Jason Summers - Part 23

Setting The Bar

May 11, 2009

Yesterday, while eating dinner with my family, my Mom said something to me which I found particularly interesting, and worth commenting on.

After I had finished my first plate of food, I was offered more food, as well as cheesecake. I thought to myself, “No more calories. This is too much.” When I refused, I was told, “Oh Jason. Look at you. You don’t have worry about your weight.”

This silly mindset causes so many people problems in life. You don’t wait until you have a problem to start preparing for it, and taking precautions. You don’t wait until you’re fat, and then say, “Uh oh, I have a problem.”

I don’t understand why people always feel they’re an exception to the rules of life, as long as they currently do not suffer from the problem. In fact, when you’re young and healthy, that’s the VERY TIME to be taking care of yourself.

But most people lack all foresight, and do not use their brains at all. They act like the only thing which exists is that which is right in front of their eyes. “I’m skinny and good looking now. No problem. I’ll just eat whatever, and do whatever.” Then one day they look in the mirror, “Uh oh. Problem. I’m fat. I guess I better take care of this now.”

People do the same thing with money. When they have an extra $1000 in the bank, they think, “Oh I have money. I don’t have to worry about spending.” Then they spend it, become broke, and one minor financial calamity wipes them out completely. Every little minor problem casues a catastrophe.

But they think, for some strange reason, that they’re an exception to the rules. Bad things happen to some people, but it won’t happen to them! But no one is an exception to the rules. Bad things happen to everybody.

Greg and I are always told, “Nothing bad ever happens to you guys.” We laugh when we hear that, because it’s not that nothing bad happens to us. We’re just always prepared, and it SEEMS like nothing bad happens to us.

Let’s say something goes wrong with the car. Those who operate paycheck to paycheck, this sort of thing causes an uproar and panic. How are they going to come up with the few hundred dollars for the whizbang dealie their car needs. They’re frantic. How will they get to work if they don’t have a car. Oh no!!!!! They start making all these phone calls, freaking out.

How does it happen with me and Greg? We have money saved up. We drop the car off at the dealer, take a cab to the office, or rent a car, and that’s that. There’s no problem. And our life continues on like normal, and nobody even notices that we HAD a problem.

And even though Greg and I make more money than most people NOW, does not mean we did in the past. But even then, when we made much LESS than most people, our lives were just as seamless and peaceful. It’s because we always had money saved up, and were prepared. And in fact, you’ll never be financially successful in life unless you learn to save money.

Here’s another example. Greg was telling me over the phone about someone commenting on the fact that he never gets sick. They were telling him, “Greg’s you’re so lucky!” There’s no “luck” to this. He takes 3000 mg of Vitamin C every day. That’s why he doesn’t catch all the normal cold and flus most people catch. And because he’s never sick, he never misses work. And once again, that’s just one less problem to worry about.

What most people consider “luck” has little to do with luck. What they really don’t understand is what Greg and I call “the bar”.

Most people set their financial bar at 0 dollars in the bank. But what you want to do is set it to some number, which is your cushion. Say $5000 or $10,000. Now when you look at your bank account, if you see $5100 in the bank, you do not have $5100 in the bank. You have $100 in the bank. You don’t touch the $5000. That’s allocated for a set purpose — your cushion. You don’t spend your cushion. That’s for emergencies and buffer money.

And when you’re saving for something, say your home, a new car, or whatever, when you see that money in your account, that money is not there.

To apply this same “setting the bar” mindset to my body, when I’m at the ideal body weight, and fat levels, I don’t have any abundance to “spend”. I can’t eat whatever I want. If I eat more than I burn, I’m going to get fat! There’s no weird exception which exists, just because I’m in shape now.

Now if I was super skinny, and needed to GAIN weight, then yeah, I could eat a lot. But I don’t have that problem. So therefore, I don’t have any extra calories to “spend”, and do not eat more than I should. Just because I’m in good shape now, does not make me an exception.

This lack of foresight is what creates these massive problems for people. What they do is let a problem build up over a long period of time, then they try to “BOOM” it. They wait until they get fat, then hope to spend 5 hours a day in the gym, and burn it all off in a month. They bury themselves in debt, then frantically rush to the financial planner when they can’t juggle the money anymore. They wait until the entire economy implodes, and then the politicians finally do something about the problems.

This lifestyle doesn’t come without its consequences. Taking the fat example — first you start gaining weight, but do nothing about it. So you look bad, your self confidence drops, and your sex life goes downhill as well. Your blood pressure rises, you get diabetes, your heart is working double time, your joints are put under heavy stress, you have less energy… and on and on. The preventive lifestyle, vs waiting until the problem is huge, then trying to fix it, are not equal.

