Perfection

Perfection is not acheivable. It is approachable, and by all means should be approached. It should be the ultimate goal for all aspects of life, all endeavors and all dreams. But true perfection is impossible. People sometimes pout at my refusal to accept something as perfect. "The paint job on this Porsche is absolutely flawless!" "Ah," I say, "there is a little nick the front quarter panel." It does make people angry, for some reason. "Yeah, but other than that it looks professional and amazing." That it may, but perfection is far beyond "professional and amazing." I think the refusal to accept anything as completely perfect is generally viewed as pessimistic. "Well if that isn't perfect than what is?" "A paint job without a nick in the front quarter panel might be an improvement." On the contrary, I think it is a rather optimistic philosophy. There is always room for improvement. Why else has the "fastest" gotten continually faster? Why else has the "furthest" gone further? Records are not meant to be broken. The fastest sprinter on Earth wants to keep the title of the fastest sprinter on Earth. But records in sports, in engineering, in science--they are all broken. New ideas, new technology, new approaches to old problems--they advance us. They break records. A true pessimist would ask, "why attempt to achieve something if someone else will eventually do it better?" I answer, "because without reaching your goals, others will not be inspired to reach over your achievements." Achieving perfection is a ridiculous notion. Striving towards it, however, is the greatest thing we can accomplish.

Current Mood: Inquizzitive

Listening To: "Learning to Fly (Live)" by Tom Petty

Happy Birthday Peter

I'm getting three days of vacation this summer, between a 5 credit calculus class and working almost full time. For the first day of my break, I decided to haul up to Rocklin where a friend from college lives. On Sunday night he took me around to the shred spots he knew of in the area (locals are aware that there are many.) One of these spots was a well-known hill where my friend's friend, Peter Ramirez, liked to bomb before he was killed on 20 October, 2008 while riding in Loomis. He's well-known in the longboarding community. Although I never met Peter, I felt obligated to write a little something for him, having successfully bombed one of his favorite runs for the first time. I felt badly for him, his close friends, and his family before when I first heard about the incident, but being there on that hill brought it a little closer to home. It was coincidental that I rode Backside the same weekend as what would have been Peter's eighteenth birthday, a day that should have been cheerful but I'm sure was instead depressing for a lot of people. More than 700 people are on his memorial Facebook page, and seeing how well-loved he was, I found myself pretty depressed after shredding his spot (following the initial stoke of course,) and I still am.

Although two years younger, he was at age 16 far better than I am now at 20. Peter wasn't just another skater. A long explanation: longboarding has been around for decades, with a number of shredders cast into legends, it has really only recently become wildly popular. With more awareness come improvements to the sport. Technology is influenced by a number of different factors, I can (as a racecar engineer, aerospace engineer, and history nerd) refer to two major catalysts for change in a number of different industries (longboarding included.) Those are: war and racing. War is clearly not an influence on longboard design. Racing, however, is. Slalom racing, DH racing, and I'm sure a few other racing genres have pushed the sport to what it is today. New ideas, competitive design, refinement in tech--all from racing. Peter was a racer, which is one of the reasons I respect him. These kids (and many of them are kids,) are evolving gravity sports. Look at what we had ten years ago in terms of deck materials and design, flex options, truck geometry, urethane development--compared to today. I guess it's like anything else; back in 2001 my iBook had a 9 gig hard drive in it. But in this sport, it's the racers like Peter who are responsible for the advancements in design. Peter wasn't a fucking dumbass skaterboy wannabe rebel who spray painted stop signs and tormented neighborhood cats. He contributed to the community and to interest in the sport. I know of at least several people who have started boarding specifically because he wanted to share his love of riding. He seemed to have a bright future in front of him as well.

