Well, quite a bit has changed since the last entry of “elaborations”. I shall probably fortunately not go into details, however. Morrissey croons above my head and struggles to raise my eyelids from their half-closed position, mostly unsuccessfully. My fingers are having quite a bit of trouble efficiently hitting the correct keys to form these tenuous words. No explanations necessary, I suppose. Mother I can feel the soil falling over my head. I must work on the software for James, the lines of broken perl code that he entrusted me to create. Responsibility is like a bane on my life right now and it is only because of my dreaded personality, the biting off of more than my rotten teeth can chew without dislodging themselves from my bleeding gums. So what must I do to finish these myriad of scripts for James? A list, I propose? First entry:

• Determine what has been done and what needs to be done.

The main fullview page consists of a backdrop and three floating frames. These frames are thus: the main navigation bar, which controls which major type of database “collection” becomes displayed in the content frame which lies below this navigation frame. to the right of the content frame is another navigation frame. its purpose is to switch between records in a certain database “collection”, to print a record, and perform a sundry of other record-specific duties. So my list becomes thus:

• Complete the layout and functionality of the main navigation frame.
• Complete the layout and functionality of the content frame.
• Complete the layout and functionality of the record navigation frame.

I shall now inspect the code I have written for the former, a script dubbed “menu.cgi”. And now I have inspected and, to the best of my abilities, made it work in a reasonable fashion. Now it is on to the second entry in my list, the content frame. For some bloody reason, this step seems like it shall be complex and annoying. My motivation is at the level of a squished slug baking in the noontime sun on one of the prestine sidewalks leading from building to building amid the Red West Microsoft campus. Oh, but is life not different now?

The content frame is in reletively good working order, though I have encountered a potential problem. James must change the pseudo-entries of the html created by the script to actual values taken cheerily from his database. So, I may have to modify this script to actually just write to a file, or have the navigation frame actually call a buttock which creates a file containing the html which would be directly interpolated into the content frame. Hmmmm… or something like that, surely. So, on to the record navigation thurk.

Nifty, the mechanism which writes to a file in /tmp when one clicks on one of the record navigation thurks is not working. You see, my dear and special reader, James must poll this file so as to know what the user wishes to do. When this file changes, a change to the content frame must be made. How the hell this will work I specifically know not, but I forsee nothing but complications and mayhap even failure. Damn bitchin’, honeybunch.

An aside. A new employee, Eva, is chatting with Kathy behind me. My desperate craziness is occluding my thoughts, coupled with a strangeness arising from sleep deprivation. I want to meet this new person, get to know her, show her the bizarre and beauteous world in which I live. I must restrain myself, however, because of the potential alienation factor. Actually, I should just take Chris’s potential advice and become obsessed with her. I’ve never been obsessed with someone named “Eva” before. Oh, wait.

Okay, now I must construct the whole of the page. ie, I must now add floating frames to the base page. It has just occured to me, though, that using real frames and complex tables may well be the best way to go, though redoing all of the html would be a pain the spleen and cause me to most likely whack the first person I see with a cubic light year of rubber cement. I shall attempt the floating frames option initially.

Actually, I am going to put this on pause for a bit of time whilst I thurk the Investor Insight rep file thinghie. Know, my thoughtful reader, that this is the best decision for the present.

What an amusing thing that i am doing at this moment! I am making a tape for Julie VanLoh, whom I have not seen nor heard from since October of 1996. I was the one who did not keep up the contact, however, and I am quite regretful of that. The one day we spent together meandering about Anchorage trying to find a church to attend stamped some sort of indelible impression on my mind. It keeps recurring in my dreams. Strange. What does her eidolon mean to me? “Tea for One” pours into my wax-laden ear sockets to bathe me with some semblance of a nostalgia which is mostly conjured from the neurotic tendencies in my bedraggled brain. It should have been “The Beating of the Bedraggled Brain”. Screw the heart. It’s just a workhorse with no more mind than Jeff’s ubiquitous pumpjack.

