Big Places.

I visited Chicago last weekend, for the first time in my life. It is also, I think, the only time I have visited a large city in recent memory. It was a lot smaller than I expected.

Admittedly, there are skyscrapers, and huge streets, and everything is about eight time more complicated than most of the cities I spend my time in. But I like it. I like large cities, I feel at home. I wasn't made for small cities, can't be happy in them. I enjoy things that are grand and massive, things that are greater than normal, things that are exceptional, or the best of their kind. For this reason, I loved Chicago.

I loved feeling like nothing, loved having to push my way through crowds and struggling just to find any sort of store or restaurant. I loved every minute of it. It's when you push yourself up against walls that are greater than you that you make yourself stronger. You don't get stronger by lifting the same amount of weight, you get stronger from lifting more. That may seem really obvious, but I need to point out that it applies not only to strength, but to other things as well.\

There is something to be said for bigger cities. They are better, encourage men to live a grander and more exceptional lifestyle. Why shouldn't I want to live in a large city?

One day, I thought as I looked up at the buildings of Chicago, I'm going to make it bigger. I'm going to own it all, I'm going to be able to look down from such great heights. One day, I'm going 'to rule the world. It isn't a claim, it's the truth.

There was only one problem that I had with Chicago. I spent my time looking around, examining, watching the beauty. I looked over the grand buildings, and over the river, and over the way things were placed together and they seemed to fit in my mind, and over everything else. And I thought, it's not enough. Chicago is too small.

Let's hope it stays that way.

College, pt.2.

Well, my fall semester in college is soon coming to a close. In a short week, I will be having finals, and after that I will be on break until after new years. It has been an odd experience, I can assure you.

I am not nearly so hostile to my school as I was a few months ago. I have had time to adjust, time to understand things better. People are no longer ridiculously friendly, they have settled down and no longer have to be. When any man has all his friends taken away from him, he will desperately grasp at anyone nearby who is suitable. But when he finds friends, then he can stop grasping. That about summarize the social life here; after several weeks of overly-friendliness, everyone calmed down and everything went back to normal.

My identity class did eventually have something to do with identity, although it was never as good as I wanted it to be. My ethics teacher did prove intelligent in some ways, although I know now that she is simply not a good teacher, and I am forced to accept that. My acting class is no longer the best, it has fallen into its own flaws over the course of the... course. Essentially, everything has gotten into the process of averaging itself out, of evening out the kinks. Nothing is exceptional, but then, why should I expect that of ordinary people? At least, they can afford to give me mediocrity consistently. That is something in itself.

I came to college expecting to be taught things. I have made it into a moderately expensive and intelligent college, therefore I expected teachers to be at least somewhat wise, somewhat able to demonstrate intelligence. I was wrong. College has taught me to learn, but certainly not through classes. Instead, I realize, I have learned through everything in between. While I didn't necessarily learn anything in class, classes inspired me to learn, inspired me to achieve and accomplish.

College has inspired me to write. I am writing an average of three or four pages of novels a day now. I enjoy this. I work out daily, have maintained a wonderful diet and physique. College has helped me to grow better in every way, but it wasn't because of the classes. It was, I think, because of the freedom. College has taught me by proxy, hasn't taught me anything but has created an atmosphere where I can teach myself things.

Perhaps it isn't the best, but I'll accept it, for now. The world isn't perfect... yet.

Vampires, Metaphorically.

A strange state of being has come over me recently, one that I am not totally unaware of. I've had this feeling many times before in my life, although at those times I had no clue what to call it, how to think of it. It wasn't until my best friend began to have the same transformation, at the same time, that we had any idea what to call it. We are vampires.

I eat little, I sleep little, I spend long hours indoors and especially in the dark hours of the night. My emotions are dead, I feel nothing except a sense of purpose that I work towards. I have gotten more writing done than I have in the whole time I've been here at this college. At the same time, I work out insane amounts, dangerous amounts. Sex is different, harder, and yet I seek it like a man in the desert seeks water. My mind is crystal clear, I think better than I ever have before, and yet at the same time I know that it is clouded, that there is something deathly wrong with me, no matter how much I like it.

