Economic Inefficiency...
We do a lot of stupid shit in this country. I think that is pretty salient to everyone. But I don't think people pay attention to the myriad ways in which they waste resources in this country. So, i will take this opportunity to bitch, and offer what insight i am cpable of offering. First off I don't think we understand how drastically our economy is altered by foreign oil dependence. Look at America as a giant bank account, which it essentially is. We obviously have two ways of trading in this world... good and services or exchanged, or currency is exchanged. It is obvious that we and every other country have a finite amount of resources, and by extension, the fact that the value of the cuurency is tied to the health of the economy, means we also have a limited amount of currency (we could print more money, but it would devalue the currency). Because of this, currencies fluctuate. As some economies become stronger it makes their currency more stable, more liquid since more people want to buy and sell it, and more hence valuable. But since there money is more valuable it costs more to make things inside the country... that is why jobs have been exiting this US for decades on the manufacturing front. We are certainly far more productive than other nations, but because of the strength of our currency, it makes it increasingly diifcult for workers to survive on the salaries other nations are willing to work for. Thus other nations manufacture and the US is shifts to a service-based economy since we no longer have a competitive advantage at producing goods. That in essence is what the trade deficit is. We buy more than we sell. And it is because of two reasons... oil (which we couldn't produce if we wanted) and the fact that we have no competitive edge in manufacturing.
ok, tired of writing... i will finish this later... and actually get to the point of this entry
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 4:43 PM 0 COMMENTS
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2005
Hiking....
Rock Climbing... at Crowders Mountain in NC
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 1:41 PM 2 COMMENTS
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2005
Lots o' Ramen....
A hurricane hits and 3 days without a hot meal and it's a national emergency and a world crisis, regardless of the fact that everyone has some type of food, shelter, and clothing. Over a million poor little negroes in Africa go without food for a year and well it's just a part of life... yes, it sure is.... Sick puppies in the animal shelter, they live a sad life, so lets euthanize them. Should we do the same for the poor hungry souls elsewhere?
We lock our doors to keep people out, all the while making sure our animals locked inside don't run away.... oh what fickle masters we are
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 12:54 AM 0 COMMENTS
TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2005
“Enlightenment is man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. Such immaturity is self-caused if its case is not lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to use one’s own intelligence without being guided by another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use one’s own intelligence!”
-I. Kant
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 3:12 PM 0 COMMENTS
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2005
I've been trying to put things together for a while, and it was nice to get a holistic picture of my belief system. Like one of those satellite images of where you live; you're stuck on the ground in your few square meters and never see things as they really are, once in a while though, you get a glimpse of the big picture. Well i had lost my focus for a while, but it was nice to remember where i was at, what questions i had long ago meant to address. The afro. studies class i took a while back... freedom.... anyway, i started it with one simple question... which is more important: freedom or virtue. IS the freedom to do wrong just as important as upholding the virtue itself. Essentially is freedom in and of itself valuable. I"m not trying to say i know what virtue is, but if i could somehow discover what was really right and wrong, would freedom still have inherent value. Well that's still a question i'm working on, but i went into the freedom class with that one question burning in my mind. From there, he gave us the notion of the "I" and the "self." Essentially the I was what we inherently were before all of the social/emotional pollution we get in our daily lives. What we were before all the layers of bullshit were painted on. It started a small quest to strip, all of the layers away and find what was buried beneath. It's a scary process that takes time, and you're not really sure if you will find anything. But it deals with everything... from taste (food, beauty, music... ect...) and how they are programmed and created around us to how we interact and respond to others to how we see God. Once you really look at yourself and your friends you see how easily we have been manipulated. Used like cheap whores. We respond instictively like well trained animals with the right stimuli. Programmed with years and years of television, advetisements, cheap music, and maudlin movies. I had never really considered it for a while, but then i read a simple statement about television. The goal of TV isn't to enlighten us, inform us, make us better people, or even to entertain us - TV is about making money. How do they do that... through advertisements. TV is setup get people to tune in, pure and simple - the bigger the audience, the more they get off of advertising. Then we are purposefully manipulated to buy products we don't need. The age old nature vs. nurtre with a new twist. One girl there did suggest an interesting idea though... she said when her friend wants to feel what it is like to get to the most basic emotions, the most organic feelings, she fasts. She finds what hunger really is. Not eating for the hell of it, or deciding between steak or chicken, but just a hunger. The same thing could work for a nice period of isolation, finding out what you really need from other people. What emotions you really want to experience. Anyway, why is this important.... well when i try act i'm invariably torn between reason and emotion. I certainly don't want to live my life on pure logic, but i certainly want to have consistency with what i choose to believe. I want to understand the world in such a way that these two sides can exist simultaneously. I was talking with an atheist tonight and he said clearly without hesitation he doesn't believe in a God, and logically carried that over to saying he doesn't believe in right and wrong. It was refreshing to see people actually have a backbone, and don't play these pansy ass games. Trying to elimate morals and substitute this sketchy little notion of ethics in their place so soceity will still smile upon you. He said pure and simple that he was honest because it causes people to trust him. It's purely survival of the fittest, nothing to do with virtue. It makes things easier in life. He also added, if he wanted to violate that trust, he can do it with their confidence. He said he does still feel remotely bad about it when he takes advantage of that trust, but carries no lingering notion of immorality about his actions. After that I relayed my feelings about God: Internally i always feel like i should be following God, but i can't carry it over logically. I can't fit everything I have learned about God, Pshychology, Physics, Biology, philosophy and society into one cohesive outlook. Atheism works logically, and it really doesn't interfere with my ablity to be a nice or generous person. It's not like i have to become mean once i say God doesn't exist, but, i still have to deal with the fact that i want to believe in god, and have a desire to do so. The guy i was talking with said he did have a little discomfort with it initially, but then just dealt with it. That's what surprised me though. He talked about genetically programmed emotions and how he dealt with them, and has even erased a desire to believe in God, but was unable to be mean to another person without feeling guilty. He said changing what's there has its limits, which i'm sure it does, but it seems to me that if you could take the notion of God... something which had to have at least some reality in his mind at one point, and destory it, it seems like one should be able to do anything. Erasing the existence of of the most powerful being in the universe, or taking advantage of some poor shmuck who is willing to trust you. Seems like if you could deny that, you could deny anything. But also, to further go into the point i want to make, he said he still follows his emotions because it gives him satisfaction. But then he said he does what he feels he is led to do. Even though he doesn't think it's right or wrong, his feelings pretty much align themselves with what society deems is "moral." That however is what i can't deal with... i don't know where my emotions are derived from, where these gutteral responses come from... love, hate, guilt, ect... I just can't see working so hard to eliminate god and then still being dictated by what you feel you should do, even though you don't think there is any meaning behind it, other than making it easier to live in society. On another note some girl was rambling about energy and how we were all part of it... yada yada yada... some pseudo-science crap, but she did mention something along the lines of people finding spirituality in uncommon areas like science. I thought that was insightful, and then i saw all of us colorless, and made of atoms, pure protons, neutrons and electrons, animate and inanimate objects alike... plantets, stars, cats, dogs, dirt, plants, and people. All made of the same substance. One big electric pulse scattered around spontaneously through the universe. But then think, that's exactly how we think electrons are composed. And look at the atoms and compare it to our solar system, then to our galaxy, then to what we think the universe looks like... layer opon layer upon layer... all made of the same thing. Nano-sized electrical pulses. I'd looked at everything as pure atoms before, but never taken the time to realize everything in the universe is made of the exact same three subatomic particle. It does make you feel like you are part of something... you realize the matter which makes up your body will exist forever even once you ahve long been returned to dust. It doesn't give you any way to lead you life, but.... at least you know you've got a future
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 6:50 PM 0 COMMENTS
TUESDAY, AUGUST 02, 2005
Taking a dump....
I was just criticizing my friend for not being honest with me.... and right after that he asked me why i was dissatisfied... I almost said i'm not... i'm content.. life is peachy... but that's not the case... i don't know if anyone is really happy. There are certainly days, moments, when i am overwhelmed with everything around me. I have a long list of pictures when every thing was in just the right place. Seconds of perfection. Kodak moments...But for the most part I am bleh... just existing like an ameoba. Feeding off of my surroundings like a parasite, and just floating around going whichever way the currents will push me. Only expending enough energy to capture the occasional meal, but nothing more. I don't feel deprived. I'm not mad at anyone. No one has hurt me. I've just been lazy. I've have failed to live up to my potential. I probably could have been pretty much anything I wanted. The world was mine to conquer. And now just 2 years later, I certainly have options, but I feel as though i have circumsized my future... clipped the tip. I went to a good high school, but i dicked around, and ended up at a mediocre university, and now that I'm here, a place where I should easily excel, I'm doing average work again... and I'll roll out near the top decile, quartile, half.... but there is no reason i shouldn't have a 4.0. And then, I got in trouble here and there, alcohol ect... each little thing another tarnish. Now i'm just kind of going through the motions.... like i'm doing the electric slide at a party with a bunch of 40 year olds... just stepping and moving monotonously in a herd- unnoticed, unimportant, insignificant... I don't feel like I've done one meaningful thing in the past 2 years. It might be because I am avoiding God... i think i'm playing hide and seek with him. I always seem to run into him, but I never really stick around for the conversation. I just run away again, and get a little tap on the shoulder once in a while. Maybe the key to happiness is fighting/searching for what you want... nothing to say today, just felt like if i was honest, it'd take some of the pressure off of who ever happened to read this.. remove any expecatations they have of my perceived happiness... but on the same hand i don't want to say that it's not something that you should hope happens... just don't sit around with your finger up your ass wondering why you don't feel like Elton John at a gay disco on Xanax... i just think that people lie about their own level of satisfaction in general... they embellish the small details and make life seem just a bit bettter than it really was. Leaving everyone else wondering why they can't feel like this or that when everyone else does. A day is a day... look for meaning not happiness.... you don't need to be medicated...
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 4:52 AM 1 COMMENTS
SUNDAY, JULY 31, 2005
I fell in love...
This is sad... but I had a great weekend, but it was with my computer. I usually try to keep up with the new mini-revolutions in the digital world, but I’ve been a bit slack lately, and decided to cram as much information as I could in this rainy weekend. I've been amazed with the internet since I got it back in '95 but for the past ten years there has always been the disconnect between the digital world and the world we live in. The wealth of information and connectivity was only accessible with a 56k modem or more recently with a cat5 cable. And I’ve been waiting for the two to parts to merge… waiting to have “ the world at my fingertips" anytime I asked.
