My Writings. My Thoughts.

Who we are

// March 30th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Chris

Welcome to our Psychotic Ramblings!

Above all, this site is meant to help us and you use our brains.

Us by the way is Glenn and Chris – brothers with some similarities, and some differences. See our small bio’s below for more information.

Whether you hate or love what we say here, as long as it makes you think, we have succeeded in our goals!

Our content is largely unfiltered, and unedited so if you are easily offended – be warned that you most likely will be, after spending some time consuming the content on this site.

We hope you stay here a long time until you have had your fill, for best results sign up for an RSS feed on the left, one click set up is all it takes!

Why Psychotic?

The dictionary definition goes something like this:

Psychosis: A severe mental disorder, with or without organic damage, characterized by derangement of personality and loss of contact with reality and causing deterioration of normal social functioning

We figure since society is in general so screwed up and because we choose to think – about anything – that we should no longer be considered as normal social functioning individuals.

We are proud (and happy) to be considered psychotic!

Help

// February 24th, 2010 // No Comments » // Glenn

I’ve noticed a big difference while visiting Costa Rica regarding helping people.  In the little town of Montezuma, we’ve befriended an unofficial taxi cab driver named Max.  Well, maybe it’s more accurate to say he has befriended us…I discovered that the single ATM machine in Montezuma doesn’t like my bank card so I was running out of cash (luckily credit cards are accepted in most places – but not for taxis of course).  Max told me he would drive me to the next town over to try the bank machine there.  While driving, he was dropping off propane tanks, slowing down to talk to people on bicycles, giving free rides to school children (who all knew Max) etc.  This bank machine also didn’t like my bank card (I had successfully used my bank card a number of times already in other cities).  Max said “don’t worry”, and told me he would bring me back the next day when the bank was open and I could go in with my passport and withdraw money…in fact, he wouldn’t even take my last few dollars telling me he would wait for tomorrow to get paid.  Max also introduced me to his wife and one of his daughters, his wife was carrying a small boy but Max told me that it wasn’t his child, the boy’s father had said he didn’t want the boy any more so Max had taken him into his family as one of his own.

Well, I was able to get money out of the bank (I had to pay a whopping $1 service charge on my $200 withdrawal) and Max was very happy for me.

Anyways, I noticed during my trips with Max that almost everyone here seems to help everyone else out without thinking twice about it…if you are struggling with a heavy bag, others offer to help, if you are filling your motorcycle tires with air at a gas station, people will help.  It makes for such a friendly atmosphere, everyone doing favours for others, knowing that they will be helped if they ever need it.

I think that most people in Canada are afraid to ask for help because it’s a sign of weakness…don’t we always say “no thanks, I can manage” whenever anyone offers help?  I think I’m going to try to allow others to help me whenever offered from now on…and maybe I will occasionally be brave enough to actually ask for help even if I don’t absolutely need it.  This can create some more friendships from what I’ve seen here.  I like that.

A New Philosophy of Life

// January 20th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Barry

I think that most children have a simple instinct to find immediate pleasure for themselves whenever possible.  They are unable to make many predictions about the future so they just do what looks good in front of them and that’s it.  As adults, we’re able to make better predictions of the future so we do stuff like go to school to get qualified to get a high paying job or whatever.

I’ve realized now that there is no purpose to life – there is nothing that can make me truly and completely happy.  I think that there are many people in the world that feel completely happy but I think they’re living a delusion.  For instance, many people believe that Jesus is watching them and guiding them daily so they feel completely happy having this ultimately important being concerned about them – but it is a delusion.  Many others keep themselves so busy with “stuff” that they don’t think about the meaning of life or anything else so when you ask them if they are happy they might say “yes”, but they’re not really thinking about it completely.

So if there is no true happiness to be found in life, what do we do?  We can give up and commit suicide and enter nothingness as we cease to exist consciously (the thought of this would have horrified me before, but I can’t get worked up about it anymore).  Or we can do what I think is the only solution now – act like a child and hope for simple and immediate pleasures.  If I can go to a party and laugh for an hour and feel good – then that is as much as I can hope for in life.

I’m not sure how to fit in my loving feelings for my family into this philosophy.  I love them and would do nothing to hurt them but I don’t see the immediate pleasure there…maybe it’s just the fact that I don’t have to be alone all the time?  I hope it’s more than that.

On Racism

// January 17th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Chris

On Racism:

Definition: a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others.

First off, I disagree with the definition regarding the superior nature portion – specifically I think of racism in broader terms, specifically an abstraction of a trait applied to a particular race – negatively or positively. Secondly it should be noted that there is no clear definition of what a race is from Anthropology. Here are some general notes:

  • any of the traditional divisions of humankind, the commonest being the Caucasian, Mongoloid, and Negro, characterized by supposedly distinctive and universal physical characteristics: no longer in technical use.
  • an arbitrary classification of modern humans, sometimes, esp. formerly, based on any or a combination of various physical characteristics, as skin color, facial form, or eye shape, and now frequently based on such genetic markers as blood groups.
  • a human population partially isolated reproductively from other populations, whose members share a greater degree of physical and genetic similarity with one another than with other humans.
  • Note a) is explicitly that this term “race” is no longer in use, b) specifically states it is arbitrary, and c) notes (typically a more biologically based argument) that there is often noted isolated reproductively from other races, meaning one race can not reproduce with another – which is clearly not the case to the dismay of fringe groups like the KKK and Catholics – oops, did I say Catholics?

