How Could You Think That?

when seeing things in a different light / with more layers it is easy to see how that can have a more vivid effect.

one might argue that some people are not over-reactive so much as many people are under-reactive due to living without much passion, limited contextual perspective, and no creative outlets

Am Completely High :)

So I just worked out, and when I do that REALLY HARD I notice patterns that most people would not notice as easily and relate them to past experiences.

Like for example on the ride home from the gym I saw a lady who was walking one dog, and had another in a baby carriage. Then I thought about the beautiful colors of the leaves. And then I thought about how a friend said that if I ever ran out of stories we would make more because life is all about sharing experiences.

Then I thought again about going to the dentist...and all the people he supports. And how his back was sore last visit, and how if you don't help yourself there is no point in helping others.

Then I came back home for about 5 minutes and I tied together ideas about ads and content blending more and more and more. And I felt like I knew exactly what I should or should not post on Threadwatch... which is quite amazing really...that sense of confidence and increased pattern recognition.

Is Contrast Necessary?

Would you enjoy day or night as much if the other did not exist?

Would being happy feel as good if you didn't sometimes feel quite depressed?

How do you allow your self to permanently shift your baseline in one direction when you spent so much of your life in the other direction?

Value Based Systems

What percent of value based systems fall into one or more of the following categories? They...

• are arbitrary in nature
  
• are stuck in the physical world
  
• are designed to accommodate common flaws associated with humanity
  
• only exist to create value for the purveyor
  
• offer false hope but no results due to internal conflict and hypocrisy
  
• grant power or purpose to insecure people who would otherwise have none
  
• were altered from their original state and/or are dumbed down and repackaged to where they fall into one of the above categories

Almost all of them, IMHO. Especially the ones people push really hard.

What attracts most people to (compromised) positions of power is the notion that they can leverage their worldviews for personal gain, but the need for power and leverage come from weaknesses in our egos or other internal conflicts.

It is hard to be happy unless you are learning at ever accelerating rates. It is hard to sustain happiness if you subscribe to a one size fits all belief system.

And the trick is, to be successful, I think you have to believe in something, but anything worth believing in is rarely accessible via the most common communication channels. They are too polluted with too much baggage and too many invisible stakeholders.

You only find things worth believing in by pushing back at the world and analyzing what is returned. The more you believe in good stuff the more good stuff will be returned to analyze and eventually some of it will make sense as long as you are willing to live in the present realizing that doing so is creating a future you desire.

Or maybe my values are completely hosed and all this is wrong. :)

Carnivores & Mating

So I went to the Pita Pit after I worked out, and there was like a 5 to 1 girl to guy ratio in there. It was totally weird...like I could see some of the girls talking about me and eying me down, and then they even regrouped how and where they were sitting and standing to like crowd next to me...totally creepy...I think it has been years since something like that happened which was so blatantly creepy. I felt like I was on the menu or something.

What is even weirder is that I haven't even cut my hair in like 3 months and I am still like 20 lbs heavier than what I would consider good shape.

I think though that other people can tell when you are happy and somehow that peaks their interest in you. And I think when I am happy or sad I am no good at hiding how I feel...it really shows.

Also, a bit of bonus animal mating related trivia...

• being fat is linked to a lower IQ in humans
  
• from EvoWiki: high IQ males in tribal societies are almost invariably among the leaders (Brown, 1991). For this reason, female preference for wealthier, higher status men is expected to covary with IQ; that is, women should have been shaped by evolution to desire higher IQ men, not for IQ per se, but as a proximal cue for resources and status.
  
• female birds use the ability of male birds to pick up songs as a signal of the quality of a male
  
• many non-human animals trade sex for food, stones, or other goods
  
• some plants and animals evolve together
  
• dominant males' scent was only more attractive at the point where a woman could both conceive and cuckold her mate.
  
• wealthy people tend to have fewer children than poor people, largely because they consider the cost of bringing up a child to be much greater.
  
• if an animal is in good shape it is a sign they have excess resources to take care of others, which gives them an advantage in mating selection. For example, It has generally been assumed that carotenoid-based colour displays act as signals of quality because they reflect the foraging ability of the bearer

Other mating resources...

