Sixty-eight reasons why Synchronicity falsifies Atheism

Background/context:  Meditation is something i’ve always been interested in, but something i’ve never been able to do with any consistency… like i’m completely aware that practicing meditation is something that would improve myself and my life, at least on a minor scale, but perhaps profoundly… but it’s something i just can’t get myself to do regularly, for some reason…

So there was a somewhat magical period i went through between mid/late 2018-and early 2019, where for the first time in my life I didn’t hate my job/occupation, and i was for the most part happy and relatively healthy… was doing yoga and meditation several days a week, and having great experiences in all aspects of my life.   And it was the only time in which i actually did indeed reject my atheism-skepticism for any serious stretch of time.  

During this period, rather profound events/synchronicities happened, and I noticed that they were occurring exactly (or very close to) 68 days apart.  So being a newly non-atheist, i somehow thought 68 was like a magical number or something, or that cycles of energy happened in cycles of 68 days for me, or something like weirdly new-age like that.

The magic of this period somehow wore off, went away, and I became a bitter atheist-skeptic, hated my job, mad at myself and my life…

I like to set reminders on my phone via siri, both practical/specific things, and general things… i recognize(d) that I should/need to practice meditation… 

Early on the morning of October 19th, 2019 I was walking home after a kinda trying/frustrating experience in Old Town Pasadena, and had a conscious thought, like some sort of mocking prayer, like “ok fuck you universe, i know I’m just a lump of chemicals floating around in an energy field that happens to be conscious… and i’m so smart and clever, so challenge you!” or something like that.  I was a little drunk, and mostly to entertain myself, i grabbed my phone to tell Siri to remind me to practice meditation in 68 days… but i realized that was kinda lame and boring and i already knew when that was, like some time in late december when i would be at home in seattle and wasn’t gonna practice meditation… so instead i triggered Siri and said “remind me in 6,868 hours to practice meditation.”  

“... click click… ok, i’ll remind you.”  

I was born on July 31st, 1982 at 7:24 in the morning.  I challenged the universe, with the “magical” number it had ostensibly shown me before, at the precise moment that was 6,868 hours before the moment of my 38th birthday. 

I kind of hyperventilated... like as if i saw a ghost or something…

Either this was an extraordinarily remarkable coincidence, or my atheism-skepticism is wrong.  I think it’s probably the former, but i would love it if it were the latter.  

Album Review: Dysappearencer by Machinekit

3.5/4 Stars

Machinekit’s debut album is rhythmically rich and subtly layered. Its eight tracks take the listener on a journey that oscillates and sways in a shadowy room, inducing moments of pause to take in the complexity, and moments of wigged out kinesis from its infectious beat. The band artfully use state-of-the-art high voltage electrics, equipment, and tools to push musical boundaries while encouraging the listener to have a transformative experience.

Dysappearancer presents a dreamy landscape in its melody, colored by a dash of early Smiths and a pinch of Tool. The vocals (John Montoya) serve as a component of the instrumentation, melting into the ensemble, which includes Floydian saxophone (Brian Perske), humming synths, and guitar sounds that occupy a space somewhere between OK Computer and Joshua Tree, but darker. Yet the album’s percussion leads the way. The live drums (William Buege) are mesmerizing and are aptly complimented by drum machines and loops (David Cayetano), resonating like if Philip Glass had been a drummer, and twitchy enough to make Thom Yorke dance.

It should be noted that the above analogies to other artists are meant to serve as illustrations, not as comparisons. Dysappearencer is an original work, a challenging demonstration of experimental rock, an exposé on the cross-section of rhythmic and technological audacity. For a quick sample, check out the track “Maimed.” To see the Matrix, repeat listens of the album are recommended.

Daylen Riggs
Los Angeles
March 2019

Interstellar, Near Death Experience, and Cinematic Brilliance

I didn't think it was possible, but I now have a deeper appreciation of my favorite film - Interstellar - and a deeper respect for its director, Christopher Nolan. I've read numerous times that the ending of Interstellar is ambiguous, as the endings of his films usually are (c.f. Inception, Memento, The Dark Knight) - and before my most recent Interstellar experience, I had not understood why the ending of Interstellar might be interpreted as ambiguous. Oh boy, but it is... The "ending" of Interstellar happens when Matt Damon's character dies (I didn't spoil anything - Nolan spoiled the greatest piece of human art ever made by including Damon's scene/character). After this sequence, the spaceship in which the characters are on beautifully falls into a black hole. Humans - let alone consciousness - cannot survive back holes. Cooper dies as he goes into Gargauntua. Those are his final moments alive in the film. As reported by people who have near-death experiences, time slows down, memories flash before one's eyes, unfulfilled fantasies are experienced. The final 30 minutes of the film are just that: Cooper's death-is-nigh hallucination. The "tesseract" sequence - although beautiful and poignant - is implausible, even compared to the other sci-fi sequences in the film. Books fall off their shelf some times, and Cooper - in his dying, fantastical, hallucinatory state - reinterprets them in a way that his brain will copacetically accept his death. His life literally flashes through, and before, his eyes.

