Other than Woody Allen, I've just found someone else who's even more neurotic than me... Marc Maron.
I was just watching last night's episode of Conan, since the only other new episode on my PVR was Primetime Nightline: Beyond "Battle With the Devil". Now I started watching Nightline, but the images of real 'exorcisms' were freaking me out on top of my anxiety attack. I was trying to calm down and I knew this would give me anxiety and nightmares. I decided to switch to Conan. I made the right decision. Don't get me wrong I love Conan any day, but my other recordings tend to beat his episodes. Seth Green was funny, but Marc Maron retelling his hypochondria of mouth cancer killed me and made me feel completely normal. I had a similar hypochondriac moment when I was 16 when my lymphnodes in my armpits were crazy swollen I obsessed about having cancer. I later found out that outdoor cats carry bacteria on their paws and nails that when you get scratched it can cause symptoms like swollen lymphnodes under your arms. I got scratched by an outdoor cat. I felt more embarrassed than "a survivor of cancer."
I think my anxiety attack this evening came about by me cleaning the only clutter in my apartment, my unused kitchen countertop. I like to rationalize everything. It gives chaos control. Putting order to the chaos of the counter had the opposite effect on me. I have no idea why.
I ran out of thoughts. If you have the time, see if you can find the Marc Maron interview from last night's episode of Conan. I couldn't bare to delete the episode. They made a joke about fanatical HP fans committing suicide, and then an HP fan threatened to jump from the rafters until Andy Richter came to save the day wearing a Batman mask and cape like the live action TV show from whatever decade. I <3 you Andy, but holy shit, you in that Batman mask took my breath away. Conan's reaction only added to how I also felt about it. You should look that up too if you can find that too.
God bless Conan and Andy Richter and America.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
The GQ Man
Today I happened to read my GQ I bought because Alex Skarsgard was on the cover. Of all the magazines I've bought or read, this is the first time I've read the majority of the articles. This is a feat in itself. How is it that a men's magazine is more entertaining to me than a woman's magazine? Maybe it's the wit, the lack of articles on spas and hot vacation spots I can't afford and may never be able to. Or the humanitarian piece about women in poor countries and so on. The stuff that makes me flip pages. Or better yet is the pages long on a perfume or some new beauty treatment. Put me to sleep already.
The article titled "'The Taste That Dare Not Speak Its Name" by Devin Friedman captivated me, in that it never occured to me until now about distinctions that exist that I never put in this light (like going to Mexico or Australia.) It's about the middlebrow. It entranced me. Here's the letter commentary I would send to GQ about this article:
I think the middlebrow is a phenomena that only exists between men when it comes to culture. If it applies to women, it must be a small population. I would think this population would be socially elite women, extremely intellectual women and weird hippie artists that somehow make their non-sense sound poetical and intelligent that you can't tell whether they are genuine or real nut jobs. I don't care to find out either. I'd say the majority of the women in North America are "middlebrow". That we all tend to like similar things, yet can be so completely different from each other. Like some middle ground woman culture. This language we all relate to.
If a woman calls herself highbrow whom is intelligent and dresses extremely well, chances are her face isn't attractive. If the same woman is beautiful and dresses just as well, she's probably faking her intelligence or is too arrogant or dumb to realize she isn't. If a woman is lowbrow and unintelligent, she's probably some kind of social trash. I'll exclude the names we all know. If she doesn't think she's lowbrow, she's probably, excuse my language, a dumb slut. Even she can't appeal to the middlebrow of woman culture since she probably thinks she's better than every other woman. This doesn't matter if she's smoking hot or "woman, I don't care how comfortable you are with your body, your confidence is mesmerizing, but please dear Jesus, put on some clothes, I don't need to see that."
And then there are those mouthy sluts who don't take shit from no one, that you can't help but admire, even if they aren't the smartest. It is its own breed of feminism. Not an admirable one, but one you can respect.
I do believe that there are probably a good amount of men who are secretly middlebrow men and always will be. Don't get me wrong, there are tons of douche bags out there. They appear highbrow and then you realize that they think they are, but really they're not. I won't classify those ones, but they may be overly preppy, obsessed with UFC or want to look like a UFC fighter or they pose as intellectuals who aren't all that intellectual and immediately despise you if you're an intelligent woman and show just how dumb they are.
In regards to Feist. I'm not against any man who likes/loves Feist, but if you're a single guy, wearing tight fitting pants and layering a cardigan over a button-up shirt, I'm inclined to think you don't like women, if you know what I'm saying. It's one of those things where you lie and say you're girlfriend made you go with her to a Feist concert, and it was an "okay" time, but really you fan girl screamed inside and tried not to sing the lyrics you totally love. It's okay. It's even more okay if you're married. I think men secretly need a woman so that they can enjoy these things and it being okay. And if a man never enjoys middlebrow things and only the lowbrow, then there's something wrong with him. I can't remember the name of the author who wrote a book on the things white people love, but Wes Anderson and Coen Brother movies are great. And there's nothing wrong with liking them. A middlebrow man is a modern man and is a more real man than any Neanderthal who only loves the lowbrow.
