Bliss

Hanging out with my best friend since 9th grade and being reminded of the natural euphoria that exists in each of us, waiting to slip into real life.

This weekend has actually been really great overall. Really great. And I had an important dream last night. All good. An unmasking of sorts.

I'm happy.

Reality

Preface: I just re-read the entry below and none of my thoughts flow into the next one. Be prepared for a pretty scattered mess of ideas...Ready, set, go!

I've been thinking more about reality, consciousness, and illusions more this week than I think I ever have in my life. I remember when I was a lot younger, maybe around 10 or so, I would stare at myself in the mirror without focusing until my features and expression started to blend and morph into a person I didn't recognize. If you've never done that, then I recommend trying it. I don't remember why I started doing it...perhaps I was just randomly staring at my reflection and soon felt like I was looking at a different person. But in any case, whenever I saw someone else staring back at me, I wondered about what that person's life would be like or who they might be if they were real. Of course, none of these people actually existed and I only saw them because I let my vision blur a little bit. Sometimes I saw my relatives, other times I saw images that were really frightening and caused me to refocus my vision immediately on the comforting image of my own face that had been there all along. But everything I've been thinking about recently has reminded me of this story. Maybe it is simply that I'm skewing my vision to see these varying reflections...but what if it's not? I'm growing really interested in the concepts of hallucinations and illusions.

What does it mean to be real? And similarly, what does it mean to have a "soul" as humans are often considered to possess. Does it mean that we can communicate and feel? Does it mean that we can love or have a sense of "self"?
Could a robot have a soul?
What if that robot was taught how to speak and respond to english? What if they were also taught emotions, like being sad or happy? And what if they could grow attached to something, or fall in love? Then would they have a soul? Does an insect have a soul? A plant? Where do we really draw the line?

Sometimes I feel like I don't exist. Actually, not sometimes, most of the time. But then I battle with the word "existence" and what that even means. What does it mean to even be "existing" or "alive"? Am I more alive than the carpet on the floor? Why? What does that even mean? Sometimes I wonder if I'm just an illusion of my own mind...If each of our minds are God and that we each create our own realities in our heads. Maybe we're only really awake when we're sleeping. Maybe not ever.

I was in my Religious Studies discussion the other day and we were talking about the theory of evolution. I listened slightly to what people were saying, but then I started looking around the room and noticed that almost EVERYONE was itching, picking at a scab, tapping their feet, rubbing their legs or arms, or doing SOMETHING to their bodies. They reminded me of monkeys. They looked like monkeys picking at bugs in their fur. It was a really eery feeling, especially given the topic we were discussing.

Next, why do things sometimes fall the way they do? Like when you're just watching TV and a book falls off a shelf near you. And that book was set on that shelf over a year ago and you haven't touched it since. Was it moving extremely slightly during that entire year until it finally fell? Or was it something else? I had a paddle propped on my desk a couple months ago and it rested there silently for months and then one day it just slid off and knocked a bunch of things off with it. I hadn't touched the paddle or my desk.

Last thought...does anyone ever get a feeling that you're not alone? It's a really weird feeling that I get sometimes. I don't mean in the alien kind of way. I mean in the kind of way where you'll be brushing your teeth in the bathroom by yourself or sitting in your bedroom reading a book alone and your ears ring a little and for some reason you can almost feel something around you. It's really freaking weird. I feel like this happens to most poeple.

I think I'm going crazy.

Dream World

Some quotes I came across and like:

“I think psychedelics play a major part in what we do, but having said that, I feel that if somebody's going to experiment with those things they really need to educate themselves about them. People just taking the chemicals and diving in without having any kind of preparation about what they're about to experience tend to have no frame of reference, so they're missing everything flying by and all these new perspectives. It's just a waste. They reach a little bit of spiritual enlightenment, but they end up going, 'Well, now I need that drug to get back there again.' The trick is to use the drugs once to get there, and maybe spend the next ten years trying to get back there without the drug.”
-James Maynard Keenan

“See I think drugs have done some good things for us, I really do, and if you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor: go home tonight and take all your albums, all your tapes, and all your cds and burn 'em. 'Cause you know the musicians who made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years.... rrrrrrrrreal fuckin high on drugs.”
-Bill Hicks

"All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream."
-Edgar Allan Poe

Little Creatures

I am taking a Religious Studies class this quarter and it is arguably my favorite class that I have ever taken at UCI. Anywho, we recently learned about the afterlife and the different perspectives that certain religions have on it. One that stood out to me is Hinduism's belief of reincarnation and the stages in between.

Basically, their followers believe in karma and that you can accumulate good karma throughout your life, but if you do bad things, then it will eventually come back to you when you die. If you accumulate enough "bad" karma, then you may go to hell for awhile to pay off your demerits and once you're done paying it off, you are reincarnated into a human again and you continue this cycle until you have enough good karma when you die that your spirit can be set free (sometimes this cycle takes thousands of years). I don't believe in that, but it sounds cool.

But the thing that stuck out to me was that for some people, instead of going to hell for a period to pay off your bad karma, they are reincarnated into a plant or animal. After living as one of those things for awhile, they become a human again.

This is a really long and probably unnecessary introduction for what I'm actually trying to get at, but that idea really struck me and reminded me of my own beliefs. The Hindu belief about being reincarnated into a plant or animal if you had a lot of bad karma basically assumes that being one of those things is equivalent to going to hell...that those beings are in some way lesser than human beings. I guess I can understand it since we have so much shit taking up space all over the planet that it seems easy to assume that humans are the ultimate species, but what about the things we don't see or take the time to explore? Our communities are large because we are, but what about an ant's community? Maybe they don't have iPhones and expensive clothing, but should those things really mark the success and worth of a community? Their home may be smaller than ours, but that doesn't mean it's less important. And that goes for any living creature. It makes me really sad sometimes how little consideration people have for insects, plants, and animals. We're all living creatures on this planet, but we think that we're dominant because we have fancy things. What if we didn't have all of the inventions that we do? Would we still think we were better? Do you think that an insect flying from leaf to leaf can be as happy as a human being?
I do.