Elijah's Blog

1 + 1 = ?

When I was younger, I had a question. In school we learn that 1 + 1 = 2. Although we learn how numbers are added, we never learn why numbers are added in the way that they are. Nearly everyone who has been through 'modern' primary education takes this simple process of addition for granted. When I asked my teacher 'why does one plus one equal two?' my teacher replied 'because if you have one thing and another thing and you put them together you get two things.' So then I said 'yeah, but why?' At that point, I was told in a polite manner to shut up.

This question has stuck with my for quite a long time. I did not have any insight into this problem until I became involved in a conversation with a Korean girl in Japan. I told her about my question and my teacher's anwser. She then told me that one plus one does not necessary equal two. She said 'if you have one ball of mochi and another ball of mochi and you put them together you get one ball of mochi' (mochi is a compacted rice gum-like food). It is also interesting to note that a couple of years later I asked another Korean woman this same question and she gave me a similar anwser.

That was the catalyst for my insight. Addition in its western form depends exclusively on the arbitrary division of objects/things. That is to say - there has to be a separation of things. Something has to say that this is 'this' and that is 'that'. Objectively, speaking any division between substances in entirely arbitrary. The questions regarding where one thing begins and another ends have been addressed by cognitive linguists and philosophers for quite some time. Nevertheless, what it all comes down to is that 'something' or 'someone' is separating things.

So, this simple question - a child's question. Let me to a even more profound question. If there is objectively no division between things in the physical world, then the division must be being made somewhere else. However, even if this 'somewhere else' - a platonic world of forms so to speak existed, there still would need to be a connection between the physical and the form. The connection must be related to people. Forms have no significance outside of consciousness. So, all this lengthy seemingly intellectual rambling has led me to a very simple question. Who perceives the divisions between 'things'? For this 'who' cannot exist in the physical or in the forms for it to be able to participate in both - it must transcend it. Thus, words or physical substances could never capture its essence. How can we see this 'who'? Where is it?

Honestly, I don't know.

conflict

I am in a very conflicted - frusted state - but I feel like something is shining through. I was thinking that this blog would be pretty boring without any images. So this is me tonight after I wrote this entry.
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Awareness is amazing. When ones leg is in pain it is nearly impossible to be aware of ones leg. However, I and most other people live our lives with very little awareness.

Often we are attracted to members of the opposite sex who possess some sort of special trait or characteristics that we find titillating without any feeling as regards their being. Often we are attracted to certain kinds of sex - fetishes - so called kink - for what reason? What does this have to do with living? These actions are not good or bad, but rather involve very little awareness.

How often are we truly aware in one day? How often are we aware of what we are eating? Or the heartbeat of a lover? How about the smell of rain? Its seems as though we are only aware when we are on vacation - that is to say that when everything is going well for us. Only then, do we have enough energy that we can reflect just a little upon our own existence.

So are you aware of what repetitive patterns fuel your sexual desires? This is natural, not shameful. All beings reproduce. Only humans in our complexity have such a large amount of permutations regarding this aspect of their existence. Are you attracted to redheads? Why? Tall men? Why? Why does this feature(s) affect you in this way? After all it is affecting you psychologically, not physically. This is all images. Nothing is actually touching you. When you look at a man/woman, what makes you attracted to them?

Or are you even aware of this? Is your life being run by passing sexual titilation to titillation? Or are you forever on the lookout for "the one?" Is every person you are attracted to possessing some trait of "the one?" Or do you just settle for whoever is interested in you? Have you ever noticed we often keep choosing people with similar personalities and features for our mates, even as years go by and our lives change considerably? Why? Are you aware of this in your own life? What kind of people do you choose? How do you meet them? What do you call them? How do you end up breaking up with them?

Are you aware of how when a women or man finds you attractive and they tell you or you find out some how, how far up into the sky your ego (feelings of I am so good - I am better than others) soars. And consequently how far it is from reality (i.e. you are still the same person who two days earlier thought that you were a piece of shit that nobody wanted). Why does the opposite sex affect our valuation of self so much? Is our primitive need to feel valuable to the opposite sex so strong that we have to spend all of our time worrying about the size of our breasts/penis or enviously fantasizing about being someone else who possess the traits we lack. What is this? This is not love. Why are we like this? Why do we dress up in costumes, go to bars with music so loud that no one can hear each other, get drunk, and try to bring a person home who will boost our ego in the morning (meaning that they are more attractive than we judge ourselves to be - a good catch). Why can't we just have a good-hearted kind relationship with people of the opposite sex and have sex when needed and appropriate (not necessary only for reproductive purposes)? This entire aspect of modern man is really fucked up. What do you think? Do you notice this in your own life?

