My Next Major Endeavor: The Galt's Gulch Project

I won't bother to delay you with an introduction: The major project noted in my last weekly summary is that of a small-scale, self-sustaining farm. I either want to be the head of one or involved intricately in one (I'll pursue the former first most and with the most energy, and settle for the latter if time proves too short. Given whatever climate and soil I settle upon -- I may or may not stay in Texas for it -- I want to establish myself in a way so that I'm producing and feeding myself my own produce, dairy, and livestock, and, heck, even cultivating some ornamental horticulture for comfort. This I consider this to be my next major endeavor beyond the past Project that brought me to Texas, and I'd consider it my five to ten year plan, though I want to make progress on it as rapidly as possible. The prospect is very exciting to me, as I consider it extremely educational and healthy, and, most importantly, relevant to my culinary central purpose in life.

Why do I want to do this? Well, a little back story on my life in Texas to make things clearer:

Ever since I moved to Texas I have to admit that I've transitioned to being depressed about the state of the world, and of course I hid it from everyone, including you Emotionally I have been totally consistent like this, for intermixed would be themes of energetic contentment for the good present and positive future, but sore moods have been frequent still. The Project -- you know, with the uppercase P -- solved the longest-lasting, most deleterious set of problems I've had to face in my life, and in getting out of that situation I've been severely disappointed that in finally being set free from one problem I had to face the unfairness of transitioning into another: The collapse of the economy and the decline of the world. As I say often around here I'm optimistic about the future, that America can eventually come through, but, like I mentioned in yesterday's post, the storm on the way there seem far too daunting, severe, and long-term to be endurable, so I've spent the last few months in trying to build strength to face that prospect. The intensity of the contentment I've received from surmounting such difficult problems as the ones I faced a few months ago were enough to convince me that life is worth living and that even higher rewards are achievable in life, so even with a troublesomely low spirit I've been pressing on to steel and repair myself, and figure out how to deal with matters.

The most difficult coping point has been with my career. However fuzzily thought-out it may be for now, you and I know that I want to be in the culinary field, and the transition there means building up my knowledge and skills in the hot kitchens of restaurants. Gotta cook to learn to cook and be a cook. The severity of the economic storm to befall our heads, I fear, will put a significant amount of restaurants out of business and deal a severe blow to the food supply. Given that I've just started, it's a scary prospect as to what might happen to someone as low on the ladder as I, and it's further worrisome to think of what practice I'll be deprived of by a restricted and expensive food supply, which would make it more difficult for me to actually cultivate cooking skills. Sure, I know that life is so well worth living that even if I have to start in my thirties or forties it'll be worth waiting for, but how much potential would be involuntarily sacrificed? How lesser will my accomplishments be? Will my growth stagnate and retrogress? Largely I've been focusing on the here and now to get my mind off matters, for it's not helpful or constructive to fret about matters constantly, and a significant portion of my contemplation has been directed towards just what I can do to protect myself -- spirit, wealth, and body -- from this storm that approaches. I am of scant means financially, so most of my time has been spent in just thinking about strategies rather than implementing them.

One day I made a rather intriguing discovery while on break from work. I work in a shopping conglomerate, so as a ritual pleasure and means to mental refreshment I tend to take a walk during my breaks after I lunch, and routinely I'll enter the bookstore to browse the shelves. As you might guess, I tend to like the cooking aisle best, and visit it on most regular occasion in opposition to the others. One day I noticed near the end of the aisle they had this book, turned face out, called Homesteading. It was intensely interesting to me, moving me to at least want to make a note of it, but it didn't give me very many ideas at the time or emotionally register deeply. Still: It planted a unique seed of thought in my mind, and for reasons unknown to me I kept revisiting this "homesteading" idea sort of thing. It kept lingering in my mind, and in some vague form or another I kept remembering my interest in that book, though at the time I don't think I had the foresight to document its title and editor.

Just a short few days ago during a walk the puzzle pieces fell together. Somehow or another I was contemplating my longing for my old favorite cooking show, Good Eats. In specific I thought about the episodes where Alton Brown robbed a tomato farmer during tomato season, and then another in which Mr. Brown was overwhelmed by endless cucumbers from the same farmer. It may have been the single image in my mind of seeing the farmer push a wheelbarrow of cucumbers that ignited my thought process. I then revisited memories in my childhood where I remembered comments from my elders about how abundant some relatives' gardens were: How when the vegetables came to ripeness and season they were overwhelmed by their number and had the annoying difficulty of trying to dispose of them and give them away. I then remembered the word "homesteading" and everything came together: Given my central purpose in life and the position of the economy, it would be unbelievably practical and spiritually fulfilling to establish and nurture a small-scale, self-sustaining farm. My mind started reeling with ideas, causing me to prolong the walk and continue the rest of it in heightened spirits and a near-smile. Whatever angle I looked at it, I cannot see a single thing that would be objectionable to me in it: I wouldn't mind the hard labor, the learning, the frequent upkeep, the variety of skills to learn, or anything.

Look at it in the light of my central purpose in life and career ambitions: In a time where the economy is about to go to pot and the food supply possible kaput, would it not be practical to nurture a style of living where I could produce more food than I could possibly consume and have a large scale of raw materials to practice cooking with? In the end, this would allow me to not only stay fed and physically healthy during bad times, but to also continue moving forward in gaining my desired knowledge, skills, and abilities regardless of whether or not there's a business climate to cater to it. For example, instead of being disappointed in how difficult it is to afford red peppers at Walmart, I could grow a whole smorgasbord of them and have all the soup, pickles, sauces, and whatever else I want. It's an irritation to, say, goof up on cutting what few bell peppers I might obtain, but in growing them the waste in error is minimized and the opportunity for practice is maximized.

To make things easier, why don't I put it all in list format?

1.) It's relevant to my purpose in life: Honestly, I'm not sure where I stand in regards to culinary creativity. I don't often go about daydreaming new dishes and the like, though still enjoy the process of it nonetheless. More interesting to me is the scientific aspect: Why foods are the way they are, how they react to heat and cooling, how they respond to certain methods of cooking . . . how they're produced and manufactured. This farming endeavor wouldn't at all be a sidetrack to my central purpose in life, but in actuality a relevant pursuit beneficial to it. My emotional reaction to this project has been so strongly positive that I'm wondering if there's something deeper in meaning here, for I almost think that I'd take this endeavor on even if it were economically prosperous times.

Aside from all the learning and unique skills I'd obtain, I would also be given an immense amount of resources for culinary practice. I already had the desire to learn how to slaughter and butcher livestock months before I conceived of this project, so it wouldn't inconvenience me in the least to take on such learning as part of a lifestyle change. And hey, out of it I'd get to practice such dishes as leg of lamb, headcheese, roasted tenderloin, crown roast, and more, all the fruits of my labor.

And who knows? Maybe in my learning and skill nurturing I could come up with some unique innovations to advance my efforts and perhaps profit from in more prosperous times. And maybe even more basic heating methods, like wood fires instead of electrical appliances, could cultivate better skills just like how one's mathematical intellect can be improved in forgoing a calculator. (I don't want to give up electricity and live Amish, but I'll prepare for that case scenario if I'm forced into it.)

2.) It's practical: In this day and age we're largely depending on other people to make our food for us. Even if we're cooking from scratch, we're often at least depending on a farmer to raise the meat or grow the produce. In the worst of times their ability to produce goods for the economy could be severely undermined, if not halted, and starvation could become a real threat in our country. But as mentioned earlier, even a tiny little garden is more than sufficient for producing more produce than one can consume . . . so aside from being applicable to my ultimate happiness, this project would also be good for keeping me fed and healthy, as while stores are depleted my own labors for my own consumption can be abundant.

3.) It's Paleo: A minor consideration in the grand scheme of things, but one still important and worthwhile, and something contributing to my excitement about the project. Not only would I keep a sustaining diet, I'd also be able to continue living on the standards of Paleo nutrition: fresh fruits and vegetables, pasture raised meat and eggs, full-fat and raw dairy, and so on. If anything, I think I would actually get healthier than I am now living this way, for my dependency on other producers right now, tight finances, and limited options keeps me living on a sub-optimal diet, such as by eating minimal beef, having grain-fed and pasteurized butter and cream, and so on. I've been living on the Paleo diet for a long time now, but I don't think I've gotten all the health benefits I can out of it yet.

4.) It would help me retain my physique: Another point of concern is what could happen to my body during bad times. Bodybuilding is one of my hobbies: I love going to the gym, working out, and growing my strength and muscles. I love how it makes me look and feel, and how it makes everyday functions get easier and easier, such as the heavy lifting at work or running up stairs. And according to my understanding, weight lifting is the most practical form of exercise, as using only your body (e.g. pushups, situps, etc.) severely restricts how intensely you can work it -- you can increase your intensity faster and more beneficially with heavy iron than with earth's gravity and your weight. It could also actually be harmful by way of releasing destructive hormones through the increased repetitions your body will need in order to have an adaptive response and build muscle (e.g. more and more situps as your abs develop). Losing access to weights, could my muscles not wear away, due to both lack of proper intensity and undernourishment?

