Passion-ate/less (AKA how the hell dont you have a hobby?)

Audrey Kawasaki.
I'm pretty sure she literally does
nothing else at all but this and its beautiful

Have you ever had an itch? Not the kind that beautiful organisms like crabs can provide.

I mean an itch. A nagging need, to do something specific.

I don't mean,

Fucking
sleeping
eating
drinking...
drugs
alcohol
work.

I don't mean going out to get wasted, or to engage in superficial interactions and call them social events.

I mean a burning desire to invest yourself into something that may very well only captivate You and you alone.

Is there something you obsess over so much, that when you engage it, you lose track of all time. Bending so unapologetic to the strange hunger that you simply have no concept of it... it seems to last forever, but then end far to early.


Do you know what you like?

Have you ever really stopped to think. "What do I believe?"  "What do I really think?"   "what do I really want?" "what do I really like to do?"

Do you drift through life from moment to moment, and engage only on the most trivial of levels with the world around you.

Could you sit in a room by yourself with nothing else, and not entertain yourself with the incredible dialogues of your own ideas on that which you are most passionate about?

No?

Then you are passionless.

I encounter a lot of people, who really genuinely don't seem to have any hobbies or interests beyond a superficial appreciation.  People who genuinely, come home from 8 hours or more of work and don't do anything.

People who also seem to have no interest in how existence works and whats going on in the world. They seem caught up in reality TV or Famous people, or money or buying things. You ask them their opinion on something but they don't really known enough to care, and are not interested in trying.

I find it... gross.

I try not to be judgemental and always objective.. but with this I cannot help it, I will definitely admit to having an extreme sort of discrimination against this type of person.

Really its just more of a shame I suppose, but I do know there is nothing more beautiful to me than when I see people who are passionate about something.

Now I will preface this by saying there are some types of passionate that, when misguided can piss me off more than anything (religious or political zealots. Conspiracy theorists), but those are not the types I'm talking about


           One night when I was in a hotel in California while doing some training for my job. It was about the second night I had been there and I was still not use to the time zone differences. It was probably about 12 AM in San Jose but in Baltimore it was about 3 AM. I was trying to keep myself up to get use to the time difference, rapidly flipping through channels for something to watch.  I had just about given up when I stopped on some type of spoken word performance. I had no idea what it was... but as I watched it I became so emotional that by the end of the performance.. I was weeping like your girlfriend at that movie " the Notebook".

Here's a preview for that program, I later found out it was called, " Brave New Voices"



This is from the 2010 grand finals, look it up and watch it if you can.

I had no idea what was happening to me, I had never seen any like it.  Such, raw, uncensored passion, pure and eloquent. It unwound knots of emotion in me that spilled out from my face and by the end of the hour long program I was weak and drained from it. It wasn't just that a lot of the content was sad, no. I had never seen slam poetry like this before. These were young people, screaming at the top of their lungs, the most honest and passionate things I had ever heard. Young people Demanding to be heard by everyone about every current topic and about life.

I wasn't crying because I was hurt by their painful experiences, I cried because I was hurt by hope.  The hope that in reality, this world is not a colorless as it seems, that the Human race, holds more to it than just the zombification that seems to be our future. I've never seen anyone express their anger, or sadness or nostalgia in such a honest way.  Passionate people, who are emotional about the world they live in and the state that its in. The innocence they have lost and how they cope with existence.

Yeah, I've seen art, Ive seen talent, I've seen the confidence of skill and had my breath catch in my throat at the awe of genius. But passion, this was something that I had long forgotten existed in the world except for that which I felt. To see it reflected, broke down every barrier I had and I was happy for it.

      I realized that there are even things I love which lack that passion, and I had no Idea.  Music seems like such a key representation of it but in reality,  so much of music is packaged and sold to us that it too is passionless.   Especially now a days, we listen to music that tries to emulate, an existence, a passion that we felt way back when and now, these shadows of what was, have us nodding our heads trying to get that feeling back. Believe me, the current iterations of the music you love will not make you feel the same as when it was innovative and passionate.

Don't get me wrong,  there will be moments,  certain artists or songs that bring it out of you, Like this Song by Janelle Monae



Honesty, Passion.



Believe me,  the difference between the first time I heard bands like Poison the well and Hopesfall or Wu-tang  and the music I hear now will never effect me the same, with the few rare exceptions. I realize its why I began listening to older music. Much older music, symphonic music, string quartets, by Shostakovitch and Vivaldi. Feeding off of the sad melodies and suddenly passionate  build ups,  the complexity that bled every ounce of emotion from me. I sought out the simple honesty of old folk and country music, big band and early 1900s music, the misery but hopefulness of chain gang chants. Early hardcore the sound of desperate youth. Early hip hop, the sound of a battered race, that from experience created an incredible culture. 

