Thinking is like building cities.  A developed area of thought is like a bustling metropolis.  Over time, a mind in its entirety, with all its cities of thoughts of varying sizes, becomes like an expansive empire, with problems here and there, but overall is a complete functioning entity of enormous complexity.  A debate is then when empires go to war against one another.

Thinking is important because everything people do and say comes from the thought behind it. 

When I finish reading a book, I think, all the words in that book I already knew; how is it then that I did not know to put them in that order?  If I would have, then I could have been the author of the book.  Take just a paragraph and wonder the same thing.  I could have written that because I knew all those words.  The commodity of authors is words, and as an owner of much of the same commodity it follows that I should therefore be able to put them in the same order that other authors who knew the same words did, and that other people will like and pay money for that order of words.  But the problem is that we only think of certain words because we know they hold some descriptive function to the thought we are thinking of.  So really, an author is first a mind that thinks thoughts, then they are a writer that puts words to them.  Many people are confused about the enteprise and focus on the latter without understanding the prerequisite of the former. 

In sum we have the maxim, 'All writers must be thinkers first.'

Tuesday night I stuffed two garbage bags full of laundry and filled a laundry basket full of garbage.  Well, it wasn't really garbage, but it was an assortment of miscellaneous items, which is close enough to validate a loose usage of the word.  It all went into the car, and at half past eleven, I sped off for my new residency near campus. 

I was driving along familiar roads with very unfamiliar feelings.  I had often driven on them, but never to live somewhere else permanently.  The assumption of driving on them had always been that a return would follow; if not that night, then perhaps the next, or at least eventually.  But this time, the symmetry of the action was broken in two like a twig, leaving me with only the vague feeling of some uncompleted task in lieu of a return journey.

It was the most intentional transition between periods of my life I shall ever make.  The home I grew up in I was leaving in my wake every second, the new setting for life's next act ever approaching.  At the moment of my departure, one chapter ended, and twenty minutes later, at the moment of arrival, another had begun. 

This at least re-emphasizes the ever-important truth that all of us are strangers in this world.  None of us have been here before, and all of us will stay here for only a short while.  So there's no use holding on to things you can't keep. 

It will be exciting to see what God does with me in this new place; I have no idea what will happen, so all I can pray is that myself and my companions will be up to the task. 

I leave you with recent reading: 

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where——" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"——so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh you're sure enough to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

I want to figure out now whatever it is I would have otherwise only realized in the last second of life.  Looking back at it all, I'm sure there will be some understanding of life as a total concept; is there way to find that knowledge now?

It is possible for there to be a world of nothing but actors; that is why honesty is so important.  And what is the difference between a world full of actors and one where people never speak their honest thoughts?  There is none.  And yet while people would agree the latter assertion is mostly true of our world, they would not agree that it would be described by the former assertion.  This serves to show that people are not only actors to each other, they are actors to themselves as well.  Because while growing up people adapt themselves to the rhythm of the world, they learn from observation of society the limits of allowable expression, and assume unconsciously furthermore that one should only think what one can express.  All thoughts that exceed the limits of allowable expression must be excluded.  In other words, people only talk about what everyone else talks about (which is learned through experience), and then assume the rules of expression apply to thought as well.  Thus, when people accept these rules, yet still have thoughts beyond them--which every human does--they become actors to themselves as well, thinking they really are the person they pretend to be; thus, the deception of this world is doublefaced.   

And how terrible is a world without honesty!  When there is no honesty, there is no way to know what is really going on.  Not only do people in a dishonest world not say what they truly think, but they also define themselves as that which they say, thus convincing themselves that they don't even think what they truly think.  What a confusing system of interaction this is.

Are there people who would say that people are fundamentally honest?  But generally does it not seem that in conversation people are always saying a thought, but that they also have a thought behind their thought?  Or specifically, one can ask themself not only whether they are always saying exactly what they think, but are also acting in accordance with the way they conceive the universe to be, at all times.  Both of these, that we always have thoughts behind whatever we are saying, and that people do not tend to live out their honest conception of the universe, are predominantly true descriptions of human interaction.  Our thoughts are a quiet realm inside us that most people have learned to ignore because of the conversational and social rules learned along the way. 

