Hisashiburi

Wow, it's been ages since I've been on here.  I'd all but forgotten about this place, but I rediscovered the joy of... well, to put it crudely, helping other people out.

There are times when I get lost in the theory, in the meta-understanding if you will of certain domains of knowledge and speculation.  It is a wonderfully exercise, delving into the intricate problems concerning precarious foundations of different facets of life, from ethics to knowledge to existence itself.  It's easy to get swept up, and that's just what I did.

There's a fine line between being knowledgeable and being paralyzed by analysis.  While it's stimulating to learn and learn and learn, I'd forgotten the bliss of utilizing what you've learned - regardless of the means - to enhance someone else's life.  That, and only that, is rejuvenating.  Well, to me anyway (but I have good cause to believe it's true for most people, too).

So now I'm back on track, and I suppose that's why I decided to wade these blogging waters again: in the (probably vain) hope that maybe I could touch someone else out there.

I won't claim to be the most knowledgeable person out there, that would be arrogant of me.  But I've come a long way since my last post.  I look back and chuckle in amusement at my naivete about many concepts and fields out there.  Most likely I'll look back in about two years at this post and do the same.  In fact, I certainly hope I do.  I never want to be so entrenched, so self-assured that I can't look back at my paradigms and think "Goodness, how plebeian."

There are many issues I hope to touch on and I hope to use this blog as a conduit for them.  I can't promise I'll be back consistently.  Heck, I can't even promise that I'll be back all that frequently.  But I will be back, you can count on that.

Time for a bit of revision

I realized a couple things lately.  I've been in that kind of mood: introspective, an aching desire to use my mind, to expand its potential.  I've made a lot of mistakes, but it's been good for me.  There is no more stringent and expectant teacher than experience.

1. A number of people look to me for guidance.  I'm not a guru, but I do think I'm quite objective when it comes to evaluating phenomenon, and I have an open, inquisitive mind and it's helped me come to certain realizations possibly more quickly and accurately than most people.  For this reason, I think a lot of people see wisdom in my evaluations.  I mistakenly assumed this extended to others who do not know me, and made the presumption that random strangers would given me the same credit as those who, because the context was appropriate, gave me.  This was definitely a presumptuous and erroneous expectation.  I haven't yet earned it.  In fact, I don't think any human being can ever completely earn it.  After all, there will always be people who are determined to never grant it to you, ever.

2.  It's interesting how adeptly certain people (myself included) can bastardize language in order to achieve virtuous ends.  Take doubters and skeptics.  Those who wish to retain their superegos intact will call them "haters" or "stubborn", and those who wish to retain credibility for their skepticism will call themselves "rational" or "honest".  Which is right?  I sincerely hope you don't expect me of all people to answer that.

3. In order to manifest a paradigm that is most aligned with reality, it is important to think critically, maintain a degree of skepticism and understand logic and rationality.  However, no matter how well you master these skills, you still have to deal with people.  A quote I once heard that I love is "even the wise man must live in the fool's paradise."  To many it may seem paradoxical, but you must expect the best in those while permitting the mediocre.  We are none of us ever perfect or, to look at it from a slightly different angle, optimal at all times.  We have the capacity, but it is not a permanent or constant state.  This is what I am having trouble with now.  I know the truth.  Okay, to put it more modestly, there are many truths of which I am certain, but I realize where I lack is not in my understanding of the truths, but in the understanding and compassion for how my fellow humans come to these truths of their own accords.  So lately my understanding of these truths has been directly disproportionate to my understanding of others.  I have lost touch with my empathy, understanding and compassion for my fellow man, and this is where I must focus my energies.  I have also gotten so lost in the mire of knowledge and information and data that I have lost touch with basic philosophical and logical fundamentals.  What I mean by that is, I do not have the language by which to communicate the basic principles of these truths.  I have gotten lost in logical technicalities and sophism.  Those are trifles.  What is pertinent here is my ability to communicate unchanging principles, simple truths.

A homeboy's work is never done.

What love is

Love is a perplexing thing.  No matter how much experience you have with it or how much you learn about it, there's always more.  In other words, no one really knows what love is, at least not perfectly, not completely.

I'm learning that conflict or disagreements are a natural part of having a loving relationship with someone.  They're also part of any relationship, really, loving or otherwise.  The difference being the point of the conflict.  In a zero-sum game, the point of a conflict is to win, or to be right.  Contrarily, this is defeatist in a loving relationship.  In order for you to be right, that must mean that your partner is "wrong."  So essentially what you have demonstrated, if you take this stance, is that you are with someone who believes wrongly or behaves badly.  If that is how you view your partner, why are you with them?  So if your attitude towards a disagreement with your loved one is that one of you MUST be right and the other MUST be wrong, one of you is better than the other.  While this may be beneficial in terms of abilities or aptitudes, if you are morally superior to your partner that's going to be a lopsided and unfulfilling relationship.