Even art and writing..  mediums, to tell information. It took me a long time to understand that my penchant to draw and write were passions to generate information which I am passionate about, Ideas and story arcs. But even in art that is not narrative in itself, there is information that fills me with excitement.

A few of my favorite Artists  Ashley Wood and Bengal,


             

Ashley Wood

Bengal

Images of Woman and robots and intense color. Seemingly obvious because they are well done and pretty, but what do I see that underlies the complex lines and color palletes, is the simple LOVE of the human body. The absolute passion for female curves and shapes that I share with these artists is delicately arched into existence, and fine tuned.  The love for mechanical things and a vision of color.  An artist can narrate such passions and you might never know it because he or she did it because they love it. You might never even have seen what they have done and it wouldn't matter, they do it for themselves.

90 percent of the art and writing I do is just for me.. even the studying I do is just for me. I feed on knowledge, and understanding like its all  that exists in the world. Most of you who know me realize that at every moment of any day I am lost in a constant day dream and that even while you are talking at me, I'm on a sort of auto pilot, giving you the most minimal prerecorded answers possible (mostly so you will leave me alone).

I promise I will explain why, in another blog post. Just know for now it has to do with an uncontrollable passion.


If there is something that you would drop everything to do.  Something that wouldn't necessarily make you rich or even earn you money, but that you could just do all day without having to worry about anything else.

If there is something in this world that makes you go " Hey.. Hey wait this.. This moves me! I'm not a ghost, I am a passionate human being"

Rejoice because it is a beautiful and seemingly rare thing.


Anyway..

Ill see you in hell

-We Are Hell

Fuck Medusa's head (aka. Learn to think about stuff more)

I apologize that its been a bit long since the last update, but I took my time to work on this next post because it is both especially important to me and especially in depth.

I'm sure that you can tell by some of the links I may host over on the side bar, that I am a some what skeptical person. It's true, when someone comes up to you and your friends or colleagues and starts telling them about some new product or treatment they heard about, or some personal story about ghosts or aliens, I'm the one jerk that begins asking questions about the credibility of their information. It may seem like I'm just being doubtful or arrogant or close minded. What I am truthfully doing though isn't being skeptical, arrogant or close minded...  in fact what I am really doing is thinking critically. I am applying the scientific method to both the information I am reviewing, and to my understanding of the subject. I am actually being more open minded than people who except information without a filter, by taking an objective look and critically thinking about whats being claimed.

The skepticism comes afterwards..

I should say that there are things I am typically skeptical of, because the subjects may raise certain red flags, or are subjects that are typically wildly speculated about. things like, Alien abduction, ghost encounters and big foot of course, but also things like sensationalist words "Organic" "chemicals" " Energy" "psychic".  The list could go on.. but it basically encompasses unsubstantiated claims and pseudoscience.

But having the ability to think critically about something is much deeper than just being skeptical about things. What is the point of being skeptical and debunking things just to debunk things?

Besides shit loads of fun.

The Truth Is critical thinking is a major skill that is completely under taught, under appreciated, but absolutely essential to maintain a logical and reasoned society.  It prevents people from understanding things based off of more than just feelings, and induction.

First there are some thing I should define.  As i post my blog entries there, and delve in to certain subjects there is some air that must be cleared.

 Lets start with:

I could post the dictionary definition  here, but you can go look it up yourself.


ok fine here it is

from Dictionary.com

sci·ence

/ˈsaɪəns/ Show Spelled[sahy-uhns]

–noun

1.

a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.

2.

systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.

3.

any of the branches of natural or physical science. 

Fine, but what does that mean?

well to simplify it,  Science is a collection of systems put into place to objectively test observations about the physical world

That's it.


Its not a religion.

its not a belief system.

its not a political party.

Its not an opinion.

its literally just a system of checks and balances that objectively examines data, and evaluates evidence.

its a just a tool,  a method for understanding our universe.

when you hear people say that "science, is trying to hold back the cure for cancer!"  they are literally saying Gibberish.  Science cant hold things back or have an agenda, because all it does is look at evidence. If evidence is negative or unfalsifiable, then the "secret cure for cancer" is most likely not plausible.

enough about that, lets save it for a later blog post.

Today we are here for Critical thinking



So then what is critical thought and logic?

Its a simple formula.  Science applied to thought, to set an objective basses for how ideas and arguments can formulate. A method for ensuring that our understanding of information and our interpretation of that information are not prone to be feelings or fallacious.

