Mainstreamology (Or: Why I'm Committed to Being an Indy Filmmaker As Opposed to Hollywood)

The idea of being mainstream has a different conceptual geometry than independent. Consequently, I don't believe that independent people will ever become mainstream, nor will mainstream people become independent, at least not without giving up their former status as independent or mainstream respectively. The two are mostly mutually exclusive. Here's why.

When you make a choice to become mainstream or independent, you choose to adopt something and discard something. Choosing to become mainstream means you adopt quantity of audience and discard unity within the individual. Choosing to become independent means you adopt unity within the individual and discard either money or the thing which brings it—quantity of audience.

Unity within the individual can be seen as vertical. Quantity of audience, of course, is horizontal. Thus we have independent movies, for instance, which are very deep. The word "deep" is not a misnomer: they're deep because each idea expressed in them was very personal to the artist, and thus touches the artist very deeply. Unfortunately, what this means is that the artist cannot and will not be accessible right away to anyone who does not already think like the artist. That is why quantity of audience is sacrificed. It isn't because the artist is unwilling to make money, it's because the artist's commitment to him- or herself as an artist is greater than his or her commitment to money.

Hollywood movies, on the other hand, are made for the purpose of garnering a large quantity of audience, and also money. What this means, of course, is that the movie must resonate on some level with a large number of people, many of whom think very differently about just about everything. This is why Hollywood movies are so very collaborative. Hollywood is a business. People are measured by the amount they cause something to sell. And causing something to sell is determined not by how much you listen to your soul, but by how much you listen to other people. This is why Hollywood likes the apprentice system—climbing the Hollywood corporate ladder starting as a prop boy means you listened very carefully to a large number of salaried employees for decades, and now you know how to make money.

This is where it gets interesting. Observe: listening to your soul and listening to others are both virtuous. But they're different and complementary kinds of virtues. This means that it's possible and even desirable for two people to be in the same room, one of whom is very adept at listening to his own soul and the other very adept at listening to others, and for both of these people to be very virtuous, not lacking a whit in virtue. Obviously, if they both were film directors, the former would probably be an independent film director, and the latter a Hollywood director. The former would also probably sustain himself on a second source of income, while the latter may bring in millions of dollars. This is the natural way of things.

It is possible, though very rare, for an independent movie to make it big. But this will only happen one of two ways. Either 1) some big name with a lot of influence is somehow touched by the film because it speaks personally to her, and she uses her influence to manufacture an audience for it, or 2) it just so happens serendipitously and inexplicably to strike a nerve with a large number of people, probably in a way that the director and others making it could never have foreseen.

This creates a difficulty for directors in both camps (independent and Hollywood). Hollywood directors sometimes decide they want to be more independent, and independent directors very often want to be mainstream. But I wouldn't recommend expending too much energy in either respective direction. Hollywood directors should stick to Hollywood, and independent directors should stick to independence. Hollywood directors who try to be independent don't often succeed. Though there's no harm in making a foray into independent production, there's also no harm in sticking to Hollywood. I'm not saying that introspection as a spiritual quality is bad for Hollywood directors, but rather that introspection will probably just make you a better Hollywood director rather than a truly independent voice. Likewise, a foray into Hollywood may be great for an established independent director. But the "boulevard of broken dreams" is filled with people who unwisely tried to take on Hollywood while remaining true to their idiosyncratic independent commitments. And the idiosyncratic directors who make it big in Hollywood are never truly accepted as independent voices by the people whose opinions in this regard really matter.

Note that these ideas, I think, can be extended to every area where the independent vs. mainstream dichotomy applies, which is pretty much everywhere. Thus, in politics, we have people like Senator Bernie Sanders and former Senator Hillary Clinton. The Clintons are very mainstream, while Sanders is very independent. They're both good at what they do. But I don't think either of them could or would want to switch places. The fact of the matter is, if you want to be mainstream, you're going to have to cater to mainstream opinions as much as possible. And if you want to be independent, you're probably better off in the House of Representatives. Obama may be an "independent," but he got lucky. (This is, of course, my perspective as a lifelong independent-minded Democrat who voted twice for Obama.) (It's important to note, also, the reason why this political perspective is important. People often get the mistaken idea that being an independent voice is ipso facto better than being mainstream, most vehemently, I think, in the realm of politics. But this is not true, and nobody I've talked to seems to have the slightest hint as to why it isn't true. It's not true not because compromise is good, or because sincerity comes from introspection or long-held ideals. It's not true because either you're good at being mainstream, or you're good at being independent, or you're mediocre at both. There's really no middle ground here.)

Being independent requires a specific type of mind, as does being mainstream. Neither should switch spots too often. As far as filmmaking goes, the independents have a long history of very intriguing and high-quality art films which people should try to watch. Independents should, and probably do, study these. Hollywood directors, on the other hand, have a long history of films of equal but different quality. Hollywood was conceived as epic ("Birth of a Nation") and because of the Depression, they took on the role of national cultural therapists. I love independent art films, but they don't make me cry. Hollywood almost always does—even the low-quality low-art films. The problem is, I don't always want to cry about the state of our country. Sometimes, I need fulfillment in other areas. I'm sure that many other people feel the same, and this is why we need both the independents and the Hollywood folks.

Bottom line: stick to what you're good at. Hollywood directors: it's better to make people cry with low-art movies than go broke making independent films. Independents: it's better to blow people's minds with simple, low-budget, high-art films than go broke trying to make an action flick which you intend to sell to an uninterested Hollywood exec. An "independent" Hollywood film will leave the true art critics gasping for air (in a bad way). A "Hollywood" independent flick will run you out of business (and leave the true art critics gasping for air, in a bad way). Don't do it; stick to what you're good at. It's better that way.

a remix and / or edit of the words of "The Goddess"

I'm going to have another shouting session. I'll try real hard not to piss anybody off this time. So you'd better f-ing listen.

HEY. Last night, I was asking Mother Earth Herself to reach up with water, dirt, wind, fire, microbes, dioxyribonucleic acid, weird quantum shit, and so forth, and start yanking around who is hurting Her the WORST—setting up these fucking impossible rules and laws exactly 0x0002 feet high with only twenty minutes to read, IF you are lucky enough to KNOW about it... and it LOOKS LIKE the doors are open for business, BUT, guess you need a secret handshake for that. Anyway, I think it'd be funny when SHE starts reaching up and yanking those who have thought "G, let's put a pipeline over a natural well of water to pump oil across the exact fucking place where most of the foods are grown."

Since WHEN is that EVER a good idea? >__<

<end of line>

I'm going to have another shouting session. I'll try real hard not to piss anybody off this time. So you'd better f-ing listen.

HEY. Last night, I was asking Mother Earth Herself to reach up with water, dirt, wind, fire, microbes, dioxyribonucleic acid, weird quantum shit, and so forth, and start yanking around who is hurting Her the WORST—setting up these fucking impossible rules and laws exactly ten feet high with only twenty minutes to read, IF you are lucky enough to KNOW about it... and it LOOKS LIKE the doors are open for business, BUT, guess you need a secret handshake for that. Anyway, I think it'd be funny when SHE starts reaching up and yanking those who have thought "G, let's put a pipeline over a natural well of water to pump oil across the exact fucking place where most of the foods are grown."

Since WHEN is that EVER a good idea? >__<

<end of line>

I'm going to have another shouting session. I'll try real hard not to piss anybody off this time. So you'd better f-ing listen.

HEY. Last night, I was asking Mother Earth Herself to reach up with water, dirt, wind, fire, microbes, dioxyribonucleic acid, weird quantum shit, and so forth, and start yanking around who is hurting Her the WORST—setting up these fucking impossible rules and laws exactly 10^2 feet high with only twenty minutes to read, IF you are lucky enough to KNOW about it... and it LOOKS LIKE the doors are open for business, BUT, guess you need a secret handshake for that. Anyway, I think it'd be funny when SHE starts reaching up and yanking those who have thought "G, let's put a pipeline over a natural well of water to pump oil across the exact fucking place where most of the foods are grown."

