A journey down a dirt road

2011/4/19
The tree stood slightly off kilter as I approached. It's branches limited to the few remaining thicks. A gnarled bunch of vines ,the only life on it, held a broken branch like a hagged witch holds a stolen babe, ever careful and tight. It had probably been there for ages, and shall remain longer. It's obstinance held it by the road, occasionally dropping a large limb in the road to stop passers by. It long ago lost it's green and grow yet still it waited, watching the world go by in a constant decay. What means did it have to sit so strong with death. In the life after it was more-so ominous than in life. The path beyond was clearer and more like the rest. Not hidden by the shade of some awful eldritch tree.
Colors of white, purple and the hint of yellow paved a bright path onward through the green. While the overwhelming shades of green bounced the rays of light down among the shrubs and tall grass. A woodpecker beat his timly song on the tallest of old wood. I imagine the pauses in his rhyme was for calming the vibration of it's skull. He went on drumming as the song birds tweeted their lovely spring songs. The buzz buzz buzzing of bees along the path only when near the flowers was a reminder to me that the nectar was not for me, but for other beasts. I pressed on.
As I reach a shaded path it began to slink and climb upward, darkend by the overhanging arms of oaks and pine. The musty smell of stagnat water filled my senses as the pain of bites on my neck was tale to where I've entered. This bit was for the creatures of shadow, ones that bite and stalk. Taking your life from you without your notice, until it's too late and a pain courses through your vein. The rain hadn't came in a few days, yet it seemed like it had only a few hours ago. The constant draining from the hill left the path worn and washed away on both sides. Man had scattered and packed small stones to hold natures course. His success measured in only months or years as the waters ever present flow waits, it creeps, even stalks the path. Eventually devouring it and driving man away.
The hills beyond were seemingly close, no more than a days walk on a prarie. But through these thick woods and hidden valleys lied at least another days journey.

Small beefs

It has been quite awhile since I've created some rant or other in written for to share with the world. Here's a few snippets I wrote:

It's been a long yet short road that I've traveled thus far. Time is a tricky beast. To some it passes like a snail slowling winding it's way along a path, never in a hurry. To others it's like a hummingbird always moving, never resting looking for that next meal. To me it's a double headed monster. when i yearn for the speedy dilevery I get the pace of an elderly man. Yet, the moments that last for mere minutes I'd hope would last for ages. I can only hope I have a better control of my grasp of time in the future that i may bear witness to these experiences with a better sense of all things important to me. To better understand myself is the goal. But what is "I" without everything else. All are one yet i'm allowed to be free and individual in my thoughts. 

Being alone is a feeling one experiences whether one chooses or not.

The golden memories that lie out of reach but ever on your mind are a tantalizing reminder of the good parts of life. Is that all there is. Is it in the action or in the memory that happiness lies?

I dont really enjoy sex, it feels awkward. But making love, feeling passionatly about someone. That really gets me going.

human condition

Also a 2009 post I never got around to publishing, probably because it's so short.

This condition of life that we have became to me seems contradictive. Why do we still have such a strong fear centered emotional mind? The irrational outbursts and quick fight or flight responses to situations make the worst of most situations. We have not evolved very much recently. I am unsure if we will evolve much more beyond our current species because of our power of tools. Tools give us the advantage to not need to evolve. We are adapted perfectly to this world. We can use almost everything available to us. It's an incredible feat, especially considering how ignorant we've been for so long. Thank science for the scientific revolution. It has allowed us a step away from the fear. We have plenty of time to go before we can remove the fear that holds us. In my country, the United States, we have an increasing populous of fear mongers. Whether it be religious, political, racist, xenophobic, terrorist, etc the ignorance and fear is more prominent than curiosity and strong will.

Why are you putting up with it?

I have neglected this blog, mainly so I don't scare family members. But you know what, it doesn't matter. They should be smart enough to figure things out for themselves. This was written in 2009, but I'm just now getting around to publishing it.

