Strength

Where dose one draw strength? Is it a moral standing that one relies on or is it a set of evolving principles that one can justify through reason and not force? If one steps outside the boundaries of religion, but not faith, can you still uphold yourself as a person, either individual, part of a collective, or even one of the masses.

Consider this: If you have family, good family, you can always fall back on them when the worst has occurred. You can draw strength in that you can fail and still have people who will care for you. Now what if you have no family..do you rely on God? What if you lost faith?

People are interesting and fickle things in that if you cannot provide a reciprocal balance, your friends will leave you unless you have a bond that is tempered by time or faith within each other... in turn you draw strength from that. But what if the friendship is contingent... like on not being attracted to each other or always having money... then is it friendship ...can you truly draw strength from that?

On self-reliance, can you draw strength from yourself being able to provide for yourself? Is it an empty strength, or dose it rely on others acknowledging that you can and have relied on no one? Is it truly self-reliance if other people acknowledge it? What if there are some things that must be done in pairs or teams? You are forced to work with another person or group of people. How do you become stronger from that? Can you if they do not help you but in fact belittle you?

The strength I speak of the driving force that makes us become something more than just some pawn. It allows us to strive for greatness and inspires others to do the same...but where dose it come from? Ourselves as individuals or do we nurture it out of other people only to have it them come from ourselves?

On Fate

Fate is interesting. There are some things I have irrevocably gravitated towards. Without questions, I have done things I can neither explain nor had the ability to control or even foresee happening. Yet in those situations, all that I have had to use what I learned and manipulated within myself and with my own mind prior to the "fated" event. I would argue that there are some things that people are meant to do, that go either beyond their good reasons and hedonistic tendencies (like looking after the family member that we all hate, out of need; or falling in love, even when we know it will kill us). But in the end, it is us who handles fate. Essentially, it is what one does with all of the abilities one has garnered throughout life at the one point in time where they are forced to make a choice.

Were the pre-ordained abilities given to seemingly random people? Maybe. I have seen people from the well-to-do with bright futures piss it away because of love, drugs, kids, and hedonism. I have seen the antithesis to that as well, where the homeless kid becomes the epoch of understanding and a role model to us all. In the success of things, I have noticed two common themes: conflict and determination. Conflict in the sense of there is always a challenge looming on the horizon, possible or impossible, yet it is there to be engaged. Determination in that some kind of effort (weather it be blind rage, calm calculation, or old fashioned hard work) is always being exerted towards the conflict for some kind of resolve. In that sense, fate only becomes a tool in which life is marked as a series of progressions. No one can stop death after it occurs; yet we move on. Words are not taken back after being spoken, and yet the words are still heard.

Being in society or as a part of the existence as well, I feel insignificant as well. Trying to be the squirrel getting his nuts in the chaos of a park at the corner of a busy intersection of NY, and all the nuts are in the intersection. It seems like the whole intersection is beyond my control. Well it is. But I can work on being a better, faster, smarter squirrel. The wheels of the Great Intersection are not silenced by the smattering of one single squirrel, though his voice can affect many. If they were silenced by one squirrel, then the squirrel would probably be God, godlike, or can reach the button to change the lights. Which begs the question, is fate created? And if it was would the Creator (of fate) want decisions (even if it conflicted with the “master plan”) to be made at the crossroads of fate or to just lazily accept the situation of things (lazily moving through life and not being aware of the choices you do have).

What if you were fated to already make that choice? Someone who believes that one was going to make the decision before one has even thought of the question because it was preordained. Depends on what you as an individual believe or put faith in. In some sense, pre-ordained salvation adopted by some sects of some churches is contrary to the notions that were taught in church (Judeo-Christian churches mind you) when compared to the Eden story. The notion that an Eden exists with the non-option to eat the Apple of Wisdom only to be tricked by a snake brings about some very serious questions: 1.) In being the All Knowing and the All Powerful and telling A and E to not eat the apple, implies that He already knew it was going to happen (much like mom and the “Don’t touch that” reprimand). 2.) Being The Creator, and not wanting wisdom to be passed on, why have the tree? With that said, there lies two possibilities, 1.) There is something greater than the Creator…like fate or Chaos and so fourth. 2.) It happened and you have to infer the hidden message.

Also, please note, beliving in fate means that one has already decided that there is something that greater than themselves to the extent that the decisons and events that occur in life are not ordained by themselves as individuals. In essence, beliving in fate makes you not an athiest. The antithesis would be an aithest, but to be that implies that everyday, unhindered by faith, suffer the consequenses that are made by the individual. Granted, you can still have faith and belive in the last one, but not vice versa.

