Arctic

On Halloween

There was a time when I loved Halloween almost as much as Christmas. It seems that the holiday was made for children, even if its origin had nothing to do with handing out treats. Most of my Halloween memories have faded away. Like most things it's become a blur of childhood.

When I was really young my favorite part wasn't getting the candy, although if you were to ask me that as I was going door to door my tiny little brain would have been hard pressed to find something I loved more. My favorite part was picking out my costume. At that age it seemed almost if by magic how the stores went from mundane to filled with Halloween decorations and costumes. As I've mentioned, back then I had a difficult time with making a decision because I tended to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices. My mind would try to visualize myself in each costume. As a kid I wasn't very inventive when it came to my costume. I tended to like something already pre-made. So I would be the kid dressed in the plastic He-Man outfit with the mask that didn't quite fit. Plus I grew up in a place where by the time October rolled around, it was already very cold with snow on the ground. That meant no matter what costume you picked, you had to wear your winter jacket over it. Sure I would complain that it would ruin the illusion my costume, but about five seconds outside of the car and I would be begging for it. That's another thing, we lived in a somewhat rural neighborhood so you couldn't just walk door to door. You had to be driven from place to place. A typical run would be sitting in the car, waiting for mom or dad to get us to the next place. My mask would be up on my head or off as I tried to make sure it still looked like Yoda or a Gremlin. We'd pull up to the house and I'd throw on my mask. I had to make sure my mittens were on and my jacket could be unzipped easily when asked what I was dressed as. Back then everyone was dressed as the cold weather version of their costume. Arctic Barbie. Winter Barbarian He-Man. All Weather Voltron.

You know what happens to plastic when it gets really cold? It cracks. Those costumes were made with the cheapest possible material and I doubt they had been weather tested to -20. It didn't matter because parents were determined to help their kids experience Halloween. My memories of Halloween are of headlights in the dead of night and children bundled up like Eskimos running from door to door. Occasionally when we got to a more populated neighborhood we would see other people long enough that you could admire their costume, or loathe them for having picked the same one as you.

I guess there was a time when kids went trick or treating and could come home and eat their candy directly. I've never known a time like that. We've all heard the stories about how some psycho stuck a razor blade into a caramel apple or injected poison into a Tootsie Roll. That meant while we were having fun going door to door begging for candy, our parents were cautiously watching everything that was given to us. Some houses had full sized candy bars and we loved those people. Others had the usual "fun size" candy and we took as much as we could as filler. Then there were those people who went out of their way to make treats. Caramel apples or popcorn balls. Looking back I feel bad for them. They put a lot of effort into making that stuff, in hopes that children would enjoy them as much as the store bought candy. Problem was those types of treats were the first things thrown away once we got home. There was that inherent fear that something could be wrong with them and no chances were being taken. I would like to imagine that most of the people who handed those things out had no bad intentions. The real crazies were the people who gave out toothpaste. Those were the people that kids couldn't wrap their heads around. We had to say thank you and smile, but inside we were wondering if they were aware that it was Halloween and not National Dentistry Night.

When I was really young I remember going to a costume party with my mother. The exact details of the event are probably lost, but I have images here and there. She was dressed up as a black cat and I was in some kind of costume. We didn't drive straight there so at some point we had to walk. I remember that walk being one of the scariest in my short life. It was cold and dark, but there were street lights here and there. That scattering of light actually made things worse. I would catch glimpses of monsters lumbering along, off to go eat children. I was at an age where everything was still being taken at face value. So if I saw someone dressed as a gorilla that meant it had somehow escaped from the zoo, which we didn't have, and was running loose. It wasn't until Mr. Gorilla actually took off his mask and revealed that it was someone I knew. Halloween for children must be almost overwhelmingly exhilarating.

As I got older Halloween became less and less important. It wasn't until my brother got to an age where we would take him trick or treating that I started to appreciate it again. There was one final year before I left for college that I got to drive him on my own. Being the typical big brother, I took every advantage of scaring the crap out of him. When he would get out of the car I would drive up the block to where he'd eventually end up if he went to every house. The poor kid was terrified and with good reason. A lot of those streets had no street lamps and tended to be very dark. It was my way of making him get over his fear for the sake of candy. I sometimes wonder what his Halloweens were like after I went off to college. By then he was reaching that age were it wasn't cool to dress up.

Now that I'm older I look back at Halloween as something I knew was fun, even if I can't remember specifics. Most of the Halloweens for the past decade have been so uneventful that I nearly forget that it's October 31st. Part of me is sad that we let ourselves dismiss things like that. Instead we go about our every day. I suppose it's easy to do when you don't have children. It becomes just another night, but with more knocks on the door. Why do we allow the magic to drain away on things that we loved as children? What are we replacing it with? It seems in a lot of cases we prefer the mundane because it's easier to deal with. Maybe the whole point of Halloween night is to break out of the ordinary and become something we're not. In the morning we can go back to our jobs and lives, but for that brief amount of time while the sun is down we let ourselves be children again.

Realized

On Monsters

What makes a monster monstrous? Sure it can be something overt like tentacles coming out of its mouth or an extra set of eyes that seem to stare straight into your soul. The thing is both of those traits can describe several species of animals, which are nothing close to monsters when you really look at them. They're just different. Sesame Street and Pixar both have shown us that monsters may not be as horrible as they first appear. Like a the Solifugae, it may look strange at first, but in the end it's just an arachnid that does what arachnids do to survive. For us it may seem strange for something with multiple legs and eyes building a web or paralyzing its victim with venom before devouring it alive. Yes, that may seem strange, but is that really worse than a species that keeps animals trapped in cages their entire lives, only letting them out so they can be slaughtered and turned into tasty treats we often can't finish and ultimately throw away? Who is the monster then? Much like the whole discussion on evil, maybe a monster is just a matter of perception.

I like the idea of monsters though. With it being that time of year, I've started thinking about what it is that makes some monsters frightening while others just seem boring. I guess it comes down to what scares you. It's been said that one of the scariest things out there is simply the unknown. Or as FDR said "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." That could be taken to mean that fear is somewhat self-generating and perpetually building upon itself. So it could be argued that the scariest monster is the one you never fully see because your mind is going to fill in the gaps and scare you more than anything else lurking out there.

In that idea there are some monsters that are scarier because they're small rather than because they're knocking over a skyscraper. Some people have an irrational fear of spiders or other various bugs. Sure if Cthulhu showed up in Time's Square they would be frightened, but it's the little things that freak them out. With a giant lizard or butterfly attacking it's necessary for it to show of its strength by smashing something. Now if you happen to live in the apartment building next door then that's a pretty good display of power and is probably frightening because most people don't want a build to land on their head. After that initial display of power though you kind of know what to expect and can really plan the rest of your day. Chicago is in ruins so don't go into the city today. Avoiding large monsters is theoretically easier for those not directly under foot. With the little monsters like bugs or viruses you can't always see them, but you know they're nearby. If a giant cockroach attacked New York City most people would get the hell out of there or at least know a general direction to head away from. Now if billions of mutated regular-sized cockroaches started feeding on people's faces where could they go? Let's face it, even though they've cleaned up the city quite a bit, there are cockroaches all over. They will probably outlive us in the event that we get into a nuclear exchange with North Korea. So there are millions of monsters hiding just behind the wall and no matter where you go, they are there.

