Month: November 2016

No matter the time,
no matter the distance,
you are my soul mate.
Forever and always,
my heart will yearn
to be close to yours,
despite the hurt,
despite the confusion.
I know you.
And you know me.
And I love you.
And you love me.
Life is a journey,
and right now
we are both on our own paths.
I hope you are flourishing,
and growing,
and healing.
I think of you always.

For a relation to exist amongst two things, there must be a common property, or shared properties. In value. In degree. In proximity. In character. In direction. In force.

Relations are associations. They are links amongst objects. These relationships are intangible, simply observations of patterns.

They exist arbitrarily, except that they provide utility by allowing the subject stating them the ability to understand them by perceiving their existence, by creating distinctions, by separating them from general sensory experience, by labeling or naming or denominating them. In this way they form concepts of the mind that can be manipulated, that can be controlled via reason to formulate activity.

Metaphor is a distillation of a preconceived relation applied to another set of objects to illustrate the nature of a relationship.  It transposes the nature of a relationship from one set of familiar objects, to another set of objects, in order to establish an understanding without having to fully experience the second set of objects.

Relationships cannot exist without mutual interest, without similarity, without a common denominator. The word denominate means “to give a name to”, such as a group, in order to classify.

When we communicate to another person, we “make common”.

Communicate (v.) 1520s, “to impart” (information, etc.), from Latin, past participle of communicare “to share, communicate, impart, inform”. The word impart means to give a part of ones things or possessions to another, to share out, be it tangible or intangible.

The secret to relationships is to appeal, to make yourself as familiar as possible to another. To make your “self” appear as their “self”, or congruent to whatever ideas or values they are more comfortable with. Exchanging information, so that they understand you. Pointing out commonalities.

Of course, the analysis of relationships apply to everything, from physical objects to nature and organisms. Taxonomy is the task of identifying commonalities and creating structure around the common features of organisms, and grouping or classifying them together.

There are relationships in mathematics. Relationships in physics. Relationships in chemistry.

Understanding the relationships among things, or whatever object or subject of study you’re reflecting on, is crucial to understanding the properties, the very nature of these things, not as static entities, but as fluid entities, existing in a context, supported by relationships amongst other objects and subjects.

An ecosystem is simply the life supporting relationships amongst organisms.

There are static properties of relations and fluid properties of relations. For instance, physical characteristics, and behavioral characteristics.

Given a context:

Quantitative: Amount

Function: Intended purpose or activity

Qualitative: Attribute

Men.

I believe it is important as men, as doers, as thinkers, as leaders, to possess a library.

A comprehensive personal library.

A personal library is a place where I go when I want answers from authorities on the subject, expert thinkers in a specific domain, well formed opinions on topics from those who have spent their lifetime studying and thinking on them.

Yes, there is the internet. I know.

But a library is a place of study. Where I pick up new books or old books that teach things, new things every day. We can read these books for minutes or hours. We spend time with them over our life. A personal library allows you to build a relationship with your books, with ideas.

You don’t read a book once and say, that’s it, I have it figured out, all the knowledge is there, and I’m able to contextualize all past and future experience with this single reading! No way.

Every man should possess a library, collecting his favorite books, containing his favorite ideas.

By favorite, I mean the ones that instill a persistent intrigue and wonder and amusement and fascination. Books that you love, that you long to return to, which contain ideas that clarified muddy waters, that have germinated future worlds of mind, of thinking and acting and believing and understanding

A library is a good thing.

The internet is no substitute.

It cheapens “knowledge”.

There are men who have walked this earth, who have compiled a life time of reflection into books, into works of thought.

We can peer into their mind. We can engage with them forever.

These great minds, of varied experience

A library is a mental playground. It is necessary for growth, for independence.

I believe this.

I like to, anyway. Or maybe it is all bullshit, and we die and our ideas die with us, along with the paper and ink, and symbolic splatterings.

