There are more than 1.6 million nonprofit organizations in the United States. ^{What is a Nonprofit Organization and How is One Established?}

Wow ... that's more than I expected. Why would anybody ever need to start another one? There must be a nonprofit organization for every possible need! I bet there are several competing nonprofits for every possible need.

Not all of these organizations are charitable. Some are political. A lot are set up by business interests.

I bet that most people wouldn't label themselves as "activists". Most people probably find themselves busy enough with work & family obligations, and perhaps they are involved in church or school activities. They don't think they are doing anything special, just living their lives.

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I live in an apartment building. There is supposedly a tenant's organization ... I find flyers attached to my door every month or so. The flyers flog the building management and encourage the tenants to organize our voices into an effective choir.

However, when I'm unhappy about my apartment, I take things up with management directly. So far that has always worked. The flyers tell me about awful things -- including a story about a dead tenant who was not found for two weeks, and a story about an assault that occurred in another building. I didn't think that these things were management's fault, though. I feel like an activist is trying to drag me into battles that I don't think are necessary! Isn't the good thing about being a tenant your ability to give one month's notice and move away if you aren't happy? What good does it do for tenants to sit around and bitch together about how awful their management company is? If it is that bad, move!

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Some people have a generally kind view of activists. Others see them as troublemakers. I have known many people who have volunteered for causes, who have sat on charity boards, who have acted as treasurer for their churches. I've seen activists organize marches and parades. Activists knock on doors and make phone calls to raise money or educate people.

My mother was incredibly active in her church and in other volunteer organizations.

Democrats and Republicans alike depend on activists to help win their campaigns, even in this modern age of multi-million dollar budgets.

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What motivates people to become active in these ways? Some people become active because they want something for themselves. There was a group of activists here in DC who fought very hard to keep a road closed, many of those people owned real estate in the neighborhood and wanted to preserve their property values by keeping traffic out.

Some people become active because they want the world to look more like their ideals. They have certain beliefs about how the world ought to be, and they work hard to push the world in that direction. They lobby their elected representatives for laws and budgets, they try to educate people. They seem to think that if only they could educate enough people about the plight of [whatever] that they'd fix things. And sometimes they do :-)

Some people become active as a way of feeling involved in their communities. They make and maintain friendships, they get out of the house, they feel a sense of pride in their surroundings.

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Some people are active in less obvious ways. They work at low-wage jobs and raise their children. They work for the government as teachers, police officers, or accountants. They tend to their gardens, read the editorials, and vote. They visit the graves of their loved ones. They write letters. They go to church and sit in the back and sing the hymns.

Some people join the military and risk (or give) their lives for their country. Some people take on management responsibilities so they can save more for their children's college expenses. Some people listen to their friends and offer sage advice, or throw parties to make sure all are having a good time.

Despite my occasional efforts at labeling myself a vegetarian, and one noble try at becoming vegan, the truth is that I'm an omnivore. Most humans are omnivores. That's how we evolved, that's how our bodies are designed. Being an omnivore promotes survival -- it allows us to eat whatever foods are available in our environment.

I admire some of those who try the vegan way ... although the vegan meme complex has a lot in common with certain fundamentalist belief systems. The vegan meme complex is organized around the belief that human exploitation or killing of animals is always bad. (It would be nice if we could first organize a world in which humans don't exploit or kill other humans ... imagine if vegans refused to buy any product manufactured by the oppressed masses ...)

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I won't spend time here explaining all the different kinds of vegetarians. My main question is this -- do most vegetarians actually eat vegetables?

The US Food & Drug Administration recommends that all Americans eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables per day. It is easy to avoid fruits and vegetables when your main meal is a mass of meat and wheat ... but isn't it just as easy to avoid fruits and vegetables without the meat?

If you are the type of vegetarian who eats eggs and/or cheese, then you can eat lots of cheese pizza or scrambled eggs w/ waffles and never encounter a fruit or vegetable. Sugars and oils don't contain fruits or vegetables. A lot of the veggie burgers you buy in the store are full of salts, sugars, and plant proteins, but that doesn't mean they contain enough vegetables to count as a serving. Personally, I don't think french fries count as a serving of vegetables either ;-)

Here's what the National Cancer Institute recommends as a serving of fruit and vegetables:

1 medium fruit or 1/2 cup of small or cut-up fruit

3/4 cup (180 milliliters) of 100 percent juice

1/4 cup dried fruit

1/2 cup raw non-leafy or cooked vegetables

1 cup raw leafy vegetables (such as lettuce)

1/2 cup cooked beans or peas (such as lentils, pinto beans, and kidney beans) ^{Fruits and Vegetables: Eating Your Way to 5 A Day}

Whether you choose to be an omnivore, a vegan, or something in between, if you aren't eating enough fruits and vegetables you are increasing your chances of heart disease, cancer, obesity, and diabetes.

It is easy to forget that modern humans evolved within an environment that did not include any Twinkies or Ruffles. Our ancestors survived by eating lots of nuts, leaves, berries, and roots, supplemented by the occasional animal or fish. People who eat a natural diet, like that of our ancestors, generally avoid the common health problems of the typical middle-aged or elderly American.

Another Holiday Weekend spent here in DC, my home for about two years. I no longer enjoy traveling at the same time as the masses. I travel during other weekends, when the roads and airports are not as congested.

Before I moved into DC I lived across the river in Arlington. Before that I lived a few miles further out in Fairfax Country. If you ignore these baby-steps, I've been living in the DC metropolitan area for 11 years.

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I was 24 when I moved here. Now I'm 35.

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At first I had no friends here, of course. I was lucky enough to have a long-distance boyfriend who moved in with me a year after I arrived.

Then I made some friends at work. Some of those persisted after employment changed. People move a lot, though, and when I entered law school I found it too difficult to keep track of everybody. It was all I could do to try to have a boyfriend. My youngest sister would repeatedly tell me to focus on my schoolwork instead of dating ... but I graduated in the top 5% of my class anyway :-)

However, boyfriends don't always last either. People move on, move away, or even die. The collection of people I consider my friends is not a static set. People who seem very interested in remaining friends find new things to occupy their time. I'm probably doing the same thing to people who'd like to hang out with me more often.

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I've lived in the same place for 11 years, but the median age of my closest friendships is about 3 years. I probably make one really good close friend per year. But I also watch really good friends drift away, to the point where they don't return calls or e-mails.

Staying put doesn't help, at least not here in DC! Transience rules.

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I was thinking yesterday about doing some more group socializing. There are plenty of Queer social groups in DC. I've sampled a couple of them during the past year. I want to do more of that.

If I'd only now moved to the DC area, how would I go about finding friends and dates? For years I relied on late-night trips to bars or trading pics online. I want to try different options now. If I'd only now moved to DC, and the Internet didn't exist, and I had to avoid bars because of my asthma (which is true, now), how would I meet compatible people?

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Well, that depends on my definition of compatibility. Cruising online creates this finely differentiated market of typewritten verbal intelligence and picture quality, plus a great deal of ageism, racism, and risky casual sex. It annoys me. It wasn't like that 11 years ago, before most people joined the Internet.

I see other people draw up written lists of what they are looking for in a boyfriend. That seems logical.

