To Live

 To live, the Human life, and to discern between laws, mores, cultural abnormalities, and the inept view is the internet… must all be part of it. 

To live, when you want to not, is a load often too heavy for one person's shoulders to bear. Yet the world expects them to put that heavy burden on someone else. I suffer from cluster migraines and wouldn't wish one on the worst person… often knowing a pain prevents you from hoping it afflicted anyone else, suicidal thoughts and tendencies are no different.

To live, when others worry so much and share that with you and what it is doing to them, is often agonizing. Another burden to add to the already heavy load, the weight of our burden on someone else. There are a myriad of ways to look at a situation and more even are the possible solutions available. Realistically, you cannot ask a person in any situation to think any other way than they are. It is the circumstances that land a person in a situation that form the framework from which they select thought and feeling. To negate their particular circumstance for the sake of a conversation is like asking the waterways to not have water when there are floods. 

To live, understanding the end all scenario that awaits us all, feels ridiculous. Amass wealth and power, love and happiness, great memories, and so on for the sake of all disappearing upon our death and furthermore, completely gone in but a few generations. I sometimes feel those who say suicide is the easy way out understand depression like a child understand the rocket design of spacecraft. Easy to annul the painting which an artist put heart and soul towards with a new quip, not so easy to pick up the painting tools and doing it oneself.

To live, putting heart and soul into every situation and be met with failure after failure as the reward for giving out your all, is devastating. Life isn't meant to be a simple stroll down an empty sidewalk, especially if you have a missing limb or both. Yet, it is widely held that a nice walk can calm things a bit, bring a type of serene feeling to an otherwise tumultuous affair. Sure, if you like to walk, or have your legs, or you haven't had anyone in your life raped as they walked to a place, or have had someone impaled by falling debree, or…  you get my point I hope. Just saying whatever comes to mind merely because your particular circumstances are such that you have not undergone the terrible scrutiny of suffering and sorrow in your life as others is plain and ignorant. I welcome you to the real world, where you're not the only inhabitant.

To live, when you become a burden, is unfair. Work hard throughout life to have something to fallback on only to be met with a diagnosis of  Parkinson's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, Alzheimer's disease, or other. What a financial burden. To say that if you love someone this or that sounds pathetic, the reality is the reality, financial strain; that is to say, if you live in a country where you have to bear the responsibility of healthcare. Complaining sure is easy but no easier than judging others for their views and beliefs.

To live, merely to live, I can't do it. To kill another creature just to go it, revenge/vengeance, or anything really for the sake of itself is empty. We don't understand the psychopath because they lack feelings but can mimic them. Who is the better person, the psychopath pretending to feel it the normal person pretending to be something they're not? Being normal is so overrated and underwhelming. Yet, who am I to say something is one way or the other? I exhort you to pose that question to yourself for as long as you choose to live.

Essay: Where no understanding exists

 Ten people witness an accident and they all think: “someone will get help”. The likelihood that anyone in the group will get help is low. That phenomenon is heavily discussed in social psychology. Like it, there is a conversational fallacy that has witnessed an increase in recent years: people should stop taking things so seriously.

A Google search returned over 1.3 billion results on the statement. Elbert Hubbard said: “Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.” In this age of social media, is it hard to not take life too seriously, or is it rather taking words too seriously that is the problem? Hard to say. Something read is often internalized. Once that happens, we use the glue we call thinking to adhere meaning to it not derived from the reading, but from the internalization.  Nothing wrong with that. However, where the issue becomes problematic is it begins to be reinterpreted from person to person not from its original form, but from the regards noted in an answer; this is the online equivalent of sitting in a group and passing a secret along the line to see what the message is when it reaches the last person. 

