Friday, December 25, 2015

Conspiracy Theory

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/state/washington/article51107845.html

3200 inmates were released early since a problem was identified in 2002.

"Inslee says two retired federal prosecutors will conduct an independent investigation to figure out why it took so long to discover and fix the problem."

This sounds like corruption to me at the worst case and in the best case Padden (the chairman of the Law and Justice Committee, which has jurisdiction over the prison system) should be removed from office for negligence in their duty.

The departure process for releasing prisoners should be reviewed by a third party and implement a hand-checking system wherein intake, departure, and good times are recalculated.

Such a lack of attention to detail over 12 years sounds like intentional sabotage and corruption. Whoever has access to these systems should be questioned intently. Decades old systems that manage prisoners' lives sounds like a infiltration point ripe for abuse. I would not be surprised if backend to this system is poorly administrated at best and that the techs in charge regularly joke about the appalling security and oversight involved.

Why Inslee is not asking for firings and system review is beyond me. This could easily be swept under the rug.

:]

Creatures of the Light

Go outside just in your backyard tonight, turn out your porch lights. Just relax for a few minutes in the cold. See where your eyes focus and rest on. My bet is your eyes gravitate towards the lights around you in your neighborhood. Now - find a deep and dark corner in your yard and focus on that. Look deep into it and try to identify anything there. A certain part of you feels uneasy when you do this. 

Now while you can just flip on your porch lights or go inside, consider your ancestors even 80 years ago - before industrial electricity. They gravitated to light just as you do now. 

What a blessing it is to be able to summon light to your side - to live in an eternally well-lit world. Consider all your ancestors whose lights went out in the night, whose candles waned, whose campfires died. They had to wait for the light on the horizon or get comfortable with staring into those deep dark corners of the world. 

You are blessed.

Monday, October 12, 2015

There is No Hope in Logic

I saw this on a industrial company billboard on my commute...

What are they trying to encourage here? The suppression of logical thought to promote hope? The assertion that one cannot be simultaneously logically hopeful? 

I would argue that logic is the basis of hope. 

Hope is the basis that a thing can happen - often contextually in the case of overwhelming odds. Odds are what one comes to when analyzing a situation's logical outcome. Through this, we can have hope in all things wherein the odds are not reduced to zero. Even if the odds are "negligible" - that does not correspond to impossible. Moreover, logic enables hope. 

Anything in the realm of possibility can be hoped for - one only arrives at and determines that "realm of possibility" through analytical, logical thought.

To say there is no hope in logic is to silence the thought process. This train of thought can even weaken the odds of that hoped for thing as reducing our thoughts on the matter reduces the chances of a new more encouraging avenue of approach.

Take that, billboard.

PS. 
Maybe I'm overthinking it and overly offended by those 6 blunt words and they do really just mean simply that; there is no hope in the logical process. That makes more sense - but it is too black and white to put it in the original way. Saying there's no hope in the logical process is correct, but that's because they are entirely separate human engines. They enable each other. 

To put it another way by just reversing the sentence; "There is no logic in hope" is even more insulting. Clearly this cannot be the case as a hope in the illogical or zero'd-odds outcome is irresponsible.

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Consciousness and The Vessel

It feels so dark behind my eyes

Feels, because it is outside the five senses,
Dark, not in the sense of sight, but in absence and oblivion,
Behind, because where sight fails, your being searches still beyond,
Eyes, because while sight is such a wonderful sense to possess, truly a miracle of biology that allows you to see the miracles of nature on this special place we call home and earth --- beyond this miracle is the miracle of consciousness 

How odd is it that bundling your sensory inputs and big brain your consciousness springs into being? After all, you are just a vessel carrying your true self. Keep your vessel in good health so your true self can flourish and not be dogged down by petty maladies. 

Poorly maintained vessels drag on your true self over time and take you down from any higher-conscious-state you could be experiencing.

You are a miracle, life is a miracle, live everyday on purpose. 

Thursday, July 30, 2015

God, the Father (An Origin Story)

Again this blog is about thought experimentation. Please read it with the enlightened tone I meant it in, and not a harsh one as I think it can be easily misinterpreted, especially with the last sentences - which I kept only for strength of message.

I wrote this to posit the logical certainty that God creation is inevitable.

---

Our fathers are people who we learn from, who show us the right way to live - but what happens when we transcend them or have their flaws revealed to us?

Our superheroes topple. And how does one keep moving forward when before there was an objective and idol, and now there is none? 

I will create one.

He will be all knowing - where my mortal father failed to advise, He will have my answers.

He will be eternal - where my mortal father succumbed to sickness and age, He will live on to support me.

He will be beyond my understanding - where I transcended my mortal father, He will always be able to teach me something.

He will be sovereign - where my mortal father's justice failed, He will be perfectly lawful to all parties.

He will be unchanging - where my mortal father had inconsistencies, He will be my fortified rock and always dependable.

