Patterns of Humanity

Time and The Fallacy of Human Experience

One of my many problems is that I have no deep inclinations towards this subject or that. I recently took one of those “brain tests” to see which hemisphere of my brain was dominant and the result was that I rely on both equally. Now, there is no scientific data backing the statements that “left-brained” people are more creative whereas “right-brained” people are more logical, however, there is a tendency in society for people to line up along these lines. We must always remember that science is evolving and changing, therefore, we may very well see these delineations come to mean something someday.

I digress.

My mind places no supreme importance or supreme interest on the rigidity of science or the fluidity of creativity, I rest more or less at some ambivalent equilibrium, taking deep gulps of both worlds as I see fit. Thus, I possess superficial knowledge in a slew of areas and rarely venture to try to understand in depth anything in particular.

With this reality, I tend to pull on all worlds when I make statements about the world around me. I will tug on the principles of time dilation and spacetime paradoxes as well as spiritual and metaphysical factors when describing such things as the human condition. I see these two worlds as one and the same, neither possessing any more credibility than the other. Any discrepancies we may believe to be nascent are nothing more than the current limits of understanding; we will some day find science and spirituality inexorably linked de profundis by some advanced discovery.

1984 hosted one of the greatest drafts in professional sports history. Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, and John Stockton, all picked within the first 16 choices, would all go on to become Hall of Famers. As we look back in retrospect, things seemed to be so obvious. Olajuwon had owned at the University of Houston; Jordan was the Naismith Player of the Year; Barkley had been dominant at Auburn; Stockton was one of the most heralded players at Gonzaga. Yet, Sam Bowie was chosen over Jordan, Barkley, and Stockton. Bowie would go on to be regarded as one of the biggest draft busts in history.

Kobe Bryant, perennial All-Star and 5 time NBA champion, was picked 13th in 1996.

What am I driving at? Bear with me.

Humans, in my humble opinion, are mostly speculative creatures. Even that statement, which is disgustingly speculative, is speculative. Speculation serves many purposes in the various contrived worlds of human interaction; in financial world it allows for arbitrage and liquidity, in philosophy it allows for freer thought and intense consideration. But speculation is an imprecise practice and even when someone considers themselves truly informed, the principles of reality make your observations nothing more than an educated guess.

As we interact with one another, we seek out patterns and parallels, then categorize these patterns per the frameworks of our cognition. Thus, in the world of professional sports, speculative observation looks for patterns in college (or international) players that mimic the successes of those that preceded them. When a pro scout comes to an NCAA game, he is looking for patterns of movement, demeanor, and professionalism thatlook like the specifications created by the culture of the NBA. These, however, are not 100% predictive, as any scout will tell you, however, they are used as if they were.

When dealing with one another, we must create these rules and standards of engagement or else we are only nominally communicating with one another. The human mind is set up to understand things often through associative thinking or comparing an unknown situation or set of variables to something known. Thus, as free as we would all love to be, a standardized model is the natural eventuality of consistent observation; we look for things that look similar to our model. Ergo, a hedge fund manager looks for arbitrage opportunities that look like his last great trade and the NBA scout looks for footwork similar to his last successful recruit.

To see this as reality is fallacy. It is nothing more than a contrived model that is comfortable to one person or another.

What happens when that pattern becomes increasingly agreed upon by a group? That fallacy becomes more and more tenuous and its instability increases. Its failures are more easily exploited because nothing is ever meant to be a strict, hard reality, but temporal suggestions. The world is a wildly evolving place, things happening organically and inorganically, patterns emerging then wickedly diverging, it renders normalization useless.

But, as aforementioned, creating normalized models is a natural tendency of conscious thought; its how we best work our way through life.

This paradox sets up, when approaching from another angle, the state of things in the world. It is why we have such rampant confusion, such bickering and infighting about this or that, because the models we come to agree with are generally ours and no one else’s. They may have many, many similarities, but inevitably two people will run across pervasive differences in their understanding. This problem increases exponentially with three people and becomes a veritable madhouse when looking at large groups, countries, or the global population en masse.

To look at patterns you feel the most comfortable with then cast interpolations is a functional way of thinking, but, you will find yourself at odds with those around you. Further problems arise when you consider the tendency to interpolate from within a particular paradigm. To cast “objective” opinions from within the belly of subjectivity is ludicrous; you are only miring yourself further within interpretation.

The fallacy of human experience is such a complex topic because the fallacy itself is comprised of dozens, maybe even hundreds, of smaller more proximal fallacies. Even at this very moment, you are either agreeing with or rejecting this post using a host of thoughts based upon your understanding and preferred patterns. My very construction of this post is based upon my understanding of patterns….

