internal dialog is a negative influence in your life. it will mostly lead to stress and unwarranted worrying. if you catch yourself talking to yourself and to other people in your head it is a good idea to stop and clear you head of it. it is nothing but chatter and is useless. there are forms of meditation that are specifically about silencing this internal chatter. it is a practice of quieting your thoughts until finally with enough practice even when you are not meditating the internal chatter is never there.

just think about the times when you are doing something so perfectly and so smoothly until all of a sudden your internal chatter kicks in and you start thinking "oh man! i can't believe how good i am doing!" and then that's when you stumble and crash. the chatter is also what makes you worry. you go over all the different scenarios in your head again and again. as you do your stress is building and you can feel the worry in your stomach. if you sat and meditated or found some distraction when this started then you could have avoided all that pain and worry.

take life a little easier and ignore the chattering in your head. next time it appears just say "no!" and forget about it. it will try and start up again but you just keep on ignoring it. you'll see that you become a little less stressed about things.

you see a dead cat splattered on the road in front of your house after a car just drove by. you feel upset and saddened. but as soon as you see it was just a pile of wet soggy leaves that was run over and not a cat you are relieved... it was perception. change it and you can feel anything you want. everything can change because what was so wrong is now normal and acceptable due to a change in perception. an old favorite aunt dies and you cry yourself to sleep. with a change in perception you now accept dying as a natural and normal part of life and appreciate the time spent with her and cry no more. you perceive that you are living on a giant rock hurtling through space around a giant sphere of fire and suddenly the thought of how you look in those pair of jeans becomes meaningless. you are upset driving on the highway because you were cut off by some car that is speeding off ahead of you. you later see that car parked at the hospital with a pregnant woman stepping out about to give birth and suddenly you are not upset anymore. change your perceptions and a whole new world opens up to you. it will be any world you want because it's all how you perceive it.

from hunter-gatherer we became farmers and from there we diversified. this diversity of lifestyle created a whole new reality. classes of people now exist. money replaces food as our crop. clothing becomes essential. we become something more than just another animal. but what? DELUSIONAL!

what you see is what you get. there is nothing more to life. all this nonsense about fancy this and famous that is delusion. it is a game of pretend. a dog bites a pauper as hard as a rich man. a cat scratches a fifty-dollar couch as much as ten-thousand dollar one. why pretend that there is something so different and special in everything? everything is just molecules.

we are relatively hairless which leads to more sensitivity to touching and feeling. our lips are turned outwards unlike other species which again leads to increased sensitivity at our lips. our females have permanently inflated mammary at all times unlike our primate cousins. our coitus is long and involved compared to most other species. what does all this mean? that we as humans were built with extreme sexuality in mind. it makes sense that those that had more sex reproduced more and it became survival of the sexiest. males probably sexually selected those females that had permanently inflated mammary and mated with them more so than with others. bare skin must have been attractive as well. you are designed to be sexy.

not that long ago i stopped watching tv altogether for a time. i even took the tv out of my bedroom which is where i watched it all the time. lack of tv made me think more and that leads to thinking about how wrong everyone and everything is. that then leads to a less than happy state. i started watching tv again not long after i stopped but i am more selective in what i watch now. the tv is still no longer in my bedroom and will stay that way.

tv is the opiate of the masses. there is no doubt about it. without it, i was faced with thinking about all the ills of the world and my surroundings and with it i am swept away into a world of dreams and magic. i can tell i am not watching enough though. my increased selectivity and non-bedroom tv is having its toll. it's like coming out of a coma but you find out your coma life which was full of dreams was a lot better. you might even want to go back but you can't so you jump out a window or something.

i wish others would stop watching though and then they wouldn't feel so placated and maybe they'd try and improve things. its that same old thing that the romans had with the games and the colosseum. they needed to placate the masses while the elite got away with whatever they wanted. i don't think there is a grand conspiracy with tv though. it just happened to work out that way.

i never said i was a writer. and i don't really even have much desire to write. i grew up watching tv throughout my entire childhood up until when the internet hit big. i never read books for entertainment and i still don't. i will read text books though and some fictional for research. since i did not grow up reading, that puts me at a disadvantage when it comes to writing. so don't expect miracles. i try to express myself clearly and plainly. i was not even brought up conversing with a lot of people since i was mostly in my room or silent so there again i am at a disadvantage at expressing myself.

so then who am i and why am i here and why am i writing? what makes me try and reach out to you the internet folk? we as humans are all very similar and we all have that need to belong to something. i never felt that i belonged. not to a family, not to a group of friends, not to an ethnic group, not to a team, and so on and so on. where is my place i wondered. when i was younger i figured that i must not be meant to live much longer since there was no place for me. even the so-called outcasts and freaks in school had their groups. everyone else fit into some group but since i didn't that must mean that i was never meant to grow into adulthood. i do not believe in that sort of pre-destination anymore though. so this is why i am here. to find my group. maybe there are people among the millions of internet users who are just like me. since we all are so similar as humans it would make sense that they are out there. maybe small in number but they should exist.

yes this is starting to sound like little orphan annie... "Maybe far away Or maybe real nearby. He may be pouring her coffee. She may be straightening this tie.... Betcha they're young. Betcha they're smart. Bet they collect things Like ashtrays, and art!"

i don't like "hoping". if it isn't there and tangible then i don't have use for it. i won't believe it until i see it so i won't be comforted by thinking that "maybe" others like me are out there. i once posted essays somewhere and most responded negatively but a couple didn't. i never heard from them beyond that though. i have chatted in chat rooms and after angering a lot of them a few people will be interested. they haven't been what i was looking for though. for your information, some people find me quite amusing and/or interesting when i "chat". it hasn't really come across on things i have written here though incase you are thinking "yeah right!".

and yes you could say i am a little bitter over my lack of belonging. it hard to be a human that has been alone for so long. even in less than ideal situations, the comfort of your group makes it bearable. i didn't have that support structure. i had no one.

but hey maybe you're out there. maybe you're searching too. i haven't thought much beyond just finding you all though. maybe we'd just be comforted by the fact that each other exists. i'll see when i cross that bridge.

