"God, I HATE MY LIFE."
I say that to that no one really.
"I wish you wouldn't say stuff like that when you have your penis inside me." My exgf says.
My ex gf is wondering about my penis.
"What's wrong?" She asks.
I think my ex gf is wondering why my penis is 'suddenly' soft. I try to tell her that it is nothing to worry about. "That's what happens to men my age." I tell her.
What my exgf does not realize is that my penis is always that small or soft when inside her. I think about telling her that, and I think about telling my ex-girlfriend that my impotence is all her fault.
She's had 5 babies from 4 different men. I want to tell her that all those years she spent fisting herself for men at the peep shows for 2 dollars a minute left her pussy busted and incapable of providing friction to anything smaller than a midgets arm. That my penis is only aroused initially into the sex process. I get hard and then I fuck for a while, but the longer I fuck the smaller my dick gets. Right before I cum my cock shrivels up like an 8 year old's dick in one of those kiddie play pools.
Inexplicably, right after I cum my dick gets huge again, sometimes it blows up to 4 inches or more. So I always make sure to pull out after I cum and wipe my penis all around her vagina. That way she sees what she assumes to be a normal sized dick. Because the dick now looks normal she has to assume that the dick was that size whenever it was inside her and that any lack of sensation she felt during our love making was her fault because as I explained to her, "an episiotomy does nothing about putting a woman's womb back together."
"It's all done for looks, Dear." I tell her.
She nods back at me and begins to chew on her nails. I am always trying to impress my girlfriend with how smart I am by making wise cracks about "the epistimology of episiomoties. "
My girlfriend has no idea why I think I am so smart. All she knows is that I read a lot and that I tend to make the most disgusting comments she's ever heard. She has no idea if that makes me smart. Whenever she tries to quantify anything in particular about me that is actually smart she has trouble coming up with anything.
"I know the names of all the continents." I try telling her. I don't think I am very convincing. I am also done wiping my cum on her vagina. She is holding the empty condom with pinched fingers like it is a bag of poop.
"What should I do with this?" She waves the the latex prophylactic at me.
"I guess we could reuse it." I tell her. "Since it ain't got no cum in it."
"Why do you always talk in a southern accent after fucking?"
"I got no fuckin' idea." I tell her. I decide I am going to drop my g's for the rest of the day. That'll teach her.
In the play pen next to the bed you can hear her 2 year old rustlin' around. I think the sex has woken the girl up, and that means we can't go to sleep for hours. Once her little one is awake there is no sleep. She screams and cries. I tell her mom that, "Nicki might be autistic, because I've never seen a kid rock herself so much."
My exgf tells me that she is just "soothing herself." And I tell the ex that "soothing behaviors" are "straight up Autism...yo...yo."
Ex-Gf just cranes her neck at me and then gives me a look. Nobody ever takes me seriously. I hate that. The exgf has still not disposed of the empty condom. It just lies on the cabinet, pathetic.
The air smells of shit instead of sex. Mostly because the trash can next to the bed is full of dirty diapers. The air should smell of sex, but I think that only happens when the girl has an orgasm.
I can't give my ex an orgasm. I think her pussy is too stretched out. Also, even though we have dated for 3 years she is, "not comfortable with me going down on her." Since she won't let me eat her out, all I can do is use my dick on her. I know my dick is not doing the trick, because she wants me to get some kind of piercing in it. She told me that her ex boyfriend had one and she, "used to cum a ton with that guy." She also tells me that she, "only cums with some guys."
"It's mostly a sexual chemistry thing." She tells me. Like that's supposed to comfort me. That we don't have sexual chemistry.
I assume by "we" she means "she" because I can cum as long as I don't masturbate during the week, and as long as we don't use a condom, and as long as I am not on anti-depressants. Then cumming is pretty easy. As long as we are doing it doggy style, and one of her kids is not knocking at the bedroom door.
Somewhere in the house a dog has shit on the floor.
I won't discover that fact until tomorrow. I won't step in it. But I will notice that the place smells worse than normal over a breakfast of Cheerios without bananas. It's the only breakfast food in the house, because the ex-gf has traded away all her food stamps so she can make her next car payment.
