Hobbes. Cheerful looking fellow. Not exactly an optimist about human nature, but if I lived in England during the Civil War, I doubt I'd be strewing daisies and roses. But still - foundationless philosophy.

Shaken but, I think, still firm.

Objective morality - if there is no justification, why should I not be entirely self-serving? i.e. - "If there is no God, everything is permitted."

We think that if we have no obligation to follow this if we recieve entirely no reward (even if the reward is only the pleasure of knowing that we have done the 'right' thing, that the decision we have made somehow elevates us). We cannot be satisfied with knowing that, for ourselves and no others, we have made the choice we found most fit.

Without others' judgments, we would have no checks upon our unlimited power to be morally corrput. Is this the view of ourselves we really wish to espouse? That without justification we would act just as the thief, the murderer, which we so presently despise?

The argument for God - unconstrained, we would destroy ourselves. Does humanity need to invent false idols, whether it be in the guise of a deistic figure or for some objective moral standpoint that we should all fulfill, in order to function? We invent morality because we cannot reconcile a society where its hand does not guide us, or a life where through its relentless maze we cannot follow.

We clasp our hands, we stare at the deepening of stars, we govern ourselves in such a way only so that we can cry "I am not alone".

I continue - I exist - the rawness of my throat and the warm vapor of my breath confirms this.

The ambulances and police cars outside my window.

Life is comic. The way we govern ourselves is comic. The way we have created strict patterns of behavior and unerringly adhere to them (most do, most do because the consequences are too deeply ingrained) is all so frighteningly absurd.

And yet, like the turn of a key in the cell...like the hanging lock, the strip of light which seems to fall upon that darkness...it is freedom of thought, not freedom of movement. It is the gratuity of expression, the necessary rupture of the cry "I..." even that, even only that, is enough.

Hissing of cars in the street like startled cats. Pounding of bass. It's a Sunday, and people are attending evening Mass. They're praying. They're pouring their desires into an empty offering-box.

The lamp casts a shadow whose edges fan away like a watercolor. Beneath that the digital clock is harshly modern. And beneath that - The Communist Manifesto. "...my right hand had been clutching my left in sympathy..."

My throat - the collar of freckles there - itches. I reach to scratch it with a lazy indifference. My notebook. I'll need a new one for the next semester tomorrow. The next semester, and all that it entails. Here's to starting again.

El gato estaba sentado en la terraza - fantaseando, supongo, como muchos gatos lo hacen.

All for you, kitty. Translating my thoughts in Spanish. Now there's a job I don't want.

Very quiet. The house is very quiet and a little cold. The music makes it feel surreal.

I am struck by the absurdity of life. Still - this is not entirely unpleaseant.

Kafka reading Either/Or before he died.

How bitter we can become when greeted with impossibility, or even its pale and intangible shadow. How willing to embrace hopelessness to rid ourselves of the perils of responsibility!

And still, can we ignore the beautiful in the name of realism? I think that is far more dangerous than harboring empty but seductive ideals.

Rights and belief mingle into beaurocracy, which eliminates them both in a chokehold that slowly drains away the passion which gave them form. The tragedy of our time - ideas without implementation, ideas without fruition, ideas without realization. The helplessness of having no exit.

Art- art imitates life (should life imitate art?) - is art and aestheticism the only comfortable escape? We ignore history and coax it into a convenience for the present. Action should have 'historical precedent', but what use is this if the precedant is fabricated from the illusory desire of some political mind?

The emphasis we put upon winning, upon excelling, upon measuring ourselves against an ultimately foundationless standard which merely succeeds in flattering ourselves into inequity and a paralytic satisfaction. Should we recognise that there is nothing to measure ourselves against we could expel needless anxiety and inadequacy, and gather enough courage to face the terrifying freedom of the human experience.