"Fuck, I think I just killed a frog," Ben says. We are going eighty on back roads near his house. He sees another frog and swerves to dodge it. In the headlights I see a brown grey blob leap off the road.

"Fuck," I say, "maybe don't swerve like that. I think you hit another one when you swerved."

"Huh?" Ben says. I am baked, Ben less so.

"This reminds me of the frogs in my grandma's backyard," I say. "I don't see them anymore. I don't know why."

We get to Ben's and smoke a bong. I take a modest hoot and fall onto the couch. It's been awhile for me. Ben didn't really smoke weed until I started, back in high school. I watch him hit a big popper. He exhales intensely and doesn't move for a few moments.

"I think I'm good," he says. I have another small toke.

My grandmother's backyard is a smallish rectangle and I still mow her lawn. When I was young, I'd mow in rectangles from the perimeter until I hit the center. After a few rounds, I'd sometimes see little frogs hopping away towards the fence. I always wondered if I had killed any, but I never saw frogs before I started mowing. I never felt or saw any blood or guts.

The next day Ben and I drive to a theme park with my two younger sisters and my other friend, Dan. In high school, Dan would drive like a nut on the back roads near Ben's house. He'd take his truck and go over a hundred, getting air off big hilly roads. He did that once with me, my cousin, and Ben. Dan and Ben haven't really hung out since then.

I haven't driven to the theme park before. I'm supposed to meet Ben at a carpool lot, but I miss the exit. We make Ben meet us at the next exit. My oldest-younger sister does not want to call him and ask him to do this, but my youngest sister makes her. After I miss that exit, everyone is a bit more attentive to my driving. A couple of times I change lanes on the highway and a car merges behind me at the same time. I don't see them until we're in the next lane and they're right behind us. Every time I switch into the left lane, I look back and see my youngest sister checking too. Sometimes they clap when I make a quick, aggressive but necessary lane change. Ben says "yesss" as soon as he sees me signal. It's funny.

Dan doesn't like roller coasters. He doesn't mind going on wimpy rides with my youngest sister. Ben, my oldest-younger sister and I go on the big rides. Ben and Dan are good. I feel like I could get Ben to do anything. In line, we see a music video for a song on the radio. Ben talks about how much that song sucks. I sing the chorus to him throughout the day and he says he's going to punch me. For a few rides, we're all in line together. Ben and Dan talk about their relationships. They're both single. On the biggest coaster in the park, Ben makes us sit at the very front. My sister freaks out but somehow I don't care. The best part is when I feel like I'm falling.

Ben, Dan and I split up from my sisters for a bit. Dan wants to go to the waterpark. Ben wants to smoke a joint first. I am paranoid and Dan is too. Security aren't far away and there are lots of kids and parents. But Ben assures Dan it's fine in the designated smoking area. I watch from a few metres away. I have to drive in three hours. They finish smoking and it's fine.

I pay sixteen dollars for a small locker. Ben and I stuff almost all of our things in it. I tell Ben we won't be able to fit everything in, and he says, "just stuff it," so I do. We were going to bring our towels with us but Ben convinces me to just stuff them. We are laughing. Then Dan wants to put away his hat and shoes. So we go back to the locker and somehow stuff those too. Dan says, "I guess I don't mind a flat hat." We all find it very funny. I have never stuffed something that hard. 

We go in the wavepool and joke about pushing kids around when they splash us. On the lazy river, we push each other under the waterfalls. A few times I say, "somewhere down that crazy river," or, "somewhere down that lazy river." After that, we meet up with my sisters and go on only one more ride all together, because Ben needs to leave. On this ride, all five of us sit in a single row of harnesses and are spun and dropped and shot up in all directions. I feel very much like I am falling.

On the way back, Ben and I listen to music until I drop him off at the carpool. Dan takes shotgun. My oldest-younger sister does not want to call him and ask him to do this, but my youngest sister makes her. Before today, Dan hasn't driven on the highway with me. He asks,

"Have you ever been in a car accident? Is that why you drive so careful?"

That night, I watch part of a documentary on Seaworld and orca whales with sisters and my parents. I pet my dog and she brings me a toy but she doesn't really know what to do with it. There's no space to run and throw, so every attempt at play is half assed. Before the show is over, I go upstairs to my room.

The next day, I'm at my grandma's. In the last couple years I've mowed her lawn in sections, starting in the middle. Sometimes the grass gets on her garden, but she no longer tends to it. I don't see the frogs anymore, I don't know why. Maybe they just appeared during a strong summer. Maybe everything dried up. My grandma used to have a problem with mosquitoes behind her yard, so I started mowing the grass behind the fence. That seemed to do the trick. Rainwater from her eaves trough stands in a big barrel, and still no mosquitoes.