And that's exactly what is wrong with it. Using the logic of market capitalism to find friends or a mate.

Doesn't it make more sense to mix up with a bunch of people in real life and experience who you like and who you don't like?

That is my task. It appears difficult, because I'm an introvert, because I've always relied on intoxication and/or the Internet to remove my inhibitions.

Mixing up in real life involves a direct attack upon my personality, my self-image, my beliefs about who I am and what I enjoy.

(Adapted from a previous essay I wrote on 5/1/02)

What is the purpose of my romantic relationships?

I told somebody today that I thought marriage was a shared fantasy of the future designed to make us feel better about the present ...

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Because one of the Buddhist teachings that is banging my head very powerfully right now is the concept of now ... that all we have is now ... that all we have is our current perceptions ... me sitting in my rocking chair typing on my computer ...

My primary boyfriend isn't here. None of my fuckbuddies are here. Nobody is here but me. I'm all alone. But that doesn't bother me, because inside my head I have this memory/fantasy/expectation that I have relationships with other people.

As though this idea that I have relationships is a security blanket ... I'm not really alone (though I am) because I have relationships with other people (who aren't here). I expect to see those other people again.

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When I broke up with KWC after 7+ monogamous years together, I hurt like I'd never hurt before. But KWC didn't disappear. Actually, we continued living together as roomies for several months. Today we are good friends.

So what was it that hurt so bad? We "broke up". What exactly broke? Other than the sex, which is only a small part of a live-together relationship.

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Aren't these things we call "relationships" just our imaginations? As we hang out with people whose observable behaviors allow us to imagine that we have the type of relationship(s) we think we want ...

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I was talking with a woman the other day about my father being in a nursing home, after suffering several strokes and other ailments.

This woman told me about one of her relatives who was also in a nursing home, and about how her relative would make up stories to explain her surroundings ... Mrs. Y didn't think she was in a nursing home, she thought she was resting after cleaning up after all the people who lived down the hall ...

(Adapted from a previous essay I wrote on 5/24/02)

I have a self-image of myself as an independent person. I live within a culture that takes pride in its individuality and freedom.

Yet, my powers are quite limited when measured against the rest of the universe. I am dependent on other people for many things, including food, water, shelter, and companionship. Just because I have a bunch of money in my pocket doesn't mean I don't need those other people ... the money enables me to depend on them, it doesn't make me independent.

I'm dependent on others for that money as well. I don't print it myself. I may work for a living, but that work doesn't make me independent, it merely enables me to depend on others for the money that I use to live.

The issue isn't "independence", it is whether you have something that you can use to enable a particular dependency. People who can't find a way to depend on others will die.

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If you steal food to live, you are still depending on others to produce that food. It wouldn't exist for you to steal otherwise. You are depending on them not protecting their food too well, and depending on them to not punish you for stealing.

If you hunt wild game for food, you are still depending on that game being there, and dependent on that game not outwitting you or killing you. If it weren't for the wild game being there, you'd starve.

Truly, we are all dependent upon our surroundings, and other people. We aren't independent at all! When we say we are independent, we mean something different -- we mean that we have the power to choose or reject some of our dependencies. Independence, or freedom, is really defined in terms of choices. These choices are usually limited ... they are rarely infinite.

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So, when I conclude that I'm an independent sort of person, I mean that I have enough negotiating power to choose from a range of possible dependencies. I mean that I have the power to say "no" to any particular dependent relationship.

When it comes to romantic relationships, independence means that I know I can survive without a particular Mr. X in my life, and I know that I'm attractive enough to have a range of people with whom to relate sexually and emotionally.

(Adapted from a previous essay I wrote on 5/8/02)

Although I align myself -- in general -- with the Buddhist tradition, by no means does this exclude me from all other spiritual alignments. (In particular, I also align myself with the Unitarian Universalists, though I've never joined a local UU group.) Plus, I find that my experience of Buddhism is very personal, individual, and not linked to any specific school of thought, ordained teacher, or organization.

It was important to me to figure out the most essential teachings attributed to the Buddha, but once I did that, I realized that most of the rest of what passed for Buddhism is junk (like those junk memes I wrote about yesterday). There is a lot of "sacred" Buddhist ritual and meaningless Buddhist blather out there that I'd call junk.

A lot of that junk arises out of a desire to elaborate, a desire to attract a following, a desire to institutionalize, a desire to organize ...

For some people it is difficult to accept that the essential teachings of Buddhism could be explained simply on one web page. They either want to believe that the teachings are complicated and functionally endless ... or they want to portray them that way.

It reminds me of government bureaucracy, endlessly churning out new rules ... we have a spiritual industry, endlessly churning out new teachings ... as bright and industrious individuals attempt to make a comfortable living by providing spiritual comfort to others ...

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When I look at the accepted historical biographies of both Buddha and Jesus, I find two gentleman who had no personal interest in building an organization, no interest in committing their words to paper ... these were two fellas who received timeless spiritual insights, and attempted to communicate those insights to their neighbors.

It was only after they died that their followers tried to institutionalize their teachings ... that their followers tried to attribute their teachings to some sort of magical or superhuman insight ... along with weekly services and scheduled festivals ... and a special cadre of priests or monks ... in support of the hierarchy of the nation-state ...

(Adapted from a previous essay I wrote on 5/7/02)

I've met people who've told me that they have huge "trust issues" with regard to romantic relationships. I've never described myself that way, so I often wonder what they mean.

I remember a friend telling me that his boyfriend pressured him to stop using condoms during sex, saying he wanted them to "trust" each other.

I've seen people agonize over whether to begin a promising new romance, because they aren't sure whether they can "trust" each other.

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One form of trust is related to secrets -- some people keep secrets and fear sharing these secrets with people they don't trust, so they won't share them with a new boyfriend until that boyfriend has somehow "earned" their trust. Another form of trust is related to not keeping secrets -- that if you dare to keep a secret from your lover he'll think you don't trust him, and he'll wonder what else you've been hiding. Another form of trust is related to snooping -- that if you check to see whether your boyfriend is telling the truth he'll accuse you of not trusting him.

I haven't dealt much with these issues because (a) I don't keep secrets, (b) I don't usually date people who keep secrets, and (c) as a result there really hasn't been any need within my relationships for snooping. There are people out there who are open and honest from day one :-)

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There seem to be two kinds of problems related to trust.

First, there are people who are slow to trust because they feel like they've been burned in the past. Personally I feel like I've been burned in the past also, but that doesn't stop me from trusting people until they give me reason not to. But trust means something different for me ... I don't depend on it so much ... I don't place important bets that depend on trusting what somebody else says.

For example, I'm going to wear a condom -- or make you wear one -- regardless of what you tell me about your HIV status. It isn't a matter of trust, it is a matter of mutual survival. I might trust you, and still I won't let that affect my decisions regarding personal safety. HIV isn't the only STD out there, and many people carry STDs without showing any symptoms.

Maybe I don't really trust anybody ... or maybe I realize that trust is no substitute for protection.

