Make-believe and reality as we see fit

I’ve written it before, I shall write it once more: money is the poison to men’s heart, which in turn will wither to a dead pulp. It will be the cause of destruction all around and for what? For a fistful of dollars. The so-called God, the one a lot of people believe in, is given false sweet names and a nicely tailored fairytale when it is but a mere reflection of their greed. God as we ‘know’ it is an ever adaptable, ever-changing excuse to worship what sounds shameful to the ear: bling-bling, money, shiny pretty things. We don’t have a God as the men of religion proclaim, it’s all a sham. What you believe in is a very intricate propaganda machine meant to control people. If there was a God somewhere, we wouldn’t have the first idea what or who it is. We simply could not comprehend even a glimpse of such a higher subject. The rest is part of a man-made fabrication. Delusions....

I was thinking about the French Revolution the other day. It was such a strong statement, a step towards the ideal of equality. “Liberte, Fraternite, egality.”

Chopping the aristocracy’s head off was a sublime symbol of revolt among the people but the rest that ensued soon became a farce. Perhaps it was planned as a farce from the start. If you think about it...Are we really free today? It sure feels like we have more freedom than we had a century ago...Or have we? I’m tempted to think that only the settings and ways of exploiting people have changed. Why? 

The ideals of the French Revolution were grand, the direction taken flawed from the start. The idealist goal was to give power to the people but it was done so carelessly and without enough thorough reasoning that in the end people chopped the royalty’s head off only to give power back to the Bourgeoisie on a silver plate. The people never got that power, they only think they did, but that again was an illusion. The only difference between aristocracy and the Bourgeoisie is that the former’s glory and power were given from birth while the latter’s stem from the new plague: money. So the surroundings, the settings have, indeed, changed, but not the problems themselves. They only morphed from one issue to another variant of it. We merely replaced crownies with more corrupted people, only the new ones had less money perhaps to start with. We were taken for a ride by the ‘bourgeoisie’. 

We never change the core of human problems, we keep interchanging players and unless the corrupt ones can be weeded out there will never be a better society, something that actually stands a chance to be fairer than ever before. 

I have to meet Tom for some political meeting- a socialist one. I’m open to ideas but I’m lazy. And I’m far too wary of politics feel even remotely excited. Tom, on the other hand, is overtly dedicated and holds strong views. He’s a doer. I’m more of a thinker who thinks too much and over-analyses the most trivial things. Where I could spend eternity pondering, he would be doing something. Neither quality is self-sufficient or intrinsically good in itself. It would be the merging of both into one person that would allow the latter to achieve better results. A good balance of structured thinking combined with the energy and strive of morphing thoughts into concrete actions. The ultimate well-rounded individual with the key to greatness for a society. Of course there are such people in the world, I have no doubt about that. What often lacks is something that could almost be compared to the idea of soul to a person: a dash of good will or profound integrity. Now if one was to present all three qualities -logics, strive and good will- we would have on our hands the true politician. Life is such that the very first quality to wither in its bud is integrity and we’re left with a strive turning into ambition and logics, well, comes and goes like the wind. Knowing this, how could I not be disappointed from the start?

I love early mornings, especially at dawn, when the fine line between darkness and renewed light emerges beyond the ocean of bricks and iron. There’s simply such a wealth of colours and subtle gradations that it seems to swell and enflame my heart at once. But it never lasts long and before you know it, at the mere blink of an eye, daylight suddenly takes over.

Now aged 25, I must say that the odds are rather stacked against me. I’ve grown into my own person- whatever that means, really- with such fierce independence and rejection of social expectations that I don’t see how I could ever change. The outlook I have on life might not be that different from other people, even though it is tempting to assume it is, but it has a stronger effect on me, on the way I feel or react to the things I see or think that I can see. 

Whereas the mind fights relentlessly toward the glimmer of light and knowledge the person slowly dies away, torn between the realms of raison and folly. Just as a body will decay, so will what I can only define as the soul for lack of better words to refer to that feeling part of the person. Perhaps, as you grow older, so does that part as though it were slowly pulled away from the body, dispersed in an unfathomable Netherworld. How funny to think that what really makes a person is in fact far removed from reality. If one was to truly define a living thing in particular, according to the form it remains as for the longest period of time, then we would have to talk in terms of nothingness and memories where the latter represents the highest state of existence. Taking the notion of time as a major factor in the attempt to define what existence is or represents, what the true substance of a person is in time, then it is nothing or a mere memory. Thus in the great temporal spectrum people are more often than not non-existent for they spend more time as nothing or mere memories than they do alive and concrete.

Time is a factor in our notion of reality. Reality is an abstract notion prone to the whims of ever-passing time. We, as people, don’t give or shape reality, time does. Only such an infinite spectrum can give the notion of reality consistancy by being the active element, the steady running line from point A (as far back as possible) to point B (as far as that line can run). On the other hand people are merely passive vectors scattered along that line and therefore they can only have glimpses of such reality which they do not create by existing for it would keep changing as there’re people.

