I do love a good conspiracy theory. They are entertaining little pieces of fiction, which in most cases can never be proven or disproven, making them endlessly fascinating. We live in a pretty amazing world where often times truth is stranger than fiction, but at the same time the truth can be mundane. As I've gotten older when I hear the sound of hooves I think horses rather than zebras. That's not to say that I've given up on my ability to over think wildly exaggerated ideas about various topics. Occam's razor tends to suggest that entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity, which is just a nice way of saying keep it simple, stupid. With that said which is more likely, in 1969 a government agency successfully launched three humans 225,000 miles to the Moon in a vehicle that cost over 24 billion dollars and was only used for six missions over the course of three years or the entire event was faked on a sound stage and the billions of dollars reported were actually spent on other things entirely? Maybe it's more fun not knowing the "truth"
As humans we're storytellers. It's just part of who we are. In 1947 something crashed in the New Mexico desert and I'm betting that someone saw something they didn't understand so rather than simply admitting that it was likely man-made, they instead believed it was alien in origin. I would imagine in 1947 Roswell coming across the debris of a high-altitude surveillance balloon with anthropomorphic test dummies would seem pretty other-worldly. One guy tells another guy and the story grows from there. It must have been like the game telephone with a big fish story at its center. When man was first sailing the oceans there were stories of mermaids and leviathans. These must have been based on something someone saw and due to whatever circumstances they were gradually exaggerated. Even nautical maps had notations "Here Be Monsters". We have essentially replaced our sea monsters with space monsters. Maybe in another thousand years space monsters will have been replaced by dimensional monsters. Really whatever we don't fully understand becomes a tall tale.
When I was in college I knew someone who really believed in the idea that Area 51 was home to alien spaceships and recovered bodies. He had in his possession pictures of Groom Lake taken about 25 miles from the base, just before the government bought up the surrounding land. At the time it was interesting to see this fabled secret location. Of course the pictures were somewhat blurry being taken with a telephoto lens on top of a ridge. All you could see were a few dozen buildings and a runway, but that was enough for us to imagine what could have been going on there. We would scan the picture, looking for Hangar 18, where we knew the evidence of extra-terrestrial life was hidden away.
The thing about Area 51 is that if I know about it then it must not be a secret. I think of it as classic misdirection. In this case Area 51 is the beautiful girl in the magic act. You're looking at her while the secret to the trick is being done just out of view. I'm sure at some point the Groom Lake area was used as an actual secret facility, but the secrets there aren't that mysterious. They were developing top secret planes. The U-2, SR-71, and even F117 were developed there or places like it. By the time the public found out about the SR-71 Blackbird it was already being scheduled for retirement, after being in service for nearly a decade. The first flight of the F-117 Nighthawk was in 1981, but the Air Force didn't acknowledge its existence until 1988. You can't do something like that if everyone knows you're building it. So it's better to just let people say it's a UFO. And technically speaking at the time it was just another unidentified flying object, but just because we don't know what it is doesn't mean someone somewhere else is also as clueless about its origins. I'm guessing if there are secrets being kept, be it alien or otherwise, they're not being kept at a place as publicly known as Area 51. It's more likely that some random, seemingly abandoned location in the middle of nowhere is the new home for super top secret projects.
Another person I knew in college was a major conspiracy theorist. Some of the stuff he believed makes me think that he's locked away in some bunker right now, living off the grid. He told me that the moon landing wasn't faked, we actually landed there just fine. What we found there was never revealed to the public though. Just on the horizon there were multiple alien crafts. A message was sent telling us that we shouldn't return. He believed that was one of the reasons why NASA had stopped live broadcasts of lunar landings. Aliens were real reason why we stopped going to the moon in 1972. It had nothing to do with the crippling cost of launching people into space. According to him the military knew about alien spacecrafts for awhile. In fact they had even come up with protocol in the event that someone saw something that couldn't be explained. The codeword was "Santa Claus". This way if someone saw something they could they just saw Santa Claus off their port side. Anyone not in the know would chuckle, but in secret there would be a mad scramble to find out where this alien craft originated from. He had found this information through research of various sources, some of which he allowed me to read. He told me that by reading these books, which were published on a limited basis, my world view would forever be changed. Then one day I never saw him again. He still has my copy of Office '97. A conspiracy theorist could think that he was silenced, but more likely he dropped out of school like about 85% of the other students who started the same year as I did.
There is always the argument how come someone like him would know this information? If aliens did exist why do they always buzz by Farmer Bob's field and not land in Manhattan? How come the guy with the super secret knowledge is someone who seems to be a couple tacos short of a combination plate? Maybe it's because those Illuminati guys know that no one would believe him when he starts spouting off about reptile people infiltrating the highest levels of the government. Or it's more likely that the poor bastard is bordering on delusional because in addition to alien cover-ups, they believed they were the reincarnation of Napoleon.
Now I'm not saying that there aren't secrets being kept from us. Some are for our protection and some are kept from us simply because they're dirty and we wouldn't like it very much if we heard about them. There are things that the common civilian doesn't need to know, even if we feel it's our right. Tell you what, how about the government reveal their secrets after you reveal your darkest secrets to the world. There is this sense of entitlement by some. They believe that everything should be revealed to them regardless of the circumstances. It doesn't make a lot of sense to share certain things because we're not the only ones who watch CNN. There are some very bad people out there who are constantly looking for an edge to use against us. So maybe it's better that I don't know if the CIA is secretly assassinating troublemakers in various parts of the world.
