Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Lives ruined

This is going to be quite a negative post, at least in the beginning. I just think I should warn you of this before you begin reading.

Okay, now that you've decided to go on reading anyway, let me start by stating the obvious: The world is not a just place. History tells us about how many people have been killed, tortured and excommunicated, sometimes with the illusion of justice having been done. At best, this justice is administered capricously and arbitrarily. One must remember through all of this though, that these are not statistics as much as they are human lives. Every time a person is sent to jail, exiled, beaten, killed or forced to suffer pain, it is unnecessary. These brutalities are quite simply being imposed on such people, for no reason other than those imposing them considering them just or even necessary.

Dehumanisation of people leads to said people's potential becoming less fully realised. Putting the people through hell on a personal scale is horrific enough - they have only their own lives to experience, after all. But when you consider the macrocosmic effects of such behaviour, it should become clear that if you dehumanise one person, you dehumanise everyone. The pain they feel is going to manifest itself as pain in the greater cosmic environment.

It has never been more clear: Strive to do no harm. To anyone. Ever. Making a single person suffer makes us all suffer. For we are all connected. We are all just slightly different manifestations of a collective consciousness. Why should we harm something we can help grow? We can build on happiness and efficiency to the point that they become self-sustaining. If there is a purpose for the human race, it is for everyone to live in harmony. For 100% of people, and indeed all sentient beings to enjoy their existence, however brief, to the full.

So you ask, how can I make a difference? The answer is simple: Be kind to everyone. Be generous with your time, your patience, your knowledge and your possessions. Develop yourself physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, all the time. Seek an education. Strive to be fair, non-violent and efficient wherever possible. Listen to people. Laugh, shout, cry, celebrate, mourn with others. Most importantly, enjoy your life. It gives you greater ability to help others enjoy theirs.

Monday, August 15, 2011

The Pot

If you want to get anywhere studying a degree, I have one piece of solid advice for you. No, it's not study hard, no it's not don't party hard, and it certainly isnt 'stay off the pot'.

Stay the fuck away from TV Tropes. If you're anything like me, you will likely find the site irresistible and remark, 8 hours later, where the fuck has my life gone?

Ah, another symptom of Internet addiction. Kinda distracts me from the important things in life, and indeed the important point of this post, which actually has nothing to do with internet addiction.

This post is about weed. It could be about drugs in general, but for now I'm going to focus on weed.

Now of course I've never been high before. (It's illegal, and I don't break the law). But, lets, just say, hypothetically, that I were to try this, I suspect that with enough use I could come to recognise the dangers, but also the potential of this. And by 'this' I mean being high, having one's state and/or perception altered, and importantly, allowing it to be altered by choice. The drug user voluntarily enters this state. And then strange things start to happen.

You see, you start seeing the world in a different way. You notice that things around you have a strange flow to them... some are functional and efficient. The dysfunctional ones don't affect you quite as much. Your senses are all enhanced and you feel quite sharp, reflexive and agile. And then you make a key realisation. The world around you - when high - is the world that you want to see. It's no Utopia, but it's a projection of your desires.

One paying any attention at this point could figure out the obvious danger involved here: Such a world is highly desirable and preferable to the so-called 'real' one. The drug user will reach a point that he/she rationally concludes that living in such a world is simply better than the other, and begin to smoke pot regularly. (Addiction? Or rational choice to continue using? You be the judge). The point is that using this drug allows you to see things in a different way. A good metaphor for it, for those who have read Harry Potter, is in the first book where Harry finds the Mirror of Erised (desire backwards). The mirror is a projection - nothing more.

But in this same post I argue that this is entirely necessary. To boost creativity and efficiency, to imagine a better world, is entirely necessary if one is ever to create such a thing. Creativity naturally comes to those that know where to look for it. And by serving as a 'distraction' to a person, the drug may allow a person to enter such a space. And then it is used in the service of the present (to have fun/be more calm/enjoy a party more/succeed better at attracting people) and the future (inspiration for creative works, whether for one's career or just for the world in general).

Perhaps those that postulate a causal relationship between weed and schizophrenia see these experiences as delusions. (Perhaps they are). Except, for a schizophrenic person, these delusions become all to real, indistinguishable from so-called reality. While I, of course, am in doubt about such a reality existing in the first place, certain people think that because weed has hallucinatory effects, users cannot separate them from the more commonly experienced life (presumably one not affected by psychoactive drugs). However, let me make a bold suggestion: if a person develops schizophrenia through use of weed - what if they were paranoid and delusional in the first place, and smoking helped to naturalise it? This would be a strong argument for people not to smoke if they were schizophrenic. However, I very strongly doubt that a person with no preexisting psychosis could induce delusions by smoking pot -  the test would be: while high, is the subject able to tell the two 'realities' apart? If yes, then where's the risk? It does not make sense that one would lose the rational ability to separate imagination from, well, 'reality' (another layer of imagination?)

So I don't buy the whole schizophrenia thing. Interestingly, my psychiatrist believes that ADHD and schizophrenia are on opposite ends of a continuum - ADHD patients have an underproduction of dopamine, and schizophrenia patients and overproduction.

Nor do I believe that weed is physically addictive. Psychologically, perhaps - if only for the fact that regular users enjoy their experiences and therefore choose to repeat them.

But of course, I have never experienced any of this for myself. Because I don't do drugs. Drugs are bad.

Fuck it, there's no getting through to you kids, is there? Drugs are... Forget it. I'm going for a beer.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Kids

I am having a bit of an angry day today. It happens from time to time. I merely remark upon it to justify, in advance, the somewhat hostile tone of this post. The reason I shall persist with it, though, is because I feel it is appropriate in this case.