Religion is a topic many are shy to talk about. I'm most certainly not one of those people. Let me tell you a bit about my religious background. I was born to Christian parents, going to church only on occasion, but the fear of God was and is still with them. In my early teen years I often had conversations with this God people speak of. All it did was make me more frustrated. So I thought, hey maybe I'm praying to the wrong god. So I start researching different religions, I've purchased many books and read many online articles. My favorite at the time was Taoism, which some would say is not a religion. But lets get into that topic. Religion is held on grounds that faith alone is what makes it true. Now, faith is the belief in something without any proof. Having faith in someone is denying your gut instinct and taking their word for it. To me this is the biggest problem we as humans face. Trusting what others say, even though they seem far fetched, is very bad business. I pride myself in not taking anyone's word for it. I want to know for myself. Question everything, that's my motto. It has helped me understand more about everything. I feel accomplished as many things I have figured out myself. I one time, believed that there was no such thing as human nature. But I was wrong, it's just people describe it wrong and assume things are natural that are far from it. We have a will to survive, which has turned into a war against our own kind. Take our planet for example. Why are we split into Nations? Why are we not allowed to travel the world without other peoples consent? Why are we forced into work? Why are we bullied our whole lives? And really, why are we putting up with it? Because we have faith that our leaders are doing the best thing for us? Obviously you haven't seen the world. But let me get back on topic for a moment. Religion has been a great help in pulling us together and forming nations, killing nonbelievers, and eventually educating the people. But it's always been lies, stories passed down and twisted to suit the needs of the leaders. Religion was once the law, and still is in some places. It saddens me to know that we are holding on to thousand year old beliefs with such fervor. I mean, we don't still believe that the earth is flat do we? Do we also still believe in dragons? Fear has been the driving point for many peoples religious view. They feel that if they don't do good and fear their chosen god that they will burn forever (or some other great pain). Scare tactics to make you conform. Plain and simple. Just look around you, this magnificent world in which we live in IS the garden of Eden. It evolves, but it is still the best place for life. Everything living was spawned here all because the right conditions were met. Liquid water and sunlight has given us the gift of life. But no, the old pagan religion is silly. Why would anyone worship the earth? I find it humorous that the pagan's had a better idea of religion than any of the most popular religions today.

Why do we even have a religion? Can people just not go about their business without making up giant all powerful people? I think it's human nature to want to control everything, so that you may survive optimally. So what do we do? We create a personal god that only talks to us and never in the presence of another. Yes this god is all powerful but he can't talk to more than one person at a time. I once asked an evangelical christian how to talk to God, as my tries failed. He suggested I go to a remote area where noone was around at all. Hmm... so what? I can convince myself that my subconscience is a god? People actually believe in these things with no proof but a book. Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news but there is more than 1 book available for you to read. Many of them have all the killing and sex as the bible does. Why not read some Anne Rice novels? I'm sure you can get your biggotry from it just as well as you can the bible. Excuses, passing the blame, that's what God is used for. Oh no, I don't hate homosexuals, God hates them. He told me they are the work of the devil. Yeah, pass the blame for your hate.

Thanks for the lemons, jerks

I'm trying really hard to make lemonade, but it just doesn't seem to work. It's been one catastrophe after another. Work, wife, family, money, etc. Will the lemon's stop being thrown at me? I can't even pick up the one's that have been cast first. My body is bloody and pulpy. I can't see anymore. I don't even hear. All I can sense is a vibration and a numbness. Make it stop.

Evolving the Machines [wip]

Lately things have been moving along. Life does that, whether you are ready or not. I get caught up in the menial tasks of daily life that most people over involve themselves into sometimes but I am still me. I am still happy. I am able to think freely and have a relatively nice life. I’ve been playing with old computers again. I will make something by Science! Computers have came a long way since I was born. Around the time I was born the C64 was released. Now, twenty five years later we have computers that weren’t even imagined then. The sad thing about it is I don’t feel a passion for it. I think I’ve found out why. As Helm said without restrictions artists don’t know what to do. With limits we can become artistic and play with our medium. With no boundaries we get confused and lost. This happens to me more than I would like to admit. Many times I become overwhelmed with the limitless feelings of the world. I cannot shape it, I cannot change it. I must exist in it. I used to believe I was born in the wrong time. But this day and age is so much more than it has been. Being a non-elite person (which is by birth only) in any other past time but now would be even worse. The knowledge would be closed off. Just in the past 100 years has science stepped above and beyond anything religion could dare to comprehend. Not only have I the knowledge of thousands of years of writings but I am in the computer age. The age of the internet, where all countries can be connected. I’ve talked to people online that I would never be able to have conversed with even 50 years ago. That in itself is a reward. At any rate I just want to explain my techno hobbies and interests. It’s one of our most complex and multiuseful tools. The computer can do anything we tell it.

