Yeah, I know. No one wants to hear me fan-person over Star Trek, but fuckall I'm doing it anyway.
It's amazing.
That's all.
...
...
Yeah, no, it just has such a way of it. It's constantly under heat of fire from unknown enemies and unknown terrors, yet there's always hope for tomorrow. The civilization is far enough ahead of our own that it can SO easily make jokes about our own civilization. Morality is also a common theme. What IS right? What IS the purpose of the prime directive? What IS the goal of humanity after survival is not an option?
Ok yeah, I can't start this geeking out now. I'll never stop. Til next time...
...
Engage.
2013/03/13
2013/03/08
Poem: what is love?
I wrote this on my break yesterday (I know, wtf, I get BREAKS now? It's the life.)
What is love
Hidden in our chest
A root growing
Deep within the well of all being
Of compassion
For our fellow sojourners so strong
Transcending
For a moment, for an eternity
Into something else
A love for the universe
A love for thyself
Shams.
What is love
Hidden in our chest
A root growing
Deep within the well of all being
Of compassion
For our fellow sojourners so strong
Transcending
For a moment, for an eternity
Into something else
A love for the universe
A love for thyself
Shams.
Running
I reach around an unsuspecting leader. He is wearing a belt with a scabbard holding the weapon of my friend. My skills of pickpocketing have increased to the point that I can quite literally steal clothes right off people's bodies (a useful loophole to killing people for quest-specific loot), but the incredible intricacy (price) of this scabbard makes my task very difficult. I roll the dice and hope that fate shines upon me.
Fuck!
I pull back the free sword, but twist the elite soldier my direction as well.
He stares at this unknown Khajiit in shock. I look at him, then to the sword in my hand, and I book it as fast as my legs will take me. Battle cries roar out from every corner of the hideout. I use magic to hasten my feet and protect my body as I make my way out of the cave they were hiding in.
The freedom of such running is what this post was all about. Out on the plain, sprinting at impossible speeds, and the moment when I realize I am free. I look around me to the painted landscape and am alive.
This moment was a moment of video games' true artistic power. When you truly become your character, your emotions bleed into theirs and the actions become as real for you as they would be for them. The complete freedom to do as you are allows you connection to the character that ALLOWS this to happen. Even in RPGs that connect you to characters who are not yourself, your CHOICES form a bridge to their soul. Just watching you can empathize. Knowing that your choices affect them forces a bit more empathy and even brings you closer to love or even selfhood with this alien person.
Yeah. Running away is cool.
Fuck!
I pull back the free sword, but twist the elite soldier my direction as well.
He stares at this unknown Khajiit in shock. I look at him, then to the sword in my hand, and I book it as fast as my legs will take me. Battle cries roar out from every corner of the hideout. I use magic to hasten my feet and protect my body as I make my way out of the cave they were hiding in.
The freedom of such running is what this post was all about. Out on the plain, sprinting at impossible speeds, and the moment when I realize I am free. I look around me to the painted landscape and am alive.
This moment was a moment of video games' true artistic power. When you truly become your character, your emotions bleed into theirs and the actions become as real for you as they would be for them. The complete freedom to do as you are allows you connection to the character that ALLOWS this to happen. Even in RPGs that connect you to characters who are not yourself, your CHOICES form a bridge to their soul. Just watching you can empathize. Knowing that your choices affect them forces a bit more empathy and even brings you closer to love or even selfhood with this alien person.
Yeah. Running away is cool.
More Rumi
"
Advice does not help lovers!
They are not the kind of mountain stream you can build a dam across.
An intellectual doesn't know what the drunk is feeling!
Don't try to figure what those lost inside love will do next.
Life freezes if it doesn't get a taste of this almond cake of love.
The stars come up spinning every night, bewildered in love.
Without love, they'd grow tired with revolving!
They'd say, 'how long do we have to DO this?'
God picks up the reed-flute of the world and blows.
Each note is a need coming through one of us, a passion, a longing, a pain.
Remember the lips where the wind breath originated, and let your note be clear.
Don't try to end it.
Be your note
Go up on the roof at night in this city of the soul.
Let EVERYONE climb their roofs and sing.
Sing loud!
