Elaboration Would Be An Unnecessary Nuisance

I am in McCloud,
bathing in bottled water.

...I find this amusing.

Kyle Lograsso

http://www.sonnyradio.com/kylelograsso.html

The most inspiring, heart-warming, tear-jerking story I've seen in a long long time.

-SALVARE

The afore-posted essay probably should not have been. So I'm taking it down.

Objections to Objectivism

So I read Ayn Rand's "Anthem" on Sunday (it is Monday now, technically) and it is a good book, and I don't know why more people don't classify it as one of the great dystopian novels. Maybe because it is a novella, at fewer than 100 pages? But still, it's pretty good. The writing is all biblical-like, even though Rand didn't believe in God or anything like unto the concept, and the ideas are interesting. It can be read in a couple of hours, so I recommend you all go out and read it. Ask me if you want to borrow a copy.

In the back of that copy that I would let you borrow, though, is a description and summary of Ayn Rand's homespun philosophy, "Objectivism." I really got a good grasp of what it is she's saying with it, but at the same time, I had some (pun intended) objections to it. It is not flawless philosophy, and here are some of the things I didn't think were necessarily logical, some errors in reasoning, if you will (these were written shortly after finishing "Anthem" and are more like notes than diagrammed sentences):

-where do feelings of compassion and empathy come from?
-the metaphysical beliefs of objectivists are sound, but the conclusion they draw from these beliefs are not — I’ll try and put this simply: Rand says the world exists independent of man’s perception of it — and thus, for some strange reason, she says there is no such thing as the supernatural. But how can she know this if she’s only relying on her own perception of reality? The supernatural may exist independent of her own or our perception. Thus it either is or is not, and believing in the absolutism of the physical world does not discount either line of thought.
-it seems, after reviewing the basic tenets of her philosophy, Rand believes we are all, or all should be, animals. Allow me to explain: Rand believes in 1) survival of the fittest, laissez-faire capitalism and so forth, and 2) that we should focus only on our own happiness and ignore any altruistic instincts we have. Such is the behavior of animals.
-logistical error (I couldn’t think of a better word for it): what if one person living in Rand’s ideal society decided that what made them happiest was to better the lives of others? What if that was how they found fulfillment in their own life?

Some good things about Objectivism, even if they contradict the overall philosophy:

-the belief in an absolute world that exists independent of perception, that truth is truth no matter what spin you put on it
-the belief that it is choice and reason that sets man apart, that makes him special
-the belief that man’s ultimate purpose is to be happy
-the rejection of collectivism and fascism as viable political or economic systems

If you want to know more about Objectivism than you already do, search around the internetz for a second or two and you're bound to find something. Or (if you are weak in regard to the internetz) just ask me, and I'll tell you. Or you can borrow my book that Uncle Eric gave me.

As you can tell I'm getting pretty into this Ayn Rand thing. I think I'm going to be reading Atlas Shrugged next? Hm. Sounds like an okay plan.

-SALVARE

On Metaphors: Simplified Version (or: I'm Too Lazy to Write a Full Essay on Metaphors)

There are three metaphors I disagree with:

1. Night = Evil

Night isn't all that bad, it is a wondrous time and I feel blessed to be able to experience once every day (twice, technically). When night comes, there is no harsh sun beating down on you (I'd venture to guess that nobody has gotten cancer from too much exposure to the moon). It is a temperate part of the day, a time for sitting on the porch sipping water to soft music or pleasant conversation. No flower grows where there is too much light; night is necessary to give the earth a rest from light and heat.
I would even argue that night could be used as a metaphor for revelation and truth. I say this not to contradict the current holder of that metaphorical position: light. Rather, I aim to uphold and expound upon it.
Light, aside from being the only thing we see, comes from everything we see in the sky (stars, galaxies, planets, suprnovas, etc.); when the sun is in view, the stars are not. During that time when the sun is no longer in the sky, so many majestic celestial bodies are visible. When this happens, we realize not only how small we are, but how small the sun is. There are numerous stars and galaxies visible from Earth. If we focus only the sun that shines on us, we miss the big picture. The sun is usually shown as representing truth. During the day, that truth is our only focus. During the night, we see so many stars, some bigger than our own. Instead of just one small celestial body, we see billions. Every single one of those stars is truth. When we focus only on the one in front of us, there is no expansion. I look toward the sun during the day, when it is the most important thing in the sky at the time. When night comes, and the sun is no longer there to occupy the mind, I can see everything else, everything I want to see. If I focus only on the sun, I never see the stars; I never see the truth revealed only by the night.