In the end, I am still a man, but I have come into contact with something that is not man, something inside myself that is better in many ways and yet worse in many others. I have come into touch with the part of the man that is a beast, have come into touch with the darker and more primitive feelings that men generally lock away. I have come into touch with my beast, and that makes me a vampire.

When you strip away all the religious undertones that generally don't have any place in modern vampire myths anyway, these are the basic traits of any vampire. They are faster, stronger, more beautiful, and yet less human. They do not sleep, and they spend all their time in the dark. How is this any different than what I am doing right now? Perhaps it is a bit of a stretch, but I would like to think that, right now, I am becoming a vampire. It explains me perfectly, both my weaknesses and perfections.

Perhaps it is true that I am not actually a vampire, but that means nothing. The human mind is what creates reality, is what defines our lives. It is the human mind which imbues anything with meaning and purpose. And I choose to imbue myself with the image of the vampire. I wonder when I'll come back to earth as a regular human being.

The form of our government.

As it turns out, Obama has won the recent U.S. election, and has done so by a landslide. I predicted it, strange as it may sound. Nearly a year and a half ago, long before the candidates had been finalized for each party, and all those democrats and republicans had to fight with each other first, my aunt asked me who I thought would win. I answered Obama. I was right.

It's not that Obama has much of anything going for him. I do respect that he has won the title as a man of color, which obviously has not happened before now in the history of the U.S., but frankly, it doesn't mean anything. Racism is not abolished by putting a black man in charge, racism is abolished by it not mattering that a black man is in charge any more than if a white one was. Obama hasn't broken great racial barriers, but I suppose he has helped us make progress.

The other thing that annoys me terribly, is that everyone is so enthusiastic, especially about his mantra of change. Change? Not going to happen. If there is one thing that you can count on from the American government, it is that it moves slowly. Nothing ever happens fast, its part of the democratic process. So when Obama says he's for change, I scoff. Nothing will probably happen until next presidential term, if even then. Everyone seems so happy that he's won, as if its something grand and new. The common man will probably never see much of any change in his life. Things are just going to go back to the way that they normally have, and in maybe a few years something will happen.

The problem with the whole democratic system, as I see it, lies in two separate places. The first is that the majority is stupid, the second is that it takes awhile to get the majority to agree on anything.

The majority is never the best way to choose a leader. The majority of any country is comprised of the average, the usual. A majority is made up of all the people of average intelligence, who can only make averagely intelligent decisions about their leaders. The minorities are the greatly intelligent, who really should be choosing these leaders, but also the greatly stupid, who shouldn't. Unfortunately, as the way things go, these two minorities usually balance out, meaning that for the most part the majority is on its own. And a majority can never consistently choose good leaders.

Perhaps there is the luck of the draw, perhaps occasionally the public is granted a spark of wisdom, and they choose a great leader. But perhaps they are also sometimes struck dumb, and they choose a terrible one. It is something like a pendulum, that stays on one side or the other, but is always in the middle.

For these reasons, presidential candidates, and even presidents, are rarely effective material. They are inneffectual material, unable to overcome their boundaries and cause great good to mankind. This is my gripe with such a government, and the reason why I wish to become world dictator. I know that I would be a good leader, but I also know that no public would elect me, because I am a good leader. Sometimes things must be done that go against public opinion in order to save the public, but the public will never realize this.

In a dictatorship, one man is given ultimate authority. This can be either the worst idea, or the best, depending on the quality of the man chosen to rule. Men like I, unwavering, strong, and dedicated to good, will do the greatest good. Men like Hitler will do the greatest evil. This is why I cannot accept democracy, I am a man who only accepts the best. And democracy can never turn out the best leaders, only the ones the public likes the most.

The other gripe I have with democracy, as I have noted, is that it takes too long. Checks and balances prevent evil, but they also prevent good. The public takes a while to make decisions, and when men of good intentions actually do reach office, they find that they are restricted from doing what they wish, and must move slowly. This is another problem that would be remedied if I ever managed to be the dictator. There is no check on absolute power to one individual, he does not have to fight the masses in order to save them.