Well I'll painstakingly detail the years leading up to this realization I had. I got my first cell phone in the late 90's, which was pretty fucking stupid considering that I didn't get a signal within about 10 miles of my house. After that my grandma gave me something else I had wanted for a while, a laptop, and I got my first real glimpse at digital mobility. I had all the information I could store on my computer, but I also got a little cable that let me hook my cell phone up to my laptop and I could get online anywhere I had a signal. That was great except that my battery sucked ass, I was rolling at a blazing 14.4kbps and it was a 7 pound package to carry around. I ended up buying one of the very first 3g phones (faster data speeds on your phone) only to find out that I wouldn't be able to use it because the network wouldn't be rolled out for another 5-7 years. Anyway, in the meantime I went through other shit, digital cameras (my first digital camera had to take floppy discs because there was no USB port), mp3 players, digital camcorders, and a PDA that does all of that. Anyway, I never really used any of them consistently because it's too much shit to take around. And the PDA wasn't that useful without an internet connection. I know yechnology has a long way to go, but to see the strides we have made in my short time of even my limited observation is just incredible. Just the fact that 50 years ago some of the first super computers were being made, and now out cheap ass free solar calculators have as much computing power.
I guess you're wondering what re-spawned this... this interest in the internet, connectivity, and information access… well good old fashioned greed... I’d been looking for the easiest way to get stock quotes when I didn’t have an internet connection, since persistently calling my broker was becoming less and less attractive . Well haphazardly I found out from a friend that you can text Google on your cell for basic info. Later I found out this included stock quotes… Just send a text message to Googl (46645) yes, without the e and you can get any questioned answered... something pretty simple to most people, but it seemed revolutionary to me... the first small step to total portable information...
Check it out if you want... http://www.google.com/sms/
Then I found out that in addition to getting street by street directions you could also get block by block ariel photos of pretty much every city in America... map quest on steroids...
http://maps.google.com/... just click on the satellite button....
So that did let me get stock quotes, but that didn't solve the problem of finding out when I had sold one, or checking my e-mail... or simply getting on the internet in general…. then I realized the entire campus was going wireless and that my old forgotten unused PDA would allow me to get every bit of information I wanted anytime I wanted it. I’d never really considered a laptop to be effective for everyday use and cellophones certainly don't cut it as for as access to digital data was concerned, so I was just passively waiting for something to bridge the divide. Now it’s here…The PDA I never use has a WiFi card slot so now, I can access a very hundred billion web pages wirelessly with a few pecks of my stylus on my PDA. Or talk to someone on instant messenger and send them a picture of where I’m at, or sell stocks, and earn income as I’m walking to class. I guess it seems to amazing because I’d been waiting for all of the piece to come together, and I kind of forgot about it in the mean time. I just quit holding my breath waiting for the solution, and assumed the world would let me know when they had something that would work. Who knew I had it all along.
It just made me think about something I remembered reading about the first astronauts in space looking back at earth, just taking it all in, knowing they were one of a few sets of eyes that ever seen this, and that it was the beginning of a new era. Well I don't think that I am the first to experience this total connectivity, but I certainly see the promise of this new era....
Well, as I was snooping around at the other new features of the Google web page, I saw this line:
"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful"
I guess that was my wish too, and now I guess it finally came true...
Yes, and on a lighter note…my friend just called as I was finishing this up so I thought I’d share… well, anyway It all happened at my friend’s birthday party this weekend where I finished a whole bottle of wine by myself showing my true colors I picked up a blush… yes, I was walking around at a kegger drinking pink wine… but anyway to the funny part… someone took a shit in this dudes fucking washer! I know it’s disgusting, but I couldn’t help but laugh when I heard that….
Later
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 7:53 PM 0 COMMENTS
SATURDAY, JULY 30, 2005
The Tube.... it's headed down there....
and now... about our society...
I take my tv like i take my liquor... in moderation. A few shots are fine, but after that, you just get messy. Vomiting, hangovers, sleeping by the toilet... it's never pretty. Well I took my few shots, and here's what i saw....
I was watching a little headline news program with the picture in picture video feeds, flashy graphics, and sensationalist titles. The format most news programs are adopting, instead of more traditional commentary, interviews, and dual analysis. Well, after going through 30 minutes of uneventful USA related news... they attempted to cover the "world in 80 seconds." Just to preface this I want to give you the story that just ended prior to this little nod to the world: they went over some story in Arizona where they got 1/2 in of rain that somehow caused a flash flood, that led to some woman driving her car into a puddle, and then she got a parking ticket and had to be towed out. Well that's great.. precipitation and some fucked up auto upholstery. Well i'm not here to talk about how sad it is that we have come to the point of considering that insignificant worthy of a national news program. You have to talk about meaningless shit when you have a 24 hour news network. It's unavoidable. Sad, yes, but unavoidable. Stupid stories like that are just the product of a nation that tries to indulge in everything it encounters... gluttons of substance... information whores... Anyway, what i am here to bitch about is in this "around the world in 8o seconds" shit, which covers the other rougly 6 billion people in this world who aren't america: among the stories they discussed, one was a monsoon that dropped 3 foot of rain in a single day and killed 1000 people. 5 seconds on 1000 deaths and 2 mins on some stupid bitch who drove her car into a puddle. Ok, well you see the irony.
But just to put it into perspective... That's over half that have died in the Iraq war. We hear lots of talk about the war this, the war that.... but look at the numbers... Russia lost 9 million soldiers and had over 19 million civilian deaths in WW II. This war is a fucking non- issue. I'm not saying it's not news worthy, but the second we put war on something it becomes a big fucking deal. It puts American soldiers at risk.
I hear some argue, this is a different time, a different era, a time when we don't expect casualties. Well i still say they're wrong.... or maybe they're exactly right... WE don't expect casualties.. fuck everyone else...Look at Somalia (early 90's), over 2 million children were killed, this doesn't even include adults. The only reason we even know about it is because some Americans were burned and drug through the streets, and it made one hell of a PR mess for whitehouse willy. The only truly mainstream record we have of the whole episode is Black Hawk Down. Look at Darfur now... rape, murder, millions dead and homeless. And what do we do, we let Colin Powel send a little note saying you guys better be good, or we'll have to send some unarmed UN peacekeeping troops. Our society doesn't give a shit about life and death, we care about our own discomfort. We don't want to risk losing someone we know in a war we don't care about... don't be fooled, this debate over the war isn't about establishing freedom or preventing lives from being lost... it's obvious no one gives a shit about that.... we pulled out of a country that had millions slaughtered without a public whisper. We just want to remain uninvolved. As long as we're not causing the harm then it's fine. And it's not just republicans or democrats... We just can't be the ones feeling guilty for it. The fact that I can waste time writing a response to with some stupid ass overweight bitch (see last post)who says that we need to be nice to fat people proves it. I'm guilty, so was she.... We've realized it's easier to just keep our eyes on ourself, and "see the world in 80 seconds."
i know that was really convoluted, but all i wanted to say was that when i first saw the 80 second coverage of the world it seemed normal. And I probably wouldn't have thought anything of it and they not had two stories with such similar in content so close together. But then it just set something off, and i realized how far off we really were. This attitude of disinterest is so pervasive. We are just told to accept the fact that people die everywhere throughout the world everyday... we accept it without a second thought. We inadvertently learn to that the lives of those in other parts of the world are much more tenuous, and that death is a natural and unavoidable daily occurence. Then i decided to compare it to the Iraq war and i guess the two didn't mesh well on paper. But i think they are related. It would have been easier to talk about it without the context of facts but i think that without some substance such emphatic statements about such serious issues lose their merit. But to the point... our disregard for international life makes our efforts in wartime seem worthless. People die everyday, so why are we risking our troops and money to prevent the inevitable. There, i think i said what i meant this time.
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 5:58 PM 0 COMMENTS
XXL
here is an old letter to the editor i wrote that some Fat bitch in the school paper was yacking about... it was too long to get published, so guess it finally gets its day to be seen....
Do I think fat people are ugly.. Yes… does that matter? No. It's not an aesthetic issue - some guys particularly like curvy girls - however, the crux of the issue is about being unhealthy. Hatton's premise that being fat doesn't make me an unhealthy person is simply ludicrous. Obesity is one of the most endemic medical issues our young generation faces. It is grounded in a lack of self restraint concerning caloric intake. Certainly there is variability in metabolic rates, but to deny the fact that people are fat because they eat too damn much is just plain stupid. If you're fat and happy about it, more power to you, I have bad habits too. I curse too much, and I'm pompous, and I still like me. Nonetheless, arguing for acceptance of a poor habit is just dumb. Additionally, if your problem is how you are viewed by others then mold to their assumptions. You don't say I am beautiful and your definition of beautiful must be like mine. If you want to be accepted by others you adopt their standards or either become self satisfied. You can't demand both in a country of 250 million.
This summer I went to Chicago for two weeks and stayed with an old friend. I ate of off of her meal plan and slept for about 14 hours a day while she went to class. I ate 4 egg omelets for breakfast, super sized burritos, 12 inch subs, several slices of pizzas, and dessert at every meal. After my two week vacation I returned with an extra ten pounds. My face was fat, I could grab a handfuls of fat around my stomach, and I felt disgusting. I made a conscious effort to exercise, and started eating healthy food again. However had I continued to put on 10 pounds every two weeks I would have gained an extra 240 lbs making me right around 400 lbs come next summer. I think we all realize even at half this rate, I would have a severe problem. Thankfully Hatton didn't attempt to blame genetics for being overweight and tacitly acknowledges that one's weight is a matter of personal control. However, I think many in our society have been tainted by this viewpoint so I will take the time to outline some basic dietary parameters. One, you will not die of starvation if your body has fat reserves. Two, if you consume more calories than your body burns, then they are stored as fat. As you continuously consume more than you burn you will increase your body mass, ie get fat. If you want to lose weight you must consume fewer calories than you burn. It's mathematical, no super-complex formulas. Calories are joules and joules are energy: Become lethargic get fat. Eat a lot get fat. Do both… get really fat. If the feeling of satiation after a big meal means more than your body fat percentage, then by all means indulge. Become a glutton. Just don't bitch when i think you look like a fat ass, and compain that you take up a disporportionate amount of space on the planet.
