Rejection

I'm happy that TEDxRutgers rejected me.  Well... I shouldn't say they rejected me.  I should say they didn't have the wherewithal to give me any information about whether I was accepted or not, and I've decided to make other plans for the date.

Listen up, those of you who are searching for the bright future of humanity:

I'm not here to impress people.  I'm not here to be smart.  I'm not here to be talented.

I'm not here to help humanity, or do anything grand in the forward-thinking kind of way that's expected of medical students and basically all professionals in the mainstream work force.

I am not here to push forward the desires of the hive mind.

I am here to fundamentally change the fabric of our society.  To annihilate one of the most basic truths we hold to be self-evident - that being human is unique.

I'm here to tell everybody that they're not as fabulous as they think they are.  To tell you all that the rest of the world is as valuable as you are, and that you hold no more intrinsic value than a corvid, or a puppy, or a pig.  That we completely lack an understanding of the mind and will never understand what consciousness really is until we know about the other kinds.  The nonhuman kinds of consciousness, which are beautiful in their own respective and unique regards.

I'm here.  And I will continue to be here.

Your mind is small, and there are many things that you cannot or choose not to understand.  So is mine, and so there are for me.  But really, understand what that means.  Try to see beyond the walls of our tiny, little box.  Accept that everything you believe is wrong, and recreate from scratch your ideologies.  This isn't to say that you are, in fact, wrong about anything.  But if you believe you have arrived at the correct solution, and that the solution you have is immutable because you arrived at it, then you have stopped being a child.

That should be the absolute worst thing to an intellectual.  Growing up means losing all of the beautiful devices that children use to shape their minds into better, more agile devices.  It means losing the ability to learn new languages.  Losing the spark of youth and the bliss of novelty.  No more awe.   No reverence, except for structures heralded by overarching society and individual cultures.

Speaking of the influence of culture...

Today, I came across a video of violence in Syria.  Over the course of a few minutes, two Syrians were tortured and subsequently murdered.  This happens.  I do not suggest you watch it, but I will inform you that it exists, here:  debilitatingly outrageous footage of the Syrian civil war.

That put a lot of things into perspective.  I have decided that it is necessary to do something and I will do my best to push forward that agenda.  I will set into motion the animal language movement and aid in whatever way I can fathom the research on communicating with cetaceans.  Because I am fed up with YOUR refusal to acknowledge the capacity of other species to suffer the consistent abuse of humanity's efficiency.  Watching the death of a fellow human sure hits close to home, but morality is not the extension of natural emotion - it is a set of universal laws that apply consistently to all situations that are analogous.

The death of one is a tragedy.  The death of a million is two million tragedies, where each death succeeds a long and tortuous life of fear.

Most of my life is centered around beliefs that are supported by evidence and thorough sets of personal observations and analyses.  But I do have some faith; namely, I have faith in the fact that the scientifically established separation between language and all other aspects of the aware, conscious mind, in conjunction with the experience I've derived from knowing so many cats, dogs, and other nonhumans, is enough to justify that the mind is a well conserved and well distributed feature in the animal kingdom.  I have faith that the first talking animal will have enough to say that we are forced to realize the error of our ways and accept that humanity is not the only set of minds on this Earth.

I am indignant now.  I know who I am and I know what I will do.  I demand peace and I will not settle until all systematic injustice has been erased from our reality, and a memorial for its countless victims is constructed in its stead.