Sometimes I get so bogged down by the truths of eternity and the universe that I really can't recognize any discernible difference between one decision or another. Conscious and rational thinking is but a blip, some go so far as to call it an abnormality, in existence that I can't help but question its constructions. Human civilization continually changes its conditions, on almost a daily basis, with no end in sight. This is because we have encountered nothing superior to human intellect and thus are left to journey through time on our own, shaping our world based off of our amaranthine experiences. In one of many ways, I think people use religion to reconcile their feelings of supremacy in this world by vesting faith in something so great that we cannot fathom, see, hear, or speak to.
In the interest of avoiding digression, though, I would like to speak to the burdens of certain realizations. To regularly ask the question, "In the line of eternity, will this matter?" indicates a level of realization enough to drive one mad with insanity, absolute disregard for all life, or utter indifference and complacency, among other things I'm sure. I happen to fall under the latter most category; I can be complacent to the point of self-degradation. That sounds a bit extreme. This may actually be somewhat of a normal thing, but I have embraced unpleasant situations by way of not actively engaging to evade or dissolve them. 99% of the time, it's because I don't really feel or pay any mind to the effect these situations have on my life.
Railing against my apathy, however, is the opposite realization that my life is going to be what I make it. I've struggled for the majority of my life with caring enough to make it more than it is. This has been for nothing else but the belief that nothing that happens matters. If I become very accomplished and make countless contributions improving the quality of peoples' lives, how does that hold any more bearing on the remaining 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of the universe than if I just work by day and veg by night? Realistically, it doesn't. It makes difference not, and that ought to be reason enough never to strive for anything considered worthwhile.
It's the idea that things just don't have to matter that's been working on keeping my interest in life aflame. Regardless of the virtually non-existent influence and meaning of my life in this universe, I am still sentient and will be forced to experience all that comes my way. Having no desire for my life to end must mean I'm sticking around for something, right? If nothing really matters, though, then what is it that I'm waiting around looking for? Ought I to stop looking and start living? But what does living imply, embracing the natural flow of life or seeking active engagement in constructing your own realities? And if I haven't determined that yet, is it too late to do either? These are the questions I grapple with lately. It's a little like trying to kick an addiction, though. I use these questions to pull myself out of using the meaninglessness of existence as a reason not to do anything, but sooner or later, deciding how to live becomes too much to handle, and I fall right back into using again.
Maybe someone ought to tell me I'm using my thinking brain too much and that I need to shut up and carry on like a normal person.
vocab words: amaranthine and aflame
Monday, September 28, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
A Snooze Fest, I Tell You
You know what I really dig? Being in the carpool lane on the 87 S during rush hour traffic and blowing past all the cars in the adjacent lanes. Of course, I'll only do this when I have someone riding with me - the hell if I want to get pulled over for that, or at all. However, I do have some concern regarding the carpool lane and the rules that govern it.
What is the goal of the carpool lane? I think it serves as an incentive for daily commuters to group together and reduce the number of vehicles on the road, thus cutting emissions. Afterall, the law defines a carpool as a vehicle containing "2 or more persons". The incentive lies in the fact that the carpool lane moves faster than the lanes bogged down by vehicles containing but one driver and no one else. The rules of the carpool lane apply only during certain hours of the days Mon-Fri. I am completely on board with this otherwise lofty and idealistic endeavor, but I do have on central gripe about it. I genuinely feel that the rules of the carpool lane ought to limit the understanding of "2 or more persons per vehicle" to "2 or more licensed drivers per vehicle".
Fathom, please, this scenario: a woman in an Escalade enters the freeway during rush hour traffic. I have already been on the same freeway for a good twenty minutes in my manual transmission pickup truck that receives close to 30 miles a gallon. However, just having gotten off work, I am alone in my vehicle. The woman in the gas-guzzling Escalade is traveling with her three-year-old and proceeds to enter into the carpool lane and whizzes by me, leaving me miserable and hating life. Explain to me how her actions were environmentally conscious, allowing her to defy the laws of traffic. I'd be much obliged if you could.
Oh, duh. My bad, I forgot. Had she not been transporting her three-year-old son, he'd have been right behind her in his Hummer, putting out around three times as many emissions. So that was definitely a sustainable decision on her part to cart his ass 75 miles an hour through the carpool lane. Good to see at least one government institution isn't being completely taken advantage of.