And that's as far as my thoughts went. It needs some serious polishing, but this was the jist of the ideas I had circling my brain this morning. I'll have to give it a go and then submit it. If anything, I could use the writing practice.
Anyways...
Who and where are these GQ men? They can't live in Saskatoon. I have yet to meet a well dressed, intellectual man who isn't a gentleman with his friends, but is gentlemanly enough to not share details and even though women know men are disgusting, they keep it to a minimum like a real man should. I've yet to meet one in Saskatoon. I'd be surprised if there were any in this province or even in the prairies. I thought I met one once. He was close, but no amount of womanly polishing could take the disgusting 13 year old boy out of him. It's not charming. If you're a woman who finds this charming, then you have poor taste in men. That's okay. Everyone deserves love even if they aren't a GQ man, and he wouldn't be every woman's type or taste either. That's okay. The less I have to compete with, the better.
And then there are those almost GQ men. Manly, gentlemanly, not afraid of the middlebrow, but don't openly admit it, that need a wardrobe polish, but they're just not into reading and have no intention of changing it, even though there is nothing wrong with reading books or engaging intellectually with the world. If I had to choose, it would be this one over the dirty adolescent boy who talks about masturbating, farting, talking about woman derogatorily in a negative way (since admiring a good looking person and their "assets" is totally normal.) and whom are entirely selfish and unwilling to change. I would always pick the stubborn gentleman who's an idiot over the man boy idiot, who will never grow up and be a man.
Thinking about it, Mr. Darcy and none other than Colin Firth, I think he is the perfect image of a GQ man. Both as the character and himself. Wanting a GQ man isn't being overly picky, but a matter of preference and taste. This isn't being narrow minded, only living somewhere where there isn't many around makes me look pickier than I really am. I think it's a prairie thing. I'm not asking for much. Taste, intelligence, a little sensitivity and that true understated manliness that you so commonly find in a cowboy. Like an urban cowboy who went to university, but didn't only take commerce classes, but also didn't graduate with something that doesn't pay the bills and doesn't sleep with every woman that throws themselves at him... Enough about that! He won't be found here. I'd be surprised if I found him.
The article titled "'The Taste That Dare Not Speak Its Name" by Devin Friedman captivated me, in that it never occured to me until now about distinctions that exist that I never put in this light (like going to Mexico or Australia.) It's about the middlebrow. It entranced me. Here's the letter commentary I would send to GQ about this article:
I think the middlebrow is a phenomena that only exists between men when it comes to culture. If it applies to women, it must be a small population. I would think this population would be socially elite women, extremely intellectual women and weird hippie artists that somehow make their non-sense sound poetical and intelligent that you can't tell whether they are genuine or real nut jobs. I don't care to find out either. I'd say the majority of the women in North America are "middlebrow". That we all tend to like similar things, yet can be so completely different from each other. Like some middle ground woman culture. This language we all relate to.
If a woman calls herself highbrow whom is intelligent and dresses extremely well, chances are her face isn't attractive. If the same woman is beautiful and dresses just as well, she's probably faking her intelligence or is too arrogant or dumb to realize she isn't. If a woman is lowbrow and unintelligent, she's probably some kind of social trash. I'll exclude the names we all know. If she doesn't think she's lowbrow, she's probably, excuse my language, a dumb slut. Even she can't appeal to the middlebrow of woman culture since she probably thinks she's better than every other woman. This doesn't matter if she's smoking hot or "woman, I don't care how comfortable you are with your body, your confidence is mesmerizing, but please dear Jesus, put on some clothes, I don't need to see that."
And then there are those mouthy sluts who don't take shit from no one, that you can't help but admire, even if they aren't the smartest. It is its own breed of feminism. Not an admirable one, but one you can respect.
I do believe that there are probably a good amount of men who are secretly middlebrow men and always will be. Don't get me wrong, there are tons of douche bags out there. They appear highbrow and then you realize that they think they are, but really they're not. I won't classify those ones, but they may be overly preppy, obsessed with UFC or want to look like a UFC fighter or they pose as intellectuals who aren't all that intellectual and immediately despise you if you're an intelligent woman and show just how dumb they are.
In regards to Feist. I'm not against any man who likes/loves Feist, but if you're a single guy, wearing tight fitting pants and layering a cardigan over a button-up shirt, I'm inclined to think you don't like women, if you know what I'm saying. It's one of those things where you lie and say you're girlfriend made you go with her to a Feist concert, and it was an "okay" time, but really you fan girl screamed inside and tried not to sing the lyrics you totally love. It's okay. It's even more okay if you're married. I think men secretly need a woman so that they can enjoy these things and it being okay. And if a man never enjoys middlebrow things and only the lowbrow, then there's something wrong with him. I can't remember the name of the author who wrote a book on the things white people love, but Wes Anderson and Coen Brother movies are great. And there's nothing wrong with liking them. A middlebrow man is a modern man and is a more real man than any Neanderthal who only loves the lowbrow.