As I fill the tank, a grasshopper jumps right onto the valve. I notice them all over the lawn. I start the mower. It sends a grasshopper flying into the wall of the house. I try mowing in sections. I go over some of the backyard a second time, so the cut grass doesn't pile up. I try to say hi to the neighbors. The front lawn is much trickier than the back. There are all sorts of shapes out there. By the end of it, I'm mowing in circles.

How I am my Father
When I am angry
When I don't listen
When I think I am right
When I smoke pot
When I am selfish

How I am my Mother
When I am afraid
When I don't act
When I think I'm wrong
When I can't help myself
When I am depressed

How I became myself
. . . (2 b ct'd)

baby when you look at me you know that I'll be here forever
baby when I look at you I know that we'll be here together

lol true

"The art is in the ability that I can take something that should make you want to kill yourself, and produce a low-grade lol when you read it."

-Brent Kim

what i ve started reading in the last ~6 months and may or may not have finished probably not gotten past the first few pages let alone finished

"Unfinished work attracts company and is bad for morale" 

• Dostoevsky brothers k (finished, discussed w other people, started reading 3-4 essays on it which I did not finish :'( ) 
• Kierkegaard fear and trembling / repetition (read one page, made a poster and started a book club that had a botched marketing campaign and didn't start, lol) 
• Mind over Mood (re-read first chapter for the Nth time, lol)
• Reinventing your life (read chapters 1-3, started skimming ch5)
• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (I've read couple times before but this time I just put my thumb along the length of the pages and flipped through them; no actually I read several chapters of this on a PDF and highlighted important things and wrote them out)
• Cszizentmihalyi, The flow of everyday life, or finding flow or whatever: I actually read most of this - do things that make you focus, it's more rewarding in the long term, goddamn what a hypothesis??? TV and other lounge activities make you feel unhappy and unrewarded over time??????
• Mark Rippetoe, Practical Programming for Strength Training (only read what my little meathead could absorb, ie..e skipped about half of it)
• Alexander Galloway, Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture (got into the first chapter, got lazy to invest in his careful framing of terms and argument before it could get rewarding, lol, read mostly on greyhound) 
• Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (started last week, currently reading for book club, this one will actually get finished, lol) 
• The Art of Chess (more or less just opened the introduction)
• Nietzsche, genealogy of morality (reading introduction now, lol, will it gather dust??????)
• Online Self Help Book (actually using this RN, holy moly)
  
• shouts out to everyone i forgot to mention, I know you're lurking out there in .pdfs on my other PC or hidden somewhere on my bookshelf, and a big shoutouts to the unread internet articles taking up 1-30 tabs a day, you know who you are 

"To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god."
-Jorge Luis Borges

Sensationalism and Inaccuracy

Via “Best of Tumblr” fb page:

                                                                                                                                                                                 

Is your favorite thing really that the word “pulp” “doesn’t exist”? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say your “favorite thing” is that in this case, they use “bits” instead of pulp? The assertion that the word pulp doesn’t exist in England is easily refuted by <10 seconds of googling or using the dictionary. In fact, we get “pulp” from Middle English (and that from the latin pulpa, fleshy parts of the body). But googling wouldn’t fit in with the sensationalist strategy of getting all excited and posting the first thing that comes into one’s head. The statement “doesn’t exist” is much more totalizing and therefore exciting than saying “isn’t used on Tropicana packaging although it is in North America;” or more generally, “my favorite thing is . . . the subtle language differences which appear in otherwise identical packaging,” etc. Further, just speculating, perhaps if the poster had googled “pulp” and thought about the definition, they might consider the different connotations of “pulp” vs “bits,” perhaps for e.g. that pulp is too bodily, possibly unappealing, for the British, whereas for some reason “bits” comes off as more enticing, and why this difference exists between the US and the UK. I’m not going to think about this more right now, because it’s not my “favorite.” 

When the dog bites, when the bee stings, and I’m feeling sad, I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don’t feel so bad
                                                                                                      -Sound of Music

If I’m feeling bored and I see something, I simply post about it, calling it my FAVORITE thing, and then I don’t feel so bad; thanks to an online platform and community which gives me the illusion of participation and production, I’ve relieved my anxiety of having to think and observe; my most basic, vapid observations about the world have been reinforced, requiring no further thought or care on my end.

                                                                                                      -Sensationalist 

I feel like there is a danger inherent to this type of linguistic sensationalism and the ways of thinking it engenders (or the thinking it doesn't permit), but I just spent 40 minutes at a Starbucks writing an angry blog post about this, so who's really basic now?

why indeed when I think about video games

google image search = photo essay

http://www.patient.co.uk/forums/discuss/marijuana-induced-hell-please-read-help--259358

productive

don't quite understand

RE: IIFYI

IIFYI

IIFYI - "If It Fits Your Interests"

Consuming low quality content on a topic related to your interests simply because it is related to your interests, regardless of its relatively low quality.

