 |
| Eve is really who I'm talking about, but I won't get into that. |
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
A small addition...
I don't care if you're a different race. I don't care if you're a Muslim, a Hindu, a Christian. I don't care if you have any sort of stupid, insignificant problem which could be viewed as a dealbreaker; clearly, if I devote time, energy, and heart to you, it means that I think that you are worth it, as well as hope that you will reciprocate the same feeling back to me.
Sorry...damn a blog available all the time eh? haha
Monday, March 4, 2013
It's simple, really.
Whenever there is an attempt to "keep something simple," it always ends up being quite possibly the most complex task that you can face (until, of course, the next go at simplicity). Honestly, how can you keep something simple when the world is so vastly massive, so incredibly huge and small at the same time, thereby increasing the potential for a hair-pulling experience. Take for instance trying to write a simple sentence that wholly encompasses the exact feelings, emotions, or anything other various subjects that you may be feeling at any given moment. That sentence will begin to multiply, to spread into an unending spout of words falling together to create a paragraph, a page, a novel, until you realize that the simple idea of writing down "I feel _____" has turned into a personal, heartfelt collection of you writ large, regardless of the eloquence of the words.
Anyways, this is my attempt to be simple about me; a try at taking myself, my whole character, my whole thought and being, and putting it to paper. Some say its therapeutic, that it can help to alleviate the stresses that come with everyday life. I suppose that can be true. Really, that was the entire point of this blog in the first place: to place a copy of me somewhere, for myself or others to later read and recall the memories. The problem with that is that it gets too tough to really remember to keep it up. Life, school, work, love, it all gets in the way and pushes plans back to the point of forgetting. Hell, right now I should probably be working on a 5 page essay due tomorrow morning at 9 am. I just don't want to right now is the thing. It's not a problem of laziness, or that I don't know the material that should be presented. It's more of just me becoming self-aware.
Well that's slightly confusing and out of left field, isn't it? Humans are considered to be innately self-aware, to hold the cognitive ability to see themselves as a separate entity, and to be able to say "I am me." I know that, and I understand who I am. Perhaps self-aware was the wrong word to use. Either way, what I mean when I am becoming self-aware is that I'm finally beginning to see myself in context to this insane time we call life. I don't necessarily know what I'm going to do, or how I'm going to live life, but I can actually see myself. The past has become a dark memory, a place where, when I turn to it, I see grief, love, ignorance, even slight hatred. Why was I so hateful? It wasn't a kind of hate where problems were always happening. No, it was a hatred of life, as messed up as that is. I hated how life was, how it could be so unbalanced, where the weak were made to suffer while the strong prospered. Life, to me, was a completely unnecessary step that was, keeping with simplicity, stupid. Why was there a need to do this? It wasn't suicidal, nor anything of that sort. It was just a simple misunderstanding of life. It was the product of misguided teaching and a more or less sheltered existence for the first 18 years of this crazy existence.
This is not to say that I didn't have access to some sort of outside knowledge that would have aided my problematic thought processes. I could easily have read hundreds of books and found out the thoughts and ideas that people, many times more intelligent than myself, and been able to formulate some idea as to why it was that I was so hateful. But I didn't. This isn't meant to be any sort of "loss of faith" journal. It's just something that I've realized, and has aided in my relative love of life. My own thoughts of infallibility, though now a shadow of its former self, helped to keep me pushing forward hatefully, waiting til I would be done with it and just move on to perpetual bliss and prosperity. I wanted to just go through the motions.
If you're still with me, good, because I am actually coming to a point. Moving away, and being on my own, has really allowed me to expand my own personal knowledge base, as well as understanding, of how life really plays out. Sure, it was simple to understand evolution for me, and I completely believed it since a younger age. My problem was in trying to decide what was right. As simple as that. And this is where my infallibility met its match: for both to be true, both must also be false. No need to get into a infinite regression, as removing one will not cause the other to fail, but in fact make more sense. Really, this epiphany, this rapid realization suddenly changed my life. It was no longer a hatred of what was happening. Sure, not all possibilities that could happen will, and a lot of detrimental things that could happen do. And yes, that does indeed suck royally when it hits home.
But after that initial shock, that punch to the ego, a wonderful thing happens: happiness. Not the sort of happiness that one feels when brushing a loved one's face or kissing someone you have always wanted to. Rather, its a sort of happiness that accompanies wonder and amazement. Looking into the world and realizing "holy shit, I am made up of billions of cells all holding together and using electrical firing to instruct different body parts to do what needs to be done."