Of course that's not to take away from the big guys out there. We live in a time where the largest land animal is the elephant. As far as I know elephants pretty much eat fruits and vegetables and like to play in the water. There haven't been too many reports of herds going on a rampage and attacking villages in Africa or India. Now in the ocean that's a different story. I love the water and feel very comfortable near and in it. Still I understand that most things in the water would love nothing more than to eat you, or at the very least bite off a piece of you before deciding if they're going to eat you. The largest creatures in the water are whales, who seem to be pretty content to eat some of the smallest things around. I suppose to krill a blue whale would be Godzilla, but to us we like them so much that there are CDs of whale songs out there. Anyway my point is that we have no concept of something large wandering around that treats us as food. The dinosaurs are long gone and are probably the basis for a lot of the large monster stories we have today. T-Rex was probably something you didn't want to see racing towards you. We know a lot about him now though. Remember what I said about the unknown. The more you know about something, the less frightening it seems (well in theory in anyway). So we know more than ever before about what dinosaurs did when they were walking the Earth. Ultimately they are just animals. Granted they were really large animals. With that knowledge we take it to the next step. What is T-Rex was bigger? What if he never died? What if he got exponentially smarter to the point that he could operate a rocket launcher?

We take the things we know and add our own imagination to it to create something that scares us. It makes me wonder if monsters are required for us as a species. We need the idea of them out there for some reason. The problem is that we have plenty of monsters that wear human faces and it makes me wonder if maybe we use monsters as a way to consolidate our fears into something we know isn't real. There are plenty of things out in the world that we should be afraid of. A monster is a fun way to get scared. In that regard maybe monsters aren't so bad after all.

The Stray

On Wanderlust

For some people there is this overwhelming inability to sit still. I don't just mean physically either. It goes beyond that and crosses into something a lot more existential. I've said before that life is about the journey and happiness may not be a destination. There are those who may feel that something is always missing or wonder what's over the next rise. Happiness for them is a moving target and it might be something they never truly find. In some cases the search for it actually is the basis for their happiness. In life there really is only one real destination and that's death. It's the one thing in our life that will be permanent once we get there. Everything else is relatively fleeting, no matter how long it lasts. With that knowledge one could be driven to constantly search out what's next before the clock runs out. Sitting still is very much like reaching that final destination and in a sense stagnation is death.

I've known people who were forced to stay in one place. To do just one thing. Circumstances made it so that they couldn't move to the next thing. It could be money or family or various obligations that life places upon them. Those people are haunted by thoughts of what could have been or even what should have been, but never was. No matter what happens in life, there is a nagging whisper in the back of the mind that calls to them. There people could have lives that they seemingly should be content with, but it's just not enough. That question of "what if" may always be there. What if they leave? What if they toss everything aside and take the plunge into the unknown? What if they do that, will it make them finally happy? The thing is that thoughts like that aren't always the grass is always greener either. There is a calling that can't be ignored.

I wonder what is the root of that call. Is it just the personality of the person in question that creates a constant journey that will never be completed? Are those people acutely aware of some hidden need that is required before they feel whole? It could be that they simply won't accept anything but what they picture in their head. Everything else is just compromise. We all have responsibilities and obligations. We collect them as we go through life. In a lot of cases they weigh us down and make it so that we have to consider them before making any sort of decision. They aren't always bad things either. Those responsibilities help shape our lives. Having children changes what you can and can't do for the rest of your life. That may mean for at least eighteen years you have to put certain things on hold for their sake. Being in that situation can change what you're willing to accept for the time being. Instead of traveling Europe or becoming a park ranger in Yellowstone, you raise a family. No one should fault a person for doing what's right for their loved ones. However, there are those people who don't have obligations like a family. Instead life has happened in such a way that they don't feel they're in the right place. Now it could be argued that in many cases that's all in their head. Maybe it is, but maybe it's deeper than that. There are people who know that they need to be a parent. Without being one they feel incomplete. For them, that is both the journey and the destination of life. For others it's not so clear.

Koyaanisqatsi means life out of balance. This can happen for any number of reasons. Some people accept it as a fact of life. Nothing will ever be perfect and in knowing this they just go about their daily routine because to fight against it would be an exercise in futility. While waking up, going to work, coming home, watching television, going to bed, and doing it all over again may not be the epitome of happiness, but it's acceptable. The idea is that it could be worse. For those seekers out there that kind of life is like dying in tiny increments. There must be something more, even if that something more is a vague idea of something beyond what already exists. They may bid their time before setting out looking for it. They may take drastic leaps in order to break free of the gravity that has become their life. They may sit in a cubicle for years and stare at a postcard of a beach, doing nothing more than dreaming about their escape, which will never happen. Whatever they do, that sense of wanderlust is embedded deep inside who they are. If they are really fortunate they will one day find that destination that is perfect for them. I suppose if you're happy with where you are, enjoy it. If you're like me and wish that you could get to that state of mind others seem to have already found, keep looking for it because the journey is worth the effort.

Crossroads

On Parents

Now I can't really comment on all the various relationships people have with their parents as they're growing up. I can only relate to what I know and what I've seen. So what I'm saying doesn't encompass every possible scenario, but that's usually the case with whatever I'm talking about.

Parents are a strangely unique class of people even though most of the world is made up of them. For each of us they are special, whether that's good or bad it's hard to say. For us they are a link to our past and to them we are the future's next step. The relationship we have with our parents is like nothing else. That relationship changes as we get older, hopefully if you're fortunate you may actually get to a point where you see your parents as more than just the label we've associated with them.

Growing up parents have an insanely difficult job of simply keeping us alive. One has to seriously thank whatever paternal instinct that's built in because it's any wonder that they don't smother us to quiet the pink creature that won't stop howling. Add to that in most cases parents really have no idea what they're doing and yet they're required to give off the presence of authority. Today you can go to any bookstore and find hundreds of books on the subject of raising children. Each one presenting itself as an authority on the whole process. Who knows, maybe some of them are, but each parent is different as well as each child. It's hard to believe that unique people can be mapped out in a book. Still we're not always as complex as we'd like to believe. We as a species like to share our experiences with others. Sometimes that experience can be very helpful for the next one to go through it. All the books and all the advice seems to barely prepare people for the actual experience of becoming a parent.

I remember as a child seeing my parents as these all-knowing large people who controlled my cookie supply. Since the world was new and big to me they seemed to always have a sense of what to do when I bumbled into something, which was often. It must be hard to know exactly what you should and shouldn't do with your child because given enough time they will realize that the whole time you've been just winging it. I don't remember the precise moment when I figured out that my parents weren't the final authority on everything in the world. It wasn't any kind of earth-shattering revelation, but more of an understanding that they weren't magic. It's kind of like when you figure out that Santa is really just your parents working their asses off to make Christmas seem magical. You get a glimpse behind the curtain and notice that the reality is a lot more mundane, but no less important.

We've all seen footage of a mother bear charging headlong towards anything that gets too close to her cubs. It's interesting that some human parents behave roughly the same way. In that moment instinct takes over. There is almost no rational thought other than protect the child. A parent would die to protect their child and yet there are also those moments where all they want to do is strangle the kid. Talk to any parent about their biggest regrets, heartbreaks, or disappointments and it's very likely their child is involved somehow. I'm not saying that a child is the sole cause of those things, but I haven't met a parent who doesn't look back and wish they had done something differently when raising their children. Often times we as children are hardly aware of our impact on our parents' world.

It wasn't until very recently that I knew I wanted children. Before it was such a strange concept for me to be responsible for another life, especially since I can hardly call my life the pinnacle of achievement. Turns out most people were like me when they became parents. Many of the people I grew up with have gone off and had kids or even adopted children. They somehow knew that they were ready to become parents. I wonder how they knew that it was time. Maybe it was just sprung on them and they were forced to get ready for it. I suppose in either case they're willing allowing their world to be changed forever. Parents are the people who knew a world before you came into it, but can't imagine it without you.

Broken Fall

On the Outside

It often feels like the world around us is spinning by and we have very little control over what happens. The most we can hope for is to hang on and hope we survive the experience. The thing is though that we take in the world and ultimately give back to it even when we're not realizing it. Like leaves falling from trees we leave pieces of ourselves in the world. In fact a part of you could have slipped off years ago and traveled the globe. That means we are surrounded by pieces of everyone else as well.