“A past that lives if only for the present,” croons Peter Hammill. Why am I so rife with nostalgia? What is that fleeting yet perpetual feeling which permeates my being when I am in contentment? Or is it this which is actually the source of contentment? Without it shall I be lost in a terrifying maze of meaninglessness? A tenet of mine has always been the search for meaning in my life, in others’ lives, in everything around me, to connect and construct from the scattered debris of sensory input a well woven tapestry, beautiful to the eye, satisfying to the mind. Mayhap nostalgia is my way of weaving the past into the present, gathering up all of the loose strings which hiss & strike at me like vipers. If that is who I am, then I believe, at this point in my life, I have chosen to live with it; moreover, I have encouraged it to flourish. Good for me. I finally accept at least a part of who I am. Is it true? I cannot escape from my personality any more than I can flee from my skin.

I merely watch Alan Alda on the TV as Brynn brushes her teeth - I will come to bed … “Bob”. “Yeah”. “I love you”. “I love you, too, nut” - I am not a very good writer. Brynn is so scared. The last episode of Mash - forensics - Kevin Costner & sadness. The little covers grope for my hand as I clutch desperately for my lill fish who is in need whilst I sit plaintively on this bed and wish I could show all the world what pernicious angst I have broiling inside.

But hey - the curls on the head of my littlest fiwsh dominate all which may try to intrude on their beauty. I love you, Brynn. These words, though scratched incoherently - prove, by seminal means that turly there is a power who guides us purposely together. Sad … those who love are sad.

Brynn: It’s a sad (illegible) … so sad I want (illegible). I (illegible) in the (illegible) - wary(?) I (illegible…) To incohere (?) it. I am naked in your bedclothes (illegible). Eyes salty (?) and labia ready. You’re drunk, too - (illegible) does it matter? We’re all weak.

You are correct. We’re all weak!

WEAK

I am the storm!

The nose is the same width as the eye. It rests from the eyes to the mouth -

There is no inspiration in frustration.

I seem to be making a habit of writing when I traverse to the buzzing silence of the Microsoft cafeteria - if you can call two days in a row a habit, that is. I have a terrible and curious dilemma which haunts me. It is etched in yesterday’s entry and emoted in this day’s. Heh. I hate my job. I become increasingly disillusioned with it day by day by day by day as I sit listless before a wealth of information which gnaws at me like enplagued rats from the surface of my CRT. There is no escape because I have to persist - persist until Brynn and I have the monetary ability to depart from this hellish locale (Seattle) forever. I want to leave now, however - at least from Microsoft. I wish for music to sate my life with its nescient yet transfixing gleam. Heh. Linguistics also grips me with a supurb fascination. Mayhap a job in the Czech Republic teaching to youngsters the tongue of my heritage will be a rewarding (yet challenging) experience. Now all that surrounds me is a haze of stagnation, though - hours spent drowning in a sea of syntactic semicolons which bound statements in a Java-esque mundanity. The computer industry is a joke. The computer gaming industry is the epitome of that joke - a silly hoax to cloy the curious public with idle anonymity. What a fucking farce!

At one point in my life it seemed I had grandiose schemes which could ensnare the universe with their captivating, creative rigor. Now I am flaccid and live in a routine which leaves my back aching in the forlorn morning if it is not (to a “T”) followed. What has snuffed the spark of brilliance which guided me from cavern to cavern? Now I am funbling in the darkness, almost ready to resign myself to an uncomfortable outcropping on which I may eternally rest. Oh woe is me. Heh. ’sgitabeer!

At this second I am proud that I have again begun to pour my tenuous (not turgid) thoughts onto paper. A life unrecorded is one discarded (cf. “The Ballad of the American Dreamer”). I miss Lee and his extremist brilliance. He simply could not compromise - budge - let his sharpened spires be blunted to gently rolling hills. I envy him for that. I, too, should not lose my extremist nature. For it is this portion of the psychotic human psyche that gives the alluring brilliance, to the drive to create, the will to bring into being what was once not even limpid energy. Still - one may drive oneself insane in the process. Again, take Lee as an example, eh? It is the price to be paid. I do not want to lose the craziness, the piercing edges of caustic will. They wil not succumb to the voices of “so called reason”. No fucking way, man.

