As I turn off the light,
And crawl into bed,
I fall face first to the sheets.
They’re blue, dark and deep;
Like the calm of an ocean at new-moon.
The darkness of the room
Only adds to the gloom
As my eyes struggle against sleep.
I ponder the world,
What’s the point of it all?
It’s so massively tiny
Hurtling at 108k/h?
In the emptiness of space,
A breakneck pace,
Fuck it, sleep awaits.
HURR HURR HURR
I once heard Jason Biggs, “Jim” from the American Pie movies, say something to the tune of “If you can’t get embarrassed, then you’re missing out on a lot of funny”. Not an exact quote, but it has kinda stuck with me.
Unfortunately, my little 8 year old self didn’t know or understand this. This is probably fortunate from a parenting standpoint, because this means I didn’t watch American Pie when I was 8. Could you imagine? “MOMMY, WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?!” “That is called fucking a pie, honey.” Yeah, nope.
Sexual scarring possibilities aside, I didn’t see that movie or hear that quote from the extras in time to avoid feeling horrible about the most embarrassing moment of my life. It took place in a grade 1 Christmas play, and I was about 8.
My class was a joint grade 1 and 2 operation. Our poor teacher was the head of this sorry state of affairs, but was adamant that we were going to put on a classroom Christmas play. We were going to go full out, with props, and lights, and the gymnasium stage…
To me, this was my time to shine. I was going to be the best, I was going to stun everyone and show them that yes, I was totally cool. If I could act super well, if I could nail my lines, if I could just be the most awesome person ever, people would be nice to me. This hope stemmed from a healthy amount of bullying and schoolyard douchbaggery directed towards me from an early age; seriously, I thought this school play was going to change everything.
It was going to be this easy.
The Christmas play was about the birth of Christ if I remember correctly. We were to all play the part of animals making our way there, and eventually be super happy about all of this baby stuff. 8 year old me didn’t give a shit, I just wanted to show them bullies who was da man, and who wasn’t. I was totally going to be the man, in case you didn’t know. They totally weren’t. That was just the way I knew it had to be. So I waited for the eventual assignment of roles: who was going to be who.
Someone was given the cat. Another person was a horse. Here I sat, waiting for all these animals passing me by; the frog, the lobster, the dog… none of that mattered. All that mattered was when the teacher called my name.
“Philip Budd?”
I frantically stretched my hand and practically shouted “PRESENT”. Giving me an awkward look, she then assigned me my animal.
“You’re going to be the camel.”
You can be ME.
Oh my fuck yes please. I was going to be the coolest camel on the planet. Dogs? Not a chance. The cat wasn’t even remotely swank compared to me. The bird had to go elsewhere for shiny stuff, ’cause my camel ass was going to blind them. As soon as I got my lines, I started rehearsing and learned my lines in 4 hours.
Seeing as this was two weeks before the play, my parents got very tired of hearing my epic camel soliloquies throughout all of that time. Too bad, I thought, I had to be perfect. Which I totally was going to be. Duh.
My mom worked on my Camel costume personally, tirelessly, and the day before the play it was finished (or she bought it, which is entirely possible). The onesie piece was brown with a beige belly, complete with a tail and a hump on its back. One hump, mind you, which my 8 year old self was keen to notice was actually a dromadaire, but meh, who cared. It was awesome, and I wore it for a couple of hours while practicing my lines yet again. Imagine a big, furry monstrosity with a hump that was perfect for knocking over glasses and chairs like so many pieces of fine china, all while reciting Shakespeare.
To be or not to be, moo.
That was how it was.
The night of the play, I was ready. The lines? perfect. The outfit? Immaculate. The Phil was ready. I wolfed down my dinner, and made a beeline for the costume. I waited for my mom to help me into my outfit, and I felt great… but then the trouble started.
I looked into a mirror. It was then that I realized that Camels are actually really stupid looking. Why did they have a hump? Or a tail? They were weird horses, really, and I was instantly aware of how stupid I looked. How could I look cool as a Camel? HOW? There was no way.
Mom and I made our way to the school, and the prevailing feeling of doom was upon me. I knew my lines, I thought, I’ll be fine; but I was a camel! They’re going to make fun of me for being a camel, no way they weren’t. I was screwed.
I was shuttled into the waiting area backstage with the rest of the animals in their costumes. The dogs? Totally wicked. The cats were cooler than cats. Even the zebra looked great; and here’s this camel. I could practically hear the snickering.