I don’t know where I’m going with this, honestly. It seems to make sense in my head and yet the proper words fail me. You can understand a lot of things by instinct but only the process of learning can morphe intrinsec understanding or knowledge into concrete reasoning using the proper words. 

Thoughts on a cold Thursday morning and the world

Every so often you wonder how certain people get to certain positions or jobs . You wonder how they manage to get where only the few selected best are meant to be when they obviously have nothing much to offer. Every now and then you realise that a member of their family knew someone who knew someone... Even better: they have parents who are already recognised for whatever it is they do. Others get to the top so quickly it can be quite dizzying. Then you realise that many have sold their integrity as one would their worthless possessions in a market. And then you wonder how come so many people with so little skills or suitability to the job ever got to where they are. 

Actors are a good example on how pointless inbred “talent” is imposed as though it was a God given right. Hence you can see how many of already famous artists’offsprings suddenly pop out in the limelight no matter how talentless those children prove to be. That’s life, I suppose. However, faced with the facts one can only come to realise how much harder the struggle for a better life already shapes itself from the start: the starting line is already tipped in favour of a category of people and the rest must fight so much harder no matter how naturally more deserving they might actually be.

It can be a good thing, in a way, for it pushes you to better yourself all the time and you are less likely to take anything for granted. But that’s only if you’re able to learn from past experiences otherwise bitterness and envy can take over your better side. Or you can let yourself be corrupted and pretty much lose your own self just like the rest.

I can’t help but think in matters of fairness. There is a flag in my head flashing painfully every time something unfair occurs. It is far too idealistic and indeed probably naive to think that our world could ever be based on something more than relative fairness whose degree relies on luck and social position. Universality and equality might share differing meanings but they both share the same burden: inadequacy in terms of numbers. The fact that people can think for themselves AND feel means that notions such as universality, equality and peace can only remain distant ideals. There will always be at least one person too selfish to keep their wants in check and that will always be enough to spread to others like a gangrene. Thus people are as much prisoners to the laws of probabilities than any other object or number.

The world as I see it

diary time and other thoughts...


There was a ray of morning sunshine but it has now been covered with a thick layer of dullness promising more rain and it is cold. When will it be summer, I wonder? If I’m stuck in this town then at least give me warmth and sunny skies! Instead I’m stuck home watching the rain pouring down my window. 

There is never enough wine to numb the pain of living. No, actually living is the wrong word. I should say ‘thinking’. When one thinks too much they’re bound to feel pain. There are moments of blissful lucidity followed by a sense of helplessness. There is also the sense that you might be completely wrong in your reasoning and yet this makes you already different from the rest. People who do the best and the worst in the world always seem to have one thing in common: they think they know. They can’t be wrong. Even when they are. If there is one thing I understand now it’s that there isn’t a right or wrong answer, a black and white spectrum. There is only a grey area and only the best you, as a person and as a member of a society, can do. This is exactly what we need to understand, beyond the rain and the inward tears: do your best to the best of your abilities. If you can remain true to such a motto then you can’t go far wrong. You might still be mistaken in the end but your good will was there. there was a conscience.

On Politics and the endless spin on things

Prices keep soaring, especially stapple food, the basics. They keep talking about it in the news, they even gave the crisis a fancy name: credit crunch. That sounds way cooler than “corporations are thieves” don’t you think? How funny to think that the crisis intensified roughly one year before the Games in China and that as we approach the opening ceremony prices are going even higher... I mean, let’s face it,olympic games
cost a fortune, especially in countries still developing and already in debt like all the rest, and there are the rich fat cats coming to town that will need feeding... I like how politicians keep warning US of hard times ahead, yet the next day they give away millions, if not billions, they don’t even have to “help” struggling countries...I’d say nothing if only that money reached the populations that need it but it’s more likely to be used to build new bloody gold toilet seats for corrupt officials than anything else. There isn’t much to unveil diving into my void but I wouldn’t recommend that of people higher in the chain; there must be tons of skeletons half-buried down there. 

But hey, aren’t we, us poor sods, dispensable at the end of the day? Of course we are. The truth is every single person is. The difference is that for those in power, those who wield any kind of power over others, they have the option to become indispensable in the eyes of a majority. They can protect themselves from what they impose on us and because they are so far removed from our daily hardships they see us as little more than human cattle that can always reproduce to make up for the loss. In the greater scheme of life there is always a chain. Cats will feed on the fish and the birds, the lion on other herbivorous animals, maggots will feed on rotten food...We feed on many animals but just like we use a cow in many ways to our own benefit we use other people in pretty much the same way. A cow is a wonderful creation of nature: it produces milk and we can make so much out of it...Well, the same can be said of people in power over the little people. It makes me laugh that we fight viruses so much for they really are our most fearsome predators and boy are they resilient and adaptable! Viruses are a plague to humans just like humans are the virus of our planet. It only seems fitting that both virus and man always clash.