Now, I will never fully commit to the belief that there is an afterlife. I sincerely hope there is though--if not for me, if not for folks who have lived long, fulfilled lives--for kids like Peter who are killed doing what makes them happy. I was walking around Squaw Valley today, I was reminded of a quote from C.R. Johnson, who was killed there last February when he fell onto some rocks while skiing. After recovering from a near-fatal brain injury the previous year that had him in a coma for days and required a lengthy recovery, he said "the joy I get from skiing--that's worth dying for." And some might call him crazy, but I fully agree. There's a lot of pain in this life, a lot of suffering, a lot of stress, a lot of negative vibes. Kids like Peter, like C.R., like myself, like you--we turn to extreme sports to escape that. The folks who say we're nuts, that it isn't worth the risk, that we're going to kill ourselves--they don't understand. Like a belief, like an emotion, like love--it's something we can't explain. It drives us. They all say "live life to the fullest," but those are words. We aren't fueled by words. We are fueled by true, unadulterated emotion, by speed, by hangtime, by wind in our faces and the world at our backs. Words spoken or written without feeling carry no weight. Hollow words. Even if a quote made you question your very existence, it would be an empty thought unless the writer first questioned theirs. But we don't have that problem because many of us live more in one still-frame than a lot of people do in a lifetime. They can question the danger we intentionally expose ourselves to, but we know what we're in for. We pass the red backcountry signs cheerfully reminding us "YOU CAN DIE." We know there may be cars down the road when we strap on our pads and bomb. That is the only baggage we carry with us when we shred. It's at the back of our minds, but when we're up there, we have to let it go.

Every so often one of us is killed not by what we run from, not some malevolent force, but by what we run to, by the thing that keeps us happy. We walk a fine line. We walk a tightrope. Sometimes it is a misstep, sometimes a lack of concentration, sometimes an external, uncontrollable gust of wind that knocks us off. Is it by design? I don't know. But all we can do is hang our heads and lay the flowers at the foot of another friend gone. Gone somewhere else, somewhere better, somewhere worse, some heaven or hell, some wishing well, somewhere the grass is green and the skies are a crisp, clear blue, where the powder is deep, the roads are freshly paved--somewhere we can shred, bomb, huck, and rip till the eternal snow melts, till the road gets torn to shit, till the system caves in, till the end of fucking time. We hope. But we don't know; they're gone.

I can't find solace in that "Peter died doing what he loved." What I can squeeze a little bit of comfort from, though, is the fact that he loved boarding like I love boarding, and the joy he got from it was powerful enough for everything to be alright when he was screaming down a hill somewhere. Even though I never met the kid, don't know his story, don't know much about his life--I still know how he would have answered one question: "Would you change anything if you could?" the same question C.R. Johnson was asked. I can smile because like the rest of us hotdogging, badass motherfuckers, he would say he'd do it all over again. You see, while a lot of stunts pulled by the likes of pro riders appear to be showy calls for attention, they generally aren't. Aside from the occasional asshat showboat, we do it for ourselves--everyone else can watch if they want. The ultra-high, ultra-fast, lightening storm of stoke emitted by shredding is what makes us feel alive. And "there is no point in living if you cannot feel alive."

I don't think I mentioned earlier that while I was standing at the top of Backside, with no one but my friend around and in a pervasive, dead silence, a large jackrabbit jumped out of the bushes into the street. It stopped for a minute and looked straight at me, and then turned around and went not left or right into the bushes to hide, but straight down backside in the middle of the street. All the way down. I don't know if that rabbit has any significance, but I'd like to think it does. I never knew you Peter, but I miss you buddy. Happy 18th Birthday.

Current Mood: Depressed

Listening To: "Miss You" by Blink 182

Twenty

Today is my twentieth birthday. This is the point when I begin to count my age in decades. Twenty is not old, but it is 22% of the way to 90, an average lifetime in my genealogy. Of course, a lot of people don't make it to twenty. I know of a few people who were not able to see their twentieth birthday. They were either taken from this world unnaturally early via disease or accident, or took themselves. I have lived longer than they were able to. Given my aggressively empirical philosophy of life, high-adrenaline, high-speed, and (calculatedly) higher-risk choice of sports and hobbies, I have to be thankful for the intact body and mind I still hold. I am certainly fortunate. Maybe it is luck that allows some of us to live and leaves others to die. Or maybe choice of actions and decisions. Or fate. Destiny. Who knows. All I know is that I am twenty years old, and through any combination of the above, I am very much still alive.

