Ramblings #8

Still bored. Still in Atlanta.

Jimmy Eat World is not the best band in the world, but I think they have made one of all time favorite songs of all time: My Sundown



Listen to the song first before reading on.

If you can listen to the line "I could be so much more than this....No one cares...I wanna be so much more than this" (starts around 4:00 minute mark) and not feel...well...something, then you are a dead robot. Sorry, but it's the truth.

Every time I hear this song, I feel this urge get out and do something to change the fucking world. I think it is because, deep down, I know that everything I do these days has no bearing on the world. I mean, my last job was great for at least giving me this feeling that, for better or worse, I was having a real honest to god effect on the world through work. And despite what I told people at the time, I think I really liked what my job meant to me: helping (in whatever small way) to rid the world of some really horrible people.

Now what do I do? I fucking help a group like In Touch Ministries process magazine orders faster so that they can process 10,000 orders a day by mail instead of just 5,000. I want to hurt myself for that. In Touch processes so much money through book and magazine orders, not to mention straight up donations that they can afford to have their own TV and radio studios on site, a print design group, warehouse, and do all their own mailing processing in house. I think about how much money I am looking at just in the construction of their offices here and our software ($250,000+ just for our system) and I just can't help but think this money could really be used for something better. Sometime more Christan (if I even know what that means anymore).

It sucks having these feelings........Who needs a drink?

Vegas next week

It's like 2:00 in the morning, but I can't sleep for whatever reason. I think I'm too excited for our trip to Vegas next week! Wooooo!!!! Viva Las Vegas baby! Fear the awesome power of Eric and Sue drunk from 2:00pm on! Sue's sisters are in for quite an eye opening experience with me. I'll have to keep the drinking around them to a minimum. Oh well. We already told them to assume that if they make plans that require me to be anywhere before noon, they might as well just count me out.

Lately I'm hating this working at home thing. Yea, the "no pants" days are alright. But damn it I want to TALK to people sometimes. Just to joke about stuff or argue about politics. Sue and I have pretty much the same politics, except that I would say Sue is a little more liberal than I am in a few places.

I guess what I am saying is that I am bored with my life at the moment. I love Sue and I love spending time with her, but I miss seeing other people. The Detroit peeps are awesome of course, but the fact that we live 45 minutes away limits what can actually happen on a random Wednesday night or whatever.

And you know what else? I'm sick of myself whining about this and then not doing anything about it. I feel like I'm stuck in the never ending cycle where I complain about stuff in my life but I never actually do anything about it. Like lately I have been complaining (mostly to myself) that I have started to get a little pudgy around the middle. Do I exercise? No. Do I eat different? Nope. It's like I'm trying to change myself by just wishing shit was different. We all know how well THAT is going to turn out.

Fuck, I need to get motivated. That's my real problem. I'm not motivated enough to change yet. I feel like a drug addict watching my life disappear around me. Only I don't even have smack to blame for slowly dragging my spirit down.

This blog started out so happy. How did I end up here? Oh well, its late and I need to get some sleep I guess. Stupid brain dump.

I'm bringing Ramblings back. YA!

Ladies and gentlemen of the blogsphere rejoice. Eric is back with another "ramblings of the head" (tm) post!

<waits for thunderous applause to die down>

All the standard disclaimer apply. This is my thoughts and opinions alone. No one's elses. Get your own opinions you sheep:) If you are looking for funny or amusing you're reading the wrong post.

Sue doesn't label them as such, but she has managed to write the last couple rambling posts on our blog. And I've been secretly (why does that word not look right no matter how I spell it?) jealous of all the comments and rage her posts manage to bring out.

My turn.

I know I've brought this up with a few people, so I'm sorry that you have to read it here again. Don't think I'm attacking or picking on you in any way.

A while ago I wrote a post about things I regret doing in my life. What I found most interesting about that post was the reaction I got. Several people reacted something like this:

"Eric, you shouldn't regret the things you done. Don't carry all that baggage around. You're a good person. We all love you."

