Staring

Stare, stare, stare.
That's all I do at work some days, when I'm not into a book.
Stare at the trees. Stare at the tree trunks.
Stare at the road, stare at the sky.
Stare at the fast cars zooming by.

Staring is therapeutic and meditative. We should all do it for an hour everyday. That's what I would require of everyone if I was queen of the world.

Grindstones

I think I would rather actually operate a grindstone instead of using it as a metaphor. Sounds way more interesting and exciting, not to mention good for my muscles. Here's a picture of one:

http://www.hampshirecam.co.uk/longparish/longparish_grindstone.jpg

It is sunny outside, and green all around. Looks like heaven. People don't realize that the real grindstone is way more fun that the negative association they make with it to refer to their career paths. Seriously.

Notes on Solitude Part II

No, solitude cannot be had in a world that does not want to leave you alone. Exploitation exists on every level of society, and everyone with any power demands your time and energy with the threat of homelessness and starvation. There are very few people in the world who are not control freaks or attention hogs, your "loving families" included.

Livelihood

Lately I have been preoccupied with trying to decide what career path to take. There are too many options out there fraught with risks both monetary and social that prevent me from taking a concrete step in any direction. My philosophical and political leanings certainly don't help the matter. I believe most careers are bullshit that require expensive bullshit education so we get hired by bullshit corporations. I am cynical and skeptical of almost every career out there except family farms which is not an option for someone like me who neither has the money nor the connections to start a farming business. I like simplicity and straightforwardness and farming seems to be the only thing that matters -- it is about making food so you can survive and thrive. It is a direct meaningful link to livelihood.

Making 8.50 an hour is not adequate if I want to live an independent life while maintaining a certain lifestyle. I need Internet connection, I need a car, I need healthful organic food. Those things cannot be had at $1000 a month without strict budgeting and stress. In a better world, the need for those things would not exist. Better public transportation and city infrastructure would make having a car unnecessary and without the existence of a handful of corporations in control of all the food production of the world without regard for nutrition or health, the word "organic" wouldn't be part of the modern lingo.

Thinking about making a living in a sick world depresses me.

Notes on solitude. Part I

My efforts at keeping to myself have been thwarted by many forces in my life, not least of which is my extraverted roommate. My customer service job also doesn't help of course. And the few friends that I do have expect me to hang out with them, and make me do stuff like join the local meetup group called "Socrates Cafe" where people talk about social problems and how to solve them. These people can be so full of themselves -- they can't get over their sense of superiority over what they see as the uneducated or unintelligent masses (which is pretty much anyone who is not part of the meetup group). As if getting together once a week to chat ever solved anything. Of course, they are also smart enough to realize they are just doing this for their own pleasure as a kind of mental masturbation, and not necessarily to help change anything. I for one am not a big believer in activism, but many of them seem to be activist wannabes, only they are too busy or lazy.

Anyway, all cynicism aside, I wanted to say that I really have a hard time writing. I am a consumer of words, not a producer. It takes a tremendous amount of effort for me to articulate my thoughts, which is also part of why going to the socrates cafe is frustrating sometimes. And of course it is one of the biggest reasons why this blog has few entries. I find writing exhausting. Thoughts are more fluid and fast, but words drag me down. They want to confine me and make me rethink and restate and reanalyze every thought that is worth expressing. I'm just not that word-y.

But to get back on topic here about solitude. I was unemployed for a while, and so I did get to spend a few months alone without constant contact with co-workers, friends, and strangers. I don't watch TV, but I do go online to read the news and blogs and nutrition/health stuff. I realized that even that is just a lot of noise in the head. I tried to cut that down further and noticed that I was restless and anxious without my daily dose of favorite webpages. Eventually, I trained myself to follow a strict routine of getting up in the morning, having a healthy breakfast of oatmeal and tea, listening to classical music while doing some light chores around the apartment. Classical music soothes my soul, calms me down, helps me focus on the present and keeps me from constantly thinking of lists of things to do.

Then I would sit in my porch under the sun, and meditate for an hour or two, until lunch time calls for a cooking session. Idle days. They were wonderful. I think everyone should get the opportunity to experience solitude without the daily pressure of meeting other people's expectations whether at work or home. To be continued.

Solitude

I have decided to enjoy, appreciate, and cultivate solitude in order to maintain my sanity and peace of mind. I hope it will also help me think more clearly about the nature of reality. People and their cultures can distort one's perception of truth, and I no longer wish to be guided by other people's delusions, illusions, and unexamined assumptions.

On god

The ontological argument for the existence of god is weak because it is a bare assertions fallacy. The argument is that you can make an a priori conclusion that god exists just by using intuition and reason alone. Saying that god exists because people throughout history have thought so is also an ad populum fallacy. A good alternative explanation to why people throughout history have believed in god is this: it was humanity's first attempt at science because the human mind needs explanations for why anything happens in the world. Science has successfully thwarted religion's supernatural explanations for natural disasters, and today religion can only appeal to the god of the gaps (as well as comfort, I will grant).