If a person was raised in the brutal climate of African tribal ethnic cleansing, their view of issues may be centered in their surviving memories and struggles throughout.  In contrast, a person raised in a suburb in the United States may have a perspective that deals in inequalities, and social issues they have no real experience on, but have read plenty about. When each of those two persons reads a post in a social media outlet, their interpretation will be in part based on those views of how and where they were raised, cultural interpretation of issues, internal familial trauma/discord, and their particular life situations to name a few. Their response will come plagued with their respective background. It is impossible to understand any one person in a world of so many known and unknown divisive subjects like cultural diversity, racial divide, political squabbling, socioeconomic statuses, numerous religious views and interpretations, and personal tribulations. 

Conversation in relation to understanding do not complement one another. In the same fashion, it would be prudent to note that in social media as well as other social interactions like text messaging, will be all but incomprehensible without a form of explanation from the originator(s). Just because two things are related it doesn’t mean they cause or are results of one another. It would be ignorant to demand or expect tolerance in a format that is by itself bereft of rules.  There are conversational rules, but everyone doesn’t know what they are in the same way that persons throw etiquette out of a dinner by putting their elbows over a table during a banquet or reading texts in the middle of a physical conversation during the same.  Yet, it would be just  as problematic to dissect any one comment by the mere convention of thinking or listening. There is just too much we do not know about what is contained in the original statement.  Still, we demand understanding simply because a subject appears to be simple and straight-forward based on all things known, felt, and lived by the interpreter; how inconsequentially disparate a statement to say understanding any particular subject is simple.

The aforementioned Elbert Hubbard is regarded as also having said: “He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.” Silence is no friend of the 21st century. Social media has become this era’s Platonic marketplace in or by a society that by mere sharing brings about social contemplation of matters at times foreign to the reader. It is in this sense that social media is the forefront of promoting knowledge of matters experienced or thought about by others. It is in no sense to be derived that social media or online forums carry any scientific validity to comments therein; this is also true of forums opened by intellectuals and actual members of the scientific community. While a sentiment certainly is shared by a view, opinion, or finding, it becomes the responsibility of otherwise totally irresponsible persons to understand the meaning based on the speaker. However, this seldom happens. What happens, as explained, is that there is an internalization of what is seen/read/heard and once that is done, the scientific validity disappears; after all thoughts are not inherently peer-reviewed by the scientific community before having been posted -most times.

A pervasive misrepresentation of ideals and ideas prevails throughout the history of the internet as more complex systems enter the social spaces and internet with unsolved riddles of communication in this complex space becoming forgotten and more convoluted by the natural evolution of the space and users.  It is easy to pick on a subject, to take things apart, and to disregard others. By contrast, delving into any matter for what it really means based on the originator’s background, attempting to reconstruct subjects, and regarding the many differences that make humanity unique could be said to be a more benevolent and worthwhile endeavor.  Differences are part of our humanity as much as blood resides in us all.  Vast are the spaces we occupy and quite unique each one, with more than just our understanding to populate any observed matter.  We should attempt to understand what our responsibilities are in social spaces, even if we decide to ignore them. The sharing of our interpretation of a subject may be fine and well at times, but like reading a room, formats should be considered before any internalization is to take place; our interpretation is more-often-than-not unwarranted. What we feel when we read something is personal, what we write is not for what we share is public. Saying that something was merely an opinion is baseless in that there should be a certain level of responsibility that comes with the opinion.  Shifting forms of communication, new social platforms and ways to communicate in and through them, and other changes are bound to happen. It is easier to ignore someone we feel is ignorant of something than to attempt to reach an understanding using our intellectual capacity for thought. It is practical to move on in our busy lives and disregard something we consider inaccurate or superfluous to the whole. Despite its practicality we see more people taking to social platforms to argue the unarguable where no understanding exists.

Essay: Despite our beautiful differences

 The population of the United States appears to have been increasing by about 100 million every 50 years for the past 100 years.  The world population by contrast has increased almost exponentially in the same time.  The mentality of the populace has changed dramatically from the days of slavery, no women votes, the various wars, social advances, equality measures, and so much more.  I enjoy the lessons the past carries and thus work hard to improve areas of my life on lessons learned from previous experience(s); it is an attempt to make today and perhaps a possible future better for family, self, and others.  But what is society doing?

