I've recently been struck by a wave of empowerment, and I feel fantastic! I've decided to no longer indulge others' needs at the sake of my own, unless the person in need appreciates my efforts. I will no longer find myself in one sided relationships. They must be reciprocal. I will no longer apologize for my strengths. I will only devote my time to people that are capable of making me feel good about myself, and vice versa. So often recently, I've found myself devoting my time and efforts towards people that do nothing but ask me to give more and more, without expressing any sort of gratefulness for my sacrifices. I'm a wonderful, compassionate, devoted person. But from now on, I will only be this way with people that appreciate these traits in me.

It's sad to say, but people are either on your side or not. Either they give or they take far more than they give or deserve. Either they add a positive value to your life or a negative one. I've had so many people in my life that refuse to encourage me, or when they do encourage or support me it's only when they know that other people are watching. I'm really tired of being used as a device so that others can feel good about themselves. Fuck them. Every last one of them. Truly.

Poor, Pitiful Poughkeepsie

New York was crawling under my skin. I was saturated with the city's muggy, dirty, salacious atmosphere. I was being swept away with it's undercurrent of cynicism, sarcasm, and jealous ambition. And I was sure that the scampering rats that occupied the city's lower east side would have agreed with me. Brad and I decided to escape the city for a day. I would have been happy to be anywhere else for that day, and he agreed. So we trudged through the sticky, summer weather to our car and turned on the A/C full blast. Moments later, we were watching coniferous trees happily dance through the windshield as we drove aimlessly north. We were slowly shedding our New York shells.

Hours later, we had decided on our destination. Poughkeepsie, New York (pronounced poo-kip-see). For no other reason than it’s ridiculous name. We had no knowledge of the city’s history or what it had to offer us. My first impression of the little city was that it had been woefully neglected. The antique buildings were rusted over, boarded up, and forgotten. The city was like a time capsule from the seventies. The worn and tattered signs on the abandoned buildings spoke of a different time. Something had happened in the seventies that had turned this once proud town into a ghost town. The city’s occupants were sluggish. Their appearance was dated, although not as dated as the rest of the city. It was as if they had reached the early 1990’s and had given up. In fact, the atmosphere of the town reflected that exact attitude. The city, itself, had given up. While driving through the town we came across something that resembled a sculpture graveyard. It appeared that the city’s scraps had been joyfully fused together, creating colorful metal shapes that spotted the grassy null. We welcomed the sight of such inspired ingenuity. We pulled the car over to get a closer look. Close up, it was clear that these sculptures had also been neglected. The paint was peeling off in places, and spots of rust had begun to spread over these creations like a cancer. But still, the art seemed to infuse this small section of the city with a small amount of inspiration.

What had led to the town’s decay? I wondered. Brad and I discussed the phenomena intently on our way home. We deduced that something had happened in the 1970’s that had led to it’s neglect. Perhaps industry had been sent overseas, and all of the jobs had vanished, leaving only the town’s laziest or unskilled citizens to roam the streets. Whatever had happened, we were content to return to our bustling, fast-paced city. After hours of driving south, we were finally home. And my attitude about the city had drastically changed after wading through it’s antithesis. I realized that I was surrounded by the most creative, ambitious, talented, powerful people in the country. Of course, this comes at a cost. The dirty city is filled with secrets and betrayals. But at least it’s filled with something.

Phantoms and Physics

I've been reading a lot about both religion and the scientific schools of thought that refute religion. There's still something missing. And that's what I was referring to in my last post. The subject of the spirit is rarely addressed. If it is, it is usually "lumped in" with either organized religion, or disregarded by scientists as a byproduct of the mind and body. My question is, what is the spirit?

