Shining Thru

It’s interesting to think that we only see the world through our perspective, it’s like we wear blinders to the rest of the world or to the way other people see it.  The way we were raised is “normal” to us, but to someone a block away may have lived a completely different life growing up and might think that your way of life is odd and unusual.  There is nothing wrong with the fact that I don’t think that “normal” actually exists, at least not past our own reality and concept of it.  The problem is when we don’t stop to consider or respect the fact that other people are going to see things differently than we do.  The way we see things is only our perception.  We can’t dream of what might go through someone else’s mind, even if they are in the same situation as you and seeing the same thing as you, they could be and probably are having a completely different experience from you, especially if they have grown up living a different life style than you. 

I don’t understand why people can’t stop to consider that their way isn’t the only way, and just because people see things differently doesn’t make them wrong.  I wish people could open their eyes and see things beyond what is right in front of them.  A lot of time people choose to be blind to certain things…I think that politicians do it all the time.  Things like public education is changed all of the time by politicians, but the likelihood of their children going to public education and having to deal with the result of the laws being passed is slim….if there is any chance at all…their kids are going to private school, and therefore I can’t imagine that these politicians have any idea what it is like for a teacher to have to stand in a public school classroom and try to enforce a law made by a politician that has never had to teach or deal with their child in a classroom that has to abide by the law. 

I think that we are all guilty of being blind to another person’s point of view at one time or another, but I think that as a society we should work harder to find acceptance in our differences and simply be open to the fact that not everyone sees things the same and everyone’s experiencing something differently, despite the fact that we are all in the same country…we should really take the time to consider what another person might be seeing or experiencing.

I’m amazed at how different people can be, even while living in the same “American culture”.  I grew up in Michigan, but am now living down south.  I had to get use to many things when I first came down here and I seem to get introduced to new experiences and rules all of the time.  I have really enjoyed the Southern ways so far, people seem more friendly and open and have a lot more manners and respect for people than where I am from.  It took a long time to accept that the guys around me were going to do all they could to get to the door to open it before I could.  I remember being confused the first time a guy came to pick me up and came to my side of the car to open the door.  Things like that just didn’t happen where I’m from. 

The social network down here also seems to be set up differently and most families stay close all of their lives, not just emotionally, but physically close to set you up for a nice support network.  It’s been really interesting to be able to observe all of these things with the people that I have met down here.

Even down here there are a multitude of different cultural experiences depending on where you are or what group you are hanging out with.  I find it so interesting that people can live in the same city and live so differently.  Not that anything is wrong with these differences, nobody’s culture is better than another’s; they’re just different.  I find that I like the differences of the south vs. the north that I have been exposed to.

Do you ever feel like you ruin everything…that you are undeserving….that you’re tired of feeling guilty and sorry about everything that happens? 

Sometimes situations present themselves as if they could have been totally different IF only….

If only I hadn’t said that and ruined the mood

If only I hadn’t done that and scared them away

If only I had gotten there five minutes earlier

If only….

If we counted up the if only’s of the world, I think we would be wasting our time, just like we are when we can’t stop thinking about the IF ONLY’s…..It didn’t happen that way, you didn’t do what you think you should have done with hindsight, you didn’t get there at a different time, it happened the way it happened….why is it so hard for us as humans to accept the reality that we have created?  It seems like so much of the population spends their time on regrets instead of moving forward, learning from it and moving on….I wonder who much we could get done if instead of think about the what ifs and regrets of the world, we spent that time being productive and moving forward into the future…I realize that statement is slightly contradictory, but I think that it illustrates the point quite nicely. 

If only we spent less time thinking about and wishing for the IF ONLY’s…..

Have you ever been so confused by something that you were involved in that you simply replay it and replay it in your head trying to figure it out….Unfortunately all that happens sometimes is you get angrier and angrier with yourself trying to find the answers because there is no explanation for the confusion, you did something, or something happened for no reason, what so ever…..I hate feeling angry with myself….