Now there are some situations where the official story just doesn't make a lot of sense. It's times like that where due to a poorly constructed explanation people attempt to fill in the gaps with whatever they can. Example: I think that there was more to the Kennedy Assassination than what was revealed in the Warren Commission's report, but I have a feeling the real explanation is probably nowhere near as interesting as the theories that have been floating around for the last fifty years. Did Oswald act alone? Was he a patsy? Were their rogue elements in our own government that wanted to essentially pull off a coup de tat? Who knows? What I do know is that the President was riding in an open-top car in the middle of Dallas and was considered by many to be contrary to the status quo. It didn't help that the last successful Presidential assassination was in 1901 and the last reported attempt on a President's life was over ten years before Kennedy was killed. In the end it really doesn't matter what happened because in the almost half century since that event there have been so many other things that take priority.
I think in some ways a conspiracy theory is also meant as a comforting device. In a strange way it's better to think that there is some secret series of events, which are controlled by someone. It's either that or the world really is chaotic and no one knows what could happen next. Which is more scary to think about? Is it easier to think that 9/11 was something the government knew about and even promoted in order to push their war on terror or that nineteen guys managed to slip through shoddy security and slam planes into buildings because no one had considered that idea to be one to worry about? It's a popular theory because something like the PATRIOT Act wouldn't have a chance of passing on September 10th, 2001, but on September 12th the door was open to what many believed was a serious breach of civil liberties. At the time there was a phone call from Flight 93 that indicated the flight had been hijacked, this information coming after the world knew America was under attack. This plane was the only one to not reach its target, instead it crashed in an empty field, only a few miles short of hitting a populated area. I remember at the time, before the details got out about what happened, there was a thought that the plane had been forced down by the Air Force. By then the military had to be aware of the situation and the possible target being the White House. Rather than allow the flight to continue, they shot it down over an unpopulated area to minimize casualties. The thing is no one wants to hear about that. We know it's the right thing to do, but it's not something we want to know about. I know there are some people today who still question what really happened because they can't accept the official story.
In the years since 2001 there hasn't been another successful terrorist attack on American soil. Now that could be because everyone is hyper aware of the world around them or because the threat wasn't as great as we were lead to believe. I have a feeling it's probably somewhere closer to the middle of those two ideas. Every so often we'll hear a report of how a potential attack was stopped. The suspect had a bomb in his shoe or they were carrying binary liquid explosives. Whatever it was, it was stopped. Then on the other side you hear about the fundamental failings of security that's in place. One might wonder how is it that there can be such gross negligence and yet we haven't suffered the consequences since the September attacks? So maybe the story that it was all just an elaborate plan to get us to go to war is horrifying, but less scary than the idea that at any moment it could happen again.
Did Paul McCartney die in a car crash in 1966, only to be replaced by a lookalike? Did the USS Eldridge vanish into another dimension when the military attempted to render it invisible? Was the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean actually caused by a nuclear experiment by the Indian government? Is there a secret society that's quietly controlling the world for their own gain? Or is it that when more than two people attempt to share a secret it inevitably gets out, meaning that it's next to impossible for all these secrets to stay secret for very long? Maybe the conspiracy is to make sure that there are always conspiracy theories out there to distract us from the truth, whatever that may be.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
On Imagination
We are surrounded by make-believe. It's almost as though there is more that is imaginary than that is considered real. Television shows, movies, books, music, art, fantasies, and even memories are all built on a foundation of what comes from the mind, much of which is fabricated in some way. This isn't a bad thing, but it makes me wonder what's really real then.
I've talked about how perception shapes memories. So the same event between two people could be remembered in vastly different ways, but to each person it's reality. It could be said that imagination is attempting to fill in details that the mind simply can't or won't recall. And that's just the past, but both the present and future are constantly filled with imagination. If other people are anything like me then their minds must wander off, thinking about various things. What you have to do next, what could have been, what you would like do be doing. With all of these we're picturing events or creating situations that haven't happened. The mind is almost constantly creating its own reality by simply imagining it into existence.
Every story ever told requires imagination, be it from the person telling the story or from the person hearing it. Stories based on real events force us to envision how it must have been. Books and movies attempt to consolidate that information and build the image for us. Even pornography is based in make-believe. The people are real only in the sense that they are portrayed by actual people, but the events and situations leading to sex are often pretend. Plus the whole point of pornography is to help people create a pleasurable fantasy.
When we were kids we spent a lot more of our time using our imaginations. We would make up games or pretend we were somewhere else or create elaborate stories (sometimes only for the sake of trying to get out of trouble). I remember spending hours sitting with my toys, just building dozens of scenarios of fun. And that was enough for us back then. Somewhere along the way we start to use our imagination a little bit less, allowing someone else to do it for us. Instead of playing a game we created on our own, we watch a movie with a structured story and someone else's ideas being fed to us. We stop creating our own fun and only allow ourselves to be entertained.
I believe that there is so much made-up stuff surrounding us because it creates a form of escape from reality. The television show has a world where characters are interesting, smart, eccentric, or sexy. The real world has that too, but with make-believe characters those attributes can be accentuated beyond normal levels to create importance. Even so-called reality TV is just another form of escape. The people on the shows aren't exactly real. They are put into controlled situations for the sake of entertainment. They know they're being watched and are putting on a performance. People watch because it's different from their own lives. No one wants to watch a show called "Your Shitty Job", which is based on your day-to-day activities at work. There has to be a gimmick or something special to cause people to try and imagine what it would be like to be there.
Our own self-perception is often based on imagination. We believe ourselves to be one way, which may not be how we appear to others. I won't say how we really are because someone else's perception of you may only be real to them. So in a sense we are all just fantasies. We create ourselves. So if everything is based on imagination in some way then is anything real? Or is it that they only way something can be real is for it to be imagined? And if we imagine reality then how come we're sticking with this reality and not something else?
