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Dwight, Taylor, Bobby and Easton!
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rip

This is volume two of my collected writing that otherwise wouldnt be published!

Its all either from my notebook,!
things Ive posted for tumblr,!
or stray documents I found on my computer!
most of it was written in 2014!

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Christian!
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Table of Contents!
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when you read my poems,

Cheers

snow

garter snake

Stark Trek

mythology

spatial sensation

X-Men

philosophy noobs

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alone

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consumerism

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Dick Scobee Elementary School

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coffee

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Flappy Bird

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Rawls

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Kierkegaard and Heidegger

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The Wind Rises and Heidegger

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Graveyard

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One time, I had 5 different dreams

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when you read my poems,!

I want it to feel like youre reading a txt!
where someone says I love you!
for the first time because!
theyre too afraid to say it irl!

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1!

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part 1!
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Theres an emotional state I feel pretty often. I try to explain it to people, but I dont know if there
are words for it. I also dont know how to describe it well, because using language for private
mental states is pretty tricky!

But, it feels like a beautiful sadness, like a scary but appealing emotional clarity. It feels like a
feeling from the world, not from me, and then it radiates through me, and I empathize with the
feeling in the world!

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part 2 (written later)!
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I found a Japanese phrase that represents this idea. Its called mono no aware, which is
literally the pathos (aware) of things (mono). Its a dull sadness in knowing everything is
impermanent, while still feeling happiness in that moment despite the impermanence. A literary
example I found given a couple times to explain it is from the intro of The Tale of the Heike
Clan:!

The sound of the Gion shja bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sla
flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline. The proud do not endure, they are
like a dream on a spring night; the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind.!

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2!

Im watching Cheers and theres a really thought provoking joke!

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Cliff is talking to Coach, and hes like if a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?!
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and Coach is like well how would you even know a tree fell?!
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then Cliff is like well say I went for a walk in the woods and saw a fallen tree!
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then Coach is like, well maybe a beaver gnawed it down!
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really made me think!
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3!

My favorite aspect of snow is that the street lights reflect off of the snow, making the city lights
shine a lot brighter into the sky, and then the lights reflect a lot brighter back off the clouds. I
went outside and it doesnt even feel like night, but it also doesnt feel like day. It feels like both,
like the synthetic and the natural are two parts of the same metaphor and complete each other!

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4

Ive been thinking about something that made me feel really bad!
I think about it a lot, but especially lately!
Ive been having flashbacks probably once an hour on average these past few days!

When I was a little kid, I was at my dads work!

At the time, he worked for a non-profit organization!
where hed do community service with juvenile delinquents!
I was with them in like a big grassy field!

There were a lot of garter snakes in the field!

A lot of the people caught and held them, for fun I guess!

So I picked up a garter snake!

My dad said the right way to hold a snake is under its head,!
like its neck area (I dont think snakes technically have necks though)!

I started liking the snake, I wanted to take it home,!

but I knew that wouldnt happen!
I knew it was better off in the wild!

So I was holding the snake by its neck!

and was talking to my dad and showed him it!

Then he was like you should put that down soon,!

holding it like that makes it hard for the snake to breathe!

I looked down and the snakes face looked like it was in pure agony,!
like it was gasping for breath, on the brink of death!
So I set it down and felt guilty!

I picture the snakes face in agony,!

with my fingers squeezing its neck, often,!
and I get the feeling like you might cry!

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5!

Towards the end of my junior year in high school, I went on a date with a girl to see Star Trek. I
asked her out, then we met up, and went to the movie on a warm, late Spring evening. It was an
adult-seeming date, in contrast to a high school-seeming datewhere you meet up with 8 kids
at Taco Bell and smuggle candy into the $2 theatre, then sit in the bed of a truck in a parking lot!

Anyway, nothing romantic came from it. I think we hugged after, which seemed like a big
threshold then. Our legs touched in the theatre I think. But afterwards, wed see each other at
school and say hi and stuff like that and it was normal. I dont really remember Star Trek that
well, but whenever I think of it, I think of her too!