And so, the play starts. A few animals do their thing. I prayed it wouldn’t come to me, that they’d skip the camel part. A few more. The time passed so slowly that I could practically see everything in slow motion. Then a couple more, and finally, it was time. The camel walked out onto the stage.
I walked in from the left side to glaring lights and what looked like a million rows of shadowy people I couldn’t see. The nerves forced my heart so skip a beat; I gulped, I put on my best acting face, and I started my lines.
As an aside, it’s important to note that, when I’m nervous, I have a couple of ticks: biting my nails into oblivion, fiddling non-stop, and sweaty palms.
As I got going through my lines, my nerves got the best of me. I grabbed the first thing I could and started fiddling with it while concentrating really hard on my lines. This was when I started hearing giggles from the crowd.
Laughing? Why? Nothing I said was funny. Everything I had done was oscar worthy, not giggle generating. I wanted to create a stirring solo of solemn sereneness, but instead it was becoming chuckle palooza.
I stopped, and the laughing got worse. Everyone in the room, and I could only think one thing; they were laughing at me, because I was stupid, a camel, and a loser. Even with the best performance anyone had seen since Muppet Treasure Island (8 year old me had a skewed sense of good movies), everyone was laughing at me. I couldn’t take the ridicule.
I crumbled, fell to my knees, and started crying. “WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING AT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE???” I wailed, and the audience laughed even harder. I cried, and was dragged off stage. I don’t remember the rest of the night very well, but I’d like to think I went on a grape juice binge while snorting lines of powder sugar to forget the feelings I was feeling.
So the question was, why were they laughing at me? Imagine the following.
A small boy walks onto stage in an adorable camel outfit. He starts adorably reciting his lines, just like he was told. It’s at this point he grabs his tail, pulls it through his legs, and starts waving it around like a hose at a sexy carwash.
Yeap. This. But with a tail. In a children’s play.
That is why I love comedy: because if you can’t laugh at yourself, you slump down on stage and turn into a sopping wet heap.
What about you folks?
Hey guys: I was writing a paper on the topic of resurrection and I thought HEY this isn’t half bad. I decided to share it with you guys.
—————————————————————
Introduction
In the article, Hick attempts to provide a logical account of what resurrection might be through the use of three thought experiments. In this paper, I will summarize the three thought experiments and Hick’s reasoning behind each one as a plausible step towards the possibility of resurrection. Afterwards, I will critically evaluate each in turn in an effort to define precisely what has actually gone on, or possible issues with Hick’s concept of resurrection.
Before I begin summarizing the thought experiments, i think it’s important to detail a couple of important issues Hick brings up. Right at the beginning of the article, Hick makes a couple claims. First, that all being are psycho-physical beings. This means that the mind cannot be separate from the body, or vice versa; the two come as a single package, and cannot be broken apart. Hick claims that this allows for “… an empirical meaning for life after death.”
Second, Hick describes the idea of many spaces, or dimensions, that exist outside of our perspective. These other dimensions, or spaces as he calls them, are unobservable to us, but are quite real to anyone who lives in those spaces. From our point of view then, it would seem that these spaces do not exist; similarly, from the point of view of a being in that realm, our world does not exist either. Hick claims that with God, this is logically possible and necessary to illustrate his thought experiments on resurrection.
The Thought Experiments
The first thought experiment begins with a man at a party talking to scholars that takes place in a flat in London, England. The man is happily listening to another wizened scholar while munching on a snack, when suddenly and without any prior warning he instantly ceases to exist in the London, England flat is at that same moment of the cessation of his existence, a complete “replica” (used in the specific sense that this appearing man is in every way physically and mentally the same as the one that ceased to exist, not to mean that the man is a copy) appears quite unexpectedly in a flat in New York, U.S.A. Hick’s outlines that this is, although physically impossible, an interesting situation where the “replica” would have to be recognized as the person he claims to be, despite the initial man ceasing to exist, the reasons for which are mostly utilitarian: to quote from the article, “The factors inclining us to identify them would… far outweigh the factors disinclining us to do so.”
Before he moves on to the far stranger situation ahead, Hick needed to cover a bit more ground as to the nature of identity in the human being. Hick claims that the human body can be turned into code and transferred in it’s entirety; however, he claims further that the mind can be transferred in a similar fashion, and that despite the fact that the code transferred and reassembled somewhere else isn’t the same physical matter, it is still more appropriate to assume that the assembled person is the same person who was encoded in the first place.