Begging the question, is there anything ever really known or are we merely speculative creatures, bound to conjecture, opinion, and interpolation?

bryce

The Enlightened Way: Detachment

The Fallacy of Human Experience

We are an obscure planet in an obscure solar system on a distal arm of a massive yet obscure galaxy in an infinitely expanding universe.

Lets take a moment to reflect deeply on that fact. Your life is indeed a rat race of obligations, expectations, and interactions, some of which are more contentious than others, but in the grand scheme of things, you are absolutely miniscule. You are a piece of a larger cosmic production and whether you believe in a Divine being or not, this production is governed by rules and principles that supersede any day to day obligation you may feel.

In my opinion, people spend far too much time obsessing over themselves and over the human experience in general. Its seems that people are consumed with propinquity; things that are close must be of greater importance, however, its this mindset that constantly drives our world to brink of destruction. We are imbalanced in our understanding of existence and this causes us to become disoriented.

I cannot diminish the importance of human variation in expressing life. I cannot say that it is always prudent or plausible for people to disregard their natural proclivities and simply gaze at the stars. There are those among us that are susceptible to emotion variation, others who are susceptible to devices of the mind, and others, yet, who fall prey to the destructions of idle hands. The list goes on and on. We are all fundamentally different beings who place priorities on however we have come to develop.

But, this does not mean that the evident chaos of our world is necessary. It may be natural; since we are so varied as entities it only makes sense that impasses and divergence lead to complexity and persistent discord, however, that naturalness does not necessitate existence. We can, through cultivated thought and a stillness of spirit, begin to forge a prototype of a world at peace.

My proposition, to all of those developed enough to cast away pointless ego, is to realize that you are insignificant. Your opinions, your developments, your convictions are intrinsically worthless. Yes, you may, through the vehicle of reality, exert force on the natural world, but a compulsion to do so is resolutely futile. I am not promoting nihilism either! Man should be freed be this notion. You may choose to focus intensely on yourself and create an illusion of significance, but to do so really causes no greater benefit.

The anger that we feel when we are slighted, the frustrations we feel when things don’t go our way, the sadness we feel upon unrequited love are all examples of how our experiences can obfuscate an enduring peace that is possible.

This philosophy may seem radical, but it is the same equanimity of mind that is promoted by the Christian and Hindu faiths. Christianity says to cast your cares on The Lord for He is in control. He is big and you are small. Ecclesiastes even says to make your words unto God few because He exists so high above you. His supreme holiness renders your specifics obsolete. Hindu, especially that taught within Kriya Yoga, see that life is cosmic production and we can either choose to consume the delusion, MAYA, or we can choose to step away from it and enjoy the drama ourselves.

If you have no spiritual pathway to speak or you are an atheist, this changes nothing. The sheer immensity of the universe, the fact that there are stellar objects billions and billions of times larger and brighter than our sun whose light we can see now was produced several hundred million years ago should inspire the same humbling awe that an adherent to faith has for God.

When I am honest with myself, I don’t care about race relations, human rights, animal rights, politics, religion, business, or the economy. Although I am a black, Christian, business owner who votes independent, these are all negligible in my contemplations of being alive. I take very, very few things personal, I hold no grudges, I harbor no obsessive thoughts about this or that. I spend time marveling at the wonders of being alive and the intricate processes necessary to bring me to every nascent moment.

Up until recently, I needed people to think like me and I wanted synchronicity of thought. My conception of Objective Truth meant that deviations or interpretations from some ineluctable concepts were useless and eventualities of flawed beings. While this may be the case, I have learned to step outside of the tempestuous dimensions of human affairs and consider things of superior strata. I am no yogi or sage, but a young man who values things that endure.

Momentary human expression is micro and subject to wild variations per the dynamics of those involved, yet the massive universe, the creation of the Supreme Being Himself rages on in every direction until infinitude. I can never see my oscillations, as real and proximal as they are to me, as anything of consequence. I may feel fear, feel anger, feel depression, but these are passing fancies and I am quickly resolved.

Infinite Balance

What you create will be your ultimate success and your ultimate demise.

