The Truth: My Conviction

I despise the way society churns on. I hate it.

That to "change society" is to correct a blemish in an inherited structure, that we blindly celebrate that we build on top of, and that we build on.

That we erect pillar after pillar under a prehistoric rock and think to boast "look, we are holding up better than before".

That we have unthinkingly laid our ground so thickly that to change would mean yanking it from under our feet.

Society has become a monster that even the brightest and most intelligent of us helplessly feed through inaction and compliance and, in doing so, are starved by for a decent living.

I hate that the verbs "to mold" and "to shape" have taken on positive connotations despite the implication of an objective (and, truthfully, horribly wrong) standard of perfection.

I hate that society has pressed its members into its building blocks instead of its builders, that we have allowed built on ourselves a heavy, heaving monstrosity, and let develop its uncooperative nature.

I hate that society is no longer defined by its individuals; society now does the individual mass-produce and define.

Call me a futurist. It seems today is not mine.

Our Pale Blue Dot

"..The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

"Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings. How eager they are to kill one another. How fervent their hatreds.

"Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.

"In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere, to save us from ourselves."

Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

Words Never Truer

“When we look at modern man, we have to face the fact that modern man suffers from a kind of poverty of the spirit, which stands in glaring contrast to his scientific and technological abundance;

We've learned to fly the air like birds, we've learned to swim the seas like fish,

and yet we haven't learned to walk the Earth as brothers and sisters.”

Martin Luther King Jr., The Quest for Peace and Justice

Now, Kids, This Is What We Call An Atom.

"Every chemist’s dream – to snap an atomic-scale picture of a chemical before and after it reacts – has now come true, thanks to a new technique developed by chemists and physicists at the University of California, Berkeley."

One short newspaper article, another giant leap for mankind.

Wishing Well.

Water poured over a flat surface will never form, will never stay, will never rise.

Water represents our time. Our energy. Our lives. We must, ourselves, mould the cup that embodies our motivation and ambition.

Only then will our lives be lived not in vain.

Only then can our future generations drink from our well.

Only then can humanity float, fly higher than ever before.

What Misdirection!

I have had enough.

There is so much good in the world. Yet it is all so poorly directed.

We have factions and loyalties. The warrior is loyal to his leader, and that is good; however, a leader in a fractious world is less a building block than a wave in competing seas.

Greatness is wasted when spent against another's, and amplified when united against gravity.

How peaceful this world would be, how much would we have accomplished, were all the warriors in the world united not under different banners, but by their sheer humanity!

Enlightenment is not redefinition; it is direction.

I appeal to you with all sincerity, my small and independent audience: consider! Try to consider humanity as a whole as a factor in your next decisions, no matter what they might be.

Perhaps, just perhaps, our little act of rebellion and willfulness could yet change the world!

This Is Water

In memory of David Foster Wallace.