When you think of this phrase, “Ideal War”, it seems a bit like an oxy-moron. What would an ‘Ideal’ war be like? First of all, take out the physical factor. Without the hand to hand combat what is there to fear about war?

What about a battle of wits?

If all the troubles betwixt countries were solved in a mere duel of words and knowledge amongst a select group of great minds, each representing his own country, what new problems would arise from this new form of ‘war’? Would it create a more peaceful world, or would chaos rule the nations?
As decades pass, a more and more distinct hierarchy is becoming present. We’re conditioned to look at people who have less as lower, and advertisement is becoming (dare I say it) a God in this sense: We let it determine who we are by following it’s painted symbols. It has made materialism a greater problem that requires self discipline to resist. The scholars representing each country would indeed be under a great pressure, for the weight of their country is indubitably great. It would be a bit like the game ‘Risk’, minus the soldiers (Any armed force being strictly prohibited). Countries would fall under the rule of whichever had the wittiest man, spies would be regularily distributed to collect information on rebuttles….. It would be a rivetting lifetime! Never in a state of ease, wondering what new laws will be instated at any moment, curious to see whether or not one man will rule them all….
I think its unrealistic to strive for uniqueness. Can one TRULY be unique? Can one be unparalleled, have NO equal? In striving to become one’s own person, theres always  a figure to be followed or looked up to. An Inspiration. In becoming an individual we copy others subtly and subconsciously, all opinions are or have been someone elses in a sense. There are great minds out there, rotting in our ‘pristine’ society. How many bright scholars have been shoved aside, their would-be contributions to a ‘better’ more inspired world lost to us all, never to be uttered into willing ears? We supress people we dont understand so that we are not made to feel stupid. They could help us understand, but in understanding them do we covet a peice of them? Strip them bare of their ‘uniqueness’ by distributing these peices of their soul amongst ourselves? Maybe a great idea once shared becomes diluted in its familiarity.

In order to go back in time, one must first be able to reach the speed of light. Impossible?
In the older days im sure they thought reaching the speed of sound was a feat never to be accomplished.
Imagine reaching the speed of light. Would you actually be walking around normally while everything around you is ‘frozen’ in time? The funny thing is you could never actually stop it, it would still be floating around and stories would continue unravelling. And then theres the grandfather paradox, that suggests even if we could go back in time we couldnt change the past anyways. Since I have no idea where its from, Ill quote Nolan.

“Here is why it is impossible to go back in time and change the past: Say you go back in time to kill your grandfather, thus your dad would not exist and neither would you… fairly simple right? But if you did not exist then your grandfather would still be alive and in turn, your dad and you. So it is not possible to go back in time and change anything. Unless of course there are parallel universes. Where any event has happened in any way that it is possible for it to happen.”

Does time indeed go in a circle? Because my past exists is it still happening, a me 2 minutes ago twitching at the introduction of a horrible song, an Einstein countless days ago consulting schematics? Im sure if you went back in time there would be no people at all, theyre all in the present of course. Youd come across run down artifacts and forgotten memories perhaps.  Maybe when you die you stay in that time moment, amongst the dusty streets, and people move ahead while you stay stationary. Of course you’d have the company of the people who died at the exact same moment as you, each moment being a separate segment on time’s scroll.
In a sense you can carry time along with you and uproot the old moments. They leak through the cracks in the system and you smell them, and old feelings rush back.
If you were going back in time would you stop aging? Living forever would mean thinking, remembering forever. It would fill up your brain with a murky mess wearing it away and giving you the eternal conciousness of an eventual mad-man.

 If there was no space for time to exist in, it wouldnt exist.

Maybe memory is the secret to unlocking time. After all, we arent entirely sure what it really is, all we have to represent it is it’s shadow impressed on a peice of whirring machinery.

