Women

    Women have been at a disadvantage for all of recorded human history, in bronze age times the natural physical strength of men over ruled any sense of equality that could have been shared. Reenforced by religious dogma and cultural norms, women slipped into a subservient role that to this day they are still haunted by. While men and women are different this does not mean that we are not equals. It is insulting to humanity to hold any idea contrary to this, as women in the United States have had fight tooth and nail for equal rights. To have be against women's rights is to spit in the faces of everyone who has fought so hard to obtain the standing we do have today.
    As a man I can say with out any hesitation, that the animal in me has looked at a woman and seen just a body, a thing for pleasure, but the human being that I am knows when keep such baser instincts at bay. If we were a species that was not capable of critical thinking, that let instinct make desions for us, than I could see the objectification of women be justified in our ignorance. However, we are capable of objective thinking, and ideas are more powerful than any one person. A woman can die in the street, but what she stood for will live on with resonance, echoing to all those who would bother to listen. Unfortunately these ideas, these memes of equality are being muffled and silenced by mass media.
    A ever continuing free fall of morals and a disintegrating respect for humanity as a whole, has been inspired by the garbage force-fed to us by media outlets. Men must be strong and like cars and sports, women must be ever self conscious elevating their appearance over there thoughts. As the media heads are dominated by men, men do not suffer anywhere near the same way as women(though the entire system seems to be bent on keeping us occupied on irrelevant matters).
    I call to my women of intelligence and rational thinking, make a stand be proud of your beautiful body and use you mind to impact the world. Let us change the status quo move humanity as a whole forward. Let not gender, sexual preference, or race stand in our way, as together as one human race we are unrestrained.

Think

    Free thought is in short supply in the world I see, whether by a person’s own choosing or culturally spawned by ignorance. People will so quickly question anything, why is it that certain things are held above this scrutiny? How is it a person can just omit certain ideals from skepticism? We are all guilty, at one point or another we have rejected an idea just off of a personal preference. In fact when an idea contradicts or conflicts with an idea that we hold, we feel threatened as though ideas were capable of physically hurting us. Ideas that are thought out and house nothing but positive intent and truth will be tossed aside casually as though they had no baring at all.
    The duality of man, constantly questioning, yet unable to let go of what we feel emotionally attached to, imprisons us all. Religious beliefs seem to be at the forefront of this denial. Something about the stigma of god keeps people from using their reasoning and logic. The idea of talking to the dead through a medium is usually met with laughter, if not a healthy dose of skepticism, yet when you say two-thousand years ago a man came back from the dead, it’s taken as truth with out much, if any, hesitation.
    Children are malleable and easily moved to think as their parents do, whether by genetic predisposition or psychological need to fit in with the people around you, in a time when critical thinking has not fully developed, we are pressured and taught things we have no defense against. We don’t say the a child is republican or libertarian, because they don’t hold the resources to make such decisions. Why then, do we think that a child has the world worth of knowledge to make a decision about the creation of the entire universe?
    We have adults, blind to their own arrogance, knowing things without doubt and no evidence to back it up. Men and women mindlessly repeat verses and arguments with out caring about their validity. When these people are questioned, they become defensive, as though they themselves not their ideas were under attack, and question any and all points made. All the while the questioner becomes increasingly aggravated wondering why none of the same skepticism is applied to any statement made by the individual.
    It is unfair and inaccurate to label all religious people this way, as atheist agnostics, and skeptics can be just as stubborn and arrogant about their beliefs, and many religious people take very rational views. The ability to ask why is without a doubt the human’s greatest tool. As far as we know, humans are the only species capable of consciousness, of thought. Why would anyone be so careless with this great gift, even if it is god given? It is our right to question everything and give a proper verifiable explanation.

