Extinction

So what is the point of becoming extinct anyway?

I mean everyone must die eventually. So if you extrapolate this in terms of the individual living not only one mortal lifespan of 70 years or so but hundreds or even thousands of incarnations, of this soul, or whatever it is, that passes from life to life, then it, too must eventually die.

So I suppose that makes sense, but why? Why become extinct rather than live forever?

You would have to come to the conclusion that the sin qua non of individual existence is only suffering and nothing else.

So then I guess you would have to conclude that the only way out is to become extinct and to cease to be an individual altogether.

You would have to have the distinct impression that there is nothing left to seek, nothing will give you joy or fulfillment.

Are you a Buddhist? Is this your position? That there is nothing in life that will satisfy you? That there is nothing to accomplish, nothing to experience, except complete annihilation?

I also understand that there is this underlying conviction of panpsychism, or whatever, the idea that we are all part of this eternal ground of being. So it would be a return to that.

But still “you” would no longer exist. You would be shapeless and formless and void.

Anyway, sometimes I feel Like I am anchored somehow to this still point. Like I am on a tether, I can’t get away, I can only go around and around in a circle and as I wind around and around the chord gets shorter and shorter until I am forced into it.

As far as running toward this experience, or patiently seeking it through extreme self discipline, I can’t imagine doing that.

Wanimal

Awesome, Transgressive, Provocative, profoundly talented artist:

Wanimal

How I've Changed. How I differ from a Fundamentalist

I don't believe everyone is going to hell unless they get "saved"
I don't believe in the Rapture or the End Times
I don't believe The Bible has all the answers to everything
I don't believe in a literal interpretation of the Creation Myth described in the First Chapters of Genesis.
Rather I believe in Evolution. I don't think there was a prefect creation and then a fall. I believe in progress. I believe things are getting better and that they were never perfect to begin with. I think Truth is provisional, that means its a work in progress and things that are true now may not be true in the future.

I don't believe in the idea of everything being part of "God's will" and already pre-ordained. I think there are real risks and dangers in life for Human beings here on Earth. There are real questions that have yet to be answered. There are things up for grabs. There is the potential for real failure.

I do believe in God, but I believe Human beings have the potential to be active co-creators with God. I believe we have an active rather than passive part to play. Rather than just passively obeying dogma written in ancient texts, I think my calling is to create and carve new paths, to explore the unknown, to take risks in my effort to make the world a better place.

I don't think it has all been written down ahead of time. I think I am at least partly making it up as I go along. I mean, I have certian gifts and potentials, but I need to act. I need to bring things into being myself, and not simply obey and follow a template that has already been created. I am a creator.

I do however feel I am not alone in the Universe. I do feel I have spiritual guidence at times, perhaps from angels.

I also have muses.

Some of my Muses probably would appear devilish to a fundamentalist. They did to me as a fundamentalist. I have had these muses for a long time.

Pro-evolution

I'm pro-evolution. Evolutionary changes is a gamble, though, so that is why there is conservatism. A lot of snarky Liberals that call themselves "Progressives" call everyone who disagrees with them "regressive" or better yet "regressivist" just to sound even more pointy headed and academic. That's silly. I mean say we all evolved from fish. Okay?

So our ancestors split off from fish and some of the fish stayed fish. So does that make all fish "Regressivist?" No. They are conservative. They are holding steady.

Conservatism is why there are still coelacanths around. Coelacanths are conservative.

Chimpanzees are conservative. We are descended from the progressives.

There is such a thing as "fundamentalism" and I would say that is regressive. Becauae it hearkens back to a fictitious "Golden Age" of the past, that never really existed.

It's dogmatic and sees all truth as having been revealed already and sees any divergence from that as sin and heresy. So, yeah, that's Regressivist. That's anti-evolutionary. Especially the Apocalyptic ones that look forward to Annihilation.

But possibly its good to have these Regressivist tendencies in Society for balance and to create a dialectic. Maybe its some type of catalyst. I dunno.

But anyway, I'm for evolution. I am for trying new things in order to improve things. I like new cutting edge ideas, heresies and transgressions. I like to be at the epicenter of what is going on in the World. that is why I prefer to live on the West Coast.

I have been conservative in the past. I have been a fundamentalist. I also think that ecologists are becoming increasingly more conservative. Maybe they will even become a new species of Fundamentalist eventually. Especially the radicals, Green anarchists etc.

Erotic Photographers I like

Jan Saudek

Ralph Gibson

Terry Richardson

Natacha Merritt

Richard Kern

Bob Carlos Clarke

Steve Diet Goedde

Craig Morey

Aging

Everyone seems to think I look young. I am 39, but people often think I look 10 years younger. I feel strong and healthy, I do seem to have some health problems that are long term, related to having insulin resistence and glucose intolerance, otherwise known as "syndrome x" or "pre-diabetes" I also suffer from IBS. I have always been slightly overweight,even as a child, except for brief periods while competing in sports and during basic training while in the Army.

