This is almost entirely unedited from it's original trip log format, only HTML formating and links have been added. I'm not sure if I was really high when I wrote this, but by looking at the date, I probably was.
Probably involving some combination of DXM (in the third plateau range) and pot.

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Hmm... It seems at times as though the whole point of this part of my life is to find some artificial system to interpret the way that life works. Almost like it is a normal function of being human to find some 'program' (does that deserve quotes?) to follow, something to define myself by. Something external.

So what if I refuse? What would happen if either:

a) I try to define my self by entirely internal references

-or-

b) refuse to define my self at all?

I really don't know. As far as (a) goes, at least in terms of mathematic reasoning, Goedels Theorem seems to say that it is not possible to do that. The second option there seems to lead to suffering, and prolonged suffering (in my experience) seems to result in the individual being defined by their suffering, and in doing so, relieving that suffering, reducing it to a more superficial level.

So, where do I go from here?

Complete denial of self? Or do I just quit and give in?

I used to be able to say that I was not a quitter, but that is no longer true, which is fine, one less definition of self, and that's fine by me.

I used to be able to say that I was better than those around me, with reasonable certainty, but now I don't think so.

I used to think that I had some special purpose here on Earth, that I was supposed to help out humanity in some way, but I've found that whenever I have an idea, it seems that somebody else had it before.

I used to believe that I could create some new way of looking at the world, but as I go on, I see that nothing is really new, it's just a revisionof something, or a combination of things.

I used to believe that science was the answer to everything, then I thought that a spiritual path could do the job, and I have even tried the combination of the two (in the form of drugs), but now I see that even if they do allow us to control our environment, it is still futile.

I used to think that learning was the key to everything, but I have been learning all of my life, and see no end in sight, and can see no use for it when I am done.

I used to think that art was a great thing, until I saw that art is only a way of expressing the self, it does nothing when the self is uncertain.

I used to believe many things, but now, all that I am left with is the satisfaction of my basic physical needs. My existance has nearly come full circle to a point of non-existance. I await a sign, something to give meaning, but all I am ever left with is confusion, and hazy memories of great inspiration, that leads to nothing.

The only hope I have left is that the basic structure of the world will suddenly change to fit me, as I can not change myself to fit into it, something that I doubt will not happen any time in the near future.

I could be called a self-defeating escapist, but would shortly find myself changed into something else. I could say that I do not want to be one, and soon find myself become one. It is as if I am unable to set a fixed idea of self.

Yes, I could try to change the world, but what would I change? There is no one thing wrong with society, the basic institution is broken, but there is no way of doing without it, it is an inevitable result of placing several billion people on the planet. Yes anarchy is a nice ideal, but without a system of rules to enforce conduct, somebody is bound to put such a system in place.

Perhaps the whole idea of consciousness and humanity is just an illusion, that it is just some delusion that we have that we are different from animals, just because we use tools, and exploit ourselves and our environment. Unfortunately, that line of thought quickly dies off when the question of what exactly is being deluded is asked.

Maybe the memetics people are right, in a way that they never thought of. Maybe memes are coming to life, and biological life has become outdated, maybe the memes HAVE taken over, and most of us have just come to accept it, with or without knowing. Our lives have become insignificant in the face of major ideologies, ideas, cultures,or anything else memetic in nature. If so, what of it? What would that do to giving me purpose? Do I submit to something that doesn't even physically exist? Do I try to design new, better, more successful memes, ones that would wipe out the old ones, and leave only my memes left? How would that change the basic situation?

I doubt it would.

Is death a way out? I doubt it, but if it is, I will find out soon enough. I feel as though I have lost all hope, but I refuse to give up hope completely.

If there is anybody out there, I beg of you, please, please help me. I have no place left to turn, other than the unknown. Just a sign that this is not all just a sham, a joke being played on me that has gone on far too long, an experiment of some unkown technology. The will of {a,some,several} {god,gods,whatever} trying to prove a point, or to test me.

it's the lights. the lights control everything.

(who is this loon?)

everything comes from them, they can see all. Humanity used to be afraid of the dark, so they willed light into existance, and after time, that light grew in power. Now it is the source of all things, and we are enslaved to the light, to our sense of sight. The lights keep watch over us, and ensure that we do their biddings. Of couse the lights have not always been our masters, for in a far older time, before the lights came to power, we lived in a world of sounds, and the sound controlled us, and so on, with all of the senses.

Even without the power of the lights, we would still be slaves to our senses. Our sense of self, our sense of right an wrong, our sense of community, our sense of purpose... they are all very real things, and although they may be abstract in a physical sense, they are real forces that act upon our lives. But for now, the lights rule, and almost every other sense submits to them. There is little in our modern world that does not rely on sight or electricity to have it's impact on us.

-><- And that's all i will say for now. It's like Neitschze (yeah, you know who I mean, and the first person to comment on spelling anywhere gets a size 11.5 (US) shoe in a random orifice) said, 'if you stare long enough into the void, it also stares into you" or something to that effect. The extensive search for meaning where there is none causes a new one to spontainiously be created, one that, with effort, I'm sure, be expanded into something legitimate. Perhaps that is all the world is, is the result of billions of quests for purpose, for the meaning of things, something that we will never actually find, because as soon as we approach the limits of what DOES exist, something new will come in and form the next level.

A [everything is a fractal universe. There is an easily defined rough outline of what /reality,the universe,existance,whatever/ is, but upon closer inspection, there is an infinite level of detail to be found. An infinite level that resembles, but is different from those above it.

Maybe that is why my quest for meaning has come to nothing, I have been looking at the details, hoping to find the one aspect that explains things for me, when I should be looking at bigger things, and showing how everything is really just a finer detail of something bigger. As an example, maybe the jump from newtonian to quantum physical laws was the wrong way to go, maybe what is really needed is a meta-newtonian level of physics, to find the thing that it is a subset of, and the other subsets of that thing. Then find that which those are subsets of, and, with luck, eventually get to a big enough concept of <stuff> to know what everything comes from.

I should just shut up now, and return to being useless, the idea that anything I have said here is real scares me, and the though of developing the real bits into an understanding of the way things are scares me even more.

Just remember, math without numbers scares people, and people without numbers scares math.

-><-