It seems like the time allotted to just be free is so little that it is hard to decide what to do. Work takes up so much of my time and then I get home and either prepare dinner or clean up messes that I can’t even claim responsibility for. Once that’s done, I might have 30 min or an hour to myself if I’m lucky. But what else kind of life is even an option for me at this point? And so we all just take it.

Well, besides that depressing rant…. I figured out what it was in Harman’s work that bothered me. I think he makes a case for considering objects the way he does, but it’s a language game more than a true ontology. An object for Harman is something distinct from other objects by not being the totality of their effects nor the pieces that make up the object.

But really what he is saying simply results in an object merely being recognized by its relationships to its own identity and to the identity of other objects.

In other news, my stomach has killed me most of the day and I don’t know why. Eating and not eating have the same result. I need to be getting ready for a Tennessee trip this weekend too, but it’ll have to wait.

I’m finishing up the first chapter of Harman’s OOO today, but I have to comment on his view of an object, especially in relation to his equivocation of objects and events.

To Harman, “an object is more than its pieces and less than its effects” (53, emphasis his). But what does this really tell us? To me, it means that any conglomeration of any group of things is an object. But each of those things is also an object. I’m assuming that calling this an event means that an object is in time as well as space.

On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be any issue. However, an object seems to lose all sense of identity when viewed this way. I think my objects extend well beyond identity though. From a New Realist perspective, objects must exist somewhere. Harman combines the object with its space-time location. But consider the nature of reality – it contains everything within it. It eliminates effects – true, but it also makes all objects fall into Harman’s category of objects being less than their effects.

This does not mean that he is wrong, only that he isn’t telling us much in a positive sense. I think that he might fail due to his rejection of a physical basis of objects and the combination of an object with its information.

On another note, the book is quite enjoyable to read and his writing style is wonderful. For now, I’m off to sign some providers up for training and reconcile some Excel sheets.

I have a playlist that I rarely take away from and only occasionally add to. I call it Down. It’s twin is called Positive. The former was the list for the night with only a few showing above.

Tonight, I also added some Minecraft worlds for my daughter to play with and got frustrated that the Xbox One doesn’t exactly play nice with iOS add-ons so I had to buy a different set for her there in the end. I had one phone call, one FaceTime, and a few texts that said Happy Birthday.

But tomorrow, I won’t receive texts unless someone is telling me they are running late for work or they are out with a sick kid (or because they are without electricity from this weird ice storm that did nothing at my house but tore up areas within a 30 min drive). On the upside, I did have one of my wife’s friends say, “Hey, friend!” When I saw her Friday and it shocked me for a moment because I haven’t heard that phrase towards me in a while. She works with good people and that one has even come to a game night and slept over. It makes me wonder if a shift in jobs to people who are also near my age would make me feel better. Everyone I work with is older than me except for one. And I’m over almost all/responsible for all of them so I don’t interact much outside of my tasks. It sucks life from you.

I need to find some positive things to talk about on here. One day RC may find this and think man this guy’s life sucks! But really it’s not that bad – just mediocre, like everyone else.

ADHD medicine/weight loss medicine does not give me energy. The weight loss – yes, but it’s driving me insane with boredom. There’s a feeling of numbness that pervades everything. Nothing feels beautiful or fun, nothing tastes good. We are simply a bundle of chemicals and mass and we’d better not forget it. We are happy because of these chemicals and there’s nothing we can do about it. Evolution sucks sometimes.

ADHD medicine/weight loss medicine does not give me energy. The weight loss – yes, but it’s driving me insane with boredom. There’s a feeling of numbness that pervades everything. Nothing feels beautiful or fun, nothing tastes good. We are simply a bundle of chemicals and mass and we’d better not forget it. We are happy because of these chemicals and there’s nothing we can do about it. Evolution sucks sometimes.

Tonight, I’m laying in bed listening to Mike Waters’ “Shiver” on faux repeat, reflecting on a mild crisis I had today: wondering what I’m searching for.

I’m currently running a medical office of 52 people while the manager is out (normally, I’m second in command), playing music on the weekend, writing as a ghostwriter, and shooting photography and video for a music project. In exactly one month, I’ll be starting my last year of my M.A. in Humanities. By April, I’ll have finished recording 2 EPS for some guys. I’ve also taken sketching back up as a hobby and resumed going to the gym at 5:30 AM every frickin day.

But when I get home each day, I feel so distracted and usually tired that I dismissed the kids begging me to play. When dinner is finished and they’re in bed, I feel awful for not spending time with them or reading at bedtime.

There’s no use in wondering about some ultimate meaning in life when I can’t simply enjoy the simple things. But that’s always been my problem – I’ve neglected the present to chase the future. Once upon a time, that meant ignoring life on earth trying to understand life afterwards. Now, it’s all temporary and material. Just more evidence that no questions can be satisfied without raising new questions.

Questions – those incestuous, relentless demons – how I’ve love and hate them.

Now, “Shine” by The Morning Of is playing and I’m just wondering how it is that love songs start to just sound stupid. So full of absolute words like “always” and “forever” and the like (not even sure if those are in that song though) that I shake my head. Perhaps I’m just growing old a bit more. I’ll hit 32 in a few more days. All I really long for now are good laughs and nice long conversations, both of which are too few and far between.

Maybe the answer to my little crisis today is that I just need to put more time and effort into being around people. But besides those in my house and my immediate family, there’s no one else I can just talk to anymore. It’s been more than a year since I’ve had that and about two years since I’ve heard from anyone in my past. I’m convinced that ghosts are just the memories of people who don’t exist as you remember them. I think of those ghosts often and often without meaning to.

Goodnight ghosts and strangers.