My belief is that being human fundamentally pivots on the ability to create meaning, especially concerning abstract concepts. This ability to create meaning is revealed in a myriad of different processes ranging from the things you find important, the things that trigger certain behaviors, and the concepts you contemplate the most. As you develop cognitively, emotionally, physically and so on, the meanings you create will evolve into standardized or codified actions you feel are “right”. This rightness does not necessitate ethics or morals, but instead, an individual’s satisfaction in the trajectory of their behavior. Many coutner-culturists understand that their actions support no known moral standard, however, their focus is not on morality, but on some other behavioral modifier such as freedom or power. As long as they are free or they are gaining influence, they feel they are doing things right.

I often find myself wondering what I actually want out of life. I don’t wish to understand the world because its nothing more than a derivation of human nature held together by the forces of the universe (or Divine forces if you’re spiritual). I don’t toil to understand human nature because for what its worth I’ve figured out what I need to and I’ve grown rather effective at interacting. This doesn’t mean I’m not still learning, but simply it isn’t a focal point of mine. I only have a nominal interest in money and even less interest in the type of influence associated with greed.

This inability to find some quantified or qualified goal goes back to the meaning that I’ve for so long associated myself with: being right by associating with true, incorrigible concepts.

I believe that whatever you create, whatever you come to codify or standardize, not only sets the stage for your pièce de résistance but also the formula for your ultimate demise. The inertness I often feel while trying to understand what I want out of life stems directly from the fact that I’ve created a deep meaning in finding something that exists outside of life. It may be laudable for me to seek substantive existential, Objective Truth; however, that Truth does not exist on our dimension. Thus, I am rendered inept by my own devices.

Lets say that you build a software that completely revolutionizes the personal computing industry. You have an enduring belief that all people’s should be connected and your software provides a platform for social networks and messaging exchanges. You begin standardizing your thoughts on the matter, championing a more interconnected world where information is free for everyone and access is denied to no one. I can unabashedly guarantee you that your beliefs will signal the rise of those that value privacy and “moderation” of virtual communication. They will proclaim that face-to-face interaction is superior and the virtual identities paraded on social media sites are farcical. And so on.

This is a tenuous example, but I hope you understand the overall point. Whatever system you establish, you indirectly establish its demise. By creating the doors to your beliefs, you also create the backdoor to its failure.

As most information does not exist as a binary system, you aren’t generally creating one demise. You are creating a myriad of them. As you fall more and more in line with your created meaning, you are establishing a wake of anti-meanings which exert equal and opposite forces in your environment. They may no be problematic today, tomorrow, or even in your lifetime, but your tilling of the soil created fertile grounds for the wake of your opposition.

This observation is most prevalent in “wise” axioms, aphorisms, and quotes. Have you ever noticed that so much “wisdom” fundamentally opposes some other “wisdom”? Things like “be yourself” are contrasted with “learning how to follow directions” and others of that ilk. We tell a child to express themselves, but then scold them when that expression falls outside of what we want. The focus on one aphorism eventually gives rise to the need for its opposite or else society becomes overweight and imbalanced.

Thus, the cosmic battle for balance rages on…

If we are the summation of our thoughts and the world is a summation of us interacting, then by complex transitive principles, the world is also a summation of our thoughts. Our thoughts are the eventualities of us attempting to create meaning and our actions are us bringing that meaning into our shared reality; the intrinsic value of our beliefs approaches infinity, it is so valuable individually that is possesses no worthwhile value to the collective.

If I were to have to make a point and willingly don the robe of insanity, I would say that the world is doing exactly what its supposed to. If you are championing or obstructing this cause or that, you are doing exactly what you are supposed to. If you are killing or you are bringing to life, you are doing exactly what you are supposed to. If you possess overwhelming ambition or suffer from complete lack of motivation, you are doing exactly what you are supposed to. If you were born in poverty or you were born in paltriness, you entered this world exactly as you were supposed to.

Life is radically fair, it will even itself out by providing fertile grounds for your opposition to grow. Humans may be subjective, foolish creatures, but we do not control this world, we merely create it. Life in its ruthless pursuit of balance monitors and evens, irrespective of the inhabitants. Thus societies may come and go, empires may rise an fall, good men may perish and may wicked men endure, but this constant WILL persist.

bryce

We.

If you have me, you have all of me.
If you do not have me, you have none of me,
For that would be unfair to the she that longs for all of me.

If solemnly, become us the fallen We,
Then all of me will search for all of she,
That my love supposed you to be.

But if all of you returns to all of me,
Then you shall have me wholly,
For the All of Us completes the risen We,
And our love shall be blessed by the Holy.