Really, some of those diseases you suffer from are incurable. There is no cure for diabetes once you get it. Also, that whole time you were overweight, and your heart was working overtime, you were taxing your lifespan. When you abuse your heart and body, you’re not going to live as long. Even if you get your act together later, when you’re in your 50s, you’ve still done all sorts of irreparable damage to yourself.

My parents suffer from this mindset in other areas as well. Take their basement for instance. Whenever they buy new stuff for the house, or have various things they’re not sure what to do with, instead of pitching it, and taking care of it right then, it gets stuffed into the basement. So over a period of years the basement accumulates piles and piles of junk. It eventually gets so packed with junk that you can’t even walk around down there. Even the walkways are crammed with junk.

Then one day I’ll be sleeping, and there’ll be a frantic fire alarm go off. My brothers and I all get phone calls. Mom and Dad are cleaning out the basement. I answer my phone and am like, “What’s the rush?” The house is being reappraised, and they need to clean out the basement before the appraiser arrives. So the entire basement MUST be cleaned out over the weekend.

So I’m supposed to get up out of bed, put on clothes, slide down the fire poll as fast as possible, and head over to my parents house right then and there.

The SAME thing applies to the church. My parents are the pastors, and there’s a back room to the church. How it started was they kept cramming junk in this back room of the church. But then they needed to expand, and wanted to put classrooms back there. So they cleaned it out, and what to do with the junk? Well, they rented a storage room, and hauled all the junk there. Eventually church finances get tight, and they’re struggling to pay for the storage room. Uh oh. Fire alarm goes off. I get a phone call. “We have to get this storage cleaned out, now!” So here I go, down the fire poll, to save the day.

I helped clean out the basement, but did not help clean out the storage room. I told my parents that I was not going to keep bailing them out of their bad habits. They’re going to have to change, and not let these problems build up to such a degree, then expect all of us to just drop everything we’re doing, and jump to their rescue.

But I was considered “selfish”. I was the bad one here. But really, the selfish and lazy ones are my parents. How many people have donated money to the church, only to have it literally thrown away on a stupid storage room, which does nothing for anybody? $100 a month doesn’t seem like that much money, when it’s paid for once a month. But after two years, that’s $2400. That could have bought new sound equipment, or new carpet for the back area. But it doesn’t. It’s just wasted. All because of bad habits.

Our country has no conception of this principle either. Pretty much every state is operating under a deficit, and so is the federal government. Just spend spend spend. Don’t save. No surplus. Spend. Spend. Spend. But you know, every time you borrow, you have to pay it back with interest. What’s happening is our taxes keep being raised higher and higher, but we get nothing out of it. All of it goes to pay interest to international bankers, who lend us all this money. That’s the tax of being stupid.

Learn from this lesson. Just because you have some empty space in your home, don’t cram junk there, just because you can. Keep it cleaned out! Just because you have money in the bank, don’t go out and spend it. Always have some money saved, in case something happens. And don’t think you can eat anything you want, just because you look good now. Take care of yourself right now, starting today.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Topics: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Gotta Love The Fed

May 9, 2009

I personally believe the Federal Reserve is one of the biggest inhibitors of happiness and prosperity in the developed world. They’re a private bank, which regulates and controls the financial markets, but has absolutely no checks or balances from our elected officials. Basically, they do whatever they want, and nobody can say anything. Is it any wonder why people struggle financially, when a private bank is in control of all our monetary regulation, and has the power to create money?

During all these financial bailouts, and other huge government financial transactions, the Fed has ran off with over a trillion dollars, which as “disappeared”. Other news reporters and trying to figure out what has happened with the TARP money (Trouble Asset Relief Program — more bailout stuff), but the Fed is not telling what they did with the money.

Here is a congressman asking a member of the Federal Reserve as to what’s going on with all this taxpayer money they’ve been given. Basically, she gives him the run around.

Like I said before, this “bailout”, and all the other financial madness going on under the Obama administration is flat out robbery. Trillions of dollars are being stolen, and our country is being pillaged and bankrupted.

For political reasons, Obama has tried to make himself look good in the press by saying he’s “scrubbing” his future budget line by line. He’s eliminated some 17 billion in spending. That’s nice, I guess, but what about the trillions that are disappearing, without a trace? That’s like stealing a loaf of bread, and bringing us back a crumb and saying, “Nothing to worry about.”