In short, I did not vote this tuesday. People are surprised when I tell them that I wanted Obama to win, but refused to vote for him. Obama is the man I expected the public to choose, the average leader who deserves to be president under this system. But that does not mean that I have to accept the system. That does not mean that I have to accept mediocrity. I didn't vote, not because I didn't have a say, but rather because my say was too big for this, was too strange and unusual. And that is the way democracy works, isn't it?

Life is beautiful, or so we make it.

Everyone told us that life was hideous and ugly, that it was dark and cold. Everyone told us that living is hard and that we should never be idealists, we could only survive as realists. People tell us that we cannot grow, that we should not work harder, that life is not about being better. But there's a problem. They were wrong.

Life is only what we make of it. There are two spheres of existence, the mind and the physical world. The physical world is nothing: it is made up of facts and cold ideas and rules, and by nature it has no meaning. The physical world is not ugly, nor is it beautiful. It simply IS, and we are dropped into it. Meaning is created only by the human mind. A woman is only beautiful because we think her such. Murder is only wrong because we have decided so. An object has no meaning, is imbued with it by the opinions and thoughts of each and every human being that views it. Therefore, if life is made up by us, why would we choose to make it hideous?

With nothing but the change of the mind, mankind could end this. The world could become beautiful and glowing, just and perfect. Why haven't we? Why have people decided that we should treat life as if it were hideous and cruel, and sweep it under the rug? Why would we choose to make something unattractive, when we can make it the most beautiful thing to ever exist?

I refuse. I refuse to follow these foolish beliefs. I refuse to believe that the world is evil, that life is hideous. I refuse to believe that I am nothing. I refuse to believe that I am unimportant. I am a god! Life is beautiful! Sadness is not sad, it can be happy as well. I see no darkness, I see no world except that which I create, and there is no darkness in it. I see a world where mankind thrives, where it is united and perfect. I see a world where I rule by a fist that is plated with compassion, and everyone is happy. I see a world that is perfect.

And so it is.

Setbacks.

I have had a few problems, very recently. The woman with whom I first enjoyed sexuality rebelled against me, and did so in such a way that showed she had never understood me in the least. It hurt, so much more than I wanted it to. I'm not perfect, and I never will be. Every time I invest myself in another person, I find myself disappointed and let down, often mercilessly.

Worst of all, was that in my understanding, she was trying to do such a thing because she saw me as cruel, and heartless, and therefore not her thing. She wanted me to be more like the regular person, more like the mindless mass, less like myself. But she does it by being bitter and hateful? Why should that motivate me to be kinder to the rest of the world? Do you really think you can fight wars in the name of peace?

Sex is greatly overemphasized by our culture. Men slobber over every attractive woman, worship those who can get them, and just generally waste time thinking rather than doing. It's not hard, women aren't any better than the men who worship them. We emphasize it so much, that when it actually comes around, it disappoints me. We emphasize it as being necessary in a relationship, which is an utter fallacy. Men don't have to be dating women they don't like in the hopes of fucking them. That's stupid. Relationships should be based on the mind, not the body. Sex should be freer and more open, to be shared between anyone comfortable enough with the other person. It doesn't have to be this fucking fetish or grand monument.

I dream of a future where in every relationship, a man can say to his woman, that he finds another woman rather attractive, and that he would rather screw her, and his girlfriend will not be offended. She'll just let the two of them have sex. Then her and her boyfriend can get back to loving each other because they are perfect for each other.

I say all this, because I think that one of the reasons why this girl did this to me, was that she didn't want to be in any kind of friends-with-benefits relationship, wanted me to care more about her. She never understood that in having casual sexual experiences with her, I was caring about her more than any other woman. I was saying, you are the most beautiful woman in the world, I will only concern myself with you. She had to ruin it all by rebelling, had to prove that she wasn't as smart as I thought, had to reduce her beauty by admitting that she was not intelligent enough for me. She certainly isn't the most physically attractive woman in the world, but she became so for me because of her mind. I was so broken to see it ruined all before my eyes. The world crashed down on me, ruining me again.

