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Thinking
I should be writing Nano, but I'm not. In part because I was reading part of 50 short-short stories Warren Ellis put up on his LJ feed, which I didn't even know existed until today. So I'm feeling not good or cool enough right now.
But that's the thing. Most of us are never as cool as we wish we were. We all carry around idea versions of ourselves, idealized ghosts of what we wish we could be, patchwork personas pulled from life and fictions and dreams and frustrated desires. And when we don't live up to what we think we should be, we feel even worse, which circles around. Except it's not always what we think we should be. We go by what we think other people think we should be, or say they think we should be, the constant low-level brainwashing of dealing with other people. And advertising preys on it, using the same mental signals as built the ghost-selves that already haunt us. Receptors get used to triggers, and it repeats.
But it's not just idealized versions, we also have versions of ourselves we live down to. The little demons of our souls, the reflexive sad-puppy parts when things went bad, the little accountant of misery in our heads that keeps track of every little thing we did we're ashamed of and has them all on instant replay. We're all surrounded by ghosts of shoulds and coulds, holograms of ourselves that aren't anything but reflected light. Probability patterns of personality, as hard to track as the electrons in an atom. Quantum people, never know which one you are until you look, and then you're wrong.
Except... None of that is really us. I think that's what the central thing of the whole Buddhist thing is, sorta. I don't agree with the whole detachment thing, that's tantamount to giving up and drawing away from the world, but. All these ghosts and holograms and memes and remembered pasts and imagined futures aren't us, the us that's now. The human being inside. We're all not sure what to do next, we just keep faking it, just like everybody else, thinking we're the only ones who don't know the steps to the dance. It's rare when we find anybody we can be around and not pay attention to all the ghosts, and I don't know if there's ever anybody who we let all the fakery go with. Always afraid and trained from birth to hide the real parts underneath.
I think that's part of why some people like Bush, in his shallowness and stubbornness, they can convince themselves what he shows is all that's there, resolute and steadfast and all the things they wish they were. Or tell themselves they are. I don't know. But that's another subject, but this is my thoughts, and politics has been praying on my mind of late, and probably will be for a long while.
On the other hand, I could be wrong about the Buddhist bit up above, nothing really says there has to be something underneath, maybe the flickering flowing pretend self-images we have are really us, changable and fluid as quicksilver, or sparking like fire. Every moment something new, like a river or the wind. Or the earth, which looks stable and solid but is constantly wearing, twisting, sliding, buckling, islands of stone floating on molten rock rather like bumper cars with no one at the wheel. Maybe faking it is all there really is to life and we couldn't tell the difference if there was anything else.
Well, I didn't actually say anything up there except that I don't know anything, which is in line with many philosophers. But I had another thought about philosophy, today. Everybody looks for the meaning of life, but maybe that's a better job for an old person than a young person. Or not for anybody. The important part it'd seem is to live it. I've spent too much time trying to ponder the why of some things, rather than doing them, which is really the best way to find out the why, I'd think. Life is for living, does it really need much more reason than that? The universe is a strange and wonderful place, full of teeming hordes of the most messed up weirdos you'll find everywhere, because that's where they are. Everywhere.
Well, hell. If nothing else, that strange little ramble did at least prove I can write, which I think I'll go do for Nano, I'm far enough behind already.
But that's the thing. Most of us are never as cool as we wish we were. We all carry around idea versions of ourselves, idealized ghosts of what we wish we could be, patchwork personas pulled from life and fictions and dreams and frustrated desires. And when we don't live up to what we think we should be, we feel even worse, which circles around. Except it's not always what we think we should be. We go by what we think other people think we should be, or say they think we should be, the constant low-level brainwashing of dealing with other people. And advertising preys on it, using the same mental signals as built the ghost-selves that already haunt us. Receptors get used to triggers, and it repeats.
But it's not just idealized versions, we also have versions of ourselves we live down to. The little demons of our souls, the reflexive sad-puppy parts when things went bad, the little accountant of misery in our heads that keeps track of every little thing we did we're ashamed of and has them all on instant replay. We're all surrounded by ghosts of shoulds and coulds, holograms of ourselves that aren't anything but reflected light. Probability patterns of personality, as hard to track as the electrons in an atom. Quantum people, never know which one you are until you look, and then you're wrong.
Except... None of that is really us. I think that's what the central thing of the whole Buddhist thing is, sorta. I don't agree with the whole detachment thing, that's tantamount to giving up and drawing away from the world, but. All these ghosts and holograms and memes and remembered pasts and imagined futures aren't us, the us that's now. The human being inside. We're all not sure what to do next, we just keep faking it, just like everybody else, thinking we're the only ones who don't know the steps to the dance. It's rare when we find anybody we can be around and not pay attention to all the ghosts, and I don't know if there's ever anybody who we let all the fakery go with. Always afraid and trained from birth to hide the real parts underneath.
I think that's part of why some people like Bush, in his shallowness and stubbornness, they can convince themselves what he shows is all that's there, resolute and steadfast and all the things they wish they were. Or tell themselves they are. I don't know. But that's another subject, but this is my thoughts, and politics has been praying on my mind of late, and probably will be for a long while.
On the other hand, I could be wrong about the Buddhist bit up above, nothing really says there has to be something underneath, maybe the flickering flowing pretend self-images we have are really us, changable and fluid as quicksilver, or sparking like fire. Every moment something new, like a river or the wind. Or the earth, which looks stable and solid but is constantly wearing, twisting, sliding, buckling, islands of stone floating on molten rock rather like bumper cars with no one at the wheel. Maybe faking it is all there really is to life and we couldn't tell the difference if there was anything else.
Well, I didn't actually say anything up there except that I don't know anything, which is in line with many philosophers. But I had another thought about philosophy, today. Everybody looks for the meaning of life, but maybe that's a better job for an old person than a young person. Or not for anybody. The important part it'd seem is to live it. I've spent too much time trying to ponder the why of some things, rather than doing them, which is really the best way to find out the why, I'd think. Life is for living, does it really need much more reason than that? The universe is a strange and wonderful place, full of teeming hordes of the most messed up weirdos you'll find everywhere, because that's where they are. Everywhere.
Well, hell. If nothing else, that strange little ramble did at least prove I can write, which I think I'll go do for Nano, I'm far enough behind already.