Look... you've got a dick load of information that flies at you all day like screaming Medusa heads in a castlevania game... and anyone who has ever played one of those games knows those fucking Medusa heads are BULLSHIT.  Most of the information you will come across will also probably be bullshit or desperately in need of some type of filtering. More importantly though you have to protect your mind from all angles... especially yourself.

                                                    Yeeeah, whip dat bullshit Trevor

We are human. The first thing you need to realize as a human is that you are fallible, and that you're mind isn't perfect and that you don't know everything. When you make basic assumptions off of subjective experiences and reasoning, you are preforming something called inductive reasoning. The problem of induction, is that it typically cannot stand up  to an objective method of checks and balances

An example of which is something I frequently come across daily

" Ive had a device like this all of my life and I've never seen it do this before"

That doesn't mean it cant.....

A person has induced that due to their own prior experience with similar devices that a particular issue or feature cannot be possible on this particular device, despite no other assurance other than that of personal experience. Their reasoning is inductive because it was gathered only from what they personally know, with out regard for the fact they did not bother to learn more.

A simpler example that is more well known uses swans to explain.

"I have only ever seen white swans, therefor all swans are white"

This inductive reasoning is of course negated by these mythical creatures

When someone does not take the time to, increase their own knowledge base on a subject, or check sources of information about the issues or claims they are making they are liable to fall to the fallacy of arguing out of ignorance, because the only attempt they made at understand it is scant or nonexistent.

People can also be ruled by feeling, because of induction. "I don't under stand, but I feel this is right."
In my last blog post I described how I had trouble with coming to terms with being an atheist because it I couldn't get over the feeling of wanting to believe in god. Despite all of my research and understanding, because I had emotions about the subject I felt that it had to be true. I could not fathom that the emotion itself was something that could be a flaw.

Just because we are aware enough to recognize that we have emotions, does not mean that the emotions them selves are anything special. Being objective means recognizing and eliminating bias to form logic.

In a real discussion or argument, an argument based off of how you feel about someone or a subject is garbage.

"It's very unlikely that the US government caused 9/11"
"But, George Bush is a corrupt selfish idiot!"
"That doesn't mean he caused 9/11"

Oh conspiracy theorists...have fun jumping at shadows

You cant just except everything you experience and hear or read, leaving the door in your head wide open to every crackpot Idea.  You've got to ask the questions that help you discern whats reality based, versus what is hoopla.

You've excepted that you are human and cant know everything, but then how do you verify the reliability of something?

By asking questions!

You could go with the heavy Socratic Questions,
A method Developed by Socrates, of asking questions that helps one objectively gather information to analyze

Are you making assumptions?
What evidence is there?
Is there reason to doubt the evidence?
What are the consequences or implications?
Are the questions I'm asking relevant? If so, which ones and why?

Yeah that may seem a little heavy for some of our common, day to day interactions. You could leave this method to things you want to check out with more time or preparation. Especially things you are interested in or are planning to be involved in (read: new age or fringe medical practices).

For you more common occurrences  you can at least abide by the "who, what, where, why, when, how" questions.

What happened?
How did they do this?
Who said this?
when did they announce it?
why haven't we heard about this?
where can I look this up?

Bam..  you've just taken the time to critically think about a claim/issue/subject you've heard, seen or read.

Rather than just taking the information for granted and excepting it because it was said.  Now in your free time if you choose to you can learn more about the subject, check the sources, deem if the information is credible or if it is the, some non peer reviewed jargon or urban legend.

You have the ability to detect and sift through bullshit, not fall pray to being taken advantage of, or flat out debunk a fallacious statement and encourage reason.

Of course for some of your more common urban legends, or "first hand account stories" this is harder to do especially when its a friend or someone you consider reliable.

The key here is really to just stay grounded. How likely is the event in question? If its claims are to good to be true or super natural then there is reason to be scientifically skeptical. Seriously! I'm not saying that cause I'm close minded, I'm saying it because all we have to go on is evidence in material reality. Supernatural claims typically have no way of testing or falsifying the evidence even f there is any and when something cant be tested its likely not plausible.

"I know a dude who says he can fly!"
"holy crap, can he show us!?"
"no he says he can only do it when nothing else is around"
"...oh"

or

"My mom can predict the future!"
"Oh My SHit can she tell me when I will die!?"
" No! she can only predict the future of random people she doesn't know. She predicted that a person would die in a car accident, the next day there was a car accident  on the beltway!"
"There is a car accident on the beltway every day......."
"I know but isn't that creepy!?"

..no

Another great tool?  Google! When you hear something that has the makings of a great urban legend. Look it up! Most of the time you will find that the story has been passed around or modify for generations, or that the information is rehashed versions of some old already refuted hoopla.

An urban Legend that I encounter almost daily is this.

