Hedonism is good, listening to music is even better, but there are of course other, more interesting things to do in your spare time. Therefore I will write about something completely different. This post was inspired by the recent manifestation of the power of Twenty-Three in my life. My kid started his 1st grade in the elementary school and I enrolled him to a school football team there. Each young player has been assigned the number which was then printed on t-shirts, shorts and all the team's clothes. Out of the forty available numbers my kid has been assigned the only proper one - 23!!! Ha ha ha, now he proudly wears the clothes bearing this number and his papa is uber happy that the cult of 23 has been transferred to the next generation :)
The phenomenon of 23 has been widely promoted by Robert Anton Wilson, great thinker and ultra consistent Rationalist, the alleged author of the Bible of Discordianism - Principia Discordia, and at the same time my favorite author and philosopher. Many people called him Pop-Philosopher, especially those who were 'offended' by his great skill of writing about very important and complex aspects of our life in an extremely funny and accessible way, very anti-academic, avoiding any pretense to be aloof or excessively intellectual. But I don't give a damn about them. I re-read his books all the time , just to fill up myself with positive energy and to become astonished for nth time with RAW's unwavaring confidence in the humanity and its collective wisdom. Pretty hard task looking at the current consensus reality and the path which our precious world follows at the moment. I highly recommend Illuminatus Trilogy, Historical Illuminatus Trilogy, his fantastic autobiography Cosmic Trigger, Prometheus Rising and Quantum Psychology. These books has really shaped my reality-tunnel, of course leaving its boundries flexible and pretty blur as through my conscious life since the silly teenage years, I've subscribed to the 'creed' nicely put into words by R.A.W.:
"Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence."
If only more people followed this rule, the world would be a much better place to live. Maybe. I can easily recognize the mechanisms which make people BELIEVE something so strong they forget or force themselves to forget about the complexity of the surrounding reality, but I cannot understand why intelligent people consciously choose to be closed within certain framework of artificially created paradigm, usually called Bible, Tora, Koran, Fundamental Science, Nationalism, Communism etc. etc. etc. I know that it is easier to live with some ideals, people are lazy in general and prefer to have guidalines bestowed on them than to carry out a difficult search for their own. But for fuck's sake, get a life (to use the famous phrase) - the reality is soooo complex and worth exploring and you have just ONE, let me repeat, ONE life to live. You can either spend it hating others who do not follow your reality tunnel, cringing with all your strength to one set of beliefs or open up to accomodate parts of other people's realities into your own, created and made by you and only you. This may may not work, but it is definitely worth trying. Change the routine of your life, do something crazy, be kind to others and listen to them attentively, explore the multi-layers of reality, don't be stupid and feed your mind daily with perplexing concepts and ideas to avoid boredom and kick the ass of the robot sitting so comfortly inside you. As some other wiseman said: "Life is a vast preparation for something that never happens, yet one minute of a vision could turn all preparations into achievement". I encourage you try it at home!
Maybe Logic is the only sane logic in the long run. Forget about 100% certitude and solid truth - these things most probably do not exist at all, at all. I really encourage you to acquaint yourselves with Maybe Logic Documentary about Robert Anton Wilson's life and philosophy. You will definitely find there some crunchy mind food. Watch 3 parts and search for the rest on youtube or buy a DVD via Maybe Logic site.
You can also enroll to Maybe Logic Academy (yes!). The courses are run by e.g. Douglas Rushkoff, Philip H Farber, R.U.Sirious, Erik Davis, Lon Millo DuQuette, Peter Carrol, Antero Alli and their cover quite a broad range of mind-boggling topics.
Browse through very extensive library of RAW material on Deepleaf Productions (audiobooks, podcasts, books and much much more) or read Maybe Quarterly Magazine.
Sorry for the rant, but I couldn't resist myself . By the way, have you seen any Fnords lately?