Empowered

There is so very much in this world one may fight for. An endless litany of causes, movements, revolutions, struggles, hopes, dreams, and passions. We live in a sea of politics, conflicting ideas, and endless confusion. Who is right? Who is wrong? What is right? What is wrong? It's enough to make anyone feel helpless.

I feel helpless a lot. For all the moments I feel strong and empowered, there are still plenty of moments when I feel like nothing more than one of the billions of humans, simply one species of millions on this plant, simply a pale blue dot in the vastness of the endless space around the tiny planet we call home. When I consider how tiny we really are, how incredibly unimportant and powerless we are in the vastness of the multiverse, every thing we do and value just seems to ridiculous. Every day, we kill each other over irrelevant differences, but does the multiverse even notice or care?

But one human in 7 billion can change our society. It's happened many times. When I consider that, I can feel powerful again, like what I do might truly have an effect. If one person can change humanity, maybe one species truly can have an impact on our planet and even beyond our atmosphere, somewhere in the wide reaches of space.

But I don't think we're ready. I have so much faith in humanity, but it's the future I believe in, not now. I cannot help anyone unless I can help myself first, nor can humanity ever help our world until we learn to help our own species, to help each other. And so the never-ending debate of morals comes in, making it so hard to know where the defining lines of right and wrong truly lie.

We all know, of course, that killing someone without "good" cause is most definitely wrong, but what is a "good" cause? Is there any good cause? Is there any good reason to kill someone? My answer is no. But then someone always has to ask me, "What if killing one person would save hundreds/thousands/millions/everyone?" Our classic example is Hitler. If I could have killed Hitler before the Holocaust, would I? And, somehow, I know the answer is no. Given the hypothetical chance to save the lives of millions of people by taking one life, I couldn't do it.

I don't want to justify my morals. That's not my point. I believe something, and I know I could be wrong. Perhaps the right thing to do, given that chance, is to kill the man who, like me, once dreamed of being an artist. I don't think I have the right to ever take another human life no matter what, but perhaps I'm wrong. I could be wrong. That is the trouble with trying to "do the right thing." It's not that the act of doing something right is so hard or wrong is so tempting; it's that we don't know for sure what's right or wrong. And that is where the helplessness truly comes from.

Knowledge is power, but we can never know. We can only believe. We can only have faith. I have been fighting to have faith for a very long time, and I will always have times of struggle, but I've learned that I cannot ever know, and that I just have to have faith. Faith is my power.

And though I wish I could know (So much for the Tree of Knowledge; what a misnomer.) instead of just believing, I almost like not knowing. Every day, I wonder who is right, and sometimes, my definition of right changes. I learn. It doesn't feel so bad to be wrong, because I can learn. Though I am wrong today, perhaps tomorrow I will learn what is right and become right.

I was not the best director a year ago. I know I wasn't. I did things wrong, morally wrong, by the definition of right and wrong I hold today. And in another year, I will look back again and see all the things I did wrong this year. But each year, I will learn. Each year, I will get closer to bringing our species to that ideal of forever helping each other, getting along, respecting each other, and at last being ready to fight for more than just our own selves, our own little worlds, but for the multiverse.

This blog post, to my amazement, will influence someone. It will make a change in the world, no matter how small, because it will make the tiniest change in at least one person's life, heart, mind, soul. Somehow, with my words alone, I have that power. I am not helpless; I am empowered. You are not helpless either.

George Carlin

Disclaimer: Like most commedians, George Carlin can be vulgar and offensive. Watch his stuff at your own discretion. You have been warned.

Speaking of deceased people who I wish I could have met while they were still alive, (Isn't that redundant? "Met while they were still alive"? Can you really meet dead people?) I love George Carlin. As I write this (back to being ahead of schedule, thankfully!), I've just been watching videos of his old stand-up routines on YouTube. His segments on cats, stuff, and airplane safety will always be my top three. I've made it a rule to always watch his bit on airplane safety before going on a plane and insist that anyone else travelling with me watch it before too. It just makes airplanes much more enjoyable, because everything is just so much more ridiculous.

