Hard on Everyone

There's one Bear In Heaven song that I really can't get enough of. It's even on my Defying God playlist - a playlist I'm quite proud of. In particular, there's one lyric of that song that I think has some significance to me.  (Yes, that is a weak statement...)

"Life is hard on everyone"

It's not.

But in a sense, if you don't find life hard, I am inclined to say, with plenty of prejudice, that you aren't living the right way. 

There's a distinction to be drawn between living a hard life and being miserable.  But to live an easy life is, according to me, most likely wrong.  For life to not be hard on you, you must have gotten to a position of comfort by either your own means or you had the good fortune to find yourself in privilege, and you must not have subsequently been put, by yourself or by powers beyond your control, into a position that's personally difficult for you.

It is inevitable that such a person with an 'easy' life is surrounded by people with baggage, people with difficult lives.  Trying to help those who are less fortunate is not an easy task, so...

Any easy-liver is, by definition, in one of two camps:

1. Oblivious - Their eyes are closed.  They are not aware of their surroundings, and they are incapable of understanding others.  Nothing has been demanded of them, so they have not exited the metaphorical cave to experience the greater world.  Ignorance, because they aren't curious enough to see the world for the compromised, chaotic, and painful place that it is.  To this camp, I offer my sympathy, and I hope that somebody opens your eyes.  Furthermore, I hope that once your eyes are opened, you take upon yourself some sort of responsibility and challenge yourself to change the world for the better, whereupon your life will become more vibrant and challenging.

2. Selfish - They are completely aware of the challenges facing others, but intentionally refrain from solving problems that are bigger than themselves.  To this camp, I profess my disdain.  You have doomed yourself to be morally and existentially useless.

Here's an ironic twist to this line of thinking:  if more people were to make their own lives difficult for the sake of improving the world, we may be able to think of living a hard life as entirely separate from being unhappy.  I mean, being able to see a positively healthy future requires that you be disappointed consistently.  Working towards Utopia is difficult, and the failure leads to disillusionment.  But then when people try to ameliorate the unhappiness, they give up.  There is a twisted entwining of earnestness and dissatisfaction.

Now imagine a world that has reached a point where people try their best to actually be good people.  Unhappiness would no longer be the result of disillusionment--it would be the consequence of contingencies, unintentional mistakes, and the simple realities of life.  It's still challenging to sustain that kind of thing, but at least it's rewarding when you know that other people care about you as much as you care about them. 

I care a lot.  I can't do the apathy thing.  Life is hard for me, mostly because I have chosen to take on a few challenges I deem vitally pertinent.  I've essentially decided to leave it to the Universe to decide whether I'll ever be satisfied.  Maybe that's the right thing to do.

