On the nature of society and government, from a heavily biased perspective.

For society to truly work it must encourage individuality while still promoting action towards the common good.

This is an idealistic concept. But it is by no means an impossible one.

Unfortunately, human greed seems to cause all forms of governing to inevitably devolve into caste systems. Because some individuals desire to have power over, or more material wealth than, those around them.

A carefully balanced caste system can maintain itself for quite a long time. Centuries even. To be successful, a caste system must provide two things to (a majority of) the more numerous lower (working) class: some degree of ability to sustain themselves and their household, and some sort of rationale for why things must be the way they are. This rationale can be as simple as: fear.

If the balance is not maintained, if these things are not provided in a sufficient capacity to enough of the lower populace, it will collapse. It can be plague, a stronger force can invade and conquer, or it can be the old crowd favorite: revolution.

Generally the decline is gradual. Some rulers (governors) are better at maintaining the balance than others. A succession of overly incompetent, overly greedy, and/or overly cruel rulers of varying small degrees will encourage eventual collapse, but if a single ruling party (whether individual or group) is too much of one or more of those things, it can cause an immediate and rapid dissolution.

We don't really like to think of our species in terms of being a finite thing. We would like to believe that we will literally continue on until the end of the world. But while it is certainly true that if the planet is destroyed we will perish along with it, it is far more probable that Earth will long outlive the human race. The vast majority of all species that have existed in the history of the planet no longer do. Extinction is inevitable. But the more capable a species is of adapting to changes to its environment over time, the longer it is likely to survive.

It is the same with species as it is with governments, which is a handy coincidence, because if the human race wants to remain an evolutionary-viable species, we need to change our governing style. Well, actually, we need to change our societal structure in general.

This is not as much of a stretch as it seems. There are over 7 billion homo sapiens on the planet, and life-expectancy continues to improve, that number increases at a growing rate. There is a generally-held belief that population growth will max out at a certain point. That past a certain point, population growth cannot sustain itself, and (stabilized or decreased by way of disease, famine, war, or just good old conscientious awareness) will plateau. We won't actually know if that's true or not until we get there.

In the meantime we are doing an incredible (or alarming, depending on your perspective) job of mucking up the place. We're rapidly burning through a lot of finite natural resources, and polluting to levels that will take a long time for Earth's natural processing cycles to deal with.

We are generally being very short-sighted. None of this behavior will necessarily destroy the planet (or even necessarily make it merely uninhabitable), nor will it necessarily cause the human race to go extinct. What it will do though, is make life generally suck. Or if you think it sucks already, well, it can get worse. And hell, even if the planet becomes nearly inhospitable, society could continue on.

For awhile. Could be a long while, could be a short while. Not forever. But if we want it to be longer, sooner or later we will have to adapt. And typically speaking, later is not better.

We need to become an enlightened, global society. It's the 21st century, and yet throughout the globe there is war, genocide, famine, wide-spread disease, political upheaval and societal unrest. Inequality abounds...

...and there's absolutely no reason for it. There is enough food and clean water for the entire planet. Most diseases are curable, and cost little to do so. Advancements in micro- and nanotechnology abound. Communication is faster, easier, and more expansive than ever before. All the information in the world is literally at your fingertips.

And most importantly, we are all of one species. One human race. Where we are born, what color we our skin is, the social status of the family we're born into, it's all chance. The distinctions of who is better than who are completely arbitrary.

And whether or not we choose to admit it, we know this.

So let's stop being stupid, and all get along, yeah?


I feel like I never fully tied in my opening point, but it's almost 6am and I'm bloody tired, so I wrapped it up shoddily so I can go to bed. I apologize for this, and will hopefully return to the subject in the near future.

Mortality is that chest pain you get every once in awhile, the one where you're never really sure if it's your heart or your lung (but you're pretty sure it's your heart) and it only sticks around long enough to remind you that one day you are going to die. But not today.

And even after a over a decade, you're still only 27, and not quite even that.

That's mortality.

Imagine if all the money spent on campaigning was put towards something that really mattered. Like social equality, education or renewable energy. Oh what a world that would be.

How to Live with Depression

If someone were to ask me how you live with depression, I would say: "You don't". You exist with depression. It's not living.

So I'm probably more than a bit delirious at the moment. What's your point?

Yes, I think it's time to start being smart again.

I've tried this 'fitting in' thing I was so intent on for closing in on a decade now. I don't like it. It's unfulfilling and boring.

And a waste of a fantastic brain.

It's 9:30 in the morning, I haven't slept yet, I'm already one mug of coffee into my day, and I'm blasting electro thru my headphones.

And even if I could, I wouldn't want to be anybody else in the entire world.

"And now for something completely different..."

We're gonna try something a little different tonight. We're going to attempt a mental exercise.

Let's start with a table. It's customary to use a table as an example for this exercise. Tables are an exceptionally convenient visual aide and, with the exception of being in a car, it is more likely than not that wherever you are there is a table nearby. And unless it's from IKEA, tables are generally thought of as objects that are very sturdy. Also very dense. They are made of wood, or metal. They can support impressive amounts of weight. You can sit on them, stand on them, sleep on them, or more commonly, you can eat dinner on them. A good table is also generally rather heavy.

