Artistic Footprint

Over the years I have grown a list of quotes that I either live by, or just think that someone should live by. Literally grown. There’s a bulbous lump the size of a toothbrush and the texture of an orange peel on the inside of my thigh. It chafes. This is the best of. I hope to give credit where credit is due, but I accidentally forgot to write down where I got these from so…. “oops I’m sorry?”

1. “Weapon, Kit, Self” – Canadian Army
2. “Go for it now. The future is promised to no-one” – Che Guevera
3. “Unless we change the direction we’re heading, we might end up where we’re going”
4. “I’m going to live my life for the children I’m never going to be able to have…”
5. “I’m a monogamous man. I just haven’t found her yet”
6. “This is for the statisticians… The ones with the real answers”
7. “Reward your mind at the expense of your body” – Me
8. “2012 is an inside job”
9. “Nothing is fact. Everything is interpretation” – Me
10. “Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first” – Mark Twain
11. “Your career in fire will be a constant evaluation of how much you try” – James Morgan
12. “Religion is Flawed, but only because man is flawed” – script from Angels and Demons
13. “It takes more courage to build than to destroy” – Jimmy Wales
14. “You won’t get something right until you’ve gotten it wrong” – CSPS patroller
15. “So Long as you get time to soberly reflect on your alcoholism, you’re not an alcoholic” – Me
16. “Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you wanted”
17. “The only thing necessary for evil to prevail is good men to do nothing”
18. “I hope they don’t find oil here. Then we’d be REAL fucked” – Cast from Blood Diamond regarding famine and genocide.
19. “Ice cream is like pizza or sex. There CAN be bad ice cream, pizza, or sex, but it’s still ice cream, pizza, or sex.” – Katie Lewis
20. “Faith is caught, not taught”
21. “Find ‘em hot, Leave ‘em wet. Put the wet stuff on the red stuff”
22. “Hope for the Best, Expect the Worst” – Me
23. “Just because you spray water doesn’t mean you walk on it”
24. “Nature is nothing without purpose” – Aristotle
25. “Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get” – Carl Hayden
26. “True merit is like a river. The deeper it is the less noise it makes.” – Lord Halifax
27. “There’s no sex in the champagne room” – Chris Rock
28. “You can only work as fast as you can” – Head chef at Roger Fish, Neutral Bay, Australia
29. “The mans obligation is to stick is boneration in the woman’s separation” – Kelsey Pollock
30. “Nobody ever gave it their best and regretted it” – George Halas
31. “The world is no larger than the range of their bullets” – Me.
32. “The word ‘modern’ first appeared in the English language toward the end of the 16th century. In the beginning with it meant little more than being of the present time, but slowly it came to carry a sense of novelty. ‘Modern’ meant something that had never existed before. The idea was conceived that the future would be different from the past. This idea itself was new.” – John Hest
33. “If you’re gonna be whipped, Pussy’s not a bad thing to be whipped by.” – Don Fox.
34. “Sometimes you can’t see yourself clearly until you see yourself in the eyes of others.” – Ellen Degeneres.
35. “Sometimes you’re the windsheild, sometimes you’re the bug” – Dire Straits.
36. “Community Service don’t sell records.” – DVS (Detroit Velvet Smooth)
37. “I Smell Burnt Toast.”
38. “The angle of the dangle is inversely proportional to the heat of the meat.” – Lee St. Arnault
39. “When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion.” – Richard Dawkins
40. Smile
    A smile costs nothing, but it gives much. It enriches those who receive, without making the poorer those who give. It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None is so rich or mighty that he can get along without it, and none is so poor but that he can be made rich by it. A smile creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in business, and is the countersign of friendship. It brings rest to the weary, cheer to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and it is nature’s best antidote for trouble. Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is of no value to anyone until it is given away. Some people are too tired to give a smile. Give them one of yours, as none needs a smile so much as he who has no more to give. – Unknown
41. “Everest exposes who you are and what your character is, and that’s not always a pretty thing.”"The reality may be that you may not be able to save somebody, but even if you do nothing else but sit down with them in their last moments and they have something to tell you, that’s not a small thing, and eventhough I may not be able to lift them up and carry them over my shoulders, I think you still have that obligation, that human connection.” – Beck Weathers, miracle survivor who literally awoke from a hypothermic coma after spending 8 hours above 8000m, and climbed down to save his life.
42. Getting to the top is optional, but getting back down is compulsory” – Everest Climber
43. “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
    Then he is not omnipotent.
    Is he able, but not willing?
    Then he is malevolent.
    Is he both able and willing?
    Then whence cometh evil?
    Is he neither able nor willing?
    Then why call him God?”-Epicurus
44. Blasphemy is a victimless crime
45. “I reject your reality, and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage
46. “Don’t be a baked potatoe”
47. “Don’t cut your foot off”
48. “A pint of sweat saves a gallon of blood” – General Patton
49. “Function over fashion, Quality over Quantity” – Me
50. “I’ve never brought a transvestite home with me” … “Define ‘home with me’ ” – I’ve never game
51. Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. – Andre Gide
52. “You can go and get your appetite anywhere, so long as you get your appetite at home” – Alex Morrissey
53. “There ain’t no place just like this place anywhere near this place, so this must be the place” – smalltown storefront from Yellowstone in the 1960′s.
54. “Everything you can imagine is real” – Pablo Picasso
55. “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission”
56. “Confidence comes from the confidence with your flaws” – Me
57. “Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. No one is entitled to their own facts” – Me.
58. “I do not intend to tiptoe through life only to end up safely at death.”
59. “Many would call me an adventurer, but I am… I am a different kind of adventurer… One that risks his life for the truth” – Che.
60. “Quit using my name to justify your decisions” “Don’t make me come down there” – God.
61. “DON’T FUCK UP” – James Bergen (in the doorway, 1500 ft up)
62. “You gotta have the DRIVE, the Talent, and the FOCUS!!! – AND you Can’t FUCK UP!” – James Bergen.
63. “On the bus off the bus” “Hurry up and wait” “If you’re not 5 minutes early, you’re 10 minutes late” – Army sayings.
64. “Death is inevitable – Life is up to you” – Me.
65. You can waste your life drawing lines or you can live your life crossing them
66. to Love is to be unable to be without
67. Everywhere civilisation goes, wilderness backs away
68. You can’t trust yourself 3 days ago so always pack ready
69. Community service don’t sell records- detroit velvet smooth
70. Get two birds stoned at once – ricky
71. Roll out with your pole out jam out with your clam
72. Favourite last words: “you guys listen to country?”
73. Even if you do come up with the meaning of life, its only relative to you

