It has been a long time since I’ve done an “Letters to My Descendants” post. Here is how I see the world around me in the year 2019.
We are in the midst of the Trump presidency. Historians will surely look upon this time as a very low one for America. You may wonder how we could have elected such a person to the presidency. I ask myself the same.
Trump is Trump and he is just being who he is. He is caustic, nasty and some people still like him very much. So the better question to ask is what is going on with society these days? When I think about it I look back to a program called Jerry Springer back in the ’90s. It was a show that featured the lowest of the low. Expectant mothers who did not know who the father was and so they’d do a test and reveal the results. People would cry, fight, throw chairs and it was absolute chaos.
Well, things have not gotten any better as society has evolved. Girls these days post picture after picture of themselves on Facebook and Instagram, everything is about self promotion. The love of money Trumps everything else. We have Republicans and Democrats at each others throats speaking with insults and whatever will garner views. People love to see a train wreck and the news will happily publish it as it translates to money. People like shows filled with violence and sex. Their lives look OK on the outside but dig a little deeper and you’ll see just how many are taking pills, in fact we are in an opioid epidemic with many overdoses everyday. People don’t want a change in lifestyle, they want a pill to make it all better and then go back to their shows.
The USA is in serious decline. We’re harming the planet but instead of doing anything about it choose to look the other way. We promote unity through 4th of July celebrations and singing the Star Spangled Banner but it is all a facade. We’re not unified, we are all individual competitors. The USA is much more of a business than a country. The Democrats want to change this but Republicans do not.
It took a long time but I finally see the vision of the Republicans. We’re all here to get money at any cost. We don’t want to take care of each other, in fact we don’t even like each other very much. So, they make it harder for minorities to vote, they remove national healthcare, cut social programs and give tax breaks to the rich.
This was all very hard to swallow as I was raised to be a team player and thought we were all on the same side. We’re not on the same side and what a relief it is to finally see it this way. It has been a blessing to live overseas and in countries that actually care about their people. It has been a blessing to be able to be able to give my kids a choice between countries. The USA is a fantastic place if you’re here for business and know how to play the game. If you don’t then your circumstances are declining. And here is a real kicker. Most of the people who voted for Trump are not in a great situation and are voting against their own interests.
They say the “don’t want no government handouts” yet extend their hands for benefits, farm subsidies or whatever will be given to them. A serious tech revolution has begun and just as their jobs disappeared when industry moved overseas so shall even white collar jobs. AI can do it better, cheaper and AI doesn’t need breaks, lunch or sleep. If we keep chasing profit at all costs without regard for the people so many will be left behind.
As for me I’ve had a revelation that I should invest in technology as it truly will take over the world. Google is exploding, Tesla is making cars that drive themselves, and perhaps eventually humans will be absolutely useless as drivers of profit. What will we do when our skills are no longer needed? We thought that technology would give us much more free time but quickly learned that companies learned out to further exploit workers and now the opposite has happened and we find ourselves twice as busy as before!
The people will continue voting for those that are making the rich richer and it is those rich people that are the owners of all this technology. There is no compassion or caring what happens to everyone else. When a machine can do the job better than a human the human no longer has a job.
I wonder what the world will be like 30 years from now. I hope I live that long and I’d be 71 years old. I imagine my mind might not be as sharp, many of my friends will have passed away and I’ll just be sitting in a corner with no one wanting to talk to me. Nobody cares about the past, or the experiences that elders have had. I am different. I am intensely interested in the past and what people of a different generation have lived through. Here in 2019 it seems the young are only interested in posting another picture of themselves or playing video games.
At least I’ll have this blog and be able to look back on my own life. I wonder if you’ll even read these letters I write to you or if they will be something just some old guy wrote a long time ago? I wish I could read my ancestors writings about their lives and experiences. They would be an excellent window to the past and allow me to further understand where I come from and why my own circumstances are the way they are.
Will you leave me in a rest home when my mind doesn’t work as well. I’m thinking about you now and you don’t even exist yet. Will you think about me even when I still exist but am old? Will I even be alive and if not are there questions you want to ask me? I try to think about what you might ask but the times are changing so quickly I can scarcely imagine the world you are going to live in.
At 42 here is some advice for you if you’ll have it.
Confidence – Find it. Life is much better when you have confidence and it doesn’t just come when you get older. Wrestling is what gave me confidence in high school. In college is was my language abilities. Now it is doing karate with Kai and Ren, working out and doing well at my job. You’ll need confidence so if you don’t have it, find whatever it is that will give it to you.
