I have lived 10,007 days. I will have lived 20,000 days on March 25, 2037. That is my mother’s birthday. She will be 80 years old. I will be 54, 9 months, and 16 days. Between now and then, everything in my life must happen.
I wander, newborn through the world. Until – her, my true companion, my best friend, my one and only. And then we walk the world together, her hand in my mine, looking up now and again to notice we’re getting older, rising with the dawn and sleeping with the dusk, again and again and again, for ten thousand, twenty thousand, thirty thousand days, watching hair thin, skin lose its strength, bones their vigor —
the fire of our love will not fade but will continue burning —
and then she dies. And then I sit by her grave a time. And then I die.
And that life is sad, but the best one can hope for.
And it has not yet happened. I have found hers, but lost them too early. Were they not the one, neither, or was I not the one, or are we Digital Nomads too thrifty with our hearts. Where is the one? The great fear of the single man at 27. Absurd and irrational. One third of my life is gone. Memento Mori. I don’t want to be alone when I go.
If evil involves (at its Kantian basic) the failure to recognize individuals as ends worthy of dignity, instead using them as only means, then a Collective Identity which de-emphasizes individuality may make us far more likely to make this cognitive choice.
Then, the fact that humans are social creatures capable of being partially or wholly subsumed into a Collective Identity (which function relies on our Rich Imaginative Construction of Identity, where our Minds Adrift and Strange have a large say in constructing our conception of who and what we are) will naturally lead to the great possibility of evil.
However, a militant rejection of Collective Identity may also lead one to evil, in that we begin to focus on the difference between our self and everyone else instead of the commonality of consciousness.
(Musings inspired by Wikipedia’s discussion of Philip Zimbardo’s book The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil.)
The fact that we live in a world of relative good and relative bad, or, to use the cliche, myriad shades of grey, should not lead us to accept the conclusion that grey is all there is. Grey being the mixture of white and black, black, in this metaphor, absolute evil, exists as the a priori concept that brings darkness, evil, pain, what have you into the world.
(Of course, the possibility of this argument should not be taken as dispositive. It is equally possible that gray is a color, the only color, and there is no absolute a priori morality, only strategies based on contingencies responding to varying degrees of fellow-feeling, developed by experience, evolution, and temperament.)
Your time is near, the mission’s clear
It’s later than we think
Before you slip into the night
You’ll want something to drink
Steal away before the dawn, and
Bring us back good news
But if you’ve tread in primal soup
Please wipe it from your shoes
Just then a porthole pirate
Scourged the evening with his cry
And sanctuary bugs deprived
The monkey of its thigh
A dust arose and clogged my nose
Before I could blink twice
Despite the stuff that bubbled up
I gave some last advice:
“The flesh from Satan’s dogs
Will make the rudiments of gruel”
“Deduct the carrots from your pay
You worthless swampy fool”
Exploding then through fields and fen
And swimming in the mire
The septic maiden’s gargoyle tooth
Demented me with fire
I drifted where the current chose
Afloat upon my back
And if perchance a newt slimed by
I’d stuff it in my sack
Soon I felt a bubble form, Somewhere below my skin
But with handy spine of hedgehog
I removed the force within
Suzie then removed her mask
And caused a mighty stir
The angry mob responded
Taking turns at grabbing her
The foggy cavern’s musty grime
Appeared within my palm
I snatched Rick’s fork to scrape it off
With deadly icy calm
The crowd meanwhile had taken Sue
And used her like a rag
To mop the slime from where the slug
Had slithered with the bag
In summing up, the moral seems
A little bit obscure…
Give the director a serpent deflector
a mudrat detector, a ribbon reflector
a cushion convector, a picture of nectar *
a virile dissector,a hormone collector
whatever you do take care of your shoes
Glenn Beck’s recent book is called Arguing with Idiots. One can only assume it’s a no-nonsense guide for arguing with him.
P.S. Is he dressed like Hitler on the cover? Why?
I have lived for 10,000 days.
What do I have? Little. Much. Am I master of my own life? Self-Author? Do I want to be? No. Not really. Negation. Tunnel vision.
Problem with self-authorship, solipsism, is the ultimate impossibility of surprise. The death of newness. On the other hand — ranging out into the wide world, merely a one among many, provides for the possibility of endless surprises.
One of those surprises will no doubt kill me, and take me away from all this, but that is a risk that a) cannot be avoided, even if we lock ourselves in boxes, and b) even if it could be avoided, we wouldn’t want to.
Surrounded by loneliness, I return to my parent’s house. My soul expands to fill its rooms.
Two dimensional sprites dance on screens across my view.
Larry David cracks a joke on the telescreen.
I line up seven books on deliberative democracy.
Kant tells us that the only moral act is the one we don’t want to do. Sounds right, but where does it come from?
