corylevialexander

[corylevialexander]

Right mind.

Lacking the vocabulary and cleverness necessary for some better wording, he had failed to so far come up with a more precise and delicate phrase to sum up the subject. The subject was the mental place of reason and voluntary ascent to reason which he called “being in your right mind.” What did being in your right mind entail to the man? One could say that they were themselves in their right mind if they were at peace with the reasonings they were coming to. To not only be in a place of peace but to also have also come to that place with understanding as the primary goal. He was in his right mind when he could confront the world on the terms of which the world inevitably proselytized and maintained. He was in his right mind when the facts placed at his feet were those that he was comfortable with. Not only mentally through reason but emotionally through reflection of ones feelings as well. For you can have one without the other. Sometimes we lie to ourselves and maintain the situation to be different from that which is really is. You could say that this is one form of being not in our right mind but somewhere else. On the other hand, one could understand the terms of the situation they were in while not truly being at peace with them. This was the other form of being not in our right mind, of being somewhere else. One of those other places in the mind. Often those places are if not torturous, at minimum uncomfortable.

[corylevialexander]

Summary: To our detriment we tend to think of intelligence as being set in stone by the time one reaches adulthood. That you're either smart or you're not and that's what you have to work with for the rest of your life. To our surprise, intelligence is gained as much as it is some natural ability.

One of the fucked up and infrequently discussed things about intelligence, complex ideas, critical thinking, high-minded theories, things of this nature, is that to truly comprehend them and have any sort of informed opinion, you have to be open and vulnerable enough to wade through the waters of their contents quite blindly at first. You read books, watch documentaries, listen to others speak and for hours or even months of passive participation, you don't know what to think. You don't even earnestly understand what's being discussed or what's really at stake. You wade and wade feeling insecure because you are trying to learn and seemingly haven't. Yet you almost always do if you stick in long enough.

Your instinct towards self-preservation and humility scream in embarrassment and shame often for a long time and this causes most of us to do one of three things: Give up, never to begin in the first place, or come down with a short sighted and ill-informed opinion, one of which satisfies that instinct towards self-preservation. You believe what is easiest and most comfortable about a thing you could certainly afford to learn more about given it's actual nature.

Although I don't think it very commonly admitted or known, proper ability to think, what we could simplify and call intelligence, is like most other things in life: it takes concerted effort. Especially at first. Intelligence and critical thinking generally builds upon itself and a complex idea taken on after taking on many other complex ideas is likely to be more efficiently understood than those that came before it. This point about intelligence is something I've been considering lately. After adolescence, most of us seem to have this concrete idea about how intelligent we are. "I'm kind of smart" "I'm kind of dumb" "I'm good at this kind of thinking but very bad at this other kind." I'm coming to the conclusion that we need to prove to ourselves over and over that this kind of finalized conception of your intelligence once you're an adult is not only to your detriment, but is essentially wrong. Intelligence take time. It takes vulnerability and wading through waters of unknown concepts and ideas. It takes feeling stupid sometimes for a very long time to be smart. Keep wading. Keep feeling dumb. It is always worth the effort even if you don't come out with some new and highly intelligible understanding of the world.

#intelligence #learning #adult learning

[corylevialexander]

Walking is the philosophers sport.

#philosophy #walking #sports

[corylevialexander]

Mac Miller

From the age of 16 to 26 Mac released a total of 23 mixtapes, studio albums, EPs, and live albums. My personal favorite is the mixtape “Faces.” It is a mid-career raw beyond all belief, drug fuelled freestyle sounding at times, tragically beautiful, but primarily off the leash exploration of a mind unlike no other. It would be hard to compare any other hip hop artist releasing music from the time he did to the time of his death who developed along with his listeners in such an impressively consistent manner. He went from a fun backpacking kid with work ethic like no one else to a lyrically developed and complex rapper having as much fun as possible while delivering absolutely delicious devilish lines into a true musician and lyricist adult exploring the depths of love, heartbreak, existentialism, and addiction. It took me a while after his death to want to listen to his music as it just made me sad at the time. If his development was any sign of where he was headed over the next 25 or 35 years, it would have been a gift from whatever god, spirit, force, or entity you believe in. Perhaps sometimes it’s true that “only the good die young.” Perhaps sometimes it’s true that only the GOAT die young. This is just a simple and humble thank you to a man who changed my life for the better and has given me dozens if not more likely hundreds of hours of entertainment, Thank you, Mac Miller. Millions upon millions of people obtained joy, felt compassion and were induced into having their anxiety transduced (i doesn’t think that's a word) into/through pleasure via music that represented a generation the age of 14-29. His music connects to further age ranges but he did truely define a decade from 2009 until 2019 and I could never thank him enough were I ever given the chance.