"Oh man! you re name is great... You know I know a woman Named Ladasha!? She spells her name La-a!"

No you fucking don't.

I've heard this over and over again in so many different variations, mostly because it is similar to my own name. I've seen it passed around in emails and on websites.

Whether or not there will be a person named La-a in the near feature doesn't matter( although it would be the worst). You don't know a woman named La-a, and My research on their even being one turns up this fake Facebook profile.

This is the most awesome wall post.

GODDAMN RIGHT!

You wont always be able to tell when something sounds fishy of course.  Brian Dunning on his Skeptoid podcast, describes some red flags you can use to detect, bad claims and what not. Its a great introduction to get you thinking. Another great source on living as a scientifically skeptical person in a world that is full of terrible Ideas is Carl Sagans, The Demon Haunted World.

Critical thinking is essential. For some reason though the entire world seems to lack the ability to do it. The only way you can have a truth argument about something is when you arguments are formed from logic and have had critical thinking applied to them.  The entire world  from governments to media outlets seem to completely ignore  this fact and barrage you instead by listing opinion as fact, or not checking facts at all.

Believe me.. Just because its on TV does not make it true.. and I'm not just Talking about these Ghost adventures shows. I'm talking about the Bon-a-fide NEWS. Local, network, international. Even the outlets that are suppose to be "Fair and unbalanced" (shut the fuck up Fox News) and are suppose to be the epitome of Research and Journalism can often times feed right into feeding pseudoscience and  or not using scientific skepticism.  Whether they are parroting sensationalist claims or giving the same equal status to unsubstantiated claims as they would to scientific theory, they are just as capable of causing misinformation.

In the end, dont just take my word or anyones word for whats going on in reality. Take the time, ask the questions and do whatever research you can.

Critical thinking and scientific skeptism are not going to hurt you.  You may be comfortable going through life with out them,  but with these thinking tools you can avoid losing money to bunk products and claims, possibly save yourself froma lot of wasted time money and possibly pain by not being fooled but newage and quack medical treatments. You would be extremely surprised about the time wasted over useless claims and conspiracy theories. (If you ever want to see what it looks like when people who believe in conspiracy theories waste their lives, head over to Stormfront.org. I promise you'll be entertained or cry for the death of reason.).


The scariest thing about the fact that these tools are not held in high esteem, is that we seem to be heading back in to an era of superstition and fear mongering.  The last time we lived in an era like that...it was called the Dark Ages.

When the most popular shows on the history channel are about ghost hunting and portals to hell.. I begin to worry

If we all prefer a world where superstition leads our lives and witch hunting is common. then fine Ill go hide in a cave till you all die of fear and not knowing shit. ..

You can have these dudes lead an army against ghosts

Hopefully I've at least peaked your understanding enough to further investigate critical thinking and scientific skepticism in life.  I didn't go into Logic and many logical fallacies as much because well, the rabbit hole runs deeper than the mines of Moria, and I will save it for a later day.

I did post a Link to the top 20 fallacies that the world makes over in the links section, you should give some a look.

anyway..

Im telling you.. those fucking medusa heads were SUCH. BULLSHIT.






BULLSHIT.

Ill see you in hell..

We Are Hell.

God is unncessary (Why I am an Atheist)

So, how did I go from superstitious god fearing child to, skeptical dude with a hunger for science?

 I wanted a great cataclysm that cracked the world.. and split humanity from its stuck little places..

I’ve always felt .. even since a very young age that this is where the world is headed..  in my mind and heart, a great war was coming.. a great end. That I should live the last of my days in the struggle of survival, by law of steel and fang.

     I’ve never understood exactly where this instinct had come from. I wouldn’t actually become aware of it until years later and even then did very little to analyze its origin, nature and effects.

    at first applying the concepts imprinted on me by religion, since at a young age it was forced upon me and my construct of reality. A part of black culture I could not escape.  The words end of days, and revelations, associated with the coming of god and the war on earth between good and evil. It seemed natural to me that even as I out grew literal understandings of religious things, that the emotions and feelings that this powerful story incited, would remain. This hypothesis would still seem far too empty in the end, as my religiosity would approach zero.


 I was a superstitious kid, and  was deeply into fantasy and Sci-Fi, from too much of reading, movies and video games. My entire world and understanding of it was shaped by these things and still to this day I joke about how these things raised me. Religion would further my intense interest in demons and hell. I relied on these understandings as though they were fact, praying for help to god when times were tough, wondering at the symbolism behind these seemingly cryptic replies...

Until...  it stopped making sense. how is a universe in which a god exists but acts in such a way that you cant tell he exits, so much different from a universe where doesn't exist at all?