And that's as far as my thoughts went. It needs some serious polishing, but this was the jist of the ideas I had circling my brain this morning. I'll have to give it a go and then submit it. If anything, I could use the writing practice.
Anyways...
Who and where are these GQ men? They can't live in Saskatoon. I have yet to meet a well dressed, intellectual man who isn't a gentleman with his friends, but is gentlemanly enough to not share details and even though women know men are disgusting, they keep it to a minimum like a real man should. I've yet to meet one in Saskatoon. I'd be surprised if there were any in this province or even in the prairies. I thought I met one once. He was close, but no amount of womanly polishing could take the disgusting 13 year old boy out of him. It's not charming. If you're a woman who finds this charming, then you have poor taste in men. That's okay. Everyone deserves love even if they aren't a GQ man, and he wouldn't be every woman's type or taste either. That's okay. The less I have to compete with, the better.
And then there are those almost GQ men. Manly, gentlemanly, not afraid of the middlebrow, but don't openly admit it, that need a wardrobe polish, but they're just not into reading and have no intention of changing it, even though there is nothing wrong with reading books or engaging intellectually with the world. If I had to choose, it would be this one over the dirty adolescent boy who talks about masturbating, farting, talking about woman derogatorily in a negative way (since admiring a good looking person and their "assets" is totally normal.) and whom are entirely selfish and unwilling to change. I would always pick the stubborn gentleman who's an idiot over the man boy idiot, who will never grow up and be a man.
Thinking about it, Mr. Darcy and none other than Colin Firth, I think he is the perfect image of a GQ man. Both as the character and himself. Wanting a GQ man isn't being overly picky, but a matter of preference and taste. This isn't being narrow minded, only living somewhere where there isn't many around makes me look pickier than I really am. I think it's a prairie thing. I'm not asking for much. Taste, intelligence, a little sensitivity and that true understated manliness that you so commonly find in a cowboy. Like an urban cowboy who went to university, but didn't only take commerce classes, but also didn't graduate with something that doesn't pay the bills and doesn't sleep with every woman that throws themselves at him... Enough about that! He won't be found here. I'd be surprised if I found him.
Back Log
I wrote a handful of blogs and never published them. Today I managed to do so. I wrote them in the last 60 days. I know. It’s bad. I have a hard time going home and having the energy or attention span to turn on my computer and post. I’ve been writing, juts not blogging. After sitting at a desk in front of a computer for 6 hours a day, the last thing I’m interested in, is sitting in front of a computer at home.
Yesterday had some miniscule minor event happen. I went to Superstore to go grocery shopping and en route about a block maybe a block and a half, at 3:00pm, and a very large jack rabbit jumped out in front of me. I obviously went out of my way to not hit it, but it came towards me and I had to swerve even more. The last thing I want to do is hit a rabbit in the year of the rabbit. That has to be unlucky. I also almost ran over a magpie. That can’t be good either. Killing things unnecessarily is bad karma. I can’t even kill a spider. I can imagine how racked with guilt I would be if I ran over something I think is cute.
Not to mention I need to stop with the vampire stuff because in my half sleep state I managed to sleep walk about vampires to the point where I said “I rescind my invitation to all of you”. I didn’t remember until this morning which was entertaining. I do some funny stuff in my sleep. It was more like I woke up with the door closed at 4 in the morning and then realized that it wasn’t just in my dreams but something I actually did. I don’t think I would ever rescind my invitation to Eric Northman, unless he had every intention of killing me.
I didn’t reread my previous unpublished posts, but I’m almost certain they’re overly philosophical.
Yesterday had some miniscule minor event happen. I went to Superstore to go grocery shopping and en route about a block maybe a block and a half, at 3:00pm, and a very large jack rabbit jumped out in front of me. I obviously went out of my way to not hit it, but it came towards me and I had to swerve even more. The last thing I want to do is hit a rabbit in the year of the rabbit. That has to be unlucky. I also almost ran over a magpie. That can’t be good either. Killing things unnecessarily is bad karma. I can’t even kill a spider. I can imagine how racked with guilt I would be if I ran over something I think is cute.
Not to mention I need to stop with the vampire stuff because in my half sleep state I managed to sleep walk about vampires to the point where I said “I rescind my invitation to all of you”. I didn’t remember until this morning which was entertaining. I do some funny stuff in my sleep. It was more like I woke up with the door closed at 4 in the morning and then realized that it wasn’t just in my dreams but something I actually did. I don’t think I would ever rescind my invitation to Eric Northman, unless he had every intention of killing me.
I didn’t reread my previous unpublished posts, but I’m almost certain they’re overly philosophical.
