I Get Carried Away Sometimes

I suppose that if I was observed by satellite, day in and day out, the observers would conclude that I lead a totally unremarkable life. On the other hand if someone was riding around inside my head and observing my thoughts and feelings they would have some pretty strange experiences! So which of these points of view is more realistic? When I was a kid I believed in an objective reality. Nowadays I'm not so sure.

I suppose mathematics is about as objective as anything can possibly be. So far physicists (probably the science closest to math) have not found a mathematical model which works on every scale of measure. Relativity works at large (astronomical) scales while quantum mechanics works at tiny (sub-atomic) scales. But nothing works at both so far. There may be a mathematical model that can describe all of reality no matter the scale. Such a model is usually referred to as a "Theory of Everything." Coming up with a model that can do that would be the ultimate accomplishment for a physicist. Physicists are pursuing this quest with the faith of medieval knights chasing the Holy Grail.

Everybody wants to understand everything, but nobody does. At least we are beginning to comprehend how truly ignorant we actually are. We know common sense is an illusion because it is based on our perceptions. Our perceptions are so limited that, believing in them, is actually to live in a fantasy world.

So is there anything to believe in? I have faith that my experience is part of some larger reality. Sometimes I wonder why I am having this particular experience of reality but I have no doubt that my experience makes sense. What I may never know is that larger context in which my experience fits and that is frustrating at times. This is all just faith. Faith that somehow it all makes sense. If it doesn't make sense then it's all nonsense.



Russell

Now With Even More MSG!

I haven't made any resolutions yet. I meant too... but haven't got around to it yet. I know you expect me to make a resolution to quit procrastinating but I refuse. In fact I resolve to procrastinate more than ever! I intend to procrastinate even when I feel like doing something immediately. I also resolve to watch more TV. Actually I just plan on having the TV on more. Maybe I'll leave it on all night. I wonder what the world record is for having the TV on is? Does it count if you're gone while it's on? I want to be patriotic and have it on all the time. I won't watch MS NBC unless I'm at home. While I'm gone I'll put it on Fox News. The thought police will never figure out that I'm a Communist! Well not really, I'm a Marxist of the Grouch variety though. I like the Occupy Movement except for the fact that they identify themselves with 99% of the population. I don't think I fit in that well. Maybe I'm just being arrogant.

I was thinking the other day after eating Chinese food, that fortune cookie fortunes are way too prosaic. I know the joke about the fortune that reads "Help I'm being held prisoner in a fortune cookie factory!" I started thinking there could be better ironic fortunes or ominous fortunes. My typical faux fortune is "You'll be dead by Tuesday," some people fail to see the humor in that but I think it's hilarious! The other day I decided "You will be hungry again in an hour," would make a good fortune. I guess "You will experience explosive diarrhea!" might be over the line. Of course some fortune cookies don't even pretend at prescience they just offer tepid moral advice. I would like to read Supreme Court decisions from slips in fortune cookies you know bullshit stuff like "Corporations are people too," or "Limiting money violates a corporation's right to speak," I think putting those on fortune cookie fortunes would give them their proper gravitas.

Pretty soon I should have a video uploaded to You Tube, I will post it to this page when it's ready! It's all part of my strategy and ambition to spend my life lying on the beach. I figure somehow between painting and writing and videoing I will somehow manage to live off my talents. This is really my resolve. I will probably achieve it on December 20th of this year. What the hell I will enjoy it all day long! Hey one cool thing about procrastinating this year is if you put off Christmas shopping until December 22nd you might not have to do it at all! Oh well, Happy New Year anyway it could be your last! Now there's a shitty fortune cookie fortune!



Russell

I Have Seen The Future And It Sucks!

Well here we are at the end of another year and hey once again many people seem convinced the world will end within a year from today! The new year is a time when various psychics and clairvoyants make predictions about the coming year. Mostly they are wrong. I have decided to boldly enter the fray! My predictions are guaranteed to be 100% accurate! And that is not because they are tame or lame. I am not predicting for instance that Wednesday will come on Wednesdays this year or something stupid like that! These predictions are flabbergasting! They are colossal! They will amaze you by being both profound and completely accurate! So with no further hyperbole here are my predictions:

# 1. A natural disaster will strike a developing nation and they will be unprepared and ill equipped to cope with it. Hundreds of people will perish and thousands will be left homeless. Chaos will prevail and then be squelched by questionable authoritarian means. Squalid survivor camps will result in disease and exploitation of the weak.

