As of the time I wrote this, there were no Google results for the phrase “crimeless victimization”.

Weird—my poem was quoted at http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/29236/c34/.

“crimeless victim” returns some results, though

I’ve decided to stop worrying so much about whether I’ve forgotten some important piece of information that would help me at the time I remember it, if I remember it. I now realize that to truly live in the moment, one has to forget about the past and never mind the future. And it may be that what I say I realized just isn’t so but I’m not going to be concerned with that, either. And it’s okay if I still go on feeling pangs of regret over one thing or another from time to time, or I fret that I might end up doing the wrong thing or forgetting something important some time in the future. It’s okay because I trust that I’ll catch myself doing so sooner or later and I will just stop myself from induldging these unpleasant states of mind, and accept the past as unchangeable and the future as an eventual unchageble past as well.

The feeling that we could have done something in the past, or that we have any control over ourselves and the things around us is a curse of sorts. I understand that lots of people are more uncomfortable with the idea that they don’t have control or that others may be shirking responsibilility if they felt that they didn’t have control. But I think it’s possible to accept that we’re driven by complex physical interactions, that we’re self-perceiving illusions, and that we’ll never shake off that illusion, and that we will go on assuming it whether we like it or not. To be conscious of our existence doesn’t change that we’re being washed away by the tides of space and time like every other collection of matter. Our will is free to tell the universe what we would like to do with ourselves, but the universe is not free to listen to us.

All I’m saying is that from now on, I’m just going to sit back and enjoy the ride. Any appearance of me getting up to do something is all part of the ride. It doesn’t change that things will still suck anyway from time to time but that’s not for me to worry. That’s for a version of me in another point in time. I just need to be concerned with this point.

A possibly important thing that I’ll most likely forget in the future is to ask myself at certain times what it is that I may have forgotten that could be useful to remember.

Although, even if I do remember to ask myself that, it doesn’t mean I’ll remember anything specific to the circumstances I find myself when I ask that question. But it may help.

I wish I could always keep in my mind that it’s not enough to learn useful tidbits of wisdom but that I also need to recall them whenever they’re relavent in order for them to be of any use to me. I already forgot this wish once before in the past 24 hours!

I think that forgetting these tips, tricks, and life lessons is what dooms me to repetitive folly.

I have been fooled again. And I suppose that I’ll forever be fooled, one way or another. Hopefully, never the same way twice. But foolishness is essentially the same, no matter what form it takes. I can say that I’ve only been fooled by others but it would make more sense to say that I, myself, am the only one who has ever fooled me. If I ever fell for what others tried to convince me of, I only have myself to blame for allowing myself to fall for it. I’d like to think that one day I’ll stop doing that but that in itself seems to be the most foolish thought.

Of course, I would like to stop fooling myself and I’ve gone to great lengths to prevent it from happening more often than it does. But it’s probably impossible to go through life without error. Even without faith and beliefs, I have to accept various illusions that I can’t help but perceive. Like, how solid objects seem to have a continuous surface when in fact they are made of spaced out bits of matter. Or how it seems that things move in space and time when it may be the case that nothing really moved, and that my memory of the past is a static image of what may or may not have ever been. Or how I seem to be more than just a colony of integrated cells and loose bacteria.

Those illusions may very well never be harmful to accept, but I can imagine scenarios where they could be. But there isn’t much I can do about it. If I can accept the idea of a past as well as the possibility that what I remember as the past never really happened, then I should be able to accept anything I think actually happened in my life from birth till now. And that I should accept that whatever the future may hold, if it holds anything at all, may or not be under my control. And that any perceived control may in itself be an illusion.

I may also have to accept that I will always want to escape even though there is no way out. There is just no way. That’s what it seems like. For now, at least. Till I realize that I’ve been fooled again, I guess.

As much as everyone hates to be fooled unwillingly, a lot of people seem to hate it even more to learn that they have been fooled and would rather not know that they have and prefer to go on seeing things in the way they were misled to see them. Sometimes people accept that they’ve been had, then claim to
be disillusioned, and feel that they are now more resistant to being fooled. It seems that very few people actually consider whether they have been fooled again, but in another way.

It doesn’t seem that when many people learn that what they thought was true is very likely to be false, that they wonder whatever new thing they learned to disprove their old beliefs may also be false in some way. I can understand that it’s very comfortable to just pick something that hasn’t been shown to be wrong yet and go with that. And I can understand being defensive when coming across something that threatens to show that you’re still wrong. But I don’t fully understand why some people just hang on to an idea for longer than it serves them to do so. Well, I do understand for the most part, I suppose, but not enough to know whether it necessarily has to be that way. Maybe it’s completely different for each individual person but it looks like a common pattern. I can accept that some people will never change their minds. But I feel that I need to think that most people’s minds can still change in important ways. I acknowledge that I may be fooling myself, though.

