I thought for a moment that a nice little project that humanity could get together on would be to make a space probe containing as much of our culture, art, politics and philosophy as we could scrounge together and send it out of this solar system as soon as we possibly could. But then again aren’t we already emitting enough signals that any alien species with a degree of intelligence could detect? I think back to the time that NASA sent out their first deep space probe which if I remember correctly contained a record player. I think it might be time to upgrade our technological presence in space.

I’d to think a lot has changed since the 1970’s – if not in technology then at least in culture. Besides, there’s more to humanity than just Beethoven, I mean you’ve got Britney Spears to represent right? Heh I guess you have to take the good with the bad as that’s what we’re all made up of. Our human legacy, the vast sum of human knowledge and creativity. I’m sure a lot of you out there couldn’t give a damn if some record of our existence should exist outside of our mother Earth but I’d hate to think of some catastrophe to befall society and us having left nothing behind. I’d also like to think that there’s a lot of us who are actually concerned with humanity as a whole and not just one individual.
It takes a certain perception to arrive at this concern. What one has to do is to first do is accept that our one existence is all that we have to experience. In this form all we can do is enjoy the reality of perception, the visceral experience of perceiving the world. Something is always better than nothing, no matter how terrible that something is. Sensation, pleasurable or painful, is still sensation. The trick is to not only apply that experience to your own life but to understand that that experience is occuring in every single person around you. This is the key to perceptionalism – you have to perceive not only of your own existence but the perception of everyone you influence as well. We all influence each other on one level or another – physically, mentally or spiritually. That connection is precious in so many indescribable ways and once examined leads to profound insight and inspiration.
This line of thought often leads to depression. What happens when it’s over? How can I go from experiencing and processing to nothing? How can I bear the terrible burden of non-existence? Forever unconscious? It’s scary. It’s horrible. It makes you want to cling onto every shred of awareness no matter what the cost. Who cares if others are harmed as long as my existence continues for as long as humanly possible as comfortably as possible?
Well it’s simple really: the people who are harmed care, and they have just as much right to existence as you do. One of the things that bugs me about our pampered Western Culture is that we cannot conceive of what it would have been like if we hadn’t rolled snake eyes in the game of life. We won comparitively speaking, but is it really all that polite for us rub it in the losers faces? Wouldn’t it be better if instead of lording our luck over the less fortunate we instead tried to share a little of what we had? Especially as their existence is so completely horrendous compared to ours?
A lot of us can’t disassociate ourselves from our existence enough to really understand how bad it could be if we had rolled the more likely combination. It can be done and let me tell you it’s a sobering experience – it makes you appreciate what you’ve been handed but at the same time it can make you angry at how little is being done to help the majority of humanity out. I think there’s a sense of futility when you follow that path because you look around and see nobody else changing, sacrificing, conserving. The thing is though that I really do believe that each one of us has it in us to be powerful, to change the world in a positive manner. All we have to do is follow our ideals and set an example for the people who surround you.
I don’t think any of us appreciate how flexible and responsive the global consciousness is. Memes travel around from one end of the world to the other over the course of days, when it once tooks decades. We have within our hands the greatest tool to learn and share knowledge and perception that we as humanity have ever had. Think about what society was like before the invention of the steam engine and railroad system, then think about what it was like after. There is a distinctive leap in culture, art, politics and philosophy between the two periods. Things change, but unfortunately people have always had a terrible time keeping up with change.
Change is also feared because the dogma’s that we all hold onto seem so precious to us. “This is my explanation into why I exist and I don’t care if all these new ideas argue that I’m wrong because damnit, this is what I believe. This is how I can explain the universe and my part in it.” That mentality is inherently flawed because what’s right and wrong are constantly changing. Everything’s relative, even the laws of the universe that govern our every action. We may think that we have a good handle on the fundamentals but I know that we have so much to learn and explore about ourselves and the universe around us. And yet interest in science seems to be declining… Fundamentalist religious dogma is on the rise and people are clinging onto outdated world perceptions at an alarming rate. These are not the answer. Religions invented hundreds of years ago did not understand the increasing complexity of human existence, and unfortunately most of them refuse to change. However some of the them seem to crave new knowledge, to embrace new ideas rather than push them away. I don’t know much about Buddhism but I do know that what I’ve seen so far seems pretty interesting. But then again, that’s just me.
Well, I think I’m done for the night. Tomorrow I’m heading shopping. I think this will be the second time this year that I feel the need to update my fashion. Time to buy a fedora.
There’ve been some updates to the site by the way. These conversations are much more interesting (and much better quality) than my thoughts were. I particularily enjoyed Chapter 11 although there’s a few gems in the others as well. There’s also a lot of BS – but that’s what you get when you record raw life.
Also, I’ve set the forums to registered guests only. If people want to have a serious discussion I recommend they create a topic there.
Goodnight everyone but let me know you’re still there. Also if you like what I’m writing here what makes you think your friends won’t? Spread the word my friends, the more the merrier.