Walkabout Thoughts #17

My thoughts, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…

Weather for the day's walkabout, clear… 40°

Instagram post for the day [with two follow ups below]

Podcast for the day is John Heilemann’s "Hell and Highwater" podcast, finishing up the Jordan Klepper episode.

Second podcast is Heilemann's next episode with Joe Scarborough

Instagram post for the day [with 2 more updates below, you'll see]

It’s interesting on the Jordan Klepper podcast episode talking about the time last summer he went to a MAGA rally and actually showed people January 6 committee videos of people like Bill Barr and Ivanka Trump saying clearly things against Donald Trump. And yet these people are the delusional state where and they can’t even believe their own eyes and ears. "Ivanka must be a clone." "Which she says must be edited." The stupid involved in this is so immense, it’s hard to see any way back down from it. “Double plus good“, right? People really need to go read or reread “1984“. Because ge stated, George Orwell clearly warned us, he pointed out in a fictionalize novel, just what we’re facing today, how autocracy takes over, how it functions once it is put in place. We’re in a place where a third of our country is in a paradigm shift beyond (below) the rest of us, into delusions manufactured and manipulated by authoritarians (Trump and Republican MAGA Party). It’s like Trump read Hitler's speeches (which he admits to and his wife indicated), and  "1984", and thought, “Weeell there’s a plan for action. Fuck America. All praise Donald Trump. Because there is no greater reflection in the mirror than mine!“ Uh huh...

Jordan Klepper: “It’s not that MAGA are the majority. It’s that they won’t believe that they’re NOT the majority. “

OK, this isn’t good. My Instagram post for the day was walking by a fire department truck. But now I’m on the way back from my first lap and a police car drives up. We’ve had the fire department show up before. They showed up twice in April for me for long Covid... tachycardia and then again a week later for high blood pressure. Between then and now, down and across the street from me they showed up for someone else. But the police didn’t show up. The police are usually called in when there’s a crime involved right? Worse? There’s no ambulance. What does that mean.? A death?

I got so wrapped up in the police showing up, I walked almost all the way home.

Firetruck and police Instagram vid 2. Well maybe it’s some light spousal abuse and the paramedics from the fire truck patched them up and they didn’t need to go to the hospital, so they called the police. That’s being optimistic.

“Team democracy“, does not have MAGA members. Whether they realize it or not. I mean they, and unconstitutional private militias, believe themselves to be patriots. Some of them just because they were in the military and maybe actually were patriot before they got brainwashed by toxic conservative “America First“ Trump MAGA delusions. Attacking fellow citizens for political reasons, isn't patriotic. Attacking your country or her democracy, isn't patriotic. Your intentions may have seemed "pure" to you, but your actions and reality, count.

If democracy becomes dead, and you just can’t get yourself to "do autocracy", or kleptocracy, or Trump's version of oligarchy, what then do you go for? And how do you remain then in what once was the United States of America?

So I finished the Klepper episode, now skipping to yesterday's episode of Hell and Highwater.

O00h! I forgot, a few blogs ago of my walkabout I said I wanted to start talking less about politics and more about phenomenology. Either the psychology phenomenology, or the phenomenology of psychology. But the midterms were coming up. Well yesterday, that was over and now there is this ungraceful period where they’re counting for the next week, or weeks. But, I did look up phenomenology podcasts and found only two that seemed reasonable to me. A podcast with one episode on “the phenomenology of illness“, is not absolutely not what I’m looking for. While one does have to practice things like in order to study phenomenology. Which is what I concentrated on at university towards my psychology degree, phenomenology, I mean. I'm saying, to study phenomenology, you have to study the application OF it.

Here’s a question, what if the Republican Party stopped being the Party of big business and stopped slurping down their lobbyist money and stopped focusing so much on immediate pleasure, instant gratification and power, every second of their lives? And just vociferously and utterly became advocates of small business? It would be a paradigm shift, it would be a painful shift and we’d probably lose a lot of Republicans in Congress etc. But what if the Party instead of cohesively going for utterly anti-American ludicrous bullshit like the seditionist MAGA agenda as a Party and actually went instead for the citizens? That is, small business and individuals? They can’t get out of their mindset that large multinational corporations are very citizen oriented and good for the country. No doubt they are but only up to a point and then they become toxic which makes their supporters, the Republican party, toxic, which makes their supporters in the electorate toxic, which opens the door for mindfucks like Donald Trump to rise to power. Just sayin'...

Remember that humanity is designed by nature to raise up specific individuals as a populist, almost cult leaders, and then after a time, when they discover they’re not perfect. or that they’re not the Gods (this in the primal "lizard" brain part of the human brain), humanity had evolved in the beginning, remember that religion and "Gods" didn’t exist in the beginning… And so they kill those leaders, now considered, false Gods, or false prophets, or false leaders. Plus, when you have a great idea and try to evoke change, you're ASKING to be brought to an end. Changing the status quo, even to save lives, can get people killed. Jesus, is a perfect example of this.

Normally on election day, because I vote by mail and as soon as I can, and because it’s a smart thing to do… I like to...especially since I’ve been retired... get some food for the day and drinks and monitor the election, even late into the night. Kind of like I would do with the holiday. Which election days should be. A national fucking holiday! Like in some countries who truly respect democracy. We’re so screwed up in this country. Especially with Republicans trying to skew the vote, curb the ease of election voting for their opponents… if you look at Republican election activities, they’re all oriented toward decreasing their opponents' votes and increasing theirs. Though sometimes they screw that up, really badly. ("badly", yeah, I know...) But that shouldn’t be happening. We should all be voting. We should all be voting easily and with accurate information. Anyway, because of long Covid, I can’t really drink alcohol for now. Or I can drink maybe one beer, or one glass of wine. But the next day my vagus nerve suffers for it. Same thing with sugar. So I eat non-sugar things, which are pretty good nowadays.

