Something that I think is so beautiful about the human race is that we are all connected.

What I mean by this is that there’s a six degrees of separation, or a web of sorts, that each and every one of us on this planet is a part of. The idea here is that each of us knows someone who knows someone who knows someone, and eventually we could link every one of us together, and this has only become more and more apparent in recent years when considering the “people you may know” box on social networking sites.

I mean, by having a conversation with my photography teacher, I discovered that her son works at the White House and personally knows the President of the United States of America.

There are only two people between myself and the president of this country and three between myself and leaders of every other country in the world.

As large as this planet is and as many human beings as there are, it really is a small world (after all), and I think there’s beauty in the idea that because of this, we’re not only connected to those presently alive, but also to those who once were and the ones who have yet to be. When you consider this fact and you sit on it for a minute, you start to realize that this connection is more than just links in a chain, but that each link can, has and will offer something to each other link and that ultimately, this is what we, as the human race, do.

We exist to support and help each other understand the things that we can’t seem to work out for ourselves. Life is full of questions and no one person has the answer to every one of them (even though some people like to think they do) so we all do our best to find out what we can do to help, and ultimately, where our own link fits in this chain.

Like I mentioned in a previous post, by discussing religion with others, I’ve been able to figure out facets of my own beliefs that I previously didn’t know were there just by listening to what others have to say. It was ultimately a power of deduction kind of moment where because I could eliminate one possibility, it made the other possibilities stronger contenders.

Coming to the conclusion that we all have something to offer each other has given me this new found respect for humanity, because let’s face it, sometimes you meet people and really struggle with an answer as to what they ultimately contribute to society. You know, one of those “waste of oxygen” moments that skip through your brain when you’re confronted with someone completely unpleasant who doesn’t seem to get how fortunate they are just to be alive.

Normally I’ll feel guilty afterward for thinking anyone is undeserving of the air they breathe, but I think if I can keep in mind that we’re all on this planet for a purpose and we all have something to contribute, I might be able to bypass the thought and the guilt and respect the individual while in their presence instead of only giving them a chance retrospectively– when it’s too late. This, in and of itself, may very well be one reason people like this exist.

Regardless, I still wish it wasn’t so difficult for people to be more respectful and courteous and, well, pleasant.

I came to the conclusion the other day that this whole bashing of “the youth of today” by the older generations isn’t helping any. Just because kids are acting and doing things differently than the way you did when you were their age, it doesn’t mean they’re doing it wrong.

It just means they’re doing it differently.

To be honest, and maybe it’s because I’m still young myself and might even look younger than I actually am (without the beard, anyways), but in dealing with so many different people on a day to day basis, I find that it’s the youth who are the more pleasant ones. They have manners and tact and are appreciative when I help them out. They’re not impatient, stuck up or demanding and they don’t act like they know everything and that they’re always right. Not that all of you are guilty of this, but you older generations out there, you could actually probably learn a thing or two if you took the time to realize that the youth of today are actually shaping up to be decent human beings, something a lot of your parents didn’t get a chance to bestow upon you because things were so different when you were children.

But it’s not really your parents fault, is it? They may have raised you a certain way, but it’s you who hasn’t adapted.

You haven’t cared to change with the times.

You’re stuck in your old ways and the more things change, the more crotchety and disillusioned with the world you become and what kind of way to live is that?

Do you really want to spend your end of days bitter and resentful or would you rather take the time to realize that it’s you who made the world the way it is today. Every step and breath you took contributed to the state of society today, and if you think you’re a decent, level-headed, respectable human being, than all of these links that connect you with the youth of today should suggest to you that they’re one in the same. Of course, it could go the other way and you’ll come to the conclusion that all that’s wrong with the youth of today is your fault, but why be so negative?

In case you didn’t realize it, your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren are pieces of you.

The point here is the same idea that a lot of my posts try to get across and that is to be the best version of yourself that you can possibly be.

