reality Archives - American Wordsmith

The Ethics of Living Forever Debate (Part II)

[0:34:02-0:36:58] Now they delve into a discussion of exactly what AI is and means. I do think artificial intelligence will force us into asking more questions about ourselves, but that does not mean these series of 0s and 1s are the same as the organic creatures we are. It is already apparent that AI assists us in so many ways today, from the computers in our pockets to the surgeries completed with robots. There is no doubt that these machines will help us learn more so much faster and efficiently than ever before. However, I do not think this will change fundamental human nature or replace us in any meaningful way like so many people seem to fear.

[0:36:58-0:39:37] Alright, so Tucker then says, “If the Industrial Revolution, the steam-powered loom in England gave rise to Marxism in the first and second world wars and Vietnam and Korea and every other conflict for a hundred years, the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. You know, technological change causes displacement, the fall of religions, the fall of empires, the murder of millions. So what will AI do?” Wow. This sounds like a Marxist professor talking about how awful the Industrial Revolution was for all of humanity rather than focusing on how many millions of lives new technology and innovation saved. To hear this sentiment coming from someone “on the right” is doubly astonishing. Truly, there is not much difference between the religious right and the atheist left when a morality of death is at the center of each. And then Tucker jumps to autonomy and AI somehow taking free will away from humans. That is quite the jump, in my opinion, since nothing can stop a man from using his own mind and, therefore, his free will to make decisions.

[0:39:37-0:43:47] “I don’t really have any reasons for saying no, other than my animal sense tells me, ‘No.’ […] That was my ‘instinct’ speaking, which I regard as a kind of coequal with my rational sense.” Ayn Rand sums up perfectly that

An instinct of self-preservation is precisely what man does not possess. An “instinct” is an unerring and automatic form of knowledge. A desire is not an instinct. A desire to live does not give you the knowledge required for living. And even man’s desire to live is not automatic . . . Your fear of death is not a love for life and will not give you the knowledge needed to keep it. Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform. Man has the power to act as his own destroyer—and that is the way he has acted through most of his history. (Ayn Rand, Galt’s Speech, For the New Intellectual, 121)

So, another thing that separates us from any other animals is our need to learn what will allow us to survive. It is not automatic. If you are having a “gut feeling” about something, it means that your subconscious has some kind of answer that you are not yet consciously aware of yet or your emotions are sending out signals of danger but that is not knowledge. And Bryan’s admittance of his own depression taking over his life means that he lacked the desire to live and was making decisions counter to life. That has nothing to do with his own mind being wrong or untrustworthy but everything to do with how he was interpreting his situation. It made sense to him at the moment to go for that brownie to bring momentary pleasure in the face of the utter sense of hopelessness he felt. That is not irrational per se, but it is not the best way to live or find genuine happiness and he learned to overcome that hole he put himself in.

[0:43:47-0:44:35] Amazing. Tucker says, “And it does strike me, if you’re looking back into history that this is the only period, post-war, post-World War II where you’ve had a society at scale that assumes that there’s nothing beyond itself. […] Why did every previous generation assume that there was a God, but we don’t?”

First of all, not all people have believed in religion, and many were forced into whatever religion controlled their region for the majority of human history. You’d be killed if you thought otherwise. And while it’s true that there is a growing number of atheists in this world, Christianity and Islam still reign supreme. We are seeing this atrophying in religion because of all the newest science and technology that has been created. There are many answers we now have that we simply did not have before. Creation myths were the best way for homo sapiens to explain how things happened and that is why religion was the first stepping stone toward philosophy in explaining our world and how it works. The more we care to learn about things like our appendixes, the more we understand that everything can be explained in this world and not in some divine, unknowable realm.

To which Bryan replies that it doesn’t really matter whether we believe in god or not, “we already agree on don’t die—all of us do.” Now, I have explained in a previous video that this is simply not true. Those depressed or terminally ill people out there no longer believe in “don’t die.” It is a choice people have to make daily. I just think Bryan Johnson’s premise is wrong, and Tucker sniffs this out with him by continuing to bring back the idea of self-harm.

[0:44:35-0:46:54] This is yet another idea that I have discussed before, and it boggles my mind every time I come across it. Tucker says, “There’s no meaning without a power beyond ourself, is there? I mean there is only this sort of, like, shallow, silly, or sense meaning that we attach to various things, like sex or living longer or feeling good or whatever, but there’s no meaning beyond our physical, momentary experience. Whereas a person who acknowledges a power beyond himself attaches ultimate moral meaning to events. […] No God, no meaning.” I simply cannot fathom a person who does not look at their spouse for who they are and love them for their values and physical form. How could you feel anything higher than what is right in front of you? I plan on worshipping, yes, worshipping my baby when she arrives because of the potential she has and the perfection that she already is. To me, that does feel spiritual, but it does not need to ascend to some higher plane to be real and intense. It almost feels like Christians live with this foggy window between them and reality, unable to feel spiritually for the things that are the here and now. Even an insect who lives for a day has no clue that his life is tiny, momentary, fleeting; he survives by his instincts and lives with every fiber of his being for that brief time, as if he would live forever in such a manner. Humans do not live like bugs, though; we produce and make marks all over the future of our race. We leave ripples in our wake and our names can be carried on past our lives. Why do you need anything more?

And, of course, Bryan Johnson comes back with the biological “squirtings” idea that that’s where our meaning comes from, rather than understanding that human beings get meaning from the values they achieve throughout their lives. It is a process that requires action, not just chemical integrations, though we do rewire our brains with every experience we have. And it is true that we do live and experience in a particular body where mind and body are inextricably intertwined. But the body without the mind is nonexistent; we are more than those chemical processes our body goes through. We must use our rational minds to survive, which is why we need a code of morality in the first place. In my opinion, you cannot “engineer” meaning for an individual human being. They must figure out what that is for themselves through their own personal experiences and physical nature in space.