But George Carlin had a lot to say about our society, from our obsessions with "stuff" or our material possessions to the flat-out arrogance in thinking we are superior to even the planet on which we reside. To think that humans, who aren't even capable of caring for each other, can care for every living thing on our planet and in existence is just insane. We can't even care for our own children. Animals all seem to have their systems worked out, and they work without any issues nearly all of the time, but us humans can't even figure out whether to use breast milk or formula, how much, and how long. Meanwhile, we're all just blowing each other up over our perceived differences.

But then he has things like his bit on the ways in which we're all alike. Like when it's Wednesday, but it feels like Thursday. Then you wake up the next day, and you're back to normal again. Or the mystery of the jumping pillow. You know, the way the pillow moves if you close one eye and then switch to the other when you're lying down in bed. Or when you fall asleep in the afternoon, and then you wake up, it's the middle of the night, and you have no idea what day it is. Or you walk to a room, and when you get there, you can't remember why you walked over.

I love George Carlin because he makes me think while making me laugh. That's something not many people can do. To both entertain and teach all at once takes much more than to do only one or the other, but when you're entertained, it becomes easier to learn, and when you're learning, it's easier to be entertained. Have you ever noticed that? Two people can try to teach you the same thing, and the more successful one is always the one who manages to entertain you and make it interesting. You could be talking about the dullest subject, but if it's presented right, you'll be engaged. And when your mind is learning, when your brain starts functioning and processing things, you appreciate the world so much more suddenly. You get the references, the allusions, the subtle things which make everything that much more enjoyable.

Maybe I should employ some comedy into my Friday posts.

Bryce Avary: A Role Model

Happy Friday! I haven't learned a thing today, so I thought I'd talk about Bryce Avary.

Bryce Avary, also known as The Rocket Summer, is one of the two people who most inspired me to teach myself piano and finally get (back) into music at the rather chaotic age of sixteen. Bryce Avary (and Alison Sudol, also known as A Fine Frenzy) saved me.

Sixteen, for me, was the beginning of huge changes in my life. I went through a lot st sixteen. In early 2008, I fell in love with "My Typical Angel" as I lamented my oh-so-tragic "lost love". Soon, I was searching through CDs at Best Buy to find The Rocket Summer. Having fallen in love with both Bryce's piano-driven rock and Alison Sudol's much more ethereal piano music, I started teaching myself piano that same summer.

And then my entire world was turned upside down: a friend of mine, who had been like an brother to me while we were in school together, committed suicide, and whatever semblance of faith in God I had left was completely shattered. Piano, The Rocket Summer, and A Fine Frenzy were the only means I had to cope with and try to wrap my head around the death of a friend.

I clung to Bryce's music especially that summer. He had all the faith I didn't, all the faith I wished I could still have. But I knew I would never be the same; my faith was forever changed at sixteen: first utterly destroyed, and then slowly brought to life as a different kind of faith through Bryce's own faith.

And boy does Bryce Avary has faith. He questions God, questions life and meaning, and through it all, he continues to have faith. I hated God, hated Christianity and Christians for lying to me my whole life, but here was this Christian who I could not hate. I could not believe God, but I could believe in Bryce Avary. On my darkest days, Bryce Avary's never-ending faith could still somehow light my day.

Bryce Avary pushed me to believe in something greater than myself, to believe that I was important and owed it to the world to be the best I could be. I don't believe in a God who sits up on a throne in the clouds, playing puppeteer or even simply watching, but I do believe in something: humanity. That every person is capable of good, of being "saved" if only they can believe.

Music, and not just Bryce Avary, has completely changed my life. Because it is art, and art is the universal language, the language of our hearts. When I was 16, Bryce Avary showed me the kind of person I wished I could be. I grew weary of dark, fearful, faithless hate and longed to instead fearlessly light the world with love and faith.

Bryce Avary plays every single instrument in his music: guitars, piano, bass, drums, and vocals. He writes it all and makes it all happen. And he's been doing it since he was a teenager. Maybe one day I'll be able to do that too.

Bryce Avary, you are my hero. <3