I've talked about how perception shapes memories. So the same event between two people could be remembered in vastly different ways, but to each person it's reality. It could be said that imagination is attempting to fill in details that the mind simply can't or won't recall. And that's just the past, but both the present and future are constantly filled with imagination. If other people are anything like me then their minds must wander off, thinking about various things. What you have to do next, what could have been, what you would like do be doing. With all of these we're picturing events or creating situations that haven't happened. The mind is almost constantly creating its own reality by simply imagining it into existence.
Every story ever told requires imagination, be it from the person telling the story or from the person hearing it. Stories based on real events force us to envision how it must have been. Books and movies attempt to consolidate that information and build the image for us. Even pornography is based in make-believe. The people are real only in the sense that they are portrayed by actual people, but the events and situations leading to sex are often pretend. Plus the whole point of pornography is to help people create a pleasurable fantasy.
When we were kids we spent a lot more of our time using our imaginations. We would make up games or pretend we were somewhere else or create elaborate stories (sometimes only for the sake of trying to get out of trouble). I remember spending hours sitting with my toys, just building dozens of scenarios of fun. And that was enough for us back then. Somewhere along the way we start to use our imagination a little bit less, allowing someone else to do it for us. Instead of playing a game we created on our own, we watch a movie with a structured story and someone else's ideas being fed to us. We stop creating our own fun and only allow ourselves to be entertained.
I believe that there is so much made-up stuff surrounding us because it creates a form of escape from reality. The television show has a world where characters are interesting, smart, eccentric, or sexy. The real world has that too, but with make-believe characters those attributes can be accentuated beyond normal levels to create importance. Even so-called reality TV is just another form of escape. The people on the shows aren't exactly real. They are put into controlled situations for the sake of entertainment. They know they're being watched and are putting on a performance. People watch because it's different from their own lives. No one wants to watch a show called "Your Shitty Job", which is based on your day-to-day activities at work. There has to be a gimmick or something special to cause people to try and imagine what it would be like to be there.
Our own self-perception is often based on imagination. We believe ourselves to be one way, which may not be how we appear to others. I won't say how we really are because someone else's perception of you may only be real to them. So in a sense we are all just fantasies. We create ourselves. So if everything is based on imagination in some way then is anything real? Or is it that they only way something can be real is for it to be imagined? And if we imagine reality then how come we're sticking with this reality and not something else?
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
On Sex
I was originally going to write about another topic, but I couldn't remember what it was so I'm just going to write about this instead.
What's the deal with sex? Why is there such a taboo with it and everything surrounding it? Along with money it seems to be one of the major driving forces for nearly everything (and I suspect that in a lot of cases the money is just a means to sex). I get that it feels good, but what I don't get is how it can mess with people in strange ways.
Let's start at the beginning. We're one of the few known species that has sex for reasons other than procreation. This can be for fun, for control, for anger, or for sheer boredom. Most other species stick with its original purpose, to continue the species. Whatever force or circumstances that created us this way saw to it that sex was pleasurable, mostly as an incentive for passing along the genes. It makes me wonder if other species feel pleasure during the act or if they're incapable of expending precious energy simply for fun. I'm sure ancient man figured out pretty quickly that while it was necessary to make sure there were enough littles ones around to replace them that the act of replacing themselves was its own reward. Back then it important for the strongest of the species to continue on so fidelity was less about love or commitment and more to do with making sure you weren't wasting time on someone else's genes. I think there is a part of that ancient thought process still embedded in our brains today.
If you've ever been cheated on then you know that feeling that you've been betrayed. The thing is do you know why you're upset about it? If the other person has sex with someone else it would seem obvious, but why? People say all the time that they want others to be happy. So wouldn't it stand to reason that when having sex, even with someone else, that the other person is happy at that moment? As a side note to that I don't believe that someone has to have sex in order to cheat. For me it's all about intention. If you go to have coffee with the intention of doing something more, then you're cheating. Whether you get naked or not doesn't matter because mentally and emotionally you've already stepped out on your partner. Maybe that's an overly strict sense of cheating, but that's how I think. Anyway back to what I was saying. So your partner is in bed with someone else and unless they've done so to intentionally hurt you then why is it such an act of disloyalty? Is it going back to that old thought of someone else could be passing along their genes with the one you've chosen? Is it just about the pleasure associated?
People have a lot of insecurity when it comes to sex. Are you well-equipped physically? Do you know how to do that thing with your mouth? Can you go for hours? And more importantly, how do you compare to others? It seems we've been brought up to constantly worry about these types of things. Sometimes we think about them to the point that they paralyze us from ever acting or create this fear that we'll never measure up (metaphorically).
What is it about the act that feels so personal? A hug feels good. Eating a well made meal can bring us gratification. Something about sex goes beyond those feelings and outside of certain drugs, it's the best feeling we can have. Is it because it's potentially the best thing our bodies can experience that with it also can come the price of having the worst possible emotional fallout? I think there is a bit of ego involved when it comes to sex. We all want to believe that we're good at what we do. People want to believe that the feeling they experience is somewhat unique to them or at least between them and someone else. So when someone cheats is the problem with the fact that the other person went somewhere else to find pleasure, making it seem that what you're doing is simply not enough? Is it just a matter of a bruised ego or is there something more to it?
Saying sex feels good is kind of like saying the ocean is wet. The fact that it feels so good I think is part of the problem we have with it. It's a guilt thing that's been hammered into our heads, be it from religion or other people. There is this weird idea that we shouldn't feel this good and if you do then you're doing something wrong. By nature I think humans are sexual creatures and attempting to suppress those feelings leads to larger problems. It doesn't seem natural to only have sex with one person and only after you've had a ceremony that says you're committed to just them. Or stranger still are those out there that never have any kind of sex because it's going against their beliefs. It's been said the only abnormal sex life is no sex life.
