I believe in you, and because I have learned to believe in others, I have begun to believe in myself. This is my first step in my path to a better me. I want so bad for others to believe in me, so I will start by believing in them.
To the half dozen people whom I have given this site's address, I believe in you.
To the rest of the world and all the human race.
I believe in your potential, inside of you there is the ability to change the world, not in some magic talent you were born with, but in a heart with the ability to stop fearing and start loving.
Not because you live it, but because you are capable of living it, I believe in you.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Ramblings.
It's been a handful of weeks since I decided to step out of the religious life.
I've decided my stance on a handful of issues.
Or at least I'm leaning towards certain ideas.
My perception of this world begins with myself. I have a seat of emotions, this is called the heart. An extremely jaded cynical atheist will tell you that this is just hormones in your brain.
I can see that approach making sense with anger or fear. I can see that coming into play with love in a physical sense. It's all survival of the fittest, I want to live, and I want to procreate.
But, I don' t think that's the whole story. There's one thing that I don't see in an animal that I can see in myself and people around me, the ability to create. Art, music, poetry, dance, you can say this is just a peacock showing it's feathers, and there are those that develop a skill just to be confident and get laid, but I believe that there is selfless expression that comes from the heart, and it doesn't have a natural source that we can tie to survival and instinct.
So what do we call this? Is this the soul? I don't know yet. Stephanie makes a valid argument about the idea of right and wrong, she says that guilt exists, therefore we know what right and wrong are. I don't know if that's true.
I feel like it's a nurture vs. nature type deal. I look at the moral values of other people my age, Some are extremely conservative while others don't give a fuck about anything or anybody but themselves. Then I look at their parents and it makes you want to accept the anecdotal evidence.
I would love to believe that I have a soul, and that I am inherently a good person, but I don't see that as true. It seems to me that fear and a desire to not take responsibility for my actions used to and normally would motivate me to take care of myself before taking care of others. I've learned through my experiences in life that when I take care of others I take care of myself, but not everyone realizes that, there are those that live and die motivated by fear their whole life.
So I have a heart, but i'm not sure if good and evil are even existent. For these to exist there would have to be a set standard in everyone's life of what good and bad are, and it's very obvious that there is no standard set. Maybe "don't hurt other people," but even then we have things like aboortion, and senses of justice where a man in texas shoots two men for trespassing into someone's house.
So how do you define good or evil if we can't decide amongst ourselves? So lets play the Karma card, or the God card. wel lI'm not too sure about that either. Karma would have to be based upon the idea that you do good, good things happen, you do bad, bad things happen. What goes around comes around. That's not always the case. I mean maybe you can get more satisfaction out of your life if you live at peace, but horrible things happen to good people daily, for no reason.
And God? I think the fact that energy and matter exist in general points towards the idea that there is some greater force that exists in this world that we don't know about, but where did anybdy get the idea that there is a clear concept of good and evil in this world and that God is its prime representative? If good exists, by definition evil must exist. And if God is the source of good, by definition he is the source of evil.
Good and evil are subjective at best. And God is not some great all powerful benevolent being. And if he is then our perception of good and evil are skewed and nothing makes sese anyways. I don't think God takes nearly as much interest into our lives as we pretend he does.
So that means, life, in essence, is meaningless. We assign value to things that are meaningless just like we kill over green paper that is money, but if we were all here without memories of the past in a big open field buck naked, we would not believe the same truths to be true as we do now.
So what about this destiny thing, if we have been set into a track to live a certain life, like we're acting out a play, like one big ugly painting, then what does that mean to us? Even if destiny exists, we can't pretend to know what we are destined for, so there's no use worrying about it, and there's no way to really know if it's there. And even if destiny did exist, by extension of life being meaningless, destiny is meaningless.
As you can see my thoughts here get a little disorganized because I'm stil lthinknig this out, but the part that scares me once I get here is, if life is meaningless, what's the point in living. Right now I keep myself going with the idea that there's so much I want to see, there's so much world to witness, so much life. But once I've seen it, or experienced things I'm curious about, why live? I don't know iff I disagree with suicide as muc has I used to. I think someone should think long and hard before they kill themselves. But I don't know if it's wrong to opt out. If there was no reason to be here in the first place, why go through the trouble of sticking around?
I mean, I guess if you had something to live for.
I've decided my stance on a handful of issues.
Or at least I'm leaning towards certain ideas.
My perception of this world begins with myself. I have a seat of emotions, this is called the heart. An extremely jaded cynical atheist will tell you that this is just hormones in your brain.