Well, some hard farm work ought to fix that right up. Now right now my plan is to be small-scale and for private use only, so I might be more apt. to use manual, basic tools over electrical and large-scale ones, especially as the future of electricity and fuel prices/availability is questionable. Given the reward of the effort, I wouldn't mind all the work involved in such a process, especially at it would allow me to maintain a muscular physique and perhaps even add to it. However, if I still somehow had gym access and a reasonable means to traveling there and paying for it, I'd probably still do formal exercise too to ensure muscle balance and all-around development. I'll do more exercise research since it is my hobby after all, but I think I could find some ways to endure the stress, such as cold showers to eliminate soreness, overheating, and fatigue. I've already adapted to the point that intense workouts hardly make me sore now and don't interfere with my labors at my current job.

5.) It would put me in a position to barter: One thing someone mentioned about economic collapses in the past in that some people have had to resort to bartering again in order to bypass worthless currency, and a point I've heard about the US is that we're not involved enough in the manufacture of basic necessities in order to be able to engage in bartering like this. And iPod for your flat screen, sir?

I will surely desire goods outside of my garden, so when approached with the opportunity I would have the means for trade. Taking for granted an abundance stored at home (I'll probably have farmhands for security), I would have the means to barter with other people, hopefully farmers who have what I don't. Steak for your avocados? How about this bacon for your olive oil and pecans?

A nice, secondary protection.

6.) I'd be a part of the economic solution: Another aspect I've heard that's fueling our economic ills is that we're based too much in the consumption of goods rather than production. While my plans are to grow and raise for private consumption and bartering, I would nonetheless be a part of the base solution by joining in the manufacturing industry, producing rather than being in service.

And for some strange reason I have to admit the prospect of becoming a producer is adding to my excitement. I've been thinking about the book Atlas Shrugged lately and don't think I've been doing a very good job producing values, so this project also appeals to my philosophical appreciation of the virtue of production.

7.) In better times, it'd help me retain a competitive advantage: I may be optimistic for the future, but a future beyond this project is fuzzy for me at the moment, so I can imagine anything. Vaguely at least I can imagine leaving my farm at some point -- unless I integrated a restaurant into it somehow (ooh!) -- and reentering the professional food service industry. At that point I may not have worked in a restaurant for some years, maybe a decade or more (the future is uncertain when left to a politician's whim), but at the end of it all I'd still be able to put on my resume the fantastic dishes I made with my own homemade stuff, the knife skills I nurtured by cutting endless vegetables, how I butchered my own animals and ate them nose-to-tail (throw away nothing!), how I created and thickened sauces with my own herbs and starches, and so on. I might not be actively involved in the restaurant industry for some time, but that time spent away would not be wasted: I'd still be building up a repertoire of knowledge and skills that should unfailingly impress any employer given their nature.

8.) It would be a spiritual comfort: This actually builds on point number one in being relevant to my happiness, but it emphasizes the more negative aspect. This project is not totally idyllic: There's still going to be a lot of stress, discomfort, and pain involved in it, not in its actual exertions but in knowing what's happening to the world in general. I'll take security measures, but I'll certainly worried about being robbed or murdered if the atmosphere becomes dangerous. I'll also worry about America's disastrous foreign policy, whether or not America will actually be subject to foreign invasion. And hey, I'll definitely worry about whether or not America will actually pull through in the end: I believe in strongly that we can win, but also know that we can lose. Worries, worries, worries . . . and, of course, I'll still be involved in activism too, not just idly worrying. 

This project would be soothing by keeping me in contact with my most essential values: Cooking, learning, self-improvement, Paleo living, body building, and more. I might have to give up some big values like chocolate, as chocolate is imported, but the stuff listed above is what's really important. After a hard day in the garden, performing maintenance, studying, cooking, and engaging in whatever activism I can, it'd be soothing to the soul to settle down to a grass-fed steak covered in grass-fed butter, accompanied by homegrown mashed sweet potatoes and homemade raw milk cheese, and to go to bed reading a book I bartered for, before sleep alongside an aromatic pot of lavender. Economically I would be in poverty, but spiritually it could be high-living.

* * * * *

Like all great ideas, it's one I wish I had a long time ago, especially as I've spent so long picking my brain as to what I should do to protect myself from such a disaster. Man, I could have been working on this months ago! But now is as good a time as any other to get started, and as I've already mentioned in my weekly summary I'm doing research this week by visiting a Farmers Market. I'll be doing even more, such as by taking a tour of a dairy farm and interviewing farmers, and who knows what else? I got some homesteading books from the library, and will be renting those quite frequently. I have an immense amount to learn. As for capital ($$$), I'll certainly take to saving more from my current job, which is quite an opportune time given that I'm getting more hours and am actually going to move up the ladder soon. But let us not forget that it's highly probable, if not absolutely certain, that I'll be bringing other people into this, so that's more help to my endeavor and another source of capital. Maybe I could even find, or convince, people that think the same way in regards to economical outlook, and unite us together for this purpose. Oh, I've got so much research and planning to do.

My last project was called "Project" as a shorthand reference, but since this project doesn't need to be kept a secret I've been brainstorming titles and have decided on one: The Galt's Gulch Project. I didn't think of it this way at first, but after examining the details of my plan and why I'm acting this way I found that a more appropriate name can't be found. While I intend to be involved in society in some way -- I'll certainly still be in the United States that's for sure -- it's still a withdrawing and isolation in a way, for I'll be depending largely on myself and some select individuals for those basic goods and services to keep me alive and content. I'll also be growing in my abilities and intellect all in the meanwhile, and statists will not be benefiting from the use of my mind. Furthermore, this project is largely a response to the oncoming economic collapse, just like how Galt's Gulch in Atlas Shrugged was designed to protect producers from the collapse and dictatorship of America; I'll be shrugging you could say, though that's not really my intention. Again, the withdrawing from society and the likes were not points in mind when I conceptualized this project, but you can see how "Galt Gulch" is a serendipitous title, no? Hell, if I have the authority I might even call the farm that.

This is a very ambitious undertaking, one that may be a long-shot. There may not be enough time before the collapse for me to implement it, but the way I see it it's do or die, so instead of contemplating the difficulties and wondering awe-eyed at politics it's time to start garnering knowledge, jumping hurdles, networking, surmounting obstacles, and making progress. I've got to research, interview, talk to people and spread the news, gather capital, search for land, and more. Ultimately, I see that whether I abstain from this endeavor or fail at it, the consequence is the same: I suffer just like everyone else in America when things go down. However, if I succeed, then the reward is immense and priceless. The best of my judgment urges me forward on this.

I'm so ecstatic to have come up with this idea, for it's not only a great endeavor, it also adds purpose and integration to my life in even the barest short-term. Ever since completing the Project I've actually been slightly disappointed, for a pursuit of such magnitude was fulfilling and engaging, and gave me a central point to help me decide which goals to set and chase. Since its ending, I've felt rather aimless, not sure what to do with my time or how to tie everything together. I've been productively occupied for sure, but it doesn't all seem to add together: The weekly goals I set seem unintegrated and hodge-podge, and my daily routine feels too devoid of chance for achievement. Now this new endeavor gives me a focal point to drive my energy at and arrange a multitude of pursuits and learning around, bringing integration into my life that feels more harmonious and like my time is well spent.

Hungry, hard-working shruggers are, of course, welcome, but for the most part I only plan on this being for the benefit of a rather small group, for labor help, physical safety, and security. Nonetheless, the soul of an entrepreneur and leader has been fired within me, so I can't wait to get started.

I hope you can find happiness in a disaster protection plan as I'm striving for.Life is worth living, and it doesn't look like the government can deprive me of that enjoyment even now.

The War on Walnuts

Incredible. Apparently the FDA has recently threatened Diamond Foods for making health claims about its walnuts, calling them (medical) drugs and warning of seizure. I don't know what kind of response Diamond has taken, but this single case is sufficient to show just how much arbitrary power the government has. Here a company is in danger of being harmed all because its free speech doesn't conform to what the FDA considers acceptable, and a basic, found-in-nature food product is being treated as a dangerous pharmaceutical. 

Regardless of whether or not the FDA has objectively defined standards for operating, it has no right to do this. The government has no business dictating what we may and may not hear advertised by food companies, and what we may and may not purchase for our own "good." Given the arbitrary nature of this dictate, and how blatantly ridiculous it is, it shows, in principle, how nothing is truly safe in the food economy. Similar or like rulings could be made for cashews, macadamias, almonds, and so on, and can extend to other food sections such as dairy and meat. Raw milk, for instance, is virtually outlawed nationally, forcing producers to either sell them under licenses, as "pet food," or to even establish a black market.  Only ten states have raw milk legalized completely.

Little dictators at their finest.

A Special Announcement about My Family Matters: Let's Not Talk of It

My more consistent readers may be aware of the family problems I mentioned a while ago. The treatment of them was actually my "Project" (uppercase P), which has resulted in me moving to Texas in order to avoid contact with them. I have never been better since undertaking that action, and have never regretted it. However, I've been having some difficulty these past weeks with certain persons engaging in trying to bring up the topic again, which has led to more stress on my part and even more excommunication. I mentioned a few months ago, in that Project post, that I'd like to drop the topic, but I guess I should post a reminder.