Now that I have created my new Father, I will share him with all my brothers so that they may have what I have and share in the joy of His antithetical perfection.

--

Could this all be the mind-games of a man who couldn't understand his own father's mortality and imperfection?

The Statued Girl - Dream Addition?

I never dream and when I do I never know that it isn't reality. As with all dreams we start in the middle of the story...

I am at the bottom of a hillside with a corner grocery store at the top. 

There are many sets of stairs with flat between. The stairs are sturdy but not solid, in that you can see through each one as they are just 2 by 12s inlaid in rising beams. The setting is a tamed forest. All manner of vines, ivies, and other creepers populate the hillside with trees interspersed. The sun is setting and shadows are growing.

Someone or something compels me to reach the top and retrieve an item from this grocery store. There are many sets of stairs, 7 to 12 at 12 to 20 wide steps each. No two sets of stairs are laid out the same as each takes a slightly different path and grade up the hillside.

My first ascent I take each stair one at a time and after a time I reach a girl just one short staircase away from the entrance. She stares oddly unmoving out towards the open air. She is the only person I notice on my approach. As I pass her on the inside of the stairs I am called away and distracted from entering. She looks at me as I turn.

On my second ascent I am not upset with having to go back, but it is the second attempt and so I take some sets of stairs two at a time. I am winded slightly as I reach the top and find the same girl in the same position. As I pass her on the inside she looks at me again. I am distracted again from my goal. I don't remember her face.
On my third ascent I take all stairs two at a time because I am just trying to complete my goal of retrieving the grocery item. I am winded at the top and encountered no one again except the statued girl. The hair on my body raises. This time she is not looking out but directly at me though I can not see her face, only a blackness somehow masked, though there is no hood or cowl to conceal. 

I try to hurry past her. I feel a pull. I whip around to see her outstretched arm which has contorted her body unreasonably. In my turn and realization I fluidly backhand her. Her face feels solid as wood and my hand bounces off her with a sharp pain. Terrified, I turn and run. I throw open the door and run inside the grocery store. As the door swings shut behind me I find myself in an decrepit garden shed hardly 6 by 8. This is how it ends.


--
This is a mostly unedited version I wrote at 3AM before I could go back to sleep. 

Victory and Defeat

Life brings many matches, games, and arguments which place you against another, where a winner and a loser will be decided. Oftentimes outcomes are neutrally beneficial (like in the case of a convincing argument) or there has been no great investment from either opponent. 

But sometimes...


Sometimes a match will result in a clear victor rewarded with spoils and a loser with an ongoing disadvantage. 


To win...


Never announce to your opponent that they are defeated in any way even when you (or spectators) are confident in the outcome. 

Announcing draws a line in the sand and can hurt your position. Drawing this line yourself can only hamper your efforts and ability to close the victory. To your opponent, this announcement may cause one last hail merry. 

If the fight was lost and won through great effort (which it logically has since you can't consider the opportunity to announce unless there has been struggle) then great victors know the strength of those they've defeated, and therefore know not to test their fight or flight mechanism with a final victorious announcement. 

Smart victors make sure their opponents fade away silently into the background, disallowing them the opportunity for a final defense.

Every tv/movie/drama that brings a victor to stand over the defeated to showcase their victory is teaching poor tactics. 

Friday, January 23, 2015

God's Forgiveness and Life Takers

Note: I will not attempt to argue for or against the actual existence of a God, rather the interaction between a God idea and a human need.



Arguably, one of the most destructive actions a human psyche can endure is taking a human life.

Whether the value lost is implied spiritually, or through family values, or through subtracted potential world-value (wherein the dead may have contributed to human altruistic worth) - is not important to narrow down. The point is there is value in life.

When you remove that value one's core is fundamentally altered and often corrupted. All orderers (those that command some to take the lives of others) use a "driving force" to attempt to allay the apprehension of this corruption of those about to take lives. Driving forces include religion, revenge, safety, freedom, law, or any number of ideologies. These are often effective in the short term - and sometimes are used to light a fire under those ordered. This fire drives them to the goal, but with time and introspection, that fire is often diminished. This leaves the life taker hollow and often morbid. 

No one can remove or forgive what has been done. Not the victims family, not your family, not your community, not your government, no one. 

But maybe God?

God, as the creator and ultimate end is the only one who can possibly correct the damaged human psyche. The need to be forgiven is so great in some that daring to deny their forgiveness (or Forgiver) denies any of their returned humanity. 

This is an ultimate need in some life takers; to be forgiven. To be denied this threatens self destruction, or at worst, seeking absolution through external destructive action (terrorism or religious zealotry [though this would probably occur through an orderer as mentioned earlier]). 

Life takers need God - or to thoroughly believe in the original driving force. Life takers with neither of these beliefs are psychopaths who do not see inherent value in life.