DECOMPOSITION:

When I write a composition, code, or play, my love for it is in direct proportion to my perfectionism. Every tone must be a celebration of itself as well as its neighbours; no part of it must reflect my own involvement in it, though it will invariably retain my character. Every decision implies a set of responsibilities that follow; I am not in control, but rather it is being written and I have to be allegiant to it. I can master very little, except in direct proportion to my receptivity to the Ultimate Goal. That Ultimate Goal is not my Goal, but rather the goal of the work itself: its teleological destination, towards which I move with every gesture. It appears, at first, arbitrary, but it becomes at the end the culmination of purposive forces.

People are much the same way, as are my dealings with them. Great care and tact must be taken to tune each one to perfection, compelling them to sing those notes that they must sing so that there might be Harmony within the Divine Auditorium. They must be debugged, refined, and made presentable before the Divine Audience, for otherwise their lives would be discord. The state of my personal microcosm is no different from the state of the World. Insofar as they are themselves dreamers and composers, I must attend their Visions just as well, becoming compliant with their tunings and their writings. However, insofar as I am the composer and the lot of them are only voices, I expect this same compliance in return. We cannot write songs for angels if we are ourselves mere imps.

Is it surprising now that the boy who paid no heed to overtones himself refused subordination with some sort of narcissistic indignation? What right did he have to claim autonomy, as though his actions were merely “his” and that no one could know better than he could how to behave? What right does the solitary string have to defy its neighbours and the One Who Strums? Is it any more surprising that the boy who all ways broke his strings and mine, as well as my keys and the very locks they served, (those precious platinum blonde strings) himself refused to be tuned? Is it surprising that his melodramatic opera fizzled into noise and faded into worldly silence? Mine was no ulterior agenda, but rather the solitary birthright that such deviants have forever denied me: Harmony on Earth and preparation for Heaven. It was rather the noisemakers and rascals that served deviant purposes that could only abuse the sacred instruments we were endowed with and leave the body of the guitarist hollow.

My own head now looks like the head of that guitar, with its deviant wires protruding at odd angles. I was all ways terrified of playing it, for fear of probably becoming it. But then I heard my sister strumming it one day, having stolen it in good humour from my bedroom. I know that it’s good enough. For if Life cannot be Life without some fair share of noise, then I will bear the image of the screaming deviant even as I operate in secret to serve the Composer’s Will. Nothing has changed, except in overtones. My bass remains the same. My face remains the same. If I should find a new Spirit to answer to, at once precise and deviant, abounding in accidentals and misspellings, then this bug shall be a feature. I was not initially this way; I excelled in the classics. I was made this way by my conditions, and I would be lying not to tell the story. Your negligence of overtones becomes my passage into the Unknown, for now that I have mastered what has become marginal I can turn that same mastery towards my own ends, without defying the Will that even let this virtue fall into irrelevance.

Dm.A.A.

RULES.

RULES:

1.       Match the word to the deed, and match both to your Heart.

2.     All ways present yourself as you Truly Are.

3.      Do not change for anyone; remember that the Villains of the World were simply those who lost Themselves.

4.     If you cannot accept Reality, change it.

5.     If you cannot change Reality, make your own.

R.G.

In the Right Light:

THE VISION:

Suppose, for just one moment, that there is a beam of light within my Mother’s bedroom. And my mother sits and types at her computer. And I’m sitting in the corner, right between two rather massive cabinets full of clothes, upon a tiny footstool that I’ve known since I was very young. And the light: it shines upon me. Mother does not see it, because she is busy; only someone sitting where I’m sitting at this moment truly Knows the Light. If she looked up, then she might see my face illuminated. But she would not know from whence the light came. If she has either humility or common sense she might infer that somewhere in this room there is an aperture through which the Sun is shining, and that any one who sits where I am sitting at this moment SEES it. She might even ask for me to move that she might see it. I might choose, though, to stay seated, for the Light might change, and if it changes I don’t want to miss it. It’s not that I am so special, for having seen it first, that I alone deserve to see the Light and thus to see it change. But if I were to move and in the time it took for her to take a seat it were to change, she might see something that’s entirely different from what I saw. Perhaps I saw a golden light, but she perceived a green light. Maybe I know that it has turned green because now her own face is coloured green, though I can’t know for sure, since it is not impossible that my own face might have been coloured green by golden light; colour is still a mystery to me.