I saw Obama on Leno, and he made some comment like, “Looookkk. Things need to be like they were during the Clinton era. Those who are making a little more money, need pay a little more in taxes, to pay for the healthcare, education, and other programs. As for those who make less, they need a tax break. It’s just fair, and we all have a responsiblity to do what we can.” But that’s such garbage. When you see how things actually work, that’s almost irrelevant. The REAL problem is these big Wall Street bankers, but Obama is not talking about them, because he appointed all of them to run his cabinet. Tax the American businessmen and entrepreneurs, then hand it all their money over to the super mega rich Wall Street multi billionaires.

What’s really going on is they’ve robbed the poor and middle class of everything they have. They’ve buried them in debt and credit cards, and have made them slaves. Now they’re trying to rob those who have saved, and run successful businesses. They’re going to heavily tax them, while also stealing their savings by printing up a ton of money, and bombing out the value of the dollar. As for the money they print up, they’re going to gobble up banks, and other businesses which they weren’t in control of prior — like General Motors. They oust their CEOs, and put in their goons.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Topics: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Obama And The Patriot Act

May 6, 2009

For those of you who think think Obama is such a great president, take a look at this. I hear few people commenting on the fact that he reauthorized the Patriot Act, which allows… this… (By the way, this is May 2009 – not Bush Administration stuff… This is the Obama administration)

A 16 year old boy is “suspected” of terrorism, Federal agents storm the home with guns, grab the child, and give him no trial whatsoever. He’s been thrown in a prison, where he’s been detained indefinitely, without trial. His mother is scared, and has no idea when they’ll let him out, if ever. The agents found NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER to support their claims that this boy is a “terrorist”. This is Nazi police state crap, and it’s literally going on here in the good ol’ United States. Obama purposely reinstated these laws, which he could have abolished.

And what’s next? A civilian army, which is not subject to Congress, marching around policing the people? A civilian military as well funded as the strongest military on Earth — with a 400+ BILLION dollar budget each year… and he wants to build a civilian military that powerful, that well funded, but policing the everyday citizen of the United States? And it’s going to be compulsory for all young people to take part in it, at least at one time or another… This is the REAL Obama.

How could they possibly be clapping and cheering for this? This is the SAME thing Hitler did… Luckily I haven’t seen any evidence that this idea he was campaigning about will ever come to fruition, but it does tell what kind of man Obama is.

If Obama cared about our national security, he’d secure the rights of everyday Americans against the corruption and abuses that the Patriot ACT offers. And as for this “civilian” service deal… that’s just scary to me. And are they going to expect someone like me to march into people’s homes, and enforce the Patriot ACT? I’m glad I’m too old to qualify for this madness. Obama can shove it.

Then there’s the banker bailouts, which is corruption at its highest level. I wrote up an entry on that the other day. Flat out robbery. Obama’s team is nothing but Wall Street goons… the very people who created this financial mess, or at least, did not properly regulate and stop it.

Greg recently was getting his automobile inspected at a garage, and the owner of the shop was telling him how Federal agents visited the shop, and told him that anyone with Ron Paul bumper stickers was a “suspected terrorist”. I guess they were wanting the owner of this garage to contact them if anyone had such bumper stickers, and notify them of the license plates, and what not.

And just like this young boy, even if you’re guilty of nothing, but “suspected” of “terrorism”, you can be thrown in jail, indefinitely, without trial. And all it takes is a bumper sticker. If this sort of thing continues, we’re not going to have any rights whatsoever.

And what about torture? Obama doesn’t seem to care much about torture. I wonder if these Ron Paul supporters will end up water-boarded?

There’s nothing stopping them. Let’s hear what Obama’s team has to say about tortue policies… Hmmm..

I loved watching how nervous Rahm Emanuel was during the interview. He knows what’s really going on. Then Pelosi, trying to dance around the issue. Obama’s administration plays like they’re “too busy” to deal with these tortue issues. We all need to be “looking forward”.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Alienation

April 28, 2009

I just came inside from a long walk outdoors, and during my walk I couldn’t get my mind off the topic of alienation.

What is alienation? In short, it’s when people don’t love and accept one another, for whatever reason. A person, or group of individuals, treats another person or group of individuals, in ways that make them feel they are out of place, and do not belong.

I kept thinking about the fact that no matter what decision I make, and no matter what lifestyle I choose, I will always bring some closer to me, and will push others away. It’s sad, but in life you can choose to be in with this crowd, or that crowd, but it’s rarely the case that you can be part of both.