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The other kind of trust problem occurs when a boyfriend makes a big deal about how you need to trust him. Usually he asks you to trust him so that he can have his way on something that makes you feel uneasy. It might be the condom issue, or it might be about lending him money, or it might be about "letting" him go on a ski trip with some handsome fella you suspect he wants to fuck. He'll address your legitimate doubts by saying "trust me" instead of by offering proof that he's not about to fuck you over.

For me, a special request that I trust somebody is a big danger signal ... because I already trust you ... and trust isn't the reason I'm not granting your request. I'm not granting your request because it wouldn't be safe, or it wouldn't be good for our relationship, or because I'm not comfortable taking such a big risk.

Why is he asking me to risk so much without addressing my concerns, is what I think.

Maybe I don't really trust anybody ... or maybe I realize that trust is no substitute for protection.

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But I don't ask people to "trust" me. I keep my relationships balanced, and independent, so that trust isn't a big deal. I don't ask for extreme promises. I don't make extreme promises. I don't like depending on others, and I don't like others depending on me. I don't enter into a relationship with the hope that this time it will be awesome, that this time I won't get hurt, that this time I've found my soulmate.

I enter into relationships because I want to hang out and have fun and offer support on bad days. After a while I'll care about you so much that I'll tell you I love you.

If you want to cite a researcher directly, cite them from their own published works, or from repectable, peer-reviewed journals, not random Internet crap.

I snipped the above from an Internet argument (I'm not sure it rises to the level of "flame war") between two scientifically minded persons I've never met. Here's more:

And even when you do cite legitimate researchers, it should be in their field.

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I'm one of those people who knows a little bit about a lot. At times I can seem absent-minded, and I write much better than I speak. I can't always remember where I learned something, I'm much better with faces than with names ... but in general I'm an intelligent guy. I would call myself a polymath -- a person of encyclopedic knowledge.

I work as a tax attorney, but I'm new to this field. I have published something in the Federal Register, and some people come to me with questions related to that publication, but I don't think of myself as an expert yet. I'm not even sure I want this to become "my" field!

In a way, being a tax attorney is just a day job for me. I have a wide variety of other interests, a rich life of the mind. I also like keeping my body in shape via running, biking, lifting weights, walking, and other activities. Working for the government allows me these luxuries in a way that private practice would not.

Some people have called me a "Renaissance Man" ... but is that a good thing? That doesn't get me invited to any panels of experts. That doesn't get me taken seriously by people who take themselves very seriously.

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I recently had dinner with a couple of scientists who are recognized experts in their fields, and they told me that my job allows me to have "a life" ... something which their jobs don't allow them, apparently. I believe that "a life" means lots of time for family, friends, lovers, exercise, intellectual and artistic pursuits, etc.

I'd rather have a life than be a recognized expert in my field. Are those incompatible goals?

But ... why does being an expert in a field require so much dedication? Can't I hold forth on philosophy without being a professor of philosophy? If I wanted, I could subscribe to the best academic journals in the field and figure out what they are up to. Unfortunately, a lot of the stuff published in those journals doesn't really add value to the field. A lot of it is junk science, performed because of "publish or perish" employment guidelines. You can't become a recognized expert without a long list of indecipherable published titles bearing your name.

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I don't mean to sound anti-academic. I value much of what academics do. What turns me off is the idea that a lack of academic status is, in itself, proof of ignorance. That somebody would ridicule my positions not because I took them, but because I am not a professor in the field, strikes me as absurd.

There is a class system at work here. Maybe that's a duh, but I'll say it anyway.

I have found people of genius in every occupation, in every age group, in every education level. Often times people of genius are trapped by circumstances in low-wage routine jobs, were late bloomers, are not as disciplined as the top students, spend their lives raising or teaching young children ... they might not be interested in fame or winning, instead satisfied to reason within themselves or among their friends.

The Internet has allowed a lot of "crap" to bloom, but it has also allowed countless individuals a way to express their genius without first convincing an editor of their ability to sell, or without first convincing an academic that they are willing to put up with all manner of shit to complete their thesis.

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I suppose that there is only limited room at the top, in that place where experts are duly recognized, and that people must cut each other down to hold on to their status. There are only so many research dollars, and professors need grants to fund their projects.

I'm merely asking that people be polite when they disagree, that they don't call each other "stupid" or tell each other that their information sources are "crap".

I'm lucky, there's a waste basket right next to my mailbox, downstairs, in the lobby of my apartment building. Each evening when I return home I can immediately sort my mail into "stuff I want to open" and "stuff I want to throw away" and the latter doesn't even make it inside my apartment (this was especially helpful during the Anthrax scare, because my own post office was closed due to Anthrax contamination).

I get a lot of appeals from charities, because they know I'm a giving guy, but these appeals are nearly always useless because I make my charitable giving decisions without reference to the mail I receive. I have a special budget for giving, and each month or two I see how much money is in that budget and I think about where I want it to go. Most charities have Internet donation options, and that's usually the way I donate to them. They might follow up with written appeals, but those go into the trash downstairs.

As for e-mail spam, I don't open those at all. I'm against them. Period. Though, we know that a small percentage of receivers do open them, or the spammers wouldn't send them.

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Junk mail and spam both work on the following principle: marginal profit. Regardless of whether the appeal comes from a charity or a business. All they need to do is pull in one more dollar than the appeal cost them, and their mailing was worth it.

I mean, if the charity spends $400,000 sending letters to 800,000 individuals, and 16,000 people reply with checks of $25 each, then the charity breaks even (in fact, they do better than break even, they now have a list of people who are willing to send them money). They only need 16,001 people to reply to make a profit of $25. Each incoming check beyond the 16,000th is pure profit. They don't care whether 783,999 toss their appeal in the trash. Seriously, they don't care!

For-profit ventures use the same calculation. If they can get 2% of the targeted population to respond, they win.

With spam, the cost of sending an appeal is far lower -- no postage, often no additional charge per e-mail. So, if you spam 800,000 individuals, maybe you only need 10 people to respond to make a profit. Those ten people should be executed! ;-)

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Some biologists claim that 97 - 99% of your DNA is junk. "I believe it's 3 percent that is genes," said Bill Haseltine, president of Human Genome Sciences. ^{DNA Junkyard Yielding Gold}

They are discovering that the image we used to have of our cellular DNA as a stable code for "how to build a human" is incorrect. The interior of every cell is a constant battleground, much of the DNA is junk, and the DNA that isn't junk has to build defenses against migratory junk DNA that often tries to knock out and replace working DNA!

(Wheels within wheels, as far down as you look ...)

When a human cell divides, all that DNA, whether junk or not, gets replicated into the new cell. Whee! So, much of our DNA are parasites that hang on for the ride. It doesn't matter whether they are replicated faithfully or not. They don't care whether they are ever used to build proteins or not. They are junk, like the junk you carry with you when you move from one apartment to the next.

As long as 2 - 3% of the DNA are not junk, then the system works: a new cell is born, and if that cell is an egg or sperm cell, and they happen to meet their partner, then a new human is born. The new cell or the new human are the profit that the DNA are hoping for.

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BTW, every time a male ejaculates he issues forth roughly 250,000,000 sperm cells. Even if every ejaculation occurs inside an egg-ready female the vast majority of the sperm cells are not going to fertilize the egg. There are a lot of junk sperm cells out there!