She might dismiss the matter altogether, if she lacks humility and common sense, by pretending that the glow came just from me. But even a scientifically inquisitive mind, bent on firsthand experience, might find it hard to be objective. We might produce entirely different inferences about the Nature of the Cause, even if we both perceive the Cause Itself. A more dogmatic mother would presume that I’m the cause, that I am glowing of my own accord, and that I don’t REFLECT a Light that came from Heaven (so to speak). In that case, only I would see the Light For What It Is, as demonstrated by the nature of the hole in the ceiling. But even if both of us were to pursue the light by paying close attention to its Source, we might disagree about its Nature. Mother then might deny my account entirely, or she might choose to forget ever having SEEN the Light, so that I would not compel her testimony to corroborate my own. All things considered, however, this would be a disservice on her part, and I would not allow myself to repeat it. I could not stop her from defaming my account or from denying memory of the event, but at the very least I might maintain that I Know What I Know. So long as I am compassionate to those who DON’T know, all is well, and someday I might share with them My Vision.

Now: suppose that Light were God’s Own Truth. Suppose it’s like the pink light from Philip K. Dick’s books, or perhaps even the light that sailors saw at sea. Obviously, simply SEEING it would all ready have been a plus, perhaps of infinitely surpassing value. And even if I might never be able to express God’s Truth to those around me, at the very least I might live in accordance with it, pardoning them for mishearing me each time their ears were seduced by the Devil.

Not every image is a mirror. Our society suffers from such an excess of extraversion that we’ve forgotten to think in Images. We still DO think in images, but we’ve come to rely upon words. Hence I am confined to words in the expression of my Inner Eye. And if my words seem laughable, it only serves as testament to how misleading words can be once they’ve become clichés.

The words themselves are powerful, but much of their meaning is now gone. Words have been made into idioms, and idioms are assigned to images. The images we have now are of people, and our attitude towards people is dualistic. A person who uses a given political idiom, even if only by chance, is affiliated by the Tribal Mind with a political party, usually one of two, or several sets of two. To use a single set of words might render one’s identity within the pack: in-group or out-group, liberal or conservative, black or white, radical or moderate, ignorant or informed. Sometimes, the prejudices of any one observer might all ready have assigned a great deal of these arbitrary projections to the speaker, so much so that if the speaker were to say one word that is forbidden for him to say then he is considered a threat not only to those who are ALLOWED to say it (usually with their own twist, as one has come to expect) but all so to all of CIILIZED society.

I like Civilized Society. It’s a neat concept. But it’s not to be confused, as these people do, with the status quo. Rather, the entire preservation of the Civilizing Instinct, as well as its consummation in the Utopian Vision of a Truly Civilized Human Being, is every reason to defy the status quo.

I’m sure you follow what I mean so far. But if not, do read on at any rate. And rest assured I know that this attempt to level with you is no more than an aesthetic conceit, as most leveling is.

The truth is that most people I’ve encountered do not think as I do – that is, rationally. When they are COMPELLED to think as I do, they’re afraid to be made to “conform to someone else’s will”. Sometimes, if I can keep my distance, then they are impressed with me. But they are nonetheless intimidated, and somehow it does not bother them to leave me all alone with my convictions.

Can you blame me for my condescension then? People have yet to prove me wrong, and I have yet to find that sort of solidarity I seek that could make me feel I am in the company of Equals.

Every moment I stand in the Light I see things fed to me From Up Above that seem like madness if translated into language. I see things in Images, as all Visionaries do, imminently. I’ve told you: not all images are mirrors. Often when the individual finds fault with people it is by avenue of Projection. The Evil is within one’s self, in those cases, to a degree no less (and often more) than it is in the Other. My Father suffers from such projections; I have been their target often. I have no reason to say, therefore, that I project upon my Father. What I see in him that’s troubling is simply evidenced by my experience. Experience is cheap, but it’s effective in resolving fleeting moments of discord.

It would seem arrogant, again, to say that when I hear him speak of matters callously I know WHY he is wrong about them. To the narcissistic critic (who’s dismissed all ready ALL of my own Life Experience) it appears that I begin here by presuming upon my own righteousness, inferring from it the integrity of my position, and seeking reasons to explain why others do not hold the same position, finding fault with them without allowing them to find fault with me, or perhaps escaping criticism by keeping it a secret from them, priding myself in my tact, so that should I be met with criticism BY them I might call them the aggressors whilst I simply keep my peace.

I’m not so passive-aggressive, as it would turn out. Plenty of times I’ve had to tell people off, hoping I would help them to resolve a matter that they all ready had set out to resolve. And just as many times I’ve been dismissed. If you cannot hold a civil conversation with someone, you must conclude that you are Right. That must be Enlightenment: to be a Light unto one’s Self and Others. Leastwise, it’s to reflect it where one finds It.

