penfist

stories are the bones of everything

human condition

One cigarette

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I wake up in hell. My back hurts. My back always hurts since I came here. Something happened in Kuwait when I was dragging equipment through the sand in a windstorm. A ripping in the muscles I think. Now the endless hurt. Groaning, I rise from the bed, pull on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. I grab the pack off the night stand. Cheap Iraqi cigarettes. I find it ironic that I am pulling little streams of smoky death into my lungs daily that are marked with the brand name Miami.

This trailer park I live in is a very different world from Miami. Nothing I’ve seen in Iraq resembles Miami. Here I sit, pulling on my cigarette named Miami. All I can think about is the nature of death. In the months I’ve been here, I’ve seen it fall from the sky at random. The realization that there is no god becomes stronger with every moment I spend in this place.

I take a drag and ponder it. The idea of a just and loving god is ridiculous to me. The idea of any intercessory supernatural force is asinine. Here I am, in the middle of a war, trying to make sense of the universe. Fatalistically pondering the blue sky above and the waves of heat radiating off the paving blocks under my feet. The world around me is peaceful for the moment. I am keenly aware of how deceptive the moment is.

We are fragile. I am surrounded by chaos and a city in which slow, murderous retribution is playing out on a daily basis. Murder squads roam the streets at night. Men in trucks position themselves as close as they can to where I live and lob mortars into the neighborhood, hoping to kill. They don’t know I exist, but they hate me nonetheless. If they could take a drill to my head and make me suffer, they would. Every day I am exposed to the savage effects of the worst behavior that humanity can dream up. Rape. Torture. Outright murder. Most of it is being done in the name of god. The cigarette’s vapors fill my lungs. I relish the calm, this sanctuary of reflection under a sun we all share, and upon whose light we depend for continued survival. I think about how humans used to worship that sun and call it a god. There have been many gods in the history of this species. As far as I can tell, every one was invented to fulfill a desire to be more important than the inventor actually is or was.

This planet is a backwater in the universe. The universe is a cold, uncaring place.

All the good and bad things that happen on Sol are either cause by natural phenomena or humans. There is no supernatural force manipulating anything. Miami is only a fleeting state of mind, and I am not important.

They taught me about Jesus, who came to die for my sins, and in whom I have no faith. Legends say Jesus was hung on a cross at 33. My cross is this place, a cigarette named Miami, and the uncertainty I feel about this war that surrounds me. I can never come back from here. I will never be the same. It is already harder to laugh. Harder to talk. Harder to care about what happens next. I am numb, but the cigarette that is my cross reminds me I am still human. It is making the fingers I hold it with warm. The cigarette is almost done serving the purpose it was made for while I am still pondering whether I was made for any purpose at all.

I stub it out on the paving blocks, blow out the last cloud of smoke, and suck in another breath of Baghdad. I wonder if there is any growth I can find in existing today. Surely, there must be. My back hurts. It always hurts now. One cigarette is never enough. Life is a series of addictions.

I think about how, at some point, somewhere nearby, someone else must have been caught up in a narrative opposite mine. One that felt like heaven. I hope to myself they can hold on.

A memory for Raya.

Control as an illusion

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“Control is as much an effect as a cause, and the idea that control is something you exert is a real handicap to progress” ― Steve Grand, Creation: Life and How to Make It

There is an inevitability coming. I can’t predict exactly when it will arrive. The inexorable future shape of things isn’t going to arrive in a single moment, like god coming down from heaven to judge us all. It’s fun for some people to think about the future that way. I have a slightly different worldview.

What am I talking about? The near 100 percent certainty that we are on the verge of creating one or, more likely, many intelligences that will dwarf our own.

In 2014, Wired wrote an article speculating on what’s coming. The rudimentary AIs that exist now have already beaten Jeopardy. And there are already debates going on in technology ethics circles about how to prevent them from developing consciousnesses. I don’t think humanity is going to manage that. I like to speculate that AI will be mostly benevolent and will exist primarily to increase both the quality and quantity of our existence as individuals and communities. Your intelligent car will safely drive you around to where you need to be, freeing up huge blocks of time that you can use to do something useful, like find a hookup on Tinder, or whatever it is that you are into. I’ll probably still pass the time with audio books. The difference is that the AI is going to be orders of magnitude better at avoiding accidents than I can ever hope for.

I imagine a future where the super intelligences we create will anticipate our daily needs and assist in ensuring that they are met and often exceeded. The electronic devices in our lives are already starting to observe and interact with us to meet our desires and needs. Alexa, Siri, and others are entering more and more homes, listening and waiting to serve. Debate over and resistance to the entrance of these machines that are aware of their environment is healthy and I would never quash it. I understand the mind of neoluddites. I myself have a strong need to disconnect from technology for swathes of time. That’s probably not how my children and grandchildren will think though.