Irony
I love irony. Irony is charming in its own right. Irony in stories and story-telling and movies makes one think that this would only happen in a story. The funny thing about irony is that it happens all the time.
Like how I’ve managed to write a few blogs now, but I never posted them and that’s irony in its own right because clearly it doesn’t matter if someone is reading it, it’s just that I’ve put the thought out there. Which is ironic since that is the intention of blogging since it is meant to be seen, it’s supposed to be public.
About a month ago I was in knee deep of irony and it was exhausting. When something gets disrupted once, maybe twice, even three times, I’ll put in a fuss, but after the fourth time, it’s just no use any more but to laugh about it and to accept that the opposite is going to happen when it shouldn’t.
Usually when a moment is ironic for me I say “of course”. And then it drags me into the line from Le Divorce where Naomi Watts’ character says “‘Of course’ The French always say "of course" to everything. Like everything is absolutely normal. C'est normale. Mais bien sûr. l'll never say, ‘But of course.’“ Because irony to me seems so normal. To expect or hope for everything to go smoothly is really the lie, and the reality is that it never goes smoothly, which is why you would say “but of course.” How could it be any other way?
Today’s ironic moments: the office phone lines being down yesterday and today. But having my phone rerouted through Calgary so that I could receive phone calls only to say “our phone lines are down” which defeats the whole purpose of the phones being down.
Another ironic moment: someone managed to jam every printer upstairs printing the same drawing. Oddly it was the same picture. How could only one picture cause the same jam in 3 different printers simultaneously? To top it off I called in for maintenance and happened to say the wrong printer unknowingly. The tech comes to fix the printer that I named, but then has to do another work order on the printer I meant to have fixed. After he leaves I have someone tell me that the printer that I called to be fixed, that I didn’t mean to get fixed got jammed again and needed a tech. How ironic.
The one that got me thinking was the book I had bought the day after my Dad passed. It’s called The Waterproof Bible by Andrew Kaufman. Needless to say I can’t remember what the sleeve said the story was about. Sometime last week I decided that after I finish Jane Eyre, I’m going to read this one. The book is about death and family; about a journey; about fulfilling wishes that normally aren’t humanly possible and so on. I’ve managed to read half of it in less than two days which is unusual for me. It’s not a thick book, the font isn’t too small. Of course the last section I read mentioned fate, which I like to ponder on now and then. Was there a reason that I bought this book on that day and am now only reading it? Maybe it hasn’t shown its full irony since I haven’t finished it. Or maybe it is coincidence. There’s something behind it. I can’t explain the feeling. Like I couldn’t explain the feeling of how vehemently I needed to buy The Alchemist and how strongly I felt about the book during and after my reading of it. I felt the same way about The Miniaturist too, but that was the summer prior to starting university. Something about philosophy was gnawing away at me before I even ventured to take a class in my second year.
It wasn’t until my second year that I decided to take philosophy to fill my schedule because I thought I wanted to minor in anthropology originally. But when I took a class not by Anderson, I realized that you had to write a paper and then present it to the class. After the first day and the syllabus I dropped the class and started searching for a new class to take that was in the same time slot. Some classes were already full and I happened to think “hey, let’s see what these philosophy classes are all about.” Turned out I fell in love with philosophy. It seemed so normal. So fitting. Like it was meant to be in my life the way it is in my life. Is this book that I’m reading prior to my next journey that could be next year? That would be too hopeful. I don’t think I’ve lived long enough to speculate anything of that nature. At any rate I’ll probably be doing the same thing next summer as I’m doing now. That would seem right. Absolutely normal. As if there was no other answer, but that one. When would it ever be something else or something exciting?
Like how I’ve managed to write a few blogs now, but I never posted them and that’s irony in its own right because clearly it doesn’t matter if someone is reading it, it’s just that I’ve put the thought out there. Which is ironic since that is the intention of blogging since it is meant to be seen, it’s supposed to be public.
About a month ago I was in knee deep of irony and it was exhausting. When something gets disrupted once, maybe twice, even three times, I’ll put in a fuss, but after the fourth time, it’s just no use any more but to laugh about it and to accept that the opposite is going to happen when it shouldn’t.
Usually when a moment is ironic for me I say “of course”. And then it drags me into the line from Le Divorce where Naomi Watts’ character says “‘Of course’ The French always say "of course" to everything. Like everything is absolutely normal. C'est normale. Mais bien sûr. l'll never say, ‘But of course.’“ Because irony to me seems so normal. To expect or hope for everything to go smoothly is really the lie, and the reality is that it never goes smoothly, which is why you would say “but of course.” How could it be any other way?
Today’s ironic moments: the office phone lines being down yesterday and today. But having my phone rerouted through Calgary so that I could receive phone calls only to say “our phone lines are down” which defeats the whole purpose of the phones being down.
