I guess I should let you all know that I don’t trust any of you. Really, at a deep level, I think you’re basically all unable to think for yourselves or reach sane conclusions given the evidence before you. There might be a few individuals here and there who I think are on the right track, but they are extremely rare.

This isn’t really important on its own, but it comes into play when the time comes for me to build my community. You see, universal mistrust of other humans makes for a lonely life, which is what I have. I find myself unable to give of myself to the work other people are working on. From the outside, it looks like I’m making the perfect the enemy of the good. Inside, it’s not that simple: I’m willing to make compromises in order to achieve progress, but when it’s time to actually participate, I just can’t make myself do it.

I didn’t used to be this way. But, as I’ve lived my life, I’ve given myself to lots of seemingly worthwhile outside endeavors. The church, the scouts, the church, Affirmation, the church, Reconciliation, the church, Landmark, the church, the Postal Service, and the church, were all central to my life for some time, and they all failed to serve me, some of them in really spectacular ways.

(I’ll pick Landmark Education out of the pack, because Landmark, as an organization, actually tried to serve me, though they didn’t have the right tools for what I was dealing with at one specific moment. The others failed to try, or went out of their way to antagonize me.)

It’s no wonder now that I dread going to work. I have come to loathe giving of myself to anyone or anything, especially if there’s doubt about that things interest in my well-being, future, happiness, satisfaction, fulfillment, etc.

So The Matrix has become a placeholder for all these things in life. It’s a shorthand for that which demands more and offers less to you with each passing year. That which promises Zion and delivers Hell.

This is not my best post ever, but it’s important.

(Shamelessly ripped from The Principia Discordia.)

The SOCRATIC APPROACH is most successful when confronting the ignorant. The “socratic approach” is what you call starting an argument by asking questions. You approach the innocent and simply ask “Did you know that God’s name is ERIS, and that He is a girl?” If he should answer “Yes.” then he probably is a fellow Erisian and so you can forget it. If he says “No.” then quickly proceed to:

THE BLIND ASSERTION and say “Well, He Is a girl, and His name is ERIS!” Shrewedly observe if the subject is convinced. If he is, swear him into the Legion of Dynamic Discord before he changes his mind. If he does not appear convinced, then proceed to:

THE FAITH BIT: “But you must have Faith! All is lost without Faith! I sure feel sorry for you if you don’t have Faith.” And then add:

THE ARGUMENT BY FEAR and in an ominous voice ask “Do you know what happens to those who deny Goddess?” If he hesitates, don’t tell him that he will surely be reincarnated as a precious Mao Button and distributed to the poor in the Region of Thud (which would be a mean thing to say), just shake your head sadly and, while wiping a tear from your eye, go to:

THE FIRST CLAUSE PLOY wherein you point to all of the discord and confusion in the world and exclaim “Well who the hell do you think did all of this, wise guy?” If he says, “Nobody, just impersonal forces.” then quickly respond with:

THE ARGUMENT BY SEMANTICAL GYMNASTICS and say that he is absolutely right, and that those impersonal forces are female and that Her name is ERIS. If he, wonder of wonders, still remains obstinate, then finally resort to:

THE FIGURATIVE SYMBOLISM DODGE and confide that sophisticated people like himself recognize that Eris is a Figurative Symbol for an Ineffable Metaphysical Reality and that The Erisian Movement is really more like a poem than like a science and that he is liable to be turned into a Precious Mao Button and Distributed to The Poor in The Region of Thud if he does not get hip. Then put him on your mailing list.

Jesus is imaginary, and therefore only useful when raised to an even power.

(pause for laughter)

Postulate: Grace is necessary, even in the absence of God. Prove or find counterexample.

It’s not so much a matter of my failure to always behave consistent with my commitments. It’s more a matter of my being human, and therefore, being always consistent with my commitments is simply never going to happen. Frankly, the more self-inquiry I do, the more I wonder if I really have my commitments figured out. After doing some watching of TV clips and reading people who are allegedly smarter than me, I’m wondering if I’m not committed to the extinction of all humanity. We sure are a stupid bunch. But I digress. This is about me.

