09/07/2015

 The mood is flat-lined.

 This isn't necessarily a good thing. I tend to get very distracted in this state. It's difficult to do anything. It's usually the leading edge of a massive episode.

 I wanted to write today but I'm not not completely sure what I wanted to write about. There are all manner of things spinning around in my head and it's making it difficult to concentrate on any one thing at a time.

 I just can't get in to the book I'm trying to read. A bunch of other crap keeps flaring up and then I'm having to go back half a dozen pages because I can't remember anything I was reading.

 It's annoying.

 I find things going on in the world disturbing. Disturbing to the point where I now avoid them like the plague. There's no way to shut out everything because I have to leave the house and go to work. I can't help but pick up things that amount to big news.

 My very limited perspective indicates that we all hate each-other. Or, rather, we collect into groups then hate each-other as a collective. Sort of like a demented picnic. The thing is, no one really seem to know what it is they're angry about. Just toss in a cliché hand-grenade and suddenly you've got a whole lot of people who are pissed off for some sort of generalized reason they can't logically explain.

 This is bizarre behavior.

 Even more bizarre is that the group of people who are enraged honestly don't think there's anything wrong with it. I'm having difficulty understanding this. Do people enjoy being angry? Is hatred something that makes people feel good? And why do people think that if only other people would change that the world would be a much better place?

 Bizarre doesn't even begin to cover that last one.

 That is never going to happen. It won't happen because the people you hate hate you right back for the very same reason. Where does this begin to make sense? Why doesn't anyone realize they're doing it?

 Why would you think this is a good way to live?

 Just let it go.

 Okay, this is officially a rant.

 Thanks for listening.

Group minds have always terrified me.

Take a perfectly reasonable person, put them in an unreasonable group, and they'll do the most horrifying things.

Ask them why later and they really don't know.

Subsume an individual identity and reason takes a vacation.

09/13/2015

 The mood is erratic.

 On November 9th, 1966 Beatles front-man Paul McCartney, after a loud argument with John Lennon, stormed out of a recording studio, got into his car, and drove away. McCartney, still upset over the argument, failed to notice that a traffic light had changed, drove into an intersection, and was killed in the subsequent accident.

 The band, for reasons which were never adequately explained, hired the winner of a Paul McCartney look-alike contest, spirited him away to an undisclosed location, and spent a year teaching him how to walk, talk, and play like McCartney. No mean feat in that McCartney played left-handed.

 Over the next several years, rumors began to circulate that McCartney had been dead for several years and had been replace with a double. Clues to this mystery could be found on album covers and, by playing selected LP's backward, cryptic messages such as 'Paul is the walrus' and 'turn me on dead-man' could clearly be heard.

 During one of my college communication classes, I listened to a young woman give a 10 minute presentation detailing the mystery and addressing the multitude of clues. She concluded the presentation by showing a cover of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. When held up to a mirror and tilted backward, the words “he died” with an arrow pointing at McCartney could clearly be seen.

 Unfortunately, the presentation did not allow time for questions because the first thing that came to mind was “Why?”.

 Why would The Beatles, their managers, their publicists, their friends, and their family go through all the trouble of covering up McCartney's death, only to leave a multitude of clues undoing all of their work?

 That answer to that question is an easy one; they didn't.

 While McCartney's car was in a traffic accident, McCartney wasn't in it at the time. No one gave it a second thought.

 On September 17th, 1969, the student newspaper of Drake University, Iowa, published an article entitled Is Beatle Paul McCartney Dead? The article cited numerous clues including album artwork and the aforementioned mystery phrases that can be heard when playing certain albums backwards.

 In October of the same year, a caller to a popular Detroit radio show outlined the story and the evidence and the DJ spent the next hour discussing the mystery on the air. A subsequent article published by student Fred LaBour went over the evidence in detail.

 LaBour was shocked to discover that newspapers across the United States picked up the article and ran with it. The reason LaBour was so shocked was because he made up most of the 'evidence' himself. Shortly after the story broke nation-wide, sales of Beatles albums skyrocketed.

 The rumor was eventually laid to rest following a interview with McCartney himself published in the November 7th, 1969 issue of Life Magazine.

 So what's the point of all of this?

