Dear Virelda

Dear Virelda,
You came into this world when the world had left us all behind. The black mist was and is still our greatest struggle. It is a boundary between our world and our society. Yet, it is not the real threat to our survival. The world moved on long ago and the black mist is just a little after-thought of the chaos that had befallen our lands.

It is said that the great cities of the Far Beyond were ten times larger and twice as tall as our own. Their towers scraped the skies not where the clouds touch their spires but where the clouds look like tutus around their waist. And even though the people of those cities fought hard against the changes that occurred, they all failed to persevere. The cities were abandoned and the hollow shells of those towers eventually crumbled with time. Not Skyscapes however. We lived. 

The black mist engulfed our delta like an amoeba engulfs a particle of food. It came slowly over the years, and then thickened with the years that passed. The soil beneath turned to dust and the roots and blades of grass withered away into the stale air. The Great Mountains to the West held the black mist from spilling over to the forests of the Far Beyond and this was not our greatest misfortune. It was in fact a stroke of luck. For even if the Black Mist prevented us from walking off across the mountains, it also prevented things from coming our way. The Far Beyond, they say, is a land that we should never even think of venturing into. This is why the Poison Wall was grown. For the wall protects us from the ground, and the Black Mist from the skies. 

You might grow thinking there is little to know about our world. Some people will silence you when you ask questions and others will fear your curiosity and ignore you. Do not be like the rest of them Virelda. Ask questions, but ask them to the right people. The Golden Library holds scrolls and documents forgotten even by the Elite. It is a treasure chest filled with gems from the past. Seek this knowledge and make it your purpose to learn what was and what is of our world. Do not succumb to obsession, however, for the hasty mind makes errors and errors can be dangerous in our times. Have patience Virelda. With time you will learn things that will define you and our city and eventually, change will come. 

For now I'll leave you with my trusted friend and cousin Joe, for I have been banished from Skyscapes. This is the result of over-indulgence in one's own curiosity and obsession. Do not be like me Virelda. I will watch over you, don't worry, as I have always did. When it is time, nineteen years from now, Joe will show you this letter, and all will be revealed.

Let the sun shine over the magnificence of our city, as it shall shine on your life Virelda.

Much love,
Dad.

Moving Backwards into the Future

There is a distinction between relevance and apparent existence. Does a tree make a sound in the forest if it falls and there is no one to listen to it? Yes, it does, and yes it does not. It is all relative, and it has to do with relevance.

Let's take man as the point of reference and the sound as the relevant event that is being studied in regards to man. If there is no man to hear the tree fall, then it is as if it never fell, because for man it had no relevance. If, say, we took the damage to the ecosystem as the relevant event, than we could say that the tree falling had a relevant effect on man trying to save the ecosystem, and therefore the falling of the tree indeed happened, in relevance to the effects on man. Yet, if sound has no real impact on man (the observer) than the event of a tree falling and making sound in the absence of man has no real relevance to man and it is as if it never did any sound.

If we take this to a new level, what if the past exists because we can remember it? Let's take myself as an example. Ryan now has choices to make as he grows up. Take two choices as an example; a) I have to go abroad in a week, b) I do not go abroad next week. If I go abroad, I die in an airplane accident. If I don't go abroad, I stay alive. This means that my future holds two possibilities. Either I die in a week or I don't. In the former case, my future self seizes to exist in one week. In the latter, my future self continues to exist until an indefinite time in the future when it dies.

Right before I die in choice A, my future self in timeline A remembers my present self. By doing so, choice A is a relevant pathway into the future. By observing myself in a week, my future self in timeline B also remembers my present self, and by so doing so choice B becomes a relevant pathway.
However, pathway B also creates an indefinite amount of alternate pathways to my death. Each of those pathways, which are a consequence of choice B also remember my present self, and by so doing they positively reinforce choice B.

At every choice, the chance of picking either A or B is still 50%. However, the relevance of the future Ryan in all pathways leading from choice B is larger than the single pathway (to death) leading from choice A. This means that choice B has more relevance to the present than choice A.

My apparent existence tells me that for every point in time where I have a choice between two choices, I always pick one or the other randomly equally (assuming that the event leading from the choice  has no relevance on your choice). If both choices, A and B were equally relevant to me then I would pick either one at 50% chance. What if, however, this is not so? What if our present is created by our future? If choice B results in a higher number of future pathways then wouldn't choice B be picked more often in the present? For this to happen there must be one of two possible scenarios; either the future is creating the past, or the future is transferring information to the past, affecting it.

Either one of these scenarios seems implausible in our current understanding. Our vision of reality tells us that we are moving towards the future by creating events and picking choices in the present leaving behind an untouchable immutable past. However, what would happen if we were to learn that the present self has further power on the past than on our future?

What if by remembering the past, we are keeping that past-self alive? What if all the future Ryan's resulting from choice B are remembering Ryan choosing choice B, then doesn't that put more relevance on Ryan choosing choice B? Ryan choosing choice B thus has more relevance to the present than choice A because the future Ryan is giving it relevance.

