Brief Number Two

Also I read this post by one of my favorite bloggers: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/ and I just had to repost it because it gave me a little pick me up:

"A growing body of social science research reveals that atheists, and non-religious people in general, are far from the unsavory beings many assume them to be. On basic questions of morality and human decency — issues such as governmental use of torture, the death penalty, punitive hitting of children, racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, environmental degradation or human rights — the irreligious tend to be more ethical than their religious peers, particularly compared with those who describe themselves as very religious.

Consider that at the societal level, murder rates are far lower in secularized nations such as Japan or Sweden than they are in the much more religious United States, which also has a much greater portion of its population in prison. Even within this country, those states with the highest levels of church attendance, such as Louisiana and Mississippi, have significantly higher murder rates than far less religious states such as Vermont and Oregon.

As individuals, atheists tend to score high on measures of intelligence, especially verbal ability and scientific literacy. They tend to raise their children to solve problems rationally, to make up their own minds when it comes to existential questions and to obey the golden rule. They are more likely to practice safe sex than the strongly religious are, and are less likely to be nationalistic or ethnocentric. They value freedom of thought."

So if we're arrogant, it's easy to see why =)

Peace. (and still no tea...)

Brief (my lovely)

If I could just live inside my dreams, I think I would be exponentially happier than I am currently. People need to wake the hell up, and stop allowing some mystical ghost to make their decisions for them. You know what is right and what is wrong. YOU. Go with that, go with your damn morals, not on some bullshit fed to you by a pedophiliac priest and his holier-than-tho ghost. For fucks sake, just read deuteronomy! If thats not proof enough that your god was a sick, sadistic, ass wipe, then I dont know what is.


My back hurts, and I cannot wait to get out of this country for a few weeks, and just forget about everything. Also, all you people constantly complaining about having so much pain and about your constant need to take prescriptions opiates, if you don't want them, send them to me will ya?


Todays Tea: NOTHING yet....

State Pain for future pleasure

This summer is going to be annoyingly busy, and I really am grasping on to some lingering drops of achievement, and the hope that all this fucking work will pay off in the end.


I think education is the most important thing in the world. However you get that education (in school, through research, reading scholarly papers, online courses, ect....) makes no difference to the knowledge you soak up and dispense in the end. The point, albeit a gloomy one, is with no real formal education and no degrees, seemingly intelligent people are nothing more than people who like reading. People who are probably making no money, and usually dependent on others to get by. This is a small portion of the reason why I think education in Universities and Colleges should be free for all those who have the grades to get in, and who wont just fuck around in the process. Theres always the argument that you have to charge a lot for the "good" Universities so that they can hold higher standards than others, but in my opinion, money should not equal prestige. But it does. Tough. That's life. Although it is pretty disgusting when I see dumb ass people in my school, barely studying, and being satisfied with a 53% in a course just because it means they passed. Why? Because they dont have to pay! Their parents pay, and all they do is work as little as they possibly can, and float along. Education should not be a chore. People leave or stop going simply because they learn in a different way, and so do I in all honesty, and thats all well and great, but its not going to get you anywhere. Push yourself for a few of semesters, and you'll have all the rest you can dream of later. As crazy as this may seem, learning and studying get MUCH easier after University, and the really lovely, wonderful, spectacular beauty of learning is attempted on a much more personal level. I've realized something working 6 day weeks for the passed 3 weeks at a shit store with SHIT management, and even shittier idiots working around me: Formal Education is blind. It has no favorites, it has no sympathy, it has no emotions. You either have the marks and references that you need, or you dont. Period. At the dead end job I'm working at currently to make extra money to pay off OSAP however, myself and another employee are working with about 40 other people in setting up this new store. We are only tied to an employment contract for a 3 week period because they cant keep everyone and so they will base how hard we work during these weeks on who will be offered a position after the store opens. Now, I can pretty much stake my life on it that myself and the girl I work with (along with maybe a handful of others) are the only ones in the entire group who ACTUALLY work. There is a group of fuck tards however who (every time I have seem them) are either sitting and talking to each other, OR sitting down and drinking coffee and playing with their cell phones (both things we were not advised to do). Guess what? These fuck tards have already been offered jobs by one of the most vapid, and idiotic managers I have ever witnessed in my life. While myself and the people who do NOT stop working from the beginning to the end of our daily 9 hour shifts have had a grand total of ZERO offers. 


