A question on a friend's Facebook status and my response.

Q: What is the difference between the man who knows he is crazy ... and the man who does not?

A: Sanity and insanity are relative to a societal view -- this and only this matters. Without society (or a tribe, a group, etc), then your behavior only matters to yourself because it is society that decides what is rational and reasonable, two qualities observed in the definition of a sane person.

It's only until you disrupt others that society deems you insane. You may not personally understand why, but you're insane if society says you are. With that said, however, there are times when two different societies may differ on a definition of sanity, meaning that what some Westerners consider insane may not be insane within a certain alienated tribe in Africa or the Amazon -- or in a developed society like China even that's simply different.

If society, or a representative of your society (psychiatrist) deems you sane, then that's the only definition that matters to others. If you deem yourself insane, however, it may very well lead to more erratic behavior, leaving you in the insanity bucket during your next psych eval.... See More

Bottom line: Sanity is a societal concept. Wanna know if you're insane? Ask a friend.

Warning: Spoilers below.

This directly relates to a Facebook status I posted a few days ago about truth, and this is my thoughts on how it relates to the movie, “The Invention of Lying.”

Ever have one of those epiphanies that makes no sense? It’s like… you know whatever it is you realize. You’ve known it for a while, but then “bam!” -- smack in the face. This movie just made me think, quite a bit might I add. It’s almost upsetting that the premise of the movie (other than the obvious religious satire) is that he got the girl because he lied. While Mark never lied, even when he could have, to Anna about things in their relationship, she only accepted him once he could lie. The ability to lie gave him the ability to paint negative, but true, statements with shades ofdeceit for the sake of poetic advantage. To paraphrase, “No, that man’s not fat and disgusting, he could very well be the greatest poet on Earth.” This very statement, an untruthful conjecture, made a profound impact on the woman’s thought of him. He was a poor writer who, once he had the ability to lie, gained a great imagination. He used this to his ability to create wild stories about “the man in the sky” (an obvious shot at the Christian God) and false stories about the 13th century. Mankind, unable to fathom the concept of truth and the lack thereof, simply accepted this. Mark become very wealthy and famous for these statements, things that greatly improved his chances at picking up Anna, who wanted a mate with a favorable genetic code (Mark’s pudgy and not the most attractive man in the world) and a good financial standing (Mark was fired from his job early in the movie). He had neither of these things, until he lied (he was unable to gain the favorable genetic code, obviously, and chose not to lie about gaining that).

Now, due to the nature of the world at the time, people were incredibly honest. Not only were they honest, they also lacked the general ability of conversational tact and discretion. They said what was on their minds, when it came to them, regardless of any negative connotation, even to the point of being cruel. The volunteered more information than required in a conversation, because it was normal. While I see the obvious need for tact to avoid undue discourse and emotional abuse, what I noticed was enlightening, and to dispel the cliché “it’s just a movie!” it was a situation quite prevalent in life. He only got the girl because he lied. He even told the truth about it later. He told Anna about how he said there was a man in the sky even though there isn’t. The only reason she accepted it is because he was simply unable to explain how he was able to “say what wasn’t.” He was the first human to develop the ability to lie and, as such, there are no words like “true,” or in this case “untrue.” He explained why he lied (a red herring, as far as I’m concerned, about trying to comfort his dying mother) and she simply accepted it.

Now, what’s central to this movie is the fact that the guy got the girl. For the movie, that’s QED. For the world, however, what about the millions of people who now live only to please this man in the sky? What about the people who now think that when you die, you go to a mansion and live with all the people you love and you’ll see them again. What about the people who think you can do two bad things in your life before the man in the sky won’t forgive you again. While this is obviously an extremist view, it only leads me to reiterate the statement in my status: the truth isn’t simply answering the question, it’s volunteering all the information. I mentioned exceptions in that status as well, however. I wouldn’t say something, nor admit to something, simply because of my own guilt. That’s pathetically selfish and telling the truth simply because your feeling guilty is a cop out when it comes to people and relationships. If there is nothing good to be gained from the truth, then why hurt someone? They either trust you, or they don’t. Odds are, they don’t (if they’re asking) and never will until you tell them something you’ve done wrong, even if you’ve done nothing wrong.

With all that said, however, people need to be more honest. It’s so horribly irritating to try to “read” people to see if they have ulterior motives. Guy says girls is cute. Is he trying to sleep with her, or is he simply making a comment? Well, more times than not, he’s simply making a statement. Due to the ulterior motives of some, however, it’s impossible to tell, yea? If honesty and forward statements were the norm…. just imagine.

I’ve already resolved to make a few statements I should’ve already made to a few people.


I'm also too lazy to proofread this, so I apologize in advance for any lack of coherence, etc.

Is it possible to be in love with love itself? When one has the passion of desire to direct at no one, to share with only himself, what can man do?