After he defines what he means by replica (covered earlier in the paper), he continues on briefly to describe the second thought experiment, though he doesn’t spend much time on it. In this case, there is no disappearance at all; rather, the man dies and his corpse litters the floor of the London flat. At the very moment the man joins the choir invisible, the “replica” appears in the New York flat just as before with memory and continuity up until the moment of death. Hick claims that in this situation too, it would be easier and more beneficial to regard the “replica” as the same person whose dead body currently lies in London.
Hick decides that it is more important to delve into the third experiment rather than linger too long on the curious murder mystery above. In the third experiment, Hick claims to give a possible account of resurrection. Again, the poor man suddenly and quite unexpectedly dies in the london flat at the great inconvenience of the other guests, but instead of appearing in the New York flat, is transported to a different dimension or world that occupies its own space and time. In this dimension there are many other “replicas” that appeared right as their original selves on Earth had died. Keeping in mind the idea of a psycho-physical being that Hick purported we all are, this means that the body and the world they now live in is completely real to them; it simply happens to be that we cannot determine its real-ness for ourselves until we, as a “replica”, find ourselves in this strange version of a much more physical ghost town.
Energize
Although Hick makes an interesting claim, he is making a fundamental category or classification error. I am of the same belief that the mind and body are completely integrated, inseparable things, and that only together do they count as a person. I am also fully aware and can contemplate multiple dimensions that I cannot empirically prove the existence of (though contemplation does not mean existence, but that is a different point than what I am trying to bring up).
Instead, my issue arises in the Star Trek episode outlined to us in the above murder mystery by Hick. In the first thought experiment, what Hick outlines here is similar to what happens in Star Trek when someone uses a transporter. The person vanishes, and rematerializes elsewhere. In this amazing case, it is true that it is easier to count this replica (and I do mean it this time as the traditional word, a copy) as the same person as the one who disappeared in the London flat. There is a degree of continuity present here that cannot be ignored: but it would be foolish to assume that this is exactly the same person. This error of distinction becomes quite clear, especially in the second thought experiment.
In the second one, the man in the London flat is now dead, and a replica of the man appears in New York. Hick argues that it is logical to assume that the replica is the same person, when quite clearly he is not. Two obvious issues arise: firstly, if the replica is an exact copy of the corpse, then why isn’t the replica a corpse himself? It doesn’t logically follow that they are exactly the same and that one should die so suddenly and the other, who for Hick’s intents and purposes is exactly the same, should not. Even disregarding that, the even more obvious failing of this case is that the man in London, now a corpse, is currently experiencing the shedding of his mortal coil and the replica is not. There is one body which is dead, and the other alive. This distinct difference in status points to us the obvious: that the man in the London flat is dead, and the one who appeared in New York is not. Life might resume with the replica effectively replacing the corpse, but the original body is still dead, and this new one is still a copy (which is arguably not a full copy either, since he didn’t die the instant he appeared).
The same can be applied to the third case. Even if the man’s body is re-created in a space unknowable to us, the fact remains that there is a corpse in London and that the replica is in another world we cannot know (and somehow is, again, not in the immediate position to die). What has happened here is a very simple case of the corpse being one entity, and the replica is another entirely. They might be similar in almost all respects (I will let the health situation of the replica through for the sake of argument) but to assume that they are exactly the same person is entirely foolish.
There is a book entitled “The Collapsium” by Wil McCarthy. In this futuristic setting, people have developed the power to dismantle humans into code, and essentially fax themselves across great distances, create copies of themselves, fix errors in their “code”, and should a copy die they can always use a back up. McCarthy doesn’t make the same error Hick does, however; the characters explicitly know that this device creates copies that are, in essence, different people. They can be re-combined, and over the course of the story several copies outlive the originals or become completely different people.
In this case, Hick forgets to observe the important fact that a psycho-physical being lives and dies within their body. It is impossible to have the same mind between two bodies, even if one is dead. Using the very psycho-physical makeup that Hick has relied on so far, it is clear that each separate body has its own separate mind. The replicas could be in New York, another dimension, or in heaven itself, but the cold, hard fact lies on the floor of a London flat; had Hick not attempted to nail the corpse on the replica, the man would be pushing up the daisies by now.
