Over the last few months, I realized that there were things, even the silliest things, about society that I liked. This seems to have re-enforced the belief I have in humanity as a whole. Sure, a majority will always be corrupt to an extent and easily swayed, but there are others out there trying more than I could ever try. The ‘doers’ of this world aren’t all bad. Some have ideals close to mine, but in reality they are not free to change everything at once.

The truth about the human condition is that unless you can take into account every single factor that makes us, you couldn’t get to a perfected solution. Reason or logic is what readily sets us apart from all other creatures in the world, but it represents only aspect of human nature.
Conveniently focusing on only a few aspects of human nature, such as throwing logic as the core vector in an attempt to get to a perfected society - as though logic itself had the power to make everything right- is doomed to be narrow-minded and flawed.

Logic is what we make of it, which is why most people who do possess a high degree of logic, will willingly throw it away or use it to further their corruption.

Anger and deception

Dawn is a special time of the day, its fiery veil hanging at the feet of the world to be slowly lifted across the skies by the invisible hand of time. As light prevails over darkness, so does the clarity of thoughts in the mind, but just as dawn is replaced by daylight, that clarity of the mind soon fades into blindness again.

The mighty sky

A fire crack

Bellowing cry

Of passing crows

Over the track

And the blue skies

Field of sorrows

And blooming tears

Along the sighs

Of winds and piers

Lost in a mist...

we live in such an illusion-based reality that it has become almost impossible to get back to the source of anything at all. I, myself, was born in the midst of a society completely immersed in make-belief and lies concealed under big words that inspire nothing but confidence and idealism. We yearn for big ideals such as freedom and justice and equality, and children will spend most of their time growing up in schools drilling ideal definitions into their skulls.

Those children become adults faced with the biggest sham there ever was: while such big words are held high like flags waving in the wind, the reality of how society works is based solely on how good a lier you will prove, how deep your pockets are, and on who you know, of course. Such blatant hypocrisy I suspect is inherent to human nature, always trying to step over nature and prove ourselves more worthy than the rest- more intelligent. Well if intelligence was based on consistency and logical behaviour then we would score quite low.

What I do come to realise is that in the great scheme of things man has barely begun to move away from a very primitive animal bound by its instincts. We’re not human yet, as many seem to believe and define it, we’re still in the process of becoming humans. There is still a long way to go until we finally shed away the remnants of feral behaviour poorly disguised under fancy materialism and a technology that can only be a reflection of our true potential as humans.

One day perhaps we will achieve the full state of human being, but until then we are in limbo. No longer complete animals, not yet liberated from our feral instincts.

Then again, what do I know? I only know as much as my limited perception of reality allows me. I look at the millions of other lives around and I struggle to imagine them as three dimentional people who actually are as alive as I am with lives of their own, doing other things at the same time as I am writing this. The whole concept of never being sure that everything around you is as real as you think you are is quite disturbing at times.

What if only a few were in fact real and the rest part of some simulation? No, that would be crazy. I can’t think of a reason good enough to grant myself the priviledge to be real over billions of others who would in fact be an illusion. That brings me to the conclusion that we are all very real, only stuck in a limited state of perception of our reality. Added to that is the padded version we are born into these days where illusions overwhelm our senses from every corner.

Television, movies, the internet, the telephone and all its gadgets... Big corporations and massive companies that have taken over our main means of survival, who feed us, cloth us, entertain us no end... We do not really become adults anymore, not in the independent, autonomous way. Parents let go of their grown-up offsprings only for society to take over and continue the chaperoning process, concealing its control under the illusion of choices in life when really there are so many choices flooding our heads that we end up unable to make any proper decision.

Ensuring that all basic needs are met and making sure that you are aware that others are worse off all the while dangling the promise that your life could get so much better in front of your nose gives way to apathy to change things. Because ‘it ain’t so bad, really’... Place a few rich kids who seem to have it all, fairy tale stories from rags to riches and you can feed the masses hopes that it could happen to them, too. Just like that singer who now earns millions, or that movie star, or that model who just happened to be spotted while shopping in Primark or something. Yes, YES! This could happen to you, too! believe! You must believe that it could happen to you, that what you see really is what it is.

Please.

By the way, who actually believes, still, in that whole ‘credit crunch’ business? I certainly don’t. Funny how the term just appeared the very day the so-called crisis started, as though whoever came up with it from higher up the social ladder knew it would be the perfect term to stick into people’s minds like the latest trend and whatnot. Now, of course, you hear that term everywhere, as one would talk about the weather, and whenever something is wrong, well, let’s all put it under the handy umbrella ‘credit crunch’ provides so conveniantly.

