The cost of freedom

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaAWdljhD5o

Just a suggested song you can listen to whilst reading this. I like it, it's cool (in my opinion)and you should, though, it's just as cool if you don't, because that's the power of freedom! A great many people think we live in a free world, that the country we live in is a free democracy, where we are able to say anything freely...and we are! We are absolutely free to do anything we are capable of any time BUT, and here's the thing, we are free to do them if we accept that there will be consequences to those actions. 

See, I know you'll be thinking to yourself "well, if there's a consequence, then it's not really free, we're not really free to do that whatever example you can think of." Well, of course there's going to be a consequence, everything you do (or don't do) has a consequence. Imposed by either our culture, our families and friends or hell, even biologically. You're perfectly free to go punch a midget (or for that matter call them a midget in the first place, nowadays it's more PC to call them a dwarf...which etymologically, is even more of an insult, but hey...logic, whatevs right, who needs that?) but don't be surprised when you're hauled in for assaulting a person...or being ostracised by your friends for beating up something that is physically as small as a child. You are perfectly free to rant and rave outside abortion clinics that no woman should have the right to their own body, but you know, then you've got to accept that you'll be looked at as though you're the raving bag of distended scrotal rot that you so patently are. 

My point is that you are free to do these things, or whatever else, but there will be a consequence to your actions. How is it that you are free then? Well, because one is one thing and the result is another. What is so often the case is that people mistake the "effect" part of cause and effect to mean the same as the cause, the initial action. The first part, the cause part is absolutely free. You can choose any cause you like, from anything in the world. You can influence it, plan it, devote all your time to it, direct it along the lines you want but you can't always see the future effect, the end result. The end of a thing is not where you can change it or the beginning.

A great example of this is gladiatorial combat....what, hear me out on this....I'm not just mentioning it because Gladiator was on the other night and it is such a great movie. No, I'm talking about cause and effect. The cause in this movie is Maximus deciding to fight. He's in a situation where he seemingly has no freedom. He is a slave, bought to fight for the amusement of others. But he chooses to fight. He could choose not to fight, and he'd have been put to death, but by choosing to fight he upsets the emperor and blah blah blah big Hollywood ending. The real point of that is the choice to fight. The effect or end result was that he would fight, or be put to death fighting, he was going to have to fight, so he chose to. Is that freedom? He made a conscious decision to perform an action one way and not the other, is that not what freedom is? 

I like it when people know that they are in a bad situation, one they can't win, but still try. I think it's the truest expression of freedom in the whole world. There's something awe inspiring about people who find themselves backs against the wall, no apparent chance of making it out, no real hope or belief that change can be effected in their lifetime, but choose to fight...and then sometimes it worries me that people think democracy is an entitlement, not a reward. Entitlement only matters when it's taken away from you. Seriously, think about it. How many people do you know of (the younger generation especially) who actually care about elections? National or local. How many of them are aware of each political parties policies or stances? How many have considered actually running for a chair themselves? Did you hear that little voice in the back of your head saying "eugh, who'd want to be an MP, they're all corrupt, thieving bastards" or something similar? Of course you did, we all did. So then why, after believing that they're so dirty/corrupt do we not try and change that instead of abstaining or merely swapping one puppet for another? Because it's an entitlement, we don't really care so long as it's there. We are free to choose, and often do, the path of least resistance. If the right to vote was taken away today, would there be an uproar? Oh there would be so very many Orwellian references that we'd get bombarded with but then, at the end of it...would we be bothered because we lost an entitlement or because we lost a vote.

So, does freedom actually exist....I think it does, but perhaps not in the way people readily define it. I really do believe that at any time a person can do anything that they want (which is what the classic freedom generally is) but that they also have to accept that actions have consequences. There is a freedom there, but it certainly has a cost to it.          

No, you're an idiom!

