I've Been Thinking

I've been thinking. I spend a lot of time defending the lifestyle I'd like to live. I think this defense serves two purposes. First, it gives me an excuse to avoid going out and living it, if I feel like I have to convince the entire world that what I'm doing is right before I can actually do it - and talking about it isn't as scary as doing it. Second, I feel like if the entire world did become convinced then it would be a lot easier for me to do it, if I had the entire world's blessings. But that's an unrealistic expectation. I will never be loved by everyone. There will never be a time when there aren't people who think what I'm doing is wrong. And they could be right, or they could be wrong, it doesn't matter a whole lot - because I've just gotta go out and do it. And find out for myself. Life is full of risks - that's inevitable. But if you don't take any, you won't get anywhere. If I have to wait until I'm absolutely certain before I jump, then I will never make it across the gap. I've just got to jump. To hell with all the what-ifs.

Talk About Really Fucking Stupid

I had a "blonde" moment while sleeping, that very nearly became a nightmarish trauma. I remember dreaming; I was dreaming successfully, and although I don't know if I had the power to control the dream, I somehow sensed that I was dreaming. It felt kind of like I was in one of those half dream states, where I'm drifting off to sleep, and I can sense the dream occurring, because I'm not fully absorbed in the dream, and it's like I still have some control over my consciousness. I had a sense that I was still falling asleep, from first getting into bed, but when I finally awoke just a few moments later, it was over two and a half hours since I had gone to bed, and I know I wasn't lying awake for that long before drifting off to sleep. (oh noes, missing time!)

So anyway, I kind of felt the one dream coming to a conclusion, and I thought about what to dream about next. And here's where I did something extremely stupid, though I had no indication of how stupid it was until I fully regained consciousness a moment later. I thought to myself, I wonder if I could recreate a "Paranormal Activity" style home tape experience through my dreaming world, but with an "alien abduction" theme.

Really stupid, right? You know how you can tell that it's really stupid? Because it's really obviously fucking stupid! But that "check" part of my consciousness didn't seem to be functioning at the time. So off I went, starting to imagine myself in a home movie, wondering if I could will myself to have an alien abduction type experience - staged for the camera of course, but reality and fake tend to blur together when it's a dream! And you know how this is worse than seeing a movie of this happening? It's a dream, so I'm not watching it happen, I'm actually there!

So...lucky for me, in the "tape", I wasn't alone, but in a crowded room. Still, it's little consolation when I start to feel "sleep paralysis" start to kick in. I feel like I'm lying on a table, and suddenly, I can't move at all, as much as I try. And this is where I know it's coming. But it's not really fun anymore; I'm terrified. I try to scream, to get this crowded room to notice what's happening, so they can do something to help me, to stand between me and the terror - but my voice won't come out. Oh fuck.

I finally start thinking to myself, this is a really fucking stupid idea, and to my relief, I am released. I wake up. The weird thing is, I don't feel like this experience "just happened", I feel like I willed it to happen, at least with my dream consciousness. But do you know what would have been much worse? If I hadn't willed it. If it caught me by surprise. If I hadn't seen it coming. Maybe then I wouldn't have been able to stop it before it got really bad.

So here I am, awake, crisis averted, and I just want to go back to sleep. But now that I'm thinking about the nightmare, I can't shake it off. And me, with my hopeless curiosity, can't help letting my mind wander to what that experience could have been like. Intellectually, it's fascinating. But it kind of chills the blood, so it's not really an avenue I want to explore. But I can't control my wandering mind, so the best thing I can do is take a break from trying to sleep and write down my experience, so I can share it in the morning...

And now, the question is, can I return to a gentle, non-tormented, sleep?

Censorship Reaches New Lows

I'm getting used to the censorship of Family Guy on the local TV station - not that I like it. There are lots of wandering clouds of pixelation - oddly, usually covering up bare bums (cartoon bums are hardly offensive). But today, there was a scene that I remember involves Peter Griffin squeezing some woman's boob. But that part of it was replaced with a title card - a black screen with a dictionary definition for "vulgar" ("lacking sophistication or good taste") in a funny font, with circus music in the background. I agree, the scene is vulgar, but this all just begs the question: if they don't like the show's humor, then why are they airing it? There's this arrogant sense of entitlement, like they can say, oh we like this show, but we're going to change it however we want in order to impose our own personal morals on the people watching it. And as an artist and an anti-censorship activist, that enrages me.

A Note on Voting

Voting only works if you're in the majority, and then you don't need representatives, because you've got the advantage of numbers. Democracy is a system constructed to suit the whims of the majority. The idea is, "let's make a system where whatever the most people want, is what everyone gets". The only purpose that voting serves is to survey the public and found out what the majority wants. If you're a Democrat or a Republican, there's a point to voting, because the majority has shifted back and forth over the years, and it's the way to find out whether or not you're in the majority. If you're not a Democrat or a Republican, or if you're like me, and you know that your political views are in the minority, then voting is pointless. The idea that every citizen has a duty to vote is based on a presumption that every citizen believes in democracy, and a misguided belief that voting is some kind of mystical process by which a person testifies his needs and desires to the state. If you're not in the majority, the state is not going to listen to your views in a vote - there are other, effective, ways to have your voice heard. And if you don't support democracy, then don't support democracy. Abstain from voting.