Simple Beauty

    There is nothing simple about the beauty that is woman. She stands like a pillar, her elegant figure holding up all that the eye needs finds appealing. She embodies countless generations of selection as the pinnacle of form, as evolution would have it at this day and age. She is a wonder in her own right simply by being who she is.
    The complexity of beauty stems from natural urges of man mixed with a healthy dose of social evolution mixed in to complicate and over extravagant it. The shape of her body hinges on the success of child baring and attracting a mate, but beauty as an idea is more than skin deep. Industry and commercial value have almost abused the idea past point of no return, yet the class and delicate body of woman holds up to even this ruthless depiction. She is stronger than we can know, and her intelligence and wit serve her well in a unrelenting world of judgment.
    The shapes and colors than can make up the female face are as fare and wide a range as the people behind them. The eyes settled in like two gems in flesh seemingly molded out of clay into near perfection, with unnecessary hair draped across this exquisite collection of carbon and water.
    What is perhaps most beautiful about beauty is choice. The choice to present herself as she sees fit, to cut/style her hair as she wants it or a tone of dress that implies so much of her character. In equal standing of the choices of woman and the way she presents herself is the choice of man. No two men are the same there for no two ideas of perfect beauty are the same. The fair skinned, petite bodied, red haired, frame of woman with desecrate and subtle curves that I find so entrancing is a far cry from the blond haired, blue eyed, ample bodied vision most have. The woman of my choice, however is not just a physical description, she craters the surface of existence that is around her with her mind, as well as body.

Numbers

    I can see it all around me. It’s unescapable now. I can see it in everything. Even what I hear, touch, and taste is governed by it. More importantly, it governs almost all that we know and has even been argued to one day rule over all. Yet, it is not something that can be held; you could never see all of it. It is an idea so basic that it is considered by some literally self-evident. It drives me, gnaws at my brain, encourages me, and leaves me in awe. What is sad is that I do not understand it in the way that I feel I must.
    Math, as boring or mundane as most think it is, I revel in it. When watching a leaf fall to the ground, this most obviously speaks of gravity and the wondrous equation which lies within. Air resistance quickly comes into play by the nature of the leaf, so now the size, weight, shape, and density of the leaf now comes into play with an equation of gravity and they begin to harmoniously work within and interdependently of each other. The fact that I could do all the equations and work out the speed of the leaf’s decent, never having even seen said leaf, but only given all information required, absolutely astounds me.   
    We are, all of us, nothing but complex and symphonic equations being carried out in the ways of chemical reactions, at absurdly advancing levels of intricacy. Our thoughts are little more than electrical impulses running through a system of cells that can be theoretically divided so far down. It falls into an unknown, an elaborate series of interconnected strings moving at different vibrations, so small that no human can ever hope to begin to understand how small. Even if a “string” could one day be photographed some how, we, as a species, lack the ability to think of something so inconceivably small.
    Again the beauty of math springs before me, both the infinitesimally small and the tremendously large can be measured by it. The atoms are in a constant flux of adding and subtracting electrons, binding with other atoms to balance a mathematical equation of positive and negative charges. This causes the chemical combinations and reactions to occur which use or expel the force of electromagnetism in some way. Wonderfully, all these things can be seen as math: symbols given abstract properties by those victim to the very things they hope to understand.
    It is my dream, goal, and life’s work to learn as much about the laws of nature as humanly possible. I am beyond lucky to live in a time when so much is there to know, and still so much to prove. Yet perhaps, unlucky to not live many years later, where any contribution I could have possibly made now is but a footnote. Here, math, the biological clock of the body breaking down, a time limit if you will, is a haunting reminder of the power of numbers or rather the power we give numbers. 
    I feel as though a simple analogy can be made to my way of thinking. Let us take the famous apple falling from the tree. Yes, the apple falls, but why? The Earth makes it heavy by gravity, but then why does gravity work? These are the things I must know and it is my secret hope that one day all the known universe will be explained by math; that some equation, or set of equations could describe anything and everything. If however, this is not true and there are things that will be forever unknowable if not even by math but by any means, I will happily accept the proven truth of any matter.