Each one told me some version of this. Different people emphasized different parts of that statement, but more or less that was everyone's reaction. In every case, I had the same thought:

<angry buzzer sounds> Ohhhhh I'm sorry. That answer is incorrect.

The point of that post was not to ask for forgiveness. It wasn't about disliking myself. Or about me feeling like my life would be better if I didn't regret these actions. Or thinking that I'm not a good person because of all these things I've done.

Everyone one of those thoughts was missing the point. Are you ready for the point? Ok here it is: Those regrets offer a window into me. The inner me. The me that thinks about the things he has done, wishes he could do them differently, then shrugs his shoulders and thinks that at least this regret means I have a chance at doing a better job in future.

That's why I carry this regret around. Because if I didn't, every one of those actions would be just as likely today as they were when I choose them on the first go around. I'm wiser now then I was at 17, but that wisdom was earned with this regret. I carry them with me to remind me of what could be every time I make a decision like that without thinking.

I don't WANT to lose my regrets. In some very important ways, they are who I am. Or at least who I aspire to be.

Ramblings of Eric: Part 5

So it's not late at night and I haven't had the nearly illegal amount of caffeine that usually precipitates one of these, but I'm still going to pour some ramblings out of my head.
If you are wondering why this is rambling 5 even though I have previously published a part 6 and 7 its because I started writing this last year but never got around to publishing it. Ah well. For the record, I have to call them all ramblings because I read a couple of really good writers on the web and I do not pretend to have their sort of talent, voice, or ability to string together coherent sentences.

So anyways, today I want to ramble about my love of "Angry White Music" (copyright © 1998, All rights reserved in Guam). Examples are things like Tool, NIN, A Perfect Circle, Crossfade, Our Lady Peace, Nirvana, Linkin Park, etc. I was thinking this over today and I came up with a few reasons why I like this sort of music.

On a primitive level, it speaks to that part of my base nature that wants to get out of my car when someone cuts me off and beat the living shit out of them, leave them as a bloody pulp on the side of the road while I drag his woman back to my cave car for a rough quickie. Watch High Fidelity sometime; the scene where Ian comes in to talk to Rob to convince him to stop stalking him is what I am talking about.

Or sometimes it is that feeling that creeps over me every time I’m in an airport like I am right now as I write this: no matter how many people you squeeze in next to me, I’m still very, very alone in this world (only when I am traveling without Sue of course). Or maybe just that depressing feeling that like almost everyone on the planet I have accomplished nothing in my life that anyone will want to record in a history book.

Then there’s the emotion. I know its cliché, but music is supposed to talk to you. You know: that gut feeling you get when you connect to the feelings of the writer. I like all sorts of music, but the stuff I can really get into is something that I can scream at the top of my lungs while telling the world to F%^K OFF!

There is a tiny part of the back of mind laughing as I write this. It’s telling me, “HA! Look at yourself Eric. You know ‘the man’ everyone is always talking about? Check yourself! You’re it” (My brain sometimes speaks in 90’s hip hop slang. Don’t ask me to explain why). And me is of course right. What reasons do I have for being angry at the world?

Not much I would say at first glance. Yea, I had shitty high school experience. Who didn’t? Mine was probably worse than almost any of the people who read this blog (think early in a Revenge of the Nerds movie). I dated an emotionally crippled insane loony in high school. I still dream about people I have not seen in 6-10 years more than anyone else; a clear sign I have issues. College was better, but I still hold a lot of anger toward my high school peers. Fucking dicks.

So yea, I’m angry inside. I’m angry at all the people would had it a lot easier than me. I’m angry at the society that makes people who are smart social outcasts. FUCK THEM! FUCK THEM ALL! FUCK YOU IF YOU WERE ONE OF THEM! FUCK THE SYSTEM! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!

Ah, I feel better now.

Ramblings of Eric: Part Something

I've had a lot of steak and caffeine tonight, so its time for another late night crazy blog from Eric.

I'm in Wisconsin this week for training. Its boring. I won't talk about that anymore.

