Brink of Destruction (Some Quick Thoughts)
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Impressions: Deadpool MAX #1 - Otaku But Gangsta -
Some quick thoughts I wrote about the first issue of Deadpool MAX. (Click on the OtakuButGangsta link.)
Impressions: Superman: Earth One - Otaku But Gangsta -
Some thoughts I wrote about a Superman trade paperback. (Click on the OtakuButGangsta link.)
Man's Best Friend
Lately, I have been thinking about getting a puppy. On my top of list of breeds is a beagle. I have always wanted another dog after Flash (a basset hound) which my mom gave to North Shore Animal League for teething on one of her chairs. I also wasn't that helpful with Flash, I was in the third grade. Now I feel that it is a responsibility I can handle. And it would be nice to have a little companion. Below is a video I found from the Animal Planet website via Google.
London & Paris (Winter 2010)
The Egg
The Egg
By: Andy Weir
You were on your way home when you died.
It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.
And that’s when you met me.
“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”
“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.
“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”
“Yup,” I said.
“I… I died?”
“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.
You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”
“More or less,” I said.
“Are you god?” You asked.
“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”
“My kids… my wife,” you said.
“What about them?”
“Will they be all right?”
“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”
You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”
“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”
“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”
“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”
“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”
You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”
“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”
“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”
“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”
I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.
“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”
“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”
“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”
“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”
“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”
“Where you come from?” You said.
“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”
“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”
“So what’s the point of it all?”
“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”
“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.
I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”
“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”
“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”
“Just me? What about everyone else?”
“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”
You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”
“All you. Different incarnations of you.”
“Wait. I’m everyone!?”
“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.
“I’m every human being who ever lived?”
“Or who will ever live, yes.”
“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”
“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.
“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.
“And you’re the millions he killed.”
“I’m Jesus?”
“And you’re everyone who followed him.”
You fell silent.
“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”
You thought for a long time.
“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”
“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”
“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”
“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”
“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”
“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”
And I sent you on your way.
When I first read this, it blew my mind and now, I can not stop thinking about it. The implications are overwhelming.
Are We In Purgatory?
I was just watching an episode of "Scrubs." The episode had me thinking about death afterward. It is an occurrence that we do not fully understand. Yes, our bodies cease to function and everyone dies, but what of our consciousness? Do we exist outside of this realm until we reincarnated? Could our previous experiences manifest themselves through our creativity and our fears? Dreams feel real because of what we have already learned and know.
Perhaps this is purgatory that we exist in. And maybe our consciousness is linked to our soul. We exist and live individually, but are joined by our shared experience of this existence. Universally, we come and we go, we live and we die.
Are we judged by our actions in this life for another one? People are taught to believe so in different ways. There is a "good" and a "bad" that extends beyond our basic living. Christianity says that we are all born with sin, so they administer baptisms. I do not believe this. It is widely believed that babies and children are innocent, so how can they also be born with sin? They know nothing except what they are taught. They are blank slates. Neutral. There are rules for governing societies and groups. Some are communal. Some have a hierarchy. If we break certain rules, we are considered "bad." Yet, without these rules, our basic need is to survive and live. It does not fit into a category of "good" or "bad." So what happens if a person simply lives? How is this person judged? The person maintained his/ her basic function for as long as they could but did not step into a category of "good" or "bad."
We are born into this pre-existing place. We have researched and recorded and know it has existed for a long time. People have come and gone. And after this life ends, we enter a new one. This afterlife is explained in different ways; heaven, hell, reincarnation. But we do not know. We are taught to believe. We are taught to have faith, but we do not know. I have questioned this and it is described as something that is not tangible. It can be euphoric or hell, literally. And yet, people are born in this world with memories of a pre-existing one. Deja vu is a common phenomenon among people. Children learn faster and faster. Why can this not be linked to a pre-existence, a former life? We share the same DNA at its core, code that is replicated as we reproduce.
I concede that a higher power exists, but I will not pretend to understand it. So many have died trying. I simply do not know and am content with that. Our consciousness may cease or it may move on and exist in another realm but I do not know. I can only know by what I am experiencing now, just as everyone else. Right now, this consciousness is all I know.
What do you think?
Walking the 'Nut Or Can You Speak 'Dog'?
I find speech interesting. I also find it intriguing how it develops into language. Unfortunately, I'm terrible w/ foreign languages. But to the point, I'm chillin' in Fort Greene park with Coconut and we listen to dogs barking from the other side. Some people believe that dogs have a language. Is that true? Sure, there seems to be some communication with various pitches and tones. For instance, a yelp is a high pitch and suggests pain. A deep low pitched growl might mean "back the fuck up," but is it language? I have yet to see some bitch giving her pups vocal and speech lessons. These sounds that dogs make are instinctual and yet universal to an extent among them. Of course some messages are misread by themselves and humans, but you get the picture. Comparing this to humans, you would think of babies until they are taught a language. And look at how many languages the human...
Playing fetch with Coconut. (^_^) Drop the stick!
...tongue has spoken. And then there are the dialects. Some dead, some old, some young. And one thing that connects us all are the noises that babies make; laughter, crying, and goo-goo-gaaing. From there we make the sounds complex, unique, butchered, and exotic. It's amazing.
...Today was so nerve-racking and frustrating. Spending time with my friend right now is so comforting... as we wait for another friend to show up. (^_^)
"No Fat Chicks"
So I was preparing myself for work this morning and my mom had Good Morning America on in the living room. While I'm ironing my clothes, a segment comes on about some reality show called "More To Love." According to the segment, the show is similar to "The Bachelor" in that a handful of women compete for the affection of the one dude. The catch? They are all overweight. The segment goes on to say how the show was under scrutiny because the contestant's weights were shown and they were shown eating. Apparently, this does not help promote the acceptance of fat people. The show was also commended because it puts fat people in the spotlight (along with some other shows). They went on to show the results of a recent poll where women stated they look for any body type (fat or slim) when is comes to dating whereas men prefer a slim body type in the opposite sex. I have an issue with people advocating for poor health, especially in a country where two-thirds of its population are overweight. Being overweight is not healthy and I tire of people trying to make being fat as something that should be socially acceptable. Now, I am NOT saying that people should be made fun of or hurt because of their weight. Good health; proper diet and exercise should be promoted instead of the effort to push fat people into the limelight. My heart goes out to one of the contestants, Kristian Allbright, who recalled being teased as a child for being overweight. She was so big that she could not fit at her desk and had to sit at the teacher's desk. Yes, kids can be cruel and she was teased but why didn't anyone wake up and realize that this wasn't right? A child should be able to sit at her desk. I worry about a generation of children that are raised by parents that ingore children being overweight and obsese, that accept it as a way of life. More should be done than simply raising an individual's self esteem to settle with their dangerous habits. And children should be allowed to be children; running around and playing. They shouldn't be denied this because of their weight. Living "free" in America doesn't mean that we should do whatever we want and ignore responsibility.
Dangers of being overweight - Google Search.
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