Identity

Reminded of a bunch of important issues by this post, I made an excellent, witty, and summarised reply to it in a comment, and then accidentally hit "back" and lost it. I made a crappy comment instead, so don't read it.

Now the reason I started this blog, initially, was to post as a bunch of alter egos, to spice up the content more than just blathering on about my own boring existence. I don't think I quite succeeded, but it doesn't matter because sort of my point and message was that one stable identity is, to me, impossible. I mentioned this in the very first post, and I'll try to revisit the concept again, because I think it is important enough to this blog, and to my message.

I act a whole lot different when I am with different people. This isn't an act, it's my true self that actually changes. I don't know if I'm a lot more impulsive than other people, but I genuinely *feel* like a different person when I speak to, say, Iceye, than I do to Adam, Kristin, my father, or myself, for that matter. Hence the name of this blog - man of many masks. This isn't very peculiar - we all do it. What befuddles me is that I can't seem to find a stable core inside this chaotic mess. It's like I find layer upon layer of masks until I've digged through the whole heap and come out on the other side. A rough metaphor for how "I" feels to me is kind of like a cloud when you fly through it with an airplane - it's very tangibly there, it's all around you and it constitutes the entirety of the landscape. It's got discrete shapes and a creamy white colour and you get the feeling that you could touch it and it'd stick to your hands in great lumps. But actually, it's just very intangible water droplets that are impossible to touch, and the plane just flies straight through.

Now imagine the airplane is also made of cloud, and you've got a good idea about how I picture the self. It's not there, yet it's very obvious, tangible, visible, and it also somehow makes you fly.

This is why I don't do much introspection nowadays - I just keep lying to myself, or using concepts I've imported from other sources - reflecting my own cloud in those of other people. For instance, when contemplating religion, I think about what Jesus and Buddha and Immanuel Kant and my friends have said, but I don't think there's any stable core to it - I mostly gather what bits of religion that seem to make sense, and then puzzle them together and see how they interact with my own ideas - but it's not really me anymore than my current mood, it just happens to last a bit longer. When I'm happy, I'm happy. Who knows if I stop being happy tomorrow? So, how could I possibly know if I stop being religious tomorrow? If I stop liking philosophical waxing? Heck, how could I know I won't suddenly start identifying myself as a woman?

What's strangest of all, is that it's all these little puzzle pieces that come together and form me. Meaning that "I" is but a series of processes, sensible processes of course, but still, temporary processes. Not news for anyone who's read philosophy of course, but my point is not that the self changes, but that integrity is (kind of) an illusion. I can make my own choices, sure, but I can't make them independently of my surroundings. Is identity a function of the masks we wear? Of what others see us as? I don't mean to say we're slaves to our environment, I'm meaning to say that what we don't show, doesn't exist. What complicates the matter is that we must see the "I" as an observer as well, but not as the only observer, not as an independent observer. It's kind of like a series of processes that can be part of ourselves only, but also processes that are part other people, and these concepts blur together.

Ironically, of course, many of these thoughts are taken from Douglas Hofstaedter. I thought them, though. I mean, I think I thought them. Therefore, I think I am a thought?

Tänk Om

Tänk om jag är en poet?
...
Vad har man en sån till?

Past and Presents

First, I liked being given presents. This is natural, being that I was once very small. Then, I liked giving presents, which makes sense, it's heartwarming and all. Then, I got bloody tired of presents.

Seriously. It's fun to give people stuff they'll appreciate, but it takes forever to find something, especially when your family insists that you buy things for every. Single. Family. Member.
And this is just the bare essentials. This means I'll have to buy at least something like 12-13 useless trinkets, just not to get ostracized by my family.

Hence - sorry people, but I won't probably be giving you any presents. My economy can't take it, and I will start getting bored at around 10 meaningless items.

Winter is upon us.

"The winter light is pale and bright
And so the serpent basks,
The Beast is bowed beneath the plow,
The djinn rest in their flasks,
The craftsman's made to fit his trade,
The workers match their tasks,
On snowy floor, we waltz the score,
We masquers are our masks."

--White Wolf's Winter Masques.

For being from a game - as far as I can find, the White Wolf people wrote it themselves - this is a surprisingly evocative poem. Don't you think?

10 greatest Canadian songs

28-hour day STAB Rickrolling. Allrakäraste syster/Star Trek Voyager. Klingon, your body no longer excites her.

destruction and sadness

Saugus High School Scandinavia. Leonard Cohen, Rick Astley & River Tam. Hallelujah! (song) arkhangelsk. John Mason. John Mason. Basil John Mason. Gordon Lightfoot, Homestar Runner.

graph maker, stab you. time is an illusion, especially lunchtime. time is an illusion, lunch time doubly so. borneo monkey.

Hum Hallelujah, I hate myself and want to die never gonna give you up. Kola Peninsula, Kola Norwegians. Leonard Cohen. Leonard Cohen. Little Golden Books, Manga Marcie. Pennyroyal tea russenorsk. Leonard Cohen, paramount Chief of Fiji. Saugus High School.

Tetragrammaton, Yahweh.

borneo monkey.

Science!

I have proven that it's indeed possible to eat nothing but cookies for 24 hours!

I think I will has some noodls now.

In Defense of the Sanctified

There are many who would view the Christian faith as largely selfish. There are those who say, that a Christian acts not upon his own moral views, but upon a desire to "go to Heaven" after his death. In short, there are many who claim Christianity is deluded.

Not so. It is delusion to believe that immediate, earthly rewards are meaningful, just as it is delusion to believe one knows the nature of Heaven and God's grace. In short, rewards, whether heavenly or mundane, are meaningless, and it is delusion to believe otherwise. To be loved, to earn money, to create art, to gain fame and notoriety, or to enter Heaven - all these are but shadowy illusions we make for ourselves in order to motivate our nasty, brutish and short lives. This is not the object of religion, nor is it the object of life. Reward is not what the true Christian seeks.

The Lancea Sanctum tells us what all mortal religions do, but without the veil of ignorance, without the comfortable hope of solace, without the illusions. The Lancea Sanctum tells us God has a plan. That is all. That is all the Sanctified have to hope for, that is all in which the Sanctified invest their faith. There is no hope of redemption, no hope of reward, only the hope of purpose, of meaning in a meaningless existence. This is what all religions seek to teach, though they shroud it in promises of payment, forgiveness and love.

Christianity - Faith- Religion; all these are with us for the sake of having a purpose. If there is no God, what purpose is there to my good actions? If there is no God, why should I help my fellow man? In a world without God, we are all but mites of dust upon a mind-numbingly great, blank floor, to be swept away by the smallest gust of wind and lost forever. In a world without God, we have no meaning. Religion provides us with this. Religion provides us with a reason for why we help one another. Never mind what reward shall come for this help - the important thing is knowing we have made a difference. We have contributed to God's plan. We have done something which was not in vain.

Finding meaning is what drives us all. Religion shows you a way. Religion assures you that though you be damned, God has not forgotten you. Religion is trusting that my actions matter to a higher being - that there is a reason for me to rise every night, that there is a reason for the pain and pleasure we must suffer. This is what Christianity is - not the hunt for some meaningless pleasure in Heaven, but the hunt for some meaningful pain on Earth.