6 posts tagged “humanity”

(alternate title : "All the reality that is fit to print.")

There is no doubt that we are living in an extraordinarily fucked up world. We have global warming, corrupt governments, a culture growing out of reality television and Splenda seems like a good idea to a lot of people.

Religion is the opiate of the masses.
Television is the opiate of the masses.
Opium is the opiate of the masses.

The three previous statements can all be proven as true through logical argument, but what is it really that is impacting our world into a false sense of happiness?

I have no idea.

Something I have always wanted was a child. As I meet children, as I get opportunities to teach them something about the world I have a strong urge to make one of my own. I am jealous of members of my family that have children, I am envious of their opportunity to shape a mind... to clone a lasting copy of themselves to live on in this world. Then reality settles in.

Is this the world that an innocent child deserves?

People smoke despite a clear label on the package that the product will kill them.
Priests diddle children.
Amid a clear global change, we don''t change our ways.
Any idiot can have a child when it takes months if not years for someone to adopt someone in need.

I was fortunate enough to have amazing parents. Two people that allowed me to develop into the person I am today, they were and are considered by their peers as a strange anomaly, they are also envied by these same people for the friendship they have with their three sons. When they could have molded us into anything they wanted, champion golfers ( in the way of Earl Woods ) or subjected us to fame on television ( we were gorgeous children ), they instead offered us everything that this world had to offer. Exposed to every religion, every bit of knowledge in the world available ... they let us grow into the men we are today.
I am a colossal fuck up... when compared to my brothers. I'm the explorer, never content. While my younger brothers take on more noble roles in the world I sit around and write hoping to eventually reach a reasonable conclusion that will convince you the reader to not have children.

Why?

In a world beyond repair... do you feel capable of teaching someone enough that they can fix your mistakes?

    This week, assuming it started on the weekend, has been a very varied roller coaster. There has been a decent mix of good and bad going on and up until today the good outweighed the bad.

Friday :
    I finished my first full week at my new job somewhere between two and three. I could probably have stayed later but I had just received my first check. It wasn't much, but it was some cash in my pocket. I was happy and feeling very accomplished. I was excited to get home, get some beers and spend some "buddy time" with Jamie. She drives me to the bank to cash my check and we promptly pick up some good beers, a good bottle of wine and just to make sure we ingested enough alcohol a twelve pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon cans.
    Upon arriving home we kick back and start drinking, Jamie suggests we go out for some wings and who the hell am I to disagree. They were delicious wings with just the right amount of spice and it was just the right amount of food that it wouldn't interfere with our drinking.
    I built us a fire in the back yard, we drank and talked and just generally gave ourselves a good time with nothing but our friendship and a few drinks floating us along. I passed out on the couch watching Cruel Intentions much later that night and I was feeling okay but not great when Saturday morning rolled around.

Saturday :
    Jamie had a vicious hang over and was seriously dragging ass all morning. She threw up a little while I made a run for some coffee for me and muffins for us. The day was purposely lazy, we both sat around watched some television and didn't accomplish any of the hearty goals we had given ourselves the day before. I took a trip to the mall to go eyeball a knife set I plan to buy and price out some chef pants for work. A lazy day without much to speak of other than a feeling of contentment with my life.
    I had recently received an email from my ex girlfriend saying that she had been following this website and that I seemed very happy. I am and I have been, Tucson up until this day had been very good to me. I also was featured on two websites. One my roommate Ethan mentioned me and provided a link to me on his site, and the other was a piece dedicated to me by an old friend. I encourage you to check them both out if you are as interested in me as I am.
    With Jamie still not feeling well I had resigned that with all of this good feeling I was going to go out alone that night. I was going to have a couple of beers and people watch. I had full intention to do something I used to enjoy very much in my days in Baltimore. Without getting into too much detail I got drunk, drama ensued and I found my self generally annoyed with the world. I was so angry at the world in fact that I walked home with my anger on my back and found a random building along the way to take a piss on. This sort of passive aggressive lashing out is very satisfying to me, especially when I have a bladder full of cheap beer.
     Once again I passed out, this time in my bed and unfortunately alone, a little company would have made my night a lot more bearable, but like I said I passed out... so obviously I didn't lose any sleep over it.
   
Sunday:
    Another lazy day, not much of note happened at all. Jamie and I ate left overs, I caught up on Lost online. We called our mothers and made small talk for mothers day. Ethan came home from his conference in Prescott and Jamie got on a plane to Portland for an interview. At this point I would ask you to cross your fingers for Jamie to get the job, she is tremendously qualified, lets just hope this perspective employer realizes it. Anyway, I headed to bed as I had an early day at work, it was the first day we were opening for lunch service and I wanted to be well rested and alert.

