It's the cold morning and I'm hungry, sleep-deprived, and behind in my homework. Plus, there's a sea of bike traffic by the Quad.

And then here comes a man trucking along with a bionic leg. His leg, from his torso down to his feet is a compound of glistening, metallic, pneumonic cylinders and rubber tendons. In addition, this man is holding a long, white cane with red tape on it. He is blind. He's waving the wand back and forth like a someone holding a metal detector. Surprisingly, he negotiates the traffic well, and even upon encountering a small staircase, he hops over it and continues unbridled. And that's what this man was: unbridled. He had his chest stout, his head straight, and an earnest, confident look on his face.

Upon seeing this I was stunned. To think, that here was a man that appeared to have suffered a major calamity, a bad car accident perhaps, and had the temerity to still stick it out at a tough university.

What I felt watching him was like someone was directly feeding endorphins into my head. It felt like the sun was coming out in London. And this was enough to set my day in positive motion.

It seems I'm niche-ifying myself.

In my desire for uniqueness and in the quenching of my thirst for novel information, I feel like I'm isolating myself further and further away from others.

In Junior High, all it took for me to "identify" with someone was that they either had some indian or philipino in them, or they were good at math like me.

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My goal is to be a millionaire by the time I'm 18

That was my mantra when I was 15. Let's call that the Old Guard.

One must continuously pursue his passions from the get go.

That's my current mantra that I've had since I was 20 (I'm close to 22 now). Let's call that the New Guard.

The intersection between these two manifested wonderfully when I was reflecting on my relationship with women today.

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Denying the Antecedent

This is the logical fallacy when after you assert that A implies B, you then assert that Not A implies Not B.

The latter does not follow from the former. For example, "I live in Palo Alto, therefore I must be in California" does not imply "I don't live in Palo Alto, therefore I don't live in California"

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With 2004 here, I now welcome the new harsher reality of my body. I'm 21 and with the passing of the new years, I can now say goodbye to my golden days of adolescent health. Before I could eat anything, I could sit in front of the computer forever, and it wouldn't matter, for my energy would make me into a biological incinerator.

Now, my waist size has expanded by three, my cheeks are heavier set, and I have small wrinkles on my forehead from lifting up by eyebrows too much.

On the one hand, I hate this over-attention to good looks and all the effort on healthy eating. On the other hand, I know that looking good does make you feel great. *sigh*

Hello 70 years of defending my body against nature.

1) Improve my posture
2) Don't raise my eyebrows so much to prevent forehead wrinkling
3) Don't gape my jaw unecessarily to prevent double-chin
4) Have more tact
5) Stabilize to my true voice
6) Pour less emotions into my decision-making and analyzing engines

(There are plenty others, but I make resolutions every week, so today's nothing special)

I think I'm going to marry rich...

... 1 ... I hate working
... 2 ... financial disparity between partners or any disparity in capabilities probably aids in marriage security
... 3 ... I'm a good teacher (teach kids) and have spent a lot of time already thinking about the topic of child rearing
... 4 ... By the time I reach marrying age, women in America would be much closer to men than they are now in financial earning power. More of them enter college and the workforce than Men anyways.
... 5 ... I want to spend my time pursuing my passions, not financial ambitions.
... 6 ... It fits with the pattern of somewhat eccentric decisions that I'm prone too.
... 7 ... Why does it have to be breadwinning dad anyways? Mainly tradition.

SNAPSHOT OF PHIL TRYING TO FIND HIS UNIQUE VOICE: HERE IS A DRAFT POST I WAS GOING TO MAKE

Others: So, how was the movie?
Me: Umm….
Others: huh? I thought it was good, how ‘bout you?
Me: Umm…. I’m not good with movie opinions

I’ve been having trouble telling people whether I like movies or not. I don’t know what it is. There’s nothing to it, right? The movie was… good? (or bad). See, that was easy. Not so fast buddy, was it really good? Eh. Was it really bad? Eh. It’s like saying a movie was good or bad is like a big blanket statement that just kind of ruins the finer ups and downs on the film.

And it is liiiving? Movies are an extension of living.

This is not my voice.

