Misc.

Most of the time, the chronological moment of an epiphany does not line up with the time at which it would be most useful. The moment of recognition either precedes or follows the time at which the knowledge could most effectively be applied to one's existence. I suppose this lends credit both to memory and to integrity, and the importance of cultivating skills in each. I only hope that I will be able, to the best of my abilities, to accurately and honestly quantify and weigh those many, many things which can't actually be quantified or weighed, yet which clearly deserve attention. Perhaps this - our inability to quantify those things which we feel the most intensely - is why we again and again try to create different devices for the measuring of things: clocks for time, scales for weight, books for record, certain gestures for certain meanings, and so on. Strangely, none of these things - time, weight, record, or literal meaning - are as important as the unmeasurable; the weightless; the undefinable. The things that I most could use some kind of an accurate scale for are those very things which resist being measured and weighed altogether. There's no way to put a mark on a wall to indicate one feeling, or another mark on the same wall to indicate another feeling. Nothing would be appropriate and nothing would do that feeling justice or clearly indicate the ways in which it is different from all other feelings. Even if there were a way, there would be no way to gauge which is superior to the other. Because of this, I think human beings flub quite a bit; but I think there's something quite beautiful in this fact. It's as if mistakes are evidence of things that can't be as easily explained by biology, and although this should be frightening it is somehow encouraging. If we don't understand everything, we're on the right track. That is, if we don't understand everything, then we still have a right to be on this track at all, because a search for understanding and meaning is noble even when it is futile. Some mistakes are caused by too much eagerness and serve as evidence to the human will. Some are evidence of laziness that exists against all logical realizations discouraging laziness. I can only hope to grow less lazy and only be eager when it is appropriate. What is it that makes us choose to remember some days over others? Some moments over others? Some feelings over others? Surely there is no equation that we could produce that would explain any of this, and yet we seem to know what matters most when we see it or feel it. Sometimes only in retrospect, and not when the knowledge is most useful, but things can't be perfect in a world that does not come equipped with demarcations.

On mind, language, trajectory, and car-wrecks

When I was a kid I used to play a game where I would walk in a straight line until I hit something - be it a wall or an obstacle of another kind - and then I would turn around at whatever angle it seemed the laws of physics would most support, as if in fact I were an object without any movement of my own but only able to be moved by the force of my impact with other objects. I would do this again and again, like a billiard ball, until I tired of the game. It would be interesting to look at language or the mind in a way that considers every concept about the world as a single trajectory, perhaps represented by a symbol, that acts very much in the same way -- that moves in a straight line, influenced by nothing, until it encounters something which changes its course (perhaps another belief about the world). Perhaps every element of language or every belief about the world has a set trajectory until it encounters another moving about on IT'S set trajectory, and then certain laws determine the way in which these two trajectories change when they hit one-another. It would be entirely formulaic, and although it would look like chaos from a distance, it would be entirely algorithmic. This seems to some extent to be how the mind works, leaving out the propensity for error that seems to (arguably) make the mind something other than algorithmic. It has - if you will forgive the oversimplification - a framework that functions in cruise control until more facts are given to it. And yet there seems to be a lot that goes on within the brain that happens not just because of the facts available to it, but in spite of them (the most obvious example of this being mistakes themselves - yet it seems that even mistakes function in a somewhat predicable manner, or at least it could be said that frequently the way we go about trying to rectify our errors is predictable, and so what we ultimately glean from those mistakes is predictable once we are aware of what the mistake is). The element of randomness seems mostly illusory, and phenomena within the brain seem inclined to function in cruise-control until they encounter other vehicles, if you will, that also are set to cruise-control. Two cars running in cruise-control still obey the laws of physics when they hit one-another, despite the fact that the resulting crash or pile-up is not as orderly as the mode of operation of each vehicle prior to the crash.

Basic Discussion of the Logical Implications found in H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" (...to be continued)

What, unless biological science is a mass of errors, is the cause of human intelligence and vigour? Hardship and freedom: conditions under which the active, strong, and subtle survive and the weaker go to the wall; conditions that put a premium upon the loyal alliance of capable men, upon self-restraint, patience, and decision. And the institution of the family, and the emotions that arise therein, the fierce jealousy, the tenderness for offspring, parental self-devotion, all found their justification and support in the imminent dangers of the young. Now where were these imminent dangers?-H.G. Wells, p. 34, "The Time Machine"

The protagonist in H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine", referred to simply and trustingly as 'The Time Traveller', finds himself sitting in an ancient and decaying throne, overlooking the landscape of the planet in a distant future, and as he does so he tries to process what he has seen thus far. He has encountered only a very frail and beautiful race of beings, for which he has at this point no name or title. He sees no evidence of strife, hunger, labor, disease, or struggle. The only thing unpleasant about the world in which he finds himself is the fact that the buildings populated by this race seem to be crumbling, moulding, and falling apart. Those parts made out of bronze are coated in verdigris. Those parts made out of glass are cracked and broken. And the floors made out of blocks of metal are worn to the point of near-concave by the feet of innumerable passersby.

'The Time Traveller' postulates that the only explanation possibly applicable to the situation of this observed race is this: Human beings, over the years, have become so refined in their ability to produce food, to cure disease, and to minimize labor that disease itself has been obliterated altogether; food grows abundantly and it is unanimously edible and never poisonous; and labor is unnecessary because communism prevails and both food and drink require no effort whatsoever for their production.

The race in question, so far as he can tell by way of his limited means of communication, is idiotic and unresponsive, lacking the curiosity and antagonism that seems to be so innate in the beings of today. He postulates that a lack of danger and a lack of cause for concern has brought about a general lack of concern altogether, and a lack of ability to deal with problems. There has been virtually no demand for advanced cognitive abilities, and so the mental supplies have, over the years, diminished to almost nothingness. He suspects that he is witnessing Human Kind in its waning cycle.

This postulation, though, is interesting: Interesting in itself, of course, but also interesting insofar as the things that it logically entails. First of all, is this a biconditional? That is, if A entails B, where A is lack of demand for capability, and B is lack of capability, then does B entail A? That is, does lack of capability lead to lack of demand for capability? Certainly not, it would seem. This would be ridiculous, and would imply that the human race's inability to cure AIDS might lead to a decrease in the likelihood of AIDS outbreaks worldwide, for example. This is intuitively ridiculous and obviously false.

Furthermore, if Wells' protagonist is right, and if a lack of need for human abilities and faculties leads to a lack of ability itself and a lack of faculty itself, then what about the negation of this conditional?

That is to say, if there were an overwhelming and unmanageable demand for mental faculties (~A), then it seems that Wells' protagonist might guess that the result would be an overwhelming increase in ability and faculty (~B). That is, 'The Time Traveller' seems to be of the opinion that ~A--> ~B. This would mean that more difficult problems would result in more able minds, more capable of dealing with said problems. Surely if this occurred, the improvement would not happen overnight, but it would - by this character's reasoning - nevertheless come to be.

This is an interesting idea to think about. Our society seems to illustrate the truth of this suggested phenomenon to some degree, but it doesn't seem that there is a direct relation between the two. It seems - and I say this only based on societal observation - that, if the demand for cognitive/ problem-solving capability were to be represented by the X axis of a graph, and the degree of cognitive/ problem-solving capability of the average individual were to be represented by the Y axis of a graph, then the points would not form a straight diagonal line leaning upwards to the right, but rather a diagonal line leading upwards in this way that eventually levels out, or plateaus. That is, it seems that an increase in demand for capability at first DOES lead to an increase in ability, due to attempts of various individuals to fulfill a need that has made itself apparent, and success of these attempts, and additional attempts that are undertaken as a result of these successful attempts, etc. However, it seems that too much demand for human capabilities would not necessarily have this effect. If the need is too great, the human will does not always seem - if you will - willing. It is almost as if the demand for capability has to be just high enough to make the efforts necessary, yet just low enough to make success seem possible, in order for human beings to remain productive and improve their capabilities as a culture or even individually. I suppose that, over a period of time, if the demand were to be slowly increased, then the capabilities could perhaps keep up; yet this doesn't seem to be the way that demand for human capabilities functions. The demand is created by events of a chaotic nature: Floods create a demand for problem-solving, with regard to the economy, and disease-prevention, and housing, etc.; deadly illnesses create a demand, and there is no slow progression toward this demand, for it is immediate. The demand for human capability is never very gradual, but often sudden. The human response - that is, levels of capability and effort - is easily humbled by these huge leaps in demand, and the human beings give up if the demand is too great.

Perhaps in large numbers the blow of this 'giving up' is softened by several fringe cases of individuals who are abnormally courageous and determined - individuals who can advance an entire culture at a rate faster than usual, so as to catch up with the sudden increase in demand for capability - but so often these fringe-case individuals are ignored just because they overshadow the jealous egos of other individuals, who want to believe they are incapable of being overshadowed.

And what about this conditional, ~A--> ~B. Is it a bi-conditional? Does ~B--> ~A, where A is lack of demand for capability and B is degree of capability? That is, does an increase in degree of capability entail an increase in demand? Again, it seems that this is certainly not the case.


Unlimited demand for cognitive abilities or problem-solving abilities or production or what-have-you does not lead to an unlimited amount of response from each. Instead, limited demands for such things leads to an increase in each, because in the case of limited demand, solutions to problems are perceived to be within the realm of possibility. Only when things are deemed perhaps possible - and only when solutions are not always and immediately met with an infinite number of additional problems - do solutions seem worth attempting. Demand for solution that is too great does not encourage solution, because there is arguably no point in solving a problem that, in being solved, does little to better the state of things due to the sheer amount of other problems at hand.

