Why was sending monkeys into space ok

The peace lily has a flower

Hey today is 1/20/2020, if only we had 20 months in a year, I’d finally get around to finishing my memoirs. I’ll tell you a little about my day, I went to the grocery store and then drove through downtown and felt ancient. There were kids everywhere, I couldn’t figure out what was happening and then I remembered today was a holiday. I also made a joke that I’m not really comfortable publicly telling, but I have to say screw it because if I don’t write this as if it’s only to myself, then there’s no point. I did some work for this artist friend Lee today and he paid me for it, the joke was I haven’t been paid for my labor in 7 year. It makes me feel bad because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about respecting myself, part of that would be accepting money for my work. I kept trying to tell him he doesn’t need to pay me, but I’m trying to rejoin society I think working is probably part of society. Actually I still don’t know if I want to join society because here is the trade off, the more one fits in to societal norms, the more of their personal originality has to be given up. I think I can join society to a larger extent because the opposite argument is that you can’t do anything if you’re wanting complete freedom. In order to make the types of paintings that I want to, I am restricted by techniques, colors, and subjects. That complete freedom crap is just a backdoor into nihilism and that’s what I’m running from. It’s like a bad relationship because nihilism keeps hurting me and I still like it and think it’s cool. I want to embrace the infinite, but I know it destroys me. Another parallel to dating a bad person is that I think I can tame it. Other people just haven’t been strong enough to stare into the infinite long enough to see its secrets. I don’t think there are secrets though, just nothingness and that’s what you become when you have too much freedom.

Two things I’ve been listening to lately are Jordan Peterson and Eminem

I like this logo

I love you morning pages, but you are an illusive beast. Everyday I have to pray the muses are gracious enough to visit me so I’m not left empty handed. I don’t really ever plan on looking back at my morning pages, though I do like the concept of seeing what I was thinking this time a year ago. I’ve done it once or twice before and actually use the hashtag for books whenever I want to separate writing to be reviewed some day. I think I will look at last year to see what I wrote on this day. I was still fairly new to the morning pages at that point and would sometimes go up to five days without writing, so it’s possible I didn’t write anything exactly a year ago. I’ll report back in the next paragraph.

That was a lot of fun, so to sum up the writing my wife and I had recently got back from our vacation in Jamaica. We thought we’d be smart and escape to a warm place during the winter, but we came back and got sick from the temperature shifts. This time last year I was feeling better and had done the first day of a painting workshop about painting the outdoors. I painted some trees that turned out alright, but noticed that I take on challenges that are too big. The next day I remembered doing a painting that was much simpler, but I’m really happy with how it came out. Let’s hope that lesson is learned. Also this time last year my wife was on call, I feel like that’s a little joke between us.Today I primed some panels for a painting class I’ll have in February. Some things never change, at least I didn’t get sick. Fingers crossed. During this time last year I was writing mantras to myself. There are three that I had written five times each.

  • I am who I want to be
  • I have decided that I’m good enough
  • If I fail, I fail forward

To the dreams you’ve been waiting for

Would AI want to live forever?

Welcome back Chris, we’ve been waiting for you. Tell us more of your secrets. I need a compelling story and the only way you’ll be a good character is to have more depth. Then you’ll be replaced with a robot version… nah this whole line of thought is trash. I liked the idea of my morning pages welcoming me, but what could be the motivation of them, they’re a machine and if they did want to clone me, it’d be a waste of time because they’ll only have data of my past. People could say, “That’s how deep learning works” and sure for simple things, but real AI would need an introspection. I wonder if giving a program a death date could cause sentience to emerge. I can’t decide if the robots would have a known assigned date or it would be random. If it is random, then then it’s a bit like real life, they wouldn’t know they’re going to die. Here’s the thing in the end that a clone can only be like me until that moment they were cloned, once we separate, they’ll be thinking about my memories through the lens of the life they go on to live and my lens will continue to be reforged by my future. This is why I say every night I die when I go to sleep, every morning a new person is born. They may have one more memory than I had and they may have one less, but I simple woke up and have to choose what to do with the time. It’s a miracle that we can do any planning for a future self that we’ll never get to be instead of rotting away by instinctual actions. Sheesh that was a lot deeper than I thought I was gonna get having a conversation with my journal. This is why I can’t have simple things.