What I will talk about is my coworkers. They are awesome. Just take my boss for example: In addition to who knows how many pitchers of beer, yesterday I had a shot of goldschlager and a jager bomb with my boss. Let me repeat that: with my boss! How awesome is that? Let me tell you it was pretty awesome.

And not just my boss. The entire group up here was so laid back and cool to hang out with. Except for that woman who said I look like a guy from Duran Duran. I wasn't sure if I should be flattered or insulted because I have no idea what anyone in that band looks like. I'm still not sure; It depends which band member she is talking about and whether she meant Duran Duran today or 20 years ago I guess:)

I think I only marginally embarrassed myself playing darts. It would have been worse but my the co-drinking buddy was on the other team and could barely hit the board most of the time.

Ok, so on to the good ramblings about life, the universe and everything (42!). Lets spin the wheel of rambling:

Ok, looks like philosophy: Now all we need is a topic. I'm going with....um....lets see...something relevant...nothing...ok...something interesting...hmmm...nothing...ok, something at all?? Ah there it is!

Do you ever stop and think about faith? Not just faith in God. I mean, faith in everything. I really believe that China is a real place. Same for the Soviet Union, Guam, Japan, and every other country of the world that I have never seen or visited. I believe people when they tell me that the speed of light really is a constant no matter how fast the source or destination are moving, despite the fact that this is completely non-intuitive. And I accept without any proof that my cells contain a jumble of chemicals in a tightly wound string that is the same in every cell but somehow account for all the different organs in my body.

Why?

Why can I accept all of this without any evidence and yet we cannot just accept a God? I guess you might argue that the difference is that if I wanted to, I could check all of the above (ok maybe the speed of light thing would be tough, but with a plane ticket and an atomic clock I could probably convince myself). I can go to China and look around and think, "yea, this is here where they said it would be. Look at all the people! You all talk like that? Fun!". I'm sure there is no way I could check out God.

Lets think about it another way: No one over the age of 12 believes in Unicorns right? OK, lets say that I claimed that Unicorns exist. You might say something, "I've never seen one. No one I know has ever seen one. No one on the planet has ever seen one. So they don't exist". We would naturally assume that the burden of proof was on me because I am making a claim. But what about in the negative case? Say I brought up Unicorns in the first place by claiming they don't exist. Who is the burden on now? Still on the one claiming they exist? Maybe. Maybe not.

This is why I think a lot of folks (myself included) believe that Atheism is just as much a belief system as is belief in Heaven. You have to state as an axiom that God does not exist, because proving a negative is always going to be impossible ("I've looked everywhere, and I cannot find God." "Oh really, did you look everywhere at once? Did you check behind the sofa?"). Its the same with stating unicorns don't exist. They don't of course, but I'm stating that as an axiom. No proof. I can't prove it. I can't prove there really is no God. Maybe there is. Maybe the Bible is 100% accurate and all this evolution stuff is just non-sense. Maybe Joseph Smith really was a prophet. Maybe the correct answer is Mormon. Maybe, Maybe, Maybe. Who knows...

3AM Ramblings

Warning: I read this all after I was finished and I cannot believe how much just flowed out of my fingers at 3:30. I had written the first paragraph below and I was wondering what I was going to type when it just started pouring out. And once it started, it could not be stopped. Sorry it jumps around a lot and is a bit heavy. If you want coherent and light, you should read something else:)

I'm in Iowa again this week validating some software we are writing. Because we are working second shift, my schedule has been completely f-ed up this entire week. I feel like I've been living like a vampire or something.

Like I said, it is about 3 in the morning here, so naturally rather than go to sleep like a rational person would, I feel the need to decompress by taking another deep look into my mind and the way that my brain works again.