... i know now why I wanted a great cataclysm..  its not what I really wanted, what I really wanted was meaning..  the meaning to life. A great cataclysm , was a representation of the moment I would have to pick up my role in the meaning of life.

I had to understand what reality is.. I had to understand how it works.  What is the point of it?

    Knowledge in all of its forms having always been my truest passion, and science the best aperture from which to gain it, furthered my understanding of the world at its more basic level. math, physics, geometry, geology, astronomy started such thinking, my analyses continued.

What dire and abstract reasoning, only because as out of place as I have felt, these thoughts  and studies distanced me further still from my situation. 

I was stuck

Not only in my role in life, but in the debilitating struggle of my knowledge versus my actions. I never wanted to be this. Struck content, and sliding through existence on the charted path of giving up. In fact it is everything I have ever fought against. That which I would never let myself become.

Content. Giving in.

I still rage against this and though close, so close that I would fall with my face inches from the bottom, eyes shut and hoping the bottom was not as close as I felt. I brandished that which fills that spark. that curls my lip and makes me shiver. That need to drink pure understanding from reality. To imbibe it and feed my moments of euphoria.

So I did.

Day after day, though I felt the veil pulled over my eyes, hiding my lack of action. I swelled with a litany of observation and information.

During a debate in a class on logic, over determinism vs existentialism, the conversation turned as it often did toward the whether or not gods existence mattered.

"if there is no god, then how can I find a meaning to life?"  Said a classmate, who opted for the deterministic approach of a plan laid out by God.

Curious. The answer became obvious to me even as it dripped from my lips in a dry and irritable compulsion.  "there is no general meaning to life, you attribute meaning to it yourself.  " I retorted. (I was/am a huge jerk)

At that moment chaos theory made perfect sense to me,

As did probability theory.

But as I cocked my head and studied the boy who had spouted the original argument with hopeless exasperation, staring fearfully at his hands and then around for any who would help him. I suddenly had an epiphany and understood then why I was loathsome about human nature. I said it easily enough, with mostly curiosity, but i suppose my follow up was in fact ripe with impatience

"you mean,.... You really sat back.. Waiting for some god to give you meaning to your life? How long have you been alive without living?"

My professor interjected himself here, a clear severing of what would have most likely been a cruel engagement.  But I saw the tears in his eyes.  I saw him still staring down at his hands , silent, awestruck, and beneath the lenses of his glasses a well of tears which formed the corners of his eyes and snaked down.

I kept staring. Not out of malice but pure fascination. Had I really just torn down someones defenses, sundered the pillars that held up his world? Had I really watched someones understanding of existence collapse. He was standing in the rubble of his unchecked reality. Something I would later call a paper bridge, the root of my studies on humans and existence

 I was cruel in my youth, I realize now. I still may be as cruel when getting a point across, but what I learned about people was directly gleaned from that experience.

When one came to a gap in their knowledge that could challenge their understanding , they built a paper bridge. A temporary construct that had enough support to help them cross this gap. But something so poorly conceived would never hold up if stood upon. Typically when forced to deal with this gap, their world collapsed and they would either survive it to make it stronger, or not survive and fall prey to a weakened mentality. They call it, "The god of gaps"

The next phase of my observation would take me far longer to flesh out, but was marked by a sudden understanding of the politics and mass thinking that was engaging the war on science and  reason itself

My resolution into an atheist took sometime...  Even before arguing in philosophy class, my objective reasoning only took me as far as the agnostic principles.

Religion, whether genetic or memetically ingrained, the questions of how and why still lead an ignorant youth to a universe where god might exist, (though with little to no anthropomorphic characteristics.)

But it was exactly that.  Ignorance, the day I understood the processes of evolution and the creation of the universe, my necessity for god went from possible to unnecessary.  Even then, I did not reason myself as an atheist.

This video taught me the absurdity of the thought that the universe was made for us, and that all things seem perfectly suited for existence




I followed the war between science and religion aching from head to toe at the irrationality of what was happening.   History denial. Science denial, all on a principal of chosen ignorance..  I could sympathize with religious scientists who could path the paradox of belief and  science.  But to see our world literally in the grips of the small minded.

The day I stumbled upon TED Talks, and listened to Richard Dawkins a call for militant atheism, is when I first began to critically think about my position as an agnostic.



What caught me is, that everyone is agnostic by default.  logical people whether that are religious or not,  know they cannot know for a certainty that god exists or he doesn't. To say that you know or don't know for a certainty makes you a zealot, in either camp, and to say that you re agnostic is an unfinished statement. Not an exact quote, but I vibrated with the tenacity of what he meant.  Of course no one can KNOW for certain. That is the nature of faith and also the nature of scientific method.   But with the evidence I have for understanding reality, I could easily base my life on the principal of gods existence being completely unnecessary.