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Memes replicate under the same junky principle. Most of the memes that caterwaul inside of your head stay in your head, and perhaps are never heard from again. Your memories preserve only a fraction of your experiences -- the precise fraction is probably impossible to know. Some of your memes escape your head via conversations with others. They might listen to you, but most of what you say will disappear into ... um ... that same place that junk mail goes, the same place that spent sperm go ... the cosmic waste basket.

Other memes escape in written form. They have a better chance of persisting, depending on where they are placed. A small percentage of written memes are published on paper. But even a lot of published memes are read once and then discarded. Archived by a few libraries, but hardly ever read again.

The memes that actually persist within a culture might be as rare as the sperm cell that creates a baby human.

Hmm ... what I've been referring to as infosmog is really a cloud of meme-sperm looking for fertile minds with which to mate. Why shouldn't I add to the cloud with my own??? At the very least, I'm enjoying this mental masturbation. It would help if you licked it up for me.

I was struggling with this yesterday, as I meandered philosophically.

I figured out the prerequisites for consciousness, but not the necessity of consciousness. By this I mean something very specific and intuitive. Consciousness might play a role in the activity of the organism, but what I want to know is why that role requires the sort of self-awareness in which "I" exists in a vivid and irrefutable way. We directly experience perceptions. We are not zombies or robots. We feel stuff.

As another netizen says, "From a purely logical point of view it appears that consciousness, as such, is not really necessary at all. Theoretically an android could be constructed and programmed in such a way that it would eat cake and comment on how wonderful it tastes without actually experiencing the taste of cake at all. Indeed, it seems that a whole population of self-replicating androids could be constructed and programmed to replay the entire course of human history without a single one of them having even a glimmer of conscious experience. So once again, why are we conscious at all?" ^{On the Nature of Mind and Spiritual Meaning}

Pleasure and pain are not merely signals within the nervous system, they are profoundly real sensations to the organism feeling them. When a religion like Buddhism promises an end to suffering, you might be skeptical, but you understand why people might fall for it. You know what suffering is.

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The fact of suffering can drive a person insane, or even to suicide. For people who are sufficiently empathic, the suffering of others can drive them insane, or even to suicide. I know. Believe me, I know. I empathize too much sometimes. There is so much pain and evil in the world that if I try to stay in touch with too much of it I fall apart.

Similarly, the availability of pleasure can lead a person to addiction or even death. I've done a good job of avoiding addictions, and I'm still alive, so I'm doing OK in the not-too-much-pleasure department. But pleasure can be just as harmful as pain.

And we really really feel these things when they happen to us.

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Sometimes, when I wax philosophical, I say stuff like, "If we didn't have religion we'd have to invent it."

Well ... if we didn't have consciousness, what would be the point of the universe? If there is nobody to observe a universe, either from within or from without, then ... um ... so what?

Is this why we are conscious? Because if we weren't, then ... um ... so what?

This is a self-justification if I ever saw one!

But, seriously, what is the point of existence if you don't feel it?

We can go further down that road. What is the point of existence if you never have to work for it or risk anything for it? What is the point of existence if it never changes, or lasts forever?

When I think about this stuff, sometimes I become scared, imagining a point of consciousness that never changes and lives forever. I would not want to be that point of consciousness. At least, that's what I think now. Maybe it isn't so bad ... maybe it would depend on the structure of that consciousness. But it could be bad. It could be like Hell.

Hell can be imagined, that's for sure. But that doesn't mean it exists, or that I'll end up there.

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So, we are conscious because consciousness makes existence real. As far as I can tell, the stuff of the universe and the rules that bind it have the potential for consciousness built-in. When consciousness arises, due to either arbitrary or divine design, then the stuff and the rules become observable. Consciousness makes matter, energy, and causation appear real, to themselves! Without consciousness ... nothing matters.

There are still some things I haven't figured out about consciousness. But I've come a long way.

Time is the sea in which we float or swim.

Time is given measure by easily observable cyclical phenomena: the rise and set of the sun, the phases of the moon, and the annual solstices. From these natural phenomena humans derived the day, the month, and the year.

More recently, time has been given measure via subliminal cycles, as with the current definition of a second: an international unit of time equal to the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium-133 atom. Hmm ... why that particular type of atom? I'm glad that somebody somewhere can measure such things ;-)

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We often use time to describe distance. Here in DC we don't ask people how far they live from their workplace, we ask them how long their commute takes. Some people are patient or desperate enough to endure an hour-long commute, or even more! When the transportation system becomes congested or fails, then 20-minute commutes become 2-hour commutes and the entire metropolitan area suffers.

Physicists also use time to describe distance. This is how the idea of the "time-space continuum" developed. When physicists observed that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light (which is exactly 299,792,458 meters per second), they realized that space and time are functions of each other. Space is defined by distance, which really means that space is defined by how long it takes light to traverse that space. And time is defined by how far light will travel during that time. So, time and space are dimensions of the same time-space continuum. Fun!

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Somehow we humans make sense of all this intuitively. We understand that space has three dimensions: length, width, and height. We understand that time has duration. We understand that it takes time to travel across a distance. But we also feel like we are traveling with time, even when we sit still.

Time is not merely a function of traveling. Time is also a function of sitting still.

And, so far, humans intuitively know that time is a function that (nearly always?) travels in only one direction. The typical person does not believe that he or she can go back in time. We have the now, we have the past, and we have the future. We come from the past, and we move into the future.

Stories about going back and forth in time are the stuff of mysticism and science fiction, for most of us.

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Consciousness would be strange indeed if we had no understanding of the space-time continuum. Even if we close our eyes we still arrange our perceptions in a three-dimensional space, with the help of our touch and our hearing.

We feel our hearts beating in time, and our lungs breathing in time. Even when we are sitting still our bodies are active. Eventually, as we sit, we feel urges. Urges like thirst or hunger, stiffness or fullness. We know that we have aged and that we will continue to grow older, with time. We know this because of our memory.

Memory gives us our sense of progression through time. If we could not remember what happened two seconds ago, then we would not know what came before our current perceptions. Without memory, all we would know is the now. We would not know that the now is different from before, and we would not expect the future to be different from the now. Having no memory would be a very strange place.

If you had no memory, any actions you take would be either instinctual reactions to present stimuli, or arbitrary actions without conscious purpose.

If you had no memory, could you learn anything? Maybe. That might depend on our definition of memory. Is memory a change in behavior due to past responses to stimuli? Motion A led to pain, whereas Motion B led to pleasure, therefore the organism stops performing Motion A and continues performing Motion B. This is a kind of memory. It requires that an action and a reaction be perceived, linked in a causal way, and stored for future reference.

So, memory is the ability of an organism to link past perceptions in a way that might allow it to predict future causality.

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Heh, this essay is going down an interesting philosophical path. In order to be conscious of our time-space continuum, we require memory, and memory appears to require causality. At the very least, memory is only truly useful if it interprets causality correctly more often than not. If there is no causality in the universe -- if successive events are not linked in any predictable way -- then memory is useful only for its entertainment value, or perhaps, only as a tool for producing consciousness.