Work Referenced
Excerpt of Death and Eternal Life
Reprinted in Philosophy of Religion, selected readings, Fourth edition
Peterson, M. et al.
FRUSTRATION CRUNCH
Anything you say? FANTASTIC. That totally narrows my options down to a fine point. If my options were colour in a pencil crayon, I could totally colour inside the finest pictures so long as they are a mile wide.
I don’t know why I stopped writing though. Sometimes I’ll get e-mails commenting about my posts, telling me “Hey dude, this is awesome” or “this post is beautiful”. So I’ll re-read what was posted: who the hell wrote this? Not me. This writer was actually funny! His thoughts were on things that were so trivial and yet so prevalent that…
Why am I using big words? No. Stop. No big words. Head out of your pretentious bum, Phil, you’re here to write for fun, not a damn philosophy paper.
Speaking of which, guess who is now a philosophy major? As if the huge majority of the people who are ever going to read this didn’t know that already, but it never hurts to say it again. Does it? No? Guess who is now a philosophy major? Me. Cause I have so many big ideas, I just had to get marked for them. You know, instead of committing it to the harshest critics in the universe: ZE INTERNET.
Gotta admit though, it feels good to be typing things on my mind not relating to solipsism or faith, or existence or whether existence can exist. Wat.
So here I am writing while listening to this song here on repeat while waiting for a video to upload. Did I ever really imagine that I was going to write for a living? Heck naw. As one of my buddies puts it, “I cannot be assed” but why? Why can’t I? Because I have no idea what to write about!
One last time: what am I to write about? Here’s a new thought: why don’t I do what I do best and rage? Every single good post I’ve written, or whatever past me wrote because, good golly, he writes differently. In any case, every post that really has made me proud has been one of rage and critique. Poetry? I’m far too blunt and it’s like watching a dog navigate through a hoarder’s china collection chasing the car that just crashed through the house because…. oh god what am I even writing.
But definitely not poetry: if I can’t even get a good analogy out of my brain without it completely falling apart, a poem is going to be far too much mental malaise.
So let’s converse. Let’s talk. Let’s shout and yell and rail against things that don’t make sense, and you can all make fun of me.
Phil, it’s time to meet the world: this time, for reals bro.
VIKINGS DO NOT CLEAN
Just today (at the time of this writing, which is May 1st/2nd) we moved out of our old house, my friends and I. Our house, A.K.A the Castle, was a great place: but due to whatever reasons we decided to, we moved out into this new place.
This place was nearby, and was well known as an establishment for rockin’ keggers, the kind people actually paid money to get into. It was that house in the neighbourhood, and still we moved in.
Every experience is a learning experience. I learned that moving into a house like that was a $&$#ing terrible ordeal, and that, in short, sucked.
1. Moving sucks. Period. It could be for any number of reasons, like the fact you’re leaving your home behind, good memories, you’re being forced to by the mob, it’s being done at gunpoint, but basically because MOVING REALLY SUCKS.
If you’re moving at all, I hope you have a damn good reason.
2. They don’t know what a mouse is. Or how to find and get rid of one, for that matter. I’d like to say that the cupboards were spotless when we found them, but what really happened was the horrible smell of bleached mouse crap. It was inspiring… it really motivated me to kill it with fire.
3. There was a ceiling? Really? Cause I had no idea before I decided the music was so awesome I’d punch the ceiling. Now I’ve left my mark on something! I can die happy.
And he might.
4. And that reminds me there’s a wall… Cause I had forgotten that the walls aren’t made of Unobtanium and as a result might chip and break if I punch it with my fist.
Oh well, I think it adds character, don’t you?
5. Tape is for &$##*(@, You don’t use tape in a manly house to put up posters and such, no. Also, you can’t just use the built in closet, ’cause that’s for sissies. You want posters? NAILS IN THE PLASTER. You want a shelving unit? UP ON THE WALL, USE A BOLT GUN.
Oh, thanks frat guy. It looks awesome. My room could be a ^$#*ing CHAPEL because it’s so HOLY. I was thinking of installing some holes anyway. I’m glad you made up my mind. It spells class. In moderately sized holes.
