Truth Nodes

Truth is sacrosanct to the human character. The only way we can build a philosophical construct of our identity is through cornerstones of truth, upon which we build more complex structures of truth for the purposes of explaining our reality. We all share one, indivisible truth - the acceptance of our unique perception. Everyone inately understands that the person watching the movie screen of our life is a unique individual, and something that we alone possess. But we also understand that everyone else out there is witness to their own showing, their own unique perception of the events unfolding in their life. Well we may not acknowledge it, at a fundamental level we all understand that our own reality is ours, and ours alone.

The problem lies in reconciling diametrically opposed truths. There are easy examples of this, say one person may believe devoutly in the existence of god, and one may not. These are irreconcilable, as they're both taken on faith of their own character, and would destroy any truth structures that have been built on top. So how do you tell which perception is right?

Truth is not a democracy. The majority is not always right, as has been seen countless times in the study of science. Once an idea becomes entrenched in a society, it takes a monumental effort to prove it otherwise, as the opposing perception of truth has such momentum within the people which form that societal group. At the same time, one cannot be so plastic as to attach equal importance to each new fad idea that comes along, for it may not be grounded in truth, as much as the person promoting it may wish and believe it to be so.

This is the delicate balance, between falsehoods and truth, that we all wage in our day to day lives. It seems that few of us have the wherewithal to examine our beliefs logically, and change them accordingly and without bias towards that truth that is more truthy than the rest.

Are you also divergent, friend?

I'm fat, and getting fatter. I can feel myself puffing up over time, the rolls around my neck getting larger and my shirts getting tighter. I observe this with all the other observations in my life, with a sense of detachment, of it not really happening to me. The air is sticky with fall humidity. It's raining outside, a slow steady trickle of daytime culmination. When I took my bike to work I was suprised to see the ground wet with rain from the night before - tomorrow I won't be so suprised. On the first day of fall the weather is never surprising.

There is something so comforting about alcohol and cigarettes. Even though it's irritating getting harassed, I can never begrudge the drunks who stumble by my work begging for smokes. I can see how easily it would be to slip into that mindset, fuck it, bottoms up and lets see how far I can take this. Alcohol dulls the ache, cigarettes give you something to do. It's a pathetic life but at least it's living. Is it any worse then going to a boring job at a failing company, saving up money to blow on inconsequential pleasures? Is a memory really so precious I wonder. Are purchased things really so substantial?

I'm lonely, lonely lonely lonely. I read, see, watch, hear about love all the time, yet it's never happened to me, for me. Some people say your one true love is out there, some people say that it's all about finding someone compatible, but in all the stories there are always two halfs to a whole and yet here I sit alone. I wonder about that, why at 30 I still haven't found someone, either a soulmate or even someone to just pass the time with. Those kind of thoughts are dangerous, they're filled with pity, remorse and longing. And yet how much of the story of humanity is a story of love, the pursuit of love, the loss of love. I can't be human without love, so it seems.

So here I sit, the observer, the watcher, the reader. All I have left is the unfolding drama of humanity as it crumbles around us, as we take that word humanity and rape it, tear it up and spit it on the ground. All of the progress that we sit on top of with no real understanding of the sacrifices that were made to get us here, and us, this generation so willing to throw it away out of fear. I keep thinking of history, how in history books the periods of time are judged so heavily, and the actions of the people in history are lauded or lambasted. How will history judge us, the pundits say. I think deep in our hearts we all know how history will judge us, but nobody really cares when we're so deep in the orgy of the now, the revelation of the consumation. For all of the progress, the scientific discoveries, the humanitarian efforts that are being done in isolated pockets, the reality of the situation is that we're the most spoiled and pampered generation that our history has produced, and we glory in the excess of our gilded prison.

The real problem is population. Nobody in power will say that, but they're all thinking it, or at least they should be, if their advisors are any worth. We're approaching some really serious problems soon, problems that will make this piffle with the stock markets seem inconsequential. We have dire water problems. Water is the root of all our economies, water is the thing that we as humans need most to surivive, and water is rapidly getting consumed faster then it's replenished. Water which we need for irrigation, which we need to grow our crops, which we need to feed our livestock, which we don't need but induldge in anyways because meat tastes better than alfalfa any day. The amount of water that our population requires for this system is accelerating with our population, as more and more of us get a taste for meat. Water shortages while people water their lawn. Asia draining their water table to feed 3 billion people. I can't help but wonder if anyone out there is really paying attention to these problems, while we breed like rabbits and glorify growth.

There is the big problem, the ironic tumour at the heart of our society. Why do we worship growth so much? I can't fathom it. Growth leads to boom and bust, predictable like the so called business cycle. The only problem is that the bust that will eventually happen because of our population boom will be unlike anything we've ever encountered. It's so sad, all the suffering and wasted potential. The thought of all the starving people, grabbing their swollen bellies as their life agonizingly ebbs away. We will see this in our lifetime, and I can only hope that those of us who survive learn a valuable lesson. Unfortunately, the cynic in me realizes that the saying "those who don't observe history are doomed to repeat it" is still around, for a reason.