Read a science fiction book about Platonic ideas and multiple worlds. I do think morality may have something to do with that, with the human brain modeling all possible worlds and picking the best one — morality is a science that tells us which possible world to pick.
Choice. Action. The Matrix Trilogy, which began in 1999, before the Dream of Fire broke through the Worlds of If into our world, the world of action. It was a dream, those days, secret crushes on dark haired girls, laying in a Kibbutz House in Israel trying to figure out a way to express my tumultous hormone-influenced feelings — that sea has settled somewhat — I burn, but burn steadier —
Still — when I’m alone — and I’m alone now — I recede and become less capable of bridging the gaps between us — though empatheogens help — I was quite friendly that first night of 8, talking to Geraldine, and the couple from 2006, and the kid from the ranch in Florida — I interrogate you friendly-like, exploring the outside world —
Other people. Sun light at 3 PM dapples and shines through my window — burning bright colored leaves wave in wind and divide the light making light shows —
something is missing here — something burnt out — feels like jetlag, but could also be ruins of neural tissue — I think that’s fine — just tired — not enough coffee, not enough donuts —
My memory, legion, surrounds, but I am less interested in them now — things I could do to mark the day — drive out to Hawk Mountain, or the Delaware Water Gap — sit and watch the creek out the back window of this house — talk to me — my parents come in — showing me a coat — offering me a coat — my mom used to dress me in coats for fat people when I was young — before I could choose for myself — old mean joke two-fisted “your mom dresses you funny” — reading the Hobbit in my friend’s house in Ventnor, his dad asking me if I understood all the words — I said yes — maybe not — I’m not afraid to skim past the slow parts — might miss a little miss a lot — a sword for kings — my great unceasing ambition — my righteous anger — how shall I be good — stop eating animals — oh, the poor poor animals, engaging in some bloody industrial final solution — not as bad but it looks the same — industrialized killing — robotic death planes — 21st century — war in the desert — war of assassins — all these things are outside of me — do not touch me except through broadsheets and internets — tubes — where do we go from here —
tomorrow is the true day — 10,001. First day of the rest of my life. Why not now. Exercise. Beauty. Making myself strong. I need to be strong and knowledgeable and wise. Right click. Context sensitive. Enough to run. Manhattan, Great City. Yankees win the Pennant. Bloomberg takes the election. I dance on the graves of 10,000 Indians, gone to dust. Shiva, metaphor, enacts the Dance of the End of the World. What new world is sleeping, safe, in amniotic fluid with amniotic dreams — piercing pain and egg yolks — Do I want a Child? Yes, if I can care for it — I hold this life in trust for Something Greater —
Am I master of my life or servant? Great honor and dignity of being a servant, of serving the cause of life and happiness and justice — Ayn Rand never got that — she was riches to rags and never forgave the thieves who did it — and here, in land of freedom, where we are free to be cruel, she worshipped that — having a gold dollar sign in front of her grave — foolish. Gold enslaves as well. Half right. Half right. We must not be slaves. Servants, who serve freely. Beings, with Respect for that Beingness. Slavery is not a crime but a lie — man cannot be enslaved, he can only be imprisoned —
I am imprisoned, we all are, but I am not enslaved — must self-legislate — things are true that I forget, no one taught that to me yet — the lesson was to be serious, to be more serious — which does not denigate play, but we must be serious about our play, at least for the time being I must live strongly and fiercely and fully — I do not want to be safe — I must live out on the edge — when I read, I’ll take notes — when I dream, I will remember — I will discern what I desire, and get it — I will plan, and follow through on those plans — I will search out new things and learn about them — Arshile Gorky at the Philadelphia Museum of Art —
Coffee is ready. 1000 words. 10,000 hours. 10,000 days. I am an expert at life, 12 times over.
Had strange dreams as soon as I returned to New York City. Went to bed around 3 AM Eastern. Almost immediately was in a deeply strong lucid dream — first of all, all the folks from the festival were back, having conversations, talking, there in the fields or the room or something and was I in my bed or in a tent in California — strong strong lucidity — and overflow of reality pushing down on my cavern —
later — a hero in a strange city — enemies everywhere — allies elsewhere — not sure where —
later — a dark haired girl — the one I love — or not — before me — suddenly she’s naked and so am I — I embrace her, feeling her substantiality in my hands — I am dreaming, I know — how is this happening? Struggling struggling I wake myself up — yes — a dream — a dream —
later — same story, but I’m a different hero — the young prince many years earlier — sneaking with my sister through the underground cellars of our family mansion — trying not to be discovered —
later — navigating great architectures — headed for the magistrate — casting aspersions on our driver — dangling from chasms into great unknowns — jumping across broken stair cases — looking out on great arenas full of people — bright lights — bright lights —
where is my mind?
The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of paraheliotropic trees 
