Sound

Origins--sources--ripples--continuation--growth--boundaries.

Death...

The color of the world
lies wholly in the beholders
Is

I will have my audience and my trial. Eventually. Well, actually, I probably won't. But it doesn't really matter. I just have to minimize my impact. Shiva's tenth avatar...Antichrist...Arthur and his Baen-sidhe army...

What does a person fear? The removal of legacy. I have no legacy, therefore I have no fear. But I fear. Does this mean I have a legacy? Or does it mean I want one?

If psychologists started from the right premises, perhaps I would ask one. If a spiritual counselor could be analytical, perhaps I would ask one.

Sorrow and Regret

Some differences are purely semantic. Others are not.

But if we believe in an absolute, then all is absolute by one purview or another.

Which means that the differences aren't semantic, but real.

How do I reconcile this paradox?

Semantically, of course.

Despair

Is despair the end of the emotional spectrum, just before black, black death?

Or are emotions nonquantitative? Can I even say a 'spectrum' exists?

I sincerely hope that death is, above all, peace, when it comes for me.

And if it's not, and I burn or freeze or think or stop or alone? Well, then, I've prepared in my head for the worst. Respite need not come when I'm as ready for the infinite unknown as any will ever be.

Valueless, but not unvalued; unvaluable, but to some invaluable; despicable, but appreciated; vile, but not deprecated. May no one's life ever depend on mine, for it is a weak and rotten support.

Suicide? negligence. Responsibility is not gone, though its appearance is a thin veneer.

The Case for Nihilism

I'm an amateur philosopher, just like most people who know how to think.

Most of my philosophy is based on theology, having been raised to believe.

But some things just aren't covered.

Do I believe God knows what is best? Sure, I believe that. This postulate implies that I'm here for a reason.

Maybe the world wouldn't be better off without me. I don't think so, but if God thinks so, He's withholding judgment. Take that last word as you will.

If I ever find a way to remove man from existence, I won't hesitate to make it happen.

Self-Castigation

Some people are afflicted with emotional shallowness. Others, with its opposite.

Most of us fall somewhere in between.

I...

Well, I prefer to think that I know myself well. Some emotions I feel deeply, while others are imperceptible.

Despair is one of the former; affection is one of the latter.

Why?

How should I know?

My choices are my own, and my destiny is not. Fire is my future and ice my present.

I wish I could feel that I were doing something right.

Visualization and Catharsis

I used to believe that I could offload my troubles on God. Maybe I still do. No, I think I do.

But I haven't been listening. A barrier's there now; all my sins accumulated into a black, rotting dust sheet on the skylight.

So I have to find some other way. The difference between worrying and meditating is the focal point.

Visualization is powerful. Not in the mystical sense, nor even in the mental sense; but it's useful.

I worry a lot; sometimes too much, and I'll cry myself to sleep. But now I have another way to get my mind off it.

Close your eyes and hold out your hand. Look at your hand. Imagine a rock, a crystal in its natural form. It's round and rugged, black and spotted.

Chipping at it produces a globe of facets, disarranged but beautiful in its own way.

Careful further refinement produces a crystal of eight equal sides, then of six equal sides.

This crystal begins to spin on the tip of one finger; by the time you can't see it anymore, the tip of the finger is at the center of where the crystal used to be.

And who is to say that it was imaginary? We all might be figments in the mind of God; for certain, we are held together by the exertion of His will. And we are made in His image, though we might be nought but images.

Hearing things

Do you hear voices? I hear voices.

Of course they're inside my head.

No, not like that.

Did you know that stress induces heightened senses?

Did you know that our senses have two limit sets?

In a standard human eye, the focus resolution of the lenses is precisely the size of the receptor neurons. The eye may have evolved--I don't think so, but I can't prove it--but every variety of eye seen in nature has this character. Similar limits apply to the other four senses; sight is just the most complex.

The second limit set is in the mind. Hearing is the best example of this; the logarithmic amplification curve that the ear uses to linearize physical stress is modifiable at both ends by mental examination. Translation: you hear literally everything, but it doesn't register. Stress will increase the range you can hear, and help you recognize patterns in the noise.

Fascinating, eh? Try it sometime. It only takes about six months of living in a yellow-plus state of alertness to notice a difference.