This is very funny. You know what is not funny is the fact that Tina Fey is actually more qualified to be vice president of the United States of America. Also Jason Sudeikis’ Joe Biden is hilarious.
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/vp-debate-open-palin-biden/727421/
I can’t figure out a better way to put this video up. Parker please figure this out.
Terrance Mckenna is to human beings what burning man is to festivals. I didn’t really prescreen these, they just happened to be two videos I watched today at work. If you are interested in unique thinkers you really should spend a few hours and see what Terrance McKenna has to offer…
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| Kevin’s Wedding
just uploaded these |
I went for a hike after work today. I decided I was going to use the time alone to try and think of something to write about. I have always really enjoyed writing, but lately I have found it pretty difficult. Today would be the day I actually put a little effort in. After about an hour the realization struck me that I honestly had nothing to say. Nothing. Not a political injustices to thwart or a commentary on some form of social retardation, not even a horribly embellished account of something I sorta did. That got me thinking, “Where did all the ideas go?” I had always been so full of pride will all the theories and philosophies I conjured up or more often than not blatantly plagiarized. I used these ideas to define myself. Without ones ideals and prejudices what is left?
My first thought was that perhaps I was just getting mentally dull with age and social repetition. I mean I am already 25 and a half, maybe I was falling into an early case of the mental atrophy that seems to consume all seniors. There is obviously a day in everyone’s life when they stop having/accepting new thoughts and go with the fall back plan of telling of old irrelevant stories and blind stubbornness. Was it possible my time had just come a few decades to early?
Though still possible after a little more mental investigation this didn’t seem to be the case. Now more than ever I felt a hunger for knowledge. A few years after leaving my formal education behind me I was able to step past being the GPA junky that high school and college had warped me into. I no longer was going through the administrative motions solely to acquire some artificial incentive; I felt I had acquired a genuine interest in learning.
After a little deeper thought it finally dawned on me what is happening. It seems I am losing my ability to hold an opinion. Sure I have opinions on everything, like we all do. There is not an aspect of this world I don’t have some belief on. Work sucks, he’s stupid, I’m right, Seahawks rule, that’s fun, she’s beautiful, that should be legal, that should probably be made illegal. I still have all those racing through my head every second, what has happened though is that I have started realizing how fucking retardedly arbitrary my opinions really are. Nothing I “think” has any real relevance to the reality of the world. It is only my subjective manipulation of the actual facts of the world being manifested as my opinion. I have always grasped opinions in the past because they gave me some form of intellectual leverage over the world that made “me” something. I was always trying to be right and prove my grasp of life. As have spent more time paying attention to myself and being aware of life, not thinking about it but just simple observing it for what it is, it has become more and more apparent to me that all this thought really is is a crude often insecure self shielding way of manipulating the reality of life.
I don’t really know how to end this; I am certainly not trying to come off as though I have figured anything out. Quite the opposite the more time I spent considering life the less it seems to make sense to me. All I am trying to say is that my OPINION is that we are all completely full of shit and we should step back and look at the foundation of our beliefs and see if there really is a foundation at all.
As many of you know I am a Doug Stanhope fan. In fact I have gone on record saying he is the funniest man on the planet. That being said Doug is done with his recent comedy tour so is writing again on his blog. It is usually pretty funny so check it out. Also he has a pretty cool review of some comedy albums I thought was interesting.
Besides that I dont really have much else to say. I think people are going to start writing again on here sometime soon so don’t give up quite yet.
Private Property- (By this I am strictly speaking of land.) For starters and not actually related to my confusion with private property I would like to say that I don’t really think anyone actually “owns” land in the US. You are simply leasing your land from the government. Two reasons that come to mind for this semi-coherent belief, first off if you don’t pay property taxes each year the government comes and kicks you off the land takes it as it’s own. How is that not the exact same as every other form of lease? Just because the lessor is the government that doesn’t really seem to make it any different to me. The second reason and what actually brought this thought to my immediate attention is the idea of eminent domain. For those of you who didn’t take “intro to law” or don’t have a functional understanding of your lack of civilian rights in this police state, eminent domain is the concept that the Government at any time can take your land if it is deemed in the public’s best interest (that deeming is done by the government). The do have to pay you “market” value (also decided by the government), but you have no right to refuse. I am sure there are some other reason why you don’t really own your own land, but those 2 where enough to completely convince me so I stopped looking any further.