I ask the ex if she wants a little money for gas so she can get to work. She tells me she doesn't have to go to work until Thursday and if I give her gas money her sister will end up using the car and waste all the gas going to see her boyfriend who lives in Payson which is 60 miles from here.
I snort loud enough for my ex to get the point. She needs to be able to say no her family now and then. I wonder aloud "why she can always be guilt tripped by other people, but not me."
I figure it has something to do with how unsexy I look out of clothes. She once told me that I looked good until I took my shirt off. She told me not to worry that, "because looks are not that important for her" and that "men who look better than me often have shitty attitudes and end up breaking her heart."
I tell her that all that honesty sounds like emotional abuse to me. Then I tell her 5 year old to pour me a glass of chocolate milk, "If you are going to make yourself a glass of milk...make me one too."
The first time I met the 5 year old he hugged me goodnight. I got creeped out by the kid doing that. He did not know me, but he thought it was ok to hug a strange man he'd never met before. I guess he just figured I was his new daddy, and he might as well get a good start with this daddy so maybe new daddy would not run away.
I felt too sorry for him to tell him the truth. That I was just lonely and needed a little part time pussy, and his mom let me fuck her. Of course it took me hanging around her house for hours at a time and for days on end to ever get a little nooky, and by then the offspring would get attached to me. They would ask me to play games with them. They had a bunch of board games in the attic that must have been bought at a yard sale because all the boxes were broken and some of the pieces to the games were missing.
The ex hated playing with her kids. I hate board games too, but sometimes the ex gf smoked pot, and whenever she smoked pot she would forget she had kids and would stop looking after them. That's when I had to take care of the kids and entertain them and I would usually give in to their suggestion that we play Sorry for the millionth time.
I would play Sorry and I would look over at my ex gf smoking and getting high. She would flirt and laugh at her sisters boyfriend. She would give him looks whenever she thought her sister wasn't looking. I caught her more than once and I am sure her sister did too. I think her sister liked to pretend that it meant nothing, since her sister was 6 years older and since her sister always claimed to hate younger guys.
"That's why I hang around old fart's like him." She would point over at me and then they would all look over me. My ex, her sister, and her sister's boyfriend. They would look over at me and have a big laugh like the term "old fart" was just invented for me. Whenever they laughed at me I tended to look down at the game board and pretend to busy myself with some operation of game play like I was really into the game and missed out hearing their little inside joke.
The kids would laugh too, but they only laughed for the reason that kids always laugh whenever they hear a bunch of adults laughing. They figure something funny had just been said and even though they did not understand it they don't want to seem left out of all the fun.
24 comments:
Romius,
This may be your 3rd best post ever. I will have to wait until the Stove Top stuffing I just ate settles into my stomach and the sun breaks the horizon to know for sure, but i think we have a definite contender here for 3rd best post ever.
I get the bronze medal! YES!!
I agree. Very strong post. It really depressed me. I'm going to fix your problems with two medications: Viagra and Zoloft. You can come if you take Zolft or generic Sertraline for depression and Viagra's the bomb. It makes it like you were 20 again.
I'm in a good mood overall because finally the Guilty White Liberals saw what a turd Obama is and they are really bent out of shape about it because they believed that bull he was slinging.
Doesn't fix my ex-communication from commenting on said blogs. I'm still persona non grata at all the spots you frequent. All for the temerity to suggest that maybe Obama was just a right-wing cretin.
How do you reckon I can more or less fuck any broad I want or two at once or three at once. I've fucked actresses and models. I demolished Huck Seed at 10-25 NLHE every time heads up. I can run three businesses at once. I'm fully bilingual since birth and am learning Hebrew and Arabic. And I'm ex-communicated from a bunch of old broads' guilty white liberal blogs? How you figure that happen?
I’ll bet you were late for work again. Serves you right, you shouldn’t write such long posts. About, your back—the reason it hurts is that you’ve made it crooked from masturbation. You should consider attending meetings of Crooked Back Whackers Anonymous (CBWA). At your age, any sort of sex is just squalid and perverse. For that matter, Kelso’s Nuts should also join CBWA. Obviously, the only models and actresses he ever had were in his onanistic fantasies. I’d reprimand you further but I have to go look at some salacious images so I can censor them.
kelso,
Which blogs have you been banned at? I have said the same things as you have about obama (well not as harsh perhaps and only on my blog) just wondering who is dimming free speach....
