Everything.
Ya’know?
Yeah, I mean it. Everything, life, love God the universe and our place in it.
This is really weird, and really cool.
Also, I assure you, I am not high. At least I hope I am not because it would really stink to have thought that you finally figured all of the answers to all of the big questions. I mean, really. Could there be a bigger let down? Well, maybe. The great thing about life is that it is never so bad that it can’t get worse.
Oddly enough it all really started falling together when I realized what a vile bitch Ayn Rand was. However, she was also very smart and had gotten closer then any one before.
What is to follow is going to often sound like a bunch of new-age hippy bullshit. For that I am sorry because I really hate hippies. They are a bunch of lazy, dirty moochers that take without adding and need to use drugs to give them a false of rightness.
Anyway, back to the point.
But before that. I am posting this (the rough draft and first part) because I want to make sure I am right. I am not sure and I want you folks to look it over (what little their currently is) and tell me if I forgot to carry the one and stuff. Please, please don’t start reading this with the mindframe of “wow, Ryan has finally fried his noodle. Let’s sit back and watch what happens”. If you have to, pretend that some stuffy, old, English proffesor type with a bushy mustache, delicate gold glasses and a pipe. Just, please, give it a chance and tell me if I am wrong, which I am fairly certain I might be. I plan on writting more soon.
I should start out with the biggie, “The Meaning of Life”. Yup there is one. Well, the question might be a bit off. It is better to say “The Point of Life”.
And it is……
(Drum roll)…….
Budabudabudabuda….
The curtain quickly draws back and we find:
The Cultivation of Mind!
BA DA!!!
That is it. Sorry if it seems a bit curt, but that is the best way to sum it up.
When I say mind, I mean awareness, that you are capable of saying “My name is Bob. I like this and do not like that. I will now go do this so I can accomplish that”.
Mainly, the point is that we are creatures that are aware of our selves, of all the stuff around us and that that stuff can be mixed and worked together so that new stuff is created that makes it possible to create or do other really cool, useful and fun stuff that otherwise would not be possible.
It is only mind that can realize this and therefore there can only be good created in relationship to this.
Now you may say “Ryan, but what about then sunlight that falls on a flower? Is that not good for the flower? It makes it so it can live, grow and exist?”
Yeah, but the flower is pointless.
You may as well say that it is good that a rock hit another rock allowing it to roll down a road.
Then you might reply “But Ryan, that is different, that has no point. A rock rolled down a road, of what good is that? A flower is not pointless it makes neat and pretty things like color and fragrance that we can enjoy.”
You are right
But the flower only gained only gained its significance by the fact that it provided what we, creatures of mind, value: pretty colors, fragrances and such. Without a mind to experience and appreciate the flower, it may as well have never happened… It is like the old, clichéd and famous Zen Buddhist koan:
The answer?
Sure as hell does.
Eeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrr CRASH!
And if it fell on some unlucky little forest creature there will very likely be much screaming until the poor bugger finally goes on to meet its maker.
However, the real point is, does the sound that no mind heard matter?
Nope.
It may as well not have happened. It did not really affect any thing meaningful (unless, of course, that whole “butterfly flaps its wings in Tokyo and six months later New Orleans is destroyed. Filthy Jap moth bastards.)
It only matters it only matters if it experienced by a creature of mind.
You might respond, “So what if New Orleans or that flower from a while back do not have mind. It still affects them.
Yes it does, but without mind it does not matter. It is no different from a random piece of sand colliding with another on the beach of a world a billion miles away. If there is no mind to experience it, to make something of it, it may as well not have happened.
“So, what? You think that you are better than me?”
I am sure that everyone has heard that at some point, and history is full of horrible, horrible examples. (and I use the word “horrible” literally because those thoughts and actions were an infinitely deep, dark horror). The biggie of the 20’th century, the Nazis proclaiming that they were “better” than, well… not just the Jews ( even though they were supposed to the lowest of the low) but everyone. Now this blond haired blue eyed writer does like to occasionally fantasize that he is superior to just about every one in every way, but a superiority based on those slim genetic factors would fail to explain why Asian chicks are so hot. All forms of irrational prejudice are as such, whether it be racism, sexism, hate between cultures and hate towards homosexuals.