Since WHEN is that EVER a good idea? >__<

<end of line>

How to Tell if there's a Conspiracy

Conspiracies exist. Everywhere. A conspiracy is defined as an attempt to do something unethical, which you don't want anyone beyond your circle of friends to know about. Of course, there are times when doing something unethical is necessary, usually to protect yourself. However, unfortunately, there are certain people in the world who are ignorant of the effects of unethical actions, which are always bad. These kinds of people commit conspiracies and think they'll "get away with it." You never get away with a conspiracy, but if you were trying to protect yourself, or something similar to that, then you may be able at least to survive the negative effects of the natural consequences of when the truth comes to light.

How to Tell if There's a Conspiracy:

You check the independent channels. They won't know all of the truth. This is because they're independent. They don't have a lot of social resources, so they can't access all of the truth. Some of them, you can't trust. Some of them have been infiltrated by conspirators who don't want the truth to be known.

You check the people who you think are committing the conspiracy. They'll mechanically repeat the exact same thing: "There is no conspiracy here." Or something relevantly similar to that. If they actually did make a mistake, and as a matter of fact they are decent people and not conspirators, they will send out marketing information revealing exactly what the mistakes were, who made them, and what they're doing to correct the problem.

You check the people who you trust, who have seen the truth. This is called an empirical observation. Eventually, you'll find a couple empirical observations through the appropriate channels which contradict the last mechanically repeated statement, "There is no conspiracy here." Then you know there's a conspiracy.

However. Even at this point, not all the questions have been answered. You don't know for certain who is the one committing the conspiracy. Depending on how much you've been hurt by the conspiracy, it's up to you to determine how extensive of an investigation you want to make to determine who the real conspirators are, and it's also up to you to determine how you're going to use violent means (like the government or the law) to neutralize the conspiracy and bring the criminals to justice.

This goes for corporate conspiracies, Illuminati conspiracies, government conspiracies, raver conspiracies, Satanist conspiracies, Buddhist conspiracies, etc.

Why Everyone should Study the Occult

I define an occult object as a cultural (or personal) artifact which carries a great deal of power. We don't need to get into talking about "magic" or "energy" or anything superstitious like that. We also don't need to examine secret societies, such as the Freemasons, and their secret initiation rites. Secret knowledge is not necessarily occult, and the occult is not necessarily secret. (A better term for this kind of thing is "esoteric.") It suffices to simply state the truth: that certain objects carry a great deal of psychological power. The power in these objects derives, I think, from the extent to which they reflect something about ourselves, and the depth to which they reflect it.

The most obvious occult object is a word. A word, of course, immediately conjures up an experience or thought, without our even thinking about it. This experience or thought is something inside us, reflected by the communication inherent in a word. Words, therefore, are occult objects.

The problem, though, with occult objects is that the meaning they express with regards to their reflection of what's in our minds is not necessarily accurate. For example. Usually, growing up, I've always sided with political liberals. And as a lot of people know, I'm definitely very anti-psychiatry. So, naturally, I was quite confused to discover that most liberals favor increased psychiatric treatment of the mentally ill, while conservatives are perfectly content to leave treatment to the birds. Being fundamentally opposed to psychiatric treatment of any kind, I found this state of affairs very frustrating. However, there is a definite cause. The cause, I think, can be traced back to the occult.

This is the unexamined liberal philosophy regarding psychiatry: "We need to favor psychiatric treatment of mental illness because it tends to reduce symptoms." Let's unpack it a little more: "We need to favor a scientific, behaviorism based treatment of mental illness which involves third-person empirical studies of the human mind as reflected by human behaviors, because the results of such treatment reduce the behaviors of the mentally ill which frighten us." If a liberal were to really examine this statement, he would come to the conclusion that it logically implies the following: "Let's scramble up the brains of the mentally ill with a knife and turn them into drooling idiots because at least then they don't shout as much." Wait... where did we go wrong? That's obviously horrifying. There must be a mistake somewhere. However, according to the liberal philosophy, mistakes of this sort aren't really a problem. I've actually heard a hospital nurse make this remark, "They made a lot of mistakes, back then, but they didn't really know any better."

It baffles me that anyone could reasonably believe that scrambling up a person's brain with a knife, in full, scientific knowledge of exactly what the brain actually does, could possibly be a morally justified act. In any occasion. In order to understand why a liberal could come to such a monstrous conclusion, it took, for me anyway, a great deal of meditation on liberal philosophy. But I'm fairly convinced the reason can be traced reliably back to the occult, and to illustrate how, it may be best to start with the occult objects involved.

One form of political liberal moral philosophy (in this country anyway) involves the following analogy. A correct moral choice is like choosing the exact midpoint between two polar extremes—one being good, the other being bad. The bad extreme is analogous to the color black. The good extreme is analogous to the color white. (Naturally it's not necessarily as simple as that, but for the purposes of this argument, the image is relevant.) Thus, the occult object representing a liberal's moral decision-making in this context is the following image:

Another logical deduction from this image comes from psychology. Psychology tells us that the "grey area" between white and black is not easily identifiable, and that you cannot tell the difference between subtlely different shades of grey. Only when you hold up two different shades right next to one another can you easily tell the difference. Thus it follows, using our analogy, that the correct moral choice is never easily identifiable. Two possible courses of action can only be distinguished in hindsight, when we are able to see them side by side. Because of this, the correct moral choice for the psychiatrist is to distinguish what is obviously wrong (euthanizing all the mentally ill), what is obviously ideal (completely curing them of all undesirable behaviors), and proceeding to make an ad hoc choice of some grey area in the middle (scrambling their brains with a scalpel).

The conservative position derives from different ideas, originating in Christianity. To a conservative, the soul is the final authority. You must always stand for what is right, and what is right is distinct from what is wrong. There is no grey area between polar extremes: there is simply what is right, which involves the sanctity of the human soul and the responsibility for self-care which goes along with it, and what is wrong (pretty much everything else).

In this case, the conservatives essentially get it right. Right and wrong is not a middle way between two polar extremes. Rather, it is a positive choice arising from even-handed deliberation and impartial consideration of all options. If you can identify a polar extreme, naturally, both extremes are almost certainly wrong. However, it does not follow that the "grey area" in the middle is necessarily right. The correct choice is a positive and clear choice, which usually indeed happens to reside somewhere "in the middle," but only for the somewhat dubious reason that both extremes are wrong. The occult artifact cited above probably derives from the heady over-obsession the ancient Greeks had with mathematics, and the ape-like biological instinct to avoid dark places. It does not in any way derive from honest investigation, meditation, or deliberation. It's simply an image we've carried down through generations, but which doesn't really reflect the truth.

Now not all moral failures stem from occult sources. Also, not all occult objects originate moral failures. Moral mistakes are simply what they are: mistaking one thing for another. People often mistake women for sex objects. But it does not follow from this that either women or sex objects are occult objects. (Though sometimes, they are.) However, it is possible for occult sources such as the above to account for many moral failures. For instance, it also accounts for the moral failure of sacrificing freedom for security. Or, choosing a presidential candidate based on "electability." It also accounts for the moral failure of heedlessly donating a percentage of money to established charities, like the Susan G. Komen foundation and others (a phenomenon derisively called, I think, "serial activism"), rather than taking responsibility for your own community and making a positive contribution through individual authenticity. Again, not all occult objects cause damage. (Obama's logo, and campaign slogans, for instance, have done a lot of good.) But this particular one does in fact cause damage.