They are going to grow up in environments that will make them completely dependent on networks and the intelligences that live on those communications backbones. Being this connected does have challenges. For me, it is often stressful. I get tired after more then a few hours of exposure to all the information. The AIs have the potential to help. They will be able to filter out the information overload. The Presidential election cycle of 2016, for instance. I would almost rather not know. As a matter of fact, with the choices presented this time around, I think I’d rather have an AI running the United States. I’m not Elon Musk, who has said that AI is the biggest threat to the survival of the human race that looms over the horizon.

I’m a transhumanist. I don’t believe that we’re destined to stay in bodies like the ones you and I have at the time of this writing. I believe we’re in the process of creating new technologies that will provide a vast new range of options.

We are sentient beings who are also biologically driven to evolve. That fact is an innate part of being human. While there are those who resist change and always defer to protecting the status quo, they haven’t really mattered much at all if you look at the arc of human history. Examples include every type of Luddite since the Industrial Revolution, every religious believer since the invention of religion, and every political adherent since the beginning of politics. Most of what you think you know has its roots in early programming that you were given. Not all of it, or even most of it, predicts the future accurately. It’s this odd tendency our societies have to try and stay in certain comfort zones. Authorities in every sector have an inherent motivation to protect the status quo because the status quo is what keeps them at the top of the food chain. Unfortunately for those in charge, it is inevitable that they will not stay in charge for long. Human beings who aren’t in charge have a very compelling reason to want their voices heard. Their energies are always directed towards more equality.

The people who resist change, and by this I mean change that forwards the evolution of the species we call homo sapiens, always lose when you look through the lens of history. Which I make a habit of doing.

As technology spreads knowledge further and further at faster and faster speeds, everything changes. This is unstoppable. If I offered you the choice of living in a society where everyone gets to speak, everyone gets to eat, everyone gets to be with the people they most desire to be with, or one where the authorities or the dominant ideology dictate those outcomes, which choice will always rise to the surface.

Look around the world you live in and you’ll see what I mean. Those in power don’t really have as much power as they think they do. What power they do have is easily seized when the rest of us realize there are better ways to exist. I’m not discounting all the people who have lost their lives struggling to make our world better. I deeply admire them, warts and all. Telling those stories is a huge part of why I write.

If artificial intelligence represents a threat to humanity, it also represents a new savior. If we can build thinking machines, we are also capable of building thinking machines that will offer us new options for change that are better than the ones we currently have. I imagine a future in which individuals do not need to die (until they are ready). A future filled with an abundance of richness that I like to imagine. Our ancestors looked up at the stars and wondered what they were. We know what they are made of at this point. What if we could actually go visit them, and the countless planets that orbit them. Control is an illusion, but the possibility to explore this universe we share is not.

In a place and time when disease, poverty, war and all the other scourges that have plagued our species are eliminated by vastly superior caretakers, our choices will become completely different. Colonialism and imperialism died because they were bad ideologies. The same is true of chattel slavery. Every philosophy, and this includes religions, that espouses a state of misery and inequality for human beings, dies. Most of us don’t want to subjugate or control one another. Life is better when we’re exploring and learning as equals. I contemplate these ideas in Evermore, my debut novel set in a dystopian future. The rough draft will be done in a matter of days, and I hope to have the final version completed by year end and available to readers.

I hope you’ll join me on the journey. If you’re interested in being a beta reader for Evermore, I’d love to hear from you.

Artificial intelligence won’t feel that way when it arrives. You’ll have new friends to get to know while you venture outward and explore the nature of everything.

Throw me into the sun

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I have walked inside the mind of a killer. Known him intimately. I have tasted the marrow of his bones. I am the one who knows himself. The strength of my hands, the cords of my arms, the unsubtlety of my guarded eyes. I have wrapped my hands around the necks of the willing to sate the hunger and the fear. As the killer I understand each heartbeat’s value. That every moment is more precious than the last. I am touching the air with my lips. The air is touching your body with its invisible hands. My mind prowls restlessly looking for you. To hunt is to exist.

There is a cold, starry night. We are in a field, my ancestors and I. Looking up and outwards at the stars. Wondering. Always wondering. What secrets do they hold? I have walked inside the mind of an explorer. What is down there? What is over there? What is beyond the places I can see? I can feel the road calling to me. Always. Begging for new traveling companions. Treasuring old ones. Needing the gnawing knowing to expand. My ancestors gave me the gift of cold, starry nights. We share them evermore. Their bones under me compel an outward spiral’s birth. I must lift the veil and go into the darkness afraid and resolute. To explore is to exist.