<annoying game show announcer voice>Thaaaaaat's right folks. Its time to play.... WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? /clap Today's topic: regrets.
</annoying game show announcer voice>

Despite what I like to consider my very care-free outward appearance, I have a deep running hidden streak of regret of all sorts of previous actions in my life. Without revealing specifics:

1) Stupid/Mean things I have said to friends.
2) Stupid/mean things I have said to friends while drunk
3) Cheating on a girlfriend
4) Telling someone I loved them just to get a kiss
5) Kissing and telling
6) Fucking and telling
7) Putting friends into uncomfortable situations because of my actions
8) Using and discarding a very nice younger girl to go back to a girl who was completely wrong.
8) Leading on girls for attention
10) Being mean to someone just to get attention
11) Didn't believe someone who told me about a forced sexual experience.

And those are just the things I can think of off the top of my head.

The worst thing about it is that most of the time I'm talking about things that happened 10 years ago. Why the fuck do I keep this guilt around for so long? When I finally do apologize for some of these things, the answer is usually, "Oh yeah, I had completely forgotten about that." So I'm carrying around this guilt and regret for nothing?! THANKS ASS!

But of course, for every rule like the above you need an exception. Mine is #8 & #11. I may never forgive myself for either one of those. sigh... I chatted with #8 semi-recently, and at least in her case I can positively say that my guilt is 100% deserved. I would say I am sorry again, but what's the use? It doesn't change that fact that I almost single-handily destroyed a young woman's trust of men. As for #11, she mentioned recently that I was the only person she ever confided that secret in before that moment. I'm sure that my reaction directly contributed to many of her later issues with trust, betrayal, and commitment.

You know that whole thing about love making you blind? Well, I can tell you that it always does for me. That's what lead to #8 in the first place. Sue may be angry at me for saying this, but I have been in love with at least 3 different women in my life so far. Real, blinding, I cannot explain the way I feel, I would step in front a bus for them, Princess Bride "wuv, truuu wuv" sort of love. The sort where I was planning a life together. Looking back on the first two, I can say with 100% confidence that it could never work (duh moron: The fact you are not with them pretty much means it did not work). Both were 100% the opposite of what I really want my partner in life to be. But at the time, no argument could change my outlook, no amount of motherly nagging could make me see the truth, and the fact that some truly wonderful women were right in front of my face made no difference what so ever.

Is it a rule that everyone has to date one person in high school who will do significant damage to their ability to commit to someone later in life ? Is that like something that the school counselors set up? I swear that everyone I know had this experience. Hell, I'm disturbed by the number of women I personally know who had a really bad sexual-related experience growing up (its easily north of 50%). What the FUCK is wrong with so many people?????

Ramblings of Eric: Part 7 - Current Beliefs

Now that I have waited long enough to ensure that you have all forgotten the contents of my last rambling post, it's time to delve into some REALLY personal stuff. First up: disclaimers.

- The views in this blog are mine. They don't necessarily reflect what Sue or anyone else for that matter believes. They are mine and mine alone.

- I'm not trying to convince anyone that my beliefs are right. That would be a ridiculous waste of all our times.

- If you are just going to post some sort of comment about how my beliefs are wrong because such and such book says so, save us all some time, go away, and get a life while you are at it.

OK, lets start with the big thing right up front: I do think there is some higher power. Some thing beyond just you and me. Don't ask me who or what or where. Just...some thing. But that is about as far as I am willing to commit to right now. I often wonder what it must be like to be so FUCKING sure that your religion is right. My brother (and my parents and grandparents ) would tell you that they are Missouri Synod Lutheran (what I grew up with). Not just Christian. Not even just "Lutheran". I can't figure out whether the Hindus or Buddhists or the whatever have it right, and yet my family members are 100% sure that their particular little sect has it 100% correct. It just pisses me off. I WANT to be that sure. It would so much easier to not question it. Just go with the flow.

But I can't. I just can't anymore. I've learned too much. I've seen too much history of people doing horrible, unspeakable things in the name of religion to be able to just blindly say that the Bible (or whatever spiritual text you are interested in) is 100% accurate. Even my brother would admit that the earliest copy we have is at least 200 AD or so.

