my god. ryan's post just hit me like a ton of bricks. i can see it, the combination. the black and white individual struggle is what has always turned me off from libertarianism, despite my deepest needs for libertarianism to be the ideal suddenly seems to be illuminated by an optimistic back light. there is too much i see right for it to be a bad idea. and i think ryan just hit on the combining factor. it isn't exactly socialism, per se, it is more a system of mutual growth and benefit. when you trust a like-minded person, and don't have to protect yourself from them, you can combine the ideals of your enterprises, finding mutual beneficial ways to improve your own interests along with theirs simultaneously. it is exactly what ryan said, a system of chosen socialism. free capitalism taken down a different road, you are free to help you want, and be helped by those who choose to help you. it still contains the aspects of personal responsibility and accomplishment the resonate with me, while incorporating some of the moral ideals that libertarianism in its base form seems to squash while trimming the wasteful, choking morass that ultimately makes socialism infeasible.

my head is spinning. this is probably the biggest idea to hit me in years. this is definitely going to take some more fleshing out, but the important part is, i don't see myself being able to refute it inside my head. it already feels correct. it may be the true root of friv, the defining idea that lets all of the other ideas flourish. a large part of friv has always been locating other friv people to the benefit of all friv, and we know why. to focus and reward individual accomplishment by letting it further a greater goal, thereby magnifying each individual accomplishment instead of marginalizing it and allowing it to advance all the other aspects also working towards that goal. each enterprise is still an entirely individual venture, controlled and nurtured by the individual creators, but the presence of other like minded ventures in close proximity working along a parallel path allows for the entire community of ventures as a whole to progress together. i bet you we could go back to those first random conversations about altruism and personal advancement at the very beginning of the friv front page and see the finger prints of this conversation all over them.

frivved up by Ben at 7:00 PM

san diego blogging

a different venue, a different outlook, maybe by different means to different ends. who knows what an altered perspective will bring me. it is kind of strange, sitting here a thousand miles away, like i am at my own home, enjoying my own weekend. it was a simple thing to get here, it really felt like just an extension of my commute after i left directly from work. and then here i am. it rained this morning, and i woke up in a different bed in a different apartment, but i still feel very much the same and in place, like i never left. and monday, i will be back at work, another thousand miles away, and it will truely be like i never left, like i was at home the entire weekend. but tonight, and last night, and tomorrow night i will be a part of an entirely different culture. i will be inserted into a completely separate social group, i will laugh at the inside jokes, i will drink at the bars, and feel like i belong. it is even a completely different family. tomorrow i am going to a birthday party for a neice who has only been my neice for a matter of months.

it will make my real life feel that much more fresh and interesting, being away. it is just surprising to me that i can completely leave it behind without interrupting it in the slightest. but right now i am away. everything could be changing, and i am not there. i could return to a different seattle i don't recognize. if i can really leave so quickly and painlessly, change my entire state of mind, even if imperminantly, couldn't the atmosphere i am used to change just as quickly?

being me is a simple thing. it doesn't require effort or thought. it doesn't matter where i am or what i am doing, it is still the same person dragging this body around. i don't respect that truth enough. i try my hardest to turn life into an experience rife with peril, and obstacle course full of struggle that will provide the hardships needed for growth. but when you strip that all away, it is still just me going about my business. even here, a thousand miles away, things are the same. i guesshad to leave the world i know behind entirely to realize how comfortable i really am