Some say such a drastic simplifying of humanity obliterates the want to live, that it makes us feel so insignificant and just a happy coincidence rather than some well thought out plan. To them I say, so what? What's wrong with putting aside egos? What's wrong with replacing a hate for the world with a love for life? I still don't like what's happening in the world, but there is no need to place a hate on that fact that we are breathing, that we are amazing by-products of a vastly amazing and expanding universe. I go out into the dark, crisp night, and I look up into the stars. I think of every human being who ever was, every person who looked up at that sky and has long since crumbled to dust, and I smile. Not from some sick amusement that death is so close and inevitable, but that life is so short, and that there is far too much of a focus on where I'm going afterwords rather than enjoying what I have. I have family; I have friends; I have good health and a roof over my head. Why attempt to be so vain as to keep it forever when I only have a short time to enjoy them?
Seeing the stars let's me see my ancestors, and not just my species: I see the gigantic ovens that cooked heavier and heavier elements, thereby allowing planets to form from the sudden deaths of these stars. I see atoms continually being recycled into the universe, neither created nor destroyed. I see one of the most wonderful plays being writ before my eyes, swirling around in a space so vastly huge that a size comparison is impossible. I see a beauty that can always bring a happy tear to my eye. My consciousness doesn't need to be existent for all time, nor does it need to hate itself for being so weak and breakable. I am part of the cosmos, and the cosmos is a part of me, just as simple as that. As Carl Sagan says, we are made of star-stuff.
But you know, just my own personal view. I know there are still ghosts of my past lurking in the shadows, waiting to jump me at a time when I have problems: it's really inevitable. But now, I'm not so afraid of the unknown, nor do I hate the imperfections of life. In fact, I welcome it. I would rather question everything to figure things out than know everything and be a complete douchebag. :]
Anyways, this is my attempt to be simple about me; a try at taking myself, my whole character, my whole thought and being, and putting it to paper. Some say its therapeutic, that it can help to alleviate the stresses that come with everyday life. I suppose that can be true. Really, that was the entire point of this blog in the first place: to place a copy of me somewhere, for myself or others to later read and recall the memories. The problem with that is that it gets too tough to really remember to keep it up. Life, school, work, love, it all gets in the way and pushes plans back to the point of forgetting. Hell, right now I should probably be working on a 5 page essay due tomorrow morning at 9 am. I just don't want to right now is the thing. It's not a problem of laziness, or that I don't know the material that should be presented. It's more of just me becoming self-aware.
Well that's slightly confusing and out of left field, isn't it? Humans are considered to be innately self-aware, to hold the cognitive ability to see themselves as a separate entity, and to be able to say "I am me." I know that, and I understand who I am. Perhaps self-aware was the wrong word to use. Either way, what I mean when I am becoming self-aware is that I'm finally beginning to see myself in context to this insane time we call life. I don't necessarily know what I'm going to do, or how I'm going to live life, but I can actually see myself. The past has become a dark memory, a place where, when I turn to it, I see grief, love, ignorance, even slight hatred. Why was I so hateful? It wasn't a kind of hate where problems were always happening. No, it was a hatred of life, as messed up as that is. I hated how life was, how it could be so unbalanced, where the weak were made to suffer while the strong prospered. Life, to me, was a completely unnecessary step that was, keeping with simplicity, stupid. Why was there a need to do this? It wasn't suicidal, nor anything of that sort. It was just a simple misunderstanding of life. It was the product of misguided teaching and a more or less sheltered existence for the first 18 years of this crazy existence.
This is not to say that I didn't have access to some sort of outside knowledge that would have aided my problematic thought processes. I could easily have read hundreds of books and found out the thoughts and ideas that people, many times more intelligent than myself, and been able to formulate some idea as to why it was that I was so hateful. But I didn't. This isn't meant to be any sort of "loss of faith" journal. It's just something that I've realized, and has aided in my relative love of life. My own thoughts of infallibility, though now a shadow of its former self, helped to keep me pushing forward hatefully, waiting til I would be done with it and just move on to perpetual bliss and prosperity. I wanted to just go through the motions.
If you're still with me, good, because I am actually coming to a point. Moving away, and being on my own, has really allowed me to expand my own personal knowledge base, as well as understanding, of how life really plays out. Sure, it was simple to understand evolution for me, and I completely believed it since a younger age. My problem was in trying to decide what was right. As simple as that. And this is where my infallibility met its match: for both to be true, both must also be false. No need to get into a infinite regression, as removing one will not cause the other to fail, but in fact make more sense. Really, this epiphany, this rapid realization suddenly changed my life. It was no longer a hatred of what was happening. Sure, not all possibilities that could happen will, and a lot of detrimental things that could happen do. And yes, that does indeed suck royally when it hits home.
