We’re All The Same

All humans are the same.  We are all born, we all live, and we all die.  Nobody is truly different from anyone else, except in appearance, skills, and social status.  Of course, it is these differences that are so important in our world, but when they are stripped away, the only thing left is a fundamental sameness that can never change.

Dream – 5/10/09

I was sitting with some people, and they were going on a roller coaster and I got on really fast with these two other guys and a girl.  Then the bar came down I was only half secured, so I had to hold on during the ride.  During the ride, my head slammed against the girl since I was unsecured, and it hurt both of us.  We were both fine when the ride was over, though.

Then I was with a lot of people in a room that looked like my bathroom, and some guy said to this other guy, “Who’s this stupid dumb guy?” and I knew it was someone important so I looked at him in a “Don’t say that kind of look!” and the guy was like, “I am Trogg, the President of [some company], and not just that company, but a conglomerate.”  And I think, “Wow, this guy is important.”  Then he points to a poster and says something about it, something about participating in some kind of project, and either I or the other guy volunteers for it.

Note: There was a lot more to this dream, but  this is only what I remember.  The President’s name was definitely Trogg though.  EDIT: Later today I remembered more of the dream.  I was driving my car, and I lost control of it and crashed or flipped over in some mud.  I was okay though.

DNA and Evolution

Life on Earth is pretty amazing.  Absolutely all forms of life, even viruses, have DNA, which enables them to live and pass on their traits.  DNA is the code that makes an organism what it is; specifically, it sets the rules for what proteins are made and where they go.  All life shares the characteristic of having DNA, from humans to trees.

DNA also seems to prove the common origin of all life.  Listen to some of these DNA similarities, retrieved from here.  A mouse has 92% matching genes, a fly has 44%, certain single celled organisms has 26%, and even a weed is 17%.  All life is extremely similar.

Also, could this mean that life cannot exist without DNA?  Does this mean that all life throughout the Universe is similar as well, and aliens really wouldn’t look much different from us?  It’s possible.

Dream – 5/5/09

I was with a lot of other people from my school, and we were called in to a large room to watch a movie.  I tried to get a good seat, but somebody took it from me and I had to get something closer and at a bad angle.  However, it turns out what was happening was not a movie, but some kind of live play.  Two people I knew were strapped naked to an inclined table, and they started doing pornographic things.  I found it extremely odd since the room was crowded with people and it was very inappropriate for the situation.  Then suddenly there was darkness and I was sitting in another part of the room, and someone was telling me about what was happening.

Then I was in this large cafeteria, not remiscient of anything I’d been in before (come to think of it, neither was the auditorium).  I went up to buy some food, and it was just some chicken but it cost $28, so I just gave the guy $30.  When he was handing the food, some guy ran up and snatched it and took it back to his table extremely fast.  I chased him and started yelling at the top of my lungs to give him back, and I was hitting him and pushing him but he kept saying he didn’t have it.  The frustrating part was he seemed to have passed the food over to someone so they could hide it.  I kept yelling and hitting but it did nothing.  I went back over to the counter to tell the guy what happened, and if I could possibly get half of the meal so I would have something, but he just kept serving other people and paid me no attention.  Then this girl came up, and I told her I was sorry for how I acted towards the guy who took the food, but she said it was okay and she understood, and asked if I wanted to drive her home.  As we were walking out, we both realized we lost our wallets, so we went back to look.  I found mine quickly and then found another, and I opened it and saw a 100 dollar bill and some 20s, and I was about to take them to make up for the $30 I lost, but then my friend came up and said the wallet was his, so I gave it to him.  Then I drove the girl home, and she said something funny and I laughed for a long time.  This was in the car, and I don’t believe we ever reached her home.

Then I was in a house with a lot of people, and everyone was running around having fun but I felt depressed.  An announcement came on that said the festivities were ending, so I went outside and my parents arrived.  They said I had to go because there was something important in the morning, and I looked down at my watch and it said it was 1:00AM.  I felt uneasy because I wanted to go to sleep at 8:00PM but it had gotten so late.

Note: This dream was extremely unsettling and mostly very negative.  The only good part was when I talked to the girl and she said she understood why I was angry.  An interesting thing is that last night I did want to go to sleep at 8:00PM, and that thought directly transferred in to the dream.  If I had to give this dream a score out of 10, it would get a 2.

We Make the Meaning of Life

Many people ask what the meaning of life is, but if there is some kind of grand meaning, it is impossible to know.  Just like it is impossible to fathom how many stars there are in the Universe, or the vast experiences of just one other life, we cannot fathom a greater meaning.

