Hall of Infinite Doors
It seems that this scroll is a sequel to the northern most scroll, scribed by the same inebriated author. It is titled "A Moment of Honesty Part II."
Please note I consumed 12 milliliters of pure ethanol per 10 pounds of body weight (that translates to a roughly 140 pound guy consuming 9-10 drinks worth) that I am able to be honest enough with myself to write this post. As a side effect, it is not terribly well written and riddled with grammatical errors and logical inconsistencies. I'm unfortunately not comfortable enough to write about this stuff unless I'm uninhibited. I hope this entry resonates in someone. If it does, please comment.
How do you judge a species? By how they work, what they do to survive? I find this a poor way to judge them, because for a species to persist, every species must work to survive. The species that persist persist because they are adept at survival. The way to judge a species, if possible, is based on what they do with their leisure. Few species have reached a level of skill at survival where they have time for leisurely activities. Those that do, are special, and worthy of study. Humans are among them. Humans are a perfect model for study because of all of the species on this planet, they have mastered survival to the point where they have ample time for leisure. This is, obviously, due to their mental capacity and ability to specialize and carry on and improve skills from past generations. Regardless, the way you can judge yourself as human is not based on your survival skills as human, but whether or not you partake in the same leisure behavior. What defines our species is how we fill the meantime. And the methods employed by humans to fill this time is the way I differentiate myself from the species and the topic of the rest of my discussion.
First off I would like to set up a few rules and ground lines before I define my discussion. I am excluding all humans who subsist of banal escapism from my dissertation. I'm doing this for a number of reasons. To explain these reasons I must first define my subjective definition of "banal escapism." How I define this mundane and obvious escapism is activities that indulge very primal aspects and urges in the human being directly. The easiest example to illustrate is any sort of drug. Take a potent drug, heroin for example. Heroin initiates the release of a chemical that is pleasurable to a human being, hence once they use it they crave more. They eventually become dependent on this chemical, and therefore hold it at a similar or greater priority than basic needs for survival. This is true of most standard "drugs", at least on some level. Where this idea gets complicated is more complicated forms of escapism such as video games as a contemporary example. These follow the same principal as drugs but for more complicated reasons, ones which I do not have time to get into in this essay and will dedicate time to explaining in future essays.
My ultimate point is, simple escapism aside, the way humans persue their leisure time is a good way to define them as human. Note, many of them may not consider this time leisure, and in some cases this may be objectively true, such as in when it part of the mating ritual and therefore ultimately the prolonging of a particular set of genes. Regardless, this behavior is counter intuitive to an objective observer, and ultimately the reason why I frequently feel apart from "humanity" in general.
Obviously, environement is an important factor if I am judging whether or not I am a part of a species. Let me preface by saying that I am in an environment that should be pretty conducive. I am an intellectual with a very high level of acheivement in my primary and secondary education and go to a school that only accepts students with a similiar level of achievement. It is among the most selective schools in the United States. That being said, I should be among my contemporaries. The truth is, I feel as isolated as I did among underachieving average individuals and blatant failures. This means that the level of success is, at least partially, independent of my feelings of comradery and alikeness with individuals I am in educational proximity to.
Anyway, for the longest time, I have felt isolated from social groups as a whole. Listening to relatives and other adults, I came to believe the fairy tale that this was a result of others immaturity and it would change when I reached college. When I reached college at first I figured the feeling would soon pass, but ultimately it did not. This leaves two possibilities, either I was lied to, unwittingly or not, or the fault lies with me, not others. Academically, the individuals I have been lotted with are fairly similiar. We are all high achieving, some much more than me, and do the work necessary to reach a level of achievement we feel individually is adequate. But then, the true differentiating factor, is how we use our leisure time. I do have in common with many the fact that I spend a significant amount of time absorbing media, internet, film, book, television and otherwise, frequently as a form of entertainment, but this can be written off as simply tapping into a resource that is present. It would be foolish not to. Instances where I find the differentiation occurs is when it comes to a sort of complusory socialization in the forms of dances, parties, and other events that most frequently occur on Friday and Saturday nights.
