Obviously...

It goes without saying that I am lazy beyond measure. I'll invoke the (borderline untrue) defense of "life," however, and summarily dispense with imagined objections to my absence. I have discounted the idea of reviewing Boardwalk Empire however. The show is impressive, well-written, engaging, and it's obvious that a lot of money has been thrown into it. The only - vague - objection I have to it is that it seems like a very, very, very good show. That doesn't sound so bad, does it? I suppose I was expecting a great show. Maybe it simply didn't live up to the hype. It hasn't really done anything wrong so far. Again, that doesn't sound so bad. But of all the truly fantastic pieces of television out there, have any of the ones that endure the test of time, that become iconic, been flawless? For what it is, it's perfect. I'm just not sure that what it is is what I was looking for.

I would replace reviews of that with reviews of The Walking
Dead, but according to my good friend, pure.Wasted, that show is about to stop being as good as it has been, which somewhat frightens me.

And finally, I've been looking for information on sexual and sleep disorders. If anyone has firsthand knowledge, feel free to contact me.

Final thought for the day: Have you ever read Stirner? Probably not. He was a bit odd. He argued in favor of absolute, genuine freedom (one of the few who ever did, one of the very few who didn't obfuscate backtracking on their own ideals with intellectual misdirection like "civil liberties"); he argued effectively for a form of moral solipsism and total anarchy. One had to find one's own genuine cause, not adopt the cause of another, whether that other's cause be political, moral, philosophical, or religious. Without using a direct citation, you can say that his main contention was that you "find yourself."

I don't know if you can tell, but I have an issue with this. How exactly does one find oneself? I don't mean this in an esoteric sense. As usual, I mean it in the sense most people take it. This...soul-searching business which gets such airplay in this culture but which, as with most things, amounts to little more than an excuse to dabble in activities reserved for better beings.

I simply don't think there is such thing as a "self" to "find." This might be stating the obvious, but what are you without your environment? If you're a musician inclined to refinement but you are used to living in the grunge subculture, there's always going to be a clash between the role you have and the role you wish to have. Either you'll accept a compromise solution of being an oddity in either setting or you'll have a breakdown at some point from trying to reconcile two irreconcilable modes of living.

Besides, are we even what makes life worth living? Consider that no one dies for themselves except suicides. Men will die for their leader or their people or their ideal. But they are not those things. You are not democracy, you are not the leader, and in death you are yourself no longer part of your community (even if your memory is venerated). My point is that finding oneself seems to be taken as giving meaning to life in some way, or making one happier. But none of us could be the same selves we are now if we'd been born in China or born a hundred years ago.

I should be quick to note here that I am not against changing your life if your mode of living is undesirable, but changing is still not self-creation, since it invariably results from a change in environment. Plants, you see, don't will themselves to health in a desert. They either get replanted in a more temperate environ or they die. And yes, I just compared you to a fern. Get over it. You're not that special.

I think I'm probably with Hegel on this one. The only way to find any sort of authenticity or truth (existential or simply realistic) is through an engagement with history. Personal history, universal history, culture. There's nothing wrong with that, it's the way things are. The self-seeking stuff just begins to annoy me when it takes on mystical overtones.

Which is not to denigrate the introspective. Dear God no. There's too much thoughtlessness in the world as it is...