If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing . . .

Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself . . . man is responsible for what he is.

. . .when we say that a man is responsible for himself, we do not only mean that he is responsible for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men. . . I am responsible for myself and for everyone else. I am creating an image of man of my own choosing. . .

The man who involves himself and realizes that he is not only the person he chooses to be, but also a lawmaker who is, at the same time, choosing all mankind as well as himself, cannot escape the feeling of his total and deep responsibility. . .

For every man, everything happens as if all mankind had its eyes fixed on him and were guiding itself by what he does. . .

When a military leader takes upon himself the responsibility for an attack and sends a number of men to their death, he chooses to do it and at bottom he alone chooses. No doubt under a higher command, but its orders, which are more general, require interpretation by him and upon that interpretation depends the life of ten, fourteen or twenty men. In making the decision, he cannot but feel a certain anguish. All leaders know that anguish. It does not prevent their acting, on the contrary it is the very condition of their action, for the action presupposes that there is a plurality of possibilities, and in choosing one of these, they realize that it has value only because it is chosen. Now it is anguish of that kind which existentialism describes, and moreover, as we shall see, makes explicit through direct responsibility towards other men who are concerned. It is not a curtain separating us from action, but is part of action itself.

When we speak of “forlornness” – a term Heidegger was fond of – we mean only that God does not exist and that we have to face all of the consequences of this. The existentialist is strongly opposed to a certain kind of secular ethics which would like to abolish God at the least possible expense . . .

The existentialist, on the contrary, thinks it very distressing that God does not exist, because all possibility of finding values in a heaven disappears along with Him; there can no longer be an a priori Good, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. . . Indeed, everything is permissible if God does not exist, and as a result man is forlorn, because neither within him nor without does he find anything to cling to. . .

There is no determinism, man is free, man is freedom. . .

man is condemned to be free. . .

man, with no support and no aid, is condemned at every moment to invent man. . .

The moment the possibilities I am considering are not rigorously involved by my action, I ought to disengage myself from them, because no God, no scheme, can adapt the world and its possibilities to my will. . .

Quietism is the attitude of people who say, “let others do what I can’t do.” The doctrine I am presenting is the very opposite of quietism, since it declares, “There is no reality except in action.” Moreover, it goes further, since it adds, “Man is nothing else than his plan; he exists only to the extent that he fulfills himself; he is therefore nothing else than the ensemble of his acts, nothing else than his life.” . . .

The existentialist will never consider man as an end because he is always in the making. . .

There is no universe other than a human universe, the universe of human subjectivity. . .

That man is not closed in on himself but is always present in a human universe, is what we call “Existentialist humanism.” Humanism, because we remind man that there is no lawmaker other than himself, and that in his forlornness he will decide by himself.

Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism is a Humanism”

It was for an aesthetics class. My teacher didn’t like it.

Every stanza is a derivative of the stanza before it.]

5.
(we naked) : ∅^your_point
is : ∅^we_cold
(wind and) : ∅^{diction_changed}
(to new) : ∅^time_zen
(night is) : ∅
our only chance to

4.
(grow new) : (buddha_cobra) : ∅^{mother_saying}
(rapidly we_love_cinder) : ∅^cobweb_time
(mistress to blue) : ∅^{flicker_puddle}
(is not seagull) : ∅
wing or

3.
[seashells : (peeling_night) is a spoonful of fractaling] : ∅^{glances_sung_at_me}
(glitter our military thought) : ∅^what_wind
(we thought we needed our motors rushed I) : ∅
_would be the observatory on

2.
{[(dilated threading) : (we_a)]_counterfeiter_butterflying} : ∅^{stretch_out_a_bone}
(motorcyclist covering pine covering country with no sweater and) : ∅
(we forgot it for him) : (thunder_her_boast)

1.
[(legs imprisoned for the dictionary) : of thought] : ∅
(your_death_is_growing_dying_still) : there

0.
lies : (love with fever)

Right. Anyone raised under this systems knows that. The idea that you can do it is only motivating when you think other people can’t do it. If anyone can be president, why would you want to be? That is hard work!

I was wondering if I’m Narcissistic (actually, I’ve always wondered that after being raised to go into theatre), but I took USA Today’s version of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and scored way lower than average. I win at low self-esteem!

(Question 27 is weird. You choose between:

A. I have a strong will to power.
B. Power for its own sake doesn’t interest me.

Is this an intentional reference to Nietzsche?)

The Skeptic article reminded me of an article on child prodigies that I read in the Encyclopedia Britannica’s Medical and Health Annual from 1989 (I was cutting out pictures in it). One thing surprised me:

It is difficult to imagine that such a gift could possibly founder, much less deliberately be set aside. Nevertheless, this, in fact, seems to be more the rule than the exception. . . as children, prodigies never produce works of genius and, as adults, they may or may not pursue their careers.

.
Of course!

If you attain easy success as a child for being mediocre-in-the-field–but a KID– what could drive you any further?

Praise at an early age is bad for everyone. Let’s start a pessimism-based education movement.

I have solved the universe!

There are 3 dimensions of time. (Some guy here says there are 2 dimensions which is supposed to be really controversial, but I’m saying he’s wrong and there are 3 dimensions.)

There could be some utility to this, because it could bring together Feynman’s multiple histories theorem in Quantum Mechanics and the 2nd dimension of “imaginary time” Stephen Hawking uses to calculate around black holes. The 2nd dimension is just real time that’s imperceptible, and the third dimension goes up into alternative histories.

We only see one dimension—the x-axis, eternity—but humans weren’t ‘created’ to understand the universe, and there’s no reason to assume we have the faculties to see everything that’s out there.

The y-axis could be made up of a continuum of perceivers, or subjects that can make quantum measurements and collapse a wave-function. What sorts of subjects can do that? People? Cats? Nebulae? I don’t think that’s been defined yet. But they can form an infinite continuum during any one instant along the x-axis. Anyone that could perceive this y-axis like we can perceive the x-axis would be omniscient at a given point.

(And how could there be a continuum of perceivers? We’re used to only thinking of one mind or perceiver at a time, but you can imagine a way to get over this like calculus was able to get over Xeno’s Paradox).

The z-axis could go off into Feynman’s multiple histories. This multiple histories model is a perfect way to explain the problem of superpositions in quantum mechanics, but I don’t like the way he has all histories except ours cancel each other out. (Too convenient, like Einstein’s cosmological constant which canceled out the gravitational effects of matter to allow for a static universe).

If you imagine every possible history as a different page in a book, stabbing through the book would be like stabbing along the z-axis.

Then, when you take all three dimensions of time together, it’s easier to imagine time having a beginning and end like a sphere, as Hawking argues it does. When there are zero observers and zero alternative histories you’ve made it to the north or south pole, and it doesn’t make sense to ask what time was like before or after that.

I don’t REALLY know if this would help with any deep calculations in finding the “theory of everything” but. The point is: trippy.

[This week I listened to an audiobook of Stephen Hawking’s The Universe in a Nutshell about 6 times, then a 13 hour lecture on the history of science, a 12 hour lecture on St. Augustine’s confessions, and a few hours on calculus. . . and an audio book of Slaughterhouse Five.

Spring Break = new model for the universe.]