How ARE they so sure? What I hate even more than the fact that they (not just my family. I mean the conservative right in general) are so sure is that they confuse my unwillingness to commit to their particular belief to be the equivalent of me saying that they are wrong. I'm not saying they are wrong. If you believe in the Christian God, I 100% support your right and your desire to do so. Just don't make me commit to it. I'm not there. I'm not ready. I've been there, seen it, and said to myself that I'm not sure. There it is again. That FUCKING confusion that permeates everything about this topic.

I've rambled enough for now. I actually feel worse after spilling this one out. Less sure of myself. Fuck it. I'm going to bed.

Ramblings of Eric: Part 6 - Early Teachings

So it's not late at night and I haven't had a blowjob today (damn it), but I'm still going to pour some ramblings out of my head. Just as fair warning: There is nothing humorous in this post. I'm not kidding. If you are in a particularly good mood, wander away and read it later. It's actually just boring (but important) memories from my childhood. It will (hopefully) lead into another post I am writing about my current beliefs in a higher being(s). You have been warned.

You would not know it today, but I was raised in a fairly conservative and religious household. My mother and my brother regularly attended church. I went to Sunday School from the age of 5 until 6^th grade, got confirmed (which was a very big deal for my family. At least as big as when I graduated high school), then continued going to church pretty religiously (pun intended) until I went off to college. I attended Church lock-ins and went to church camp (which I can attest is nothing like band camp) twice as a kid. My middle brother Steve went to college at a private Lutheran college and studied to be a pastor for quite a while (he now works as the youth leader for a larger church in Ohio).

The funny thing about Sunday school is that I still remember some very odd things about the people and events that surrounded that part of my life. I remember memorizing the ten commandments around 2^nd or 3^rd grade. There is no way I understood what adultery was at the age of 9, but I could recite the 7^th commandment then without real thought. I noticed this latter on in life when I went to church also. Most of time, I was repeating things like the Lord's Prayer without even thinking about the words that I was reciting.

My point is that I was taught this stuff pretty early on and that I more or less accepted it until around my freshman year in college. I say more or less because I had a year or so in sophomore year of high school where I was really not so sure anymore. I just started delving into my ideas about free will, and I was having real trouble combining the Christian message that God is omnipotent with the idea that I have real choices. What really set me off on this little rebellion was oddly enough a trip with my church group to work with Habitat for Humanity.

The group we worked with had two type of volunteers. Temporary volunteers like me and my group came up for a week of work. We were lead by longer term volunteers that worked for an entire summer. Anyways, one of these longer term volunteers turned out to be gay (dun dun dun!) Not flaming homosexual; it's not like he told anyone explicitly, but somehow my youth leader guessed at it. I came upon them having a somewhat heated but muted argument. I remember asking her what that was about. I've never forgotten my youth leader telling me that despite his obvious acceptance of God and all the good work he was doing, he was not going to heaven because of his "decision" to be gay.

That has always stuck with me. Even at 15, I knew that something about that statement did not gel with my idea of what it took to get into heaven. But after a few months of thinking about all of these issues, I just sort of fell back into the fold (although even here I was defending evolution and questioning the whole God knows everything tenets).

That's just one of my more pronouced memories. Another one I remember quite vividly was at a local camp doing our annual youth planning retreat with my then soon to be girlfriend Melony. She had just started coming to our church and I had met her through a mutual friend. I was up one night very late with her and my youth leader and we were talking about her conversion. I remember her crying because she had just realized that the fact her conversion saving her and allowing her into heaven meant that her grandmother, who was not a Christian, would not be there when she eventually died. This is the part I will never forget: My youth leader telling her that that was correct without any real compassion. Me, I was really torn up for this girl and I remember being really angry with God for putting her through this sort of thing. It was an issue that I had never considered because both my grandparents and family were religious as far back as I can remember.

Then of course there was the fact that the pastor who confirmed me was thrown out shortly after I left for college. Apparently he had been giving comfort to some of the ladies of the congregation in the biblical sense of that term. If that wasn't bad enough, he was also married at the time...whoops.