        O
       | |   -->
       / \
___|---|---|---|_______

i really don't have any little interesting stories to tell such as when i was growing up or what a wild time i had somewhere. some people are loaded with them. i suppose my thoughts on humans are the closest thing i have to little stories so that is why my web log contains them instead of cute little stories of some aunt betty or a best friend joe who ate a kitten on a dare.

i grew up alone in a room with a tv. yes, one third of the day was spent in school with other people with whom i interacted with. not to a great degree though. i knew some people and they knew me. never had a best friend. the rest of the day, most every weekend, and most every summer i was alone in a room with a tv. i liked super heros and super hero values. i liked to follow rules and be good. i did have a tiny bout of rebellion in my junior high school years but nothing major. i've never been to a "party". i have never smoked cigarettes or drank alcohol and never even saw drugs let alone take them. i don't even take aspirin.

i liked the movie Unbreakable with Bruce Willis but in the end when it is revealed that Mr. Glass is the villain it sort of struck a cord with me. maybe i'm not the super hero intended to save humanity. maybe i am the villain sent to destroy it. it more so fits my profile. but lucky for humanity i don't believe in pre-destination of that sort. and i would rather sit peacefully in front of a computer or under a tree than commit acts of utter devastation upon the human race. well at least for now. and just a note... you have to remember your history and that acts of utter devastation upon people have been committed all throughout history and even into today and will be in the future. it is more normal to hate than to not hate and i would rather be the exception.

i was closer to my ideal image of what i should be before i started playing that whole love game. i thought it could change what was wrong and that it'd be the answer to my prayers. it's not and it'll only make you worse off. it is not a game of logic but one of primal urges. i played it to help fix a sadness i had but it is not a game to play when you are not at a peak mental state. it can't fix anything, it can only make things worse. if you were sad and insecure before imagine how sad and insecure you are after your plans of love go awry. and they will because you were too immature to know how to handle it or else the person you loved was too immature or more likely both. it is a bitter sadness to forget too. it is not worth playing incorrectly or while unprepared.

'k that's a'l f'r now

another one from the archives today. yes this is a busy week incase you noticed the lack of indepth postings. this one is dated 9/22/96 and is an original and fictional short story of sorts. it is a dialog between two people. oh and it does contain some profanity. for the more delicate among you i will go and alter the words now but you can still tell what they were.
and now on with the show...


Wait! Don't leave... I didn't mean that... I'm upset... I'm sorry.
Just talk to me for a little bit... please.
Please don't leave me... I mean for now.
Can you just tell me why?

--I don't want to get into this again. We've been over this already.
It's not like this is easy for me either.

I just don't wanna lose you... that's all. I can't.

--Will you please stop it.

I don't know what to do! Your the only thing that's ever meant anything to me and you just can't go away and expect me to just deal with it!
I mean is this it?! Is it all over for you?! Are you done with me?! Time to move on to something new?!
Wait... please. I just can't think straight right now.

--Maybe it's best that I leave then.

No! Please don't leave me. Please don't go. I want you to stay with me... forever.

--I have to go.

For your own sake don't try getting in contact with me after you leave.

--And what the hell is that supposed to mean?

Nothing... just don't bother.

--What are you going to do... kill yourself?

I don't know.

--What do you want from me?!

I want your love and affection! I want you to care about me at least half as much I care about you.

--What am I supposed to do?

Just stay with me dammit. We can live the rest of our lives together. We can have kids... raise our family.. you and me... together... forever.

--What if I don't want that?

Why the hell not?! Why the fu@k aren't I good enough for you. You'll never find anyone who comes even close to me. Jesus! See! I'm sorry... I'm just feeling so hurt. All I want is to be with you... to love you.
This isn't right! It can't be like this! You belong with me... don't do this!
--I'm sorry. I have to go now. I have a lot to get done today.

Fu@k that sh|t.

--Goodbye.

No! Wait...

--Goodbye.

I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU BIT@H!

Stealth asteroid nearly blindsides Earth
"The space boulder passed Earth within 288,000 miles (461,000 kilometers) -- or 1.2 times the distance to the moon -- on March 8, but since it came from the direction of the sun, scientists did not observe it until four days later."

"The object, slightly larger than one that flattened a vast expanse of Siberia in 1908, was one of the 10 closest known asteroids to approach Earth, astronomers said."

"If it were over a populated area, like Atlanta, it would have basically flattened it," said Gareth Williams, associate director of the International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Center in Boston, Massachusetts.

something that is starting to annoy me now that i recognize it is the magical effect that beauty has on me. female beauty more specifically. i stare mesmerized for a moment before realizing that a spell was cast on me and that i should fight it off. it is not real i tell myself, it is just the product of human evolution at work. it tries to manipulate me but i reason with myself.

why bother you ask? because the next step after staring is obsession. and you want to know more about the person and then you give them preferential treatment just because of their supposed beauty. and why try and fight that natural instinct? because for all i know they could be a horrible person. i don't even know them so it only proves that my instinctual feelings for them are magical and not based in truth.

to lead a rational life takes constant analysis of one's thoughts and actions. to live our lives based on reason and logic is what we need to evolve into a better society. it is a lot to ask those not trained in doing so but for following generations the task will be normal as they will have been raised in it.

