I Don’t Even Know Why

I don’t even know why.

The Fantastic Mind of a Human Being

This is just a recap on how I feel about people in general, in the form of four watercolors.

Good luck with, um, life!

Poetically Perfect; thoughts on exteriors

Contrary to popular belief, I do not hate people in general.

I don’t think that anyone really hates people in general. They may testify otherwise, but I think they’re lying.

Really, what’s to hate? People are beautiful! They have unlimited potential. They can emote and communicate with the most subtle of impressions. They can create for goodness’ sake! Nothing else in the world can do that.  People are stunningly colorful and imperfectly poetic. Nonetheless, I see it everywhere; “I just hate people, you know?” “People suck.” “I just don’t want to deal with people.” Why? I repeat, what is there to hate?

Knowing vs. Believing

What is the difference between Knowing and Believing?
Is knowing believing with facts?
Is believing just knowing but not being sure?
I’ll use the example of Peter Pan. Whenever a child said, “I don’t believe in fairies,” a fairy died, so in order to kill Tinkerbell, Captain Hook yelled those words at her. What does it mean to believe in fairies? Hook had actually seen Tink, and she actually existed. He had undoubtable proof of it. How is believing in fairies different than knowing they exist? Upon much contemplation, I could find only one difference.
Knowing is believing when you are considered right by the vast majority of the people around you. It gets complicated with past tense narrative because usually in that case knowing is believing when the vast majority of the audience agrees. In any case it all depends on the whether or not you agree with the general populous. I chose my definition over “knowing is believing when you’re right” because there is so much we don’t know or can’t rule out in this world that I can’t accept that definition. How real is reality?
Who am I to say that you aren’t the only person that ever existed, and everything is just your imagination? Who am I to say that there is an edge to the universe? Who am I to say that all we see is all that exists?
All I’m saying is that no one can prove anything, he can only convince others to believe him… And how true can those beliefs be? We all know that humans, as a race, can be quite gullible.

Sketchbook Update

Usually for my pen drawings I start out with a pencil guideline (to erase later), then ink out the final shape. Well, for a while I’ve loved the look of the final outline with the skeletal guideline underneath, but always erase the guideline. But the other day I had no pencils with me, only pens, and I decided to try out a new idea.

Drawing My [Lack of] Posture

I have horrible posture. Never, not ever, do I sit straightforwardly, perpendicular to a chair or couch, or what have you. I decided one day that, in order to work on drawing bodies in different positions, I’d attempt to draw my various preferred poses. So, here’s me on an infinity couch.

Notes: these are all things I do. I don’t know how my family deals with me. I think I did a good job as far as accuracy goes; my physical appearance and mannerisms, plus the clothes I’m wearing in the drawing are pretty much all that I wear in real life. Since I drew this I’ve gotten my hair chopped off, pixie style, though. Now I have significantly less hair cascading* from my head.

*I like this word.

If a Tree Falls…

If a tree falls in the forest, but no one is around to hear it does it make a sound? Okay, the theory is that, since a sound is, by definition, the brain translating air waves, the tree does not make a sound. I am fascinated by how, with no one to receive it, a sound simply cannot exist.

Here are some questions based off of the well-known proverb:

If a man saves a life, but nobody sees him is he a hero?
If someone makes a joke, but nobody gets it is he clever?
It’s a girl wears makeup, but nobody notices her is she pretty?
It’s a scientist discovers the truth, but nobody understands him is he a genius?

More on the Alien (pt 1)

Meredith, what’s your favorite thing?

Oh, that’s easy. My favorite thing is the complexity of reality despite its not-necessary-ness? the fact that it didn’t have to exist.*

See, however you believe the world got started (I believe in Creation, so this post will be affected by this, the basis of my thought), it didn’t necessarily have to end up this way. And yet, here it is; the infinity of existence in all it’s fullness. I know people marvel at how complex the universe is, but I don’t think they fully know how splendid it really is.
The thing is, whatever a scholar spends his life studying is complex enough to marvel at; be it a science, an art, or even a family history. Even still, so many things exist that it is undoubtably impossible to know it all, or even understand how much there is.
Consider, for instance, breakfast cereal. A fairly recent invention, breakfast cereal derived from mash, a dish long served exclusively to horses. I encourage you, look breakfast cereal up. It has a fascinating history, especially considering its present success. One could take a lifetime studying the cereal itself, or the history of its founders, or the philosophical application of its rise to power, and you’d just be studying one component of one culture.
You could so study anything, the mechanics of baskets, the history of narwhals impersonating unicorns, the reason why nearly every culture has its own personalized version of bread, and don’t get me started on scientific theory. Lives have been spent studying the previously mentioned, and obviously many more subjects, and how much do we really know about the universe? I’d say we’ve barely scratched the surface.
That is enough to meditate on for a while, with a cup of tea and some headphones, but the incredible thing is that none of this had to exist. The universe could have just been born a vast grey plane, a little shapeless blob of nothing, or even one dimensional, or something, but it ended up this complex, inverted, tangled, beautiful home of ideas.
Ideas, old, young, physical, mental, emotional, invisible, and even incorrect, at times.
You have art, music, and invention, yes, but even the things that aren’t so obviously beautiful as well. There are billions upon billions of words, feelings, little subconscious acts happening at once. Sometimes the most wonderful things are the ones that last merely one moment, only to be forgotten the next moment. There isn’t enough collective thought in the universe to record every-single-thing, let alone learn it all over again. I will never cease to be dumbfounded by how vastly giant even the littlest thing is.

*This actually happened, by the way. I could have just as easily said, “peanut butter.”

Footnote: yes, you did read “pt 1” in the title. I couldn’t fit all my thoughts here, so expect some more raving in the future.

Native vs. Alien

I’ve formulated a new theory (a phrase you may be hearing a lot more often, if you’re new here.), but before I go into the theory, I preface with a question.

Why are some people naturally adventurous and some naturally comfortable with the familiar?

Switching Gears

Okay, I figured that I should let you in on what has partially been hindering me from posting and commenting very often, lately. Here’s the deal.
It’s been harder to post personal thoughts because more people that I know in real life have been following me, and I’d been getting to know my virtual friends better as well.