Shifty Morals

While personal morality can be thought of as proper behavior, communities develop a moral set due to what’s functional for them. While we’re all the same species and have all the same basic forces acting on us, we come up with drastically different sets of morals because of changes in context. Our context determines what kind of issues we have to solve and, more importantly, how we need to address them. For example, the use of children in the workplace has historically been a controversial issue, like within manufacturing plants or coal mines for the sake of cheap labor. However in the case of a family ranch, having children help may be essential to the survival of the ranch, simultaneously educating the child and creating a stronger family bond. A long-term view is required to assess survivability because some communities might create enthusiasm and look promising, but actually have a bad track record or become unable to fulfill their promises.

Conversely, the universe formed due to the consequences of physical laws. Stars, planetoids and the arrangement of orbiting patterns all formed because of these laws. Just as the static of the radio seems random, every little blip or fizz has an origin somewhere. What we call “random,” we often mean to call “of an unknowable source.” Similarly, lower levels of math are very exact, while higher levels make numbers impossible to pinpoint.

The same consequential forces that created the Earth are the same organizational principals that drive biological evolution. As our solar system developed as part of the Milky Way galaxy, our planet Earth was being composed by those ‘accidental’ physical laws. After it cooled considerably at the surface, torrential flooding occurred and eventually created the context that would support life. It was in the nutrient-rich pools of an approx. ten billion year old Earth that life started developing which followed the same accidental physical laws of events previously, but at a much faster time scale. Complex structures could be built faster due to biological cooperation.

As it turns out, biological cooperation has survival value basically because two types of cells (or cellular components) working together can produce more effective behavior than either cell alone- this creates increasing complexity like multicellular organisms as well as increasingly diverse combinations. With more combinations of cells, you get greater deviance of ability with what they can do. While each combination will be adhering to contextual functionality, its actions will differ greatly from another similar combination if it’s within a separate context. Increasingly complex organisms vie for resources and the ones with the greatest fitness survive to reproduce.

I once heard the saying that there are no straight lines in nature which I interpret as saying that everything is prone to change. I believe that our personal and collective sense of morality is developed in reaction to the physical world we live in and will continue to change over time.

Worth it

I caught myself today. I was sitting at the computer desk with a (strong) drink in my hand and I was yelling at my cousin in the same tone and style my dad used to. Some shit just isn't worth passing on. I walked out side, took a breath, tossed the drink and went back inside. I'm finding that being emotionally vulnerable is enjoyable in some ways. It's weird, after I've alienated all my friends and basically destroyed my social life, strangers off the street will come up and tell me how awesome I am. It's like they cheer me on. I don't know if that happens to anyone else, but fuck. How cool is that? I don't get much of a gray zone. It seems like either everyone is my friend or nobody is. I guess I've still got a lot of emotional work to do. My report card used to be all A's and F's. Seems like it's still that way. Guess that's not so bad.

ILLIGNOBLE

Illignoble is a good word.

I started with the word IGI, which is sort of the middle of ORIGIN. I've been playing around with the idea of 'origin' for the last couple days. Finally I asked myself what kind of origin I had. It's an interesting idea after all.

Ill. Sick. Amazing. Awesome. An amazing origin. Beyond family or community- but of the fabric of the universe itself. A product of your ultimate context, which, ultimately, is ultimate. Hah. I am of amazing origins. A member of the universal family. Brother to the stars and the celestial bodies.

ILL IGI... illigi. Cool. Sounds like illegal, sort of.

But then I thought... wait, if I'm of amazing origins, which is the same origin as everything else, isn't that also kind of common? The word 'ignoble' means that you're from a common ancestry. Something along the lines of 'that which is not special'- something that is not noble, which is kind of separate from everyone else.

I started playing around with positioning of letters and landed at...

ILLIGNOBLE.

Of amazing common ancestry.

A person of illignoble ancestry is amazing because they are of the common fabric. Which is to say that the exceptional person- the noble person- the person who believes they are separate is also illignoble. It's not quite an entitlement thing, but something to recognize. You can't work towards becoming illignoble, you can't be born illignoble or marry into it. Being illignoble is the same as being anything. In fact, you were illignoble before you were you. Before you were born. You were illignoble before the universe began.

Amazing for the simple fact of being. It is of the every-day miracle. The only way to deal with being illignoble is to recognize that you're already amazing. Everything I do is illignoble. I can do nothing other than being illignoble. It is not a choice. It is the condition of every particle in the known galaxy. Rivers and streams are illignoble, so are mountains, and thieves, and killers, and dirty socks, and rocket ships, and broken bottles, and that feeling you get when a firework explodes on the fourth of July. All emotion is the expression of being illignoble. All artwork, science, history- every expression is a reflection of being illignoble.

Every piece of art reflects my lifestyle. Every work of music, every emotion, every moment.

I AM ILLIGNOBLE.