Some Ponderings About Word-Use

It seems fair to say that, in contexts of conversation, we select our words based on which words we think will best express whatever it is that we are trying to say about the world. Because one of the primary goals is to communicate and organize our thoughts, not for ourselves but for the comprehension of our interlocutor, we select words from our vocabulary according to those words which we think our interlocutor will understand. Perhaps sometimes we use words that we aren't sure will be understood, but in these cases (unless the goal is self-indulgent in nature) we generally pause while speaking or after certain utterances in order to make sure that what we have said is understood. Surely we are often misunderstood, as people (I think) in general like to come across as competent, so often times it seems that the interlocutor nods his head in agreement when he thinks the speaker means one thing that turns out to be quite contrary to what the speaker actually means to convey, either because he doesn't wish to clarify or because what the speaker says can be construed in multiple says. In the conversational realm, we select our words differently than we might in another realm - perhaps one of creative expression, for example - because our audience is a specific individual or several individuals. In the creative realm, we can use whatever language we like, and our audience is something more fluid. Our audience is whoever fits the description of the person who will understand what we are saying, or glean something from what we have said. What is gleaned might be what we are intending to convey in our creative expression, or it might be something altogether different, but seeing as the goal in creative arenas is simply some kind of reaction or response (repulsion, anger, empathy, inspiration, etc.), and not a particular kind of reaction or response, the audience is in one way more limited (for only some will gain anything at all from any particular poem or bit of writing), and less limited (because what we convey can be a multitude of things).

Because of the different kinds of intentions involved in the process of writing in this creative realm, the manner of word-selection seems altogether different. Words are chosen not because they represent a kind of common ground or understanding between two people, but because they represent a kind of common ground between the writer and an experience, or the writer and the world: one that a reader may or may not relate to or gain anything from. The writer in this realm generally doesn't care whether a specific or particular individual understands him, but he may hope that SOMEONE does. Whomever this may be perhaps doesn't matter. In fact, the knowledge that someone - whomever it may be - understands or possibly understands some variant of what the writer means to convey sufficiently justifies the writing. Just the CHANCE of there being some such person justifies the writing, for if that person is not around at the time a given work is written, he may be in any year in the future, and then the writing does not simply slip through fingers but lands somewhere; permeates some THING.

This act of writing in a creative way (and I don't mean just poetry or fiction, but also essays that are creative in the thoughts that they address, etc.) is creative in itself: It isn't just creative in the sense of something that is 'artsy', but in the sense that a seed is creative. It is something that can cause growth; something that cannot grow on its own; something that can cause a series of other causal entities that in turn cause growth. Furthermore, it can be creative in a way that is indeterminate to the writer himself. What grows from a thought, or from a work of poetry, is only up to the writer insofar as he is able to control the way his words are interpreted. And he can arguably only do this to a very limited extent. So the way that a writer's words are creative is just as much up to the reader as it is to the writer; likely MORE so.

None of the words that we write are born just from our interpretation of the world. None of the words we select are selected because we feel they represent the world in OUR specific way. The words we associate with given objects or references are the result of words we have previously heard associated with those objects or references. Even words used poetically or metaphorically - supposedly alloted a greater amount of abstraction from the object itself - can only be abstract within a certain realm or confined space, so long as the writer intends to be understood in a way somewhat close to the way in which he means to be understood. If a word is assigned to a concept in a way that is entirely random, without any contextual cues to indicate the reason for this assignment, the writer cannot hope to be understood in the way that he intends. Perhaps this is part of the beauty of creative word use. It allows the writer to have a personal relationship with his own writing that will be specific to his own interpretation and no one else's. But few writers seem to use words in a way that is completely inaccessible to the audience. Small steps of abstraction from literal meaning or conventional meaning can be taken, so that an eventual word use may be a complete abstraction from the original, but if this does not happen in steps, the meaning will be lost because it will be trapped in the mind of the author and the author will alone have access to the intended meaning.

Perhaps there are words that seem naturally appropriate to objects or ideas. Perhaps something about the phonetic sound of certain words seems appropriate to certain things. But it is likely impossible to even capture these words in this pure sense, because the act of even THINKING about which words may be appropriate for which ideas or objects automatically kicks off a series of associations in the mind, so that the words ultimately selected will have some correlation to the object through some causal chain of thought processes, unless the writer/ speaker intentionally tries to select words that are not intuitively appropriate, in which case the result will be forced, and the meaning inaccessible; and in these cases the words will likely have little intuitive connection to the object that the writer wishes them to designate, because they are selected specifically BECAUSE they are the least likely words to be associated with that given object. Yet even something's being the LEAST LIKELY THING to be used to reference an object or idea still gives it a relation to that object or idea. The only difference is that it is a negative relation. But seeing as human beings tend to recognize opposites, this negative relation - this word's being selected due to its lack of intuitive connection to an object - might still be recognized as a connection to that object (the connection being just that it is something quite opposite or far removed from that thing); and thus it might be more intuitively associated with that object in being so FAR REMOVED from that object than some word nearer in proximity of intuitive association might be. That is, if one intended to say a word in order to poetically speak of an object, the most cryptic word he could possibly select would likely not be one connoting something directly OPPOSITE from the more likely word-candidates for that object; but rather one connoting something SOMEWHAT intuitively appropriate to that object, but somehow not entirely.

The act of thinking about what words we are using necessarily affects our choice of words. The act of considering our audience necessarily affects our choice of words. It is difficult to use words to denote objects in a way that is a pure representation of the unique way that we perceive an object, for in the very act of cognizing a word we are considering our audience or our ability to be understood, even if it is just ourself whose ability to understand that we are most concerned with.

Let's say we take it upon ourselves to think up a number of words most appropriate to describe a color, and let's say we wish to do so in a new and innovative way, so that we might say something specific about our personal relationship to that color. Simply KNOWING that there are particular KINDS of words generally associated with a given color (such as the names of crayons, etc.) automatically affects the kinds of words we will select. Even if they are new words that are not conventionally associated with that color, they will likely have either categorical semblance to those words, or they will be indicative of a conscious attempt to AVOID such categories as those words most often associated with that color might generally fit into. In selecting words outside of such categories, we are still selecting words based on categories containing words often associated with a given color, and so our description of that color will still be influenced by other speakers' past descriptions of that color. It seems that only by way of making mistakes, in a legitimately accidental manner, can we describe things in ways that are entirely removed from convention; and yet if it is accidental then it could be argued that we are not selecting our words based on the object at all. If the chosen word is chosen as the result of a mistake, then it seems we must have in mind a false conception of the object (e.g., color) in question, and we are not talking about that THING at all.

Does our being conscious of our own language use cause us to use words that are more appropriate to a given object, or less appropriate? Does it depend on our audience? In which cases do we choose words because they conform and may then be better understood, as opposed to those cases in which we choose words that are less conventional because we want to say something new? How far in abstraction can we go, with regard to word selection, without rendering ourselves incapable of talking about the object/thing in question altogether? Language use is inherently a self-conscious activity. We cannot be random in our use of words unless we are not conscious of the objects that we are talking about. Even attempts at random word-use will be anything but random. Calculated randomness is just as algorithmic as intentionally orderly word-selection.

Do our errors in speech enable us, over time (by way of causality, from one speaker to another and so on down the line) to say things that are more true about the world, or less true? In making errors, are we speaking more intuitively about the world, or are we broadening the gap between what we say and what we mean? Are all words equally appropriate in their application to given objects? Does the appropriateness depend entirely upon the audience, speaker, interlocutors, etc.?

Changes in language and word-use often result from mistakes in translation and mistakes in understanding (and the resulting misuse of words). Does this make language resemble objects less, or more so, or to the same degree no matter what? What about the association of objects to other objects, as with metaphor? What about our association of KINDS of words with other KINDS of words? What effect does our self-consciousness in use of language have, with regard to our ability to convey something resembling our meaning? Do our words ever diverge from our meaning to a GREATER degree, or is this divergence impossible, because of this aforementioned self-consciousness in our use of the words?

On Irregular Schedules

I'm sold on the idea of living on an irregular sleeping schedule. Granted, it would be extremely detrimental to my health for me to stay awake all night on a regular basis, and horribly detrimental to my grades to boot; but there's something about experiencing the two different sorts of mental states that can be achieved by way of alternating between different sleep schedules that seems somehow beneficial. The sort of mental state that I get in after being awake all night is interesting. It still seems motivated by that perpetual sense of restlessness that underlies virtually everything I do; but that restlessness reaches the forefront of my mind: Not in a stressful, urgent way as it does when I've had too much coffee, but in a calm, conscious, and decisive way. It presents ideas of great importance to me - ideas about my future, and my goals, and my wants - and lets me look at them in a systematic and accepting manner. During the day, when I've slept at normal hours, these pressing matter are just that: pressing. They want to be given my full attention, but my attention is focused on hours and schedules and the process of allotting increments of time to the process of getting to various locations on time, or leaving on time, or gauging my energy levels and gauging the amount of coffee that will wake me up just enough to put me in a state of mind conducive to schoolwork but not conducive to overactive mental activity and the susceptibility to distraction that it tends to result in.

Staying up all night on weekends allows me to devote time to the things that have been waiting in line all week for their time in the spotlight of my thoughts, after having stood there and having to be told again and again, "No, hold on; wait just a little while longer. Hold that thought." If I don't spend time thinking about those thoughts - the line-waiting kind - they'll forget why they were waiting around in the first place and wander off. I've had thoughts leave me, and I think some of them are never going to come back. There were some that I was sorry to see go: I saw them, standing in line, and I thought, "Oh, I look forward to having the time to give that one a moment to tell me what it's all about." And then I was distracted by an assignment or a book or a meal or a friend and before I knew it, that thought had abandoned me. Something can be glimpsed and gleaned by just seeing it waiting there, but what's glimpsed is just a fraction of its substance, and doesn't amount to much. It's like the faint outline of someone's face from the obituaries page of the newspaper, stamped onto silly putty and bent and stretched. It's a distortion of an impression of an impression of the man himself. And arguably the man himself is an impression of himself, or an impression of his parents, or an impression of his surroundings, or an impression of his biological composition. If I had it my way, I'd pause whatever class I was taking notes in when I glimpsed a particularly eager thought standing there in line, and I'd pull him aside and say, "Alright, hey. You. Lay it on me. Tell me what you're all about." But instead I find myself giving him a look of annoyance - a look of warning - and shooing him away and out of my periphery, telling him in one look that he's being distracting and that his incessant presence is making it difficult to focus on the matter at hand.

