Why are some family members so insistent upon acquainting themselves with me? What is the purpose of establishing good relations and familiarity with me? Their convictions are not mine. Their goals do not intermingle with mine. There is no common ground to be discussed. We are not bound by custom, finances or history. There's nothing worthwhile to be exchanged between us.

The entirety of our relation merely consists of a handful of meetings or a genetic similarity only slightly higher than is normal. Why does that warrant further relation? They have no defensible reason to value me, or I them; we are distant and opposed.

Why can't well enough simply be left alone? Why can't I be rid of people who feel as though my time is owed to them or that they have unrestricted access to me? I want nothing but to live my own life and fulfill my own goals. I do not want this.

It seems to me that there is a problem in how some people view and pursue their emotional states. Most people will conduct their entire lives pursuing a particular emotional response, such as happiness or pride. They will marry, they marry ill-advisedly, they will manage their careers, they will read books and attend lectures on the pursuit of happiness, they will steal, they will kill, they will abuse drugs; they will do whatever is necessary to attain a few blissful moments when glandular tissue in their brains is secreting a pleasurable chemical. Whatever means they choose, their goal is to make those cells secrete happiness.

What's wrong with this is that people pursue things like happiness and love as if they were the ends to some means. Happiness is not an end to any means; it is a means to some end. It is a functional tool, like a compass, and to no one is following a compass an end to some means; we follow compasses to arrive at some goal.

So what are the goals of happiness and similar emotions? What are these internal compasses trying to lead us toward? Should we really be following them? Emotions are evolutionary adaptations. They were not developed specifically for your benefit or best interests. They developed because the creatures and communities of creatures who had something similar to them were more likely to endure and reproduce.

That in mind, they can be a reliable guide, but they can also be a treacherous one, because evolution does not always have my best interest at heart. It is also a very slowly developing mechanism, and we are a very quickly developing species, so much of the emotional information imbued in us at birth is better suited to the necessities of ages long since gone. They're misguided, confused, self-defeating, and inapplicable to modern society. Many of the things that they drive us toward are of no benefit to us whatsoever, either because we live in a different circumstance or because they were never meant to benefit us at all, but to benefit our offspring. So emotions have some limited relevancy to us still, but we should take their advice with a large spoon of salt.

In any case, they are functional, as tools, and a tool is only ever a means to an end. A wrench is a valueless and queer novelty if there is nothing to tighten. When we are driven to some end by our emotions, we must examine that end and make a conscious and informed decision on whether or not that end is worth pursuing and is in alignment with our values, because this compass doesn't always point north.

As for the people who aim to cheat their biology with substance abuse by tricking their brain into drowning itself in pleasurable neural-chemicals, they are missing the point of the emotional response entirely; they are misusing the tool, and as such, they suffer for it.

Emotions are our tools, our slaves; we must never be theirs.

I often describe myself as a misanthrope, an individual cell of the societal body, violently independent from the whole. I am hostile to the ideologies of my neighbors. I do not appropriate much of my time to their petty and over dramatized social games. I have no regard for their useless sentiments and ill conceived ideals. Alliances of convenience have me posted in the trenches of their culture wars. My enemy in such is alien to me, and I can in many cases claim to abhor everything that he stands for. With a slip of the tongue, I may call him villainous and evil. He is the great Satan to me and I to him.

This separation is not unique to me. Human civilization has defined itself since its conception by the ways it can find to divide itself. Even putting aside the obvious divisions between large scale factions in religion and philosophy, each individual one of us is an island unto his or her self, separated if not by ideals then by experience, interpretation, imagination, communication; the very air between each of us has us divided. We will never know the same cosmos as our neighbor. That is why we fight each other.

We spend the entirety of our lives listening to no one else's thoughts but our own. That is what it means to be lonely. The naive realists don't see it as such. They live for an instant, spend that instant locked in an empty chamber; they hear a voice and feel they have company, but the voice is their own, a rough translation of sounds reverberating from beyond the walls; they mutter the sounds back to themselves, applying their own internally conceived context to it. They think there's someone there to talk to, but they're only speaking to themselves.

