Facebook "Political Views" Liberated!

I didn't notice until just now, but back on March 5th, Facebook announced that they were opening up the "political views" field on user profiles to a free-form field. Previously there had only been a drop-down menu of limited choices, including various degrees of "liberal" and "conservative," along with "libertarian," and "apathetic," thrown in for good measure. As an anarcho-capitalist, I originally labeled myself as libertarian, but later simply chose to be unlisted for the category of "political views," in the name of accuracy.

Now it's wide open, so you can type in whatever you want. As you begin to type, it'll even auto-complete with other things people have typed in already. When I typed in "A-N-A-R-C-H-I-S-T," it gave up on me someplace halfway through the word, when it realized I wasn't trying to claim I was some sort of hyper-political 16th century Anabaptist. After making sure I had spelled it right, I clicked on my newly claimed political view only to find that there is nobody in any of my direct contacts or networks who has affiliated as an anarchist. How very sad.

So I thought I'd put out the word to anybody who, like I did, missed this update on Facebook and always wanted more options for that category. It's not exactly the end-all be-all of world wide web communications opportunities, but Facebook certainly has its place in my browsing habits. If any of you would like to friend me, please do and indicate that you know me because you're a reader of my blog. I'm always interested to learn more about my readers, and what sorts of great things they're getting up to.

Cure For Depression?

I wonder what the psychological community would think of this treatment method (or if something similar has already been tried) for depression: Watching videos of babies laughing. The one below is my favorite, but the related videos show that there are lots of babies out there with great laughs. I have marked some of them as "favorites" on my YouTube account. In the event that I have a bad day, I just watch the videos and laugh along. I'm not exactly your typical example of a major depressive, but it works for me when I'm feeling a little sad. I wonder if it would work for someone feeling a lot sad...

On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion

Want a free groundbreaking book? Click here. Want to be king for a day, and dictate what one of my blog posts should be about? Read on.

For a short time, an influential new philosophy text is available in .pdf form for free! Stefan Molyneux, who is generally generous with his books in the first place, (he has a standing offer to give them away to people who simply can't afford them at the moment) has authorized the distribution of On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion in a "give away like free philosophical candy" manner. On Truth... is no candy, though. For many it's a bitter philosophical pill which brings tough decisions to the forefront of their personal lives. It remains, however, written completely with the non-philosopher in mind. After all, philosophy actually supposed to help everybody, right?

It's already one of the most influential books in my life, and I just read it a few months ago. I would recommend it to anyone with an even remote interest in living a happier life. If you are literate in the English language (or in Dutch, apparently) you're doing yourself a disservice by passing this short read up (it's just 73 pages). For free! Really. Get it. It's right here for free, which means no money at all needs to be exchanged. Just click and look at the bottom of the page. I'll even sweeten the deal. If you read it and can somehow prove it to me (Ooooh! I smell book reports!) then I'll make a blog post on the topic of your choosing. Is that great, or what? You can even solicit a custom blog post topic if you have already read the book in the past. And no, I'm not out of topics. I actually have a back-log, but have just been busy for the past couple of weeks and haven't posted. Fret not, subscribers!

All this giving things away is catching on. Maybe after you get a free book and a free blog post on the topic of your choosing, you'll give away a free carrot cake to the next influential author, and the whole cycle will start over again as (s)he is inspired to do great things. All because of a carrot cake! That's highly unlikely, but you can see the idea, I'm sure. Below is the blurb for On Truth... You should read the book. Because it's free.

From a short-term, merely practical standpoint, you really do not want to read this book. This book will mess up your life, as you know it. This book will change every single one of your relationships - most importantly, your relationship with yourself. This book will change your life even if you never implement a single one of the proposals it contains. This book will change you even if you disagree with every single idea it puts forward. Even if you put it down right now, this book will have changed your life, because now you know that you are afraid of change.

This book is radioactive and painful - it is only incidentally the kind of radiation and pain that will cure you...

The Philoso-Physician

The internet's most popular philosophy podcast now has a brand spanking new tool to create customized podcast feeds tailored to your needs! Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, has put together a web-based wizard called the Philoso-Physician. It exists to "diagnose" your philosophical needs and desires through a short series of questions.

