The random ramblings of a computer addict.

So what's important in life?

Why am I writing this blog?

Couldn't tell ya.

You know that never ending need you have to have your voice be heard? That desire to get that strange, indescribable feeling of longing in your stomach - longing for nothing in particular at that - out there in the world so that you can feel like your opinions and perspectives are making an impact worth considering, like so many ripples in the pond that is the infinite sea of existence?

Yeah. A little like that.

Okay, I've exhausted myself with metaphors that aim to dabble in something vaguely resembling profundity. I don't pretend to have something to say right now. Or else I have too much to say: I'm one of many screaming creatures without a voice, lost in this existential void we call "the way we live," scrambling tirelessly to a surface of purpose and meaning and anything that will justify this never ending cesspool of idiocy that is the modern way of doing things.

And while we're on that subject, why can't we elect one decent person in government? Really, as papered over as the system is with corruption and bylaws and endless attempts to make our wallets a little lighter in the name of government dollars being chucked at something only useful to a chosen few, why can't we at least have competent figureheads in office? Obama notwithstanding, most of the people representing the be all end all of human leadership look like they wandered out of a low rent frat meeting and continue to behave as such. No offense to you frat boys; I'm sure some of you will make competent diplomats someday (not a whit of sarcasm in that statement).

But maybe, just maybe, if we could elect some competent, non-scandal ridden reasonable human beings - genuinely representative of the larger demographic of people who actually have their heads tightly screwed onto their necks, and aren't in danger of losing their senses after only the slightest provocation - our world wouldn't be such a collective screw-up of endless missed opportunities that would, in fact, have been cancelled long ago if we were a television series on a pay for cable station, save the comedic value which would keep us afloat for the sake of camp fanatics everywhere.

Yes, life is a campy mess.

And maybe God and his angels wouldn't be chucking popcorn kernels at their television sets and laughing at the sitcom that is the way we do things. Maybe if we realized that reality isn't the sum of its parts: that each of us plays an important part as a series of interconnected gears in the machine that is the everyday cosmos, and if we actually worked together to fuel that machine with a spirit of togetherness, as opposed to endlessly segregating ourselves into "races" and "genders" and "old people" and "young people" and "Americans" and "Canadians" and "straight people" and "gay people" and "Christians" and "Jews" and "left-wingers" and "right-wingers" and every darned arbitrarily label we can come up with to justify squabbling among ourselves and throwing billions of dollars a year at industries designed to help us kill each other more effectively instead of actually getting something done.

You know something? There's a part of me that doesn't believe the world is real. The world is a series of atoms composed largely of empty space arbitrarily bouncing around and generating what we perceive as the material cosmos - ourselves included - and once we die, those atoms will de-materialize and re-materialize into something else, and go on gyrating and getting jiggy with themselves like nothing ever happened. They are not even aware of our existence and they are the summation of our existence. So where does our consciousness of our insignificance come from? Consciousness in general? Perhaps consciousness is mass consciousness. I am you and you are me. So any attempt at squabbling with our friends and neighbours is just an endless argument with the self. And no matter how you slice it, that's still the case: smile, and the world smiles with you. Otherwise everything will piss you off. So even if you don't believe in a more existentialist (read: scientifically proven) way of looking at things, you're still just mad at yourself if you're mad, so take a deep breath and help us right the world, rather than picking a fight with every Joe Schmo Six-Pack in the neighbourhood.

Why are we unsatisfied? Why are we living poverty-stricken, unhappy lifestyles where our thoughts are consumed with worry, obsessed with attempting to save every last dime? You know what: if we're happy, then we won't be consumers. It's designed that way: we need to keep wanting more, more, more or else these monster conglomerates will go out of business and won't have Joe P. Sadsack to profit off of for the next ten, twenty years. The faceless face of the corporation has gotten inside our heads and tweaked our emotions to make us think that money - a human invention designed to make our lives easier, irony of ironies, by serving as an all-purpose substitute for goods that we would have otherwise bartered - is the be all end all, and that if we don't play by the rules THEIR way, we'll go bankrupt. Mind control is happening right now, and that's not paranoia talking; that's awareness of how things are run talking. 

They don't want us to be happy. They don't want us to have fun. If we were happy, we wouldn't go flocking to the pharmaceutical companies for anti-depressants like ants on a Snickers bar. They need to keep us in collective states of apathy, uncertainty and depression if they want to keep feeding us what we don't need and act like it's the only solution to our problems. Entire INDUSTRIES are built on the idea of continuously making us unhappy and then adding that only they can fix our problems if we follow their guidelines in the exact, specific way which they are given, unless we risk falling back into the self-generated state of apathy and self-loathing that they've goaded us into ONLY TO TELL US THAT THEY CAN SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS - THAT THEY'VE HELPED TO ENCOURAGE - WITH A CLICK OF A BUTTON AND A FEW MAGIC, CURE ALL STEPS, SUB-CLAUSES AND BULLET POINTS. 