Please hook me up with what you’ve heard or made up. This is the spot.

I rarely visit the States. Maybe its because I have nightmares about incompetent special forces rappelling into my bedroom and flying me in a box to Guantanamo bay or Abu Ghraib because of my anti-american sentiment on this website, or because I have this deep, inexplicable loathing of the southwestern accent, or because I have this sensational view that there aren’t really any Americans south of the boarder, just robotic blue collars fed McDonalds by hose.

- funny side note, I forgot what that second “torture prison,” Abu Ghraib was called. But it’s ok because google helped me out. I just typed in “torture” and guess what the second heading was?

I think the real reason is that… It’s better here. I mean, Canada’s not the creme de la creme. We’ve got no fucking leg to stand on. But the States is a fucking wreck in comparison. Right now, Canada’s fucking sweet.

The age-old “motto” of America, if you will… the “American Dream” is: Freedom and Liberty.

Honestly? what a fucking joke.

Thanks to the recent revocation of privacy laws, combined with the doctrination of ignorance, the surprising lack of passport ownership, and severe level of intolerance of petty crime, the United States is far from a free country. If I was writing this post on an American server (which, I probably am, I should probably check that) then I am logged. Some low clearance level FBI fuckup is sitting behind a desk reading this (Hi, by the way.) and without any warning, warrant, or perception of evidence against me, I could be plucked from my room and “disappeared” – which is actually a word, for writing this Blog. Better think up an alias or alibi, but that won’t do shit. I could have gone through school and learned nothing, put myself through university and come out just as stupid because my ignorance is more markettable, landing me a 40k desk job at an IT firm, clouded by the redefined word “smart.” I probably don’t have an American passport, considering that about 78.3% of Americans don’t. Which means that my vacation destination is Hawaii or Florida, and my only worldly influences come from USA Today or, if I consider myself remotely intellectual, CNN, which of course, like every news network, is heavily biased. Hell. I might have smoked pot, (once) because shit man do it again, and chances are I’d find myself in prison with a criminal charge because some dick cop caught me with an ounce of pot.

