we are alone

Life on earth has been a continuous process of adapting to the local environment. The longer this round of life lasted (there’s been a few mass extinctions on Earth), the better adapted each species became adapted to its own environment. Our ancestors, however, crossed an intellectual threshold somewhere and adapted to the process of adapting. They became good at adapting itself, and they could do it in several places within a much shorter timeframe than most other life. Then they learned how to adapt by creating their own environment. Now we can make countless adaptations within a single lifetime.

Our lives begin largely of adapting to the reality of the universe and the environment around us (for most of us that means the cultural environment that our ancestors created). Very soon we each have the power to change the environment somewhat and this power grows with time. A lucky few gain immense power to change the whole world while many of us can only physically change our local environments and not much else. But even those lucky few only have reign over this planet; at most this solar system. But no one has a say in the laws of the universe and the 14 billion lightyears of space, so everyone still must adapt and this will never change. From our birth, we have to accept gravity, the necessity of food and water and sleep, the transportation system, the plumbing that our ancestors conceived, the level of education we are permitted, our parents’ social status, and infinite more restrictions. The longer we’ve had to live by them, the more efficient we get in living by them. This is how we adapt.

The point is that even creationists cannot deny that they’ve adapted very well to their own environment within their lifetime. From a philosophical perspective (I’m setting aside hard science for this post), if we can do it so well in a lifetime why is it hard to imagine that it’s taken all of life billions of years to do the same?

Without suffering there would be no happiness. So,

If there was no hatred, would there be any love?

If yes, what’s special about love that it is exempt from the law of balance, which pretty much governs all aspects of the universe?

If no, does that mean the whole world can never be filled with love in that idealistic dream? To achieve peace would we have to sacrifice love?

A couple weeks ago I came down to see one of my all time favorites with my best friend Joe, who is also a big TDH fan. This one involved quite an adventure on the way there and back, including running 2 blocks and getting on the wrong train… anyway it was all totally worth it. When my ticket didn’t show up on the list Erick himself, the guitarist of the band talked to the bouncer and let me in. :)

There were 3 sets before the headlining act. First was The Crown and Two Chairmen. Very loud rhythmic post-rock. Four or Five guitarists. Pretty nice opener.

Next was Fireship or as we later called them, Fireshit. They’re not even worth discussing here. After this lame act, The Felix Culpa played an amazing set that certainly made up for Fireshit. They simply rocked, enough said.

Finally it was Dear Hunter time.

It was great but I was disappointed at the same time. The crowd sang along too much and drowned out Casey’s perfect voice. The band played all their radio-friendly tunes, which happen to mostly be my least favorite. They closed with Red Hands of all songs, definitely my least favorite. But still I was glad to be there and see the guys, talk to Casey, here a few of my favorites, and appreciate their musicianship with the help of Joe who knows everything about music :P .

This was at least a month ago but oh well. Zach Hill is the excellent experimental drummer of Hella and I saw him play in chicago. I must say that was a unique experience and while I enjoyed it I would not see him again in a long time. It’s just something I feel I only need to see once. I’m surprised I was able to shoot still shots of Zach; let’s just say he was really really fast. I forget who the guitarist who played with him was called,  but he wasn’t even on the bill. However he did rock the effects.

The opening band was The Field Auxiliary. They were pretty good, I picked up their EP and later found it to be nice driving music.

The most disappointing thing was that Zach didn’t have any merch available.

She treated me well and I tried to treat her well, but somewhere I must have slipped.

I remember like it was yesterday, it felt so good to put my mouth to her lips.

Her body was so smooth.

She was just what I needed.

I could spend all day with her, even if she distracted me from homework sometimes.

Time spent with her was kind of addicting. I always wanted more. I had to willfully space out sessions for both our sakes.

She was worth a lot to me. She will never be replaced.

She got dirty often. And she might have been a bit fat. But I didn’t mind. She more than made up for all of that.

And now it will never be the same. I wish I could relive our time together.

But it’s too late. I just have to move forward now without her.

Oh and I forgot to put the photo up at the top. Here it is. You should probably see it if you’ve read this far.

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Hope I didn’t cause any confusion but I can’t see how this can possibly be misinterpreted to be about anyone else. Anyway sad news. The silver lining is this one will not be reading my goddamn blog.

From struggle comes brilliance. From prosperity comes stupidity.

I think this applies to a wide range of topics, from culture and art to economy and science. Oh and psychology. Of course this is not a universal law, just an observation.

Also, hi I’m done with school so I should be posting more often now. I’ve got a nice summer to look forward to. I have a Mastodon concert on tuesday, and I’m going to Bonnaroo in June. And I’m hoping to move out of my parents’ asap. Once that happens I’m really looking forward to expressing myself more often with some art. I’ve been in a creative mood for months but I haven’t had too many outlets, so I hope I’m still in that mood in a month. I fucking better be since I’m taking all art classes next semester. Finally, the X is still reading this from what I hear, to whom I say go watch your odd tv shows. Their ratings need you more than I do. Not including Craig, he doesn’t even need a live sidekick.

Cramming. But I find astronomy so interesting, I was reading a section completely unrelated to the exam material. Anyway what caught my eye was the relationship between the earth and the moon. More specifically I learned that the moon is tide-locked to the earth (I had heard this before but I didn’t know that tide-locked meant rotating and orbiting at the same speed, resulting in the same side always facing the partner body). I thought “hmm this could be evidence for the fine-tuning argument”. Seriously I’ve looked into every “finely tuned” setting I could think of for the earth and solar system being so seemingly welcome to life (haven’t completely looked into all the “settings” for the universe in general yet), and found very viable explanations for all of them. But this tide-locked thing, I mean it’s not necessary for life but to the uneducated mind like mine at the time it seems like something so coincidental and unnecessary it could be like a harmless signature by the designer or something to that tune.

Anyway instead of putting the book down I kept reading and yet again discovered the very reason why this happened, all on it’s own, naturally. It even makes sense. Here is an article I found that covers the same material.