So honesty is a rare thing in the world; yet honesty is what makes the world real.  Thus, it is a very hard thing to figure out what is real in the world.  It takes a reckless purging of the generic insincerity that has accrued within oneself, and a friend whom one trusts on the deepest level.  If this personal honesty is never reached, nor the possibility of its existence recognized, one will never think there is anything deeper in life than what is said in daily conversation.  Because of this, the belief that the world is a very real place, and that we ought to live our lives very intentionally, and the search for truth, depend on the ability of people to be deeply honest about themselves and the world in which we live.

Meaning in life, and the feeling that reality is very real place, diminish severely when the level of honesty here discussed is absent.  And since the majority of people only live in the world of social conversation, the world to most is a vacant place, one where our lives are not very meaningful entities.  Our understanding of the world, and our habits growing up, revolve around what we notice others do.  Eventually we end up with a life where we are going through others' actions, thinking others' thoughts, and all life is is assumed habits.  It is unavoidable.  We do what we see done and think about what we hear said; we judge our lives in relation to those around us, and in response to this tend to blend into our own scenery. 

This is what makes me frightened; I notice, with painful lucidity, that my life is one of habits I have acquired.  Even the emotions I feel are routine; what if the only reason I am not profoundly agonized, to the point of unbearability, by the suffering of people around the world, is the place I grew up.  Westerners tend to throw money at problems out of a sense of obligation but do not feel deeply for those suffering.  This is but one example.  Suppose I live a life of habit, and that the truth is at the end of the path of a different way of living?  We live without meaning; but what if there is one?

There is a dissonance between the assumed amount of meaning in the way people tend to live their lives, which is none, and the idea that there is a very real truth that we are meant to know.  On top of this, people tend to imitate the way others live, and so the prevalent assumption is that there is no truth. 

That is the conflict of the modern world. 

But now let us ask ourselves the question of whether there is a truth or not.  If there is, then people's minds in relation to the truth is like the relation of our eyes to the stars when we live in the city; there is so much light pollution that we can barely see them, just like the truth is hazy when we think of it with our lethargic minds.  And even if there was no light pollution, our eyes are not very good, and the stars are at a distance.  But that would be what it is like. 

But in reality, the stars are there, shining gloriously, spread across the entire breadth of the sky.  If we looked when we were closer, and with better eyes, and there was no light pollution, we would be utterly overwhelmed with the beauty, glory, and the unending magnificence of their unspeakable greatness.  This we cannot forget, for it shows us that if we affirm that there is a truth, how far we yet are from it, and how seriously we must take its reality.  To do this, you must continually strip down the world's pretenses to see the truth there at the heart of it, remain vulnerable and honest, and care only for that which in the end would be the only thing of importance. 

In the end, people make sense of reality through ways of thinking.  And so it is unfair to dismiss an entire way of thinking and living with a single thought.   If one wants to be able to hold to what they think is true against opposing ideas, one should be able to carry on in conversation about what other people think.  If not, you are unfair to their lives, and are not appreciative of the fact that they are a human that accepted the hypothesis as plausible, to the point that they dedicated their life to it.  Also, to hold to your truth, be able to always exceed the other view conversationally; that is, believe that if you honestly spoke with a person of an opposing viewpoint for hours, you would still believe that your position is the one that is true at the bottom of things.

I have always written the word "thoughts" to mean not only the actual ideas in our heads but the concepts as we express them.  But there is a distinction needed.  The thoughts I have in my head are usually not the same as the conept I derive from them.  The thoughts I experience just are my thoughts.  The images, the conversations, the instances of reasoning, all continually happening everyday, have exact forms as I know them, and they will never ever be accurately summed in speech or writing. 

"If you're not who you are, you'll never know what the world would have been like if you were."

Here are the bottom lines: Honesty is what makes the world real.  Most people do not honestly assess things.  People's lives blend together.  The trend is to be without meaning.  If there is a truth, it is as real as it is at its core.  The way you would find the truth is through raw and fearless honesty. 

(Addendum)

Most people also live lives dictated by assumptions of which they have no conscious awareness.  Instead of thinking about the structure of life, and what that structure is, people develop over time, through their experience of society and culture, ways of living life that they then think have no possible defects or flaws.  People do not live in a state of worried panic about whether the way they are living is right.  Their confidence is a result of the fact that they did not consciously choose their lifestyle based on an overview of its structure, and by comparing it to all the options to see if it is the right one.  People experience the content of life; they do not define its structure.  Because they do not define its structure, or think about it objectively, they are confident in their unconsciously chosen lifestyle, which they do not realize is in actuality their eternal gamble.   