Nowadays, if you’re asked to sing the American National Anthem, or who the 26th President was and you can’t, you’re deemed a traitor and “unAmerican.” It’s almost like if you don’t drive a GM or Ford, or you don’t like football or Nascar. Cross any of those lines, and you get your ass kicked.

Look I fucking get it. America WAS the shit – but like a hundred years ago! Capitalism and Freedom were REAL things! until people started CAPITALISING on FREEDOM! America is eating itself! (figuratively and literally) back in the day people immigrated to America because they wanted a change. To get out of a corrupt monarchy or dictatorship. To start a new life for themselves, their successes a true correlation with their efforts. The ability to speak your mind, live comfortably, invent words like “retirement” and “long term investment return.”

That’s just not the case anymore, and truly, I emphasize with you. Everything you want to do; be it own a car, get a good job, earn some money, have a kid, go to school, travel the world, go on an adventure… It’s always up to someone else. You’ve always got a boss, you always have something to fear. Why? Because fear makes money.

Don’t give in to these false ideas of “protecting freedom”. If you were free, you wouldn’t need protection in the first place.

On my most recent trip to Toronto, I was confronted on Queen street by CityTV. Apparently, they’re “everywhere” and somehow I was in the “where” that they were at that particular time, christmas shopping with my little sister. They asked me if I would like to be on T.V. naturally I declined, assuming I would have nothing of interest to say. Then they mentioned “It’s about Tiger Woods” I mashed my hands together and said “where do I start?”

Tiger woods is an “athlete” if you could call golf a sport that raises your heartbeat (which it doesn’t) but regardless, he is the highest paid man to be in some sort of a ball, club, score… “sport” and in doing so, naturally, he’s reaped the rewards of such an honour by sleeping with somewhere near 20 women, and now his marriage and family are in jeopardy for obvious reasons.

Sidenote: have you seen the cover of Vanity Fair Magazine? Not that I fucking care because I don’t even know what the fuck that magazine is about, I just giggle to myself at all of the magazines in the line at the nearest safeway. But it appears that Tiger is making the best of his situation by appearing as badass as he can by being topless (and I mean that in the most feminine way possible), all in black and white, with a gangster black toque on, as if he’s about to loot the nearest wal-mart for some upper-body attire. Did anyone notice that he doesn’t look like much of an athlete? Interesting note number one.

Sportscasters from TSN all the way down to the tabloids have always written Tiger up as the goody toe shoes Black Guy who clearly doesn’t fit the stereotype. A role model for everyone to follow in. A man who can make success out of a skillful (albeit NOT adrenaline driven, heart pounding, nor tachycardic) sport and get rich. VERY rich.  And now all of a sudden, his life explodes in his face. 17 women claim to have carnal knowledge with Tiger. His wife I’m sure might be a little bit edgy.

But come the fuck on. He’s Tiger fucking Woods. He’s a Billionaire. He’s clearly not a monogynous man. Regardless of how the media tried to portray him as a nice guy, he was a sex-a-holic from the start. His wife knew, his friends knew, He knew. The issue here is that the hide-odourous media wanted to profit off of his countless acts of adultery in order to sell magazines. And look at the turmoil that it stirred. He lost all his sponsors and is now revolting himself to Vanity Fair.

Now where have we seen this before? Oh yea Bill Clinton. The fucking President of the United States. Look. This dude OWNED THE FREE WORLD. What this guy wanted, happened. And he got a BJ from an unnatractive desk clerk. What did we get? George Bush and a couple new punch lines from the latest comedians.

Fuck man. Sex Happens. Just like Shit Happens. The interesting thing here is that: Golf is a focus-driven sport. Tiger probably got his focus by putting his penis in women. Clinton didn’t even get to bone! Clearly Hilary wasn’t putting out, But he got something that most people get on a pretty rad night in Vegas or Whistler. Does this make them a worse golf player or president? what the fuck? is that even a question? And why didn’t either of these guys pull the addiction card like David Duchovny? If Tiger said: “yea? what do you want. I love women and I’m addicted to sex!” Complete repercussion reversal. He’d have more women lined up. Problem. Solved. It’s not like he cared about his family while he was having those other 20 affairs anyways.

This is a pure example of our true values in celebrities. That’s right, Celebrities. This is it’s own industry, people. Sports players, musicians, and actrices are in the same boat as Politicians and their lives are only as true as the ignorant stupid fucking tabloid writers make them to be. The White House is just like the Monarchy of the United Kingdom. A fucking tourist attraction. And yet, somehow, they are in charge of this world we call free. They’ve got the nuclear codes and control of the free world, but all that Enquire magazine can write about is their sex life or cellulite scars.