So is it foolish of me to suspect, even hope, that despite all of these dividing elements there is a common thread that runs through us all? Are we not all fragile creatures, born of the same stuff and aware of our tininess, our own helplessness, our own isolation, our own impermanence? Can't a humanist atheist look into the eyes of a devout Christian and with all the sincerity in the world say to her, "I understand."

Can't we derive some comfort from knowing, that no matter our frailty, no matter our isolation, we are all in this miserable mess? Can't we relate on at least that much?

We are all mortal, and it hurts, but at least we're not alone in that. I wonder how many see this as I do.



All we wonder,
No-one ever denies,
If once given life we must die.

So bow down with me,
Where summer fades into fall,
And leave your hatchets of hate.
Bow down with me,
And sing the saddest of all,
The song we all serenade.

I would define art as any representative manipulation of a medium so as to intentionally stimulate an audience's emotions, intellect, impressions of aesthetic, or imagination. It's a very broad definition, but it's what I think is necessary in order to encompass the incredibly wide breadth of genres described as art. It includes illustration, painting, sculpture, music, photography, prose, poetry, theatrical performance and more things that I could possibly think to list.

Poetry is very dear to me, for it is the only art that I excel at. It seems pretentious to call one's self a poet, but I've reached a level of aptitude for the art that it would be a travesty to deny myself that prestigious title.

I am verbose, extravagant and intricate in my prose, because I adore language, and there is no more complicated, majestic, or brilliant usage of language than in poetry. Poetry is the pinnacle of language; it is the most that language could ever be. In more definite terms, it is the art of communicating the most information and feeling in the smallest space.

If I am pretentious for calling myself a poet then I am obscene for declaring that of all the tens of thousands of beginner poets on the internet, hardly ten percent of them are worth reading. That's not to denounce their writing as futile; they simply do not yet understand the mechanics of poetry, and it is only through very much bad writing and very much tedious reading will they begin to.

What I begin by telling a beginner is that there are very many "poetic techniques" that are available to them, that these are the essence of poetry, that without disciplined usage of any of them, their writing is indistinguishable from prose. Though it's true that some of the best poems don't rhyme, it's the simplest thing, I think, for a beginner to start at. It offers a gentle introduction to the music of language, to the forms of poetry, and those forms offer a beginner routes to branch into practicing meter, imagery, and other poetic techniques.

I don't think that someone can claim to be a poet until they've acclimated themselves to the music of language, to the types of rhymes, to alliterated verses, to onomatopoetic reflections of imagery in the sound of syllables, to the harshness of some words and the softness of others, to the rising and falling of pitch, to the metrical rhythms and to how those rhythms convey a mood and atmosphere. And of course, what would a poet be if they were not clever enough to devise the themes, ideas, imagery, symbolism and meanings that gave poetry purpose as an art?

My own poet development has reflected by stages an increasing awareness of the above elements. I started writing six and a half years ago. Since then I've written hundreds of poems and utilized every format. I have read poetry from Shakespeare, Poe, Frost, Goethe, Chaucer, Nietzsche, Dickinson, Thomas, Hughes, Twain, and countless writers like me. I've modeled the poetry in music, and I've studied literature on how to perform the art. I would have abandoned the art early on, for continual failure in it, if not for the occasional gem that shown through from beneath the muck. It was when an English teacher asked to read one of my poems at a school assembly, and when that poem was met with a standing, applauding audience that I resolved to continue and refine my practice of the art.

I am not without imperfection though. I go extended periods without writing at all. Despite that I can produce, from time to time, gems that are so beautiful that I can scarcely believe that I wrote them, it is still very hard to do. I may spend six to ten hours working on a single sonnet. That's an average of spending four to six minutes anguishing over each word. Every syllable is a stubborn puzzle. It's such a trial that I often wonder if even the "bad" poets wouldn't be able to produce works better than mine if they'd only spend as much time on them.