Stop masturbating to images that are not fixed in reality and experience life. Sex - food - breath - visual impressions.... From all of these things life enters our being. At the very least substances and energy enter our bodies. Lets try to be aware of these parts of life that we participate in. It might just make us a little less lonely.

reflections on ones own existence

I am so an utterly amazed at how much all those around me and myself are caught up in their head. Our thoughts are flowing like some sort of massive flood and we are just barely holding on to a log - almost pulled away forever into some murky depths. Wait. Even what I am writing is being processed by my intellect. But, it is some how different than the thoughts and images that possess us constantly. So I pose this question: do you remember how you got here? Reading this right now? How far back can you trace your life through your memories? Eventually you cannot remember anything anymore, right? So who are you? Are you all these thoughts? What will be left when you die? Surely not these thoughts? We were all born with nothing and we all will leave with nothing. So who has nothing? In this moment there is so much that we hold so dear to ourselves: opinions about politics, emotions about boyfriends/girlfriends, feelings of entitlement, hunger, pain, sorrow, pleasure, light, simple worries, and on and on... But out of these what can we take with us when we die? Look at all of the religions visions of the afterlife - none of them include all this crap that possess our inner lives daily. So I pose the question again - who are you?

How will you answer? Did you answer in terms of what other people say about you? Or how you think about yourself? Like some fucking personal ad? e.g. "I am a carefree dreamer who is looking for tranquility" Now, think about your answer seriously in the terms of what was there before you born and what will be there after you die. Wait, don't think - contemplate.

This is one of those questions that is always there for me. Who am I?

Let us contemplate division. What makes this 'this' and that 'that'? What makes me 'me' and you 'you'? In between your body and your computer screen is air. But since air is entering into your body and leaving your body constantly - where can one draw the line of separation between one's body and the air? Or a better question to ask is what draws the line between us and our surroundings? So we can extend this. How does one go about objectively dividing what is 'I' and what is 'not I'? If one can get out of ones egocentrism for a second, I think one will see that there is nothing objectively separating us from the entire universe. It is just us who put artificial boundaries upon what we perceive in our consciousness. Where are you? Where am I? It is always in relationship to something. We say that this is 'this' but why? We say that two plus two always equals four. But it is only so if we mentally divide things. So what is doing this dividing? Is that us? Are we just a dividing machine? But wait - when one is asleep or an infant ones ability to differentiate between things is extremely limited or non-existent.

Wow. I have even nearly lost myself at this point. Are you following? Don't think. Don't say this is like such and such theory put forth by Dr. blah blah blah. This is real. Relate this to your own consciousness. Who am I?

This is real. Your death is coming. It could be tomorrow or...
Now.
Or 50 years from now.

Regardless, you will have to face it. If you were staring down the barrel of a gun right now. What would be important? Who would you be? When the bullet entered your brain and your heart stopped, where will this precious 'I' be? When your beautiful body starts to rot and turn into food for the earth, any sense or desire for money, power, sex, food... becomes completely meaningless.

So are these thoughts that consume us important? Is 'I can't believe that that asshole embarrassed me in front of my boss at the board meeting by asking questions the he knew I didn't know the answers to - just to show off my ignorance' going to really matter when you are rotting in the earth? Or how about 'this fork is not clean!'. Or the asshole who tailgated you to work. Many humans have come and gone before you. What makes you special? Many have been smarter, sexier, and stronger... Many have been stupider, uglier, and weaker... Many have lived thier entire lives in complete misery. They would have killed to have 'your aching back'. This is life in all of its organic glory. Substances are interchanged with the earth. So where are you in all of this mess? You are going to die. Soon. What are you waiting for. Live this life. Every breathe is a miracle. These thoughts will pass - if you let them. Set your sight on what is truely important.

I am out of words really. By the way, this is really not addressed to you specificly the reader, but rather to myself and humanity in general.

the first entry

Blogs (weblogs) I hear are all the rage now. However, mine is not really intended to be a journal/dairy or a political emotional recation receptical. But rather, I just wanted a place where I could ramble at length about some of the ideas/images that come through me and have people comment on those images. So if you are reading this and my posts seem a little esoteric, I am sorry. Anyways, I honestly wonder if I will use this software much at all. Oh, well only time will tell.