Yesterday I bought some lobster tails, cooked them up for lunch in my air fryer and then phad Thai for dinner. And bought some sugarless candy and some cookies and had his best time as I could have under the circumstances. Today I woke up with my vagus nerve feeling irritated. Probably from the shortbread cookies which had sugar in them. Sugarless shortbread cookies kind of suck, except for one brand I found at Fred Meyer (from VOORTMAN Bakery, well I like them anyway).

I’m not sure the president can do this but, when Joe Biden gave his address to the nation the other day, about the Trump Republican MAGA bullshit we've been subjected and subjugated to, and about voting for democracy, it would’ve been nice if his presidential address was on every single available channel. Because as we’re discovering, and as we’ve known, MAGA, and as well a lot of non-MAGA, who don’t ever vote, or know anything about the news, or politics, who are not involved in our nation's orientation or managing even though they live here and benefit from it... completely don’t know what’s going on, or that what they understand is going on is actually a MAGA manufactured, 180° skew from reality. They say "Patriot", we see sedition. They say America, we see domestic enemies attack our democracy.

It’s OK. It’s chilly out and this coat I wore last time, which is perfect for the last walk with cold and rain, it’s just a little it too warm for today. But that’s growing up in the Pacific Northwest...layer your clothes or suffer. So I'm carrying the coat now and damn, it's bulkier and heavier than you'd think.

Something weird just a occurred to me. I just walked by an older couple holding their little dog, talking to a guy in a truck. So I go to the left and walk by their garbage can now on my right, sitting there waiting for the garbage truck today. What occurred to me is, if they looked at me as I walk by, it might be polite to look over and nod, to give a greeting. But they were busy talking and I didn’t want to interrupt or disturb them so I just kept looking in front of me. What occurred to me, is what is considered normal or acceptable behavior in this case. What if I just angrily knocked over their garbage can and stormed off? What would they do? Some people might yell at me. But nowadays I’m beginning to suspect most people wouldn’t do anything. I guess this is the phenomenology of proper action, or of action as it may be. Because, let’s say most people would do nothing, because I know I wouldn’t want to deal with some person who may be mentally deranged. I’ve seen this situation in Seattle for years. You don’t wanna deal with these people who are mentally ill, when they’re being violent. I had though, at least once. Walking down the street commuting into work one morning, I walked by a tall guy in camo fatigues. Suddenly he just "clocked" this shorter Asian guy in the face who was walking along minding his own business. I stopped to watched, also unsure. I started to move forward to help the guy off the ground but then the guy in the fatigues jumped on him! And started trying to wale on him. The guy was trying to protect himself on the ground. I ran over and just as I was about to grab the guy on top he jumped up and ran away! I stood there shocked. I looked at the guy in the ground who refused to look at me. He got up. I asked him, "Are you OK?" He said, "Yeah, I’m fine", rather angry. I said, "Hey, we got to tell the cops." He said, "No, I’m fine!" And he stormed off. I didn’t know what to say. There was nothing to do, so I walked around the corner headed to the Starbucks before I hit my company for work, a few more blocks away. Turned out, there was three or four cops standing on the front of Starbucks, talking. I went over and told them what happened. They asked, "Where is he, the attacker?" I pointed at him down the street, still visible to me. They said, "All right thanks. We'll take care of this. We know this guy. We know who he is." I said, "OK, but you don't need my statement?" "No, it's all good, thanks, have a nice day."At the end of the block, as I was about to turn, the corner (I had decided to go to Torrefazione Italia, a better indie coffee shop around the corner. It’s much better coffee. Or it was before Seattle's Best bought them. Then Starbucks bought Seattle's Best, years ago. Anyway, I saw the cops talking to the guy in the camo‘s. So my point in all of this? Had I knocked over that garbage can, what would I have felt... if no one said a thing? I examined that as I walked by those people, past that garbage can. And I felt a rush, an exhilaration. Of breaking mores, shattering norms, fully getting away with it. Where would that lead? Then I thought about Trump and how he grew up in an overly controlled childhood. Sent to a boarding school because his parents didn’t wanna deal with him and his father didn’t know how to love a child. His abusive Nazi loving father, by the way. And how Trump obviously would’ve tried to get away with anything back then. And then met his idol one day. The gay lawyer Roy Cohn, who taught Trump everything about not paying your bills, skirting the law, abusive lawsuits, and being a complete and utter asshole. And then I thought about how that transferred to MAGA. And the joy experience in breaking mores and norms. Especially if you think you’re gonna get what you want after your voice has been silence for so long. Because your ideas were bad, or toxic. Which is why no one wants to hear what you have to say and why your view of the world isn’t in existence. They tried that in Hitler’s Germany. The majority didn’t like it. The majority of the planet. Except the Nazi MAGA or their version of the make Germany great again, crowd. My point in all this is that there’s a release or a joy and what Trump has done to America, and that’s what we have to counter. Like any other junkie to get them off of their junk. But until they’re ready for it, you really can’t do anything for them, or for those around them, who they damage, who they make to suffer. Good luck America!

Humans are naturally a little OCD and are pattern recognizers. That kind of OCD isn’t a disease (so not really OCD, but it makes a great explanatory shorthand). But it is a very normal orientation. It helped us before we were humans, to survive. It helped us later as we evolved into being human. When we find something that works well, we repeat it. When we see a pattern we recognize it, we know later what it is before we fully recognize it. Those two things however, can go horribly wrong. When we see patterns that aren’t what they look like, and it sends us into fight or flight or freeze, or  we join a cult because of fear from it. Or when we repeat something incessantly that was good once, in one situation, but then never again in any other situation. We abuse and misuse or overly use certain things, because of that. When you apply that to things like politics, which is not affecting just you, and I just those around you, but an entire country, or millions or billions of people in other countries too… That is highly dangerous. And it explains a lot about MAGA type delusional groups or private militias who go off the deep end, or simply mass shooters in some cases. 

