this site is dedicated to the delusions of grandeur inside the warped psyche of a hollow shell of a human being
originally entitled Trimalchio in East Egg
I was thinking of going to see Al Franken at the State theatre tomorrow night. His pre-election PAC is having a thing in downtown Minneapolis. I was all excited about it, but then alas, their "issues" tab they didn't have education listed. Oh well, guess Mr. Franken missed out on my support, at least for now. I still would like to help out his campaign in a few years, when he runs for U.S. Senate against Norm Coleman in 2008. Franken is clearly setting himself up for the run, and he will win, nobody likes Coleman, at least amoung my liberal friends (who I usually just call my friends). I can see what he is trying to do. But education to me is the most important issue facing society. Teachers should earn six-figures and we should stop spending money for WWIII which even if fought will not be like WWII, it will be breifcase bombs and biological warfare, and instead of wasting money on the defense department we should spend money on education. I realize that after my uncle Todd asked me if I would be willing to go overseas for an internship that I would be willing to live overseas if the opportunity arose, I would like to get my education out of the way first. Here is a link to the Midwest Values PAC, LINK. The thing is Thursday night. I am currently writting a film short, I don't quite know what it is about yet, I have some ideas, I understand why Woody Allen has so little hair.
Before the law
sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the
country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the
gatekeeper
says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man
thinks
about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in later
on.
“It is possible,” says the gatekeeper,
“but not
now.” At the moment the gate to the law stands
open, as
always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in
order to see through the gate into the inside. When the
gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts
you so
much, try it in spite of my prohibition. But take note: I am
powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from
room
to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other.
I
can’t endure even one glimpse of the
third.” The man
from the country has not expected such difficulties: the law should
always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more
closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose
and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it
would be better to wait until he gets permission to go
inside.
The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side
in front of the gate. There he sits for days and
years. He
makes many attempts to be let in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with
his requests. The gatekeeper often interrogates him briefly,
questioning him about his homeland and many other things, but they are
indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at the end he always
tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet. The
man,
who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends
everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the
gatekeeper.
The latter takes it all but, as he does so, says, “I am
taking
this only so that you do not think you have failed to do
anything.” During the many years the man observes
the
gatekeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other
gatekeepers,
and this one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the
law. He curses the unlucky circumstance, in the first years
thoughtlessly and out loud, later, as he grows old, he still mumbles to
himself. He becomes childish and, since in the long years
studying the gatekeeper he has come to know the fleas in his fur
collar, he even asks the fleas to help him persuade the
gatekeeper. Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not
know
whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are
merely deceiving him. But he recognizes now in the darkness
an
illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the
law. Now he no longer has much time to live. Before
his
death he gathers in his head all his experiences of the entire time up
into one question which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper.
He
waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening
body.
The gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the great difference
has changed things to the disadvantage of the man. “What do
you
still want to know, then?” asks the gatekeeper.
“You are
insatiable.” “Everyone strives after the
law,”
says the man, “so how is that in these many years no one
except
me has requested entry?” The gatekeeper sees that
the man
is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of
hearing, he shouts at him, “Here no one else can gain entry,
since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m
going now
to close it.” -Franz Kafka's Before the Law, (I did not write
it at all)I have realized something on the subject of philosophy. I have come to accept that I will never know the greater meaning of it all, that there are too many questions, and not enough answers. The more important realization that came after that thought is that this has little impact on whether or not I will still try to. This speaks right to the core of human nature. We don't seem to have a greater purpose other than to ensure that the next generation can continue the struggle to push the boulder up the hill. Each generation feels that the generations after them are vile, corrupted. The Greeks had the idea that people were progressing into weaker and weaker forms, they used metals for it, which would place us around Beryllium. But this seems to be just a shepherd's scale, the sense of constant degradation while when viewed with some perspective the tone is actually raising. Even I view those a few years younger as growing up in a different time. But it is just the byproduct of people becoming stronger as they age and idealizing the past.