However, I believe that there are good forces and bad forces, destructive and constructive, and that building and creating, and the process of doing this, is a good force.

It is life.

Books and the knowledge they contain, the specific knowledge that we choose to intrigue ourselves with, has a lasting impact on our character, building us into forces of change.

“Physiologists should think before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength–life itself is will to power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Will: The force to impose it upon the world, this is the driving manifestation of ultimate power. The will to power, to exert influence, to as Nietzsche said “discharge its strength”, to push back on the collapsing canopy of constraining company surrounding us. To make our mark, to impress our heart, our passions, our desires onto things, to project our mind, our imagination, our delusions, our illusions, and fabricate and manufacture a creation resonant with the material of our will, the substance of our soul, the stratum of our spirit, of our life.

“Truth is a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, anthropomorphisms, in short a sum of human relations which have been subjected to poetic and rhetorical intensification, translation and decoration […]; truths are illusions of which we have forgotten that they are illusions, metaphors which have become worn by frequent use and have lost all sensuous vigour […]. Yet we still do not know where the drive to truth comes from, for so far we have only heard about the obligation to be truthful which society imposes in order to exist”

from, “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense”.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

Truth is a projection of our will. “We” make truth. We do not find truth. Truth is created, then passed on, in order to reference and appeal to when we need footing to justify our expansion.

“One must shed the bad taste of wanting to agree with many. “Good” is no longer good when one’s neighbor mouths it. And how should there be a “common good”! The term contradicts itself: whatever can be common always has little value. In the end it must be as it is and always has been: great things remain for the great, abysses for the profound, nuances and shudders for the refined, and, in brief, all that is rare for the rare.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

All values are human values, fabricated by the minds of men. Morality is an abstraction of power, an arbitrary assessment of position. The powerful define moral virtue.

The duality of man, of existence, is never more evident than when exploring the balance of psychology and spirituality.

The psychological works to construct the self.

The spiritual works to relinquish the self.

“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

In order to flourish in the world, amongst others, within society, one must assemble a robust psychology for navigating and orienting the expectations and values and labels of others. The psychology is a static sense of self, a definite assemblage of traits comprising a identifiable personality. The self is rigid, inflexible, possessing mass that reverberates in the mind of others. It is separate from the world, like a point in space, but functions in total relation to the world, within a historical context of time.

In order to flourish in life, one must transcend the body, and divest of the self completely, detach from the world, empty oneself from identity, from values, from labels, from relations, and enter spirituality by dissolving the self into spirit, into nothingness, devoid of context, devoid of time and space. The spirit or will is flexible, adaptable, intangible, unspeakable, nameless and unknowable. It flows like water, conforms to circumstance, takes on whatever form is necessary at the moment. Like light, it cannot be held, it cannot be captured. But it can be generated: the divine-will shines in proportion to the degree it is free of the world.

Eternal life is internal, not external. Life does not exist in the world. Life exists in us.

Love and life are synonymous.

To excel in the world, one must possess a self, must construct and communicate a self that embodies the values of utility society deems most worthy in any context at any given time. So long as you appeal to the world, and take stock of a self reinforced by the world, your psychological self will risk annihilation.

Eternal life is already yours: eternity exists right now, in this moment. There is no other infinite than what is present. God, divinity, the supernatural, they all exist in this infinitely present, ever evolving moment.

There is no other time. There is no other tomorrow. There is no “later” or “sooner” or this or that. We plan, we structure, we order, we manage, but these things simply arrange our temporal physical world. They create circumstances, but they don’t don’t create our state of being, our happiness, our joy, our inspiration, our genius.

Moving on.

I have decided to work with my friend. He was my roommate in college, and one of my best friends, and he’s built himself a good business the past three and a half years. I’ve watched him on the sidelines as I’ve delved into my own career, pursing the most challenging opportunities to learn and adapt and yield wisdom and knowledge that I could leverage in my own time. “If you wish to make the rules, you must first learn to master the rules.” This is the maxim I abide by when attending to tasks that dispossess my will; the necessary evil of learning from others, from doing as those before you have done, and reflecting on the structures you inhabit, the overt training and cover conditioning you’re tacitly consent to when fulfilling a “role” within an institution.