Everything is an attempt to make us feel worse just so people can make us feel better. It's the never ending cycle of profiting off our collective misery and then making us just miserable enough so we'll continue to flock back to the hand that feeds us, only to have that hand withdraw with the promise of returning if we play by the rules and earn our keep, or "prove our worth" according to the guidelines of "x" number of random individuals in power so that this can continue on ad infinitum right under our collective noses because we're not privy to even the slightest alternative. And that's intentional too, no doubt: socialism and everything else resembling the foundations of change is demonized as something that will strip us of our rights from the ground-up, but that's already happening to us, so why complain now?

Why do we put up with this? It's almost like we're addicted to misery, like we've been turned into junkies desperate for something that's going to give us the slightest peace of mind, only to have it abruptly snatched away again with the faint promise of it returning in the future if we play by their rules.

But why has no one stood up and shouted "No, I don't want this, this isn't good enough for me!" "I don't want people making me feel inferior and dividing me into categories in an attempt to oppose me against my fellow man, when we should be working together as one to ensure that everyone can have the best life they can possibly have! I say NO to sexism, racism, and every other human concoction that seeks to limit our collective potential by pitting us against ourselves so that we'll be too busy to notice that our rights are being trampled on by the very way people in power conduct themselves, acting as if we are little more than chess pieces - means to ends - that when properly played, can ensure their conquests and riches while we stand in the dust, slackjawed, dimly aware that we've just been duped but unable to comprehend how or why, or to understand the depths of demented brilliance the rare few who obtain true power are capable of.

I never want to be dehumanized to the point of losing my own humanity: compassion, caring, and forgiveness are viewed as insignificant qualities unable to compete in a profit-driven economy where only the cutthroat survive, but those who look down on those who dare to care as no more than the meagre few who will be trodden upon on their path to power are mistaken.

We are the people. Compassion, strength, courage and empathy are the great strengths that those who seek to misuse us for selfish, personal ends may - consciously or otherwise - fear more than they realize. For those who are capable of empathizing are also capable of holding a united front. There is strength in numbers. Every classic adage about war and peace is there to guide us. As the brilliant author George Orwell once wrote, "If there is hope, it lies in the proles." We are the proles, and we are capable of forming a united front if only our empathy, our capacities to love and aid and feel, are not chipped away at by those faceless few who seek to pit us, like fighting dogs in an arena as large and all-encompassing as the human race itself, against one another until "only the strongest survive." But we are strongest when we are united. We are powerful when we do more than sever ties; we hold hands. We are courageous when a thousand voices amid a sea of people crying out for change becomes one voice, booming and commanding, demanding nothing less than an uprising befitting of a people who demand something as simple as a quiet life and something as complex as an opportunity, but such things can only be hoped for if we cast off our collective chains and unite as the beings that we are: One being, speaking with one voice, crying out with "Hope" and "Prosperity" on its lips. Words and ideas are the keys to a brighter future, and only by using them and appreciating them can we hope to celebrate every day of our lives with an appreciation for the miracle of being alive: We're alive, we are the survivors of the creation process, and we're too caught up in the thoughts that those in power want to keep swimming through our minds like so many poisonous snakes, until everything we do revolves around what to do and how to do it right, until our bills are paid and we continue to be slaves to the cycle, craving a half-second of peace (and they're even profiting off our need to live anxiety-free moments) until we're ready to do it all over again. Until we forget to dream.

That isn't how I want to live. That isn't how I want to be. The only things worth doing are dreaming and loving. Life is a dream. Love is a dream. Nothing is meant to be taken for granted. Abraham Lincoln wrote that "We are not enemies, but friends; we must not be enemies." Only when we stand as one can we hope to begin what will hopefully result in a new age of Enlightenment: characterized by care and compassion, not profit-margins and the need to be top dog. That's not a mentality I want my children to be a part of. I want them to breathe a sigh of relief, grateful for the ability to stand on God's green earth and sigh, understanding how lucky they are to breathe and taste and touch and experience anything short of blackness and darkness and a never-ending pit of white smoke devolving into nothingness. Whatever we're experiencing now, it's as real as whatever we'll experience later. Instead of devoting ourselves to these human inventions designed to support a flawed human mentality, let's take a breath and let our lungs flow with air and breathe out and scream "WE ARE ALIVE, AND WE'RE NOT GOING TO WASTE ANOTHER SECOND WITH WORRY."

Now is the time, my friends. Now is the time to live and let live. Now is the time to take everyone's hands and cheer and scream and whoop with delight. Now is the revolution. The revolution is within you. The desire to change the world is within you. The need to make things right is within you.

Kindness, compassion, empathy.

These are the tools of tomorrow's revolution.

Vive la revolution!