Just do it! Yes, you already know what type of post this is. Buckle up for yet another motivational speech on how you should follow your dreams. And I know you have probably already heard this a million times, but this time it is coming from me and honestly, it’s important to hear.
So where was I? Oh yeah, just do it! I swear it is that simple. I am a firm believer in doing what we set our minds to. Not only does it build reliability and trust between people, but I feel it will also lead to a more motivated individual. By setting a goal and not allowing the million excuses that we are capable of creating get in our way, we become more encouraged for another goal since the one before actually paid off.
I suppose you could see it as either a negative or a positive loop. When we set a goal and do it, it encourages us for the next. And so around and around this positive loop grows. Alternatively, if we set a goal and don’t carry it out until the end we may start to feel that we wasted our time. For instance, if one wants to lose weight and sets a goal to work out every morning for thirty minutes, the negative loop begins on that sixth day when they tell themself they’re too tired. Feeling guilty all day, they then have a bad night’s sleep, wake up tired again and the excuse repeats. Circling lower and lower, just as positive loops form, so do negative ones.
This is why when we set goals I really can not exaggerate the significance of carrying that act through. Goals, in other words, are personal promises and just as when you break a promise with someone else, you lose trust in yourself as the promise is broken. Not only that but goals and motivation can also make your dreams come true. You can actually turn the “someday” into today.
Here’s a personal example: Last year I was majoring in industrial systems engineering. I found the major to be a good fit for my skill set, as well as a safe major to choose. The likelihood of me getting a job once I graduated was very high. Yet there was a problem, reducing costs in a factory is not my dream. My dream is to help people. Not in the sense that I wanted to be a therapist or a social worker, but instead that I would work to improve the lives of thousands through societal change. I have found problems within our society as a whole and wish to help change them for the better.
Now at first, the dream seemed like a fairy tale. The magical Jake West will float around and spread his pixie dust on the world until all of the sadness has vanished. I will not deny that at first it was a fictional story, one that had little practicality to it. A story that was simply a thought, and nothing more. Then, in one moment, no different than the moment before, that fairy tale became a reality. One day I decided I had had enough pretending like I would be okay with simply working for a paycheck. One day I made my decision, I was going to try to help the world.
Getting right to work, my first thought was what I wanted to do, followed by how I was going to make it happen. By visiting six different academic departments and switching my major more times than I can count, I finally created a plan that was logical and ideal. I am currently a major in statistics and sociology with the intention to become a social researcher in an effort to bring about political change. I knew what I wanted to do, and I made it happen.
I feel as though many of us look at this career issue the wrong way. I see a majority of students picking a logical career and then finding their purpose within it. I propose that we find our purpose and then make it logical. Without purpose, no job is logical. Without purpose comes lack of motivation for that job, and personally I do not care how much work you put into a career you have no interest in, if you do not care about your job, then the business will not care about you.
I do what I set my mind to because if I do not, then I will never do anything difficult. I will never reach for the stars, because unless I try it will always seem impossible. This is why I will say one last time, just do it. Understand that a dream is possible if you believe it is possible. Yes, you will probably have to modify this dream. Yes, you will probably have to compromise. Yes, you may get paid a whole lot less, but I truly believe it will be worth it.
At the end of your life, you are not judged by the money you make, or by the number of wins you have. You are only judged by yourself. You judge how you lived your life and what you succeeded in, that meant something to you. Pursue your dreams because if you do not then why would you have them in the first place.
I woke up feeling amazing. Taking a deep breath, I let the fresh Alaskan air fill my lungs. Hearing the crackle of a nearby fire, I knew breakfast would be ready soon. Unzipping my family’s four-person tent with a smile, I stepped out into the sixty-degree wilderness. The sun was bright, the clouds had left the sky, and the river continued its hectic, yet organized pursuit downhill.
I was on my family’s Alaskan white-water rafting trip. Finally basking in the sunlight, my year of nervous anticipation seemed well worth it. Preparing to start another amazing day, a sense of peace fell over my body. I believed at the time it was from the fresh air or the feeling of the wild. But no matter the reason, all I cared to know was that I simply felt better and stronger with every day that passed. And when it finally ended, the trip left me with a feeling of true happiness, a feeling I lost touch with a few months prior.
Integrating back into normal upstate New York society, I steadily began to lose my high spirits and drive. I felt myself returning to a passive, empty state. The feeling that my naive mind had thought I had overcome.
Returning to my normal schedule, I went to visit my psychologist. I visited her every week to discover the source of this feeling of emptiness that slowly ate at me. She was alright. Mostly focusing on childhood issues and daily inconveniences, you know, the therapy things, we would get nowhere fast as the minutes rolled by.
