20090806

Thursday, August 06, 2009

It’s been a long time since I have written anything. I don’t even know where to start. So much has happened, and so many plans have fizzled out or been forgotten. I don’t even know why I am writing. Will anyone ever read this? I used to envision people reading my journals and analyzing my thoughts long after my death, but I suppose that’s my arrogance kicking in. I used to tell myself it was only confidence, that I would make a difference in the world and everyone would know and remember me, and see me as a genius. I am not the overconfident person I used to be. But, I do feel like I performed much more efficiently and effectively at whatever it was I was doing in that mode. I don’t know if I will go back to that or not. I do know that I don’t like where I have navigated in life, or who I am, currently. I know I have to initiate some radical changes, and transcend the lifestyle of mundane degeneration I have adopted for myself lately. I never thought I was like most people, content to sit and watch the latest sitcom, repeating some insipid job that would be better performed by a robot, feeding into the money-making machine, where some unscrupulous asshole collects surplus capital produced by my labor, while I struggle to pay bills and feed my kids. I always knew I wasn’t into that, and growing up, I rebelled against it in some pretty unintelligent ways; I fucked around a lot and didn’t really get anywhere, but I did dream big. Eventually, when I joined the US Navy, I started to really pursue a few of those big dreams, putting foundations and support structures under those castles in the sky. But, I have always felt utterly alone in those endeavors. I longed for cooperation, relation, and understanding. I have yet to really experience that. And, I believe that, by making some pivotal choices and directing my life as I have, I’ve ruined my chances of completing those structures, unless I make some changes, now.

I have not been going home much lately. My vehicle broke down and I don’t really enjoy taking the trolley home, or riding my bike to work anymore. I did it for about six months, on and off, but I don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t really want to do much. I am tired of struggling and not really making much noticeable progress, and encountering increasing resistance every step of the way. People’s advice, though usually well intended, doesn’t contribute in the least to any solid step I could make toward recovery from the catastrophe that is my life lately. I fear, as with every other time conditions have gotten rough, that I am going to have to fix it, improve it, and move on alone, with little or no cooperation, and over-stress myself until I break down again. Is that the way life goes? It should not be like this. The only feeling I have about that sort of execution of human life, is deep despair.

I have done my utmost to be a positive, constructive, creative, contribution to society—one that improves circumstances, not only for myself, but for others, for society itself; I even dedicated years of my life in an attempt to facilitate the improvement of two human beings in dire condition—but I have nearly destroyed my ability to succeed and flourish in the process. I have definitely destroyed my motivation to go on in pursuit of my dreams. And, I feel like my sacrifice was worthless and stupid. I feel that I made a terrible choice, and that I would have and could have better served the world, and myself, by avoiding my compassion completely. But, that’s also what I feel is the greatest hindrance to humanism, and the furthering of human ethics. People don’t give a shit about each-other, and when they do, they get taken advantage of, and suffer for it. It reminds me of that e.e. cummings poem about humanity. I love people, but I hate them for being so stupid. And, I guess that goes for me as well.

I am sorry for not giving my kids a better life. I really wish I could have provided more for them. I didn’t do my best until it was too late, and then, while I was doing more than superman himself could have done, over-achieving and pushing hard to make more money, to learn, and to do well, my efforts were continuously degraded by fucked up people, and a fucked up system that doesn’t give a shit about anyone.

The thing I like about free-market libertarianism, Ayn Rand, and conservative political philosophy of people in the US is that it invokes a sense of personal capability, initiative, responsibility, and worth. But, I don’t agree that altruism or egalitarianism is a hindrance to social progress, or even personal progress. The fact that some people are paying $500 for face creams, or pumping hundreds of dollars a month of gas—lining the pockets of people who openly hate America, and the Americans who are in bed with them—into their unnecessarily oversized SUVs, polluting the air their children will be breathing after they’ve killed themselves by smoking cigarettes, while other people are literally eating trash out of dumpsters, makes me angry. And that’s what over-adherence to that philosophy has produced. Of course, it also produced a lot of wealth for our society, but, apparently, if my ship is throwing thousands of pounds of food in the garbage and pumping into the ocean on a weekly basis, not to mention spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on gas on a weekly basis, we are not being very responsible or intelligent about using that wealth. Better yet, if we are using that wealth to trick people into thinking that some ridiculous herbs will make them live longer and lose weight without exercise, or that because some celebrity said they used a brand of makeup, it will somehow make them more nearly attractive or personable as that celebrity, only to dupe them out of giving up their money, then we are not being responsible with our wealth. Usury is ubiquitous, customary even, in American society. We pride ourselves on kicking people’s asses, legally robbing them, and putting the less deserving in their place—underneath. So we’ve essentially reduced ourselves to a bunch of crabs in one giant bucket. Who cares if you get out? Your brethren are still struggling, and dying in there, and you might have stepped on them or pulled them down in the process. Unfortunate circumstances befall people, the future is not clear, and people make bad decisions that lead to hardship. There’s no reason to leave them to die of disease or starvation in the street, or struggle seeking remedy for their pain alone.