OK. Instagram vid 3, the fire department's gone, like I said, the police showed up like I said, and now there’s a dark SUV with a gurney. I’m thinking this was a death. And I believe if someone dies, the police have to show up and write a report. Lotta retired around here. So this could just be that. Death by natural causes. Here’s hoping.

[on my last length of 4 miles and headed home, the body was in the SUV and another black SUV had showed up, who I assume was the medical examiner/coroner or their assistant.]

Starting my 4th mile. Feeling pretty beat to hell today. Maybe I overdid it yesterday with something. So I think I’ll finish the 4th mile and head home. Again, this isn’t being wimpy, it’s wondering what I will feel like tomorrow. With long Covid, you don't want to push it until you’re regressing. Stop before that starts. So I’ll probably feel a little rough tomorrow from this today. Which was a little rough today because of yesterday. So I don’t wanna continue this. But 4 miles is a good walk for me. I was feeling really good yesterday at Safeway. Safeway! I was feeling good...at Safeway. So I’m thinking, I’m at least halfway through this long Covid. I see it as I think I mentioned in my book "Suffering Long Covid", I healing from it as a "halflife" issue. Long Covid goes away half way and then half way again, and then half way, in half, in half, in half again and again... instead of just decreasing and disappearing. Which is why it lasts maybe two years, or less if you’re lucky. More, or forever, if you’re really unlucky. But Since Covid has only been around for a couple years, we simply cannot know that yet, or that for some it may be permanent. When it damages your organs or ages them, which apparently it does for everybody, that’s not long Covid lasting forever. That’s the lasting affects of having had long Covid, from having had Covid.

Interesting long Covid thing, I always bring a small bottle of water with me on these walkabouts. In case I have to take a Benadryl, to lower my blood pressure. Or just rehydrate. But I never drink any before the 3rd mile. I save it for the fourth or 5th mile. Frequently, I'll drink some or all of it on the last leg of my final, hopefully 5th mile. Getting a headstart on getting home and drinking a big glass of water over the next half hour to hydrate. I use this water like medicine. As doctors have always known, especially when you take meds, if you start to feel ill sometimes on the meds, drink a glass of water to hydrate you enough so that the concentrations in your cells decrease and you'll feel better. I've felt incredible horrible on meds before, drank a glass of water and it instantly went away and I felt great. Just as we should be eating food not just as a culinary delight, or for satiation, but as medicine. I think we long ago lost count of the number of ill or dead people who ended up that way because they ate food using the opposite theory of using food as medicine. Or they only ate the same thing day in and day out and even with vitamin supplements, couldn’t get the sustenance their body needed to continue to grow healthily, or fight off diseases or conditions or illnesses.

From the podcast, Joe Scarborough is saying he remembers and 1998-99 Carl Rove, not democracy's friend, was telling him and Jeb Bush, and George W. Bush, and others to get their demographics right. Because if you don’t pay correct attention to the Spanish and Latino electorate, they will wipe you out. Seems like that’s what we’ve been seeing with the Democrats lately. Too many, I would say, confused people in that group, who have lived through socialism or communism and despised i, But think an American version of that is the same thing, or would lead to the same thing. And it doesn’t and it won’t. Because we’re not a socialist or Communist country. We're capitalists and sadly toxic capitalists at that. So our social programs are not those things. A country, a state has a responsibility to take care of its citizens and not kill them. To help them not die. That’s not what Republicans are doing in how they view protecting our citizens. Best they think that voters die if Republicans stay in power. That’s not American. That’s Putinesque, that’s authoritarian. That's Trump ism. That’s dictator/tyrant bullshit. That’s theocratic. And that’s our Republican Party today. They’ve known since 2012 with their OWN Republican "autopsy" not to double down, but back off and re-evolve into something America needs. But instead they got on their slide and found Donald Trump on their way to the bottom.

When Russia started bombing Irpin, a woman called her sister in Moscow & told her.

Response: "Why are you lying to me? You're bombing your own people!"

In America, Republicans want to know of Democrats:

"Why are you so bad, murderers, pedophiles, stealing our elections?

Autocracy does what autocracy does. It's in Russia. It's in America. Delusion manufactured.

I think if I labeled myself, it would be as a Scientific Humanist with Scientific Integrity. Though according to Kurt Vonnegut, religions label was Secular Humanist (Secular Humanism Defined, Secular Humanist Declaration, Affirmations of Humanism). Never really a Democrat, sure as hell not a Republican or advocate of the disturbed conservative belief system. Conservatism normally, is to be used in emergency for short periods. But Republicans claim, that's all day ever day, which is damaging to society and the human psyche. And, American conservatism has been warped. I thought I was an independent for a bit, until I met independent back in the 90s. I thought I was a libertarian, for about a month, until I met libertarians. Nice people but, good grief. I prefer reality. It's good to have an ideology, but better if you live your life in reality. "Orient" not force defectiveness in place. If you believe in any pure political ideology, you’re misguided. Even if you’re over educated. Use what works best. Hybrids. Too much capitalism is toxic. As is too much communism, too much Socialism, too much authoritarianism, almost any authoritarianism actually. But if you take a good solid societal theory as base, which I would suggest... democracy, because as has been said, it’s the best we’ve got, or the wort, except for all others… Then add a smattering of social programs and don’t overdo the capitalism, as we have… that's pretty good. Understand that quality is generally better than quantity.