Dave
I agree with you about how any sex at my age is sqaulid and disgusting.
"onanistic fantasies" are you studying for the s.a.t.'s?
Regarding Onanism—as my brain cells die of old age and vice, they waft a cunning linguistic effluvia which solidifies into words I no longer know the meanings of.
A little insecure are we, Dave? My suggestions: go to community college and start bathing.
dave,
dont go to community college or bathe. look how I ended up...
ROMIUS T: I was banned once ACTUALLY from Blue Girl. I go to various sites you know and have been banned by one but on most WHITE LIBERAL (tm) sites I'm like you I write stream of consciousness stuff which is universally hated. I'm glad Cavalor likes what I do at HELL.
If YOU think I'm harsh on Obama, I must really be out there. I think he's silly and dangerous. I thought McCain was serious and VERY DANGEROUS. So, I'm kind of glad Obama won.
But he's got the same vacant stare and lack of ideas as Reagan. He's got roughly the same political views. And he's just as convinced he has all the answerrs on everything when he clearly hasn't picked up a book since he read Lord Of The Flies in 10th grade or whatever. You hear him give a press conference? Incomprehnsible. They are words and they are enuniciated perfectly but strung together they make no sense. Whatever. I have a different president who's boring but effective. And one hell of a lot more pleasant.
If I'm raining on anybody's parade, too bad. What parade? Another right-wing ruling-class scumbag is in the White House. Kind of hard for me to celebrate the victory of a guy who's politics are HARSHER on his own people than Berlusconi, Garcia or Uribe.
I know a way to overcome your hatred... but it won't be easy.
You already have half the skills, but the other half is much tougher...
What is the secret?
Well, it is quite clear from this post (or any of your posts) that you have as much compassion for your neighbor as for yourself, which is to say, precious little.
But really, you have no actual loathing or fear of them or you; more of a we're all in this cesspool together and so we all stink kind of attitude...
So you are cleared by a technicality on the first commandment.
But you are failing miserably on the second one, Romius. You must love God with all your heart.
You may think of God as benevolent but inept aliens, advanced future beings, an amorphous spirit, or perhaps simply the essence of the entire world around us. Nobody knows what God is, and if they say they do, then they lie.
But just because you don't know God does not mean that you cannot love Him with all your heart. And it is very clear that you do not.
You resent God. You resent the world. You resent your birth. You resent me. That is what you have to correct, the resentment... the unfounded notion that you deserve better. That will cure the hatred, and open the path to love.
Tell me why you resent the world, Romius.
A long post is coming on this subject.
But to answer quickly.
I don't believe in god or gods. It would be difficult to be angry at someone or something that I don't believe in.
I am not resentful.
What I am (my being) is absurd. I have been thrown into life without the instincts of lower animals and during an age that no longer believes in the absolute.
Identification with the ideal or infinity or god is a way to rationalize the uncertainty and anguish the world thrusts upon us.
I can't do that.
There is much more if coming if people are interested in this...
Sure I'm interested. It's why I'm here. Well, that and your incisive wordsmithery.
I understand that you do not currently believe in god, but that may change. Indulge me, if you will, in a little pontification and a thought experiment:
Consider the arc of our evolution, as sentient beings. For a billion years we were mere pond scum, not even horny. Slow progress gave way to feverish creation in the Cambrian explosion, and then to a tumultuous but progressive increase in sentience, emotion, and the capacity for abstract thought, to create and refine working models and to manipulate symbols.
Through several millennia of abject desperation, our proto-human ancestors developed the big brains and tribal socialism that enabled us to develop lasting cultures. Eventually those cultures developed written language, effectively rewiring the process of evolution to enable natural selection due to fitness based on ideas that transcend direct inheritance or even genetic proximity.
Numerous technical advances from papyrus scrolls to the printing press, and now the internet have enhanced this new form of selection, and now we are passed the threshold of a new age in which we are able to directly manipulate the genetic currency of evolution. Evolution itself is evolving.