Reality felt cold and some how. I remember turning in my thesis to my professor in logic class and his words were.

"huh.. a universe without god, and the consequence of being sentient enough to why?........ this seems, true.. its hard to dispute but.. so cold.. and just.. "

Cold indeed... it felt like something was not right.  I studied biology and evolutionary biology, with the hopes of filling that void. I could completely describe the process and the complete theoretical path from a pressure point in nothingness to the birth of a universe and stars,  to the development of DNA in puddles of mud, to the evolution of strange upright walking primates, who like to make weird laws and pretend they are special and buy things, while breeding like pond scum..

                                                           There is no god

                                                            Not a single god.

why did I still want there to be a god?.....   A friend would bring to my attention, the studies that aching question.

Religion as an evolutionary tool? A mechanism for survival? Here is a link to such studies

Put simply Example of this in use could be as follows:


Two separate families of prehistoric humans, become trapped in two different caves during a long blizzard or drought.


Family A: the family prone to magical thinking, assumes a position of helplessness, humbled by the idea of a higher power that will get them through their troubles.  They wait out the Blizzard or Drought, and are seemingly rewarded with its end and the chance to pass on genes that are prone to magical thinking

Family B: the rational group, knows the reality of the situation they are in, survival becoming as an imperative, the actions they take possibly lead to betrayal and likely cannibalism to survive the storm, or drought, Since they know these environmental hazards may not end before they die or starvation and thirst. Thus ending the gene pool less prone to magical thinking.

That was it..  The yearning for a god and an answer to the question why am I here, was not in and of itself special...  I had to think objectively and step outside of myself to answer the question.  The angle I was attacking the question at had the "feeling" of yearning god as the bases for my question. but in reality I should have been asking why should there be a feeling at all! this is the bases of Critical thinking.  Objectivity in understanding the whole without biases.

It was the Day I watched this talk by Neil Degrasse Tyson, that not only did I not need a god.. I felt better than ever knowing that I was apart of something even more spectacular. Stars... and the entire universe.

Please if you have 16 minutes.. watch the entire thing.you will be moved.



Brilliant.  The most moving concept ever..  My ancestors were Stars and suns.
This would move me. Powerful, arching light of knowledge, and the passion about science that I had had billowed through me..  To Know.. to touch the knowledge of something so immense and elegant. I would never be the same.

I was an Atheist..  A feverish challenger of faith and poor logic,  a deep drinker of natural history and understanding. A Preacher of how amazing out universe is...


Through understanding nature and the scientific method, Through skepticism and inflection. Through crticial thinking, I determined ... there was no need for a god in the universe,  I dont know everything.. WE dont know everything, but I know from history that we can and will always keep learning and expanding knowledge..   Tha that God of Gaps, is an antiquated Idea...    I may not understand the next boundry of our knowledge but that doesnt mean that someone else who comes along may not either.

anyway,  I'll see you in hell.

-We are Hell

May 21st-22nd? Rapture party!

If you had not heard...

              May 21st is the Rapture! A super awesome day where lots of people will suddenly disappear or fly up into the sky or something and leave us down here to hang out with the devil!

If you haven't already seen the billboards or heard the claims, a fringe group of christian evangelicals has claimed they know exactly when the rapture and subsequently, the end of times will occur. Their website, http://www.ebiblefellowship.com/outreach/tracts/may21/, goes further into depth as to the methods by which they came upon this exact day.

I could go into the amount of bad logic that went it to their pseudo-scientific approach to discerning their beliefs, and I definitely will at some point, but why I am posting about this at the moment is, I believe this is a great opportunity...

to have a big ass 2 day party.

That's, right! lets celebrate our sinful ways as the apparent heathens that we are and Party all night and day as the ones who are left behind! Finally no more traffic Jams!

OK... well maybe since people might be driving and suddenly be yanked out of their cars there will still be cars everywhere... but that really just means FREE CARS!!

Just think of all the stuff they will leave behind!

                                                              I call dibs on this van

Join us! Spread the word! Party your hardest! A global 2 day party as we get free stuff and get a whole lot of preoccupied space back!


Look at how much fun we are gonna have!

 - We Are Hell

Why Donald Glover is important (to a kid like me)

         I've been watching Donald glover since his days on Derrick Comedy(link). My favorite of his skits involves a student pooping his pants in class.





         Unbeknown to me, his career developed quite some amount since the time I first noticed him. At first his role in the television show Community, then it was brought to my attention that he could rap.

and I mean rap his ass off. I wasn't told like, "hey you know that black dude from community could rap?"