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I think about her in a way like I hope shes having a good life!
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One time in 6th grade, we were learning about Greek and Egyptian mythology. The teacher was
like do you know this God? do you know that God? and I knew the main ones!

He asked how I knew them and I was like uh, because of Age of Mythology and he was like
well, you know the right answers but for the wrong reasons!

what kind of bs is that? who tells that to a 6th grader? and most of all, what could be a more
practical use of mythology to a 6th grader, aside from a video game? its not like Im trying to
write a dissertation lol!

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7!

This might sound weird, but do other people feel a spatial sensation when they think? When I
think about something, I feel the thought in the way I experience a room, or a lawn, or the
woods. Usually the thought is heavily colorized too. But its not like I see space and colors when
Im thinking something, but I feel the same way when I think about ideas, as I do when I
experience a color or type of spatial arrangement!

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8!

One time I took a class on writing comic books, taught by Brian Michael Bendis. We did some
exercise in class involving pages from Joss Whedons Astonishing X-Men. I dont remember it
exactly, but just keep that in mind.!

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We also made a 22 page comic, and part of the assignment was to pitch the story to the class.!
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There was a very old woman who was auditing the class, and her pitch was one of the most
bizarre things Id ever heard. I wrote her pitch in my notebook, and when I found it a year later, I
thought it was me trying to write some bizarro poem, until I remembered what it was. I wrote:!

Essentially fanfic that is Joss Whedons Astonishing X-Men, but the X-Men are replaced by
Betty Boop, Laurence Fishburne, and Satan, as portrayed in Passion of the Christ!

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I feel like philosophy noobs are into existentialism because people have this idea that
philosophy is about the meaning of life. Existentialism (as explained by Sartre at least) is the
only branch of philosophyI would saythat cares a lot about that question (even though the
answer is basically meh, whatever you want)!

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I feel alone but not lonely. I feel alone, like Im free, like my life is teetering on an open window
sill and my life might change, in smaller ways soon and bigger ways soon (but not as soon). I
dont know what Im trying to say but I have a clarity in my feelings, like the aftereffect from
mood swings. I still feel sad, but in the way I used to feel sad when the world felt beautiful
while also sad, rather than just me feeling sad!

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11!

I like consumerism!
how ppl make a distinction between capitalism and consumerism !

first of all I think that distinction is bogus. ~thats so capitalist~ to look for little technicalities so
they can split hairs!

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BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY!!
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I like consumerism but I dont like capitalism!
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I think commercials are great, they are one of the few ways common ppl experience art. And
theyre made by ppl who wished they were artists, but are at the will of billionaires looking to
exploit common folk. I like this clash and thing its conducive to interesting art!

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tv shows are in the same situation!
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consumerist entertainment is a big sludge of bite-sized pieces of art that exist because of
multiple groups of ppl with different goals try to coerce the other groups in falling for their
intentions.!

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idk if Im explaining my thoughts on it that well!
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but you get the idea!
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I love that style of art!
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I love consumerism!
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but I dont like capitalism!
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Dick Scobee Elementary School!

The first elementary school I went to is called Dick Scobee Elementary School. My mom went
there too, but then it was called North Auburn Elementary School. Having the name Dick in an
elementary school is unfortunate, but not as bad as another elementary school in town called
Gildo Rey (which kids in middle school and sometimes high school called Dildo Gay :( )!

Anyway, Dick Scobee (the astronaut) was from Auburn, WA, my hometown. He died in the
Challenger explosion. Thats why the schools mascot was the Challengers. Dick Scobee
actually attended Washington Elementary which was another elementary school in town (14
elementary schools in Auburn total). However, from what Ive been told, they couldnt change
the name of Washington Elementary to Dick Scobee Elementary, because allegedly, you cant
change the name of a public building that has been named after someone else. This seems like
bs because the schools named after the state, and the state is named after the President!

The best part is that Dick Scobee Elementary has an official song by John Denver in tribute to
the Challenger explosion that they play at every assembly. Its called Flying for Me!