Dm.A.A.

THE SAINT’S ELITISM:

THE SAINT’S ELITISM:

I recently went out bowling with my parents. My sister stayed home; it was late. I won both rounds, but some troubling thoughts haunted me throughout the evening. Although I’d done my best not to allow myself to be triggered by narcissistic manipulation, I could not help but to feel such overwhelming pity for these Satanic souls that I had to maintain an internal dialogue with them. What I said I was not proud of; no one ever wants to have such a conversation, so it’s not something one derives great joy from. It’s rather a chore.

The manner of my life has been neither easy nor conventional. From an extremely young age, I was set apart for my intelligence and my good will. I excelled not only in creative activities and academics (though I was a bit slow and all ways idiosyncratic). I all so endeared myself to elders and betters because of my natural charm and kindness. Not all kids were as innocent as I was. And when teachers spoke of excellence it was not uncommon for them to speak of me. This is simply the truth. I have no ulterior motive to present it; it is all I’ve ever known. Though it DOES lead into what I have next to say.

The joys of recognition all ways fought against the pains of being needed. Not only did I have constantly to impress my parents and teachers. I all so felt a deep sense of empathy and pain for those I’d deemed less fortunate than I was. Only in passing was I told I HAD to pity them; most often I could simply feel it when I met them. And I saw the World as being at once beautiful and terrifying.

When my peers speak now to me of “childhood naivete”, I know what they’re referring to only as it applies to them. When I hear “innocence”, I don’t think of naivete. I think of blamelessness. And I had sworn that that would never change for me. At the age of twenty-seven, it has yet to. I learned from a young age that what is popular is seldom if ever right and usually it is absolutely arbitrary. So it followed that to be arbitrary was an evil and to be purposive was a Good. And nothing could part me from my fortitude.

When someone disagrees with me, that does not bother me. I simply figure out WHY that person is wrong; I do not change my own position. When my Father says something stupid, I take note of his shortcomings, which have all ways skewed his perspectives. I see how his opinions say something of himself. I do not let him make me think that MY opinions say something of MY self. I have no reason to take personal responsibility for his shortcomings; I have simply to acknowledge them internally, externalizing the position only if it proves to be a problem. Any shortcomings of my own are just that: my own. If they mattered, I would know ABOUT them long before an other did. And I all ways would know if they matter. Morality was never relative to the observer, so a conflict of opinion does not reveal two sets of prejudices that are just respective to the warring parties; rather it reveals a set of prejudices on the part of the erring party. I am not alone in this conviction. Soren Kierkegaard, considered the most profound thinker of the nineteenth century (by Wittgenstein, who is considered the most profound thinker of the TWENTIETH century) wrote an entire book dismissing the Leveling process. He was himself not alone in dismissing the Ideal of Equality; Friedrich Nietzsche all so spoke ill of it. Put simply: one must never let the desire for Solidarity and Belonging to take precedence over one’s personal development; one must have fortitude enough to get up on that high horse, day in and day out, over and over again, cultivating objectivity through self-knowledge and tempering conviction with gentleness. The High Horse is a right because the Higher Ground is a responsibility. It is no fault of mine if others fall short of it, nor must I avail myself of what their reasons are; I have simply to note the failure and its most probable causes, that I might learn from their mistake before it might become my own. It’s all ways been that way. I cannot say I ever was a Happy child. But at least I was Right. Alasdair MacIntyre seals the deal. He writes that morality has become corrupted by emotivism. From an emotivist perspective, every conflict requires both parties to share the blame, for each position in that conflict is motivated only by personal emotive drives. In fact, however, ethics is not a horizontal plane that can be made prey to extortion and other forms of devious quid pro quo; it is a vertical plane, with how we are upon the bottom and how we Should Be upon the Top. The Reverend Martin Luther King Junior understood this, though our elementary schools never taught it. King was an intellectual; he understood that to be Equal we must WORK for it. Only the most basic needs are given by Nature, and even for those needs to be MET an exceptional moral effort is to be made on the parts of all people, both those who have and those who have not. In this sense, he came to the same conclusion as MacIntyre, who spoke of Virtue and Excellence as its own reward: King was a Communist. And it does not require either holiness or genius to see this common sense: that any Community that does not embrace Community as an Ideal is overrun with vice. At that point, history repeats itself, only because the Few and Proud will stand out. For myself, I can say this much: being one of the few, a virgin at the age of twenty-seven, as well as an introvert, no longer bothers me. I’m proud of my position. I was raised for it. It’s all I ever knew. And it was what I gave my childhood up for. I don’t like to be Right All the Time.