It’s more than halfway through 2009 now, and I have great hope for the future. I just have lost a lot of the hope for my own. I would have liked to be born about fifty years from now, or maybe further, depending on how much we’ve progressed. It seems that visionaries and optimistic artists are always overestimating how fast we’ll progress as a species. Humans are cursed with an animal nature that they have symbolized in demons, devils, and evil spirits. I don’t believe in any of those symbols actually existing, only that they are anthropomorphized icons of that instinct in human nature which drives people to dominate one another. We can wash our hands of this, and that is my hope for the future.

"The real advantages that should result from this progress, of which we can entertain a hope that is almost a certainty, can have no other term than that of the absolute perfection of the human race; since, as the various kinds of equality come to work in its favor by producing ampler sources of supply, more extensive education, more complete liberty, so equality will be more real and will embrace everything which is really of importance for the happiness of human beings ....

The time will therefore come when the sun will shine only on free men who know no other master but their reason; when tyrants and slaves, priests and their stupid or hypocritical instruments will exist only in works of history and on the stage; and when we shall think of them only to pity their victims and their dupes; to maintain ourselves in a state of vigilance by thinking on their excesses; and to learn how to recognize and so to destroy, by force of reason, the first seeds of tyranny and superstition, should they ever dare to reappear among us."

-Marquis de Condorcet (1744-1794)

Some people might say this is only a lofty dream. I can’t think of a more noble purpose to which to dedicate one’s life.

As is demonstrated by my life thus far, we can strive to force-feed our vision and values to other people, even if we think that’s what’s best for them, but they’ll resist it. They have to find their own way. And if they are unwilling to relinquish their usurious, parasitic behavior, they can never be absolved as humans. I have stupidly spent years of my life in the pursuit of the impossible, as noble a cause as it were. And, I know that my wife and children have benefited from the fruits of my labor, but has it been worth the cost? Has the cost been necessary? Has the suffering been necessary?

I don’t think so. And I don’t blame only myself, or them, but everyone. The human world is juvenile, continuously infantilized by our damnable instincts and stubborn resistance to or rejection of cooperation and foresight.

I can’t bear to live any longer with these lazy, stupid people I love, and that love me as well, while we punish each other with our desires, demands, and judgments.

I tried.

I don't want to give up.

20090112

Monday, January 12, 2009

The thing I hate the most about the navy is a supervisor’s ability to diminish someone without the risk of retribution. In most situations, people will not diminish others so openly for fear of attack or other retaliation. My ideas are good, and I seek to improve myself, my work environment, which subsequently can cause others to benefit. Too often though, I’m reproached for my proactive and independent character. Senior Chief Craig Apodaca is the main negative influence in my life, and in the division. His leadership style is detrimental to peoples’ mental health.

Today the LAN was taken down at work and I knew that we had to move our computers over to the barge to be able to use them later, as the network was being moved to the barge. But, when Craig found out that I had moved a computer, he asked me why I was doing it without his permission. I told him because I knew it had to be done, and he disagreed saying we can lock them up. I told him that we had to move them if we wanted to use them and asked where I put the computer. I told him I put it in the OPS office, and he said that that office was for the OPS officer. I said, “ok, where do you want me to move it?” And he yelled, “WELL THANKS FOR ASKING, BOATS!” and continued to affront me for the action, rather than answer my question. After he was done, I told him that the area that we used the last time we had a barge of that type was taken by the engineers. He then pointed out an area, and I said, “OK, I’ll put them there.” He then told some other people that he wanted to computers there, but, beforehand, didn’t want the computers moved at all. He effectively adopted my idea while diminishing the fact that I took the individual initiative to turn that idea into reality. I have a long list of occurrences like this documented from our previous deployment, along with dates and details.