Rejection massively reduces IQ

snippet:

Rejection can dramatically reduce a person's IQ and their ability to reason analytically, while increasing their aggression, according to new research.

Aggression scores increased in the rejected groups. But the IQ scores also immediately dropped by about 25 per cent, and their analytical reasoning scores dropped by 30 per cent.

"These are very big effects - the biggest I've got in 25 years of research," says Baumeister. "This tells us a lot about human nature. People really seem designed to get along with others, and when you're excluded, this has significant effects."

Baumeister thinks rejection interferes with a person's self-control. "To live in society, people have to have an inner mechanism that regulates their behaviour. Rejection defeats the purpose of this, and people become impulsive and self-destructive. You have to use self-control to analyse a problem in an IQ test, for example - and instead, you behave impulsively."

:end snippet

"The often-maligned act of chewing gum could in fact make us smarter, according to British research."

"The results were extremely clear and specifically we found that chewing gum targeted memory," Andrew Scholey of the university's Human Cognitive Neuroscience Unit said. "People recalled more words and performed better in tests on working memory."

well i had something else written but i think i will post one from the archives tonight. there are not many but i will sprinkle them in here and there. this one was written six years ago. six years is a long time so remember that when reading. maybe things have changed. but sit back and relax and enjoy tonights feature presentation... brought to you in full shift-key certified TechniDolby...

[this post has been edited]
[it has been modified to fit your screen]

[September 27, 1996...]

What's it like to always be alone? What's it like to be in a room full of people and feel more alone than if you were by yourself? I suppose one would not be happy being alone all the time. It is weird to hear and see how other people all talk to each other. It's weird to see how everybody seems to have a group of friends they see on a regular basis. Then again there aren't any people that I envy even a little. Do I want to be alone? I don't think I do but it's just that I've never met anybody worth being friends with. People just end up sucking. People suck... I guess that says it all. Yeah I see all the people with their dopey friends. So why do people suck so much? Maybe it is because they are so ignorant about so much. Am I that different than everyone else? I thought people were all pretty much alike. How could it be that I am so different? Am I smarter? Do I just know a lot of different stuff that they don't? Sometimes it is hard to see any difference. I guess I must be though if I am the way I am and I haven't come acros any people like me. Although just because you don't see something, does not mean it dosen't exsist. I just wish I could find a nice, sweet, intelligent, innocent, loyal, charming, fit, blue-eyed girl. Ya know? Is that so much to ask? Why not go wrap her up for me and have her delivered Monday afternoon. 'K? Ya know what I wish? Forget it. All I want is to spend my life caring for someone that I think is special. That is what I wish. Someday maybe? Maybe soon? I hope. Someday my prince will come. Hahahaha. I dislike the idea of having to rely on other people in order to attain happiness. People are so unreliable. I need to find happiness within myself not from other people in order to attain true happiness and contentment. And when I am happy and content, then that is when others will want to follow. So it is written. Remember the "way" oh great and wise one. The way to enlightenment should be your goal my son. But Lord how can I attain such a feet with such distractions? If I truly were alone it would be an easier path. My son, the path to enlightenment has many obstacles and each one must be overcome. The deep snow slows you movement yet you still reach your goal. You knew it was not the time my son. Everything you experience teaches you more and more. It brought you great joy in the beginning which then turned to sorrow. Cherish it for all the knowledge you have gained from it. My lord the pain is great and it plays with my mind. Be strong my son and stay the course. My lord I had forgotten you I had forgot the way. It challenges everything I know and feel. How can I deal with such a force. You have yet to learn moderation my son. Yes my lord. I love you my lord. And I you my son. Your wisdom guides me like a beacon in the fog. Your radiance gives me hope that I will reach my destination safe and secure. Oh lord, remember your son in times of need. I am but your humble stundent. Teach me all that you know. Ignorance is the true evil of man. Teach me so that I will know good.

we are so similar that, by studying ourselves and knowing all we can about ourselves, we can know a great deal about everyone else.

you know what is annoying? it's having to redo something that you put a lot of effort into. isn't it awful to have to start over after all that time and energy and enthusiasm that went into it the first time? well that's what we keep doing as a society of humans. we are reliving the lives of those that came before us.

why do so many people struggle with in inept school system? why do they then struggle to find a career once they leave school? why do people have children and have no idea how to raise them? why do people have bad relationships? why do people feel under appreciated? why do we need to kill and war and hate? people have lived with these questions for generations. why do we keep reliving them then? why can't we learn from their mistakes and their non-mistakes. if you really wanted to, you could find out how to raise a child in a better way than is normally done. you could find out how to have successful relationships. you could find the answers to all these things. just look to the past at what worked and what didn't. but why aren't these the things that are taught to us? why do we know nothing about being a successful human? shouldn't that be our priority?

if we have to relive everything for ourselves we cannot get beyond base level. we need a head start to build ourselves higher than those that came before us. we already do this in technology. we use what came before us as our base. why don't we apply it to human society and lift ourselves into a growth equal to our technological achievements?

SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence):
i suppose you could look at this page as SITI (Search for Intraterrestrial Intelligence or SHITI: Search for Human Intraterrestrial Intelligence). but maybe it is futile to search for similar minded folk. i mean what would i really do if i found one. is one really enough? and what about a whole group of them? that would be strange. and it's not like we could really change anything. all we could hope for is to delude ourselves with the notion that we live in a separate little world from everyone else. we still can't escape corporations and governments and cruel people. and even if we could find such an ideal place we'd probably all die of a disease or something ironic when we got there.

gauatama buddha was right when he said suffering was part of life. don't expect to be happy and joyous all the time because that is not what fueled our evolution. probably being in love and having kids is what can really make you fulfilled and happy feeling because that is what fueled our evolution. but mind you, those are temporary feelings. you'd have to go from love to love and have the pain that goes with that too. what about staying in love? i suppose it is possible to delude yourself to do that but the problem is an equally willing partner. and as you know, people are terribly unreliable.

being in a group is part of being human too though. i think a lot of people in groups are fulfilled by their sense of belonging. people live out stereotypes all the time. they are comforted by doing so. well, group, where are you? i know this might seem as a half-hearted attempt to find you but it's easily available and its free. and you'd appreciate that. you'd appreciate me.

to my group, wherever you are, your comrade has come of age and is waiting to hear from you.

recomended reading:
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond
1984 by George Orwell
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Giver by Lois Lowry

i would probably also recommend some simple, practical, non-magical(a.k.a non-spiritual) books on buddhism like:
Buddhism Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen
Before He Was Buddha : The Life of Siddhartha by Hammalawa Saddhatissa

and one other thing... i'd probably learn something about meditation. the practical aspects ofcourse. it isn't magical and it does have beneficial effects. i did read "Science of Being and Art of Living : Transcendental Meditation" by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the guy who brought TM to the western world. it isn't too instructive and it is a little magical i think. i read it a long time ago and it was from the library so i don't remember much. it did warn about getting the right mantra from an official teacher but that seems magical. i did develop a suitable technique after reading though. do some research and stay away from magic. you'll know if you're doing it right.

to the question "Are you unhappy?" i answer:

i would have to guess that you ask that because my topics and writings seem non-happy. or else you randomly question people about their emotional state. maybe you want to base my credibility on my state of happiness i.e. if i am unhappy then i write with a negative spin so i can't be trusted in what i write.

well, i would call myself "aware". i seem to be more aware of the things around me than the average joe. and anything that makes one different causes a separation from the group. then the difference and the separation work off of each other and you become more different and more separated. humans are naturally social animals so separation does not sit well with them. so one that is separated is by definition not well off and won't be satisfied. we as humans need to feel connected. so if i feel separated than i suppose i can not be "happy".

does this mean i write with a negative slant? i write about non-happy things because they upset me and i want to tell others about what they are not seeing. call it a critique of humans or call it a lesson plan. why nothing positive though? they are not all negative as some are neutral and informative. but there are not many "happy" things to write about humans until they work out the horrible things they do. how many people write anything positive about a child molester once it is found out that the person molests children. humans are engaged in such negative behavior that it would be offensive to write positive things about them until they stop doing these things. either that or be honest about what we are as a species and accept that we like to kill, hurt, and lie, and all the other nice things we do naturally. then murderers and the others can be celebrated for being the quintessential humans that they are.

people can really only be happy today if they delude themselves. if we thought about all the suffering and lying and stealing and killing and destruction around us how could we be happy? we ignore it and delude ourselves with the notion that we live in a separate little world from everyone else. i don't have a circle of people and a support structure to bring this little fantasy to life. the ones that claim happiness have this.

some of us have been sold a bill of goods. we've been told a sales pitch that is miles off from reality. a lot of little girls grow up waiting for their knight to come and take them away on their steed of love. a lot of lonely young men are out there waiting for that one perfect girl to come along. people all over are "working" at their "important" career. children all over grow up thinking that they are going to be a famous superstar. most people out there are thinking that there is something else out there for them. that there is love just waiting to find them, that there is an important career that is really meaningful, that they're going to be a star. people really do believe in magic and it's a lot more of you than you think.

most of you think about your life in terms of magic. for instance many talk of love. but what is love except your evolutionary adaptation to pass on your genes. it is no different than the evolutionary adaptation of a pea-cock's feathers to attract his mate. or even the adaptation of a giraffe and its long neck to obtain food. evolutionary adaptations are all about helping you survive in order to breed or helping you obtain a mate to breed with. love is just your body's surge of hormones that entices you to breed. but no, you have been taught that it is a magical wondrous thing that only the heart can understand. it is clearly understandable. we all as humans go through the exact same stages of love. i know what you felt and i felt the same exact thing. what is the mystery? you are not so special as to have that only happen to you are you? also, obtaining love is no mystery. study the patterns and you will see how easy it is to obtain those loving feelings. acquiring a mate is no mystery. study those patterns and you will see that as well. our survival for the last 100,000 years as anatomically modern humans depended on our mating. if mating were that complicated we would have been extinct long ago. our modern times with our modern magical notions is the only thing that complicates mating.

and as for you and your careers... where have all your fancy careers gotten us? hunter-gatherers had an easier lifestyle so what went wrong? your waste pollutes the water you drink and the food you eat. people actually mass produce plastic toothpicks in the shape of little swords. it is by magic alone that this is needed. it is some crazy made-up fantasy world where real resources are directed towards this sort of thing. that people take their crazy magical lifestyle for real is amazing and proof that they believe in magic. is a shoe made out of less than a dollars worth of materials really more meaningful when it is sold for a hundred dollars? it is if you believe in magic. you dress up in specialized pieces of cloth that you think gives off a magical quality and even makes you feel more "important". half of you smear colored wax on your face and spray a hardener into your hair and think this adds a magical quality to your appearance. you spend your lives working to obtain more money to purchase things you think give you a magical status. you reign magically over those you think are worth less than you and they let you because they believe in the same magic.

