a bedtime story for lindsay
2010-02-11 - 1:47 p.m.
"...and so ended the case of toadstool versus the society of mentally attractive human beings, which set the precedent that all human beings should hitherfoward be converted into large talking mushrooms, for their own good, and the first rebel party, who were incidently all itallian, retreated to a system of underground pipes to avoid the political fallout, and upon emerging, realized that jumping had become a rare skill..." -Annonymous
after traveling for some time in the company of scholars, to whom Dumbass was contracted to while in the part-time employ of the Red Cross, he received a note. the text of which was rather garbled because the pigeon had eaten half of it. nevertheless, Dumbass headed off toward the direction and time that he believed the note indicated, knowing not what he would find. On the way, Dumbass left the main road to respond to the call of what he believed to be a damsel in distress. But when he arrived at the based of the tower which imprisoned the damsel, he found six other knights were already on the job. Declining to join the festivities, Dumbass continued on his way, and eventually became lost. and so it was he happened on a bridge, guarded by a dark knight. he hailed the guardian in the typical manner, "sir knight, i must pass, for why, i have no reason, if only to continue being lost, but certainly if you do not step asside and have tea with me, we will surely battle to the death, if you so please, yaddayadda", but as the dark knight approached, Dumbass became aware that this was not your typical knight. the knight weilded a spear, which was a weapon that had not been in style for several years. but the knight was also oddly short, for a knight, so the range of the spear might have been compensating for some range lost due to arm length, and this knight moved with an errie sort of grace and balance, that entertained the thought that the knight might not be there at all... as Dumbass pondered about the origins of this knight, and the fact that he only had a pen to fight with (the pen being a weapon which was universally thought of to be more powerful than a sword), he retracted his challenge and broke out the tea set. thus began an intense game of riddles, which lasted almost one round before Dumbass was proven to be the less wittier of the two. although he was used to losing, Dumbass was not used to being unaware of the identity of his better, and so he implored for the dark knight to be revealed to him. as she removed her helmet, locks of dark red curls...mostly stayed where they were, in a shape befitting to the inside of her helmet. her eyes, however, were unforgettable. in a time long lost to childhood memories, Dumbass had chatted with this girl on several long carraige rides. she was a dancer and an artist, and rather pragmatic as poets go. as a knight, she was now in the employ of a group of magic-wielding knights, who trained mostly for sport, with a much larger variety of weapons (their crest resembled a tiger and a dragon, each chasing the other, and so i will refer to them here as the Knights of Tigon). her concentration was to be in healing magics, much like Dumbass had studied healing practices for the Red Cross. this was not a girl in front of him. this was not a damsel in distress. as the gravity of the situation washed over him, he came to realize what a rare event he was partaken in. before him was a woman, a complete evolution of the feminine specimen, whom didnt seem crazy in the least (as many monsterous manuals will lead you to believe). this was akin, in statistical terms, to finding a unicorn with three horns, or a dragon that sneezed daffodils, or a cloud at the bottom of the ocean... and the dark knight took pity on him, for statisticing in such painful detail, and brought him back to her tent, where they related glorious stories to each other, of battles lost and badges won. she explained, for example, how she had managed to trap and slay a dragon called Cherricola in an oversized tavern called Ryghtayde. But most importantly they talked of one thing: how odd it was, that after so many years, their paths should cross, taking into acount how parrallel their paths seemed. and so it was concluded, rather factoidishly, that they were destined to travel together, although for the short term their duties required them to be apart. plans were laid, such that in a couple years time, their duties as knights would coincide to allow them to be together on a more indefinate basis. and suddenly Dumbass didnt feel like such a Dumbass, after all. enter Lindsay.
the theory of big bubbles. there are two sizes of bubbles: tiny and composite. the composite bubbles are actually just small bubbles superimposed on one another such that their surface area, when combined, is less than the sum of seperate bubbles. the conjoined bubbles are not neccessarily spherical, because the only way for a tiny bubble to leave a composite bubble is for the tiny buble to enter the composite bubble with enough velocity to break through the surface tension on the inside of the composite. thus, bubbles dont really collide, so much as conjoin, and the same can be said of droplets.
"there is no action of man which is not deserving of an epic tale." -Annonymous
the theory of goodness. on a previous entry, i covered the 13 motivations of man, and how man generally expends effort to attain contentedness or avoid restlessness. Lindsay pointed out something which should have been obvious, but wasn't at all. a good man is one which seeks not to reduce restlessness only for himself, but also for the society in which he lives. his goodness is proportional to the number of persons in said society. it is the direction of his actions, and not the actions themselves which can be termed good or bad. this is the part of skinner's theory that was missing. groundbreaking.
Sir#1: contrarywise, it is only the shizotypical man that can have a grip on reality. only the fish that jumps out of the water can know the meaning of water.
there is a holiday in the United States that i hadnt really known about until this year. its called black friday, and it takes place the day after thanksgiving. the festivitous events include driving intoxicated, driving while eating leftover turkey, setting up tents in mall parkinglots (note that if you did this any other day of the year you would be arrested), trampling, pushing, and gernerally being violent to other people in order to achieve superiority over other consumers in order to get as much "stuff" as you can carry. its sort of like training for stockpiling for a natural dissaster, but instead of fighting over bottled water, adults are fighting over a used XBOX360 title, with pre-teens.I hoped to attend this year but simply forgot to go.
some kids want to be astronauts when they grow up, and as they grow up, they realize how impractical it would be, if 10% of the population was astronauts. eventually they stop reaching for the stars and settle for something more...practical. but me, i always wanted to be a mad scientist.
