mumbling yuppie

wanting everything and nothing at the same time

alright so the buffy season 6 is on. I'm watching the musical episode. very emotional episode. one of my favorites. it made me think more about my emotional state. I tend to swing very widely from one end to another. I'm beginning to wonder if this is what it is like for everyone.

what I mean is that some of the time I'm in control. cool collected etc. well I'm still far from suave. I manage to do things like exercise, concentrate at work, and eat right. Then the slide begins. I start to get self destructive it starts small. I slack off at work. I slack off while working out. I start eating poorly. I smoke, I drink, I sleep late I stop flossing etc.

Concurrently I begin to experience the emotions. at one end its confidence, intelligence, and optimism. On the other end it is a continuing downward spiral of disappoint and expectations of failure. Sometimes its inner directed and ocasionally its outwardly directed. I feel sorry for the gf. I must make no sense.

I'm not sure I'm describing the important bit though. Its the will to violence. It comes on strong and I want to get in a fight or go to war. The desire to set calamity in motion becomes overwhelming. the self control that normally is used getting myself to work and to the gym is now wasted simply controlling my urge to destroy. Fortunately its never directed at anyone in particular. Its just a goad to chaos.

I think its gotten so bad cause I haven't been exercising. That seems to work some of it off. makes it controllable. The problem is that when I take a break or miss a session it makes it that much harder to get back to it, and it also makes it more likely that I'll begin to feel even worse. hence begins the downward spiral.

It has begun. Fortunately I've got a break coming up here. I'll be off to see my brother in Austin. It should break the pattern and when I get back I should be able to re-establish a good pattern.

developing goals that matter.

That's of course the trick I need to not only develop goals but try to link them to the things that I am doing right fucking now.

iffin I don't find a way to make the goals mesh with my activity then I'm in trouble. That's really the key I think not just having the goals but making sure that action occurs such that the goal comes to reality.

Alright the Motivation Thing

Ok new plan for the site. I'm going to drop the uber pretentious violence shit. I was talking to a friend and she was telling me about how she quit smoking. Her trick for mastering that little stunt involved telling everyone she knew that she was quitting. The idea being that feeling shame in front of everyone she knew would be sufficient to motivate her. can

I've a similar problem I need to motivate myself and I need to record my triumphs and failures. So my idea is to just go ahead and write it all down here. That way I can keep track of everything. So I'm hoping that this talking to myself every day can help me become the man that I need to be.

Violent Society: Society from Violence

Ok my contentions here is that people form and maintain societies in order to direct violence. The popular view, when it is thought of at all, is that people form societies for protection. I disagree. I don't think this is the case, at least its not as direct as that.

Here is my reason. In a state of nature violence is random. I see you have what I want and I decide to attack you and take it or not. The only thing restraining me is my whim, and your level of ability to meet my attack. In a society of any kind there are more factors involved than just my whim and your strength. You may have too much status for me to attack you. Maybe others have agreed to a common defense. Maybe I'll go to hell if I steal from you. Its all been tried, in a thousand different ways I'm sure.

Why is this not Protection? Technically it is, a little. In the same way that a rock can provid shelter in a windstorm. It's not complete but at least you know how it's channeled and can try to avoid it.

Of course, Violence is not always inner directed. Indeed I'd guess that a lot of societies have become livable simply by directing as much violence outward as possible. A society needs to maintain some sort of balance between inner and outer directed violence. It must maintain enough outward pressure to keep other groups at bay, and enough internal pressure to keep itself functioning. This, of course, is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for survival.

9/11/2003
go here and here

Television in the land of 100 channels

Ok so I just bought the TV and I have the digital cable. In true yuppie spirit I told them to give me every channel.

Now I haven't watched TV in a long time but there are some really great shows on now. I was totally unaware of this. Not surprisingly only one of my new favorites is on a major network. I don't even know which network cause I've deen watching it on DVD. I tell you, this TV series on DVD thing kicks ass. I have all of Robotech, the first season of The Sopranos and of course the first 4 seasons of Buffy. (the 5th comes out in december. I'll be there bright and early to buy it.)

So I'm going to talk about my favorite shows, cause I wasted a lot of time watching them last night.

Joe Schmo was on last night. Premise: It's a fake reality show and everybody knows it, except for one guy, how long can they fool him? Great show. I feel really bad for the guy and I can't pry my eyes away for a second. Catch it Tuesdays @9 on Spike TV (Formerly TNN).

I also watched a couple of episodes of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I think everybody knows about this Bravo show. Ok so it kicks ass. I thought it was going to be horrible. I thought it was going to be a horribly stereotypical catty thing where they just told some poor guy what an idiot he is. Its not like that at all. First only one of the Fab 5 is terribly flaming and he's incredibly funny and nice. That's what I find remarkable about this whole thing. For the most part they are all guy's guys. They aren't being rude they just speak the plain truth and they do it in such a way that its not insulting. Then when they go about rearranging some poor slobs life they really spend time digging in to find out what kind of stuff he is in to. Above all they respect the guy that they are helping out, and it makes the show entertaining. Plus you learn that you need to trim your nose hair. I got right on that one.