[0:46:54-0:50:18] Rightly, Tucker points out that we still need a code of morality to Bryan. But then he goes and says something silly: “If I feel like killing you because it pleases me, how can we oppose that?” As Dostoyevsky believed (and as I’ve addressed before), he thought that people without religion would murder each other left and right. I, among many others out there, are “good without god.” We are living our lives in peace as atheists. How is that possible? Because there is such a thing as a secular moral code to live by. Let me shout again, “Objectivism!” Reality is the only thing I “follow” to come up with my code. Would killing another person make me feel good? No. Would I end up in prison for life for it? Yes. Would it lead to my rational happiness to be trapped in a cage for the rest of my life or be haunted by the flashbacks of committing such a heinous crime? No. So why do it? If Tucker took one psychology class, then he would, hopefully, understand that people do seemingly “crazy” things for typically obvious reasons. There are all kinds of reality-based reasons that people harm each other; they don’t require a mysterious demon on their back to harm themselves or another for money, fame, revenge, justice, you name it—there’s almost always a reason for the action taken.

And then Tucker dares to say that we can’t say murder is “wrong” without god and Bryan Johnson just goes along with it. Ayn Rand discusses crime in particular as:

A crime is a violation of the right(s) of other men by force (or fraud). It is only the initiation of physical force against others—i.e., the recourse to violence—that can be classified as a crime in a free society (as distinguished from a civil wrong). Ideas, in a free society, are not a crime—and neither can they serve as the justification of a crime. (Ayn Rand, “Political Crimes,” Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, 176)

So it is wrong to kill someone because they have a right to their own life. Though, this can be teetering on the brink of a trolley problem if the killing is given without the proper context. I don’t have the space to look at the law in depth here, but that is why we have a court system in the first place—to determine if a killing (or any other crime) was in self-defense or not. Killing in self-defense to protect your own life is not morally wrong; it’s what becomes necessary for your own survival, so it can neither be right nor wrong. Ayn Rand has always said that “morality ends where a gun begins” (Ayn Rand, Galt’s Speech, For the New Intellectual, 133). A moral system can only be followed when a man has a choice; that choice is simply robbed from him whenever another threatens to kill him and vice versa.

Unfortunately, both men lack the clear answer that Ayn Rand has provided, and which Tucker believes remains “unsolved.”

[0:50:18-0:54:31] This was another doozy when Tucker asks, “Without God, how can we say, and why would we say, that life is better than death? I mean, the religious person, the Christian, says life is better than death because God creates life.” At no point did I grow up thinking that death was better than life. I am baffled that a Christian honestly wonders why life is better than death. Only if you truly believe in this blissful afterlife that you have no proof exists could you see death as anything other than horrifying and an enemy to mankind. Life is much more exciting, first of all, than oblivion and more than what I imagine would be a dull place after the high wears off in the afterlife. You can only feel the highest of highs on earth and develop a greater understanding when you have lost a value and felt the lowest of the lows. Death is simply a negation of life, the absence of life. I do not want to be a void; I want to live. And the world is beautiful to me on its face, not because someone divine created it. Nature creates its own wondrous patterns, and it excites me to learn about them, and as humans have learned, every species has evolved with these attributes due to some advantage for their survival. We have this beautiful and still very mysterious mind, and I gaze in spiritual wonder at its beauty with no need to have a sole creator of the entire world. Yet, I believe that I go to that same spiritual realm of emotion that a Christian does but completely devoid of god.

[0:54:31-1:00:34] Oh, boy, Tucker says, “You would not disagree if I said, ‘Here’s what we know: We know that AI is likely to spawn some improvements, also certain to kill millions of people.’ Millions will die because of this, I don’t think there’s any doubt about it—the chaos alone, right, will cause that.” Why not just blow it all up essentially? Wow, his answer is like a mix of utilitarianism and nihilism and a Luddite mentality. First of all, the lawsuits brought against Elon Musk and his “self-driving” Teslas, as far as I am aware, are all due to user error and not because of the algorithm itself. People are the ones still harming themselves when they don’t use their brains or follow directions. AI is much safer and helps to keep us safer than we’ve ever been before. There is no guarantee, as Bryan is saying, that artificial intelligence will kill millions. There already has been no such apocalyptic scenario as he fears. If anything, more people have survived a surgery that a doctor’s shaking hand would have botched years ago that a robot did without a single error. Heck, I had LASIK done with the help of AI and lasers to fix my nearsightedness, and that was the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a miracle.

Bryan Johnson is able to make somewhat of an argument similar to mine to Tucker that humans are more fallible than AI is, which does seem to be the case thus far. And I’m thankful that at least Bryan was able to say that he does not “accept the premise” of AI killing millions in the future.