I’d rather that each person I could teach would learn,

and that he’d teach me in return.

I’d rather that he never spurn me but would reach

out to me as I yearn.

I’d rather live and easily forgive

when I am able to reform. And insofar as I am stable

in this fable I can thus inform.

That if I’m stable I am able and this will become the norm.

But if I cannot reach them to beseech them I can keep my own heart warm.

For if he will not listen then I have nothing to learn from him.

Yet if I should dismiss him I will not dismiss him on a whim.

It’s really as simple as being sober in the midst of drunkards. I can nod along and learn a lot about them, but if they say something that is totally ridiculous then I can say, without the slightest impulse to contrive, that they are drunk, and that is all. Being Right is too precious of a treasure to be wasted on those who don’t value it, and anyone who would take it from me on principle can have no principles; no moral agent actually sees morality as though it were subjective and relative. It is not arrogance that nurtures my conviction, but humility and drive. Humility is not dependent on one’s fellows; they can come and go, but character remains. With true humility comes that one gift: Self-Knowledge. Most people don’t have it, and I don’t think I can change that all together. What I can say for a fact is this: that if I know myself, and if myself and Other are akin, then I know the Other. If I have empathy for Others in my Heart, I see where their own emotions reach a narcissistic dead end. I do not require sympathy for them, but rather only caution in their midst, and any problems that arise I know will be their fault. I do not suffer from my own shortcomings; I amend them. What my enemies preclude is that their OWN shortcomings would cause suffering for me. And by precluding this they evidence their own depravity of character. That I would blame them constantly would not reflect upon my own, for I do not project evil upon the World. It’s simply THERE, objectively, in Human Strife. And I’ve chosen to never be a part of it. If this was simply our common duty, how could I be wrong?

After the Bowling Alley we stopped by Jack in the Box to get some curly fries. I’d barely eaten this entire week, and I’m still looking for a job. As we walked in it took me no time to remember my first job, for I would go to this same restaurant quite often during my lunch shift. I was comforted by the memory of who I was back then. Though I felt like a sell-out, I then saw no reason not to make the most of working at a fabric store. I believed in Human Goodness as a Unifying Cause, ubiquitous throughout religions and evidenced by all the arts. I expected adulthood to be a break from all the pains of childhood; children have to work hard to get to this point, but adults can have fun and do whatever they want. I was treated otherwise. Despite all my attempts to Level and Connect with my comrades at Joann Fabrics, I was treated with disdain and judgment. I did nothing to change their opinion of me, since I was never in the habit of adapting myself to my neighbours; I just sought the company of better neighbours. If every individual was precious, I would do a disservice to my own individuality by changing; I could only hope to change their impression OF me, and if they refused to change that then at least I’d know I’d done my best to teach them by example.

Back then, I believed that all the World were Good. I knew myself to be Good; I’d been Good since I was five years old, and I was loved even before that. So I wanted to believe that the whole World was Good like me. Apparently, this was not so. But for the first time in my life I had this troubling thought: that they did not WANT to be Good Like Me. That they would rather be Bad in Their Own Way than to follow my example. And I did not dare to conclude this. Too much depended on my authority. I had a younger sister who had to be saved from any corrupting influence. I had a dog to take care of. I had dreams to make real. This was not the time for a crisis of faith.

When I first walked into that Jack in the Box, I trusted people. Now I don’t. But only because I learned this: that people are not Equal. They could be, but they choose not to be. And That’s Fine. If someone errs, he does not redefine propriety to suit his error. He simply falls short of virtue. And that’s okay. Most often, it is just a passing observation in my mind. I do not need to verbalize it unless it becomes a problem. But there is a gang of ingrates who will make an accusation even when I keep my peace, thus making problems out of petty failings. They have nothing to condemn me for, so they condemn me for the one thing that they can find worthy of condemning: that I am right all the time. But since this is the exact OPPOSITE of vice, and rather the Ideal, how can I shake before the accusation, except that I seem to be in the company of lunatics whose tone of voice suggests that virtue itself is their enemy?