I've joked that the only time I'm not thinking about sex is about 30 seconds after I've had sex. On any given day how often do you think about sex? It can be as subtle as seeing an attractive person or as overt as a fantasy about the act itself. I have to assume it constantly paints the way we see things on a moment by moment basis. There are studies on its effects on the psyche. There is a billion dollar industry dedicated to showing us people having sex in every way possible. Obviously even when people are having regular sex there is some kind of need for more. It's not exactly something that is forgotten about the moment after it's done.
Some could argue that it's the most intimate you can be with another person so that's why it's so meaningful to us. Still there are those out there that have sex casually and think of it as just something fun to do with another person. For them there is no emotional attachment. I guess either point of view is valid. The question is why have we allowed it to become so important to us?
What's the deal with sex? Why is there such a taboo with it and everything surrounding it? Along with money it seems to be one of the major driving forces for nearly everything (and I suspect that in a lot of cases the money is just a means to sex). I get that it feels good, but what I don't get is how it can mess with people in strange ways.
Let's start at the beginning. We're one of the few known species that has sex for reasons other than procreation. This can be for fun, for control, for anger, or for sheer boredom. Most other species stick with its original purpose, to continue the species. Whatever force or circumstances that created us this way saw to it that sex was pleasurable, mostly as an incentive for passing along the genes. It makes me wonder if other species feel pleasure during the act or if they're incapable of expending precious energy simply for fun. I'm sure ancient man figured out pretty quickly that while it was necessary to make sure there were enough littles ones around to replace them that the act of replacing themselves was its own reward. Back then it important for the strongest of the species to continue on so fidelity was less about love or commitment and more to do with making sure you weren't wasting time on someone else's genes. I think there is a part of that ancient thought process still embedded in our brains today.
If you've ever been cheated on then you know that feeling that you've been betrayed. The thing is do you know why you're upset about it? If the other person has sex with someone else it would seem obvious, but why? People say all the time that they want others to be happy. So wouldn't it stand to reason that when having sex, even with someone else, that the other person is happy at that moment? As a side note to that I don't believe that someone has to have sex in order to cheat. For me it's all about intention. If you go to have coffee with the intention of doing something more, then you're cheating. Whether you get naked or not doesn't matter because mentally and emotionally you've already stepped out on your partner. Maybe that's an overly strict sense of cheating, but that's how I think. Anyway back to what I was saying. So your partner is in bed with someone else and unless they've done so to intentionally hurt you then why is it such an act of disloyalty? Is it going back to that old thought of someone else could be passing along their genes with the one you've chosen? Is it just about the pleasure associated?
People have a lot of insecurity when it comes to sex. Are you well-equipped physically? Do you know how to do that thing with your mouth? Can you go for hours? And more importantly, how do you compare to others? It seems we've been brought up to constantly worry about these types of things. Sometimes we think about them to the point that they paralyze us from ever acting or create this fear that we'll never measure up (metaphorically).
What is it about the act that feels so personal? A hug feels good. Eating a well made meal can bring us gratification. Something about sex goes beyond those feelings and outside of certain drugs, it's the best feeling we can have. Is it because it's potentially the best thing our bodies can experience that with it also can come the price of having the worst possible emotional fallout? I think there is a bit of ego involved when it comes to sex. We all want to believe that we're good at what we do. People want to believe that the feeling they experience is somewhat unique to them or at least between them and someone else. So when someone cheats is the problem with the fact that the other person went somewhere else to find pleasure, making it seem that what you're doing is simply not enough? Is it just a matter of a bruised ego or is there something more to it?
Saying sex feels good is kind of like saying the ocean is wet. The fact that it feels so good I think is part of the problem we have with it. It's a guilt thing that's been hammered into our heads, be it from religion or other people. There is this weird idea that we shouldn't feel this good and if you do then you're doing something wrong. By nature I think humans are sexual creatures and attempting to suppress those feelings leads to larger problems. It doesn't seem natural to only have sex with one person and only after you've had a ceremony that says you're committed to just them. Or stranger still are those out there that never have any kind of sex because it's going against their beliefs. It's been said the only abnormal sex life is no sex life.
I've joked that the only time I'm not thinking about sex is about 30 seconds after I've had sex. On any given day how often do you think about sex? It can be as subtle as seeing an attractive person or as overt as a fantasy about the act itself. I have to assume it constantly paints the way we see things on a moment by moment basis. There are studies on its effects on the psyche. There is a billion dollar industry dedicated to showing us people having sex in every way possible. Obviously even when people are having regular sex there is some kind of need for more. It's not exactly something that is forgotten about the moment after it's done.
Some could argue that it's the most intimate you can be with another person so that's why it's so meaningful to us. Still there are those out there that have sex casually and think of it as just something fun to do with another person. For them there is no emotional attachment. I guess either point of view is valid. The question is why have we allowed it to become so important to us?
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
On Life
So what is the point of living? That's not meant as a hopeless question, but more of one that is meant to make you think about what's important to you. I think there is a difference between living and existing. Too many people are simply floating along through life with no purpose. That's not to say that everything you do has to have some deep meaning, still it's good to have a reason to get out of bed every day other than to collect a paycheck. When asked what do you want from life many people will probably answer that they want to be happy. While I don't disagree with that sentiment I don't think it's really happiness people want. I'm happy when I eat tacos or watching a good movie with friends, but I need more than that from life. That thing people confuse for happiness should be called joy or passion. I know both of those terms can come off as cheesy. Think about the things in your life that you're passionate about (and not just the sweaty kind), those things are often what give you the most joy. Everyone needs something that fulfills them otherwise you're just existing rather than living. I think all too often people give up on what gives them joy because it's not always practical. It's not a bad thing to be practical for a time because let's face it, it's a requirement to get through life. Still a life without passion or joy is a life without hope.