"
Yeah, I totally cried on the bus home reading this. When Rumi speaks of lovers, he's not talking about two people in love (necessarily). He's speaking of someone who is in love with their life's work. And to each their own, these passions come to us, as he said, uniquely and without thought, they just are. So don't try to rationalize, just feel it and sing. Go do whatever makes you feel happy. You are but one member in a chorus of lovers. Do not fear doing wrong. Dissonance and resolution are all part of that most natural of all melodies. Of this, I am certain.
"
In the early morning hour, just before dawn, lover and beloved wake and take a drink of water.
She asks, 'do you love me or yourself more? Really, tell the absolute truth.'
He says, 'there is nothing left of me. I am a ruby held up to the sunrise. A stone by itself, yes, but the light of the sunrise shines through it and affects the entire world around it with redness.
The ruby and the sunrise are one. The whole world is one.
My love, our closeness is this: anywhere you put your foot, feel me in the firmness under you.'
"
And then he got laid. No seriously, Rumi talks about it in great detail. Rumi may have been incredibly wise, but he was a lecherous old drunk like many men of his time and place. Thus is the world? Being stuck in between, I'm on the outside of this cosmic game. I don't desire to play (it can be quite a dreadful game), but I do desire to see what it is I'm missing-- the joy shining through the players' eyes. Other than that, I just wanted to reiterate one is all and all is one. Everything is connected. FMA, Cloud Atlas, Rumi, The Mask, no matter which way this message hits you best, find some way to realize it and hold onto that happy thought, motherfucker.
"
What was in that candle's light that opened and consumed me so quickly?
Come back, my friend!
My soul heard something from your soul.
I drank the water from your spring and felt the current take me.
"
As I was saying, hold onto that happy thought, motherfucker. It's like an impossibly real dream. It is the taste of the lips of the great reed-blower. And we are all the sugar cane that has miraculously become the reed blessed to make music.
Advice does not help lovers!
They are not the kind of mountain stream you can build a dam across.
An intellectual doesn't know what the drunk is feeling!
Don't try to figure what those lost inside love will do next.
Life freezes if it doesn't get a taste of this almond cake of love.
The stars come up spinning every night, bewildered in love.
Without love, they'd grow tired with revolving!
They'd say, 'how long do we have to DO this?'
God picks up the reed-flute of the world and blows.
Each note is a need coming through one of us, a passion, a longing, a pain.
Remember the lips where the wind breath originated, and let your note be clear.
Don't try to end it.
Be your note
Go up on the roof at night in this city of the soul.
Let EVERYONE climb their roofs and sing.
Sing loud!
"
Yeah, I totally cried on the bus home reading this. When Rumi speaks of lovers, he's not talking about two people in love (necessarily). He's speaking of someone who is in love with their life's work. And to each their own, these passions come to us, as he said, uniquely and without thought, they just are. So don't try to rationalize, just feel it and sing. Go do whatever makes you feel happy. You are but one member in a chorus of lovers. Do not fear doing wrong. Dissonance and resolution are all part of that most natural of all melodies. Of this, I am certain.
"
In the early morning hour, just before dawn, lover and beloved wake and take a drink of water.
She asks, 'do you love me or yourself more? Really, tell the absolute truth.'
He says, 'there is nothing left of me. I am a ruby held up to the sunrise. A stone by itself, yes, but the light of the sunrise shines through it and affects the entire world around it with redness.
The ruby and the sunrise are one. The whole world is one.
My love, our closeness is this: anywhere you put your foot, feel me in the firmness under you.'
"
And then he got laid. No seriously, Rumi talks about it in great detail. Rumi may have been incredibly wise, but he was a lecherous old drunk like many men of his time and place. Thus is the world? Being stuck in between, I'm on the outside of this cosmic game. I don't desire to play (it can be quite a dreadful game), but I do desire to see what it is I'm missing-- the joy shining through the players' eyes. Other than that, I just wanted to reiterate one is all and all is one. Everything is connected. FMA, Cloud Atlas, Rumi, The Mask, no matter which way this message hits you best, find some way to realize it and hold onto that happy thought, motherfucker.
"
What was in that candle's light that opened and consumed me so quickly?
Come back, my friend!
My soul heard something from your soul.