I think we can clearly conclude, then, that we should all take at least a modest casual interest in the occult, as defined above. We should become acquainted with or create powerful objects, and examine why they have the impact they do on our minds. Naturally, it isn't always important to everybody. Some of it can actually be rather psychologically dangerous. However, certain moral failings in our culture will never be uncovered until a good number of people seriously examine the occult, and a great number have at least a modest casual understanding. It isn't enough to simply look at occult objects, either. We have to understand how the occult works, why it works, and where the potentialities for moral failure lie. Naturally, through serious investigation, it is also possible to uncover the potentiality for positive and wholesome good. Again, not all decisions directly involve the occult. Some moral decisions, in fact, require purposefully ignoring the occult. But the fact that sometimes morality does involve the occult implies that, though it seems to be an area which our culture has (for understandable reasons) somewhat neglected, it is an important aspect of a good education.

A Modest and Measured Defense of Freemasonry

Now it is possible, according to certain logical arguments involving ethical uncertainty (i.e. "you don't know what you're getting into" arguments), to argue that joining a secret society (for everyone) is an unethical act. I actually have a fairly specific and well-founded argument for this. However, that's not the purpose of this post.

Interestingly enough, this post is actually in defense of Freemasonry (and therefore, by extension, the choice to join the Freemasons). My motivations for this I'll save for later. More important, right now, is the argument. Freemasonry, I'm fairly certain, is among the class of things of which it is capable of being objective. (Despite their secrets.) And I think, despite the fact that I'm not a Freemason, in this socio-political climate it's a good idea to make a measured defense of Freemasonry. Or, at least, to ward off a couple of specific attacks leveled against it.

There are all sorts of attacks against Freemasonry which propose a lot of hogwash. For instance, that they're trying (or have succeeded) in enslaving humanity. The less disturbing form of this argument is that they are actively involved in conspiratorial acts. However, there is no evidence of this whatsoever. No one has ever, to my knowledge, produced a single bit of evidence that they were trying to overthrow or control the government, with the exception, of course, of the American revolution itself. However, it's quite a stretch to call this a conspiracy. It's more along the lines of nation building. And it's a little hypocritical for the people who level this argument, as they often do, to go on and defend the constitution, Democracy, and even ordinary workings of the United States Government in its natural (noncorrupted) state.

The more disturbing form of this argument is what I would call a conspiracy theory. (As opposed to what I stated above, which is not a theory, but a hypothesis.) A theory is defined as an understanding of the workings of a studied thing based on empirically observed principles which lead to predictable results. A conspiracy theory, as I understand it, is a specific sort of theory involving the workings of a studied thing (generally the United States or even the world or universe itself) which postulates a conspiracy as one of the central principles governing its predicted behavior. Thus we get the schizophrenic ramblings of deluded people who say things like, "The Illuminati are the darkest of the dark forces of nature, a demon who has been around since the beginning of time, physically incarnated here on Earth, for the purpose of controlling the light of wisdom and keeping everybody in the dark." This is subtlely different than a conspiracy hypothesis. Hypotheses generally have a beginning, a middle, and an end. That's what makes them testable. Principles, on the other hand, which are constituent to theories, are generally not really testable. That's why we say that theories are statistically reliable, as opposed to fundamentally true.

Conspiracy theories are disturbing because it is impossible to postulate a change in a theory. Theories may be true or false, but they pretty much don't change. The only way in which they change is by being elaborated upon, or built upon. Therefore, if you really believe in conspiracy theory, as a theory (and not merely a tentative hypothesis), that implies that the situation you're proposing is fundamentally unchangeable. Which further implies that any fight against evil is ultimately futile. Now perhaps this belief is the result of racial trauma from when the Anglo Saxons had a pagan belief system in which evil ultimately triumphed over good, so perhaps it's understandable. But it certainly isn't true. And anyway, blaming a particular group for being a constituent of this kind of a theory is totally ridiculous, and honestly, it says more about you then it does about them.

Now it may be reasonable to say, "Nathan, let's look at the evidence." Okay, fair enough. I've given the statement of negative evidence, that there is no evidence to suggest that Freemasonry as an institution is reprehensible, which in our legal system anyway, is enough to exonerate the accused. Nevertheless, it might be good to examine the positive evidence, since I have to a small degree, informally, studied The Craft. What exactly is Freemasonry? From what I understand, it is a moral philosophy based on a certain set of principles. Central to Freemasonry is the allegory of Hiram Abiff, who was according to legend the chief architect of the Temple of Solomon. He was murdered, the legend goes, by three workers who wanted access to secrets so they could gain a higher status. However, they repented, and prayed for death, at which point they were killed by King Solomon. Apparently this is central to the initiation rites or rituals of Craft Freemasons. It is said by Masonic scholars that this story is constituent of an understanding of the universe: that we are all separated from God, and that the ultimate divine knowledge has been cut off from us, but that we may yet have some chance of obtaining divine light through the use of our intellectual capacities as human beings. Frankly these ideas don't contradict anything in any Abrahamic religion, so they should come as no surprise. The story may be similar in some respects to a conspiracy theory, in that it postulates that the workings of the universe involve a conspiracy. But subtle distinctions are important. If you recall, a conspiracy theory involves a conspiracy as an active constituent of the universe: it is a conspiracy which has been present since the beginning of time and is yet continuing. This story, however, involves a conspiracy which has already been completed. It isn't the conspiracy which is constituent of the workings of the universe, but the effects of the conspiracy. In my opinion, as an archetype, it reflects the belief that our sufferings are the result of previous conspiracies which we are working to repair. The fact that it happened may be permanent, but the karmic results of the conspiracy nevertheless are not, as implied by the "glimmering light in the East" (the fourth section of the Temple of Solomon which was not guarded by one of the murderers of Hiram Abiff). As an archetype, it is merely the acknowledgement that conspiracies exist; that suffering exists; that self-condemnation exists. It goes no further than that. Unless, of course, I am mistaken. And in any case, such a story and understanding of the universe in no way implies any kind of conspiracy on the part of the Masons. If a Freemason, perchance, were to engage in a conspiracy, it is probable that they would be considered as equal to the party who killed Abiff, and worthy of contempt.

So much for Craft Masonry. One might say that while, perhaps, the Craft Masons are not part of "the conspiracy," they are in fact low ranking Masons, and that if we really want to get the culprits, we should look at the Templars. But, again, there is no evidence that the Templars are conspirators. Unfortunately, I know very little about the content of the rituals of this group but for one piece of historical evidence. If memory serves me right, Aleister Crowley had a run-in with the Templars when he was forming his secret society, the Ordo Templi Orientis (the Thelemites). Some of the initiation rites he composed apparently infringed on the intellectual property of the Scottish Rite (Templars), as it was too similar to one of their own. After some correspondence, Crowley rewrote most of the rituals. Since Crowley was principally interested in the occult, this leads me to suspect that whatever the Templars profess, it has something to do with the occult. (Otherwise, why would Crowley even approach the subject?) However, this is hardly conclusive, and not very important anyway.

The real evidence I'd like to consider is the historical / circumstantial evidence. The Knights Templar was formed by the Poor Knights of Solomon, who were a militant group of Catholics who participated in the Crusades. From what I hear, they were ordered to travel all over the place in the Holy Land. Some have postulated that this is because they were searching for the holy grail, or some other magical object. Whatever the case, they made the decision to flee from the Holy Land, declare themselves Freemasons (who were at that time a challenge to the power of the Catholic Church), and establish themselves in Scotland. Now it could be that they actually found the holy grail, and that their intent was an occult, magical dominance of this Planet Terra. But I find it far more likely that the sight of Jerusalem drenched in blood so deep you had to wade through it really hit home, and they had some kind of realization of the futility of the Crusades, or perhaps of war in general, and decided to form a loyal opposition to the Catholic Church.

And even if they were involved in the occult, it is certain that the Catholic Church was also involved in the occult. The difference is that while the Catholic Church has always been involved in occult domination of a purely intellectual nature, the fact that the Scottish Rite declared themselves Freemasons (stoneworkers), and the general understanding of particularly British philosophies involving empiricism and rationality over subjective intellectualism, it is quite probable to my way of thinking that the occult commitments of the Scottish Rites involve a declaration of defense for Mother Earth. With the Catholic Church ordering people to perform insanely expensive occultist acts (such as moving gigantic Egyptian obelisks around), the same sort of superstitious nonsense which led to the extinction of the people of Easter Island, I could see, even at the time of the Crusades, a basic understanding that this sort of behavior, or even at least some aspects of the philosophy behind it, is simply unsustainable.