Untitled

    It is odd how a viewpoint can change so much. In my eyes, learning and expanding my understanding of the natural universe is the most important thing to me besides my family and friends. Yet as I walk around in this world, I am saddened by what I see people value and the ideas they have. It is as though some material possession will make their lives have meaning, or that some level of social status makes them better than other people. While I think and ponder on the very nature of the difference in cellular and molecular structure of the wood and steel around me, other people who have been given power over me, tell me that particular objects need to be in a certain way or else. I slowly begin to see the pointlessness of my job, or rather myself in that job. What difference does it make if I move this cut piece of a tree from one place to another, or even if anybody does my job in this small town in one the most undereducated states. Why is such stress and importance placed on such mundane things when there are people dying, people with out access to even basic education, or clean water. The amount of human despair is almost unending.
    It seems that, as a people, we let ourselves slip into a self-made system of control to keep ourselves busy and content. A system so embedded most can’t conceive of questioning it. Why is my government willing to pay me to learn to kill and destroy, but not to learn how to create and and bring peace? A person has to pay to get a higher education, when in my eyes we should pay people to learn how to become important world changing and life saving people. There seems to be a complete falling out of learning and thinking, and it is being replaced with ignorance that is reinforced by a dumbing down of every element of our culture. This can and has left me in such a depressed state that I don’t know how to push forward to my goal.
    Then I lose that second of my life to doubt and sorrow. While perhaps those feelings were necessary or unavoidable, it is a second I will never get back. Then I ask was this whole day wasted because I spent it in sorrow, in hatred of my job, as it hinders my academic progress, was it meaningless? I know that it did hold meaning, there is not a day that goes by that my very existence does not help another human being in someway. To me, that is the point of anyone’s life, what they have done for others. If I spend an entire day in self-loathing, perplexed at the unimportance of my work, if I can mange to even put a smile on one person’s face, then my life had meaning. I am no more than the good I leave to those still here when I’m gone, because if I do nothing but for myself then it really is just dust to dust.

What to do

    One thing that had always held me back from starting school was the fact I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I have many interests, and even still I am unsure of exactly what I will be doing with my life. I have always seen myself as capable, and as long as I applied myself nothing ever seemed out of reach. After getting the initial inspiration to start school, I found myself thinking about how I could leave a legacy that would benefit mankind. At first, teaching young and hungry minds seemed to be the best thing I could do. Having recently lost my faith, so to speak,  I though theology or philosophy would be  where I was best suited. My desire to challenge religious thinkers and “liberate” closed-minded people overwhelmed me. I also became fascinated by why the brain latched onto these ideas. Over time, my zeal died out, though my distain and disgust has only grown.
    As I soaked my self in science videos on youtube, I was entranced with hours upon hours of Sagan, Dawkins, Hawkings, Aron Ra, Michio Kaku, etc. I came to find myself lost in the vastness of the universe, and the inconceivable tininess of an atom and its components. As my concern about religion diminished, my desire of wanting to know the how and why of the universe, what is composed of, its functions, its design, its laws. I found myself lost in a world I can’t yet hope to make true sense of. Physics, this incredible and unbelievable ideology, captured my interest. Other branches of science also sparked similar interest, but not to the same extent. I have also, always had a gift for math and physics seems to be the “holy grail” of accomplishment. I know I am capable of reaching this great hight; I just need the patience. If I strive to the fullest in this undertaking, I can, as they say, “Come to know the mind of god.”

Polarity

                We a figure, a lone piece of art, against a harsh and contrasting background. The figure is a vibrant and derived from a cultural significance of a people, while its back drop is a battered and poverty ridden, slum looking shack. The artist may or may not have meant for this kind drastic change in tone from figure to its living space, but from the way it is crafted with its arms up in a yielding fashion in front of this foreboding looking building makes one think it was placed here with purpose and designed intently upon sitting in a place like that.  At the same time it looks as though a piece is missing from the left hand side but this could have been intentional.