It's a quick issue. But it gets to me and needs to get out. And it is this: Most of my friends are in the age range 18-30. (As one would expect). All of these people have had childhoods of varying strictnes, control and parental intervention, ranging from little to great. You must ALL be aware, though, of how terrible a life under the latter would be.

Yet then why do I hear you declare that when you have kids, you are going to be similarly tough on them? DONT YOU LEARN FROM THEIR MISTAKES??? Being tough on people never works. it just makes them hostile towards you, and makes an enemy out of someone you could otherwise have co-operated with. Here's my approach to parenting (God forbid I ever need to use it myself, but here goes)

Teach your kids fucking decent communication skills, so that they can always be honest about what it is they want. Then communicate well and reach an informed decision about the best way to proceed, instead of forcing your authoritarian will on them. When your parents did that to you, what did you do? That's right - you went out anyway. You had sex. You drank alcohol. You smoked pot.

And your kids will do the same.

Good night.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Idealism

Allright, so I have this friend. To preserve his anonymity, we're going to call him MW. Yesterday, MW and I were talking about matters related to sensitivity vs toughness, but more importantly, something TV Tropes refers to as the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs Cynicism. Read it here. In short, it's about how those two concepts belong on opposite ends of a continuum. And perhaps they do.

So guess which end I'm on? Yeah, I suppose that didn't take much effort on your part. The reason I mention MW is because he's the self-proclaimed opposite. Whether this is true or just wishful thinking on his part is his concern, because that's the problem cynics have: they distinguish between the two.

I used to be a cynic, myself. I hated the world and everything it stood for. I was never a misanthropist, unlike a certain ex of mine (who herself fulfills most of the criteria for cynicism). But I certainly was quite negative, not to mention depressed and disillusioned with the world.

And then something changed. Perhaps I am mistaken or overly optimistic in assuming this change is for the better. But my senses tell me it is. Life isn't nearly quite as empty when you take a look at it, and realise, hey, I'm actually achieving some of those goals. This is really happening. We're not scaremongering....

Forgive my Radiohead moment. (What kind of idealist listens to Radiohead, anyway? Or loves films like Fight Club, Sin City and American Beauty, not to mention said person's own films always seem to be about depression and suicide).

So perhaps we're not all achieving our goals. In that case, I can understand cynicism. But a certain amount of achievement, be it in the arts, the sciences or the wonderful world of seduction, is bound to make a person realise, hey, life isn't all that bad. We have agency. We have a 'reality' fully built out of our own subjectivity.

And that's when things start to get really weird. (See my post on solipsism). After talking to MW, I went to see my psychologist, whom I was imagining was pretty sick of me and my delusional monologues regarding sociology, politics and individual psychology. But I started developing a theory (honestly, one I'm completely unable to let go of, for letting go would mean letting them win. And that, I refuse to do. Acquiescence to my enemies' constructed reality isn't happening any time soon.

My theory is: Efficiency is a virtue. And the best one. But I need to redefine your idea of efficiency first. You're supposedly only thinking about terms of work and success. And those are great things. But there's another dimension entirely to efficiency - your happiness. It's total bullshit that up to 85% of people are forced to do jobs they hate. They're not contributing much to the world, not because their jobs aren't worth much, but because they're not happy. A happy person is a far healthier, more engaging, more EFFICIENT person. The so-called virtue of hard work should be replaced with a virtue of EFFICIENCY. See, hard work isn't efficient, or else it wouldn't be hard, but smart.

I have thought of many ways to go about my life and have as much fun as possible, while still being productive. And I've realised that the way I'm going to do that is by championing the kind of efficiency that looks after the individual. People aren't as lazy as we think. Indeed, we only call people lazy in opposition, say, to doing work they don't want to. WHY SHOULD THEY HAVE TO DO IT IN THE FIRST PLACE? Societal determinism has created a situation where you must choose the lesser of two evils: work hard instead of starving. What I'm trying to say is that this is WRONG WRONG WRONG! It's a DYSFUNCTION of the system when a person is unhappy. Happiness, if represented by a critical mass, will solve all the world's problems. This I guarantee you. Your environment determines your life. Not your personality. So, let's work on the goddamn environment, and turn as many people as possible (obviously, it will never be everyone) into individuals that love, care for and look out for each other. And slowly the dysfunction of the world will vanish. Institutions that are no longer relevant will fade into obscurity.

EDIT: I had to rush off, but I'm back. To make sense of what I'm saying, you will have to understand my mathematical take on the world. Imagine that people's happiness is represented on a scale, say from 1 to 100, 100 being happiest. Happiness is contagious and reinforces itself. So if enough people have an average over 50, reaching critical mass, it will be a good enough world that most people can reach that. Let's imagine all people walking around with auras. Those with green (happy) auras improve their world around them. Those with red auras damage it. With enough green auras (which engage in energy transfer and, if left unguarded, entropy) the world will be improved far faster than it can be destroyed. See, I belive happiness is absolute, and there is an unlimited quantity of it, yet it is highly vulnerable and currently unstable. That is why it needs to be protected. By eliminating waste and caring for people, we care for the human race, and as a result, the planet. Dumping waste in rivers is inefficient - it destroys far more than it helps. This goes for any kind of environmental degradation - it is inefficient to destroy life. It causes more harm than good. So we must focus on doing good instead of harm.

I hope this post makes sense, for to me this is nothing short of a vital epiphany.
Good morning.