Bitter Ramblings from a Crumbled Mind...
What follows is simply a collection of random thoughts I've scribbled down or pondered over during the past 10 months or so. Hopefully you find at least something mildly stimulating or interesting.
Even when praise and insults are obviously unfounded they still feel respectively uplifting and dispiriting, just to a lesser extent
I find that both fascinating and annoying
Risk taking made easy: Would I regret action more than I'd regret inaction?
"He did not pass such thoughts without severe condemnation of himself. He dinned reproaches at times. He was convicted by himself of many shameful crimes against the gods of tradition."-The Red Badge of Courage p. 15 An awesome quote from the master of metaphors, Stephen Crane. The meaning though, to me, is troubling. It discusses the internal conflict and condemnation of Henry, the main character, to himself for not wanting to fight in the Civil War. He feels as if he's a traitor for not wanting to fight. What I find troubling is the fact that somehow it ever became a rite of passage or a fashionable thing to kill people. It was a somehow succesful attempt to shield soldiers from thinking about exactly what they're doing. How could you take away everything that a person has lived and worked for all of their lives, without warning, in an instant, how could you kill them? Conceivably only by not letting yourself think about that.
The most difficult things to do aren't the ones a person should do; that's bogus. Going on a killing spree would probably be one of the most difficult things for me to bring myself to do; does that mean I should do it?
Is Mr. Dee the reincarnation of Will Forte's Tim Calhoun? http://members.aol.com/ummmliz/home/calhoun.html
It seems we're all living in a time only part way through the story. The human race is an a trial and error experiment; we slowly but surely are getting continuously closer to perfection. Since the beginning, humans have been steadily improving cultural toleration (i.e. slavery>race riots>racial tension (today)>acceptance) and relations and quality of life (any popular invention). That will be the "happily ever after" ending of the story. Everything after that's irrelevant because perfection isn't interesting.
Pet Peeve: We're a part of nature, a product of it, so shouldn't everything we do be considered natural or the workings of mother nature? Things considered artificial are just instances where nature is manipulated to create something, generally by humans, but humans are created by nature, so shouldn't all of our creations subsequently be considered natural. Call it man made? Fine, it is, but it's also natural, it occurs in nature because we're natural. If a beaver builds a dam, is that artificial because the beaver created it and not nature itself? It's just sort of second-level natural. Sorry, this really probably wasn't worth reading; to be honest it isn't even a pet peeve of mine, I just started thinking about it one day and found it interesting.
Being numbed: The reason society shouldn't tolerate many of the things it does. It prevents us from recognizing the true severity of a problem when it arises.
Society also seems to cater far too much to the lazy, the weak-spirited, the gluttons.
Religion is neither for the impatient or the lazy.
Politics seems to be the religion for the faithless man.
When parents teach their kids 'it doesn't matter who started the fight' is that really true? Someone had to spark the scuffle with a show of hostility, often the other person is just retaliating. They're both at fault, but one more so than the other.
Sad fact of life: While on earth, a person can't do everything they want to do. Though it sounds good, this probably isn't a lesson that should be taught so readily to youth. No matter how efficient they may be, there simply isn't enough time for a person to satiate every curiosity they posess, experience everything they want to experience; the capabilities of the mind are infinite compared to those of the body. That's the problem with dreaming big-disappointment.
On a tangential note: Missed Opportunities Blow
It's often said that if people are apparently mean, judegmental, etc. one shouldn't try and impress them or be accepted by them because 'they're not worth being friends with anyway' or 'anyone who does that isn't your true friend'. It seems to me a more important lesson is teaching youths that a person needs to be able to take a joke, or more importantly, to take criticsim and learn from it. If a person thinks they could have more fun hanging out with someone who they have to work a little to be accepted by, they could form a friendship that helps them build the aformentioned qualities while having a good time. Everything is relative; as long as working for a friendship doens't mean selling your real or proverbial soul, throwing away your values and personality, or undergoing some sort of hazing, isn't it better to have a friendship like that rather than playing patty-cake with the class over-achiever and feeling belittled? Besides, you'll likely rub some of your good qualities off on someone who needs them the other way too. This initial lesson is borderline contradictory as well. Everyone adapts themselves to fit into societal standards to some extent-you can't run naked around the city even if being naked is something that makes you you. Working to fit in to a clique is essentially just the same thing to a slightly higher degree.
Just sayin'
posted by DJDangerRanger @ 2:58 AM
10 Comments:
The part about manking moving towards perfection made me remember that I was going to write a post the history of man being like a sin curve that is decreasing in period and height, but I realized that coming up with that theory made me a complete nerd. The main point is that it creates mankind that makes extremely slow changes in the beginning of time, and as time goes on the changes become more rapid and less important. Instead of man inventing agriculture and completely changing his lifestyle from then on man invents computers and changes his life but with less profound impact. Which also allows for my practical brain to be content with the fact that man will never be perfect or reach an end destination, but merely become more and more specific in his grumbles and problems. Long comment but I just thought I would throw that little theorem of mine out there to be pondered.
