affliction

[Take one tablet twice daily with food.]

Delusion: Take a pill.  It seems, more and more, that we assign to the category of “disease” a number of conditions which seem to me to exist not so much as illnesses, but instead are misconstrued as such.  This sort of misguided perception threatens to slow, or even completely halt, our progress as a species.

How long can we get away with inventing mental conditions in order to excuse our dumb behavior patterns?

Seclusion: I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.  If one were to search diligently enough, one might find entire towns full of children who have been diagnosed with a condition which is aptly named “attention deficit disorder.”  While I do not deny the existence of this condition, I do highly doubt that the sheer number of cases diagnosed are, in fact, justifiable. 

electile dysfunction

[brought to you by The National Association of We're Just Asking For It...]

Is everybody ready? It’s almost time to play that silly game we involve ourselves in every four years or so. Keep in mind that while I do not consider myself an expert on politics, I do consider myself a relative master of pattern recognition.

Delusion: We the people. Yep, it’s nearly that time again, when the two party system engages in battle via television, radio and what is loosely termed “public debate.” This election, at least the choices seem a bit more colorful, if you’ll excuse the unintended pun. Personally, I find it rather exciting to see an African American candidate, with potential for female vice presidential candidates in the mix. This, at the very least, gives the impression of progress, in a manner of speaking. One must ask oneself, however, will this really amount to any measurable change?

Seems to me that no matter what color you happen to be, or what religious background you may have, or what sexual organs you possess, that if you make it far enough to actually run for president, you probably share many of the corruptible traits that any presidential candidate possessed. I imagine that they all have the same taskmasters, anyway.

erroneous

[...this has been a message from the emergency broadcast system.]

It is important to be aware of those times when we are in error.  It is on those occasions that our true character can be tested.  One’s response to such a realization, or whether the realization occurs at all, can speak volumes about a person’s dedication to that which can be deemed “true.”

I have, over the years, developed a particular fondness for finding myself in the wrong, and admitting it.  There are times, I will concede, that I still find it difficult to do so.  However, as this kind of circumstance tends to be one of our best learning mechanisms, the pride I hold for my ability to admit such a fault typically outweighs the difficulties associated with doing just that.

inconsequential

["Love is a chance combination of elements.  Any one thing can keep it from igniting: a mood, a glance, a remark.  But if we could define love, if we could predict it, it would probably lose some of its power."]

The great poets are dead or gone, the final remnants of their genius left to whip about in the wind as shreds of paper dance in the path of a fast moving object.  Rennaissance is replaced with revolution.  The more romantic notions of this world have all but disappeared, unrecognizable to younger generations, presented in works of art as historic frames of mind.  Irrepressible, pure emotions are haphazardly given the slightest considerations in a modern world of more competitvely-colored overtones.

Understanding and reason, and the basis for these things, reside in the mind’s ability to be aware of its self, to contemplate itself, its purpose, its reason for subsisting in such an indifferent universe.  Emotion, the intrusive neighbor, dwells several floors down, haplessly barging in on the mind in order to complicate its existence and, at the same time, impose a certain amount of meaning.  It yearns to simultaneously satisfy and confuse the mind’s sense of purpose. 

unmasked

[Hold your breath for the duration...]

Delusion:  Supposititious.  You!  Remove the face, and take off that hat.   They do not suit you and there no longer exists a need for such nonsense.  Please, at least for the moment, allow the real to show through.  Prove to me that you’re a real human being, complete with faults and the same amount of apathy that I, myself, can display.  If you don’t know, say so.  If you don’t care, don’t pretend to.  If you can’t possibly stand me, then act accordingly.  Anything else would be a complete waste of time.

Seclusion: The customer is priority one!  Attention customer service representatives:  It matters not that your company believes it is imperative that you tell me to “have a nice day.”  I know full well that you do not mean it, that you could honestly care less what kind of day that I have, intended or otherwise.  Please, if you must thank me for my patronage, then leave it at that.  You don’t care, and I don’t care that you don’t care.  Oh, and be sure to relay that message to the idiots on high who insist that you must, at all costs, pretend to care.

symptom

[this must be somebody else's fault...]