SEE, I HAD THIS GREAT IDEA WHERE SOMEHOW I COULD TIE MY INABILITY TO SAY MOVIES WERE GOOD OR BAD TO MY INABILITY TO ANSWER WHETHER MY WEEK WAS GOOD OR BAD, IT’S LIKE ASKING WHETHER YOU THINK LIVING IS GOOD OR BAD, AND IT’S LIKE, UHM, SURE. I DON’T KNOW WHY I WATCH MOVIES. I HAVE TO WATCH THEM, BUT NOT IN AN ADDICTION KIND OF WAY. IT’S MORE LIKE LIVING AND WATCHING MOVIES ARE SYNCHRONOUS.—THIS WAS THE IDEA I WAS TRYING TO GET AT, BUT IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MY STORY, NOR IS IT PROBABLY A GOOD POINT. SO I TURNED IT INTO THIS ALL-CAPS THING… THIS META-META-META-META-METAAAAAAAH

The film is Mystic River The film was.... deh. Okay, it had a major emotional impact on me, it was heavy. Some parts manifested kitschy and appeared unripened. I was moved and I feel the film will stick with me for little while

I'm going to be a rock star in Japan someday.

Okay, I think I'm done learning new stuff. Science, literature, whatever, these other worlds etc.... I want to spend more time learning to live better, observing life better, experiencing the gamut of life's narratives, etc.... no extra super-nugget like "human evolutionary psychology" OR "memetics" OR "media anthropology" is going to get me the wet highs of being in love, getting in a fight, forgiving someone, and taking a peaceful walk down the street.

Well, I'm just saying this,,,, but it's a budding flower of desire, worth journaling about.

the password is: $$#$@@ @@@@@@ @@@@@@@@ ************** &*&*&^*^&^*&^()^(*^ &^*&&&^*&^^*&*&^* ^^&^&^&&&&&&^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

--1-1- -1--1-1- -1---1--1-1--1----1 ---1-1--1--1- --1------ ----------822 8--------1 00101

PKPKPKP KPKPKPKPK KPKPKP KPKPkpkpkpkp kpkpkpkpkk pkpkpkpkpkpk pkkp kpkp kPKpkpkp kp k pkPK PKP K P KPK

Personally, I think I'm a broadcast medium (in real life, not just blog)
What medium are you?
If you're British, you're TCP/IP (all about protocol)

If the mind is a road COMMA then most people have medians and painted lines to keep them from losing their way PERIOD

I COMMA on the other hand COMMA seem to have no such defenses SEMI-COLON no walls and blockades to keep me from the gutter PERIOD

If the mind is like water COMMA then the usual amount of thinking I do in a day is like a raging avalanche PERIOD

One of the biggest floods for me are these metacognitive infinite loops PERIOD I get lost thinking about thinking about thinking PERIOD START-QUOTES to control, or not to control QUESTION-MARK Can I even ask that question QUESTION-MARK Should I QUESTION-MARK Where does my action come from QUESTION-MARK END-QUOTES And then I get stuck COMMA like a car in the mud PERIOD

But fortunately COMMA there is time DASH DASH and time DOES cure everything OPEN-PARENTHESIS as does laughter CLOSED-PARENTHESIS

biking to school today, three cars spotaneously emerged out of nowhere in reverse, all at differnt times... man, i need to start wearing helmet. maybe someforce is out to get me..

Okay, portrait of Phil... semi-stream... I'm aware I have an audience.. even if it's just google spiders and voyeurs...

I'm not completely mental, like I said earlier, I think one of the biggest discoveries is that I definitely cycle between systems of thinking.

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first off, I don't think all my fears are warranted.

I guess that's part of my personality, I get ultra-worried about those things, and then I over-compensate really hard, like I really slam down hard, I guess it's insecurity. yeah, live with it, adapt, I'll probably always have those kind of insecurities, I've had that since I was god knows how young, i'm a perpetual worrier.

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Everything's a cycle, a back-and-forth, a repetition of progress-seeking, a regressive skiing down the slope from birth to nothingness. friends today, friends tomorrow, places and contexts, nothing changes.

Is everything screwed when we identify all patterns? When you can see the reason for everything, isn't the mystery dead? Did religion kill religion by providing an answer?

Can you willfully seek ignorance? It'd take some brains to do that, and there-in lies the paradox.

"Well son, it's all in how you apply that knowledge" Bullshit, nothing is neutral.

1) get 20 excellents in a row on DDR
2) do a remix of the star wars theme combined with Bush's voice
3) do wire-stunts like the matrix
4) wear a differnt style watch on each of my appendages
5) program my VCR
6) buy a 100GB hard drive for $1
7) photocopy a real llama
8) string a guitar in the wrong order
9) build a ship inside a ping-pong ball and beat Chris at ping-pong with it
10) find true love

We're already past 800 posts on philosophistry, and this site has only been up since March. This may also be the first month with a post every day as well. Hmm, I'm trying to figure out a way to make those 800 previous posts come alive.. cuz nobody reads archives.

Philosophistry is an experiment in self-honesty... the publicity of vanity, etc.. Well, here it is, the iskra.... below are my scores on a psychological self-test.

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