In the last 100 years we have gone from a flightless world, barely able to harness fossil fuels, to a space faring, vastly interconnected world that yields the most efficient exploitation that so-called capitalism can continue to muster. Isn't it wonderful? Well, as you have deftly illustrated in this here blog, there are some downsides...
But let's press on into the thought experiment portion of this communique:
Do you doubt that our descendants will colonize another star system within 1000 years? If not, why not 10,000 years. Consider that there are well over 1000 m-class stars within 50 light years, so all we need to do is figure out travel close to the speed of light and we're there. If we went from the Wright brothers to a moon mission in half a century, can you reasonably doubt it?
Doubt is easy... Will we nuke ourselves first, and send the planet back to pre-Cambrian times? Will we eventually be overthrown by robots? Will we render our ecosystem impotent by excessive genetic manipulation? These are all possibilities, perhaps.
But stop for a moment and consider the Anthropic Principle: The universe is arranged in this remarkably unlikely scenario because if it were not, then we would not be here to notice the favor. Now consider the principle of uniformity, the basis of all physics (and therefore the rest of science) from which we derive the law of conservation of energy. Combine the Anthropic Principle with the Principle of Uniformity and what do you get? The realization that the universe was arranged so that we would be here to observe it at all times... five billion years ago, and five billion years from now. Why limit it to this moment?
A lot can happen in five billion years. An entire generation of stars and planets can form and evolve life (we are a third generation star system, full of heavy elements from the previous generations' supernovae). If we can colonize other stars in the next ten thousand years, what then can we do in the next five billion years?
How about harness vast energy from the super-massive black holes at the center of galaxies? Why not communicate and travel faster than the speed of light? Why not create and destroy entire worlds and operate at a level of intelligence that makes our current sentience seem like the pond scum from which we came?
Would you agree that such descendant beings, five billion years in the future, will be gods?
Your move.
Thimscool,
My first question to you is are you Mormon?
Just kidding.
I will say that your thought experiment was fun and interesting, but then again I bet the theological guesses about the number of angels that could balance on the head of a pin seemed valuable to philosophers of the 14th century.
I for one am not taken with the teleological implications STRONG anthropic principle
(even Dawkins seems to like it) and prefer the WEAK anthropic principle.
A lot of biologists point out the brutal nature of survival and the millions of extinct species is a strange phenomenon that was needed to prove that we were destined to be here as observers.
We could all be some dream from gods a million million years from now, or part of the matrix, or part of a demonic nightmare inflicted by Lucifer.
But until someone offers me the red pill I will go about my life without the additional unfounded beliefs that I am part of something that i have no proof for (other than hypothetical-because anything hypothetical is subject to refutation hypothetically.)
I just don't see a reason to worship these creatures anyway. They seem to have chosen a strange and painful universe for us.
I thought you were a proponent of the strong misanthropic principle. I am pleased that I have managed to distract you from your busy schedule.
Your response opens several wounds that need treatment, but I’d like to stick with this business about the anthropic principle for now. I’m going to come at it from a different angle, though, and perhaps solve the maze by working backwards from the exit. In through the ol’ out door, as it were. And no, I am not implying ass-play, you dirty savage.
Speaking of savages, I’m pleased that you recognize that my thoughts do not actually taste Mormon, even if they include some of the same spices. The Moronis are transparently focused on using religion as a tool of mass control, just like all of the other factions. I’m not a scientologist either, to anticipate your next jest. In a past life I was a scientist, however, so now I want to talk to you some about measurement theory.
Have you ever solved the Schrodinger equation? If so, you probably did the deed for a particle in a box, or for the Hydrogen atom, both of which are relatively easy to solve exactly because they are represent classically regular systems. Let’s stick with a hydrogen atom for now… the steady state solutions to the Schrodinger equation are the familiar orbitals that you remember from chemistry or physics class: the lowest energy level probability distribution looks like a sphere (s states), the higher energy levels looking like a bunch of balloon tied together at their stems (p states), etc.
These eigenstates, are like the personality archetypes for the atom. In theory, any given hydrogen atom is in a superposition of eigenstates, as if it had multiple personalities. However, the strange thing is that you will never be able to measure this superposition of states; a measurement of the hydrogen atom can only return an single eigenvalue (archetype), not a mixture. From what we can gather this "collapse of the wavefunction" happens instantaneously (it can be demonstrated to exceed the speed of light). That is interesting in and of itself; but to me the more fascinating question is what causes the collapse in the first place. Note that this is an unsolved problem in physics, with the greatest minds expressing one of a few opinions on what is happening.