                I speak to my very soul of finding the light in a dark place. Seeing a bright and out of place work of art in this otherwise dingy and ugly landscape provokes thought and feeling to run through  me. Stopping us from going somewhere unpleasant or maybe even dangerous, this run down building plays ay my feeling the harshness of the world and the light one individual can shine out onto a darkened landscape. It is this very nature of their difference, being part of what makes this piece, so moving. Polar opposites in color and tone he stands to tribute his heritage and his people while providing a powerful social context and to view him from.

Taking the image for face value so quickly  think gave it meaning without originally knowing what it was from made me perhaps elf impose values I would like to see in myself. It gave me inspiration and a thought flow perhaps completely an inner monologue of things I felt and placed upon a simple picture.

20 Bucks

    When I got to work yesterday, I had barely eaten anything. I had woken up around six after getting to bed around one. I had been woken up by very intense pain after getting a tooth pulled, a few days ago. I took the pain killer the dentist had prescribed and another pill supposed to calm my stomach. I ate a bowl of chicken noodle soup with this, but it didn’t settle very well. I threw up and spent the rest of my time before work in bed trying to get well enough to work and not get sick again. By the time I needed to get ready for work, I managed a small bowl of macaroni and cheese, and headed off for the day.
    When I made it to work, I turned in my note for missing the few days I did and walked up to the front. Feeling physically miserable and worthless, I saw a new employee walking around up front. I figured he was one of the two new people we had hired and walked him around a bit. I went outside to get some air after a bit, and there was a man. He asked me if I had a couple dollars, he was “very hungry.” I reached in my pocket against my regular reason. I’ve watched homeless people get into knife fights over turf around the back of Lowe’s. I don’t have much sympathy usually for the people asking for money just because I’ve watched them turn down honest work for begging, since it was less work and he would end up around the same if not better just from standing there all day.
    I still pulled out my wallet to see just a twenty dollar bill, and in a moment of empathy or loss of judgment from my exhausted state, I gave him the twenty and told him to keep it. I went to lunch later and ate some chick-fil-a which sat and filled me up and I felt a lot better. I thought about that man and scrounging up change and pawning off my guitar amp at the end of weeks past, not even making it pay check to pay check. I felt that desperate for an instance and felt not gratified, but not as illogical, I was justified in some way now. This was not the only realization as I drove to school this morning. It hit me how pointless everything was and how important every second is.
    We are nothing but a culmination of atoms, left over from supernovas, the death of the stars themselves. Those atoms have happened along at this perfect instance in space and time to make up the trillions of cells in a body. Just because the brain works in congruity with the other organs and systems in a body and makes up consciousness, does not make one important or worth notice in the vast universe, ever expanding that existed around 10 billion years before the earth even formed. This also begs the importance we must place upon the one life we get. I realized that this, what I leave behind, is just as important is how I live my life and enjoy as much of it as I can. We are incredibly lucky that we live in a time where “We are ways the cosmos can know itself” Carl Sagan.