6. I’m too lazy to take off my shoes. So, instead of taking them off and keeping the hardwood floor safe to walk on in socks, you’re going to stamp the dirt so hard into the floor that the wood goes from cedar to ebony eh? It matches the curtains you left me. Thanks. Oh, and now the tiles in the kitchen don’t slip? That’s good, I’ll be sure to walk around bare foot on the dust encrusted tiles so I don’t slip and break my neck.
Besides, I’d rather have foot fungus anyway.
7. Loving the long showers. And it’s kinda obvious. The grout at the base of the shower is gone. Arrividerci, great grout, sayonara. Au revoir. You’re now gonzo, bereft of existence you now litter my bathroom floor. If you didn’t provide an entrance hazard for rodents you’d be useless to everybody. The grout has now joined the garbage disposal, a malignant memory on a forgotten parquet. The grout is no more.
However, your hair is quite spiky. I approve.
8. Everything is a sticker surface, and double sided tape is a statement. I gotta admit, even I was impressed when I found a picture of Jesus made out of errand strands of double sided tape littering the inside of my new closet space, interspersed with irremovable tears of stickers. I called up the Pope to check it was a miracle!
I got an answer. Turns out it’s just an idiot who decided to sticker up the house with YOUNG AND RECKLESS. It’s a badass older version of YOLO right? Right?
What’s that smell? Oh, it’s angst stickers.
9. We decided we wanted a petting zoo. So we bred dust bunnies in such large quantities that it required not one, but two professional cleaning crews to actually round them up once we left. It was like hunting for diabolic and disgusting easter eggs.
They were big enough to kill a grown man. I named one Caernabog. It had sharp, pointy teeth, and required that we use our last remaining holy hand grenade.
10. I heard you like booze. So we boozed up your floor, we boozed up your wall, hell! We boozed up your ceiling. We knew that, upon entering the house, you would love to mop the floor AND the walls too! Also, I hope you don’t mind that we used the wine to make it look someone had been brutally murdered on the spot.
Relationships are fluid.
Tonight, I went and celebrated the proper opening night of Todd’s show. Tonight was the advertised opening night, free for a fee to the public. Since I went last night to the private free show, I made sure to spend tonight relaxing and getting ready for his big cast party.
The cast parties are something we’ve always shared. It’s a party held on opening night of a play, used to show the accolades of the cast and crew of the show, and then drink copious amounts of booze and dance drunkenly with everyone. Back in first year, when Todd was just scratching the surface of these shows, he’d come to show his support for the upper years. Not only that, but it was a good excuse for me to go out once in awhile when I wasn’t shackled to my computer talking to Lorelai on screen. The tradition continued, with Todd and a number of other friends going out to enjoy a few beers, and dance the night away to awful music.
The past couple of times have seemed different, however. See, it’s been 4 years already. 4 years that were far too long, and way too short too. Time slogged past me it seemed, but in reality it was flying. And here was Todd, once a first year dramatic arts student, now a trained actor. He climbed to the top of his class, where so many had failed. Tonight was his night, the opening night of the most virtuosic work he had done to date. He was the lead in a 2 hour long show, where he was present in every scene and decided the fate of the play. He did excellently, and tonight was his &%$#ing night to SHINE.
I got to the cast party right on time; just as I entered, the whole stream of cast and crew rampage forth from the side door, whooping and calling, blowing bubbles and blowing kisses. The speeches were loud, emphatic. Full of energy. Nothing could go wrong tonight, no sir.
There was a big difference in how it all worked out. Todd was the life of the party now: he was the lead. He was a King for a day, a dream for so many people, or a distant truth from a long time ago for most. He was lording in it, loving it, and making sure that tonight was the best damn cast party he ever had, as it was truly his last within that setting. He had every reason to “max it up” as it were.
Here I was, however, sitting in the corner, nursing my pint of Keith’s (which was watery, funny enough. Maybe it’s because I’ve been drinking Okanagan beer so much lately) and feeling… resentful?
No, that wasn’t it. Todd obviously is my friend. I’m not going to be resentful of his shining moment. I was sad though, and it took me a while of sitting and drinking to figure it out.
Every good friendship has a core. That core is unshakable, and once founded is really hard to break. That’s why people can be friend over massive distances for huge spans of time. It’s essential to every good friendship; however, there is more. Around that core is a fluffy layer of contemporary thought, A.K.A shit that’s going on right now. Friends who hang out a lot have a lot of that fluffy part, whereas friends who are far apart have only the core holding themselves tethered to one another. It’s not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but it does happen.