we live on a spherical chunk of rock hurtling through space in an elliptical orbit around a gigantic ball of flaming gas. that is reality.

human history in a nutshell:
we evolved from pond scum into little furry creatures that lived in the ground and frolicked at the feet of dinosaurs. after the dinosaur demise, our little fluffy ancestors were given free reign of the surface world. they were allowed to get bigger and bigger since there were no more dinosaurs to eat us and eat our food supply. then in time that little rodent diversified into all different types of mammals. then our more immediate ancestors were born. they weren't as smart but they then evolved into us. we modern humans have been around for 100,000 years. the first 90,000 years as hunter-gatherers and the last 10,000 as farmers and then into what we are in modern times. most of human existence has been spent as little tribes running around with spears and picking berries off of bushes. but then as we started to farm, we made excess food. this excess food fed specialized workers and our lifestyles began to diversify. and now here we are today.

breaks, or rest periods, between bouts of work is essential. in exercise or physical labor, it is in the rest period that you actually recover and grow stronger. if you constantly exercised or worked without rest, you would start to retrogress thus get weaker than you were when you started. exercise induces the stress that challenges your body. the recovery period is when your body builds itself stronger so it can handle the stress the next time around.

the idea of rest and recovery seems to hold for mentally challenging work as well. as you start getting bogged down in a long drawn out mental task you can see that it is harder to think and concentrate. take a break and you come back to the problem seemingly better than ever. new ideas pop up and old problems seem clearer and are more easily solved. the best thing you can do when the work slows is to take a break and recover from the strain. it is easy to forget to do this and to try and stick at your work until it's done but the time wasted in the slow-down could have been better spent at a break. to some it seems strange that taking a break leads to more productive work but try it. oh and i mean a real break. something relaxing and not sitting there and thinking about the work.

just a quick note incase you read earlier posts about experimentation with eating habits. it is unsafe for females to have too low a body fat for extended durations. there have been studies done on female athletes such as marathoners who have extremely low body fat. one side effect is that you lose your period. some women see this as a benefit but it comes at the price of decreasing bone density. over time your bone density will get lower and lower until it reaches that of say a seventy year old and you'd start breaking your hips. those athletes had their bone densities scanned and found this out and some did actually break bones. so remember, for females to have extremely low body fat is a health risk.

why is our technology today so much more advanced than our ancestors? because as isaac newton said, "If I have seen further it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants." all of our advancements our based on the earlier advancements of those that came before us. that is why things have progressed and not just suddenly appeared straight out of the stone age. this is all obvious so what is the point you ask?

this might not be you but i have seen this happen to people and find it disturbing. some parents get it in their head that their children should start from scratch like they did and make their own living and their own life for themselves. the parent might not have even struggled as much as they think they did but they want their child to make it on his/her own anyway. but what is the fatal error they are making? they are basically condemning their child to a life of regression. the child, or rather the young adult, is not building on a foundation higher than those that came before him. instead, an empty plot of land is set aside and the child, who has not been adequately prepared, is expected to start building his life and his own foundation. since he was not prepared for this in the same way the parent was, he has no idea what to do and thus regresses. your parents should give to you a pre-built foundation on which to start building. how can we progress when people are starting from scratch all the time? it is even worse than that because they are starting from scratch with no knowledge of how to get out of scratch.

even the parents that don't actively throw their child out at eight-teen to live on their own need to think about this too. what did you do or what are you going to do to make sure your child has an adequate foundation on to which he can start building his life? doing nothing is as bad as throwing them out. when they do go and try and build their life how can they achieve at a higher level if they are staring on the same level you did. we should be progressing as a people. staying the same is not acceptable and it does not work.

what is free will and why you probably don't have it.

because you have animal origins, you like them have natural instincts. for instance, you are naturally territorial like many animals. in remote parts of the world that were not "civilized" until modern day, it was dangerous to wander outside of your tribe's territory or chances are you got killed. also look at street gangs and how they rule their "turf" and have similar consequences for being caught in someone else's territory. along with your territorialness is your jealousies and possessiveness. don't we all get jealous and possessive? there are a number of things we do because we are naturally programmed to do them.

then there is upbringing. how many things do we do that we were taught as children either directly or indirectly. how many people turn out to act exactly like their parents did? if your parents follow a particular religion chances are better than average that you will too. if they hate a certain group of people chances are that you will too. if they have coffee in the morning, the chances are that you will too. it's natural and makes sense that you do what you saw growing up. animals learn from their parents by mimicking them and thus survive.

but is doing and thinking things because your instincts and upbringing make you, considered free will? i don't think so. in order to have free will you would need to make decisions based on logic and reasoning and not on tradition and "feelings". this is of course difficult if you don't know anything beyond what you naturally know from feelings and tradition. if i was never given the information that punching someone back for punching me was something i don't have to do, then why would i ever not punch that person back? from where would i conjure that notion since my parents did it and my feelings tell me i should punch them back? it takes knowledge beyond what you are usually given to have free will. and even beyond the knowledge, think of the raw animal instinct that compels you to hit that person back. how can you even overcome such a powerful influence?