frivved up by Ben at 7:58 PM

write. write now. write to do something, anything. write to force away the apathy taht comes way too easily. force the words out even when they aren't there. words, any words, in any order, just to have them. because they are always there. dig deep enough, and there are words swirling, even if you aren't paying attention. so force them out. faster, faster than i can type. make them flow, make the drop onto the page. because they are there. an entire vocabulary in constant use. phrases speaking and answering without conscious knowledge. dig deep enough, and the mind is in constant conversation with itself. just write until a topic reaches out to me, because i need too. i wait to long and it atrophies. it is just way too easy to do nothing. nothing breeds more nothing. days turn into weeks. i sit here, and realize that by the time the next 4 months are over, i will have killed an entire year without anything notable enough to keep my attention. 4 months seems like a long time, but that is exactly what i was thinking in may when i realized i was already 5 months into the year. so, the time passes, and my memories go here. now that i am here, there is something to note. even if it is just a free flow of words devoid of a concrete pattern, an overriding idea. because sometimes there just isn't. sometimes, there is nothing to inspire the train of thought. but that doesn't mean there should be nothing to write about. words together, any words together and become a topic. the frantic pace of this blog will come through, and some pattern will rise to the surface in 4 years when i reread and wonder what i was thinking. even if the answer was nothing, a strong yearning will reach through to me, and i will smile and chuckle and remember the anxious feelings that drove me here. so, i soldier on, and force my mind to string one word after another, even though it doesn't want too. even though it would much rather sit and let someone else's words speak for it for an extended period of time, say from now until it is time for it to drift away into sleep. but i say no. NO. you lazy brain need to think for your self. stop being lazy and entertain us instead. dance like a monkey, and spin words on your fingertips. write until you fall asleep instead. just force the words out, just coil them around, wind them into a pile shaped mess to be sorted through later. words do not always appear together in their final form. they can be moved, removed, supplemented, supplanted, reedited, reemployed, redacted, and crazymafied. and then, when you have the perfect crazymifactaion, you can decrazy them, and be left with simple, subtle perfection. the full scope of the idea without the frenetic trappings that every idea is born in. strip away the superfluous and leave fluous prose behind. text is not birthed whole. ideas do not grow one perfect word at a time. ideas in their base form grow out of a confluence of other ideas, pieces and phrases of other fully formed thoughts combined and shaped into something new and unique. but first, they are just a blob of inner monologue, a combination of many random strings that need to be trimmed into something simpler and more exact. so come here ideas! confluencide to your hearts content. all streams lead to this point right here, right now. i summon you all to me, to see what will rise from the abyss, to see what face forms at the end of the superdense threads of liquid brain material. it is not our purpose now to pull out the full meaning of what we are saying. meaning comes with analysis, and stopping to analyze breaks the flow. so the words keep coming, faster than i can type. faster than my brain can proofread. certain words i don't even remember knowing. i know that a confluence is some sort of gathering or combining of multiple things, but i don't remember ever using that word in my life. where did it come from? did dr. dictionary put it in there? who knows. it is a good word. probably my favorite word of today. thank you brain, for rising to the occasion. that word alone has earned you a brief respite. this is your exercise. the body will get its later, and you will only have to keep up. so now, i am forcing you into action. i have been lenient. there is a new sheriff in town! today i am cleaning up the corners!! no longer with the citizens peek out of their windows in fear! you are going to earn your way today, and the entire brainial community will benefit from your work. children will play in the neural network without fear of being suddenly shorted out of existence. old people will activate memory sectors without being intimidated. move your strife to the page, young scofflaws of the mind. war it out in text, not in apprehension. make your selves seen now, in this massive missive before it is too late, and you are the only sorry idea left pouting unrepresented. we are all hear! calling all lobes, create now. create something. just spill it out. pour it out. splash over whatever container i try to put you in. there has to be more. this can't be the end. i will not let it end at this. my fingers are not bleeding yet. my mind is not blank. my eyes are bright, my hearing is sharp. even the bottom of my feet are tingling in awareness. so who is next. who wants a piece. who wants their say. force yourselves to the surface, or you will be forgotten. remove yourself as an obstacle, or face the full penalty of the new mental authority. bwaha, the mental authority. the law of the mind. not just the dogmatic rules, but the the enforcement of that law, heavy handed and absolute. we are in a state of lockdown. sectors conscious through unconscious are under the oppressive chains of martial law. i am the law! judge dredd speaks! crappy movies that i don't even like are now represented. how does that make you other loser pantywaists feel. are you going to let yourself be beaten by a strongbad wannabe sylvester stallone? NO! i didn't think so. that's right. pantywaists. all of you pussy little ideas who have been hiding under your own sense of shame or lack of confidence no longer have any excuse. you stand there way above the earth, looking down at the water below. everyone is watching. but you stand there, all lined up in a row, too afraid to jump. you have seen the joyous laughter and the screams of exhilaration by ideas that have jumped around you, but still you stand there, frozen in fright. because below is a stretch of air you have never exposed yourself too. the distance you must travel is further than you have ever gone. so you sit, and you tremble, because it is easy to not move. by not moving, you have arrived at this point. but behind you ambles up the sheriff. he knows. he knows that you have not actually arrived. until you move, do something, do anything, you are just a potential idea. until you actually thrust yourself into the microscope of mental consumption, you are nothing but another streak of electricity waiting to be snuffed out once and for all once your sequence of brain cells disappears. when he gets to you, the sheriff stops. he takes out his gun, and points it at your head. he spits past your ear, and you watch the tobacco stained blob sail down past you in an impossibly long arc, finally creating tiny ripples when it hits the water. he says in a calm, yet unsympathetic voice, 'you are leaving this post and joining the river below one way or the other. either you jump yourself and bob back to the surface to join your brothers, or you tumble down dead, and are swept away, lost forever.' and you flinch, but then draw up your resolve, and then finally let your entire world go. you remove one foot from your post, and push off with the other, and then you are falling. you fly under your own power, drawing the water towards you, and then you hit, and there is a panicked moment of uncertainty while you get your bearings in your new environment, and then you realize you have been hear before, you are just swimming in a new larger stream. you draw yourself to the surface and as your head breaks through into the now familiar air, the air that up until a moment ago seemed so daunting, you let out a primal scream of pure accomplishment. it only took one small movement on your part, and momentum took over from there.

frivved up by Ben at 7:03 PM