Friday, December 16, 2011
88) Forsaken Reflections
As a blogger whose activities in blogging have waned, I'd like to look back on these past and solemn posts I've written to write a few notes to myself on what I've done here. In the process, maybe update and write up on what exactly has been happening to me these few months on hiatus.
I need to have some validation on why I started this blog and why, painfully, I try to update it but never seem to get around to it. YOM's original purpose was for turning in homework for my high school English class for Mr. Sutherland, whom I sincerely thank for starting me on this path. I convinced myself that it was to provoke thought for those who read my posts, and perhaps I still hold this belief. Long after the class has ended and I have moved to further my education in college, I realize more and more this blog exists as sort of a personal diary more than anything else. More often than not, this blog has existed as a barometer, a gauge of my desire to express myself and reaffirm my hope in humanity (or lack thereof) and see the value of debate and words.
It all started with the important questions. I was always interested and became seduced with sociological and existential ones because they forced me to think very carefully about my perspectives regarding the world. I had to decide, or in many cases, remain neutral as to what my views were. I do less and less of it these days, which really does explain my lack of updating this blog.
I think, perhaps more than anything, this blog is a legacy of a younger time in my life, when I was less jaded and more hopeful of the world. I no longer hold the views I once did, and I see this world in a much more somber and depressing tone, not worthy of my writings and ramblings.
Since I'm such a believer in absorbing experiences and moving on, I can honestly say in simpler terms, that I was a lot more hopeful when I was in high school. Reading my past posts, that in itself was a miracle. I guess it's time for me to move on out of my stubborn little megabytes of data that comprises this page and the pages before it.
Regardless, I am grateful for all the things I learned about myself and others. I will never forget how this blog all started and came crashing down at the very end. I hope future me will someday come back and look at all of this as proof of my growth, at a time when I would have otherwise refused to believe in my own development as a person.
I think I've "grown" out of blogging. That's a debatable statement, but I no longer possess the energy to coherently debate and think about it. My personality has been drained out of writing anymore. I need closure on this chapter of my life. For everyone who's kept up with me over the years, I thank you for your time. I might come back someday and pickup where I left off. Humans are indecisive like that.
Until then, good night and good luck.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
87) Death of the Many, Remembrance of the Few
This is a 9/11 post. I'm just going to state up front that it is not my intention to provoke, incite, or offend anyone whose opinions differ from my own. The following is purely my analysis. My only purpose for writing this post is to ask any potential readers to THINK about their experiences concerning 9/11. That is all.
In the middle of the 21st century, American society was enraptured by the concept of equal rights due to the civil rights movement. The obsession with fairness has now become such a part of American society that we don't really question its derivative actions. It gives reinforcement to the term "politically correct".
Suffice to say, we'd like to think we could live in fairness.
But do we die in fairness?
9/11 has started a decade long tradition of national mourning that has been repeated every year by a media circus. A large and fitting memorial has been built over the ruins of the World Trade Center, a symbol of American perseverance and honor. We grieve the victims and heroes of that fateful day.
But what makes those particular victims special? Don't get me wrong, we should not forget those who lost their lives. But here's the simple fact:
People die. As the world turns around and you read this sentence, people die. They die from old age, heart attacks, car accidents, war, tragic attacks, etc.
People die. The only reason it has any depth, any importance worth remembering, is what the person did or died for. We can frame a martyr's death for a single event that defines and overrides the importance of any detail in their lives. We know Martin Luther King Jr. died for civil rights, but how many people know where he was born, or can say the name of his wife?
The death of a person is so particularly common that we can only remember those closest to us with emotional meaning. We hold a funeral for the death of loved ones, have a eulogy, and put flowers on their grave. Funerals happen every day, and the death of one person cannot be distinguished from the death of another unless we know the name, the life, and the cause of death.
So what makes the victims of 9/11 so special? What makes their deaths worth putting on TV once a year for an entire decade?
We mourn people because we want to remember them and come to turns with their departure. The more they were vital to your life, the more you grieve. It's easy to say that we grieve a person to honor their memory and for what they did while they were alive.
But the more you think about mourning, the more you realize how selfish it really is. The dead person is no longer here to give any input upon your suffering, so it can only benefit the people who mourn. To be frank, we mourn because it makes us feel better. It gives us emotional release and allows us to get over the grief. If it helps the dead person, we can't know.
So when the media circus descends on the 9/11 memorial, I'm surprised there isn't a rolling sidebar listing the names of the victims. What makes them more important than my brother? Why doesn't he get a memorial every single year?
The obnoxious truth is that remembering 9/11 is convenient. We need it to remind us of the reasoning behind the seemingly hopeless wars in the middle east, the destruction of the American economy, and put faith into our government and military servicemen. We need every reason to feel bad about what has transpired over the past decade. We need to force tears into our eyes to feel American.
Isn't it funny that we always expect the patriot to say he would die for his country, but not live for it?
Death is America's best obsession, and the wars it has gone through are sad, tragic affairs that become field days for the media circus. So why don't we have this kind of 9/11 coverage for the World Wars, Korea, or Vietnam? How many MILLIONS died in those conflicts? Why don't we have special spin coverage of the Gulf of Tonkin incident? How come nobody knows anything about the American military campaigns in the Middle East?
Time supposedly heals all wounds, but this media coverage is telling me that's just not going to happen. Let the families of the victims mourn without cameras in their faces. What I do not want is the same continuous coverage a decade or five after the event.
I thought the point of the memorial was to mourn and move on from the deaths. But if mourning 9/11 means not letting go, to have deaths shoved in everyone's faces constantly, then it's not helping anyone.
It's clear that this entire issue is very controversial, but the only thing I don't want is to continuously worship the death of innocent victims to be a continuous sign of patriotism. In my opinion, it's a morbid and disgusting addiction that cheapens the dead. This exploitation is a cheap and painful way to garner attention.
We should not be supporting martyrdom. It only encourages delusion in people with bad intentions. And frankly, it's a basis for encouraging terrorists to smash themselves into buildings and take innocent lives along with them.
An America that supports terrorism is not one I will live for. It sure is hell not one I'm going to die for.
The cycle needs to STOP.
In the middle of the 21st century, American society was enraptured by the concept of equal rights due to the civil rights movement. The obsession with fairness has now become such a part of American society that we don't really question its derivative actions. It gives reinforcement to the term "politically correct".
Suffice to say, we'd like to think we could live in fairness.
But do we die in fairness?
9/11 has started a decade long tradition of national mourning that has been repeated every year by a media circus. A large and fitting memorial has been built over the ruins of the World Trade Center, a symbol of American perseverance and honor. We grieve the victims and heroes of that fateful day.
But what makes those particular victims special? Don't get me wrong, we should not forget those who lost their lives. But here's the simple fact:
People die. As the world turns around and you read this sentence, people die. They die from old age, heart attacks, car accidents, war, tragic attacks, etc.
People die. The only reason it has any depth, any importance worth remembering, is what the person did or died for. We can frame a martyr's death for a single event that defines and overrides the importance of any detail in their lives. We know Martin Luther King Jr. died for civil rights, but how many people know where he was born, or can say the name of his wife?
The death of a person is so particularly common that we can only remember those closest to us with emotional meaning. We hold a funeral for the death of loved ones, have a eulogy, and put flowers on their grave. Funerals happen every day, and the death of one person cannot be distinguished from the death of another unless we know the name, the life, and the cause of death.
So what makes the victims of 9/11 so special? What makes their deaths worth putting on TV once a year for an entire decade?
We mourn people because we want to remember them and come to turns with their departure. The more they were vital to your life, the more you grieve. It's easy to say that we grieve a person to honor their memory and for what they did while they were alive.
But the more you think about mourning, the more you realize how selfish it really is. The dead person is no longer here to give any input upon your suffering, so it can only benefit the people who mourn. To be frank, we mourn because it makes us feel better. It gives us emotional release and allows us to get over the grief. If it helps the dead person, we can't know.
So when the media circus descends on the 9/11 memorial, I'm surprised there isn't a rolling sidebar listing the names of the victims. What makes them more important than my brother? Why doesn't he get a memorial every single year?
The obnoxious truth is that remembering 9/11 is convenient. We need it to remind us of the reasoning behind the seemingly hopeless wars in the middle east, the destruction of the American economy, and put faith into our government and military servicemen. We need every reason to feel bad about what has transpired over the past decade. We need to force tears into our eyes to feel American.
Isn't it funny that we always expect the patriot to say he would die for his country, but not live for it?
Death is America's best obsession, and the wars it has gone through are sad, tragic affairs that become field days for the media circus. So why don't we have this kind of 9/11 coverage for the World Wars, Korea, or Vietnam? How many MILLIONS died in those conflicts? Why don't we have special spin coverage of the Gulf of Tonkin incident? How come nobody knows anything about the American military campaigns in the Middle East?
Time supposedly heals all wounds, but this media coverage is telling me that's just not going to happen. Let the families of the victims mourn without cameras in their faces. What I do not want is the same continuous coverage a decade or five after the event.
I thought the point of the memorial was to mourn and move on from the deaths. But if mourning 9/11 means not letting go, to have deaths shoved in everyone's faces constantly, then it's not helping anyone.
It's clear that this entire issue is very controversial, but the only thing I don't want is to continuously worship the death of innocent victims to be a continuous sign of patriotism. In my opinion, it's a morbid and disgusting addiction that cheapens the dead. This exploitation is a cheap and painful way to garner attention.
We should not be supporting martyrdom. It only encourages delusion in people with bad intentions. And frankly, it's a basis for encouraging terrorists to smash themselves into buildings and take innocent lives along with them.
An America that supports terrorism is not one I will live for. It sure is hell not one I'm going to die for.
The cycle needs to STOP.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
86) Volunteer to Understand
My type of thinking music:
For a friend and my own sanity, I'd like to share with you a glimpse into some of my philosophical beliefs. I'll try to be reasonable (no guarantees).
A) The meaningless of life.
I've always been one to believe that philosophers and people curious about life were always lacking in a meaningful aspect of their lives. Maybe they were just overly curious. It saddens me to know that there are alot of lives in constant turmoil from trying to ask questions they can never really answer.
The longing to know information is very powerful. It can consume people as a dangerous obsession, that being able to understand might grant satisfaction. Luckily, people are smart enough to choose to be ignorant, or otherwise the phrase "ignorance is bliss" would carry little weight.
Which, in the end, explains my somewhat pessimistic view on life, this world, and the people in it. If understanding won't grant satisfaction or bliss, then it's safe to assume that there are simply things not worth understanding. That being said, many things are apt to be meaningless. I'm simply more inclined than my peers to believe that life may be meaningless.
Or to put it another way:
1) There are things we cannot understand.
2) What we cannot understand may be due to its property of being meaningless.
3) Life and existence may be subjectively incapable of being understood.
From 2 and 3:
4) Life and existence may be meaningless.
Let's ignore for a moment the numerous fallacies you could point out in this crude proof. Also notice I left in ambiguity by using the words "may be" in 2 and 3 instead of "is".
It is indeed a grim possibility I've come to believe in. With all the bad about humanity I've seen and written about it, I can't help but wonder if this way of thinking is indeed my own subconscious need for emotional satisfaction by understanding the meaningless behind meaning.
But that would mean that the meaning behind something meaningless has meaning, and I've just stumbled into a vicious regress.
Perhaps instead of fixating on the pessimistic feel of the glass of life being half full, I should wonder where the hell my sandwich is. Or if it exists at all.
B) Conceptional nonexistence.
Imagine for a second that the infinite universe theory is true. That besides our own world and universe, an infinite amount of other universes and worlds exist which account for every possible given scenario and variation. There are other worlds exactly like ours (down to the last molecule and timeline), worlds that are are slightly different (a world where Obama is not the current president), and worlds that are wildly different (filled without physics and inhabited by sentient cupcakes, etc.).
Given that these universes and worlds do in fact exist, we can assume they have validity in their presence and containing structures. In other words, we can assume that their philosophies, laws of nature, and overall meaning, etc. have validity and we would not be prohibited in comparing them to our own reality (assuming this is true, I have just proved validity by simply describing this fact).
In our world, murder is looked down upon (by most) because of ethical and moral standards we've set for ourselves and our societies. It is frowned upon to take a life that is sentient and living because we can associate feelings of guilt and shame for doing so.
Now, imagine another world where the concept of murder does not exist. Killing another person in this world does not have any moral, ethical, or legal consequences. It is as natural as breathing and there are no feelings associated with it. Nobody gains or loses anything from it. It simply is. There is no social stigma against killing. Here, you can choose to chainsaw the guy next to you and no one would even blink.
