Irrelevance Glorified

(note : originally written in 2000)

This is a touchy subject, and the cause of many a war throughout the years, but I thought I’d put my thoughts out there on this subject, because it is something I have thought about a lot, and is something which is very interesting. Before I begin, I will say where I am coming from. My ethnicity is Indian; I was raised a Hindu. It was never forced upon with me with any sort of fervor, and so I can’t say that I’m well-versed in it. Hinduism is an interesting religion and there are many similarities between it and other religions. It is not as polytheistic as many people would think. One thing that I have an impression of is that one can only be born into being a Hindu. You can’t just convert or anything. Which is why I’m hesitant to say I’m not; it looks like I am one whether I truly believe in it or not, according to one definition. But truly, I consider myself to be an agnostic. An agnostic is one who neither believes nor disbelieves in a God/Supernatural Deity, a middle road between theism and atheism. The reason is simply that there is no empirical proof that God (I will use this term and the pronoun He for convenience, although these are just conventions) exists, but if one did exist, it would certainly be within His power to make the seams of the universe invisible. I believe that both theism and atheism are leaps of faith that are somewhat arbitrary, no matter how soothing they are to the soul. Continue Reading »

(note : originally written in 1999)
Hate has a bad rap. We’re always being told that hate is horrible. It should be abolished. “Make Love, Not War!” (Personally, I thought that last one was just made up by people who wanted to get some) But you know, hate isn’t all that bad. It’s just so often misused. It’s often been said that Hate isn’t the opposite of Love, Apathy is. Which is very true, if you stop to think about it. In both Love and Hate, you feel very strong about something. The difference between Love and Hate is merely is one of a sign, not of magnitude. So if we treat them as scalars instead of the vectors that they actually are, they’re pretty much equal to each other. Man I’m such a dork for using an analogy like that. Anyways, one can easily see Hate is sometimes just Love going in the wrong direction. Continue Reading »

(note : originally written in 1999. Depressingly, still applicable)
If you’d watch the movies and television shows, which I bet you do, you’d think that there’s two great forces in the world, especially in fanstasy books. There’s GOOD and there’s EVIL, constantly caught in a everlasting battle for the domination of the world. That’s the fictional world, I fear. There is a battle being waged, but it isn’t between good evil, light or dark, or even “less filling” and “tastes great.” This epic conflict is between the competent and the ignorant. Continue Reading »

(note : originally written in 1999)

If you are a normal member of the masses, you have no doubt either seen a movie or a read a book which involved time travel as a main premise. Some notables that come to mind are H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine”, the unforgettable Terminator movies, and the somewhat confusing Back to the Future series. In all these movies, we find that things get pretty messed up in the future. A key plot element in these stories is that people are trying to change the present by affecting the past. But you know, things get pretty messed up whenever you start to think about things. If the directors of these movies ever sat down and thought about their plots before they decided to start filming, I’m sure that they’d sit down and go “Hmmmmmm….” And after that they’d probably blow their brains out, because it kinda makes your head hurt. Continue Reading »

(note : originally written in 1998)

Sometimes I wonder what happens after we die. This is a matter of great debate, although perhaps for strange reasons, since it doesn’t quite matter since you’re, well, dead. It’s interesting how the afterlife, or even just the suspicion of one, influences the way we live and how we interact with each other. There are many schools of thought, ranging from the whole “hell and heaven” idea to reincarnation. Well, I just started wondering about the logistics of reincarnation…… Continue Reading »

(note : originally written in 1998)

Despite what you may think, UIUC is not the edenesque Valhalla that I may portray. For instance, it rained today. And there wasn’t even a rainbow! Would there be rainbowless rain in Shangri-la? No sir, at least not if I was running it. Don’t get me wrong though. We’re not in Gotham City here. Continue Reading »