Selfish Crab

reconsideration…

I just reread one of my previous posts about fearing death, and I think the tone of the piece was all wrong. It was too condescending, too haughty. It should be more uplifting and encouraging. Dispelling fear of death is a great thing to be shared by everyone.

Also, something about what I wrote does not seem right. It’s not sensitive enough to the true issue. Sure, people shouldn’t be afraid and tearful, but they are. Why? … I will think about this and blog later.

# 2001 May 29    {opine, rompin' years}    #

there is no reason anyone should fear death. when people hear that other people die (by disease or crashed airplane or whatever), they always get all quiet and sad and introspective of how it may happen to them. but this is irrational.

There are two cases that will include most people out there. One, you believe in an afterlife. Two, you do not. If you believe in an afterlife, chances are, it’s a beautiful, blissful, serene, eternal living. The afterlife is your goal, your reward for putzing around here on Earth for a while. Your chosen life style on Earth is grounds for entry into this afterlife. Be a good person, get a free ticket to the Afterlife. Comparing the timespan of an eternal afterlife to a short-lived grounded life, Earth becomes more of a waiting room for people getting into Heaven (or whatever you want to call it.) If you believe in an afterlife, then death is fantastic because you get to go to Heaven. Why would someone prefer Heaven over Earth? “You” get to “live” forever in a nice plush environoment. That’s great. And all you have to do is follow a set of rules while you live, then die. Beautiful.

There’s no reason for sadness and crying and grieving when people die. Grief is purely selfish. “Waaah, I will never get to talk to him again. Or share ice cream, or walk on the beach, or any of the stuff we used to do.” If you really believed in an afterlife, dead people are in a far better place than you! Your tears are selfish. Stop it. If people were really into this whole afterlife deal, they would throw a party everytime someone died. There should be a celebration. Treat it like being drafted for a professional sports team. “Yay, he got picked!!! He got picked among all these other people to go to the next level. Such an easy life for him now.” So grieving is purely self-centered.

So if you believe in an afterlife, (and assuming you follow all the rules you need to follow to get to the afterlife) death is this great thing that finally happens to you so you go to heaven. Yay. What if you do not believe in an afterlife? That is, when you die, that’s it. End of perception. Trying to think about what it would be like to be dead is difficult, if not impossible. You cannot imagine what it would be like to not be able to imagine. [I hope that was clear.] When you die, you do not perceive, you do not feel, and you do not care about the latest hikes in gasoline prices. You are dead. What’s to fear in this? Nothing because the world would have ended for you. (This consequently is tied into my belief in “immortality within mortality”. Will be blogged about later.) So you cannot fear an end to life because when it really happens to you, you do not feel anymore. It’s that simple.

So stop fearing death, everyone. And stop treating it like it’s something bad. Death is as much the completion of life as it is the end of it.

# 2001 May 25    {greatest hits, opine, rompin' years}    #

this was news to me. on 2001 may 11, Douglas Adams died suddenly of a heart attack. for those not in The Know, this dude wrote The HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. <via evhead>

# 2001 May 21    {nerd, rompin' years}    #

for historical sake, this marks the first post of the new layout. yay.

# 2001 May 21    {meta, rompin' years}    #

thought invoker: a high school classmate’s poetry

I do not like poetry that has the words “I” and “you” in it. These words are too common. It’s poetry, for heaven’s sake! You’re supposed to express common ideas in uncommon ways! That’s the beauty in it! Language should be stretched, manipulated, turned around and upside down, and played with funny all over! If you ever write poetry, do not use the words ‘I’ and ‘you’ or I will bludgeon with you an American Heritage Dictionary. the kind with the poison tips..

# 2001 May 16    {rompin' years}    #

having to pack up all your belongings is weird. I find it dangerous to have all your valuable things in neatly-packed, easily stolen boxes. One, because people can steal them. And two, cuz you have your life measured in terms of three-dimensional space.

and so ends my first year here at Columbia. hopefully, i will only have three more. i have yet to stop and consider what it means when i close my door and turn out the light for the last time. this will forever be my Freshman Year. it’s done. i can’t reopen it and add more pages.

ew. that was a foolish, silly thought. every moment by itself is unique and never to be redone. this particular span of time we’ve dubbed Freshman Year seems more special just because we’ve given it a name. once given a name, the Idea behind it becomes more tangible and more easily toted around and discussed.

so bah to all this looking back and reflecting! life comes in a continuous stream. it is our folly for turning it into discrete packets. onward!

# 2001 May 10    {rompin' years}    #

In MSIE, if you hold SHIFT and click on a link, the link will open up into a new window!