I figure that the best way to deal with this is by simply writing it out...I really don't know what to, no, not what, how to, I really don't know how to write this blog I have to do for my university course. See, here, I can be free and easy, I can be cliché and cheesy, I can write ridiculous little poems mid paragraph in a manner most cheerful and breezy...heh...that was stupid...but see, I can do that here, I can be stupid and say stupid things because it doesn't really matter. It's a completely personal piece, a sounding board for my own opinions and thoughts, and whilst I know that technically it's all out there in the open, I guess it feels like it's really closed off because I don't get very many readers and even if I did get hundreds, thousands hell, even millions of them, it still wouldn't matter because at the end of the day it is just purely my opinions/thoughts and wouldn't really count for much outside of my own head or the entertainment of others....this blog for the university though...see, you'll have noticed if you read through this that I'm generally very lax regarding the actual application of correct grammar, correct syntax and such, it's very much a conversational, disjointed style of writing, full of idioms and nods to geek culture and I'll grant ye that at times that can be quite...annoying or difficult to read/follow, and I get that, I really do, these tend to be train of thought writings because that's my style of writing...it can be entertaining, and you know, great! I hope they are! But to submit it for critical assessment....I guess I'm just worried that because it's very scatter-gun approach, because the flow flips back and forth, that it'll be heavily marked down because it's technically not very good, the quality is quite low in those technical terms...ellipses! Look how many ellipses I use! It's bloody ridiculous! If I had dollar for every use of ellipses I've done in these things....I'd have a lot of money but it'd be the wrong currency and so utterly useless....so it wouldn't matter anyway...

I don't know what to put, I really don't. I've enjoyed the first couple of weeks. The timetable conflicts were annoying, having to wait three hours between lectures and yeah, that wasn't much fun, but the flip-side of it was that it forced people to interact. It's true that not every single person took to it, but even now it's still possible to see the groups of people who went off to explore Liverpool, or else found themselves sat in the coffee shop with each other. If it wasn't done on purpose I'd actually argue for it's inclusion as it got people chatting to one another, whereas if it had been lecture after lecture (or the horribly forced "ice-breaking" games) then I'd be willing to bet most people would have remained in isolation....

Okay! Went away there for a little bit, got the First blog entry thing for my course done....I've a feeling it's been done incorrectly, but whatever! The point is I dived balls first into the hornets nest and now the only thing to wait for is the sweet, sweet release of death....or the unexpected arousal of having done the right thing....mmm, oh sweet stings......I didn't write like that in the blog, do you think I should have? Oh gods, what if they think I'm some kind of anti-hornet protester because i didn't include that, hornetist! they'll call me and throw jars of hornet jelly at me (do hornets even make jelly? I know bees do...and hornets are basically like bees but on steroids right? right?!) until i fall over and die from my dreadful allergy to hornet jelly (am i really allergic? I don't know, do hornet's even make jelly? WHO CAN SAY?! Some things a man is just not meant to know!) but aside from that, I've nothing to do this weekend....Gods above that feels liberating. THe past two - three weeks it's just been like living life in AAAARRRRRGGGHHHHH HOLEE SHIT! mode, which is a mode I don't recommend. I mean, it's good and fun and all and yeah, but the thing is.....I'm naturally quite introverted, and these past few weeks have been really physically and mentally exhausting for me...I'm not saying they were bad, because they weren't, not at all, they were good, great even....but very tiring. I've probably met and talked to more people (like, properly met and talked) in the past fortnight than I have in a decade....it was definitely a good idea to have gone to college prior to University...if I hadn't been prepped? I guess, acclimated? Yeah, that's a better word, if I hadn't acclimated to people again through college, I'd have sunk here, so you guys and gals, thank you for that. That said, it is nice to going back to being introverted for a bit, just, build a nest or something, a burrow, and dive into that. Even if just for a weekend, just watch anime and movies, maybe tape hedgehogs to my palms and run around high-fiving people, maybe listen to some tunes...you know, just normal everyday shizz. Anywho, going to wrap it up there because there is a video game out there, somewhere, sad that I am not playing it...and I just hate it when people/animals/inanimate objects/abstract concepts get sad because I'm not there (it's more common than you'd think), so I'd better go remedy that.....adios for the now!  


  

Mistakes for all!