Today I was staring at a poster with an elephant and an Arabian, and wondering what exactly it had to do with math, when some old memory jumped upon me.
Once my sister told me that every time you talked your words left tiny indents invisible to the naked eye imprinted on the walls. It never really hit me that it was just the walls, I never questioned why exactly these indents didnt somehow make their way onto the roof or the rugs.  Now the police, if they so chose to, could go into houses and study these various dents and after hours and hours of careful dent-checking they could recite your conversation. In my mind I’d elaborated on this filling in the blanks she’d left. I concluded that the police would be running from one side of the room to the other catching the different words and putting them in order. Now how was this possible? I decided that the more recently spoken words would be less worn, more rugged feeling/looking. Maybe every word had its own unique dent and whenever uttered would carefully float into its appointed hole making it more and more pronounced. That was how I used to think houses eventually ate away and disappeared. I’ll bet she got it from some movie where police in some run-down town acted as crime scene investigators and whatever else.

A Knight’s Castle

Wanton lovers in the crispy light of the moon
Spores of the glowing liquid grow mold on their bodies.
They play with the grass,
Swaying loftily in the cruel wind
Who is bitter.
Bitter with the thought of an endless gust
An eternity spent guzzling oxygen into a transparent body,
And blowing it out of a gaping jaw.
The trees grow concerned,
their wiry limbs cast about bending and bowing
At the mercy of the winds whim.
Unconcerned, the lover’s hearts are a-fire with broiling blood
They gaze into the pond
Frogs and serpents run amok
And the water froths and boils
Like their souls, melding into one another
Like the storm timidly peeking around boisterous clouds
Like the gargoyle, laying in wait, seemingly held back by its stony anatomy…..
                                                      

                                                       -Jorah Browgen

Today someone told me that if you were cloned, this clone would go so far as to think, act, talk, walk the same as you. If you were a good fighter, they would be too. If you were an excellent therapist, they would be just as excellent.
I thought about it, and although my knowledge on cloning is very limitted, I find that statement kind of foolish.
Yes, they would have the same DNA structure, but the same MIND structure?
This unnamed fellow also stated that all our thoughts and emotions, reasonings and morality, are induced by certain chemical set-ups in our brain. So in saying this does he mean we aren’t even our own person? We’re a big chemical floating around with some notion of independance and self-control?
Well, in answer to this theory, I present my argument.
Life experiances go hand-in-hand with the type of disposition you aquire, and person you become with age. Life experiances BUILD your character, form your opinions, induce different levels of morality.
Would not this clone have to have the exact same life, environment, atmosphere you grew up in to make them an exact replica of you?
For example, say a boy was cloned as soon as it were possible. The original boy goes along with his parents while Clone gets adopted off to a sketchy family. As they progress through life, Clone is beaten excessively and made to feel lowly while Boy is treated with the love and respect families usually present to their children (Here I’m not saying all families are perfect, have two parents, or that all sketchy families beat the children.) 
Most likely Clone would have a low self-esteem and have a feeling of inequality and nonacceptance, and may have anger issues who knows.
Now, in saying these two would be the same person after all of this is totally ridiculous. If they were both beaten, the clone wouldn’t think twice about the justice in it, but the boy would wonder if this was fair and question the purpose.

What if they simply ‘grew’ clones as organ, tissue, or blood doners treating them as mere vessels. The question is, would they be PEOPLE. Does HUMAN= PERSON?? Can you be either or? Does ‘person’ require ‘humanity’ and vice-versa?
The definitions of “people” are numerous. Here are a few.
1. Persons indeffinetly or collectively; persons in general
2. Persons, whether men women or children, considered as numerable individuals forming a group
3. human beings, as distinguished from animals or other beings
So, according to the dictionary to be a person you are a human. In being human, you have the rights entitled to every human-being, and since a clone would be neither animal nor plant, insect or bacterium etc, they’ve gotta be human. This brings up another argument, that I’m sure will become heated among animal-rights activists. If we outlaw the cloning of humans, is it a double standard to clone animals? You may think no, because it doesnt hurt the animal to be cloned and so on, but the baby created was most likely created for experimental purposes which might include killing and examining it or using its organs for transplanting in humans as they hope to be able to do with pigs unhindered in the future.
I think its a cool idea to research stem-cells for the sake of curing disease, but dont agree with cloning animals for transplants incase of some type of newly introduced mutated disease, or human cloning since all reasons presented seem selfish or unethical. Is thinking one okay and the other not hypocritical? I’m not sure, but with my lack of knowledge on the subject for now it seems perfectly fine.