So now, let's sum up. We have, in our midst, people who believe in a conspiracy hypothesis but have no evidence, demanding justice for crimes while having a lower standard of evidence than the criminal justice system they so vocally oppose. Either that, or they believe in a deep conspiracy, which somehow involves Freemasonry, and yet, from what I've described, any evidence for what Freemasonry actually is declares that such a theory is unacceptable. Which means that not only are these theories in no way about Freemasonry, but they also do not even reflect any evils which are fundamental to Freemasonry (at least, according to the evidence). As stated, Craft Masonry does in fact involve conspiracy in a deep way. But, ironically, anyone who adopts a conspiracy theory is expressing their own belief in the part of Masonic morality which is fundamentally reprehensible. Which implies that the conspiracy theorists are themselves THE Masonic conspiracy. This is why it's so important, I think, to make the right distinctions, even the subtle ones, as often as you are able. Otherwise, frankly, whatever the problem is, your ideas are not the solution.

As for my motivation: it's really quite simple. I have Freemasons in my family, as well as occultists. And I support the Occupy movement, as well as Tibetan Buddhism. I also (I think) have at least some understanding of Freemasonry—at least the general ideas. I therefore get a little perturbed when I see anti-Masonic sentiment within those movements and spiritual philosophies (i.e. Occupy, anti-psychiatry, and Tibetan Buddhism) I support. I am not a Freemason myself, so I honestly see no pressing need to defend Freemasonry (other than in a modest defense of my family). More pressing, however, is the need to defend the social movements I believe in from idiocy. Particularly, I'd like to avoid the people wherever they may be who claim to defend Mother Earth but do nothing to defend the people who may actually defend Mother Earth, who believe in doing occult magic but hate the people who probably do magic (and the ones who certainly do magic), and who profess a belief in a Supreme Being but reject every single philosophy and religion in the history of mankind who actually professes a monotheistic belief. I find this kind of mindset a little annoying.

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.

Why Time Travel Exists (or not?)

Proposition: If you will it to exist, time travel exists. Otherwise, it doesn't.

Why? Because if it is possible for time travel to exist (and I'm pretty sure it is), then someone will eventually create the technology if there is a will to do so. If YOU IN PARTICULAR will it to exist, then you will eventually be one of the customers of the time travel service, there having been a will for it to exist, which means that it exists. If you honestly, truthfully, and sincerely wish time travel to exist, it will exist.

If you don't will it to exist, it doesn't exist. Or if your will is insincere, clouded by delusions or destructive thoughts, it doesn't exist. Why? Because there is no reason for it to exist. Why would anyone want a time machine to exist if all it would be used for is to destroy the universe? Time machines don't exist to destroy the universe, but to SAVE the universe. Otherwise the universe wouldn't exist, and the time machine wouldn't exist, which means time travel wouldn't exist.

Imagine: time travel is invented in 30 years. You want time travel to exist for YOU. So you will it to exist. You spend time researching how to get access to the time machine. The research eventually bears fruit, or it doesn't. But you have a TIME MACHINE. So you have infinite time to do research, which means it will eventually bear fruit. Even if the research takes longer than the length of your life, it will still bear fruit. Because you have a TIME MACHINE. So you do research for your entire life. The research travels back in time, back to the beginning. You continue the research from where you left off. And so on, infinitely.

How does the research find its way back to you? Because the research is instrumental in time travel existing, since there has to be a will for it to exist for it to exist. The purpose of a thing is to exist relationally to everyone. The time travelers have no choice but to send your research back in time, because if they didn't, there would be no one to access the time machine, and therefore the time machine wouldn't exist, and they wouldn't exist.

Therefore, if you want it to exist, it exists.

What if time travel is invented after your lifetime? No problem. You'll research how to gain access to the time machine. The actual time it takes for time travel to be invented doesn't matter, because you have a time machine. So it exists.

Why Enemies are Blessings: Re. Morgan Freeman and Lanza

I'm glad Morgan Freeman wrote the response he did for the shootings in Connecticut. Because I completely disagree. And, actually, my disagreement has solidified my resolve to a) not kill every fucking body I see, and b) not kill myself. (Death, by the way, is not an "opposite to life." Another post for another day, perhaps.) The argument went a little like this:

Freeman: http://www.dailypaul.com/266479/surprising-message-from-morgan-freeman-he-blames-the-media-for-ct-shooting

Me: You're full of shit.

Freeman: Yeah? Why's that?

Me: Because you're spouting the same sort of crap that every cynical psychiatrist does. You want more "mental health research," and like any "mental health researcher," you're looking for the essential quality that makes people essentially and fundamentally bad people from the very start, so you can kill it, quarantine it, sedate it, and obliterate it from the human race.

And to top it all off, you're saying the essentialist quality has to do with desire for fame. FAME! Which shows that you, like most other Hollywood celebrities (I wanted to say "hacks" but that's going too far—in this case, anyway, there's actually evidence against that claim), you believe that:

1. Everyone wants exactly what you have.
2. While it was divinely ordained for you to have it, it was not divinely ordained for 99.9999% of the world's population to have it.
3. All the problems of the world would be solved if everyone just gave up on their dreams and stopped wanting what you have, and instead, adopt a submissive position and accept the crumbs that people like you allow to drop off the table.

Freeman: Well, I read your position, because like every Hollywood celebrity in the world I keep up with the writings of Nathan Foster. It seems like you claim here that you understand the inner workings of school shooters. You say, and I quote, "I have these kinds of thoughts running through my head at least 20 times a day...."

You go on to claim the following: "[W]hether 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." Taken in conjunction with the post about "Absolute Eclectic Morality," It would seem that you, sir, not only understand the shooter, but empathize with him, and perhaps even agree with him. There is actual evidence, in these three posts, that you believe everyone deserves to die.

So what's stopping you? If you think you deserve fame, and you know killing a bunch of people will get you fame, and you don't think that it is necessarily ethically wrong to kill a bunch of people, why don't you do it then, and gain as much fame as you could ever hope for?

Now this thought is what really crystalized my position, and it illustrates the value of enemies. (Not that Morgan Freeman is a mortal enemy of mine, but he does have a point of view which I completely disagree with, and in this case, that is enough.) The rest of the conversation:

Me: For one, if everybody didn't deserve to die, they probably wouldn't all eventually die. And for another, while I may, from time to time, hold the belief that everyone deserves to die RIGHT NOW, unless I actually have the ability to kill every single person in the world—not just a handful of people in this or that place, but literally everyone—I'm really just tooting my own horn. Everyone is going to die anyway. Why do I need to speed up the process?

And besides that obvious negative point of view, there's a positive reason not to kill everyone as well. There is a possibility that they have something to teach me. See, I'm a firm believer that situations of ignorance are ripe situations for new and meaningful knowledge. As it says in the Bible, "Many are called, but few are chosen." It's perfectly okay to be chosen, or not to be chosen, to be the one who kills everyone in the world. And while it's not certain that there's a reason why I'm not that person, there's a possibility that there is such a reason.

Which leaves me with two options. 1) I should've been chosen but wasn't. In which case, I have an opportunity to root out the real enemy and deal with that spirit. Or, 2) I should NOT have been chosen, and wasn't. In which case, I had something to learn, and it's better that I wasn't chosen.

Freeman: Great, so with your manic/depressive psychosis and acceptance of others, you're going to choose the other option, and off yourself in the basement?

Me: I'm glad you brought that up, because no, I'm not. I'm just like everyone else; I'm going to die eventually, and there's no reason to speed up the process. And there may be an opportunity to make a difference.