What is the goal of the carpool lane? I think it serves as an incentive for daily commuters to group together and reduce the number of vehicles on the road, thus cutting emissions. Afterall, the law defines a carpool as a vehicle containing "2 or more persons". The incentive lies in the fact that the carpool lane moves faster than the lanes bogged down by vehicles containing but one driver and no one else. The rules of the carpool lane apply only during certain hours of the days Mon-Fri. I am completely on board with this otherwise lofty and idealistic endeavor, but I do have on central gripe about it. I genuinely feel that the rules of the carpool lane ought to limit the understanding of "2 or more persons per vehicle" to "2 or more licensed drivers per vehicle".
Fathom, please, this scenario: a woman in an Escalade enters the freeway during rush hour traffic. I have already been on the same freeway for a good twenty minutes in my manual transmission pickup truck that receives close to 30 miles a gallon. However, just having gotten off work, I am alone in my vehicle. The woman in the gas-guzzling Escalade is traveling with her three-year-old and proceeds to enter into the carpool lane and whizzes by me, leaving me miserable and hating life. Explain to me how her actions were environmentally conscious, allowing her to defy the laws of traffic. I'd be much obliged if you could.
Oh, duh. My bad, I forgot. Had she not been transporting her three-year-old son, he'd have been right behind her in his Hummer, putting out around three times as many emissions. So that was definitely a sustainable decision on her part to cart his ass 75 miles an hour through the carpool lane. Good to see at least one government institution isn't being completely taken advantage of.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
My Human Question
Well, I'm about an hour late in crafting this week's blog. I wish I could say with honesty that I care.
I am so unbelievably fed up. All I want to do is carve a little niche somewhere in an abyss and vanish into it. I honestly think that's the only way I'll be left alone, and that's all I really want in this life. I just want to be left alone. When I observe human life around me and throughout the world, I am given the impression that it's intrinsic for us to want to be involved in others' lives, mutually shaping what happens to each other for our own benefit. Getting even deeper into it, I think it's just plain and inherent nosiness that drives individuals to be an interference in one way or another in someone else's life. To really put the point I'm driving at in perspective, let's examine the current human condition. The overwhelming majority of humans on this planet live in governed civilizations. Anytime you have concentrated amounts of people coexisting, it seems only reasonable that whatever natural traits or tendencies they hold in common, be it one or many, are going to manifest themselves into whatever system is established, and thus the reaches and consequences of these traits are magnified intensely.
Empirical evidence is the primary basis for my aforementioned claims. Now, more than ever before, the government and all of its contents are digging their nails deeper into every facet of human life. At the risk of sounding like the typical(ly uninformed yet over-enthusiastic) college student activist, some examples: unprecedented progress toward socialized health care or a public option; increased funding for police, military, Dept. of Defense (and all of its auxiliaries), and any other tool of interference in private citizens' lives; eminent domain; numerous attempts at legislating morality with regards to such issues as abortion, affirmative action, and homosexual rights; unrepresented taxation; an unspeakable amount of military intervention abroad weakly disguised as being in the name of our interests when in reality their purpose is to preserve the invidious interests of the state; etc.
It seems like there's a lot of pertinent evidence to support my claims regarding our tendency to be involved in the goings-on of others' lives. However, against all this stands one unfaltering testament to quite the contrary: me. I am generally indifferent to what happens in others' lives, and I certainly do not advertise myself nor my endeavors for all the world to be privy to. I keep to myself, and I damn sure wish others would do the same. It absolutely kills me that I live my life to myself, bothering nobody, but the state will practically have a fucking stroke trying to dive into it at any chance they get. Furthermore, the state acts with such impunity that I'm left to wonder if any of us are really human anymore. Are we? Or are we just unsuspecting subjects of a play that we think we're controlling but that has actually already occurred?
Every passing day brings something my way, whether it's a news item or something that happens to me, that cements my desire to disappear. I guess that's what apathy will do to someone. Although, this isn't always the case. Sometimes the apathy lacks, and something far worse fills its void. Aggression, hate, unbridled anger, and contempt. When apathy directs my actions, I'm unsatisfied. When I act not at all, I'm unsatisfied. I have yet to exercise any motions influenced by the alternative and fear what will happen if I do.
vocab words: invidious and impunity
I am so unbelievably fed up. All I want to do is carve a little niche somewhere in an abyss and vanish into it. I honestly think that's the only way I'll be left alone, and that's all I really want in this life. I just want to be left alone. When I observe human life around me and throughout the world, I am given the impression that it's intrinsic for us to want to be involved in others' lives, mutually shaping what happens to each other for our own benefit. Getting even deeper into it, I think it's just plain and inherent nosiness that drives individuals to be an interference in one way or another in someone else's life. To really put the point I'm driving at in perspective, let's examine the current human condition. The overwhelming majority of humans on this planet live in governed civilizations. Anytime you have concentrated amounts of people coexisting, it seems only reasonable that whatever natural traits or tendencies they hold in common, be it one or many, are going to manifest themselves into whatever system is established, and thus the reaches and consequences of these traits are magnified intensely.
