{"id":12521,"date":"2010-07-01T09:00:10","date_gmt":"2010-07-01T16:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=12521"},"modified":"2010-07-01T07:56:36","modified_gmt":"2010-07-01T14:56:36","slug":"reasons-to-be-cheerful-part-3-1-the-song-of-the-self","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12521\/reasons-to-be-cheerful-part-3-1-the-song-of-the-self\/","title":{"rendered":"Reasons to be cheerful, Part 3.1: The song of the self."},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a dumb thing to say, but at the same time, I think it’s the essence of everything, the one thing that most needs to be said:<\/p>\n

I love life. I love living. I love being alive as a human being — a genetic homo sapiens<\/em> within whom has been cultivated a self — and I love, love, love being<\/em> that self with a deep and abiding adoration. I don’t want to be anyone but me, but I want to be me to the utmost, to the evermost — without shame, without hiding or disguising myself in any way and without one word of apology to anyone, ever.<\/p>\n

This is fact, obvious and dumb to say but utterly necessary to understand: We are each of us all alone inside the mind, and the self of atoms, actions and events that others see is the physical expression of the self of the imagination that each one of us sees only of his own self and only alone, within that perfect solitude of the mind.<\/p>\n

Just that much is breathtakingly beautiful, if you take the time to think about it: A reflexively recollecting mental process, by iteratively expressing itself — in the observable world, of course, but first and most and almost continuously in purely introspective activity — essentially becomes<\/em> itself and then, over time, progressively recreates itself — learning, changing, growing — over and over again. The self is its own self-abstracted abstraction, and your relationship with your own unique self is by far the most important relationship in your life.<\/p>\n

The self is the song of itself, and each one of us is his own song, his own soul, unique and incomparable and fundamentally<\/em> inexpressible to others. Without human upbringing, we are bad imitations of animals, at best. But with it, by age five each one of us is his own song, his own soul, his own ego, his own “I am.” Are we but ghosts, lost and horrified in a lurching, chaotic machine? Are we mindless fleshy worms squirming without purpose across the fertile fields of time? Or is each one of us Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a dumb thing to say, but at the same time, I think it’s the essence of everything, the one thing that most needs to be said: I love life. I love living. I love being alive as a human being — a genetic homo sapiens within whom has been cultivated a self — […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,212,29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12521","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-egoism-in-action","7":"category-flourishing","8":"category-group-therapy","10":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3243,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3243\/the-just-exactly-how-dumb-are-you-realtor-spam-of-the-day-are-you-dumb-enough-to-spend-1200-a-year-for-a-phone-number\/","url_meta":{"origin":12521,"position":0},"title":"The just-exactly-how-dumb-are-you Realtor-spam of the day: Are you dumb enough to spend $1,200 a year for a phone number?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't promise you I'll do one of these every day -- but I won't charge you ninety-nine bucks a month, either. If you find something particularly risible in your email, pass it along to me. If I like it, too, I'll share the love. Technorati Tags: real estate, real\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3260,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3260\/the-just-exactly-how-dumb-are-you-realtor-spam-of-the-day-showing-beacon-not-only-cures-that-nasty-excess-income-problem-it-makes-you-look-even-dumber-than-your-clients-had-feared\/","url_meta":{"origin":12521,"position":1},"title":"The just-exactly-how-dumb-are-you Realtor-spam of the day: Showing Beacon not only cures that nasty excess income problem, it makes you look even dumber than your clients had feared","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This is magazine spam, but it came from an RIS magazine called -- wait for it -- Real Estate that is nothing but spam. Every ad turns into two ads, the ad itself plus the puff-piece editorial copy of the just-exactly-how-dumb-are-you products being pimped in the ads. This kind of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":551,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/551\/arizonans-too-dumb-to-come-in-from-the-rain\/","url_meta":{"origin":12521,"position":2},"title":"Arizonans too dumb to come in from the rain . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 18, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Oh, wait. That can't be right. There's no rain. But people in Arizona are much too dumb to appreciate a really good load of slush on a pot-holed freeway -- except they don't call them freeways in the lands where the slush flows. Here's one thing that's certain: Those sun-fried\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15901,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/15901\/unchained-melody-ive-done-all-the-dumb-things\/","url_meta":{"origin":12521,"position":3},"title":"Unchained melody: “I’ve done all the dumb things.”","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 17, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I made a catalog of the means by which people gull you into betraying your own interests and values. Paul Kelly sings the soundtrack: If this don't make you dance, you need some Gin and Juice.","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2481,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2481\/its-weblogging-advice-day-at-inman-connect-and-seth-godin-is-wired-into-the-godhead-as-usual\/","url_meta":{"origin":12521,"position":4},"title":"It’s weblogging-advice day at Inman Connect, and Seth Godin is wired into the godhead, as usual","author":"Greg Swann","date":"January 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Dumbing down:You're under pressure to do that with your restaurant and your spiritual advice and your stump speech and your non-profit pitch. There are gatekeepers pushing you to dumb it down for the average. The thing is, when you dumb stuff down, you know what you get? Dumb customers. And\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16301,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/16301\/whats-big-dumb-sclerotic-and-panics-on-command-a-california-association-of-realtors-member-apparently\/","url_meta":{"origin":12521,"position":5},"title":"What’s big, dumb, sclerotic and panics on command? A California Association of Realtors member, apparently.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"So this big dumb robot shows up on the front porch this morning: Believe it or not, it's from the California Association of Realtors. The robot exists to support this video: Get it? There's a meet-cute featuring pre-tween pretend robots, and this clunky piece of junk communicates... what...? My reaction?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fun With Vendorsluts"","block_context":{"text":"Fun With Vendorsluts","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/fun-with-vendorsluts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12521"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12531,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12521\/revisions\/12531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}