Unless you want to share with me a similar experience you had or are in, or if you need advice about something, I'd like for people to avoid talking to me about this issue. It's only been in recent weeks that I've been able to begin recovering from the stress and bad thinking habits I maintained during the difficulties, so when people bring up the issue I'm instantly agitated, angry, and overall shooken up.

Let's look at it this way. Of all the people who have ever taken to confront me on this issue -- and sadly this is almost a precise measurement -- about 100% of them have come with me with very dishonest, impolite, and even uncivil intentions. Literally 100% of everyone have never inquired as to what my position or side of the story is, either relying totally on someone else's testimony (which is likely inaccurate), their own feelings, or without regard to facts at all. These last people are especially irksome, as they know nothing of the situation and yet somehow automatically know I'm "wrong." I've argued the same points consistently until I was blue in the face and have large essays available on the web as to what my stance is, and yet the most essential people that need to know this has attributed false views to me and distorted my points, ruining my relations with them and probably damaging my repudiation in my old networks.


It's been impossible to make any headway on anything. After listening to everyone's argument and confronting their points with thoroughness and disagreeing with intellectual honesty I've been called names, from inaccurate labels such as "stubborn" to the wildly uncivil "piece of shit." When I undertake to call them stubborn, which is an accurate label given how unjustifiably few acknowledge and know my intellectual stance, it is their inappropriate behavior that gets ignored and mine that gets poo-pooed as "name-calling." And the list goes on.

As a consequence, I simply don't trust people -- almost all people -- to be able to conduct constructive and polite conversations on this topic. Most everyone attacks my character, tries to publicly intimidate me, tries to shame me by being snide -- everything except be honest and polite. At this point, I just block people who bring up the issue. Largely, the only nice people who participated in this matter are those who purveyed my stance first before addressing me about it.

So this is why I ask: Please, don't talk to me about this issue. A lot of people are too short-sighted to see this, but the problems themselves span over twenty years, or the entirety of my life if you will. The offenders are being concrete bound by fuming about isolated incidents in these problems (such as when I moved), which are really climaxes in a long stream of incidents, not something separated from everything else. The last four or so years of conflict were only the height of all the problems, not some unique period. As far as I'm concerned, my life didn't really start until the age of 19, so I've got some catching up to do.

Your cooperation, unless your concerns follow the exceptions listed above (the need for advice, similar experiences, etc.), is immensely appreciated. Otherwise I'll just treat violations with instant blocking, whether it be in e-mail or on a networking site. After all these years, my tolerance is eroded. Living my life is more important.

Weekly Summary # 38

Both an atrocious and good week. As part of a personal goal of leading a richer life -- I haven't written on that -- I enjoyed immensely some city fireworks on the third, but from there on I fell into a terrible funk that lasted most of the week. I felt plainly sad and disinterested in life, had my anxiety set on high, and couldn't figure out why. I think it was ultimately biochemical in cause given the funk was alleviated with some strenuous physical work, going for a walk, and eating something good, but it still lasted way longer than wanted. On Monday I watched a show after work to get rid of the gloom and ended up strangely exhausted afterwards, forcing me to rest the remainder of the evening. Tuesday was pretty wasted too, and on Wednesday I felt exhausted again and took a super long nap before work. Thursday I was so behind on things I just didn't bother. Awful.

On the other hand, the positive thing is that none of this transferred to my work. If anything my ambition and effort increased at work, where I continued to enhance my performance and find new ways to improve myself. While dropping the balls at home I did better and better at my job, something to be proud of. I guess because I like my job so much, since I'm engaged in my career after all, I couldn't help but feel better and more resolved once getting into a shift.

And on the sunnier side still, I'm proud that I at least took constructive action towards remedying my funk rather than letting it be. I kept up my introspective writing habits and paid attention to my needs, so while it's unfortunate that so much time was wasted I did what I could. The funk seems to have gone, and hopefully it stays gone.

The list:

1.) Try hand at creating banner: Done, the results being visible right on top. Even with its simplicity it still took more time than I wished it would, but still: That's another new year's resolution down.

2.) Read The Science of Chocolate, The Chocolate Tree, Crash Proof, and spring issue of The Objective Standard: Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh. Totally failed. While tackling other things these got severely neglected. Matters were especially difficult when I felt that mysterious exhaustion, which rendered me hardly able to intellectually guide my processes.

3.) Experiment with "scribble" book for reading: Since I did little other reading than of the Charlie Brown books I've rented this one has been neglected too.

4.) Practice tossing pizza with clothes at home: Only a little bit, but not enough to consider it a goal completed. I picked up a few articles of clothing to see how they might act given the techniques I've observed, and so far I'm not so sure I can find a dough substitute in my home, though I need to look more thoroughly.

5.) Tidy up room: Done to my satisfaction. While a more thorough clean up could be done, my primary concern is to make for a neater appearance, give some knickknacks designated spots, and give me additional surfaces to write and read on, and I accomplished that. I shouldn't ignore that other cleaning needs to be done too. (. . . Look at the dust on that ceiling fan . . . )


* * * * *

Judging my life as a whole, in the contexts of private improvement (studying, writing, etc.), character development (i.e. lovability), and work status, I think I've achieved the ideal strivings and attitude for my workplace endeavors while more work needs to be done for my character and private improvement.

At work I consider my efforts admirable. This week I finally managed to stumble upon a sign protector at the grocery store, which I need to protect the lists I create to enhance my productivity from the dish washing machine I place it on top of. Additionally, I've been doing an excellent job in maintaining my usage of a stopwatch to time myself during various activities, which has been giving me a real kick in the pants in regards to my exertions. I used these two methods to great advantage in my last job in Michigan, so to finally bringing them back has been jump starting my creativity on further personal innovations I could make to enhance my efforts. My job is going super well.

I don't have much to comment upon at the moment regarding my disappointment in my lovability pursuits, but immediately before me is how far I've derailed myself from pursuing my ideals habits. Namely, I want to cultivate a lifestyle that instills a voracious intellectual attitude as I had cultivated years before in my private studies and have since lost. Now I hardly even read. What's up with that? It's no good.

So for this week I'd like to exert myself in rededicating myself back to my intellectual goals by pursuing my reading more strongly, while at the same picking up the goals I dropped this past week. Throughout I'll probably contemplate where I think I'm going wrong in my lovability pursuits.

1.) Read The Science of Chocolate, The Chocolate Tree, Crash Proof, and spring issue of The Objective Standard: My failure to stay on top of this reading this week means I'll probably have to return these books to the library before I finish them, since I can't renew them. A nuisance, but I'll request them immediately again if I'm forced to. I'm adamant on completing those two chocolate books.

2.) Practice tossing pizza with clothes at home: I need to do a more thorough search through my clothes to see if I can find something that acts like moist dough. This is very important for my improvement at work. If I have nothing, then I'll see if I can borrow a wash cloth from work, since theirs work for the purpose of practicing.

3.) Experiment with "scribble book" while reading: Again, this is simply the practice of writing rough notes while reading to enhance concentration and interactivity, with no real intention of referencing the notes again.

4.) Optimize computer: A sloppily defined goal, but its intention is to get me thinking and search for ways I can improve my computing habits. For instance, I think I could be saving a lot more time in my efforts if I took the small amount of time necessary to find out how to make my computer boot up faster and process faster in general, and other such things. I've done some things already, such as installing Granola  to help save on utilities. I use a computer to improve my life, and I don't think I've been taking full enough advantage of that value, let alone getting all that I can out of it.

I'll probably add more later on in the week, especially if I have any epiphanies about my lovability pursuits, but for now this is all I want to dedicate myself to since I really, really want to improve my reading habits above all else in the immediate present.

This week may have been a bad one, but I intend to get back on the horse, as I always do.

More on the Economic Collapse: Possible Benevolence?

A while ago I wrote a post that mused upon how the U.S. might respond to an economic collapse. Will things get terribly dangerous and violent as they have in hyperinflation situations elsewhere? Or do we have a chance at the nation going through the disaster with relative peace? I don't think I did a good enough job explaining why this question is worth contemplating, so I'd like to share some deeper thoughts.

Simply put, the way a country handles a particular problem on a sense-of-life level depends on the philosophy inherent in its people. A good or mostly good philosophy will help a citizenry prevent and avoid significant problems while giving them the mental strength to bear what bad things do occur, as a good philosophy will be reality oriented and be able to offer guidance on the world before us. A bad or mostly bad philosophy will lead a citizenry into disaster and prevent them from being able to deal with it constructively or gracefully, and so will lead to a malevolent people whose natural state is that of disaster. A bad philosophy isn't oriented towards reality, so it can do little to address the laws of the world before us.

