Random Thoughts On Whatever

If I Were King of the United States

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:35:00 +0000

Another Topic du Jour.

We would all live in the projects. There would be no such thing as private houses anymore. All the projects would have the same basic design, structure, materials, etc. The rent would be thirty percent of your income.

Five years of college or a bachelor's degree (whichever comes first) would be mandatory and funded in much the same way as the rest of the public school system. Which would mean that by the SAT/ACT standards of most state universities, there would be none of the functionally illiterate high school graduates that are running around now.

Military service would be mandatory for two years after high school and before college, because a.) you never know when you might need a largish standing army and b.) you value citizenship more when you have to defend it. Pacifists will be given non-combat duties but still expected to serve. People who want to stay in the military will have that option after college.

Voting at the state and national levels would be mandatory. Anyone not voting would be subject to double taxes.

Community service would be mandatory. At least eight hours a month volunteering at any non-profit organization.

Everyone would have Medicaid. To hell with the insurance companies.

...More later. Tomorrow is gonna be a long day and it's way past my bedtime.

Books!

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 07:29:00 +0000

All right, I'll admit it: I'm addicted to reading. Fiction, nonfiction, fluff or hardcore intellectual stimulation, at some point I will read it. About the only things to which I won't subject my poor brain are romances and westerns.

To illustrate my point, recently I have read (am reading) Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, various magazines ranging from Popular Mechanics to Cabella's catalog, Dean Koontz' Odd Thomas series, the His Dark Materials series, an anthology of Romantic poetry that I can't lay my hands on at the moment, various and sundry metaphysical books and Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary.

That's just in the past couple of weeks.

The written word is mankind's greatest achievement. Civilization started there. Not with fire, not with the creation of a social structure, but with the ability to make our thoughts outlive us. Every so often, I have to just sit back in awe at the genius involved in that concept.

There, that takes care of the big, important thoughts. Now on to the whining and complaining.

The Sword of Truth. Good fantasy, but Goodkind is in love with capitalism. Seriously. One of these days, I'll be bored enough to count the number of pages which he devotes to denouncing socialism and be shocked at how much of it I waded through.

Odd Thomas. This is about as close as I come to reading sentimental trash. Only because there's some really clever dialogue and occasionally a good idea or two.

His Dark Materials. These are supposed to be kids' books. I can imagine me reading them as a kid, but I just can't see your average kid reading them. My friends have a nine year old daughter, and I can just picture how bored and frustrated it would make her to wade through the antique language. Still, well written and good stories...worth the price of admission.

The poetry. This is a whole other discussion which will no doubt come up later at some point. In my opinion, the Romantics (Romantic movement, not genre. Keats, Blake, Shelley and so on. Not romantic as in insipid, uninspired valentine's day card stuff) did it best, so they're the ones I read when I'm in the mood for good poetry.

The metaphysical books. If you don't stretch regularly, you lose flexibility. This is true for both body and mind. I recommend the Tao of Pooh, the Principia Discordia, the Devils of Loudon (sp?), and anything by Lovecraft.

The Devil's Dictionary. The. Best. Bierce's style is a little dry for my taste sometimes, but he's still funny as hell. Like an evil Mark Twain.

The only problem with loving to read is finding shelf-space for all the books that seem to accumulate. If you know what I mean, then it'll be familiar. You try to use the library, to borrow from friends, but some books you just have to own and they just take up more and more space.
Still, I take comfort in the fact that my problem is nothing compared to my parents' or my late grandmother's. The walls in their houses are pretty much invisible due to all the books blocking the view. So far, mine would only fill a couple of shelves.

Self Destruction/Improvement

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:37:00 +0000

I've always believed in a changeable model of human nature. That is, that people are basically stupid and self-centered, but can change when they want to. Well, the self-centered part, anyway. Like the comedian said, you can't fix stupid. You can, however, deal with little individual stupidities of thought and action.

But it seems like every time I put this belief into practice, whether it's for me or on the behalf of someone else, it's just ridiculously difficult. I mean hard all out of proportion to what it seems like it should be. Humans have a psycho-spiritual inertia that would rival a black hole.

I think I'm finally beginning to understand why, though, and it's tricky, so pay attention. We identify with our problems. Our bad habits and ugly character traits feel good to us in some way or allow us to be lazy in some way. This makes it hard to change them. But over and above all that, we feel that the bad things are part of who we are.

Since we don't want to destroy ourselves, we resist changing. This kind of occurred to me when I saw Fight Club, but it seemed too trite at the time. The whole headlong rush to self-destruction as a means of self-improvement thing. I still don't really buy it, not on that scale.