You can either choose to narrow your search in the Philoso-Physician through choosing from a series of questions or a series of categories. With each option you choose broad samples at first, and then are asked to narrow the field within each broad option you chose. And it's all check -boxes. Click, click, click, done. The best part (in my opinion) is that the final page not only shows you the results of your "check-up" with the Philoso-Physician with a short description and link to each podcast that fits your requests, but it also can e-mail you a link to a custom .xml feed for all of those podcasts. For those of you who don't speak geek, that means you can copy and paste the link into your favorite feed aggregator like iTunes or Juice, and it will automatically deliver your search results to that program for easy loading onto your music player. I seriously recommend you go give it a try, especially if you're curious about rationalist philosophy, but intimidated about where to start. There are over a thousand podcasts, videos, articles, and loads of other content at FDR, so there's plenty of source material to narrow from!

Remember to paste the link for the .xml file into your aggergator to get it to work right. (Feel totally free to e-mail me for help with this if you're unfamiliar with the programs or technologically inept. I love to explain stuff like this to anybody)

Edit: 3/14/08 2:07 p.m. - There is now a fancy little demo of this application, available here.

I Love and Want To Have Sex With The Flag of the United States of America

I love my country more than life itself, and you can't say anything to change my mind. You can tell me the president is an idiot, you can say the armed forces are a mindless killing machine, you can say democracy is just a suggestion box for slaves; none of it will derail me from my unwavering belief that America is right and good and backed by this world's one true Christian God. My proof? Our nation's most important symbol, the American Flag. Just look at it:


How can you want to look at anything else for the rest of your life? Really. I have my bedroom decorated with fifty-seven American Flags: one for each state, and one for each future state (Puerto Rico, Iraq, Syria, Iran, China, North Korea, and The Canadas). Such an enduring and empowering symbol is beyond comparison to anything else in the history of existence. Some would have the Constitution as our Great Godly Nation's most important symbol, but that's ridiculous. The Constitution and its values are changeable, and imminently flawable. The Flag, by contrast, is an unwavering symbol of our nation's solidarity and allegiance with everything that is right and holy. In God's heaven. On God's Earth. In God's brain. Because I know what's in God's brain, and it looks an awful lot like the good ol' stars-'n'-stripes!

When I'm stressed about world events and the problems people are causing for themselves, I just relax and imagine the American Flag waving in the sweet American breeze. It waves in a land free of dictators and theocrats who say, "If you're not for us, you're against us," or who try to censor free speech. It waves unobstructed by mortar explosions and bullets piercing the gaping flesh of dying children. It waves proud over an uncorrupt land and casts fear into the hearts of our enemies. Our Flag is ecstatic to fly over a land where Martial Law is something to look forward to in the event of a large-scale terrorist attack or disease outbreak. After all, how could Martial Law be a bad thing under any government guided by the rock-solid principles of the U.S. Flag?

Some days, I'm unable to attend work or social events because I'm so far in the throes of rapture produced by the Flag. I'm about to go to my local Flag quilting society, when I see the Flag at Perkins, and it just strikes me blind and renders my anal sphincter useless. You know you're truly American when the Flag has caused you to shit yourself. I then lay around in my filth and speak in tongues about the Flag.

I often masturbate when thinking about the Flag and its thirteen alternating stripes of red and white, and its field of fifty white stars on the blue background of God's sky. I wish I could form my own man cum stars on a blank blue background of a flag, but that would be disrespect according to US Code Title 4, Chapter 1 - The Flag, Section 3: "The flag should never be used as a receptacle for receiving, holding, carrying, or delivering anything." Sadly, it's illegal for the Flag to be my semen receptacle.

I think it's appropriate for the Flag to be protected by laws, and lots of 'em! Some say it violates our free expression to do so, but I think that free speech is obviously limited by what our God and government (and therefore Flag) deem acceptable. What other way could it be? And would God accept desecrating the highest symbol of the greatest nation in history, a nation that has endured as the best for almost 250 years?! I think not.