I think the reason why countries that have gone through hyperinflation have become terribly violent and malevolent is because that's the ultimate sense-of-life consequence of the philosophies that brought the economic crisis to existence. The elements that encourage evasion in these philosophies lead these people to search for scapegoats rather than recognize their own guilt in the matter, which causes them to become a nation of flagrant criminals. It's very destructive psychologically to judge oneself as immensely immoral or even evil, so anyone immoral enough to engage in the acts to earn him that status will logically be prone to the signature immoral act, evasion, which he'll use to avoid acknowledging his own character.

It's hard to sort through the clusterflop of the multitude of reasons that can be used to summarize the situation, but in short I think that, economically, any particular hyperinflationary nation won't recognize that it's killing the goose that lays the golden egg, and at each step of strangling it will wonder what's wrong with the goose rather than the actions being taken to extract its gold. After the goose dies the moochers are left seething that they didn't get what they're "owed" and become vicious. They shoot themselves in the foot and blame other factors endlessly, even as they continue to fire unto themselves.

As far as I know, no economic disaster thus far in recent history has lead to a nation going into a significant turn-around. I'm not knowledged enough in history to know exactly what happened here, but I know for certain that these crises haven't led to any nations freer than the United States. The philosophies that lead to their economic problems, by and large, remain intact even after the crisis.

It's this particular factor that leads me to wonder whether the U.S. might be able to handle an economic disaster more gracefully than other countries have. Objectivists haven't won the war of ideas yet, but I think we've succeeded in making the nation question its philosophical premises. By doing that we've not only increased our odds of winning, but in also changing the nature of the people. If we manage to go so far as to change the direction of the tide before the serious economic collapse, then could that not change entirely how the U.S. will respond? Or in other words, if we change the philosophy the U.S. enters the collapse in, then won't we also change the sense-of-life results that will spawn as a reaction to the situation?

I think other nations have descended into violence because they were a nation of moochers and looters to begin with, and in dealing with the results of their parasitism they go hysterical. If the U.S., however, were to recognize at a majority level that the government is at fault for our economic troubles, then perhaps U.S. anger will be more directed at the polls, voting booths, and city halls, rather than at each other?

This is why, in my above linked essay, I think the most important safety consideration for an individual is where he lives, as the different political atmospheres of different states and cities are determined by different philosophies. Therefore, I think the U.S.'s response to a collapse will vary greatly from location to location, depending what people view as the source of the problem. In such a statist place as my old home of Michigan, I can visualize it becoming a very dangerous place to live, not even allowing for a safe walk at night. The people were already somber and irritated as I left them, and in no way ready to recognize they're responsible for supporting the politics that continues pushing the state to ruin. My new home of Texas, however, I could visualize as becoming risky, but not frighteningly dangerous, as the people are noticeably lighter in spirit and more at peace.

I'm still not sure, and probably won't know for certain until the major event happens, but perhaps the best way to bring up the question is that the United States is a unique nation that's going through a unique phenomenon during a unique period in history. Is it not reasonable to assume that the U.S.'s response to collapse will also itself be unique? Benevolent, I hope.

Intellectually I recognize that it's still best to prepare oneself as strongly as possible, whether it be stocking up on medicine or ammunition, but emotionally I am somewhat anticipating Americans remaining a respectable citizenry during the worst of times. Hopefully so. I say prepare for disaster and plan for prosperity.

Principled Vs. Stubborn: A Conceptual Pet Peeve

Oooooh I should have written about this months ago, as it's been a pet peeve I've been thinking about for months. In some of my most long-lasting disputes my character has often been labeled as "stubborn" for not accepting my opponent's position, and while it's hardly a severe injustice the inaccuracy of the conceptual application annoys me given I advocate speaking precisely.

Essentially, the problem here is that my opponent is calling me stubborn only because I refuse to accept their position, not because I'm tuning them out or am denying what I recognize as true. In these particular cases the persons use atrocious logical fallacies such as begging the question, appealing to popularity, and even resorting to intimidation by yelling and calling me names. These conversations can hardly be called constructive arguments, and I've had to tolerate them since I either had to deal with the person not of choice or have been unwelcomingly contacted by them. Because of their refusal to provide evidence or proof I have held steadfast in my position by virtue of intellectual honesty and integrity, and for that I've been called "stubborn," but it isn't an accurate label.

In reality I'm being principled, not stubborn. Both of these concepts, when oversimplified and their essential characteristics are suspended, mean that one refuses to change one's course of action, beliefs, or evaluations in the face of persuasion (either forceful or intellectual) or calls for alteration. The feature that distinguishes these terms is why one is maintaining such a refusal. In the case of stubbornness, the essential trait is emotional: The person is maintaining his position or course because he's acting on emotion or is evading something that upsets him. Take as example a cartoon I saw, where a character walked fruitlessly up a downward escalator with his eyes close, vigorously denying to all the inconvenienced shoppers that he was going the wrong way because he wanted to evade being upset by learning he was wrong. He's being stubborn because he refuses to change his course of action, going the wrong way on an escalator, even though reality blatantly shows he's doing something unproductive.

A principled person, on the other hand, maintains his position or course on the basis of his intellectual honesty and integrity, and maintains them because it is in his best judgment that it is proper to do so, after assessing other people's positions and the available information about the matter. He may still be in the wrong, but he doesn't maintain a wrongful position or course because he feels like it, but rather because he's honestly mistaken. There's no stubbornness here.

I am annoyed by having such a label as "stubborn" applied to me since I pointed out the logical fallacies in my opponents' positions -- which they have refused to address in any way -- and have made explicit that I refuse to change my mind because my judgment is unaffected, so to accuse me of acting stupidly on emotion is inaccurate and unjust. And irritatingly enough, what these opponents accuse me of is what they're actually guilty of. It is they who refuse to address or even acknowledge my position, and maintain their ways of thinking even as they keep recognizing fact after fact I give them and the evaluations that logically follow, so it is they which the label stubborn appropriately applies.

And by gosh, anyone who refuses to acknowledge the distinction between these concepts is being stubborn too.

Bullies and Shirts

Recently I've had the annoying experience of a bully of the sorts yelling at me from his vehicle for me to "get some clothes on." Given the frequent sunny weather here in Texas I tend to favor shirtless and shoeless walks, mainly to up my vitamin D production and get a more even tan, and I guess this person didn't approve of my appearance. Of course, courageous as his act was, he conducted it by slowing down his car, yelling from an open door, and then driving promptly away. This is the second time this has happened to me, the other person committing the act without stopping or slowing down.

This irritates the hell out of me. Not because of its rudeness, but because of the philosophical underpinnings that are implied in the mentalities of these people who would do such a thing. My intention in taking a walk in such a fashion is not to make a statement or garner attention -- not even the attention of attractive women -- but simply to maintain my health and regularity of appearance (no farmer's tan for me). Otherwise I'm tending to my own business, walking for the same reason I always do: To introspect, which walking vastly helps me do. Oftentimes I even nearly lose awareness of what I'm doing because I'm enjoying my thinking so much, concentrating only on the attractive scenery and thought processes. These bullies, on the other hand, are displaying second-handed mentalities in which they're not only sensitive to their environment as it relates to them, but also are moved to offer spiteful comments to that which they disapprove of in order to gain approval of the people that are in the car with them.

It's obviously a difference between first-handedness and second-handedness that is leading to these different behaviors. In my first-handedness I am only concerned with my environment insofar as it relates to my safety (e.g. not stepping on glass barefoot) and aesthetic admiration; otherwise, my primary concern is my task, which is to enjoy my walk and indulge in a lot of thinking. They, on the other hand, in their second-handedness are concerned with the environment in regards to how it compares to them, leading them to keep a watch out for whether, say, people are looking at them, or in my case they might be looking for things to mock such as I, since my shirtless practice is uncommon and therefore unconventional, leading to them feeling irrationally superior to me since they're accepted by popular views and I'm not. Therefore, I theorize that their bullying comments was to gain a sense of superiority by highlighting in their minds that they're following convention while I'm not, and that the people in their car are approving by way of their probable laughter at their antics.

What most offends me is that I view this as unjust treatment considering I'm a great adherent to the golden rule. I treat others as I desire to be treated, and psychologically this has made me very tolerant of non-essential (i.e. not concerning morality) differences. I often walk shirtless and shoeless in public and expect to be respected on that matter and left alone, and in return I leave other people alone on their stylistic choices and practices in public, whether it be wearing what I'd consider offensive or absurd clothing, or strange practices such as walking with one's hands in the air (yes, I've seen that in the past). I've even seen a man walking around in a neon green suit before and only casually looked at him, not feeling motivated to stare or even comment on it in the privacy in my mind. When other people treat me rudely about my differences while I'm respecting theirs I feel unjustly treated since I'm granting them something they're not returning.

Whatever their comments, I'm not going to stop this practice. It has nothing to do with other people, not even showing off my physique to women I might find attractive. I'm engaged entirely in my own matters and wish these people would just tend to their own.

My Coming to Objectivism

In the past weeks I have read some accounts of other people's journey to Objectivism and atheism and have been inspired to write my own account. It's interesting to see how people come to take such strong ideological stances as these, for if these transformations were documented in a story, they'd be a dramatic turning point in the plot. Besides, I notice some people are often interested in some alternative ideas but are afraid to give them thorough thought for fear of how they might affect their relationships or put obstacles in their way, so I'd like to demonstrate that any hardship endured as a consequence is more than worth it.