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Consciousness depends on memory in order to understand itself? Perceptions don't make sense without a perceptual framework that has been validated by past experiences and built into memory. Well, that doesn't mean you need memory for consciousness, only that you need memory in order for consciousness to understand itself. Can you be aware without being self-aware? Sure!

Yet, humans appear to be "hard-wired" to perceive certain natural phenomena. Without eyes we could not see. Without ears we could not hear. Etc. Whether we were designed by a divine hand or by an arbitrary selection, we have a design that is attuned to particular sources of input.

Not merely attuned, but also limited. We can not see all the colors of the spectrum! We can't see infrared or ultraviolet. Using scientific instruments we have validated these colors to the same extent that we have validated the red and violet colors we can see. Using invented tools, we now understand that there are flavors of perception that humans were not built to perceive. We are all now Six Million Dollar Men, via our tools (Normally, the EPA uses $6.1 million as the value of life in all its calculations, regardless of age ^{Under Fire, EPA Drops the 'Senior Death Discount'})

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It seems that it was our understanding of causality, via memory, that led to our ability to create and use tools.

But what purpose does consciousness serve? That's always been the question that defies an easy answer. Where does consciousness lie? Why does there appear to be only one consciousness per human at a time? Where does that consciousness go when we sleep or when we die?

If you imagine humans to be wonderfully designed organic robots who have memory, and perceptual systems that were designed to intuitively understand the time-space continuum ... in a world where causality works more often than not ... and these organic robots learn to build tools that can, recursively, change their perceptions ... this sounds fantastic, but if humans could evolve via natural selection then so could these human-like organic robots ...

Where does consciousness fit in? Why is consciousness important? Is it necessary?

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I'm not the first person to tackle this problem. If consciousness is simply awareness, then perhaps every bit of matter and energy is aware, or at least potentially aware. That's usually where I end my inquiry. Either I'm the only thing in the universe that is aware, which would feel very lonely, or all the rest of you are aware, as are our pets, and it becomes extremely difficult to draw a line between organisms that are aware and those that aren't.

If every bit of matter and energy is aware, then of what is it aware? Is it aware of the passage of time? Is it aware of changes within and without? How does an organism become aware of these things? What are the prerequisites for awareness of these things?

Death would be the breakdown of the machine that keeps all that self-awareness humming. Awareness would definitely change ... perhaps consciousness of time would disappear, along with memory ... perhaps the entire organism's awareness simply disappears as the machine breaks down into its constituent parts (each of which might also have some level of awareness, maybe).

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Lots of people end this inquiry with a claim that all humans have souls. Souls are these immaterial things that are somehow connected to our material bodies, somehow directing things and feeling things via a sacred and scientifically inexplicable link between the worldly and the spiritual.

Those who believe in souls differ over whether these souls are reborn or kinda hang out until Judgment Day. They tend to believe that souls are indestructible. You don't often hear of a myth in which the soul hangs out until Judgment Day and then is destroyed. Souls get (a) rebirth, (b) eternal heaven, or (c) eternal hell. Strange that an omnipotent God couldn't simply destroy souls ...

From a natural selection point of view it would make sense for a successfully replicating organism to want to live for as long as possible, to fear death, and to imagine circumstances under which it would keep living eternally, and to do whatever it could to make those circumstances happen ... but the idea of the spiritual soul counteracts the desire of the material replicator to live forever by claiming that there is a life beyond that of the material replicator. The idea of the soul is at odds with the body, actually.

Plus, we humans obviously age no matter what we do ... so trying to live forever does become futile eventually.

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OK, we know we have awareness, we know the prerequisites, and we know that these prerequisites might have occurred via something called natural selection ... so consciousness evolved.

The interesting question is whether this means that the potential for consciousness is inherent in the stuff of the universe.

I come to this question after thinking about Artificial Life. I've done some programming in Artificial Life, and I had a great deal of fun creating dozens of differentiating characteristics for my organisms and watching them duke it out inside my computer's RAM. I even created some routines that allowed mutation (BTW, an appropriate mutation rate is pretty much required for a natural selection theory to get us from point A to point Now).

After the novelty wore off, I wondered how to create Artificial Life that could mutate beyond the boundaries of the program. How could it generate characteristics beyond those that the logic of the program would allow?

One time I responded to this by allowing the program to randomly alter bytes within the RAM. Usually this would cause the computer to hang ... heh, the Artificial Universe would freeze. Oops! Too much mutation. But even my Artificial Universe, my computer, had particular design characteristics. My little Artificial Life forms could not possibly randomly mutate their way out of the computer in a way that would change the limitations of the overall design.

Hmm.

So, either consciousness was built into the system, or the underlying system is also evolving according to rules that we might not ever hope to understand.

And, by this point I've reached the limits of what I can know, using my current perceptual system w/ tools.

Dear me, every time I think I've given up enough stuff to "return" to the mythical land of voluntary simplicity I hop on a new race horse and can't figure out how to jump off.

I haven't collaborated on a story in a very long time. It is fun! It reminds me of the handful of times when I took the role of Dungeon Master with my younger siblings as we played Dungeons & Dragons. I was very creative, departed from the script as needed, and kept them enthralled. I mean, you don't want to (permanently) kill off a character merely because she fails to roll the dice in a particular way. You need to leave open a way to salvation, even if it is risky, even if it requires creativity on the part of the players that they don't believe they have.

I love playing strategy games, and I also love getting the other players to agree to rule changes that make the game more exciting. Designing games would be a wonderful job, or at least playtesting them. Some games can keep me up all night long, I forget about eating, or sleeping, or contacting people who care about me. I like games like Civ III that let me change the internal settings, to make the game play more like I think it should.

Now I see that writing fiction creates the same sort of obsession ... mania ... though I have been able to sleep all right the past two nights. Have I replaced my online Diary obsession with a fiction obsession?

In the past I've felt this kind of buzz while redesigning my web site. I haven't felt it about creative writing in at least 15 years. Back then I figured I didn't have enough life-experience to be a writer.

I worry now that I have a lot to learn about the craft. I feel like a beginner in an extremely competitive field, and I'm not sure I can compete with the best of them, yet. Not that the best sellers are all that good ... there are as many ways to write as there are writers, and different readers value the same works for different reasons.

Becoming a writer could finally become the career option that consumes me.

Writing well requires reading well, and practice, and opening myself to critique and editing.

I could start with smaller circulation publications that wouldn't pay, but that would be happy to receive good submissions. Then I'd be "in print" and would have something to point to as I climbed to the next level.

There must be books on "how to become a writer" or "publication for dummies."

But the best part is simply being creative, putting ideas together and watching them develop. Running into dead ends and then finding ways out, either in real-time, or by backing up and placing secret doors inside earlier chapters.

Not too long after that movie, the one that made you sort of psychotic, yeah, Memento, it started happening to lots of people.

Well, not problems with short-term memory. Problems with long-term memory.

Gaps. Holes. At first they were small, and people joked about them, they'd heard about "Senior Moments." That meme was part of the advance team, to lower resistance. The gaps were programmed to increase slowly, so people would adapt to them, so people wouldn't realize the method to their madnesses.

But the distribution was sloppy around the edges. There were still pockets of people who could not be reached so easily, people who experienced singularities during daylight.