Defying God

#	Name	Artist	Album	Comments
1	The Pulse Of This Skyline With Lightning Like Nerves	Slow Six	Nor'easter	[Prelude]
2	Chained	The xx	Coexist	I was raised with love by my parents on the bank of a large river.
3	Inside a Boy	My Brightest Diamond		Every nightfall, I stay awake to explore, past curfew and past my bedtime.
4	Settle Down	Kimbra	Vows	One night, my parents find out and admonish me for being too rambunctious
5	The Queen's Rebuke/The Crossing	The Decemberists	The Hazards Of Love	but I refuse to sacrifice my freedom, so I run away from home.
6	The Universe is Going to Catch You	The Antlers	In The Attic of the Universe	Once at my safest hiding spot, I hear them coming for me,
7	I Follow Rivers	Lykke Li	Wounded Rhymes	So I take off my clothes and jump into the river.
8	Bubbles Shining Over the Sea	Arata Iiyoshi	Hideki Sakamoto	I see lights I see across the water, and I swim to them
9	These Rivers Between Us	Slow Six	Tomorrow Becomes You	But the river is wide
10	The Rip Tide	Beirut	The Rip Tide	and the rip tide pulls me back,
11	Eon Trap	Kelly Bailey	Half-Life 2: Episode Two	too strong to let me leave;
12	What's Wrong?	Grizzly Bear	Shields	I continue to paddle with all of my might, but with undying suspicion...
13	Truth Behind the Project	Takeharu Ishimoto	Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- OST	Yes, their warnings were more than proverbs.
14	Tau-9	Kelly Bailey	Half-Life 2	I understand the nature of the undertow. I feel God's presence, as the waves relax until they are completely still.
15	Oh	Maker		I acknowledge Him and recite a prayer of worship I learned when younger.
16	Mutual Core	Björk	Biophilia	God says to me, “Hush, my Son. I will always be with you. You are still a small piece of Me, and I promise to always watch after you. Yet, I can only keep you safe if you remain with your family in the world I prepared for you. As a child, you must respect your parents. Only through the wisdom of the ages can you understand the world. After I send you back home, keep with you this memory, and live with dignity and reverence.”
17	Disappeared	Yoko Shimomura	Kingdom Hearts -FINAL MIX- Additional Tracks	God has been pulling me closer during this lull in time. He pulls me deep under the water.
18	What The Water Gave Me	Florence + The Machine	Ceremonials	I wake under a bright morning sun, at home, with the memory of unmatched grandeur.
19	Where We Belong	Passion Pit	Gossamer	I am where I was told to be, having been prevented from throwing myself into unknown danger
20	Cool Light	Bear In Heaven	I Love You	I shiver with the knowledge that He will always be with me.
21	Red	Lost In The Trees	A Church That Fits Our Needs	Home is bright, a beach touching trees. I absorb the details until every single one is a little piece of me.
22	Lewis Takes Action	Owen Pallett	Heartland	Restless, defensive, and agitated, I know I must move.
23	You're Not Supposed To Be Here	Kelly Bailey	Half-Life 2	I grab clothes, a bag, a bow, a quiver of arrows, and water. Departure.
24	Mnemonic In Motion	Wires Under Tension		Daylight moves forward, and with it my numbed feet.
25	Thirsty	The National	Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers	Becoming thirsty, I retreat into the woods. I will continue after twilight.
26	Seven Devils	Florence + The Machine	Ceremonials	I see a serpentine beast, and I freeze. God's voice resounds in my ears, filling the words of every important lesson I have ever learned.
27	Tryst With Mephistopheles	Owen Pallett	Heartland	The creature speaks to me: “As you have listened to the words of your own kind, please listen to mine. I am no beast, just as you are no pawn of a deity. I see that you need shelter, and I promise to show you hospitality. Your family and friends fear and kill us, but we refuse to sink to their level. At the very least, we will protect the little peace that we have.”
28	You Could Be Happy	Snow Patrol	Eyes Open	New life in a place like this could fill up the many holes in my heart. Revelation!
29	Black Rainbow	St. Vincent	Actor	The walk back to his village takes my mind off of the past. He takes me to his home, puts some padding on the floor that he can sleep on, then generously gives me his bed. So much about this foreign town excites me, and I can't fall asleep.
30	Stargaze	Xavier Rudd	White Moth	The serpent sees me, and decides to show me around. Together, we stargaze.
31	Guard Down	Kelly Bailey	Half-Life 2: Episode One	I tell him about the ways I have been disappointed and hurt. He listens. He tells me about his world. I listen. We both feel the world become smaller and larger, all at once. Slowly, we surrender to the feeling of peace and just exist.
32	Battle in the Forgotten City	Nobuo Uematsu	Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children	At the same place I entered the village, five of my most imposing cousins arrive with heralding cries of bringing me back. Denizens of this forested sanctuary exit their houses with a defensive air. My cousins shout, and the natives shout back. There is debate, argument, and all that fear will catalyze.
33	War	Hypnotic Brass Ensemble	The Hunger Games Score	When there are threats of war, I whisper to my new friend that I should leave. He offers to take me somewhere safe. We run away with so much excitement we can't help but laugh.
34	Fanfare for the Brave	Senju Akira	Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood OST 1	Although I'm lost in the woods, I follow him. I can only muster courage up to the point that we reach the river.