For the most part, the reason why I've become an Objectivist is because I spent the majority of my life suffering from the bad philosophical ideas that Ayn Rand repudiated. My elders are ideologically blank and adopted the ideas that form their character with unthinking absorption and no intellectual interest, so I adopted the same ideas by observing their practices and grew up very miserable as a result, made worse by the fact I often didn't know why I thought life was so horrible. The majority of my childhood was spent either playing video games, watching television, or daydreaming, as ceasing any of those activities would make me aware of how terrible I felt deep-down.

A lot of my pain was derived by not only accepting bad ideas in unconscious terms, but also by not having any stance in important areas and therefore being plagued by uncertainty. I had pro-capitalist emotions in my teen years, but absolutely no political views while growing up, for instance, as my elders never talked about politics or took any kind of political stance. I even had a terrible stint where I doubted the validity of my sensory perception and believed I was doing evil things beyond my awareness, as one time a kid maliciously and falsely accused me of a crime without having evidence or witnesses, and yet most all the adults seized on me and with much rage urged me to "confess," despite the consistency with which I denied committing such an act and didn't even remember coming in contact with the kid. Their "certainty" in my crime made me think my memory was somehow unreliable, so I was terrified that I might be a horrible person and not know what acts I committed.

Even though my philosophy was adopted without thinking, it can still be identified in explicit terms now that I'm wiser. Metaphysically, I struggled with a mystical, religious universe in combination with one that had an identity separate from anyone's consciousness, as I both believed in God and an atheistic, scientific reality. I always had doubts about God, but since my elders didn't take my questions seriously and instead brushed me off my questions simply went unanswered, but they ultimately never left my mind since they were never refuted either. My ethical premise that thoughts themselves can be evil prevented me from thoroughly thinking about those questions however, as I thought even the slightest doubt in God could sentence me to Hell, so I actively refused to think about those matters.

Epistemologically, I adopted secular faith. While I was religious, it was primarily an intellectual position I held to, but largely paid lip-service to. The extent of my family's religious beliefs were that there is a God and he gave ten commandments, but nobody read the Bible, went to church, or took any other aspect of religion seriously. They just said they believed in God, maybe prayed at night, and otherwise lived their lives in contradiction to their supposed beliefs. I was never taught how to learn things or by which means to identify that something was true, so I developed a "somehow" mentality in which I was expected to believe in things because my elders "said so," "just know" it's true, and so on. I was perpetually uncertain, but had no thinking tools in which to fully address these premises.

My ethics were probably the most developed and destructive. It consisted of altruism, that thoughts can have moral status, and second-handedness. On the first, through whatever means I gained the belief that one should sacrifice for others, but in the end it caused me much pain since not only is sacrifice painful, but also because I grew up largely without friends and therefore without recipients for my sacrifices, and I didn't want to sacrifice anyhow since my life was spiritually painful enough as it was, so I lived with perpetual guilt. On the second, since I lived with an elder who was emotionally unstable, unpredictable, and even explosive, I gained the belief that thoughts can have moral status given how hysterical they would react to some things I said, so I thought even the mere contemplation of a "bad" thought can make one evil. I resorted to suppression, which made the bad thoughts worse and therefore me more grieved. On the last, I had another elder who was literally obsessed with what other people thought of them, so watching how they were constantly petrified at other people and always trying to cater to them made me believe it must be ethically necessary to be concerned with others, so I too became immensely worried about what other people thought of me. My self-esteem ended up being eroded since I was heavily bullied, had few to no friends, and had mostly teachers indifferent to my problems, so, granting weight to other people's thoughts, I lowered my opinion of myself. All three tenets combined made me endlessly guilty that I was not doing my altruistic duty, distraught at my mental processes, and avoiding people for fear of what they thought of me.

And politically, as stated before, there were no views. I'm not sure if my elders even voted while I was growing up. No subject of any political nature was ever brought up, and to this day I have no idea what most of my family's political affiliations are. I think they were too afraid of the slightest strife to be able to take a stance on anything, so they avoided endorsing or condemning anything, if they had any political beliefs at all, in order to get along with other people. In my teens I developed pro-capitalist emotions since I somehow arrived at the conclusion that other people should not force their beliefs on others. This didn't grow to a full political belief, however, as I still didn't know how to think in ideological terms.

The philosophy as a whole consequently made me grow up in a miserable. My metaphysics and epistemology made me confused and constantly doubtful. My ethics made me view myself as an evil person who deserved to die and was resentful at other people's perception. And my absence of any sort of politics left me ideologically powerless to society's laws since I had no conception of how men should treat each other. A lot of philosophical stances were actually something I potentially leaned towards, like atheism and rational egoism, but the ethical tenet that thoughts can be evil made me refuse to think about them, and I could hardly think in explicit terms anyhow. I played video games, watched television, and daydreamed endlessly to avoid thinking or even acknowledging the reality my life, and got depressed otherwise.

I adopted all of these ideas from my elders, who were (and still are) largely unaware of them themselves, and at the same time they hardly participated in my spiritual raising. They entertained me with material goods and fed me, but I could never have deep talks with them nor engage in any meaningful activities that would allow me to spiritually bond and nurture a love. My mother's emotional instability established my misery, made me afraid of her, and made me avoid her since I couldn't predict her behavior. My grandmother just gave me a lot of presents and material goods, which I enjoyed, but cannot appreciate her character on the basis of since her personality if of a different nature. My grandfather sat around and drank soda all the time, and eventually I became afraid of him when he one day lifted me by the front of my shirt collar, looking like he was going to hit me, all because I had a bad day at school and provoked him by looking sad, so from then on I avoided him for fear of danger. I was left to my own devices then, and could do practically whatever I wanted, whether it meant playing video games for an obscene amount of hours, guzzling a quarter of a twelve-pack of soda, or eating an entire package of pudding. The rules were mostly lip-service, as even gentle asking would make them cave and backtrack, leaving me with little parental influence. I spent the vast majority of my time alone, doing my own thing.

As time went on my philosophical premises made me feel worse and worse, to the point I became suicidal. My life was only protected by a lack of motivation, however, as my most distressed and suicidal moments were accompanied by a great fear and lack of motivation to do anything about it. I spent well over five years nurturing suicidal thoughts and intentions. My relationship and trust with my elders was destroyed when they totally ignored me when I outright told them about this, as they refused to talk to me about it or get me any kind of help. The friends I consulted with didn't help me either, as it turned out they just used me to vent themselves, so they didn't care to give my serious problem any attention. I was shocked that the people I trusted the most in my life could betray and abandon me like this, so from during that period I stopped trusting and "loving" these people and kept to myself. I was alone with my problems. It's especially bad since I almost went through with the act one time, and was only saved because I had a calming mood swing on the long car drive to get materials from the store.

Ayn Rand came in about 2006, which is when I was already vigorously interested in philosophy, thinking about it often. Some time back I had discovered Anthony Burgess through A Clockwork Orange and The Doctor is Sick, and loved his writing, which inspired me to start entertaining philosophy. Burgess primed my consciousness, so to speak. One day I was just randomly splurging at the bookstore on some books when The Virtue of Selfishness caught my eye. I read Athem in school previously and hated Rand's writing style, but a valued friend at the time mentioned that she loved it, so I thought I'd give Rand's non-fiction a thought to see if it was any better. Although the title is intentionally provocative, I didn't see anything different about it, as my unexplicit ethics said nothing persay about selfishness being evil, so this was a random purchase that didn't really rouse my interest.

But did the reading ever rouse me.

I was immediately blown away from the first article on, and Rand wrote in a clear style that helped me consciously call to attention ideas I couldn't speak about explicitly before and yet was having my life dictated by. Her words hit my intellectual core and made me see for the first time in my life my own system of morality, the morality I had been living by my entire life. She made me see how such a belief was destroying my life, making me miserable and reclusive. She made me see that rational selfishness was not evil, that it didn't consist of hedonism or hurting others for your "interests," but rather trading values with others. She made me see that it was not bad to be alone, and that it was not right to place other people's thoughts above your own. I was only about two essays or so in before I entered a state of intense euphoria that lasted for hours, rendering me incapable of reading any further until I had calmed down. That day was a turning point in my life.

I didn't desire to immediately take to other of Rand's works yet, but she did set off a vicious storm of thinking that drastically morphed my character and how I began thinking. I became incredibly philosophical and contemplative. The philosophy I detailed above quickly became uprooted in favor of integrating Objectivism, and it's amazing how quickly I took to it, almost as if I had been a potential Objectivist all my life. I think the doubts I had about certain positions, like about God, would have led to me integrating Objectivist premises quickly if I had fully addressed those doubts, but since I believed thoughts could be evil I didn't do that thinking, thereby leaving the stances I hold now only as a potential. Very quickly I lost the desire to maintain my evasion techniques such as playing video games, as I soon began building my self-esteem and self-love, and favored perusing intellectual forums on the internet to further develop my philosophy. I don't think I ever actually valued video games, as the habit was broken nearly instantaneously and abandoned since; now I've sold all my games and systems, and there is only a single arcade collection installed on my computer that I seldom use.