Anyway, there it is. When I am published and lay claim to a small but venerable following, I may look back on such rants as these and chuckle at my development.

On my way home, I was approached at a bus stop by a man who took note of the fact that I was reading the last few pages of an Ayn Rand novel. His immediate intent was to identify my political and moral alignment with Rand’s philosophy as well as to ascertain my familiarity with her. I can’t be certain of his motive, but he was satisfied enough with my outlook as to carry a conversation with me.

He was in his forties, very articulate, finely dressed and kempt. I suspected some kind of ailment or substance abuse, as he seemed to produce beads of sweat despite the blistering cold and was suspiciously jittery. He discussed with me his recent purchase of property in the neighborhood and revealed himself an entrepreneur in several projects, a certified pilot (for which he produced a license of some kind), a teacher, and a libertarian. He spoke of travels, of plans, of odd tid-bits about flying and about the city’s zoning laws. He spoke about ethics, about academics, about libertarianism, and about healthy living.

We boarded the same bus and the exchange continued. I do not believe that I can adequately convey the depth or variety of knowledge that he demonstrated as we proceeded down the bus route. The startling fact is that I was so caught off guard by him that I forewent my stop and stayed on the bus, listening to him for an entire circuit and a half of the bus route. It must have been two to three hours.

For that entire time, he spoke incessantly; he did not pause or hesitate once, and I contributed no more than twenty words and much nodding. It was not a discussion, it was a unilateral dumping of knowledge and ideas; he could hardly speak fast enough to alleviate the buildup of thoughts and subjects as they rapidly occurred to him. I did nothing but listen. I suspect that if I hadn’t chosen to leave when I did, he would have continued for several more circuits. I only left because I was beginning to suspect ulterior motives for his carrying this exchange. Such was not expressed in any discernible fashion, but the possibility of such had come into my mind.

The fact that I stayed so long revealed something about me, because it’s strikingly uncommon for me to socialize with people. My “friends” are all intellectually, emotionally and physically distant from me, and I normally categorically refuse to socialize with or entertain the company of other people, so this behavior was unlike me. People have approached me at bus stops and at school before, and I dismiss their company rudely. What was different about this man was that he immediately convinced me that I was his intellectual inferior, or at least on par with him. That’s what captivated me, because I so very often, and in such an arrogant, stubborn and latent fashion, see the people around me as being beneath me. It captivates me, however briefly, when I find an intelligent individual with such a profoundly deep and intricate internal structure. Perhaps I yearn for that kind of company without being wholly aware of it.

There is a hidden longing in me for a connection with someone. It’s a dangerous impulse. I suspect it will take years to stifle and kill it completely, but I will succeed at that.

Looking at America, I have a difficult time discerning the intended purpose of the judicial system, namely the courts that deal specifically with prosecuting criminal activity and imposing penalties. I might presume the purpose is to “bring about the rule of righteousness in the land … so that the strong shall not harm the weak,” or some snobbery of that sort, whatever that means. My question is how? Is it by instilling fear of retribution? Is the retribution itself, as many grieving victims would profess, the entire point of it? Is it merely by separating the bad lot from the good lot?

Try as I may, I can’t find a morally consistent argument for the status and practices of America’s justice system. It seems that if they’re not trying to correct a wrong with another wrong, then they’re merely acting out of a sadistic disregard for the innate value of the people they punish and subject to violence, psychological torture and death.

They simply don’t seem to be doing anything particularly helpful or in alignment with their own goals. If their objective is to instill fear of retribution, then they’re doing an abysmal job at it; America's prison system's ability to attract people back, or draw them there in the first place, is evidence enough of that. If their goal is to issue damage for damage, then their goal is morally corrupt and self defeating. A moral imperative does not invert simply for moving to the other side of a courtroom. If human life and dignity were of innate value to the courts, then they wouldn’t be so eager to put an end to them. If their goal was to attain compensation for damages to society, I could understand that. Fines and compensatory debt have moral justification in that someone is returning what they have taken, but there are no labor camps and no output to society from prisons; they’re not factories, they’re cages. If the goal of prisons is simply to remove the negative element from mainstream society, then one must question why criminals are not simply relocated, but are stripped of all rights and dignity and are subject to execution, and they themselves are no longer guaranteed safety. There is a retributional element here, but I can’t find the justification for it.