I can see that approach making sense with anger or fear. I can see that coming into play with love in a physical sense. It's all survival of the fittest, I want to live, and I want to procreate.
But, I don' t think that's the whole story. There's one thing that I don't see in an animal that I can see in myself and people around me, the ability to create. Art, music, poetry, dance, you can say this is just a peacock showing it's feathers, and there are those that develop a skill just to be confident and get laid, but I believe that there is selfless expression that comes from the heart, and it doesn't have a natural source that we can tie to survival and instinct.
So what do we call this? Is this the soul? I don't know yet. Stephanie makes a valid argument about the idea of right and wrong, she says that guilt exists, therefore we know what right and wrong are. I don't know if that's true.
I feel like it's a nurture vs. nature type deal. I look at the moral values of other people my age, Some are extremely conservative while others don't give a fuck about anything or anybody but themselves. Then I look at their parents and it makes you want to accept the anecdotal evidence.
I would love to believe that I have a soul, and that I am inherently a good person, but I don't see that as true. It seems to me that fear and a desire to not take responsibility for my actions used to and normally would motivate me to take care of myself before taking care of others. I've learned through my experiences in life that when I take care of others I take care of myself, but not everyone realizes that, there are those that live and die motivated by fear their whole life.
So I have a heart, but i'm not sure if good and evil are even existent. For these to exist there would have to be a set standard in everyone's life of what good and bad are, and it's very obvious that there is no standard set. Maybe "don't hurt other people," but even then we have things like aboortion, and senses of justice where a man in texas shoots two men for trespassing into someone's house.
So how do you define good or evil if we can't decide amongst ourselves? So lets play the Karma card, or the God card. wel lI'm not too sure about that either. Karma would have to be based upon the idea that you do good, good things happen, you do bad, bad things happen. What goes around comes around. That's not always the case. I mean maybe you can get more satisfaction out of your life if you live at peace, but horrible things happen to good people daily, for no reason.
And God? I think the fact that energy and matter exist in general points towards the idea that there is some greater force that exists in this world that we don't know about, but where did anybdy get the idea that there is a clear concept of good and evil in this world and that God is its prime representative? If good exists, by definition evil must exist. And if God is the source of good, by definition he is the source of evil.
Good and evil are subjective at best. And God is not some great all powerful benevolent being. And if he is then our perception of good and evil are skewed and nothing makes sese anyways. I don't think God takes nearly as much interest into our lives as we pretend he does.
So that means, life, in essence, is meaningless. We assign value to things that are meaningless just like we kill over green paper that is money, but if we were all here without memories of the past in a big open field buck naked, we would not believe the same truths to be true as we do now.
So what about this destiny thing, if we have been set into a track to live a certain life, like we're acting out a play, like one big ugly painting, then what does that mean to us? Even if destiny exists, we can't pretend to know what we are destined for, so there's no use worrying about it, and there's no way to really know if it's there. And even if destiny did exist, by extension of life being meaningless, destiny is meaningless.
As you can see my thoughts here get a little disorganized because I'm stil lthinknig this out, but the part that scares me once I get here is, if life is meaningless, what's the point in living. Right now I keep myself going with the idea that there's so much I want to see, there's so much world to witness, so much life. But once I've seen it, or experienced things I'm curious about, why live? I don't know iff I disagree with suicide as muc has I used to. I think someone should think long and hard before they kill themselves. But I don't know if it's wrong to opt out. If there was no reason to be here in the first place, why go through the trouble of sticking around?
I mean, I guess if you had something to live for.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Anger.
Some lady went off on the deli lady today. That really pissed me off. She had no reason to do that. Just because the lady didn't understand her order she was treated like dirt. I hate that. I hate people that treat others as less than themselves it drives me bonkers. That lady is so nice too. Always friendly and very polite. Why are there people like that in the world?
A midsummer nightmare.
Note: this posting is being sent via text message.
I had a dream last night. It wa extremely vivid, not like those regular dreams where you're kind of half awake and things make no sense and they're blurry and really simple, like you're talking to someone but all you really see is their eyes. It was clear, like being thrust into a different world. In this dream I had been walking down a misty street late at night when I saw the devil, he was traveling I guess. I don't think he was intentionally looking for me. I couldn't really see him it was like a shadow. Like instead of a person being there, there was a persons worth of space emptied out there, just a blackness. He didn't introduce himself I just knew. And then he said "tomorrow everyone that loves you will die" and I became furious and tried to bargain with him, but I was just unlucky enough to be on the same street as him. He was laughing, delighted. Then the next day I went to my parents room, my friends houses, church, nobody had died. So was it the devil? What does it mean?