any time you use "feelings" as a means to make a decision you are not using free will. you were programmed to feel that way. look at all the people duped by their feelings when it comes to relationships. "we have nothing in common and he beats me but i feel that i love him." it is subtler than that most of the time though. look at all the people consumed with professional athletics. a lot are just caught up in their wantingness to belong to a group and also to showcase their territorial claim and others were influenced by tradition or both.

any time you use tradition as a means to make a decision you are not using free will. what your parents did is what their parents did and is what you do and so on. that is not based on logic and reason. you did not make that decision, some ancestor did. a lot of relationships go sour because of this reason too. some child saw his dad beat his mom and now he beats his wife. it is only natural. my dad yelled at me so now i will yell at my children. it takes something beyond what you were naturally given to overcome that type of influence.

so if i don't have free will then how do i get it? how do i possibly get beyond everything i was told and get beyond my powerful instinctual forces. well for one, many people don't want to do this. people like being like everyone else. they like taking after dear old dad. they enjoy following the feelings that they get. they like to be told what to do.

free will can obtained when you can suppress your natural instincts and the tendencies you developed in your upbringing in favor of logic and reasoning. you would have to realize why you are thinking something and see what influenced it and impose the guidelines of reason and logic on it. does it make sense is what you need to ask. you have to be able to stop yourself in the middle of a bubbling rage and question whether you should be so enraged and what caused you to be that way and to realize rage does not solve anything. you have to study these things or else how can you recognize them when they occur. you have to question your everyday activities and wonder why you wear uncomfortable shoes when a more comfortable pair would make more sense. why do you apply colored wax to your face i.e. makeup? why do you yell at someone to get them to perform better when you know being kind and encouraging would get better results? everything you do, think, and feel has to be scrutinized or else how do you know it is based on sound reasoning. it is not easy to obtain free will but you can achieve it partially on those things you do monitor and maybe little by little it will be everything.

didn't you ever see movies or tv shows or read books based in the year 2000 or later and the people in them wore futuristic clothing? well it's 2002 already and where are all the tunics and shiny metallic pants? in a concerted effort to bring about a change in clothing style more fitting for the new millennium i have started small and now wear, what i think are "future clothes", in the comfort of my home. they consist of some loose fitting earth toned pants with drawstring ties, a t-shirt, and a hooded sweater-sweatshirt thingy. these are not my ideal choices but i am using what i have on hand. a more ideal outfit would be more of a tunic like shirt with a collar similar to the ones in Star Trek TNG in the later episodes when their uniforms had collars. the pants would be the same loose fitting drawstring style i wear now though and a hooded sweater-sweatshirt would be optional dependant on the temperature. and for footwear probably a moccasin style non-leather slipper like what i wear now.

i, like a lot of people, was brought up under the assumption that humans are great and pure and only the deviant few stray from that. people are good at heart i was told. and something i grew up assuming was that our cousins the apes were even more pure because they didn't have that human concept of evil that made men go astray. i was heartily disillusioned the day i saw that apes are as bad as humans. i was watching a documentary on chimpanzees and it seems that female chimps mate with a lot of different males so that when the baby is born the males are unsure as to who the father is. now guess what happened when the male apes of a particular group suspected a female ape of their same group, who hung out near the borders of their territory, had mated and had the baby of a neighboring group's male? here is the part that reminds me of human evil. the male apes chased down the female chimp and took her baby and ripped it apart and ate it. but wait there's more. on the same documentary it showed a small group of apes hunting down an ape from a neighboring tribe and then beating it to death. and this was pitiful as it just went on and on. there is no "merciful" quick-kill when all you have to kill by is beating to death.

so you see, our ancestral origins drives us to kill and hate those that are not apart of our tribe. that people are racist, jingoist, sexist, murderous, and hateful is by no means odd. what is strange is how some people got the notion NOT to be these things. what is wrong with you that you have an open mind and an open heart you should ask. you are the minority in this savage world. and you will stay the minority because you will be killed off by the cruel and hateful. who has the weapons and the desire to use them? the peaceful? if not by steel weapons then the weapon of hate will eradicate you. you will not fit in and thus not breed or teach or in any way pass on your peaceful and goodly ways which will die with you. you can't even group up in unity because it will only make you a bigger target. that is, if you can even maintain your peaceful ways as many will be turned into the vampires that bit them.

yes that is a happy ending. for the majority of you anyway.

did you ever try and choose a screen name on AOL? not all of you, but the majority would have found the process a little annoying...

lets see, umm i think i will choose TeddyBear as my screen name. let me just type that in. hmm it says that it is taken. okay well lemme try something more original. how about ILoveBears. yeah that should work. no??!! and why would they suggest ILove3992 to me??!! okay lemme be really really original this time. umm hmm uhh. i know!! TeddyLuv17. lets jus type this in here T-e-d-d-y-L-u-v-1-7. there. hit ok and... WHAT!! you muther @#$%^&!! fine!! TeddyL3988 it is!!! piece of crap!!

the point of that little scenario in that it is hard to be original and that we as humans are very similar to one another. i call this the AOL Syndrome. what you are thinking right now and at any time is probably very similar to what a bunch of other people thought about before you ever did.

and on the subject of empathy, a friend sent me an email with a poem she obtained from an email she received as a forward. i told that friend about a show i saw that gave the example of someone cutting you off in traffic. most people's anger would be subsided if they later found out that the person who cut them off was a pregnant woman on the way to the hospital and about to give birth. so the moral of the traffic incident is to realize that there is another living human in that other car who may be just like you and to treat them accordingly because it may be someone you care about. they are not the "enemy". so here is the poem that was sent to me because it is of a similar nature.