Yesterday (really just a few hours ago,) I attended the graduation ceremony for the class of 2010 at Amador. I know quite a few kids who are graduating, namely siblings of my friends, so it was nice to see them experience the grand closing of their high school years. But I set them aside for awhile as I sat there in the AVHS bleachers and watched graduation unfold, this time as a spectator instead of a participant. "It seems like it was just yesterday" is a phrase that is revoltingly cliché, but I still have to use it. It seems like it was just yesterday that I was sitting down there on that field. The tent was in the same place, the stage, the perfectly aligned white folding chairs. The sun went down at the same angle in the sky (although this time it wasn't reddened by giant clouds of ash.) The six hundred some-odd purple-cloaked figures entered the field in nearly the same formation, past the same black-robed teachers. It was like experiencing our graduation over again in third-person.

I wasn't really thinking about where these new graduates will go in life. After all, they will have plenty of time to think that through individually. I did congratulate them before and after the ceremony, and bid them good luck on the new stretch of open road before them. During the ceremony, though, I was lost in the moment all over again. Lost in the sea of purple. I remembered quite clearly where I sat on June 13th of 2008. I remembered what I saw, what I felt, and what I thought about my future. That was point A. I am now at point B. I was Link. I placed the Master Sword back in the stone. The two elapsed years of my college education were not relevant, not individual events anyway. They became a blur. It was only myself, and myself on graduation day, in row 5, seat six, at 19:48.

As always, things have not turned out quite as I expected. Some things are better than I had anticipated, some much worse, and some depressingly or in some cases thankfully unchanged. I wish I could talk to young Link. It would certainly be an interesting conversation. People sometimes ask the question "if you could go back in time and talk to one person, who would it be?" I often surprise them by answering "myself." I think the two of us would agree that where I am now is largely satisfactory.

And twenty is a good age. I don't really have anything life-threatening to worry about. Most people don't begin to show any serious concern for their age and rethinking their philosophy and goals until their forties and fifties. I think I'm an anomaly in the sense that I seem to be in a perpetual state of mid-life crisis: always questioning, pondering what I have done and should do next. It's not really a bad thing--I am not depressed nor do I regret any of my decisions or actions. I simply have an active mind. And with that inquisitiveness, I think I will hold fast to the goals I have previously set for myself--my plan seems to be working. At age twenty, I would like to continue to learn--learn on all fronts, academically, kinesthetically, logically, artistically--to apply myself in my work, and to have fun incessantly.

Here I am. 02:27 on my twentieth birthday, alone, drinking a Kiwi-Strawberry Hansen's soda and listening to Tom Petty. At first I thought I'd rather be doing something more interesting on this milestone. Maybe at a party with friends. Maybe doing something adrenaline-packed like I usually do. Maybe out under the stars. Maybe with a girlfriend. But after looking back on graduation, and the goals I set for myself then, this is just fine. There's nowhere else I'd rather be.

Happy Birthday, to me.

Current Mood: Satisfied

Listening To: "A Face In The Crown" by Tom Petty

African-American

I annoy a lot of people because I am often very frank about things that I don't like. I don't like a lot of things, many of them trivial to most people--maybe I am too picky or obsessive. But my dislikes are rational--I can prove their merit. I don't just dislike something for the sake of disliking it (except for subjective things like aversions to certain tastes--I hate spicy food--or artistic styles, which I try to clearly label as baseless personal preference.) An example:

I don't like the term "African-American." Much in the same way I don't like the term "Asian-American," or "European-American," and so on. These are terms that are generally regarded as "politically correct," which in itself is a principle that I think is downright ridiculous. I choose "African-American" specifically because it is a term that is used heavily in the United States, by politicians, teachers, students, and just about everyone--in fact, you can major in African-American Studies to get a Bachelor of the Arts. But I don't like the word one bit. Not because I don't like "African-Americans," but because when you really analyze the word (or phrase or whatever it is,) it doesn't make any sense. Firstly, the vast majority of "African-Americans" are not African. Sure, their ancestry may be African (or in many cases partially African or "mulatto" to use an archaic and unfriendly term,) but I have a heavy German ancestry and nobody calls me "German-American" or the more general "European-American." They assume that I have European ancestry, because I'm white. They see a man who is obviously of Asian descent, but do not need to call him "Asian-American" because it is stupidly blatant. Why is this obvious fact not assumed for black people--that they have some black African ancestry (which may not even be the majority of their phenotype?) "African-American" is unnecessarily and falsely used.

