Appeal for Absurdity

Choose life, dear love,
Choose purpose, choose progress,
For the fallen of the past,
Shed silent tears that no man wipes.

I acknowledge, understand well, the frivolity of it all,
The triviality of it all,
Life is the two-faced Janus,
With neither façade truly being real.

But never forget that you are sidereal by nature,
The very components of your form are vestiges of stars,
With every heartbeat your lucent radiance shines forth,
You have been kissed by divinity.

Do not envy the dead, for their lot has been cast,
They covet the posts that you and I hold,
Never forget the miraculous, meticulous, ridiculous absurdity,
That brought us to this very point.

The Present & Its Melodrama

This year has been a “learning experience” on steroids. Perhaps its because I primed my mind for the last few years for immense advances in wisdom but regardless of the particulars, I have been in a torrent of growth, pain, and discomfort. As is evident in many of my recent posts, I have struggled recently with the notions of time, reality, and purpose, finding them all to be illusory and up for interpretation. This past week I may a huge leap in my inquiry into the nature of being.

Humans spend almost all of their time in hypothetical spaces. We are either going over past experiences (not purely hypothetical as they have already, but in the sense that many of us will replay the past through “what if’s”) or we are prepping for some future event. The realization I came to was simple: humans are unable to deal with the present.

Now, that isn’t that profound, many cultural idioms such as “live for today” and “carpe diem” urge us to focus our attentions on the present. We know that we should respect the past and be ready to embrace the future, but since you cannot control either, you must deal with what you can control….

Now.

However, how many of us actually control “the now”? How many of us, at this present moment in time can make a thing happen or not happen? Sure, many of us can make some things happen, but how many of us are in total control? For you especially recalcitrant minds, how does one measure some? A poor man can make food appear on a table, while a powerful man can make an entire country starve….

Many of us are in transition, life has thrown curve balls (that fell outside of our control) and now we are measured by our responses to such events (things we can control). The human condition (what I call the phenomenon of being alive) is about controlling one’s response to occurrences, because the preponderance of occurrences exist outside of our control. The only way for one to have a guiding hand in their future dealings is to curtail their present responses.

Once again none of this is new or profound.

Here’s what I’m driving at: I believe in a Supreme Intelligence, namely God, whose infinite omniscience understands every single variable at play in the present. The human condition exists as a complex probabilistic equation in which we cannot be concerned with concrete events, but the balancing of possibilities. Given the complex nature of a single human being, when looking at an aggregate, or society, one can see how that complexity is multiplied one billion fold. Thus, the convolution of life stops existing along a timeline and instead exists on a spectrum of possibility which can be measured by time.

This may seem like a silly philosophical contrivance to some, but for those that look at life through metaphysical or higher ordered lenses, this becomes a critical tool for understanding their life.

Living in the “now” generally becomes a discourse on fate versus choice, whether or not the decisions we make are governed by superior strata or whether we are forging our own destiny. However, given the fact that people die “before their time”, “defy the odds” and achieve some success, and all manner of existentially anomalous events, there must exist a better way of organizing one’s thoughts about how to live and make decisions.

No human being is in control of anything beyond their own responses to the world around them, we all share authorship of this world alongside the intangible and lesser understood forces that also govern existence. Therefore, to live in the present as a productive, moral free agent one would have to have a clear cut understanding of all the variables at play. There are hundreds of trillions of variables exercising their force on individual human conditions every moment, therefore the present is the quintessence of uncertainty, no matter how much planning or how many precautions one takes. It is this uncertainty, this probability wave, that allows for human evolution, because if there were a deployable system of activities which one could know and hedge against negative occurences, we would all ascend to a higher plane of existence.

Think about where you were three years ago. Fast forward to one year ago. Now fast forward to now. Did you see what I saw when I went through this exercise? Each selected timeframe gave way to many changes as I scrolled to the next timeframe, yet at the time I was making decision, I absolutely thought I was doing things the right way.

That is the human condition, one making the best decisions they can, even though they will inevitably change and evolve into superior choices as one gathers more and more resources.