So from our standpoint, would we abhor killing in this alternate world, even though nobody there has any problem with it? Even though people in that world don't have the concept of murder?
What I'm trying to get at here is that our social rules, ethics, and laws exist according to the society and surroundings we grow up in. If we are taught that murder is wrong and accept that fact, we will regard it as true. However, what's important to understand is that these are concepts. Concepts are ideas that matter only if we give them coherence and existence. As such, morality involving right and wrong exist because we believe they exist.
So what's the problem with that? Concepts are non physical. They are in our minds. Humans simply made them up. There is no rule that says just because we believe in an idea and practice it, it is real and exists in the universe. It does not mean it has a real basis or is meaningful or important. If I tell you unicorns are real, you can believe that concept and give it life and meaning. But that does not mean unicorns exist. You simply wouldn't know. You can just accept it for what it is because it makes you feel better and helps you sleep at night.
The very same applies to morals. We don't follow them because we know without question that the universe tells us they are real and important. We follow them because we made them up and gave them meaning. We all follow them and acknowledge they are real because we believe they will make us happy and ordered. In a sense, all ideas and concepts are fiction. We are the authors, and we decided this is the story we will live by. Writing down the story on paper does not make it any more real if we choose not to give it meaning.
In the end, it might turn out that nothing exists. After all, physicality and existence are concepts. The words you read right now might not mean anything because none it might be real. We can't fathom what existence is because anything we use to describe it might not exist. There is no satisfiable metaphysical way to justify that reality is in fact real.
So in a way, existence does not exist because we have no way of knowing it exists.
My brain hurts. Good thing the concept of pain might not be "real".
C) The infinite marathon of fear.
Given that concepts might not exist, humans can create anything to be happy in reality. With a clean slate, we could imagine and live in a world where anything is possible if we choose to validate its concepts. We can create a society where we worship a color for half a day or require everyone to jump off a cliff when they become parents.
In our society, we have rules and morals that we follow because they make us orderly, happy, secure, and satisfied. However, it is a personal code. There is a different code for every person and society that exists in the world. You might think cursing is wrong, I might think it is right. It all depends on what set of morals and ethics you were raised on. Everyone has their own perceptions on life and how they choose to live it.
There is no hard and fast rule that everyone follows to make themselves happy and emotionally satisfied. We pick the set of rules we know and stick to them because they give us safety and emotional satisfaction. It justifies our lives and our existences. It allows us to have variations and differences of opinion. It allows us to live differently from the person next to us.
How would life be if we all had the same morals, ethics, and rules? A universal way of belief, some miracle truth that allowed us to coexist? Would we all act the same? Would we have eternal peace and harmony?
The truth is that society and its rules are lies, fiction that we create because we need order. It lets us believe that there is a plan, that there is meaning, that we have a purpose. It lets us escape the prospect of nothing. It is our way of defending against chaos. Chaos is uncontrolled, unpredictable, and unstable. Our fear of chaos far outstrips our fear of order.
That is why people begrudgingly accept governments that abuse them. They inherently know that the alternative is worse. Even if we choose to overthrow the current government, the end result is always the same: we simply create another government that was different from the former. It feels natural and safe to organize and order our lives. It is how we survive.
The problem is that it does not work.
Humans are not meant to be organized and orderly. We are animals and savages, no matter how much we pretend not to be. Elevating ourselves to be cultured and mannered to set up societies and governments does not eliminate murder, theft, or war. We create order because we do not trust ourselves. We live lives of hypocrisy and delusion that suppress what we were designed for. Humans are too unstable and random to control their emotions and actions. We are designed mentally and physically to be unable to control ourselves based on what happens around us.
If you are able to look past the rules and order, you will be able to find freedom. You are able to follow instincts and do as your humanity and physiology demands. That chaos is the zeal of anarchy that attracts so many people. Problem is, anarchy does not thrive because the people who fear chaos will always outnumber the people who don't.
To be truly free, you have to get over your fear of chaos and embrace its hold on what you cannot control about anything. You must let go of any fear or impulse against what you are. It is to understand that every controlling aspect about yourself does not matter and means nothing. That nothing might mean nothing. You have to able to embrace the human imperfections that go against your will to survive. You have to be able to accept that the price of freedom is the compromise of your safety. You might die.
Fear not death, and you shall be free.
It is a price many of us are unwilling to pay. It is impossible for many of us to simply unlearn all those centuries of ancestral experiences with law and order. After all, if your parents did not follow society and decided to be free and dead, you would never have been born.
It is my firm belief that the happiness we seek, the eternal satisfaction, lies in that deathly freedom. It is the freedom to do anything without rules or consequences, to accomplish your wildest dreams and fantasies without fear. Why else would I suggest an end to society? We shouldn't need society to restrict our search for bliss.
Regardless of whether you agree with me or not, the argument brings up a good question. What is ultimate satisfaction and happiness worth to you? Is it worth your life?
----------------------------------------
This was all a short glance into my misguided and fractured philosophy. Hope I made you think.
I sincerely thank you for taking the time to understand another person's perspective. If I'm lucky, I'll force you to do something I bet you rarely do:
Challenge your beliefs.
For a friend and my own sanity, I'd like to share with you a glimpse into some of my philosophical beliefs. I'll try to be reasonable (no guarantees).
A) The meaningless of life.
I've always been one to believe that philosophers and people curious about life were always lacking in a meaningful aspect of their lives. Maybe they were just overly curious. It saddens me to know that there are alot of lives in constant turmoil from trying to ask questions they can never really answer.
The longing to know information is very powerful. It can consume people as a dangerous obsession, that being able to understand might grant satisfaction. Luckily, people are smart enough to choose to be ignorant, or otherwise the phrase "ignorance is bliss" would carry little weight.
Which, in the end, explains my somewhat pessimistic view on life, this world, and the people in it. If understanding won't grant satisfaction or bliss, then it's safe to assume that there are simply things not worth understanding. That being said, many things are apt to be meaningless. I'm simply more inclined than my peers to believe that life may be meaningless.
Or to put it another way:
1) There are things we cannot understand.
2) What we cannot understand may be due to its property of being meaningless.
3) Life and existence may be subjectively incapable of being understood.
From 2 and 3:
4) Life and existence may be meaningless.
Let's ignore for a moment the numerous fallacies you could point out in this crude proof. Also notice I left in ambiguity by using the words "may be" in 2 and 3 instead of "is".
It is indeed a grim possibility I've come to believe in. With all the bad about humanity I've seen and written about it, I can't help but wonder if this way of thinking is indeed my own subconscious need for emotional satisfaction by understanding the meaningless behind meaning.
But that would mean that the meaning behind something meaningless has meaning, and I've just stumbled into a vicious regress.
Perhaps instead of fixating on the pessimistic feel of the glass of life being half full, I should wonder where the hell my sandwich is. Or if it exists at all.
B) Conceptional nonexistence.
Imagine for a second that the infinite universe theory is true. That besides our own world and universe, an infinite amount of other universes and worlds exist which account for every possible given scenario and variation. There are other worlds exactly like ours (down to the last molecule and timeline), worlds that are are slightly different (a world where Obama is not the current president), and worlds that are wildly different (filled without physics and inhabited by sentient cupcakes, etc.).
Given that these universes and worlds do in fact exist, we can assume they have validity in their presence and containing structures. In other words, we can assume that their philosophies, laws of nature, and overall meaning, etc. have validity and we would not be prohibited in comparing them to our own reality (assuming this is true, I have just proved validity by simply describing this fact).
In our world, murder is looked down upon (by most) because of ethical and moral standards we've set for ourselves and our societies. It is frowned upon to take a life that is sentient and living because we can associate feelings of guilt and shame for doing so.
Now, imagine another world where the concept of murder does not exist. Killing another person in this world does not have any moral, ethical, or legal consequences. It is as natural as breathing and there are no feelings associated with it. Nobody gains or loses anything from it. It simply is. There is no social stigma against killing. Here, you can choose to chainsaw the guy next to you and no one would even blink.
So from our standpoint, would we abhor killing in this alternate world, even though nobody there has any problem with it? Even though people in that world don't have the concept of murder?
What I'm trying to get at here is that our social rules, ethics, and laws exist according to the society and surroundings we grow up in. If we are taught that murder is wrong and accept that fact, we will regard it as true. However, what's important to understand is that these are concepts. Concepts are ideas that matter only if we give them coherence and existence. As such, morality involving right and wrong exist because we believe they exist.
So what's the problem with that? Concepts are non physical. They are in our minds. Humans simply made them up. There is no rule that says just because we believe in an idea and practice it, it is real and exists in the universe. It does not mean it has a real basis or is meaningful or important. If I tell you unicorns are real, you can believe that concept and give it life and meaning. But that does not mean unicorns exist. You simply wouldn't know. You can just accept it for what it is because it makes you feel better and helps you sleep at night.
The very same applies to morals. We don't follow them because we know without question that the universe tells us they are real and important. We follow them because we made them up and gave them meaning. We all follow them and acknowledge they are real because we believe they will make us happy and ordered. In a sense, all ideas and concepts are fiction. We are the authors, and we decided this is the story we will live by. Writing down the story on paper does not make it any more real if we choose not to give it meaning.
In the end, it might turn out that nothing exists. After all, physicality and existence are concepts. The words you read right now might not mean anything because none it might be real. We can't fathom what existence is because anything we use to describe it might not exist. There is no satisfiable metaphysical way to justify that reality is in fact real.
So in a way, existence does not exist because we have no way of knowing it exists.
My brain hurts. Good thing the concept of pain might not be "real".
C) The infinite marathon of fear.
Given that concepts might not exist, humans can create anything to be happy in reality. With a clean slate, we could imagine and live in a world where anything is possible if we choose to validate its concepts. We can create a society where we worship a color for half a day or require everyone to jump off a cliff when they become parents.
In our society, we have rules and morals that we follow because they make us orderly, happy, secure, and satisfied. However, it is a personal code. There is a different code for every person and society that exists in the world. You might think cursing is wrong, I might think it is right. It all depends on what set of morals and ethics you were raised on. Everyone has their own perceptions on life and how they choose to live it.
There is no hard and fast rule that everyone follows to make themselves happy and emotionally satisfied. We pick the set of rules we know and stick to them because they give us safety and emotional satisfaction. It justifies our lives and our existences. It allows us to have variations and differences of opinion. It allows us to live differently from the person next to us.
How would life be if we all had the same morals, ethics, and rules? A universal way of belief, some miracle truth that allowed us to coexist? Would we all act the same? Would we have eternal peace and harmony?
The truth is that society and its rules are lies, fiction that we create because we need order. It lets us believe that there is a plan, that there is meaning, that we have a purpose. It lets us escape the prospect of nothing. It is our way of defending against chaos. Chaos is uncontrolled, unpredictable, and unstable. Our fear of chaos far outstrips our fear of order.
That is why people begrudgingly accept governments that abuse them. They inherently know that the alternative is worse. Even if we choose to overthrow the current government, the end result is always the same: we simply create another government that was different from the former. It feels natural and safe to organize and order our lives. It is how we survive.
The problem is that it does not work.
Humans are not meant to be organized and orderly. We are animals and savages, no matter how much we pretend not to be. Elevating ourselves to be cultured and mannered to set up societies and governments does not eliminate murder, theft, or war. We create order because we do not trust ourselves. We live lives of hypocrisy and delusion that suppress what we were designed for. Humans are too unstable and random to control their emotions and actions. We are designed mentally and physically to be unable to control ourselves based on what happens around us.
If you are able to look past the rules and order, you will be able to find freedom. You are able to follow instincts and do as your humanity and physiology demands. That chaos is the zeal of anarchy that attracts so many people. Problem is, anarchy does not thrive because the people who fear chaos will always outnumber the people who don't.
To be truly free, you have to get over your fear of chaos and embrace its hold on what you cannot control about anything. You must let go of any fear or impulse against what you are. It is to understand that every controlling aspect about yourself does not matter and means nothing. That nothing might mean nothing. You have to able to embrace the human imperfections that go against your will to survive. You have to be able to accept that the price of freedom is the compromise of your safety. You might die.
Fear not death, and you shall be free.
It is a price many of us are unwilling to pay. It is impossible for many of us to simply unlearn all those centuries of ancestral experiences with law and order. After all, if your parents did not follow society and decided to be free and dead, you would never have been born.