Our Flag strikes fear into the hearts of our enemies and inspires respect from our allies, who want nothing more than to be just like America. Any dissent *cough! France, cough!* is purely a result of jealousy. The French are just bitter that we've been a nation for longer than they have and that our democracy is the longest lasting one in history.

I feel that the Flag will ultimately bring world peace and we will all be one democratic nation, under the Flag and God. No other nation's flag is even remotely as awe-inspiring as ours. What more could the un-free infidels of the world want? Plus, they would be allowed into the inner sanctum of Flag appreciation, after they go through the citizenship process and become Americans legally. This would grant the whole world permission to have the same feelings I do for our Flag and all it stands for.

So don't come down on me about how George Bush is a liar war criminal who misled his people in the lead-up to an unjust war. First of all, any war under the Flag of the US of A is automatically a just one. It says so in the Bible, I think, though I haven't read much of it, so I'm not sure. Secondly, how could such a Godly man of such unmoveable moral character possibly mislead us? It's clear he is at the end of a spiritual conduit with God himself, and therefore also with the Flag. Has the Flag ever lied to you about a war before? That's what I thought.

The Flag, and God, and the president all know, just as well as I do, that there's no such thing as unjust war as long as the soldiers are wearing uniforms. It just so happens that the way you win a war is to put the American Flag on the uniform. That's why we've never lost! U-S-A! U-S-A!

If only the rest of the world had an understanding of our Flag like I do, it would be better off. People in Darfur are killing one another because they don't have an appropriate view of religion and the Christian God, and the Flag. It's a simple matter of a little thing called the First Commandment, "Thou shalt not kill!" If they were American Christians like me, they would know killing is wrong...except in a few very limited circumstances:

1) A just war fought under the American Flag (which, as I've said, is ANY war fought under the American Flag).
2) Death penalty in our American penal system.
3) Necessary political assassinations.
4) "Protection killings" of abortion doctors.
5) The dropping of two nuclear warheads on Japan in WWII, as well as the fire-bombings of Tokyo and 66 other cities, resulting in 720,000 combined Japanese deaths.
6) The necessary killing we did as Americans to eradicate the British in the revolutionary war. Hey! We were here first anyway, it's our country!
7) Death penalty for any actual or suspected terrorist, anarchist, atheist, libertarian, or dissenter (as if those words even mean different things).
8) Those who expire from old age or violent rape while in prison on even the slightest of drug charges.
9) Everyone who dies as a result of the U.S. government (and therefore the Flag) giving aid to foreign governments. (It's a lot, but it's worth it, and justified)
10) Any time a police officer or soldier needs to kill someone for whatever reason the deem necessary. It's a little known fact that simply wearing a uniform with the Flag on it actually absolves you of anything that would normally be considered morally wrong.
11) The Civil War. Those idiots tried to make a different flag. See how that one worked out?
12) Any other killing deemed appropriate by the government under God and the Flag.

As you can see, American attitudes toward killing are healthy and informed by the same Ten Commandments that should grace the doorways of each and every public establishment in the country. They're doing genocide in Darfur. GENOCIDE! We all know the US and its Flag won't stand for that. We were quick to respond to the European pleas for help in World War II because of all that genocide. The only reason Hitler had taken over the bulk of Europe and killed six million jews by the time we got there was because the Europeans were lazy and didn't have something like the American Flag to inspire them!

So the next time you question your government's authority, think of how silly you're acting! Any nation founded on such a fine symbol as the Flag could never go wrong, not even in a million years!

What the Hell is Philosophy?

The Meaning of Philosophy Part 1 - Philosophy, What Is It Good For? (Absolutely Somethin')

As I mentioned in a recent post, I think it's time for me to put together an introductory philosophy series. I hope to make the series engaging and entertaining. This first post will cover what philosophy actually is. I didn't even begin to know the answer to this question until I was in college, and even then found the answer somewhat lacking.

Alright, quit stalling. What the hell is philosophy?

Ok. I'll get straight to the point. To me, philosophy is nothing more or less than the active pursuit of happiness through the study of truth and falsehood, and the subsequent application of that study to your life.