It’s really bizarre how Trump denigrates people in Congress and yet, they then adhere to his ass. He shreds Latinos but then he gets more voters from them. People especially who have lived under socialism and communism, freak out about American social programs. Yet they vote for Trump because they like a “strong man“? What the fuck? What’s the problem with these communist and socialist nightmares? What was the problem with Cuba? It was a strongman in Fidel Castro as their absolute ruler and supreme leader. Bullshit. What the fuck are these people doing? Democrats are for democracy. Republicans are not. Certainly not how, this year. They've long been headed in this direction. And those people say they are moving over to the Republican Party because they think the Democrats haven’t done enough for them. Because Democrats have done a lot for everybody and haven't made a big deal about a single group. Which Republicans would then make a big deal about as being...who knows. Bad. But they think Republicans will maybe, hopefully, might do something for them? When that’s not what Republicans are about. They’re about doing things, for themselves. For power, for money. 

By the way, these nonsensical comments about Republicans and Democrats are the same, because... "politicians" is just ridiculous. You cannot equate these two parties. Certainly not since Trump was elected. And actually, literally not since the early 90s.

Interesting. Joe Scarborough is saying on the podcast that a lot of Latinos and  Spanish language people see the Republican Party as what we so often hear them profess to be… "Patriots". Which most of us know now is just bullshit, hype and propaganda. IF you don't know that, man, look around.

OK, that's it for the day.

Cheers! Sláinte!

US Attacked with Mind Control Weapons?

First off, today is Memorial Day. I was in the military myself years ago. It paid for my college and university degrees (thanks everyone!) And I know not all of us are that lucky and instead have massive college debt. But, that's another topic for another time (and one that needs to be addressed).
I have to say, having had an appreciation of the military before hand, after serving in the military, I had an even better understanding of it all.

Memorial Day is a day for reflection and appreciation of all those who have gone before us, died for us, for their beliefs in our country, and for all those who currently serve and are daily in harm's way. We thank you all!

That being said, with so many false narratives lately, postured patriotism and disingenuous partisanship, a word from our President...our FIRST President:

Now, for today's blog....

BEIJING — An American government employee posted in southern China has signs of possible brain injury after reporting disturbing sounds and sensations, the State Department said on Wednesday, in events that seemed to draw parallels with mysterious ailments that struck American diplomats in Cuba.- New York Times

What in the hell exactly is going on here?

If I had to guess with a gun to my head, I'd have to lean toward the plausibility of it being Putin yet again. Another Russian operation. It just fits the scenario we're seeing. Beginning in Cuba, moving to China. Russia has traditionally and historically had easy access to Cuba, to do things both with and without government knowledge.

So Cuba may be telling the truth about their ignorance and if it's Russia they may not have wanted to share or alert Cuban officials for obvious reasons.

In then doing this in Chian, Russia may feel they are thinning the argument against them. And as well, double bonus, sending a warning signal to China... and others.

Pretty slick if you think about it. But has a Donald Trump feel to it also, if you keep thinking about it. Not that he did it, but a dramatic mentality he might dream up. Along with a lack of associated ethical implications and considerations.

Of course we know about Chinese black hat hackers like China Eagle, funded by the Chinese military. But the Russians have been the biggest threat to us of late. Obviously they have been researching and applying that in operations against us. Well, in part it's what we do to one another. We have done some underhanded things to be sure, but Russia under Putin certainly, isn't constrained by the same considerations we are, do to the nature of our government. And perhaps, mindset? Maybe.

It may not even have been a weapon directed AT us, but a weapon, more ingenuously, using the components already in place, or perhaps, subtly added to.

Here's an article on that.

These types of weapons are no longer the purview of science fiction. Many of them are now science fact, with more are to come. Apparently some of those which the American government are developing came to light recently in accidentally disclosed documents through a FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) request.

To anyone paying attention this isn't news, overall. Regardless, the specifics are indeed fascinating.

"Forced orgasm?" They could make a killing on that alone.Seriously, if some people would just get laid, they just might mellow out. I jest. Sort of. But others just need to get relax, smoke a joint, stop the alcohol or pills, or perhaps...simply have a drink.

Who knows, maybe they've discovered THE anti war weapons: Forced Orgasm. There are already several in popular and branded culture. The Orgasmatron. Cultural examples have been in various incarnations by name and otherwise. As in Barbarella, called the Excessive Machine, a famous scene in cinema. Or Woody Allen's Sleeper. And Motorhead's album of the same name.

I've experienced that transparent eyelid thing myself. It's weird, disconcerting when I'm trying to go to sleep. Too much mind, I think, as my Aikido Sensei liked to say. It's like a dream stare overtaking a waking state and you can "see" what you can't see.

I remember studying that in M. Merleau-Ponty's book Phenomenology of Perception in college toward my psychology degree. I taught it to my kids and have used the concept in my novella, Andrew.

Seeing things that aren't able to be seen and yet, you can see them, and so on. It's also useful for martial reasons. For instance, one can hit a target that can't be seen clearly with bullet, throwing knife (or dart) or arrow. I've done that many times. Initially to my great surprise. My college archery instructor taught it to us, though I'd already known about it for some time.

Some simply call it, Zen. I believe Zen in the Art of Archery may even discuss it. One tries to aim when the target CAN be seen and yet miss, but in using one's mind, it can be hit seemingly way too accurately.

I don't doubt that any of what's on that diagram is in research stages, though it doesn't mean they've already achieved it, fully. Or was it not an accidental release at all? As for thoughts, we're doing interesting research and products on that, but not in a direct way we'd expect. Rather in a roundabout way of achieving similar results and a little less exciting that it at first sounds.

