Don’t even read it. I’d delete it if I didn’t spend time on it.

Okay, here it is then. Too much self-awareness and vague general knowledge can really fuck you up. Or me up. I bet it could fuck you up too if you tried hard enough.

The problem I’m having of late is a kind of existentialist conundrum where I can all too easily see the inanity of life and no good path through this silliness.

Samsara, a dream, a play, a game, a wanton pointlessness of activity, frolicking amongst the dead, tap dancing to oblivion, it’s the same through all the attempts to garner meaning in life. Eventually the sages have come to a place where funk is not enough and dancing doesn’t have verve anymore and they find themselves having to make a choice.

Choose a meaning and stick with it and never ever ever ever think about that question again or go slowly insane and become completely impotent in the constant panoply of choices, of paths, of decisions, of powers to exercise to some purpose…but what purpose?

These notions roll around my head all the time because it’s all too obvious that…well…I suppose…all of life is pointless. We make meaning in our lives by forgetting that. By just plain old living, and focusing on the tiny pleasures that we can get. Of connections to people, of the physical tab A into slot B kind of connections, of success with money, with friends, in social settings, in simple hobbies and anything else nameable.

It’s just a kind of idle chatter filling up the time until we die. Desires, obsessions, love, work, play, children, eating, screwing, learning…

“Fuck it! There’s got to be a point!” Some notion pops into a guy’s head and BAM. He’s chosen and he’s off to convince others of the revelations.

Buddha sat under a tree trying to ponder a way to end suffering. Muhammad sat in a cave. Jesus wandered in the desert. Some guy named Chuck drank liquified processed cheese spread until the gnomes told him about the path under the fores to the Cave of Malgoria where the enchanted squirrel holds court and crushes the nuts that grow the tree of knowledge.

Same thing over and over and not much has changed in the past 5000 years other than this snazzy and quite nifty technology we’ve got. You’ve gotta love technology whatever other metaphysical conundrums you might have.

What prompted this little line of thought today was an article about branding in the NY Times Magazine today that I read while doing laundry. What’s amazing to me isn’t the utter silliness of turning your life of being “cool” into a viable business selling expensive clothes to people desperate to belong…to something that other people belong to. What’s amazing to me isn’t even the overwhelming scale of a connections that make this sort of thing happen.

What I find most amazing about humanity is that there is a kind of meaning in this madness. That when you combine everything that individuals do that makes absolutely no sense or has no real meaning to it other than to do something, that action adds up and becomes a kind of meta-meaning. The choices everyone makes make some sort of sense when you add them all up. Those tiny movements, those leaves blowing in the wind, add up to create cultures, to create societies, which end up creating meaning for the individuals of those august bodies.

The cells create the meaning of the body which informs the cells of their purpose.

It’s amazing and fascinating and kinda wondrous in a looking through the telescope at the universe kind of way. And still it doesn’t much matter because it’s a knowledge you can’t do much with. Like how I remember pi to seven decimal places after using it so many time in engineering school.

3.1415926

Yesterday I watched a good portion of Lord of the Rings while taking care of a friend’s cats. Why? Mostly because I spend so much time thinking about how films are made I thought it would be interesting to see all the choices, lighting decisions, camera angles, and other technical stuff that went into that epic tome of a movie series.

Now I’m not a fan of goblins and orcs or elves or a magical ghost in the machine moments. I am however a huge fan of battles. Of pure purpose. The good are fighting the evil and they have to win. That’s the kind of clarity I’ve always wanted. A nice simple path. Fight for a god or a quest or a leader or something. It’s easy and makes everyday living have a reason other than simple not dying.

That’s the appeal of Lord of the Rings I think. All the other stuff is ridiculous and just-so. How does a wizard make magic? It just happens! How come elves are immortal if they don’t get killed by orcs. It just fucking happens! They’re immortal but they can die? Yes. Well, then they’re not fucking immortal are they!

And why does the evil eye want to take over the fucking world and make misery everywhere? Because that’s what evil people do, you idiot!

The whole thing is so poorly thought out, so childish and still, I think I’d gladly go to a land where the path is so clear. Fight the evil, which is obviously evil, kill the enemy, win the battle, finish the quest.

Whiny? Yes this is. Pointless? Even more so than normal life.

Probably not as horrible as this moment of sitting in a coffeehouse, looking up from the computer, and seeing a fat girl with a great big ass wearing tiny shorts upon which she’s apparently written her name, SHELLY, in shiny silver paint. Why would you attract attention to your giant sloppy fat ass?

Oh lord! Please bring me a spaceship! I am not fit to survive amongst these people! For surely this madness will destroy me!

Idle thoughts and idle chatter…I need a quest..yeah…one to find a ring that will make the fat asses of the world hide in the shadows and make the girls with the great asses display them prominently!