That wonderful feeling

Sometimes, in my interactions with my fellow humans, I run across the opinion that people do not need to understand the world in order to live in it. They wonder why I read so much, study so many odd things that are not immediately applicable or relevant to the day to day challenges of life. The see no point in it, and on one level, I agree with this sentiment. You can even, at times, enjoy that life.

But one thing holds me back from just letting such thoughts slide, and that is a small feeling of unbridled joy at suddenly realizing you know what is happening, and why.

Often, growing knowledge is associated with sadness, bitterness, and a frustration with the world around you. That by becoming aware, you see the ugly that is the world. This is true. One need only look at history to see those who were the brightest were burned down faster than others. They aged quickly, were driven and dogged at every step, and often died young.

This, I believe, is not a symptom of the knowledge gained, but the loneliness you find in it. There is a great lack of passion for knowledge in the world today, an apathy if you will, and those who pursue knowledge for knowledge sake find themselves on the outside looking in.

But that is not the point of this article. No, the point is the answer to the question: Why? Why go out of your way to learn more about the world than you need to? Whats the point?

The easy answer is "you never know when you will need to know something." But that answer also does not do justice to the reason. The answer is because when you see life happening and understand it, you are struck by beauty.

To strike a match and know about the chemical process of oxidization, to picture in your mind millions of tiny electrons jumping orbitals to express light and heat. To see a flower bud, then bloom and you can think of thousands of cells to dividing at insane rates all to open itself up to the world and live. To know that those cells are an integral part of the system that we live in and sustains us. To understand that the bee who lands on that flower is off to do their part in this system, and to know that the honey you ate on your toast started this way just makes it that much sweeter.

That sudden, small burst of joy in your chest when you first realize that your pets are not only aware of you, but go through the similar processes you do. The sudden rush of relief to see, with open eyes, nature in all of its blind glory.
To cast off the shackles of ignorance and see my fellow human beings not as African, Indian, or Arab, but as just... people. To know that they share genes with me, and that we all came from the same place and are all part of the same system, and many of us are going in the same direction.

That burning candle of pride when you use that knowledge to make something work.

To see clouds in the sky, and know what they are and how they formed in the intricacies of the hydrological cycle. To look beyond those, and see the planets move in their orbits, and to understand the balancing act of gravity that is our solar system or galaxy.

To be able to understand that I am but a small piece of carbon, on a small rock, looking out at a sky full of stars around which, very likely, another creature is looking and doing the same.
To know that, despite being that insignificant piece of organic tissue, one piece of it allows me to stand on the shoulders of giants and see something larger than myself. To stand where these pioneers stood, and climb the steps they climbed, and not just see the awe inspiring beauty that is our universe, but to understand it.

Why do I go out of my way to study? I do it because it gives me the keys to unlock the mysteries of this world. It takes my one and only infinitesimal life, and fills it to the breaking point by cramming it full of the very nature of the universe and all of its secrets.

I do it because as simple an act as turning on a light switch becomes more than a banishing of the dark.
It instead becomes the summoning of vision.

To live again.

Posts here should pick up a bit now that I have my intracranial affairs in order.

I don't know how many people out there are on medication (statistics would indicate a lot of you), but if it is one you need and suddenly stop taking, damn do you notice. It isn't just the withdrawl, but what ever it was fixing comes back one hundred fold, or at least seems to since you had coped and forgotten about how difficult it was for you before hand.

I don't care if it is pain, neurological disorder, chemical imbalances, or any number of other treatable conditions, when you stop your meds, then those nice coping barriers you have been building up so that you can get on with your life come crashing down, drowning out any ambition or notion of having a productive life.

My advice: If you have a problem that can be treated with medication, do it. You aren't a weaker person for it, that is what these pills were made for. To help us have a normal and productive life. Life is too damned short to sit around muddled in fear, pain, or confusion.

Get out there and enjoy it.

What.... in the hell...

I am left torn between awe and despair when I watch these videos:

JAPANESE BUG FIGHTS!

Spoiler Alert: This is the shit nightmares are made of. Seriously, this is MMA on a primal level.

I haven't the faintest idea what the announcers are saying, and honestly I am not sure I want to. These kinds of events are a kind of gold mine for us writer types: Bizarre, real, and absolutely insane. Perfect places to throw plucky heroes, would be spies, and incompetent henchfolk.

So, grab something to eat, sit back, and... watch.

Just watch.

UPDATE: CRAWFISH ARE NOT BUGS.

The Know-Nothing Party!

Politics in America seems to have lost its damned mind. We have know-nothings on the left espousing the same reality denialism as those on the right. It is a knee jerk reaction that, if one side expresses a view on something, no matter how far out there or based in woo-woo fiction, the other must take the opposite.

Needless to say, this is fucking stupid. The opposite side of a nonsense position is one that is solidly built on rational thought and backed up by corroborative evidence that is independently verifiable.

Instead we have baseless accusations and nonsense straw men on parade from both sides. To be apart of the fun you really have to fall in step to the beat of the party, otherwise you are left in the cold. Talk about what your holy book tells you, or your gut, and make assertions with about as much evidence as the average alien abduction story and the legions will follow.

We saw it under Bush, we are seeing it again under Obama. Republicans crying out about socialism (after voting for a bailout of private industries) and Democrats turning their noses up without as much moral superiority as their predecessors.

This is a democratic republic folks, not follow the leader.
We need to be aware, and full of facts, not sound bites. We need uncomfortable questions to be asked, and when answered the answers need to be checked against the evidence and accepted once it checks out.

That last bit is EXTREMELY important. Too many times do we see legitimate evidence dismissed as a "conspiracy" or "wrong" just because of some fabricated reason in the receiver's head.

If that is too much to ask for, the welcome to the Know-Nothing Party! Everyone is invited to play the party games, just check your brain at the door.

a random thought

As long as ignorance lingers in our minds, shadows of doubt and suspicion will fall across our neighbors and fellow men. Those who adhere to the tenets that divide us, instead of embracing those which unite us will see either our destruction or that the cycle repeats.

Future Politics

The internet acts as our generations giant cloud memory for things we commit down for the world to see.
How, perhaps, is this going to play into the future of politics?
In the past, it has been easy for political handlers to clean up an official's past by simply taking them out of that situation, and spreading the 'official word'. This revisionist trick does not work any more, as was demonstrated in our last election. Every time they tried, anyone with an itch and bandwidth pulled up the facts almost as fast as the politicos could lie.

These are more visible and immediate effects of the prevalence of the infortubes, but what say... twenty years from now? Will we find out that the presidential candidate was livejournal user darkXblood who wrote awful poetry? Will President BunnyLord's blog come back to haunt him from his days as a confused teen?

The answer as far as I can see it is: yes. No amount of revision is going to delete Google's cache page, or the cache's of any other number of sites. No amount of the party line will wipe away the incriminating MySpace photos.

I just toss this out there as food for thought. I personally am looking forward to it. It might bring us to a whole new level of transparancy in government... one we wished we had never seen.

It occurred to me

That life is very similar to 'Choose your own adventure' books, but with half the people reading it being illiterate.

Odd.