I could feel it happening. The fluff? It was going or already gone in a sense. Things were already different. Todd was celebrating his time alright, but it wasn’t with me anymore, or the rest of the guys. Not the same way. Can I blame him? Of course not, but it still taught me a valuable lesson.
Relationships are fluid, and depend entirely on context.
That might not be how things OUGHT to be; my claim is meant to be descriptive, not normative. Relationships can change quickly based on what context they’re being put into. Right now, Todd’s relationship with me was a core. Nothing more, nothing less. Honestly, it makes me sad, though it shouldn’t, and not in ways most would expect.
Since I know that I can’t be mad at Todd for what he’s doing, I am sad because I know it signifies the end of something we had. We had a tight knit relationship; but after 4 years of university, he’s graduating. Meanwhile I will still be in school, and that status change alone will cause our friendship to be something different, whether I like it or not.
All of this thinking relates to time. A common theme for me these past couple of weeks has been time; the passing, the coming, the going. My time with Todd’s friendship as it stands is coming to an end, and I can feel it. It’s almost palpable. Time seems to keep… flowing, going, dragging with it a lot of things that I will never have again. Nothing (Save for Nothingness, I suppose), with time, is solid and stable; unless you believe in a God of some sort, but since I can’t do that, the only thing that will be guaranteed to be stable is me and whatever/whoever else I can place my trust in not to. Even then, I will change too, and already have I’m sure.
This change is nonstop. You can’t rest, even if for a moment, and you won’t as you’ll see change all around you can there will be nothing you can do to slow it down. I can handle it. I know I can; but sometime, it just feels like it’s too much.
People told me that time was gonna fly, that change was going to happen, and that people would go in and out of my life. This shouldn’t be a surprise to me at all.
I just wish it all a bit slower, that’s all.
I had another “lesson” moment, though just a thoughtful one this time.
I was just at my very good friend’s place to celebrate his excellent debut in his show, and there was an unexpected (to me, anyway) visitor: a really cute girl that seemed to have an affinity with my buddy. I would be a terrible friend if I didn’t give him the look.
Down to the muscle twitch.
In any case, we watched REPO! the genetic opera. A movie so full of angst that I could mould it into small, adorable, angst filled mini demons. It was adorable. And full of blood, gore, black, and VERY pale people.
Paleness aside, the experience was funny: it had been awhile where I made myself feel like a third wheel. I felt very…analytic. Outside of everything, observing. It’s an interesting mindset, as it leaves me feeling apart from the world, and yet incredibly attached.
I said my goodbyes to everyone, and made my way into the alleyway between our houses. The chill air blew through my hair as the ground underneath my feet crunched as only a dirt gravel path can. It’s at this point that I put in my earphones, and being to listen to this song, which is an excellent remake of this one.
Seriously, that remix is fantastic.
In any case, it’s at this point that I’m compelled to look up at the sky.
The black, inky sky holds an imaginable depth, impossible for me to fathom; yet still, in the darkness of the sky, there are shinning stars, twinkling. Not many, but a few, and occasionally they would get covered up as passing clouds drifted by on a gust of cool wind.
It’s precisely at this moment that I hear the cool voice of Leonardo DiCaprio say the following:
“Think about it Ariadne. How did you get here? Where are you right now?”
I think I'm too close to the creepiest man on Earth is what.
Obviously, I’m not as hot as Ellen Page, but the idea struck home. As the words, sounds and the world slipped away around me, all I could see or think of was the sky, space, the universe, the places I’ll never see and never go to.
And yet, here I was. Here. Not anywhere else, but here. Where exactly is “here”? And how did I get “here”?
I pondered those questions for well over 10 minutes I stood in a dirt gravel alleyway. I was on Earth, of that I was certain; but where was that in the grand scheme of things? Where was this place I called home? Even if I could answer that question, the first one was even more perplexing despite its simplicity. How did I get here?
So I ask you those questions: where are you? How did you get here?
Like this post hitting your stupid face, for instance.
I am not of the opinion that “things happen for a reason” such that there is a master plan for everything, another way of saying “____ works in mysterious ways”. Whether it’s a bird shitting on you or a car accident, it still implies that cancer “happens” for a reason other than “because if cancer was a person, it’d be a %$^&ing asshole, and a serial killer”. It’s a frustrating thing to hear people say, and every time someone says it I punt a puppy.
