(This is incomplete at the moment, so I will be revisiting and constantly updating it, so it will most likely eventually drastically changing its course at some point.)
On Language
For the purpose of this thing here, I will capitalize the word “Language” when I’m typing about Language as a whole and whatever-the-opposite-of-capitalize-is (since I’m pretty sure that “lowercase” cannot be verbalized. And yes, I’m aware everything about the preceding nine-or-so words go against what will come later in this passage, but I’m a hypocrite just like everybody else, so deal with it. Also, you may notice that I like to go off on minor tangents and wear out the dash and parentheses buttons on my keyboard, but try to keep up with my meandering mind, please.) the word “language” when talking about specific languages (English, Spanish, Sanskrit, etc.). To start off, I would like to laud the supreme importance of Language. The two greatest inventions in human history are Language and fire. Fire is up there because it was probably the first invention by humans. But Language takes the cake by default. Think about it, fire did not exist until the first form of the word “fire” was created. It physically existed pre-christening, but it wasn’t “fire.” No things existed until the first form of the word “thing” happened. You get my point. However, I do find it (hilariously) unrighteous (in the “they don’t have the right” sense, not the Bill S. Preston Esq. sense) of the human race to name things rather than classify them. Specifically natural, non-manmade things like organic life and everything in the universe. Who is man to decide that the space-rock we are hurtling through space upon is named “Earth”? We can call it Earth, but how dare we have the gall to name it Earth. That is an atrocious notion to me. For instance, the fact that people can actually get stars named after themselves is enthusiastically infuriating to me. Seriously, consider that fact for a few seconds. Stars that undoubtedly have extra-terrestrial life forms revolving around them (its basic logic and probability. Life happened once that we know of, space is infinite, therefore there is other life. It can happen, therefore, in an infinite plane, it must happen an infinite number of times.) have arbitrary names that we dreamed up. That is a prime example of the pompous atrocity that is humane self-importance. But I digress (I warned you about the tangents.) Anyways, back to what I may have been saying (I don’t feel like looking up slightly.) I have always been fascinated with Language, and although I acknowledge and applaud (see what I did there? Me either.) its importance, I also believe it to be utterly subjective, especially in its written form. Write what you feel sounds/looks the way you want, don’t change your style to fit arbitrary grammatical guidelines. They are called “guidelines” for a reason, grammar isn’t the strict code that public school would have you believe, it is simply a preset meant to help make your writing easier to understand. I used to be a grammar-Nazi, but not anymore. Spelling errors used to bother me, but no longer. Language is subjective to the point that there is no such thing as a “misspelling,” just a new way to spell.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Trespassing in the land of the Cockroaches.
(This one actually contains some science regarding aging, of which I did no research whatsoever. But, as it is a fictional story, I can put down whatever the hell I want, and you have to accept it as fictional fact. So there.)
Trespassing in the Land of the Cockroaches
Darren had spent his entire life in the oppressive emptiness of space. 24 years
before, Darren’s parents had answered the call of NASA, the organization in charge of
sending other people and animals into the unknown purely for the sake of frivolous knowledge. In the 1960s, the then-modern world was stricken with what can only be described as childish delirium by what was known as the “international space-race.” The object of so many desires was a relatively small hunk of rock that has been running circles around our own relatively small hunk of rock for all of memory. Everything in space is relatively small. The only feasible reason for such a mostly senseless fervor was to be the first. To win. Virtually countless units of currency were wasted on this fruitless pursuit. Nearly 70 years later, Darren’s parents sold him to NASA for 4 million USD on the day of his birth. They did not do this for the sake of scientific research or out of a love of the unknown. They sold him because they were greedy and selfish, and wanted money. They ended up selling 8 children to NASA, but Darren was the only one to qualify for space exploration. The other seven were inserted into random orphanages with false names. Darren, of course, knew none of this. As he was to be raised by NASA, he was never told anything of his actual past. He was told that he was the very first biological android, created and programmed by NASA. Naturally, being a developing child, he firmly believed everything he was told without any hesitation. He came to love (or as close to love an android can come) NASA as any other child loves who they believe their creator to be, as a parent. NASA told Darren that, since they wrote his programming, not only did he have to follow their every instruction; it was physically impossible for him to ignore them. So, during his 24 years exploring the solar system, he believed himself to be a machine designed to do as he is told, so he did as he was told. Until the instructions stopped coming. During one of his years, (he was stationed in orbit of the planet Jupiter, so his year was the equivalence of twelve years on Earth. If he had been lucky enough to be ineligible for space travel, he would now be 288 years old.) the periodical transmissions he was programmed to expect stopped coming. He was unknowingly apprehensive and frightened by this lack of occurrence. Being a fake android, he did not know the names of any emotions, and had only ever felt a seldom few. This was his first experience with either fear or apprehension, which brought on yet another new, nameless feeling: worry. He subconsciously worried about the break in routine, about his personal future, and about his parent, NASA. So, in his first act of self-preservation and of emotion, Darren activated the Automated Return Trip System, and began his trek back to his first home.