• Females Don't Always Go for Hottest Mate
  
• The Assortative Mating Theory
  
• PBS: The Mating Game

I have yet to read this, but it looked interesting at a glance.

False Apologies

Nearly every day most people probably apologize for symptoms of their problems without ever considering changing the core underlying problems or their worldview which causes the interactions that lead to the problems (or symptoms of a lack of balance or purpose).

There really is no point apologizing unless you mean it, but then if you do want to change an apology is not needed...you just have to decide to change. Your future actions are the only REAL apology you can offer for your wrongdoings.

I think there are four big reasons most people fail when they go to rehab, psychological treatment, or other help programs:

• change is internal. most people going to something where others tell them how screwed up they are don't actually want to be there, so you can't make them change unless they want to
  
• most of the places that are supposed to help people are under-budgeted and most the workers do not have enough time or care to go deeper, so they focus on solving symptoms instead of problems
  
• many of the organizations or social structures which make people off balance can never accept any blame for the activity of their members
  
• many people seeking institutional help just use substitution... for example, off crack but tons of caffeine and cigarettes
  
• even if you decide that you want to stop doing something it is not enough to say "hey I will stop doing that" you have to take the mental connections or dimming the activity offered and replace that with something of substance. If you don't have substance, purpose, and balance in your life your symptoms will keep reappearing from time to time until you find purpose and reprogram yourself.

Today and yesterday I did some random kind acts for people I never would have usually done that for, and out of it I ended up feeling much better. The world is such a vast place and there is so much that can be improved that there really is no point dwelling on problems or lowering yourself to content with amoral selfish people...its really just a matter of finding substance, dreaming, and then turning your dreams into reality.

In many ways I am addicted to bringing stupid controversy into my life because I rebound from it so hard (like the dumber I act the more brilliant and passionate I am right afterword - trying to overcompensate). Rather than being stupid and overcompensating, maybe I should just making sure that I try to appreciate the world for what opportunities it offers. It is the only apology that will ever be real or make sense.

I feel like happy guy, and am certain that if I didn't feel like that, and just read this post I would want to punch me in the face for writing it, but since I am me I don't have to worry about that. Hehehe

Meta Thoughts on Thinking, and Stuff...

Can you miss someone you never met? Just after freshly talking with them, without the chance to forget? Our most recent thoughts are our most vivid ones, and we rewrite our history and memories based upon them. Does that cause us to overevaluate and overappreciate our current state of being? And if so is that a bad thing?

When Good Ideas Are Bad

Recently I gave a friend an idea and it started working so well that he got so excited that his blood pressure went up and he had to take a break from working.

Today talking to another friend about another idea I put together he said he was unable to sleep last night because he was so excited about the idea.

How absurd is that...come up with good ideas that adversely affect the people who implement them?

Now I am sitting here too excited to think or work, and I am almost afraid to exercise because my mind is buzzing so much right now. I can only imagine how much better I would feel if I were exercising and in good physical shape.

What If...

What if I understand humanity far greater than I let myself believe I do, but only allowed myself to express understanding online...and let myself keep the perception that I am a social outlier in the offline world?

It is not uncommon for people to be dumb at some stuff and smart at others. It is not uncommon for people to see the world through a filter. Why should I think I am any different?

Why Would Anyone Want to Have Their Own Kids?

A friend of a friend asked me why anyone would want to have their own kids instead of adopting other kids. It could possibly be a fear of the unknown, but I think people believe that they are above average and that their genes are thus above average...thus they want to pass those on and perhaps they feel that having the kid will make the bond stronger and maybe even make it easier to understand and raise the kid.

Of course I have never had a serious girlfriend and have no kids, so I could be full of shit, but that is my opinion.

I think the believing oneself to be better than average is a common attribute that may have been necessary to keep living in primitive life, and more recently I think it was popularize in our culture because it is easier to exploit us as a collected society if each of us is looking out for primarily our own best interests.

