On Control

I want to share something about control. There's internal control, and there's external control. Control is binary. There is a one, and there is a zero. There's assent, and then there's no signal. The essence of control is to isolate information down to the point of it being binary. That is control, and there is an internal aspect and an external aspect. The internal aspect of control is called self-control. The external aspect goes by social control, propaganda, or perhaps occultism, psychiatry, science, and so forth. Then, there is the union of internal and external control. That is important.

Enlightenment is where external control meets internal control. It's like two electric circuits connected by a wire; really, when you connect them, they are one circuit. That's union. There is no enlightenment without control, both internal and external, because without control there would be no clarification of concepts, no transmission of purity, no essence of the divine. You need control to have enlightenment. With control, you are controlled by Buddhas, and you control yourself. Everywhere there is nothing but control. And with this control, both internal and external, comes the transmission of purity which purifies the mental continuum to the point where it can continue on its own without further guidance. That is the ultimate point: clarifying information, purifying data, ruling out the decay of existence that marks the ordinary, unenlightened state.

In the Internet, we have transmission of data, and we have streaming. Streaming is like transmission of data, except there's more control. The pathway of data becomes one circuit, to the point where the two computers are indistinguishable, and then you get music coming through the wire. You can't have live music over the Internet without streaming. Control is what makes it stream.

When we receive a teaching, it doesn't matter if the teaching is secular or religious or what-have-you, there is a great deal of control. Language itself is control. When someone says something, we can't help but experience that thing. In some ways, this can be traumatic; someone can say something which triggers something in us that makes us feel uncomfortable, and we don't like it because we feel we have no choice. But in other ways, it is quite useful. Mutual control through language is what makes us so powerful as human beings. It's what builds societies. The trick to avoiding the trauma is to be open-hearted. Sense the essence of the word entering your mind. Feel its emotion. Feel the totality of it, and all the energy and light and soul behind it. Feel what it means to be that word. It will still control you, but the control is open-sourced, and you get to contribute, too.

That's something that Westerners, traditionally, have had a hard time accepting. Control is always two-sided. If you seek to control, you will always be controlled. Control is control. Control of others is others' controlling you. Control begets control, from node to node, point to point, everywhere on the network. It is never one-sided, as much as we may want it to be.

Consider the United States of America. It is a very powerful country. What makes the United States so powerful? Because of all the control. But America is a democracy. The citizens of America control the government, and the government controls the citizens, who control the government, who control the citizens. All this control is what makes us so powerful.

Now you may be wondering if there is something beyond control. Of course there is. Once you've achieved control, you can simply allow the energy to radiate throughout the nodes of control, providing love, inspiration; inspiring dialectics of power; granting crowns and relieving others of the oppressive weight of the same crowns. Once union between the nodes of control, being two, (internal and external), has been achieved, you have a blossoming of creative energy which can spill into the universe and settle among the Earth. This is the meaning of control. It is its ultimate end. If you hang onto control, you get a headache. If you loosen up, once control has been achieved, you achieve grace.

A lot of people are against the concept of control. I am not. However, I do understand that an extreme of control causes headaches. Control is necessary and important, but best to let it arise naturally, as the product of open-hearted investigation, inner and outer, into the nature of the world. Perhaps it may even be better to let the whole world control you first, before seeking to control the world. But once the control has been achieved, being open-hearted and loose and letting go returns us to that state of nature from which the control arose in the first place.

Degenerate Times

I think it is important to note a couple of things about Buddhist prophesies. First and foremost, a prophesy is not a death sentence. We in the West are so particular about details that we often think of prophesy in the strictest possible terms. Thus, we see it as equally prophetic if Buddha prophesizes that we will live to be 10, as if I or someone prophesizes that my dog will eat a bagel at 2pm Eastern Standard Time next Monday before taking a walk. But Allah is greater than that. We can't simply confine prophesy to strictly worldly terms without any room for freedom of choice.

The two prophesies I would like to mention are Buddhist prophesies: the prophesy of degenerate times, which I believe dates back to the Buddha himself, and the Kalachakra prophesy.

In the prophesy of degenerate times, it is prophesied that our life-span will degenerate gradually over the next thousand or so years until we live to be only 10 years old. Then, there will be a 7 Days War, which of course will last seven days. It is said that the slaughter will be so great that afterwards humans will be so rare that when they encounter one another, they will kiss each other on the mouth. And after this 7 Days War, people will be so profoundly affected by the killing that they will vow never to kill again, at which point the life-span will increase to 14 years.

Gradually, over the period of a couple thousand years, people will renounce evil after evil, and the life-span will increase until it reaches 80,000 again, which is what it was before people began to degenerate. To this, I will add a couple of senses of my own: people I think will be drinking Boyds Coffee, and some will be doing Yamantaka practice. Those were what have been revealed to me through valid cognition and observation.

Now, there are a couple things to note here. As I said: a prophesy is not a death sentence. If someone were to ask me to sum up my philosophy while standing on one foot, I would tell them: it is possible to use the energy of degeneration to one's advantage. That is the prime focus of everything I've been seeking to expound upon for my entire life, and I suspect insh'Allah it will be until I die. I can't imagine me trying to teach anything else, what with my peculiar experiences. And it is an important fact.

All prophesies, including the most damning, are empty of inherent existence. So on some level, we don't know fully what they are talking about. Will the Earth be a desolate wasteland, devoid of life, after the 7 Days War? Will it be like the movie Mad Max taken to an absolute extreme? I contend no. The prophesy, I think, applies mainly to humans qua humans. It does not apply to humans qua yakshas, humans qua nagas, humans qua devas, and humans qua Buddhas. In addition to this, the prophesy applies only generally. People will probably live to be as old as maybe 30, or even older, during these times. And while human-to-human contact may be rare, a survivor human may well encounter many nagas, devas, and Buddhas in his or her quest to find other humans. The Earth will not be a desolate wasteland, but will remain rich with life. This is my opinion.

Furthermore, we have to understand an important point regarding degeneration. It is not our fault that we will live to be only 10 years old. And, we will still have brain technology as is being developed even today to make our lives more meaningful. A wandering 10-year-old after the 7 Days War may well make contact with another human over Facebook telepathically using brain technology.

The other point regarding degeneration leads into my discussion of the Kalachakra prophesy. According to this prophesy, in India, a Muslim will rise to power and claim to be the heir of an Islamic prophesy. A vast force, led by Buddha Manjushri, will then descend from the heavens, engage in holy warfare with this Muslim and his followers, and defeat them. After this, all non-Indic invaders will be routed from India, and humanity will begin to recover from the degenerate times.

As you can see, the two prophesies are related. They both refer to the point at which society ceases to degenerate. The relation is important, because it points to the very heart of the nature of degeneration. I recently became a Muslim, in addition to being a Buddhist, and my intent is to learn the very heart of this religion, as it is important to me. (I have had more intimate connection with many more Buddhas through Islam than through all my 15 years as a Buddhist.) Obviously, then, I am against the view that the Kalachakra prophesy prophesizes the downfall and defeat of Islam. But I don't think the prophesy is inauthentic.