I love making mistakes...no, that's a bloody understatement, I really fucking love making mistakes. If mistakes were a person, (Miss Takes? Ho ho ho, we do have fun here with the puns and whatnot!...it's not a pun, it's a play on words! you fool!) I would obsessively stalk that person....it would not end well for either of us....but the point of this is, the takeaway from this is that I really do enjoy making mistakes. I hear you asking "But Terence, how do you tell the difference between store bought cola and brand cola when they're unlabelled?" and the answer is simple, I believe you learn better from your mistakes. It's like....remember when you were a child and you burnt your hand on the cooker? (If you don't, just imagine you do...basically all that memory is anyway) From then on you know to keep away from it. But it's basically guaranteed that your parent or carer or supernatural watcher told you first "don't put your hand on the cooker, it's hot!" and that's, well...great...but what is hot? How do you know what hot is if you've never experienced it? You pay attention to what they have told you, of course you do, they're your mum, your baby-sitter, your ephemeral ghost friend who is unable to move into the light and must forever remain on this planet warning little children such as yourself to not touch the hot things or else you'll end up dead and haunting the place like him...but you don't really take it in. So, you totter off to the cooker and as the little bad-ass punk that you think you are you put your hand on the stove, pfft, it ain't no big deal right? Could leave your hand there all d-Jesus Christ! that hurts! Then you wail and cry and run off to an adult and tell them all about how you didn't pay attention to their wise words....and they roll their eyes and do whatever it is that parents do to comfort a child (in my house, they believed wholeheartedly that laughter is the best medicine.....so they laughed at my injury....I'm just messing! I hope...I really can't remember....) and we learn and we never do it again....until the next time...

So why the subject of mistakes....well, basically....I made a mistake coming here, to the student halls....that's not to say there's anything wrong with either my flat, flatmates or the area, because there isn't. They're good buildings/people/locations, just...not entirely for me....I knew it was a mistake from the first moment I decided I was going to move into a shared flat, a halls of residence, but again, as I said at the start I love making mistakes. I had to do it, you know...oh Lord, that's basically a sign of masochism isn't it? Doing something you know will harm you regardless of that knowledge....But yeah, I had to do it because I knew I'd hate myself if I didn't go for it...My brain would be calling me a chicken and bawking all the damn time about it, and no! Just no! Bad brain! You don't get to dictate my life! (I don't get out of this phase until I go back to the future and see myself get fired for not backing down to a challenge after being called chicken like in that movie, though the lesson doesn't really settle in until I go back to the wild west and learn about my namesake who was very similar to me and died because of his inability to back down, basically my life is Back to the Future....I wish...)

It's not that I don't enjoy doing things right, because I do...it's just...I like being wrong sometimes, you know, there's a thrill in genuinely not knowing something, or being told not to do something and then doing it anyway, and just fucking up....I hate the bad reputation failure gets, people looking down on it and crap, there's a snide remark I often hear about Edison's (and I am loathe to credit Edison positively, but alas, these are strange times and here we are) quote of "I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." that basically runs along the lines of "Well, I'd rather just do it right first time."....bravo to those people, they miss the point. If you got everything exactly right first time, then what? If you just sailed through life, getting everything right first time, never making any mistakes at all, excelling perfectly at any and everything you try, how boring would you be as a person? No, not even boring, just condescendingly inhuman. You couldn't debate with people, because you know, you'd just beat them, even if the subject was philosophy, because hey, you're always right. Always. Whatever the topic, whatever the subject....notice how no good ice-breaker starts with "So, guys, I am awesome in every way and have never done anything wrong ever", well, bully for you! There's no empathy to be had with that statement. We as a species relate to each other by our mistakes, by what has gone wrong (or what we perceive of having gone wrong), if everything always goes exactly the right way, if there's no set backs, we degrade as humans, we become less than what we should be because there is no challenge there, no need to adapt and overcome. Anyway, I've talked enough here, I'm going to go adapt and overcome a plate of curry (....that sounded way less gross in my head....I'm going to leave it in there though, because mistakes, yay!) or something...later days y'all! 