I am advocating the notion that there should be only three general actions that a legal system should impose upon criminals. They are fines, rehabilitation, or segregation if the first two are unviable for specific individuals. Currently, the fines are not acted upon to their fullest potential, rehabilitation is nearly a nonfactor, and segregation is issued in such excess as to approach stupidity, involves more elements than it needs to, and is corrupted with a host of superfluous and unjustifiable penalties.

It seems to me that this country’s judicial system has changed little since the time of its inception, and rather than adapt new systems to an ever changing society and value structure, it’s still applying the frameworks applied in the middle ages.

For the last year and a half I have become progressively more and more conscious and aware of the things I consume. It makes sense that I should be. I want to be in absolute control of what I am, and molecule for molecule, we are what we digest, so I should aim to have full control over what I digest. Granted, most of the chemical structures that we take into our bodies will be there for only a short while, but it is a commitment that is extended with each meal. A dietary regimen is like a tattoo, the consequences of which, for better or worse, you'll have to live with for years. So why are people so careless about what they ingest; they should plan and conduct the act of eating as carefully and thoughtfully as they do any of their life altering undertakings

From my diet, I have eliminated red meats, acidic soft drinks, starches, sucrose, white breads, and white rice.

I have limited my intake of cholesterol, aspartame, fructose, carbohydrates in general, saturated fats, and calories to within a range of 1,200-1,400 daily.

I have substantially increased my consumption of fiber, proteins, multi-vitamins, water, fresh vegetables and antioxidant rich fruits.

In the future, I hope to begin taking dietary supplements to aid in filling the cracks of my nutrition, whereas up until now I have only taken them to alter my mood and daily rhythms. I would also like to begin to drink alkalized water and to start consuming oils and nuts rich in omega-3. With any luck, I can find an appealing source of vegetable protein.

In conducting my affairs, I incessantly pose questions to justify my course of action. "What exactly am I doing?" "Why am I doing this?" "Do the projected benefits of this outweigh the potential costs?" "How does this relate to the scheme of my worldview?" In recent months, I've found myself forcing like questions onto the matter of friendship. What is friendship? Are the people around me friends? Why am I engaging in this social bondage to them? What is the benefit? Is this incongruent with my morality?

To complicate the matter, no person or encyclopedic source can provide me with clear and definite criteria for friendship. I myself have no definitive criteria; the people around me who call themselves my friends and vice versa are permitted the position only out of a habitual convenience. They have been there for so long and so devoutly that I've simply lacked the motivation and rhetoric to discharge them, yet I am faced with a growing uneasiness with my inability to justify their rank in my life in practical or principle terms. I have a gnawing suspicion that they do not belong there.

I might suppose, for simplicity, that friendship is merely a mutually elevated regard between two or more people based on some personal inclination. Practices and policies often attributed to friendship such as openness and emotional support flow from this elevated regard. This leaves me with the question of justifying my own partaking in this social practice. Is there a reason for me to regard these people exceptionally? Is it because they themselves are of exceptional merit? Is it because they are exceptionally important to my affairs?

As in any interaction, there is ideally the demand for beneficial exchange. I am expected to give something that they desire in exchange for something that I desire. Friendship doesn't normally seem to follow this framework, however, because things are seemingly expected to be given free of return. This is categorically unacceptable by me. How can I be demanded to sacrifice my effort and resources without any benefit in return? Am I a sacrifice upon the altar of "friendship," merely a transitional means to their ends? It would seem so, as they unspokenly expect me to give unto them what they need without my explicit want for a return, and returns are something that I do not acquire from them. Their company does me little benefit; their resources are irrelevant to my needs; I have all of the emotional support I need in myself; they offer feelings of social adequacy and acceptance, but I've never needed these things before, and cannot glean what use they are to me now. It would seem that I gain nothing substantial from them.