Or, maybe they're just staring at goats again.

I'm glad we're researching these things though. I've been a proponent of non lethal weapons for years. We have GOT to stop relying so heavily upon firearms. Just as we have to do the same for internal combustion engines and using fossil fuels as sources of energy. They're anachronistic, archaic, and it's time to look to the future and put behind us our childish ways.

I'm not complaining here about other countries having these weapons. That was bound to happen. My concern is the same obvious concern anyone would have in hearing these news reports. Essentially terrorist tactics to harm people doing nothing overtly to harm those attacking them.

I understand for instance, general tactics of espionage. I get harassing foreign agents, especially in countries not of either combatant's. I also understand the concept, in place for hundreds of years  if not thousands, of leaving known agents in place to monitor and gleam intelligence from them, if not at times to also feed false intel to.

But to do damage to others, to those not directly in the field against your own agents, is unacceptable. People working in offices? Really?

Regardless, it seems pretty clear this is Russia.

It also seems pretty clear that both Russia AND America have problems with who their current leaders are. Both of which have been in office for far too long for the sanity and safety of either country, or the entire world.

Putin has been in power far too long at the detriment of his country and their reputations. Trump should never have been allowed anywhere near the White House and our reputation has been damaged in only a single year. That as well as regulations, protections, laws and issues of trust will take us years if not decades to rectify.

So many years of hard work, of people dying for our cause, have been damaged or destroyed by only one narcissist, one Russian Oligarch style man as our president, as POTUS. Term limits, if not special prosecutors, may be our saving grace. And luckily people around the world are aware we change presidents at least every two terms of four years ago. Our government overall is strong, weakened only recently by a defective nationalism mindset and populism run amuck.

We are living in interesting times. So pay attention.

Because what is happening during this period will be discussed and studied for many decades to come.

America's Existential President

ex·is·ten·tial·ism
ˌeɡzəˈsten(t)SHəˌlizəm/
noun
a philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will.

phe·nom·e·nol·o·gy
fəˌnäməˈnäləjē/
noun [PHILOSOPHY]
the science of phenomena as distinct from that of the nature of being.
an approach that concentrates on the study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience.

When I was getting my degree in psychology from Western Washington University, I began to notice two things.

Of my fellow students, there were some who went the existential path and others, fewer (and I was one) who went the phenomenological path. We were all similar, but with an important difference. Myself and my phenomenological friends were observers. The existentialists wanted to affect things, to put their imprint upon it. And this is important if it pleased them. And they had many rationales for that. I was surprised they couldn't see it, no matter how much I (we) tried to explain that orientation to them.

My girlfriend and I lived together through our college years, and took many of the same classes. We studied together. We finished each other's sentences to an absurd degree that caused our professor one day in class to stop us and make us prove we were actually saying something. We were. He was stunned, because we were carrying on a conversation in paragraphs by using single words.

The first thing I noticed was that those who went the existential path, leaned toward a more hedonistic view of life. The second was, my girlfriend was heading down that path.

So what?

What I started to notice was those who took the existential path seemed to be using it to justify their doing whatever they wanted. They were the ones who were having affairs, who were stepping out on their significant others. The phenomenology students seemed to be more centered, more socially responsible (both groups were, but the latter seemed to put themselves forward as a primary element).

Once I started to notice that, I noticed how self-oriented the existential people's arguments were. Sometimes to the point of invalidating their arguments. I liked hedonistic pursuits as much as the next person, I just wouldn't put my own desires or needs before that of others, if those others might suffer for my actions.

I wasn't seeing that in the existential crowd. They were simply narcissists of varying degrees. Yes, college is that time to be that way. To test limits, to experience the novel situation and environments. It is something however that you should resolve before you are into your mid twenties, or your twenties overall. It is not something we should be seeing in your 60s or 70s.

I should have seen it coming. I never went out on my girlfriend. But in the end, after we graduated college, after we moved back home into a house together, I discovered she was having an affair with a coworker. That ended our many year relationship. I took it hard and it literally nearly killed me over that next eighteen-month period.

And yes, in the end, after it passed, after I survived it, I was much stronger for it. I just had never had a girlfriend (or wife) have an affair on me. Or for that matter, break up with me. I was thirty when this happened and I simply had no coping mechanisms to deal with that kind of thing. So I partied myself nearly to death. Slept around. Kind of went off the deep end.

I'm seeing now so much of all this in our current president. In my experience, this isn't a good thing. Because no one is as important, as that individual, to that individual. We are at the whim of what he wants, what pleases him. At our expense, because we simply do not count. Unless it affects him.

Obviously, this isn't true of all existentialists. But it certainly is true about Pres. Donald J. Trump. I also notice this in many Republicans. Though those who are beginning now to oppose him, simply aren't as much the narcissist as he is.

Since a stopped clock is always correct twice a day, every day of the week, 24/7/365, Pres. Trump will surely do some things that are good for us. It's inevitable. However, I do not expect great things to come of a Trump presidency. Far from it.

The concept of existentialism can be intoxicating
phenomenology to me, just seemed more mature, enlightened.
A coherent and educated individual, observing.

Allow me to leave you with this....Fascism.

Today's Gender Roles - Marriage Equality now SCOTUS Supported

I am a phenomenologist. Truly. I have a degree in psychology and I studied phenomenology. I am here not to make judgement as much as I am to observe and describe what I see.

I was just talking with my daughter and her friends about transgender issues and modern gender issues in general. I'm pretty open minded, transcendental. But I am human and was born in a time where a certain paradigm was prominent even though I was usually ahead of change due to my love of science fiction since the early 1960s.