It is my firm belief that the happiness we seek, the eternal satisfaction, lies in that deathly freedom. It is the freedom to do anything without rules or consequences, to accomplish your wildest dreams and fantasies without fear. Why else would I suggest an end to society? We shouldn't need society to restrict our search for bliss.
Regardless of whether you agree with me or not, the argument brings up a good question. What is ultimate satisfaction and happiness worth to you? Is it worth your life?
----------------------------------------
This was all a short glance into my misguided and fractured philosophy. Hope I made you think.
I sincerely thank you for taking the time to understand another person's perspective. If I'm lucky, I'll force you to do something I bet you rarely do:
Challenge your beliefs.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
85) Packed to Jump
Having been on hiatus for the better part of the summer, I haven't had the time to try and update this blog. I've been busy having fun, e.g. being lazy and not caring about anything. I imagine it's the last chance I'll have to be like this for a long time. I'm about to jump off into college and earn a degree at the glorious UCSB.
However, there are four experiences I want to share with you. Four neat and compartmentalized points that highlight my summer and give way to my pandering rhetoric. They are, in chronological order: a party, an orientation, a trip, and a bank account.
1) A Party That Defined A Class
It wasn't really a party as it was a way for Alameda High School to drain money from you. Seventy dollars earned you admission into a redecorated gym that housed endless food and drink, and tons of ways to amuse yourself. Not to mention the free arcade machines and rock wall. It lasted from eight at night to five the next morning.
It was a last meeting, one last chance to sign yearbooks and play games with the people you knew before splitting off toward your various life paths. I never saw any tears, but the tight hugs at the end betrayed some sort of solemn sadness.
We were celebrating the end of a chapter of our lives. We were letting go of the small and trivial games we played as teens and reluctantly jumping off into adulthood. It was the last night for us to understand that being young does not last forever. One last night of a few hours to do what we had been dreading since we started high school.
We had to let go.
By the time it was over, I had climbed the rock wall twice, ate some hot dogs, played too many rounds of ping pong, and had laughed the hardest I could as a high school senior. So I took what I could from that, and walked away understanding one of the very many lessons you learn as an adult:
You have to know when to move on.
2) S.S.D.P.
College is always a scary experience to those jumping in for the first time. Or so I've heard. At least, that's what the intro speaker at UCSB tells you when he's explaining all the support services they have on campus. He says it's okay to be scared, and that usually everybody has an emotional breakdown the first month where they break into tears and call home to their parents. He also says, if you're going to have sex, talk to him first in the university center so he can hand you free condoms.
Other than that, getting to know your campus is quite an experience. Most college campuses cover more than two square miles minimum, making it a little city for you to explore. Hint of advice: find a good reference point. It could be a belltower, a church spire, or a very tall tree.
Not to mention that UCSB is a very beautiful campus. The place is a jewel by the sea, sporting twenty miles of bike path, and long beaches with high waves that smack the cliffside. On a sunny day, it's a haven for surfers, joggers, and perverts who want eye candy.
You should be able to pick up the general aura of your campus on the first day of orientation. What I picked up was a very crude lesson in cultural spacial displacement.
In other words, you should not be surprised when you find yourself muttering S.S.D.P.
Same Shit, Different Place.
I guess it's one of those things you have to learn as an adult when you start traveling further and further away from your hometown. The people and the culture may be different, but you'll always notice things that won't surprise you. It teaches you not to assume anything new just because you're a couple hundred miles away from home. People will still be late, attitudes won't change, and burgers will still taste surprisingly good.
It's just another way of saying that no matter where you are in the world, stay true to what you know about people and places. You might be more right than you think.
3) The Trip Back Home
My trip to Hong Kong was in tradition to my family's wishes to come and visit them every other summer or so. My grandmother doesn't have that many years left, and I really owe it to her to sit down and have dinner with the extended family every now and then, even though there's a language barrier.
And there lies my dilemma. To properly understand my problem, I have to tell you a little about myself. I came over to the United States from China when I was barely four years old. Ever since then, I've grown up in California mastering English as my primary language. However, I still understand Cantonese since my parents communicate through it. I can understand them, but I can't write or read it.
This is the crux behind my identity crisis. Where am I supposed to feel more comfortable in, the hometown where I don't speak the language, or my new American home where there aren't many Asians?
I think it pains my grandmother to know that I can understand her but that she can't understand me. It's just not convenient to have a translator buffer my stories to my family, hoping they'll understand American situations and adventures.
And here, in the United States, I hardly feel at home. Sure, California has a large smattering of Asians, but you have to understand that only two percent of the American population is made up of people from Asia. It really sets up the illusion that I can't fit in anywhere, even if it is just the language barrier. The cultural identity I have is a volatile mix of two countries I don't feel comfortable with.
Moral of this story: You have to come up with your own identity to understand who you are. It's a personal culture that transcends country or language. When someone asks you who you are rather than what you are, this is the identity that you have to show. Because in the end, if you're not Chinese, French, German, black, white, or purple, you have to be somebody. And that somebody should not be classified into any easy categories.
4) Everyone Loves Money
My last point concerns me sitting there in a bank while my parents do the talking in setting up my bank account. Seeing as how I'm going to be in college soon, I'm going to be have to be fiscally responsible, and take on the role my parents do on a weekly basis.
The way I see it, there are three main types of responsibility you go through in life: emotional, fiscal, and parental. You learn emotional the earliest, understanding the cause and effect your actions have on your emotions and the emotions of others at any given time. It helps you understand social rules and etiquette. Then you learn fiscal responsibility, which is simply taking care of your finances. You have to understand how to earn, save, and spend. Finally, parental responsibility is you taking care of your children, should you choose to have them. Having kids means you have to feed them, teach them, and basically make sure they don't die on your watch.
I think I've mastered emotional, but still, having access to money is a daunting thing. In college, I'm guessing it's an uphill battle to balance the budget, provided you're not too drunk or busy "studying".
In conclusion, bullet pointing your summer into four little anecdotes is probably how you should organize your life when you get the chance. Analyze life moments when you have the time, and pull from them the knowledge that helps you grow and succeed.
Or something like that.
However, there are four experiences I want to share with you. Four neat and compartmentalized points that highlight my summer and give way to my pandering rhetoric. They are, in chronological order: a party, an orientation, a trip, and a bank account.
1) A Party That Defined A Class
It wasn't really a party as it was a way for Alameda High School to drain money from you. Seventy dollars earned you admission into a redecorated gym that housed endless food and drink, and tons of ways to amuse yourself. Not to mention the free arcade machines and rock wall. It lasted from eight at night to five the next morning.
It was a last meeting, one last chance to sign yearbooks and play games with the people you knew before splitting off toward your various life paths. I never saw any tears, but the tight hugs at the end betrayed some sort of solemn sadness.
We were celebrating the end of a chapter of our lives. We were letting go of the small and trivial games we played as teens and reluctantly jumping off into adulthood. It was the last night for us to understand that being young does not last forever. One last night of a few hours to do what we had been dreading since we started high school.
We had to let go.
By the time it was over, I had climbed the rock wall twice, ate some hot dogs, played too many rounds of ping pong, and had laughed the hardest I could as a high school senior. So I took what I could from that, and walked away understanding one of the very many lessons you learn as an adult:
You have to know when to move on.
2) S.S.D.P.
College is always a scary experience to those jumping in for the first time. Or so I've heard. At least, that's what the intro speaker at UCSB tells you when he's explaining all the support services they have on campus. He says it's okay to be scared, and that usually everybody has an emotional breakdown the first month where they break into tears and call home to their parents. He also says, if you're going to have sex, talk to him first in the university center so he can hand you free condoms.
Other than that, getting to know your campus is quite an experience. Most college campuses cover more than two square miles minimum, making it a little city for you to explore. Hint of advice: find a good reference point. It could be a belltower, a church spire, or a very tall tree.
Not to mention that UCSB is a very beautiful campus. The place is a jewel by the sea, sporting twenty miles of bike path, and long beaches with high waves that smack the cliffside. On a sunny day, it's a haven for surfers, joggers, and perverts who want eye candy.
You should be able to pick up the general aura of your campus on the first day of orientation. What I picked up was a very crude lesson in cultural spacial displacement.
In other words, you should not be surprised when you find yourself muttering S.S.D.P.
Same Shit, Different Place.
I guess it's one of those things you have to learn as an adult when you start traveling further and further away from your hometown. The people and the culture may be different, but you'll always notice things that won't surprise you. It teaches you not to assume anything new just because you're a couple hundred miles away from home. People will still be late, attitudes won't change, and burgers will still taste surprisingly good.
It's just another way of saying that no matter where you are in the world, stay true to what you know about people and places. You might be more right than you think.
3) The Trip Back Home
My trip to Hong Kong was in tradition to my family's wishes to come and visit them every other summer or so. My grandmother doesn't have that many years left, and I really owe it to her to sit down and have dinner with the extended family every now and then, even though there's a language barrier.
And there lies my dilemma. To properly understand my problem, I have to tell you a little about myself. I came over to the United States from China when I was barely four years old. Ever since then, I've grown up in California mastering English as my primary language. However, I still understand Cantonese since my parents communicate through it. I can understand them, but I can't write or read it.
This is the crux behind my identity crisis. Where am I supposed to feel more comfortable in, the hometown where I don't speak the language, or my new American home where there aren't many Asians?
I think it pains my grandmother to know that I can understand her but that she can't understand me. It's just not convenient to have a translator buffer my stories to my family, hoping they'll understand American situations and adventures.
And here, in the United States, I hardly feel at home. Sure, California has a large smattering of Asians, but you have to understand that only two percent of the American population is made up of people from Asia. It really sets up the illusion that I can't fit in anywhere, even if it is just the language barrier. The cultural identity I have is a volatile mix of two countries I don't feel comfortable with.
Moral of this story: You have to come up with your own identity to understand who you are. It's a personal culture that transcends country or language. When someone asks you who you are rather than what you are, this is the identity that you have to show. Because in the end, if you're not Chinese, French, German, black, white, or purple, you have to be somebody. And that somebody should not be classified into any easy categories.
4) Everyone Loves Money
My last point concerns me sitting there in a bank while my parents do the talking in setting up my bank account. Seeing as how I'm going to be in college soon, I'm going to be have to be fiscally responsible, and take on the role my parents do on a weekly basis.
The way I see it, there are three main types of responsibility you go through in life: emotional, fiscal, and parental. You learn emotional the earliest, understanding the cause and effect your actions have on your emotions and the emotions of others at any given time. It helps you understand social rules and etiquette. Then you learn fiscal responsibility, which is simply taking care of your finances. You have to understand how to earn, save, and spend. Finally, parental responsibility is you taking care of your children, should you choose to have them. Having kids means you have to feed them, teach them, and basically make sure they don't die on your watch.
I think I've mastered emotional, but still, having access to money is a daunting thing. In college, I'm guessing it's an uphill battle to balance the budget, provided you're not too drunk or busy "studying".
In conclusion, bullet pointing your summer into four little anecdotes is probably how you should organize your life when you get the chance. Analyze life moments when you have the time, and pull from them the knowledge that helps you grow and succeed.
Or something like that.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
84) Perspectives of Horror
After finally getting over my summer laziness and deciding to start reading obsessively again, I managed to finish Studs Terkel's celebrated novel, The Good War.The entire book is an informal collection of interviews Studs Terkel recorded in the decades following World War 2. The interviews flow freely from all different perspectives, including soldiers that were in direct combat from both sides, to regular civilians caught in bombings.
The interesting parts of the novel are in the divisional split of opinions concerning the war. You have shell shocked veterans who will tell you that the conflict was a terrible atrocity that should never be repeated, while another battle hardened soldier will tell you it was the best thing to happen to America.
Of course, many of these opinions have similar backgrounds depicting young gung-ho teenagers with a patriotic streak. Many of them end with horror stories of detached limbs and lost friends.
The book ends with interviews of young children on a Chicago street, their lives no longer looking forward to their lives, but to expect an unnatural death. Although these kids were interviewed at the height of the Cold War, many of their fears still ring true with today's youngsters. The same understanding, the same expectation, still exists.
Children are now raised to be desensitized to violence in the American culture. Although they may not understand the horrors of war in person, they understand better the perspective of death and its inevitability through the world conflicts that occur today. Our culture of death obsession, our fear of the end in relation to war, is vastly different and detached than the views of our grandfathers. With an almost unstoppable flow of images and videos from the nearest battlefield, we now grow up understanding that human suffering is a much more normal and unstoppable condition, rather than being a simple blight of human nature that befalls the innocent. We've grown to understand that it's much more complicated than black and white when it comes to war and death.