Freeman: You seem to be making the argument that living in this world is completely ephemeral. The only reason not to actually kill yourself, or anyone else, for that matter, is based on distant probabilities that perhaps they have benefit to the world. This is also evidenced by your insistance, in your response ("My Perspective on School Shootings"), that to end school shootings, we should train in discovering other-worldly goddesses, rather than human relationships here on Earth.

Me: I do NOT make the claim that life is ephemeral. I DO, however, make the claim that where you live your life is ephemeral, as long as you can make out goddess-Buddhas. If my body here on this Earth is killed, I'm fine with that, as long as I can find a place somewhere else where I can make out Buddhas. The choice is completely meaningless.

Freeman: If the choice is meaningless, why not try your luck with another body in another world, rather this one, which obviously causes you so much pain?

Me: Obviously, Morgan, you don't keep up with my writings as much as you claim, or you wouldn't have missed this post, in which I claimed that it is precisely the decisions which are meaningless—for example, Coke vs. Pepsi, Planet Earth vs. Planet Venus, human-form vs. goddess form, etc.—that are the most important. And not only did I make that claim, but I considered it such an important claim that I advanced the further claim that it is actually the basis for a just and creative society.

Hopefully you know, by now, that I mean exactly everything I say. And if we take the eclectic view of my philosophy, you'll understand that I am completely committed to a) NOT killing myself, and b) NOT killing others. This is a profound vow which, on many days, is like choosing to drink a specific cola-flavored drink. But many days there's actually a moral reason to follow it.

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.

Clarifications of Buddhism: Nonviolence, not Anti-Violence!

One of the problems faced by American Buddhists today, I think, is that we are too peaceful. Many of the teachings of Buddha indicate a strong central value of peace. But to many, this kind of peace simply means inaction.

Instead of trying to be grossly peaceful, we should try to be subtilely peaceful. We should have a deep and meaningful sense of peace.

Consider the Dorje Shugden controversy in Tibetan Buddhism. Dorje Shugden is an enlightened, wrathful protector whose worship The Dalai Lama has outlawed. He outlawed this practice, according to Wikipedia, because he read a story about Dorje Shugden saw, wherein the deity saw a bunch of Gelugpa Buddhists studying Nyingmapa Buddhism, and so he slaughtered them, because Dorje Shugden is a Gelugpa Buddhist and wanted to maintain the purity of Gelugpa Buddhism.

I can definitely understand the pressing need for Tibetan Buddhism to be adopted by Westerners, and I can definitely see how Buddhism may not have been so easily introduced if His Holiness didn't adopt such a firm perspective. Far be it from me to criticize the Dalai Lama.

But honestly, what's so bad about slaughtering people? Slaughtering people is something human beings do, and we need to recognize this. We can't just take our human nature lightly. There's an important lesson in our violence.

In my opinion, if we're going to slaughter people, we should do so in a mutual hatred stemmed from mutual respect. As Sonny said in the classic Dog Day Afternoon: "The guy who kills me... I hope he does it because he hates my guts, not because it's his job." We shouldn't kill people dispassionately, leaving them confused about why they are victimized for no apparent reason, and leaving us with a spiritual crisis because we don't understand our actions or the meaning of our lives. If we kill people, it should be because we fucking hate them. And because they fucking hate us. Period. End of story.

The Maoris, whom I have studied a bit, built a well-developed warrior ethic based on this idea. They are warriors. They hate people, and they kill them. They also send them medics to lovingly heal them up and make them strong and ready to fight, not because they love them, but because they hate them and want to fucking kill them. In this deep hatred is a profound feeling of love. If a Maori wants to kill your fucking guts, you should take it as a compliment.

But if an American wants to kill you, unfortunately, it's probably because his boss wants a little higher of a profit margin. Understandably, as Americans, this leaves us a little disoriented. Should I identify as an American, despite this desperate cynicism, or should I adopt a wholly new culture? Being American is thus difficult for us. However, unfortunately, this difficulty in being American, due to people's natural tendency to overgeneralize and miss the point of things, results in an unwarranted extension of the idea of restraining violence into the territory of anti-violence, which disregards not only the cynical American approach to violence, but the wholesome Maori approach as well. In this way, the baby is thrown out with the bath water.

So if Dorje Shugden wants to slaughter people, so what? He's enlightened; he can do what he wants. We should be less concerned with whether or not slaughtering people is justified, and more concerned with opening up to the other, and being receptive when the other opens up to us. There are teachings we must learn from others. And we Buddhists have wholesome things to contribute. Being anti-violent is actually a kind of closed-mindedness.

If we decide to be nonviolent, that's great. But how does this apply to others? This is our moral choice. Not theirs. It is far more important to be open to the ideas of others. And here's a crucial point. When we are open to others, and their wishes, belief systems, and so forth, we will begin to see the actual basis for nonviolence, rather than our mere projected basis for it. We will begin to see the most appropriate way to express our inner wishes, and we will see that regardless of violent intent, on either side of a dispute, if we are truly open to each other, the most equitable and intelligent way to resolve the dispute will come to light. And this way will probably (though not certainly) have no violence. In other words, the resolution will certainly be non-violent, but not anti-violent.

Moral codes are not dogma. Moral codes are a system of restraint that we apply to develop a sense of higher importance. Dogma, on the other hand, is the belief that a certain moral value has an essential quality by the virtue of which it is completely infallible and must be followed in every circumstance without fail. I tend to think instead of nonviolence as a guiding moral principle, we Western Buddhists tend to adopt anti-violence as dogma.

Notes on This Blog and My Previous Post

I'm not going to post here again concerning psychiatry in the foreseeable future, and I want to dedicate this post to explaining why.

What is the purpose of a blog? To me, a blog distinguishes itself from social media, internet forums, chat rooms, and the like because it is literature. A blog constitutes a body of literature, which can be referred back to for reference. In that sense, while social media, internet forums, etc. are temporal, a blog is timeless. Things do not need to be repeated here; as long as I say something once, I can feel comfortable leaving the topic alone.

I see no reason to continue writing about psychiatry simply because I've already said all I wanted. The last post, "The Problem with Psychiatry in Three Quick Arguments," represents the culmination of my point of view regarding psychiatry. It is as crystalized as it can be. This is precisely how deep the rabbit hole goes; I need dig no further.

Sure, I may feel the need to elaborate, but really all I'll be doing is further sharing the ideas in the previous post. And many posts previous to that one elaborated quite well enough. So while I may see the need to elaborate, I see no need to elaborate here.

There is only one concept which I haven't talked about on this blog, which is the solution to the problem. The solution is simple: three agnosticisms, and three behavior modifications. To wit:

1. Being agnostic about the science.
2. Being agnostic about the diagnosis—it's validity and it's applicability.
3. Being agnostic about the treatment—it's validity and it's applicability.

1. Modifying psychiatrists' behavior of lying.
2. Modifying psychiatrists' behavior of manipulating.
3. Modifying psychiatrists' behavior of using coercive and violent force.

These solutions are implied in all my previous posts. But now, they have been crystalized. The problem is crystalized; the solution is crystalized; there is no need for further discussion here. Whether or not these ideas become accepted is a matter for society to deliberate, and though I certainly see the grave danger posed by psychiatry, and I hope others see it as well, it is not my place to dictate what society will and will not accept.

This is not an "Internet suicide" by any means. An "Internet suicide," for those of you who don't know, refers to when a highly opinionated person joins an Internet group and expects everyone to agree with them, starts a dumb flame war when they learn many people don't, and then concludes their presence on the site with a message, in all caps, saying, "SCREW YOU ALL YOU'RE ALL STUPID I'M NEVER COMING BACK HERE AGAIN." At which point exactly no one seems to care. This post is not that, because a) I never expected anyone to agree with me, b) I don't care if they don't agree with me, c) I'm still going to post on this blog, and d) I'm still going to spread my views about psychiatry, just not here.

So please stick around; though you won't see this particular vein of anti-psychiatric philosophy, you can all look forward to a lot more philosophy and beautiful things.

