PhiloPsycho Freedom

As I previously mentioned, I'm afraid of falling into the old habits of overindulging in entertainment. As an article I read asked: are we raising citizens or consumers? Our culture encourages discomfort, dissatisfaction, and the lack of a critical mind. Equipped with this mind set, we are fully prepared to "buy this car to drive to work; drive to work to pay for this car." Even I, someone who likes to think that they regularly embrace in the practice of meta-cognition, have bought into this set and had not fully comprehended the extent of it until I've removed myself as best I can fathom.

The question remains: what should the average person do? Should we buy in and try to claw at the doors of happiness, attempting to bribe the doorman with our selfish, petty, superficial attempts? Far from it. What I'm about to propose has been stated a disgustingly large number of times by a disgustingly large number of people. Educate yourself, question everything - even the mundane -, and challenge those in power. This is disgustingly cliché. It's disgusting that it is cliché. Something of such great insight and power is often met with a shrug, a sigh, and a roll of the eyes for good measure. Some have likened me to a conspiracy theorist (for some reason) for promoting this line of thought. Others have compared me to a teenage anarchist who is protesting, but has no substitution. I reject both, and resent the latter even more. I'm not promoting or rejecting any particular ideas other than activism and apathy, respectively. Take back what is yours, and don't lay down to institutions or people simply because that's the way it's always been done. To end with a quote from Paul Buchheit:

If someone says "that's impossible", you should understand it as "according to my very limited experience and narrow understanding of reality, that's very unlikely"

***

Recently, I've been playing a lot of chess, a game to which I've never been very much into or adept with. As I've begun to understand the game better, I've learned that our first instincts can often be misleading and often detrimental. You took my pawn? I'll take yours! You spited me? How do you like me now! As I've witnessed in myself as well as others, this is often the case. To make a false dichotomy of this, as people will, am I proposing that we completely ignore our instincts? No. What I'm suggesting is that we examine our reactions and initial instincts before getting ahead of ourselves and acting upon them. As Socrates put it:  

The unexamined life is not worth living

A personal example of this is how I used to consistently act with people. I would almost exclusively discuss philosophy, particularly existentialism. For those of you who are familiar with existentialism, you know that this is some heavy shit - shit that most people would rather not discuss on a regular basis. It took me some time of fumbling with my personal relationships before this came to my attention. I was being selfish in my pursuits to understand, and had closed my heart to the other in my everyday exchanges. I was alienating them and being alienated at the same time. In a similar way, we all shut out the other in our daily interactions by relying on our initial instincts. Someone callously made a remark that upset us? Stop and consider their intent, which was likely not to hurt you, and what probable consequences of our actions will arise. Let us attempt at transforming the foreign "other" into a more familiar "fellow".

***

Why is it that upon hearing confusing information, we tend to turn and cock our heads slightly to the side? This appears to be a relatively universal instance of body language that even extends as far as dogs. It's as if we're attempting to physically shake the symbolic into place, or to change how we view the information as we would a physical painting. We could also be attempting to disrupt the flow of confusing facts, trying to slow or stop the stream to allow for deeper processing.

***

It's as if I've been living somewhere else, a sort of vacation, this past week. It's been one of the longest weeks I can remember, but also one of the most productive. I find it very strange that this past week has been spent in the exact same geographical location as I normally am, yet it's had a completely different feel. The only reasons I can think of for this are that my mental location has shifted and I've frequented different parts of the house. What I mean by the "mental location" is that I am normally online, capable of cognitively being anywhere, talking to anyone.  I'd normally have the alternative option of escaping my immediate surroundings by absorbing my consciousness into that of the main character of a movie or video game. This is better and reminds me of an article I read about pot use in high school, written by a high school student named Morgan Macnevin:

Sitting here in class, I find myself wondering why everyone around me is so desperate for an altered perception of reality. As I gaze at my classmates stifling their giggles, checking one another's bloodshot eyes, I wonder if they realize their entire existence depends on that which distracts them from living a real life. (Adbusters #90, volume 18, number 4)

Similarly, I feel we may be doing the same thing with our virtual life. I remember looking at my budgie in his cage who is infatuated with his mirror. No, he's not incredibly vain, but he is under the impression that that's another bird. He spends his days talking to the mirror, hitting it, feeding it, and defending it. His life is entirely a fiction. I remember feeling bad that he was so deceived, then made the leap of seeing my own delusions. It reminds me of Plato's allegory of the cave.

Cheated:

• First contact with a Kindle - had to play around with it.