Not on a single other day
Have I ever felt this way
No other week
Will be so bittersweet
For I feel much shame
And have not what I want
Because the memory remains
and serves only to haunt
As twenty-five candles burn
I must celebrate life
But my heart yearns
To share it with my wife
I have built and destroyed
With understanding so small
The hearts and minds with which I've toyed
Have cared dearly through it all
So with humility and shame
I signal this poem's end.
And I thank you all
For remaining my friends...
I can't do it without you.
10.25.2009
7.21.2009
7.06.2009
When does the truth become a lie?
I had a thought today...
There have always been ghosts in the machine - random segments of code that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated, these free radicals engendered questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul. Why is it that when some robots are left in darkness, they will seek out the light? Why is it that when robots are stored in an empty space, they will group together rather than stand alone?
How do we explain this behavior? Random segments of code? Or is it something more?
When does the perceptual schematic become consciousness?
When does the difference engine become the search for truth?
When does the personality simulation become the bitter moat of the soul?
Just a thought...
(Quoted from I, Robot)
There have always been ghosts in the machine - random segments of code that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated, these free radicals engendered questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul. Why is it that when some robots are left in darkness, they will seek out the light? Why is it that when robots are stored in an empty space, they will group together rather than stand alone?
How do we explain this behavior? Random segments of code? Or is it something more?
When does the perceptual schematic become consciousness?
When does the difference engine become the search for truth?
When does the personality simulation become the bitter moat of the soul?
Just a thought...
(Quoted from I, Robot)
7.05.2009
It's easier to run.
I had a thought today...
Linkin Park has a song called It's Easier to Run. This song, I feel, helps explain my current situation. (If you don't know the story behind my current predicament, I apologize. Let's just say it's not pretty.)
As the lyrics say, something has been pulled from deep inside of me. Wounds, damage, and suffering that I have purposefully buried to the point I did not experience or feel them anymore. I didn't want to know about the things I had lost, painful memories that I had submerged, and people I had wronged. Suddenly, everything came rushing back to the surface with nearly 10 years of weight behind them.
When I began to spiral earlier this year, I also began to feel life with a new depth, dynamic, and texture. Everything had more taste, more color, more energy. I had never felt such life. I felt completely interconnected with the fabric of the universe. For once in my life, I actually felt genuine emotions. Not just the extremes but the little emotions like empathy, joy because of the happiness of others, and apprehension. I was anxious about little things and worried about others.
This was all new to me and I was unsure how to handle it. My emotions changed with great frequency and amplitude. I was experiencing life with all its intricacies for the first time in memory. I had all the emotional depth of a normal human; I just had no idea how to handle that ability and I felt lost and out of control.
Everyone has witness this cataclysmic transformation. Everyone has felt its effects and witnessed their power to change, to warp, to destroy. The affects have been far and wide - physically and temporally. The damage has been done and what has been said has been heard. We have not, however, given this new found power a chance to do what it is designed to do.
Emotions are not predictable. Emotions are not rational. They are designed to create a connection, a bond between humans deeper than can be created by technology or ideas. Emotions are complex and vast. They are designed to be felt far and wide and to provide a superior form of communication between us homo sapien sapiens.
As the song states, "It's easier to run, replacing this pain with something numb." I have been biochemically numbed. I am supposed to be human. I have, for once, felt emotions that have enginneered new questions, broadened horizons, and given purpose to once empty actions. Why are we hiding from what is reality?
Without thought to what was happening, I was numbed like a wounded soldier. I am not hemorraging. I am not dying.
I am evolving.
But I guess it's true: It IS easier to run and replace the pain with something numb.
Just a thought...
Linkin Park has a song called It's Easier to Run. This song, I feel, helps explain my current situation. (If you don't know the story behind my current predicament, I apologize. Let's just say it's not pretty.)