The Incredulous Elections of 2016 and the True Political Issue

I've recently caught up with the state of American politics, and have been both horrified and amused.  Yes of course, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Hillary Clinton are all despicable, worthless frauds.  But the circus that they're circling around and the media coverage of it is far worse, as it has obscured the most important political issue.

And that is The Environment, or more specifically, our destruction of The Environment and how we might curtail its destruction so that our grandchildren may actually live on this planet.

I'm not going to debate "global warming" here. We have more evidence that "global warming" is real and that is caused by human activity than we have evidence for the fact that the Earth rotates around the Sun.  (If you reject this claim, go look for the edge on the flat earth and/or pray to your deity of choice)

I love life.  I love the cosmic miracle that our existence is a one in a billion trillion chance - that we happened to have won a cosmic lottery where we intelligent humans came about on this pale blue dot of a planet.  

And I hate the fact that we are blackening this pale blue dot we live on.  All evidence suggests that our current methods of energy consumption will not only run out, but will poison our planet to the point of extinction; microbes may not even survive.

In other words, our current state of existence will result in us drowning in our polar ice caps if we are lucky; and if we are not lucky, we will die of suffocation because our environmental air will be so polluted as to not sustain life.

This is an extremely prescient political issue.  

So, where is the candidate who advocates our survival by drastic environmental reform?

The Dumbing Down of the Population and the "No Child Left Behind" Act

One of first things that George W. Bush did when we became President in 2001 was to pass the No Child Left Behind Act.  This was generally well-received. On the surface, it makes sense: it requires that schools must have certain scores on standardized tests in order to receive federal funding.

However, it had a fairly robust effect upon the quality education in our society.

... to be continued

Why I'm voting for Bernie Sanders: II

I am utterly amazed by the level of thought that goes into our current political discourse... not because of anything amazing or discursive, but because it seems to come from apes that don't have long term memory...  

Donald Trump, a mutant Bush Brother, a foreigner (Ted Cruz), Hillary Clinton and a *socialist* are the main candidates for president?  My God! Wake up people!  

So let's be auspicious and make coarse binary assumptions about the world... On the one hand, you have American Conservatism, represented by the past, present, and future Republican candidates... And on the other, American Liberalism... 

So let's take a look at the history of our adult lives (assuming you are under the age of 50)... 

George W. Bush - a conservative/Republican - came in to power because some idiots in Florida voted for Ralph Nader... he did some shit (9/11 was a total accident... yeah right)... he did some more shit, and left the country in the Great Recession.   

Barack Hussein Osama - or as the media like to call him, "Barack Obama" -  a liberal/Democrat - took over and now we're in an economic boom.

And yet people are still considering the conservative/Republican perspective?  People are throwing their support behind Donald Trump??

There are only three possible hypotheses that explain the phenomena described above...

1) We Humans are utterly stupid.

2) We Humans have been made stupid; we've been repressed of our greater intellectual capacity - accidentally or purposefully - by a force that requires we be stupid.

2a) The force that requires we be stupid are the economic elite. 

3) I live in an utter dream world, and Donald Trump is logical.  

...

Much of *my discourse* above is tongue-in-cheek - but all of its message is genuine.  

I am very stupid, however I think that (2a) is the root of it all...

And therefore I am voting for Bernie Sanders for President.  

Why I'm voting for Bernie Sanders

I'm voting for Bernie Sanders because his agenda is for true democracy, and against the faux democracy of our current political situation:

Hypothesis: People who are very rich (and powerful) want to continue being very rich (and powerful).

This isn't a radical claim; it seems natural to me. Regardless, let's entertain the possible validity of this hypothesis...

Money is required for political power in our current system of government/organization. To be democratically elected into office, elaborate marketing/advertising campaigns must be executed. Elaborate marketing/advertising campaigns are most easily executed with money; it's not an accident that almost every single President of our nation (USA) has come from wealth, and the two or three who didn't were heavily funded by wealthy people.

How do very rich (and powerful) people ensure that they will continue being rich (and powerful)? They advocate public policy (via laws and government actions) that ensure the continuance and growth of their wealth and power.

Consider what you know about human nature. What is the average human being like? If we assume that the group of very rich people who are in political power are like everyone else, then it's safe to assume that they're not magically selfless or altruistic. It's safe to assume that they're not the benevolent provider of our rights - that they don't act in order to ensure that we ordinary people have life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, due process, and other apparent benefits of democracy. Why would they care about that when they're too busy enacting public policy to ensure and enhance their wealth and power? (I won't even go into Bush/Cheney at this point... connect the dots...)

For all intents and purposes, a relatively small group of powerful people (who are powerful for no other reason that they're wealthy) are "pulling the strings" of government, thereby compromising our democracy.

Bernie Sander is not one of these elite, rich and powerful people who have been writing our laws.

Therefore, I support his candidacy for President of the United States of America, fully and unequivocally.