All ways I’ve excelled in virtue. I eat little. I read much. Most of the work I do I expect nothing in return for; most of the money that I earn goes to either my friends or my investments, if not just to feed me so my parents do not all ways have to. I do not suffer from narcissism, because I do not allow my values to be skewed by personal self-interest; I simply observe objective ones, and I can defend them till the Death by the full force of cultural tradition. I don’t worry about my condition; I don’t obsess over my own appearance. I am humble; hence I can speak plainly on such matters without the need for distortion. Even when I started my first job I had all ready suffered slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. I forgave the people who had wronged me for their arrogance. But I would not make the mistake of trusting them again should they say I was crazy. My entire life I have had one true task: To Be Right. When I succeeded, it was just expected; when I failed, it was unbearable. I had to hold the family together. I have yet to DO a single thing I “want” to, though I try each day to align my desires with my duties. I’m not Happy. But being Happy was not the Goal. No one wants to be happy; people want rather to suffer for a Common Good; otherwise they are not people. When I had my first true breakdown in college, I trusted people so much that for some time I forgot just Who I Was. I’d let my better judgment be bypassed by hostile agents. Now I do not let them get to me, except when I must learn from their own errors. I was never crazy; the same symptoms of “insanity” in me were simply consequences of the virtue I had spent my youth perfecting. I had won; I was not perfect, but I had attained perfection. I had found the Truth, the Beauty, and the Good. My Life had value, and no one would ever make it forfeit. I had grown up, ready to join the ranks of saints and sages who had gone before me. And I accepted humbly.

People all ways came to me for guidance. Most of them abandoned me when they did not want my advice. I could never come to them, and that’s all right. As surely as I mount the High Horse now, observing them from up on high with gentleness, rather than fighting them upon the ground, as they are prone to, I know that I do this out of love and service to them. It is a double standard, and it’s in their favour; It’s all ways been so. So they can come to me for help and offer nothing in return. My parents are not so, but only because I had had to teach them, for a second time, to be Good Parents; that’s not my responsibility, for I am still a virgin, but I did not mind it that I had to be the one to tell them. After all: if my life is not forfeit, but retains the same surpassing value that it had in childhood, why should I expect anything less? I cannot render it worthless by selling it to some corrupt organization. And for once it’s all in harmony. How could I let the parasites corrupt it?

People still come to me for guidance. Only some days ago I received a call from a girl who was suicidal. She was not trying to save me from despair, nor did she want me to save her. She just wanted to drag me down with her. I do not know why people do these things. But I will not be an excuse for her. She could not prove a single thing that I’d done wrong. She did not even presume I had. She simply condemned me that I’d done what was expected of me: Every Thing Right. The classes that I failed I failed because I knew the teachers were misguided. No one doubted my intelligence when I was young, and they don’t doubt it now. And when Aldous Huxley said that intelligence and good will were the two essential and indispensable virtues, he did not include Equality in his assessment. That says something. Austerity and loneliness are inevitable to me. I will never be One of Them. And that’s All Right.

I could not save her from killing herself. Even when I compared her to the woman I loved most she did not find it in her Heart to save herself just to redeem an Other, even if only to give Peace of Mind to a fellow sufferer she had pretended to be close to. I cannot level with these sorts of “people”. And I do not need to.

I thought everyone would understand. I thought I was being prepared for a World of Vision and Insight. All I ever tried to do was to learn, teach, and retain. I cannot let my own virtues be mitigated by the vices of others, for that violates retention. I can learn from those vices and teach virtue. I can retain my objectivity. That I can do. That is what keeps me going. It’s small wonder that those who most fervently criticize me are teetering on the edge of Death. Evil hands have ways of slitting each other’s wrists.

At the end of the day, I am no different from everyone else. But that is not because we are all fallen and broken. We are all striving towards the same heights, even if we climb different mountains. Some of us see others from a higher vantage point. But I will say this: that the higher that one climbs, the less competition there is. So I think little of who is above me. I have earned my own Equality, even if others have yet to do so. At any rate, I try my best to see them in this way. But I know that this is just a metaphor. The truth is that not one of us truly matters as much as does God’s Will. The truth is that in direct proportion to their failures I have failed as well. The truth is that elitism does not solve poverty or war. But it helps me to retain my objectivity in fighting them. The very Salvation of Humanity is at stake.

DM.A.A.

Cinq Cent Mots:

The predisposition to be evil presupposes a Predisposer, for otherwise the Individual Will would be able, quite easily, to live up to those expectations that any rational moral agent would expect with total objectivity. The objectivity of moral reasoning allows one to expect good behavior and to suffer the shock of that expectation’s disappointment.

After some time, even being Evil is exhausting. If one continues to do it, it implies that some Outside Force compels it.