I was at a friends house when he just showed me a video (this video) of a dude rapping hard as shit, and suddenly I recognized him.

I said, "....is that the dude from Derrick Comedy?"

My friend, "yup... he's tight as shit"


I was DONE. I used something called the internet to study the subject more, and found that the dude is in fact quite a phenomenon.

So why is he so important to me.

I'm a black kid, which is tight, but my issue is, I'm a black kid who comes from a middle class suburban upbringing. When I say suburban I really mean like deep in the woods with like... horses and deer and shit. I was an awkward youth who never paid attention to what race I was, and mostly stuck my nose in books, played in the woods, played videogames and drew pictures. Life was good until I went to elementary school and met other black kids.

My elementary school was further in the suburbs towards the city, where black folk became more common. It was in this place that I leanred I was a a gigantic "bitch ass nigga."

No no it wasn't because I wasn't a giant, even in grade school, I was a stone heavier and a head taller than most kids. It was simply because I wasn't black enough..I didn't care about music, especially rap. My mom bought all my clothing and most of the time I had no idea what I was wearing.  I played games like "Giant Robots" instead of any sports at all.

I never got beat up. My size assured me that I'd never get assaulted and I never had a lack of good friends or good times. However socially I developed a crippling fear from always having to defend myself against other black kids because.. well  we just couldn't relate to each other.

As time moved on this problem became worse. Add to the list, private middle school, of which I was one of 7 black children, who liked reading and videogames... well you get the point.  It took a long time and a years of being comfortable in my own skin before I out grew my shell.

My point, besides making myself look terrible, is that Donald is an artist I can truly relate to. I love hip hop,  I love culture, but I am never going to claim that I struggled to survive growing up, or that I had a criminal background.

Nope, I loved tight beats and a wicked flow, but aside from the fact that I liked fighting and talking shit, I couldn't relate to hip hop as much as I wanted to.

I rocked Eric B and Rakim, Pete Rock, Nas, Common, The Wu, all that shit that came out when I was young.

It took years of growing up on my own, and hangin' out and observing and learning before I could understand and relate in someway..

It still wasnt where I came from, not exactly. I'm still black and I know my history, but my struggle growing up was in defending and proving that I was black enough to the other black kids, including members of my own family.

Thats what I appreciate about Donald. Childish Gambino could spit sick about how I pretty much grew up, and what I have to deal with.

A lot of his songs like "Freaks and Geeks", talk about other niggas calling him faggot and talking shit because he's a nerd.

Songs like "Break" talk about growing up with girl problems, from being a nerdy ass black kid to suddenly being the hot shit.

Yup.. yeah me too.


I'm a lot older now, and a lot wiser. I've reconciled my youth with who I am and I assure you, through being a black male and surviving on my own I can relate to things alot differently now, but its good to know I wasn't the only one who had to go through what I did to get where I am.

So Donald, from all the the middle class black kids like us.

Yay Nigga.

-We are Hell

Smile or Die. (AKA Optimisim)

         

          When I was young I always assumed that I was strongly incorrect about most things in life. Typically when I noticed things and then saw no one else pointing that something out, I kept it to myself and assume that I was wrong. I still do this for the most part, although now, instead of assuming that I am wrong, I put quite a bit of research into the subject. One such subject is something that I have combated with over and over. It is a virtue that my father often tried to instill and beat me to death with (not literally).

Optimism. 

I know what you're thinking, "Whats wrong with thinking positively about things?" 

Well.. nothing, if they are in fact positive things. But that's not exactly the type of optimism I'm referring too.
 

What I am referring to is the type of thinking that urges you to ignore the bad consequences and possibilities of an event because realistically looking at something and weighing its consequences can be shunned as being pessimistic or negative.

A forced smile, doesn't negate reality.

Person A: My boyfriend and I  have been together for almost a year and decided to take it a step further! We've decided to have a baby! I know I'm only 21 but I'm just so excited.

Person B: Oh? Wow! That's a pretty big step. Are you sure you are ready for that? Don't you both live with you're parents, and not have jobs? It's pretty hard to raise a kid even for people who are well off.

Person A:  Uhg! You're not very supportive if I would have known you'd be so negative I wouldn't have told you.

It seems like a rather extreme example, but I'm from Baltimore and the amount of college age kids who never went to college, don't even have GED's but do have kids would probably make an anti-abortionist point and say, "fuck abortions, but someone should have aborted you"

The truth is, that being aware of negative consequences doesn't make you a negative person. Focusing ONLY on the negative consequences makes you a negative person. But you can be aware of the negative aspects of something and still act with a positive outlook. Knowing both the positive and negative effects of any decision or action makes you informed, realistic, better capable to handle those negative things when they do come.

