Tenderlysharp

I love Nietzsche. I suppose it comes from a familiar unbridled rebellion that runs in my family. I was raised by teenaged alcoholic drug addicts.... I love my family. A thousand generations of prostitutes daughters got to this point in time just as surely as a thousand generations of preachers sons. Any time you are faced with the stanch pride of an idiot arrogantly defending his right to his beliefs, remember his DNA is 3.8 Billions years as old as you are. Remember also, your children's DNA is 14 to 75 years older than yours. The same rebellion that drove us across the ocean in rat infested wooden ships, the same rebellion that drove us across the prairies... makes us gaze at Mars in strange anticipation. Forever running from the controllers. Nietzsche explores the intricacies of rebellion with such a playful rhythm. Irrationality as a necessity of evolutionary adaptation. Imagination can get you through years of imprisonment and a few dark ages. "Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music" - Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil begins: "What if the truth is a woman? What then?" By the time I get to the end of it, I think maybe a woman wrote this book, used his name, and she is the reason Nietzsche went crazy and spent his last ten years in isolation. If you go through the whole book and replace truth with false, false with truth, man with woman, woman with man, woman with truth, man with false.... And pay extra special attention to the very intricate broad abstractions he punctuates with a "WHAT?" throughout. Its just breathtaking how many ways I can imagine him meaning everything and its opposite. It is an Olympian sized exercise in exploring any given topic from as many angles and positions as possible, you find the truth in there, and she is not such a weakling as to need rescuing. I forgive his shortcomings thinking you can only do so much, on your own, during the times in which you live.

"How do I live in a country…" …This translates (to me) to mean, how do you manage your frustration with things you think are never going to get better? Universal Health Care is a scam. The people pushing it know its never going to work. The more they push it the worse it gets. Which intern insights delusional people to scream louder for it. The terror of death is what keeps it going. Everyone wants to live forever and they will give their last dime, their home, any legacy they have for their families future, and get themselves in hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical debt. Just to stay alive as a guinea pig for another couple years. This is what they want the government nanny state to pay for. Cry SAFETY!! The ultimate tool of stagnation. No one is safer than the man is a straight jacket in a padded cell. Death is so horrifying for most mystics that they will buy any snake oil that promises eternal life. The safest sounding prescriptions from the oldest biggest churches. All hail big FDarma. It is difficult for a person who doesn’t want “power over another person” to understand, communicate with, or come to an agreement with a person who does want power and does want control over others. They want so much control and power, that they perceive your refusing their power or control as another power/control tactic. “Attention whore control freak” is a label that pops into my head more and more as I contemplate the problems in the world that my mind can’t seem to turn away form. Every mystic who stands in front on the pulpit is desperate to keep their audience attention. Their focus is not on quality, but on quantity. They get people to listen by playing to their weakness and telling them what they want to hear. Every decision in an irrational person’s life seems to be rooted in fear. They are so saturated with fear that telling them they do not have to live a life of fear causes them panic and terror. As though you are taking away their only protection, their only lifeline. The alternative you offer them seems impossible for their atrophied mind to grasp, the amount of mental effort to get themselves to a better place is alien. They can not see the context of the better place, they only see the loss of their traditions, and their feelings of belonging. Are you offering them anything better really? Does your approach reflect how ‘good’ your own system is? It seems so much easier to be a forgiven sheep, than it is to stand up as a man. Calling them evil is making yourself a target. JudaeoChristian values have survived for 5000 years, as countless others have fallen or been absorbed. The Bible is full of the ample examples of physical and psychological warfare they have engaged in. Have you ever read the Bible? Do you even know who your enemy is? They are masters of war, and your cries of despair fuel their fire. Darwin states that it isn’t the strongest or the smartest that survive, but the most adaptable to change. The Judaeo/Christian movement has certainly adapted. How long will your own personal movement last? Are there paths that will help mystics adapt to greater and greater rationality?

I do extensive research on Tumblr, and see many interesting patterns taking place. In this screen shot, you can look at a map, each dot representing a person who reblogged this thread. It is used to find more bloggers you may have things in common with. This is from a medical discussion I got into, I started looking at many of the other people who reblog this thread, and so many of them are nearly identical that it seems like some kind of agenda. This certain type of blog posts endless horror stories sympathizing with nurses about how difficult their jobs are. I can usually tell when a regular person is blogging because there is a natural variety of information, interests. It seems that the Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex is employing thousands of bloggers to flood various social media sites with this kind of content.

Sometimes I aspire, often I forget what I am capable of...