I do think, though, that unless we're prepared to embrace some self-destructive behavior, nothing changes. It helps if you have something besides yourself to change for. A kid, a love interest, family, hell a deity if you must. Because for most people rationally knowing you should change just doesn't have enough power to overcome our inertia.

Art?

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:27:00 +0000

So I'm sitting in Hastings (Barnes & Noble being too far to walk to) and looking at art books. And it comes to me. I don't know what I'm looking for. Not in the sense of not knowing which artist or style I want to see, but in the sense of being completely lost. Sort of like those dreams where you can fly, only forget how when you're a hundred feet up. That same stomach-clenching sense of WTF?!

Now as I sit here, I'm still at a loss. Let's see what Oxford has to say about it.

art¹

• noun 1 the expression of creative skill through a visual medium such as painting or sculpture. 2 the product of such a process; paintings, drawings, and sculpture collectively. 3 (the arts) the various branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, and drama. 4 (arts) subjects of study primarily concerned with human culture (as contrasted with scientific or technical subjects). 5 a skill: the art of conversation.

— ORIGIN Latin ars.

Hmmmm. Not very helpful. That covers everything from oil painting to graffiti. How, then, do we differentiate between the Mona Lisa and Kilroy Was Here? The technical quality of the work? That would leave a lot of modern art out of the equation (not a big loss, to my way of thinking) and include a lot of things not normally considered art (comic books, anime, video games). The subject matter? (Personally, I'd prefer to look at weird monsters and giant robots than to stare at a bowl of fruit or some blotches of color.) Maybe the emotional response from the viewer? (Seems like porn would win hands-down in that case...:P)

My understanding still seems incomplete to me. I suppose I'll have to actually take an art appreciation class some time.

Religion and Spirituality

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 07:44:00 +0000

Today you get two for the price of one because I was zonked out of my head on medicine yesterday. Of course, I'm in serious need of a good sleep at the moment, so it may just be six of one and half a dozen of the other. Anyway, let's get on with this.

Religion is like dandruff: almost everyone has it and most people seem to derive a fair bit of pleasure from fiddling with it. That's paraphrasing Heinlein, since I can't lay my hands on the book to check the exact words. The point is well made, though. As humans, historically we like our religion. We like to play with it, just like we like to play with all our other toys, in the same competitive fashion. The whole "My God's better than your God" thing.

It's tied up with a way of thinking that should run directly counter to our evolution. Religion is based on the concept that belief should override the evidence of the senses. It's a very antiquated way of looking at things, and yet shockingly applicable to modern times as well. Because as I posted earlier, how many of us are really scientifically literate? This continued ignorance definitely fosters religion in society, because if we can not understand everyday things and yet they still work, why shouldn't there be gods who are just as mysterious?

But I think ignorance and the search for mental and emotional comfort is only part of the answer. The rest is spirituality. Or at least, what I take to be spirituality. Bear with me.

We have a need to not only be part of something greater than ourselves, but to invest qualities, values, even emotions into things that really don't (sometimes shouldn't) have them already. From this need spring morality, ethics, religion, patriotism and so on.

Please note: I'm not saying that either religion or spirituality are bad things. I am both religious and spiritual myself and I expect to hear about this post from my gods in no uncertain terms. We just have a problem with accepting this need as a part of ourselves. We make excuses: "It's how I was raised." or "God told me so." or "Such and such a book spoke to me." And then we get defensive when we're called on it.

I am of the opinion that just as the more rational parts of the mind developed to understand and use the world around us more efficiently, so did the irrational parts develop to help us understand and use the subtler connections between us and between us and the world. Just like any other trait some people have a more pronounced tendency to display one or the other, but I think we all have the capacity for both rational and irrational (magical, mystical, whatever) thought.

Just my opinion. I'm now going to go and make sure my house is well-grounded.

Philosophy and Other Nonsense

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 16:06:00 +0000

So what good is it to tinker with your understanding of life? To really examine life, the way it's lived, your place in the greater scheme of things, and so on and so forth?

Well.....

I put it to you this way: except for a narrow, technological sense, there is no such thing as an original thought. If you suddenly have a blinding flash of insight into things and understand better, chances are someone has had that epiphany before you and put it into words already.

The advantage in studying these things is that you don't have to reinvent the wheel. The disadvantage is that unless you have had the experience that would lead naturally to the same conclusion, then it won't really make sense.

Besides, knowledge can be fun for its own sake. *gasp* Yeah. The more you know, the better you can understand things and the better you can understand things, the more it is possible for you to know. Philosophy lets you understand understanding.

Huh?