So what cause and what process collapses the wave function of an atom when it is measured. The one you’d like best is called decoherence (due to interaction with a classical measuring device). I don’t deny that decoherence is a potential mechanism, but I think that it is used to gloss over the founder’s intuition that it is the interaction with a conscious observer that actually causes the collapse of the wave function, and not mere interaction with a measuring apparatus. I haven’t thought about this stuff for a while now, but I fail to see how decoherence by itself could explain the quantum eraser experiment, for example.
Anyhow I am intrigued by experimental and ontological support for the idea that consciousness affects reality, as it jives with my intuition and experience (and with that of the vast majority of people that believe in a spirit, even if they attend that belief with a side of steaming religious claptrap). I suspect that you will instantly cry foul, but you might take a little time to read up on the quantum eraser experiment and then let me know how secure you feel about your disdain for the concept of a spirit. Perhaps it isn’t the Holy Ghost, or even Caspar the friendly ghost… but it is an example of consciousness affecting reality in a way that is not transparently explained by the four known forces.
Now there is another aspect of the eigenstates that I find remarkable. They are the result of an integration over all time, from the infinite past, to the infinite future. In the case of a hydrogen atom, or a particle in a box, this is relatively simple to visualize because they are steady state solutions, like the vibrational frequencies of a string. I can easily tell you what the 101st energy level looks like, or the millionth. But if we consider a helium atom, only approximate solutions can be obtained, and they must be calculated through a tedious process, because the classical physics underneath the quantum mechanics is non-linear in this situation (it’s a three-body problem). In this case, integrating over all time (and all possible classical trajectories) is very difficult to do. But nature does it instantly. We know that because every helium atom has the same spectrum, and does not seem to give a damn that the spectrum is difficult to calculate.
If you’re still with me you’re probably wondering what in the hell this has to do with the Anthropic Principle, whether strong, weak, or limp. You are clearly a patient and tolerant man, so I will not be coy, although by now I suspect you see what I’m driving at. You see, it does you no good to parry with the WAP, because this is not just about our current miserable existence, only to be snuffed out in the next instant. That does not integrate over all time, my friend. The balance of forces is so precarious as to admit a vanishingly small (but still infinite!) number of eigenuniverses that would permit the evolution of the consciousness capable of observing itself (I AM) and collapsing into one of those improbably charmed universes (this one). We are not a sufficiently adept observer to fully collapse the wave function and set the constraints that would necessarily yield life. We are not the creator. It is our distant descendants that have that power; we’re just too damned ignorant.
Now, you can legitimately protest that I am stretching the concept of an eigenstate way beyond its application as a pathetic 20th century human theory. After all, who the hell would think that the values of the fundamental constants could be set by quantum measurement? (Ummm… Richard Gott, for example.) And really, how can the concept of a wave function be stretched into the classical space, like some crazy Schrodinger’s cat on steroids? Well, at least it is fun to speculate about this stuff, right Romius?
OK, as for the rest of your response, I’ll just go by quotes:
A lot of biologists point out the brutal nature of survival and the millions of extinct species is a strange phenomenon that was needed to prove that we were destined to be here as observers.
There are several ways to restate this objection. For example, it could be that we earth humans are doomed by a giant asteroid, but that the humans in the Andromeda galaxy are the ones that will actually evolve into the Elohim. That is true, and I suspect that we are not alone in the universe. I have several responses to this category of counter-argument. First of all, I’ll note that is not actually an argument that no God can evolve, but rather an argument that we are probably not relevant to that process and that He likely does not care about us in the slightest. But just because a species becomes extinct, does not mean that they did not affect the future substantially. Even if it is not their descendents that become gods, they may have fostered or hindered the process in some important way, and therefore be of some interest to this future god.
As for the brutal nature of survival, how could it be any other way? How could God evolve to create this universe if we don’t have strife and death and struggle? People don’t invent new technologies and ideas because they are ecstatically happy with how life is proceeding… I am just your stepping stone, baby, standing on the shoulders of giants.