[1:00:34-1:07:40] “We don’t have any idea what we’re talking about, and we can’t anticipate the future. We’re limited in our foresight, in our knowledge, and particularly in our wisdom.” And then he comes up with this example of no robot ever being able to tell him why his wife is mad at him and Bryan Johnson says that we can use AI to tell us that answer. To which Tucker says that this is too “mechanistic,” and ignores “the most important universe, which is the spiritual universe.” I shouted here, “Objectivism!” Tucker claims again that we are controlled morally by “spiritual forces, unseen forces” and that he doesn’t see any “evidence” in what Bryan is saying. And Bryan Johnson agrees that this is a very spiritual moment for all of us on this planet and that AI is “neutral” and that we give it meaning, which I agree with. Bryan says he wants to eliminate “the causes of death.” To which Tucker retorts, “But until we can account for why we do it to ourselves, we’re probably not gonna change it. And I think the most obvious explanation is we’re being acted on by demons, whose—and this is how every religion that I’m aware of has described it, correctly, in my opinion—acted on by demons, whose goal is to destroy and kill people and they’re a counterbalance? by God. But, if you don’t agree with that, then you need to substitute another explanation in its place in order to proceed in the hope that we can change.” One more time, I scream: “Objectivism!” There is a battle between “good and evil” as Tucker mentions, but it is not in an unseen realm, it is between individual human beings. It is happening every second of every day, and that is why civilization has emerged to manage those fights through our military, courts, and police, aka our government on a global scale, and with the help of philosophy and psychology and other sciences on an individual scale.

Finally, Bryan Johnson says, “I’m with you; what I heard you say is there’s more to reality than we can see, there’s forces which we can’t identify, and we should address those. We’re on the same page, after the same thing.” Neither man can seem to prove what “forces” are acting on us to determine our actions or our code of morality. Objectivism would say that human beings with free will are driven by their minds to survive, to live, to be happy. That’s it. There is nothing more than that as a species. To live “healthy, wealthy, and wise,” as John Clarke and more famously Benjamin Franklin said, is to live happily on this earth. That should be our only goal, our only mission in life.

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Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr4E0jEjQMM; http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/universe.html; http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/history.html; http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/existence.html; http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/instinct.html; http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/crime.html; http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/physical_force.html; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l79rXk4NQlc&list=PLqsoWxJ-qmMvgfp2mg-AAFnCROvtu9NVR&index=2; https://www.amazon.com/New-Intellectual-Philosophy-Rand-Anniversary/dp/0451163087; https://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Shrugged-Ayn-Rand/dp/0451191145; https://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Ideal-Ayn-Rand/dp/0451147952; https://www.amazon.com/Return-Primitive-Anti-Industrial-Revolution/dp/0452011841

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Views Expressed Disclaimer: The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent the postings, strategies, or opinions of American Wordsmith, LLC. Please also know that while I consider myself an Objectivist and my work is inspired by Objectivism, it is not nor should it be considered Objectivist since I am not the creator of the philosophy. For more information about Ayn Rand’s philosophy visit: aynrand.org.

“Nobody’s Perfect” and Other Garbage Idioms

Everyone always says “nobody’s perfect” to somehow arouse in you the feeling of freedom to experiment or try something uncomfortable. But I’m sick of that cliché. Why use the word “perfect” in such a way that is untouchable? Language, after all, is made by humans for humans. You are a human being—you have to learn and try things. That is perfection in my book. Human beings are not static. Nor do we reach a kind of state of perfection like the Eastern mystics talk about. We live in a world of values that we have to choose every day. And I feel the same way about morality.

To be moral does not mean to be omniscient or all-knowing in order to be good. Another one of my pet peeves is when people say, “Morality isn’t black and white.” Well, Ayn Rand would tell you that it most certainly is. And here is how: It’s true that there can be some gray actions on a day-to-day basis. However, the culmination of those actions and the motivation behind each of them leads to being moral (good) or immoral (bad) as a whole person. An individual is made up of values, and those values can only be achieved and kept when they are identified and morally achieved. For example, if you want a greater sense of self-esteem, then you practice really hard to ace a test, truly learn the subject matter, and get that good grade. If you want to damage that sense of self-esteem, then you cheat on the test, not learn the material, but still get an A.

I have “made it.” I am happy. I have a wonderful, supportive husband. We hope to have our own children soon. I have a beautiful home to live in. I have fresh food and water to eat and drink. I am almost thirty and healthy in body and mind. Yes, I may want an updated wardrobe or neighbors that weren’t living so close to us, but that’s just “icing on the cake.” They are wants and not necessities. How did I get here? Was it hard? Was I ridiculed? Yes…but that is, unfortunately, what it takes today when you choose to be good.

I spent most of my time in school refusing sexual advances, avoiding physical fights, and not attending parties where I knew that drugs might be involved. Instead, I spent my waking moments attentively in the classroom, ferociously reading at home, and eventually finding school friends whom I could readily learn with and be around. Once I graduated, I found myself in my first normal nine-to-five job as a receptionist. And that is when my moral choices became more complex. After the first year or so, I began to get fidgety, then I started to resent my job. I felt like I woke up there and fell asleep there most days, especially on those cold, dark winter months… I learned the ins and outs of the job by that point and I needed to move on. I should have moved on earlier, but the “golden handcuffs” of the money were on. So, I began to search out innocuous things on the internet at work when no one needed my assistance. I started with taking typing tests and then searching for other types of work, all reasonable things, in my mind, to look up within the framework of my receptionist job. I was making myself better for the job at hand—continuous training, I told myself. But then I landed on the idea of transcript proofreading from home. From home…oh how I missed my haven of books and culture and not having a long commute shoved in a public bus with everyone else who worked in the city. I stayed sardine-shaped at work, my spine poking out through the skin to shield myself from the outside world.

Soon enough, I was sitting at my desk in another place entirely. I was no longer just the receptionist but a proofreader-in-training. Whenever my time was freed up, I was on their computer taking tests, learning about frequently confused homophones and transposed words. I printed off pages to work from since I didn’t have a printer at home. But the slope got more slippery in my head. I faked smiles and laughs and worked just enough to squeak by. And then I began to feel guilty. I was now having to make choices that left me either feeling used by the company or ashamed. These were some of my thoughts (see if you recognize some of these daily compromises you make in your job): Well, my boss didn’t tell me I’d have to stay this late, so I deserve the ten cents worth of paper. Or, this client on the phone was angry with me for no reason, so I should get an extra five minutes to eat my lunch today. Or, X always gets in late, so I’m going to arrive late just for today. And these kinds of calculations were constant. It was as if I was on this endless tightrope between making moral and immoral choices. Their policy was clear about not doing personal work during business hours, which probably included taking their paid-for paper and ink, taking extra time off, and arriving late. I knew what I was doing, but my own unhappiness made things seem even…fair.