Take your pick

Howdy do! So, it's been a long time since my last blog and the reasons for that are as varied and many as they are boring and tedious but the short answer is that I didn't have much access to the internet...I mean, I had it on my phone, but my phone is an ancient piece of shit (well, no, that's not fair, it's a good little phone for, you know, actually phoning people...i.e. the actual reason for which it was created...) that hates these new-fangled, devil-ridden inventions such as the internet and Bluetooth and mp3s, sure, it can use them, sometimes, if I really force it to, but for the most part the thing just leers at me if I come at it with the request to check my email....

Anywho, that's by-the-by, so what will I be talking about today?! Well, it's me so you know that I'm going to be talking about one of three things, my love of video games, university/education in general or tales of my childhood with philosophical ramblings interjected haphazardly into the main narrative...so take a guess! Are you taking a guess? If you guess rightly you'll win a small pot of jam (you even get to pick which flavour!) and an all expenses paid trip to the Moon! (*winning participants must be able to supply their own pot for the jam to go in, their own spacesuit and breathing apparatus and there is no cash alternative available, entrants must be over 18 and have blue eyes (today) or brown eyes (tomorrow) to enter).

Did you guess rightly? Did you?! DID YOU?! Well, if you did, or didn't, or didn't even attempt to, here is the answer! All of the above! Hah, that wasn't even an option, no prizes for you! (Please don't report me to the games commission or whatever it's called, I can't go back to prison again for the first time! I am a sweet and delicate thing, I wouldn't last a day without snapping and burning the place down...)

See, it's very nearly here...today's date, if you are unaware (or are reading this in the future, or the past! Which I tell you would be some trick indeed!) is the third of September....which means that I move out of my house in four days time....my course induction is now under a week away...It's all getting rather real and that's making me quite nervous. It's very strange, because this has been my dream for, well... basically...ever...certainly as long as I can remember and I can remember very long into the past indeed (well, possibly, probably, hopefully...though how would I know if I'd forgotten things entirely....makes one think, certainly) and now that it's basically here...I'm quite...no...very...I'm very nervous about it all. I mean, because of one reason and the others I'm getting into this game quite late, and I'd like to blame other people for it, but really it's all been down to me. I think I've talked about it before, that a person can't choose what happens to them, but they can choose how they react and that I reacted poorly, and I did! There's a sense of relief that this point is finally here, it feels like I've finally clawed my way up to where I should have been six/seven years ago if I hadn't just let go of wanting, well, anything but drinking and playing video games really....and you know, that sounds fun as shit, and it is! Up to a point...It's depressing, just brutally mind numbing and when you get to that state because of depression in the first place, it is just a crushing existence. There's little point in getting out of bed, hell, there's little point in going to bed in the first place, so your sleeping pattern gets all out of whack, which just depresses you further! (Look it up, I think it's seratonin or something, lack of sleep causes lack of it, lack of it causes depression) It really is just this vicious cycle.

It's a really weird thing though, depression, because it is also a crutch, it's a reason to not try and improve, a sort of "oh, why bother" mentality and before you jump on my back and start screaming like some demented howler monkey that that's not true...it is. I'm not saying that everyone suffering from it is like that, because they're not, they genuinely do have chemical imbalances in their brain that stop them from being able to enjoy life or look forward with any kind of optimism, I've known and continue to know people who fall into that category...which makes me annoyed when people play off it. You know, the lazy bastards who just don't want to work so they pretend to be depressed to commit benefit fraud, who use it as an excuse to avoid looking for work, to get out of having responsibilities. But mostly, I hate it because it harms people who have the actual illness, who need the actual help. Think about it, if a hypothetical drug was developed that cured depression and was given to people who weren't depressed but who were fleecing the system for money, even if it makes them as happy as balls they would still report themselves as depressed even though the drugs ostensibly "worked" and the pharmaceutical companies go back to the drawing board...though they're not too arsed about it, because hey, more money for them in developing new treatments right? But yeah, it's not just drugs, it's care workers and social workers, the people who look after these "depressed" people, if their techniques don't "work" on them, they have to adapt them unnecessarily, time and again. It's not just depression that people do this on though, don't think I'm ragging just on them, it's everything where people aren't really a part of the thing but use it to further their own means to the detriment of the people who are really trying to deal with it. Like the looters who "join in" with the riots that happened all over the UK a couple of years ago after the Duggan shooting. The cause, the movement didn't matter to them, they weren't looking to improve the world, people weren't talking about the social change that should have happened after it thanks to them, they were talking about how it was terrible that these riots happened at all. People forget that the first "riot" was actually a peaceful protest wanting an explanation for the shooting. Like the depression thing, it becomes curing "symptoms" that don't exist in the actual condition.