Learn about finance and the stock market. The stock market has finally “clicked” for me thanks to new tech tools which help me keep a finger on the market and the confidence to invest. This was not taught to me and I wish I would have started twenty years ago. Invest as much as you can but wisely. I’m investing now and it is my decisions which most likely will greatly impact your future. Right now the market is good and I’ve made wise decisions but nobody knows what the future holds so it is nerve wracking as well.
Marry a person with a good heart. Beauty is something all young people look for and seemingly is the only thing they care about in boyfriend/girlfriend. Beauty fades and even if it doesn’t the thrill of having a pretty partner will certainly fade, especially if they have a terrible personality. Who would want a Ferrari when it complains or gives you so much trouble that you hate even climbing into it? Pretty to look at but what a pain in the ass. It is my experience that the prettiest people rely on that too much and fail to develop good personalities or other qualities. Marry someone with a good heart and life will be good.
Appreciate life. Watch the sunsets, listen to the birds, be calm. Whatever is in fashion will soon pass. Nobody cares how many ‘likes’ you get on the pictures and all those pretty people will soon be old. What will they do then, tell stories about how they got 10,000 likes on a picture 10 years ago? People get so wrapped up in the stupidest things. Instead ponder the universe, realize that we all live on one “pale blue dot” and we are quite insignificant in the vastness of the universe. But don’t let this trouble you, we are alive, we have a mind and we have absolutely no idea what is going on. Why are we here, what is mind, what was before the universe and so on. Religion doesn’t have the answers, it is an ancient belief that very stubbornly refuses to die so many people still cling to it. They need to be reassured that their lives have meaning and there is a god watching over them. This is all false. However, I do believe we are part of something greater that we simply cannot comprehend. And so I search, I think, I study and I meditate.
Don’t get wrapped up in what society is into. Society is dumb evidenced by our very own President at the moment. People of my day like sports very much and you have guys that wear other guys names on their shirts. What sense does that make? Discover who you were born to be and don’t let teachers, your parents or any others tell you otherwise. It is your life to live and your right to live it to the fullest. Make wise decisions but go your own way. You can tell them I’ve given you permission and since I’m their elder I should be the wiser right? It is better I write this now as nobody will probably listen to me when I’m old, so you can just reference this post and I hope it helps you out.
Travel – Go see the world. Every community, nation whatever thinks they know everything yet they know very little. You must go out and explore. Don’t worry about sharing your experiences with those who haven’t traveled. They will neither understand nor care. You cannot ‘enlighten them,’ just be polite if they ask but keep the explanation to a minimum else their eyes will glaze over.
Well, I think that is enough for now. I’m thinking of you this Monday, July 29th in the year 2019.
This subject continues to be on my mind. This is important and something I want my descendants to understand so I thought it best to keep these thoughts in one post and perhaps one day bring them into one coherent essay.
The Universe
Everything as we know it began with the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. That’s it, that’s all we know and it doesn’t get more complicated than that. Our reality, our consciousness, everything begins from that point, end of story (for now).
Religion
Religion is a man-made explanation for who/what we are and what the universe is. It was created before Man had the tools to come up with theories and explanations grounded in facts. Religion is not grounded in facts but on fantasy, *historical events, hearsay, superstition among many others.
Humanity
“We’re made of star stuff” – Carl Sagan.
That makes us seem rather exotic and poetic. Another way to look at it is we’re kind of like bacteria and like all living things consume resources, excrete waste and then turn back into, take your pick, ashes, dust, star stuff, dirt. Ashes is what religion uses, dirt is glamorous, but star stuff, that is the ticket to positive thinking.
We think of ourselves as beautiful, best demonstrated by Michelangelo’s David.
But let’s take a closer – microscopic kind of close – and we’ll quickly become uncomfortable as to what we really are.
Here is an artistic visualization of what a molecule, a Kinesin Protein looks like in our bodies.
We are quickly disgusted with ourselves when looking at something like this. What exactly is going on in my body (which is also made up a good part by bacteria)?? I don’t think your average person would want to know!
So my thought? We are both incredible, wonderful beings and at the same time not much more than bacteria ourselves when really understanding our place in the universe as a whole.
Yes, religion wants us to think we’re the most important creation in all of…. creation. But the reality is we’re just a form of organic life that found its way to consciousness, have been around for a very, very brief amount of time and could be easily wiped out by a meteor, or one of many, many scary things that occur in space all the time.
Conclusion
This realization should not be depressing but rather the opposite! This realization has made all of the universe and everything in it the most exciting mystery and story of (literally) all time! Here we are, in a universe that just seemingly popped out of nothing. After a very long time our little brains evolve in a very teenie, tiny, inconsequential spec of the universe to try and contemplate it all. We’ve barely made it out of the age of knowing absolutely nothing except maybe how to build a fire and kill other animals.