Another ironic moment: someone managed to jam every printer upstairs printing the same drawing. Oddly it was the same picture. How could only one picture cause the same jam in 3 different printers simultaneously? To top it off I called in for maintenance and happened to say the wrong printer unknowingly. The tech comes to fix the printer that I named, but then has to do another work order on the printer I meant to have fixed. After he leaves I have someone tell me that the printer that I called to be fixed, that I didn’t mean to get fixed got jammed again and needed a tech. How ironic.
The one that got me thinking was the book I had bought the day after my Dad passed. It’s called The Waterproof Bible by Andrew Kaufman. Needless to say I can’t remember what the sleeve said the story was about. Sometime last week I decided that after I finish Jane Eyre, I’m going to read this one. The book is about death and family; about a journey; about fulfilling wishes that normally aren’t humanly possible and so on. I’ve managed to read half of it in less than two days which is unusual for me. It’s not a thick book, the font isn’t too small. Of course the last section I read mentioned fate, which I like to ponder on now and then. Was there a reason that I bought this book on that day and am now only reading it? Maybe it hasn’t shown its full irony since I haven’t finished it. Or maybe it is coincidence. There’s something behind it. I can’t explain the feeling. Like I couldn’t explain the feeling of how vehemently I needed to buy The Alchemist and how strongly I felt about the book during and after my reading of it. I felt the same way about The Miniaturist too, but that was the summer prior to starting university. Something about philosophy was gnawing away at me before I even ventured to take a class in my second year.
It wasn’t until my second year that I decided to take philosophy to fill my schedule because I thought I wanted to minor in anthropology originally. But when I took a class not by Anderson, I realized that you had to write a paper and then present it to the class. After the first day and the syllabus I dropped the class and started searching for a new class to take that was in the same time slot. Some classes were already full and I happened to think “hey, let’s see what these philosophy classes are all about.” Turned out I fell in love with philosophy. It seemed so normal. So fitting. Like it was meant to be in my life the way it is in my life. Is this book that I’m reading prior to my next journey that could be next year? That would be too hopeful. I don’t think I’ve lived long enough to speculate anything of that nature. At any rate I’ll probably be doing the same thing next summer as I’m doing now. That would seem right. Absolutely normal. As if there was no other answer, but that one. When would it ever be something else or something exciting?
Introspection of Nothingness In Death
I started reading a philosophy anthology I bought a year ago. I finally cracked it open and I’m delighted by my initial readings. I’m only into my first essay, but it has been enough to get my noggin going, hence the title. This is my very informal introduction into my very short essay on the nothingness of death.
This is a very general broad statement that I am neither entitled to make nor make the assumption without and concrete evidence, but I’m going to make it anyway. I think that we all describe nothingness as blackness. That non-existence is a place void of light, an absence of light, and a portal of nothing. This thought of nothingness has all kinds of errors. I think these types of thoughts stem from trying to imagine or picture what nothingness could be. It is a way to understand what we cannot understand. I’m not going to delve into the preposterous notions of near death experiences and the phenomena that surround it with psychic evaluations and supernatural events. I’m going to look at it from a purely scientific stand point.
In regards to death, we either believe it is to no longer exist as we were to say, human, but either people believe after this there is nothing or after this there is an afterlife. Neither need be proved one way or the other to suppose that what happens after this is an impossible feat by anyone to make. Anyone to say that they know what happens in death is a fool and only fools believe fools. The state of nothingness is not a state. Nothingness has no states or properties. It has no existence. So if you were dead you wouldn’t exist in nothingness, you would not exist at all. To think you will be existing nothingness is to assume that nothingness exists, therefore you would exist. That is true of an afterlife. It cannot be a dark place because you still exist, just not in the same physical sense you had once existed before. That being said, nothingness is not black or dark, it’s void of anything and everything. It’s really a metaphysical headache. The way the brain understands things is that if there is one thing, then there has to be an opposite, and if there is an opposite, then we can gather that there is an in between so to speak. We all know this to be true. To argue against it would be silly.
Death is not nothingness; it just is the absence of life. Although it makes sense to think that death would be nothingness, we cannot assume that to be dead is to be clouded in dark. To believe nothingness exists it to believe that nothingness it exactly what it is not. To exist means to be something that is tangible, something accessible, some place that can be visited in one way or another. And that is what takes away from what nothingness means.