The matter at hand might not be the matter that is supposed to be at hand, and some of the most interesting thoughts come when one is being exposed to a slew of other interesting thoughts, which is really quite annoying because none of said thoughts are able to be given adequate attention as a result. I suppose that's alright, because the ones that matter resurface in some manner or other at some point along the line, or so I hope.

The worst part of odd sleep-schedules is the adjustment at the beginning of a new week. Peace of mind and introspection and speculation gained from quiet hours of thought and pondering are almost counteracted by the mental retardation and vocabulary-looting properties of sleep debt. Little can be retained or learned or cognized when the brain hasn't rested itself, and any amount of eagerness on the part of the will cannot make up for this. And so, I suppose I should designate Friday and Saturday nights as insomnia nights, and try to connote some degree of normalcy to the rest.

There's something about taking that time out from society - not in terms of one's activities, but in terms of one's schedule - that is nice, too. Knowing that you're awake, thinking, or reading, or working, for YOURSELF, and for the sake of thought itself, and not for anyone else - and in fact knowing that your being awake is at odds with the rest of the world other than yourself (and the authors to which you are devoting your time and attention) somehow claims that time and those thoughts as your own, and somehow puts a bit more stock in the ideas contrived because they are contrived out of the will to contrive itself; and because they are manifested in the defiance of some other kind of established manifestation (that is, society and the structure of society, and the structure of time and days and hours themselves). They are somehow stronger in their presence; more likely to last beyond their moment, and sometimes prone to lingering on, sometimes for days, stretching their influence out over the normally-demarcated hours of the weekdays to follow.

On Religion, Ethics, Descartes, and Woody Allen (unfinished draft)

There's been a recent pattern in my thoughts that I've noticed as of late, by way of two primary means: 1) observing my own comments on the topic of religion, when it comes up, and 2) trying to defend my unfaltering love for Woody Allen's films, pre-controversy and post-controversy alike.

The first cluster of thoughts, concerning the topic of religion, has to do with some ideas that I've been mulling over often enough to take notice. The result has been that I've become aware of a belief that I hold, simply through observing the fact that I defend that belief, without first being aware that it is a belief that I hold. Once I realize what I am defending, I have to ask myself what the implications of this belief may be, and whether I really could pit myself against the world in order to defend it. beliefs that I come to realize that I hold are, in my case, rarely discounted or dismissed upon discovery, for these beliefs that I seem to come to by way of the sum of a number of days of unconscious pondering (and according to Bertrand Russell, in his "The Conquest of Happiness", the unconscious mind can be assigned tasks to complete simply by thinking ardently about a specific topic for a given amount of time and then letting the unconscious mind do the rest of the work - a view of the unconscious that I much prefer to those that attribute to it guilt and feelings of sin and guilty lust and the like), and for my unconscious mind to have been assigned a topic to focus on usually means, so it seems, that I have spent a great deal of time thinking about something pertaining to that topic in my conscious thoughts. I give these beliefs that I accidentally uncover in my own mind the respect that I believe they deserve, at least with regard to their consideration (and of course claiming veto-power over them if I deem them faulty), because if they surface in such a way, it seems likely that it has been the result of rigorous ponderings that I've done, consciously and unconsciously, as if my unconscious mind has put together a number of propositions into a system the outputs a belief or two: propositions that I consciously hold to be true, resulting in beliefs that I wasn't even aware were so explicitly and logically implied by my beliefs, and the conjunction of these respective propositions, considered with regard to one-another. In other words, I form conscious and simple beliefs (I believe that P, etc.), and my mind constructs them as a writer might construct a paragraph, so that they form a larger, more significant, complex unconscious beliefs when put together. These unconscious beliefs are eventually presented to my conscious mind for dissection and consideration.

This belief is a bit unorthodox upon first consideration, and as such I am hesitant to put it in clear terms just yet, without first explaining my reasons for it. It has to do with the concept of "good" and "bad", about which much has been said (Nietzsche's Geneology of Morality, for instance), and it also pertains to Descartes' concept of the evil demon, who hypothetically deceives us into believing that we exist. Both philosophical works just mentioned have become tired at this point. I don't mean to say that they are useless (on the contrary, I think they're quite necessary); I mean simply that there isn't much that I could say about them that you haven't heard before.

That said, what I find most interesting about Descartes' "evil demon" is the fact that he's called "evil". Yes, it's prima facie quite a redundant and dull concept, but it's implications prove to be interesting. First of all, if we are not in fact living bodies, walking around earth, but are instead being deceived into thinking such (or, as Putnam suggests, if we are brains in vats), then there surely is no such thing as "evil". The word itself seems to suggest that the physical world is meaningful, and subsequently that what is done in the physical world has deeper, perhaps spiritual meaning. If the physical world is an illusion, then how is anything "evil"? By this token, we do not call a man evil just for playing a video game in which he shoots other human beings (say, an FBI-simulator or something of that sort). The fact that it is not reality is enough to render him innocent and morally astute. Why, then, are actions considered "evil" if the world, and all of said actions, is an illusion? The only other answer to that question seems to be that the fact that we THINK that it is real is enough to require that we act in a way that is "good" or "moral" or "ethical". Yet if there is doubt that it is real, is it really fair to hold the doubter to these standards? Obviously it is, unless the doubt is substantial, but Descartes seemed to believe that the doubt was substantial.

Then there is the question: If the demon is "evil" in deceiving us, why is God not considered "evil" if he supposedly created the universe and all things in it? Living in a world in which everything was created by an all-powerful being is not very different from living in a world in which everything was created by an "evil demon", especially since the world we are considering at this juncture is the world in which we actually live, and thus the word 'world', in discussion of the evil demon, refers the same world as in the context of religion. We can't say one or the other is evil or good because of any prevalence of evil or good things in the world, for there are the same amount of each in both cases, for we are talking about the same world: this world! There's also the response, often asserted, that "God is not a deceiver", but this, too, asserts that deception is a necessary "evil". First of all, I've already argued that "evil" and "good" seem hard to support in a world which is entirely illusory. And secondly, if there is nothing outside of this illusion, then it seems quite fortunate that each of us is being deceived by this "evil" demon, for I am sure I'm not the first to say that existence itself is quite interesting and exciting. This "evil" demon is providing, if Descartes is right, an otherwise-stagnant or otherwise-employed soul with something that, although perhaps not "real", is better than television. If it seems real, does it really matter if it's real? Isn't real simply, in some sense, what we think is real? If it's this or nothing, then I'd rather be deceived. And I see nothing evil about the fact that this "evil demon" is ostensibly giving my mind an occupation that is both interesting and enjoyable, and a body and tangible world to boot.

I've also been thinking a lot about concepts like demons, and devils, and "evil" figures in various religions. They seem to serve a necessary purpose: To teach individuals by way of example what is good, and to punish those who are bad. Say what you will about the latter (and I'll likely say the same), but the former seems necessary for the formation of the concept of "good". Nietzsche's covered the societal implications of this pretty thoroughly, so I won't get into it.

I usually steer clear of any discussion of ethics, in philosophy or elsewhere, mainly because my own views on the matter seem to be so contrary to the views of the majority. But the topic keeps coming up. Perhaps it's been on my mind.

On the next figurative shelf in the forefront of my mind is this issue of Woody Allen. I didn't even consider that I was expected to form an opinion on what he did or did not do in his personal life, but I've been forced to do so by way of being again and again grilled on the subject anytime I mention one of his films. People seem to be of the opinion that it was only "okay" for an individual to like his films before that individual became aware of the fact that he'd been sleeping with his much younger stepdaughter.

The main relevant facts of the matter are as follows:
1) Mia Farrow charged Woody Allen with an account of child molestation against his 7 yr. old daughter
2) The charges were dropped
3) Farrow's lawyer claimed that the prosecution had sufficient evidence to convict Allen, but that they were dropping the charges and withholding the evidence in order to protect Farrow's daughter
4) Woody Allen had multiple top-lawyers working in his defense
5) Farrow had recently discovered nude photographs of her adopted daughter on Woody Allen's mantle, which subsequently led her to discover that Woody Allen had been having an affair with her daughter, Soon-Yi, since she was in high school
6) Woody Allen admitted to #5, left Farrow, moved out, and proceeded to marry Soon-Yii

I'd rather not get into the logistics of the case itself, because frankly I don't think we can ever really know exactly what happened, but I'm of the opinion that the charges of molestation were unfounded, (perhaps) evidenced by the fact they were dropped for such vague reasons. Allen was, I think, denied custody of the child, but was not put behind bars.

That said, it seems to boil down to a discussion of the ethics of a man dating a girl very much his junior. The fact that she was his stepdaughter seems of little importance for several reasons: 1) She'd adopted Soon-Yi before she met Woody Allen, 2) Woody Allen and Mia Farrow were not married, and 3) Soon-Yi and Woody Allen began their sexual relationship after she had gone through puberty. 1) and 2) are of the most important. It is obvious that someone can serve a certain familial role without actually being conventionally of that kind, and if there is no blood relation than it is not incest. When it comes down to it, aside from the age issue, it seems that Woody Allen marrying Soon-Yi is not so different from a man dating someone he met while dating one of his exes, who was perhaps friends with his ex. The fact that he watched her grow up is (yes, a bit creepy) not a convincing argument, because many people of the same age meet in childhood, watch one-another grow up, and then date or marry. The fact that Woody Allen did not molest her while she was a child or before she could consent to it makes his case, for all intents and purposes, not much different.

No one has a right to judge what should or shouldn't be the cause of happiness between two individuals. People have a right to consent to actions or not; and there are ways to prosecute individuals who impose upon the rights and autonomy of others. If Soon-Yi hadn't wanted it, she likely wouldn't have remained in wedlock with him for all this time, and she would have sought legal or police aid. She didn't, and they both seem happy, and that should be all that matters to us.