Since ways of living life are really ways of thinking about life given specific circumstances, only people who think about all the possible options for ways of thinking given the circumstances will realize the nature of their subjective choice to live a certain way over another.  In order to live deliberately one must transcend their own way of thinking by examining all the possible options of ways to think. 

"We have so much in common, we are just such a good match. Don't you think, hon'?"
"Yes," said the lad in a low voice, staring off into other thoughts.
The girl, once bubbling, turned downcast at his distanced reply.  "Jason, what is it?" came a concerned voice a moment later.
"It's just," he responded, his focus still partly elsewhere, "we don't share everything.  There are...differences between us." 
"Like what? Tell me, we can work this out," she pleaded.
"For instance," Jason began with a tone of authority, "you are attracted to guys.  Me on the other hand, well, I don't swing that way.  I am very attracted to girls.  That, just that right there, is a huge difference between us."
"But Jason, that's just, that's just," Rosalyn stammered, at a loss, "that's not a problem at all."
"It's a HUGE problem!" Jason roared.  "Are you going to start liking girls anytime soon? Huh? Well?"
There was a pause. 
"ARE YOU?" Jason erupted, "Because I'm sure as heck not going to start liking guys. And that's a huge disagreement.  It means we're different on the deepest level possible, so how could this possibly work?"  Another pause.  "WELL?"
"Please, don't yell, Jason," Rosayln whimpered, tearing up, "I love you, I need you.  This is just...silliness."
"No. It's an unbridgeable chasm.  I'm sorry, Ros.  I'm sorry this had to happen to us." Then in a resolute voice he gaveled, "We are done." 
With that he got out of his chair and walked to the door, leaving the broken-hearted lass to cry in his wake. 

Our eyes are round and slimy; I wonder if they would bounce well.

One can imagine the stomach as a boiling cavern of lava, where food is consumed in the raging inferno.   

The mouth is another cavern, a dark and damp home to a large mobile slug.  Usually the mouth is closed, and he lies quiet; but if the sleeping beast is roused, he may emerge and show his fury to the world of light.

The belly button is a sham; pushing it does nothing.  Couldn't it hyrdrate or inflate us or something?  They should have just left the cord on so I could play with it.

We put food into the same place we use to talk.  Words come out, food goes in; an odd coincidence of functions by all accounts.  You'd think we'd fuel ourselves through a fuel compartment in our side, like a car.  Instead we go to restaurants with people, and have to balance the two; fuel and talk, fuel and talk... 

Our lips are the inside of our body turned out, and when we press this inside-turned-out part of us against the same on another person, it is a very romantic thing.  I wonder if we cut skin flaps open on other parts of our body and pressed it against another person's it would also be considered an act of intimacy.

We have two eyes, but see only one view. 

Good thing we have gel-pads for sitting on.

I don't care about my hair; it can do what it wants.  It is like my front lawn if I were an aging widow. 

Hmmm... my feet don't *feel* like they're carrying 140 pounds. Weird.    

I find it deeply intruiging that the following statement is at all controversial:

I have not yet had breakfast today.

And yet, it would be an anomaly if uttering it was not followed by cocked eyebrows and confused stares from people all around.  Why?  Well, because to most people the day starts when you wake up, and ends when you go to sleep, regardless of what time it is.  To me, and Xanga, and objective reality, the day starts at 12:00 A.M. and ends promptly at the following 12:00 A.M.  This is a rather regular routine; in fact, I can't *remember* the last time the day didn't end at midnight.  Of course, my memory's quite bad, but just look at New Year's Eve celebrations: you don't see people nervosly pacing around during the evening, worrying if the next day will really come at midnight.   

"What if it doesn't work? What if tomorrow doesn't come?? What if midnight strikes, but it's still today?"
"Aww, stop worrying.  Yesterday became today, didn't it? It usually works."
*gripping the other person by the lapels* "USUALLY?! That's inductive reasoning! It could fail! IT COULD FAIL!! Just you wait, it will be one or two in the morning, and it will still be today!!" 

Now you might think that people make the mistake of saying 'tomorrow' past midnight simply because they haven't seen a clock, or aren't thinking very well because it's so late.  Not so.  Whenever people figure out that when I say 'today' at 1 A.M. I'm referring to the ensuing twenty-three hours, they correct me, "Oh, ok. You mean tomorrow."  It's not laziness or unawareness, it's an actual disagreement on the linguistic usage.  People think we ought to say tomorrow if we haven't gone to bed for several hours and then woken up to the 'new day.' 

