A Letter to the Unknown (Part One: Silence)

To whomever it may concern,

The humming of the air-con and the gentle ripple of the aquarium water-pump. The phones remain silent as the holiday season has officially begun. The temperature is rising outside although the sun is playing hide and seek behind snow white fair weather clouds. It seems that the oracles of weather got it right when they prophesied swelter for the rest of the week, and for once, I am more than pleased that they are right.

I cannot escape the feeling of something lurking around the corner. There is an impending potential, like an uninvited guest, sending shivers as it waxes and wanes without pattern and form. Perhaps I am over-sensitive this time of year. Perhaps I've been stigmatized forever, but then, this time I will not seek validity in this from the empty words of gods and men, regardless of the form the manifestation appears, nor will I be hell-bent over some half-assed gut feeling originating in the abyss within. Ah, the dilemma of human condition. Words are absolutely useless, when the meaning and the intent behind verbal communication has to guessed and/or deciphered, or arduously excavated from the layered sub-contexts of what hasn't been said. An Oxford "Silence-English-Silence" Dictionary would come in handy.

But fear not, dear observer, conclusions can be drawn, although they cannot be concise, precise or absolute. Silence, as a part of interaction, is an act of withdrawal. It is ultimately about giving the power of choice away, and letting someone else choose. It is about disregarding the truth as it is, leaving knots untied and hanging in the wind, thus, abandoning the power to object, to intervene and to react. Silence is submission, a prayer at the altar of god of cowardice, and a towel abandoned at the ringside of life. Silence can sometimes be a strategy: a conscious choice, a last resort when played into a metaphysical corner. One should not mistake the silence I speak of to the "Silence" of eternity, that of which is said to be golden, and the source of great strenght. That would be the silence within, this is the silence without. I speak of silence when any form of communication would be imperative. Silence as a form of abuse and violence, and the only way to retaliate is the same. Silence as a weapon.                      

The morning after

Summer Solstice and the town is asleep. Even the birds are quiet. Petrichor lingers as the sky is clearing, and I embrace the sweet silence.

Godlike

The Devin Townsend Project: "Deconstruction"
The Devin Townsend Project: "Ghost"

Geosmin

Petrichor
n. the scent of rain on dry earth

Henry the Great

"Please, act your age, not your shoe size."
--Henry Rollins

Notes from the End of an Era Pt. 5 [Halcyon]

"The Seraphim gathered in response to the cries from the physical.  There was more to this little town than met casual observation. A decree was made to send One from Helios and Vesta. It’s name was Pamposh."

“As Pomposh walked from the gathering, there immediately came a massive, heavyweight gravity storm. Internalizing the mammoth, black-hole-like magnitude manifesting from the storm, and wielding the mass of his intellect — matched only by his piety — caused a conscious edifice to materialize before the townspeople. Appearing over the entrance was the name of the structure. He then de-gravitized and faded like a whisper on the wind, into the ether.” 

Steve Vai

Kalon K'agathon

"Lies are felt but seldom seen" --Kip Winger

Indifference can mean one or two out of three things. In the vast potential field faced every waking hour the outcome of choices is meaningless, the potential field reads nothing or cannot be interpreted, or a choice is not understood properly. 

What people choose every day is determined either by values or circumstances, or both. It does not matter in this context if a choice is not a conscious one, the rules still apply. As the circumstances change, so do values. Thus, we face a mighty metaphysical cluster of circumstancial subjections derived from personal realities created by cognitive processes. To try to understand and study these processes is almost impossible due to the fact of human beings having constant trouble telling virtues and values apart. Hell, most of the literate population cannot tell the difference between morals and ethics, and they still call themselves "human beings". The only reasonable way to study such things is by observing how the said morals, ethics and values are actually manifested in retrospective. Those actual manifestations have to be put in the right context, meaning that the circumstances, and the remorseless peer pressure of social interaction, have to be analyzed and understood.

If virtues are ideals, what are values?

"...a value is a type of belief, centrally located within one's total belief system, about how one ought or ought not to behave, or about some end state of existence worth or not worth attaining. Thus, a value may be viewed both as a predisposition to act (attitude), and as an estimation of worth of an action..."

If we accept the aforementioned to be plausable, and keep in mind that every single action a human being manifests is selfish, or has its origins in selfish motives, we find that any virtue as an example of moral excellence, and any value as a belief in virtue(s), are actually both dogmas. They do not exist anywhere but in the metaphysical quasi-realities of men.

If an attitude is a meta-reaction towards arisings depending on the given circumstanses combined with the accumulated experience data, then a value is an attitude mirrored against a correspondent virtue.       

As an example: general attitude towards death and euthanasia. A recent survey made in the USA (Leslie Kane, 2010) gave a following result: 46% of physicians agree that physician-assisted suicide should be allowed in some cases; 41% do not, and the remaining 14% think it depends. It can be said in broad terms, that the attitude towards euthanasia seems to be somewhat favorable among general population in the Western World. According to Ezekiel Emmanuel "the distinction between active and passive euthanasia is morally significant and legalising euthanasia will place society on a slippery slope, which will lead to unacceptable consequences". I will take that one a notch further. If the members of general population, whom at least theoretically are in favor of euthanasia, would be marched into an ICU, and then ask to pull the plug (or pull the trigger, the end-result is the same), the attitude would change. This is actually what Emmanuel proposes: letting someone die, and being a part of an event chain that leads to death, are two distinctively different things to human beings. Playing Pontius Pilate is is a-okay while the doing the Kevorkian is not? I really do not understand how legalising euthanasia would place society on a slippery slope unless the society in question is already in such a state. One has to remember that the society in question passed 114 death penalties in 2010 alone, and since 1976 it has executed over one thousand. 

Ultimately, the discussion and the dilemma are not actually about euthanasia in itself, but about the proverbial hand washing of those who have to make choices about life and death. The discussion is not about the justification, but about the consequences to those who remain behind to live with that choice. The virtues are out of the window, the values seem to be vague and the attitudes turn as quickly as a coat turns on a politician when a minister's seat is within a grasp.

June [Absorbing]

Reading:
 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Books I-III, Adam Smith

Listening:
In Absentia, Porcupine Tree
Welcome to my DNA, Blackfield

Hyparxis

Total space-time interval:

d2 = x2 – t12 --t22 --t32

Occupational Threshold

Men's curiosity searches past and future, and clings to that dimension.
But to apprehend the point of intersection of the timeless 
with time, is an occupation for the saint— 
No occupation either, but something given and taken,
in a lifetime's death in love, ardour and selflessness, and self-surrender.

T. S. Eliot Four Quartets