War
I.
Am.
My.
War.
Pain.
Death.
Despair.
Hopelessness.
Tearing lives apart.
Tearing families apart.
In the most patriotic country.
With men fighting for but nothing.
None remember the purpose or motivation.
They close their eyes and pray for reconstruction.
Men and women fighting for a greater good of which they forget.
As the dust clears and the moments become long and monotonous…
We have to ask ourselves, is this war we support really supporting anything?
I guess you can smile and pat yourself on the back for sending your son.
But then again, you fought against fighting for absolutely nothing.
When the bombs of Vietnam blew your friends to tiny bits.
Where is your picket sign now? Your peace protest?
If only you could open your eyes to the futility.
Another Vietnam, just another Cold War.
Like any war, with eyes closed.
Never tell me the truth.
Don’t admit mistakes.
We cry out now.
For escape.
Patriotic.
Truly.
Sad.
Eh?
The Religious Aspect of Life
Oh God, where do I begin?
Never since the dawn of mankind has a subject dominated the lives and wellbeing of the human race like religion. Be it in the monotheistic Christians, Jews, Muslims, or the polytheistic religions of ancient and present days, man has used the presence of a “higher being” to dominate the lives of humans and the world.
For those of you who are atheist, I can’t wait until you die and figure out that Hell you’ve been joking about is right at your doorstep.
Or perhaps you are correct in your hopeless belief that after life is nothing. That you’re sent to earth to suffer in the monotony of all this and that’s it. And if you believe that there really is no place to go, and there really is no reason for everything, then what’s the point?!
For those of you who take the Bible literally, do you not understand that it was written many many years after the events which took place? If the events even took place. Perhaps all those symbols and parables of Jesus really are symbols and parables. Perhaps it never even happened. The truth is, we will never know whether or not Jesus was the messiah, or if it was Muhammad or an unknown prophet. What we do know is that these stories are real. The people in these stories are real, we have physical evidence of their decedents and the places in the stories. It does not matter if these events took place. It does not matter if your Jesus was the son of God. It does not matter if your Muhammad was sent with God speaking through him. It does not matter if your prophets truly spoke with God. What matters is the meaning behind it, the symbolism, the logic, the morals, the faith. Because what else is there?
The same goes for the Koran and every other religious work.
No matter what you believe, you can not deny the impact that religion has had on the world. Ohne religion, efforts to help starving countries and helpless victims of pain and suffering would be nonexistent, for churches and other religious groups send food and money and volunteers to help. Without religion, there are no laws and anarchy is rampant, for without the morals and fear of Pergatory and Hell, there is no reason for being kind to one another.
Without religion, one is ohne hope. And without hope, why go on?
But hope is here.
Devoid
There you sit, devoid of expression. Your mind races, in automation. Your eyes glazed over, waiting for the day to end. For the next day of lifelessness to begin.
Your mind dull and closed. So many ideas flood your head, not yours. Never yours. Your thoughts don’t matter.
No time for your thoughts. No time for your beliefs, your ideas, your motives.
Glazed mind. Glazed world.
They silence you with work. They silence you with hopelessness. Days flood by. They never took your mind, just hid it away. Your world inside is still inside. You would write if you could. You would express if you could. But they take away your ability to think for yourself to express yourself with the words of others they inject into you like a virus. They expect your retention to keep your silent. But it remains.
You sit and stare devoid of emotion. But you have emotions. If only you had the time to express them.
That’s the effect school is having on this blog. I will write when I can. My apologies for the lack of posts.
The Grades Aspect of Life
Grades. Life. Intertwined in one ironic massacre.
Every student entertains the idea of using the least amount of effort to achieve the highest amount of payout. Apathy overflows. Driven for knowledge? No. Driven to satisfy the purpose of education, to better society? No. Driven to better oneself? No. Driven by maniacal parents? Yes. Driven to be good enough for that college? Yes. But driven to be better than expectations? Never.
So there we go. With our faces to the books just enough to survive. To appease the masses.
When did we lose sight of the realities of education? I blame those who say curiosity killed the cat. Curiosity is what SHOULD drive education and life. Lack of curiosity kills education.
In Review: Pandora Radio (Website)
It is my pleasure today to write a formal review of a website I use almost every time I am on my computer. The website in question, Pandora.com, is the home of a wonderful free web application that lets the user listen to nonstop music.
One of the great selling points of Pandora is that it is free! Applications such as Rhapsody and Napster require you to pay for their services. Pandora, on the other hand, is funded by ads. Also unlike other free radios, there are no ads in the actual audio of the radio. Instead, the background and parts of the web page are changed to display the ads.
The lack of ads in the audio in addition to streaming, free music may remind you of Last.fm. One major and defining difference between Pandora and Last.fm is that Pandora is web-based and therefore does not need to be installed or downloaded; Pandora can be used on any computer with Flash.
Another useful feature of Pandora is the ability to use stations to listen to music. Like your car stereo system, stations can be “programmed” and saved. Pandora uses the “Music Genome Project” to use keywords and your own input to play music that you will like. Additionally, the music Pandora plays for you to listen to will be more and more accurately enjoyable to you. For each song that plays, you can say “I like it” or “I don’t like it” and the program will find trends in the songs you enjoy and the songs you don’t enjoy and will find other songs and bands that follow the same patterns.
With no obtrusive ads, free service, and no downloads, Pandora is truly the greatest radio player to use. The patterns and variety in the possibilities of stations make Pandora a worthwhile radio player. Stations can be set to find songs of a similar genre, artist style, or even style of a song. Whether you are interested in constant critique of songs or you would just like to have the music playing in the background, Pandora easily molds to your mood and sets the scene the way you want it, without you even having to tell it to.
So check it out. Pandora Radio. Listen to Free Internet Radio. Find new music. It’s definitely worth checking out.
