You know what makes me really sad? People who don't believe in Evolution. Sure, they make me pretty mad too, because COME ON, guys. Covering your ears and shouting "LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOUUU" will only get you so far in life. But mostly they make me sad. Why?
This is a pikaia. It is one of the earliest chordates to have existed, roughly 500 million years ago. Posessing a notochord (aw yeah, I still remember my grade 11 biology), it is a distant ancestor of humans, since we belong to the phylum Chordata as well.
Isn't that amazing? A long, long, incredibly long time ago, that was us. Just a dumb looking worm swimming about in the ocean. Personally, I find this incredibly beautiful. Not the worm, he's kind of gross, but the entire process. I love sitting back and thinking about the transition that life has made of all these millenia.It's exciting, especially to think of where everything will be going in the future.
I think that some people tend to feel belittled or insignificant in the face of such enormity, and choose to ignore it in favour of "grander" theories, like Creation. But how can all this progress not be grand?! How can people not see the beauty in this slow transformation that we all get to be a part of? I am constantly humbled, and then proud and puffed up. I worry that people don't value themselves the way they should sometimes, and the vastness of life before, life now and life to come makes them feel unimportant. It's a sad attitude to adopt. I know I have some very blunt attitudes myself towards things like this (we are just a speck in the universe, etc), but in more positive moods, I can recognize that we are all valuable stepping stones in life, in evolution.
My absolute favourite fact about the universe came to me through Neil deGrasse Tyson. It's a popular video, so you may have seen it before, but I can never get tired of watching it.
I just want people, all people, to be able to look at the world, at the universe, at life, and be able to feel what I feel whenever I think about these things. It's a great feeling.
Whoo! It's been a long time since I wrote here! I've just been so busy with school. In fact, I really should have been doing about three different things instead of writing this post, but this was more fun. More again soon! I have a bone to pick with philosophy, and you'll hear aaaall about it.
Drawing again: Feels good. I can see how much better I've gotten. Onward to glory! This song: Amazing amazing, though your version is still my favourite, Christina. Time to go to bed now because I have work at 8am: Bleh. My dad thinks that we should have 36 hour days. While this is obviously impossible, I can certainly see the benefit. So much to do, and there's never enough time.
Well, I've once again spent the entire day sitting in front of my computer. It normally feels satisfying, but today seemed kind of lackluster. The saddest part is that I am honestly too shy to call up my own friends and see what they're doing.
Self loathing engaged? Self loathing engaged!
At least I drew some cool pictures today.There's always that.
I'm not anti-girl, I'm anti-bitch
I'm not anti-truth, I'm anti-snitch
I'm not anti-faith, I'm anti-stupid
I'm not anti-love, I'm anti-cupid.
Haha, oh dear. I used to make up things like these all the time. I don't write as much as I used to, which is really a shame. But I will let you in on a secret. I... I have been writing a fan fiction. Go ahead! Mock me! See if I care! I'm really enjoying it, actually. I started it about a year or two ago, and just rememebered about it recently, so here wo go again. I want to get the whole thing written out before I publish it on FanFiction.
So maybe you want to know what it's about? You could probably guess, if you knew me well enough. It is about Fallout (more specifically, Fallout: New Vegas). My love for this game knows no end. Have you ever written a fan fiction before, or anything similar? It's actually really fun! There are some spectacular ones out there that I've read, especially when they have all their facts right. It's a great writing exercise too, for any wannabe-writers out there.
Not too much going on recently. I've been drawing more, and come up with another comic idea that may be a keeper. But as usual, I'm afraid to get it started because I hate how I eventually lose interest in everything and stop before it goes anywhere good. I like this idea though, so maybe I'll actually get it done. We'll see.
Alright, I'm kind of procrastinating right now. I should be cleaning and packing a bag, because my family is going camping on Galiano Island tomorrow for the weekend. But there's so much internet to see! So much writing to get done! So much music to listen to! So many videos to watch!
PS. have you ever listened to Darwin Deez? I finally bought one of his albums after listening to him on Youtube forever, and discovered this total gem. Not only is it a beautiful song, but it totally reminds me of Fallout. Nuclear apocalypse references? Yes please!
Stupid girl. Where are all your blog posts? Where's the fame, the glory? Where's your insight? Stop stalling, girl, and get your shit together. Get writing, get drawing, get out there. Come on.
I'm just sitting here, brooding.
Will I ever grow out of this bullshit? The week-long self-loathing
benders, specifically. Do you just wake up one day, and never again
think of yourself as a useless, talentless, futureless, hopeless, plain,
fat sack of guts?
