good names for epic things TO RIDE INTO BATTLE OR FIGHT WITH A SPEAR

APOCALYPTASAUR

RHINOCERAPTOR

OMEGANOCEROUS

ROCKTOPUS

MECHAZEBRA

MANATIGER

MASTERDON

oh, and a steam-powered whale with cannons jutting from both its sides. Something worthy of Lt. Commander Ahab of the Unified Mechanorganic Front.

Search not, lest ye find

Self-awareness is perhaps the most important and most dangerous state of being towards which one can extend oneself.

Imagine, for a moment, that true "self-awareness" is, in fact, attainable - that the term itself has retained a bit of its optimistic karmic oneness, and that the term hasn't completely become a floating signifier.

Perhaps I should back up. Self-awareness, at least in the context of the following paragraphs, can be thought of not as a literal awareness of an inner self, but rather as a locational positioning of a state- through cultural, psychological, and societal echolocation, if you will - that results in some conception of that specific being's figurative or metaphorical worth within a defined system. Whether that system remains defined for more than a moment is irrelevant.

Additionally, when I say worth, it is altogether possible that I actually mean the why of one's position - identity is synonymous with self-analysis (je pense, donc...), even if one is the Buddha (to say "I have attained enlightenment" certainly requires some kind of analysis of self). So, to attain worth, one must have the why - not cultural worth, but self-contained worth.

What would happen, should one achieve a sense of where one fits in a system? I suppose we must consider the "size" of that system: if, for example, we talk about the position one plays on a soccer team, it is perhaps not necessarily so jarring to understand one's role - especially if that role is enjoyable. However, when we remove an end-game (goal) from a closed system such as a soccer team, and effectively "open" it - let us imagine a family as a small, open system - understanding one's role is immensely difficult. Expand the system to a school, a society, a culture; it becomes endlessly convoluted.

I don't want to talk about the "meaning of life" or anything like that, just about what the realization of an "I" might mean - annihilation, most probably; cultural or physical. At best, the crushing of the newly-realized self. At worst - well, perhaps "best case" and "worst case" aren't good ways of thinking about this. Rather, possibilities include the total physical annihilation of the self, the total metaphorical assimilation (annihilation) of the self, or - what? In a bizarre twist of "fate," you turn into Charlie Sheen?

I ought to return to this later, and add even more "scare quotes."