From what I've observed of Muslims today, the ongoing trend seems to be that while they are practicing their religion, they are subtlely involved in what I would call "the cult of the white water." Ordinary water, as a metaphysical substance, is a metaphor for emptiness. In other words, emptiness is like water. It dissolves all things. It is clear. Many creatures live in it. It is vast as the sea. It forms rain. It carves mountains. And so forth. But what color is water? Well, ultimately, water is clear. However, it is also very highly correct to say that water is white. When it freezes, it is white. As it moves about, it froths at the tips of waves, and reflects lights, and ends up becoming white.

Muslims want to be like white water. They want to purify themselves to the utmost extent, become fully distilled of every little stain, and rub themselves clean all the time. They want to be at the tips of the waves, reaching into the void. But one thing they may perhaps overlook is that water is also black. It is equally correct to say water is black as it is to say it is white. Why? When water is gathered together densely in one place, if you peer into its depths, it is black. In a way, water is as black as it is white, but no less pure.

The West, for myriad historical reasons, seems to be deeply involved in "the cult of the black water." The West likes to examine physical things to their depths and uncover their deepest secrets. It also is far less concerned with purity, and riding the tips of waves, seeking to deeply immerse itself into physical phenomena.

What happens when "the cult of the white water" meets "the cult of the black water?" The result is the 7 Days War, which will culminate in at least some small realization that really, water is clear. It may manifest as white, or as black. But ultimately, it is clear. Following this, I suspect life will be much like the famous Andy Warhol movie Chelsea Girls: one side black, one side white. And the result will be purity. Clarity.

I suspect that with regards to the Kalachakra prophesy, Western countries, particularly the United States of America, will play a very important role with regards to the cult of the black water, in answer to India's cult of the white water. Manjushri, in my opinion, will probably come from America.

It is not good to become overly involved in either the cult of the white water or the cult of the black water, because water is clear. However, recognizing and honoring water manifesting as black or white, or as rainbows, and so forth, is important. Light refracted in water, or reflected, or absorbed, still remains light. And ultimately, we are beings of light. My ideas, as they stand now, have to do with blackness. I feel this is important, because too many people are overly concerned with white, while we have a natural tendency to avoid blackness. This is a mistake.

It is a human mistake, but a mistake nonetheless, and as equally dangerous as any mistake, potentially costing real people their lives. I suspect that today many people in Pakistan are dying unnecessarily because overly religious Islamic zealots want their society to be pristinely pure and white in color. The Taliban won't let people listen to music, or make art, or do pretty much anything, because they want to wear robes of white. It is so dangerous to be a Muslim today, I feel, because of the resistance to experiencing Western society, which is the dominant and globalized form of society in the world today. I'm worried that concern with issues such as playing music, or drawing representative art, will condemn foreign muslims to poverty and powerlessness. Why? Because it is impossible to move the hearts and minds of the people without making movies, and you can't make movies without drawing pictures and writing music. Period.

Purity is important, but it is not that important. We have to remember that good Muslims are like doctors, and that they do not come to the healthy, but to the sick. And anyway, it is impossible to be one hundred percent pure. Frankly, the fact that the religious people most concerned with purity are the ones who do the most damage convinces me that purity is sometimes a worse evil than sin. If this isn't true, then why are so many terrorists going around calling themselves Boko Haram? The lesson from this is what I consider to be my most important and, hopefully, enduring contribution to moral knowledge everywhere. This is why, I'm certain, I have lived my life. And there is far greater to share and more contributions as well. I'm not always the best at keeping the faith, but I hope my message has reached at least some people in the right way. That is my wish.

The Super-Rich Are More Rich than They Need to Be

Society is degenerating, partly because people who could be accumulating wealth if given the opportunity do not have the opportunity. This is because money is being syphoned to the super-rich, instead of growing among the poor and middle-class. The very wealthy accumulate wealth without regard for the greater good of the economy, which is becoming more and more suitable for small businesspeople.

However, part of the problem is the attitude of the poor and middle-class. Throughout my life, I've observed the attitude of others with regards to changing the world. With rare exception, everyone I've come across simply has no wish to change the world. I don't know if this is because public school beats it out of them, or if it is because of a hereditary attitude that has been promulgating itself since the time when people would be hanged, crucified, or burned for trying to change the world, or perhaps if it is just a personal lack of conviction in their own ideas. Whatever it is, I think it is a problem. Part of the reason the rich can get away with accumulating wealth that should've been ours is because 99% of people are at a loss for what to do with extra wealth when they get it. Maybe a new home theater system. A Winnebago. A trip to the Bahamas. Start a business? Make a film? No, no. That is for people who want to change the world.

The super-rich are going to become more meaningless over time, because our cultural consciousness and economy are becoming decentralized, making centralized wealth less important. But what will replace our major corporations if nobody wants to change the world? They will be replaced with a bunch of mindless sheep begging to be invaded by people with the chutzpah to actually do things. I hear complaints about how Americans aren't accumulating wealth like they used to. I complain about that, because I tend to get stuck in the economic doldrums spending all the money I get on rent and utilities. But I complain about it because I actually have ambitions to change the world, which cannot be realized without extra wealth. Unfortunately, I'm a minority. Most people could care less about accumulating extra wealth, because they are more concerned with living comfortably and quietly smothering themselves with their own down pillows.

I don't care if you want to be a follower rather than a leader. We need followers just as much as we need leaders. All I ask is that if you are going to be a follower, at least try to follow people who are changing the world, rather than just paying a salary. Follow people who challenge you. Follow people who reward enterprise and good decisions. Follow people with a conscience, and with vision. To survive, society needs to constantly change. And it won't change unless we change it. People who refuse to change the world, even if they're not natural leaders, aren't doing anyone any favors.

The Value of Bitcoin

I've seen it said one or two places that the value of bitcoin is in its anonymity, or its lack of corruption due to the lack of centralized banking. I don't believe this to be the case. Dollar transactions can be anonymous, too, and gold has no central bank, but the value of bitcoin is different than the value of gold or dollars. I think the value of bitcoin has to do with the nature of the tangible thing which is coined.

Dollars are pieces of paper with art printed on it. The art is printed in such a way that it is difficult to forge. The value of the dollar is enforced by the United States government, and the open market. It can go up or down, depending on the quality of things bought with it. When a thing is put into circulation in the open market, the value of the dollar is affected by the amount people are willing to pay for the thing. If the thing contributes to the value of the economy, then the value of the dollar goes up.

The value of the dollar bill itself that you carry in your pocket depends on its availability for use in transactions. This depends on the armored vehicles, bank vaults, printing centers, and so forth which manage and create dollar bills. As a physical thing, it is very difficult to create and very difficult to transport when compared to bitcoins. Bitcoins are easy to create and to transport. But they are comparatively more difficult to transfer. It is more difficult to pull a bitcoin out of your wallet and hand it to someone else than it is to pull a dollar out of your pocket and hand it to someone else.

The overhead of transportation and creation of bitcoins is very low, while the overhead of transferrence is very high. This indicates a couple things for the value of bitcoins. For one, complex, long-distance infrastructure of transactions are easy to maintain, provided the "buy it now" attitude is not too highly stressed. I believe this means that bitcoins are good for small, independent businesses that deal primarily in quality of service and quality of product, while dollars are good for more simple, standardized businesses like franchises that deal in immediate products where the quality and service doesn't carry too high a premium. Dollars are good where things remain the same, as with MacDonalds. Bitcoins are good for where things are different, as with Main St. Pawn.