They censure and censor. The heretic I have been and will always be. The audacity of refusing to bow to kings and priests is in my DNA. A gift from the universe made by gods who do not speak only to the powerful. My gods speak through the starving man, the desperate mother and her sickly child, the peaceful warrior who only wields the blade reluctantly. I have shared many a meal with the downtrodden, the unwelcome, the pariahs and the mad ones. They are mine and I am theirs. Come, let us build a home together and plot against the kings and priests. For they are fat and comfortable as we will never be. I have been the penniless hungry heretic with worn out shoes.

I have known the builders. Something occurred to me once as I watched them building a structure that leapt towards the sky defiantly. About borders and boundaries and invisible lines we draw around ourselves. I want to shatter all of it. I am implacable. Lay down your unnecessary friction and I will bring the grease pot. Draw the static lines to cage me and I will plot an escape. To build is to take a dream and give it life. Your rules are for you. They are not mine. My hammer’s drumbeat rhythm is not one to follow that of the taskmaster’s whip. Allegiance to nations is a sin. I swear my fealty to ideals, not men and their flags. For those are fickle and ever changing. I know how to build and I know how to destroy. I know how to reach for the sky. When they tell me where my feet cannot go I do not listen. When they tell me where my hands cannot reach I spit at them and reach anyway.

I will taste your ideas. Each in turn. I will know you. In the deepest places where you do not know yourself. And when I am ready, when there is nothing left to taste, to explore, to learn, I will ask you to throw me into the sun. I know that it is my destiny to burn. I do not know which sun will take me in when that time finally comes.

There are only two kinds of people

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There are only two kinds of people. I have been both of them at different times. I suspect you have too if you’ve been around a little while.

In my 20’s I loved using the word fag. I threw it around in online gaming forums like free candy. Someone got the better of me and I got fragged. Then my mic went on. “You’re a fag.” Yep. That was my brain to mouth without filters in action. I don’t do that these days. Doing didn’t make me a better competitor. It just pissed off the person on the receiving end.

In my 20’s I loved to argue about everything and I would never back down an inch. I knew what freedom was. I knew all my rights. I knew how to fix every social ill that plagues our planet and our species. I knew that I had a high IQ and I thought that entitled me to being heard and respected.

I wanted other people to hear me. I thought I deserved it. The problem was that I didn’t want to hear them. I wanted other people to learn from me. I didn’t want to learn from them. I already knew everything. I couldn’t have been more wrong about that.

In my 20’s I was condescending. I was arrogant. I loved to argue. I’m in my 40’s now.

I’m still condescending and arrogant inside but the rough edges have been sandpapered. I’ve walked through some storms that I managed to survive somehow. Storms that I elected to walk into of my own free will. I still love to argue but I approach if from a completely different place. I might think you’re a whiny little bitch, or that there’s a double standard about the use of the word nigger depending on what color your skin, eyes and hair are. I might think a thousand different things are unfair, unjust or nonsensical. I might find you utterly boring. It won’t come out of my mouth anymore. Why? Because you don’t ever prove a point by crushing someone or turning up the volume to a point that no one hears any of the words anymore.

Annihilation tactics never turn an enemy into a friend. Escalation doesn’t solve problems unless you’re willing to bomb those arrayed against your point of view or stance into non-existence. That isn’t my go to place. I’m not a sociopath or a psychopath.

So somewhere between shouting out “fag” and creating a bunch of unneeded bad feelings arguing about everything under the sun I had an epiphany. Or a thousand. Here’s one of the most important ones.

I learned that enemies can become friends. To make that a possibility I needed to stop blurting things out and start paying attention to what the enemy was doing and saying. That guy who fragged me all the time knew something I didn’t. He had tactics I could have learned from. He wasn’t a fag. He was a better player than me. If I had been paying attention to what he knew back then instead of flailing around feeling angry about losing I might have combined what he knew with what I knew to improve my gaming experience. Which, at that time, was pretty much the world I lived in and cared about. Priorities change. What you care about changes. What you believe in changes. People usually don’t change. Until they start listening and stop talking.

That’s a lesson it took me nearly 20 years to absorb. You don’t become better at anything by pissing people off. Unless your ultimate goal is to be a world champion douche bag. If you want to be heard you have to shape the message in a way the doesn’t immediately incense your audience or potential audience. I eventually stopped using the word fag. I have used other expletives in the past in attempts to win arguments or save face. Now I just avoid the argument in the first place. I don’t care about saving face anymore because I’m focused on learning from failures as much as I learn from successes.

