please don't read this

someone call the boys in white, we got a keeper here

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Say hello to J.M.O.

I was driving home a tennis buddy and somewhere near their house there was a strong smell of weed. It was sweet. On the way back I parked and just took in the night air. Groovey.
Actually, I've never smoked nuthin' in my life. The only time I had a cigerette in my mouth was when I was helping my dad fix the car and he had to quickly do something while all our hands were full. There was nowhere to put his precious sin stick so he stuck it in his 9 yr old son's mouth.
Anyway, this weed was damned strong. I've been in houses where people were smokin' up and so in a closed environment but this was outside on a breezy night and it was stronger. Yum.

I have this interesting friend who's a real free thinker. A free thinking anarchist some would say. Someone who doesn't want to live the inauthentic life as described by Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard.
Kierkegaard defined dread as the knowledge of what you must do to prove you’re free, even if it will destroy you. His example is Adam in the Garden of Eden, happy and content until God shows him the Tree of Knowledge and says, “Don’t eat this.” Now, Adam is no longer free. There is one rule he can break, he must break to prove his freedom, even if it destroys him. Kierkegaard says the moment we are forbidden to do something, we will do it. It is inevitable. According to Kierkegaard, the person who allows the law to control his life, who says the possible isn’t possible just because it’s illegal, is leading the inauthentic life.
My friend has taken that philosophy and gone one step further in that not only does he break the law, but he tries to do things that he think will benefit the common man.
I learned that he vandalizes SUVs in random places throughout the city. He leaves notes on the burned+busted trucks that say things like "right now, you're angry at your misfortune. But if you ever get over your self centeredness you'll see that the loss of your gas burning, space wasting, pollution machine, means that the world is a slightly better place"
Say hello to J.M.O.