But after that initial shock, that punch to the ego, a wonderful thing happens: happiness. Not the sort of happiness that one feels when brushing a loved one's face or kissing someone you have always wanted to. Rather, its a sort of happiness that accompanies wonder and amazement. Looking into the world and realizing "holy shit, I am made up of billions of cells all holding together and using electrical firing to instruct different body parts to do what needs to be done."
Some say such a drastic simplifying of humanity obliterates the want to live, that it makes us feel so insignificant and just a happy coincidence rather than some well thought out plan. To them I say, so what? What's wrong with putting aside egos? What's wrong with replacing a hate for the world with a love for life? I still don't like what's happening in the world, but there is no need to place a hate on that fact that we are breathing, that we are amazing by-products of a vastly amazing and expanding universe. I go out into the dark, crisp night, and I look up into the stars. I think of every human being who ever was, every person who looked up at that sky and has long since crumbled to dust, and I smile. Not from some sick amusement that death is so close and inevitable, but that life is so short, and that there is far too much of a focus on where I'm going afterwords rather than enjoying what I have. I have family; I have friends; I have good health and a roof over my head. Why attempt to be so vain as to keep it forever when I only have a short time to enjoy them?
Seeing the stars let's me see my ancestors, and not just my species: I see the gigantic ovens that cooked heavier and heavier elements, thereby allowing planets to form from the sudden deaths of these stars. I see atoms continually being recycled into the universe, neither created nor destroyed. I see one of the most wonderful plays being writ before my eyes, swirling around in a space so vastly huge that a size comparison is impossible. I see a beauty that can always bring a happy tear to my eye. My consciousness doesn't need to be existent for all time, nor does it need to hate itself for being so weak and breakable. I am part of the cosmos, and the cosmos is a part of me, just as simple as that. As Carl Sagan says, we are made of star-stuff.
 |
| Obligatory Carl Sagan picture. Wish I could of met ya old chap. |
Monday, April 30, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
Pondering
You know, when you're young it's explained that you are going to learn more in those years than the rest of your life, and your mind is like a sponge. That after that, you can learn more, however it will slow down and it won't come as easily.
Now as I draw a close to my 21st year of life, I feel as though my understanding of the world to be accelerating rapidly rather than slowing down. I draw in information and yearn for more, want to learn, and need to learn. I realize that I am still young, and that my life is still nearer the beginning than the end, yet my thirst for knowledge will never be satiated. My word usage has become more complex, and I am able to formulate personal feelings in writing without getting frustrated as I used to.
I can't wait to see what is in store for humanity, but I feel as though the only way that we can ensure anything is to accept when we are wrong and praise ourselves upon learning new things, no matter what they are. The reasoning for this is easily (hopefully) understood with this picture:
We only inhabit a small portion of that graph, and many animals have come before and many are sure to come after. But if we stick with the idea that we know all there is to know, or that anything we don't know doesn't need to be understood, I fear the worst, since that will be the end of reasoning and logical thought. Why go into the night as a second on the face of a clock rather than understand the last 23 hours and use that knowledge to start a new day?
Now as I draw a close to my 21st year of life, I feel as though my understanding of the world to be accelerating rapidly rather than slowing down. I draw in information and yearn for more, want to learn, and need to learn. I realize that I am still young, and that my life is still nearer the beginning than the end, yet my thirst for knowledge will never be satiated. My word usage has become more complex, and I am able to formulate personal feelings in writing without getting frustrated as I used to.
I can't wait to see what is in store for humanity, but I feel as though the only way that we can ensure anything is to accept when we are wrong and praise ourselves upon learning new things, no matter what they are. The reasoning for this is easily (hopefully) understood with this picture:
We only inhabit a small portion of that graph, and many animals have come before and many are sure to come after. But if we stick with the idea that we know all there is to know, or that anything we don't know doesn't need to be understood, I fear the worst, since that will be the end of reasoning and logical thought. Why go into the night as a second on the face of a clock rather than understand the last 23 hours and use that knowledge to start a new day?
Existentially,
- Jeremy
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Beautiful Images and Beautiful Music
I just made this video today for a presentation, but it honestly just makes me feel amazing. I hope you like it.
Credits:
Music - Beethoven Moonlight Sonata
Images - VVV Disk & Bulge Mosaic
Also, sorry for the crappy quality. For some reason, uploading it made it much lower resolution than intended. For the original-made version, download here
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
And Now, For Your Enjoyment, Sensei Jenkins.
Aieeeeeeeeyah!
Not gonna lie, I was scared for my life.
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