one I mean.
150. That which is the awareness, or the attention as it has been called, is the divine portion of man.
As the manipulator of the will, the awareness chooses which senses to attend, which window to look out, whether to focus inward on the mind or outward through the windows of perception.
This process, we can call, Taking Attendance.
151. Slowly the foods once eaten by the poorest of human beings are becoming delicacies, and costly.
Styles of eating, of both methods and menus, are many.
Refining our tastes, then, ought be the priority.
One must be educated enough to know when one is really buying bait fish and pig slop, and when good cheese and bread.
152. “In polite society” really means “stop talking about true, important things, and concentrate on other, less arguable things, like the weather, or geraniums.”
OK, so I could argue about both the weather and geraniums.
And this is why I do.
153. Mind creates the world as we know it. So says my mind.
154. Which style of reasoning, then, do you buy? Flashy? Subtle? Classic? Pragmatic?
How much you willing to spend?
155. Vices, we should remember, often do become virtues, and virtues, vices.
When I am told I have a vice, say smoking, they mean to say I have habits, not really vices, in themselves, at all.
When I am told I am virtuous, what they mean, usually, is that I am dedicated, consistent, and/or sincere.
As Hume must have known, it is not the habitual or habituated that is the problem. The vast majority of our actions (some would say all) reduce to some kind of habit.
The problem is, rather, the interpretation of the habituated action, this interpretation itself the product of further determining factors; this is what has spawned the derogatory sense in which “habit” is used today.
Stay out of my temple, is all I ask. I run mine my way, you are entitled to do the same. Amen.
156. Smoking, gambling, drinking, being sexual…at what point does action become licentious?
Can we have no fun? Look away I say! Just look away!
Call this what the parable about striking out one’s eyes really meant.
157. I don’t think anyone can truly love another individual in that philos, or brotherly sense of love, until he first develops a healthy disdain—even contempt—for general mankind as a whole.
158. Considering our evaluation of man, the more faith and trust we put in our peers and the masses, the more viciously that trust is bound to be violated.
Trust without love is a recipe for disappointment.
159. I am insulted, I cringe when I am called either an “optimist” or a “pessimist.”
I refuse to be either, truly I am neither, and to train one’s self to be consistently one or the other is both masochistic and a sure sign of too much ego, too much obsession with one’s self.
Not to mention, a consistent either is probably impossible.
160. One is never optimist or pessimist, it is a category mistake. In general, one is optimistic about this or that future consideration.
161. The question “Do I exist?” more accurately stated would be “Is time real?”
Whichever words are used, though, the question is nonsensical.
Existence and the passing of time are synonymous.
162. I suggest a new addition to the language. We shall by some diacritical mark or type style emphasize at least one word in every sentence, not much differently than we occasionally use italics for emphasis, or as other languages use accent marks for words presently.
Consider the implications for even the simplest sentence:
I am THAT I am
I am that I AM
I AM that I am
Just a note on clarifying oratory, refining communication–elaborating the logos.
163. What causes most confusion about the existence of time are those memories of the past when we recall time moving either quickly or slowly. A psychological study, surely.
Surprised? Real science is still possible, and beneficial, just too often today idealized, and done by hacks and lazy half-wits.
164. It is such today that there are no longer any real goatherds, only sheep given job advancement.
Indeed, how many people today would tolerate a leader who kept them fed, kept the books balanced, kept us out of wars…but who also smoked, drank, womanized, and refused to go to church?
My bet is very few. Folks today, after all, have their priorities.
165. How much new bondage “Women’s Liberation” has created!
166. Women, have you progressed?
Free from “having to” watch, indeed raise your own children!
Free to leave the education of flesh and blood to the state!
Free from providing needed services for the family!
Free to enter the work force and serve…strangers!
167. Two household heads must now work to earn what was once earned by one spouse.
The paychecks, you see, have been split in half.
A new women’s liberation movement is on the horizon, I can see it soaring.
What it wants, what is seeks, is to be captured, subdued, taken care of, petted, and pleased.
In return, I predict, it will offer love, and nurturing, and care.
Call this the coming of the Overwoman, the Superwoman.
And maybe for my next trick: Supergod.
168. I hate you people who complain to me about having to take care of your parents in their old age.
I hate listening to you whine about what ought be a fundamental obligation, a duty.
Taking care of one’s own parents is a repayment for the upbringing you were given, and a prepayment in anticipation of what might very well someday need be done for you.
169. “Wait a minute,” someone says, “my only duty is to myself, and I look forward to that inheritance I deserve.”
Your deserve? Your just deserve?
A bequest ye shall receive, no doubt!
Be ready!
170. Consider Boethius, his death imminent before him, pen in hand, awaiting his fate in a damp, dark, rat-infested dungeon, his only real crime not believing in his god the way the people in power believed in their god.
Impiety! I hate the very term!
The worst penalties, we have imposed, for the least of crimes.
171. Again, in what style do we dream? Do we dream in two dimensions, or three? Color, or black-and white?
About last night’s dream, I wasn’t sure.