It’s amazing that no matter what you do, some will admire you, and others will look down on you, for the same exact decisions and actions. I’ve been pursuing my business adventures since I was 16, hoping to make enough money to be financially free, so I can pursue some of the things I’ve always wanted to do. It’s been a rough road. I can be around a group of business men and they’ll cheer me on, telling me to stick with it, and admire my resolve and determination. Then I can spend some time around others, such as a group of college students, and they’ll start telling me things like, “Your business pursuits are consuming you. It just seems wrong to me.” I had one friend tell me I was “chasing my shadow”. It doesn’t matter what you choose, some will like you, others will disapprove of you.

I talked to some of my friends about my recent experiences lifting weights, and how I’ve been gaining a lot of muscle mass. I get mixed replies. When I see the changes, I look in the mirror and see the new me and think, “This is nice.” I talk with Greg and he’s like, “Yeah, that’s great. You should keep that up.” I talk to some girls, and they think the change is good. But that’s not to say everyone likes it. I showed a picture of how muscular I plan to get to one friend and he said, “I’d never want to look like that.” The guy in the picture had veins slightly popping out of his arms, and he thought that was gross. I thought, “The guy had just been lifting weights…” But it doesn’t matter.

If you’re slim and in good health, some will hate you just because you look good. Others will hate you if you DON’T look good. You’ll hear something like, “Oh, she’s just little miss perfect”, “She’s a spoiled princess”, “She’s so lucky, all the guys like her!” Then if she doesn’t look good, other people will be saying, “She’s so undisciplined. People are so lazy. Why can’t they make time to go to the gym! She should put more effort into her appearance.”

If you’re clean and organized, some people will hate you for that. My friend Greg showed a picture of his place to a girl, and she responded, “It doesn’t look like you live there.” To her, a place isn’t “lived in” unless it’s a bit messy and at least a little disorganized. To another person, Greg’s high level of cleanliness is the ideal, and they can’t stand messiness or disorganization of any kind! They can’t stand slobs!

If you’re morally blameless, and have lived a good life, there are those who will hate you, telling you that you’re spoiled, and don’t know about the “real world”. But this same sort of nastiness can be directed the opposite way, when people are found morally disreputable, for all kinds of reasons, and the other side stands with the halo and plays the saint.

With my parents, who are devout religious believers, I feel alienated when any topic of God or religion is brought up. It’s not me either. It’s religious intolerance. I immediately feel like an outcast, and do not belong around them. My beliefs are most closely aligned to that of an athiest, but that’s not to say I am one. I don’t think there’s really much difference at all between those who “believe” in God, and those who don’t. People who generally tell me to “believe” in God rarely seem to have any conception as to what a human “belief” entails. Generally speaking, a person’s actions show what they believe, and do not believe — not some confession out of their mouth. Bertrand Russell defined “belief” very well. Because it’s so important to understand the kinds of arguments a smart atheist brings up, I’ll quote some passage out of his book ‘Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits’:

“‘Belief,’ as I wish to use the word, denotes a state of mind or body, or both, in which an animal acts with reference to something not sensibly present. When I go to the station in expectation of finding a train, my action expresses a belief. So does the action of a dog excited by the smell of fox. So does that of a bird in a room, which flies against the window panes in the hope of getting out. Among human beings, the only action by which a belief is expressed is, very often, the pronouncing of appropriate words.
…
To put the matter schematically, with a more or less unreal simplication: The presence of a stimulus A causes a certain kind of behavior, say B; as a result of experience, something else, say C, may cause B in the absence of A. In that case, C may be said to cause “belief” in A, and “belief” in A may be said to be a feature of the behavior B. When words come in, all this becomes more precise. The sight of a fox (A) causes you to pronounce the word ‘fox’ (B); you may learn the trail of a fox in snow (C), and, seeing it, say ‘fox.’ You are then ‘believing’ A because of C. And if the trail WAS made by a fox, your belief is true.”

Taking this as a tentative definition for what a “belief” is, then what would it mean for me to “believe” in God? My Dad tells me to ‘believe’ that Jesus died and rose again, and those who believe the Biblical account of his death and resurrection will have eternal life, and their sins forgiven. So say some prayer and confess it in the presence of the church body? That’s what it means to believe? No you say, it’s my actions? You’ll know a Christian by their fruits? A lot of people live morally, far better than a lot of Christians, and I wouldn’t say they’re “believers”. All I could envision “believing” in Jesus to mean, for me, is that I tell people “I believe in Jesus”, if they ask. It’s a mindless, meaningless blurb of words I spout out as a conditioned response. It sounds so superfluous to me to not even be worth anything. I don’t know Jesus, he never talks to me, I’ve never seen his face. And as for those who say Jesus DOES talk to them, how could this be? How could they BELIEVE in Jesus by FAITH, if they KNOW Jesus? If they know him, it’s not a test of their faith to believe, and really no faith is even involved. None of it even makes sense to me, yet so many people think atheists are immoral people, who lack all virtue! But these sorts of things divide people, and alienate family members.