After she complains about a SNL skit that shows fat people in a disparaging light ,
she begins to outline how fat people aren't shown in a positive light in modern society, and explains howwe have failed to accept different body types. Well, that's because we shouldn't! Obesity is a problem that our society should address and correct, not something that we should embrace. As she mentions in her article… being fat is like smoking. I couldn't agree more. I'll take it even further. I'll say it's even ok to laugh at people for being fat. When people get stupid tattoos, bad haircuts, or ridiculous outfits we don't have a problem telling them what we think. Why? Because it is something we can change. So I say when some guy who looks like a walking Michelin man passes by, think of all the meals it took to make him that big. Smile because it's funny, and laugh because we live in one of the few countries where people can actually get fat. It surely isn't a problem in Sudan or Somalia. Talk about inequity. I digress… When individuals make poor choices concerning their personal health, they shouldn't expect favorable treatment concerning this particular aspect of their lives. This doesn't mean you're a bad person, but it does mean you have made unhealthy choices. Now get off your ass...
well it wasn't quite as informative or funny as i remembered it, but i guess it does shed some light on to why I have such a preoccupation with weight. Fat is just revolting. When i see someone who is obese (i don't mean carrying an extra pound or two) I can't help but see what's just under their skin. Bags and Bags of pure fat. Gallons of worthless flesh floating like tainted crisco. Clogging their veins and making their blood flow like molasses. It's a fucking disgrace to yourself. I'm sad we live in a society where that can happen.
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 5:08 PM 0 COMMENTS
SUNDAY, JULY 24, 2005
Someone said my writing looked dreary. Well i guess that's because I have lost faith in the majority of the human race. Such high expectations are almost always let down though. Maybe i did set my standards too high.. maybe people just don't ever talk about anything meaningful... maybe i don't give them the chance. who knows...
But here's what i find more odd. Like most people I want to do something worthwhile in life, rather than simply indulge myself, but the only thing i can think of is to find some benevolent act i can do for humanity. It's an odd internal conflict. I don't really see anything worthwhile in the world, but i want to do what i can to save it... i guess i haven't completely given up hope. I guess I have met people along the way that still make me think that all is not lost. I suppose this is a thank you to those who have given me reason to still believe in mankind.
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 3:19 PM 0 COMMENTS
SATURDAY, JULY 23, 2005
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=proletariat
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 9:24 AM 0 COMMENTS
SUNDAY, JULY 17, 2005
Nike isn't that stupid...
If you knew me several years ago, you know i used to be a gung ho, bible thumping, "jesus loves me "kinda guy... then i started dating this little twisted rich bitch, and kinda forgot about the whole thou shalt not fornicate with a jew part and well yeah, it snowballed from there. Surprisingly it was near the end of my senior year in high school before alcohol ever touched my lips, and it wasn't until college when i tried pot for the first time. Pot was a bit much for me, and my long-awaited experimentation with drugs ended as abruptly as it began. I still drink from time to time (somewhat excessively on occasion), but that's about it. Anyway... so, looking back over the past four years, i was wondering how my descent from pulpit-preaching-teenager to typical college student occured. I think it's all based on the simple fact that I didn't find any religious convictions on my own. They were fed to me like a second-rate cafeteria meal in high school. Single file, and no choices. As vehemently as I demanded my independence, and tried to be an individual... I ingested everything that was fed to me in church without question. Never thinking that the message i was getting might be just as unhealty as the reconstituted meat byproducts i was being served at school. I just stuffed my face and assumed I was being well-fed. Now i've come to realize that everything isn't set in stone, even if that is how Moses brought it down from the mountain. Overall, like anyone who's been to church, i think the messages are wholesome advice in general, and don't think they are misguided, but I do think that they are very impersonal. I was afraid to apply my own thought process to what i was reading, i just swallowed it whole, asked for a list of rules, and tried to obey. I was missing the point. I also tried the whole emotional, ushy-gushy Dr.Phil side of religion, but that never really lasts... it's gone when the music fades. Like one of those slow-motion head shots they do in every teen movie with the nice emo background music, when you find those 17 seconds of instantaneous love. It's just manipulation, pure and simple.
I think my failure to look at religion from my own eyes, is one of my biggest oversights. For years, in pretty much every single literature class i've ever had, we're taught to analyze any text, for style, for sarcasm, for metaphor, for whatever devices might be present... but with the document used as the foundation for my entire religious convitcion, i never attempted to exercise any personal interpretation. I'm not sure if it was a lack of confidence in my own ablity, or the result of perpetual indoctrination. Maybe I was weak as others have suggested about religion, and I just wanted something to comfort me and give me a sense of purpose. Life sure was a lot more fulfilling then, when all i thought i needed to do was do whatever I felt god wanted me to do. I think there is a good shot in me rekindling that sense of closeness with god, if i take the time to start over. But that is going to take a little motivation, and more effort than i'm willing to expend at the moment, but if i'm given the time, i don't think it will remain ignored for long... so i guess all i'm sharing is simply to look at what you're doing and make sure you glance to the left and right once in a while when you're playing life's game of follow the leader... and to take things on your own terms....whatever they may be...
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 5:29 PM 0 COMMENTS
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POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 4:54 PM 0 COMMENTS
FRIDAY, JULY 15, 2005
Is there more...
To be or not to be.... an asshole that is. Well i know I don't do much to avoid the perception of a jackass, and on some level I like being one -- but i didn't realize how little of my personality actually fails to surface. I guess that's the trouble with constantly changing loations, or being in a place where you don't know the majority of people you see. When you're in a small town or a tiny school people have no choice to but to see you on a regular basis. Though that's not true in any place with over 5,000 people. It becomes easy to avoid others, and even easier to never even meet them. You become anonymous. That's not a bad thing, it's nice to have privacy, but it does make it more difficult to understand new people you encounter. You don't have a common past or any idea of what they stand for. In the past, when i talked to someone i had never met before, we'd at least have a long list of common friends snd have went through most of the same shit. I wasn't just another face. I couldn't be, and neiter could anyone else. The curse and the blessing of a closed environment.
Well anyway, more specifically, as i grew disgruntled with my situation, i sought to change things. I sought to lead a very small social revolution. At the time, i was at a small residential high school where everyone had their face in a textbook, and going out to dick around wasn't a common past time.... so i felt it was my obligation to shake things up. It was a job i eagerly accepted, the role of the mischevious kid. And in order to complete the image i picked up a little badass definant tone. I felt like i succeeded. I just wanted to liven things up a little. And it wasn't like i was trying to just be a roadblock to progress, or to be mean, i just wanted to make things a little more enjoyable. Well anyway, I also found that being heard became more and more diffucult over time. And if one wants to be heard, one must make the message either a little louder or a little different. So, I discovered shock value. Kick someone right in their fucking nuts, and they'll pay attention. Well i tried to be just as caustic with words. Profanity is the most basic and effective way to illustrate this idea. Darn you just doesn't say it quite as well as a nice direct fuck you and your mom. Bluntness gets the point across, and very well, but gives the impression of an uncooth brut... so basically i was doing exactly what i wanted to do, and saying it with just the right amount of emotion and clarity, but the simple fact remained that the words I used, and the way i said them, created a sense of social disconnect. So it became even easier to dismiss what i was saying... "oh, he's just an asshole.. he doesn't know what he's talking about... "
I have no problems admitting that was/is a failed attempt. Sometimes it was funny, but not nearly effective as I had imagined. Though i was principled asshole, the simple fact that i was one remained inescapable. The position couldn'tever be justified. It's a difficult process to erase, andit takes time... just be patient.I felt like you deserved an explantion, if you were willing to read what I had to say... and at least now you know why i'm so shameless...
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 11:02 PM 1 COMMENTS
THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2005
Massa Massa..cont'd
Well that wasn't nearly as poorly written as I imagined it was going to be when i read it sober... I should write drunk more often. I just wish i could find that ease with words when i'm sober. Instead i pick apart sentences looking for the correct adjective (see i just changed right to correct for some fucking reason, it doesn't even sound correct) or the perfect word. I end up with a lot of mediocre bullshit that isn't very interesting to read. I think the problem with my writing is that i become too involved with the process itself. The actual mechanics take precedent over the content.
i want to slap my fucking self for writing that... anyway....
back to slavery. I found out the cafeteria workers at my school get paid just over $6 an hour and get a meal card to buy several dollars worth of food a day (somewhere in the range of $8-$10)... ... after rent, food, insurance, and clothing how much is left... Just keep them well fed and give them some token freedom and say you live in the greatest country in the world. You're ungrateful if you're not happy. Disparity isn't bad, it's the triumph of the american spirit... homegrown Adam Smith... i'm still waiting on the "invisible hand" to intervene... maybe that's the point.. it is invisble, and the jokes on us.... well My point is, nothing has really changed, it's still the same system in different packaging. You just don't get beaten and lynched in this version. You get sent to jail and fucked up the ass if you don't obey....
anyway, enough of that... but it does make a nice segue to my incessant bitching about money. Simply, my ass wants to to be rich. Not loaded out of my ass, Mr.Moneybags - just enough so i don't have to be a meaningless part of a company that doesn't give a damn about my existence. Here's the way i see things.... you put your 15 years in, well on your way to 20 or 35 or 40... whatever you need to do to retire and get your nice little insufficient pension check. But after 15 years, you're bored as fuck - bluntly , you hate your job. You realized people aren't designed to perform the same fucking task fivedays a week, 9-5, 52 weeks a year with the exception of two weeks paid vacation. Yeah, well on top of your recent revelation, your wife cheated on you, you're sick, your dog died, and you wrecked your car. It's been the worst fucking week of your life. So, you don't go into work. You just stay at home, eat ice cream sandwiches, and watch comedy central for a fucking week. Well now you're well rested, over your infection and about 10 pounds heavier. You go to work, where they don't recognize you because you didn't shave and you're face looks like a marshmallow. Anyway, you get to your cube and what do you find... a pink slip. You have been terminated. 15 years of sacrifice rendered worthless .....all because you decided to take a week off and forgot to call you do have options though... (you always have options).... you could just leave the basement and set the fucking building on fire... that's one way to get even, or you could just blame yourself, say it was irresponsible on your part, and that you should have known better than to not call in. I say bullshit. and fuck anyone who thinks that. It's just not a system i want to be part of. That's the option i'm shooting for.... milk this heiffer and get out...out of a system where i can put in that much time and be terminated with the scribble of a pencil or the peck peck peck of a keyboard. I'll make it on my own, and If i fuck up, i'll bike the bullet and work job to job longer than i have planned on. I plan on using a job for the same reasons you do... retirement, i just plan on speeding the process up considerably.I just haven't bought into the idea of finding myself within my occupation either. This american ideal of the perfect occupation is just a pipe dream. The sentence I am an engineer, or I am a doctor is just odd. I am a person... i do finance. I don't plan on defining myself in terms of my career. I have no idea what i want to do with my life. But whatever it is, it's probably not self sustaining, or compatible with the terms of a normal occupation, so, in order to make sure i can do what i want I am attempting to secure the one thing i envitably myst seek anyway - economic freedom. So here's to pulling yourself up by your own books straps, so i can eventually just live off of the interest from US treasury bonds... their security and paymenst coming from the hardwork of each and every american....
