Friday, May 7, 2004

I thought this was well written, wanted to share.

Now, let me try to give my two cents. For a penny given--two cents, no less--is a penny earned.

How does a person, change you ask? How?

A person changes in many ways. Physically, mentally, psychologically, spiritually. There are many ways. But I am supposing we're focusing on mental, psychological change.

A change is a reaction to a stimulus. When something's put in front of you, or lingers ahead of you, or effects you, it changes you. Each and every day we are changed. There is change which happens within us--changes brought on by our inner feelings, our inner thoughts, or inner selves.

Then there is the stimulus of people who you see each and every day. And the problems of reality we face on a day to day basis, as well.

Simply put, there are internal changes, and there are external changes. Stimuli on the inside of us, which change us, and stimuli on the outside that change us. And, the outside changes can cause the inside changes to change; the inside changes can cause the outside changes to change. These two dimensions of change are directly related, in a way. You couldn't have one without the other. If you could not take what changes you inside of your mind, then you would not change. All change happens on the inside, at least if we're speaking mentally, psychologically. It happens when we are given something from the outside of us--a stimulus--and it does its changing. Or inside--some thought pops into our head, it festers and grows over time. Or we are inspired right then and there.

Read this above as babble, or as genius, or inbetween. It is your choice. I'm not even sure what it is, exactly. But it nudges some idea.

To put something in the reality versus perception debate: think about it. The way we see things in our mind, the way we see everything is perceived by what we see with our eyes, smell with our senses, taste with our tongue.

The way the mind works is from memory--and from talking this so-called "reality" and turning into something of its own. Our minds learn and grow and become what they are because of our senses, and because of what we see. Without this so-called "reality," our minds wouldn't have a tangible way to see things. We wouldn't get a certain image in our head of anything. Our minds are tainted by so-called "reality." What we see is what we take in mentally. This is what's called perception.

Further, there's endless ways to look at the world. You see the differing philosophies. There's the naturalist, there's the realist, there's the romanticist, there's the trascendentalist. There's all these ways to look at things. There's the question of God--and his existence. All of these things are undefined, and can be seen via what someone sees--their perception.

I've said this many times, but I say it again--what's bad is good, what's good is bad; what's foul is fair, what's fair is foul. By this I mean there's no one way to look at something. There is no reality. There is nothing real but what we say is real. And when you say something's real--that is perception. That is seeing it one way and only one way. There's few things that are real. Love? Hate? God? Fill in anything here, it's all abstract, it's all intangible--you can't touch it, you can't feel it. You just feel it's there. It's just a perception.

Life is a gift? Life is a curse? Life is a waste of time? Life is lovely? Life is. What's life? We don't know, we question it each and every day. We sway from one notion to the other, of what we believe it is. Life itself has nothing secure, certain in it--all you know is you'll live, one day you'll die. So there is one thing humans seach for--rememberance and validation. They want to feel their time, their effort, their strain, pain, emotions, are not in frustra, are not in vain.

Is a person defined by those around him or her? Of course they are defined by them. When a baby is first born, it gets what it gets from its parents. Those around. It listens to all it hears, it gets memories from all the people around, it grows because of their love and care. A baby learns from many things, and these things change it--influence it. A baby may watch their parents walk; it may learn from observation. It learns to talk from its parents, listening to them speak. It may get some pronunciations wrong just because its parents say them wrong. A baby eventually learns manners in the world, how you're supposed to be. Don't belch at the table, don't stare at others, eat with a fork and a spoon and a knife.

Taking what I said before, what we are is actually what the outside world makes us. The people we see each day--every outside stimuli--it's what makes us who we are. Our entire perception of everything is from what's outside. We take it all in and it comes together to make us. It's a system of mistakes fixing insufficencies. It's a collection of your reaction to the stimuli. We are who we are completely by what has made us outside. That's our Fate. We never become what we truly are because there is nothing we truly are--we are a collection of safes and mistakes fixing each other. By learning, we are further destroyed of anything that we could be--we learn something and we become different. We change. We begin to expect the stimuli we'll feel, and react.

. . .how can one be certain they are aware of themselves at all, or if they are sure of who they are, if they are constantly being redefined by the outside world? You can't. What you are is what this so-called "reality" has made you. The conditions that've made you. What pressure and time's done. What it's created. There is nothing we are truly--if you want to know what you really are, then you are a being. A collection of teeming cells all working together to make you. A frail being who has a larger brain than any other animal on Earth. That is what you are. That is all you'll ever be. Just a human, flesh. That's what you are. You can't be any more certain than that.

Why does one have this...desire to be with someone else? Is it to feel validation? Love? Peace? When we undergo the rapid changes of puberty, our bodies begin feeding us full of sexual chemicals. Our body undegoes changes which make us attracted to the opposite sex.