 The point is that, even after the 'evidence' was exposed as contrived. Even after it was pointed out just how preposterous the whole story is. After all of this. You will still find those who will swear that the story is true. They will show you the album covers. They will play the secret messages. They will present a mountain of evidence that clearly shows the rumor is true.

 Why?

 Because they -want- the story to be true. They want their belief in a clearly fabricated story to be justified. They're waiting for a death-bed confession that will finally bear out what they've always known to be the truth.

 Ask why everyone involved went through so much to cover up the story, only to undo the whole thing themselves, and you won't get answer. Or, at least, not an answer that makes any sense.

 But put this aside for a moment and ask yourself this question: If The Beatles didn't know about this rumor until 1969, why are there all of these 'clues' available on albums published before the story broke?

 I have two thoughts on the subject.

 First, get a life. Who cares? Why is this even remotely relevant?

 Second, this is probably one of the most effective advertising campaigns in human history. It's absolutely perfect. No one spent a dime on this but sales went through the roof once the 'secret' was out. Just plant a few cryptic messages and a little misleading artwork and people are still snapping up old LP's just so they can hear the 'evidence' for themselves.

 People just don't want to hear the truth when the truth runs counter to everything they've believed until this point. Maybe they don't want to face the fact that they may have been wrong. Maybe they've devoted so much of their lives to the lie that opening their minds to anything else is impossible.

 This isn't about the death of Paul McCartney.

 It's about the -idea- of the death of Paul McCartney.

 And how a lie can circle the earth before the truth has even gotten its shoes on.

 Thanks for listening

Am confused why the YDR dug up the creation problem again.  There's nothing to be gained by writing and rewriting the same trash over and over again. 

09/23/2015

 The mood is light and breezy.

 I feel good. Far less grim. The day didn't start out that way. I woke up feeling like if I encountered another person I'd scream and run away. Or lurch away at whatever speed I might generate.

 Spent a couple of hours sitting quietly. Reading. Getting my thoughts in order. Or at least distracted from the channel they were in. Went in to work at 10:30 or so. Felt much better after sitting with my pod crew.

 Some people discovered, very early in our development, that lead and gold were very similar metals. And that lead was a very common metal. And that gold was a very rare metal and therefore valuable. Someone came up with the idea that there must be a way to alter lead and change it in to gold.

 These people were called alchemists. For centuries they worked and experimented and explored. All with the end gold of turning a base metal into gold.

 This reasoning is defective for two very important reasons.

 First, the difference between lead and gold is molecular, not chemical. The difference is two protons and no amount of chemistry is going to change the number of protons in something.

 Second, if someone did come up with a way to turn lead into gold, gold would become worthless. Just like lead. So I'm wondering if any of the thousands of alchemists in history ever thought of that.

 Curious.

  Gold is a very perplexing thing. It has very little value as a metal. It's too soft and melts easily. It's just shiny play-dough.

 So why is it so valuable?

 I've pondered this a great deal. I've encountered people throughout my life who have a very dim view of the future of society and buy up gold so they have something of value when everything collapses.

 This is also a defective viewpoint. For one very good reason.

 You can't eat gold. If things went down the drain, does anyone honestly believe another person would give you food in exchange for gold? Not likely. If you want to be prepared for the collapse of society, you'd be better off hording potatoes.

 Imagine. The Dow Jones average would have a spud index. Potatoes are trading today at 1 potato to 95 pounds of gold. This makes me laugh for some reason.

 I've been having my ups and downs lately. My relationship with Bad Wendy is pretty much finished. I was left hanging one too many times and something broke. I don't feel what I used to feel. It's just gone. This is not good but it's not bad either. At least it hasn't degenerated into another self-destructive spiral that usually ends in cutting.

 I feel surprisingly good, actually. I spend a great deal of time with Nice Wendy. We have lunch together. On payday Saturday's we go out, have breakfast, or dinner, usually with a little booze, then we go out and spend money. It gets me out of the house and I'm not alone so I'm not worried.

 I've been a little withdrawn on our last few trips. Just wasn't feeling good about anything. When I'm trying to sort out complex feelings I become quiet. It's just the way it happens. Something is taking up all the space in my thoughts so there isn't much room for anything else.

 It's difficult to enjoy things when this is going on. But I think I'm getting past it. I feel much better about the world in general.

 I'm hoping I can start to enjoy being alive again.

 I'm optimistic.

 Thanks for listening.