A Waste of Time

 Today was a serious holiday. 4:20 is a date that many folks mark on their calendars (if they even have them) and eagerly await. Especially in the world of college students, the importance of 4:20 is greatly exaggerated to perhaps compete with birthdays and Halloween. Providing an easy connection to other people, getting high also connects people to the world in a way that is fake, but new. Any new experience fosters learning and an altered state of mind sometime works wonders for new interactions with old ideas and understandings of how everything interacts. Love is a many splendid thing. But, (and I don't think that seriously considering what Tony Prichard says and possibly using it as an outline is such a ridiculous thing) apparently it's just two. Sentiment is something entirely made up. Being caught up in love or some premature form of it is very easy, but also very easy to avoid. Earlier today, I had a discussion about the fact that guilt is not real but it was difficult to think of a positive counter to this, and infatuation is the perfect example. I am always wanting to say that what is real anything that we cannot control. It seems that anything we can control is quickly morphed from its original state to something "bigger and better" or more enjoyable or beneficial. The ideas that "real" is defined by control includes many emotions, excludes life itself, includes tigers, excludes tigers, includes state of mind, excludes radios. This is a vague, time consuming system that doesn't guarantee a decisive conclusion. Sex is physical gratification and many a splendid thing. I feel like it is a funny thing that it is so tied into the complex we think of as love. Biologically, most mammals, including humans, are made to practice polygamy. Love cannot be defined which leads to all of the crazy extreme things associated with it. And to chick flicks, and to Disney movies, and to assumptions and overcommitment and loss of identity and heartbreak. Yet all of these things are illusions. I think that love is not real in the sense that we can control it. Interpreting a relationship as love is what defines it. Not what the actual relationship is like. If anything is an example of current mythology, it is love. But it provokes in me thoughts about alterity and my altered state of being. Shadows are discussed somewhere in the beginning of Radical Alterity and are, very much like love, a tangible example of something that may or may not make us an other and may or may not be an other. Is my shadow part of me and does it make me bigger? It seems that affecting my environment would change my size. 

The guy in The Diamond Age feels no love. Just ego that he's constantly striving for. Love is a myth that lives on from the past in the form of sex and simulated caring, shown by bringing the occasional gift to your woman, motivate by the desire to appear in love. What's interesting is that love can factually exclude ego but seems to include all else. In a completely dark room, completely silent, but in love, would I as a being be larger than I would be without love? Interaction with your environment is the only tangible thing that results from life. Creation, thoughts, and emotions are all a result of where and when life occurs and the world that we exist in now is interpreted in so many ways, that I am also making the world bigger in time and in effect. Every experience I have adds to Earth's repertoire and increases its size. What can be questioned today is whether or not there is a more efficient, super way of experiencing the earth that increases the size of yourself and the world.  Perhaps on this day, people are having twice the experience they would have if sober. Walking on a path sober, I would interpret that experience as closely to reality as I could. Strolling when high, am I not still having that real experience I would have had before, but experiencing it twice? Once in my body in reality, once in my altered interpretation of it. This is always applicable due to the lapse in time created by our brain's inability to interpret things exactly when they happen. (I just referred to all of man kind having a collective brain. Somehow I feel that is very wrong). But inebriation brings it even more in focus that our experiences are nothing like reality. 

Prompted by The Invention of Morel

The main character of The Invention of Morel chooses the wrong spot to be what seems like every time he tries to hide. His inability to fully process decision beyond what's convenient at the moment reveals that in order to make good decisions, some insight must be had. In moments of panic, he hides. What does this say about humans? I think that his actions comment on how human interpretation of situations when in fear are absolutely contradicting to the normal reaction which is to manipulate the environment until it is desirable. But, again, when in fear, behavior is completely changed. The reality of the example form the book is that no place would be safe for the character since the environment around him is created by himself.  He is not safe because he is not allowing himself to be. Also, safety is a subjective emotion anyway and on top of that choice, having  the choice of having a subjective reality makes the concept that he regrets where he hides every time very complex and perplexing. 

"How much more advanced they were than we!" - page 22 of the Invention of Morel

In order to believe this quote, the whole concept of what is advanced needs to be fully challenged. Factually, with time humans become more advanced, making discoveries allowing us to create and understand things that prior generations could not. This quote is in reference to cavemen's ability to light fires without matches. This comments on technology in a way that does not believe that advancement is inherently good. If matches didn't exist, the character would be practiced at rubbing two sticks together, benefiting him in is desperate situation. It is so interesting that this quote is in the reading for this class because it is completely opposite to what I thought was a ubiquitous message coming from everything discussed and addressed in class. That message being that technology is expanding reality, which is good. However, slightly, tweaked, this message still applies if it is simplified to say that technology is simply changing reality. 

"Enduring discomfort, even risking their lives, in attempt to be original." - page 24

The need to be original has become a hopeless endeavor that humans as robots need to learn to abandon. Why is it so difficult to accept a group mentality about everything? Individuality and the strive for it are desired because it is written in our genes and imprinted in our minds through societal views stating that individuality is needed to feel freedom. This is the reason that it is so difficult to deny and resist originality. The question then brought up regards the fact that every human is undeniably unique because they have had a truly unique experience. Though no action has been original, the combination of life experiences sets every human apart from one another. This truth is irrelevant. Though each person has had their own custom experience, it is not relevant because, as robots, humans desire the same things and feel the same emotions. If an emotion is felt, is it the same for each person? What if a different event prompts the same emotion? Is it the same experience to feel that emotion? Unlike the self, I think that emotions need to be addressed as elemental and constant. Sadness over death and spilled juice is the same emotion. We are unique in our combination of experiences, which is true simultaneously with the fact that it doesn't matter. Under the latter view, the thought that an emotion is tangible and unchanging despite its source is supported. We are already robots, but are not able to succumb to this fact because of our need for individuality. However, does our denial change anything? If we do not identify as robots, does that mean we are not? If the answer is no, the idea that we make our own realities cannot be justified and I support the latter, especially in the context of all of the texts we're discussing. The only way to be able to make both ideas work together is to differentiate between reality and personal reality. We make our own realities as individuals, but there is a collective truth that is present despite what individuals believe. If people ever do abandon uniqueness and succumb to group mentality, this will still be true, only simplified, for fewer interpretation will be taken on reality. 

The main character's opinion of the woman he loves supports my argument that the self is not constant. On one page, he hates the girl who watches the sunset. Then he loves and desires for her again. Then he wants to see her more than he can handle. But basic indecision does not prove the point that the main character can because of his reality. It is his irrationality and our knowledge as readers that he believes everything that he feels so whole heartedly and deeply that allows us to feel safe in the assumption that he is truly and freely himself. One can trust that he does not lie because his reality is wild enough that the truth is all that he can handle, no matter how unreal the truth is. Assuming this allows the reader to draw the conclusion that his feelings are directly from the self and that the inconsistency in his emotions reflect the state of the self. Defined as "personal interest" or "a person's nature", self is obviously not constant. The character's personal interest is changing all the time, deciding to abandon hope, then deciding to be proactive and back again. All of these act in on basic self-interest which is personal happiness and benefit, but when assessed more specifically, nothing is constant except for the self's inability to remain unvarying.