Empirical evidence is the primary basis for my aforementioned claims. Now, more than ever before, the government and all of its contents are digging their nails deeper into every facet of human life. At the risk of sounding like the typical(ly uninformed yet over-enthusiastic) college student activist, some examples: unprecedented progress toward socialized health care or a public option; increased funding for police, military, Dept. of Defense (and all of its auxiliaries), and any other tool of interference in private citizens' lives; eminent domain; numerous attempts at legislating morality with regards to such issues as abortion, affirmative action, and homosexual rights; unrepresented taxation; an unspeakable amount of military intervention abroad weakly disguised as being in the name of our interests when in reality their purpose is to preserve the invidious interests of the state; etc.
It seems like there's a lot of pertinent evidence to support my claims regarding our tendency to be involved in the goings-on of others' lives. However, against all this stands one unfaltering testament to quite the contrary: me. I am generally indifferent to what happens in others' lives, and I certainly do not advertise myself nor my endeavors for all the world to be privy to. I keep to myself, and I damn sure wish others would do the same. It absolutely kills me that I live my life to myself, bothering nobody, but the state will practically have a fucking stroke trying to dive into it at any chance they get. Furthermore, the state acts with such impunity that I'm left to wonder if any of us are really human anymore. Are we? Or are we just unsuspecting subjects of a play that we think we're controlling but that has actually already occurred?
Every passing day brings something my way, whether it's a news item or something that happens to me, that cements my desire to disappear. I guess that's what apathy will do to someone. Although, this isn't always the case. Sometimes the apathy lacks, and something far worse fills its void. Aggression, hate, unbridled anger, and contempt. When apathy directs my actions, I'm unsatisfied. When I act not at all, I'm unsatisfied. I have yet to exercise any motions influenced by the alternative and fear what will happen if I do.
vocab words: invidious and impunity
Sunday, September 6, 2009
"Pride, Integrity, Guts"
After reading all of my classmates' blogs, one in particular got me to do a little bit of thinking about something I've pondered for years now. It was a statement that was not addressed any further than its induction into an otherwise pretty unorganized argument against I'm not sure what. Briefly, this classmate commented about instances in which people would choose to take care of something themselves rather than getting the cops involved. I understand it was not necessarily the thesis of the post, but I'd like it to be mine, more or less. I have two strong beliefs from which my disdain for police stems. One is just a general principle from which I have been guiding my life for as long as I can remember. The second is specific to police and is drawn from my experiences with them, my friends' experiences with them, and everything else I know about them that I've learned through various sources.
For my entire cognitive life (and even beyond), I've taken care of myself to the best of my ability, and within the next couple of years, I am going to be completely independent (of my parents, namely). Even as a small child, my parents could bring or leave me anywhere, and I'd be perfectly content with my own company, not having to rely on others to be there to keep me occupied. I don't hesitate to, but I very rarely ask for help with anything. People are unpredictable, and that is one of myriad reasons why I do not like to rely on anyone but myself. Thus stems my principle disdain for police, government, systems, etc. - I can handle my own shit, and I don't need you or anybody else dipping their grubby paws into my business. All too often I get the impression that the government and its seemingly infinite and omnipresent stretches feel obligated to take care of our lives for us, because somehow we're just petty pieces of a larger machine that can't operate without some sort of superior. On the contrary, however, should a time ever come when I'm no longer capable of handling myself or my things, I will ask of you only one thing: a gun and a bullet. Fuck health care, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Social Security, and the like. The hell if I'm going to burden a society that's burdened me my whole life.
I went to a hardcore show in Berkley a few weeks ago. On one of the walls in the venue, a band hung a banner that read, "FUCK COPS". Being on the same page, I captured a picture of it with my phone and set it as my external wallpaper. Most ironically, I was arrested later that night for something I'd rather not discuss. This banner and my picture played no role for the rest of the night; it was merely an unfortunate observation that I wanted to point out.
However, this is a topic that I would love to discuss with a cop if ever given the chance, and it brings me to the second root of my resentment toward police. My current impression of cops, which is subject and completely welcome to change by anything that comes my way, is highly unfavorable. All experiences I've had or been privy to that cops were involved in have me convinced that their espoused purpose of serving and protecting is blatantly neglected, not to mention the fact that I don't need anybody to serve or protect me. If given the chance, I would hastily refurbish every cop car in the country to read, "To harm and steal." Fathom this scenario: a man driving his vehicle safely and soundly, disrupting no one and in danger of harming nobody, gets stopped at a DUI checkpoint on an empty freeway at 1:30 in the morning. He is over the legal limit, though by no means drunk. The cops arrest him, impound his car, and he now has numerous fees totaling thousands of dollars and a smudge on his record for up to ten years. Show me where any good was done here, where anybody was served and protected, and I swear to (a) god I will kiss the next pig I see right on his fat fucking cheek.
