...In which our heroine gets weird.

I had an existential crisis on Friday. Nothing in particular prompted it, just an amalgamation of factors that I think are pointing to an increase in my consciousness of my surroundings and the flaws within them. I spent the day having an interior freak out about technology and the successes and failures it has as a means of connection. Over spring break, I asked my grandmother if she knew what Facebook was. She did, and it rightly weirded her out. All of our technological tethers are empowering and harming us. Our greater connectivity means we live lives outside of face-to-face connection. It's a great thing: writing in a medium such as this allows me to provide updates and stay in touch with people I may not be able to otherwise, or at least with a lesser effort.

But it wasn't just the technology freak out. Certain recent experiences have made me question things I've always assumed to be true. Why do I assume that? If a subject interests me, I go fully into exploring it, and with topics I've been exploring recently like the Masons and JFK's assassination and Terence McKenna's Time Wave Zero Theory, it seems that there's a lot the masses either don't know or don't care to know. Have I lost you with the crazy yet? Part of why this new awareness is wearing on me is because I don't know if I'm just some sort of weird crackpot who reads too much Wikipedia, or this is normal behavior for a 21 year-old. I've found that certain belief and moral systems have worn out for me, so I'm looking elsewhere for things I perceive as true, or at least things I can buy into more.

Am I just a typical college student rabble rouser rallying against a rich white patriarchal view and operating system of the world, or am I on to something that changes my belief system from this point forward? I think it's just my time to evolve my thinking from where its rested these past twenty or so years. With yoga and other enterprises, my third eye has been woken up and squeegeed off. After a brief break, my dreams are back to their super vivid selves. This has meant a few nightmares, yeah, but when they aren't scary, they're incredible. Lucid dreaming is coming as second-nature now, and I find it easy to get to that deep subconscious interior.


I think my question is this, and I'm asking it here because if I ask my parents, they'll worry I've lost some marbles here in Chicago. Do others realize that the government and social structures of at the very least America are screwing them over every single day of their lives, and therefore choose to ignore it OR do you tuck that knowledge into some corner in the back of their minds and deal with it the best they can. We're giving animals cancer from all the shit we dump in the ocean. Julian Assange blew open a lot of people's thoughts with Wikileaks. UFOs probably exist. There are significant flaws in issues around 9/11 and JFK's assassination. Peak oil might cause the downfall of industrialized society. Shadowy corporations might be secretly ruling us all. Of course all these things are arguable and speculative, but I think only a fool would assume that we, the docile masses, medicated with television and Big Gulps, know everything that happens. Do you know this, and then if you know it, do you care, or do day to day things like paying the mortgage and soccer practice force you to ignore it in lieu of such pressing priorities? Do we ignore until it becomes a reality?

The thing I'm taking comfort in on whatever trip this is that I'm currently riding along on is that this is normal. First we try to change the world, then ourselves. I guess I'm on that changing the world stage, but I don't really see myself as being able to change anything - I just wish more people thought to ask "why?" then submit willingly. At least knowing that things are fucked up allows you some room to asses what is truly important to you and make decisions accordingly as opposed to just going along with things just as they are.

I've been particularly interested in Terence McKenna's theories of novelty and singularity, that so much is happening in our world simultaneously we've reached a point where something has to change. I don't necessarily think we're headed towards an end, or if that end would even be in 2012, but I think changes are afoot because of the technologically advanced society we're living in, one whose marvels increase exponentially on a consistent basis. I certainly couldn't have thought about a computer in your pocket ten years ago. Perhaps everyone in their twenties thinks the world is ending or changing, and this is just my time with it, but I have a feeling in my gut it isn't just me.I'm excited to see if the crackpots, including myself, are right, or we're all laughing with our Y2K party hats on December 21st, 2012.

Have I lost you on the crazy yet? Maybe this ramble will be evidence of my downfall at some later date. BUT...despite all of this gloom and doom discourse, I've also realized everything is connected. All we can really do is try to matter to a handful of people that love us back.That's it. We're all just specks in the universe, and if we're lucky, someone will think of us fondly from time to time. The world went on before us, and it'll go on after us too. Our energy is never destroyed, it just transfers forms. I've always had a sense of premonition, knowing how things will be before they actually happen, so maybe that's just the karma of my past lives working itself. Maybe my recognition of such things is that karma coming into fruition, and I'm the collection of experiences of others whose karma was good enough that in this life, I get to understand it. Don't buy the reincarnation juju? This changed my mind. Thanks, Ian Stevenson.

We probably aren't meant to know about such machinations of life, but goddamnit, it's fun to think about. At least while I have the free time to ponder such questions of existence. 

Blame Bill Hicks, too. Now I'm listening to Tool a lot more because they were friends with Hicks. Who would have thought a dead stand-up comic would alter my worldview for this period of my life, but things happen when they're meant to. This snippet is my current mantra on existence.



Katydid in the City: Bringing the existentialism and paranoia back to your Monday.