I could, therefore, be moving backwards into the future. By remembering the past I give relevance to it. And those choices in the present that lead to larger amount of branching pathways in the future are not the result of a deliberate choice in the present but a consequence of their relevance to the future. The future is thus creating the present.

A Hug

Saw her there standing in a corner. Tears hanging on her chin, her red cheeks watery, glistening in the light of this nice day. And I looked into her eyes as she looked into mine. I walked, slowly towards her as she stood there. With open arms, I hugged her fragile state.

I wanted to squeeze her pain away. My arms wrapped around her tense body, her stiff muscles against mine. Her head nestled on my shoulders as her sobbing slowed, her chin dampening my hair.

Then my arms wrapped tightly firm around her, my fingers anchoring on her clothes. She stood there, still with her arms draping down. I caged her inside my warmth and there I gave her shelter.

Into the distance I stared and of nothing I thought. This wasn't a moment to think, but one to feel. Her beating heart thumped against my chest. Her blushing cheeks radiated heat into my neck.

There we stood silent. That was all I could give. That was all she needed.

Little Beating Heart

Every little thing's
That gonna flicker
In this beating heart
Will die out
And every little thing
That was once close
To this beating heart
Will vanish with it
All the little things
That once danced
With the rhythm
Of this beating heart
Cease to move
To the little things
And to my heart
Forever loved
Once forgotten
Beats no more.

An Adventure

At the foot of the white-tipped mountain
We set up camp on green blades of grass
And that night under a black sky dotted with stars
We slept singing songs of old and eating bread
For the next day, early as the sun broke
We set forth, for the peak of ice we walked.

It took us six days, we hiked we climbed
Across the beaten track and beyond the paths
We met a lake of blue and green with fish
And beavers that swam and pulled logs in it
We hunted one and ate it hot on a blazing fire
Made from wood that we got from trees of Spruce

On the seventh day when the sun peaking out
From behind the horizon it welcomed us
Upon the peak of Mount Magut we stretched our feet
And we laughed and clapped hi-fives
And hugged each other in the cold air
That swept up from down below

We then looked at each other for a moment
Back and forth we nodded agreement
And we jumped down the mountain
With parachutes we swayed fast.
Down fast we went against the cold breeze
The camps down below like ants we saw

And in a few minutes we descended
In an open field of grass we landed
And laughed and hugged
For the climb of days took so brief now
To get back to camps and a fire we set up
And there we lay and sang and bread we ate.

Euthanasia, what about it?

And again, it is the people without suffering and without actually being in the shoes of people like that woman with persistent 24 hour ringing in her ear like "nails on chalkboard" who had to suffer 24/7 that say her wish to die and stop her suffering is "absolutely outrageous." 

Who is to say that ..." allowing killing as an acceptable answer to many causes of suffering, whether terminal or chronic disease, disability, mental illness, or existential despair.”...is not actually wrong?? but is a right (both literally and figuratively)?? 

Not all people had the luck to be born "perfect". Some may suffer from immeasurable pain (and this could be mentally, such as depression or existential despair as cited) which makes it so much harder for them to have a normal life. What gives YOU (the person that is living a normal life) the right to tell those who are suffering what to do with their lives? 

If a disability is making someone incapable of making decisions of his own, making him suffer, unable to cope in the world, isn't it his family's choice whether to let him continue his life? This is the same family that raised him, gave him the chance to live, to grow...because otherwise, even in a natural setting, he would still die. If such a person is really suffering, wouldn't death be a better end result than your selfish want to keep him with you. 

And then, if children, very young babies, are still not even conscious and self-aware but are known to be disabled in such a way that their future holds nothing but grief, prejudice, pain and torture in life, isn't it the right of the parent (that same parent that gave life to the child in the first place) to decide to end her child's suffering? Again, if that child would have been born an animal, he would have probably been abandoned by his mother or eaten very quickly after. 

The possibility of euthanasia is giving the choice in the hands of who deserves it rather than taking it from them by the selfish people that are busy living a "normal" life, arguing whether or not it is ok to give the right to a suffering person to end his life. Euthanasia is an act of altruism not an act of cowardice when done correctly. 

If you tell me that Euthanasia will cause problems in situations where killing oneself (such as depression in teenagers) could have been avoided, then the problem is not euthanasia itself but the society which created that scenario where the child is depressed in the first place.

Euthanasia is giving the right (and almost the last word) to the person to end his life in light of his society rather in the shadow of it. It is like society giving its last recognition to that person who itself (the society) had destroyed in the first place. 

Without euthanasia, suicide would be frowned upon as something that is unnatural, yet suicide was the cause of that society itself, further amplifying the fact that we live in a selfish, self-centred egoistic society that only thinks what WE ourselves do is right and whatever decision people take is wrong. Again, this is only so because we are selfish and are not living in other people's shoes.

Pro-Life or Not So Much?

Are those who claim the right to protect the life of embryonic humans, people who are aptly named pro-lifers, really struggling to preserve life? Or are they just preserving their egoistic ideologies?