#mac miller

[corylevialexander]

The truth of my youth and the inevitable removal of its rose tinted blinders.

Life was psychologically less daunting when I had yet to face the depth of nature, the intricacy of truth both with and against belief, and my own ability to be emotionally vulnerable. People, situations, and curiosity through experience compelled me to explore these facets of the human experience.

What can appear to be strength, courage, and undaunted fortitudinous in youth were in some ways largely untested and unproven early on. Bolstered by little more than lack of proof otherwise. Myself and humans in general on shore is confident in his ability to match a sea of which he’s never faced the like of, simply because he sees what he perceives as timidity and wavering in those already tested through age and actual experience. The tested and proven, when ability and luck align and survival is preserved, are by in large ionically more humbled and reverent than the bolstered unproven youth.

To be put simply, the long-term reaction and earnest conscientious response  through difficult times and perplex psychological mindsets illustrate the true nature of one’s character. Buk’ says it succinctly; “What matters most is how you walk through the fire”

#bukowski

[corylevialexander]

-Dreams. Literally.

From the well meaning but often innocuous thinkers both before and after Carl Jung, dreams have been something that we all experience and can feel the need or call to analyze.

Let's get one thing off the table early on here and be honest, we more often than not do not genuinely care to hear about other people's dreams. It really isn't our fault though. It isn't easy to even the dreamer themselves to feel and self empathise meaning from a dream. Accordingly, it makes sense that it is difficult for someone with a lifetime of different experiences and perspective to interpret what another's dream could possibly mean with any authentic legitimacy.

Still, I think a lot of us don't even attempt, nor need to attempt to find some sort of deep meaning within our dreams. Rather, we experience things while dreaming that affect us deeply in such a manner that their deep meaning isn't the important part. The experience one can go through in a dream is often impactful enough without interpretation.

I would like to talk about a night of dreams that I had a few nights ago that affected me not only during the time, but in ways I'm not sure that I understand yet moving forward. The first dream of the two I will discuss that I had that night was that my mother died. That's the general summation of the dream and while there was more to it, that's the pertinent fact. I was heartbroken and torn apart in a way that I'm not proud to say, but in a way that I might not have ever so far been able to reach my normal waking state. This is all true despite my mother passing away six years ago this December 26th. In the dream though, it was happening for the first time and it tore me apart, I woke up in literal tears.

I spent an hour or two after that laying awake just absolutely bummed and additionally ashamed that I might not have felt this bad even right after (for whatever reason) over the last six years despite true and absolute departion from the heart that made mine. I am not writing about this to simply point out that dreams can be absolutely heartbreaking because the next dream I had a few hours later once I was able to sleep again was amazing.

The next dream I had that night was a very vivid but less intense experience in which I got to spend what felt like a few hours with one of my favorite poets, Charles Bukowski. A man I've never met before and whose been dead since I was a small child, years before I read his work. I've seen video footage of him and I believe the dream was an amalgamation of a lot of those videos. In the dream I had an amazing experience with him walking around Los Angeles while shooting the shit in the way only he could (without a hint of fraudulent pseudo service level bullshit.) We walked about entering headshops, pop-up stores, and galleries of all kind. We were buying other poet's work and comedian's apparel that he never could have afforded for probably 60 of his 70 some odd years. And when I say odd years I do mean ODD years. It was an amazing experience that I never actually lived, and I wouldn't change it for almost anything. I wouldn't even change it as a trade off to not have the nightmarish dream I lived a few hours early.