Blueprint for a Just and Creative Society: Part 2

The two sides of the coin described in the previous article have to do with creativity and justice. I can summarize it like this: 1) When one can choose between two or more social institutions, and the choice doesn't matter, it is important to make a choice and stick with it. 2) When one can choose between two or more social institutions, and the choice is important, it's best not to choose between the institutions themselves, but rather choose the most ethical point of view, and the institution that happens to be most in accordance with that point of view. Choice 1 makes society creative, choice 2 makes it just.

I think it's also important here to touch on one particular choice in the second category that we must make as a society. The choice has to do with a kind of unity. When we make choices of the first category, it is important that we as a society do so in a context regarding sociocultural institutions, agreements, understandings, and so forth that we can trust. While it's important that personalities do not get all mashed up, we have to have some common ground which invites us to view other personalities, and for other personalities to view our own. This gives meaning to everyone, regardless of their choices. (I'm using the word "personalities" here instead of "people" in light of the statement that we form our identity, or our personality, according to the loyal choices we make that do not matter.)

In order for this to happen, we have to be able to trust one another. For there to be common ground, or a level playing field, we have to agree on certain codes of conduct, according to each person's differing ability to accept things. There are a number of these common grounds, like the fact that one dollar is worth the same everywhere in the U.S., the fact that arguments can't escalate to the point of lethal violence, or sexual violence, and so on. The most important of these, of course, is a legal system we can trust to institute our just demands.

But there's another aspect to this as well—an internal aspect. We can't simply rely upon external things like laws and financial institutions to ensure that all our interactions are positive. We also have to have an internal sense of trust for each other, and an internal sense of goodwill. We have to truly have warm-hearted, good feelings for one another. Love and compassion. Then we can get into fights without really fighting. And anyway, if we don't have these feelings, no number of laws can cover every contingency. We have to trust that we can trust each other.

Thus we should be able to have multiple different personalities, some of which radically opposed to one another, in all aspects except the ones which are important, in which case we should be in accord. And these personalities should interact, through the medium of social exchange which we can trust as an ethical baseline. We must all have a sense of trust for one another, as well-founded as it can be. If this isn't possible, neither is a just and creative society.

A Short Philosophical Examination of Love and Crushes

This topic is one that is of central importance to me. I remember one time, in a spiritually turbulent state, I ran away from my home town of Moscow, Idaho. In the midst of all the confusion and pain, I got a moment of beauty. I was treated to a twenty-first birthday dinner, desert, and drinks by two lovely ladies, who had only just met me a day or two earlier.

One of the ladies told me, "A lot of people come to this town and want to teach me something. Do you have anything you'd like to teach me?" Politely, I asked her, "Is there anything you'd like to learn about?" And she said, "Teach me about crushes."

A lot of the insight I believe I've gained into the idea of crushes, and of love, was expressed in that conversation. And at that particularly turbulent time in my life, the importance of insight into these things can't be understated.

The first thing I said was that there is a fundamental distinction between love and crushes. The two are not really the same. In other words, you can relate to the object of your affection as having a crush on her but not loving her, as loving her but not having a crush on her, as having a crush on her and loving her at the same time, or as neither having a crush on her nor loving her. (Note, I'm going to exhibit a little gender bias here and refer to subjects of affection in the male gender and objects in the female gender, not because I think all women are objects, but simply because I am a male and I'm speaking to my own experience, and can't speak to the experience of women, though I'd bet it's similar.)

So if love and crushes are so fundamentally different, in what ways are they different?

For one, love is among the class of things which lasts forever and which can be applied equally to everyone. You can say, truthfully, that you will never stop loving someone. Crushes, on the other hand, are not among that class of things. You cannot say, necessarily, that you will never stop having a crush on someone.

Love is also nonviolent and caring. Crushes, on the other hand, are essentially violent. This is why they're so scary. You feel as though the object of your affection could literally crush you, and that would be perfectly okay, and that if you could just kiss her once, it would be good to go off and die somewhere because your life will be complete because nothing you could possibly experience would ever be even a close approximation to the experience of that kiss.

Love is a nonconceptual thing. It cannot be defined, and therefore cannot be limited in any way. Crushes, on the other hand, are conceptual. In many ways they are the epitome of conceptual thinking. When you have a crush on someone, you conceptualize her to painstaking detail, individually running your mind over every one of her features, everything she ever said, every look she ever gave you, and so on, obsessively, for days upon days. You are extremely attached to the concept of the woman you have a crush on, and this is the essence of what a crush is.

What more can be said about love and crushes? It seems, from the foregoing, that we should strive in every way to adopt the former and avoid the latter. That having a crush on someone is an ethical failure. But this cannot be true, because it is possible to both love and have a crush on someone, and love admits of no intentional ethical failures.

I believe there is a way to ethically have a crush on someone. It involves intimate knowledge of the idea of what a crush is, so one can avoid its pitfalls (anger, tears, frightening behaviors, and so forth). It is perfectly acceptable to be enthralled by the concept of a woman. But, in my opinion, one must have an agnosticism of this concept along with the enthrallment. If you love every minute detail of someone, but remain open to the possibility of details which you do not know—some of which, perhaps, may be frightening or even ugly—then your crush is ethical. And if combined with love, it can even be an enriching and positive experience.

How can something so crushing possibly be enriching and positive? Because crushes have the potential to fundamentally transform the way you see the world. Imagine you are completely enthralled by the concept of a woman. You look at her once and cannot help but skip a breath. You think of any detail of her—the way the carries herself, the way she does her hair, and so on—and are inescapably ravished by the absolute beauty of it. But, you also love the woman, and are willing to accept her for her faults (even if you can't see them yet), willing to withhold violence and even take on violence for her sake, willing to give her what she needs—even when she needs to be free of being a concept, and so forth. And, therefore, you are also willing to be agnostic of her features as a concept, because these features change—and new ones appear, and old ones disappear—and love does not change.

Think of what this implies if you can maintain both the love and the crush, and if the crush never surpasses the love. It means that if some ugly feature of her appears, it may surprise you, but eventually you will be enthralled by it. Suppose you experience paranoia and are into conspiracy theories. Almost always, your crush will inevitably become the center of the conspiracy. You'll think she's a reptilian or something. But you love her, and you still have a crush on her, so inevitably, you become enthralled by the idea that she's a reptilian, and love her all the more for it. And so forth. Any negative feature or character trait that you can possibly think of, if she somehow adopts it in your mind, you eventually become enthralled by it.

Crushes therefore have the power to transform the entire universe from something negative to something positive and worth living for. When combined with love, both the love and the crush can feed off one another, and no matter what negativity you experience, the object of your affection has the power to change it all.

I used to think that the only right way to deal with crushes was to give them up. But this only caused me more pain, because of the emotional sterility of being without crushes, and the humiliation and fear when you inevitably develop another one. The only right way to deal with crushes is, I think, to learn to sincerely love everyone, in case you develop a crush on them.

This attitude is not only desirable, but necessary. Inevitably, you will develop a crush, and if you're not prepared, you'll be completely consumed. It happens all the time: people become emotional wrecks because the person they "loved" (read: "had a crush on") didn't "love" them back. Well, if you love them, in the real sense of the word, it doesn't matter if they "love" you back. Or maybe they marry their crush and end up beating them when they do something they didn't expect. But people who love each other don't hurt each other.

I've had a number of crushes. But I wasn't completely consumed. By any of them. Or, if I was, I recovered. I was lucky. And because of it, my life will never be the same. They are psychicly dangerous things, crushes. They hurt. But learning to navigate the madness can be essentially wholesome. Crushes: ultimately, an experience worth having.

On the Psychiatrist I Love

I've been visited in dreams by a psychiatrist. She is the perfect psychiatrist.

Not only does she not feel obliged to lie to or manipulate me in any way, but she spontaneously feels compassionate for me. She's willing to give me a hug when I feel upset, because she doesn't feel that compassion is a violation of professional boundaries.

She knows exactly what her drugs do and what they don't do. She knows the science behind them, and because she doesn't have an agenda, I trust what she says.