I have always had good muscle tone and Physical strength and excellent cardiovascular endurance. Even though I do occassionally suffer from lower back pain. I am from pretty tough stock. My Dad's Mother is still going strong at 85, with no signs of dementia, and very active physically.

I am wondering what would happen if I were to overcome these health problems, lose 20 lbs and improve my digestion and reverse my Syndrom x problems.

Would I look and feel even younger? What would I do with all this health and vigor?

Here is an Interesting article

It implies giving up all animal protein and taking hormone supplements. I disagree with that. But it has some excellent info about how people age. I agree that sugar is really bad.

Ideally what I would like to do is achieve results from diet and excercize alone and skip taking suplements especially hormones.

James Clerk Maxwell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clerk_Maxwell

Portraits

Check this out: Travis Louie

and compare it to this portrait of Whitehead:

Why hot women often hook up with assholes

Here it is, dude. Its the same reason you might overeat, neglect going to the Gym, spend too much money, spend to much time playing video games, drink too much, smoke too many cigarettes. Its simply a bad habit. Its a self destructive tendency.

To a guy, sex is a goal to work toward. To an attractive woman its often simply something one gives into in a moment of weakness.

Assholes are out there, they aren't afraid to ask women out, and so they tap into this self destructive tendency in women. All this other stuff about Alpha males is all bullshit. Its simply a character weakness hot women often have. Hot looking women are human beings. All human beings have weaknesses.

As far as becoming an asshole as a strategy to get women, it may work. But ask yourself this: Do you really want to be a force in an attractive woman's life, that holds her back? Do you really want to be somebody's bad habit?

Ego article

contra "ego is Baaaaaaaad bad bad and needs to be overcome etc":

Ego Development

Here is another article I am reproducing here in its entirety as it relates to the ego in relation to the power chakra:

Accessing the Solar Plexus Chakra


May 22, 2010 Kaliah Amira

According to the ancient Indian Chakra system, the Solar Plexus Chakra, or Third Chakra is the energy centre related to personal power and self-esteem. Otherwise known as Manipura in Sanskrit, the Solar Plexus Chakra is considered the seat of the ego, developing during a person’s teenage years and ideally being anchored by their early twenties. Its location is believed to be directly below the sternum and over the stomach.

Medical intuitive, Caroline Myss calls the Solar Plexus Chakra the Personal Power Chakra and describes its purpose as assisting a person in further developing a sense of “self”, ego, and personality that is separate from that of their inherited identity. Where the Second, or Sacral Chakra is thought to be associated with how one relates to others and their immediate environment in terms of preferences and desires, the Third Chakra relates to how a person’s sense of inner power and self-esteem shapes, or indeed is shaped, by their external world.

Physical Aspects of the Solar Plexus Chakra

The Solar Plexus Chakra is believed to be associated with the stomach, pancreas, adrenals, upper intestines, gallbladder, liver, and the middle spine located behind the solar plexus.

Myss believes that illnesses originating in these areas are activated by issues related to self-responsibility, self-esteem, fear of rejection, and oversensitivity to criticism. She also believes that fears relating to physical appearance, such as obesity, baldness, and aging are associated with this chakra.

Characteristics of a Healthy Solar Plexus Chakra

When the third chakra is in balance, one is believed to display the qualities of self-esteem, self respect, self-discipline, proactive behaviour, and ambition. A person is able to handle a crisis and to take risks that allow for personal growth and expansion. According to Kabbalistic tradition, the sacred qualities of endurance and integrity are linked with the third chakra because these are believed to be the qualities a person needs to stand up as an individual. Myss believes these qualities become symbolically a person’s spiritual “legs”.

Spiritual Implications of a Dysfunctioning Solar Plexus Chakra

An unbalanced Solar Plexus Chakra results in a person displaying characteristics of low self-esteem and low self-worth. Their identity is anchored in the outside world and they work hard to gain the approval of others. Making decisions for themselves becomes impeded and they allow others to define who they are and what they need to do. They might diminish themselves in order to gain physical security.

Caroline Myss believes that people are not born with self-esteem but that it is a quality that must be earned as one lives life and faces challenges one at a time in the spiritual “classroom” that is physical reality. Thus one of the best ways to deal with dysfunctioning Solar Plexus energy is for a person to face challenges and in the process be forced to reassess their sense of power and self in relation to the external world to decide whether outside circumstances will have the power to affect how they feel within.

Maintaining Healthy Solar Plexus Chakra Functioning

Anodea Judith, author of “Eastern Body, Western Mind”, also believes that autonomy is the central issue relating to the Solar Plexus Chakra. Taking responsibility for one's actions, breaking away from the mother, father, group, or society, and being willing to individuate allow one to truly claim their power. In order for one to fully embody the spirit of the Third Chakra she believes one must be willing to risk disapproval from others for the integrity of one’s own truth.