From a dream of death to just a few hours later, I got to experience an existentially blissful and fun afternoon with somebody who lived and enacted a life that I could truly say I respected and believed in it's honestly. It was as a real as the pain I felt with the former dream (not to put them on the same importance level, but at least the same experiential level.)

I'm sure I could talk to a psychologist, psychiatrist, or even a good friend and break down what some of this meant to me on metaphorically or psychologically deeper levels. But this isn't important to me. I did in some form reexperience the worst thing that has ever happened to me in my life and sometimes I feel I need to be reminded of that because it was the worse thing that ever happened to me. She, my mother was and is a major component, if not the component in my heart and soul.

If there's anybody still reading this, I wrote this because I had to, but also because I want to let everybody else know that sometimes you can have dreams that give you insight on what you need to do, what emotions you should be paying closer attention too, or how you can be a better person. All of this and there wasn't some deep metaphorical interpretation needed.

[corylevialexander]

A write up I did a year or so ago with the perhaps purposely controversially title "Might is right."

MIGHT IS RIGHT: an essay on why I am philisophically an anarchist and why if you believe in any true semblance of free-will, I maintain you are one too.

Might is right. This isn't a moral claim. This I believe is an immutable existential truth. It is such if you, for all practical sake, accept man as an individual to be primarily a psychologically autonomous being within and of a physical body.

One (or more, in assent with one another) have the option to impose their will on another (or a given party of others.) This imposition of will is to be done through coercion. This coercion can be done through either an attempt to reason as a means of persuasion, or ultimately through threat or means of physical force. (There is a side argument to be made that threat of force is an attempt to reason through means of persuasion. This though relies on the one whose will is attempted to be coerced, to willfully believe it's credibility and accept the terms.)

With that side argument placed on the back burner, this other (or others) who have had their will attempted to be coerced then have the option to accept this imposition of will upon them or to then coerce the original party into an acceptance of their denial with possible renegotiation of terms.

This responsive coercion can as well be done through either an attempt to reason as a means of persuasion, or ultimately through threat or means of physical force.

This is why philosophically, I am an anarchist. I for all practical and pragmatic sake believe in free-will. I believe every human who has the years and biological accordance of typical physical brain development can hypothetically make their own choices. They have that or the option to be coerced through credible threat or means of physical violence.

This is not anarchy in the sense popular media and popular opinion connotates. That is generally, anarchy with a moral claim that people are inherently bad and need to be coerced into being good. That for all purposes could be true within my definition, but as stated, my claim isn't a moral one. My claim of anarchy is in a philosophical sense if one accepts the terms I've laid out. That of free-will given a set of biological parameters.

Within these biologically possible developable parameters, I believe one can have the option to not through simple psychological coercion, (this would presumptively deny the practical and pragmatic free-will here described) have the option that through acceptance or through means of physical force, have their will imposed on.

All of this includes the free-will to not physically transgress upon those less fortunate in ability and circumstance. And also to help and support those one wants to. To love and take care of those who need it. It does not preclude some simple self-servitude.

While the terms practical and pragmatic used here could be debated on legitimacy or consensus of meaning, I have out of attempted theoretical consistency chosen to allow for sociological, technological, and empirical evidence to be considered when attempting to understand what other terms such as the biological parameters above described mean.

[corylevialexander]

