Edge Lord

they mindlessly will they mindlessly will they mindlessly will the others mindfully hang the others mindfully hang the others mindfully hang knowing is inimical to action knowing is inimical to action knowing is inimical to action they do they do they do the others are the others are the others are

The ghost is strong tonight. The spirit is awake. The world is pregnant with the dead and the unborn. A fire suddenly burns bright in my belly. I see a flame. A soul growing dry. —in this way, wise, it becomes, Heraclitus says. A voice says to let the hands motion (type) what the soul and its depths needs to express. Many unfathomed depths creak open. The ground trembles. From the fumes of Delphi come madness and vision intermixed; no different are we here. Step into the river; be swept away. You were doing no good standing there. A man learns the weight of his soul—tipping the scales this way and then that—mercurial in life, at peace only in death. What man dares speak into consciousness? Such an act brings the bright sun brought low. Perverse that man should know ! The ghost rhymes, did you know that? It’s not his fault. It’s his way, his nature and method of play. Vanity. Vanity. Vanity is one thing. But the knowledge of vanity is another. To bear the burden of knowing that one is d

In the dark, I wandered, Past walls of stone, some wet, others dry. Cavern and bricked labyrinth. Obsidian and lime. Carefully, I stepped. But recklessly I meandered. For long lost, I already was. But there, in the darkness, after many days, I found a heart, Redder than red. It was flesh. And it was blood.  And it was mineral. Encrusted with living ruby. Brilliant, even in the stygian hollow. There, it beats. 

Soul, If I told you that I loved you, would you believe me? I think a poet once said, "A man always loves his soul; he must." And I, perhaps for lack of an imagination, can't imagine a man who doesn't love his soul.  But I will that I would only ever say what I know is true—better that my actions take the place of my voice. My woven words are only worth their weight in gold.  And where are you now, Soul? Dancing among Plato's forms? Which virtue would you test the limits of next? I don't suppose you will settle for this century's dream. You would rather agonize yourself in a game, pitting the future with the past. But I've never been clever at games; I was a clutz on the field. Rather, let's walk uphill, together. 

Much of my pain and disappointment has stemmed from my expectation. I expected to receive much from the world on the account of who I am—whatever that may be. I saw people with wealth, and I thought I deserved that same wealth; when I saw that the path to wealth crossed decades and generations, I came to resent wealth and the wealthy for many of the wealthy did not need to cross the violent and vast river of trial-and-time.  I grew resentful, fearful, and hesitant as time passed—feeling as if I was trapped in a devious mechanism whose purpose was to drain my life and soul to sustain the livelihoods of those that stood on the shoulders of generations. I saw that I was a man living in the shadows of vampiric titans and kniving gods. I attempted to brush away this image as being the result of bruised and temporarily wounded ego, but my heart told me that this was the truth: the world is a tragic place for a tiny man who dares to look up with open eyes.  Regardless, I sense the need-and-ca

The substance has grown excessively hot.  It appears in the form of a red-hot metal orb. The orb calls to be quenched. I sense the need to pour  the-water-which-flows-along-conspicuous-paths  on the orb. This water is water that flows along conspicuous paths; it flows in the direction it deems appropriate, spreading like branches and roots against the spirit of gravity . The orb has been quenched. What happens next remains to unfold. 

A real possibility: I fucked myself up by reading Nietzsche. Alternatively equal possibility: I was fucked up, so I read Nietzsche. But Certainly: Well-adjusted adults in their mid-twenties are not fascinated with Nietzsche. I am no longer fascinated  by Nietzsche. I don't think about him regularly, even though I have a portrait of the guy hanging over my desk. He's interesting. He's still relevant albeit overdone. And I worry that he left a mark, for better or worse—or for good or evil or whatever lies beyond (WINK WINK). Thinking about power is...destructive, corrupting. Power flows in ways that are not our ways. And mimicking the  flows of powers  that you may observe won't win you any good prizes, because they cannot be copied from observation. Look, I do not know if that makes sense outside of my head, but I have to put it out there: if you try to merely mimic the flows, you will fail, and you will pay for your failure . Power is more like a dance, not th