It wasn't any of this about which I was really very concerned. It was the fact that so many people seemed eager to discredit his vast body of art because of these personal actions. Following a long debate with a friend about the matter, I came home and jotted down the following notes...

Things that I would like to remember to consider if ever I write a more in-depth article on this matter:

-Moral relativism as an important issue for cultural consideration
-Separating character of individual from morals espoused by their art
-Difference between what the artist chooses to present as art, and what unfairly becomes considered in juxtaposition with his art when his personal life is exploited
-Should the knowledge that the artist's personal life may be public affect his choices in his personal life?
-Hitler and Charles Manson are not good examples of bad people whose immorality discredited their art, because their art itself was not considered "good" by a general public consensus
-Value of personal liberty & the right to happiness
-Value of subjective interest in a work of art
-pertinent questions RAISED by the work of art
-Horrible human beings who produced good art, and the importance in noting that their art remains influential
-Value comes from the art, not the person
-Artist makes conscious choice as to what views to present in his art and what views to exclude
-Does the individual have an obligation to act morally to a greater degree if he is in the public eye?
-Does his life become part of his art?
-If he is a bad person, but his art raises relevant questions, is it still valid?
-Is this ENOUGH to make him a good person?
-Utilitarianism: The people who gain from Woody Allen's art (laughter and happiness) amount to more than the people who are hurt by the choices he made in his personal life (being offended is not the same as being hurt, and is more a sign of close-mindedness than anything else, especially if the offense is great, because an individual should have enough going on in his own life to ignore actions of others unless they directly hurt someone or affect the individual in question)
-This doesn't support Bush's actions (even if politics are considered art, as was suggested by someone with whom I was debating) because, even if politics can be considered art, then Bush is either just the brush itself, with which his cronies are making art, or he is simply BAD ART. Furthermore, that which Bush PUBLICLY espouses is, to a logical mind, not positive.
-Does creating good art require an individual to sacrifice good in his personal life?
-Woody Allen criticizes/ jokes about pedophilia in his art (e.g., Bananas), and thus his art actively attempts to discourage the act, saying it is inherently bad, or evil (I forget the direct quote)
-Roman Polanski
-Bush example actually argues the OPPOSITE of my point (happy home life = not defamed), (unfavorable publicly-espoused views)
-If it makes Woody Allen and Soon-Yi happy, that should be reason enough
-Into him for his money? Does it matter? Seems unlikely, because she already had access to it anyway, being his stepdaughter.
-Anyhow, if money is what makes someone happy (or if it's what they think will make them happy), who's to say they should be denied that attempt at happiness? It's their own mistake.
-Woody's films point out the error of the individual
-And how human fault can lead to the individual being used as a tool for manipulation for various political or social ends


I don't have time to rehash my thoughts on this matter at the moment, but I've been surprised as of late how contrary my own views on personal liberties, morality, social norms, and the like seem to be to the rest of society's views. Sure, there are definite instances of abuse, or immorality, or things that are just plain wrong; but on borderline instances, it seems that these things should be looked at case-to-case. The bottom line is that none of us can pretend to understand what someone else's motives are, or what makes someone else happy, or what someone else might need. God knows that real, genuine love seems to be rare enough that we should rejoice when it is found by two individuals, even in such strange circumstances. The good that such a thing puts into the world is no doubt of more essence than the bad that the same thing puts into the world, for the latter is mostly in the form of judgment, and in that sense it is "bad" not on Woody Allen's part, for he is putting out very little negative energy himself. Rather, the "bad" is mostly on the part of the public. Negative judgment and worry concerning someone else's life seems to be a waste of energy, and seems to be nothing BUT negative.

My main point being? We would do well to pretend that words like "good" and "bad" are not part of our respective vernaculars while talking about other peoples' actions and while judging the ethical value of situations or scenarios. They serve only as scapegoats, red-herrings, or substitutions for actual valid arguments. Even those cases that are obviously "good" in the truest sense probably should not be referred to as such, so that such words are not used inaccurately, unfairly, by default, or for lack of more relevant things to say, at least in borderline cases.

My other main point being? Any kind of art that provides enjoyment, encourages happiness, incites laughter, and raises relevant social, ethical, intellectual, and political questions at the same time is relevant, regardless of the personal character of the creator. It is my opinion that, if someone is able to create work that does all of these things, chances are that he means well even in his personal life. The act of raising a whole slew of important questions is quite commendable, and I don't mean this in a Socratic sense. I think we should seek to raise a multitude of questions for consideration on all kinds of topics, whether or not answers are at hand or even possible. I don't think we should necessarily seek to prove that other individuals don't know anything, at least not in an aggressive and insulting manner (because what's productive in that?), but I do think we should question what each of us thinks we know. What matters is that it's not our business. It's Woody, Mia, and Soon-Yi's business, respectively. In my opinion, and I think fairly so, once the youngest party has reached a certain age (e.g., the age of consent), the age-difference issue is entirely subjective and should be considered case-by-case.

From another standpoint, if the personal life of Woody Allen is arguably considered PART OF his art, it STILL succeeds in bringing relevant issues and questions to the forefront; humor, even. As could perhaps have been anticipated, the humor is found in the over-the-top nature of peoples' reactions to the situation more than it is found anywhere else. Even if Woody's actions can be dubbed "wrong" (and I take issue with the very suggestion of this), they still cause a dialogue, and so long as nobody was hurt in the process in a SUBSTANTIAL way (I'm not condoning murder for the sake of causing a dialogue), this is positive.

Someone do us all a favor and throw words like "good" and "evil" out the window. Until you do, I'll just say that I think the most "evil" individuals are those most eager to pin the "good" or "evil" label on other human beings whose situations they know nothing about; George W. Bush, for example. It seems a pretty obvious red-flag indicating that that particular person is probably unwilling to take responsibility for his own actions or even consider the repercussions of said actions.

On Religion and Translation

It seems entirely plausible to me that discrepancies between various and sundry theologies are simply the result of a series of loose or approximate translations, botched by a series of individuals; the utilization of overblown or excessive hyperbole, and perhaps the insertion of substitute names for those momentarily forgotten by the storyteller. It makes sense. If a mother wished to impart a moral lesson to her child, by way of a theological anecdote, she could easily achieve this end by telling a vague approximation of the story, using whatever names she pleased, and changing little details or adding her own ornamentations as she so desired. Enough renditions down the line, and as in a game of telephone the product barely resembles the original, if at all.

We fight wars over religious differences. Who can possibly make the claim that language has little importance in our world? In terms of how we use it, there may be arguably little difference; but in terms of what we make of it, and what we make of the subtle differences, the impact that it has is significant. One innocent mistranslation somewhere along the line could inadvertently be the cause of the death of millions.

So, yes, I think it's important to look at theory of meaning for language so that we can get to the heart of the matter and point out the fact that we actually have some common ground. The harder it may be for us to discover such a theory, the more able we might be to show that we all have something in common that is more biological than we realize. Whether we may be able to shed light on the nature of our similarities or the nature of our differences does not matter. Either may prove to be infinitely useful and enlightening.

The man who picks out a single word in the Bible as a means of making a point, especially if the "point" that he is making could determine the future of another (freedom or imprisonment, life or death, marriage or not marriage), is the man who puts his entire trust of morality and ethics in the hand of, perhaps, one man from somewhere in the prior chronology of translation, and his entire sense of morality could revolve around one decision made by that particular man, such as, "Should I translate this word in this way, or in this way? Both seem almost synonymous..."

Guess what? "Almost synonymous", a few times over, is the same thing as "entirely different".

And we justify killing and prejudice and racism and bigotry by way of quoting the Bible? Surely I'm not alone in thinking that this is a terrifying notion.

on inspiration, books, peers, and the self

I find myself quite often having to defend myself for bouts of decisive solitude; and having to explain to people that, no, in my case it is not symptomatic of depression. One of the hardest things to express is that, in the case of my own particular disposition, the act of taking myself "off the map", as they say, is actually somehow a way to place myself in a context much larger than the social context. If I am an individual, reading things written in the past and thinking toward the future, then I am placing myself in the context of time: past and present. Whether anything I do will have any effect lasting beyond my death is beside the point. The actions itself are on this chronological plane, because my primary influences came prior to me on this plane. The context of time is significantly more vast than than the flat context of a social plane. In a strange sense, it is more social to stay home and read then to go out and drink in a bar. Additionally, the "conversation partners" found in books have arguably more to dispel, because they see things from a perspective that is necessarily very different from my own. Granted, there are many people from similar backgrounds, educations, income brackets, etc. who are very different (and of course people from different backgrounds and the like who are obviously very different), but when drawing from the past it is a given that they will be such; not a gamble. By "more to dispel", I only mean to say that they will more likely contain divergent opinions from one's own because they are created in such a different context, necessarily, due to the difference between eras. I don't mean to imply that individuals close at hand in the present have fewer interesting things to say than people in the past. It is simply that people in the past perhaps have things to say that one will less likely have heard before, or thought before, or even considered at all. I like the idea of exposing the self to opinions differing greatly from my own and from one-another, so that the choices one makes and the stances one makes can me most informed. Of course, this objective view is impossible to achieve in absolute entirety, because only certain texts were published in the first place, only certain texts survived the passage of time and the occasional book-burning or two, and of course because if the self is choosing what he reads, then he is still an agent that, to a degree, controls what he will learn, even if he is attempting wholeheartedly to be non-biased in his selection of texts.

I am much less easily swayed by a fear of being alone than I am by a fear of getting to some point in my life where I will be unable to be happy alone. By "alone", I don't mean "single"; nor do I really intend to say anything at all about how romance factors into the equation. Rather, I mean it as an expression of the state in which the individual is the sole motivator in his own life, and the self's most trusted and respected mentor. If the individual thinks of his own opinions regarding himself as being of the utmost importance (not out of egomaniacal attitudes or our of pride, but out of recognition of the fact that the self knows his own needs better than the other, which the exception of a few factors and cases), and if he chooses to surround himself with those who will allow him the maximum amount of growth towards being his best self, then a very positive state-of-affairs may manifest itself: one that is extremely encouraging to that individual, and in the way that is most appropriate to his or her own goals and aims. If the individual selects his or her peer group, conversation-partners, and confidantes based on who he feels will allow him to be his truest self and act according to his own most legitimate whims, then two things will happen: First, the other will encourage the individual's growth, and the individual, in turn, will more actively encourage his own growth. If the other also seeks large amounts of exposure to new ideas and also seeks mental and individual growth, then the same can happen in his case, in the same fashion. This sort of dynamic does not require that two people be at all alike. It requires only open-mindedness.

