Thump, Thump

Hey you. Yeah, you. I'd like to ask you a simple question and I want you to answer honestly. Are you happy? Truly happy? If not, do you know why? You must know why. There must be something tugging at your heart. You know that feeling. Like someone has their hand around your heart and they give it a slight squeeze every now and then. Every time this happens, you think of a memory. You know what memories I'm talking about. I want you to do something right now. You'll thank me later. I want you to dim all the lights in your room, almost to complete blackness. If there is any noise in your house or apartment, grab some earplugs, or something to block out the noise. Are you following my instructions? I sure hope so.

I now want you to sit down in a comfortable manner. Close your eyes and calm your breathing. Now listen. Do you hear anything? I hope not since I told you to get some earplugs. But now I want you to listen harder. You should be able to hear your heart beat. I am hoping by now with your controlled breathing, it is beating at a slow, steady rate. I don't know if you know anything about our Biology, but this thing in your chest beats only a certain number of times. Then it gives out, sort of like a battery. If you think about it, if you slow the rate at which your heart beats, you are essentially extending your lifespan. So right now as you are breathing easy, you are allowing yourself to live a bit longer. Isn't that neat? But this isn't the main point of this experiment. Yes, I am experimenting on you - I hope you don't mind.

By the way, this is not a meditation. You should not be 'clearing your mind'. You should hear something. You should be hearing your memories. All of those electric tidbits of information in that noggin of yours - they should be dancing around and seem to be displaying themselves on the backs of your eyelids like a projecting mechanism. Flashbacks of your childhood. Your first love. Regrets. Nightmares. Your biggest orgasm. What I want you to do now is focus on the orgasm memory. No, really - trust me. Are you smiling yet? Okay, good. Actually, we're finished here.

Were you expecting something more climactic? Get it - orgasm, climactic; oh man I crack myself up. You do realize how powerful this orgasm, I mean experiment was, right? Not only did you extend your lifespan by slowing down your heart rate, but you even smiled - perhaps even laughed. What you really did was think of a happy memory which provided you with a moment or two of happiness. I want you to do this whenever you are feeling down. Whenever your heart feels like it's being crushed. Sit down and 'stop' time for a few minutes and listen. I promise that if you keep doing this, you'll learn that this is just the first step. First step towards what you ask? A better orgasm of course. ;)

Back to Basics

Every once in a while I sit back and reevaluate my belief system. I try to make it a habit of mine to constantly question until either everything makes sense, or I reach a dead end. The base of my belief system doesn't often change much, but I sometimes discover properties of the system that I hand't initially thought of. For example a much earlier post of mine questioned the issue of free will in a purely cause and effect world.

In a nutshell, my belief system is pretty simple and can be described by determinism. I don't believe that there was a beginning and I don't believe there will be an end, to the universe that is. We are a bunch of bundles of energy that collide and combine together to form particles, atoms, molecules, etc. Somehow out of the collisions of particles at the proper angles and momentum, we came in to being. All because of cause and effect.

Last night I was thinking about fate. Fate is something I always ascribed to religion, so I always put it out of my head. You always hear from theists that God as a grand plan for us all. Fate always sounded to me like something that was beyond my control. Something is going to happen to me whether I like it or not. Anything to do with predetermined fate or destiny always put me off.

Sure, you can hold an object up in the air and say it is predetermined to fall to the ground. But can you really be sure that it will hit the ground? No, you can't. Say a gust of wind blows you over on your back and the object lands on your groin. We can't know because we don't know or have control over all of the globules of energy in the world or universe. If we did and we knew nothing would interrupt the object as it fell, you think it would be okay assume that the object was predetermined to hit the ground. But, this is also not possible.

Now unless there did exist a god who knew everything and had absolutely no effect on the universe unless he or she willed it and this god told us everything there was to know about the universe, there is no way we could know for sure. Why? Because in order to find out for ourselves, we would have to measure. And in the process of measuring, we change what we are measuring, giving us skewed results (Uncertainty Principle).

But with this deterministic viewpoint, everything is predetermined - but there is no way for us to know exactly what the results will be. So in a sense, we are fated, and we do have a destiny.

An atheist who believes in fate. Weird!