I feel that I have always received more credit that I deserve when it comes to intelligence. I don't know how or why it came about. Whether it was forced onto me or a ancillary affect of my ego. I don't wear my glasses because then people see me as overly pretentious. Sometimes I feel like Woody Allen, mocking the very image of myself that people see. Well I am over-doing it, I have a light prescription and don't need to wear them. But more important than myself is the state of affairs in the Minneapolis public school system.
IB had the main article on the front page of the Star Tribune today, to sum up the article, IB promotes anti-americanism. IB promotes internationalism (whatever that is) and you can't understand issues from an international (abstract) viewpoint without hating America. This to me at least makes me think that the United States is being view by the opponents of this evil on a subconscious level. Because to view the United States from a international perspective is only bad if the United States is at heart evil. Never mind that our text book was Zinn's a People's History of the United States. I would rather know the truth than the Columbus befriended the natives and they all had a fun festival (the one that didn't die of smallpox). I also found out that Reach (gifted/talented) is no longer taught at field. I want to know what is going on. Minneapolis has too many intelligent kids to force them into standard lives. When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself. -Jacques-Yves Cousteau. This is a quote written in a book in the Wes Anderson film Rushmore. Smart children need an outlet, when they are not allowed to live up to their full potential they fall into tortured lives where they are haunted by the stagnation of their gifts. I can't stand to imagine the generations of geniuses that will not be allowed to live up to their full potential. When I think of what would have happened to my year had they not had Reach, IB, AP, PRIME, and advanced classes in general we will be cursing our futures. Even after being cast into the fires of IB, I still believe in the union, the values of freedom of religion, tolerance, freedom of thought and expression. The beliefs that the masons founded the United States on. Free masonry in my mind has the aim of ensuring a logical and free society, that is based on reason and science. Most of the officers in the revolutionary war were free masons, a good share of our founding fathers were masons, and most of our best presidents were. But IB and reach need to be saved, all the romance languages are based on them.
Medication has come a long ways, but still pales in comparison to mental affects. Having a good disposition counts for a surprising amount that science doesn't give much credit for because it is not easily explained. But I am feeling great being back in Minneapolis. I spend a good part of today out in the garage working on my bike: cutting metal bars, painting, and building things: very manly things. I had a great time, just being here seems to have a positive affect on me. I was not ill before, but all of the sudden I feel great, I went to target and got a weight to lift, only one because they are expensive, but I need to continue at least some of my fitness repertoire, although I no longer have the summer training facility of the Indianapolis Colts to work out in, but me and my 20 lb. weight will do alright, don't use lbs, because that could mean pound -seconds (lb + s), although I don't like using imperial units. But I am in a good mood, no han, in the Korean sense: check on this LINK to find more out about that. I spent a good two hours listening to depressing music with my little sister on my re-positioned sound system, the Postal Service's song "Such Great Heights" sounds amazing, and I told her that Elliot Smith's "Needle in the Hay" from the Royal Tenenbaums is about Smith's needle drug abuse and him trying to find a vein in his arm. But I am still in a good mood. I painted my bike so that nobody in their right mind would ever want to steal it, I also reinforced the basket with some steel rods, and made a beverage holder in the front out of interwoven wires.
Diets are temporary fixes, I have realized that I have created a diet of my own. My diet is based off of the economic system of laissez faire as something good must come from it, as I am more of a Keynesian economist myself. I eat what I want when I want. My body learns to eat what is good for it. I don't hold any food up on a pedestal. Sometimes I eat an apple, sometimes I eat a pound of sour cream with potato chips, and sometimes I have a glass of juice. I have found that by simply not caring my body does all the busy work of nutrition. Unless you are missing some vital nutrient your body will seek out: fat, sugar, and salt. These things help store energy, a thing that was valued for the last 4 billion of the last 4 billion years, with a margin of error +/- 300 years, or 0.0000075%. So as long as I keep things in check with a daily multi-vitamin I will be okay. I just treat my body the way I would like me to treat myself. I have been on a kick lately about overall health. I am not looking to become a body builder, just be in shape, and eat well.
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