ericboy's Diaryland Diary

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\"And I Don't Want the World to See Me\" - Goo Goo Dolls

Why do we think? As a race, I mean. Why? I don't know how often it crosses your mind. For me, it's about once every three months or so. I think about what Humankind has done, who we are, what we are, and why we are. I've been known in the past to talk about experiences that everyone can relate to, and as I get older and more culturally aware (sensitive) I realize that there is no such thing. There is nothing that everyone can relate to. Only in our small, concentric minds do we believe that all people share our abilities and feelings. They don't.
"What is the purpose of life?"
To love and be loved.
That is correct, for people. But what of animals, plants, protozoa, bacteria. Is the purpose of bacteria "to love and be loved"? No, I don't think so. But when we pose questions like that, great philosophical questions that generalize our ability to generalize, we're not thinking of non-sentient beings. Yet everytime we blast another rocket into space we cross our fingers and hope to find "life" out there. All we need is carbon to satiate these hopes. But look what we've done to ours.
Why do we think? Why can I sit here at this computer, which was conceived, built, and maintenanced by Man, and wonder why I have higher brain functions? The mind's ability to question itself is one of life's great mysteries. There's that word again: Life. Whose?
I think sometimes of how I'm going crazy. I'm not going to sugarcoat it; I can see it already. Little things that I do. Little things that I can't not do. They're the work of a crazy person. Someday I won't be so aware of the oddities, won't have a filter for the idiosyncratic flurries of compulsion that I have now. I'll cease to be a slightly charming neurotic and just. be. crazy.
But while I can I like to sit in a quiet room or take a moment while washing my hands in the bathroom and look at everything around me that Man has fashioned from the Earth and his own imagination and wonder why? If we can doubt our governments, our gods, our buildings, our economies, our cars, our computers, our morals, our instincts, then what's to stop us from doubting our own minds into inaction? Will there be an upheaval, a coup? Will we revolt against ourselves, our own inner-selves, and install sanctions on our minds? Eliminate thought? Squash doubt and uncertainty before they begin? Program ourselves to believe in our unerring pursuit of betterment? What would that make us?

Pets of ourselves. We'd be our own pets. In the cages we made for ourselves. We'd never even stop to think that the cages could be broken out of, that the chains could be broken. We'd never even stop to think.

We make movies, we write books, we put our thoughts and our ramblings and our last-ditch efforts towards immortality in little white boxes on incandescent screens. We are constantly thinking, but seldom do we think about why we think. Seldom do we show reverence for our ability to... show reverence. Sure, neuroscientists do. Philosophers do. Psychologists like to think that they do but they don't. They just want to see what certain chemicals can do. They just want to make the brain "better", never once marvelling how perfect it already is. What fascinating machines are we! All that we've created are graven images to our own bewildering inner-workings! I wish more people would take the time to worship themselves. Then we wouldn't need all of these chemicals. We wouldn't need 57 different weight-loss "specialists" with 48 different schools of thought. We wouldn't need Reality Television. We wouldn't need three thousand dollar suits. We wouldn't need to fill these empty spaces in a busy digital hum.

We would be all we needed.

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One more thing: Maybe I missed the train on this one, but when I hear the band The Gossip performing one of their hit songs, am I supposed to think that it's "good"? I mean, is that what "Good music" is supposed to sound like, because I don't get it?

5:13 p.m. - 2008-05-01

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