Last night I painted an onion and watched Great Courses. I got a little depressed about having so much to learn but then I remembered that's a pointless way to think.

September Study

Reading List

The Body Electric by Robert O. Becker (Biophysics)

(skim) Earthing by Clinton Ober (Biophysics? Metaphysics?)

Information and the Nature of Reality by Paul Davies and Niels Henrik Gregersen  (Theoretical Physics)

Classes

The Joy of Science Great Courses Lessons 1 and 2
Lesson 1 Lectures
The Nature of Science
The Scientific Method
The Ordered Universe
Celestial and Terrestrial Mechanics
Newton's Law of Motion
Universal Gravitation
The Nature of Energy
The First Law of Thermodynamics
The Second Law of Thermodynamics
Entropy
Magnetism and Static Electricity
Electricity
Lesson 2 Lectures
Electromagnetism
The Electromagnetic Spectrum Part 1
The Electromagnetic Spectrum Part 2
Relativity
Atoms
The Bohr Atom
The Quantum World
The Periodic Table of the Elements
Introduction to Chemistry
The Chemistry of Carbon
States of Matter and Changes f State
Phase Transformations and Chemical Reactions

Actions/Assignments

Begin to offer Spiritual Consulting Services (Business)

Play an instrument every day (Music)

Write about the three books 

Write for 2 hours per week on Program For Joy  (English)
Post in the higher dimension forum or askscience on reddit with questions (Science)
Email physics student Scott Harris with questions on Electromagnetism (Physics)

My 5 year study plan

In light of wanting to go back to school without incurring debt, I've decided to embark upon a five year self-study journey. I am choosing not to specialize, another luxury afforded to the non-student. I will be studying a variety of subjects including things I have not studied before.
These topics include:

• Math (Geometry, Algebra, Trigonometry, and Calculus) 
• Science (a brief overview of the basics with a focus on Electromagnetism, Biophysics, and Theoretical Physics)
• Philosophy (Media Studies, the Power of Belief/Prayer, and Religion and Folklore)
• English (emphasis on Teaching and writing at least 3 books)
• Art (performance, digital, drawing, multi-media)
• Music (piano, cello, voice)
• Business (focused on real-world prototyping and creation of designs, networking, offering goods and services)
• Languages (casual Duolingo for French and Spanish)

To ensure success I will:

• dedicate and track a minimum of 30 minutes of every day or 3.5 hours per week to study
• write comprehensive essays, blog posts, or articles about the topics I've learned
• connect with mentors in each subject
• take affordable, IRL classes when needed (as in the case with Math especially)
• utilize resources like Coursera, Skillshare, internet forums, and the library
• carefully track what I've studied/learned in each discipline

I thought at first that I should create the entire 5 year study plan up-front, but as a non-expert in these topics, I can't be sure what books will be valuable and what won't or what topics will benefit me and which will bore me to tears. So instead, I decided to take it month-by-month.

We are all parents to each other.

Poetry

All writing is meant to be clear, to convey a straightforward meaning, idea, situation, or story to the reader... except for poetry. Good poetry is accessible enough, but still a locked box of importance. Every word means only what the other words let it until you're overwhelmed with a general impression of what the poem means and only then can you apply that impression back to the poem to unlock the other meanings behind the coy words. You end up venturing into your own mind and the intent and nonintent of the poet, to the complex Freudian realm of suggestion and association. Most poetry is bullshit because it does not-cannot successfully ride that line of teasingly accessible with a world of depth below. Too many poems are locked away from inherent meaning. This is the damage of academia. While others yet are only obvious, saying just what they mean. I haven't thought about or written poetry in 4 years because the whole world of it is a mess, stuck in ancient tropes and pretension. But all that time I've been wondering, what is the future of poetry? What place does poetry have in the digital world? Not just as an archaic artifact, but as something that lives and breathes the modern experience.

Today I saw a bumper sticker that said, "Abolish Corporate Personhood" and I felt two things.
1. I wonder how many people who read that bumper sticker understand what it means
2. The person driving this Jeep Cherokee understands and that represents a lot.
The interesting thing about the global enlightenment is that we have to have a deeper understanding than we've ever had as a species before. It's difficult because we have to stop letting other people tell us what to think. We have to learn about all the systems of the world on a global scale and understand how they're corrupt. It's a big task for any one person, let alone a community. But as more people catch on to the lies and manipulation that have led them to think in the ways that they think, the more communities will form.
I'm arguing that this difficulty is essential for our enlightenment. We couldn't become enlightened without gaining these extra skills and enduring the difficulties and challenges presented to us.

Daily Enlightenment?

I feel like I can see things from a better perspective almost daily. I wonder if other people feel this way too or if I'm just going through a phase. I could also be delusional. Every conclusion I reach lately isn't a new conclusion, really. It's just a crisper understanding, a more focused view of the structure of wealth or the inequality of power or the strangeness of holding onto broken systems and the obvious brokenness of them? I don't think many other people see this way or we wouldn't be living like this. It would be disruptive but beneficial to change our way of life. Maybe the understanding of how to do that will dawn on us, slowly, through this day-by-day enlightenment. I hope I'm not the only one experiencing it. It's imperceptible, almost, because it feels like natural mental growth at an accelerated speed. I hope I'm not delusional. I really hope the world gets better.

