hypocrisy as a theme; objectivity as an impossibility

i'm a bit embarrassed because just a few days ago, in the real world, i ate a chicken sandwich from hardees. you have no idea how much it pains me to say that. it was free and i was starving - a friend bought it, and then offered it to me. it wasn't horrible. it was pretty good - the flavor was more striking than flavor i'm used too; i mostly eat rather plain home cooked food. i felt a little bit sick later in the evening... probably psychosomatic. two nights later, i dream that i'm being interviewed. possibly for a job, not completely certain of this. anyhow, i've been talking to this guy for several minutes when he asks whether or not i consider myself healthy. i say yes. he asks if i eat healthily. i say yes, but feel strange as i slightly remember eating fast food recently. it was once in a few months, it's not a lifestyle, i think. he asks if i exercise, i say yes. he says 'you don't run do you?' i say yes. he asks if i'm an alcoholic, i say yes. i feel suddenly as if i've made a mistake. end dream. it's strange that i've had two dreams recently (previous post) that appeared to be blatant critiques of my lifestyle. i wonder how conflicted i am, and whether this is a big problem. aligning my lifestyle with my beliefs is high on some subconcious to-do list, apparently.

thought: something i was thinking yesterday evening. for awhile, i fancied myself as an objective thinker in relation not so much to my peers, but to the general population. i have said often that objectivity is to science as christ is to christianity. unachievable accept through a loose and likely misunderstood relationship. recently i realized something further. objective reasoning, or evaluation concerning a specific event or phenomena is somewhat possible. unbiased research is possible. i oft find myself changing my beliefs or opinions slightly in accordance with new information -- a bit of proof that correct information sometimes takes priority over passionate beliefs. wal-mart. pretty bad. not quite as bad as i thought. pretty bad though.

distraction: i was going to use the definition of 'prejudice' as another example of me changing my opinion - only in this case, of me being wrong. in a psychology class during a heated discussion about prejudice (in the racist sense), i said that prejudice means to form an opinion with incorrect information or no information, so if someone admits to being prejudiced against someone they are inherently incorrect. someone argued that it may be socially unreasonable but not incorrect by definition. i looked the word up at home, and found this "3.unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, esp. of a hostile nature, regarding a racial, religious, or national group." (Random House Unabridged 2006) I later admitted to being wrong. I just found the following: "1. To cause to have prejudice; to prepossess with opinions formed without due knowledge or examination; to bias the mind of, by hasty and incorrect notions; to give an unreasonable bent to, as to one side or the other of a cause; as, to prejudice a critic or a juryman." (Webster 1913) so at least i hadn't made it up, it was just outdated.

back to thought: objectivity as a lifestyle. impossible. to objectively evaluate every aspect of every one of your personal opinions would be akin to rebuilding yourself from scratch. to objectively research every piece of information that is involved with forming your opinions is completely impossible. ridiculous even. so here's the new belief: objective about things that it has been brought to my attention are worth being objective about. otherwise, form my opinion based on personal research. basically, as long as i'm preventing other people, peoples, agencies, organizations and corporations from forming my opinions for me, i'll be alright.

a dream; blatant hypocrisy

i feel that dreams utilize a system of emphasizing and understating content; much like cinematography is used in film. i would like to explore that a bit more later. last night i dreamt of several weddings that included many of my friends and family members. the weddings themselves were so atypical and incongruous that i don't believe they were of any literal or symbolic importance. during one of the weddings though, i was sitting next to my brother at a picnic table. i was talking about cigarettes. i was saying that if you were to eat cigarettes they would make you sick, and in a large enough quantity they would kill you. i was marveling at the amount of poisons in cigarettes. cigarettes cause cancer, they are addictive, they are expensive, they have ill effects on the respiratory system, on your circulatory system, on your cardiovascular system. they cause low birth weight. the side of the box says 'smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and may complicate pregnancy'. they are packaged with pamphlets about how to quit. what's so ridiculous, is that all of this is common knowledge, and people still smoke. why? because subtle advertising depicts this really desirable image associated with smoking. cowboys. guitar players. snow boarders. white water rafters. guys that have sexy girls on both sides. groups of smiling people that are having the time of their lives. they all smoke. and it's addictive. try it a few times, and the rest of your smoking career basically takes care of itself. these are the things i'm telling my brother. also, i say, smoking makes your clothes smell like smoke. not classy grandfatherish cigar smoke, but shredded compressed tobacco paper cheap smoke. not only that, i say, but people who have been smoking for ten years, you can smell putrid lung on their breath. as if someone left a steak out on the counter for three hot days. it is absolutely revolting. as i'm talking about this to my brother, in a slightly hushed tone because we're at a wedding type thing, i catch his eye making its' return from a brief glance at my pocket. it's one of those dreams. worse than being naked in front of your peers (which i've never had by the way). i don't even have to look, i know there is a pack of cigarettes in my pocket.

in reality, i do smoke occasionally. it can be difficult to manage moderation, especially with an addictive substance. i feel like i'm doing a lot better than people that smoke a pack a day. pride is poison. even if you only eat a little shit, you better believe you're a shit eater.

dream types; a dream

i assume that dreams feel different for different people. i remember my dreams as clearly as the events of yesterday; not crystal, but usable memories. my dreams often take on one of three forms: abstract, epic, and instructional.
abstract dreams are not of a visual nature, they are more like a collection of precognitive data that has not yet aligned itself to one of the oft used five senses. abstract dreams often present themselves in the form of emotional or intuitive content within a mathematical or logical context. this is very difficult to understand and leaves me with a feeling of longing for clarity.
epic dreams are distinct in their audial and visual clarity. they normally consist of a number of related events either experienced in the first person, or less often, the third person. the likelihood or realism of these events ranges very dramatically. most epic dreams feel as if they are being experienced for at least several minutes, often several hours or even days. sometimes, certain words, phrases, or images are commonplace to the point of being representative of the dream; i am often left with a very symbolic memory of such words or images.
instructional dreams are more like an educational film or a tutor than an interactive experience. often, a concept or idea is presented from some source other than myself strictly for the purpose of making me familiar with it. these dreams do not endow the same caliber of memory as the epic dreams, and often leave me trying to remember wording or imagery.

two nights ago i had a dream that i would consider instructional, and i was lucky enough to remember the main 'scene' from it, so to speak. i was inside a comfortable limousine and was driving along a highway. beside the highway were several power line towers, and what appeared to be farmland and farmers. i was interested to see the farmers more clearly, who appeared to be asian due to their dress and farming posture. as i tried to look out of the window, the image became foggy. i continued trying to peer through the foggy window for several minutes to minimal avail. a clear voice spoke around me the words "to study something is to contaminate it with your ego". i realized the fog in the window was my reflection.