Continue reading “Life Update/Eternity: Now and Forever, the Future of the Present”

I’ve been meaning to write. I’m laying on this little bed, in the corner of my buddy’s place, tired, but my mind is running.

I have an interview with the Advisory Board Company tomorrow at 830amPST/11:30amEST

I’m not nervous, but I am. I have so much to catch up on.

I’ve been working with my buddy getting his business up and running. I have much to say.

I’ve been developing his CRM platform. I need to decide if I’ll be staying with by buddy’s children and toy maker company, or work for a global leader in the consulting field.

One has high risk, high potential reward, questionable how well it’ll boost my resume in practice. Depends how successful I make it.

The other, lower risk, medium reward, but it’ll be amazing resume experience. Gotta go to bed. Wish me luck.

I’m lying in bed, in Palo Alto California, at my best buddy’s place.

It’s late, and I’m tired. I’ve had a long day. I’m sleeping on a munchkin mattress in the corner of a living room in an old green painted house, approximately 800 sq ft, with a gas fire place emanating to my right. My buddy is asleep in his own bed in the main room. His parents own this place. It’s practically on their main property, which is currently three months into a one year old renovation. They’re staying at his old place, which they owned, a couple blocks away until they finish renovating, then he’ll move back. This green house, as its affectionately called, recently had a renovation of its own, but its still very old, and quite small. Its got a cabin feel to it, and its quite charming. He lives on a compound of six homes, three of which share backyards on the opposite block and are rented to Stanford college students, the other three include the main house, and two smaller houses on either side that act as guest houses for family. Then they have two small cabin-esque offices on the property, one for the mother, and the other for the dad and my buddy.

So anyway. I’ve had a… good weekend.

Tonight was the supermoon, which I watched ascend over the horizon as I watched from Pier 1 at the Port of San Francisco, overlooking the Bay bridge. It was magical. The moon was a full 14% larger than usual.

I’m tired.

I saw a bunch of my fraternity brothers on Friday and Saturday, and I was suppose to go to Sonoma wine country today, but I just didn’t have the stamina.

Instead I walked around the city with my buddy doing our typical philosophical exchanges. We ate, we read, we watched a movie that I believe was titled Requiem for the American Dream, or something, narrated by Noam Chomsky.

I’m tired. My eyes are heavy.

I’ve been drinking a lot. Probably at least 2 drinks every day for the past three weeks. It started out as something I tried to do, and now its become a habit, where alcohol is welcomed at every meal, whenever possible. Not sure how worried I should be.

I have serious decisions I will be making soon. Tomorrow I work with my buddy, then I’ll be back in December for several weeks before deciding to commit to working with this startup full time. We need to discuss the financials, and the logistics. But I feel good about it. It’ll be a big risk, but no risk no reward.

God I’m tied. I’ll write more tomorrow. Goodnight.

I am 30.

I feel age, for the first time in my life. It’s been a gradual accumulation of feeling, but I have something tangible I can point to and wrap my hands around now. Age the feeling, the effects, the weight, the history, the wear. Age. The lines in my face. The receding brow line. The degradation of skin. Body hair changes, growing in other places, in different textures. You notice joints and muscles, and the “maturity” of these things. How they developed, how they’ve stopped developing in many cases, how they no longer rejuvenate themselves like they once did.

I woke this morning.

White. Male. 30.

Donald J. Trump is my president.

I’ve spoke at so much length with my close confidants already about the matter that there’s little more I can possibly conjure that would adequately capture the spiritual disappointment I feel, yet the same resolve and spirit to carry on in my individual pursuit of higher things, wisdom, understanding, community contribution, in whatever way I can squeeze it out of me.