I really ought to use the writings in my journals as the raw materials for prose / poetry / lyrics. That is a direct isomorphism from the way King Crimson is using its ProjeKcts to research possibilities for new static material.

I am beginning to have serious ethical problems with working for this giant omnivorous corporation: Microsoft. What a fucking ironic name! In my meeting this very morning, Scott laughingly placed “The Zone” in an extremist competative position with cyber-active feet poised to smash flat its peers who lurk incautiously underneath. Ostensibly, we have a competitor dubbed “Heat” (about which I know absolutely nothing other than the just stated) who has a great deal of “momentum” and a peak user base of 300+. Funny - The Zone has a peak of 4000+ users. It never, actually even drops below one thousand at any given time. Still, Scott chuckles (his potbelly wiggles grotesquely in tandem) and jokes of smashing Heat completely out of existence. Is this imagination-spawning competition or war Is the end a greater knowledge base with a diverse and colourful offering of choice or the annihilation of all but one - the winner? Metaphors drawn - parallels with mayhap Nazi Germany can easily be seen. Why must things be so extreme and potentially deadly? The very game in which I am now intensely interested has the ultimate goal of the obliteration or assimilation of all but one or into one, respectively. That is an interesting full circle! It is a case of the scaly snake swallowing its twitching tail, eh?

Assimilation might be the peaceful take over Microsoft performs to company after company, homoganizing - maybe creating an easy usability standard but at the same time washing out the colours with its harsh, bleaching, all consuming light, leaving a sad, palling grew. So, so - sad, eh? Yes.

Assimilation might also be the end of diversification by the countries of the EU merging and living in peace, eventually blurring the bounds of community and world culture. The internet is a good extensive metaphor of this. Let everyone touch and interfere with everyone else and the sharp corners of culture and communication are finally dulled so that confusion is cancelled. But the beauty of a heterogeneous world is also destroyed. It saddens me to think that the human race may reach this “goal”. Unity, peace and harmony recalls the equilibrium of a stagnant pond, or of a universe consisting of only uniform energy. I, for one, do not want to sing only Eb for the remainder of my lifetime, or for even 45 minutes (as Brynn claimed that Kenny G did - albiet on his saxophone).

At the other end of the spectrum, and oddly at the same position, is annihilation of all save one. This seems, with its surreptitious and even bullying tactics, the stand that this grand corporation for which I work seems to be taking. Wipe out Heat and let The Zone rule the gaming world, period. Microsoft does not want competition. It wants supremacy with all other decimated or in a state of servitude. Here am I, on the periphery, in the thick? Hell, homogenity will be the end if either path is trodden. There must be a way to perpetuate diversification, the beauty of pockets of isolated culture, untouched by the outside except for their brief blinks of dreaming cities of existential passion. The human race has created a spectrum of intense beauty, of colour - all who see this rainbow as a bland strip of white light is are missing … missing … a soul?

“Decewmbewr Sevow, 1997”

John Lennon croons in my ears ironically whilst little pictures play about the video screen: the starting strains of “The Lost World.” That is all I have to say right now.

Brynn: Well, I HAVE something to say DAMMIT! RORWR! “The Lost World” is an abysmal horrible stupid movie, & Jeff Goldblum’s sardonic self-depreciation is its sole merit. I frown.

Brynn only likes artly moves, so there!

Brynn: Yeah, like “Desperately Seeking Susan.”

Yeah! Squish the little bastard until it is juicy and emits little squeaks!

Brynn: I draw hands not. Bob needs to be drunk again.

The “I want Tea” Page.

