"Stop analyzing!"

This is the refrain of many who spend even a small amount of time in my company.

I answer truthfully: "I can't." But there is another answer, just as truthful, that I don't say: "I won't."

I have broken through a barrier and have glimpsed truth once more. (Long, rambling post ahead.)

On my long (long, long) walk to Ciara's yesterday, I experienced something I do not see very often: natural beauty.

There's a difference, in my mind, between natural beauty and what I might call "human beauty", which is to say, art and indeed any human creation. The disparity, I think, lies in meaning. Art -- human creations -- inherently possess some meaning; even if we don't know what it is, even if the artist doesn't know what it is, even if it isn't possible to convey in any form of communication we possess, there is a meaning. All human creation is in pursuit of some purpose -- often, we just aren't aware of it.

But the need for meaning is a feature found solely in human beings. The natural world does not desire meaning; it exists simply because it exists. Its form has been decided by evolution and no small degree of random chance; and as such, inherently meaningless, its beauty is, I believe, of an entirely different character from the beauty of art.

At Ben's party tonight we played football. Though I'm not much on offense -- can't catch the ball worth shit -- it was observed that I am somewhat adept at tackling. Not from any skill or experience (I played soccer and basketball when I was younger, but never football), but simply from an almost bloodthirsty tenacity and persistence. Simply put, when I decide to take somebody down, either they go down, or I do. There is no compromising, no meeting-at-half-way, no agree-to-disagree.

When I write (to diverge a bit and reconnect to this point later), my highest concern is always for character. I want to feel what they are feeling and understand why they do what they do -- and if I can't, I won't write (or at "best" I'll end up with hollow shit). So when my characters are compassionate, or sad, I feel it... and when they are angry, or hateful, or raging, I feel it as well.

For future reference, both a fascinating dialogue and proof that video games are more than just entertainment (this is from Deus Ex):

MORPHEUS: JC Denton. 23 years old. No residence. No ancestors. No employer. No --

JC DENTON: How do you know who I am?

MORPHEUS: I must greet each visitor with a complete summary of his file. I am a prototype for a much larger system.

JC DENTON: What else do you know about me?

MORPHEUS: Everything that can be known.

JC DENTON: Go on. Do you have proof about my ancestors?

MORPHEUS: You are a planned organism, the offspring of knowledge and imagination rather than of individuals.

JC DENTON: I'm engineered. So what? My brother and I suspected as much while we were growing up.

MORPHEUS: You are carefully watched by many people. The unplanned organism is a question asked by Nature and answered by death. You are another kind of question with another kind of answer.

JC DENTON: Are you programmed to invent riddles?

MORPHEUS: I am a prototype for a much larger system. The heuristics language developed by Dr. Everett allows me to convey the highest and most succinct tier of any pyramidal construct of knowledge.

JC DENTON: How about a report on yourself?

MORPHEUS: I was a prototype for Echelon IV. My instructions are to amuse visitors with information about themselves.

JC DENTON: I don't see anything amusing about spying on people.

MORPHEUS: Human beings feel pleasure when they are watched. I have recorded their smiles as I tell them who they are.

JC DENTON: Some people just don't understand the dangers of indiscriminate surveillance.

MORPHEUS: The need to be observed and understood was once satisfied by God. Now we can implement the same functionality with data-mining algorithms.

JC DENTON: Electronic surveillance hardly inspired reverence. Perhaps fear and obedience, but not reverence.

MORPHEUS: God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgment, and punishment. Other sentiments toward them were secondary.

JC DENTON: No one will ever worship a software entity peering at them through a camera.

MORPHEUS: The human organism always worships. First it was the gods, then it was fame (the observation and judgment of others), next it will be the self-aware systems you have built to realize truly omnipresent observation and judgment.

JC DENTON: You underestimate humankind's love of freedom.

MORPHEUS: The individual desires judgment. Without that desire, the cohesion of groups is impossible, and so is civilization.

MORPHEUS: The human being created civilization not because of a willingness but because of a need to be assimilated into higher orders of structure and meaning. God was a dream of good government. You will soon have your God, and you will make it with your own hands.

They say that money doesn't buy happiness. That saying is often dismissed as being obviously wrong, and it is, in a way. The intent of the saying, I think, is that money in and of itself is not happiness -- having piles of money does not inherently make you happy. This is true (hopefully obviously). But money can (also obviously) make acquiring life's material necessities (and pleasing unnecessities, if I may make up a word) easier -- which is the intent of those who scoff at the saying.

The point is that money is a means to an end, and not an end itself. This is what many people lose sight of when they waste their lives in pursuit of cash and forget to ever stop and enjoy it.

This, I think, is a well-known situation these days. But this issue also applies to other situations, such as science.