The second reason I take issue with "African-American" as it is used by society is that it is a label. Certainly in studying black history in America it would be necessary to consider aspects of developing black American culture to have African roots or nuances (even some modern cultural aspects have African influence.) But now, for those whose families have been in the United States for generations, sometimes for untraceable lengths of time--the label isn't really that correct. They are American. They are black, but completely American regardless. "American" itself denotes the presence of blended culture--there is no "original" American culture that blended with an "original" African culture to create a third, clearly defined culture. "American" is one term to define many cultures--like how "trees" is the umbrella term to a huge number of species and cross-breeds. Aside from those who have recently moved to the U.S. from Africa, (who would probably be called "African" rather than "African-American" anyway,) black people in this country are simply American.

One final reason I don't like "African-American" is that it is seven syllables long, and it takes longer to say than "black." For the record, I don't even like the use of the terms "white" and "black" because they categorize. From the age that I first discovered the term "black," I wondered why on Earth anyone would say that because "black" people aren't black, they're more brown; brown is also a softer word that doesn't sound as abrupt and oppressive. Also, where is the line between "black" and "white?" I say it's too much of a continuum for it to be fair to make it a solid categorization. No, I don't like labels at all, but for the sake of description we have to use them. In a true egalitarian society, which may be possible but will take centuries to achieve, the terms "black" and white" wouldn't need to be used much. People are people.

Current Mood: N/A

Listening To: N/A

No Change

I was walking across the street to get to Diridon Station in downtown San Jose. A black guy approached me when I got to the corner and said something that I couldn't quite make out. Now, on the way to the station I had already been approached by three homeless men (two of whom were black and yes, this is relevant) who had asked if I had any spare change on me. I didn't, nor did I have any cash. Continuing--I assumed that this fourth guy was also requesting change, given that we were in a somewhat seedy area and he appeared to be waiting on the corner for an opportunity to ask someone. I said, "Sorry man but I don't have any change on me--I'd give you some if I..." and then he cut me off. "No no no!" he quickly said, "I'm not asking for change dude, I come in peace. I thought you were my friend Scott, you look just like him." I found this hard to believe at first because I was wearing bright red pants and a neon T-shirt, not your average combination. It occurred to me at that moment though that he was wearing a nice polo shirt, more expensive than the one I had on, and the hobo-looking backpack he had slung over his shoulder was a "distressed" pattern with the Oakley logo on it. I apologized profusely for assuming he wanted change and talked to him for a few minutes before bidding him good day and finishing my walk to the train station.

I realized as soon as I walked away that I had probably assumed he wanted change because he looked similar to others who have approached me for the same reason--specifically because he was black. I did not consciously think "this guy is black, he must want money," because that would be what society refers to as "racist." Bur unconscious racism is not better--that is something that social evolution has produced. This is what society has done. Exclusivity is the enemy--BET, the not-so-suble white, blonde-haired blue-eyed Fox news crew--exclusivity on either side is anti-progressive. It establishes clear separations, unconsciously as well as overtly. It is disgusting.

In death there is no race. There is no separation of ethnicity, nor sexuality, nor religious ideas, nor even separation of genus and species. Why do we force such constraints and separations upon ourselves in life?



Current Mood: Embarrassed
Listening To: N/A

Processed Nature

Nature is all around us. We can immerse ourselves in nature in city parks as well as national parks. The difference is that the nature in cities is processed. It is a pet nature, a wolf of the wild tamed to the equivalent of the tamed dogs we take for walks in this domesticated nature. It is still real, and beautiful, as nature is, but it is at least partially processed. It is set up, designed for our desires to experience nature while retaining our industrialized ways. Much in the manner that canned cheese spray is cheese, but isn't really cheese. The manufactured feel is perceivable. Perhaps it is something to lament, the detachment from a true, wild nature. But perhaps our desire to hold on to nature in the form of parks and twiggy trees stuck in parking lots offers at least a little hope that we aren't completely disillusioned.

Current Mood: Inquizzitive

Listening To: "Kathy's Song" by Eva Cassidy

So Little Time

We may diversify our life experience portfolios but really we only follow one path. Some change careers, but only once or twice. We only have so much time. They say you can do anything, but you cannot do everything. That is the disclaimer to the encouragement. I want to win the Superbowl as a quarterback. I want to drive through the finish as a winner at Le Mans. I want to be a rock and roll star. So many things I can never be, so many things I can never do. These things take a lifetime of effort and focus, entities that are as finite as our time in this world. There are so many parts of history that I wish I could have been a part of. Things that have happened that I would want to have witnessed. You are in one place at one time. No more.