35	Hidden Highland	Arata Iiyoshi	Hideki Sakamoto	I hadn't told him about being submerged by God Himself in the River...
36	The Abduction Of Margaret	The Decemberists	The Hazards Of Love	We undress, stuffing our clothes hastily into his bag.
37	The Darkness	Arata Iiyoshi	Hideki Sakamoto	The river is far colder than I remember it being the night previous. We swim tirelessly with the knowledge that, were we to hesitate, I would be lost to a lifetime of submission. But for the waves and our own splashing, silence envelops us.
38	Beginning of Breeding	Yoko Shimomura	The 3rd Birthday OST	Around the middle of the river, I see a light on the opposite shore. I become frantic. I shout to hurry.
39	Disrupted Original	Kelly Bailey	Half-Life 2: Episode One	Behind me, the trees fall below the waterline, giving the illusion that the world behind us is sinking. I warn my friend, and he agrees we must swim faster. The same mysterious fate befalls the boulders dotting the river.
40	White Land	Arata Iiyoshi	Naoto Ishida	The stars, the moon, and the ethereal pinprick all grow brighter as we approach land. Rain begins to fall, scattering the many lights, dazzling me more than ever before.
41	Wanderlust	Björk	Wanderlust	As my first encounter with my world's deity, time comes to a standstill and again God appears. The water around Him inexplicably recedes, and He is standing before us. He declares with timbre, “Audacious Man. You have sacrificed all that you have ever held dear. The life that awaits you is outside of my control. I had faith in you, but you destroyed my hopes for your future. Relent in your selfish quest for vanity. I will take you back and continue to provide for you.”
42	Little Faith	The National	High Violet (Expanded Edition)	“Never. I deign to create a world much larger than the one you so graciously lent me. Take back from me that miserly existence. My dreams far exceed what you could ever hope. I am leaving."
43	Face On	Yoko Kanno	Wolf's Rain OST 2	By now the ground is completely exposed, and we are standing in heavy mud. I demand from the Serpent my quiver and bow. I aim at God.
44	Time Control	or Controlled By Time		He insists “You know nothing. This Universe is as easily afforded to my will as if it were a figment of my imagination. Anything you do is destined to fail if I will it to. You would be unwise to defy me.” I refuse to flinch, despite the palpable rise in temperature.
45	J-E-N-O-V-A		Distant Worlds II	The Serpent is equally stoic. He draws with a dagger a circle on the ground, which has completely desiccated. Drawing the knife to his hand, he draws a streak of blood and adds it to the circle. He then folds his hands, and appears to pray.
46	Born Anew	Masashi Hamauzu	Final Fantasy XIII Original Soundtrack	As God walks towards me, one of the stars grows brighter at an alarming rate, until it erupts into light and strikes the Serpent. I am stunned, a fiery pain in my throat.
47	You Do You	Bear In Heaven	Beast Rest Forth Mouth	I stare at the prismatic steam as it clears to reveal a glowing lance in the hands of my companion.
48	Triumph of a Heart	Björk	Medúlla	While God looks on without surprise, The Serpent hurls at Him his lance with ferocity. Almost simultaneously, my arrow lands in His left eye.
49	I Am the Antichrist to You	Kishi Bashi	151A	Silence. The ground opens up below God. He is static above an obsidian void.
50	Chaotic End	Masashi Hamauzu	Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII- Original Soundtrack (Disc-2)	He covers his wound and, without a word, leaves our world.
51	Dusknoir	Arata Iiyoshi	Hideki Sakamoto	Once He has vanished, I hear in my head the echo of a message that He must have intended for me: “You will never find the kind of love that I could have given you. You have relinquished a life of solace and ease. Everything yours for the taking.” To this, I feel obligated to shout back to his quickly fading presence: “You gave me everything I never asked for! Forget my family. I know exactly what I want now and I don't need it handed to me by my ancestors.”
52	Idle Heart	Bear In Heaven	I Love You	The immediate response is a flood of water rushing in from both upstream and downstream of what used to be our great river.
53	Ready To Start	Arcade Fire	The Suburbs	The lights in the sky grow brighter still, until the blistering night sky is too much to look at.
54	Period	Chemistry	Unknown Album	Slowly, our eyes adjust to the light and it still hasn't darkened—but we soon realize that the sun has taken the place of the moon, and the starlight expanded to a sheet of white
55	Sleeping Ute	Grizzly Bear	Shields	Finally, our escape is complete. Liberty is now true. My serpentine friend and I look at each other and smile in relief. We decide to travel together for the time being. I mention to him the light that I saw when running away from home for the first time, and he agrees to help me search for its source. We traverse the side of the river until we find it. Silence suits us, having shared so much already in the past few hours. We soon come across the charred remains of a small village. In the middle of all of the thoroughly destroyed buildings, one flimsy structure seems to have defied all odds and survived the fire without a single scorch mark. Though hard to make out in the daylight, there's a lantern above the door with a hearty fire encapsulated by the glass.