The educated alienate the uneducated, and the uneducated alienate the educated. When I’m around very intelligent people, they can’t stand those whose views aren’t rooted in strong empirical evidence. They have a lot of trouble tolerating idiots. Whether it’s the constant misunderstandings, the stupid retorts, or whatever, they just can’t stand to “debate” with a person who hasn’t even taken time to pick up a book, and can’t even follow basic logic. But the uneducated are the same way. There’s religious people who will burn books they haven’t even read. They won’t respect anyone without faith.

The poor alienate the rich, and the rich alienate the poor. Movies are geared to the masses, who are in general relatively poor, and their films tend to play out the rich as these miserably greedy individuals, whose life is empty. The rich are shallow people, who haven’t learned to enjoy the simple things in life. And the fact that a lot of rich, powerful men marry women for reasons other than what most normal people are accustomed to, they find even more reason to deride them.

The poor hate the rich because they find them too ambitious. Then the rich can’t stand the poor because they lack ambition. The rich get mad because they work so hard, and their money is taxed so heavily, and handed to people who work much less. The poor feel the rich have too much money, and there’s an unequal distribution of wealth.

I find my greatest joy in studying books, and reading. I love to learn new things. That’s my passion. My thoughts resemble those of the great philospoher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead:

“Our minds are finite, and yet even in those circumstances of finitude, we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite, and the purpose of human life is to grasp as much as we can out of that infinitude.”

To him, life is about understanding as much as possible before he dies. If knowledge is a mountain, he wants to climb as high as he can, and see the world from the highest point possible. When he grows old, and stands at a great height overlooking the world, he finally reaps his reward.

The Nobel prize winning physicist Richard Feynman wrote a book specifically about the joys of finding things out. To relive the adventures and discoveries of past ages, and to resolve every problem that has ever been solved! For what reason? There is no reason! Knowledge is its own reward.

I read their books and think, “I want to be like you guys!” You’d think you’d be univerally admired for ambitions like these, but in reality, not really. Most girls you date will find you boring. Instead of watching movies with her, you stay in your study working on mathematical equations representing various physical phenomenon. I’ve had girls tell me I’m boring. One girl I’m fond of told me, “I wish you’d live more.” When I read that I thought, “What do you consider life?” Running a successful company, and dreams of science pursuits of space, physics, and depth psychology are boring I guess. I tend to disagree.

My parents don’t admire me for my studies at all. The only thing they see is me “losing faith” in Christianity. To them, I’m “backsliding”. As for what I may or may not understand, they could really care less.

Everyone has their own way they think life should be lived. I’d go so far as to say everyone is living their own ideal. That’s not to say their life is “ideal”, in the sense that they’re happy and successful. What I’m saying is they all have a big torrent of views in their head, swirling about, which is how they think themselves, and others, should live. As for why they themselves are not successful, or why their own views aren’t bringing them happiness, they typically blame others, such as the corrupt politicians, or the bankers, their spouse, their children, or someone else. These views in people’s head, without other levels of psychological and spiritual understanding, are what cause alienation.

I once saw an anti-drug commercial, which I’m very fond of. Unfortunately I’m not able to find it on YouTube. It shows a kid who wants to fit in, so at first he dresses like a prep, then a punk, then a cowboy, then a gangster in baggy clothes, then he gets tattoos and shaves his head, then he grows out and dyes a red mohawk, and several other transformations. New friends keep coming into his room each time he changes.

So many people will see a commercial like that and say, “Haha, so stupid for someone to give in to social pressure like that.” I think this commercial is deeper than social pressure though. I believe the most important message conveyed is that people oftentimes won’t love others unless they’re part of their “clique”. Notice, new friends come and go, as his image changes — which is true to life. What the kid is really looking for is acceptance.

The same people who make fun of the kid in the commercial are the same ones locked into cliques, and think their identity is formed by “choosing who they are”. They’ve found something they like, and have found themselves, unlike this boy in the commercial, who lets others define him. They’re the “authetic” cowboy, or the “authetic” prep, or the “authetic” gangster. They don’t realize their own misconceptions, which are the cause of so much misery in the world.