Why? “Things happen!”
However, things happening for the best? That’s different. The implication being that the social outcome of a problem sticky in nature can work out for the overall good of people involved. This is something that happens frequently, but especially in relationships.
I can’t count how many times I’ve heard of or seen a relationship explode and it has been for the better afterwards. Every single broken relationship I can think of has benefitted from this thought, and overall makes for happier people at the end of an unhappy chapter. That mode of thought allows for catharsis, rather than a need for retribution or revenge.
For instance, two of my friends just got out of a relationship with one another. Although the specifics are hugely juicy and super interesting, I won’t go into them in detail; suffice to say, it had been almost a year before they broke up that the relationship started suffering from lethal lack of communication.
Sometimes, there's nothing you can do. And then sometimes, there's a pair of scissors...
In the end, neither party was fully happy in the relationship: one person scared the other one anytime an issue showed itself, which cause both parties to hide things from one another and essentially not communicate (arguably the blood of a relationship).
Right now, things are ugly. Some friends are taking sides, others are condemning and complaining (and we all know that any fool can condemn and complain… and most do), and everyone’s acting like the break up was a bad thing. HORRIBLE. NOTHING COULD BE WORSE, X TREATED Y LIKE CRAP, Y WAS A MONGER ‘, BLAH BLAH ASS-TAINTING CHAFE FUCKS WE’RE GONNA DIE IF WE DON’T RAISE HELL.
Very, very stupid.
Why? Why on Earth are we getting worked up about a good thing?
The end of a relationship like this is much like a forest fire to a dying grove. The trees are gnarled, old, and rotting. Immediately after being burned, the area smells like ash and ass. Give it time, and the place grows back better than ever before!
My point is this: you have to look at a bigger picture, and look at all the consequences. Right now it’s ugly, true. Living situations are messed, feelings are bruised, and friendships are kind being torn; but that’s all people look at these days! Short term shit. Long term? Both people will be in happier relationships, and people will have completely forgotten about this situation. Life goes on.
Also, this avoids a lot of the drama, which is something that makes this puppy punter politely pat a puppy instead.
And this makes for happier puppies. Healthier ones too!
Now to bed. I’m so tired. Of everything. Shit included.
Over the past couple of days, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on the topic of theology. Specifically on Naturalism, the idea that the core fundamentals of the universe and the world are discovered and that there are natural laws that govern us, as dictated by a God of some kind; and the antithesis, with positivism, where we are free beings, not governed by a God but by ourselves, as humans. A lot of this enquiry has only strengthened my resolve in my atheism.
However, I also believe that, if you take the time to look around you life, and smell the roses from time to time, a lesson shows itself to you, hidden but still there to the eagle eye of someone who takes simple things waaaaay too seriously.
There's no WAY that EVERY WORD meant that much! - Most grade 9 students
Arguably, the biggest question that people have is “Why are we here, and how did we get here?” You know, the question to life, the universe, and everything. My friend believes he found the answer in Christianity. He believes in God now, and has his idea on how everything works. In complete contrast, I ended up as an atheist. Whereas he felt a connection to the world and called it God, I saw a lack of connection on any such level, and called it life. We’ve been debating over the specifics of his ideals now for a week, going to all sorts of different paths of reason, belief, and crazy ideas for me to come to the conclusion that I still feel absolutely no connection to an all encompassing being. As for him, I don’t have the right to say, as Ted is his own guy and is kind of impossible to read on these matters.
But ever since I discovered this lack of connection, there’s been a lurking feeling in the back of my mind. Indiscernible, hard to correlate… but it was there. Since I am an atheist, and since there is (for me) no God, then there is no set road for me, no fate, no destiny. I am truly and completely free to do anything I please.
Interestingly enough though, that was not the idea in its entirety: it was satisfactory, but there was still another lesson to be learned. Was it that I now had more responsibility? That’s a given. Redemption and forgiveness were now dictated by other people and myself, and not an omniscient thing? Well, duh. The fact that without a God, I now had more personal power? That’s cool. I like that.
And then tonight happened.
I went to go visit Kitteh for awhile tonight. It’s a ridiculously hot March evening, and I’m wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I’ve just eaten dinner with my Mom, and I was really content. Kitteh and I talked about Mad Men (she loves it), skirts, mail, work, involuntary voluntary work (or “training” as it’s called) and all kinds of things. But eventually, it was time for me to go. I helped her with her laundry, kissed her goodnight, and started to head home when all of a sudden, I stopped.