Hurricane Sandy

This hurricane has granted me a much more tangible understanding of how unprepared people generally are for natural disasters.

I'm really quite disturbed by the lack of foresight.  Luckily, I didn't have to emotionally deal with the brunt of that ignorance because my suitemates are bright individuals who worked together quite well on the cusp of evacuation.  Nonetheless, even some of my friends were doing some things that I simply can't comprehend alongside the knowledge that they must, to some extent, care for their own well-being.

Nobody stockpiled any food.  The people that did stockpile food grabbed meat in tupperware, which would obviously stay fresh when the power went out.

No consideration for who to actually listen to in a disaster situation.  When people wanted to know if the dining hall would be open, they asked the cafeteria workers on Sunday, before the sky even began to drizzle.  Then they stick to their guns that the dining hall would remain open throughout the hurricane.

After power went out, people were watching movies on their laptops, rather than saving that energy to charge their phones.  They believed that they'd be able to go into work the day after, drawing their conclusions on the word of their bosses.

When people wanted to know whether they'd have classes, what information did they use?  The notice posted on Sunday night, which can possibly take into account the devastation of the aftermath.

Finally, the singular factoid that bothers me most:

There was no plan in place for a disaster like this.  Zero planning.  The RAs were totally touch and go, despite the fact that this type of situation was completely foreseeable:  when we originally lost power, we were told that evacuation was a possibility.  A considerable amount of time later, we were told to go to the first floor lounge with a bag of evac necessities.  Turns out that another dorm needed to evacuate and use that same space, so after 5 minutes, backup power went on and we were turned back upstairs.  After a few minutes, emergency power went off again and we were told to go to the second floor to be with an RA.  Then, after half an hour of conversation, we went back up to our own floors and were given notice that we might be waken up at any time in the night and given 30 seconds to leave our room.

The only unsafe action that I wholeheartedly support is a surge of people going into the hurricane for fun.  I completely support the decision to fully experience the hurricane for its full natural value.  It's the only course of action that was actually reasonable, because it is the only one made under the assumption that the hurricane is actually a force to be reckoned with.

On a more personal note, I don't believe I'll be forgetting this hurricane any time soon.  It just so happens that this was the year in which my yellow lab, Sandy, passed away.

The Lexicon

Over the last month, there's been significant overlap between my psychology and linguistics courses.  Or, at least I've been considering the material as connected, trying to draw parallels between the different sources of reading for psychology of language and a few of the concepts I'm learning in semantics and cognition.