The commercial is geared to teenagers, so it talks about social groups of preps, cowboys, jocks, etc. But in the real world, it’s not much different. There’s the Christians, the Muslims, the Democrats, the Republicans, the rich, the poor, the in shape, the out of shape, the beautiful, the ugly, the scientist, the factory worker, and on and on. All these different social clubs.

Very few people can see through this facade of being an “authentic” whatever, and notice that they’re all just masks, and none of them embody the real us. Considering that we can always change, there is no such thing as an “authetic” anything. Jean Paul Satre, in his book “Being and Nothingness” calls this “bad faith”. It’s when you believe you’re something, when you’re really not. In his book he compares it to a waiter in a restaurant. The girl waiting on your table does not have to be a waitress, but she chooses to be, and plays that role, much like an actor. She’s not a “waitress”, in a metaphysical sense. There’s nothing insider of her, in her biological constitution, which is telling her, “You must be a waiter! This is the true you! Sarah, this is your DESSTTIINNNYYYYY.” She’s only acting the role of a waitress at that moment, and in the future she could easily be something different.

There’s nothing wrong with choosing a role. In fact, we HAVE to choose a role in order to interact with each other, and live. You have to be able to see behind the masks, however. Behind every role is a living essence. It’s indefinable, and always transcending the present and moving toward the future. People are not their masks, they’re what’s under the mask.

If you’re like me, and would like to see a world where people get along, respect one another, and live in peace, one of the first things we all have to do is realize that all these choices we have available to us in life are not embodiments of who we are, but are more akin to roles in a big theater like environment, which we call life.

That’s not to say every role is equal. There are roles that are horrible, and it’s our choice what roles we play. Some roles, and combinations of roles together, make for a much better performance, and a much better life for all of us on stage. Being Hitler is a role any of us could choose to play, but that’s not to say it’s a good one.

I also think it’s worth noting that selecting our role in life is a difficult process, and more often than not, we sort of end up in our role after a long complicated series of events, much of which are unplanned. That’s not to say our life is determined. I’m just saying that life has a tendency to blow you around if you don’t fight the currents.

I think we all start off life in a blank room, surrounded by unmarked doors. It’s most often the case that we go to open doors, and have no idea what’s behind them. We choose that path, and find ourselves in one of those roles, and from then on we do what we can. It’s not effortless to change roles either, especially when you’ve made your way through countless hallways and passages. It takes time to backtrack. That’s why people are so resistant to change.

Sometimes we’re lucky enough to have people who help us along the way, and tell us what’s behind various doors before we enter them. A lot of us don’t have this luxury, however. Life, in general, is very difficult and complicated.

As for helping others select “good” doors to enter, that’s worth talking about as well.

About eight years ago, I started my philosphy quest, hoping to one day be this wise sage in my old age, who could warn the young as to all the pits and dangers, and keep them from making the common mistakes in life. I’d study all the literature and books, and find out all that’s most important in life. I’d learn how to prosper and be rich, and teach others how to life a life of abundance and happiness as well!

It’s an admirable quest, I think, but the problem I’m experiencing, and what others before me have already experienced, is that wisdom is something everyone has to acquire for themselves. Belief in authority can only work for so long, and has too many drawbacks. When it comes to helping others, it doesn’t matter how intelligent you are. An idiot is incapable of understanding things at your level, and will not even listen to what you have to say.

I saw Richard Dawkins interviewed on Bill O’Reilly’s Factor (Fox News), and they were talking about God and atheism. I saw countless comments on YouTube, and everyone was saying O’Reilly’s arguments “crushed” Dawkins. Somehow O’Reilly had proved that God existed. If you study philosophy and logic, Dawkins was clearly far more intelligent, and his arguments more refined. The problem is Dawkins arguments are complicated, and require serious study to understand whereas O’Reilly’s arguments pander to pre-existing instinctual drives, which people are already pre-disposed to believe.

Men naturally want to believe they’re the center of the universe. We’re born selfish. It took us countless ages to finally realize the Earth is not the center of the universe, and that mankind means little in the big scheme of things. In fact, after centuries of study, the intelligent among us are realizing that we’re ignorant fools, waltzing about the Earth for a short while, touting mostly nonsense, then die. We evolved from primordial slime, which orginally was just a chunk of the sun which broke off a long long time ago. Our universe, as far as we can trace it back, started off as a gigantic explosion, and the formation of planet Earth was just as fantastic.