The whole environment worldwide ‘concern’ is another excuse to put shades on what the problems really are and at the same time it ensures that most people are busy worrying about what isn’t the issue. They’ll be too busy recycling their left-over brussels sprouts while driving two or three cars to think in depth about what could really be going on under their noses.

Oh, and while the ‘intelligencia’ and the ‘rich’ keep busy flying solo in their privet jets all the while buying land in third world countries to spend even less money on food and commodity production - though we’ll still be paying more and more for it-, don’t forget to cut down on your plastic bag consumption cos’ that’s really bad for the environment.

I just wish I could somehow have a bird’s eye view of the whole mess, of our world as a whole, so it would make sense, instead of being limited with my own tiny perspective. I can tell that things are not what they say they are and I can only offer ideas as to what is really going on...and that’s very, very frustrating.

To the core of idealism

I ignored the inevitable for so long that while I remained safely in the nest, sheltered from too direct or deep interaction with reality, my mind wasn’t. It kept growing faster than my emotional side. And now my mind seems to expect far greater things than my person can live up to because my emotions are unruly, almost alien to me. The only way I could ever express them is through writing, venting wave after wave of unfathomable pain, regret, bitterness, love and anger. I have simply no perspective as far as that deeper side is concerned. All I do know is that it is very strong, very determined, narrow-minded to favour efficiency and result, and quite ruthless because it no longer cares for individuals but humanity as a whole. I’m beginning to see every person as interchangeable, more or less akin to any other animal having dozens of offsprings and the only way to prove to me that you are beyond such randomness you would have to step up with your own life to achieve a greater purpose: that of striving for the god-like experience and hopefully succeed. Anything else would be trivial in the sense that whatever you ‘choose’ to do with your life can be done by anyone else in your place. Therefore you are not unique, you are not a true individual, you are expandable and interchangeable.

Why the God-like experience? Because it makes sense. Once you reject religion in all form and shape, you let go of crutches and morals instilled in you without giving you a chance to ever be able to reflect on them objectively. Then, as you reject all, there is a void, an emptiness. You get to a very dark place where there is simply nothing left. To reach for truth or what ought to be, even in the hope of finding a higher plane or being, the only way would be to strive to reach up for that ideal or sense you have in you. How else can you reach a ‘god’ if you, yourself, don’t attempt to step up to its realm? So far, religion has always alluded to the idea that gods were perfection and that we were forever imperfect, therefore bound to remain pawns or guilt-ridden creatures of doom. Either you remain safely nestled in the illusion of religion or you follow logic to the end and as you turn away from such notions as religion you must be able to see the argument through to the end. Otherwise you’re an idiot. You’re worse than the friend who blindly believes in whatever god he was conditioned to worship and fear.

Why? Because you are the one boasting to have rejected religion but unless you come to the conclusion that men can then transcend the ideal of god to become their own gods -their own strive to perfection- you’re nothing but a fraud. A coward too afraid to face their own true self. I’m afraid, too. I’m scared every day, every second of my life, but then I am really human: while I feel emotions, I do not let them govern me. I ensure that whatever it is I feel will only serve to make me stronger, higher.

More often than not we let our instincts or wants dictate our behaviour when we should be ruling with our brains. If everyone just followed their head then we could boast about being the superior species. Until then all we are, really, is a bunch of fancy monkeys with delusions of grandeur.

We find creatures using basic tools most facinating and sometimes it seems even extraordinary. With the brains we have all the technology we come up with through the ages is little more than equivalent to the chimpanzee learning to use a stick as a feeding tool. Therefore being able to create or invent fancy things can’t be the determining factor in proving that we, humans, are superior to any other species or that we’re any more special in any way. Our capacities are merely proportional to our biological constitution. I read it before somewhere and I now agree that what can make us special and superior to any other creature is our ability to find true meaning behind everything around us and the very things we create or do. Not just any meaning, though, but true meaning. Reasoning. Logics. Striving to shed away the mechanics of instincts and wants to act as logically and independently as humanly possible.

On writing and other things

The story to tell comes first and is all about inspiration, imagination and ideas. You have to find something to write about first, don’t you? Once you get an idea that stage is over and it would almost seem as the most trivial part of writing a story. However the truth is that it is one of the most volatile stages and one can spend years waiting for that idea to dawn on them. I should know. Once you get past that stage comes the physical side of things: the process of actually writing the story. It’s the most enjoyable part as long as you don’t get stuck at some point for whatever reason.