I've mentioned how our perception of the world actually alters it, at least for us. The vast majority of our experience is behind us so however we perceived the world at the time is how we remember it. In that way we shape our own world as it lives inside our heads. The thing is though that by simply walking through the world, we change it. Even not walking through it, we change it. In science there is this idea that even by observing something you alter its behavior. They're not entirely sure why that is, but the act of looking at something can potentially change the way it exists. The same is true with our presence within the world. Think of a pebble being tossed into a lake. At first the ripple effect is small, but before too long the entire lake has been affected by that single pebble. We are all pebbles. Our impact may seem small at first, but our ripples through life keep going long after we've made our splash. The world is forced to behave differently because we're in it. People have to acknowledge your presence, even if it's unconsciously.

The strange thing is that your lack of presence also has a ripple effect on the world. In the movie It's A Wonderful Life, George finds out what the world would be like without him. It's a pretty heavy-handed message about our impact on the world, but for the most part it's true. Now hopefully none of us will have to experience seeing what the world would be like if we never existed. Since we do exist already that means we've already impacted the world and that can't be undone. Throughout life we interact with people and places. As we go through we leave those things forever changed by our passing. In a way the world is now prepared for your presence so if you don't show up, it has to change again to account for that. Now I'm not saying that you're the center of the world and everything is contingent on you being there or not. It's just that we all have a level of impact that in most cases can't be measured even though it's so far-reaching that we can't comprehend just how much we've influenced what's around us. It's something to think about the next time you feel like the world is passing you by and you're just along for the ride. You can change the world just as much as the world can change you.

Firestorm

On Home

What is it about the places we call home? What makes them so special? Maybe it's partly because of the security we get when we're there. The world can be a pretty aggressive place and our home is a kind of sanctuary from everything that's out there. For each person though home can mean different things. In some cases it's a specific geographical location that feels the most comfortable. For others it's not a physical location, but rather an individual that creates that center of security. No matter where in the world you are, as long as you're with that person then you feel at home. There is also another version of home, one that can be a lot more elusive. It's the one that doesn't matter where you are or who you're with. Where you are in life feels exactly right and home is more of a state of mind. Maybe it's always a state of mind, it's just different for each of us.

They say you can never go home again. At least not back to the place you used to call home. I wonder though if there is some kind of cutoff for that. Maybe there is a certain window of time where, if you wanted, you could return home without it being vastly different than you remember. I guess the real question is why can't we go home again? Is it because we've outgrown the place where we were young? Maybe the place has outgrown us. Maybe nothing has physically changed, but our perception of what home has been altered while we were away. People can be lumped into a few categories when it comes to leaving home. There are those who never leave. They have no desire to leave what they know. There isn't anything wrong with this. If you know what you like and it's been working for you then it may seem silly to leave it behind for that unknown something else. Then there are others who see this as though you've been eating vanilla ice cream your whole life. Then one day someone reveals to you that you could have any flavor you want, you only have to pick. These are the people who, while they may like vanilla ice cream, decide that they're going to try something else out. So they leave home to try out what life is like elsewhere. Sometimes they come back. Sometimes they stay away. For those that leave home becomes some place different than for those who decide to stay.

Growing up I only really lived in one place. My parents lived in the same house for over thirty years and before it was built we lived in a couple different apartments, but they were for a relatively short time. So my idea of home is that of a singular location. Before I left for college I knew home had become too small for me. It would have been easy to stay because it was comfortable, but for my long term happiness I had to leave. Once I was away I realized just how big the world was. I still loved my family and where I grew up, but it stopped being my real home the moment I left. It's strange though because after I moved out to go to college I tended to keep on the move a lot more. Since leaving home I've lived in ten different places. I wonder if part of that comes from knowing that no apartment is going to match what I think of as home and don't put a lot of stock into the various places I hang my hat. On the flip side I've known people who moved around a lot when they were younger so when the reached adulthood they purchased a home that they could call their own. It was a place that wouldn't change and would hopefully provide stability that they didn't get growing up. Coming back to visit was strange because everything seemed the same, but I was now different, even if only slightly. I had an apartment of my own near the college, but it wasn't really my home. It was just my apartment and a place to store my stuff. My parents' house wasn't my home anymore either. I had become one without a real home.

I have this picture of home in my head. It's not where I used to live when I was young. It's also not where I live now. That is to say it's obviously not my current living situation, but also my general location within the world. I'm not exactly sure where home is though. The picture in my head doesn't come with GPS coordinates. I wonder if other people have this same somewhat vague notion of where they feel they belong and until they find it, everything feels like a journey towards it. So I've been wandering through the world looking for that moment when I feel like I've come home. As we find out when we leave home and come back, things don't look the same as they did when we left. Either we've changed or the place we remember has. It makes what looks familiar on the surface unfamiliar when we take a closer look. I only hope that I recognize it after being away for so long.

Scar

On the Inside

They say that the eyes are the window to the soul and maybe they're right about that. It often feels like the one true place where we can see a person's real intentions or feelings. This includes our own. We reveal a lot of our own thoughts without knowing it. Our eyes also allow us to see someone seeing the world around them. We have five senses (six if you believe in that sort of thing) that we use to perceive the world. It's up to each of us to interpret what our senses are telling us. This brings up the question: Is our whole world only what we experience?

Everything that happens only happens to us. That is to say that no matter what you see, hear, or even think about is based on you and no one else. Sure other people may influence what you perceive, but ultimately it's up to each of us to experience the world on our own. The other day I was standing outside and looked up to see a jet stream overhead. Based on the size and speed, it had to be a fairly large plane moving pretty fast. Another few seconds and I might not have ever seen it. That's not to say that those people on board wouldn't have been flying just because I wasn't around to witness it, but in my world it could have been the case. The whole topic may come off as seeming somewhat self-absorbed, however, when you think about it our world will always be limited or expanded by our interaction with it. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it of course it still makes a sound, but if you're not there to hear it then technically it didn't happen for you. That is based on the assumption that our world is what we perceive. With that there is potential for us to alter the inherent size of the world around us.

When I was twelve or thirteen I spent the summer on my grandparents' farm. Nothing particularly special happened that summer, but I had fun. After the summer was through, I came back home. One day not long after I arrived I was in the bathroom when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Something about that moment changed everything. I was suddenly aware that behind my eyes was the real me. Before that moment I had just taken for granted that I was here. I stared at myself for a long time, trying to comprehend that I was more than the sum of my parts. I was something more that was hidden away within my own body. It was a lot like when a child looks at a word and realizes that they understand what is written without having to ask for help. It was that same dawning of understanding that was staring back at me. I was too young to realize the full implications of that moment. I just knew that things felt different for the first time.

I'm guessing lots of people have that moment, where they're suddenly aware of themselves as something more than just a concept. That may only be the first step though as we're only scratching the surface of how not only our own minds work, but how we perceive information. What is the basis of our world? Is it what's around us or is it all in our mind? When a person is brain dead are they detached from the world permanently? Their body my still live on, but without their mind the world is dead to them and they to it. There have been stories of people who have been in comas or nearly brain dead returning. I've always wondered where their conscious mind went during that time. Maybe it was trapped in a sort of prison of the mind in a way that we can't detect it with modern science. If the world is what the mind creates and the mind isn't working properly then what does that do to the world? While those people are in that state are they technically dead even though we've managed to keep their bodies alive? Something may eventually happen where they wake up and return to their body, but we still don't fully understand how it happens. I think a lot of that has to do with we don't know where they are while everything is dark.

In the end we could be nothing more than a few million electrical impulses passing along organic wires within our brain. Those impulses have been configured in such a way that we're able to perceive sensations from around us. We could be nothing more than a bio-mechanical computer that's really good at processing data. After a few thousand years, like most programs, we've developed our own quirks. Maybe we've become the ghost in our own machine.