It is bizarre to think that every whimsical action we take is predetermined. Like mentioned before, imagine that we know everything there is to know about the universe without making any measurements. We would then be able to determine or calculate that John Smith from Austin Texas will perform a cartwheel on his front lawn at 5:34 p.m. to show off to his children. It is difficult to accept that everything I am doing right now could have been foreseen if this knowledge was available. Every letter I type is predetermined. It seems very bizarre, but it seems to make sense.

In the same way, it seems far fetched to believe that if I tap the floor right now with my finger, it will send energy from the point of contact all the way to the other side of the earth. But it all boils down to cause and effect. We may not be able to measure it in its finest detail, but it exists.

Stand Up!

It's been a long time coming, but I am finally trying the standing approach to using a computer. For the time being I am using my bureau since it is just about tall enough. I am one of many who is glued to their computer pretty much all day. There's homework, reddit, email, cheggit ( I dare you to look this up ;), video games (damn you Steam), blogging, did I say reddit already ಠ_ಠ?

After doing much research and even giving a presentation in college about it, I think it's about time for me to try the experiment. If after about a month I like it, I'll be making a trip to Ikea to acquire the parts to make a real desk of my own. I say a month because supposedly it takes about that long for your body and especially feet to get used to standing for long periods of time.

If you are interested, I am trying to get my sitting time down below 5 hours a day. Considering the time I spend in class, eating, driving, and pooping - this becomes somewhat difficult to do. There are many scientific studies on the subject, but my interest spawned from an article that was posted on reddit a while back.

http://www.medicalbillingandcoding.org/sitting-kills/

I will try to post again regarding my results.

A Visit

"Today a class from a diffirent school came to my school. When they got to my school me and someone else whent to meet them at the front door of the school. First when the class got to my class each person from the other class picked a partner. After that everyone from my class asked the other class to pt theire name on a name tag so everyone from both classes got to know each other. When the princable from my school came in my class room she interduesed herself and told the other class about the school and other things. Next we lined up at the door and went outside to play a game. When we got outside we lined up and each person had to walk across a pavement a diffirent way. Every person had to walk or run or even skiping. Every person had to do something diffirent. from everybody in front of them. After everybody went we got into groups and then larger groups after the whole game and it got hot. Everybody went back into my classroom again. When we got inside we got setled and my teacher made an anounsmint. She said, "my class made your class freindship braclits for you" and everybody in my class gave thier partner the bracelit. After everybody had a doghnut and apple sider. After other people from my class took the other class around the school. Next they left to the front door but befor everybody said good by and see you later. Then me and someone else took the other class to the bus and then everybody said goodby to us to. "

- A description of mine from grade school of a visit from another school. My mother kept most of my school work and I like to go through it from time to time for laughs and giggles. I love all the spelling errors. I hope they still do things like this; I remember it being pretty fun. I think I pulled off a cartwheel when we were all doing 'something different' as we walked across the pavement.

Connect the Dots

Tears begin falling. They continue to fall harder, and faster. You clench your fists and squint your eyes. You can't believe this is happening. You did not see this coming. You thought you had it all figured out. You feel like your life is closing in on you, squeezing you, forcing you in to an infinitesimal spec of condensed sadness. You can't seem to breath. Your chest hurts. You begin to sweat. Rolling flashes of warmth shoot through your body. Your mind and heart are racing faster and faster. You feel like you are about to collapse in on yourself.

When suddenly you slam your fists on the ground, look up at the sky and scream at the top of your lungs. A release. The stars seem blurry through your running tears. You continue to stare. The stars become more clear as your tears begin to dry on your face. Clusters upon clusters of white specs of light fill your vision. You begin to connect the dots. A line here. A curve there. An image appears. You know instantly what it is and you begin to smile. The smile becomes permanent as your eyes begin to close again. You are calm. You hold your smile for as long as your muscles hold out. Because you know that you are okay. And that you have exactly what you need. And you always will.

Conscious Breathing

When you cut yourself, your body triggers a pain sensation in your brain. We then react and stop the cause of the pain. No matter the degree of pain or pleasure, our body is trying to tell us something. But are there even more subtle queues than just immediate and obvious pain and pleasure that we fail to pick up on?

As the title suggests, I am talking about breathing consciously. In my experience, you become aware of your breathing either on purpose or unintentionally. Breathing is traditionally thought of to be an unconscious bodily function. Our body breaths for us when we are sleeping, and unless we intentionally take control during waking hours - we usually are not aware of it.