Day of Recognizing

One of my drawings from last night

What a whirlwind of a day. I met up with Lee today to see if I would like to do some work for him and it went well. I talked to one of the guys from woodworking that was a philosophy major, and I reached out to him! Had a good drawing day, did dinner with my wife(the title was something she said), and Eminem released a new album!!! I guess now I should go more in depth on those subjects, that’s how I was taught to write my five paragraph essay. What a stupid concept, lets teach you the only way to make an argument, everyone structure your writing to be the same, it’s not a creative art. For anyone that was taught differently, I was taught your essay should be 5 paragraphs, in the first paragraph first sentence you state your stance on an issue. The rest of the paragraph is used to provide three supporting arguments. The next three paragraph will be about their corresponding argument in paragraph one. In the end, paragraph five is essentially a rewording of every sentence in paragraph one. I think there is some good to the five paragraph essay format as a building block and I’m not perfectly portraying it, but it felt to me that I went from writing a five paragraph essay in high school to writing a 10 page paper in college without anyone explaining how to make that jump. I supposedly went to a good school too, but I dropped out my junior year because I thought some teachers were idiots, so who knows. There was also talk that one teacher had my older brother two years before and she was acting out frustration for him on me. Well hopefully in the future I’ll be able to tell you about my three arguments, but I’m really happy with how these seas are looking.

Never Dare Sit Bare in a Leather Chair

I’ve got my live drawing class today, it starts at 6pm. I hate having obligations later in the day because it feels like a weight I have to drag around all day. I keep going, “Ok, this many more hours till I have to leave for that.” A place I would like to get to is that I’m so into the tasks I’m doing that day that I don’t think about what’s happening later. Right now it’s more like I do less in a day because I have this idea that I have to save my energy up for tonight. Maybe it’s because the live drawing sessions are still pretty new to me. I’ve only gone to three so far. I’m historically very bad at giving myself enough time to get used to a situation. When I think about that it does calm me down.

It’s funny, my head will get into a loop like thinking about having something to do tonight and that looping starts to build anxiety, but I don’t usually say to myself, “This is a new activity, it’s ok to feel out of place there, you have to give yourself time to get comfortable.” It’s a sentence that if I was talking to another person they’d probably come to right away, but it’s taken me years to figure out. It’s great that I ever got here at all, not that I’ll always be able to intervene like that, but I have to take time to congratulate myself when I’m acting mentally stable and be proud of my healthy brain. This is also why I have to keep writing my morning pages, maybe I wouldn’t of come to that conclusion without this time of introspection. It’s all about knowing myself and the more I do this, the better I’ll know me. There’s also some add benefit of writing everyday, I swear one day these morning pages are gonna write my book

Kierkegaard is an Absolute Unit

Doggy Donute

I was doing my mindfulness and wanted to think more on the experience. The idea of mindfulness is something taught during the group therapy, so I haven’t done it since we last met in November. What I do is sit still for five minutes a day and try to keep my mind quiet. It’s the activity of keeping my mind quiet I want to explore because it’s so difficult. You’d think that if I was in control of my own thoughts, I’d be able to turn them off for a measly five minutes. I doubt I can go five seconds without some words popping in. It sounds similar to a scratched CD, is that an experience people can still relate to. Oh, when you’re trying to listen to Spotify, but your signal is spotty. It’s like there’s a hole in my head that words are constantly pouring out of and even when I try to cover it, the thoughts are a liquid that seeps through. I get to the point where I’m saying in my head, “In” and “Out” along with my breathing. It’s not complete silence, but if my mind has a little bit of focus, it’s more controlled.


I like doing the mindfulness/meditation though I’m not good at remembering to do it daily. I get a certain rush of energy afterwards. Almost as if having that quiet time gave my brain a chance to catch its breath. Maybe that’s the theory behind those people who only sleep in 20 minute intervals. I hear Da Vinci was like that. He also put his pants on backwards and cross legged. He has a very strange legacy, like what is he famous for? I know he worked like mad, I have a book of his writings and it’s thousands of pages. Then there’s the paintings and inventions, but in his time he was criticized for not painting more. Which, yeah, who doesn’t wish he did more painting? Who doesn’t wish they do more painting?

Ozymandias

Had some warm days lately to sit on the porch with the pup

Today was my first day back at group therapy, it’s oddly satisfying to see those people again and sad that some are gone. It’s sold as a three module course that each consist of meeting once a week for 8 weeks. I think there’s a bond between people because you’re talking about a part of you that people don’t normally talk about. No one is complaining or putting their problems on anyone else, but in a normal life setting I feel like we would at least be afraid that’s how it comes off. This module is about interpersonal communication. They divide it into three parts where the themes relate to respecting yourself, respecting other, and trying get what you want. I don’t have too much trouble with the latter two, but I know I don’t respect myself. 

