Life, purpose, meaning, and some random thoughts.

So I think this is my place for thoughts that are too boring for Facebook and too long for twitter. It's where I can write down things that I think without worrying about people actually reading them.

That said, I have a couple of things I want to talk about.

First of all is my health. I wrote, shit, like, 20 entries about my health woes...which was just speculation, fear, and a bunch of dumb shit for the most part.

It was inane and myopic, but this is my damn blog so I get to be inane and myopic as much as I goddamn want to.

As it turns out, there's probably nothing wrong with me physically. I did a bunch of things between when I first started to feel symptoms and when those symptoms subsided, and any one of them could have fixed things:

1) I wasn't sleeping well during the worst times because I was raising an infant. Eventually my son started sleeping through the night, and when that started happening my symptoms subsided.

2) I had my wisdom teeth pulled. They had been a source of concern to me because of how the actor Andy Hallett died at 33 (infected tooth to heart disease to heart failure). My wisdom tooth hurt frequently and smelled bad, so I figured it was rotting in my mouth and infection was around the corner. The tooth was removed and my symptoms subsided.

3) I went through a battery of tests and none of the doctors could find anything wrong. I'd had my suspicions early on that the root of my problem was "panic attacks," but saying that and believing it are two different things. My doctor prescribed Xanax (in miniscule dosages) to take when I was feeling an attack. I took it infrequently, and now I have a bunch of unused Xanax pills in my medicine cabinet at home, gathering dust.

So that's it. I'm better. Sure, I still get moments of panic every now and then...but it's nothing at all compared to the shitstorms I used to experience. I don't know if I fixed it, or if the doctors fixed it, or if it just went away...I'm just happy that it's gone.

JUST LOOK AT ALL THAT FUCKING HAPPINESS!!!

Other stuff. (best transition ever!)

Just as a warning, this second part is going to get really boring really quick. Also, I'm about to write a bunch of opinions and shit that are probably really stupid, contradictory, and quite possibly offensive.

If any of that stuff bothers you, you may want to stop reading here.

Okay. You've been warned.

I've been thinking about human existence a lot recently, which is something we humans do. It's what makes us human, right Descartes?

Thinking of how fucking amazing my deltoids look...

Mostly I've been thinking about life. There's a kind of magic that is associated with life, which makes sense because it seems like a magical thing. We cannot create life from inert materials, and we don't even know how we could (though there are theories) so the mystery is enticing.

But I had a realization today...and I thought I'd share. I don't know if it's an original or even a well-thought-out realization, but I'm going to say it anyway.

What if "life" just came about from natural, predictable processes? As humans, we tend to believe that every system has some kind of definitive start point, like, "Here's where we were amino acids, then lightning struck and then we were living things."

What if it wasn't that simple? Or more accurately, what if it was more simple? What if life is just another predictable step in the timeline of our planet? What if it's just a byproduct of combining a bunch of inorganic elements, mixing in a little heat and pressure, and letting it stew for a billion years? Why is a living thing given so much importance? Everything in the universe started as this singularity and over billions of years formed into the universe we all know and love. This means that every thing we know was once a collection of  hydrogen, helium, and lithium atoms.

Life formed in the same, miraculous way that everything other thing formed...and death is nothing more than entropy.

Of course, this "life" thing is what allowed humans to comprehend and explore concepts like abiogenesis, panspermia, autocalysis, and divine creation. But life on earth has only been around for 3.7 billion years...which is 1/4 of the age of the galaxy. It's a relatively new thing. It's interesting, sure, but I think it's just another system in a complicated universe that has been twirling about for 13 billion years (which is a really long goddamn time).

What's the point? I don't know. I think the point is that there is no point. The entirety of human existence is nothing but a tiny, insignificant pixel of a pixel (yes, I know, that's not a revelation). I don't think the creation of life should hold this sacrosanct place in our minds, and I'm not convinced by any argument that starts with the premise that humans should avoid "playing God."

Stop that!

Life is just another aspect of the universe that should be examined, explored, and exploited to its fullest extent (so long as there is no harm done). We should treat the examination of life in the same way that we treat inorganic sciences. Ambiguous moralizing about the sanctity of life has not, and probably will never persuade me.

For example, I think environmentalists have a bit of a marketing problem...because their arguments are constantly framed in the context of "Save the Earth, keep things beautiful, and animals are people!"

LOL that walrus thinks he's people LOL!

Frankly, the Earth doesn't give a shit. It doesn't need your help, and it's going to be here long after we're gone. The only real threat is that big glowing yellow thing that will incinerate the Earth at some point. And it's not that animals are people, it's that both animals and humans are organic creatures...and can only survive by eating organic material. Whether or not plants, animals, or human have feelings is irrelevant -- one is going to have to feed on the other to survive. It's a brutal world, but that's how it works.

What environmentalists really should be saying is "Let's save humanity by preserving the place humanity lives!" Environmentalism is not, and never should have been about the environment. And while I'm at it, people who think that animals are morally and spiritually superior to humans are simply traitors to the human race, and they have no idea how actually shitty it is to be a member of the animal kingdom.

Environmentalism is about people. It's about preserving the only thing that keeps us alive (it's the thing that holds all of our food, water, and shelter, so it's pretty goddamn important). I agree with the concepts, but I hate how the message is being delivered.

I realize, reading this back, that I come off sounding like a bit of a sociopath. I'll reiterate; it's not like I have some kind of attachment disorder or whatever. I love humanity, and I feel so many feels on a daily basis (more so now that I have a child). I love life. I love living, and I would never want to intentionally deprive anyone of their ability to enjoy living their life. I'll often cry so much when I'm alone at how much pain and suffering there is in the world, and I'll stare at a flower for hours until I'm overcome with...

Ugh. Can't do it. But everything else is true except for that last sentence.

Life is great, but life is not magical. I only like life because I happen to be alive. Once life stops (as it does for every living thing) I won't really care one way or the other. In fact, it looks like I just created my new epitaph: