in apprehension, how like a god

ah, to think. to think is a marvelous thing. to ponder, to quiz, to speculate, to debate, to suppose, to visualize, to determine, to regard. i have just figured this out. this is the answer to many of my questions. we love to think.
you see, i was reading the book *fahrenheit 51*, by ray bradbury, recently. for those of you not familiar with it, the book is about a futuristic society where books are burned and the brain-dead people sit inside watching their 4D tvs all day. and i could not figure out, what's wrong with that? as long as they're enjoying themselves, who cares if they're blank-minded? but here is the problem-they are not thinking. and thought is the most important thing.
what caused me to realize this was the fact that i am in a very stressful time in my life right now, in terms of my education, and i thought, similarly, what's the point? so my school watched obama's speech to schoolkids, and i realized-unlike bush, the only reason our president is where he is now is his education. not money, not class, not connections, not even intelligence (although he is very smart). what got him there was that he worked his ass off to get a good education, and it paid off.
it's the henry higgins theory.
you see, wealth and class aren't determined entirely by where you live, what you eat, or what you do. they are determined by what you know. knowledge can get you there, and knowledge can make it clear to people that you are there.
now, granted, there is a difference between learned knowledge and thought. in fact, i made a word for this divide- the prudenossisseca (translated into latin, wisdom knowledge line). and they serve two different purposes. thought is what you do to keep your brain in shape, for entertainment, and to be better equipped to learn. the problem with a lot of common Merkin past times (including most homework) is that they actually decrease brain activity, rather than increase it. knowledge, on the other hand, is something you gain by reading, talking to other people, living in the world, and going to school.
these two things are the reason that the human race is where it is today. and that is why we must think.

i see skies of blue, and clouds of white

you know what's so amazing about the world? it all fits. completely. i mean, if even one thing didn't work, there wouldn't be life on this planet or order in the universe. if we were missing even one law of physics or one level of the food chain or one planet, nothing would work. but it DOES.
that's why i don't think that ID is as beautiful or miraculous. if someone could just decide that everything was going to work and then it would, well then, great for them. but the fact that everything just happened to fall into place perfectly astounds me.
except maybe it didn't. maybe there is a flaw. and maybe that flaw is us. humans. i mean, i'm sitting here typing on a computer which is powered by some tall white things with blades on top miles and miles away, and i'm wearing a t-shirt with cartoon owls on it and sitting in an office chair. these things are totally independent of the real, natural world. maybe humans don't want to be part of the real world. maybe we want our own ecosystem. maybe they want to isolate themselves, just like i'm doing right now by blogging instead of eating bagels and lox with the friends we have over in the living room. in which case, i suggest we fly to the moon. all of us. it's much more suited to our needs.

sometimes

it is very hard to know what is right and what is wrong.

that is all i have to say.

sept. 14th, 2009 free write

the yellow blood of butterflies seeping over the concrete clanking, screaming machine killing everything in its path. hummingbirds, bees, and whales, lie on the street, as their corpses soak up the butterfly's blood. these is only one survivor. a proud, ancient tiger, now thin and weak, stumbles through the mess. all of his brothers and sisters have starved to death, and to here he stands. concrete for miles around. once a parking lot-no, once a forest. not even cars left now. just the lonely tiger, staring at the victims of the genocide, his feet sticky with butterfly blood. F***ing fascist humans, he thinks, as a dodo floats by on a stream of the yellow and red muck. the sky is gray above-a huge empty sky which was once full of leaves. the tiger can't breathe. he lies down in the blood, just for a moment...just for a moment...

it's so nice to see you back where you belong...

so, here is a piece of information about my family: we are theater freaks. well, really just my mother and i, but we like to force everyone else to be one, too. the first movie i ever saw was the music man. i memorized all the words in falsettos at age seven. i started quoting shakespeare in conversation at age nine. i keep a constant list of my 5 favorite musicals in my mind. and, out of all of this, comes my brother-a wee thing, devoid almost entirely of musical theater knowledge, trivia, or interest. HOW COULD WE LET THIS HAPPEN?
luckily, he is still very young, so we still have time to take him out of his raw, heathenish state, and into the wonderful world of fosse and sontheim!
i have planned this conversion like this: every week, we will watch one of the movies that i used to love when i was his age, and whenever we are going to see a show that's not too grown-up for him, we will take him along. it will work. he liked hello, dolly.
enclosed is a list of all the movies we are going to watch:
south pacific
1776
hello, dolly!
gypsy
my fair lady
the music man
hairspray
fiddler on the roof
dreamgirls
bandwagon
west side story
godspell