Now in addition to this throughly pissing me off and making me have recurrent urges stab them in their vaginas, it makes me really, REALLY appreciate the fact that I am simply there to work until the application process for grad school begins. Until the years I worked hard and got excellent grades pays off, leading me to a job where I will no longer have to deal with fuck tards who get beneficial treatment for simply being fuck tards, and a job where I am actually making a slight difference by helping people who need help and support, and a job where I will actually have a prestigious position in a work environment where I respect the people I work with, rather than pity them.


If its the last thing you do, work hard, and be the best person you can be. Don't settle. You can make a greater impact on the world this way. Things are not easy to achieve, and they will never be handed to you (unless you know a genie or you marry rich I guess). But myself, I'd rather be independent and intelligent any day.


Peace,


Todays Tea: Citrus Yerba Mate

Dreaming of hypersomnia

Things that I cannot wait to do after I finish finals:

• Take a fucking long ass bath
• Read all the books in my closet collecting dust that I haven't been able to read during school
• Watch my growing list of movies
• SLEEP IN
• Watch the TCM channel for an ENTIRE day with little or no disruptions
• Use all my gift cards I received as gifts for christmas that I've had no time to use
• Sleep (again, because I've been THAT deprived of it)
• Do yoga regularly and not just when I have time

....I have more to look forward to but I have to get back to studying :(

Todays Tea: Green tea with white tips (also called jade snow)

ps. I know more about the science of well-being than you every will. I guarantee you.

Peace

Open the Door

I'm someone else tonight. Someone who is not feverishly going over posted words to ensure they are safe or wise. Have I lost my talent? Had I any talent to begin with? I have all of these goals set up before me and all I literally want to do is read, sleep, and then quietly pass into oblivion. How peaceful. 
But I know there are people who need religion in order to feel at peace with themselves, with the afterlife. I guess a picture of some home in the clouds or 72 virgin wives sounds really nice and all, but it just kind of seems like shutting the door on a scary room. 


Let me explain. 
Its like having a really, really dark room somewhere in your basement-a furnace room maybe that emits this eery hum and contains so many crevices and small spaces that you cringe to go though it during the day, let alone at night. So you make it a point to close the door, and not look inside. You know what's behind the door. People know what is behind the door. You've seen it yourself. Its dark, and convoluted, and complicated, and intimidating. I mean you live alone-you are alone-its understandable. So you close the door. You keep it closed. Because even though you know what's behind the closed door, not seeing it makes you less anxious. Not seeing it allows you to muster up other-less intimidating and less frightening-images. And through this cover up, you feel better, at peace. 


This is the way I understand how religion works for intelligent, educated people. They know it can't be true. They know. They know the evidence, they've seen the records, the contradictions, the vastness of the universe...They know. But everything attached with knowing is way too intimidating. Too frightening to know that people die-there are no souls-there is no afterlife (what an awful waste of all those young boys strapping bombs to their chest and dying in the name of some ghost and his apparently bigot last prophet). Only corpses. It's too depressing-too empty. So what should they do? They close the door. They know what exists, they've seen the proof, but they choose to believe that there is something-anything-else other than this....life. 
Why? 


It's comforting, and I understand that. I myself was once the one pushing that door closed with all my might. But one day, I let it go- I opened it, and at first everything came rushing out like an ambush-I had never felt anxiety so fierce. But then...it was gone. Everything was clear. No superstition. No worry. No rationalization. And my life was still meaningful-I still had all the same goals I had originally-I still loved the same movies, music, the same people. But now I felt free. It was magnificent.


Until next time.
Think heavy.


Todays Tea: Jade snow with mint leaves

Half of life is making people go away

The other half is sleeping, apparently.


I am staying up WAY longer than I need to these days, and waking up disgustingly late. Especially since finals are fast approaching and anxiety ridden anger outbursts are slowly creeping up behind me. I can feel them.