How to be an explorer of the world

Wally found these inspiring instructions written on a piece of paper while exploring Winnipeg. He made a bunch of photocopies and gave one to me. I thought they were pretty wonderful so I've inscribed them for all to grok.

1. Always be looking. (Notice the ground beneath your feet.)
2. Consider everything alive and animate.
3. Everything is interesting. Look closer.
4. Alter your course often.
5. Observe for long durations (and short ones.)
6. Notice the stories going on around you.
7. Notice patterns. Make connections.
8. Document your findings (field notes) in a variety of ways.
9. Incorporate indeterminancy.
10. Observe movement.
11. Create a personal dialogue with your environment. Talk to it.
12. Trace things back to their origins.
13. Use all of the senses in your investigations.

There's some really good advice in there for everyone.

Down and out in the spiritual limbo

I guess in the scheme of things, I was destined to find a place like this. It's what's known as a 'character' building, one that is old and unkempt but elegant. On my second night, there's a pulse beating below me, and my office chair tends to roll towards the centre of the living room, but overall, I'm happy. This is where I want to be; the heart and soul of what little night life Winnipeg has to offer. It's a strange adjustment - going from the suburbia to this, but as ever, I'm an adaptive personality. I just wish my chair would stop rolling downards.

For some reason, I lost the will to write over the last year. Maybe it was WoW. Maybe it was my infatuations. Whatever it was, the creative well has surged and I want to express myself again. It's an odd sensation - for so long lethargy has dominated me. I've been so busy with this, that and whatever that I felt there was no reason to pay attention to this blog. I felt guilty over the months, but not guilty enough to provide any kind of insight.

A large part of the problem is I find myself constantly in these pseudo relationships where I want to be more than just friends, but can't quite breach the boundary. It's depressing. Honestly, if I were you, I wouldn't want to read another blog where the author went all emo, but I can't help it - I truly feel that a huge part of me has gone missing because I haven't experienced 'true love'. At this rate, that's not going to happen but I persevere. Maybe I should stop falling in love with long time friends. Maybe I should find someone new, but I can't shake the idea of someone that I've known and love, or think I love. I guess that's where the confusions lies.

Enough of that bullshit.

If I had to name a hero of mine beside Hunter S. Thompson, I would name Richard Dawkins. Most of the time athiests are very concilatory - they allow religious folk to 'worship' as they want without any interuption. They allow for the idea of someone else believing in fairy tails so as not to upset the delicate balance that is personal salvation. My hero, Richard Dawkins, has had enough of this hand holding. Here's a guy who's basically laid it on the line, his perfect intolerance to religious tolerance, and without apology has defended every attack and debate. You cannot win a debate arguing for divine intervention. Logically, you're going to lose. I admire to such a great degree someone who has had enough with the bullshit that it makes me feel like I should say something.

Today, I had a wonderful debate with a co-worker who is a knowledgeble person but doesn't buy evolution. At the end of the day, he has a belief in some kind of higher power that it's hard to sway him. He presented to me a solid argument. He asked: If, a million years now, humanity as far progressed as it should be, an individual created a kind of advanced intellectual ant farm, would they not be some form of God to the lifeforms he created? This stumped me - it's as good an argument as any I've encountered. Think of it - if we become so far advanced that our powers of genetic manipulation allows us to create intelligence, or even a world that was previously unknown, would that make us God? Is that an argument for God?

I argued that was a kind of fallacy - an argument as whimsical as the one saying that there is a toaster orbitting between earth and mars, and please disproove it. But it's shaky. It doesn't nullify his argument. It only proposes that his scenario was too far advanced to know any kind of definitive answer. Is that an answer? I don't think it is, anymore than his argument was proof positive for that of a divine salvation, but it still got me thinking. I've never had an argument with a person who believed in the statistics, figures and logic of science (for the creation of our world) but still doubted the validity of evolution. It was a bit of a mindfuck.

A life less loved...

... is a life struggling to find purpose. My friends tell me that I spend too much time and invest too much emotion examining my lack in this department, but I can't help but feel that missing this one element of our human existence is really starting to dehumanize me. I find myself caring less and less about things that I used to be very passionate about. For example, the destruction of the environment, a cause that I've always felt most deeply about, becomes less and less important to me as I realize that the chances of me being able to say to my grandchildren 'I helped mend our ways' are slim because I don't foresee children, let alone grandchildren in my future.

Perhaps it's a hangover from the christmas season, but mainly it's the build up into the valentine's day fever pitch. Yet another whiny voice on the internet, complaining about the commercialized nature of a manufactured greeting card day, I know. I'm pretty sure the Internet doesn't need another lonely guy poring his emo soul out onto a traffic-less blog, but damnit I really don't care anymore. In my life, I have never had a love-filled valentine's day. Every single year, I'm reminded again of my loneliness. I don't know what it is about me that women find so undesirable, but it's wearing me down. I really don't know how much more of this I can take.