It seems to me that the greatest friend or colleague is the one who will be most understanding if his friend decides to go from being a doctor to being a circus-clown overnight: Not because he finds it amusing, but because he respect's the other person's ability to make his own decisions to that degree. So in this sense perhaps friends more different from an individual are most beneficial. If an individual has a friend who is very unlike that individual himself, then there will be no issues concerning feelings of abandonment if the individual no longer shares the same career, interests, or beliefs as the other.

All of this, of course, assumes that any given individual in question seeks to maximize his or her growth to whatever degree he or she pleases. Perhaps sometimes this is not the case, and if I am correct in positing this objection, then all of the above can be disregarded in said cases. Many people, it seems, are fully aware of what they want in life and aware of the way in which they want to grow, and yet very much afraid of actually reaching that point. Save for cases in which the individual has ill or malicious intent, this seems a mark of cowardice, and not contentment.

Although I write this while focusing primarily on an individual, I do not mean to say that I myself should be the sole beneficiary of such positive and encouraging relations between people. I mean just that every case of "I" (that is, every case of the self) should benefit from such. Everyone should be able to find inspiring company and in turn be inspiring to said company.

This, I think, is true of the social plane and the historical plane. It is simply easier at times to know that one will be able to act as he sees fit in response to said inspiration, without judgment, when the inspiration itself is inherently non-judgmental: e.g., inspiration found by way of reading a book.

The prospect of being surrounded by things that are all the same, in opinion, political stance, age, race, gender, world-view, cultural upbringing, religion, etc. absolutely terrifies me. I can't trust something if it is all I have ever known. And by this reasoning, can the individual really trust himself, if it is all he has ever known, and if it is what he has known best? What does it mean to trust the self? Does the self ever REALLY betray its own trust? I'm not sure. It seems a question that deserves further investigation and attention.

Our Inability to Cognize Distance and the Alienation Thereby Caused (unfinished)

In an age in which various paradigms and enclosed "communities" are becoming increasingly overlapped, self-referential, and simultaneously contradictory, the only true reconciliation of concepts, notions, or ideas is to be found within the intellect. Even the intellect serves as its own part of a larger "community" of ideas. It is unclear whether the building-blocks of this "community" are the ideas themselves or the individuals themselves, but the two are inextricably linked anyhow and thus perhaps this question is not so important. It is becoming increasingly difficult for the individual to do anything outside of a context, and yet the individual's ability to understand exactly what that context consists of is virtually impossible.

A geographical location cannot be considered, in itself, a context. Most individuals exist simultaneously in multiple locales: That is, most of us have networks of friends and, in fact, lives in multiple places at once. They cannot be separated in concept, for they share the individual as a link between them, and that which the individual undertakes in one is directly influenced by that which he previously undertakes in another. Furthermore, the concept of distance and location is becoming more and more impossible to gauge, due to the fact that we are able to travel in ways that take away from us the ability to truly understand what distance itself means. When an individual runs, he is aware of the amount of effort required to get from point A to point B, and in this way the act of running is a physical connection between the individual himself and the distance itself. When an individual drives in a car, this connection is somewhat obscured; and when an individual is a passenger in a car it is even more-so obscured, and so on. There is less physical connection between distance (that is, space) and the self; and because the human being is not able to move, on his own, as quickly as a vehicle, he has a hard time understanding the vastness of the space over which he passes. The only cue he really has that made aid in the indication of such is the visual cue of the land passing by outside of the window, and even this is potentially deceptive because it utilizes one sense and one sense only.

Airplane travel aids in furthering the detachment of the self to the concept of space and distance, for the individual can in no way fathom the distance that he crosses in a plane: Not by visual cues, for the land moves so slowly below him that he cannot even have the slightest understand of the speed at which he travels; and certainly not by physical cues, such as necessary exertion of energies required to get from point A to point B (as with an indivual who takes it upon himself to walk or run across said distance). The only quantification that the distance covered in a plane has is that of money, and even this is contorted because there is not a direct relationship between distance-traveled and money-spent, although the distance does factor into th equation to varying degrees for various destinations. Yet so many other factors are at play in this kind of a situation that the individual cannot gauge or judge distance by this, either. He is given no choice but to place his trust in the hands of a larger system, that of geography as depicted by maps and numbers of miles. This leads to a feeling of submission to something larger that cannot be understood, and the result is that this process is alienating.

Other examples of realms that are becoming increasingly difficult to attribute any kind of boundaries to include realms such as that of morality, time, gender, race, and age.

The only apparent solution to this alienation, and this systematic removal of points of attachment onto which the individual can anchor his self-hood, seems to be the act of affirming the self within the self, and also with other selves, simultaneously taking into account subjectivity and objectivity. The act of searching for differences between one self and another is only a step toward further attempting to categorize the self in any number of groups or categories that do not seem to be categorical or definable at all. The largest downfall that the self may be subject to occurs when he makes repeated attempts to define himself by way of a group in which he sees himself as a member. This concept of being a member of anything smaller than humanity at large is illusory, and yet the act of attempting to do this is one of the most common phenomena of our present time. Even the concept of individualization seems to present itself as encouragement of group-mentality, for many so-called "individuals" view themselves as such just because they spend the majority of their time with other so-called "individuals", and in this way they are not individuals in the individualist sense at all because they define themselves by way of association with others.

On the Responsibilities of the Artist

This world cannot survive on the concept of the "starving artist", no matter what romantic quality the notion has. We live in a time in which it is necessary that we do what we are most capable of doing (given our interests and talents and inclinations) in order to benefit the world in the way that we feel we, specifically, may best be able to. We need to view this time as an urgent time. We cannot afford the luxury of apathy. We cannot, for example, be content with being a "teacher" just for the sake of being a teacher - for the sake of taking comfort in knowing that we have a specified and defined place in the world - but rather we should be teachers in order to encourage excitement and passion for learning in our children and in the children of others.

There is nothing cutting-edge or revolutionary about being an artist just for the sake of calling yourself an artist. If you choose to dedicate your life to an art, you should know exactly why you have chosen to do so, and you should know what you want to say with your art, and you should dedicate hours of each day or any free moment you have available to your craft or your medium. If an individual only paints or writes or acts or takes photographs or plays his instrument once in a while, yet chooses to be an "artist" by title, so that he can really just be a burger-flipper and make himself more interesting or seemingly-progressive by labeling himself as such, he is running the risk of insulting both his craft and his culture. He is giving the artist a bad name, and god knows the artist already has a bad name.

The artist takes on the role of serving as a conscience: A conscience for technological advancements, a conscience for politics, a conscience for world events, a conscience for societal occurrences, etc. The artist takes it upon himself to serve as a mirror, on which the world may be reflected in a way that is honest. Art is an arena in which facts may be presented as they are, not as they have been chosen to be distorted. Art is feared, because it can expose some of the ugliest aspects of politics or humanity, and it can do so in a way that is able to effect people of all sorts and of all races and of all classes and of all sexual orientations.

This is a huge responsibility and it is a role that should not be taken lightly. To abuse this responsibility is not only to throw away an opportunity for positive influence, but it is also to aid in the death of the artist as a universal concept. True, the desire to create is innate, and cannot be removed from the human soul; but funding for the arts, and peoples' receptiveness to the arts, and space in which art can exist are all things that can be taken away, and they are things that will be taken away. The artist is already viewed as a threat to many corners of society, for the artist questions that which does not like to be questioned. To be a lazy artist is to be what these corners of society want you to be. To be a lazy artist is to deface what art should be and render it something more of a facade; something that is less threatening to political regimes or large-scale consumerist mentalities or giant corporations. This is what they want. Granted, they do not want you to be an artist in the first place, but if you must be an artist, they would quite you to be a lazy one.

If you even suspect that you may not be able to make a living off of your art, then why spend the time that you already know you must devote to work on something that you do not believe in; something that benefits humanity in no way? Sure, some people can't do much more than flip burgers, and that is all well and good because most everybody has to pay rent, but if you think you are capable of more, you should attempt to do more. If you think that you are capable of more, you have an obligation to do more. "More" can be any number of things. If you are personable and think that you can make someone's day better by kindly serving them coffee, then perhaps "more" is something as simple as being a barista. But if you think you could do something bigger, then you should. Even if art is your first priority, it is a given that paying rent is also a priority (albeit a lesser one), so why not make that which pays the rent (if it cannot be the art) something worthwhile and meaningful? There is no reason not to do this, and a fear that there will be no time for art is unjustifiable. Most jobs that are, as I have said, "meaningful", pay somewhat more than jobs of the mundane variety, and thus fewer hours will be required for a larger amount of money: money and time that can be spent on the creating of art.

If you can afford to live without having to work, and if you choose to make art, then this is fine. But if you need to work in order to support yourself and your art, then getting a job that somehow benefits humanity in a more relevant way that renders you a part of something other than a machine whose parts are human beings is very reasonable, and the act of doing so requires no sacrifice at all. If anything, it requires less sacrifice.

We cannot afford to have lazy artists if art is all that they have chosen to do. We cannot afford to have art become something that is commercial and bland. We cannot afford to let art be a route towards social esteem and popularity and nothing else. We cannot let art be pursued only by those who do it in order to achieve some kind of status. We cannot afford to let art be separated from the arena of intellectualism. We cannot allow our art to be uninformed. We cannot use the "artist" label as a means by which to feign progressivism without really doing much of anything for the world except for supplying hungry capitalists with hamburgers. We can't afford to give the artist a bad name. The term "artist" should not be thrown around haphazardly. To be an artist is to take on a series of important responsibilities. We cannot forget this, or we will allow something else entirely to be superimposed over the concept of "art" itself, and the original purpose of art will be forgotten.