The first things I started to do were read more vigorously than I already was, have philosophical talks with my friends and some elders, and, most importantly, consciously alter my behavior to match my new ideas. For instance, I recognized and was disturbed by how second-handed I was, as I was constantly faking my personality in order to garner approval from others, so I undertook my first major self-improvement endeavor to stop being dishonest in my actions. From then on I wasn't going to give lip-service to my ideas: I was going to preach and practice them.

Rand didn't convince me on her atheism however, so I was at first the well-known contradictory "Christian Objectivist." Her idea that evasion was evil penetrated my mind, however, so I could no longer allow myself to keep evading thoughts about religion, even if I did fear it as evil. I watched an episode of Penn and Teller's Bullshit! that talked about contradictions in the Bible, so that convinced me to convert to deism and not adhere to any specific religious. I kept thinking more and more about Rand's objections to not only Christianity, but religion in principle, and eventually integrated her conclusion that it was contradictory, logically impossible, and epistemologically unjustified, so about five months from having read the VOS, July 2006, I became a full-fledged atheist and stopped praying or believing in any God. As my philosophical beliefs changed, my mental health just kept improving and improving, making me grow happier and happier -- for the first time in my life. I took the objective status of my character seriously, was an overall better person, pursued learning more intently, and more. It was nearing the end of my teenager years, but my life was finally getting better.

My elders were largely indifferent to this development, unfortunately, and didn't take much interest in the books I read or that I was even reading at all. They treated me as if I was going through a stage and sometimes mouthed acceptance to the alternative ideas I stated that contradicted theirs. I briefly tried to argue with them, but I near-instantly understood that it was a mistake to try and philosophically convert them, so I largely left them alone, except in times in which they either provoked challenge or stated their beliefs in a way which made me need to voice mine lest they mistake my stance. I was my most ideologically sensitive at this point in my life, but they didn't pay attention and continued leaving me to my own devices, so they had absolutely no input in the ideas I entertained, adopted, or rejected. While I was materialistically taken care of, I consider myself as having raised myself from childhood and an entirely self-made man since my elders played no role in my spiritual development. I was growing increasingly antipodal to their ideology, but it didn't present any problems until I took some major actions to establish my well-being. You're probably already familiar with the scenario, as this is where my family troubles started brewing, eventually culminating in my current status where I moved to Texas without telling them and have excommunicated.

As part of my self-improvement I was striving to be more honest by acknowledging reality for what it is rather than what I believed it to be, and one aspect of that was my supposed love for my family. Yes, I deplored many of my elders, particularly those who didn't help me after I told them I was suicidal, but those conclusions were primarily in emotional terms only. In paying attention to the actual reality of matters it struck me as odd that I habitually said "I love you" to certain people even though I felt inwardly indifferent, so in order to reveal to myself how I truly felt towards these people I resolved never to say those words unless I actually felt love. To my utter surprise, I never said those words to my family again. When I introspected on the past I realized I almost always felt this way towards them, and was always mouthing words to deceive myself. I noticed I felt particularly strong negative emotions towards my mother. When she temporarily moved to Florida I suddenly felt immensely better and took more control over my life, eating a better (though not Paleo) diet, cleaning the house because I valued it, and being more at peace with myself. The lack of parental rules were still the same, so I didn't clean the house or ate better because I was told to -- they didn't even encourage me to -- but rather because I authentically valued the practices and maintained them of my own will. I hardly missed my mother. When she came back from Florida the negative atmosphere returned, I was stressed and in my room all the time, and refused to continue any of my regular chores. When she left again, contentment returned. One aspect of my inner peace of course could have been due to my philosophical development and desire to live life on my own terms, but it became explicitly clear that I held strong negative emotions towards my mother when I took a terrible vacation to Florida to visit her, which I hated everything about the entire trip, only relieved when I was home alone again. (My father wasn't in my life.)

I made the entirely calm dedication to never speak to my mother again whenever I should happen to move out the house, as I detested her the majority of my teenage years for her self-destructive behavior; unpredictable, unstable, and hostile emotions; and her refusal to recognize her problems or change herself. Objectivism gave me the thinking tools to reach this estimate by integrating evidence from the past and present to gather a sum of what her actions state about her character (we are what we repeatedly do), and my long-range thinking made me identify that her fluctuating behavior and refusal to change would mean that I would always be unhappy in dealing with her, which is why I chose to cut her off entirely rather than, say, merely move away and maintain correspondence. I don't think I would have been able to reach this conclusion if my psycho-epistemology hadn't been changed by Objectivism. Never at any point did I jump to a conclusion on the basis of emotion; the evidence told me this relationship would always be entirely unhappy, so I planned to disassociate entirely accordingly.

And of course, at this point you might know what happened. During my college days my mother kicked me out for knocking on her bedroom door too loudly, which is when I moved to my grandmother's and enacted the plan I constructed years prior. My family begged me to talk to my mother, but in response to my polite and extensive explanation for my stance, one I reached through hours of thinking, they gave me arbitrary conclusions they refused to give evidence for or prove, yelled at me, intimidated me, called me names, and so on. Eventually my grandmother got in the way of me living my life the way I wanted to as well, so I started the Project which culminated in me moving to Texas and cutting off a greater portion of my family. I have a super long essay here about what problems existed in my family, what I did about it, and what philosophically gave rise to my conflicts, as well as what you should do if you get in the same position.

Succinctly, I was taking great steps to vastly improve my well-being, but my elders refused to acknowledge the roots as to why I was getting so much better, so they encouraged me to reestablish the relationships and habits when led to my deterioration in the first place, so when I understood our conflicts could not be worked out by reason, I abandoned them since I was (and still am) unwilling to sacrifice my objective well-being for what they "feel" will be "good" for me.

As for friends, I still took an irrational attitude towards how I maintained many of my friendships given familial stress and leftover irrational premises, but ultimately I valued my friends less and less since I was growing more philosophical while they took another path. For instance, I hung out with people who played video games as intensely as I once did, but since I lost interest in the habit I lost the major thing I had in common with these people. I was becoming more interested in ideas, learning, and striving to realize the ideal, whereas they weren't, so we grew separately and apart. While my philosophy made me more friendless and unpopular, especially in college where my peers resented me, I didn't mind the aloneness since I had self-love and realized I wouldn't objectively like or love people with such contrary natures.

Sure, Objectivism has made me encounter a lot of obstacles, such as strife with my family, elimination of friends, hostility from others, and so on, but the hardship has been worth it to gain what I have today. I'm no longer suicidal, but rather am eager to live, more content, more respectful and nice to others, more intelligent, and more. And it is indeed Objectivism that has bestowed these benefits on me. I would never have been able to establish self-love if I hadn't repudiated altruism and the notion that it's a moral obligation to be concerned with what others think. I would never have been able to identify my family problems and solve them as I have, giving me a peaceful environment. I would never have been able to achieve my current physical health if I didn't have the courage to go against popular nutritional opinions and go Paleo. I never would have been able to identify my purpose in life and become the culinary-inspired, chocolate-reviewing person that I am today. I simply wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't changed my philosophy, thinking habits, and how I evaluate ideas. If I kept going on the other path, I don't think I'd be alive today honestly, because the pain would just have kept getting greater.

I have definitely been scrutinized and unjustly treated for my views, such as my family getting angry at me for not talking to my mother despite her atrocious immorality, but what contentment and inner peace I have achieved has more than made up for it, and it eliminates any temptation to compromise on my ideals on the delusion that it'll somehow make things easier or make me happier. I've stuck to my convictions, and have been rewarded justly in spirit.

The way I've stumbled upon Rand's fiction by chance makes me contemplate the Butterfly Effect, how a seemingly small factor can lead to a massive chain reaction, such as a butterfly's wing flapping eventually initiating a hurricane. What if I didn't see Rand's book that day when I was out shopping, or didn't purchase it? What if I didn't read Anthony Burgess and became interested in philosophy through him? Maybe I would be an entirely different person, or maybe I would have still become an Objectivist by having the psychological makeup receptive to those ideas. I don't know, but I'm immensely glad I stumbled upon Rand's work when I did because I was intellectually ready for her at the time, and her philosophy has diverted me off a destructive path that would have only grown worse with time. Now these days I'm always concerned with expanding my mind and learning ever more, and with improving my character more and more to match that of what I view to be my ideal self. Life is worth living now. This is my story on how I became an Objectivist.

Italy Does a Grave Injustice to Seismologists

 I can't believe this. The Italian government is seriously considering charging some seismologists with manslaughter because they happened to fail to predict an earthquake. Is Italy going back to the dark ages?