Thus, as it is, it is a startling and revolutionary idea to most people's conversational habits to think that the day is a twenty-four hour interval of time starting every night at midnight. 

What say you? Am I being a superfluously pedantic, or are other people being ridiculously irrational? 

I have a feeling fellow nocturnal Xangans will agree; we think in terms of the date of posts.  It's 1:31 A.M. and this post will be on Wednesday.  In fact, maybe people who would say "tomorrow" about Wednesday at this time are basically facebookers and myspacers.  Psh. They would. 

P.S. They're probably are also the same people who still have bumber stickers from the '04 election on their cars.  The trend among these people is an inability to move on. 

(notes sloppily scribbled in a notebook while in Italy)

If you want people to agree with your opinion, be rude and unkind, and argue for the opposite side. 

If we fear the critics we will never be extraordinary people.

We would be much less impressed with each man's mind if we knew all his thoughts, and when and in what form they came, rather than only knowing the select few he deigns to divulge, and the eloquent form in which he delivers them.

When he dies, each man is a bundle of unspoken thoughts. 

With the crowds of people during the day, the sunset in the evening, the stars at night, and situations of inescapable solitude at times, it is the thoughtless human that is the truly extraordinary specimen. 

It is better to learn contentedness of life than to save money for a vacation.  Though it may not be easier.

In public places an entire continuum of the human life is present, with the old and the young showing us in a single moment every stage of what we go through.

It is too bad thoughts we have labored over and contemplated extensively for long hours are summed up in quickly-read sentences.   

Ciao, friends.

Scientists have made lasers, so why not laser guns?  But I suppose we do have them in laser tag; but why don't the lasers kill us?  Oh right—because of the armor.

A piece of male logic: If wearing my clothes makes them dirty, then *not* wearing them must make them clean. 

It's a good thing we don't become conscious in the womb, because I'm claustrophobic. 

I suppose the question "Where do you see yourself in ten years?" would be *pretty* important if one were interviewing to be a psychic.

Whenever I see a police officer walking around, I can't help seeing his gun and thinking about if I could run up and take it real quick.  Then I'm always afraid they will see me staring and realize what I am thinking. 

Over the years I have eaten many things off the floor, and am still alive today. 

Have wonderful Thursdays, everyone.

If our thoughts appeared fifty meters above our heads in sentence form, the sky over cities would be black.  For the world is simply the physical place where we humans experience thoughts.  Every person, wherever they go, is having an ongoing monologue of thoughts inside their head.

This is what makes blogging so weird; geographically, a person may be far away, experiencing thoughts throughout the day, their existence unbeknownst to you.  Yet you can become aware of what this far removed person is thinking through the rectangular portal in your house.  How odd that we should be able to see a collection of thoughts of so many different people that are all so far away! 

On top of the remarkable aspect of the distance between the thinkers, there is the fact that we are only privy to a meager portion of the thousands of thoughts the person experienced during the day.  If our minds are like a river of thoughts, a blog post is like a few buckets of water from that river splashed on a wall.  Thus, for anything we read by another person, we should note we are seeing what they think much less than we are seeing how they think.

Alas, it is this enterprise, the one of writing down the various trains of thought from the day, occassionally sharing some of the less bizzare ones with others, that I missed most while I was in Italy.  Without recording one's thoughts in some place, one's life seems to disappear, and one wonders where it went; with thoughts having been recorded, we have evidence that life did indeed happen as slowly and surely as it is to us every moment. 

With that, I am happy to return to the world of thought-sharing, and do wish you all to forgive me for perhaps the aberrant nature of the ideas here expressed. For in real life interactions people have their minds hooked up to social reality, and the probability they will seriously consider thoughts different from that social reality is low.  Besides, in a way Xanga seems analagous to the mind, a removed place where there is perhaps a separate conversation of thoughts happening than the one immediately apparent to those around us.  For when around others we speak our thoughts, but it seems there are always also thoughts behind our thoughts, and those need a place for expression as well. 

Writing in a journal just does not work for me, so I do feel quite ready to explode with all the thoughts I accumulated this summer.  So enjoy the few snippets from the newspaper that is my mind (in circulation since 1989) that appear here.  Anyways, glad to be back!  Hello to all Xanga friends!