Brynn:

What, oh _what_, is my greater wish?
A hot cup o' tea, or a littlest squish?
Scones and jam!
Crumpets!
And sandwiches small!
A glass for our wine and a good time for all!
Bob chews his nails in a trés hungry tic
I plot for a prance to the bathroom, quite quick!

Lumpy, soft and does smell like spice
Milky, sweet but won't repel lice
No biscuits, gravy
Or McGreasy ick
For me to slurp and gargle and lick
My nails are bloody and stink of pus
So give me my tea so I will not fuss

Poetry sucks. Poets should be cut into small pieces and fed to little starving children who prefer oreos. One could even spread cream filling between their skin and their puny, feeble bones and crunch, crunch, crunch away. It is too easy to be trapped into introspection and creating overwrought soliloquies of unrhymed emotive dribble. There is that line which is difficult to discover, the Rubicon for the brave. This is why the “poetry” that graces the stupid metro busses in Seattle strikes me as very fake, pretentious and annoying. I like either silly, smiley light hearted verse as above or well thought out phrases which aren’t written to impress, but to address. I bitch and moan. Loyal would call me negative and say that he didn’t want to be around it - that he didn’t need it. He is a poor, closed minded fool in this respect. My opinion, of course.

Brynn: Um, I still want tea … tea like the widow’s love-wrought tears as she whispers, WHISPERS, against the tumultuous surface of the lover’s green ocean. Ohhhh.

I love my nut because she is so sarcastic. :) Oh, nut.

Brynn: Oh NUT! No, nut!

The morning after seeing ProjeKct One, London, England.

It is damn fine to own a new, justifiably beautiful journal - an anti-inhibitor of writing, a motivational force. I am pulled by the magnetism of hundreds of beckoning blank pages whose pull is only slightly sated by each cursory penstroke. The leather is aesthetic but cloying in a sense, telling me that surface beauty has an attraction all its own. Mayhap it is a means to an end, a doorway - a portal and that is all - a jolting telephone jangle which is the misty melancholy of life’s maudlin moments. Or something like that. Yup. Now I shall shower.

Brynn: I write about my overwrought, embarrassing emotions, coupled with the idiotic presence of those around me… & Bob scribes of … leather. Sometimes I believe that you love me, muffin. :)

The Principle of Sufficient Reason states (quite matter of factly) that there must be an explanation for:

• the existence of any being.
• any positive fact.

A very spiffy point that Melanie made in her philosophy paper that I have just received via the ubiquitous postal service is that this principle is silly in that the first part generalizes out to the second. That is, the actual existence of a ‘being’ is, in fact (no pun intended), a ‘positive fact’. Perhaps they (it’s those ‘they’ again), when idea-fying this principle, had in mind to separate ‘beings’ from ‘ideas’. The first part of the principle would encapsule organic things, or, put better, things that are tangible. The second part speaks of ideas and/or theories created by sentient beings which are agreed on as ‘facts’. I suppose the first part would include things such as ‘cats’ and ‘dirt’ and the second, things such as ‘the theory of gravitation’ and ‘the recipe for broccoli-cheese quiche’. Personally, I prefer abstracting things out the way Melanie did and including the whole shabang in one big wallop… ie, making ‘beings’ part of the whole ‘positive fact’ clique.

The purpose of Melanie’s paper was to discuss and give her opinions and reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with the ‘cosmological argument for the existence of that God guy (or gal since I decided this last weekend that Jenn was quite a worthy God).’ The title of her paper is ‘The Failure of the Cosmological Argument through the Misapplication of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.’ I believe that from the title it is pointedly obvious which side she takes in relation to supporting or disparaging the argument.

The un-fun part of technical writing is upon me and, since it is a precursor to the fun part, I am only nigh-hesitant to plunge in. Strangely (well, okay, not ‘strangely’ at all, but I’ll just choose to call that word an expletive since I really do not wish to replace it with a large, black scribble), I want to skip this part and delve into my little nuances I scheme surronding the existence of dependent beings (just because it festers, frolicks, pushes its way to the forefront of my mind like a spoiled kid in the lunch line on the first day of kindergarden). BUT - I am meandering.

