Julian Assange is a hero. For those of you who have been living under a rock, Mr. Assange is the founder of Wikileaks and has recently become (in)famous after massive leaks of war logs from both the Afghan and Iraq wars were made available online. Wikileaks used to be a faceless organization, but Assange has recently stepped up as its public image in an attempt to draw attention to the leaks and give them credibility.

At the time of writing, Mr. Assange is expected to be arrested in the next couple days. Allegations of rape have been brought against him in Sweden in what seems to be an obvious smear campaign. Every government in the world is after him, and “patriots” and governments alike are calling for his executioyn. It’s quite the show.

The funny thing is, Mr. Assange didn’t exactly do anything wrong. Someone in the military/government has been leaking data to Wikileaks, which is a fairly large organization. The organization then published the data, as any media outlet would do if they received data of this nature. Assange’s role, plain and simple, has been that of a spokesman and strategist.

And a brilliant strategist he is. I’ve been following the whole fiasco very closely, and every move he makes is absolutely brilliant. The overall thing is genius–he is essentially putting himself in the line of fire so that Wikileaks can continue to do its job with minimal interference while benefiting from the credibility he lends to the information. Some call him egomaniacal for “taking the spotlight.” I say he’s a hero for putting himself in harm’s way to promote a society of freedom and transparency.

Western governments are showing their hypocrisy like crazy now. Wikileaks is expected to be classified as a terrorist organization soon. Terrorist? I thought “terror”ist means you use methods such as violence to inflict terror, thus inhibiting the freedom of the population. Unless I’m wrong, this means that the United States government is a terrorist organization. A growing concern among many is whether or not this will lead to a massive movement towards censorship in the United States and elsewhere. I feel that this can go either way. Either Assange succeeds in creating a movement or the governments find a way to silence him and react by further tightening our chains.

Expected soon is the release of tens (hundreds?) of thousands of documents revealing massive corruption in major international corporations, including a major bank in the United States. Assange promises that the world’s view on history will forever be changed. Melodramatic? Maybe. However, given the course of events, I think there may be something to it.

Whatever comes of all this, one thing is for sure: Julian Assange is a name that will be remembered for a very long time.

So much has happened since my last update that I hardly know where to start. I’ll probably end up missing a ton of events, unfortunately. It is unfortunate, but I feel that I have a chronic habit of procrastination. For a while I had conquered it, having realized the source of my procrastination (and perhaps all procrastination) is fear. Fear of failure, most likely. Ever been faced with so much work that you know you can’t get it all done on time, and as a result don’t do any of it? Although that is a different form of procrastination than mine, I feel that it illustrates the crippling effects of fear and stress.

Despite the initial motivation I acquired upon discovering the true source of procrastination (and the self esteem boost that comes when you realize that it is not the same as laziness), I’m having a hard time motivating myself once more. I’m beginning to look critically at my use of kratom and am wondering whether or not it’s really helping me anymore. Sure, I don’t have the uncomfortable restlessness, depression, and lethargy I had without it, which is nice, but I’m still struggling to get much done.

I did discover a little trick, however. The other day after my shower, I put on some dress pants and a dress shirt for the first time in a long time. Immediately, I felt like I was getting ready for work. I sat down and was in business mode automatically. It would seem that the way we dress has a huge impact on the way we act. This is the reason for uniforms at some jobs and schools, the reason for robes among spiritual practitioners, and maybe even a function served by pajamas at bed time. Maybe there are other things I can do to coax myself into work mode.

I’m posting this retroactively, having written it just after my “Procrastination” post.

B and I had a great Thanksgiving together. We drank sparkling grape juice, had absolutely incredible turkey, and the most marvelous homemade pies. B lit some candles and dimmed the lights. It was very sweet.

Unfortunately, we had to wait until after her family ate. Her brothers, upon hearing that I was invited over, said they would refuse to eat if I was there. It’s pretty ridiculous that they’ll go to such lengths to act assholish towards me. I’ve made every effort to be polite to them. I even let them borrow the space heater I brought over so that B and I could be warm, since the house has no central heat.

I’m starting to realize the full implications of the subjective nature of morality. Because there is no objective right or wrong, me being nice, “turning the other cheek,” etc all the time isn’t “good.” Why let people walk all over you just to “do the right thing?” That just reeks of bullshit Christian slave morality. The fact is, her brothers will probably never accept me. They have jobs, they can go get their own heater. Why should I reward the behaviour they exhibit? All they do is take from others who have less than them, and never give back.