In front of me was a back-alley dirt-way. The path stretched out in front of me, long and dark in areas while light in others. The pebbles and gravel of the path lent a rough, callous quality to the path, its bumpy texture evident in the strips of light from the parallel residence building. Overhanging branches from nearby trees cast long, spindly shadows over the path while the poles and pillars and supported wires cast their suitably thicker, dark umbrae over the path. Tire tracks from muddier days drew gouges in the pathway, crisscrossing and intersecting with footprints to show a road travelled by many, remembered by few.
And I thought to myself, my, what a simple way to represent my life; simple at its outset, yet a closer look reveals a bumpy road that winds a little. Light represented the good times, only bright because the shadows could provide the contrast needed to make the good times great. Gouges and sticks showed that things can change my life irrevocably, and will leave me scarred. As easy as it was to imagine that this path was my life, I realized something a little terrifying.
At the end of the path, there were no more lights. The adjacent building blocked the lights from any nearby rooms. Meanwhile, trees clawed across the gap, blocking my vision of the end of the path.
It’s at this point I figured out what a terrifying choice I’ve made, for I knew that, unlike what Ted thought, there was nothing at the end of this path.
At the end of the path, I was going to be alone in the dark.
I have to remember my earlier lessons though: it might be dark, but that’s if I leave it like that. I have the responsibility and power to change that. I have Kitteh. I have goals, and I have dreams.
I’ll light my own way, and people will be there to help me.
I refuse to be alone in the dark.
So we’ve come to this time of the year again.
I can see it all now: the posts and tweets about being alone and needing a loved one, the cries of forever alone and the dreaded friendzone echoing loudly in the halls of the interwebs, clattering with calls of over corporatization and money grubbing, only to be mashed together in one messy, confused, and altogether pointless noise that makes up the loudest section of Valentine’s day.
Why is that? I mean, are there really that many people who are that upset with Valentines day?
How can so many people be so together in their alone-ness, and why don’t they seek to end it?
I’ve thought a lot about Valentine’s in the past: both from the perspective that it sucks in years past (cause, you know, “fuck being the only single frenchman on the face of the damn planet” is an attractive mentality) and from the opposite viewpoint that says it rocks (“I’m sexy and I know it” style). What’s interesting in both these perspectives is the assumption that Valentine’s day should be about couples only: if you’re not in a thing with someone, you dun goofed, and you should be ashamed of yourself for not being in looooove with someone else.
Assuming, of course, that love means being in love with someone you eventually want to do feather bed jig with.
There’s the problem: why is love always assumed to only matter if it’s with someone you want to potentially shake their sheets?
Here’s the way I see Valentines: Valentine’s day is about love. Of that there is no doubt; but why is it always about docking your submarine/equine mounting? There’s more than just that to love, isn’t there? For instance, most people have parents. Do most of those parents love their kids, no matter what? Ideally, one would hope so. For those lucky/unlucky enough to have siblings, cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, wouldn’t most of those people also love? What about friends? The ones that usually end up in the same stupid situations you do?
It seems obvious to me there’s a lot of love in the world when you look for it.
“But Phil!,” you might say, “what the hell do all those people have to do with Valentines day and me being so alone/angry/upset/eatacat/sad about the whole deal?”
I’m here to advocate an attitude change. I think that the people who think they are “forever alone” and friendzoned need to realize that Valentines is not all about the thrill of the bone, nor the opportunity to simply kiss another person. Or date. It’s a lot simpler than that complicated ^$#^@&#* we put up with ever other day of our damn lives.
Valentines needs to be a lot less about performing a mattress hoedown and a lot more about celebrating love as a whole. Celebrate ALL the love!
For all the people who don’t have a girlfriend or boyfriend to spend Valentine’s with, I have a challenge for you. I want you to look at who in your life loves you, and celebrate that. If you can recognize that you are indeed loved, guess what?
You won’t go alone a day in your life.
If no one loves you, then I’m sorry to say the best I can do is link a picture of a dinosaur.
So at least there’s that.
Happy Valentines everyone! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go fill in the circles on a scantron sheet.
…
Seriously, I have a midterm. It stops now.
Misadventures Made with 5 Leagues from the Borderlands
It's not a disaster.
Phil, Meet World 