I've spent a lot of time wondering what's the meaning of life. Why are we here and more importantly, why are we aware that we are here? Does a shark think about those things? They've been around for millions of years and seem to be doing just fine without pondering the finer points of their existence. For all their evolutionary perfection they haven't moved beyond the need for food and procreation. Then again we as humans have created so many things in our lives that are important only to us as individuals. I know many people who can't figure out if they're living to work or working to live. Widgets will be important to you if you work in a widget factory, but to someone else it's as worrisome as a cloudy day. Ask someone with kids what they cared about before they had children. Maybe that's what life is about, finding what's important to you. Still I often wonder about the things that are important and why they take priority in our lives.
Like many people I know what I like. I've spent years knowing what flavors or movies or even colors I like. The thing is that I don't remember exactly when I knew this. It feels like it's always been that way. There had to be a time when I hadn't tried sushi or Frank Sinatra's music was unknown to me. I just don't remember what my life was like before I figured out that I enjoyed them. My favorite place to eat in Arizona has a pretty strange mix of food. It's Chinese, Mexican, and Jamaican. You're able to come up with all kinds of combinations of food. The first time I ever ate there I was overwhelmed by the choices so I just ordered what my friend was getting. Turns out the meal was fantastic and for the last twelve years I've been going there I've ordered the exact same thing every time. Now I know there are so many other things I could be eating, but I found what I like and for a long time I thought if I made the effort to go there I should stick with what I enjoy because it's familiar. It's good to know what things in life you're fond of, but at the same time doing so can lead you to limit yourself to only what you know. This year I have decided to free myself from my past, at least in the fact that I'm not going to limit myself only to what I know I like. I know that I'll enjoy the 7 & 9 Combo, but ordering that when I know I'll like it means that I could potentially be losing out on an opportunity to try something new. Maybe my new favorite thing has been sitting next to that familiar stand-by all this time and I never bothered to try and find it.
For a long time I was really good at talking myself out of living. When I was here I wanted to be there. When I was there I wanted to be somewhere else. Then after it was all done I would regret not having made the most of the situation. I can recall whole years that were filled with times like that. You can't dwell on the road not taken because you are where you're supposed to be right now, even if you don't like it. However, if you find yourself tired of winding up in the same old destination maybe it's time to start trying something else. This often means wandering outside the comfort zone and that's a scary thing for many people, especially since often times there is a reason why something is comfortable. It's relatively safe. Going outside of that could mean some pain, physical, emotional, or otherwise. That doesn't mean completely throwing caution to the wind. There has to be a balance. For me I'm trying to say "yes" more often and if I do say "no" I try to at least know why rather than have it be my default answer to a situation. At least now I know if I like or dislike something because I actually experienced it rather than relying on the belief that I probably wouldn't have liked in in the first place. Life is all about experiences and with that comes the need to try things that are new, even if it's something as trivial as ordering the fish instead of the chicken.
I've spent a lot of time wondering what's the meaning of life. Why are we here and more importantly, why are we aware that we are here? Does a shark think about those things? They've been around for millions of years and seem to be doing just fine without pondering the finer points of their existence. For all their evolutionary perfection they haven't moved beyond the need for food and procreation. Then again we as humans have created so many things in our lives that are important only to us as individuals. I know many people who can't figure out if they're living to work or working to live. Widgets will be important to you if you work in a widget factory, but to someone else it's as worrisome as a cloudy day. Ask someone with kids what they cared about before they had children. Maybe that's what life is about, finding what's important to you. Still I often wonder about the things that are important and why they take priority in our lives.
Like many people I know what I like. I've spent years knowing what flavors or movies or even colors I like. The thing is that I don't remember exactly when I knew this. It feels like it's always been that way. There had to be a time when I hadn't tried sushi or Frank Sinatra's music was unknown to me. I just don't remember what my life was like before I figured out that I enjoyed them. My favorite place to eat in Arizona has a pretty strange mix of food. It's Chinese, Mexican, and Jamaican. You're able to come up with all kinds of combinations of food. The first time I ever ate there I was overwhelmed by the choices so I just ordered what my friend was getting. Turns out the meal was fantastic and for the last twelve years I've been going there I've ordered the exact same thing every time. Now I know there are so many other things I could be eating, but I found what I like and for a long time I thought if I made the effort to go there I should stick with what I enjoy because it's familiar. It's good to know what things in life you're fond of, but at the same time doing so can lead you to limit yourself to only what you know. This year I have decided to free myself from my past, at least in the fact that I'm not going to limit myself only to what I know I like. I know that I'll enjoy the 7 & 9 Combo, but ordering that when I know I'll like it means that I could potentially be losing out on an opportunity to try something new. Maybe my new favorite thing has been sitting next to that familiar stand-by all this time and I never bothered to try and find it.
For a long time I was really good at talking myself out of living. When I was here I wanted to be there. When I was there I wanted to be somewhere else. Then after it was all done I would regret not having made the most of the situation. I can recall whole years that were filled with times like that. You can't dwell on the road not taken because you are where you're supposed to be right now, even if you don't like it. However, if you find yourself tired of winding up in the same old destination maybe it's time to start trying something else. This often means wandering outside the comfort zone and that's a scary thing for many people, especially since often times there is a reason why something is comfortable. It's relatively safe. Going outside of that could mean some pain, physical, emotional, or otherwise. That doesn't mean completely throwing caution to the wind. There has to be a balance. For me I'm trying to say "yes" more often and if I do say "no" I try to at least know why rather than have it be my default answer to a situation. At least now I know if I like or dislike something because I actually experienced it rather than relying on the belief that I probably wouldn't have liked in in the first place. Life is all about experiences and with that comes the need to try things that are new, even if it's something as trivial as ordering the fish instead of the chicken.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
On Death
I'm starting to wonder if death isn't such a bad thing. I know we've been brought up to believe that death is something to be feared, but death is really just a part of life. If you think about it, without death there wouldn't be any life. Just about everything we eat comes from something living, even that tofu was once a plant that had to die in order to be turned into a cube of food-like substance. And that's the way things go. Something has to die so something else can live and eventually that something else dies too. When I was younger I was afraid of dying. Maybe most people are afraid of death simply because we have no idea what happens afterwards. No one who has experienced it can tell us what to expect. There have been reports of near-death experiences where someone sees a bright light or a tunnel, but even if those reports are true, I have a feeling that it's not death itself, rather the road to it.