Greatness

    In order to take place, great acts require great effort. As Newton said, “For every action there is a equal opposite and reaction.” A person can fly a shuttle into space, between the combined successes of many working together. One, single individual can have an epiphany that changes the way we look at the universe itself. Great acts that often have a positive effect toward humanity in the world are frequently viewed alone. However, more people should look at the causality, as it could be argued as being equally great. How do we apply this philosophy of causality to our own aspirations of accessible goals?
     To replicate greatness we must dissect its cause, its very foundation with the utmost scrutiny. All people attempting similar goals have their own journey to get to their realization of greatness. They borrow from one another using proven knowledge to the advantage other their ambition.  Attempting greatness without proper substructure and intent is dangerous in almost any aspect. Trying to preform surgery, fly a plane, make political movements, etc. when lacking the education and positive committed nature to their act(s) are, very literarily, dangerous and generally have little positive effect. Laterally if an aspiring individual wishes to achieve greatness he must put forth time and effort at least as equal as what is to be achieved. One is not guarantied to obtain his realization of greatness, even with a life’s worth work behind him. There are some things to great for one individual to achieve. It is, however, far better to spend a life in the pursuit of the right and/or best way to accomplish something then to attempt prematurely and fail.
    World changing events are caused by great acts, and failures harm, or at best do a disservice to the people of the act’s intent. There are many people with all the heart, passion, and desire to effect the world for good but lack the basis to work from. These people slow the work of those in the proper place, as these people misunderstand, misinform, and create a disingenuous look of the movement and environment they stand for. Dictator-like leaders have achieved greatness, however their “acts of greatness” with improper intent have harmed society. Einstein kept coming to the conclusion that we are in a ever expanding universe, which he rejected based on personal belief. He worked and studied to try to disprove this and never accepted it, if I remember correctly. We now accept that idea as scientific fact. If one was even to succeeded, but only partially, it leaves more work to be done, laying the foundation of greatness. The necessity solid grounding, this causality, is why we must examine every prerequisite must be met and every facet of the entire cause must be inspected, and we must apply our selves fully in each aspect in order to truly be great.

Happinness

I was on youtube the other day, and I found a “TED talk: Shawn Achor: The Happy Secret to Better Work,” about the way the human mind becomes happy and the way it is achieved, compared to the way we try to achieve it. We live in a society where it is implied that, to be happy we must be successful in some way. Good things must happen to you for you to be happy. That the external world is the basis of our happiness, but this not how our mind works. The age old question of the glass being half full or half empty is great analogy, because it takes in to account different brain states. These different states, the way you interact with the world and the way things affect you, are based on what state you’re in. If you’re happy and inspired, a bad grade on a paper will be a aggravating but inspiring moment of self reenforcement where we learn from our mistakes and move forward. If we are in a angry or even neutral state this same fact will send us into a lower brain state, perhaps blaming the teacher, or more often and more logically ourselves. The depression of failure sets in and we enter another brain state of a downward spiral where we beat ourselves up for failing. Yet we should be over joyed because we have learned something wrong about ourselves, and can improve it. This is why our model for happiness is broken. In this respect, it is our thinking, our current brain state, not the external world that is driving our happiness. We need to change our model of what we think we need to be happy. If being successful causes happiness then we must achieve success, to achieve success we are told we must work hard. You would have to come to the conclusion hardworking, successful people would be perpetually happy, and while some are, the premise is not necessarily true. In fact, a child in a impoverished nation is likely to be more happy than a successful businessmen, because they are far more grateful of the things they do have and, as a child, naturally have a sense of wonder about the world. How do we reprogram our minds to be happy and to achieve happiness in a more practical way. Shawn Achor had a system I am testing now. I think it would be wonderful if anyone reading this tried something similar. The first step is to write down three new things you are grateful for everyday for twenty-one days. Through this time, you also journal a positive experience every day so you may re-live it. Do some form of exercise, for me--working at Lowe’s, taking stairs instead of elevator. Take a small amount of time to meditate even if it is during your driving where you turn off the radio and have a moment of self-reflection. Reach out to someone in your network of family, friends, co-workers and thank them honestly for the help they give. Finally, random acts of kindness. This is what ever you define it to be. Do all of this for twenty-one days and your brain will pick up on these patterns. That’s the beauty of thinking, based on these ideologies our minds tell us the state of things. If your brain tells you it’s true, it is to you. This can be your brain state, a belief in morals, a god, a mathematical equation, voices in your head, all of these things require first your brian interpret the world around you, so let’s try to change the way we interpret the world.