I suppose i should probably detail my plan to avoid sounding like an overly optimistic dreamer... Dont waste my money on stupid shit, cut corners, and save save save ( i think you can pretty much live off of 30k and live well... anything over that is in the bank.. 80k minus taxes... 60k... so i save thirty a year... worst case scenario, 10 years later, 300k at thirty... now add in some compund interest and i'll let you do the numbers.... ) , and agressively invest... most of my money coming from the latter.... so on one hand i'm totally anti-business and i don't want to be a part of any of it, but on the other hand i plan on reaping most of my cash from those same companies stocks.... irnoy? is it hypocrtical? i think not... it's all about money in the end...
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 10:33 PM 0 COMMENTS
FRIDAY, JULY 08, 2005
Feeling close to God...
I'm at that point that very far away from drunk, but equally far away from sober... just the effect of a night of mild alcohol consumption. I feel close to myself, close to God, close to something happy. My guidance counselor in kindergarten used to give out Warm Fuzzies, it wasn't some wierd sex toy, just a little fuzz ball with feet. I give myself mixed drinks now for the same effect. It's a little more expensive, but its also guaranteed to have a much more noticeable effect. Anyway, i think my yearlong batle... failure... with celibacy may finally be coming to some actualization. I got all my booty bumping out of my system, and if i can cut rap out of the picture, i think I can get rid of these animalistic urges altogether. Confidence seems to feed off of the the defeats of other... its like some sort of talisman you take from a defeated enemy. What was once theirs is now yours. You have the thing which they want more than any physical possesion, it's not something that you actually need for yourself, but the fact that you now own the one thing they desire more than anything else creates a sense of power Whether it's getting another girls guy to smile at you or identifying others insecurities... It's like taking PopEyes spinach and Olive Oil just to say.. "bitch I got it like that"... you could care less about either one, but it feeds the ego better than any compliment ever will... it's just a way i get to say i own you. I am better than you.... This is how i presently work -- and obviously its shit. It's a deficiency i have internally that i feel i must feed. It's the way we as a society get suckered in to buying $5000 rims or $200 jeans... we want to feel sexy, rich, powerful, whatever we want to be perceived as. We buy our personalities , they come in nice retail stores and we pay for them on credit cards with exorbitant interest rates end the end be shackled by debt we shouldn't even have. In the end we ourselves are captive. Slaves to a system we never even see. Just with more freedom. Our masters are much more cunning and realized we don't need to be fenced in. I We will do that ourselves. Just give us two acres , charge us rent and disguise it as taxes, and then tell us we should find a job that we love. Yes it's a brilliant scheme . Create a stable labor pool and tell them they are free. Give them a manifesto that outlines their freedoms. I will say this - any time that your rights are told to you, you are not free. You are a prisioner witDon
t be fooled ... my computer is freezing up... i'll look at thing when i'm sober and edit it then...
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 12:51 AM 1 COMMENTS
SATURDAY, JULY 02, 2005
...
Not a bad weekend at all, but even so I'm still left feeling unfulfilled. I got to see some old friends I haven't seen in ages, went out clubbing with ones I have now, and went to the lake all day yesterday. Hell, even one of my stocks went up 50%... Though no matter how much I try to convince myself that these things are making me happy, I'm still left with the feeling that something is missing. Is it god? A romantic partner? Near death experiences? Maybe it's been my attempt, with a few blatant exceptions, to be resposible. I feel as though I've matured a lot in the past several months, as I've realized I must start to look at myself as an adult. I'm having trouble seeing myself in a particular point in the traditional growing up process... I can't help feeling as though I'm in some advanced staged adolesence. Some middle passage between childhood and adulthood I should have confronted long ago, or maybe it's just the fact that I never really dealt with it the first time around. Maybe I'm just spoiled and, and confronted with a lack of real problems in my life, I have subconsciously created emotional distress to convince myself that I really do still need to worry about something. Maybe it's just television, oh wait, I don't watch TV - but are it's seeds already planted in the fertile soil of an unsuspecting mind?
I had a friend last semester in my Afro. studies who said he climbed a mountain for a weekend. After joking about being the only black guy on the mountain, he said something about clearing his mind. He used the phrase "pushed the reset button." I"m not sure if that's possible, but the whole idea of erasing all of the garbage created by music, television, my own greed and ambition provided hope for my own soul once again. Most of the time i feel like I have just created a program for most days that allows me to simply relive the same 24 hours over and over again with as little interruption as possible... I"m going to stop writing again for today.... I remember why I never wanted to do this before. I would always want to say something that was never apparent in the words I manged to force out. I'll just wrap this up with a thought I heard the other week. It was from Nietzsche, he said... "Whatever the mouth can speak is already dead in the soul." somehow I think he maybe be right... i'll assume his quote wasn't included....
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 11:38 AM 0 COMMENTS
FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 2005
.. maybe
Well, i've actually made a second post, maybe I can continue this. I have also read some more. Maybe consistency isn't just some ephemeral dream of mine. Time will tell.
I had a childish thought today. Wouldn't it be so incredible if we could just share our insecurities and problems with each other. Yeah, well I'm not saying i'm going to do it. Just a nice thought. Yeah, well that was sweet. Anyway, someone told me I should start a site like www.maxtucker.com. As much as I would like to, I can't do that either. I don't have the balls to offend the girls I have slept with, nor do I really care to share my sexual exploits. They aren't really that exciting anyway. As fun as it would be, and as effectively I think i could do it, I can't. Yeah, I'm just a coward.
It's saturday night right now, and honestly I'd rather be writing this and hopefully capturing some interesting thought to share later, than getting fucked up and chasing a piece of ass. That's a good sign I think. I haven't really met anyone and had the experience and excitement of a new friend for a while, it bothers me a little bit, maybe I'm finding that to be more important at the moment. I also realized today, that a great deal of my sarcasm goes undetected, and taken for actual commentary, leaving others with the distinct impression of me as just another moron. Should I just stick with straightforwardness or just make it a little more obvious.
I took a really interesting class last semester. It was a negroe studies class called freedom. I signed up under the crosslisted Religion section from fear of the future backlash of having a class on my transcript listed as AFRO ###. Anyway, i was expecting something along the lines of a philosophy class, with a disproportionate amount of information about the plight of the black man in american history. It turned out to be quite different. I did get innundated by the perspective of an angry black man but he had a lot more to offer than just a polemic against the evils of whitey. I came in with one very specific question that was lingering from my last philosophy class. Do the benefits of freedom outweigh the possible harm it may cause to the individual. Simply, is freedom a virtue in and of itself, or just a means to an end. Well that never got answered for me. But i got a completely different perspective on everything from food to music to driving. Anyway, I'm sitting here right now listening to internet radio and I can't help but remember something we talked about. He called music an addiction. I'll stop with that, as i think it's interesting enough on it's on, but I'll explain it more later.....
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 6:39 PM 0 COMMENTS
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 2005
In The Beginning...
I don't write, or read very much. I'm trying to change both of those. I've tried the whole online journal thing several times, and i don't really expect myself to continue to write in here in the future, but I did want to at least make an attempt. I realized I needed to work on creating some sort of definitive style in my speech and writing. I don't think i'm a bad writer or communicator, but I do think i sound very flat.
Also maybe document some bullshit that goes on here and there. I've attempted to codify my thoughts on other things before (philisophy, religion, life) but they always seem unworthy to be recorded when i'm finished. I'll stick to what i know best.
After writing this, i see i failed again, it all sounds to "matter of fact." Well shit takes time.
ok well it's been several hours and i never submitted this post so I thought I'd try to add something besides a worthless little intro. Well I guess it wasn't entirely worthless. Hopefully it will diminish any expectation of value from this post. Therefore since I don't have any starndard to meet, I won't feel too bad about posting shit. Time to take a dump.
As a child i went to a shitty school, so i would talk straight out of my ass and could say what I wanted, and get away with it. It worked pretty well for years. Until I finally found myself in a place where people could spot bullshit, and enjoyed calling you out when you did it. So, to avoid making others credibility stronger at my own expense, I was forced to curtail my bullshittery, only saving it for the most oppotune times. Bullshit became what it was intended to be, a spice, not an entree. Anyway, as time progressed over-eager-bullshit-caller-outers would question the veracity of my claims even when they were true. Which would then force me to retort to an audience who may or may not be listening at this point. Well to stop all of that from happening, I just adopted the practice of pre-emptively spelling out every single minute detail of whatever I had to say. Probably having the same effect as the aforementioned scenario, but at least this way I remained unchallenged. Well, now you know what I talk so damn much, and explain things so throughly. However, currently I am working to simply shut the fuck up.
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here is the beginning of another failed journal... i'll throw it in here, and maybe i'll see it and think i have started something....
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I did the family reunion thing today, not the whole get together with 100 of your non-closest relatives whileindulging yourself with the finest southern cuisine at some obsure state park, just getting in touch with those that matter most. It's always fun to see the family and catch a glimpse of the old farm and see how much my nieces and nephews have grown. I also went to my old church today, and it was strange hearing the pastor ("Brother John" as he likes to be called) give his message. It is amazing how perfectly Christianity reinforces itself. The concept of an antithesis to God as a real being makes it incredibly diffucult blame any action on anything but a challenge to God. Learning about science, or listening to music, or watching a dirty PG13 film isn't simply a cultural experience, but it is a direct challenge to God, in the form of satan incarnate. All of those things become a direct temptation from "the one" and must be avoided at all costs. It's an incredibly restrictive cyclic notion and breeds ingorance (not stupidity, markedly different)... i suppose saying it breeds a provincial outlook would be more appropriate. Anyway, the message today was about how satan is always tempting Christians. He talked about how every time God seems to get close to us, there always seems to be a corresponding disruption to hinder our acceptance of his "spirit." The notion of a God that is in control of everything and a enemy that is waging a full scale attack can easily drive one to mental fatigue. It would be nice to just simply write off the event as what it appears, a simple unplanned, unpurposeful distraction, but now, one must ask the question "was this an attack from Satan, and then, was this originally god speaking to me?" I can certainly see how Deism lets the mind rest. It removes the worry of an interactive God and lets events remain what that are to most people - just non-associted actions. Constant evaluation, like i said earlier, never lets you simply experience things. Hell, i see it now, I can't even go a moment without asking myself what's this mean or what is that.... i can't accept that fact that there wasn't a purpose behind what happened- that there wasn't a specific intention. Regardless, if one believes it or not, if one sees the idea as plausible, just questioning it seriously can make the idea an inescapable force, slowly etching itself into ones basic perceptions... especially if you learn it as a young child and it is repeated as you age.