Everything is bullshit.

Donald Trump solidified that for me.

Will to power.

I’m feeling alone, at 30. I have friends, but I long for that woman to see me age, and age with me.

13. Ac ne forte roges quo me duce, quo Lare tuter;
nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri,
quo me cumque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes.

13. But do not ask me which I was the leader,
to which household deity I belong;
I am not bound to swear to the words of the master,
and wherever the weather blows, I make myself at home.

13. In case you ask who’s my master, what roof protects me,
I’m not bound to swear by anyone’s precepts,
I’m carried, a guest, wherever the storm-wind blows me.

13. And lest you should perchance ask under what leader,
in what house [of philosophy], I enter myself a pupil:
addicted to swear implicitly to the ipse-dixits of no particular master,
wherever the weather drives me, I am carried a guest.

Horace, Epistulae 1.13-15

Derived from this passage in Horace’s Epistles is the motto for the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, nullius in verba, which translates as “on the word of no one”.

The passage in context provides a more comprehensive picture of where this motto was derived. Horace is writing Maecenas, who is Horace’s patron, or the one who financial supports his intellectual pursuits. He’s explaining his departure from lyrical prose and poetry to apply his efforts to philosophical undertakings. In this particular passage, he’s explaining that he’s not an adherent of any particular school of philosophy, that he has no allegiance, that he’s not obligated to any set of precepts, other than wherever the weather carries him or, rather, wherever his private investigations lead him.

In this way we see that, rather than subscribing to a school of thought based on the findings and anecdotal experiences and reasoning of others before him, he’ll arrive in his own way where his convictions take him.

Thus we derive nullius in verba from his assertion that he is bound to no master, or on the word of no one. 

This is a beautiful idea.

We must not take anyone’s word. We must experience it ourselves, first hand, if we are to arrive at a stolid conviction of its nature, and develop an authentic knowledge of our own.

Second hand experiences derived from perceived or socially accepted sources of authority often times appear to offer a quick and expedient remedy to challenges and problems, but they will never be a satisfactory substitute for first hand, genuine experience guided by the investigative nature of an inquisitive spirit on its quest for wisdom and understanding and enlightenment.

 

I’m sitting at the, of recent, oft frequented social lounge, Pine Wood Social. My head is in a fog from the weekends bacchanal activities, and long nights, and extended travel the past several weeks. A mug of black coffee glistens next to me, waiting for me to sip.

I arrived home last night from Philly. I spent the day with my childhood friend’s father, Ernie, the friend that committed suicide when we were 17. I haven’t spoke to him as an adult prior to yesterday, and we only managed to see each other once a year or two. He coached my soccer team growing up, alongside my father, whom he also coached.

We must have spent 5 hours together, catching up on life, philosophy, relationships, his line of work as an education consultant, and the like. I could tell he really appreciated the conversation and the attention I paid to him and our discussions. He gave me a book titled The Book of Man by William Bennet, and in it were pictures of Todd and I as kids. Very sentimental.

On Sunday was Alex E’s wedding, so naturally all the guys were there.

On Friday and Saturday I spent my time in NYC visiting friends, specifically my childhood friend Rachel, and I attended a fundraiser hosted by my Vandy fraternity brothers for the American Prairie Reserve. Rachel and I went to Sleep No More, an interactive play afterwords. It was intense.

*

So I arrived to Nashville last night and went over Cindy’s, since she let the AirBnb guests in and had my keys. I spent the night there.

Still haven’t been home yet. I need to write a thank you email to the interviewer from The ABC last week. Tried to last night, but couldn’t produce anything compelling, so I decide to sleep on it.

I took two Modafinil this morning, which is probably wildly unnecessary, and I’m drinking coffee. There is a production company renting my apartment for today to shoot a music video, though they haven’t indicated when they’ll be stopping by, and for how long.