Abstract Autumn

On Reversals of Fortune

"Sometimes you're ahead. Sometimes you're behind. The race is long and in the end, it's only with yourself." I grew up thinking certain aspects of life were like reading a book. Everything would be building towards a singular climax, which was known as adulthood. In my mind it was almost a destination that you reached. Once you were there things were different for you. You somehow magically were aware of answers that eluded you while growing up. I wasn't sure when this kicked in, but I assumed it had to be somewhere in your twenties because the eighteen year old people I knew seemed just a clueless as me, they just had more experience at it. This idea of destination also led me to think that once certain things were achieved they couldn't be undone. We all have losses and gains throughout our lives. It's not always easy to accept that today doesn't equal tomorrow. What you have now might be gone in an instant. When you weren't looking something great gets dropped in your lap.

I've had a few reversals of fortune in my life and I expect before I'm done, I'll have a few more. Each one felt unexpected, even if looking back I could have predicted them well in advance. The first one I remember was in 7th grade. Somehow I had gotten a large amount of money. Well large for a 7th grader, which was about $75. I started making all these plans for what I was going to do with that money, which included going to the art supply store and stocking up on various paints and pencils. Unfortunately for me I brought this money with me to school. Not wanting to keep that amount of money on me, I decided to put my wallet in my locker. You can pretty much see where this is going. The next time I opened my locker my wallet was gone. At first I thought maybe I had misplaced it, but it didn't take long for the sinking realization to hit me that someone had stolen it. I remember thinking at the time that all my plans for artistic greatness had just been destroyed. For weeks afterward that loss hung over my head. I kept replaying in my mind what my life would have been like if only I still had that money. The thing is that my life was pretty much the same as it was before I got the $75 in the first place.

Jack said "It's just, when you buy furniture, you tell yourself, that's it. That's the last sofa I'm gonna need. Whatever else happens, I've got that sofa problem handled." There is an assumption that certain things in your life will need to be taken care of once. You'll always need to buy food, get gasoline, or pay for your home in some form or another. Those are expected expenses that everyone just factors into their lives. Things in life can change pretty quickly and it can go in either direction. Sometimes this happens so fast that we're just not prepared for it. It's not limited to financial position in life either, although we tend to put a lot of value into that, maybe more than we should. A sudden injury can change your life forever. Everything that came before is changed because of it. Our bodies are both resilient and fragile at the same time. It doesn't take much of a push to break us to the point that we will never be the same again even if we survive the initial impact.

Some people never recover from certain reversals of fortune. It's strange because in many cases those situations are recoverable, but the loss itself feels more devastating than it really was. Most people have a great ability to endure. No matter the situation, they can survive it and in some cases overcome it. Lost your job after ten years. Figure out how to live without a steady income until another job comes along. The economy for the past few years has knocked down several people when they least expected it. People who were making six figure salaries are taking two or more jobs to pay for everything. In some cases people are using the whole thing to permanently change their situation. A reversal of fortune can put you back to a point where you get a chance to do things differently. We rarely get opportunities for a do-over, but there are moments in life where we're presented with a chance to go a different route. Each setback or leap forward could be seen as simply moving you to the point you're supposed to be at. I used to have a plan for myself. It was this idea of how I wanted my life to play out. As we learn, very few things go according to plan. Every time something didn't go how I had planned, it would bother me because it felt like my plan was crumbling around me. Looking back all those reversals of fortune both for good and bad have led me to this moment here and now. Being here and having experienced all that came before will hopefully prepare us for what comes next, even when it feels like an unexpected hit from the left.

Kelrod

On the Speed of Everything

Time can be defined as the continuum in which events occur in succession from the past to the present and on to the future. The thing is though that we learn pretty quickly that time is not constant. Sure a minute will always be sixty seconds, but that is only a measurement of a single dimension of events that have happened or are happening. A minute can seem to stretch on forever or pass by in the blink of an eye. Each minute is different because we're different each time we experience one. The time that lead up to this moment changes how we'll perceive the time that comes afterward. In that regard then sixty seconds may equal a minute, but it can ultimately become a completely separate span of time.

It might just be me, but it feels like things are moving faster and faster, even when nothing is happening. Tomorrow quickly becomes yesterday before you've had a chance to take in what just happened. Maybe part of it is that I don't really have anything I'm looking forward to so the days bleed into each other. Today has no greater importance than yesterday except that it's pushed me one day further into the future. Now I know not every day or even every month is going to be filled with excitement. Still without something to look forward to are we really doing anything except waiting for the next day to come? I've talked about the preamble before where it sometimes feels like the present exists simply to fill in the gap until something else happens. It seems like more and more people are constantly thinking about what's next. What's going to happen next weekend. What am I going to do next? Is the next President going to fix everything? What's happening on the next episode of television? Since the present is always so short, I guess it's natural to always be wondering what's coming next. Is that what life boils down to, waiting for what comes next?

If time truly is racing forwards then I guess the question is: What is it moving towards? Is there even a destination or is it just the journey? It makes me wonder if the passage of time will always seem to get faster as we get older or if we can ever have it slow back down again. When we were young it felt like forever to get through the year to see Christmas. As we get older the time in between seems shorter, even though it's the same amount every year. Everyone has moments that they wish would last forever, but they never do. No matter how much we try to hold onto it, the moment will pass and we have to move onto tomorrow. Is it possible to slow down our perception of time so that the moments don't go flying by? I think if it were possible it would take a conscious effort on our part to focus on the moment's experience, taking as much as possible from it before it drifted away into the past.

In order to slow the passage of time I think we have to appreciate the time we have because it's finite. Sure time will keep on moving whether we're here or not, but our allotment of time is fixed, even if we don't know what the value is going to be. Just because our amount of time is limited it doesn't mean that every minute is going to have the same value. It's when we realize how much or little time is left that we associate more importance to what we have. It's just human nature to assume something will be there until we don't need it anymore. Time seems to be no different, except that we're only aware of its value near the end. I'm not going to say something as cliche as seize the day but it can be very easy to talk ourselves out of doing something because we assume we'll get another chance down the road.

Is it possible that there is a time and place for everything? I've talked about regret as a thing where we do something wrong, but it can also come from doing nothing and missing an opportunity. You never can know if the opportunity in front of you will present itself again so in a way you may want to consider taking what you can, when you can. What happens if you miss that specific moment? Was it never meant to be if circumstances prevent you from moving forward with it? I suppose that really brings up the whole question about free will versus destiny. If it wasn't supposed to happen then it won't, no matter what you tried to do. Or maybe it wasn't meant to happen because of what you did. The questions can go on forever. Sometimes I wonder about if I'm where I'm supposed to be and I guess one could argue we're always where we're supposed to be because we're there already. That doesn't mean you should just accept your situation if it's not what you want, but know that it was a lifetime of choices that brought us to this moment, not just a single thing. Time is always moving forward. Sometimes it may feel like it's all we can do to keep up with it. We may never be able to actually slow down the passing of time, but we can be aware of its passage and with that knowledge hopefully understand its value before it's gone.

Spores

On Ancient Evil

I really enjoy the concept of the supernatural. The idea that there are things out there that are just beyond our comprehension is somewhat appealing to me. In a way it gives me a bit of comfort to know that there is more to life than just what we're presented. Maybe those in charge don't have all the answers. Maybe science, which is quickly becoming the new religion, can't explain everything out there. There is mystery left in the universe and maybe there always will be. There is a flip side to that comfort though. In the vast ocean of space and time there must be things out there in the darkness that we would consider to be evil. In thirteen billion years there must have been things that have come before us. Things that we couldn't comprehend. The motivations of these things would seem evil to us. However, if you think about it, our actions would seem evil to an ant when we destroy their homes and lives for our own benefit or just because we can.

Before we get into that there is question regarding people. There are really two schools of thought on the nature of humanity. The first is that people are basically good, who want to do good, but occasionally do bad things. The other is that people are essentially bad, who do whatever benefits them most or what they feel they can get away with without consequence, but occasionally do good things. Maybe it's possible that everyone is one or the other, but there is most likely an overlap between the two. There is an ever-present argument about nature vs nurture. Some believe that people are simply products of their environments. Others feels that most behavior is innate and that we're born with certain predilections for evil. Of course with anything there are exceptions that prove the rule and exceptions to every exception. Not everyone who experiences sexual abuse perpetuates the cycle of violence so it's not always easy to identify where the root of evil comes from. I do believe that give a person enough horrific experiences they're going to adapt to those situations to a point where that's all they know. Their response to those experiences can be equally horrifying, but for that person it's all they can think to do in order to survive. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Then maybe evil is also.