There is perhaps another justification of friendship. Perhaps in their characters there are virtues and values that I hold in high regard, and because of that, I may desire to see them be made to prosper. If I value certain principles and see those principles reflected in the lives and philosophies of like minded people, then they themselves must hold elevated value to me, and it would be a tribute to the framework of my own principles to see them blessed with my company and loyalty. Is there any such reflection of myself in my friends today? There is not. None of my perspectives or values are akin to theirs. In most of my friends, there is never any agreement between our experiences, perspectives or morality.

Having reflected on this, I conclude that there is no justification for me to continue this social bondage with any of them.

Today was the first day of spring classes. I dislike the logistics of preparing for a new semester, ensuring transportation, securing funds, procuring books and materials, planning ahead for difficult classes, performing initial classwork, integrating my priorities into a new daily schedule, meanwhile my attentions are also diverted toward acquiring employment and troubleshooting an unstable BIOS and an uncooperative printer. I find it all very taxing, the abundance of imperative tasks that have no clear order or method by which to be performed.

Yet, I enjoy the strain in an almost masochistic way. It's like a muscle that is being strained in exercise. It's miserably unpleasant; the very intent is to cause damage up to the point of failure. The drive arises from knowing that the strain is the only way to obtain a new strength.

My classes are of a much greater cultural focus this semester. I hope that my time out of science classrooms does not leave my biochemistry rusty. I shall have to double my recreational reading of biology and chemistry related texts as to avoid this.

Over the last year, I have been following the rapidly growing and astoundingly optimistic transhumanist movement. I’ve been reading Grossman, Kurzweil, de Grey. It’s a broad ideology, and its principles are what I believe attracted me to become a biology student. It pivots on the idea that science and technology can be applied to radically enhance the longevity and quality of human life, such as to the point of reversing the aging process and extending the boundaries of human performance with genetic and nanotech augmentation.

Progress relevant to these goals accelerates at a rate that I don’t think a layman can appreciate. The quantifiable efficiency of genetic decoding has increased exponentially since 1990, and is now doing so at a yearly rate. New models and applications for nanites are in the process of development . Critical knowledge regarding the aspects of cancer, aging, gene therapy, nutrition and various diseases are becoming understood at a level never imagined. Rapamycin was unveiled six months ago as the first drug to significantly increase the lifespan of mice, and it’s already approved by the FDA for suppressing the rejection of transplanted organs. “If” is not a relevant question regarding the coming revolutions in genetics, biotechnology and medicine; the only questions left are “how” and “when.”

There will be designer genetics. There will be profiling for diseases at birth. There will be cures for all of them. There will be a merging of nanotechnology with biology, augmentation to memory and cognition, enhancements to bodily functions. An end to viral infections will happen. The fundamental cause of all cancers will be cured.

Many of our boundaries will be erased, and in my pursuit of biological sciences, I aim to be a part of that. It must have been Nietzsche who put that fire in me. His reoccurring theme of self-creation has impassioned me, and set me on a quest to recreate myself in my own image, to become what I will myself to become. It is why I am so mindful of my diet, of every acid or sugar that I ingest. It is why I exercise daily. It is why I take a handful of supplements and vitamins daily. It’s all so that I may bring my body into alignment with what I want it to be.

The most beautiful notion is that we needn’t be confined behind the bars of circumstance, that we may shrug off millions of years of the past, be unphased by the eons, break the shackles of our biology, and become reflections of our own will, as are omnipotent gods. The notions soothe the fear of existential loneliness, of biological weakness, of mortality, replaces them with vigor, as a crisp air in the lungs. My attraction to transhumanism and the life sciences is a manifestation of my own “will to power,” and I am entranced by the coming of a time when the line between what we are and what we want to become is blurred to the point of transparency, where our biology is no longer dictated by countless generations and an obedience to them, but by conscious decisions. I want very much to live the art of self-creation, even if in a pathetically small way. I am humbled by it, desperate for it, as a mortal groveling before the cosmos, begging for his own godhood. Maybe Mephistopheles will pay me a visit.

