Pathodicy

  It’s hard to see through current capacity to different reality where we don’t end up with further calamities, or more fatalities.   Dudes looking like me have committed the most heinous crimes against humanity in both quantity and quality that we know of... ever. (my ancestors are Scottish and German, guess what having an ancestral home far from the intensity of the equator does to skin color? Do you know what living near the equator does to skin color? Right. So does that mean the Sun is racist? Not really. Attributing racism to the sun is as stupid as attributing inferiority to people who aren’t white. It’s as stupid as attributing value to land and drawing lines on a map and then killing people over it, instead of creating new ways to share it. I inherited the shit that White people have been taking all over the world and I accept that as I'm able. Frankly, I think monetary reparations or some other reparation effort would be a good step. Back in the early 200...

What if, instead of coming at a situation from above ‘in understanding’, or from below through shame, I came at a person, a circumstance, an experience, a moment… as what..? my imagination crumbles, retracts like an unstretched tendon. Here I have to go back to ‘my training’ with Stephen. I guess the only approach is one that seeks the progression of life’s most important structures, human contentment, and personal awareness. This last is most difficult, but the first two aren’t possible apart from it. Apart from self awareness, the most that one can produce is a lesser version of a lesser perception. Awareness is the environment in which the most creative and beneficial solutions have been found. It is the space in which law was made for humanity and not the other way around. It is the space in which red lights at 4am have little meaning, or function. It facilitates individuals using their most important faculties, to think for themselves, t...

The most powerful metaphor I've ever found in this life isn't originally mine, though I've used it as such. I first came across it in one of my all-time favorite shows, The West Wing (1999-2006). The scene involves one of the more intense characters in the show, Bruno Gianelli (Played by Pirate Captain Ron Silver), an elite political operative known for running successful campaigns under the toughest electoral conditions. For instance, one in which the incumbent President failed to disclose that he had MS for the first three years of his presidency, including his initial campaign. If you've seen the show, he's kind of like the Maverick to Toby's Goose (Toby being the more repressed, tied down, version of Bruno, both so endearing in their Brooklyn charm). At one point during President Bartlet's (played by Vietnam Vet/Best president Ever Martin Sheen) reelection campaign, Bruno believes there might be an opportunity to gain some mo...

Renee Descartes's (pr. Day-kart) position is simply, "I think, therefore I am". He was saying because I can think of something or about something or about myself, I can objectively conclude. I can say what Is. I can be assured that it actually is because I pointed. It exists in the way I see it because I see it that way. There's a joke that he put Descartes before Dehorse. But alas, his idea has been left aside due to the notion that Descarte's notion was not in fact confirmation of objective reality, but merely of human perception. "I perceive therefore I perceive", is the truer statement. Ludwig Wittgenstein's position was less aimed at what is and more aimed at the processes by which we conclude what is. It's hard to find a broader or more helpful term for his work than the Linguistic Philosophy or the philosophy of language. Put simply, function determined meaning/location/value, and that language is relative to experience. One example is ...

I almost drowned as a Jr. Lifeguard. Go figure. During one of our first summers in California, my parents enlisted me in the Jr. Lifeguards at Leo Carillo. I was 12 or 13, in the midst of puberty, and completely insecure about my body and its tendency to react overtly to gorgeous girls in baywatching suits. Sorry, Baywatch-like bathing suits. It’s interesting to see how much of a paradise this might seem to other kids. Hot girls, the beach, being little lifeguards, getting in shape, and... girls. Aside from almost drowning… and every moment walking around constantly worried about one physiological aspect or another, ...it was ...great? There are a few sections to Leo Carrillo. The point everyone surfs is the section can see from the highway. The wave breaks off a huge rock, and surfers are known to be fairly territorial due to its consistency, not unlike the sharks that are known to sometimes show up (Dun dun dun). On the Northern side of Leo Carrillo's surfing poin...

Nazi ideology breeds coercion, just as Evangelical Fundamentalism breeds coercion, just as Koch Industries breeds coercion, just as America's coercive actions over the last 150 years throughout South and Central America, Asia, and the Middle East have bred little more than coercion. By coercion, I mean the attempt to manipulate or dominate a person or group of persons ability to choose. The most severe cases of coercion include exploitation, emotional manipulation, rape, murder, and genocide. The more insidious version of coercion is shame or stigma. It's quicksand, an imposition used to scare us into obedience through unspoken threats that evoke our deepest fears. Southern Hospitality is one such language. The threat of what happens to those who are impolite is implicit with every breathless nicety. One important distinction is that ideas aren't inherently coercive, it is people that use them as such. Forgetting or refusing our limitations, scientists, preachers, and...

After having studied the Bible, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, the Enlightenment, Existential Philosophy, Post Modern Philosophy, Cultural Anthropology, Linguistics, Film, Philosophical Linguistics (my fav) and after having traveled to a number of relevant countries and cultures, I've concluded that all human knowledge is arbitrary. Before we start talking about Truth, truths, or truthiness, understand two things. We, corporately and as individuals, don't know everything and we've been wrong before. It is this way because we are finite beings. Our brains, at least for the next few millennia, will be 3 pounds of imperfect, yet miraculous connectivity. This consistently imperfect connectivity means that human description is always incomplete, exact prescription impossible. So what's the point of knowing anything if we can't know everything, or at least, one thing absolutely? Well, there's no answer to that, a similar trait most questions have. But, loo...

In America I grew up thinking my language, my nation's story, and my family's interaction patterns were unique and authoritative above all. As I grew in bodily and mental capacity, I ventured outside those first conclusions handed down (but mostly absorbed) from my family and culture. This is not to say that these narratives or, from whom they were inherited, were or are wrong. It is to say that humans are at our best when we're exploring, and that all exploration is bodily, given that our encountering difference forges new physical pathways, 'grooves', in the brain. These grooves form according to our closest reference points to, or approximations of, the newly encountered thing. The larger the 'stockpile' of difference within the brain, the more experience the brain has with fitting 'newness' or novelty into familiar symbol, immediately and effectively useful. This is where the spark of consciousness is most visible. Regardless the catalyst, ...

Campaign Finance is the single most important issue in America. America's electoral process is  America. Today, I came across a warning given by Abraham Lincoln in a letter, written November 21,1864. He warns of an approaching calamity...  "As a result of the war, corporations have become enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow. The money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its rule by preying upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is concentrated in few hands and the Republic is destroyed . (emphasis mine)". http://www.ctn.state.ct.us/civics/campaign_finance/Support%20Materials/CTN%20CFR%20Timeline.pdf

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/at-least-2-dead-several-hurt-in-shooting-at-ups-building-in-sf/ar-BBCG0Wx?OCID=ansmsnnews11 http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/lawmaker-steve-scalise-injured-in-gop-baseball-shooting-gunman-james-t-hodgkinson-dies-in-custody/ar-BBCFi8H?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp Are we safe yet? Before you tune me out as another person who wants to take your guns, understand! It would be nearly impossible! To get the 2nd amendment amended, in anyway, would take a miracle. And, aren't you the people who believe in miracles anyway? so... I'm thinking, since miracles are on your side... well.. it won't happen? This was the most interesting thing I found which illustrates my point. "Understand that repealing the 2nd Amendment makes it an unenumerated right. It doesn't disappear. It falls into the same status as abortion. Gun rights can still be defended and argued as an unenumerated right. It just gets a different level of Constitutio...