It used to be that whenever I thought about how shitty the world is, and killing people, that I could never take myself seriously. I'd always think that I was just being moody. Anyone that seriously considered themselves justified in killing must be pathetic, I always thought. How could people like that take themselves seriously? As far as anyone knows, I haven't changed. As far as my life is concerned, I haven't. I'm not about to start killing people. But when the thought crosses my mind, I don't have anymore doubts. There are people who I would like to see dead. They deserve it. Why bother debating the existence of Heaven and Hell? Nobody on this fucking planet deserves heaven. And no one could be bothered maintaining hell for the likes of us.

I was talking with my friend Tim yesterday, and he told me a story. It was about a friend of his, who had decided to commit suicide. He had taken a lot of pills, and was sitting against a wall, waiting. He felt as his body systematically shut off, first his feet, then his legs, and so on. They turned numb, and he couldn't move them. He sat until his entire body had turned off but his head. He compared it to being inside a room full of water, the water just reaching the bottom of his chin. As he sat, he knew that all he had to do was to shut his eyes, and the water would engulf him. He knew that if this happened, there would be no bright light, no life flashing before his eyes. Just black.

Just black.

With his last bit of strength he called out, and one of his friends carried him to the hospital. The point is, if there's just black, then what are we doing? What's the point to the lives that most of us lead? Or suppose you're not so easily convinced. Maybe you believe in Heaven, reincarnation, whatever. It doesn't make any difference. Why do we waste our lives? My friend Terry once told me that he wished he knew what happened when we die, because if this is it he'd just leave and become a wandering nomad or something. But we do know. We may all know something different, or we may know more than one answer, but we all know what will happen when we die. Why don't we do something with our lives?

I never doubted that sentient beings existed on planets other than ours. With billions upon billions of galaxies, it simply seemed obvious to me, ever since I was little. I read an article last week about the discovery of life on Mars, just next door in cosmic terms. If life is supposed to be so bloody rare, then what are the chances of us finding it next door? Of course, what they had found was nothing more than evidence of bacteria 3.5 billion years ago. Bacteria like this has been found in the most inhospitable places on earth, making it seem that it could flourish on a multitude of planets as well. However, the article did say something which instantly changed the way I had been looking at things my whole life. I never felt that we were alone in the universe, and the thought of alien cultures always comforted me. The article stated that although bacteria may be very plentiful in the galaxy, the conditions which led to humanity evolving to what we are today could be extremely rare. Still, you say, there are billions of planets. It would have to have re-occurred someplace, right? But when I look at the killing of animals, the destruction of the environment and the general hate that humanity shows for itself, I cannot help but think that we were not what was intended. And maybe we are the only ones.

Why are people so mean to each other? All we do is beat each other down.

If I were to stab my pen into my leg, deep red blood would well out, almost black, pumping like a can of oil with only one hole. People have beaten me down to the extent that I can see it. That's what we do.

I don't mind learning. I like to learn. It's the environment that I hate. Every morning it became harder and harder to make myself go to school. Then they expected me to pay thousands of dollars so I could keep going. I decided I could teach myself just as well.

'Course, nobody saw it that way when it came to jobs. That's okay though, because I did what I felt was right. And in the end, what kind of life have you lived if you did nothing but what you were expected?

Philosophies are a funny thing. Assuming that everyone else in the world behaves exactly as I do (an assumption that I make far too often), no one ever sticks to their philosophies. We sit down on a given day and say, "I need a life philosophy." My two most common are that I should always be passive and wise, and that I should be happy without possessions of any kind. Sure, it sounds nice, but the next day I'm becoming unreasonably angry because someone used one of my comic books as a coaster. Still, my philosophies are nice, and I continue to think about how nice it would be to attain them. The question is, since I know that will never be the case, why do I bother? Why does anybody? Why don't people just do what they feel is the right thing at the given time? It reminds me about the time that I went to a church book sale. I bought a bunch of ridiculous things, like a german travel book and a german-english dictionary so I could translate it. Among my half-dozen purchases was a book of quotations. I bought it with the intention of reading through it until I found the one quote that would be the perfect picture of my life philosophy. I leafed through it, but soon gave up my quest. Why? Because almost every quote was relevant to my life. No single phrase could sum it up. That's when I came up with my new life philosophy: don't have one. I'm still working on deprogramming all of my old ones, but it seems to be working out.

You never notice your brain stop until it happens. It's like a long running motor that suddenly ceases. A stopped brain feels like a bag of sawdust in your head.