Thoughts On Things

Entry 1

Hi.

I'm not sure what the exact point of this is. I've tried writing various things and have immense trouble sticking with them. I just can't seem to progress the story and top my previous work, despite how low the bar is. So I figure a blog may be easier. After all, it's just writing down my thoughts and daily life if I need to. 

I've often been told that art is an extension of yourself, or your inner self, or some other vague statement I don't particularly understand. I get that it is, after all, it's your thoughts based on your experiences, but I just don't feel like I'm writing down what represents me. It doesn't feel like I'm truly pouring my inner essence out onto the paper, setting it alight with my passion, expressing myself. But despite this lack of satisfaction I get when writing, and lack of readers, I think I'll stick with it for a bit. It's a fun passtime if nothing else and I think in a way it does help to express myself. It's entirely possible this is the extent of emotion you feel when creating art and that it's just been exaggerated by others. Though, people are more passionate about things than others of course.

Today I've done a bit of reading, a bit of thinking, a bit of watching, a bit of playing, a bit of everything I usually do. If I recall correctly I started reading "Meditations." A book about the thoughts of a Roman emperor from a couple milennia ago. I think it's interesting, but it's hard to understand, at least for me. Though even if I understood it, I'm not sure I'd understand that I'd understood it. It's hard to know you know, you know? The only thing we truly know is we know nothing and all that. And then they try to confuse you with know thyself? How do I know myself when the only thing that I know is that I know nothing? Am I nothing then, if I know myself? Nay, just the contrasting thoughts of two different minds, I suppose. Happens all the time, every day. Every thought you have contrasts with the thought of another, or will eventually contrast with the thought of another. So long as there is one person (not even two) alive, there will be conflict.

Anyway, got off topic. Meditations. In this book, the tiny amount I read at least, the narrator seems to be going on about what he's learned and from who. Strength from his father, kindness from his mother, to be calm from a philosopher, to gently correct friends from another one, to live without need and without want from his other father (adoptive). All that jazz. It's not bad, I do say indeed. And that's a high compliment coming from me, the world's smartest man, being, akin to God. "But God is dead," the wise man proclaims in the audience. I look over and see a moustache protruding from nowhere, covering the face it claims to sprout from. "And so are you!" I shout back in response.

I do wonder if philosophy is really worth it all. "Is anything worth it?" the nihilist asks. Hmm. I suppose to answer that question we have to find the meaning in our lives. I lean towards existentialism for now, believing there's no inherent meaning in life and that we must create our own. Though hedonism is tempting, the idea of living solely for pleasure and avoiding pain. I don't think the two are unable to co-exist however. For example, I find my meaning in life and that meaning is pleasure. Existentially hedonistic. From an evolutionary standpoint I think we're just all trying to prolongue our species' lifespan by fucking anything that can be fucked and make a baby. And that brings us on to our next question.

Natural selection, should it come back? In our modern society, I dare say life is easy as it's ever been and as easy as it should be. We're pushing the limits on how easy it is anyway! Now I know, I know. Life is hard for all and harder for some. Poverty, disability, disease, despair, racism, sexism, homophobia etc. But it's still, in terms of difficulty, Mario Brothers, not Dark Souls. We live in a world where a blind person with no limbs could survive and have a kid. So this eliminates, at least in part, natural selection. It's no longer survival of the fittest. It's more, "you'll probably survive if you do okay in life and get a bit lucky at the start." So that means the genes of those with genetic malformities will remain in the gene pool and therefore people will continue to be born disabled and hindered from birth. Is this good or not? Well, from a moral standpoint of course it is I say! More people survive, more life is good, yes? But if we're talking from a standpoint of evolution I dare say nay. How will we become superman (a state of mind in some cases, I know) with this lack of difficulty? So that's why we're raising the difficulty I suppose. Climate change, terrorism, nuclear weapons, corrupt governments, corrupt police etc. Oh well, time will tell, she's not one to keep secrets. I wonder why we call things like time or a boat she? I dare not dwell on the topic.

Well, anyway. That's me for the night. I'm off to read if I can work up the desire. Thus Spake Zarathustra, Metamorphosis, The Early Cases of Akechi Kogoro. All the books with the big words that inflate my ego and make me feel Godly. Good night, for now, or forever depending on how I feel in the future.