I drank the water from your spring and felt the current take me.
"
As I was saying, hold onto that happy thought, motherfucker. It's like an impossibly real dream. It is the taste of the lips of the great reed-blower. And we are all the sugar cane that has miraculously become the reed blessed to make music.
2013/03/03
Scared
Ok, I'm gonna do this:
For the first time in a long time, I am scared.
Let me begin by saying that I am well. Fuck all, I am VERY well. In my body, I feel more comfortable than I ever have. In my interpersonal life, I am blessed with more kind hearts and kindred spirits than I deserve. In my soul, I feel I have achieved a peak of spiritual being that allows me hope in even the darkest moments.
Yet I am terrified.
I am back in that dream with the bomb. I know it is going to go off soon. I am pointing at it right now. We are each and every one of us in that heavy few seconds before our lives are changed forever. I only hope that I can do as I did in my dream and make hope out of that chaos. But I am scared.
I am scared because of our economy.
In my new found discretionary time, I've been researching our economy. I want to understand this world. I want to figure out what I can do to make it better. In doing that... I see where things must go. I am scared.
Ok, ok, enough vaguities, just spit it out.
Math: if the US stopped ALL government spending, every department, every cushy govt job, every war, every research project, every meeting, and PURELY pay our unfunded liabilities like medicare, medicaid, and social security, we would still be unable to pay off our debts and obligations. Our REAL debt is well over 70 trillion. Don't listen to what you are told, go calculate that number for yourself as I have.
Stimulus programs saved us in the 80s from an inflation crisis. But back then, our debt was less than 30% of GDP. The whole thing feels like it just put a lie on what should have happened because when this lie is found out, all the other lies will bite us in the ass. We are currently doing more stimulus and it's doing just what it sounds like, injecting a small amount of adrenaline into a dying body to keep it moving. We need medicine. We need interest rates to be on par with the rate of inflation to reward saving and producing if we ever want to pay off our debts... but that causes too many problems. Could you imagine if our current practically ZERO percent interest rate jumped up to the advertised 5-8% (which is most likely more like 10-13 if we forget the BS hedonics where we weight things increasing in value like food LESS than things decreasing in value like TVs or devalue a 10% inflation if the sold item is 10% safer)? Could you imagine our national debt rising by 8% every year? That's 1 trillion dollars per year even EXCLUDING our liabilities. Truly the only way we are going to get out of this is to bankrupt (which we can't as the world's reserve currency) or simply print enough money to pay off our debts in full with gold valued at an appropriate price.
Now I can't say this for sure as our gold hasn't been audited since the 50s (at which point we had enough gold to pay off our debts for FEBRUARY ALONE), but if we printed the money to cover the debt with our gold reserves, we will devalue our currency by 98%. To put this into perspective, I want to buy a loaf of bread for 2 dollars. At today's value, two dollars is it. But devalue the currency by 98% meaning one dollar is now worth two cents. My two dollars is now worth four cents in real value. Meaning I need one hundred dollars for the loaf of bread. Granted there are now trillions more dollars in circulation, but seriously...
Upside: mortgages will be easy to pay off, debts would be erased. Downside: we'd relive what happened recently in Ghana and begin to pay with gold dust instead of worthless million dollar bills with Bush or Colbert's face on them. It's a great depression on a scale that makes it the 1% looking down on the rest of us 99%.
I do not worry about myself. I worry about the world. I worry about the powers that set in motion all of this. I like to imagine there is some monstrously intelligent evil behind it like the Illuminati. Surely they would have some kind of misconstrued REASON for all of this. Also, a dark and sinister enemy gives rise to a great and powerful force of good to fight it. I would like that in this strange world we live in. But what if it isn't. What if there is no master enemy to face? What if all of this madness is simply greed? No enemy to fight, no catharsis to be met... just chaos.
But either way... the people will have to stand up and simply live as it ought to be. Farmers, miners, producers. Construction workers, artists, philosophers. Peace workers, cooks, distributors. Friends, neighbors, lovers. No us and them. Just us. Just me. There is no difference, we are all just planet Earth. Love you all, talk to you next time.
For the first time in a long time, I am scared.
