Posts Tagged ‘ life ’

One more before I go

Yup. I decided to write one more before I left on my journey of self enlightenment. I promised you a science post and you shall get one.

I was disappointed to learn Voyager 1 is still inside the solar system and wont be making it into interstellar space for about another year. Sometimes I wish I was born 200 years from now when we’ll hopefully be exploring the solar system at least…HOPEFULLY. Like I said in my last quasi space rant I love space and I consume all knowledge about it that I can. I could literally read about it all day and dream about it at night.

Voyager 1 has shown us so many interesting things about the tiny place in which we call our home. Amazing pictures of the out lying planets, such beautiful pictures to show us just how beautiful our own solar system truly is and hopefully shows us that the solar system if not the world is worth exploring.

I vehemently disagree with people who say NASA doesn’t deserve funding but  our war on drugs and our war on terror is MORE deserving of funding rather than exploring our own backyard our own home? They say whats there to see? Whats the point? While yes, NASA has disappointed me in the past, and will probably continue to do so, but does that mean I should just stop believing all together in things just because things don’t work out?

Are we destined to just live at home until we die? Intergalactic…nay, not even, we should be glad if we could call ourselves intergalactic losers. What happens when our resources begin to dwindle? But that could never happen right? Earth has an infinite supply of oil and land and food and everyone lives happily ever after, right?

Honestly? I think there are just to many people on Earth. But then again “as long as there’s two people on earth someones gonna want someone dead.” I’ve heard people say “well if everyone was so and so there’d be peace on Earth.” Wishful thinking, honestly? You believe that? Is just being a person with everyone else not enough for you? Everyone needs to be the same? Just like you? That’s the kind of egomanical bullshit that worries me about this world.

We have a mind blowing amount of space technology, an engine that we can reach Mars in a month or less? Why shouldn’t we at least try?

Let me be frank, I’m also pro animal testing. I’m not talking spray that rabbit in the eyes with perfume kind of testing but medical testing I can get behind. I’ve heard people say that there is no benefit to animal testing, and this is just the most horrible thought process. I’m sure if we could we would do human testing, actually I’m sure we wouldn’t if we knew it was going to fail. But people with terminal illnesses donate themselves to science, shouldn’t that be good enough?

If you know anyone who’s ever, EVER had to be on life support and you don’t support animal testing you terrify me. Life support was a direct link to a “mad” and I’m using that term liberally here, a real mad doctor, from Russia. He literally grafted a dead dogs head to a still living dog, trying to keep the head alive. People would be against that like all hell now a days, but how many people do you think those dogs saved when life support became real?  This is pretty much the same stuff as anti-vaccine goers.

I honestly would think anti-vaccine proponents would be funny if they weren’t so sad, or mad whatever your call. The fact is these people put their children s lives at risk and if you want kids, your children as well. And I find it disgusting that people would rather their children die to these horrible debilitating illnesses than have a kid with autism. And that is of course if vaccines cause autism and here’s a hint, they don’t. Don’t be brought in by their filth. I would rather have a kid then let them die to polio or the measles. I think its immoral and I think it’s dangerous and irresponsible.

So who’s to blame when children start getting sick with these diseases again? I just don’t understand, I really don’t. If parents can be found guilty of murder because they starved their kid or denied their child diabetes medication all due to religious views I think we should just vaccinate them anyways and if they get older just “whoops didn’t know you turn out to be dumb as hell.” Who is to blame? Mainly the people who hear only what they want to hear, like “this causes autism!” but then ignore the fact the scientist who did the study cherry picked information like crazy AND his work cant even be reproduced. If it’s true how come other scientists cant do the exact same thing?

I’m terrified of this new anti science movement. Not only does it threaten to throw us back into the dark ages (metaphorically) and by that I mean go watch Idiocracy. Some people will disagree with me, say that there isn’t a growing and alarming anti science movement. But you know what science is good for, for these people that say science is bad? Making their TV’s thinner, how to cram more items into their microwavable dinners, making sure the electricity stays on, because they don’t care about anyone but themselves, they cant be held to any kind of responsibility. Tide goes in, tide goes out. You cant explain that!