I tried it in Netscape4; it’s become “save as” option. =T

# 2001 May 9    {nerd, rompin' years}    #

I am so smart. The other day, some contractors were digging up part of Low Plaza (to redo the concrete -> to make the Plaza look all spiffy for Commencement exercises.) They were putting all the rubble in some dumpster. Cuz I had classes I was late for, I asked a friend to grab a piece of rubble for me later on. So, now I have a piece of historic ol’ Columbia! Go me.

Speaking of rocks…when I passed by Low Plaza again later that night, I saw this couple. See, it was a nice spring night; perfect for walks and shit. Some youths seemed to be able to capitilze (with a capital F) on such nights. So there was this one couple, with a big blanket spread out on one of the side lawns. A gentle candle flickered between them. Soft music fluttered about…

i wanted to throw my rock at them. >P

# 2001 May 9    {rompin' years}    #

i need to make a keyboard that has limited memory storage built into it. that way, when i’m thinking at night, i can type stuff down (while in the dark), go to bed, then wake up the next morning to review the previous night’s thoughts. the keyboard can store the text in a simple text format.

as the time-logl indicates, i stay up late thinking about all sorts of stuff. my theory is that when i close my eyes and get ready to sleep, my brain no longer has to worry about dealing with the body. the arms and legs just lie there. i only have to lie on my back and breathe. thus the brain is free to jump around and think about all sorts of stuff. scenarios, whatifs, questions, answers, “what do i believe”, “why do i blieve it”, “sigh… i don’t know anything”. and my brain just races around and around, and eventually i fall asleep and i forget everything i had come up with the night before. except, when i drag my ass out of bed and blog. (or before the coming of the blog, scribble into a notebook.) but then the Physical is back and my train of thought is derailed horribaly and all the passangers spill out onto the local landscape. dead. all dead. ::sighs::

someone make me a Night-Keyboard, dammit.

# 2001 May 6    {rompin' years}    #

thought evoker: people in hallway reminscing about first day at columbia. specfically, the little floor meeting we had where we all introduced ourselves.

I remember my first little speech to everyone. All of us (~35people) were sitting down in the middle of the long hallway. We were all expected to stand up and give the standard ice-breaker material: where from, what school, what you like, general comments, etc.

I remember beginning my little “hello” with a self-depracating comment. Something along the lines of “I am not eloquent.” I then proceeded to give an eloquent introduction into who I was (or thought I was), where I was from, and what I was going to do at Columbia. You see, at that time, I believed my purpose was to pursue several philosophical questions that have been plagueing me during high school and that I could not seriously hunt down until I had real academic freedom (yes, foolish I was. Naive, too). So I told everyone, roughly, “I came here with a list of questions that I need to answer before I leave Columbia. These are weighty questions. What am I?, What’s going on with free will? What do I believe in? Maybe I will put these questions in front of my door, and you can all see them.” I said that, ? lost details.

I was pretty arrogant.

Now I am less so. I’m still ego-centric and self-centered; by necessity though. Strictly speaking, we are all the centers of our own worlds.

# 2001 May 6    {rompin' years}    #

i made some cool layout changes. stylesheets rock. check out “archives”. however, there’s some bugs in it. i’ll fix them soon. i’m thinking of looking into inline frames.

also, my page is complete unfriendly to netscape4 users. sorry. i do not think i compromise my site for netscape4. i will just bear the time until netscape4 dies, and people starting using DOM-friendly netscape 6!

# 2001 May 5    {meta, nerd, rompin' years}    #

hm… moik will like this one cuz it happened on his “Emergence Day”.

on May 1st, apparently there was an event called “Reboot”. Basically, a whole bunch of people all over the world got tired of their sites being full of “Under Construction” signs and decided to remake all their webpages.

in a related story, some kids at Columbia missed out while their friends participated in the May 1st event. So, “Derek” decided to put together a local Reboot? event for Columbia kids which will happen on June 1st. the participants are few. join if you want! webpaging is fun.

# 2001 May 5    {nerd, rompin' years}    #

sodaplay. [via bay] this is cool. organic looking geometric figures. some british people made this site. that’s fantastic. the british create life-like creatures of geometry, programmed in java; and americans make am i hot or not.com. ::sighs:::

# 2001 May 4    {Links, nerd, rompin' years}    #

I’ve noticed that the only difference between the words “complaint” and “compliant” is the switching of the ‘a’ and the ‘i’. I think this has the beginnings of some sort of customer service clichéd motto.

Although, i’m not quite sure what all this does to “diary” and “dairy”.

# 2001 May 4    {greatest hits, rompin' years}    #

i’ve found a couple of really cool sites in the past week. however, i’ve found them mainly through other blogs. most notably, moik. is it proper for me to list these links? i guess so. as long as i cite them as the source. I should also raise my standards of posting to weed out any weak links. (pun intended).

expect a flood of links then!

# 2001 May 4    {rompin' years}    #