Edit: yeah posting from my phone makes it come out way too short.
Friday, August 8, 2008
The Beach,
So I spent the weekend with my mom and lil bro at the beach. Something interesting happened so I will.
we got up nice and early to get a good parking spot and we were on south beach at 10 a.m. (it being a few blocks away, we were staying on alton and 4th in the gran murano, don't hate)
so we're floating around in the water when we see all the old guys with their metal detectors scouring the coast for whatever it is they find there, I like to think sunken treasure but really its just fifteens bracelets and senior rings and hoop earrings with names like yusnaidys in the middle.
but I digress
so my little brother, being from panama, and 12, has never seen retired jews and cubans, and the occasional juban (jewban?) scouring the coast for your mothers wedding band. He asked me what they were doing, I told him. I Als oremember the explanation ending with "they usually never find anything"
as soon as the words left my mouth one of the geezers stops and starts passing his metal detector over a spot not more that 5 yards away from us. he scoops up a bit of sand, looks down, pushes the sand around, and leaves.
When he left the little pile of sand kind of flattened out and we see something a golden color glimmering in the sand. I was pretty sure it was nothing (I was intrigued) so I sent my brother so he could get a kick out of it (I was lazy).
As he's over there poking around my mom squints over and says "Is that acondom wrapper?" then I said something like "I don't think condom wrappers set of metal detectors, they have foil but I don't think that sets off the detector"
So he picks up said object, looks at it curiously, and tosses it, then wipes the sand off his hands. He wades over to us and says "It's something called magnum."
we got up nice and early to get a good parking spot and we were on south beach at 10 a.m. (it being a few blocks away, we were staying on alton and 4th in the gran murano, don't hate)
so we're floating around in the water when we see all the old guys with their metal detectors scouring the coast for whatever it is they find there, I like to think sunken treasure but really its just fifteens bracelets and senior rings and hoop earrings with names like yusnaidys in the middle.
but I digress
so my little brother, being from panama, and 12, has never seen retired jews and cubans, and the occasional juban (jewban?) scouring the coast for your mothers wedding band. He asked me what they were doing, I told him. I Als oremember the explanation ending with "they usually never find anything"
as soon as the words left my mouth one of the geezers stops and starts passing his metal detector over a spot not more that 5 yards away from us. he scoops up a bit of sand, looks down, pushes the sand around, and leaves.
When he left the little pile of sand kind of flattened out and we see something a golden color glimmering in the sand. I was pretty sure it was nothing (I was intrigued) so I sent my brother so he could get a kick out of it (I was lazy).
As he's over there poking around my mom squints over and says "Is that acondom wrapper?" then I said something like "I don't think condom wrappers set of metal detectors, they have foil but I don't think that sets off the detector"
So he picks up said object, looks at it curiously, and tosses it, then wipes the sand off his hands. He wades over to us and says "It's something called magnum."
Friday, August 1, 2008
I'll be praying for you.
Okay so this is the draft for a poem I've been fiddling with. It's about well, someone, a specific person. Some of you know who it is. But I also feel it can fit more than one situation, so take it however you want.
Style wise it really doesn't stick to having a pattern especially towards the end, though there's a loose rhyme pattern and a kind of natural syllabic pattern, I didn't plan it. So let me know what you think.
I'll Be Praying For You
Did you pray for me?
When you're
Too busy for a brother
And
Too tired for a friend?
Were they answered?
Between
Naming me a sinner
And
A child in the end?
Can you sleep at night?
Did you
Find a loving God to save me
Inside
That rock on which you stand?
Did you save yourself?
Tell me
If in the morning I'm in
hell
will there be blood on your hands?
He'll come back
If God is good
He'll come back
You were my Brother
I loved you.
- ERG
Style wise it really doesn't stick to having a pattern especially towards the end, though there's a loose rhyme pattern and a kind of natural syllabic pattern, I didn't plan it. So let me know what you think.
I'll Be Praying For You
Did you pray for me?
When you're
Too busy for a brother
And
Too tired for a friend?
Were they answered?
Between
Naming me a sinner
And
A child in the end?
Can you sleep at night?
Did you
Find a loving God to save me
Inside
That rock on which you stand?
Did you save yourself?
Tell me
If in the morning I'm in
hell
will there be blood on your hands?
He'll come back
If God is good
He'll come back
You were my Brother
I loved you.
- ERG
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