The dictionary meanings are interesting. They read as follows “the state of being nothing”, “something that is nonexistent: a view of humanity as suspended between infinity and nothingness”, “lack of being; nonexistence: The sound faded into nothingness”. All referenced from Dictionary.com. The last one, the description or example to emulate nothingness is entirely wrong. Sound doesn’t fade into nothingness, there is always some remnant of its vibrations still rippling in the universe in one way or another. It’s a poor example to use. That’s the problem with a lot of things. They make sense, but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily true, just that you can see the thinking behind it. That is the problem with the human brain. People say all sorts of things that can be logically understood, but not logically sound. I don’t know if that’s language, or our thought process or the combination of both. It is an interesting topic nonetheless. I should have taken logic in my third year, because I think my papers would have greatly improved by this asset I didn’t find an asset when I had first taken it. To get back to what I was saying, all kinds of people have these delusions and because they make sense they think they are right and
these people you cannot argue out of their belief because they are fools and to argue with is like arguing with a rock. I think that the human race has this informal and internal knowledge that we all seem to possess. Maybe we learned it somewhere; it just did not get added to when we could understand more intellectually deeper thought. I have no idea. I have no intention of examining this, but in philosophy you can. It is like there is some unwritten rule that if you can argue something and it is logical and logically sound it can be permitted as a truth. Technically I could explore this without any real hard science to back it up. I don’t think science could define what death and nothingness is either. If there is nothing to tangibly examine, then nothing can be learned from it. I’m boldly going to say that science is the study of events i.e. cause and effect, although Hume would say we couldn’t predict/determine nor see what really is the cause of any effect. The outcome could change at any point of time and that not all things are predictable 100% of the time. Unless its theoretical, and then it’s straight hypothesizing based on equations and physics and whatnot and then well, it’s not hard science anymore.
***This was the end of my essay which I didn't conclude. Too much time has passed to even maintain the same tone. But I'm sure what I said can be somewhat understood. Maybe not. I wrote it so it makes sense to me.***
This is a very general broad statement that I am neither entitled to make nor make the assumption without and concrete evidence, but I’m going to make it anyway. I think that we all describe nothingness as blackness. That non-existence is a place void of light, an absence of light, and a portal of nothing. This thought of nothingness has all kinds of errors. I think these types of thoughts stem from trying to imagine or picture what nothingness could be. It is a way to understand what we cannot understand. I’m not going to delve into the preposterous notions of near death experiences and the phenomena that surround it with psychic evaluations and supernatural events. I’m going to look at it from a purely scientific stand point.
In regards to death, we either believe it is to no longer exist as we were to say, human, but either people believe after this there is nothing or after this there is an afterlife. Neither need be proved one way or the other to suppose that what happens after this is an impossible feat by anyone to make. Anyone to say that they know what happens in death is a fool and only fools believe fools. The state of nothingness is not a state. Nothingness has no states or properties. It has no existence. So if you were dead you wouldn’t exist in nothingness, you would not exist at all. To think you will be existing nothingness is to assume that nothingness exists, therefore you would exist. That is true of an afterlife. It cannot be a dark place because you still exist, just not in the same physical sense you had once existed before. That being said, nothingness is not black or dark, it’s void of anything and everything. It’s really a metaphysical headache. The way the brain understands things is that if there is one thing, then there has to be an opposite, and if there is an opposite, then we can gather that there is an in between so to speak. We all know this to be true. To argue against it would be silly.
Death is not nothingness; it just is the absence of life. Although it makes sense to think that death would be nothingness, we cannot assume that to be dead is to be clouded in dark. To believe nothingness exists it to believe that nothingness it exactly what it is not. To exist means to be something that is tangible, something accessible, some place that can be visited in one way or another. And that is what takes away from what nothingness means.
The dictionary meanings are interesting. They read as follows “the state of being nothing”, “something that is nonexistent: a view of humanity as suspended between infinity and nothingness”, “lack of being; nonexistence: The sound faded into nothingness”. All referenced from Dictionary.com. The last one, the description or example to emulate nothingness is entirely wrong. Sound doesn’t fade into nothingness, there is always some remnant of its vibrations still rippling in the universe in one way or another. It’s a poor example to use. That’s the problem with a lot of things. They make sense, but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily true, just that you can see the thinking behind it. That is the problem with the human brain. People say all sorts of things that can be logically understood, but not logically sound. I don’t know if that’s language, or our thought process or the combination of both. It is an interesting topic nonetheless. I should have taken logic in my third year, because I think my papers would have greatly improved by this asset I didn’t find an asset when I had first taken it. To get back to what I was saying, all kinds of people have these delusions and because they make sense they think they are right and
these people you cannot argue out of their belief because they are fools and to argue with is like arguing with a rock. I think that the human race has this informal and internal knowledge that we all seem to possess. Maybe we learned it somewhere; it just did not get added to when we could understand more intellectually deeper thought. I have no idea. I have no intention of examining this, but in philosophy you can. It is like there is some unwritten rule that if you can argue something and it is logical and logically sound it can be permitted as a truth. Technically I could explore this without any real hard science to back it up. I don’t think science could define what death and nothingness is either. If there is nothing to tangibly examine, then nothing can be learned from it. I’m boldly going to say that science is the study of events i.e. cause and effect, although Hume would say we couldn’t predict/determine nor see what really is the cause of any effect. The outcome could change at any point of time and that not all things are predictable 100% of the time. Unless its theoretical, and then it’s straight hypothesizing based on equations and physics and whatnot and then well, it’s not hard science anymore.