Nonetheless, that doesn’t make certain “morals” bad, necessarily. For example, lying isn’t inherently wrong, but it is a good idea to act honestly and with integrity because it fosters strong relationships built on trust. You don’t have to constantly worry about others stabbing you in the back and you gain the trust and respect of your peers. Of course, that’s not to mention the beauty of not having to remember all of your lies for the rest of your days. Even without laws, morals, etc, it is still a good idea to be polite and do “the right thing” when it counts.

I say “when it counts” because sometimes we do “the right thing” for the wrong reasons and thus become slaves to absurdity. Honesty is a wonderful thing, but are you going to be honest to the Nazis when they show up looking for the Jews you’re hiding in your attic? Of course not. Likewise but on a lesser scale, if a man asks me for my wallet, I’m sure as hell not giving him my coat as well. Don’t care what Jesus says, “kill them with kindness” has never worked for me.

It’s easy to understand things like “there is no objective morality,” but entirely a different thing to understand the implications of those things. There are other things falling into place in my life where I’m starting to realize what they actually *mean* in practical terms. It’s simultaneously wonderful and terrifying.

Ah, the sounds of 8:30 in the morning. It almost sounds like it’s time for bed.

It’s been over two weeks since I moved into my apartment. I spent the first few days just walking around from room to room in admiration. This apartment is bigger than any amount of space I’ve ever had to myself in my life–and that’s pretty cool. I measured each room to get the total of dimensions of the floorspace. It comes up to 441 square feet, which I guess is pretty small, but it still feels pretty huge.

I’ve been contemplating how I’m going to decorate. The walls are barren and the place definitely needs to feel more like a home. Also, I’m able to hear my upstairs neighbor’s baby crying at all hours of the night, and I hear adding furniture and wall decor helps to absorb sound.

Apparently I also have cockroaches that need to be taken care of. One day after spending the weekend with B, she Read the rest of this entry »

Bahahaha, hell, abyss, get it? Just kidding.

I’ve been incredibly busy the past couple weeks doing some great things with my life. I went to a Gnostic Mass at the nearby OTO body and had a wonderful time. Part of my strategy for attracting web development clients is to mention my work to everyone I meet. I ended up getting into a discussion about content management systems with someone at the OTO and, long story short, I got some work developing WordPress templates. Although I’m not sure if it will be ongoing work (I sure hope so!) it was definitely fun and I learned a lot from the project they gave me. There seems to be a huge market for WordPress theme development and I think I’m going to pursue it further.

J ended up telling me that he couldn’t rent out his place to me because of concerns about the situation with B. Mostly, the other guy was being a dick. It’s alright though because the other guy is a meth head anyway and I don’t need that in my life.

It’s also alright because. . .I just signed a 12 month lease on an apartment today! The move-in date is on October 1, but they’re going to let me move in a couple days early without charging me a prorated fee for those days. My new apartment is only a few blocks from the beach and feels very spacious. I’m really glad I ended up getting a one bedroom instead of a studio because I think I really need the extra space. Living in a tiny room would be very depressing I think. In fact, I know so because I’ve been paying for the equivalent of a huge two bedroom apartment in exchange for a tiny, depressing motel room. Goodbye Motel 6!
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So much has happened since my last post that I don’t even know where to begin, and I’m guessing I’ll end up missing a lot of it. I should get back into the habit of posting every couple days.

This past weekend, B and I went to Pagan Pride Day in Downtown San Diego. Unfortunately, as we suspected, it was mostly a bunch of New Age types who weren’t seriously interested in spiritual advancement. It’s the type of person who likes some of the imagery of Paganism and wants to boost their ego by calling themselves a High Priestess, but really doesn’t know what they’re talking about. I have nothing against Wiccans, but every single one of them identified as Wiccan or similar.

B and I handed out postcards with Crowley’s “Liber Oz” printed beautifully on one side and contact information for OTO bodies on the other side. Some of the Wiccans seemed annoyed that we were handing out Thelemic literature, even though they themselves were handing out literature for their New Age groups and even advertising for their massage businesses and similar. Next year I hope to bring a stronger Thelemic presence with me and set up a booth so people can stop by and learn about other Pagan ideas. The idea that Pagan = Wiccan is too prevalent.
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I spent the other day with B and four of her friends. It was rather unexpected as I thought B and I were just going to go back to my motel room to spend a few hours together. To my surprise, B’s friends had some MDMA which was measured out into 90 mg doses. B really wanted to take some and even though I felt hesitant at first (I mean, who wants to be the only one sober when four other people are intoxicated?) I told her to go ahead.

