I've noticed my opinion of humanity tends to be inversely proportional to the amount of time I've been spending online.

all is as it should be, even when it isn't.

there are infinite possibilities
but at this time and in this place
this is the only way things could be
if things were different, we'd be somewhere else

the universe is here because it is
as the angles of a triangle in a euclidean space always add up to half a circle
it is object fact that never changes
this universe is a fact outside of its own physical reality
it is a truth and that is enough

when a window shatters
you can pick up the pieces
and glue them back together
but the cracks will still be there
the window will never be the same again

the window is always shattering
there are so many cracks that what is behind the window can no longer be seen
the cracks have become the world
but what lies beyond
is still there and never dies

I've been thinking about quantum immortality and how, if true, it could be used to manipulate one's experienced universe. For example, entity X cannot live without entity Y, so entity X creates a device that will insure their death if entity Y should die. From entity X's point of view, no outcome where entity X themselves die can occur -- as a result entity Y will never die in entity X's experienced universe.

With such trigger devices it would be able to manipulate an experienced universe to the desires of the experience. The trigger devises would have to be infallible, and that is quite a large hurdle to clear for any wholesale manipulation. Imperfect, though perhaps satisfactory, results might be found if the trigger device is significantly less probable to fail than the desired event is to not happen. Of course if the quantum immortality hypothesis is incorrect, the trigger devices will simply kill the user.

I've done salvia divinorum in the past. However, I'd only done 1X. Last night I tried 5X. Oh my, what a difference. The world ripped away in front of my eyes into interference patterns. Then diving down, I forgot everything. Complete dissolving of definition. No knowledge of the day to day world, no sense of self. I had to rebuild my perception of reality. Put everything back together. I had even lost the concept that everything was occurring in a three-dimensional locally-euclidean space, and couldn't figure out what kept me physically separate from anything. Even as I came out of the most intense part, everything kept warping together at the edges of my perception.

The strange putting together of things, defining of things, is the journey from the wholeness at the center. Without a sense of self, everything is one. There is no need for definition or distance. What is at the center is beyond definition. It is the All, the Ineffable. Words are boxes which cannot contain It. Even saying it is "beyond definition" misses the mark, as it is neither beyond or before.

I took the journey twice last night, the first time the speed of the journey panicked me on my return trip from There to Here. The second journey I was able to experience reconstruction from a much calmer place and was able to observe the experience more.

The salvia divinorum experience is not unlike experiences I've had in the past, however the pace at which salvia divinorum triggers these experiences is frighteningly fast: the most intense part is over in the first 5 minutes, and after 10 more it's completely worn off. The short duration along with the physical immobility during the deepest part may be why such a potent herb such as salvia has managed remained legal in most of the entheogenphobic United States (Missouri being the exception).

After the journey, I made a map...


We are waves emanating out from Unity. We perceive other waves as other selves.

At Unity we become all waves, all things. There is no self at Unity.

Between the everyday sphere of perception and Unity lies a domain where the waves are not united and a self still exists in some form, however the waves interfere with each other. This interference can show up in a variety of ways, including sensory phenomena (hallucinations, patterns, distortions, etc.) and/or disorganized thinking.

When viewing an autostereogram, focus of the eyes travels from normal focus to the adjusted focus where the 3D image is visible, the focus travels through an intermediate stage of visual clutter and interference. Traveling to Unity is like refocusing your eyes.

waiting in the dark for sleep to find me
i hear them
i hear them talk
they talk not to me
they just talk
they seem so familiar
and yet i do not know them
they are all around me
and yet i do not see them
perhaps they are manifestations of a new and slow creeping madness
or perhaps they are but fore-echoes of dream
i do not know

i fear spending the rest my years sitting in a corner mumbling nonsense to myself
or drugged out of my mind — a drooling vacant zombie
for now, let them be dreams

On my cigar walk this morning i realized two things. The first was that today is the last day of amnesty month at the library, I best be returning that last book today. I forgot the other thing I realized, but I have a feeling it was important.

I did notice that the trolls are out in reality, I saw a graffito of the URL to goatse along the bike trail up past Arlington Center.

purpleglitter and I buried Squeaky and Piglet this morning. We placed them with Isobel so they can fly off together.

I haven't been well today or yesterday. I'm still in shock that they are both dead. Hearing purplelgitter gasp upon finding them. Seeing them there. I don't believe it. I am still waiting to wake up.

Feeling like my life is a dream isn't an state in my life, but what is less constant is the forceful will to wake up. Wake up to what, to where. I don't know. But somewhere my birdies are and everyone else is and everything is the "way it should be". But the way it should be never was, there is only the way it is.

Squeaky and Piglet and Isobel too are all okay. Though their bodies may have been fragile, they are not their bodies and they will never cease to be. I will miss them, they have flown off with a part of my heart with them.

Good returns from yesterday. I stayed up to around 1am watching them come in, then went to bed. It seems that Bush might actually have to deal with reality.

I'm confident that the democrats will pull off at least a 50-50 split in the senate, which while still giving Republicans the edge would probably lead to a system of sharing committees and staff budget as it did last time. The democrats could still pull off a complete victory and take the senate – they hold the edge in both still-contested seats but they have to take both of them.

