Quote of the Day

"Do you know why they mock you? It is because they are weak."
                   -Eric Vergnas

"Time"

Time... Time towards death? Time after death? The time it takes to decompose a body; the time it takes for a dead person to die... I like time, but I don't understand it... Does time go forward? They say that on the atomic level there is no reason that time should travel forwards and not backwards. I don't understand that. "On the atomic level"... On the atomic level all actions can be reversed, given a gigantic battery to power them. But the reverse is not the same as "going back in time" It you're doing photosynthesis in reverse, you have cellular respiration. Those aren't the same, they exist in the same direction. What about an implosion, then? Is it the opposite, or the reverse? I want, and yet dont want to read blogs on quantum physics.

What is the difference between opposite and inverse? In math its pretty easy. 2+2=4 thats the base. 2-2=0, thats the opposite, instead of adding you substract, but the basic law on which the units are based upon is the same. So you're upshifting by two, or downshifting by two, but in -(2+2) you're driving in reverse. Is this time going backwards? Photosynthesis may be the contrary of cellular respiration, but they operate within the same universe, the same "time" which flows forwards.

What am I saying? Obviously it is not possible for a process to occur backwards... My thinking is limiting time as the absolute invariable, which it is supposedly not.

Anyway. What is circular time-

Did you know? Time is a human construct. It actually slows down as you move away from earth. I can't understand the mathematics of the concept, to me it seems as though this suggests that we "created" time for ourselves, and so "time" only truly exists on our planet. At least, linear time does. In our perception.

What is linear time? Did you know? Apparently, there is a certain pattern to chance, if your randomized experiments at an  infinitely great scale, you would find a pattern Apparently, computers are able to map that pattern, and it is an infinite pattern. It seems that even linear time is not actually linear.  A person's day is linear: morning, noon, evening night. And then the day ends. This is how humans perceive the world. Birth, expansion, prime, deflation?, death. And there it ends. But if you look at the greater scheme of things, after death a person's body enters a variety of complex circles, gears, whatever, is broken down and then reconstructed and becomes life anew.

Did you know? They say our universe is changing temperature. It was very warm during the big bang, and now that the universe is bigger its colder. Probably, it will get small and hot again. Will that be the ultimate death? No. Everything suggests that once it is small it will once again explode. And the universe will begin anew?

Is there a set amount of matter in the universe? Is an atom indestructibe? Is an atom only indestructible on this scale? Is life like the chance grid, infinite gears turning infinitely, inside one another infinitely in both directions? What gears are atoms a part of? What gears are the universe a part of? Is an atom the same as the universe? Is this "life"? An infinite infinity of reoccurring occurrences, each following a gear with a different size? If that is how life works, then what is life? It doesn't go straight, does it? It goes round and round, again and again. Life, death... death only exists as a part of Life, a segment in the merry go round, that's colder than the rest.

How did we get here? Were we always here? What is the dawn of time in this context? We have to come from somewhere, right? Our linear mind is unable to comprehend the unending vastness that may comprise this - universe isn't vast enough of a world - this reality. TIme in our sense flows forward, but really we have no real beginning to it nor any true end to it. That's because we're so small that the gear looks flat. That's massive, man. Truly, we have our place in the universe, if it is such. Or perhaps we are meant to understand the way life works. Perhaps we have done it before... Time and time again.

[edit] Ah... so this is where the theory of parallel universes comes from. Wow, this is really old knowledge after all... I wonder, how far ahead is the government in relation to the common folk...

Bugs are bugs and plants are plants

On raising children

I was in the school library and overheard a child crying. His father and he had been to the children soccer games earlier in the day and had left the child's winter shoes and his toy helicopter in the gym, where they had been locked. The father had to call in a person that had the keys on a saturday and have them open the door so that the wailing child could get his helicopter - he didn't even care about the shoes.

But if it was just for a toy, couldn't they have waited to monday? Was the child crying because he was sad, or because he wanted the helicopter? If it was the latter, then he should have learned that crying does not solve your problems in the real world - but of course the parent pulled all the stops in order to satisfy his kid. Would I have done that? Would that have been the right thing to do? In the end, the kid won't appreciate the effort his father took to please him. And he won't love his helicopter toy more. So then why?