Yeah, but isn't that just psychology?

That's a good question, but philosophy is different from psychology in practice. Psychology is the study, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illnesses. Psychological study and treatment is certainly massively helpful in removing certain barriers to happiness, but doesn't provide a fully formed set of instructions on how to live life morally. Psychology is great at finding and fixing problems, but philosophy is necessary to determine what sort of actions are morally good, and what sort are morally wrong. In each discipline, it is essential that the participants first identify the source of a problem, determine the methodology for explaining and fixing that problem, and then execute that methodology in their real lives.

In that way, philosophy really is quite a lot like a science, and can benefit greatly from the application of the scientific method. But we'll get to that in a later installment.

I thought philosophy was something that existed in books and was done by old dudes with white beards.

That's the view of philosophy I got from college. The bulk of undergraduate philosophy is taught as a course of study in the history of thought. There's lots of reading. Lots. And lots of paper-writing that basically amounts to book reports with logical analysis. You get the sense that throughout history philosophy has been one long line of ideas written on paper, passed to the next generation for examination, and then re-interpreted for clarity and the cultural needs of the time. This effectively amounts to studying cultural anthropology. You find out what the great thinkers of the past and present thought and think, and there is very little (outside the notable exception of Socrates a short 2,400 years ago) about the great doers of the past and present, and what they did and do.

My intention is not to discount all the thinking and writing, but simply to point out how an undergraduate degree in philosophy did fairly little for me in the way of teaching methods for applying the philosophy I was learning to my life. We would learn Kant, read criticisms against and support for his ideas, and then move on to the next philosophical movement. Sometimes it would be connected or directly influenced by the previous movement or philosopher, so we would get this idea of philosophy as an interconnected web of written ideas, cast across the span of recorded human history.

Ethics is by far the most visible part of philosophy. It's the application of a culmination of study in all other areas of philosophy (metaphysics, epistemology, logic). When your entire philosophical system of understanding ahead of ethics is rational and logically follows, is based on reality as it actually exists, and contains a methodology for determining truth from falsehood, your system of ethics ought to be an accurate instruction manual for right-living. They taught us this in school, but then dodged the conclusion altogether, by simply teaching it in basically the same manner as all other aspects of philosophy. Ethics, then, was also relegated to the web of interconnected ideas; historically interesting, and fuel for debate in the classroom, but by no means something to attempt to any great degree within your own life. The communistic ideas of utilitarianism were given as much time and credit as the invisible world of Plato's forms and as much time as Aristotle's insistence on the study of sound logic and empirical reality, and so on.

Each part of philosophy, then, was treated as an almost purely intellectual pursuit. Even ethics, the supposed vibrant and vital methodology for right living, was largely left out to dry to a crusty brittleness, like a graying lung on a clothesline. This might all sound like the ravings of a disgruntled bachelor of arts, but the point I'm trying to get across is that philosophy can be (is) much more alive than I was initially led to believe. The reason that the misconception of philosophy as "a series of ideas and their critiques, written by old men with big white beards" can persist is because philosophers do little to dissolve the misconception. An extraordinarily small percentage of people who study philosophy actually alter their lives in any major way to fit their ideas. Of those who do, an equally small percentage alter their lives to the degree required by their philosophy. For an example of this, imagine walking up to a socialist (who doesn't believe in individual property ownership) and asking them for the contents of their wallet. Imagine asking a group of socialists this question, then imagine how few wallets you'd get out of the group.

But why don't most philosophers actually practice what they preach and live by the consequences of their ideas?

Because we're scared. In a society full of falsehoods and pandering for social approval, it's incredibly uncomfortable to even study truth and falsehood, let alone talk about the difference, let alone live by the consequences. It's far more comfortable for most people to outwardly demean philosophy by calling it opinion. If everything is one person's opinion versus the opinions of everyone else, then nobody is ever hurt by the idea that they might be living based on utter falsehoods. That it would hurt to know you're living illogically or based on false premises should be very instructive. It's clearly an important part of human nature to conform to truth and reality. But it's an even stronger part of human nature to conform to the group. This is an important holdover of human nature from when food was short and shelter was temporary and there were no practical means of mutually beneficial trade. In western society, this hasn't been the case for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

It's more comfortable for the atheist and the theist to "agree to disagree." It's in social vogue to bad-mouth politicians as weasely, power-grubbing maniacs, but to consider their existence as leaders of nations as "necessary." It's expected that an overbearing mother-in-law is "just that way," and shouldn't be confronted or ostracized on the basis that "it's just how she is."