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 11:07 PM 0 COMMENTS
We do a lot of stupid shit in this country. I think that is pretty salient to everyone. But I don't think people pay attention to the myriad ways in which they waste resources in this country. So, i will take this opportunity to bitch, and offer what insight i am cpable of offering. First off I don't think we understand how drastically our economy is altered by foreign oil dependence. Look at America as a giant bank account, which it essentially is. We obviously have two ways of trading in this world... good and services or exchanged, or currency is exchanged. It is obvious that we and every other country have a finite amount of resources, and by extension, the fact that the value of the cuurency is tied to the health of the economy, means we also have a limited amount of currency (we could print more money, but it would devalue the currency). Because of this, currencies fluctuate. As some economies become stronger it makes their currency more stable, more liquid since more people want to buy and sell it, and more hence valuable. But since there money is more valuable it costs more to make things inside the country... that is why jobs have been exiting this US for decades on the manufacturing front. We are certainly far more productive than other nations, but because of the strength of our currency, it makes it increasingly diifcult for workers to survive on the salaries other nations are willing to work for. Thus other nations manufacture and the US is shifts to a service-based economy since we no longer have a competitive advantage at producing goods. That in essence is what the trade deficit is. We buy more than we sell. And it is because of two reasons... oil (which we couldn't produce if we wanted) and the fact that we have no competitive edge in manufacturing.
ok, tired of writing... i will finish this later... and actually get to the point of this entry
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 4:43 PM 0 COMMENTS
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2005
Hiking....
Rock Climbing... at Crowders Mountain in NC
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 1:41 PM 2 COMMENTS
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2005
Lots o' Ramen....
A hurricane hits and 3 days without a hot meal and it's a national emergency and a world crisis, regardless of the fact that everyone has some type of food, shelter, and clothing. Over a million poor little negroes in Africa go without food for a year and well it's just a part of life... yes, it sure is.... Sick puppies in the animal shelter, they live a sad life, so lets euthanize them. Should we do the same for the poor hungry souls elsewhere?
We lock our doors to keep people out, all the while making sure our animals locked inside don't run away.... oh what fickle masters we are
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 12:54 AM 0 COMMENTS
TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2005
“Enlightenment is man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. Such immaturity is self-caused if its case is not lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to use one’s own intelligence without being guided by another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use one’s own intelligence!”
-I. Kant
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 3:12 PM 0 COMMENTS
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2005
I've been trying to put things together for a while, and it was nice to get a holistic picture of my belief system. Like one of those satellite images of where you live; you're stuck on the ground in your few square meters and never see things as they really are, once in a while though, you get a glimpse of the big picture. Well i had lost my focus for a while, but it was nice to remember where i was at, what questions i had long ago meant to address. The afro. studies class i took a while back... freedom.... anyway, i started it with one simple question... which is more important: freedom or virtue. IS the freedom to do wrong just as important as upholding the virtue itself. Essentially is freedom in and of itself valuable. I"m not trying to say i know what virtue is, but if i could somehow discover what was really right and wrong, would freedom still have inherent value. Well that's still a question i'm working on, but i went into the freedom class with that one question burning in my mind. From there, he gave us the notion of the "I" and the "self." Essentially the I was what we inherently were before all of the social/emotional pollution we get in our daily lives. What we were before all the layers of bullshit were painted on. It started a small quest to strip, all of the layers away and find what was buried beneath. It's a scary process that takes time, and you're not really sure if you will find anything. But it deals with everything... from taste (food, beauty, music... ect...) and how they are programmed and created around us to how we interact and respond to others to how we see God. Once you really look at yourself and your friends you see how easily we have been manipulated. Used like cheap whores. We respond instictively like well trained animals with the right stimuli. Programmed with years and years of television, advetisements, cheap music, and maudlin movies. I had never really considered it for a while, but then i read a simple statement about television. The goal of TV isn't to enlighten us, inform us, make us better people, or even to entertain us - TV is about making money. How do they do that... through advertisements. TV is setup get people to tune in, pure and simple - the bigger the audience, the more they get off of advertising. Then we are purposefully manipulated to buy products we don't need. The age old nature vs. nurtre with a new twist. One girl there did suggest an interesting idea though... she said when her friend wants to feel what it is like to get to the most basic emotions, the most organic feelings, she fasts. She finds what hunger really is. Not eating for the hell of it, or deciding between steak or chicken, but just a hunger. The same thing could work for a nice period of isolation, finding out what you really need from other people. What emotions you really want to experience. Anyway, why is this important.... well when i try act i'm invariably torn between reason and emotion. I certainly don't want to live my life on pure logic, but i certainly want to have consistency with what i choose to believe. I want to understand the world in such a way that these two sides can exist simultaneously. I was talking with an atheist tonight and he said clearly without hesitation he doesn't believe in a God, and logically carried that over to saying he doesn't believe in right and wrong. It was refreshing to see people actually have a backbone, and don't play these pansy ass games. Trying to elimate morals and substitute this sketchy little notion of ethics in their place so soceity will still smile upon you. He said pure and simple that he was honest because it causes people to trust him. It's purely survival of the fittest, nothing to do with virtue. It makes things easier in life. He also added, if he wanted to violate that trust, he can do it with their confidence. He said he does still feel remotely bad about it when he takes advantage of that trust, but carries no lingering notion of immorality about his actions. After that I relayed my feelings about God: Internally i always feel like i should be following God, but i can't carry it over logically. I can't fit everything I have learned about God, Pshychology, Physics, Biology, philosophy and society into one cohesive outlook. Atheism works logically, and it really doesn't interfere with my ablity to be a nice or generous person. It's not like i have to become mean once i say God doesn't exist, but, i still have to deal with the fact that i want to believe in god, and have a desire to do so. The guy i was talking with said he did have a little discomfort with it initially, but then just dealt with it. That's what surprised me though. He talked about genetically programmed emotions and how he dealt with them, and has even erased a desire to believe in God, but was unable to be mean to another person without feeling guilty. He said changing what's there has its limits, which i'm sure it does, but it seems to me that if you could take the notion of God... something which had to have at least some reality in his mind at one point, and destory it, it seems like one should be able to do anything. Erasing the existence of of the most powerful being in the universe, or taking advantage of some poor shmuck who is willing to trust you. Seems like if you could deny that, you could deny anything. But also, to further go into the point i want to make, he said he still follows his emotions because it gives him satisfaction. But then he said he does what he feels he is led to do. Even though he doesn't think it's right or wrong, his feelings pretty much align themselves with what society deems is "moral." That however is what i can't deal with... i don't know where my emotions are derived from, where these gutteral responses come from... love, hate, guilt, ect... I just can't see working so hard to eliminate god and then still being dictated by what you feel you should do, even though you don't think there is any meaning behind it, other than making it easier to live in society. On another note some girl was rambling about energy and how we were all part of it... yada yada yada... some pseudo-science crap, but she did mention something along the lines of people finding spirituality in uncommon areas like science. I thought that was insightful, and then i saw all of us colorless, and made of atoms, pure protons, neutrons and electrons, animate and inanimate objects alike... plantets, stars, cats, dogs, dirt, plants, and people. All made of the same substance. One big electric pulse scattered around spontaneously through the universe. But then think, that's exactly how we think electrons are composed. And look at the atoms and compare it to our solar system, then to our galaxy, then to what we think the universe looks like... layer opon layer upon layer... all made of the same thing. Nano-sized electrical pulses. I'd looked at everything as pure atoms before, but never taken the time to realize everything in the universe is made of the exact same three subatomic particle. It does make you feel like you are part of something... you realize the matter which makes up your body will exist forever even once you ahve long been returned to dust. It doesn't give you any way to lead you life, but.... at least you know you've got a future
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 6:50 PM 0 COMMENTS
TUESDAY, AUGUST 02, 2005
Taking a dump....
I was just criticizing my friend for not being honest with me.... and right after that he asked me why i was dissatisfied... I almost said i'm not... i'm content.. life is peachy... but that's not the case... i don't know if anyone is really happy. There are certainly days, moments, when i am overwhelmed with everything around me. I have a long list of pictures when every thing was in just the right place. Seconds of perfection. Kodak moments...But for the most part I am bleh... just existing like an ameoba. Feeding off of my surroundings like a parasite, and just floating around going whichever way the currents will push me. Only expending enough energy to capture the occasional meal, but nothing more. I don't feel deprived. I'm not mad at anyone. No one has hurt me. I've just been lazy. I've have failed to live up to my potential. I probably could have been pretty much anything I wanted. The world was mine to conquer. And now just 2 years later, I certainly have options, but I feel as though i have circumsized my future... clipped the tip. I went to a good high school, but i dicked around, and ended up at a mediocre university, and now that I'm here, a place where I should easily excel, I'm doing average work again... and I'll roll out near the top decile, quartile, half.... but there is no reason i shouldn't have a 4.0. And then, I got in trouble here and there, alcohol ect... each little thing another tarnish. Now i'm just kind of going through the motions.... like i'm doing the electric slide at a party with a bunch of 40 year olds... just stepping and moving monotonously in a herd- unnoticed, unimportant, insignificant... I don't feel like I've done one meaningful thing in the past 2 years. It might be because I am avoiding God... i think i'm playing hide and seek with him. I always seem to run into him, but I never really stick around for the conversation. I just run away again, and get a little tap on the shoulder once in a while. Maybe the key to happiness is fighting/searching for what you want... nothing to say today, just felt like if i was honest, it'd take some of the pressure off of who ever happened to read this.. remove any expecatations they have of my perceived happiness... but on the same hand i don't want to say that it's not something that you should hope happens... just don't sit around with your finger up your ass wondering why you don't feel like Elton John at a gay disco on Xanax... i just think that people lie about their own level of satisfaction in general... they embellish the small details and make life seem just a bit bettter than it really was. Leaving everyone else wondering why they can't feel like this or that when everyone else does. A day is a day... look for meaning not happiness.... you don't need to be medicated...
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 4:52 AM 1 COMMENTS
SUNDAY, JULY 31, 2005
I fell in love...
This is sad... but I had a great weekend, but it was with my computer. I usually try to keep up with the new mini-revolutions in the digital world, but I’ve been a bit slack lately, and decided to cram as much information as I could in this rainy weekend. I've been amazed with the internet since I got it back in '95 but for the past ten years there has always been the disconnect between the digital world and the world we live in. The wealth of information and connectivity was only accessible with a 56k modem or more recently with a cat5 cable. And I’ve been waiting for the two to parts to merge… waiting to have “ the world at my fingertips" anytime I asked.