On the Search for Understanding

Is it possible to come to understand what it means to be human? It seems that it would take lifetimes to even know which questions to ask, and if an infinite number of subsequent lifetimes might eventually cause us to arrive at some kind of an answer or explanation, it seems likely that this explanation will be as complicated as the question; as complicated as the subject that we begin with. Imagine a huge stadium, with a single pole standing in the center of it, and all the lights shut off. If individual after individual comes to the stadium and throws a stick in an attempt to hit the pole, he will neither know whether he has actually succeeded in hitting it (for it is dark and it is so far away), nor will he know what to do with himself after he has hit it. Furthermore, if an individual thinks to turn on a light, it will most likely be long after many sticks have been thrown into the stadium, obstructing the view of the pole altogether. If the pole symbolizes knowledge, then an attempt to come to know it will result in repeated attempts but confusion as to whether contact has been made. If the pole is exposed, it will be so cluttered in "sticks" thrown at it by humans that its true nature will be veiled anyhow. This is a poor analogy, but to some degree it illustrates the idea. The explanation of what human nature is will thus require another series of explanations, and so on (if you will, a figurative digging through the sticks), and by the time some kind of success is achieved, human nature will have changed so much that the results will not be accurate anyhow, nor will they be representative of human nature (unless there are those constants that remain true from generation to generation, not varying in degree and never shifting). A system as complicated as the system of the human being (mind, body, and soul) cannot be examined or understood except with a system equally complex, and it seems that, even if the desired result were to be achieved by way of millions of human beings working on answering different parts of the question ("What does it mean to be human"), there might not even a mind so advanced as to be able to comprehend and fathom this answer in all its complexities. The answer might be clear, but so complex that it makes no sense to us, although we have aided in reaching it through our work on various aspects of it. It seems likely that all the tools are here for us, and all the necessary answers provided, but it is too much for us to begin to understand the ways in which they all connect to one-another. Perhaps this complexity, and our inability to comprehend it except by the application of equally-complex-procedures or processes, is human nature itself, and perhaps in this way it is simple: Human nature is to be aware of the limits of its scope of understanding and yet to attempt to understand things anyhow; to attempt to break out of the constraints of the self and the constraints of society. This in itself is arguably something that not all humans undertake, for some seem to favor comfortability. And even if an individual does come to understand, perhaps it will be more on an intuitive level than anything else, and thus it will be impossible to express or explain to others. Furthermore, perhaps something about the nature of total and complete understanding leads the individual to be secretive about it; to see that there is no value in sharing the "secret" of existence with others (or even to see fault or danger in doing so). If this is the case, those who achieve ultimate understanding may never share what they know, unless they have conflicted interests that create a want for money and understanding both, but I find it unlikely that such a person with such divided interests will be able to come to understand much of anything at all.

On the Putting to Rest of Previous Pursuits

To make the decision to dedicate one's life and one's time to one thing and one thing only is to systematically kill all prior attachments to every other thing that person has ever loved. It might be argued that: no, every thing that the individual has ever been passionate about is of importance, and these former passions must be honored, for such passions for such energy can be redirected and channeled into the one specific, chosen thing. This is false. Some prior attachments, if not cut off, will haunt the individual in the form of guilt, or in the form of incessant what-if's, sometimes to an increasing degree as the individual strays further and further from that original or former thing. The energy expended in such regrets is equal to or greater than the energy expended in the pursuit of the selected thing itself, and because of this, the individual's ability to pursue his selected end is inhibited; his focus clouded. Such a scattering of energies can lead to an absolute check-mate and standoff: A three-way hold-up in which each has a gun pointed at his head and each holds a gun up to another's head. In order to move forward, two of the three attachments (or however many there are, be they former objects of fixation, or passions, or goals, or ideas) must be gunned down, so that one and only one may remain standing. If none are gunned down, and all remain, each of these will exist in a constant state of fear, and each will vie for dominance over the others, sometimes in a sneaky manner, so that energy may be taken out of the pursuit of one as with a sieve, so that the individual does not even notice that his entire heart fails to devote itself to that thing. The slaughter of former pursuits must be merciless and must leave none standing. The more thorough this spring cleaning process, the more devotion the individual will be able to apply his chosen end.

We see these symbolic deaths in other arenas of our lives that are thought of as being separate from the arena of goal-making. We see this happen in relationships. When a relationship is started with a new individual, and when the self chooses to devote himself to this new person, he makes a conscious decision to one-by-one toss away residual feelings for people from his past so as to make room for love for this new person. This process may happen in several ways: It may be done in a method of reverse chronological order, killing off attachments to the most recent "exes" first, and then in time the exes of a more distant past, and so on. It may be done, alternatively, by order of necessity: That person from the past who is most in the forefront of one's thoughts, more than the others, must be disassociated from first, and then those who are less on one's mind may fall victim to this process of detachment, and so on, in decreasing order of presence-in-the-mind. This is because, in some cases, the most recent past-loves are the most thought of (particularly with individuals who tend to have predominantly long-term relationships); whereas for others there are specific people who are harder to disassociate the self from than others.

A goal, or an endeavor, is not so different from a romantic relationship. Many undertakings of the vocational variety are pursued as the result of a conscious choice to do so. The same may be said of romantic pursuits. On the other hand, many vocational goals are forged almost accidentally and subconsciously, mainly in those situations in which the individual finds himself extremely passionate about something, without seeing this passion slowly creep up on him, and finds himself in such a state of passion that he cannot stop himself from pursuing this vocational endeavor because his heart is already too much in it, by no choice of his own. The same happens in romantic relationships, when the individual finds himself already completely swept away by another individual without having premeditated on the notion or without having even predicted the notion.

The process of detaching one's self from former goals and pursuits, vocational or otherwise, is also similar to the process of "getting over" lovers of days long past. Pertaining to the method of this systematic detachment, the order of operations is much the same, and can occur in reverse chronological order or in order of descending importance, or impact on the self.

It would seem that there are healthy and unhealthy means of detachment from these former pursuits. Each detachment must be taken on as a task that must be done thoroughly, yet carefully, so that nothing remains of the desire for the former, and so that the process is clean and smooth. However, it must also be done in a way that pays enough honor to the former pursuit so that the self feels justified in this killing and feels at peace with the notion of moving on. I liken these detachments to death for good reason. Each detachment must be honored with a wake of sorts, so that the self's past interests are respected and laid to rest. If this is not done correctly - for example, if the self is too hasty in his detachments and too thorough in the process - the individual's sense of self will be scattered, and his acquaintance with his former selves will be either nonexistent, or chaotic, or of a hateful nature. The individual must take care not to detach himself from a former endeavor in any way that encourages a harboring of resentment of that prior pursuit or that prior self. This will defeat the purpose of the detachment altogether, for the energy that will be put into this resentment will be as powerful as the energy expended thinking about that past purpose before the process of detachment was undertaken, if not more powerful, and thus the balance of energies will be just as off-kilter (or even more off-kilter) as it was to begin with, when the need for detachment was recognized.

Perhaps there are some attachments that are beneficial and can serve as catalysts for future undertakings, despite the conflict of interests that may manifest. For example, there could be a situation in which the prior pursuit of a career goal was so traumatic that it actually gave the individual a kind of uncontested determination; a determination that the individual chose to apply to a new endeavor. In such instances, perhaps the memory of this previous undertaking should be retained, if it provides fodder for the present or future pursuits. The individual should take care to weigh the balance of the situation, however, and should hold onto a prior attachment such as this one only if it is deemed truly beneficial. In most cases, past attachments to pursuits or endeavors require a lot of energy and may take away from the present regardless of how much the regret of the past may stimulate future progress.

These detachments, or "deaths", should be treated as real deaths, in that that which is lost should be mourned, and should be celebrated. Furthermore, the past undertakings should not be thought of as concepts that must be replaced, but rather as separate entities that served their purpose, and inspired the individual, but are now gone. Just as an individual should not forget a beloved who has passed away, so should he not forget a former aspect of himself that he has buried and put to rest; but conversely, the individual should not dwell on the loss, but should accept it as a natural, albeit sorrowful, occurrence.

If the individual does not put to rest completely the notions of those things which he no longer actively pursues, he will be quite literally haunted by them. They will seek to take up his time and his attention. They will attempt to be prioritized as they once were. They will make him hate them when he acknowledges their existence, especially when he sees how little they resemble what he once did. The individual owes it to the honor of his own self, and to his past, to let them move on and to let them rest. It is common knowledge that the archetypal ghost can take massive amounts of energy from the individual that it haunts, as is well illustrated in the novel "Wuthering Heights", in which Heathcliff is haunted by the ghost of his former love, Cathy. He is haunted by her ghost because he asks to be. He cannot bear to part with her, yet seeing her in her ghostly form torments him because it makes him aware of the dissonance that exists between her form as a ghost and her previous form as a living being. The same thing happens to individuals who try to hold on to their prior career goals, or life goals, or plans. They will be pained to see how pale such undertakings have become due to their neglect, but they will still possess such love for them that they refuse to let them be at peace. Pursuits of the past must be laid to rest, for in doing so they are not forgotten. This process allows for the individual's energies to be applied to new, tangible pursuits: Things that are not tainted with regret or failure, but things very much alive and possessing much potential to flourish for many years to come.

