Thursday, September 9, 2010

3

“I was watching this stupid program on PBS about evolution. this guy was talking about how we used to be apes, and how we’ll never know why, at some point, we decided to walk on two feet, and it was just so stupid.”
“well we didn’t decide to walk on two feet, I’m sure he didn’t say that…”
“no, he did. it’s like, come on. why can’t people just accept that we were never apes, and that god created humans? it’s so stupid.”
“I can’t talk about this with you.”

at this point she gets up and goes back to her room and continues her bible reading. and just an hour ago:

“they said on the news two asteroids passed between earth and the moon today. one of them was less than fifty thousand miles away.”
she just smiles and says, “god knows what he’s doing.” this smugness makes me strangely furious, probably because the asteroid news bothers and scares me. if only I, too, felt the protective love of a vindictive god who wants to subtlety threaten and frighten everyone else. maybe then I could rest easy with the faith that I’m not implicated in his plan for mass annihilation, since I’ll be taken up in the rapture before the shit hits the fan (yes, this is what she believes).

I am continually amazed at and suspicious of anyone who can be so sure of anything that purports to explain the origins or fate of the world or universe. what a terrible sentence. one of the main arguments against agnosticism is that it contradicts itself. in acknowledging that one couldn’t possibly be sure (of the existence of a higher power), one is necessarily sure that they are, and will continue to be, unsure. this reminds me of conservatives who argue that liberals are more closed minded, because they get offended by offensive free speech, hence bumper stickers that say things like “it’s not tolerant to tolerate intolerance” etc. I don’t think I’ll ever see a bumper sticker that says “certainty of uncertainty is not uncertainty.” the root of the problem is different ideas of what it means to be tolerant, and what it means to be certain of something. I wonder if these different ideas can really be helped at a certain point. anyway, I’m a lousy agnostic and I hate semantics so I’ll stop here.

today I got lost in the ghetto in Brockton on my way to an ear doctor appointment. my left ear does not hear as well as my right ear, but that still doesn’t explain a whole host of symptoms I’ve been having. for the hearing test they put you in a sound proof room, put the headphones on, you raise your hand when you hear anything in either ear. there was a different test where the woman on the other side of the glass told me to repeat the words she said, and for almost five whole minutes we did this:
“fish”
“fish”
“school”
“school”
“apple”
“apple”
“country”
“country”
“bowl”
“bowl”
“movie”
“movie”
“pen”
“pen”

and so on and so forth for what felt like a long time, and it was almost like some weird tension was building, like every word had a new urgency, and I could feel myself getting progressively sadder. I was very hungry and very stressed out after having been lost in the ghetto for close to half an hour, on the phone with a hospital operator who was helping me navigate with the help of google maps. man, fuck Brockton. and all of its deceiving lane changes and one way streets. I left that place in a pretty bad mood.

a good way to feel good about the world again if you’re feeling not so good about it is to notice all the people in vehicles that drive by you without crashing into your car. something about this mass cooperation is really benevolent and soothing to me. then on 495 there was a double rainbow over the highway.

I still maintain that saves the day’s I’m sorry I’m leaving album is great, and I think I’ll look up some tabs.

24 hours later: my hands are too small to play some of these chords. I went out to dinner with my dad and he said: “I am, therefore I must be.”

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