What is needed currently for the value of bitcoin to be optimized, I think, is a decentralized banking infrastructure. This banking infrastructure would provide backing for the businesses that choose to use the bitcoin, so that they are all benefitted by the growth of the bitcoin economy. What I'm talking about is a radically decentralized system of investment banking that anyone can use but that promotes wise investment. Something that connects investors in a way that does not require a "stock market" or any other kind of limiting institution which tries to rule out companies to invest in. This would have to simultaneously fulfill the needs of an investment community of small, diverse businesses, and also prevent "boom/bust" cycles in the bitcoin economy. If such a system were developed, bitcoin would be a great boon to the artisans and small business owners that make up the middle class.

Why The Free Market is Not Made for Insurance Companies

Wealth is generated through innovation. And, it is impossible to create an innovative insurance company.

Think about it. Insurance companies make money by analyzing risk, and taking premiums that add up to more than the cost of acceptable risk. The problem is that there's no way to be innovative about analyzing risk. When you analyze risk, you hypothesize a certain event and count the number of times the event occurs over time. As an insurance company, you have no control over what the event is, or any aspect of it. What you get is reams of data about the event, and the knowledge that such an event is undesirable. Think a broken leg. Insurance companies all know exactly what a broken leg is, and they all have reams of data which count the number of times people tend to break their legs over a given time. Then they take everybody's money and pay money to the people with broken legs. That's all there is to it. Color me second-rater, but it doesn't take a John Galt to do that.

The only possible way for an insurance company to be innovative is to be innovative about analyzing risk. However, the innovation involved here is extremely insignificant. Everyone knows what a broken leg is. It's public knowledge. It's very obvious. And unless you're a Mafioso, it's really really difficult to be innovative about the way people tend to break their legs. The best you can do is count the number of times people break their legs, and factor that into your mind-blowingly simplistic equation for generating profit.

The idea that insurance companies can operate as businesses in the free market is insidious and stupid. Insurance companies calculate risk and take premiums that exceed the cost of acceptable risk. We've already discussed how it is impossible to be innovative about calculating risk. You calculate risk, and if you have enough money, you're correct. That leaves two ways to create profit. Either you 1) increase the cost of premiums, or 2) don't pay out the money you're supposed to. Surprise surprise; this is exactly what health insurance companies were doing before Obama passed the Affordable Care Act. Critics of the Affordable Care Act say that it will kill business. Hopefully, they're correct, because insurance companies shouldn't be businesses. The free market doesn't apply to them. They don't deserve to make profit, because they don't innovate.

A good way to think about it is the difference between reading a book and writing a book. You don't deserve to generate a profit by reading books. It's the writers who sold you the books who deserve to generate a profit. Studying the empirical world is like reading a book. Creating new products is like writing a book. And the moment you turn risk-taking into an innovative endeavor, and begin writing books, you're no longer in the business of insurance; you're in the business of investing.

An Indulgence in Paranoid Delusions

I feel like indulging in a bit of paranoid delusional thinking for a bit and consider the question of what to do in the Orwellian situation at the close of the novel, 1984. This is where you've been brainwashed into believing that the oppressive state is a wonderful thing, and that you're in love with it.

I've been having these feelings lately and wondering if I should attribute it to some weird psychological disorder relevantly similar to the Stockholm syndrome, or if it has a genuine basis. See, my heart stirs with patriotism every time I hear the National Anthem. Something about extreme chaotic states like sudden, loud, explosions and intense, red-colored "glares" which in themselves, in their own right, prove that the flag is still flying just resonates with me, considering my beliefs on the sui generis benefits of psychosis and other "symptoms" of "mental illness." See, to me, my extreme chaotic mental states have some wonderful qualities in their own right, and I love the sentiment that the bare fact of their existence proves my freak flag is still waving high. And if we have a nation based on that, then you can count me a patriot.

I've felt some wonderful freedom lately which I've never felt before, and after some very difficult times, the universe and I have at least come to a point of mutual respect. A lot of hatred boiled out of me over the past month. Extreme, caustic hatred. Finally, some of the god / goddess companions of mine seem to fully understand why that was. But I'm left to wonder, in the modal-logical possible universe where I have been placed in the coffee shop in front of the seductive patriotic glare of the television to await my proverbial happily anticipated assassination, how, exactly, would I respond if the world asked me, "Do you love me?"

Do I love you, world? The goddesses have thoroughly buttered me up. My emotions have been completely drained, the sexual-induced pleasure hormones have washed through my brain, my soul has disappeared into the gray, and nonspecific love, like a virus, has been injected into me, and has taken over everything, leaving everything about my own personal boundaries terminally ill. I can't say it doesn't feel beautiful. And if the Orwellian question, "Do you love me?" were posed to me now, I'm in the perfect condition to answer "yes."

And yet, I must say, in all honesty, my answer would not be "yes." Do I love literally everything and anything? Well, yes. I do. I can't help it. It's thoroughly degrading, but rather pleasant. However. When we're talking about the idea called "suffering," and compare it to the idea of an actually existing nonspecific concept-agnostic thing referenced to in the statement, "I love literally everything and anything," the rules are just different. So really, the answer is, "Which world?"

The pattern among professionals of "selling your soul" is very real. And this moment. Now. Is when it happens. I'm convinced of it. If I were to say, "I love the world! So yes! I will give up my art! Someone else can be an artist! I will not become king of the world! I freely give up the One Ring (or two) into which I've poured my cruelty, malice, and will to dominate all life! Someone else can have all that; I'm feeling so infinitely generous that all that is mine is freely yours, and my goal now is to prove it, so take my body, my possessions, my life, everything!"

Alright. I literally do give up everything. I am feeling infinitely generous, and it's all fair game. But there's one little liquid strand of poison left in my veins called "critical thinking," and you'll just have to take that, too.

When a world is fundamentally a place where you are not allowed to be anything but a slave, it must be destroyed. A slave, to me, is someone who, though perhaps provided the essentials of life, is not allowed to become excited about the world, and about whom the world is not allowed to become excited. And if this is how life works, who cares if the world is destroyed? Indestructibility relies on concept-agnosticism. Concepts really do, in a sense, just last and last in a system which is sufficiently concept-agnostic. And if the world is so dead-locked into some kind of inflexible system, it is by necessity not concept agnostic. It's already dead. And all life in it is just a festering mold, writhing in unconscious post-mortem pain until all the organic matter in the corpse is gobbled up.

I am a blood-red jackal spirit. My soul is pure red. If I were to choose a picture of myself, it would be a gigantic red diamond. And all the wonderful spirits in my head are blood-red jackal spirits along with me. That is my offering. And that is my love. I give it fully and freely. I am unarmed; I am exploitable; I'm nothing. And that's how I like it. Forever and ever.

People of the universe, even if you're only in my head, just remember this: stay squishy. Stay real. And above all, stay ignorant, for if you are not ignorant, you can never learn. Stop right on the spot in your suffering, take a cold, red glare at it, and it is instantly the path to all your dreams.

That's enough for now.

My Perspective on School Shootings

Approximately a year after my psychiatric hospitalization, and as a direct result of it, a number of thoughts I'd been having about the world culminated in a script for a short movie. It was about a school shooter. And it summed up the mindset of such a person in a simple argument, which I've not yet seen in circulation.