I should have left earlier than I did, but I waited until I finished the proofreading program and started building up my business so that I no longer had to make tough and often poor moral decisions every day that I could feel were progressively eating away at my soul. I missed feeling the simplicity of just saying no to things in school and then following the schedule that was set by my parent and teachers. I no longer had that option. Life as an adult was my own, and I needed to spend my time wisely, make up my own schedule, and end up a lot happier than I was feeling in those days. As soon as I had a few clients under my belt, I resigned from my position.

Not everyone needs to quit their jobs and work for themselves. I’m sure there are plenty of people who love their jobs and are challenged enough on a daily basis to not start feeling resentful. But the moral degrees game, I believe, is very present in the “corporate world” today. Thankfully, when we do not cloud our emotions with drugs or alcohol, we have an easier time getting a clue about what we are doing—not only to the company we may work for but to ourselves. If you feel bad at the end of the day, then how have you spent it? Have you made compromises all day that only attacked your self-esteem and, thereby, your long-term happiness?

We are not static creatures. Every day we make moral choices, but we can make them easier or harder to choose. For instance, brushing your teeth comes automatically now since we’ve been doing it since childhood. Yet, it is an act of choosing life. You are taking care of your oral health to live another day healthy on earth. You have the option to skip it and risk cavities and all the deterioration of the body that follows, but that by definition is immoral since Ayn Rand states that “Life or death is man’s only fundamental alternative. To live is his basic act of choice. If he chooses to live, then a rational ethics will tell him what principles of action are required to implement his choice. If he does not choose to live, nature will take its course” (Philosophy: Who Needs It?). A dead man doesn’t need morality.

So was I behaving poorly in my receptionist job? Toward the end, I would say yes, I did immoral things. However, it was the good, moral choice that made me resign and not continue to suck off the money teat forever while just giving the minimum of my efforts to my job. I regained the tarnished bits of my self-esteem by leaving and venturing off on my own. Do I make “easy” money now? No. Do I make as much money yet? No. But am I happier? Yes. Am I still perfect after learning from such an experience? Yes.

We all live atop the scales of justice until our final breath is taken. There are days we will make mistakes and there will be repercussions. But we must have the courage to address the emotions that come with an immoral decision in order to be good. Clouding, hiding, submerging those feelings and the reality of the situation, which, sadly, so many adults do who don’t understand the way out, can only lead to the destruction of the soul. Bad, immoral, imperfect people are those who know that what they do makes them feel awful, they may even know it is immoral, and continue to do it anyway—in the face of reality. They refuse to change when all evidence suggests they must do so to continue living. They begin to become walking billboards for death, not life. Forget brushing my teeth, forget clocking into work on time, forget keeping my child fed, forget that the gun is going off into an innocent person’s body because life has no meaning for me. I am the absence of life now; I am death. It is not an irrational spiral that stirs people on the outside to shout “Madman!” It is a man who has lost his sense of morality and progressively allows the disease to weaken his values down to dust.

I believe that most people are good, perfect beings who would benefit from more of a culture that advocates paying attention to our emotions—not hiding them. They can oftentimes help detect a bad decision before reason can come in to explain. Books, especially literary fiction, are also saviors for their honest look into people’s good and bad decisions and the outcomes they face from them. I believe that morality can be learned and a good, perfect person should be open to its serious study. They will learn that there are varying degrees of values on a person’s set of priorities, and the more attuned they are to them, the happier they will be with a clearer vision of their goals in life. Perfection is all about making mistakes and learning from them. That struggle to understand cause and effect is what makes man quintessentially human.

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Links: h ttp://www.aynrandlexicon.com; https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Who-Needs-Ayn-Rand/dp/0451138937

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On Judgment

This month’s topic is on judgment and its use. Judgment, in particular, is required when growing up in a culture that constantly preaches not to judge while choosing to uphold the activities of the lowest common denominator, namely school dances.

I don’t know if every school has dances like the one I am going to discuss, whether public or private, but I would be curious to know, so feel free to share with me. This was certainly the climate when I was attending my public middle and high schools in New York and then in New Jersey. The first actual nightclub that I went to was in D.C. while in college, and it was clearly the inspiration for such school dances when I was growing up.

My first school dance was in the sixth grade when I would have been at the tender age of eleven. At eleven, I walked into a gym that was dark, loud, and downright frightening. I had never seen such a place before. The music was blaring, so much so that I covered my ears to protect them. Girls were behaving strangely around me and telling me that I was dressed up wrong. Guys were doused in horrible-smelling cologne and gel spiked all the hair they had on their body at that point. Teachers looked the other way while boys met girls up close and personally; I had never seen “grinding” before. The lights from the DJ disoriented me as I turned around looking for the familiar faces that I knew in the daylight, the faces I sat beside every day in the classroom. Where were they, or what, exactly, had they become in an instant?

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Each year, I went to the next homecoming dance, believing that somehow a new grade meant more mature peers. Boy, was I wrong. It took me until I was seventeen years old and had worked my way up the high school food chain before I wrote this piece (even though I regrettably never sent it in).

Our Nightclub Dances Must GO!

