A Long Expected Journey - Day 1 - The Excluded Middle

2/14/15 ("The Excluded Middle")

El Paso, Texas

Reader, I have traveled around the world and been to some of the most exotic and unlikely locations that are possible to visit.  El Paso, Texas hardly seems worthy of mention, yet, when I woke up from my nap, I realized that I was looking at a site unlike any I had ever seen.  “The Borderland,” the two cities of El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Juarez are called collectively, and it is one of the busiest border crossings in the world, two sprawling metropolises as far as the eye could see.  Mexico in one direction, Texas in the other.  I knew that I would need to write this entry before it got dark so that I could have a proper opening photo.  I will save the philosophy for after dinner, but I can tease it out a bit.  The second of Aristotle’s Laws of Thought, and my favorite, is The Law of the Excluded Middle (TLotEM).  It states quite simply that either something is or it is not, there is no excluded middle.  I have written pages of formal discourse on this topic, but I will take a more casual approach tonight.

While people might reluctantly accept “No Contradictions,” TLotEM seems a harder pill to swallow.  The reason being is the all too familiar “Fallacy of the Excluded Middle” (FotEM), which is “You’re either with me, or you’re against me” “Love me or hate me.”  You can be neutral, or you can like someone without loving him or her.  On this Valentine’s Day, I will focus on the latter.  The statement should be “Either love me or don’t.”  Either you believe someone is worth loving, or you don’t.  I will explore that in tonight’s entry, but, for now, I will recall the events of the day.

I had no appetite for breakfast and literally forced myself to eat, not knowing when my next chance to eat would be.  I hardly ate, and I was not willing to count it as my first Official meal in New Mexico.  My first stop was Petroglyph NM, but they had neither the Official pins nor the Official stamp.  It was the excluded middle all over again, either they had it or they didn’t, and no amount of arguing with the clerk would produce a different stamp.  She insisted that it was the Official stamp, and it was quite similar and had all the relevant information.  “You don’t have the Eastern National stamper?”  She reminded me that we were in the West.  “It’s just the name of the company that makes the stamps.”  There was really no point to continue this discussion.  I had to use the stamp that they had.

She pointed me in the direction of the best hiking, which was a trail up a steep grade to the top of a rock canyon, perfect.  I had lit my Liga Privada after I left the hotel, and I had more than enough to continue on the hike.  It was the first Official hike with the new suit and the new water bottle.  I was very excited.  With much difficulty due to the elevation (over a mile), I got to the top, and, after waiting to make sure there was no one in view, I made it Official.  I headed back down and put in my next destination, White Sands NM, into the GPS.  I put on Taylor Swift’s 2006 album.  While I can never get tired of the first three tracks, I was starting to get bored of it by the time I got to my destination.

I lit up my Nic Toro and had no trouble breaking 100 in a 75 zone.  After my Nic Toro, I lit up an ESG.  Throughout the drive, I was emotionally distraught, and I felt a clawing at my stomach.  Could emotional pain manifest itself as physical?  I didn’t think so, but, every time “Just Another Picture to Burn” came on. the pain went away.  It took me a while to realize that what I was feeling was hunger.  I stopped for Tex-Mex and asked if I could smoke inside.  No.  Could I smoke outside if I ate something?  I could smoke outside even if I didn’t eat anything.  I was starving, of course I wanted to eat.  I ordered the combination plate and a Diet Coke.  Yes, it was just hunger.  The pain went away as I started to eat, the ESG the perfect accompaniment to the meal.

Have I mentioned how much I love the Southwest, how it is one of my favorite places in the country, how beautiful the mountainous desert is?  It was a great drive, and, if it weren't my emotional distraught, I would have been in heaven.  I made it to White Sands NM, in the heart of the missile range.  There were signs on the road to expect delays of an hour during missile testing.  There was no testing today.