It also lets you tie your brain in knots, which is fun. At a more advanced level, it lets you tie other peoples' brains in knots, which is a lot more fun. Read about Socrates some time if you doubt it. Or Diogenes. Or Lao-tzu.

As a matter of fact, here are some resources to get started (I know wiki is not a source, but it's a good starting point):

WikiPedia Philosophy Portal

WikiPedia on Logic

Online Philosophy Classes

Now go forth and embrace your ignorance.

Topic du Jour: Politics

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:13:00 +0000

Another TdJ because I promised myself I would do this daily and I'm sick as a dog, so originality is not my friend today.

Getting to the point, then. I'm a little irritated with our president. I like him. I voted for him. So far, he's tried to get things done that need to be done. He started out in a horrible position and has handled it pretty well so far. Just think what dubyuh would be doing right now if he were still in charge...yeah.

But I'm irritated on three fronts. First, the health care thing. It's one of those things whose time has come. All he had to do was keep laying the shame on Congress, maybe make a few PSAs to drive things home. But no. Now we're waiting.

Second, the gun thing. This is America. We need our guns. We feel all puny and insignificant without them. And - most telling - they would be in our hands were they legal or not. So, he needs to get up on a podium and make it clear. Something along the lines of, "I'm not going to try to take away your guns. Period. Now quit bringing them to my speeches."

And third. I sent an email to the white house not too long ago and requested an answer (some links to information on pending legislation). To be honest all I expected was a form letter thanking me for my interest and so on. Instead, I got a piece of propaganda that had only the slightest bearing on what I had asked. The same one my wife got when she asked for a response on a completely different issue. Seriously? Is our government so cheap that they let volunteers do this? Or an automated system? This is what we can expect from the most technically literate president we've ever had?

For shame. I'm gonna vote for Cthulu next time around.

Topic Du Jour

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:55:00 +0000

In keeping with an idea I found on Litemind, here is the Topic du Jour: Home. For those of you unfamiliar with this exercise, this is where I ramble on for a few paragraphs about said topic, probably not reaching anything so lofty as a conclusion.

So without further ado:

What makes a place home? Comfort, peace, a sense of ease? The kitchen? The bedroom? A boundary drawn between the chaotic evils of the world and ourselves?

And, of course, let's not forget congenial company. Family, relations, friends, acquaintances. Well, maybe not acquaintances. And the gods. (Or God, if you prefer.)

All of these are parts of home, but the whole - the ideal - is both larger and simpler.

Someone's home is an intimate description of them: their sense of aesthetics, cleanliness, religion, literacy, etcetera ad nauseum. For example, I'm a messy slob - my home reflects this. I love food, as the wear and patina of use in the kitchen testifies. I'm a spiritual person as evidenced by what for lack of a better word we call the altar room. And so on.

Chez moi. My place.

Go Figure

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:11:00 +0000

So yet again here is this poor, lonely blog floating in cyberspace. I guess Google doesn't believe in euthanasia. Honestly, I wouldn't be posting this if it weren't for a couple of notifications that people are following me.

Huh? Following me? Now I feel like a spy. Or like a poor person walking into an upscale department store.

Anyway.....

For those of you who haven't been continuing your educations, here are a couple of places to check out - because ignorance = FAIL.

Litemind - invaluable for those nifty little ways of improving thought processes themselves and just cool sh*t in general.

Covenspace - myspace for pagans. Sadly, it comes without all the apps, music and other time wasters that bling up the actual myspace. Still, an excellent resource and nice people. Go say hi if that's your thing.

Selfmadescholar.com - many, many FREE resources. From languages to college courses and all kinds of other stuff. Yeah, you don't get a piece of paper saying you learned it, but then again if you don't keep learning stuff, your brain rots.

PrincipiaDiscordia.com - Life is Chaos. Read all about it here.

Musings on Economics

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:58:00 +0000

Wow. I would have thought Google would have shut this down.

Seeing that they haven't, I feel an irresistible urge to pontificate. Or at least ramble on for a while.

I've recently been given to speculate on economic issues. You see, I got a job. Aside from that, in the course of my duties in this job, I assist people with placing orders over the phone for over-priced, unnecessary stuff.

My conclusions are as follows: one, there are too many people in the United States with too much money and not enough sense; two, I need a better job.

Take Brookstone, for example. In their Christmas catalogue, there was for sale - at around forty dollars - a lighted dog leash. That's right a lighted dog leash. It sold out.

Or take Wolferman's. They sell English muffins, crumpets, scones and sundry pastries. Over Christmas, it was not unusual for people to call in and order three hundred dollars worth of this stuff. That's three hundred dollars before shipping costs were added on. Even now I manage to take at least five or six hundred dollars worth of orders a day.