Once, in the middle of the night, I was shuddering in the fetal position crying out, "I feel so helpless. So powerless." Then she arrived and assured me that, even though she was a psychiatrist, she had my best interests in mind. "I can't trust psychiatrists, they just hurt me. What could you possibly do to help?" I said. "Something along the lines of enlightenment within the very object of pain?" She said, with a wry smile, knowing she'd touched on something I'd told her before about what makes me happy.

I was in tears, so she gave me a hug, then pulled out an eyedropper with liquid. "I'm going to give you something," She said. "What will it do?" I asked. "It's a dynamogen. It will give you power," She said. And I suckled the translucent yellow liquid and fell asleep shortly thereafter.

The first time I met her my reaction was completely spontaneous. I was with a group of people—me, a man with a diagnosis and his friend, and her. The man with the diagnosis demonstrated his diagnosis to the psychiatrist, and she took notes. First, he demonstrated the fact that "mental illness" in itself is a fundamentally creative thing and needn't be medicated. After she scribbled a couple things, he went on to show how freedom and dignity are the most important values for those diagnosed. She jotted a couple of notes and he moved on to the next demonstration.

I had a premonition about it, and I took him aside and told him, "I don't think you should do it. It will send the wrong message." He brushed me off. We went to the roof of the dream-building we were in, and I said, again, "Please don't. This is not the right way to send your message." He ignored me again.

On the roof was a pool, and the man went up to the diving board. Desperate now, I tried to stand in between him and the diving board, but he got around me and dove into the water.

The man did many flips and turns, dancing through the water like ballet. Then he approached an obstacle course, where he was to jump over, then under, then over a set of sail boats, which he did perfectly. Finally he approached the edge of the pool, and the edge of the building, thirty stories up, overlooking the city. Without a second of hesitation, he jumped over the edge and plummeted to his death.

We were all a little shaken, especially the psychiatrist. I looked into her eyes, and they seemed distant. So I wrapped my arms around her. A few seconds later I woke up, with a new archetypal friend and supporter.

This woman is no different than a doctor, psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, or massage therapist. There is no special class for her. She does not exist in a plane above and beyond mere mortals. She doesn't run the show. She is an ally. Every day I make my way through the world, I hope I meet more and more people like her. She's the only psychiatrist I trust right now.

A Reptilian Buddha

This goes out to all reptilians out there...

From the Lotus Sutra:

Manjushri said, "There is the daughter of the dragon king Sagara, whose years are barely eight. Her wisdom is sharp-rooted, and well she knows the faculties and deeds of the beings. She has gained dharani. The profound treasure house of secrets preached by the Buddhas she is able to accept and to keep in its entirety. She has profoundly entered into dhyana-concentration, and has arrived at an understanding of the dharmas. In the space of a ksana [moment] she produced bodhi-thought, and has attained the point on nonbacksliding. Her eloquence has no obstructions, and she is compassionately mindful of the beings as if they were her babies. Her merits are perfect. What she recollects in her mind and recites with her mouth is subtle and broad. She is of good will and compassionate, humane and yielding. Her will and thought are harmonious and refined, and she is able to attain to bodhi."

The bodhisattva Wisdom Accumulation said, "I have seen the Thus Come One of the Sakyas [i.e. the Buddha] throughout incalculable kalpas tormenting himself by doing what is hard to do, piling up merit and heaping up excellence, seeking the Path of the bodhisattva and never resting. When I look at the thousand-millionfold world, there is no place, not even the size of a mustardseed, where the bodhisattva did not cast away his body for the beings' sakes, and only then did he achieve the Way of bodhi. I do not believe that this girl in the space of a moment directly and immediately achieved right, enlightened intuition."

Before he had finished speaking, at that very time the daughter of the dragon king suddenly appeared in front [of them], and, doing obeisance with head bowed, stood off to one side and spoke praise with gathas, saying:

Having profoundly mastered the marks of sin and merit,
    Universally illuminating all ten directions,
The subtle and pure Dharma-body
    Has perfected the marks thirty-two,
Using the eighty beautiful features
    As a means of adorning the Dharma-body.
The object of respectful obeisance for gods and men,
    It is reverently honored by all dragons and spirits.
Of all varieties of living beings,
    None fails to bow to it as an object of worship.
I have also heard that, as for the achievement of bodhi,
    Only the Buddha can know it by direct witness.
I, laying open the teaching of the Great Vehicle,
    Convey to release the suffering beings.

At that time, Sariputra spoke to the dragon girl, saying, "You say that in no long time you shall attain the unexcelled Way. This is hard to believe. What is the reason? A woman's body is filthy, it is not a Dharma-receptacle. How can you attain unexcelled bodhi? The Path of the Buddha is remote and cavernous. Throughout incalculable kalpas, by tormenting oneself and accumulating good conduct, also by thoroughly cultivating the perfections, only by these means can one then be successful. Also, a woman's body even then has five obstacles. It cannot become first a Brahma god king, second the god Sakra, third King Mara, fourth a sage-king turning the Wheel, fifth a Buddha-body. How can the body of a woman speedily achieve Buddhahood?"

At that time, the dragon girl had a precious gem, whose value was the [whole] thousand-millionfold world, which she held up and gave to the Buddha. The Buddha straightway accepted it. The dragon girl said to the bodhisattva Wisdom Accumulation and to the venerable Sariputra, "I offered a precious gem, and the World-Honored One accepted it. Was this quick or not?"

He answered, saying, "Very quick!"

The girl said, "With your supernatural power you shall see me achieve Buddhahood even more quickly than that!"

At that time, the assembled multitude all saw the dragon girl in the space of an instant turn into a man, perfect bodhisattva-conduct, straightway go southward to the world-sphere Spotless, sit on a jeweled lotus blossom, and achieve undifferentiating, right, enlightened intuition, with thirty-two marks and eighty beautiful features setting forth the Fine Dharma for all living beings in all ten directions. At that time, in the Saha world-sphere bodhisattvas, voice-hearers, gods, dragons, the eightfold assembly, humans and nonhumans, all from a distance seeing that dragon girl achieve Buddhahood and universally preach Dharma to the men and gods of the assembly of that time, were overjoyed at heart and all did obeisance from afar. Incalculable living beings, hearing the Dharma and understanding it, attained to nonbacksliding. Incalculable living beings were enabled to receive a prophecy of the Path. The Spotless world-sphere trembled in six different ways, and in the Saha world-sphere three thousand living beings opened up the thought of bodhi and were enabled to receive prophecies. The bodhisattva Wisdom Accumulation, as well as Sariputra and all the assembled multitude, silently believed and accepted.

Note as of 7/4/2014: It has come to my attention that this sutra refers not to reptilians, but to nagas. Nagas, furthermore, are not the same as reptilians, although some reptilians are nagas. (Some reptilians are nagas, not all nagas are reptilians.) I am unaware of the origins of the reptilians, my two working theories being that they are descended from dinosaurs, or that they are aliens from another planet. I honestly don't know which is the truth. However, I do know that reptilians are very advanced people with a lot of intelligence and brain-power. Also, I have met what I believe qualifies as a "Reptilian Buddha." That is, a Buddha who became enlightened as a reptilian. So there is such a thing as reptilian Buddhas, as well as naga Buddhas.

Some Thoughts on an Age of Aquarius Part 5: Hacking vs. Lying

All parts include: Part 1: Ignorance; Part 2: Seduction; Part 3: Compassion; Part 4: Psychiatrists; Part 5: Hacking vs. Lying.

Hacking vs. Lying

In my opinion, this is the most interesting of the series because it involves a brief philosophical treatment of a very new concept. I am going to use the "programmer subculture" definition of "hacker," which is someone who manipulates computers in ways they weren't meant to be. I will distinguish this from "cracking," which is simply unlawful access to a computer.

