Jeffrey's Kitchen Cupboard.

I’ve been visiting memories of my childhood/adolescent years, and I’ve come to realize that the amount of weight one attributes to particular aspects of life has a HUGE influence upon what valuable information they take from the world.

I mean.. When I was a child, for instance, I found sensational things to be the most important. The glow that emanates from lights at night, the sound of echoes across the pond, the voices of the creatures in my backyard. The way that you stop midair in the crest of a jump on the trampoline and how it feels like you’re suspended for a long amount of time before coming back down. The bitter taste of pecans. And the way that the fish in the pond were able to pull so hard on the rod, and the way the rod bent so strongly without breaking.

It adolescent years, it was much more emotional. I feel like I was hardly paying attention to anything physical at all, unless it was noticing changes in my appearance, but even then, the strongest memories I have about my rapidly changing appearance were focused on the anxiety surrounding the change, rather than the change, itself. The social implications of that change.

And I just wondered what kind of psychological paradigm I’m in right now, and whether it will change as frequently as it has in the past. My guess is that it will slow down—I’m not developing much more after a couple more years—and I have to wonder if that’s a good or bad thing.

And I do ponder about this idea in a spiritual sense, too. If there is a spiritual essence about us, what would that change in psychology represent?

It seems that so much valuable information is missed by us simply because it’s not what we’re focusing on at that particular age. But I also think that it could be a developmental thing, as well. We don’t think about other things because we’re UNABLE to think about other things. Mrs. Garlock once told us that they wait to teach Algebra until around 7th grade because kids literally AREN’T able to think algebraically until that point.

But it’s still interesting to think about what caught my attention as a child (lights, textures, etc.) and what caught my attention as a teen (social implications, etc).

This is a huge can of worms that I didn’t even begin to dig into. But I suppose it’s been on my mind, and hey, what’s better about a forced audience than writing about whatever the hell you want?

I think it should be celebrated that there are musical artists that actively pursue different avenues. What’s wrong with attempting to search for new sounds, new structure? We find out what works and what doesn’t. And some of the music that follows the experimental path is really intellectually stimulating.

Though, I have to admit that MANY artists pursue things that are different for the sake of being hip or cool, and unfortunately I listen to artists that do that. Being different for the sake of being different. But despite the fact that THEY may be too blinded by their arrogance to see the occasional gems they concoct, I’m really moved by it.

If I ever begin studying/writing music seriously, I’m going to try as hard as I can to find new things, rather than capitalize on what we deem “good” under current standards.

It’s the innovation that defines music history.

Make the friends in life
Waiting, truncating bridges
Telling you to stay.

I don’t understand how people can be flat-out “atheist.”

I seriously just can’t fathom it. After all of the learning I’ve received, there is nothing that proves to me God’s non-existence. There’s nothing that proves he exists, either, but that’s not grounds enough to claim atheism.

I think the vast majority of atheists are simply agnostics. Many people don’t bother themselves with topics of religion, and that’s completely fine.

Maybe they just adopt the mentality of, “Well, until it’s proven to me that He exists, He doesn’t exist.” That’s credible, I suppose. But there are several things in the universe that we don’t understand. If someone proposed that there was another kind of particle that explained a certain force, scientists wouldn’t say “Oh, well that doesn’t exist because I can’t see it.” I feel they’d say, “Well, it’s possible it exists, but we don’t know until it’s proven.” I think the second is much more preferable than the first, because it keeps one’s mind open to all possibilities.

So why do people have the audacity to claim that God doesn’t exist when they have so little understanding of the world around them? I just.. I seriously CANNOT understand it.

I mean.. Maybe it’s because of violence/hate done by deeply religious people. If a Christian spews nothing but hate on the world or the public accepts the stupid belief that all Muslims are terrorists, then I suppose one could make the conclusion that belief in God is the problem. But that’s such an illogical conclusion to make! What of the peaceful religions such as Buddhism? Just because modern religions may be corrupt and out-of-touch with the modern world does NOT mean that God doesn’t exist.

And, if I understand correctly, atheism doesn’t just deny God; it denies all sorts of spirituality. It’s conceivable that God doesn’t exist but that there is some sort of large structure encompassing this universe and beyond. But atheism denies that claim, too.

It’s like what Paul Hewitt said in the first chapter of our high school Physics textbook: Science and Spirituality are mutually disjoint—they don’t interact. So if you use science to explain why atheism is correct, you’re making connections that aren’t there.

And I can’t conceive of another argument one could make to assert atheism over spirituality.

Then you have Daniel Tosh and other celebrities asserting on national television that there is no God. Who the hell are they to say anything of the sort?

I wonder how many people construct their behavior solely by direct imitation. Are there a number of people that completely lack analysis and synthesis?

I mean… It’s possible that many people adopt ideas solely because they are fashionable. My sense of style, for example, seems completely dependent upon what the public deems fashionable (except for a few eccentricities). There are a number of ideas that people adopt without an inkling of personalization.

But those ideas MUST originate from somewhere, right? But maybe it’s in people’s lack of perfect imitation that creates a change in ideas—kind of like genetic variance among generations of a population.

I suppose it could be argued that all we ever do is imitate—that even the processes of analysis and synthesis are, in themselves, imitated.

… But it seems absolutely impossible for there not to be at least a SLIVER of genuine creativity in people. Accepting the lack of creativity in people is a big pill to swallow. I mean, people find alternatives all the time, and new ideas are invented every day.

… Now that I’m thinking about it, the act of “imitating creative behavior” may be like an oxymoron.It’s similar to claiming that two kids who made A’s on the previous test copied each other’s answers because they both gave identical answers to a multiple-choice test. At a higher level, there IS a system of imitation that exists—of the four answer choices, only one of them is correct—but perhaps the question requires a certain amount of analysis and synthesis in order to be answered correctly. And the other kids in class who made B’s and C’s perhaps fail to synthesize/analyze the information in a way that is meaningful or relevant.

I lost my point, and I don’t think that I proved anything.

Regardless, I feel that some people lack thought. Or, rather, they’re adopting ideas at face value and don’t think any more deeply about them.

fuckyeahexistentialism:

In a single instant the world crystallized into something intensely, horribly real. Every blade of grass either burned with its tiny, indivisible life or radiated agony as it withered and died.

The realization that I was responsible for each and every one of these unique lives flooded my mind, distending it, corroding it.

- Winner of PoMo’s fiction writing contest. Click here to read.