I’ll be back in San Francisco on Friday for a week, before returning home to head to Atlanta with Cindy where she’ll visit the Swiss Embassy and acquire her dual citizenship? Or something. We’ll be there Thursday to Saturday, then return to Nashville. The following weekend is Thanksgiving, and Cindy asked me to spend it with her, although she prefaced by saying I could do whatever I wanted and she wouldn’t be upset one way or the other. Ernie asked me to visit for his thanksgiving get together.

*

Anyway. I need to go home and do laundry…. and read… and think about this thank you note.

*

I must constantly remind myself…. I do not have it figured out. Empty myself. Continually. Allow myself to be filled with new ideas, new feelings.

 

I’m very much human. All too human. I am flawed. Deeply flawed. I may come across as having it figured out, but I have no idea what I’m doing. I am frail. I do my best to spot self deception, to identify self interested motives. But I care, and I love people, and I have a desire to understand others, and myself, and my relationship to them. I’m eclectic, I’m intense, and I’m not normal. I have no idea what normal is at this point, but I’ve given up the idea of appealing to it. Love and truth are my masters. Life is a journey of growth. A continual metamorphosis of self discovery, where we are forever entering new seasons, and shedding old habits and insights, and adopting new attitudes and frames of mind for the present, and all its challenges and joys. This is the ultimate aim of life, I believe, to forever grow and flourish, shed the old to make way for the new, and lovingly assist others in our life to do the same. 

I have always been a risk taker. I live without fear. I’m not sure if this was an innate trait, or something I picked up early on from my eccentric father, or something I developed in response to moving, or perhaps a response to the oppressive home I was raised in and my desire to rebel without thought of consequence. 

I have a keen desire for novelty, but not in the sham sense of the word. I seek out experience, preferably quality, calculated experience, but I understand that fear is often based on inadequate information or knowledge, and false assumptions, so my rationale will typically work against me, and the only way to TRULY know anything is to experience it first hand, and not take anyone’s word for it. Nullius in verba. So thats something I’ve always striven for, for better or worse. 

I’ve confronted death at an early age, with a couple friends suicide and drug overdoses, and I’ve almost taken my own life many times. There was a time where I lost all fear to live, because I convinced myself that I have already died, so any hurdle such as shame or any threat of annihilation of the ego was no longer a threat. I have no ego. I have already died. I have nothing to lose. So what is to fear?  I’ve been alone, ostracized, homeless, failed out, drugged out, broke, etc etc. I survived. I can survive again. The threat of death has no power over me, so there is no challenge that threatens or discourages me. On a long enough timeline we all die. If I try and fall short, what of it? I will always try try again. I may bend, but I will never be broken. My will always remains intact, so there is no losing, there is nothing to fear. This is what I know. 

Addiction.

We’re all addicts to something. Some vices are more socially acceptable than others. Substance abuse is a bitch. Not a productive vice. Definitely one of the more destructive ways to cope with negative feelings and cognitive dissonance. 

I’ve done pretty much every drug. I have a whole philosophy on pharmacology, i.e. consuming substances that alter our physiology for medicinal purposes. I don’t condone substance abuse or self medicating for trauma or boredom or whatever other reason a person uses to escape.

But I also have no moral judgement on anyone who uses drugs for therapeutic purposes, or for personal development. I’m a huge advocate of responsibly using psychedelics for this reason. 

I agree with the attitude of treating addiction from a human connection model. The greatest joy we experience is ego-less ness (is that a word?). It is the ultimate spirituality. Love does not exist where there is an ego. And when I speak of ego, I speak of this “reaction formation” that develops due to pain or trauma or neglect etc. The ego is the “self”. And the idea of “self” develops humans drive for self-preservation. When something hurts us, that memory of pain is impressed upon us, and we develop ways of coping, of defending, of avoiding, of escaping. Perhaps we gain knowledge to prevent that pain again. Perhaps we create a psychological guard that insulates us from being vulnerable and sharing our honest feelings with another person. And these habits develop from a young age. And they form the basis of how we handle relationships later in life, such as how easy we trust, and the basis of a lot of fears, such as abandonment etc. Theres more I could elaborate on about the nature of self or ego.