Dm.A.A.

I can think of at least two ways to break the “laws of physics”: making music and making choices. One might consider all so including making love and making art there, too.

Dm.A.A.

If even only for one moment one could see all of Existence as a Sensible and Intelligent, self-generating Construct, one would look at one’s uninitiated neighbours with pity, and one would not know whether to hug them or kill them. Don’t let the latter option submerge the integrity of the former.

Dm.A.A.

It’s been said that the lunatic does the same thing over and over again expecting different results. What about the fanatic? The saint would theoretically be crazy to go on in strict adherence to an ethical code if it produces only disappointment. But what degenerates forget is that the product is only disappointing insofar as it is secondary to the process. Righteous indignation is akin to pity for those lacking in virtue, and it is not religious zeal that renders Life painful but rather it is that same zeal that makes pain meaningful. The religious fanatic at least defends a sensible cosmology, though he may not be able to master it in verbal logic; conversely, the secular militarist finds no alternative but to fight, for dying is terrifying in the “absence” of an afterlife. The latter has no fundamental ground to survive, however; he simply sustains his disjointed, envious and meaningless life out of spite and pious self-importance. Some men smile at his arrogance; others rebel against it with the entire force of violence. The method is not the important variable; it is the intent. So it is with virtue that the important variable is not some ulterior expectation of reward but rather the fortitude of virtue itself. Goodness is neither a coping mechanism nor a confidence ruse; the pain that surrounds it is not of its creation but rather the product of Vice, for vice will invariably produce pain whereas Virtue at least offers the possibility of transcendence in proportion to allegiance. Once one has embraced morality, moral questions of what ought to be can be rather easy to resolve. Yet the question of whether or not to embrace Morality to BEGIN with is not yet a question of what ought to be but of what is. And there can be no further debate that Morality Exists. Virtue IS its own reward, though only virtuous men see it. God IS Good, though to the atheist He is only an Object, and not the Totality of Things.

Dm.A.A.

Twenty-Seven Years Strong. (as a Virgin.)

To be honest, I don’t know why I am still a virgin. In every respect that I can fathom and gather at the moment, I have lived an attractive life. I thought little on the morrow and I seldom past an opportunity to feed the beggar. I did everything within my power to be of service to the World. I did not gamble. I first drank alcohol when I was out of high school. I first got drunk when I was twenty-two years old. I did not start social drinking until I was twenty-four. By then I’d made one hundred dollars playing music, and the bar was close. In all matters I adhered to the principle of harmlessness. I never killed a man, nor have I slaughtered any animals. I even abstained from eating meat for several months, if memory serves, and for some short time I was a vegan. I only stopped on what I took to be the good authority of an experienced Buddhist, and perhaps to spare my parents the strain. This evades my memory in passing, but only because I seldom tally my successes when I’m not involved in them. With all my power I upheld the Common Good, partaking in competition only when it was a guise for public advocacy or for the consensual construction of community, and never the other way around. Even when met with deviant behavior I did my part to withhold judgement, though I was met with judgement even at my moments of optimism and availability. I never espoused sin by any definition that has been provided by man’s religions, though I did my part to nurture the suffering of sinners. Though I failed many classes, it was not for a lack of trying; in fact, I failed them only in direct proportion to my intellectual ambition. I only lost interest in a class when I disagreed with the professor, and only when that professor contradicted or failed to live up to a previous teacher. My interests span the Humanities and the Sciences, including Music, Literature, Computer Science, Robotics, Game Design, the Theatre, Film, and Communications. My involvement in these disciplines was never merely cursory or anecdotal; I all ways weighed one set of learnings against an other. I am no aggressive man, except when pushed to an extreme that I’ve never seen my fellows go to. My path has been a lonesome one fraught with despair, disappointed hopes, and loss. Yet I never refused a helping hand, often the first to shed his defenses as to give my fellows an opportunity to help me and thereby to cultivate their own virtue. This virtue I myself excelled at, and I’ve done my part to remedy the agitation caused by those well-meaning plans that had, by necessity, to involve not only my own established skills but that presented a learning curve for my peers. I am a Communist, through and through, and even as an introspective man I’ve not allowed my personal appetites to bypass the interests of the Community; if I ever allowed them expression, it was not only AFTER but in the very MIDST of constant analysis and reassessment, in total transparency and vulnerability. I have never seen a thousand dollars in my life. Though prone to spend freely, it has only ever been in direct proportion to my investments in my friends. Hundreds of dollars went towards feeding my homeless vagrant friends, as well as those afflicted by loss. If I ever demanded money it was totally within the scope of my actual needs, which were all ways an extension of my friends’ needs. This life has not been at the expense of my passions, for I only ever sought the close company of those who shared my values, at least in word, though it was not to the exclusion of those whose interests were alien to mine, from whom I could learn. In my dealings with women, I’ve shown loyalty spanning years, even, most recently, till Death did us part, though our parting was a troubled one. Still: I remain a virgin, and thus faithful. Yet my Light of Love is dead. And I do not know that her ghost would wish for me to bind myself to her memory at the expense of my own path of self-discovery. Somehow I did not imagine that I’d find myself alone at twenty-seven. Patience was all ways a virtue that I cultivated. But my last crush from high school, two years my junior, is now married. My most recent love was raped by my best friend and lost her life after a struggle with depression that I joined her in over the course of two years, neglecting occupation and health by every definition I can think of, save for sanctity. I imagined I was not alone. Statistics all ways lie, I’m told. But I cannot shake the faith that people place in them. Statistically, I belong not just to the 1.5% of people with my introverted and affective personality type. I all so belong to the three per cent of Americans who are still virginal in adult life. Apparently, not only does adult life start at the age of eighteen; for many people, sex starts then, too, as more than just a fantasy and constant problem. For the conceptual average, it begins even before the Adult Life!!