Many sciences haven't advanced yet enough in order to allow scientists to be able to make perfect predictions, and broader still there's the plain fact that humans are fallible and will honestly reach mistaken conclusions, no matter how hard and rigorous their thinking is. Man is not omniscient, so it's unavoidable that he'll err here and there in his thinking. To punish anyone for that is to flat-out evade and disregard that fact of nature and be monstrously unjust. If the Italian government is successful, then these scientists are going to receive a lot of suffering they simply don't deserve. Disgusting.


Unless this principle of thinking -- that men can and should be punish for honest intellectual errors -- is stopped in its tracks in the political realm then Italy has a lot to lose. What scientist is going to want to keep working under the stress that an innocent slip is going to put him in grave danger? Why should he work so hard, only to have it all taken away just because he's not superhuman? And further still, what if Italy applies this to not only other sciences, but also other realms of business where mistakes inevitably happen? Atlas will shrug, I believe.

I always had some kind of impression that Italy was a civilized country, but I'm starting to have doubts.

Edit: Changed "infallible" to "fallible." What a considerable mistake! Goes to show you how fallible I am. . .

When the Environment Destroys Itself?

A question recently occurred to me about the nature of environmentalism, and while I know that it inherently points out the illogic in their philosophical system I still wonder if this question has actually been addressed before. Now we know that environmentalism holds that it is wrong for man to alter nature to suit his needs, such as burning fuel or felling a forest, since this would constitute destruction of the environment. However, how do environmentalists view the phenomenon of the environment destroying, well, itself?

For instance, volcanoes spew smoke and pollute the air, don't they? Environmentalists get mad when men pollute the air, so why not volcanoes too? Surely that kills birds. And what about natural oil reserves leaking from the ocean floor into the water and polluting it? Man need do nothing for that to occur, and surely that kills oceanic life. And heck, how about how celestial bodies treat each other? What if the sun goes supernova in a few billion years and destroys earth, eradicating everything we currently call the environment? Are people waging protests on how the sun may be violating earth's rights? And let us not forget that wild animals kill other wild animals, that it's possible for one species to drive another out of existence without man's help.

The environment, in one form or another, hurts itself and can be made inhospitable to life. Man has the mental powers and technology to improve things so that life flourishes, so that environmentalists concentrate so much on preventing man from doing this reveals a dishonest intention.

Misconceptions about Hearing-Impairments: My Pet Peeve

I know this has hardly been mentioned before, but for my entire life I've had a bad hearing-impairment, moderate in my right ear and severe in my left. I hate it. It really gets in the way of me living my life as smoothly as I'd like to, no matter how long I live with it. It's frequently difficult to hear people in certain settings, like when dishes are clattering on the counter at my restaurant job, and has even led to me developing me a speech impediment which I was made fun of severely for as a child. More irritating yet, my impairment is sensorineural, which means the ear nerve connected to my brain is damaged, so modern technology has no remedy for my situation as of yet. I really want to buy  high-end hearing-aids in the future, but for now they're super expensive and out of my budget, even with medical insurance coverage, so unfortunately it'll have to be a long-term goal.

For the hell of it I thought I'd clear up a couple misconceptions about the nature of hearing-impairments that I've seen people make quite often, as it has made for some embarrassing and even infuriating confrontations. Namely, I'd like to address something about the nature of hearing-impairments themselves and hearing-aid technology.

First off, having a hearing-impairment does not necessarily mean that a person hears less in a balanced, fixed amount. It's more sophisticated than that. More often than not, people with impairments have more or less trouble hearing portions of the pitch spectrum, so it's not like we hear less as if you've turned down the volume on the television; rather, it's like you've turned down, or even eliminated certain pitches from sounds. As precise as the nature of the impairment can be, one person could be deaf only to severely high pitches still within the range of human hearing and function as if their hearing was fine, and another may have trouble with such a wide variation of points in the pitch spectrum that they may have incredible difficulty listening to and verbalizing spoken language.

It can be incredibly sophisticated, right down the point where the person has difficulty with only certain words or even parts of words. I myself can hear the /th/ and /s/ phonetic sounds, but it's impossible for me to comprehend any difference between them, so words like "sink" and "think" sound exactly the same. I can only distinguish them by the context of the sentence they're used in.

This means that such as thing as simply speaking louder is not often likely to help things. The only way for a person with a pitch-specific impairment to hear better is for them to have those specific troubled pitches emphasized, so if you magnify your voice it's likely to help the situation little, if any, or make it worse if you change your pitches by speaking louder. I myself am largely deaf on the high end of the spectrum and have intense difficulty with high pitches on the edge of my capacity, so speaking louder only helps at a distance; mostly, I just need a person to enunciate. Many people may have hearing-damage to the extent that their comprehension to the entire spectrum is compromised, so in that scenario louder speaking would help, but I don't think it's that common, at least when considering the entire population of people with hearing difficulties.

Secondly, this as a corollary means that either one of two types of hearing-aids will help a hearing-impaired person, and contrary to popular conception it isn't the most common type of hearing-aid, the one that simply magnifies all sounds. If a person has difficulty with only a certain part of the pitch spectrum, then a hearing-aid that magnifies all sounds will be useless. Useless. So please, don't suggest to such a person to run right out and get that without considering the specifics: At best it's ignorant and rude, and at worst it'll cause that person to waste a lot of money. I, in fact, had that kind of hearing-aid throughout most of my childhood, and it worked jack squat. I wore it only because I had to. Because my hearing-impairment resides on the high-end, that means a "regular" hearing-aid is going to magnify the sounds I can already hear at normal levels, so it'll hurt my ears and negate any effect of high pitch magnification. I hated that transition in the morning, when I first put my devices in and had to adjust to how damn loud everything was. Wind whistled like a hurricane, paper crinkled like sheet metal, and even just the plain atmosphere sounded like flowing water. It was almost overwhelming, and it didn't help me hear an iota. I stopped wearing my hearing-aids in my mid-teens when someone asked me why I always took them out during conversations, which pointed out to me that I recognized they didn't improve the functioning of my life. The weeks that immediately followed my quitting that device people noticed how much easier it was for me to hear, ironically.

For people like me, with a pitch specific impairment, a different, much more expensive device is needed: digital hearing-aids. Last time I received an estimate I was told they range from two to six thousand dollars, though are probably cheaper now, and have the high virtue of being able to magnify certain pitches while leaving others static, meaning I could have the high pitches emphasized while the low ones are untouched. That's what I want and need, but cannot afford right now. Most of the hearing-impaired population probably can't afford it, so don't insult us by asking us to pop in a conventional device when it likely may not suit our needs. It was positively useless for me.

I wanted to clear up these misconceptions because I've been annoyed in the past when people spoke loudly to me upon hearing about my impairment, and infuriated when told to go get a hearing-aid. You should ask how you can accommodate each specific individual who has made explicit they have such problems instead of resorting to the concrete-bound remedies given rise to by the misconceptions above. In dealing with me, the best thing to do is to stay on my right-hand side and speak clearly, repeating when necessary. Nothing more, nothing less.

Are any of my readers hearing-impaired? If so, do you have any pet peeves you'd like to air yourself?

United States' Response to Collapse?

[NOTE: This was already published and commented on, but for some reason the website crash took it down and returned it to scheduling mode, so I'm merely putting it up again.]

To tell you the truth, there's really only one thing I fear about economic disaster coming to the U.S., and that's how its people are going to respond to it. Given my optimism for the future I think we'll ultimately end off for the better politically and start on a better path, so mainly my concern is how people will react behaviorally.

Reading the accounts of what happened in various other countries during economic disaster, such as Germany and Argentina, have been very disturbing. Spiritually broken people sniping off rooftops, regular kidnappings, violence, and more. I could tolerate a food shortage in a civil society . . . but I wonder if the U.S. would remain a civil society during such bad times.

It's a perplexing question because this phenomenon is happening in a culture that is significantly different, at least for now, from those of a collapsed Argentina or Nazi Germany. I at least know that Nazi Germany at that time adopted a very malevolent and duty-based philosophy, and facing the destruction that philosophy wrought would logically drive those people to the worst kinds of malice, one incident including a guy who stood on a roof and shot at people indiscriminately. That philosophy thinks the worst of human nature, so the provocation of all the economical pain would obviously be enough to push these people to lash out.

However, I hypothesize that the U.S. is in the process of questioning its premises and root philosophy. No choices, of course, have been made between altruism and selfishness, statism and capitalism, and so on, but I think Americans are thinking about the alternatives, which gives America a fighting chance for survival. Even this state of questioning, I think, would alter America's character enough that she would react differently to things such as hyperinflation/deflation. It's also possible that a cultural shift could happen during these times, and that America will have to suffer economic consequences from the inertia of previous bad ideas, meaning that the America that suffers would have a different character than the one that inflicted the troubles.

My hypothesis is that things will vary from state to state since there are such variants in the senses of life given birth to by the various parts of the political spectrum. In other words, I think a Democratic state would react one way and a Republican one another. Here in Texas, I think, a more gloomy atmosphere would come about, which I think would be quite tolerable. People are very hospitable and civil around here, and I can't imagine them erupting into thuggery. My previous home of Michigan, however, I can totally visualize as becoming very violent. It's a very bleak atmosphere already, and the people seem to have a certain air of resentment around them. I detailed a sampling of people I've dealt with there before, and I think that such malevolence is more or less common in the whole area, in differing degrees and practices. The economic conditions are already frustrating enough over there, so the devastation the U.S. might go through might push them past the breaking point and make for a very, very, hostile atmosphere. Then again, I don't know.