Recognizing individual strengths. Multipliers: Put my friend Casey's computer work station in a room with three beginners, and the output of all three doubles. His years of experience lets him quickly solve problems, and share short cuts to improve workflow. In his highly competitive field of free lance CG artists, beginners are often swimming with sharks. Casey is confident in his skill, and recognizes the long term context of investment in his coworkers skill set. Everyone wants him on their team. It pays off later when they recommend him for jobs with other companies. The self interest is mutual. Many companies develop productive work environments without realizing they have been influenced by Objectivist ethics. You can cherry pick and highlight specific examples from highly successful, high profile companies who salt and pepper objective standards with random altruistic phrasing, yet in truth their policy's reflect respect for the incentives of each individual. Study various perspectives on competition. Studies of Alpha leaders show that the Alpha exhibits a calm demeanor that is more effective managing others because they work effectively without the need to compete. While insecure betas are in constant competition with each other, attempting to pull each other down. Its hard to respect a supervisor who doesn't' know how to do your job. I imagine an objectivist would want to run their own business, but that is idealistic. Maybe develop some interview questions to get insight into how each person in industry applies objectivist ethics to their particular field. Brian studies are providing new insights into how individual brains are more geared for certain tasks. Improving radar for finding quality employees. Some people are naturally more motivated to learn. When choosing between two applicants, one may appear more qualified, but may not have the natural self starter motivation that will make the second applicant raise much more quickly through the company.

Personal note

Does 'The Law of Identity' include the context of how you were made? How does an objectivist differentiate one's self from the impulses of DNA? Objectivists offer the fortitude to keep your own counsel regarding offspring. Objectivism offers personal justification to escape from an irrational family, but how does it value a healthy sense of family? Objectivism seems to attract the random strays who's frontal cortex is developed enough to find the unreasonableness of the world intolerable. The fact that Objectivists gather together at all seems to be evidence of a human need for intimacy. Over the ages morality has been based largely on using shame as a tool for population control. Mystics grant their followers the moral imperative to procreate, offering protection and the self righteous obliteration of non-followers to make enough room for their flock. Environmentalists work together tirelessly to ostracize breeders, while instilling a sense that one should not have children because it would add to the overcrowded human waste on the planet. Have Objectivists shielded themselves from a witch hunt by seeming to refrain from entering the debate? Will the current objectivist stance on procreation foster a world that allows objectivists to continue to exist over the next ten thousand years? Or is 100 years the most context an objectivist ought ever to aspire to?

... or possibly there is a hologram of a mountain over my favorite village Its interesting the subtle difference between exploring an argument and trying to win an argument. Mankind wanted men who could fly like angels, we got the Wright Brothers. Mankind wanted Omniscience, the internet is approaching it at greater speeds than my ten year old self ever dreamed. Mankind wanted eternal life, stem cell research is starting to clone organs from wisdom teeth. When women have equality Ayn Rand might take her rightful place among the great philosophers of history. I haven’t read of male philosophers who worship women as Ayn Rand worshiped men. Maybe that is a key deficit in the struggle for sexual equality. This fired up some thoughts. If a man transitions to a woman is he worshiping women, or does he want to make his body a vessel for worshiping a man? Some kind of ultimate expression of self love. The derisive tone and discomfort many misogynists feel toward transgender people is a general hatred for women, as though men are better than women, and they are somehow being mocked and degraded by trans people. There is danger for the person who wants to transition. Finding a physician they can trust. They imagine how it is going to be, and once they have gone through the surgery it may not feel as they had hoped it would feel. (Michael Jackson’s nose) The fantasy was better than the reality. Nerve endings might not be as sensitive. They have to decide when or if they tell their partner the truth, and decide when its the right time. The statistics of prostitution are greater. How many examples of hero’s, to identify with, does a transgender person have? How many transgender people are living better lives than they had before, and how can they access one another stories for support and guidance? How many objectivists with personal transgender insights are adding crucial perspective to conversations like this one? If a man transitions to a woman what feminine aspects are high in his priorities? The science isn’t yet advanced enough for him to bear a child and breast feed. Those are aspects of my femininity that are very important to me. My femininity has been shaped by my mirror neurons helping my body to move and speak in ways that are similar to the close female friends and relatives I value. As I said earlier some aspects of femininity that are important to some seem superficial to me, but there is a wealth to learn from many individuals when one looks past superficial things. I have a friend who looks strikingly beautiful without makeup on. The paleness of her eyelids and lashes make her iris stand out like the deeply conscious sensitive pools that they sometimes are. But she hates herself without makeup. I mentioned it once twenty years ago, and it had the effect of an attack on her sense of her own identity. I will never hurt her like that again. It isn’t my place, her body isn’t mine to decorate. I am lucky she gives me any of her time at all and we have more interesting things to talk about. Ayn Rand didn’t bear children. Was this critical to her philosophy as an individualist? I believe there is a branch of her philosophy that is severely lacking that did not pay homage to the 3.8 billion years of evolution that culminated and ended in her family line. Exploring parenting and child development are crucial to passing consciousness to future generations.