Then my roommate got home and he had brought the just released "24: Season 2" DVD box set. Can I just say that this show is bad ass. We watched 4 episodes and I ended up staying up until 2:30. Great show, but the "President" is making too big a deal out of controlling the Press. I realize that the press is the militant wing of our entertainment corps, and naturally TV types like to glamorize them. But, lets face it they never have any where near the kind of power depicted here. I mean a nuclear bomb is set to go off that day. Your biggest concern is preventing mass hysteria, by stopping the rumor mill. As though vague unsubstantiated rumors are going to cause Americans to start killing each other, especially if they come from "The Press." As though we always panic. It's rare and most Americans tend to "panic" in a fairly orderly fashion. We help each other out. I mean look at the NYC blackout. Nothing happened. Nothing. This is just part of the entertainment industry's conceit that they are better than us. Which, if true, requires us to be sniveling stupid little chihuahuas to their french poodle.

Anyhow some TV these days, remarkably good, seems like all the competition and decreasing production costs are indeed producing some quality entertainment.

Violent Society: Update

I'll continue my Violent Society Series soon.

Socialists in the Pulpit

I went to church on Sunday. It was the first time I have done so in a very long time. I had no idea what church to go to. My hair stylist suggested a bible church in kirkland. But man that's in kirkland. Plus I'm not sure about the bible church thing, though it may be the only thing to do.

Anyhow, no idea where to go. I was raised methodist and so I decided that I would just find all the methodist churches and start with the closest. Then each week I'll move out until I find one that I like. which seemed like a pretty good plan. So I did it. I picked the closest methodist church which was this one.

So I put together the dress clothes that I have that smell the least bad. (I've got to do some dry cleaning and get my jackets taken in, I've lost too much weight. ;)) then I drove over near the church and parked a few blocks away.

It was really a pretty church, built in 1908 with all the lack of attention to ventilation of that era. Most of the congregation was original. I was the youngest man there who wasn't with his parents. I was also the only guy under 50 with a tie on. Don't you people know you're in church? You've got all week to be comfortable, God only asks for an hour or so.

So far so good, I guess.

So on the website they advertise that they have the best pipe organ in Seattle, and I'm thinking, "Cool. Church Music." Nope. They had some tribal African drum group there. You know what I'm talking about, a group of white thirty somethings who have rejected Western Society and tried to go back to some lost ideal of tribalism. So I'm sitting there as these people play pagan music in the House of God, accompanied by a tape recorder. You heard that right, a tape recorder.

So the service gets under way. I'm greeted in that friendly manner that you encounter in most churches. Pleased with the reception I sing along ot the hymns a greet those around me when the time for fellowship comes up. Everything is going well.

The Head Pastor was out of town, she was at a conference of some kind. So the assistant pastor gave the sermon. It was pleasant, nothing out of the ordinary. No fire and brimstone, of course, the Methodists gave that up long ago. (At their own peril in my opinion) Just a simple admonition to remember that God is with you in your daily life. It was pretty good in that I've been thinking about it a lot in the past week.

Ok sermon is over and now for the prayers. Here's where the wheels came off for me. We're praying for various folk. People in the hospital, soldiers in Iraq, all the standard stuff. I've no problem with any of that. It's good to remember those less fortunate. Next thing I know the preacher has us praying that we have the strength to stop the war, write letters and protest. I'm in shock as I realize what I'm being asked to pray for.

Don't get my wrong I want the war to end soon too. War is a messy business and it should be avoided if possible. Sometimes its necessary. Like I said, I want this one to end, but I want it to end with a swift and sure American victory. Which I'm afraid is some way off. So I find it fairly offensive that I'm being asked to pray for defeatists.

We move onto the next topic for prayer. He asks that we pray that we are soon able to extend services, education and healthcare to everyone. HE TRIED TO GET ME TO PRAY FOR SOCIALISM. It was all I could do not to get up and leave in the middle of the service.

Now I realize that Jesus was all about helping the poor. I love helping the poor, but I like to do it the right way. Which is by making them richer, rather than making rich people poorer so that nobody feels so bad about being poor. I like long term solutions. I think that Jesus would back me up on this one.

Anyhow, I'm voting with my feet. New church week after next. I'm afraid that I may have to leave the Methodist church altogether. This kind of thing may be symptomatic of instituitional rot. I may need to find a church that is independent.

Violent Society: VIOLENCE

I think that it is important that we devote some time to the nature of violence. Violence is the most basic and fundamental means of interaction between people. Violence can be civilized or uncivilized. Indeed we've ritualized it to the point that we hardly recognize it as violence. The most outspoken pacifist often is guilty of advocating violence on a massive scale. Further he's likely completely unaware that this is what he is doing.

I should define what I mean by violence. Violence occurs any time you move to compel someone to act against their will. Some people label this as force, but I think violence has the proper connotation. No matter how many pieces of paper are involved you're still, for ill or good, violating the other party's sovereignty. Such a violation should not be taken lightly, though they are occasionally necessary, hence we shall use the term violence to remind us what is going on.