There are probably 100 other memories I could delve into, but these are the ones that really stick to me. This post is already way to long. If you even made it this far, you are probably angry about the fact that you drove all this way for absolutely no point. But I promise I have another post coming about what I believe now about all this reglious stuff. This one is mostly back story.

Ramblings of Eric: Part 4 - What if I don't have free will?

In response to my second Ramblings post, Paul asked,

"...I think something like this is jazzed up with something more personal. Why do you care so much at an everyday level about free will? How does free will (or lack thereof) affect Eric today? tomorrow?"

Paul is on his way to becoming a psychologist, and it shows in his question:) But it's a very reasonable question to ask. After all, no point in debating something like this if there is not a reason to at the end of the argument rainbow.

This is not why I believe in free will. These are the results in my mind of a world that truly accepted there is no free will.

Lets assume for a second that determinism really is correct. All of my decisions, all my life choices, were decided a picoseconds after the Big Bang (lets ignore quantum mechanics here. Yeah, I know that quantum mechanics PROVES that true determinism does not exist. But something more complicated takes it place that only clouds what we are talking about here). To me personally, that means a few important things:

1. Our accomplishments in life mean swat. Why feel good about the fact that you got good grades in school, or had that threesome with the twin hotties at camp? You did not make any personal decisions that lead to those accomplishments. They are just a product of the environment. It would be like the Sun being proud of the fact that it shined today, or the Earth being proud that it held 6+ billion people on the ground.
2. There is no such thing as moral superiority. Moral superiority rests firmly on the ability of some individuals to resist temptations that others do not.
3. Our mistakes in life should not be punished. What's the point of punishing someone for choices they really had no control over? What I mean to say is, if I was hypnotized into shooting up a liquor store and could prove it, would you still punish me? In general, the law explicitly denies that people under duress should be held accountable for their actions (within some important limits. You can't go on a shooting spree because someone threatens to make you listen to 80's pop music.).
4. Its very hard to reconcile the lack of free will and a God (especially The God). Why bother creating us if we are just robots? If you really setup the whole universe with perfect knowledge of all our actions, why is there so much evil in the world? (This is most certainly going to be expanded in some future post).

Those are the biggies for me. #1 bothers me a lot more than #2 or #3, because I think I could argue there are other reasons to punish people even if determinism is true. You just can't claim morally superiority for doing it anymore, which does not bother me because I am a relative moralist anyways. #4 is only important if you believe a God (I do, but that is tied into my belief in free will to a large degree. I can't accept one without the other. I'll save that for another argument on another post).

Note that where I see life being utterly pointless in these results, others might see something positive. For one thing, you might feel better that your poor choices were not your fault (although really, that's a small comfort since feeling better in that case is also completely determined by the universe's giant state machine). Also, without free will, you don't need a/the God to explain much of anything (proving this is an exercise left to the reader).

Once again, its after midnight and I need some sleep...

Ramblings of Eric: Part 3 - The All Request Lunch Hour

I was out playing dodge ball with the Huntvegas posse yesterday, and we got to talking about my last rambling post. R (yes, Weapon of Choice R. I've actually see him:)) suggested that I should request topics from my readers, give my rambling opinion on their topic, then see if I can defend said opinion. I instantly liked this idea because (1) I don't have to think up topics to discuss and (2) it's takes a huge ego to think that people give a shit about your opinions. Since I have such an ego, and since I am obviously lazy with coming up with things to blog about, lets give it try and see what the group out there is interested in hearing me ramble on about.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled program of pornography music mixed with dancing clowns who look disturbingly like your high school principal...

Ramblings of Eric: Part 2 - Free Will

The first of the rambling posts that isn’t about rambling posts:

I’m an ardent believer in free will. So much so that nearly the whole of my belief system about humanity is based on this one idea. My thoughts on religion, the presence of a soul, abortion, gun control, the death penalty, addiction, love, hate, the presence of evil in our world; all of them tie back to this singular belief in humanity’s ultimately free will. So if I am going to put down any other ramblings about these beliefs, I need to start with this one.