172. And so my friends the “meditators” tell me I should concentrate on a point in between my eyes, so as to control my mind.
But how can one concentrate on something that has no dimensions? And where exactly would the center of my mind be, where I can place that object of meditation anyway?
The second sight: sign of a clairvoyant…or seeing-eye dog?
173. One developing sense in the human species, which has as of late been stifled, is a Sense of Injustice.
Knowing injustice is a mark of the Superman and evidence of a conscience.
In some, the feeling is profound, an injustice felt even at a remote distance enough to cause even actual physical discomfort. In others, an injustice done directly to them—or which they do to others—is never even recognized.
But which way is this evolution working?
Am I confused, and are we heading rather toward more apathy, toward feeling numbness towards things unjust? Are we instead evolving a perhaps necessary ignorance of real justice and fairness, cowering at their very appearance?
Terrible, that would be.
But speaking of justice… Today you are better off chancing it with the judge, than relying on a jury of your peers.
If we can find peers for you.
174. Inside all evolution is devolution.
For some advancement to be made, some existing condition must be phased out. This seems like an ontological certainty.
Man himself, since he began to use his brain power to think, has steadily seen his physical abilities correspondingly shrink. Stronger, yet weaker, all change only, leaving bipartisan ethics to determine which way is up.
You must know the whole red-blue, conservative liberal…elephant-ass thing…is an illusion.
175. The Narc, or Rat, is a case study, truly a phenomenon in need of analysis. By definition, a person who poses as what he is not, for purposes of trapping his victim in what he believes is a crime.
Precisely the method used by slave-traders and Nazis, and Zionists too, to coax their victims into compliance.
Amazingly, this sad sort actually feels good about his deed, even in a way like Heidegger, if you want to think about it much.
Remember Heidegger? Yeah…he stayed when they put the NO JEWS signs up in the University where he taught. He said he could accomplish more change from the inside.
In any case, the Narcs are foul beings, malicious, sadistic, and not to be trusted…including by their employers, could they see ahead that far.
176. I can’t help but notice that so many people have tattoos and piercing these days that to be different one should just go without.
177. Isn’t it ironic that we have developed advanced methods of restructuring and altering (PLEASE do not say “improving”) the human body, able to medically and pharmaceutically alter, augment, amend, and remove bodily things to our liking…
…but that we have yet to find one solid method of improving the human mind?
178. I wonder what Karma has in store for people who purposefully alter their intended physical form.
And anxiously I await learning the fates of those who did the jobs…and even more those that talked the victims into it.
Sophistry, plastic surgery….they just make the alternatives attractive, and so put perfume on skunks.
179. Our weakness as we age, as a species, is becoming apparent.
We have entered a time when we feel we must police personal behavior, for example, due to, in effect, a general weakness of will, or rather, considered weakness of will.
It’s no longer adequate to legislate against physical crimes, and real torts, it seems to me. Now we also pass laws about what someone can say, so as not to insult anyone’s heritage, or what he, say, smokes, so as not to offend anyone second hand… I hear the Germans have a man in prison for denying the “holocaust”…
In truth, all our heritages are just as full of lunacy, criminality, and madness. Luckily great men have risen from these auspicious origins, regardless of their heritage, and they are why we have had any advancement at all.
In truth too, the second-hand offense taken at the sights and smells of the general public who do not even smoke are enough to sicken, surely…and especially should we choose to dwell on the offenses.
And so, we allow mental midgets with even smaller ethical stature run even the greatest whole nations. If I may say so.
180. Machiavelli was right you know.
Every social movement and special interest group is a portion of the mob harnessed for a cause.
Regardless of what we think of their causes, these groups do the bidding of a leader, who with his charisma and ideas manages to win them over.
At least for the time being that is, because as soon as that leader is deposed, the mob usually shrinks back from whence it came.
Or to put it another way, as I read one rather rich fellow say, he can buy one half of the mob to kill the other half.
181. Black holes? Big Bangs? Anti-particles? What style of science is this?
Artist’s conceptions, I’d say, again.
182. Some illnesses are treated by physicians before nature has been allowed to run its course.
Premature treatment is itself responsible for many further, compounded problems for the human body, not the least being a lowering of resistance to disease in general.
As we rely more heavily on pharmaceutical antibiotics, instead of producing ourselves antibodies specially adapted to our own physical organism, we become more frail, as the entire situation is, sickly.
Who knows how many people living to 80 years, cut open after death and found to be cancerous, would have had a much briefer life, thanks to medicine, had their disease been “caught” earlier.
183. Are we sure that Moses was a Jew?
Sane? Honest?
Those things we are not supposed to look at…how do we know they are bad?
184. When most people think of style, they think of fashion, as in styles of dress, or hair. What you should know is that when you have style, whatever you wear is fashionable.
Ask the cat-walk show designers. Were they honest salesman, they would have the same 175 pound female wearing all the outfits.