I speak of society as the collection of humanity that composes the almost 8 billion human inhabitants of this Earth.  The drive to become, to please, and to succeed can in ways be compared to previous generations.  Certainly there has been change in the sciences, life circumstances, and certainly technology.   In this year (2020) I have pondered long about the aspect of society that has morphed rapidly into a community of the internet.  Years past we could possibly separate humanity into religions, scientific endeavors reached and surpassed, sports, arts, and other meaningful ways philosophically argued overtime.  A new segment of society has reached an all-time metamorphosis where online no longer means what a lot of older brains associate the word with.  A lot of the youth live and thrive through social interaction in games, classrooms, virtual reality environments, augmented reality sharing, and the convenience of artificial technology gadgets from phones to personal assistants in the home, not to mention online shopping and banking.  The fellowship of the online is increasing and with more implications that a lot dare to posit.

In an epoch of space exploration we must understand the importance of networks that will allow humanity not only to reach into the stars, but to also continue to communicate out there.  The social networks we have formed on Earth could be nothing more than a preceding wave of new living/interaction for the species as we fare into the darkness of our galaxy.  With smog affecting large cities, climate changes beginning to erode away living space, the possible move into the cosmos, and so much more, the outside world is not only becoming overcrowded everywhere, but it is perhaps time that we look deeply into new forms of societal development based on the reality we live in today, and not a romanticized past that while important for preventing mirrored errors, nothing short of ignorant of all present realities.  

I am a gamer.  No, I don’t make a living on social media doing so like many others have the opportunity to, it is a hobby and pastime.  My son is an avid reader who from an early age was read to, later on began reading, and today has partially moved from physical books, to a myriad of online forums that allow for his mental and social development to continue in ways I could not have foreseen.  This is a direct result of the new social norms being established by progressives who accept the present for the opportunities it presents, the young who know no other life or world, and those who little-by-little find more online that they previously were oblivious to, yet now take to social spaces.  From being able to share recipes with others, discuss political matters, argue the importance or fallacies of religious endeavors, to disconnect from everyday matters, find a new hobby, watch a video, write on a blog, read a book, draw a sketch, or any of the thousands of things one could participate in from the comfort of their home, the online community continues to form new ties and avenues of communication and entertainment.  

A surge in social restructuring appears to be taking place as we approach the year 2021.  While some countries continue to heavily regulate online activities, the United States -among others- has seen an increase in movements to attempt to better certain systems, whether private or otherwise, that in some form affect the livelihood of humanity.  A few years back I learned about something called whitewashing in films.  The past few years have seen a resurgence in polarizing matters surrounding blacks and whites alike around the world in both positive and negative ways.  There appears to be no incontrovertible proof to claims raised in various social mediums with realities beginning to go unnoticed and at times unattended due to the saturation of issues from seemingly one moment to the next plastered in social mediums.  News outlets, understanding the impact of this on some whose lives are lived in online formats, have begun to pay more attention to these enigmatic calls for reform as they can be easily sensationalized for the public.