Philosophy is what should happen in the awkward pauses in conversations. Most people haven't studied philosophy in any great detail, and aren't well-equipped to tackle situations like this. But those who do study philosophy too rarely stick to reason when awkward pauses in conversation occur. Perhaps if more philosophers did philosophy rather than just study it, then others would catch on to the effectiveness of always speaking and acting on the truth. Even when it makes us uncomfortable. Especially when it makes us uncomfortable.

Who are you to tell me what philosophy is anyway? Hasn't it been around for like a bazillion years?

To be sure, we all stand on the shoulders of giants to some extent. I'm most certainly not claiming to have come up with these ideas on my own in my study, with the lights dim, and reams of crumpled paper littered about the floor near the wastebasket. I just think that these specific ideas are among the most important ideas to humanity. With the recent proliferation of communications technology, I'd be remiss if I didn't at least duplicate (if not add to) a message I thought to be capable of minimizing human misery to a fraction of a fraction of what exists today.

The ideas I put forward in this series will be based on rational empiricism--the idea that reality can be derived from the senses, and that we should use logic on the information provided by the senses to determine all we need to know about the world and how to live ethically in it. The ideas follow back in time to Socrates and Aristotle, through John Locke, through Ayn Rand, and right up to my main source of the synthesis of their ideas, contemporary philosopher Stefan Molyneux. I owe my knowledge on these topics to these thinkers, and feel that the foundational philosophical work they've done is sufficient to provide the world with a truly rational and moral human race, minus one variable: People actually living by the philosophy they study. This is a project Molyneux has gone to great lengths to work toward in just a few years with his Freedomain Radio podcast.

Every so-called "complete" system of philosophical thought is just one step away from being completely validated. After "Does it conform to reality?" and "Does it contain a methodology for determining truth from falsehood?" and "Do the premises about reality and truth lead to conclusions about moral living?" comes "Can people actually live it?" And then, "Do they?" With the philosophy I'm going to discuss in subsequent installments of this series, I can answer in the affirmative on all of these questions, the last two of which are rarely approached by most philosophers (likely for the same reasons of social discomfort discussed above).

Living according to rational philosophy based on the evidence of the senses and the logic of the scientific method is extraordinarily liberating. But, as I've said concerning social conformity, extraordinarily difficult and stressful at first. I can't say I'm a picture perfect example of moral virtue and the "philosophy-come-to-life" I've described above, but I've most certainly seen and understood the importance of it, and am working toward the life I'll endeavor to describe in this series.

If this is all just too confusing an ordeal for you, I encourage you to read on! (and leave comments about what's confusing) Subsequent editions in this series will more fully explain my definitions and methodology. For now, thanks for reading!

Join Satan?

My wireless network went out today, but another one was right there waiting in the wings to help me out:


I mean, I had to sign over my soul, but at least now I can check my Facebook!

Hakuna Matata: Problem-Free Philosophy?

Have you seen Disney's animated feature The Lion King? It's a pretty good story, and you should take a look if you've never had the chance. Maybe you could watch it with a kid if you feel strange about watching it alone...but you'll need to be prepared to explain a few things about the philosophical meaning to more inquisitive children afterward.

In The Lion King, several cartoon animals face the types of problems that come up each and every day on the African Savannah. Death, food shortage, lion pride politics, romance, annoying bird assistants, the conflicts are nearly endless. With so much going on in the story, the writers developed a vibrant underlying philosophical ecosystem as active as the one present in the variety of animals in the film. In this post I only have time for a cursory view of the highlighted philosophy from the movie, the philosophy of Hakuna Matata. (Though I may re-visit this film in the future. I'm finding it chock full of philosophical interestingness!)