Or - my personal favorite - Dr. Creflo Dollar. Forty or fifty dollars for the week's messages on DVD. And people not only pay it, they're happy to pay it.

If just half of these people did without this pointless stuff...well, I'd be out of a job. But aside from that. If they donated that money instead to the secular charity of their choice, this country would be a lot better off.

Until Further Notice

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 07:50:00 +0000

Due to sucky circumstances beyond my control, this blog is closed until further notice. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Blog Action Day?

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 10:23:00 +0000

Yay environment....

Call me sociopathic, but I find it hard to care about the environment. At least, to the point of giving up the things I've become addicted to. My car, for instance. It's going on thirty years old if it hasn't passed it, it guzzles gas like there's no tomorrow and burning ethanol in it is guaranteed to fry its engine. And I can't replace it with something cleaner, since there is no money to do so. And the buses here are a joke - I'm not tying up two hours of my day in exchange for saving a little pollution. Especially not when the bus runs on diesel.

Car companies offering up hybrid engines, electric engines and ethanol friendly engines is all well and good, but poor bastards like me can't afford the prices. Oh well. There has to be some way of helping out our poor, ailing planet. Let's see, I could give up smoking...nah. I could recycle. Wait, I already do that. It's good to get a little cash back for those cans and bottles.

If I owned my home, I could insulate the hell out of it. Perhaps send off for some do-it-yourself solar panels. But I don't own my home. *Sigh*

I could write to my congressman and demand new and tougher laws on environmental issues. For what that would be worth.

But we should all do something and keep doing it. For the sake of the kids. I have to be honest: if I didn't have my son to worry about, I wouldn't care at all. But I do, so I do. And so should you.

Weird, I know, but...

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 07:01:00 +0000

If you haven't yet, you have to try this. It's that cool.

I don't know sometimes. I could be spending my time online doing research. Improving myself in some way. I could be writing or doing something else to earn some cash.

Instead, I find myself wasting time on things like the above. Ah well, seeing as how I don't have the real thing, that'll work. It's still amazingly therapeutic. Like playing Grand Theft Auto and going on a complete rampage.

It's my firm opinion that if we don't give in to these primitive urges (you know, sex, violence, politics...all that depraved stuff...) every so often, eventually we go berserk. The psyche can only take so much self-improvement, be it spiritual, academic, moral or whatever else before it rebels. This is true for my psyche, anyway. Maybe somewhere out there in Internet-land is some perfect person who can constantly improve themselves and never ever wastes a single moment...but I wouldn't bet money on it.

On Faith

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 09:13:00 +0000

Tonight I find myself contemplating the vagaries of human nature as evidenced by Pastafarianism. For those of you unfamiliar with this concept (and too lazy to click the link), this is the belief that the world was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. This was all started as a reaction to Creationism (or Intelligent Design, or whatever else you want to call it).

I found it quite amusing and quite an appropriate response. But then I thought further, which is usually my first mistake. And I realized that even a belief in evolutionary theory is still just a belief. We hide that by saying there is scientific evidence to back up the theory, but come on. How many of us have done all the necessary research to know how to work a carbon-dating machine? And of those few, how many have tested samples that can corroborate evolutionary theory?

It's still faith, it's just been switched from faith in the divine to faith in an institution.

And then I thought still further. I'm not bothered by taking things on faith - some things, to a certain extent. But from a cosmological point of view I feel more comfortable placing my faith in science than in God. Don't get me wrong, I'm as spiritual a person as the next guy and probably more so than most. It's just that science is a slow, plodding beast that is more inclined to skepticism than belief. Its (largely underfunded) ministers tend to be likewise slow and plodding, but inexorable. It is the job of science to answer questions and the questions engendered by those answers and so on ad infinitum. Which makes me a whole lot more comfortable than saying "God did it."

Button

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 11:20:00 +0000

Haha, new button!
Thanks, Oswegan

What If...

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 05:39:00 +0000

From what I've read, life on Earth began when enough complex chemicals had enough energy pumped through them to start a self perpetuating chain reaction. Amino acids making proteins, which in turn made bacteria (something like that, anyway...) and so on.

I wonder how far away we are from the same thing happening on the Internet. You know, a power surge comes along, and all of a sudden your website is updating itself and complaining that you never spend any time with it because of your addiction to this so-called "real life."

Scary thing is, it's not all that far-fetched. All we are is a conglomeration of ever-simpler chemicals. Couldn't you get the same effect via a conglomeration of ever-simpler ideas? The odds against it happening by chance have to be as enormous as the odds of a chemical soup congealing into proteins, but couldn't it happen given enough interlinked information?