Thus there is never a point in one’s life when they are “wasting time”. Goal setting is the anemic way we think about growing into the future; we set arbitrary time frames, usually based upon cultural normalities, and we go full bore into that idea until some future significant fork in the road. The notion that one can waste time or waste life is usually attributed to an unhealthy understanding of time, that illusional devil so many of us are attached to. The best goals in life need no time.

They only need understanding.

Understanding organizes time to fit one’s own narrative, it divorces the self from abject connections to “things”, and sets the mind at an equanimous level for all decisions to be made.

That is why strategists are so damn important to society. They see the present as a massive set of data, that may or may not be significant, with a clear purpose in mind, but with ample room for change.

The present is fluid. It is. When the present is organized through the lens of mental (or spiritual) understanding, all decisions made are growth choices: they will be uncertain, they will have many unknowable aspects, yet they will be profitable.

Take home: do not concern yourself with knowing every bit, you will not succeed. Do not conform to social convention which tells you to do this or that, unless you see profitability in it. The present cannot be understood, because it is a probabilistic equation spread across 7 billion people, which equates to supreme uncertainty. The way to reduce risk in such an environment is to only focus on your responses to your condition, take no concern about the “what-if’s”, focus only on what you believe to be your best response to what has occurred. Then, in the same mental track, realize that what you believe may not be correct; be comfortable with potentially being wrong and seeking out a better response. If you are spiritual, pray to God, who understands every passing moment with unmatched acuity. If you are not spiritual, keep your mind free of frivolity, search for clusters of unusual acitivity, and spend a lot of time in silence, thinking introspectively about the nascent possibilities of the world around you.

Listen to the voices that you cannot physically hear, much wisdom is locked away in your subconscious. Take note of the precarious balance between the visible and invisible worlds, take note of the vast interpretive differences from one human to another, and be thankful that little to none of this world is real. It is an immense theater, held together by the minds of its authors, and in this performance you can choose to be entranced by the imaginary drama or you can sidestep the pain and enjoy the entertainment for what it is.

bryce

The War Before

Life is taught sequentially, from the moment we have the cognitive ability, we are taught lessons about how things are: how to get things, how to progress. As life trucks along we learn, painfully might I add, that circumstances rarely happen the way we were taught. No, life enjoys its designation as a individually experienced phenomenon, it understands better than anybody else all of the discrete variables that make it a cauldron of chance.

I had a powerful epiphany the night before last; I realized that my passion in life is to win. The peculiar aspect about me is that I prefer to win without competing, I take after the master strategist Sun Tzu in my assertion that the best victories are fought without bloodshed. To me, standard competition is messy, it introduces variables to a system which can easily turn rogue. All of the sudden, underdogs come out on top and miracle stories are produced. These are eventualities that are often times unforeseen and quite infuriating if you find yourself on the wrong side of unexpectancy.

When I was 17, a young woman who had just met me, an infuriating little louse, ventured to call me a control freak. This was during a time in my life when any criticism pointed my way was met with fiery retort; I would never allow someone to believe they had the upper hand on me. I dwelled on her comment for years, for the most part I disagreed, but for some adroit thinkers who paid close attention to the last sentence, one can see where she was indeed correct. I have never been interested in the doings of others; as a child I was the little brother from heaven, I never read my sister’s diary or bothered her during a sleepover. I had much more important things to focus on: me.

I am a control freak, over myself.

Thus, I tend not to feel the need to compete. If I find myself doing something at which I am untalented, I will readily concede loss. If I find myself doing at which I am able, then I find no need to prove myself. Some of it is brazen arrogance, some of it is pure cowardice, as much as I enjoy winning, I abhor failing. My dad used to tell me as a kid that I enjoy ‘the paths of least resistance’ far too much and he was right. What he sometimes failed to realize is that I tended to take paths less resistant so that my artillery was tremendous in moments of high resistance.

As a person who likes to win, even by the most bloodless recourses, I am aware that I must compete. I am in constant competition whether I like it or not. Competing for resources is the very essence of manhood in most cultures. However, in a life that contains so many variables, so many potentialities, a young man who is not yet blessed with personal experience to get the right ‘finger feel’ often feels lost as he attempts to make his was. He is a bull in a china cabinet, breaking delicate things by his own ignorance and petulance and every decision he makes sets him down a path which he is hardly prepared for.

