the journey

we are all walking perceptions. we perceive that which surrounds us, that which we are exposed to. that is it. that there is more than one perception, ie more than just my mind perceiving, is incomprehensible. how can others be, exist, if i am, if what i feel is, true? i feel more and more that this is a book. a story. a plot slowly unfolding. it is too unreal to not be. am i losing touch? yes but is this a bad thing? my mind is leaving narberth. it is changing. i am thinking differently. so odd. this is growing up i guess. so much. how is any of this? that anything happens in ways it should not is hard to understand. woah. that time passes. that is it. that is it. it passes. nothing is permanent. only the now is real. only. a journey is something that begins and ends and is begun with the intention of ending in a particular place. life is a journey. though we do not necessarily treat it that way. we should. we should realize that we are all journeymen. on the same trip. going through the same things. we need to respect that. one must share experiences with another person in order to connect with them in a meaningful way.

can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all

food for thought

Bittmania

words for thought

“The trouble with immortality is endless. The thought of it brings us into contact with problems of time itself — with shapeless problems we have never grasped and may never put into words. Our ability to exist in time may require our being mortal, although we can’t understand that any more than the fish can understand water. What we call the stream of consciousness may depend upon mortality in ways that we can hardly glimpse.” ~ Johnathan Weiner

the way things happen and why

I have recently found myself analyzing and considering the methods by which individual people and families go about living and shaping their lives. I am also intrigued by the idea that lives are constructions of intentions and circumstances, i.e. that they are the ultimate definition of each of us and that they are a mix of that which we hope for and that which we cannot control. The idea that our time in this life is something that we can shape and define, or more that, for reasons commendable and not, not everyone makes the effort to shape and define their life, is infinitely intriguing to me in this stage of my life. For whatever reason, I have never fully considered the power and potential of my own agency. I have, for that matter, also never considered that I even had agency. Meaning that, looking back, I think that I have lived my life without really understanding that I had the ability to change any of the aspects of it. This sounds odd and is not entirely true but I know that it is to a certain degree the reality of the situation. This makes me wonder how much of the world lives as though their lives are the only lives that they could lead and that their circumstances are the only ones that they could every experience on a day-to-day level.

Back to analyzing the methods by which people define their surroundings as they age and mature, I cannot help but connect this issue to foundational political philosophies. I think that, at its core, republican ideals are built around setting up a system that best allows each and every individual to better their lives, even at the expense of the group whole. I think that democratic ideals are built around setting up a system that best allows the group to better its  life, but at the expense of the individual. With this in mind I look at how the people around me set themselves up to insure their future; do they mind paying more taxes towards community goals, would they rather put their money directly into the community, instead of through the government, do they teach their kids to regard their families beliefs as acceptable truths or do they teach their kids to accept whichever truths they find to be worthy of acceptance? And on what level is any of this conscious?

Things in northwest Montana are different from in Philadelphia but the way that people's brains work is the same. People everywhere are living their lives out trying to best get what they want without sacrificing what they have. While the things that influence them are different, i.e. surroundings and possibilities, the ways that they go about it is quite alike; they work a few more hours a week, they move, or they have more kids.

I am losing my train of thought but hopefully it will return

time and the woods

Working outside everyday in the woods is a mind expanding experience. To see natural processes at work with no, or at least little, human influence is truly incredible. If you know what to look for you can see time passing, literally see time. You can see this in cities too but, to me, it is somehow easier out here. You see erosion changing mountains and rivers, you see trees growing and dying, you see animals in the midst of it all struggling to survive. These are the realities of nature. Walking into them and merely observing them, meaning not fully being a part of them, gives you a sense of watching a time-lapse video or something, which, of course, you are but there is something more to it. It is like watching ice melt or clouds change and pass. You know what is coming, what the end result will be, but you are still interested in seeing exactly how it takes place. There is something profound about it. Something truly profound. It is life. It is us. We have removed ourselves from the process to the best of our abilities but we are still a part of it. Walking into the woods and really spending some time there is like going home. I, at least, feel an incredibly deep sense of ease and comfort. Things make sense in a way that they rarely do. Everything, even though it is in a constant state of flux, feels just right. Everything feels as though it is in exactly the right place even though it was only through an absurdly random process that anything arrived at that exact point and place in time. Order in the midst of the ultimate disorder. Nature. Makes me swoon.

Friday Evening Thoughts

• Obama has caught more top Taliban officials in the last month than George W. Bush caught in the last 6 years of his administration.
• Glenn Beck is losing sponsors crazy fast. How long can he keep it up before he has to adjust his approach or go off the air?
• The winter olympics are great. So damn exciting. BUT They are also so absurdly 1st world/Eurocentric/Northern Hemisphere. It's pretty unreal. 
• Chatroulette is disconcerting. Further proof that instead of being out meeting people we would rather sit at home and randomly interact with total strangers. It's all too safe for me. You're not putting anything at all on the line by experiencing other people that way and it's the putting of stuff on the line that strengthens us. Still, it sounds fun. I'll probably end up doing it. 
• It is too easy to get through the day without really having to use your brain. We need more productive and accessible ways of spending our time. 
• Pictures really are worth a thousand words.
• I thought Johnny Weir was amazing last night. So much emotion in the way he moved. 
• Been going crazy on Hot Chip for the last week or so. So good.
• There is NO way that we are the only forms of life in this universe. This video will expand your frame of thought and make you feel miniscule.
• My experience of the world feels so broad and encompassing. It is beyond comprehensible that there are 6.6 Billion other people across the world who probably feel the same way. How do you go about living your life knowing that? I believe that many of the political and cultural rifts that separate us today are based on each of our responses to that question.

