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Over the past week, I had a couple of good interviews for a temp-to-perm opportunity in the coastal area of New Hampshah… so I am starting tomorrow! At 8:30am! OMG!

I really liked the people there, and I thought it was a good fit technically, and I like the area (seacoast!), and, finally, I think that what they do is pretty darn interesting!

I had an idea… what was it? Oh, yeah! I’ll have to email that one to myself for later!

I’m hoping to relocate down there before the end of the contract. That will be dictated primarily by my financial health, so we’ll see how quickly I can put down this ungodly beast! It shouldn’t take much longer than six weeks for me to do so.

The road which takes me from mysticism to rationality passes through many junctures, but the one on my mind this morning is that of evolution.

I couldn’t say when I first heard the term, but I certainly labored under multiple misconceptions as to its claims as well as to its supporting evidence for many years before finally taking it upon myself to look into the matter independently.

What I discovered when I did so was that everything I had been told about evolution in particular had been utterly wrong. What had been shoved down my throat was a combination of deception, manipulation, and conspiracy. What I find most amusing (in a sad way) is the depiction of “scientists” as these evil, horrible bastards who want to “rob us of our way of life!”

What I find especially amusing about that is that while there are some scientists who, for sure, consider religion to be incredibly harmful, there are probably more who, quite frankly, choose to spend their time doing science instead. It’s all up to the individual, of course!

In any case, what I discovered for myself through the theory of evolution is the total reversal of my worldview. Instead of top-down, where there was an all-powerful creator (or, a central source of existence), the world actually grew from the bottom-up.

This isn’t simply a matter of changing perspective. This changes the entire frame of reference. As you might consider the difference between a geocentric and a heliocentric model of the solar system, so evolution is a similar change, but yet more fundamental.

I owe a debt to authors like Richard Dawkins for so colorfully pointing these things out. And yet… the conclusion is unimportant if one does not understand the methodology.

I understood the conclusions, in part, far before I understood (or, rather, began to understand) the methodology behind the conclusions.

It isn’t so important that we know where we came from. It is much more important that we know how to know.

This is where the greater world of philosophy comes in. The methodology is important if you wish to take the conclusion of evolution and see if it applies anywhere else in the world. Certainly, the evidence for it applying to biology is overwhelming–you have to blind yourself in order to not accept it. However, applying evolution to society or language or any other discipline without understanding the methodology is being just as willfully blind as the raging religioso who vehemently denies reality.

I may well have done this myself, especially since I tend to see patterns that may or may not correspond to each other–just like everybody else. For example, I see a direct parallel between the worldview of most religious faiths–a centralized planner directing the universe that demands our obsequience–and the worldview of just about everybody in existence on the planet in government as a centralized planning agency directing every aspect of our lives… that also demands our obsequience.

Those tend to be very abstract, and many people–far from a majority–understand that these abstractions do not deserve our obsequience. These abstractions do not deserve our servility. Adherents demand it and, when they can, they violently attempt to obtain it, but they cannot ever truly get it, not in the sense of voluntary submission out of love of virtue.

There is another group, another abstraction of sorts, that follows this model. They are the centralized planners that purport to orchestrate the goings on in our lives and demand our obsequience in return. They demand our servility, our “respect,” our “love.”

This abstraction is that of the family.

“The family” does not deserve our love any more than God or politicians do.

The only people that deserve our love are those that are good.

Goodness does not derive from fantasy or biological accident.

This is, perhaps, the most fundamental application of evolution–the goodness of the family is not inherent in the biological relationship. It does not proceed from the top-down. Goodness emerges from the bottom-up–from the individual. From the internal. From the person. Goodness comes from within, and is not imposed from without.

I am trying to live my life as a good person, trying to live as one who deserves love… and I am withholding my love from those who do not deserve it, as painful as that is at times, because I have been told otherwise my entire life.

Thanks go to the efforts of Stefan Molyneux and the participants of Freedomain Radio.

Mr. Grimes was my fourth grade math teacher. I think that I had him for other subjects, but mathematics was the one I recall.

He was teaching the solution form for subtraction. In particular, he was demonstrating how you would borrow from the column to the left in order to perform a simple subtraction (cross off the number to the left, decrement it, and put a “1″ by the number in the column you’re working in).

What I noticed, however, was his use of the number “9″ as the minuend (yeah, I had to look that one up). Since it was in the “ones” column, I noticed that you would never, ever need to borrow from the column to the left with a “9″ on top.