We had talked about Bruce Jenner, my daughter and her friends, and individuals we've all known, personally. We were talking about how one relates to a transgender person. How is that defined?

My daughter said it's all about how the individual wants to be defined. But I think there is more to it than that.

As I see it there are three versions of gender. How a person defines themselves. How the person's gender is defined legally (what's on your birth certificate). And how you are defined by your physicality.

It used to be easy. There was an order to that, it wasn't a concern or consideration. No one thought about it because there was nothing to think about. Or so it seemed.

You're born either male or female, you're male or female, respectively. Surely a small percentage are born without a physical and prominent distinction. One in 1,500 babies from one report. So more than one might think, or have thought at one time.

Then things like gender reassignment came up. We were defined by our physicality but eventually we were defined by the individual's beliefs more than their physicality.

So Bruce Jenner takes hormones, comes out to the world as a woman. He's a woman? But he said he will not go the full course and lose his penis so physically he will be a man with breasts and a feminine appearance. What's his gender then? Female? Male\female? Male? What's the defining factor?

My daughter said if someone dyes their hair from blond to green, isn't it green or will you say, "No, you're still a blond."

I said that wasn't how I saw it at all. It was more like they were blond, dyed their hair green and said it's red. If that is the case, do we accept then that it's red? Or is it blond. Or green? How do we define their hair color?

Still there would be the three ways to define that. Legal, physical, personal. But in this case the hair would physically be green, though called red, and fundamentally blond.

It occurred to me that part of the issue here is in those gender reassigned or partially reassigned individuals over-complicating the issue.

See, it's really a fairly simple issue.

But individuals need to feel, well, what they feel. In the old days, they'd have gotten therapy. Basically, that is what they do need IS therapy. But the therapy has gone from mental, to physical and therein lay the confusion. For everyone.

I've always been told I was over complicated. But as I saw it, I was merely able to see the complexity in things that most people couldn't see. In this issue it seems to me that these people are overcompensating things for their therapy. They are over complicating their gender issues (yes, gender issues are complicated, I'm not denying that, just bare with me), so they will feel normal.

Now look. I don't have a problem with people trying to feel normal. Up to a point. We all have limits, right?

I mean, if you're a serial murderer, or a pedophile, you need to kill or molest to feel normal. Well, I don't want you to feel normal in that case, I want you not to feel normal. However for most people I do want them to be able to feel normal. I don't have a problem with THAT. Not if it doesn't affect others (as in death I mean).

But there is more to life than a person simply needing to feel normal.

As I'd said you can call yourself a rocket ship even, if you like, but you are still going to have to be designated on legal documents as something discrete, a compartmentalized unit. Such as male, female, or even, let's call it, trans. I don't think we need legal definitions to go to the lengths of Facebook and allow fifty-six gender titles. We just need a general idea of what we all can agree that you are.

I mean, really Facebook, do we really need 56 genders? Well it's social networking so, sure why not? I do think that's going a bit far, though. Okay, perhaps not for social media, but certainly for legalities. Three should be enough, or six, but let's not get carried away.

Here's in part my point. Some will over complicate their gender or title because they need to in order to feel either special, or that is, normal. I'm more concerned about the special, but the normal can also be an issue.

When you over complicate your gender to the group, you are also asking them for something for you. Understanding, if nothing else. I mean you can call yourself anything in the privacy of your home but when you go out and expect others to relate to you in non normal (general, average, etc.) ways, you are entering a different realm. You are then asking the group to help you make you feel normal. That simplifies things for you but complicates them for the group. Whether or not they see it that way really doesn't matter, because it simply does what it does. And that's fine. To a point.

But it is more complicated than that, too. If I were to point that out then those who are over complicating the issue will rebel and say that I am over complicating their issue. So they are saying they want things to be simpler and I'm the one over complicating things on their agenda.

You can't have it both ways. It's either complicated, or simple.

Obviously we can just relate to someone as they wish to be related. But should we, really? If they aren't based in some form of reality? And what is reality but a definition of what is? What is which, physical, emotional, legit, intellectual? What? Where is the definition? What or which is more important? The individual? The group?

Basically the individual is expecting the group to take on part of their therapy. And that too is okay, up to a point. We all do that and the individuals who do it too much are labeled as troublesome, possibly to be avoided and at some point they are usually locked up.

Thankfully we don't do that anywhere as much as we used to. There are people walking around free today who at one point in time would have been locked up in a prison, or an asylum. Of course there are those in prison now who should be in a mental institution for help and are instead being brutalized in prison because we are too cheap as a country to pay for the proper care in the proper environment.

So someone gets gender reassignment and doesn't change their genitals. Male or female? Is it only their decision? Well, for the most part outside of legalities, sure, why not. However, when it gets into things like pronouns, how much can they require before it gets out of hand?

What if it carries over to their pets? Do you call their dog a "he", a "she", a "their"? Or some other form. When it gets to the point that when someone meets your pet for the first time and they have to ask, "Oh, what pronoun does "she" ("he?") like to be called?" Isn't that kind of over complicating things?

At what point does it become over complicated to the point that it is too complicated and unacceptable, or should be unacceptable?

Here's part of the consideration. It's easy to just be accepting and say, "Whatever an individual wants to be referred to as, is what I will refer to them as." It sounds pretty, it's feelgood. but when you consider a group of all non standard gender types, the consideration becomes something else; as I was indicating above about the hair dye.

Sure, on an individual basis you can refer to someone as however they prefer to be referred to. At some level, it's just good manners. We should try to be considerate and cater to our fellow human's identity of who they see themselves to be.

But you can also reach a point where it simply isn't reasonable, or where it isn't even good for the individual making the claims in calling for their desired designation.

For the most part I think, just refer to someone as they choose.