That day we spoke about my emotions throughout the trip. I explained how I felt like my old self. For those five days, I returned to my cheerful self and badly wanted the feeling to return. We shared thoughts and possible reasons and explanations, nothing really stuck.
After the session, that same night, I found myself up late pondering the simple question, “What changed? What had changed since the trip and where I was now?” And that’s when an idea struck me. Only a guess, yet enough to give me hope. Other than the obvious lack of excitement in my daily life, I realized a difference in my diet.
My mother was diagnosed as a celiac ten years prior to the trip. Since space on the raft was limited, we only packed gluten free food. Therefore, for the first time in my life, I was not eating gluten. On top of that, I remembered how my mother felt prior to her diagnosis. She described a feeling as if she were slowly dying, and eventually went to the doctors assuming she must have a form of cancer. They quickly ran tests and determined she had Celiac Disease. This meant that any ingestion of gluten acted as a poison in her body. I believed this could be my solution, so within days my blood was being tested to possibly cure my growing feeling of emptiness.
The results came in a week later and my problem was cured. I instantly stopped eating gluten without a single complaint. Everyone was surprised with how well I was dealing with the situation, but what they didn’t realize was how thankful I was for it. Within days I felt my body regain strength and drive. I felt amazing again, like I had on the Alaskan river. I felt in control. By the next week I stopped going to the psychologist and started living my life with my head up again.
There are still times I feel empty like before. I feel as if whatever eats at me isn’t completely gone and never will be, yet now I have the strength to control it. Whatever sadness I thought was beyond my control could now be tamed.
From this experience I learned to never give up. I learned that there is always a solution and that I just need to continue looking for it.
I also learned the value in things. Little problems don’t affect me like many of my peers. I’ve learned that life will have its challenges and to just laugh through them because happiness is the most important trait to have. If I can maintain my joy in life I can solve any problem and overcome any challenge I face. So, what about you?
Everyone has their own demons and challenges. We can either run from them or we can conquer them. We can own them. I learned how to fight mine and fight I did. This fight will never end, but the more weapons I can bring to this fight, the better off I will be.
So, what weapons do you have? What weapons do you plan on getting? Only you can fight for your happiness. Others can show you the way to happiness, but it is you who will take those steps. Therefore, get your weapons, find your path and start exploring. Life is a constant war, but the more you fight and the more you win, the closer you will be to nirvana when that war finally ends. Nirvana is not in the clouds, it is all around us.
Do we have free will? This question has been considered since Socrates took his first step. I find this question to be so intriguing because in so few words such a complex question emerges. A question with dozens of interpretations, yet only two possible answers.
I should first clarify the angle I plan to answer this question. When discussing free will, I am questioning if we are responsible for our actions, or if our actions are simply laid out for us. This does not imply that there is a higher being or some type of destiny we are all given. I am instead questioning whether we rule ourselves or if we are ruled by ourselves.
As of now, there are two factors that define us as humans: nature and nurture. Our internal characteristics, such as genetics, make up the “nature” part of who we are. While on the other hand, the external things we experience, like our environment and upbringing, determine our nurture. With centuries of debate on which portion is more influential, the one agreement everyone has come to is that the sum of those two parts result in who we are.
In an effort to understand nature, one can think of genetics as a written code from within us. This written code essentially shows the spectrum of what our personality and tendencies can become. To put it simply, our genes allow for personality traits to form more and less easily depending on what we experience throughout our life… yet it is also a bit more complicated because it also partially determines what we experience. Hence where the nurture fills in.
In this same reflexive way, nurture works similarly. We are born and raised in an environment that we have no say over. The parents who raised us, the house we lived, and the location we grew up, these are all part of our life that help determine who we are today. And as they influence us, they create us and then we in turn create them back. So, to summarize the process in a sentence: an experience, or nurture, allows for the gene, or nature, to make a trait that determines our actions that create a future experience that reinforces or alters the created trait.
Interestingly, when we consider these truths in such a fashion, it seems to be a bit out of our control. And that is exactly what I would argue in this post. These are simply the cards we were dealt, and our genetics told us how to play them.
A common argument to this claim is that we make decisions all the time and those decisions can affect our environment. For example, the college we choose to attend will largely affect the rest of our life. And because of this, one may argue that we do have a say in what environment we surround ourselves in.
The problem with this argument is how we make decisions. Decision making is based on logic and reasoning from our past events and knowledge we have received. When faced with a decision, our subconscious memories of similar experiences create that gut feeling we get when weighing our options. These subconscious memories sway us one way or the other, and largely determine our choice in the matter. With this understanding, we can conclude that our knowledge and logic is a sum of everything we have experienced and been told. Which once again, we had no choice over.
