Keep moving forward

The road to happiness is chiefly boiled down to problems and solutions. There are all kinds of problems we face in a day. We make our choices and find a solution. That solution has helped to mold who you are in this world. It has shaped your character. It has formed your morals.

And when things seem too tough, we look at it and see a problem we have no solution for. So we give up. If you have a tendency to either find a different approach to the problem, or focus on a different problem (if you have that option) then you will eventually progress. Because you will find that solution, eventually, even if the outcome isn't exactly as you planned.

Conversely, if you either keep trying the same approach to a problem with no solution, or flat out give up, then you cannot progress. You will stand still. You will become stagnant. Faced with an unsolvable problem, you throw your hands in the air and wait. Depression is like a mold that grows on those standing still. You have to progress to shake the mold. You have to stand up and take control of the things around you that you have the ability to control. Finding a solution to a problem in your way is the foundation of the next level on your way to happiness, gaining momentum from one more problem down on your rise to that goal you promised yourself.

This world is filled with things you cannot control. The only thing in existence that you have complete control of is you, and how you communicate to the world. How you react to things around you. How you treat others. So, treat others with dignity and respect. Go out of your way to make those around you smile. Help those around you progress.

And you will progress.

You cannot trust the living.

I have decided to stop killing little bugs that annoy me. I have decided to not step on the spider that creeped me the sh*t out. I have decided that in order to become a more complete person in terms of my view of the universe, I will shed some evolutionary baggage that states that members of the Human species are the dominant on this planet, and therefore can decide if another living thing should continue on living it's little spider-y life just because I find the thought of it a repulsive thing. That sounds like racism on the level of species. That's speciesism. And last I looked, we were searching for life in the Universe by way of Mars, and far away Europa. The things that may inhabit that world may only be a bacteria, or even something that has a very very small DNA strand, but it is life.

-So let me ask you this. Yes you, sitting there reading this. This is a question for you. So be prepared to state your opinion. And please do give it some thought.-

Would you land on the planet at that point, after we have verified that, 'YES - LIFE EXISTS ON ANOTHER PLANET IN THIS UNIVERSE, AND THEREFORE LIFE MUST EXIST ON OTHER PLANETS BEYOND THE REACHES OF OUR SOLAR SYSTEM, AND THAT THERE IS VERY LIKELY A PLANET OUT THERE WITH INTELLIGENCE TO DECODE OUR RADIO TRANSMISSIONS AND IS IN FACT PROBABLY WATCHING GILLIGANS ISLAND AS WE SPEAK", would you then land on this planet which is home to said bateria that is the personification of our search for life in the cosmos... and destroy it?

Personally, to believe that the the mere fact that we have evolved more massive brains that can understand emotion and logic and and can create things like the Hubble telescope, -probably one of the greatest things mankind has EVER created, let alone just the category of scientific instruments.- to believe that we have these brains that are capable of solving complex mathematical equations, and have completely disregarded respect for other living things, is an atrocity.

Would you hurt the person you are in love with? Would you hurt your family? How about your best friend? How about your best friends sister? How about your neighbor? Your neighbors friend? Someone that you've never met before? Someone who lives another city away? Or state? Or continent? If they lived anywhere on this planet? To each of these, I say no. With just as much seriousness from the person I am in love with, to the person who I have never met living on the other side of the planet. I will never kill another human being.

How about an animal? Would you kill your pet? Why not? Is it because you have named it and given it a home and taken care of it? That just means you're emotionally attached to it. Just like I'm emotionally attached to my brother. But if you take away that emotional attachment, and are left with just any other animal, and any other person... would you allow harm on those things, either?

If you said yes, then deep down I think you lack a fundamental piece of what it means to be a human being. And it's called compassion. It's something you will never see transpire in the reptilian brain. Only in the mammalian brain. You will never see a gecko display compassion. -This is why I think Geico is bullshit :P- And I have decided to use my compassion as a tool. As something to be used. And become a more complete person by respecting life.

I will never swat a fly. But I will open the window to let it outside to live.

Having said all of that, I love to eat meat. Preferably fish. This whole conversation takes a left hand turn when it comes to dinner. But who knows.. maybe one day I'll become a vegetarian. I do love tofu. I've even given up drinking milk for all the fat content, and I've learned to love soy milk. Not that drinking milk has anything to do with being vegetarian. But if I sat down long enough, I could probably give up meat.

...maybe.

I'm trying very hard to imagine never eating sushi again.

