Need some thoughts to think?

I have been way too busy this week to conceive an idea for a blog post.

Here's a list of other things that will leave your head spinning if you try too hard to truly conceive them.

1-Death

As you may have picked up on by now, I am fascinated by death. The fact is, it's the source of a majority of human fear. Being scared for your life is never a fun experience and one that a person should only have to go through once (or twice, if you're a thrillseeker). In addition to the fact that it's the source of most fears, everybody experiences it. Everybody dies. I'm not being pessimistic or a Debby downer, it's just true. At some point, you get cut off from life, and you have to pass on. And it's the most hollowing thing to think about, slash the scariest, but it's also damn interesting. First off, what's it like not living? Do you have a conscience at that point or a soul? Part of why I like to think about this is because nobody knows. It's not being kept from anybody, it's just one of the most important things that we as alive people will never know. What happens to us when we die?

My personal theory? Irrelevant. Create your own.

2-Space

Is big. Really big. Bigger than any thing that a human could hope to discover in their life ever. Looking at the stars is a really cheesy thing to do. But without a doubt it sure makes you feel useless. What lies in space? Everything that exists. I like to think that everything any human has ever thought of exists. Somewhere. Why not? Space is boundless? There's not room for 8 billion people on this planet, but there is room for everything 8 billion people could ever think of in space. The notion that human life only exists on planet earth is both ridiculous but ridiculously plausible. The fact that we get to be one of these human beings and watch cable television is absolutely astonishing if you think about all the times and lives and planets, galaxies that have passed by when we weren't (as far as we know) in existence. And all the life out there now, in the endless void of stars and shit that is space, that we have no clue about? And how often or not-so-often a survivable atmosphere and ecosystem comes along? That shit is stupid unfathomable.

3-Chance

Speaking of unfathomable things. There are so many things that are caused by chance. Figure out the odds on this bit and you will be staring at a 1 and a number so large, you'll need a full college-ruled 80 page spiral notebook to write it down. Ariel Smith-sized handwriting too. If I'm ever out of town and run into someone I know, my mind explodes. Every car accident that's ever happened could have been avoided if someone took an extra three seconds to do something. We're so heavily immersed in the world of chance that we take it for granted and become acclimated to the ridiculous unlikelihood of anything ever happening. But nonetheless, it's something that should be respected.

4-Perception

The ability to see and hear things. The ability to taste food and smell things and (shit what's the other one? Oh yeah...) feel textures. Amazing. There are animals who lack all five of humankind's vital senses. Imagine if you couldn't see colors. Imagine if you couldn't hear music. Imagine if you felt food in your mouth and didn't taste it. One thing I personally enjoy is when my hand goes numb or something like that. Then I just feel it with my other hand. What's my hand feel like? You don't know because you perceive it differently when you can feel it too. But for a brief thirty seconds, I can just touch my hand. And it will feel like it has to every person who has ever touched my hand throughout my 18 years of living. It's a rare experience, and one I relish.

5-Science

Proof that life isn't a video game. Everything that is must make sense. If you were the first person on earth, it would just exist. You wouldn't know why. You wouldn't think to figure it out. Science impresses the shit out of me. Who the hell has time to figure out everything that is and then figure out a way to make it relevant to life or easy (..difficult) to understand? Of life's mysteries, this sort of encompasses all of them. How do things work? (Side note: I'm taking a class called “How Things Work” next semester, so I'll be able to answer all these questions in about five months.) How and why does everything happen? Flowers are pretty? Well we figured out every single fucking thing about flowers and now we know why they're pretty. Nifty, but to me it kinda ruins the wonder of it all. But to those people out there who fucking hate wondering about things and not knowing them, I salute you (and also find you slightly annoying), and this post is for you.

6-The Human Body

(This goes along with science I know, but eff that)

You have never once stopped moving. There is always things going on in you. Your body is a factory producing you. It's always running, no power outages, and will continue running until you number one. Blood has ran through your body for years, and spilled every so often. But it's weird to think about ourselves in the inside-out sense. Turns out we're more than water balloons made of skin. We're a ton of bones and, my God, brains. Brains are retarded. Synapses firing to give you thoughts, thousands of millions of thoughts a day, everything you do is verified in your brain. Everything you've ever done. Everything you'll ever do. Ahh. Also my heart has GOT to be tired. I mean, Jesus, it's been beating evenly for every waking and non-waking moment of my life. Sure it speeds and slows, but it hasn't gone three seconds without beating ever. Good work, heart! Keep it up, please?

7-Time

The final one I'll bore (slash BLOW your FUCKING MIND) with today. But time has two main facets I want to get to. First off, it passes. Evenly, supposedly. It ages things. Everything. All things have been aged by none other than time. Time is always going, more so than your body. Time goes after your body gives up. Time can't ever stop, even if everything else on this list ceased to exist, time would pass. Second thing, what if we lived in the non-present? How the hell would you guys read my blog posts if this was 1858? Well you sure wouldn't be doing it if you were black, THAT'S for sure. (Hooray for figuring out civil rights!) I mean, what will life be like 40 years from now? What will video games be like? We better still have controllers, dammit. And, supposedly, we'll get there eventually. But we'll only make it so far. And after that, time will continue. Things will continue. There's a chance we won't get to know. There's a huge chance that we'll forget we were ever curious. However, undeniably, the future holds many things, including number one and PLENTY of number three. Whatever the future holds, whatever the past held, I don't know. But it all happened. It will all happen. Fate? Chance? Who knows. Fuck. Shit's heavy.

At some point you have to throw your hands up and give up trying to figure these things out. You won't succeed. You will come up short of knowing everything. It will be less than fulfilling. I wish we could know everything about these seven concepts, but we don't. We don't know what it's like being blind unless we are blind (or what if colors were different colors? When I saw red you saw blue and that was red to you? Holy crap.) We will never finish science. We can try, but uh, good luck. I will never know what it's like to be Osmosis Jones inside of the human body. We will never catch up to the ever-expanding Universe. We will never outsmart chance, and we will not know what death is like until we do it.

Damn. My brain hurts. Have a good day.

--Eliot Sill