I have gotten into Peer Leadership and Teen PEP and these leadership roles have made me question how our school could better represent itself. My inspiration for change came from our Homecoming dance and several middle school dances beforehand. I believe that our dances are inappropriate and do not represent this school or any other school well. If you have ever been to a dance you would see kids ‘grinding’ in almost complete darkness while supposedly ‘dancing’ to extremely loud pop/rap music that no one can actually dance to. These dances begin in middle school and promote, to put it bluntly, sex. The music is also extremely loud as stated before, which can harm a student’s eardrums. I remember my eardrums buzzing for hours after I got home from dances. All I have to say is where has our culture gone? Our principals (and not just at LHS & LMS) seem to have ‘given up’ on enforcing school appropriate dances. I can understand that school officials feel that this is what most teenagers like and they’ll complain if you take away their freedom of expression but this should not be tolerated. I know many of my peers who would like their dances to be 80’s movie-esque. I know teachers who refuse to chaperone anymore because they feel uncomfortable allowing the kids to act in this way. If students learned how to dance then I believe that more of them would come and enjoy the dances. Learning how to dance is a great thing that our generation is missing out on. We are missing the whole point of what a dance is: a place to socialize and show off our moves not a place to sweat like pigs in the dark and dry hump to bad, booming noise. Excuse the vulgarity but I really do believe strongly in this. Kids are missing out on a great cultural past time.

I have never had fun at any of the dances I have been to which means that something just isn’t right. I’m not saying that students must stand a foot apart and sway to 50’s music, but I do think that we have toppled over to the other extreme. We are a SCHOOL, not a nightclub. I also realize that many teens like pop/rap, however, it seems one-sided and unfair to the students who like other kinds of music. The DJ’s should have a variety of music in order to expand students’ horizons and, as a result, teens can learn to respect other kinds of music. We could have jazz, R&B, swing, blues, classic rock, classical, anything! Just being exposed to different dances could also benefit the students because dancing is great exercise and so much fun. Learning dance steps from other countries could also become a culture experience (which International Alliance has already shown us). We could have break dancing, waltz, jitterbug, swing, and tango, whatever you can think of.

This is what dances everywhere have succumbed to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6t_rdl5zNg&feature=related (This is a typical dance: crowded, blasting music, grinding, swaying like a dunce or jumping like one…I’m getting nauseous just watching this. Plus those are just 8^th graders!!! What are we teaching them?! We are undoing all of the endless hours of abstinence messages just by allowing these types of dances to occur every month in LMS)!

Here is my vision. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-OG0EyJyV8&ab_channel=BoxofficeMovieScenes (Please notice the comments at the bottom. Just clean fun).

Now that’s a HUGE difference and it has only been 26 years since 1985! Clearly something is wrong and we have culturally demolished ourselves.

My plan, (if you and the school officials think it’s possible), would be to get a petition signed by a numerous amount of students to change our dance system, possibly after talking to the Board of Education, and create an experimental dance hosted by a school club/several clubs where high school students could come, dance, and then vote on whether or not they’d like to change our old dance habits. Then, if enough students enjoy it the school could change every dance to this new system. I know the question has popped into your head about how exactly we will teach around 300 high school students to dance…but this is what I am thinking. I would like to add dancing to our physical education program. So along with the required weight room and swimming units we should also have another in dancing. I still haven’t quite figured out if we could pay for a teacher, (I do know of a great ballroom dancing couple who work very close to LHS), or we could just buy dance videos to play on the TV in the aerobics room. After learning a few new moves hopefully the enthusiasm for real dancing will return and we can all live happily ever after… Thank you for listening and please get back to me about whether or not this is even possible.

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I was eighteen when I wrote this next piece for one of my first college literature classes.

The Atheist’s Sermon

How silly you look. How young. You’re not a real college student. Simultaneously attempting to calm my nerves and get ready for the party, I slip into my elegant dress and shoes. This was the only “clubbing” attire that I owned. Trying to escape the nerves wrapping themselves around my brain like thin vines, I stealthily step out of my room and into the residence hallways. My heart is starting to palpitate hard against my chest as I scurry down the hallway and out into the starless night to join a group of four other girls who were all wearing “little black dresses.” Staring down at my own purple bubble dress, I withdrew from an instant realization that I was already screwing up that night.

Doubly self-conscious, I step onto the shuttle bus full of half-naked students. Egotistical boys are talking in the back, while the leader of the pack makes his presence known for all capable of hearing by saying that he is “semi-hard right now.” I feel my face burn and I force myself to breathe again. I cannot help feeling naked, dirty, and mysterious all at once. I am trapped in a completely packed shuttle with these other crazy party-goers. And in the midst of such chaos, a girl is putting on ten pounds of cherry red lipstick on her already obnoxiously bleeding-red lips. While girls with the flat-ironed bleach blonde hair, the extra padded push-up bras, the arrogant walk – you know, the hip-swinging, back straightened, nose-to-the-sky type of walk are strutting around the bus stop waiting for their dates. This shuttle of hormones begins to move after five eternally long minutes. I sit and try to make small-talk with the people accompanying me, but I can’t help getting distracted by the darkness outside that is enclosing the bus. It is around 10 PM now, so the night is still relatively young. We exit the shuttle and before I know it, I am on the metro headed toward Metro Center, our destination for the evening. The metro lights are unnaturally bright for this time of day. They sting my retinas. I look away and catch a glimpse of my right wrist clenched onto a cold, metallic rod for support. My wrist looks so small that I almost do not recognize it. It appears vulnerable, pale, innocent, thin, delicate, and fragile – breakable. And I swear it was getting smaller as the night dragged on.