For young people, finding the resources to make their visions of the future actually occur is almost impossible. We may wish to grow into our middle adult years with health, wealth, and a litter of kiddies, but the decisions we make in and out of daily wars tend to make those visions obsolete. For those that run hot with emotional content, sometimes the urge to “blow off steam” or “take a moment to let go” are the very same moments that send us careening off of a ravine.

The gathering of resources is a tough racket.

Lets look at myself. I have visions of an Ivy League graduate school, so most of my days are spent strategizing on how to make up for the last 10 years of my life. My grades in undergraduate were okay, I chose a rigorous major, a mistake on my part. See my decision to entire the life sciences was occuring during one of the wars my family was enmeshed in. Money was always short and I figured I was a bright, young, black kid from a stable home, being a doctor would make perfect sense. Nothing else was really intriguing to me. I wasn’t incredibly good at math, so my childhood dreams of being an engineer were abandoned, every other job seemed purposeless. So, upon my arrival at Loyola Marymount’s summer orientation number 2 on June 17, 2006, I switched my major from Chemistry to Natural Science. I tested into Calculus 1. I hated every moment of my freshman year. My entire college experience felt like an out-of-body experience, I never really enjoyed things, I was a performer in some alien melodrama. I was making mistakes at an incredibly fast clip, I had isolated myself, I deplored my surroundings.

My grades and activity on campus reflected that.

I didn’t belong in this life I chose.

Eventually things straightened up, my grades came out alright, but I had lost nearly 5 years of my life thrashing around in my own puddles. Life is purely objective, therefore, it will allow second and third chances, and I have taken as many of those as I possibly can.

But, now as I try to gather resources for my lofty graduate aspirations, I find myself fighting a war for them!

Most of us prep for wars we will never fight and struggle in the wars we inadvertantly find ourselves trapped in.

We learn about everything under the sun, take precautions against future possibilities, and yet, all of those are within the hypothetical spaces of the mind. None of us are truly prepared for what lies in wait, thats like trying to remember something that has not occurred yet. Instead of focusing on the wars of tomorrow, we should damn well put our energies and efforts into the wars of today.

And we are all trapped in those wars. All of us are fighting, right now. Fighting for our relationships, fighting for our jobs, fighting for a space on the corporate ‘A’ team, fighting to find God in a world full of darkness.

Unfortunately, many of us will lose the wars we are fighting; we will either give in through apathy or we will simply be beaten into mediocrity by the pulls of social gravity. Since most of us measure our success against the success of others, directly or indirectly, many people will never achieve anything beyond the social average. To make matters worse, most people have no clue what they’re even fighting for anymore and that lack of purpose gives way to all manner of turpitude.

Who is going to win?

Better yet, what is everyone trying to win?

Who can even name the stakes anymore?

20 and 30 year olds, bruised an battered by the stark realities of a world rife with intangible wars. It is this ceaseless, unyielding warfare that makes us human. It is this very need for power, over one’s self or others, that effectively summarizes our dealings on this earth. Every word uttered, every action taken, is a play for or against power over one’s surroundings. Every moment you think that you are “just going to dinner” or “just studying for a test”, you are making a play for or against control of the world around you. And the people you have in your life, they are either for you or against you, if they are neutral then they are against you, just trying bringing a mannequin as your fifth in a game of pickup basketball.

This is a world of interpretation and every interpretation is making a play for power. Every action, every decision you make is of the utmost importance because it has echoes from here until eternity. You will have second chances to right the path you’re on, but that does not change the greater course of humanity you have already contributed to.

The War Before is about understanding that you are already in a game, whether you like playing or not. It is about understanding that you need plans for the future, yes, but it is much more important to understand, to the best of your ability, the moment.

The War Before is about understanding that if you are waiting for resources to come tomorrow, you are already losing the day and those types of losses tend to magnify over time. They build consecutively, until your entire mediocre life seems like a good decision.

The War Before isn’t about ambition. Truth be told, ambition is not all its cracked up to be. Ambition tends to blind us from making smart decisions now, it attaches itself unnaturally to the hopes of things to occur. No, The War Before is about living.