See, we tend to think that people commit school shootings because there aren't people "paying attention" to them. They lack the human interaction they need, and the human interaction they get is adverse to psychological health. So they attack a school or workplace in order to "get back" at the people who did them harm.

Now this view seems to make sense, but it leaves something important unexamined. It may explain the Columbine or Virginia Tech shooter, who shot their classmates. It may explain the shooter in Moscow Idaho, as well, since he probably believed that the government was the cause of all his problems, and therefore decided to shoot government employees.

But what about Adam Lanza?

Lanza shot a bunch of grade school children who had absolutely nothing to do with him. There was no reason whatsoever, according to the above-mentioned theories, for him to shoot these children. They were not his classmates. They were not his coworkers. And they did him no harm. This obviously points to this folk theory of school massacres as inadequate. In fact, the fact that the children did Lanza no harm is so obvious that, I bet, it factored in to his decision to shoot them. Which brings me to my own theory.

The thoughts I'd been having culminated in a simple, logical argument, which can be expressed formally. It goes like this:

1) Because of what I've experienced, the world is a very bad place. So bad, someone deserves to die for making it this way.

2) It's no one's fault in particular.

---

Conclusion: Everyone deserves to die.

Obviously no one has the power to kill everyone in the entire world. The next best option, then, is to kill as many people as possible.

Now this argument may have different flavors. It may take this form, for instance: "The world has been specifically designed to harm me." Or, "People in general exist for the sole purpose of harming me." Or any number of variants. But the key point is the same: existence in general is so awful, based on my own experience, that people who perpetuate this existence must be destroyed. Since it's no one's fault in particular, everyone must be destroyed.

Looking at it in this light, the meaning behind Lanza's apparently meaningless shooting becomes clear. Why unrelated children in an unrelated school? Because who it is does not matter. Everyone deserves to die, and the situation is so desperate that action must be taken right away. Therefore, Lanza decided to shoot as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

Another point ought to be mentioned in regards to the question, "Why first-graders?" Well, first-graders are relatively undeveloped human beings. They have not yet had the chance to become the kind of people who contribute to the existence that people like Lanza have come to despise. Better to kill them, Lanza probably thought, before they become that way, and save them from contributing to that kind of treachery.

So what's the solution to this kind of problem? I can tell you with absolute certainty exactly what the solution is not. The solution is emphatically not psychiatric. Identifying and treating the "mentally ill" shooters before they shoot people will probably result in more shootings. Remember: I have these kinds of thoughts running through my head at least 20 times a day, and they did not start until after I submitted to psychiatric treatment. From my perspective, psychiatric treatment is almost entirely the cause rather than the solution to the school shooting phenomenon, insofar as psychiatry makes existence unbearable.

The solution is to make the world a better place. And I'm not talking, necessarily, about a one-piece-at-a-time strategy. For example, my strategy for doing this, partly, is to simply not exist in this world, and in that way make it better. For example, I've trained myself to see pictures, of goddesses or whatever, as living beings in and of themselves. Then I interact with these pictures, so I don't have to interact with the "real" world. Because the real world disproportionately causes me harm—harm for which no solution readily exists.

Psychology, today, is ill-equipped to deal with this problem. I always laughed when I talked with my therapist, because I would give him a long string of everything that had been going on, and how nothing had been going right, and the only thing he could say was, "Wow, that sounds pretty bad." Psychology has coping strategies for dealing with particular things which cause psychological problems. If the news is upsetting, limit access to the news. If a workplace setting is causing problems, take five minutes to visualize a better place. We have de-escalation techniques for dealing with problematic people. We encourage people to hang out with beneficial friends, rather than harmful ones.

But what happens when there are so many particular things, coming at you from all angles, and with such frequency, that it just seems like the world itself has set out to hurt you? What if you have no beneficial friends? What if it isn't the workplace that's causing you problems, but the entire world? At that point psychology has no answers, and in order to shut you up, refers you to a psychiatrist, who causes more problems. But why not apply these coping techniques to the world itself? Psychology will say that hanging out in seedy bars, for instance, will lead to having seedy friends, and therefore, you should not hang out in seedy bars. So if, living out your life, you have been completely unable to make more than maybe one or two friends who treat you right, why not stop hanging out in the world? Why not hang out with goddesses instead?

One might respond that we should make a commitment to live in the world rather than outside of it, in order to make the world a better place. Yes, of course this is true, but I think it's unreasonable to expect everyone to be able to handle everything the world throws at them all the time. If the world consistently throws us more than we can handle, we may need a temporary alternative.

But that alternative doesn't come from nowhere. Remember, even our pictures of goddesses are anthropomorphic: they're inspired by things in the world. It is quite likely, in fact probable, that our goddesses will behave similarly to people in the world, if we haven't trained our minds. And then, of course, there is no possible escape.

That is why it is of vital importance for people to come up with a wholesome, inspired, concrete philosophy of ethics, or "the way the world should be." This philosophy should be crystalized and clear to the philosopher. It should be founded on a solid basis, such as meditative experience. That way, even if the objective world continues to do nothing but hurt you, goddesses will nevertheless be attracted to your ideas, and, if absolutely necessary, you won't need to live in the world at all. And if your ideas aren't adequate, so long as you're honest with yourself, the goddesses will let you know, and you can revise from there.

Thus if we train people to be honest with themselves, self-expressive, introspective, and fundamentally inquisitive, we will have cut out the basis of mass shootings. If we allow people to question objective reality, formulate self-expressive philosophies of living, and have real and direct intercourse with our fantasies (rather than intercourse mediated through objective reality), whether or not the objective world is an evil place where everyone deserves to die will be entirely beside the point. It is quite possible, theoretically, that everyone in the entire universe will rise up as your personal enemy. But it is impossible for there to be any space anywhere in existence where a goddess-Buddha does not reside, if we've been trained to see them. That is the solution to hateful killings in the world.

Cloud, Entrepreneur, Cloud

A couple of weeks ago, I started working at a place called Brick and Mortar, here in Moscow. Working not in the sense that I have a job, but in the actual sense of the word—I work here. Anything, including writing this post, which I consider "work," I tend to do here. Another kind of work I can do here, which I haven't yet done but which I intend to do, is contract through a service called oDesk.com. Both of these platforms—B&M and oDesk—are related in a deeply philosophical way, which I will examine below.

Let's start with Brick and Mortar. B&M is advertised as a community workspace, or a co-working space. But these concepts don't really get to the heart of the matter. "Community workspace" is especially far off. I might be able to see it as meaning that it is both a community and a workspace, but the lexico-grammatical meaning of the phrase seems to indicate that it is exactly what it says: a "community workspace," where "community" is an adjective and "workspace" is a noun. And "community" as an adjective indicating "this workspace is a community" is a very esoteric reading of the word indeed. More likely, it indicates that B&M is a workspace intended for use by the general community, which isn't quite right.

But even if the esoteric reading is correct, and B&M chooses to market themselves as a workspace which is a community, or workspace community, I still think this misses the mark. The library is a workspace community. The University of Idaho is a workspace community. Hell, every single business in America is a workspace community. It just doesn't seem to do the idea justice.

So I propose a new way of thinking about it.