E.g. interested in fitness, health - watch useless videos of youtubing lifter bros talking about nothing - IIFYI

THE MAIN INTEREST IN LIFE AND WORK

Rux Martin: You arc most frequently termed "philosopher" but also
"historian," "structuralist," and "Marxist." The title of your chair
at the College de France is "Professor of the History of Systems
of Thought." What docs this mean?

Foucault: I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The
main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you
were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book
what you would say at the end, do you think that you would
have the courage to write it? What is true for writing and for a
love relationship is true also for life. The game is worthwhile
insofar as we don't know what will be the end.

THE GREATEST WEIGHT

"What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live it once more and innumerable times more: and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence — even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust! 

Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine." If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as your are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, "Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?" would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more reverently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?"

-Nietsche, The Gay Science, Section 341, pp. 273-4

A BURNING YES INSIDE THAT MAKES IT POSSIBLE TO SAY NO TO OTHER THINGS

what if you stopped reading, and instead, every time you wanted to read something, wrote it yourself?

to do

cultivate strong networks in family and friends
develop moral self discipline, focus, and wisdom; a healthy sense of self, focusing on self-development towards external contribution while being selfless and eliminating ego
invest in others' development; help others tap into their strengths, suspend judgement and listen, speaking only when necessary or beneficial, 
cultivate and spread feelings of joy and well-being, gratitude, and a sense of universality/connection with all others, a kind of spiritual development 
exercise, eat well, maintain good health
educate oneself on local/national/global history
educate oneself on current events, issues
in economics, politics, and national and global affairs; gender, race, and class inequalities, the environment, internet security and surveillance, media, technology and science in general, education, labour,
hone skills, hobbies, and "flow activities"; creative, hands on activities for expression and tactile aesthetic experience, as well as intellectual activities such as reading and writing;
experience music and art 
develop practical, employable skills to find meaningful work and build a career
in which a contribution is made
be technologically competent and learn new relevant skills
engage in public discourse in the service of others
tell everyone you love them

“We have to end apartheid and slow down the nuclear arms race, stop terrorism and world hunger. Ensure a strong national defence, prevent the spread of violence within central urban areas, work on the middle east settlement, prevent US military involvement overseas. We have to ensure that the US is respected as one of the world’s economic leaders. Now that’s not to belittle our domestic problems, which are equally important, if not more. Better and more affordable long -term care for the elderly , control and find the cure for the AIDS epidemic, clean up environmental damage from toxic waste and pollution, improve the quality of primary and secondary education, strengthen laws to crack down on crime and illegal drugs. We also have to ensure university education is affordable to everyone and protect the Medical Health Service for everyone plus conserve natural resources and areas of nature beauty and reduce the influence of political action committees.

But economically we’re still a mess. We have to find a way to hold down the inflation rate and reduce the national debt. We also need to provide training and jobs for the unemployed as well as protecting existing US jobs from unfair foreign imports. We have to make England and the rest of the US a leader in new technology and at the same time preserve our historical companies. We need to promote economic growth and business expansion and hold the line against income tax and hold down interest rates while promoting opportunities for small businesses and control mergers and big corporate takeovers.

We cannot ignore our social needs either. We have to stop people for abusing our welfare system, while still providing food and shelter for the homeless. We need to oppose racial discrimination and promote civil rights while also promoting equal rights for women but change abortion laws to protect the right to life yet still maintain women’s freedom of choice. We have to control the influx of illegal immigrants. We have to encourage a return to traditional moral values and curb graphic sex and violence on TV, in the movies, in popular music, everywhere, but allow freedom of choice to those above a consenting age. Most importantly we have to promote general social concerns and less materialism in young people.”
-B.E.E., Am. Psycho

"An open-ended question is one that does not lead and is appropriate when you want to engage another in a deep dialogue. True open ended questions have the following characteristics:

• They are focused on learning more about the individual, not about satisfying a need of the asker.
• They are asked neutrally, with no emotional charge, hidden suggestion, assumption or contradictory body language from the
  asker.
• They require some thought and reflection.
• They promote insight.
• They uncover opinions and feelings.
• They allow the question asker to be in control by
  steering the direction and depth of the conversation.
• They usually require more than a one or two word
  answer.

Closed questions can be answered quickly, usually without significant thought. Use them when you want a shorter conversation."

-Cheryl McMillan 

LISTEN NOW

I am afraid of everything
When you told me I was special,
it was the happiest moment for a long long time

AMOR FATI

“That one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity .... Not merely bear what is necessary ... but love it."

“I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful."

~Nietzsche

Can't you see

that I wanna beee wiith youuuuu

- Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow

"Ideas start here"