White Sands was exactly what it sounded like, dunes of white sand.  The ranger said that it would be like nothing I had ever seen.  Silly girl, did she really expect it to compare to Great Sand Dunes NP or Kobuk Valley NP, the two previous sand dunes I had visited?  I put on Fearless through the Bluetooth in the car, which worked even better than the CDs.  That is an album that I really love.  “Marry me Juliet, you’ll never have to be alone” practically brings a tear to my eye every time I hear that line from “Love Story,” and, despite what Kanye says, “You Belong with Me” is a masterpiece.  I got to a good spot to hike the dunes and lit up an Opus.  As I hiked up in my suit, I got a questioning look from a couple dressed in shorts.  I had my answer all prepared if they commented on my suit.  “You don’t know who I am?  You’ve never read Where is John Galt, the premiere travel blog of our time?  Surely you recognize this pose?”  I would have then done my trademark water bottle and cigar selfie pose.  They didn’t say anything.  I got lots of great pictures.

It was under two hours to Chamizal NMem, and it was a big cigar.  It was also the last non-Cuban I had budgeted for today, and I was saving the Cuban, for well, that’s another story.  The wind cut my cigar short, so I lit up an E.P. Carrillo, which would cause me to have to swap some cigars for the next two days, but it’s a hell of a cigar.  I got to Chamizal NMem, in the heart of El Paso, at the site of the old border with Mexico.  I got the Official stamp and pin, finished my cigar as I pondered life and love, and headed to my hotel.

There was a happening downtown that I passed by, and I will probably walk by as I seek out my dinner after I close.  I’m thinking Church’s Chicken.  I checked in and headed to my room.  I needed to take a nap.  If I’m asleep I wouldn’t have to be in pain, I told myself.  I was awoken by a text from the one girl who can brighten even my darkest of moods, who has brightened more of my days in the past three years than I can count.  My mood elevated, I knew that my appetite would soon return, but I also knew that I needed to write this entry first.  I headed down to the outside terrace, took some pictures, sat down by the fire pit, lit up an Ardor, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close since my pipe is almost done and my appetite has returned.

While this evening in El Paso, Texas cannot come close to comparing New Year’s Eve in Quebec or aboard the Corinthian, it is not without its merits.  As I am sitting by the fire pit in my pajamas, watching the happy couples getting drunk enough before they peel off to their rooms to consummate the evenings, smoking my 2011 Christmas Pipe, the only other single person out here just said to me, “You look comfortable.”  “I am.”  I meant it, and I meant it in more ways than one.  After I closed, I headed out and lit up my Bolivar, being content to be alone, and went to Church’s where I got a delicious meal.

After dinner, I grabbed the rest of my cigar and walked back, stopping on a bench to blare some Taylor Swift from my cell phone (mostly “Love Story” and the first three tracks from the 2006 album).  It must have been quite a sight to see me on that bench, alone, in my suit, blaring my Taylor Swift, smoking my Bolivar.  She was definitely my Valentine this year.  I went back to my room and took a nap, being awoken by a call from my best friend.  I had slept far longer than intended, which will fuck up the rest of my plans for the evening or cause me to oversleep.  We (including his girlfriend) had a very humorous Official conversation about Official Uing.  “No, I need an hour to recharge.”  “We’re still talking about Uing, right?”  After the conversation, I headed down to the terrace to smoke my pipe, and I proceeded to write this entry.

Alright, now for the philosophy that I teasted earlier.  Either you love someone or you don’t.  There is no excluded middle.  If you love someone, you love them because of who they are.  If you love someone, you love them unconditionally, so long as they don’t stop being the person you loved or you don’t change your values.  There is no excluded middle.  If you love someone, you want their happiness, unconditionally, so long as it does not come at your forceful or fraudulent expense.  (“There are no conflicts of interest among honest men.”)  It returns to my point from last night, that, if you love someone, the “If I can’t have him/her, no one can” mentality.