Given the choice between saving an embryo and saving a mother I do not see how a pro-lifer can value an embryo on the same scale as the mother. How can you attribute the same qualities, the same rights, the same privileges to the embryo as to the mother?

Consider this; a mother, a wife. She has been born for forty years and on the Earth she walked for forty years. Now look at her history, but do not start from her childhood. Do not look at when she was just a ball of cells but look at her now, an adult human being. This person has a life. She eats, she loves, she smiles and cries, she can talk and dance. She has friends and maybe family. She is living. Her memories live in the minds of those who met her, her 'soul' lives on in the lives of the people around her. Yet, look at her now when she was just a ball of cell. What defined her then as what she is now? Was she then what she is now?

Now consider that embryo deleted from existence. There is no mother any more. No memories linger in the minds of people that never had the chance to get to know this person. Yet, they do not know this. For they had never the chance to meet her in the first place, and thus never had the chance to integrate her in their lives. She will never be missed, always forgotten. An embryo which is not born is not a human which is to die.

Pro-lifers tell me that the embryo has potential to become human. That if given enough time, it will grow to become this mother. I tell them that that is true. I also tell them, that the embryo WILL become a mother, but right now it is not. Consider the embryo discarded. Would you rather discard an embryo or discard the mother which brought forth this same embryo?

What if, after the discard of the first embryo, the mother decided to bare another embryo inside her? Would this embryo grow up to be a human being much or the same as the human being that was discarded before it? And if so, wouldn't this mean that by not discarding the first embryo you are denying life for the second embryo?

Do not put forward arguments of probability when that same probability contradicts your assertions. How are you so certain that that embryo which you so valiantly defend is more important than those countless other possible embryos that you have so foolishly forgotten?

DNA does not make us human. Humanity makes us human. Life moulds us into a shape filled with character and memories. An embryo has none of these. When given the chance to kill an embryo for the benefit of the mother, would you choose to kill an embryo without a written future, or kill a mother with a written past?

Did They Go A Step Too Far?

In light of the recent attacks on Charlie Hebdo in France and the barbaric murder of more than 10 people there were a lot of accusations towards the Islamic culture as being shockingly primitive in its way of dealing with satire and how a small proportion of this religion is inevitably taught to act like animals in the face of offences such as what Charlie Hebdo was putting out.

There was of course people that commented and told the inevitable crusading proportion of the Catholic faith not to generalize and condone all Muslims for the barbaric act of few extremists. Some of these "peace-makers" were members of Charlie Hebdo itself. They are trying to mitigate ethnicism by implying that the killings  were the consequence of a few crazy individuals and not the Islamic religion.

But how accurate is this really? What I see, and what I see greatly lacking in the media and the general public, is that the true consequence of this murderous incident was Charlie Hebdo itself. The killings occurred as a radical response to the "satire" of Islamic religion Charlie Hebdo is known to venture into. Charlie is said to target "political right wing, capitalism, Christianity, Judaism and Islam" according to NPR.org, but at what extent should ridiculing people, entities or their beliefs be accepted?

When I was still young my mother always taught me that if I did not want to get punched or assaulted at school I should never insult other people, not just to not get attacked, but because making fun of others or calling them names is wrong in itself. Charlie Hebdo did not apparently receive this message.

Even though the mocking of religions or famous figures is in itself harmful, in the sense that it does not kill nor physically injure anyone, it could still be a very damaging and spiteful endeavour. It is of course known that the satire issued by such media companies tends to mock radical, extremist or misguided behaviour by religious or famous figures, such as terrorism, racism, feminism and the like. However, one must ask if the act of ridiculing the main figures of religion is in fact combating these mal-behaviours, or is it in fact ridiculing and generalizing a whole religious group of people as being all terrorists?

It is rather ironic that in the aftermath of the incident that happened on the 7th of January 2015, Charlie Hebdo and the media at large are telling (to mostly Western Countries) to not get angry at Muslims in general, even though what they themselves were drawing about was mocking the whole religion (even if unintentionally, which would be a great overlook).

The problem here and the point I'm trying to make is thus that the consequences that brought about the killings of Charlie Hebdo's journalists were caused by Charlie Hebdo itself. This is not a matter of freedom of speech or not, this is a matter of ethnicism. Did Charlie Hebdo's caricatures of prominent religious figures imply ethnicism?

The majority of the Islamic community is not of course terroristic, and is not going to come at your doors with guns and shoot at you for drawing their prophet. But if their is a small proportion of this religion that is dangerous, is mocking them and insulting them the way to go in combating such a problem? Do the majority of "good" Muslims feel as if they are actually being respected when they see this satire?

Combating physical terrorism should not be done with verbal or visual terrorism. Same would go for any other religion.

No one dares enter a Christian church naked and bellowing profanities when that same venue is considered "holy" by the community. Doing so would probably result in a jail sentence. We must not forget that the Christian faith has had many flaws in the past, and that during the Inquisition in Spain, even failing to cite loyalty to the King or to your devotion in God would result in torture or death.

Today we are facing a similar situation were the new Inquisition is the underdog, yet instead of purging it with proper means we are poking it with a stick and pretending it will not retaliate.