It's a New Year

So it's a new year.

But really it's just a new day. It's only special because we assigned to it some 'specialness.' It's like birthdays, days of the week, and words. They only have meaning because we give them meaning. This isn't nihilist. This is just a string of words, connected in a meaningful way. Because we give words, and strings of words, meaning. It doesn't make any sense, to give meaning to words. But I guess we needed to communicate in more meaningful ways than "mm" and "rgh". But why do we have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday? Why not just "day?" And night.

I suppose it's for organizational purposes. It wouldn't be impossible to plan without days of the week. But there's nothing intrinsically different about a Saturday, from a Monday. Yet, there is. Most people won't go and get hammered on a Monday night. Why? Because they have work the next day. Or school. Or because it's socially unbecoming to get hammered on a Monday night. Especially if you're alone. Don't drink alone. It's bad. I imagine it's also boring. But a Saturday is completely different. There's 'nothing to do' on Sunday. Unless you're going to Church. But if you're going to Church on Sunday, hopefully you aren't getting hammered on Saturday. And not just because you're going to Church.

Dates are useful though. I can see the existence of dates without the existence of days of the week. You would just have January 1st, instead of Thursday, January 1st. Maybe we have days of the week so we can just set aside certain things for the weekend. It'd be annoying to say "Want to do something in 3 days?" instead of "Want to do something Sunday?"Also, we need days of the week so we can have days of rest. Duh.

I wonder how people who have never had contact with 'civilization' do it. I wonder if, every 5 days, they set aside 2 days where they don't do much. Except bitching about the 5 days that they have to do things. Probably not. They're always looking for food.

That wouldn't be a bad existence at all. If all you had to worry about was finding food. And making sure the giant Sky Leopard didn't devour your virgins. Because virgins are precious. And surely a great Sky Leopard would be interested in devouring our virgins. Because what else would a great Sky Leopard eat? Sure, living in the jungle sounds bad. But you wouldn't have to worry about a mortgage, a cell phone, women, women talking - anything really. Except getting food. And the great Sky Leopard. And having children. So they can help with getting food. Which would be awesome.

You just kill animals. And have sex. Like an animal. Which is really all that we are. Which is difficult for me to keep in the back of my mind. The ability to reason separates us from other Animals. From reason came everything. Like our propensity to believe that we aren't animals. That we aren't like they, whose only purpose is to reproduce. We have more of a purpose. Of course we do. Because we can reason.

From reason also came agriculture, technology, morals, knowledge. Well, knowledge doesn't stem from reason, but knowing that you possess knowledge does. By reason, I mean higher order brain activity. Thought that goes above and beyond instincts. More than some dogs think, "Food? Food? Poop?!!! POOOP!!!" More than that. And I'm sure dogs think a lot more than that. They're actually very perceptive animals. It's almost like that have souls.

But what is a soul? Why do we believe in souls? Why are we wired to believe? In anything. In existence. Isn't existence just the combination of all of the sensory information you get, plus your thoughts? Your conscience. Which makes no sense. Why do we have one? Do animals have a conscience? I don't think so. But couldn't this all be a dream? When you're in a really good dream, you don't know if it's real or not. So maybe we're all simultaneously dreaming. And we won't know that we're dreaming, until we die. Which is when we wake up, because the dream turned bad. We got old. And frail. And sad. And we died. Or we were young. And stupid. And we died. But the dream went bad. And then we wake up when we die.

Speaking of dying. I don't know if I want to live my life fully and live to be old, or die young. I don't want to die soon. I'm going to school. I LOVE life. I can't get enough of it. But, I don't want to get old. And frail. I don't want to be a burden. But I want children. Because I like me. And I want people in the future to know me. Through my children. I suppose first, I need to find a 'mate'. That'll come.

But reason, the stuff that goes above and beyond instinct, is the mother of everything we know and love. And by mother, I mean that it figuratively gave birth to everything. Yet we treat our mother like shit. We don't listen to reason. We listen to our 'heart'. Which is stupid. Hearts can't talk. Neither can hormones, but we 'listen' to them as well. But we don't listen to mother reason. A lot like we don't listen to our real mothers. Real Mother says, "Don't stick the fork in that socket!." But we don't listen to Real Mother, because she doesn't know what she's talking about. So we stick the fork in the socket, and it hurts. And we don't stick the fork in the socket again. Not because of what Real Mother said. Or because Mother Reason says that sticking the fork in the socket again is a bad idea. But because it hurt. And we don't like pain.

We're wired to stay away from pain. Because pain is bad. Like drinking alone is bad. Except pain is worse, because drinking alone doesn't mean that your bodily health is in danger. It CAN mean that your bodily health is in danger. But more than likely, it's your mental health that needs to be examined. Nevertheless, pain is worse than drinking alone.

And death is the absence of pain. So why are we so afraid of it? I think it stems from us not listening to Mother Reason. It makes no sense to believe that, after we die, our 'soul,' lives on. And that's why we fear death. Because we're uncertain as to what lies on 'the other side' of life. Uncertainty breeds fear. Sometimes. But ignorance is bliss other times. I think that it's ignorance that a phenomenon or idea exists, that is bliss. Ignorance in the sense that one does not know the answer to a question, is not so comforting. We like to know. That entire curiosity thing. It haunts us. We want to know. And when we don't know an answer, it bugs us.

Like death.

It bugs us. Most of us, at least. So if we didn't know that there was a such thing as death, we'd be fine. I never thought about the sun expanding to the point where it encompasses/destroys the world until I learned about it in 3rd grade. It scared the living shit out of me. Not because the sun is scary. Not because I'd experience this(because I won't. It won't happen for quite some time. If the world is still around, not to mention Humans.). But I was scared because I don't know the truth about death.

And I never will. Because once I die, I'm dead. Unless we do have souls. In which case, maybe I can look down at my body and wonder why I was so stupid to believe that I have no soul. And if there's no such thing as a soul, well then - I guess I won't say anything.

I'm not sure any of this matters. Life is so short. And amazing. Taking it too seriously is something that many people fall prey to. I don't want to be one of those people. I think I'm just going to try to enjoy it. You only get one. That you'll know about.