They try to push this concept that being optimistic means being brave and responsible, but keeping your head in the sand just makes you ignorant of whats really happening around you. Not brave.

Too often I see it the ignorant paraded out as the heroes they are not. When in reality my hero's have always acted in spite of the odds, not out of ignorance.

                                                          Nigga's who knew the odds.

       I know, I know, over played, but the actual history behind the subject solidifies the idea of bravery. .


"Shh, we don't need to talk about negative things. Lets be optimistic!"

This especially holds true when it comes to businesses and jobs. The silent hush that falls over coworkers when higher ups pass down new initiatives and those who promote these new initiatives, and the demands of your leaders to be optimistic about this change.

I respect any boss who can stand up and say, "listen... this could be tough, this is what has to change and it could cause us these problems. But this is what is expected of us. Keep your heads up and support each other," Yet in the corporate world no one seems to find this virtue appealing.

While privately I lamented at this absurd reasoning, that everyone seemed to want to enforce, it takes all I can to not want to gag when someone begins to preach optimism in any means.

Luckily I came upon this video while reviewing the RSA site.  On the case against Optimism. Which broke me from my despair over the subject and sparked this post.

I told you dad.

The rather strange backwards expectation that you have to pretend that there are no negative consequences, and feel ashamed if those negative possibilities upset you, is an inhuman and even cruel assertion.

"You better be positive because it will get you further and smooth things out." "What you put out into the world, you get back!" "If you think about bad things, bad things will happen"

Screw that... we're adults..  and this is not the dark ages we don't live lives that need to be ruled by superstition. Don't talk to me like I'm a child. Don't talk to me like I'm an idiot. I know full well that you can walk down the street, smile at someone, give them a nice, " hello sir" and get punched in the face. Life doesn't have rules like The Golden Rule.

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is a human concept.

I'm not saying its a bad concept, There is no reason to act on the assumption that everything is horrible and that people should be treated like crap.  On the contrary, I'm a fervent activist for being polite and bright in your daily interactions. But personal experience has taught me that I can't depend on or expect the same of others... life is chaos (to most of us), you can endlessly promote nothing but positivity and still end up some Jane or John Doe, floating in Dru Hill Park Reservoir.


People try to feed all of that karma energy crap to me, as though its a science. I can tell you that if anyone ever comes up to you and starts talking about how being optimistic about something "cause quantum attractions in the universe," he's fucking lying. He may not know he's lying, but that still doesn't make it true.... just makes him ignorant.

I cringe anytime anyone starts to seem like they are going to talk about such nonsense.  It's the same shit I've  been hearing from people over and over since I was young. There is nothing like asking someone for advice or getting into a good conversation about life and having them slip into this preset automated speech that immediately turns you off  toward any conversation.

Look I'm not saying that you've got to shoot down every ones ideas, bum people out, and just generally be a shit. I know those people. Just don't be afraid to think realistically about subjects. Weigh the pros and cons and then act.

Keep it realistic

-We are Hell

What the fuck is this

What the fuck is this?

        Yup, for a first post I've got little to say, but I'll start with this; There isn't much to me. I'm a guy. I like artwork, I like doing illustrations and writing fiction. I play video games and make music and yeah whatever. I'm a skeptic and a strong proponent of science and critical thinking.. I work with computers. I've had some art and short stories published in a few local magazines, links to which i will post at some point. I'm in an amazing relationship, and I'm close to some of the most amazing people on earth.

Yeah yeah boring. So why am i posting on a blog?

Two Reasons:

Reason 1. Earth is dumb

Reason 2. life is over rated and I'm going to prove it.

There is actually a third secret reason but you need game genie to unlock it.

ok ok

 Season 3. I like art stuff.

               Here in I will be collecting, articles, stories, experiences, art, news and hopefully convince all of you to destroy this stupid place.

I'm only kind of kidding.

I'm going to dig through the bullshit of every topic from how awesome having shark teeth would be; to culture, science, religion and politics. In as raw and non-politically correct a format as possible.

So prepare for things that you have likely never seen! such as;

Critical thinking!
debunking stuff like a mother fucker!
A person who likes video games!
the inane(or insane) pondering of a troubled mind!
the word "fuck" fill an entire blog post!
The rap musics! And music where dudes scream or sound like girls!
Lots of spelling and grammar errors that I will disguise as slang!
And a logic loving atheist who has a rather disturbing affinity for the devil!

All this and more from a fat black college drop out who is borderline illiterate!

I encourage Dissension,  I encourage Discussion

All I ask is that you read up on you're logical Fallacies, site you're sources or know when you are arguing opinion and avoid Godwin's Law!


Enjoy!

-We are Hell