Current Mood: Calm

Listening To: "Off I Go" by Greg Laswell

Stitches

Engineering weaves ideas and technologies into the fabric of society, first intriguing the world with the sharp needle of novelty and ingenuity, and then slowly altering the very stitches of history in a continually evolving process. Encounters with such technologies that were at a time "once in a lifetime" occurrences become mingled with common practice and daily life. A ride in an automobile, once an exhilarating experience, becomes as desensitized and simple as walking down the block. Picking up a device loaded with an entire music library eclipses the drop of a needle to the vinyl. A trip to the moon, perhaps, like a run to the grocery store for some bread and milk. The small individual stitches of engineering flow into the ever growing seam of life.

Current Mood: Tired

Listening To: "A Man Needs a Maid/Heart of Gold Suite" by Neil Young

Why We're Angry

“Where did the money go?” one sign inquired at the “March forth on March 4th” student rally at San Jose State. That question has certainly crossed my mind in my two years at SJSU. It is a legitimate question—money shouldn’t just disappear. But in the black hole of government, it does. Due to the urgency of the condition of California’s education system, the question should not be “where did the money go?” but “where is it going?” The mission of affordable government-funded education for students striving for baccalaureate graduation is in peril. Action must be swift and precise to save CSU and UC (though neither “swift” nor “precise” are terms the government is familiar with.) Students and faculty alike are angry at the system. The two main concerns are the imbalance in educational supply and demand due to funding cuts, and the inability to get into needed classes.

One speaker at the SJSU rally noted that, “you’ve got to spend money to make money.” Herein lies the first issue with the system: there is no money in the government to make money with. Slurping the mud from the bottom of a dry reservoir is not particularly satisfying. But people find it easier to order funding from the government without expecting consequences rather than emptying their own pockets. On the surface it seems to be simple and painless. But government funding is tainted—the effects ripple through the system until they reappear in the form of higher taxes. Regardless, Governor Schwarzenegger recently approved of a 305 million dollar increase in the CSU budget for next year (Briscoe). It is doubtful, though, that this will counter the 1 billion in cuts from the last two years that are affecting the students now—mathematically speaking it won’t. And this has only added to the frustration of students who want money from the government and continually try to squeeze the blood out of a turnip. However, that 305 million may pave the way for future increases in government funding, and many students are hopeful that this will be the case.

The second issue is the students’ inability to graduate on time due to class cuts. The number of classes and professors cut from the system must be directly and rigidly proportional to the number of students excluded. The result of a discrepancy in that proportion is a situation where students in the system cannot enter the classes they need to graduate on time. This creates a bottleneck as in the current quagmire. Approximately 40,100 CSU students were barred from the system this year due to the tightening of entrance criteria in 2009, nearly an 11 percent annual drop. However, 2610 CSU faculty members were also lost, which is almost 17 percent (Grey). Those numbers do not coincide, and the student body has suffered tremendously because of this. With the interest of our future in mind, it is preferable that all students have access to higher education. Since this is no longer realistically possible without massive increases in state or student cost, student body cuts are inevitable—but should be done with surgical precision to prevent even more problems.

There is a slough of possible actions that would help ease the situation if they weren’t behind a political brick wall. For example, cutting the pay of the management staff in proportion to the active faculty’s pay cuts. As of 2004, the president of each campus made 200-350k annually not including a 9k auto stipend, housing bonuses, etc (James). Those numbers have steadily increased in the last four years. Ten to twenty percent of the entire budget of each CSU (consequently the entire system) goes towards paying the salaries of the lucky few (James). But they were caught by the safety net long ago, while the students and professors still fall towards firings, class unavailability, and more anger and frustration. Without a proper overhaul, the California higher education system will suffer more heavily from the symptoms already present. Those include: graduation bottlenecking and subsequent bottlenecking in transfers from community colleges and high schools, more budget balancing fiascos, and the “rob[bery] of the entire world of an educated populus.” It is an unfortunate consequence of a macroeconomic downturn and an imbalance in the supply of and demand for education. An overhaul of the entire system is necessary, but throwing more money at it seems to be the only temporary fix. “This is bullshit,” read one sign at the SJSU rally. Welcome to California.