Is it just me or do critical election results drag on more than they used to. Yeah, I know there have been historic messes such as Hayes vs. Tilden, but the frequency of messes seems to have greatly increased of late.

Sometimes, fleetingly, I think that I should like to live my life in chronological order. It would be simpler at the very least.

Other times I don't even notice that it's not in order.

Or that bits are missing.

Nothing's amiss until I look at it.

It's like a dream in that way. In fact, I'm not throughly convinced that it isn't one.

I'm completely scatterbrained. Always have been. I'm often not aware of what is going on right in front of my eyes. I often don't know what I'm doing or where I'm putting things. I even lose track of where I am. I can't keep my things in a consistent place, because I'm often not there when I put them down. I often have to look to tell someone what I'm wearing.

I get lost in things and lose touch with my surrounding. Sometimes I get lost in my surroundings and lose touch with me. People have suggested this as being symptomatic of ADD or autism or even just of generic dissociation. Some think I'm just lazy or don't care. People like to diagnose me, but their guesses have never proved of significant assistance.

I just don't keep track of reality very well sometimes and reality is only occasionally useful anyway.

when one looks into the heart of madness
the soul of the beast
when one looks
truly looks
and not just spies upon the shadows of the wretched
when one looks into the madness
and sees what is there
when one sees the darkness bright
one cannot help but become mad

in time, you can learn to live in their world
in time, you can adapt.
you can fake it
but you will always know
deep inside
that their world
is not your world

determinism
can i say it is not so?
we are what we were meant to be
it's all been worked out
we've gone through the pattern a thousand times
and a thousand more well shall play this out
nothing ever changes

free will
where is this not?
no force of action
we free to move and shape our lives and our destiny
where we go, we choose to go
we effect change
we are always in flux

neither view is exclusive of the other
the universe is of both place
both "realities"
we are bound to our destinies and the shapers of them
future is unwritten and yet pre-scripted
we can neither change nor can we stay the same

look upon lies, there you will find the truth
look upon the broken, there you will find the hope
look upon nothing, there you will find everything

i am in the dark places now
split apart from where i feel is what i know
i know these dark places are not all there is
but i feel now that i shall not see beyond
farther down, i know none of this is real
but it is there still
and there is nothing else

i must learn to see the always beauty
even if it is always hollow
i must learn to merge what i know with what i feel
even if neither are true
i must accept that the universe is infinite in wonder and bliss
and infinite in darkness and despair

there is nothing good nor bad
there is nothing wrong nor right
there is just experience
forever and always
never ending and never beginning

to wander below stars
and try reach them
some day to be them
they are where we're from
and where we're going to

nothing more is here than was here before
and nothing less
it never changes and never stays the same

again i meet the riddle here
the truth which is the lie
forget this all as nonsense
muttered by the mad
i cannot tell you where this is
but only that i will never leave

i am worried
i am worried that i won't be able to stay above the waves
i am worried that i will be sucked back down
i do not want to go back to where i've been
i do not want to return to those roads
but i often feel the darkness closing in
there is much i am keeping inside right now
and telling no one at all
the world does not feel real
i am far behind the window eyes
i look out the window
and i hear the winds
the same winds that are always there
i do not know where i am going
but i do know that in the end the winds will come for me
i ask, what i am here for?
my eyes look upon what is before them
i note the what is right before i forget it
the demons are still with me
i do not think they will ever leave
i walk through the mud
and reach for the sky
i cannot take in these things
i am not a great person
i cannot make long sense of what is here
only in passing does it match
every angle changes
forever
no paradigm can stick
flux
change
eternally
nothing constant
i wander still here
i walk still here
i forget still here
what is coming must soon come to pass
i have trouble staying in the body now
more and more
i leave it behind
i am not going mad
i never left mad
soon the sky will be yellow and the grass blue
for reality never was where i am
adrift in a sea of dreams
always forgetting where i am
and never find the shore

here that?
it is the winds
strike the ground
and let what will be come to pass
and let that which never was fade away

where is this going
some seek escape from this trap
some seek to find its beauty
some seek to define it
some seek to hold mastery over it
but the darkness will come
the creeping empty consumes all

brightness dark
darkness bright
contradictions here
the nothing that is the everything
there is no truth, only lies

speak that which cannot be spoken
and riddle will be broken

i don't really know what to post
and as i have done in the past
i am making a stream of consciousness post to break through the writer's block

-----

i'm heading to missouri in three days
so close, but the trip doesn't really seem real
i've been running around in a virtual habitrail for it seems like forever
leaving it behind seems unbelievable

-----

my room is still a mess
i was hoping to have it cleaned before i left
but at this point i don't believe that will happen
depressing, yes
but, i'm not going to freak out about it

-----

i still freak out about things i shouldn't sometimes
but i recover much quickly from the looping than i used to
before i would be caught in them for hours, perhaps days
now, i get over them in a matter of minutes
not perfect, but orders of magnitude better

----

i'm not quite sure where my life will take me
"not quite sure" is an understatement
long term planning is pointless
the path i'm on has been utterly unpredictable
it always has been
unexpected and exciting
the only thing i can consistently say about my life is that it has not been boring
and i guess that is enough
could i really ask for more?