When you become more wise, you start to realize that your life means very little in the big cosmic scheme of things. In fact, when you become very intelligent, you find that there is no intrinsic “meaning” to be found in anything. “Meaning” is relative, and it’s up to us, as humans, to give meaning to things. Meaning only exists in our brains and emotions, and oftentimes changes from human to human. What’s “meaningful” to one person, is “meaningless” to another.

You can take three different people, and have them listen to a speech by a great man, such as Martin Luther King Jr. After you play the speech, ask them to tell you what it “means”. If they’re not intelligent, you’ll get three different answers, but the more educated they are, the more alike their answers will be.

It’s easy to tell people the earth was created by a God, who is a nice male father figure, just like us, and that he flew around in space and created everything. God creates man, in his own image, and then creates the animals, for us to rule over. It’s a nice pretty picture, until you study biology, cosmology, physics, and other sciences – it all falls apart. Biology will remove the distinction between species and show you their true origin, and how they change over time. Cosmology and physics will tell you about the formation of planets and galaxies, the big bang, movements of the stars, and the laws that govern our universe. But O’Reilly conveniently dodged all these difficulties by just saying, “Oh, so you [Dawkins] are admitting that you scientists haven’t figured it all out?” How could scientists figure it “all out”, when there’s literally infinite knowledge to find out? We’re as sure evolution took place as the Earth goes around the sun… how much more certain do we have to be?

I’m sure there’s already a huge percentage of people who read those last paragraphs and already disagree with me. I read a whole library of books, and condense it into a few paragraphs. I’m sure a lot of people have no idea what I just said, or the importance of anything in this entry. But that can’t be changed I suppose. I send some of my philosophy journal entries to scientists who work at Lockheed Martin, and NASA, and they respond to me saying, “That was wonderful! Such an insightful read”, and give me glowing praise. I send the same material to others who aren’t anywhere near as intelligent, and they quarrel with me on just about every point.

There’s generally a consensus among people who read books on a lot of things. That’s because, generally speaking, such books contains facts and information, which changes the reader’s opinions on things. They come to trust in empirical research and science, and all opinions tend to disappear, and only truth remains. This truth is the unification factor, which makes all people who know it universally agree.

There’s sure to be a confusion when I tell people to love everyone, regardless of what they believe, or what they think, yet at the same time, only acknowledge empirical reason as truth. If science points to evolution as true, than how can I reconcile this with a person who believes the Biblical account in Genesis? The answer is, I don’t try to reconcile anything. People who don’t know the truth, and haven’t studied into the science and biology of it all, I view them more akin to a child who is doing something stupid. I don’t hate a kid in school just because he gets a math problem wrong. I try to help them if they’ll at least listen, but if not, I don’t worry about it. I don’t look down on them though. And that’s what’s important.

Most people’s views are held because of the information they’ve been exposed to. If they get a hold of the right information, and the right arguments, they’ll make the right decisions, most of the time. I think what’s most important is to have arguments, documentaries, and books readily available for when the person is finally ready to open their mind, even if just a little bit, to hear out what others are saying.

It’s also important to say that everyone is a work in progress, and none of us complete. We have to be patient with one another. It’s silly to spend 10 years studying books, and then charge into a school building and start yelling at all the kids, because they don’t understand it all. It’ll take time, and many people will never put forth the effort the learn. Knowledge is a gift only given to those willing to seek it out and work for it. It’s something that truly has to be earned.

I think when it comes to this subject of alienation, in the beginning people have to adhere to a simple precept of “masks”, where this principle tells them to accept other people and their ways of life out of a moral duty. It may be a struggle for them, but they’ll adhere to it as a moral principle, and just do it because it’s the “moral” thing to do. Later, with intelligence, if they hopefully acquire it one day, they’ll learn what I mean when I’m talking about the masks. They’ll read books like Satre’s Being and Nothingness, think about what it means to even be human, and then realize that it makes no sense NOT to live this way.

Unfortunately I have doubts whether that would even be effective. Morals enforced and fueled by will power are never as effective as people UNDERSTANDING why they should obey certain moral rules. We run into another instance of my favorite quote: There is no solution to a lack of knowledge. It embodies everything I’ve ever learned, including all treatments and problems of alienation.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Topics: Philosophy, Psychology | No Comments »

The Current Financial “Crisis”

April 18, 2009

This is a fascinating PBS interview with University of Missouri economics professor William Black, who tells how we got into this financial mess.

If you listen carefully, he tells you specifically that all of these bad loans were given to everyday people who LIED when getting their loans. They lie about their income, how much debt they’re in, etc. Then the bankers purposely avoid background and credit checks prior to making the loan because they can make more money lending to those who they KNOW will never pay it back. How is this so? Their plan is to bundle up these loans, which they know are bad, and sell them in various packages to the public, with a triple A rating, and make huge record profits. And these huge “record profits” will give these bank CEOs big bonuses. As Professor Black puts it, our entire financial system has become a giant Ponzi scheme!

