Friday, January 7, 2005
More????

Welcome once again my little ranters to the third edition of Rants from the Multiverse. In today's episode I shall discuss ... the nature of reality - captive audiences are so much fun. Reality and living, two perceptions we accept as entwined, to live is to be real because living is reality, or at least how we perceive it. The question becomes though are there levels of reality? Are there levels of living? and are these two questions one and the same? Easy answer - No

Reality as opposed to living is to me the environment I inhabit, it is everything that my senses show me from what can be seen and heard to the tactile nature of the things I view. Are there levels of reality though? I would argue there aren't, there is no way you can make what is'real' more real because its one and the same thing. Perceptions of what reality means, what you derive from the environment your senses offer you is an entirely different beast and brings us to living.

Living can be done in a staggering variety of ways. I can smoke like a chimney, drink like afish and sleep with the most agreeable woman at the end of the night and proclaim that living. Flip flopping to the other extreme I can become a monk, proclaim devotion to a being who may not exist, be chaste, ascetic and detached from the world and proclaim that living. Either way it is a choice I am allowed to make because life is an open book. But is either or any of these ways of life reality? Is hiding away from the world in a building, avoiding the intense love of a partner of the opposite sex and generally becoming a cold observer of the world real? Isconsuming things that will kill me far quicker purely for some over-embellished notion of enjoyment real?Is that reality or simply my own little section of reality, the bit that I inhabit, can I only inhabit a small section of something I have already defined as being one and the same thing? I don't know and so I posit this to you ranters - do labels really matter, does calling something by a name signify its power or our lack of for being unable to do itwithout questioning. Do we need to call something dangerous inorder to avoid it and more importantly do we need to call something life in order to 'really' do it? Answer on a postcard.

Posted by Owen Jones 2005-01-07 19:15:10

Thursday, January 6, 2005
Save us from pencilpushers

Welcome to the second of my rants. I should like to ask all gods, deities and anyone with power in the universe to strike down all council workers, politicians and commities. I don't think its much to ask that incompetence is punished in a visceral and deserving manner, say being spread-eagled across a slowly rotating buzz saw while vultures feed on their opened stomachs and loose hanging entrails. Why must they make it their quest in life to make the most simplest tasks, for which they are renumerated toowell, so difficult that the margin for error seems non-existent. Nobody expects life to be easy, but bloody hell no-one said bureacracy would be this hard. What drives these creatures tosuch lengths of stupidity fit to dazzle the village idiot? But the most infuriating things is the effect they have on peoples lives other than their own. If it was just themselves theyendangered then all well and good, let them wallowin their own feculence and think happy, happy thoughts. Sadly these people 'help' the people who run the country, who are doing a bad job anyway. So if you see acouncil or government employee out of their depth in future, which you undoubtedly, univerally certainly will, put them out of their misery. A double-tap to the head should suffice, just because they torture us doesn't mean we should torture them .... much.

Posted by Owen Jones 2005-01-06 10:46:59

Wednesday, January 5, 2005
Rants from the Multiverse

I wrote a while ago that change was a given and the universe's single defining quality. It seems I was right, sadly change is a dual-edged sword, a torrid mistress and any other absurd comparison you wish to draw. The thing about change is its not always good, its perpetual, but not always good. Did I mention not always being good? As my first post I was hoping for something witty or moderately amusing so I could come back and have a laugh. Funny how things don't turn out that way, instead I have a tool with which to becry the absolute edge of clarity change offers occasionally. A moment in which you get a new perspective on life and of course yourself sufficient to be compared with a kick in the pants. Hard. The overriding notion I wish for you, if there is a you, and myself to take out of this one of many rants, is that the edge of change is frighteningly sharp, to the extent where people miss it all together and incorporate it into their world view. Beware such a fate, I have endured it for four years now and thanks to a becalming of the clouds, or that imaginary beam of sunlight, I have seen the danger that lies on the point. Move forward or be stuck in a maddening mix of apathetic inanity and self-pitying discourse. Everyone dies - but do we all live? I don't believe I have fully, yet.

Posted by Owen Jones 2005-01-05 19:27:00