Delusion:  It is what it is.  An issue develops, seeming to exist as a potential threat to your mental well-being, with potential for goal-related interruptions, mental distractions or all around retardations.  If it were just another human, it would have robbed you of your valuables and left you half-beaten in a ditch by now.  Your mind, despite whatever discipline it can cling to, tends to wrap itself around the subject whenever it’s allowed a free moment. You close your eyes for sleep, only to find the problem staring at you in the face with a beastly grin.  It even has the audacity to enter your dreams.  There just isn’t a line of respect these things will not cross.

No matter how hard you may try, you cannot escape its constant reminding, hoping that you spend your worry on it.

Seclusion:  Underneath it all.  The more ridiculous of us would allow such an intrusive pest to consume specific parts of our lives until it successfully numbed all sensation in those same specific parts.  The moderately intelligent find a way to deal with the issue, sometimes positively; other times, not so much.  However, we must ask…are we certain there isn’t more to the situation itself?  Perhaps deeper?

the unreal

[Lick the back of your hand for maximum effect]

Countless are the worlds I have created and destroyed within my own mind.  The power of imagination, the potential for possibilities, these are the things that make anything real.  I have, likewise, allowed myself to benefit from the creativity and imagination of others.  The great writers, artists and producers of computer software, video games and other iconic forms of our entertainment which, thanks to the dreams of yet more individuals, lay literally just beyond our collective fingertips, have all impacted the physical world in numerous ways.

Our daring to escape the confines of our so-called lives, to revolutionalize, to “think outside the box,” has levelled our societies with glorious achievements in understanding.  Without unconventional thinking, many of the things we tend to take for granted could never have been.  Television, comprehension of the nature of the cosmos, instantaneous communication, provocative works of art, various forms of automated travel, and even inane things like disappearing ink and edible underwear would simply not exist.

For a thing to exist, one must first create the thing in one’s mind.  To fabricate an original idea from the most random of thoughts, allowing it to congeal into something that can be built or implemented, is the true legacy of the human species, so long as the thing doesn’t destroy the species outright.

As we flitter this way and that, in vain attempts to control our own lives in this commercialized, uncaring flesh-world, we must not forget the powerful inventiveness of the unreal, the imagined, spawned by an insatiable curiosity which seems instilled naturally in our very genes.

Should we exercise enough self-control, there exists nothing in the universe that can stop us……unless, of course, we make it up.

paradox

unedited

[brought to you with limited commercial interruption]

Delusion: Inevitability.  I stopped listening to the radio a long time ago.  For the most part, many popular stations tend to play the most popular songs over and over again.  At least, they did when I was an avid listener.  When I once asked, rhetorically, why this was done, I was given the answer: “they are catering to the lowest common denominator.”  I shrugged.

It didn’t bother me much.  I just switched to CDs and mp3s and to hell with the radio altogether.

Separately, I found myself questioning a lot of the ridiculous rules and laws we have in place which are designed to keep people from hurting themselves, accidentally or otherwise.  I figure, if certain members of our species have the desire to engage in activities which are potentially deadly or disfiguring, who are we to say that they can’t?  Eventually, a similar answer was given, regarding a “lowest common denominator.”

I was beginning to become bothered by this.

Imagine yourself at work, performing some tedious task or another, one that you perform often and with very little brainpower.  Now, imagine that your company has invented a “brilliant” new procedure for engaging in said tedious task, complete with an over-explanatory (and mandatory) computer training course for purposes of teaching you how the task should be completed in the future.  Let’s not forget that the task in question has all the complexity of tying one’s shoe.  But, as well-behaved minions do, you cooperate, only to find your intelligence insulted and your time completely wasted.

This bothers the hell out of me.

Seclusion: Inclusion.  The idea that the less-intelligent, less-abled, or less-skilled should be included and catered to is an old one.  Think of it as reverse-Darwinism.  As the dawn of human evolution began with “survival of the fittest,” it has now become “everyone must survive at all costs.”  This is really stupid.

Don’t get me wrong, I can relate to the old Vulcan axiom that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” but this is getting ridiculous.  Let’s not forget that natural selection does have its purposes.  If we put so much effort toward making certain that the weak, stupid and ignorant survive, what do you expect the outcome to be?  I’ll tell you:  the weak, stupid and ignorant start breeding, in great numbers.  Pretty soon, as we are seeing today, we have a population super-saturated with ignorance, stupidity, weakness and apathy.  These are not the best ingredients for an enlightened species.  Remember, sometimes stupidity is a choice, not an inherent trait.