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13!

I feel addicted to coffee, but not in the way people typically mean theyre addicted to coffee!

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I can function without coffee rather well, considering how much I drink!
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I feel more addicted to the sensation of drinking something hot, that causes my body to have a
bit of a radiating feeling flowing through it!

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it makes my body feel real!
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I like how its passive, and lets me feel emotions in my body!
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14!

Remember Flappy Bird? After playing Flappy Bird, I thought about games in a new way. There
are games that you get better at by developing skills, and games you get better at because the
game facilitates you getting better!

For example, Flappy Bird (and chess, for example) facilitate your skill development. Also, I think
most card games work this way too, because Im not factoring in luck. So aside from luck, you
can only get better at a card game, even though theres a big margin for chance. Another good
example would be fighting video games. Or just irl fighting for that matter. Or sports lol. Most
things irl really!

Then there are games like World of Warcraft, Animal Crossing, Runescape, Farmville, etc,
where the progression is artificial. Raiding in World of Warcraft isnt necessarily harder than low
level instances like Wailing Caverns or Deadmines, you just have more abilities to maintain.
WoW is often harder at higher levels, but that isnt the real challenge of it, the conceit of the
game is the time sink of progression!

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15!

something a Philosophy professor said in lecture, that I wrote down, without any context:!
If a Rawlsian ever speaks to you, say so?!

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16!

In my Heidegger class I learned a lot about Kierkegaard by Heidegger extrapolating on

(sometimes stealing) Kierkegaards ideas!

anyway, one of these ideas is about mood disorders. They both have a stoic view of mood, that
the distinction between rational thinking and emotions is made up. To them, emotions are
rational reactions, based on how our mind is working at that time!

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But within the context of mood disorders, you have two choices at first glance.!
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1. you either have to see the stoic view as false, because a disordered mood revolves around
the internal, its not a reaction!
2. or you look at mood disorders as a defect that should be corrected (psychiatry, for example)!

BUT theres a third idea, which Kierkegaard and Heidegger have. Basically, when you are
depressed (for example), you are not feeling depressed with a lack of external cause which
typically, thats what depression is thought to be, a bad feeling caused by internal chemical
reactions!

Kierkegaard and Heidegger think depression is actually a reaction to EVERYTHING and/or

NOTHINGNESS (not nothing as the lack of thing, but nothingness as a thing!

And the same is true for angst, anxiety, panic attacks, mania etc etc. Its an anti-scientistic, and
very German philosophical position, but interesting to think about!

Kierkegaard never wrote on mania because I dont think he ever felt it, but it still applies. He
also never wrote on panic. But interestingly, if you read Heideggers description of dread/
anxiety, its a lot like a description of panic attacks rather than anxiety!

Heidegger borrowed the terminology of anxiety from Kierkegaard, even though Kierkegaard
used it in a more conventional way!

An interesting footnote to thatHeidegger originally went to a Jesuit seminary, because his

family couldnt afford university. He was kicked out for a psychosomatic heart condition. The
church then began funding Heideggers university education, as a consolation to being kicked
out. However, through contextual evidence, it seems his heart condition was actually a panic
disorder!

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The Wind Rises and Heidegger!

Im not going to spoil the movie, but I saw The Wind Rises while in a class on Heidegger, so I
noticed parallels. My prof lectured about inauthenticity. Heidegger juxtaposes forgetting as
inauthentic, and repetition as authentic. He borrows the idea of repetition from Kierkegaard but
changes it a lot (Kierkegaard juxtaposes repetition with recollection)!

This idea shows Heideggers conservatism (fascism) maybe more than anything else in Being
and Time, because Heidegger claims you can either forget the cultural/social world you were
born in, or find a hero in that culture and repeat what they did. The more you apply this to the
real world, the more it becomes Nationalistic!

But, it made me think of The Wind Rises, because they make it clear that Jiro has a
Heideggerian Hero. But it critiques Heidegger, because Jiros hero was Capronian Italian. His
sister even comments at the beginning on how non-Japanese he is!