The Cookie Thief
By Valerie Cox

A woman was waiting at an airport one night,
With several long hours before her flight,
She hunted for a book in the airport shop,
Bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop.

She was engrossed in her book, but happened to see,
That the man beside her, as bold as could be,
Grabbed a cookie or two from the bag between,
Which she tried to ignore, to avoid a scene.

She read, munched cookies, and watched the clock,
As the gutsy "cookie thief" diminished her stock.
She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by,
Thinking, "If I wasn't so nice, I'd blacken his eye!"

With each cookie she took, he took one too.
When only one was left, she wondered what he'd do.
With a smile on his face and a nervous laugh,
He took the last cookie and broke it in half.

He offered her half, as he ate the other.
She snatched it from him and thought, "Oh brother,
This guy has some nerve, and he's also rude,
Why, he didn't even show any gratitude!"

She had never known when she had been so galled,
And sighed with relief when her flight was called.
She gathered her belongings and headed for the gate,
Refusing to look back at the "thieving ingrate."

She boarded the plane and sank in her seat,
Then sought her book, which was almost complete.
As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise.
There was her bag of cookies in front of her eyes!

"If mine are here," she moaned with despair,
"Then the others were his and he tried to share!"
Too late to apologize, she realized with grief,
That she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief!

self-centeredness is a gigantic problem with people. they are the centers of their universe while everyone else is just an orbiting satellite in some far off galaxy waiting to be discovered. guess what? YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL. sure we all have our little quirks or afflictions but so does everyone else. you might have an extra pinky or just broke up with your so-called boy or girl-friend but the guy down the street might of just eaten his family. now how special do you feel? your day was bad but how about your neighbor's son who was swallowed alive by his dad? think his day was peachy?

do you really think that out of the 6 billion people alive on earth today and the millions that lived before you that you are the only one who had your particular problem? you are the product of billions of years of evolution. your body, the way you think, the way you act and feel are the product of billions of years of evolution. you, you special person, are just a pre-programmed little ball of flesh and bone like the rest of us. we would all act similarly under similar circumstances with similar upbringings. but even without these direct similarities we act pretty much on par with one another. we feel pain when poked, we feel hurt when hated, we feel good when needed. you are too busy looking at how special and different you are to notice how similar you are in so many more ways.

with the understanding of sameness comes empathy. you can feel what another feels because you realize your sameness and know how you would feel in similar circumstances. you would treat them as you'd want to be treated because you see the effects of negative treatment and feel those effects as if your own. there would be no more "them". you would realize how similar "they" are and you would feel a part of a larger entity than just yourself.

passionate love is hormonal. castrate yourself and you will see what i mean. children who have not developed hormonally do not have passionate love right? the old people who lose their sexual desire also do not have passionate love (i've heard some still retain sexual desire). and just think about when passionate feelings start... when you become a teenager and the hormones start to flow. all this points to hormone levels being the cause of passionate love. this means that there is nothing magical about that spark you got when you saw that wonderful person across the room or you realized that your long time friend has the potential to be more. that spark was millions of years of evolution at work. more proximately, it was your hormones at work. do not forget your animal heritage.

here is just some information i recently heard. i was watching an interview and the person was saying that eye movement corresponds to memory recognition. meaning, when you recognize something, your eyes move in such a way that it can be determined that you recognized it. the person said that even amnesiacs who don't remember something that they saw before they got amnesia will still have recognition in their eye movement. police line-ups were one practical application that this person mentioned.

corporations decide the fate of the inhabitants of the planet earth and potentially even beyond. corporations pollute everything they come in contact with. fish are over-fished to the point that they have to shut down fishing areas at times or else there would be no more fish in those areas. rivers and lakes are polluted, acid rain falls on everything, and government is overly corrupt.

in case you don't know, the american government allows itself to be bought and paid for by lobbyists that work for corporations. a vote on a bill by a congressman is a vote by a corporation that paid that congressman to see things their way. this is fact even though it seems like i must be making it up if you've never heard about this system before. it does not matter who you vote for in an election because the corporations have the money to sway whoever you elect. and the people elected want this to happen. that is why they run. it is their payday. their win of the lottery. people are greedy and will take what they can get away with. this system of lobbying is legal which means they can get away with it and they will milk it.

corporations are running the world. and since the mantra for corporations is to maximize profits, little things like pollution, corruption, and human life beyond that of CEO's are meaningless. people today are slaves to corporations. forty hours or more a week people put into serving their masters. they are thrown out to the cold when they are too weak too work, too old, etc. the corporation sees you as non-human. just a tool. if it treats its own employees that way then how do you think it treats the rest of the world? power corrupts and this is no exception. they have power through money and use government to do its bidding.

corporations have developed and are progressing like the development of governments did in human society. first we lived in little bands and tribes and we knew everyone in our tribe because of the small size. safety was a real concern for these people because there was no outside force to protect them from each other. then as groups got larger and people stopped knowing everyone the conflicts got even worse. people wanted some sort of protection from this. along comes a leader with an army who has a monopoly of force over the people. he is the police and people are not allowed to take matters into their own hands and kill one another. then the larger groups kill off or absorb the smaller groups and they get so large that they need better administration and thus governments are born. governments then absorbed all surrounding land and people and now rule the world.

for corporations, people started out trading goods with one another. then came the merchants. then a successful merchant would buy another shop. then he would have a few shops and then they would need better administration and thus corporations are born. the corporations then kill off or absorb the smaller companies. then all that is left is corporations. then corporations take over the government through use of a steady cash flow to voting senators. then corporations rule the world.

