I've been reading High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby; now I know this has been made into a movie starting the, *siiiigh*, irresistable John Cusack (he's so dreamy), however I haven't watched that.  I'm not one for half-assed, or even mostly-assed movies based on good books.  But I digress; what I wanted to do is share this little quote from the book.  You should have realized this by now, but I think he states a basic tenet of dealing with yourself in a very compact and effective manner.  Most of us have probably noticed this phenomena by now, but still, it's a good quote.

"It's only just beginning to occur to me that it's important to have something going on somewhere, at work or at home, otherwise you're just clinging on.  If I lived in Bosnia, then not having a girlfriend wouldn't seem like the most important thing in the world, but here in Crouch End it does.  You need as much ballast as possible to stop you from floating away; you need people around you, things going on, otherwise life is like some film where the money ran out, and there are no sets, or locations, or supporting actors, and it's just one bloke on his own staring into the camera with nothing to do and nobody to speak to, and who'd believe in this character then?  I've got to get more stuff, more clutter, more detail in here, because at the moment I'm in danger of falling off the edge."

I have often dwelled on the subject of life.  Up until very recently I would say the one noble goal that man has is through intellectual pursuit of a purpose.  My opinion was that through immortality man could achieve unheard of levels of mental development.  However, a recent development in my thinking has led me to believe that we truly are purposeless in a manner.  Right, try to follow my train of thought here:

Now, if we accept my previous allegations that such mundane pursuits as money, power, respect, women, and influence are entirely and wholly without purpose or merit.  Essentially, we say these are empty pursuits.  I am not here to argue this point, for this point look way back in my archives or just find someone else to argue it.

However, I am not a nihilist, or I should say, I wasn't a nihilist in the sense that nihilists believe there is no purpose.  I found the nihilistic view profoundly idiotic since it disregarded the most important aspect of a truly intellectual person's mindset: that is, that he is aware of his ignorance.  Socrates said that the reason he was wiser than other men was because he was aware of his ignorance, and I immediately understood how very right he is.

I still maintained that we could find purpose if only we looked hard enough.  However, late last night I realized that, like the atom, once we discover something profound and amazing beyond what we currently know or can even comprehend, then we'd have to accept that we are ignorant of what lies beyond that, and what lies beyond that, etc and so on and so on for infinite.  Just as we continue to find small particles that are made of smaller particles that are made up of smaller particles yet, we will continue to find ourselves at a loss to explain what we can't explain.  Under no circumstances will we every fully understand anything.

So, in essence, what I am saying is that intellectual pursuits are just as much a endless, pointless treadmill as any other.  You have no idea how much this subverts my entire belief structure.

I will not however, ever ever, condone living life just to enjoy it to the fullest.  I still think that there are finer goals such as A: Helping humanity attain immortality, B: Helping humanity unite behind common goals, C: Helping someone smart and mentally balanced achieve immortality to help figure things out. 

So yea, all you nihilists, you're still idiots.  Although this post makes me somewhat of a seperate faction of nihilists: Ignorant Nihilists (Ignihilists as I like to call them).  We are nihilists not because we think nothing matters, but because we accept that the purpose has a purpose that even if we figure out would have a further purpose. 

I've got everything in the world figured out; and all I need to fix it is a pair of scissors and some glue.

Listen to me; all you've got to do is

Vacation Bible School; a three-way oxymoron.