It seems I have come across something that may have humanity’s fate sealed tighter than that stupid pickle jar I’ve been trying to open.

Seclusion: Affront.  Recently, I had undergone a mandatory training course for new procedures regarding some mindless task at my job, again, with all the complexity of tying my shoe.  During this computer-delivered lesson, I was taken, step-by-step, through the process of generating a time-tracking sheet for duties performed by my crew.  Immediately after the interactive process of guiding me on “what to click on,” the next screen presented in big, bold letters:  LET’S REVIEW WHAT YOU JUST DID. I almost fell off my chair, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.  I decided to laugh at the ridiculous nature of what I was forced to deal with.  Later, I thought to myself, what kind of moron really needs this thorough of an explanation for something so blatantly simple?  Eventually, I came to the conclusion that there are, in fact, many of my fellow man (or woman) who require this kind of silly nurturing.  Why?  Because they’re stupid.  Period.  The evidence is starting to pile up, and it goes way beyond my little job in my little corner of the world.

Seclusion: The threat.  Here’s the issue I am confronted with.  At this point, I am forced to consider the exact value of this “lowest common denominator,” as people have liked to term it.  Call it curiosity; I just need to know, leave it at that.  After giving it quite a bit of thought, I have, unfortunately, realized that this value is zero.  That’s right, zero, zip, nothing.  Here’s where the paradox rears it’s ugly head.

Anyone who knows anything about mathematics can tell you that zero cannot be a denominator in a fraction.  It’s not simply that when you divide a number by zero, you get zero.  It’s that when you divide a number by zero, you get error, the null set, an impossibility.  As I understand mathematics (which, by the way, only goes only so far as college algebra), there are no exceptions to this rule.  When you divide a number by one, you simply get the original number.  But when you try to divide a number by zero, you might very well explode or something like that.  We are not talking about imaginary numbers here, we are talking about a big mathematical no-no.  It just isn’t done.

So what does this mean for us?

Conclusion: Survival of the dumbest.  As a species, we’re pretty screwed, and it’s our own fault.  If people want to drive without using a seatbelt, they should be allowed to do so.  If they die, then they die.  Scaring people into wearing safety belts, as an example, with the threat of monetary punishment if they do not will only lend a hand to helping the apathetic or the ignorant survive long enough to have children, and therefore instill their apathetic and/or ignorant ideals into those children, who, in turn grow to adulthood under the protection of seat-belt laws, bike helmets, and a whole cornucopia of practices we have put in place to ensure that the “lowest common denominators” of our society not only survive, but probably live longer than I do.  Sometimes, at my expense.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a pickle jar to open.

opticality

[void where prohibited.]

Am I dead? What is this place, and why is it so dark? I must be dead.

Yet, I feel warm, enveloped even. There is a soft whisper in my ear, carrying the words of nobody, and saying nothing, but setting me at ease nevertheless. Still, I am confused. An unrelenting need to understand my surroundings forces the question again: where am I?

If I can feel anything, can detect a faint whisper, or can even ponder the meaning of such things, surely I am not dead!

For a few minutes, I believe I might be the punchline in one of those sick jokes the universe seems so fond of. The “big electron” has a sense of humor, but it tends to be more on the side of wretched. This passes, as I realize that my eyes have yet to open.

I wonder briefly if I can truly feel. Nervously, my brain sends the command for my arm to move, to draw my hand to where my face must be. My eyes are still not open. Neurons fire, the most miniscule shocks of electricity jumping between them, a strange sort of binary code interpreted as a command given by the central computer that is my brain, and converted to stretch and contract specific muscles needed for the task. The process is almost instantaneous, but I am acutely aware of it in its entirety.

I cannot seem to open my eyes.

My face; yes it is there, just where it ought to be. Thankfully, I rest my arm again, instantly curious as to where it is resting, and where it was resting in the first place. It is soft, but supportive. I am now convinced that I am laying down, as I allow the realization of feeling to creep throughout the rest of my body. Why are my eyes not open?

Maybe I am dead. Maybe it is possible to feel things after death. After all, who can explain what a spirit can or cannot feel? Tactile or emotional? Does it matter? All I know for the moment is that I am lying prone and my eyes refuse to open.