As you have probably guessed at this point, I do not believe we have free will. Both nature and nurture, the two things that create us, are not determined by us. They are instead forced onto us and determine our every thought, which includes our decision making as well. It is because of this that we can never break away from our predetermined selves. We are the people we were always going to become, and we do not rule ourselves but are instead ruled by ourselves.
To read more on this subjective I have written a post that quickly looks at the implications of this theory. Therefore, feel free to follow the link to my post The Implications of Our Lack of Free Will
** As wise as these words may be, I don’t totally know if they are true anymore. Funny how life works like that. Feel free to read the hyperlinked post which discusses an idea that logically eludes to us actually being able to take control of ourselves. **
I’m angry. I’m really fucking angry. Want to know why? I am angry that millions are exploited every day. I am angry for the thousands of lives ruined every month. I am angry with the mindset that has developed in the general public that makes us think that we are better than an entire group of people. And I am angry with the United States Justice System.
The United States Justice System is putting thousands of human beings into a confined area for the rest of their life. People are told every year that they must spend the rest of their entire life paying for one mistake they made. Now I have thought of this concept for quite some time and the more I think about it, the less I understand it. One action, one mistake, can dictate your entire life.
I’m not gonna lie, I have stolen food before; right from under the cashier’s nose. I simply did it because the idea of paying the insane price for a tiny candy bar seemed unnecessary. So does that make me a thief? Am I a thief for one action? Am I a thief for one moment that I said screw the law and took matters into my own hands? I do not think so. Yes I have stolen, but I will never identify as a thief.
I write about this act of defying the law because I see a disconnect from common sense and our justice system. By stealing once, I am debatably not a thief, yet if I kill once, then I am definitely a murderer. Sure, you can get away with self-defense because your hand was forced, but if you do it in cold blood then people see you as a killer. Yet I stole with little motive and my actions do not define me.
Now do not get me wrong, I understand that murder is a lot worse than stealing. I would never try to say otherwise. As a society we typically value lives a lot more than we do to inanimate objects. So yes, of course murder is terrible, but why must it define someone. Why must one action, one wrongdoing, define a person and force them into a situation they have no control over? How does ending their life early help bring back the people they killed?
One can say that they deserve such an ending because of what they did, that they deserve death. I believe that the narrative is looking at this question from the opposite direction. I think instead you should ask yourself, do you deserve to kill? Do you deserve the right to systematically end someone’s life early? Do you feel a world where people are killed in an organized manner is better than an unorganized one?
And do not forget what you agree to when you state someone’s life has no right to continue. You are enforcing a permanent action that has untold consequences to the people physically and mentally close to this individual. Not to mention that one-ninth (take a second to think about how large one-ninth. 11% Just let that sink in for a moment) of people put on death row are later found innocent… can you believe that? I barely can. In other words, one-ninth of people are systematically sentenced to death for something they did not do (Stevenson, 2012).
So why does this mindset exist in the United States? Why do we feel the need for vengeance? Why do we feel okay to sentence people to death, yet could never imagine shooting someone? I honestly do not know, yet I do have a scary guess. That guess is that our mindset is exactly what our justice system has wanted, and maybe even taught, us to believe. This scares me because it makes sense.
Our government has a very capitalist/corporatist economy. This economic category explains the high amount of government influence from large companies. Dozens of companies profit from and exploit prisoners every day. Companies like the Corizon and Global Tel* Link together take home over six hundred million dollars of revenue annually from prison contracts alone. These companies are making millions of dollars every year off of people who work for pennies… in the past, this was called slavery.
And don’t think that only shady companies take advantage of these imprisoned people. In the 1990s Victoria’s Secret exploited thirty-five female inmates to sew lingerie. Exmark, a Microsoft subcontractor, took similar action when they discovered how to avoid paying minimum wage, with inmates working for as low as thirty-five cents an hour (Henderson, 2015). Now if this does not scream exploitation then I am clueless to what does.
I suppose the next question is how do we know that the justice system is sanctioning all of this? How do we know the government is not trying to end this as you read my post? We can assume they are not because it helps them. It helps businesses, it helps the economy, it helps citizens flourish. I can also safely assume the government does not care about these inmates because this problem has gotten progressively worse.
In 1972, there were 300,000 jail/prison inmates within the United States. At the time, the United States population was roughly 201 million. This indicates that 0.15 percent of the United States population lived within a cell. Thirty years later, in 2012, the prison/jail population rose to 2.3 million. The United States population as a whole had only risen to 314 million, which indicates that 0.75 percent of its citizens were being forced into a place they simply do not want to be in (Stevenson, 2012). In those thirty years, the prison population has grown to be five times as large, in relation to its population. Now personally I hate skewed statistics, this is why I tried to present the data as fairly as possible. As the United States has grown in size its prison/jail population has grown five times faster. My question is, why?
Why do we not consider just how long a life sentence is? Why do dozens of companies makes millions off of helpless individuals? And why has the number of people without freedom grown five times as fast as the U.S. population? Now I did say I was mad at the United States Justice System, but I do not blame them. I think that we all have our motives and reasons to justify our actions. Because of this mindset, I do not want to end this post by pointing my finger at anyone. Instead, I would like to provide a solution.
My solution is simple, yet would be hard to do in so many ways, regardless I know it is possible. I know this because Germany is already doing it. Germany has implemented a new type of prison system that serves closer to a rehabilitation center rather than confinement. The inmates are not allowed access to the outside world until they have been diagnosed as mentally healthy individuals. Every “cell” is cozy and provides a feeling of warmth for the inmates. Each inmate is provided with a therapist in an attempt to work through whatever mental illness/distress that the individual is going through.
The purpose of this is to help the prisoners, rather than hurt them. This policy is to help each individual with whatever problems they are going through that led them to do such a despicable act. The policy sees criminals as mentally harmed individuals, and regardless of their previous actions, they are treated with care no different than how we would help someone going through any other mental illness.
Now you may be thinking, “well Jake, they don’t deserve such good treatment, they are criminals.” Here is the thing, in my opinion just about everyone is or was a criminal, it just depends on where you were born. Who does not drive at least five miles per hour faster than the speed limit? Who did not at least sip an alcoholic beverage before the law gave the thumbs up? I mean come on, who hasn’t broken the law at least once? I would say, and I would hope, zero.
Depending on your environment and a million other factors, that one and done type deal could have snowballed in something much more. People who smoke pot in the slums of New York City run a much higher risk of being caught and serving time than people in the upstate region of that same state. The reason is simply that the war on drugs is not happening in little towns like Glens Falls, it is happening in the depths of Queens. Same crime, but different outcomes.
I believe once criminals are seen as the unlucky ones in society, rather than the villains of society, our world will be a much healthier place to live. My solution is to rehabilitate these people because although their actions were terrible, it is still redeemable.
If someone we care about is depressed we would treat them with kindness and try to fix their illness. This reaction involves human beings understanding one’s pain and taking action to minimize it. I believe it takes a lot of mental illness/distress to be a murderer, so we should treat these individuals as human beings nonetheless.
Criminals are humans. They are alive and they feel pain just as anyone else does. I know sometimes it is hard to see the good in someone because of how they wronged you, but deep down you have to try to see their pain as well. Deep down you should try to see the best in them and through our process of rehabilitation, we can try to make that desire a reality. A world where we systematically help heal people rather than kill them is a world I would like to live in.
Stevenson, B.(2012). Bryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an injustice [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice/up-next
We live in a very high stakes world where wasting anything is rarely practical. Capital, time, love, or anything else that we value requires us to plan ahead so that we can use it efficiently as our life unfolds.
Our current economy makes us work for and save our capital to survive. And this currency pays for everything, so we treat it with care. So yeah, you might wanna go downtown and buy shots for the whole bar, but you typically don’t. It’s not logical for your future happiness to spend like this because unless you are Bill Gates, you will not enjoy how your bank account looks the next day.
Other examples include time and love. Same as capital, these are things we must value and treat with care as well. In some cases, one can be in a great relationship with a significant other, yet have to end it. It has to end because although it may be good at the moment, it won’t be in the future.
Trying to benefit our future selves is simply something we must consider to live a long, happy life. The problem is we do not live in the future, we live in the present. I don’t know about you, but the “now me” hardly even aligns with the future me. Yes, I probably should not spend the rest of the night watching Netflix, but if the mood strikes, now me might do it anyways.
We are creatures of the moment. In short, it is because for thousands of years, the present is really all that mattered. It was not until recently that our biggest fears went from a bear eating us to not having an updated resume. Being in the moment and feeling in the moment makes sense, but it can also make life incredibly difficult. It is a lot harder being a motivated blog writer when my stomach keeps reminding me that I haven’t eaten all day.
My confusion on this topic branches from the idea of where this “logical” side is even derived from. I use quotes because if we do live in the moment, then why are our future actions the ones we care about? And what is to say that these “logical” actions are even going to help our future selves?
I believe the answer is that life is a gamble. We take actions for our future self because, theoretically, our impending self will eventually become our present self. We do not know for sure, but that is where the statistics and logic come in. I can die at any moment in my life, but statistically speaking it won’t. So, if I won’t die soon, then I should probably plan for my future self. The best way to do so is by evaluating the important parts of my life now and taking the necessary steps to increase my chances of achieving them in the future.
There is no guarantee any of these plans will work, but what is guaranteed in life? This lack of guarantee is why I believe both our present self and future self matter. A balance, in my opinion, will ensure the happiest, most fulfilling life.
I encourage you to balance your life. You should strive to make your present self happy, but also understand that sometimes your present self needs to suck it up so that your future self can hopefully be happy as well. You probably shouldn’t shop online until your credit card breaks, but maybe if that is really what you want to do then put a limit on your card, and find the best bang for your buck after a long day of work.
I believe we should shoot to optimize how happy we are. Sometimes that may involve going out with friends or it may involve working a late-night shift. We live in the present, and I’m okay with that. We need to learn how to balance our now selves so that our future selves will be happy as well.
Let me begin this post by stating the fact that I love kids. Having said that, I was wondering if anyone else has noticed that kids can be little psychos.
I have been a lifeguard for the City of Glens Falls for the last three summers. The job essentially entails card games, eavesdropping on people’s conversations and the occasional save. I mean, it’s not my fault. I am literally paid to watch these people play in the water. Therefore is it only natural to hear the occasional small talk.
One day I was listening to a conversation between a mother and her son when a realization dawned on me. As I watched the son, once again, splash his mother in the face after repeatedly told not to, she responded with an ultimatum. Either splash me again and we go home, or stop splashing me and have fun. In response, the son whipped as much white water into his mother’s face as possible. His mom, infuriated, told him to sit on the sand and that they were going home. The son walked up to the beach and began to cry.
As he sobbed, I noticed that the intensity of his tears was directly connected to whether his mother was looking at him. As the mother began to collect the other children, the displeased son would dramatically increase his sadness with every glance the mother gave him. Finally, after a minute, the mother could not stand her son’s emotional state and told him he could get back in the water if he did not splash her again. With instant joy and achievement, the son bounded into the water and was back to having the time of his life. Not ten minutes later did I witness him splash his mother again as the cycle began once more.
It was at this time that a realization hit me harder than any belly flop I have ever been paid to witness. That disobedient son was simply playing his hand. He knew that his mother didn’t want to be splashed, and he knew she would threaten to end his fun early. Yet none of this mattered since he also knew that he had the ultimate ace card. He knew a couple of fake tears and a hardcore frowny face could turn her decision right over.
I thought about this for quite some time until I came to the conclusion that our empathy towards others is knowledge that must be learned no different than math or any other subject you learn in high school.
After three years of watching similar showdowns commence, I found that almost all the kids had that same ace that their parents lack. They possess the inability to understand how their actions affect others. They know that their actions will make others sad or happy. Yet they do not feel or truly understand the effect that emotion has on the person’s well being. The son understood that fake crying would make his mother sad. Which would then get her to go against her own statement and allow him to continue having fun. What he couldn’t comprehend was how she felt.
Another example is that these children do not realize the mental consequences of stating that one person is better than the other. I believe this is why little kids are the bluntest tiny humans out there. They simply do not understand what will psychologically happen to these people as they hear the unrelenting truth.
Personally, I have always considered empathy to be a trait that you either have or don’t have. Yet, since we learn it, I now consider it closer to a skill. Nobody teaches you how to feel happiness, but somewhere along the line, we must have been taught how to feel for others. If not taught directly, we may have taught ourselves through life experiences.
And like any skill, some people can learn it quicker and easier than others. People who are labeled as psychopaths, for instance, never learn this skill. Just as some people have the inability to read, these people have the inability to feel for others. On the other end, we have the altruists of society. People are so good at understanding others, they seem to identify with everyone around them as much as themself.
Empathy is the skill to understand how actions will mentally affect others. I think children are little psychos simply because they have not had enough time to learn this skill yet. Like any skill, some kids will learn it before others, or some may even go their whole life not learning it at all. Yet most will learn at their own rate and they will understand the feelings of others more and more with every year that passes.
If empathy is a skill that can be taught, then let us teach it. Yes, some will struggle more than others, but struggle or not we all learned fractions. And if we learn math, then we might as well learn how to care about one another as well. I mean come on, do third graders really need to know how to find the area of a fenced-in backyard or do they need a thorough explanation that other kids feel the same as they do when their toy is taken from them.
We should have a class designed to teach these much needed social skills to these very psycho children. I am not saying to get rid of math, but maybe we have a class called social life. One that teaches us to be empathetic for others. As well as teaches us how to handle breaks ups properly, or explains the ins and outs of awkward conversations. This class would simply teach us how to be mentally stable in a way that makes everyone else feel good as well.
Yes, you can learn these skills on your own, but if I was told to learn math on my own I don’t think I would have made it to triple integrals. I probably would have figured out addition and subtraction and then called it a day. This is how we currently handle these much needed social skills. We learn the basics and then suffer through the rest. I say we fix that, what do you think?
Death. The word alone can shoot shivers down my spine. Many of us fear it to the point of denial. Maybe not conscious denial, for we all know we will die one day, but instead subtle, subconscious denial. It would appear many of us shape our lives and culture in an attempt to feel blissful ignorance from this depressing thought.
But my question is why? Why is death such a sad thing? Why is nobody challenging the connotation of death? And when one does, they are instantly shut down?
Death is the absence of life… the lack of life. And for there to be life, death is inevitable. The very moment life is created, so is its inevitable ending. To start something, it will always end.
As we live we deny this reality. We have created this bubble of mental protection from the idea that we will all be fully dead one day. Once, when we are buried six feet under, and again when we are completely forgotten from everything still alive. Eventually, everyone will die and nobody will begin to live in the first place. The very idea of bringing life into this world is seemingly pointless because that means there shall be something that dies. By adding life to this species, you are delaying its inevitable death.
So are we aware of this? Is humanity aware of the fact that death is the inevitable ending for our entire species? I don’t think so, simply because we see death as a sad thing.
Something that is sad is usually unwanted and/or not required. When we see things as sad we do not think that they necessarily had to happen. Google defines sorrow as a feeling of deep distress caused by loss, disappointment, or other misfortune suffered by oneself or others. I would like to focus on the word loss. This definition states how you must lose something to be sad, yet do we have anything to begin with?
As said earlier, life is the delay of death. Life allows death to be possible. So how are they not interchangeable? For life to exist there must be death, and for death to exist there must be life. Yet we see life as a miracle and death as a misfortune. There appears to be a disconnect from these current truths, which I believe is simply due to us not connecting the dots.
This leads me to the question, why do we not? Why of all the concepts humanity has learned and achieved, we left out the very one that is debatably the most important? The one that has shaped parts of society for thousands of years.
Easy, how could we? How would society have grown to such heights if we understood everything we are doing will eventually be pointless? We eventually will have no society, no species existing, no buildings left to build, and no modernization left to achieve. Yet, the present world pushes on tirelessly.
These “achievements” seem pointless because they must be. The creation of anything is only possible if the destruction of that same thing will inevitably balance it out. Conservation of energy, conservation of mass, conservation of everything will see to that.
Death, the inevitable ending, how depressing, yet how enlightening as well. It does not have to be sad and it should not be. Yes, death is only possible with life, but life is beautiful so let us accept the ending of our stories as much as we accept the beginning. Start living and growing the right way. A way that brings the most people together and the way that makes us the most understanding.
At the end of a great movie, we don’t cry that it has ended. Maybe we cry throughout the movie, or during one of its final scenes, but never because the lights have turned back on and it’s time to go home. No, we wish it was longer, and then talk about our favorite parts. We share all the greatest memories that we have and then go to bed. The day ends, and we move on.
We do not forget the movie, we live with it. We accept it and every part of it. And most importantly, we do not hold back from watching another one. We instead readily jump on the next chance to watch another one. We do this because it is not about the end, it is about the process. It is about the entire hour and a half we sit there living in the moment, happily eating our popcorn. Yes, the ending happens, but there is much more to the story. We thank ourselves for knowing this movie and all its great moments and then continue our day.
Life allows death. This is true, and we should know it. We should know what will happen when we hold our children for the first time. We should know what they will experience when they hold us for the last time. And we should know that one day will be our last. One day we will not make it to the next, and that’s okay.
Once we accept death, we can also accept life. We will not have to drink our sorrows away on the other side of town. We will not have to push away the ones closest to us. And we will not follow a belief system with no scientific logic and treat it as a fact just so that we can feel purposeful again. We will hold everyone around us and smile.
Yes, those people you hold will leave you, and yes you will leave those people, but every great movie is not about the ending it’s about the process.
Are we in a simulation? This question was first introduced to me when watching an interview with Elon Musk. For those who are unfamiliar with such a name, I encourage you to do a quick google search and see for yourself.
Yet you probably will not do that (I don’t blame you, I probably wouldn’t either), so in short he is a multi-billionaire who currently leads the world in space travel with SpaceX. He also started and currently runs Tesla, along with dozens of other side projects in the effort to modernize our world into a safer, more luxurious future. So yeah, he’s pretty cool.
In his interview, he states that there is a one in a billion chance that we are not in a simulation. One in a billion chance that everything we feel, see, hear, taste and smell are actually true. One in a billion chance that you, me and everyone else are, in fact, real.
Now I am not going to lie, when I first heard him say such a tale I laughed and closed the video. As time passed, that instinct to resist such an unbelievable truth lessened. I began to wonder about the complexity of such a statement. If everything was run on a computer no different than a game like Skyrim, then how much energy would that take? Also, if this universe is fake then what is real? What could real even be?
