Damn Baby You Are Beyond Mortal Comprehension, Wanna Make Me Insane?

On Suffering

It seems evident to me that all living creatures must, in some form or another, suffer. So ubiquitous is the evidence for this, that I am forced to believe that the ability to suffer is a requirement for life. Even the most basic life forms who have no mind or complex thought to speak of are able to feel or experience discomfort. This, I presume, is a necessity to ensure the continuation of the individual and of the entirety of life. The modern scientific definition of life is quite in agreement with this, in that it recognizes that for a something to be termed alive it must respond to external stimuli, pursuing that which promotes its well being and avoiding that which has an opposite effect. 

The complexity of a species, or of a being, determines the complexity of its problems. The most basic of life also has the most basic of needs and adversities. Our species, like all others, began with the simple task of surviving, procreating, and expanding. Harsh climates forced us to create clothes, hunger transformed us into better hunters, gatherers, and eventually cultivators. We learned and adapted but our problems did not disappear, they were only replaced. As society began and grew, so too did many new issues as a result. As we learn to solve those and in so doing manage to progress our way of life, new challenges arise creating a constant need for improvement. All life follows this pattern. Certain struggles are presented and life must either adapt or perish, and, in the case of the former, what follows are brand new challenges equal in complexity to the new and improved life. Following this mode of thinking, it becomes clear that our modern way of life, indeed all of human greatness, is only a direct result of constant adversity and our attempt to overcome it. 

In this way, it may be said that all of life has been leading to us now. That many of our comforts, luxuries, and joys are the result of countless others who underwent more basic struggles than ourselves. And so we believe that suffering is a necessity for life and as such cannot be called evil or wrong in any inherent manner. If it has been through adversity that life has progressed as it has, then the true evil is found not in suffering but in suffering pointlessly. And since suffering is indispensable to life and its forward progress, then it must be that insofar as suffering may be called evil, it simultaneously represents an equal good found in the potential for improvement and the bettering of life.

This mere chaotic peace between wanting to be the greatest and wanting to rot in the room all alone for the rest of eternity.

Feelings are feral things

Half of them want to be free

Half of them want to stay in their cage

Thing is

You can't leave the door open halfway

.

And you can't take the sound of them

Banging on the bars

Shrieking to be loosed

And you can't look them in the eye

Or you'll go insane

.

Feelings are feral things

Half of them want to be free

Half of them want to stay in their cage

Thing is

You can't open the door halfway

.

You can visit them sometimes

The pieces of you that live in a zoo

Just remember -- don't feed the animals

And never give the tiger the key.

06/04/2021

How can meaning be found,

When light keeps pouring in and out of you?

 Blinded,

yet everseeing.

 A call for higher purpose,

an eagle’s cry

heard in the distance.

Pain is seared in the follow-up response,

Nothing alike earthly sensation.

It stretches far and wide,

beneath your body,

above your soul,

nowhere in the middle,

for it does not locate

where the mind can get ahold of it,

 Has destiny been set on stone,

or is the latter our own pliable existence?

 “Repond.”

 “How?”

 “Just respond.”

 For longer than an eternity could ever be,

it waited.

What for?

 For oneself,

no sin can be condone,

no doubt can be harbored.

 To build yourself,

You must be destroyed.

By what hands,

Will determine the freedom of your well’s boundaries.

 To be teared up,

And shown bare in your true essence

 Oh how tangible can pure fear be.

 Now drown in yourself.

Now be your fear.

Now,

play in your abyss,

for there is where your meaning resides.

“I walk along a street and see in the faces of the passersby not the expression they really have but the expression they would have for me if they knew about my life and how I am, if I carried, transparent in my gestures and my face, the ridiculous, timid abnormality of my soul.”

—

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

I think millennials don’t want to have children right now because they’ve seen their mothers (baby boomers) make up for what they missed out on from becoming young parents. The ones I’ve seen have failed miserably at doing so.

Since that fateful day in 1492, Columbus has been seen as a hero in the eyes of Americans. Recently, the horrible crimes that he committed have been the topic of a national conversation. Columbus Day is certainly a hot-button issue, but there is only one morally sound decision: America must abolish Columbus Day and replace it with a day to honor his Native American victims.

As his explorations have become a staple of U.S. history, Columbus has been molded into a symbol, not a real person. Many supporters of Columbus call him a “symbol of American success”, but he was more than a symbol. He was a complex human being, and idolizing him lets us ignore his flaws. Columbus has come to represent heroism and exploration. These are important values, so why should we taint them with Columbus’s name?

Columbus does not deserve to be honored for making a navigation mistake. On his expedition, Columbus was attempting to sail to India, not to the Americas. He ended up landing in Caribbean Islands through no effort of his own. This mistake resulted in Native Americans being called Indians for centuries, an inaccurate label. 

Columbus is often credited with discovering America. However, he didn’t discover America, because the Native Americans were already there. It’s impossible to discover a region that’s already occupied with millions of people. Furthermore, Native Americans were extremely knowledgeable about the climate and ecosystem of the Americas, and deserve honor much more for their contributions to our understanding of geography. 

Columbus enslaved the Native Americans, seeing them only as a means to profit. This wasn’t his first time trading slaves, though. Before his expedition, Columbus made a living selling African slaves in Portugal. Through his ventures in Native American slave trading, he created the Transatlantic slave trade, setting in motion our country’s most shameful and horrific piece of history.

Columbus was responsible for Native American genocide. He committed the first mass genocide of Native Americans, a massacre of 8,000,000 people. Within one generation of Columbus’s arrival, about 15,000,000 Native Americans were killed. By time Columbus left, only 100,000 Native Americans were left, and by 1542, there were only 200.

Columbus day isn’t just not “politically correct”. It’s a holiday that celebrates one of the most evil, genocidal, and racist people in history. His kill count is on par with everyone killed in World War I, and yet America still idolizes him. It’s the responsibility of legislators to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day.

Like a candle

set aside in wait;

Etiolated,

no more than ornamental.

Its life comes to a stand still.

No purpose,

yet—

hopeful.

The true flames

erase time.

They engulf the deepest of feelings

one can conceive.

Defying common laws,

negativity

turns into bright flames.

Scorching hot...

...happiness?

Blinded by reason

follow the heat

slowly abating in corners of your body.

There,

lies truth.

There,

lie your answers.

Happiness is not far away.

The scariest part of a depressive episode isn't crying due to the intense sadness and pain, but when you can't.

Art by Claralieu