If someone were to change genders privately and convincingly, and cut all ties with the people who knew who they once were, move to a new town or country, transgender debates wouldn’t apply to them, they could live more fully in their new identity. Keeping their own counsel without the intrusion of another’s opinion. I think part of the appeal to the more attention seeking transgender people is that everyone knows about the transition, they don’t want to be known as a man or a woman, but both. I was born a female, I identify as a female. I enjoy clothing that celebrates my big breasts, and I think intelligence and joking around are sexy in men and women. It seems second hand for me to impose my identification upon any other human. I am not a girly pink lipstick long fingernails kind of woman, so I identify less with people who want that kind of decoration. While at the same time I identify as a human with David Bowie, who is a genius who has played with costume, gender roles, and passed his DNA to diversity, though I haven’t yet been brave enough to emulate him. How many notable female philosophers do we have examples of before Ayn Rand? Her intelligence definitely challenged sexual stereotypes in the 1950’s. She didn’t feel the need to defend her sex against criticism. By claiming that she is a male chauvinist she transcended the limitations others were attempting to place on her sex, while in a deeply abstract way she was defending her consciousness and her sex from the assaults of people with more limited capacity for the context of her as a whole. I think the way anti-conceptual movements, like mysticism, attach themselves to gender fluidity to affect humanity through sterilization. If you identify a human as a boundary challenger, the media are enticing men to try on dresses and sterilize themselves, by telling them they can’t, rather than having to send them off to war in order to reduce the periodic overcrowding that happens with excessive breeding. The tie is an identification marker for a certain set of ideals, similar to the way my cousins display tattoos and walk Pitt bulls down the road, they want to look a certain way so that other people who look that way will stop and chat with them at the park, or breed children who will more likely identify with the decoration they feel at home with. The clothing as protection has psychological effect. The business professional’s shield is that many other people might lose their jobs if this man is harmed. The tattoo’d man gives the aura of a military fighter. Part of Transgenderism seems to symbolize a freedom shield protection against the billions of mystics who wouldn't hesitate to behead a man for ever daring to try on silky women's panties.

Having a ten year old mostly white son I take personal interest in the forces working to diminish his self value. I am hoping he wants to have children because I value the legacy of my familie's DNA. Having active Tumblr and youtube accounts exposes us to constant propaganda against cisgender white males. If he ever wants to transition I will be heart broken, but what can I do to ‘help’ him? Deny the reality that there is immense pressure for his generation of white males to not be white males, and they are to be punished for their white maleness, at this time in history? I would be happy with his partner of any race, mixing our DNA with other races seems to be a good idea in this increasingly multi-cultural world. I can see how my Arapaho, and Jewish Great Great Grandmothers have given me an edge in scrutinizing the tensions between these demographics. To imagine what it is like to be a different sex or race does a lot to increase empathy for the imbalances between different people. The transgender debate was inevitable, and necessary for the progression of the human species.

Some scientists claim DNA is 3.8 Billion years old. Could there be DNA memory? Maybe one of his distant ancestors was a black woman, and his DNA enjoyed being her immensely. From an evolutionary perspective, his DNA would have a better chance at enjoying that experience again by winning the love of a black woman and hoping for daughters. The process of transition may significantly diminish his/her chances of finding a mate. It seems sterilization is the major agenda of most moral philosophies. Are nose jobs, augmented breasts, steroids, tweezing your eyebrows, shaving a lie/immoral? Scientists are happy to have willing guinea pigs to see what a human can be formed into with hormones and surgery. Is it ironic that Ayn Rand paved the way for a society free enough to allow for fanatics of individualism to own their own bodies and do with it what ever they want?

How much of your attention have you invested in issues that are really important to you? How have you cultivated the organization of your attention? How much of your attention is invested in knee jerk reactions? How much attention is invested in things that are not important? How much attention have you invested into self awareness? How much attention have you invested in things that ought to be more important to you? How much context can you hold?

A is A helps draw the focus to defining exactly what A is. It is natural human curiosity to perceive a barrier and challenge it. I am a human, my plumbing will work with the plumbing in either bathroom. At times the line to the women's is too long, and if I feel safe I will slip into a vacant mens restroom. I won't however go into the mens bathroom at a sleazy bar because of the risk that an ape with his frontal cortex offline will get the wrong idea, also it stinks of beer piss. Can you define why restrooms are segregated in the first place? Safety. I have met trans people in the women's bathroom and never felt threatened. If you want a little perspective... every male I have known who has ever walked around in women's clothing has much more empathy toward women's safety than the average man does. You can choose to believe Trans people are immoral for defying their "true" identity, but I think the identification of human is much more a priority than the lesser identification of male/female. If you believe being a trans person disqualifies their self from being defined and treated as human please elaborate. What about your own self identification is challenged when another person identifies differently? i.e why is white maleness so threatened by the increasing self assertions of the other 6 billion people on the planet? Will you make it your mission to harass any trans person who takes an interest in objectivism? Should a trans person who is interested in objectivism refrain from making it known?

Studies on various animal Alpha leaders show they are much more relaxed than the betas of the group.

Quite honestly I didn't believe you when I read that she rarely smiled. The glint in her eyes when she sets the stage for a profound abstraction is so poignant to me, I never questioned the joy I felt I shared with her in those moments. For some reason this makes me think of the opposite feeling I had when watching a video of a diplomat saying some horrifyingly nasty things while a smile was plastered on his face and his head was nodding up and down.

Maybe you and I define or value admiration differently. To me self admiration is something intimate... I don't care to express my own admiration of myself to anyone else, those moments pass as I challenge myself to a new goal. I don't really like when others praise me, not that I am unhappy that they feel admiration, but the way admiration is substituted for work. The way their admiration gets chained to an expectation, as though I owe them something for generating a feeling of admiration in them. It depends who the admiration is coming from. If I admired a painting my friend made, and they told me it was inspired by work that I did, I would feel honored. I don't like the way most fans interrupt celebrities in the grocery store to gush on their admiration. It isn't a fair trade. Admiration... like bliss, ecstasy, love are words with meanings that carry a great deal of energy/fuel to move forward.

I feel a resistance to this, and I am trying to figure out why. It could be the word 'you' as though you are telling me to admire myself as much as I possibly can. There is more to it. I am trying to understand why it doesn't sit well with me.

I agree, the quality of attention is the main idea. Cultivating a healthy frontal cortex (the context and control center of the brain) is key. I agree, an overactive frontal cortex is problematic; obsessive/compulsive disorder. I think being mindful of the quality of what you are investing your attention in, at any given moment, is helpful in developing healthy brain habits. Thinking... If this is boring or irritating or stupid, is there a way to improve the quality of my attention toward it? I like this thread of thought. If an artist, musician, sculptor, writer deliberately gave an hour or two more per day to his craft he might make significant progress in that field. I think it came from a lifetime of contemplation with a sense of value toward discoveries of the inner workings of her mind. I respect and admire Peikoff a great deal, and the words he uses are deeply informative and thoughtful, but the cadence of his voice has a bit of a downward tone at the ends of his sentences that make him seem restless that he has to explain things again. Ayn Rand's voice had a tone of urgency and curiosity. I love the way she often answered questions with more insightful questions.

I remember an excerpt of Ayn Rand's notes where she tells herself: "stop admiring your self so much, you are nothing yet" But it is her right to know herself well enough to use that thought as motivation or shield, and to accept it from no one else. To me, Ayn Rand seems to radiate with bliss consciousness, especially while engaging in vigorous debate. It takes a great deal of self awareness to be able to inspire the rational mind of your adversary.

It takes a great deal of mental effort to understand the massive body of work Ayn Rand has presented, and even greater finesse to express it intelligibly. The trader in me wants to earn the right to think of my self as good. This idea touches on the concern with a sense of entitlement that drives politics. I think there is a fear that Objectivists will be stereotyped by the behavior of some of its members. If a person uses Ayn Rand to justify being an egomaniacal ass, it makes it harder for more sensitive empathic Objectivists to present themselves to people. Though I embrace and value Ayn Rand’s definition of selfishness, I am still affected by what it means to more than 90% of the population. (i.e. pushing others down) I prefer the phrases self esteem or self awareness.

I’ve been practicing transcendental meditation for 22 years. It consists of sitting quietly for 20 minutes silently repeating a meaningless sound over and over in your mind. You gently bring yourself back to the sound when ever you notice yourself thinking. Brain researchers are fascinated with it. They are still trying to figure out why it works, but the studies they have conducted have shown increased scholastic ability in schools, decreased crime in prison inmates, and they are also studying it to help with PTSD in war veterans. I think it works as an exercise in self discipline. You are gently becoming aware of the multitude of random things that your mind constantly throws at you. Gently noticing them and returning to the mantra. I think the mantra keeps the chattery part of your mind occupied so that your witness, or your self, strengthens in observation. It exercises the frontal cortex/executive functions of the mind. I transcend into Bliss Consciousness. I feel an expansive energy emanating from my consciousness, my self awareness grows. My ability to hold context grows. Bliss provides a sharp contrast to negative energy, helping priorities become more clear.