But when you start talking about it in the abstract as we are here and now, and as I was with my daughter and friends, it really grows into a bigger and more inclusive issue than just the consideration of a single individual as you initially wish it to. It quickly grows into a societal issue and not just a personal or subgroup issue.

That is where some of this can quickly become very emotional to discuss. Because you can get one person talking about it at an individual level, even though they are or may also be discussing it on a much larger scale. Many times debates run into that issue. It's why you see so many heated discussions or arguments on topics like this, not even going into the potential pathology of someone arguing about their own identity.

Bottom line I think is, just treat someone kindly and compassionately. Outside of that and in the larger sense, just give it a little more thought than you might normally have done. Life isn't simple anymore. We  have masses amounts of information to deal with, ways to behave are more sophisticated, people can more easily be hurt by way of inattention or ignorance, or a fear of the different.

Don't be one of those people. Be thoughtful and kind and try to understand. If you find yourself reacting negatively, then try to find a more productive way to deal with it. You may find that many times what you fear or hate, find distasteful or disgusting, is out of ignorance, or unfamiliarity. Consider if it's based in elements of what you have grown to see as reality and where any of that  might wrong, or if you are right but you can still treat others strange to you with compassion if not at least, common good manners.

To each their own. And maybe we can tall talk and get to know one another, regardless of how annoying they may be, or we may be, to them.

Speaking of which, SCOTUS, the Supreme Court of the United States has just declared same sex marriage legal in all fifty states. It's nice to see sanity rule the day for a change. From them today on this..

Phenomenology of That Good Old Religion Feeling

Religion. People say things like, "I couldn't have made it this far without Jesus in my life." Or, Allah, or God, or whatever flavor you subscribe to.

So what is it that's going on there? Must be something right?

Well, yes. And, no.

Before I go on let me say one thing...

Religion was humankind's first form of government. It evolved in order to buffer life for us. To slow down reality. When you lose someone you love, it's intense, it's powerful, it's damaging to the point of killing you, nearly if not completely. Religion in its rituals, its explanations, slows down the impact of reality to the point that it can be accepted and moved through. It then evolved to the point of giving answers, wrong as they tend to me, pleasant sometimes as they tend to be, but also, horrific as they can tend to me.

From religion evolved government. Out of immediate needs that religion failed to succeed in accomplishing. A secular form of religion, also slow but faster than religion out of necessity. Even in a theocracy, there are the secular parts of government where religion simply cannot function, or at least, does not function in human society and it needs something more, or less, depending on how you view it.

Religion offers us a way to have love in our lives, without anyone to have to have our continued support and effort in being sure they will love us back, always, and unconditionally.

Like having a dog. Only your dog can run away, get hit by a car, shot by someone, be stolen by your ex, or simply die of old age. Or worse, get rabies and bite you, or turn on you, or accidentally kill your other pet, or child even. Things, can go wrong.

But with religion, or God, he never disappoints you, he's always the same, always there, wherever you are, even if you are totally and permanently isolated from people, god can always be there with you.

Except, he's not there. No one is. Just you, your mind, and the complexities there in. The multiplicity of our mind that are similar in ways to multiple people, many and varied aspects of yourself, the ability to have discrete modules of mind within your mind, as in subroutines running autonomously.

Because we have that system always running. Our autonomic processes. Breathing for instance. We can ignore it and it works, or we can consciously control it and it works.

We have the capability for the appearance of there being others within our mind. When it gets unbalanced or out of control, you find people "splitting" or seemingly having multiple personalities. Or god.

There is really nothing amazing about this, No more amazing than the computer that runs your car as a process goes. The capability is there, so it works.

And so you can feel the "love" of "god" in your life, and it energizes you. Much like masturbation, only this is mental masturbation for the purposes of feeling "agape love" and not sexual love. Love that can always be there if you have "faith" that it will be, and can never be destroyed, if you do not sully it and keep it pure in your mind.

Add in a lot of romantic talk about heart and spirit and apply some rules, get a bunch of people to agree about it, and you have a religion.

Amazing? Right?

No, not right at all. It's all in our nature as human beings. It has to do with how we developed since before we were a species. Herd mentality if you like or social and communal dynamics as we are a social animal. Take an animal like that and over 100,000s of years you have something quite like... us.

The trouble is, we've yet to evolve that far mentally and still hold onto beliefs from ancient times. Continuity is good, but adherence to what is ancient history is bad. Tradition is good, but building new traditions as they make sense, allowing them to evolve, is better. And the one thing religion has always tried to do was maintain the ancient, even archaic, status quo, evolving only covertly whenever possible.

But today we have social media and that has changed, everything .

So some religions are openly changing. Some have had standards practices for that. Still some try not to change at all. And we as a species need change. We also need to be slow in some ways to change and so religion offered us that  through history. It did a lot of good, but in ways that would have been better had we not needed or used religion.

All the things that religion offers us, we can get in other ways, if properly educated and raised to be strong enough to sustain our personality and life and that of our loved ones,

Some of the things are communal in nature. The things a love of god gives one, can be achieved in other ways, but the communal part of a group getting together who are so focused (under fear or owe of a god) on one thing and each other under that umbrella of belief, is special, however disingenuous it may be in reality.

I'd argue that it would be best to deal with reality rather than religion with its rules that fail us far too often. The rigidness and lack of insight to change that science requires and is typically anathema to religion. But we need that as a species as life becomes more and ever increasingly complex.

Religion, just makes some people feel good. It's nice to think that a parent is always watching over you and protecting you. Total nonsense but it's got a warm and fuzzy feel to it.

The thing is, when it comes down to it, we need to be reality based. Humans have an inherent need to buffer reality and I question if we can survive without buffers and filters or the world can be overwhelming. When it does get overwhelming what do we do, what happens to us?