Rather the take is that both people have their perspectives on the situation, and neither is completely right nor completely wrong or, better yet, neither is right/wrong, but rather just different.  The ultimate point is not determining "truth" but rather coming to an understanding that can help your relationship grow.  Understand that neither of you is a mind-reader, understand that each of your motivations may have been quite different, understand that each of you may have assumed you were talking about different things, understand that each of you has different experiences with the world, and both of your experiences are equally valid.  Letting go of a sense of justice (which is more likely a sense of self-righteous or even vindication) and embracing a desire for understanding and empathy, I think, is more beneficial in the long run.

You Tube obsession

I've taken a bit of an extended hiatus from writing, despite the fact that I love it and feel a deeply urgent sense of conviction that I need to be working on it consistently and more passionately if I am to leave what I feel is a worthwhile contribution to life.

I'm gonna take a brief moment to be philosophical and state that I feel the only true purpose we have is to leave the world a better place than we found it.  I'm going to leave my statement that minimalistic because I believe it should be open to interpretation; what I define as "better" will almost certainly be different than what you define as simple.  However, I believe the ultimate purpose is contribution to others, or to life, if you will.  Why?  Because it's the only thing that has a chance of being infinite or indefinite, of lasting beyond you.  It's the only thing that will still be here for certain after you are gone.  Doing things for yourself seems futile, unless it contributes to that larger goal.  "You" as an individual entity will cease to be at some point, so all the work you did for yourself will vanish, but all that you consumed or touched along the way will remain in one form or another.  All the kindness you did will influence others, which will in turn influence others.  All the things you created will still have a chance of existing to influence or improve others.  All the things you built can still be utilized by others, whether or not they recognize it was from you.  Your story can still potentially inspire others.  And the effects are potentially exponential.  Knowing this, how can you possibly WANT to live just for yourself?  Imagine a world where everyone, or even just most people, conducted themselves in a way that they KNEW was going to influence others?  Imagine if just twice as many people knew this and so decided they wanted to leave the world a more positive place than it was just before, even if just slightly?  How nihilistic it is to enter this world which was provided for you by the service and hard work of others, just to satiate your ephemeral needs and consume to your fill, and then depart?  I see much more value in being extropianistic.

Anyway, back to the point.  For some time now, maybe five years or so, I've been thinking I want to leave something behind that illustrates my world view.  Call it a "manifesto", call it a "philosophy", it's basically just how I view the world, and I believe it's mostly, if not all, positive, and therefore worthwhile to leaving.  At one point, years ago, I jotted down all my beliefs haphazardly, just as they came to mind.  I wasn't looking for any kind of correlation or cohesiveness, just output.  Well, as events would have it, I recently started getting obsessed with YouTube.  At first the allure was in religion, but I realized that I've since lost interest in it, partially since I've been leaving in Japan where it's not a particular issue and partially because there are many others out there who are much more knowledgeable and articulate about it, so I really feel like I have nothing to contribute.

However, my journey into self-actualization (which is far from over) has lead across many strange lands: history, psychology, self-help, pick up, social skills, neurology, biology, evolution, philosophy, etc.  And though I am not necessarily sure I have anything undiscovered to offer, I do think that I can synthesize my discoveries in a way that's at least novel, perhaps unconsidered.  Essentially what I think I have to offer is something that stems from pick up but has never really been extrapolated to its utmost.  In other words, I think I can take pick up and expand it past its own boundaries into an entire philosophy of life; I can communicate how it applies to every facet of life, which I think is its ultimate but as yet unrealized goal.

I've finally begun organizing this and it's already a daunting task.  So many ideas covering so many different topics... it's work just trying to organize it, much less make sense of it and see how it all connects.  I have a lot of respect for non-fiction writers now... there's still so much I don't have nearly enough knowledge about.  But it's invigorating; it's all just starting to come together for me.

I've decided that if I ever complete the organization, I'm going to start posting videos on YouTube.  I already have, in fact, but just to ask questions in order to be sure that I have an understanding of my opposition.  I'm perfectly willing to concede to their points if they are sensible, and I've already garnered a bit of detestment for this.  It's funny to me how some people are determined to seek out and thus, inadvertently, CREATE enemies, rather than simply seek the best path to the truth.  To each their own, I suppose.