Now, most individuals, at least in my environment, consume significant amounts of ethanol before these events. Ethanol has the amazing ability to lower inhibition. Now most humans, with lower inhibition, are able to lose or temporarily shake off various mental blocks to socialization. To me, on the other hand, the opposite effect occurs. Sober, my mind finds similiarities between myself and other humans and fabricates reasons we are alike and thinks we have in common. Intoxicated, the mirage vanishes and the bullshit essentially fades and I realize that I fabricate things I have in common with these humans while in reality I am just trying to "fit in". When I an unhibited I feel more alone and distant than I ever have before. This isn't "suppose" to happen, but enlightens me to a number of truths I must ultimately embrace unless I want to face eternal (at least until death) lonliness, awkardness and seperation from the group. The truth is I do feel seperate from the group, and things that feel intuitive to them are not to me. When I am with others I am familiar with, I am able to feign humanity well enough, but when alone I really begin to recognize my differences. When I am eating for example, and observing others eating at a large dining hall, I view their habits similiarly to how I would view gazelle or chimps feasting in a large group. I find in my own mental dialouge, where I am completely safe and have to put on no airs for anyone, I refer to them as "humans." I have heard many do this as a joke, but I do it in my mind with all seriosness, for the brief moments I let go at least.
More importantly, the seperation becomes apparent at the aformentioned events which occur on Friday and Saturday nights. People congregate in large groups with the excuse of some sort of mating ritual or to "have fun", generally to contemporary music so loud it drowns out any sophisticated conversation and move in a way somehow in line with the music and rub their bodies against the gender they are attracted to. There are many implicit rules within these cultures, a whole set which I'm considering writing a thesis on, but for how complex these behaviors may seem, they are an innate clinging to primal behavior which I do not understand. I'm all about the mating ritual and act, but the awkward and seemingly absurd way people go about it makes me clueless. They move about like they are possessed and judging by each others movements are able to determine who they want to have intercourse with for that night. I simply don't get it.
I'm ranting, and will in the future write much more eloquent pieces about this to better explain my views, but let me summarize. I frequently doubt my humanity. Like Keanue Reaves, my body is human, my genetics are human, but I am not. I do not believe in the concept of free will and true consciousness, but, what most people consider to be consciousness, this part of me is fundementally differeent than most humans, at least those present in my society. I view them as the ultimate outsider, like an extra-terrestrial visiting earth and taking mental notes about the inhabitents. The only think that really keeps me "human" at all is my dick. If it wasn't for my romantic and sexual attraction to "human" females of specific types, I'm not sure what would teather me down at all to humanity. It is a cruel cosmic joke, to be attracted to human females but then not to have enough human social tools to be able to pursue them on an equal playing field. I do not move in those strange movements to the noise they call music. I do not get how being uninhibited aids in the mating process, it makes me feel more isolated and the only time it helps is when it makes me apathetic so I simply do not care what transpires next. If apathy is the closest I can get to feeling in common with humanity, then things are a sad state of affairs. Perhaps I have a mild form of autism, perhaps I am the first post human, perhaps I just overthink everything. I do not know the case, but I promise in the future I will write more intellectual and thought out arguements about humanity rather than these long meandering riddled with errors rants.
I'd like to say a couple of things to clarify this, because I realize how insane much of this must sound. Many aspects I share in common with humanity I celebrate. Altruism, intellecutal discussion, striving for progress and growth, humor, art (in certain forms, others I have major contention with), creativity, and novelty are all concepts and ideas I celebrate and share in common with humans, but are not enough to make me feel at ease among them. It's just like how we all are carbon based life forms, all have skin and have similiar anatomies with dogs, use auditory cues like dogs, and create social heirarchies, yet with these things in common, we are still not dogs.
