Random Thoughts on the Survival of Humanity...

I wrote this in response to a question of whether I believe in survival of the fittest (or struggling against situations) or being part of a community that is cohesive and cooperates for the good of all. The question also brought up the idea of religion contributing to the downfall.

I prefer to say I promote equality and harmony as well as live and let live. Concern yourself only with your own business and take care of those who depend on you to the extent they need it. Do not go above and beyond and censor or advise or influence others against their will. Your life should be more important than nosing into others' business. This would ensure personal responsibility and personal consequences and more fairness and less fighting among people.

I believe in spirituality, not religion. Religion dictates rules and right and wrong. Spirituality doesn't. It simply puts out there that there is more to us than just the here and now physical dimension. Religion divides people and brings anger and judgement and discord. People no longer accept and tolerate and love. They discriminate, judge, divide.

I also believe that we cannot be the only 'intelligent beings' around, there is infinitely more out there than this planet, this galaxy, this universe. Why wouldn't there be others? Either way, freedom is of utmost importance. Freedom to be whom we want, freedom to believe what we want - WITHOUT imposing our feelings on other people. 10 people could believe 10 different things and I think all of them have a right to and all of them should leave each other alone about it. There is nothing to be gained by having all 10 fight and kill each other over a disagreement because they each have a right to believe what they want. One is not MORE RIGHT than another. Maybe all ten are right. Maybe all ten are wrong. Nobody can say so nobody should say anything. I am not sure why we all have this desire to dominate each other. Wherever that came from, it is NOT good. It is enough we should control ourselves and basically be our own masters. There is no need for us to also control and dominate other people.

Death is a SAMPLE GIRL?

This is one of the creepiest ads I have seen to date! While I can't photoshop cool things to alter what you see here, I believe the creep factor speaks for itself. When I first saw it on tv, I couldn't wrap my mind around the idea that death was actually skulking around town, all those people in the ad would be running and screaming and many 911 calls would be placed about the 'nutjob in the death getup wielding a machete-thingy'.

It gets even worse near the end of the ad when 'death figure 01' pulls off the hood and cloak and presto! She now morphs easily into a Dallas-cheerleader-esque uh... SAMPLE girl and the ad makes a reference to cigarette samples.

SAMPLES?

?!?

I don't recall cigarette samples. I'm not THAT old. Or maybe I am not old ENOUGH?

Not making a decision is making a decision

This keeps popping up in my life over and over and over. I actually heard this comment first courtesy of Grissom on CSI... for followers of the show, he just left the show. As a CSI fan, I think this was a real bone of contention for him for a long time.



So... how do you take this comment? At face value? How many of us are paralyzed or in a rut, not making a choice, perhaps out of fear? I am kind of new to blogging, granted I have blogs I've written at myspace and other sites. The difference between those and this one is that I really wasn't exploring much with those. I plan to use some of them as ideas to expand on here and hope maybe to field questions or perhaps get some much needed answers.



I suppose I avoid making decisions about many things. I don't like change. I do freely admit that I don't like change, it is a good thing when I NEED it but I frown and drag my feet when someone ELSE brings it upon me and I don't see a reason! I have heard all my life grand theories about breaking out of your comfort zone and potential potential potential. Potential what? Sounds pretty open ended to me. I have learned enough at this point though to know that some folks operate under the principle 'do unto others BEFORE they do unto you'. As funny as that sounds, it isn't. When making some sort of decision, I would much rather have the final say or last word on things that affect me rather than putz around and wait and wait... and end up having someone ELSE make the decision! Once in awhile I do that and often I regret it, or wonder what caused me to back away. It's hard to know, it might be in an effort for harmony or balance, because I am emotionally exhausted, or perhaps I just trust someone else more because they have more experience, knowledge, etc.



This brings me to another conundrum - the whole idea of silence and inactivity vs noise and action. People who sit on their hands and do nothing in response to a stimulus are often thought of as following the crowd or in agreement with whatever is going on around them. This isn't always true but it APPEARS that way, doesn't it? I have a hard time blending the appearance with how I feel sometimes. What is truly more important here? I think both are equally important, but you cannot control the perceptions of others. All you can do is control how you react to them and what you do to either reinforce or alter what people see.



Here is to hoping you actively MAKE more decisions this year instead of making decisions by default. Make decisions that will make you happy, make decisions that will make you grow. Do not underestimate the power of your choices for the direction of your life. 2009 and beyond.

My music box

I often wonder what draws people to their listening preferences... their 'music box'. I hear various people say that their influences are this person or that person, this artist, this band, that sound. I admit I don't always hear whatever they are talking about. What I focus on instead is the feelings invoked for ME, thoughts, memories and yes... questions. I suppose I am a hard sell, most of my favorite songs have much more going on under the surface than meets the eye. I am not a mathmatician, I like words. Of course since I have a little girl this also equates to 'itsy bitsy spider' tossed in with a slice of 'So What'.

My playlist is eclectic, a combination of genres, decades. I have tried without success to create things such as 'driving audio' or something to play when doing distasteful tasks like cleaning my house. I have found lately that it's better just to turn on whatever sounds good to me at the time. I listen to a lot of different things, familiar as well as new just in case something jumps out at me. Is that what you do... or do you stick with tried and true? I do not love everything, I'm not even an artist addict, religiously following someone like Deadheads did or the merchandising nightmares that plague parents of most teenage girls....oh wait, YES I did belong to that group in the early 90s =P These days I guess I am more selective, what speaks to me might not mean anything to the majority of people I rub elbows with but that doesn't matter. I always believe in taking the good in something and leaving whatever doesn't apply - and this makes sense in music and most other parts of life itself. I do believe now more than ever that messages present in music connect people to each other, sometimes beyond this life. At the end of last year someone I hadn't known very long was suddenly gone.... but what he listened to made a difference for me.

As a recent avid watcher of youtube, I have been seeing a lot of user created videos and I'm fantasizing about making some of my own.... but how do you make a tribute of seemingly unrelated things? One of the coolest things I saw lately was a vid done for a contest (long over) combining Peter Petrelli (from Heroes) with 'Godspeed' (a song from my favorite band Anberlin) and I thought it was brilliant. Too bad I didn't think of it... but that's what I get for discovering the draw of youtube so late. Of course if you want to pick things apart even more, that's not the only thing I discovered late.... but that's for another episode.