Many of you reading this now are already on a path to mediocrity, by choice. You have swallowed the lies lock, stock, and barrel. Many of you have been groomed into mediocre choices, you believe in the world around you’s concretion and you accept its fruits for what they are. Many of you will marry the man or the woman you think is right for you, you’ll convince yourself it’s God. You’ll continue at that okay job, it isn’t great, it isn’t terrible. You’ll be happy with that okay apartment because your credit is so-so. ANd you’ll teach your kids the same.

The War Before is too often forgotten because we don’t locate where the battles are to be fought. We think that surviving is thriving and those that do slightly understand mistake foolish ambition for battling. I know a few average millionaires that think they have the system beat. They’re just as average as my next door neighbors.

Many of you, especially the middled aged readers, will walk into your office Monday morning and see the guys or gals kicking ass at work. But you’ll wonder about their personal life, you heard they were cheating on their spouse or secretly their son is gay. You heard they’re embezzling funds or they have an unknown gambling problem. You’ll shake your head and wonder if its worth it. Then you’ll return to your work and count down the hours until you’re off.

bryce

Crisis

I hear one million voices,
Advising me on all manners of business.
I hear a million discrete opinions,
Representing the entire spectrum of choice.
I hear every eventuality and potentiality,
Every possiblity and plausibility.
I hear everything.
Yet I know nothing.

I am a man, plagued by the limits of limitlessness,
Broadening has brought nothing but narrowing,
Through the slits of tear soaked eyes,
I cry to the heavens for relief,
A belief that God will be noble thief,
And take away my duress.
I pray that my steps will be set alight,
And this endless night does indeed give way to morning.

I know what I should do,
But I’m more concerned with what I could do,
I’m constantly reminded of what others would do,
Or what they might do had they been I,
Or what the wise had done when they did try,
Or what the broken did do when they had tried,
Or what the Earth might do should the ground dry,
Or what the thinker might’ve doen had he asked why,
Or what my forefathers did when life did pry,
The very strength from their fingers,
I know what I could do had I had all time to linger,
But no, extant man, our days are numbered,
And everyday we are ceaselessly encumbered,
Enmired by the twin bogs of reality and desire,
We are inspired then retired to the catacombs of whats usual,
For the usual is the usurper of the unusual,
Life, the immortal usury,
Lending living at reprehensive prices,
The premium for procreating and permeating this earth,
Trying to produce production out of this permafrosted hearth.

I write this harrowed dirge and hope might and mirth emerge,
Because I feel quite plainly on the verge,
Of abrogating payment to my animated Deoxyribonucleaic,
This arrangement feels like an unending arraignment.

But the voices, they do whisper,
All manners of good and bad.
They tell me, “do this”, “no don’t do that”
“Live for the day” and “Plan for tomorrow”
“Forget not yesterday, lest you repeat your same sorrow”
If I might borrow, just for a single day,
A single piece of peace,
For at least one night’s sleep.

Paradise

Fingers intertwined,
I got my paramour on my mind,
Drifting on a dream.
How many times did it take for me to get here?
But I know I never want to leave.
A soul deeper than the ocean,
And I’m starting to get that notion,
That she may be the one.
How many times have I said that in the past?
But, really, she may be the One.

I’m caught up in a fantasy
I’m caught up in a rhapsody
The only things between my girl and me
Are joy and loving.
And while I’m lying next to she,
Enraptured in perpetual ecstasy
Ensconced in the beauty of her entity,
I know that I’m in Paradise…

She seems to know my every nuance,
And knows exactly what to do once,
My mood starts to change.
She’s in rhythm with my heartbeat
And every word this pretty girl speaks,
Is like marrow to my bones.
She’s ill
I spill
All my words towards her
Like a river thats bursts its banks.
I can’t
Fathom
Every being without her
So I give The Lord my thanks

bryce

Redacted

Removed from the memory
It’s better this way,
Block out the particulars,
There’s no use beating up one’s self

Remember that time at the boardwalk?
Well I don’t,
I don’t remember the way _________ petted that dog,
Or when ______ gazed at the ocean and said, “I will always ______ you”,

Overlords

What inclination is this?
That I may be deposed from mine own authority?
Over life, liberty, and property,
At the behest of violent men?