Perception, Power, and The New World Order

Most people do not understand the game of power because they’ve spent the bulk of their lives as pawns in someone else’s stratagem. Although we have all made serious plays for influence at some point in our existence, a protracted pursuit of power seems foreign, insidious even. Power hunger is seen as megalomania and those mentalities are reserved for the Ho Chi Minh’s, Pol Pots, Idi Amin’s, and Adolf Hitler’s. No one aspires to be Napoleon; we may value his ingenuity and marvel at his military prowess, but the idea of donning anything Napoleonic is untenable to us.

And this is the place where most fail, for the realm of power, influence, and grand strategy is the fertile grounds for almost all human discourse. Strategy is first exhibited in the crib as a child attempts to get his or her way. It’s reinforced when we learn about religion, watching an all powerful God devise intricate plans to vindicate His beloved creatures. Its all but made concrete at school, navigating tricky social environments which are steeped in the principles of power and influential dynamics.

But we like viewing those from the lens of unconscious thought. A conscious consideration of power is novelty first, unsightly second.

The New World Order.

I have had the rare opportunity to view the human condition from a series of precarious, but invaluable vantage points. Upon graduation from college I wanted to start a business in an industry which actually mattered; I couldn’t bear the thought of toiling in some artificial industry which made a living but didn’t make a difference in terms of understanding or progressing this human existence. Sure, I could start a business in the music industry or set up some lucrative import-export organization and utilize the diversity of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, however, what do those even mean or matter?

I had spent years in college helping people through tricky, personal issues, learning about the intangibles and studying expressions of humanity through the ages. I looked from one culture to another, connecting dots, albeit subjectively, devising extant regression lines that illuminated in some places and created in others some value for this shared human process.

My intelligence lied more with interacting with people than it did manipulating inert concepts; I was gifted at understanding humans.

So, I made the rational decision to start an irrational business; one that buried deep into the infinitely soft science of human experience, encompassing psychology, sociology, specific behavior, economics, and other studies of intelligence. For months at a time I would study a particular realm, always connecting back to the greater human condition, and I would pour over every detail until that subject became a part of me. Being a business I had to make it make financial sense and this brought me to the subject of today’s post.

Humans are nothing and everything, setting the stage for the intractable world that we live in. We are what we believe and we are simultaneously what others believe. You may have your independent view of yourself, however, you are also affected by how others view you.

We are constantly competing for relevance, constantly fighting for some market share, and the result is we think up more and more ways to bombard each other. This bombardment is most of the time good intentioned! We are not attempting to destroy or consciously stunt one another and often quite the contrary; we wish to empower, embolden, and enliven our fellow denizens, just through the means and modes we are currently propagating.

As this “rat-race” ensues, the rest of life is also occurring; the other basic drives of human nature are ever present. We seek love, we seek acceptance, we seek purpose and meaning. We start families and begin creating our expanded “microcosm”. Yet, the volatility of the world around us doesn’t stop because our lives have become more complex; the world doesn’t give a shit about our added responsibility.

Complexity, another cardinal hallmark of humanity, is fertile ground for power and strategies for power. As each and every one of us undergoes the transformation from child to adult, our beliefs harden, our sense of time attenuates, and our need to give back to the world — universe even — increases. We will look to every single opportunity to take care of our wants, needs, and desires; this is the basis of strategy.

Power is the ability to make the things you want actually happen. Power is the ability to consciously retain autonomy over yourself and your environment. Controlling yourself is hard enough, what with all the emotions, impulses, and chance that surrounds life. Controlling your environment is next to impossible as all of the emotions, impulses, and chance of the involved persons interacting with one another render interactivity outrageously complex. Thus, those who wish to keep that relevance and increase that market share must do more and more to achieve these goals.

Some may be driven by perceived divine orders, others by accepted ethics or morals. Some may be fueled by selfishness or greed; devoid of any real ordinance, they wish to rule to make life as comfortable as possible for themselves and their progeny. Most folks are driven by derivations and combinations of these; they are believing on the God of their faith and working to make the world ethically correct via their perceived parameters and so forth.

Per the rules of causality, what ensues is a system of standardization and the inevitable rejection of standards, sterilization then the embracing of vitality, structure then the imminent deconstruction. As our lives interact and our propositions of right and wrong compete, we will cycle through periods of prevailing harmony (standardization) and prevailing discord (rejection or restructuring of standard). The reasons for these cycles would require thousands of pages, but simply stated, human development is only partially predictable, thus divergences are inevitable. One group feels accepted while another is marginalized, the marginalized group fights for equality and the balances shift. That process continues ad infinitum.

The irony is that power does not change at any point in the process. Power is an implant of objectivity in our subjective world — we may view it according to our interpretations, but it remains constant as we ebb and flow.