The idea of evil can be somewhat subjective even though people often have a pretty black and white notion of how things are supposed to be classified. Killing a baby; probably evil. Torturing a puppy; most likely done with evil intent. Genocide; unquestionably evil? Taken out of context just about anything can be misconstrued. The people performing genocide may not think what they're doing is evil. In their mind they may believe they're purifying the world. Several religious groups have attempted it and at the time they were doing what they thought was right, even if their methods were brutal. The Serbians and Albanians have been in a centuries old conflict with each other. I'm guessing both sides see the other as the evil one. Both sides have done horrific things to each other, some as revenge for past aggressions. If given the opportunity to permanently remove the other side, it's very likely they would take it, regardless of the cost. In that situation is any one side in the right or is the whole thing just blanketed in evil? If someone killed a family member of yours would it be considered evil to burn down their house in retaliation? What if you found out that your family member had stolen from them in the first place? There is a saying that violence begets violence and in that evil must predicate more evil.

If you're like me, then you like to eat meat. I eat meat because it's delicious and more or less good for you. We were given canine teeth for a reason and it wasn't for just tearing into a piece of broccoli. When I eat a steak I don't feel that I'm doing anything wrong. For me it's a necessary part of my diet so that I can survive. Could I get mostly the same nutrients from somewhere else? Maybe, but I don't want to. A strict Hindu may see my actions as evil because I'm consuming a sacred animal for my own benefit. Even a vegan could look at my diet and say that I'm evil for putting my life above another living creature when we both deserve to live on this planet without harm. Now while I don't agree with either assessment of my choice of food, I do understand how it could appear to someone else. It goes back to the point that evil may be tied directly to perception and might not be an absolute. Is evil simply a concept used to classify actions based on how we specifically feel about them?

Going back to the beginning though, one has to wonder about the things that are out in the world, things that we don't fully understand, which could be seen as being evil. Many religions have some figurative concept of evil such as the Devil, which could be just a representation of human sin or opposition to God. In many cases there is this idea that there is malevolent being working to spread evil for the sake of evil. Maybe both theories are partially correct. As I mentioned, evil may only be question of perception of the act. If you were brought into a world that only knew evil then would it be possible for you to see something that is good as being the opposite of your sense of right and wrong?

There are plenty of entertaining stories out there about people fighting evil. It's pretty common in movies, television shows, and books for characters to face off against some great evil. The demon hunters have been fighting monsters for four seasons, eventually the battle has been ratcheted up to a point where fighting a rogue yeti just isn't going to hold the audience's attention any longer. So they're put up against something larger, such as Lucifer himself. Of course the stars of the show are going to somehow win. It doesn't matter that Satan has been around since before creation, these two plucky anti-heroes will manage to beat him back to hell. Since it's a piece of fiction we accept it, depending on how well it's written. If you think about it though it borders on the unbelievable though. Something that was ancient before the Earth was even formed would have millenniums of experience that we couldn't even grasp. How is someone with roughly twenty five years of life going to sort out how to outfox something like that?

If there are things like that in the world then they've probably been here long before we arrived and will be here well after we've shut off the lights. There is some good news though. If evil exists then good also exists out there. Both could just be ideas we use to describe its impact on the world around it. Or they could exist as something more and something we will always wonder about. That can't be a bad thing.

Painted Blossoms

On Money

Have you watched television lately? Or really ever. In an hour's worth of programming there is only really forty two minutes dedicated to the actual show. The other eighteen minutes is filled with advertising, both national and local. Back in the 1960s there were nearly ten more minutes of programming for an hour long show. In today's half hour block of time over 25% of it is devoted to commercials. Somewhere along the way it became acceptable to increase the advertising block of time in hopes of generating more money. Add to that there is something called product placement where even during the show there are not too subtle inclusions of items that a company wants you to buy. So the clever doctor just happens to crack open a Coke just before revealing the diagnoses that's been plaguing the patient the entire episode or the cops chase down the killers using all Ford vehicles. The idea is that we'll associate the soda or the car with our favorite show and maybe, just maybe, we'll take that association with us when we're faced with the decision of what to drink or what to drive.

With commercials someone is constantly trying to convince you to hand over your money for a service or product that they want you to believe you can't live without. Who knows, maybe you can't live without it, but I'm usually of the belief that if I managed to get by this long without it, then it's not so much a needs as it is a desire. I've talked before about how I've stayed pretty traditional when it comes to the work I've done in order to make my money. It's hard for me to imagine having to go to work every day and spend my time trying to convince people to give me their money. Some people are born salesmen. They have a gift at identifying a person's need and knowing how to fulfill it. Or at least spotting the person's perceived need and what they can do to maximize profit from it. Regardless of how you feel about it, it must be hard work filled with uncertainty.

The more I think about it, the stranger it is this cycle we go through to make money, only to spend it on things we don't always need. If you think about it this way, whatever we spend our money on it's just the culmination of all the effort we put into making that money in the first place. In that sense it really comes down to quantifying the value of our time. Everything has worth, which means everything has a cost associated with it. As of right now we dictate the price of things, even if it often feels like we have no power over the system as a whole. Sometimes it's easy to forget that we as a whole determine the value of things based on our demand for it. Our power to sway the system may feel inconsequential because we're just one voice out of many. I recently read about how due to the current economic situation it's getting to be too expensive for Americans to eat fast food. Fast food was designed to be a relatively cheap and easy alternative to cooking. It's to the point now where it's actually more cost effective to buy the ingredients and make it yourself. Actually it's been that way for a long time, but it comes back to how much your time is worth to you. The added monetary cost was designed to offset the saving in time. The thing is that the price of fast food will not go down until people start to weigh the financial cost versus the time spent and decide the cost does not justify the benefit. For some people time will always be more important than money. For others the saving of money outweighs any extra time spent preparing a meal by hand.

Will we ever get to a point where money isn't the basis of our society? Really money is just a mutually agreed upon standard for what something is worth and yet who decides what the standard is? Someone out there is making a determination on the value of everything. Is it us that influences that decision or does the system take on a life of its own? If we really are in control then theoretically we could all mutually decide to abandon the system in favor of something else. It's highly unlikely that it would ever happen though. They say money is the root of all evil and maybe that's a little dark, but not exactly far off the mark. We associate money with power because right now if you have money then you have more opportunities than someone without it. Look at big business who are caught doing something wrong. They can use their large amounts of money to buy their way through the legal process. The same thing happens with celebrities who misbehave. Do those with money not have to follow the same set of rules as those with less? If we were to abolish currency as we know it today then how would those people with large amounts of money be able to maintain their status or level of power? We use money as a way to rank ourselves within society, even if we may do it unconsciously. It may not be the sole basis of how we group ourselves, but it's certainly an important factor.

Parents try to teach children the value of money so that they can understand how the world works. Before I went out and got a real job my dad would pay me for doing simple chores around the house. Before then it was just things I was expected to do anyway. I had reached an age where I needed to learn the cost of things. When we're young we almost come to expect certain things to be provided. Clothes and food would just sort of appear for us when we needed them. Toys and other things may happen on special occasions, but for a lot of us there was no real association with the price behind them. Go to a store with a toy section and watch the children there. They may be old enough to see the prices on things. They may even know the difference between $19.99 and $99.99. Still for them it's an abstract idea. When asked to pick which toy they want a child will just pick whatever appeals to them at the time. Until stipulations are put on the choice there is no limit to what they could have. Actually there is a limit, they just don't know it. So as I got older and started do chores for money there was a change. When going to the toy aisle and spotting something I wanted I couldn't just ask for it to be bought for me. Instead I had to calculate the cost and see if I had enough money to buy it myself. The responsibility was given to me to decide how I wanted to spend my own money. It was then that I started to grasp the concept of working for something I wanted, rather than simply having it given to me. It was also at that point that I I could see what my parents had to go through in order to provide me with the life I had. As I mentioned before, prior to then there was an expectation of maintaining the status quo.