There are a few possibilities when it comes to what happens when we die. If you're Christian or religious there is the belief that there is some kind of afterlife, be it heaven or whatever. When you die you get to experience bliss and are surrounded by all your loved ones. Maybe that's true, but a part of me wonders if that's just a story told to people so that death isn't so scary. Don't worry about dying because afterwards everything will be wonderful. There is another belief that when you die you're reincarnated as someone or something else. Scientists have shown that energy cannot be destroyed, only transferred or changed. This is like money, or at least the value of money. You hand a dollar over to someone, the money isn't lost, it just moves on to somewhere else. The value remains the same. Then again I guess someone could destroy the dollar since it is just paper, but you get the idea of what I'm saying. So if our "soul" is just another form of energy, like an electro-magnetic field, then when our bodies die that energy has to go somewhere else. Some believe that goes into a new body. A question I had heard awhile ago went like this. In 1700 there were around six hundred million people on the planet. Three hundred years later there were ten times that many. If a soul is constantly being transfered after death, where did all those other souls come from? Speaking strictly from an energy stand-point that is huge leap in growth. It's hard to say what the original source is for all that new energy.
The other possibility for what happens is nothing. It could be when we die we simply cease to exist. Our body dies and it's like someone turns out the lights on our consciousness. The idea of not existing is what scared me the most for a long time. Life is all we know, or at least all we can remember if there was something before this. It's what we're comfortable with. Again, no one can tell us what happens afterwards so there is a tendency to be afraid of the unknown. I don't want to cease to exist, but I suppose when it happens I won't be around to care one way or another.
One could argue that there are ghosts or spirits, which contribute to the notion that there has to be something beyond this world. Maybe those things are indications of something else. We understand so little about our own world that I have a feeling we understand even less about the worlds and realities around us. If ghosts do exist then given the number of people who have died and even more to the point, people who have died badly, must number in the hundreds of millions. All six hundred million people from 1700 are dead and at least some of them had experiences that got them stuck here. A ghost could be nothing more than the echo of life. So the ghost of your grandmother might not actually be her, but rather an emotional resonance of who she was. They say ghosts, at least the bad ones, are stuck in some kind of loop, repeating the horrible event that lead to them dying. Because of this they're trapped between worlds. I tend to think of them more like psychic scars. Given time it could heal on its own.
Getting back to my original thought, maybe death isn't so bad. Some believe paradise is waiting for them. Others think we might get another go at things until we get them right. Or there would be nothing, which given how some people live, could be a huge relief. We are sad when someone dies because we no longer get to see them. Everything we knew about them came to an end, sometimes abruptly. People say that someone who died is in a better place. I don't know if they're really in a better place, but more a different place. Maybe this whole thing called life is just a giant preamble to something more and all our fear about death is like ancient man being afraid of the thunder because they didn't understand it. Then again, maybe this is all we get and we need to make the best of it because when the show is over there is no encore.
There are a few possibilities when it comes to what happens when we die. If you're Christian or religious there is the belief that there is some kind of afterlife, be it heaven or whatever. When you die you get to experience bliss and are surrounded by all your loved ones. Maybe that's true, but a part of me wonders if that's just a story told to people so that death isn't so scary. Don't worry about dying because afterwards everything will be wonderful. There is another belief that when you die you're reincarnated as someone or something else. Scientists have shown that energy cannot be destroyed, only transferred or changed. This is like money, or at least the value of money. You hand a dollar over to someone, the money isn't lost, it just moves on to somewhere else. The value remains the same. Then again I guess someone could destroy the dollar since it is just paper, but you get the idea of what I'm saying. So if our "soul" is just another form of energy, like an electro-magnetic field, then when our bodies die that energy has to go somewhere else. Some believe that goes into a new body. A question I had heard awhile ago went like this. In 1700 there were around six hundred million people on the planet. Three hundred years later there were ten times that many. If a soul is constantly being transfered after death, where did all those other souls come from? Speaking strictly from an energy stand-point that is huge leap in growth. It's hard to say what the original source is for all that new energy.
The other possibility for what happens is nothing. It could be when we die we simply cease to exist. Our body dies and it's like someone turns out the lights on our consciousness. The idea of not existing is what scared me the most for a long time. Life is all we know, or at least all we can remember if there was something before this. It's what we're comfortable with. Again, no one can tell us what happens afterwards so there is a tendency to be afraid of the unknown. I don't want to cease to exist, but I suppose when it happens I won't be around to care one way or another.
One could argue that there are ghosts or spirits, which contribute to the notion that there has to be something beyond this world. Maybe those things are indications of something else. We understand so little about our own world that I have a feeling we understand even less about the worlds and realities around us. If ghosts do exist then given the number of people who have died and even more to the point, people who have died badly, must number in the hundreds of millions. All six hundred million people from 1700 are dead and at least some of them had experiences that got them stuck here. A ghost could be nothing more than the echo of life. So the ghost of your grandmother might not actually be her, but rather an emotional resonance of who she was. They say ghosts, at least the bad ones, are stuck in some kind of loop, repeating the horrible event that lead to them dying. Because of this they're trapped between worlds. I tend to think of them more like psychic scars. Given time it could heal on its own.