You are currently making plays for power, attempting to get your ideas out there, attempting to reconcile the lost masses to God, to get that man or woman to notice you, trying to decrease inequality (wage, sexual orientation, race, etc), or trying to get your children to understand why they shouldn’t go to that party this weekend. Afflicted by abject cognitive biases, few people see their plays for power as congruent to the infinitely more complex plays which occur at the highest levels of society. We believe that our elected officials somehow undergo a supernatural process which relieves them of these fundamental human shortcomings. How the opposite prevails! The people that ascend to the zeniths of our society are the most obstructed by power plays and various intrigues! Where the grassroots citizen must only be concerned about themselves and theirs, these officials must balance constituency with personal belief. In a monarchy or some parliamentary system, the same rules pervade; power becomes orders of magnitude trickier.

If there is a New World Order, Illuminati, or elitist cabal pulling shadow strings behind our society, it is no different than your intrigues in the office space. Morals, ethics, and what have you are intensely subjective, and what you deem appropriate (which is a part of power, by the way) means nothing to what another deems appropriate. Any effort to consolidate the governments of the world is no more invidious than your efforts to streamline your company’s organizational flow or combine marketing with technology.

Now, I have my opinions on super secret ruling classes and by no means am I condoning such groups or actions, but I am pointing to the all pervasive faculties of power. To denigrate the actions of others, while failing to see the intrigues of one’s own doing is the true issue of humanity. We consciously condemn others, while doing the same things as those others.

Others might say, “look at the results, they are different”, to which I say, are they really? You may think that you championing for the “rights” of this group or that result in some other harmonious collective, but I would be hard-pressed to accept that. Mind you, I believe wholeheartedly in equal rights for all men, I am not taking about concepts, only actions. The actions we take to promulgate our beliefs, our plays for power, our “necessary evils”, our “collateral damage” are absolutely no different than the people we revile at the top of the social food chain. We are burning the world around us with our terrible blindness, we are hopelessly destroying the earth with our back and forth shift from standardization to rebellion and we are ALL a part of the process. Whether a megalomanic, mother, or moonlighter for social progress, intrigues are intrigues.

I simply ask that you think deeply about your positions and actions.

bryce

Pop Culture: The Natural Result of a World Divided

“It is a great folly to hope that other men will harmonize with us; I have never hoped this. I have always regarded each man as an independent individual, whom I endeavored to understand with all his peculiarities, but from whom I desired no further sympathy. In this way have I been enabled to converse with every man, and thus alone is produced the knowledge of various characters and the dexterity necessary for the conduct of life.”

—JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
(quote taken from Robert Green’s latest book, Mastery.

The cardinal definition of being a human is the ability to create meaning, especially to abstract concepts. This reality sets up the beauty and the horrors of life on this planet; on the one hand we can live abundantly and create great things, on the other we forsake any hope of establishing lasting harmony, tethered instead to our own perceptive faculties.

Life, from the human condition, is then antithetical to itself; its structure allows for infinite dimension within finitude.

This seemingly abstruse concept is really more simple than it seems; it is a paradox that confronts all of us on a daily basis. We each have questioned how or why someone could think their behavior is acceptable; we see their actions as disjointed, inefficient, or just plain wrong and cannot fathom the logic they employed to make that decision. We become “judgmental” and may even appropriate a superiority complex as we align more and more with our ways of doing things.

In that moment we are the quintessence of human existence, aligning with our created meaning more than the created meaning of someone else’s. The incongruence between our ways and another’s ways annoy and frustrate us and the actions we take from that moment ultimately perpetuate the human condition.

This is the world that we live in: billions of independent systems of variables (individual humans) who go in and out of harmony with one another at various levels and various times.

For example, lets say there are two people who share the same religious beliefs, but differ on political and economic levels. They both share the Christian faith, but one holds beliefs that we are all responsible for one another and thus leans politically left, while the other values hard work and individual responsibility and leans politically right. Their economic views undergo similar divergences. Thus, they may worship and be in harmony on Sunday, however, their individual interpretations of how life should be conducted bar them from any long lasting equilibrium.

Now this is a prosaic example that includes many assumptions, but I hope you get the point thus far. Humans, with the ability to reason any way they please can create meaning(s) that change the dynamics between them and their environment.

Do you see why the world is as divided as it is?

What I have began to instill in myself and what I hope to pass on to my readership is the ability to step outside one’s self and view the world from a place of disconnection. This is a technique well developed by many Buddhist, Hindu, and even Christian schools of thought. Once one gets in this practice of quasi-objective modeling, they can then recalibrate their interpretations and opinions to reflect a system of thinking which transcends their own comfort zones.

