whatever happened to rites of passage
2002-05-27 - 9:55 a.m.
If you haven�t noticed, I haven�t been posting as much as I used to. Work is draining my thoughts, assembly-lining them off a cliff, or gutting them for use by thoughts concerning work. I shouldn�t even call it work; it�s a lifestyle. Anyway. I haven�t been posting as much, but I typically put the most recent thought in the first paragraph, for reasons of self-history, when I want to re-read this diary and find out what was happening on a particular day. But for this post, I have put the day�s �stuff� at the end of the entry. Because I started out stable, and there�s no reason to cry over spilt milk...but what about spilt tears?
�Paying someone to wash your car is like having someone wipe your ass for you. It�s only for the rich, the incapable, and the occasional weirdo.� �Nemo
This paragraph might seem very. Lucyish. Short and full of periods. Because that�s where my thoughts are, [con?]currently. With people long past, and not quite gone. Playing with trash, just a little thing I found squished in the Wal-Mart (TM) parking lot. They still haven�t repainted the lines in this town, can�t see a spec of white on the road. But that have something to do with the snow melting away only last week; both on the account that it�s hard to paint on snow, and that snow is white. But the trash. It�s a curved piece of plastic that is cracked in two places, so that the middle seems flat. The other two parts fold up and down like wings...the plastic beginnings of an idea for a spaceship. And this makes me wonder, if inventors are incidentally of the forgetful type, or if it�s a necessary part of the equation. Similar to gravity and mass; they go together, but no one�s sure exactly why, and no one can really prove that either exist, in every sense of the word. A barrage of thoughts might cause one to forget, and thus the equation is balanced. But if this is the case, I�ve been forgetting to write my notes lately, because I�ve written very little. And here I was, thinking that I would be the first t to be published. And then, I was, at the age of twelve...but it was kept hush-hush from me, so I guess that doesn�t count. Folding plastic spaceships, I have no clay to make models. Gave all my scetching charcoal away. I�ll just have to create them in paperclips. I live to make games that will never be played. Or is it just a hobby. I will soon know, because there comes a point, in every hobby, in which one become sick of it, and must revert to 3D pictures of chaos. Better yet, dear Archibald, to live in chaos. To be chaos. Is to never be, and be, all at once. And really, it�s not all that confusing. And I say again, though I never said it before. �If there is something that is really, truly random; a thing which is dependant on no other factor whatsoever, I will call that thing God. But until the point that the existence of such a something can be proven, I shall stand fast to me thoughts that our reality is a static, but certainly unpredictably static, reality, and nothing more.� Everything exists, in chaos. Such a crowded void of nothingness.
�I never knew a kid who had mowed too many lawns; on the other hand, I never knew a person who had become an adult through �landscaping� alone.� �Nemo
Likewise, this paragraph may seem...more becky-ized (becky from college); elipses and sentences running-on, and ...So there was this guy...and there was this girl...I�m making this up as I go along...if ya kouldn�t tell. So this guy met this girl...and one day, she just forgot that he existed. This was all well and fine...the guy went out and found another girl...but she soon forgot of his existence too. So there was a fourth girl, and a fifth girl...oh yea, and of course a third girl before them. And they all forgot that this guy existed, even though he was right *there*. And then one day, the guy took a long, I mean a real long look at himself in the mirror. He never used mirrors, didn�t like the type of mirror-looker he thought he would become if he looked at himself a mirror every day...but of course, this made him seem vain as well...so he�s looking in the mirror, and he sees himself...and gradually, he doesn�t. He just isn�t in the mirror anymore. All he can see is his eyes, but it�s like they�re glued to a piece of cardboard...like a painting that would have been called �Grey Eyes on White�. Simple name for a simple painting. As his eyes faded out of the picture, he realized that he never really did exist, in this new definition of the word.
Revelation: I love this country. Rather, Luther loves this country, and I have become Luther [again]. Perhaps it is human nature to become the people who fixx us. The term �fixx� itself is up to definition, as is everything. I love the English language.
Been doubting work lately. Rather, doubting myself at work. I just seem to bungle around all day and not do anything right. No, I can�t legally drive. No, I have never really �washed a car� in the actual sense of the words. Not a black one anyways, not on a sub-boiling day without shade. No, I don�t know what all the snifty gadgets on this car do, and yes, I find the automatic door locks very entertaining. No, ties are not my thing...actually, I learned how to tie one just before the funeral we had this evening, and before that, if you had noticed, I was coming to work with my tie already tied, in my pocket. No, I can�t remember names, and yes, I forgot what you just said. Sometimes, to make myself feel better, I runn off a list of swears, and spend the next five minutes seriously pondering if I have just said them out loud or not, because I honestly have forgotten. And finally, no; I�m not entirely sure that this is what I want to do with my life. It doesn�t really seem all that bad, the funeral business. People are alright, and after all, it�s hard to find top-notch people in masse in any field (by definition?).
Micth, as always, is completely right. The behavioral/environmental artificial intelligence just can�t work. Behaviorism, as a psychology, defeats itself, although it works (arguably well) in practice. The very principle on which it is founded (the search for a purely scientific, statistical analysis of universal processes) is rubbed out by the scientist�s use of the language to describe the behaviors that they�re trying to observe. The observer sees the {delta}that is desired, rather than the alteration to other behaviors, infinite behaviors, many of which we haven�t or can�t even give a name to. And therefore, behaviorism has been thrown in the �philosophy� box of my noggin as well. The answer, my friend, lies in quantum physics. The replication (because duplication would be impossible) of chemical processes to the macroscopic level of say...the atom. But until we have mapped every map of a map of human atoms (which, of course, is impossible, to map one for any single pin-point in time) we will never know if it is possible. And then, of course, once you created it in a representative atomic form, the AI would need a place to play; something to interact with. And of course, it would be impossible to run such an intricate programme on any computer. Oh, the impossibilities.
Cried today. �Tony, I went into work today, wasn�t really sure if I was supposed to be working this Monday or not. Umm, no one was there so I just started cleaning up, but the central vac wasn�t working, and the little red one had gone missing, so I got that other white vacuum from out back, and it sort of blew up...started smoking. So the area in front of the chapel smells like shit, and I didn�t know what to do about it, I put the vacuum behind the dumpster out front. I just, I need to talk to you, maybe Wednesday...I just can�t seem to so anything right, and I don�t feel like I�m doing your business any good, and I don�t feel like I�m doing myself any good. It�s not like I�m gonna drop out of college because I couldn�t vacuum a fuckin� floor, but...well, I�ll talk to you on Wednesday.� Lying down. One came down the right side of the mountain, another followed close behind. The third faked right, but struck a new trail on the left. One more on the right, curling around my earlobe, and one more on the left, missing my ear completely. Six sulfur tears.
Amendum: Of course, it wasn�t about the vacuum, never was. I�m just miserable in this town. And Mitch was right about this, too.