Where does my shelter come from?
In times of storm, when the pellets streak downwards thirsty for flesh?
What ever shall become of me?
At the behest of violent men?

The strongman is no mortal.
The strongman is no body.
No, dear traveler.
He is no body.

The oligarch is no flesh and blood that traipses about,
Spilling drinks or seeking after strange flesh.
No, dear traveler.
Those are mere caricatures.

What courses through our every veins,
Are the very reins that enrage and drive the violent man’s mare,
Is the the genetic makeup of every soul,
That whips them into a frenzy, until their flesh is bare.

The generals of this world are Ignominy and Cogent Flaw,
The are shadows and silhouettes behind our physical solids,
They make the base treasure and the treasure base,
They are Janus constantly turning, constantly saving face.

Our saving face, religion, agreement, justice, bereavement,
Are guided linearities posing as shelter,
Yet within their walls,
The same heat boils, and skins begin to swelter.

Feasting upon the flesh of the lambs,
These viceroys are cannibals.
They tell you that frivolity is okay,
And that comfort is survival.

It’s a revival of libel,
As the same men who thump Bibles,
Who should be held liable,
Feast upon sweet meats, while the masses eat carrion.

It’s a downright swearing in with clarion,
When the heralds of society,
Are those who are constantly marryin’
Lies with hungry eyes.

The strongman the strongman,
Overlord of nascent man.
His name is Acceptance,
And he resides in blatant lands.

bryce

Falling

Let us, star child,
Fall into the unknown together.
Let us, scion of Olympus,
Dive headlong into Eros’ cauldron.

Your hands in mine,
Soft kisses in between your lucent tresses,
Legs intertwined,
Body presses as I close my eyes with rapt wishes,

Let us fall into in the land devoid of ration,
Where satisfaction is found betwixt skipped heartbeats,
Let us lose ourselves in amorous fashion,
Where the crashin’ factions of ego melt away in passion’s heat.

Kingmakers: A Practical Guide to Strategy and Tactics

Few people have a grasp on strategy. What they do understand are plans, contingencies, and buffers, but none of these address the true cruxes of strategy. Moreoever, many people are tacticians, they can understand short term maneuvers because they generally require little timing investments. Many of us become master tacticians when putting out immediate fires, rent is due, the car broke down, you suddenly have to figure out how to do that project you forgot was due tomorrow. These pressing matters require the type of strategizing that most everyday people confuse with “strategy” as a whole. I’m going to give you a quick crash course on how to make both of these work for you.

There is one major obstacle to strategy: life. Life can be thought of as an aggregation of perceptions, after all, perception is indeed reality. Therefore, as one navigates through the ambiguous and ever changing waters of life, they find themselves fighting the quintessence of reality, other people, in order to get what they want or need. Strategy as a whole is the ability to see beyond the short choices and make long term preparations for the sake of a grand objective; most humans lack the fortitude, the nastiness, the diplomacy, or the subterfuge necessary to hone in on such goals.

No most of us are tossed and turned in the turbulent tides of everyday life.

We have children, jobs, and bills. We have dependents, creditors, and social norms. We have immediate wants and needs that are far more urgent and forceful than the dreams we have for 20 years.

So strategy very quickly gives way to what I call ‘short-cons’ or short terms plans made as concessions to a relentlessly demanding life.

Don’t misunderstand me, short term plans have their place in the order of life; there is no man that can go through his years without having to make maneuvers whose duration lasts only a few hours, days, or weeks. However, for those of whom subscribe to loftier goals in life, a strategic understanding of the world around them is imperative.

Humans are preprogrammed to congregate in majorities because there is predictability in numbers; there is cohesion in practices that are performed by more than just yourself. Therefore, many short term moves, tactics, are the eventualities of greater social underpinnings. For example, if you are in need of money, you will find yourself following widely understood paths, maybe you’ll YouTube Donald Trump’s real estate moves or get coerced into some multilevel marketing firm. Maybe you’ll go the understood nefarious route of drug dealing; these are all easily conceivable actions that one can take.

Tactics tend to be concrete, whereas strategy frequently flirts with the realms of ambiguity and possibility…

Thus strategic foresight is the capacity of an individual to straddle several long term tactical routes, while compressing and reconciling all the potentialities one may encounter along the way.

