Sometimes, I do not fit in with ‘the crowd’. And even though I understand my misfitted social standing better than most, it is a problem in my life as untamed as the very seas that surround me. Its a truth that perpetuates simply because I will not offer up my will to those almost automatic processes in my brain that say ‘just rely on altruistic fairness’.

What in the holy hell does that mean? Well, allow me to explain.

Other people seem to talk about their life as if like some shape, they have always been made just so, and managed to fit into some designated place. These people consider that they have always been right where they belonged. Sadly they are unaware, that this constant is a trick played by the mind. Implemented to keep people (most of them anyway) emotionally stable. This emotional counter-balance can only be described with two words: altruistic fairness.

Altruistic fairness as a measure, is exactly how the mind makes you accept whatever it is you end up with, and it is also what keeps you from trying to set the world on fire, if what you end up with substantially less than desired. The mind does this and other things through a complex process which has been re-enforced your entire life; activities learned all too soon become behavior.

For instance, If you were shooting for a $500,000 house, and end up with a house worth $250,000, almost immediately, neurological activity takes place that quite literally re-writes your preferences. You will now consider the $250,000 option to have been not only just as well, but better (and why not? its YOUR house — that too is part of the trick, just because this particular house is YOURS its better, it now shares all your ‘goodness’). You’ll ponder on how much closer it is to places you like to go. Maybe its near relatives. Its certainty much better than a house worth $100,000, you’ll reason. Besides, you had fallen in love with this particular house’s in-ground pool…

Did you really though? The answer was an obvious ‘no.’ But now, its, ‘of course’. Altruistic fairness provides guidance in this way and would act to make you feel great with whatever you ended up. The mind protects itself from being overwhelmed from any sort of consistently negative observation (as part of the survival instinct), it is achieved in the simplest and most economic way — through the measure of things under the scopes of altruistic fairness, we change what we fundamentally believe was best; we change our mind.  The facts however remain unchanged.

When I see this, I tend to immediately denounce it. Only because I hate to see someone allow such a simple mechanism stop them from the greater goal. For all the good it does, this leverage of altruistic fairness perhaps, is the greatest of human flaws. And as I sit there watching, writhing in unutterable anger at these people, I wonder: How few are we — those of us being weird — that look beyond our own sorted programming, and try to find the world hidden under our cheated senses, conceived within a mind full of lies?

I’ve written about this topic before. And though I type on it, stare at a laptop screen framed of it, and am utterly surrounded by it, the idea is still provocative even to me, that plastic (an innovation so subtle yet ubiquitous) is also at the core of a potential threat to life on Earth. I took a real interest in this idea because it seemed obviously urgent, but because one particular aspect seemed totally, and a bit ironically neglected. The irony I find is, so many people fall back on the topic of the weather. Evidently, not so much when it counts. To help myself and others understand my somewhat radical thoughts about the environment, and to discuss such ironically neglected aspects, I present as preface three very real, very relevant facts about our planet and life, followed by obvious speculation about how these phenomena might be inter-connected and in such a way as to to change life as we know it.

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Reading this article made me absolutely sick to my stomach. Sure, there are some alarmist positions taken here, but, thats not exactly a bad position to take as every bit is also true. Apparently, we’re ingesting a lot of very, very toxic chemicals, and rather frequently. Worse though than what we’re doing to ourselves, is what we’re doing to the planet. Now, we’ve discovered how natural processes can aggregate all these waste materials. The really depressing thing: I can’t seem to make a change in my own life as far as not using plastic… its EVERYWHERE — the keys on this keyboard, the mouse, parts of this chair, the case of the PC and the monitor, the cup next to me, its lid, etc, etc.

If you haven’t noticed, you should. And to do so, you should really take some time out and have a look at Chris Jordan’s website. His art is our destruction, and it speaks very powerful messages. His pictures help expose these types of unseen, natural disasters. Chris Jordan’s site is right here, and has been linked on the blogroll for a while. Since looking at it, I’ve been researching more, and more cases along this line. I hope to find a way to change how I live my own life for the better, and maybe it could help inspire you to do that too.