The seconds that pass, even as I type this, are tools and opportunities.  The question of how I arrange them, how I direct them, how I can enjoy them most across the span of time…

Asking that question infuses me with meaning.

Being able to manage “screwups” by recognizing their potential and relegating them to an area where they can do no harm and still produce benefits is an invaluable skill.  It’s actually one that I use on myself.

Because I know in certain contexts, I can function with confidence, and in others, I had best step aside and let someone else lead.  There is no judgment, no labeling someone a “badass” or “loser,” there is only the recognition of the problem to be solved, and the emplacement of measures to solve it.  (and personally, I also like to focus on what I need to improve, and take active measures to address the discrepancy for future purposes).

Ironically, when I take self-worth out of the picture, I feel perfectly at ease with who I am.

I used to be addicted to video games, until I started exploring the wider possibilities of life, both with my body and my mind.  It’s unbelievable—the heights of pain and pleasure, glory and triumph, humanity and brutality…the unchecked potential contained within 7 billion+ laughably fragile flesh-forms who live atop a spinning blue marble in the empty vastness of the known cosmos…(not to mention the unreachable bounds that have yet to transmit their light to us, or the possibility of something existing outside our universe)

I don’t judge those who love them some XBox, but man—EVERYTHING’S a game, no matter which angle I look at it from.  I simply try to play the most fulfilling one possible.

If nothing matters over a sufficiently long span of time, then I might as well figure out what is functional, pair it with what I deem to be ethical, and do those things.

The other stuff just doesn’t seem as interesting or relevant.

When people continue to make the same kind of mistakes over and over, I treat them as if they have no free will.  I put controls in place to make sure they don’t cause harm, but I don’t condemn them as being blatantly disrespectful, and I try to be kind to them.  Why?

Because I remember how good it felt to cling to my own perceptual faults, and I remember how frustrating it was to make the same kind of mistakes over and over as a result.  It literally felt like I had no control of myself.

From what I understand, knowledge can come from the vile and the holy, from the ugly and the beautiful.  Even if it’s “evil,” it can be used defensively, as a shield against those with malicious intentions.

Another way to say it would be:  I’m pretty sure that knowledge doesn’t have cooties.

When I feel resonance in my writing, it isn’t because I’ve simply written what I believe to be true, or what I believe to be exciting.  It’s because I’ve gone to war with every misconception within my own mind that I’m capable of perceiving, and done my best to address them at the moment I hit “publish.”

And then, of course, in the next book, I find even more, and I have to do it again.

I find it very empowering to accept the pain and suffering that go hand in hand with being alive, and actively finding ways to make the “bad stuff” enjoyable (or better yet, finding ways to use it to my advantage).

The other way, trying to always view life through rose-colored lenses and ignoring the existence of “bad stuff,” only seems to amplify its power, until it becomes an overwhelming flood of ignorance-driven misery.

When I lie down in bed or I’m relaxing with friends, I find it useful to remember that hierarchies of values become utterly meaningless over the span of eternity, and also in the face of cosmic annihilation.

But I find it imperative to impose them while I’m engaged in activity, so that I have solid waypoints to chart a course to my goals.