Kind of like the million monkeys hammering on typewriters and finally reproducing Shakespeare. I like it.

National Lottery

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 05:19:00 +0000

Hmmm.....you know what this nation needs? It needs a national lottery. One where everyone is automatically entered every time they take taxes out of your paycheck. One dollar from everyone who is working for a living every week. Then they pull a name at random from those same tax files and that person gets the money. Tax free. You'd have to start paying taxes the next year on any money you had left, but for that year, you get all of the money and tax immunity.

I wonder how many people there are in the US who work for a living. It's got to be in the millions if not the hundred millions. I know I'd love to get that much money.

I know, I know: the love of money is the root of all evil, right? I don't want the money because I love money. I want the money so I wouldn't have to work anymore. Let me invest most of it, take enough of the proceeds for my family and I to live on comfortably and I'd give away the rest. Which, given how money tends to have its own particular sort of gravity, would end up being a job in itself.

Blogging Style?

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 06:37:00 +0000

Your Blogging Type is Pensive and Philosophical

You blog like no one else is reading...
You tend to use your blog to explore ideas - often in long winded prose.
Easy going and flexible, you tend to befriend other bloggers easily.
But if they disagree with once too much, you'll pull them from your blogroll!

What's Your Blogging Personality?

I guess it's true: the quizzes never lie.

Natural Selection?

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 04:53:00 +0000

Yesterday my son stood up for the first time. I'm not going to rehash what has been written about by far better writers than me about what a wonderful moment it was.

Rather, I intend to marvel that we as a species ever managed to make it out of the stone age. Honestly, people. How could a species as helpless and pathetic as we are in our infancy have ever managed to survive? It's the one flaw that sticks out at me in the whole theory of evolution.

By all rights, we should have been food for better, stronger beasts.

Woops

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 06:59:00 +0000

Woops. So much for night-night. Wow, this is addictive. More new stuff. MORE, I tell you!!!

*Ahem*

Anyway. Now there are links. Here are Delphi Forums, which is just too big and good of a place to miss out on, Helium, where you get paid to blather on about whatever, Planet Elder Scrolls, because Morrowind is the best computer game of all time, and Rum and Monkey just because.

Yeah. Just because. Go and see if you doubt me. I'll wait.

Now, the question in my mind at the moment is why people feel the need for religion. I wrote an article on this very topic at Helium, but that was just off the top of my head. What piques my interest is that even atheists tend to turn their non-belief into a religion. What is this driving need in us for something larger than the ordinary to give purpose to our lives?

Isn't the moment enough? Or is it the spiritual equivalent to living paycheck to paycheck? Hmm...there's an interesting metaphor. I wonder, can you invest in the soul? I've heard of feeding it and selling it, but investing in it?

Odd, the things that parade in front of your brain in the wee hours of the morning....

Great

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:48:00 +0000

Well, here goes: according to the wiktionary, great is

Adjective

great (comparative greater, superlative greatest)

Positive great
Comparative greater
Superlative greatest

Very big, large scale.
A great storm is approaching our shores.

Very good.
Dinner was great.

Important.
Title referring to an important leader.
Alexander the Great

Hmmm.....I think in this instance, I was aiming at very good. I feel an urge to pull out my hair, as I'm faced with Pirsig's whole dilemma on "quality." Ah well, there's nothing for it but to soldier on. Night-night time now. More later as events warrant.

Hmmm...

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:35:00 +0000

Not sure if this will work...and still haven't looked up great. Oh well. Here goes.

You Are 28% Good

You try to do the right thing, but only when it works out in your favor anyway.
You're not exactly evil or without ethics, but you could be going down a pretty dark path.
You probably have good intentions. You've just gotten comfortable with acting the way you do.
Knowing the difference between good and bad is half the battle. Acting like a good person is the hard part.

You are also probably: A bit jaded and cynical about life's rules

Right now you are on track to being: A petty criminal

To be a better person: Help a friend in need, without being asked

How Good Are You?

Hey! It worked! Whaddayaknow? Now I'll look up great.

Wow, here goes...

noreply@blogger.com (Morthax) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:05:00 +0000

Okay, so this is the first post here....

You can almost hear the crickets in the background, huh?

Yep. It's gonna be great, I tell you. Great.

Speaking of greatness, what is it we mean when we say that? What is it as a quality?

Excellence, as I previously used the term? Size? Power? I don't know.

I'm going to find out, though. just as soon as I can dig up my dictionary. If I still have my dictionary. If not, I suppose it'll be back to the Internet Standby: the wikipedia.