I had a moment yesterday while drawing, I was listening to a conversation on youtube and the topic of trying to be good even if you’re in a pathetic position came up. It really got to me, I feel that’s where I’m at and what I’m doing. The initial reaction I want to have is I’m too brilliant to do anything beneath me, but that thinking really spun me out of control. Now I look around and think, “smartest man on the cinder.” I had to start from a low position if I ever wanted to do anything of meaning again in my life, but I’ve been gaining some steam after only a couple month. There’s nothing more important to me right now, so odds are good I can keep it going. Anyway I guess it was a realization that I wasn’t alone in that experience that brought me to tears. The reason I’m telling this story is that while crying my inner voice was comforting me and telling me how good I’ve been doing. That’s huge for me because as I said I have a problem with self respect, that inner voice is usually the nastiest person I’ve never met. Things are improving though.

Why is pleasure seeking so powerful?

Obviously we want good things, but the immediate pleasures lead to me hating myself. I know there’s some stone that has to be turned so I can not have that as my default reaction, but the cycle will still stand. Is it because I can’t really see into the future like my mind things it can. Perhaps the body knows only the present and it has final say. That could be used to build an argument for habits. Keep doing something until the body keeps doing it without any intervention of the mind. I know the mind is part of the conversation because before I will allow it, I have to give in to pleasure. I will recognize that I’m going to do something contrary to my future desires for a pleasure now. Why do I allow that? I could fight back and say no. I think it would work, in time. Immediately the body will revolt and I will be in pain. I think I need to face that pain. I want to get onto the other side of it and I’ve been on the edge for so long. I have this opportunity to lay in bed taking ibuprofens under heated blankets, try to relieve the pain. I can make recovery my main focus. That’s how I need to look at my life, focus on recovery. That’s after drawing of course, but drawing is in a different sphere as the rest of my life right now. I have to face that pain everyday, it’s the only way it will go away. What will my plan be? After I have drawn, and walked the dog, I should nap. Not a forced nap, but the door has to be open to fall asleep, my mind needs to turn off.

Write for Rights Sake

When I last left off in my book, I had the infinite. It seems to be a problem because in the face of it we are nothing and actions are meaningless. I always believed that doing the right thing was only good if a person’s primary motivation for doing it was because they thought it to be good. Personal motivations will only sully the act. Imagine if everyone only acted in what they really thought was the right thing to do. Maybe it wouldn’t solve all problems, but the differences between people will be a lot narrower. To better illustrate this lifestyle, I’ll begin to explore some motivations. 

If people only did what they thought was right, there wouldn’t be an obesity epidemic. That is one issue that probably leads to the majority of health problems in America that can be addressed from multiple levels. When looking at any philosophy of life or preferably any issue in life, they should be examined at multiple levels. Maybe a solution fails on one level but is such an improvement at another level that it’s a net positive. An example of multiple levels for the problem of obesity, first is the individual, there’s also the roles parents have on how their kids eat, how society handles food coupled with money as well as how society treats people who are overweight. The body will respond when it is full, I’ve been there, I’ve eaten so much that I feel like I’m going to burst. There’s still half a slice of cheese cake left though. The body is saying, “Eating more is the wrong thing to do.” The person even knows it’s wrong, I did, the mind can read what the body is telling it, but the mind wants the pleasure brought about by cheese cake. This way of living challenges the infinite.

Try and Stop Me

Good evening pages, sorry I’ve been writing you so lately. I just haven’t really had my heart in writing these. I fear any day now that I will stop doing it. On one hand I think that I don’t need to do this, it’s just another bore. I guess that’s a childish attitude. I’ll try and stick with it, I’m sure I’m just going through a dry spell and I feel really tired with my schedule of activities. As soon as I make a schedule I begin thinking I’m being choked by it and I can’t do anything else in my life because I must complete the schedule. My brain is a mess, it’d be great to be a machine. Type in the program and execute. Will I really be able to write this everyday for the rest of my life? What will I talk about, what have I been talking about for a year. It’s just my inner monologue. 

I’ve got a real problem with failure, I don’t know why as soon as thinks get the slightest difficulty or I have a little failure that I want to abandon ship. I wish I knew what to do, the one thing I do know is that writing morning pages are good for me, you’re writing a journal and it’s the first time you’ve been able to get this habit to stick for more than a couple days, why not keep it going? I’m just tired and I need to study hands. I’ve got a lot of hands to draw, I’d like to draw more heads as well, This is my life now, drawing heads and hand and people and things. Drawing drawing drawing. ABD always be drawing. We’re pretty close to 300 now and should be in the clear by the time I finish.