The experience was actually quite pleasant and I had the time of my life. I seem to have a strong natural empathy which puts me in the mood of any environment in which I’m present. As a result of this I felt like I too was on MDMA for the duration of the experience.

During the experience, everyone opened up in a way that wouldn’t happen without the presence of the chemical. People were very honest and performed a great deal of self analysis. I noticed one person who was having somewhat of a rough experience admitting things she would have never expressed without MDMA, and in the end coming to terms with those things and figuring out ways to deal with them. I feel like every single person emerged as a stronger individual.
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This week I narrowly avoided homelessness by opening up a $300 line of credit with PayPal and borrowing all of it. Additionally I had to borrow another $50 from my parents to help out with food. It’s a terrible feeling being in someone’s debt. Every time I have to borrow money, I feel like crying.

The money issues aren’t really due to a lack of work, it’s just that I’m not doing the work I could be. Nor am I just being lazy. Ever since I quit opiates over nine months ago, I’ve had all kinds of problems with restlessness and lack of focus that just haven’t gone away. Even the smallest amount of stress completely cripples me sometimes. I’ll sit in front of an assignment that should only take an hour and I can’t even start it. I’m literally disabled and debilitated by some chemical problem caused by my long term opiate usage in the past.

As far as I can tell, the reason a lot of addicts go on maintenance therapy with buprenorphine (suboxone/subutex) or methadone is because they simply can’t function without opiates and would be right back on them without a maintenance program. To be honest, I don’t want to go on suboxone or methadone because these are both very powerful opioids themselves. Methadone is almost impossible to quit from what I hear, and buprenorphine is pretty expensive. I can’t really afford to go see a doctor regularly and then pay for a prescription on top of it and I don’t have transportation to a doctor or someone to wait with me in the waiting room while I’m blindfolded.
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Due to the amount of things I have to move around with me while switching rooms, I’ve been moving my stuff to a ditch near a fence at the edge of the motel property and covering it with a blanket. This provides camouflage so I can leave my stuff without any fear of it being taken. Given that I have no car in which to store things and I’d rather not stay in the same place while waiting three hours for check-in, this seems perfectly reasonable to me.

While waiting outside with my stuff prior to hiding it, a police officer stopped B and I and harassed us about what we were doing. He said things like “well, when I see you with a lamp I think to myself, ‘is he setting up a still to make drugs?’” I’m going to assume in good faith that the officer was just being an asshole and wasn’t really stupid enough to think someone would set up a drug lab outside in the open using a desk lamp. Either way, I didn’t appreciate the constant interrogation. The impression he gave was that I was being harassed simply because I didn’t own a car in which to keep my stuff–in other words, because I’m not upper or middle class. If any cops out there are wondering why most people dislike you, it’s because we haven’t met a single respectful cop in our lives.
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Lots of things have happened since the last time I wrote.

A few days ago, B’s mom let me spend the night at B’s house. It was pretty great because that implies a lot of trust and that they don’t entirely dislike me. B and I had a great time going for walks, cuddling and watching Futurama, and engaging in interesting discussion. I still have to figure out more activities for us to compensate for me not being able to go inside any buildings. I’m sure I’ll figure out something. It’ll probably be a lot easier if I try some sort of medication, but I want to wait until I have an apartment lease so I can have some semblance of security while dealing with side effects.

Speaking of apartments, I went to an apartment complex with B to check it out. We looked at a one bedroom and I really like it. It’s $900-1000 a month and they want about $1500 as a down payment. They’ll also be doing a credit check and will want to see three months worth of PayPal records to see that I’ve been making at least 3x the cost of rent each month. I’m slightly worried about the credit check. Even though I pay all of my bills on time, my cards are at the limit and I’m not sure if that will impact my ability to get a lease.

I changed motel rooms again this past Sunday. B helped me move out and then we cuddled outside for three hours while we waited for the check-in time. This is the last week I can stay at the motel under my name because they only allow you to stay for 28 consecutive days before you have to take a 7 day break. I had a friend register under his name for next week and I expect that to work out.
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