# 2. A major corporation will be found to have engaged in unethical or even illegal business practices. These activities will have harmed many innocent people and ultimately the corporation itself. Despite this the consequences meted out to the guilty corporate officers will be largely symbolic.

# 3. A country that few Americans could find on a map will become of major concern to our national security. Our leaders will attempt to negotiate with leaders in this country but these attempts at diplomacy will be fruitless. We will be accused of using covert military force and unable to disprove these allegations.

# 4. A rising Hollywood star will be involved in a scandal that could destroy her career. Her fans will rally to her cause but she will become the object of ridicule.

# 5. A governmental leader will be exposed as being in the pocket of certain large donors to the detriment of his constituency. He will at first deny these allegations of corruption but ultimately will admit some minor errors in judgement. Ultimately he will leave government service in order to devote himself to family matters.

# 6. A new drug craze will sweep the country as young people use either a substance recently synthesized or rediscover an old substance but use it in a manner or form vastly different and more hazardous than it has been used previously.

# 7. A major sports figure once thought to be a role model will be found to be a disappointing and hypocritical figure.

# 8. A major piece of the infrastructure in a large American city will fail. Later investigations will reveal this failure was due to years of neglect and short sightedness on the part of political leaders.

# 9. A scientific discovery will have a major impact on our understanding of how the universe works. Long established theories will be threatened and new concepts will emerge but physicists will admit we know much less about the universe than we thought.

# 10. We will learn that one of our main allies has not always dealt with us fairly in fact they will be found to be two faced and selfish! Despite this our leaders will consider their cooperation so essential that they look the other way.

Well there you have it 10 amazing predictions guaranteed  to come true! Go ahead and quote me! Tell your friends! We know the future!



Russell

But Then Again Being A Pagan Sounds Good!

I was sorry to hear Christopher Hitchens passed away. He was one of my favorite people. I like nonconformists. I am not currently an atheist I am more of a non theist. I like the Course In Miracles class I have been attending and find their Buddhist like approach to Christianity pretty amazing. I know all my miracles happen between my ears. Which is also where many of my problems are. The Course would say all my problems are there. Maybe that's true, still this illusion of an objective reality containing others whose behavior is beyond my control is pretty hard to shake.

While I can understand how the whole universe could be imaginary, the idea leads me to expect to see Rod Serling standing nearby. I'd probably smell his cigarette before I saw him. I am not sure which is stranger; the idea that life is directed and goal driven or, the idea that it is not. It is strange that various religions and theologies have come into and gone out of existence. I think it's weird that polytheism used to be universal and now monotheism pretty much is. Why does having lots of gods seem silly when once it was taken for granted? Will current religions still be around in a few thousand years? If you are objective about it you know the answer is most likely "no."

I think it's weird when people think that people who disagree with their beliefs are going to go to hell or at least Lubbock. Of course they always disavow any personal enthusiasm for other people's eternal damnation. I knew a devout woman who lamented how sad it was, that many good people were going to go to hell because they did not believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. She felt sorry for them but said it was God's will that they burn forever. I don't understand how a person can believe in a god that they are morally superior to. This lady had compassion and tolerance but her version of God was an asshole! I couldn't worship a god I considered to be an asshole, I can't even believe in a god like that.

Truthfully I think what people believe in probably says a helluva lot more about them than about any deity. I like the idea expressed by a really wise and kind man that "God is Love and He works through people." Actually this concept goes really well with the concept of Jesus I get out of A Course In Miracles, or the Buddha nature as I understand it. I think it's possible that a really useful idea like this might last for thousands of years. I am not sure it needs a theology to sustain it. Theology may be more of a hindrance to spiritual growth than a means for attaining it.

I think it would be really cool of people could love each other while totally disagreeing with each other. If my affection for another person is conditional to their agreeing with me I really do not have any affection for them. Really what I am in that case is an insecure person needing reinforcement from others to avoid being overwhelmed by anxiety. I saw a movie clip once that showed some mostly naked people dancing around Stone Hinge, they looked like they were having a really great time and some of the women were beautiful too. I am not sure what they believed in but I have an open mind to whatever it was!


Russell

WARNING! This Is Maudlin

I would have figured I would have written something new by now, but my friend killing himself really knocked me for a loop! Nothing seems that important except how important we all are to each other. I am really going to... I was going to say going to miss him but, shit! I really do miss him he's gone right now! I thought I would be mad at him but I'm not, at least not yet. I have found myself getting mad at other people but I know I just want to blame somebody. They say a bad day is when everything goes wrong and there's nobody to blame! I don't blame anybody for my friend's death, not even him.

