Now that I had all of the lists out of me and I felt better, maybe it was time for me to do some deep thinking.
     Well actually, I'd already done the deep thinking. I was a genius.
     But, for some reason, nobody ever agreed with my ideas. Nobody ever agreed with my philosophies. Hmm. Maybe I wasn't a genius?
     With the completion of my travel writings imminent, I was going to give myself one more chance to prove that I wasn't just a dumbie who thought too much. One more chance to convince people that all my ingenius philosophies were correct. Wait a minute ... did "ingenius" mean the opposite of genius? Or did they mean the same thing? Oh boy, I got confused easily. Maybe I was a dumbie?
     And here it was! The final, concise explanation of Modern Oddyseus' philosophies ...

The first assumption that I, the Modern Oddyseus, made - and the basis for all my philosophies - was that human life was intended to be wonderful, enjoyable, harmonious; we humans were meant to be happy. But, most people had come to accept an opposite belief, that life was mostly suffering interrupted by brief moments of happiness and pleasure. If more people shared my belief, then a happy and harmonious world would become our reality.
     "For our sake the world was created." - J.Breen philosophy
     Whatever force put us here - whether a god, our own brains, the natural universe, etc. - that force could not be considered "good" unless our lives were capable of achieving harmony and meaning. So much joy and beauty occurred naturally in our world that I disbelieved we were created by a "bad" or "neutral" force.
     Of course, there was plenty of human suffering on Earth. The existence of suffering was necessary, because harmonious worlds needed conflict, challenges to overcome, questions to debate. Without these things, there could be no art, no adventure, no unique personalities. Nevertheless, whenever I saw suffering I asked myself, "What was the cause of this suffering?" and I tried to identify a human error that had been the cause, so I could avoid making it.
     There was also a lot of human competition on Earth. I asked myself: "How closely do I relate to these other people? Do they have souls?" I knew that I had a soul, because I thought and felt.
     I also knew that, if this were a harmonious world, the other people must have souls. My life and my actions could only have meaning if they impacted others. If other people were empty soul-less robots, or if I failed to care about them, then my happiness would be limited to short feelings of pleasure that ended as soon as the pleasure did.
     But, how did their souls relate to mine?
     The first thing I knew about my soul was that, at this present random moment, it existed. This present moment was a sample of eternity, and it was logical and scientific to assume that my soul would exist at other moments throughout eternity. Even if there were moments when it didn't exist, these moments would be non-existent for my soul, and it would be as if my soul always existed. "Always existing" meant: Immortal.
     My immortal soul would eventually do everything there was to be done; before eternity came to an end, there was nothing my soul wouldn't do.
     My soul was separate from the physical world in which I, the Modern Oddyseus, lived. There was no reason to believe it moved through eternity on a linear course parallel to the linear "time" of my physical world. Since my soul would do everything there was to do, it would even live the lives of those people alive while I, the Modern Oddyseus, lived.
     My soul would do everything there was to be done and live all the lives there were to live. It was everything and everyone. It and all other souls - if there were any, it was irrelevant - merged into one. My soul contained and was itself the powerful force that had made me, the Modern Oddyseus; this "force" probably operated with a different type of consciousness.
     And so, it was clear that I was very closely related to other people. I - we, all of us - would one day be them.
     But, why had the mysterious "force" split itself up into many pieces, into many people?
     I assumed this was because human interactions could be so joyful. I certainly loved friendship and romance and playful competition and inspiration! But unfortunately, human interactions could also be cold-hearted and abusive. The dilemma of how we could create more joyful interactions and less abusive ones was what we, as a united humanity, needed to address.
     But, how could we improve human relations???

Part II: "Romantic Revolution"
     We needed to encourage healthy, family-like relations between all people and discourage competition for resources.
     In an effort to create the ideal society, we as a united humanity ought to get rid of exclusive romantic relationships. Knowing that we were all one, we should've supported each other with love and put no conditions on it. Once love became free and universal and there was no need to compete for it, we would feel relaxed and accepted and peaceful. We would recognize that all people were our family, whom we shared things with and cared about, and we would stop competing for material goods and power.
     But, it wasn't so easy to get rid of exclusive romantic relationships. Firstly, we needed to get rid of parental ownership of children. As long as parents owned their children, possessed them and were responsible for their care, women needed to know who their babies' fathers were. Men needed to know for sure that they were the fathers of the babies they became responsible for. Out of these two needs, exclusive romantic relationships were born.
     How could we eliminate parental ownership of children?
     The first option was that a society could make its children communal - like Israeli kibbutzes used to do, like (I believed) African societies once did. This would give people greater incentive to work for the good of their communities. And if they knew their children would be taken care of, it would relieve them of worry.
     The second option, and the one which Modern Oddyseus' "Romantic Revolution" recommended, was for people to practice celibacy.
     But, was it natural and healthy for people to not have sex?
     Yes, of course.
     Once we realized that we and all other people were one, and that we and the powerful "force" that created us were one, then sex - which was an expression of one's ego, often used to compensate for feelings of smallness or inadequacy - became unnecessary.
     Love and physical affection, however, were still needs. That was why the powerful "force" had split itself up in the first place. Remember?
     Without sex, men and women could be physically affectionate and maintain their passion for longer romantic encounters. Their excitement for each other would increase from encounter to encounter, instead of fading with time. They would naturally embrace and take care of each other, almost never having arguments or fights. In a land with no sexual intercourse, women would move as safely and freely as men.
     But, didn't men experience discomfort in their genitals, a.k.a. "blue balls", after kissing a woman for a long time without ejaculating? Yes, but if he continued to kiss women without ejaculating, this discomfort would disappear after a few days.
     Didn't some couples want to have sex simply because they loved each other so much? Yes, but in this case, the selfish urge for "possession" undoubtedly played a part in the sexual desire. Once a person realized that she and all of humanity were one, her desire to possess disappeared.
     And didn't some people have sex to release stress, bad feelings, the negative energy that accumulated inside them? To be able to relax?
     Yes, but ...