But I digress.
The real point, the real moral of this book, is the simple cliche war is bad. It is very bad. Bad along the lines of an H. G. Wells quote stating "If we don't end war, war will end us."
World War 2 was what really changed America into a unstoppable war machine. It spawned the shift from civilian control of the military to the government. It birthed what Eisenhower so famously stated in his farewell speech: the military-industrial complex.
America can't complain. The government really can't be blamed for starting daily wildfires around the globe if the people allow it to happen. At least, that's the idea.
Part of what I've come to understand about American government is that the peoples' mistrust in Washington stems from their lack of control over what goes on. In a democratic republic like ours, we vest our power into representatives that work around the clock in a white building that is a symbol of power rather than practicality. We can't trust that our representatives will comply with any of our requests. When we vote for them, it requires a leap of faith.
Following this form of government, it's not hard to understand how people become upset when their representatives go rogue, and well, don't represent. That's what drives a lack of interest in Capitol Hill for the average Joe. It fuels discontent, mistrust, and anger when the government makes big decisions we have a disturbing lack of control over.
Before World War 2, we could have a say in going to war. There wasn't anything like the Presidential War Powers Act (and the more recent War Powers Resolution) to give the President leeway in deploying troops carte blanche.
What really disturbs me is the real lack of understanding, the lack of knowing just how little control we exert in the decisions that shape whether or not we go to war. All our leaders have to do is pick up the red phone and whisper a single codeword, and the next world war could start. Not long after, a nuke could land on your house and kill you and your family.
Isn't that the real modern understanding of death? Knowing that as an ordinary citizen, you won't live to see tomorrow just because someone at the top disregards your opinions? Is deciding your fate without your consent?
Then again, I did say that electing your representatives takes a lot of faith.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
83) A Greater Fear
This was it. It was really it.
Yuri had been dreaming of this moment for so long that it seemed surreal, strangely fitting. He almost forgot to reload his rifle.
Another one of the camouflaged aliens shimmered around the bend of the hallway, trying to get the right angle. The hulk of shimmering translucence edged closer and was about to fire.
Yuri sighted the rifle and squeezed the trigger quickly, a warm satisfaction emerging from the recoil. The alien fell back as its camouflage failed, shimmering into view broken armor and a fountain of grey blood.
The radio crackled inside his helmet. Lieutenant Ander’s voice was raspy and hoarse. “We’re almost at the LZ! Two minutes.”
Yuri glanced at the nuke timer at the lower left hand corner of his visor. It showed three minutes and was ticking down fast.
He scanned the area, saw it was clear, and then backed up from the hallway. He spun on his heel and broke into a full sprint back towards the nuclear bomb.
It would be the longest three minutes of his life.
He thought about the drunken night that had brought him to the recruiting office. The night he had spent with Lieutenant Ander. The day he had graduated from Spec Ops. But most of all, he thought about how he was about to win one last time.
He reached the nest room and sealed the bulkheads behind him.
There it was, majestically half lit by the flickering light bar above. A smooth metal basketball, suspended by two hangers and a fistful of wires. The nuke that would save them all. The nuke that would end this war.
The nuke that would vaporize the entire planet.
Yuri eased himself down next to it, resting his tired body against the hard concrete of the room. He sighed as he took off his helmet and began to caress the casing with his fingertips.
In a cruel twist of fate, Yuri’s worst fear and greatest desire had come true. His eternal death wish, fueled by endless nights of drunken crying and cold bed sheets had finally brought him here to this mission, to this place.
The doors to the room began to dent inward as sounds of forced entry echoed. The timer in his visor read thirty seconds left. His radio crackled with Lieutenant Ander’s voice.
“We’re onboard.” The pops of gunfire were muffled as Yuri heard the drop ship doors close. There was a moment of silence before the lieutenant’s voice choked up. “It’s been an honor.”
Yuri drew his pistol, pointing it toward the door. “Helluva ride, sir.” He had seconds left on the timer.
Static filled the silence of the channel. It smoothed out as the drop ship cleared the atmosphere and escaped into space. The lieutenant spoke again, this time with more volume. “You never…” He could hear the heavy breathing. “…you never answered my question.”
Yuri steadied his hand, the pistol in his palm visibly shaking. “I was never afraid to die for a good purpose.” He fought back the tears. “I was afraid to live without one. Without you.”
“I love you.”
He clicked off the channel as the bulkhead doors fell, a strong slam against the floor that shook his body. Three aliens appeared before him as the dust settled.
Yuri smiled bitterly as a nuclear fury embraced him.
Yuri had been dreaming of this moment for so long that it seemed surreal, strangely fitting. He almost forgot to reload his rifle.
Another one of the camouflaged aliens shimmered around the bend of the hallway, trying to get the right angle. The hulk of shimmering translucence edged closer and was about to fire.
Yuri sighted the rifle and squeezed the trigger quickly, a warm satisfaction emerging from the recoil. The alien fell back as its camouflage failed, shimmering into view broken armor and a fountain of grey blood.
The radio crackled inside his helmet. Lieutenant Ander’s voice was raspy and hoarse. “We’re almost at the LZ! Two minutes.”
Yuri glanced at the nuke timer at the lower left hand corner of his visor. It showed three minutes and was ticking down fast.
He scanned the area, saw it was clear, and then backed up from the hallway. He spun on his heel and broke into a full sprint back towards the nuclear bomb.
It would be the longest three minutes of his life.
He thought about the drunken night that had brought him to the recruiting office. The night he had spent with Lieutenant Ander. The day he had graduated from Spec Ops. But most of all, he thought about how he was about to win one last time.
He reached the nest room and sealed the bulkheads behind him.
There it was, majestically half lit by the flickering light bar above. A smooth metal basketball, suspended by two hangers and a fistful of wires. The nuke that would save them all. The nuke that would end this war.
The nuke that would vaporize the entire planet.
Yuri eased himself down next to it, resting his tired body against the hard concrete of the room. He sighed as he took off his helmet and began to caress the casing with his fingertips.
In a cruel twist of fate, Yuri’s worst fear and greatest desire had come true. His eternal death wish, fueled by endless nights of drunken crying and cold bed sheets had finally brought him here to this mission, to this place.
The doors to the room began to dent inward as sounds of forced entry echoed. The timer in his visor read thirty seconds left. His radio crackled with Lieutenant Ander’s voice.
“We’re onboard.” The pops of gunfire were muffled as Yuri heard the drop ship doors close. There was a moment of silence before the lieutenant’s voice choked up. “It’s been an honor.”
Yuri drew his pistol, pointing it toward the door. “Helluva ride, sir.” He had seconds left on the timer.
Static filled the silence of the channel. It smoothed out as the drop ship cleared the atmosphere and escaped into space. The lieutenant spoke again, this time with more volume. “You never…” He could hear the heavy breathing. “…you never answered my question.”
Yuri steadied his hand, the pistol in his palm visibly shaking. “I was never afraid to die for a good purpose.” He fought back the tears. “I was afraid to live without one. Without you.”
“I love you.”
He clicked off the channel as the bulkhead doors fell, a strong slam against the floor that shook his body. Three aliens appeared before him as the dust settled.
Yuri smiled bitterly as a nuclear fury embraced him.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
82) Iuvate Liberatem
(Above: This author receives his high school diploma)As I reflect upon the words: "time flies by when you're having fun", I've come to realize that my time was not fun, and did not fly by at all. My high school career has come to an end, and I've been granted a reprieve before I'm shipped off to another fight in college.
Such struggles of life we must endure. And the world keeps on turning.
I know I'm right when I say I've had a unique experience different from everyone else in my graduating class. I don't float this as some horrendously apparent fact. I say it in comparison to the norm of what is expected out of ordinary high school students.
Now that the pomp ceremony is over, I can say in solitude that high school is an experience I will miss. But I won't miss it because I enjoyed the ride. I'll miss it because of the pain.
You see, pain keeps you alive. It reminds you that you're human. It spawns the problems that we must struggle through to survive.
And all those problems spawned from high school can be summarized as a learning experience for me. As my senior year English teacher would agree, I am now a master of pessimism, and all the practical advantages it brings.
Beside that huge and overarching lesson, I'd to share with you a list of what I really learned:
- School crushes your hopes and dreams. That's why no one likes it.
Such struggles of life we must endure. And the world keeps on turning.
I know I'm right when I say I've had a unique experience different from everyone else in my graduating class. I don't float this as some horrendously apparent fact. I say it in comparison to the norm of what is expected out of ordinary high school students.
Now that the pomp ceremony is over, I can say in solitude that high school is an experience I will miss. But I won't miss it because I enjoyed the ride. I'll miss it because of the pain.
You see, pain keeps you alive. It reminds you that you're human. It spawns the problems that we must struggle through to survive.
And all those problems spawned from high school can be summarized as a learning experience for me. As my senior year English teacher would agree, I am now a master of pessimism, and all the practical advantages it brings.
Beside that huge and overarching lesson, I'd to share with you a list of what I really learned:
- School crushes your hopes and dreams. That's why no one likes it.
- Schoolwork only tests for bare memory skills, nothing more.
- Alcohol above 40 proof usually requires a chaser.
- If the teacher's not on time, why should you?
- Tolerance is not acceptance.
- There's no difference between a nerd and a idiot, they'll both pass the class.
- Break convention, and prepare to face unforeseen consequences.
- Earning an education and deserving it are two very different things.
- If you think it's a waste of time, it probably is.
- Do everything last minute; the pressure works miracles.
- Suck up to the teacher. You'll always win.
- It's only illegal IF you get caught.
- Trusting your friends to do their part is resigning yourself to fate.
- It'll probably/might/will go wrong. (Murphy's Law)
- The simplest explanation is usually the right one. (Occam's Razor)
- Work hard, play much harder.
- Hope for nothing, fear nothing.
- It's not a lie if everyone is telling it.
- Truth is so relative that nothing is true.
- Don't speak unless it improves the silence.
- Assume nothing, question everything.
- Math teachers use calculators too.
- Idealism has no practical value if you're not going to act.
- Don't hesitate. Ever.
- Losing the battle is not losing the war.
- As long as there is light, there will be shadow.
- First impressions make all the difference.
- Love is pitifully overrated when you're young.
- Stay away from drama. It's like throwing the pin and keeping the grenade.
- There are situations where the bad choice is the only way out.
- Chances are, less than five people will ever really care about you.
- You're nobody. Deal with it.
- Thinking is not doing. Doing is both.
Just a few of the life lessons. Academically, I didn't learn anything that I haven't already forgotten past the chapter tests. What I do remember are fragmented tidbits that won't really carry me anywhere useful.
So just like that, I can say I learned something, although I'm not sure it was worth the sweat and tears.
And when situations like this arise, I find it easier to just let go and move on.
Goodbye, high school. Nice knowing you.
- Alcohol above 40 proof usually requires a chaser.
- If the teacher's not on time, why should you?
- Tolerance is not acceptance.
- There's no difference between a nerd and a idiot, they'll both pass the class.
- Break convention, and prepare to face unforeseen consequences.
- Earning an education and deserving it are two very different things.
- If you think it's a waste of time, it probably is.
- Do everything last minute; the pressure works miracles.
- Suck up to the teacher. You'll always win.
- It's only illegal IF you get caught.
- Trusting your friends to do their part is resigning yourself to fate.
- It'll probably/might/will go wrong. (Murphy's Law)
- The simplest explanation is usually the right one. (Occam's Razor)
- Work hard, play much harder.
- Hope for nothing, fear nothing.
- It's not a lie if everyone is telling it.
- Truth is so relative that nothing is true.
- Don't speak unless it improves the silence.
- Assume nothing, question everything.
- Math teachers use calculators too.
- Idealism has no practical value if you're not going to act.
- Don't hesitate. Ever.
- Losing the battle is not losing the war.
- As long as there is light, there will be shadow.
- First impressions make all the difference.
- Love is pitifully overrated when you're young.
- Stay away from drama. It's like throwing the pin and keeping the grenade.
- There are situations where the bad choice is the only way out.
- Chances are, less than five people will ever really care about you.
- You're nobody. Deal with it.
- Thinking is not doing. Doing is both.
Just a few of the life lessons. Academically, I didn't learn anything that I haven't already forgotten past the chapter tests. What I do remember are fragmented tidbits that won't really carry me anywhere useful.
So just like that, I can say I learned something, although I'm not sure it was worth the sweat and tears.
And when situations like this arise, I find it easier to just let go and move on.