 Today I found wood chips in my toilet paper. I thought maybe it was one of those interesting moments in life where something so seemingly abnormal but so obviously normal hits you and you kind of laugh at the stupidity of your concern but keep thinking about this stupid insignificant part of the day. That was until I found another woodchip in a different roll, and realized that maybe the machines were faulty one time, and we happened to get a bag of unprocessed bumf.

It happened again though, it was one of those weird days, like thursday. Thursday was a foriegn day, it started out with the usual shadow traipsing behind, but it just continued being dark and kind of heavy. Its like the air was thick and moved at an extra slow speed, so you had to push through it with your mind with difficulty where your body just kind of made regular speed. Time of course went by slow as well, and everyone was kind of gloomy of course; it was a matinee at the theatre which are generally boring and labor-intensive depending on whos with you. Anyways, the point was, I saw a little girl running around lobby with one pink boot on. Just one. I dont know why it struck me as so odd, maybe because the boot was just so vibrant, or because I was confused as to where the other was. A while later I realized that she did indeed have two boots on, the other was merely hidden beneath a pant leg. Not so interesting anymore.  

Its strange, but certain clocks remind me of different things. I bet a lot of people, although they glance at the clock kind of obsessively at times, never observe what the clock looks like. A lot of people probably do as well. Off-white ones with small cracked holes remind me of the kitchen and cleaning cupboards in the summer, Medium-sized square-handed metal-outlined clocks remind me of sitting in the break-room at work either trying to chew really quietly or only when theres noise because Annes reading or theres someone I’m not too aquainted with sitting there, or having weird conversations with a group in there which usually involves atleast one person getting offended. And cheerios almost always swell with milk.

People are always talking about making the most of their lives. How does one ‘make the most’ of their life? By travelling, seeing the world? By going to school and learning until their brain is swollen? By…… going on the computer?

Say the average lifespan is about 80 years. Maybe you start using a computer around…. 10 years of age. Averaging it out, maybe you spend 2 hours a day on the computer. There goes nearly 6 years of your life. 6 years of just BEING on the computer. What the heck did people do when it didnt exist? Play with their dogs maybe. Go to the park with their dads, play hockey in the middle of the street until you couldnt see the puck anymore. I remember when we didnt have a computer, and the only t.v we had was a crappy little box upstairs. We’d be forced to play outside, expand our imaginations by making up games involving trees or pretending the pavement was a ship and the grass was hot lava. Me and my brother would grab planks of wood and lay them out carefully until they reached the little rusty bathtub at the bottom of my yard. Sure, it wasn’t too long ago, but its been long enough for me to wonder when exactly my childhood imagination petered out.

I’d love to be amused with small things like playing house and pretending dirt was hamburger helper, or wanting to go to bed early because the ‘dream train’ was coming at quarter after and we had to make it to the train-stop and jump on or we’d have to wait for 45 more minutes…… Me and my sisters would literally wait for an hour in bed just to catch a certain train, oh yes, there were a bunch of them. For example, the beanstalk express(which was my personal favorite), or the moonlit waterfall.

I remember going to bed in the summer and hearing the ‘big kids’ who lived in all the houses on the street get together and play hockey, the chalk outline for their net is still there rainwashed and everything. I used to think someone drew a bum in a bathtub, which as you can imagine was pretty comical to a 6 year old, so I’d take out my chalk and freshen it up when I could. 

Now I dont even know my neighbours. Maybe the teachers next door or the guy across the street who happens to be over at the moment playing Halo. The little kids dont really play outside anymore. Their eyes seem empty, I see them wandering around aimlessly and every-so-often delivering papers. Like they need the responsibility yet. They’re kids, they should be trying to dig to China in their backyard or staring mischieviously at the edge of the woods at the now-barren U-hill filled with bears and other dangerous things. Maybe its because spring has just begun and weathers not too favorable. Its still depressing.

What will the children of the future be doing?

