i read a cool book - Nietzche's Genealogy of Morals. It's a collection of three essays addressing the conflict between "master" and "slave" moralities - setting up the conflict, showing how christianity and other creeds fall in the slave camp, proposing where guilt came from, discussing the role of the priests (a.k.a. the elsworth tooheys of the world), and finally lumping together science in its metaphysical reliance on the existence of truth with religion and god. the crux of the discussion is how slave morality has to deny the present in order to make people feel better and to, in turn, subjugate the masters.

One of the interesting points that came out of the book for me was the concept that the individuals that define their own morality are the ones better off than the those who attempt to follow the morals of others. even if that morality is the denial all that is "good", if you are the one implementing it, and forcing it on people to your own advantage, you are better off than the guy who accepts something as "good" because everyone else does.

obviously this is nothing new (although it is cool that Nietzsche came up with this stuff when he did), and as liberated, acid-tested, free-thinking individuals we are all busily creating our own codes for making decisions, interacting with other people, and, generally, living. So, at the risk of exposing the meagerness of my blog reader population, what are your morals and guiding principles? and to make it more interesting, where do you think they come from (family, society, your own brilliance, etc.)? i'm gonna think about mine too and save them for the next entry.

what's the point? well, i think this is an important step on the path to founding a religion. and a conversation that would be fun to have stoned and in person, if all you fuckers didn't live so far away. and it's a new opportunity for ahren to make bad jokes, which distracts him from all the hot vegas grannies.

p.s. the spell checker suggestion for "ahren" is "harem".