There is no absolute observation anyone can make about humans as a whole therefore incalculable variability exists within our species. With this variation approaching the realm of infinitude, how can anyone delude themselves into thinking what they believe to be of any greater importance than the next person?

Sometimes I wonder if there is actually anything to “know”. In a life where anything can truly be anything and I can justifiably believe anything, what purpose is anything? Outside of the hard sciences, which have endless variations and positions in and of themselves, everything is subject to interpretation. Lost within these deep considerations I again see why the world is organized as it is…

Most people just say, “fuck it” and go after whatever it is that they want. They set aside foolish philosophy and stick to the basics of human expressions. They believe what they believe, even if that belief is nothing, and simply go forth. What comes about is an earth deeply divided with no way of reconciling this division; no one cares because no two people hold the same interpretations. Those that do find kindred spirits exist in a pocket of harmony, but outside of that bubble discord and contrivance abound.

I laugh at popular culture because its very name contradicts most people’s feelings on it. Popularity is another dualistic system, although most people want it, it is also seen as something almost pejorative. Popularity comes with a certain connotation that drips with superficiality and frivolity. Pop music lacks any real substance; its content is meant to temporarily anesthetize one from the frustrations unique to the human experience. Other “popular” categories are just as abject. Gossip magazines and even other more credible publications are nothing more than sugary items and cognitive fatty foods. Yet, the very name describes the category as liked by a myriad of people!

Why, because superficiality is about all we have in common with one another. Looking at basic things, without any need for conscious thought or spiritual consideration is about the peak of commonality we share with one another without wild divergence. The grooves, rhythms, and basic lyrics while unbearable to many of us, are in actuality the extant expressions of basic human commonality.

Hence why most of us can’t stand it, yet, may find ourselves bobbing our heads or even worse, knowing the lyrics to songs that are deplorable.

The lack of meaning as found (or should I say not found) in things that are popular go back to the fundamental characteristic of being a human, the ability to create meaning. What is left is a stultified medium, an etiolated category of thought, which actually opposes what it means to be alive.

These may not even be conscious machinations, I can’t say whether someone is pulling strings behind the scenes in a malicious attempt to make us mindless zombies, but I understand the lucrative nature of it. It is easier to make money off people existing more or less in stunted states of ineptitude, than to carry on with a world which provides fertile ground for infinite variability. This, of course, ostensibly leads to conversations about the Illuminati, mind control, and other related topics. Irrespective of whether the Illuminati exists, I understand the nature of the world. If they are truly insidious scions of dark powers manipulating the scene, I follow the logic. If there is no one, I understand the eventuality.

Here’s my take home: understand the positions of all things around you, assemble a cogent model of the world around you by understanding the world around you. Create meanings after and only after you’ve created the means by which you filter information. See your thoughts as unnecessarily subjective and understand that your subjectivity is part of the problem. You are not the answer. From there you will begin to see why the world is in constant disarray. From this standpoint you will observe the earth as a confluence of 7 billion independent systems of interpretation.

What you choose to do after this is up to you, but I would wager that most will become frustrated by this methodology and revert back to whatever ways feel comfortable. You’ll fail to separate objectivity from subjectivity and you’ll persist in your limited state of cognition, wondering why the world is the way that it is. Your “solutions” will be shortsighted and painfully inept and you’ll teach your children or subordinates the same inefficiencies that brought you to that discrete moment. That’s life.

bryce

Nicki Minaj’s “Lookin Ass Nigga”

If you haven’t heard the song discussed in this post here it is

Let me start out this post by reminding my readers that I tend to follow very contrarian thought paths, My ultimate objective isn’t to post any particular “point” aside from my philosophical beliefs, but to inspire thinking which falls outside of traditional convention AND the supposed “unconventional” thinking so widely purported across the internet.

Nicki Minaj released a new song this week, Lookin Ass Nigga and although the song itself is a hotbed of cultural issues, the biggest gripes across the Net is her choice of artwork: an image of Malcolm X taken for Ebony in 1964 (see below).

Now, as Twitterers rile up in typical myopic fashion proclaiming the abuse of Minaj’s usage of the picture, one should start seeing the genius behind mainstream media. I actually did not know about the song until today because a few of my friends were outraged about her excessive usage of the word “nigga”, the invidious lyrical content, and, of course, the controversial cover art. The mainstream machine is brilliant simply because it, just like the “system” it serves, is a natural eventuality of flawed human nature. If something was truly as horrendous as the outraged paint it to be, it would be quickly sequestered and avoided; or people would be bored by the typical marketing antics and allow it to die quietly in obscurity, much like Kreayshawn’s ill-fated album.