With the way things are it's sometimes hard to know if money is how we quantify the value of everything or if money is where the real value is stored. Is money just a means to an end or is it just the end?

Fenced

On Regret

Phil Cooper said "I'm saying you've already done plenty of things to regret, you just don't know what they are. It's when you discover them, when you see the folly in something you've done, and you wish that you had it do over, but you know you can't, because it's too late. So you pick that thing up, and carry it with you to remind you that life goes on, the world will spin without you, you really don't matter in the end. Then you will gain character, because honesty will reach out from inside and tattoo itself across your face."

Each of us have regrets. There are moments for us all that we wish we could go back and change. The damage has been done though and all we're left with is the lesson that we take from the experience, hopefully preventing us from making that same kind of decision again. Unfortunately for some of us we have to re-experience those mistakes several times before the moral of the story sinks in. Most people learn by doing. No matter what someone else tells you about a situation, it's nothing compared to doing it yourself. When we are young we are constantly learning new things. With that knowledge comes a sense of confidence that we know what to expect. All too often though there is a bit of overconfidence based on the limited amount of experience we have. We simply don't know better. For most people there is a point early in our lives where it seems like we can do no wrong. The world hasn't slapped us down so we just assume that we can dance in between the rain drops without ever getting wet. Eventually though we all get splashed and realize that up until that point we had been sheltered from a great many things.

I remember a time when I was young and had gone to the drag races with my dad and baby brother. My brother is nine years younger than me and I believe at the time he was maybe three or four. We were in the stands playing as brothers do, which really amounted to circling the edge of tormenting the other as often as possible. My father told us to stop horsing around because the races were about to start. My brother stopped as he was told. I called him over to me. Of course he walked over, unaware of my intentions. When he got close enough I gave him a little push, which was a total shock to him because he thought we were done rough-housing. Since he wasn't expecting me to shove him he simply toppled over backwards and fell out of the stands. The stands were probably elevated about five to six feet up. For a little kid that would be like falling off a roof. To this day I can still see his expression of shock as I pushed him and can see clearly him falling down and out of sight. Thankfully he wasn't seriously hurt, but it was one of those moments where I knew I had done something so bad that saying sorry wouldn't help. That happened twenty years ago and I still wish I could go back and take it back. After all this time I may be the only one who even remembers that moment. My brother's life wasn't seriously altered by that moment because at that age those memories tend to get lost along the way. I don't know that I'll ever forgive myself for what I did, even though I know that I was still a child when it happened. I'm not that person anymore.

We hold onto things like regret long after they occurred because no matter where we are in our lives, that memory has become a part of us. Sure we remember the good stuff that happens as well. Pleasant memories help shape us just as those we wish we could erase. With the happy memories in our lives we often don't so much want to change them. We may want to extend them or make sure that they never fade, but for the most part we simply enjoy them for what they were. With regrets we sometimes dream about what our lives would be like if we had only known what the outcome from our mistake was going to be. Had we known, we may have stopped ourselves from making it in the first place. We all make mistakes. It's part of life though. Those mistakes help shape us into the person we are today. Where would we be without regret? All those lessons we were shown would never have happened, meaning it would only be an eventuality before we blundered into a situation that we should have been prepared for, but hadn't experienced yet. Granted not all regret is life-changing though. In a lot of cases it's just subtle reminders that we're fallible.

As we get older our collection of regrets grow. Hopefully though we learn a little bit from each one and try to minimize the chance of new ones coming along. It isn't always the case though. Because while we may be older and have more experience under our belt, there is always something new to learn. Maybe we won't make the same mistakes twice because we're off making fresh new ones. It's really hard to watch those who come after us walking blindly into the same mistakes. As I said, no matter what's told to us, we often have to experience it ourselves to fully grasp what's out there. Afterward when we get through and see what was being told to us could have saved us some heartache, we realize that we should have listened to those who've lived through it already. As my brother would say "pain retains". The pain of experiencing our own failing is what sticks with us well after the moment has passed.

Painted Fall

On Exposure

There are moments in our lives when we're suddenly aware of a seemingly hidden world around us. Up until that point we may have had no idea that something had been happening without our knowledge. It's at that moment when we can decide to continue on like we had before or stop what we're doing and try to make a change. People tend to see what they want to see, even when it's put right in front of their faces. We all have a picture in our heads about how life is supposed to be. Sometimes we're living that idea and sometimes we're just striving to get there. Either way it's ours and we really don't like it when anyone or anything tries to disrupt it. So in that regard sometimes we don't want someone to show us something that we don't want to see. It's still out there, but acknowledging it would put a dark spot on our ideal picture of life.

These days it's really hard to know what is fact and what has been manipulated in order to sway someone to another way of thinking. I really enjoy documentaries. I think when done correctly they can really bring forth issues that people may otherwise be unaware of. It used to be that going into a documentary I just assumed that it was someone presenting the facts and it was up to us to decide what to do with them. I didn't occur to me that someone would tweak facts and events in a way that served their purpose. So for a long time I took documentaries at face value. Looking back I can see how naive that was, but back then thinking any other way would have seemed cynical. I guess that's really how the world can be divided anymore, either you're naive or you're a cynic. I think the division really comes from experience more than anything else. Get lied to a few too many times and it's just assumed that everyone is trying to deceive you.

I still enjoy documentaries, but in some cases they are bordering on simple entertainment. Sure some of them are attempting to show what they believe to be the facts. The problem is that just the facts tend to be boring. If it's boring then no one will listen. It's like John Doe said "Wanting people to listen, you can't just tap them on the shoulder anymore. You have to hit them with a sledgehammer, and then you'll notice you've got their strict attention." That's what filmmakers are being forced to do in order to get people to pay attention in a media saturated environment. Like I said before, people only see what they want to see. You can tell them about the horrors of the poultry industry and they'll walk right by you saying "I don't care". You show them footage of chickens getting their beaks clipped or spending their life inside a tiny cage then maybe you've shocked them into noticing there's an issue. Whether you like him or hate him, Michael Moore was once a really effective documentary filmmaker. Unfortunately he made his beliefs to be the focus of the film rather than allowing the facts to present themselves. After doing that and being called on it a few times it became hard to trust him, regardless of if you shared his opinion on the subject.

There's a problem when someone like him has more exposure than the subject he's trying to present. Look at what happened surrounding the release of his film Fahrenheit 9/11. There were websites dedicated to debunking what was shown. There was even a counter film made to discredit nearly every aspect of what Michael Moore said. Now there are always multiple sides to any subject and things are rarely black and white, although there are those who would like you to believe it's as simple as "either you're with us or you're against us". To me oversimplifying the issue like that is either a misunderstanding of the facts or its own manipulation. Both sides are so intent on making their point that they'll do or say just about anything in order to appear right and who knows, maybe in their mind they really believe what they're saying. I'm not sure which is scarier, the fact that they don't mind exaggerating to win the argument or that they truly think what's coming out of their mouth is fact.