Goodbye, high school. Nice knowing you.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
81) A Proper Blossom
It was very strange.
Death was being drawn elsewhere, his thoughts clouded and scattered. He was being drawn away from his current task to a place he didn’t recognize, to a time much foreign in stance and circumstance.
Like most other times, he wasn’t sure exactly where he was going, what he was supposed to encounter, nor what he was destined to do when he got there. It never surprised him though. It was a true bore at times, not being able to sense, to feel the destination that would bring no motion to his entity.
But he felt, no, he knew, that this was somehow different. It beckoned to him, nearly begged his attention away. It was very peculiar. It nagged at him as an uncomfortable situation that needed to be settled, explored. It clutched at his being.
He, the shadow, arrived.
Could death remember the past clearly, he would have found this destination to be infinitely familiar. But the past did not matter, and Death perceived the image before him newborn.
The very first thing that satiated his curiosity was the lack of motion. The field before him was frozen, still figures suspended in action and intention. The scene was a picture, with nothing that was immediately distracting, moving. He had to search the picture, find the aura that was drawing his powers of observation away.
Death pondered. Was it the stillness? It couldn’t be. He didn’t perceive time. He could know and feel the place before him, see it with nonexistent eyes, but he didn’t register, couldn’t, the still frames that brought one event to the next. It was a unique caricature that mortals could imagine as the act of passage of time.
The next object apparent in question was not very apparent at all. But Death still knew where to look. The focus of the picture was narrowed as the lens focused on the black hulk that was centered. It was female.
Death yearned to draw closer, but hesitated. He had never felt, never known in his vague memories such temptation, such allure to the soul in question. But then again, what was the harm? He was invincible. Regardless, he decided to look everywhere else first.
They indeed were on a battlefield hung in still air. The mortal soldiers were clamoring around him, toys locked in by a master’s strings. It was a suicide charge, Death had guessed, by the forces emanating from the soul light. If one thing was certain, he had either just left here, or was about to arrive here particularly soon. He could feel his presence scattered and drawn to all the bodies in the picture, torn apart as he were exploding slowly. They demanded his attention, his work.
Death focused back on the female. He couldn’t afford to be drawn away, or he might leave and never come back. His curiosity had not yet been satiated satisfactorily.
He drew closer, the hesitation disappearing. It was not fear that grew as he came to touch the female, but a stranger, much stranger force he felt compelled to confront.
The armor adorning was cracked, blood spilling in many directions outward. It was a familiar hue, a color that Death had forgotten the name of. His entity twisted strangely as he struggled to make sense of the feel.
Red. It was called Red.
The plates of the armor were next, segmented plates of shiny ceramic that gleamed an opaque luster. They were black, a color he was no stranger to. Death found comfort in that familiarity, and wisely staged a moment to appreciate it. He paused and collected himself, feeling the scattered pieces of his consciousness pulling together. He delighted in understanding that the armor was meant to evoke attention rather than protect the wearer.
He reached out, a shadow that had no physical presence, glazing the armor. It felt like nothing to Death, for he could not feel. It was the act of touching itself that had any meaning to anything in the scene. It felt, but did not feel, right.
He saw the white, was about to act surprised, but realized shock was not part of his being. His consciousness was deciding to mock emotion. Strange indeed.
It was a blossom, a white blossom that decorated the armor. A mere symbol on the thigh armor plate of the female. It was adorned with a speck of the red substance of blood, spilling down away from the source of the rupture from the chest of the female.
That touch not granted to death smeared the blood lower, feeling in some awkward sense that this was the right and proper thing to do. The white pure blossom turned slowly pink. It was with some sense of misunderstood intervention that this was now a proper blossom.
Death was palpable. He did not remember and struggled to, a time and place with which this intensity had been felt before. He failed to find solace in the ailing memory that could not fail and was not really there. This was a foreign masterpiece with which he had not known before.
But it was when he looked up that he was done.
The eyes. It was the eyes that bled through the cracked visor. The eyes of the female shone out to him, lights searching in the dark for a host, a justification of existence. They were fixed in a stance that few could see, and even fewer would understand.
And of all things, death understood.
These globes, those eyes were what had called him here. They had sought in the stillness, begged for his existence.
In the final struggles of this female, she had wanted to die.
Death felt the satisfaction slowly creep over him. Again, it was the mockery of emotion that somehow appealed to him. In this existence that he had now occupied, this was the first time he had felt belonging. He was not only felt by the fate of the scenario, he was wanted.
But he wanted her.
The exalted breath that never came moved Death to action. He was quickly losing his perplexed grip on the situation laid out.
His shadow washed over the female, clutches of unknown force that electrified, venerated and liberated the trapped life within. It surrendered to him easily, slipping out in elegant and beautiful waves.
In that moment that did not exist relative, Death felt complete.
He turned, the scene no longer demanding his presence. The allure, too, he no longer felt. He glazed over the lifeless form one last time. Something nagged at him, a directive that beckoned to remember. He held on, fought desperately not to forget what had just transpired. But it was slipping.
With a thought of the mind, Death vanished from the scene.
He had gone back to work.
Death was being drawn elsewhere, his thoughts clouded and scattered. He was being drawn away from his current task to a place he didn’t recognize, to a time much foreign in stance and circumstance.
Like most other times, he wasn’t sure exactly where he was going, what he was supposed to encounter, nor what he was destined to do when he got there. It never surprised him though. It was a true bore at times, not being able to sense, to feel the destination that would bring no motion to his entity.
But he felt, no, he knew, that this was somehow different. It beckoned to him, nearly begged his attention away. It was very peculiar. It nagged at him as an uncomfortable situation that needed to be settled, explored. It clutched at his being.
He, the shadow, arrived.
Could death remember the past clearly, he would have found this destination to be infinitely familiar. But the past did not matter, and Death perceived the image before him newborn.
The very first thing that satiated his curiosity was the lack of motion. The field before him was frozen, still figures suspended in action and intention. The scene was a picture, with nothing that was immediately distracting, moving. He had to search the picture, find the aura that was drawing his powers of observation away.
Death pondered. Was it the stillness? It couldn’t be. He didn’t perceive time. He could know and feel the place before him, see it with nonexistent eyes, but he didn’t register, couldn’t, the still frames that brought one event to the next. It was a unique caricature that mortals could imagine as the act of passage of time.
The next object apparent in question was not very apparent at all. But Death still knew where to look. The focus of the picture was narrowed as the lens focused on the black hulk that was centered. It was female.
Death yearned to draw closer, but hesitated. He had never felt, never known in his vague memories such temptation, such allure to the soul in question. But then again, what was the harm? He was invincible. Regardless, he decided to look everywhere else first.
They indeed were on a battlefield hung in still air. The mortal soldiers were clamoring around him, toys locked in by a master’s strings. It was a suicide charge, Death had guessed, by the forces emanating from the soul light. If one thing was certain, he had either just left here, or was about to arrive here particularly soon. He could feel his presence scattered and drawn to all the bodies in the picture, torn apart as he were exploding slowly. They demanded his attention, his work.
Death focused back on the female. He couldn’t afford to be drawn away, or he might leave and never come back. His curiosity had not yet been satiated satisfactorily.
He drew closer, the hesitation disappearing. It was not fear that grew as he came to touch the female, but a stranger, much stranger force he felt compelled to confront.
The armor adorning was cracked, blood spilling in many directions outward. It was a familiar hue, a color that Death had forgotten the name of. His entity twisted strangely as he struggled to make sense of the feel.
Red. It was called Red.
The plates of the armor were next, segmented plates of shiny ceramic that gleamed an opaque luster. They were black, a color he was no stranger to. Death found comfort in that familiarity, and wisely staged a moment to appreciate it. He paused and collected himself, feeling the scattered pieces of his consciousness pulling together. He delighted in understanding that the armor was meant to evoke attention rather than protect the wearer.
He reached out, a shadow that had no physical presence, glazing the armor. It felt like nothing to Death, for he could not feel. It was the act of touching itself that had any meaning to anything in the scene. It felt, but did not feel, right.
He saw the white, was about to act surprised, but realized shock was not part of his being. His consciousness was deciding to mock emotion. Strange indeed.
It was a blossom, a white blossom that decorated the armor. A mere symbol on the thigh armor plate of the female. It was adorned with a speck of the red substance of blood, spilling down away from the source of the rupture from the chest of the female.
That touch not granted to death smeared the blood lower, feeling in some awkward sense that this was the right and proper thing to do. The white pure blossom turned slowly pink. It was with some sense of misunderstood intervention that this was now a proper blossom.
Death was palpable. He did not remember and struggled to, a time and place with which this intensity had been felt before. He failed to find solace in the ailing memory that could not fail and was not really there. This was a foreign masterpiece with which he had not known before.
But it was when he looked up that he was done.
The eyes. It was the eyes that bled through the cracked visor. The eyes of the female shone out to him, lights searching in the dark for a host, a justification of existence. They were fixed in a stance that few could see, and even fewer would understand.
And of all things, death understood.
These globes, those eyes were what had called him here. They had sought in the stillness, begged for his existence.
In the final struggles of this female, she had wanted to die.
Death felt the satisfaction slowly creep over him. Again, it was the mockery of emotion that somehow appealed to him. In this existence that he had now occupied, this was the first time he had felt belonging. He was not only felt by the fate of the scenario, he was wanted.
But he wanted her.
The exalted breath that never came moved Death to action. He was quickly losing his perplexed grip on the situation laid out.
His shadow washed over the female, clutches of unknown force that electrified, venerated and liberated the trapped life within. It surrendered to him easily, slipping out in elegant and beautiful waves.
In that moment that did not exist relative, Death felt complete.
He turned, the scene no longer demanding his presence. The allure, too, he no longer felt. He glazed over the lifeless form one last time. Something nagged at him, a directive that beckoned to remember. He held on, fought desperately not to forget what had just transpired. But it was slipping.
With a thought of the mind, Death vanished from the scene.
He had gone back to work.
Monday, May 30, 2011
80) The Impossible Life of Lady Liberty
With end of the year finals approaching and college issues to sift through, I haven't had time lately to do much of anything I'd enjoy. Alas, much of my free time consists of sleeping and video games anyway.
But as Memorial day dawns upon us once more, we recognize the sacrifices and the hardships that American men and women overseas have endured to ensure our continued freedoms and liberties. We do not forget all they have given to help keep alive the country that is the United States.
In the midst of our war, the war that has been the keen cause of all our problems, I've seen a broad spectrum of ideas and actions that define what battle and warfare really means. I've seen the people who are eager to fight, the peaceful protestors that have lined the streets, and the normal worker who couldn't care less.
I've always believed in the firm idea that the hardest part of a battle is not being out on the front lines, but being in the waiting room back home. The hardest part of a war is the mothers worrying about their husbands, the young teens who worry about their big brothers, all wishing for a safe return for their loved ones.
I don't personally know anyone in the war, but that doesn't stop me from worrying about the thousands of soldiers over there, facing a hostility of bullets and rockets that barely conforms to reason and sense.
With my military mind, some would call me a young patriotic that doesn't know any better. They wouldn't be completely wrong. I have no qualms about joining the military, war or not. The puzzling part of it, the piece that you're going to love, is this:
I hate the military. I hate war with an almost insane passion.
I firmly believe the only reason a country should have a military is for self defense. Many militaries around the world serve this purpose, the most notable example being Japan. However, this in itself was forced, a legacy of defeat following an American victory in World War 2.
The Japanese Self Defense Force is the American equivalent of the national guard. It's a defense army, the only army that exists for the nation island of Japan. They've got a handful of air fighters and a sparse number of soldiers to prepare for the invasion that might never come. With North Korea showing signs of overeager hostility, the JSDF is becoming more important these days.
But you see, in Japan, it's almost a mark of shame to join the military. The JSDF is restricted from international warfare, making them a pretty inactive and dull organization. Their real purpose is really just to stand guard in the watchtower. If an invasion actually occurred, Japan's allies would most likely bear the brunt of the work, helping to repel the invaders and clean up the mess.
Which is why most Japanese turn to the JSDF as a last choice. There's no honor or glory to be gained. The pay and the regular meals are pretty much the only incentive to join. Not to mention supporting an organization that was built around obeying the bigger world powers.
Or, from America's perspective:
Yes, you guessed it, the JSDF is an American legacy of war. It's how the United States decided to handle the Japanese 'situation'. It was a way for Washington D.C. to keep tabs on Asia and the spread of communism. It was a way to deter those who would dare fight against Uncle Sam.
