Especially Relative
Joy at Learning to swim in a sea of relativism
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First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me. -
It seems like many consider memories to be simple recordings of different sensory feeds, recorded perfectly and mechanically on the blank canvas of the brain. But the brain and its underlying mind aren’t a blank canvas. And memories surely do not record perfectly.
Instead, I think that we encode only a small portion of the information and that a memory, as we experience it, actually consists of the interplay of that information and the particular condition of the recording surface.
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Sometimes I think that the goal of enlightenment is to stretch out mania irrevocably. It’s prevalent in Eastern Philosophy for those who enter this altered neurological state to have experienced some sort of traumatic experience beforehand, as in Siddhartha’s realization of death. It makes them doubt the worth of life - or at least the way they think about and do it. Maybe then as people develop towards enlightenment - uncovering progressively greater and deeper truths, lamenting, and then finding the solution with joy - maybe that ends with the ultimate solution, where you can go no deeper, the infinite joy.
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Certain triggers seem to remain constant throughout any sexual being’s life. In males, an example of this could include the large hip to waist ratio of women which evolution has formed into a desire-provoking symbol of fertility. It should be noted, however, that even constant triggers can assume different manifestations. While the ratio stays the same, its numerator and denominator may decrease simultaneously and proportionally, resulting in a preference, as our society has formed, for tiny waists complimenting skinny hips.
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One of the five selections of the Sutta Pitaka, a holy book of Buddhism, speaks of a monk who asked the Buddha the 14 unanswerable questions, among which included inquiries on existence after death and the permanence of the world. The Buddha answered:
“It’s just as if a man were wounded with an arrow thickly smeared with poison. His friends & companions, kinsmen & relatives would provide him with a surgeon, and the man would say, ‘I won’t have this arrow removed until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble warrior, a priest, a merchant, or a worker.’ He would say, ‘I won’t have this arrow removed until I know the given name & clan name of the man who wounded me… until I know whether he was tall, medium, or short… until I know whether he was dark, ruddy-brown, or golden-colored… until I know his home village, town, or city… until I know whether the bow with which I was wounded was a long bow or a crossbow… until I know whether the bowstring with which I was wounded was fiber, bamboo threads, sinew, hemp, or bark… until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was wild or cultivated… until I know whether the feathers of the shaft with which I was wounded were those of a vulture, a stork, a hawk, a peacock, or another bird… until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was bound with the sinew of an ox, a water buffalo, a langur, or a monkey.’ He would say, ‘I won’t have this arrow removed until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was that of a common arrow, a curved arrow, a barbed, a calf-toothed, or an oleander arrow.’ The man would die and those things would still remain unknown to him.”
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In the pursuit of evil, one must step away from good - in the service of good?
When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you.
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To solve the paradoxes of “being” and “non-being”, we established the middle path of “becoming” between eternalism and nihilism. All objects are locked within an infinite regression of causality that makes there independent and isolated existence fallacious. Every object is truly an every-moving action undergoing decay and growth. This is evident because decay is the breakdown of compound objects, relative to a reference frame, and every object is a summation of parts.
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“Would you like some sugar with your coffee?” Hearing my voice, he turned his head to the side and stared at me. Mr. Howerton understood, but he could not formulate a response. Two years ago, a stroke had damaged his temporal lobe and given him Broca’s aphasia.
I could notice Mr. Howerton turning the inquiry over, digesting it like a deep philosophical problem. His brain struggled to find the right sounds, but in the end it produced only a few nonsensical words to answer me. Pretending to understand, I nodded and began walking to the coffee station.
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I try not to make personal posts, but I would like to explain my disappearing for the last few months. The answer.. COLLEGE.
Now that I have poured time, sweat, tears, and other bodily fluids into my college and scholarship applications, I am happy to announce that I will be attending UCLA with a full ride through the Stamps Family Foundation. UCLA has a terrific undergraduate neurology program, so (assuming the possibility of nuclear death by North Korea to be negligible) everything is looking up.
Soon I will be giving the blog a makeover. Right now, I’ll post some of the essays I wrote for college/scholarships. I have also been researching Eastern Philosophy a tad and hope to share some new perspectives and see what you all have to say.
If anyone of you are going to UCLA, hit me up. And no, I am not condoning violence.
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Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish: do not over do it.Ronald Reagan quoting the Dao De Ching
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An alternative name of the Dao De Ching is the Lao Tzu. In ancient Chinese philosophy, books were often named after their writers. Lao Tzu means “the old master”. Legend has immortalized this character. In one story, a man working border patrol stops Lao Tzu as he is emigrated from his state to the west and asks that the great master leave his people with something. Lao Tzu thus quickly writes down the Dao De Ching and continues his journey on a water buffalo. After noticing similarities with Buddhism, some Doaists would later hypothesize that Lao Tzu had emigrated to India and become the Buddha. All of this is not plausible. Actually, ancient Chinese does not distinguish between the plural and singular forms, so there may have actually been multiple authors to the book.