But alas, our technology has outpaced our humanity. We now have the power to kill everyone and everything but still cannot see past the tribal and religious divisions of old. Our economic systems reward more profit and these systems pollute and corrupt. We’re killing our planet and thus ourselves. So in the end, our species might not even deserve a word, (or even letter?) in the history book currently being written about this universe, a story which began 13.8 billion years ago.
Current Thoughts
When thinking this way, daily life is seen through an interesting lens. You see all those important people doing important things? They too will turn back to dust, their deeds will be forgotten and are just part of the human bacterial species doing things. All of these things, deeds, purchases, news, scandals, idols, superstars, rises and falls of empires and so on, really are not important. It is a bacterial species on a pale blue dot running around and doing things.
So what is important? Your individual life experience is important. You have consciousness for a short period of time. Look around, travel, appreciate the sunsets, meditate, experience as much as you can. No matter how much you accumulate, or how famous you become, it all will all suddenly slip away as your consciousness is extinguished.
I’d also say being kind to others, helping them is also very important. The first important thing I mentioned was personal experience. Well, other human beings are having experience as well. They are us, we are them and we’re all one. As was quoted by the Dali Lama , if you can’t be kind to them at least don’t hurt them. And that goes for all things. Don’t kill anything, they are living things in this mysterious universe. Let them go about their business.
*Side note: My favorite is the history. Man has slowly evolved over millions of years and in those millions of years interesting history was being created. Eventually man developed the ability of speech and tribal stories were passed down through the ages. Most would have been lost before man developed the ability to write/record these stories. And most of those that were written probably didn’t survive the wars, chaos, rise and fall of empires and so on. In the Pacific Northwest the tribes spoke of a huge wave that wiped out much of the region. Science confirms there was a huge earthquake and subsequent tsunami that did wipe a lot out. So in the Bible when they talk of a flood scholars talk about the rivers flooding such as the Tirgis and Euphrates which would have flooded a big region and made people think the entire Earth was being flooded.
Now, I wonder what/when the land mass between Spain and Africa finally gave way and the Atlantic waters rushed in to create the Mediterranean Sea. What an event that must have been!! I’d like to hear the ancient stories about that (if man was even around at that time?)
October 21st, 2018
It has been a long time since I’ve done a LTMD. I thought I’d write this directly to you as this is a subject not easily spoken about with others.
This post concerns my thoughts on life, existence, the universe as a whole and our entire reality. Not a light subject but I intend to just express my viewpoints simply and clearly without going too deep into how I arrived at them all.
Here in 2018 we’ve made incredible technological advances. I say incredible because they really are in respect to the entire history of the human species where the advances tend to come in sudden bursts: Fire, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Ancient Greece, Rome, Renaissance, Industrial Revolution and now the technological revolution. We’re on the verge of creating a very impressive artificial intelligence which would be an achievement indeed.
Before we become too proud of ourselves I would say this technology is extremely primitive when compared to what is most likely out there in the universe, or indeed, perhaps technology created the universe itself? In comparison to that which is out in the universe our technology would be like us comparing our AI to a monkey using a stick as a tool, most likely even more-so.
So what are we? History and religion have told us we’re the most special creation in the universe. We are creations of an all powerful being and our design based on his image. That is the fairy tail we’ve told ourselves and that a good portion of humanity continues to tell itself.
This story is resilient even in the face of a tsunami of data and discovery that tells us otherwise. The data and discovery are coming too fast for the human species and most cannot let go of the fairy tales that have persisted for millennia. To even contemplate letting go causes fear, anxiety, and a complete removal of the solid platform we’ve stood on for so long. It as though an earthquake has hit and everyone looks for safe harbor as the ground shifts and slides beneath them.
Data and information come at such a rapid pace that many cannot decipher which is actually true or not anymore. This false information actually helped lead to the election of President Trump who is now determining the course of the world in part by using false information!
So what are we as a species? At 41 years of age I can say our physical bodies are nothing special at all. If we look our physical aspects clearly and honestly, without those special rose colored glasses we gladly borrow from religion, we’re quite possibly just an advanced form of bacteria. In fact, science now estimates that half of our cells are bacteria with the rest being human cells. Furthermore if you look at what is actually occurring at the microscopic level of our bodies it isn’t a pretty sight. Or, just open a human up and that isn’t a pretty sight either!
Then take clear your mind and take a look at our bodies. We’re a block of organic material with four appendages growing out of it and a top control growth which lets it sense its environment.
Thinking of ourselves this way is quite something isn’t it? It goes against everything we’ve ever been taught and quite frankly is despicable to us but none-the-less is true.
This organic, living object we call a body sheds, produces unpleasant odors, it consumes then excretes waste, it is easily wounded, it ages and then it dies. It is born, moves around for a while, reproduces then quickly dies. It is made of stardust and after a short time of animation becomes stardust once more.