To determine what something is, we must first agree on what it's not. When I speak of the spirit I'm not referring to emotions. I'm even willing to consider the idea that emotions are an evolutionary trait that manifest themselves to warn our bodies, and keep them out of harms way. I'm not referring to ghosts, or the dualistic view that our bodies and spirits can be separated after death. I'm speaking of that barely perceivable side of us that is tapped into other living things. It's the thing that some people may refer to as "animal instinct". It's a part of us that most people don't regard, and spend their lives ignoring. I think that most people ignore it out of fear that they'll be categorized as pagan, religious, or crazy. But if you're one of the few that pay attention to it, it's hard to deny it's existence.

In August of 2003 I had the first of many experiences that led to my complete belief in the existence of the spirit. I was in an elevator reading a book. The door opened and someone entered. I was immersed in my book and didn't look up. But as I was reading, I became suddenly aware that the elevator had become full of an oppressive feeling that felt like anger. I perceived all of this as I was reading, and it was more of a passing observation because I was really enjoying my book and didn't want to be distracted from it. But in between chapters, I made a point of looking up just before the doors opened and the man exited the elevator. His facial expressions revealed that he was seething in anger. His jaw was clenched and his face was red. But he walked out of the elevator with the same calm stride that he had entered it in.

After that point, I began to become increasingly aware of these occurrences. At that time, I was also friends with a couple other people that were willing to talk about things of this nature without passing judgment on me. Since that time in my life, I don't think that I've become more sensitive to these things, just more aware of them. And because I'm a very rational person who is interested in science and evolution, these "feelings" or "sensations" tend to be simultaneously disturbing (because they're unexplainable) and interesting at the same time. So far, the scientific community has been able to explain a great deal, but the subject of the spirit is still unexplored because of the stigmas that have been forced on the subject by various institutions.

I was a Christian from ages 8-13 (or I should say the child of Christian parents). Before that, I lived with my mother who dabbled in witchcraft, tarot, and basically anything pagan. So I'd like to think I'm uniquely qualified to express an opinion on the subject of religion and spirituality. BTW, I think that both ends of the theological spectrum are equally misguided. Neither pagans nor Christians are really searching for the truth. Pagan rituals and most claims of experiences with the paranormal are equally unnecessarily grandiose to me. And it's my experiences with both radical schools of thought and my discovery of science that, up until that point in my life in 2003, had made me wary of anything having to do with spirituality. I think that most rational people probably feel the same way that I felt about the subject of spirituality.

But both the scientific and religious communities are so busy fighting with each other that they can't see the "gray area" in between. I can't wait for the day when controlled scientific experiments reveal the workings of simple day-to-day things like the maternal instinct, or true love. Until then, I guess people will have to hold on to their stories of gods, and their curious rituals to explain and categorize the human spirit.

I think that the biggest, most seemingly unsolvable dilemmas of our time could be resolved if we were able to answer this question - "what is the human spirit?". Or, to be more general - "what is the spirit?". The problem is that most scientists disavow the existence of the spirit, and most theologists feel the need to attach the concept of it's existence to religion. But I think that the answer lies somewhere in between. The problem is that there is no denying that the spirit exists. The fact that we are capable of individual thought and action proves this. So why is the scientific community so resistant of this topic? Because they don't have the answers. Why are theologists so resistant? For the same reason. People are simply uncomfortable with not knowing.

But the greatest discoveries of our time have started with the few people that were capable of saying "I don't know". Unadulterated curiosity has spawned the greatest discoveries of our time. And the mother of curiosity is self admitted ignorance. So if scientists were able to admit (or at least address) the fact that they don't know what comprises the human spirit, and what it's origins are, then they would at least be capable of beginning the search to answer this age-old question. And if the religious population had a direct answer to the question of the origin of the human spirit, then they wouldn't find the need to subscribe to a particular religion (which conveniently answers the question for them). And if religion wasn't around, there would be none of the following: suicide bombers, witch hunts, Muslim/Serb massacres, Christian Crusades, or any of the other examples of mass killings in the name of religion.

So as an advanced society, we should challenge the greatest thinkers of our time to answer the question of the human spirit and the origin of our species' capacity for original thought and free will. If they could find a way to define it, human beings may stop killing each other in the name of god, and start putting their unique capacity of original thought towards greater conquests.