Getting back to my original thought, maybe death isn't so bad. Some believe paradise is waiting for them. Others think we might get another go at things until we get them right. Or there would be nothing, which given how some people live, could be a huge relief. We are sad when someone dies because we no longer get to see them. Everything we knew about them came to an end, sometimes abruptly. People say that someone who died is in a better place. I don't know if they're really in a better place, but more a different place. Maybe this whole thing called life is just a giant preamble to something more and all our fear about death is like ancient man being afraid of the thunder because they didn't understand it. Then again, maybe this is all we get and we need to make the best of it because when the show is over there is no encore.
On Being Lost
If you know me then it's very likely you've heard this story before. At the end of high school we took a trip to a fairly remote spot, which is saying a lot considering we already lived in a rural area. We were surrounded by mountains and rivers and the nearest town was a distance memory during the three hour ride up. There wasn't a lot to do so a few of us got the idea that we would hike to the top of the nearest peak, just to see what it was like. The hike was fairly easy, with the worst part being the permafrost. If you've never walked on it before, it's like stepping on a sponge. Normally this would be fine, but when you're walking up hill it tends to tire you out very quickly. Added to that there were pockets that were still wet. We were slowly making our way up we didn't really notice the clouds had moved in. This was May so the worst we expected was a spring shower, not realizing where we were was used to this kind of "unseasonal" weather. As we reached the top of the hill the first snowflakes started to fall. As much as we wanted to enjoy our conquest of the hill (we called it a mountain as we stood on top of it), the idea of walking back down in the snow wasn't something any of us felt like dealing with. So we started to make our way back down. At the top of the hill we could see the lodge and parking lot so we had a general idea that if we traveled in a straight line back down we'd end up where we started. Somewhere on the way back down someone had the idea that we shift slightly left to avoid all the mushy ground we had on the way up. Everyone was more than willing to go along with this idea as the snow was starting to pick up.
It's hard for me to remember exactly when it happened, but we started to notice that things weren't looking the same on the way down. Granted we had moved over a little bit, but that just meant things on our right would be in a slightly different location. They weren't. Nothing was familiar. We knew this, but we kept walking, thinking maybe after that next batch of trees we'd see something we recognized. I should mention it took almost an hour to get to the top, longer than most of us had planned. At the bottom it was nice and warm out. Well warm for us anyway so several of us had on nothing more than a light jacket or a long sleeve shirt. With the descent we had been outside for close to two hours in dropping temperatures. At this point I think we started to realize that we didn't know where we were. At least we weren't where we were supposed to be. I remember thinking at the time two conflicting thoughts. The first being that everything is fine. We're just a little out of position, but pretty much right next to our original path. The other thought was that we were lost and potentially in serious trouble if we didn't figure out where to go.
We kept walking downhill, which was the only direction we knew was mostly correct. Finally we came out of the woods and found a service road. Most people would be excited by this because a road meant civilization was close. Up there service roads could go twenty miles before you hit something and that something could just be where they store the machines to make the service road. And we now had a new problem, which direction on the road do we go? Nothing looked familiar. We could no longer see the peak we were on and even if we could we didn't have the strength to go back up and start again, at least not as a party. Myself and a friend considered scrambling up the nearest ridge, just to see if we could see anything. In our minds we thought it would be quick and easy. Thankfully we were talked out of that idea and we all just randomly picked a direction and started walking down the road. We walked for about fifteen minutes before we decided it didn't feel right. We had hoped if we walked a little ways something would indicate we were going in the right direction. Nothing had presented itself so we turned around. As we were trudging back in the opposite direction those two thoughts became voices in my head. "Everything is fine. It's going to suck, but you'll find your way out of this". The other was whispering to me that people got lost all the time. I imagined they must have been like me, not really believing it had happened or that it could happen. Maybe that bit of denial is good because it keeps you from just giving up. At the same time it's probably what gets people even more lost because they won't accept their situation as a serious one until it's too late.
As we were walking we heard the sound of a truck. Since we had been gone for over two hours at this point people had gotten worried when the weather had changed. The grounds keeper had gone out looking for us. As he drove us back he said it was a good thing we were on that road because otherwise he could have driven past us and never seen a thing. He also told us that we were going in the wrong direction on a road that kept on going for over twenty miles.
I remember being relieved to have been found, but thinking about all the little choices that caused us to be lost in the first place. I also thought about the choices we almost made and what could have happened. If my friend and I had gone up that ridge we may have never found our way back out again. The truck could have come and gone without us. In the end we saw a map of the area and essentially what our route must have looked like. Instead of traveling in a straight line back down we drifted nearly 90 degrees around the base of the hill and when we reached bottom we were headed away from everything.
Ever since thing I've had this fascination with getting lost. I would drive up to a mountain in Arizona and intentionally get myself lost. It was just so I could find my way again. It was a relatively safe experiment because there was a well-used road, power lines, and really only one direction you needed to go to find your way again. Still a part of me wanted to know that I could make it out of unfamiliar surroundings. Gus Van Sant made a movie a few years back called Gerry, which is about two guys who go hiking in the desert and due to one wrong turn become hopelessly lost. The entire movie is just about them trying to find their way back again. Having been in that situation I can really relate to it. There is a scene where you can tell they don't really believe they are in any trouble. They'll find the car tomorrow. Then later when they know they're lost. Watching that movie makes me remember that feeling of almost sheer panic as you know your life may be in danger.
The thing is that you don't need to be in a forest to get lost anymore. I know several people who feel they're lost in life. Somewhere along the way they took a wrong turn and everything around them feels strange. How do you find your way back from that when you can't even see your starting point anymore?