Maybe this makes me a nerd for saying so too, but that actually sounds quite cool/intriguing. Probably more accurate than mine as well.
You guys are way smarter than I'll ever be.
Good job.
In response to comatose coruscation: In the beginning was man in actuality slow at making changes, or were his changes just as numerous as they are today? You and modern society have deemed these people’s changes slow because many lost [inventions/ideas] are no longer relevant in our society and culture today. Due to the fact they are no longer relevant many such changes are in fact unimportant, and we only remember the few which makes it seem as if very little was going on during that time.
Also, who decides if a change is important? Changes [inventions] are different for each individual. For example the creation of sign language is the invention of a lifetime to a deaf person however, to a person who is capable of hearing this invention is incredibly insignificant.
Another thing that tends to happen with time is that it tends to exaggerate the importance of the past. Not to say that the past isn't important... this is just more of a suggestion that the past was just as cluttered with new thoughts/ideas as the present and they don't begin to stand out as having "profound impact" until time passes.
Lastly, in response/partial agreement to: "Which also allows for my practical brain to be content with the fact that man will never be perfect or reach an end destination, but merely become more and more specific in his grumbles and problems."
Man is not "reaching" or even [trying] to move forward or reach an end destination. The grumbles and problems created by change are just as specific as they have ever been. Man needs these problems that accompany change, for they bring man excitement and put him in a constant state of motion and activity.
Man is neither moving forward or backward, he is simply living. Each day brings him new feelings and problems. Each day brings new ideas and inventions created for the purpose of sustenance or entertainment. It’s this erraticism and unpredictability of man’s individual creativity that allows man to achieve peaks of enjoyment and satisfaction. So I agree, there is no end, perfection, or metaphorical ladder for mankind to climb. However, I disagree that these problems resulting in the various changes have grown more specific. Instead I believe a lot of the problems/feelings that were byproducts of change can be seen across time and are no more specific than they were for early man. Yes, our inventions have grown more complicated, and when broken the pieces to each device are often more intricate, but the emotions felt by the individual while using or trying to fix such products remains the same.
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Okay... as if I havn't responded enough to this post already... I just wanted to post one more thing. I suppose my big long thoughts are something I should be posting on my blog, right? Yea... I've written like 4 or 5 things since my last post about chunky monkey... and each time I end up deleting them off my computer before posting them... Anyways in response to:
"Sad fact of life: While on earth, a person can't do everything they want to do. Though it sounds good, this probably isn't a lesson that should be taught so readily to youth. No matter how efficient they may be, there simply isn't enough time for a person to satiate every curiosity they posess, experience everything they want to experience; the capabilities of the mind are infinite compared to those of the body. That's the problem with dreaming big-disappointment."
For me, my dreams go both ways. Yes, I have big dreams which include life goals, but what about the the unexpected. The unexpected is impossible to dream about due to the fact that I never knew it existed or was possible. It's the things that the chaotic and unpredictable universe throws at me almost every day that more than make up for the fact that I cannot do everything I want to do. In fact in many cases I feel I often don't know what I want to do until the universe throws a new and exciting variable into my life.
Foolish Fellow, in regards to your first comment, to me, (and this is just my guess at what Comatose means), an important change would be defined by its overall impact on humanity as a whole. It would almost have to be something that affected the lives of everyone and not just a certain demographic (such as the hard of hearing in your example). The information age and everything that has come with it affects everyone. Even if someone doesn’t have internet access, it has still changed the world as a whole and thus impacted their lives.
I also feel the need to stress another point contested by foolish fellow in his first post when it is said that “Man is not "reaching" or even [trying] to move forward or reach an end destination” I have to say I whole heartedly disagree. Mankind is constantly striving for ‘progress’ which means that they are striving for a progression down some path, and every path has a destination. They are not simply living their lives, they are trying to improve the world. I can’t say whether a state of ‘perfection’ will be reached, but it certainly seems like that’s the inevitable end of the path that man struggles along. I do agree that in a state of perfection, a lack of problems would also produce a lack of enjoyment; with nothing to be sad about, how can people truly know joy? It just seems however, that our walk down this path, the progress we’ve made, has been continually improving. It seems that systems of government have been improving in terms of the quality of life they provide for their subordinates, international relations have been overall (slowly) improving, inventions have been making peoples’ lives easier, etc. etc. And that if this pattern continues, the logical end would be civilization’s destination, perfection, or something like it.
In response to your second rebuttal, the point still remains though, that not everything a person wants to do can be accomplished. I envy you if this fact becomes irrelevant with the presence of unexpected events. There are so many different things I want to experience, and try my hand at, and achieve, but the vast majority I'll never get to, and that blow is hardly softened for me by the occurences of something pleasantly unexpected. A lot of times such occurences even can make it worse as they just add to my stockpile of overwhelming desires. By the way, I'm really enjoying the conversation that this entry is stirring up, this is an enjoyable conversation.
All these responses are making me sick. You guys need to break up your paragraphs more or just not talk so much. My head hurts from letters. Jeez. Shame on you for having so much to say.
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