alive | allmostrelevant

I think that how fast time moves is relative to how much you think. Like, the ‘speed of thought.’ Everything is relative (is viewed in a context), and basically you have to filter all of your experiences through your mind in order to even experience them, so from the inside looking out, the whole world is in your mind (“it’s all in your head”). If you’re stumped on a problem or worrying about something, time may pass very slowly whereas if you’re just having fun and just enjoying the moment, or to exaggerate, if you’re sleeping, then time will pass very rapidly. If you dream than you spend more time being asleep. Thinking more slows down time whereas simply reacting skips over time. People have said regarding crazy moments that “it was like slow motion. I never thought it was going to end.” And conversely there exists “driving hypnosis” where you end up at your destination in the blink of an eye because you are so used to taking the same route that you require zero thought to drive it. This line of thought leads to the creation of memories as what allows us to place ourselves in time. Without any memories, there is no time. Babies do not have memories, and thus have no concept of time (and aren’t really much alive yet, like, viva la vida etc…). And they are also really stupid. But on the other end of the spectrum you might have someone with Alzheimer’s who does not have the ability to create new memories, and is, although it’s painfully sad to say, pretty much already dead (from their point of view). So the next time you fall into routine, or order the same thing for lunch, or drive the same way home, or do the same activity with your friends — stop… and think about that.

Make a memory.

EDIT (3/16/14): I came across this video that has a much more informed position than my generalized curiosities. It’s a fun watch if you have a few minutes, however the title is a bit misleading…

Tagged act, affect, alive, alzheimers, art, blog, blurb, context, dead, death, destination, dream, driving, effect, einstein, experience, fantasy, fast, filter, go, head, home, hypnosis, LA, life, living, long, manmade, memory, mental, mind, moment, motion, movies, normal, note, philosophy, poetry, psychology, queen, quick, react, real, relative, road, short, sleep, slow, spectrum, speed, stop, stupid, theory, thinking, thought, time, vida, viva, world, worry, writing

Jan 31 2014

41 Comments

Playground

Art

Art is so pointless sometimes. Don’t you think with all the thinking that artists have done over the years that we would have figured out the meaning of life by now?

You know what I think about the meaning of life?

What?

Why would God create us if we are going to die? But not really even that. Why would God create us with the capacity of knowing we’re going to die? Why couldn’t he just have made us live forever? Or at least make us unaware of what death is? That’d save me a lot of trouble. I’d be happy. But you know what? Have you ever seen anything amazing come from an ignorant creature? I don’t think so. Ignorance isn’t bliss, because without knowing what dark is you can’t know what light is. Without down there’s no up. It’s like explaining color to a blind person. Live forever? That’s not the way to go. It’s in the struggle, the fight of knowing that we are going to die, and having the choice to give it our all and fight, and fight, and scrape and crawl and bleed; fight until there is nothing left in us, until we are everything we wanted to be, or become everything we hate, until we see the light and release our last breath saying, “That was all of me. That was everything. That was my magnum opus.” It is that fight that brings out the worst in us, the absolute worst of desperation, greed, malice, jealousy, and wrath. And it is that same fight that we can triumph, love, heal, conquer and live. LIVE. Really live… and that’s what makes it worth it. That’s what makes life worth living. That’s why we are alive. That’s why we were created. But do no mistake the possibility of life with real life. Do not mistake defeat for death, and hope for triumph. It is a fight. Nothing is guaranteed. Many will fail, and many will succeed, but one thing for certain is that all of us will die. You don’t need me to tell you this. It’s not a surprise. You know it’s coming, and so we are left, not even with the choices we make, but just one choice: Will you fight? Will you fight? Will you live?

But why don’t artists just say that? Why does it take them their whole life to figure that out, or maybe even never figure that out?

That IS the art. Art cannot be summarized or broken down or paraphrased without its meaning being summarized, broken down, and paraphrased as well. Art can’t be explained; it has to be experienced. How do you hear music for someone else? You can’t. How do you taste a delicious treat for someone else? You can’t. How are you supposed to live for someone else? You can’t. I could tell you the meaning of life, but it wouldn’t be the meaning of your life. It takes a lifetime of experiences to understand the meaning of life. Not just the meaning of any life; the meaning of your life. Life is the art, and art is life. We cannot live for someone else, but we struggle to, we try to pour our soul into art so that someone might feel a glimpse of the same thing we felt, live a fraction of our lives, and thus keep us alive through art. We don’t need to live. We don’t need to think. We don’t need to do anything; so I ask you this: why do we? …Your life is art, and you are the meaning of life.

Tagged agnostic, alive, all, amazing, anything, art, artist, atheist, best, bleed, blind, bliss, breath, breathe, choice, christian, christianity, claw, color, conquer, creater, creator, creature, deadly, deaf, death, defeat, desperate, dialogue, die, different, everything, experience, explain, fail, failure, fault, feeble, feel, fight, first, forever, fraction, give, god, greed, guarantee, happy, hate, heal, hear, hold, hope, how, huh, i, ignorant, immortal, jealousy, know, last, latin, life, life is art, light, listen, live, love, magnum, malice, me, meaning, nothing, obligation, oblivion, of, only thing, opportunity, opus, pointless, possibility, release, religion, sad, same, scrape, see, sins, stars, success, summary, supposed, surprise, thing, to, touch, triumph, trouble, try, us, vicarious, we, what, who, why, worst, worth, wrath, you

Sep 11 2013

43 Comments

Playground

ZOMG

I think as a culture we’re so fascinated and scared by zombies because besides not having a heartbeat, there’s not much difference between having a crappy 9-5 job and being a zombie. They’re like the embodiment of the worst version of ourselves. A shell of a human. Basically dead already, but still walking around and going through the motions like we need to keep pushing papers and sending emails because the survival of the species depends on whether or not those quarterly reports that no one reads were formatted correctly.

…I am Jack’s sense of humor.

Tagged alive, AMC, art, bad, blurb, bored, brad pitt, club, crappy, crowd, culture, darryl, dead, depressed, durden, fight, followers, freedom, freedumb, good, groupthink, halloween, horror, i am jack's, it's a fight club reference, jack, job, life, lonely, mentality, mob, movie, omg, paper, party, phone, pusher, redead, rick grimes, routine, smart, survival, terror, the walking dead, tyler, undead, walking, writing, you know fight club, zombie, zomg

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