Well I'll painstakingly detail the years leading up to this realization I had. I got my first cell phone in the late 90's, which was pretty fucking stupid considering that I didn't get a signal within about 10 miles of my house. After that my grandma gave me something else I had wanted for a while, a laptop, and I got my first real glimpse at digital mobility. I had all the information I could store on my computer, but I also got a little cable that let me hook my cell phone up to my laptop and I could get online anywhere I had a signal. That was great except that my battery sucked ass, I was rolling at a blazing 14.4kbps and it was a 7 pound package to carry around. I ended up buying one of the very first 3g phones (faster data speeds on your phone) only to find out that I wouldn't be able to use it because the network wouldn't be rolled out for another 5-7 years. Anyway, in the meantime I went through other shit, digital cameras (my first digital camera had to take floppy discs because there was no USB port), mp3 players, digital camcorders, and a PDA that does all of that. Anyway, I never really used any of them consistently because it's too much shit to take around. And the PDA wasn't that useful without an internet connection. I know yechnology has a long way to go, but to see the strides we have made in my short time of even my limited observation is just incredible. Just the fact that 50 years ago some of the first super computers were being made, and now out cheap ass free solar calculators have as much computing power.
I guess you're wondering what re-spawned this... this interest in the internet, connectivity, and information access… well good old fashioned greed... I’d been looking for the easiest way to get stock quotes when I didn’t have an internet connection, since persistently calling my broker was becoming less and less attractive . Well haphazardly I found out from a friend that you can text Google on your cell for basic info. Later I found out this included stock quotes… Just send a text message to Googl (46645) yes, without the e and you can get any questioned answered... something pretty simple to most people, but it seemed revolutionary to me... the first small step to total portable information...
Check it out if you want... http://www.google.com/sms/
Then I found out that in addition to getting street by street directions you could also get block by block ariel photos of pretty much every city in America... map quest on steroids...
http://maps.google.com/... just click on the satellite button....
So that did let me get stock quotes, but that didn't solve the problem of finding out when I had sold one, or checking my e-mail... or simply getting on the internet in general…. then I realized the entire campus was going wireless and that my old forgotten unused PDA would allow me to get every bit of information I wanted anytime I wanted it. I’d never really considered a laptop to be effective for everyday use and cellophones certainly don't cut it as for as access to digital data was concerned, so I was just passively waiting for something to bridge the divide. Now it’s here…The PDA I never use has a WiFi card slot so now, I can access a very hundred billion web pages wirelessly with a few pecks of my stylus on my PDA. Or talk to someone on instant messenger and send them a picture of where I’m at, or sell stocks, and earn income as I’m walking to class. I guess it seems to amazing because I’d been waiting for all of the piece to come together, and I kind of forgot about it in the mean time. I just quit holding my breath waiting for the solution, and assumed the world would let me know when they had something that would work. Who knew I had it all along.
It just made me think about something I remembered reading about the first astronauts in space looking back at earth, just taking it all in, knowing they were one of a few sets of eyes that ever seen this, and that it was the beginning of a new era. Well I don't think that I am the first to experience this total connectivity, but I certainly see the promise of this new era....
Well, as I was snooping around at the other new features of the Google web page, I saw this line:
"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful"
I guess that was my wish too, and now I guess it finally came true...
Yes, and on a lighter note…my friend just called as I was finishing this up so I thought I’d share… well, anyway It all happened at my friend’s birthday party this weekend where I finished a whole bottle of wine by myself showing my true colors I picked up a blush… yes, I was walking around at a kegger drinking pink wine… but anyway to the funny part… someone took a shit in this dudes fucking washer! I know it’s disgusting, but I couldn’t help but laugh when I heard that….
Later
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 7:53 PM 0 COMMENTS
SATURDAY, JULY 30, 2005
The Tube.... it's headed down there....
and now... about our society...
I take my tv like i take my liquor... in moderation. A few shots are fine, but after that, you just get messy. Vomiting, hangovers, sleeping by the toilet... it's never pretty. Well I took my few shots, and here's what i saw....
I was watching a little headline news program with the picture in picture video feeds, flashy graphics, and sensationalist titles. The format most news programs are adopting, instead of more traditional commentary, interviews, and dual analysis. Well, after going through 30 minutes of uneventful USA related news... they attempted to cover the "world in 80 seconds." Just to preface this I want to give you the story that just ended prior to this little nod to the world: they went over some story in Arizona where they got 1/2 in of rain that somehow caused a flash flood, that led to some woman driving her car into a puddle, and then she got a parking ticket and had to be towed out. Well that's great.. precipitation and some fucked up auto upholstery. Well i'm not here to talk about how sad it is that we have come to the point of considering that insignificant worthy of a national news program. You have to talk about meaningless shit when you have a 24 hour news network. It's unavoidable. Sad, yes, but unavoidable. Stupid stories like that are just the product of a nation that tries to indulge in everything it encounters... gluttons of substance... information whores... Anyway, what i am here to bitch about is in this "around the world in 8o seconds" shit, which covers the other rougly 6 billion people in this world who aren't america: among the stories they discussed, one was a monsoon that dropped 3 foot of rain in a single day and killed 1000 people. 5 seconds on 1000 deaths and 2 mins on some stupid bitch who drove her car into a puddle. Ok, well you see the irony.
But just to put it into perspective... That's over half that have died in the Iraq war. We hear lots of talk about the war this, the war that.... but look at the numbers... Russia lost 9 million soldiers and had over 19 million civilian deaths in WW II. This war is a fucking non- issue. I'm not saying it's not news worthy, but the second we put war on something it becomes a big fucking deal. It puts American soldiers at risk.
I hear some argue, this is a different time, a different era, a time when we don't expect casualties. Well i still say they're wrong.... or maybe they're exactly right... WE don't expect casualties.. fuck everyone else...Look at Somalia (early 90's), over 2 million children were killed, this doesn't even include adults. The only reason we even know about it is because some Americans were burned and drug through the streets, and it made one hell of a PR mess for whitehouse willy. The only truly mainstream record we have of the whole episode is Black Hawk Down. Look at Darfur now... rape, murder, millions dead and homeless. And what do we do, we let Colin Powel send a little note saying you guys better be good, or we'll have to send some unarmed UN peacekeeping troops. Our society doesn't give a shit about life and death, we care about our own discomfort. We don't want to risk losing someone we know in a war we don't care about... don't be fooled, this debate over the war isn't about establishing freedom or preventing lives from being lost... it's obvious no one gives a shit about that.... we pulled out of a country that had millions slaughtered without a public whisper. We just want to remain uninvolved. As long as we're not causing the harm then it's fine. And it's not just republicans or democrats... We just can't be the ones feeling guilty for it. The fact that I can waste time writing a response to with some stupid ass overweight bitch (see last post)who says that we need to be nice to fat people proves it. I'm guilty, so was she.... We've realized it's easier to just keep our eyes on ourself, and "see the world in 80 seconds."
i know that was really convoluted, but all i wanted to say was that when i first saw the 80 second coverage of the world it seemed normal. And I probably wouldn't have thought anything of it and they not had two stories with such similar in content so close together. But then it just set something off, and i realized how far off we really were. This attitude of disinterest is so pervasive. We are just told to accept the fact that people die everywhere throughout the world everyday... we accept it without a second thought. We inadvertently learn to that the lives of those in other parts of the world are much more tenuous, and that death is a natural and unavoidable daily occurence. Then i decided to compare it to the Iraq war and i guess the two didn't mesh well on paper. But i think they are related. It would have been easier to talk about it without the context of facts but i think that without some substance such emphatic statements about such serious issues lose their merit. But to the point... our disregard for international life makes our efforts in wartime seem worthless. People die everyday, so why are we risking our troops and money to prevent the inevitable. There, i think i said what i meant this time.
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 5:58 PM 0 COMMENTS
XXL
here is an old letter to the editor i wrote that some Fat bitch in the school paper was yacking about... it was too long to get published, so guess it finally gets its day to be seen....
Do I think fat people are ugly.. Yes… does that matter? No. It's not an aesthetic issue - some guys particularly like curvy girls - however, the crux of the issue is about being unhealthy. Hatton's premise that being fat doesn't make me an unhealthy person is simply ludicrous. Obesity is one of the most endemic medical issues our young generation faces. It is grounded in a lack of self restraint concerning caloric intake. Certainly there is variability in metabolic rates, but to deny the fact that people are fat because they eat too damn much is just plain stupid. If you're fat and happy about it, more power to you, I have bad habits too. I curse too much, and I'm pompous, and I still like me. Nonetheless, arguing for acceptance of a poor habit is just dumb. Additionally, if your problem is how you are viewed by others then mold to their assumptions. You don't say I am beautiful and your definition of beautiful must be like mine. If you want to be accepted by others you adopt their standards or either become self satisfied. You can't demand both in a country of 250 million.
This summer I went to Chicago for two weeks and stayed with an old friend. I ate of off of her meal plan and slept for about 14 hours a day while she went to class. I ate 4 egg omelets for breakfast, super sized burritos, 12 inch subs, several slices of pizzas, and dessert at every meal. After my two week vacation I returned with an extra ten pounds. My face was fat, I could grab a handfuls of fat around my stomach, and I felt disgusting. I made a conscious effort to exercise, and started eating healthy food again. However had I continued to put on 10 pounds every two weeks I would have gained an extra 240 lbs making me right around 400 lbs come next summer. I think we all realize even at half this rate, I would have a severe problem. Thankfully Hatton didn't attempt to blame genetics for being overweight and tacitly acknowledges that one's weight is a matter of personal control. However, I think many in our society have been tainted by this viewpoint so I will take the time to outline some basic dietary parameters. One, you will not die of starvation if your body has fat reserves. Two, if you consume more calories than your body burns, then they are stored as fat. As you continuously consume more than you burn you will increase your body mass, ie get fat. If you want to lose weight you must consume fewer calories than you burn. It's mathematical, no super-complex formulas. Calories are joules and joules are energy: Become lethargic get fat. Eat a lot get fat. Do both… get really fat. If the feeling of satiation after a big meal means more than your body fat percentage, then by all means indulge. Become a glutton. Just don't bitch when i think you look like a fat ass, and compain that you take up a disporportionate amount of space on the planet.