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What we must do is seriously question the inhuman expectations we have of ourselves. ^{Why the "Simplicity" Movement Isn't So Simple}

Well, I don't think "we must do" anything. A popular method of persuasion is to tell people what they "must" do, or what they "need" to do.

I've held such a variety of beliefs and goals during my lifetime that I'm a hopeless hypocrite by now ;-)

During law school I definitely had inhuman expectations for myself. At one point I was working two jobs while attending law school! Then I quit one of those jobs and decided to have multiple open relationships. After law school, after I started working as an attorney, so many of my expectations began to fall away. I meditated about what was important to me, and before long I embraced the voluntary simplicity movement.

Keeping my life simple has been an ongoing struggle, though. I gave up television and radio and subscriptions to mainstream publications, but then I became an Internet media junkie instead. I streamlined my social life, but then I created dozens of Internet-based relationships instead. For me, simplicity seemed to mean living my life via my home computer as much as possible. Until I reached a time when I felt like my soul was about to fall into my computer ... and I pulled myself back toward reality.

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So, what does voluntary simplicity mean to me now?

Well, it means living as though my values matter. It means walking, riding my bike, or using mass transit to get where I need to go. It means eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains -- and making most of my meals myself from raw ingredients. It means not using caffeine or other stimulants to fill my life with more stuff than I was designed to handle.

Simplicity means keeping the number and types of my personal relationships manageable -- especially focused on family and a group of close friends. It means getting enough sleep so that I never need an alarm clock to get up in the morning. It means not owning a scale so I don't worry about how much I weigh. It means allowing enough unscheduled time in my life for naps and exercise to keep my body healthy.

It means realizing that I already work in the public interest via my day job, making roughly half of what I could make in the private sector -- so I refuse to feel guilty for "not doing enough" to save the world. I spend my days saving the world already! ;-)

Simplicity means giving away 10% of what I make, and saving 10% of what I make, and only spending my extra money on things I'll both use and enjoy.

Simplicity means that I am able to live a meaningful life without a romantic relationship, that I don't expend special effort looking for one, but that I am open to a primary relationship if/when the opportunity arises.

It means letting go of a variety of outcomes, ambitions, and desires that I once had ... and feeling at peace with myself as I am (in addition to feeling at peace with the world as it is). Personal growth and self-improvement will happen without brute force, because I am open to them. The rest of the world will also grow and improve, amidst occasional setbacks, regardless of my own input.

I think the most important thing about leading a simple life is to acknowledge my limits while admiring my strengths. I don't have to exceed my limits to feel good about myself. I am miraculous as is, and so are you, and so is everybody else.

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As living beings we sometimes have conflicts and we compete with each other ... that is the dark side of life, I suppose ... and people expend so much of their energy competing, even creating conflicts out of mere suspicion ...

I think the simplicity movement asks us to examine whether these conflicts and competitions are truly necessary. Does there have to be a win/lose outcome here? Is it possible to relax and let things be? Can we negotiate a win/win settlement?

There are belief systems that ask people to give 110%, that push us to compete, that always ask us to see whether we can do more and do better than before. Those belief systems exist, and I'm not going to argue with them.

What I really mean is this: Do I resurrect the five years of online content I wrote in the past, first as "SmartGuyVA" and then as "Virtual Exile" by posting them online again behind insufficiently explanatory links? Five years of nearly daily writing. It is a lot to consume. It gets indexed by Google and people find it while looking for ... nearly anything.

Much of that content was intensely personal, reflecting a deep internal world that very few people have ever shared with me in real life. I don't know how it affected readers. It was not written for them. I generally wasn't interested in discussing it, especially with strangers. I'd often tell my friends that it was not required for them to read it. Scores of people came back regularly, though, to keep up with my life.

Much of that content was pictorial in an exhibitionist way.

I had two significant open relationships during those five years with men who regularly read what I had to say, but sometimes they would read how I felt about them before I could tell them personally. I'm still not sure whether that was a good thing. Did the online Diary promote honesty? Was it an instrument of passive aggression? Is too much honesty a bad thing? I think I'd rather my boyfriends didn't read it. But if they know about it, why should they resist their curiosity? If anybody on the planet can read it, why not those I care about?

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I know people who will tell me how they feel about their boyfriends before telling their boyfriends. I know people who will debate with me whether to break up with their boyfriends while keeping their boyfriends totally in the dark about their doubts. Even my mother did this with me about my father. Some people plan their breakups for months ahead of time. I find that spooky, myself.

But, people doubt whether their relationships should continue, and don't always want to raise every little doubt with the spouse.

Should these doubts be shared with our partners? I can't prescribe a solution for everybody. It depends.

During my long term relationships I'd have many negative reactions to things my boyfriends did, said, or felt. Many times I bit my tongue, practicing acceptance. I don't like to be critical of my loved ones. I would rather allow them to make their own decisions. I try to be tactful about criticism, I'd rather praise things I like than pick on things I don't like. I don't believe that there is one way to live and that I'm the possessor of that way. You can try things your way!

I think it is important to give a lover plenty of room if you want to keep him around. One of the paradoxes of life. Let people be who they need to be, not who you want them to be, if you want to keep them close. It doesn't always work ...

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I think I want to use those archives as a personal resource now, not as a public one. I can read them and reflect upon my past and review what I've learned. I can incorporate some of the writings into future essays, perhaps some of them directed at print publication. But I think a raw personal Diary isn't meant for strangers. Not while I'm still living. It was an interesting project during those five years, and it led me into some interesting situations. I've learned a lot, grown a lot, experienced a lot. I'm not the same person I was when KWC and I broke up ... I'm not even the same person I was when Moose and I broke up.

As a pioneer of sorts on the Internet (I started my first online Diary in 1998), during my frantically busy years as a law student, I declared that "place is irrelevant" and made friends regardless of where they lived. I've traveled across the country to meet Internet buddies, and I've lured many to DC to meet me. I've even tried a few times to date fellas who lived hundreds or thousands of miles away. I've read some success stories -- about people who met over the Internet, fell in love, and moved to new cities to be together -- but I don't have my own success story to tell. My efforts ended in frustration. Well, I do still have friends I met over the Internet, but no boyfriends. And whether they live near or far I don't see my 'net friends in person very often.

I think I'm independent enough and disciplined enough and communicative enough to make a long-distance relationship work, and to convert one into a local live-in relationship. I did live about 200 miles away from a boyfriend for a year, about 10 years ago, but I'd met him in real life and we'd been dating for two years and we knew the distance would be temporary.

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The Internet allows us to communicate via e-mail, web page, or instant message. Maybe its just me, but it seems like the Internet is changing more than just how people communicate. I think it is changing the nature of relationships, making them less personal, making them less special, making them less grounded in reality. There are so many opportunities to interact with "compatible" people online that people are spending increasing portions of their lives sitting alone in front of computer screens.

For example, are there many gay fellas left who try to meet potential dates in real-life settings? It seems like the default now is to use online dating/hookup services such as gay.com or Friendster. You can scan lots more people with less investment and throw away the duds after one quickie meetup.

In my own experience, IM conversations are less focused and less comforting than phone conversations. People IM with several friends simultaneously, while doing chores, even drifting away from the computer for periods of time. People sign off without saying goodbye.