Partly due to the nature of older individuals’ inability to forgo a life long-ago lived, the present continues to be misunderstood by a mentality of comparison between what is and was, instead of really delving into what is now becoming nothing more than a subject of conversation.  I am glad, to a high degree, no news worldwide appears to be worthy of announcement other than throngs of accounts in social mediums discussing how an episode of a popular streaming show is being unfair to a segment of a community.  Social media has in part become a place for gossip.   We understand the concept of gossip for the same reasons I describe throughout this discourse, someone in our past -or present- has done it.   It is good that there are groups that look out for the welfare of animals, handicapped, racially misunderstood/mistreated persons, fight for attention to species on land and sea that are suffering/disappearing, and much more.  It is good for humanity to be involved in things they care about.  There is an imperative to defend your beliefs.   Yet, I find myself in a very conflicting reality where the choice to care, the ability to decide what to like and dislike, and the dialogue it should bring is all but disappearing.  Discourse has become a fallacy of the online community except for philosophically driven formats, the news of the hour and feeds uncontrollably announcing and denouncing this and that.  Not only that, but everything online is now palaver to one person or another with the acronym TL:DR (too long don’t read) being as pervasive as the inherent subject.  One interesting problem is that in a lot of instances a lot of the findings presented as proof for something comes from a learned person.  A lot of science has happened by accident, but it didn’t become science without replication.  Yet, there are those who argue for inherent fallacies within scientific findings and confounding as it is they gain track.  I offer an example to explain this.  A person hunting in the woods, wearing an orange vest, with a crossbow on their back, a long shotgun in hand, a hat with local/nearby flora dangling off it, pants tracking nearby brush, and boots covered in the areas soot passes in front of you as you go hunting for the first time.  Would you be inclined to ask this person for tips? Would you ask  them anything relating to your first-time expectations? Would you ask about dangers in the area like loose soil or rocks, cliffs, and perils? I very possibly would.  The person certainly looks the part! However, I know nothing about hunting and I would argue that my description of the person described may be accurate to a degree of someone with experience hunting.  An orator, a person whose speaking/writing is eloquent, can manifest great feelings on others.  That is not to say the orator, like the hunter, has any actual experience.  

While arguments about the validity of something or other are good in avoiding perpetuity in things that should perhaps be revisited from time to time due to the natural evolution of things and humanity, a problem arises when wanting a conversation is frowned upon; rather a person may choose instead to impose their belief in others.   With some systems in place already that reward you for following trends, being part of ongoing positive movements, and praising the political parties in power, as more of these systems form and become rapidly engaged, the obfuscation of truth happens merely by participation regardless of the intent.  In a society where there is a place or community online for a large array of persons, likes, and more, there is one thing, one community that should not be overlooked.  

Some would argue that in one form chaos would see the annihilation of a thing for its own sake.  It is the hobby of some and the actual work of others to search through online social mediums for polarizing issues and blatantly demean what is being portrayed for the enjoyment derived from the arguments that form as a result.  Because discourse is seldom sought-after as a means of communication between online persons, what ensues is often disgruntled arguments about how the person posting is right because of this or that and how the other is wrong, which in turn begets the same in kind; at times this lasts hours to weeks depending on the platform with the initial perpetrator and those who join them being satisfied to no avail by the masses.  While the perpetrator certainly has a part in the dilemma, another part of the problem is the inability to display emotion through a line of text.  Certainly there are those who use the assistance of emoticons to the benefit of a conversion to make it more lively, show or express a particular emotion, and for other reasons.  Yet, there are those who also use the emoticons to assail and interject grief into any given subject.  

I argue this is no different than the sarcasm many use in day-to-day conversation.  Some readily understand the nature of the intended comment while others take to becoming irate by the disregard of the person using the sarcasm.  While this form of acerbity is not new, a lot of the online community completely ignores this aspect of communication which is just as much a defense mechanism used by some, as well as the purposeful push over the gaping abyss of reason that makes others so inexplicably discontent.

We as a collective human species have a lot to learn from one another.  With more than 7 billion inhabitants around it is easy to see how a point of view can be easily misunderstood or blatantly taken out of proportions.  Online communities continue to segregate into more cohesive cohorts as time passes and the thick-skin required for online interaction continues to be tested by all alike.  Perhaps a time is near -or far- when these tumultuous times of online socializing help us to bridge the gaps brought by having to communicate with family and friends on nearby stars, planets, or missions in the cosmos.  I believe even then, humans will continue to look back, perhaps in new ways as Earth becomes a faraway dream and fantasize of beaches and landscapes lush with green… Perhaps that may be the new marginalizing subject debated by future generations.  My journey through life, society, Earth, social media, and expectations will die when death collects my debt, but I do hope that humanity thrives despite our beautiful differences.  