I am tired of dealing with serpentine behavior of that nature; he is a repeat offender, in the most literal sense of the word “offender”. He offends, demeans, suppresses, and projects negativity onto anyone who works for him. His behavior is destructive to the motivation of his subordinates, as he treats them like despicable and undeserving objects; interacting with him causes me more stress than it’s worth, and usually keeps me from doing my job. I am not willing to be proactive and improve a situation in which this person is involved, as he is a counter-productive force, a squanderer of my intelligence, a destroyer of my individuality, and a suppressor of my self-expression and personal freedom. His leadership style is not conducive to my creativity, my initiative, my drive, my industrious work ethic, and my proactive and positive approach to leadership. Our styles of leadership and management are diametrically opposed. He preaches “respect up and down the chain of command,” but treats those under him with little, if any, respect, and is infuriated when he does not receive it from them. He is a terrible leader, in my opinion; and, he has cultivated negative attitudes in everyone who works for him. I am certain that more than ¾, if not all of the personnel who work under him (and possibly all those who have worked under him) would agree that his approach is not only unwelcome, it’s counter-productive, and somehow upset them, or even caused them serious mental distress. Deck seamen desire nothing more than to escape, and so do I. I did extremely well before he arrived, but since he has, he’s been stifling my success, and detracting from others’ recognition of it. I can deal with so much. But, I feel that to continue to endure this maltreatment, about which I feel I can do NOTHING, would be a stupid and self-sacrificing decision. One of us has to go, as I am unwilling to reconcile our differences, and unwilling to continue to produce value for an operation of which he is “in charge.” So, I have determined that I am putting in package for DIVE, as well as my STA21. Until then, I will concentrate only on endeavors outside of my division.

Other than that, I am making significant improvements. I have completed two classes in pursuit of my degree, and now taking an Anatomy and Physiology class. I have to make up my NC Pace course due to negligence on the part of our last Educational Services Officer, but I am confident that I can perform well, if the exam materials show up in time. I am in communication with the school who administered the course materials, and I will work out whatever I can with them. I also plan to request temporary assigned duty at the Naval Hospital in San Diego, so I can improve my medical knowledge and maybe get some connections that will help with STA21. Based on the past, I doubt that my command will support me on that. So I will have to base my actions on the future rather than the past.

I downloaded quite a bit of music production/mixing software that I am working with. I haven’t learned much yet, but it’s a step in the direction I want to go. I also started writing my goals for 2009. I did them a little differently this time, grouping them into areas of focus, like Business, Family, Health/Fitness, Navy Career, and etcetera. I haven’t completed it yet, but I am going to do that tonight, and really get the plans laid out. I am tired of screwing around and spinning my wheels, wearing myself out needlessly. So I am going to have the major accomplishments underneath the areas of focus, which involve longer-term goals, and then have individual actions and milestones (with timelines) for each accomplishment. This year I am going to draft business plans and submit them, at least for my ideas for the club-cam, and the pest control project. I also am going to start writing my “kaizen” book, and draft the Navy Movie, as well as collect the thoughts and entries I have written to and organize them for eventually use in a formal book of philosophy. I’ll also finish up the paperwork for immigration and adoption. I am going to submit another STA21 package, and also submit one for Dive school. One way or another, I have to go somewhere where I am not squelched by others’ commitment to proving human existence to be a depraved one, or at least not have to work for those who have that commitment—or those who have no commitment to the exaltation and improvement of humanity, beginning (and perhaps even ending) with the self. If someone does not have that as a foundation, I don’t want to deal with them.

I have also been reading and thinking about philosophy lately, and even writing a bit about it. I selected that as a minor for my degree, but it will be something in which I am deeply involved and active. I think it is important for everyone, and those who neglect it, neglect the fundamentals of their character and their deeply personal development of it. They leave that undefined, only to be defined by whomever, or to whomever or whatever they’ll define it in response. But, if it is not defined by the determination of one’s own mind, their character is more superficial, less profound, and less personal. There has never been a self-made person who did not have a deliberate, personally developed philosophy. In other words, there has never been a self-made person who did not make their self, quite literally and deliberately.

Tomorrow, I start riding my bike to work again, and working out full-steam. I think that will have a great positive effect on my motivation, confidence, and productivity.