After some contemplation, I have made some personal conclusions on this subject, but I would like to remind you of the fact that there is simply no way, as of now, to truly know how to true our reality is. Therefore, I encourage you to take everything I say with a grain of salt.
This whole simulation theory started with the digital age. Especially with the newest forms of virtual reality, it would appear we have the ability to create the very world we live in. Virtual reality headsets literally allow us to experience something with our senses that does not actually exist in the physical world. This technology is growing with the goal of one day reaching full dive technology. Full dive VR is the attempt to have all five of our senses engaged in whichever world we choose to play. If this is eventually achieved, we would have the capability to immerse ourselves into any world we chose fit, without any ability to register any difference from that one and the one we currently reside in.
There is no guarantee at the moment that this technology will ever be possible. Although, if it eventually is I would make the claim, without a doubt, that we are in a simulation. Just think about what full dive technology really means. We would have the capability to create a reality as real as our own. If such a thing is possible, how can we say that our reality is something separate from all the other ones we would be creating?
Now, as I said earlier, it is not possible yet and it very well may never be. I suppose only time will tell. In the meantime, I wondered what it would mean if we really are in a simulation. For one, that would mean the likelihood of me being real is zero as well. If a computer type technology were to have the capability of generating a universe as large as ours, it would probably have to harness the power of a star. Now if this were the case, the power from a star would most likely be so great that it could seemingly run an infinite number of universes. So I am essentially saying that if you can run a simulation of one universe, you probably have the ability to run as many as you want. If this is the case, then the ratio of living things compared to simulated things would be one to infinite. Meaning, the odds of you and me being real are, mathematically speaking, zero.
The flaw with this theory is its inability to escape from our very narrow vision of what reality is. As of now, there is literally no way of knowing a reality different from our own. It is similar to running an experiment when the experimental variable is held constant. You could run that test a million times and it will never change.
I mean, don’t take my word for it, test it yourself. Can you comprehend a reality different from this one? Not a different world. Not a different species with different rules that they exist by. Not different scientific phenomenons that dictate its universe. I am talking about imaging a reality different from the one you experience. Can you comprehend the fourth dimension, or do you just picture another layer on the third? Can you imagine life that is not defined by its ability to experience the world around it? I certainly cannot.
So, we can never see outside of our reality since we have no other sample to compare it to. This is what determined my final conclusion on the topic. Until someone breaks from this simulated world and comes back to tell us about it, we will have no idea if the things we experience are actually present in the true reality. Simply because we cannot understand a reality separate from the one we live in. Therefore, we are in no position to guess about a possible reality that we cannot even comprehend.
Yet as previously stated, if full dive VR does eventually become possible then our universe is most likely fake if we assume that the real one follows similar rules of reality that we do. I believe this assumption is the best we can make as of now. Until we have more knowledge and comprehension of this matter, I believe assuming that the real reality is the same as ours is the only thing we can do to make any sort of conclusion.
Although it should not be forgotten that all ideas seem impossible at one point or another. We are currently the only known species that can comprehend that we will eventually die. Other species can mourn for the death of their loved ones, but they can not understand that they will die one day as well.
Hence why my statement to leave you with is that just because something seems impossible to comprehend now does not mean it has to be impossible forever. Maybe understanding this reality is not as impossible as we think. It may just take a couple more generations of intellectual growth, and before you know it, the understanding will be as well known as our inevitable endings.
Life is an interesting, unpredictable, puzzling, amazing journey. It is filled with memorable fun times, as well as inescapable hard ones. One that gives us moments of clarity, along with moments of endless insanity. Our journey is on a windy road, at an unclear time with no destination. Life is good and bad with little indication on what side of the coin we will experience next.
And it’s funny because of how subjective the journey really is. I’ve often wondered whether I have it tough or not. As most people do, we wonder if we have struggled and/or continue to struggle. And the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve come to terms that I can not answer this question because it’s simply phrased the wrong way.
I’ve been cheated on in the biggest relationship of my life. I’ve had an ex become suicidal and bipolar (which I could not help from blaming myself). Once I stood helpless as one of my closest friends began cutting themself. I’ve been heartbroken by the loss of friends, family, and lovers. I have divorced parents who raised me in polar opposite environments. And I am diagnosed with mild Asperger’s syndrome, asthma, mild scoliosis, and Celiac disease. I am constantly going in and out of the ringer with depression. And the occasional episode of insanity seems to trickle into my life whenever it can.
So yeah, life can seem pretty terrible, but it’s not that simple. Life is not about our bad times, it is about all of our times. It is what makes us who and how we are. All of those examples include experiences I have felt or still feel every day. I can live with these dilemmas because the things that have happened to me have also created me. And throughout all of this, I like who I am, as I believe everyone should since we are the only people we must live with for our entire life.