Having noted this, a strong argument can be made that there are no “races” at all and hence racism is really a form of self hatred. Obviously there exists in society some semblance of understanding (without specific definition) that different races do exists, so we will proceed with the conversation.

My major thought on the definition of racism is that what is typically made as an accusation of racism is actually a vocalized form of exactly how are brains work and have evolved. You could even note that we have survived as a species (another term with no clear definition, but let’s move on) because our brain makes assumptions about “groups” of objects and applies traits to those objects. More specifically, I think our brain works like a giant modeling tool it constantly abstracts information from the world and applies to it pre-existing models [side note, this is why kids are so interesting sometimes because their models are not very well established hence can fluctuate wildly often leading to interesting notions, questions, comments etc] The brain for the most part trys to re-enforce its existing models by filtering contradictory information and enhancing supporting information (think Republican/Democrats here as an example or better yet, religion) This is the reason a paradigm shift is such a big deal – it forces people to HAVE to have their brain remodel information in the face of overwhelming evidence (not that this overwhelming evidence sometimes even makes a difference, i.e. young earth creationists) The brain requires this model because if it had to process each piece of input seperately it would be incredibly hard to perform even the simplest tasks, like getting dressed in the morning! Following that example, consider the brain has an excellent model of your own body (something it discovers quite young), an excellent model of your room (think of walking into a wall last time you slept in a hotel and woke thinking you were in your own bedroom) and even models time and events (how long it takes to do things, sequences etc)

The point is these models not only help us function, but are an incredible evolutionary step – simply because we exist! On a more general side, consider that we can’t learn to drive every single car, but we can drive every standard car because our brain abstracts driving as a model, same with hunting, reproduction, games, etc. We sometimes note that today was the “same-old same-old” routine, but really every time you do anything, it is completely a unique event! It is the braing that applies a model and generalizes the event to the model – puts it into the “box” as I like to say it.

So back to racism, it is not a justification for applying traits to groups, but simply noting that this is how the brain processes information, specifically it creates a model (in this case against a race) and applies attributes to that model in general as a SURVIVAL mechanism – nothing more. People who deny that they do this in any way are basically saying they have freak brains that don’t work right, something I have a hard time believing, but that is just my brains model speaking!

Dieing to Live

// January 3rd, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Barry

Way back when I was in high school, I remember my world religions teacher teaching us (the class) about Zen Buddhism and actually, he told us that was his “religion” (if it can be called that).  The only point that stuck with me was that he told how ideally, a Zen Buddhist person would never hold on to any grudge or anything.  Someone in the class even asked what he would do if somebody murdered his son and he said that he would be angry, but that he would try to accept it and move on with life.  I laughed to myself when I heard that and though he was stupid.  I don’t think he’s stupid anymore.

I watched a movie the other day about a mother who couldn’t deal with living after her young child died.  I can understand this to a certain extent (I realize that nobody can really understand unless it’s happened to them personally), allowing the guilt and the second-guessing of yourself to allow such a tragedy.  I’m sure that anyone reading this blog has known the pain of having a friend die and how it affects so much of your life.  But lately I’ve been looking at this problem from a different angle.

Here’s the thing – life is short.  That’s it.  Think of it, whatever age you are now, you will never get that back again.  The year 2009 is gone and never to return, so if you are just coasting through your life, putting in your time doing the same old things every day, me thinks you will regret it.  So what does this have to do with losing a friend?  Simple, let it go, let them go, move on.  I know it sounds harsh but really, if they’re dead, they’re dead and they don’t care if you are remembering them, or mourning them or anything ’cause they’re dead.  I think it’s great to remember the good things about lost friends and take the good parts of their lives and learn from them but just move on and let it go, because Life Is Short.

Really, you should think about death often.  You should think about your own death often and how near it is.  Even if you’re not even 20 years old yet, do you think death is far away?  I remember turning 20 and now I’m closing in on 40 and I don’t know where the years went sometimes.  Think about how short the rest of your days are and LIVE!  Do what you want to do today.  I even think that if you do something stupid and lose all your money and end up destitute it doesn’t really matter does it?  ‘Cause life is short and you gave it your best shot.  Do you really want to be sitting around in your old age home thinking about all the missed opportunities you had in your life?  And they are missed opportunities for no reason except you were lazy or scared to try.

Glenn is thinking about making an early retirement in Costa Rica.  Maybe it won’t work out and he’ll have to come crawling back home after a few years but so what?  He went for it and he tried and he won’t be wondering “what if?”.  If you’ve read my old blogs, you know some of the stuff that I do that is wild and exciting and I want more.  I’m Dieing to Live.

« Older Entries