That’s when you escape into that other world and you get to know your characters as you shape them along the way. Sometimes they surprise you in the way they grow and they end up quite different than you intended. You just never know for sure. And then there’s the re-writing stage, filling the gaps, mending the holes, adding, editing... I don’t like it much, to be honest. It confuses me more than anything but the fact that you have to really think about every little thing means that what you change will be more thoughtful and hopefully better than before. So, really, writing is very much like painting. You can be rather liberal in the way you apply the paint on that canvas, using as much paint as you wish and splatter generous amounts of what will serve as a base, but once you’re done with the foundations the painting process becomes more and more intricate and precise until the final touch which requires a steady hand.

 I’m not that far from that last stage, although I’m aware of the style issue. I try to keep in mind the sound advise of showing rather than telling per se... I shouldn’t write that one is angry when I can avoid it, but use gesture or facial expressions or actions to show that one is angry...It is easier said than done, for me anyway. And then I need to stop taking my ‘reader’ for a dumbass...That is to say I keep explaning things in too much detail, as though whoever might ever read my story wouldn’t have the brains to understand... I think such difficulties stem from the fact that I’m my own editor and therefore I find it very hard to be objective enough to spot the errors. But then I don’t have the luxury of friends and I have noone I could ask to read the story... And it’s quite a brick to read, I can tell you. So... If I do ever manage to finish it completely whatever mistakes or clumsiness there are left should be judged with a hint of clemency since I would have had no second opinion whatsoever. That is also why I can never be sure that what I’m writing isn’t utter rubbish. But hey, I don’t seem able not to write so...

Mum said that once your mind is free, once you can truly think for yourself and analyse what is being said or shown then you find peace of mind no matter what happens. If she is able to see beyond the shams and illusions of our reality, especially through the medium of society, then it would explain why all the setbacks in her life have become a well of strength from which she draws even more stamina to keep going...

I’m not that courageous. I need to strike a balance between a free mind, one that has freed itself from comforting yet deluded beliefs and preconceptions, and my social self, the one that has been so brainwashed and conditioned that it seems intent to clash with my thoughts all the time. I’m a coward. I was going to say a mental coward but that would be the wrong choice of words here. It’s simply that one part of me longs for truth and understanding of myself and what is around that self, but the other half isn’t strong enough to deal with what such truth, the undiluted version of it, entails for the rest of your life when you can no longer ignore the harsh fact that there is only you, a biological entity born to die and what you do in-between is up to you- and the sudden understanding that the only true entities that can give you credit or adknowledge your work, even your basic existence, are the people around you, all the members of your species... I suppose it gives me a lesser pleasure to know that there is no higher meaning to what I write than the expression of a passion, perhaps a talent I have. The only ones who can give it a deeper sense or importance are mere mortals who may well choose to ignore it. I suppose what I’m trying to say, albeit clumsily, is that now I can see that there is no higher power, no mysteriously powerful God watching over me and that everything I do or do not do for that matter is up to me only. We are lucky in so far as we have the faculty to think logically and therefore we can give to existence the meaning or purpose we wish to give it and in that we should strive to find solace. I want my life to be more fruitful than it would be biologically. I don’t want to simply reproduce, find love, get a house in the suburbs etc... I want to write and understand as many things as I humanly can. 

The only strive one can rely on- and that is, to me, the most disapointing side of the affair- is that other people will aknowledge your work, for one single individual needs the input of others in order to instill meaning into whatever one does. If I were the only human being on Earth, for instance, what strive would there be for me to write anything at all? The need to write stems from the hope that you will be able to share your work or discovery with others, I should think. When I was still blind enough I used to ignore that fact and imagined that somehow I was at least writing for some higher entity or that the latter was tilting me in such direction. That was a deluded belief- a safe idea that kept me from confronting the basic truth of it all: everything has meaning in so far as there is another person to share it with. And then you look around and you realise that most people aren’t that bothered by what you have to say or want to show them. Who could blame them? I’d react the same way in their shoes unless what one has to show or say is in fact truly mind-blowing. The idea of religion was greatly appealing for it meant that you could overlook that harsh fact of life and remain in the comfort zone of conveniant beliefs. Now there’s only me and my choice of what I’ll do of that biological miracle that is my very existence. It is also at the core of human discord.