I'm going to make a statement here that I think I can support. Almost no human interaction is entirely free from violence.

The obvious exceptions are the interactions between family members, friends, and lovers, a modern day variation on the Tribe, I suppose. Modern survival requires almost daily contact outside the tribe. I'm not interested in examining tribal relations. I want to examine, the relations of commerce, and government. This is what I shall discuss here.

Violent Society: GOALS

Alright so my goal here is pretty simple. I want to determine the best means of human interaction. I want to have a construct within which to judge them.

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine the other night and she kept coming back to the fact that all of my arguments were subjective. They were based within the understanding of the world as an American in the 21st century and therefore couldn't be universal.

"But they seem to work pretty well based on fairly empirical evidence. Look at the city before you. everything you see is a result of the forces that I advocate."

She replied, "They work, only because you have been allowed to determine the criteria for judging that they work. You have set up the goals."

She had me there I have set up the goals and I do determine that classical liberalism, individualism and capitalism work based on the fact that they seem to support people in numbers and comfort heretofore unseen in the world.

"What better standards do you have?" I asked. Her response was that this opulence was unnecessary for survival. Which I reluctantly have to agree with. I don't need this 22nd floor apartment with the sweeping view to survive, I could survive in a hovel.

Our argument for the rest of the evening was fairly circular for the rest of the evening but fairly civil. When you only allow the objective of survival as your goal you aren't going to get far in this sort of argument. SO I hereby reject that argument out of hand. We are here and we have built a society for good or bad that functions pretty well if I do say so myself.

I reject just surviving as a goal since it is so limiting. Survival must obviously be a part of any goal of the type I am setting up. Since without survival everything else in this world is fairly meaningless.

There have to be higher goals. I would like to define mine. to put it simply, it is:

To Survive with as many options still avalaible as possible.

For life to have meaning a human being must be allowed to grow in their own direction with as few impediments as possible. All impediments must be justified and all justifications must flow from the original goal. I intend to attempt a justification of the ideology that I espouse on these grounds.

Survival by its nature must be flexible and survival must always take precedence over available options. Collective survival alone is not a worthy goal. Collective survival may be accomplished over a fairly long period through parasitical means. Witness the soviet union, communist china, or north korea, also consider the frequent changes in forms of governemtn throughout europe in the past 2 centuries eventually even collective survival becomes difficult without reform. If a collective's burn rate is lower than its population growth then collective survival may even continue indefinitely. This however is a tricky balancing maneuver and does not allow for catastrophic change, eventually such a system will collapse upon itself and individuals will have to fend for themselves.

I am not saying that any society may necessarily survive forever. Usually any successful society produces excess and this excess prvoides fodder for rot, which will eat into the core and outward from there eventually causing collapse. The beginnings of this can be seen in many liberal democracies in the west, including the United States of America.

I believe that a society should consider individual survival as its first goal primarily because in the end each of us is an individual. If society truly protects the individual then the individual has good and common cause to support the society. A virtuous dependency is produced where all can be called on in times of need and everyone can relax in times of ease knowing that in collapse they will be cared for by their neighbor, even as they provide care. This is the original foundation of American Society, witness the colonial militia, Us involvement in each world war, and the flood of donations after 9/11. Every individual sovereign with all other individuals as backup. Note that this requires no enforcement. Its in everyone's best interest to help each other in time of need so that they might receive the same treatment. When this is understood it creates a powerful emergency reserve, even if not everyone responds positively. There are always jerks after all. But peer pressure is simply the best enforcement here.

more about the nature of human interaction later.

Alright so one of the main reasons I put this up was not just to document my passage into yuppiehood. I also wanted to take the time to figure out some stuff and put my thoughts down on paper. I'm not really a professional scholar, but I'm doing my best here to figure things out. One of the best ways that I'e om up with t figure things out is to write what I think down and then come back and look at them later

I figure that since no one will read this I will be good as far as fcoming back to it. Of course if someone does read it I'd appreciate your two cents.

So where am I? As you can see from the rest of the site I have just moved into my new apartment and I am getting close to being finished with the main decoration. I think we need to add a few cozy touches to really consider it a home and I certainly have a lot of crap that I need to run down to the storage area. I’ll take some pics when this is all done.



The Diet goes well and I am now into the 190s since I started at around 210 I consider this a great success. I still have a long way to go until I have the perfect abs.



I’ve been looking over my finances and have calculated that, so far, I have spent a metric fuck-ton decorating the apartment. Which as we all know is like 1.1 times a regular ton, which is a lot. A lot of it was for pretty questionable stuff, e.g. an LCD to mount on my wall. Who would have guessed that would look like crap? Oh well it’s a nice monitor and I will find an appropriate use. Next I need some art and decorations and crap to put on the wall. As you can tell my patience is beginning to wear thin here.



Also I just started playing Knights of the old republic on xbox, so the apartment is a mess.