It's Been Done

Those who judge are right
about only those who stop
and waste time judging.

We have memory
a record of what we’ve thought
so we can focus.

Teachers must possess
a passion for the future
a better world.

Subtlety is plain
simplicity its focus
all are not in one.

Attention starving
the words made to fit the real
the records all false.

Self referential
irony in awareness
and missing the point.

I can see you down
conforming to a level
below the aware.

Forced recordings
conceptually opposite
compared to nothing.

Debts are not private
choose to repay someone else
paying it forward.

All things rearranged
never again how they were
do we lack something?

Fitting in a form
forward our path is chosen
limited communication.

During the process
our thoughts changed to surround it
no longer our own.

Similarities
dismissed and few exploited
personal limits.

Built from other things
we are all made powerful
limits self defined.

I think those first fourteen go together. I think that these next three don't go with them, but I'm not sure. I wrote them around the same time but about specific things. Also, while typing them up, the one change I seriously considered was: "limited communication." to "such limited communication." But I think the count is obviously broken how it is and doesn't need me measuring the extent to which it is limited.

Knowledge in pocket
it’s encrypted socially
its contents removed.

We choose not to see
past the level we limit
ourselves to observe.

I’m going for it
I’ll take the convenient steps
and I will look back.

Well, that's that.
Peace -- Mike

I am

I want to listen to people talk about what matters to them and to me. Talk about what they think things should be like. Almost in the form of a conversation wherein one party ends up doing all the talking. This happened to me recently twice. A couple days ago I was walking to school and this ~55yr old, by chance of timing, ended up walking almost next to each other. He opened by asking if I was on my way to class and what I was studying. But, I think after it became clear I was not trying to get rid of him, he just started talking. Still about relevant things, each building off of the last, beginning from his graduation at Mines in 1970-something. It wasn’t quite him monologue-ing, there were intermittent questions that I thought I gave thoughtful enough answers to. By the Golden library we ended up going different ways.

The second time was last night. The two people I was with had a slow-going dialogue that covered a variety of topics. This was very different from the first in that whenever they were talking I felt eager to speak my mind and have their attention focused on me. However, when they naturally finished with what they had to say I no longer felt that I needed to say anything. It went back and forth between them for hours and I rarely entered to speak my mind. The times I did I felt that I was merely grabbing for attention. This happened under a few other circumstances last night. While I was “pacing” around I often felt that I wanted attention. I acted on this a few times and got all giggly when I thought their focus was on me.

The first event really reminded me of the movie ‘Waking Life’. After watching it I really want my life to be like that. I want to listen to people talk about what matters to them; the first sentence revisited. I want to learn new things and think in new ways. I strongly agree with lots of the themes in that movie with one notable exception (not noted here). It’s really hard to describe but the first couple times I watched it, it was a perfect metaphor for my life. I relate to the main character with the small exception that I know I’m still alive and aware. I think I’ve changed in a few ways since watching the movie but it’s pretty unlikely they can all be attributed to it. I occasionally listen to NPR now, read the Wall Street Journal, walk to school earlier than usual / alone, eat lunch at Burger King (I don’t think this is as irrelevant as it seems at first glance), listen to Pandora, and talk to people, almost to the extent of opening up to them.

I know that I dreamed before watching the movie and I guess I can recall some of them. But it really seems that after the movie I remember them differently, at least for a few seconds after waking up, I can also remember having very specific, real, and appropriate feeling within dreams recently. As soon as I woke up once, I focused on what I had felt in the dream and realized that I had been completely myself. I doubted things, thought about things that weren’t immediately happening, and expressed emotions like empathy within the dream. So I think now that I’ve felt or could feel anything in a dream with the possible exception of an undisputed knowledge that I’m awake.

While awake it seems obvious to me that I am awake. After an unusual event, I may be brought into question whether or not I’m dreaming but soon I just know that I’m obviously awake. There’s some fundamental test I do in my head and I know I’m awake without dispute.

So, that’s the only thing that I’m not sure I can feel in a dream.

Also, last night and in the movie, the topic of lucid dreaming was / is discussed in some detail. However, I haven’t had a lucid dream in years. Back in the day when I realized I was dreaming, I could control things for a bit but I would always wake up before I wanted to.

Peace -- Mike

The Meaning of My Life

Maybe all life has the same meaning, maybe not

The meaning of life is threefold, to: live, love, and learn.

The meaning of these words is likely similar but not exactly the same for everyone.
I, of course, have my own interpretations which I might go into later.

So, that's the meaning of life... there it is... right there. The search is over.

But I realized that I was not satisfied with the meaning of life. So I knew it... so what?
So what? So what should I do with my life?

The answer to that is also easily stated. I'm not sure people are looking for the meaning of life when they ask about it. I wanted something that I could say was a life goal.
I want to do a couple of things in my life.
Work hard, and make some money. Not even so I'll have the money later, as if I were building up a fund to pay for my future actual living of life. But just as its own thing... I want to work and I want some cash-money-dollar-bill-ya'll in the bank.
Explore space. I guess when I look at the earth and all the things we're doing, space exploration is something that should be done. And I would like to help.
The other thing that mankind is doing that I feel should be done is helping others. I want to put effort into teaching, providing necessities, and improving life for those who want those things.

I have the nagging feeling that everything I'm typing really doesn't express what I'm thinking. Like, I can think something, for example writing about the meaning of life. But I move on and away from that. I have to force myself to come back to it and assign words to put into notepad.
Like, I'm writing this so it's recorded. And if I didn't write it, it would be lost when I moved on to lunch.... mmm lunch. Not like the overall topic would be lost but these exact words I'm using to describe what I'm thinking. Because they're only temporary, once I've dedicated thought into typing and expressing what I'm thinking the words no longer are exactly right. They're just a close approximation made after the fact and because I've decided to type them the next thing that I would have thought about was lost. So, I either record nothing and just wander around in my mind without stopping, then lose it all, or record it knowing that any reader, self included, will never be where I was in my head.

Ignoring that last paragraph, working hard is something I want to do in my life. I don't really care about the money, but that's how I choose to express my desire to work hard, is by saying that I want to be the best at my job and make money because I work hard.

So, future self... here is what I should do.
Work to further the human understanding. Space if I feel like it, but anything will do.
Make the world a better place for those who want it better.

Peace -- Mike