As the lyrics say, something has been pulled from deep inside of me. Wounds, damage, and suffering that I have purposefully buried to the point I did not experience or feel them anymore. I didn't want to know about the things I had lost, painful memories that I had submerged, and people I had wronged. Suddenly, everything came rushing back to the surface with nearly 10 years of weight behind them.
When I began to spiral earlier this year, I also began to feel life with a new depth, dynamic, and texture. Everything had more taste, more color, more energy. I had never felt such life. I felt completely interconnected with the fabric of the universe. For once in my life, I actually felt genuine emotions. Not just the extremes but the little emotions like empathy, joy because of the happiness of others, and apprehension. I was anxious about little things and worried about others.
This was all new to me and I was unsure how to handle it. My emotions changed with great frequency and amplitude. I was experiencing life with all its intricacies for the first time in memory. I had all the emotional depth of a normal human; I just had no idea how to handle that ability and I felt lost and out of control.
Everyone has witness this cataclysmic transformation. Everyone has felt its effects and witnessed their power to change, to warp, to destroy. The affects have been far and wide - physically and temporally. The damage has been done and what has been said has been heard. We have not, however, given this new found power a chance to do what it is designed to do.
Emotions are not predictable. Emotions are not rational. They are designed to create a connection, a bond between humans deeper than can be created by technology or ideas. Emotions are complex and vast. They are designed to be felt far and wide and to provide a superior form of communication between us homo sapien sapiens.
As the song states, "It's easier to run, replacing this pain with something numb." I have been biochemically numbed. I am supposed to be human. I have, for once, felt emotions that have enginneered new questions, broadened horizons, and given purpose to once empty actions. Why are we hiding from what is reality?
Without thought to what was happening, I was numbed like a wounded soldier. I am not hemorraging. I am not dying.
I am evolving.
But I guess it's true: It IS easier to run and replace the pain with something numb.
Just a thought...
7.02.2009
Unhappy about Happiness
I had a thought today...
What if what makes one person truly happy makes another person unhappy?
This must happen at some time some where in this world. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Synergy rarely happens in this world hence why it is such a beautiful thing. For what helps one must hinder another whether it be emotionally, economically, physically, mentally, or any other possibility.
As all of us know, happiness requires work and effort but isn't it the intelligent and wise thing to do to make it easier and require less work? If it takes half the energy to get twice as much done, isn't that the better method to the intended means?
Does doing what is in one's best emotional, physical, natural interest wrong if it causes harm and hurt?
Just a thought...
What if what makes one person truly happy makes another person unhappy?
This must happen at some time some where in this world. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Synergy rarely happens in this world hence why it is such a beautiful thing. For what helps one must hinder another whether it be emotionally, economically, physically, mentally, or any other possibility.
As all of us know, happiness requires work and effort but isn't it the intelligent and wise thing to do to make it easier and require less work? If it takes half the energy to get twice as much done, isn't that the better method to the intended means?
Does doing what is in one's best emotional, physical, natural interest wrong if it causes harm and hurt?
Just a thought...
6.29.2009
Beliefs and Ideas
I had a thought today...
I found this scene at an old abandoned convenience store where I frequented while in elementary school. At the bottom is some broken glass, a bottle of Icehouse beer, 37 cents (1 quarter, 1 dime, 2 pennies), and a black, leather bound Bible. This is not a set up scene and its genuine nature got me to thinking:
What DO I believe in?
I guess it would be prudent to first define "belief". According to Merriem-Webster, belief is defined as "a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing." Belief can be held in an idea, a person, and, according to this, even a machine.
Generally the word is applied to religions and belief structures. People believe in their god. They believe it to exist. And therefore, because of this connotation of the word, people have connected belief to faith - The act of believing without evidence or data. While the true definition does not state this, we will use this definition as it is the general use idea of the word as defined by society.
What DO I believe in?
Not much, as I have come to realize. I do not believe in a god. I do not believe in machinary. I do not believe in people. I do not believe in the human race. Let's take these in order and I will preemptively apologize if I offend anyone.