Maybe I'm just half a century to early and should have just been born a post human.
Please note I consumed 12 milliliters of pure ethanol per 10 pounds of body weight (that translates to a roughly 140 pound guy consuming 9-10 drinks worth) that I am able to be honest enough with myself to write this post. As a side effect, it is not terribly well written and riddled with grammatical errors and logical inconsistencies. I'm unfortunately not comfortable enough to write about this stuff unless I'm uninhibited. I hope this entry resonates in someone. If it does, please comment.
How do you judge a species? By how they work, what they do to survive? I find this a poor way to judge them, because for a species to persist, every species must work to survive. The species that persist persist because they are adept at survival. The way to judge a species, if possible, is based on what they do with their leisure. Few species have reached a level of skill at survival where they have time for leisurely activities. Those that do, are special, and worthy of study. Humans are among them. Humans are a perfect model for study because of all of the species on this planet, they have mastered survival to the point where they have ample time for leisure. This is, obviously, due to their mental capacity and ability to specialize and carry on and improve skills from past generations. Regardless, the way you can judge yourself as human is not based on your survival skills as human, but whether or not you partake in the same leisure behavior. What defines our species is how we fill the meantime. And the methods employed by humans to fill this time is the way I differentiate myself from the species and the topic of the rest of my discussion.
First off I would like to set up a few rules and ground lines before I define my discussion. I am excluding all humans who subsist of banal escapism from my dissertation. I'm doing this for a number of reasons. To explain these reasons I must first define my subjective definition of "banal escapism." How I define this mundane and obvious escapism is activities that indulge very primal aspects and urges in the human being directly. The easiest example to illustrate is any sort of drug. Take a potent drug, heroin for example. Heroin initiates the release of a chemical that is pleasurable to a human being, hence once they use it they crave more. They eventually become dependent on this chemical, and therefore hold it at a similar or greater priority than basic needs for survival. This is true of most standard "drugs", at least on some level. Where this idea gets complicated is more complicated forms of escapism such as video games as a contemporary example. These follow the same principal as drugs but for more complicated reasons, ones which I do not have time to get into in this essay and will dedicate time to explaining in future essays.
My ultimate point is, simple escapism aside, the way humans persue their leisure time is a good way to define them as human. Note, many of them may not consider this time leisure, and in some cases this may be objectively true, such as in when it part of the mating ritual and therefore ultimately the prolonging of a particular set of genes. Regardless, this behavior is counter intuitive to an objective observer, and ultimately the reason why I frequently feel apart from "humanity" in general.
Obviously, environement is an important factor if I am judging whether or not I am a part of a species. Let me preface by saying that I am in an environment that should be pretty conducive. I am an intellectual with a very high level of acheivement in my primary and secondary education and go to a school that only accepts students with a similiar level of achievement. It is among the most selective schools in the United States. That being said, I should be among my contemporaries. The truth is, I feel as isolated as I did among underachieving average individuals and blatant failures. This means that the level of success is, at least partially, independent of my feelings of comradery and alikeness with individuals I am in educational proximity to.
Anyway, for the longest time, I have felt isolated from social groups as a whole. Listening to relatives and other adults, I came to believe the fairy tale that this was a result of others immaturity and it would change when I reached college. When I reached college at first I figured the feeling would soon pass, but ultimately it did not. This leaves two possibilities, either I was lied to, unwittingly or not, or the fault lies with me, not others. Academically, the individuals I have been lotted with are fairly similiar. We are all high achieving, some much more than me, and do the work necessary to reach a level of achievement we feel individually is adequate. But then, the true differentiating factor, is how we use our leisure time. I do have in common with many the fact that I spend a significant amount of time absorbing media, internet, film, book, television and otherwise, frequently as a form of entertainment, but this can be written off as simply tapping into a resource that is present. It would be foolish not to. Instances where I find the differentiation occurs is when it comes to a sort of complusory socialization in the forms of dances, parties, and other events that most frequently occur on Friday and Saturday nights.