Okay, so to put this together.  A happily married couple, one partner cheats because it makes him/her happy.  The other partner should then say, “Well, I want him/her to be happy even if it’s not with me.”  No, absolutely not.  Fraud was committed.  The faithful partner should not be happy for the fraudulent unfaithful one.  Second scenario, one partner says, “This isn’t working.  We need a divorce.”  If the other partner agrees, and that’s usually the case, they can either walk away no longer loving each other, or they can be happy for each other to find new partners.  There is now excluded middle.

For the record, I hate my ex’s guts.  I should have never loved her according to my Objectivist values, but I hate myself even more for abandoning my Objectivist values for irrational happiness.  I do not wish her any sort of happiness, and I no longer love her.  Once she chose that she did not wish to be happy with me, the main reason that I loved her disappeared, so there is no contradiction.  According to Objectivism, a man of unbreached self-esteem would not be capable of unrequited love.  The reasoning is quite simple.  Objectivism holds that love is based on mutual respect and shared values.  If a woman does not love such a man whom she respects, the shared values are not there.  There is no excluded middle.  If she were to hold to that Objectivist view of love, she would have the shared values, and, if the mutual respect was there, the love must needs follows.

Reader, feel free to attack this view of love or to argue that emotions play a stronger role than rationality.  I am just explaining what Objectivism holds.  John Galt will always love Dagny Taggart because she is Dagny Taggart, and, if Dagny Taggart is Dagny Taggart, she will always love John Galt.  If Dagny does not love Galt, she is no longer Dagny, and Galt will no longer love her.  There is no excluded middle, and there is no unrequited love.  Tell that to a man who fancies himself to be in love with someone who reminds him of someone he thought he was in love with when he was 15.  “Cuteness” is not a value.  It is an element of “Style.”

This returns to my point from my last NPS trip.  Love is not all you need.  Dagny Taggart was a chain smoker.  What if John Galt couldn’t stand the smell of smoke?  What if John Galt was a doctor who couldn’t bear the thought of being with someone who would constantly smoke cigarettes?  However, I am not talking about compatibility.  I am talking about love.  I would allow the argument that shared values and mutual respect is insufficient to make a relationship work.  I would also allow the argument that no relationship could fail if it has shared values and mutual respect.  However, I would ask my reader to choose one argument or the other.  There is no excluded middle.

In my entire life, I have only met one women with whom I have such shared values and mutual respect.  I love her very much, and view her as “the perfect woman,” except for one small problem: she’s gay.  Rand viewed homosexuality as unnatural and immoral, but that’s neither here nor there.  If Dagny was gay, she and Galt would not have compatibility. Returning to my theme of irrational happiness, I previously asked why question irrational happiness, unless it is to avoid decreasing total happiness.  I will explore that in my personal journal, since I do have the answer.

Of the twenty to thirty people in the world that I love, I love each of them, friends, family, former classmates, shipmates and tripmates, for one simple reason: they make me happy.  They make me happy from the value they currently provide to my life.  They make me happy from the memories of the time we shared.  They make happy every time I see their name or picture on my phone.  It might be irrational happiness in some cases, and I am by no means a perfect Objectivist, nor am I about to abandon my irrational happiness.

It is certainly not a list of the people in the world who share my values or the people I most respect.  Yes, some people are on the list for that reason, but not all of them.  The rest are on that list because it makes me happy to see me happy.  No, they are not the people whose company I enjoy, the people who make me happy only by us having fun together.  They are the people at whose funerals I would cry.  They are the people I would be happy if I saw them post their engagement on Facebook.  They are the people whom I would want to be happy even at my expense.

On this Valentine’s Day, I am quite happy to be alone romantically, so long as I have my friends and my family, the people I love most.  Including myself, the top nine names on that list are the six closest members of my family and the three people whom I text every day, who are like siblings to me.  They are the nine people for whom, if they were in need, I would do almost anything with the only regard to my self-interest being the happiness they provide me.  On that note, I will close so that I can get a much needed Diet Coke (I think I have an addiction) and publish before I continue with my evening.