truth or fiction

i have some worries about clarifying literal truth versus pretend. i feel really sick right now and i don't feel like i can write much, but i will try to explain. i will have to look back over my blog and i can't bring myself to do that right now. but i woke up and i felt like somebody got mad at me because i said that some of my writing was only pretend, or something, and they had been taking it all literally. it IS intended to be literal. i really feel too sick to think right now and i shouldn't even be trying to write.

almost everything i've written is meant literally, and sometimes 'they' put double meanings into it, which bothers me, because the double meanings are almost always something bad.

but about the 'only pretending' part of it, i'm only somewhat serious when i said operation network corrupt, because i don't literally believe everything in that particular book. i wrote before that i don't think our phenomena are caused by aliens, and when i say aliens, i mean that literally too, because that ended up being one of the things that had an unintended double meaning back when i didn't know what it meant, a few months ago. anyway, it's really true that i distrust the phones and internet so much that i really am emphasizing in-person communications and real-world friendships. that part of it is literal truth. it was part of that vernor vinge book, but i don't literally believe every single thing in that book.

about hunting and killing animals: i've had a lot of voices nagging me about that. yes, i literally mean that i personally would like to learn how to hunt and forage for food. i'm serious about that. i try to be as honest as possible about the reality of it, because i am an animal lover, and i have to make peace with the fact that i eat meat and will continue to do so. after reading the weston price website, i'm even more convinced that meat is necessary in the diet. however, i actually already believed that years ago, even before reading weston price. i took nutrition class in college, and have read nutrition books for years, and learned about the difficulty of getting certain nutrients from an all-vegan diet.

but killing an animal is psychologically painful for an animal lover, and i wanted to be honest about what it is that is happening. i didn't want to rationalize it. i'm talking about killing animals that are usually used for food by humans. humans are animals, but i'm talking about non-human species of animals. don't kill animals if they belong to somebody else and that person didn't give you permission; don't kill anything in order to just cause it pain - if you do kill an animal, you should do it as quickly and humanely as possible, with the least amount of pain. i myself haven't actually done this yet. i expect that it will be somewhat traumatic psychologically and i wasn't ready to try it. i don't recommend for people to just go out and try to do it. it might be better if you went along with somebody else who already was a hunter - that's one thing i considered doing. that might make it psychologically easier to tolerate. not only that, but there's always the 'division of labor' approach: if you plan to continue being a meat-eater, you can accept that somebody else will do the actual killing of the animal, if you don't feel like you can do that on your own. a long time ago, a lot of people lived on individual subsistence farms, and they had to slaughter their own animals, and it was a part of normal life.

anything i say about the 'hair and grooming' obsessions is the literal truth. i do actually like the things that i've said i like. it's not a joke and it's not sarcastic and it's never meant to make fun of anybody. yes, it is literal truth that i had 'voices' asking me millions of questions about that topic, and it is literal truth that i would go to work every day and hear somebody asking me whether i liked the physical appearance of various customers walking by, so that they could get an idea what type of appearance i liked, and how i judged people's hairstyles and clothing styles. a lot of that stuff was going on early in the summer and it seems to have quieted down a bit. but it is true that i love racial and ethnic variety, including the differences in hair. if the mainstream media tells people to do one thing, it's quite likely that i will value the exact opposite of whatever they tell you to do, although that's not an absolute rule. it's more of a probability. and it's not that simple, and i have trouble talking about it, because all of my mental 'rules' about grooming and hairstyling are overwhelming to most people, especially when many of those things are unacceptable in most workplaces and corporations. i value 'naturalness' but it's not easy to define exactly what that means. and it's not easy to rationalize the reasons why - eventually i can only say 'this is a personal preference.' i can't argue that some particular type of physical appearance is of life-or-death importance somehow. almost every rule about grooming and appearance is somebody's preference.

about religion and community: yes, i would literally like to start a community and a religion. i've been thinking about that for a long time. i've wondered about how to make it actually work, because there have been lots of anarchist communes in the past, and a lot of them started up and then fell apart for various reasons. i wanted to know why some failed and why some communities succeeded and continued for hundreds of years. the amish community is one example of a religious community that continues to exist.

about fiat money: yes, that's literal. i would like to see the end of government-controlled fiat money and i would like a 'free banking' system, where an eight-year-old kid could start his own bank and try to print his own money if he felt like it, and nobody would stop him (they just would probably ignore it and nobody would accept the printed money). yes, i'd like to use gold and silver, and pieces of paper that represent them. (i have a concern about silver: i think occasionally some silver coins are contaminated with lead, because it's possible to use lead to make coins that weigh as much as a silver coin should weigh.)

but when i woke up a while ago, i was hearing something about someone feeling betrayed or being angry at me because i made it sound like i was lying or pretending all along. that's not what i meant. i wasn't lying or pretending or being sarcastic. there are occasional semi-jokes and playfulness. i was worried that someone would think i was a pathological liar. i have tried to be honest and open about my experiences. i still feel sick and my writing isn't the greatest right now.