A Bridge of Matchsticks

Housekeeping: I'm putting up a shorter post tonight, just to keep myself in the habit of publication on this blog. A lot of things that I believe diverge from the "Mainstream" narrative, for various reasons.  Some are due to my religion, others to my weighing the testimony of one expert who showed their research above a consensus of intellectual midweights, with the rest mainly consisting of doubts stemming from unaccounted for pieces of evidence that just don't fit. Nonetheless, the world I inhabit is still largely shaped by what is called the "Mainstream," though more and more I see people I know discounting what they hear to the point where I really don't thing Mainstream is the right word.  Perhaps "The Official Story" works better; it's widely held by most people that the major American media organs act mainly as the mouthpieces of the US political parties.  Whatever the details of the relationship, they are certainly not independe...

I want to start with a personal note and some housekeeping.  I hate editing and revising, mostly because I cringe when I read my own stuff.  I suppose it's only fair to assume that anyone else would, too.  If I come off as pretentious or stilted in my style, it's mostly because I lack either the ability or the courage to express myself in plain English.  As I've stated before, however, I'm currently prioritizing the fact of expression over its clarity, as silence has become burdensome.  I'm also a person quite responsive to social tone and feedback; if I ever receive comments on this blog, my style will probably shift to suit the taste of those initial readers.  Having an audience changes everything, and as of this writing, I have none. This is also why there hasn't been a post in a while.  It's hard to write consistently without knowing someone will read it.  My own internal motivation is how crazy my thoughts are driving me, so if my life is g...

Between my Freshman and Senior Year at George Mason University, I ceased to believe in Debate. Capital-D Debate, as I saw it, was a sacrament of liberal society.  The associated doctrine was that the free expression of ideas, even outlandish ideas, could be permitted on the condition that they would subject themselves to public examination by means of Debate.  Their champion would meet with an opposing viewpoint, and in the contest, the superior idea would prevail, in the public eye, to the benefit of all. Looking back on it now, I feel this notion to be a combination of social darwinism and the old trial-by-combat principle as applied to philosophy, and it is telling that neither is admitted today as sane pieces of jurisprudence.  I was mostly led to this belief through having undergone the exercise in futility that was University Team Policy Debate, which subjected me to the best researched and least intelligent conversations I had in my life.  Periodicals were...

Can you follow something which you won't let go? Do we really dare to follow our dreams, or do we just hold them tightly to ourselves, security blankets against the cold winds of reality?  What do we fear will happen if we cast them away, and give chase like the mighty hunts of old?  Will our legs tire in the chase, will our eyes fail and lose sight of our imagined future, born skyward on the winds? What do we most fear?  Is it to find that our cherished illusions have not the substance needed even to be blown away like dandelion fluff?  Or else is the wreck of what we have lovingly constructed too sorrowful a picture to contemplate, when that blanket is snagged and torn upon a tree? The world tells us to both follow and cling onto our dreams.  A little common sense will show that one cannot do both.  A dream you cannot let go of will keep you tied in place, blindfolding yourself to reality.  A dream which you cast to the wind, uncaring, is soon ...

It is the 30th of March, in the Year of Our Lord 2020.  Governor Hogan of Maryland announced today that staying at home would now be mandated by law, except for essential errands, as of 2000 hours. I suppose its telling that my first reaction was to immediately plan and carry out an errand run for non-essentials, including alcohol.  Telling also is that my first stop was at a grocery store, in which I decided to get Birch Beer instead of actual beer.  I still got the chewing gum I had planned to get, alongside dish detergent and fresh produce.  While I had stocked non-perishable food, I still went to top off my supplies as well, with coffee and tea besides. If the Governor of Maryland had done what the Governor of Virginia did, and announce a stay-at-home order effective immediately,  I would have been OK.  Nothing absolutely essential was missing from my stock, but the prospect of being cut off prompted a response out of anxiety and fear.  I...

"Vimes felt he was building a bridge of matchsticks over a yawning abyss, and now he could feel the chilly winds below him." -Terry Pratchett, in "Night Watch", p 29. ~ To "speak one's mind" is not the simple or easy affair that our common use of the phrase would have us believe.  What is called "speaking our minds" usually amounts to either our passions taking temporary control of our tongue away from our reason, or else our reason parroting the last thing it heard from someone else to which it was persuaded.  Very rarely do we partake in the whole sense of the phrase: articulating what is in our minds in order to give form to the shapeless, subtle perceptions embedded in our conscious and unconscious self. To accomplish this, one must first know oneself, a task which brings up the realization of how little one knows about the self, or if the "self" is something that is real enough to be known.  This gap of knowledge is the...