Given time, nature always caters to the will of man, for we know her secrets, and they are our currency.

It's difficult, being born so late in the history of civilization. There are so many books that precede me, and new ones today are published in massive quantity, and I'm under such a constrained time frame with which to experience all these packets of knowledge and culture. I've gone through seventy-five in the last three years, and yet the titles in my 'to read' list have not seemed to lessen once.

I read on philosophy, religion, science, history, and fiction that is either classical or directly relevant to modern society. Some of the authors are obscure, and I feel ashamed to say that I've deprived myself of some of the greater legends of literature. I look forward to reading Milton and Newton sometime this year.

I imagine that selecting a favorite book or piece of writing maybe difficult for most regular readers, but not for me. I have read plays, religious satire, philosophical commentary and I’ve read from poets and scientists, but nothing for me has been as profoundly deep and enjoyable and covered the same breadth of literary aristry as Goethe’s Faust. It is my favorite piece of writing by far, so much so that I fully intend to read alternately translated versions of it.

I very much see myself as Faust, an academic weary of age and tired of Earth, hungry for things and secrets that are forbidden, and eager to wager whatever is necessary for a chance at attaining them. Then there is Mephistopheles, whose antagonistic role is almost forgotten due to his charm and wit. There is a strength and lure about his character that you can almost become drunk on just imagining, and I see him in my character as well.

There is more to Goethe’s Faust than the characters though. The play is a profound commentary on the nature of the human experience, on love, lust, religion, politics, and it is delivered in a surreal and intricate manner. In the poetry of Goethe’s words, or rather those of the translator who opted to maintain his poetic devices, there is a music that carries the themes. It’s all done with more detail and hidden instances of profound wisdom, historical, biblical, and literary allusion than I think I’ve ever seen In a single piece of writing before. I maybe overstepping my bounds in saying this, but I think, even though Goethe frequently paid tribute to his English counterpart, that Goethe was in fact no less the master than Shakespeare.

In any case, it has been my favorite thing to read, and I’m sure I shall write about it again, to include my feelings on the others I’ve read.

Mo-ral-i-ty , n. A system of ideas of right and wrong conduct.

I find my definition of it more useful and of equivalent meaning: “a framework of principles by which it is determined how one should act.”

I am profoundly morally minded, and who should not be? If it is the means by which one determines how one should act, it follows that everyone should be concerned about it in determining their actions, but it is clear that not everyone is.

I can detect in the people around me two different views on morality. There are those who believe that it is universal and objective for being dictated to man by characters of authority. Others believe that morality is baseless and subjective, that it has no reason for being outside of cultural opinion and hence is profoundly able to be disregarded.

My perspective on morality is of a different kind. Morality is not arbitrarily dictated, such as by higher powers, nor is it formed exclusively by willful and personal views. Properly exercised morality is not an end to which man must live up to, nor is it something that man may disregard and still thrive; it is a means to the ends of man, a tool to achieve his goals and a guidance for what those goals must be.

The thing that truly makes morality authoritative is logic, or rather, a consistency between premise and reliably inferred conclusion, to include the validity of the premise. I have been told that there is no logic in morality. If that were the case, since morality is a means to determine how one should act, the implication would be that there are no logical actions, or at least not actions that can be realized through logic. This is of course not the case. If we arbitrarily accept a goal, logical inference is perfectly suited for determining a route by which to meet that goal, if it can be met; hence it is by logic that we can determine how we ought to act towards an end.

It is the apparent flexibility of the end that makes morality relevant to each individual and their own interests. That does not mean that morality can be fitted towards any end, which logical inference will then loyally carry it to. The ends that we are appealing to are things that we value. In order, however, for our morality to not collapse under its own weight, the things that we place value in and work towards must not contradict each other or undermine our own rationale for valuing them. If one analyzes the rationale behind many of our decisions, it becomes apparent that there are self-evident values that, by definition, must be present in any decision making individual. When all is accounted for, there is an empowering flexibility to morality and what one’s principle values may be, but the logic underlying the distribution of values leaves some ends indefensible by rationale.