-makes for an entertaining read though.

http://www.ted.com/talks/alisa_miller_shares_the_news_about_the_news.html

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=9479741

This woman is entitled to her opinion, but not on Television. That’s the beauty of a news network. They are SUPPOSED to provide factual information. Of course we all know that this is not the case due to omissions and network bias and government regulations. However this Christine Brennan has withdrawn her role as a USA sports columnist and publicly expressed her opinion on national news. Will her words have any effect on the olympics? no. Any effect on snowboarding? fuck no. If the olympic committee wants snowboarding for “ratings” then so be it. But it’s not up to Christine, and personally, she was an idiot for commenting.

When I was growing up I would often eavesdrop on the question: are people good?

I always thought… why wouldn’t they? Why would people bother with not being good? how would that help us?

But good is not faith. It’s not love, heroism or fame, it’s not a deed or a duty, and it’s not a fantasy

Then I learned that a criminal can be right, or that people need to protect themselves. That everything you do for someone else, you are actually doing for yourself, and every time you fail at being good, you sink deeper into a hole of self wallowing. Its the times when you do something truly altruistic and pure, that benefits anyone but yourself, you are actually good.

The biggest lesson I learned from asking this question is… Am I good? The answer is quite simply, “I don’t know.” First of all, I can’t answer that, it’s up to my friends. But in a world where everyone is born genetically selfish in order to maintain self preservation, how can one find the time to be good? If your life is spent making ends meet and living on a dime, your acts of good will are unconventional, and aren’t understood by the materialistic. Everyone wants good things for themselves. Peace, love, happiness, a bit of adventure… modest goals for one person to make themselves happy. But other things can make us feel happy too. Gratitude. When someone thanks you, it gives you a feeling of worth and importance. Love. When someone loves you, it makes you feel necessary and capable. Attentiveness. When someone listens to you, you feel intelligent and informative.

Humans have a lot of differences with our fellow neighbours. Many animals have tear glands, but only humans cry. We can look at a picture of an injured dog and sympathize with it. We embrace things like music and art. We run into burning buildings for each other and cure diseases that we aren’t diagnosed with. Perhaps the characteristics of a colonized species? or do we possess a very rare trait?

What is the most special, adored, and amazing thing about children? Their creativity. Their perma-stoke of simple, everyday things. They don’t care if they get dirty, they are constantly asking questions and literally forming their world with their hands, mouths, toes, and noses.

Which leads me to a very sobing question…: What the hell happened? Why does this curiosity stop? why has life become so predictable and dull for us adults, when compared to that of a child’s?

I believe we educate the creativity out of ourselves. We take these inquisitive, energetic, young minds and we lock them in a primitive, disciplined cage for 8 hours every day for the majority of their development.

Fundamentally, school is awesome. The fact that it is free and unavailable to half the world says that yes, school should be cherished and we should be grateful to have it. It provides us with a unified means of communication, an understanding of the natural world, and a social network of like-minded individuals. It provides opportunity and motivation.

However. And this is a BIG however. School can so easily be destructive, exploited, abused, corrupt, and even dangerous. For starters, the classroom hasn’t evolved since it was invented. An adult standing at the front lecturing and writing in big letters, with bored and unnattentive younglings writing down every word verbatim. Little feet aren’t pitter-pattering, nor are hands folding and glueing. they’re copying and pasting data into their brains. We all have different brains with different methods of learning, but there is no dynamic in instruction. Some people learn by listening. Some by grabbing it with their hands and physically doing it. Others have to talk and discuss the ways around a problem. And yet from kindergarten to PhD, there’s always someone just lecturing. monotonous, waste-my-time transfer of language from mouth to ear. Am I the only one who knows that this is not how the brain works? Couldn’t you master a problem faster if you actually experienced it?

If you learned something, and then forgot it, what was the point of learning it? and if you forgot the majority of what you learned in school (which is a TV show theme now) then wasn’t all that just a big waste of time?