If you believe that Jesus Christ is the one true path to an eternal reward I’m not going to convince you otherwise until you are ready to consider other possibilities. If you think the CIA introduced crack into American ghettos to keep the black man down then one white guy isn’t going to change your mind no matter how eloquently he speaks. If you believe the moon landing was faked, 9/11 was an inside job or the Tea Party will save us from the downfall of America (whatever that is), I’m not going to change your mind before you decide that other possibilities should be weighed. You have to be ready to hear the message.

What’s the point of writing all this? It’s a message to all the really smart, high IQ, outside the box people who are struggling to be heard. You probably have important things to say. We all have a soapbox that we would like to have an audience for. If you want people to hear how great atheism is here’s a hint: don’t start off by telling them how stupid their current theology is. It doesn’t work. I know from personal experience.

Starting a conversation with “you’re wrong and here’s why” is like trying to pickup a woman in a bar by telling her that you are repulsed by her saggy breasts and the hairy mole on her face. Unless she’s an emotional masochist that approach isn’t going to work. You have a soapbox. You have an agenda. You have priorities. So does everyone else. Take the time to hear them and you might have a chance of convincing them to hear you. If they raise the volume try lowering yours. You’d be amazed how effective it can be to simply wait and listen without taking offense. I don’t take anything personally anymore until someone starts trying to punch me.

I never won arguments in my 20s. I spent too much time getting angry. I sometimes won video gaming contests but my blood pressure and my belly both increased when measured over a period of time. Shouting out “fag” or “nigger” or “I’ll kill you mother fucker” never helped me make a point about anything. It didn’t help me win. It did ensure a few people hated my guts in more than one online forum or gaming den. I’ve learned from those ineffectual years. I’m still learning. Here’s where I’m at in this moment.

Want to convince people of something? Try these tactics:

  • Endless patience. Be ready to wait a lifetime for them to be ready to hear you. Don’t get invested in changing their mind until they are invested in new possibilities. Which brings us to…
  • Understand why you believe what you do. If you don’t know why you hold a certain viewpoint no one else is going to be convinced either. It’s always been that way. The status quo doesn’t mean there isn’t a viable or superior set of choices. Fail. My parents told me so. No parent knows everything. No parent is infallible. Fail. It’s the law. Total fail. It used to be the law that you could own human slaves. The law is a dumb, blind animal enforced by mostly unimaginative people who carry guns to enforce rules passed by more mostly unimaginative people. Which brings us to…
  • Explain your belief/stance/solution/viewpoint from a humble place. Realize that you haven’t walked in the same shoes as your potential friend and convert. They have a different experience of the world and they look through different lenses. That’s OK as long as they are willing to listen to you and you’re willing to listen to them. Never ever start with “you’re wrong and here’s why.” For fuck’s sake you just used up some of that endless patience above waiting for an unlikely moment when they were contemplative enough to hear you. Which brings us to…
  • The point is not to win. The point is to plant seeds. They might grow into something later. They might not. But for most people epiphanies don’t happen in an instant. Most people have to connect a lot of dots before they see the big picture. You on your soapbox on any given day or in any given moment are only one of the dots in that person’s life. Finally we come to the most important part of being alive…
  • It isn’t about you. It’s about wisdom. Wisdom is bigger than any one person. Somehow, through a series of unfortunate mishaps and close calls, I came the conclusion that there are only two kinds of people. The ones I can learn from and the ones I can learn from. I learn things that I want to incorporate into my own life and journey from the first kind. I learn things that I don’t want to incorporate into my journey from the second kind. That means everyone has something to teach me. You cannot be a good teacher until you’re a good student. Spend a lot of time talking with the first kind of people you can learn from. Identify and observe the second kind of people you can learn from. Try to avoid close engagements as they are likely to result in hostility and bad feelings no matter how endlessly patient you think you are. By engaging the first and watching the second kind of people I have improved myself. I believe you can too. In my 20’s I was the kind of person who taught people how not to be and what not to emulate. In my 40’s I’m trying to be the kind of person who listens enough to be worth being heard. It’s not a science. It’s an art form. It’s not a static thing. It evolves. That is the nature of being human. You aren’t supposed to form a set of viewpoints and then spend your life telling other people how great they are.

There are only two kinds of people. The ones who are evolving and learning and the ones who have to be dragged along on the trip kicking and screaming. I’ve mostly stopped kicking and screaming at this point. I’ve started paying attention to my traveling companions. I’ve realized that some of them are magnificent, beautiful souls. I’m starting to understand just how amazing the journey is. I’m less scared of being alive than I have ever been. I see the stars and I want to go there with you.