So now to the actual thing that doesn’t make sense to me. That is the idea of private property itself. My problem is with the fact that I can’t see where the justification comes from for a person to privately own something to the complete exclusion of everyone else. To me this is another example of human arrogance as we divided up and claim ownership of something that is infinitely greater than our own little existences (That was my Crazy Native American blood coming out again, If I start quoting mother earth and the wolf spirit I am officially going to stop stating my opinions in public).
I do admit I have a hard time implementing a functional alternative, but just because something might not be practical under the current social system doesn’t mean that it isn’t a superior idea. What do you think should someone just because they “own” the property be able to exclude other people from enjoying the planet?
The other day I was thinking about how many things in this crazy world make no sense to me what so ever. Could it be that the world is just a completely irrational place? Or am I just not getting it? This thought got me thinking that maybe I should try and figure out some answers to these questions. So in an effort to start discussion and possible work towards some answers I am going to start yet another on going segment. All I am going to do is just pose a question that has been perplexing me and hopefully that will then insight a spirited debate on the matter. I am going to try not to state my opinion too strongly and leave the question open ended for response. I really would enjoy hearing everyone’s thoughts.
#1- Nationalism? My question is why do people subscribe to such a seemingly outdated and idiotic notion? Why are you proud to be an American or Italian or German? What the fuck does that even mean? Why are people willing to hate and kill people just because they live across an arbitrary line on map? Why do we support US efforts, yet not give a shit that the African people are dying by the millions? It all just seems like governments (defined by me as: the small minority of ultra wealthy and their interests) are just mind fucking people into buying into false propaganda and “Nationalism” to allow them further advocated THEIR causes. If people didn’t buy into Nationalism and actually related to other people just as other human beings, the government would lose its greatest political tools “the fear of OUR interests being some how hurt”. Not to start sounding all queer, but aren’t we all just people on this planet. Don’t people in China, Russia, and Kenya deserve the exact same chance at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Nationalism fundamentally doesn’t make sense to me….
I really enjoyed the clip in the link below. It is a 15 minute video about a Brain Scientist and her account of having a stroke. I got the video from my Meditation Mentor (who is a 75 year old lady who I am pretty positive was/more than likely still is very into psychedelic drugs.)
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/when-a-brain-scientist-suffers-a-stroke/
Everyone’s favorite literary discussion has returned. Right now I am reading 2 books so why not put up a thought from each of them. You may comment on whatever one you find most interesting (or neither if you so decide).
1) This comes from Tom Robbins’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Robbins) [Parker can you make this a normal link, for some reason I am too retarded to figure out how to do that] “Another Roadside Attraction”. I’ve said this before and I am sure I will say it again, but Tom Robbins is a fucking incredible author.
The scene is pretty simple John Paul Ziller (drummer/magician) is asking his wife Amanda (hot chick/mushroom aficionado) about her thoughts on religious schooling:
“My impression is this: There is an insect called the hunting wasp. The female hunts for spiders and other insects and preys on them in an unusual way. She stings them in the large nerve ganglion on the underside of the thorax so that they are not killed but only paralyzed. She then lays an egg on the paralyzed victim (or within it’s body) and seals the prey up in a nest. When the egg hatches, the wasp larva commenses to eat the prey, slowly, gradually, in a highly systemized way. The nonvital tissues and organs are eaten first, so that the paralyzed creature remains alive for a good many days. Eventually, of course, its guest eats away so much of it that it dies. During the whole long process of consumption, the prey cannot move, cry out or resist in any way.”
“Now, suppose we view the Church as the hunting wasp, it’s stinger being represented by the nuns and priests who teach in the schools. And let us view the pupils as the paralyzed prey. The egg that is injected into them is the dogma, which in time must hatch into the larva-personal philosophy or religious attitude. This larva, as that of the wasp eats away from within, slowly and in a specialized manner, until the victim in destroyed. That is my impression of parochial education.”
2) The second thought comes from “The Universe in a single Atom” by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. This is a pretty cool book that shows the convergence of current scientific theory and Buddhist philosophy. Before I go into the quote I wanted to point out that the Dalai Lama is going to be in Seattle for 5 days, April 11-15. I am actually pretty excited I got free tickets to 2 of his events (one of them is about the convergence of modern science and Buddhism, something I find fascinating). If you want to find out more here is the site (http://www.seedsofcompassion.org/)
You don’t really need any set up for this one. This Dalai Lama (the 14th) is really into hard science and it’s applications for making this world a better place. This quote comes at the end of a chapter where he goes over evolution and its application for the world.