I'm not sure how this became so serious so fast, and I feel kind of bad about that, so, some levity to finish for you all....a horse walks into a bar and the barman says "why the long face?" and the horse says "my wife just died in childbirth...the foal died as well"....waaaaait, that's not light hearted at all! Well, I tried! Lord help me but I tried! *puts jet pack on* now, goodbye! *jetpacks away* 

The biased truth: A lesson in relative fidelity

Man has always been at war...it's in our blood. It's been that way ever since one monkey picked up a rock, bashed it over another's head and found that he was able to then take that other monkey's things. It gets into everything, from small things such as the fight over who can use the bathroom first in the morning to the big things like invading third world countries for natural resources I erm mean..."weeding out the bad guys who'd do us harm! yeehaw!"...the point is as a species we thrive on conflict. Even video gamers. There's always some story in the media that goes on about how video game caused violence is on the rise; it was Doom that caused Columbine, it was Grand Theft Auto that caused that Thai man to kill that taxi driver back in 2008, it was Katamari Damacy that caused the recession because it compelled Jeff Jefferson to run around hoarding everything in the world so that inflation sky rocketed because there was so little left in the world that Jefferson didn't own....those were dark, dark days indeed....

Of course, before video games, life was golden! Nothing bad ever happened! I mean sure, basically over 99% of wars happened before the advent of computer gaming...but come on, other than that it was great right?! Oh, come on, The Great Depression wasn't all that bad, it really brought people together! And as for the Dark Ages?! Best time, ever! Or whatever other example you care to mention...yes, everything sure was great back then!

Okay, that was unfairly sarcastic, a lot of great stuff did happen prior to video games, arguably more great stuff than has happened since, there, I've given you a freebie...but here's the thing, the real reason why video games are looked down on as a form of entertainment....they're new. It really is that simple, they've been around for about 50 years now but they only really hit the mainstream about 30 years ago and even then it was only seen as a kids toy. It's a rapidly growing industry, in this console generation alone, between the three main console competitors (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the Wii) they've sold over a quarter of a billion machines and that's not including how many handhelds (such as the DS or 3DS) are sold or how many PCs were bought with the express intent of being used as a games machine, it's estimated that there's roughly half a billion people worldwide who play at least an hour daily...the market for it is growing.

You have to question the intent of the media's stories. There's the story that's being presented and then there's the story behind that story, why is the general media always so keen to press the issue of video game violence. Well, there are a few reasons that are pretty easy to discern. Firstly, there's the target audience. As I said before video games are basically a youth thing. I'm not saying that that is entirely the case, as it's blatantly not so, they've been embraced by a decent percentage of the older population, but what about the rest. To them, video gaming is strange and unusual, it's full of it's own terminology indecipherable to those without the key ("l2p noob" "360 triple collateral no scope!" "gank DR, thn bk 2 mid grp 4 rosh" "fucking lagswitching"), it's something they can't get into because it requires time and/or effort and (most importantly I would argue) it could cause a rift to open in their social circle ("Franks into those kiddy-games now, ain't ya Frank."). So they're not altogether enthused about video games in the first place, because it's not for them, but you know what is? Watching television, watching the news, ever notice how the news broadcasts on BBC are different to the ones on MTV? Or how Fox news is different from Al Jazeera? That's called media bias, what you are getting is ostensibly the news, but it is the news presented in a format specifically for a certain demographic. If your audience is older, you show video games/new music in a bad light. This is primarily done to achieve repeat custom, if a news show is similar to your world view odds are likely that you will return to it again and again, which is great for the advertisers. It's the same with newspapers, websites, everything, they are all pushing an agenda to get you in again and again. There is truth there, sure, but you have to question it.