2. Green = Envy

Green is a beautiful color, the color of nature, the color of money (Except for Euros, Pesos, and every other non-American currency that I know of), and the color of salad. For this, green should represent beauty (which I know it already does), abundance or wealth (which I'm sure it already does), and health (I'm not quite sure this one is in the common vernacular, please correct me if I am wrong).

3.There is a Third, But I Prefer to Leave it Up to You

This isn't a rant; all I am trying to say is that I make my own metaphors. Society usually uses and reuses the same objects to represent the same ideas. It is almost as if there is a set list of ideas that can be portrayed by a certain physical object. I make my own metaphors because it makes things interesting. I use things that I feel best represent what I want to portray.
A metaphor isn't just something English teachers make us use in a essays, but rather something that contains a piece of the author. It is a priceless form of expression, but only when it comes from the heart (which is the third metaphor, ironically).

Bioshock Analyzed

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/xbox360/file/931329/50027

Apparently it has a LOT to do with Ayn Rand (the chief villain's name is Andrew Ryan, and he immigrated to the USA from Russia in his childhood like Rand; another villain's name is Fontaine, like "The Fountainhead"; that second villain's pseudonym is Atlas, like "Atlas Shrugged" and more) and her works and, more prominently, her Objectivist philosophy, which I have never heard of before, but found out a lot about from reading that LONG essay/thesis-thing.

The basic premise of Objectivism is twofold: 1) an objective, absolute world exists regardless of our perception, and 2) the purpose of life is to make one's self happy. How Rand put those together into one philosophical movement is beyond me. They don't seem like logical steps. For example, I totally agree with #1, and that's a Gospel principle --- the principle of absolute truth. But #2? What does that even have ANYTHING to do with #1? And how is that a good attitude?

Anyway, read it when you have some time and add some comments or make a new post.

-SALVARE

Bioshock

Greatest storyline in a video game ever? Some might say that's not hard to do. But those are ignorant, stupid people that don't think of video games as an acceptable medium for art. Read this and tell me if this game is not art, plz. kthx.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/xbox360/file/931329/50049

-SALVARE

Catharsis

Is it possible to become physically sick from unrequited love?

There is something sublime in unrequited love, something beautiful, poetic. I think that “something,” whatever it is, is why God made it such a prominent fixture in our earthly lives. It invades our psyche, poisons our minds, manipulates our actions, tricks us into doing stupid, ofttimes terrible things. We pine, we whine, and we sink or swim. Most keep swimming. For others of us, the weight is too heavy on our shoulders, and we slowly float to the bottom of the sea of life.

The terror you feel when you hear those awful words in consequence of your confession: “I’m sorry” — how it grinds the soul, blasts the mind! As the scripture says, “that is the end of his kingdom, he cannot have an increase.” All possibility, all that wonderful, glorious potential that you have dreamed up — little things like holding hands, holding each other, or big things like going to the temple, joining together for time and ALL eternity, having children, and finishing this life and the life to come as one — all that is gone. That is the end of your kingdom, you cannot have an increase.

Why must we endure this? This pain, this agony? Why did God create a system in which so much suffering must be felt? And why — here is the real question — do we torture ourselves, why do we force ourselves to feel the “pangs of despised love”? For we do choose it. We choose to feel that pain, choose to feel that misery. If we wanted, if we really truly wanted to, we could move on, forget our past, keep our mind off it, and live our lives — completely devoid of emotion. Completely devoid of life, of humanity. “Man is that he might have joy,” saith the scripture. Thus is man that he might feel.

Does God feel? Does God have emotions? Of course He does. We often hear in blessings that He is “pleased” or “saddened” by decisions we’ve made. We read of the Lord’s anger, the Lord’s joy, the Lord’s sadness — “Jesus wept.” How could God, our Heavenly Father, sire of our spirits, create beings “in His image” that are different from Himself, that have these strange, nigh inexplicable things called “emotions”? How could WE have emotions if our heavenly parents had, or rather have, none?