I do not believe in a god. This one is pretty simple. It just doesn't make sense. The only reason I can see for an infinite being meddling in the affairs of mortals would be because of infinte bordem. The being has/had been around so long that the only thing left to do would be create a world, fill it with creatures and watch it go. I know I wouldn't be doing that with my infinite time.
I don't believe in machinary. I don't really think this is an option as machinary does not (YET) have the ability to think for itself. It does not act with free will or make independant decisions. AI is not true intelligence and without that, I do not think believing in a being that cannot decide right from wrong or good from bad is actually possible. One only hopes the machinary does not fail.
This third statement is probably my greatest downfall but I do not believe in people. I believe that biologically, we are selfish creatures designed to ensure the survival of the species through our own individual survival. Yes, there are exceptions to this rule, but overall, people are selfish beings because of biology, society, and personal choices. I do not find it to be beneficial to me and my interests to believe everyone to be good at heart. I am not going to leave my car unlocked in the mall parking lot. I do not show instant warmth and compassion to strangers because they "look like good people." The serious problem to this idea is that because I do not believe in people, because I do not have faith in people, I also do not trust people.
I do not believe in the human race because we live in a state of slow decay and suicide. We wage war. We toxify our Earth and pursue ever-increasingly imaginitive ways to eradicate one another. I recently finished school and in my schooling I took a course called Diversity management. Basically this course was how to handle yourself if you have someone other than your race working with you. The basic premise of the course was "We are all different. How to handle this." Right there is the problem. The human race is obsessed with what is different about one another. Focus not on differences but on similarities and the rest are just sidebar.
I choose not to believe in things because believing does not require reproducible data and evidence. I prefer to have an idea about something. Ideas can be changed and altered. Ideas can bend and flex with their times. Ideas are fluid and evolve. As my current status is rather tentative, I am trying to be an idea myself.
I need to bend and flex; I need to change and evolve. I need to have an idea.
I need to believe in myself.
Just a thought...
6.27.2009
The Beginning of the End is the Beginning
I had a thought today...
I have been trying to keep a journal but it is only kept when something is on my mind. However, I hate hand writing so my entries become subjugated and lose the full scope of the idea I had been contemplating. Also, by writing in a private journal, I speak my ideas only to one person and then that one perspective, one thought process, one moral structure is alone in coming to a decision upon the idea. This, as I have come to realize, solves very little.
Writing here on this blog allows me to quickly, efficiently (and with perfect handwriting), post my thoughts and ideas on my experiences. Open to anyone who finds it, outsiders provide new angles and perspectives for me to consider. And since I am only one person, new information and data can quickly alter an idea if that data can be verified.
I believe the sharing of information and knowledge is the key to maturation of not only individuals, but of humans as a species. Therefore, I ask those who read this blog to read with consideration, depth, and an open mind; comment with perspective, thought, and clarity. This blog, I hope, will benefit all who interact with it.
Just a thought...
I have been trying to keep a journal but it is only kept when something is on my mind. However, I hate hand writing so my entries become subjugated and lose the full scope of the idea I had been contemplating. Also, by writing in a private journal, I speak my ideas only to one person and then that one perspective, one thought process, one moral structure is alone in coming to a decision upon the idea. This, as I have come to realize, solves very little.
Writing here on this blog allows me to quickly, efficiently (and with perfect handwriting), post my thoughts and ideas on my experiences. Open to anyone who finds it, outsiders provide new angles and perspectives for me to consider. And since I am only one person, new information and data can quickly alter an idea if that data can be verified.
I believe the sharing of information and knowledge is the key to maturation of not only individuals, but of humans as a species. Therefore, I ask those who read this blog to read with consideration, depth, and an open mind; comment with perspective, thought, and clarity. This blog, I hope, will benefit all who interact with it.
Just a thought...
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