185. In my world the “melting pot” is full of chunks, not a mushy soup.
A recognition of color or ethnicity, or for that matter gender, is not racism, or bigotry.
Treating someone differently because of their overall look, their style (which can extend to dress, demeanor, and speech pattern or volume, etc.), is racism.
Too many have I met, who say all the right things, yet harbor in their hearts profound discrimination.
Backdoor bigots, you could say.
186. Diogenes went through the streets of ancient Greece at night with a lantern, almost every night, I am told, looking for an honest man.
I understand the meaning. But I can’t help but wonder that he probably would never have settled for anything less than a mirror.
187. Evolution! The Big Bang! The Primordial Slime!
Look, feast your eyes and ears on what billions of dollars in grant money has given us for our support.
Like a sideshow, they come to us one by one… carbon dating, the red and blue shifts, protobionts, DNA, all along a line, beckoning our allegiance.
A sideshow? Hardly, now that I think about it. For when you don’t like a sideshow, when you understand the tricks and the errors in human perception presented at the circuses, you can walk away.
With these metaphysical theoretical sciences, alas, I fear we are forced to watch, and even believe, the whole sterile fairy tale.
188. Yes that’s right, contemporary science is sterile.
This science goes through the motions, appears to be thinking, drawing and collating data. But these actions produce little fruit.
We could use science to come up with renewable energy, we have none. We could use a larger lifespan, yet we continue living no longer than a well-fed pacifist in Ancient Greece, and if we are allowed to use our own fables, not near as long as Abraham or Methuselah, or Confucius even.
We could use a new style of science, no doubt.
189. Already, and I pray forgiveness on your behalf to Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, James Madison, James Monroe, John Adams, John Hancock, George Washington, Thomas Paine, Nathan Hale, and all whom I omit for brevity, we have pacified our zest for liberty by calling the United States Constitution an “ambiguous” document.
Arguing over the meanings of this or that freedom, and forgetting that as much, if not more enlightened thought went into the Constitution and the accompanying documents than any challenge to them since, we have grievously erred in forgetting the guarantees to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness these documents provide.
These words are not contingencies but the very foundation of our sovereign existence and the pillars which support all our other rights, and neither are they arguable mandates but rather strikingly clear prerequisites of a free society: you may in this country pursue all those things of life, until you infringe on another’s right to the same.
The clarity of the idea is unmistakable; the tolerance for its actuality, way too tentative.
What are you scared of?
190. Are you like my colleague? He argues, telling me that these words “Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness” do not appear in theConstitution, and more mutters that the Bill of Rights is not part of the Constitution.
So I show him why indeed the Bill of Rights is just a Chapter in the Constitution, as the Declaration is its Preface; there would have been no Constitution otherwise, because several states refused to ratify it unless the Bill of Rights was included.
Before gaining knowledge, you have to free yourself of your oppressors, toss their wares into the Sea.
Bear in mind, though, you may later, after your research, want to dive back in after them.
Albeit with a newfound appreciation, of course.
191. Without a soul, or spirit, or mind, there is nothing in man to take responsibility, nothing in the carcass that can be considered responsible.
Defined, the essence is the part of you that has been you since as far as you can remember.
It is your Form.
You have changed, no doubt, in your attitudes, which have in-turn changed you decision-making processes.
But YOU persist throughout it all. This is YOU, is your essence, it is what experiences, and through the will directs, the perceptions received by the senses.
192. Politics, sex, and religion: the three things we are told not to talk about if we want to make and keep friends.
Politics, sex, and religion: the three things that we most have in common.
Why say you real friendships are difficult to find?
193. Wisdom, in style or anything else, is not measured by degrees. For wisdom, there is really no graduation.
194. How can a conscience persecute a consciousness?
It is a numbness, achieved over time, indubitably ugly, but painless.
An anesthetic, definitely.
Consciousness ignoring conscience: a travesty.
195. It has been said that two geniuses can tell each other everything they know in fifteen minutes.
Were we to detail what we really know we would need but few pages…and a lengthy confession list.
Do you think this book is too long?
196. Gurdjieff, for one, once made a statement to the effect that all we pretend to know is the first case of lying.
But was Gurdjieff a liar?
I don’t think so. Something about his maxim “90% of what you know is bullshit” rings completely true to me…
197. Evolution? How we flatter ourselves!
Those meager bones, proof of our simian origin?
All we have proven, really, is that the Leakeys have dug up quite an effective business model.
198. Sports, as old as at least the Minoans, are competitions of ability, and based on set rules of gaming.
The elevation of the sportsman to hero and role model are delegations made by idiots, based on popularity.
A good glance at history and the rules will show, really, democracy is the worst form of government.
The public is after all so easily amused.
Bread and circuses…another hail to Caesar.
199. Yes, really, how do we determine what is—in style?
We do it by mob rule, we do it by raw vote, giving equal time to senility and the sagacious.
One man, one vote, seems hardly fair.
200. The alternative. What to make of it? So close, yet so far from being the choice. Is there no medal for that?