There are other instances where replays can make you feel angry as well, like when you say something you wish you could take back, or when you think of the perfect come back, right after the conversation is over and the moment for it has passed and all you can do is replay the situation in your head and insert you witty remark. 

Why do we torture ourselves with replaying situations and moments that are over and done with in the past….there isn’t anything that I know of that can change the past.  Once it’s done, it’s done.  Now that it’s over, we need to learn how to let it go…turn off the instant replay and move on…..

I’m sure life is out there. We need only look harder. Considering how vast the universe is, we’ve only breached a billionth of a percent of a billionth.

Religious wackos refuse to believe in Alien life because it goes directly against their vanity at being created in God’s image. I can’t take them serious because they subscribe to notions passed word-of-mouth for the better part of 10,000 years. When the story was finally written down, it was written wrong. Then right before it hit official print, a group of people – who thought that God’s universe revolved around THEM – decided to leave out any part of His word they deemed unimportant. The bible is the original Wikipedia with fewer citations. Whatever your religion is, your creation theory is stupid and illogical.

I believe that in God’s multi-verse there must be another species that’s made it out of the primordial soup and sought to reach the sky. So here’s another theory:

I believe in aliens. We were created by aliens and left here.

That is why we constantly look to the sky for our God. It’s genetic memory of something we had and lost, even if we don’t know what it was. We have a natural imperative to worship the sky. Maybe that’s why we spend every day on our knees begging to be let back into heaven, or Eden or whatever you want to call it.

Religion seems to be the universal search for a God, or gods. Those that abandoned us here, they probably left us here because we were fucking pests… We are a failed experiment. We got too damn smart, too damn fast. Like rats out of their cages – or the Flood from Halo – we developed the need  and ability to consume but never developed the ability to control it. Greed is our most natural trait, and it consumes us as we consume everything else – over and over and over. Anonymous said ‘those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it.” We know this and still manage to repeat it….

Maybe we’re a virus spread out of control. Maybe we’ve been put here in this purgatory to find enlightenment – this could be our Universal Time Out. Maybe we’re here until God figures out a humane way to deal with us. If we behave ourselves, if we get our shit together, maybe God will come back for us one day. If not, he’ll just leave us here abandoned in this dark wing of the galaxy like an experiment in some dark chasm in some archive somewhere. We’re so far from the next possibility of civilization that we’ll either bomb ourselves back into the bronze age or not make it off this blue rock before our star explodes.

Maybe this is God’s plan.

The way men and women think is completely and totally different the faster everyone realizes that the faster we will all be a lot happier.  Now I know that there are a lot of comedy bits about the difference in the way that men and women think, and everyone laughs, but what makes them so funny is that they’re normally true.  Women need to realize that for the most part, men are straight forward and honest and need the same in return, I don’t know why women expect men to be able to read their minds, or have some huge underlying message, or objective….Women on the other hand, are almost never straight forward about things and they get their hopes up when statements are made with “IF” statements….now if women stopped for about two seconds and thought about the actual meaning of the word IF they would understand that it’s just that, if this happens then we could maybe do this…..but instead women think that plans have just been carved in stone and are really upset when they don’t happen, or when they realize that the man didn’t have the same understanding…

Why is it that a woman expects a man to know that when she says she doesn’t want him to come to her aid, she really means that she is desperate to see him…why not just admit that you want to see him and then everyone will be happy because everyone will know where everyone else stands, what is desired, and how to achieve happiness in the situation….instead women as a whole (not all women)  make it way more difficult then it ever needed to be, but stating what is only obvious to them, not to anyone else, and if you call them out on it, they look at you like you’re the enemy and that you should have understood the first time. 

I really don’t know why men put up with women.  I have my guesses at what a man would tell you as to why they do…Generally when I wonder about something that has to do with a man, I simply ask him…and generally speaking the answer is a lot more straight forward and simpler than I ever could have imagined. 