Let me begin by saying that I am well. Fuck all, I am VERY well. In my body, I feel more comfortable than I ever have. In my interpersonal life, I am blessed with more kind hearts and kindred spirits than I deserve. In my soul, I feel I have achieved a peak of spiritual being that allows me hope in even the darkest moments.
Yet I am terrified.
I am back in that dream with the bomb. I know it is going to go off soon. I am pointing at it right now. We are each and every one of us in that heavy few seconds before our lives are changed forever. I only hope that I can do as I did in my dream and make hope out of that chaos. But I am scared.
I am scared because of our economy.
In my new found discretionary time, I've been researching our economy. I want to understand this world. I want to figure out what I can do to make it better. In doing that... I see where things must go. I am scared.
Ok, ok, enough vaguities, just spit it out.
Math: if the US stopped ALL government spending, every department, every cushy govt job, every war, every research project, every meeting, and PURELY pay our unfunded liabilities like medicare, medicaid, and social security, we would still be unable to pay off our debts and obligations. Our REAL debt is well over 70 trillion. Don't listen to what you are told, go calculate that number for yourself as I have.
Stimulus programs saved us in the 80s from an inflation crisis. But back then, our debt was less than 30% of GDP. The whole thing feels like it just put a lie on what should have happened because when this lie is found out, all the other lies will bite us in the ass. We are currently doing more stimulus and it's doing just what it sounds like, injecting a small amount of adrenaline into a dying body to keep it moving. We need medicine. We need interest rates to be on par with the rate of inflation to reward saving and producing if we ever want to pay off our debts... but that causes too many problems. Could you imagine if our current practically ZERO percent interest rate jumped up to the advertised 5-8% (which is most likely more like 10-13 if we forget the BS hedonics where we weight things increasing in value like food LESS than things decreasing in value like TVs or devalue a 10% inflation if the sold item is 10% safer)? Could you imagine our national debt rising by 8% every year? That's 1 trillion dollars per year even EXCLUDING our liabilities. Truly the only way we are going to get out of this is to bankrupt (which we can't as the world's reserve currency) or simply print enough money to pay off our debts in full with gold valued at an appropriate price.
Now I can't say this for sure as our gold hasn't been audited since the 50s (at which point we had enough gold to pay off our debts for FEBRUARY ALONE), but if we printed the money to cover the debt with our gold reserves, we will devalue our currency by 98%. To put this into perspective, I want to buy a loaf of bread for 2 dollars. At today's value, two dollars is it. But devalue the currency by 98% meaning one dollar is now worth two cents. My two dollars is now worth four cents in real value. Meaning I need one hundred dollars for the loaf of bread. Granted there are now trillions more dollars in circulation, but seriously...
Upside: mortgages will be easy to pay off, debts would be erased. Downside: we'd relive what happened recently in Ghana and begin to pay with gold dust instead of worthless million dollar bills with Bush or Colbert's face on them. It's a great depression on a scale that makes it the 1% looking down on the rest of us 99%.
I do not worry about myself. I worry about the world. I worry about the powers that set in motion all of this. I like to imagine there is some monstrously intelligent evil behind it like the Illuminati. Surely they would have some kind of misconstrued REASON for all of this. Also, a dark and sinister enemy gives rise to a great and powerful force of good to fight it. I would like that in this strange world we live in. But what if it isn't. What if there is no master enemy to face? What if all of this madness is simply greed? No enemy to fight, no catharsis to be met... just chaos.
But either way... the people will have to stand up and simply live as it ought to be. Farmers, miners, producers. Construction workers, artists, philosophers. Peace workers, cooks, distributors. Friends, neighbors, lovers. No us and them. Just us. Just me. There is no difference, we are all just planet Earth. Love you all, talk to you next time.
