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

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