Ignore the Titans

Damn Sex. Damn Sex for luring me back onto the page with her blatant metaphysics and philosophical talk. It's like watching two girls mud wrestle and I just had to get naked and jump in. Oh no I slipped. Oh no I touched a nipple. Ya know?

It's funny. We spend so much time focusing on the things that make us different and set us apart, but in the end we all just want to be part of the gang. Some gang, any gang. If that ain't wanting to have our cake and eat it too then I don't know what is. Actually I do know what is - having my penis and balls licked at the same time by two chics. But the latter descrepancy fits the description as well.

I mention this little "paradox", as it might be called, because I take pride in my beliefs. I've spent alot of time figuring the things I believe. I've drank alot of coffee and smoked alot of cigarettes in my head while talking to some imaginary friend from some opposing view. And they'll tell me that I'm stupid and ignorant for thinking what I think, and I'll pour out all the reasons why I'm not. Then viola, I've justified myself. I do this alot. Because I'm lonely.

But I've always been fascinated by how easily we can justify certain beliefs to ourselves. Everybody's standards for justification are different. It was said that when one of the Nazi generals at a concentration camp was asked why he allowed such atrocities on humanity to be take place, he was incapable of uttering a single sentence that was not a cliche. Cliche's are deceptive. A clever arrangment of words can be moving enough to give something the illusion of being true. But truth can't simply be what moves us, can it?

For some it is. When I was younger I believed in whatever moved me. Whatever concepts I liked or spoke to me. Now I'm older and I find myself compelled to believe in many things; ugly things, lonely things, beautiful things, whatever things I've deemed to be true based on merit. But at the end of the day there is nothing to assure me I've done a correct job. Don't get me wrong, I'm very likely to be right and all, but there are no thought police in my head, nor anyone else's head to give a slap on the wrist when faulty reasoning is being used. That's our job. But tear away at any belief long enough and it's like playing Jenga, soon enough everything crumbles. At the very core of every belief is uncertainty. Just hold it up into the light of the greatest uncertainty of all - this, all of this.

Sometimes our biggest hubris is in thinking that for every question, there is an answer simple enough to be understood.

People sometimes mistake me for being narrow-minded because I have my convictions. Which is to get things all terribly wrong. Convictions are perfectly compatible with open-mindedness. Open-mindedness is merely a willingness to let go of assumptions. It is a willingness to examine something just as a good judge would, without bias, but eventually the verdict must come in. Otherwise, you're an idiot.