Home Conversations With Myself - November 4th, 2004 7:30AM It is a curious thing, in regards to the simple things we notice each day, when you see just what the world has become. The subtleties and not-so-subtleties reveal everything for what it really is. When I get on the bus, or walk down to wait for it, I have to turn up my music becuase the background noise is so bad. Although subtle and inconspicuous (perhaps even irrelevant depending on your point of view), it nevertheless says something about the way that we live. Foreshadowing, perhaps, of something more relevant to come. And I wonder, is this how we were meant to live? Putting up walls and hanging pretty pictures to hide the "ugliness", the truth, of what's behind. Is it not human nature to hide from what we do not understand or like? And yet, in hiding, we deprive ourselves of seeing what the world is really like. We create a naive little world where everything is known and safe and we're safe. But can we truly be safe in our ignorance? How can one be safe without knowing the truth of what's around them? And so, you see, there is a fatal flaw in our urge to ignore. But we are just humans anyways, right? We're not meant to be perfect, and yet, for some strange reason, whatever it be, we strive for perfection in everything that we do. "Do your best." But is your best ever good enough? And if it's good enough for them, is it good enough for you? You'll do your best but, undoubtedly, you'll want to do it better. You strive to perfect whatever you do. Why do we strive to be more than what we are? Is it not enough that we, as humans, have accomplished as much as we have already? Do we really need to have and be more? An unfortunate consequence of our thirst for perfection is that, by association, we take imperfection and assume it to be wrong and bad. In doing so, we take some accomplishments as failure and dismiss them as nothing. But how can one learn and grow without practicing and attempting and learning from their mistakes? One of the greatest things that we have is our ability to learn, understand and perceive. We are born and learn and grow up learning and die learning. Never stop trying to learn. The antidote to ignorance is knowledge. Ignorance is what corrupts our world. We must grow and learn and contend that which would have us conform and subvert our beliefs into what society has told us to believe. We must open our eyes and stop to think about our life, our lives, and to think about what it means to live and give life. We're so wrapped up in speeding through life, that we never stop to think. Why do we always need to go faster? When we're kids all we want to do is grow up fast. When we're adults we rush everything; rush to work; rush into relationships; rush to death. Never stopping to smell the flowers or give that person a chance or take your own stance. Conform. Accept your fate. You have to rush; Have to speed. It's time to go. Go where? I hope your tires don't slide on the ice this time. But when they do, your rush through life only left you with a rush to death. And what if death is just a call for us to wake up into the real surreal world that we never see? When you're going to die in a dream, you always wake up at the second that you died. Maybe when we die, we just wake up. Or maybe, when we dream about dying, we area really dreaming about someone else dying. And when they wake up, they become a part of you as you wake up. So, when you die, someone will dream of you and you will become a part of them. Something to think about, indeed. To consider the most options, though, I must include the idea that when you die, nothing happens. You simply go where there is no consciousness and therefore you do not exist. There is also the idea of heaven and hell. An eternal resting place that is decided strictly upon how you've lived and what you've done. But how can this place be if not everyone believes? Where do the people that don't believe go? We are a vain race and we certainly love our delusions of grandeur. The thought of heaven comforts us so that we do not fear death. So that we can go fight "holy wars" against people who are fighting for the same god under a different name. Ahh, religion. What a great way to control the masses! "If you do not do what I say, you will be punished with an eternity of pain and suffering the likes of which you cannot fathom." Like being stuck in the Zaarlac pit. And on the other side: "If you do what I say, you will forever be happy and safe and warm and rich and have all the material things (that only I'm allowed to have in this life) in your next life." And who wouldn't go for this? I cannot disprove your God. But, on the other hand, you cannot prove your God to me. "Why don't you repent your sins to me so that you can be socially accepted and feel forgiven by everyone but yourself? (Oh, and so I can manipulate and control you. Blackmail anyone?)". Riiiight! And what if God isn't the almighty, omniscient, ever-powerful, creator-of-all that they say "he" is? What if God is simply a thought, a belief, a reassurance that there is something greater than yourself keeping you safe? Where does heaven and hell fit into the equation then? If we were truly as enlightened as we lead ourselves to believe, why do we keep fighting wars for common Gods? Who really have told us nothings except for what the War Director has said? Why do people have to die for their beliefs and why do people think they have a right to kill for their beliefs? It just doesn't fit. God is your comfort; don't let anyone tell you what "he" said, except for yourself. Believe what you will, though it is, of course, your choice. It's a shame that something like religion can cause such inverted, oxymoronic, fucked-up beliefs and ideals. "In the name of my God of love, I shall kill." What, "in the name of your God," gives you the right to have such complete regard for another human being? Why doesn't anyone care for anyone else anymore? Did we ever care for anyone else? Why do they laugh when society's scapegoat falls and hurts a knee? Of course, it's simple, this is how we've grown up; what was bred into us; what we were forced to learn from the start. This, is what we've become. What is one to do in such world as the one we live in? The answer: nothing and everything. There is nothing you can do to fix our world except for everything! Do what you have to do to share the peace belief. Give a hug; a poem; a heart; a story; a kiss; a love. We've got to stop this killer thirst. We need to start caring when they fall. We need to share our lives with all. Maybe if we all shared our feelings, all those stupid, little, disrespectful kids would stop acting like morons and thinking it's cool. Recently, (from the time this was written) I was walking to my locker in the morning and there was a throng of people standing in the middle of the hallway, which I had to push through to get to my locker. One of the people in the crowd told me to "Fuck off." (or something of the like) because I pushed past his bag. I didn't hear it because, well, a good song is worth more than the words of an immature little boy with an attitude who thinks he's got something to prove. To get back to the story, my friend (who had already been having a bad day) heard him say it and told him that if he didn't want to get hit, then maybe he shouldn't stand in the middle of the hall. After this, a short battle of the wits, or perhaps of the witted and the witless, ensued. One of the things that makes this stand out in my mind was the fact that when my friend told the person to have a little respect, they replied with "I don't have respect." Now, if I may, what kind of a stupid, moronic declaration is that!? "I don't have respect." Honestly! I don't know if it bothers me more that they said it or that they actually believe it and think that that is cool. How can you not have respect? Of course, he must be lying. I can't see him disrespecting his parents or grandparents. It's so scary and sad to see this. You hope that with each generation we grow and get smarter but I fear for the world that my children will be born into. I wonder if my parents felt the same way when they were my age. Or if they even had given a thought as to what kind of a world their kids will be born into. I wonder if the future has always looked as doomed as it does now to all the previous generations of people that came before mine. Will the world ever be a happy place? Will we ever transcend ourselves and our killer thirst and understand all of this as it understands itself? Will we ever really be able to comprehend the why and how of the universe? IS there even a why and a how of the universe? Who knows? All this math we use to explain things, it just doesn't work. Sitting in math class, I struggle to grasp what the point of doing all these Cartesian mathematics is. A point is infinitely small. There is nothing in life that is infinitely small other than empty space itself. So, what then is the use of knowing the distance between two non-existent points? What do I care about the equation of a line? Who cares at what two points a parabola crosses a circle? Sure it's a neat thing to know, but what good does it do? Will it make your life better, knowing that you can prove that the sum of opposite angles in a cyclic quadrilateral are equal to 180 (degrees) Somehow, I doubt it. And how do we give a number to something infinitely small? All of math revolves around infinity. Home