But lets get to the content.

I am not a fan of Nicki Minaj. She is an extremely beautiful woman with a delivery that rivals any rapper of the last 20 years; however, the fact that her career has necessitated the usage of gimmicks and shock value diminishes her stock in my eyes.

This song touches on a myriad of subjects, a couple of which I’d like to touch on.

Lookin Ass Nigga is a 3 minute diatribe about phony (and presumably black) men that dominate society. These men are indeed everywhere; they’re at the grocery store, on the internet, and probably playing basketball on a park court near you. They’re all over Instagram with pictures of shoes, club scenes, and Internet memes which oppose their status as phony. They are walking caricatures; delusional individuals who swear they despise the very same men they in actuality are. These denizens of urban culture are the definitions of insanity…

However, the preponderance of these fools is complicated by all of the social issues surrounding black culture in America; systematic oppression, removal of identity, social inequality amongst others.

With that stated, most of you know my stance on these cultural, socioeconomic, and other current issues. I for the most part choose to shirk the idiocy of human condition and focus more on the nature of man. Thus, I tend to see myself as a HUMAN first and worry about my ethnic makeup later. I am proud to be black, however, I am not defined by any condition aside of my being a human first. I am a Christian, a graduate of Loyola Marymount, a musician, a business owner, a political independent, a man over 6 feet, a person of Jamaican ancestry, a mystic, a philosopher and so forth. This mode of thinking has allotted me success that is antithetical to the problems faced by most black men. I didn’t experience racism at my predominantly white school. I have gotten hired at every job or internship I’ve applied to. Although I am very much black, I create an internal environment of equality and equity which is reciprocated in my external environment. I literally create my reality ala James Allen.

BUT, I understand that I must come back to earth from time to time and address these issues that confront our society at large.

I ain’t gotta check for y’all
But if I’ma check for y’all, I’ma need a check from y’all niggas

I get what she means. Trust me, I understand. However, first irony I see here is something my best friend brings to my attention frequently; this notion that many (NOT ALL) women carry that a man is supposed to be “doing things” for them, however, most of them are just as “worthless” as these men they claim to disdain.

Over the years the truly virtuous, worthwhile women I’ve known never actually consider what a man can “do” for them outside of basic security as a family. The are judicious about their choices in the macro sense, however, they are just as likely to want to work together with a man. That every human has some intrinsic value is widely understood, but it is absolutely obvious that value increases exponentially when a man and woman can come together and build something greater than the sum of their parts. (Emergence, Gestalt psychology, Synergy etc)

There is also disturbing turbidity surrounding the belief that a woman should be “independent”. In one breath you’ll hear an individual declare how independent she is, followed shortly by a statement in which a man should provide something for her. My stance is unwavering: I, Bryce Brown, am not independent have no wish for this style of independence and admit that I am strongly dependent on the woman I am involved with. I provide for her while she provides for me. Total Reciprocity What those provisions are (financial, emotional, spiritual, inspirational et al), for me at least, are irrelevant. As an entrepreneur there have been times when my finances were in utter disarray. I have emotionally down. I have been spiritually down. My significant other should be the individual I can count on in these moments.

Women of high caliber see the ambition and the character which leads them to support a man unconditionally.

Which leads to my next point regarding this song. The type of man addressed in this song have what I call hollow ambition; the type of veneered drive that looks good when the cameras are around, but he truly lacks the character fiber necessary to really be about something. From this angle, I completely support this song. I see these guys everyday. Hell, I teach kids that I have a terrible feeling will become these guys one day. From this perspective, I completely understand the misanthropic woman who denounces the slothfulness and the phoniness these men put forth. Regardless of color, there are men who just don’t seem to get it and the become leeches to women who actually have their best interest in mind.

These men are absolute cancers to society. Deplorable creatures through and through. I can’t bring myself to hate anyone, but I dislike them to a frenetic degree. They make my life harder as they systematically erode the integrity of men everywhere.