But, what I find most interesting, and what I believe most anti-war Americans would love imposed on the U.S. military, is one of Japan's basic policies concerning national defense:
The United States? Not so much.
Here in the U.S., you're shunned for not taking a violent stance, whether it be for or against a war. Ironic, no? Here we emphasize that individuality and debate, the spirit of unity, and the fairness of politics, is the right way to approach domestic and international problems.
Not a problem, except for the fact that it's caused a couple dozen wars, the most recent collapsing the American economy, and in turn, the international economy. Not to mention a discontent population reduced to focusing on the wrong things, all the while waiting for a Deux Ex Machina that will never come.
On top of all that, I have to worry about paying for college and finding a job that probably won't be there in a couple of months. If all else fails, my backup plan is to join the U.S. military, thus advocating the agenda of a superpower I don't believe in.
If you ask the United States, I'm sure they'd tell you we're all for world peace, and then point you toward the nearest military quagmire. But then again, we don't all do as we say, right?
So congratulations, U.S of A, for instilling on me a hopeless and bleak future. But if you ever need more victims for the next war, be sure to call me. I know my college degree will be worth less everyday.
This is really important to me, because I've thought about it in terms of my life. Even though it shouldn't be a shock to me, I've reached their age. The soldiers over there fighting in the Middle East could not have been older than me when the war started and they signed up to go overseas. We're that same age now. They had just barely finished high school when they decided to delay college and go out to fight.
They were my age when they took a bullet to the head and died.
Ten years have passed and now here I am, in their position. That's how long the war has been going on. I've grown up with it. I'm so sick of hearing about, so sick of it shaping my life and warping my plans for the future. I'm sick of it not ending, and being completely helpless to it's whims.
Well, not completely helpless. I could always sign up and help the war end faster. It would help make me die earlier, which at this point, seems to be more productive than getting a college degree just so that I can go bankrupt over student loans and starve to death on the streets.
For you older readers out there, be thankful that this decade of war is just another footnote in your lives.
For younger people like me, we can't ever forget the negative impressions of the war that has taken so much of our hope and happiness. It is an integral part of our lives that we can't forget, shaping the people we will be.
It's a war that has decided the new economy, the chances of us getting a job, the chances of us pursing our dreams. A war that has forced us to give up our thinking for guns. Forced some of us to be killed.
If you're an adult, you should know better than to advocate and imprint war on the young. We fight because you fight.
But, if you're a young adult like me, I only have one thing to say:
Godspeed. I'll see you on the other side.
But as Memorial day dawns upon us once more, we recognize the sacrifices and the hardships that American men and women overseas have endured to ensure our continued freedoms and liberties. We do not forget all they have given to help keep alive the country that is the United States.
In the midst of our war, the war that has been the keen cause of all our problems, I've seen a broad spectrum of ideas and actions that define what battle and warfare really means. I've seen the people who are eager to fight, the peaceful protestors that have lined the streets, and the normal worker who couldn't care less.
I've always believed in the firm idea that the hardest part of a battle is not being out on the front lines, but being in the waiting room back home. The hardest part of a war is the mothers worrying about their husbands, the young teens who worry about their big brothers, all wishing for a safe return for their loved ones.
I don't personally know anyone in the war, but that doesn't stop me from worrying about the thousands of soldiers over there, facing a hostility of bullets and rockets that barely conforms to reason and sense.
With my military mind, some would call me a young patriotic that doesn't know any better. They wouldn't be completely wrong. I have no qualms about joining the military, war or not. The puzzling part of it, the piece that you're going to love, is this:
I hate the military. I hate war with an almost insane passion.
I firmly believe the only reason a country should have a military is for self defense. Many militaries around the world serve this purpose, the most notable example being Japan. However, this in itself was forced, a legacy of defeat following an American victory in World War 2.
The Japanese Self Defense Force is the American equivalent of the national guard. It's a defense army, the only army that exists for the nation island of Japan. They've got a handful of air fighters and a sparse number of soldiers to prepare for the invasion that might never come. With North Korea showing signs of overeager hostility, the JSDF is becoming more important these days.
But you see, in Japan, it's almost a mark of shame to join the military. The JSDF is restricted from international warfare, making them a pretty inactive and dull organization. Their real purpose is really just to stand guard in the watchtower. If an invasion actually occurred, Japan's allies would most likely bear the brunt of the work, helping to repel the invaders and clean up the mess.
Which is why most Japanese turn to the JSDF as a last choice. There's no honor or glory to be gained. The pay and the regular meals are pretty much the only incentive to join. Not to mention supporting an organization that was built around obeying the bigger world powers.
Or, from America's perspective:
Yes, you guessed it, the JSDF is an American legacy of war. It's how the United States decided to handle the Japanese 'situation'. It was a way for Washington D.C. to keep tabs on Asia and the spread of communism. It was a way to deter those who would dare fight against Uncle Sam.
But, what I find most interesting, and what I believe most anti-war Americans would love imposed on the U.S. military, is one of Japan's basic policies concerning national defense:
2. To avoid becoming a major military power that might pose a threat to the world.And look at Japan nowadays. One of the greatest powers after the the Cold War, with an economy and workforce that emphasizes honor and efficiency. They haven't instigated a war in the past seventy years and have done just fine.
The United States? Not so much.
Here in the U.S., you're shunned for not taking a violent stance, whether it be for or against a war. Ironic, no? Here we emphasize that individuality and debate, the spirit of unity, and the fairness of politics, is the right way to approach domestic and international problems.
Not a problem, except for the fact that it's caused a couple dozen wars, the most recent collapsing the American economy, and in turn, the international economy. Not to mention a discontent population reduced to focusing on the wrong things, all the while waiting for a Deux Ex Machina that will never come.
On top of all that, I have to worry about paying for college and finding a job that probably won't be there in a couple of months. If all else fails, my backup plan is to join the U.S. military, thus advocating the agenda of a superpower I don't believe in.
If you ask the United States, I'm sure they'd tell you we're all for world peace, and then point you toward the nearest military quagmire. But then again, we don't all do as we say, right?
So congratulations, U.S of A, for instilling on me a hopeless and bleak future. But if you ever need more victims for the next war, be sure to call me. I know my college degree will be worth less everyday.
This is really important to me, because I've thought about it in terms of my life. Even though it shouldn't be a shock to me, I've reached their age. The soldiers over there fighting in the Middle East could not have been older than me when the war started and they signed up to go overseas. We're that same age now. They had just barely finished high school when they decided to delay college and go out to fight.
They were my age when they took a bullet to the head and died.
Ten years have passed and now here I am, in their position. That's how long the war has been going on. I've grown up with it. I'm so sick of hearing about, so sick of it shaping my life and warping my plans for the future. I'm sick of it not ending, and being completely helpless to it's whims.
Well, not completely helpless. I could always sign up and help the war end faster. It would help make me die earlier, which at this point, seems to be more productive than getting a college degree just so that I can go bankrupt over student loans and starve to death on the streets.
For you older readers out there, be thankful that this decade of war is just another footnote in your lives.
For younger people like me, we can't ever forget the negative impressions of the war that has taken so much of our hope and happiness. It is an integral part of our lives that we can't forget, shaping the people we will be.
It's a war that has decided the new economy, the chances of us getting a job, the chances of us pursing our dreams. A war that has forced us to give up our thinking for guns. Forced some of us to be killed.
If you're an adult, you should know better than to advocate and imprint war on the young. We fight because you fight.
But, if you're a young adult like me, I only have one thing to say:
Godspeed. I'll see you on the other side.
Monday, May 2, 2011
79) The Priceless Victories
With the news of Osama Bin Laden's death, many people are quick to assume that justice has been served and that the war is closer to an end. I'm inclined to follow the victory train, but his death is much more symbolic than most of us are willing to admit.
A good friend from my AP Government class helped me spin up an interesting conspiracy: Obama knew for months and waited on this operation to kill Osama when the political opportunity was right. "Oh, the poll numbers are down? Launch operation 'Best thing we're ever going to do overseas'. Don't forget the DNA samples, or they'll be ripping us down for weeks."
It' hard for me to honestly believe he's dead. Or for that matter, that it might really be his body. Skepticism runs high these days, and let's just hope that the death of a martyr is not the death of hope.
For the families of those who lost their lives to Al-Qaeda, I'm sure that they've been waiting a long time for justice to be served. But I can also understand why many of them weren't jumping for joy in the streets like those at Ground Zero, waving American flags and singing the anthem. I don't know. Maybe they were.
And in that lies justice. Or is it revenge?
Truth is, we always find it easy to associate our hate and anger towards one person. It give us an image to despise, a name to curse.
But we don't ever seem to look beyond a person's actions. We don't understand their motivations. We don't sympathize with the situations that make a rapist kill several young teenagers, or a terrorist from blowing up a school.
We fear understanding these things. We find it so repulsive to look from another person's perspective because it is much, much easier to give into the societal cues of hate and xenophobia.
The blame is easy to place, but the understanding is hard. And if we can't understand our faults and what they were shaped from, how could we possibly be able to fix them? How could we possibly try and prevent evil like this in the future?
I'm not a psychologist, so I'll simply say this:
There are many ways to resolve disputes. Revenge is not one of them.
A good friend from my AP Government class helped me spin up an interesting conspiracy: Obama knew for months and waited on this operation to kill Osama when the political opportunity was right. "Oh, the poll numbers are down? Launch operation 'Best thing we're ever going to do overseas'. Don't forget the DNA samples, or they'll be ripping us down for weeks."
It' hard for me to honestly believe he's dead. Or for that matter, that it might really be his body. Skepticism runs high these days, and let's just hope that the death of a martyr is not the death of hope.
For the families of those who lost their lives to Al-Qaeda, I'm sure that they've been waiting a long time for justice to be served. But I can also understand why many of them weren't jumping for joy in the streets like those at Ground Zero, waving American flags and singing the anthem. I don't know. Maybe they were.
And in that lies justice. Or is it revenge?
Revenge is like a ghost. It takes over every man it touches. Its thirst cannot be quenched until the last man standing has fallen.And quite the revenge we've gotten. It's only cost us the lives of several thousand U.S. soldiers and a few trillion dollars. Nothing that couldn't have been better used.
-Vladimir Makarov, Modern Warfare 2
Truth is, we always find it easy to associate our hate and anger towards one person. It give us an image to despise, a name to curse.
But we don't ever seem to look beyond a person's actions. We don't understand their motivations. We don't sympathize with the situations that make a rapist kill several young teenagers, or a terrorist from blowing up a school.
We fear understanding these things. We find it so repulsive to look from another person's perspective because it is much, much easier to give into the societal cues of hate and xenophobia.
The blame is easy to place, but the understanding is hard. And if we can't understand our faults and what they were shaped from, how could we possibly be able to fix them? How could we possibly try and prevent evil like this in the future?
I'm not a psychologist, so I'll simply say this:
There are many ways to resolve disputes. Revenge is not one of them.
Friday, April 15, 2011
78) Kilroy Was Here
I've always been a military mind, and people around me never cease to bring up how much I actually scare them. With a "unique" mind like mine, I don't imagine "normal" people know the name of Hitler's plan to invade Russia, how far your heart can pump blood out of an open neck artery, or the strength of the most dangerous nuclear weapon ever built.
In case you're curious, highlight the answers: 1) Operation Barbarossa, 2) 30 feet 3) Tsar Bomba, 10-30-1961, ~50 Megatons TNT. Explosion produced 1.4% output of the sun and shattered windows 560 miles away.
But in the end, it all comes back to my morbid fascination with death. Such a powerful force that seems truly inevitable and infinitely unquenchable. It is the one thing every person in this world knows, regardless of faith, color, and creed.
Perhaps more interesting is the intricacies that lace a military that deals such death in a glorified manner. Every country, every state, has some sort of armed force, if only for the sole purpose of defense. Some countries, like Japan, operate by such a doctrine, constrained by an inherited legacy. Others, like the United States, have no shortage of patriots being led to any battle, anywhere, anytime.
But it's the little things away from the battlefield that interest me. More specifically, what war forces people to because of the circumstances in front of them. Atomic weapons, flameless ration heaters, or military theory grabs my attention because it requires the greatest discipline and innovation humankind has ever produced.
And then there is the camaraderie, whimsical intrigue of inside jokes, national pride, and everything else in between. I'm sure Kilroy would agree:
Kilroy, in his natural habitat.
And then there is the soldier. Hollywood knows the lowly grunt all too well, along with his more popular relative, the crew-cut cigar smoking general.
