Civilized? Yeah, right.

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." -Aristotle

"They construct ransom letters from biblical passages..." -Flobots

In essence, this post is a sequel to yesterday's entry. Except, instead of satirically proposing we kill the weak, I actually want to rant a bit. Today, I was able to catch the first hour of The Lost Boys of Sudan and it really made me to see how these boys have grown up to come to America in search of help for their country and they are soon "suckered" into American culture. Currently, there is civil unrest in Africa. Peace treatises are attempting to gain ground, but death still continues. In five short years of war, 300,000 people have been killed. Those numbers include women and children. The Sudanese civil war may have had a "peace" treaty, but there is still problems.

Let me say one thing; I'm not a liberal, tree-hugging, sushi-eating person, or anything like that. But I am a humanitarian. I don't propose that the U.S. step up in every conflict that the world has, because we would never get anything done here. However, I am upset that millions have died in Africa, and we go a couple months of higher gas prices and we invade oil-bearing countries. We claim to justify ourselves under the guise of "homeland security" when all we really want is cheap gas, cheap labor, and cheap cheap cheap.

All I'm trying to say is what if we unconditionally loved for a day? A week? A month? A year? You might say, "Well, America could do that, but our enemies wouldn't and we can't take a break for our own safety..."

"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind." -Mahatma Ghandi

So, can America (the "perfect" society) reach beyond their borders and love? In fact, can they even reach across the street?

You know what I hate? The term "holy war." In Islam, it's called jihad. In Christianity (oh yes, Christians have it too), it's called crusades. It basically gives the right to kill simply because one people don't believe as another. I'm not completely familiar with the teachings of Muhammad, but I have read a little bit. (I believe in knowing about things outside of ourselves.) I know that he taught peace and love just as Jesus did. Over time, we have bastardized the holy writings of our ancestors and conformed it to our own beliefs. "Holy war" is a conundrum in itself, for darkness cannot exist in light and bad cannot exist in good. Jesus went to the people, down to where there were, not to "raise" them up to a higher level of piety, but to give them mercy and love. Jesus taught against piousness. I'm not sure if the modern Christian church got this memo. I love it when the church does trips to a foreign land carrying, not the mercy and love of Christ, but the piety and culture of Christianity. I mean to say that some missionaries (definitely not all, I love them dearly) don't go in with a Christ-like mindset. They basically want to integrate them into American society, rather than just teach Christ. It's very similar to the globalization by the Spaniards and British from the 14th Century to as late as the !9th Century. They came in and forced integration and "civilized" society on these Aztecs and Native Americans and nearly wiped out an entire race. Thanks, White People. Culture is a vital part of the world. Every piece makes up a mosaic of beauty.

Well, I'm done ranting. For now. I now this makes little sense, but I hope you see what I'm saying as a whole. Look at the big picture. Look at the canvas of words I'm trying to paint for you. It may be a bit expressionistic, but I hope you see my message.

Sanctity of Life: Relative?

The other day I was watching a squirrel and wondering if he knew who I was. He's just a squirrel. He doesn't care who I am, honestly. He cares if I were another animal trying hurt him; or does he? Maybe it's just about self-preservation built into our genetic code...

Let me start off this post with making it known that I don't condone murder/maiming/violence.

Well, I continued to walk and think. Think and walk. What I came up with is this: What if the concept of human attitude mixed with self-preservation has caused us to mess with the natural flow of life. Our common (and not to mention, modern) concept of life is that humans shall be preserved and animals are to be genetically modified through preventative reproduction. I guarantee you that if we didn't have the modern concept of "murder" that our society would probably be more genetically advanced. That it to say, animals are not connected to eachother as much as humans are. It is said that an advanced society is higher that "preventative reproduction," but as Jonathan Swift pointed out in "A Modest Proposal," the weakest of any generation can be used for better uses.

On a genetic, instinctive level, humans are animals. We have the same needs as animals. We need food and we need ways to get food. Our bodies are made for a hunting/gathering purpose, rather than a quick drive-thru run. We have natural instincts that are put inside of us. Now the bigger question is such: Are we completely repressed in our instincts, or are we simply waiting for the day those instincts take control?

What is a bigger mind-blower is that I don't think we have completely repressed those instincts. How else do you explain war? I mean, in our "advanced" society, don't you think we would be above war for something as unnecessary to survival as... oil? Diamonds? Or even genocide? Who's to say that we are naturally predisposed to mass genocide?

Let me finish up by saying that I do treasure human life (even the "special" ones), and I do not advise participation in genocide. Thank you.

Call me Dreamweaver.

I'm rather nervous about the events that have been unfolding. Not in my own life, but in my dream world. Something is wrong. Very wrong. Just to give a little background on my dreams: I don't have them. I had maybe two dreams a year before about a year ago. I don't know what's going on, but it's weird. Last night is the reason I decided to write this entry.

So, to get a background, I'll let you know some of the dreams up to this point. The other night, I had a dream I was in an old boxing gym, like in the Rocky movies. Suddenly John Candy is sitting beside me smoking a cigar. The funny thing is: I know I'm dreaming and he knows he's dead. We start talking about acting and watching this boxing workout match. Suddenly, I know what he's there for: he's meant to give me advice. I start asking him questions on life and love and happiness, and he, surprisingly, gives me good answers.

Anyway, last night, I dreamed I was in bed and I look out the window and I see a beautiful day, then a giant storm cloud comes in slowly and almost sucks the daylight out. It's raining now and all I can see is this dark cloud. I try to tell people to move for the storm and I'm speaking Japanese. After a bit of speaking Japanese, I get drafted into the Peace Corps and sent to Japan to work in a hospital. All these people I'm working with have been working there for years and I have no idea what's going on. I turn a corner and I'm in Africa, and there's all these people bleeding and dying, missing limbs. I jump into action and I just start putting limbs back on people and stopping their pain. In one big jump, I'm on the quad at HSU and the storm from earlier is still there coming at me and no one notices it. Once again, I'm yelling in Japanese. I go to the Peace Corps office and they tell me that I'm AWOL and try to arrest me, but I explain that I have to finish college before going into the Peace Corps...

Then I wake up.

This is just a sample of the dreams I have been experiencing. The shocking part, these aren't even the worst. I don't know what to expect tonight. Or the next night.