"Hakuna matata," literally translated from the original Swahili, means "there are no worries here." In The Lion King, the main propagators of this philosophy are Timon (a meerkat masterfully voiced by Nathan Lane) and Pumbaa (a warthog voiced by Ernie Sabella). These two are an unlikely but lovable pair of jokesters who foist this philosophy on young king Simba after he ostracizes himself from lion society. The main thrust of the hakuna matata philosophy can be derived from the song these two sing by the same name (scored by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice).

Hakuna matata
What a wonderful phrase.
Hakuna matata
Ain't no passin' craze!
It means no worries
For the rest of your days.
It's our problem-free philosophy,
Hakuna matata.

It's really quite a catchy tune and is stuck in my head at the moment. Hopefully this link helps get it stuck in your head too. Timon and Pumbaa explain in the song that Pumbaa, much like Simba, is an outcast from his society (though in Pumbaa's case it's due to extreme flatulence). His primary coping mechanism is to not worry about it. In fact, this is really the only tenet of the hakuna matata philosophy that anyone need remember. "No worries," applies to everything from being completely rejected by family, friends, and society to munching on disgusting grubs for nutrition. It seems like a pleasant enough guiding principle for life at the outset, but when applied to reality, it yields some terrifying results.

First of all, it gets Simba, a lion and carnivore of the first order, to eat bugs from under a log. Then he grows up and turns into a hedonistic jerk by the time his boyhood girlfriend Nala finds him. To top it all off, he initially has no interest in saving his pride from the wrath of his evil uncle Scar, and would rather just lie around all day with Timon and Pumbaa like a bunch of gonge-toking hippies. Don't worry about it, hakuna matata. Nothing but dirty bugs to eat? Hakuna matata. Evil uncle took over as king and is driving lion society into the crapper? Hakuna matata. Hyenas gnawing your legs off from under you? Hakuna matata. No freaking worries. This is principle?

Any philosophy that puts a grass skirt and lay on a meerkat and an apple in the mouth of a warthog (in clear reference to roasted pig at a Hawaiian luau) while they mug to the camera certainly has a problem or two!

So what? So there's some questionable philosophy in a cartoon movie for kids. So. What? Well, every piece of art (written art in particular), from an episode of Rosanne to Shakespeare's Hamlet has a point it's trying to get across to the audience. In the case of a Disney feature of The Lion King's importance, the audience contains an incredibly large number of children. Even though Simba ultimately mostly rejects hakuna matata in favor of a life in politics, it is presented throughout the movie as a valid, happy, and successful way of life. It seems to be presented as more important than (though not exclusive to) the equally dangerous "Circle of Life" philosophy. As I said, there's a lot to get into in a full examination of the movie, and I may do more in the future. This movie was heavily imprinted on me (all of this is written basically from memory) and I was even probably a little "too old" for it when it first came out. The sort of long-term damage that fables of all kinds can do to impressionable and curious kids is very real. Though this blog post is partly tongue-in-cheek, the relevance of that fact is as strong in The Lion King as it is in something like the story of the three pigs and the big bad wolf. These are moral instructions for kids, and if we want to live in a more moral world, we'd do well to make sure we're not feeding junk philosophy to the hungry brains of children.

So, hakuna matata: is it problem-free philosophy, as advertised? Far from it. Hedonistic procrastination is ultimately an extraordinarily lonely way of life, because it doesn't take into account the cooperative nature of productive interaction. So how should we live? I guess I owe it to my readers to actually lay out my philosophical position before I go much further. I think I've found a great starting point, but it's something that should exist separate from a post on The Lion King though, so I'll begin a multi-part series on my philosophy soon.