My final thought is to the women. Just like I tell my students, make sure your shit is in order before you start vehemently cosigning on songs like this. Many of y’all are just as ain’t shit as the men you are haranguing, but you can’t see the truth due to your own cognitive biases. We live in a society where having a degree and talking the part just doesn’t cut it anymore. The bar is being continually set higher and higher. The character of these men is being called into question, but how is your character? Are you actually about something? Are you authentic or genuine or are you the type of girl with a $1,200 Louis V bag hoping to have a drink bought for her because you don’t have enough in your account? Are you an actual support system or do you harbor fruitless energy? Are you driven by things that are of substance? Are you a conduit for inflective thought? Or are you just another carbon copy tape recording who is a pain to be around?

In conclusion, urban culture tends to call simple people basic, the word I prefer is prosaic. I feel that Minaj used Malcolm X as an archetype of a man who was ABOUT HIS SHIT. Literally until his death. But as the upset internet avatars go, leave it to these prosaic minds to proffer up inchoate, foolish responses in the name of “unconvention”. Leave it to these same silly people to discuss this song without any truth reflective thought. This song touches on so many things; Minaj brought a rather panoptic view of a class of classless cretins who prefer to look the part rather than act it. Call them lazy, call them ignorant, call them whatever you like, they are out there in full force.

Songs like this continually act as mirrors which betray who we really are. You can get upset about everything surrounding this song, but it does not take away from the fact that we have some deep, deep issues. I have my methods which have worked for me, but the only place we can begin as a society is with ourselves. Make sure you are who you swear yourself to be or else you’re just as phony as the individuals spotlighted in this song.

bryce

Variations on Conformity

If I derided or chided every single person
I reckoned a follower,
I’d be proclaiming vitriol from here
Until the end of ages.

No man is the eventuality of his own making,
But instead is the probability that some staking
Was made by external stimuli,
Like Gemini, he is the constitution of multiple forms.

Social trends seem to upend the purity of discrete decision,
But man, oh this dependent creature, needs his acceptance,
Consummate duality, he must express himself and still be welcomed,
By the open arms of his chosen kinsmen.

He dances upon the precipice of insanity,
This dually driven being who expressed multiple selves,
He shelves his independence for a pennant that says ‘equal’,
Better yet, let him don a pendant that says ‘leader’.

Penchant for forerunning, a man needs his populace,
How else could he populate his ideals?
Copulate his feels and cause chills in the dermis of compatriots?
Expatriates are not martyrs.

Martyrs are those duly accepted by ones and rejected by others,
So followers are the archetypal heroes,
Embraced by the masses the social accounts rife with zeros,
The only way to successfully be different is to play with being the same.

Valentine

There aren’t enough trumpets for me to play
My sweet song of desire upon;
I won’t be made a liar anon,
These instruments fail me in my time of need.

This time I’m freed,
Liberated by the words she speaks,
Every time she peaks,
I feel as though I’ve somehow touched the heavens summit.

Her name, I will hum it, sing it, bring it,
To the masses as a token of how I once was broken,
Yet, mended I stand before them unbended,
Because I befriended this daughter of heaven.

Let my voice rise like leaven,
So that I may proclaim her name, Angel,
Winged messenger from the throne room of the Almighty,
Rightly, I’m so glad you find me, acceptable;

To bear your love and to bear your cross,
It once seemed that our love was star-crossed,
And we almost crossed out each other’s name,
I’m so happy such a shame wasn’t claimed,

Since I would’ve been to blame,
Yet, we inevitably remained, persisted, and refrained,
From retreat and so my treat is the purest of delicacies.
Thank you for the gift of you and me.

Man, Life, Delusion

We are all ultimately creatures partaking in a shared delusion.
The illusion of change seduces us as moments pass,
We fold inward upon our egoic perceptions
And hold conceptions of life that have no true basis.

This nature, this man, it does not change;
It merely reconfigures itself tangible expressions,
Makes the current model believe he is nigh to progression,
That his 80 year session is somehow different.

How infectious is this cosmic production;
What is meant to be the passing fancy of sensory dances,
Is the lynchpin of so many consciousnesses.
They are consumed by it, consumed by themselves,
This shared delusion that makes heavens out of hell;
How man wallows in its tepidity.

Such a quiddity, this interactive realm.
For a woman proclaims that she is in transition,
But is your destination any more noble than your origin?
Will you remain there any longer, will your eyes be any clearer?

I am nothing and I am everything.
Passing through this life as a free radical.
I seek God in His highest,
And I leave the affairs of man to them.

This shared delusion; this pasquinade of suggestion;
It traps many a thinker as he colludes to make it better this place,
He swears that he can make heads of tails of this place,
Yet his face, constantly shifts, he is the proverbial Janus,
The benchmark of man.
Constantly changing face, but never facing facts,
That he is the only moving part;
And his nature is still.