But until someone offers me the red pill I will go about my life without the additional unfounded beliefs that I am part of something that i have no proof for (other than hypothetical-because anything hypothetical is subject to refutation hypothetically.)
Well Romius, if I were suggesting that you donate money to the Mormons, or regularly confess your sins to a priest instead of this blog, then I could understand the objection. I certainly don’t advocate that you believe anything, necessarily. Actually I think of myself as an evangelical agnostic, and I make sport of converting atheists because convicted theists are no fun; they are quick to accept that they don’t know shit about the details, yet they are certain that they have the exclusive recipe for your salvation. Atheists are more fun because they are always so sure that they must be right because Yahweh is as likely as Wotan or Peter Pan… If they were simply uninterested that would be fine, but the fact that they adhere to atheism as a component of their identity and practice ways to fend off soul-hungry Baptists shows me that they are simply reactionary.
In other words, you can reasonably protest that you are not willing to believe that Jesus was resurrected without evidence, but it rings hollow to altogether reject the possibility of gods simply because it is just another belief you don’t want to be saddled with. Instead you are saddled with the rejection of the possibility of god, and as you have already said that denies you a potential source of great comfort. If it was false comfort then I wouldn’t blame you for the rejection. But you don’t know that, and yet you are adamant about rejecting this comfort. Not logical.
I just don't see a reason to worship these creatures anyway. They seem to have chosen a strange and painful universe for us.
Now this is better. The painful part I have already dealt with… how could it be any other way? The worship part is troubling, I admit. Personally, I don’t think that worship is warranted, at least in the normal way of going to church, singing out of tune, and putting a Franklin into the tin. So I guess my answer would be that you shouldn’t worship these creatures. But on the other hand, you may want to reflect on their influence in your life… and more importantly, your overall health and well being will improve by loving the world more (a personal god could help, but that is not the only way).
I lost the first part of this response, but I wost what i have left.
First, let us delve into the that foray of quantum physics you have brought up.
I am only vaguely familiar with quantum physics. I have read Brian Green's book and few popularizations of qp. I have seen a few documentaries, and I read the National Geographic articles etc.
So some of the stuff you talked about was a little past me.
I could not solve a Schrodinger equation. I am awful at any kind of math that goes beyond basic algebra.
I was familiar with the decoherence debate; however, and for the most part you raised all the objections I would be able to think of.
I am not familiar with the quantum eraser experiment. But you have me curious about it. I will do research on that.
I will just tell you that I am hesitant to accept the notion that consciousness can affect "reality."
Until someone other than a French philosopher feels comfortable with drawing conclusions and metaphors for life from the new physics I will too.
It seems that you have already understood the objections I would raise about the anthropic principle, so you have had all the fun with that.
I am not too familiar with the arguments (weak vs strong), but it is my understanding that the science and the philosophical debate that has emphasized Strong has "crested" and that a number of research programs have undertaken an attempt to discredit the strong idea.
I maybe misreading the consensus on that as I don't have access to the science or debate, but am just reading third hand reporting.
The last part of your response seems to be leaning towards a nice guy deism.
I should make a distinction for you first about my position.
I feel the only philosophically defensible position on the existence of god is weak atheism. Or a form of agnosticism (most might say.)
In other words I don't "know" that there is no god.
I think the likelihood is small. I don't argue against the possibility. I admit there is a possibility.
I just don't think the possibility is significant enough to orient myself around the concept.
You bring up the false comfort to be found in belief, and I could not have said it better.
Finding patterns in chaos is what humans are good at. Finding a pattern for the meaning of the universe would bring us comfort.
But to accept such a premise I would need overwhelming evidence. Metaphors and spooky science aside I don't have any. Also, as you have said "it just doesn't jive with me."
One of the problems I saw with deism in my semi-philosophical purposeless driven life post was
the need (some deists and most theists) have for veneration.
Your anticipate such a critique. So your response was for me to not venerate such a force.
So I am left with a quasi- religious feeling about a thought experiment that shows a possible need of a creator/observer.
And with that I should orient my life how? With more love?
I am pretty sure people do not "choose" the way they relate to life the way we "choose" what;s for dinner.
