nothing in particular

it's been awhile since my last update...

is kind of a meta statement--too self-referential to be really meaningful.

so that's not how i will open this post
I can't believe I'm leaving Paris so soon--1.5 weeks, and I'm back in NYC, back in school, in a world so totally different from the one I now inhabit that i can barely comprehend it. Change is an interesting thing--sometimes we yearn for it, want nothing more than a change of scenery, are totally ready to plow into the unknown and experience something completely different, no matter what it may bring. Other times, like scared children, we cling to the present, or the past, unwilling to release the bird in our grip for the potential two in the brush.

Change is the genesis of transformation.

The only real question is, "are you ready?"

And the answer, as always, is elusive.

__________

All of my friends went on vacation at pretty much the same time, leaving me in a bit of a difficult spot. A social person, I feel somehow empty inside--maybe the word is lonely--when i don't have others around to share my experience with. Being suddenly without the group of friends I hang out with primarily makes me feel somewhat confused. Too often, my entire identity is defined by how other's perceive me. WIthout that mirror to hold myself up to, without others to communicate with, it's almost as if I don't really exist at all...

Of course that's not literally true. I continue to think, to be, even to strive. But when the meaning my actions contain is only the meaning I assign to them, it's as if the cup is half empty.

If hell is merely other people, then heaven is, too.

__________

I went out tonight with Chris, a friend I met recently, and who just moved to Paris 13 days ago. He's trying to get a job, but the French code makes it very difficult for a non-EU worker to get a work visa, so he might have to move back to Berlin if he can't find an employer who's willing to help him get one. We got a couple beers and talked Philosophy while sitting in the courtyard outside of the Centre George Pompidou, then went to an Irish pub for a couple pints of Guiness.

I spoke English with someone for a change, and got into topics so abstract that they are really impossible to communicate in a language one isn't fluent in. I found it refreshing to have an intellectual conversation with another person who was just engaged in it as I was. It's always a recurring theme for me--the best times I can remember all involve one other person, and an infinite number of ridiculous tangents going off into no-one-knows-where, in-depth examination of the very world in which we immerse ourselves. Thinking back, it makes me nostalgic for similar times I've shared with friends in the past.

__________

Well, this has turned into a bit of a silly post, with lots of nonsensical introspection and not much content.

Cheers.

And now for something completely different

And now some pseudo-iambic not-quite-pentameter:

the truth i'm told is vast beyond belief
the lies inside revealed as caused by grief

____
attempts are made in passive voice yet loud
the active ones are nothing but a whisper
belonging to the friends above the fray
attempts are made by them to end delay

____
astride the fence the straddler waits 'til dawn
it never comes he waits and waits too long
he never knew which side to pick before
astride the fence the straddler hears no more
----

along the path i walk and then i wander
between the trees i weave and weave again
the thread i braid displays the road i took
it's all right there; you only have to look

a look inside reveals a mind unseen
seeing itself reflected in the world
it knows its thoughts and nothing else
it knows it knows yet doesn't know what that means

_________
harmonic strings vibrate in tune
free sounds trapped within
contrasting with lasting mementos
emerging from nothing like water
---------

it's never too late to change your entire outlook
the mistakes you made have no bearing on the now
the life you lead is determined by what you do
the sun in your sky must never be covered by cloud

----
constrained by the fire without
and fueled by the fire within
if you turn on your light, it will get outside eventually
potentially.
random walk through the inner density
flowing in intermittent leaps
pause go pause
go
-----

observing those one knows one cannot change
one know they are solely self-arranged
one sees and hears the movements of their mind
but never sees their underlying light

light light light
fire fire fire
redundant repetitive rethought renewed

a single leaf a single branch a tree
a lonely mountain sitting by the sea
the midday sun illluminates the scene
reflecting all the colors red blue green

shadow forms and manifests a whole
its body still and hidden from the world
the night's faint stars and moon do not dispel
the blinding darkness filling the infinite shell

a million independent shreds
are joined to spark a flame inside my head
disconnected and fluid and whole
they define
experience

continued presence
a mind unblocked by its pain
eternity now

I'm here to kick ass and chew gum. Fortunately, I've still got lots of gum.

Sacre-Coeur, 23 June 2007.

_______

I've been writing a lot more lately, and its making me feel very nostalgic about the website I put up when I was at Wasatch Academy. It feels good to be writing, kind of cathartic. Just putting something onto the screen is somehow liberating.

Enough about that: I'm heading back to OR for Felice, my sister's, wedding in eight hours, and I'm pretty excited to go back to the states for a bit. Even better is the fact that I'll have a few days of vacation, something that hasn't happened since Spring Break. At the end of the school year, I finished the writing competitionon a Thursday, packed up my apartment and flew out on Friday, arrived in Paris Saturday evening, and started work on Monday at 8am. Been going strong since. Needless to say, I'll be glad for the break.

Also very cool, I'll get to see a few people who I haven't for ages when I stay in Portland for a couple nights.

Right now, I'm contemplating an all nighter. It's 4am in Paris now, and my flight leaves at 12:55.pm If I go to sleep when I get to my seat, it will be 4am in Oregon. I can sleep for 7 or so hours, then wake up 3/4 of the way through the flight to Houston, at about 11am, OR time. Then, if I land in OR and don't go to bed until midnight or so, I should be able to get a full night's sleep and wake up without any jetlag. We'll see if it works.

Gotta finish up my packing, so I suppose I'll do that when I'm finished with this post. I'm stoked to be going back to Oregon for a while.