I conclude thus that there is a moral foundation applicable to everyone, that morality has aspects that are both universal and personal.

I read yesterday, during one of my adventures into the wilds of the web, the second or third discrediting commentary on my web-wide screen name, Vain Apocalypse. It seems that some people have taken it to be trite or childishly melodramatic. The people who make these remarks are apparently of the opinion that proper screen names should be restricted to clumsy attempts at humor or allusion or be entirely irrelevant or undecipherable. I thought I might elaborate here on the relevancy and meaning in my screen name and perhaps as well as my real name.

It is an ambiguous abbreviation for my worldview. The words each have two separate denotations. As taken from the online Cambridge dictionary, to be vain is either to be exceedingly “interested in your own appearance or achievements,” that is, be marked by self absorbedness, or to be “unsuccessful or useless; of no value.” The word apocalypse in modern usage denotes an “event resulting in great destruction and change.” Its Greek etymology, however, denotes a revelation of things once veiled.

The screen name Vain Apocalypse calls together themes on egocentrism, futility, destruction and things revealed. The denotations of the word “Vain” are the most important, as they call together things that are directly opposed, prideful self reverence in the presence of nihilistic futility. It is the mergence of subjective internal values with the cold, objectively valueless external world. Readers of philosophy will recognize the duality, as it appears very often, and the struggle between them is the cornerstone in Albert Camus’ absurdism. Apocalypse is straighter forward in its relevancy. It merely expresses a destruction of orders that are old and a revelation of things that are new.

Vain Apocalypse communicates that I am an egoist, an absurdist, a despiser of the old and the stagnant and a believer that new things must always be discovered. That’s not so trite and melodramatic, is it?

Regarding my real name, I know not the accuracy of their sources, but sites that list the etymological origin of names and match them with meanings are all fairly in agreement. Perhaps they derive the meaning of the names from the nature of characters who originally possessed them, or perhaps it is vice versa.

“James,” Hebrew of course, represents the supplanter, which means the one who takes the place of something. Supplantation is central to my worldview; the decrepit, the unfit, the weak and the wrong must be replaced by the new and the strong. Progress is preferable to stagnation, always. “Earl” is of Irish origin and denotes nobility. I may be stretching it a bit, but I think that nobility is a fine representation for an elevated value in one’s self, that is, egoism. “Adams” obviously is from the Judeo-Christian creation story’s character Adam, who was made of mud, earthen stuff, so it’s fitting that the name, everywhere I look, is said to represent something “of the Earth.” “Earthly” is something that I very much am, being a naturalist and hence having little concern for things dealing in the antonym of earthly; of divine or spiritual stuff, I most certainly am not.

James Earl Adams III I take to refer to an egoist who is of the natural world, not the supernatural, and who values the ejection of the outdated.

My name is James Earl Adams III.


I will begin by saying that this blog is not intended to benefit the public in any way. It is not intended to be advertorial, informative, entertaining or servicing to my social circle or any reader unknown. My purpose for writing here is to catalogue my thoughts on specific topics and to formulate and organize my opinions and values as for reflection or future reference. I am writing for myself.

I have nothing to gain from attracting readers and do not anticipate that I will have any beyond myself, but I will not begrudge them if they do appear. If I am writing solely to appease myself, it may be wondered why I have elected to make this blog accessible to the public or why I have submitted it to the internet at all. Justifying such, I cite a want for the long term security of what I write, a dislike for censorship, and willingness towards experimentation.

On the upkeep of this blog, I will promise nothing unambiguous. Postings will not be made at regular intervals or within certain spans of time. The blog itself as well as its accessibility to the public, I will disclaim, may be discontinued at any time, for any reason, without explanation.

The content will be expressed in no specific order and will consist of my contemplation and commentary on topics or events of interest to me as they appear to me. That is a vague direction to embark upon, but my partaking in this activity is merely a trial.