So how does one become aware of their breathing unintentionally? It seems to happen to me sometimes when I run when I wasn't expecting to run. (If I was expecting to run, I will take manual control of my breathing so I don' get cramps). It happens unintentionally when I need to take in big gulps of air. It also happens in periods of inactivity. If I sit down and close my eyes, it seems that my body shifts in to manual control automatically.

What also seems to trigger it is sadness or depression. I initially thought I was alone in this experience, but after mentioning to a family member the other day - I realized it happens to others as well. When you feel sad or depressed, you get a tight feeling in your chest. You then tend to focus on this feeling, and then what naturally follows is your breathing. This has to be a sign.

What the conversation consisted of was a bit morbid, but important. When we are sad, we become aware of our breathing. Not only are we focused on our problems, but we also have to remind ourselves to draw in air and exhale it. If this goes on for longer than say fifteen seconds, it starts to become annoying. What a sad situation we are in when we become annoyed by the act of keeping ourselves alive.

I think though, that our body forces us into manual control for a reason. We have to take control and fix our trajectory. My solution is usually a bit of yoga type breathing. Close your eyes. Breath in. Breath out. Remember that problems can be solved - and if they can't be solve, there is no use worrying about it. Get yourself under control, smile, and then continue living your life the way you want to. You will now breath unconsciously.

I think maybe that many of us don't quite take the initiative to fix what is wrong. We ignore signs that should not be ignored. You worry and control your breathing in an inefficient way, leading to many issues.

Smile. And let your body breath for you.

Friend

When I look at or hear this word spoken, I get a very soft and warm feeling at my core. It occurs regardless of whether or not I have any friends in my life. This happens because of the way I interpret the meaning of the word. Not everyone will have the same reaction as me. While I do agree that there are varying degrees of what a friend is, I feel that the actual embodiment of my interpretation of the word is very precious.

I made a post a while back about performance-based relationships. I argued that friendships were performance based. I don't know if I necessarily believe this anymore. While I think there are many people who interpret the word differently than I do who have performance-based friendships; the essence of what a friend is to me, is not at all performance-based. Much how I believe that love for a family member is unrequited, the effort and care you put in to a friendship is very much the same.

It is a bit of a coincidence, but now that I think about it - a manga that I follow consists of a 'friendship' that is a bit one sided. In a nutshell, one of the two boys cares very much about the other - and the other could not care less. The connection I'm making here is that once someone enters your life and makes a significant enough impact on you personally, this person becomes very important to you. In essence this person becomes a friend to you. The importance of this person will never go away. You will always hold them in the highest regard. You will always care about this person. No matter what.

Now, I realize people may change - and eventually drift apart somewhat. But, I think that real friends will never lose contact. The connections that they made in the past will always be important. Unfortunately, I also think that friendships can be one sided. But I think that once you understand and accept the ins and outs of human interpersonal relationships, you can cope with having a one-sided friendship.

I personally think that true two way friendships are actually quite rare. If you have one, consider yourself very lucky. I am making a huge guess here, but I would say that only 1 in 10 people have a true two way friendship in their lifetime that is not performance based.

Imagine a person who will call you just to see that you are doing well. A person who is not fickle. Someone who will not ignore you for any reason. Someone who will do whatever they can to help you. A person you can call and confide in. Someone you can always fall back on. Someone who is not curious, but actually cares about you. A strong and reliable connection you will never lose in this crazy world of ours.

This is what a friend is to me.

Dreamscape

It's been about seven months since I've written anything substantial here; although the void doesn't seem to have lasted longer than the blink of an eye. It's amazing how quickly your life can change - how quickly something or somebody can take hold of you and extract you completely from your old life. Where everything seems different from your point of view, from waking up in the morning to scrubbing the last morsel of food off a dirty plate. Any previously deemed monotonous tasks are revitalized and no longer completed grudgingly.

What sparked my interest in returning here to write something stemmed from a few things including a new found curiosity to both write down and share my dreams and a rather curious soundtrack that played during one of my work nights. Of the many calm inducing songs that were played over the eight hour shift was that of Erik Satie, Gnossienne 1.