AMBITION

www.onemanga.com/akumetsu/

This is my ambition. Read it. Read it all. Its fucking good, so far anyway. It's been a long time since I've read a manga of this caliber, In fact I've only ever encountered 4 or 5 that are around the same level. Of course they're not in the same categories, not necessarily, but comics of this intensity are few and far between. As of now, there are three authors whose names I remember and who's stories are very good; Inoue Takehiko, Mitsuru Adachi, and the Akumetsu duo, write Yoshiaki Tabata and illustrator Yuki Yugo, there's also the person who writs FMA, although I don't know- Hiromu Arakawa. Perhaps Yellow Tanabe squeezes in there. Tite Kubo might have been there too, at the beginning. Now Bleach is more or less just a regular battle manga. I don't care about renown, about how many assistants each has; renown does not really influence the quality, I think. I think that writing good stories, drawing good stories, comes from the heart.

This is the level of story that I want to write. The art is excellent. The story is top notch. So far there is nothing I can criticize about it.

[edit]: I've just read half a chapter and once again I think it's amazing. Holy shit. This is a true Seinen manga, not that ecchi garbage.

[edit]: Actually I am starting to notice more than a few elements that seem to be inspired from the new Batman movies. Well, the second one, really. But I don't think that's bad...

[edit]: I had noticed for sometime that Akumetsu has many characteristics that are similar to the anime and manga Death Note, however for the sake of argument, Akumetsu vol.1 came out in 2003 while DN vol.1 came out in 2004. I feel that awesome stories should not be compared to other awesome stories. In the end, the skill of the writer (and artist) is evident in both cases.

This is my ambition as a... I suppose I would be a graphic novelist. I should read graphic novels, but they're not free. This manga however, I must purchase when I encounter it. Out of respect. Same goes for REAL. For H2, Vagabond, Cross Game. Fullmetal Alchemist fits in there too, but most everything else pales in comparison. I can't remember the names of the countless other manga I've read. Except the really popular ones. Those ones often don't deserve their ranks. But this stuff, this stuff is the shit.

THIS is my ambition.

Secret and the Me generation

Wanna hear a secret? There's a few people I secretly wish come through here occasionally to read my blog. I want them to understand what I'm thinking. I want them to know that I'm learning, bit by bit. I want them to know. About me. Me. ME! Its all about me. I write tons of meaningful things in here, or at least stuff I think is meaningful, so I want people to read it. I want everyone to carefully read through each article and really think about it. Because what I'm saying is just so goddamn important. Because I'm so goddamn important. I'm a great person, not just a decent person with a greatly overinflated ego. I'm becoming smarter, wiser, older, and it's really important that everyone find out. Come say hello to Mr-I'm-Too-Good-To-Post-On-Facebook.

But really, how does one born in this time of pampered children and war torn civilizations escape this "me" thing? It's not just consumerism. Its in *me* too. Its the way I think. How do I change the way I think? I wanna be a better person. I wanna be the best person, so everyone looks at me and thinks "he's the best person".  Is that the real question you should be asking? Do you need to change the way you think? Can you do that? Hell no. Not yet, anyway.

A Lesson In History, Part 2

Classes started on the first day at sea. Bruce, the director, explained that there were no days on a boat, so we had class on sunday. Our breaks were in port. Sometimes they were really long, but sometimes the sails were too. Something I realized early on was that people were different at sea than they were in port. When you're sailing, you try to put your personal feelings aside for the good of the whole. And besides, in the beginning everyone still is cheery and everyone's a friend. That changes after a while, though.

Our sail to Poland was uneventful. Classes and watch during the day, watch during the night. Getting used to the schedule took most of my energy, because I was trying to deal with seven courses. That meant 3 to 5 hours of schoolwork everyday, two hours of work during the day, and two hours of my night given for the ship. Daywatch consisted of mostly cleaning and regular maintenance, as well as surveillance and helming. (In the beginning the helmsman stayed on duty for the entire shift, which is one hour, but because some of us newbies were so incredibly terrible at helming, it became a half hour shift.) Nightwatch for Watch 4 was similarly polarized. Cathy and Gabi stood lookout. Cathy mostly on Starboard, Gabbi on Port, while Alice sat and me and the other two guys helmed. When I would get on, I would not get off, simply because I was too shy to yell to them to switch me off, despite the wind, and I was too afraid that the ship would steer off course to turn around. But we were always a good watch, and the one argument we would have over that would be short lived and would solve the matter permanently.