2013/03/02
freedom
Was talking to a lovely young person today. Had a fun conversation. Sharing. Have altered this person's name as well... I also heavily edited this person's grammar and spelling. They are from Canada, give 'em a break ;)
In case ya'all don't know, olin is my online screen name. It's a day from the Aztec calendar-- the day AFTER the apocalypse when mankind has to pick up the pieces of its shattered self and decide how to move on again. Sora is from Kingdom Hearts
In case ya'all don't know, olin is my online screen name. It's a day from the Aztec calendar-- the day AFTER the apocalypse when mankind has to pick up the pieces of its shattered self and decide how to move on again. Sora is from Kingdom Hearts
[Sora] this song reminds me of before
transition
[Sora] like
[olin] show meeeee~
[Sora] feeling and mentally
being male kinda
[olin] I loved the last song you showed
me
[Sora] and like...talking to
myself and being really split...like the male and female warring
inside
[Sora] kinda felt like a fight
to the death that ended up in marriage
[Sora] http://www.youtube.com/w
··· srz8eZsI
[Sora] here ya go
[olin] hehe. I dunno, from what I know of you it seems like more of a hostile takeover.
[Sora] yes...hell of a violent
one actually
[Sora] see in life there are 3
spirituals transformations
[Sora] at first the strong
camel that wants to bear the weight of the world...and enjoys the
orders to work
[Sora] then you become a
lion...to kill a golden dragon that calls itself god..who by offering
a universe to you, simply makes you a slave, and small.
[Sora] see the lion taking on the world with its strength isnt the
end point
[Sora] all it does it make the
potential for freedom, not freedom itself
[Sora] want to know what the
greatest and mightiest spiritual state you can reach after this
violent stage
[olin] self immolation?
[olin] phoenix?
[Sora] to be a child again. and
to create your own universe moment to moment. Free from the
perversion that is the division that is good and evil.
[olin] ah
[olin] so true
[Sora] so olin
[Sora] Hows your golden dragon
doing
[Sora] all killing it will
do...is make potential
[olin] like most other things in my
world, ablaze with the fires of growth.
[Sora] the freedom to be free
[Sora] a chance, to have a
chance
[olin] but that fucker is
still alive, I think
[olin] but burning. In part thanks to
you~
[Sora] then become the
apocalyptic lion.
[Sora] change is painful,
uncomfortable..and devastating
[Sora] its the one thing the
christians got right
[Sora] your agoony is a sighn
that your on the right track
[olin] amen~
[Sora] dont become an animal
again
[Sora] animals seek out safe
and quiet worlds to live in
[Sora] to fall into routine and
simply exist without threats
[olin] that's death
[Sora] exacly
[Sora] spiritually and mentally
[olin] life without growth-- without
change-- is not living
[Sora] see it is danger,
threat, pain, need and want.
[Sora] these are things that
are used to break the fate within our very bodies
[Sora] that curse we call DNA
with it burning need to procreate and exist.
[Sora] if you can overcome that
[Sora] and make your own
purpose than this one you were made for
[Sora] only then can you really claim to
be more than an animal
It's awesome. She's awesome. Lots of interesting conversations lately. :)
In other news, I'm officially a SUPER moderator now on the site I found her at. It's exciting. I got "training" for it which was basically a Kobiyashi Maru test where my trainer pretended to be a VERY troubled, suicidal, homicidal (I almost typed homic-icicle), and excessively medicated member and I did my best to help her. Apparently, I had perfect marks save for one: I wasn't able to recognize that she was from Argentina based on the way she swore. I did find out her location based on pinging her IP, but I could have confirmed her location faster if I'd known that.
life theory
Here is an excerpt from an email conversation I had with a great friend. For what it is worth (all the like 3 people from the US and the 4 people across Sweden and Spain who apparently are reading this blog for some reason), I've replaced the names with fictional characters.
"
Finn the Human: This
one is a life theory. We have a theory that the world that we live in
is where you go if you committed suicide in the world above; a place
where you get a second chance. [Me and Jake] committed suicide in
a past life (along with many others) and are here to live a life
worth living, to live a life that makes a difference. Not everyone is
real, some are just projections to make things more difficult or to
help us on the way, like in multi-player video games, not everyone on
screen is a player. Some of the projections are based off of our past
lives and some are of new creation. We are the lucky few who get a
second chance to have a story to be told. That is our theory
Me: I
LOVE it. The only thing I wonder... what is the world above like?
Finn the Human: What
is the adventure for if you already know what's in the treasure
chest?
"
Uhh, yeah. So I'm officially blown away. That's awesome and I thought I'd share. Another post is in the workings at this moment... wanted to post it, but still need to refine it. I don't know how to say what I know I need to say about the upcoming financial situation of this country.
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