Taking a look at the species as a whole it is extremely primitive in that it goes and kills others, just like bacteria may kill other bacteria. It comes up with ideas (religion) that tell it it is special then kills others when they don’t share this same fantasy. It believes itself to be strong when the reality is one little space rock would destroy their entire existence.
When put into a this perspective and realizing what we truly are, we are humbled and quickly reach for those safe harbors and rose colored glasses. We’ll spray perfume on ourselves to eliminate odors, apply creams, engage in endless maintenance all to try and keep our true and natural selves at bay, to keep us three steps ahead of the rest of the animal species.
In terms of survival the news tells us that we’re not smart enough to deserve to survive. We’re poisoning ourselves with carbon monoxide, polluting the oceans and in our ignorance, sometimes even willful ignorance, we speed up the end of the species.
Why do we do this? In short, the goal of humanity is profits at any and all costs. As long as we can have profits today and catastrophe something left for the distant future to deal with, humans will do it. We’re not smart enough as a species to put a stop to it. There are voices, there are technologies but we do not act in concert for the good of ourselves as a whole, only for the enrichment of the individual. And that is a shame because we could be such a good and creative bacteria that had the potential to evolve further.
Only twenty years ago I wouldn’t have thought I’d need to check the air quality on a daily basis. I now do so and see San Francisco always has moderate air quality. I’m just glad my family and I live in Pacifica where the air quality should be much better; there are no air quality monitors here in Pacifica, only in SF. These particles get into the lungs and causes disease which causes death. And humanity continues to fire up its cars, its factories, and the slow poisoning of our species continues.
I imagine a student reading this a hundred years from now thinking how stupid we are, just as we look at past societies and fault them for the bonehead things they did.
Unfortunately, now we’re entering a very dangerous phase of our existence. The world is still divided into massive tribes of people, which we call countries. They share DNA, language, history and are in constant competition with the other tribes across the world. They always fight and kill each other, then it dies down, then they fight and kill each other again. The danger lies in technology becoming too efficient at the killing and it could be one tribe has the power to completely destroy another tribe. We’ve got nukes now which is bad enough but there is also engineered disease, microbots and a plethora of others that so far remain in science fiction but most likely already exist in government labs.
We’ll create some world ending horror, there will then either be an accident or it is released on purpose and that is it. We’re just not smart enough as a species to handle the terrible, technological advances that are coming.
The only quality we have which I hope will save us from this very depressing realization about our bodies not being special is our minds. Is it something more than just billions of interconnected neurons sending energy to each other? Does consciousness persist after bodily death? Science tells us everything we observe at the smallest scale is simply made up of energy. What does that mean for us, consciousness and reality as a whole? I wish someone would tell me the true answer, not the made up stories most of humanity seems so eager to tell and spread. Spread the Word, spread a virus, it is the only way either continues and thrives. Both are damaging to humanity.
So many questions. It would be so simple just to pop down to the church. Someone would read all my questions and say the answer is so simple, the answer is Jesus! Uh huh. Best to keep these thoughts to my journal, read more and pay attention to when NASA and science in general discovers something new. If I want fantasy I’ll go play Zelda.
This subject has been on my mind for a while. Here is another post I wrote along the same lines. I wanted to put it here so I have both in the same place.
Considering the Human
Recently I’ve been doing an exercise in considering the human from an alien point of view. That sounds very strange to say doesn’t it? One more random blog where the author has gone off the rails. But this is not so strange considering I got the idea from scientists Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Michko Kaku. From Mr. DeGrasse it is that we are made of star stuff and from Mr. Kaku when he says that if aliens visited us they might merely brush us off as we do with forest animals. I thought about this quite a bit and then a statement from Jamie Lannister on Game of Thrones drove it home. He says “It’s a strange thing, the first time you cut a man. You realize we’re nothing but sacks of meat and blood and some bone to keep it all standing.”
And so I considered these thoughts and the more I thought about them the stranger the human form began to seem. We’re organic beings with a torso with two appendages to move it around, two further appendages to grasp things and a roundish thing on top which contains structures to sense its surroundings,hi a whole to take in fuel and a brain to give it instructions. This body, this thing moves around, consumes, creates waste, secretes liquids, has odor and joins with others to reproduce, kills and eventually dies and becomes dirt.
This living thing, being the smartest of all the other creations on its planet, thinks it is highly intelligent. So intelligent in fact that its form is made in the image of a ‘divine’ being, the creator of everything, and this creator whom they call God is entirely concerned with their own well-being.