And this isn’t just for older generations, because despite my slight attack on the elderly, I’m not blind to the fact that there are a large percentage of youth out there who have no respect and just don’t care and these are the ones who need to hear this the most because they’re the future.

No matter who you are, your actions can be infectious, especially if you have any kind of social status. If people want to be around you, then people look up to you and if people look up to you, then people want to be like you, and if people want to be like you, you have to be a good person. Whether you like it or not, you have a responsibility to shepherd others towards a brighter future. You can sit there and say that you didn’t ask for anything like that and that it’s not your responsibility, but you’re wrong. You may not have asked for it, but if people are choosing to follow you, you do have a responsibility because where you’re going, they’re going too.

Sure, you could just shut everyone out and abandon your post, but then where do these people turn to?

“They can start to think and act for themselves and not rely on others to guide them through life.”

Well, yeah, but despite this idea of individuality and independence, everyone still needs a leader. They need someone to look up to and to take charge and motivate them when they’re struggling to find answers. They need someone to talk to when no one else will listen and a shoulder to cry on when no other shoulders are left.

If you’re that ear and that shoulder, soak it up.

Believe it or not, you have power.

You have influence.

People care what you have to say and care what you do.

So say and do the right things.

You can tell me that the term “right” is all relative, but deep down we all know what’s truly right and just from what’s just plain wrong.

Don’t we?

—-

Something that shouldn’t have surprised me when I moved down here, but did, was how prominent religion is in peoples lives– and by religion, I mostly mean Christianity. I think what it was that caught me off guard was the fact that a lot of these God fearing individuals were not all that different from friends of mine that I had left behind in the great white north, most of which considered themselves atheists. I suppose I entered the heartland with a bit of ignorance on my side because hardly anyone in my life, in the 22 years before I moved down here, considered themselves religious, or if they did, they didn’t do anything to show it.

Because of this absence, I had it in my mind that people who adhered so some sort of organized religion were extremely radical and undoubtedly serious about their beliefs and that this foundation upon which they based their lives set them a universe apart from us quasi/non-believers and that they made it a point to let us know that this is exactly how it is. I suppose this conclusion was probably a result of the media, since most of the things I thought I knew were influenced by TV and film.

It seems that recently, the people who I’ve been spending more time with in my workplace are either recent additions to the “born again” column, or have been fairly strict believers their whole lives, and something I’ve noticed through having conversations with them, or even observing how they deal to or react to situations, is that while I enjoy listening to the things they believe, I seem to be affirming my own beliefs more solidly and discovering new ones that I’ve never thought of before.

The wonderful thing about belief is that no one can prove you wrong. Whatever train you catch a ride on, or in some cases, conduct, can only be derailed if you falter or stumble or struggle and you let the beliefs of someone else combat and overpower your own. Ultimately, beliefs are theories. They’re hypotheses that no scientific method can test and turn up a false conclusion. Belief is about what feels right to you and what allows you to feel comfortable in your own skin and with the life you live. Sure, some believers may be lying to themselves, but this lie is truth to them and it is keeping them safe and happy and warm because that’s what they need atthat moment in time, which could ultimately even be said about myself.

As long as your belief system inflicts no harm on others and you are not trying to force it on others, I completely accept whatever it may be. I may not agree with it, but I accept that it exists, if for nothing else other than because it helps people survive.

Personally, I’m not sure I could ever settle on any one religion, because as I grow and change, so do my beliefs, and to restrict my self to a single doctrine would be to close my mind off to so many other possibilities and hinder my own growth as a human being.

As far as my own beliefs go, I tend to accept ideas that offer a seemingly endless amount of possibilities. One thing that I do believe in is that we all have a soul and the idea that a body, or a vessel, may expire, but the soul lives on to be reincarnated or reborn in other forms, plant or animal. I have a difficult time believing that we simply live to exist and that when we die, it’s all over. While I understand that life is ours to grab hold of and make the most of and leave some sort of legacy behind to be carried on through the generations to come, I can’t accept that this is all we live for. I do, however, accept that it’s a possibility.

