and she said.. "how you interpret the dream is probably more important than the dream itself"

If I could write whatever was in my head I'd probably be all set for life. I'm not saying I'd be an amazing writer or that I'd even have a whole lot to say but it would just be easier that way. And I think people would really get a kick out of it.. If I could stay on track.

Problem with stream of conciousness stuff is that it's hard to stay on track and keep up the momentum. It's easy as pie to get off the beaten path - already I've thought of [pie -> cooling on a window sill -> stealing it -> like in o brother where art thou -> john turturro -> Jesus the bowler in the Big L -> licking the bowling ball -> big hairy balls -> my bad halloween costum from senior year in high school] - so you can imagine how much crap one could spew if they really were connected straight from their thoughts to their fingers like a sort of human teletype.

Pha. Who needs it? The challenge is to make it all coherent. Keep it together in some loose sembalage of topic. You know, like geometry.

No, not like geometry at all but I think you get my point. It's important to stay on track. A little bit anyway. It's important because our only reference in this life is the people and things in our life.. and that means our mirror - the reflection of ourselves on society, on people, on things - is what we receive from that society, from those people, from that thing. By which I mean that the only way I know I'm an asshole, really, is because the people around tell me I am. Sure, there are some arguably innate - genetically "programmed" - traits we have that would suggest some pre-defined system of morality - humanity, let us call it. But isn't this system really just a set of rules to help us do our jobs better? To take a chapter from the rule 2: see rule 1 book of thought we could even define the three laws of humans:

1. A human may not injure another human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A human must attempt to gain power, prestige, honour, and progeny given it can do so without excessively breaking the first law.

3. A human must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

If you were paying attention there you'll see I just stole Asimov's three laws of robotics and changed a bit of the wording around to make it work for humans.. For what Asimov was really saying is we are all robots, of a sort. We're just following a set of rules. A schema. A design. A blueprint. It is nor good or bad and the perception of that goodness or badness is a product of the group, not the individual.

But I feel bad when I kill things, therefore am I not hardwired to think killing is bad?

Oh ho! Of course not. You are NOT innately programmed to think killing is bad. Killing has been a main source of substanance for many years and you don't see anyone feeling bad about that, do you? I have a problem with killing animals, of course, because I grew up with mac & cheese and a father who did not hunt. I was not taught. The natural progression for me was to learn the value in a living thing, not the value in it's dead body - this based on my numerous pets - and therefore I find killing animals unpleasant. Is this right? Wrong? No.

So the three laws, while they can lead to morality - humanity - are not in and of themselves a basis of morality. Morality is the reflection in the mirror. As one projects those three laws, out of one's mind, out of one's actions and words, out onto the world and onto others, the reflection comes back and forms what we call morality. Only the reflection isn't nearly as good as a the type of mirrors we're familiar with. The reflection is filtered through everyone else's minds and actions and then joined up with and split apart from and generally stirred up with other people's projection of the three laws. And as a group of people, a formulation is made. Even though the inputs are infinite they are like a mathematical limit and approach some sort of solution: morality.

So you see it's created in our minds. Perception. Reality. Existence. Morality. Humanity.

So if we all went off and wrote stream-of-conciousness like a bunch of wackos - if we *acted* like our stream-of-conciousness.. Well.. The signals wouldn't make much sense, would they? The system - the equation - it wouldn't balance very well. Limits would not be approach. Solutions would not be found.

So we should try to stay on track.

If I wrote exactly what I thought.. well, first of all I'd have an awful lot of writing to sift through. You gotta edit and crop out some of the real shit otherwise it's more work to go through the crap than the nuggets of wisdom are worth. Secondly, I'd sound crazy. We'd all sound crazy.. especially if we really do think about sex every seven seconds.

They say the astronauts will go crazy during the trip to Mars. They're really worried about that. I just think that's funny. It makes me laugh and laugh.