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Four weeks ago I called my HMO and claimed that I was suffering from Internet addiction.

There was a lot going on inside my head ... "Internet addiction" is a gross oversimplification of all that I was feeling ... but I was realizing that my virtual relationships were not helping me during a time of great need. I was grieving important losses, such as the recent loss of my father. I needed to be around people. I needed touch. I needed food. I needed sleep. I needed to feel like I was part of a living family, a living support network. The dozens of online relationships I'd cultivated over years sitting in front of a computer screen were not helping me in the ways I needed help.

Why have I done this to myself? Why have I created more online friends than real-life friends? Why is it that more people will e-mail me with messages of support than will call me or come over and hug me?

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It isn't just me. Like I said, I think this is becoming the default for young adults who have computers and Internet access. Especially if they have graduated from school -- schools still provide a lot of real-life socializing opportunities.

Are computers saving us from a real-life world of loneliness by introducing us to finely-gauged levels of compatibility, or are they creating a world of real-life loneliness by making us all sit alone in front of computer screens? Maybe it depends on the individual and his situation.

If I had as many real-life friends as I have LiveJournal friends I'd seem to be extremely popular. I'd always have a group of people around me. I wouldn't be going running by myself, or hitting the gym by myself. I wouldn't need to bother with masturbation. I'd be giving and getting massage and other forms of touch all the time. I'd have a few roomies, we'd have cats, we'd cook for each other and share stories over dinner. I'd feel like I was part of a family.

I don't feel that way right now.

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I've always been an introvert, but I think the Internet makes me more introverted. It makes me feel like I'm not alone when I am alone. It makes me feel like I have a lot of friends when I don't really have a lot of friends.

I'm still using the computer to interact with people, but not nearly as much as I was four weeks ago.

The first step was realizing the problem, and admitting the problem. The next step is taking steps to address the problem. I want to spend more time with real people and less time at home on my computer. I want to live with other people. I want to share my life instead of sharing my 'blog.

I probably need to add additional new friends who would rather hang out with me in real-life than sit in front of their computers.

They dressed and acted like Americans, shopping and eating at places like Wal-Mart and Pizza Hut.

-- FBI Director Robert Mueller, speaking of the Sep. 11 terrorists

My Identities:

Human
Male
35
Queer
Citizen of the United States of America
Green
Analytical
Corporate Tax Attorney
Single
Orphan
Intelligent
Romantic
Introvert
Buddhist
HIV-
Long-Distance Runner
Asthmatic
Manic-Depressive
Philosopher
Neo-Pagan
Artist
Polymath
Meditative
Empathic
Sensitive
Self-willed

But, perhaps every label we apply to ourselves is the beginning of repression. Perhaps we use some of these labels to suppress those desires we are most afraid of in ourselves.

For a true spiritual transformation to flourish, we must see beyond the tendency to mental self-flagellation. Spirituality based on self-hatred can never sustain itself. Generosity coming from self-hatred becomes martyrdom. Morality born of self-hatred becomes rigid repression. Love for others without the foundation of love for ourselves becomes a loss of boundaries, codependency, and a painful and fruitless search for intimacy. But when we contact, through meditation, our true nature, we can allow others to also find theirs.

One great use for religiosity memes, whether you personally believe in them or not, is the pacification of the populace.

If it weren't for religiosity, perhaps we'd have far more violent crimes, far more stealing and looting, far more infidelity and abortion, abandonment, abuse ... far fewer living grandmothers stretching their Social Security checks from month to month.

There definitely are people for whom religion is an upgrade, people who would otherwise be heartless predators, or just plain lost. If we didn't have religion, we'd have to invent it.

And it seems like people differ in the nature of their religion-receptors. Some people cry out for a One True Faith to lead them and guide them, something to put them at ease and replace despair with faith. Other people are more comfortable with ambiguity. Still other people couldn't care less about spirituality, regardless of the form.

So, maybe religions use visions of Heaven & Hell and One True Faith to keep their people in line ... but most of these people are thereby made harmless and somewhat altruistic. It benefits the powers-that-be to make most people more like non-violent sheep who render unto Caesar and render unto the Church.

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Buddhism as it is typically interpreted in the United States doesn't bother with visions of an afterlife, it offers a life with less suffering right here, right now. And it also benefits the powers-that-be by producing people who are more accepting.

The various religions have been evolving for hundreds or thousands of years, and the most successful ones provide some sort of social contract -- happier lives for the little people, and less interference for the big people.

Occasionally, unfortunately, religions are also used as motivations for war.

After my week-long "original religious experience" last month (I'll explain more about that another time) I decided to spend some time revisiting my Roman Catholic upbringing. I submitted to the Sacrament of Reconciliation (a.k.a. Confession) for the first time in decades -- my uncountable sins were forgiven in return for a requested pledge to avoid masturbation and homosexual sex (the former is more difficult to avoid than the latter, given my current status as a single Queer male). Since then, I've been to Mass twice, and I've read some of the introductory material at the beginning of the American English version of the Catholic Study Bible.

The Roman Catholic faith bills itself as the original Church with an unbroken lineage to the Twelve Apostles. These fellas were handpicked by Jesus, the (supposed) son of God, to help him bring the Good News of God's new covenant to the masses. Of course, back then they didn't have CNN on satellite, and most people could neither read nor write, so it took a while to spread the Good News around the world. Plus, there seems to have been a great deal of murderous resistance to what we now call Christianity, at least for the first few centuries A.D. Lots of martyrs died for openly believing that Jesus was the son of God. Many of them became Saints via a process that I don't yet understand.

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Those who speak for the Jesus meme believe that there is one God. Only one God. No other religions (or lack of religions) need apply.

They also believe that there is only one way to achieve everlasting life (in heaven) -- to believe in Jesus and to ask for God's forgiveness.

Although lots of conservative people claim to believe in God, if you read the Gospels carefully you find a Jesus whose teachings are as radical as those of the extreme left. Jesus is accepting of everybody, even society's outcasts. Jesus offers forgiveness (and eternal life) to everybody who asks for it with true sincerity. Jesus expects his followers to love everybody, even those who are not Christians. Jesus tells his followers to peacefully turn the other cheek when they are attacked. Jesus tells people to abandon their careers, their wealth, and even their families if necessary, to join him and to help him spread his Good News.

When I attend Mass and hear these beliefs spread from the altar, when I hear the words of Jesus and his Apostles elaborated upon by priests ... and then look around at the people in the pews ... I see a huge disconnect between the teachings of Christianity and many of the Americans who identify themselves as Roman Catholics.

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Heh, I sit here toying with the Jesus meme ... analyzing it ... but it isn't meant merely as a way of living. It isn't a political platform for reform. Jesus wasn't interested in political governance, and he appeared to support the separation of Church and State.

No, the Jesus meme is taught on the basis of supernatural faith. Without concrete evidence, we are to believe in one God, his Son, that Son's birth to a Virgin, that Son's Resurrection, and that we are all promised happiness forever in the afterlife if we believe and behave appropriately in this life. Christians are not trying to create heaven on earth. Christians are trying to prepare themselves for heaven.