I've realized that although the internet in its vast goodness is vastly good, it has made book reading and other forms of reading paper more and more difficult to do OR less and less likely, depending on how you look at it, and also if you read. And although I am aware people read on the internet, it hurts my damn eyes!!! And I am a lover of the simple life! (In a slightly related topic, I have consistently decided that any one of the vlogbrothers-http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers-is definitely for sure my soul mate, and I wish to meet them both and bask in the glory of their infinite wisdom and patience for acknowledging and distributing fascinating pieces of information).


But yes, the simple life-ideally one where long walks near quiet rivers and lush green grass with a black lab, and a cool person beside me talking about the wonders and horrors of the human condition, and also the empty yet unending unended-ness of the universe. A life where no one is preaching their shit religion or passing judgement on others because of their sexuality, profession, or personal choices. *sigh* I hope, hope, hope I can live long enough to see the world possibly take this beautiful turn into beauty.


And even though there are others who maybe think the way I do, I always feel indescribably alone and unsure. I think everything will change if I travel to a place like Alaska to finish my novel, that everything will change when I come back. That I'll suddenly stop equating money with a better life, and that I will stop getting upset at my beloved and wonderfully wonderful family members no matter what because they put up with me and all my strangeness for a very long time. My anti-social tendencies after all these years have remained partly due to shitty experiences with dumb ass gross people in the world, but also because I find that I only ever connect and enjoy being around a very small (almost insignificant) number of people. I mean I don't think its such a bad thing, but apparently if I don't go out and get shitfaced and surround myself with people ALL the time, I am not living up to my early 20s persona. I like to drink, but I prefer to drink with maybe one or two people, or while watching an old movie holding a glass of red wine. I don't mind socializing but I prefer not to. And I am totally comfortable with that, which more people may find even more strange. Honestly, delving into douglas adams or losing myself in some sort of wonderful book or film gives me more personal pleasure than a man ever did, or ever could. Trust me. And yet I am completely okay with this.


I was going to say other stuff like things and things about other things, but I'll sleep instead, but first leave you with the trailer to one of my favorite movies of all time, introduced to me by one of my favorite people of all time....Why? Because I can! And also because I recently started thinking about it, and remembered how beautifully wonderful, and great in all its greatness it actually is. If you will do nothing else today, ghosts reading my blog, watch this trailer, and then take a nap.

  What are the finer things in life.


Todays Tea: Sencha and matcha blend


GOODnight, and if you happen to come across my thoughts during a dream, remind them to wake me up early.

Selfless Fools

When we spend our entire lives entrenched in the ideals and opinions of others, we may lose track of what is truly important in life. We go about our days thinking of our diets, our relationships, and our goals. Natural disasters, and death seem millions of miles away-almost as if they are unreal, as if they never happened. We try so hard to desperately figure out the reason for our existence, and follow the rules garnering our lives. So hard that we often forget to actually live. To be able to look out from an open window and watch sunlight coat every surface within view. To take a deep breath, and spill out our thoughts, fears, and beliefs about the world without having to worry about being prosecuted for them.
We've lived so long this way that words like love, peace, patience, and empathy become infested with different meanings. They are no longer universal. You see people holding peace signs, while equipped with weaponry and shooting bullets into the sky. You see women not being able to make their own choices on their own bodies. You see contradictory laws like the legality of pornography, and the prohibition (which never works) of prostitution. People call humans egocentric beings-inherently selfish mammals that only look after themselves by instinct because of years and years of evolutionary changes. But this is a lie. This is a fabrication. Nothing is selfish about who we are. We spend an inordinate amount of time poking our heads and opinions into other people's business. We complain about others who don't believe as we do, who use their bodies differently than we would, who say things we would never say, and do things we would never do. Even further, we condone acts of violence against these people-why? Because they are not like us. We pride ourselves on being accepting, peaceful people, and yet we live our lives always trying to better the supposedly "wrong" things in other people, and at the same time, not allowing for equal right of all in the very country that we live in. What contradictory lines we cross. Life would be a lot better if we were more selfish. If we let others be, and we carried on each with a loving, peaceful nature, a determined will to achieve our goals-whether it be money, family, faith, leisure, or love. We live. We need to start to live.


Peace


Today's Tea: Honey Lemon