I then took a hard look at my fellow humans and what do I see? I see a species that poisons its own environment, that kills others just like it, and many of which live a life of such depravity that I wonder if it wouldn’t be best if a meteor were to strike and just end it all before we do it to ourselves with the poison we spread and the nuclear war that continually hangs over our head. I just read in the news that Russia has created a nuclear device that would poison thousands of miles so much so that it couldn’t be inhabited for generations. And we consider ourselves intelligent? The most powerful grouping of us, which we call a nation has recently elected a leader who seems hell bent on speeding up the decline of our species and instead of being intelligent enough to stop it, a good many of them continue to support very destructive policies. It seems to me that we are less than forest animals as they do not actively seek out their own destruction.
We go about our days trying to separate ourselves from the animals species we are. We take daily showers to remove the odor and apply chemicals which pleases the other organic beings. We groom ourselves keeping the growths of hair and nails in check, the women apply paint to their faces and wear uncomfortable shoes which disfigure their feet. We make so many modifications to our natural form all in a vain attempt to suppress what we naturally are.
Yes, looking at the human from this point of view really brings us down from those very high pedestals on top of which we place ourselves.
Many of us refuse to believe in evolution, in global warming, in things that are so obvious to the more intelligent all while falling back on the belief that we are divine, that is to say greater, than everything else that could be out there in the universe. How silly, how insane!
And now we find ourselves at a very big crossroads in how we will evolve as a species. We’re on the verge of creating artificial intelligence which won’t have the delusion of religion and see us for what we truly are. The ones who point out the dangers are few while the many rush headlong into something that could and probably will destroy us all for profits, so that they can buy more material goods which they don’t need. We’re not smart enough to control what AI will become, the chase for profits have blinded the reality that it will probably be our destruction.
It is depressing to see humanity from this viewpoint. What were once romantic love stories that fill the breast with passion become nothing more than a dog humping a person’s leg. The daily hum of activity nothing more than bacteria moving around under a microscope. Thriller movies lose their thrill and all that is seen is a bacteria running around eliminating other bacteria.
The only hope in all of this is the mind and the consciousness from which it springs? I grasp to the hope that it lives on, that it is something divine. Being a human and seeing what humans do to each other and the planet certainly is not divine. I watch video clips telling me about biocentrism which is the idea that the mind is what creates the universe and not the other way around. Only then can I have any hope that we are something greater than a torso with appendages and a control center up top.
The artists create forms like the Michelangelo and make the body seem beautiful. The guys locker room paints a much different picture. I do see kindness from time to time and acts which would suggest a life of ‘grace,’ of something worthy of the divine. But those acts seem to occur less and less as we fade from the world into a digital reality, into our phone screens and iPads. I see humans busying themselves with pointless tasks and activities until the body can produce no further energy and the being simply ceases to exist.
It is time that humanity as a whole looked itself in the mirror and realized what it actually is from a rational and scientific perspective. We should focus more on the mind and of our consciousness as it is our only hope of keeping us from despair and the death that comes to all organic beings. But, there are sports games and T.V. shows to be watched. There are more things to buy which will never fill that gaping hole and satiate our desires. It is all very depressing indeed.
It has been a long while since I wrote an LTMD. This is an article for my descendants to read when they are in high school decades from now.
I read an article yesterday on CNN called “The changing reasons why women cheat on their husbands” (Link) and thought I’d offer some advice.
I never had a girlfriend growing up and wasn’t successful in that department until junior/senior year of high school. After that I had no problems and wanted to give you some very good advice which I learned not only then but also through the past 20 years of, first dating, and then a successful marriage.
The first and foremost point is that if you are confident in yourself the girls just come out of the woodwork. Girls like confidence not only when dating but in any successful relationship. You must get to the point where you’re very proud of yourself and to the point where you could be very happy on your own. You can accomplish this by learning to do one or two things very well. For me, it was language learning and wrestling. I was very good with language and decent in wrestling.
Wrestling in high school gave me a lot of confidence and it is no coincidence that I started to attract girls once I started to get good at the sport. Then in college it was language and continuing to work out. I was strong and combined with language many people thought I was smart. The truth is I wasn’t the top of my class in Spanish and was even going to fail a difficult grammar class. But I found a way to learn it and that was by going to Spain. I liked language very much and there was a time I didn’t think I would be successful. Yet, I found another way to make it happen and a way that was very much enjoyable.
After Spanish came French and then Japanese and the ability to speak these languages gives me a lot of confidence and impresses others. For me, it has been so long since I learned them that I do not think it is something special and has just become part of daily life.
Wrestling was a long time ago and has been replaced by karate. In addition to impressing others it gives me a very nice confidence boost especially when I won those matches in the fighting tournament.