The chill weather gives me goose-bumps as I walk down the road immersed in warm, illuminating street-lights. I can sense the buzz humming in the silent air, this is the nightlife. People line up on the escalator, one after another, all headed somewhere. Some faces were disapproving and it made me feel like an outright scoundrel. Other faces were absorbed in their own thoughts – hollow, and unchanging. Still some were happy as clams, laughing like fools, already having a good time. I am none of these people. I am a nervous wreck. Having been to several parties previously, I usually ended up awkwardly dancing with my friends out of a sense of obligation and then I would proceed to sit out for the rest of the night. The whole “club culture” which has always been a major attraction for students has constantly felt like the antithesis of my very being, but I could never effectively explain why to people. Homecomings, formals, and prom always ended the same way for me – lonely. I went out that night to understand myself. What was I psychologically struggling with every time I went to a party? Was it just me or was it something else more powerful than myself coercing me not to enjoy it? Am I in the wrong or are others?

It is an hour long line. Even with our “Ladies Night Passes,” we still have to wait with everyone else in the bitterly cool night air. A whirl of smoke and perfume fill my lungs as I wait there in line choking on its consistency. Greasy-looking men smoke at least three cigarettes during that long wait, while slutty-looking women complain about the line. Meanwhile, the heels and skin tight clothes on every body type imaginable were being unwillingly downloaded into my subconscious mind. Those images sear my eyes, while the electrical neurons shoot up into my memory center, and my innocence is quickly vaporized from existence. French speaking people behind me in line speak of how they pity me and how “saintly” I look among my friends. Is it really that obvious? Finally, I make it up to the door: boorish guards check my bag and driver’s license, take my umbrella away, seize my money and pass, grab my miniscule wrists and mark and stamp them to death. I want to run away but I keep walking forward, determined to discover once and for all why I feel this way. I enter the club and it is all fog and strobe lights. One puff of smoke after the next, an unrelenting chain of stupor enshrouds the club. It is loud and cramped, I cannot breathe. My group and I push through the crowd so that one of my friends who have been here before can show us each floor. I shove my body through the crowd, men flinging themselves at me. I push more forcefully now, the adrenaline rushing through my entire body. A room full of Ids. A room full of escapists. A room full of imperfection.

It is around 11 PM and we spend the first twenty minutes running up and down narrow staircases. Constantly passing by a bright blue and green light box which was the only beacon of stability I had to cling to amidst unstable waters, because it soon became a familiar sight. Bodies are shoving their way upstairs or downstairs in such commotion. It is as if people had suddenly become mindless ants crawling to and fro on their tiny hill without rhyme or reason. And the staircases are black so it is almost impossible to see where you are going, except for the various colored lights escaping from the floor below. It is like some kind of twisted nightmare that I have had before. The first floor is the main floor which has mostly pop music, the next floor is rap, and the final floor (at least from what I can remember) is Hispanic music. We visit all three and decide to stay awhile on the third floor. So standing in a circle we sway back and forth to the music, no one looking happy or having fun. One of the girls I do not know is “grinding” with a random man who looks to be about twenty-five years old. We all stare. It is not dancing, it is dry humping. Excuse me for being so blunt, but this is what I saw. And in order to understand oneself, the truth must be told. After that I was through, finished, done. Yet again, I experience the party for five minutes and then give up on hoping that I will have a good time. I have hoped one too many times. It’s useless. I hate it.

Looking back now my family was never very religious, but I was brought up a Protestant anyway. When I first realized that I could think for myself, I never thought much about god. But that all changed when my mother died. I can still remember a kid in my class saying, “maybe you didn’t pray hard enough for her.” From that point on, I hated any notion of a god. Having never really believed in him in the first place, it was easy to reject him entirely. But for this reason I am not Agnostic, because I resent people believing in some creature who could kill my own mother so viciously. No just god could do something as evil as that and get away with it. So having kicked god to the curb, I looked to people and nature. My expectations for myself and others rose to unnatural heights. My definition of perfect was no longer connected to some omnipotent presence, but to other human beings. It is not difficult to be perfect in my book. One must simply maintain moral goodness and care for oneself. I do not see people as walking shards of soul, as many others do. I see people as whole, good, and always striving to be better. That is perfection.

It is about 1 AM when I begin amusing myself by watching how drunken people are based on how poorly they walked up the stairs. It began with people joyously dancing up the stairs, then people began spilling their drinks halfway up, then men and women began zigzagging up the stairs, some people tripped, and angry women yelled at the security guards. These were signs of the night growing older, and yet the music continued to get louder, as if to shout in rebellion against time aging. And as the music was increasing in volume, each note was nailing a sign into my skull which said, NEVER AGAIN. Finally, at 2:45 AM, my friends were finished partying and I could leave this foreign place. The stark, early morning air slapped me hard in the face. One of the girls said she felt nauseous and had to sit down, another girl did not look like she had any fun at all, the one who invited me claimed that she had fun, and the “grinding” girl I had only seen for five minutes before she ditched us was staring up hazy-eyed into the pitch-black sky. Apparently, an older guy brought her a couple of shots to take and she had willingly accepted. While keeping an eye on her, we flagged down a taxi which drove us back to campus (we managed to shove five bodies into one cab). And of course, I had to pay the taxi driver. What a waste of twenty dollars. By 4 AM, I quickly run to the bathroom, throw off my elegant dress and shoes, and yank on my pajamas. Then, I proceed to scrub the marker and stamp off my hands and wrists until they are bright red. I wish I could forget this night in its entirety. I crawl underneath my thin fleece covers and allow the night to settle in my brain and produce the answer to my problem. The images that bore a hole in my memory kept playing in my head over-and-over again, until I reached some pretty hefty conclusions about myself and others.