But love can only exist in the moment, without the ego. The ego separates us from the moment. It is on guard, poised and ready to react and deflect any potential pain or insult. It is worry, anxiety. It exists in the past, or the future, and not in the present. 

When we are alone, and hold onto historical pain or worries, and don’t embrace the moment, and experience the joy that “being present” has to offer, we suffer. When we connect with another human, another spirit, in a way that allows us be present and honest about who we are and vulnerable about the depths of our feelings, the good and the bad, that is when we experience true joy. 

When two human spirits/ bodies come together, two egos cannot exist. There must be a dissolution of ego, and in a relationship of true love, I believe, as with a life partner, those two egos become one, and there is no boundaries, because the other person, their feelings and needs, become an extension of our own. There’s a book titled The Road Less Traveled by Scott M Peck that discusses how necessary it is to relinquish this ego, this drive to self preserve at the cost of alienating others and the support we gain from letting people in. 

No relationship can flourish where there is an unhealthy ego. Rene Brown writes about the power of vulnerability in her book Daring Greatly. 

But yes. 

Going back to Addiction. Most addicts struggle with a deeply flawed sense of self. (The development of self is most universally the product of the relationship dynamics one has with their parents. We can get into what is “normal” vs what is “healthy” behaviors, and the generational consequences that result when normative yet unhealthy behaviors are passed down from generation to generation.) Addicts are in pain, and uncomfortable with themselves, existing as they are, in a sober state, and so they seek to escape, or numb. Love and community are, in my deeply held opinion, some of the most deeply therapeutic remedies for addiction and rehabilitating their self worth. This is why Alcoholics anonymous has been historically successful. A. There is an appeal to a higher power, which consequently requires you to submit yourself and lose the ego, and let go of the need to control and try to do it on your own. And B There is a supportive, loving community around you that reinforces a positive sense of self worth. 

Recent Reading.

Recently I’ve been reading a bunch of books. The past week I’ve been deep into The Sacred Canopy, by Peter Berger, an iconic sociologist. I’m also half way through Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg. It’s about writing. I love writing, as evidenced by this nauseatingly long email, and my endlessly dizzying journal entry diatribes. I apologize ahead of time for writing novels/ epics/ really long responses/ emails. 

I’m always reading something. Lots of philosophy, sociology, history, biographies, anthropology, psychology/ personal development, business books, economics, behavioral psychology/ influence/ charisma/ persuasion/ anything that will make me more convincing. 

I’m fascinated by the human condition. I have always wanted to get to the bottom of everything, and find a common thread, that universal wisdom tying it all together. I want to be able to adapt to any situation, and succeed at any challenge, and assess any circumstance with the wisest judgement. I want to understand as many perspectives as possible. I want no ego. I just want to be wise, and excel at whatever challenge or moral duty is before me. And I’m constantly learning how to live within society, and choose those challenges and moral duties wisely. 

Being an adult. 

It’s only recently that I felt like an adult. By that I mean, I can look any human being in the eye with confidence, and speak with conviction about my knowledge and experience with a sense of responsibility and integrity and worthwhile perspective. 

One thing I realized pretty early on in my journey is that everything is mostly bullshit. So you can’t take anything too seriously. 

But you can’t just make up bullshit and expect to get along in the world. You gotta learn how to master the rules before you can make the rules. You gotta get comfortable consuming other people’s bullshit before you can effectively convince other people to consume yours. 

So that’s that. Working for a corporation is apart of that mastering the rules. It’s been good experience. One day I’ll take what I learned and build something of my own. Maybe. Or not. Maybe I’ll be write. Or maybe I’ll find a girl and we’ll have a baby and my whole life will be turned upside down and everything I ever knew about anything will be radically overturned, and I’ll start anew. Maybe.