I’ll try again.

The brain forms a cognitive command, and again, the neurons fire. I will the event to occur. Slowly, I feel my eyelids shed the weight of obstinance and obey. Light enters and the pupils contract quickly to counteract the immense photon count.

The room is bright, but bare. Hardly a color to be seen, and nothing exists but the bed on which I currently lie. Looking down, I see my bare chest, slowly heaving up and down as I breathe. I am now aware that I am breathing. If I am dead, I do a pretty good imitation of the living. Suddenly, I am aware of the presence of another. Wariness rises, but at least my eyes are open.

I turn my head to the right, and blink to make sure that my eyes are, indeed, open. She is there, sleeping peacefully, her faced turned in my direction. But what’s she doing here? This isn’t right…

A corner of my mouth upturns ever so slightly, in what it really wants to be a smile, if I’d allow such a thing, which, at this point, I will not. Instead, I think to myself: I am dead, afterall. I look at her again, musing that I had at least somehow made it to heaven.

Then I awake. It was all a dream.

My eyes are open.

viewpoint

[brought to you by the space-time continuum]

Time is a man-given label applied to a concept seemingly inseparable from the universe itself, an attempt at framing the idea in terms we lesser beings can understand. The fullness of time’s own truth is quite possibly enough to drive one mad.  An endless spiral exists on a plane which, itself, spirals eternally. A dimension somewhat higher than the third presents itself in a ghostly fashion, unnoticed except for the face of change. Space intersects. A million and one possibilities manifest for each of a countless outpouring of happenstances.  Life becomes?

You are an outsider, a visitor, of sorts. Your perspective is external, third-person. You may possess a panoramic, wide-screen view of what is, taken for what it is, rather than what it appear(s)(ed) to be. Patterns are readily apparent around every corner. Your mind screams in exultation of what could be, not what might have been. Logic and reason maintain, for their part, and in so much as they do not interfere with creativity. You might be intuitively mindful of understanding’s very mechanics.  For the purposes of experimentation, your reality might contain sub-realities, catering to all whims from entertainment to scientific curiosity to abject lunacy. The fluidic nature of thought confuses you only as much as you allow. Obscurity runs rampant through its own shadows, but you are rarely fooled.  Inevitability chases the universe, and everything in it, forever on the hunt, but you remain unpreturbed.  Collective, even cosmic humor suggests you, yourself, might be the joke. This has never bothered you in the slightest.

A view from above, outside, on the fringe, from the very edge. You are on the rim.

For a brief moment, you wonder on your own sanity. Knowing better, you realize that this pedantic view
widely held on what the “real world” is and how one might successfully navigate it, is, in fact, the
perfect definition of insanity. Take your 9 to 5, accumulate your possessions, exist within the physical and mental confines set forth by humans who ceased to be long ago; abide by their rules. No. That, you realize, is true craziness–not to challenge the status quo, but to simply accept what is for what it appears to be, just because that’s how environment instructed you. This fringe can be resisted, even ignored, but never truly expelled. Conditioning? Environment? These things serve as anchors for beliefs collectively held to tether one firmly to this so-called “real world,” where consumerism and servitude are the only things allowed or required to define a person. To those who will not succumb to such nonsense, the world can be maddening, exacting, even insistent that there is something wrong with them, their view, and their very existence. Frustration and doubt can easily take over, but any true warrior of enlightenment can shrug these off, knowing those feelings for what they are: the unconscious representation of what other, simpler people might think.

You have, at some point, wondered, “are we truly such an insignificant life-form, that concepts such as politics and economics rule all? Is there something more dwelling in this gene pool, or are we perhaps nothing more than an ecological mistake, a mathematical inevitability, a lone and failing attempt at biological evolution? Can our very existence be blamed on a slight quantum “hiccup” millions of years past? Is it conceivable that we are only so much that we owe our very being to a couple of ancient, subatomic particles that looked at each other cross-eyed?”

Have we been so wrong?

Objectivity directs to truth, however relative. The meaningless, the frivolous, it is all but forgotten in the advanced mindset. You know full well that destiny and fate are one-way, dead-end roads to specificity. In such a complicated, yet well-patterned universe, how can that even make sense?

How can any of this make sense?