We become the monsters we fight October 10, 2011
Posted by ethlite in Uncategorized.2 comments
… and that’s a good thing!
No, really. Hear me out.
Like many people, I consider Steve Jobs to be a life long inspiration. His life philosophy has inspired and informed many of my own attitudes and decisions, and the main reason why I chose to spent 11 years at Apple under him.
However, I did feel conflicted about one aspect of his incredible life story – his evolution from being the guy who made boxes that hacked phone companies for free calls, who proclaimed “1984 wont be like 1984″, to the man responsible for creating the most authoritarian, locked down ecosystem in the history of the world. It’s as if he got tired of fighting The Man and decided to instead show them how it’s done.
But I had an epiphany after reflecting on his life after his death. I realized that being the very thing you started off fighting against is, in fact, the proof that you have lived your life to the fullest and fulfilled your life mission…
Bear with me for a bit more…
If you step back a bit from the good/evil, black/white, order/chaos dichotomy, you will see that they are simply two sides of the same coin. There is no absolute good or evil, just a giant pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other. The sixties counterculture flower children became the “greed is good” yuppies in the eighties. Most people, myself included, would say that the Boomers have sold out, but now I realize it’s not that simple. It’s irrelevant whether or not the Boomers have sold out, it was their destiny to rebel against the stifling social order, and they pushed the pendulum from one end to the other, and back again. The seed of its destruction is planted at the apex of any movement, that is how pendulums work.
Our lives are not solely our own, we are all part of something larger. We exist to push the evolution of the human civilization forward, and the way we do that is to swing that pendulum as hard as we can in the direction that was assigned to us. You can picture it as a grand theatre, in which you don’t get to pick your part, but you can choose how well you play your assigned role. It is not our place to question why, but it is our individual choice to embrace our destiny or turn away from it.
May you live well and long enough to become the very thing you loath in your youth, and be at peace knowing that is as it should be.
Oh, and cheers, Boomers, I don’t hate you anymore. 
Why we fail (Epic Edition) March 29, 2011
Posted by ethlite in Uncategorized.add a comment
Like most of us, I had fantasies of doing amazing deeds that earn the adoration and admiration of millions in my youth. These fantasies mostly involve my creating some amazing breakthrough in science or technology, but I think we’d all agree nothing is more epic than saving the entire world from some terrible disaster.
So what happens in real life if you do, indeed, save the world from nuclear holocaust?
As it turns out, nothing. Nada. You are lucky if they let you keep your job.
Stanislav Petrov single handedly prevented, in all likelihood, an all out nuclear war between US and USSR back in the 80s. If Stanislav didn’t exercise his judgement and ignored the false alarm due to faulty equipment, we’d probably all be eating cans of dog food, wielding shotguns and have extremely bad personal hygiene at this point.
So what did he get for this most epic prevention of failures, not to mention the end of human civilization?
He was reassigned to a less sensitive post, took early retirement (although he emphasizes that he was not “forced out” of the army, as the case is presented by some Western sources), and suffered a nervous breakdown.
“we, as a society, only reward apparent success, and never prevention of failure.”
I was wrong about one thing though. It’s not just corporate America, it’s pretty much yet another serious design flaw of the human mind.
So much for Intelligent Design, eh?
Love potion March 1, 2011
Posted by ethlite in Uncategorized.Tags: drugs, love, relationships, sex
add a comment
If we accept that scientific fact that romantic love is chemical based, and has an average lifespan of 2~3 years, it’s not a huge leap to think that we can come up with a drug to sustain romantic love in the near future.
Conceptually, it’s really no different from antidepressants and other drugs that eliminate undesirable mental states. One can argue that it’s a design flaw of the human species that we are built for infidelity and suffer for the transiency of romantic love.
Note, this hypothetical drug won’t work unless you are already in a romantic relationship. It’s not a love potion to make people fall in love, all it does is to sustain what’s already there.
Now would you take this drug with your partner? If not, why not?
Lie to me February 27, 2011
Posted by ethlite in Uncategorized.Tags: aging, feminism, lies, love, psychology, relationships, women
add a comment
Like most women around the Bay Area, I already have an ego more qualified than Pluto to be a planet. But when you have a bottomless pit to fill, profiles on a dating site can be helpful. A steady stream of messages, even if they are mostly devoid of content, is still good for keeping the bubble from bursting. Combined with a steady diet of emotional porn from Hollywood and willful ignorance, you won’t have to come down to earth til you are well past your used-by-date.
After all, 30 is the new 20, and life begins at 40, right?
When all else fails, don’t forget the trump card – pets. Cats, dogs, anything that you can project your emotions onto and fill the void of your so-called life. It really helps with the mind-numbing pain in the chest you get when you realize you’ve spent your life living someone else’s dogma.
…
So you see, that’s why I can never be a therapist, I’m far too honest. Oh yeah, the truth hurts, but it hurts so good…
Now who wants to watch Sex & the City with me?
Non-actionable idea February 23, 2010
Posted by ethlite in Uncategorized.add a comment
I came up with the term non-actionable idea today while talking to my friend. Basically it means thoughts and beliefs that don’t lead to anything you can actually act upon.