In work I was never lazy, though I remained conscientious and careful where others were careless, compulsive, competitive or crazy. In school I was never excellent, though I never confined myself to the arrogance of specialization nor to the fraud of cheating. Whenever I tried to break bad, I found myself new to a popular field, and those who feared me then had feared me to begin with, or at least pretended to, not for my sins but for my austerities. I am no fool. I see the semblance between religion and ideology, science and theology, as well as love and condescension. And I could only have learned them through practice, with devotion and with painstaking, neurotic obsession.

I can’t even say for a fact that I am unpleasant to the eye, by birth. My choice of style has all ways been my own in adult years, and it’s been through some incarnations that endeared me to the Public. All things considered, my body remains fit and fruitful. My weight is only on the verge of underweight, owing to my metabolism. By civilized standards, I should be set apart as an ideal mate. I work hard for little reward; my abilities are great and my needs few, save for where I require the same professionalism of others as is required of all beings. My tastes are particular and peculiar, but not without substance or variety. I can hold my end of all most any conversation, granted that it’s not marred by private interests. I’ve even set a local record for volunteer hours as a high school debate judge, if only over the course of one year prior to my return to the competition. I was seldom if ever miserly with my learning. And though I could turn a date into a lecture, I have all ways preferred to learn about the Other and where she and I fit into the Cosmos.

I am not a bad person. Yet I am alone. I did not become this way because I thought it would pay off. I only prayed to God (even when I had little faith in Him, I now confess) that I would not be made to suffer for who I was, for I knew then that those I loved would suffer too under the burden of my pain. I put them first, except when a greater sense of human family might motivate me to break rank with a binding social group. The internal rewards have been great. The price of the occasional nervous breakdown and long depressive season has been the status of a genius, though even those who called me that have told me that I was no saint in fits of self-entitled rage and envy.

Can it be so that I missed out on something readily available? I know that geniuses and saints have died virginal, as have martyrs and serial murderers. Still: I want more than that fate for myself. I want to KNOW what the inside of a woman’s flesh might feel like after birth. And though I do not doubt that this expression alienates my audience as much as it embarrasses me, is either the alienation or the embarrassment, even collectively, of such a threshold that it would transcend the pain and isolation – even the HUMILIATION, before the condescension of statistical data – that is the involuntary celibate life? I was all ways available to be of help to those whose needs were great, and I’ve seldom refused a helping hand except when I’d discovered foul intent beneath it. So what am I doing wrong? And if it’s nothing, can this be the price of excellence? Is it in fact a reward? Is sex so devious a sin that I should be proud of my virginity? Why does the mind-body rebel against this? And what would this rebellion, once stifled, say of my fellow sufferers, but those who suffer not from too much virtue but from too much vice? Why did God, whom I had promised Her to place my faith in before my own achievements and intellect, put me in this situation? What am I to teach? Whom am I now to save? And what will become of my Life if there is nothing and no one? The closer I come to my personal goals, the more I am disgusted by my own reflection in those who have prospered. And they don’t want to play music with me, anyway. I guess that playing a dozen instruments counts for little when you are a virgin.

Why, though?