The manners in which we learn and access words is the most prominent subject of my recent studies.  In my current exhausted state, I don't think I'll be able to go into detail, but the gist of what I've been learning is that words are the representations of semantic concepts.  Hearing a word primes associated words, a process that does NOT replace understanding of the concepts behind words.  Essentially, the words you hear activate frequently associated words because it makes it easier to process information quickly.  It does not mean, contrary to what many AI programmers believe, that we define words by the way they relate to other words.

More importantly, this is a fundamental mechanism of how many neural process work.  There is association between related concepts and functions, but there is a highly specific form in which information is given meaning--in which information is processed for a purpose.

More of The National, Metals (Feist), and The Haunted Man (Bat For Lashes).

Leaving Facebook

I decided to sign off facebook for a while... part of the reason is that I'm busy, but more than that I'm just disillusioned with the whole concept.  Using a social networking site to the extent that it dominates how you spend your time is a blatantly trivial waste of time.

Actually, a more precise statement would be that I can't stand the way I spend my time.  I don't believe that the human brain can be lauded as anything special unless it puts itself to use and finds a mission that exceeds the daily drudgery, the expectations of your environment, and the normative force of contemporary thought.

I have goals.  I have ambitions.  I am unhappy with the way that the world works, and I'm dissatisfied with the state of the Universe.

I want to eliminate what I perceive to be inadequacies.  I want to propagate the values I hold dear to me.

Listening to the ideas of people who don't think about the same things I do is a waste of my energy.  More and more, I realize that the few interactions I can get with worthwhile thinkers are not best done through facebook.  Getting on the level of Da Vinci, Tesla, or the other polymaths is not a feat that can be accomplished while trying to get along with the apathetic masses.

Even having understood this, I have for a long time felt the urge to use facebook to express my thoughts and experiences.  These are two important motivations of mine, and I don't think I can really eliminate the need to satisfy these drives.  But to do it in a way that depends on my ability to provide instant gratification and sardonic verve is unhealthy.  I'd far rather put my thoughts together in a cogent fashion that requires me to fully develop my train of thought and organize the necessary components of the larger ideas and feelings.

So I will transfer the time I have spent on facebook to a more meaningful endeavor, and use it here, recording my thoughts for myself and the one or two people who ever perchance come across it.  Since I've had lots of those kind of thoughts recently, especially with the overlap between my different classes, I'll be able to keep that information in a permanent and unlimited store so I don't overwrite or forget any of it accidentally.

Listening to The National, especially Exile/Vilify

Politics

Here's a litmus test for how much I hate you:

With what percentage of the Romney-Ryan platform do you agree?

A Hate Letter

Dear Humanity,

Get over yourselves.  You are insignificant in the grand scheme of things.  Appreciate, revere, and be in awe.  Take responsibility for your decisions and see the effects of your decisions.  Stop being douchebags.  I hate you, yet I can't escape feeling morally obligated to you.  You are a disgusting and filthy race that does more damage to the world than any other entity.  I resent the fact that some of your constituents are astoundingly beautiful, because it means I can't justify an unsophisticated blanket statement about your gross stupidity.  You force my thoughts and emotions to be complicated and difficult.  You collectively take credit for those few outliers who strive to surpass their miserable condition, whereas most of you bask in mediocrity and apathy.

****, ****, ****, ****, you ****ing ****-****ed **********s.

Love those around you.  Propose and sustain peace.  Alleviate suffering.  Change the world in ways that most refuse to acknowledge as advancement.  Create legends that surpass those you used to worship.  Open your mind and experience the ineffable miracles of the Universe.  Put those ineffable experiences to words in an intrinsically flawed process of recreation.

Figure out what matters in life.  Relinquish the possessions, responsibilities, and relationships that don't matter to you.  You can only destroy negativity by conceiving beauty.

While you struggle with your absurd existence, I'm going to educate myself in as many ways as possible to develop the skills and knowledge that will allow me to grant some different species the power of language.  Since our one sample is completely lost in a labyrinth of meaningless inventions, society needs to find constituents with the capacity to start fresh.