Learning

I've recently taken it upon myself, as a hobby, to learn more about biology, evolution, evolutionary biology, gender psychology and neuropsychology in an attempt to provide evidence to not only myself but other intellectual types that men and women are inherently different and, as a result, your only choices in regards to relationships and success with women is to accept it and/or deal with it.  I may not win arguments, particularly at first, and I may not even successfully persuade people to agree with me, but getting into something like this reminds me how much I love learning.  I wish I could make a living just learning things.  Maybe I can in the future, who knows?

In any case this new venture has obligated me to start reading more.  I just recently started a book called "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell.  I'm about halfway through it now.  It's very readable but also quite informative, though in the future I'll be looking for something more in depth.  There are a lot of subtopics that are connected to my main philosophy here, and the discussion of the unconscious and/or intuition and its role in our day-to-day lives is part of that, and Blink covers it.  In the future I will also be hopefully covering subcommunication such as facial expressions, gestures, body language, etc., as well as the origins of language itself (as thinking types tend to get too caught up in the (lack of) significance of words, philosophy, the role and benefits of conflict and differences, the significance of emotions, etc.  These are concepts thinking types tend to have trouble with and I'd like to address them.

It's considerably challenging trying to maintain, much less eloquently convey, a coherent sentence with my jet lag and weeklong reign of 4 hour nights of sleep.

The rollercoaster goes up

I often wonder if my own range of moods is normal or typical, or if it's a bit above average.  I consider myself a sensitive person, not necessarily in the sense that I am hurt or emotionally affected easily, but I feel my own moods and experiences more deeply than most people.  I often understand other people's states more accurately than most other people as well.  I understand when others are nervous, calm, happy, confused, upset, bored, etc. very perceptively.

I am in a great mood now, which is often the result of wading through bullshit for a short period of time, whether self-induced (through misperception) or circumstantial.  Here's what I realized this time around:

I am not the best.  I probably never will be.  But fuck it.  I'm also not the worst, nor will I most likely ever be.  And in many regards, I'm better than most.  I'm a better teacher than most.  I'm a better boyfriend than most.  I'm a better friend than most.  I'm smarter and more perceptive than most.  I'm more creative than most.  I'm more successful than most.  And you know what else?

I'm only gonna get better.  And better.  And better.

And when that awareness hits me, I feel awesome.  Because in the end, that's all it's about: You cannot be someone else.  But you can be the awesomest you in existence, ever.  And once you reach that point, you can be even more awesome.  I think that's amazing.  As good or great as I am now, I'm only going to get better.  As are you.  As are the people around you.  Your whole community.  Your city, your country... this whole world.

Being alive is a grand thing.  Being witness to millenia of growth and improvement is a blessing, it's inspiring.  Even being witness to all the negativity and complaining is grand: we have the FREEDOM now to express anything we wish.  How can that not bring you joy?

Really understand your world.  Become aware of it.  There are a multitude of blessing hidden away from plain sight, from first impressions.  They are in the smiles of strangers, the courtesy of a kind person, the friends and family who say "hello" to you for no reason, the questions people ask you about you, the communities you belong to.

Oops, time for work!

reality

So I was reading the "Brain in a vat" idea on wikipedia today.  I like learning new stuff.

It's basically a question of how we know what reality is, a question that The Matrix, among other films, have dealt with.  How do we know, for instance, that we are not all brains in vats hooked up to supercomputers which stimulate the nerves in our brains in order to give us the impression that we are really living our life?

One interesting argument is that if a brain were to state that it is a brain in a vat, it must always be a falsehood.  The first option is obvious: If a brain is not a brain in a vat, then the statement is false.  Even if it were, how could it possibly "know" that enough to be sure that the state of being a brain which is in a vat is true?  In order for it to verify that it is indeed a brain and it is indeed located in a vat, it would have to know what a brain and what a vat are, and if all that it can perceive (i.e. all that is real) is the world around it which is alledgedly only signals to the "brain", then how can it "know" what a REAL brain or REAL vat are?  In other words, because there is no way to verify what a real brain/vat is, there is no way to determine whether it REALLY is a brain and/or REALLY in a vat.  What a mindfuck.

But this brings about a more interesting question about the nature of perception and reality.  If we presume that the above premise makes sense, then there are a lot of things we must now question in regards to reality.  If something cannot be shown as true and/or real if we have no way to verify it, then what about, for instance, other people's minds?  Certainly, since I experience my own personal state, I don't need to verify it to myself, but what of the states of others?  As a simple example, how can I call someone "sad" if I have no way of tangibly verifying their sadness?

Somehow I think this could turn into a neat concept for a short story, but my brain is too muddled now from other troubling thoughts, lack of sleep and trying to understand this thing to come up with it right now.