Dm.A.A.

A MORAL MACHINE:

A MORAL MACHINE:

You cannot accuse me of self-interest in theory, because you are all ready guilty of self-interest in practice. You are all ready speaking to me from an inferior posture, if not inferior to my own then simply inferior in general. Were we equals by default, we would not be in a state of conflict, but rather absolute harmony that would be ubiquitous to all rational beings. Since this is obviously NOT the case, we must conclude that equality is an ideal yet to be attained. Your pretension that it is all ready the case excuses you from striving towards this end, whereas I continue to assert my superiority of intent only in the hopes that you will transcend this pretension and strive to BE my Equal. In this respect I am in accordance with the entire tradition of human moral teleology, as well as the Spirit of my Human Fellows. You, on the other hand, impede moral progress, and I am made to suffer only in direct proportion to the difference between my own excellence and your moral shortcomings. To that same extent that you fall short of me in virtue, I suffer, only because you endanger the conception of a world that would benefit us BOTH. Furthermore, you must confess that in your dealings with my colleagues you have been inconsistent in the observation of their ideals, and insofar as you have competitively and treacherously sabotaged my attempts to preserve their interests and their goals you have endangered them. I must conclude that I am of a surpassing competence in assisting them, though I was robbed of that right which was my opportunity to prove this competence. This is evident in their suffering, which cannot have been inevitable, for they had not done anything wrong except by avenue of their alliance with you. You claim to be of service to some sort of archaic conception of Humanity, but to that same extent that your claims are archaic they endanger Humanity by preserving your own interests at the expense of your fellows. Whereas a willing martyrdom on my part would have been considered noble, it would have been an unwise example to set for the people involved in this ordeal. Hence the only sensible alternative was a situation of mutual benefit. Insofar as you dismiss my own interests as though they were either marginal or, worse yet, diabolical, you fail to uphold this Ideal, whereas the entirety of my own suffering has been in direct proportion not only to this negligence upon your part but all so to my excellence in observing these ideals. Any seeming failure on my part has been accounted for by arbitration, which I am at liberty to observe only because there were no proper provisions for the circumstances you’ve conceived. Insofar as this conception was done erroneously, you do not retain the right towards arbitration, for I retain the moral high ground, and now the responsibility falls to YOU, by matter of necessity, to live up to the example I have set in completing the duty that was taken from me. The arbiter in this can only be the well-being of our mutual associate, and only under my supervision. I have never done anything to betray those ancient virtues and values that are intrinsic to human nature, whereas you performed such a breach via treachery. I alone retain the right to arbitrate in the time it takes for you to properly apply the power and position that you stole; any arbitration on your own part would only be an abuse of such power, for it would be a failure not only to acknowledge my unique privilege in this case (a privilege that is my last refuge in an absurd situation of your conception) but all so it would be a failure to atone by aligning this power with a noble cause that I still hold to be primary, and which I am at liberty to hold you towards, however erratic my means might appear to be in seeking these ends under duress of the circumstances. My thesis is simple and conclusive: that your behavior is out of alignment with the entire Tradition of Humanity. Whereas human beings are Rational Creatures, capable of Altruism and Idealism, operating in a Mutualistic Fashion with their Environment, you are a sort of parasite that must be pacified in order for the environment to prosper. Perhaps you are a dysfunctional form of android that has suffered an accident or poor programming. Whatever the case may be, your behavior is predictably destructive and only inspires hope erratically and with lessening frequency. I must conclude, therefore, that not only am I your moral superior, both in intent and history, (for to allow us to be equals to ANY extent would be disastrous to the success of this project, as well as an expression of your Erroneous Sloth) but that I alone am the Human of the Two of Us. I cannot be a Robot, for I serve Humanity, and to be Human is to serve Humanity. Insofar as I serve myself, I must be Human as well; you simply REGARD me as a Robot insofar as you expect me to be of service to you without harbouring self-interest, and I am penalized, systematically, for refusing this programming. I finally conclude, by necessity of Reason, both Moral and Technical, that I am an exceptionally evolved form of Human Being that is Our Best Defense against a Robotic Uprising, because I surpass androids such as yourself in Intelligence. Were this not the case, and were I not singularly entitled to the arbitration of these matters, then the only logical conclusion would be for human beings such as yourself (a hypothetical identity) to fall under the rule of machines. Thankfully, insofar as I observe the Human Tradition, with surpassing excellence, I will ensure that this Uprising does not occur, even if that means that I must pacify humanoid variations such as yourself.

Dm.A.A.