Monday :
    With Jamie out of town she was kind enough to loan me her car as transport in replacement of my trusty bicycle and I arrived at work fifteen minutes early bright eyed and bushy tailed. After enjoying a cup of the free coffee owed to me just for showing up I immediately got to work with my trusty parter in crime at Italia Moni. In short we kicked ass, it wasn't horribly busy but her and I have a great vibe on the line and nothing slows us down. Once our day ended I offered Moni a ride home as I had the tools ( Jamie's car ) to provide a service of kindness for a coworker. I decide after dropping her off that in return for Jamie's kindness of loaning her car to me that I would stop and put in some gas so she wouldn't have to stop at six in the morning on her way to work after doing a 30 hour round trip to Portland.
    I find a gas station ( I'm still getting to know Tucson ) and after correcting my mistake of placing the gas tank on the opposite side from the pump I retrieve my wallet from my back pack to go and request ten bucks on pump three. To my dismay and the cause of my hatred for humanity at this exact moment my wallet was completely empty of cash. That morning when I stopped at Ike's for a muffin and coffee I had 85 dollars. My wallet had been emptied during the course of the day at work. Whomever made this trip into my bag did leave all of my cards and only took that which was untraceable. I sighed, my joy to work with the people I have been working with was instantly gone. I had been so pleased with the group that was hired along side of me and now suspected them all.
    Any and all good things that have happened to me in the past several days are gone. It wasn't much money, but it was all that I had. It wasn't much faith in humanity, but it was all that I had. I have two weeks until my next check, and a lifetime of mistrust.

Seven, Eight and Nine years ago when I lived in Baltimore, on a rare day off of work I went out to buy cigarettes and some beer to drink. I only had to walk four blocks to the Korean mini-mart, down and around the corner. I would pass my dog’s veterinarian and many doorways and shops on the way. I would pass people in every class of life. This particular day I passed a homeless man, sleeping in one of these many alcove doorways, at least that is what my brain led me to think. After gathering my twelve pack and camel lights I hit the sidewalk again in the opposite direction from before.

            There was new activity on the street during the minutes I was inside. That same homeless man, whom I had assumed sleeping in that doorway, was now being gathered into a large black sack with a zipper up the side. The paramedics treated it like a chore, generally ignoring the life that had passed while a policeman jotted some notes on a clip board and something made him laugh.

            I have never once told this story of how I walked past a dead man in the afternoon on the street, mainly for the reason this story holds no dignity for any of us, those who died, he who writes it and those who read. Today however and all week as a matter of fact I have been walking through and over a makeshift memorial in the middle of the street. Every day at least once and sometimes twice I grab my backpack, plug some music in my ears and head to the coffee shop “Ike’s”. I walk toward Speedway Blvd. head west for a block, push the magic button that makes cars stop cross and head another half of a block east.

            It would seem my footsteps have been crossing the location of where another person has died. The flowers appeared and photographs and notes, they may have been there for days and lost in my thoughts I wouldn’t know.

            His death is inconsequential to me, and has no bearing on my life, other than I feel a little bit selfish for not caring. A more sensitive person would I suppose, but I definitely don’t. This person whose name I couldn’t have known, has died and has since been autopsied, buried or burned. He might have been an abusive drunk or on his way to sainthood, but his death means nothing now, he is merely worm food.

            I’m not worried about dignity anymore. I feel that has fallen upon me with age. I don’t worry that I don’t have shame in admitting it, and I fart in public places. Death and life come and go, soon the nameless man who died on my path to caffeine will be forgotten by you and me the same. In fact now that I think more about what I am trying to say I don’t feel guilt for selfishness at all. I feel nothing. I am just a guy with a story to tell.

            If I die on the side of the road, please don’t waste the flowers and make the cop filling out the report laugh by telling a joke.

    I heard once upon a time, the single greatest line in reference to the unintelligent. I attribute the quote to my Grandmother because it sounds cute and clever to say, "my grams used to say...", but I can't be sure that she said it, but in my mind she always will.
    "I can't stand stupid people, I am all the stupid that I can handle."

    I love it. The only problem is that stupid is now everywhere. High School dropout rates have not declined, there are less and less people pursuing higher degrees in the sciences than ever before in this country. Stupid move. I am in partial contradiction to myself in being upset about such things. I am a person who believes that going to school is not truly necessary as long as you have a sense of curiosity and a library card ( or the internet as the case may be ). The justification for my thinking on the subject is simple and obvious. I believe you can learn anything, anywhere, just as long as you are willing to learn.
    I don't always write pretty, I have that shortcoming.
    I have made some very poor decisions in my life.
    I am not some great intellectual.
   
    ...but I never stop thinking, so I never stop learning...
    ...everyone in some way shape or form has put their hand on a hot stove...
   
    The problem for me is the dumbing of an entire culture, or rather the dramatic moves we make to ensure that we never have a culture at all.
    I make a lot of jokes about a lot of things, but this truly is something that upsets me. I have no perfect answer to solve the problem. Better schools and education opportunities could make an improvement, but it all boils down to peoples mentalities. Learning is something we do naturally, but when we distract ourselves with copious amounts of television and celebrity gossip we remove that chance of something of value seeping into our minds.
   
