Dunbar's Number

  

This is what real problems look like, in case anyone was wondering.

Sorry, no hip photos. No wise quotes. Just reality.

These are photos from Abu Ghraib, a prison in Iraq.

American military personnel ran the prison.

Years ago, a bunch of pictures surfaced of American military police torturing prisoners. Prisoners who weren't yet convicted of any crimes.

This week, I've seen photos of Libyan people virtually cut in half, likely by bombs delivered care of their own leader.

I saw a video of a police officer get hit in the head by a petrol bomb at a riot in Greece. 

If I had the means to do so, I would assassinate Gaddafi myself.

And that's what it comes down to; my means of capability to help defenseless and innocent people.

Now what does it mean to have these means?

It means money.

Every fucking thing come down to money.

I don't have the money for plane tickets to Africa.

I don't have the money for a master's degree.

I probably could. But I am ferociously capitalistic.

I'd always choose money over love, over fame, over happiness.

Every one of my dreams; I need money to achieve. To help people. To buy my mom a house. To own a condo on every continent. My entire life's purpose is to get rich. It's not a true, heartfelt purpose but it's something to live for. I'm okay with that conclusion because I think existing is an absurd notion and has no purpose whatsoever. There is no heaven. There is no god. I can't fathom the mental gymnastics of people who try to keep their faith when all logical signs point to "God is a fairy tale." Many people are fascinated by the powers of the mind. Things like epinephrine, our healing functions, learning, and dreams. I don't think it's powerful. It's strange, yes. Fascinating, sure. But you can put a man in a room with no sunlight for a few days and watch how weak the mind really is. Name-calling is driving people to kill themselves in our strange times. We learn about history in high school so our society might have the chance of avoiding repetition. But we still have dictators. Countries are destroying themselves. There are as many earthquakes as there has always been, but now there's just too many fucking people. Humans are not built to live in the societies we currently exist in. And we haven't had enough time to evolve.

We have wars, religion, social programs that don't work and plain, fucking idiots all over the world. 

This is your rapture. These are the revelations. 

I wants. Why am I such a consumer.

Semantic Satiation

Life is rough, so you gotta be tough.

Freedom, Zenos Frudakis

Why do I get so angry? How do I get far enough to make my body shake?
My hands quiver and I can't hold anything. I just want to make fists and swing.
I've never screamed so loud at my mother.
What mad person have I become to wonder why it is illegal to set someone on fire?
I suddenly hate everything I love.
Today, I almost lost what I've spent weeks dreaming about.
My prized project that I spent all day creating, only a day away from completion, and I nearly destroyed it.
You really ruin everything.
I don't know what's wrong with me.
When I was young, I used to pray to God to take away my mother in place of someone else's.
Someone who really loved their mom. One of those people who say "my mom is my best friend."
I've never felt like that about mine. And my heart bled for those kids on the news who would cry and cry for their momma and their dad would talk about how great she was before the accident.
I used to be certain that I was adopted. That there was no way I was birthed from my own mother.
I would get angry and I would scream, "there's no way you're my real mom."
When I was a little older, I tried to plan a murder. I wondered how likely it was that I could get away with killing her myself. Another ridiculous over-reaction.

But I stopped believing in a god. I started liking my mother more.
I still have my bleeding heart. I'm trying to maintain my integrity.
I want to live by myself. I don't want to live at all.
I want to live in a cave, in a dorm, in a room with no beds.
I think I was born wrong.
My mother once told me that I was born in a peaceful environment.
But it's incongruent. My life feels something like free falling down a finite hole while in my arms, I'm holding the screaming, starving infant that is my existence. I can't pull myself up because I'm stuck in the middle of nothing.

In theory, I'd probably be a sociopath but in reality I'm rather empathetic.
I don't understand why people feel so differently from me.
I hate the sensitivity that comes with being a woman.
I hate this in other women.
I hate this in my mother.
I don't understand why people don't like books, or go to church, or fist fight.
I hate these weaknesses in people. Still I somehow do not hate people. I just don't relate to really anyone.
I fell down here from space and cannot find a purpose. I flip like a switch and every little part of me is a polar opposite of another. My entire self is a formation of extremes and reactions.