Truthiness
It’s something I’ve had on my mind a lot lately, honesty. I’m not “ranting” about this because of any particular incident, I’m simply trying to collect my thoughts on the subject here. Reading several different bits of literature on the subject over the day, I’ve come to agree with the first sentence and paragraph of the Wikipedia article (zomg, inorite?).
Specifically the following snippet of the article:
Honesty, at times, has the ability to cause misfortune to the person who displays it. Honesty can also mean fairness, and truthfulness, and the avoidance of misleading people.
This is, of course, without discrediting the preceding sentences. It’s hard to come across something on the internet that is profound and accurate, especially on a site that’s content is literally controlled by one person at a time (as far as each article is concerned, citation needed).
Let me point out that I’m not exactly a nice person, but I follow a very strict personal code of honesty. This means I don’t want to lie about anything, obviously, be it tiny or large. Since I consider omission of truth a lie I tend to speak my mind even when I really needn’t. I say what I feel or what I think if I feel I need to, and it doesn’t matter who that is to or what it’s about. That’s not to say I never lie, but the times I do are EXTREMELY rare and always for a good reason. But the point I’m trying to make is that being honest and truthful is one of the firmest tenets of who I am.
Honesty is something I value highly in others, too. It doesn’t matter what it’s about, if I’m lied to (through actions or words) I lose a very large deal of respect for a person. I don’t care if it’s about something trivial or important, a lie is a lie is a lie. If someone lies about something insignificant, would they really have a problem being dishonest when it matters? Nothing feels quite so disrespectful as being lied to, and that’s part of the reason I want to be completely honest myself: I don’t want to subject anyone else to that, intentional or not. If you don’t agree with me on something or if you don’t like the same things I do I promise I won’t care. A deeper discussion may come from differing viewpoints, but I promise that I’ll have more respect for you if you’re simply honest with me about it.
If you aren’t honest with others about yourself, especially how you feel, what are you? I believe a person’s worth can be (not solely) measured by how honest they are with others and themselves. I really could care less if you’re being dishonest due to insecurities, lack of material or some deeper compulsion. I couldn’t give two tugs about the reasons people lie, any reason you can come up with for a lie can easily be dismissed as a failure in some way. (Before you nitpickers dig into me about it, that applies to my few lies as well so shove off.) So really I measure how much you’re worth by how honest you are to me, and I hold myself to that same standard.
I’m seen as “not very fun” by some people, “too serious” by some and “mean” to others. I don’t really care. I live my life in relative solitude because the rampant dishonesty in people (among other disgusting, filthy things that people tend to do) really leaves me with no desire to communicate with the majority of the human race. I really feel that if everyone was simply as honest as they wanted people to be to them the world would be much more palatable. Screw that “ignorance is bliss” idea, blissful ignorance is ignorant.
Pleasant Manteo
Last weekend my girlfriend and I took a trip down to the beach where my grandparents used to live. We felt that this was justified, even required, as we’ve both been under a lot of stress for quite awhile now. Things have been ever-so-slowly looking up for us the past few weeks so we wanted to celebrate and give ourselves some much needed rest. That’s exactly what we got.
We packed up last Thursday night and left around 13:00 Friday afternoon. This put us down there at about 20:00 which allowed us ample time to enjoy the sounds of the ocean and the opportunity to wade around looking for shells. A wonderful way to wind down after the trip and get ready for bed.
All times are GMT-5 and posted in a 24-hour format purely to annoy anyone who reads this entry. I love you, too.
We spent Saturday driving around and visiting the places I knew, and stuff sure has changed in the past almost-a-decade. It’s kind of heartbreaking to see that the building where I had my first job isn’t even there anymore, but a ton of stuff was almost exactly as I remember it. The Elizabethan Gardens were gorgeous, albeit a bit hot. The nature trail was fun and secluded. We did get mobbed a tribe of mosquitoes, but a helpful staff member saved the day with some bug repellent. Woot. We even went shopping for awhile, then headed home after dinner for some drinks and a movie (Pretty Woman). More time in the ocean and then a long relaxing night of “us” time. Screw you, society!