"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?"
- Macbeth

Debate is the source of knowledge. One can't truly analyze and learn from every aspect of a subject without having debated it, preferably with someone who disagrees with you, or is at least moderate and not convinced of your own views. However, you must also be assured that they are the type to have truly analyzed the subject.

A moderate is best, because they have seriously analyzed, learned, and discussed, but will argue for or against logic and rationale, not for their pride in the avoidance of being wrong or disproven.

Someone who argues their point of view solely because it's their point of view will serve no purpose other than to show you a point of view, often argued verbatim from another source.

True thought breeds true truth-in-learning when two moderates discuss a subject at length and neither agree nor disagree on it's fundamental points.

Are good and evil subjective terms? Does any other organism commit good or evil acts? Does any other organism have the ability to interpret acts as good or evil?

It seems to me that good and evil are man-made concepts, or at least only man-perceived. Many 'evil' things man can do, some defined by religious text, are commonplace in the animal kingdom; this includes rape, assault, theft, cannibalism, homosexuality, abandoning young, etc. So, this means, that good and evil either only apply to man, or are man-made. It seems that the answer to that question relies, at least partially, on the question of the existence of God. If there is no God, then only man could have made the idea. If there is, then it is certainly plausible that either God or man created the concepts of good and evil.

Did you know humans excrete around 30% of their bodily waste through their skin? This is also how phermones, hormones, and other -mone products are released. Could this be connected with empathic behaviors and sympathy pains? Maybe some people are simply better at detecting these scents and reacting to them.

I mean, if a man spends enough time around women, he may become more feminine... is that social or scientific reasoning?

The physical world has fundamental particles and elements. Atoms, protons, quarks, photons, tachyons (heh), what have you. What about the metaphysical world? This is how I see it: anything in existence depends upon Time. [We’ll use proper nouns for the sake of distinguishing fundamental elements of our metaphysical world.] Time simply is. It is as our universe is. The universe exists in some manner we can’t even comprehend because it has to exist within something, or be expanding into something, or shrinking and leaving something. Time is the same in the sense that we know that it’s there, but don’t understand the hows and whys.

With that said, everything depends upon Time, and any given Moment requires the following for existence to be possible: there must be an Instance of Time, a Circumstance, and potential or Opportunity. While an Instance of Time will exist as long as Time does, Circumstance and Opportunity depend both upon Time and upon a body to perceive it, physical or supernatural. Circumstance and Opportunity not only depend upon that body, but if the body exists, Circumstance will exist and can be described as every aspect of the resulting Moment. If Circumstance exists, then so will Opportunity. Any given Circumstance is also at the whim of the Opportunity preceding it (if you make a decision now, the perceived Circumstances will change in the next few seconds, meaning a new Moment has arrived).

Nothing is totally out of my control, yet very little is directly in my control at any given Moment. The few things that are directly in my control are only so because of the previous Moment’s existence. The previous Moment only existed because the Opportunity for it to exist was provided by the next previous Moment. I am where I am now because I’ve made billions and billions of decisions from the time my mind developed self-awareness to now.

While others may have manipulated a Moment with their decisions, I have never been left without one of my own at any given point in Time. The existence of a Moment is relative to the body that perceives it, and if you perceive an Instance in Time, then the prerequisites have been met and both Circumstance and Opportunity exist. If we take a page from the physical world, the simple act of viewing something means that it has changed. The same holds true for the Moment, though quite likely not due to Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity.

The point is that you always have a choice. If you think you made a bad choice, you’re probably not remembering which of the infinite Moments you acted upon in that decision, because it was, at that time, the right choice. Now, if Circumstances have changed, then you simply need to seize the Opportunities available within the Moment to change the Circumstances in the next Moment.

If you’re lost, you probably took a wrong turn in the last Moment and I urge you to seize the current Opportunity and simply change your Circumstances. Circumstances are quite resilient objects however, and may not change without the power of many chosen Opportunities.

Everything comes in reciprocating pieces.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

What goes around comes around.

Things in motion tend to stay in motion; things at rest tend to stay at rest.

See the correlation? This is my life. I do everything expecting an equal and opposite reaction, for better or worse. I do everything knowing that my actions will carry with them an unknown effect all around me unless opposed by a corollary action.

While I don't believe in 'karma', per se, I believe that you can choose to reward or punish yourself appropriately, and this is what I do. When I do something wrong and feel bad about it, I take action to either correct it or 'train' myself to correct it in the future.

To be happy in life, one must set expectations for everything; they need not be high. Every increment of time you have before an event, you must reevaluate the expectation based on the current situation.

A child does this regularly. Example: Many kids want to be a vet, President, or a firefighter. How many actually become that? They reevaluate that expectation based upon their current situation (they prefer math, afraid of dogs, hate politics).

This is my recipe to happiness, and I'm just peachy. How are you doing?