I could be wrong, which has happened before, but maybe it’s something like this: There are some things beyond the control of what one can do. But, one can control their own decisions and master their own movements to some extent, albeit it is hard (conflict) and requires work (determination).

I think I broke my brain

There are times where we are asked to challege ourselves to meet or exceed a satandard of thought that is beyond the norm. Then there are times where the seeming impossible is asked of us. Then there are time where the impossible is demanded of us. And then there is God. He just asks you to do what you usually don't want to do though it's not impossible but hard and usually requires humility....lots of humility.

Right now I have the seemingly hard though not impossible asked of me and it requires copious amouts of studying along with a good dose of elbowgrease. I like elbowgrease. I hate studying. Somehow, I think that we have enough elbowgrease for those of us that study too much and vice versa.

On relationships

I often wonder about people and their agenda in bed. After all, the more I see people, the more I either want to see them in bed or just see them. The problem lies in the aspect of respect and sexuality. Though it's not a new one, it still keeps me up at night and keeps me away from talking to certain professors.

I genuinely like people. Especially hard working people. Granted they don't always have to be smart, the hard work is always an inspiration to me. I would almost bet on a hard worker than a gifted person any day simply because there will be a consistency in what's accomplished as well as a sense of accomplishment by the person who did work. But that's me.

Being around people and watching them makes me really ponder about what do people want from other people? Is it companionship or is it that biological need we all love so much. Maybe it’ the physical need to be needed. Or even worst the material needs from the physical. It’s kind of odd the more I think about the last one…“Will have sex for dinner”. Such a horrible existence to some, but it sounds like a deal to me. But last time I checked, there was no such thing as a man-whore, just guys with lots of money or long tongues. I need a longer tongue.

Back to what people want thing… I keep getting the feeling that many of us are inherently selfish. It is not until we realize that we want kids that we begin to start giving a damm about other people. The circle of life is suddenly realized and the epiphany of “Holy crap! I am mean/selfish person!” begins to materialize. It’s that rational thought process of “Who is good with kids” starts to sink in. Somehow it is translated to “I need to find a person who bears the qualities of A., B., C., and then buy/woo them into submission.” Oh wait that’s modern capitalism in the 21st century… my bad.

It’s the worry that we need somebody to help us that kind of kills the whole selfish life thing. The fierce hedonistic life that we once led now has to be retired because there are people dependent upon us and vice versa. On the upside is that you are never alone. Even in death, a piece of the person you once allied with is within you. How is this possible? Remember when you always kept putting you feet on the table only to have them knocked off by the significant other? You still keep you feet off the table now don’t you? There is that aspect as well as memories, kids, things shared, and so fourth. An entire legacy is left behind because two people were together. I wonder what happens when families or large groups of people get to together?

What if the person is attempting to use someone else to obtain his or her own selfish goals? I mean selfish in that there is a preconceived notion that the person that they are dependent upon is only a tool that requires maintence. Wouldn’t that be a lot like the “Will have sex for dinner” comment? Only much longer and far more resources have been invested. Even worse, what if trust and emotions are invested yet the person being relied on is still just a tool, then what? Is all that was learned and created just for the amusement of one person? That would mean that all kids and ideas shared were just words in the wind. A whole lot of nothing just to what the selfish person wants. Like buying candy at the store, no thought or consequence, just get the flavor you want, pay the price, enjoy, and move one. It's using up a person till there is noting to use. Kind of makes me not want to engage in the whole bed thing just to avoid dinner all together. I’m not a tool, last I checked.

So now come the question: In being selfish, are we able to have a relationship? In knowing our limitations and goals and looking at another person, dose that thought enter the mind? Should it? I’m kind of partial to meeting people who want me to meet my goals just as much as I am willing to help them reach theirs. Not for the sake of hedonism, but just because it’s good to work hard and have something to work for. When I reach my goals with other people, I can never truly say that what I have is mine because there was so many that helped me get there. The converse is true as well. But the important thing to me is the memories shared of keeping my feet off the table. What happens after you reach your goal? Well other people are reaching theirs, can’t you help them? ... they helped you. There are other things to reach after you goal as well. It’s an upward moving spiral of dependence. I’m still trying to factor the whole hedonism thing in and I can’t. If you don’t help someone, they probably won’t help you. You’ll be lucky if they call you in the morning if you use them.

Now all I need to do is figure out what people really want. Besides sex...and money...and more sex.