What’s interesting to me is that ALL the blame is going toward corruption at the top. Though the big CEOs, bankers and politicians certainly deserve their share of the blame, they are not the only ones involved in this scandal. Where is the responsibility to the people who took out loans they KNEW they couldn’t pay back? This financial meltdown is corruption at all levels of society, bottom to the top.

You’ll hear about Obama’s financial board members, as well as those in the Bush administration, who remove all these regulations that were in place to safeguard lending. You’ll hear about Larry Summers, one of Obama’s chief economic board members, blocking good derivative regulation which would’ve stopped a lot of this calamity. In fact, the very regulation Larry Summers stopped was the very regulation which would’ve stopped the AIG debacle from ever happening.

Obama is not going to fix our current financial situation, he’s part of the problem. The same financial goons who created our financial mess are the same ones creating this “bailout” and massive spending, buying up these toxic loans, which they themselves created.

Geithner wants us to believe he’s helping us, buying up these toxic loans with our tax dollars. What a joke. This is nothing but a huge transfer of wealth to the bankers, big CEOs and politicians, and then suckering the American people into buying up these “liars loans”, and acting like it’s to our own benefit to do so.

But one thing I want to stress again, the corruption STARTED at the bottom, with people taking out loans they KNEW they couldn’t repay, and WEREN’T going to repay. The only reason these loans were so disastrous was because people did not pay back the loans they took out. The greedy politicians and CEOs at the top only took advantage of the situation.

So to “bailout” this situation, Obama prints up trillions of dollars, and hands it all to the corrupt bankers (THE VERY ONES WHO GOT US INTO THIS MESS) and pays off their toxic loans. Those who created the problem, are now posing as the solution! Those like Geithner, who was one of the chief regulators while all this was going, is put in charge of the disaster he himself created. Geithner was one of the heads of the Federal Reserve in New York, whose job is to regulate banks.

Who pays the bill? The responsible upper middle class, and middle class, who save their money. The U.S. dollar loses its value, and their savings accounts are devalued. We’re rewarding irresponsibility, and removing justice.

Because nobody knows how much money Obama is going to print up, investment in this country to upstart entrepreneurs has practically become nonexistent. Legitimate investors are worried about hyperinflation. The wealthy investors are putting their money in other countries, or moving it into gold, so that they’re not robbed in this Ponzi scheme.

Plus Obama and his goons are going to be tackling universial healthcare, and free college for all… Who knows what may happen in our near future.

Idiot commentators on various news networks act like taxing the rich at very high rates is the way to fix this! How RIDICULOUS. I saw this idiotic woman on MSNBC saying even if the wealthy were taxed at 90% (like things were during World War II), it wouldn’t hurt them. Stupid woman. GOOD business men, like myself, had NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS MESS. Why should I foot the bill?

Then I see all the corporate owned news programs deriding the tea parties. I even saw an episode of Jon Stewart on comedy central, making fun of the tea parties. So it’s not just the news, it’s everyone including late night comedy. They play them out as if they’re all just a bunch of stupid rednecks, who don’t know why they’re even out there. Their “coverage” of the events reminds me of those news reporters in the UK, who talk about Americans being so stupid. They find one idiot on the streets, asks them all kinds of questions (which the idiot obviously doesn’t have a clue about), and then they say, “There you have it, Americans are idiots.”

When I see these idiots having a mainstream voice on news programs, but obviously lack all financial and economic knowledge as to how things work, or who is to blame, I want to scream, and throw stuff at the TV. These same commentators demonize all CEOs and business men, instead of correctly placing the blame on the small few who are corrupt. And taxing the wealthy will NOT get the money back from the corrupt bankers, and politicians who CREATED this mess. They’ve moved their money out of the country, I’m sure. These same idiots are flocking to Obama’s rallies, and cheering him on, as him and his goons steal your money.

Taxing the wealthy is NOT the fix to this. Properly regulating the financial market, and stopping these bankers is how to fix things. I still can’t believe people think Obama is such a great guy. He’s a crook at all levels. But to everyone reading this: Most CEOs, and bankers are NOT corrupt like this. Just listen to this economist. 90% of the bank CEOs during the savings and loan debacle during the 1980s COULD have engaged in fraud, leaving them with huge profits, but they did not. Most business men are GOOD people.