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2011
06/27
CATEGORY
Life in General
Misc.
Science
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My art part 1

So I said I would throw up some of my art on here. This is probably one of the influential on me. Was the first one that didn’t have a generalized goal in mind. It’s surrealism and encompasses how I was feeling at a certain time frame in my life. If you look closely you can see I dunno homework or something in the background. I could tell you about all of the symbolism that I sewed into the page but honestly what good would that do? It’s “art” and one may interpret it as they will because art has no defined meaning for a piece. I’m very against art schools in general for grading and criticizing young artists.

Basically to me what art is, is the feeling that the artist has at the time expressed in words, paint, crayons or digital programs. You put a little part of yourself into your work a little bit of your soul because you want people to see who you were when you made it. You can teach technique, you can teach perfection, drill it into someones head. But the ability to express ones soul cannot be taught or learned, it is something that must be found deep inside all of us.

I don’t consider somethings to be “art” but if we’re starving dogs what’s next? I can see where someone would say that it’s art in a morbid kind of way but it opens a new can of worms, I might not like it but I understand the perspective. But I cant help thinking that is this “new age” art gets its way people could be fighting in roman arenas again all in the name of art.

2011
06/06
CATEGORY
Life in General
Rants
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shadows and dust

What do you see when you look up to the night sky? Wonder? Mystery? Perhaps you see god or maybe the vast emptiness of it all? To each his own when surveying the great infinite I say. because truthfully how many of us will know what it is like? What is it like to look down on the planet where our entire species is located in a universe so large it boggles the mind? What would you feel in the split moment for the first time in your short, generally unmeaningful life when you become weightless and can fly through the air? I will probably never know.

takes your breath away

This picture is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen, one of the most iconic, beautiful pictures ever taken. This picture should humble us beyond words, to know that this is all we are. Our planet is less than dust in the grand scheme of the universe. And when our sun too breathes its final breath so will it return to dust as well. For you that dont know, this picture is taken of Earth as voyager left our solar system and begun its journey into the cosmos itself. To me it is truly one of the most beautiful and perhaps heart wrenching pictures I’ve ever seen. That tiny spec in a beam of light has held every human being ever, we truly are meaningless, our lives shrouded by the vast cold reaches of space and perhaps time itself.

What do I see when I look up into the night sky? I do not see god. I do not see a vast empty place. I see the future. I see our limitless potential balled up and chained down on this iron cored ball of dirt. I see such beautiful and terrifying things as I stare in awe and am humbled by the blinking, twinkling lights of perhaps now dead stars. Stars who’s bodies are cast into the far reaches of space. We too are stars, every single one of us, what makes us who we are is perhaps untold billions of years old.

People have asked me if I think there is a heaven or hell and I don’t answer because I don’t care. Is there a reason? Is there a reason for me to answer? So you might have your say when you either agree with me or disapprove? No. It’s funny, I have only been alive for 25 years out of the universes entirety. I was okay with it then and I’m sure I will be okay with it when my time comes around once more. The universe is vast and I am incalculably small and insignificant but I look up and dream of the stars.

I live life as best I can under the circumstances I am afforded. I think of myself as an honest, loyal and upstanding person. I live my life alone except for the friends I surround myself with, the best people I know, who also live their lives as best they can under the circumstances.And I cant honestly understand the hate that people feel for one another. Why? The most sickening reasons to me are the ones which people cannot control. The color of your skin, your sexual orientation, what your opinions are and people will and do kill over such petty things. I see it all the time and it saddens me because were all we have. Were all here on this small little planet, stranded somewhere in the massive ever expanding universe. We are all we have, we are our own family on a small blue dot, and we should all be holding on for dear life.

you are here

There are some people that would say life is not insignificant. To us? No, life is all we have. All that we strive for. Life merely is. But look to the right, where are we in there? Do you comprehend just how insurmountably massive our own galaxy is? Our sun while small to us is once again just a pinprick compared to supermassive stars which will in turn when they die tear sections of the universe asunder and will continue to do so, perhaps even after our universe dies and is reborn again.