Note also that I said “irrational prejudice”. Prejudice is a good and fine without with we could not function (except, maybe and unlikely, if we are luckily enough to randomly choose the correct item or action every time).
You are, and should be, prejudiced, against lots of things. If I offered you two plates on which was placed two steaks, one cooked to perfection, the other raw and rotted to such a vile point that it is almost unrecognizable, you would rightly be prejudiced against the rotten and for the fresh. I know that there are some folks out there who actually like the sort of rotten meat thing (weird and freaky “gourmand” types), well, I do not care what you think, there is some thing wrong with you.
In the last century many people became confused about what it means to be prejudiced. They started saying that all prejudice is wrong, that you only think it is wrong because you see things and live in a different perspective, therefore no one can really say what is good, bad, right, wrong, true, false.
This is also a mistake.
It is true that we all have different perspectives on how to each and what is good, bad, right, wrong, true, false, but that good, bad, right, wrong, true, false still exist. Although we may take different paths and use different methods to identify them, that there is not one perfect method (although I suspect there is and that all of the different are not really all that different. You might say that they are just different shades of the same color)
Let us say that I can run faster, jump higher, read quicker, solve mathematical equations more speedily (I am running out of synonyms) than you, or anyone else. Then yes, I am superior to you.
But! (And you knew there had to be a “but” coming)
I would only be superior to the others in those endeavors. Even then, that superiority would only matters if the skills can be used to complete tasks desirable to the mind (remember when I was talking about the flower and the sand?).
Think of a bunch of different triangles. Some are obtuse, some are quite intelligent (rim-shot), some are acute, some are very dumb (another rim-shot, I got million of them folks), man are large, others are rather small. So you have this big collection of triangles, all of them unique. Are any of them superior to any others? Remember when I said that I can run faster, jump higher, read quicker, and solve mathematical equations more speedily then all others? While this is true (Really, I can also float through the air with the greatest of ease and zap stuff with my heat vision. I do not have much call to zap stuff though, so I mostly use it to kill irritating bugs), does it make me fundamentally better than anyone else?
No.
I may be able to accomplish more in a significant task, but that has no affect on my status as a human. So long as you can say “My name is Bob (or what ever your name is, but I hear that the Dave’s are mustering their forces to make themselves the only ones who count). I like this and do not like that. I will now go do this so I can accomplish that” you are a creature of mind (I say “creature of mind” on the freaky off chance that we meet up with some aliens, create machines that can think [which will only lead to a whole host of other problems] or encounter some sort of trippy 2001 pure energy space baby)
Those triangles I was talking about a while back, sure they are all different but does that take away from their status as a triangle? Is a big triangle more of a triangle than a small one? Is an acute triangle more of a triangle than an obtuse one?
No. They are all triangles. Their “trianglnes” is unaffected in any way by its shape, size or position. It is a purely digital state, either yes or no, 1 or 0, A or not A.
Such as is with humans.
Let us compare myself with an average person. I am six foot four, I have blond hair and blue eyes, perfect teeth and skin, am impressively muscular, barely an ounce of fat, very well endowed sex machine to all the chicks, intelligent beyond all measure as well as witty, funny, productive inspiring and all around glorious. Also I can float through the air with the greatest of ease and can zap bugs with my laser vision, don’t forget. One more thing, I am also exceedingly humble and I have the patience of a saint (I need to be if I have to deal with the rest of you)… A normal person is sickly wretch with a hallow chest, imbecilic mind, toxic breath, scab covered skinned and always in a foul mood (as they have good reason to be).
Am I better than the other person?
No.
I may be able to accomplish more and enjoy myself more and satisfy infinitely more women, but as long as we both can say “My name is Bob. I like this and do not like that. I will now go do this so I can accomplish that” we are equally human and have the same right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is no less a crime for the common man to kill the Ubermensch that I am then it would be for I toi kill the other.
It is in that why that were all the same. The United States of America is still the greatest and most moral of nation because it was founded on this ides (“we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights, that amoung these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness”)