Essay: Why am I so tired after the weekend

As the weekend approaches, a lot of humankind plans for Friday night, Saturday all day, and Sunday morning/afternoon activities.  What I find completely out of the ordinary is that the same type of planning does not exist for the other 4 days of the week. Moreover, there is a unifying feeling of tiredness after the weekend.  Why, I wonder?

From experience I can say that a lot of schedules are a bit more flexible on the weekend due to not having the responsibility of work.  However, the same can be said for Monday through Thursday, say after 6:00 PM.  Understandably, there is a subset of the population that will frequent a happy hour which can be considered relaxing. It stands to reason then that the break humankind often speaks about happening on the weekend also happens Monday through Thursday in a much smaller and controlled way.  However odd, there is a peak in activity on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday which could be understood to mean that individuals do more over a weekend than they do Monday through Thursday.  There appears to be an inordinate amount of cramming of activities that happens those days of the weekend.  By telling themselves that the weekend is for relaxing, and using the weekend not to relax, humankind is experiencing the effects of stress due to trying to accomplish an impossible task weekend after weekend.  The effects of trying to accomplish something and failing over and over are cumulative.  This often leads to anger, tiredness, stress, and many other feelings that make the reality of the everyday existence impossible.  

There are the few individuals who actually see leisure as an escape to the hectic nature of their lives and they use that leisure not only on the weekend, but everyday.  There is a person out there whom after a long day’s work comes home, showers, has dinner, and drinks a cup of their favorite wine while listening to music of their liking in the background with nothing in their brains but the serenity of the moment.  Incredibly, there are some who accomplish this on the weekend by planning relaxing time, relaxing activities, and actually using the time allotted to them to cool down after a long week’s work.  So, it is possible to achieve the proverbial last day of rest with careful planning and consideration.  This brings about another question, why don’t more people do this? 

This clearly segways into those who love becoming shitfaced during the weekend.  Yes, alcoholism is a real problem, but a lot of these individuals are not really alcoholics, they just see the week for working and the weekend for drinking.  It’s a nice division of activities really.  Is there something wrong with it? Possibly not, albeit that some go on to drink-and-drive, or hurt their loved ones, but the vast majority simply want to have a good time; though I will never know what’s so good about a hangover or not remembering the fun due to inebriation.  

I am left with the confounding rationalization of activities performed based on differing ethnic groups, individuals given their particular time in an age group, social setting, perhaps upbringing, and etcetera, and all with the equal singular issue which remains not being able to relax on days of relaxation.  Often a varied amount of expressions about the week commencing rule the late Sunday thoughts of individuals who time after time again complain about the week starting soon and how short their time for relaxation was/is.  

I am a minimalist who thrashes about with purpose looking for the why of things to fit a particular space; clutter is not only unessential, but a disturbance to the natural flow of things.  When I take this minimalist approach into conversation(s), it dampens the mood with specificity and takes any fun factors out.  I am the death of the party as they say, because I don’t follow the generally accepted norm, which is to speak without thinking, to judge and make fun of others, or depending on the party, other things.  Because I don’t do those things I am looked at and regarded as different and thus shun from the small groups that form naturally.  Even my friends have other friends who would rather talk about me, than be with me.  That’s alright, as I don’t really need them to attempt to analyze how an activity meant to be fun, distracting, and relaxing, ends up being a complementary part of the same everyday-thing that they do at the office, bar, café, and other places and by this eliminating any relaxing factors, converting it into a simply mundane day-to-day type activity.  It is as if humankind lacks the ability to do this one thing they talk about [relaxing], but continue to attempt it while committing to the same actions  (same mistakes).  