To be precise, I’m speaking about what most would call “true” free will. Philosophy majors would call it “internal” free will, making a distinction between external free (whether others allow me to do what I will) versus internal free will (whether I really decide what my will is), so I guess I will do the same. I’m not interested in external free will (at least not here). What I’m talking about is internal free will. It is defined (at least by me) by the ability of an individual to make choices regardless of current or previous external stimuli. This stands in stark contrast to determinism, in which my brain, and with it my identity, is nothing but a series of very complicated chemical reactions.

The main reason I believe in free will really quite simple. Every thought I have appears to stem from this free will. Every thought I have reinforces the notation that my thoughts are independent. And I’m willing to admit that perhaps this is merely a personal delusion. But, and this is the important part now, so pay attention: I am not the only person who has this feeling. Ask yourself if you believe that you are conscious; if you believe that your choice of actions are your own. Every sane person on planet will agree that, at the very least, they have the same delusion that their choices appear free.

So now we come to the crux of the argument. Imagine that you are looking at a tree in the middle of a great field. You see the tree, no denying that. But perhaps you are mistaken, or your senses are confused. So you ask your friend with you if they also see a tree. He also affirms that, yes, he sees the tree as well. Now you get all your friends to come, and lo and behold, they ALL see the tree. To deny that the tree is their now would simply not be rational. This is identical to the argument for free will. The fact that everyone has the same perception of free will should imply that free will must be real. Otherwise, we have to accept that EVERYTHING we perceive is suspect. That is, we have no more reason to accept that the tree we all see is any more real than the free will we all perceive.

Of course, it is not that easy. If it were, every philosophy major would be out of job pretty quickly. I realize there are all sorts of issues with the above. For one, it is obvious that the physical brain has SOMETHING to do with how my thought process operates. Any Friday night that involves consuming large quantities of alcohol should confirm this. I tend to picture the mind as just another filter through which my conscious views the world. It’s no different from my eyes or ears. Both can be damaged, impaired, etc, and this can have a drastic effect on my perception of the world.

I think that is enough rambling for one night. Next time: Religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin: a thesis of everything.

Ramblings of Eric: Part 1

Warning: I wrote this pretty late on a Sunday night with a LOT of caffeine roaring through my system (thank God for the spell checker). So it may come off as a one of those African bushmen who communicate by clicking their mouths trying to type English using only his left hand to type while reading Penthouse stories. Such are the breaks.

I've had a few posts floating around in mind the last few weeks. All of them are really just the random things that I think about on the way to work, or school, while waiting at the dentist, mowing the yard or whatever. I think a lot about politics, religion, society, people's weird obsessions with what other people think (including my own unhealthily obsession with this topic), free will, philosophy, software, that next great idea; All of these are these little random floating ideas that never really become anything. They never become coherent if you get my meaning. That is to say, they are good ideas, but I never build on them in my head, or I distract myself with computer games or TV or radio or whatever else is taking up space in my life.

Did you ever have run one of those thought experiments in a creative writing class where you take one word and you just start writing whatever comes to your head? I was always amazed at the crazy shit my brain would pour out if I just shut up for a few minutes and let it think.

One thing I have noticed lately is that I no longer listen to the radio in the car. I find that if I turn the radio off, my mind can mull for a longer period of time without getting distracted. Ditto for TV. I'm one of those odd people you see in traffic that appear to be holding animated conversation with the sun visor and you think must be on a cell phone that you just can't see. Except that I am not. I'm debating with myself some of these ideas I have about life. It's odd too, because I will often come up with what I think are excellent concepts, only to spend the next several minutes explaining to myself each of the holes in this newly minted idea.

So my goal here is this: I'm going to start writing these ideas down here in the hopes that the simple act of taking time out to put these ideas online will force me to examine them more fully. I don't know how many of these there will be, and I don't really know what they will be about. Just as fair warning, these are not going to be my usual, "make fun of the news" posts. But perhaps they will be interesting. Heck, you might even agree with one from time to time. And if you don't, maybe you will convince me that I am wrong. Would not be the first time.