The cosmological argument consists of two premises and a very pretentious conclusion.

Premise Uno: Every being that exists or ever did exist is either a dependent being or a self-existent being.

Premise Zwei: Not every being can be a dependent being.

Therefore: There exists a self-existent being.

Okay… I’m really not here to re-elaborate the failing argument or to defend any particular point of view, but, instead, as always, to skip aside onto a path of my own and record the interesting tales my mind spun during and after perusing Melanie’s paper. The cosmological argument, in short, was garroted and drowned in its own blood by Melanie’s paper. She traipsed through a well constructed destruction of the argument then forged ahead on her own by redefining the principle of sufficient reason and then re-supporting the first premise of the argument. Basically, the argument is bullshit because it doesn’t consider a very important point of view. Or, it is not if you redefine the word ‘being’. Taking it for granted that the principle of sufficient reason is true (the new, happy, altered one Melanie came up with), we have this very large tree of things: the buds, highest branches, and leaves are the most current ‘positive facts’ or ‘beings’, all spawned in some way from the branches below them. The trunk that supports these myriad of facts is this ‘God’ that the cosmological argument deduces (self-existent being… same thing). Back to the important point of view that the argument discards… (actually, I have no way of knowing if this point of view was overlooked, discarded or whatnot since I do not know when the cosmological argument was created. If it was formulated before Darwin came along, then this elision may be understandable). Instead of a God, the trunk of this very large tree of beings [positive facts] could be, simply, the unknown beginning of the universe (I use ‘beginning’ loosely here since the current theories speculate on an endless cycle of previous universes which expand and contract over and over; so, I’ll specify to the inception of the universe in which I exist at this particular moment and hope there is no argument over semantics). Furthermore, the first branches could represent the swirling gasses that formed galaxies, then, splitting more and more into solar systems, planets, inorganic compounds that finally, by some act of chemical oddity, became organic, etc, etc. Amoeba to hydra to barnacle to mollusk … … to reptile to mammal to primate to human.

Everything that ‘is’ is dependent on something that has existed. By no means does this imply a supreme being, as Melanie states in her paper and I imply above. She concluded with some nice comments about humans and their ability to concoct scenarios that are almost always time and distance sensitive (well, she didn’t actually say that, but that is what I concocted from her statements of humans’ limited understanding and frightened flights from endlessness). Her last sentence rings very true and meshed nicely with much that I have written in this already yellowing journal. When understanding is paused and the wall is too high to breach, it is easier to create an explanation from nothing, no matter how silly or fanciful, than to admit, “wow, you know guys, I don’t think we have the ability, technology, or prowess to grasp this!” Okay… now it’s the right brain’s turn to belittle the left! Nah - maybe tomorrow.

I press my face against the glass of my unbelief, the foggy pane clears and I see lucid emotions, wheeling wearily through my mind. Have I lost all sense of who I have been? Have these things that have tortured and rent my spirit been subdued, leaving me bored with my contentment?

Have I slacked off in my writing? Yes!

(Marcie’s Birthday – XVI).

Psalms 23. (NIV)

The lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

The Lord God has built a fence, a fence of barbs and electrons, tearing and electrocuting all evil that tries to trespass. I need not do anything at all, for the lord is my tender. Sheep are, a bit, like humans, a bit unpredictable and bizarre, unruly upon occasion for no particular reason, illogical. This confused mass cannot manage on its (their) own, so a shepherd (the Lord) tends them. It is a beautiful and meaningful relationship. Very binding… in a quirky sort of way. The shepherd is not needy, but still cares for his flock, which is needy and lost on its (their) own.

he makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters

The Lord allows his sheep to lie, restful from a chaotic livelihood (oh! the entropic life of a sheep!), and leads his flock to waters for refreshment. Sustenance and rest are two of the most coherent branches that lead to “self-preservation.” It seems God provides for these freely and plentifully.