When we feel too unloved, or rejected (remember, follow god's rules and he will never turn his back on you, even when he throws a tornado, a deadly disease, or a pick up truck at you), god is there. Right?

When we don't have that, and we have that emptiness gnawing at our minds, we turn to drink, drugs, extreme behaviors or death. Trouble is, you can fill that emptiness in the understanding that reality exists, and that we are all essentially alone. But that is okay.

There are ways of thinking as in Buddhism, certain aspects of it anyway, that gives you ways of facing reality head on, while having no illusions about magical beings. The magic you see is within each of us, in what we can do, in what we end up doing, in what we can achieve above and beyond what people consider possible. But it is. If we do it, it's possible.

And we have us to thank for it. Trouble with that is some people get too full of themselves and become bad people. If you have a god to thank for it, and not you, then you can humble yourself. But why not just have the mindset to begin with, to be humble. How many popes for instance, heading the Catholic church over it's history had no humbleness in them at all, while they professed a total subservience to god. What they also had was power, power over the believers below them.

So you can see the interplay between the human psyche, and religion and the god concept.

It bends and weaves in and out of one another so after a few thousand years, it all seems pretty real and reasonable. And yet, it's not.

Religion is a mind worm. Just as a virus in a computer system can be very hard to eliminate, so it is with humanity and religion. It has been there to fill a need, to serve a purpose. Frequently a purpose greater than any individual or group. But it has served its purpose and now it is time to move along and be adults.

Instead of claiming there is not better way, when there really is, we should be finding those better ways. And why doesn't that just happen? Plainly put? Because people don't' want it to, because we are also mentally lazy in some ways. We hug the status quo because that works and has proven to, even if it is defective in how it works.

Just as Jesus showed up to say hey, this is defective, there is a better way, how do we now stand up and say hey, this is all defective, and there is a better way? Especially when no one wants to believe it, and the religions teach from childhood, to have faith and ignore what makes you no longer believe.

Pretty clever right? Kind of like what a con man might say. "Believe in me, cuz, we'll just do it, it's to my benefit and kind of yours, though there are better ways."

Religion works, like a bicycle works to get you across town. But when  you need to get to the bottom of an ocean, or another planet, it's only kind of functional in that maybe, it can get you to work, but then it can in no way, get you to the bottom of the ocean or another planet.

Time will prove this is true. Because like it or not, humankind is evolving and growing more intelligent and sooner or later, this will all be proved to be correct and religion and the god model will fade into existence, with only fits and jerks of tiny sporadic groups popping up from time to time in thinking that maybe it is a better way, or maybe our predecessors didn't get it right and we can now do it better.

But, we can't. It won't be made better. It's simply not the most functional, productive path possible.

Yes, it's gotten us to amazing places, when those stories are told in hindsight. But so many of those stories leave out things like the business reasons things happened, or the familial things, the bonds between humans that pulled people through tough times in really, no god anywhere had a thing to do with it.

People did. We did. And we will continue to. Just as we have since the first version of us crawled from out of the primordial slime itself.

Religion is really all about two things: character, and community. The third imaginary part is the god concept. Which is completely unnecessary other than as a guiding enforcer to assure proper character and community in people and groups.

Consider a book by David Brooks, The Road to Character. From Amazon: "Blending psychology, politics, spirituality, and confessional, The Road to Character provides an opportunity for us to rethink our priorities, and strive to build rich inner lives marked by humility and moral depth. “Joy,” David Brooks writes, “is a byproduct experienced by people who are aiming for something else. But it comes.”

We can do this, build character, in other ways that religion. Spiritual is a consideration of self, in ways other than physical. We have consistently misperceived what that is all about by placing arbitrary rules on ourselves and others, invented magical beings to explain what we do not understand at the time and then pressure others and our descendants to follow those beliefs, and steep ethereal considerations upon our lives because of the echo chamber of our inner selves, where it is merely our experiencing the process of how our brain works, how our mind (mis)perceives (at times) through our senses and how we conceive of what that data means or should mean.

Just as god supposedly created everything, like humans, whose make up is amazing, but also haphazard and dysfunctional in many ways, which is inexplicable if these bodies were created by god, and yet, fully explainable and understandable if created through evolution; so existing without a god concept, is even more functional.

The only issue is assuring people do and be how they need to be, something handled in religion through divine enforcement, assuring that people evolve into being good (something religion has failed on many times by the way).

Dumping that theory and going with reality allows us to be functional without a need for all the gods in the world, all the rules and religions that fail sooner or later in various circumstances and have led people to divine hatred of others which we've seen in christianity involving gays, women's rights issues, despising the different or other races as with the white purity movement, or Islam where some in that desert religion demands total adherence to god's laws and murder is the rule of the day if you fail, as humans do.

We need to remove the power in religion so people do not have these fallacious beliefs to use in support of their bad behaviors. They believe they are living god's form of character and group behavior in themselves with is fully ridiculous and counter productive.

A reporter recently went into the ISIS controlled areas and said he'd never seen people so brainwashed before, it was amazing. That, is what religion can do when mishandled. People need to understand what they are playing with in delving deeply into religion and god concept faith based models. It may go fine when handled well, but it can also go very, very wrong as has happened with Islamic terrorism in recent times and  certainly other examples like the crusades, The Inquisition, and so on.

A mind worm is a mind worm and with certain constraints it can be deadly and a real threat to a race of beings.

Isn't it better to remove the threat, inject reality, and move forward to evolve in ways that would be more productive, lead to faster changes and greater advances based in humane concepts and not those that a race of beings has decided would be an all powerful being's desires for that race?

I think so, I really, really think so.