Do you remember the teachers that you liked? The teachers that gave a shit and didn’t use a lesson plan? I had a chemistry teacher that would ask and answer really awesome questions from start to finish. He’d tell us what molecules were in flu medications and why they worked, or the pros vs. cons of using a mulching lawnmower because of the removal of nitrates. – very interesting by the way. I had another teacher that would teach us how to speak mandarin during the last 20 minutes of history class. And another teacher that would take his shoe off and slap it on a map of the earth to explain how the scale works. “The scale means that there are 20,000 shoes where my shoe is on this map, just like there would be 20,000 icecream cones in the space that this icecream cone sits” These teachers wouldn’t let me leave without having explained how something works a million different ways until it finally clicked in my head. They welcomed my questions and saw my lack of understanding as an opporunity to help me. These are all teachers that literally go above and beyond the call of duty because they enjoy their work and understand what they are doing.

I also remember the shitty teachers. The ones who work for the school board because they like their summers off. They use lesson plans that they wrote up 15 years ago. They throw slides up on the projector and watch porn on the internet while you copy it down – Sometimes they even leave the room! The teachers that mark you based on your attire and how much ass you kiss rather than your actual efforts. Yes, I remember you. If you don’t give two shits about working in education, then you should just get the fuck out, because you’re causing far too much damage.

Teachers are in constant direct contact with their future taxpayers, scientists, diplomats, and soldiers. They literally have control of the worlds future. Those that work their asses off to help a kid understand why things work are fucking Legends. The washed out, dull, blood-sucking teachers that don’t give a fuck are responsible for people like George Bush and Sarah Palin.

And if you’re one of those parents that doesn’t answer your kids’ questions…. then just… fuck you. I loathe you. The kid that you personally gave birth to and are raising from the ground up is asking you for help. They look at a bug on the ground and say “what does he do?” and if your answer doesn’t begin with the word “because” then you might as well just drown your kid in the bathtub. It’s like you’re penalizing your kid for wondering something, and eventually, they will stop asking questions. Or you’ll just end up buying them an X-box. But the biggest difference between kids and adults is that kids WANT to learn!

Not only should you answer their questions like it’s your responsibility as an adult, you should encourage them! ask them questions! Treat them like they just landed on a foreign planet and want to know what everything is!  And if you’re a kid and reading this, try to ignore my swearing. Its ugly and distasteful. But PLEASE I beg you. Ask as many questions as you can! stay away from drugs, and stay away from Televisions! they plant weeds in your brains!

I think the greatest thing about a kid is that they don’t care what anyone thinks. They aren’t even aware that someone is judging their work or thinking they’re stupid. They draw a picture of a giraffe that looks nothing like a giraffe to you, but to them, that’s what a fucking giraffe looks like. And the determination in that belief is unbreakable.

It’s time we stop doctoring the “disease” of creativity. People aren’t remembered for the car they drove or their trophy wife, or the money. The people that are remembered are the mozarts, piccassos, armstrongs, shakespears, tarantinos, and mandelas. These are people whose creativity blasted through the gate of education and landed on the moon, wrote a legendary play, or ended apartheid. You know, things that humans can say they are proud to have acheived. Something you’d like to show your alien neighbours.

When I used to teach kids, I’d break down the door of awkwardness, and immediately it’d be a battle of the weirdest. I’d try to be stranger and weirder than the kids, and you’d be amazed by how excited they get and how hard they try to impress you right back with their many expressions, voices, and quirky observations. They can help you see things that you didn’t know were there.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

This one’s a bit of a bore, but a very interesting point of view: kids teach themselves English and the use of open-source information without the aid of an instructor:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html

Lets take a look at how we run our lives, and how unsafe life really is.

For starters, you were once one in about a million little cells, and with as little innuendos as possible, you battled through, beaten and bloody to the egg. YOU were the sole survivor (unless you’re a twin or something)

If you were lucky, you weren’t a C-section, you weren’t born with the umbilical cord around your neck, too early or too late, your mom didn’t drink and smoke, and your brain functioned properly. You get all your vaccines to live in our “tainted world” outside the womb.

Then your overprotective mother didn’t sanitize your house because she loved you. She understood that you needed to be exposed to bacteria and viruses so that you could build up your immune system. You were allowed to ride a bicycle and scrape your knees and catch frogs.  – You know, kid stuff.

You didn’t become a vegetable playing N64 then gamecube then X-box then Wii.

Then you made it to highschool and didn’t get absorbed into the drug scene and overdose or rot your body.

Now you’re 16 and you get your first drivers license. Considering that  the most dangerous thing you could possibly do is put a steering wheel in your hands, AND you weren’t drunk after a highschool kegger at the same time, you made it through.