By the way, the price of bread- the edible kind- is now at least a pound and the cheapest one that used to cost barely more than 0.18p because of its rotten quality has now skyrocketted to over 50p... Pasta can be bought for no less than 78p when three months ago the same pack would have cost you around 40p max. The funniest thing is how supermarkets can now dictate what you’re going to eat for the week... How thoughtful of them to slash prices on selected products every now and then, meaning that if you were to go shopping on a restricted budget you’d end up buying whatever they have been kind enough to reduce in price. So last week I was able to eat cherry tomatoes, peppers, pizza, mushrooms...This week I might get apples, cucumber and whatnot, but cherry tomatoes will be back to their crazy price. It will be rather interesting to see what happens with meat, since they’re introducing cloned meat on the market that doesn’t even have to be labelled as such. They couldn’t honestly tell us because of course very few people would buy it. Call this democracy if you wish, I call this another sham. There is no such thing as democracy, there’s only an illusion of it, a word or notion that’s little more than an ideal. 

What we take for democracy is in fact an intricate propaganda machine that seems to give freedom from one end and take everything else from the other: that is NOT democracy. That’s taking people for morrons.

The truth is that if I don’t start playing the game I’ll end up losing anyway. I’ll remain a prisoner because I am poor. Poor people have no voice, not even in so-called western countries. Oh, they do feel sometimes like they have one but it is a carefully monitored stream of voices controlled from above. Who needs a God when we have puppet masters?

It might well be that what I am writing is grossly superflux but as long as it seems to teach me something it was never for nothing. I just can’t take anything for granted anymore- my mind simply won’t stand for it and will make me question until it all makes sense. I cannot just accept that I think one thing without questioning why or what lies beneath the end result that is that thought. I need to understand for myself HOW I got to think or believe one particular thing. To me the big test isn’t so much these very pages but whether I am able to write something as long as a book, a story in itself, that can actually stand up to scrutiny. These pages are indulgence to me, a place where I can let my mind run loose to follow any line of thought it fancies. They represent some sort of recycling bin in which I can empty the huge amount of constant reasoning from the silliest idea to the most elaborate and somehow avoid sheer brain overload, if that makes sense.

 That need to write so much is, I suspect, a mere coping mechanism that allows me to not only sort my thoughts out but also prevent overwhelming my own brain as it would otherwise lead straight to a major breakdown at some point. Honestly, just like an overworked machine. It would make logical sense that those who came up with the computer model based themselves on that of the brain itself. All that’s really missing from those machines is the human touch- feelings. Now that’s something we haven’t been able to create, something that would emulate feelings just as we experience them every day and that seem to make us so very human...And because we still don’t understand those feelings, why we have them, why they feel so much like some third party akin to a soul added to the body it is easier to end up believing in religions. And yet by doing so we elude the issue altogether, hiding behind an explanation even more complex to understand rationally and logically than the original enigma. So if I’m to attempt at least to get to the bottom of what makes us human and everything that goes with the question surely I should keep away from any other notion that only serves to confuse me further. If I can first answer issues surrounding the person- the foundations- starting from the very roots then I can move up to the next hurdle and so one. This way I minimise the chances for error in reasoning and I am more likely to find something right. No one should ever start with the question of religion or any of those massive notions before everything else. That would be skipping fundamental stages of understanding and of course the likelihood of finding any answer is greatly reduced. Fact. Learning is the pauper’s path. Remain humble and accept that you know very little and your mind will open up to new horizons, things that you thought you knew until it finally slaps you in the face and you realise that you never really knew until now.--

On the other hand I keep having doubts about the direction my story is taking: am I being too patronising, too much of a moralist at times? Am I writing too much beside the point, around the bushes, taking my potential reader for a morron? Yes, I think I do sometimes. I struggle with subtility and seem to spell everything out in case the message wasn’t clear enough and by doing so I threaten the power of suggestion, what makes a mind want to understand, curious. How do you make sure you don’t do that? How do you know you’re giving away just the right amount?? I’m still trying to figure that out. It’s pretty much like making a cake when you’ve never cooked before: how much raising stuff do you put in it exactly, knowing that if there isn’t enough it will go flat and if you put too much it will make your stomach churn...Here’s my dilemma, really. I can only guess and hope I have a good eye for measure, that my critical side will pick up on the problems soon enough. You can write, write, write but the real test is the finished product: is it going to be some cheap brand pack of rubbish or an expensive, rich texture kind of cake? The proof, I guess, can only be in the pudding, ah.

A blog about... philosophy

philosophy, logics and thoughts on politics...But also on the passion and struggles of writing