I am not in the wrong. My body and soul are simply intertwined – inseparable components of my being. My mother’s death allowed me to see that the two must be connected in order for me to find happiness. And the only way that I can combine the two dual entities is to find other people with the same high moral expectations. My own morality shines through because, as Socrates says in Plato’s Socrates and Alcibiades, “either […] man is nothing, or, if man is something, he turns out to be nothing other than soul” (48). I am soul. I am soul, because I have decided to devote myself to people. So by using my body, I can carry out my soul’s will. Without a god to lead me through life, I must rely on my own intuition. For I am limited to people – all I know are other people. Socrates also says in Plato’s Five Dialogues, “that the soul of man is immortal, and at one time has an end, which is termed dying, and at another time is born again, but is never destroyed. And the moral is, that a man ought to live always in perfect holiness” (78). Hence, my very being is made up of other people. And if the soul is reused like water, then I have a well-versed soul telling me that clubbing is wrong.

People often tell me that I place too much moral weight on things like alcohol, drugs, and parties. But if I give way to these evils, then what does that say about my soul? I prefer to be hyper-sensitive and in control of my senses at all times, because that way I can take pleasure in the simple joys of life. I can combine soul and body to achieve happiness. I do not wish to escape from reality. I wish to relish in it, because being an Atheist I believe that this life is the only one I have. Therefore, I can only respect and have fun with the people who can earn my respect. People must work for my love and I must work for theirs. I shall never compromise my body and soul for others, because I have taken on perfection. I am perfect. Call me a saint, an innocent little girl, an old soul, but I will not be peer-pressured into corrupting myself in any way. I love humanity, and that night I was personally hurt and disappointed that people could behave so irrationally for fun. Escapism is not what I look for in other human beings, but courage…to have the courage to act, to live, to enjoy insignificant moments, to taste life twice. I want to be able to look up to mankind, not despise it, because that is all that I have to live for – myself and other people.

***

After reading this essay, my freshman college professor told me I was “being way too judgmental of these people who were just trying to have fun.” She looked at me with hatred in her eyes. You see, the point of this introductory assignment (and many of the subsequent ones) at this liberal university was to “go outside of our comfort zones and learn something new about ourselves and others.” The main example pressed upon us was to pretend to be homeless for a day and then write about that. What this translated to was to be humble, you privileged child, and place the lowest in society above yourself—it was meant to be the ultimate act of altruism in order to enter the pearly gates of this university.

I was having none of it. After all, I was one of those students who had already struggled enough in life and chose not to go down the path of drugs, prostitution, crime, and homelessness. I didn’t work this hard just to end up there, anyway. I was using my senses and honestly felt sick going to what this culture was telling me was a place to have the time of my life. It wasn’t life; it was death.

I was meant to put my head down and serve death—in my college career and my future job until I was skin and bones myself. I was meant to shrivel up and die like Christ on the cross for others. I was worthless without the other. That’s what school was trying to teach me now, not reading, writing, or arithmetic.

In The Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand discusses “judgment” as something that we all must do to “evaluate a given concrete by reference to an abstract principle or standard.” And that “[n]othing can corrupt and disintegrate a culture or a man’s character as thoroughly as does the precept of moral agnosticism, the idea that one must never pass moral judgment on others, that one must be morally tolerant of anything, that the good consists of never distinguishing good from evil.” Therefore, I judge so as to understand myself and the world clearly. And this sensitivity to the world makes it more sustainably pleasurable than being in a dark room that is too loud to even think in—not from a religious perspective but from a human, moral one.

The only ingredient missing in those gyms (although I’m sure the “bad kids” already had it) was alcohol and drugs. Those ingredients magically make that dark room “fun” for adults. The darkness and noise and hazy fog blinding the senses—the complete abandonment of reality—is fun? If that is truly fun, then that means something is not right in that person’s personal life. They are deliberately trying to escape reality. As I said before, it is an unsustainable and ugly way to live. As an adult now who cannot be bullied, I will not ignore how I always felt about these types of dances and how they reflect our culture at large. For any time you abandon reality, the risks to you of losing control for good increase. I choose life over death every single day and so should you, so judge on, my friends.

***

Links: https://www.amazon.com/Socrates-Alcibiades-Symposium-212c-223a-Philosophical/dp/1585100692; https://www.amazon.com/Plato-Dialogues-Euthyphro-Apology-Phaedo/dp/0915145227/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=; https://www.amazon.com/Virtue-Selfishness-Fiftieth-Anniversary/dp/0451163931

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The Atheist Nun

So why share all of these etiquette videos? Well, this was my way of tiptoeing into the moral arena while gaining enough courage to discuss my personal beliefs more directly online. Do I think I’m ready now? No, but I’m going to put it out there anyway since morality has been at the core of my being from childhood and only grows stronger with time. This is why the topic can be so touchy for me and anyone else who holds their morals close to their chest.

I am also tired of the thirty-second bits that people shout out to add their voice to the ever-growing chatter of “the news.” People come away with extremely shallow and tribalistic views if they cannot fully hear either position expressed. Therefore, the art of etiquette and the rules of civility that I posted were meant to stand as a welcome reminder to adults coming to my channel that one must first listen before they are heard.

That is why I appreciate having a channel where I can sit in a quiet room, write out my thoughts, and then deliver them without fear of being shouted over. I believe this is also why you don’t hear many women speaking out in the “public sphere” for fear of such shouting matches. Even though, historically, women have been seen as the moral guides within the home, and I wish to continue that tradition. I, personally, am too delicate to be mowed over by the loudest voices in the room. I would never be heard that way in this current culture.

And why, you may ask, for the changed name of my channel? That is all thanks to my brother, who always tells me the truth, even when it may not be flattering (heck, more so if it’s unflattering) to me. But I guess that’s just what siblings do.

