Sunday, October 28, 2007

I'll never call golf a dull game again.

So I went to my brother's football game and when I got back I hit the sack. I get a call at 4:30 in the morning-- its my roommate, he's outside drunk and he needs me to let him in. I think to myself what the fuck? How the fuck? Did he lose his keys? How could he get home if he had no keys? How is he locked out? I didn't even bother putting any pants on. I scrambled upstairs unlocked the door and let him in. His lips busted, he's got a chipped tooth, he's breathing heavy from the alcohol. He's got band-aids on all of his damn fingers. A few more cuts here and their--

"What the fuck happened to you", Was my only question.
"I got jumped", He responded opening his mouth to allow me a closer look at his mangled tooth. He continued,"They beat me with a baseball bat, I just got out of the hospital."

I looked outside, his car wasn't there.

"Are you okay?" I asked in disbelief. Its one of those questions you have to ask. Did he look okay to me? Fuck no! But what are you going to do, right? He went to the hospital, somehow managed to make it all the way home without his car. He was supposed to meet up with Sam and one of his old friends...did they leave him? A lot of questions kept racing through my mind. I checked my phone, I had a bunch of missed calls around 1 am. "That sucks", I thought. Looks like he probably called me during or right after the beating and I was knocked the hell out. I halfway wanted to apologize, but he was already on the phone with his girlfriend. She'll freak out, but its okay, at least she cares. I always thought she had an irrational fear of finding her boyfriend dead an ally, but if this fool keeps going out without me, it could be a very real reality.

Looking back I just don't know, the whole situation seems odd. I haven't spoken to him after the incident, but who the hell is jumping a 5'6 slightly pudgy white guy. I don't know what part of d.c. he was in, but I know he wouldn't go beyond adams morgan or dupont circle. D.C. is dangerous, but even drag queens can walk freely in those areas without getting jumped. Anyway I digress...

So now I'm on the phone with his girlfriend reassuring her that her boyfriend doesn't look like Emmett Till. I looked at him now and again to confirm that I wasn't lying to myself. He'll have to get that tooth fixed, but shit you've seen all that 90210 doctor bullshit on the health channel, if they can fix those bammers they can fix a simple chipped tooth. Other than that its just a few minor cuts and bruises.

"He's okay, nothin' that can't be fixed", I reassured her for the third time. "You wanna talk to him again?"

I handed the phone back to my roommate. He disappeared into the kitchen mumbling about how he was going to explain this to his parents. It was 4:40, I was tired, the roomie was back somewhere safe, I retired for the night.

Monday, October 8, 2007

What tomorrow will bring

"You never know what tomorrow will bring"

I think we've all heard that one before. The quote is used to inspire hope, maybe even spark initiative in one's life. Before I go knee deep into it though I'd like to add a little perspective. Recently I've been reading a few things on string theory and I'm about half way through Stephen Hawking's book "A Brief History of Time". One of the sections mentions that if we knew the state of the universe during a given time period (meaning if we could get a snapshot of the universe at some point) we could figure out a formula that could describe everything in our universe at any time.
The abstraction doesn't seem that far fetched if you think about it. We can always start with a simple system with a few variables, and the more information we have about that system, the more we can deduce the value of each variable. What I find interesting is if the abstraction is correct, than there is a method to all this madness (life in general).
So its quite possible that our lives are quite predestined. Our every action, thought and movements are just a few variables neatly placed in the fabric of space-time. What keeps the future unknown to us is our lack of understanding. I doubt we'll ever come close to being able to fathom such a formula and it seems our future will alway be a mystery. Which really leads me to my next point.
This theory of being able to predict every outcome of our reality with a single formula lends itself to the conclusion that we are only free after we die. So long as we live in human bodies and remain within the plain of this existence, abiding by our set of mathematical rules and physical limitations we are submitting to some sort of a master formula. But after death, we could quite possibly be in an existence where we are no longer bound by the rules of the universe, we are no longer governed by the physical laws that hinder us from seeing beyond our so called reality. So honestly, even if we were to find such a formula would it change anything?
They say the only philosophical question of any importance is the question of whether one should commit suicide. Does knowing your every move, your every thought render your life pointless? Maybe free will has always been a myth. I honestly believe math can explain everything in our world, humans are no exception. Our concepts of personality, love, hate, what is good and evil, our 'isms' our traits, these can all be explained by some finely tuned calculation, yet these are the very same things we use to express our 'free will'. They say God has a plan for everyone, maybe he just wrote a formula and put everything on auto-pilot?

Monday, October 1, 2007

First Post

You're a day late and a dollar short.