We can all agree that a table is a very solid object.

So consider your table. We all know that all matter is made of atoms. And atoms are electrons spinning around a nucleus. Whether it is made of wood, metal, stone, plastic, glass or even bones, the table is comprised entirely of atoms.

We also know that atoms are 99% empty space (quantum mechanics aside). More properly stated, atoms are 1% mass 99% electron field. But the beauty of that is all it really means is atoms are 99% empty space that could at any given point in time potentially have an electron in it.

So therefore the table is 99% empty space. Which means that, by definition, the table is less there than it is. Only 1% of that table is actually mass. Only 1% of all matter is actually mass. The rest of it is gravity.

Remember, gravity is not just what makes apples fall out of trees, and the earth spin around the sun. Gravity is not just limited to the realm of planets and stars (and obviously black holes), gravity is what holds everything together.

Now touch an object close to you. Preferably something hard. Like your computer tower (if you have one) or a wall. Or, ya know, a table.

You are touching 99% empty space.

Now push against it. You meet resistance. What'3s resisting is you is 99% empty space.

What you are touching is nothing but an illusion created by gravity and electromagnetic force.

The empty space around you is filled with particles. And the objects around you are filled with empty space.

If you've ever taken a science class you should know all of this. Unless it was pre-1950.

I'm not telling you anything new. I'm just reminding you of what you already know.

Thank you for thinking with me. Good night.

Periodically I try to explain myself with words. This is one of those times.

There are a lot of times where I feel like a failure. I've discussed this before.

I'm afraid that people that know me, especially people that knew me growing up, look at me and think to themselves, "What a waste of potential. That boy could've been anything he'd wanted to be, and he threw it all away. It's such a shame."

The sad, awful truth is that this is me doing my best. I am performing at the absolute best of my ability.

Maybe I could've been a scientist. Maybe I could've been a pyrotechnic like I wanted when I was in high school. Maybe I could've been a lot of things.

But I'm not.

I'm a 26-year-old man who is giving it his all. I work hard. I work as hard as I can. Because it's the closest thing I have to a plan. "Find job, work as hard as I can."

And that's what I do. Eventually I burn myself out, and ultimately end up quitting. And then it's back to "Find job, work as hard as I can."

It could be said that I lack motivation. And it's quite possibly true. I've even been known to agree with the statement. It's true that I don't really have much in the ways of goals or dreams in life. I can only answer the question "What do I want to do with my life?" in very broad and somewhat abstract terms.

Sure there are ideas that pop in and out of my head, but nothing that sticks around for long. And it's mostly because, for all intensive purposes, the future doesn't exist for me. 'Next year' is a foreign concept to me. There is 'today', 'tomorrow', 'next week', and to some extent 'next month'. And then there is 'sometime down the road.'

I don't think very far ahead, because I have to get there first.

Sigh, I'm talking in circles. I apologize. I'll attempt to be more direct.

As it stands I have one goal in life: to be happy and sane.

Doesn't even have to be happy really. Contentment would be good enough.

Because at the moment I can only feel either when my brain lets me.

It's like every day I wake up and my brain spins a wheel. The wheel is divided into spaces that are essentially moods. Depressed, happy, angry, stressed, etc. And wherever it lands determines how I'm going to be that day. It's safe to say it lands on 'depressed' a lot more often than it lands on 'happy'.

But it gets better than that. Because each mood also an additional space of "with anxiety".

The name of this game is "How Functional Is Davey Going to Be Today?"

And it takes all I've got to keep playing the game day after day.

There's this recurring theory that my life will be fixed by proper diet, exercise, and a more normal schedule/sleep cycle.

I can tell you that it won't. Maybe sometime I'll find the words to properly explain why. Until then this'll have to do.

My brain determines my mood. My mood determines my state of mind. It determines how I go about my day, and how I perceive my life.

The more I've come to recognize this, the more aware of the affect it has on my thoughts, the more capable I become of detaching myself from it. I'm getting better at checking it when it happens, or at least riding it out, but I don't know how to stop it.

I don't know how to bring balance to my mind, and by doing so bring balance to my life.

Behavioral changes don't seem to do it. Self-improvement routines don't stick. Sooner or later they all to the wayside, ground underfoot by the Great and Powerful Mood.

Maybe some, or a lot, of what I've described over the last few hundred words seems normal to you. Maybe it is.

All I know is that I'm NOT normal, despite what you may or may not think. And this isn't a matter of "What is normal?". There are several reasons why I could argue that I'm not, but there's one more so than any other.

Normal people don't think about suicide for 3-5 months of the year (sometime more), every year, for over a decade. I know it's not normal because of the way you react when I tell you about it. The looks on your faces. The things you say.

Even mentioning that you sometimes feel suicidal makes people uncomfortable.

At this point it's just something I've had to accept as part of life. There's a lot of things I don't like going thru that I've had to accept as just being part of life. I don't mean work and taxes and corrupt politicians and starving children and disease. I mean things like depression, anxiety, mood swings, weight loss, insomnia, chronic muscle tension, mania and so forth.

I know they don't have to be. Hopefully someday they won't be. But in the present, they ARE.

And I must continue to endure.