People also tend to be somewhat forgetful. Sometimes that's a voluntary forgetfulness because we don't always want to be reminded of certain things and would rather that they stay off in some dark corner. As Americans we remember 9/11 because it's a fairly recent trauma. At the same time though it's fading quickly and may not really have much impact on our daily lives unless we're traveling by plane. So we've been shown images of chickens living miserable lives and every once and awhile we may remember them, but does that really stop us from wanting to buy inexpensive chicken for dinner? We know there is a cost to everything and in some cases there may be a bit of darkness to the convenience we enjoy every day. Just because the Japanese are slaughtering dolphins and whales every year doesn't mean we want to be reminded about it all the time. It reminds me of in those movies or television shows where the insightful character reveals some dark secret another character had been carrying around with them. They cry and suddenly behave as though a weight had been lifted. They knew that secret was there, but chose to hide it away in hopes that it would go away. It took someone else exposing it for them to finally face the situation and move past it. That's great for the storyline, but unfortunately things hardly ever work out that cleanly. Saying "it's not your fault" over and over doesn't resolve the situation, it only drags it from its hiding place and brings it to the surface. Exposing an issue is only the first step to making a change. The question often becomes, do we even want it brought up in the first place? Is it just easier to leave things undisturbed?

Street Leaf

On Sickness

Is the world getting sicker? We're the most advanced that we've ever been when it comes to medical progression and yet there are times when it seems like we're no further along than we were a hundred years ago. That's not trying to dismiss the efforts and accomplishments of the medical field, but it's 2010 and our understanding of certain areas borders on being able to confidently say "I don't know." Awhile ago I talked about the fears we have of various diseases and epidemics that are out there. Some of those fears could be for good reason, but in a lot of cases those fears could stem from our misunderstanding of how things really work. There was a huge scare when it came to both bird flu and swine flu, which are nothing to sneeze at, but notice how the attention has moved somewhere else? Both of those strains of influenza are still out there. They weren't cured. So while they're still out there we go on about our day as though there weren't ever a problem. The real question about this is are we doing this to ourselves?

Are we as a species creating an environment that's more hostile than other generations have ever known? Take a person from a hundred years ago and put them into the modern world. I would bet within hours they would be sick and possibly dying. Their bodies would probably have some serious issues with the things flying around today. It reminds me of what they say to people when they travel to Mexico; "Don't drink the water." The locals there have built up an immunity to the bacteria in the water, but visitors get to experience some horrible symptoms. Most people who are visiting only need to experience it once and will never drink the water again. Because of that they will never built up a tolerance to what's in the water. The human body is really resilient when it comes to overcoming changes in the environment. It has to be otherwise it doesn't survive. The problem is that while we've been getting stronger so have the things that make us sick.

I remember as a kid when someone got sick they could go to the hospital or doctor's office and get a shot of antibiotics. Some people demanded those shots because they believed it was what helped them get over the cold. It didn't matter that with or without the shot they got over the cold in roughly the same amount of time. What no one realized until it was already too late, was that given enough time the thing that we were trying to eradicate was also building up an immunity to the treatment. It's a lot like trying to spray for cockroaches. Sure your spray may kill 99% of those living in the walls, but that 1% that survived has been exposed to what killed everyone else and lived to lay eggs about it. Eventually the cockroach and the influenza strain shrug off any kind of treatment. When that happens what do you do? In that past we make a stronger treatment and the cycle repeats itself.

One of the things I've wondered about lately is why do diseases and viruses attack their host to the point where it could potentially kill what it needs to survive? I suppose the same question could be asked about humans and what we do to the environment around us. Still some of these things have been around for millions of years so it could be argued that they're simply going with what works. On the other hand though think of the success rate these viruses could have if they weren't harmful to their hosts. Instead of infecting a host and killing them within weeks or months, it could alter its methods slightly and live within a host for the entirety of the host's lifetime. That added time could allow it more time to spread. Now I know that our body is programmed to fight off anything foreign so anything that enters our body probably has to be somewhat aggressive to survive for very long. There seems to be this constant struggle between the outside world and the world inside our bodies. It's anyone's guess who's going to win when it comes down to it.

The other thing I've noticed is that there seems to be a lot more allergies than before. Maybe it's just that they are being more widely reported than when I was younger. When I was a kid I remember maybe one or two kids who would have noticeable allergies. Now there are more and more children who have severe allergies, so much so that schools are taking action about it. Some schools won't serve anything with peanuts because they don't want to even take the risk of exposing a child to it. While I think that's good for the children with allergies, it makes me wonder about what's causing the severity of these reactions. For me peanuts are fairly benign and I grew up thinking they were delicious. I've been fortunate to have no known allergies. That's not to say that I'm not allergic to anything, but I simply haven't run into anything that's harmful to me in that way. How is it that something like a peanut, which is just another tasty food to me, is deadly poison to someone else? What is it about their body that's not only rejecting peanuts, but shutting down when exposed to them? The other big one is gluten, although it's not so much an allergy, but an intolerance. The first time I heard about someone being gluten intolerant was probably eight years ago when a friend of mine found that wheat products were giving her serious problems. I didn't even know it was possible to have problems with something as common as wheat. You go to any grocery store today and you can find at least one section or aisle dedicated to gluten free foods. It used to be the worst you'd hear about was someone who was lactose intolerant. Even those were a rare occurrence.

So why are these people having serious problems with common foods? Were they born this way because of some fluke of genetics? Everyone around them operates as normal, but they have been given a limitation? Now not everyone is born equal. There are people born color blind or a limited sense of taste. Those can be chalked up to genetic anomalies. As far as I know there isn't a huge increase in people being born with color blindness. Those being born with allergies seems to be on the rise though. Is this being caused by the environment or something else? How can it be that some people being born today are taking steps backwards when it comes to their ability to tolerate the outside world? The whole situation makes me think back to all those great medical advancements we're so proud of. People are living longer than ever before. Diseases that should have killed people are becoming treatable. People who even twenty years ago were unable to have children are being given opportunities to procreate. There are some religious zealots out there who would argue that by doing so we're going against nature. While I don't exactly agree with that sentiment, but it does bring up a good point. What if we as a species haven't caught up with ourselves? It could be our technology has surpassed our own evolutionary track to a point that we're starting to see the side effects in the form of allergies and sickness that cannot be treated.

Thirty years ago we cured Smallpox, which it turns out is the only infectious disease we've ever been able to fully eradicate. The number of lives that have been saved from that is probably incalculable. It's been over twenty years since there was a need for even routine vaccinations for Smallpox. In another thirty years it could be all but a memory. There is a lot of work being done to fight and hopefully stop some serious diseases such as Cancer or AIDS. We know more about them know than ever before, but how close are we to seeing a real cure? Every year they put so much work into trying to just stay in front of the common cold. It's like trying to hit a moving target that's building up an immunity to whatever you're trying to shoot at it. Will we ever have a disease-free world or will the fight just keep on going until both sides become unrecognizable?

Vivid Leaves

On Dreams

When you're dreaming, are you alive? That question has always stuck with me because it got me wondering where we go when we're dreaming. I suppose technically we're still here, but we've gotten lost in our own minds. In most cases we can't control our dreams and are more or less just along for the ride that our subconscious has laid out in front of us. We have no control and it's essentially required reading. Our minds need to dream in order to function properly. There are a lot of theories on what our dreams mean or how they're constructed. It could be they're simply a mash-up of our conscious thoughts combined with those tiny thoughts that hide in the back of our minds. Together they are molded into some kind of narrative that we are able to understand. Well maybe not always understand, but at least recognize. Some people believe they have a handle on what specific images mean in dreams and maybe they're right, but all things mean something else to the individual. Animals in a dream may typically represent something for most people, but for someone with unique experiences regarding animals, it may mean something entirely different. Granted we all have unique experiences with anything in the world so then how can there ever be one set reference guide to what something in a dream means?

Notice that no matter how vivid your dream is, it tends to fade quickly once you're awake? It's almost like you're not supposed to bring it back with you to the conscious world. It was only meant for that time when you're asleep. There was a time when I tried to capture my dreams in a journal when I woke up, hoping to look back on them with eyes that were awake. The problem is that for me a lot of my dreams can't be relayed into words. They tend to be images shaped by thoughts and emotions and attempting to put them into words would be an exercise in futility. Plus not every night resulted in some seemingly cosmic journey through my deepest thoughts. Some nights were mundane, just like there are some days that pass by with little to look back on. So once again the dreams are only visible at night like fireflies.