***This was the end of my essay which I didn't conclude. Too much time has passed to even maintain the same tone. But I'm sure what I said can be somewhat understood. Maybe not. I wrote it so it makes sense to me.***
TheThings I Cannot Do
The thought of putting a hard-boiled egg on a salad seemed like the most repulsive thing ever. Today I had my first spinach salad that I kept the sliced egg on. I have converted with the rest of the people. Now I wouldn’t eat this on a regular basis, but I’m no longer squeamish about this. Next time I see a Nicoise salad on a menu, I’m going to order it. I don’t think I’ll be changing my mind about lobster though, unless I’m on the East coast and it’s right out of the ocean on to my plate fresh. Every time someone orders one and forces me to have some, I never like it.
Speaking of seafood… I miss the ocean. If I moved somewhere right by the ocean, I would buy a house as close as I could to the beach. I’m sure I’d go swimming and body boarding a lot. It’s one of those things people would say, if you lived there, you wouldn’t use it. I think that’s true for some people, but not me. If I’ve managed to get up at 5 every morning to walk to work, then yes I think I would go to the ocean frequently. Before the Pelicans moved in on the river, there were droves of seagulls and I mean droves of them. I’d fall asleep to the sound of seagulls, I would wake up to the sound of seagulls and in my bathroom I would hear regular birds out the window. It’s a really strange phenomenon.
Speaking of seagulls… someone told me today that they would like to kill a whole lot of them… he was referring to them situated over a dump and not the water. He had heard that if you put baking soda on their food, they would explode, even if they were in midair. I’m sure it’s more like their insides would burst and they would drop dead. Either way, I don’t want to witness such a horrible thing, scavengers or not. Their eating habits are only a product of the environment we have created. Crows eat McDonalds off the road too. I think they’re disliked for other things like eating baby birds and eggs and making a racket.
Speaking of McDonalds… Now I’m hungry for a burger and there is no time to make one at home tonight because it’s the first night of softball. I’ve been craving a burger since Monday. There are no close fast food joints within walking distance of me and hell no I am not going to the foot traffic one on the corner of 2nd and 22nd street. It is ghetto as shit. If there was sketchy place to be in downtown Saskatoon, it would be that McDonalds and the portion in front of it and then slightly passed it next to the only locally owned 24 hour family restaurant. I’d pass the downtown bus stop at night time before stopping at that McDonalds after the white collar employees have left the downtown area. Now that it’s nice out, I’m sure they’re sitting at the very few patios we do have. I think there is only 2 patios in the downtown. O’Shea’s and Flint, and Flint is so small, but they have the Montreal thing where you can open the whole front of it.
I feel like a weirdo that I’m counting down to EUFA. I was super sad that there isn’t any world soccer tournament this summer. I don’t think any world cup at work will ever match last year’s. It was a blast. Now I hope during EUFA, that f*cking octopus isn’t “predicting” what matches will win. I’ll be pissed if I see that cute octopus selecting Spain again. I’m sure I’ll flip. I’ll flip so much that I’ll do the D/G family thing and actually flip a table over. I hope I have so much rage that I’ll do a Thor and flip over the biggest and heaviest banquet table over that has the biggest celebration feast on it and I ruin all that great food because of that octopus. I’m sure this would be funny to see… considering my spaghetti arms think 20lbs is heavy. You don’t even want to know how I fair trying to lift a 50lb of potatoes. I won’t be saving lives in a fire. I’m sure I would think I’ve accomplished this major feat and then realize I have moved some 6 steps and the whole building collapses in front of me.
I’ve seen that I’ve written the worth of a two page essay, but I’m in no rush to get through this, although my stomach is really sad that I’ve eaten a spinach salad. I hope that this passes because I kind of want to play soft ball. It was the egg I swear! Thinking about it, my salad came from Wal-Mart, and the spinach probably wasn’t washed to Canadian FDA standards, which means of course I would get ill. Please no salmonella for me. I like working. The prospect of sleeping on my couch in my j’s watching movies and reading is really tempting… but not at the price of food poisoning, which is a terrible thing to have. This word grammar checker is killing me. Everything I have written is grammatically wrong, some fragment needs revision. Reconsider blah blah blah. Sometimes it sounds right and I ignore it. And then on essays I would frequently read in the margin “this sentence is awkward”. Clearly my head doesn’t think grammatically correct. I usually proof read before I publish. Always catching those spelling errors that somehow spell check doesn’t correct.
The things I cannot do amongst the already impossibly long list like whistle, fly, touch my toes, breath under water, hurl a boulder, live forever, teleport to different locations… is I cannot access blogger, or obviously any social networking tool, but any video of any kind, no matter if it is work related. If it comes from an external source, there is no way I will ever view it whilst sitting at my desk even on my own break. There are also moments where I would like to say “listen here bub, no” or “that’s nice”. I realize saying that’s nice always sounds sarcastic unless it’s followed by a “that sounds nice” or “that sounds really nice”. “Oh yeah” is my tried and true for all kinds of “that’s nice” and “I’m so not listening” or “you know what I could really go for is something to eat like…” it’s not because I’m not interested, well if you’re someone I don’t particularly like talking to or being around, then yes I’m not interested, but it’s I want to be in my own thoughts right now or do something else. Sometimes “oh yeah” really means “oh yeah”, especially with an inflection, like I’m asking a question.