I could craft a list of plausible scenarios like that to last for days, but in the name of brevity, I'll leave it at that. Seeing how this is not an essay, research paper, or anything like that, I'm going to wrap this up pretty casually with some final thoughts.
Against my will, I get to chip into a fund that supports a legitimate force that in recent times seems to have come to an understanding that they can basically do whatever they want to whomever they please.
Against my will, I have to follow laws applied universally that were meant to protect us from ourselves. I have to follow these laws despite the fact I'm not the idiot who created their precedent, despite the fact I'm not the idiot who goes around dabbling in everybody's life, despite the fact I'm not going to harm anybody by breaking any of these laws.
Against my will, I am surrounded by citizens who will never have the time of day to question what they unwittingly accept (everything) and thus I will continue to ebb deeper into frustration over current conditions.
Against my will, I have to struggle simply to carry on.
vocab words: omnipresent, unwitting(ly), ebb
For my entire cognitive life (and even beyond), I've taken care of myself to the best of my ability, and within the next couple of years, I am going to be completely independent (of my parents, namely). Even as a small child, my parents could bring or leave me anywhere, and I'd be perfectly content with my own company, not having to rely on others to be there to keep me occupied. I don't hesitate to, but I very rarely ask for help with anything. People are unpredictable, and that is one of myriad reasons why I do not like to rely on anyone but myself. Thus stems my principle disdain for police, government, systems, etc. - I can handle my own shit, and I don't need you or anybody else dipping their grubby paws into my business. All too often I get the impression that the government and its seemingly infinite and omnipresent stretches feel obligated to take care of our lives for us, because somehow we're just petty pieces of a larger machine that can't operate without some sort of superior. On the contrary, however, should a time ever come when I'm no longer capable of handling myself or my things, I will ask of you only one thing: a gun and a bullet. Fuck health care, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Social Security, and the like. The hell if I'm going to burden a society that's burdened me my whole life.
I went to a hardcore show in Berkley a few weeks ago. On one of the walls in the venue, a band hung a banner that read, "FUCK COPS". Being on the same page, I captured a picture of it with my phone and set it as my external wallpaper. Most ironically, I was arrested later that night for something I'd rather not discuss. This banner and my picture played no role for the rest of the night; it was merely an unfortunate observation that I wanted to point out.
However, this is a topic that I would love to discuss with a cop if ever given the chance, and it brings me to the second root of my resentment toward police. My current impression of cops, which is subject and completely welcome to change by anything that comes my way, is highly unfavorable. All experiences I've had or been privy to that cops were involved in have me convinced that their espoused purpose of serving and protecting is blatantly neglected, not to mention the fact that I don't need anybody to serve or protect me. If given the chance, I would hastily refurbish every cop car in the country to read, "To harm and steal." Fathom this scenario: a man driving his vehicle safely and soundly, disrupting no one and in danger of harming nobody, gets stopped at a DUI checkpoint on an empty freeway at 1:30 in the morning. He is over the legal limit, though by no means drunk. The cops arrest him, impound his car, and he now has numerous fees totaling thousands of dollars and a smudge on his record for up to ten years. Show me where any good was done here, where anybody was served and protected, and I swear to (a) god I will kiss the next pig I see right on his fat fucking cheek.
I could craft a list of plausible scenarios like that to last for days, but in the name of brevity, I'll leave it at that. Seeing how this is not an essay, research paper, or anything like that, I'm going to wrap this up pretty casually with some final thoughts.
Against my will, I get to chip into a fund that supports a legitimate force that in recent times seems to have come to an understanding that they can basically do whatever they want to whomever they please.
Against my will, I have to follow laws applied universally that were meant to protect us from ourselves. I have to follow these laws despite the fact I'm not the idiot who created their precedent, despite the fact I'm not the idiot who goes around dabbling in everybody's life, despite the fact I'm not going to harm anybody by breaking any of these laws.
Against my will, I am surrounded by citizens who will never have the time of day to question what they unwittingly accept (everything) and thus I will continue to ebb deeper into frustration over current conditions.
Against my will, I have to struggle simply to carry on.
vocab words: omnipresent, unwitting(ly), ebb
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