From the outset of his journey, Darren felt yet another, more complicated, specific emotion: the excitement felt when doing something utterly new and unknown. The extent of his lack of knowledge concerning his home world is astounding. Not only does he not know of his real parents, he does not know what a human being looks like. The transmissions from NASA were purely audio. Also, the craft upon which he was stationed was molded to have no reflective surfaces, so Darren does not know what he looks like. This made him excited. He was anxious to see his creators for the first time in his existence (he had no notion of the term “life,” since he was not “born,” but “created”). When he finally arrived on Earth, he took everything he saw as status quo, for he did not know otherwise.
His travel craft touched down where the docking station designed specifically for his shuttle used to be, around 3 miles offshore the Florida coast. After he splashed down in an ocean unexpected, he made his way toward the only landform visible to him upon the onboard watercraft as per his programming. NASA had placed some precautions onboard should they ever want the spacecraft back on Earth, so an automated message repeated itself, informing Darren what to do to start the return sequence and where to go once he touched down. They wanted him to go straight to a building near the shoreline where he would go in, and then they would kill him. They didn’t care about him at all; they just didn’t want to lose the expensive craft. Life is cheap, material is worth something. Upon reaching what was supposed to be the destined building, Darren was confused (yet another new emotion) when there was no building there. In fact, there was nothing, just a barren landscape. This was a very crucial time for him, as this is when all of his programming ended. He did not know what he was supposed to do next. His very next movement would be his first of free will.
His first motion under no influence other than his own was also the first time he ever made a gesture that symbolized something in human culture: he scratched his head. He was utterly lost. He was afraid to move; for fear that his masters might miss him when they arrived. It was in his programming to come to this very patch of land and wait for his parent to show up to end his existence. But there was nothing here, nothing coming. He spun around, scanning the horizon for any approaching figures. When nothing appeared, he sat down on the spot to wait. He sat there stock still for 27 hours before he realized that he had not “refueled” since his arrival. He knew that he needed to give his body energy in order to continue his existence, and he did not want to end before his parent arrived, as that was not in his programming. Accordingly, his first conscious, uninfluenced decision was to search for energy, then return to the area where he was supposed to be. His journey began very slowly, as every step he took went against every fiber in his being, and he had to summon all the courage in his body in order to move at all. Courage was another concept unknown to Darren. The most courageous acts are those done of one’s own accord, while blind obedience is rife with cowardice. He continued his slow walk in a nearly straight line for five miles, which lasted around 16 hours. Eventually he experienced another new sensation: exhaustion. Eventually he collapsed out of fatigue, for he did not know his own limits. He would have died face down in the dirt if not for the last remnants of visible life on the planet.