I do wonder why men and women operate so differently and sometimes on a completely different playing field…

There is a reason that they say opposites attract…I was having a conversation the other day with someone who pointed out an aspect to this theory that I had never thought of before.  They stated that our minds look for symmetry…I started thinking about this and it makes a lot of sense.  People who are considered beautiful, are generally thought at least “market pretty” because their faces are as close to symmetrical as possible. 

The more I thought about this concept the more I realized that a lot of the time the symmetry comes from the presence of the opposite of any given thing.  Good vs. Evil; man vs. woman; light vs. darkness; and so on….it’s why we look for something yet to come in a movie, we’re not satisfied until we’ve been on the emotional roller-coaster.  We just can’t seem to get closer or don’t feel complete until the opposite of something is present.  Which takes me back to a theory that I’ve had for quite awhile, it just seems to make more sense now.  I have thought for many years now, that the definition of a word is not necessarily as important as knowing it’s opposite.  Without an opposite something cannot exist…I’m sure there could be holes in this theory…but it makes a lot of sense for most things…think about it, something like hunger…if being full didn’t exist, there would be no point to hunger, it simply would be and therefore wouldn’t exist…it would just be a part of our living condition. 

Do things exist without their opposites?  Or do we just not feel complete until we get the opposite and therefore don’t recognize something until the opposite has been made clear?

How can the love of one person make you feel like a whole person?  How can a simple feeling make your life feel like it has a purpose and a reason to keep going?  I don’t know how to explain how much this feeling of what I believe to be true love has affected me, other than to say it has completed me, it has made me whole, and I am terrified of losing the other half…the other person is what makes this feeling so powerful and I’m so scared that I’m going to lose out in the end.  I know I will continuing living and working….but I highly doubt that I could ever feel this kind of passion again.  I think this is a once in a life time experience and I hope we are smart enough to hang on to it and not let it slip through out fingers.

It’s so hard to know that you love someone that you may never be able to be with.  I don’t know how to accept the fact that I have no control over the fact that I have found the love of my life and don’t know if things will turn out for us to be together or not.  What makes it even harder is knowing the alternative…knowing the choice that needs to be made.  Knowing that I am asking a lot of the man that I love.  But I can’t help the fact that I love him and when I’m not with him I feel a slight emptiness and miss him very deeply.  He has become a huge part of my life and I love everything about him.  I hope that just this once things can work out, I want to spend the rest of my life with the person that I love.  I want that person to be with me because they love me and not be in a relationship out of obligation.  I think that everyone deserves to be with someone who loves them as much as they love that person.  I know my love is pure and will never cease to be, I’m terrified of what will happen if there comes a time when I will not have permission to show my love any longer.  I don’t know what I will do with out the touch and kiss and long conversations….I love our intimate moments as well as our silly ones, I don’t want them to stop and simply be memories, I want it to go on for the rest of my life, as I know that the love that I feel will continue to go on for as long as I’m alive.

It’s amazing how easily someone’s feelings may be hurt.  You can hurt someone with something so small to you, maybe even just a simple remark, question, or statement; maybe you don’t even realize that you have crushed their feelings. 

What about when you know that you are over reacting and still can’t help it.  When you know that someone would never want to hurt you, but you can’t help but feel the sting of their remark?  How do you get rid of that feeling?  It’s easy to say suck it up and move on…unfortunately no two people’s minds work exactly alike and what may seem like one simple comment to one person may spiral into a whole big scenario in another person’s mind.  Maybe that comment has emotional consequences that you can’t even begin to fathom…..

It’s probably the other person’s fault for letting their feelings take over their logic for that amout of time, but I think that most people struggle with this battle throughout the day.  Sometimes something just pierces you and you can’t help but associate it with other things in your mind.  It’s nobody’s fault really…because you can’t help the way that you feel.  I don’t think you’re suppose to help how you feel, but it is important to deal with them and not let them fester until the point when they will explode and there wont even be that logic behind them to let you know that you’re over reacting and not being logical. 

I think it’s important that we realize what great power we have over the people who are close to us.  However it is equally important for us to realize when our feelings are not being logical and probably have no merit in the situation to begin with.