Supposedly. Many of the Christians I know are less "Christian" in their behaviors than I am. Ah, but that makes me judgmental ;-) I'm not supposed to judge others. That is for God to do. Or, in this world, for the State.

Except ... that the employees and followers of the Roman Catholic Church do often make judgments that go beyond the radical acceptance and love teachings of Jesus (the anti-homosexual judgments come quickly to my mind, as well as the ban on female clergy). Yet, the Church offers forgiveness via the Mass and the Sacraments ... but often with some sort of price tag attached (even if no dollars change hands). There's a lot about how the Church operates, and how Christians live their lives, that doesn't make sense to me.

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I think that most people want the protection offered by the Jesus meme without having to pay the ultimate price. They talk like they know Jesus, but how often do they meditate upon their own actions and ask themselves whether they are living the lives they profess? Do they judge others, sometimes for mere entertainment value? Do they accumulate wealth, perhaps using their own unpredictable future needs -- such as a comfortable retirement -- as a justification? Do they practice loving those who treat them harshly?

I could see myself working to incorporate portions of the Jesus meme into my own lifestyle regardless of whether I "believe" in one God, etc., etc. If you strip away the monotheism teachings and the afterlife teachings and treat Jesus as an enlightened person who, like the Buddha, saw the human situation for what it is and prescribed a radical solution ... to love one another as children of God ...

Unfortunately, many people misuse the concept of logic and believe that it provides a method of arriving at "truth" about the world; that if they propose a logical argument it, somehow, has validity to external events. However, logic, by itself, says little about the world and does not guarantee "truth." Logic provides a language of self-consistent reasoning that pertains only to the construction of itself. A logical conclusion based on sound reasoning, in fact, might disagree with the external event we wish to understand.

— Jim Walker

Sometimes people forget that our perceptions are limited by our perceptual powers (to those classes of perceptions we are designed/permitted/evolutionarily-tuned to perceive). People are not omniscient. One human being can not perceive all that exists within each moment of time. Our perceptual powers are neither linearly correlated with reality nor completely unbiased.

Sometimes people forget that logic is an invention of the human mind, a mere tool for the ordering of scattered or imagined perceptions. This tool has imperfections and limited areas of effectiveness.

You see, I was reading today.

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For a while, the author (Susan Blackmore, in The Meme Machine) was trying to convince me that consciousness is an illusion, that free will is an illusion, and that scientific studies support these notions. She said there is no "I" to be doing the things that we do, and she said most of the human body's activities are completely unconscious -- first our body does something, then our consciousness creates an ongoing story of the self to explain what it sees.

She used logic to support her notion that consciousness is either an irrational belief structure or a powerless observer.

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I believe in something that came before logic.

I remember being alive before I understood logic.

Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am."

I say, "I am."

Or, even, "I."

I am the I that does. I am the I that sits still and does nothing. I am even the I that sleeps or falls into unconsciousness. I am the I that is born and the I that dies. I am the I that feels a wide range of emotions, pains, and pleasures.

Everything we think and do depends on the existence of I.

True, this I is neither static nor unchanging nor permanent nor omnipotent.

True, the entire Universe is an interconnected web in which everything has a cause and everything is a cause.

Where is the line between erotic artistry and porn?

My goal, like New York Photographer Robert Irwin's, is to "challenge the religious and cultural view that human sexuality is intrinsically bad or evil if not implemented for the exclusive purpose of procreation."

We celebrate the inherently provocative nature of the male nude.

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So far this page is just a place holder with a link to a page of G-rated "Early Self-Pics" -- pics that span from 1998 to early 2003.

infosmog -- The overload of information (and hype) now available in the web environment which makes it so hard to efficiently find quality information.

For those of you who still live in the Age of Television, even basic cable systems offer about 100 channels of 24-hour programming. You can't possibly watch it all. And from what I've seen, you can't possibly want to watch it all. Ick. Imagine if you had to spend the next year of your life watching everything that is being broadcast on your basic cable television today ... even the city council meetings.

For those of you who still live in the Age of the Printing Press, roughly 40,000 new books are published in the United States each year. You can't possibly read them all -- you'd have to read more than 100 books per day. Including every new romance novel sold by your local supermarket, and important new books on medical ethics & biological warfare. Even if you could read one book per day, you'd die before reading all the books published in the United States during 2003.

We'll ignore radio stations, newspapers, and magazines, for the moment. Obviously you can't listen to all the radio stations simultaneously.

For those of you who have advanced into the Age of the Internet ... Google claimed at the end of 2002 that its search engines held indexed copies of more than 3,000,000,000 web pages. Even if you could read one web page per minute, it would take you hundreds of lifetimes to read a current snapshot of all the information on the web (including every porn site, and every angsty high school kid's LiveJournal).

So, nobody can possibly know everything there is to know. We are all operating with limited information. Some of us pride ourselves on knowing more than average, but such pride is pointless when nobody can know even 1% of the specialized knowledge currently being generated.

The production of information is out of control.

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How should people cope with all this information? I'm generally not the type of person to tell others what they "should" do. Whether information overload is a problem for you is up to you. There are courses you can take to learn how to cope with information overload.

As for me, I happen to enjoy surfing infosmog. I enjoy exposing myself to new information via a wide range of sources. I think of myself as a meme sponge.

At the same time, I don't like feeling beholden to a few particular media sources. Subscribing to a newspaper gives that newspaper a lot of control over my daily cognitive agenda and my daily emotional responses.

At the same time, I like being able to drop out. Meditation is important to me. Unmediated perceptions are important to me. I like to focus on my surroundings, the people I care about, and the chaotic patterns of weather, plants, animals, and strangers.

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Perhaps infosmog is the main reason for the extended drop in civic participation in the United States. Most people don't even bother to vote -- perhaps they are rationally deciding that they can't perceive through the infosmog which politicians will better serve them. Those who do vote are finely divided between two pragmatic & antagonistic partisan camps whose daily rants have little to do with the real business of administering the Federal government. Legislators pass so much legislation each year that nobody can possibly read it all, especially not before the legislators vote yea or nay. The Congressional Record averages hundreds of pages per day, who would bother to read all of that? Who would understand it if they did?

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I believe we've entered a phase of the information age in which the cloud of information completely overwhelms the people who are creating it. I have no idea where this will lead. At some point the marginal value of producing more information will fall below the marginal cost, won't it? Perhaps we should focus on ways to produce value from information that already exists, via strategies of meta-informatics. Who needs a new study when most people have no idea what the old studies say?

For those individuals with free time and extra money, this virtually endless information cloud allows endless streams of observation, learning, and excitement. Boredom is obsolete.

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I used to keep a Diary on the Internet, for all to read. I was one of the first to do so!

I've decided, after many years of increasingly frank honesty, that an unedited Diary on the Internet is no longer important to me.

Instead, I want to focus my public writings on observations that do not strike so close to the people I care about.

So, this new online project will describe my observations and my reactions to the events within my perceptual well -- such as the books I read, the sunsets I see, the activities of strangers, and the thoughts that rush around inside of my head.

People have found my observations to be interesting in the past, so I will continue to offer them here.

I used to go by the online handle "Virtual Exile" at http://virtualexile.net, but I've abandoned that moniker, for reasons that I'll probably write about later.