They say the more you think about your dreams, including talking about them and writing them down, the more likely you are to remember them. There's nothing more annoying than waking up and not remembering what you just dreamt about. Imagine going on some spectacular adventure, doing whatever you please, having the most fun you've had in your life, and not remembering it the day after. Remembering is how we grow. Reminiscing for me is a greatly satisfying experience. I don't want to forget anything, even my dreams.

My dreams come in two parts, two waves mostly independent of each other. Depending on how much time passes from when I wake up to the point when my pen reaches the paper, I can usually only remember one part - probably the second. I like to write them down right away, otherwise I'm risking the loss of detail. I'm not obsessive about it, but I do keep a notebook pretty close to my bed. I'm also not one to interpret my dreams much, also I do a bit of mild correlating between certain dream occurrences and past real-life events. I don't believe dreams predict the future, but they certainly say something about you. Please excuse my fragmented way of portraying my dream, it's how I remember it playing out.

Dream Log 11/14
I'm standing at the mid-point of my grandmother's back yard looking where her fence should be, but instead at my newly built house. It is very tiny, a little bit bigger than a mobile home - but it's one of those new-age mini cost-efficient houses that's solar powered. I'm standing there looking at my house wondering if the walls are thick enough - if they're well insulated, and also of the locks on the doors are strong enough. Then I turn around and look back at my grandmother's house and wonder why the heck I built my house so close. So then I start to wonder how easy it would be to transport the entire house elsewhere and also wonder how I'm going to explain the reason I want to move away. The next thing I know I'm at the back porch of my grandmother's house talking to her - what about I don't know. Then my aunt shows up and asks me to babysit her kids. The next thing I remember, we're playing follow the leader around the yard and my house - I'm the leader. What's weird is that there's some old lady in a wheel chair in the back of the line. We walk around a bit more until we get to the side of my house. We stop and look beyond the back yard. I realize my house is built almost in the middle of a street, slightly over the two yellow lines, and it seems to be built on a big speed bump. There are cars coming from both sides of the street, slowing down as they approach the speed bump, and squeezing by as they avoid my house. Now I'm standing there wondering how that could have happened and then I realize there's an ocean just beyond the road. I wake up shortly looking at the blue waves.

Word of the Day: Redivivus

Mental capacity redivivus via trailblazing musings.

p.s. One starts to wonder if words are ever retired from the dictionary.

I've Killed Something Beautiful

Apt and eager to take on the uncertainties of this beautiful April morning, I opened my front door and took a deep breath. Exhaling and looking out at the clear sky I felt something land on my shirt with a buzz. I instinctively brushed down with my right hand and took a step back to see a yellow jacket fall to the floor. My screen door closed as I backed into the kitchen while the wasp squirmed a bit on the floor as it flipped itself over. Having a bad experience in the past I panicked and stomped down with my right foot and twisted it counter clock-wise. I turned my head away and winced after hearing the barely audible 'crunk' as I ended the life of something beautiful.

I wouldn't say it ruined my day but it certainly put a damper on things - as I spent the rest of the day mulling over my split-second decision. The corpse is still there, right in front of my door; I'm not sure when I'll pick it up. I remember when I had absolutely no problem killing insects - I even did it for fun once in a while. I had a friend next door when I was in elementary school and we used to have a contest to see who could kill the most bumble bees in my front yard. They would hover right above the grass at exactly the right height for us to pounce at the right time and squish them under our little feet.

It's strange now that I think about it. I believe I always had a slight phobia of insects and arachnids of all sorts, but I went through phases in which I enjoyed inflicting harm on them. In another house at another location.....and yet another friend when I was five years old, we used to look around the perimeter of his house for daddy long-legs. While I just watched, he would pick them up by one leg and pluck the rest off one by one until only one remained. I didn't particularly enjoy this activity, but he was my only friend at the time.

Which brings me to ponder the importance or value of different forms of life. I remember having a discussion with my aunt not too long ago about what we would do if I hit a deer with my car. She said that depending on the severity of the injury, she would most likely try to run the deer over again to kill it, to end its misery. I honestly don't know if I could bring myself to do that. I then asked her if she would have the same attitude and willingness to accomplish something of that nature with a human being, if say perhaps there was absolutely no hope for recovery. She said she didn't know, and that it's completely different.