He awoke in what appeared to be a low, underground cavern, approximately 30 yards from the entrance. The feeble rays of light seeping through the mouth of the hollow, illuminating the swirling cloud of gray dust, resulted in a pall of dim, ashen light that seemed to cling to the floor. As the sun slowly rose and more light was swallowed by the opening, Darren saw a chaotic movement coating the bottom of the cavern, a sinewy mass that seemed to have one consciousness. As more and more light shone in, he finally came face to face with what he assumed were his masters, as they were the only creatures he had ever seen. They were cockroaches, billions of cockroaches, a species that had flourished since the total nuclear holocaust that had happened on the planet 12 years before. Unhindered by other life-forms, the cockroach population had reached the octillions worldwide, feasting on any remnant of the past reality of the globe. Darren was unable to move under the weight of the cockroaches, as they had begun to swarm him, forcing themselves into every crevice of his body, filling his lungs, his stomach, his ears, his nasal cavity, his eye sockets, and his intestines. They were eating him from the inside and the out. Darren felt his last new emotion in the waning moments of his existence: ecstasy. He had fulfilled his programming, sacrificing his body to what he believed to be his creators. He felt no pain, the whole process lasting mere minutes. The roaches ate until there was no Darren.
THE END OF IT ALL.
Trespassing in the Land of the Cockroaches
Darren had spent his entire life in the oppressive emptiness of space. 24 years
before, Darren’s parents had answered the call of NASA, the organization in charge of
sending other people and animals into the unknown purely for the sake of frivolous knowledge. In the 1960s, the then-modern world was stricken with what can only be described as childish delirium by what was known as the “international space-race.” The object of so many desires was a relatively small hunk of rock that has been running circles around our own relatively small hunk of rock for all of memory. Everything in space is relatively small. The only feasible reason for such a mostly senseless fervor was to be the first. To win. Virtually countless units of currency were wasted on this fruitless pursuit. Nearly 70 years later, Darren’s parents sold him to NASA for 4 million USD on the day of his birth. They did not do this for the sake of scientific research or out of a love of the unknown. They sold him because they were greedy and selfish, and wanted money. They ended up selling 8 children to NASA, but Darren was the only one to qualify for space exploration. The other seven were inserted into random orphanages with false names. Darren, of course, knew none of this. As he was to be raised by NASA, he was never told anything of his actual past. He was told that he was the very first biological android, created and programmed by NASA. Naturally, being a developing child, he firmly believed everything he was told without any hesitation. He came to love (or as close to love an android can come) NASA as any other child loves who they believe their creator to be, as a parent. NASA told Darren that, since they wrote his programming, not only did he have to follow their every instruction; it was physically impossible for him to ignore them. So, during his 24 years exploring the solar system, he believed himself to be a machine designed to do as he is told, so he did as he was told. Until the instructions stopped coming. During one of his years, (he was stationed in orbit of the planet Jupiter, so his year was the equivalence of twelve years on Earth. If he had been lucky enough to be ineligible for space travel, he would now be 288 years old.) the periodical transmissions he was programmed to expect stopped coming. He was unknowingly apprehensive and frightened by this lack of occurrence. Being a fake android, he did not know the names of any emotions, and had only ever felt a seldom few. This was his first experience with either fear or apprehension, which brought on yet another new, nameless feeling: worry. He subconsciously worried about the break in routine, about his personal future, and about his parent, NASA. So, in his first act of self-preservation and of emotion, Darren activated the Automated Return Trip System, and began his trek back to his first home.
From the outset of his journey, Darren felt yet another, more complicated, specific emotion: the excitement felt when doing something utterly new and unknown. The extent of his lack of knowledge concerning his home world is astounding. Not only does he not know of his real parents, he does not know what a human being looks like. The transmissions from NASA were purely audio. Also, the craft upon which he was stationed was molded to have no reflective surfaces, so Darren does not know what he looks like. This made him excited. He was anxious to see his creators for the first time in his existence (he had no notion of the term “life,” since he was not “born,” but “created”). When he finally arrived on Earth, he took everything he saw as status quo, for he did not know otherwise.