Barnes, James. "Six-Figure Salaries Common in CSU." The Spartan Daily. N.p., 20 Apr 2004. Web. 16 Mar 2010. (Link).

Briscoe, Erin. "Local Students Rally To Save Higher Education."Southwest Bakersfield News. N.p., 5 Mar 2010. Web. 16 Mar 2010. (Link).

Grey, Marge. "The Impact of the California State University" The California State University: Working For California. N.p., 26 Nov, 2008. Web. 16 Mar 2010. (Link).

Current Mood: Productive

Listening To: "If You're Going To San Francisco" by Scott McKenzie

God Bless La-Z-Boys

“We’ve become a country that sits down…and listens to people shouting about freedom, but now people equate freedom not with the acquisition of knowledge but with comfort,” congressman Wayne Gilchrest said. “The whole concept of freedom has become the idea of comfort, with a complete lack of responsibility. In today’s America of leather seated cars and political blogs, sometimes it seems like he is right. Americans have sacrificed true freedom for manufactured freedom and comfortable ignorance. Two factors among others have accelerated and solidified this sacrifice: Americans’ attachment to physical comfort and the tube feeding of politics by the media.

The liberation provided by the consumerism imminent in American life is an illusion. Not in the sense that it does not exist—the products that we as Americans have invented and manufactured have “liberated” us in the sense that our horizons have expanded. We can get on an airplane and fly to a remote island. But once we arrive, we find ourselves still immersed in the comforts of consumerism, and on lands controlled by the limiting influence of the same government. And everything from industrially grown beef to mass-produced cars flows through the umbilical cord of comfort that is never severed during our modern lives. People can venture into the wilderness in futile attempt to shun the influence of consumerism, but it always remains attached. A backcountry skier might imagine himself removed from society—he is after all on top of a secluded mountain where few dare to roam. But consumer products are literally bound to his feet and protect him from the elements of nature. Consumer thoughts run through his head—maybe he wants to get wider boards to surf the powder with, or a flashier jacket, or warmer gloves. Consumer blood runs through his veins. In the rare case that that lifeline to consumerism is cut, the results are not pleasant. In 1992 a young man by the name of Chris McCandless left the comfort and the “freedom” offered in his suburban home and ventured into the Alaskan wilderness for “true freedom.” Within several weeks he had died from starvation, because of the lack of the comfortable lifestyle he was bound to. He was reckless, but the cause of his death was not entirely his fault. The complete responsibility he had for his own life was simply too abrupt a change from the society he was raised in. The idea that consumerism contributes to our freedom—that is the illusion. It minimizes our responsibility for ourselves, and our freedom is minimized with it.

A second factor that contributes to America’s detachment from responsibility is the influence of the media. Widespread access to the opinions of the news media has changed politics from a serious matter into a hobby. Americans love drama, to “stand up for their causes” and openly debate their “freedoms” and “rights,” and where “the real America” is. At times in American history, people have had to work for their freedom, and in some cases—the Revolution and Second World War for example—they have had to fight for it. While traces of struggle still exist in a country that continues to strive for perfection, they tend to be over hyped and under funded, thanks in no small part to the extremist political griping from Fox and MSNBC. The soapbox speeches, sign waving, little ribbons and slogans feel empowering, but at the end of the day, it is no more than a game. It is entertainment—entertainment for more American comfort. And with the click of a button, Americans can detach from the action, rest from the battle, and enjoy all of the comfort with none of the responsibility. They do not crawl through dust in a foreign land; gun in hand, fearing for their lives. They sit in a La-Z-Boy and take pleasure in a little afternoon taste of a little media Kool-Aid.

It seems cynical to think about America as a “fake” country, a country made of plastic and processed cheese. After all, we Americans love to think of ourselves as hardworking, as responsible citizens of the world who are free because of our own sweat and blood. But this is the modern world of the “flat-screen TV, the gas-guzzling car, the goods made in China,” like congressman Gilchrest said. And we often forget that it is the often sweat and blood of others that buoys our lifestyle, while we float freely and lazily on a pool raft made of cheap foreign rubber.