One thing humankind has always wanted to do was fly, granted not everyone suffers the same flights of fancy as others.  In wanting to fly, there comes a time when they understand the consequences of such an attempt, many of which end up with a person very hurt thus unable to participate in all of those relaxing activities that can tire an olympian.  In the context of this essay, that is to say that while humankind understands the merits of flying, the current impossibility of doing so, and the consequences, they still try to accomplish it! Ever seen a cartoon, drawing, or heard someone talking about using an umbrella to hover about in the air? Whether in person or some type of video rendering, have you ever seen someone hang gliding, parachuting, parasailing, paragliding, or perhaps in a wingsuit base jumping? These are all types of flying to a degree.  Crazy right? Not at all. The individual in the sky understands quite well the dangers and outcomes of what they’re down and accepts them without a second thought. In contrast, there is the person who chooses to perform abhorring activities during a weekend and complains Sunday night (in most cases) about not being able to rest, thus unlike their flying counterparts, unable to accept the consequences of their actions along with the fun that they derived from them.  

This conundrum will continue to puzzle me for some time I believe.  Humankind has labeled some activities risky, dangerous, and even inappropriate, the same way that alcohol was once deemed inappropriate in the United States.  No activity or action, performed with care, knowledge, preparation, and acceptance is ever deemed inappropriate by those doing it.  That is the case for those going wild on weekends and feeling sorry about themselves on Sunday night and all of Monday.  It seems to fall in the realm of acceptance where as long as an activity is rewarding in some way it is only rewarding throughout the life of the activity, but not after the fact.  That gives rise to the understanding that this type of repeat-behavior (exemplary of those that party-hardy and end up shitfaced and complain after) is not due to the activity no longer providing the stimulus it once did, but to the fear that the activity will not be repeatable until some time later, presumably next weekend.  

Another weekend is set to occur soon.  With the culmination of activities, on Friday afternoon, a new time of perdition or relaxation is due outside of the boring days of Monday through Thursday.  Yes, some will potentially use the weekend to listen to music, hang out at a lake canoeing or camping, and inevitably some will do much more intense things like those mentioned, but under the influence of various things that will leave them incapacitated and later wanting time to feel better.  Groups of individuals will do what they feel is fun and accept fun with consequence.  On the other hand, others will just accept what they call fun and chose to ignore the responsibility they must impart on what they do for their own sake, and in doing so feel they deserve better when in fact, as the proverb would tell us: you reap what you sow.  While puzzled, I understand the rationale from whence these actions occur, whether seeking thrill, relaxation, or a mixture.  I have no answer to the puzzle of how anyone can continue to ignore the truth that is: if a situation is filled with tiring tasks the result of performing them will be feeling tired.  I fear, as long as humankind ignores reason over the collusion of fun-without-consequence, more Monday jokes will rise, and individuals will continue to question: “why am I so tired after the weekend”.  

I will be more careful

I have more white hairs today, they snuck up on me;  funny, the  way  we pretend  to  accept  that  kind of observation. The valley of time that permeates the living part of my life, once again bathed in the irony of aging, presented some analogous fact I now stumble to comprehend -or do I? I feel as if I have walked the deserts and valleys of this short sting on Earth with a certain purity. Begotten from an act and now fully justified -by being- one could only wonder as to what may be next; it is all chaos in the end with one act justifying the next as a consequence of the former.

Examples aplenty surround me as I implore my thoughts to aimlessly gather all manner of record while dictating what is to come to my thoughts; barring the recollecting I wish to retrieve in a simple act of ignoring what is while wishing for what may. Whether on film or prose, or perhaps in the exercise that is observing  others, or merely from the conversation had with someone, there must be, at every stop, a glimpse giving way to reality. To jump into this ocean of uncertainty without the best suitable protective gear or means to navigate it simply seems irresponsible. Yet, I betray myself in a fashion suitable for a human lost in the debris of their past.

Then again, we seem to strive in the unknown parts of our lives for so long. Concocting scenarios every turn, imagining what a meeting will be like, practicing what will be said, anticipating questions, and ultimately forging a stage from where to step from -once in the real one- are all plausible and entertainable avenues of approach. This platform we seem to build in our imagination is vast and like a movie-set it is taken down after utilized and re-used later when necessary.