It's all representative of a much more savage truth, the one we lie to ourselves about, because it's such an contradiction that everyone is ashamed of.
We kill in battle for "peace". And that cycle can never be broken.
And that truth drives militaries to prosper, backed by the many politicians who have never been shot at, egged on by the masses who are too naturally xenophobic.
We train the young to continue the cycle. We break them down to nothing and build them back up into something that they should be repulsed at. But humans are malleable, and they know how to bypass ethics in the name of peer pressure.
The U.S. and its increasingly violent tendencies follow a spiral of sustained operant conditioning. In Colonel David Grossman's On Killing, he puts it bluntly, even on the back cover of the book:
With all the things a regular soldier represents, I again found it interesting how far we've gone.
So imagine my curiosity when I come across this article:
Let's not be afraid to be ashamed about death. What we need is an open discussion, an acceptance of what is final to help us appreciate our very temporary lives. It might not end war, but hell, it's a much better alternative than giving into the law of temptations. That's when the real killing starts.
Or maybe it's completely the other way around. We know too much about death. Our constant wars and desensitization to violence on television and in the movies has forced us to delve deeper into ourselves. It's a desperate attempt to find feeling and meaning using the extreme ends of pain and suffering.
As for me, I can say that understanding death reaffirms something I've been saying for years:
You can't be blamed for wanting to know about what's natural. It is one of those subjects that is annoying and difficult to explain. It makes people uncomfortable in front of others, where I don't think it should be. It carries such a stigma of negative connotation.
When I'm older, maybe I'll have less of a skewed view about death and fear it for potentially taking away the things I care about.
But when teenagers start talking openly about dying, I'm not sure it's something we should be proud about. The American indoctrination schedule is right on time.
So, let's go back to where we started:
I'm a military mind. I'm a deathly mind.
Should I be proud of that?
What about the human war mind? Our death wishes?
Should you be proud of that?
In case you're curious, highlight the answers: 1) Operation Barbarossa, 2) 30 feet 3) Tsar Bomba, 10-30-1961, ~50 Megatons TNT. Explosion produced 1.4% output of the sun and shattered windows 560 miles away.
But in the end, it all comes back to my morbid fascination with death. Such a powerful force that seems truly inevitable and infinitely unquenchable. It is the one thing every person in this world knows, regardless of faith, color, and creed.
Perhaps more interesting is the intricacies that lace a military that deals such death in a glorified manner. Every country, every state, has some sort of armed force, if only for the sole purpose of defense. Some countries, like Japan, operate by such a doctrine, constrained by an inherited legacy. Others, like the United States, have no shortage of patriots being led to any battle, anywhere, anytime.
But it's the little things away from the battlefield that interest me. More specifically, what war forces people to because of the circumstances in front of them. Atomic weapons, flameless ration heaters, or military theory grabs my attention because it requires the greatest discipline and innovation humankind has ever produced.
And then there is the camaraderie, whimsical intrigue of inside jokes, national pride, and everything else in between. I'm sure Kilroy would agree:
Kilroy, in his natural habitat.And then there is the soldier. Hollywood knows the lowly grunt all too well, along with his more popular relative, the crew-cut cigar smoking general.
It's all representative of a much more savage truth, the one we lie to ourselves about, because it's such an contradiction that everyone is ashamed of.
We kill in battle for "peace". And that cycle can never be broken.
And that truth drives militaries to prosper, backed by the many politicians who have never been shot at, egged on by the masses who are too naturally xenophobic.
We train the young to continue the cycle. We break them down to nothing and build them back up into something that they should be repulsed at. But humans are malleable, and they know how to bypass ethics in the name of peer pressure.
The U.S. and its increasingly violent tendencies follow a spiral of sustained operant conditioning. In Colonel David Grossman's On Killing, he puts it bluntly, even on the back cover of the book:
In World War II, only 15 to 20 percent of combat infantry were willing to fire their rifles. In Korea, about 50 percent. In Vietnam, the figure rose to more than 90 percent.And what I find most amusing is the little things we do to try and cover up our ethical indecencies. As evidenced by General George S. Patton in World War 2, you can march them off a cliff, order them into suicide charges, but for some reason, you can't slap them.
With all the things a regular soldier represents, I again found it interesting how far we've gone.
So imagine my curiosity when I come across this article:
Photos show US soldiers in Afghanistan posing with dead civilians
'Trophy' pictures show US soldiers posing with corpses of Afghan civilians they are accused of killing for sport
The face of Jeremy Morlock, a young US soldier, grins at the camera, his hand holding up the head of the dead and bloodied youth he and his colleagues have just killed in an act military prosecutors say was premeditated murder.
Moments before the picture was taken in January last year, the unsuspecting victim had been waved over by a group of US soldiers who had driven to his village in Kandahar province in one of their armoured Stryker tanks...The pictures include a similar photograph of a different soldier posing with the same victim and a photograph of two other civilians killed by the unit.
I've always thought that there was a limit to human depravity before people simply went insane. Then again, we as humans are not considered insane when we go to war for almost anything, even over dead pigs.
I'm far beyond being convinced that the primal urge to kill is in the human genome. But sometimes I am skeptical. Are we raised to kill, or are we just simply born with it? What is it that draws us to death?
Is it the aesthetic beauty in playing chess with death? The adrenaline in grazing the inevitable constant of the universe?
Is it the desperate need to know about the one thing that unites us all in the beginning and the end?
To understand our deathly addictions, let me introduce Exhibit A, Francis Ford Coppola's classic film Apocalypse Now, where we are treated to a surreal journey into a Vietnam warscape that few see, and even fewer understand.
I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us, and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember … I … I … I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget.My judgment? I'll reserve it. I won't judge those poor soldiers and whatever forced them to pose with dead bodies.
And then I realized … like I was shot … like I was shot with a diamond … a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God … the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men … trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love … but they had the strength … the strength … to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men, then our troubles here would be over very quickly.
You have to have men who are moral … and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling … without passion … without judgment … without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us.
Let's not be afraid to be ashamed about death. What we need is an open discussion, an acceptance of what is final to help us appreciate our very temporary lives. It might not end war, but hell, it's a much better alternative than giving into the law of temptations. That's when the real killing starts.
Or maybe it's completely the other way around. We know too much about death. Our constant wars and desensitization to violence on television and in the movies has forced us to delve deeper into ourselves. It's a desperate attempt to find feeling and meaning using the extreme ends of pain and suffering.
As for me, I can say that understanding death reaffirms something I've been saying for years:
You're not ready to live if you're not ready to die.My own obsession with the end isn't a excuse for what I really think death is. I know many classmates who have that gleam in their eye, that cautious glare of transient curiosity when I openly talk about death and how it relates to almost anything.
You can't be blamed for wanting to know about what's natural. It is one of those subjects that is annoying and difficult to explain. It makes people uncomfortable in front of others, where I don't think it should be. It carries such a stigma of negative connotation.
When I'm older, maybe I'll have less of a skewed view about death and fear it for potentially taking away the things I care about.
But when teenagers start talking openly about dying, I'm not sure it's something we should be proud about. The American indoctrination schedule is right on time.
So, let's go back to where we started:
I'm a military mind. I'm a deathly mind.
Should I be proud of that?
What about the human war mind? Our death wishes?
Should you be proud of that?
Sunday, March 20, 2011
77) Lack Of Words
As a classical pessimist, It's not hard for me to spin world events into a collection of indicators revealing the end of the world. Besides the regular news of war and disaster that have become increasingly vital in the past few weeks, I'd like to share my take on what it all means.
As I'm currently trying to enjoy my spring break, I'm plagued by writer's block. Not because I have nothing to write about, but because I have failed to find a satisfactory method to express my feelings toward world events. It would be easy to blame school for my lack of inspiration, but in the end, there are some things that need to be said, regardless of circumstance.
There are never enough words to express thought. The English language is varied and ambiguous, with a lexicon that can sometimes perverse meaning. The opposite is also true, allowing for simple shades to dictate powerful and specific words like "red" or "liquid". And don't even get me started on describing metaphysics.
As the aftershocks in Japan continue to take lives, and another war is being born in Libya, I would like to describe the state of affairs using a simple word:
Human.
Now, this isn't me being lazy by lacking specifics, which I will get to in a second. It is, ironically, me being highly specific by using a word that is very general, yet describing lone concepts present in everybody that are easy to understand.
When I first heard of the earthquake in Japan, my eyes were glued to the screen as I watched houses being swept away, wondering how many bodies were underneath all that rubble. The only thing my mother complained about was how she had just lost money by buying Japanese stocks that were now destined to lose value. As I pointed out that there were people dying on the screen, she told me about her frugality: "It's human nature."
As news stories unfolded about the devastation, I continued to watch in horror, angry at mother nature for killing innocent lives for some cruel and unjustifiable reason. I wanted to help.
On Facebook, a help Japan group sprouted overnight, which would give a cent to the Red Cross for every person that joined. It reached its numbers goal overnight. Support like this, along with help from many other countries, poured in to aid Japan in its time of need.
On the other hand, I came across a picture compilation of Facebook statuses saying that the tsunami was payback for Pearl Harbor. And then there was that one religious girl who claimed she had prayed for the destruction and death of the nonbelievers. She was promptly forced off of Youtube in the face of death threats when her address was made public.
When it was reported that aftershocks would sweep across the Pacific, I worried for my good friend in Hawaii. Luckily, he was okay when the weakened waves hit. I worried for my own life when the tsunami advisory warning was issued for the West Coast.
But I'm here today, still in shock over the devastation that has occurred. It gave me a glimmer of hope to hear that even the Yakuza in Japan had ceased their crime operations to keep order and provide disaster relief. It was a quote along the lines of: "Sometimes, we are just human beings trying to help each other."
I feel sadness for many of my friends who have relatives in Japan. One of them is an angry and bitter sadist now reduced to constant worry, streaming Facebook statuses that fears for the safety of a certain person. I don't know who it is, but I hope they are alive and well.
Not too many days after the quake in Japan, the world's spotlight became shifted, and now rests on Libya as war unfolds. Gadhafi is vowing to fight to the death as UN coalition forces converge to protect innocent civilians from the line of fire. As Benghazi and Tripoli burn, we are again reminded for the human compulsion to fight and die.
Despite all this terror and tragedy, I still look at the word "human" and try to dissect its meaning. What I've found are people holding onto each other as their homes and lives are destroyed by a great flood. I see people worrying about each other thousands of miles away. I see aid flowing in from all directions for Japan, signs that the world shares a common bond in the face of unjustified death.
I see "human" in the revolutions that rock the Middle East, along with the continuing war in Afghanistan and Iraq. I watch as the Associated Press shows footage of a jet crashing into the ground after it takes a direct hit by a missile. It spirals into the ground, engine on fire, crashing with a large and booming explosion. I see a Tomahawk cruise missile launch from the deck of a coalition warship, streaming smoke and fire in its wake.
Yes, the English language struggles when I try to describe what "human" means. It is a careful mix of compassion, sadness, cooperation, anger, practicality, freedom, and everything in between.
And as a "human", I advocate that we continue to survive because of all these things. Humanity is a blessing when we can help our neighbor after their house is destroyed. Humanity is a curse when we turn against that neighbor after they've found a new life.
But in this desperate hour, we stand divided and united. We fight our petty wars, mourn our family members, and try to see the dawn after a long and perilous night.
So maybe it's for the best that the English language won't let me fully define "human" to a satisfying extent. To do so would take away from its unique and sacred qualities that dictate our abilities to survive, live, love, and die.
All I know is that we are human.
And most importantly, humanity survives. We will do what must be done, right or wrong.
As I'm currently trying to enjoy my spring break, I'm plagued by writer's block. Not because I have nothing to write about, but because I have failed to find a satisfactory method to express my feelings toward world events. It would be easy to blame school for my lack of inspiration, but in the end, there are some things that need to be said, regardless of circumstance.
There are never enough words to express thought. The English language is varied and ambiguous, with a lexicon that can sometimes perverse meaning. The opposite is also true, allowing for simple shades to dictate powerful and specific words like "red" or "liquid". And don't even get me started on describing metaphysics.
As the aftershocks in Japan continue to take lives, and another war is being born in Libya, I would like to describe the state of affairs using a simple word:
Human.
Now, this isn't me being lazy by lacking specifics, which I will get to in a second. It is, ironically, me being highly specific by using a word that is very general, yet describing lone concepts present in everybody that are easy to understand.