Every time you find yourself thinking about something but can’t seem to get anywhere, ask yourself, what would you do differently based on the answer? If you can’t come up with anything, then it’s a NAI.
As in, “don’t waste your time worrying about why Lindsay Lohan is such a mess, or who Shakira is dating, it’s all NAI”. Other examples include intellectual dead ends such as “is there a God” and “is there life after death” also qualify.
This is why I don’t watch TV or what mass media refer to as “news”, it’s mostly just NAIs that you can safely ignore, saving your time and energy on things do matter to you.
… such as figuring out why you aren’t dating me. Now that’s an actionable idea!
Thought for the day February 22, 2010
Posted by ethlite in Uncategorized.add a comment
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
- Henry Thoreau, 150 years before the invention of blogs and twitter
quiet desperation February 22, 2010
Posted by ethlite in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
To cease suffering, it is only necessary to cease wanting
but without desire there is no reason to live
therefore living is suffering
don’t be afraid of hell, because we are already in it
there is no God, but brief respite in the throes of passion
as for me,
Give me Love, or give me Death
The Nature of the Beast January 26, 2010
Posted by ethlite in Uncategorized.Tags: attraction, feminism, gender, lesbian, niceguy, sex
4 comments
Once upon a time, before feminism, men had all the power and women had none. Somehow men and women were able to live in relative peace and reproduced for thousands of generations despite this horrible travesty.
Chivalry existed because men didn’t have to prove themselves to be tougher than women, they can afford to be caring and nurturing and exhibit all the “nice guy” traits they want because their power was unquestionable. Funnily enough, women also liked it that way.
Around 40 years ago, some lesbians decided they’ve had enough of this rubbish, if they don’t want men then nobody else should either. Through sheer bloody mindedness and an impressive amount of social engineering, they managed to produced an entire generation of women who are just like themselves, except they still wanted men. Nature is a bitch.
In the meantime, men were slower to catch onto this, most still taught their sons to be chivalrous and gentle to the “fairer sex”. Unfortunately that shit gets you pegged as a “nice guy” when women are your equals. Despite what they’ve been taught by the feminists, deep down most women still desire someone stronger than them. Millions of years of evolution cannot be undone in a couple of generations.
So what’s stronger and more dominant than a feminist? An asshole, an outlaw biker, the abusive boyfriend who “only hit when he’s drunk”, the ones you know you should leave but you just can’t. Because when women are just as masculine as men, the only way men can remain desirable is to become ultra masculine. One look at the pop music scene can tell you that. A recent chart topper from Rhiana is about a woman being beat, and I quote, “I like the way it hurts… I like the way you lie”.
Yeah, it sucks to date an asshole, but at least you have all the nice guys for emotional support when you need them, right girls?
Kenneth Bainbridge said after the Trinity nuclear test that “we are all sons of bitches now”. I feel like we are all lesbians now. So what now? Just like the atomic bomb, feminism is here to stay. There is no going back to the simpler times, nor do I want to, really. Gender equality is absolutely on the right side of history, and male chauvinism is definitely on the wrong side.
I think the root of the problem is that the job feminism started is half done, and that there are some serious unintended consequences that need to be considered. One of which is, how do you reconcile female attraction to masculine traits with the fact that women are now every bit the equal of men? In other words, when women are just as powerful as men, how do men still remain sexually attractive to women without going off the edge and become the stereotypical assholes and jerks we’ve heard so much about?
The way forward, it seems to me, is for women to start taking control over the inherent conflict between their attraction toward dominant personalities and their desire to be treated as equals. You can’t expect to be treated as equals when you act like an overgrown teenager. Start realizing that you don’t have to fall prey to your biological imperative to date the alpha male, the same way you don’t have to fall prey to that chocolate cake your body desires.
Really think about what you want and what that implies.
Either that, or one day we will look back on this as a failed experiment, when the hubris of social engineering challenged mother nature and lost.
Full disclosure – I’ve never dated men and never will. But it doesn’t mean I don’t see what’s going on or care about men. I have sons, too.
Maybe I need to rethink my strategy November 19, 2009
Posted by ethlite in Uncategorized.9 comments
I saw this on CNN recently. Charles Manson, the mass murder, apparently has no shortage of admirers.
From the article:
“Star also got her name from Manson, and moved from Illinois to be closer to him.” “He’s really witty and really sharp and he’s got a lot of good humor,” she said. “He’s got a weird sense of humor but I like it, it fits with me.”
Is that what they mean when they say “a killer sense of humor”?
BTW, this is not an isolated case, Ted Bundy, who murdered 24 women, had a courtroom filled with women trying to give him love letters and wedding proposals!
Why do women walk all over nice, stable, sane guys (or gals) to sleep with fringe elements (or murderers)?
I don’t buy the “sense or humor” thing, either. I mean, I know how to make people laugh, but I still got dumped for an unemployed biker.
So how about it? Anyone care to step up to the plate and explain how this works?
With a singularity of purpose matched only by the Terminator October 6, 2009
Posted by ethlite in Uncategorized.add a comment
The Corporation is everywhere. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear.
And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until it wrings every last cent of profit out of us, crushes our spirit to the ground, destroys our only natural habitat, then finally bury us in the pile of garbage we created with our own blood, sweat and tears.
apologies to The Terminator (1984).