I see my friends and family, happy with their loved ones, making lives together and I look at my life, and weep inside. I feel like Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love, raging about how he has so much love to give. I've held a flame in my heart for so long now, and to find it unrequited was a blow of the worst kind. To get rejected from a stranger, from someone you met in a bar, or a library, or a cafe is nothing. You can shrug it off, they don't know you. To get rejected from one whom you've known for years, who can't see you as you see her, well it's soul shattering.

I try to deal with it but I can't. I keep coming back to the passion, the love, the emotion I felt that was just wasted. Completely wasted, and I don't think love in an unlimited resource. I think we only have so much to give without being replenished by someone else, and I haven't ever been replenished. I've never been in a relationship where they felt about me the way I felt about them, and once again I keep coming back to the question, what the hell is wrong with me? What makes me so unsuitable for any type of relationship?

I know I'm not perfect, but I'm not a bad catch. My friends tell me I'm smart, I have a good job, and I'm easy to get along with. I'm well traveled, funny and not incredibly ugly. Sure I could lose a couple pounds and do a little more with my life, but worse people than I have found true happiness in the arms of another, so why haven't I?

I think I'm done now. I don't feel any better, in fact I'll probably feel worse later on but at least I've written something, as incoherent and rambling as it is. I said earlier my friends tell me that I put too much emphasis on love, but it's easy for them to say this. They're the best possible people in the world, but they can't see the world the way I perceive it, they haven't lived a life less loved...

One Year Later

Not much to talk about. I guess the creative well has dried up. Either that or I'm just lazy. I'm back in Winnipeg again, the memory of travel fading fast. Moving into a new apartment tomorrow, have a job, working for the man. Yay me.

While you were sleeping...

It's a funny thing, the Internet. Online communities can become like mobs, united in opinion and righteousness over an idea. At midnight last night, the forumers at ytmnd.com launched a raid on the ebaumsworld.com forum, massively posting on their forums and generally causing a ruckus. Why? Well, it's complicated. I think to start with, you should check out this flash show (warning, contains explicit lyrics). The gist of it is that Eric Bauman is accused of stealing other peoples creative works, slapping a 'hosted on ebaumsworld.com' watermark and making loads of cash. So it seems that many are unhappy with his apparent piracy, and when an image created on the ytmnd.com site was 'stolen', the above stated righteous fury took over and mob mentality ruled.

It's an interesting phenomenon though when you think about it. Is it not akin to the villagers taking up the pitchforks and torches and going to slay the monster that lives on top of the hill? Is electronic vigilantism an ethical and moral way of dealing with the 'lawless' internet? I know there are other types of vigilante's out there who take it upon themselves to target child pornographers, and some record companies seed p2p networks with bogus mp3 to stem rampant downloads, so the question is do the ends justify the means? Did they break the law, because technically, the were committing a DDOS (distributed denial of service) attack on another server. Is this kind of thing something we'll see more of in the future? As online communities draw together and split apart, will 'opposing' forums be seen as the battlefield of the future?

So Digg gave me a virus

** UPDATE **

I'm a moron. Please disregard this post. I'd delete it if I didn't have strong view on censorship.

** /UPDATE **

I was browsing digg.com, trolling for news stories, trying to get my fix. Digg is social link propogation website, relying on individuals to submit new links and users to 'digg' it or not. Sites that are dugg enough make it to the front page and the vast, unseen lurkernet. I'm a link junky, and digg provies my fix with its digall page. This is the melting pot where all new stories get dumped; From here a meme is ya'd or nay'd. I clicked on a link that I guess I shouldn't have, and unfortunatley (or maybe fortunately) I since cannot find. The page took me to a site which said 'entertainment.com' in the URL (going to that url directly is not what appeared on my screen), and congratulated me on having a virus. Since I clicked that link, the behaviour of my firefox has changed. It seems as if the stylesheets are messed, or something's not rendering correctly. At first I thought google had changed their page because the ads didn't appear in shaded boxes. But since going to other sites show the same effect, I can only conclude that I do, indeed, have a virus.

So why am I writing this? I'm not terribly upset, as I've wanted to do a clean install of my computer for a couple weeks, and I can probably live with the changes and I'm too lazy to figure out what's wrong. I don't want to bash digg.com, as I'm very happy with it as it was quickly adopted into my 'must read' site set for each day. I guess I just want to point out a flaw in the digg.com philosophy, much like the controversy lately with Wikipedia, that allowing unfettered access to changes opens us up to all sorts of potential griefing. Is there some way to figure out if someone is trustworthy or not? Or are we always doomed to have at least one soldier in the battle take the bullet or step on the landmine?

Digg is an interesting conception. In the 'geekosphere', rarely has any website ever come close to challenging the venerable 'slashdot.org' in terms of cutting edge, geek-centric news. Digg though has seemingly done so in a time frame that is in scope with popular internet memes. Also, a recent infusion of capital can only mean that soon more people then just geeks will know about it. The only question, as with any niche website, is how well will it fair once the vacous eye of the general public focuses on it?