Concerning Demonic Possession of the Masses through Media

This weekend I read the quote "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."-- William Casey, CIA Director 1981. I also listened to some Red Ice Radio and it's weird to find something that combines a lot of ideas that I think about all in one place. I think the hosts are intelligent people and they're cleverly combining seemingly separate information. 

I've been trying to imagine humanity through the scope of history, removed from current culture. Humans, as a species, are biologically and psychologically predictable. Of the possibilities for human evolution there is the alien or god intervention theory, wherein, we are created for a particular destiny. Within this ideology we assume that the way we are is to an end. To what end, we cannot be certain. Whatever the end may be, it requires that we have The Question (which plagues us) but not the answer. Here, the thought splits: clockwork god-figure set us in motion and any darkness/deception is of our own human doing or god figure still interacts in our affairs and allows darkness/deception to pervade. The Catholic/Christian ideology would say the devil himself has led us astray which is a separate but almost equal force?
The second possibility is that there is no god, no alien species, just humans through time and evolution being rotten and controlling one another.
Either way, I want to know "who gave you the right?" and "how dare you." Thinking on the recent studies of rich-person hubris you can get an inkling of the dissociation that can happen when power starts setting in.

In the Red Ice Radio show, they discussed a theory of wide-spread, media-induced dissociative identity disorder. The host mentioned trauma-based mind control and suggested that perhaps the chaos allows a demonic presence to find space within the cracks of our minds.
But, I silently contested, demons don't have any power you don't give them. This would be a subliminal, unapproved use of our minds. But I realized that by participating in culture, saturated in ideology, we agree. We are tricked into thinking it's appealing and we accept its presence in our life.

Whether or not demons are actually real or just a manifestation of our own insecurities and issues doesn't matter- it ends up the same way, it means the same thing.

What are our options? What choices do we have? If there's anything I learned from all the books I read it's that you always have a choice. You just have to be aware, alert, and ready to take appropriate action when the opportunity arises. But it's hidden in a culture wash of accepting the wrong things, of approving of our own enslavement.

I don't like coming upon these ideas slowly. I would like to figure out the solution for my own life and for the benefit of those like me. The campaign against us has been carefully orchestrated and magically powered. Great minds have worked against us. It's daunting. But can you just walk away? Is it that simple?
IDK

Concerning Surveillance

Most Americans understand that they're being watched. Who exactly is watching us, law enforcers or robots of law enforcers, is unclear. The consequences of this understanding are innumerable.

First, we're meant to assume that we're being recorded at all times. According to proven/accepted information, the government won't look at our data unless they have reason to, where "reason to" is up for interpretation. This panopticon will do two things: scare everyone into accepted submission and/or mentally break them down to the point that they give up trying to adhere to social norms 100% of the time. Currently, other than for "terrorists" there is very little punishment for minor offenses. Any sentencing would inherently admit more power and jurisdiction than we might accept as a society. It's better to ease into this sort of thing, start with the terrorists.

Secondly, there's the issue of privacy. It is not clear what exactly is private information anymore. Between the US government and its contractors, corporations like Google and Facebook, and any information I choose to share with friends and family, I am not sure there's any secret or piece of information that someone else doesn't know. A lot of people are up-in-arms about their loss of privacy. 

I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what value privacy actually has. Privacy, secrecy, and lies are all made of the same stuff. At best, privacy protects us from unfair jurisdictions. No human is perfect and our privacy allows us to cover our mistakes, keep our law-breaking out-of-sight from potential enforcement. Without unfair regulations, what could privacy ever offer us that we actually need? The attack shouldn't be on the protection of our privacy, but on the abilities of those in power to punish.

What are the implications of recording the daily comings and goings of all American citizens?
There's the vanity that prevents anyone from being truly angry. There's a wealth of  information to be gleaned. Presently, knowledge of cycles, interests, desires, and habits can be capitalized on for advertising and other forms of mind control, certainly. Technology and our adaptation to it is slowly giving marketers this power. 

I am more interested in the implications of the future. Imagine in 50 years, the release of all this information, wherein anyone could witness the activities of a young person who later became a world changer or their parents or grandparents. The first inclination is that it would be embarrassing to have every minute of your illegal cell phone recording or webcam streaming information to be seen by anyone, because those are private moments. But, by the time any of that data is viewed by anyone else in the general public, they will no longer think there's anything taboo about it. We are entering into an age of full transparency.

This slow and unknowing transition from assumed privacy to the  realization of full transparency might actually be the most beneficial. Since we're unknowingly being watched, we still aren't afraid to be ourselves in our most private moments. We can hope that constant surveillance, instead of causing us to conform to societal standards, might actually help us shape into more confident individuals, unafraid to express who we really are at all times. The inevitable loss of privacy will cause an abrupt confrontation between anyone "in charge" i.e. law makers, media, bosses, and  what is actually a true representation of human kind. Rather than what we present behind masks to the world, we will have to get used to merging our private and public selves in a seamless whole, and not go crazy in the process. 

The drive to work today was really ethereal. The sky was ice-white and a thick fog hung frozen in the air. Despite the inclement weather, everyone went pretty fast on I-25 and I was on-time for work. The sun started to shine behind the fog just as I neared my exit and by the time I got to work the sky was blue and clear as any summer day.