It is not so much the rejection of any particular concrete path, but the ability to organize these paths, then make educated models or scenarios about what may or may not happen. This modeling, over time, allows the strategist to spot trends and develop much more elegant paths that may have not been readily apparent before. The faster this occurs, the more powerful the results, the more dexterous that strategist is.

My life has been a unfolding genesis of accidental strategy and understandable tragedy. I was gifted not necessarily with excessive book smarts, but a certain intuition, a certain “finger-feel”, that made me perfect for strategic focuses. I understood power structures inherently, I knew where to strike and with whom an alliance was critical. I found myself non longer having to fight my battles alone, but backed up by unexpected mercenaries who respected my person. The funny thing is, I was always approaching things from the tactical standpoint. A concrete thinker, I was from a family who was always facing financial problems, whose bad habits I inherited, and whose knack for solving these monetary quagmires was always short termed and never a true solution.

Thus, these two parallel tracks became apparent to me: the perennial strategist and the emergency tactician, competing for cognitive supremacy.

In a world dominated by the mindsets of other human beings, the hardest aspect of strategy is the short term pain one must endure to see through to the end. Tactics are the mainstay of the masses because they deliver instant gratification, while strategy forces one to undergo the most astringent of crucibles. A bulletproof strategy will cost you friends, especially friends that hold concrete ideals like time and money supreme.

Time and money, are mere constructs to govern the behavior of humans, so what do I plan the game for? Power.

The goal of the adroit strategist is never time nor money, but power. Influence. Time can never be possessed and money is cheap, but the ability to have one’s ideals and needs met is timeless. This is why debt is such an incredible instrument in finance. Yes, securities are important, cash, stocks, bonds, and so forth are of the utmost necessity, but having someone else possess those while you hold the value is king. It is a strategy of psychological, financial, AND social banking, as opposed to something more unidimensional such as money.

When someone owes you something, you possess more power than you could possibly imagine.

But, like I said, that is a part of this game that few ever truly grasp.

You are currently a part of another person’s strategy whether you like it or not. Strategy is amorphous, it has no rules, no parameters, unless agreed upon by all the parties and even those rules are flexible. If one is a strategist worth his merit, he is capable of making moves on several perceptive levels and implementing unconventional tactics in the process.

Make no mistake, strategists WILL fail. I have my fair share of creditors, personal and professional, who are not happy with me. You WILL fail. You WILL piss people off and cause damage to your fragile networks.

What separates a strategist from a tactician is what they do in the storm. If he changes course to address the immediate needs, he is a tactician. If he honors his agreements by bullishly sticking to his previous claims, he’s probably a strategist with some tricks up his sleeve.

Strategy does not denote corruption or a lack of integrity. Strategists are not inherently con artists. But they are people whose chessboard is substantially larger than yours. Unless you choose to become an opponent, it is best to let their plans unfold; in the end every king has had an advisor make him immensely more powerful.

bryce

Paths For Understanding

Today I found myself on the business end of a gun. The gun was not physical, thankfully, but a metaphysical, cognitive instrument of war. At the edge of this gauntlet, on the very precipice of death, I found myself; woeful state indeed but this only began my capricious dance with extant danger. The more my eyes focused on the barrell, the harder I tried to find the origin of this weapon, the more I realized that there was no gun and transitively no shooter. There was nothing but my mind feverishly trying to make sense of a world which needs no sense to speak of; it runs based on its function. There is no destination, dear traveler, there is only the journey…. Bang.

I wish more of us knew that we were absolutely full of shit.

I have a literal burning need for every member of every society to throw down their arms and tell everyone else that they finally saw that they were full of shit. I wish that every parent would admit that they have no clue what they’re doing. Every teacher to admit they have no clue if what they’re teaching is true. That every leader of every country would admit that they had no idea how to lead a country or what leader a country even meant. I wish every neighbor would tell their next neighbor that they had no clue how to be a neighbor.

That every human would admit they had no clue how to be human.

I speak all of this as a self-acknowledged hypocrite. As someone who is barraged by the sea of variables exerting unrelenting force as any particular time, child development, current emotional status, education, perception of reality versus actuality, and so forth, I tend to posture myself as someone who is in control.

