y o u c o u l d f e e l t h e s k y

Moral Ambiguity

noreply@blogger.com (Nerd Chronicle) — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 08:48:00 +0000

I don't really work at being progressive, or open-minded. It just happens. To me all parts of life are so uncertain. What is truth, friendship, life, death, happiness? It's all up in the air.

I'm not sure how people don't see the moral ambiguities of daily life. There are so many shades in situations, conversations, opinions and most are dependant on point of view.

I think too much. I admit that. People literally make decisions every second and don't seem to wonder about the consequences, or realities, or the need to ponder different angles. Truth is just truth to them. They just don't think about how it's not true to someone else. That blows my mind.

Of course, there is much to be said about paralyzing yourself with thoughts and not actually acting. I follow my own course in life, make my own rules. Some echo societies rules and some do not at all. I can only exist by doing what feels right, as long as it doesn't hurt others. Even then sometimes, what feels right hurts someone else because they are overly sensitive about something or their expectation is higher than it should be, or any other numerous reasons. If you are happy, and not hurting others (in a reasonable way) then what is the problem? Yet, lots of times it is a problem. I should have taken that second helping, or said thank you again later in the day, or i should have helped more for a friend, even though it would be at the cost of my creativity. I should have given more at work, or less of my opinions to others.

Does anyone else feel like they are stage center in some sort of crazy meaningless circus act?

Seriousness, Reincarnation, and Who I Won't Worship

noreply@blogger.com (Nerd Chronicle) — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 08:29:00 +0000

It's hard to decide whether life is this serious thing that must be excelled at, perfected, or whether it's a quest to learn, discover and have fun. It's not really a decision I suppose, but more a gut reaction. Sometimes it feels like it's all about the seriousness, and sometimes that idea makes me shake my head and get upset with myself (which in itself is taking life too seriously).

Sometimes it seems like this can't be all there is. For some reason in my mind, I feel like it's impossible that we are forced to live life in the constraints we are given, experiencing life as a girl, as a boy, straight, gay, black, brown, white, tall, picked on, short, happy disposition, sad, or carrying the weight of the world.

My brain totally understands the idea of reincarnation: to approach life scientifically, or to explore and understand something depends a lot on point of view. Truth depends on point of view. So there is an inherent need to come back again and again, understanding new points of view. Otherwise the purpose of life cannot be to find "truth", or not absolute truth though perhaps situational truth. Wanting reincarnation to exist, in some form, does not make it so. I can't know the answer, not yet anyway and perhaps not ever.

How is it fair that a child never lives past 1 or 2 or 15? Yes, "life isn't fair", but there must be a balance somewhere. For those who die too soon, they must get another chance. Without that chance, it feels like the fabric of everything starts to unravel. I have no idea if this "instinct" that there is more is just a fantasy to make life easier to exist in, or if it's real.

So I find it funny when someone claims that God will destroy me for not believing something, when really, there are so many options, choices and unexplained questions that need answering. What kind of god would create us with this thirst for knowledge, give us no answers, and then destroy us for not being raised in the right religion, or somehow magically picking the right way of life from a hat? Certainly not any god i would want to worship or serve, that's for sure.

G_d

noreply@blogger.com (Nerd Chronicle) — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:03:00 +0000

I wanted to write something about God tonight. probably because I almost always want to write something about God, or talk about it, or think about it. I don't mean to be offensive either. I'm just confused.

I think the problem is that I can't know, not really. It's impossible. Who is God? What is God? Why do I still capitalize God in some sort of respect for the idea?

I both find it amusing and hate it when people tell me or assert that they are right, that they are sure, that they have faith. I don't hate those people. In fact, I admire their ability to feel faith in things.

It's still amusing though, not in a condescending way. It's amusing because i've been around it hundreds of times in my head, figuring things out, trying to find an answer, trying to believe in one theory over another and some people are so sure.

How? That's what I wonder, almost as much as the questions about higher powers and after lives. How can someone be so sure? No matter how the devout worshipper explains it to me, it doesn't convince me. It lacks proof. Like the theories of what awaits us after we die: how does anyone know? how do we know what is real? how do we confirm anything?

Sometimes I uncomfortably fall back on the scene in "Donnie Darko":

DR. THURMAN
Do you feel alone right now?

He looks at her for a moment.

DONNIE
I'd like to believe that I'm not... but
I've just never seen any proof. So I just
choose not to bother with it. It's, like,
I could spend my whole life thinking
about it... debating it in my head.
Weighing the pros and cons. And in the
end, I still wouldn't have any proof. So
...I don't even debate it any more.
Because it's absurd.

I don't want to be alone.

So, does that make me, like, an atheist?

DR. THURMAN
No. That makes you keep searching.

Perhaps it is not a wise thing to admit affinity for a crazy person. Oh well.

(image via Lavoview)

Space... the Final Conquest

noreply@blogger.com (Nerd Chronicle) — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 15:05:00 +0000

There must be something else out there. When I see the kind of strange images of space, I am actually awed. when I was a kid, I just thought space was perpetually stars, uni-dimensional, never really planets and stars and meteors and so on but a flat, unchanging distance ... stars.

A couple nights ago I noticed the moon. It was an epiphany. I hadn't actually ever thought about how the moon is this massive object, hundreds of thousand of miles from us. This was whelming admittedly. Then i thought about how there is an extremely powerful sun behind me. Then the thought came that in space there is nothing to reflect the light around to our side of the world, that it's just empty.

Space has always scared me. It excites me and scares me. The thought of the universe takes me down the road of "what does it all mean?" and "what is the purpose in life?"

So I stay away from that a little, unless I want to sit, nearly catatonic, for an hour, thinking about what my place is.

We are so small, so insignificant. To think that we are here alone seems ludicrous and improbable to say the least. There is this vastness, tucked away, smashing and creating, destroying and rebuilding and we are too self absorbed to even pay it a thought.

(image via Salvatore Vuono)