And so, we must learn to feel in order to be like God. All of us feel emotional loss. Most of us will feel emotional gain. Thus is it a beautiful — but hard, hard thing — to experience unrequited love. It proves we are still human, proves we are still alive, proves we have spirits, souls, that we are children of heavenly parents, heirs to a great and wonderful mansion if only we can survive and endure the “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.”

Such thinking gives me hope that moving on is possible. And I know it, but only in a rational, theoretical way.

It still hurts. Still pricks. Still pounds away at my soul, tears my heart to shreds perpetually, and the fact that I am human, that I am an heir to God’s many mansions is no antidote, no recompense. I imagine that will change in time...but I don’t want it to. I want to feel emotion my whole life through. As Mary says in the movie “Equilibrium,” “I exist...to feel.”

I asked earlier if one can become physically sick from unreciprocated emotion, unrequited love. I think so. Just from personal experience — I threw up this morning, after what happened last night. I was shivering and my stomach ached. My mind and body were connected at that moment and my feelings were manifested corporeally. I won’t say it was beautiful, but it was poetic.

Writing is the only thing I can do to keep from dwelling solely on my emotions, because, while I am indeed writing about my emotions, the words I write are the product of thought and rationality. It keeps my mind off of her and focuses instead on the pit in my stomach, the black hole in my heart.

She isn’t there anymore. As I said earlier, my kingdom is ended, I cannot have an increase. Someone else, some other, apparently better, or at least better-suited man will come along, strike a chord, woo her instantly, feel something for her akin to what I feel today, and she will, to my everlasting, eternal and uncomforted horror, reciprocate, requite that man’s love. That is my nightmare, and I know it will one day come to pass. There is nothing I can do about it. Even if I do move on, even if I meet some lovely woman who likes me in return, there will always be that spot in my brain, in my soul where the knowledge that she preferred another male to me inhabits.

Why? Because he’s cuter? Better-looking? Smarter? Cleverer? More manly?

Why am I not good enough? What is so repulsive about me besides my physical appearance, a factor which she has told me prior is not a factor? Why why why why why why why? This case is final, closed, there is no more chance of redemption, none at all. Call it male intuition. I’m not giving up; the fight is just plain over; I have lost. “It’s a damn shame,” she said. I’m not bitter, I don’t hate her, I don’t blame God or anyone else...no one can control pheremonal feelings — they just happen. It’s not her fault she has no affection in that manner for me. In fact, I sensed that she probably would return my affection if she had some sort of intellectual choice in the matter. But it’s not that way. And it really is a damn shame.

I suppose I got to the point where I talked about her, which happened right after I said I was writing to avoid thinking about her. Such is impossible. One can never turn away from the source of the purest emotion for long. Her image, her voice, her words will always come back to me, be in my memory, etched there forever, if for nothing else than the effect she had on my development as a human being, and my aspiration to be better — more intelligent, more clean (spiritually and physically), more thoughtful and compassionate, more loving — more becoming of a son of God who holds the Priesthood.

This is it. This is the end of my kingdom of possibilities with her, I cannot have an increase. Things will remain at the status quo or drop, perhaps drastically. There will be no progression, no development, no maturation. At least, with her. And that’s all I really care about.

-NEAL “SALVARE” SILVESTER

Some poignant words

The first thousand words of NOEL

Part I, Chains Shall He Break

Chapter 1, "Daylight in an Open Meadow"

“I am a drug dealer. That is what they call my profession, and that is my purpose, that is my reason. I help people escape, help them clear the darkness from their minds, cause chaos and confusion to dissipate, and give them pure joy, pure emotion, pure feeling. I let the common people focus on something other than their miseries. I support it, encourage it...supply it. I make money, and people get what they want. Everybody wins. Everybody is happy.