After she complains about a SNL skit that shows fat people in a disparaging light ,
she begins to outline how fat people aren't shown in a positive light in modern society, and explains howwe have failed to accept different body types. Well, that's because we shouldn't! Obesity is a problem that our society should address and correct, not something that we should embrace. As she mentions in her article… being fat is like smoking. I couldn't agree more. I'll take it even further. I'll say it's even ok to laugh at people for being fat. When people get stupid tattoos, bad haircuts, or ridiculous outfits we don't have a problem telling them what we think. Why? Because it is something we can change. So I say when some guy who looks like a walking Michelin man passes by, think of all the meals it took to make him that big. Smile because it's funny, and laugh because we live in one of the few countries where people can actually get fat. It surely isn't a problem in Sudan or Somalia. Talk about inequity. I digress… When individuals make poor choices concerning their personal health, they shouldn't expect favorable treatment concerning this particular aspect of their lives. This doesn't mean you're a bad person, but it does mean you have made unhealthy choices. Now get off your ass...
well it wasn't quite as informative or funny as i remembered it, but i guess it does shed some light on to why I have such a preoccupation with weight. Fat is just revolting. When i see someone who is obese (i don't mean carrying an extra pound or two) I can't help but see what's just under their skin. Bags and Bags of pure fat. Gallons of worthless flesh floating like tainted crisco. Clogging their veins and making their blood flow like molasses. It's a fucking disgrace to yourself. I'm sad we live in a society where that can happen.
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 5:08 PM 0 COMMENTS
SUNDAY, JULY 24, 2005
Someone said my writing looked dreary. Well i guess that's because I have lost faith in the majority of the human race. Such high expectations are almost always let down though. Maybe i did set my standards too high.. maybe people just don't ever talk about anything meaningful... maybe i don't give them the chance. who knows...
But here's what i find more odd. Like most people I want to do something worthwhile in life, rather than simply indulge myself, but the only thing i can think of is to find some benevolent act i can do for humanity. It's an odd internal conflict. I don't really see anything worthwhile in the world, but i want to do what i can to save it... i guess i haven't completely given up hope. I guess I have met people along the way that still make me think that all is not lost. I suppose this is a thank you to those who have given me reason to still believe in mankind.
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 3:19 PM 0 COMMENTS
SATURDAY, JULY 23, 2005
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=proletariat
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 9:24 AM 0 COMMENTS
SUNDAY, JULY 17, 2005
Nike isn't that stupid...
If you knew me several years ago, you know i used to be a gung ho, bible thumping, "jesus loves me "kinda guy... then i started dating this little twisted rich bitch, and kinda forgot about the whole thou shalt not fornicate with a jew part and well yeah, it snowballed from there. Surprisingly it was near the end of my senior year in high school before alcohol ever touched my lips, and it wasn't until college when i tried pot for the first time. Pot was a bit much for me, and my long-awaited experimentation with drugs ended as abruptly as it began. I still drink from time to time (somewhat excessively on occasion), but that's about it. Anyway... so, looking back over the past four years, i was wondering how my descent from pulpit-preaching-teenager to typical college student occured. I think it's all based on the simple fact that I didn't find any religious convictions on my own. They were fed to me like a second-rate cafeteria meal in high school. Single file, and no choices. As vehemently as I demanded my independence, and tried to be an individual... I ingested everything that was fed to me in church without question. Never thinking that the message i was getting might be just as unhealty as the reconstituted meat byproducts i was being served at school. I just stuffed my face and assumed I was being well-fed. Now i've come to realize that everything isn't set in stone, even if that is how Moses brought it down from the mountain. Overall, like anyone who's been to church, i think the messages are wholesome advice in general, and don't think they are misguided, but I do think that they are very impersonal. I was afraid to apply my own thought process to what i was reading, i just swallowed it whole, asked for a list of rules, and tried to obey. I was missing the point. I also tried the whole emotional, ushy-gushy Dr.Phil side of religion, but that never really lasts... it's gone when the music fades. Like one of those slow-motion head shots they do in every teen movie with the nice emo background music, when you find those 17 seconds of instantaneous love. It's just manipulation, pure and simple.
I think my failure to look at religion from my own eyes, is one of my biggest oversights. For years, in pretty much every single literature class i've ever had, we're taught to analyze any text, for style, for sarcasm, for metaphor, for whatever devices might be present... but with the document used as the foundation for my entire religious convitcion, i never attempted to exercise any personal interpretation. I'm not sure if it was a lack of confidence in my own ablity, or the result of perpetual indoctrination. Maybe I was weak as others have suggested about religion, and I just wanted something to comfort me and give me a sense of purpose. Life sure was a lot more fulfilling then, when all i thought i needed to do was do whatever I felt god wanted me to do. I think there is a good shot in me rekindling that sense of closeness with god, if i take the time to start over. But that is going to take a little motivation, and more effort than i'm willing to expend at the moment, but if i'm given the time, i don't think it will remain ignored for long... so i guess all i'm sharing is simply to look at what you're doing and make sure you glance to the left and right once in a while when you're playing life's game of follow the leader... and to take things on your own terms....whatever they may be...
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 5:29 PM 0 COMMENTS
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POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 4:54 PM 0 COMMENTS
FRIDAY, JULY 15, 2005
Is there more...
To be or not to be.... an asshole that is. Well i know I don't do much to avoid the perception of a jackass, and on some level I like being one -- but i didn't realize how little of my personality actually fails to surface. I guess that's the trouble with constantly changing loations, or being in a place where you don't know the majority of people you see. When you're in a small town or a tiny school people have no choice to but to see you on a regular basis. Though that's not true in any place with over 5,000 people. It becomes easy to avoid others, and even easier to never even meet them. You become anonymous. That's not a bad thing, it's nice to have privacy, but it does make it more difficult to understand new people you encounter. You don't have a common past or any idea of what they stand for. In the past, when i talked to someone i had never met before, we'd at least have a long list of common friends snd have went through most of the same shit. I wasn't just another face. I couldn't be, and neiter could anyone else. The curse and the blessing of a closed environment.
Well anyway, more specifically, as i grew disgruntled with my situation, i sought to change things. I sought to lead a very small social revolution. At the time, i was at a small residential high school where everyone had their face in a textbook, and going out to dick around wasn't a common past time.... so i felt it was my obligation to shake things up. It was a job i eagerly accepted, the role of the mischevious kid. And in order to complete the image i picked up a little badass definant tone. I felt like i succeeded. I just wanted to liven things up a little. And it wasn't like i was trying to just be a roadblock to progress, or to be mean, i just wanted to make things a little more enjoyable. Well anyway, I also found that being heard became more and more diffucult over time. And if one wants to be heard, one must make the message either a little louder or a little different. So, I discovered shock value. Kick someone right in their fucking nuts, and they'll pay attention. Well i tried to be just as caustic with words. Profanity is the most basic and effective way to illustrate this idea. Darn you just doesn't say it quite as well as a nice direct fuck you and your mom. Bluntness gets the point across, and very well, but gives the impression of an uncooth brut... so basically i was doing exactly what i wanted to do, and saying it with just the right amount of emotion and clarity, but the simple fact remained that the words I used, and the way i said them, created a sense of social disconnect. So it became even easier to dismiss what i was saying... "oh, he's just an asshole.. he doesn't know what he's talking about... "
I have no problems admitting that was/is a failed attempt. Sometimes it was funny, but not nearly effective as I had imagined. Though i was principled asshole, the simple fact that i was one remained inescapable. The position couldn'tever be justified. It's a difficult process to erase, andit takes time... just be patient.I felt like you deserved an explantion, if you were willing to read what I had to say... and at least now you know why i'm so shameless...
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 11:02 PM 1 COMMENTS
THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2005
Massa Massa..cont'd
Well that wasn't nearly as poorly written as I imagined it was going to be when i read it sober... I should write drunk more often. I just wish i could find that ease with words when i'm sober. Instead i pick apart sentences looking for the correct adjective (see i just changed right to correct for some fucking reason, it doesn't even sound correct) or the perfect word. I end up with a lot of mediocre bullshit that isn't very interesting to read. I think the problem with my writing is that i become too involved with the process itself. The actual mechanics take precedent over the content.
i want to slap my fucking self for writing that... anyway....
back to slavery. I found out the cafeteria workers at my school get paid just over $6 an hour and get a meal card to buy several dollars worth of food a day (somewhere in the range of $8-$10)... ... after rent, food, insurance, and clothing how much is left... Just keep them well fed and give them some token freedom and say you live in the greatest country in the world. You're ungrateful if you're not happy. Disparity isn't bad, it's the triumph of the american spirit... homegrown Adam Smith... i'm still waiting on the "invisible hand" to intervene... maybe that's the point.. it is invisble, and the jokes on us.... well My point is, nothing has really changed, it's still the same system in different packaging. You just don't get beaten and lynched in this version. You get sent to jail and fucked up the ass if you don't obey....
anyway, enough of that... but it does make a nice segue to my incessant bitching about money. Simply, my ass wants to to be rich. Not loaded out of my ass, Mr.Moneybags - just enough so i don't have to be a meaningless part of a company that doesn't give a damn about my existence. Here's the way i see things.... you put your 15 years in, well on your way to 20 or 35 or 40... whatever you need to do to retire and get your nice little insufficient pension check. But after 15 years, you're bored as fuck - bluntly , you hate your job. You realized people aren't designed to perform the same fucking task fivedays a week, 9-5, 52 weeks a year with the exception of two weeks paid vacation. Yeah, well on top of your recent revelation, your wife cheated on you, you're sick, your dog died, and you wrecked your car. It's been the worst fucking week of your life. So, you don't go into work. You just stay at home, eat ice cream sandwiches, and watch comedy central for a fucking week. Well now you're well rested, over your infection and about 10 pounds heavier. You go to work, where they don't recognize you because you didn't shave and you're face looks like a marshmallow. Anyway, you get to your cube and what do you find... a pink slip. You have been terminated. 15 years of sacrifice rendered worthless .....all because you decided to take a week off and forgot to call you do have options though... (you always have options).... you could just leave the basement and set the fucking building on fire... that's one way to get even, or you could just blame yourself, say it was irresponsible on your part, and that you should have known better than to not call in. I say bullshit. and fuck anyone who thinks that. It's just not a system i want to be part of. That's the option i'm shooting for.... milk this heiffer and get out...out of a system where i can put in that much time and be terminated with the scribble of a pencil or the peck peck peck of a keyboard. I'll make it on my own, and If i fuck up, i'll bike the bullet and work job to job longer than i have planned on. I plan on using a job for the same reasons you do... retirement, i just plan on speeding the process up considerably.I just haven't bought into the idea of finding myself within my occupation either. This american ideal of the perfect occupation is just a pipe dream. The sentence I am an engineer, or I am a doctor is just odd. I am a person... i do finance. I don't plan on defining myself in terms of my career. I have no idea what i want to do with my life. But whatever it is, it's probably not self sustaining, or compatible with the terms of a normal occupation, so, in order to make sure i can do what i want I am attempting to secure the one thing i envitably myst seek anyway - economic freedom. So here's to pulling yourself up by your own books straps, so i can eventually just live off of the interest from US treasury bonds... their security and paymenst coming from the hardwork of each and every american....