I know suicide is one of those selfish acts. But who hasn't been selfish? When I am in pain I have no doubt about my place in the scheme of things; I'm the part that hurts! Face it when we're sick or hurt we get selfish and self centered or at least I know I do. I suppose if the pain gets bad enough we will do anything to make it go away.

A little over 14 years ago another friend of mine had killed herself. She was married and had two young sons. It really bothered me that not only did she kill herself but also her sons' mother, her husband's wife and her parents' daughter. It's the same now but, maybe because I knew this friend's pain better than I understood her's, I just can't judge him. Maybe I have grown some too.

My first wife used to threaten suicide regularly and made many half-hearted and several earnest attempts to kill herself. Believe it or not you get used to it. I think what I have come to learn from all this is that life is really good and really tenuous. We are here for the blink of an eye! I don't care how rotten things seem at the moment it's only a moment. Life turns on a dime and every turn is unpredictable.

You will never live happily ever after but neither are we born just to suffer die. Life is like a game of Monopoly that nobody wins and nobody loses. The point is to enjoy your time with the other players. They are not going to be around forever and neither are we so, enjoy their company while you can! Whatever you do don't get mad and throw the game board in the air! Free parking is just around the corner! I miss you buddy...


Russell

Clean Up On Aisle Three

I don't mind blue jeans with holes in them or even paint from my palette knife smeared on them. Some people have even thought I bought them that way. I do have this thing about socks and underwear. The other day I noticed elastic showing on my underwear and I cannot  handle that. My underwear have to be intact and pristine! They don't have to be expensive though. In fact my favorite brand is only available at Wal-Mart. Normally I don't like shopping at Wal-Mart but I had no idea it could be suicidal until I saw the news.

Who would have thought that pepper spray was a shopping aid? Apparently it is. Before using your pepper spray on another shopper you should first ascertain that this action is justified. For instance it is justified to pepper spray another Wal-Mart shopper if they have more than the allotted number of items in the express lane.

There are other guidelines for shopping at Wal-Mart. For instance, tackling is okay in the Sporting Goods section but not in Electronics. You should also be careful using your Taser in Electronics as it may damage circuitry. It would be shame to leave another shopper convulsing on the floor only to get home and find out your Taser also fried your Plasma TV. Fortunately Wal-Mart has a fairly liberal return policy.

Another precaution when using your Taser on other shoppers is to try and avoid zapping folks with pace makers. I know those greeters at the entrance can be annoying but please don't fry them! A lot of them probably have pace makers and it would be a shame to litter the entrance with their elderly corpses! Unless of course you are trying to create a diversion so you can home in on a bargain unmolested by other Wal-Mart shoppers.

You know you have done a good job of tasing when you hear an announcement of "clean up on aisle three" and you have just left several other shoppers twitching on aisle three. So anyway I decided not to go shopping for new underwear on "Black Friday" lest I become just another Wal-Martyr!


Russell

Threats More Than Existential (Now That's Some Kind Of Scary)

Believe it or not I watched the Republican debates the other nite (well more than half of it, I stopped watching for a few minutes once to do something useful). I have been writing about anger a lot recently but kind of took a break. These candidates reminded me of why I had been doing that. With the notable exception of Ron Paul these folks are extremely bellicose. The subject was foreign policy and these guys pretty much advocate bullying the rest of the world around until they fall in line with us.

I think the stupid quote of the nite has to go to Michelle Bachmann who described the threat posed by Al-Qaeda as "more than existential." I wonder what are they going to do, kill us then follow us into the afterlife and kill us again? Just how does a threat become more than existential? But hey, she was not the only fear monger up there. All of them but Ron Paul seem to have a hankering to attack Iran. They are already building their grudges. I didn't hear the Hitler comparison yet but it cannot be far away.

They did engage in various fantasy scenarios of just how dangerous Iran is. Governor Perry wants to start a no fly zone over Syria. That's a sneaky way of saying he wants to start an air war over Syria. That's what we do to places we intend to invade. The Governor and the rest of them seemed to be on some kind of testosterone binge, even Ms. Bachmann felt the need to show gargantuan her testicles are.

Stirring up fear and talking up violent fantasies and then bragging about how awesomely powerful our military is. It just seems crazy to me! I don't think the Democrats are any better unfortunately. They say pretty much the same shit.

We are winding down supposedly, from the longest war in our history. But we have swarms of flying robots all over the world ready to kill at the touch of a button. Our military budget is not only the largest in the world its larger than the rest of the world's combined! Meanwhile our leaders seem to have a vision of perpetual war, fueled by never ending fantasies about threats that are "more than existential."


Russell