On the Crystalization of Personality and Resulting Patterns of Behavior (unfinished)

The passing of time unveils how the individual comes to know the self. This coming-to-know of the self is visible in the observation of the refinements that come about in certain behaviors of the individual. This means two things: A) In some situations, the individual may be rendered, over time, more likely to act in a specific way in a specific situation repeatedly, with less variation and with more consistency; or B) In some situations, the individual may feel more at liberty to act in a way different from the way he has acted in the past in a similar situation. Neither of these can be the case in and of itself, in the exclusion of the other, but the types of situations in which Phenomenon A will occur, as opposed to those in which Phenomenon B will occur are necessarily different sorts of situations.
The former occurs as a result of individual having become, over time, more familiar with his “personality”; one aspect of which is demonstrated in his predisposition toward forming certain kinds opinions or coming to certain types of conclusions on a whole variety of topics; or his tendency to act in a certain way in a certain type of situation. However, a familiarization with the self eventually can lead to an increase in confidence, which can subsequently render the individual more willing to relinquish the control that he has previously held over himself, free himself of self-imposed or society-imposed constraints, and in this way free himself from his binds.
Phenomenon A usually (although not in all cases) pertains to situations of opinion, whereas Phenomenon B more often pertains to actual situations in which opinions may be put into action. Phenomenon B can be more fluid (that is, the individual’s behaviors may be less predictable) because it has less to do with opinions, which become rather cemented and solid, for the most part, and more to do with situations. Just because an individual has strong, solid opinions does not mean that he or she will necessarily act in a given way in a given context 100 percent of the time. In fact, the stronger one’s opinions, and the greater the individual’s abilities are to connect his opinions in fluid network system, the more he will be able to see the infinitude of outcomes of his actions, leading him to understand that there may be, in some cases, enough variables to render his decision less important, and to render the force of chance more important. With an awareness of such, he may feel more at liberty to act randomly. Because of this phenomenon, the individual with a greater awareness of his self (including an awareness of his opinions and inclinations), and of his self’s interplay with the world surrounding him, may be less likely to act in a specified way in a specified situation, and more likely to act sporadically. My thesis, then, is as follows: A greater understanding of the self is not inextricably linked to a greater tendency toward certain behavior, unless this inextricable linkage is negative relation in which a greater understanding of the self leads to a tendency to act in a less predictable manner in specific kinds of situations.

February 2008

ON VACATION AND CIVILIZATION (2005)