Why do you have to question it...well, in video games case especially, it's because it's harmful to other media....it's simple if you think about it, if you're busy playing a video game then you can't be watching the television programs. You can't be seeing all those lovely advert breaks. You're not watching movies and seeing the product placement. Consider who owns all those businesses, Sony own Columbia Pictures and I think that's the only major crossover in the industry (please do point out if I'm wrong, I'm not entirely certain), every one else is in competition. It's slowly fading away as their services become ever more intermingled (see for example Xbox1's deal with the NFL, worried about choosing between Halo or NFL on Monday nights?! well, now you don't have to!) and interestingly enough this has happened before. When television was first introduced, it didn't really do well, it was looked down on (much as video games are now) both by the media and the media influenced public...television started making some headway in the early 50s though and then the movie companies caved when they realised that they could make money off of old movies through their re-release on television. The Movie companies (the biggest of which are today's media conglomerates) should really have seen this coming though, as that was exactly the same way they began (as the innovative, edgy, underdog against the might of Print published media). 

Which leads me back to my opening, where I said that man has always been at war...old ideas are always conflicting against new ones, until the new idea itself becomes accepted, and then old, and is then fighting against some new idea...because just as much as we are about fighting, we are about adapting and making things routine. What was unthinkable back then is now considered unremarkable and normal, it's not always a good thing, but it can be.

This one is about running, one way or the other...

I like sports....and sports like me, like, more than a friend....but that's cool. I was never really into sports as a child, until about the age of seven, then I really started to get into football, then I got ran over by a car and nearly lost my left foot and couldn't do anything sports related for years because Fate is a capricious bitch. When I had recovered I did well enough to get on several school teams, at various points I was on the badminton team (badminton is the most badass sport ever! don't you dare dis it!), the football team and the athletics team. In fact I was so good at the art of running really kinda fast thing I got invited to join the Liverpool Harriers (which you know, trains the guys and gals we send to such small events as the motherfucking olympics!) but I didn't take them up on that offer...why? Was it because my friend who was also invited didn't want to go? If you ask my mum she'll tell you that was the reason, but she's wrong. I didn't join it simply because I am lazy. 

I love sports, I really do. But if there's the smallest obstacle to doing them, then I'll sit back and be like "oh well, I tried, mwa mwa"...and that's a tremendously shit-bag thing to do because (and this is not just a tooting my own horn kind of thing) I am really, really good at them...like....all of them....I'm not fantastically great at all of them, but some of them....yeah, I am, and sometimes I feel really bad for not using that talent you know, for letting it go to waste...and it was purely down to laziness, my laziness. For a long time I was convinced it was down to my friends, they don't ever want to play sports, they dislike them, so I'd ask to go the park and kick a ball around, get shot down and that was that. They were the reason I didn't play football, I'd tell myself. They were the reason why I never played tennis, I told myself....the point I'm trying to make is that I was (and some would argue am still) a giant bag of arse. It wasn't them stopping me from playing football, from going out and finding a team, or hell, even other friends to do whatever sporting activity with, it was entirely my own doing, because I am lazy, because I could take the route of "oh well, I tried, lol", so I could play the role of the tragic figure ("oh I want to to do such and such, but alas! fate doth conspire against me by pitting me against such opposition to my dreams! such opposition that no mere man may ever overcome! the woe! all the woe! she is me and I am her! oh woe indeed!").