Part III: Vices Lead to Aging
     There were certain things we could do that always made us feel good, and which required very little effort on our part. Among these were: alcohol, coffee, cigarettes, drugs, certain pills, gluttonous eating, sex, and masturbation. Some people called these things, "vices".
     They brought "high, good feelings" to people who otherwise may have been feeling "low" or "just average". They chemically altered people's natural moods, providing brief but addictive pleasure.
     It seemed to me that, the worse a person's life was in general, the more vices he'd consume in order to make life bearable.
     -- Interjection: On the subject of "life", I believed that old age and injury and decrepitude didn't fit into my idea of a fully good and harmonious life. Maybe these things were caused by some human error? --
     It seemed consistent with the idea of a greater universal harmony that, if a person's life was bad and she needed vices to tolerate it, then perhaps she lost some of her life in attaining her chemical "highs"? A person whose life wasn't great shouldn't want to live all that long, anyways. I believed that vices did cause aging, weakness, sickness, etc.
     "Man does not die; he kills himself!" - Seneca
     Many scientific people said that the biological purpose of our lives was for us to have sex and reproduce. It made sense to me that, if people were suffering or struggled to be happy, they should create a new generation and slowly expire.
     But, if a wiser, happier person were to abstain from his biological purpose, maybe he would lengthen his life and postpone his biological end: death. After all, if two people having sex could create a life, this new life's "vitality" was probably taken from someone - in other words, the mother and father.
     We people were born and grew with great energy, with which we went out and sought mating partners. But when we aged, our health and energy faded. Maybe, if we abstained from sex and vices, we could stay youthful and energetic into our fifties, sixties, seventies?
     Luckily, there was an alternative to vices.

Part IV: "Acts of Spontaneous Ecstasy"
     The definition of an Act of Spontaneous Ecstasy was: "an activity that always makes you feel good while doing it, and which always makes you feel better afterwards for having done it." It differed from a vice in that it always made you feel better afterwards. It provided a natural, revitalizing "high".
     Each person had to write his own unique list of "A.S.E."s, which included hobbies and games and activities that forced us to become self-motivated and enjoy life. Some activities on my list were: "swim, dance, kiss, write a Modern Oddyseus, make music, Chinese Elephant Chess, baseball, wrestle, ice skate, snowboarding, snowball fight, chase animals, climb a tree, outside nudity, meditate, get rained on, etc."
     I believed that everyone should do at least one A.S.E. each day. Presently, I had done one or more of my A.S.E.s every day for 2,913 days straight. Whenever I felt bad, I did an A.S.E. or two, and they never disappointed me.

Part V: Other Beliefs
     Of my seventy-five A.S.E.s, "meditate" was the most mysterious. Through meditation, a person could depart from his ordinary consciousness. Perhaps he could connect with the powerful force that had made him, that was inside of him? I believed that advanced meditaters could obtain superhuman abilities, such as levitation, flight, telekinesis, inner fire, teleportation, and others.
     The A.S.E., "get rained on", also seemed mysterious to me. This was because I believed men went bald due to a lack of exposure to outside weather conditions. If a man's head never saw the sun, his body assumed he no longer needed hair to protect him. Either that, or he went bald because he'd had too many orgasms and therefore his body assumed he no longer needed hair to attract a mating partner.
     I tried to spend a lot of time outside, which seemed like a healthy and natural thing for a human being to do. Sunlight would prevent me from losing my hair. Rainwater might restore the hair I'd already lost. An Ethiopian man had recently said, in response to my theory:
     "So, you think your hair is like a plant? Why don't you put some fertilizer on it!"
     Ha ha. Everyone made fun of my philosophies.
     But I was going to laugh last, when I was a hundred years old and snowboarding, with a full head of hair!

peace and wisdom,
Modern Oddyseus