When you're writing a story, you're supposed to know what your protagonist wants. If you don't do that, then you don't have a real character. And that strikes me as a really obvious metaphor for real life: if you don't really know what you want, then you don't have a really well-developed character. If you don't know what you want in a particular situation,  then someone else will want on your behalf,  and you will serve them.  This is a rule with few exceptions. ... It's important to get to a place where you can act according to your subjective experience–your visceral, unedited reactions; that is, your natural reactions. Most people tend to be alienated from their natural reactions, their "true will".  Natural, uncensored, candid, flowing—I have found these to be a suitable goalpost for crafting (nearly all) my reactions to social situations. However, the challenge is that human nature is ape-like, impish, infantile,

People often confuse me for a Richard-Dawkins-worshipping- atheist, which I was such an atheist when I was 19 and first breaking away from religious fundamentalism (and browsing /r/atheism back in its ""golden"" days). I am not a naive atheist. I believe in some spooky shit. That being said, I feel the need to hedge first: Mathematics, physics, and the scientific method are the most effective ways of making sense of the  material  world. However, the nature of  being,  subjective experience ,  human   creativity, and the fundamental nature of reality (i.e. philosophical metaphysics) remain totally-beyond the grasp of the hard sciences.  Through a scientific lens, all the important things—the things that matter, like love and friendship and beauty—are nothing more than wishy-washy bullshit. To spite of shallow materialism, I treat my experiences and fantasies as  real , that is, real phenomena that mean something. And such phenomenon and fantasies have a l

Socrates said, The unexamined life is not worth living . But what about the examined life? Or any life? Too much examining never did anyone any good. A guy once said: It's good to question things. And it's good to entertain curiosity. But if you overdo it, you're going to have a bad time. And if you really take it too far, you'll do something awful– like study philosophy.

One of my favorite professors was an unassuming middle aged man, but the man was a real philosopher. Most days during this particular spring quarter,  he wore a faded Under Armor pullover hoodie, awful sandal-shoes, and cargo shorts. And regrettably, I enrolled for only one of his lecture series on empiricism, namely the works of Locke, Hume, and Berkeley. I thought to myself, "Are one of those men right? Will I call myself an empiricist after this course?" As the philosopher lectured one day, I felt the sense that I had stepped into a beautiful gothic cathedral. And with every argument he made, a new hall or wing would come into view. His lecturing would reveal the general shape and contours of the architecture. And with each question that was asked and then answered, a small hidden corner would be illuminated where there would be intricate carvings, latticework, or paintings. It was a beautiful place to visit—a place to worship (a) greater being. I studied the intricac

Common stories paint a picture of fate as an eschatological attractor: a final point of resolution where the hero and villain meet and together produce a satisfying tone—a note of irony, tragedy, completeness. But this type of content is aimed at soothing a frightened mind in need of paternal comforting that says, "Things will inevitably resolve and improve: after life, comes heaven." But there is no final point where we may rest. Heaven is not real. Our fate is return . I suspect that everything that has been done will be done again. However, particular occurrences will not repeat themselves, but, the things that matter will; we will repeat meaningful things. You will only turn 10 years old once. But the loneliness that you felt on your tenth birthday you will feel again when you become 40. Such an inescapable fate is known as  tragedy . The self is a set of more-or-less interlinked cycles. We will repeat our mistakes. This is a part of our nature, and it is called 

I used to believe in the void. I thought that is where I would go when I died. But now I feel uncertain. ... I had a conversation with a painter. I asked, "What is the color of death." I thought she would say black, but she said, "Brown." "I think it's gray," I said. "Gray is the color of death. Not black. Not white. Gray is the color at the end of the universe, when nothing happens: no tension left to spark anything." "Well," she said, "I've never seen the end of the universe. But if you look at something dead, you'll see that it decays and feeds new life." She is quite the empiricist , I thought. But what about me ? What about my death?  What will life be like after I turn into ten-thousand flies? Perhaps death has no color. It is a lens—a magnifying glass, a telescope, a prism. Thereby we may bring the infinite into focus.