Most of the time I really do like
myself, but more and more frequently I just keep coming back to this
shadowy corner of my mind and stay there for awhile. I know this sounds
super needy, but I constantly need reassurance from other people that
I'm better than the way I think of myself, and I HATE it. I hate that I
have to hear it from other people and sound like an attention whore, and
I hate that I can't tell myself these things when I'm having anything
less than a great day. I need to hear that I'm funny and smart and
pretty and talented, and that need makes me feel low.
My birthday's coming up next week, on the 29th, and I
don't even care. I'm not going to do anything fun (well, I will hang out
with Max all day, so that's fun), but I wish I was normal enough to do
something cool for my birthday. Like have a party. Or go to a
bar. Or dancing. But I can't, because even when I do go to places like
that, I become so consumed with anxiety that it sucks all the joy out of
everything.
I've got very conflicting views. Most of
the time I want to stand out, and rise above average, but now I seem to
be gravitating more towards this desire to be normal. What went wrong?
Why did I stay awkward and weird while everyone else graduated to
normal? Rachel's normal. Fuck, even Peter is normal. Why am I the only
affected sibling?
This is a very shallow thought, but I
know if I lost 20lbs I could love myself all the time. Because even if I
grow up talentless and futureless, at least I'll be skinny. As I type
this, I can feel decades of feminists shaking their heads at me. Well,
fuck them. It would just be nice, okay?
Maybe I'll feel better after a couple hours of sleep.
Sometimes I let myself get into these very dark moods. Something
mundane always sets it off. A song. A passage in a book. An anxious
thought. It sweeps up on me and then I am overcome and it is too late to
get out.
Today it was a song called A Penny at a Time,
and the chapter in the first of the Anne of Green Gables series. Now
I'm sitting here critically looking out over the mountains, the charm of
the day gone. I think about my Art History final on Thursday, that I've
prepared little for. If I fail, I won't be able to go back to my Fine
Arts program in the fall and be with my lovely friends. I should have
bought the textbook for that class, but it was $80 and while I suppose I
could have afforded it, I didn't want to struggle with the resutling
broke-ness that would follow. I don't know what failing will do to me. I
just love going to school so much. Really, I don't truly think I'll
fail, because I've been to every class and took extensive notes, and I
have a knack for pulling through in situations like that, but there's a
little dark fear that's constantly shadowing me.
These
dark moods always make me think about Yasaman. It's not been quite a
year and a half, but she's still always on the edge of my thoughts. Not
as sad as before, not as bitter, but still there. She makes me think
about my own future death. I know this sounds odd, but it's funny to
think that we'll all die some day, isn't it? It's something we try very
hard to ignore. However, I think I can comfortably state that I am not
afraid of death. The dying part is unnerving, to be concious that you're
in the midst of your final minutes. But the death part isn't terrifying
to me. You won't be aware of it anyway, so what's to be scared about?
Actually, what comforts me the most is how incredibly mundane death and
dying is. It's just a process that has been happening for a millenia,
and will continue to keep happening after.
What's really important to me aboutmy own death is the
way my body is dealt with. Now, as anyone could tell by reading this
blog, I am a staunch atheist, so no heaven for me, and even if there is,
I don't want to go. Ever since I read about eco-friendly burials, it's
been what I've wanted. The whole point is that you will eventually erode
within the earth, and become dirt. I think it's wonderful. The way
burials happen today pretty much just doom your corpse to become toxic
sludge in a cement-lined casket, and that to me is a more abhorrent
thought than Hell any day.
As for the envirmonental aspects of this, I'm going to confess
that I really couldn't care about that. It's nice that they're so
harmless, but that wasn't the selling point for me. I just feel that
it's really important for me to "return to the earth". That will be my
rebirth. Before, my only worry was the availability of cemeteries that
would allow something like this. I know they have special "green"
cemeteries scattered around the country, but I worried that they were
too far and few between. I don't want to be buried somewhere too far
away from those left behind, and I don't think I could bear to be buried
anywhere but my Vancouver. Turns out though that Mountain View
Cemetery, just over on Fraser Street, is a "hybrid cemetery", meaning as
well as conventional burials, they also allow eco-friendly ones. I
would have prefered the one closer to the house that I grew up in, Ocean
View (I'm sensing a theme here), but I read an article that says more
and more cemeteries are beginning to allow the practice, and I don't
plan on dying for a very long time, so maybe it will be available to me
when I get there.
Morbid food for thought, huh? It just strikes me as a perfectly
normal thing to talk about and think about, though. I told Max already,
that if I suddenly died, that was the way I wanted to be buried and that
he had to make sure my wishes were carried out. I don't think he likes
talking about this sort of thing though. Unsurprisingly, not many people
do. Oh well.
I feel much better now, though still worried about the exam. Why
am I such a dunce? Why can't I ever learn to not leave things to the
last minute? Maybe one day I'll grow up for real and be over that.