Tools. This word conjures up many images to you. I’m sure some even have special tools they’ve made for themselves. This is an important part of who we are. The ability to work beyond our physical and more recently mental capabilities have been our foundation upon which we rule this realm among other beasts. In the years which I’ve been alive things have changed what seem drastically. We are using, most obliviously, tools of high caliber and thousands of years in the making. Take the airplane for example. It was a fairytale dream 200 years ago. Look at our trip to the moon, just recently have we been out of our comfort zone that is the earth. I haven’t been in space, but people have. An amazing feat. Possibly the most amazing feat we’ve done yet. What will happen in the next 100 years? Well, the earth evolves slowly and we used to evolve slowly. Now we evolve every day. Constantly updating our tools (cars, phones, guns, etc) to match our thriving need to do as little as possible work, with as much as possible of a reaction. We are in fact controlling and bending the world around us to our will. Not on a great of a scale as to easily destroy everything, but close enough. We must be careful. I see our technology rising far quicker than our humanism. We haven’t tackled the hard issues here. The education of the people of the world, the understanding of our mind and how to overcome the animal basic instincts with logic and happiness. We struggle with these things on a personal basis. When should it not be a community effort to help each other. Are we not all on the same planet? Do we not drink the same waters? Do we not have fathers and mothers? Do we not bear children and become fathers and mothers? It should be our responsibility to teach our young and our old alike to think for themselves and be open with ideas. Things change, sometimes rather suddenly and without your or anyone’s consent. This is how things work. We cannot control everything. We try, by Science do we try. What do we control though? What do we have power over? Our creations, our machines.

Redefining the purpose of this blog

Also pasted from baywords. Baywords is down often, blogger isn't.

The purpose of my writings here are twofold. The first being a laying down of thoughts and ideas as they come to me, to later go over and organize for a book. Eventually I want to collect my learned knowledge of the world and share it with people yet born. We learn from history so much, yet we ask so little of it. We learn small fragments of lives of the past, distorted stories from times long gone by, with people much different than we are today. Ever evolving, now we usually evolve in groups, societies if you will. With the coming of the digital age we’ve seen world-wide melting pots form of collected knowledge and creativity. Perhaps it will be the cornerstone to our next great breakthrough in human life. It has allowed me to flourish and even get carried away, which is easy to do as everyone I know does. It is too easy to get stuck in simple thinking, of the here and now, of advertisements and tacos; puppies and guns; television and cars; laws and morals. All these things are man made, someone thought of these ideas and shared them with others. Most of the basic ideas of societies have been established for hundreds of years. It’s a shame we still hold on to ancient customs, with the universe at arms length. I’m rambling on a bit, but it’s the point of this blog. I have the freedom to ramble and it’s sometimes a very good thing. It’s a way to see my thoughts as they unfold, albeit not all of them. Translating ideas and abstracts into words can sometimes be very difficult to me. I either haven’t the vocabulary or as I believe my wit is not as sharp as I would like. But I manage, I’m happy with what I have. Just that I can think such large thoughts about the universe, light-years ,atoms and plasma! I am blessed with knowledge that the ancient Greeks were not. They had many ground breaking ideas and many of them still hold today, but imagine being in that time, with your knowledge of today. The earth was still flat to them! I’m happy to know the earth is spherical. If I wanted to see for myself, I could do an experiment and prove it. It’s not hard. Any of these things I can see for myself by experimentation, I can rediscover the laws of motion if I was so inclined. But that’s a waste of brain power. It’s great when you get an idea, or make a discovery. But to rediscovery isn’t nearly as exciting and useful. I take in the knowledge from my peers and my predecessors and mash them into my neural network. I am still young, a third or forth of my life I have lived, yet there is so much more I want to learn. So much more I need to share. I’ve always felt a need to teach, to share knowledge. It warms my heart and makes me feel useful in this world. To open another’s mind to the reality of curiosity gives me butterflies. It’s the same feeling of joy I get when I discover or read something interesting and mind altering. Hopefully I will be able to do this just for you.