After spending some more time just soaking up the environment on Sunday (Bodie lighthouse, etc.) we headed home, our heads full of wonderful memories and that wonderfully intoxicating feeling of being with the person you love. It really helped us feel closer and took some of the strain out of our minds, and that’s why we’re going back tonight! We won’t be alone all weekend, but it’ll still be fine.
And because I can’t write anything here without ranting, whoever decided it was a good idea to have a $20 breakfast is fucking insane. And deserves to be shot. With knives. Dull ones.
One in a hundred
So the list of blog topics I was excited about wasn’t as fun as I thought it’d be. Some of them were decent ideas, but none of them really up my ally. But in the spirit of adventure, I made myself pick at least one out.
Number 51. “The Art of Chaos”. Keep in mind that I’m giving this the ol’ “college try”. It’s very likely that I won’t pick a single other item from the list.
I like this topic at least a little because it can be broken down in an interesting manner. Using Ubiquity to define it, I’m drawn to the first two definitions in particular:
1: a state of extreme confusion and disorder [syn: {pandemonium}, {bedlam}, {topsy-turvydom}, {topsy-turvyness}]
2: the formless and disordered state of matter before the creation of the cosmos
Chaos. I like chaos. Pandemonium, bedlam, etc. Alrighty, bring it on. Confusion, disorder, formless state of matter… I really like this! In the sense that a constantly shifting amorphous mass is a thing of beauty, a raw and primeval force, I can see it as “artsy” in and of itself.
But wait a minute, “The Art” of Chaos? Turning something that is the definition of defying definition into a coin-fed entity? No, it’s contradicting. I don’t buy into it. That’s if you take the phrase quite literally and consider chaos as a noun, a thing tangible enough to be drawn, described or sculpted.
But what if you take it more like song and dance, a performance art? These things are extremely structured nearly universally, which is a polar opposite to what chaos is. A structured performance of the lack of structure or form… But you can perform chaotic actions. More accurately you can promote chaos through actions, as any action we take is still going to have structure or form, regardless of why or how these actions were performed.
So I think that if you were to look at it seriously, that phrase is stupendously silly. It’s impossible to look at it and not consider it ludicrous. It doesn’t even make a good oxymoron like “the thunderous silence” (I imagine it said by Danny Devito, because that pleases me).
Making something from nothing
So a problem I have a lot is picking a topic to actually write about. I mean, there’s a TON of stuff that pisses me off, and you’d think a blog that I use to generally rant would be a good place to vent on those things. Right? Right? Not really.
See, I’m an asshole in the purest sense of the word, and a lot of things bother me to my very core. And I can go on and on about them, and sometimes do. But that’s really not how I am. I detest people who bitch a lot, and wouldn’t it be a little wrong for me to do something I hate from others? So as a person I tend to rage quietly about things, let it burn out, then move on. But sometimes there are things that just need to be said. Those things make it on here or the few friends I have are forced to listen to a tirade.
But I don’t always want to bitch, sometimes I just want to share my thoughts on things. But how do I decide what is important enough to talk about at length AND is something that people would want to read? Well, I can only base my perception of other people on myself, so I tend to assume that people don’t really want to hear anything. Puts me at a bit of a standstill, it does.
Yeah, that’s my convoluted excuse for not posting as much as I could.
Well I found a list of blog topic ideas, and I may go through some of them in the very near future (maybe later today, UH OH!). The list was found here, in case anyone wanted to look it over themselves. We’ll see how it goes, it could be an interesting change of pace.
Oh yeah, and anyone else who has ANY ideas for topics, feel free to let me know. Comment here if you want, that’s fine.
I present FRANKENCOOLER
Being the awesome guy that I am (see image below) it’s pretty common for awesome things to… spring to life around me, much like tears from a deity creating life.
My goal? To take the following collection of odds and ends (48 quart cooler, bilge pump and a dream) and turn them into something earth-shatteringly awesome.
The basics:
Not shown are what I plan to be two 120mm case fans and a salvaged heater core. I couldn’t resist trying out some science, so I wired up the pump to make sure it works. 500 GPH feels like a lot more than it sounds.
Stay tuned. I’ll have a full rundown soon.