The three hours that followed were the worst three hours of my life in previous times. I had my first anxiety attack in perhaps six months. I still can't sleep as well anymore. The next day I could not force myself to function, just keeled over and followed myself around. Of course, for every downturn, there is an upturn. Very quickly, I bounced back. I began to meditate daily, exercised excessively, and now I spend much of my formerly wasted class time every day working on my novels in my terribly unreadable handwriting.

The grand problem here, as I have mentioned before, is that I am always confronted by how little I can trust other people. Excepting one person in my entire life, who I count as my one true friend, everyone that I invest myself in or test has always failed. They have always let me down, in every single way. I remember one girl who I asked to keep a simple secret from a single person. She told the next day, and I ignored her for a week, only to teach her how unimportant she was to me. She got the message, and I forgave her, never telling her that those days had been a test.

Admittedly, I have failed as well. There are times when I have not been able to keep promises, or have let others down. However, I remember each and every one of these vividly, I struggle with them every day. As a result, I have basically not betrayed a single person in nearly a year. I am not perfect, but I am trying, which makes me so much greater than everyone else.

That's sad to me. The only thing that I have to do to be better than everyone else is simply try? Imagine what I could do if I was actually forced to work.

Enlightenment.

So, I have not written for some time. In that time, many things have happened to me.

The first, and probably most important, is that I have enjoyed the largest sexual encounter of my entire life. It was about what I expected in many ways, but in others it fell short. We spend our lives obsessing over these things, and by the time they get here, they are sometimes not what you wanted them to be way back in the beginning. Anyway, it doesn't matter. What matters, is that after this, I woke up the next day with such a perfect view of the world. I hesitate to call it enlightenment.

That day was roughly two weeks ago, and since then I have enjoyed even more fun with the woman that I originally shared the experience with, and it has been pleasurable in the manner of such things. But throughout all of this, I have not lost the vision that I woke up with that morning. This vision is beautiful, the world is grand. I see now why there is happiness, and sadness, and every manner of everything inbetween. There is nothing good and evil, but thinking makes it so.

The extent to which a person is happy is not based on his circumstances, his achievements, his goals, or any other physical thing that this earth can give him or her. Happiness and sadness are constructs of the mind, and should be treated as such. The only thing that can make you happy is your mind, and to seek happiness from alcohol, drugs, sex, or any other physical activity is useless. These things don't change the mind, or if they do they do so temporarily.

A priori, man is happy or sad in his own mind. This happens regardless of circumstances, regardless of anything outside the self. I have been in situations where I have been crying and sad, yet at the same time I was happy, because A priori my life is beautiful. When people try to say that sadness is sad, and happiness is happy, they are lying. There is only the mind of the person, which makes each and every thing into something beforehand. The people of today seem to think that it is that which is A posteriori which is true, but they are wrong. Man can make anything of anything, based on that which is A priori in his mind, and that is where the source is.

In my ethics class, we studied an excerpt about the experience machine, a matrix-like device that can provide you with experiences of your choosing for a specified time, before you exit and you repeat the process. Virtually everyone in the class denied that they would use this machine, but their only comeback is that it is simply "because it isn't real". Someone did manage to bring up the idea that perhaps this is our life, and how is there any difference? How would we know? What they did not come upon, was the truth.

The truth is, no one would use the experience machine because it would not change a thing. The experience machine gives you the ability to change your circumstances, but not your inner self. For this reason, everyone who is unhappy would continue to be so, and everyone who is happy would also continue to do so. There is no reason to plug in, because nothing would change. There is another reason why they wouldn't do it: because deep down, they know this. They refuse to believe it, but if they went into the machine they would be forced to understand that they are flawed individuals with no way to improve themselves artifically.

A priori, life is beautiful, everything happens for a reason, nothing is wrong. This is my style. I am ALWAYS HAPPY. Even when I'm sad.