Now you’re in university where the drugs are more intense and the workload of school compiled with the hormonal change of sex and relationships, being away from home, and the thought of planning your future doesn’t make you suicidal, you can pass go and collect a degree. – If you have made it this far, CONGRATULATIONS!

Now you’re in your prime. Sex is frequent and more “intense” You run the chance of getting STDs from a mischeivious one night stand, but so far so good. You go on a vacation or two and possibly get Hepatitis from your Mohito.

Now you’re in a mid-life crisis. You’ve moved to the suburbs, most likely in a town or city that originally was incapable of sustaining human life, but can now because your resources are brought to the superstore down the street.

Moving right along now, you’ve contracted either Cancer or Diabetes at the age of 60 because you’ve injected yourself with odd chemicals to “make your body sick for good” or because you spent the 80s dining at McDonalds, or simply because humans aren’t supposed to live this long and they’re trying to cure the disease of “old age” But of course, not before you’ve given birth to more offspring to restart the process.

Now you’re 90. You look like a 40 year old smoker, your skin is pale, you have no hair, you can’t walk, and you’re breathing because a machine pumps your heart and inflates your lungs. Your now 40 year old offspring can’t stand the world without you if they can afford it.

But of course that’s not enough, some of us enjoy living life on the edge, jumping a motorcycle over a stack of cars, hiking a mountain 8km high (where humans can’t even survive 2 minutes!) It seems as though life just wants to be, but is quite the fleeting moment.

So basically what I’m trying to say here and with the last post, Fragility of Life , Humans are just soft, fleshy, water-based bags of bones controlled by a completely theoretical mind. Throw it infront of the bumper of a car, or under a faulty parachute, it doesn’t usually last long. The fact that you even happened is full of infinite impossibilities. Your mother was right when she said that you are special. Because you fucking are. It only took 2,000 words to explain it.

I’ve always been amazed by how much the human body can take, and yet again, I am even more amazed at how easily broken we are. We weren’t born with a caution label mentioning that our mushy sacks of water mixes rather easily with concrete, metal, or any hard surfaces and should be avoided. Have you ever felt like you should have broken a bone after a nasty bail and didn’t? that your brain finally figured out “how to fall” and turned your *smack!* into something more of a rolling tumble?

It’s made me wonder just how fragile we are. And I don’t mean something trauma based, but something more in the sidelines. The BIG picture that we take for granted and don’t often look at.

Life: What is it’s probability?

I’m going to introduce you to the DRAKE equation. Which I feel very proud of because I have, in my fat little notebook from the ripe age of 15, came up with a calculation for the probability of life, only to find that it had already been calculated by Dr. Frank Drake , and used once again in the movie Contact Starring Matthew McConaughey (bit of a douchebag) and Jodie Foster. Regardless,

this is what it is: Where N is the number of potential civilized galaxies in the world, and every other variable symbolizes what is needed for life to exist.

Some of these factors would include:

• Distance from a star
• a Large orbitting neighbour like Jupiter to take relentless meteors and comments in our stead
• a suitable atmosphere
• A renewable source of energy
• Amino acids (the “building blocks of life”)

This infinite list is full of variables that we have here on earth that made life possible from the start, and continue its survival. Now given all these million variables, it appears as though life is impossible, and that we should not exist at all. But on a clear night, drive out of the city and look up. Those are stars. That is a galaxy, and there are many many more like it. a million stars divided by a million variables is one.  Earth. A BILLION stars divided by a million variables is 100. That means that there could be a HUNDRED other planets just like earth!!!

Consider the next fact. Amino Acids. These are the most basic molecules that literally were an inanimate collection of atoms on Earth 4.6 billion years ago. They just happened to tumble over eachother, mix, get struck by lightning, and magically become a key component in RNA – me and you. Then into a protein, and after millions of years of evolution, a bacteria was born. And the rest, as they say, is history.

But no it’s not that easy. There then had to be a special type of fungus that bubbled oxygen into the atmosphere whilst another organism turned CO2 into limestone (todays United Kingdom) Then there was so much oxygen that life was HUGE, and lizards were the first prime beings, happily crunching on the first mammals with its feet and teeth. Mammals were hanging by a thread so much that it’s possible that at one time, there was only one little tiny mouse scurrying in the night.

Even then, life is just a walk in the park. What about ice ages that took out 99% of life on earth several times? Humans have made it through one or two, but our numbers dropped like a meteor in gravity.

