i went to the library earlier this morning, about the time it opened. very few people were there studying considering it's the cloudiest it's ever been since the beginning of October. it's mid-term season and i'm still on field placement so i get to enjoy another week of very few responsibilities. it started raining a few moments after i got into the library and it was still pouring by the time i left three hours later. i made myself a coffee the moment i got home just for a little pick-me-up. i had a coffee earlier so this one is a decaf with an abhorrent amount of sugar. the other day i bought a crayon shin chan mug for $10 that i'm super happy about. there were three other designs to choose from but i loved the thought of drinking coffee out of this bad boy. despite the cold, i felt an incredible amount of warmth at seeing everybody riding the bus. in this dreary weather, it's nice to know that i'm not going through it alone. i feel like there's a lot of misery when driving. i love sharing public space with people, i love observing them and wondering where they're going. i'm sure there are psychological benefits to driving, but it's easy to forget that we're all sharing the same space when you're in a big killing machine, you know? knowing there are people taking public transport with me at 6am makes me feel good; when something wrong inevitably happens at the subway and we're all being corralled onto a bus, at least it's not just me being inconvenienced and frustrated. it's just nice to exist with other people.

"freedom may be, as he [Lord Lothian] insists more important than comfort, but is a miner, who is not subject to bureaucracy, or at least, to a bureaucracy of the kind which alarms Lord Lothian, conspicuously more free than a teacher, who is? if a man eats bread made of flour produced to the extent of 40% by two milling combines and meat supplied by an international meat trust, and lives in a house built of materials of which 25% are controlled by a ring, and buys his tobacco from one amalgamation, and his matches from another, while his wife's sewing thread is provided by a third, which has added eight millionaires to the national roll of honour in the last 20 years, is he a free consumer? is he free as a worker, if he is liable to have his piece-rates cut at the discretion of his employer, and, on expressing his annoyance, to be dismissed as an agitator, and to be thrown on the scrap-heap without warning because his employer has decided to shut down a plant, or bankers to restrict credit, and to be told, when he points out that the industry on which his livelihood depends is being injured by mismanagement, that his job is to work, and that the management in question will do his thinking for him? and if, in such circumstances, he is not but partially free as a consumer and a worker, is not his freedom as a citizen itself also partial, rather than as Lord Lothian would desire, unqualified and complete?" -Liberty and Equality, R.H. Tawney. // i don't mean to have incredibly long quotes here. these might be moved at some point to the catalogue section of my website, but i don't even want to try to figure out how to tackle that right now, so they're going on my blog. today is mostly rainy and cloudy, typical for an October. i'm looking to buy a leather jacket soon and i want to take a hike someplace nice since all the trues have turned a nice yellow/orange/red. i want to show photos of my coffee but i keep drinking them before i remember.

the only way to defeat skepticisim, to Descartes, is to withold assent from anything that isn't completely certain. when i consider 'i think, therefore i am', it's quite impossible for me to be mistaken. so i am completely certain of this, at least. by contemplating this first certainty, i understand what makes it certain is that i clearly and distinctly perceive it to be true. hence, i can establish as a general rule that anything i clearly and distinctly perceive is true. i clearly and distinctly perceive that god must exist, because only a perfect being could be the ultimate cause of such a perfect idea as my idea of god. a perfect god cannot deceive, so i know that my faculties are essentially reliable. Descartes' approach to skepticism is viciously circular: if one can trust their faculties to begin with, then they don't need god to validate them. and if they can't trust their faculties to begin with, then how can one justify their argument by which he reaches the conclusions and that their faculties are reliable? thus, the cartesian circle // i've been playing a lot of poker lately against bots. it's a whole different world from chess that i appreciate delving into. since i play against bots, sometimes i like to play recklessly. when you catch onto their nature, it's a bit easy. some rounds i like to raise through all bettings and watch them crumble. other times i'll play a bit more carefully as if it were a real game. with poker, it's a bit harder to simulate a real game, unlike chess; chess doesn't rely on you reading the other player, it's all purely strategy. but i feel like there's a big psychological component to poker. i really like it, but i do need to go back to chess from time to time so i don't completely lose my sanity.