My heart just jumped. I’m listening to kexp at work and a song came on by a band that I haven’t heard in maybe 8 years. The last time I heard this band, The Cranes, or at least the freshest memory I have of it, was when I was driving with my father to a breakfast restruant by the beach on some Sunday morning during the summer before he realized he had cancer. I had an older tape of theirs playing and he was telling me “your musical tastes have gotten really strange.” So I took out the tape and put in the Beatles. For some reason, that memory really hit me hard. That band, if you know them, has this really eerie female singer on it, and some of the emotions of that time in my life have chrystallized within it. I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately, I think it’s just one of those cycles that I go through every couple years. Do you find that your brain returns to certain themes on a several-year cycle? The most prominent cycle I’m aware of myself is the investigative cycle. I’m currently in one at the moment, reading a lot about linguistics, propoganda, and now about half-way through Universe in a Nutshell, Hawkings new book that is trying its best to confuse me.

I’m aware of my tendency to try and find my personal TOE (Theory of Everything) when most likely one doesn’t exist, aware enough that I am a little miffed at how entangled this process is, and wish there was a better way to go about it. Yes, the problem is in the process, not the goal itself. One assumes that cause and effect are somewhat at work in ones own self, that, given certain beliefs, certain fundamental changes will begin infiltrating one’s fundamental army of habits and perceptions to an extent that he will not need to forcefully alter his own actions, he’ll just naturally respond to his conscience’s new beliefs in the appropriate way subconsciously. For example, to take a simple, if fallible, example, if all of a sudden I came into the knowledge that suger would cause me to die in 3 years if I continued consuming it at the rate I currently am, one would hope that this new knowledge would automatically turn off my preference for deserts, sweet snacks, and carbonated beverages, among other things. It is ridiculous to assume that I’d have to put the same amount of effort into quitting sweets with this knowledge as I would have without it. Knowledge can infiltrate our habits and change us, from the inside out. Right? Otherwise we would never change, since it seems like I have almost no skill at changing myself through sheer effort alone. There is trickery involved. I have to trick myself into believing something new, and then that belief is responsible for changing me.

In this vein I’m curious how my recent studies will effect me. Will they make me a more negative person, because I believe all sorts of conspiracty theories with the government might actually be true? Will I lose some of my self-centered megalomania as I ponder quantum mechanics more and find my place in a world of tiny and huge things? How did Jesus change in the Garden of Gesthemane? How does a person face-to-face with death change? How can one gain the benefits of change as a result of crisis without the crisis itself? Is it possible (and if it was, would it be beneficial) to manufacture crisises merely for their perspective-changing pay-off? I guess this is a little what Fight Club was about. It’s why I’d pay for a revelation, why I’d die for a change, why I don’t believe any of the hype about leisure leading to anything but a dull pit of despair. Strangely enough, I remember overhearing a conversation between my mom and dad when I was younger where they talked about how my sister and I’s lives were a little too easy… that great people never emerge from lives without conflict and trauma. So they beat us with a stick every night for the next three years.

If only life were so simple.

Do you wonder sometimes if the most healthy approach to living is a suicidal one? Do you wonder if by constantly protecting our self-interest and our own safety we are cutting out a huge chunk of opportunity and experience that could otherwise be at our fingertips? For example, we guard our own opinions religiously. People almost always refuse to engage old debates with an open mind. Do you think there is a God? When is the last time you thought about that seriously? Do you like carrots? Are you fond of the government? Do you ever wear a hat? Is your career path still interesting to you? Are you getting old? Is marriage really for you? Can you spare any change? Maybe you can actually. Maybe it’s just the thing you need to do. Open your mouth and let all the bugs fly in. Blow all the pollen off your flower. Stick your neck under the ax. What’s the worst that could happen, you could lose your head? Anyway, my point is, maybe I would find the world a lot more diverse if I acted against my own self interest. Because that way I find just how far I have edged away from the cliff in fear of falling over. Maybe that cliff is a mile away now, and yet I still stay fanatically close to the ground, growling at anyone who pulls me away. Self destruction has always had an appeal for me. There’s something saintly about it, something beautiful. I’m going to do myself a favor and try to harm myself within the next 24 hours.

See you then, or maybe never.