His travel craft touched down where the docking station designed specifically for his shuttle used to be, around 3 miles offshore the Florida coast. After he splashed down in an ocean unexpected, he made his way toward the only landform visible to him upon the onboard watercraft as per his programming. NASA had placed some precautions onboard should they ever want the spacecraft back on Earth, so an automated message repeated itself, informing Darren what to do to start the return sequence and where to go once he touched down. They wanted him to go straight to a building near the shoreline where he would go in, and then they would kill him. They didn’t care about him at all; they just didn’t want to lose the expensive craft. Life is cheap, material is worth something. Upon reaching what was supposed to be the destined building, Darren was confused (yet another new emotion) when there was no building there. In fact, there was nothing, just a barren landscape. This was a very crucial time for him, as this is when all of his programming ended. He did not know what he was supposed to do next. His very next movement would be his first of free will.
His first motion under no influence other than his own was also the first time he ever made a gesture that symbolized something in human culture: he scratched his head. He was utterly lost. He was afraid to move; for fear that his masters might miss him when they arrived. It was in his programming to come to this very patch of land and wait for his parent to show up to end his existence. But there was nothing here, nothing coming. He spun around, scanning the horizon for any approaching figures. When nothing appeared, he sat down on the spot to wait. He sat there stock still for 27 hours before he realized that he had not “refueled” since his arrival. He knew that he needed to give his body energy in order to continue his existence, and he did not want to end before his parent arrived, as that was not in his programming. Accordingly, his first conscious, uninfluenced decision was to search for energy, then return to the area where he was supposed to be. His journey began very slowly, as every step he took went against every fiber in his being, and he had to summon all the courage in his body in order to move at all. Courage was another concept unknown to Darren. The most courageous acts are those done of one’s own accord, while blind obedience is rife with cowardice. He continued his slow walk in a nearly straight line for five miles, which lasted around 16 hours. Eventually he experienced another new sensation: exhaustion. Eventually he collapsed out of fatigue, for he did not know his own limits. He would have died face down in the dirt if not for the last remnants of visible life on the planet.
He awoke in what appeared to be a low, underground cavern, approximately 30 yards from the entrance. The feeble rays of light seeping through the mouth of the hollow, illuminating the swirling cloud of gray dust, resulted in a pall of dim, ashen light that seemed to cling to the floor. As the sun slowly rose and more light was swallowed by the opening, Darren saw a chaotic movement coating the bottom of the cavern, a sinewy mass that seemed to have one consciousness. As more and more light shone in, he finally came face to face with what he assumed were his masters, as they were the only creatures he had ever seen. They were cockroaches, billions of cockroaches, a species that had flourished since the total nuclear holocaust that had happened on the planet 12 years before. Unhindered by other life-forms, the cockroach population had reached the octillions worldwide, feasting on any remnant of the past reality of the globe. Darren was unable to move under the weight of the cockroaches, as they had begun to swarm him, forcing themselves into every crevice of his body, filling his lungs, his stomach, his ears, his nasal cavity, his eye sockets, and his intestines. They were eating him from the inside and the out. Darren felt his last new emotion in the waning moments of his existence: ecstasy. He had fulfilled his programming, sacrificing his body to what he believed to be his creators. He felt no pain, the whole process lasting mere minutes. The roaches ate until there was no Darren.
THE END OF IT ALL.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
(I want to preface this first entry with a cautionary statement: this is the very first draft. I haven't even read it. Also, I do plan on re-writing it as a narrative instead of whatever it is now. It's more of a report, I guess. I don't know, I don't have to analyze it, I wrote it.)