So, I raised my hand and pointed this out. I can’t remember exactly the exchange that took place, but I do remember that I ended up feeling humiliated in the exchange. I think I caught him off guard, because I do remember him trying to not appear embarrassed. However, instead of saying, “Oops, let’s choose a better example,” he chose to make me the bad guy for pointing out his poor choice of an example.

Oh, Mr. Grimes… do you still go out of your way to humiliate children in an effort to save face?

I haven’t yet eaten today… and I would eat, if I felt a little hungry. My head hurts a little, probably because of the aforementioned lack of food, but if I’m not feeling hungry, why should I eat?

So, I’ve finally got something employment-wise, but I won’t be seeing dollar signs until about three weeks from now. That means I have about three weeks to survive on about $500, with two of those weeks involving a daily drive from where I live to where the contract is… and that won’t be cheap.

I don’t know if I would have any credit left by now… I could possibly hit up the local bank to see if they’ll give me a short-term loan of about $1000 for about six months or something (or even three months)… because $500 for living and working expenses for three weeks while driving and everything is bad enough, but I’ve got other organizations that would like to be paid sooner rather than later… to say nothing of rent.

And who knows–maybe there are state or federal assistance programs out there, but will they turn around quickly enough to give me a quick infusion of cash? I need the money now, not later, not “eventually.” I won’t be needing the money in four or five weeks–I need it tomorrow.

This seems to be my pattern of existence for the past 6 years or so. I really, really hope that I can break it.

Certainly, a lot of it has to do with being trained to be a certain way in relationships to others. Instead of confronting my own problems and allowing others to confront theirs, I attempt to bury mine and solve other people’s problems… which, really, only ends up with more problems for me because then my problems are unresolved and I gain dependents.

Specifically, I feel anxious if somebody around me is expressing distress. Instead of questioning why I feel anxiety because of somebody else’s problem that may or may not have anything to do with me, I leap into action with the Big Sopping Wet Band-Aid of the Universe to try to solve the problem.

It’s like I think I’m some sort of Superman, some sort of Savior… but I’m not. I’m just a man… but more than that, when I try to do that, I’m doing more than just trying to “rescue” somebody else–I am hiding my own pain, ignoring my own feelings, subjugating my own desires… for what?

The upside of this is that being the way I am is not my fault. Specifically, I was trained to be this way by my parents. The downside, of course, is that now that I am aware of it (and, honestly, I’ve been increasingly aware of it for six weeks now but I think I’ve been trying to ignore it), I am fully responsible from here on out.

Into the breach.

I’ve begun to receive unsolicited email in German.

Normally, I get penis pill spam and stock tip spam.

Germans, however, appear to get off on office chairs.

I find myself beating down that oh-so-familiar path, knocking on employer’s doors (well, email and voice inboxes), attempting to maintain a positive mood as the outlook for employment waxes and wanes from opportunity to opportunity.

It seems fair to say that I’ve not had a lot of luck with employment–certainly, I’ve made less than optimal decisions! I remember at least two times in my career, I’ve taken positions with employers in which my stomach fell through the crust of the earth during the interview. I took those jobs, however, and I was miserable through and through.

The only thing that makes any sense with that reaction (taking a position that my intuition was warning me against) is that I had been trained to ignore my gut feeling about things.

I haven’t documented my intuition, but I’ve certainly felt on numerous occasions that when I’ve had a negative feeling and ignored it, I have regretted ignoring that crucial signal.

So, I took what felt like a pretty big risk with a recent interview and followed my gut (not difficult, you say? I do plan on losing weight eventually! haha), and you know what? It felt pretty damn good to trust myself. So good, in fact, that I intend to continue doing exactly that.

Yeah, money is definitely tight (some may aptly say, “non-existent”) and it’s already getting to be pretty difficult. I was not able to transition directly from my last role into another one, so I’m finding it necessary to “double-time” it. Today felt productive, however, so that’s good. I was able to make positive impressions and I may very well have at least some work in a short while.

It wasn’t all fun and games today, however. I left my last role for a number of reasons, the most egregious of which was non-payment of services rendered. Earlier today, I complained about not receiving a check that they promised to send, they attempted to intimidate me despite the fact that they could not possibly follow through (but they could really give me a hard time).

Personally, I want this to be over and done with. While I’d definitely like to have that money, I really have to wonder, how much trouble am I willing to go through to get it? What actually bothers me more is the threat that was made against me–I want to get corrupt people out of my life as quickly as possible. I can’t do it by being a pushover, obviously, but I don’t want to bring week or months (or even longer??) of irritation and bullshit and all that stuff into my life. I want to do whatever it is that will end this stupid charade.