I apologize for not being specific as to what ideas and beliefs I may be alluding to or how I feel people are fooling themselves. I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind at the moment so it doesn’t matter right now.

If you can’t think of anything to do with your time, why not make something?

• Make love (to yourself or someone else)
• Make food
• Make food in order to make love
• Make new friends
• Make trouble
• Make money
• Make more time (for all the things you can make).
• Make music
• Make noise
• Make sense
• Make art
• Make history
• Make stories
• Make clothes
• Make software
• Make mistakes. Lots of mistakes.
• Make robots
• Make movies
• Make plans
• Make bubbles
• Make up your mind
• Make things blow up (that are your own property without hurting others, that is)
• Make it to the top
• Make it all go away
• Make a complaint (other than that you’re bored)
• Make a mess
• Make a difference
• Make a point
• Make a wish
• Make a deal
• Make a statement (without saying a word or buying perfume)
• Make people laugh
• Make people think
• Make something up
• Make something sound interesting
• Make something work

Broken

Give me a break;
I only said that I wanted to break your face

Because you broke my heart
But you needn’t break a sweat.

From the break of the first dawn on Earth
To when all hell breaks loose once and for all,
I will never break my promise
When I told you that I’ll take a permanent break

From breaking bones,

From breaking all bonds between us,

From breaking again anything you fix,

And even from breaking wind in your presence!

But when you broke the bad news to me

As we broke bread on the beach,

Listening to the waves break on the shore,

You broke me.

You fucking broke everything.

Ignorance is bliss, but ignorance is also pointless. What good is bliss if you’re ignorant of your bliss?

Ignorance, in this sense, isn’t just lack of knowledge. Ignorance in this sense is also the lack of any awareness. And so a blissful ignorance is impossible for anyone who’s conscious since being conscious is being aware.

Of course, the phrase ignorance is bliss is almost always used in a relative way–that is, not being aware of some specific troubling matter is much more comfortable than being aware of it. But if you don’t know what you’re missing, then you can’t enjoy the fact that you’re missing out on something bad!

When you’re asleep, you’re not conscious and therefore not aware. I would say that sleep is a blissful ignorance and it seems to me that a lot of people regard sleep as very pleasant in that sense. But when you’re asleep, you’re not aware that you’re asleep, so you’re not actually enjoying your slumber during sleep. At least for me, the only time I enjoy sleep is when I’m tired (but still awake) and I’m falling asleep. Especially in the morning when I press the snooze button.
The pleasure I experience actually comes from going from an uncomfortable state (i.e., being rudely awakened by an alarm clock) to a much more comfortable state (i.e., falling back asleep). But once I’m comfortable, it’s no longer necessarily pleasant, at least not when I’m sleeping because I’m not able to consciously experience any such pleasure.

But anyway, it’s not really ignorance that’s pleasant, it’s the knowledge that you’re not being troubled by some unpleasant fact. Ironically, it’s knowing that you’re ignorant is what feels so good. And compared to being aware of whatever bad thing, I suppose that is bliss. But I think it’s a very bland and minor kind of bliss. To me, it’s not the great blissful state that’s implied by the saying “ignorance is bliss“. I’d argue that being aware that you’re overcoming any bad thing or even trying to overcome it is much better than not being aware of it at all. It’s only completely unpleasant when you’re aware of something bad and feel that there isn’t much that can be done about it (or fear that there’s no way to make things better).

I always feel that any problem has a solution and that it’s worthwhile to try to solve any problem. So the bliss of ignorance feels like cold comfort to me compared to acknowledging an unfortunate situation and imagining what the world would be like if that situation was taken care of.

I think that there will, at least for a long time, be a lot of people who would rather not think about what’s wrong with themselves, their lives, or the world they live in. But that doesn’t bother me too much because I strongly feel that everyone can eventually be persuaded to give a damn about such things. And that thought is a lot closer to bliss for me than trying not to think about it at all.

And I’m not trying to say that hope is good or positive thinking is good.
I don’t care about hope or positive thinking. I think that what’s most important here is having an imagination. Knowledge (i.e., awareness of facts) won’t necessarily set you free but imagination (i.e, awareness of actual possibilities) can.