There have been surveys about weather or not people think they will become financially rich and while most people think that the number of people who become rich is a low number many people also think that they are an exception to the odds and that they will become rich.

Cause & Effect

So what if somebody teaches you something that is complete bullshit, but it causes profound positive life changing effects? Is it wrong to teach that? Is it enough to look at the outcome and judge the quality based on that?

I think most stuff that is taught is intentionally biased to reinforce our worldviews to make us passive consumers who are easy to exploit (or in other words, most information outside of spam is intentionally inherenatly wrong to express a point of view which helps to control the activity of others).

The bars are set too high on somethings, like beauty, productivity, creativity, and then we are given false ideals (you will excell, fight for your country, etc).

I am suspicious of almost anything that is organized because I don't trust authority, and generally think most people in positions of great power were drawn their not by their creativity, skill, and intelligence, but by following the leader or a deep desire to have power & control others.

Why do most courses teach us to look at the world around us instead of the world within us if the easiest way to change the world around us is to change how we perceive it?

Friends, Patterns, & Conditioning

Sometimes we lie to ourselves to justify our own past behavior...to warp the world to match the way we explain our history and travels.

It is done in the history books and on a personal level as well.

Sometimes I tell myself that nobody likes me...as that makes it easy to justify ignorant or self destructive behavior. Recently I was amazed at how nice some of my friends were to me, even after a jackass episode.

My sendintary lifestyle and lack of social interaction are not not not healthy...I need to work on working out a lot more and need to find a way to connect to people that I can meet on a more regular basis than once every few months such that I have less social anxiety when I do meet and hang out w other people.

Another thing that sucks is I drink way too quickly when I drink and am a blabber mouth when drunk. There has to be some balance there that I can reach. I suppose if my normal self confidence was better there would be less desire to drink a bunch and I would have better self control after I started drinking.

Social Anxiety & Social Weirdness

So I am at a conference. It is fun and I am learning, but in spite of knowing many people I still am a tad much antisocial. Some of the times it is due to my social inexperience. Away from the web I may speak to 2 - 5 people a week and in person I usually only talk to my roommate.

And then at the other end of the stick there is justifiable reasons for social weirdness. Like recently I interviewed a friend and asked if a business model scaled. He said "no, just look at company X". Recently company x held a party here and they invited me and said they read my stuff and liked it.

I can memorize stuff really quickly, but I am much better with facts & figures than emotions & understanding people. Also I associate my own success with my general issolation from society. How do you flip what you tell yourself causes you to do well? Yet if I continue to live life without really understanding people or myself enough to be able to change my perceptions & actions is there really any point to life? Detatched from emotion life is pointless.

Of Social Significance

Most ideas that are boldly expressed are simply recreations or derivitives of other ideas...often fueled by limited perspective or ignorance. Stuff which touches us closely becomes more important to use than it actually is to the world around us. Yet we all have some small need to feel important and useful, even if generally we are not.

Is society made a better place by each of us overexpressing what is important to us, or is there a way we could organize and balance ideas better? From what I have seen in my own actions and the actions of people I have known well most of our ideas, ideals, and goals are overtly short term.

So how do you create or embrace systems which better respect the balance and good of the world, and not just push what you think is important? How do you push these ideas in a way that is financially viable and psychologically rewarding? Change generally takes a long time. Longer than most of us will live. Technology speeds the process, but also introduces new problems.

Or is it best if we all push what we know?

There has to be a way to balance ideas...but I am not balanced enough and forward looking enough to know it / find it.

I am smart enough to know that this current corporate controlled democracy does not adequately fit what I am looking for. How do you make it better?

Promoting hate or pointing out problems is easy, but how do you promote an underfunded idea and remain financially viable when you are fighting with deep pockets, especially whenthe best ideas often brings the least profits?

Shapping Facts & Reality to Match Your World

Listening to a person who got their site banned talk about how they make 90% of their sales from other channels.

How often to we do similar each day?

About Your Brain

Membrane potentials, action potentials, and neurons

Second in a series : How neurons transmit information

Mind Hacks

Music and Your Brain

Music and the Brain

also, a bookmark for later...
logic and falicies