god

    What is god? That which we have not understood, I dub thee, but in that which I know, I am free. From my father’s father to my son’s son the unexplained is your only be name. You are not what you once were, nor even what we have come to infer. As we have come to obtain the workings of a natural world, patterns and laws that govern us all, your power seems to dwindle. The human mind ever so quick almost nimble, through time alone has come to look at the poetry of the universe. It’s been thrown at me, every hymn and verse, but it lacks the resonance of of our understanding now in the present tense. Could you even try to be consistent? From Protestant, inner peace and polytheism, no two know you the way others do. Who am I to say what I feel is real. I have seen another when I was a loner. I have heard a voice with no owner. Then why would I tell you my experience I could not prove, as if to move your way of belief. I’m supposed to show respect just because you keep us in check? See, I think you’ll find people are kind for the simple sake of doing right. The insight we gained from numerous generations is just as complex as quantum equations. Why then god and not God? There are too many of you to name, and only a slight few have been granted the fame. Which do I choose? With nothing but right answers, can I even lose? Each path has its god given truths, and each person is right if you just walk in their shoes. Why would any of these gods take precedence? You can have your god, I’ll take evidence.

Higher Learning

If somebody had told me that I would be in school, because I wanted to, even just two months ago I would have shrugged and said “whatever”. If you had told me that I would be shooting for twelve years of school at a minimum and wanting to be a college professor I would have laughed at you and dismissed everything else you said. Yet in a ridiculously rapid change literally in less the a month, I went from cruising through life just letting things past by, to craving knowledge more than a starving man wants food. My intelligence took command and I relentlessly began to seek truth. It is almost embarrassing but what caused this change in me was a single youtube series. Evid3nc3 is the name of the channel on youtube, he has a de-conversion story from when he was a christian to when he became an evidentialist and an atheist. I was going through a similar transition, I had given up on god, but not the idea of a supernatural force, a soul. I wasn’t sure what words to use to describe it. I, as he, was raised christian and while our stories have major differences, the points of his faith and the building blocks that his religion was based on crumbled beneath his feet just as mine did. Though I will not go into detail here, these are personal experiences that we are both willing to share, if you ask. In this story the young man was challenged by a college professor who had written a review on the content, the subject matter, of the bible. He contacted the writer of the review not knowing the man was 62 year old professor and an expert in his field as well as having a full understanding of many areas retaining to the study of how old religious texts (the bible included) came to be and how they were written. That man changed his  life for ever to the pursuit of truth above all things, to know as many true, provable things as you can. I looked at my self and even though (especially after watching his videos) I did not believe in a god, but I was fighting learning I was letting life just past by. .  . my one life.

Waiting for a tattoo

 I am sitting in a tattoo parlor, waiting on my artist. What is considered by some a seedy and even perhaps a lesser side of society. By others and in some cultures body art is a beautiful thing, maybe a write of passage, or a mark to distinguish between sub cultures/groups/gangs. As this passes through my mind, I take a seat next to the wife of the man being worked on. Her little baby girl is laying in her lap. A simple mundane occurrence that really marks no need for pause. You wouldn't take such a basic human activity with much weight at all. I, however, in a instance of getting lost in thought see the beauty of millions of years of psychological conditioning. From our most primitive ancestors to modern man, we have been trained to the point our subconscious acts to preserve life. The love of a mother is not held in the physical heart but a program buried so deep in the female psyche it is near impossible to ignore. In the form of "a mother's love" empathetic creatures are given a absurd advantage over all others on this earth.  How amazing we are, a species capable of such empathy, an yet also by responses in the brain, a being of the same species can be devoid of all empathy all together. It is, to me at least, in-tracing how chemical reactions in the brain can result in emotions that will make a higher thinking being ignore logic, reason, even there own well being. I played peek-a-boo as is the norm, the baby laughed and smiled. I began to wonder to myself then, how does this infant relate itself to what it sees in its own mind. Without a language or words to assign meaning to the things around you, how does one think to ones self? The planing of ones day, the simple mental notation of something. These brain processes that are forming through stimuli of the senses, are they necessary to then form a language based on a way of thought, or is it simply the most efficient way we found to convey thought. This was my train of thought as i waited for a tattoo. It was at this point the artist was ready for me and it just left me in awe for a moment. I still can not think or wrap my head around this the right way to come up with a answer that satisfies myself.

Testing

1, 2, 1, 2