Visitor (temporary title)
Few humans witnessed the amber streak that graced the sky on the night of July 28th, 2016. It raced across the nightscape in a wide arc that culminated in a large crater on the Sudanese countryside at first light. The animals, being the only rational creatures left on the soon-to-be devastated planet, were stricken with sudden bouts of distress and savage hopelessness. The lions stopped hunting, the gazelle ceased their grazing, the birds refused themselves the joys of aviation. The surrounding human inhabitants began noticing the “strange” behavior over the next few sun cycles, and they reacted the way any other human being would: with uncanny stupidity and egocentricity. They called upon their various shamans and witch doctors and the priests supplied to them to ease the minds of the wildlife, upon which they depended for sustenance. They had forgotten how to continue their own lives without ending others’. They tried to eat off of the land, but they had subjected their constitutions to a steady diet of flesh, so that their body and minds craved it, and they became weak and sick. Entire villages were dead within months, victims of starvation and suicide. This was only the commencement of what would become the end of all life on the planet earth.
The aforementioned amber streak was the result of the atmospheric trail of a pod from a planet orbiting the star Alpha Centauri (as named by the humans, it does not actually have a name, since it’s a star, not a sentient being. This was a disturbing trend adopted by the human race during its infancy). The beings that reside upon that large chunk of orbital rock did not have a name, and had evolved to live for millions of years, as their bodies produced all the energy it needed and did not produce waste. They were near perfect beings, only crippled by their own curiosity. They grew tired of their home planet and decided to travel to other worlds in search of other “intelligent” beings. The being borne within the pod that landed on the earth came to be called “God” by half of the planet, and “Satan” by the other, as the humans could not grasp the fact that this being that had mastered speech was not only nameless, but had a name that was fabricated a long time before (relative to the lifespan of the humans). For the sake of simplicity, as it will be humans themselves who will be reading this chronicle, the being will be recognized as “God,” as that moniker had a much more polite connotation. All God wanted to gain from his trip was all the knowledge of the dominant being on the planet. Due to his body’s efficiency, he could travel by foot at incredible speeds and had no need to rest, eat, sleep, or defecate. God was neither good nor evil, just curious. It was in God’s nature to accrue as much information as he could in his nearly inexhaustible life, purely for the sake of knowing.
There were those who did not take part in the factional warfare, most of whom did so willingly and not as a result of incapability. Those humans wondered what God did to start all of the vicious nonsense of the following three years, and the answer to all their ponderings is simple: he existed, and he was different. God traveled from human to human until he came face-to-face with every single one that inhabited the planet, a process that lasted 16 days as recognized by the humans. Each human instantaneously labeled God as either “good” or “evil” upon what they called their “gut feeling,” even though the human guts consists of the majority of the digestive system and provides no insight or opinion whatsoever to the being within which it is housed. Once reports of God’s travels reached every “corner” of the utterly cornerless spheroid, and the people of the planet realized that it was not an outright invasion by extraterrestrials and was the work of one being, the human race began splitting into the two distinct factions that would consume the planet in blood and fire over the subsequent years. Those that called the being “God” named themselves “The Explicit Followers of the Savior God,” and those that called the being “Satan” named themselves “The Saviors of the Earth From the Bastard Satan.” The two factions believed their ludicrous delusions so ardently that each henceforth action taken by the individual humans was for their concurrent faction. The dispute became violent within one year, and as the two factions had possession of a large quantity of the deadliest weapons the planet had ever seen, the contest did not last long. As for God (or Satan, depending on which farce you subscribe to), he wandered helplessly throughout the conflict, pleading each human to end the silliness and explaining his reasons for visiting their planet. His attempts were pointless, however, as the human race as a whole has always had a deep-seeded self-hatred, and merely needed an excuse to exterminate itself in order to justify its actions and appease the collective pride of the species
THE END
OR IS IT?!?!?
YES, IT IS. EVERYTHING IS DEAD.
IDIOT.