When I was young, like most people, I had a sort of destination in mind. Not an actual location, but more of an idea of what my life was supposed to be like when I became a "grown-up". I wasn't exactly sure how to achieve that goal, but I figured I would find my way there eventually if I just took the route that was in front of me. Sometimes I feel a little bit like George Bailey in that I'm always looking for this ideal life, which is never the one I have, not noticing that what I have is pretty good. I often asked people I know from my past what they're doing. It could be what they do for work or what they do for fun. I just want to know because it feels like my life went off the rails at some point and maybe if I can get an idea of what other people are doing the maybe, just maybe I'd at least get a direction to head in.
The thing is that my life isn't off the rails. It's just not what I had set out to have all those years ago. And that's not a bad thing. The only bad thing is chasing after something that may not be for me. I believe people everywhere must do this. They have an idea in their head that this is what they want, but it's what they wanted and never allowed themselves to see anything else. Like George Bailey they don't see the good around them. In some cases they won't see it until it's gone. With all that said, I still wouldn't mind something of a sign that let me know I was headed in the right direction because like most people I'm living life without a user's manual.
It's hard for me to remember exactly when it happened, but we started to notice that things weren't looking the same on the way down. Granted we had moved over a little bit, but that just meant things on our right would be in a slightly different location. They weren't. Nothing was familiar. We knew this, but we kept walking, thinking maybe after that next batch of trees we'd see something we recognized. I should mention it took almost an hour to get to the top, longer than most of us had planned. At the bottom it was nice and warm out. Well warm for us anyway so several of us had on nothing more than a light jacket or a long sleeve shirt. With the descent we had been outside for close to two hours in dropping temperatures. At this point I think we started to realize that we didn't know where we were. At least we weren't where we were supposed to be. I remember thinking at the time two conflicting thoughts. The first being that everything is fine. We're just a little out of position, but pretty much right next to our original path. The other thought was that we were lost and potentially in serious trouble if we didn't figure out where to go.
We kept walking downhill, which was the only direction we knew was mostly correct. Finally we came out of the woods and found a service road. Most people would be excited by this because a road meant civilization was close. Up there service roads could go twenty miles before you hit something and that something could just be where they store the machines to make the service road. And we now had a new problem, which direction on the road do we go? Nothing looked familiar. We could no longer see the peak we were on and even if we could we didn't have the strength to go back up and start again, at least not as a party. Myself and a friend considered scrambling up the nearest ridge, just to see if we could see anything. In our minds we thought it would be quick and easy. Thankfully we were talked out of that idea and we all just randomly picked a direction and started walking down the road. We walked for about fifteen minutes before we decided it didn't feel right. We had hoped if we walked a little ways something would indicate we were going in the right direction. Nothing had presented itself so we turned around. As we were trudging back in the opposite direction those two thoughts became voices in my head. "Everything is fine. It's going to suck, but you'll find your way out of this". The other was whispering to me that people got lost all the time. I imagined they must have been like me, not really believing it had happened or that it could happen. Maybe that bit of denial is good because it keeps you from just giving up. At the same time it's probably what gets people even more lost because they won't accept their situation as a serious one until it's too late.
As we were walking we heard the sound of a truck. Since we had been gone for over two hours at this point people had gotten worried when the weather had changed. The grounds keeper had gone out looking for us. As he drove us back he said it was a good thing we were on that road because otherwise he could have driven past us and never seen a thing. He also told us that we were going in the wrong direction on a road that kept on going for over twenty miles.
I remember being relieved to have been found, but thinking about all the little choices that caused us to be lost in the first place. I also thought about the choices we almost made and what could have happened. If my friend and I had gone up that ridge we may have never found our way back out again. The truck could have come and gone without us. In the end we saw a map of the area and essentially what our route must have looked like. Instead of traveling in a straight line back down we drifted nearly 90 degrees around the base of the hill and when we reached bottom we were headed away from everything.
Ever since thing I've had this fascination with getting lost. I would drive up to a mountain in Arizona and intentionally get myself lost. It was just so I could find my way again. It was a relatively safe experiment because there was a well-used road, power lines, and really only one direction you needed to go to find your way again. Still a part of me wanted to know that I could make it out of unfamiliar surroundings. Gus Van Sant made a movie a few years back called Gerry, which is about two guys who go hiking in the desert and due to one wrong turn become hopelessly lost. The entire movie is just about them trying to find their way back again. Having been in that situation I can really relate to it. There is a scene where you can tell they don't really believe they are in any trouble. They'll find the car tomorrow. Then later when they know they're lost. Watching that movie makes me remember that feeling of almost sheer panic as you know your life may be in danger.
The thing is that you don't need to be in a forest to get lost anymore. I know several people who feel they're lost in life. Somewhere along the way they took a wrong turn and everything around them feels strange. How do you find your way back from that when you can't even see your starting point anymore?
When I was young, like most people, I had a sort of destination in mind. Not an actual location, but more of an idea of what my life was supposed to be like when I became a "grown-up". I wasn't exactly sure how to achieve that goal, but I figured I would find my way there eventually if I just took the route that was in front of me. Sometimes I feel a little bit like George Bailey in that I'm always looking for this ideal life, which is never the one I have, not noticing that what I have is pretty good. I often asked people I know from my past what they're doing. It could be what they do for work or what they do for fun. I just want to know because it feels like my life went off the rails at some point and maybe if I can get an idea of what other people are doing the maybe, just maybe I'd at least get a direction to head in.
The thing is that my life isn't off the rails. It's just not what I had set out to have all those years ago. And that's not a bad thing. The only bad thing is chasing after something that may not be for me. I believe people everywhere must do this. They have an idea in their head that this is what they want, but it's what they wanted and never allowed themselves to see anything else. Like George Bailey they don't see the good around them. In some cases they won't see it until it's gone. With all that said, I still wouldn't mind something of a sign that let me know I was headed in the right direction because like most people I'm living life without a user's manual.
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