Edge Lord

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 ne...

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...

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...

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.