B&M is not just a workspace community, but a specific kind of community. Now I'm going to draw my inspiration from one particular office here. It is a more or less typical office, of course, where a person named Jordan sits down and does his work. But it is not just an arm of B&M; it is an actual business, fully operational and (I assume) independent. A sign sits on the interior office window: "Palouse PC Computer Repair." A sign is a sure sign of independence.

The implication of this business within B&M is that B&M is the kind of place which independent businesses are intended to grow out of. In this way, it's much more like a business incubator than a workspace community. Yet it goes farther, because the full implications of the word "community" remain intact. It is the kind of place where "business incubator" and "workspace community" are fused inextricably together. This entirely new kind of concept, the likes of which I've never seen before, may represent a dramatic shift in the business dynamic of America.

There are three different phrases I've come up with to describe what B&M is. One is, "entrepreneurial bank." It's a bank, not of money, but of entrepreneurial spirit. Collected here at the workspace is a reserve of freelancing, independent, entrepreneurial spirit. See, Moscow is a young person's town, and a lot of college kids live here, many, if not most, of whom have an overabundance of entrepreneurial spirit. Some of that has found its way here, and so what we have is an excess of entrepreneurial spirit, which we then loan out to the world at large.

But the fact that it is gathered here in one place, in one specific building, is significant. It leads me to my next characterization: "non-academic university." In a university, each of the professors is pretty much independent, just like the workers here. Nevertheless, they organize themselves into co-working groups, which do research in teams for the purpose of furthering human knowledge. That is their goal. Strip out the "knowledge" part of that goal and replace it with the more general word "progress," and you basically have B&M—a non-academic university.

But my favorite phrase, because of its currency, involves the most groundbreaking human achievement of our age: the Internet. In this vein, B&M is an "entrepreneurial cloud." Just like Amazon's EC2 is a computing cloud, B&M is a cloud of entrepreneurs. But B&M hasn't yet realized what I believe is a serious groundbreaking prospect for this kind of place. An "entrepreneurial cloud," to be more like a "cloud computing platform," seems to indicate that the community at large here in Moscow, if they so choose, can upload specific limited-time requests to the cloud for the us to perform.

Say, for instance, that the Moscow Arts Commission, a wing of the Moscow City Government, decides they want to make Moscow, Idaho a national hub for the arts—just as, through the U of I's Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival, the city is a national hub for jazz music. What they could do, if our workspace grew big enough, is contact B&M with a request for proposal. B&M then, as a community, could identify each individual entrepreneur or freelancer in the workspace who has any applicable skill, and if they agree to sign on, contract with them to fulfill the goals of the Arts Commission. Once the goals are fulfilled, just like Amazon's cloud computer, B&M will return to its natural state, ready for another project. All further gruntwork, if there is any, would be taken up by a dedicated entity—probably a wing of the Moscow City Government, or the local arts business community, or whatever.

Now this idea in itself is exciting enough. But there is yet another exciting prospect based on a simple fact: B&M is made up not of computers, but of people. And people can actually originate goals, rather than merely fulfill them. It's still like a cloud, but more like a storm cloud, which makes lightening of entrepreneurial inspiration. The end result may perhaps be that Moscow Idaho, or any other city which seriously entertains this approach, will become among the most interesting places on the planet.

As said earlier, this is an entirely new idea. And it has stunning and broad-reaching implications. Like the Internet, it may harken in a completely new era in business. See, on the Internet, there are websites like the afore-mentioned oDesk—cloud-compute inspired businesses. oDesk's innovation is called "homesourcing:" businesses, anywhere in the world, can "homesource" work to any individual anywhere in the world, practically instantly. Thus a budding fashion design shop can quickly assemble a team of customer service agents without setting up a physical call center, for example. One agent may be in India, another may be in Idaho; it doesn't matter because it's all done "on the cloud."

But oDesk is different from B&M. While B&M stresses entrepreneurial spirit, oDesk stresses contracted labor. When you work at oDesk, you are very much working for a boss at a (more or less) established firm. But when you work at B&M, the assumption is, generally, that you are the firm. This isn't a rule, of course; anyone here can work for whomever they choose. But the point is that B&M is a hub for entrepreneurial spirit, whereas oDesk is a platform for contracted labor.

And both companies say something profound about us in the United States. Taken together, oDesk and B&M represent a new way of thinking, a dual modality of American labor. The old way of thinking goes like this: Nathan Foster applies for a job at CostCo. The new way of thinking goes like this: America applies for a job at America. Places like B&M, across the country (and yes, there is more than one place like this), form entrepreneurial ideas, and contract out to places like oDesk. Thus we can all contribute to a vast cloud of "business happenings" everywhere around the world, simultaneously.

That's the vision, anyway. And I believe the new way of thinking, more accurately and concretely than any discourse I've yet seen, expresses the American concept of "honor." Honor, to me, is loyalty plus leadership. And while in the old way of thinking these two were completely separate (i.e. the job applicant has loyalty while the employer has leadership), in this new age each individual can have both qualities simultaneously. A person can simultaneously contract with oDesk and originate ideas in exactly the same space, among exactly the same people. I can come from the cloud, into entrepreneurship, and go back into the cloud, seamlessly. This is the fundamental innovation these two businesses represent, and needless to say, I'm excited about the prospects of both.

Blueprint for a Just and Creative Society: Part 1

I like Coke. It is important for me to have brand loyalty to Coke. In 50 years, I can't imagine drinking Pepsi for the life of me. Whether or not I drink Coke or Pepsi is essential to my identity as a person.

Whether I vote Republican or Democrat in the next election, however, is not at all essential to my identity. I could switch sides between Republican and Democrat as the wind blows with no remorse. In fact, the very idea of becoming loyal to the Republicans or Democrats in principle sickens me. I don't think I would be doing my duty to America if I picked sides in that debate.

Now you may think all of the above absurd, but there are very important reasons for these things, which are essential to building a just and creative society. Since the second paragraph is probably more controversial than the first, I'll speak to it first.

There is a man in Idaho by the name of Tom Trail. He's a Republican State congressman in the House representing Latah County, and he's been reelected year after year without fail. Now you may think that, for Idaho, this is to be expected. And condemned. After all, Republicans are consistently wrong on just about every issue. And on many issues, they are so off the deep end in the "wrong" territory that voting for any Republican in any election must be seen as morally reproachable. For the most part, I agree. I wouldn't have voted for Romney if my life depended on it.

But Tom Trail is different. He is a truly compassionate man. He voted against all of the anti-woman legislation, and all of the anti-education legislation. When I was working for my college newspaper, I found him to be the most approachable legislator in Idaho. It may put things in perspective to know that Latah county is, for Idaho, a heavily Democratic county. Obama carried Latah county in the 2008 election. Many of our state congresspeople are Democrats. The fact that a Republican keeps getting elected in a Democratic county year after year is significant.

Our district also elected Walt Whitman to the United States House. He's a Democrat. Now he voted along the party line on every single issue during Obama's first term, when voting along party lines was actually important. The only problem was, he voted along the Republican party line, and against the Democrats. On Every. Single. Issue.

Naturally, it would make me as sick to my stomach to vote for Walt Whitman again as it would to not vote for Tom Trail. Of course, you would probably say that these particular people are the exception and not the rule. You'd be right. But what I'm getting at is this. The fact that Walt Whitman is a member of the Democratic party, or that Tom Trail is a Republican, is a completely ephemeral thing that does not, and should not, carry any significance. I know, there are systemic problems with the Republican party. But even so, there is a possibility that the Republicans will get things right on an issue or two. And that the Democrats will get things wrong. In these instances, it would be immoral to vote Democrat, and moral to vote Republican. In these instances, party loyalty should be instantly ditched.