Anyway, not too long ago, my brother texted me and called me an “atheist nun” in jest because I have always taken life so seriously and the smallest things seem to upset me. I was often told growing up that I “can’t take a joke.” But it’s because of this view of the world—the details, the small transgressions—that Man makes in his day-to-day life that I can see eating away at his own happiness that bothers me. I love people but hate when they sabotage themselves. And sabotage is much easier to do when you’re begging forgiveness from a father figure that’s watching your every move. I truly believe that if you focus on yourself and the way you interact with the world, you’ll eventually find happiness.

I heard Ben Shapiro talking a few months ago about how materialistic and small worshipping nature is—that God produces a much mightier and holier conception of the world for Man. But as I’ve spoken about in previous episodes, a writer gets his words and ideas from the details (also known as inductive reasoning) to come to grand conclusions. It’s the nature that’s around us—reality—that makes my flesh tingle, not some big man in the sky.

I suppose I’m still figuring out how I can truly help people through this platform. In some ways, I’d really like to help people see morality as something that can be discussed more scientifically than returning to preaching scenes from the Bible. I want to find those people out there who also like homesteading and ballet and learning new things and enjoying family without the sermons at the end.

I am sure that it will take more episodes to fully understand the seeming paradox of a name like “The Atheist Nun,” but for now I have opened up the conversation, I hope. And in the most fleshed-out way, I am a person without faith who finds a kind of spirituality in humanity and the morals that keep us on the true path to happiness.

And finally, please leave your comments and thoughts. I don’t mean to appear intense or intimidating; apparently, I just come off this way because of my drive to see myself and others do well. Additionally, here’s an important disclaimer: I will be very careful not to try to tease out other living people’s thoughts on this channel, other than my own, when discussing morality in order to avoid what Ayn Rand calls “psychologizing.” This term is essentially used to mean judging others for merely their thoughts or subconscious motives. It is unfair for me to try to weasel into another’s mind and presume to know why they feel what they feel or why they do what they do—only they know that. I can only look at the actions that they took or the words consciously communicated either orally or written down, and only then can a moral judgment be made.

At the end of the day, I know we can do better as a society if we let go of the notion that we are not responsible for our own destinies, or that some deity or deities control every aspect of our lives, or that life is completely up to chance. We have free will, and the greatest teachers are shut up in books building up dust. I want people to blow off those cobwebs, crack open the best minds, and peer into their honest, naked thoughts. Take the time to digest them and integrate admirable minds into your own to become the kind of person that is never forgotten by time.

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On Writing and Why I Chose Literary Fiction

As far as my opinions on writing go and the way I write, I have a few tips, though I am still young and things may come into sharper focus as I age.

Ever since childhood, I have used my “microscope” to help me find the words to say. I can look at something that others would pass right over and by noticing what makes it special, then the words and ideas come. It sort of is like a meditative process. One word of warning though if you become “stuck” in this writer’s perspective, then going to overly stimulating places (which, unfortunately, so very many people are fond of today) may cause great anxiety. I cannot seem to come out of this mindset or attention to detail, so I tend to feel the need to prepare myself before attending anything loud or overcrowded (medication helps too).

By staying with these “moments,” there is in the nature of them a sense of urgency, so holding onto them with words is akin to catching them in a net. The best way to access these special moments is by becoming a soldier of the arts. You should get up and follow a routine every day that allows your mind to focus on the unique bits and bobs that stray from the norm. They become more obvious to you when you are not rushing around your house looking for the house keys before running out the door for work.

My sense of gratitude and happiness comes from the effort that goes into working with a purpose—not from sunshine and rainbows. I never aim to suffer, but I surely am willing to give it my full effort to achieve my goal that promises more of a long-lasting feeling of contentment and pure bliss.

In terms of more specific writing tips, I would say to never introduce too many characters early on (like Dickens). It becomes “crow-blowing” (unlike in Les Misérables when one character is described for many pages). Only when the readers grasp the present character can they then move on to understanding another.

I also believe that it is a corrupt idea to say that fiction does not mirror reality, but instead creates a “new reality.” Literary fiction is only meant to show how reality (singular) ought to be and what it truly means to be human. There is no “other” reality being created.

Also, in scattershot form: always give details to bring the reader closer to the perspective/experience/character; never become too focused on the environment/social over the individual; main characters without values are not worth writing about because they are unrealistic; always remember that the universe is benevolent!

To be a great writer, one must observe the world, study it, and then integrate to produce a creative product.

I love writing stories because I can walk through a moral problem that I am having from a rational (not spiritual) perspective and come to a conclusion that is satisfactory. That is why I find that outlines never really helped me because I had to work from a single scene in a logical progression until, due to contextual circumstances, I could only come to a single conclusion and that becomes my ending. Personally, it makes a book more enjoyable to write when you are unsure what the main answer is.

Although, I would say that ideas have come to me in many ways for the books I have written so far: sometimes it’s a single scene or vignette floating around in my head for a while, or the first sentence, or the last, or even just an environment that embodies an entire idea. If the idea is strong enough, then I find that I do not even need to write it down as other ideas for the next piece just keep building on themselves in my mind.

Ultimately, my desire is to bring the body back into literature—bring Man back into literature. My novels range from exploring the worst evils to the highest good done by Man. However, the naturalist movement of the late nineteenth century ripped the story away from the romanticized individual and onto the piece of land being sown with seed. Well, I would like to be remembered as the writer who analyzed a few moral topics within the philosophical branch of ethics that is set down in Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. My goal in life is to teach people about secular morality by pointing to a time in history, such as mid-nineteenth century America, when I believe the culture was better. Literary fiction should teach and make Man better.

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