We, as members of the human race, are active and willing participants in what we so proudly and lovingly refer to as “civilization”. We speak of it with pride. It is the absolute sum of our ancestors’ toil, tears, premature deaths, and bloodshed. It is the culmination of years and centuries of trial and error, mistake and solution, shame and retribution, and also careful calculation. Thus, silently, we insist that it works. Not only do we stand behind its effectiveness, but we seem to stand behind the notion that it is the only option. Our reasons for this do not seem to have to do with necessity, but rather they seem to be built out of pride and the desire to have some sort of larger whole on which to cling. We seem to seek society and civilization’s support and encouragement and acceptance of our selves in the same way that we seek the same from our own peers and family members. We even fund it, through our tax dollars, and in doing so we put our trust into it. And so why should we not uphold it? Has it not served us well? Most would say yes, but how can this be known when none of us have any knowledge of what our existences might be like were it not present? And, despite the words that seem to show our support for it, do we actually love it as we really should, considering how much we put into it and how much we are a part of it (though perhaps not in the ways that we should be)? Naturally, we like to believe that we do not simply speak well of it because we have to. We like to convince ourselves that we truly are willing to stand behind all the praise that we allot to our society; that we believe it and that this belief is instinctual. Perhaps we need to believe that we do, in fact, think highly of it, because we need to be able to justify our participation in it, our work for its cause, and our lack of retaliation against it. Truly, the fact that it is so instinctual is what scares me a bit. The word “instinct” connotes a lack of premeditation on a topic, a lack of careful thought (or any form of thought at all), and a reliance on tradition without regard to situation or tangible evidence of cause and effect.
Not all of us participate in Civilization in the commonly-recognized way. There are the Amish. There are the Menonites. There are those who choose to live alone in cabins in the mountains, if they are fortunate enough to find property that they can afford in such rustic locales, or if they are sly enough to make their home on public land and somehow avoid the governmental radar and Eviction Man. There are those of us who choose an alternative route, in an attempt to remove ourselves permanently from civilization, but even in the act of refusing to be a part of it, we are further promoting it, for we are strengthening the line between it and that-which-is-not it, and making it more present and apparent simply by giving it something to be in contrast with. There are, too, those of us who leave one civilization in favor of another (or one country in favor of another), but in actuality, this seems to actually help that civilization which is left (and, presumably, despised or disliked) to flourish all the more, for it removes those members who would pose a threat to it (those who might be able to provide balance through their own defiance, or those who would dull the blade of that which they do not support) and it increases the predominance of the sort of mind that supports and creates the very entity that they so loathe. Furthermore, those Creators of the Loathed will have less of an awareness of the fact that their actions or ways are not fully supported, and because this lack of awareness denies them of their very conscience – one allotted to them only to their extreme dismay, but present nonetheless – and as a result of this, there might be less of a moral presence involved in their actions, and they might feel more able to do what they had done before (and what they had done that caused those who left to do so) since they will then face less criticism and anger in doing so.
It seems to me that there is something lacking in our civilization. This conscience, of which I just spoke, is part of this void, and the other part of it seems to be tangible products created by those who compose this conscience (when I speak of a “conscience”, I mean a collection of individuals, emotions, ideas, publications, teachings, etc. that counteract that which is predominant and keep in check the decisions made by those who support this predominant way of being): art, literature, love, philosophy, etc. These things do exist, but their importance seems to be too often ignored, or they seem to be too often turned into commercial objects used to in fact support the economy and, subsequently, the part of civilization that they originally were created in order to counter. Many things could be held responsible for this phenomenon (this commodification): Andy Warhol, because he mastered (and preached to others) just how an artist might turn himself into a brand or a product and make money by doing so, or the media, for blurring the line between entertainment and criticism/news. It is odd that the attachment of money to these armies of the conscience (do excuse) has, in many cases, lessened their influence and effect. It seems that the opposite should be the case. Instead, it seems that the result has been this: some artists, writers, and thinkers make a great deal of money, and get a lot of attention. Because of this, others are ignored, and therefore this conscience is less accurate, for it is representative of a smaller number of individuals/groups. Sickeningly, those of which it is representative must, therefore, also be those who are best at stepping on others to reach the top, those most concerned with money, those most conscious of what the targeted audience wants to see (and therefore much less likely to be controversial in any way), and those most willing to kiss ass. I’m not sure how most of us feel about this, but I certainly do not find this sort of person to be the sort best suited for the job of countering such large establishments/entities as the government or society or lazy, conformist modes of thinking.
What evidence, you ask, do I cite in order to conclude that civilization is lacking in some way? I suppose one primary form of evidence to this fact is this: such a thing exists as a vacation. If we lived in a society in which we were perfectly content, would we still feel the need to get away from it? Vacation seems to not only be an escape from the workplace, for again and again we hear the catch-phrase, “get away from it all”, when people speak of their reasons for vacation. They do not say, “get away from my job,” but “it all”. Unless I am mistaken, this means all of it, nothing excluded: everything! Does this mean that there is not one thing in our lives that we are able to consistently participate in without feeling the need to leave it? Is it simply that we require an outside perspective in order to make sense of the sphere of existence that we normally dwell in? The most likely explanation of the need for vacation seems to be this: we are not comfortable or satisfied with our society or our civilization.
Since we built society (we being the human race), should not we have built it in a way that we might be content with? Since we built it, does that not mean that we have (and have always had) absolute control over its form and its purpose? Why is it not enough then? Or is it too much? I am only able to draw from these questions the suggestion that perhaps we, even when given complete control, are not able to create what we want or need for ourselves. This leads me to assert that we must be unaware of what exactly we do want and need.
Perhaps we are better off creating for ourselves a world that is not comfortable for us anyway, and perhaps, then, my complaints are counterproductive. Additionally, perhaps we know this, and we are subconsciously doing what is best for ourselves as a human race. This could be the result of that concept of the collective unconscious shining through, and the presence of a care and compassion for the human race and for the future of the human race, existing within this collective unconscious. Let me explain myself. A state of discomfort could be a good thing for both the and for humanity as a whole, in quite a few ways. First of all, discomfort keeps humanity active. Think about a chair in a restaurant: If the chair is uncomfortable, we eat faster and leave the restaurant more quickly, or we seek a more comfortable chair with which to exchange the awkward one. If the chair is comfortable, however, we remain in it for long periods of time, even after we have become bored of it or idle in it, as long as we want, sometimes even long enough to fall asleep in it, just because it is more comfortable than most. Using this metaphor, we, as a society, have no other “chairs” to go to (aside from other civilizations or countries, something I already discussed, and many of which are very similar in make to the original), so we simply take breaks from the “chair” that is our society, and return to it again and again. What happens between turns in the chair seems to be essential and important, for we keep doing it. We seem to be sitting in uncomfortable “chairs”, and by my logic this would lead us to believe that we make more progress, and are less stagnant: we “eat faster”. But this metaphor seems to be almost too appropriate, for quick eating also brings to mind something else: poor digestion. We are, perhaps, working harder because we are not comfortable, but we don’t seem to be analyzing or justifying the work that we do. This seems to be a dangerous hypothesis.
Don’t we need to be uncomfortable in order to move forward; in order to progress as a society? Do we intentionally build ourselves a hell, so that we feel the need to leave it, solely because leaving it is the only thing that might keep us moving? Is not the movement out of a place a more desperate form of motion than any other? When we have something we feel strongly to be bad, are we not more motivated to change it? Discomfort makes us aware of the areas that desperately need attention and change, and it does so in a much more effective way than comfort ever could, doesn’t it? If we dwelled in a Utopia, we would see nothing that needed to be changed, and we would become bored, and it seems inevitable that this Utopia would be more of a Hell than Hell ever could be, simply because in Hell (that is, in a place of discomfort), we are able to be optimistic and we are able to have hope. These are two things that may be more important to all of us than the present actually is, and more important to us than comfort. In this so-called Utopia, all we are left with is fear and pessimism: pessimism, which exists due to the fact that the only direction we have to go is downwards (into a more negative, horrible state), and fear, because we have something that is as good as it can be and therefore we fear the loss of it. Any individual, it seems to be true, would rather be consumed by hope and optimism and upward progress than fear and pessimism and a feeling of lack-of-control and inevitable-decline.
But what if stagnancy is a good thing, and not a bad thing? What exactly takes place between turns in the “chair” of society (that is, during vacations), anyhow? Is it something more along the lines of rest and respite, or is it something more along the lines of mobilization: mobilization of thoughts, emotions, and needs, and the putting-into-order of these things? And what if the breaks taken from the “chair” (the vacations) are just turns sitting in other, more comfortable “chairs”? What if mental action requires physical rest? And what if the contrary is true? Do we not, then need both work and vacation, action and idleness; time to sit in a chair and time to be away from it? Perhaps balance is the key, and not a preference towards mobility or immobility? If this is the case, still something is awry, for the time that we spend on vacation is not remotely equal to the time spent laboring.
Furthermore, it seems that the exclusive focus on one kind of labor, or one facet of one specific branch of work, is limiting, and limited. Vacation (I dislike using this term because it implies that what happens during this time consists only of slacking, schmoozing, and wasting time), if participated in for longer periods of time, would lose the stigma that it has of being a time of idleness, for the human mind dislikes idleness, and individuals would fill this free time with work and action, therefore rendering this time not very idle after all. Even better, the work done here would be, perhaps, more meaningful, both to the worker and to the world as whole, for in his relaxation, the vacationer might contemplate where he might best apply his vacation-time work. Because it is entirely up to the vacationer, he is most likely to choose a vacation occupation that is most necessary, fulfilling, applicable, relevant, and useful. I do believe that each member of a society, if respectful of the society, and if optimistic as to the society’s potential, has in him a desire to better this society, and to work for the good of all. We need a break from society in order to possess this respect for it, and we also need a break from it in order to use this respect and apply it to whatever work we might do to fill our time. If the respect is great enough, the work will most likely be something that gives back to the said society, and in this way the exchange between individual and society will continue to flourish and be beneficial to both. If, however, the individual does not have a break from society (or “civilization), and if he is unable to find time to step away from it and see any importance that it has in his life, he will come to loathe it with all his might. My logic runs in parallel lines to a basic psychological principle that states that, when given a reward (such as a vacation), the recipient of the reward will gain respect for the person or thing that bestowed the reward upon him (in this case, society). I suggest that our civilization does not do enough in the way of rewarding the individuals that make up its whole being, and as a result these individuals are somewhat ambivalent towards it or even unappreciative of it, and feel no desire to give back to it or improve it, even though it is something that is truly theirs to use and possess and improve. Even worse, perhaps, they seem to take on the attitude that civilization, as though it were a human being in and of itself with emotions and personality all its own, feels entitled to something that each individual must give to it, as if in payment. The individuals, having not had time to reflect on why it might be respected and why it might actually deserve such payment, are not eager to fulfill this assumed entitlement, or even grow spiteful of the fact that Civilization seems to feel entitled, and they, therefore, do the minimum to give back to Civilization, or do nothing (if they can get away with it). It seems that they do not realize that they are unknowingly making the world in which they must dwell a more miserable and less inspiring/fulfilling place to be, which greater increases their desire for those much-too-short-vacations which are not what they should be and do not allow the individuals time to use them for what they really could be used for and certainly not time to gain a respect for that which they are vacationing from. As a result, this cycle continues, and the loathing of civilization continues, and the workers become more begrudging and irritated, and both Civilization and Individual feel that they are not receiving that which they want and that to which they are entitled. The outcome of such a cycle can only be a drab society, perhaps sprinkled with individuals who feel passionately that they must fight to keep it from being drab, yet these individuals also feel intense frustration, for they are surrounded by other individuals who, instead of sharing this passion, look at it as a weakness, or perhaps look at it as a respect for something that does not deserve respect (because it does not give them enough time of their own).
If we are, as we seem to feel, truly in control, why would we build ourselves something that we must run from? Is it simply because we are bored? Are we masochistic by nature, with innate desire to inflict pain on ourselves, because this pain gives us something to react to (and we react more strongly to pain than to joy)? Is the action of reaction the only way in which we feel truly busy or productive or useful?
Here I bring up another possibility. It seems that we build civilization in the image of ourselves, in order to accurately reflect ourselves. Is this because it is our selves that we most love to gaze lovingly upon, but this is not considered something that we should do, so we transfer the torch-bearer of the Self to that thing which is Society? What does it say about our feelings regarding ourselves if we must escape from that which represents us? It seems to say that we feel we must escape from ourselves, and in fact we do seem to feel this way (hence the use of alcohol and drugs and the existence of irresponsibility, tendency toward accusation and finger-pointing, and other means of escapism). Perhaps we intentionally build a civilization that serves as a reflection of our flaws, that we must escape from, so that we can deal with the acceptance of our own flaws in a way that lets us treat these flaws as something very much removed from ourselves. If this is the case, then it seems logical that we should keep doing so, unless it is healthier for us to deal with the recognition of our own flaws in a more personal way, acknowledging their attachment to our selves and acknowledging the fact that faults are our own. But perhaps we would not deal with these faults at all if we did not build ourselves reflections of them to gaze upon and run from. I suppose the danger lies here: the way we perceive ourselves differs from the way that we are in actuality. Because of this, we might build a society in a false representation of ourselves, and therefore our analysis of this society and its errors, and the relation of this society to the self (whether this happens on a conscious or unconscious level) might turn out to be misleading and also counterproductive. Also dangerous seems to be the fact that, since the conscience of society is impaired (as I said above), we tend to focus on the praise of our society. If we are praising a false representation of ourselves, we are being delusional and ignoring issues that must be addressed. However, if we are praising accurate representations of ourselves, this is just as unhealthy, for we are being entirely narcissistic.
If we do, in fact, create civilization in our own image, do we believe ourselves Gods, or like to think of ourselves as Gods? Just as God created Adam in his image, we create cities and systems in ways that seem to reflect ourselves. We seem to worship society, and in turn worship ourselves, and thus we practice idolization on a daily basis, but not simply idolization: idolization of the self. Nothing can be learned by looking only at the self. Since we do not truly understand the nature of society, nor do we like it (as is confirmed by the concept of vacation), we seem to be basing emotions as strong as those of faith on concepts that are unstable, and we seem to be building our lives and goals and heroes upon concepts that are convoluted.
This brings us to another point. It is apparent that vacation itself is often an escape not only from the social and mental aspects of civilization, but also from the physical manifestations of civilization: tall buildings, crowded streets, traffic light, loud noises, and similar entities. That is, we often go escape to nature. Since vacation seems to exist primarily to supply us with that which we are lacking, at least for a short while, it seems that nature must represent all that civilization lacks. If we build civilization in our own image, it seems that we must like to be surrounded by our own image. What if, then, nature represents or reflects some part of the self that we are unable to fully portray in the part of civilization over which we have control and artistic license (this part being our cities and social, political, or economical networks)?
Perhaps this is wrong and the opposite is true: we go to nature because it does not remind us of ourselves. Perhaps being in a place less like the self allows us to more clearly see the essence of the self, for in seeing what we are not we are able to better understand what we are. Perhaps nature serves as a marker which we are able to examine and with which we are able to measure just how much we have deviated from it; how unlike it we have become. This would explain why vacation often leaves us not rested but instead more depressed than prior to the vacation. Does vacation just remind the individual of how unnatural he has become, and how little he is able to relate to the natural world from which he sprung and from which he was born?
There is a different way to interpret our reasons for escaping to nature. Maybe we escape to the wilderness because something in each of us is aware of the narcissism of society and aware of the falseness of society’s portrayal of the self (existing because of the discrepancy between perception of the self and actuality of the self) and subsequently the convolution of this narcissism. If this is true, and if we are aware of this, it seems likely that we might feel the desire to go to nature in order to see a portrayal or the self that is not created by us, or by one of us, and is therefore completely honest (this is if nature is seen as a reflection of the self), or perhaps simply as something other than narcissism: something entirely unrelated to the self (this is if nature is not viewed as a reflection of the self).
Sometimes, we vacation to places that are not actually more natural than the place from which we come, but simply different from it: sometimes different to a very small degree, but just different enough to make us feel as though there has been a change. Taking into account this, and also taking into account our frequent vacationing into nature itself, it appears that the desired destination for vacation is, above all else, any place that is different. This makes sense, for a place that is different allows us to examine the self in a new way, or to perhaps get back in touch with the self. It is similar to the act of viewing a paper cutout of a certain color against a background of another color (or of the same color, if the surroundings were fashioned to represent the cutout). When the color of the background is changed, the cutout is emphasized and altered because of the now existent contrast where previously the contrast was different.
It is difficult to determine whether civilization or nature might better reflect the self. In both, we see ourselves in parallel form. In both, also, we see something that is not us, and this simple perception and the recognition of this dissonance, in a backwards way, also helps us to better understand the self. It must, therefore, be possible to get to know the self better in either the city or the country; in civilization or in nature. It also seems that an important factor in getting to understand the self is just the change of environment (the frequent instances of getting up from the uncomfortable chair and taking a break from its pain). How might the city man’s way of knowing the self differ from the country or forest man’s way of knowing the self? Are these two types of men able to coexist? What of the man who exists in both the city and the country: does this man understand the self better than either the city man or the country man?
If nature does, in fact, reflect man, by an equal degree to that by which civilization reflects man, then it must be concluded that nature is the most accurate reflection of the human race. I say this because nature is something not created by men, and therefore it is not built upon distorted or inaccurate views of the self or, even, overly-prideful or egotistical views of the self which are extremely inaccurate and cause the “reflection” to be something other than that. It becomes less of a reflection or a parallel and more of a foolish portrayal or twisted lie.
Perhaps we can learn more from nature, whether it reflects us or not, because we learn more, about our selves and about the world around us, when we are not simply gazing at our own reflection, no matter how distorted the reflection might be. What can be gained by looking at only what we are already familiar with (the self)? Nature provokes us to do otherwise.

Thus, we are not only active participants in the human race, but also in a long-standing tradition known as escapism, which is perhaps becoming less infrequent and more essential.