Visitor (temporary title)
Few humans witnessed the amber streak that graced the sky on the night of July 28th, 2016. It raced across the nightscape in a wide arc that culminated in a large crater on the Sudanese countryside at first light. The animals, being the only rational creatures left on the soon-to-be devastated planet, were stricken with sudden bouts of distress and savage hopelessness. The lions stopped hunting, the gazelle ceased their grazing, the birds refused themselves the joys of aviation. The surrounding human inhabitants began noticing the “strange” behavior over the next few sun cycles, and they reacted the way any other human being would: with uncanny stupidity and egocentricity. They called upon their various shamans and witch doctors and the priests supplied to them to ease the minds of the wildlife, upon which they depended for sustenance. They had forgotten how to continue their own lives without ending others’. They tried to eat off of the land, but they had subjected their constitutions to a steady diet of flesh, so that their body and minds craved it, and they became weak and sick. Entire villages were dead within months, victims of starvation and suicide. This was only the commencement of what would become the end of all life on the planet earth.
The aforementioned amber streak was the result of the atmospheric trail of a pod from a planet orbiting the star Alpha Centauri (as named by the humans, it does not actually have a name, since it’s a star, not a sentient being. This was a disturbing trend adopted by the human race during its infancy). The beings that reside upon that large chunk of orbital rock did not have a name, and had evolved to live for millions of years, as their bodies produced all the energy it needed and did not produce waste. They were near perfect beings, only crippled by their own curiosity. They grew tired of their home planet and decided to travel to other worlds in search of other “intelligent” beings. The being borne within the pod that landed on the earth came to be called “God” by half of the planet, and “Satan” by the other, as the humans could not grasp the fact that this being that had mastered speech was not only nameless, but had a name that was fabricated a long time before (relative to the lifespan of the humans). For the sake of simplicity, as it will be humans themselves who will be reading this chronicle, the being will be recognized as “God,” as that moniker had a much more polite connotation. All God wanted to gain from his trip was all the knowledge of the dominant being on the planet. Due to his body’s efficiency, he could travel by foot at incredible speeds and had no need to rest, eat, sleep, or defecate. God was neither good nor evil, just curious. It was in God’s nature to accrue as much information as he could in his nearly inexhaustible life, purely for the sake of knowing.
There were those who did not take part in the factional warfare, most of whom did so willingly and not as a result of incapability. Those humans wondered what God did to start all of the vicious nonsense of the following three years, and the answer to all their ponderings is simple: he existed, and he was different. God traveled from human to human until he came face-to-face with every single one that inhabited the planet, a process that lasted 16 days as recognized by the humans. Each human instantaneously labeled God as either “good” or “evil” upon what they called their “gut feeling,” even though the human guts consists of the majority of the digestive system and provides no insight or opinion whatsoever to the being within which it is housed. Once reports of God’s travels reached every “corner” of the utterly cornerless spheroid, and the people of the planet realized that it was not an outright invasion by extraterrestrials and was the work of one being, the human race began splitting into the two distinct factions that would consume the planet in blood and fire over the subsequent years. Those that called the being “God” named themselves “The Explicit Followers of the Savior God,” and those that called the being “Satan” named themselves “The Saviors of the Earth From the Bastard Satan.” The two factions believed their ludicrous delusions so ardently that each henceforth action taken by the individual humans was for their concurrent faction. The dispute became violent within one year, and as the two factions had possession of a large quantity of the deadliest weapons the planet had ever seen, the contest did not last long. As for God (or Satan, depending on which farce you subscribe to), he wandered helplessly throughout the conflict, pleading each human to end the silliness and explaining his reasons for visiting their planet. His attempts were pointless, however, as the human race as a whole has always had a deep-seeded self-hatred, and merely needed an excuse to exterminate itself in order to justify its actions and appease the collective pride of the species
THE END
OR IS IT?!?!?
YES, IT IS. EVERYTHING IS DEAD.
IDIOT.
Friday, February 12, 2010
So it begins.
My intent for this web-based log is exactly how it sounds: it is my creative outlet. I see myself as an apathetic cynic: I hate most things on some level, but I'm too lazy to act. As you (and by "you," I mean all 3 people who will probably ever read this, including the future me) may tell by the vast majority of my entries, I firmly believe the human race has less than 200 years left to live. I base this notion on a combination of what I perceive human nature to be and the rapidity of technological advancement.
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