he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

The soul - also called the mind in so many ancient texts. These two words are so interchangable, even having the same translation in Aramaic and Hebrew. Frustration, anger, pain, any other degradative emotion of the mind is cleansed. The Lord restores the soul/mind, bringing peace. FOR HIS NAME’S SAKE, God guides his flock on to the path of righteousness, the path of good - His path. If he did not do so, his reputation would be in ruin. Who would believe in a God who does not hold the promises He makes? The paths of righteousness are within reach following the shepherd who, because it would be hypocrisy not to, tends his flocks with care.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and staff - they comfort me

These are metaphorical, or, symbolic, lines of the psalm. As stated earlier, the lord has a fenced pasture for his sheep, who are protected from the evils, the physical dangers, of the world.

The pensive sheep wanders, though, in his mind, upon occasion, through the “valley” of despair, sickness, psychological evil. The closer one strays to these darkensses, the deeper in the shadow they can be… a feeble sheep in mental anguish, mayhap from lost love, dead friends, or faulty footing has the road and staff hovering to drive those fears far from his mind. Turn to the Shepherd, and comfort shall be found. It is, because of this, possible to deny the murky black of evil and stare it in its pocked face until it melts to nothing with the Lord God’s Rod and Staff overhead, protecting.

Do not stray from the pasture! The psychological darkness is evil enough!

You prepare a table before me in the presense of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

The Shepherd stands before his sheep, a sheep full of pain and frustration, IN THE PRESENCE OF THESE ENEMIES, these psychological apparitions of hatred and fear, and load the table with sustenance divine. Your enemies shall be vanquished by God’s compassion.

Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord -forever-.

Thus church ended…

                  --  B  O  O  M  --

Frustration – pounding my brain with its painful pickaxe, driving all rationality form my head. I can’t think! I cannot think! Try as I might, I am feeble. The shadows creep quickly over my eyes, blurring my sight and smothering my mind. Fuzzy images of clearer thoughts dance just within reach. I grapple with them to try to untangle the weave that squeezes tighter and tighter onto my brow. Limping, I grunt unintelligible, ugly remarks at passers-by, blinking at my arrogance, lost in their opulence. Memorizing names of cities and spaces on maps, places to dance and scream your revelation into empty air, only to hear the echoes years later without the meek applause.

Problems… things are created to solve problems. Frustration is prominent when you cannot formulate these problems into terms comprehensible to the end of a snazzy solution.

                          FILL THE PAGE!
                          FILL THE PAGE!

           With what
                    prattle blather meaningless jingling bells from
                                holidays
                                      forgotten

Thoughts on “self-preservation”:

Many human “goals” can be stretched, expounded on, then compressed back to the concept called ‘self-preservation’. Is this extremely simple yet powerful instinctive sense an integral part of most everything we do?

Jayson provides a few excellent examples, though I shall not elaborate exquisitely upon them. Simply: the avoidance of large, hairy beasts with sharp claws and pointed teeth. I suppose this may be a purer, unadulterated… or better yet, non-camouflaged instance of self-preservation than most which we experience.

My linear algebra professor, dubbed “Dr. Wilson”, makes an amusing and thought provoking comment occasionally which is on these lines: “Once I was like you: my purpose was to graduate [college] and eat.” Is the lengthy struggle to get an education so one can attain a good enough job to provide for oneself simple an extension of self-preservation? In a historical perspective, the norm was once not to go to such lengths for an education because it was not as difficult to provide for oneself without an elaborate series of pre-planned educational curricula as it may be in this, the “information”, age. I used the word “norm”. I meant this: The normal person chose the easiest path throughout history to the end of self preservation. Mayhap at one point, in archaic times, all that was needed was a good spear, careful (practiced) aim and a mediocre to good throwing arm plus some meager cooking abilities. The only “education” relevant was learning the ability to kill meat that could be eaten (and possibly sort out non-poisonous from poisonous fruits, berries, etc) and preparing that meant for a tasty eating process. As history progressed (as history surely does), or “lengthened” with time, man created a more complex society, one that allowed groups of different people to have different means that reached the end of “self-preservation”. These groups split into more and more until there were many different archetypes that all traced an exceedingly convoluted course to the same goal – to “eat”. So, the “easiest” course that the normal person could take became more complex with time, resulting in an educational hierarchy (or a “manual labor hierarchy”) that allowed the normal person to find one of the many means (his or her choice) to reach the goal… the only goal… “to eat”… to survive. Self preservation. What of the “un-normal” ones? Human intellect prospered in many, allowing them to find ways around the normal ways to “eat” (take a thief, for example) AND to explore other pursuits outside the realm of the instinctual “self-preserving” rule.