Current Mood: Productive

Listening To: "Corporate America" by Boston

Ambition

When you ask a child what he wants to do when he grows up, he will likely respond with great ambition. He might want to be president. Maybe he wants to be a football player in the superbowl. A firefighter. A superhero. Maybe he wants to walk on the moon.

Society robs children. It robs them of ideas, of belief, of truth. Worst of all, it robs them of ambition. Institutionalized education, parental explanation, focus on reasonable future occupations--they dull the sharp edges of childhood dreams. Grinding and grinding, until the knife of aspiration is nothing more than a blunt stick. They learn practical knowledge, but also adopt practical dreams and practical desires. Who are we to define practicality?

The ones who cling tightly to that ambition, that innocent fascination with lofty goals...the ones who contain the fierce desires to achieve, to become, to fly; those are the survivors. They are survivors of relentless although unintentional antagonization, of being told what is "reasonable" and what is out of reach.

When you ask an adult what he wants to do when he grows up, he will likely respond with confusion. Unless of course he is one of those few. Then he may say he would like to be president. A superhero. Maybe he would like to walk on the moon.

Current Mood: Placid

Listening To: "Impend" by Matin O'Donnell

Spirit

As far as the physical universe is concerned, nothing ever disappears--it simply changes form. Ice and snow melt to water, wood and paper burn to ash. This is not difficult to understand. The centuries of human wonder and natural study have produced the comprehension that is contemporarily called "scientific law." This clearly explains the chemical and physical changes and reactions such as melting and burning. It explains the "how." But as solid as this understanding may be, it has a very clear limit. Like an egg hitting the ground, the laws of science are shattered upon reaching this barrier. Beyond the barrier is the spirit, the meaning, the "why."

Death is so instant. Sometimes of course it comes as a process, as a slowly-advancing disease. Sometimes it comes as an oncoming train. But regardless of form, there is that instant transition between existence and nonexistence. It is not tangible. It is not comprehensible. It is not like paper burning into ash. It is not like rain freezing into sleet. There is no change of form. Life simply vanishes. Gone.

Of course death cannot be understood if life is not. It is hierarchical. So what is life? What are feelings? What is emotion? What are memories? The biopsychologist would argue that these have also been explained by scientific law; that all are the result of electric and chemical reactions within the human body. Life could be explained this way, and that death is simply a cessation of those reactions and electrical activity.

Religion obviously fails to explain any of this. With that maimed beast of attempted understanding out of the way, there are only two possibilities left. One, that science and atheism are correct, and that death is final, that once our eyes close for the last time in this world, we disappear, permanently. The second is more complicated, and it involves the concept of the spirit, a nonphysical existence. It is possible that the spirit is something that exists in this world and is tied to the physical body of any living person, perhaps any living thing. It is also possible that the physical and spiritual beings are two separate entities, in two separate places--that the connection is remote, that one may continue although the other may not.

The sole reason I refuse to submit to the religion of atheism is rather ironic. It is not scientific enough. Death has not been empirically tested. It can't be. Because of this, atheism assumes death to be final, which violates the core principals of atheism that scoff at making assumptions. And therein lies the small flaw, the fatal flaw of every other religion created by man: hypocriticism. In the clearest, brightest, most empirical glass tower of religion on Earth, that one, poorly welded seam at its base will crack. It, like all other human creations, both physical and "spiritual," comes crashing to the ground, overtaken by the omniscience of nature.

That, then, leaves the second option. The complexity of this is staggering. What, for example, has a spirit, and what doesn't? Persons? Nonpersons? What about people with alzheimers' and other mental disorders? Are their spirits damaged? Do plants have spirits? Is life in general a collective spirit? The number of questions branching from such a suggestion almost render it too ridiculous to even consider.

It is possible that life just ends. In all likelihood there is a third option, that lies not only beyond scientific law but also beyond the capabilities of the human mind to comprehend. The fact that life is precious, that there is an unknown that is alien and terrifying--has meaning. As far as we can tell, nature is perfect. It is organized, it is methodical...the existence of anything and everything is proof of this. Matter cannot be created nor destroyed. If life and is within this realm of perfection, it cannot be created nor destroyed either. There is something we have yet to find.

Current Mood: Placid

Listening To: "High Charity" by Martin O'Donnell

First Hucks

First Hucks from Kevin Krakauer on Vimeo.