I don’t agree with the idea that there is only one answer as to where our planet and it’s solar system, galaxy and universe originated. I trust that scientists are correct in predicting that the universe was once in a “hot, dense state,” resulting in a “big bang,” if you will, but the who, what, where, when, why and how that came before this is completely yours to believe, and the more theories people come up with and share, the better. This means that to me, each and every one of your deities or lack thereof are equally acceptable, for each and every one of them is accompanied by a timeless story that offers the possibility of adventure to everyone who takes the time to listen.

While I love the idea and the imagery of Heaven and Hell and the peace of mind that it offers believers, I don’t believe that we get just one chance on this planet to prove ourselves to God, just so that when we expire, the scales are brought in to decide our eternal fate. Taking this idea of eternity into consideration, I think that a human being’s lifetime worth of choices and decisions and actions is such an unbelievably minuscule amount of time to decide whether someone deserves an eternity of pleasure or pain. I like to believe that each and every soul is given a chance to redeem themselves. If you spend one lifetime doing wrong, then your next one will do you wrong and teach you a few things. If you spend your lifetime doing right, then your next one will do you right, because you’ve learnt a few things.

To me, it’s all about karma.

It’s about being the best version of yourself that you possibly can, and if it just so happens you can do better, you’ll get that chance.

I do, however, believe in an afterlife. I believe in a place that this life prepares us for. A place where, after we’ve finally passed this test and have battled through all of the trials and tribulations possible on this planet and it’s surrounding celestial brethren until we’ve come so close to perfecting combating these obstacles, our souls move along to something bigger and more meaningful. What this place holds is beyond me, but to me, it seems a lot more rewarding to put to use everything we’ve spent all of this time learning instead of just going somewhere to either bathe in golden streams or drown in rivers of flame.  You might ask why we’re not just given the necessary tools to automatically be prepared for and skip to this afterlife, but it would be no different than asking why God doesn’t just make us all good and allow us all into Heaven.

I simply get the feeling we’re headed for more.

On the topic of feelings, a co-worker of mine defined the holy spirit as that gut feeling she gets before she speaks or acts, reminding her that her actions to follow may or may not be inappropriate and to take a minute to think it through just in case.

While I believe a similar idea, my feeling is no incarnation of God.

To me, that knot in our stomachs is our past lives, embedded in our soul, reminding us that we’ve crossed this path before and to seriously question whether the path we are about to take is worth it or not. We may not remember our past lives, but our past lives are still there to leave us small clues in the form of things like coincidences and deja vu, subliminally pushing us in the right direction, provided we’re paying attention.

Who or what, if anything, put me here to follow this path I’m on and think and believe and act the way I do, I have no idea.

All I know is that I’m going to be the best version of myself I possibly can and while I’m on this journey, I’ll let you all know how it’s shaping up.

 

Number 22/52 over here.

The theme, unrelated to this post, was heaven.

——

 

I feel like I may have written something to this effect before, so my apologies of I sound like a broken record.

 

I suppose it’s bad form to spend all of your time trying to figure out why you have the problems you do instead of just trying to fix them, but isn’t figuring out their origin part of the repair?

I was just reading a blog post by a guy named Chris Guiterrez (Hey Chris!) that I used to follow due to his connection to the guys in Fall Out Boy and if you read it, you’ll notice that one of the bullets in the list reads as follows:

“Learn the difference between vulnerability and weakness. Weakness means your faults control you and prevent growth. Vulnerability is confronting, owning, and accepting your faults, and gaining strength from that process.”

I think I’ve been aware of this difference for some time and furthermore, that I unfortunately fall into the weak category.

The thing is, instead of shedding that weakness, I internally debate it’s foundation on a daily basis.

It’s like I want to be 100% sure of why I have this issue and that this is the only way that I’ll be able to get over it, only as I get older and the more I search, it just seems to get worse.