Now back to the article. I can only speak for myself here since everyone follows different paths and have different life experiences. So the women in this article aren’t necessarily ‘wrong’ in what they say as they have their own path to walk and own life to figure out. But my opinion and mine alone given my experiences is the following.
I read this article and see it as a reflection of the “me first” society. Everyone is always thinking about themselves. I have my experience in Japan to thank for a completely different mindset: it is a mindset which does not put the self first but those around you and in keeping harmony. Thinking this way makes the “I” go away and my family come first. The focus on others is even built into the Japanese language and creates a very peaceful harmony when done the right way. And so when I read these women always talking about themselves and the focus on ‘their’ happiness they appear to me as selfish and whiny. Now I have known many women in the USA culture who are excellent but unfortunately this society focuses on the ‘me first’ idea. That is how what they were taught, has created how they think and thus drives their decisions. I’m sure many of their husbands are like a ‘second child’ and they always have to ‘pick up after them.’
And so, one of the secrets to having a good marriage is to create your own confidence, do not rely on a girlfriend/boyfriend or partner to create happiness for you, be awesome by yourself. Go do incredible things like climb Mt. Fuji, go exploring in Europe, learn languages, or create a lifelong journal where you express your most intimate thoughts. Get exercise and create a fantastic body. Make it so that you could be extremely happy just by yourself without another person and then you know what happens? People want to attach themselves to you, to be with you, to experience the same joy and zest for life that you experience.
Now this is not always easy. There will be times when your down, when your sad, when life beats you up. Fortunately there is a quick fix and that is exercise. You’ll not only get the immediate boost of endorphins flooding your brain but over time your body will change. Seeing how you are getting stronger builds upon itself and confidence increases. You’ll need endurance to keep up with the exercise as well as mental tasks like learning things. If you don’t like a subject then find something you do like: play the guitar, go fishing, learn about history. Just keep learning, keep reading and before you know it you’ll have surpassed many people in general knowledge. The world and universe is an outstanding, incredible, mysterious place but you only will really understand this through reading and learning. The more you learn the more you realize how little you actually know and learning becomes exciting.
Through all of these things you become an awesome person and have no need for a girlfriend as their is an entire world to explore and is open to you. Do it while you’re young though because responsibilities increase and you cannot as easily just take off and go do something new. Even with a family and kids however you can still go on adventures and explore. For example I’ve never been a camper but there is so much nature out there and it would be an incredible experience the entire family can enjoy (provided the weather is nice mind you).
Should you decide to get married my advice is to find a person who is good at heart, who also enjoys adventures and is confident in themselves. At 40 years old I have so many beautiful acquaintances who have absolutely zero self confidence. This is easy to see because they post thousands of pictures of themselves in the search for approval in the form of ‘likes’ on the social networks. Another day, another selfie. Make no mistake, this is not confidence, this is lack of it. Others will find a boyfriend for a while and post many pictures of themselves kissing said boyfriend, doing things with said boyfriend. This is also not confidence: it is the girl crying out, look at me! I have a boyfriend, and since I don’t have confidence I need to try and create it artificially by posting thousands of pictures. Don’t look down on these girls though, they are going through their own life experience and trying to live a happy life like everyone else. Sometimes however, they make bad decisions or have a mindset that is generally disagreeable and thus find themselves still single at 40 years old. This is too bad but again, we all have our own paths to walk and each our own challenges to face.
Don’t go for the pretty girls unless they have an excellent personality as well. Beauty fades quickly but a great personality endures.
Now, if you’re in high school reading this there is no doubt that you’ll probably be attracted to pretty girls but remember this. There is an entire world full of pretty girls and the same rules about what is attractive is not the same in other countries. In high school you’re in a very tiny cocoon and upon senior year everyone thinks they have the world figured out; they have no idea. In the USA many pretty girls lack other skills because they rely on their looks to carry them through. I’ve found that this does not often change even as they get older. However, I’ve found that beauty is not given the very high pedestal in some other countries that it does in the USA. You can still find a pretty girl who does have other fantastic qualities overseas. Most people in the USA aren’t going to like to hear this but it is the hard truth. There are beautiful and fantastic girls in other countries that will not be whiny pains-in-the-butt. Again, do not look down on the pretty girls that are unbearable, but put yourself in their position. It can be said that their looks are a disadvantage because guys are always bothering them, contributing to their lack of self-esteem and causing them to think the way they do. So perhaps they might be defensive, or act ‘bitchy’ as a self defense mechanism. But unfortunately and like everything, it is good to start off with something that doesn’t need a lot of repair work as it causes a lot of frustration and still might not improve.
Well, I better wrap this up. Remember the main point of this post: be an awesome person, be kind to others, get exercise and find a way to be very confident in yourself to the point where you don’t need a girlfriend/boyfriend to contribute to your self worth. Then you’ll have your pick in terms of a relationship.