Its something we all do to a certain extent, we all love to play the victim ("and there I was, minding my own business, out stealing, when some criminal steals my car with all my stole loot in it!" - http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/robber-robbed-tells-police-article-1.1219177 ) because we are a subjective race in an objective world. We literally can't see the world as it is without distorting it with our own minds, everything that happens is filtered through our minds and we each interpret it differently, according to our own beliefs and ways of thinking. We look at things in how they relate to us specifically, remember that time you got into a heated argument over something and the other person didn't give a solitary fuck? Or less of a fuck anyway, and you got really offended? "How could this person not hold this thing to the same high value as myself! Clearly because they are a terrorist!" or some other such nonsense. In short, everything you hold dear must be held dear to other people otherwise they are morally corrupt in some way, or evil, or just simply wrong...which is bullshit, because yeah, they do think differently, but it's not wrong, it's just their subjective experiences that make them that way, that has made them view the world in that way. In their shoes you'd think the exact same way they'd do. Basically it all boils down to a "me, me, me!" way of dealing with the world, because there's no other way of dealing with the world, even trying to see it from another persons' point of view isn't altogether great because at the end of it, you'd be trying to see their reasoning from within your own. If it's totally against what you believe, no matter how reasoned or logical or whatever, it'll be rejected as a valid subject.

And that's why I haven't played any sport for a long time, not because I lacked the objectivity to see that other other people not wanting to play meant that I should have just found others to play with....but because personally, subjectively, I didn't want to find other people to play with because I am lazy....I think this whole post has kind of got away from me to be honest...but oh well, sports and philosophy always make for an interesting combo I feel, now I'm off to find some thing with which to break my fast, vaya con dios y'all!   

How I learned the value of being cynical: A rope of sand...

There are things I talk about that are just uninteresting, there are things I talk about that are very interesting...and there are things I talk about that are placed somewhere within those two values, but you know what irritates me (and this is going to be hugely hypocritical) most of all is people assuming that what you say has no value whatsoever...we've all been there when we've said something or espoused some thing that we believed to have immense value and been shot down entirely...and you've every right to be angry at this! After all, it's what you're saying right? It's your universal truth, you're right, they're wrong, how dare they treat it as anything less than gospel right? Well, actually, you're both right...and you're both wrong...see, the universe is entirely subjective, what you hold to be dear to your heart another person could very well disregard entirely and who's right in that situation? Well consider, what is "right" anyway? What we believe to be "right" is actually the accumulated knowledge we've experienced, yeah? If someone else has led a similar life then yeah, they're probably going to have similar outlooks and perspectives compared to ourselves and so we'll end up agreeing on a number of issues...but what about those who've led very different lives? If they were brought up in a different religion, in a different social class, by parents with differing values....or whatever other variable you care to think of...they're going to be different, but are they any less "right"? 

My point is that things, that life, is almost entirely (if not actually entirely) a relative experience....the things that you consider to be vital to your existence, another may disregard entirely...and it wouldn't be wrong, not exactly, simply because that is their life, their experience. You may think I'm focusing too much on the individual, ok, let's take it further and broaden the term to our society as a whole....what is "right" in our society may be wrong in another. Example, boy do we English people (taken as a majority whole) love bacon. We love it so much that it is a vital part of what is called the "Full English Breakfast", it simply would not be a full English breakfast without the bacon....now go offer it to a Jew....or a vegetarian....or someone who simply does not like pork....who is "right" here? Answer? We all are. Every last one of us with every differing opinion because that is exactly what life is, a collection of opinions and there are no wrong ones. There are ones you will disagree with, there are ones I heartily disagree with, but as much as I disagree with them I assign them value....I don't know what a person has lived through to make them so adverse to the thought of consuming a bacon sandwich or whatever other example you can care to think of, how they were raised, what they were taught or what they believe...so why judge them on that? I try to learn why people think in certain ways, of course, I'll ask why they believe that, or why they act in a certain way, but judging them solely on one aspect, one action? 

It's something that really irritates me....when someone says that their belief is correct, the only right way and if you argue against it, in any way, then you are wrong, entirely....they don't do anything to argue their reasons, offer no explanation as to why they're right, only insist that you are wrong and then offer only spurious circular reasoning (aka, "I'm right because I'm obviously not wrong") to affirm their "rightness"....it's something that genuinely distresses me...but what distresses me even more is that I can understand why it happens and so I can see why we'll never be rid of it because if we did, if we got rid of differing opinions and views, it'd be the end of us as a species....