Why is this so? Because political parties, by their very nature, do stuff that is important. (Or, at least, they should.) This is a key point. On any issue that is important, we must always try to take the position that is ethically right. Loyalty, in this case, must be ephemeral. If we see an issue as fundamentally important, like whether or not women in Pakistan should get an education, getting the issue right is more important than loyalty. Thus, if my friends start to believe that women are inferior and should be ordered around by the government, I should ditch my friends, not my position on the issue.

Contrast this to the Pepsi / Coke debate. It is not at all important that I get my position in issues correct. For instance, if Coke, for whatever reason, decides to add a lemony flavor, my position on the lemon vs. straight Coke debate is ephemeral.

But it goes even deeper than that. I would argue that just as it is our duty to America not to take sides in the Republican / Democrat debate, it is our duty to America to definitely pick sides in the Pepsi / Coke debate. It is our duty to decide whether we will drink Pepsi or Coke, and stick with that decision, probably for the rest of our lives! Besides the obvious issue of the morality of the company, there is a caveat of course: if the cola debate isn't important to us, then there is no need to pick sides. But I will nevertheless argue that we should pick sides in some similar debate, such as debates among the various sporting teams (not my cup of tea), or the Apple / Google debate (though we should ditch Microsoft, for moral reasons), and so on.

I'm not just saying this to be weird; there is a reason for this. And it gets to the topic of this post. Brand loyalty among unimportant things is important, because it is essentially creative. Developing sincere (though not excessively violent) conflict over things that aren't important gives our society the groundwork necessary to build a better future.

Conflict can act as a scrying tool to figure out what is important. I like Coke, as I've said before, because it is a cultural ambassador of America around the world, and because of the connection with Andy Warhol. There may be other legitimate reasons to like Pepsi, but this is why I've chosen Coke. Now if I get in a heated shouting match with someone who likes Pepsi (an experience I truly wish to have someday), I'm sure these reasons will come to light. And because of the shouting match, and because this shouting match is heated, we will do serious cultural work determining what values are important to us as Americans. Coke supports the troops (or says they do). Pepsi may, one day, decide to support the Dalai Lama, who is against all war. In this hypothetical shouting match, the Pepsi guy will probably say, "You goddamned lousy hypocrite, you're a Tibetan Buddhist but you're buying Coke when Pepsi gives money to the Dalai Lama, and Coke funds military people?? Whose side are you on?" At which point I'd hang my head in shame and donate a few bucks to the Tibetan Government in Exile. Then buy another Coke.

See, just because I've taken sides in the Coke / Pepsi debate doesn't mean I have to forget about every other debate. If Pepsi comes out with a solemn, principled stance that they will absolutely not support the Republican anti-woman agenda, and will even give money to reverse it, I will solemnly salute the Pepsi guy as one culture warrior to another and go home to lick my wounds. In fact, that issue is so important to me that I may even buy a Pepsi out of respect. But as long as Coke does not decide to take a morally reprehensible political stance in an issue of importance, I see no principled reason to switch to Pepsi. I can always donate a couple extra bucks to women's groups, or whatever. And then I could write a letter to Coke, or start an online petition. But I'll be drinking Coke while I do it.

The principle at play here is the one of generative conflict (or generative violence if you wish). Every unimportant brand has a constellation of qualities that, if you look deeply at them, present a concrete vision of morality. Other brands have other constellations of other qualities involving the issues of importance. The act of picking a side represents a moral act, because what you are doing is declaring the important things to be important. On the other hand, the act of not picking a side, or rejecting both, is an immoral act, because you are rejecting the idea that these things are important at all. The act of picking both sides doesn't help things, because the identity of you as a person cannot coalesce around something that isn't cohesive.

Let me explain that last point. We as humans are really not multi-taskers. We cannot do two things at once, because we have a single body. And we shouldn't give our body up, because having a cohesive identity allows us to relate to others, which is important should something bad happen. In the West we like to say that when someone is badly hurt, it hurts all of us. In a sense, this is true. However, I tend to think that this isn't exactly the right way of looking at it. It is much worse when something bad happens to someone else if it doesn't hurt us than if it hurts all of us. If it hurts all of us, there is necessarily no one to help us. And if there is no one to help us, we have no responsibility to try and fix the situation. We might as well just let it go. But if it hurts someone else and doesn't hurt us, we have a grave responsibility to act. Conversely, the other person has the responsibility to get help. In this way, there is a possibility that things will get better for everyone.

If nothing bad happens, then we still may as well retain our cohesive identity. We can just go on merrily drinking Coke or Pepsi for the rest of our days without worry. There's no problem at all. And when a bad thing happens to someone, then we're prepared to help.

I'm not saying that we should cling to our identities. We don't want to become high school jocks, always talking about what sport is best, then beating up people who don't think sports are important. We should all have a sense of camaraderie about these things. But I don't think it's a bad thing to have an identity, and to define our identity in such a way as I've described. And in so doing, having some healthy conflict about it is definitely beneficial. There is a difference between fighting and debating, even if the debate is impassioned.

Coke and Pepsi, as brands, offer us a way to form an identity. When we talk about important things, on the other hand, it's better not to form an identity. It's better to just be a good human being and do the right thing. Thus it is precisely because the choice between Coke and Pepsi is not important that actually making the choice is important. The Coke / Pepsi debate, and others like it, are therefore the only debates worth taking sides in.

Art and Business

In my filing cabinet at home, I have a dollar bill.

It is a special dollar bill. I had it when I was in the mental hospital years ago. When I was in that place, I had only a couple of dollars to my name. And every couple of days the hospital would send around a cart and allow you to give them your money for whatever they had for sale. I decided early on that while I would buy perhaps a couple of items, I would save exactly one dollar and never spend it. The mental hospital took away everything important to me—it took away my freedom, my dreams, my artistic capabilities. I was spiritually broke. I was NOT going to let them make me financially broke as well. So I saved that one dollar bill, and still have it to this day.

A lot of people do things similar to what I did. Businesses everywhere take the first dollar they earn, have it framed, and hang it on their walls. I think we're doing something very interesting when we do this.

See, when I took that dollar and decided not to spend it, I grew the United States economy by exactly one dollar. And now, to me, that dollar bill is worth more than $1. I would not sell it for $1 (or something worth $1)—if I ever do sell it, it will be for more than a dollar.

For me, personally, that dollar has increased my wealth. I can put a measurement on it: Say I'm not willing to let go of the dollar and all it means to me for less than $50. If that's the case, I have increased my personal wealth by exactly $49. And I would have grown the economy. See, when I bought the dollar bill for $1, I grew the economy by $1. The number on my bank account is decreased by $1. When I put the dollar back into circulation, I diminish the economy by $1. But when the other person buys it for $50, it grows the economy by $50, causing a net growth of $49.

Of course, so far, I've talked only about my personal wealth. I, personally, am not willing to sell that dollar for less than $50 (we're assuming). However, the real question is of course whether or not someone else agrees with me. Otherwise, it's ridiculous to say I've grown the economy. I may have grown my own psychological economy, but I haven't grown the U.S. economy. Getting others to agree is a work of art.