I suppose i should probably detail my plan to avoid sounding like an overly optimistic dreamer... Dont waste my money on stupid shit, cut corners, and save save save ( i think you can pretty much live off of 30k and live well... anything over that is in the bank.. 80k minus taxes... 60k... so i save thirty a year... worst case scenario, 10 years later, 300k at thirty... now add in some compund interest and i'll let you do the numbers.... ) , and agressively invest... most of my money coming from the latter.... so on one hand i'm totally anti-business and i don't want to be a part of any of it, but on the other hand i plan on reaping most of my cash from those same companies stocks.... irnoy? is it hypocrtical? i think not... it's all about money in the end...
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 10:33 PM 0 COMMENTS
FRIDAY, JULY 08, 2005
Feeling close to God...
I'm at that point that very far away from drunk, but equally far away from sober... just the effect of a night of mild alcohol consumption. I feel close to myself, close to God, close to something happy. My guidance counselor in kindergarten used to give out Warm Fuzzies, it wasn't some wierd sex toy, just a little fuzz ball with feet. I give myself mixed drinks now for the same effect. It's a little more expensive, but its also guaranteed to have a much more noticeable effect. Anyway, i think my yearlong batle... failure... with celibacy may finally be coming to some actualization. I got all my booty bumping out of my system, and if i can cut rap out of the picture, i think I can get rid of these animalistic urges altogether. Confidence seems to feed off of the the defeats of other... its like some sort of talisman you take from a defeated enemy. What was once theirs is now yours. You have the thing which they want more than any physical possesion, it's not something that you actually need for yourself, but the fact that you now own the one thing they desire more than anything else creates a sense of power Whether it's getting another girls guy to smile at you or identifying others insecurities... It's like taking PopEyes spinach and Olive Oil just to say.. "bitch I got it like that"... you could care less about either one, but it feeds the ego better than any compliment ever will... it's just a way i get to say i own you. I am better than you.... This is how i presently work -- and obviously its shit. It's a deficiency i have internally that i feel i must feed. It's the way we as a society get suckered in to buying $5000 rims or $200 jeans... we want to feel sexy, rich, powerful, whatever we want to be perceived as. We buy our personalities , they come in nice retail stores and we pay for them on credit cards with exorbitant interest rates end the end be shackled by debt we shouldn't even have. In the end we ourselves are captive. Slaves to a system we never even see. Just with more freedom. Our masters are much more cunning and realized we don't need to be fenced in. I We will do that ourselves. Just give us two acres , charge us rent and disguise it as taxes, and then tell us we should find a job that we love. Yes it's a brilliant scheme . Create a stable labor pool and tell them they are free. Give them a manifesto that outlines their freedoms. I will say this - any time that your rights are told to you, you are not free. You are a prisioner witDon
t be fooled ... my computer is freezing up... i'll look at thing when i'm sober and edit it then...
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 12:51 AM 1 COMMENTS
SATURDAY, JULY 02, 2005
...
Not a bad weekend at all, but even so I'm still left feeling unfulfilled. I got to see some old friends I haven't seen in ages, went out clubbing with ones I have now, and went to the lake all day yesterday. Hell, even one of my stocks went up 50%... Though no matter how much I try to convince myself that these things are making me happy, I'm still left with the feeling that something is missing. Is it god? A romantic partner? Near death experiences? Maybe it's been my attempt, with a few blatant exceptions, to be resposible. I feel as though I've matured a lot in the past several months, as I've realized I must start to look at myself as an adult. I'm having trouble seeing myself in a particular point in the traditional growing up process... I can't help feeling as though I'm in some advanced staged adolesence. Some middle passage between childhood and adulthood I should have confronted long ago, or maybe it's just the fact that I never really dealt with it the first time around. Maybe I'm just spoiled and, and confronted with a lack of real problems in my life, I have subconsciously created emotional distress to convince myself that I really do still need to worry about something. Maybe it's just television, oh wait, I don't watch TV - but are it's seeds already planted in the fertile soil of an unsuspecting mind?
I had a friend last semester in my Afro. studies who said he climbed a mountain for a weekend. After joking about being the only black guy on the mountain, he said something about clearing his mind. He used the phrase "pushed the reset button." I"m not sure if that's possible, but the whole idea of erasing all of the garbage created by music, television, my own greed and ambition provided hope for my own soul once again. Most of the time i feel like I have just created a program for most days that allows me to simply relive the same 24 hours over and over again with as little interruption as possible... I"m going to stop writing again for today.... I remember why I never wanted to do this before. I would always want to say something that was never apparent in the words I manged to force out. I'll just wrap this up with a thought I heard the other week. It was from Nietzsche, he said... "Whatever the mouth can speak is already dead in the soul." somehow I think he maybe be right... i'll assume his quote wasn't included....
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 11:38 AM 0 COMMENTS
FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 2005
.. maybe
Well, i've actually made a second post, maybe I can continue this. I have also read some more. Maybe consistency isn't just some ephemeral dream of mine. Time will tell.
I had a childish thought today. Wouldn't it be so incredible if we could just share our insecurities and problems with each other. Yeah, well I'm not saying i'm going to do it. Just a nice thought. Yeah, well that was sweet. Anyway, someone told me I should start a site like www.maxtucker.com. As much as I would like to, I can't do that either. I don't have the balls to offend the girls I have slept with, nor do I really care to share my sexual exploits. They aren't really that exciting anyway. As fun as it would be, and as effectively I think i could do it, I can't. Yeah, I'm just a coward.
It's saturday night right now, and honestly I'd rather be writing this and hopefully capturing some interesting thought to share later, than getting fucked up and chasing a piece of ass. That's a good sign I think. I haven't really met anyone and had the experience and excitement of a new friend for a while, it bothers me a little bit, maybe I'm finding that to be more important at the moment. I also realized today, that a great deal of my sarcasm goes undetected, and taken for actual commentary, leaving others with the distinct impression of me as just another moron. Should I just stick with straightforwardness or just make it a little more obvious.
I took a really interesting class last semester. It was a negroe studies class called freedom. I signed up under the crosslisted Religion section from fear of the future backlash of having a class on my transcript listed as AFRO ###. Anyway, i was expecting something along the lines of a philosophy class, with a disproportionate amount of information about the plight of the black man in american history. It turned out to be quite different. I did get innundated by the perspective of an angry black man but he had a lot more to offer than just a polemic against the evils of whitey. I came in with one very specific question that was lingering from my last philosophy class. Do the benefits of freedom outweigh the possible harm it may cause to the individual. Simply, is freedom a virtue in and of itself, or just a means to an end. Well that never got answered for me. But i got a completely different perspective on everything from food to music to driving. Anyway, I'm sitting here right now listening to internet radio and I can't help but remember something we talked about. He called music an addiction. I'll stop with that, as i think it's interesting enough on it's on, but I'll explain it more later.....
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 6:39 PM 0 COMMENTS
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 2005
In The Beginning...
I don't write, or read very much. I'm trying to change both of those. I've tried the whole online journal thing several times, and i don't really expect myself to continue to write in here in the future, but I did want to at least make an attempt. I realized I needed to work on creating some sort of definitive style in my speech and writing. I don't think i'm a bad writer or communicator, but I do think i sound very flat.
Also maybe document some bullshit that goes on here and there. I've attempted to codify my thoughts on other things before (philisophy, religion, life) but they always seem unworthy to be recorded when i'm finished. I'll stick to what i know best.
After writing this, i see i failed again, it all sounds to "matter of fact." Well shit takes time.
ok well it's been several hours and i never submitted this post so I thought I'd try to add something besides a worthless little intro. Well I guess it wasn't entirely worthless. Hopefully it will diminish any expectation of value from this post. Therefore since I don't have any starndard to meet, I won't feel too bad about posting shit. Time to take a dump.
As a child i went to a shitty school, so i would talk straight out of my ass and could say what I wanted, and get away with it. It worked pretty well for years. Until I finally found myself in a place where people could spot bullshit, and enjoyed calling you out when you did it. So, to avoid making others credibility stronger at my own expense, I was forced to curtail my bullshittery, only saving it for the most oppotune times. Bullshit became what it was intended to be, a spice, not an entree. Anyway, as time progressed over-eager-bullshit-caller-outers would question the veracity of my claims even when they were true. Which would then force me to retort to an audience who may or may not be listening at this point. Well to stop all of that from happening, I just adopted the practice of pre-emptively spelling out every single minute detail of whatever I had to say. Probably having the same effect as the aforementioned scenario, but at least this way I remained unchallenged. Well, now you know what I talk so damn much, and explain things so throughly. However, currently I am working to simply shut the fuck up.
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here is the beginning of another failed journal... i'll throw it in here, and maybe i'll see it and think i have started something....
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I did the family reunion thing today, not the whole get together with 100 of your non-closest relatives whileindulging yourself with the finest southern cuisine at some obsure state park, just getting in touch with those that matter most. It's always fun to see the family and catch a glimpse of the old farm and see how much my nieces and nephews have grown. I also went to my old church today, and it was strange hearing the pastor ("Brother John" as he likes to be called) give his message. It is amazing how perfectly Christianity reinforces itself. The concept of an antithesis to God as a real being makes it incredibly diffucult blame any action on anything but a challenge to God. Learning about science, or listening to music, or watching a dirty PG13 film isn't simply a cultural experience, but it is a direct challenge to God, in the form of satan incarnate. All of those things become a direct temptation from "the one" and must be avoided at all costs. It's an incredibly restrictive cyclic notion and breeds ingorance (not stupidity, markedly different)... i suppose saying it breeds a provincial outlook would be more appropriate. Anyway, the message today was about how satan is always tempting Christians. He talked about how every time God seems to get close to us, there always seems to be a corresponding disruption to hinder our acceptance of his "spirit." The notion of a God that is in control of everything and a enemy that is waging a full scale attack can easily drive one to mental fatigue. It would be nice to just simply write off the event as what it appears, a simple unplanned, unpurposeful distraction, but now, one must ask the question "was this an attack from Satan, and then, was this originally god speaking to me?" I can certainly see how Deism lets the mind rest. It removes the worry of an interactive God and lets events remain what that are to most people - just non-associted actions. Constant evaluation, like i said earlier, never lets you simply experience things. Hell, i see it now, I can't even go a moment without asking myself what's this mean or what is that.... i can't accept that fact that there wasn't a purpose behind what happened- that there wasn't a specific intention. Regardless, if one believes it or not, if one sees the idea as plausible, just questioning it seriously can make the idea an inescapable force, slowly etching itself into ones basic perceptions... especially if you learn it as a young child and it is repeated as you age.
POSTED BY JUSTIN AT 11:07 PM 0 COMMENTS