The big connection is they both aspire to make things fly and help people, but the implicit
connection, is actually they both built plans to kill the same people in the same war!

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Graveyard (short fiction / not autobio)!

An unmanageable burst of people enters at the same time. It wouldve been a manageable
burst before midnight, or even 1:00AM, when two people are working!

The first guy comes to the counter. He has a 6 pack of Bud Light. He is wearing an old
Seahawks hat and a Carhartt jacket. He looks like an unjaded, conservative, late 20s white boy.
He has a well hidden (but not concealed) handgun on his waist, and one of those little walkie
talkies strapped to a jacket pocket. I check his ID and scan it!

I wait until that guy leaves. The next kid comes up and asks for Newport 100s. I tell the kid that
the previous guy was an undercover cop. I dont check the kids ID, to be internally rebellious,
even though hes clearly underage!

As I get the kids change, a guy ran out with a 12 pack of Rainer. Right after that a woman walks
in. I tell her she should chase that guy if she wants to, but she ignores me and she looks like a
junkie and she takes the largest pop cup we have, but fills it with coffee, which is not allowed
but the coffee is hours old and not warm so it doesnt matter really!

As I ring more people up, I see a kid in line with a Vitamin Water and Reeses Fastbreak. An old
guy offers to buy his snacks with food stamps. The kid is like, thats generous but it could help
someone else more than me. The old guy starts yelling that the kid is on drugs. Then the old
guy tells the kid to take the food stamps and give him the equivalent cash. The kid says hes
paying with debit anyway!

A woman comes up to buy a pack of Mentos, and thats it. She drops her change. She bends
over to pick up the change. I see four unopened cranberry juices in her purse. I call her out on it
and she says she brought the juices in. I ask her to let me feel if they are cold/covered in
condensation. She leaves immediately, and I shout that Id watch the security tapes, even
though I wont because theres nothing I can do now!

Then I see the old, food stamps guy walking around with a fully open messenger bag turned in
front of him. I tell him its store policy to not have bags like that, which is technically true, even
though we never have to enforce that rule because no one ever looks that conspicuously like a
thief !

The kid with the Vitamin Water and Fast Break walks up and I tell him I gave my two weeks
before my shift started that day and he says well thats good!

I really want to go outside and smoke, which I can, usually, when its this late. The sun will rise
in a couple hours, but theres still an unmanageable amount of dumbass people in here!

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one time, I had 5 different dreams, 5 nights in a row, that all took place in futuristic cities,
except they were different cities in different biomes. Here are the descriptions I wrote of them:!

1!
an ancient building similar to Stonehenge, but less dilapidatedyou could live in it. Theres an
opening that is empty and overrun with nature, in a soft grassy plain. The suns large and low in
the sky, but not hot. Shade from a large tree to the left of of the building. To the right is a large,
vertical cluster of buildings in the distancemixture of old architecture, while looking modern in
terms of verticality and construction!

2!
In my dream, I go to Auburn High [the high school I went to], but its at night, and it looks
futuristic, kind of like The Citadel in Mass Effect, but more flora. The flora is artificially placed,
growing out of metallic planters. Ramps everywhere!

My friends and I vandalize something, and for some reason Zimmerman [my old principal]
blames the schools activity director. Zimmerman destroys the wall we vandalized, which also
happens to be the only brick wall at school now!

To vindicate the activity director, I create a blow torch with a lighter and silly string. In the dream
world, if I shoot the silly string into the blow torch, it turns into brick. But it wasnt forming and
splattered everywhere!

3!
a city that looked kind of like Hell, or the Nether in Minecraft. Everything is a brown cave and
dimly lit. There are torches and lava falls. There are monitors, displays, and exposed wiring all
over in a very futuristic way!

4!
a highly industrialized city on a marshy swampland. Its very green and lush, because the nature
has begun taking over the city. The citys still very active/not abandoned, they just havent tried
to stop the overgrowth!

5!
a large city built on a puffy cloud with tall white skyscrapers. A lot of gold ornament and big
windows!

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