why would you want to cut out your sexual desire you ask? it is the cause of many problems in human society. molestation would cease. raping would cease (although i hear raping is not usually about sexual desire but aggression and anger but you still need to have an erection and some sexual stimulation). a lot of aggression and jealousy is a direct result of sexual desire and that would cease. people being objectified as sexual objects would cease. people might begin to respect each other for better reasons than just being "hot". sexual desire is the most primitive thing that we have. it is why we are all alive today. but primitive ways are not fit for a modern world were peace and harmony are valued. think of all the angst you grow up with once you become a teenager and your sexual desires start. when you were a child most of you were a lot more care-free. think of the longing, the deep desire, the staring, the wishing, the hopelessness. all that would be gone. you would still love but it would be like that of a brother or a mother. it would not be the phoney passionate type that fades as soon as you get to know someone better. just ask yourself why passionate love is strongest when you know the person least. you see the person across a crowded room and the staring and the longing starts. when you live with them for years and know everything about them the intensity is gone. the intensity was hormonal. you didn't "love" that person. your hormones were telling you to mate. we ignore and deny our animal heritage all the time so then why not take the logical leap of removing the most animal trait about us, the desire to mate?

i have heard interviews with the cast of Survivor, the tv series that puts people in remote locations and has them fend for themselves, and a handful of the skinny ones that i heard mentioned how they lost their sexual desire as the show progressed. one of them who was fat though said that he didn't. this might further show that starvation is linked to a loss of sexual desire. but whether you need to be starving or not is the question. maybe a lowered caloric intake that is maintained can be as effective in stopping sexual desire. obviously starvation is not maintainable but a lower calorie intake is.

once i tried a way of eating that emphasized the consumption of foods in a certain ratio depending on their macro-nutrient content i.e. their fat, protein, carbohydrate content. so at each meal i would eat a certain percentage of fat, protein, and carbohydrate. the protein percentage was a little above what is recommended by current nutrition standards and it sacrificed the carbohydrate percentage to achieve this. the fat percentage was the same as current recommended nutritional standards. but not only was there a percentage shift in macro-nutrients, my total caloric intake was reduced due to less consumption of calorically dense foods. i ate mostly vegetables for my carbohydrates and no breads or flour products. for fat, my intake was mainly safflower oil. so what effects did months of this eating style have on my mind and body?

the results were fascinating to me. i often think back to them and marvel at what happened. i do not eat that way now though and it had some negative side effects that i will explain. i think that a modified version might achieve better and safer results but i will explain later.

let me first explain the effects that it had on me. of course my body weight and body fat percentage dropped because it involved a reduced caloric intake. a negative side effect though, due to the higher percentage of protein, was frequenty and urgent urination. high protein diets have a diuretic effect and thats what i was having. five hours was all i could sleep for before being woken up by the need to urinate very urgently and profusely. it never failed that i would wake after five hours of sleep. this of course grew tiresome fast but i lived with it. during the day i had to urinate all the time too. that should have been a sign to stop but i didn't. but here is the interesting part that i think back to and marvel at. my sexual desires ceased. why was this so amazing?

well, it seems that they were holding me back. once they ceased i was able to concentrate a lot better and this was shown to me by my desire to achieve academically increasing as well my ability to concentrate on assignments increasing. not that i didn't achieve high grades before, but this was different. i was not just putting in what i needed to put in, i was doing extra. i was a machine. i read every assigned reading and book from cover to cover. i did not lose concentration after the first couple pages as was the norm. my mind didn't wander. i had perfect scores on many if not most tests. i also no longer had thoughts of a sexual nature. do you know how much time that freed up and what little distraction i had? it was amazing.

now why did i give it all up? i think the constant urination was one reason. another is that i think my body couldn't take it any more. a high protein diet can be bad for your health. i think i lost too much weight and was getting muscularly weaker which i could tell from my weight training sessions. i eventually gave in and ate more including bread and flour based food again.

so what is the modified version that might be a safer alternative? well it may be that it was the reduced calorie part that dropped my sexual drive. it is clearly the higher protein part that caused the urination and a change in skin color by the very end of it. so a normally balanced, calorie restricted eating style might give the positive benefits. some information that might support the benefits of a calorie restricted diet is the tests done in mice where ones that were given a lower than average caloric intake lived significantly longer than the ones given a normal caloric intake. whether this applies for humans though requires testing. i do have a later experience though where i did attempt to duplicate the positive results by using a calorie restricted diet. it did not last long due to outside influences that i am not going into right now. but the results seemed promising. my sexual drive reduced and i was more productive. long term results though of course are not known.

for some information on what the lack of sexual desire can do here is something i heard on the radio. a little while ago i heard an interview with a guy who only recently had a tumor that had been affecting his brain since pre-puberty removed. the tumor made his body pump out high levels of a female hormone. his male hormones were thus suppressed. he didn't get a lot of hair and he could not develop muscularly in the way that the other boys around him were even though he also trained with weights. he treated women with a lot of respect and was well liked by them. he hated how the males around him treated women as sexual objects. he could not get an erection by the way but he dated a little. and guess what he did as soon as the tumor was removed and his male hormones and sexual desire kicked in? he treated women like sexual objects and tried out his new found friend whenever he could. time past and he eventually married but says he owes a lot to his time as a non-male. he says he can appreciate the relationship with his wife a lot more. has also said he now has the urge to look at other women when he's out with his wife, something that he could not understand why men did.