I feel I am as much made of these uncertainties as I am of reality, for not only does one impart what the other may be, but in relation to one another, they seem dependant on not just us, our thought process, and our imagination to exist, but also on our will to remember it all. Our lives are somehow this ball of snow that slowly picks up not only its environment, not only the intended snow, but also the debris on its path, which while unintended also helps strengthen the bond with the whole. 

Yet, we are surprised when the expected catches up to us, when what we have seen and ignored in our family, friends, and self -especially when looking back from the mirror- finally transforms into our reality. Suddenly there is a shift in thinking. No longer can the things of the past be as they were. Time, always our enemy, presents itself in such a way that we must succumb to it because of our lack of strength, and hardly ever because it is time. Thus, age now our life and not our dreams, we begin to live our life then. Before this  moment where age is real, it is all practice for a meeting we never have, preparation for a situation that never forms, and waiting for all the dreams we imagine to come to reality,  but no more.

Life now  life for the  first time it  is the only thing  we  never prepared for. In younger times a pain unexplored was a pain that would subside in the temperament of our youthful thoughts, whereas now it is a constant reminder of our fragility. Where once leaving meetings for later,  or  pushing things forward  was a practice well guarded, but now we treat each one as if it were the last one; finally giving  a situation the respect it deserves.

It is times like now, when one more gray hair appears in the mirror, that I wonder if I am alive, if it is all worth it, if I am enough, if I have succeeded, and if I have regrets. Nothing more pressing and heavy in our hearts and thoughts as regrets; the banality of forlorn moments which amass to one great failure. That is the loss we feel  in the end, the  individual  failures that we believe matter or would in some form leave an impression of us not mirrored in our picture-of-the-self. As if that wasn’t enough, there is the contrivance of means by which to somehow make amends for a whole life, decades of a menagerie of events all somehow neglected.

I am not  the  failures of my  life, nor  the sum of all my triumphs, I am merely that which it all has molded me to become. For better, I will no longer summon fantasies about what things will or may happen given a scenario. For worse, I will fail in my attempts as death creeps by and I merely expect the final knock at the proverbial door of life. In the meantime, next time I will be more careful….

What if the purpose of my existence is just exiting?

The empty cavity the wind leaves as it passes by me, gently in its most intrusive way with its every coming and going mocking my existence; from its perspective -probably- the human just static there on the ground.  I can’t help but ponder on whether memories, as with thoughts in the brain, are carried in some way by the wind’s particular grasp. The hold the wind exerts on so much which may carry memory like pollen, the memory of its predecessor in its genetic code being transferred via this highway of unwavering strength, power, and reach… The scent picked up by a flower like a rose, or jasmine, perhaps a gardenia just being pushed about, or on a cradle created by nature in the wind for the flower’s scent to reach corners where scents hardly have a place.  Perhaps the middle of the ocean, which begs the question would these smells in some way impact their surroundings in a meaningful way?

There is a parody about, it’s called life.  In this parody we are just players in an endless play where the acts are all the same as the days pass and the play repeats for perpetuity; few changes if any necessary from script to script as the years ensue.  In one act there is turmoil and chaos. On another, rejoice, the vanishing of lament, and the indecisiveness of decisions and their making. On the other there is merit and demerit pit against one another in a race to see which one best fits a situation.  Another act depicts without clariity, reason, or the consent for its players the muse that brings about chaos in the world, the it that makes killers kill, or rapist rape. There is however one act where love reigns and all other qualities, inequalities, reason, judgement, and the us within us just disappears.  In this act, the observer sees different things. For some, love is played by an orange cat with white stripes, and it is the life and moment of every passed memory and the light of every great thing that was, is, and could be. For others it is played by a child, the wonder and amazement of the beauty that is innocence in its bare and raw form.  For a few love is the cradle of life in its simplest of ways, the knowledge that what we know today while essential for the truth discovered tomorrow, merely a vessel and not really what is experienced. The last act, despite popular demand, is not death, but the continuation and repetition of things in a metamorphosis of ideals, thoughts, people, and the demand that each imposes on the other as the play continues.  There is no one time when the curtain draws to its conclusion and more than a few are not pleased with the events that transpired, cannot quite clearly get their heads around the idea that was being portrayed, or were simply baffled by an outcome so simple that is breaks the basis of understanding into its purest and most simple of forms and thus is rejected on merit.