So this sketchy idea I have presented is surely full of holes that may or may not be easily patched, but no matter, it is surely food for more thought on the matter.

The point of the first draft of such an idea?

The NORMAL person leads a life in whatever “intellectual” pursuit they have close– which is, in reality, just an elaborate camouflage of the self-preservation instinct. Conclusion? Most people really do not grow intellectually beyond their inborn instincts.

A better way to state this might be…

They do not explore intellectually beyond that which leads them to the predetermined goal: “to survive”. One could speculate, however, as to what other instincts (if dissimilar instincts do, indeed, exist_ drive any other sort of intellectual diversity that my extend beyond that which can be traced back to the self-preservation base. If every mental endevour can be traced back to a foundation of instinctual behavior, it might be easy to come to the conclusion that intelligence or creativity, even is just a aftereffect of heredity. This may be a silly conclusion, though.

What of the need to find “meaning”, then? What of this need that drives some to seek walls to enclose them, urges others to break them down, and pushes still others to self-destruction? What primal force could, if any, this be distilled to? Or is this one of the elements that truly separates us from instinctual creatures? And might this, too, if that, be whittled down to a hereditary factor – the non-instinctive instinct. “The primal urge to question the validity of primal urges.”

Does a man who submits himself utterly to an ideology do so for sense of security? Surely he does. But security from what? Perhaps from harm… therefore a spawn of the “self-preservation” base, but I think not. the closest idea I have at present is that this man is seeking (and has found) security from unsanity. Unsanity! “Chaos”, big and evil, lurking behind self-imposed prison walls… he wishes to become “institutionalized”, for that is the way of the happy? Escapism comes in many forms, religion (whether true or not) can be one of them. Reading fiction perpetually could be another. The possibilities are endless, some safer than others – some with more security from the unsane, others just passing solace from the dangerous outside. This security is purely anti-intellectual. It prohibits all consideration of the world outside and sometimes even the knowledge of it. It becomes simpler, easier to live with a feeling of non-danger, non “sudden shifting of environment”, and occasionally even total refrain from change. So, the question remains still from the bygone Shawshank ponderings: Is it “right” to awaken these people – crash through their walls into where they are seemingly safe from knowledge – safe from thought? Or should they be left to live and die where they can manage best?

Lee once said: “Religion is just an excuse to not think for yourself.” This statement, though I find much untruth in it, holds much relevance to my former discourse. RELIGION, I NOW know, after years of rejecting it, has many features, uses and intellectuality behind it and is just recently becoming a prevalent interest in my life. So, I shall change the quote of Lee’s by only one word: “Escapism is just an excuse to not think for yourself.”

Now I consider it correct in whole. Religion CAN be an escapist tactic, when twisted, as can many, many things, as I mentioned on the previous page. This is possibly the aspect of religion that Lee was observing (or not more “the aspect of religion,” but “the way some use religion”) when he made this statement.

To correlate, I suspect that escapism, coupled with the drive of “self-preservation” creates a more fluid world to survive in, and that is a frequent tactic of the normal person – to use escapism to help focus their life on the goal “to eat” and not be disturbed by the evil outside.

One more note on escapism:

Is it an instinctual drive to eliminate departure from instinct? Is it the drive to adhere only to primal desires? This seems very contradictory but at the same time insightful to me. I shall ponder.