"i knew you for what you were, for honest man laughs loudly." -Annonnymous
in a previous entry, i attempted to catalogue my thoughts on God. i will now attempt to write my current understanding of my own beliefs on religion...
my father has a theory, that men create gods. that the existence of a god is a sliding scale, directly related to the amount that laypersons believe in the god. i thought it was rubbish, since at the time, i hadnt developed my definition of honour yet. honour, in light of this theory, could also be a connection to a godly existence, the �something more�.
god: is irrelavant, in a discussion concerning only religion. "god" is a word of the "stomach". it caters to the material needs of certain persons that understand very little, to control their actions and to excuse the the actions of others.
ritual: a practice which increases spiritual energy via signifficance/attentiion and aids in communion
communion: a sharing, or a process by which two individuals cease to be individuals, by running on similar wavelengths
baptism: a process of being exposed to a initiating element or activity. through experience, one may gain greater understanding which cannot be gained from communion with other individuals.
cross: in the context of this journal, it is a symbol of a particular achievement of an individual. in this journal, i have mentioned the tin cross (completion of army training), red cross (completion of basic medical training), gold (completion of high school), and platnium crosses.
understanding: "why does a flower grow toward the sun?" because that is what it is built to do. similarly, one can ask "why does a human persue greater understanding?" becasue that is what we are built to do. understanding, not fear, is the core of any decent religion.
and finnally, i will post the "Assimilation of Truth" here, as it originally appeared on facebook, so i can get back to the idea later, that everything that seems untrue, has some special exception, when given a certain environment, can be shown to be true. The first step of the un-logic process ...
i believe in gravity, but i also believe that 5 ton hunks of metal can fly. (the conposition of truths as accomplished by a greater understanding)...
in the process of learning truth, one often comes upon truths which seem contradictory, given only the limited information that is known. for each contradiction, there are three options: the dim-witted man thinks that becasue two truths are contradictions of each other, only one must be true and the other false. the narrow-minded man comes to the conclusion that both must be false, until other information proves otherwise. but what then, if more information is gained that proves that both statements are true? then the narrow-minded man is at a loss. the enlightened man realizes that both statements can be true, it is only the limitation of information already known that causes the contradiction. if the whole universe of information were known, and by the very definition of unlimited knowledge, there would be contradictions to cite (there would only be the possibility of a contradiction as a concept, but no concept would actually exist, which is in itself a contradiction, but this is a contradiction only because our knowledge of unlimited knowledge is limited).
- paraphrased from "the assimilation of truth", as yet unwritten
"When I behold that dull yellowish green I wonder if my own soul is not a bright invisible green. I would fain lay my eye side by side with its- and learn of it."
- Henry David Thoreau
people have written their master's thesis, on such a poetic sentence. the condratiction (which Thoreau refers to as early as June 11, 1840) of something which is both invisible and green (let alone bright), confounds the reader, who obviously has limited knowledge. i would pose then, that Thoreau's poetic mechanic, in this poem, deals directly with the limitation of human knowledge, and how it eventually leads to understanding. the context has been left out. what is the thing, which is dull yellowish green? this is unclear, so we must assume that he talks of the color itself, as whenever he sees this particular color, he is reminded of something. what is he reminded of? of the question: does my own soul invisible green? and if it does, i would gladly "lay my eye side by side with its- and learn of it"...in reference to his previous works, the word "eye" here is used as an example of a "naked perceptive equipment", and so it refers to any sort of passive perception, at the mercy of the information it gathers. now what happens when you lay two "naked perceptive equipment"s side by side? well, they are at the mercy of one another. an image is conjured (in my own mind at least) of the concept of facing two mirrors toward each other. if we peek between the mirrors, so that some light filters in, we can see an endless cycle of reflections of the light, off to infinity. we may restate this action thus: "to exchange, ad nauseum".
but there still exists the contradiction, what does it mean to be invisible and yet also green? how can one perceive a color that is invisible? here is where the additional information comes in, the context in which both the statements are true. consider the game, Lineage 2. in this game, players take the form of "avatars". an avatar is, in this context, an incarnation of a player's personality, with which they interact with other players vicariously through their own avatars. so how is this different from a soul? quite simply, an avatar is a simple canvas on which a soul can exist, an embodiment or form for a soul. what does it mean for a soul to be green? in our context, it is the same as saying the avatar of the soul is green. in the game of Lineage 2, there are green avatars, more commonly known as orcs. the Game Masters of the game, who typicially have orcs as their mains, have the ability to go invisible. thats all well and good, but what about the segmented sentence? why the hyphen after its? as a possesive pronoun, "its" will refers back to the original subject of the sentence, UNLESS it is a direct object. with a little bit more information about the context in which we are reading this peom, we will realize that "its" can be a noun (and thus a direct object), as an abbreviation of Information Technology Services. now note that "bright" can mean shiny, luminous, or inteligent, and read it again.
when i see that color green, it makes me wonder if my own avatar could not be a intelligent GM. [if it were,] i would glady take a moment to exchange, ad nauseum, with Information Technology Services, so that i may learn of Information Technology. [which implies that the GM team doesnt know enough about computers??]
conclusion: Henry David Thoreau was the original Lineage 2 forum troll.
