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.

Madonna's New Album

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

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

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

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

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.