Betta Fish Nation, or; I Am SO Fucking Smart

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Ben Franklin

My brain came up with an analogy between modern western civilization and fish one night a while back when I was half asleep. It seemed sleek, pithy, and clever at the time, so I updated my Twitter account's status with it: "Giving up liberty for safety is for the beta fish. They are pretty, but stupid, and eat poop with their food. I am not a beta fish." A 140 character limit certainly forces an economy of words, but you get the idea. It struck me as classically clever--the sort of thing I could use to quote myself without remorse. The combination of a libertarian quote by Ben Franklin and a reference to a popular pet fish seemed deliciously referential, like an episode of Family Guy. I decided I would write an article comparing Betta fish to my idea of the average American neo-con statist; the sort of person who is happy to trade out their (and everyone else's) essential liberties for "protections" like the Patriot Act. I figured I knew this person like the back of my hand, and that a cursory look over the Wikipedia entry for “beta fish” would lend me all the more fodder for comparison. In essence, I was SO fucking smart, and I wanted to show the world by dominating the illogical and dangerous position of my opponents.

Boy, was that narcissistic corner of my brain in for a surprise. I had way more than just spelling wrong with my understanding of the Betta fish.

Before I even hit Wikipedia, I had the whole article planned out in my head. Explain the psychology of the Betta fish. Fear of large open spaces is why they're often confined to fist-sized fishbowls. They don't need lots of scenery, and even prefer to have a big ol' plant around to hide behind, even in their tiny, tiny living space. Their ridiculous amounts of colorful plumage seem utterly wasted in an environment so constricted. Then I was going to explain how that's strikingly similar to the American statist. They seem to want to live in a more and more enclosed environment, even to the point of near suffocation. The quality of life these people enjoy is directly related to something completely outside government control, so they have their own sort of out-of-place plumage—something that comes from another place than this lockdown and is seemingly unnecessary, like a prisoner in a flashy sequined jacket. I would have gone on in that vein, concluded with something like, “I'm smart. These other people are stupid. The end.”

All of this went through my brain as I searched out the Wikipedia entry for "beta fish." I planned on using quotes about the fish's propensity for small, enclosed spaces to drive the point home. Oh, the delicious analogous points I was about to connect! But as I read the details, I found something quite interesting: The Beta Fish is actually called betta, which is a genus of fish for which about 65 species are classified. Beta is a common misspelling in North America. Betta splendens is commonly known as a Siamese Fighting Fish, and is the one sold in the United States under the name Beta, or Betta. This was interesting but extraneous information which I intended to use in my essay to convince people of the premise, "I am SO fucking smart;" trust-building through an explosive diarrhea of facts.

I pressed on, confident in my ability to use this new information to my advantage. Then I found some more shocking fish information! The Betta fish actually doesn't desire small spaces for safety. That's a myth. They're simply displayed that way in stores because the males, full of piss and vinegar, would fight to the death if left in the same tank. Huh. Weird.

This was going to entirely change the course of my essay. But I pressed on, undeterred! I was going to show people how good I was at analogies and facts and information and all that shit. I worked for months writing and re-tooling the essay. At one point it was about the government treating its citizens as uneducated fish purchasers treat the Betta upon purchase. They keep them in dangerously small tanks "for their own good," and wonder why they die in a week. Another version was about how people actually yearn to live free and clean, like the Betta wants a 3 gallon tank and plenty of space to himself. It all got very confusing, and no version of the essay felt satisfying to me.

It was time to evaluate my goals in writing the essay and accomplish them or scrap it all to the "ideas" folder on the computer. It took months, but I finally realized that my goal in writing this piece was not so much to further the conversation about human freedom as it was to further the conversation about how smart I am.

"That Jason," I wanted people to say, "he is SO fucking smart."

This is similar to the narcissism I always sense when reading Nietzsche. Pithy aphorisms that seem true enough to convince lots of people through their sheer charm alone. Nietzsche was brilliant, to be sure, but he was far from happy and had no concept of moral virtue as anything but manipulation. I was searching for a downhill bike-path to perceived brilliance. No good. People just thinking you're smart doesn't make your life actually happy and virtuous any more than putting George Bush into a democratically elected position of power makes him actually fit to lead anything more complex than a Cub Scout troop.

My way to happiness and virtue lies down the hallway marked "honesty." Honesty-to-self and -truth is the only path to virtue, and virtue is a necessary condition of true happiness. Help make sure I keep moving in that direction, kind readers, with your comments!