Speaking of seafood… I miss the ocean. If I moved somewhere right by the ocean, I would buy a house as close as I could to the beach. I’m sure I’d go swimming and body boarding a lot. It’s one of those things people would say, if you lived there, you wouldn’t use it. I think that’s true for some people, but not me. If I’ve managed to get up at 5 every morning to walk to work, then yes I think I would go to the ocean frequently. Before the Pelicans moved in on the river, there were droves of seagulls and I mean droves of them. I’d fall asleep to the sound of seagulls, I would wake up to the sound of seagulls and in my bathroom I would hear regular birds out the window. It’s a really strange phenomenon.
Speaking of seagulls… someone told me today that they would like to kill a whole lot of them… he was referring to them situated over a dump and not the water. He had heard that if you put baking soda on their food, they would explode, even if they were in midair. I’m sure it’s more like their insides would burst and they would drop dead. Either way, I don’t want to witness such a horrible thing, scavengers or not. Their eating habits are only a product of the environment we have created. Crows eat McDonalds off the road too. I think they’re disliked for other things like eating baby birds and eggs and making a racket.
Speaking of McDonalds… Now I’m hungry for a burger and there is no time to make one at home tonight because it’s the first night of softball. I’ve been craving a burger since Monday. There are no close fast food joints within walking distance of me and hell no I am not going to the foot traffic one on the corner of 2nd and 22nd street. It is ghetto as shit. If there was sketchy place to be in downtown Saskatoon, it would be that McDonalds and the portion in front of it and then slightly passed it next to the only locally owned 24 hour family restaurant. I’d pass the downtown bus stop at night time before stopping at that McDonalds after the white collar employees have left the downtown area. Now that it’s nice out, I’m sure they’re sitting at the very few patios we do have. I think there is only 2 patios in the downtown. O’Shea’s and Flint, and Flint is so small, but they have the Montreal thing where you can open the whole front of it.
I feel like a weirdo that I’m counting down to EUFA. I was super sad that there isn’t any world soccer tournament this summer. I don’t think any world cup at work will ever match last year’s. It was a blast. Now I hope during EUFA, that f*cking octopus isn’t “predicting” what matches will win. I’ll be pissed if I see that cute octopus selecting Spain again. I’m sure I’ll flip. I’ll flip so much that I’ll do the D/G family thing and actually flip a table over. I hope I have so much rage that I’ll do a Thor and flip over the biggest and heaviest banquet table over that has the biggest celebration feast on it and I ruin all that great food because of that octopus. I’m sure this would be funny to see… considering my spaghetti arms think 20lbs is heavy. You don’t even want to know how I fair trying to lift a 50lb of potatoes. I won’t be saving lives in a fire. I’m sure I would think I’ve accomplished this major feat and then realize I have moved some 6 steps and the whole building collapses in front of me.
I’ve seen that I’ve written the worth of a two page essay, but I’m in no rush to get through this, although my stomach is really sad that I’ve eaten a spinach salad. I hope that this passes because I kind of want to play soft ball. It was the egg I swear! Thinking about it, my salad came from Wal-Mart, and the spinach probably wasn’t washed to Canadian FDA standards, which means of course I would get ill. Please no salmonella for me. I like working. The prospect of sleeping on my couch in my j’s watching movies and reading is really tempting… but not at the price of food poisoning, which is a terrible thing to have. This word grammar checker is killing me. Everything I have written is grammatically wrong, some fragment needs revision. Reconsider blah blah blah. Sometimes it sounds right and I ignore it. And then on essays I would frequently read in the margin “this sentence is awkward”. Clearly my head doesn’t think grammatically correct. I usually proof read before I publish. Always catching those spelling errors that somehow spell check doesn’t correct.
The things I cannot do amongst the already impossibly long list like whistle, fly, touch my toes, breath under water, hurl a boulder, live forever, teleport to different locations… is I cannot access blogger, or obviously any social networking tool, but any video of any kind, no matter if it is work related. If it comes from an external source, there is no way I will ever view it whilst sitting at my desk even on my own break. There are also moments where I would like to say “listen here bub, no” or “that’s nice”. I realize saying that’s nice always sounds sarcastic unless it’s followed by a “that sounds nice” or “that sounds really nice”. “Oh yeah” is my tried and true for all kinds of “that’s nice” and “I’m so not listening” or “you know what I could really go for is something to eat like…” it’s not because I’m not interested, well if you’re someone I don’t particularly like talking to or being around, then yes I’m not interested, but it’s I want to be in my own thoughts right now or do something else. Sometimes “oh yeah” really means “oh yeah”, especially with an inflection, like I’m asking a question.
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