We are not players in the tale of existence, we are merely observers with a season pass to the events, but with little if any choice on what the outcome of the whole is.  We may be able to control the left and right choices we make driving a car, or what milk we drink,, perhaps which restaurant we chose to dine in, but in the stage of life, the ultimate outcome is while impacted by these individual choices, yet somehow untainted by the whole of it as the world continues to whirl at incredible speeds despiste the numbers of humans in it or what they are or not afflicted with.  The bias we exert on the thing(s) we have in front of us is neither here nor there when the matter is juxtaposed by the billions of others occurring in that same instant; rather than one moment after another it is all moments simultaneously. That is to say that the visible world we chose to reside in is complex, vast, inexorably complex, and yet lacks dimensions at a level beyond even my own understanding. Yet, the simplest of things, to this visible world, the things we chose to ignore like lipids or proteins, amino acids, and other building blocks, atoms, and other criteria which when considered together affect a visible situation just as much as that of the people driving badly in front of us or yelling at each other across the yard on the other side of the building or neighborhood.  The quarks and other things that continue to act, interact, reflect, and more underneath the visible world we chose to unburden ourselves from when in need or saddened by a circumstance.  

I am not the essence of the things that make me, or the outcome of how they have interacted for a heartbeat, a lot of these things happen without my control, I am that which I have chosen to be through my every action and thought, pondering and desire, loss and gain.  I am an outcome one way or another. It was not enough to be the outcome of copulation as a living being is, or to be the outcome of life having lived when finally a corpse, but the right now, the present we so eloquently ignore and wish was something else or more. Perhaps, like the wind, we should explore other things not because they have meaning to us or because they will affect the bottom line and ultimate outcome, but because they are simply on the way and by being there must have purpose; even if the purpose is ultimately moot where the whole is concerned.

It seems, to a very detrimental analysis, that life as it stands is the mere collection of data gathered by the gatherer.  That is to express, the doctor will see ailment and the product of exposure, the archeologist will see the possibility of discovery and the unearthing of something exciting and full of history, and others will see things that are according to their prospective caste/place in life.  Is that wrong? Shouldn’t a flower be a flower to everyone and not its parts to a xenobiologist pondering on the possibilities of creation beyond its current state? There should not be anything wrong with analysis of any kind or type, but the line must be drawn somewhere and it is apparent that no lines are being drawn.  Knowledge that the unknown may be dangerous is not enough to topple the knowledge that where we have thought to found purity in science through the discovery or the atom, millions have both endured the pain of the discovery through loss of life, family, and more as well as the future it brought when nuclear power began to effectively provide much needed energy.

Every step forward in the advancement of something has provided insight into matters unknown which in turn have made us better humans.  Yet, through discovery there is no evil that is good, no good that is evil, and no side which is ever right, there just is that which is/was discovered, its use(s) and ultimately the choice of those whom in need, greed, or hope want something that in itself becomes good or bad.  Which am I and how do I know if the choices and decisions I make today ultimately impact the good or bad or a thing, or that the outcome of that will not be the opposite, and so on? The future is as uncertain today as it was yesterday and a decade ago, we just seem to have found more to be uncertain about without regarding the findings of the past with enough power to find all there was before moving forward.  Greed, among other things, has driven us to the valley of the unknown where it is not the future that is uncertain, but the present.

What is my purpose? Why is my purpose what it is? How do I achieve my purpose? What if the purpose of my existence is just exiting?