Ambika Wauters, author of “The Book of Chakras”, describes the following steps as crucial to mastering the Third Chakra:

Continually affirming one’s worth and deservedness of the best life possible
Setting appropriate boundaries
Knowing that one’s sense of self is not a condition of what one has or does
Being willing to try new things to further the experience of self
Learning to cultivate one’s own friendship
Acknowledging that one is free to choose in any given situation
Trusting one’s gut instincts about people and places and acting in accordance with such internal guidance
Thus when a person is truly able to honour and respect themselves, has matured in their understanding of their inner nature, and has learnt to stand on their own and take care of themselves, they can be said to be fully embodying the spirit of the Solar Plexus Chakra.

© 2010 Kaliah Amira

Another great article related to chakras:

7 Chakras

The foundation of my philosophy.

So anyway, I think like three people read this blog. I've done nothing to market it to increase hits and not only that- I keep deleting it in fits of annoyance and frustration. I am a little obstreperous, I admit.

So anyway I think it all started with Jack London and the "call of the Wild" That book had a huge impression on me at a very impressionable time in my life. Another influential book was "One flew over the Cuckoo's nest" By Ken Kesey. I read these books as a child struggling to survive in public school, and not having things go very well, being diagnosed with ADD and being tested poked, prodded and examined by school psychologists.

There is a theme that ties these two books together. Both are very philosophical books. One interesting thing to note is that London was strongly influenced by Nietzsche. So I actually was influenced by Nietzsche as filtered through the mind of, the Autodidact, adventurer, former pirate cum socialist, Jack London.

Kesey's book was narrated by an Indian in a mental institution and was about an Freewheeling Irish gambler and bare knuckle brawler who was lobotomized, and basically destroyed by this thing called "the combine" which, I saw then even as a young child, represented Society. I got the concept that society is this big machine that demands submission and conformity and that it operates through violence.

So this idea was born into my young, mind, perhaps unconsciously at first, that I was in a sense a free and wild animal, fallen into the hands of a great machine that was seeking to mold in a way that it saw fit. I knew that if this machine were to be successful, part of me, the better part of me, would have to be killed or at least horribly maimed. It was a machine that was seeking to commit a horrible crime against me.

I also began to fantasize that I was really not a white kid but an indian. Perhaps my Dad planted that seed in my mind. He once mentioned to me that we had some Indian blood from way back. I fantasized that My soul was indian, I didn't put it in those exact words, but I imagined that somehow it had turned out that outwardly I was Caucasian but inwardly Native American.

Also at this time I developed a Messianic complex. I believed I was the second coming of Christ, only this time, instead of the Jews, I was coming to redeem the Indians. I felt that that was my mission in life.

These are ideas I had when I was between 10 to 12 years old.

So these were seeds planted deeply into my psyche. I also will add, however, that I don't believe myself to be a Tabula Rasa. Because first of all, if I were, I would have imbibed all the shit the Public school system was trying to feed me. I was a precocious child, I had a certian intellectual temperament, early on and these were a couple authors, whose writings deeply resonated with me. I found them to be kindred spirits.

As a child I was always drawn to exploring woods and swamps and catching turtles,frogs and cray fish and grass hoppers and other wild animal I was able to observe and examine. One summer I raised an orphaned rabbit and released it into the wild. I also loved dogs.

When I was a kid, in the late 70's early 80's there were no leash laws, or if they were they weren't strictly enforced, so there always seemed to be stray dogs around, not really strays, but peoples pets that were allowed to roam free. So I came into the habit of observing these dogs and imagining which ones would be best able to go North like Buck and eventually revert to the wild and become a wolf again. Most dogs I observed fell short in this regard.

I became fascinated by wolves and read everything on them I could find in my local and school libraries. I felt had a deeply spiritual connection with them.

I also at some early point in my childhood withdrew into my sketchbooks. I was constantly drawing. I never drew cars or battleships, but only wild animals, especially large predators, such as big cats, wolves, grizzly bears, etc. The people I portrayed were pirates, vikings, barbarians and as I reached puberty naked women with large breasts. Those were my chief areas of interest. I was never interested in anything related to machines or man made inventions. I also became fascinated, like many boys my Age with Conan the Barbarian as portrayed on cover Art by Frank Frazetta, though I never read the books themselves.

I should also mention one other book, "Early Man" by time life books. I was deeply effected by the artist portrayals of the Neanderthals and the Cro-Magnon. They were beautiful relistic paintings, containing scenes of daily life with spectacular wild vistas containing large Megafauna of the Pleistocene. I believed that these paintings, stirred within my Fossil of Ancestral memories, from when I lived during those times.