Pretty Much the Best Thing Ever

Stephen Colbert and Alicia Keys tearing it up on a Colbert Report remix of Empire State of Mind.

The Year in Pictures

This is a collection of pics from the past year from the Boston Globe. For whatever reason they have great picture galleries. This one is particularly full of emotion and intrigue. It's a nice way to look back on the year. The gallery is in three parts. So, make sure you get through all of it.

Here's a picture of mine from the inauguration that captures the spirit of the year that was 2009.

Thought Provoking Words From Mr. Chomsky

"So take right now, for example, there is a right-wing populist uprising. It's very common, even on the left, to just ridicule them, but that's not the right reaction. If you look at those people and listen to them on talk radio, these are people with real grievances. I listen to talk radio a lot and it's kind of interesting. If you can sort of suspend your knowledge of the world and just enter into the world of the people who are calling in, you can understand them. I've never seen a study, but my sense is that these are people who feel really aggrieved. These people think, "I've done everything right all my life, I'm a god-fearing Christian, I'm white, I'm male, I've worked hard, and I carry a gun. I do everything I'm supposed to do. And I'm getting shafted." And in fact they are getting shafted. For 30 years their wages have stagnated or declined, the social conditions have worsened, the children are going crazy, there are no schools, there's nothing, so somebody must be doing something to them, and they want to know who it is. Well Rush Limbaugh has answered - it's the rich liberals who own the banks and run the government, and of course run the media, and they don't care about you—they just want to give everything away to illegal immigrants and gays and communists and so on.
Well, you know, the reaction we should be having to them is not ridicule, but rather self-criticism. Why aren't we organizing them? I mean, we are the ones that ought to be organizing them, not Rush Limbaugh. There are historical analogs, which are not exact, of course, but are close enough to be worrisome. This is a whiff of early Nazi Germany. Hitler was appealing to groups with similar grievances, and giving them crazy answers, but at least they were answers; these groups weren't getting them anywhere else. It was the Jews and the Bolsheviks [that were the problem].
I mean, the liberal democrats aren't going to tell the average American, "Yeah, you're being shafted because of the policies that we've established over the years that we're maintaining now." That's not going to be an answer. And they're not getting answers from the left. So, there's an internal coherence and logic to what they get from Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the rest of these guys. And they sound very convincing, they're very self-confident, and they have an answer to everything—a crazy answer, but it's an answer. And it's our fault if that goes on. So one thing to be done is don't ridicule these people, join them, and talk about their real grievances and give them a sensible answer, like, "Take over your factories.""

A Couple of Quickies

• Awesome video of flying fish. They can glide for up to 200 meters after take off!!
• Hilarious video of a prank from a Japanese TV show. One of the more well thought and absurd pranks that I've seen on a Japanese game show and that's saying something!
• And a great quote from The Daily Show two Wednesday's ago: "The Special Olympics is to winners what Fox News is to experts; if you show up, you are one." ~ Jon Stewart

Classic Louis C.K.

I have been watching SO many Louis C.K. vids on youtube. This one is one of my faves as it is hilarious and actually thought provoking. The dude gets it.

You Know the Deal

Serious Links

•  Article on the future of batteries. They have figured out how to make paper thin batteries out of a certain species of green algae. Very cool.
• Scary poll regarding the 2010 mid-term elections. The poll found that a huge portion of the republican voter base are planning on voting in 2010 while a minority of the democratic voter base is planning on voting. This appears to be due to the fact that republicans are getting real fired up and democrats are only disappointed in the progress, or apparent lack there of, that Obama has made. This gets my blood boiling. Dems out there who are actually not planning on voting deserve the republicans that are going to take office as a result of their lack of understanding and apathy.
• Article discussing the downward trend in the prices of energy from renewable sources and the prices of first time installation costs. Specifically the cost of solar power has gone down 50% in the last year.

Fun Links

• Article on 5 real scientific reasons why a zombie apocalypse could actually happen.
• Cool pics showing the actual amount of water on the earth compared to the actual amount of rock.
• "This woman has a pet unicorn, why isn't she smiling?!"
• KICK ASS This is a story and phone number that you can apparently call to get your voice blasted out over the Norwegian forest. (pictured below) I do not know if this is for realz but I sure hope it is.
  

The Rise of Food Stamps

Food stamps now feed 1 in 8 Americans and 1 in 4 American children. Stop and think about that. This stat says as much about the current recession as any other that I have seen. It hits home. One interesting side effect of the growing visibility of food stamps in our culture is that they are losing their stigma. For decades they were seen as something that only the truly poor had to deal with. Now, apparently, they are something that millions and millions of Americans have to deal with everyday. The times they are a changing. Check out the NYT article here.

Delayed Absence

Sorry for being gone so long guys. I have simply had too much work to be fooling around with this blog stuff. To hold you over until I return, which could be a little while considering finals are approaching, I will leave you with this great video of John Stewart enlisting the aid of retired wrestler Mick Foley to help protect that 10 year old kid who won't stand up for the pledge of allegiance until gay marriage is legalized. It's a hilarious video and for a good cause.