Speaking of which, ever see the movie armaggedon? that movie is more correct than you might like to believe because every 10 years or so, a meteor the size of Africa, large enough to split OUR planet in half passes between us and the moon.

Ok now we’re on the surface of earth, where, in Yellowstone National Park – and I mean the entire park – Earth’s crust is a quarter the thickness, and slightly protruding outwards. That’s one hell of a zit, and it’s a couple thousand years overdue to pop.

I find it really funny because if this information came from the White House or the 6:00 news, people would shit rabbits. Wal-mart would be overrun and the bomb shelter industry would boom. The fact of the matter is that every breath we take is extremely fragile. Life just wants to be, and will consumate wherever it can. But it appears as though our loveable planet doesn’t really notice that there are people with nerve endings down here. Now consider that we may never leave planet earth because we need our magnetic field to stop harmful solar rays from shooting very painfully through our bodies like atom-sized bullets. Consider that a simple skip over to Mars would take years and years and years not even our solar system yet. Then take the likelihood that we happen to cross paths with some flying saucer at a red light in the Polaris district. Kinda makes you skeptical about UFO sightings. Is it a bunch of drunk aliens coming over to buzz the human cattle and smoke pot with Steve Buscemi? Or just another mockery of human malleability?

So that’s the first half of this little post. Next, I will concentrate my observations about how risky our daily lives really are in: You’re so Special

a continuation of: Conformity

Someone out there is asking you bigger questions than you can answer.

Is the magnetic field around the planet going to reverse?
Are we responsible for global warming, and is it going to render our earth more resemblant to venus?
Is China going to be the next greatest superpower, absorbing western ways?
Is the human race destined to be wiped out by the next coming flu pandemic?
Do you live in a Tsunami’s path or a Tornado’s Alley?
Did the dinosours exist?
Did man reach the moon?
Is evolution real?
Do we have brains?
Is there a god?

None of these questions can be answered and proven as fact. You’d be surprised how many of these questions are actually out there, and how important they are to our daily lives. Consider the SARS or H1N1 pandemic. Only a handful of people became infected, when compared to the annual flu season, the common cold, cancer, HIV/AIDS, even a vending machine all beat H1N1 on the death toll. This wasn’t even made a mockery on primetime. They explained that “one person in Albuquerque has become infected with H1N1″  … Yes “one” person. And yet, everyone jumps to conclusions and assumes the worst and demands a vaccine, which the government happily goes out and buys from some huge pharmaceutical conglomerate at top dollar.
Unless you are actually a medical scientist involved in Vaccination and pandemic flu planning, it is all just a tale with supporting evidence. Its entirely up to you to believe in something or nothing. We are lucky enough to live in a free world where we can believe what we think is most true, and yet we base massive decisions on assumed crediblity.

Not a single person can ensure 100% that any of those questions can be answered as science fact, because what you believe, what you understand, only matters to you. The only way that you, as a real homo sapien with an inquisitive brain, can answer any of these questions, is to go ahead and do them yourselves. Become an astronaut, dissect a cadavre, be a geologist or a paleantologist.

The issue here, is that as we are easily herded into communities and generalized into groups, we can be manipulated to believe whatever is perceived as most evident, regardless of how factual. Everyone is too caught up in their own lives to stop and question: “Do I believe in something because I have educated myself and understand how it affects my own personal, everyday life?” Or because someone out there sits behind a newsdesk or house of commons, or the oval office and preaches necessity to its followers to gain an upper hand on the “common good”? Especially in order to convince you to buy something you don’t need.

At what price? our subtle humanity? our hidden agendas? our greed? our false ideas of peace and civility? our presentation that cave dwellers are better off with technology? That tradition be abolished to accomodate modern resources?

Not to say that any of that is wrong… but my question is… IS IT RIGHT?

Again, it’s time that we stop allowing ourselves to vote upon international change that is preached to us through impersonal, electronic, one-sided, manipulated information, or to interpret a bias not of our own, resulting in a change that conflicts second and third-party lives.

What is so wrong with “I Don’t Know?” those words follow the cliche:  fear of what we do not know, or fear of non-conformity. I fear ignorance. We always are in search of answers, and even if it is not the right one, it still satisfies us, fills that hole, so that we can cover it with a sewergrate of protection, in order to stop the worry.
I personally welcome questions of the unknown. I embrace mistakes and problems, because they are the barebones of problem solving. Make the mistake and document the route around it, so that we can progress as a species, for the REAL “common good” May the most evident win.