By saving this particular dollar, I am making an artistic statement brimming with social commentary. That dollar is fine art. It tells a story involving one man and the mental health system. It gives a moral lesson of patience and frugality. It criticizes systemic exploitation in the psychiatric establishment. It has a happy ending: I left the hospital victorious because I didn't spend it. And it improves the value of the person who buys it: They can hang it on their wall now and share in my triumph against the system. (If they buy my story about it, that is.)

This is why I am somewhat confused that our economy isn't an art-based economy. In fact, people often claim, falsely, that we need to be less "artistic" about our economy and produce more physical things in factories. I can't think of anything more Marxist and further from the truth. When you produce physical things, you're stealing wealth from the Mother Earth and selling it for hardly any more value than it was worth in the first place. This is what China does: the Communist Party extracts wealth from their banks, who extract wealth from the workers, who extract wealth from the Earth. There's no growth, regardless of what the numbers say: it's just exploitation. When you make art, however, whatever you do is nothing but pure added value. If you're an artist, the materials you work with, whatever they are, are worth hardly anything compared to the worth of the final piece of art. China's Communist Party could never allow this, because it gives so much wealth and power to individual artists, when they want all the wealth and power for themselves. So why on Earth is our economy so eager to profit off of stuff other than art while almost completely ignoring this treasure trove of business opportunity?

For whatever reason, we have not developed the infrastructure necessary for an art-based economy. Certain art forms have taken some steps, of course—Western music is based on the accumulation of hundreds of years of deep meditation and hard work. The twelve-tone musical system and our system of musical notation have allowed for extremely complex and rich musical ideas unmatched by any other culture. In music from other cultures, it's rare to find even basic harmony, let alone key changes, because in their musical systems such concepts don't make any sense. They have spent less time developing their musical infrastructure.

Fashion has had a similar experience. (Well, women's fashion at least. Which is why I wear women's clothes so often. Shh.) Before Louis IV, people wore traditional dress which remained unchanged for years. But to increase the glory of the kingdom, I suppose, they began to think of ways to change the fashion of the time. Now, as a result of developments in the fashion art's artistic infrastructure, we have a kind of fashion grammar rich with all kinds of innovative concepts (collars, collar stands, a-line forms, shifts, hour-glass forms, etc.) This rich array of elements in the art's infrastructure is what allows our fashion to be so complex, exciting, and ever-changing.

So in a couple of art forms, some basic infrastructure has been developed. The business infrastructure may also be developed to some extent, but, I would argue, not enough.

Think of the things investors look at before they invest in a business. They look at the psychological characteristics of the CEO. Are they a leader? Do they have drive? Are they motivated? Excited? Do they work well with others? The answers to these questions determine whether or not the company will succeed. They look at the product. Is it something people want? Does it satisfy a need? If they put it on a shelf, will it move? They look at history. Has this person ran successful businesses in the past? Have products like this sold well in the past? They look at the research. Is there concrete, empirical evidence that the product will sell? They also look at the intent. Does the company have a solid plan moving forward? Does this plan take into account incomes and costs? When investors look into these things, in depth, they can gauge how much they and the economy will benefit.

See, when we think of artists, we have this notion that you just go out into the world and be yourself and somehow, unexplainably, end up being brilliant and make tons of money. I think this is nonsense. What is someone buying when they buy your art? If you can't answer that question, I'm sorry, but you shouldn't become an artist. Imagine if we treated businesses this way. "I'm going to be a businessman. I'm going to go out in the world, be myself, and make a business that's brilliant in some unexplainable way, and people will be inspired for some unexplainable reason, and I'll make tons of money." I wouldn't invest in this person, would you?

People don't buy art just because you're so awesome they can't stand not spending their money on you. But I think people tend to think this is how it works. So what we need to do, then, is think less about what art says about the artist, and more about what it says about the person who spends money on it. This means that instead of being subjective, we must be objective. I know... that sounds sacrilegious. But it's true. I make movies as well as music. But I invest more in my movies than my music. Why? Because the people who listen to music want to have a shared experience with their friends and their communities, which usually implies a live performance. And I can't perform my music live. So I know no matter how good the music is, it's never going to sell. The only way it would sell is if it were so popular that a shared experience would be implied regardless of whether or not it's live.

Movies, on the other hand, play a slightly different cultural role. If people wanted a shared experience of film and video, there would've never been such a thing as television, and people wouldn't sit alone in dark rooms at night trancing out in front of it. Yes, I know, there is also radio. But how do people listen to music on the radio? In their cars, with the windows rolled down, and as loud as possible! They obviously want to share their experience! But people who watch television, on the other hand, don't do it with the curtains self-consciously drawn. So I've made a business decision: I'm going to invest in film more than music.

And another thing: I'm not going to even think of distributing my films with a distributor without some kind of business sense about whether or not the stuff would sell. Otherwise, I'm wasting everybody's time.

This is how we artists need to think. We need to think of art as a business, objectively, with detailed numerical measurements of potential for making money. If we do this, we can grow ourselves and the economy. And, by the way, we won't in any way diminish our creativity or value as an artist. Creativity is not measured by how "true to ourselves" we are. It is measured by how inspired the work is. And how inspired the work is is measured by how inspired people are by looking at it. How inspired we are is merely a convenient way of gauging whether it will inspire others. And, by the way, if it inspires others, it'll sell. We need to think about this. If we don't, we're wasting everybody's time.

Nonsense Hollywood Myths Many Don't Bother to Question

Just about everything out of Hollywood sucks, including the things a lot of people agree with. Here's a couple.

1. You always want what you can't have. I've even heard some reasonably intelligent people say this. But this Hollywood "wisdom" is nonsense. Think about it. It implies that there's something about not having something which makes you want it. "I want every sign that says 'slow down' to be repainted as saying 'drive slow.'" "Well, you can't have it." "Ooh, now I REALLY want it." If you really wanted things just because you can't have them, that conversation would make sense. But it doesn't.

   It isn't that you can't have something that makes you want it. We want things because we like something about them. We don't want what we already have simply because it didn't turn out to be all it was cracked up to be. Things are like that. We fantasize about something, and imagine that it will solve all our problems; then when we have it, it doesn't, so we want something else. There's no causal relation between being unable to have something and wanting it. Which brings me to my next point:

2. If you look deep in your heart, the thing you really wanted was what you had to begin with. No place is like home, eh? What if you live in an abusive family? Then do you want what you already have? I think not. In fact, as stated earlier, what you really want is probably what you don't have.

   A better way to state these things is, if you look deep in your heart, you'll discover the truth. This includes truth about your own wants, and whatever you need to make it happen, IF you want something to begin with. See, I think the reason these ideas are formulated this way is because of the concept of want. Hollywood wants to get you to want something. Anything. It's fundamentalist consumerism.

3. There are some things in this world that just can't be explained by logic alone. Of course, if you actually use logic, you'll deconstruct these ideas and realize they're nonsense. As a matter of fact, certain kinds of advertising, like political advertising, have been shown to work best on people who don't go to college, where they teach you logic. Go figure.

   Why then do so many people believe this statement? Because it's a bastardization of the idea that some things can't be explained by deductive logic alone. Actually, NOTHING can be explained by deductive logic alone. To show this, let's look at a deductive argument. Every deductive logical argument is constructed similar to this:

   • Assumption: pigs can't fly.
   • Assumption: Jake is a pig.
     