20100101

Friday, January 01, 2010

2010 is the year it all turns around. The past two years were a rumination process, really. I went through some difficult trials but it all radically altered my perspective. I’ve been doing some reflection on it all lately. Before, despite my success, I was sympathetic to an egomaniacal, individualistic outlook. I was vying for a right-wing libertarian lifestyle, out-of-hand rejecting any collectivist notions that I suspected of harboring or defending a lifestyle of dependency. Much of my life relates directly to my relationship with Liz. My humanity took her, and while, at the time, I believed that my example of independent strength and will, along with my financial support, was more than enough to enable her to be independent and strong as well. But, I overlooked or underestimated the psychological underpinnings of her tendency towards dependency. And, I can compare this on a global scale, to my attitudes, and popular attitudes about the lower classes, the homeless, the mentally ill, the disabled, many of the elderly, or the socially and economically disadvantaged in general. And, my change of heart was much to the benefit of personal relationships.

Although, during this period I did turn-off my self-confidence and turn-down my spirited mission for personal progress and to make a contribution to social progress, but this was, however subconsciously, induced because my overconfidence and self-importance was not in agreement with the character of my self-proclaimed purpose: Kaizen, betterment of self, inspiration of others, influencing social improvement. The ripples can make waves, and I have long known that my influence does fashion the course of history, and influence the whole of it—potentially influencing great shifts in direction. However, as I looked to this idea as a source of inspiration, I resorted to a form of solipsism, exalting myself above the majority of humanity and becoming unsympathetic to their barriers to self-actualization. When I was studying Buddhism, I read that when the bodhisattvas reach Nirvana, they then return to the suffering world to enlighten others, bringing them to Nirvana, with a goal of bringing all beings to this state. During the time of my life when I was coming into my own independence and exercising my abilities to the fullest, I felt like a Bodhisattva who had reached Nirvana, gotten a taste of the power of full self-expression, but while reveling in the power it afforded me, I had forgotten about everyone else. Well, that’s not enlightenment. It makes sense that the bodhisattvas have to come back, because leaving the world behind, or dominating it, isn’t enlightenment—it isn’t productive or positively powerful. It’s much easier to get one’s self to the point where they are fully self-expressed and engaged in self-actualization, than it is to get someone else there. And that is, in my case, as I suspect is similar to all humans, because of my tendency to overlook or be unsympathetic to any foreign psychological condition, obstructing any possibility for relation. And, relationship is integral to mutual inquiry, connection, and experience.

So, the last couple paragraphs, on this page, literally, and in my life, metaphorically, have been a development of how independence and personal power, when worshipped as the highest of all virtues, are not conducive to social excellence. This might seem straightforward and easy to understand for a child: Selfishness simply favors the self over all else, including family members, future generations, and humanity itself. It’s short sighted, because the current span of a human life is little more than a century, at best.

There is something to be said about the positive ideas I retained from that time period, which was from about 2005 to 2008. I learned how to be myself, to trust myself, and to know that I was capable of accomplishing much more than I ever seriously imagined myself to be able to do. Sure, I had heard it from my parents and teachers and people who loved me, but this was the time period where I really tested it out, and found that it was certainly true: I was powerful. And, I doubt if anything worthwhile—as far as goal-reaching and self-actualization goes—could be accomplished without an embrace of self-confidence a healthy development of one’s ego (“one’s ego” is redundant), because, without being aware of my own ability, it would surely be difficult for me to use it. So, contrary to Zen, total annihilation of the ego is not conducive to social progress, at least at this point in our technological development. I use “ego” in the sense of self-opinion or consciousness of one’s own personality, rather than the pejorative meaning—selfishness. To be self-expressed and self-actualized, a person needs to be aware of their self. But, the lesson I have learned here is this: I live for others just as much as I live for myself. If I become unbalanced or out of agreement with my core in my conscious approach to goal-fulfillment or goal-selection, I will return to balance, perhaps against the will of my ego.

Perhaps the ego is more a tool of the base of self, which is not fully expressed in conscious thought, than I previously considered it to be. Maybe the subconscious mind is not a tool to be used by the conscious, but the consciousness wielded by direction of a deeper, fuller, more stable, and interconnected purpose lying in the subconscious.

I have some more thoughts on how religion ties into all of this as well, and some plans I have for the future, concerning religion, writing, personal relationships, and business. But, I will write more about these later.