Is it completely different? I don't know - I suppose it depends on the person and their point of view. I killed the wasp because I was afraid it would sting me. I suppose I shouldn't feel bad about it, but I do. I've never killed a human before, but if I was defending myself and it happened, I don't think I would feel any different than killing the wasp. Sure if there was a dead human body laying in front of my kitchen door, there would be bigger implications in terms of the law, but psychologically I don't think I would react any differently. Did I cry when I killed the wasp? No. Would I cry if I killed a human out of self-defense? I don't think I would.

If you asked me if I would rather save the lives of 1000 people or 1000 bugs or 1000 elephants or 1000 deer or 1000 polar bears, I wouldn't have an answer for you. Of course the people I know and love are important to me, and so my answer to the previous question would not apply - but in general I don't think human life is more important than any other form of life. Would I be called evil? Probably. Unethical? Amoral? Filthy excuse for a human-being? Most likely. I honestly couldn't care less what people think of me, but I think its this mode of thought that is destroying the diversity and beauty of our earth. Some people would just say that its evolution - survival of the fittest....but do you think humans will evolve fast enough to keep up with drastic human-induced changes to our world? I'm not so sure.

My Son

I never knew how to be a good father. I always figured it would come to me naturally; it seemed to me that the art of parenting was part of our physiological structure - much like love, you can't simply read about it in a book. Thinking back to my childhood when my father was still alive, while my memory is vague, I remember his charming smile. He wasn't around often because of work, but from what I can remember he was a very cheerful man and always managed to make me smile. My fondest memory was the day he taught me how to throw a curve ball. We were in the back yard all night it seemed - until I got it just right. Upon catching the last ball he jumped up and cheered and we ran toward each other. He grabbed me by the sides and lifted me up above his head and twirled me around in the air. After setting me down he took his right hand and rubbed the top of my head and told me how proud he was of me. While I didn't get to see him that often, he made a significant impact on me as a father. Above all though, he was always there for me. No matter where I was or how I felt, I could always get get a hold of him and he would always cheer me up. Even through the phone, I could always see his smile.

After loosing my wife to cancer a year ago, I could no longer maintain this timeless smile. I don't know if my son could notice or not, but it was something I worried about every day. Not only was my wife taken from me, but I was left to raise our son on my own, and the fear that I might fail grew with every thought. I read every book I could get my hands on - from single parenting to depression and living with loss. I even began to see a therapist. Even after months, none of it seemed to be helping. My son seemed to be coping just fine, but I honestly couldn't tell because my own depression. Although I was spending much more time with him, my head was filled with constant mourning and negativity I had a hard time seeing what was right in front of me. I followed my self-help books to a T, and I hoped to god my son was getting all he deserved. I made sure he ate well, did his homework, and got to bed on time - but I didn't know what he was thinking, and I can see now that I failed to ask.

Every night after tucking my son into bed, I would escape to my recling chair in the living room and watch the old video tapes of my wedding. With a cuban cigar in my left hand and a cup of scotch in my right, I would drown myself in alcohol, smoke, and memories that are now painful to think about. I couldn't help myself. Every night would be the same. It was just me and my son now and for some reason that wasn't enough. Why wasn't it enough? Am I really that selfish a person to forever cling to the past and abandon my responsibilites as a father? I want to smile again, and I want my son to see me as I was before all of this happened. Why did this have to happen? I don't understand, and I will never understand. No one will ever be able to answer these questions. No one will ever be able to undo the past. Things became clear to me though on one of my more pathetic nights - the most important day of my life.

I woke up to a beep, after a second realizing it was my cell-phone which was in the kitchen. I was sprawled out on my basement floor in a sea of old pictures that were scattered around my body. I sat up and peeled a picture off my forehead which happened to be of my son and I on his fourth birthday. I carried this with me while I walked upstairs to the kitchen. I flipped open my phone, surprised to see that I had twenty-three missed calls, all from home. I also had one message from my son, which made me panic at first. He was sobbing and sniffling and barely managed to let a few words escape, "daddy, where are you?". I thought for a second and remembered that he was terrified of going into the basement at night. He must have looked all over the house. I rushed upstairs to his room and he wasn't there. My second guess was right - I found him curled up with in my bed with a cordless phone in his hands. I stood there for a minute, watching my son sleep. I had forgotten how precious he was to me. Tears flowing, I crawled into bed and wrapped my arms around him. "I'm sorry sport, I'm here. I'll always be here, I promise."