However, we do make our own meaning.  Some people believe they were put on this Earth for a reason, to achieve some purpose, and who knows, maybe it’s possible.  But it’s very obvious that not every human is put here for a purpose, so why would some be destined for something and others not?  We all interpret life in our own way, but the bottom line is, we are all here beyond our control and we have to live.  I don’t believe in a greater meaning, I believe we should live as comfortably and happily as possible, and try to enable others to do the same.  After all, what more can we ask for?

Dream 5/4/09

I was in the house at my friend’s, and there were a fair amount of people.  I had some cannabis in a yellow jar, and this large man came in yelling about how there was smoking going on.  He grabbed some smoking paraphenalia and tried to grab my jar, but as he was going for it, I said, “Yoink” and took it really fast.  It would not have been good if he got it, as there looked to be about a quarter-ounce in the jar.  Then all of a sudden I was in my house with people, and I looked out the back window and there were two police cars.  I got scared and thought about hiding the cannabis, but I did not.  It turns out they never came to the house.

We were hanging out at my house, and one friend went up to take a shower, and he came down naked and hid under a chair (don’t worry, there was no genitalia shown.  My dreams have a PG-13 rating, usually).  My mom came home and I was worried because there were so many people over, but they all suddenly disappeared.  I was in the living room and my mom was sitting on the couch, and all of a sudden my friend under the table calls me loudly, and my mom looks at him (for some reason he’d been invisible until he called) and says, “Who is that?” in a nonchalant voice, and I’m just like, “My friend” and I got him out of the house.

Then some friends came on a long bike, and I got on it.  They said they were going to a festival, and I said I couldn’t go because I had to be back home.  It felt kind of panicky, because we had suddenly gone a long way and I was far from home.  We turned in to my friend Shaf’s street for the festival, and it was all cleared out; barren, except for my friend’s house, which was also run down.  I was surprised it had all been taken down.  End.

Note: Very interesting and long dream here.  It was also pretty negative and scary, and I think I woke up once or twice, realized it was a dream, and was happy, but then I got back in to it.  Not sure if I realized within the dream or outside of it.  Things that happen during the night can be confusing.

Dream – 5/3/09

I was sitting in a room with a girl and another boy.  Then I was in a house that seems to be recurring in my dreams, where I was pursuing or running away from some kind of law enforcement personnel.  Then I was back in the room with the girl, and I was talking to her about something I don’t remember.

Dream was much longer and involved, but hard to remember the rest.

Note: Later today, I was reminded more about the dream when I read something relevant to it.  On a psychology test, it talked about discriminating fear between a garden snake and a rattlesnake, and I suddenly remembered there was a part of the dream where I was with someone and there was a rattlesnake, and I was afraid of it, but the person I was with kept poking at it, and I was fearful of it striking.

Works Cited

I think the most arduous part of any writing assignment is the Works Cited segment (aka bibliography), complete with citations and its own dedicated page.  I can write easily and fluidly, but because of citations, you have to constantly stop and check the source, put it in the right places, and use it a certain amount of times (depending on the specific assignment).  And nobody can ever remember the proper format for the Works Cited page, so you have to always keep flipping between resources to do it right.

However, this is all necessary.  If not for citations, plagiarism would be rampant, and intellectual property would be rendered defenseless.  Sure, it takes a little more work, but it is the price we pay for living in a just (or pseudo-just) society.

“New” Episodes

I like to watch Adult Swim, which is a programming block on Cartoon Network that has interesting and humorous animated shows.  They often pick up shows from other networks, as they’ve done with Family Guy, Futurama, and King of the Hill.  The latter is the most recent show they have adapted, and they keep saying, “New episode of King of the Hill” or, as I just saw, “Three New episodes of King of the Hill Premiere Tonight.”

I find this somewhat misleading, as these episodes are far from new.  In fact, the ones they are referring to came out between eight and ten years ago.  Perhaps these episodes are new for the network, but they are not new to the general population, and that is what matters.

Human Responsibility

As humans, we all innately have a responsibility.  This responsibility is to attempt to reach our full potential, in all respects.  One should live for themselves, but it is important to do your best for the sake of society.  Imagine if people did not live to the fullest; there would be a much lower quality of living, and a blandness to life.  We owe society because it has given us so much.  I am on this computer right now because thousands of people worked to design, manufacture, and market it.  I am able to use this magnificent blogging software because many people worked to create and perfect it.  Others have done so much with their lives to make ours as nice as possible, so we all need to do our best to give back to society.