     ---

   • Conclusion: Jake can't fly.

   What are the first two statements? Assumptions. NOT necessarily deductions. Assumptions can come from other deductive arguments, though they don't have to. (E.g. Jake has four legs, pink skin, short hair and a snout. Every animal with these things is a pig. Therefore, Jake is a pig.) But these other deductive arguments are also based on assumptions. And if these assumptions are based on deductions, those deductions are also based on further assumptions, and so on. So where, aside from deductive logic, do these assumptions come from?

   Inductive logic. Which is simply observation. I've observed that no pig has ever been able to fly in the history of life, therefore it's a reasonable assumption that pigs can't fly.

   So nothing can be explained by deductive logic alone. But, sorry to rain on your parade, everything can be explained through inductive and deductive logic together. Even magic and the occult. Even paranormal activity. If you observe it correctly, that by definition is inductive logic.

Art doesn't have to be a philosophical textbook. But bad art comes from unexamined ideas. And bad art has observable negative consequences, encouraging people to be deluded, chauvinistic, consumerist, racist, perhaps even violent. And there's no reason for it.

Artistic Complexity

If you're an artist trying to strive for complexity, there's a couple of directions you can take. You can have surface complexity, which is simply just a lot of stuff going on. The IDM genre is like this, and I think it's why that genre isn't very popular. It's only complex on the surface. An analogy to rock would be having a drum beat which breaks to do a fill every other measure. After a while it gets old.

Another type of surface complexity is when you do something unique which no one else had thought of before, which requires lots of equipment, or "creativity," or virtuosity. For example, coming up with a new synth hit that has a lot of nuance. Again, I classify this as surface complexity because it's not very interesting. It's just a gimmick. So you've come up with a new thing nobody has done before. Yeah, but is it interesting?

So instead of surface complexity, you could decide to do deep complexity. This is where you inspire complex and interesting thoughts in the art consumer. In music, this requires coming up with an emotional and resonant hook, or chord progression. Unfortunately, however, there are only a few possible chord progressions. And you have to also exclude the chord progressions which are (currently) ineffective at communicating any sort of message.

Deep complexity is more difficult to achieve than surface complexity. And, ironically, deep complexity also goes by another name: "simplicity." Miles Davis required extreme simplicity of his band members. But really, his music is incredibly complex, because it inspires complex emotions and makes a complex musical statement.

Deep complexity is really the last frontier for musicians. It's difficult to achieve, and artists can be satisfied that they will have the opportunity to refine the required skills for the rest of their lives and beyond.

Hyper Crush's Crushstep

I've been listening to Hyper Crush's entire new album for free. Yes, you can do that. Legally. And it's amazing. By which I mean, brilliant. Let me focus on just one song: "Cheap Thrills."

This has all the hallmarks of great literature. It's philosophical and deep, dramatic, inspiring, creative, and entertaining. (And one more: it's addictive. I can't stop listening to it because it blows my mind so much.)

Let me break it down for you.

• Philosophical and deep. It's not just hedonism. It takes a philosophical / political stance. The hero of the song has money on his brain like the rich industrialists. But he still stays positive ("I've made it, yeah, I'm alright") even though overwhelmed by the suffering of the world. He talks of the seven billion people in the world, but (unfortunately) "All we tryin' to do is pop." He takes on a certain role ("I'm hot, I've gotta be") with reluctance, but only because he must to fulfill his face-melting obligations to his fans.
• Dramatic. It involves characters and conflicts. There are two main characters who have inner conflicts and intra- conflicts. The rapper has an inner conflict along the lines I've already described. The female character has an inner conflict too. She "can't even see straight, but I'm on my feet still." She's fighting to stay standing and party positive despite the pull of her inner demons. Also, there's a subtle conflicted relationship between the female and the male. The female is obviously partying (she keeps asking for drinks) and presumably, she's partying to the music performed by the male. She's feeding off of that music, which is an "angel" keeping them both afloat in this "evil world."
• Inspiring. Because the characters triumph over their conflicts, it's inspiring. "But wait," you might say, "They don't triumph. They're still fighting in the end." Yes. And I feel this borrowed trope from the Rave culture is even MORE inspiring. I mean, in literature of the past the heroes had some kind of "final" triumph which ultimately ends all conflicts. But that's not really the way real life works most of the time. In real life, instead of chasing that ultimate triumph, sometimes just the fact you're still standing at the end of the day (or night) is enough. And what makes Rave music so brilliant is that, unlike Rock concerts, it SUSTAINS the party into infinity until the heavens fall into the sea and that final triumph finally comes. In this song, and in real raves, the people are still standing, dancing, all through the life, into eternity. We never stop. We never surrender.
• Creative. To be creative, a song must be both novel and reinforcing. It must have new ideas, and reinforce already established ones. This song adds that novel Hyper Crush flair to an established pop genre: DubStep. (It's not DubStep: it's CrushStep!)
• Entertaining. It doesn't just long endlessly for the sunrise at the end of the night. It makes happiness concrete. This song is the shit. Period. That's what's entertaining about it. I can listen to it and not get lost in the pathos. It's brilliant. (Also the reason why I like Hyper Crush's remix of "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye better than the original.)

There is nothing about this song I don't like. It's one of the most amazing songs I've heard. Listen. You won't be disappointed.

Madonna's New Album

I don't know what happened to Madonna. I was just listening to tracks off her new album MDNA (probably the coolest album name I've heard in a long time, by the way) and it strikes me that she just doesn't get it. She doesn't get Rave music. Or worse: she's just trying to capitalize off it without adding anything.

I mean, don't get me wrong. It's not bad music. I'd rather listen to it than a lot of music out there. But it's just not great. And what gets me is, Madonna used to be great. Her song "Material Girl" is one of my favorite songs of all time. "Vogue"—same thing: positive message, edgy, complex, confidence-building, interesting, entertaining, etc. And her album, Erotica, is not only brilliant music, but brilliant literature. It's great poetry that can stand up to just about anyone in the English literary canon. And I should know: I've studied the stuff seriously.

But MDNA is just not that great. Same thing with the past several of her albums. MDNA features a couple cameos from an artist I really respect: M.I.A. The cameos were stupid and vapid. So how come I still respect M.I.A. but not Madonna? Because M.I.A. makes sense to me. I understand her. She is one of the few pop artists out there who can legitimately say "I just want to put a cap in your ass and take your money." A lot of artists claim they come from the ghetto and are bad boys or bad girls. But M.I.A. came from an INDIAN ghetto. She was a war refugee. Her father was a Tamil Tiger. When M.I.A. does a stupid collaboration (and she does a lot of them) it's not because she's stupid. It's because she's a gangsta popping a cap in the ass of the music industry and taking their money. She's a musical warlord. She makes sense.

But I don't get Madonna. Maybe there's something I'm missing. I feel somewhere along the line she lost it somehow. And I wish she would just find a way to do the brilliant, amazing music that I know she can do. Whether it's because of greed, or if she's in a dark place right now, I don't know. But I don't understand. I wish she would just... come back.

Why Psychiatry is So Evil

This is the end game for people with psychosis. Dissidents will be silenced, and creative minds will be subdued.