Hobbies

Now here's a topic that everyone can relate to, because everyone has at least one, even if they won't admit it. At some point, you've probably complained to someone else about boredom. Chances are that they'll reply with some form of "read a book", "clean something", or, "get a hobby." Stop and think about this for a moment, and you'll realize that this is remarkably good advice. I happen to have the fortune to have been born into fairly well off family, so I've had the chance to explore many different activities, some of which can be extremely expensive. I currently participate in nordic skiing, and scuba diving as well as other things such as the Junior Classical League. The last of these requires some explanation. The Junior Classical League, or JCL for short, is a fairly large organization of students interested in learning more and carrying on the traditions of the classical civilizations such as the greeks and the romans. Once a year we get together for three days and celebrate the classics, with chariot races and gladiatorial combat and larger than life trebuchets it is a blast. I feel privileged to be able to participate in these kinds of things, and I feel sorry for all the people who don't have these opportunities, and feel scorn for those who do, but let them pass by.

Time III

Time, in my mind, is not linear. Think about it like this, think of your favorite book, and then imagine that you are one of the characters in that book. Now if you have read it, think of C.S. Lewis's, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. While on one of the islands the encounter, lucy reads a story, but finds that she is unable to turn back to the beginning, or for that matter, back at all. Imagine that you are a character in a book like that. The book is time. You are the character. Time is all there, all at one, you can pick it up, look at it from any angle you wish, but you can't go forward ahead of what you've read already, what you've already encountered. You also can't go back, and erase past mistakes, or re-experience what happened in the past. We move through time, passing from moment to moment experiencing each thing as it happens. Although time is all there all at once, we have no control over its passage, and it is that which drives us mad.

Time II

The fact that we human beings have terminal, fairly short lifespans justifies our use of time, being early or late, or on time for that matter are just tools to help us deal with how short our lifespans are. Of course most humans aren't afraid of death, it's just like going to sleep, except that they don't get to wake back up again the next day and socialize. That's what we're afraid of. That the passage of time will get out of hand and when it's time to depart, we'll have regrets about what we've done and about what we haven't gotten around to doing. But most of all, that no one will either care about or remember us. Of course this is an irrational fear, and if you find that you in fact are dying alone and forgotten, then think about what you might have done, because you probably deserve it.

Time I

I've been thinking about doing a series of posts on one topic, but I had to think of a topic broad enough. Then it hit me. Time.

I'll start with the basics. Time a human quality. Without us there would be no passing of time, for we invented the very concept of it. Without us, there is no concept of time. Things would just happen when they did, causing something else to happen. Now I know that there are many people who would be more than happy to call me out on all of this and make me stare at a piece of paper as they prove to me that I am wrong and they are right, but I don't care. These are my own theories, my own individual ideas, if you are reading this, I am not asking you to accept these ideas, only think about them, and formulate your own thoughts.

Entropy And Empathy

For those who don't know, entropy is a measure of disorder. An isolated system will spontaneously proceed towards thermodynamic equilibrium. The equation for entropy can be represented as such, where entropy is represented by ∆ S.

Of course, I don't claim to really know what I'm talking about, and if anyone is reading this, you might be thinking, "why is he blabbing on about entropy, what does entropy have to do with anything?" Well entropy, and especially the image below represents how my life seems to me in the darker moments that I sometimes lapse into. Starting out fine, and then dissolving into nothing.

 That's where this blog comes in. Knowing that someone with similar problems could be reading this helps a lot. I'm sure that everyone has had the experience of waking in a cold sweat from a bad dream, and then being comforted by their mother or father or somebody. I also believe that most people have also had the experience of waking to find that there is nobody to help, to talk to, or to comfort you and tell you that it was all just a dream. That's why I made this blog, so that there could be someone out there, I don't think that there is, but just the possibility that there might be helps enormously. Empathy is a wonderful and powerful thing.

New Posts

Regarding how often I'll post new posts, I don't know how much I will. So far, I have done three posts in five days, but I think that it will most likely slow down, or I'll forget about this blog entirely. I will try to do at least one post a week for a while though. On another note, I would like to share a funny quote i stumbled across.

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."
                                                                                          --Mel Brooks

Who Watches The Watchmen

I recently read the famed graphic novel Watchmen, and was very interested in a few things in particular. First, throughout the book the phrase, "Who watches the watchmen?" appears, although never in full. This originated from the latin, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?", or, "Who will guard the guards themselves?". As it turns out, this phrase is famous, being used in many places, from Watchmen to The Simpsons. If you really think about the sentence, it is a fairly good argument. How do we know that the people guarding prisons are better people than the prisoners themselves? The answer is we don't, but we have to hope that they are, or else the world is screwed.

"Who Watches The Watchmen?"

 The second thing that caught my interest was the character of Rorschach. What drew me in were his imperfections, the fact the he has some major flaws. He is on the run from the law, wanted on two counts, murder being one, and keeps to his vigilantism even after it is outlawed. Rorschach is born out of misfortunes, and despite killing multiple people without remorse, maiming random innocents to gain information, and going to prison, he is a very likeable character. On the very first page of the book, in Rorschach's diary, he says this; "The city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!"...and I'll look down and whisper "No."" In the trailer for the watchmen movie, this is the last thing in the trailer, and I know I want to see the movie. I have provided a way to watch it on this page below.

Mood Songs

Recently, I have been experimenting with something I'd like to call mood songs. I was listening to some music, and about halfway through one song I realized that the song I was listening to, Nero by Two Steps From Hell, portrayed my mood almost perfectly. So I played it again, and I found that after the second time, the song became my mood. Or really, my mood changed to fit the song. I thought that this was interesting, so I started trying it with less depressing songs. This is a great way to deal with stress, headphones in, tuning out the world, but it works best if you are alone somewhere, like a forest. Find a rock in the sun, lay on it and listen to either your music, or whatever is around you. But try not to listen to anything all that depressing.

Empathy and Entropy

To be honest, i'm not really sure why I decided to create a blog, or why I decided to name it empathy, and I have no idea about the entropy part. I probably will forget about it after a couple of weeks. If I had to guess the reasons, I would say that I made it so that I could have somewhere to drain out all of the sewage in my head, and every once in awhile, something nice might come out as well. I know that al the hits on this blog will likely be my own, but it helps to know that people are able to read, nevermind the fact that no one probably will.