This is a photo of Rasputin of which I put in a relatively minimal amount of effort to recreate myself, laying the two out side by side. I was bored, my beard had reached a certain length, I had lost a couple of pounds at the time and thought it would be fun. Aside simply from his, in my opinion, humble saintlike manner in which he poses here, his impact on history and notoriously effective luck and/or ability to live through multiple techniques and attempts to murder him make him a captivating character. The actual historical significance of Rasputin couldn’t be justly described even in the minimum by someone like me (at least or especially not right now,) and as so, I will not attempt to do so. I will simply say that he is one of those characters of relative modern history, the likes of Hemingway, Franz Ferdinand, Adolf Hitler, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and many more who with reliable sources can be said to of lived a life like no other with the experiences and circumstances to prove it. Good, bad, neutral, typically a mix of these, Rasputin and others stand above and beyond billions of other human beings. Not to say any of these historical figures of which I am speaking necessarily deserve, earned, or could be considered truly of a nature worthy of their place in history recognizably high above billions of others. Nonetheless they took their places in history sometimes by choice, sometimes by force, and most often by a mixture of the two. History can be beautiful, tragic, often violent, misrepresented, dumbfounded, spellbinding, and much more, but most importantly it can be a lesson on the nature of human beings, even when those either purposely or not misrepresents history, this is an insight into an ability I very much doubt we have evolved out from and this needs to be kept in mind. I’d like to write more about Rasputin and the importance of history in its ability to affect our philosophy about the nature of man, but for tonight I am happy with a short introduction to what simply seeing an aesthetically pleasing picture along with a very minor interest in history can cause one to consider and enunciate upon without having a single clue what I was going to write before I sat down for 30 minutes or so.

#history #rasputin #freeflow #lookalike #philosophy #perspective #cathartic #thesaurus

[corylevialexander]

“God knows I didn’t mean to fall in love with her.”

— Ernest Hemingway

[corylevialexander]

A personal short write up on my existentialism agnosticism, it perhaps being simply "faith," faith as such being a choice, and what "God" is to me.

"Agnostic existentialism is a type of existentialism which makes no claim to know whether there is a "greater picture"; rather, it simply asserts that THE GREATEST TRUTH IS THAT WHICH THE INDIVIDUAL CHOOSES TO ACT UPON."

IMPORTANTLY, all of this leaves the possibility for an individual to at minimum attempt to ACT upon an apparent or personally operative truth that there is a grand but difficult to comprehend meaning to existence. To me, this ability to recognize the personal apparent absurdity of having knowledge of the ultimate why but refusing to fall into nihilism could be consider my faith. All of this while necessarily also attempting to act as if you have knowledge of the ultimate why and that IT IS GOOD is conceptually what I consider to be God. God to me is the ideas or truth that I can without hypocrisy act as if there is a greater and purposeful meaning to life. That it is good while fully acknowledging my own apparent impossibility of actually knowing it to be so.

[corylevialexander]

                          H   u   n   t   e   r     S .     T   h   o   m   p   s   o   n

an  appreciation in the arts from Ralph Steadman, John Benko, Philip Burke, Le Magnifique, JeffR, Mark M. Mellon, Kevin Eslinger, Jai Dixit, Flore Maquin, more – and cinematic interpretations from Bill Murray and Johnny Depp

[corylevialexander]

“Breathe. It’s okay. You’re going to be okay. Just breathe. Breathe, and remind yourself of all the times in the past you felt this scared. All of the times you felt this anxious and this overwhelmed. All of the times you felt this level of pain. And remind yourself how each time, you made it through. Life has thrown so much at you, and despite how difficult things have been, you’ve survived. Breathe and trust that you can survive this too. Trust that this struggle is part of the process. And trust that as long as you don’t give up and keep pushing forward, no matter how hopeless things seem, you will make it.”

— Daniell Koepke

[corylevialexander]

“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.”

— Albert Ellis

[corylevialexander]

[corylevialexander]

“There is something mystically sad and beautiful about how I will never see you again, but will meet you again and again in different people.”

— (via sydneyajallen)

[corylevialexander]

"Some goddamn point a man's due to stop arguing with his self, and feeling twice the goddamn fool he knows he is 'cause he can't be something he tries to be every goddamn day without once getting to dinner time and not fucking it up. I don't want to fight it no more. Understand me, Charlie? And I don't want you pissing in my ear about it. Can you let me go to hell the way I want to?"

-Wild Bill Hickok on Deadwood

[corylevialexander]

“The truth is: you don’t have a life, you are life. The One Life, the one consciousness that pervades the entire universe and takes temporary form to experience itself as a stone or a blade of grass, as an animal, a person, a star or a galaxy. Can you sense deep within that you already know that? Can you sense that you already are That?”

— Eckhart Tolle