Hacking is not cracking. Nevertheless, I feel there must be a little leeway given against the law in use of the term. If you do something online that's only a minor transgression of the law, but nevertheless have ethically praiseworthy or at least neutral motives, then I believe you are still "hacking."

How does this relate to lying? Well, it raises certain ethical issues. Hacking is essentially "gaming the system." It is a blatant misrepresentation of your motives. And we needn't be talking about computers here. We can talk about things like political maneuvering done in congress, or journalist misrepresentation in search of a story. The fact of the matter is, however, that it usually involves computers. And this is what makes hacking ethically neutral, as opposed to lying, misrepresentation, or "gaming the system" per se, which are all unethical.

So what's the difference? Hacking is done openly. Example: you're calling a company with an automated menu on the phone. You know you will have to misrepresent yourself in order to talk to a human. You're not cracking, because your motives are ethically sound—maybe you want to know the washing instructions for your kid's new sweater. If you were straight up misrepresenting and not hacking, you wouldn't ever want to tell anyone what you did. But that's not the case. You were hacking, because if someone asks what you did, you can tell them; it's not a big deal. If there are restrictions to who gets to know what you did and why, it's only because those people are the people you're hacking. It's not because you need to keep a secret from the general public.

Hacking is a product of the Age of Aquarius. It is an "open" act in my use of the term. (See my Principles of Openness for an explanation of my use of the term.) And furthermore, I believe that my outline of the notion of hacking is sufficiently concrete to be protected speech under the Constitution of the United States, as it should be.

Some Thoughts on an Age of Aquarius Part 3: Compassion

All parts include: Part 1: Ignorance; Part 2: Seduction; Part 3: Compassion; Part 4: Psychiatrists; Part 5: Hacking vs. Lying.

Compassion

Due to the fact of the two previous points, particularly the first, it is necessary to insist on higher standards for compassion. Yes, that means compassion for murderers, rapists, adulterers, kidnappers, drug dealers, and so on and so forth. We all like to villainize people for certain things. But the fact of the matter is, you never know anymore whether the information is accurate, or whether the act was more pitiable than hateful. At the very least, I tend to think we should be even more careful not to judge. Cyberbullying is a terrible risk with the Internet.

Some Thoughts on an Age of Aquarius Part 2: Seduction

All parts include: Part 1: Ignorance; Part 2: Seduction; Part 3: Compassion; Part 4: Psychiatrists; Part 5: Hacking vs. Lying.

Seduction

This is the easy one. Everybody knows about this. There are two parts here: 1) You might be enticed to do things you don't want to do that will hurt you, and 2) you might be enticed to do things you do want to do that will hurt you.

In the first, I'm talking about pornography and death. An unmonitored child (and the fact is, whether you like it or not, every child is unmonitored at some point) WILL eventually access pornography and death. I did myself as a child. (Well, pornography. Not too fond of death.) I tend to think there are natural (or if not natural, cultural) barriers in humans against doing things that are evil, like having sex with young children or killing someone for sport. But the fact of the matter is, a couple of bozos out there will at some point decide to rape kids and kill people—and put it on the Internet. And as meticulous as Google is about weeding out the negative images out there, I myself, through no fault of my own, have come across fecal-play pornography and a corpse in the street with knives all over sticking out of him. I searched for completely unrelated terms, and those images popped up. You can't fight it: it will happen. Only you can figure out what to do.

In the second, I'm talking about scams. The Internet has ubiquitous access. This means you can use Google+ to access new friends and business contacts. However, it also means you may access a scam. Obviously, a scam will hurt you, even though you may want to participate. That's how scams work: They make you want to participate, then screw you and it hurts. The thing is, though, that at least partly due to the nature of the Age of Aquarius, these scams are becoming more insidious. I myself was part of one for a while. I saw an ad that advertised, "Free MacBook!" I knew it was probably a scam, of course. But the ad was in Facebook, and I found it hard to believe that Facebook would allow something illegal to enter their site. So I decided to check it out. I was clicking along, and it asked me if I wanted trial versions of products they had to offer. I clicked yes, thinking that "trial" implies "free." But I didn't read the fine print. The fine print said, essentially, that if I kept the product and did not act to cancel my contract, the site would send me monthly supplies of the same item, whether I asked for it or not, and charge my account the exorbitant prices they asked for the stuff—mostly useless crap like vitamins for pets laced with caffeine. I got myself out of the thing, but only after spending a good sum of money for no good reason except curiosity.

Curiosity may lead to disturbing things. Some may argue that it's better not to have access to any scams, pornography, or death, but I think the positive aspects of the Internet outweigh the negative. Ubiquitous access, when vetted properly, can be used to advance one's career and enrich one's life. Turning Art is a great way to access emerging artists. I love it, though it costs a lot. But hey, so does art.

Some Thoughts on an Age of Aquarius Part 1: Ignorance

All parts include: Part 1: Ignorance; Part 2: Seduction; Part 3: Compassion; Part 4: Psychiatrists; Part 5: Hacking vs. Lying.

Ignorance

The Internet has to do with completely open information. There is no unopen information on the Internet, because even if you hide things, by virtue of being "on the Internet," it can be found. Unfortunately, this has it's problems.

For one thing, there are certain pieces of information which aren't true. I ran into this problem on Facebook just recently when my friend Gideon caught me in an untruth. I had shared a picture of an indigenous South American who was crying, purportedly because the Brazilian government refused to listen to him, and moved forward with a plan which would destroy his homeland. Actually, he was crying because it was his cultural practice to cry when visited by distant relatives. I had shared the picture assuming everything said about it was true, when in fact, it was not. Which brings me to a point about the age of Aquarius: information is everywhere, but it isn't vetted by any authority. Therefore, it unfortunately may be false. Thus there still needs to be some respect for the authority of facts, or information will become meaningless. This is ignorance of individual things.

There is another kind of ignorance at play on the Internet. Because you have access to ubiquitous information, you may be lulled into a kind of false sense of security and believe you know all the truth when you in fact are ignorant. This is a general kind of ignorance. This happened to me too.

Back when Fukushima melted down, I found a website with very studied and learned people who came to the conclusion that Fukushima was essentially a media lie. Meaning, Fukushima posed no danger to the public, while a corrupt Western media continued to repeat maliciously that it did. They went to great lengths to secure their own trusted media outlets, and stream several of them simultaneously, watching and taking notes. They also studied the blueprints of the Fukushima reactor in depth, and proved why a core meltdown would be completely impotent in terms of human danger. Needless to say, this was all wrongheaded. The facts came to light, and, of course, Fukushima is now known as one of the more serious nuclear accidents in history. The people, including myself, who participated in this orgy of fact finding were not wearing the condoms of skepticism.

Both these kinds of ignorance result directly from the democratic nature of ubiquitous information. One should be careful about aquarian information, and make sure it is in fact correct.

Conventionally Ultimate

Edit: This experience has actually happened to me. Every two weeks, on the dot, I experienced extremely ultimate physical pain while I slept, beginning at my incarceration in the mental hospital, and lasting several months. Eventually it faded, but there is no possible way in human existence to experience more physical pain. It was as though every nerve ending of my body which had the capability of feeling pain was fed overwhelming supplies of the molecule responsible for pain. The dreams only reemerged once, recently. In the recent case, I was on a reality television show, and the pain was accompanied by the words "Medication Alert" on the screen. I felt the pain coming on, and the usual hopeless inevitability, but this time, I was saved by the unexpected presence of a Dharma teaching. Please be human. Please oppose psychiatry.

Question: Is there such a thing as ultimate pain?

Answer: Yes, I think so — in a sense. Pain is a concept like everything else, and thus can exist in pure form in an entropic environment.

Question: What about in another universal formation that allows for more of similar elements?

Answer: Yes, that too would be ultimate. They're both ultimate in relation to their constructs.

Student: It's like for one man something is ultimate, while for another man something else is ultimate.

Answer(er): Yes, sort of. Except, concepts only make sense in regards to their universal formations, so the idea of "ultimate" is really the same in both cases — there is no hierarchy.