Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Chasing away crickets

Sorry, just keeping the harbringers of silence and doom away. Anyways, where was I?

Ah right, the supposed mention of maybe, just maybe writing. Yeah, I might have misled you on that score. Everytime I get the inspiration to write, it goes into my little various compositions I've got saved. A few different works in progess. So instead, it seems like the things I keep wrestling with in my mind are what gets posted. Stories either resolve themselves and get written privately or they don't and in that case I'm stuck with nothing to write, thereby defeating the purpose of a post.

But, I ramble.

Reality. Theism. Human interactions. These are the three that are claiming chunks out of time I might have spent otherwise. Won't say productively, but they would have been spent somehow.

What, for you, defines reality? I don't mean necessarily this reality, or whatever you choose to say is your reality. I mean, what does it take for you to say that this life or plane of existance or anything, something, is real? Does it have to be tangible? Does it need to exist independant of yourself? What if it is intangible, or exists only because you pay it heed? We rather commonly accept that there is a physical reality. If only because, to date and to our knowledge, nobody has successfully convinced the oncoming semi truck that it doesn't exist while instead that person does.

So, what does it take for something to be called a reality?

The gods. Ah, what a hornet's nest. God, gods, goddess, divine, dieties or even simply the existance of the universe. Living in north america, one can probably safely assume what religion I'm typically exposed to. I don't know what I can say of the beast lurking in the murky depths of my mentalscape. It's there, nibbling at my thoughts when they stray to religion or faith or divinity. Whenever I can draw it farther out and examine what it intends, I suppose I'll make a post. For now, let's say it's a matter of faith?

As for human interactions. Humans are queer folk, I'm sure you knew that. It's come up in your mind once or twice when you observe lunatic behavior, and again separately when you read about decisions made in the news or heard about the latest out breaks of violence. It's there again when you see good comedy and occasionally at those moments when you just step outside of your established mental routine and just go "wow."

So why do we do what we do? Is it something beyond our control? Our choices merely a chemical reaction? Or are we programmed by our childhoods and education, shaped and honed by desires and experience into the entity we are today? Given that, how in the world do we really interact with others? Some choose to be hermits, others choose to be with more people than you know, let alone are familiar with. We are (generally) alone in our minds, unable to do more perhaps than empathize with others. Yet I can see how it's hard for some people to relate to other people. After all, you don't know what drives them to the choices that they make. So why are we driven to be communal, and yet also driven to be individuals?

1 comment:

Karinthadillo said...

Lots of questions today, huh!

I think you really hit on something when you talk about "moments when you just step outside of your established mental routine and just go "wow."" I think that life, especially in today's automated environment, can get very routine. Everyone has schedules, things they have to do at a certain time and a certain place, and technology adds to this as now anyone can contact you at any time, wherever you are, and this increases the expectations.

So I believe it's very important to have those moments when something forces you to step back and go "wow". It forces us to break our autopilot, to really take stock of the world around us. Whether it's an emotional news piece on TV that tugs at the heartstrings, or an incredible natural landscape that makes us marvel at the world, these things really help to define what reality is for us: it's what feels real. It's what really gets the imagination, really engages the mind rather than just having a schema of instructions for life.

Like Decartes said, "I think therefore I am" - but it's real thinking, not the superficial kind of reflex behaviour that gets us through our regular days. I believe that when you really think, really notice what's going on, really look both outside and inside yourself and feel these things, that's what makes the world real.