What were are was born billions of years ago across the vastness of the universe itself. We are all bound and made from the bodies of stars long since dead, we are all that remain from them, we are their legacy. People ask me if I’m afraid to die. No. When I die, I return from which I was for billions of years and rejoin infinite once more. And when our sun too passes, we will truly return to the universe once more. What do you see when you look up to the sky? God? A vast emptiness? I see infinite possibilities and impossible beauty and a place I can only wish to see in my short and meaningless life.

2011
05/22
CATEGORY
Life in General
Rants
Science
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My art and me

When I was growing up I drew constantly I had a weird knack for copying things that I saw with crayons or other drawing utensils. My family had me draw things fro them and I was happy. I call this my “simple phase.” My art was simple as was my life, it never really changed until things began to change who I was. I drew what other people wanted of me and never really questioned it.

In high school things changed, I at times felt in control of my life and more often than not, I felt I had no control over my life. My art took on a very anime-esque feel and appearance to it, as that was the majority of what I watched at the time. At the same time my art became darker and more refined, like a good whiskey. While I would say that this is the height of my artwork, I hated it. I hated my art because deep down I knew it wasn’t good, it didn’t speak to me, it held no meaning.

Most of my art was also done in my classes when I should have been paying attention or studying, most of my art also had the same basic structure to it, and I’m not just saying the anime portions of it, but it all felt the same to me. And while I continued to draw, it was the things in my beginners art class, the three or so that I did throughout the entire year that I enjoyed the most. One of my submissions won first place and was hung in a bank for about 3 months. While my heart might not have felt in the art I was producing.

One of the final pieces I did in Highschool finally broke through. While it wasn’t enough to prevent my now crippling artists block it finally sang through me. It was a small piece I did on normal lined paper, it was a surrealist piece that emphasized everything that I was feeling at the time. Most of my latest art is of the same basic principle.

Now I have three pieces I would like to do but once again I just dont have the heart for it. My muse is gone, and I really hope to get my edge back once I move to Colorado. I felt when I was there that I could start it all back up again. We’ll see though.

2011
04/12
CATEGORY
Life in General
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Hello Intarwebs

Today is a day like many that came before it and many will go by. Today is not significant in any way except to the people that make it so. And yet today feels good, in a way that I cannot explain and is somewhat foreign to me, you find me here explaining myself unto you.

So, a little bit about myself, yes? My name is Ray Swanson and I currently reside in Illinois. I am a gamer, at times a philosopher, sometimes a wannabe scientist. I work hard for what little I have, but I honestly like it far better that way, keeps me humble and off cocaine. Can also be artistic when the insanity comes and warps reality into what I call life.

I’m planning on moving to Colorado very soon so I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw a few posts pop up about that or if I fall off the face of the earth suddenly. I will keep you updated, and satiated hopefully with everything you so desire of me. Which is to say everything that I want, which isn’t all that much.

Currently I’m playing:

  • Age of Empires 3 (an oldie but a goodie.)
  • Just Cause 2
  • Pokemon Black
  • Pokemon Soul Silver
  • Command and Conquer 3
  • Civilization V

I have a certain affinity to technology, I have a nifty phone that I can browse the internet on when I’m supposed to be driving, but alas I still don’t own a flying car or a hover board. I own a nice computer that I do the majority of my gaming on, or spend my entire night browsing the internet. It is a terrible reoccurring problem of which I will not remedy.

I have amazing friends, and I believe that even that does not do it any justice. My friends are pretty much everything to me and if I don’t or cant hang out with them its generally me sleeping or the price of gas, hard to drive like 30 minutes on how much I make. It is suffering.

Me and my best friend Adam discuss all sorts or madness, including:

  • Why spoken language is better than writing or the internet.
  • Old Games
  • New games
  • Scientific Discoveries
  • Technological advancements
  • Drinking stories
  • Random historical facts

Also I guess one could also call me a bit of a historian and by a bit I mean not really. I have a penchant for reading long and drawn out stories about stuff that happened a long time ago, I have a special love for historical battles, especially interesting ones.

Well now that we have that out of the way, stick around. And I’ll be back soon.

2011
04/05
CATEGORY
Life in General
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