______________

And now, some pseudo-political nonsense:

On the Need for Marijuana Law Reform

The United States prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s and early 1930s resulted in large economic and social costs to the country at large. There were two primary effects of that prohibitions which severely undermined the American economy:

1) A vast amount of taxable income went unreported. As a result, it was not collected. This reduced operating revenue for the Federal and state governments.

2) The organized crime associated with bootlegging caused its own set of losses: First, there were significant policing costs--having to enforce prohibition meant diverting cops to that task and taking them off the street and preventing violent crimes. Further, the criminal organizations responsible for the majority of the bootlegging also perpetrated a variety of additional crimes which both increased the policing requirement(and further reduced funds and manpower available for other tasks) and came at a very high social cost as well.

The prohibition of marijuana is fundamentally similar to prior prohibitions of alcohol. There are related ideological roots and legal precedents. And there are similar associated costs, both economic and social.

Repealing current Federal marijuana laws would have the following beneficial effects:

1) It will allow states to decide how to regulate sales of marijuana, including complete bans if they wish. Allowing states to act as 'laboratories of government,' and try out new policies to determine their effects, the best solutions will eventually emerge. Further, by allowing states to determine whether or not to allow the drug, American citizens will be given better opportunities to live in areas with laws they agree with, thus maximizing choice in what kinds of places they want to live.

2) By heavily taxing marijuana, the Federal government could create a significant revenue source. This is money that could be used for pressing national concerns: education, healthcare, scientific research(from NASA to the National Insitutes of Health to the National Science Foundation), and other badly needed social services.

3) We could free valuable Federal police manpower to deal with more pressing national security needs. This would result in a significant boost to the effort in the war on terror. Further, by legalizing marijuana and allowing it to be sold and grown legitimately, we would take away a major source of funding from the criminal organizations(terrorist or otherwise) that profit from the marijuana prohibition.

The war on drugs has come at a significant cost to our country. Countless individuals have been jailed or otherwise severely penalized for growing marijuana and selling it. The systemic costs of supporting an overcrowded jail system full of non-violent offenders are a drain on resources badly needed elsewhere. We must repeal Federal marijuana laws, allow states to choose whether to proscribe or simply enforce age limits, and we must tax it, turning it from a resource-drain into a source of revenue.
______________

And now a random rant:

The stupid bitch of the week award goes to....
The Checkout Lady in the Express Lane of the Monoprix on Rue de Courcelles

Having never even heard the word efficiency(or, for that matter, efficacité), it's no surprise that this stupid bitch was totally inept. All the other lines were flying by--people with baskets full of groceries were moving far quicker than the sad few in the express line. But I stayed there, thinking that the short line in front of me would soon end. But it was interminable.

There were 3 people in front of me when I got in line. It took the checkout lady 10 minutes to get through the first two. At least three of her coworkers came and talked to her while she worked. And she had to stop everything to respond. She wasn't scanning or making change while they spoke to her--the act of speaking exhausted her mental resources. I inched closer. The line grew longer behind me. The woman ahead of me had 8 items, which she put onto the conveyer. The idiotic checkout lady scanned one at a time, very slowly, putting down the scanning gun between each item as she grabbed the next. Not only was she completely unable to multitask, she even lacked the ability to process single threads at any decent rate. I was the next in line. After the stupid bitch of the week spent 4 minutes checking out a woman paying cash for less than 10 items, I stepped up. I put down my single bottle of wine, and prepared to pay. I'm not going to go into the mind-numbing boringness of standing there: suffice it to say, it was just more of the same. How it could take her 3 minutes to complete the transaction, I will never understand.

Granted, 17 minutes isn't a lot of time, but having to waste it standing in line just because she was too retarded to do her insanely simple job really pisses me off.

I'm not bitter. I just think she should be fired. And possibly imprisoned.

______________

And now, a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:


Tie Fighter: |-o-|
Advanced Tie Fighter: (-0-)
Tie Bomber: (-o-0-)
Darth Vader's Tie Fighter: <-o->

X-Wing: >=[^]=<
Y-Wing: Y (lol)

Light Saber: =*========[&/&:::::]
Doubled-edged light saber: =*=======[:::::&*&::]=======+=

@-_-@ Princess Leia

A Nice Little Bit of Sophistry(From a burned out law student)

This sentence is a lie.

I'll use the following definitions:

TRUTH--Binary 1. Correct as a proposition. Exists.

FALSE--Binary 0. Can be stated as NOT. Negation.
LIE--Opposite of TRUTH. Is the conjunction of mathematical falsity(FALSE) and propositional correctness, i.e. NOT TRUTH.

Beginning from the sentence's internal logic: If the sentence is a LIE, then we can infer that "it is FALSE that it is TRUTH". We rewrite the sentence as: "This sentence is NOT TRUTH" or "This sentence is FALSE".

As the sentence states it is a LIE, but is NOT TRUTH and FALSE*, we can clearly negative it to get a TRUTH, since the opposite of a LIE is TRUTH, and negativing creates an opposite. Negativing "This sentence is a lie," we get "This sentence is a TRUTH."

Since the sentence states that it is a LIE, or the opposite of the TRUTH, the sentence is externally seen to be FALSE as a proposition.

To be FALSE as a proposition is to be the opposite of TRUTH, or a lie. So, we can say with some certainty that it is TRUTH that the sentence is a LIE.

The sentence states that it is a LIE.

Thus, the sentence is TRUTH.

Stop.