Yesterday I took a computer to my sister and brother-in-law’s house to work on a specific piece of software. When I got there, the computer wouldn’t boot. It took several hours before we figured out that the SATA controller had gone partially bad (it works except for booting, which is kinda important) and several more before I had the computer back to where it had been when I pulled it from active service that morning. By the end of the night, I had encountered an entirely new and unrelated problem (still unsolved) so it’s not like I even got back to my starting point.

It was as if the computer was saying, “You think you’re gonna work on what you wanna work on today? Well fuck you! You’re gonna work on MY agenda today!”

I mention it because this is frequently how I feel about myself. I want to make money. I want to solve problems. I want to help people. And my… self… seems to thwart my own intentions and desires more often than not. Some days it’s all I can do to get out of bed. Some days I fail to get out of bed.

So where does grace come from? Jesus is not an actor in my universe, so he’s out. Other people either can’t or won’t (at least, they haven’t yet managed to) provide grace for me. I think it has to come from within myself.

This post is an attempt to find language to describe what I’m working on with myself right now. I am pretty sure that part of my problem is that I can’t describe my problem well enough, so I’m working on it.

I created this blog to help me sort out some thoughts about the thing I’m starting (placeholder name: The Human Ant Colony.) As such, the blog is intended as a service to myself. Practically speaking, that makes this site a part of my therapy. I deleted the two previous threads because they were not serving me. I struggle with hopelessness and that conversation made me feel pretty damn hopeless.

The defining incidents of my life have all revolved around my personal insufficiency. I’ve become someone who is driven to be “good enough,” and who is terrified of falling short. Until recently, I’ve been able to deal with that pressure by improving myself, but the metaphorical bar raises faster than my skill at jumping over it, and so, it seems hopeless that I will ever satisfy my own desire for performance.

The problems I choose to notice grow more urgent and more serious with time, and I am just one person. And I hate myself for being one person. For not having the vast empire and limitless resources with which to solve the problems available to me. Words fail to express the exact nature of the discord within myself. I want to be so much more than I am capable of.

To say that I am working on forgiving myself is grossly inaccurate, but I can’t think of a better phrase. Precision in language here is crucial: I am a meaning-making machine, and everything going on with me lives inside of language. The fact that I haven’t yet described it with words is a sure sign that I don’t understand it adequately, and that’s a problem. So this is becoming a focus of my meditation. The problem I’m working on is how I can relate to myself as I actually am, regardless of how I wish I were, or how I hope to become in time; and, reclaiming the part of my life that has been spent on depression due to this defective self-relationship.

Some thoughts:

There’s nothing about you that can’t be explained through your body and your mind, and your mind is just a word to represent the unique and quirky network that your brain creates. A “spirit” or “soul” is totally unnecessary to understand you.

The proper distinction between your body and your mind is that your mind is a meaning making machine (that is to say, a machine that makes things mean things), while your body is a meaning making machine making machine making machine (that is to say, a machine for making machines that make meaning making machines.)

I hope that clears up some confusion.

The Location of Meaning is becoming a more pressing topic that I must write about soon.

There’s a great quote by Albert Einstein: “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” My problem is that humanity is collectively deciding that it would rather divide and separate along ideological lines than reconcile and communicate, and that doesn’t work for me. It’s a problem that I think most everyone has long since given up on. I’m not OK with that. I’m staying with the problem. I think it’s worth solving.

It isn’t a perfect model, and there’s a little of crossover, but I think it’s more or less correct to say that (1) the only tool of clergy to motivate people is guilt; (2) the only tool of corporations to motivate people is money; and (3) the only tool of politicians to motivate you is fear.

And of course, guilt and money are really just specific instances of fear: fear of not having enough, fear of not being good enough.

The prevailing context of life today is that these are the “always and only” motivating forces for human beings: if you want to get someone to do something, you have to pay them, guilt them, or scare them into compliance. It’s pretty damn cynical.

I suspect that if you give a person everything they really need–which, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t very much–they’ll become motivated by forces much more interesting: expressing love, and contributing to their community.

(Okay, define “need.” Easy. A person’s needs are met If and Only If their fears no longer have power over them.)

This is a first draft since I need to get going, but I’d really like some feedback. Just grunt so I know you heard me.