Never claimed to be smart

I still try and define smart and dumb people. Though fruitless, it gives me something to do other than blow up things or use bad humor. Incidentally, those two things together seem to solve many things. In defining the smart or dumb, is it the events after the decision or the events before the decison that define dumb or smart? Can you have a dumb decision and have a smart outcome? Yes to all the aforemention questions seem like the most likely answer. Actually I think it is. So what's the point of defining dumb or smart people? I'm going back to my explosives.

Side Commentary slash Manifesto

I should probably qualify my thought processes.

1. I'm not sure if force is the way to solve everything. My experiences have taught me it isn't. But neither is unyielding kindness nor pure science, religion, or logic. But I do know that struggle is a common theme among all of these. It is the hard work that produces the solution through the various or combinations of means presented.

2. I'm a realistic optimist. I try to carry hope in all things and usually pray that some good will come from the worst. But I am not so foolish to blindly believe that the past can be corrected; or things that are beyond my scope of control are directly influenced by me (but influenced nonetheless). I'm just a neuron in the Mind of God, that fires when asked and intrepretes incoming signals to the best of my ability. A shapechanging cog in the ever changing Great Machine. Not the detached Hand of God that wanders and dose it's own thing or a spinning wheel attached to nothing.

3. On Equality: One could argue that there is no equality. I could probably argue likewise, especially after the lives I have lived. But so long as I live and breathe in the United States, I will fight the the very bitter end to uphold that ideal of equality in the United States. If one race, creed, religion, or gender belives it to be better than the other, then leave. I did not rise up the ranks from poverty to decency to be judged and stifled by the ranks of those who would impede faith, hard work, selfless service, determination, wisdom, and honor.

4. On conquering: Theivery is taking without compensation of any kind. Conquering is almost as bad, but there is compensation (little as it may be). It never settles well if I take over something. Yet, if what I have taken struggles, then I am glad since it shows that there is life in that I have taken. There is an opportunity for growth. If it fought viciously before taking, I hope it continues to fight still; even if in a non-violent way. Respect is garnered from that. And in the end, I hope that it will wrest it's own control of itself, proving it's worth. Not to me, but to the itself. Who am I to judge or take? I'm a capalaist/reformer/militant/fundamentalist with hopes in seeing the world actually reach world peace even if it takes hate to do it. (The last part was sarcasm by the way)

5. On faith: Is there one faith? I don't know. I stopped going to church after I kept getting hit up at the collection plate and then being discriminated against later because I was "that Oriental guy" at the "White Church". But I do know that there is God. How? Try and disprove it. That and after having several near-death experiences, sensing the world (meditation on the subject), not having prayers answered, and looking at particle physics, I have just kinda accepted Him as faith. No deeper meaning, no agnostisism, no blind fundamentalism. Just there. Kinda like static electricity. Every now and then, I kinda feel something build up and occasionally it shoots out, beyond my own volition. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but always amazing and beyond my control. Fall in love once or three times and you'll get a glipmse of what I'm talking about. And not fall-into-bed-with-a-random-stranger-because-they're-cute love. I mean the stuff where you lose inhibitions because the communication between you and the partner is empathic and suddenly you realize that every moment of every second of every day is being logged because you don't want to forget about it. That kind of love, which makes me wonder about that kind of faith.

E-mail of the Western Infidels

This was sent by a friend of mine to me:

Hi everyone,

I saw this news article today in yahoo news and I just
had to pass it along and say a few words. Before,
during and after the Iraq war, many media venues gave
large quantities of airtime to protesters. As we all
remember, these protesters claimed that the war was
fought so that Americans could control the Iraq oil
reserves and so that the evil right wing politicians
could bribe the American people into electing them
again. Further more, many American liberals claimed
that American service men and women were being
brainwashed to fight and die for the greed of evil
corporate America.

I remember very clearly a group a protesters in
downtown Berkeley chanting No blood for Oil,
screaming and pumping they picket signs up and down.
I walked to the local McDonalds (about a block away
from the protest) and I witnessed a protester speaking
to a mentally handicapped man. The woman was
convincing the man to repeat the slogans and then
invited him to join their protest. It did not take
long for the two to join the ranks of the protesters.


Now, I know that this is an isolated incident and that
99.9% of anti-war protesters do not engage in these
practices. But the memory stayed with me.

This news article cites evidence that analysis knew
before, during and after the war that America would
NOT benefit from cheap oil by invading Iraq. The
protesters could have asked the experts if their
arguments were in line with reality. Why didnt they?

In addition, there is the very real chance that
President Bush will lose his job over the Iraq war.

So here are my main points:
1. This blood for oil business was a lie. Any human
who uses logic and reason could have told you this.
Anyone who believes this has been misled.

