“Laughter kills fear, and without fear there can be no faith, because without fear of the Devil there is no more need of a God. “ – Umberto Eco

Every few years, I revisit novels that have spoken to me during the course my life. Great works are just that; somebody’s life work… a crowning achievement of genius interpretation. Somebody with the capacity (and time) for great thought, taking life’s general lessons and condensing them to formed thought. In the quote above, my mind automatically makes the addendum; “So, laugh, laugh, laugh, and be free”. It isn’t in the book… But it’s my logical connection.

Most people have forgotten how to make connections. Even the simple ones.

Too many people today don’t even bother to read the works, like those above, of great men and women… They, instead lock their noses into fashion magazines, tabloids, and other brain mashing devices like Vogue. If, they can even be bothered to read at all.

Information presented in this manner leaves no room for life… It’s a force fed view in a country has no desire to question as a whole. Ironically, these periodicals don’t even fully cover how superficial the culture has become… Which, should give you chuckle.

There was a time when most COULDN’T read… Now, most can… But most will still never question.

When you read a book like above, it takes you to a reality that is not your own, and forces you to view the world from a different angle in a different time. This was the orginal vacation.

There are, of course, reasons for current media being what it is. Popular culture has been conditioned by the very cunning people that don’t want us to question what’s around us. They simply look to control what is there. Similar intelligence, different primal movement. If you were to take an Aynd Rand style (Not her actual view… I think if you buy into that, you’re becoming exactly what she’s attempting to damn) view of extremism, you could say (possibly) that the world of men are divided into three types of people: People that question and discover for the sake of, those that only seek to control, and those that follow. Of course, you can say anything you want.

I’ve been called a cynic by many people in my life… I happen to think that in most cases, it’s the exact opposite. I laugh at EVERYTHING.

Music is the easy example, every few years there’s a explosion of new music from someplace… It’s a little diluted these days, with the advent of the internet… But the recording industry was never very good at control. They try, but when you manage to grab people by the emotional Pelotas, it’s hard to ignore. Take Indie music… Now there are sub genres… What? These are created by hipsters and record labels that have no idea what free thinking is actually about. Indie was created by people that were sick of being force feed shite music by faceless corporations, and decided to make their own records, and their own label, and finance their own tours. It didn’t mean too tight pants, shitty singing, and the possibility of malnutrition. Before then, it’s some other form of music that was lurking right below the surface… There’s been many Punk, Grunge, Rock, Swing, Jazz… None could be denied. We might be able to be herded like cattle for the most part… But there’s always a mass emotional subconscious. How can it not make you happy, that agianst the odds, we still strive to move forward?

I’ll give another example: people close to me know that I possess a love for science as well as music… A few even proclaim to know why. Science (for the most part) is the most positive outlet the human race has ever endeavored toward. On any day, you can read how a genocide ended in this part of the world… Or how this politician is attempting reification of a law that promotes civil liberties to the gay population. Now, while this is great stuff. These are curbs to thought that have been crafted since the beginning of religion and government that are only designed to keep people in conflict with one another. You can sum up the school of thought in a few, tired, old clichés, like : “Divide and Conquer”, or “Nothing unites people like the power of mutual hatred.”

But they are fucking curbs. Low curbs.

Like the ramp section in the curb on the sidewalk of life. The above is only a quick example of the basics. This is why many early people in science, and music, were persecuted by those that want to control. The human mind is apt to question, and even more apt to fear. But questions have this annoying way of leading to answers. The essence of life is to always ask “Why?”.


Two year olds do this best… And should NEVER be taught to stop and never be given the answer “Because”.

But for the most part they are… Hmmmm, Why?

People fear their own ignorance. I remember asking the question “Why is the sky blue?” to an adult as a child and the answer was simply that “It’s always been blue.” This bothered the hell out of me. It was the first serious moment I remember from my childhood. When things stopped being about tummy raspberries, and full cups of ice cream.

To quote Lawrence; “Shit just got real” (Yeah, Martian Lawrence… Hey, if it applies…).

Most two year olds might take that…. I’m going to venture a guess that most of you reading this have already discovered that answer, or you’re googling it before you reached the word “google” in this sentence.

But someplace, somewhere… Probably in the midwest, somebody is being taught to not think by hearing the words “God did it”, or , “Because” or “It’s Brittney’s favorite color.”

No! The blue color of the sky is due to “Rayleigh” scattering. As light moves through the atmosphere, most of the longer wavelengths pass straight through. Little of the red, orange and yellow light is affected by the air but much of the shorter wavelength light is absorbed by the gas molecules. The absorbed blue light is then radiated in different directions. It gets scattered all around the sky. Whichever direction you look, some of this scattered blue light reaches you. Since you see the blue light from everywhere overhead, the sky looks blue.

That’s the answer!

And most of the time, we are relearning lessons people have already learned. They didn’t need to enact laws in old Rome to protect the civil liberties of gay people, because it was never an issue. Now, they also fed people to loins… But even the act of feeding people to loins was simply the control method for the masses at the time. There are advances, and drawbacks.

I’m digressing into areas you should already be aware of.

People tend to focus on what’s in front of them… Give them a problem or a fear, and they’ll fixate. Somebody came up to me the other day and the following conversation ensued.

“It’s a good thing the housing market is turning around, I heard on the news the other day that things are getting better.”

“Why?”

“Well, it was on the news that things were looking to even out soon”

“Yeah, but did they say why?”

“Well, no.”

It just takes a why.

I told that same person that a month ago, they figured out how to find out if there’s water on a planet in another solar system. The response was “what does that matter?”

We’ve already been through manufactured economic crisis… The country was founded in an attempt to get away from that, among other things. We’ve seen ALLL this stuff before… We know that the banking systems don’t work… We know we are being herded, so why is it good that they’re letting us have some breathing room again… it would be good if we had evolved to the point of the common man seeing this travesty unfold. If you don’t see it for what it is at this point, you haven’t asked “why” enough and you might not ever. But, being able to tell if there is tangible proof of life on other planets… That’s new. That’s amazing. That’s truly positive. That’s progress!

I’m getting ready to turn even older then I already am in a few days. I’m writing this because I had my first experience with not asking why to things a few years ago… And it impeded everything. It held me back from progressing for years. And now, I feel the need to revisit my thinking of the world, as a self induced epoch is close at hand, I felt the need to write this thought someplace.

Call it what you will, but I can’t get excited about relearning things. I read old novels again to gain a fresh point of view. To have the connection points the words will create in my mind find other point of juncture in the sea of experience. Words of wisdom and truth will always be a foundation to relearn. The words that cause you to question, because if you do nothing else for the rest of your life, you should ask as many times as you can.

Because it’s the most sacred gift we have and the one we use the least. The ability to ask “Why?”

And laughing. Always laugh.

And now for Bill Hicks:

The world is like a ride at an amusement park. It goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly coloured and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: Is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, "Hey - don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride...” But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. Jesus - murdered; Martin Luther King - murdered; Malcolm X - murdered; Gandhi - murdered; John Lennon - murdered; Reagan... wounded. But it doesn't matter because: It's just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.