“So why am I feeling so awkward all of a sudden? I’m getting this strange, conflicting, icy thing going on in my brain. But with the sharpness of that ice comes the strange warmth of daylight in an open meadow....And those words just came to me, to my mind, so don’t blame me for their cheesiness. Meadows...as if there are any in Los Angeles, or at least the parts I do business in. I haven’t seen a meadow in years. And yet I remember it. And it isn’t even the time of year for sunny meadows to be in vogue. It’s winter. Christmas. Christmas Eve, to be exact, now that I think about it. Hm. I didn’t even realize it was already the season I was named after...maybe I should cut the prices on my stuff tonight in honor.

“That awkward feeling...it’s telling me something. Perhaps it’s telling me that I’m just rationalizing it, that ‘pure joy, pure emotion’ nonsense. Perhaps I do realize in my head that it isn’t a noble profession. But must a profession be ‘noble’ to be worth doing? What about those fools who bottle beer, or manufacture tobacco cigarettes? I’ll bet those kill more people and ruin more lives than my profession does...but there I am, putting my so-called ‘purpose’ and ‘reason’ on the same level as murderers, liars, and thieves. Could it really be so bad? Does my unconscious mind really think it the same as —

“Let’s think further on my mindset, on my personality, my paradigm, my perspective, and try to classify myself. I am a skeptic, I suppose, but I don’t think I’m very cynical. How does that even work? I guess I’m a happy, outgoing fellow, but I don’t believe everything I hear, I’m disinclined to accept the unacceptable.

“Things like Christmas. What does it even mean? A holiday for all things nice in the world? What’s the point of that? Shouldn’t we always be like that? Perhaps, however, we need a day just to get our bearings straight and reorient ourselves to such niceness. Kind of like New Year’s Resolutions, which I suppose might be classified as being for one’s self, while Christmastime is just for people to start being nice to each other again. Is that the purpose of Christmas? No...it seems to me that’s the purpose of life. Or should be, anyway. To lift up our fellow man and support each other.

“That’s what I do, and why I do it. The purpose of my life, the purpose of my profession. The reason I exist.

“Is that really why I do it? Hah. What a rationalization. What a trip. What a sidesplitting excuse. I do it for one reason and one reason only: it works for me, just as I work for it. I feel like I belong in this crowd. Not the drug doer crowd; I stopped that long ago; but the dealer crowd...we are above the shooters and the snorters...we are an elite class. That’s why it feels great...superiority, I suppose. Evolutionary psychology. It’s exciting, it has great returns, it fills my days but lets me determine what they are filled with. All of which translates into that one reason, I think: it’s fun. I fit into it. My viscera desires it, thrives on it.

“There is another reason, I suppose: I’m good at it. It’s like a pianist’s hands on a piano — it takes a while to train them to adapt to the keys when they’re young, when they’re still learning. But now it’s totally natural; the hands flow across the ivory and the mind merely stands by, watching, waiting to correct while the heart, the emotions and the passion are what manipulate the instrument, what presses the correct keys in the correct order at the correct time to form beautiful music. I have been in every situation at least twice and thus know how to react to every situation, and it comes naturally, beautifully, passionately. I am a dynamic machine, knowing what to do in usual circumstances and how to adapt to the unusual. Again, the passion, the visceral feeling — it overcomes me, almost like H or coke...but in this case, I can choose.

“That’s it. I can choose. That’s what’s so disconcerting to me. The icy fire that’s pricking my brain. I have a choice; the drug-takers, not so much. Maybe I should choose to get out of this. Maybe I have more productive things to do with my time. Maybe what I’m doing isn’t supposed to be done. Maybe I’m —

“Maybe, maybe, maybe. What’s the use in maybes? I should decide. I will decide. After this last deal. The very last deal of my life. Not even a real deal, I don’t think...yeah, it’s just delivering the last of my leftover drugs to a friend. Just to get some extra cash while I find some new way to make money. A new way to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.

“The daylight in the open meadow...that phrase keeps coming back to me. Why? Perhaps because it is such an accurate representation of my emotional state right now — somewhat detached, somewhat carefree, somewhat daydreamy...and yet, totally in tune, with what I do not know, but I feel inspired somehow, I feel enlightened in some way. Maybe it will all lead to something on this cold Christmas Eve. Maybe. The world is full of possibilities.”

Next chapter: "Shut Up/Shoot Up"

-SALVARE