LTMD: I address this to you as there really aren’t many people with whom I could speak freely regarding this subject. So, as I do with many ‘difficult’ topics I’d rather write it to you.
I’ve recently become fascinated with the ‘ancient world,’ which is defined as the time before the fall of the Roman Empire in AD 476. I was never taught much about it throughout my education and so I was intrigued by the amount of attention ‘ancient knowledge’ is gaining today.
It first caught my attention when I read “Reality Is Not What It Seems‘ about Quantum Gravity by Carlo Rovelli. (My post about this book here) In this book the majority of his praise goes to Democritus and his formulation of the atomic theory of the universe way back in 460 BC. He also attacks the Catholic Church for doing a pretty good job of systematically destroying any ancient teaching that was not in line with its own.
The closure of the ancient schools such as those of Athens and Alexandria, and the destruction of all the texts not in accordance with Christian ideas was vast and systematic, at the time of the brutal anti-pagan repression following the edicts of Emperor Theodosius, which in 390-391 declared that Christianity was to be the only and obligatory religion of the empire.
His basic point here is that Democritus was a giant of his time in the scientific field, was on the right track and that the rise of the Catholic Church was a major setback for science, truth and the reality of all that is around us.
The next book which I’ve just finished is ‘Meditations‘ by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. I’ve written a post which contain my favorite quotes here. In it Marcus Aurelius talks about the universe being formed by atoms which must have come from the teachings of Democritus. Marcus Aurelius also speaks of the universe as nature, of gods, and even a line mocking Christians.
“What a great soul is that which is ready, at any requisite moment, to be separated from the body and then to be extinguished or dispersed or continue to exist. But this readiness must come from a man’s own judgement, not from mere obstinacy, as with the Christians, but considerately and with dignity and in a way to persuade another, without tragic show.”
And so what is my point in all of this? The point is that I feel I’ve just made an enormous discovery: It is not a discovery that is unknown to humanity, but it is hidden in academic journals, in the minds of college professors and something that is lightly and delicately mentioned by our most famous scientists of today so as not to alienate the massive amount of religious people.
The fall of the Roman Empire was a complete disaster for science, for knowledge, for philosophy and for advancing mankind’s understanding of our universe. This incredible knowledge was burned and destroyed by both marauding, wild hordes of uneducated savages and what was left destroyed by a cult of superstition called the Catholic Church. The rise of the Church coincided with the dark ages, a time of ignorance where the only knowledge was that of a superstitious, quasi-historical book called The Bible.
And what really shocks me is that this superstition persists to our own modern times; times where the regular person has more education than at any other time in history.
Science and the knowledge of the Greeks were making inroads into the superstitions of the western world but it all collapsed with the fall of the Roman Empire. Superstition through religion gained the upper hand and it hasn’t let go of its grip even now in the year 2017.
Somehow, even the very brightest scientists, Ph.D holders perform an enormous amount of mental gymnastics to believe in science while at the same time believing in the superstition of religion. Religion has such an incredible grip on the human psyche that I doubt it will ever die away until perhaps thousands of years from now. Christianity has lasted for two thousand years and even with new discoveries that directly contradict its teachings, many people can still find a way to look past the blatant errors and continue to believe.
And so, today on April 21st, 2017 I’m shocked that scientists in the Ancient World were on to the truth and that it has been blatantly buried by religion, by Christianity until the twentieth century, a century which we’ve just left. Humanity, through science has landed people on the moon and has machines exploring other planets and our galaxy. Yet, a very large amount of humanity still clings to a cult started just 2000 years ago.
I’ve come across truth and I feel strange that there are very few people I can speak with about this. How incredible is it that they would reject it due to superstitions taught to them since birth, or be a subject that doesn’t interest them even though it leads to the reason for their very existence!
This is a subject I’ll surely write more about. It is shocking to me to realize that the Ancient World had such incredible knowledge and we’ve been thrown into the dark for 2000 years. Perhaps if we were to look at it through the lens of seemingly infinite time, this is just a very small chapter: protagonists, races, or even entire species have their ups and downs; they come and go, have triumphs and failures. Perhaps one day the majority of humanity will dig itself out of the pit of superstition which began 2000 years ago with the tragedy of the fall of the Roman Empire.
I’m making this an LTMD as there is enough being written about Hillary’s shock loss and I’m not interested in adding to the conversation. I just want to let my descendants in the far future know some of my current thoughts. And my thoughts are this:
Most of us, including myself, only know politicians by the news and information we receive. From this information we form an opinion based on our own mindset, beliefs and what we’ve been taught through the course of our lives. So I don’t know Hillary, I only know ‘of her’ through the information I read.