All through high-school I took drama classes, acting in front of paying audiences, with the high being when I played Robin Hood in the 12th grade, reciting 250+ lines in front of sold out crowds.

Talk about vulnerable.

That’s a lot of lines and placement and cues to remember, something that in the ninth grade I thought I’d never be able to do.

But despite these things, I got up there and I rocked every play I was in.

Which makes me wonder how I was ever able to do that, considering the fear that practically paralyzes me today.

The way I see it, there was some semblance of comfort in those situations because we practiced to avoid failure, because that’s ultimately what this is for me.

It’s a fear of failing.

A fear of humiliation.

I’d like to think that I didn’t have this problem then, but that’s not true, because when it came to improv games, I made excuses to get out of playing them 96% of the time because I had a much higher chance of being humiliated.

You have to think of things on the spot.

Be quick.

Think fast.

I was never good at this and didn’t feel comfortable doing it so I opted out.

I’m still not good at it, either.

I restrict the amount of conversations I have that require thought and intelligence because I have poor recall ability, poor memory, and a low level of academic prowess.

I like to tell people that I’m more of an observer and that I like to experience being outside of the situation, learning by letting others experience, but really, it’s because I don’t feel like I have any place being a part of the conversation because I have little to share.

I mean, no matter how much I observe, the aforementioned poor memory and ability to recall previous conversations and situations restricts me from learning very much at all.

This is why I have always enjoyed writing so much.

It allows me to feel more intelligent because I can take my time to be more intelligent, even if I do look words up in the dictionary and do bits and pieces of research when compiling posts.

I went off the rails a little the other day with my rant regarding my plead to be told to shut up.

While it was how I felt in that moment, I was wrong.

My posts are not me being full of hot air nor do I think they’re crap.

To me, they are thoughtful and wise and intelligent and I am proud of (most of) them.

I was just frustrated that this person that I am when I am at a keyboard isn’t the same person I am in the flesh and furthermore, that I’ve let the person I am in the flesh invade the person that I am at the keyboard.

All of my lack of confidence and fear of failure and repression that I exude all too well in person seems to have completely restricted my ability to sit down and write and feel confident in what I’ve put down enough to publish it.

Well here’s to not only abolishing this from happening anymore, but that I can instill some of the traits my fingers are home to into the rest of my body.

I may not be on stage again any time soon, but hopefully I can at least find it in myself to finally turn my photography skills away from self-portraiture to actually taking pictures of other people.

 

 

 

 

My posts are exhausting.

I have a few drafts that I’ve written and hadn’t quite figured out how to piece them together coherently and I went back to read them and got one or two sentences in and gave up.

I just somehow at some point in time got this idea in my head that I’m so incredibly thoughtful and wise when really I’m just full of hot fucking air.

I just type and type and type and don’t even know what the fuck I’m saying. Ask me what my last post was about, cause you’ll definitely catch me having no bloody idea.

Someone needs to tell me to shut up once in a while.

I mean, without going overboard, of course. No need for insisting you’d rather stick an icepick in your eye than listen to me.

But seriously, tell me that if I’m going to bother putting anything out there that I should actually think about it and not just spew my verbal diarrhea all over the place.

This is not to say nothing I’ve ever written has ever been thoughtful and from the heart.

I’m simply stating most of my “writings” are “scribblings,” which is just a euphemism for “crap.”

The problem is that I’ve had too many people in my life tell me how awesome or great or intelligent I am and really, if you hear that enough it just doesn’t mean anything anymore. Especially if you think you’re sub-par at most things you do.

It’s the people that don’t bow to my “greatness” that actually get to me. The more I don’t receive praise and congratulations from people, that’s when I start to try harder.

It may piss me off, but it’s that anger that fuels the motivational fire.

So seriously, tell me to shut up.

Tell me to fuck off.

Tell me I suck.

And while you’re doing that, tell me why.

We’re all flawed and we all need to hear it.

How can we ever get better if we never know whats wrong to begin with?

We can only be self aware to a certain extent, you know?