(Even there are we making a choice?--I am not anti free will I am just saying its complicated.)
Where I to accept your premise nothing flows from it (for me organically at least) to inspire me or cause me to adapt my thinking or orientation in life. I don't see how this changes my life.
I don't think I need the idea of a creator observer god to get the idea that if I loved a bit more and saw things from the bright side I might take some comfort out of it.
I try to be realist about what I believe.
I don't think I am overly pessimistic. Though perhaps you do.
I don't want to cloud my thinking one way or another. If I am depressed it is because things are depressing me. If I am optimistic it is because there is a chance for something to happen.
I don't look out and see the universe full of love. I just don't see the universe that way. I suppose if I felt like the hungry homeless man on the street served some purpose for me, I would live in a different world.
What I see in the world though causes me to think quite differently.
I see a universe that is random and careless. I see that my interactions amount to very little. They might change a few things. But fuck that butterfly in Tokyo. We all know nothing about the "nature of the universe" changes.
I think there is category problem with identifying the universe as something that can have a plan, care about me, etc.
If there is no connection/care with the spirit like what i am talking about in the above paragraph then there is no point in wondering about it's influence on me.
At a certain level it all seems like magical thinking to me.
I am nothing if not a victim of all the magical thinking I do already.
A good plan today, is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. If you have access to a time machine, then today and tomorrow do not weigh as heavily in your planning, but when you finish editing, the story must still be causally consistent… Anyway, Patton’s logic is still sound: the plan need only be good enough to achieve the objective, and perfection is not the objective. Survival is the objective.
What is the long term strategy for survival? Not the survival of an organism, such as Romius or Thimscool… nor even the survival of a species, such as humans… but the survival of the universe itself. How can God most assuredly evolve, to effect His observation, enabling His very existence, along with our own (necessary) contribution?
At some point (long ago) in the timeline (whether in the “initial” crude solution or in the sculpted final revision), emotion is inevitable. Why? Well, because of your so-called paradox of suffering. It is necessary that sentient beings capable of reprogramming the world and resisting entropy have some motivation. It could be as crude as hedonistic joy or despair for a while, but ultimately politics will force successful pack animals to adapt more abstract emotional projections that transcend pleasure and pain… enter love and hate.
Love of one’s self, family, tribe, nation, species, planet, galaxy, and ultimately universe are all steps towards survival, and hatred of other people, other families, other tribes, nations, species, planets, and galaxies are all perhaps necessary steps to ensure the triumph and survival of your loved ones. At each stage, the power and capability of your sphere of loved ones grows, but can be undermined by lingering hatred of the former subset.
Resentment and/or resignation (as you protest in your other post) are also complex emotions, both aligned with hatred. The goal for specific sentient beings, such as us, is to take a short cut to the final stage of love of the all, as we love ourselves. Resentment and resignation are a rejection of this goal, due to obsession with our own suffering. Why should you accept and yearn for the goal that I have stated? Because it is the only way to really escape the suffering: by embracing the bigger picture and acknowledging your part.
Like the Buddha, you are fixated on wondering why there is suffering at all, and you have come to a similar stultifying conclusion: you think that it is desire that causes suffering, and so you believe that if you resign yourself to the absurdity of your existence, then you will eliminate the cause of your pain. How was that working out for you?
I do not believe that desire causes suffering, but rather I think that desire illuminates suffering. The ultimate cause of suffering is simply inertia and entropy. Inertia, in that constructing God out of an evolving thread of life implies that every stage of development is woefully inadequate, hence the need to continue evolving against the inertia of simply declaring that life is good enough. Entropy, because whatever progress has been made was not only resisted by the inertia of the mechanism of evolution, but also undermined by the tendency to unravel and decompose.
The childish notion that God could simply have created paradise out of whole cloth ignores inertia, entropy, and the need for a consistent, causal narrative for God to even exist in the last place. In any case, it isn’t a perfect paradise that will evolve, but rather a good-enough solution to survival… Take your pleasure in the future’s exuberant gratitude to the present. And take your pain as the past’s icy fingers on your heels. Both are transient, as you are mortal. But your participation is what makes it all possible, and love of God is what makes the pain and pleasure tolerable and meaningful.
Post a Comment