Now let me explain my blessings. Starting from a young age I excelled in intrapersonal and existential intelligence. I have maintained a decently funny personality with the ability to usually hold a fun and engaging conversation. I have both a mother and father that are in my life, who love me very much. Both of whom have provided me with a sufficient amount of money, which allows me the convenience of only working for my own income. I have been gifted with athletic ability and good looks, along with amazing friends and great relationships with dozens of people. I excel in college between my social and academic life. And I’ve had amazing romantic relationships with beautiful people, and honestly, I’m excited for my next. And best of all, I have discovered self-developed genuine happiness that largely makes me who I am today.
Life is a balance between the good and the bad. It is unrealistic to think people will never go through a struggle or endure pain, it is also pessimistic to think people only suffer. We all live on a balance between good and bad things that happen to us. Everyone goes through their struggles and everyone lives with their gifts. We all have knowledge that comes naturally to us and knowledge that is impossible to comprehend. We all have things we take for granted and things we feel we cannot live without. Everyone has good and bad parts of their life. We cannot control these things, and nor do I feel we should control them.
We all endure different types of experiences and in response, we should learn to accept the bad and flourish in the good. To accept that the bad times will return, yet also understand that they will eventually end. Living a happy life is not living a life without pain, it is being able to turn that pain into strength. We should strive to understand that our struggles are what creates our purpose in life, and a life without a purpose is the only one we should never live. Life is an unpredictable balance of good and bad times, so let us strive to find the best in everything that comes our way.
Doctor Seuss once said, “Don’t be sad it’s over, be happy it happened”. This mindset is encouraging the ability to see the best in everything, to be able to say that yes it is bad, but also that it is good. I hope you find your balance, just as I did some time ago.
**A point to be made with this article is that I do not address forms of privilege. I find those systems of oppression to be a very different type of issue that I address in the linked blog post I have provided.**
I gotta say, we are awesome. I mean have you ever taken a second to really think about how the world is great? I cannot even begin to list all the things humanity has created and achieved. From our newest technologies to our insightful thoughts of the universe, we truly are an astonishing species. The steps we have taken in such little time is absolutely remarkable.
Okay, here’s an example: take a second to consider what this little electronic box you are looking at is. This device has capabilities that can range from watching a show about the daily life at the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company to sending texts across the country in the blink of an eye. Like… what?
Not to mention what a text message is. I mean how in the world did we go from grunting and groaning at each other to creating words like gabelle (which means a tax on salt for some reason). Somehow we were able to create a system that allowed for our thoughts to be presented in a structured way so that others could literally read about them. This system was then spread and understood by billions with slight variations depending on the region.
So what else? Oh right, has anyone else taken a second to admire our ability to keep one another alive? Sure we have individuals that try to shorten our lives, but wow do we have a lot of systematic ways to keep each other going. Medicine is a compound, created by us humans, to prevent or treat most known diseases. Somehow we figured out that by combining certain herbs and chemicals we could create a remedy that not only improves our health but can also treat and cure certain illnesses. I would love to give a high five to the first guy who did that magic trick.
We can also look at the outstanding structure of our communities. I can literally get hurt almost anywhere and then a fancy motor vehicle will cruise in and take me to a place that is strictly designed to handle people in physical need. And if I get hurt by someone else’s actions, a much scarier vehicle comes over and handles the situation with a bit more force. These services just happen. I do not know these people, but regardless they come and save my ass.
Once they are done doing that, I typically get billed money. Now, although money can be the root of a lot of evil, it is also a super helpful solution to an assortment of other problems we take for granted. Money lets us work together. It gives us a numeric way to trade services so that we can pursue almost any job we want. Without money, I could really only feel safe being a farmer, as that is the only job I would be guaranteed a steady income. If I was a carpenter, I would not be useful to a doctor, since we both have to eat and neither of us would have much food to trade. Money lets us work together in just about any profession we choose.
What baffles me the most about all of these luxuries we take for granted is that we barely even know how they work. The majority of us have no idea how it is possible to read this post I have written in a location different from the one you are in now, at a time different from now. Or how the first person was able to make the sound of the word “thank you”. Or how medicine even begins to work. We have these luxuries and only understand each enough to use them, which I think is the coolest thing we have done yet. Our ability to share and save information. It only takes one person’s discovery to improve the lives of billions.
Now yes, I know there are a ton of problems in this world. I know that billions suffer every day. I know that many of our discoveries eventually backfire or become used for the wrong purposes. But I also know that the majority of them turn out to help everyone, even if it’s just a little bit. So as you sit in your cooled off room on this hot summer day because of a magic box that produces cold air, remember that although we have our problems, we also have found so many solutions.