From this information I’ve found that she is just another self-serving politicians with an ‘unbridled ambition’ that for the first time in her life has been shot down. She took none of the blame for losing the election on herself, but rather her and the other old lady – Nancy Pelosi – blamed the FBI for bringing up the e-mail scandal again very close to the election.
That is not the reason she lost. The reason she lost is because she isn’t likable, couldn’t galvanize her base and nobody really wanted to vote for her. I voted for her although I really didn’t want to; I voted for her in order to try to keep Trump from winning. So there you have it, the truth! She lost because not many really wanted to vote for her. She is a career politician and from what I’ve heard from a buddy who worked under her is that the way she runs things is atrocious.
She should apologize to all of us. She should apologize for making her own ambitions more important than for the welfare of the country. She said that recently she has just wanted to curl up with a good book and stay in the house??? She should be writing a novel of an apology to the entire nation for screwing things up! It is hard to even make up some of the scandal. Let’s just recap.
Her main advisor Huma Abedin had a husband who liked to send dick pictures to underage girls. He was caught doing it as a Congressman, disgraced, and lost his job. But then he did it AGAIN and the FBI found Clinton e-mails which reopened the case to her own scandal of using her private server for classified information which was illegal and made humongous lies about. But Hillary is not the type to blame herself, she will blame the FBI publicly, blame Huma and most certainly Anthony as well, but privately, and then perhaps all the voters who are directly responsible for not voting for her!
I do feel a little sorry for Huma. As I said above I only know these people through information on the internet but I’m also very good at reading people. Huma seems like a sweet person to me from the videos I’ve seen on YouTube. I really do not understand how someone as beautiful and smart as her would go for someone as weak, frail and conceited as Weiner. It is most likely because he was politically powerful; after all isn’t that what women in Washington D.C. want? She is also connected to some pretty powerful Saudis so it could be she is just another spoiled brat. But, I really do think that at her core she is a sweet girl and it is always a terrible to see a woman with a broken heart.
Anyway, I’ve never wanted the wife of a previous President to become President. I feel it makes us look like a third world country where government is a family business. Regarding her ambitions, there are reports that she didn’t take the loss too well. This is from the Conservative side but highly believable in my opinion.
Sources have told The American Spectator that on Tuesday night, after Hillary realized she had lost, she went into a rage. Secret Service officers told at least one source that she began yelling, screaming obscenities, and pounding furniture. She picked up objects and threw them at attendants and staff. She was in an uncontrollable rage. Her aides could not allow her to come out in public. It would take her hours to calm down. As has been reported for years, her violent temper got the best of her. Talk about having a temperament ill-suited for having access to the atomic bomb. So Podesta went out and gave his aimless speech.
So, I’ve had serious thoughts of registering myself as an Independent based on this. The Democratic party in its current form can burn to the ground. The Republicans too seem to have imploded only to rise from the ashes as a bright phoenix – making a clean sweep in the elections of the House, Senate and Presidency – that, given government, power and greed as they are, will once again burn and become ashes. I just hope that Trump doesn’t screw it up so much that my metaphor of ashes doesn’t become literal ashes with a nuclear war. I’m no longer convinced that there is some wise person at the wheel and I’m not that confident in the strength of US institutions. We just saw the Presidency fall to a demagogue, why couldn’t other institutions do the same?
I do have hope and that hope is that Trump will continue to grab the Republicans by the pussy and throw them around the same way he did in the primary. From his nominations for certain posts it certainly doesn’t seem that way. I am glad that a brick was thrown through the window of the establishment but I just wish it had been a Democratic brick which had a name – Bernie Sanders. Hillary screwed all that up and she should take the blame.
I’ve also heard that Chelsea has become a spoiled brat from leaked memos thanks to Wikileaks. That is too bad; I remember when she was just a shy kid holding her Dad’s hand. Now she’s part of the aristocracy, part of the club with Ivanka Trump and her super rich husband. With this election I really don’t see why America kids itself about being a great country, one for the people anymore. I’m sure I could be proven wrong but isn’t the Presidency and politics really for the aristocrats? Even if they do not participate directly, they certainly grease the wheels and control the strings that make those puppet politicians dance. That was proven by Citizens United.
America needs to face the facts that like most countries, this is a place for the wealthy. Fuck, we should just stop kidding ourselves, chose the most powerful billionaire and make him King (or her Queen). Those poor bastards that voted for Trump are going to quickly learn that Trump doesn’t care for them, he cares for his rich buddies and they were all conned.
I really do hope I’m wrong about all this and Trump really does make things better and succeeds in doing so.
As for me, I’m pretty disillusioned with politics and not even entirely sure I’ll ever participate in the process again.