When I first heard of the earthquake in Japan, my eyes were glued to the screen as I watched houses being swept away, wondering how many bodies were underneath all that rubble. The only thing my mother complained about was how she had just lost money by buying Japanese stocks that were now destined to lose value. As I pointed out that there were people dying on the screen, she told me about her frugality: "It's human nature."
As news stories unfolded about the devastation, I continued to watch in horror, angry at mother nature for killing innocent lives for some cruel and unjustifiable reason. I wanted to help.
On Facebook, a help Japan group sprouted overnight, which would give a cent to the Red Cross for every person that joined. It reached its numbers goal overnight. Support like this, along with help from many other countries, poured in to aid Japan in its time of need.
On the other hand, I came across a picture compilation of Facebook statuses saying that the tsunami was payback for Pearl Harbor. And then there was that one religious girl who claimed she had prayed for the destruction and death of the nonbelievers. She was promptly forced off of Youtube in the face of death threats when her address was made public.
When it was reported that aftershocks would sweep across the Pacific, I worried for my good friend in Hawaii. Luckily, he was okay when the weakened waves hit. I worried for my own life when the tsunami advisory warning was issued for the West Coast.
But I'm here today, still in shock over the devastation that has occurred. It gave me a glimmer of hope to hear that even the Yakuza in Japan had ceased their crime operations to keep order and provide disaster relief. It was a quote along the lines of: "Sometimes, we are just human beings trying to help each other."
I feel sadness for many of my friends who have relatives in Japan. One of them is an angry and bitter sadist now reduced to constant worry, streaming Facebook statuses that fears for the safety of a certain person. I don't know who it is, but I hope they are alive and well.
Not too many days after the quake in Japan, the world's spotlight became shifted, and now rests on Libya as war unfolds. Gadhafi is vowing to fight to the death as UN coalition forces converge to protect innocent civilians from the line of fire. As Benghazi and Tripoli burn, we are again reminded for the human compulsion to fight and die.
Despite all this terror and tragedy, I still look at the word "human" and try to dissect its meaning. What I've found are people holding onto each other as their homes and lives are destroyed by a great flood. I see people worrying about each other thousands of miles away. I see aid flowing in from all directions for Japan, signs that the world shares a common bond in the face of unjustified death.
I see "human" in the revolutions that rock the Middle East, along with the continuing war in Afghanistan and Iraq. I watch as the Associated Press shows footage of a jet crashing into the ground after it takes a direct hit by a missile. It spirals into the ground, engine on fire, crashing with a large and booming explosion. I see a Tomahawk cruise missile launch from the deck of a coalition warship, streaming smoke and fire in its wake.
Yes, the English language struggles when I try to describe what "human" means. It is a careful mix of compassion, sadness, cooperation, anger, practicality, freedom, and everything in between.
And as a "human", I advocate that we continue to survive because of all these things. Humanity is a blessing when we can help our neighbor after their house is destroyed. Humanity is a curse when we turn against that neighbor after they've found a new life.
But in this desperate hour, we stand divided and united. We fight our petty wars, mourn our family members, and try to see the dawn after a long and perilous night.
So maybe it's for the best that the English language won't let me fully define "human" to a satisfying extent. To do so would take away from its unique and sacred qualities that dictate our abilities to survive, live, love, and die.
All I know is that we are human.
And most importantly, humanity survives. We will do what must be done, right or wrong.
Friday, February 25, 2011
76) Symbolic Computers
Having been preoccupied with the stresses of AP coursework with little time for fun, it's hard to take time out of the day for mind exercises. Exercises like imagining worst case scenarios.
Sometimes it's slight, just you missing the bus and having to walk five miles home. Other times, it's finding out your dog has died or that you didn't hit save when the power cut out in the middle of typing up your English final. It's nice to think about these situations to prepare for them, so you'll know what to do if it happens.
My worst case scenario was having my shiny new computer break down on me. It was the infamous Blue Screen of Death, they call it, indication of the failed processes of an economic giant that has so thoroughly embraced capitalism. It's my firm belief that Microsoft and it's new Windows 7 is just a placeholder for the next product that comes out and soaks up billions of dollars. That next product will become another placeholder, and so on.
The important thing to understand about any company is that with size comes responsibility. Whatever service, whatever product you're trying to sell, is not necessarily purposed to help your customers; it's purposed to help you gain wealth. But I'm not here to speculate on the psychological and sociological reasons for starting a business. I'm here to tell you how such a business can explode into something so helplessly loathed by many.
When a company gets big enough, it hits what I call the "care factor". Basically, at this point, the company is perverted from it's original purpose, regardless of what it was, to serve no other interests but it's own through any means necessary. Most of the time, it just means that they sacrifice quality over quantity to gain the most profit. Other times, it's them buying out competitors and laying off people.
Don't get me wrong; I don't think this happens to every large company that exists, but the evidence is there to prove how products have degraded over time due to this care factor. It affects almost every American sector out there: electronics, food, clothing, etc.
So when I flipped through the motherboard manual for my computer to troubleshoot the problem, it wasn't a surprise to see how Microsoft products would cause such a disaster, since it outsources technical support for "cost", builds crappy and buggy operating systems for "cost", just so that by the time you get around to fixing it, you're already being forced to buy the next product down the line.
It's why I think Apple products are so popular. People are just so fed up with Microsoft, a company that seems to go out of its way to exploit customers by forcing them to buy products that they can't seem to avoid. And that's the cold, hard fact: you can't avoid Microsoft Windows. It constitutes a very large majority of the computer industry, and at least one computer you use in this lifetime will contain Windows. You know it, and Microsoft knows it, so they can use whatever tactics they want to earn money at your expense. It's almost a sick form of control that they know you can't break.
Apple, after they exploded with their fanbase, has also crossed the care factor. They come out with newer products in the same line every single year, setting the stage for consumerism peer pressure. If you don't get the new one, you're not up to date and are part of the old breed. It doesn't matter if you only use this new product for only six months, because by then you'll be holding the next product down the line.
And so, my friends, this is how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Everyone has the insinuation that American capitalism is the best thing in the world. It's fair, orderly, and allows the basic person to live and survive for the effort they put in.
And yet, the income brackets are highly polarized, your background and race quantify where you get hired, and there will always be homeless wandering the streets a few blocks from the city center.
American capitalism is idolized like it's some holy messiah that can't be brought down by anything. Maybe it can't. But most people never consider that other countries have children begging for food while your neighbor complains that the line at Starbucks is too damned long. Not everyone has your type of capitalism.
Can you blame anyone? Maybe not. But the quantified greed that exists makes the entire concept of capitalism a horrid oxymoron. Americans are indoctrinated to ignore this, treading down a preconceived road that has only the illusion of free will. You are born, your are taught, you work, and you die. Nothing more, nothing less. Every once in a while they'll let a select group break out of this path, and even then they only exist to embody the next generation of workers.
If this is the society that we are treading downward, then it is in fact a very bleak future. Americans can hardly believe that money isn't everything. It's what makes a film like Fight Club a cult classic; it's an indication that we believe everything is meaningless and trivial, that we have to hurt ourselves to feel something, anything.
All the while, I'm still trying to fix my stupid computer, wondering what I'm supposed to tell future generations about how to live in America. Maybe I'll save the old computer to show them one day, just so I can tell them: "This is the embodiment of everything you will do. You will work and then you will die. If you falter off course, you will be forgotten and discarded."
"You will obey the master system. You will be controlled. You are soulless automatons. Your conceptions of free will are illusions. You have no say over your own destiny."
Sometimes it's slight, just you missing the bus and having to walk five miles home. Other times, it's finding out your dog has died or that you didn't hit save when the power cut out in the middle of typing up your English final. It's nice to think about these situations to prepare for them, so you'll know what to do if it happens.
My worst case scenario was having my shiny new computer break down on me. It was the infamous Blue Screen of Death, they call it, indication of the failed processes of an economic giant that has so thoroughly embraced capitalism. It's my firm belief that Microsoft and it's new Windows 7 is just a placeholder for the next product that comes out and soaks up billions of dollars. That next product will become another placeholder, and so on.
The important thing to understand about any company is that with size comes responsibility. Whatever service, whatever product you're trying to sell, is not necessarily purposed to help your customers; it's purposed to help you gain wealth. But I'm not here to speculate on the psychological and sociological reasons for starting a business. I'm here to tell you how such a business can explode into something so helplessly loathed by many.
When a company gets big enough, it hits what I call the "care factor". Basically, at this point, the company is perverted from it's original purpose, regardless of what it was, to serve no other interests but it's own through any means necessary. Most of the time, it just means that they sacrifice quality over quantity to gain the most profit. Other times, it's them buying out competitors and laying off people.
Don't get me wrong; I don't think this happens to every large company that exists, but the evidence is there to prove how products have degraded over time due to this care factor. It affects almost every American sector out there: electronics, food, clothing, etc.
So when I flipped through the motherboard manual for my computer to troubleshoot the problem, it wasn't a surprise to see how Microsoft products would cause such a disaster, since it outsources technical support for "cost", builds crappy and buggy operating systems for "cost", just so that by the time you get around to fixing it, you're already being forced to buy the next product down the line.
It's why I think Apple products are so popular. People are just so fed up with Microsoft, a company that seems to go out of its way to exploit customers by forcing them to buy products that they can't seem to avoid. And that's the cold, hard fact: you can't avoid Microsoft Windows. It constitutes a very large majority of the computer industry, and at least one computer you use in this lifetime will contain Windows. You know it, and Microsoft knows it, so they can use whatever tactics they want to earn money at your expense. It's almost a sick form of control that they know you can't break.
Apple, after they exploded with their fanbase, has also crossed the care factor. They come out with newer products in the same line every single year, setting the stage for consumerism peer pressure. If you don't get the new one, you're not up to date and are part of the old breed. It doesn't matter if you only use this new product for only six months, because by then you'll be holding the next product down the line.
And so, my friends, this is how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Everyone has the insinuation that American capitalism is the best thing in the world. It's fair, orderly, and allows the basic person to live and survive for the effort they put in.
And yet, the income brackets are highly polarized, your background and race quantify where you get hired, and there will always be homeless wandering the streets a few blocks from the city center.
American capitalism is idolized like it's some holy messiah that can't be brought down by anything. Maybe it can't. But most people never consider that other countries have children begging for food while your neighbor complains that the line at Starbucks is too damned long. Not everyone has your type of capitalism.
Can you blame anyone? Maybe not. But the quantified greed that exists makes the entire concept of capitalism a horrid oxymoron. Americans are indoctrinated to ignore this, treading down a preconceived road that has only the illusion of free will. You are born, your are taught, you work, and you die. Nothing more, nothing less. Every once in a while they'll let a select group break out of this path, and even then they only exist to embody the next generation of workers.
If this is the society that we are treading downward, then it is in fact a very bleak future. Americans can hardly believe that money isn't everything. It's what makes a film like Fight Club a cult classic; it's an indication that we believe everything is meaningless and trivial, that we have to hurt ourselves to feel something, anything.
All the while, I'm still trying to fix my stupid computer, wondering what I'm supposed to tell future generations about how to live in America. Maybe I'll save the old computer to show them one day, just so I can tell them: "This is the embodiment of everything you will do. You will work and then you will die. If you falter off course, you will be forgotten and discarded."
"You will obey the master system. You will be controlled. You are soulless automatons. Your conceptions of free will are illusions. You have no say over your own destiny."
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
75) The War Incarnate
The following is my speech in favor of a bill that would reduce military spending in the U.S. budget for my school's mock congress. One minute is not alot of time to preach.
Speech Text – Pro H.R. 278 (Reduce Military Spending)
Dwight D. Eisenhower was a general who helped the United States win World War 2. He was not only renowned for his ability to work with famous leaders such as de Gaulle and Churchill, but also for his ability to see the United States for what it is in relation to the world.
When he left office as the 34th president of the United States, he warned us of the growing U.S. military and the looming threat of the Cold War. He believed that the United States, composed of competent and intelligent individuals, would eventually put a stop to both. We won the Cold War, but we did not stop growing the military.
If we are to be sure of anything, it’s that brute force will not win us wars. It won’t defend us. Having the best funded military in the world did not help America win Vietnam, and it is not helping us win the war in the Middle East now. H.R. 278 not only works to correct wasteful spending, but also helps us understand an important concept: that having the most expensive military is not the best thing in the world. We are wasting taxpayer dollars to buy new planes to replace ones that haven’t even lived for five years. We spend more money on the military than China, France, Russia, the UK, and the next ten countries down combined.
I started with Eisenhower, so I’ll end with a quote from him: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. War solves nothing.”
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