Of course, to be logically strict it may not be guaranteed that the U.S. will even go through such bad economic times. I think it's still possible to turn around, and it's possible the culture could save itself before then, but it's one of those "fat chance" ordeals where we might as well treat the probability as a certainty already given the momentum, so I mention this to make clear I'm not speaking of events definitely guaranteed to occur.

Anyhow, what do you think? Whatever ordeal we may go through, I hope I can come out respecting the present humanity in the end.

Bearing the Bad Times

Times are undoubtedly getting bad. Not only for the United States, but for the entire world. The economy is quite bad off, and with current political actions it's probable, if not certain, that a bout of intense inflation (or hyperinflation?) could come our way and eradicate everyone's savings. US foreign policy is a mess, with our enemies largely being ignored and unimpeded in their murderous endeavors, leaving the possibility for devastation in the future, while American soldiers engage in fruitless combat in obscure locales for obscure purposes and clear-cut failure. Laws are getting more dictatorial and ambiguous, eroding freedom more rapidly ever before, and the assault is going to continue for years yet. With things as difficult as this it can be easy to get depressed in assessing the situation, and that's probably the mindset of most of the people in the US today, particularly Objectivists, who with special emphasis pay attention to the culture at large.

These past several weeks this is what has been upsetting me, mostly, as I hate viciously problems I have to deal with that are not of my own making or moral failure. I am thoroughly attached to the notion of living by my own judgement and living or failing by that alone, so to suffer due to someone else's evil is downright infuriating. But I must, as we all, deal with it, for it's a problem already long here, with no other option than for me to tackle it. While it's easily to speculate on the matter of degrees, it's hardly contestable that things are going to get worse. Life -- true life: full happiness -- will be delayed for all of us.

But I have come to terms with this negativity, and aside from recognizing it I am learning to cope with it. It can be easy to despair over such issues and to sense that things are hopeless. If they truly were, however, then wouldn't you be dead? Without any prospect of anything to live for, wouldn't you cease maintaining your life? Your sustained living shows you're still here on earth for a reason. I myself still believe life is worth living, and beyond that I believe there's still reason to be objectively hopeful for the future.

Even as terrible as things are, I still maintain the same optimism I had in 2009, and recent happenings are strengthening my case. It's too easy to lose hope for the future and happiness when a terrible piece of legislation is passed, such as mentioned in that post, or when a disaster happens, such as the earthquake in Japan, but we must remember to introspect on the entire context and to take a bird's eye view of things, waiting to arrive to conclusions until after a distressed mood passes. Additionally, I think there are also some methods to maintain some base level of contentment during the meanwhile, to bear the stress during the bad period.

The best sign of positive change is on the cultural front regarding ideas. As I've noted elsewhere, people are more and more starting to discuss and debate alternative ideas to long-held dogmas, which indicates that the battle of ideologies have already begun. You know how Galileo, the scientist, was arrested by a church and sentenced to lifelong imprisonment? (In his own home, I believe.) He was in a legitimately hopeless situation. His mind was so potent that he was identifying aspects of nature that nobody else had before, making him the only man in the world, at his time, to have knowledge of such facts. (I don't know much about Galileo, except that arrest was his fate.) That situation can be summarized as one man literally against the world, and in his own personal realm it was a battle in which he was overwhelmingly outnumbered and could not win in his lifetime, though at least passed on his ideas to other generations. Given the impossibility of his situation -- judging from the limited context of his personal happiness, not his cultural impact -- despair would be the logical and inevitable response of any person in his shoes, and reasonably so. But this is far from the situation today -- far, far, far away. It's not the case that only one or two people are holding positive ideas against a crushing world of opposition, but rather that there are thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of people who hold better ideas to combat the ones being practiced today. And I don't mean just strict Objectivists either; in addition to those people, there are also helpfully sympathetic people who are, while not fully adhering to the philosophy, do agree with some of its most important aspects (e.g. the capitalist politics), and furthermore there are still good people who are neutral or innocently mistaken and can still be reached with honest and respectful debate. Even counting Objectivists alone is a sign of hope, as they are many and still sufficient to greatly offset any "one man against the world" scenario.

Besides that, many of the advocates of bad ideologies have self-defeating behaviors which thoroughly limits the reach they have. Evil ideas have bad and evasive epistemology at their root, so most, if not all, of these people who operate on these ideas have not thoroughly or honestly thought about them before accepting them, so their potency in persuasion is limited. People who are not honest usually ignore alternative ideas in debate, become hostile in their behavior, run away from challenge, and so on. Let's just think about these three behaviors. If they ignore alternative ideas in debate, then how can they strengthen their arguments to take into account the alternatives that are being given? Their opponents are made all the more powerful by such evasions. If they become hostile in their behavior, then what type of people are they going to appeal to or repulse? They'll likely garner the weak-willed afraid of disagreement and people who already agreed with their conclusions, and the honest and respectful people will listen more attentively to those who not only present their case calmly and respectfully, but also take into account alternative ideas and modify their positions to acknowledge them. And if evil apologists decide to run away from challenge, then what's going to stop the good guys from spreading their ideas? Fewer challenges mean fewer impediments, and with continued evasions the evil guys could wake up one day with a culture past its ideological tipping point. Truly the battle of ideas must be fought against the inertia of old ones, as the evil advocates of rotten ideas don't put up a competent fight and only have the advantage of pre-established traditions and habituated thinking.

Concretely, we can see good ideas are getting mentioned more and more all the time. Our politicians may be stuck in their thinking and destructive courses, but it seems the American people aren't staying mentally idle. Opposition to current politics is being sustained and strengthened by the continued destruction. Just look at how the Ayn Rand Institute is flourishing. In just a span of two or three years, they've been making more television and radio appearances, putting out newspaper columns and blog articles, giving frequent lectures, getting increasing donations and support, building new offices in various states, and there's probably more I'm not aware of. To see this dramatic increase of life in the institution in just a span of a few short years is impressive, and we can expect to see it increase its impact for a long while yet, especially given the sales spike of Atlas Shrugged due to the newly released movie.

In the meanwhile things are just going to have to get bad since cultural momentum has driven us to this point, and yes it will be painful. Aside from looking at the facts that justify objective hope for the future, there are ways to grin and bear the frustration in the meanwhile. As difficult things are, I've been thinking about what facets constitute thorough happiness in human beings, and I think that if we were able to just at least satisfy the very fundamental needs of our psychology in the meanwhile, things would be more tolerable during the period they must be bad.

My thinking is hardly in depth at this point, but I've been introspecting on how such a small thing as being back to work has satisfied me. I value my career to the point that I don't think I'll ever retire from working, unless it meant moving from one field to another, and being back to work has satisfied me on a deep level. During my labor-intense shift I noticed I was actually getting increasingly relaxed and started doing refreshing exhaling. Given my view on the role of work in one's life I have a psychological need to work, and working satisfies it. I don't even think all that much about the money; just whether I'm doing my job well. If things go to hell and we're all poorer, I would still be satisfied if I were still minimally employed, scraping by. I may not be able to pursue my fullest happiness given economic restrictions, but it would at least basically satisfy the need.

Another facet I've been thinking about is the need for valuable friendship. I tolerate alone time quite well and even enjoy it, but I'm starting the feel the pain of being alone spiritually. Given complications from my past life, I've seldom had satisfying relationships with people who share my worldview, and I crave to meet those people so as to add value to my own life and keep before me the good that exists in this world. If I were to satisfy that need, then my contentment would increase and my life would be richer, making for another facet of my being that has been satisfied.

What I'm trying to say here is that one's psychological needs is composed of various facets which have requirements for satisfaction, and to leave any one unsatisfied is to reduce one's satisfaction with life and bring on uncomfortable, even painful longings. I'm not sure how many facets there are, but I can at least think of career and friendship as two. I assert that if one were to satisfy the barest basic requirements of all these facets, then a deep-down contentment can be nurtured and render one more resistant to the stresses of the world. Without these general satisfactions, then the pains of the world will intensify in their stressful nature. To paraphrase Atlas Shrugged, with inner satisfaction set then pain will only go down so far, never succeeding to erode the fundamental contentment. I'll have to do more thinking about what other facets there are to be tended to, but I'm starting to take steps and am planning on leading a more active social life, including attending an Objectivist Society here in Texas.

The bad times are here to stay for now, but I don't think they will be permanently. There are many objective signs for hope for a better future, and we shouldn't let our emotions get the best of us and decide everything is hopeless just because a single bad event has happened. And even while the bad times are here there will still be some values untouched and available to pursue, contributing to the happiness of one's life, so while the bad times must be endured it is these values one should concentrate on.

If you or I really judged things to be hopeless, then I don't think either of us would continue living. Why would we? And yet, here we are. I think life is still worth living all the way to its natural end, and I think you do too.