It's natural. That's the answer. It's a natural inclination. It's something that nature has built into us as animals. A natural need to have the opposite sex. We need someone else so that we can come together with another and try to understand ourselves more. To try to fix something. We're all broken, we need repair. Feeling mutual feelings, as well as having another helps this. Plus, having another allows us to further divert our attention away from ourselves and the endless plethora of questions of who we really are. It's like a lot of things are--they simply divert attention, they make it so you don't have to face these pressing questions. Instead, you live only to serve someone who you feel strong, passionate feelings for. You live for them rather than yourself. You stop being so innerly selfish and instead become selfish to them.

This is what we do most of our lives: we keep our attention away from the pressing facts of death, what life is meant for, who we are. We are happier this way. Happier in ignorance. Happier not to question, just to do--work our lives away, love our lives away.

Do human beings honestly feel that they can be whole when they are with someone else? Yes, but eventually, they learn love does not last. Nothing good can last. All things good die in life. The death of the child, the death of the love you've fostered, the aging of you. The eventual death of you. And the endless question of what happens afterward.

Love does die. I've seen it. My mom divorced my father when I was only three. My mom and my step dad don't even love each other any more. A divorce of them has been a constant reminder to me of how much history repeats itself, endlessly, like a circle. There's no angles. . .just 360 degrees of a wide open space.

It all comes to survival. . .that's what keeps us going. This feeling we can do what we feel we can do. Just remember Neo, and what he said. He gets up because he can, because he chooses to. . .he doesn't know why. . .he just does. It's survival.

Having another one to devote your life to lets you survive. It makes you stronger because you're worrying about you less, and worrying about the other person more.

Human beings can never be whole. What is being whole? How can something broken be whole? Certainly, the coalescion of two beings of the opposite sex can sew together something that's whole. But it doesn't last. Everything dies. Everything good does and will die. A ship, above the darkness of the Machine, does and will rise, but just the same, it will fall because it has weight, and inertia, and it will hit the ground and something will die and something will be born.

Is the human race so weak that they are unable to live alone? The human race is weak. Look at a simple-minded animal--they simply live their existence, and they don't even know they are living an existence. All they know is their natrual proclivities and what it is nature has told them to do. We rebel against nature. We are weak because of this. Intelligence makes us weak because it gets in the way of living and survivial. The constant questioning and the constant struggle of survival gets in the way. We live a pained existence which we try to keep to ourselves. We are weak, feeble creatures: our intelligence makes us this. But intelligence has its positive aspects as well. But in the end, it is not worth it to me.

We will go extinict either by nature or our own foolish device. Atom bombs. Robots. Whichever. Our intelllect will kill us someday. It already has killed many in wars, in other petty things.

We can live alone, but the real question is will we? The people I talk to each day are what make living most worth it. I agree with John Steinbeck: we all need something to keep us in balance. Just like Agent Smith and Neo. Just like George, from Of Mice and Men--or Brooks-- did.

Living with someone else makes life easier because we divert our attention from the pressing concerns of our life, and what it will become, or is. Or has been.

When we don't have others--or a lover--we are left alone. When alone, we become egomanical--we look inside ourselves, searching, probing endlessly at the questions which have no answers. Other people divert our attention from this--make us realize our lives are pointless, and their lives mean more than our own, because if you put your heart to someone else, and they do the same, you can feel more whole.

Is the human race so weak that they are constantly driven by a deep, burning desire to feel validated? Yes. We want to be remembered. We do not want to die. We want to survive and live all of the time. Validation brings about a feeling that we've accomplished something in our lives, and that is the main force that drives us to live.

Our intelligence and our knowing that not everything we do will last drives us to supercede this existence and Fate and become something that never dies. This is weak. We are weak creatures. A worm is stronger than us because it lives in harmony with nature, and has a purpose--as does a baterium, who rids the soil of waste. Or a plant, who gives the Earth oxygen in exhange for taking carbon dioxide in the process of photosynthesis.

We live a plagued existence, and we use our intelligence to try and validate it. We fight to make something that will last.

I'm running out of time. I'll answer as succint as I can.

What is reality? Perception.

How do people define themselves? By what they see, and their memories, and what's made them who they are.

Is there such a thing as individuality? I think so. Again, it's seeing things and seeing them in many ways, and doing your own thing.

Is there such a thing as a pure individual, who is somehow unaffected by any societal influence at all? Not in this day and age. Perhaps in the past, when we were but normadic tribes.

Likewise, if someone is not confident in their abilities, what drives them--compels them to take solace in others around them? To feel validated by being in a relationship? Since I'm out of time, I'll say I said this somewhere above, lol. The second part of the question's much like one above.
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