2. See if this news story is reported with the same
intensity as the story on the blood for oil
protesters. This is a qualitative test for how bias
the media is (it would need a LOT more controls to be
quantitative but I dont have the time to figure those
out.)

3. Anyone who believes that President Bush wanted the
war in Iraq for political gain is misleading himself.
All evidence indicates that his stance on Iraq has
hurt him politically.

Yes, I guess Im getting a bit fed up with people
around here that can be so very logical and methodical
when it comes to science, but they check their reason
at the door when it comes to politics. Logic and
reason are to be applied to all aspects of life. This
is the conservative way.

If anyone has an opinion on this, especially one that
differs from mine, I welcome hearing it.

From the Ivory Tower, SMC

Here's my response:

Hey SMC

I read the social commentary on the protesters and I, for the most part agree with you. Though the notion of "blood for oil" seems bogus, their ideas are not totally unfounded. Consider this, how much in contracts are the US politico's making in authorizing them and what would happen if there is a fuel crunch in the next 5 years and the US effectively owns the Iraq? Would the US stand to gain a large amount of clout both in world energy policy and fiscal backing? Maybe I'm too much of an opportunist or a "capitalist pirate", but as far as I see it, if the US owns Iraq as an ally or just as and out right tyranny, it only secures the future of the US. Though I'm not too fond of the tyranny thought.

As I see it, the American public keeps forgetting that is was through brute force that we gained many of the things we have today as to maintain the ideals of equality on the land we effectively discovered, borrowed, or just wrested away. Look at California. In the end, we still made it better than anything the Spaniards could ever fantasized it to be. Yet, ask most of the protesters there if they would like to sign a petition to re-join California to Mexico, you would probably have a fomenting band of patriots trying to speech you to death. It was also this underlying idea of separatist strength that allowed the creation of a nation such that people banded together under an ideal of equality; if in only religion and race. If Iraq is serious about not wanting the US there, then it will lay down its petty grievances within its clans and either fight the US with a non-racist united mentality or rebuild in an accepting one (then ask us to leave). The protesting US public has also forgotten that this is how we were created, as well as other FIRST WORL NATIONS; and how we have those freedoms that allow for them to protest with their SUV's, Starbucks, education reforms, and social problems. Stupid power hungry Muslim clerics.

If we get kicked out, fine. It's like if I was a cop on patrol: I can respect somebody that doesn't want me in their house, even if I just stopped a domestic violence dispute... It is their house. But I don't want my partner (the protesters) to just bail out on me because he's a weenie of forgot that we have a job to do and there was a dispute that we were asked to investigate. The waiting around part as a cop is to make sure nothing stupid occurs since it usually dose after the cop leaves, unless somebody is arrested. Seeing that Iraq has been "raped" it's hard to say if the "cop" should leave because when one rapist is arrested, another lies in wait (other religious clerics vying for power). I'd just feel more comfortable as a cop to be able to leave knowing that Iraq is able to fend off other rapists with a loaded .45cal than with an empty can of mace.

Wow, teaching the retarded to protest, now that is just outright satanic. She should be brought to trial on that since well, she's no different than the situation she's protesting. (Manipulating the unknowing/uncomprehending into something that is potentially dangerous.) I highly doubt she's going to wipe the drool from that man's chin after he gets riot-gassed.

Wow, I think I really am beginning to think like a conqueror. Maybe this "Rule the World" gig might work out for me. Now that's something to protest. But at least I won't be accused of manipulating the homeless or retarded.

From Pax Americana

DB

If I knew what to say, I'd be speaker.

Interesting thing, life. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a sage, but I'm not really that good at it so I may as well just lie. I call it interesting in that I find myself caught in the crossroads of trying to drown myself in stories that aren't mine, yet they are entertaining; and trying to make my own stories, some of which are not really that entertaining. Voraciously devouring the lives of other people, fictious or otherwise. Yet my own life isn't near as exciting.... So I believe. I'm not a starship pilot, but I can shoot a gun. I haven't seen the bottom of the ocean, but I have seen the cherry blossoms in May. I'm glad I haven't killed a man...Yet, though I have seen people die. It's an odd conundrum, life. More often than not I find myself more entertained at the other exploits of a child than the triumph of me.

Is the grass really greener or do I need to mow my yard. Are the Jones really competing with me or am I just caught up in their stories and want to have them for my own. Is it "What would your hero do?" or "What needs to be done?" In the end I guess it's you that you have to live with, so why copy somebody else's success? At least you can call it your own and not some game-plan that was laid before you. I guess the trick then is to own up to your own faults when you screw up though. But hey, what do I know, I'm just a sage working for the bureaucracy.