“If twentieth-century history — with its widespread belief in social Darwinism and the many terrible effects of trying to apply eugenics that resulted from it — has anything to teach us, it is that we humans have a dangerous tendency to turn the visions we construct of ourselves into self-fulfilling prophecies. The idea of the “survival of the fittest” has been misused to condone, and in some cases to justify, excesses of human greed and individualism and to ignore ethical models for relating to our fellow human beings in a more compassionate spirit. Thus, irrespective of our conceptions of science, given that science today occupies such an important seat of authority in human society, it is extremely important for those in the professions to be aware of the their power and to appreciate their responsibility. Science must act as its own corrective to popular misconceptions and misappropriations of ideas that could have disastrous implications for the world and humanity at large.”
Three days ago I committed to a new “work strategy”. The strategy is basically this: While I am at my desk I am going to work and when I am done with my day’s worth of work I am going do something else. So instead of doing 6 hrs of work in 8 hrs I am going do it in 6 hrs and get the fuck out of there. This may sound like I am being lazy. Yet, I sure that every single person can look at what you did at work today and find a way to do all of it and probably considerably more in 75% of the time. Here are the time saving strategies I have implemented so far for myself:
1) Stop wasting time surfing the web all day. I notice that I mindlessly check Espn.com, Myspace, BeastTube.com, hotdogandfriends.com, hoboboobies.wordpress.com, and several other sites over and over through out the day. Now I am not saying I am giving up filling my brain with useless information, I am just going to check them once in the morning before I start working and once at the end of the day before I leave. The actual time spent checking these sites is substantial, yet the biggest efficiency gained is in regard to the reduction of mental downtime going between working, surfing the web, and getting back work. Even if I only look at the site for 30 seconds there is a 2 to 3 minute mental funk before I actually get back into work mode.
2) Email- Only check my email 4 times a day (First thing, before lunch, 2 pm, and 4:30 pm). Also when I check my email respond to all of the emails I am going to respond to. Same efficiency theory here. Email is a really important part of my job, but it is also the main inefficiency in my work day. I will be working on something important then I will get an email and drop my task. Then I will send off my email and mentally wonder off for a while. Then I get back to my task and I work for a few minutes till I get another email and drop my task again. In the end I have spent 2 hrs doing a 30 minute tasks and answering 30 minutes of emails.
3) Organize a List of Tasks- Before I start my day I am going to lay out every task I want to get done for the day. Then I am going to number them and start at the top of the list and complete each task before moving on. This will make sure I don’t waste time on less important tasks just because they are easier or less boring. This will assure I actually do the difficult or boring tasks. This plan will also layout everything I want to get done for the day and be a good barometer of when my work day is complete.
4) Knowing that I don’t have to be at work (most important one) – This is an option that unfortunately most people do not have at work. The beauty of being my own boss and a private contractor is that I get paid for what I do not the time I spend doing it. Forcing people to be at work a set amount of time is one of the great inefficiencies in our current cooperate system (see my last post about why 30 hr work days). Yet that social conditioning is really hard to escape. So often in the past I have always stayed at work until 6:00 pm everyday because I felt like I should. I felt like I was being lazy if I left early. Yet in reality the realization that I don’t have to be here seems to me to be an incredible catalyst to actual productivity. The reason most people aren’t very efficient is because it doesn’t matter how much they get done they still have to be at the office X amount of hours. Is there any wonder why people spend 2 hrs a day looking at their fantasy baseball team?
- So far so good. I honestly feel like I have had 3 of my most productive days of 2008 since implementing the strategy. Also I have put about 5 hrs of time into things I actually care about. Instead of just wasting my newly created free time I am going to try and focus it on coming up with a future for myself (and possibly others* who are brave/foolish enough to take the plunge out of the convention along me.) I will keep you updated with the progress.
My favorite idea so far: Start an eco-lodge on the beach in Panama with a bunch of my close friends. I think the idea would work if we don’t go into it with the plan of making money, just to live and enjoy life as much as possible. I will present all the logistics and details when I finish business plan.
*as long as you aren’t stupid or annoying