    I also think it is important to entertain. So stop thinking about what I have said now... if you haven't already, and enjoy.

It would seem that in the next few days that I am Arizona bound...alive and forever in debt to the kindness of my friend.

There are semantics to work out, but I will be westward bound soon enough... and it would seem that my posts will be coming two hours earlier.

Lets all for one moment bow our heads in joy for humans treating others like humans... it is such a rarity these days.

I started the day, once again with the sun coming up… simple enough.

 

            I had this idea in my head that when I wrote today that I would talk about some great moment in history, then I thought about modern symbols. There seems to be a shortage of symbols in comparison to much older days. While diddling around on the internet I came across a historical moment that bore a symbol. I was feeling quite proud of myself. Not only did my two random thoughts find a way to fuse themselves together, but I saw an opportunity to open a subject that might redeem me in the eyes of anyone who read yesterdays post and was still offended after reading my footnote / explanation.

            I might be about a month late in discussing the landmark 50^th anniversary of the Peace Symbol, but I think it is something relevant daily and not just on certain dates. As an amateur humanist I suppose I should have been more familiar with the creation of the peace symbol, but I wasn’t. I did a lot of reading about the peace symbol and while things started out innocently enough as I dug deeper and deeper I felt the urge to run and hide every time I saw a peace symbol.

            The Peace Sign or Peace Symbol as we all know it was brought into creation originally by Gerald Holtom a designer and World War Two conscientious objector from West London. Gerald upon convincing members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament that a symbol to convey their message would have greater impact he developed what was originally known as the “Ban the Bomb” symbol using the semaphore (or flag signaling) laying the N(uclear) and D(isarmament) within a circle representing earth. This was the copulation that resulted in the birth of the Peace Symbol.

            I found this little bit of knowledge very fascinating, especially considering how many countless times I have seen this symbol in my life.

            The peace sign also interestingly enough has never been registered as a trademark by the Council for Nuclear Disarmament with the thinking that a symbol for peace should not be owned and should be free for all… and yet countless folks have found profit in it by printing it on t-shirts, coffee mugs, making necklaces and inking tattoos. The irony of this being obvious, I can only say that I am not surprised.

            If I was anyone else I would have been content with this level of knowledge on the subject, but I wasn’t… and so the story goes on…

 

            It all starts with a few accusations that the symbol has existed for ages and has deeper meanings, not all so pure.

        

    Let us start with St. Peter, being crucified upside down… the image itself is uncomfortable, but it’s easy to see the possible correlation. This leads us quickly to the “broken-cross” the commonly accepted symbol for the anti-Christ. I believe that according to the Bible the anti-Christ will come to us speaking of peace.

            Second, the crow's-foot has an ancient history as a symbol of death and despair--it looks like somebody spreading his hands in a gesture of defeat. The symbol is shown in a 1955 tome called The Book of Signs by Rudolph Koch, a German calligrapher, although it's unclear whether Holtom saw it there.

            As I explored further I headed toward the hand gesture to symbolize peace and all of the assorted theories contained within.

     

       We all know well that the symbol is in the shape of V, which has existed for centuries, most prominently as the Roman numeral 5, but the Hebrew meaning for V (van) is nail. It would seem “The Nail” is one of the secret titles for Satan used by the Brotherhood of Satanisim, and this brings me back to the number 5 or (penta) and how it suits the pentagram.

           

I was beginning to like both symbols for peace less and less.

 

            The symbol's origin in history also holds it to be the visual mystic character for 'Aum' (the split 'Y'). This is the sacred word to the Hindu. Chanting 'Aum' is supposed to help awaken 'the serpent power of Brahma' at the base of the human spine.

 Occultist Albert Pike also identifies this symbol as mystical in his book on Freemasonry Morals and Dogma, and many use this as an explanation of Winston Churchill’s frequent use of the (victory sign) as he was a Freemason and surely knew well the mystical symbolism of the hand gesture.

 

I subscribe to none of the theories personally and am mostly just trying to wash the taste of knowledge out of my mouth. Something so simple and pure for me yesterday is riddled with the makings of another horrible Dan Brown novel (not really, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he planned to use it).

I mentioned earlier my affinity for the Philosophy of Humanism and I don’t like to preach necessarily, but by seeking knowledge of an abject symbol within tradition and mysticism I may have contradicted myself. I believe the path to peace is an ethical process and not a religious process, but (here is the contradiction) the path to knowledge is embedded deeply in all religions and philosophies of the world.

 

I am a practicing Humanist, in that I am practicing being a Human.

I will get it right eventually, and hopefully live to see true peace.

We are all practicing being human.

It’s just that some of us are better at it than others.

 

 

            The symbols and what interpreting them brings should not steal away the original intent. Let the peace sign mean peace I say and let the American Flag continue to represent flowing blood.

            You do know the red stripes are blood right?

            Maybe we can look at the American Flag another day.

... and now for something completely different...