...okay maybe just fish. Is killing fish wrong? o.O

Today I stopped smoking weed.

I also went to the gym. After that, my legs felt like noodles. But it felt good. Great, in fact. But what really felt great about it? Was it the fact that my heart was pounding out of my chest? Not really. That didn't feel too good. Was it the fact that the sun was on the horizon and in my eyes the entire time I was there? Nope. That was incredibly irritating. Or maybe it was the fact that the one machine I used to use there every single day was broken. I'm not even gonna respond to that one.

No, you know why it felt great? Because I was taking control over my life. I made that change. It wasn't particularly my decision, that I attribute to my best friend. His name is Ryan. And if I had one person in my life that I could point to and say "That's the asshole who started this all!", it would be him. That's because when I met him again as an adult after many years of being apart, he had a much higher drive than me to achieve. I'd continue on with this line of thought, but that is for another time.

But it felt really good to make that change. Even though I'm saying goodbye to a past-time that I love. Goodbye, weed. I had convinced myself that my mood was based primarily on how high I was. My favorite thing in the world was to get totally blazed, and the moment when I'm coming down but not quite sober was the greatest. I would ponder the world I live in. And because I was high as shit, I knew the answers to everything. It was great.

Or so I thought.

The reality is that in the end, I was handing over the steering wheel of my Happiness vehicle to something that isn't me. When I was totally sober, I wasn't that happy. And that's not how it's supposed to work. Don't get me wrong, being high as hell led me to some very intriguing questions I would ask, thereby leading me to very interesting answers that allowed me to understand things better. And it made me look at the world in a very different light. But it had it's time. And I no longer need it. Now I alone control myself. I don't need a substance to tell me when to be happy.

I talked to my Aunt earlier tonight. By the way, I'll say it here that out of everyone in my family, I respect her intelligence more than anyone else. She's a Psychologist. And she rocks. Back to the point, she informed me of something I had never heard of before. It's called the locus of control. Locus, being Latin for 'place' or 'location'. It's a term in psychology used to infer as to where a person believes the control of their life originates from. I found the term to be incredibly important to me. Because it was something that I had come to a conclusion about for myself a long time ago, that I and I alone control me.

Most people would read that sentence and say "deh... who else controls you?!". Well, well, smarty pants. When that guy cut you off on the freeway, did you shout at him and honk your horn and yell something that rhymed with "jew plucking castle"? Yeah, you did. And when that ruined your morning and you got to work all pissed off and told your boss to go pluck himself as well, you allowed that dude on the freeway to control you. Specifically he controlled your emotions.

So tell me. Where does your locus of control lie? Do you control you? Or do outside influences control you?

I am not a superstitious person. I don't believe in luck. I rely on statistics and the probability theory. Gamblers have a tendency to rely on luck, and falsely believe that their odds in a particular game actually change. Just because I happened to flip a coin and it landed on heads ten times, does not mean the odds of it landing on tales has increased. The odds are still the same. 50-50. And no, luck has absolutely nothing to do with it. This is referred to as Gambler's Fallacy.

The same applies to life. Luck has no place in my world. If you happen to win the lottery, you are not the recipient of an enormous amount of luck. You are the recipient of chance. You just happened to be the one in a million. It wasn't the hat you wore, the breakfast you ate, or the underwear you didn't wash. It was math.

To me, it is very important to understand the world I live in. To realize that my world is affected by my actions and not some mystical entity is something that brings me much pleasure. It reminds me of a quote from Carl Sagan.

"I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this Cosmos, which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky."

I couldn't agree more, Carl.

So again I ask, are you controlled by things around you that just explode into your life without warning? Or does the control lie within?

The keys are on the table.

It's your decision as to who picks them up.

My name is Mike

And your name is visitor. Welcome, visitor. Feel free to kick your feet up on my desk here. And by my desk I mean your desk. Because you haven't gone anywhere. You're still sitting there. However, the fact that you have come into my little world here means that I get to tell you how to relax when you are here.


No, I see no distinction between the cyberwebs and your computer room. In fact, get yourself something to drink. And get me something too. Preferably something that won't eat metal if I happen to leave it alone for a while.


So now that we've established the fact that there are no boundaries here as far as me telling you what to do, we can get down to brass tacks. First off, I won't really be telling you what to do, and second, you probably brought me something carbonated when you got a drink. So you failed. I'll get my own drinks from now on. You clever person, you. I bet you did that on purpose.


This is 10E.


Welcome.