Have you ever attempted to explain a dream to someone else? It's a lot like the problem with writing them down, there is so much lost in translation. You may get the basic plot out, but the impact it may have had could be lost if they don't share the same ties to the subject matter as you. There is a difference between reading about a tornado's destruction and living through one touching down near you. You can never fully share the whole experience with someone else unless they've been through it as well. So what's really going on when we're dreaming? Is our mind trying to tell us something? Are the thoughts of the day being sorted out after hours in a way that will make sense to us in the morning? If so then why do dreams seem to lead to more questions?

I mentioned how dreams fade, but there are a select few that stick with us for some reason. Life is made up of experiences that we carry with us. Some of them are good and some of them are bad. We carry them all with us, but we only consciously remember a handful in comparison to all the memories we have stashed in our mind. What's special about those experiences that we choose to remember? In some cases it seems like there is no choice at all. We simply remember it while other things get filed away, even if we'd prefer to keep them up front for easy access. I've talked about how perception shapes memory and what we remember may not always be exactly what happened. In the end it may not matter what exactly happened because we lack the ability to go back and verify one way or another. So we're left with only our memories to guide us through life, regardless of if they're accurate or not. If you were to try and classify experience it could be narrowed down to a few categories: real & factual, real & perceived, or manufactured. I'm simplifying of course, but ultimately the events in our life once they pass can be broken down into those groups. You can look back on yesterday and review the events of the day and say to yourself everything was real & factual. Next week, next month, or next year could you still say that? Somewhere along the way those memories get pushed aside to make room for new information. So what we once were so sure of as being real & factual get shifted into real & perceived without us even knowing it. There could eventually come a time when even that is called into question and we start to wonder if it was all just manufactured by our minds. If that can happen with so-called "real" memories then what's to say that the opposite couldn't be true? What started out as a manufactured experience eventually is regarded as something that was real. After a certain amount of time can our brain even tell the difference anymore? In a sense the dream becomes reality.

There is another kind of dream though. It's not the kind that we only experience when we're asleep. It's the hope we have for ourselves. It's something we wish for, even if it's not achievable. In some causes those kinds of dreams can haunt us long after we originally thought of them. They can be the driving force for some people's lives, which could be a good thing. Once someone looked up at the sky and wished they could fly. Instead of just accepting that it was a dream, they went on a mission to make it a reality. It just shows how powerful our minds can be when a simple idea alters the world around us. The sad part about these kinds of dreams is that they too can fade given the right circumstances. Dreams, like memories, can get lost in the shuffle. A child can dream of becoming an astronaut and eventually forget that the dream was ever there. Instead it's been replaced with something else. Maybe something that seems more achievable or less whimsical. Not ever dream can be realized, in fact most probably don't. Reality takes precedent over those fleeting thoughts. If a person created the means for people to fly based on a dream then what's to say that our dreams can't also shape reality? Maybe the limit is only there because we put it there.

Two Face

On Politics

Politics have never really been an interest of mine. As kid when it was that time for all those election ads to be running on television, interrupting what I was watching, I wouldn't have a passing interest in the whole process. As I got older that level of disinterest stayed pretty constant. The whole thing seemed like a lot of talk and posturing, but very little actual work being done. Obviously laws and changes were being done at some point. Someone somewhere was running the show. The thing was unless it affected my day to day, I wasn't all that interested in knowing anything about how the sausages were made. Unfortunately this nation is made up of a lot of people who still think that way. We always hear about how great democracy is and how people around the world are fighting for their right to have a voice in the system. We hear this and yet there is quite a bit of ambivalence when it comes to the whole political system.

First off, part of the indifference may come from the fact that the system seems unnecessarily complex, meant to deter people from looking too hard. Then again maybe the government really is that complex and things are as good as they are because of all the tiny details that go into making something law. Still there are bills that go into hundreds and thousands of pages. What is all that detail really for and could anyone ever claim to understand it all? It almost seems as though it's one thing piled on another because everyone wants their piece included. Eventually it becomes unmanageable or watered down to a point where it's ineffective, defeating the purpose in the first place. There are those situations where elected officials are playing a complex game of back scratching. In order to vote for one thing they have to first promise to vote a specific way on something completely different. How is that any different from saying you'll pick someone first for your kickball team as long as they share their cupcake with you at lunch?

On the flip side there seems to be a lot of fighting among the various sides that are in charge. Part of that is because there are usually two distinct sides to anything, even if there isn't. Not everything can be broken down into black and white sides and yet it feels like either you're with Democrats or Republicans. The dividing line isn't usually so apparent. There seems to be a mentality that either you're with one or you're against another. Of course if you don't pick one of the big kids' team then you're going to be classified as part of the lunatic fringe known as Green, Tea, or Independent. It seems like it would be nearly impossible to agree on a whole with everything that a party stands for. At least as a voter I've never found myself agreeing completely with any one side. Thankfully I have the luxury of not having to choose a specific side. The people who are running for election do though. I find it hard to believe that any Democrat or Republican agrees with everything on whichever side they've chosen, however, in order to have a chance at being elected they are going to have to at least pretend to agree with nearly everything. It's the only way they can get the support from their party and ultimately the vote from their party members. If that's the case then are there politicians that are going against their own beliefs for the sake of getting elected. It reminds me of when I was a kid and being told that I had to eat my vegetables if I wanted to have dessert. In order to get what I really wanted, I'd be eating some things I didn't want in my mouth.

In that avoidance of putting something bad in their mouth there is quite a bit of misdirection going on. This is done in a lot of different ways, but the most noticeable to me is when hot button issues like Social Security, abortion, or immigration suddenly become the most talked about subjects during election time. Politicians know that they can polarize the voting community by coming out for or against a specific issue. Then the story is all about that rather than one something else that may have more substance. Now I'm not saying any of those issues are unimportant, but they aren't the linchpins that they would like us to believe. Should they be addressed? Yes. They should be looked at and hopefully resolved before they become a crisis. In a lot of cases they want you to think it's already a crisis and in thinking that way there will be a bit of panic, which leads to less thinking and more reacting. If more time was spent actually making and implementing laws that make effective change rather than on railing about something that's known to get everyone upset maybe we'd get to a point where there was reasonable discussion about what the options are. Maybe that's expecting too much from people who are more concerned with winning than with doing good.

Why do both sides spend so much time fighting against each other? The things that unite them are greater than the things that divide them and yet they choose to focus on that small fraction of issue they don't agree on. When we were kids if someone agreed with you on nearly everything except who was the better G.I. Joe ninja that didn't stop you from being friends. Your similarities brought you together and it would be stupid to let one small thing drive you apart. Now I know that a character from a toy line isn't as important as what to do about Social Security, but for children it could be. Eventually there will come a time when the debate about abortion will seem trivial because there are larger, more important issues that need our attention. Right now we can't see that because for us it seems so important that we simply can't take our eyes off it. So the fight goes on and we're being told that something is important, even if it isn't important to us. How much time has been wasted on arguing an issue until it's no longer relevant?

The thing for me that is most upsetting is that in a lot of cases one side seems more interested in beating the other guy rather than coming up with solutions that could help everyone. One side could have a proposed plan to fight inflation. They bring it to the floor and it's immediately torn apart by the other side, not because they have a better plan, but because it wasn't something they came up with, therefor it can't be any good. I wonder how many bills or resolutions have failed because if it passed that would mean one side "won" while the other gets nothing. Not every idea brought forth is going to be great. In fact by the time most ideas get through the system they're anything but great. They're just survivors of the process.

The people making the laws are elected, which means we're ultimately responsible for them being there. If we don't like what they're doing it's our job to let them know. Sure not every voice is going to be the one that makes the decision, but decisions are made by those who show up. If you don't vote then you've essentially given up your right to complain. I'm not an idealist and I have no delusions that any political system will ever be perfect. I just know that any system has room for improvement.