The Grandeur of a Doorpost

Dearest doorpost,
As I leave you each day
My heart quakes with lonliness.
Do you love me too, doorpost?
The way I warm up your door with my bodice?
How I wish in times of woe,
I could open the door and climb in
To the shelves I know so well.
Alas, I cannot!
The stubs that would fall upon my face
Would be too much to bear,
Yet I torment myself by writing in your log each day
Knowing another shall take my place in but a few hours…..
Must you be so coy?

I think we need to review whats going on here.

First- Why do we find it necessary to build roads everywhere? To get places, sure, but do we really need all of those dead ends and long looping roads that lead no where?
What if we run out of oil? We dont really realize how much we use it, if we were to run out we’d be without the transportation we’ve become accustomed to, and in a lot of places electricity. We wouldnt be able to make our food unless we used solar power or wind power, and soon all of the markets would be swiped clean of all ready-made food since we’d have to make such a drastic change in our energy-supplying ways. We’d have to resort to farming, cultivating the land once again, but how? We’ve taken up a good majority of our land with roads that would now be useless, large factories empty and deserted, huge apartments and leaky condos.
I truly believe a lot of us wouldnt be able to survive without technology. We’ve become dependant on machinery, it washes our clothes for us, heats and preserves out food, sews our clothing, tells us the time, entertains us, allows us to keep a social life. It would be tough to use other natural resources for harnessing electricity all around the world. We all know about it, but a lot of people dont care or take it as a reality. A group of people cant make an impression upon a billion, cant convince the leaders of the world or business owners that money isnt equivalent to our lives. Money is put up on a pedastal, killed for, pined after. Psh. When the economy hits rock bottom it wont be worth a dime. In fact, a dime wont exist.

If one knowingly allows someone to commit suicide, are they considered a murderer? Is the person committing suicide a murderer, considering they just killed someone who happened to be themself?

It must take a lot of courage to commit suicide. Since this word is typically used in a positive manner, it doesnt seem quite right to associate it with something as ’criminal’ as suicide.

 So does this mean that you cannot be courageous if you’re afraid, even if you hide it or deny the fear? What if theres a war, and a man gets honoured with a medal for a ‘courageous deed.’ He was probably scared while performing this act of heroism. So does this make suicide victims courageous, but dishonourably so? Maybe its a pun, but they had to have been brave if they had courage enough to end their own life.
People believe that you have the right or the freedom to do what you want with your life, and although its morally wrong throughout the world to end said life yourself, some people do think it a right you have in being in control of yourself. It doesnt solve anything, but Im sure the ones doing it know that, as they ARE ending all hope of solving anything anymore in THEIR lifetime. Maybe its a cop-out. Maybe its a hopelessness. I dont believe suicide to be right at all, I think though, that in the future it wont be so frowned upon. It’ll probably be like the drug stations we have in places like vancouver, where the drug addicts can go use their drugs legally. Maybe they’ll have suicide booths as in ‘Futurama.’ I wouldn’t doubt it.

What about all of those young men who join the army and participate in some grueling war. When they used to get drafted with no choice at all and a lot died, when they kill the enemies, why wasnt/isnt this considered murder?  Because the leader of their country says its okay to kill these men, who are indeed real people like themselves. Because they have a Corporal forming plans with them to find the ’enemy’s’ base camp to blow them up. I’m sure its a traumatizing experiance for a lot of men, to be thrown out there and actually have to be COMMITTED to aiming that gun and pulling that trigger at a real human being, as opposed to the target cutouts they’ve been practicing on. War is brought on out of self defence, you defend your country by fighting back, or selfishness. Maybe they have what you want, or have what you need and dont give it to you out of malice or selfishness. Everyone knows war doesnt solve anything, yet its not a surprise that we keep going on with them. It would be tough to decipher who would be the murderers though, the people who allowed them to go to war obviously know the chances of death are high. It could be just as easily considered suicide. The men know they have a chance of death yet are still wilfull in joining. The ones sending them could be considered assisting the suicide. Its ridiculous I know, and untrue due to the fact that they WANT to live, but they are placing themselves into death’s grip knowingly.