But I am totally out of control. I personally believe that we all are.

This world is flexible and inflexible all at once. It is a place where someone can be dead wrong and absolutely right over the course of a few minutes. Its a place where the only chief is perception and that perception is endlessly affecting by the innumerable variables that constitute a person. Yet, we make conjectures and concrete statements about things partly because we have to, our society needs rules and parameters and partly because we delude ourselves into believing we’re right. Those concrete statements become further variables which exert force and create eventualities that cannot be foreseen or predicted. It is a cycle that is clearly understandable but totally unmodelable.

The mind is an empire.

Dimensionless, formless. This empire is the eventuality of everything that you have been up until this point; yet you were only partially responsible for who you’ve become. None of us willed ourselves into existence, nor can any of us truly say that they willed the variables into incarnation.

This very existence is 100% abstract and 100% concrete, with the components this fluid duality falling over one another in an unintelligble, unpredictable waltz of existential uncertainty.

I have a mental exercise that I do on a daily basis: I scroll through my Facebook timeline and have mental debates with the people I see posting things. I look at their virtual lives in totality, then try to imagine what their rebuttals would be as I told them that everything they believed was as ephemeral as their very existence. Some people I know would be utterly receptive, while others would be downright militant in their assertion that what they believed to be right was right. I imagine the spectrum of responses that all point back to my ultimate stance on living:

It is meaningless.

Life needs no meaning. It is a self-refreshing wellspring; it derives purpose from itself. Life exists because life is in existence.

The metaphorical gun of which I speak at the beginning of this post was me dying yet again to any assertion I may have about anything being anything. I am venturing into the world of esoterica, so for those wholly concrete thinkers, I advise you to click the “x” at the top this page lest you be bored by the ravings of a philosopher. I have found myself completely devoid of entitlement to the right or wrong path and have begun wondering how anyone could even consider themselves a knower.

You don’t know how to make a business profitable, you don’t know how to make a marriage work. You don’t know how to be a good friend and you don’t know how to end a war.

We are performers.

We do have successful marriages, we do have successful businesses; we have magnificent friendships, and we negotiate through adroit diplomacy. But no system, no process can be taught! Perception is organic, not abstruse. It cannot be confined to protocol!

Life’s meaning cannot be described or known because life cannot be quantified or qualified, it cannot be relegated to the pages of a book. Humanity, extant expression — being alive — and all that comes with it can not be known or described. We cannot teach one another how to interact with one another; this is a realm of individuation and with that individuation comes discrete expressions of humanity. We cannot describe universal truths in this realm, we can only glean and extricate knowing by accessing the superior strata of the supernatural.

People need to admit this.

That we do not know and we will never reach that place, not on this earth.

Understanding is a journey, not a destination because the paths taken to a journey are endless while a single location mirrors the rigidity of a system. There is no “one place” that encompasses understanding, but is instead the accretion of knowledge along the way that bedecks the truth knower.

Life is life, something I have asserted for a few years now. It is nothing else, hard nor easy, long nor short. It is life. It is equally fair and unfair to all, thus it is not a respecter of persons. As a human traveling along your narrative, your life track, never lose sight of the fact that your believes mean nothing to the whole of life, but are wholly vital to you. That is the law of balance between cell and organism. The cell must be aware of its purpose, but its purpose is eclipsed by the total function of the cell. The laws that govern the individual
are contained within the laws that govern the universe, each must be respected and understood.

Most of us know nothing because we adhere blindly to the convictions, the laws, of ourselves and our small social spheres, without understanding the breadth of the whole. Even the most learned men filter their learning through the limited scopes of themselves, thus finding knowledge but never truly grasping understanding. Knowledge can be divided down to a place, while understanding, as aforementioned exists solely on the paths of life.

The majority of the earth is full of shit. They believe they are in control. They foolishly believe there is a right place or a right path that is self-evident and wholly pervasive with understanding.

The only way to begin to control one’s self is to see control for what it is, the willingness to let go of the foolish convictions that we can have control. You die to your previous ignorance as the gun of superior existence ends the suffering inherent to this delusion.

bryce