Now, most individuals, at least in my environment, consume significant amounts of ethanol before these events. Ethanol has the amazing ability to lower inhibition. Now most humans, with lower inhibition, are able to lose or temporarily shake off various mental blocks to socialization. To me, on the other hand, the opposite effect occurs. Sober, my mind finds similiarities between myself and other humans and fabricates reasons we are alike and thinks we have in common. Intoxicated, the mirage vanishes and the bullshit essentially fades and I realize that I fabricate things I have in common with these humans while in reality I am just trying to "fit in". When I an unhibited I feel more alone and distant than I ever have before. This isn't "suppose" to happen, but enlightens me to a number of truths I must ultimately embrace unless I want to face eternal (at least until death) lonliness, awkardness and seperation from the group. The truth is I do feel seperate from the group, and things that feel intuitive to them are not to me. When I am with others I am familiar with, I am able to feign humanity well enough, but when alone I really begin to recognize my differences. When I am eating for example, and observing others eating at a large dining hall, I view their habits similiarly to how I would view gazelle or chimps feasting in a large group. I find in my own mental dialouge, where I am completely safe and have to put on no airs for anyone, I refer to them as "humans." I have heard many do this as a joke, but I do it in my mind with all seriosness, for the brief moments I let go at least.
More importantly, the seperation becomes apparent at the aformentioned events which occur on Friday and Saturday nights. People congregate in large groups with the excuse of some sort of mating ritual or to "have fun", generally to contemporary music so loud it drowns out any sophisticated conversation and move in a way somehow in line with the music and rub their bodies against the gender they are attracted to. There are many implicit rules within these cultures, a whole set which I'm considering writing a thesis on, but for how complex these behaviors may seem, they are an innate clinging to primal behavior which I do not understand. I'm all about the mating ritual and act, but the awkward and seemingly absurd way people go about it makes me clueless. They move about like they are possessed and judging by each others movements are able to determine who they want to have intercourse with for that night. I simply don't get it.
I'm ranting, and will in the future write much more eloquent pieces about this to better explain my views, but let me summarize. I frequently doubt my humanity. Like Keanue Reaves, my body is human, my genetics are human, but I am not. I do not believe in the concept of free will and true consciousness, but, what most people consider to be consciousness, this part of me is fundementally differeent than most humans, at least those present in my society. I view them as the ultimate outsider, like an extra-terrestrial visiting earth and taking mental notes about the inhabitents. The only think that really keeps me "human" at all is my dick. If it wasn't for my romantic and sexual attraction to "human" females of specific types, I'm not sure what would teather me down at all to humanity. It is a cruel cosmic joke, to be attracted to human females but then not to have enough human social tools to be able to pursue them on an equal playing field. I do not move in those strange movements to the noise they call music. I do not get how being uninhibited aids in the mating process, it makes me feel more isolated and the only time it helps is when it makes me apathetic so I simply do not care what transpires next. If apathy is the closest I can get to feeling in common with humanity, then things are a sad state of affairs. Perhaps I have a mild form of autism, perhaps I am the first post human, perhaps I just overthink everything. I do not know the case, but I promise in the future I will write more intellectual and thought out arguements about humanity rather than these long meandering riddled with errors rants.
I'd like to say a couple of things to clarify this, because I realize how insane much of this must sound. Many aspects I share in common with humanity I celebrate. Altruism, intellecutal discussion, striving for progress and growth, humor, art (in certain forms, others I have major contention with), creativity, and novelty are all concepts and ideas I celebrate and share in common with humans, but are not enough to make me feel at ease among them. It's just like how we all are carbon based life forms, all have skin and have similiar anatomies with dogs, use auditory cues like dogs, and create social heirarchies, yet with these things in common, we are still not dogs.
Maybe I'm just half a century to early and should have just been born a post human.